Amanita (Chapter 19)
Template:Amanita nav Besides the usual suspects, about a dozen more people were milling around the docks. None had anything to say I hadn't heard before: Kurast is in ruins, the jungle is full of demons, evil reigns, would you like to buy a banana, and so on. I got my luggage, set up housekeeping in an abandoned shed, and started planning my day. Maybe fixing the shed's roof would be good for a start -- no, I can hire somebody to do that.
My trunk was heavier than I remembered. After I got the cube, I quickly filled up with purple potions, they're always handy -- but something metallic was clanking off the bottles. I flipped the lid open with a katar. Everything was good, except for the circlet and plate boots on top of my spare equipment, with a note:
"Hi there, gorgeousness! Here's some new stuff. The other circlet just didn't work out, a 'Lore' helmet would have been better. The boots will solve your resistance problems. I know you wanted them in the desert, but you weren't big enough yet. Watch out for Flayers!
-- The Mule"
Yeah, plate boots would have been good with all those scorpions. My feet aren't any bigger now than they were then. Oh well, there's probably snakes around here. I know a little about circlets. Like crowns, but meant for ordinary slobs like me, they're made from heaven-sent metals, and make a transparent wall of force around your head while you've got one on. It felt kind of weird having my head uncovered again.
Before I left, I asked Cain what a Flayer was. He pointed to the town gate, where a tiny head full of sharp teeth was impaled on a stake. Tribes of midget pygmies have always lived in Kehjistan. Before, constant fighting kept them from getting too numerous, but since the jungle started growing, the Flayer tribes have been cooperating with each other. Whenever the Iron Wolves talk about the jungle, Flayers are the only enemy they mention.
Hratli's protective dome ended just this side of land. The thorny brambles on the river's edge looked like they were pushing it back. They probably were. As I approached a ruined building outside the docks, I saw him: a tall, broad-shouldered man in a floor-length robe, hood far down over his head, stumbling into the jungle. That much coverage in this climate? Walking with his hood down so far he can't see? Not to mention going unarmed -- even the Iron Wolves carried swords. Even if he didn't look like Ormus, I would have shot him. The bolt... bounced off, with a clink. He kept stumbling along like nothing worthy of his notice had happened, so I tried a mental blast...
... and woke up snorting sod. I was flat on my face, about where I'd been standing before. Four fleshy worm things were chewing on my armor, tiny teeth scraping the steel. I stomped them and looked for the hooded man. He was gone. I looked inwards. My recent memories had a gap, a dark patch I couldn't convince myself to enter.
Natty? I'm here
Give me the once-over. Now. Something up?
Am I possessed or anything? I don't see any WHOA!
WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT! That is the strongest
repressed memory
I've ever seen
What did I repress? I can't see, you're repressing it
I saw this cloaked guy going
into the jungle, did a mind Did you recognize him?
blast, and woke up in the mud
No! Why do you think I called him No call to get nasty
"this guy"? Is Ormus still there? Ormus hasn't gone anywhere
Crap. I don't know who it was Everyone who's been here
is still here
Can you do a mind probe to I've never been that good
get the memory out? at the mental stuff
Please try, it might be important
ow
ow!
AAAAAH!! Stop squealing
aaiee...
I can't get it
You're clamped down too hard
But it is me clamping down? Definitely. Your brain knows
what it was and doesn't want to
Damn. Brains are weird That's why I went into
the martial arts
Ormus isn't doing anything? He's talking with Cain. "If a
peppercorn grew wings, it would
be a fly. Should it lose its
wings, will it return to being
a mere peppercorn?"
Gah, eastern philosophy Tell me about it...
Ok. Eastern philosophy is full of I didn't mean literally!
