It took them over an hour to get going again, Garn and Azimuth had to burn down a wall of illusionary stonework to break out of the clockwork room. Nido had to spend nearly as long getting Tileki back on his feet, they may have been big, strong, metallic and covered in fine pink plates but he was unused to them. Constructs didn’t tend to have much in the way of magical powers sand this held true and the kobold had a complete freak out when he realised he couldn’t even use the shadows to hide his pink nature. He seemed more freaked out over the idea that people could see that he was pink then he did about being mechanical. Nido’s attempt to re-assure him by pointing out that he didn’t have to worry about people mistaking him for a girl because he now had no gender really didn’t help!

Garn intervened at that point, “We’ve both been transformed by foul play in this accursed tower, we need to get up there, stop the bastards plan and make it all mean something! Then, you and me, we’ll go see my master and I am sure he can fix us.”

Sighing heavily, setting off a long, drawn out huff of steam from his horns Tileki clambered to his feet, gears clicked, springs twisted, cogs whirred, “Let’s go get the bastard, I’ve had enough of this place!”

Following Azimuth out of the trashed clockwork room the party ascended another flight of steps. This one wound up for several storeys before emerging into a room that had to be near the top. The massive circular chamber had no walls, just fluted columns carved with various winged creatures holding up the roof above. They were set a good five feet back from the edge of the floor leaving an open, railess platform all the way around the edge. Interestingly there was no glass between the columns but some force or magical energy kept the wind and cold of the night out. They could look out and see that they were far above the fog with an unparalleled view of the stars and horizon but the cold air that had to be blowing past furiously at this height didn’t enter the room.

It was a peculiar chamber, divided up between various tables and benches for magical work with piles of supplies or treasure intermixed throughout. Garn growled and Nido loaded a new bolt into his crossbow as the party cautiously advanced toward the spiral stairs in the centre that led up. Tileki ranged ahead, his legs making soft whirring sounds as he padded back and forth, eyes watching the ground, searching for traps, “Nothing so far,” he hissed back, steam trailing out of his horns, “If this is the Master’s room it wouldn’t be trapped would it?”

Azimuth shook her head, her flock of three bats drifting around her head as she surveyed the room, “Probably not, but he’d have other protections, something guarding the room. He wouldn’t want to leave it to chance that his guards and traps below caught everyone.”

“Wouldn't he?” Nocuous yapped, “I mean seriously that bear-skunk alchemist almost did for us, the puzzles would have killed us if it hadn’t been for Tileki.”

“The clockwork room did kill one of us,” Tileki yipped, metallic tail swishing from side to side, “That’s why I’m currently a soul living in a gem, housed in a construct of cogs and magic!”

Garn ranged back and forth before the group, examining the piles of treasure, he stopped to look at one pile that appeared to be nothing but stuffed animals, “Children’s toys? Why would he have these?”

Azimuh moved closer and peered at them, looking at the white unicorn creature with the crown sitting in pride of place atop the pile. One of her mirrored bats flittered around it and then drifted away as she looked around the room, “Suspect everything, any item in here could be a trap, we should get to the stairs and go up, we have to disrupt his ritual.”

Nocuous slipped off of Garn’s back and dropped into a crouch, scanning the room, sighting along his crossbow, “Well it looks clear right now, let’s get up there and shoot the bastard.”

“So that’s what you’re here for,” a smooth, gentle voice purred and the bat jumped as the toy atop the pile suddenly sat up, “Master Graezzit, they aren’t here for the treasure.”

“Damn it, I thought something was up with that damn toy,” Azimuyh swept her wings up and hurled a ball of water at the stuffed unicorn. Garn’s gryphon head barked out a wave of sonic air at the same time and the two collided, cancelling each other out with a mighty bang. It tossed the toy pile in every which direction and the bat lost sight of the unicorn.

“Over there,” Nocuous shifted his crossbow around, pointing towards a black and grey figure stalking toward them from between the piles of junk. Their paws were huge, over-sized and black furred whilst their actual body was slender and grey with a slight hunch were their larger canine head swayed from side to side, taking in all four of the party.

