Through Nacreous

Tap, tap, tap. "Any minute now," croons Advisor Soder to the elite ghoulish forces surrounding him. The wide and toothy face on his borrowed body is deceptively placid, but he can't help but rhythmically tap one muddy black talon up and down on a subordinate's head. Tap, tap, tap. "This is going to be delightful." Impatience colors his voice. Tap squidge tap. "I just wish they'd hurry. Oh, and someone get me a new assistant. This one has gone all floppy." He gazes across Nacreous with huge yellow eyes, and his thoughts are his own.

-----

Stone Bear stiffens as the spirit of Claris leaves him. Within a few seconds the void where her spirit had resided is filled by the overwhelming presence of the spirit guide Elder. The death spirit is strong here, far stronger than the spirits of Bear or Grandfather, and it squirms eagerly in anticipation of the fight to come.

"How long do you think it will take her?" asks Velendo.

"Not long," answers Stone Bear. Not long, echoes Elder inside of Stone Bear's head. The shaman grimaces and twists his head towards Agar, who is pointing one misty hand towards a distant structure. "What's wrong, Agar? I mean, besides the obvious."

"Look at that building. What does it remind you of?" Agar squints perplexedly to his left, indicating a mansion atop a bone hill. "I've seen it before."

"Of course you have," explains Nolin. "When we were here yesterday in ghoul form."

"No, more recently." Agar tries to stroke his chin and fails utterly due to the misty form of windwalk. "Of course! It was in my dream. That was what the lighthouse looked like, even to the bones of dead sailors around the base. Well, not sailors in this case, but you see what I mean. Isn't that where Soder's pet is living in the moat?"

"It sure is."

"Then maybe that's where he's hiding."

"But in the dream, if we were brave enough we could dock there."

"But didn't. . ."

"Not to interrupt, but we need to move," cuts in Malachite. "There's some sort of cross between a bulette and a giant closing in. And skaven. And that damn mindflayer-beholder thing. And a whole lot of ghouls. We're horribly exposed if we just float here." Dozens of poisoned bone arrows whistle towards the group as he speaks. Most of the arrows fall short, but it's clear that several companies of ghouls are quickly converging on both Velendo and the rest of the Defenders. A powerful fireball goes off in the group's midst as if to emphasize the urgency, and several rays of black energy flash towards them from sorcerers along the ledge.

"Go on!" urges Velendo as he contemplates which spell might best seal the gap in the wall. "Cruciel and I will catch up."

"To the mansion?"

"To the mansion."

Everyone but Velendo and Cruciel will themselves to movement, and divine winds billow forth and propel them towards the bone mansion. Stone Bear's heart nags him to go elsewhere, perhaps towards the excavation near the dead Goddess's heart, but he decides not to split off from the group.

Nolin glances back to see Cruciel shielding Velendo with her own body, most of the ghouls' bone arrows shattering on her divinely hardened flesh. The bard shoots an aggrieved look at Agar. "Hey, how come you don't do that for me? You know, the whole flinging yourself in harm's way bit."

Agar looks at the bard increduously. "Because I'm very fragile."

"Oh, right."

"I thought it would be obvious."

Stone Bear shakes his head. "I hope the angel doesn't die in front of the old man."

Malachite nods. "She'll protect him against his own will, whether he likes it or not."

The group outdistances the mindwitness and races for the house, even as Velendo successfully casts a different wall spell across the gap in the invisible wall. More arrows fly at him, the volleys now better synchronized, and no matter how hard Cruciel tries a few get through to impale him. Still supported by the flying angel, he swivels his head to find the best avenue of escape and realizes that he is being quickly cut off from his allies. Cruciel can't fly nearly as quickly as a wind walk spell, and they're going to be blatant targets while they attempt to catch up with the others.

Distantly he can hear Nolin singing, and the waves of negative energy batter at him like driving rain. "Are you ready for this?" he asks Cruciel, doubtfully.

"Always," she answers.

