The bulb now measured more than twice its original diameter. The slow waves washing across its surface continued unabated.
Raidon moved to destroy the pod, but lurched to a stop. The grass had caught him again when he'd stopped to kill the aboleth. He bent, once again bringing Angul to bear.
Seren finished her spell. She lobbed a tiny sphere of pulsating white light through the golden glow of her ward.
The ball traced a perfect arc through the air to meet the pod. As with the crew members, the silvery mass absorbed the light the moment contact was made.
The bulb stopped undulating. It emitted a gasp of intestinal distress from an orifice Raidon couldn't discern.
Then it exploded, bathing the tunnel in a rain of silvery fluid.
'Oh goody, more goo,' said Thoster. The blades of grass holding Raidon fell limp. The silvery vegetation lining the passage wilted in a widening ripple. The tinkling of bells ceased, leaving only the sound of the captain's ongoing litany of sarcastic curses and the surviving crew member's hoarse breathing to fill the air.
'The sentry is dead,' Raidon said, 'as is the aboleth. We should go, before others come to investigate.'
Thoster pulled himself to his feet using his sword as a crutch. Drooping filaments of grass loosed their hold on his legs. Then the captain yelped in alarm. A glob of the silvery fluid smoldered on his jacket. The man ripped off the fancy black coat and threw it to the ground. In hardly any time, the entire jacket was consumed by the acidic residue.
Everyone spent a moment looking at their own clothing and skin to make certain no other spatters from the bulb had found them.
Raidon noticed many of the bandages beneath Thoster's torn shirt had been ripped loose in his struggle with the voracious vegetation. What he could see of the man's abdomen and chest, and even upper arms, was covered in grayish green scales. Scales that reminded him of something he'd normally see at the end of a fishing line.
'What is wrong with your skin, Thoster?' said Raidon.
The captain's eyes went wide. He glanced at the wizard and then back at the monk.
Seren said, 'He suffers from… a curse. It's something I've been helping him deal with. I'm surprised this is the moment you've chosen to notice our captain's distress. Perhaps you should reconsider your priorities. We just lost three of Green Siren's crew!'
They are unimportant, said Angul.
The half-elf gritted his teeth and waited for a twinge of guilt, but none came. He sheathed his sword. He felt as hollow as ever.
Raidon shook his head and said, 'I'm sorry.'
Seren's face was tight, as if she wanted to make an issue of Raidon's lack of empathy, but she remained silent.
He turned back to Thoster. 'I am sorry, Captain, for the loss of even more of your crew.'
The captain grimaced and said, 'They'll be missed, aye.'
'But,' continued Raidon, 'why do you have kuo-toa scales covering you? My Sign is tingling ever so slightly at your presence. Why?'
'I… I have a condition,' the man finally said. 'Seren's stopped its progression, though.' The captain lifted his amulet and showed the monk.
Raidon reached out with his mind through the Cerulean Sign.
As before, the overwhelming influence of the surrounding city made it difficult to discern fine details. Still, he was able to see Thoster was lightly touched with an aberrant taint. It wasn't especially strong, but it bore watching. His skill with the Sign wasn't sufficient for him to tell if the amulet in the man's hand was indeed holding the condition in check.
He turned to Seren and said, 'Is it a curse? Can't you just remove it?'
The wizard shrugged. She said, 'Most times, a curse will melt your skin or make it diseased, or something else vile. Thoster's 'curse' wasn't one he gained recently. It is bred into him, but only recently triggered. It is slowly transforming him into a marine creature.'
'A kuo-toa,' said Raidon.
Seren said, 'Could be. I don't really know the specifics. Nor does he.'
The half-elf regarded Thoster. 'How do you feel? Any urge to fall in with these aboleths?'
The captain chuckled and shook his head. 'No, 'fraid not. Though I do feel a sort of… current? Like a tide coming in.'
'A tide you can resist?'
The captain nodded. 'My mind is my own, even if my body seems stuck between human and fish.' He held out his amulet. 'Seren's amulet is my anchor. I haven't grown a single new scale since she fashioned this for me back on the ship.'
Raidon studied the man's face. He judged Thoster believed he spoke the truth.
'The world is a wide place,' the captain continued. Thoster had regained his equilibrium. 'There's room in it for all sorts. Even someone like me. Hells, I might prove more useful in this quest-I got an inside perspective on what fish folk think.'
'Perhaps so,' said Raidon. 'At least I saved my hat,' said Thoster. He reached up and adjusted the great black thing still stuck on his head.
'We'll revisit this topic later, once I've slain the Eldest,' Raidon decided. He drew Angul and faced down the tunnel.
'Sure, unless we're all dead,' Seren said.
*****
They moved deeper into the city, angling inward and upward at every opportunity. On more than one occasion they detoured around encrustations of translucent ice. Seren said she could see people inside.
'People?' inquired Thoster.
'More like images of people…' Seren trailed off as her eyes widened. She ran a finger across the ice slab that roughly coated one side of the tunnel. She shook her head. 'It's more like frozen dew.'
'Dew? Condensed from what?'
'From the memories of a sleeping god perhaps. The, um, Eldest. These images are memories that have settled out of its petrified consciousness and, in the process, caught up any creature whose nightmares swerved too close.'
Thoster whistled. He said, 'So, we should avoid sleeping in Xxiphu.'
Seren blinked as if the idea hadn't occurred to her. Then she nodded emphatically.
Raidon motioned for the others to follow him. There was no time to study the phenomenon and determine whether Seren was right about the ice. He and Angul were in agreement- events were too close to disaster to waste time sightseeing.
Still, Raidon worried he was forgetting something. The enthusiasm of the Blade Cerulean seemed ideal for this stage of their attack on the Eldest, but part of him wondered if he wasn't being too hasty. Shouldn't he have been more suspicious of Thoster's unsettling skin condition?
In any other circumstance, Angul would have happily obliged such a request. Thoster engaged in just the sort of seemingly inconsequential, petty crime that used to drive the weapon to feats of righteous vindictiveness. But Thoster, no matter the source of his strange curse, couldn't hold a candle to the burning forest Xxiphu represented.
Nothing else really mattered to Angul save finding and ending one of greatest banes ever to threaten Faerun.
Not that Angul cared a fig for the world.
Raidon was aware the sword influenced him more than he'd normally allow. The clarity, warmth, and comfort streaming from the hilt was his first clue. The half-elf was disciplined enough to disentangle himself from those emotions and keep them separate from his core self. But to say AnguPs persuasion was having no effect would be a lie.
On the other hand, like the soul-forged weapon, Raidon himself was a servitor of the Cerulean Sign that blazoned his chest. With the Sign's energies enlivening the monk's mind and body, he and Angul were far more
