Chapter 5.25: The Sightless Citizens of Saal

“Foul witches!”
Mero shouts at the top of his non-existing lung. He shakes himself free of Dargothoth’s clamping grasp and leaves him sightless and guideless behind as he walks towards the front of the group. His steps scrape the stones loudly and furiously, dust whirling up left and right.
“What have you done to my uncle’s children?”
The others stay close behind him, but are still partially in the corridor. Mero is the only one actually in the room. His sudden presence brightens the flames of the black candles. The three women no longer remain shrouded beneath a veil of shadows. They are all wearing cloaks in dark colours, partially hidden beneath their deep red fleshy wings. One of them whips her demon tail, creating a sharp echoing throughout the room, demanding silence.
“We have taken back what this world stole of our master.”
The fey’ri closest to them speaks with a recognizable voice, one that especially Dargothoth remembers vividly.
“You!” He clenches his fist while he growls in her general direction. “You did this to me! You use the name and markings of the Faceless God to instill fear in others, but you are no servant of him. He spoke to me and ordered your execution. You are going to lift this heinous curse immediately and we will kill you quickly. The other options are far worse.”
The sivak’s threats are met with maniacal and belittling laughter.
“You talk with a lot of big words for a blind lizard”, the lady in the back says. “You speak like you know everything, while in truth, you know absolutely nothing.”
Even though she was right about his sight, she wasn’t entirely correct. With the power granted by the Faceless God, he could see the aura of a demon near him. Dargothoth can see the glowing symbol of Gor-Thar in front of their faces and he knows what his own blessing looks like. What he doesn’t recognize, is the red rune-like glyph he sees when he looks at the three fey’ri. It’s a red vertical line with two straight branches on both sides attached to it, all pointing diagonally upwards. Three circles are beneath each other on the left and right of the central line, looking like drops of blood dripping down. He does not know what it is, but he has seen very few things within this world. He can consult his god later.
“Dargothoth is right”, Mero says with audible disgust, not taking his eyes of the spectator. “I will burn the meat of your flesh for what you did to the spectators, to the demons of this town and to my friend. Stop this ritual. Now!”
The woman in the back takes a step forward. She looks intrigued, observing him from top to bottom.
“Your design is wonderful”, she says with a soft and calm voice, like there’s tension whatsoever in the room. “I will make you my next pet after I’m done with Blinky here.”
She nods her head in the spectator’s direction. The beholder has more pieces of metal than skin left, some eyestalks are replaced by strange tubes and most of its teeth are shards of metal. It looks like the automaton Oanoa created, but this one is alive. Or was, it’s difficult to tell.
“Yes”, a different sisters says, the one that has not spoken yet, “you do have some spare parts left, right? And if he proves to be as worthless as the floating eye freaks we used for our ceremony, we can just melt him for new components.”
The demon in the back claps her hands with excitement.
“That would be fun!”
The lady in the deep purple robe raises her hand.
“Althrea, Shavaria, enough. We can’t have trespassers think that we don’t take them seriously.” A devious smile reveals her pointy canine teeth. “I will give you a final warning. Leave and we will not pursuit any of you. We will be gone before the start of next month. We have what we came for and are just finishing our business here.”
She turns and gestures to the circle of candles behind her. With a few flowy movements of her fingers she brightens the room even further. The spectator floats away from the center, back to Shavaria, the fey’ri in the back near the wall. Now that nothing is blocking the view on the custom made shrine in the centre. A couple of big metal rings, all thin and dark grey, levitate and turns slowly around their own axis. With the rings, dozens of small milky eyes float in the same way. A few bigger eyes, precisely as big as the central eye of a spectator, slowly turn around the scenery, their discoloured pupils continuously looking at the centre.
(21, 10 and 15 versus AC)
Mero’s anger reaches its limit. The power he learned to tap into in the realm of his uncle burns with a fiery temper in his soul. He can feel that fiery energy move to his hand. It materializes as an orange sphere of fiery energy the moment he loses is patience.
“Screw your final warning.” The sorcerer shouts and he raises the hand containing the burning magic. “This ends now!”