Elnamerrna
Elendraspace, unnamed asteroid near Zoethe
Darkmonth 31st, 2459 EY
The Elnamerrna soared toward Zoethe, and the sun's strong gravity was making the vessel accelerate. Moving at nearly half again normal spelljammer speed, the ship ate up the miles at a fantastic pace, arcing around the dim Elendran sun, though Trula could have sworn that they were headed straight into its burning fury.
The closer they got, the brighter Zoethe appeared, and Trula, wiping streaming eyes, finally could bear no more. She turned around and stepped to the other side of the crow's nest, facing astern.
Her hand clicked the voice horn.
"Bridge, crow's nest."
"Bridge, Tyfelian."
"I can't keep watch ahead anymore, Ty," she reported. "The sun's too bright for me, this close."
"It's all right, Trula. Keep watch astern as best you can. I'm not expecting anything, anyway, really. I can think of a dozen places where drow would rather jump us."
"I can, too," Trula said with a slight laugh.
Tyfelian shut the horn off and looked at Tash, who was deep in navigational calculations. Close to a sun, one tiny mistake could incinerate the ship.
"The hull is starting to heat up," Jalaysa warned from the helm.
"Turn back if the runes react," Tyfelian responded.
"We can get some relief from the heat by stopping in the asteroid's shadow," Jalaysa advised, "but I'm worried about us ramming it instead of stopping behind it. The light's getting so bright, I can't see."
"There is not the slightest chance that we'll ram it," Tash said, her voice warm rather than irritated.
Tyfelian hoped hard that she was as certain as she had sounded.
"Slow us down, Jalaysa," Tash cued. "We're close."
Trula broke a slight sweat in the increasing temperature, but, looking down, she noted that the runic inscriptions were not reacting to the solar heat just yet. Glad of that, she tried to keep watch despite the intense glare.
A darkness crept over her and she looked around slowly. She breathed more easily as the scorching heat went away, but she gasped softly at the vista she beheld when she looked sunward once more.
The Elnamerrna had stopped, dead on target, behind the rogue asteroid. The rock was irregular in shape, but it blotted out the sun entirely, except for the corona—and the resulting eclipse was nothing less than spectacular.
Trula had seen eclipses before; it was not difficult to make them happen, accidentally or deliberately, inside any asteroid field. She remembered the Tears of Selune in Realmspace quite fondly for just that reason, but unknown to her at that time, she hadn't seen anything there that compared to a Zoethe eclipse.
Trula's eyes roved over Zoethe's veil. Visible with the searing brilliance blocked, the corona was enormous. This close to Zoethe, the veil filled nearly half the sky, radiating a vast range of shimmering colors. It swayed and weaved in space like a sail in light wind. The colors in it changed constantly, creating an astonishing circular rainbow effect like nothing Trula had ever seen. The overpowering light of most suns turned their veils a delicate white during eclipses, but Zoethe was not bright, not for a sun, so her veil scintillated with colors Trula could not put names upon. The gossamer bands of colored light rippled with a serenity that made her sway a little in the same rhythm as it moved.
It was a perfect moment in time for Trula, and she found it very hard to believe that a space battle had ever happened here, no matter what the key to that chart said. The sheer beauty of Zoethe's veil would hold anyone spellbound, even a cold-hearted drow, she thought.
She did not like the thought of breaking that moment by speaking, but she could not bear failing to share this spectacle with the others. Numbly, her hands clicked the voice horn.
"Bridge, crow's nest."
"Bridge, Tyfelian. You all right up there, Trula?"
"Perfectly all right... but you must go to the weapon bays and look outside, Ty. You have to see this."
"On our way," Tyfelian replied. As an afterthought, he added, "Join us there, Trula. Call Hajri up to relieve you."
Tyfelian stopped in his tracks, stunned by Zoethe's veil as thoroughly as Trula had been. Beside him now, Trula grinned at him, even as that veil dragged her eyes back to it.
Kiran's sharp breath betrayed his own enrapturement.
"Magnificent," the paladin murmured. "This makes all the trouble of being here more than worth it."
"Dear gods," Alzja breathed.
Jaclyn held her reserve, but her eyes widened. She and Alzja had once witnessed a natural eclipse together, on their home world, but as incredible as that had seemed, it paled against what they saw now.
Tash recovered more quickly, having lived three times longer than the next oldest person on board and having seen much in that vast time. Even at that, she gasped slightly at the sight of Zoethe's veil, despite her vast experience.
Tyfelian looked at it long and hard, to memorize the spectacle so that he could remember it always—in the reverie, the elven substitute for sleep.
Finally, the drider turned for the voice horn. He could not reach it, as he was solidly squeezed in forward of the ballista, so he looked pointedly at Autumn, who stood near it at her battle station.
Lost in the vista, she did not respond.
"Autumn?" he called, a grin forming rapidly behind his fangs.
The gunner blinked, but then she realized what he wanted and handed over the horn.
"Helm, topside bay," Tyfelian called.
"Helm, Jalaysa," she replied, but Tyfelian could easily tell that he had startled her. She had not said anything to them before they left the bridge, and the drider now guessed that she had been stricken speechless.
"Ease us to the surface, and look for anything of interest down there. Land near it," he said gently, more amused than irritated, but he wanted his crew at top efficiency, no matter the beauty of the view they'd discovered. They were still too close to a sun for his liking and it would pay to be cautious.
"Understood," Jalaysa acknowledged.
Tyfelian watched as she edged the Elnamerrna closer to the asteroid. Its surface seemed to rise to meet them and the ship changed orientation to put her belly downward. The full view of Zoethe's veil was quickly lost, but Tyfelian thought that for the best right then.
Jalaysa skimmed the surface slowly, but not for long. The asteroid was tiny and she quickly found the only thing of interest—a cave entrance.
Tyfelian thought to call her to give instructions, but she started doing exactly what he would have said—landing the ship near, but not too close to, the cave mouth—so he kept quiet, issuing no orders. He just waited for the gentle thump of a more controlled landing than he had managed on Bala'bomen.
When it came, Kiran passed him a large coil of rope. Tyfelian tossed this out of the upper weapon bay and across the outer hull while Kiran secured it to the ballista's mountings. He could have led them to the cargo bay and disembarked from there, but that would have made them open the cargo bay door, and Tyfelian wanted the ship able to leave at a moment's notice. He pointed at Autumn to get her attention, and she reacted with a smile as she realized that he was calling her to accompany him and the others on the asteroid. The drider selected three other gunners for the excursion, and then he left.
