Rime of the Frostmaiden
The Unfrozen North
A long time comingChapters
Null and Void: “That’s the difference between normal people and the greatest”
The Unfrozen North: “The second greatest kobold!”
Null and Void
“That has been a long time coming,” Morgan said, with an exhausted laugh. “I’m very tired. But we did it. The Frostmaiden is gone.”
“She’s gone from the mythallar too,” Eearwaxx said, focusing his attunement. “We can fix the weather at will!”
“I know we want to raise the temperature, but we might want to do it gradually,” Octavian said. “That is a lot of ice that is going to melt very quickly if we’re not careful.”
“How long are you planning to stay down here?” Tarquin scoffed.
“I’m cranking it up!” Arlington said, trying and failing to push the mythallar all the way up to eleven.
“I’m just saying…” Octavian shrugged.
Eearwaxx stared at the throbbing ball of pure energy, then tilted his head up to the roof of the Ythryn’s vast cavern. “If it gets too hot in here are we in an ice cavern where the ceiling could collapse in on us? Are we going to die?”
“The mythallar isn’t changing the weather by being a heater,” Morgan smirked.
“The answer is no,” Arlington said firmly. “It’s minus seventeen degrees—until it’s zero there is no problem.”
“I would say it could go even further than that,” Tarquin added. “It’s sometimes zero degrees and the snow stays on the mountains.”
Morgan nodded. “Is there any reason for us to stay here now?”
“The spindle and this,” Eearwaxx said pointing to the mythallar, “Are very powerful objects.”
“They’re not going anywhere,” Morgan said.
Tarquin glanced meaningfully at Octavian and Arlington, Levistus’s pendant weighing heavy around his neck. “Well we’ve solved one problem…”
Arlington nodded slowly, an idea forming in his slowly thawing head. “We could offer the spindle to someone who might be able to use it.”
“What?” Octavian said. “Who would we want to give that kind of power?”
“The spindle negates magic for fifty years,” Tarquin said incredulously. “As someone who has come to enjoy the crutch of the Weave, I don’t think we need to do that, just now, really!”
“No—but if the spindle should go somewhere else, and destroy some magic that would benefit someone who might benefit us…” Arlington spelled out.
“Oh so we’re arms dealers now?” Tarquin said, not getting it.
“You mean a different plane?” Octavian said tentatively, almost getting it.
“Oh!” Tarquin said, actually getting it. “I see a plan forming in Arlington’s mind where normally a plan does not!” He said with a cheeky bow, wink, and smile.
Arlington scowled. Killing a god hadn’t fixed Tarquin’s wit it seemed.
Eearwaxx headed toward the teleporter. “We should look at the spindle.”
“For what reason?” Morgan sighed.
“To understand what to do with it! At least to study it for a little bit.”
“There’s nothing wrong with studying anything,” Morgan said, “But there’s really no reason that anyone that wanted to come back here couldn’t come back. To our knowledge other than Auril, One-Eye and those others, we’re the only people who’ve been here. There’s no reason for us not to be the only people who know where this place is.”
“It’s true we have killed everyone else who knows,” Eearwaxx conceded. He wanted desperately to uncover more of Ythryn’s secrets, but he could see Morgan was right—there was no hurry.
“You can come back here and study it as much as you like. But one thing to remember is that it is still making some of you sick. There’s something tainted about this place.”
Eearwaxx nodded. “The blight. I want to understand that better too.”
“My suggestion would be to rest up first, then we can think about it,” Tarquin said, observing the half-dead status of most of the company. “But then again what have I ever said that you have listened to?”
“Can you make an igloo?” Octavian asked.
“Why don’t we just go back up into the library and rest there,” Morgan said, “There’s nothing there now.”
“Well we are meant to be protecting the mythallar,” Tarquin said, obviously in a fractious mood.
Jankx shrugged, the thrill of his killing blow still ringing through his veins. “Look, let’s face it, if another god comes along—”
“—we’ll just kill it!” Octavian laughed.
Nineteen foot was enough. Octavian stood from his rest, restored but still growing. His companions didn’t react now, his seemingly endless growth no longer a surprise. Before Auril was vanquished he had felt a a mania to hold onto whatever power he could, at any cost. But now she was dead he knew it couldn’t continue. He held the Spear of the North in parallel his hands as if it were an offering, then glanced at Morgan, who was in her half-awake half-asleep trance with Ezra leaning his head softly against her shoulder. She smiled softly and nodded, her shoulders visibly relaxing. Octavian knew she was right. He lowered the spear onto a table, holding it for a last moment before releasing his grip.
He didn’t feel any different, there was no release or feeling of spiritual loss, but nor did he expect to. He didn’t expect the transition to reverse, but hoped it would stop. Only time would tell.
Arlington reattached his lion-skin coat, having found it to be a very effective—if perhaps a touch too warm?—bedroll. “Gentlemen, and Lady,” he announced, stretching his long limbs, “I do declare that it is now cool, rather than cold. One could almost call it mild.” It was still at least minus ten, but the difference was stark.
“It seems the seasons have changed,” Tarquin grinned, “I think the surface might be a different story.”
