The Last Stand of Mr. Clay

 

From a young age, Montero took delight in only one thing. Inflicting pain. A freakishly large child, but still a child, his ministrations were mostly reserved for animals or his fellow children, but as he matured, and grew into a huge hulk of a man, no one was safe from his brutality. Originally a guard at the Vetrini compound in Haven Towne, he quickly came to the attention of Lucius Montero, who saw a potential role the hulking terror could potentially play in the Cerro Rico mines. Lucius always had quite the eye for talent.

Chief Enforcer for Cerro Rico was a dream come true for Montero. Here his brutality was not only sanctioned, it was encouraged. 

"Make them fear us" Lucius had instructed him. "No methods are off the table my dear Montero, as long as those methods instill fear. Fear is the essence of control."

Thus he stalked the halls of Cerro Rico brandishing his long cat of nine tails, using it brutally on the miners, with little excuse required and no quarter given.

Montero didn't care about the reasoning behind loosing him on the helpless population of the mine, all he care was that he was loosed. 

A huge, muscular brute of a man, he could be found anywhere in the mines, hungrily roaming the halls, searching for the smallest infraction or shortfall, and dealing out punishment unexpectedly and severely. The multi tailed whip was his instrument of choice, there was nothing like a whip for the infliction of pain. He loved to watch it tear skin from flesh and flesh from bone. Rarely a day passed where he didn't whip someone to death. Or perform some far worse act of butchery.  Out of all the mine management, no one was more feared, or more hated.

When the Dark Wind came. Montero was in the central chamber of The New Mine. As the wind howled down the passages, and wrapped around him, it promised him gifts. Gifts to allow him to pursue his sadism to an extent he could have never imagined

As he eagerly embraced the offer, he could feel the wind transformed him, giving him great strength and size. When the winds passed he was a monster, fifteen feet tall, taloned and horned. As he stretched and stood to his full height he could see the little humans in the chamber cowering before him. He grasped his whip, now thrice it's original size and crackling with dark energy. And Montero smiled. 

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Freddy nursed his injuries as the creature roared in fury, just inside the door, smashing and bashing across the huge chamber inside.

"Man, Fred, that whip really has some reach on it, thought we'd lost you there." Ricmo commented.

Freddy shuddered. "That guy seemed pretty reasonable too, before he went crazy and tried to kill me" he replied. "I was hoping I could at least get some useful information out of him about how this labyrinth works. Maybe negotiate a safe passage." Freddy's tongue was notoriously silver, so much so that sometimes he forgot even he had his limits. 

"I think negotiations are probably off the table" Merus deadpanned.

"It's always important to remember that demons may say please and thank you, but they are demons none the less" Dakhir agreed. 

"Fortunately he is too big to get through the door and into the passages" Whisperleaf grinned. "I suggest we just route around him. Let him rage."

Dakhir nodded. "I managed to get a good look at that creature while it was trying to beguile Freddy closer. It has more then a passing resemblance to descriptions of the Archdevil Moloch, patron of pain and suffering. I doubt it IS Moloch, but it may be some kind of avatar of him, in which case we want no part of that."   

Tello chimed in "easy enough to go around. While the coordinate signposts on this level aren't working the way the dwarves explained it to us, I think we are puzzling it out. We should be able to skirt this room and continue. Continue to where, I do not know, but I saw no exits from this chamber so I see no reason to fight a needless battle.

The New Mines were huge, but as opposed to the haphazardly constructed Old Mines, they were laid out much more consistently, in what had at first appeared a regular grid pattern. Each intersection was neatly labeled with it's position. The long, echoing tunnels were empty and abandoned, and mostly intact. It had at first seemed a relatively easy task to follow the tunnels from then upper left to the lower right corner of the complex, where the stairs down to the Deep Workings were suppose to be. For awhile the whole area with it's straight spacious passages had felt like a vast improvement over the claustrophobic, decaying and labyrinthian Old Mines. 

However nothing had worked out as they expected. The tunnels all looked the same, it was difficult to keep a sense of direction, and to make matters worse the whole place was enchanted with some type of glamour that befuddled and confused the senses, making it impossible for even Merus to keep track of direction or position without the coordinates at the intersection. And the coordinates were wrong. When they followed the signposts to what should have been the stairs instead the found themselves in the very center of the complex. Where they found the demon.

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Skirting the central room wasn't difficult. Tello did indeed seem to be getting the hang of the coordinate signposts, and was starting to suspect that they had been changed specifically to lead the unwary to the demon at the center of the maze. Once the system was understood, it was easy enough to navigate.

That is until Ricmo stopped suddenly.

"Umm. Problem." he said mournfully.

"What problem?" Dakhir replied.

"So you remember that magical pistol i picked up in the upper mine? The really pretty one?" he asked "Thunderbuss?"

"They really powerful one you mean." Whisperleaf replied.

