Dreams of the Yellow King – Part 21
Prison Break
Getting into the prison was easy, but then I guess the point of prisons is to prevent people from getting out. We found a nice empty guardroom which we could see from the outside, and Ray made use of one of the Dimension Door scrolls that he had found on the ghoul to get us inside.
From here, there was a wide flight of stairs going upwards, and a corridor that led towards the other guard room where we knew there were some creatures of Leng. Wishing to try and avoid confrontation at this point, Ray took a look upstairs and reported seeing a large pinkish beast with tentacles for a face – probably a Moon Beast.
Deciding that the guards would be easier to get past, Ray headed down along the corridor to find it led only to a dead end. Unfortunately, one of the guards was alerted by something and spotted Catiana out by the door to the first guard room. She immediately charged forward and tried to silence the creature.
Denizens of Leng are travellers who roam the universe, often disguised in voluminous robes as, if not humans, at least human-like creatures. Little is known about them except that they come from a place named Leng, within the dimension of dreams.
They often travel between worlds and planes in their black ships, seeking and abducting new victims to use as slaves. They have been fighting an ancient war against the other inhabitants of Leng – the monstrous spiders.
As well as possessing an internal anatomy which is unlike anything else known, their bite is capable of taking a creature’s ability to move with precision and grace.
Unfortunately she was unsuccessful, and the other guards were alerted to our presence. They came out of the guard room holding wands of searing light, which was fortunate for us for the bite of a Denizen can be dreadful as Catiana was made painfully aware by the first one. She drew on what powers she could from my mind to put protections up around herself, and whilst she dealt with that one, the others were dispatched mostly by Gregor and Erasmus.
However, things were not over, for still hiding in the guard room was a Leng Ghoul, a female who held a glowing green orb – a Chaos Emerald. She cackled and laughed, and used the chaotic magic of the emerald against us, but was quickly taken down.
With the ground floor under control, we headed upstairs to confront the Moon Beast. There wasn’t much that we knew about them, except that they were involved in guarding the Prison, and therefore very probably our enemy.
The room above was filled with a complex mechanical contraption, and there was indeed a Moon Beast there – a large bulbous creature with pinkish skin and a face full of loathsome tentacles. Since we were expecting aggression, we went in with our full range of spells and magic deployed. Ray opened with a fireball, and Gregor and my sister finish it off.
Examining the mechanical contraption, we determined that it controlled the main gate, and we were able to use it to open it ready for a quick escape.
Beyond the room was a records room, filled with small cubbyholes labelled with the names of those we presumed to be prisoners, or at least ex-prisoners. One was labelled as “The Yellow King”, and contained some tattered yellow robes.
Most were filled with minor items, and some contained skulls – possibly of the creatures that the names once belonged to. One was labelled “Kelvetta Brix“, and contained some arms and armour, as well as a sack of animal body parts – including a pard’s tail. Another was labelled as simply a “Male Elven Wizard“, and contained a quiver of arrows which had heads of solidified flames.
Also present here was a small scale model of the prison, which opened up to reveal the layout of the place. The blank wall which Ray had found down below turned out to be a movable wall, and in the room above it was another mechanical contraption which we guessed could be used to operate it. The movable wall effectively split the prison into western and eastern halves.
Also here were a number of notes, which had possibly been written by the Moon Beast which called itself Yath-Kheph. He had a subordinate named Ahrkh-Nar, who had rebelled against him and taken control of the western end. Apparently whilst Yath-Kheph believed in simply keeping the prisoners fed and contained until they died naturally, Ahrkh-Nar was more interested in using the prisoners for torturous experimentation. According to the notes, they had come to a serious disagreement and no longer cooperated.
According to the notes, there was with him a technical expert in the arts of music and pain named Orsephellius, as well as various references to ‘minion maenads’.
I guess that we need to find a way into the western half of the prison in order to find our Yellow King. First though we need to rest and recover our strength. Since the two Moon Beasts don’t seem to be on friendly terms, hopefully Ahrkh-Nar will not notice that his old superior is now dead, and that we plan to spend the night in the guard room.
