Tymora's luck

ACT THREE SCENE 7

Jas looked out over the Bastion of Hate from the roof of Xvim's tower. From here, she could see the dark outline of the canyon ridge where Walinda's bar-lgura kept watch in their invisible form. If she looked directly down, Jas could see the torches twinkling along the fortress wall and in the courtyard below. She and Emilo had witnessed the mezzoloths toss someone with a crest of red hair through the tower's front door and lock him inside. The finder's stone confirmed that Joel was somewhere beneath them, but its beam stubbornly pointed to a trapdoor entrance on the tower's roof, which was bolted securely from the other side.

The windows to the tower were blocked by invisible magical barriers, and there were at least twenty yugoloths guarding the front door, so the roof entry was the only way to reach Joel. Emilo was examining it now by the light of a torch, looking for some way to slip the bolt or break through the trapdoor.

After depositing Emilo on the roof of the tower, Jas had tried flying toward Walinda's camp, but the barrier that kept things from flying into the fortress also prevented her from flying away. As far as she could tell, the barrier was a dome that came to a peak over the tower, then fell straight down to the city walls. She returned to the tower roof, having ascertained there was no way out but the gate.

Now she leaned against the parapet and enjoyed the slight breeze. It was hot atop the tower, but not as hot as it was down below. She was feeling a lot calmer now. At first she'd been annoyed that Finder and Tymora had allowed her to continue in her state of self-deception, but she realized she wouldn't have believed them if they'd told her the truth. She believed Emilo, though. She wasn't sure why, but she was certain the kender was incapable of deceiving her.

Her hands had returned to normal, but her face was still covered with feathers and her eyes still glowed. She suspected that in this unholy realm of the god of hate, where she couldn't forget her hatred of Walinda, she could never shed the dark stalker form entirely. The sense that she was possessed by something evil had faded, however. She had set aside her guilt that she had not yet destroyed Walinda by focusing, as Emilo had suggested, on the word yet. She would find a way to mete out justice to the evil priestess. In the meantime, Jas was left with only her grief, which was far more painful but much less frightening.

Frustrated by his failure to slip the bolt on the trapdoor, Emilo poured some lantern oil along the edge of the door and set it alight. The door was made from stout wood, though, and did not catch ablaze easily. The kender succeeded only in charring the wood. Then Jas began stabbing at it with her dagger, trying to create a hole large enough for Emilo to get his slender arm through.

"How mad do you think Iyachtu Xvim would be if he suddenly came home and discovered us vandalizing his tower?" Emilo asked.

Jas snorted. "From what I've heard about him, you'd be dead before you found out, which is probably preferable to being left alive. The church of Xvim is known for its elaborate methods of torturing their sacrifices to death, which they wouldn't do if it displeased their god."

"I wonder why they locked Joel in there," the kender mused.

The tip of Jas's dagger chipped on an iron plate beneath the wood. "Damn!" she cursed, kicking the door with irritation. She fingered the dagger blade to survey the damage. "What I wouldn't give for a packet of smoke powder," she said.

"What's that?" Emilo asked.

"Magic powder that causes explosions," Jas explained. The beauty of it is you don't have to be a wizard to use it."

"But wouldn't an explosion attract too much attention?" Emilo asked.

"Probably, but it would tear this door to shreds in moments," Jas replied.

Suddenly the door moved. Emilo, who'd been sitting on top of it, hopped off in alarm. Jas flew straight up into the darkness.

The door swung open, and a tall, black-scaled figure with a crest of red hair climbed out of the tower. He had his sword drawn and a grim look on his face.

Jas landed behind the figure with her sword at its back.

In Joel's voice, the figure cried out, "Hey, watch who you poke with that thing."

Sheepishly Jas lowered her weapon, remembering that Joel had disguised himself before they'd arrived. "About time you got up here," she chided the bard. "We've been trying to dig our way through this door for nearly an hour."

Joel collapsed on the rooftop, gasping for air. "You try climbing all those stairs in better time," he challenged Jas when he'd caught his breath once again. "That was worse than the staircase in the Blood Tor. The steps are huge. I had to abandon one of the backpacks after the first hundred steps." The bard tilted his head and peered at Jas. "So you're all right now?" he asked. "I thought-"

"That I'd lost my sanity?" Jas asked. She looked over at the kender and winked. "I gave a pretty good performance, didn't I?"

"You're telling me that was an act?" Joel demanded with disbelief. "What about the way you were transformed?"

"Well, that I can't help," Jas admitted.

"You really had me worried," Joel said.

"Sorry," Jas said.

There was an awkward silence as the bard stared at Jas, trying to discern if she was telling the truth about her earlier behavior.

"So what's down there?" Emilo asked as he peered down into the darkness of the tower.

Joel put the question of Jas's sanity aside for now. "I didn't stop to look into any of the rooms in the upper stories," he explained. "The first floor was interesting enough." The bard described what he'd seen in Xvim's throne room and related everything he'd learned from Ratagar Perivalious.

"Xvim didn't even come back to save his followers from Beshaba?" Emilo asked, wide-eyed with astonishment.

"It's not like he really cares about any of them," Jas pointed out.

Joel shook his head. "He may not care, but he must realize that without his followers, he has no power. And not coming to their defense is a tremendous display of weakness," Joel pointed out. "He didn't even return when Beshaba became unconscious. It's very strange. It's possible he can't return."

"So what now?" Jas asked.

