Aulos

[cellio]

May 20 (Friday)

I'm feeling better today -- well enough to proceed, I think, and Turok grows sicker every day so we do not want to delay. So today we plan to go to the flying city of Aulos, investigate as quietly as we can, and find a way to help them and ourselves get to Gorrush-Kar. We'll go to Optalis first in hopes of seeing the city's current state.

Viggo will be joining us. He insisted and certainly none of us will mind having the help, especially given his fantastic archery skills. While I was unconscious Liandra took Slade back to Oakhame (and I think Rory and Caitlyn too). With Slade not going I can teleport our entire group together. Liandra can also guide us through the trees, which works very well in general but might not work with trees not connected directly to the land.

Liandra told me that Seamus and Mairead are very concerned about my disease but are also certain that I did the right thing. They felt the improvement in the land right away, and Charlos and Garrett both noticed too. Garrett is otherwise unchanged, and Charlos continues to stand his noble vigil. I hope we are able to free him of that burden soon. I wonder what he'll do then. Join us? Pass to the other world? It appears that Garrett is what binds all the ghosts here, after all, so it is not clear what will happen to them if healing Agondre kills Garrett. Whatever happens, I hope it brings them peace; living on as ghosts after the death of the emperor months ago is certainly not the natural state of things.

Hrolf has not left my side since the time with Agondre, or so I'm told. He certainly hasn't since I woke up. He's been alternately scolding me about the risk I took, puffing out his chest and announcing that he'll defend me, and beaming just a bit. Poor Hrolf -- I've left him out of some things for his own protection, but we must work together. From now on he stays at my side.

May 20 (later)

Aulos was a splendid city before the coming of the D'Gorim, and with luck it will be spendid again now. It currently flies half a mile in the air; as land is its scarcest resource, the buildings seem to reach to the sky. There are almost no trees and parks here, which I think makes Liandra sad even as she realizes the necessity.

When we looked at the city from the tower of Optalis we saw it crawling with D'Gorim. Many of the town's people stood in chains in a field of towering crystals, mining them with pick-axes. The crystals contain the magical essence that lets the city fly -- and lets other things fly too, as we learned.

The D'Gorim who weren't guarding the prisoners were patrolling the city, some on foot and some on griffen-back. There looked to be a few hundred D'Gorim in all, and they were well-armed and well-armored.

We looked for a fairly secluded area in which to land and cast our prepatory spells before teleporting. We were not completely hidden, though; some people nearby averted their eyes, seeming completely defaated in spirit. One woman, a tailor, seemed curious and beckoned us to enter her shop quickly. I'm not sure, but a griffen passing nearby might have spotted us.

She told us that the D'Gorim had attacked the city shortly before the new year, killing many and enslaving many of the rest. They came from the east on griffens and gliders, led by a man named Colonel Garmock. There is no resistance any more, she said, and when she learned that we intended to fight she hurried us out of her shop.

We worked our way to the fields fairly discreetly for the most part, but as we got near the D'Gorim there spotted us and raised the alarm. I turned invisible while Liandra stepped out and called down a great wall of flames on many of the D'Gorim. I'd never seen her do that before, and the results were spectacular. I did eventually learn that they were helped some by the D'Gorim's own weapons, but even so it was a wonderous sight to behold. I'm glad to see her becoming more comfortable with fire.

They pulled out great fire-throwing sticks and aimed at Liandra, while griffen-riders swooped down on us with large lances. I flew up above the rooftops and threw down fire, and Kyle climbed one of the guard towers (invisibly) and began killing the men there. Turok charged their leader, who turned out to be Garmock. Turok demanded his surrender, and I noted that he announced himself as a warrior of Agondre.

Their leader did not surrender at first, and there was a lot of fighting. Kyle finished off the guards in his tower while Viggo turned griffen riders into pincushions. The last two riders tried to get away, and I used magical force to push one of them off his griffen to the ground below. Eventually, the leader dropped his greatsword and fell to his knees before Turok. He ordered his remaining men to surrender, and repeated the order as others ran to the scene.

We freed the captives and used their chains to bind the remaining D'Gorim. The people of Aulos started to come, cautiously at first, and before long the mayor Nathan was summoned. He was only too happy to escort the D'Gorim to cells where they could be kept under close watch, though he seemed upset when I told him not to kill them. Garmock surrendered to us and we have to honor that, no matter how much the people of Aulos would like to make the lot of them walk planks off the edge of the city.

Nathan joined us as we questioned Garmock. They were, as we suspected, sent by Kepta-Mor, who resides in his tower in Gorrush-Kar. He is using the crystals to power magical flying ships, and he is feeding them to rocs to make them fly farther. The griffens are native here; the D'Gorim subdued them rather than bringing them from across the sea.

The ships arrive in Aulos every couple of weeks to take away crystals. Garmock expects the next ship in four days. We asked how he communicates Kepta-Mor and he said they talk when Kepta-Mor gazes on him. So we have little time; the next ship is already on its way, so we must deal with Kepta-Mor before he can command them to attack.

We extracted some maps from Garmock, though I don't know how much we can trust them. We also captured some of the fire-sticks, and I put a bundle of them in my magical quiver. Seeing the explosions they made when subjected to fire, I hope to drop several in front of Kepta-Mor before setting off a fireball. He might resist my spell, but he probably can't resist his own weapons. And it would serve him right.

Liandra and Viggo have been talking, and she thinks that they are enough in tune with nature and creatures to persuade a roc to fly us all to Gorrush-Kar. It won't be an easy ride, but it's got to be the fastest way for us to get there. Even if I had ever seen the place for a teleport, I fear it may be too far away. We'll use some of the mined crystals to hurry the roc along.

When this is all over I would like to return here and learn more about the magic of these crystals. It looks fascinating! But first we have a wizard to defeat, a gem to recover, and a dragon to heal.