Difference between revisions of "Tearlach (Chapter 16)"

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Tearlach (Act III)#Chapter 16

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-After looking for a healer and not finding one, Tearlach walked stiffly into the waiting jungle.  Normally, he wouldn't have bothered, but having progeny would be very important.  They are the hope of the future, and if he was going to be king of the world, he'd need strong sons to fight off rivals and carry on his rule.  Trust a woman to completely misinterpret his words and overreact.  Must be that time of the month.  Maybe he should take that as a sign: if his future was going to be all he wished, he'd have to think in the long term, and be more careful of his well-being.  At least stay away from hysterical skirts who blow up over an innocent misunderstanding.
-Huge trees covered with climbing vines and draperies of hanging moss grew near the base of the docks.  This wouldn't have been worrying, except some of them grew through the ruins of a building that obviously hadn't been abandoned very long.  The biggest was already 15 feet tall, twisted like bundled ropes with its abnormally accelerated growth.  The locals were right to be wary, foul magicks were afoot here... but hiding behind other magic spells would not save them.  A southlander's first thought is always to hide behind a wall, but all walls fall in time.  Tearlach could already see the jungle pressing in on their "safe zone."  It was good to know the sons of Bul-Kathos would never die cowering inside a magical dome.
-As he advanced and the green closed around him, Tearlach saw a man walking ahead of him.  Who or what was that?  The man was tall and broad shouldered, but wore a long cloak with a hood, concealing his identity.  Honest men have no need to hide their faces.  Tearlach instantly realizing this had to be a spy going to report to his master -- probably that crazy servant of Ormus, he was the only one big and tall enough.  Without a second thought, he leapt to the attack.
-Tearlach seemed to move slowly, his blade hissing through the humid air.  Almost gently he wafted down... and just before he reached the spy, the man looked up.  By the Light, the Immortal King himself couldn't have done worse to a man's face and leave him alive.  Bits of bone... and something else... poked through rotting skin stretched like a mask over... over no one knows what horror.  With demonic speed, the man that was not a man made a gesture, and vanished.  Time sped up again, and Tearlach landed with a sickening squish in the damp earth, water rising up to his ankles.
-Out of the thick air, little demons appeared, pink ugly worms with tiny arms and tiny, very sharp teeth.  Killing them was easy, but that wasn't the point.  The stranger was no mere man, he had to have been a demon, a big one.  Of course, Tearlach realized... it could only have been Diablo.  He laughed -- how like him to run like a coward and throw minions in his path.  The bastard and his brother must have stowed away on the ship somewhere.  They hid themselves well, and didn't dare come ashore until well after he'd left.  Even laid low by sickness, they'd had no stomach to face him.  The outcome of this battle was less in doubt than ever.  They would to face him, sooner than they wanted, if he had to slaughter every last living (and dead) thing in the world to reach them.
-A miserable little stream trickled down from the east; the green was impenetrable elsewhere, so Tearlach went up the bank.  Everywhere, there were ruined buildings, crushed and split open by plants growing up through their floors.  Poking in one house, he found a few things: kitchen utensils, papers, children's toys.  Everything wooden was covered with black and green mold, and fell to bits in his fingers.  Only stone held out for long, and even that was crumbling.  Nothing valuable was left; either the inhabitants had time to flee, or there was nothing worth taking.  Resuming his journey, he was stopped by a knot of thorny trees blocking the stream.  Something groaned, like wood rubbing or maybe the croaking of a huge frog.  It wouldn't surprise Tearlach at all to find giant frogs, but he'd have to clear these brambles or find a way around them to proceed.  While trying to decide which would be quicker, he noticed they were moving.
-Tiny red eyes high up on their trunks gazed downward.  Their branches lowered, huge limbs of wood swaying like arms.  With a mighty tearing sound, the trees wrested their roots from the sodden earth and shambled towards Tearlach. Good thing he had an axe.  That twit from the dockside mentioned trees eating people.  Of course, he couldn't just come out and say what he meant; he had to talk in those riddles that don't make sense until after you've found out the truth for yourself.  Being wood, they were huge and tough, but almost as slow as zombies. The fight was a long one, but they were never a real threat.  Some had a few items tangled in their thorns and branches, maybe from growing up through someone's house.
