Startup 44: Low Profile Launch

Rova 4

Everything was shrouded in a haze of sky blue as I walked through the streets of Heslandaena. The musty smell of the jellyfish’s interior blocked out the smells of the market, and the sounds were muffled badly.

There’s no real, plausible way to sneak a seven foot tall slab of muscle and fur through town, especially not while both of you are wearing jellyfish as hats. I hated to do it, but I needed to cast three invisibility spells just to get out of there, and hold on to the foot of a levitating Filli to tow her along. As far as anyone could see, I was walking alone without any jellyfish or mutants in tow.

She’d been less than enthusiastic about the plan, since her only real forms of communication were visual and tactile. When invisible and floating, she’d be entirely at my mercy. I didn’t intend to do anything bad to her, and I hoped that she knew that, but I was still just some guy who’d randomly started talking to her friends a few weeks ago. I was stretching the upper limits of her faith.

Ve’ra split off from my shadow whenever Autopilot saw anything remotely suspicious. It wouldn’t be terribly hard for a specialist like Kiyon to identify her as my handiwork, but to the overwhelming majority I was a guy that served a shadow lady who had a magic shadow as my familiar. It checked out enough that nobody really cared in the rare occasion they noticed.

I slipped into an alley near the walls of House D’Lann and let Ve’ra keep watch. She slithered along the floor, a blot of deeper darkness against the dimly lit street, and whispered into my shadow’s ear.

“Alright, mate. The bird’s gone.” Ve’ra said, “Time to go.”

“Did it go inside, or did it just fly to the other end of the wall?”

“It went back into the deeper shadows.” Ve’ra said, “other side of the house.”

“Thanks,” I said, “now I need you to go back to sleep for a bit.”

Ve’ra grumbled a bit as she fused back into my shadow, but she complied. From what she told me, being unsummoned was a bit like falling asleep. Her dreams were often about whatever I was doing, but time slid past her without her noticing.

Kiyon’s bird is probably going into the tunnels. Hopefully that part of its patrol takes a bit. Even if it’s just going to Dovnu to give the all clear, I’m not going to get a better chance before my invisibility runs out.

I used another of my precious second level spell slots to make myself invisible and levitated Filli into the air, towing myself along with her. Once I was near the edge of the roof, I kicked off the low wall in the loose direction of the harbor. Filli and I held our breath as we slowly drifted above the heads of the wall guards, but none of them looked up. Amateurs. (Fly check 16+3=19 success)

Fly? Good thing I rolled well. I thought that was going to be acrobatics.

I couldn’t have done this with most people, as you can only levitate along with cargo up to your own light load. Thankfully, her absurd bulk wasn’t for show. My new buddy could lift me with one hand, allowing me to use her like a hang glider, shifting my own weight to steer. It wasn’t a one to one, since she didn’t actually catch much air, but I could make us bob through the air until we were lined up with our destination.

That was mostly on Autopilot, as I had only ever been hang gliding once. Enough to give me the idea, but not enough to really know how to implement it. I kept watch while Autopilot flailed through the air, knowing that if Kiyon’s bird came out we would need to go the rest of the way on foot.

I scanned through the guard patrols, and noticed something odd. Most of them had a couple extra orcs along, and more importantly only one in four had a drow officer. A smirk spread across my face as I realized why no one was scanning the skies. All of the female drow officers had been recalled, leaving behind their male subordinates, not all of which were actually trained for guard duty.

I guess getting my boys out was a little too ballsy. No way Dovnu would ignore that, and once she started looking she probably noticed everyone was a lot less competent than usual. Assuming she wasn’t already picking up on it. Hopefully Shishe can keep up the act under scrutiny.

We landed near the docks, which were thankfully almost unguarded. Only one man, a hobgoblin, was on duty. He was scrubbing the Crooked Smile, keeping it in good order for the next time Dovnu wanted to leave.

“Knock him out, but don’t hurt him too badly if you can avoid it.” I whispered, “If we get past him, we are in the clear.”

I lowered her to the ground, allowing the levitation spell to fade entirely. I thrust out my hand, firing an invisible bolt of necrotic energy, deep indigo in my eyes, at the hobgoblin. He stiffened, looking around in confusion. His eyes turned towards me as I dove behind a small guardhouse. The spell refused to take hold.

Target Will Save vs Night Blindness successful

Damn it, that was supposed to short out his darkvision. Now he might see us.

