It was thenthat the Elendari Officer had seen enough. He detailed two of thelarger guards to mind Garret then ordered everyone into thegateway. They ran through the gateway stopping only briefly to paythe toll. Garret had one guard on either side of him each holdingan arm. He half ran and was half dragged. They continued at the rununtil they passed through the exit into the darkness of the nightin Moonmist. Only then were they prepared to stop and catch theirbreath.
His two guardsfell to the ground on either side of him labouring to fill theirlungs with air. He stood breathing heavily and his nightmarestarted. There was a brilliant flash of light, temporarily blindingGarret and his two minders.
A large hairybrown spider with a body about the size of a horse landed behindthem. Two arms grabbed Garret, another two arms held the guard oneither side of him down. It leapt and he felt himself flyingthrough the air. Seconds later there was a pulse of magic and heand the spider teleported away.
The spiderholding him and three accomplice spiders landed in a smallclearing. They formed a circle each facing outwards and waited forhalf a minute. Seeing no followers they shape changed into threeElendari looking males and a female. Garret was rigid with fear.The blinding from the light flash had worn off in seconds and whenhe could see he found himself in the arms of the biggest nightmarehe could imagine. His mind simply froze and he collapsed intounconsciousness.
**
About ten hours laterit was Aquitain’s turn to exit the gateway leading into Moonmist.It was night and very dark. The air was cold and damp and had thetaint of a swamp. The gateway was set in the side of a hill and thearea outside the gate was flat, roughly semicircular, relativelyflat and covered in some type of soft moss.
His gnome eyeswere unusually keen in the dark in Mudrun. He could even see colourwhen most humans would see only black. Here nothing looked like ithad colour. Everything was various shades of black.
He had an idea.He changed to his Llanllean form and it was like opening his eyes.Now the world was coloured by the deep violet glow of magic. Theplants, bushes and trees all glowed in the dark to a greater orlesser extent. The moss under his feet had a dim green glow, whilesome bushes had a purple glow and others a more bluish or reddishtinge.
Stillinvisible, he walked for about two hundred paces and found the areawas bordered by swampy ground. He paced slowly around the boundarylooking into the swamp and noticed that there were severaldifferent types of ferns luminescent with a yellowish glow. He hadnever seen so much magic in vegetation anywhere nor realized thatit would cause them to glow like this in the dark. This must be ona magic node he thought.
There were nonoises of creatures in the swamp so he began to get a littlenervous. It was too quiet. Was some beast watching him, waiting toattack when he got closer? In the distance he heard ablood-chilling scream, which set his heart racing.
He changed tohis gnome form, attached his earring of understanding, found ateleport ring, activated it and was gone. He landed in a small mosscovered clearing perhaps twenty paces wide with a gentle slope offthe side of a small hill. The area was surrounded by faint reddishglowing bushes covered in large needle-like thorns similar to theblue-green thorn bushes in Mudrun.
There didn’tseem to be any path leading out the area, which puzzled him alittle so he changed back to his Llanllean form. He again tracedhis way around the clearing but this time as he passed the hillsidetwo long hairy arms reached out and grabbed him. He was quicklyoriented into a position where all his legs were gathered andpinned so that he could neither get away nor bite.
The entrancemust have had an illusion covering it was his first thought as hewas whisked off down an unlit tunnel through another illusory wall,along a curving tunnel then into a pear shaped cave. There was asmall fire over which there was suspended a blackened iron cookingpot. Sleeping gear was strewn haphazardly around the walls,suggesting that it was a temporary camp.
Scatteredaround the cave were about a dozen adult sized spider formLlanlleans and two small ones not much bigger than Aquitain allwatching with great interest. They could obviously see him eventhough he was still invisible. He quickly visually scanned the areaand to his surprise saw Garret lying immobilized on web shaped likea hammock. He felt a dispel magic wash over him and hisinvisibility vanished. The Llanllean holding him released him ontothe ground and asked who he was.
Using hispublic broadcast mindspeak he said in Draconic.
‘Hello. My nameis Aquitain, I’m here from Astaria to meet a person calledSomanller.’
‘This is theone I am after. Beware it is dangerous and very deceptive. Let metake it.’ said a voice from someone invisible several paces up inthe cave.
One of theLlanlleans looked in the general direction then changed to the formof a female Elendari woman fully clothed wearing an exquisite gown.She cast a some magic on herself and said
‘No. I will notlet you take him until we listen to his story.’
‘Are you goingto show yourself?’ asked Aquitain.
Moments laterthe most amazing creature appeared out of thin air. It had a goldenserpentine body about five paces long topped with the head of abird crowned with silver and gold feathers. Its feathery wings hada silky sheen that rippled with iridescent flashes of colouredlight. It flew down from a rocky perch several paces above the cavefloor and as it approached Aquitain it lit up the area with bluishglow.
‘Well what havewe here, a lovely little baby Llanllean?’ It said in a beautifulcharming melodic voice designed to complement the visual sense ofawe it projected.
It also seemedto radiate benevolence making it difficult to not feel at ease withit. The problem as Aquitain knew quite well was that this type ofaura was illusory and coercive.
