Reunion

Corinna made her way through the rubble strewn, twisting corridors of the long forgotten abbey dark. Over its many ages, it had been buried under the newer layers of the city of Seagate. She closely followed her only companion on this trip, George the half-ogre. Secretly, she would have preferred the company of a larger party, especially going into such a large and unknown place. The abbey complex was extensive, and even though she had a general idea of where she was headed, the place had changed considerably since the days when the ancient map had been drawn. The complex was deteriorating to no end. They found many of the choice routes had been plugged by mammoth slabs of collapsed stone blocks and ruins from above. Still others were purposefully walled off, sealed by the many evil creatures that had captured the abbey at the end of its glory years. She had to believe they had sealed off the passages as a means of fortifying their crumbling fortress.

  The stench of stale air, tainted by the rotting flesh long past eaten off the many skeletons they passed, kept Corinna and her huge friend gasping. They tried to filter the air through their sleeves, but even they had long ago been coated with dust and cobwebs. They coughed often, despite the risks their loud convulsions presented. Corinna expected some of the evil monsters to still be here, but only those vile and ferocious enough to live on those that might wander in. As far as Corinna was able to obtain, no one had been down to explore the old, forgotten abbey for hundreds of years. Even so, she held only little hope that the object of her perilous quest would still be there, and in a condition warranting the trek. "There's only one way to find out," she reminded herself, and pressed on.

  George was a half-ogre, and by sheer definition, that meant giant. Easily towering above Corinna's slight frame, George stood all of seven feet. His massive torso was at least four feet across at the shoulders, and his finely toned, muscular body weighed in at four to five hundred pounds. He had the strength to lift a dozen men, and he swung a huge two-handed sword in a single, massive fist. What he could not push through, he simply mowed down with an incredible swat of his sword. George was so large, that at times he found it difficult to get through some of the corridors, especially when fallen beams blocked them. The ceiling shuddered as George pushed the fallen timbers aside, and Corinna feared he would bring the whole place down upon them. Still, Corinna knew that if she could not bring an entire army with her, if she had to choose only one, she could not have chosen a better-suited companion.

  However large George was, he was a gentle giant. As another fate of his troubled heritage, the half-ogre was as dumb as he was large. Only able to understand a few words in the common tongue when she first met him, George quickly developed a weakness for Corinna's considerable beauty. She managed to use this attraction to befriend the great beast and educate him. He had stayed with Corinna, quite faithfully, ever since.

  George also understood the pleasures that a large purse of shiny coins could get him. Greed provided him with all the motivation Corinna required of him. She would pay her loyal partner well, and if they found what they were looking for, it would be well worth the price. Besides, sometimes his ignorance provided him with a certain amount of courage, which he needed to face whatever remnants of evil may await them.

  It wasn't that Corinna didn't want a larger party to accompany her, it was a fact that she couldn't find any others with the courage to face what terrors they might find in the abbey dark. Seagate was a city of high elves who had little stomach for adventures. She also could not kid herself. This wasn't the first time that the sight of her trustworthy, half-ogre companion had frightened off other company, and she was sure that it wouldn't be the last, either.

  They had traveled those dark corridors for better than five days, twice as long as Corinna had bargained for. However, prepared as always, they carried provisions to last them another week or more. They plunged themselves deeper into the complex, trusting the invaluable map to guide their way. Still more passages were blocked, requiring further re-routing. These delays forced them to take an even longer way to their goal.

  Despite some early encounters with several different scavenger races near the upper levels, Corinna was a bit more than concerned over their lack of resistance. Other than the ancient sealing off of tunnels they had encountered, they had found few signs of much of anything down here. It was unusual for a cavernous area so expansive, and near a large city such as Seagate, to be without monsters. It was a cause for concern. Where was everybody?

  Boldly they went on, Corinna holding her torch up high, lighting the corridor for George, who led the way. George was a tactless creature, rarely looking down intersecting passages when encountering them. This made them an easy mark for an ambush, which haunted the back of Corinna's mind. But, so far, they had met with little cause for concern. George kept up a steady pace, quick, but not wearying.

  As the narrow corridor ended at an archway to a much larger room, George suddenly stopped. "What is it?" Corinna whispered in common.

