Spoiler: Chapter Nineteen: The Triumvirate
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May 1115
Word of mouth has it that the dwarves of Tahrr are under siege by the Omukade swarms. Balthazar’s forces are unable to provide relief, having opened up a war on at least four fronts before the unexpected appearance of The Scourge. Valentine is sure that her team’s assistance will be appreciated and richly rewarded, but first, she has a crazy plan; to strike at the Omukade leadership and claim the bounties while their army is away and their capital undefended.
Kim doesn’t like this plan, she tells them that they haven’t seen the full horrors of that place, or the undead legions lurking beneath it. They wonder what happened to the alleged skeletal army on the night of the restless dead, and Feur mentions the necromentals which The Tribunal told him are attacking the elemental planes. At this point, Sonya says:
“I am to tell you that the necromentals are not a curse, but a gift. The Titans were foolish in connecting their realms to Pangaea, for the Borderland have given the Nidhogg access to the Elemental Planes. If not for the blessing of undeath, all realms would have been corrupted beneath their notice.”
Feur does not know quite what to make of this.
They prepare for the trip, purchasing potions of dimming from Whin, which will allow them to slip in undetected. They also ask for a scroll to create a magical gate for them to escape through, but Sammy tells them that without proper coordinates and angles it could do more harm than good. He will, however, instruct Harijan on how to make one once they have the proper measurements.
Zara returns and shuttles them to the edge of the Wasteland in her juggernaut. She is quiet the whole time, though Aurora and Sonya try and get her to engage in small talk while the others go over their tactics in the back.
Once the Omukade city is in sight, Quincy surveys it with his binoculars, and he is able to plot out some rough angles for Harijan to prepare a rune that should create a gate leading from the palace into the rugged mountains beyond, and then they arrange a meeting spot for Zara to pick them up and proceed to the city on foot.
They drink their potions of dimming and are not noticed by any of the guards or inhabitants of the town. It is strangely deserted, and even the heavily fortified ziggurats that were once full of undead warriors are deserted.
They are finally spotted once they attempt to climb the great ramp leading up to the royal palace, the centipede-headed guards demanding to know their business. Valentine, who had hoped the potions would obscure them until the end, talks fast and explains that they are mercenaries who have been summoned by the Triumvirate for a special assignment involving the dwarves of Tahrr.
The guards look impassive, but pass messages by intertwining their antennae, and soon begin to twitch nervously and escort the humans up the ramp.
The long ramp extends seven hundred paces into the sky, and from the top one can see the sun setting over the wasteland, the clouds of ash and plains of volcanic glass turning all sorts of strange alien colors.
The palace itself is built hanging from the underside of a cliff, only accessible to bipeds along a narrow servants' path. Before the group can cross it, they are sniffed over by a pair of languid Yowies, enormous twelve-legged creatures which are like a cross between serpents, dragons, and electric eels. It is said that they were bred for hunting by the giants of old, and it appears that the Omukade has continued the practice to produce these hand-reared guard beasts.
They enter the palace and move through the narrow corridors of tile and adobe until they come to the lair of the Triumvirate, rulers of the Omukade. The room is square, about forty feet on a side, and hanging below the palace, only accessible by a single staircase. Broad rectangular windows laced with leaden bars provide a spectacular view of the city below.
As for the royal family, there are three of them, one male, one female, and one who is both, a bonded unit. Each lies on a cushioned palanquin attended to by smaller creatures that are simultaneously priests and handmaidens.
The male, bald and adorned in hooked bronze armor, grabs his spear and granite shield and demands to know the meaning of this intrusion, but the mercenaries are not here for banter, they draw weapons, and Quincy fires without a word.
Kim immediately casts a spell of abjuration to seal the door behind them, making it impossible to open and impervious to harm.
Krystal moves forward and dispatches the priests one by one from the shadows.
The triumvirate are no strangers to combat, and they do not take this lying down. They work as a team, the male distracting his foes and blocking their attacks while the hermaphrodite circles behind them and tears into their flanks with a pair of cruel copper scimitars. The female, meanwhile, a hugely fat specimen with long green hair and the legs and tail of a giant desert centipede, uses her magic to repair their wounds.
