Holy Opposites 64

	The group made their way as quickly as they dared up the stairs and away from the carnage below.  They skirted past the dead archers and through the door behind them into an antechamber.  It wasn’t decorated like the entrance to a torture pit, certainly.  It looked like the rectory of a well-to-do church.  Kyria looked askance at the décor.  “Kinda… incongruous,” she remarked.

	“Drag marks on the floor,” Suivi said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.  “The sacrifices get brought in through here.”

	Doshellas rested a hand on the door.  “Not locked,” he said, puzzled.

	“They didn’t think we’d get this far,” Axio rumbled.  His terror and anguish were shifting into molten rage, now that his innocent little sister wasn’t right in front of him.  “They were just that foolish.”

	Doshellas pushed the door open.  The six warriors filed into a large armory, which they could all see had been upended.  Armor and weapon racks sat empty, open-topped chests dotted the place, and all the arrows were stripped from the box next to the fletcher’s station.  “They prepared for fighting us here,” Cavria remarked.  “No guards, though?”

	“They’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, I’d wager,” Kyria said.  They proceeded through the large room to the ladder and door at the far side.

	“Two ways.  One up a floor, one here.”  Cavria shrugged.  “I say we stay on this floor.”

	Doshellas nodded.  “Works for me.”  Suivi and Doshellas took up positions on either side of the door and pushed it open.  Nothing challenged them inside.  Doshellas poked his head around the door and looked around with his darkvision.  “Not a thing,” he said.  “Totally empty.”

	“Press on,” Axio ordered.  They moved out again, feeling the haunting emptiness of the place weigh down on them.  After a day of peace and quiet and five minutes of pure hell, it felt confining.  Each warrior felt their hair stand on end as they passed rows of bunks and footlockers sitting vacantly.

	Still, no psychic attacks threatened them.  They moved through the barracks towards a small stair.  After a quick debate, they proceeded down the hall to a distant light source.

	The three-way intersection welcomed them with emptiness.  They looked around, choosing their options.  “So… towards the lit area, or do we go the third way?” Cavria asked.

	“The lit area,” Kyria said.  “I can sense enormous magic in that direction.”  She shuddered.  “And something else.  Something psionic, I think.”

	“The cultist leader,” Axio snarled.  He was only barely keeping his rage in check.  “We claim his head today.”

	“Axio, stop,” Cavria said.  She moved to stand in front of her partner and met his eyes.  “Please.  This isn’t you.  This cultist will die, yes, but I don’t want to see you enjoy it.”

	Axio started to snap a reply before composing himself.  However awful it was, he knew she had a point.  “Yes.  Alright.”

	She leaned up and hugged him quickly before turning to face the light.  “Let’s go.”


	Vorthane sat in his private office and thought.  He had left the control throne behind when he had seen the fight in the Grist Cage end.  There was no point in launching further psychic attacks against his enemies.  He would need his strength to fight.

	He had used a sending scroll to contact his brothers in the south.  They had, despite some smugness, accepted his offer of his own help and much Grist, should he emerge victorious here.  They were prepared to send reinforcements of their own to help him through the portal network, but they had their hands tied fighting the armies the Lords’ Alliance had dispatched.

	He was not entirely alone.  He had one of his lieutenants and a single guard from the portal room left to him.  They stood nervously beside his desk.  They had never been in his psychic focus chamber before.  He had offered them both a chance to run to the city and make a break for it, or retreat to the south, but neither had taken it.  It warmed his heart to see such unassailable faith in a time of hardship.

	He heard some commotion from the end of the hall.  Both of his men readied their weapons, but he made no movement.  They would attack the empty throne room, react to its contents, and then come for him.  They were in a hurry, and he did not need to be.


	Axio looked over the foul contraption beneath the stone chair on its slender bridge and nearly retched.  Cavria took two steps forward and swept her glaive through the device, smashing it to pieces.  “Soul Cleavers,” she said with utter disgust.  “They used Soul Cleavers on children.”

	“Where did they even find those?” Luanea asked.  The drow wasn’t pale, but her voice trembled with shock and horror.  The thought of those innocent souls falling through the arcane guts of the horrible machines made her head spin.

	Suivi looked sick.  “Toller didn’t have those!” he said.  “This must be where they were conducting one end of the ritual.”

	Axio turned away and looked at the rows and rows of seats.  “This was a church,” he said angrily.  “People spectated this!”

	Cavria finished smashing the machines and kicked the debris away.  “I’d bet you anything that stone chair up there has psionic components,” she said darkly.  “The cult master probably controls the entire operation from here.”

	Doshellas gingerly poked a pile of densely-written scrolls in the corner with the tip of a dagger.  “These… aren’t in Common,” he said.  “What is this stuff?”

	Axio wandered over and read one scroll to himself.  He blinked in surprise as he recognized the language.  “This… this is Celestial.”

	“Celestial?  In a temple to a God who wasn’t present for the birth of the world?” Cavria asked doubtfully.  “Why would that be here?”

	“No, no, not Creator Celestial, Supernal, the language Selûne and Shar used to create the world,” Axio corrected her.  “It’s Dialogue Celestial, the language of angels.”

	“Still seems a weird place to find that,” Cavria said.

	“It’s a temple to a god, even if he is utterly evil,” Axio said grimly.  “Perhaps it’s their form of encryption.  Nobody else here would know it.”

	“What does it say?” Luanea asked.

	“They’re… logistics orders.  They’re confirmation of the shipment of something from another temple in Athkatla,” Axio said.  He shook his head.  “It’s not relevant.  We need to find the dirty bastard who did this and skin him.”

	“Right.”  Kyria drew her Wand of Accuracy and looked around.  “Two doors.  One behind the throne, one to the left.”

	Both were unmarked.  Axio looked back and forth between them.  “The one behind the throne is more heavily traveled.  We use that one.”

	The party stacked up behind the door.  Doshellas pushed, and it opened wide.  A narrow stone hallway faded into the distance, and dead-ended at a T-intersection.  Axio lead the group down the corridor.  The left door was unlocked, and revealed just a privy and sleeping quarters, but the other door would only open with a kick from the Aasimar.