  George crouched down, though with his huge frame, it didn't help much; he still filled the bottom of the doorway. Over his wide shoulders, Corinna saw what alarmed him. Inside the next room were the recently decimated remains of an entire troop of goblins. Their shattered corpses were splattered against the walls, skulls laid crushed or bodies ripped in two, not necessarily with both halves next to each other. It was clear, from Corinna's many years of experience in adventuring, that quite a battle had taken place here, though the goblins apparently proved little opposition.

  The room beyond was quiet and dark, little consolation. Under Corinna's direction, George tossed the lit torch to the opposite end of the room. Other than the scampering of rats, it raised little attention from the silence. Corinna whispered a command word, and the headpiece of the staff she carried lit with the eerie glow of magic, as bright as the forfeited torch.

  Corinna easily identified the room, lit from both ends now, as their destination. She recognized the extensive collection of paintings that still hung on the walls, and the high, vaulted ceiling which still stood on its sturdy, arched stone rafters. Even though they faded into the darkness overhead, she could see that the stone buttresses held the beautiful carvings as they were described in the ancient tome she had studied. And just as described in eerie predictability, on the opposite wall was an old altar. This sacred temple was long since lost to the fates of the gods. Best yet, still sitting and undisturbed on the alter, was the sacrifice.

  Dozens of delicately carved, elven faces looked down in their gray, stone-still stares. It had been centuries since they last watched patiently over ancient elven rituals performed in these temples. Though they had been terribly disfigured by vandals, the beauty of the delicate elven forms still shone through the murkiness of the dismal place. The fine dwarven quality of stone carving shown its value. The elves of old had spared no expense on the luxury of its most inner sanctum, and it was that stubborn demand for quality that kept the integrity of that chamber now.

  There was unnerving oddity in the carnage that had been played out here, and the obvious signs of its very recent passing. The stank of death still filled the air. The smell of bowels being torn open, spewing the bile within; the smell of the goblins, obvious now even after their death; and their green blood still flowing onto the rich, red carpets of this most holy chamber. Their bodies still barely radiated heat. A chill ran down Corinna's spine. Despite every sign, she was not alone in the darkness.

  The alter, of course, was the best that money could buy. Large and solid, it was plated with carefully fitted sheets of gold, pounded to a thin evenness by no less than a thousand hammer strikes of metal dwarves. Several dweomers and runes to keep it safe these hundreds of years had protected it. Not even dust marred its perfect shine. While the evil and vile enemies of the elves had fouled everything else in this chamber, they could not violate the sanctity of the rune protected alter.

  Safe within this bath of purity was the final sacrifi
ce to Corellon Larethian. Stretched out as if on a funeral pyre, rested the corpse of Di'Aginon, the High Priest of this ancient order. As a sign of the final struggles that this monastery met with, being overcome by the evil hordes, Di'Aginon had plunged a silver dagger deep within his chest. According to the preset designs, this sacrifice set off many priestly magics throughout the complex, releasing gaseous and other traps that would seal the doom of the evil invaders.

  Di'Aginon's body had been preserved as well as the alter upon which he rested. He looked as he did the day that he died, centuries before. He was a proud, noble elf of the finest high heritage. He was dressed in the extravagant robes of his position, with a well-deserved look of peace upon his face.

  George and Corinna listened to the silence a long time, studying every corner of the darkness that awaited them. There were a number of small alcoves lining either wall, and she peered into them, waiting for the slightest shift in the shadows. Corinna's weak, human eyes found it difficult to penetrate the ebony shadows, and she knew that it was already too late, with the torch burning brightly at the other end of the room, for her to call upon George's ability to see objects by the heat they radiated. The heat of the torch, and its brightness, blinded this ability, but he conveyed that he had not seen anything prior to throwing the torch.

  Despite the piles of goblin corpses that awaited them, the room looked as secure as it could be. George, eager for action, was given the word to enter. He crept forward, unusually slowly for him. Not even his ignorance, which gave way to fear, was enough to keep him from being cautious here.

  It happened too quickly. Corinna wasn't able to react, even though the events at that moment seemed to slow to an eternal crawl. She had seen the faint glimmer of her staff light on the fine trip wire, just as George's large, hairy, bare foot came into contact with it. She saw the inches of dust quake and then fall free from the large blocks of stone that made up the walls of this hallway. She even saw the wall on the right start closing in, but before she could even consider which of her powerful command words to utter, or make a single hand gesture that might launch one of her powerful spells to stop it, it was all over. A block wall, cut and carefully fitted into the side, slid out across the corridor where the trip wire had been.

