Tag Archives: Utiog

Always Watching Over

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Gustav and Alexis have been standing outside Ca’armine’s working while Ca’armine cleanses the crystal ball. When the working shatters and the ball goes clean, a shudder runs through Alexis and his body slumps. Gustav turns to look at him. Alexis straightens slowly, and Gustav thinks he sees a shadow leaving Alexis’s eyes, but it’s dim out here and hard to be sure.

Alexis looks at Gustav and smiles.

“Utiog did not enjoy that. I felt it in the Tear.”

He picks up his hat, knocks the dust off it against his leg, and puts it back on.

“Thanks for standing out here with me, Gus. Watching my back when I didn’t ask you to.”

He tips his head toward Ca’armine, a signal that it’s time to go, and starts back toward the group.

The Corruption Of Avv Through Utiog

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North. It’s known the way one knows their own pulse, without being told and without being able to say how. How far? As far as the edge of the maps, where words stop and only vague pictures continue?

A hall of black stone, and the whole of it is a working. Rings cut into the floor, one inside the next, the runes in their grooves lit purple. The grooves are wet.

Along the walls, figures hang in iron, and the channels beneath them feed the rings. Demonic figures stand at the edges in the dark and chant.

At the centre Utiog kneels, and every line in that floor ends at her.

The silver circlet is still on her brow and the blue stone in it is still bright. The gown was white once. The irons fit her wrists exactly, and the blood grooves come to them. The stone under her knees is worn into two shallow hollows.

The thing bent over her stands twice the height of a man and has to fold itself to reach her. Six arms. The lower body coiling. An Abyssal Lord. The face too calm for her body.

The Abyssal Lord is not angry. The Abyssal Lord works Utiog the way a man works a hide: not in temper, not in haste, simply without stopping.

One of the arms comes down. Utiog does not brace. When the Abyssal Lord lifts her fist away Utiog’s head is sagging more and with more blood.

The chanting climbs until the words run together. Then all of it stops at once, and the silence is worse than the sound was.

Purple tendrils come up out of the grooves and climb the walls.

Two of the arms take Utiog’s shoulders. Two hold her hips. The last two set themselves against her ribcage and open her the way you open a shutter.

What comes out of her is light-blue light.

Utiog fights this. Her body suddenly full of a vigor for fighting, but she’s also too weak from all the torture.

The Abyssal Lord goes in headfirst, slowly. One arm follows. Then another. The coil of it narrows and narrows and feeds in behind the Abyssal Lord, and Utiog’s ribs stand open the whole while, and the blue thins.

And behind all of it, faint, the way a thing is seen through water: a far greater god, opening in the same way, taking the same purple, and not resisting at all.

The last of the coil goes in. Her ribs close.

The purple goes out of the walls, the grooves and the runes, all at once, inward.

Utiog lifts her head. The stone on her brow is now red.

The thing looking out Utiog’s eyes gazes, knowing she’s being watched. She smiles. “My servant is coming for you.”

Dream Web From The Heights

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The group is camped on the platform three hundred feet up. The inscription “they never came” is close-by. Rask has filled Alexis in on the watch. When he’s done, Alexis is quiet for a moment.

“I had a dream.”

He keeps his voice low.

“A thorough darkness. Then a red web in front of me. One thread vibrating, glowing slightly. Then I’m moving down it; following it. At the end of it, mist which I passed through. Couldn’t see anything, but I could feel stone all around. And weight above. A lot of it.”

“The mist thinned but never lifted. Utiog was there first. Beautiful, but badly wounded, and crowned in iron. She was moving slowly, haltingly, like every movement is painful.” He pauses. “Then another woman set against her. Middle-aged. A majestic queen, cloaked in smoke, so I never got her face. She was bound to her throne, and whatever was binding her was coming off Utiog. And she was fighting it. Fighting it hard.”

Alexis looks down and notices he has his holy symbol of Raiden in his hands.

“And above both of them, the Crone. Empty eye sockets with constellations in them. She towered over the whole scene. She was speaking to someone, but as a spectator I don’t know what she said.”

“When I woke up the ring and the tear are pulsing, seemingly in the same rhythm.” He glances up. “And the crone was there. Closer than in the dream. Then she faded. But she didn’t get any further away.”

He looks back at Rask.

“I’ll tell Carm when he’s up.”

He starts getting ready for his watch.

A Remembrance Of Mysteries

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After Vagram and Teldon have left the tent of the Crimson Calling, Alexis consults his notebook and then addresses the group.

“Depending on how things go up north we might be able to answer some of our outstanding questions, mostly from our time at the Greyfax estate.” Alexis looks at his companions, and through his look conveys that this is a good time to bring Ezrin up to speed on anything that might have been missed previously.