"Yeah right, so remember how it is part of a matched pair, and that as soon as I laid hands on it I kinda knew the general direction of the other one in the set?"

"It's back in the demons lair isn't it" Dakhir said, as usual jumped to the worst possible conclusion, because that was so often also the right one.

"Yeah. Yeah I think it is." Ricmo replied despondantly.

For a moment they considered their options. It would be easy enough to leave it there. But the pistols, if united in a pair, were a powerful weapon. A VERY powerful weapon. Finally Dakhir sighed.

"We need a plan."

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Ricmo stealthily approached the threshold of the huge room. He had circumnavigated the huge chamber until he reached the one of the four doors they had selected for his approach. At first they had picked the door closest to the prize. but when they reached it, Merus had quickly nixed that approach.

"The wind blows from the tunnel into the chamber here" she had pointed out. "I saw this creature sniffing the air earlier. You do not want to approach from upwind."

Some more investigation revealed that one of the doors had a reversed airflow, the  wind blowing out of the chamber rather then into it. Tello had gotten all excited about that and went off on a tangent about thermodynamics, heat, airflow patterns, some thing called convection, but the only thing Ricmo had managed to take from that was the airflow was likely at least semi stable.

So now Ricmo say here alone, hidden and waiting for the rest of the group to reposition themselves and prepare their distraction. Carefully, he studied the chamber plotting his path to his best guess at the location of his prize.  "Not that different from a second story job back in Valoria" he thought to himself. "Well, except for the big demon of course."  

A cool breeze blew into the tunnel where he crouched, hiding in the shadows, the air pouring out of the huge, dimly lit, square chamber, bringing the tangy scent of blood. The chamber was partially flooded by a murky bloody red liquid which the halfling suspected actually WAS blood. a LOT of blood. 

The liquid steamed and rolled, appearing almost as if it was boiling. The smell of hot blood and decay was almost overpowering. In the middle of the chamber, the demon stood, calf deep in blood, unbothered by the heat, head surmounted by horns a mighty whip in his hands. As Ricmo watched, the creature raised it's huge head, testing the air, sniffing, it's attention focusing on the door on the opposite side of the chamber from Ricmo.

"It smells Freddy coming" Ricmo though to himself. 

A narrow ledge about a foot above the water line circled the chamber. The ledge was barely a foot wide, and seems to be covered with various kinds of colorful algae and lichen. Four doors entered the large chamber, from each of the cardinal directions.

Floating corpses littered the surface of the pool. There were scores of them visible, most waterlogged and partially submerged, bobbing in the boiling blood.

"Hullo there!" Ricmo heard Freddy's voice booming from the opposite doorway. "Say, man, I think we got off on the wrong foot there earlier. Can we have a chat maybe? Work shit out?" 

Ricmo saw the huge creature turn fully toward the room, uncoiling the long whip at his side. That whip had a surprisingly large reach, as Freddy had discovered to his detriment earlier. Freddy was being much more careful this time though, staying well outside of the range, well inside the tunnel leading into the chamber.

In a deep bass voice the demon replied genially. "Of course my friend, of course. My apologies for being too hasty with my caresses earlier I am sure we can come to some arrangement. Move closer so I can see you."

That was Ricmo's prompt. The plan was for Freddy to keep the creature distracted while Ricmo snuck into the chamber, looted his prize, and then exited, hopefully the demon none the wiser. The itch in his mind that revealed the location of the second pistol wasn't exactly precise, but his best guess was it was closest to that middle door. He'd have preferred to have entered by that door as well, if Merus hadn't been so obsessed about being downwind of the creature.  

Staying low and in the shadows, Ricmo entered the chamber. The ledge was narrow and slippery, with blood and lichen, but no problem for a nimble halfling. Still, he was forced to move slowly, in order to stay in the shadows and ensure his footing.

Freddy was chatting the creature up, playing snippets of songs and cracking jokes, keeping the monster entertained and carefully nurturing it's hope that it could lure the bard fully into the chamber. So far so good.

Ricmo made his way forward. As he got closer to his prize, he could feel ThunderBuss, the pistol of the pair already in his possession, almost vibrating in excitement. He was close, very close. He drew the pistol and he could feel it tugging him toward his destination like a divining rod. 

There! That particular floating corpse, one of many, bumping up against the ledge. He reached out and carefully drew the corpse over to him and started rifling it. It was hot and bloated, boiled by the heat of the blood it swam in. But he found it, still tucked into the bandoleer the corpse wore across it's chest. 

LighteningLock! 

As he placed his hand on the grip of the pistol he had just enough time to think briefly about how smoothy this was going. 

Until the eyes of the corpse flashed open and it let loose an ear splitting scream, hands flailing at him, trying to draw him into the bloody pool. As he shrank back, he saw all around him, the other floating corpses started to groan and writher. 

 

Montero swung his massive head around, sniffing the air. It only took him a moment to zero in on the commotion of the screaming corpses, and spy the small halfling at the center of it all.