The ghoulish captain nearest to the pair smiles up at them coldly and turns to his troop, barking an order in some sort of debased and guttural tongue. An undead formorian giant shambles forward and lifts a heavy bone boulder. Then it stops, sways... and purposefully drops the boulder upon the head of his captain. The captain goes down in a tangle of crushed flesh and flailing limbs. Around the cavern of Nacreous, screams and shouts of dismay and anger begin to echo through the befouled air.

"Good timing," Velendo smiles in relief. "Claris is back, and she brought friends."

She did indeed. Earlier that morning Nolin and Stone Bear had spent hours on an inspired plan that utilized every spirit drawn to Saint Morak's holy cavern. They worked to focus the desires of those hundreds of restless ghosts onto one single burning cause: the utter destruction of the kingdom of the ghouls, so that the spirits might truly find rest. Now the once-diffuse wrath of those spirits has become a furious need for vengeance. Called by Stone Bear's will and guided by the spirit of the deceased monk Claris, the luminous spirits descend on Nacreous to possess any undead body they can find. Like the Defenders the previous day, the good spirits find themselves in the midst of non-possessed ghoulish soldiers, and they waste no time in instigating whatever chaos and disruption they can manage.

The wind walkers speed above the artisan's village of Nacreous, heading straight for the house upon the hill of bone. It looms up before them, bereft of any ghoulish troops despite its obvious tactical advantages. The smell of the ooze in the moat around the bone hill is revolting. Galthia grimaces, thinking of the staff of disruption that he lost to that ooze. "Soder's pet," he growls to himself. "Hmmph."

"Something's strange about this place," says Malachite. "Every time I look at it it draws my attention, like a lodestone drawing iron filings. There's no reason for that."

"Me too," says Mara. "And have you noticed? All the windows have been blocked up by stone –well, bone, now. Same with the door, and I bet the chimney is blocked."

"Is," confirms Burr-Lipp over the mindlink with an accompanying croak. The bullywug mercenary is crouched atop the building, staring with huge bulbous eyes out at Nacreous. "And fireball out there. Ghouls fighting ghouls. Must be plenty surprised."

Stone Bear smiles to himself and rubs a misty eye socket. "Agar, look over to the right." He pauses. "That's the advantage to moving fast. We should have a little time before the ghouls can get here, and they'll have to deal with the pet ooze that we just flew over. If I turn solid we can get through a barricaded bone door in about two seconds."

Nolin grins. "Ding dong, goodness calling!"

Taking advantage of the infighting ghoulish troops, Cruciel and Velendo are soaring towards the bone house. "Cruciel, I want you to drop me off before we get there, so that I can cast some preparatory spells."

"Are you sure that's wise?" Her beautiful face looks down at him in concern. "We shouldn't be separated any longer than we have to be. If there's one thing I'm learning as your guardian angel, it's that."

Velendo's face twists in frustration as he considers, but he reluctantly agrees. "Good point. I'll stick with our friends instead. There's only one spell I'll cast as we're en route." He focuses his concentration to murmur a prayer even while being carried, and he succeeds admirably. Calphas's holy energy fills his body and turns his very flesh to solid, living iron. He smiles, and is more than a little bit surprised when Cruciel drops him.

"Wha...?" The iron-bodied cleric tumbles end over end and crashes head-first into a series of mausoleum-sized buildings that were previously damaged by the arrival of Imbindarla's corpse. Pieces of roof rain down on his sprawled body.

"What are you thinking?" Cruciel's voice over the mindlink is furious with sick worry. She swoops around in a circle and soars down towards where Velendo fell. "Why did you think I could hold you if your weight increased by a factor of ten? Why didn't you warn me?"

Velendo painfully picks himself up from a shattered pile of bone masonry, household furnishings, and half-eaten carrion. "I feel like an idiot. I didn't even think about it. Sorry about that." He sheepishly activates his flying boots, and then spins as a chattering comes from directly behind him. Before the elderly cleric can react, a massive ghoulish beetle fastens pinchers around his neck in an attempt to snip his head off.

