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-- 9/5/6526 --
After an indeterminate amount of time, Aristo was roused from sleep
as something started pounding on the door. But soon, this noise faded and
there was the sound of a slamming door from the next room. Whatever it
was had presumably given up on getting through the barricaded door and
gone on about its business.
Later, he woke up again as something else rattled the door,
scratching and snuffling at it, but this too ended. Hating it when his
sleep was disturbed, Aristo considered opening the door and convincing who
or whatever it was to cease and desist -- in a permanent way. However,
Aristo decided to not bother, having grown sick of getting hacked and
slashed up by all of the fights he found himself getting into, and he
still had several highly irritating wounds, one of them being from that
last fight he had gotten into. Ah, but mind games were so much more fun.
He still wished he knew how those bloody halflings had reacted when they
found Xar'la.
Finally deciding he had gotten enough rest -- and growing weary of
all of these disturbances -- Aristo renewed his protective wards and
ate some of the rations he had appropriated from the halflings. After
gathering his things and meticulously checking to make sure he left behind
nothing useful, Aristo unbarricaded the door and stepped out of the room,
ignoring the many wounds that still pained him.
Aristo took a quick look around the larger room, assuring himself
that nothing lurked there. He also noticed that there was no sign of the
three humans who had tried to ambush him, although the walls around the
opposite door were still scorched. But out of sight meant out of mind,
since he would not be able to explain anything by just standing here.
He then moved over to the third door of the room, listening for any
sounds from beyond. When he heard nothing, Aristo stepped through the
door, which took him into an even larger room. He cast a cursory eye over
the litter on the floor, wishing for something to spark his interest, but
not finding it. Selecting one of the doors exiting the room, he listened
at this door also, and yet again heard nothing. Aristo decided that this
must be one of the more boring sections of these tunnels.
Opening the door, he stepped into the room beyond and looked around,
and was surprised to see a large cubic object some ten feet on a side
drifting across the floor towards him. His infravision could not pick out
any details about this strange cube, not even how it moved. It just slid
across the floor, its sides quivering weirdly.
Aristo stepped back through the door as the thing continued to move
towards him. Fortunately, the cube paused when it reached the door, which
was too small for its massiveness. Aristo figured there was no way the
cube could fit through the door, but was soon proved wrong as it began to
squeeze through the door, oozing through the open portal as if the thing
were more fluid than solid, and in moments it was in the room with Aristo.
He watched as it swept across the floor, seeming to absorb all of the
litter and rubble it passed over, heading straight for him. Ari darted
around the object, realizing that it must be some sort of creature or
creation that cleaned up the dungeon. From what he had thus far seen, the
thing did not do a very good job of it, not that it bothered him.
As it was still advancing towards him, Aristo dodged through the door
and slammed it behind him, leaving the thing to continue its work without
the opportunity of mistaking him for some useless rubble.
This new room had another door and two passages leading off in
different directions. He noticed that the floor was clean and free from
any dust or trash. How depressing. He did so prefer the clutter of
debris. Maybe it would be best if he put an end to the thing's irksome
business. But then he had more pressing matters, as his ever-present
thirst for lost lore was growing larger.
Selecting one passage, he wandered down it only to reach a dead-end.
Now what kind of a simpleton would construct a passage that led nowhere?
It had to go someplace. Aristo searched around for a secret passage,
certain that there was one. And yet he could not find any. Now that was
highly irritating. He just knew that there had to be a secret passage
here, as not even a drunken gnome would dig a tunnel to nowhere.
Peeved, he returned to the cleaned room and headed down the other
passage. This one also ended in a dead end. Now he was becoming
seriously irked. He thoroughly searched this dead-end before finally
locating a large block which had a slight gap between it and the
surrounding mortar.
Pressing against the block, he succeeded in pushing it inwards and
crawled through the small opening thus revealed. The other side was a
small parallel passage. To his left it opened up into a huge room some
forty feet on a side.
The room, unlike so many others in this subterranean realm, was well
appointed. Although the furniture was dusty and appeared to have not been
used in some time, it was still in good condition. Through a short
passage in the opposite wall there was a slightly smaller chamber
containing many shelves, racks, and small crates, all of which turned out
to be empty and useless after a brief search.
Returning to the small passage containing the secret door, Ari found
that it soon turned to his left, presumably leading along side the other
dead-end passage. The other end of this narrow passage ended at a door
opening into a fair-sized bedchamber. Seeing that there were no other
exits from these three chambers, Ari set about searching them all for
secret passages, and eventually found a false panel off of the largest
room.
Easing open the panel, he saw that it opened up into a fair-sized
room. In the room there were two humans and a gnome, who saw him at the
same time he saw them. One human pulled out a falchion, while the other
two acted as if there were about to cast spells. Aristo noticed that
there was something familiar about the twit with the falchion, who was all
decked out in nauseating emerald green clothing and wearing a pendant with
an emerald set in a gold sunburst. Ari had seen clothing like that
before.
The fellow with the terrible fashion sense was demanding whether
Aristo was a friend or foe. Rolling his eyes at the trio, Ari recalled
what was familiar about the human's sickening attire.
"Let me guess," Aristo thought aloud, "you must be from that
Brotherhood of the Golden Twilight. The Order of the Emerald Sun, no?"
"You've heard of my Order?" returned the human in a distinctly
surprised voice, caught slightly off balance by the comment and sounding
as if he seldom ever encountered someone who had heard of the Brotherhood.
