| The Darkward: Meeting Chol Mok |
[Apr. 2nd, 2008|01:28 am] |
After making a request to meet with Chol Mok through Kesto, Lorden and Ardenal meet you at the Parted Veil. Lorden brings some rather nice cinnamon-coated nuts in a paper sack by way of refreshment, offering them to everyone except for Xantcha.
"I hate meeting on an empty stomach," he says. "But I'll be curious to see what you have to say. Ready to go?"
You nod, and head off across the square to Mok and Tarrell's Weapon Emporium. But as you start to head across the bazaar, weaving your way through the endless tents and waving salespeople, another one of the endless announcements booms out across the bazaar. The skies darken in a way that you haven't seen... well, since Kesto. The area overhead softens and blurs into a silvery mass, like twisting quicksilver spun into cotton candy clouds, pulsing and slithering between each other in an almost organic rhythm. It's hypnotic, and indescribably beautiful, even though you've each seen it at least ten times before.
"FLUX," a deep baritone booms, shuddering through you. "THE UNCAST MOLD! A GIFT OF A CITY, AWAITING YOUR TOUCH! SEEK IT. EVEN NOW, THE ENTRYWAYS ARE CLOSING. YOU CAN CHANGE THE BALANCE OF POWER IN THE MULTIVERSE... IF YOU ARE STRONG ENOUGH."
The first word is always the same, that "FLUX." Then some nonsense words, always talking maddeningly about potential and birth, always ending with "...IF YOU ARE STRONG ENOUGH." And whenever the word "you" is used, it feels like a finger is planted directly in your chest, the voice talking straight at you so firmly it's as if it knows you.
But recently, there's been a change - if you look faintly enough, there are numbers, twisted into the skeins of silver, the same number repeated over and over in a motif. It once read "8," infinite looping whorls, but this time you note it's down to "3" - and it was "4" yesterday.
Lorden looks at Kesto with a pained expression. "Can't you do something about that?" he asks. "It's your square."
Kesto shrugs, his tiny face lined with a strange worry. "I've tried," he admits, and Ari knows that it's not easy for him. "He's got some... some new dweomers. Powerful, powerful stuff. Much...." He swallows bitterly. "Much better than my own. And he's not that great a sorceror. Someone's giving it to him for this."
"The touts are having a hell of a time on this one," Lorden says. "Everyone's got a map to the next proving grounds they'll sell for enough gold, and nobody even knows what they are. People keep telling us there's a way to find your way to where you need to be, but nobody has any specifics. It's driving me crazy."
"And the Duke...." Ardenal says.
"Disappeared two days before all of this Flux stuff started. It's been going on for almost a month now, and nothing's been settled. It's just rumors within rumors. It's like whoever behind it wants people to guess."
"Oh, they do," Kesto says. "They do. It's the old seller's trick. Everyone's talking about it now. It started here, but if you go to Arcadia or the Nine Hells, everyone wants to know what Flux is. When you have both the Modrons and the Slaad jailing outsiders to get info, you know it's spread far and wide... Just as they intended it to. And I know someone knows, and it's driving me nuts that it's not me."
"Nuts?" Lorden says, proferring the bag.
"Oh, you think you're so damned amusing," Kesto says sourly, pushing his way through the crowd. They're all looking at the sky. Chant is that you can make out secret messages in the clouds, sigils and words of arcane significance that will unlock where you need to go, though none of you have ever noticed anything.
You get to Chol Mok's shop. It's just as you remember it, except it's much richer and better-kept. Lorden escorts you in, and introduces you to Chol Mok for the second time. He growls gruffly.
Lorden gives a very awesome speech explaining everything that you folks have been through, really selling Chol Mok on what you think happened, giving all the evidence in summary, and essentially setting you up precisely as you'd been hoping. He's your total advocate, even as he indicates that this isn't necessarily the full truth of it - he's gently skeptical, but he thinks you believe.
Then you give your side of things. Chol Mok starts quite a bit, the temperature in the room flaring when you mention his old master's name. He growls, looking at Lorden with fear and anger, but Lorden just nods. And you tell him your story.
When you're done, he looks you over wih a baleful star. "So there is not one, but two Chol Mars: The imprisoned, and the former prisoner."
He bites a hunk off of a bar of cast iron, chewing as he thinks.
"You couldn't be blamed," he says thoughtfully. "You don't have his intellect. Of course he outwitted you. That's what he does. But that doesn't change the fact that if there are two of him loose, the baatezu have just gained a significant amount of power. He's got plans. Are you sure you told me everything?"
He grunts.
"Celestia has to be warned. I don't know how he'll come at them, but he will - and soon, before they can mount a defense. He has all sorts of weapon designs he's never tried, and I'm sure he's had thousands of years to think of new approaches. It's what he does. He does nothing but think. The question is, are you still willing to get involved? And if so, who among you will go to Mount Celestia to tell them your story?" |
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