Hee hee Being obnoxiously literal
is my joke anyway
Can dish it out,
but can't take it? Shaddup
The hooded man hadn't come back. He probably never would. I went in, sticking to the riverbank where I could. Roots like twisted hides braided into the spongy soil, hairy rootlets waving in the air, wanting even more. I could see them moving. They even tried to wrap around my boots if I let my feet stop. Twenty yards in, I couldn't see, hear, or smell any sign of the docks. Thirty yards in, I met my first demons: Flayers, armed with blowguns. Maybe I'm weird, but I couldn't feel threatened by them. They were actually kind of cute, in a toothsome way, and made funny ululating noises. Their darts might be poisoned, so I stunned them with a blast and put them down. One had a jade statuette maybe half his size, a strange thing to be carrying around.
Cain identified the statuette as a stash, an ornamental thing with a hidden space. They're used for hiding valuables, contraband, and the like. Stashes of all kinds have always been popular in Kurast. Being a holy city, the people need to keep their sinning out of sight. This one had some kind of powder in it. I left it with Alkor.
Staying close to the water might keep me from getting lost, but the mosquitoes were scary. Off in the jungle, things were worse. Some of the trees and brambles had pulled themselves up by the roots and were wandering around like living things. I found a few more stashes along the stream banks, and sometimes in the trees. Many were little portable ones, but some were big, and looked like they'd been part of a wall or something. You'd never think it to look around now, but there might have been houses and people here a few years ago. I found no intact bodies, just a few bones. Flesh probably went fast.
During a trip back to the docks, I tried on some plate armor at Hratli's armory. I didn't think I looked bad at all, though maybe it was the red underpadding. I look good in red. Field plate is nice stuff, easier to move in than you'd think and not nearly as heavy. Heavier plate, with leg protection, wasn't too bad either. None of his stuff had enchantments as good as the scale, though. Damn... I'm really getting tired of green.
"A pity that you could not find anything fitting your needs," Hratli said, putting the armor away. "Your present suit, while no doubt a practical choice, is very unattractive."
"Yeah, I know. It's clunky and heavy and green."
"The blue armor fit you well. You are sure you will not reconsider?"
"Nah. Frost novas are fun, and I like the blue, but I don't want to be a pretty corpse."
"I have no intention of being a beautiful corpse. I was never beautiful, and I find that as infirmity creeps through my spindly limbs, I am rapidly losing what little I once possessed. When the sight of me would sicken a Sucker, then I shall die, and will my corpse to be put on public display as a moral lesson to the ignorant."
I grinned. "You hate humanity, don't you?"
"Not at all. It is people who frustrate me so. On the subject of frustration... have you observed that the dome I placed around the dockside seems to be weakening?"
"I noticed that. Every time I come and go, the jungle's a little further in."
"Just so. With an appropriate source of magical energy, the spell could be strengthened, but none are available at this time."
"But you're thinking of something?"
"You have read my mind," Hratli smiled, without a trace of irony. I wasn't... at least not right then. "Some repositories of power were hidden near here. One of the most powerful is an ancient dagger called the Gidbinn."
"The name sounds Taanish."
"The Gidbinn is a Taan relic. Ormus knows how to release its power for our use."
"Gotcha. Any other useful relics? In case I can't find the Gidbinn, I mean."
"A few: the Mask of Nirdall, the Spectral Shard... There are persistent rumors of a 'ruby jewel of fervor' somewhere in the jungle, but despite long searching, no one has succeeded in locating it. None hold as much power as the Gidbinn."
"Right. If I find anything, I'll let you know."
At a bend in the river, a pair of columns flanked what used to be a city street, if I guessed right. Now it was a narrow path perpendicular to the river. Paving stones had been pushed up and over by tree roots, or just sucked down into the sodden ground. A pack of Flayers was guarding the gateway. This time, they were more trouble. A few had blowguns, others had knives, and there was a one in a fancy wooden mask riding another's shoulders. Mr. Big was obviously the most important, so I knelt to aim. In the time it took me to crouch down, one of the knife guys ran behind me, charged straight up my back, and started raining a flurry of slashes down on my throat and eyes. Two more were trying to hamstring me, and Mr. Big started breathing fire in my face.
