Searching for the Signal – Marto Copperkettle – 31.03.2022
Apr 2, 2022 20:30:24 GMT
Velania Kalugina, Derthaad, and 1 more like this
Post by Marto Copperkettle on Apr 2, 2022 20:30:24 GMT
The world somehow always manages to find a way of reminding you of the one thing you’d rather not think about. For Marto, he took another job so soon after the last in the hopes that it would keep his mind off of Adhyël, the schemes he and the other Heralds were hell bent on making everyone part of. Talking with Councilwoman Aurelia Archselon about advanced magical theory relating to portals and planar stability was the level of distraction he had stooped to now. It was fascinating, and way beyond anything he knew or might ever know, but Marto enjoyed how she spoke of the subject.
But when a red dragonborn showed up, bearing the standard of the Nine Hells, wearing unmistakably fiendish armour, everything Marto had not been thinking about came to the forefront of his mind.
“Hello,” Marto says, rather sharply. “And who are you?”
The dragonborn looked him up and down, gaze lingering on the very mundane splint mail armour the young knight wore. He smirks.
“My name is Taz.”
Marto frowns, the name sounding familiar, yet he cannot place where he’s heard it before. He introduces himself and proceeds to ask if the fiendish apparel was his standard fair for him or fairly new. Taz told him how he acquired it and Marto began to relax bit by bit. As the two talked, others arrived – Derthaad and Amble, the latter with a mastiff steed – and Marto felt a little guilty for coming across so standoffish at first. It really wasn’t like him to be so rude. But recent events were starting to take their toll.
Beets was the last to show up, a basket of fresh muffins in hand. She was offering them out to everyone, Councilwoman Archselon taking two, and was holding one out to Amble’s mount.
“No!” Marto says suddenly. He grabs the sugar and cream filled muffin just as the mastiff was about to go for it. “We don’t wanna give the dog the shits.”
“Wow, Marto. Okay,” Beets says, giving him a strange look. “Since when do you use such foul language?”
He shakes his head, exasperated, ignoring the policing of his words to focus on the point she clearly is missing. “There’s certain food dogs shouldn’t eat, else they’ll get really sick. Do you want to kill Amble’s mount?”
It was Beets’ turn to be confused. “What? No! I just- You’ve been swearing a lot, Marto. It’s not like you.”
The anger that flared in him was hot, intense, and very much not like him. He clamped down on the words that rose up from the echoing hollow of his chest, choosing instead to shake his head.
“Just- Don’t feed the dog the muffin,” he says flatly, stepping away.
D’Avalon had changed. There were more people than Marto remembered bustling about. People were coming and going rapidly from the grand cathedral they had been teleported to – a place the young knight had not seen up close the last time he was there. It didn’t take long to hear the reason: Refugees from Trecorvum had been arriving since Gadenthor, the once-fallen-now-flying Netherese city, had begun to be raided by githyanki trespassers.
Their group was ushered inside and soon heard the only footsteps that mattered in such a building. Lady Dahlia was a vision of beauty and grace, and as it turned out, a bard. The cathedral was her instrument and it had so much magic poured into over the past five hundred years that, though it was not completely sentient, it had a way of making sure the Mistress of the Towers was the one being heard when all others were not quiet.
Lady Dahlia led them to the vault for the city that resided underneath, asking them to turn away when she needed to sing the entrance into existence. Marto was once more forgetting about icy branded marks on his ribs or dark, alluring laughter as he marvelled at the magic all around him. He had to tell Merla about this place, possibly even advise her to visit. But maybe after the people of Trecorvum weren’t in the midst of an increasingly concerning crisis.
If it’s not one thing, it’s another.
“LET ME GO! I CAN GET THEM. JUST-”
The king was being held, pressed against the wall just in front of the vault’s entrance. His wife and husband were holding their pawed hands out and Marto guessed they were keeping King Verin in place by some kind of potent telekinetic magic. Lady Dahlia sighed.
“Why can’t he go in with us?” Beets asks the tall elven woman.
“Because he is the king. If something were to happen to him it would create… problems,” Lady Dahlia replies.
They were appraised of the situation: The githyanki had been in there for a day but still had not found what they were looking for – a beacon of some kind the Queens of Tecorvum had gifted to the King a number of years ago, mistakenly thinking it was an interesting sculpture.