Aurora notices a demonic creature lurking in the Dreamtime, a shaggy, lanky form with a head like a grinning jack o’lantern, a creature that her companions would have recognized in a different world. It uses its power to banish the elementals that the invaders had bidden to aid them in their assault, and then summons several of the Omukade guardians who had come to investigate the gunfire and found themselves barred.
Once Aurora explains what is happening, Kim wards the room, preventing magical transportation both in and out.
The battle is a strategic one; the Triumvirate knows its tactics well. The male is too sturdy to be taken down by a single shot, and the hermaphrodite too quick, and any wounds they suffer are quickly healed. Of course, Aurora also repairs any wounds that they inflict upon their would-be assassins.
Sonya is taken down relatively quickly, a victim of friendly fire, knocked out cold when Kim’s meteor hammer strikes the side of her head.
Feur and the pumpkin creature play a game of chess, one manipulating time and the other space. Feur speeds up his allies and slows his enemies, while the fallen boggart rearranges their positions to his advantage.
In the end, they decide to focus on the female while Aurora reverses her magic, causing her wounds to fester and bleed. Once she is down, Feur banishes the heavily armored male into an alternate timeline rather than wasting time and energy trying to penetrate his thick shield.
After he is gone, the remaining member of the Triumvirate and the few surviving guards and attendants do not last long in the face of Quincy’s gun, Sonya’s Immortal, and the Black Flame blade.
Aurora quickly works to stabilize their wounds and get Sonya back on her feet while Krystal and Valentine loot the room. There is little of value; the Omokuda’s currency is made of clay and worthless in the wider world. Though they have a few pieces of jewelry made from copper and obsidian, most of their treasures are in the form of scarified pieces of chitin taken from the bodies of honored ancestors and passed down the family line. Still, Quincy can probably use these as trophies or proof of his kills.
Kim drops the wards and Valentine goes to smash down the rune to create their escape portal, when Feur deftly catches the delicate sigil. He explains that he has come back from the future to warn her that this path leads to their ruin, for the Pumpkin Man will twist the gate and use it to separate their group so that they can be picked off one at a time by the Omukade response forces that are even now amassing outside and preparing to storm the palace.
Instead, he summons the most powerful spirit he knows, an arcomental of time called Eonus, and bids it to chase away the Pumpkin Man, as well as any other bound spirits that the Omukade might send forth to hinder them. The ancient demiurge agrees, but he drives a tough bargain, and Feur was never one for negotiation, and he promises the powerful creature seven favors to be named later.
That done, the companions open the gate and step through into the rocky scree above the palace before hurriedly making their way to the rendezvous point.
Though they are pursued, they have enough of a head start that they quickly outpace the Omukade search parties. The yowies are another matter entirely, for the beasts have their scent and can scale the rocky ground as easily as a flat highway.
After a long pursuit, Quincy gives into exhaustion, stumbling and falling, and the serpentine beasts are upon him. Kim reacts by erecting a circle of protection around him and hurrying down the mountainside to his aid. The huntsman pulls his shotgun and fires at the approaching monsters, and though they are prevented from drawing too close, they are still able to respond by stunning him with a powerful jolt of bioelectricity.
They then move to Kim, recognizing her as a threat, and carefully move to position her between them using well-rehearsed pack tactics; it will only be a moment before they manage to pull her apart like a wishbone.
Feur and Krystal move down to aid her, but the creatures are adept at rotating their longsome bodies, and neither is able to get into a good position to distract or wound the massive creatures.
Sonya conjures several shades to distract them, but the incorporeal beings prove susceptible to the monster’s electric pulses.
Eventually, Quincy is able to come to his senses and aim his rifle, and once he does he manages to bring down both creatures from the safety of his magic circle.
Although he doesn’t have time to skin them, he inspects the yowies as Aurora works to put Kim back together, and he notices odd patterns of scars on their hides. He points it out to Sonya, and she surmises that the Omukade are harvesting their blood for some reason.
Later, Aurora will analyze a sample and see that their blood is a powerful hallucinogen and that they were likely bred for their narcotic properties.
An hour later they exit the mountains and meet up with Zara, Jeremy, and Harijan, and set off for The Towers of Tahrr, leaving their pursuers behind to mourn the loss of their kings and queens.