Needing no rope, Tyfelian walked right out of the bay and onto the top of the cargo bay door. He moved slowly, respecting the fact that the others had to climb down the rope, and that only a couple at a time could do so.
Finally, they stood on the asteroid's barren, rocky surface together, a party of ten. Tyfelian looked at the immediate surroundings and saw nothing unexpected, just dust, rocks—including some boulders—and a crater twice the size of the ship about a hundred yards away and to his left. Wisely, Jalaysa had not put the ship down in a spot placing that crater, or any other craters of great size, between them and the cave mouth.
Tyfelian moved off toward the cave, drawing his swords, Kiran beside and a step behind him. The others followed, weapons in hand. The drider walked around obstacles, such as the shallow, dust-filled craters, that he could have walked straight through quite easily, but again he respected the fact that the rest of his team were all two-legged creatures and could not imagine walking in places that posed no trouble for him.
They walked out of the Elnamerrna's air envelope, and when that happened, they knew that they would have to touch each other if they wanted to talk. Their personal air envelopes would allow voices, but the hard vacuum all around them would make communication impossible. They had already been trained for this, however, and compensated by keeping alert and moving. The thin layers of air that they had brought with them on their skins would not last long before their own lungs made them go foul.
They reached the cave mouth and Tyfelian looked it over carefully as Alzja raised her magical light. The outer edges of the cave looked entirely natural, but on the inside, some rough work had been done. Tyfelian could tell this easily, because the cave was only about twenty feet deep but it hooked left sharply at that point. That ninety-degree curve was no natural occurrence.
Suspicious, the drider examined the edges and floor of the cave closely, looking for traps or anything else unusual, but he found nothing.
He crawled in, spider legs easily finding purchase on the rough, uneven floor. Kiran came in behind him. He could imagine the paladin making all kinds of racket, but in the vacuum he heard absolutely nothing. They reached the curve soon enough, and there Tyfelian stopped and looked back at the others.
Kiran, Jaclyn, Trula, Tash, and Alzja had entered the cave, but, curiously, Autumn and the other three gunners still stood outside. There was plenty of room for four more people—indeed, at least six more could have come in with a reasonable amount of space—but they were still there, and by appearances, trying to find a way into the cave, which confused Tyfelian to no end.
Tyfelian linked hands with Kiran, who grasped Jaclyn's hand, and the others linked up as well. Tyfelian listened intently for Alzja's report about what was going on back there. He could faintly hear Alzja talking to them.
"They can't come in here," she said more loudly, so Tyfelian could hear her. "I can reach back out, but they can't come in. Something's blocking them; a wall o' force, I think, but I've never seen one that could allow some to go through it, and not others."
"Tash, can you do something about that?" Tyfelian asked hopefully.
"What?" she called back, but Tyfelian paused, hoping that Jaclyn or Trula would relay his words. Trula did, and called back, "She'll try."
A moment later, Autumn walked in without trouble, as did two other human gunners and, ironically, a scro. The renegade scro lurched over a small boulder, accepting a helping hand from the human gunner, and they all stood in the cave.
"Thanks, Ursallus," the scro said automatically.
Puzzled expressions regarding that wall of force were general in Alzja's wavering light, but no one had any answers, so Tyfelian led them on, confident in the knowledge that Jalaysa, back on the ship, was looking in on them with her magic occasionally.
The curve led to a narrower tunnel, perhaps ten feet wide. Tyfelian walked into it curiously. It was a gallery, a long underground cave, but it did not go very far. Less than a hundred yards along, the cave terminated abruptly in a sheer rock wall.
Tyfelian blinked. It had seemed that someone had wanted them to come here, so it was beyond strange that they would find a dead end. He glanced at the others, but Kiran merely raised his eyebrows in response, and the others wore similar expressions of surprise or confusion.
Tyfelian examined the dead-end area carefully, and sure enough, he found an opening in the rough floor. To his eye, it looked more like a sinkhole than an artificially created shaft, but it was the only way to proceed.
He looked down into the black eye of its depths, but he saw only a drop of about fifty feet. The sinkhole's walls were rough and twisting, and he could not be entirely certain that there was in fact a bottom at fifty feet; his darkvision was poor at that range, especially since the shaft was not at all straight.
He stepped aside, satisfied with his visual inspection, and Tash and Alzja cast their reconnaissance spells.
At length, Tash shrugged.
"It hits bottom, then there's a narrow tunnel that leads to a door. This is someone's hidden base, has to be. I can't scry past the door, even going around it."
"The chart says a battle happened here once," Kiran murmured thoughtfully. "I wonder who lives down there... or did, anyway."
"Someone the Elendrans didn't like very much," Tyfelian said, also a little lost in thought. His fangs slipped down, the equivalent of a humanoid biting his lower lip, thinking. Then he slipped a coil of rope off of his abdomen, handed one end to Kiran, and dropped the rope down the sinkhole.
Not needing it with his spider legs, Tyfelian walked down the hole almost casually, but he moved slowly, again not wanting to leave his friends behind.
He walked down, keeping watch ahead and up, as well. Above him, Trula led the others down the rope slowly, occasionally grasping the ankle of the person above her—Tyfelian thought it was Kiran—to give a warning to pass along. Still, it was an easy descent for an area that was both all natural and vertical.
The drider found the bottom. It was somewhat farther down than he'd thought—his uncertainty had been well founded; the distance was closer to one hundred feet down than fifty. The serious twists and turns had fooled him, but he complimented himself tentatively; he had picked up on it, had known that his estimate might have been erroneous.
The place he had found was not large enough for the party, so he waited for Trula to arrive, then moved into the connecting tunnel Tash had mentioned. When she could see him, he motioned for her to do the same and pass along the command.
Tyfelian let his eyes shift into darkvision again while he waited, and examined the door.
It was a large one, burnished steel, heavily reinforced. It showed no sign of rust or other corrosion, but that, given the airless environment on this side, did not surprise Tyfelian. He examined it closely for traps, and sure enough, there was one—a bad one. Not one that he could disable or bypass with his tools, he was sure; it was a magical trap. He could just make out the very faint glow of the runes that would trigger the magical effect, whatever it was. Tyfelian was expert enough on traps to try to disable even a magical one, but he could not see all of it, so he took no action against it.
He waved at Tash and Alzja to get their attention, and when he could take their hands, he advised them of the trap.
