Darkness on the Edge of Town – Marto Copperkettle – 5.01.22
Jan 10, 2022 13:22:15 GMT
Celina Zabinski, Velania Kalugina, and 3 more like this
Post by Marto Copperkettle on Jan 10, 2022 13:22:15 GMT
“Kantas is weird.”
That’s how the Commander of Daring’s First put it and Marto couldn’t agree more. There were stories his sister told him that Marto thought were fiction more than fact. But the more time he has spent in these lands the more he has come to realise how little he knows or understands of the world, and he should not underestimate this place.
For example the notice he had seen at the Fort. After delivering a round of Candlenights cards to some of his new friends – with a one for Iorveth that had a sprig of holy in what he hoped the eladrin would take as a sign of friendship – the young halfling had set off to Daring. Arriving early, he spotted Gerhard and Kavel, two familiar faces, though the former seemed a little distracted. Another fellow, a blue dragonborn by the name of Derthaad arrived not long afterwards and then finally a goblin fellow – goes by the name Goop – who was carrying around a fresh onion.
Commander Jadefist had been handing out jobs to groups of people, going down her list from the most dangerous to what was probably supposed to be least. The slip of paper Marto accepted from the dwarven commander was the last one and so she didn’t think it would be too dangerous for their fresh, green selves to handle.
Two weeks ago a farmer had reached out claiming his husband was going ‘loopy’. The farmstead being outside of the Sprawl of Daring meant it was a little bit out of the way for anyone to just walk on by and check in on. It was hard to tell from what little they had if it was anything really serious or just a love spat between a married couple that would end in divorce. Either way, Commander Jadefist was cautioning them all the same.
“Investigate, dig around. If it gets too much, just come on back and report what you find.”
“We’ll do that ma’am,” Marto said.
The commander’s scrutinising eye turned to him, giving Marto a thorough once over.
“What’s your name?” she asks curiously.
There was only a moment’s hesitancy as Marto remembered the last time someone asked for his name. “Marto Copperkettle.”
There was instant recognition on the dwarven woman’s face, but unlike Iorveth’s this one was affable. “Heh, making a name for yourself?” she asks with a knowing grin.
Marto’s grin is shy as he half shrugs. “Just finding my way.”
Commander Jadefist had given him another knowing look before turning to the others to appraise them.
Part of Marto felt proud to be recognised by his family name, and better yet to be associated with Merla. Yet another part of him couldn’t help but feel the shadow of his sister looming over him in an all too familiar way. He loved her from the moment they met, something that had been a pleasant surprise to their family. Having a lot in common helped. Back home in Earthart his whole life had been defined by her. Marto was hoping that when he started his journey here things might be a bit different and so far they had been.
But then Iroveth’s reaction to hearing his name, and now Commander Jadefist’s, had planted a seed of precarious uncertainty. What was he doing here in this strange place? Was he foolish for following the dream… vision… whatever it was that he had been having since his sister was reunited with their family?
There might only be one way to find out.
“So, what’s with the horse?” Marto asked around a mouthful of scones.
He didn’t pick up on the tension in Emmon, the farmer who had sent the request for help. Nor did he notice when the middle aged halfling nearly dropped the tea he had been passing to Gerhard. There was no mistaking the stiffness to his words when he answered though.
“My husband got it for me as a gift.”
The others share a look but Marto is too engrossed in the delicious rhubarb jam Emmon has offered to pair with the scones – so warm and fluffy, yet dense, and just melt in your mouth good! Yondalla’s children herself would be jealous of such baking!
“Maybe I’ll name it when he comes back,” Emmon adds.
The halfling farmer explains his husband left five nights ago, but he had started acting strange weeks before that. Ubric, the husband in question, would get upset easily, starting little fights over seemingly nothing. He eventually stopped coming to bed with Emmon. One night Emmon had had enough of just accepting things as they were and came down to see what in the world Ubric was doing.