“I wouldn’t fire that if I were you kobold,” the creature whispered, his words seeming to coil through the air, making Nocuous stiffen in place. For just a moment the dazed kobold held still and then the creature was upon him, relieving him of the Varsi Joursi and tossing it aside casually. He trailed his fingers idly up the kobold’s horns, tracing his fingers around the cracked of stump of his right horn before moving off to one side as Tileki stalked toward him with a hiss of steam and whirr of clockwork.

“Careful now little construct, I see you were an unfortunate victim of the Master’s clockwork menagerie,” the odd creature smirked softly, “How ever did you manage to keep your mind intact?”

“I had helped,” Tileki hissed as he stopped by Nocous and shook him until he started out of his day dream, “Now what the fuck are you?”

“I am Graezzit, my master’s door keeper, assistant and general treasure hunter disposal expert,” he smiled widely, showing off way too many fangs, “Now shall we talk? I am not going to let you go upstairs and disturb the master, my agreement with him cannot be broached and I very much doubt a group like you could defeat me.”

Garn growled that triple echo of a growl of his and shifted his wings, “I am sure we could... little demon..., I’m seen your kind before.”

The creature’s expression grew shaded, anger causing his brow to frown, “My name is Graezzit, not little demon, if you were so magnificent you’d have undone Bungle’s baleful polymorph, fixed the robo-kobold and already be beating me into a pulp!” He tossed his head back and braced himself for combat, “I should kick you all around the room a few times to make a point, I dislike being talked down to.”

“Now be calm Garn,” Azimuth said moving closer placing a wing arm on the chimera’s front shoulder, “Be calm now, we can talk about this.” she smiled winningly at the demonic creature, “Now you’ve clearly not been ordered to kill us outright or we’d already be fighting, perhaps there is room for us all to come to a mutually beneficial agreement.”

Smirking the demon walked sideways, moving away from Garn and the kobolds, though glared disdainfully at Nocu as the purple kobold scampered over to his crossbow and picked it up, “I cannot discuss the terms of my agreement, you have an opportunity to turn around, go back downstairs, let the traps get you. Or deal with me here and now,” he swished his tail from side to side, “I am sure we can as you say, come to an arrangement.”

Azimuth nodded and spread her large brown wings wide and bowed low, sweeping them down impressively, “Indeed we can…” she dropped her wings and all seven mirrored Augustus bats swooped over toward the grey and black demon and surrounded him. They sparkled; mirror bright bodies reflecting the light as they twirled and flapped and glided through the air about him. He yelled in anger, drawing back with a deep growl, green fire dancing up and down his big black paws.

“How dare you, I offer the chance to treat fairly and you betray! Curse you and your parlour tricks,” Graezzit span in a circle, a flickering corona of bright green flame encircling his body. Iit roared into life and Garn flinched back from the heat. The chimera started to draw breath to attack whilst Azimuth urged her bats to increase the power of the polymorphic enchantment, to trap the demon’s reflection and transform him! The wave of green fire rushed outwards, engulfed the seven bats and left Garn choking as he got a lungful of hot air. Azimuth however was busy screaming, all of her bats had been wreathed in green fire and it had caught along the length of her wings as well. The demon Graezzit was laughing as he skipped backwards out of the way, swelling in size by a couple of feet as he watched the bright mirror bats begin to spin and tumble around Azimuth.

“This will teach you to fuck with me mortal… you won’t soon… oooh interesting,” he stopped taunting and watched as Azimuth began to collapse. The fire wasn’t burning her or anyone for that matter but it was certainly spreading and turning silver as it lapped over Azimuth’s body. She flapped her wings, trying to put it out, to smother herself but the fire just spread over her entire body. She dropped, she rolled, wrapping herself in a blanket of wings and clothing as Nocuous and Tilek ran over, Graezzit moved as soon as the kobolds did, his new, massive bulk slamming into the tiny lizards and sending them flying. Nocuous slammed into the pile of plush toys and vanished under a collapsing wave of cute animals whilst Tileki bounced into Garn bringing them both down in a tangle of limbs, heads and curses.