"I have no idea what would happen if we tried to go in there, but I spotted runes on the door. The runes of a trap," he said grimly.
Tash and Alzja went to work immediately to discern the nature of the trap. It did not take long; presently, they finished, but they glanced at each other, perplexed.
Alzja reached over to clasp Tyfelian's wrist.
"We've found out what it is... but it doesn't make sense," she explained. Tyfelian held up a hand, stopping her.
"I want all of us to hear this," he said. When they had bunched up enough that they were all lined up in contact, Alzja went on at Tyfelian's nod.
"There's more than one spell bound up on that door. Each one is a really powerful fireball... if you'd set it off, we'd all be dead. Even the ship would be destroyed. There's enough power there to blow a mountain in half."
If he'd had them, Tyfelian would have been set back on his heels.
"Why would someone ambush-trap the entrance to their own base like that?" he wondered.
Kiran shook his head, then shrugged.
"Can you bypass it?"
"No. Tash might be able to, though."
"I could try some trap ploys I know, but I'm not sure..." Tash said fearfully. "I wouldn't want to take the chance. Anything I might try could trigger it instead, even antimagic."
"What about a lodestone shutdown?" Trula asked unexpectedly.
"Hm?" Alzja asked, not knowing the meaning of the words.
"When I worked for the Crown back in Embimura, I was taught how to get around magical traps," Trula clarified. "If you place energized lodestones onto runic drawin's, it'll put 'em down for a short bit."
"Really?" Alzja said heavily, raising her eyebrows at the former agent of the Crown.
Trula just smiled, but then she went serious again.
"Keep that to yourselves, please," she requested. "King Allenvar doesn't like that kind of thing bandied about."
"You mean the Gray Shadows don't like it—" Alzja began hotly, but Tyfelian cut her off.
"Never mind," the drider cut in. "Bear in mind, Alzja, the Gray Shadows are no more... and after Trula exposed them, about half of 'em came to Nacla to work for me, anyway."
"Wha-" Alzja started, but her tongue tangled up badly. She looked from Tyfelian to Trula with astonishment, then she hung her head with a half-disgusted, half-amused look on her face.
Then she burst out laughing.
She looked back up to Tyfelian after a moment, however, her face screwing up into a confused, questioning expression.
Tyfelian shrugged.
"Who do you imagine scouted our course through the Underdark to Tatissadane, back in those days?" he asked mildly.
"Gods!" Alzja muttered.
"Trula," Tyfelian changed the subject back, "do you have enough lodestone on you to shut this down?"
"No," the lookout shrugged, "but if Alzja or Tash would see their way to take me to the ship, and bring me back..." she hinted.
Tyfelian nodded, and Alzja shifted her place to grasp Trula's wrist for teleport, handing her light wand to Tash. The two of them vanished, but they were the only ones who could hear the pop of teleport; in the vacuum surrounding them, the others heard nothing.
Only minutes later, they returned in roughly the same spot. Trula went to work immediately, placing lodestones in specifically chosen spots. She held two lodestones on the door, since she could not prop those specific two where she wanted them, and Tyfelian held two more at higher spots.
"C'mon, you can do it," Trula breathed, talking to the lodestones, oddly enough.
Tyfelian called for Alzja to douse the light. He watched with approval as the rune marks faded, then became inert as far as his eyes could tell.
That wasn't good enough, however, so he glanced over his shoulder to the wizards.
"Check it."
Alzja and Tash cast. They nodded their own agreement of the success of Trula's work, and Tash murmured the results of their confirmation.
"I'll cast antimagic over the door, just to be safe," she advised them, then she did so. After she was done, she examined the area with a spell.
"Magical aura's down to nothing... it's safe to open the door now, but be swift," she said, glancing at Kiran.
Kiran squeezed between the right-hand wall and Tyfelian to get to the door's latch. He twisted it, and it slid into the door itself. He heard the latch click and he pressed on the door with Tyfelian's help. It began to open, but that is the point at which everything went wrong.
The latch did something—Kiran was not sure exactly what—that made his fist, clenched on it, swivel all about.
A moment later, he withdrew his fist, still holding half of the handle.
Mildly irritated, the paladin tossed it to the ground and shook his head. He reached over and started to push on the door once more.
The entire tunnel exploded.
Elnamerrna
Elendraspace, unnamed asteroid near Zoethe
Darkmonth 31st, 2459 EY
Melanerra, watching the scene through Tash's crystal ball, muttered a strangled gasp. She had no time to do more than that, however, because a powerful quake rattled the Elnamerrna. She pressed her hands to the crystal ball to protect it, but it went right over, stand and all, taking her with it. Fortunately, she landed on top of it, not the other way around, so she was more frightened than hurt.
The small asteroid buckled. Nature had not designed it to contain such an explosion! Cracks split its cratered surface in seconds, and dust geysers roared forth from its surface. Those nearby showered the landed Silver Triop with fine sand and a hail of rocks; in the crow's nest, Hajri hit the bottom of the lookout post and covered his head.
On the bridge, at the helm, Jalaysa's eyes flared wide with the stunning surprise. She could see outside perfectly well with the helm's wraparound view, and she did not like what she saw, not one bit. The helm still hot, she sent her will into the ship and made it rise.
Jalaysa took care to make the Elnamerrna rise straight up, keeping her in the asteroid's shadow. The solar heat did not really frighten her, but she preferred to avoid taking the chance. Keeping a cool head, she did not panic and leap away at starspeed, leaving Tyfelian and the others to their fate; she moved the ship away at a rapid tactical speed, guessing at a safe distance.
"Tyfelian and the others!" a guard at the door of the bridge cried out.
"They're dead, if what it sounded like happened happened," another guard said.
Reason suggested that the guard was right, but Jalaysa had to suppress a wicked grin, knowing better than to make that assumption.
She could not hold back a slight laugh as she spoke.
"Maybe they're dead and maybe they aren't," she scoffed, but Melanerra ran in then, aghast and mortified. She started to talk, but Jalaysa cut her off.
"I know, I know—they blew themselves up again," she muttered.
"Worse than that," Melanerra blurted. "They set off some magic runes, ones that Alzja said could blow a mountain in half," she stammered.
"So what?" Jalaysa asked calmly.
"They have to be dead!" Melanerra cried.
Jalaysa laughed again, and the wicked grin formed fully now.
"You're wrong; look again."
"What?"
"Go back to Tash's quarters and use the crystal ball again," Jalaysa said patiently. "Check in on them. I'll bet you ten gold coins they're not dead. Bring the crystal ball up here."
