Holy Opposites 38

	Cavria blinked her hellish eyes and looked over her shoulder.  “…I have wings?” she asked.  She gingerly rose, Luanea tracking her every movement.  “I… I have wings!”  She leaped up and hovered in the air a moment before landing.  “Whoa!  Okay, that has to go,” she said.  “This… this is horrible.”

	Luanea stepped back and let her bastard sword hang.  “Cavria, Axio, the very least you owe me is an explanation,” she said tightly.

	“Yeah,” Cavria said heavily.  “Okay, can somebody heal me?”

	Axio leaned forward and rested a hand on her shoulder, then cast cure wounds at second level.  Cavria sighed as warmth and health flowed into her, and her cold-ravaged arm knitted its flesh back shut.  “Thanks, Axio.”  She looked around for her armor and winced when she saw it was scattered to pieces.  “Great.”

	“Spit it out,” Luanea said tersely.

	“Yeah, I’m stalling.  This is embarrassing.”  Cavria took a deep breath, and then yelped in surprise as the lantern fell and exploded.  All four adventurers whipped around, weapons up, but what emerged from the lantern was no threat.  A thick grease, already aflame, oozed out of the large glass and gold enclosure, and sloughed down the drain, leaving a trail of feeble flames behind it.

	The group slowly lowered their weapons as the sound of the crashing and flames faded.  “Okay… so,” Cavria started.  She explained the quick version as best she could, hands raised to her shoulders.  Axio noted in distress that she was hiding the fact that she disliked how the two drow were not sheathing their weapons.

	After a few minutes of expositing, Cavria lowered her arms.  “So… Luanea, Doshellas, the children may be on the ritual table right now.  Do you trust me to fight or not?”

	Luanea sheathed her bastard sword.  “If you personally received a vouch of piety from Ryaire, then we’re alright, though I want it remembered that I dislike surprises of this sort,” she said, though at least the anger and fear were gone from her voice.

	Doshellas just shrugged.  “Heard weirder things,” he said.  He looked her over.  “Like the look.”

	Cavria frowned, though she did note the tiny curve of Doshellas’ lips.  He was just teasing.  “Well, I didn’t want to let you be the only person who got to take their shirt off today,” she said flatly.  She drew a deep breath.  “Axio, can I… can you help me with these?” she asked, pointing over her shoulder at the black bat wings on her back.

	“What about them?” Axio asked.

	Cavria steeled herself.  “Cut them right the hell off.”

	The others froze.  “Wait, what?” Axio demanded.

	“I don’t want this.  There’s no way I will be able to hide these,” she said firmly.  “Cut them off.”

	Axio set a hand on her shoulder.  “Cavria, they’re wings!  You want me to remove them?” he asked, still feeling stunned.  “They’re a part of you!”

	“A part I want gone,” Cavria said forcefully.  “Want me to do it myself?”

	Axio scowled, and Cavria flinched.  “I want you to wait until you get back to the surface before you go making a decision like that,” he said sharply.  “I’ll make it an order if I have to, Cavria.”

	“I hate this!  They’re hideous!  I can’t wear a shirt now!” Cavria pointed out.  She leaned down and scooped up her holy symbol, and strung it back around her neck.  Sure enough, the wings emerged from beneath the magic that made her look different.  “See?  This won’t fool anybody!”

	“You have a spare shirt in your bag,” Luanea pointed out hesitantly.  Cavria looked at her with eyebrows raised.  “Well, you could tie it on.”

	“Enough!  We have to go!” Axio said.  “Cavria, I am making this an order.  Do not ask others, nor attempt to remove your wings, until we are in a place where such a decision can be made rationally and we have the means to stop you from dying of shock,” he added in a thunderous growl when she opened her mouth to protest.  “Is that understood?”

	Cavria glared molten anger at him, but drew a deep breath anyway and saluted.  “Yes, sir.”  She grabbed her pack and pulled out her spare shirt, which she and Luanea hastily tied to her chest.  “I still look like a fucking monster,” she muttered when he was out of hearing range.


	Axio opened the stairway doors and sniffed the air.  “This goes down.  We’re going,” he said.  “Doshellas, on point.  Check for traps.  And good catch on the lantern,” he added belatedly.

	“Thanks,” the drow said.  Overall, he seemed remarkably unconcerned about the revelation of a High Succubus in their midst.  Maybe coming from the Underdark inured him to such things.  He looked down the stairway and wrinkled his nose.  “Something dead down there.  Animal.  Big.”  He walked down to examine it gingerly as the others reached the top of the stairs.

	Axio held Cavria up.  “Cavria, I admit I have made a mistake in my judgment,” he said softly.  She blinked in surprise.

	“When we rescue the children, they may not follow you if they see what you are,” Axio said wearily.  Suddenly he felt about forty years older.  “If you insist, and if you accept the consequences of my doing so when we are about to enter battle and are miles from surgical treatment, I will remove your wings.  Understand that I will endeavor never to forget vital information while giving orders, nor have I failed to catch the undertone of self-resentment in your request.  However, given the… pertinent tactical information,” he said grimly, “I will accept the request.”

	Cavria stared at him, and then saluted again, this time slowly and with proper respect.  “I understand, Axio.  I’m sorry I shouted at you.”  She took a deep breath.  “Maybe after we kill the cultists but before we free the children.  If I pass out from blood loss while we’re fighting, you’re as good as dead.”

	“Thank you,” he said, ignoring the slight to his fighting skill.  “Let’s go.”


	Fifty feet below and six hundred feet away from the moving group, the hidden chamber was a riot of activity.  “I don’t even give a damn about the Paladins or whatever,” one cultist said grumbled, emptying the contents of a desk drawer into a bag as he did so.  “Walls are solid stone.  The fuck are they going to do, come through them?”

	“It’s Undermountain,” another one shot back.  He slapped a piece of runic paper over a bundle of struggling burlap, and it went still.  “There could be ten ways in we don’t see.”

	“Eh.  Maybe,” the first one allowed.  He turned to the coil of slowly unspooling sinew beside him.  “So, you coming with us?” he asked with barely-hidden distaste.

	The golem chuckled wetly.  “Oh, yes, I certainly am,” it said.  Its voice was too low for a creature of its shape, the cultist thought in disgust.  “I am not yet complete.”

	“Your call, I guess,” the cultist grunted.  He hefted the bag of desk items and heaved it onto his shoulder.  “What kinda golem can talk like you, anyway?”

	“The very best kind,” the Wire Golem said drily.  The daemon possessing it marked the cultist as a target for potential retaliation in the future, but made no actions yet.


	Doshellas held up a fist.  Axio looked up from his compass and narrowed his eyes.  Something was different ahead.

	“Light?” Cavria whispered.

	“Yes,” Doshellas confirmed.  “Faint.  Crack in the wall.”

	Luanea glided silently over the stone tile floor to the wall Axio’s compass indicated.  “It’s close,” she whispered.

	Cavria engaged her divine sight and swallowed.  “Oh yes,” she whispered.  “There’s something big and evil on the other side of that wall.  Big and evil.  Like the Wire Golem from before.”

	Axio nodded.  Concerns about Cavria’s well-being and Doshellas’ lack of armor had to wait.  He silently walked forward and rested his hands on the stone walls.  He felt no vibration.  The walls were thick.

	“Very solid stone,” he said quietly.  “Not sure I can level this.”

	Doshellas checked the map.  They were on the uppermost of the fourth level’s subfloors, in a largely unexplored region.  The paths the other adventurers had tread were still useless to them now.

	“Fan out.  Find a way in,” Axio whispered.  “We meet back in ten minutes.”