“No interfering,” he turned and watched as Azimuth’s shrieks became more desperate as the demon stalked over to watch, “You see my Hexfire should just devour your spells… I wonder what you did to cause this?”

The bat was writhing back and forth, the green fire was entirely silver now and was splitting off into brightly glowing chunks that drifted and rolled away. The little chunks of fire then contracted, growing brighter for a moment before sprouting wings, legs and a head and solidifying into a glittering mirror surfaced bat. Glancing from one of the new bats to the struggling shape of the former bat-mage on the floor the demon smirked as he watched her shrinking, releasing more and more silver sparks that solidified into bats. They were smaller than the original seven but just as bright and shiny flapping and struggling into the air in a confused array of wings and reflections. Azimuth stopped screaming, her eyes opening wide as her body thumped up and down against the floor, fitting uncontrollably before exploding into a cascade of flames. Over thirty points of silver light spread out in a circle before dying down and settling into a whole host of new, mirrored bats.

The originals flapped down, the green fire now extinguished, their chirps of alarm and worry the only sound in the suddenly quiet workroom as the bat’s companions stared at the swarm of tiny mirror bright bats now littering the floor. They were moving, sitting up and flapping their wings but currently they were not a threat, chuckling happily at the unexpected outcome the demon turned, hexfire illuminating his black mane as he faced the chimera and construct kobold.

“You monster, what did you do to her!” the chimera roared, dragon head pouring out a gout of flame that splashed across his body harmlessly.

“Well yes old chap I am a monster,” Graezzit purred as he stalked toward the dragon, tossing spheres of green hex fire at him, disrupting the goat head’s attempt to cast a spell, “I didn't do anything to her though, hex fire doesn't normally do that.”

The chimera roared and charged, aiming to use his strength where magic had failed him but Graezzit was too fast. He darted left then ducked and slid beneath the heavy beast, claws glowing with infernal flame that slashed across hamstrings. Stuborn dragon scales absorbed most of the damage but it was enough to make the huge beast stumble and fall. Graezzit unleashed a huge starburst of fire in both directions, a concussive explosion of flame that propelled his body backwards but tossed the chimeric monster through two of the pillars and off the side of the tower. He plummeted out of sight in a tangle of limbs and wings. He'd probably be alright thanks to those wings; but outside the spaces between the pillars would appear solid, it'd take him some time to get back inside. Graezzit started to pick himself back up from where he'd been tossed when bronze claws tried to disembowel him from behind! Cursing he caught the ceramic plate and bronze structure of the kobold construct’s hand and started to force them away from his stomach. The little fucker had actually cut him and the green hexfire he was pouring into the artificial kobold wasn’t doing anything! Trust the master to have built the stupid things with a built in resilience to hexfire. Growling angrily he forced the Kobold’s arms apart then hurled the pink automata over his head and down the length of the room. The annoying beast flipped over and landed gracefully, metal feet sparking against the flagstones, he yipped a kobold war cry and charged so Graezzit charged back!

Struggling and clawing free of the plush toys piled atop him Nocuous rolled down the pile and scuttled across the floor towards the Varsi. His crossbow guiding spirit was leading him on, there was a screech of metal on stones and a demonic howl as Graezzit and Tileki fought one another. Something zinged over Nocuous’ horns and he tumbled forward, rolling over the bow, sweeping it into his hands. He brought it around in one smooth motion, knelt on one knee and pulled the trigger at the strange unicorn of cloth and magic that had given them away. The magical toy was charging toward him and kept coming as the Varsi Joursi went twang and nothing happened.

~Ammo Nocu, load me first.~

Nocu’s fingers opened and closed around empty space where his quiver should have been, he cursed and looked around hurriedly whilst patting down his body. He usually kept a spare, one last crossbow bolt for such an emergency on his person. What he found was the foot long length of horn that had snapped off his head earlier in the evening. Cursing Nocu dropped it into the quarrel slot, brought the crossbow up and pointed it at the weird dragon, unicorn thing that had started to blow bubbles in his direction.