Velendo looks at the monster with disdain. "Get off me!" he says in a disgusted tone. As the rotting beetle tries to saw off his solid iron neck with pinchers that aren't even scratching him, Velendo dismisses the windwalk spell for his alllies and looks up at the descending Cruciel.

Cruciel looks down at him doubtfully, "Do you want me to...?"

"Yes please, just kill it. This is silly."

The beetle redoubles its efforts to eat him, with no discernable effect whatsoever. Velendo stands impatiently as Cruciel draws her sword and descends upon his foe. She can't help but smile. "Good thing you're not Agar."

Up by the mansion, it only takes Stone Bear a few powerful blows to shatter the door. "I could do that," grumbles Priggle to himself. "But nobody remembers that deep gnomes have any talents. No, of course not. We're only good for short jokes and making tea. Hmph."

"Shhhh, Priggle," comforts Mara as she combats massive difficulty to heal her own wounds with lay on hands. The negative energy almost causes her healing attempt to fail. "It's okay." Anything else she might have said is cut off as the door smashes open, and they see --

The glittering afterimage of Aeos, standing in a room with burned walls, a melted floor, every surface covered with rivulets of melted stone. A charred spot on floor indelibly marks the shape of a tortured, convulsed body. Holy energy in the form of pure sunlight pours from the room, banishing the chill of Nacreous and restoring feeling to numbed limbs.

For seconds no one can speak, the oddness of the discovery carrying away words. Then someone puts two and two together, and realizes what the group is looking at.

"He was the one messing around with Aleax!"

Malachite nods slowly, eyes shining. "Aeos appeared to us and showed us the body of the creature that had stolen his divinations. This must be where he appeared to confront the creature. His afterimage is burned here, like the spots in your vision you would get if you stared at the sun."

Mara gulps. "This is a very holy place. No wonder they walled it off; there probably wasn't anything else they could do with it."

Nolin cocks his head. "Well, let's share." He opens what's left of the doors and lets the sun shine out. In the mansion it's just like how the world felt after Aeos visited them months ago – the same afterglow. "You know, I just realized that undead seem to avoid this building."

"Maybe the acid ooze is there to keep the undead away!" pipes up Agar.

"Now your dream makes sense, Agar," states Malachite. "Here's where we retreat to."

"Yes, but the Ivory King isn't here," states Stone Bear flatly. "I'm heading for the heart."

"Why the heart?" asks Agar. "Everyone is up at the head. That's almost certainly where he'll be."

"I don't think so," says Stone Bear. He feels Elder shift silently inside of him, perhaps recoiling from the sunlight. "Call it a hunch. If I were him I'd expect us to head where all his strength is, up by the head. So that's where I wouldn't be. I'd be eating the heart."

Nolin nods. "He sure has a big 'ole ass for us to kick."

Velendo weighs in over the mindlink. "Scout ahead, but this time don't let him bite your head off."

Stone Bear snorts. "I don't intend to. This time it's personal."

"Well, I'll be back with the rest of you in just a minute. Get away from the mansion. I think we should show the citizens of Nacreous what true sunlight really feels like, but first I have to get free of this damn insect that's trying to eat me."

Cruciel attacks the chitinous horror, which releases Velendo and tries to eat her instead. Terribly conscious of the ghouls closing in and the spectres approaching the wall, Velendo summons an elder earth elemental. It rises from Imbindarla's corpse constructed of both stone and bone, towering dozens of feet high with coursing black rivulets of energy snaking along it. From their vantage point atop the hill, the group sees it plant its fist down where Velendo is in a single earthshaking blow.

"Velendo!" The Defenders are horrified.

"It just squished the beetle. Cruciel, you speak terran; tell me how to instruct it to destroy that building." He repeats the crunching syllables after Cruciel, and the elemental ponderously turns and heads for the mansion.

Galthia looks around. "Time for the rest of us to go. Velendo, we'll meet you at the excavation by Her heart."

"Not the palace next?" asks someone.

