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Back to Empire on the HPe3000
... and ...
This is a first draft of a story set in the world of Greyhawk.
It is based on a home campaign so some of the people, places and things
may be different. Any helpful comments or suggestions are very welcome.
Thanks
Jason Zavoda
The air was filled with a musky smell, Ivo's large nose twitched
but his mind was deep within the stone.
Dwarves could feel the weight of the hammer, the edge of the
chisel, the grain of the wedge used to split the stone just by touching
the seams between the blocks, or so it was said. Gnomes became part of the
oerth, looked out from the stones. They saw the hammer as it struck, felt
the crack as the rock split and the great loss as the one was broken into
the many.
It was long ago that the stone had been cut and set. Ivo saw it
as a swift flash, the years streaming backward in darkness till there
was a brief explosion of light and movement, a stirring across its
surface. The touch of passing hands, the drum of feet, it felt like the
brush of an insects wing. Then there was the rending, the shock of
separation and back into the memory of a larger whole and timeless
unhurried being.
"This place is old..." Ivo said aloud. He laughed, all that he
had felt, a thousand years at least summed up into so small a word as
old. "It has been empty for a very long time."
"Ivo," the thief called back to him, "we've cleared a path,
can you cast that spell?"
"Spell? ah yes." Ivo brought his mind back to the present and away
from the ageless rock. "Light, we need some light. Hand me that torch."
The halfling complied and watched with interest as the gnome cast
his spell.
"Hey!" said Little Rat. "Light coming, look!" he pointed back the
way they'd come.
"That doesn't look like a torch." said Harold.
"It must be a magic light." The ranger watched the glimmer slowly
approach.
"Maybe a lantern." Harold thought aloud.
The gnome only half listened to them as he worked his spell. His
hand traced a pattern on the wood and he mouthed the gnomish words that
sent the magic forth. Light blazed from the torch's end twice as bright as
it would have shone from a rag soaked in burning pitch.
Harold shielded his eyes and reached out but the ranger plucked
the torch from Ivo's hand and held it high above his head. The light
shined down and lit the hallway bright as day.
"It looks like Talberth and the orcs." said Harald.
"Do you see the others?" asked Ivo.
It's hard to tell from here." Harald peered down the hall, he
tried to see past the young mage but there was no light beyond the
glow on Talberth's chest. "I can't see, maybe they are coming after."
* * *
She breathed out and let the blessed water fall from its cup,
pouring it out over Derue's wounded form. Time slowed to a crawl,
the water shone like a stream of jewels, the light from the small fire
she'd set nearby catching the droplets as they fell.
There was a prayer in her mind, she'd thought it before
the first word passed her lips and then she was above it all looking down.
Her sight was beyond her body, outside of it but she was still inside. She
felt the muscles in her hand as she turned the cup, the beating of her
heart, she heard the stillness around her disturbed only by the harsh
rasps coming from the Derue.
The droplets fell, one almost struck Derue but a shell of hellish
red appeared around the scout. The water smoked and vanished in a flash of
steam. A dozen droplets followed, they burnt like golden fire and ate the
shield like hot water over ice.
The red became a mouth, a serpents head, the falling water lashed
it with a hammer blow. The snake rose and twisted, the water formed into
a rod, a gnarled cudgel. The fanged mouth reared back, the cudgel made
of light smashed down, both splintered into a hundred fragments gleaming
red and gold.
* * *
(To Be Continued...)