“We noticed it started to glow with energy not long after Gadenthor took to the skies again. We thought it would be safe in our vaults but now the githyanki have snuck in. It’s only a matter of time before they find it. We don’t know what it does, but if the choice comes to letting them escape with it or destroying it, we’d like you to choose the latter.”
They were falling. They kept falling. And then they fell some more.
Marto wondered if he would ever feel the ground beneath his feet again.
When they did stop it was sudden, magic catching them in the final three inches before the vault’s floor would have embraced them in certain death. His stomach was in his throat, his fingers were tingling, and he stood unsteadily on his feet. But they were here and they had work to do.
The circular chamber they were in was massive, with eight hallways branching off in all directions. He tried to see if there was a disturbance of footprints in the dust but Marto couldn’t find any. Amble began to ritually recast detect magic whilst the others began to wander about.
There really was nothing to it. They just had to pick a hallway and start eliminating their options one at a time.
The first hallway Marto went down seemed to not have any traps. Then he heard a voice behind him and when he turned two statues had come to life. They seemed nice at first, asking what he was doing there. Marto said he was looking for some interlopers, and asked if they were down the hallway. They said no. Then the statues started getting suspicious. Marto quickly and carefully backed out of there.
The second hallway was Derthaad’s choice. The sergeant of Daring Height’s City Watch barely crossed into it before the floor began crumbling away behind him. It stopped when he reached a tile that had an abjuration magic symbol on it. Beets followed behind him in the air, and was trying to catch up when a net caught her and forced her back into the main room. Derthaad tried to continue on his own, but either he misjudged his strength or leaped to the wrong tile and he fell into a pit of spikes. Marto was just trying to figure out how he could help when Derthaad appeared with a clap of thunder behind him in the main room.
The third hallway was Taz’s choice. It seemed similar to the one Marto went down with apparent traps. Then Taz rounded the corner and suddenly a javelin was impaling him to the wall.
“Hold on!”
Marto ran in and helped get the javelin out of Taz’s shoulder before helping him behind the corner.
“Are you okay?” Marto asks, checking Taz over.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
With a nod, Marto turns back to the hallway trying to see if there was some trap disabler but he cannot see anything.
“Amble, can your magic detecting eyes see anything?” he asks the gnome wizard.
“Yes. There,” Amble says, pointing. “Looks like you have to put your hand there. Let me try my mage hand.”
But it doesn’t work.
“Right.”
Beets flies over. “Marto don’t-”
He runs across, putting his hand in the indent but not before he gets a javelin to the shoulder.
“Fuck!”
“He said, ‘You are out of time,’” Beets repeated.
Marto suddenly turns around and runs back to the main room.
Emerging from the southern hallway are three githyanki carrying the beacon between them. The one in front cackles, saying something in a language he doesn’t understand.
Then they begin to cast a spell.
“I don’t think so!” Derthaad shouts, countering their spell.
The smile drops from their faces and before they can try anything else, the halfling knight is upon them, swinging his axe down over and over again on the artefact. It shatters under the force of Marto’s adamantine axe and though he’s in the midst of three strong warriors, shoulder injured from a magical javelin trap, he doesn’t care. He’s ready to fight. He’s ready to finally do something.
“It doesn’t matter…” their leader says. Then they clasp hands and planeshift away.
Derthaad and Amble took the githyanki Taz had suggested they capture back to Daring Heights. Beets, Marto and the dragonborn decided to stay for a few more hours sparring with King Verin. One might think three against one was unfair but the king was a mighty warrior and a formidable opponent. He put them through their paces and they did their best to hold on, but in the end it was a narrow win for the king of D’Avalon.
Taz comes up to him afterwards as Marto is gathering his belongings.
“You see down. Everything alright?” the dragonborn asks.
“Feeling stuck on what to do is hard when you’re uncertain. But I think… I’ve come to a decision today. This job – it helped. This,” Marto gestures to the sparring field they were just on, “really helped. You’re pretty frightening but I can see why she likes you still, even if you don’t talk that often anymore.” He smiles and its the most relaxed he has seemed since he met Taz back in Portal Plaza.
Taz looks a bit confused. “Who likes me?” he asks.
“Someone you used to know,” the halfling winks, and starts gathering up his things to head to the teleportation circle. As Marto turns away, Taz gives him a curious smile, possibly seeing the resemblance to his sister. Marto remembered why he recognised Taz – he was with Merla when they fought Zariel’s armies in Avernus.