“Our intent should be to return Icewind Dale to it’s normal state,” Morgan warned, “Not to turn it into the Chultan Jungles.”
“Snow, not bathed in sunshine,” Octavian agreed. “Although maybe briefly—I’m sure the Ten Towners would love it.”
Eearwaxx was buried in the library, searching for books on the mythallar and the Spindle. He found plenty of the former, but near nothing on the Spindle. The closest he came was histories of the Giant’s Ostorian Empire and highly speculative texts on the magic they had developed. “We’re not going to find answers about the Spindle here,” he announced as everyone wearily prepared.
“What the hell is it?” Arlington asked with genuine curiosity. “Have we even thought about that—what was it’s original purpose?”
“To negate magic? I don’t know? It must have had a purpose,” Eearwaxx shrugged.
Tarquin nodded. “Haven’t we been told that their interpretation of it is that it’s an unfathomable power—Iriolarthas said he stepped too far and it responded.”
“Yes it can do all of that—but to what purpose?” Arlington pressed.
“Well they didn’t build it, they found it, so no surprise they too were flummoxed,” Octavian said.
“I’m not talking about them, I’m talking about the giants who made it. What were they up to? It is a spark?”
There was a pause as everyone considered this. “I had the feeling it was an amplifier of magic,” Tarquin guessed.
“An amplifier for…?”
“The description was that it’s function was to tear magic apart,” Morgan said. “And when it was fed something that was powerful enough it had the unexpected reaction of ripping the weave apart across the entire city.”
“So it was made as a weapon?” Arlington said. “Was that it’s intended purpose, or was that just something they did do it that caused it to do that?”
Octavian nodded. “Yes—that’s what I don’t understand either. I don’t understand it’s actual, original purpose.”
“Maybe it is a defensive weapon?” Tarquin said. It made some sense given the devastating impact.
“What do we know about the giants?” Eearwaxx said, taking a different tack. Perhaps by studying their culture an answer could be found.
“My father flew with them,” Tarquin said quietly.
“What?” Arlington gasped in confusion. “Who…how old are you?”
“Twenty-five.”
Arlington scratched his head. “Can you explain that statement, at all?”
Tarquin sighed deeply. “I’d prefer not to talk about my father.”
“Oh just spit it out! At this point, seriously!”
“He talks about himself enough for two,” Tarquin said trying to joke his way out of trouble.
“Did he happen to be in a world famous adventuring crew? That we may or may not have heard of?” Octavian frowned.
“Did you hear about him as well?” Tarquin grimaced. “It’s possibly true—there are some that I even seek the shadow from, by playing myself, rather than trying to be more than I am. My father is a supposedly important figure…but one of the stories is that he flew with giants.”
“The same giants? I mean there are giants now,” Arlington said.
“Frost giants that flew.”
“Ok. That’s different to an ancient civilisation of giants that invented this thing.”
“Fair enough. If you are satisfied with that then I don’t need to add any more…that’s good,” Tarquin added softly.
Octavian’s face was contorted. He had held his tongue as best he could, but it was no good. “There were a lot of stories out of that flying fortress. About the monsters known as ‘Stormwatch’. What they did that day.”
Tarquin raised his eyebrows. “Ah. Well. Line up!”
“I don’t have to line up because I was there,” Octavian snapped. “I hid, as a hatchling, under a tumult of bodies as my parents were slain. By these monsters who came through—”
“I’ve seen troubadours play this tale since I was a kid,” Arlington interrupted with a dismissive wave. “You can’t say you were there!”
“All just rumour,” Jankx agreed.
The giant kobold folded his massive arms across his chest. “My father wasn’t there, my mother had laid the eggs and they were being transported—for the kobold often use transportation provided by the ancient ice giants. Because those giants respected the kobold race,” he snarled. “But then one day, out of the winds and from the stars, came the murderous butchers known as Stormwatch, as it is told by my people. Stormwatch who are cursed by the Ice Giants as well, may I add!”
“That doesn’t sound right,” Jankx said shaking his head.
“They went from room to room killing. And they were happy! They laughed as they slaughtered us!”
“That’s not the version of the story I saw,” Arlington protested.
“These monsters were bejewelled in blood! I saw them from under the corpse of my sister,” Octavian cried, glaring at Morgan who protested her innocence, “And they laughed at how powerful they were!”
“What did they look like?” Arlington said, hoping to trap Octavian, for he recalled the ivory carvings of Stormwatch from Bryn Shander.
“They looked like him!” Octavian yelled, pointing at Tarquin, “But bigger and dumber!”
Tarquin put a hand to his heart and bowed. “Well Octavian! Sometimes I thought you exaggerated your tales. But now I see you speak the truth! You know my father well,” he grinned.
“I’m trying to imagine Tarquin dumber,” Arlington said, confused. “Well this is all fun and games, but from my point of view it’s like you both just said you were in a throwaway Baldur’s Gate Western.”
“Again, if there’s one thing I know from the stories, it’s that I do not bear the sins of my father—hence you find my in the icy wastes,” Tarquin said, meeting Octavian’s still simmering gaze.