Ubric was writing things down on bits of parchment, scrap pieces of anything he could find, all the while muttering in a language Emmon did not know. When confronted, his husband lashed out, and the row that resulted from it saw Emmon not ask again. It didn’t matter though because whatever Ubric wrote down he burned immediately anyways, somehow knowing Emmon would want to find out what in the Nine Hells Ubric was doing. Emmon further explained, Ubric would mutter in his sleep in a language he did not know.
“It sounded like something not from this Plane but don’t ask me to tell you where or what it sounds like,” Emmon said. He had started stuffing his face with his own scones, stress eating his emotions.
“Could you try speaking some of the words you heard your husband say?” Derthaad asks.
They all listened but none of them seemed to know the language. The dragonborn investigator suggested he might be able to recognise it if he took the time to cast a spell that would allow him to comprehend any language he heard, even if it’s just a word here and there. Marto, realising he was going to continue stuffing himself with scones until the cows came home, suggested he and Kavel take a look at the horse. Gerhard and Goop offered to take a look around the farm’s three buildings to see if they could find any tracks that might indicate where Ubric walked off to. Emmon offered the key to the third building, Ubric’s smithy, in case there would be anything though he doubted it.
“Hasn’t been in there since before he brought back the horse…”
Gerhard and Goop started scouting around whilst Marto and Kavel slowly made their way to the pen where the horse had been by the barn. The goliath was intimidating to stand beside due to his height but that didn’t phase Marto much. He was used to being around many taller folk in his previous line of work, not to mention the trees he had felled whilst working at the lumber yard. Their conversation was light, though the atmosphere surrounding the farm was gloomy, impressing something sinister on them.
They rounded the corner, saw the fenced off patch of land beside the barn but the large black friesian horse – an animal way too beautiful to be anything other than a noble’s prized pony, certainly not a working horse – was no longer there.
“Where’d the horse go?” Marto asks, gesturing to the air.
Gerhard and Goop come around the other side of the barn, eyes following a trail on the ground. They stop when they see the empty fenced off area.
“Where’s the horse?” Goop asks.
“That’s what I just said,” Marto laughs. He looks back to the farmhouse, his smile dying fast as a cold knot formed in his stomach. He traces out a symbol in the air, fingers curled in a unique arcane casting technique, drawing out a piece of copper wire as he does and bringing it up next to his mouth.
“So the horse is gone. Any luck with figuring out that language, Derthaad?”
“Funnily enough, yeah. It’s Infernal.”
Marto looks at the others and tells them what the investigator said.
Gerhard’s face is grim as he points. “The trail seems to go straight into the Angelbark forest.”
The knot becomes a stone and it drops into the pit of Marto’s gut. The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and though he doesn’t think a wind blows across the yard they stand in, he swears he feels a chill pass through him as his right palm begins to tingle.
“Look, child…”
He swallows hard as Marto tries to reign in his suddenly racing heart, a horrible trepidation creeping over him.
The clearing is covered in a four inch thick layer of ash. Smoke scratches at the back of Marto’s throat and every step kicks up swirls of grey that are already darkening their clothes.
They had walked for hours, following the black horse’s tracks. Strings of its long dark hair had been left in an easy to follow trail, like the breadcrumbs from the infamous fable of the brother and sister abandoned in the woods by horrible parents. Except their band of brothers were heading deeper into the woods, deeper into the mystery, deeper into trouble. It had grown dark fast. Marto carried a torch in his hand as he and the others stepped into the clearing, scanning to see if anything or anyone else was there besides the male dwarven figure they saw. There didn’t appear to be anyone else for the moment.
Ubric, for that’s the only person it could have been, was barefoot, his feet planted in the coals of what had probably once been a mighty bonfire – and that was still burning embers. Feet bleeding, head slumped down, breathing shallow, they weren’t sure if the dwarf was conscious or not.
“Are you Ubric?” Kavel bellows across the perfectly circular clearing. The coniferous trees lining the edges didn’t stir, not even in a breeze.
It was then that Marto noticed a symbol carved onto the stripped trunks of every pine tree surrounding them. That same chill from earlier blew threw him and he gripped the torch tighter. This was a trap if there ever was one.