"THIEF" he screamed in a thunderous roar and, ignoring Freddy, his great form ponderously turned. He charged toward the opposite side of the room, slowly at first put picking up speed. 

"That would be our cue" Tello remarked tranquilly to his companions. The Tortle pointed with his staff. "Mr. Clay, if you would be so kind as to kill that demon for me?"

The massive clay golem nodded it's head in acknowledgement and then, in a heavy run, dashed out of it's concealment and jumped into the bloody pool, moving to cut off the demon. The rest of the party cautiously moved out on to the threshold of the passage, readying spells and missile weapons in attempt to buy the halfling time. 

"Run, Ricmo, Run!" Radiant Lightbringer cried.

Ricmo was often amazed at how quickly he went from doing great to being utterly fucked. It wasn't far to the door his friends were holding for him, but the surface of the pool was now a roiling froth of zombies and bits of zombies. They were already trying to clamber up onto the ledge. For a moment he considered heading back the way he had come, but there were even more of them behind him. 

As he stood frozen, no plan coming to him, he absentmindedly glanced down at the pistol he had just liberated. It's name came, unbidden to his mind. LighteningLock. Lightening. Without a second thought he pointed the pistol down into the churning pool that blocked his path, and pulled the trigger.  

Despite the pistol having been submerged in boiling blood for a number of years, it fired cleanly. The muzzle flash was so bright it left afterimages on his retinae, they shot trailing an iridescent tracer behind it. 

When the blast from the pistol struck the boiling pool the effect was, for want of a better word, electric.  A large, roughly circular section of the pool glowed brilliant blue. There was the scent of ozone. And every zombie inside of that radius suddenly stiffened and went limp.

"Nice" Ricmo thought. And he ran.

"That golem is really giving that demon problems" Dakhir expressed approvingly to Tello.

"It's very durable" the Artificer agreed. "The clay, when combined with the blood and other impurities and then heated and baked at just the right time and temperature, creates a kind of polymer, further strengthened by naturally forming carbon fibers. A sort of polymer/nanofiber mesh. Of dear. It's gone berserk."   

"Berserk?" Whisperleaf asked. "What does berserk mean exactly?"

"It's the usual meaning" Tello replied testily. "Uncontrollable. Will attack anything nearby. It happens when it gets knocked around too much. A minor design flaw."

"Considerably more then minor I'd say" Dakhir replied. The Tortle just glared at him. "It's a work in progress" he finally replied.

Meanwhile, Ricmo had decided he WAS probably going to make it after all. The demon had decided to ignore Mr. Clay, who was still wailing on him, and was trying to cut off his escape, But Mr. Clay  had distracted it for a critical few moments, and the demon was big, and not especially fast. Still, it was going to be close. He cut the corner of the room, hopping across two floating corpses as if they were stepping stones, then bouncing off a chunk of masonry that barely emerged from the water, earning himself a few more precious seconds. 

Just like Freddy before him, he underestimated the reach of the whip. With a crack, it shot out, smacking him backwards, tumbling head over heals. He managed to avoid plunging into the pool, but he lost time and distance. His mental arithmetic now came out with a different more, depressing answer. He was NOT going to make it after all. Again close, but not close enough. Still, nothing to do but try.

He redoubled his speed, throwing caution to the wind, half skating over the glistening stone, barely in control, aiming for the doorway.

The demon smiled. It raised it's whip up over it's head, prepared to deliver the blow that would flatten the tiny nuisance that had dared to defy it.

"BOOM" Tello's cannon rang out. The huge magical cannonball struct the demon directly in the stomach. Despite Tello's considerable skill in artillery, a single cannon shot was nowhere near powerful enough to kill such a creature or even badly wound it. But the momentum of such a thing, shot at close range, was not something even the huge demon could just shrug off. 

The demon was knocked back a good five yards, it's killing stroke, thrown off balance, went wide.

Ricmo's mental death-dial clicked over from "I'm fucked" to "gonna make it after all" once more.  

The demon howled. And then in a flash of smokey brimstone, it vanished only to reappear directly in front of the halfling, blocking his way. it's massive legs framing the doorway.

"SLIDE" Radiant Lightbringer screamed.

And Ricmo slid.

As the party made their way away from the doorway, they could still hear the sounds of battle behind them.

"That golem is tough" Dakhir repeated.

"Yes, the design has promised, I'll give you that, but he is no match for that demon." Tello observed sadly.

And after a handful of minutes, the noise ended, and was replaced by chortling laughter. 

Radiant Lightbringer cocked his head, then immediately called a halt. He removed his helmet, bowing his head.

"Let us all share in a moment of silence for the good Mr. Clay, our former comrade. He died valiantly, that we might live. Mithras, our Lord of Light, watch over his soul that he may reach a place of peace and rest. Amen."

"Amen" said Ricmo.   

"I have the recipe. I'll make another" said Tello.