“You’re right, we don’t,” Morgan said, thinking of her recent familial revelation. “We’ve made enough sins for ourselves.”
The company descended to the middle floor of the tower to gather outside Statis Chamber. Arlington stood in his lionskin, majestic, kinglike, or so he believed. “If everyone is quite ready,” he declared looking to Octavian and Tarquin, “We need to talk. Particularly you, big guy, and you, dumbass. That’s you Tarquin.”
“We do,” Tarquin said, clearing his throat. “So. It is true that the other three have resolved something that we have not.”
“How are you going to find the person? The devil?” Eearwaxx asked.
“Well it has to do with the mythallar, and, quite frankly, I’m a bit surprised he’s not here.”
“That has thrown us all a little,” Octavian agreed.
“He can’t get here because he’s trapped,” Arlington said. “That’s the whole point!”
“Who?”
“Levistus,” Arlington said, surprised to find he could now speak the name, unlike in Caer-Dineval.
“And who is he?”
“Some kind of devil, or demon, or…”
“Whatever he is, he’s the thing that bought our asses back from the brink,” Tarquin said, “At the cost of us giving him control over our souls. The deal we have has to do with that down there,” Tarquin said pointing to the mythallar chamber.
“We think,” Octavian corrected. “He never said it specifically.”
“We need to break the ice that encapsulates him,” Arlington explained. “He just wants something to get him out. He said we could live for four hundred years, and the next time we die we won’t actually die, and if we find something to get him out we are free of the Contract. That’s the only bits I remember. I was willing to kick it down the line because, you know, in four hundred years you can get that shit sorted. But. Given that there seem to be two objects right here that might get him out of the ice I think it would be opportune, if not foolhardy to ignore them.”
“Do we think the object is the Spindle, or the mythallar?” Octavian said.
“It could be either—either would work,” Arlington said.
“I think it’s the Spindle,” Tarquin added.
“How are you going to get either object to where he is? And can that be done now?” Morgan said.
“Well there are a couple of obvious answers,” Tarquin said. “One is: we’re attuned to something that can change the temperature. Two is: this is a massive city with the power within it that can fly, but is underneath a glacier. Put those two things together and we can fly wherever we want. If he’s on another plane then we have to fly to that plane. Apart from that, we’ve got a problem, and it’s sitting right around our necks.”
“If we can’t free the city from the ice, is the Spindle moveable by us?” Octavian asked. “It destroyed the world’s most powerful city when they toyed with it. I’m sure I could carry it, but that’s not the point.”
“That’s a very good question,” Tarquin said.
“Remind me, what did it take to activate the Spindle?” Morgan asked.
“Powerful magic cast into it,” Eearwaxx said. “A comet would do it…a bad idea, I think. We’re within the radius of it.”
“This devil managed to call us back from death to summon us to him,” Arlington said. “That’s got to be a spell that’s off the charts—beyond even Eearwaxx—so I don’t worry that he won’t be able to activate it. The main problem is we don’t know how to get to Hell. Apart from the easy way,” he added, drawing a line across his throat and suddenly stopping. An idea started to tease the edge of his consciousness.
“Why not ask your devil how to get it to him. If he spoke to you before won’t he give you some guidance again?” Morgan asked.
“The only time we’ve seen him is when we’re dead,” Tarquin shrugged.
“I have an idea,” Arlington said slowly. “The devil told us that the next time we die, we won’t die. Maybe if we were to die…”
The room was silent for a moment.
“What would happen?” Jankx whispered.
“You’ll go to Hell won’t you? Die permanently?” Eearwaxx said fearfully.
“No. He said we get one free pass. It was in the Contract. So perhaps if one of us were to kill ourselves, we could speak to him, tell him we have what he seeks. There’s only one way down.”
Octavian was shocked. Die? It seemed crazy. And yet…
“That seems foolhardy,” Morgan muttered.
“Said the person who has had their curse lifted,” Tarquin snapped. He too was surprised at Arlington’s suggestion, but had to admit there was a morbid logic to it.
“It is not my burden,” Morgan conceded, “But the fact is this burden will only happen if you die twice, and if you live longer than four-hundred years. As someone who, for all I know, could be that old, time is on your side. You don’t have to make rash decisions now.”
“I would agree with you if we weren’t looking at the possible solution in that room right there,” Octavian said nodding to the Stasis Chamber.
Morgan turned to Eearwaxx. “This tower is surely the epicentre of one of the most magical places that has ever been on this world. Do any of the arcane circles, in any parts of the towers we’ve been to, have the makings of a circle that could send these three where they need to go?”
Eearwaxx cast his mind over Ythryn and nodded. “The Observatory! There were two summoning circles that High Diviner Apius used to summon phaerimm and others. We can summon Levistus!”
“No, Eearwaxx,” Arlington shook his head. “He is trapped. If he could simply be summoned he would have been free long ago. We need to go there.”
Eearwaxx frowned. “Apius was summoning, not sending. She has been trying to reverse the flow for two thousand years and never succeeded.”
Morgan had a flash. “But…Iriolarthas’s diary said that anyone who was here at the time of the incident had their magic irrevocably corrupted. Including Apius. That doesn’t mean you, Eearwaxx, couldn’t make one of these circles work in a sending capacity.”
