Ailithorn (vol 1): The Grotto

He awoke.

It was not a pleasant experience.

In fact, it was unbearable. The pain was liquid fire in his veins, broken glass in his stomach, an ice pick through his skull. Then, before he could even moan, he was vomiting. Searing bile tore its way up his throat, and his entire body convulsed over and over again. Tears squeezed from beneath his closed eyelids and bright stars crossed his vision, yet still he vomited. He retched over and over again, until there was nothing left to bring up. Finally, as he began to wonder if he would ever have a chance to draw breath again, the heaving subsided. He opened his eyes, and tried to roll away from the pool of vomit before him. The smell was awful--like rancid meat, sour milk, rotten eggs.

He was too weak to stand, and so he lay there on his side, spitting out long tendrils of mucus and trying to breathe through the pain in his body.

He lay on a rough stone floor. Finally lifting his head, Ailithorn saw that he was in a fair-sized cave. The shore of a large pool lay a few feet from him. Pale yellow and green lights flickered beneath the water. The lights were more intense farther from the shore, as if perhaps they came from an underwater cave or grotto on the far side of the pool.

The water was very still, yet he could hear the distant sound of waves on a gravelly shore. After a moment, he realized it wasn't water, but more like voices--a multitude of voices all separately speaking, laughing, crying or screaming. Yet the sound of them together rose and fell rhythmically. For some reason, the sound terrified him.

Ailithorn rolled over, away from the pool. He started, and then gave out a low moan of anguish as the jolt sent ripples of pain through his entire being. Before him lay the body of a man in plush robes. The man's eyes bulged, and his open mouth was filled with foam. He was obviously dead.

Beyond the man loomed a dark banquet table. In the center, a great candelabra was filled with candles, which added their flickering light to that coming from the pool. The table was covered in platters and dishes, some of which had been knocked to the floor. The velvet-upholstered chairs around the table had been shoved back hastily, a number of them now lying on their backs. A few more bodies lay among the chairs, all their mouths open and foam-flecked. At the far end of the banquet table, an elderly lady sat slumped forward with her face lying on the plate before her.

Ailithorn tried to sit up. The resulting pain was so sharp and huge that he only managed to scream instead.

He heard a clatter of wood on stone as another of the banquet chairs fell over backwards. Ailithorn glanced in its direction and saw that a man there was struggling to stand. The man trembled, gripping the edge of the banquet table. He made a quiet hiek hiek sound, as if trying to clear his throat. Spittle slowly poured from his mouth, and dark red blood covered the chest of his rich vestments. The man turned towards Ailithorn, and his eyes gleamed. He began to hobble forward, teetering wildly. A glint from his right hand advertised the bloody dagger he carried there.

"Vaelron!" the man whispered at Ailithorn. Judging by the vehemence in his voice, Ailithorn guessed that the man would have screamed this had he been able. The man raised the dagger over his head.

Ailithorn raised his arm and blasted a ray of frost at the man's hand. What felt like white fire ran down Ailithorn's arm, and he blacked out.

When he awoke again, the man was nearly upon him. He lay on his belly now, dragging himself forward. His right hand was a twisted, icy stump, but he now clutched the dagger in his left. He feebly raised the blade, and plunged it into Ailithorn's right arm.

Ailithorn shot another ray of frost and rolled away. As his fresh wound touched the floor, it became screaming agony. Glancing down, Ailithorn could see it was covered in some yellow powder. The ground here was covered in it. He passed out again to the sound of the man gurgling.

When Ailithorn woke again, he felt stiff and exhausted, but the pain had largely receded. He raised his head. His attacker lay a couple feet away, his face dusted in frost. He twitched once and made a low ghuaah sound, but his eyes were glazed.

Ailithorn struggled to his feet. His head swam and great white spots filled his vision. He stumbled forward, weaving around the black banquet table and its littering of bodies. Beyond the table lay a tunnel, inclined slightly upwards. Ailithorn's thoughts were a swirling dark jumble.

He walked through darkness.

He tripped and fell. He got up and stumbled forward again.

He saw light ahead.

Then he was outside. There was grass here... a meadow in the afternoon. Ailithorn's fingers were slick with blood. The trees around the edge of the meadow looked a long ways away. He took a step forward...

Ailithorn woke again some time later. He felt terribly weak and hungover, but the pain was less intense than it had been. He lay in the grass and watched the tops of the trees sway gently in the wind. The sky was darkening. It would be dusk soon.