~Nocu, wait, what did you just put in me… don’t!~

Varsi’s warning was too slow, Nocu pulled the trigger, magical energy fused through the shard of horn and Nocuous just as the first wave of bubbles burst over the kobold and his crossbow. This unusual combination had a most unexpected side-effect, it caused everything to explode! It was a pretty explosion that make Tileki and Graezzit pause in trying to pound on each other and stare at the scintillating sphere of pearlescent light that had just erupted where the kobold was. It had engulfed Nocu, the unicorn, the crossbow and the entire pile of plush animals. It was dazzling, it was nauseating, small rainbows were rippling off the sphere of light with chirpy, cheerful chiming sounds. As suddenly as it erupted it started to fade away, the rainbow radiance flickering, fading, sinking into non-existence. What was revealed was a very confused looking, purple dragon plush-toy, it had short white horns and was holding a tiny little replica crossbow.

“What the hell, why can’t I move, help!” The dragon shouted in Nocuous voice, it’s huge, poofy paws shifting, struggling to lift his feet, to move, to walk, to waddle but he was really having a hard time.

“I think the magical unicorn did a number on you old boy,” a new voice chimed in, “Don’t worry though old bean I am here, you keep the plush monster down!” The figure was a kobold, short, barely over two feet with bright burnished golden scales with an amazing array of golden horns crowning his head. He picked himself up off the ground and looked around warily, “Seems our magical little playmate got dismissed or sent elsewhere however, so good show on that Nocuous,” his tongue flickered out as if tasting the air, “I can taste transportation magic, feels like he did a runner. Welp no matter we’ll track him down later.” he turned saluted Tileki with his tail and then leapt toward the demon Graezzit, “Tally ho! Have at you, you demonic bugger!”

The demon drew back and hurled a fist full of hexfire at the glittering kobold as two balls of white light started to form in his hands. Graezzit gaped in disbelief as a second creature in the room seemed to shrug off his magic, this moment of surprise gave the golden kobold the chance to land atop the demon’s head. He kicked off, sending Graezzit sprawling onto the ground whilst the golden scaled menace spun around, pointing twin crossbows down at the beast.

“What ho, demon scum! Begone!” he fired, twin flashes of bright white light slammed into the demon, accompanied by an angelic chorus that seemed to cry a name complete with heavenly reverb, “Varsi Joursi!”

Graezzit screamed as the divine bolts burnt into his fur and quickly scampered backwards, yelling and hurling regular fire and infernal flames and every type of flame derivative he could think of at the kobold. He recognized the weird presence coming off his gleaming golden scales now. He was freaking packed to the gills with divine magic and it was ripping through his defences like a hot knife through butter. The damn thing was fast though, ridiculously fast, he flipped over the first ball of flame, spinning in mid air and launched another barrage of divine bolts at him.

“Have at thee demon!”

Varsi Joursi hit the ground, danced a two step waltz through a stream of incandescent bolts of purple flame, rolled under the advancing wall of oozing shadows and fired again destroying Graezzit’s concentration as he tried to summon something a bit more substantial to his side.

“What the hell are you, where the fuck did you come from!”

The kobold bounced to a stop next to Tileki, high fived the construct and pointed up, the pink ‘bold grabbed the weirdo by the shoulders and span, once, twice, thrice and launched him straight up. He tumbled head over heels, straightened out at the apex of his flight and aimed both of his crossbows at Graezzit and started to plummet straight at him.

“How rude, I suggest you listen this time and for the last time, tally ho! For Goodness, Greatness and Nahcost!”

He opened fire, bolts of incandescent golden light slamming across the room to strike into the demon as once again that heavenly chorus sang the kobold’s name, Varsi Joursi. Graezzit screamed, fire melting the flagstones under him, his power pulling it up into a dome of rapidly cooling magma. It wasn’t enough, the divine bolts smashed into the zinging, cooling, crackling stone, punched a hole through it and Varsi Joursi dove straight inside and laid hands on the demon. Hexfire flared, the demon clawed at the divine warrior but he just grinned and headbutted him. There was a thunk, a deafening roar and whoosh of bright white flame and the magma dome exploded in every direction. When the dust settled the golden kobold was brushing shards of stone off his scales and otherwise very much alone in the centre of a rapidly cooling pile of devastation.