Eearwaxx nodded. “Yes. You’re right!” He turned to the Sentinel and started toward the Spindle. “Come friend, bring the Spindle.”
“Stop Eearwaxx!” Tarquin cried.
“What?”
“This is not your game—this is our game!”
“Yeah but I’m just going to pick up—”
“Just wait! Don’t just do!” Tarquin was terrified a small mistake could bring everything crashing down.
“He’s just offering for the Sentinel to take the Spindle to the Observatory,” Morgan explained.
“But then what?” Tarquin scowled.
“I want to see what it does to the Sentinel first,” Eearwaxx said. “If it survives, we take it to the teleport room and we teleport you to Hell to sort out the devil.”
“Is this something we’ve agreed to?” Tarquin said glancing around to Arlington and Octavian.
“I think it’s a good plan,” Octavian said. “Better than killing ourselves. What I’m worried about is I think that Spindle is like a bomb. If you touch it in the wrong way…”
Arlington held his hands up for silence. “Eearwaxx. It’s a good plan. Why don’t we go to the circle first, to see if we can get it to work, before we pick up the bomb.”
Tarquin nodded, calming slightly and turning to Eearwaxx. “It’s ok. We just don’t have to rush.”
“We have four-hundred years, buddy,” Arlington agreed.
The repaired orrery still rotated freely in the Observatory, bringing a smile to Jankx’s face. The summoning portals lay inert on the second floor and Eearwaxx set about studying them. Apius’s endless circular muttering drifted down from above.
“Do we need to talk to her?” Tarquin said.
“She wants to get these working too, so why not help her do it?” Morgan said.
“She’s a slaad,” Octavian said shaking his head, “And an insane one at that.”
After some time Eearwaxx rested back. “This would work. I could make it work. But it would take time—a long time. Maybe even a year. I have to reverse engineer Netherese magic, Apius has damaged that telescope upstairs so even mending won’t help.”
“It seems like this solution is…inelegant, shall we say?” Octavian said.
“You’ve got a lot of time,” Morgan repeated. “You don’t have to rush into this. If your devil tells you to get a move on then you can expedite things. But if he doesn’t then he doesn’t.”
“But he can’t!” Arlington protested.
“Other than existential dread,” Morgan said meeting Arlington’s gaze, “What’s the downside of just waiting?”
“We’ll never have this access again!” Octavian protested. “We can’t take that risk.”
Arlington glared at Octavian. “She was addressing that question to me. But anyway—”
“Well since my soul is on the line too, I thought I might just take part in this conversation,” Octavian snapped.
“I thought you were off the hook because you were the ‘greatest kobold’?” Arlington scoffed.
Octavian laughed. “I do agree I’m not as stressed as you guys should be…”
“You know what? Who’s your daddy?”
The smile wiped from Octavian’s face as fast as it had formed.
“I’m just asking the question,” Arlington shrugged. “Kobolds have kobold fathers.”
Octavian loomed over the great hunter, all nineteen feet of him. “I have a father who is a black dragon. I said that truth as part of a ritual.”
“So therefore you are not a kobold, you are a part kobold,” Arlington said.
“There is a special strain of kobold—”
“You’re a half kobold! Not the greatest kobold!”
Octavian backhanded Arlington with his huge fist, sending him sprawling into the wall of the tower. Arlington wiped his hand over his mouth, recovering, realising Octavian had put nothing into that swipe. It was a slap. “Point taken,” he muttered.
Jankx shook his head ruefully. It was clear the unresolved tension of the devil’s curse was causing a lot of stress. “I think the fact that you guys had some interaction with this devil suggests that assuming he is just locked up in that block of ice, and that there are understandable and known limits about what he can or cannot do…I don’t think that’s a good assumption. Maybe it’s right, but it’s already been shown that he’s able to do something locked in that block of ice.”
Arlington nodded. It was rare for Jankx to speak at length, but when he did it was often worth considering.
“The other question I had is,” Jankx continued, “Is the thinking—the logic—that if he was to be able to be released from this block of ice by you, that would be such an amazing thing that you would be released from your bond? That’s the heart of this?”
“That’s the thinking,” Arlington said.
“It would also change the whole warfront in a thousands and thousands of years long war in Hell,” Octavian said. “That one action. Moreso even than the recent power struggle with Zariel,” he added, recalling recent rumoured events.
“There’s only one way to change our Contract, and that was to gain power,” Tarquin said. “Us being on the threshold of Ythryn was how we changed our Contract. Levistus guaranteed our freedom, he didn’t even try to squirm out of it, once he knew we were close. So we are the ones who hold the power.”
“I’m listening,” Arlington said, intrigued by the idea.
“Does that mean we can leave?” Morgan asked. “If you have the power, he won’t touch you.”
“No. It means we can bargain. Because we are not the only ones he has set on this path. We are not the only ones he has in his thrall. But we are the ones who have made it so far that he has seen the need to change his bargain in order to leverage the power we have in our grasp. He can smell his freedom. We now have that power, we now have the ability to change our destiny. Our destiny was to be cast aside as his bidding. Our destiny is now in our hands.”