Filli flickered into existence with her hand already wrapped around the hobgoblin’s neck. She pulled him against her chest like a teddy bear and pushed him to the ground, face down. She held him there with her full weight until he stopped moving, then for a few seconds longer. I didn't know if she killed him. I didn’t even know if she tried to take him down nonlethally. My logs had nothing to say about her. She wasn’t in my party. It was the first time since I’d learned her name that I was reminded of quite how large she was.

“Us going?” She signed with her left hand, “This one may wake up.”

With her right arm, she slung the hobgoblin over one shoulder and carefully hid him on the deck of the Crooked Smile. She eyed the ship for several long moments.

Anything we do to it will make too much noise. This guy might sound the alarm, but that’ll be in a little while at least. Even if I froze it, that would probably make a loud crack if I did enough damage to matter. Besides, Nendra won’t be following me immediately in her current state.

Filli stepped back, probably coming to the same conclusion I did, and pawed at the side of her head, stopping several inches shy of her ear where the dome of the jellyfish was still sitting invisibly. After all, it hadn’t attacked any people.

I’d found the bathysphere jellyfish a while back, while looking for extraplanar sea monsters. At the time, I’d been trying to find a plausible creature for Besmara to send to **** Master Scourge. These jellyfish didn’t make the cut, as they were basically harmless, but they’d stood out to me anyway for how ridiculously convenient they’d seemed.

They would have been sufficient evidence of intelligent design, even if the gods weren’t a verifiable fact in this world for a dozen other reasons. Either that, or they were the result of some kind of extraplanar breeding program to help visitors to the plane of water survive.

When someone pulled a bathysphere jellyfish over their head, they would find that the jellyfish’s bell was full of breathable air. An average jellyfish had enough oxygen for eight hours while fully submerged, replenishing quickly whenever it was exposed to fresh air. They didn’t even try to sting, either. In fact, if they detected that the person wearing them was ****, the jellyfish would do their best to tow them to the surface. All based on pure instinct, supposedly.

I knew this. I knew my head wasn’t even going to get wet, but I couldn’t help but take a deep breath before leaping into the same tunnel I’d come in through.

••••••••••

Dovnu struck Emrys again with her whip, and he barely winced in response. He just smiled at her smugly, as if she were the one tied to a chair.

“What did you do?” She demanded, looming over him.

“Exactly what you told me to, Mistress.” he said, an insolent smile playing across his face. “I’m sure a few might even be pregnant right now.”

“You know what I mean, Stud.” Dovnu said, “What did you do to my ladies? To my daughter? If you don’t speak up, you will regret it.”

Emrys smiled up at her, seemingly unconcerned. Dovnu gave up for now, and pulled out her cigar. She needed to puff.

He hadn’t responded to teasing, her normal preference, and she was starting to get impatient. He’d shrugged off whipping, even when she pulled out the cat for a more serious session. He was wearing manacles that would prevent all spellcasting more complex than the spells innate to all drow. Rented at great expense, but at this point she didn’t care.

None of her ladies were in any state to work, meaning their work fell to their shadows or assistants. She was incredibly lucky that only Mih’Tzi had run off somewhere, and she shuddered to think what someone might do to the girl in her current state. Dovnu really should have known something serious was going on when she found out one of her house swordmasters started an affair with Carys’s spy, that orc Azog.

Malwyn, once she’d been convinced to cure her own damn affliction, had proven less than up to the task of repairing House D’Lann. Supposedly, the Thassilonian style spell to repair deep spiritual afflictions required the use of diamond dust. Malwyn needed less than an ounce for each application, but each and every one of the thirty women in her employ would require at least two and possibly eight treatments. Her calculations put the cost at over one hundred and fifty thousand gold pieces, assuming optimal market conditions. That would ruin her financially.

Kiyon, because he was thrice damned wonderful, had an alternative solution. The Garundi equivalent to Malwyn’s treatment was far harder on the caster’s body, but at no financial cost beyond the time to recover. He was familiarizing himself with the theory and reforming his shadows into properly specialized healers, though it would take days to get all three working. The puppets would, together, be able to fully restore between six and ten women per day at the cost of their own lives, and Kiyon would simply remake them. He’d be functionally useless for anything else for a month, but at the end of the month Dovnu’s subordinates would be recovered and she could resume business as usual.

“So, Dovnu,” Emrys said, “I’m just curious. How often do these tactics work for you?”

