Elre’s Cosmic Horror Musings
By Conan Kmiecik
The Mountain of Rubble
I awoke to find myself miraculously positioned atop the mountainous pile of rubble that had once been the floating island of the Anumari. The last thing I remember was my compatriot, Kai, firing one of her troublemaking negation arrows at our former ally turned enraged automaton antagonist, India, while she was trying to draw enough magic from the surrounding land so that some magical ark that was left behind by the Anumari could return to its ancient makers or whence it came. The magical effects of the arrow blocked India mid operation, and the ark, its cargo of creatures suspended in magical prisons, and the floating island all plummeted to the ground. It was a miracle that I survived. Maybe my danger sense enabled me to maneuver properly to avoid being buried and crushed by rubble. Maybe it was just dumb luck, a very good roll of the cosmic dice. No matter, I survived to die another day. And die I will, for me and my companions are all infected with the blood plague and our days are numbered. Each step is one step closer to our Final Walk.
After assessing my predicament, my first task was to discover which of the other Silver Knights survived. Hopefully all of them would have—except for Marcus! I hoped that he was buried at the very bottom of the rubble pile. After all, it was his ancestor that bargained with the automatons left behind by the Anumari and unleashed the blood plague upon Hauther. It was his cowardice that kept him from climbing into the clam, thus forcing India to take his place. Stupid Marcus! Let him remain trapped at the bottom of the rubble, cowering in darkness, like that time he climbed into the magical chest while the rest of the team fought the Inquisitors. The Celestials giveth and they taketh. Of course, in my search for the other Silver Knights, the first one I encountered was shifty Marcus.
My cohort must all be cut from the same lucky cloth as me because, despite the endless number of ways that we all could have been crushed in the crashing rubble, we all survived—that is, all but Vallen, who was unaccounted for. While most of the others were relatively easy to find, Adoril had been trapped in the very situation I had hoped Marcus would find himself in. We found him because of an automaton named Astrid who was trapped with him in the cavity but not pinned by rubble as he was.
Once we located them, I used my epic Earthen Staff to create an earth automaton to excavate an entrance to the cavity to free Adoril. After we freed Adoril, he informed me that while he was buried (and imbibing from his magical cup), he had been visited by a real earth elemental. Apparently, the earth elementals were not happy that I was in the possession of a staff that could raise the ground and create mindless earth automatons to do my bidding. This was an affront to their kind, and they wanted to take possession of this heretical artifact as repayment for a favor they did us while we were trapped in the mines. As I said before: Celestials giveth and they taketh.
Soon after reuniting (all but Vallen), the party slept, watched over by Astrid. It (or possibly she?) seemed to have taken a liking to Adoril. I suppose spending close time with him in such distressing circumstances after having only recently becoming self-aware and free of will impressed it in some way—in other words, she didn’t know him as well as we do. But perhaps it was fate working its magic. Adoril had been bemoaning about Fredric, that waistcoat-wearing bookworm of a little lizard man we met in the evil plant wizard’s library, not becoming his personal butler. Possibly Astrid could now satisfy his needs?
When we awoke, I decided to hand over the staff to Adoril. Though a powerful item, it had only been in my possession for a short while, and I had no attachments to it. We tried to bargain with the elementals. Maybe if we gave them the staff, they would locate Vallen for us? The elemental informed us that would be another favor, and besides, it sensed no living creature buried in the mass of rubble. Not good. I then relinquished the staff to Adoril, and he placed it on the ground, where an earthen hand rose and proceeded to pull the staff into the ground, bending it into an unnatural contortion. Before the staff cracked, my danger sense warned me of an impending peril. I jumped out of the way of a magical blast that was released when the staff snapped. Adoril, not privy to my premonition, stood flatfooted and absorbed the impact of the wave of magic.
Once the debt had been paid, the party decided on a plan of action. I would ride to the shore to see if the pirates and knights that we left there were still waiting for us; some of the team would take inventory of our magical chest; and the rest of them would fan out and search for Vallen, or what remained of him. As I was galloping away, I heard Marcus cry out, “My dragon bone curios! They’re gone! I smuggled those all the way from Mistwater. They’ve been in my family for generations!” Apparently, someone with access to the chest had pilfered items of interest.
