Chapter 17 - Fortress of Fear + Cathedral of Carnage
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On the northern and southern peninsula lie two great strongholds. In the northern Valley of Trolls -- the mummy king's bastion, the Fortress of Fear. On the southern Land of Gargoyles, the unholy Moo cult's Cathedral of Carnage.
"Ugh...what -is- that? Some kind of elemental?" Stella asked of the strange creatures that infested the entrance to the Fortress of Fear. Pooling and oozing together, their masses shambled toward us like one creature.
When Stella struck at it with her sword, the blade sliced cleanly into it, but then could not be removed again for the ooze had closed in around the hole over it.
"Hey!"
Stella gave the blade a feeble jerk, but then the mass of slime surged back, stealing the hilt out of her hand with a sudden shift. A moment later, a loud snap heralded the blade breaking into pieces under the rippling weight.
From then--we took care to not engage the Plasmoids in direct melee with our weapons--only attacking at range with magic.
Corak's notes say that the Fortress of Fear is a large, undead vault where the mummified remains of those interred here were reanimated by the great necromancer vampire Von Emosh--the same mage who turned Swamp Town into an undead city.
The most ancient and terrible of those mummies ascended to the status of a sort of king over the other undead charges, acting as a lieutenant for Von Emosh on this larger western isle.
The Fortress was built seemingly around this large central chamber, where electric fields dominated the region in the center. The energy coursing through them was amazing--even my prayer of element protection only guarded us superficially against the shocking burns. And there did not seem to be anything of note in the center except a latent magical field--lying dormant awaiting some sort of charge.
"I believe it's a kind of teleportation field." Alicia announced after some study, "But I do not know how to activate it."
I on the other hand happened to be a skilled cleric. And in all my journeys in the last world and this one, I have yet to meet an Almighty spirit that didn't loathe the undead with vigorous passion. Undead Turning didn't seem to be as effective on Terra as it was on Varn, but I had steadily grown in experience that I could easily use a Holy Word to severely burn any undead, no matter how powerful. Or, as in most of the mummies we saw--transform them to cinders in a moment.
While we were 'exploring' the various coffins to look for treasure, we happened on a clue in one of them. "When only the corners are set to moan, will the center make my master known."
The clue was related to the levers we found scattered about the Fortress, of which there were sixteen total. Each one would either raise or remove a mysterious monolithic head in one of the sections of the electrified barrier, where they would groan mysteriously at our approach.
With much trial and error, we eventually found the four switches that corresponded to the four corners. When we approached the barrier this time, the field in the center suddenly glowed with life.
"Be ready, everyone. If this truly leads to the mummy king, I doubt he's interested in speaking first."
With a Holy Word already prepared, I let loose with the syllabic verse immediately, and watched the two undead horrors ignite into holy flames.
...but while the mummy consort was instantly reduced to ashes, the mummy king was not. Wreathed in flames, he continued attacking relentlessly. Before we had a chance to engage in a lengthy battle though--Alicia immediately waved her staff and sent a pre-prepared Implosion spell which struck the mummified regent full on.
With a crunch and a fine mist of embalming fluid, the mummy king contorted in on itself from the singularity, and then vanished entirely, leaving only a slight pool of fluids and a blue rectangular card.
"What in the hells is this?" Knell asked while retrieving it.
Anything having to do with the pyramids I figured was the domain of Corak and Sheltem. So I spent our journey out of the fortress paging through his notes, looking for any mention of such an item.
The closest I was able to find was a reference to 'sequencing cards'. An indication that there were many to be found on Terra--and that taken together they would prove essential for accessing the secrets of the pyramids.
"I'm not sure what it's for." I finally admitted, "But whatever you do, don't lose it."
"Hah! That was easy!" Knell scoffed--marching forward to take them.
With a crackle of green energy, her movement was suddenly stayed with all the sight of watching someone walk face-first into a wall.
