Monoliths #5k: Pieces and Amulet

[Gurns]

Gurns scratched his head. The necklace wrapped around his arm clanked on the table. He looked at it peevishly. As long as he didn't wear it, everything was fine. But how could he learn to use it, if he didn't wear it?

Of course, given how <i>informative</i> everyone had been, how was he supposed to learn to use it, even if he did wear it?

Well, what did he know? It had been some time since he had sat down to take stock. He pulled out quill and paper, and started making notes.

ITEM: The amulet. Named Oberon's Amulet. Belonging to the grey elves, who didn't know what it did. Sent to the kobold blacksmith, who knew what it did, could have explained what it did <i>much</i> better, and who made a necklace for it.

Evidently the necklace caught wandering spirits, the amulet itself kept the wearer's spirit within his body, and the amulet had an 'echo', a spirit amulet which held onto the wandering spirits.

Gurns grimaced. No one had said that the wandering spirits weren't trapped, weren't caged, but were still free to wander. Through <i>his</i> body! And the amulet did a <i>very</i> poor job of keeping the wearer's spirit in his own body it needed a lot of help.

Gurns sighed. Most of the spirits justwandered in, took over for a moment, and then wandered out. Unnerving. Disruptive. Painful at first, although not so much so lately. But even the benign ones had almost ... evicted him, that first time he had worn it. Gurns shuddered.

And the one... That one <i>was</i> trying to evict him. First by force. That had hurt, a lot. More recently with promises, temptations. Temptations for many, at least, though the wizard didn't have the faintest idea what a bard might want. Not this bard, anyway. Gurns shuddered again. The other spirits weren't really aware, were still living in the past, but the wizard was very aware, and thinking. Probably already plotting his next line of attack.

Gurns smiled bleakly. At least Teej was ready.

His smile warmed, as he thought of her. He wondered if she knew how much she helped, how strong an anchor she was, her love helping him hold on. Music, first and last, still. But the music alone might not have been enough.

And her promise to take care of things, if it all went badly. That was an anchor, too, something he didn't have to worry about. As well as some extra motivation!

Back to his notes. The kobold had suggested it might be possible to trap -- well, if they were free to wander on, was "trap" the right word? -- to detain only certain desired spirits with the amulet. The kobold denied knowing how this could be done. And so far, that hadn't worked very well. The spirit of Arex, leader of the mortal forces at the last battle against the Vile One, had been hanging about. And he'd made an attempt to enter, or whatever, the amulet. But something had kept him out.

Gurns sighed. Lintral had been able to see the spirit of Arex, and from what he'd described, it seemed Arex had indicated a distaste for evil wizards. No doubt that would be exacerbated by a wizard who'd worked for the Vile One. Gurns expected the feeling was mutual, so it was probably the wizard who was keeping Arex out.

Lovely. The leader of the last battle, someone who might finally have useful information about how to fight the Vile One, and if he could get into the amulet, he might convey something. But he couldn't get there because that damn wizard was <i>still</i> causing problems!

And of course, no one knew how to get spirits <i>out</i> of the amulet. Or keep them from coming in, in the first place!

ITEM. Lirela and Noloth'e. Gurns frowned. This still had something to do with the amulet, but what? Lirela had tried to help him find out about the amulet, poking through old ruins on the Isle of Evermeet with no success. Then talking with the kobold blacksmith.

Eventually, they had traveled to one of the monoliths, to talk with Noloth'e. Lirela's moonstone had provided power for Noloth'e to manifest both priestess of Selune, after all. After a quick greeting, Noloth'e had stopped talking to the group, and only talked to Lirela.

From half the conversation, and from what Lirela had said later, the amulet could be used to bring ancient spirits to battle the Vile One. Possibly any ancient spirits, though, presumably you'd have to find spirits that wanted to battle the Vile One.

But to do <i>that</i>, Noloth'e had indicated that we would need a seeker, a bearer, and a weaver. The seeker would find the spirits, so required someone who could see them, someone like Lintral. The bearer would carry the spirits obviously whoever had the amulet. And the weaver would weave moonlight to...

And that was when Noloth'e vanished, leaving but one more image. Gurns frowned again. The half-drow spirit had been weak ever since the monoliths had been damaged. But Lirela, who seemed to be the obvious candidate to weave moonlight, didn't know how. And Noloth'e had vanished before she could show or tell Lirela how to do this. And even if the moonlight was woven, how was it to be used with the ancient spirits?

ITEM: The Vile One. The last image from Noloth'e. A dark cloud, an evil, malevolent cloud. Going through a portal into a formless void. There was only one thing it could be. The Vile One had made it through the portal onto the Ethereal Plane, and was heading for its final destination. From what the monolith showed, and by the word of Vhaeraun himself, that was the mountain off Avernus.

And what awaited it there? After extensive discussion with the kobold, it came out that he had made something, or a lot of somethings, for people unknown. They sounded like the resurrectionists from Zhentil Keep. And they had referred to this construction as "the host". Why the zealots from Zhentil Keep were involved, Gurns didn't know, but they'd been around before, too.

Gurns thought about what the kobold had said. Many pieces. Maybe many, many pieces. Put together, they'd form something big -- 30 feet long and 15 feet high, or so. Except the kobold had also indicated the pieces were stacked or nested somehow. Six nests? Six layers? It wasn't clear what that meant.

And the ingredients were odd, very odd. Stone and metal and gems. But also blood and spores and herbs and body parts and who knew what all? And imbued. The kobold had been clear about that. The pieces were imbued with magic of some sort.

And the kobold said that all the pieces had been picked up and shipped out, months ago. Not much room for doubt, where they were headed. Or why. The kobold also kept saying something odd. How he was trapped, imprisoned, there at his forges. That what he most wanted was to be released, free. Lintral had looked at him and proclaimed that his spirit was missing. Somehow, someone had pulled it out of him. At a guess, this was how he was trapped, but where could his spirit be? It wasn't in the amulet.

ITEM: Artikerus and Nilan. Something was going on there, some falling out, some squabble. Gurns didn't know why, but Artikerus had indicated his displeasure with Nilan by sending a warrior to attack him. Of course, Nilan defeated the warrior relatively easy, and probably could have even if there weren't others there to back him up. But certainly this was odd. Especially now, when it probably would take everyone to defeat the Vile One.

ITEM: Gurns looked at the paper. No, that was it. He crossed out the last "ITEM".

So now what?

Well, Noloth'e still had more information. How to weave moonlight, perhaps? Could she teach Lirela? Even if she couldn't, Noloth'e should still know what good weaving moonlight would do, why it was needed for the spirits.

Noloth'e is weak, though. The only ways she's been strengthened enough to appear, for any length of time, are through Lirela's moonstone, and the power generated by the release of the spirits trapped in Lintral's orb. Lintral still doesn't have that many spirits trapped, or so he says. Hmm, don't Unholy Avengers trap spirits now? Perhaps the spirits in Lintral's orb and in an Unholy Avenger or two might be sufficient. And maybe the moonstone, too...

What about the amulet? The kobold doesn't know, the elves don't, Zhoanest, Noloth'e... Ah. Tsakchanar hasn't been seen in quite a while. She is ancient, herself. Perhaps she knows something about the amulet?

If she doesn't know, what then? Or rather, what now, since it may take a while to find her? The only suggestion anyone had, for learning how to use the necklace, was the kobold. He had said, "Wear it?" and shrugged. Gurns sighed. That, he could do right away. Find Teej, and just...wear the necklace.

Three threads to follow. And if the Vile One has made it to Ethereal, and the host has been shipped out ... almost no time left.