Ubric turns around. He looked horrendous, clearly suffering from being in the cold forest for several wearing nothing but his knee length nightshirt. Eyes completely black, lips cracked and bleeding, how he was able to stand, Marto did not know. Then he opened his mouth and spoke. But it wasn’t just one voice, it was several; Ubric’s own – or what Marto thought must be his – a low baritone voice, a sultry female one, a melodious almost singing tenor, and many others. It became hard to tell them apart. Marto didn’t pay attention to the individual voices. Rather, he couldn’t help but hear the words they were all saying through Ubric.
From behind him, stepping through the trees, came the large black friesian horse they had been tracing. It’s dark eyes reflect the light of the torch in Marto’s hand, making them look more red than black. Then it begins to change, morphing into a humanoid form. Bare chest, rippling muscles, horned head, clawed hands, and two vicious looking swords at their side, the figure steps forward and in a voice smooth as burning embers with a smile that would melt even the heart of winter, they spoke.
“I am one of the five, and you will help us spread the word.”
Gerhard, the first to act, tries to cast a charm spell on Ubric, waving one of the many scones Emmon had given them for the road to help wake him up. There is a moment where Ubric falters, but the fiend speaks and the black that did start to shift from the dwarf’s eyes solidifies in place once more.
“He’s mine. You cannot have him.”
Marto wasn’t going to go along with that. Running forward, the protection of Yondalla surrounding him, he said, “Not unless we have something to say about it.”
The fiend, no the devil tilts its head, amused. “And why would you want to stop me when you could just pray to our Lady.”
“The only Lady I pray to is the Protector,” Marto says firmly, holding his shield close as he tosses the torch to the ashen ground, drawing his large axe.
“And who might that be, Chauntea?” the devil teases.
Marto shakes his head. “Try again.”
But before the fiend could answer or Marto could get any closer Ubric was suddenly charging at him. Clearly being controlled, Marto did not want to hurt him, their mission clearly becoming more serious by the second. He flipped his large lumberjack’s axe so the side of it knocked into the dwarf’s head, instead of the blade, with a resounding thump that seemed to stun him.
The fiend scowled, clearly seeing the magic Marto had meticulously woven over himself.
“Tsk, tsk. Let’s do away with these meager projections, shall we?” they said.
Marto felt the warmth surrounding him stripped away. Lifting his axe in preparation for an attack, the young halfling was not prepared for the world to go dark, the cold wintery forest falling away.
He looked around. Not understanding where he stood or what was happening, Marto tried to move but found his feet stuck. Distantly, as if cotton was stuffed into his ears he heard the fiend laugh and Derthaad shout something. It was then Marto noticed his shield and axe were no longer in his hands, though he thought he felt their weight still.
Confusion, dread, and a horrible chill were spilling into his mind. Suddenly, the symbol that had been carved into the trees where he had been was filling his vision. Everywhere he looked, there it was, a totem, looming over him. Marto felt a fiery heat silencing the distant voices of his comrades and in its place was the powerful presence of the devil from the clearing.
“You will help me spread the word. Protect me and I, Adhyël, will give you…”
The words trailed off as something else was trying to drown out the voice smooth as burning embers. It felt like the crackle of lightning, the smell of ozone, of something arcane, bright and powerful. Whipping around in the darkness Marto reaches out, and feels something wrap around his wrist, cordoning him off from the dark.
Black tears fall from his eyes and Marto is suddenly back in control of himself, the charm Adhyël had laid upon him, dispelled by Derthaad’s magic.
“Get Ubric out of there!” the dragonborn shouts as he moves to the edge of the trees.
“Good idea!” Kavel agrees before running straight for Adhyël.
Gerhard is the one to come up to Ubric, the same scone still in his hand. The ranger begins to pull the dwarf away and Ubric seems to be willing to go with him, even though his is clearly in shock at what is going on. Marto gives Gerhard a nod before running over to join Kavel in his assault on Adhyël, a surge of adrenalin allowing him to swing his axe at a speed he has not done before.