Dovnu stiffened. The answer was, of course, not very often. That’s why she was so proud of Nendra, despite her daughter’s more erratic proclivities. **** wasn’t truly an effective a method of getting information, as Dovnu was fully aware, but at the moment she couldn’t trust her daughter to handle the interrogation. As much as she loved Nendra, she couldn’t justify prioritizing the girl over any of her senior managers.

“You played directly into my hands.” Emrys said, “You just fed them to me. One after another. It was so, so easy.”

“Shut up,” Dovnu said, “Once we know what you’ve done, you’re going into the deepest, darkest hole I can find, and I’ll drag you out only when it’s time to rip the magic from your bones.”

“Oh Dovnu,” Emrys said, laughing, “you have no idea at all what’s going on, you poor dear.”

“Silence!” Dovnu yelled, driving her fist deep into Emrys’s gut.

She struck, again and again, listening with pleasure to Emrys’s grunts of pain. Suddenly, they turned into mocking laughter.

“Thats adorable!” He cackled, “You actually thought you could punch the situation into shape! You don’t have control here, Dovnu. I do.”

Emrys flickered, becoming translucent golden slime. He glowed with an inner golden light, and simply passed through the manacles, the chair, her rug, and the floor. He was gone.

Dovnu’s eyes widened. She did a little bit of mental math, and dashed down the hallway. She leapt down the stairs three at a time, and within moments she reached the room directly beneath the holding cell: a parlor used to entertain guests of minimal importance.

A flustered half orc maid was staring at the middle of the room. Dovnu looked at her just long enough to know that she was, in fact, on the staff. She couldn’t discount any possibility.

“Mistress!” She said, falling to her knees. “A strange golden mass fell through the room!”

“Guards, take this woman into custody.” Dovnu said, before running to the next floor, gathering troops as she went.

An hour later, the guards were found catatonic in a closet. The maid was found on an entirely different floor, and denied ever being in that part of the house, even when charmed. Over the course of the next few days, there were dozens of Emrys sightings reported, both in the house and around town.

••••••••••

I had many expectations about my daring escape, but what I wasn’t expecting at all was exactly how boring it would end up being. We had to go over a mile in water deep enough to safely sail through, jumping at every shadow, but after ten hours of hiking with bad scenery anything can get old.

There’s no way, absolutely no way, that this tunnel is completely undefended. Even if it’s well hidden, Dovnu can’t risk some random people stumbling in and leaving to tell tales.

The tunnel was long and dark, and neither of us were great swimmers. Autopilot could have been an Olympian, of course, but he was busy sending Ve’ra off down the tunnel to scout. She wasn’t anywhere near as good at it as Dierdre would have been, but since she didn’t have a conventionally physical form she didn’t actually have to deal with tidal shifts pushing her back towards Heslandaena.

She’d slither along the wall at a brisk jog, then I’d dismiss and resummon her the next time we took a rest on the tunnel’s roof. I needed to cast levitate to get Filli and I out of the water, which broke Autopilot’s concentration. We’d relax for a few minutes, get a report on the next mile or two worth of tunnel, breathe some non-jellyfish supplied air, and have a few sips of water or a bite to eat out of my extraplanar storage.

I did not account for the hike. I'm going to need to call up something that can fill our water bottles at some point in the next day or two. Which means I’ll need to find somewhere we can breathe. Add it to the list, I guess.

I was correct to think that the cave was trapped, but thankfully most of the issues were only really problems for ships. We were obliged to levitate and clamber over several thick chain nets, which were rigged to be raised or lowered by a mechanism embedded three feet into the wall. A small tunnel led to the switch, probably intended for Kiyon’s bird to trigger.

The only real danger we encountered in the tunnel came in the form of a wrecked boat in an alcove full of armed skeletons. Of course, they were only a prop, intended to scare off anyone who reached that far. We were almost certainly near the entrance to the cave, if we were seeing such theatrical displays. It was probably a good place to rest on relatively dry and stable land before exiting out into the open sea. (Secret Sense Motive 1+10=11. Critical Failure.)

Call me paranoid, but there is no way in hell I’m going to camp out on a wrecked ship covered in dozens of completely intact, armed skeletons. Not in a world that verifiably has undead in it. Not in a tunnel where the owner has at least one necromancer on staff.

Filli tapped on the wall with her club.