Melanerra stared at Jalaysa for a moment. She could not believe that Jalaysa was joking about such a thing, and finally she decided that she had to believe Jalaysa was horsing around only because she actually believed what she was saying.
"No bet," she replied, "but I'll bring it up here."
Melanerra hurried to Tash's quarters, where she picked up the crystal ball from its stand, then she rushed back to the bridge with it.
She handed it to Jalaysa, who held it for her, and then she concentrated on it. It was an easy scrying, since she knew exactly where they had been moments before...
Elnamerrna surface group
Elendraspace, underground beneath an unnamed asteroid near Zoethe
Darkmonth 31st, 2459 EY
The reddish light just barely made an afterglow behind Tyfelian's eyelids, and he tried to open them. Dust stung him, but he finally blinked his eyes open.
Jaclyn stood there, frowning puzzledly at the open—no, destroyed—door, as though not quite sure what had come to pass.
Tyfelian didn't know either, didn't even know why he was still alive, but he rose from the rock pile. He irritably shoved a small boulder off one of his legs and dragged himself upright.
"Damn it," he muttered.
"There was another trap just like the first one on the other side of the door," Jaclyn said quietly.
"Great," Tyfelian muttered, but then he frowned. They were no longer in vacuum, he knew immediately—he had heard her, even though they were not in contact.
"Air blew out of there when Kiran opened it," Jaclyn explained. "The sinkhole behind us must be sealed now... or we'd be getting a wind out of that door."
Tyfelian looked around curiously. The others, knocked unconscious and covered with dust, lay all over the tunnel, which now looked distinctly different.
"Well," he said with the ghost of a laugh, "at least the tunnel's wider now. A little more room."
Jaclyn flashed a smile at him, but said nothing more.
"What did you do?" he asked. "That trap should've blown us halfway to Prime Junction, right along with this asteroid."
"I'm not sure," she admitted. "I trapped its power, held it in... but some of it slipped by me," she laughed. "I tried."
"Is the ship all right?"
"I would imagine so, but my mental power is spent. I can't mindlink with anyone right now."
Tyfelian shook his head, and then turned unsteadily to walk over to Alzja. He awakened her, to hear her muttering curses, but she mended herself with healing spells, then saw to Tyfelian and the others.
"Tash, teleport to the Elna, then back here," he instructed her when Alzja finished healing her. "Let them know we're still alive."
Tash did, and when she returned, she was grinning.
"Something funny?" Alzja asked, surprised.
"Yes," Tash laughed. "Melanerra turned down a bet with Jalaysa that we were dead. A good thing she didn't take it; she would've lost. But they already knew. Melanerra's been scrying."
The drider smiled at all of them warmly, credited Jaclyn for their survival with a nod, and then walked right through the door as if nothing had happened.
"Should we turn back?" Kiran asked. "This place is mightily dangerous."
"No, I want to find out who wants to see us, and why they trapped their door like that," Tyfelian replied. "Whoever it is has stirred my curiosity."
"You're not a cat, Tyfelian. You don't have nine lives to waste," Alzja quipped, paraphrasing two wisecracks older than their home country. She was apparently supporting Kiran's hint to withdraw, but her unsteady voice tone gave it away as a joke.
"No, I'm a cursed spider," Tyfelian laughed, but there was an undercurrent of seriousness that hushed the others, even Alzja.
The continuation of the tunnel they found beyond the door was short, but it was filled with newly fallen stone debris, making the going slow. They walked around an especially tall pile of broken rock and found the end of the corridor. It opened into a larger chamber, rectangular, with a door on the right wall, now twisted and warped from the explosion, and an opening in the left wall. It had once been a doorway, but there was no door in it. Tyfelian guessed that a broken door might lie in the hallway beyond, but he could not see from where he stood.
His eye was drawn to something much nearer, however. A skeleton lay on the floor near him, a little to his left. Obviously extremely old, the body had decayed to dust, but some of its once rich clothing still draped the bones.
"Alzja?" Tyfelian lisped.
"A drow," she replied. "I think it was a she." Alzja walked around Tyfelian and squatted to examine the body, keeping a guarded eye on it all the while. When it did nothing but lie there, she scrutinized it closely.
"She died by swords," Alzja said after only a moment, tracing the break line of the body's ribs across the split breastbone. "She's been here a long time... died at least a century ago, maybe three times that."
Tyfelian stared at the body for a moment after Alzja stood, then turned around slightly.
"I know your scrying is blocked, Tash, but can you give me any idea how big this place is?" Tyfelian requested.
Tash pulled out her scrying mirror and went back into her spellcasting at his call. From inside the scry shield, her magic worked to some extent, and she scouted the general outlines of the complex swiftly.
"Without any secret passages that might be around, it isn't very big," Tash said at length. "About half the size of the ship."
Tyfelian pointed around, splitting the party into two groups of five. He sent Kiran, Trula, Tash, Autumn, and Kerliak to the right, while he and the others stepped around the dead drow to head for the left opening.
"Don't touch anything until a wizard has checked it," he ordered. "There could still be plenty of traps around."
They paused long enough to see Kiran open the door after Trula inspected it, then they all filed out. They met again in the entry chamber about twenty minutes later.
"We found two bodies in the left wing," Tyfelian advised Kiran.
"Two more that way," Kiran said, vaguely pointing to the right wing of the complex. "All of them were killed a long time ago. My guess is, they got jumped, completely by surprise," he noted, "since they're not all together... and, I don't know how to tell you this, but one of them was a drider."
"I see," Tyfelian began, but he was interrupted. A very well hidden secret door opened—it was an illusion covering an opening in the wall straight across from the entry tunnel vanished. A voice came out even before the dark figure there walked out of it.
"That is a very good guess," the voice said.
Tyfelian tore out his swords in a swift movement as a drider walked out of the secret door. Expecting an attack, he gripped his swords tensely until the rather unassuming drider held up its hands and said, "Hello."
Tyfelian gave it a cautious nod.
"Tyfelian of Embimura, commanding the starship Elnamerrna," he introduced himself carefully. "We've come through considerable danger to find this place, Master... ?"
"Trizfastell of Elendraspace," the drider replied. "Welcome. I've been waiting a very long time for some worthy souls to carry away our bequest."
"We came out of curiosity," Tyfelian stated, "but this is a very dangerous crystal shell. We did wonder why the drow never attacked us, not after one battle."