Adhyël cries out, the sound coming across more like indignant rage than actual hurt. His clawed hands grow to deadlier points and he tries to retaliate against the both of them. The young eldritch knight intercepts the attack on his goliath comrade, bringing his axe up to shield his own face from the black claws. Then Goop comes out of left field, swinging his onion around in a sock, bashing it against Adhyël’s sides in pointed and precise strikes.
Lightning. Fire. Burning lungs. Hefting swings. It all comes to a narrow focus for Marto as he pours all his strength into every attack, every test of his endurance as they fight the devil. Sometimes he fails, but Kavel is there beside him, flexing his pecs where the embers of the devil’s flame attack barely affect the man made of stone. In that moment there could be no doubt that Kavel ‘Smashy Hands’ Castiron is Adhyël’s equal in this fight.
With one last massive strike to the side of the head, Adhyël falls, melting into a puddle of dark goo on the ashen forest floor. Goop, Kavel and Marto give a good hearted cheer for having vanquished the devil.
Emmon is in tears when they bring Ubric back. He then offers for their party to stay the night and they all gladly accept. Muscles aching in a way he’s not felt before, Marto helps their host prepare a nice warm dinner, falling easily into the motions of home life without a second thought to distract himself from what had happened when Adhyël had taken over his mind.
The next day when Ubric finally awoke, he told them how he came to be in possession of the dark horse. He had gone to the market in Daring, wanting to get a horse for Emmon for his birthday, but quickly discovered he could not afford one. Then a stranger came up to him. They did not want gold, nor jewels or anything of material value. All they said they wanted was a favour. Ubric being married to a halfling and growing up in a culture where you lend a hand when someone needs help didn’t think anything of it – and so agreed.
“That was the last thing I remember clearly. After that my mind wasn’t my own. I remember drawing the symbol everywhere I could. It is their cause. That the devil, Adhyël, was only the first. There are others and they…”
Ubric didn’t have to finish the thought. Marto hadn’t been controlled by Adhyël for long but he knew what the dwarf couldn’t say.
“And they are coming.”
That’s how the Commander of Daring’s First put it and Marto couldn’t agree more. There were stories his sister told him that Marto thought were fiction more than fact. But the more time he has spent in these lands the more he has come to realise how little he knows or understands of the world, and he should not underestimate this place.
For example the notice he had seen at the Fort. After delivering a round of Candlenights cards to some of his new friends – with a one for Iorveth that had a sprig of holy in what he hoped the eladrin would take as a sign of friendship – the young halfling had set off to Daring. Arriving early, he spotted Gerhard and Kavel, two familiar faces, though the former seemed a little distracted. Another fellow, a blue dragonborn by the name of Derthaad arrived not long afterwards and then finally a goblin fellow – goes by the name Goop – who was carrying around a fresh onion.
Commander Jadefist had been handing out jobs to groups of people, going down her list from the most dangerous to what was probably supposed to be least. The slip of paper Marto accepted from the dwarven commander was the last one and so she didn’t think it would be too dangerous for their fresh, green selves to handle.
Two weeks ago a farmer had reached out claiming his husband was going ‘loopy’. The farmstead being outside of the Sprawl of Daring meant it was a little bit out of the way for anyone to just walk on by and check in on. It was hard to tell from what little they had if it was anything really serious or just a love spat between a married couple that would end in divorce. Either way, Commander Jadefist was cautioning them all the same.
“Investigate, dig around. If it gets too much, just come on back and report what you find.”
“We’ll do that ma’am,” Marto said.
The commander’s scrutinising eye turned to him, giving Marto a thorough once over.
“What’s your name?” she asks curiously.
There was only a moment’s hesitancy as Marto remembered the last time someone asked for his name. “Marto Copperkettle.”
There was instant recognition on the dwarven woman’s face, but unlike Iorveth’s this one was affable. “Heh, making a name for yourself?” she asks with a knowing grin.
Marto’s grin is shy as he half shrugs. “Just finding my way.”
