#137 - Illusions and Shadows

The Journal of Wynn Dennavar 

Zarantyr 26th, 999 YK

After some more discussion on our part, Izzeth turned to the curtain hiding the Lady Dark and answered her riddle. “A medusa.”

Lady Dark flung the curtain aside. I flinched and looked down as she twirled out to the center of the chamber, until I realized that the horrific visage she wore was merely a mask. Quiet laughter emerged from the other chamber where Avashad lounged. He had kept one catlike eye on us through the doorway the entire time and, aside from the discomfort he had shown at Aleae’s song, didn’t appear distressed by our activities.

He claimed he couldn’t alter the passage of time here. I hesitated to believe him, though it wouldn’t make a difference. We were being delayed and we could not allow the Mire hidden on this train to reach Sharn.

After several seconds, Izzeth asked Lady Dark if she had a clue for us.

"She has nothing to give,” the rakshasa replied for her. It seemed none of the guests spoke unless it was to speak their riddles. "...for you have gathered all the clues already."

Soft clapping from the rakshasa then.

Still, we hadn’t achieved the way out. Magnus, Bale, Clarion, and Cypher each brought forth the papers they had won, which bore the letters N, E, A, and C.

The illusion had granted us all objects in place of our gear, and this proved to be the missing piece. Clarion raised his CANE in one gloved hand. In the clear crystal sat a small, silver key. He’d been carrying it the entire time. He smashed the crystal against the carpet and inserted the key into the lock of the door that had been identified as the way out. It turned smoothly.

Avashad sighed in quiet frustration as the illusion began to fade away.

I closed my hands around the shaft of the Risian Fang. The cold it radiated steadied me as much as the physical support when the rocking of the lighting rail resumed.

It was dark, yet it had been barely past dawn when the wizards teleported us onto the train. I thought for a moment my fears had been realized, until I remembered the tunnel far in the distance I’d spotted through the window. Scant comfort—the tunnel was on the train’s last leg to Sharn.

Torg and Warlaz were behind us in the hallway running through the rail car we had entered while simultaneously entering the illusion. Both beasts shifted impatiently as we regained our senses, stumbled, rubbed eyes, checked our gear. It would have been the perfect opportunity for an ambush, but the rakshasa and his "dinner guests" were well and truly gone...if they had actually been here.

We agreed to press on quickly. I warned the others to stand aside, then ordered the gorgon for the door to the next car. Between him and Clarion, they tore it down. A bolt of blue light—as of the dangerous energy discharged by a ballista—flashed by through the opening, smashing through the closed door on the other end.

Torg charged through heedless of the ballista, and we advanced behind him. Clarion entered the first chamber to the right and I took cover in the left. Immediately I was beset upon by several shadows, like the ones we had seen the shadow dragon create from the corpses of the prisoners in the cauldron room in Glyphstone. These must have been raised from the passengers.

Right as I destroyed the first, I was plunged into Bale’s increasingly familiar darkness. I seized the opportunity to duck back out into the hall and advance under its cover. We didn’t have the time to spare to deal with shades and here there were no more civilians. Avashad may have succeeded in delaying us after all.

Bale and Clarion held the doorways against the shades. When I emerged from the darkness I saw the ballista was damaged by Torg’s hooves, no operator in sight. Cypher was able to convince the gorgon to back off long enough to clamber onto the platform and raise it toward the ceiling. Hopefully, he would remember to duck before it reached the tunnel ceiling.

Aleae, Izzeth and I faced a few shadows that had slipped past Bale’s darkness, then I heard harpy song from above and ahead at the next car. Not the charming sort we had faced before, but violent—this was the deadly voice of their chieftainess.

Then a muffled discharge from the ballista above, and a thump as the harpy jumped down to the platform connecting the to train cars. Her razor wind shot through the corridor and forced us away.

But Cypher persistently lowered the ballista back down inside for another shot as the rest of us fought the wind. The projectile took her full in the chest and cut off the song. It left our ears ringing, but our way forward cleared—though she herself was not removed from our path yet.