"Hey! Magicked, huh?" Knell, ever one to resort to force above all else, swung her pike at the barrier as hard as she could. But with a flash of energy, even her pike was stopped still in its tracks, causing her to sprain her arms.
"Ouch! That hurt!"
I attended to her minor wound with some first aid while Lydia, our de-facto 'purloining' specialist, examined the orbs more closely.
"Boss, there's an altar up here with a spirit whispering very softly in it."
"Set the lock...solve the key....drink the cup, and I'll hear your plea." she repeated for us while listening with an ear at the stone faces carefully.
"It sounds like a riddle. Or perhaps a ritual." I mused, "Something we'll discover deeper in the Cathedral, no doubt."
The Moo cult were specialists in the use of sparks and other electrical prayers--no doubt related to the kind of charged quickening they used to reanimate the dead. With a prayer of element protection, the danger they posed was absolutely laughable.
"Ahhh..," I said--following her pointing hand with my eyes.
"Time to solve the key."
"Faulkner, wait." Stella suddenly spoke up.
"Hrm? You know something about these altars, Stella?" I asked.
"When you and I and Lydia assaulted the Moo temple near Fountain Head--there was an engraving on one of the walls that made no sense...but it does a little now."
"Oh? What did you see there?"
"It was just a set of cardinal directions...nothing else. I'm not even sure why I remembered it. But it was 'North, East, North, West, South'."
"And just -now- you mentioned it? Why didn't you say anything at the time?!" I asked, not really angry so much as flabbergasted that our solution would seemingly come from nowhere.
"It didn't seem important! There were no strange locks or inquiries at the temple...sorry." Stella apologized.
Actually, I forgot to take a screen cap of that clue and completely forgot about it until I got here.
"No matter---let's start at one end and turn these altars into the right direction..."
We started at the east end of the room where we had entered, and made our way west--turning the altars as we reached them. North, East, North, West, South. There was no indication that we had turned them correctly. So--we started at the west end and moved east, setting them that way---but there was still no indication.
"How do we know we're doing it right?" I asked no one in particular.
"I suppose we don't." Alicia said, "I suppose we'll only really know if that altar in the Orb room still refuses to hear our plea."
"Time to set the lock."
There were five altars all along the north hall. With five more matching them along the south wall...one each was inscribed a letter--but they did not seem to be in any particular order. On the north side, they read "O", "M", "O", "E", "S". In their respective positions along the south wall, they read "E", "W", "E", "S", "D".
An 11th altar, located with some prominence in the center of the room--housed a spirit who whispered to us in weary monotone... "If you use the key, What would the Mighty Moose be?"
"The key?" I wondered, "The one we just solved? North West North East South? But...that doesn't really seem to apply here."
"Boss, I have an idea." Lydia said. "A 'key' can also be like...a point of reference. Like the key printed on a map. Remember how back in the temple I mentioned they idolize the moose?" she asked me.
"Yeah. And now they breed moose rats or something?" I vaguely recalled the discussion.
"Forget about that. See the letters on the north side? OMOES. But if you rearrange them, it spells MOOSE."
"Okay...so....where are you going with this?" I asked--lending a voice to the confused looks we were all giving her.
She sighed at our obliviousness, " =SO=..., if we use the north side as our 'key' and use the letters on the -south- side in the same order...that makes.... W, E, E, D, S."
"This must be where they kept all their tithes!" Lydia squealed in excitement at the gleaming sight of a massive stash of gold and gems.
"Haw! Great work, Lydia! Any objections to letting her have the full share?" I asked the rest of my group.
"Aye, lass. Ye earned it!" Knell clapped her on the shoulder.
"Oh--I think we'd better hang onto this though...," Alicia spotted the blue card lying in a corner of the compartment. It was another sequencing card--this one marked with a '004', of however many existed in the series.
"Moose Juice." I read the engraving on the one nearest to me.