Commander Jadefist had given him another knowing look before turning to the others to appraise them.
Part of Marto felt proud to be recognised by his family name, and better yet to be associated with Merla. Yet another part of him couldn’t help but feel the shadow of his sister looming over him in an all too familiar way. He loved her from the moment they met, something that had been a pleasant surprise to their family. Having a lot in common helped. Back home in Earthart his whole life had been defined by her. Marto was hoping that when he started his journey here things might be a bit different and so far they had been.
But then Iroveth’s reaction to hearing his name, and now Commander Jadefist’s, had planted a seed of precarious uncertainty. What was he doing here in this strange place? Was he foolish for following the dream… vision… whatever it was that he had been having since his sister was reunited with their family?
There might only be one way to find out.
“So, what’s with the horse?” Marto asked around a mouthful of scones.
He didn’t pick up on the tension in Emmon, the farmer who had sent the request for help. Nor did he notice when the middle aged halfling nearly dropped the tea he had been passing to Gerhard. There was no mistaking the stiffness to his words when he answered though.
“My husband got it for me as a gift.”
The others share a look but Marto is too engrossed in the delicious rhubarb jam Emmon has offered to pair with the scones – so warm and fluffy, yet dense, and just melt in your mouth good! Yondalla’s children herself would be jealous of such baking!
“Maybe I’ll name it when he comes back,” Emmon adds.
The halfling farmer explains his husband left five nights ago, but he had started acting strange weeks before that. Ubric, the husband in question, would get upset easily, starting little fights over seemingly nothing. He eventually stopped coming to bed with Emmon. One night Emmon had had enough of just accepting things as they were and came down to see what in the world Ubric was doing.
Ubric was writing things down on bits of parchment, scrap pieces of anything he could find, all the while muttering in a language Emmon did not know. When confronted, his husband lashed out, and the row that resulted from it saw Emmon not ask again. It didn’t matter though because whatever Ubric wrote down he burned immediately anyways, somehow knowing Emmon would want to find out what in the Nine Hells Ubric was doing. Emmon further explained, Ubric would mutter in his sleep in a language he did not know.
“It sounded like something not from this Plane but don’t ask me to tell you where or what it sounds like,” Emmon said. He had started stuffing his face with his own scones, stress eating his emotions.
“Could you try speaking some of the words you heard your husband say?” Derthaad asks.
They all listened but none of them seemed to know the language. The dragonborn investigator suggested he might be able to recognise it if he took the time to cast a spell that would allow him to comprehend any language he heard, even if it’s just a word here and there. Marto, realising he was going to continue stuffing himself with scones until the cows came home, suggested he and Kavel take a look at the horse. Gerhard and Goop offered to take a look around the farm’s three buildings to see if they could find any tracks that might indicate where Ubric walked off to. Emmon offered the key to the third building, Ubric’s smithy, in case there would be anything though he doubted it.
“Hasn’t been in there since before he brought back the horse…”
Gerhard and Goop started scouting around whilst Marto and Kavel slowly made their way to the pen where the horse had been by the barn. The goliath was intimidating to stand beside due to his height but that didn’t phase Marto much. He was used to being around many taller folk in his previous line of work, not to mention the trees he had felled whilst working at the lumber yard. Their conversation was light, though the atmosphere surrounding the farm was gloomy, impressing something sinister on them.
They rounded the corner, saw the fenced off patch of land beside the barn but the large black friesian horse – an animal way too beautiful to be anything other than a noble’s prized pony, certainly not a working horse – was no longer there.
“Where’d the horse go?” Marto asks, gesturing to the air.
Gerhard and Goop come around the other side of the barn, eyes following a trail on the ground. They stop when they see the empty fenced off area.
“Where’s the horse?” Goop asks.
“That’s what I just said,” Marto laughs. He looks back to the farmhouse, his smile dying fast as a cold knot formed in his stomach. He traces out a symbol in the air, fingers curled in a unique arcane casting technique, drawing out a piece of copper wire as he does and bringing it up next to his mouth.
“So the horse is gone. Any luck with figuring out that language, Derthaad?”