"That would be my influence, Tyfelian of Embimura," Trizfastell said mildly. "I have been whispering into the proper ears, urging the right people to take no action against you so that, if you would come to me, you could."
"And yet, you placed a terrible trap on the very door," Kiran noted, pointed back through the entry tunnel.
"Unfortunately, that is a leftover remnant of our defenses," Trizfastell explained. "The oppressors outside did not have to deal with it. They simply appeared here, though how they managed to do so is a mystery I cannot clarify." He paused. "When you fell victim to it, it activated this long-dormant spell."
Tyfelian looked upon the strange drider curiously. He almost spoke, but Trizfastell beat him to it.
"An illusion," he explained. "This which you see is not real. Before we died in the final battle against the oppressors outside, I cast this permanent spell to greet any who would come here and find the six magical artifacts we carried."
The drider illusion crawled forward, closer.
"Are you of good enough character to possess them and use their power properly?" Trizfastell demanded.
"That question is impossible to answer correctly, even if we are," Kiran retorted.
Trizfastell turned his head to regard the paladin.
"Even if we are, to say we are would be arrogant, and of low character," Kiran explained. "To say we are not could be falsehood. The question is unanswerable in that form."
Trizfastell smile warmly.
"That is a very meritorious answer, in and of itself," he commented. "Commendable. And you are right," he granted.
The drider turned and pointed at Autumn, Kerliak, and Ursallus.
"The three of you are not the ones I was hoping for," he said, but his tone was kind. "For your own protection, step back into the tunnel."
Tyfelian jerked his head slightly, telling them to obey, but he called out, "Cover us," as they went.
The two humans and the scro readied their bows as they turned back to face the chamber.
"Let us see whether you deserve these!" Trizfastell cried. At his outstretched right hand appeared another illusion, that of a lone soldier standing guard post.
Tyfelian raised an eyebrow at this, wondering what it was, but Trizfastell just smiled and shook his head.
"Merely observe these illusions," he commanded. "I will be observing you."
More curious than afraid, Tyfelian looked back at the lone soldier, but that vision was gone. In its place stood an ancient dwarf gem cutter, working his last breath into a fabulous ruby, but then they saw a young child murdered by a black-armored knight and the knight's sword. After that, they witnessed a city destroyed by wizards' magic, blown apart in seconds.
Many more visions followed that one, and Tyfelian began to feel confusion. The various scenes they witnessed ranged from heroic, even self-sacrificing deeds through the ordinary—even mundane—down to darkest acts of evil that revolted every one of them. Oddly enough for a presentation coming from a drider, all of the people they saw in the visions were humans and other races known in sunlit lands, Tyfelian noticed. He found that a bit peculiar, but the thought was lost among the conflicting emotions he experienced watching the constantly changing illusions.
These feelings were of joy or serenity, at the positive or mundane scenes, and the sadness or disgust (or both) that he felt for the negative illusions.
It seemed to go on forever, but after an interminable amount of time the visions stopped.
Tyfelian shook the emotions away, relieved, and then he turned to Trizfastell curiously.
"What have you done in your one hundred twenty-nine years of life?" Trizfastell asked.
"How did you -?" Tyfelian began, but the other drider again cut him off, looking at him hard, looking into his mind, his memories.
"You were not a person of worth when you were a child," Trizfastell noted. "Everything you had, you took away from others. You often killed them in the process, too—ah," he smiled. "It is so ironic that the Spider Queen herself would choke on it. When you were found out, your mother had you trained as a specialized killer rather than see you executed and your vast potential lost. When you had to do things, rather than doing whatever you wanted whenever you wanted, it opened your eyes to the truth of your people... and you turned your back on them with the seeds of honor growing in your heart.
"But they did not turn their backs on you, I see," Trizfastell said grimly, noting the drider body. "I see in your mind that you harbor a burning hatred of Lolth, for what she did to you the next time you saw your own kind.
"Put that to rest," Trizfastell said, and a curious item appeared in the illusion's hands.
Tyfelian eyed it curiously.
It was a suit of drow chain mail, but it was barding, of a sort. It had been fashioned by incredibly skilled hands to fit, not a horse or dog, but a creature with the upper body of a humanoid and the back portions of a giant spider.
Tyfelian eyed the other drider with surprise as Trizfastell placed it on the ground at his feet and turned away.
"And you," the illusionary drider commented to Kiran. "You were born in a kindly place, and your parents loved you, taught you, made you a good man. You have made difficult decisions in your thirty-two years, but you have always acted for the best."
A bizarre object of black metal appeared in Trizfastell's hand. It was a geometric solid, like a die. However, everything ordinary about its appearance ended there. Kiran was familiar with geometric solids, but this object was of no number of sides he had ever seen. Each face was seven-sided, and the lopsided object was covered with magical runes that Kiran could not read.
Trizfastell pressed it into his hand, where it fit easily, and a full suit of magnificent chain mail armor with a shield appeared at Kiran's feet as well.
Trizfastell again did not explain or elaborate on the items, just moved on to the next person—Tash.
"Thank you," Kiran stammered, at a loss for anything else to say.
"A drow from ages past," Trizfastell remarked, looking at her, especially the blond hair, and viewing her memories. "You slept for generations until your friends here found you... after you attempted the impossible and failed—to bring your people up from the dark caverns back to the world of the sun. The ungrateful ones put you to sleep forever after a fierce battle, in caves below the very sea bottom itself...
"No one can fault you for trying," he said, and a slender black wand appeared in his hand. Like the object Kiran carried, it was fashioned of black metal—adamantite, she felt sure—and was covered with tiny engraved runes.
Tash offered him a charming little smile, not knowing what to say any more than Tyfelian or Kiran had. Even if the wand had no magical properties at all—highly unlikely—it was quite beautiful just to see.
Trizfastell turned to face Jaclyn.
"You left the endless farms of your birthplace to pursue release from the tedium, and to find answers about yourself," he said as her memories came to him. "Now you journey the stars, looking for something, you know not what."
With an expression that clearly said that he had found it for her, he placed an adamantite headband into her hand. She took and examined it. Unlike the other gifts, this one had no magical runes engraved onto it, just a small, dark blue gem set in the front and some attractive gold trim. It looked too small for a human to wear, but Jaclyn felt no concern over that; it would probably adjust itself.
Trizfastell's illusionary presence moved on to Trula. The human lookout watched him move about, unsure what to expect.