“Nice job in there today Marto…” Beets says, gently clasping him on the shoulder as they make their way out of the training yard. “Sorry if I’ve been... a bit of a bug lately. I was… worried about you is all... “
“It’s okay, Beets. I’m… I’ll be okay. I know what I gotta do.” He rests a hand on top of hers, gives it a little squeeze, then begins to make his way to the teleportation circle, to get back to Daring Heights.
Continued in ‘The Devil & Me’ ❤️🔥
But when a red dragonborn showed up, bearing the standard of the Nine Hells, wearing unmistakably fiendish armour, everything Marto had not been thinking about came to the forefront of his mind.
“Hello,” Marto says, rather sharply. “And who are you?”
The dragonborn looked him up and down, gaze lingering on the very mundane splint mail armour the young knight wore. He smirks.
“My name is Taz.”
Marto frowns, the name sounding familiar, yet he cannot place where he’s heard it before. He introduces himself and proceeds to ask if the fiendish apparel was his standard fair for him or fairly new. Taz told him how he acquired it and Marto began to relax bit by bit. As the two talked, others arrived – Derthaad and Amble, the latter with a mastiff steed – and Marto felt a little guilty for coming across so standoffish at first. It really wasn’t like him to be so rude. But recent events were starting to take their toll.
Beets was the last to show up, a basket of fresh muffins in hand. She was offering them out to everyone, Councilwoman Archselon taking two, and was holding one out to Amble’s mount.
“No!” Marto says suddenly. He grabs the sugar and cream filled muffin just as the mastiff was about to go for it. “We don’t wanna give the dog the shits.”
“Wow, Marto. Okay,” Beets says, giving him a strange look. “Since when do you use such foul language?”
He shakes his head, exasperated, ignoring the policing of his words to focus on the point she clearly is missing. “There’s certain food dogs shouldn’t eat, else they’ll get really sick. Do you want to kill Amble’s mount?”
It was Beets’ turn to be confused. “What? No! I just- You’ve been swearing a lot, Marto. It’s not like you.”
The anger that flared in him was hot, intense, and very much not like him. He clamped down on the words that rose up from the echoing hollow of his chest, choosing instead to shake his head.
“Just- Don’t feed the dog the muffin,” he says flatly, stepping away.
D’Avalon had changed. There were more people than Marto remembered bustling about. People were coming and going rapidly from the grand cathedral they had been teleported to – a place the young knight had not seen up close the last time he was there. It didn’t take long to hear the reason: Refugees from Trecorvum had been arriving since Gadenthor, the once-fallen-now-flying Netherese city, had begun to be raided by githyanki trespassers.
Their group was ushered inside and soon heard the only footsteps that mattered in such a building. Lady Dahlia was a vision of beauty and grace, and as it turned out, a bard. The cathedral was her instrument and it had so much magic poured into over the past five hundred years that, though it was not completely sentient, it had a way of making sure the Mistress of the Towers was the one being heard when all others were not quiet.
Lady Dahlia led them to the vault for the city that resided underneath, asking them to turn away when she needed to sing the entrance into existence. Marto was once more forgetting about icy branded marks on his ribs or dark, alluring laughter as he marvelled at the magic all around him. He had to tell Merla about this place, possibly even advise her to visit. But maybe after the people of Trecorvum weren’t in the midst of an increasingly concerning crisis.
If it’s not one thing, it’s another.
“LET ME GO! I CAN GET THEM. JUST-”
The king was being held, pressed against the wall just in front of the vault’s entrance. His wife and husband were holding their pawed hands out and Marto guessed they were keeping King Verin in place by some kind of potent telekinetic magic. Lady Dahlia sighed.
“Why can’t he go in with us?” Beets asks the tall elven woman.
“Because he is the king. If something were to happen to him it would create… problems,” Lady Dahlia replies.
They were appraised of the situation: The githyanki had been in there for a day but still had not found what they were looking for – a beacon of some kind the Queens of Tecorvum had gifted to the King a number of years ago, mistakenly thinking it was an interesting sculpture.
“We noticed it started to glow with energy not long after Gadenthor took to the skies again. We thought it would be safe in our vaults but now the githyanki have snuck in. It’s only a matter of time before they find it. We don’t know what it does, but if the choice comes to letting them escape with it or destroying it, we’d like you to choose the latter.”
They were falling. They kept falling. And then they fell some more.
Marto wondered if he would ever feel the ground beneath his feet again.
