Echoes of Strife
Second Day of the Twelfth Month 293 AC
Fourteen long breaths you take to
ward your mind for the task ahead in every way you know, should this bring you to the attention of the alien mind at the heart of the Deep Ones' madness. Then you grasp the unseen currents of time, not in a vice as you have done so many times in battle, but gently as spring dew upon the grass, not to act upon the future frozen in place, merely to
see that which was.
The chamber around you blurs, the the faces and voices of your companions' face like smoke and echoes. A moment of lightheartedness comes upon you, the sound of distant chanting, swiftly gone, unable to find purchase against your mind. To your gaze it seems that time flows slow as molasses, as though reality itself were reluctant to reveal what had gone on in this chamber.
Something snaps, soundless, nameless, yet as sharp as a blade of adamant flying above your head.
You see them then, eight ilithid draped in sea silk robes adorned with pale opals that shine as the light of drowned stars, their gazes locked upon the torrent of salt water that flowed upon the children's' heads. To your surprise they do not speak the alien utterances of their own tongue, which you had heard just moments ago, but something human... old, but familiar. They speak the tongue of the First Men, though not quite as you have ever heard it, be at Thennhold, on Waymar's lips, or the thunderous voice of Father Sky.
The Skies are bleak, the Earth is barren,
Serve will thee treacherous powers no longer
No more so serve, no more to know famine,
What is dead may never die, but rises harder, stronger
This is the Old Tongue as those who would become the Ironborn spoke it, you realize in a flash. These are the words they spoke when they renounced their gods for darker things. Gifts of the dead, you remember the bloated corpse that had bequeathed its foul gift upon Maron Volmark. Is this a new sanctification of Drowned men you are witnessing, or perhaps a very old one brought to light once more.
Why children to whom so few would listen? Why here?
The scene that unfolded before you has no answers, only the din and screams of battle, the sight of Deep Ones dying to the blood magics of the Lantern Bearers, Henrick's alchemy, and the steel of Ironborn who would be slaves no more to that ancient, desperate pact.
Waking from the trance, you try another path, another anchor. The shoe that now lies abandoned, all but falling apart in the briny pool, had hopefully borne witness to more of the dark deeds at Volmark keep. Where had it's owner came from?
Why had they been chosen?
Again you reach into the echoes which had
seeped into the cloth like water and salt.
You see a faintly familiar girl, one of dozens you had carried to Gogossos, then the battle again. Amid the rushing of water you cannot hear the chanting clearly, but it is what you see that makes your breath catch in surprise.
Shark-men, dozens of them, though Ser Harras had not fought any of their kind, charging into the tunnels as the girl cowers in an alcove. They raise jagged spears high to cast upon the illithid, though they soon die upon their own weapons as the mind mages' powers take hold.
A slave rebellion? you wonder briefly, the possibility not as unthinkable as it would have once been. The Gith lead by Zerthamon had succeeded, after all.
Then one of the shark-men explodes in a corona of pallid light and undulating sounds, the illithid wards it instinctively with a flash of amethyst light. The three do not speak aloud and so you cannot hear, but their stolen forms are still human and those you can read at least a little. They express fear... uncertainty. They would not feel that from rebelling slaves alone, not without the revolt being far too widespread to have remained hidden. As the remainder of the spell runs its course without any further events of note, you begin to wonder if perhaps these had been the rebels from the crushing will of the Elder Brain.
Was that what this place had been warded against?
At last you try to work a
spell upon the whole of the keep to find if it had been mere convenience that had seen the cabal gather here or something more. Alas, all you see is battles lost and won, births and deaths, the works and deeds of human kind, and nothing of elder things. Perhaps young Lord Maron might be interested to know his great grandfather assassinated his brother over the lordship, but it is of little note to you.
Your eyes snap open for the last time. "There was surely something deeper here, but as to what, I have more questions than answers," you recount what you had seen. Perhaps you might find those answers in the brains of the dead illithid restored from ash, but that magic will have to wait until you are safely in Sorcerer's Deep and not inviting Deep One reprisal.
What do you do next?
[] Offer the Reader more aid as you can and then return to Sorcerer's Deep
-[] Write in
[] Investigate further
-[] Write in
[] Write in
OOC: You guys did not really need 116+1d6 Will save, but some buffs were certainly needed. Not yet edited.