Arlington had forgotten just how persuasive Tarquin could be, but he enjoyed rediscovering it. “So how do we actuate that leverage?” he asked, trying to sound just as impressive.
“We don’t walk away from absolute power,” Tarquin said glancing at Morgan. “We don’t walk away from the one thing that is our leverage. Our leverage is here in Ythryn.”
Morgan frowned. “To our knowledge the only other people on the path were One-Eye and the two other mages, us, and a whole lot of dead people. Other members of your cult in the Dale are gone,” she said, bringing back memories of that hateful showdown in the tavern of Caer-Dineval.
“I’m not here to understand the machinations of someone blocked in ice in another plane,” Tarquin said, scowling at the implied guilt of being part of a Levistus cult.
“What I’m saying is that this place has been hidden for thousands of years, and it will remain hidden because everyone who knows where it is, is dead,” Morgan said. “Is there a more secure place to keep the Spindle or the mythallar, while you try to work out what to do, than right here? Do we need to sit here while you work this out, or can we go back to the surface and find out what is happening up there?” She wanted, needed, to know Caer-Konig was safe, and that the threat to the Ten Towns had passed. Being stuck down here for too much longer seemed foolish at best.
“We probably can, but I turn my back on that kid over there,” Tarquin said thumbing toward Eearwaxx, “And he turns straight around and tries to run into a room and explode a bomb!”
Morgan was frustrated Tarquin was still picking on Eearwaxx. “No, Tarquin. He said before he was going to get his Sentinel to take the risk of moving the Spindle. The Sentinel who he is very attached to. To risk the life of his companion for you.”
“And I’m saying is that we haven’t built this group on pure trust. We have been thrust together, at times. To walk away from here after solving one problem—yours—is not giving me the faith that we can solve another as a group.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving the Dales,” Morgan promised.
“I’m not questioning you,” Tarquin said, holding his hands up in innocence. “I’m questioning the fact that our narrative has reached the end of a third act. We have an epilogue to be resolved—others may leave the stage.”
Morgan laughed. “Tarquin. Life isn’t a story!”
Tarquin rocked back on his heels. “Oh! Oh no! Life is!”
“There are no acts! There are six people who aren’t just thrust together. There are six people here who I would trust to do anything, like siblings who continually argue with each other. I argue with my brother all the time! This is literally no different.”
“And you say there are no stories,” Tarquin winked.
Before the story could continue, Arlington jumped in change the narrative. “Can I just put this out there—does anybody know anybody who knows a way to get to Hell?”
“I’ve heard of some people who know,” Jankx said. “There’s stories about people who went there. And came back. Recently, from Elturel.”
“That’s a fairy story,” Octavian scoffed, stepping into the role of unbeliever having established the truth about Stormwatch.
“It could be, it sounds ridiculous. Maybe it’s not true, but I have heard it,” Jankx said.
“The one about ice-cream in Hell?”
“That’s the one! We’ve heard the same story!”
“The one about the guy with no eyes!” Octavian enthused.
Arlington rubbed his eyes wearily. “Does anyone know anyone who really exists that knows how to get to Hell?”
Morgan put her hand up.
“Morgan! You don’t have to put your hand up!”
She lowered it sheepishly. “Before I came to the Dales, I went to see a friend of my father. He knows how to make a gate there. He’s don’t it before—for the very people said to have raised Elturel,” he said glancing at Octavian. “His name is Zandeyr, and he lives in Candlekeep.”
“Zandeyr? Another fairy-tale,” Octavian scoffed.
Morgan stared with deadpan eyes. “Yes. A fairy-tale. I met him. You can believe what you want, I will believe what I know to be true.”
“You’re the one that has been making fairy-tales true with your stories,” Tarquin said looking up at Octavian. “Did you really see what you thought?”
“Your father was there!” Octavian growled, his hair trigger flipped. “Are you saying your father is not real?!”
“My father said he was there,” Tarquin said laconically, “Whether he knows how to get there might be just another story.”
“This is a different story!”
“This was meant to be a rhetorical question,” Arlington sighed.
“I have an idea,” Octavian declared. “I’m going to walk into the Statis Chamber and pick up the Spindle. I figure if it kills me I’ll go to Hell, I’m the greatest kobold, give him the Spindle, and tell Levistus I’ve met both parts of the Contract. And if it doesn’t kill me, at least we have it.”
Silence met this proposal, followed by vigorous nodding.
“Yep,” Eearwaxx said.
“Yep,” Arlington added.
“Yeah,” Tarquin smiled.
“The take home here, Octavian, is that no-one says ‘no’,” Arlington said with a straight face.
Octavian shrugged. “Well that’s the difference between normal people and the greatest.”
The company regathered outside the Statis Chamber, nervously looking at the sparking fragment within.
“The most important thing is that apparently we’ve got a free pass,” Tarquin said nervously. “Apparently.” Despite his duals with Octavian’s wit, he didn’t want the giant kobold to die.
“That’s how it read to me,” Arlington muttered.