A dragging, shuffling sound in the grass made Ailithorn turn his head, and his breath caught in his throat. Something horrible was moving through the tall grass near the cave entrance across the meadow from where he lay. It was vaguely humanoid in shape, but small--about three feet tall. It was hairless and incredibly obese, with long thin limbs tipped with twisted claws. Its skin was the purplish-pink of infection, covered with discolorations that seemed a mix of bruises, ulcers, and weeping sores. The thing half-crawled, half-shuffled on it's skinny legs, dragging its sagging, bloated belly through the grass. Its white, watery, pupil-less eyes were fixed on Ailithorn. When it saw that he was watching, the thing grinned, revealing a tangled mix of sharp grey teeth.

Ailithorn tried to sit up, but his head swam and he sank back again. Instead, he dragged himself backwards using his elbows and heels. The thing grinned wider at his struggles, and it began to pant a little in an obscene way. The wind shifted and Ailithorn caught the stench of it. He thought first of black, rotten eggs, and then, inexplicably, of tongue soup. And with the smell came knowledge: he knew this thing. It was a mane--a very low-level demon from the dark pits of the Abyss itself. He could not remember how he knew this. Perhaps he had read of manes in some tome or old planar gazetteer.

Ailithorn looked around for some weapon, but he had none. His mind was empty of spells now. How long had it been since he had last read from his spellbook? Where was his spellbook, anyway? For that matter, where was he? Ailithorn's thoughts were muddled and fuzzy, but he was still surprised that these questions were only now occurring to him. He wished he had thought to take the dagger from the man who had attacked him in the grotto.

The mane was shuffling along the edge of the meadow through the deepening shadows of the trees. It was much closer now. Ailithorn felt panic rise within him now. He abandoned his backwards crawl, rolled over, and tried to crawl forward on his hands and knees. His muscles sagged and burned and his breath came in ragged gasps as he tried to pull himself through the weeds and underbrush.

Eventually, he dared a look back. The mane was nearly on top of him now, but, oddly, it had stopped its advance. It stood there, head cocked to one-side, tilted slightly back. It looked mildly puzzled as it watched Ailithorn crawl away. Its vertical nostril slits twitched. But, on meeting Ailithorn's eyes once more, the mane shook its head, which sent ripples downward through its sagging flesh. It was close enough to Ailithorn now for him to see that things--maggots, perhaps--crawled and writhed within that flesh. The mane's puzzlement was gone now, replaced with a wide and cheerful grin. Ailithorn felt his panic break and become certainty: he was going to die now. There was nothing else he could do.

The mane paused suddenly as something whistled over its head and clattered against a nearby tree. Both Ailithorn and the mane glanced back into the meadow where, near the far side, a small girl was struggling to reload a largish crossbow. The mane snarled, and lashed its claws into Ailithorn's ankle. Then the mane howled as a crossbow bolt bit deep into its bloated guts.

The mane dropped Ailithorn's foot and turned on the girl. It charged out into the meadow, moving much faster than it had in stalking Ailithorn. The girl stood with her head down, struggling to pull back the crossbow once more and drop another bolt into place. She whipped her hair back out of her eyes with a toss of her head and raised the crossbow to sink another bolt--point-blank--into the charging mane's throat. It halted and gagged, clawing at the feathered shaft. Steam rose from both bolts as it sank to its knees.

The girl skipped back a few paces and lifted a short, dark-tipped spear from the grass. As the mane gurgled and snarled, she rammed the spear into the mane's chest. It screamed once, and then sagged into the grass. Its whole body began to steam, then bubble and run.

Ailithorn sighed, and let his head loll back. A few seconds later, as darkness crept in once more, a face loomed over him. Just before unconsciousness took him, Ailithorn had time to think, "She's not a little girl..."

Awareness came more slowly next time, and less completely. He was floating through the woods on his back, a few feet above a narrow path. His neck was stiff from letting his head hang back. Occasional branches tugged at him as he passed. The stars shone clearly through the trees above.

Eventually, he lifted his head. His feet hung off the far side of the translucent floating disk on which he lay. A few feet ahead of him walked a small figure... the girl... who was actually a...

Ailithorn gave up again, and returned to darkness.

Ailithorn didn't exactly wake next time. The pain was back again, and it was hunting him through dreams. The dreams were terrible, vague things filled with flowing blood and rending flesh and violated bodies. He shuddered and moaned and rolled upon sweat-soaked sheets. Voices murmured sometimes around him, and a hand placed damp rags on his brow. A bowl was placed against his lips and he drank... something milky, with a flowery, lightly bitter flavor. But then he drank again and it seemed to be chicken broth... or was that another time? And then he drank again, in dream, and it was blood and ancient wine from shattered goblets.

Once he thought he awoke--on a bed, with a couple candles providing dim light. Someone--a small girl, perhaps--looked up from reading a book at a nearby desk. She stepped over to him, her mouth moving, but Ailithorn couldn't make sense of the words and her face faded... glasses, she was wearing glasses. Though more pleasant, the candle-lit room made no more sense than the other dreams.

Ailithorn fled from the pain through his horrible dreams for a long time.