"You have torn loyalties," he commented. "You once served your king as an operative, but you did your job only too well. He cast you out, and you do not know how to feel about it. It was just, and yet it was grossly unfair. You found happiness in a different place later, to your credit."
Trizfastell pressed a pair of black bracers heavily covered with magical diagrams into Trula's hands, then he moved on to the last person standing within the room—Alzja.
"Another elf from the lightless depths," he stated. "You were disheartened when very young, could not see the point... so you decided to make your own reasons for living." A smile crossed his face, and a cloak and scepter appeared in his hands. He handed these to Alzja, who took them carefully.
Trizfastell faced them all then.
"These items are of a kind," he said firmly. "If one of you leaves the others, you must leave your gift behind, as well. They are one."
"We surely appreciate these gifts, but what are they... and why did you choose us to bear them?" Tyfelian asked impulsively.
"They are the Elendran Seven, and I would have them in hands more deserving than those of my kind outside," Trizfastell replied, a little mysteriously.
"Now, my purpose is fulfilled. May we meet again in a glorious place... in the distant future," Trizfastell said with a flourish. "Enjoy the lives that you have—they are a treasure far beyond these paltry material things, these gifts, no matter how magnificent.
"Good fortunes, our... inheritors..." Trizfastell said warmheartedly, and then the illusion spell, its purpose completed, ended, and the image of the drider vanished.
"Amazing," Tyfelian said softly. "They must have waited so long here..." he trailed off, looking at the body at his feet. Then, however, he put his wonder and gratitude aside. There was still danger here; the gifts might or might not be what they seemed, and after they left, they had the difficult task remaining of getting out of Elendraspace alive.
He waved Kerliak, Tarrel, Autumn, and Ursallus into the room once more.
"We have more than we could dream of here... if these things aren't cursed or something. Search the place and take anything you like," he offered.
The four crewmen moved off, and Tyfelian put down the strangely formed chain mail. He nodded at the others to do the same.
Then Tash and Alzja set to work examining the objects. They took turns with each of the six gifts, not donning them but holding them out, so the two wizards could cast divining spells that required the items to be in use. In many cases, thoroughly examining magical devices required them to be worn or otherwise active, but there were ways of faking that. Magical items could be tricked into giving away their secrets without using them.
Alzja and Tash knew many such tricks, and used them all.
Autumn and the others came back through, with their backpacks overloaded with treasure—objects of art, Tyfelian realized, having seen plenty in the left wing of the complex, and perhaps some gems.
Tyfelian smiled at the take, not concerned about money himself—though he knew he would be after the war ended. Maintaining a starship was an expensive endeavor. Currently the Elven Imperial Navy, no small ally where money was issue, backed him solidly, but that would not endure, win or lose.
"There's quite a bit here to go around," Autumn said of the treasure take. "We'd like to share some out with the crew. We all dared the sun coming here," she added justifyingly.
Tyfelian nodded.
"Alzja," he called to the drow lady.
"Yes?" she asked guardedly, distracted from her work on Tyfelian's gift.
"Take them back to the Elna," he instructed. "Come right back. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but they're done. No reason they should wait."
Alzja looked irritated, but Tyfelian had made a point hard to argue against. She vanished with them, and returned only moments later.
Tyfelian mollified her a little with a warm smile, but he said nothing, letting her get back to work. It took them several hours—Tyfelian lost track of the time, slipping into and out of the reverie several times—but finally the two drow women finished their inspection of the "Elendran Seven" items.
There were only six total, counting Trula's bracers and Alzja's scepter and cloak as one item each. Tyfelian thought that this was a little... off... but he chose to ignore it for the time being.
"Yours is called 'the Dridercomp,' whatever that means," Alzja said, handing it to him once more. "It's a powerful suit o' armor with some magical resistances. These items put up a wall against analyzing them that... well, you wouldn't believe it." She shrugged. "So we don't know everything they can do, but they're not cursed, nor dangerous to the wearers in any way."
"I see," Tyfelian said slowly. "And the others?"
"Kiran's is called the 'Septahedron'... Again, I don't know what the hell that means, but that's its name. It protects against mental control, and it has some other powers that we couldn't decipher. He says the armor and shield look familiar... he's going to look into that. That's really strange."
Tyfelian nodded; for something to seem familiar here was very odd...
"Perhaps not," he noted as he changed his mind about agreeing that it was strange. "We found that Erarzi charm..."
Alzja's eyebrows arched briefly as she conceded that point, but then she went on.
"Mine are the Regalia of the Gonn," she said with a wide smirk even as she tucked the scepter into her belt and slipped on the cloak. "They also have some effects that we couldn't figure out—several things having to do with music—but they'll make the ship faster."
"Faster?" Tyfelian said, surprised but pleased.
"Faster by three," Alzja said, suppressed awe overriding her arrogance for a moment. "Tactical speed, starspeed, and flowspeed alike."
Tyfelian could only raise his eyebrows, impressed.
Tash came over then, leading Trula, who was examining her new bracers.
"Bracers of the Ebon Rogue," Tash named them. "They're protective of you," she addressed Trula, "and they'll make your aim and eyesight better."
"Improving on Trula's eyesight won't be easy," Tyfelian commented. She could spot a scro ship twice as far away as other lookouts already, the drider knew.
"No, but they'll do it anyway," Tash said confidently. She raised the wand Trizfastell had given her.
"This is the Adamantine Wand of Evin'shay," she said. "Its most impressive power is that it will make my assault magic punch through resistance more readily."
Jaclyn came up then, wearing the strange, drow-made headband. She smiled quietly, indicating that it was all right.
"It tightens my mental control," Jaclyn said to their questioning looks. "It also gives me some protection against telepathic intrusion, independent of what I can do myself."
"Looks nice on you, too," Tyfelian complimented. "What's it called?"
"The Psychotralex of Ibinon."
Tyfelian's fangs slid down over his lower lip with satisfaction. His intuition had called to him to go this far, to brave the extreme danger of a drow crystal shell, and he was relieved to know that he hadn't been running off on some wild urge for nothing.
"Mine is the only one that actually requires disrobing," he said with mild embarrassment. "I'll vanish for a moment."
The others shared chuckles. A drider had very little to hide, but Tyfelian's modesty reflex had never gone away.
Tyfelian made the mental effort to use one of the few innate drow powers he had ever developed, and created a small globe of magical darkness. He walked into it to remove his clothing and armor so he could don the Dridercomp.
"I have to admit to being a little overwhelmed," Kiran said, looking magnificent in the fabulous chain suit and with the shield, which bore the engraved drawing of a gold dragon.
