After a day or so of walking in circles (I swear the compass was a fake), we camped near our old camping spot (about 500m away) and settled down for the night. I decided that a sleepless night was in order since my 'shadow scars' were acting up pretty badly, memories, fa!
Luckily I managed to spot the semetl sized group of Mu'ugalavyani who exited a sliding door in a small mound about 70 meters away halfway through the night. Of course they did make a sound like a herd of chlen. I warned the camp and the guards (all 6 of them) formed up behind me, the pachi lei slipped into the woods and the best hunter we had got ready to shoot. Others stayed in and around the palanquin to minimize their visibility and thus be able to attack as well as keep the slaves quiet.
Being outnumbered 3-1 by professional medium infantry is bad enough even if you want to pretend that you are merchants, but when I remembered that the pachi lei had sworn to kill all Mu'ugalavyani that he saw, I nearly screamed in frustration. This was going to be a fight.
The two officers behind the Mu'ugalavyani hauled off some sort of box to safety while the 18 soldiers formed in two ranks, pikes in back, sword and shield in front. They didn't bother to parlay, just rolled toward us. I signalled and our archer pegged the lower officer in the back, then my javelin thrower managed a scratch on the high officer! We lost sight of them as they faded back. At least the soldiers didnt have commanders that we could see... not that they seemed to need them.
Running to flank the enemy I ordered the guards to hold firm. Surely they would notice a heavily armed person such as myself and slow...
No such luck, a group of 4 broke toward me (thanks to no officers to keep them in line) and the rest rolled on. We engaged.
My motto is 'put them down fast', and with my two jagged edged swords one of the shieldmen went down hard as he tried to slash at my legs. His pikeman hesitated and I moved up the pike, controlling it with my left hand sword. The surviving shield man slashed at me but I blocked it, and the other pikeman tried to backpedal to get room.
By now the Pachi Lei had cast a spell, and one of the troopers who advanced into our camp was caught by it... dominated, he veered into his people and jostled them out of formation. Our Ketengku priest then fired a 'web of kriyaq' and some of the enemy became entangled in the web and each other. They tried to re-form when our guards charged into them and broke their center. At this point, with sniping from archer and javelin, no officers and no clear idea of what they faced, some of them broke and ran.
Meanwhile I moved in fast to give the pikemen no chance, they had to drop their weapons and draw swords. One of them had his sword out just as my blade slashed his jaw vein, breaking his helmet strap and causeing the helmet to roll off. At this p0int I heard others coming up, the two officers were charging me!
I moved laterally, using the shield of the second man against him and getting him between me and the second pikeman. He tried a feeble swing, easily blocked. I now faced 4 opponents again, but two of them were officers and surely better fighters.
Yells of confusion and screams of panic echoed behind me, telling me that the Mu'ugalavyani were not doing well against our magic. In fact they had begun to run in all directions as javelins and semblances of the ssu appeared. Booted feet hurried up behind me...
The lower officer was the most dangerous, adopting the stance of a trained duellist. The other higher officer gave orders in the gutteral tongue of these people, but he seemed to have less knowledge of sword play. I kept moving around the shield man and the pikeman, who tried to get through my guard. One did, but the blow glanced from the heavy armor that I wore.
Just as I blocked the duellist, my guards arrived and attacked. I engaged the veteran and wounded him severely. The rest of the troops tried to run and the higher officer fell dead with 3 swords hacking him down. Just as I was about to yell that the duellist was my prisoner, the guards hit him also. He too went down under a hail of blows. We made short work of the rest of the troopers and cleaned up. My guards happily looted shields and scraped off the ugly paint jobs, grabbed pikes and belt pouches from the dead and basically proved why they worked for a merchant clan.
The night wasn't over. My merchants found the box that the officers had been carrying and opened it. Inside were a pair of heavy steel gauntlets with archaic writing of the ancients, or perhaps of the latter times. The head of the guards immediately tried them on and there was a 'click'. He was suddenly surrounded by a dim aura of some sort and tested his sword on a log, sundering it with ease. Magic!
Of course I immediately assigned him to look after those gloves, since a duellist and warrior such as myself wears nothing on the hands (too workmanlike). I even handed him the unique sword that I had acquired from the Hlyss, it seemed far better than his chlen hide one and I dug my old chlen hide longsword out of my pack. Bravery is a reward and rewards for bravery give us all honor.