A mental blast soothed their nerves and calmed their spirits, for a second. I shot the one on my back and threw him into a blow-gunner. He expired while I was cranking up for another shot -- hyperactive critters are vulnerable to poison -- but Mr. Big raised him. A shaman, I should have guessed. Playing with their minds misdirected them into attacking one of their own, and I finished off Mr. Big. Once they were all dead, I found out Mr. Big wasn't wearing a mask. That was his own adorable mug, out for the whole world to see. I guess Flayers are only cute when they're young. I won't say little.
The path had to have been a street. It was too straight to be anything natural. It ended in a clearing on a little hill. This might have been a classy neighborhood overlooking the river. The ruins were stone, with plenty of stashes and other places with hidden valuables. One house might have had a second story once, but most of the walls had fallen from the weight of the plants. Spider webs were everywhere. On every tree and building, squirming cocoons were bursting open with masses of spiderlings. Freshly hatched, each was the size of my hand. The mothers were probably as big as those things Andarial had in the catacombs.
The largest building had a basement. The cellar was big; the buildings above were probably part of a complex served by this one cellar. Gold and goods were lying around in piles. It would have been easy to go over, and pick it up... much too easy. I opened my mind and peeked around a bit. Alien, animalistic minds full of hate were waiting in the dark, happy with the trap they'd set. I'd never heard of spiders baiting their webs, but there's always a first time. I shot one, and four rushed out. I'd never heard of spiders staying in social groups, either. They were resistant to poison, and took a lot longer to die than I thought.
Packed into various corners were crowds of sand maggots, just like the ones in Aranoch. What they were doing in the spiders' lair, I had no idea, until I remembered the spiders resist poison. The maggots' fast reproduction rate won't be a problem if you can eat them safely. There were two kinds of spiders, green ones and bigger red ones. The red kind were the most obviously demonic -- eyes (all 5 of them) glowing like red coals, genuinely corrosive venom, burst into flame when they die, the usual.
The last red spider was fast, and enchanted with a Necro curse. It was almost impossible to keep the thing at a distance, but there was a health shrine down there. It came in really handy when the fight was over. While I was wiping off my katar and looking for survivors, I found a chest, one of the strong metal ones. Those almost always have something worth taking. Inside was a pile of gold... and a human eye. It was intact, still soft and squishy, untouched by rot or mold. Dirt wouldn't even stick to it.
"Hey, Cain, I found this in an old box. What do you make of it?"
He studied it for a moment, then his eyes widened. "This can only be a saintly relic!"
"How do you know it's saintly? It's kind of red..."
"Demons, and those allied with them, decay into nothingness quickly. Only those friendly with Heaven can be blessed with bodily incorruptibility."
"That still doesn't explain why it's red."
He ignored me. "I have been speaking with our new friends here. Ormus is a fascinating fellow, I think you would do well to consider the puzzles he proposes. For instance..."
"Uh, Cain? The eyeball?"
"Oh, of course. It seems Sankekur assumed the position of Que-Hegan after the death of his predecessor, Kahlim. No one now knows, but Kahlim's death is rumored to have been a violent one, and at the hands of the High Council of Zakarum itself!"
"Wouldn't surprise me. From what I've heard, they were pretty nasty."
"Kahlim was the last incorruptible one, who resisted Mephisto's insidious takeover of the minds and bodies of the church elders. After he was killed, the body was committed to the fire. A few pieces proved indestructible. One of them was Kahlim's eye."
"Ok, that's good. Hey, if he was 'blessed with bodily incorruptibility' how come it didn't work for his whole body?"
Cain sighed with exasperation. "Amy... I cannot understand all the ways in which Heaven works. Kahlim's eyes, heart, and brain survived the pyre, and were hidden in Zakarumite strongholds throughout Kurast."
"So that's what that building was... go on."
"It may be that, as the last and holiest Que-Hegan to stand against Mephisto, obtaining the blessing of Kahlim may be instrumental in bringing about Mephisto's downfall!"
"Um, Cain... Mephisto killed him. How good can he have been?"
"Hush, child! Saints do their best work when Hell seems to have triumphed. Hope shines brightest in the midst of despair. We now know Heaven smiles on us. Put this somewhere safe, and carry on with your quest."