"I kind-of feel like you got cheated a bit," Tash said. "Your Elendran item doesn't seem as useful as the ones the rest of us got."
Kiran's lip turned up, an expression equivalent to a shrug.
"Perhaps that's true, but the battle equipment more than makes up for it," he commented, and it was hard to disagree. Even to the eye not enhanced with divination spells, the armor and shield both looked extremely formidable, and yet beautiful.
"That suit's called the 'armor of the celestial battalion,'" Alzja stated. "It's got armor strengthening magic the likes o' which I've never dreamed o' seeing."
"The shield is called the 'bulwark of the great gold dragon,'" Tash picked up on Alzja's lead. "It's really powerful, too, but I couldn't find out everything it does."
"I think I've seen these before in clerical books..." Kiran murmured thoughtfully, looking down at the armor, sword, and shield.
Then his head snapped back up.
"No," he corrected himself. "I've seen this very armor before. In that painting of Vesgar on the ship."
"You're kidding!" Alzja blurted.
Kiran shook his head and lifted the shield to his eyes, looking on the inside of it for a name. Picking up on that, Tash helped him look.
"Here it is," she said a moment later. Her finger pointed to the bottom of the shield.
Her eyebrows lifted just as Alzja's had.
"I... don't... believe it..." she said slowly.
Kiran slipped the shield off of his arm to look, then he showed it to Alzja.
"Well," Alzja muttered. "I'll be damned..." she breathed, reading the engraved name:
Knight Cmdr. V. Longhart Autumn's Days 5th 2291 EY
"Gods..." Tash said, awed. "He was the greatest paladin in history—"
A ringing scream of anguish from within the darkness globe cut Tash off in mid-sentence.
"Ty!" Kiran roared, springing to the globe. There, he extended his hands to grope for the drider and shuffled forward, watchful of his step.
He had taken perhaps five scraping steps into the darkness when his foot kicked something lightly. He bent down to feel, and got Tyfelian's shoulders.
"Trula, Jaclyn, help me," he called, for dragging the drider was not something anyone looked forward to doing alone. He weighed over five hundred pounds, all lean and spidery muscle.
The two women were right there, also alarmed by the cry. They took hold of Tyfelian's arms and dragged him out of the darkness he'd created.
"What the hell?" Trula frowned, for dragging Tyfelian had turned out to be much easier than they'd expected.
They had pulled Tyfelian partially out of the darkness globe. Kiran and the others looked at him.
Kiran's mouth fell open with astonishment.
"His fangs are gone," Trula stated, observing the obvious, seeing what had caught his gaze.
Kiran reached down again and grabbed the unconscious Tyfelian by his armpits to pull him fully out of the darkness globe.
He froze, then snapped an incredulous glance up at the others, then his eyes went back to the prone form of his captain.
Even as they watched, they learned what the word "Dridercomp" meant. They witnessed the completion of that which even Tash's primeval incantations could not accomplish. The last of the spider features dissolved into the armor, into Tyfelian's body. Inexplicably, impossibly, the Dridercomp was overriding the Spider Queen's horrible transformation curse.
The Dridercomp changed as well, twisting and reforming itself to mold against Tyfelian's lower body and legs. When it was finished, it looked like any other suit of drow chain mail, albeit of especially fine make.
Tyfelian appeared as they had not seen him for over five years, not since before his capture by Tatissadane forces and his subsequent punishment by Lolth. He had been born, by appearances, to grow up into being a large drow man, heavily muscled, with gold highlights in the white hair—all gifts from his half-human father, Lyledel.
So he appeared now, again. Alzja swiftly cast a minor healing spell upon him, and he stirred. His eyes fluttered open and he looked up at the woman who was his cleric and wizard, and a front-line warrior when it suited her. She looked at his eyes—bottomless black pools of simmering hatred and controlled fury as a drider—now the dark blue that Alzja dimly remembered, so dark they were almost black—another gift from Lyledel.
"Ulgh... Alzja..."
"It's all right, Ty," Alzja said reassuringly, her normal arrogance dissipating as the doctor within her emerged. "I've got you. Can you walk?"
Tyfelian looked down at himself and saw his humanoid legs and feet. He almost passed out at the sight, from the emotions that swirled through him. He was hardly unappreciative of the reversal of Lolth's curse, but he had been a drider for five years. He realized at once that he could not walk; it would take time for him to learn again how to walk with humanoid legs.
"Help me stand," he bade them. When Kiran and Alzja had him standing steadily, he inclined his head at the west wing entrance.
"I had it in mind to have a look around again," he said. "Not for treasure, but for anything interesting we might want to take with us."
He lifted a foot tentatively, and stepped around the drow skeleton with their help, mindful of the fact that he was barefooted. They walked him through the left wing of the complex, discovering to their amusement that the four crewmen had ransacked the entire place, though not to the point of leaving everything in complete disarray.
Tyfelian took a few items of interest, including a book that he thought was a journal. By the time they had finished looking around in the west wing, he had become more stable on his feet, but he knew better than to think that he could truly walk so soon.
They checked the east wing and found more items of some casual interest, such as a magical beaker in an alchemy lab, and from there they went back to the entry chamber.
"An unbelievable find," Kiran remarked as the six of them prepared to teleport back to the Elnamerrna. They were now ready to leave, but there was no going back the way they'd come, not through the collapsed rock and cave-ins throughout the area.
"I'd call it a rather unbelievable day," Tyfelian said. "Teleport to my quarters," he said, turning to Alzja. "The crew can't see me like this."
"They would understand," Alzja retorted.
"Morale must be maintained," Kiran corrected. "We would understand, Alzja... mercenaries will not."
Alzja shrugged and nodded.
Tash and Alzja cast their teleport spells and Jaclyn used her mental teleport power. Tyfelian didn't know where the others went, but he, Kiran, and Alzja reappeared in his quarters. Tyfelian settled gratefully onto the bed that he had never before been able to use.
Alzja nodded, the doctor rising again one last time this day.
"Rest," she told him. "You've had quite a shock. But I'll have you walking steady again in a day or two."
"I'd better be," Tyfelian said severely. "Even after just a few days, the crew would start asking questions that you wouldn't want to answer. Neither would I."
Alzja paused to consider the truth of his words, then smirked, knowing that he was right.
"I'll make it as fast as I can, but it isn't as simple as healing you when you're just cut to ribbons, still breathing. You just don't know how to do it anymore."