“Are you sure that didn’t include the time you died when you were given your life back?” Morgan asked.
“No, I double-checked on that.”
“And I don’t intend to be using that part of the Contract,” Octavian said. He hoped he could pick up the Spindle without it killing him.
“Okay,” Morgan said. “Octavian—I would suggest you take off anything that’s magic.”
“Or metal,” Arlington added.
Octavian nodded. It made sense and he took the suggestion seriously. He slowly unbuckled his efreeti chain, placing his shield atop. He dropped his pack and weapons, until finally he stood with just his custom leather underclothing, crafted way back in Easthaven.
Everyone stood back admiring Octavian’s magnificent physique. Eearwaxx held up his statue of a naked Thrym and Octavian compared more than favourably, leather jockstrap not leaving much to the imagination. Tarquin was quickly making a sketch, a last rendering of the greatest kobold.
“Tarquin,” Octavian said, puffing his chest just in case. “Give me your Bardic inspiration.”
Tarquin smiled and spoke a soft blessing:
Death’s answer is to die
Kobold born but dragon bless’d
To fall is to rise
“And I give you Arlington inspiration!” Arlington said nonsensically but genuinely. He was surprised that after all the procrastinating his originally idea had been the one chosen. And he was also surprised that he fervently hoped it wouldn’t work, that Octavian would survive without having to risk everything on the slippery words of a devil’s Contract.
Octavian nodded to his companions and strode into the room, followed close behind by everyone else. He walked to the perimeter of the inert sigils, feeling his connection to the Druidic Weave waver and fade the closer he stood to the Spindle proper. It crackled and surged with arcane energy.
He reached his left hand over the event horizon and grasped the Spindle.
Everyone watched as Octavian’s body jolted as if shocked by pure lightning, hurling him away from the Spindle like a rag. As he fell his body froze, just as the cultists in Caer-Dineval had when they were killed. He crashed to the floor with a thud, encased in ice as everyone ran to his side.
“Ah! Well well well—the ‘greatest kobold’! This is a welcome surprise!”
It was Levistus, his frozen voice as smug and confident Octavian remembered. “I’ve been trying to reach you,” he muttered. He was alive it seemed, or at least not quite properly dead yet. Arlington’s interpretation of the Contract appeared correct, for now.
“Have you now?” Levistus said with mock surprise. “You know you were gone for far too long—I thought I had lost all three of you, quite frankly.”
“I know,” Octavian said, rallying his confidence. “But I am here to tell you that we have succeeded. We were waiting for you, but decided to take matters into our own hands.”
“Succeeded you say? I’m not so sure. It seems you are dead, which to my mind means that your claim of success is anything but.”
Octavian refused to take Levistus’s bait. “I am in the magical city of Ythryn, with two hugely powerful artefacts that would more than meet the terms of the Contract for myself and my two companions. A Netherese mythallar and an Ostorian artefact—a star of unfathomable energy or a Spindle that can break magic itself. Your choice. Either will free you from your prison,” he added. He knew it would rankle the devil to be reminded of his predicament, but also hoped the promise of imminent release would be tempting enough to ensure Levistus was true to his word.
“I am most interested,” Levistus said thoughtfully, showing the first sign that this crazy gambit might just succeed. “Particularly in the Spindle you talk of. But I cannot get away from the fact that you are dead. That to me seems an insurmountable problem.”
“I tried to pick the Spindle up, and was frozen, and now I’m talking to you,” Octavian explained. “I don’t feel dead.”
“I can in fact confirm that you are,” Levistus grinned. “Which means there is a third choice, that being that I claim your enteral soul.”
Octavian’s confidence wavered for a moment—was that really an option?!—before firming again. Levistus was playing games, as all devils were wont. “No. That would not be appropriate, because you are Lawful, and I know I still have one more death up my sleeve.”
Levistus was silent, so Octavian took a deep breath and played his trump. “I also met the Contract provision which was ‘The Greatest Kobold’. I am nineteen feet tall. I have vanquished Auril, the goddess. I have journeyed throughout the Dales. Killed the Duergar King as you requested. I wield the Spear of the North. And I hold two of the most powerful artefacts in the Multiverse. If that doesn’t meet the definition of the greatest kobold ever—then you are not playing fair.”
Levistus laughed. “I will grant that you are the biggest kobold ever, but I am not yet convinced—”
Octavian took a chance and interrupted. “How many other kobolds do you know that have defeated a goddess? Three times!”
“I will concede that is a point in your favour…”
“I now have a sun!”
“A son? You have borne a child?”
“A s-u-n,” Octavian spelled out. “Fusion energy—you can melt your ice.”
“I am not interested in that. We have tried that many times. Frankly if you had birthed a son that would have been far more compelling. But do go on.”
“The Spindle,” Octavian said firmly. “It can break any magical spell. It destroys the Weave itself.”
Levistus considered this. “Hm. Perhaps if that is delivered I will free your two companions. But I still feel there is some wiggle room with your claim. If I recall correctly, and I do, our Terms were that if you delivered this object to me they would be free. But you, greatest kobold, would only be free if you were also indisputably the greatest kobold. So unless I am mistaken your soul is mine, even if your friends walk free.”