After I was able to escape the cloud of the dust that surrounded the mountain of rubble, I slowly traced my way to the shore where I believe we had first landed on this cursed island, to where I thought Barnabus and the rest of the landing crew would be waiting for us. When I arrived at the spot, all that was there were tattered garbing and rotting limbs of the once living. The magical crab tank, that I discovered, which the crew had been using to transport items, was almost completely swallowed by the sands. It was as if more time had elapsed than the single day we had spent on this island, landing on the shore, flying up to floating island, and crashing after our encounter with India. This did not bode well. My danger sense, too, was acting up. Instead of a sharp jolt alerting me, it was now a constant firing alarming me of everything about this island.
I decided to climb a cliff of the shore in order to get a better vantage, see what I could spy. As I ascended my magical rope, at the top of bank, what I thought was a rock for me to surmount, opened its eyes and snarled at me. I used my strength to hurl myself atop the cliff, past the concealed creature, and prepare for combat. When the creature unfurled itself, it appeared to be a large cat made of black stone. It circled me, and I circled with it, our eyes kept us locked in a deadly gyre. I waited for it to make the first move. It swiped at me with its stone paw, but I easily dodged. Then I counterstruck with my magical sword. My augmented strength and the magical properties of the sword were enough to penetrate the mineral hide of the creature. It lurched back, wounded, surprised, but adamant about still attacking me. Again, it swiped, I dodged, and counterstruck; but this time my strike was a deathblow—and suddenly the creature exploded! Its stony body turned into flying shrapnel. My sword hand was pummeled into immobilized meat from the blast.
In the throes of pain, I wrapped my wounded hand as best I could with my working hand and retrieved my last terror vine potion to heal myself and hopefully gain function of my hand in case another creature awaited me on my journey back to my companions at the mountain of rubble. Eventually, my hand returned to its former functionality. I then summoned my steed and rode back to wreckage of the floating island.
On my way back, as I was entering the cloud of the dust, I noticed a purple glow off to the side. Warily, I rode towards it. As I got closer, I noticed that it was a massive prison that contained a giant ape creature. The prison was similar to the innumerable others in the ark before its fall. After the ark hand crashed, its cargo must have been scattered about the island. Maybe the stone feline had been encased in a prison and foolishly freed by the landing crew that awaited the return of the Silver Knights and me. I stared at the massive imprisoned ape. If I imprudently struck at its barrier, it would be free to attack and likely thrash me. All that separated me from it was the magical stasis that somehow sustained its power. How many other monstrous creatures were scatted about the island, waiting for some hapless humanoid to strike at the container or for the energy that maintained the containment to deplete? I quickly rode away from the threatening beast.
When I arrived back hours later, I learned that Adoril had gotten his automaton companion killed. It seems he has a few things to learn about keeping his servants alive. While I travelled to the beach, he travelled southward around the rubble in search of Vallen. He wasn’t specific about what had transpired, but he mentioned something about an angry unicorn, and suddenly Astrid was “dead.” Kai, who remained at base camp, was being watched over by Marie because she was in one of her walking fugues again. It seems that every so often, the crown calls to her and she cannot resist.
We rested and waited for Marcus and Tavin who ventured northward around the rubble in search of Vallen. When they did not return a handful of hours later, we all ventured northward to find them. It didn’t take long before we heard the low growl of the dwarf call out to us for help. It seems he and Marcus had fallen into an underground passageway and discovered a cavern that led to a some primordial chamber. Marcus picked up some primordial earth staff (again with the earthen staves?) and succumbed to dirt filling up his lungs. He was dead? He was dead! Tavin needed help retrieving his body. That was the least we could do for a fallen comrade! (Drinks later, in remembrance of our fallen comrade, of course.)
Then, Marcus wasn’t dead. (Drats!) We got to the location in the chamber where Tavin dumped Marcus’s corpse and he was gone. A short while later, we found him walking slowly toward us, a bit less spry than he usually was. It seems he was offered a chance to become Earthbound like Tavin is Waterborne and Adoril is Fireblood. Kai, who had come out of her state before we left, was suddenly interested in finding the air staff in the temple, and ran off to get herself killed in the primordial air chamber and possibly become Airborne. Meanwhile, the large creature made from what seemed like magical energy simplely watched us from the middle of the chamber.
As we chased after Kai, a passage I once read came to me:
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the humanoid mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. Magic and science, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
Another day in the life of a Silver Knight, and another step closer to our Final Walk. Sigh!