“Some of the questions that have been on my mind” Alexis pats his notebook

“What really happened on the night we witnessed?”
“What was the nature of the donkey cart with all the monies that went into the woods?”
“Who was the girl chased by the wolves? It would be nice to make sure her name is sent to the Hoodites for a proper ‘rememberance’.”
“Where were the people taken? What were the swirls in the mist?”
“What happened to Torrin, and why was he the anchor for Utiog?”
“Were they aware of Avv’s involvement? Can they tell me more about that?”
“What happened to Lady Sofia that night? Where was she?”
“Who was the girl Ty-Lin girl that haunted Telosh? … and who was eventually… um… banished to the undead city?”
“What is the name of the undead city? Is it Kobos? Do they happen to know anything about Kobos? Now that I think about it, I should ask Vagram and Teldon on our hike north, on the very-remote chance.”
“How much interaction did they have with the Dark Hand? My understanding was that the ‘night-of-the-mists’ resulted in the people at the Greyfax estate being taken away into slavery. If so, it seems reasonable that they could have had a ‘relationship’ with the Dark Hand.”
“Much to do with Barra’s cave. Did they know it was Barra’s cave? What do they know about the pool? What do they know about the Eyes?”
“Based on how much Torrin hated Arri, it seems reasonable that they might know about Arri. I would be curious to know more.”
“Do they happen to know any more about the Saggi or the Akkil?”
“Obviously, all the mysteries around the twice-broken?”

And there are some additional questions I have since we will be going north.
“What is the nature of the bell?”
“What other treasures do they know about at the undead city? Do they know more about the nature of the undead city?”
“Have they heard about lost treasures north of Middlebar?”
“What was the effect within Middlebar when the villagers came out and confronted the Aegirian army?”

Alexis looks between his companions, mutely asking for additional questions, or ready to answer questions they have about his questions.

Hazards of the Trade

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Shortly after Alexis gives Ezrin the two priceless potions from sometime around the second age, Alexis sits down with Ezrin.

“You’re new here, and I worry you have an orientation towards treasure hunting that is not shared with the Crimson Calling. The speed with which you wanted to bundle up all the artifacts in your supplies. The clear frustration around being robbed of treasure. These things worry me, and I will share where my fears come from. You have come to us recently, but the Crimson Calling has been around for years and dealt with many treasure-obstacles, and I consider myself very, very, fortunate to have made it this far.”

“While I have always led the Crimson Calling, I have claimed virtually none of the artifacts from our adventures, even though it is my right as the leader. In our first major find, only Gus and Red walked away with priceless items of power.” Alexis gives a shrug clearly showing that this doesn’t bother him.

“Significantly later, on a quest from a powerful patron, two of us were perverted by a powerful magic item and had to be subdued to finish our quest. It is for the best we did not keep that item.”

“One of our previous companions suffered from artifact-avarice such that he stole from us in the night and wandered off with a significant fortune. He has since spent, drank, or gambled all of it and is in a very lonely place.” Alexis looks clearly sad about this last part.

“Another time, one of us succumbed to an item of power beyond comprehension and enslaved most of the rest of us. Thankfully our close bonds allowed us to overcome this item.”

“One of us stumbled upon madness, possibly in the presence of several powerful forces/items/powers, and unleashed a threat to this whole area. The two wyverns that were spotted were part of that madness, and we were fortunate that we were able to prevent many, many, more dark creatures from flocking to this area.”

“Related to the madness I just mentioned, one of us carelessly touched the creation (mentioned earlier) without thinking about the consequences and unleashed a minion of a dark power. A being of corruption and lies. There are still times I wake up in a sweat seeing that corrupted being.” Alexis shivers at the thought.

“More recently, we had someone with us who had learned secrets to use our magics against us. Gus was most affected by this using-our-magics against us, possibly given how magical he is” Alexis looks towards the holy grove for a moment.

“These are the cautionary tales we three live with every day. This is why we don’t see all treasure as equal. Why all power isn’t to be sought with the same ferver.”

“But you know we don’t eschew treasure. You know of the Mithril Lord, who was created because the Crimson Calling pooled our treasure to make sure he would be rewarded for his time with us.”

“And even those that try hard, but fail, we still attempt to reward if we can. Before you, we have traveled with many others. At one point we had the son of a rich man join us for the ‘glory’ of it. And even though he nearly got us killed by the giant, we still rewarded him with a trophy head for his future tales of glory with us.”

“We have refused to work with powerful forces that do not align in treating magics with the sort of care we know is important. They are not our enemies, but we have to go our separate ways. And you have the same question in front of you now Ezrin. Will you embrace the Crimson Calling, even if it means you may never see any magical treasure of your own, or will you strike out on your own for treasure that you may study from, learn from, and grow rich off of?” Alexis looks relaxed but expectant for an answer.

Tell Me About Your Father

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About a week after Barra has defeated Utiog, Gus has chanced on something close to a feast for the group. The group is at one of the tables in the Inn. Alexis is in good spirits. He turns to Telosh.

“We’ve never taken the time for you to tell us about your upbringing. About your father. Care to tell us the ‘Tale of Telosh’?”

Brittle Sword. Easy to Break?

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Sometime during the two weeks after Utiog has been destroyed, Alexis is walking with Ethelred through what used to be the village green.

“Having seen the sword in action, do you still think it is very fragile and easy to break? From what you’ve said, Barra bashed it several times against the ground while destroying Utiog. A layman like me would think that a powerful being like Barra smashing a sword on the ground would destroy a weak sword.”