Octavian was not to be dissuaded. “Well since I am the greatest kobold, I with confidence allowed myself to be killed, to bring you the artefact. You can come and get that artefact right now, it is literally one inch from my hand,” he finished triumphantly.
“You make me think hard and you are putting up a solid case, I must admit,” Levistus said. “And you know I do also recall, even if you do not, that you sent me those souls from Caer-Dineval. You personally sent them to me. I had been waiting for Hethyl’s for some time, and there was also the dessert of the mass-murder. Reminded me two other celebrated slaughters—a brood of kobolds, and a collection mongrel-folk from a blind man who has spent considerable time down here as a result,” Levistus mused.
“But let us get back to the topic at hand—your claim. I will give you a chance: do you wish to submit to the Marut’s judgement? You claim that you are the greatest kobold. The Marut will verify that claim, indisputably, one way or the other. Do you wish to take that chance?”
“I do,” Octavian said without hesitation.
“Are you sure?”
“I am.”
“You realise the Marut’s ruling is final?”
“I do. For only the greatest kobold would take that offer! The weak kobold would spurn you! In fact you do not need the judgement—the fact that I have said yes is enough!!”
“Oh, no, we need the judgement,” Levistus laughed, “Though I must say I am enjoying your supreme confidence. It’s not often we get that from someone facing of eternal damnation, it’s normally pleading and grovelling. In any case, rest for a moment while I ask the Marut to make a ruling.”
“Well I’m not going anywhere,” Octavian scoffed, still riding the wave of exhilaration.
There was a long pause.
Octavian had no doubt.
The pause lengthened. Uncomfortably.
Octavian tried to whistle one of Tarquin’s melodies. He was about to start considering worrying when there was a cough.
Levistus cleared his throat.
“Well. This is quite something. I…ahem. The Marut has ruled that you are in fact The Greatest Kobold! And as such…well. It would appear our contract is all but null and void.”
“Of course it is,” Octavian said with as much nonchalance as he could muster. “But I do worry about my two friends.”
“Before you get ahead too far ahead of yourself and start planning a future, I clarify again that that the Contract it is all but null and void—your Spindle is yet to be delivered.”
“Come and get it.”
“Very good,” Levistus laughed. “Instead, I will create a planar portal where your body lies. You will bring the device to me, with your friends. And if you do so you will indeed be free.”
Levistus clapped his hands twice, at least figuratively, and Octavian returned.
The company reeled as Octavian sprung back to life and a swirling, icy portal appeared nearby.
He jumped to his feet and pointed to Arlington. “YES! I DID IT! I DID IT!!! I did die—that plan was bad—but it did mean I talked to Levistus. He is opening a portal and we need to get the Spindle to him!”
“We can see that—the portal is right there,” Arlington mocked. “Eearwaxx—”
“Are you giving me tone!? I JUST DIED, talked to him, negotiated, was judged the greatest kobold, came back for you two, and you’re giving me lip!?!”
Tarquin ruefully scratched out his earlier celebratory couplet (Octavian will be Octavian, he smirked) as Arlington completely ignored the great kobold. “Eearwaxx! Get your thing to grab the Spindle. Push it through the portal.”
“Can we just cast a spell?” Eearwaxx said.
“Can you cast one to move it through?” Morgan asked.
“Yeah.”
“Ok well—WAIT! NO! Don’t cast a spell!!” Morgan cried, having somehow forgotten the Spindle’s power.
“How about a piece of wood?” Tarquin suggested.
“Or a ten-foot pole?” Morgan said.
“Three chairs,” Tarquin mused, “Three points and push.”
“How do we know a chair is going to insulate us?” Arlington said fearfully. He might have ignored Octavian’s protests, but the big kobold did die. “Get the Sentinel to do it.”
“But the Sentinel could be disrupted when it touches the item,” Morgan said.
“Then we’ll think about chairs.”
“The Sentinel is magic, it won’t work,” Eearwaxx said, upping the chair’s chances.
“The organic, wooden idea is a good starting point,” Octavian said.
“You know what—give me one moment,” Morgan said suddenly, rushing out of the room. She raced through the portal to Iriolarthas’s chamber and down to the library pit. She reached down and wrenched the ladder free, snapping the ancient brackets with ease.
She ran back into the room with the ladder overhead, to grins from her companions. “Smart,” Octavian smiled as he lowered it over the Spindle, then both shunted it toward the glowing portal. No-one died, and the Spindle didn’t disintegrate the ladder.
“I wish you well in there,” Morgan said as Octavian, Arlington, and Tarquin stood at the threshold. “We will be here when you get back.”
Arlington nodded, then turned to his Hellbound companions. “Octavian—you’ve already died twice, do you really want to go through again?”
“Oh yeah, I’ve been judged,” Octavian said nonchalantly, “You’re worried about the wrong guy—my Contract is void, it’s you two I’m concerned about.”
All three stepped through, appearing in the snap frozen landscape of Stygia, the fifth layer of Hell. Between them the ladder held the Spindle jammed between broken rungs.