“What…” Tileki hissed, “The hell did you do! Who the fuck are you!”

“How rude,” the kobold strolled over, “I am Varsi Joursi! Kobold Hero extraordinaire at your service,” he swept a bow, metallic scaled tail saluting smartly, “That strange little plush creature and Nocu’s severe lack of judgement in putting a part of himself inside me seems to have broken me free! Now he’s stuck as an inanimate object and I am out and about!”

He stretched and turned to look at the purple dragon then sauntered over to pick up Nocu and set him atop his head amongst his horns, “I suspect it won’t last long, the old rotter Tsochan keeps me locked up in that crossbow all the time. Too heroic and dashed good looking don’t ya know,” he winked at Tileki roguishly, “Can’t have heroic kobolds scampering around Clan Shadowflame willy-nilly, dashed untidy, or so he says!”

Nocu let out a soft groan, clinging to the horns of the kobold who had until recently been his crossbow, “You are always so… unberable when you get free, how are you my ancestor?”

“Quite simply I tumbled a very sweet young kobold lass one evening in May,” he clapped his hands together, “Anyway shall we collect our bats and saunter on up, what say you Azimuth, pulled yourself together yet?”

“Does,”
“It,”
“look,”
“Like,”
“I,”
“have!”

Six different silver bats said as they swarmed and fluttered around one another, flapping through the air toward the three kobolds, one robot, one toy and one… roguish gentleman hero with a perfect, golden smile. Yeesh he was obnoxiously charming, it made her seriously think about mirroring him and making him a bat. But then he’d be part of their hive mind and that might be disastrous.

“We appear… to be spread all over, I think, that magic eating demon fire, messed everything up!”

“Oh well, not to worry, you survive and now there are many of you, is Augustus still in there or did you subsume him?”

“I’m still in here,” another bat piped up, “Hive Mind go! So shall we ooooh look there is Garn, let’s go let him in!”

Getting the angry chimera back through the walls proved difficult until Tileki had the idea to stick his hand out through the wall and wiggle it around. This let Garn see through the illusion of walls and lumber back inside with a growf and a huff as he peered around at the mess. He then looked down at the kobolds, stared at the swarm of silvery bats and groaned.

“Well this went... seriously downhill..., shall we go up there... and kick the stuffing… out of a mage?”

“With pleasure good sir, onwards!” Varsi sauntered off toward the spiral stairs with Tileki and Garn following and a cloud of silvery bats flapping around his head.

-0-

It wasn’t a long climb and at the top they found a large ritual circle and a barbarian looking bird-man knelt in the middle. His feathers were black but some of them had been dyed a variety of exotic colours and he was wearing a long kilt woven from a variety of feathers and hung with small crystals. His eyes were closed and he was chanting softly, grey beak clacking and clicking as he snapped out arcane words and cantrips. The shadows, his shadow was weaving and flickering all around him as the power inside the ritual circle built toward a crescendo of power.

“So what do we do?” Tileki hissed out a whisper, “Who is this guy anyway?”

“He is the Archmage Nikko, he is trying to fuse his shadow with the power of fairy and rule over all as a demi-god.” one of the Azimuth’s chirped, “All we have to do is disrupt his circle like this!” without waiting for the others the colony of mirrored bats spread out around the ring. Two up, two down, they formed a circle of silvery light that spread and sparkled and then flashed down as a wave of water, obliterating the carefully drawn symbols, lines and signs that made up the ritual circle.

The archmage’s eyes flashed open and he stared in horror at the sparkling circle of bat, “No, no you….” he got no further as the magical energies of his ritual inverted and exploded! The shadows seemed to rip and tear and the bird screamed, his eyes growing dim, confused as his mind took a pounding from the arcane forces fizzing through his memories. Then darkness folded over him and he was gone, the shadows however were not, they pooled together inside the glowing circle of light formed by the Azi bats. Eyes flickered to life throughout the shadows then migrated upwards, settling in above a long, curved beak of shadows.

“My thanks to Spoil… aaaah freedom, this shall be so much fun!” the voice was like an echo, a whisper of light swirling all around and then it was gone, the shadows streaming up into the night sky as with a flash the silver light summoned by the bats winked out.