-One of these items was a little statue, a warrior with a sword.  It was funny how fiercely the little man glowered as he stood with his sword planted between his legs, a kneeling woman clasping his thigh with obvious lust.  As if any healthy girl would be satisfied with such a scrawny, feeble little man.  Maybe if there was nothing else available, but Tearlach couldn't imagine her reacting with such enthusiasm even then.  The old fart said the statue wasn't very valuable, just one of a series of "jade" statuettes made in the images of heroes from popular fiction.  They weren't even real jade, just some more common stone that looked like jade but was easier to carve.  Meshif, the ship captain who'd ferried them over, collected statuettes, and might pay something for it.
-The statue was of Nanoc the Reaver, a "barbarian" warrior.  For some reason, Meshif thought Tearlach wanted to hear about all his fictional exploits.  At least, he wouldn't shut up about them.  As hero of a few dozen tedious books, each much the same as the others, Nanoc was an iron-thewed scion of rugged masculinity, raven-haired, with bronzed skin gleaming with the sweat of his mighty battles and cobalt-hued eyes filled with canny wit and fiery passion.  He traveled far and wide, as a thief, assassin, mercenary, and finally, king.  Lusty wenches threw themselves at him everywhere he went; even the noblest ladies were helpless before his volcanic virility.  When he wasn't stealing priceless artifacts or infiltrating the forbidden demesne of some all-powerful wizard, he was effortlessly slicing his way through armies of lesser men.  It was interesting, in a way, if this was how southlanders viewed his people, but not interesting enough to listen to.  When Tearlach stole stuff, people got upset, and the only time a lusty wench threw herself at him, she stole all his money.
-After a terse reminder that time was growing short, Meshif admitted he didn't have enough cash to pay for a "rare collectible" like this.  He offered another statue in trade, a gold one, obviously much better than any stupid stone statue.  Better yet, the statue had a hidden compartment, packed full of powder.  One weakness southlanders indulge in is a fondness for exotic spices.  Because they value them so highly, they pay premium prices and hide them in clever little stashes, like false bottoms on statues.  Obviously, Tearlach now had someone's store of some exotic flavorant, maybe worth more than the gold hiding it.
-Walking away from the ship, he mused on his find.  That long sea voyage had deprived him of a lot of nourishment, and the "bananas" weren't enough to fill his stomach.  There were giant frogs in the jungle, but people hunted and ate them, not vice-versa.  Since there was meat, he might as well see how this stuff tastes!  Tearlach sat down with a big bowl of frog stew, sprinkled in some spice, and tried it.  He couldn't taste the spice, so he added more.  It still didn't change the flavor, so he stirred the whole batch in.  Why do southlanders pay so much for this stuff?  It didn't taste like anything at all!  The frog stew wasn't bad, though.  He felt much, much better after eating it.
-Meanwhile, back in the jungle, Tearlach found he didn't always have to stick close to the stream.  As quickly as plants grew, they died, and rotted down in heaps of molds and fungi.  Through the gaps they left, he found little clearings, the ruined buildings now inhabited by monster trees and corrupted animals.  There were muscular apes (big teeth and claws, but weak in combat) and tiny little people with huge heads.  The little people were very fast, stupidly brave, and their heads mostly mouths full of sharp pointy teeth.  They'd climb right up you and try and bite your eyes out.  Their shamans could raise them from the dead, just like the little demons from the Rogue's pass.  Happily, the solution was much the same: kill the shaman first.
-As he went deeper into the green, Tearlach came to a group of houses completely draped in spider webs.  Bundles of webs writhed with spider hatchlings the size of cats.  Andarial had giant spiders with her, but the spider queen herself had been banished back to the Hell-pit that spawned her.  Any minion of hers here couldn't be worse than the losers guarding her person there, just more numerous.  Poking around among the buildings, he found a hole in the ground, its walls supported by webs.  How underground tunnels could stay dry in this sodden mess was beyond him, but caves are always profitable.  Down he went.
-After his first battle, Tearlach came to the inescapable conclusion that Andarial had little to do with these spiders.  Hers were relatively small, lethargic, and stupid; you could walk right up to them and kill them without them noticing.  These spiders were full of magic, poison and fire, especially one nasty bastard in the back corner.  To his great surprise, there was a chest down in the spider tunnels - one of the golden strongboxes southlanders use for their most valuable items.  An unexpected, but welcome find in such a strange place... but inside, there was nothing but gold and a freshly-cut eyeball.  Why would anyone value that?

Difference between revisions of "Tearlach (Chapter 16)"

Latest revision as of 15:07, 12 February 2017

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