When they did stop it was sudden, magic catching them in the final three inches before the vault’s floor would have embraced them in certain death. His stomach was in his throat, his fingers were tingling, and he stood unsteadily on his feet. But they were here and they had work to do.
The circular chamber they were in was massive, with eight hallways branching off in all directions. He tried to see if there was a disturbance of footprints in the dust but Marto couldn’t find any. Amble began to ritually recast detect magic whilst the others began to wander about.
There really was nothing to it. They just had to pick a hallway and start eliminating their options one at a time.
The first hallway Marto went down seemed to not have any traps. Then he heard a voice behind him and when he turned two statues had come to life. They seemed nice at first, asking what he was doing there. Marto said he was looking for some interlopers, and asked if they were down the hallway. They said no. Then the statues started getting suspicious. Marto quickly and carefully backed out of there.
The second hallway was Derthaad’s choice. The sergeant of Daring Height’s City Watch barely crossed into it before the floor began crumbling away behind him. It stopped when he reached a tile that had an abjuration magic symbol on it. Beets followed behind him in the air, and was trying to catch up when a net caught her and forced her back into the main room. Derthaad tried to continue on his own, but either he misjudged his strength or leaped to the wrong tile and he fell into a pit of spikes. Marto was just trying to figure out how he could help when Derthaad appeared with a clap of thunder behind him in the main room.
The third hallway was Taz’s choice. It seemed similar to the one Marto went down with apparent traps. Then Taz rounded the corner and suddenly a javelin was impaling him to the wall.
“Hold on!”
Marto ran in and helped get the javelin out of Taz’s shoulder before helping him behind the corner.
“Are you okay?” Marto asks, checking Taz over.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
With a nod, Marto turns back to the hallway trying to see if there was some trap disabler but he cannot see anything.
“Amble, can your magic detecting eyes see anything?” he asks the gnome wizard.
“Yes. There,” Amble says, pointing. “Looks like you have to put your hand there. Let me try my mage hand.”
But it doesn’t work.
“Right.”
Beets flies over. “Marto don’t-”
He runs across, putting his hand in the indent but not before he gets a javelin to the shoulder.
“Fuck!”
“He said, ‘You are out of time,’” Beets repeated.
Marto suddenly turns around and runs back to the main room.
Emerging from the southern hallway are three githyanki carrying the beacon between them. The one in front cackles, saying something in a language he doesn’t understand.
Then they begin to cast a spell.
“I don’t think so!” Derthaad shouts, countering their spell.
The smile drops from their faces and before they can try anything else, the halfling knight is upon them, swinging his axe down over and over again on the artefact. It shatters under the force of Marto’s adamantine axe and though he’s in the midst of three strong warriors, shoulder injured from a magical javelin trap, he doesn’t care. He’s ready to fight. He’s ready to finally do something.
“It doesn’t matter…” their leader says. Then they clasp hands and planeshift away.
Derthaad and Amble took the githyanki Taz had suggested they capture back to Daring Heights. Beets, Marto and the dragonborn decided to stay for a few more hours sparring with King Verin. One might think three against one was unfair but the king was a mighty warrior and a formidable opponent. He put them through their paces and they did their best to hold on, but in the end it was a narrow win for the king of D’Avalon.
Taz comes up to him afterwards as Marto is gathering his belongings.
“You see down. Everything alright?” the dragonborn asks.
“Feeling stuck on what to do is hard when you’re uncertain. But I think… I’ve come to a decision today. This job – it helped. This,” Marto gestures to the sparring field they were just on, “really helped. You’re pretty frightening but I can see why she likes you still, even if you don’t talk that often anymore.” He smiles and its the most relaxed he has seemed since he met Taz back in Portal Plaza.
Taz looks a bit confused. “Who likes me?” he asks.
“Someone you used to know,” the halfling winks, and starts gathering up his things to head to the teleportation circle. As Marto turns away, Taz gives him a curious smile, possibly seeing the resemblance to his sister. Marto remembered why he recognised Taz – he was with Merla when they fought Zariel’s armies in Avernus.
“Nice job in there today Marto…” Beets says, gently clasping him on the shoulder as they make their way out of the training yard. “Sorry if I’ve been... a bit of a bug lately. I was… worried about you is all... “
“It’s okay, Beets. I’m… I’ll be okay. I know what I gotta do.” He rests a hand on top of hers, gives it a little squeeze, then begins to make his way to the teleportation circle, to get back to Daring Heights.
Continued in ‘The Devil & Me’ ❤️🔥