“I hear waves.” She signed. “Far away, but audible.”

I nodded.

“I’ll call Vera once we get away from that ship.” I signed back, then pointed at the offending vessel, “Skeletons can only see about sixty feet, but they can hear just fine. Be very quiet while we get past.”

“I will trust you.” Filli signed, “I can not see it.”

Oh. Right. Ve’ra and I have unusually good darkvision. I’m easily close enough to see they are kitted out, but most people wouldn’t see the skeletons at all until they were also close enough to be seen with lights or with short range darkvision. This really is a trap that only works on non-Drow.

I called up a fog cloud, and we crept along in silence. Filli’s shape loomed in the dense fog, hardly visible from only a few feet away. A few minutes later, we dropped down into the water again. So it went, diving underwater or clambering across the roof as necessary to bypass House D’Lann’s defenses.

I’d never really thought about why drow would be able to levitate until I found myself underground. This is absurdly useful.

At long last, Ve’ra reported that she found the mouth of the tunnel. Unfortunately, it wasn’t all good news.

“It’s guarded on the other end.” She said, her red eyes stark in the pitch darkness, “A few shirtless lads with fish tails and spears are manning the gate, see?”

I sighed, taking a deep whiff of the musty jellyfish air.

“I should have seen this coming.” I said, “It’s been too easy so far.”

“Have spear?” Filli signed. “Club bad under water. Stabbing sword also works.”

Unfortunately the only spear I could have possibly sourced for her was a schir halberd, and I still had that punitive quest from Gozreh looming over me. No dumping shit into the ocean for me, even if I’d had a free summon slot available.

“Alright.” I said, in Undercommon for Filli’s benefit, “We are going to need that gate open. I can make Filli invisible, but not myself. I’m out of that kind of spell. So either we find a safe spot to rest-“

Filli cut me off with a slashing motion of her hand.

“Leave tunnel.” She said, “First place Mistress looks.”

“In which case we need someone to open the gate.” I said.

“Not you.” Filli said. “You die, shadow stops living, then I die.”

“Fair.” I said, holding up my hands in surrender, “which means we need to send someone a little more expendable.”

“I don’t think they’re gonna trust a talking shadow, mate.” Ve’ra said, “And that’s if they speak common or Undercommon. I heard ‘em jabbering; couldn’t understand a word.”

“I’ve got just the spell.” I said, smiling. “Bestowed upon me by the gods for seemingly this exact purpose.”

Ve’ra grabbed my shadow by the shoulders and shook it, and by extension me.

“Really?” She said, grinning. “I thought that was just for a bit of fun.”

There were certain spells known as “personal” range spells, which I could only cast upon myself. Shadow claws, for example, was a very potent melee weapon balanced out by the fact that I would have to use them for myself. However, my shadows seemed to hack that specific limitation by being an extension of myself. Even Ve’ra, despite being her own person, was made partially from my own essence. We’d experimented with that during a few lazy hours in the last day.

Once we were a little bit closer to the gate, so it was right at the edge of my darkvision, I cast Infuse Self upon Ve’ra while she hid within my shadow. It was impossible to do without spending a spell slot to keep her around without concentration, so she’d only be able to stick around for about six minutes, but that would hopefully be enough for a distraction.

I’m not at all looking forward to plans B through D. Most of them are pretty stupid. Especially D; all out **** is a bad idea when I’m mostly alone and out of my element.

My shadow seemed to shudder as Ve’ra started to form in the water between me and the wall. My familiar became a lithe blue and white elf, made from summoned aquan quintessence. Her hair was short, styled as it always was in a foreign cut. Her bare skin was decorated with seemingly random designs and earrings scattered at random, echoes of the half remembered tattoos and piercings she’d had in life.

https://postimg.cc/zLNnq3wz

I wonder what it says about her that she considers her piercings more a part of her self than her clothes.

I tossed her a servant’s robe from my inventory, one of the few extra outfits I’d packed. I didn’t particularly expect to get it back.

“Fuckin hell, mate,” she said, “It’s good to be back. You sure there isn’t time for a quick shag?”

I rolled my eyes.

“No, Ve’ra, I still didn’t summon you to fuck.” I said, “Even if there was time, I doubt Filli wants to watch.”

It’s rude, but probably for the best Filli didn’t hear that. It would be so much more awkward if she had.

“Spoilsport.” Ve’ra said with a cackle, and swam down the passage to make a distraction.