Chapter 5

They entered through the gated waterway.
The hand sign of their pilot let them in.
As the motley guards lifted the portcullis, half submerged in murk.
Their barge, pulled by submerged eels, proceeded inside.
Gliding and leaving ripples in the algae.

Their ferryman was some inscrutable species.
More mutant than any one race.
Perhaps he may have been a Kobold in his past.
Now he was of the swamp.
The marsh’s drugs marred all who indulged in them.
But what other escape did he have?
We’re all drawn short in our allotments at life.
But even still, his life seemed small and most unfortunate.

They paid him his silver fare as they entered the doorway of the great hall.
Into the den of the lichenous Nihloth they then did step.

There are some tales which are filled with nondescript containers.
Chambers for dialogue and plot contrivances.
This was not such a setting.
This room’s strangeness beggared words.
Even the Mouth was speechless as they walked inside.

The party was near inebriated as they entered the miasma-filled room.
Smokes of myriad substances puffed from all corners and the air was a smog of new sensation.

The grey exterior of the castle had belied a rainbow within.
For every hue of appearance was here.
Fey and fell, living and undead.
Of this realm and not.
The stuff of dreams and nightmares.
The fanciful folk which populate legends and faroff travelogues.

Tables and chairs filled all available space. Thugs and miscreants filled the rest.
And the great hall was arranged in a kind of disarray.
As though this were a drinking hole, or a lotus eater’s den.
There was gambling and carousing.
And music enchanted the thieves as pipewinds rasped these atonal fugues.
These songs which were dissonant and yet melodious.
Almost ironic, if music can be such a thing.

The group of dwarves immediately split up.
This was their type of place.
The Nose and The Fist raced toward the bar.
They’d not had grog in weeks.

Gask tried to keep the group together but this was hopeless.
His words were impotent next to the impressive display.

Only the Eyes remained with Gask and the wizard, blind as he was.
He saw the entirety of the building. And he could see into the audience chamber of the lich.
Nihloth had allies of great power. Of seraphim and fallen angels and representatives of powers he did not recognize.
He feared they’d gotten in over their heads.

The Ears had soon sought out a reverie merchant.
One of those amoral types who sell the pellets of waking dream.
She often relied on this substance to drown out the thoughts.
For this room was crowded with disturbed minds.
She soon was placid in a surreal hypnagogia.
In a world of effortless associations and meaning.
The world was simpler as a dream.

Gask fretted the near future.
They had walked voluntarily into a pit of limbo.
And this entropic court was as dangerous as it was alluring.

The Mouth had rallied his talents and was already talking politics with a fen folk.
He was deploying every bad faith argument at his disposal.
His positions were absurd and his arguments were fallacious and aggravating.
The bugbear looked annoyed.

Dendiscorne and Antioch had been here before and so were unimpressed.
Though they were afraid.
One who is wise does not become used to dangers such as this.
There were prayers muttered and blasphemies sworn by the two warriors.
They hewed close to their wizard employer.

The Fist was already fighting.
From a kind of language barrier, a miscommunication.
The creature he fought somewhat resembled a humanoid ant and yet it wore clothing.
Paisley and gaudy silks underneath leather armour.
And it bore the helm of what looked like a goliath beetle.
This was not a mere beast.
It waved a rhinoceros spike in preparation to headbutt.
The Fist brandished his cestuses and cracked the carapace of the now pathetic creature.
It was dead and twitching.
This noble hiveling exile had crossed deserts and empires. He had questioned his broodqueen, survived slavery, earned freedom in distant arenas, and followed the scent of coin to this forgotten swamp. Here he died over a disagreement regarding a drink.
We are all but ants to the gods.

Delphos was not easily distracted.
He weaved through the crowded ale-place and made for the grand old doors which remained guarded near the back of the debauched palace.
This was the throne room where visitors and tribute were received.

The party of four were allowed in without a word.
They entered through the antechamber and smelled mold.
The Dracora hibernated in the back of the room.

In the center, where the throne should have been, there was a green statue.
It was as verdigris on bronze.
A greenman stood in the center of the hall.
It moved imperceptibly and yet it did move.
Then suddenly it raised a scepter in its hand and Nihloth waved his guests over.
This was not the true form of the Lich.
His true body lay deep underground.
This was but a factotum.
A fraction of his mind.

‘Enter and be at ease, brother. I mean you no physical injury. I deign not to judge.
We simply wish for an explanation.’