“Funnily enough, yeah. It’s Infernal.”
Marto looks at the others and tells them what the investigator said.
Gerhard’s face is grim as he points. “The trail seems to go straight into the Angelbark forest.”
The knot becomes a stone and it drops into the pit of Marto’s gut. The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and though he doesn’t think a wind blows across the yard they stand in, he swears he feels a chill pass through him as his right palm begins to tingle.
“Look, child…”
He swallows hard as Marto tries to reign in his suddenly racing heart, a horrible trepidation creeping over him.
The clearing is covered in a four inch thick layer of ash. Smoke scratches at the back of Marto’s throat and every step kicks up swirls of grey that are already darkening their clothes.
They had walked for hours, following the black horse’s tracks. Strings of its long dark hair had been left in an easy to follow trail, like the breadcrumbs from the infamous fable of the brother and sister abandoned in the woods by horrible parents. Except their band of brothers were heading deeper into the woods, deeper into the mystery, deeper into trouble. It had grown dark fast. Marto carried a torch in his hand as he and the others stepped into the clearing, scanning to see if anything or anyone else was there besides the male dwarven figure they saw. There didn’t appear to be anyone else for the moment.
Ubric, for that’s the only person it could have been, was barefoot, his feet planted in the coals of what had probably once been a mighty bonfire – and that was still burning embers. Feet bleeding, head slumped down, breathing shallow, they weren’t sure if the dwarf was conscious or not.
“Are you Ubric?” Kavel bellows across the perfectly circular clearing. The coniferous trees lining the edges didn’t stir, not even in a breeze.
It was then that Marto noticed a symbol carved onto the stripped trunks of every pine tree surrounding them. That same chill from earlier blew threw him and he gripped the torch tighter. This was a trap if there ever was one.
Ubric turns around. He looked horrendous, clearly suffering from being in the cold forest for several wearing nothing but his knee length nightshirt. Eyes completely black, lips cracked and bleeding, how he was able to stand, Marto did not know. Then he opened his mouth and spoke. But it wasn’t just one voice, it was several; Ubric’s own – or what Marto thought must be his – a low baritone voice, a sultry female one, a melodious almost singing tenor, and many others. It became hard to tell them apart. Marto didn’t pay attention to the individual voices. Rather, he couldn’t help but hear the words they were all saying through Ubric.
“I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign:
Five angels with the five last plagues —
Last because with them Goddess’s wrath is completed.
They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,
Worthy are you, our Lord and Goddess,
To receive glory and honor and power.”
From behind him, stepping through the trees, came the large black friesian horse they had been tracing. It’s dark eyes reflect the light of the torch in Marto’s hand, making them look more red than black. Then it begins to change, morphing into a humanoid form. Bare chest, rippling muscles, horned head, clawed hands, and two vicious looking swords at their side, the figure steps forward and in a voice smooth as burning embers with a smile that would melt even the heart of winter, they spoke.
“I am one of the five, and you will help us spread the word.”
Gerhard, the first to act, tries to cast a charm spell on Ubric, waving one of the many scones Emmon had given them for the road to help wake him up. There is a moment where Ubric falters, but the fiend speaks and the black that did start to shift from the dwarf’s eyes solidifies in place once more.
“He’s mine. You cannot have him.”
Marto wasn’t going to go along with that. Running forward, the protection of Yondalla surrounding him, he said, “Not unless we have something to say about it.”
The fiend, no the devil tilts its head, amused. “And why would you want to stop me when you could just pray to our Lady.”
“The only Lady I pray to is the Protector,” Marto says firmly, holding his shield close as he tosses the torch to the ashen ground, drawing his large axe.
“And who might that be, Chauntea?” the devil teases.
Marto shakes his head. “Try again.”
But before the fiend could answer or Marto could get any closer Ubric was suddenly charging at him. Clearly being controlled, Marto did not want to hurt him, their mission clearly becoming more serious by the second. He flipped his large lumberjack’s axe so the side of it knocked into the dwarf’s head, instead of the blade, with a resounding thump that seemed to stun him.