"Ugh...I don't know what that means, but it doesn't sound good. Are we going to be safe if we -drink- this?" Bernadene asked.
"Let me have a go at it." Knell scowled at the placid red liquid, "I've never met a drink I couldn't stomach."
"There's no telling what it might do. I'll be ready to heal you if it's poisonous." I reassured her.
Lifting the grail to her lips, Knell quaffed the thing in one fast swallow.
"Yeech!" she grimaced, "It tastes so foul I...I..."
"By the almighties...," I whispered to the stunned looks of everyone else. It was hard to imagine a poison so powerful that it would kill the most stout among us with a single cup.
With the ministration of my Raise Dead prayer--we got Knell's soul back into her body and I healed her back to full health.
"Urgh...okay....let's have the next one." she grimaced in mental preparation.
"Ugh...now that's a funny feeling...," she mused, more queasy than in pain. Spreading outward from her lips that had touched the red liquid, she began petrifying--falling under the curse of living stone. She scarcely had a moment to realize it before she was completely enveloped.
Luckily, curing Stone was slightly easier than raising the dead, and she was no worse for wear because of it.
"Ech. Is that the worst they can do? C'mon, let's get this over with."
By now, I had gained the power to resurrect even those that had been Eradicated. But the mana power involved was such a strain that it had a prematurely aging effect on both Knell and myself. And her endurance was slightly damaged--though, of all of us, she was perhaps the stoutest and most able to bear the scars.
"-hurk-....there's... -three- more?" Knell glanced across the room at the matching three chalices on the opposite side. Paired as they were, there was no doubting what would happen when she consumed them. And yet, even armed with that foreknowledge, she trudged ahead and downed them -all-, needing my ministrations each time.
Finally, with all the cups drunken, we took a moment to rest and make sure she was restored to health. Lydia took the sack of gold she had gathered from the Lock and--looking queasy just remembering what we had witnessed Knell do here, handed it to her.
"Take it... -you've- earned it." she quipped.
"Damned straight I have." Knell grinned--and swiped the treasure with a swing of her arm.
Like his underlings--his prayers were limited to electrical attacks, which made him just as helpless to survive our onslaught.
"Hah. The cyclopses were way more dangerous." I smiled triumphantly. In the end, the Moo Cult would be forever broken. The Mighty Moose would be forgotten to the whims of history.
"Hrmm....," this last area had some unusual architecture. Walls were placed everywhere with no real purpose. Consulting my book of magic maps, I couldn't help but notice that the area here looked curiously like letters... J...V...C... I I I.
Confound you, Jon Van Cahnegem!
In keeping with my vow to not pick a permanent 'side' just yet, we took one orb to King Zealot, while the other was tucked away to bring to King Malefactor later when we made our way to that side of the world.
"Isn't it obvious that we should ally with King Zealot?" Bernadene pressured me, "He's the only one who has the fate of all Terra at heart!"
"That's precisely what bothers me," I rebuffed her argument.
I wasn't sure I liked King Zealot. There was something sinister about the way he professed the power of the orbs to control the will of men.
"Hrmm...power that I'm sure he feels best suited to control." I explained my reasoning to Alicia in private later in our rented rooms at Fountain Head. "He, and no other. And the almighties help for any who disagrees."
"A fair assessment. He would not intend to seek the power to control the will of men unless he felt mandated to -use- it. Every city. Every barbarian tribe. Every castle bearing the 'glorious' banner of Whiteshield." Alicia pondered with me, "There would be no room for dissent. And no forgiveness for it, either."
"I'm glad -you- agree. But I don't know if Stella and Bernadene do. They were born and raised in this sectarian world..the idea of turning their back on their king must not come easily to them. I think the others because of their natures are less honor-bound."
"And to be sure...," Alicia opined, "We do not yet know if King Tumult or King Malefactor would use the orbs more responsibly.
"There's nothing to do now then but wait and see."
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