Tyfelian nodded once, his eyes closing as he let normal sleep take him. He slipped into the reverie more often than he slept, but he felt exhausted. Perhaps Alzja was right, he thought, and it would be better to regain his strength before he tried to learn to walk.
Alzja stood near him until he was sleeping, the latent physician within her unable to turn away until he was fully at rest. After he was, she slipped the blanket from below him using magic, and then dropped it over him.
Satisfied, she turned and left his room.
Elnamerrna
Elendraspace, near Zoethe
Frostmonth 1st, 2459 EY
The Elnamerrna soared away from the asteroid and back into open space, away from Zoethe's heat. Tyfelian walked, slowly and carefully, down the ship's main corridor to the stinger bay to look astern, Alzja at his side.
The incredible glory of Zoethe's veil came into view again, but they swiftly flew too far from the asteroid for it to mask out the sun's brightness, and it vanished.
Tyfelian turned away, unable to keep himself from marveling at the ship's speed while influenced by Alzja's Regalia of the Gonn. Smiling, he walked unsteadily to the bridge, drawing more than one amazed and thrilled look from passing crewmen. Several of them briefly complimented him warmly on finding a way around the Spider Queen's punishment.
He walked into the portside door to the bridge and took his seat. He had never been able to use the captain's chair on the Elnamerrna, and he took a minute to appreciate how comfortable it was.
Kiran appraised him from the other side of the little desk between them, his eyes warm with approval, as did Alzja and Jaclyn, sitting at the conference table. Tyfelian flashed a smile at them, but then he addressed navigation on a bleak subject.
"After we drop in at the Forge, Tash, can you get us back to the phlogiston alive?" he asked grimly. "Our clandestine assistant won't help us anymore."
"If we weren't moving three times normal spelljammer speed, I'd say no," Tash responded, "because they'd jump us somewhere, eventually. But at this speed, we'll be out before they know it, and we can outrun them."
"All right," Tyfelian said slowly. "Duck every patrol you can. I hope we don't have to fight our way out. One war at a time."
Tash nodded. She felt confident about taking on even a trio of gypsy moths, but she also felt that Tyfelian was right in thinking that it could start a war.
"If the crow's nest calls down any sighting, try to avoid it, Melanerra," he said.
The helmsman nodded.
As satisfied as he would get, Tyfelian's eyes narrowed as a thought occurred.
"Tash, it would be very nice if we could see outside the ship from here, on the bridge," he said, hoping to get her mental gears turning.
Tash thought about it, then started mumbling ideas.
"I could make a crystal ball that could look outside... no, that wouldn't work. Maybe an illusion that could make the walls invisible... no, can't make the hull invisible..."
Momentarily baffled, she sat back, thinking.
"Maybe the best way'd be to put a new magical wall in the front of the bridge... one that made it look like the rest of the ship wasn't there."
"You mean the rest of the ship, forward of that wall?" Kiran asked.
"Right," Tash said. She chewed on her lip, thinking.
"Yes," she mumbled. "I'm sure I can do that... sure of it... a wall with an outside transparency spell on it..."
"There you go," Alzja quipped, but even she looked mildly interested in such a device. "It's true that we wouldn't have to rely on descriptions from the lookout or the helmsman anymore. We'd see it for ourselves."
"There's no way I could make it able to enlarge the view, like a spyglass can, but you're right about the descriptions," Tash agreed, glancing Alzja's way. "I could make it able to turn any direction, though, without actually moving it... but there'd be no way to shut it off."
Kiran shrugged. "We could put a curtain above it."
Tash nodded. "That would be easy enough."
"How would we control it?" Tyfelian asked curiously. "Talking to it?"
"I could make it that way," Tash said slowly, "but it might be better to control it by hand gestures."
Another thought occurred to Tash.
"Wait," she said, looking at Alzja. "There's no need to put any transparency spells on the wall. I could double up the view outside off of the helm."
Alzja's eyebrows rose.
"Yeah..." she agreed thoughtfully, nodding a little, "yeah, that would be easy. It could only look outside one direction at a time, but you wouldn't want a wraparound view anyway, unless you're at the helm yourself."
"I'd like you to work it up as soon as we leave Elendraspace," Tyfelian said. "You'll have plenty of time, I figure... it's a pretty lengthy sail to our next target."
"Okay," Tash smiled, "but... what will we call this wall that will let us see outside?"
Tyfelian thought about that for a moment, then shrugged.
"What about... 'the outeye'?"
Alzja smirked at that, liking it, and Tash laughed.
"That sums it up in two syllables," she remarked.
Tyfelian smiled, but then his face went deadly serious.
"Navigator, helmsman, get us out of this crystal shell, as fast as you can."
Elnamerrna
Elendraspace, Glory of Lolth Shipyard
Frostmonth 3rd, 2459 EY or Zoethe's Night 17th, 3463 AS
Far behind the Elnamerrna—or far ahead, since the Silver Triop had turned around—the spider ship floated easily at a docking pier. The crew filed out of it, turning it over to another crew entirely.
"You're sure?" a young drow woman said to the robed figure.
"I am certain, Kryce'linna," came the reply. "Follow them; shadow their every step. Do not make your move until the time is right. I will remain here, at the Shipyard administrative center, to give you updated instructions when needed."
"How long?" Kryce'linna asked.
"It will take a long time, but they will eventually meet The Master. When they do, you will be ready. I do not think that they will reach their inevitable destination until after the war between the elves and the scro has ended, but we do not know that for sure."
Kryce'linna nodded and turned away to walk into the ship through the hatch in its belly.
The robed woman watched her go, surreptitiously removing the unholy spider symbol of Lolth from the chain on her neck. Then she turned the chain to bring her own unholy symbol—two quartz spheres, one inside the other—to the front of her neck.
She raised her eyes to follow as the spider ship moved away from the pier and from the Glory of Lolth Shipyard, toward the sun, toward the alien silver vessel that would make all things possible, though it and its crew would have to be eliminated after they had done as The Master wished. The Lolth-worshippers wanted to let them live, so that they could wallow in a world-ocean of guilt about what they would end up doing.
The robed woman, less obsessed with irony, knew better than to let that happen. That ship's crew was far too dangerous to allow them to live after they had completed The Master's work.
She had it covered, however.
"When you catch up with that ship, it'll be a marvelous day to be alive, Kryce'linna," she whispered into space as a huge, perfectly evil smile spread wide over her face.
"Marvelous... marvelous indeed..."