"From what I can tell," Joel said, "all Xvim's priests and followers are cringing in the temple, trying to keep away from Beshaba's bad luck. I noticed one exception. There was a human at the gate. The priests don't dare leave the fortress's only access in the hands of yugoloth mercenaries. Xvim doesn't trust anyone or anything, but his priests preach that humans are the chosen people. My bet is there's a human priest at the gate. He could be fanatically loyal, or he could be dying to leave his post so he can cower in the temple with his fellow priests. I'm going to change my shape into another priest and check him out."

"What about Emilo and me?" Jas asked.

"Well, I thought the pair of you could just run around causing trouble… without getting caught, of course. One of the priests told me the yugoloths live in caverns in the cliff wall, but the lava from the mount makes it too dangerous there for humans. I saw several yugoloths coming and going from the bastion walls. Concentrate your sabotage there. Take advantage of any opportunities that present themselves. Scatter Walinda's false gemstones, steal or destroy any weapons or magic you can. When you're done, fly back up here and hide. I'll signal you with the finder's stone when I'm finished at the gate."

Joel used another scroll to change his shape back to human form, creating the illusion of a shaved head and pierced lip and the robes of a hatemaster. In a superficial way, he now resembled Hatemaster Morr.

Joel took back the finder's stone from Emilo. He slid the stone into his shirt with a visible sense of relief. Then Jas flew the bard down to the bastion wall, as near to the gate as she dared to go. She landed in the shadows of the parapet. The eternal darkness of Gehenna, lit only by lava and torchlight, made sneaking around the fortress possible, especially since no one suspected the adventurers were roaming around unconstrained. The wall adjacent to the gate, though, was better lit.

As Joel made his way toward the gate, Jas returned for Emilo. Together she and the kender slipped into a window in the inner bastion wall that looked out over the courtyard. Then they began exploring.

Although the yugoloths lived in the caverns in the cliff, Jas and Emilo discovered several great mess halls on the ground floor of the structure built between the bastion walls. Most of the tables and benches were suited to the size of the giant cricket-shaped yugoloths, but there were smaller accommodations as well, either for humans or for the lobster-shaped yugoloths.

"This must be the mess hall," Emilo said.

"I thought Joel said the yugoloths live in the caverns in the cliff," Jas murmured. "Why would their mess halls be near the wall?"

"Maybe it's like oats and horses," Emilo suggested. The food brings the yugoloths in from the cliff like oats bring horses to the stables. Then, after they've eaten, Xvim's men put them to work."

Jas nodded. It made sense. The yugoloths were mercenaries, They weren't going to assemble for work for the love of Xvim; they had to be bribed.

They discovered one mess hall where four human priests, acolytes by the look of their robes, were scooping some white gelatinous porridge into giant bowls and setting them out on the table. The priests finished serving and moved on to the next mess hall.

"This looks like a good place to start," Jas suggested.

An indescribable stench rose from the putrid white globs in the bowls.

"That stuff would send any decent horse running back to the pasture," Jas declared.

Emilo scampered down the benches alongside the yugoloths' mess tables as Jas kept watch from the doorway. He sowed the tables with Walinda's phony gems at random intervals. Occasionally he'd drop a gem into a bowl. Some yugoloths would be rewarded at dinner, while others would go wanting.

Somewhere nearby someone rang a gong four times.

"They're coming," Jas hissed, hurrying to one of the narrow windows that looked out over the courtyard. Emilo hopped down from a bench and hurried after her. Jas squeezed through the window and perched on the window's keystone while the kender watched from the windowsill.

It was only a matter of minutes before discord erupted as the large yugoloths and their shorter commanders set to squabbling over the gemstones. Within another few minutes, there was all-out warfare in the mess hall.

Jas scooped up the kender and moved on. They planted the seeds of discontent in two more mess halls before they ran out of gems. Then they sneaked in through a window of the wall's upper level.

In a locked room, opened handily by Emilo, the pair discovered an arsenal of missile weaponry: arrows, crossbows, and spears. The same room was lined with arrow slits along the outer wall of the bastion.

Emilo poked an arrow out a window slit. There was no invisible barrier to stop it, but when the kender tried to draw the arrow back inside, the arrow stuck in midair. "It's a one-way barrier," he noted. "We could push everything out the windows."

Jas shook her head. "The yugoloths stationed atop the wall are likely to hear the clatter. We have to find someplace- Hello. What have we here?" The winged woman held up a strange-looking device Emilo had never seen before. It looked like a short hollow wand with a wooden handle.

"What is it?" Emilo asked.

"An arquebus. It's a weapon that uses smoke powder," Jas explained. With her sword, she began prying the lid off the small barrel next to which she'd found the arquebus. "Remember that stuff I mentioned before? The stuff that causes explosions?" Jas yanked the lid off the barrel to reveal a fine silver and black powder.

"Is that smoke powder?" Emilo asked, stepping closer and sniffing. "Ew. I once knew a gnome that smelled like that."

"Stay back with that torch," Jas ordered the kender. "Gods, if only Arandes was alive to see this," she murmured as she stirred her fingers gently through the powder that filled the barrel. "He was a gif," she explained to Emilo. "Gif measure their honor in part by how much smoke powder they possess."

"Is that a lot of smoke powder?" Emilo asked.

"Oh, yes," Jas replied, pressing the lid back onto the small barrel. "I wonder if there's any more around…"