"Yes, well, everyone knows some utterly useless bits of trivia." The
human did not seem too pleased about the way Aristo phrased that, though
it bothered Ari not in the least.
Aristo recalled that those in the Brotherhood were all aligned
with the powers of Order and Law, and always went about harping on anyone
who loved the freedom that Chaos provided, which tended to become even
more nauseating than the twit's clothing. And those in the Order of the
Emerald Sun were also aligned with the forces of good as well, which meant
that his chump would be a doubly and triply annoying fellow. Of that
Aristo was certain, having had to put up with the inane blathering of
several of them who had periodically shown up at his elven House.
The Brotherhood was a bunch of sages who sought self-discipline by
spending their entire lives practicing rigorous mental and physical
training. How boring. Ari had always taken an immediate dislike to all
of those he had had the misfortune of meeting, since they were always
running about, going on about how important it was to live a disciplined
life and similar nonsense.
The only thing Aristo could say for them was that they were sometimes
fairly good at weaponless combat. That, however, was not exceedingly
common, as Aristo had once gotten into a fight with one particularly
trying dolt from the Brotherhood and proceeded to pound the dolt senseless
with his bare fists, showing that their martial-arts skills were not
nearly so great as they thought or claimed.
"I am Targ," pronounced the fellow from the Brotherhood by way of
introduction. "This is Gnarl and that is Zander," he added, indicating
the gnome and the other human, respectively.
"The name's Aristo. And I take it your two friends are mages?"
Actually, however, Aristo had never heard of a gnomish wizard. They
usually gravitated to being illusionists when they had any brains at all,
which seemed more of a contradiction than anything else about them.
"We are illusionists," Zander corrected him. Aristo barely stifled a
derisive snort. Was his imagination spawning hallucinations again, or did
they actually sound proud of being illusionists? In any case, Ari's
opinion of them dropped even lower than it had already been.
Oh well, at least they would be worth a little diversion, thought
Aristo as an idea occurred to him. "So you're illusionists? I found an
illusionist's spellbook not too long ago."
"Oh?" The gnome was obviously eager to lay his hands on a spellbook.
It was nice to know some things stayed the same. Aristo did have a thing
against change. "What did you do with it?" Gnarl prompted him.
"Hum? Oh, I burned it." The gnome's eyes nearly bulged out of his
head. "After all, I'm not an illusionist, so I had no need for it."
Gnarl just stood there, sputtering, not knowing what to say, while
various angry looks shot across Zander's face. Aristo smiled inwardly,
loving their reactions, especially the gnome's. It was so nice to play
tricks on a gnome for a change, rather than the other way around.
"What the devil did you do that for?" Zander finally managed to choke
out.
"Well, like I said, I had absolutely no use for it." Whatever would
he need a illusionist's spellbook for? To weigh him down needlessly like
Jimar's spellbook had? Bah. He could find better things to stuff into
his pack.
"Then you are most certainly not a illusionist," Gnarl accused him,
as if it were some universal failing to not be an illusionist.
"Most certainly not," Aristo agreed. "I am a real mage, not an
illusionist."
"Then why the devil did you burn a spellbook?" Zander berated him.
"You should know how valuable spellbooks are."
"Illusionists' spellbooks?" Ari uttered incredulously. "Pah.
They're worthless. Do you know how many illusionists I've met in my
life? With you two morons, it's now a grand total of three. You chaps
can't do anything more than delude people into believing that you can do
things. And from what I've seen, you're not very good at it, which might
explain why there are so few of you about."
Aristo started to go back through the secret panel, having tired of
this conversation, but Targ stopped him. "Wait a moment, Aristo. Exactly
who are you?"
"I am myself," he responded in a vaguely cryptic manner. He always
hated inquiries about himself. "Need I be anything else?"
"No, I mean, what are you doing down here in these tunnels? Are you
an adventurer?"
"It would be more accurate to say that I am a wanderer. I do not
seek adventure, only wisdom. But I would assume that you three are
adventurers in search of wealth, riches, and power."
"You sound as if you have something against adventurers," Targ
accused him.
"Not really, it's simply that every adventurer I've met down here
with that goal in mind either died or otherwise failed miserably in their
endeavor."
"Then you know a lot about these passageways?" There was a gleam in
Targ's eyes that Aristo recognized, telling him where this was leading.
"Another wild guess: you want to pump me for information about the
layout of these tunnels, and the location of some rich hoards of
treasure." Targ reluctantly indicated that this was so, since being
aligned with the forces of order he was loath to deny the truth. Aristo
added, "I doubt we would get along well enough to do so." But if they
did, he could spend a few hours baiting them, which might make the effort
worth while, though he was not overly optimistic about it. He did so hate
optimism.
Not wanting to lose a potential source of information, Targ argued,
"But surely you must admit that an exchange of information would be
mutually profitable. Not to mention that we will be less dangerous
company than most of the things that inhabit these tunnels."
Targ certainly considered his reasoning to be sound, but Aristo felt
that he would probably get along better with a pack of orcs than with this
trio. If they annoyed him, and their type was good at that, they might
find him to be rather more dangerous than most of the things that
inhabited these tunnels.
Still, he could give it a try. And since they had one of the
Brotherhood with them, then they would no doubt prove honorable if
intolerable. And if they turned out to have no useful knowledge of these
tunnels and they really got on his nerves, then he could always kill them
and put them out of his misery. Besides, it would give him some practice
at playing the mind games he so loved.
Stepping back from the secret panel, Aristobulus motioned for them to
enter, offering with a faint grin, "Step into my parlor."