The priest and pachi lei were curious about the hole from which the Mu'ugalavyani issued. I must admit that we couldn't have gone to sleep again near that considering what else may exit, so I took my archer (guard captain), javelin lady, the pachi lei and the priest to check while the guards arranged the corpses for burial. The hole was not to be seen until our pachi lei realized to use a psychic spell and reveal it to the magickers. He also tried throwing a rock at it, and the rock disintegrated... a trap.
Of course knowing the Mu'ugalavyani preferred their dead to be destroyed, I called the guards over and we disposed of the corpses using the disintegration method while the magickers pondered the problem of opening the door safely. Not flames perhaps, but better than worms in the ground for each corpse.
In the end, knowing that I held the 'sword of Janule' the group decided to try a spell that they were certain would open the door, and have me go first, since the sword resists technology strongly. I declined and we all went carefully forward where the trap had indeed faded due to our casters' work.
Our guards were ordered to stay outside with a couple of our merchants to keep them in line. We entered a strangly smooth walled corridor with an arched roof and very flat floor. Thie may indeed have been an installation of the Latter Times or earlier!
After winding down a little, the corridor (which was lighted by a soft glow from somewhere) split into two, with a small side passage going up and to the right, while the main passage continued to wind down. It was at this point that we found the tsolyani priest of Sarku and some magic using person of perhaps hry'y ... neither were in good condition to tell as they had been slaughtered horribly, with all internal organs missing.
This gave us pause.
It was then that the two little Ru'un things came up the side passage. We retreated before them but they did not seem to care about us, simply patrolling up the corridor a bit before returning to their passage. We followed them and passed down the passage into a blackness... then we were suddenly elsewhere.
Though the two little things kept moving across the huge cavernous room, we stayed still, standing on a pad with lights flashing along its perimeter. After discovering that we could not simply just 'go back', we moved into the room and heard a sound... 'hrummm?
I whispered that it was probably a Serudla just as one of the 70foot monsters walked out of the darkness... oh my! It appeared confused and I ordered everyone to scatter, look for a way out. Suddenly as we scattered something walked up behind it.. a Yeleth! I called out to watch out for hypnosis! (and it had the Serudla in its power already!)
Racing to the left along the wall of the massive room was a risk, I knew nothing of the footing, but hoped that the place was as clean as the rest of the complex had been so far. My javelin girl raced right and I called for 'hands of Kra' on the Yeleth. Both of our casters began to work at their spells. The guard captain charged the Yeleth, and using the magic gloves knocked it over!
Unfortunately our guard captain, wearing the gloves and wielding the sword of the hlyss was first to fall victim as he gazed into the eyes of the thing. He turned suddenly and started to rise, looking at the pachi lei, obviously hypnotized. I called for the javelin girl to intercept. At this point the priests' magic went off and trapped both the Yeleth and the brave captain in a web.
I had managed to work my way behind the Serudla and found a door, so I called out that fact, drew the Sword of Janule, said a little prayer and charged the Yeleth from behind. The Serudla twisted faster than I had thought possible to intercept me, but then stopped, its eyes blinking. I had no desire to engage it and the sword had not controlled me, but had in fact freed the animal from its tormentor!
The remaining battle went quickly as the Serudla stamped on the Yeleth until it was mush, our people grabbed the captain and managed to over write the domination, then gathered by the door that I had found. At this point the serudla said something that sounded like 'me go with you', and we stopped.
I saw that the door was too small for it, and asked it to come to the pad on which we had entered to see if I could figure out how to work that thing. It stood patiently on the pad while I pondered and when I gave up in frustration said 'we go now?
I replied 'sure, sure' in an absent minded tone and it pulled out an eye, pointed it at me and clicked it. Suddenly we were in the jungle again! It had a means with it and had meant that it would get me out for freeing it, not that it wanted me to find it a way out!
Thanking me, the Serudla handed me the eye of translocation and was about to trundle off when I asked' where are we?' It said, 'ask pe choi' and pointed out about 2 dozen of the beings in the trees around us, watching us quietly, then left. I asked of course, and they pointed my way to camp, then helped me get in the door again (they were thankful that we had killed the Mu'ugalavyani looters and saved the wildlife) so that I could once again join my trapped friends (who had found a control room with a tubeway car) and get them out. We used the eye again, gingerly (it has a hairline crack and I'm worried about misfires) and returned to camp by dawn. More adventures later, but for now... sleep.
-Hlucha