"No, the heart. We need to catch up to Stone Bear."

Luminor flies, Galthia and Burr-Lipp run and jump, Nolin casts dimension door with several passengers; by the time the earth elemental steps effortlessly over the moat, the Defenders of Daybreak have abandoned the sanctuary of the mansion to allow the elemental to destroy the building. Soder's pet ooze attacks the elemental fiercely, but it's unclear whether or not the ooze is having any effect.

Now in three separate groups, the Defenders of Daybreak dash through twisted streets towards the hill formed by the dead Goddess. They do their best to dodge companies of ghoulish soldiers, doubling back and ducking into the mushroom forest to escape being targetted from afar. They can hear ghouls shouting as they run, skaven chittering and drow and dwarves calling, each group desperately trying to find the invaders. Meanwhile the spirits brought by Claris fight on in their ghoulish bodies, doing everything possible to incite chaos and distract the pursuit. It is pandemonium, and the Defenders move deeper into Nacreous.

"Do we stay and fight?" asks Burr-Lipp, obviously annoyed to be running away from their foes.

Galthia shakes his head in a single sharp movement. "No. Stick to the plan."

Mara pauses for a few seconds to call upon a sacred shield, improving the armor of anyone near her. "Boy," quips Agar from behind her on Luminor, "staying within ten feet of you just keeps getting better and better." Mara blushes beneath her helm.

As they clamber up the side of Imbindarla's calcified body, the ground becomes strange. First it is hard and dry and cobwebby, then a few steps later it is like muddy, putrified flesh. Nolin's eyes light up. "You know who could help us find the Ivory King? Angus, my onyx dog!" He fishes out the magical figurine and whistles.

Agar looks doubtful. "Assuming you can summon him over the planar turbulence, can he even breathe here?"

Nolin looks horrified, perhaps because he had forgotten the bad air. He lifts the figurine up to his eyes and scolds it desperately. "No! Don't come! No! Bad dog! Stay!" Appalled, he lowers the statuette. "Last time I called him was to jump into the earth dragon's mouth. Man, this is why I don't have a familiar."

Malachite gives Nolin an admonishing look. "Remember this. You may not have a familiar, but you do have a cohort."

They run across what must be Imbindarla's stomach under the cover of twenty foot tall mushrooms, huge and fleshy as they sway to and fro. From behind them is a huge crashing of falling masonry as the earth elemental plants its feet and rips the building to pieces as quickly as it can, but negative energy still pulses around the group like a living thing. They duck around abandoned excavation equipment to see Stone Bear crouching beside a ragged hole torn in the ground. Large chunks of stone and bone have been pulled away from it, and there are no guards whatsoever stationed nearby. The ten foot wide tunnel goes down into darkness, chewed out of divine flesh by teeth that might just fit over Stone Bear's head.

Nolin grimaces. "Follow those teeth!"

"We're diving into a hole chewed into the dead God... we've sunk to a new low." Velendo sinks his face into both of his hands.

Galthia raises one eyebrow. "The heart of the White Kingdom? Yes, I'd say we're about as low as we can get."

Nolin fishes out the Sharaball, the glass globe that contains some of their former adventuring companion's power. "Shara," asks Nolin politely, "may we trouble you for a control undead? You may never see anything like this again."

Agar makes a face. "Hopefully."

"Unless you're very very bad," Nolin continues with a slight smirk. "Consider it a moral lesson."

Malachite cocks his head. "Watch that glass house, Nol."

Nolin grins despite the impending doom. "Glass houses are shiny! And hey, I'm not the one living in Eversink." Then a negative-energy-laced fireball goes off in the midst of the group, and the Defenders realize that by standing on Her chest they're exposed for almost all of Nacreous to see.

"Where did that come from?"

"Up near her head."

Agar looks close to panic. "That's where he is! We should go there. They're closing in on us, and right now we're sitting ducks!"

"No," says Stone Bear quietly. In one swift movement he slides into the tunnel, falls, and disappears from sight.