Levistus leered from within his ice prison, unmoving but somehow gleeful. “That’s not something you see every day,” he said. “A ladder.”
“We’re lateral thinkers,” Octavian shrugged. “We couldn’t move it except with organic material…anyway, it was a problem and we solved it. As usual.”
“This wonderous thing absorbs magic,” Tarquin explained.
“Gentlemen. I am astonished. When I met you I thought this impossible—a kobold, a broken down ranger, and a wandering minstrel? And yet you have brought me something that will change the very dynamics of Hell. Even He wouldn’t be expecting this!”
Octavian shuddered to think what collateral damage this deal was going to cause, but a soul was a soul.
“All I know is that’s a good hook in the narrative,” Tarquin nodded, “But I am not going to be here to see it play out.”
“So it would seem. The other thing that astonishes—and, surprisingly, pleases me—is that you three are the very first to ever free themselves from one of my Contracts. Consider yourselves part of legend, my friends: The Greatest Kobold, the Old Hunter, and the Storyteller. Who would have thought?!”
Arlington was about to protest when he, Octavian, and Tarquin all felt their medallions dissolve into water and their hands return to flesh, releasing them from their eternal bond to Levistus.
Their souls were free.
“I thank you, gentlemen. Goodbye!”
Jankx smiled as the three visitors returned, relief flooding their faces.
Octavian looked around the empty Statis Chamber with satisfaction. Tarquin turned to him. “Well. I guess you truly are the greatest kobold!”
“I too must apologise,” Arlington said, surprising Octavian. “I was trying to warn you that Levistus may have found a dragon-kobold loophole, but no. In fact you are kobold, and you are clearly the greatest,” he said wearily. “Of that kind. Whatever that means,” he added, unable to quite accept that it was important. After all—did kobolds really matter?
Octavian nodded and bowed to both, realising it was hard for them, even with the caveats.
Morgan held out a fist. “Awesome work, Octavian,” she said as Octavian did his best to return the bump. She turned to Eearwaxx. “Coming back for research notwithstanding—can we leave now?”
“Sure,” Eearwaxx shrugged. With the Spindle gone and his companions freed the time pressure was gone.
As everyone collected their belongings and mementos, Octavian rearmoured himself and stepped upstairs. He picked up the Spear and slid it over his back. Since releasing it he had discovered that Vlagomir’s Spark lived within in him, not the Spear. It was part of him now and there was no reason to abandon the weapon—much to his happiness. Fully kitted out he felt unstoppable. And he had some ideas about how to use that power…
The Unfrozen North
Rivulets of water trickled down from the higher reaches of the Caves of Hunger, the first real evidence of the change that was happening now Auril’s Rime was broken.
“This is a classic canyoning accident waiting to happen,” Arlington murmured, but he didn’t slow the company’s progress—it was hard to pace the journey out of the Glacier such was the excitement of reaching the surface.
Climbing the massive, giant-scale steps out of Grimskalle was harder work, but enthusiasm won out. There was a short debate about visiting the Roc nest, where flowing water could be heard showering from the chute above, but the surface beckoned stronger that treasure. That and Arlington’s professional advice: “We should get out of here as fast as possible.”
The final ascent was accompanied by cracks and creaks from the ice as the company drew nearer and nearer to freedom. Finally the massive rent in the face of the glacier lay ahead, glowing light streaming in from beyond. Everyone scrambled over the final rise to emerge into…
Sunshine.
Daylight.
Blue skies.
Warmth.
Auril’s statues lay shattered, reindeer grazing on scattered tufts of tundra that peeked from the thawing permafrost. The frozen landscape glistened under the long-missed light, the morning sun rising over the horizon. From its heart a tiny black spot emerged, soaring toward the company at great speed.
A draft-horsed sized white dragon swept down from overhead: Calcryx & Meepo!
Meepo leapt from the dragon’s back, joy beaming from his face. Then he saw Octavian and shuddered to a stunned halt. His mouth opened but no words came out. Octavian ran over and grabbed the tiny kobold in his massive hands, holding him aloft with affection and delight.
“Hey, Meepo!”
“…Octavian? OCTAVIAN?! GREAT WING-ED ONE!!!”
“The second greatest kobold!” Jankx laughed fondly.
Calcryx landed in a shower of snow. He nodded first to Eearwaxx, who waved enthusiastically, then turned to the company with respect.
“I have met my mother, Arveiaturace, protector of the frozen North,” he breathed softly. Tarquin’s ears pricked—the ancient white dragon!
“This is her land and she protects it—in her way. Auril has long been a thorn she could not pull, an evil that hurt those she watched over. Meepo and I have told her of your exploits, of your defeat of the Duergar and the false dragon, of the routing of the devils of Caer-Dineval, of how you freed both myself and Meepo’s people. And now you have vanquished the Frostmaiden—for I have no doubt this was your doing.”
The company glanced at each other and smiled gently at Calcryx’s unexpected praise.
“My mother would talk with you. Meltharond, her long-time companion, is gone—the thaw took him from her. Thus she seeks a new rider. One who is worthy of her greatness. One who will tell those that follow of her legend. Who among you would join her?”
Final session played: April 22, 2024