  The powerfully sprung mass of stone struck the unsuspecting giant in the right flank, immediately crushing ribs and squeezing the air out of a ripped open lung. The wall would not be stopped there. It was terrifying how easily the great trap wall came across to smash George's huge skull, pinning it between the regular wall and its own great weight. The wall stopped with the sound of gushing brains. That was a sound that would echo in Corinna's head for years, invading her nightmares, as her mind agonizingly recounted this event. She would have liked to attribute her years of careful training with the fact that she did not scream, but she would always know that she was simply in too much shock to utter a sound.

  What was left of George's body wedged the trap door partly open. Corinna, afraid of what the grinding sound of the trap being set off might attract, knew she had to move on. With the object of her quest still in sight, she could not see turning back to find another route through the maze of tunnels. She knew she had to climb past George.

  With all of her strength, she fought to keep the vomit from welling up in her throat. She climbed over George's corpse and squeezed her way through the narrow opening. She winced only once, when George's body shifted to allow the wall to close in toward her. Once free on the other side, she didn't dare to risk looking back, knowing she wouldn't be able to stand the sight.

  After a final, quick examination of the rafters above and the walls to the side, Corinna continued. She kept her eyes focused on the prize, the prize that would make all this worth it. Moving under the bright light of her staff, she gracefully and carefully covered the fifty or so paces across the room to where the ancient altar waited for her. She didn't bother taking time to inspect the goblin corpses that lined her path, although she knew she should have paid them more attention. The black-robed mage just kept her sights set on the altar, and the holy, golden idol that was her quest. She felt that this chamber had been made holy once again by George's death. His sacrifice paid to cleanse the ancient sanctuary.

  Without incident, Corinna found herself standing face-to-face with the lost treasure. The statue was easily three hands tall, and its still-polished surface glistened with the familiar gleam of gold. The image was of an elven male, Corellon, she knew by her readings. The strong elven figure was wrapped in golden robes, which covered him from his head to his feet, much like Corinna's own black attire. The similarities amused her.

  Her hands trembled with anticipation, hardly daring to touch it. Her eyes locked gazes with the simulacrum, and felt a power there. It was an ancient power, she knew, imbued by the devout followers of Corellon. She slowly reached out and caressed the golden icon, molded from the purest metal, across the decorative curls and intricately carved features. It was there, hanging over the outstretched arms and around the neck of Corellon, that she found a large medallion. It was apparently some sort of holy symbol placed there to honor the valuable gifts to the god. Looking to be of considerable value in itself, she picked up the necklace and shoved it into one of her many pockets.

  There was no reason to believe the icon to be trapped, despite the tragedy at the doorway. It was not customary to trap symbols of the gods. Always cautious, however, Corinna quickly grasped the graven image in both shaking hands, and lifted it from the altar in one swift, smooth movement as she backed away several steps. She secretly hoped the distance would protect her from whatever wrath Corellon might still have to rain down upon this sacrilege.

  There were no tricks, no traps, and no wrath of the gods; for only silence greeted Corinna. She dared peek open her eyes, and to her horror, the icon turned to lead! There was no treasure of the abbey.

  With the sudden, eerie feeling that someone was watching her, Corinna quickly spun around. Through the partially opened doorway, she would have sworn, she saw a black figure moving in the shadows behind George's crushed body. But, before she could focus her eyes on the darkness, it was gone.

  The solid gold chest was too heavy for her to move, let alone get out of the abbey quickly, and that is how she wanted to leave. She elected to abandon the disappointing container where it was.

  With her mind still transfixed on the feeling that someone or something had been watching her, she left the forsaken room and, over the next day and a half, left the entire dark abbey complex without ever looking over her shoulder. When she reached the bright, warm sun of the surface, she said good-bye to her friend George. She sealed the hidden entrance up again with an explosive rockslide that brought the entire cliff down on the cavern opening.

  "It was days later," Corinna explained still reeling from the experience, "before I discovered the pendant in one of my many pockets. After that, I hadn't been able to sleep or study spells until I reached Oswegonia. I'm not even sure how I got there. I don't remember much of anything between then."

  "Well, you're safe now," Ace offered. "You're among friends." Everyone agreed, shaking off a shudder. Gerrod kept thinking how terrible that must have been. Suddenly, what he had faced in Argunthu didn't seem so bad. Still, he knew that being here, surrounded by her friends, somehow made it okay.

 

  Chapter 14

  Flicker's Fury