“Ok… what just happened?” Nocu queried, leaning forward to peer through Varsi’s horns, “Was that it? I was expecting more of a fight and who the fuck is Spoil?”

An Azimuth bat landed atop Varsi’s head and smiled, “He is my employer, a fairy who didn’t fancy this archmage enforcing his will on us all.” she grinned wider, “And of course, the whole point of all that stuff downstairs was to stop anyone interrupting him whilst in the circle, he was defenceless whilst in the middle of a ritual.”

“Well brilliant,” Garn growled, “We were successful, what was that thing at the end? The shadowy bird shape it seemed alive?”

“That… I am not sure about, I think the ritual sort of split him in two when it went wrong or something. We’d have to ask Spoil and well we don’t want to actually ask him, he might decide we’ve all seen too much.”

“Fantastic,” Tileki growled, steam hissing out of his horns, “Can we please get out of this tower now? We’ve already been boned enough just getting up here, I want to go home and get my body back!”

“Of course young one,” Varsi declared brightly, clapping the metallic kobold on the shoulder, “We’ll get you back to the old Master in no time at all, I am sure he can fix… both of you wot.”

“Great, but first,” Azimuth declared settling down all around them, “We need to get back out of this place!”

“What, surely we can fly off?” Garn growled, peering out at the lightening horizon, “I mean we are at the top and everything.”

“Yeah, no bad idea” Azimuth, well an Azimuth shrugged her wings, “This place is still spelled to stop people flying in and out over the perimetre wall.”

Garn sighed, the goat head turning to look at the others, “It was bloody difficult flying back up to the level below, was that because of the enchantments”

“Probably,” a bat chirped, “You were probably close enough to the wall to slip under it but I’d not want to risk it flying back down.”

“Well then chaps, let’s get going!” Varsi cheered, “We’ll have a rumble back down through the tower,” the golden kobold started back down the stairs, the others following with varying levels of enthusiasm. “We can kick some more arse, steal the loot and be out of here in time for lunch! Man I can’t wait to have some food, it has been ages!”

“Oh joy,” Tileki muttered, “are you always this cheerful?”

“Of course, we are on an adventure! Come there are many, many more rooms to pilfer!”

-0-

“And then, we got out! It was mad, you should have seen some of the spells going haywire, I mean I had no idea they would deteriorate so quickly!” Azimuth’s voice echoed around the dank, musty glade, her bodies were the brightest things there, it was warm and dank, dark and snug and the air was full of spores, gently drifting fungal spores that floated hither and yon.

“Well,” a smooth, quiet voice purred, a mouldy looking, scabrous hand reaching out to stroke the mirrored bat’s ears, “You had done a lot of damage to that tower and the Archmage was gone, if the spells were coming undone that means you broke his power.”

Several more shiny silver bats flapped over, settling on the monstrous possums shoulders, one of them alighted atop the mushroom growing out of his head, “We’d never have gotten inside without that team I put together, sorry I couldn’t bring them back.”

“That’s ok,” the possum squeaked, shifting his feet, reaching out to pick up one of the many smaller, feral possums that were scampering through the clearing, he let it scamper and snuffle across his paws, “They belonged to Russet and Tsochan, I wouldn’t want to go up against both of them together because I…. borrowed their minions.”

“Well they all headed back to the Nostor, except that golden kobold who had been Nocu’s crossbow, he scampered off the other way. Something about “doing some good,” before Tsochan caught up with him.”

Spoil laughed, the mouldy possum shaking his head and smiling, “Oh that, that will be fun to watch, it’s always good to see a heroic kobold causing problems.”

Chuckling Azimuth took off and flapped around the clearing, “It was fun, and we stopped Nikko, though that shadowy creature that escaped, was that meant to happen?”

“Perhaps,” the monster smiled and held out a hand to her, “Now let’s see about getting you amalgamated back together. As beautiful as you are my dearest I would rather keep the number of hive minded pets I own to one and I don’t think you want me to give you to the Mingle.”

Landing on the hand Azi preened and flicked her wings, “I would not like that at all Spoil, ok, let’s try and put me back together.”

~fin