The fiend scowled, clearly seeing the magic Marto had meticulously woven over himself.
“Tsk, tsk. Let’s do away with these meager projections, shall we?” they said.
Marto felt the warmth surrounding him stripped away. Lifting his axe in preparation for an attack, the young halfling was not prepared for the world to go dark, the cold wintery forest falling away.
He looked around. Not understanding where he stood or what was happening, Marto tried to move but found his feet stuck. Distantly, as if cotton was stuffed into his ears he heard the fiend laugh and Derthaad shout something. It was then Marto noticed his shield and axe were no longer in his hands, though he thought he felt their weight still.
Confusion, dread, and a horrible chill were spilling into his mind. Suddenly, the symbol that had been carved into the trees where he had been was filling his vision. Everywhere he looked, there it was, a totem, looming over him. Marto felt a fiery heat silencing the distant voices of his comrades and in its place was the powerful presence of the devil from the clearing.
“You will help me spread the word. Protect me and I, Adhyël, will give you…”
The words trailed off as something else was trying to drown out the voice smooth as burning embers. It felt like the crackle of lightning, the smell of ozone, of something arcane, bright and powerful. Whipping around in the darkness Marto reaches out, and feels something wrap around his wrist, cordoning him off from the dark.
Black tears fall from his eyes and Marto is suddenly back in control of himself, the charm Adhyël had laid upon him, dispelled by Derthaad’s magic.
“Get Ubric out of there!” the dragonborn shouts as he moves to the edge of the trees.
“Good idea!” Kavel agrees before running straight for Adhyël.
Gerhard is the one to come up to Ubric, the same scone still in his hand. The ranger begins to pull the dwarf away and Ubric seems to be willing to go with him, even though his is clearly in shock at what is going on. Marto gives Gerhard a nod before running over to join Kavel in his assault on Adhyël, a surge of adrenalin allowing him to swing his axe at a speed he has not done before.
Adhyël cries out, the sound coming across more like indignant rage than actual hurt. His clawed hands grow to deadlier points and he tries to retaliate against the both of them. The young eldritch knight intercepts the attack on his goliath comrade, bringing his axe up to shield his own face from the black claws. Then Goop comes out of left field, swinging his onion around in a sock, bashing it against Adhyël’s sides in pointed and precise strikes.
Lightning. Fire. Burning lungs. Hefting swings. It all comes to a narrow focus for Marto as he pours all his strength into every attack, every test of his endurance as they fight the devil. Sometimes he fails, but Kavel is there beside him, flexing his pecs where the embers of the devil’s flame attack barely affect the man made of stone. In that moment there could be no doubt that Kavel ‘Smashy Hands’ Castiron is Adhyël’s equal in this fight.
With one last massive strike to the side of the head, Adhyël falls, melting into a puddle of dark goo on the ashen forest floor. Goop, Kavel and Marto give a good hearted cheer for having vanquished the devil.
Emmon is in tears when they bring Ubric back. He then offers for their party to stay the night and they all gladly accept. Muscles aching in a way he’s not felt before, Marto helps their host prepare a nice warm dinner, falling easily into the motions of home life without a second thought to distract himself from what had happened when Adhyël had taken over his mind.
The next day when Ubric finally awoke, he told them how he came to be in possession of the dark horse. He had gone to the market in Daring, wanting to get a horse for Emmon for his birthday, but quickly discovered he could not afford one. Then a stranger came up to him. They did not want gold, nor jewels or anything of material value. All they said they wanted was a favour. Ubric being married to a halfling and growing up in a culture where you lend a hand when someone needs help didn’t think anything of it – and so agreed.
“That was the last thing I remember clearly. After that my mind wasn’t my own. I remember drawing the symbol everywhere I could. It is their cause. That the devil, Adhyël, was only the first. There are others and they…”
Ubric didn’t have to finish the thought. Marto hadn’t been controlled by Adhyël for long but he knew what the dwarf couldn’t say.
“And they are coming.”
