The Thieves Guild

    Two great ships, well one half sunk sticking out of the water and the other beached near the tree. Beyond them with in the forest there is a small make shift camp as the group goes over what supplies they could salvage from the ship versus what supplies they will need traveling.

 

   The otherwise silent forest, not minding the noise of workers, from what is left of the crews, shifting through the wrecked ships, can be heard the voices of the would be adventuring party. Only one thing stands in their way, how to travel. Hollia has sent a messenger dove she summoned back to Stratalia to request material and workers to raise the wreckage and help fix the ships. They have no way of knowing how long that will take, if Hollia’s family will even be able to send help. As such they are waiting for a reply before they head on their way.

 

    Rhulan is far from optimistic, “It took Jinron a week just to convince one captain to take us around the cape. Above all else your family are merchants and all the ships they have contact with are merchant ships, not exactly the types to change course to take us to the other end of the world.”

 

    Hollia looks at the fire-pit’s glowing ambers with a downhearted face, she knows that by now her parents have headed back off-world, there ship would be the only one that could have taken them clear to Croix quickly. She doesn’t know how serious things are, the oracle’s warning about some big-evil, and the others’ concerns over the monster that attacked them, and the ones that attacked the school.

 

   “uh, miss Rhulan?” says Hollia with a half smile as she pats the sleeping LinLin in her lap.

 

   Rhulan looks down at Hollia, taking her eyes off the shore for the first time since night fell as if she had been expecting something else to rise out of the waters.

 

   “Something wrong Hollia?” she says with genuine concern in her voice, picking up on the invisible vibe from Hollia’s voice.

 

   “I…I was wandering, about those monsters that attacked the school. That giant thing that attacked the boats, you guys have been talking about them kinda scary like.”

 

  She pauses for a moment as LinLin licks her hand in her sleep, “I remember when we ran into that centipede one back at the school, you said the merchant had been worshiping it or something in order to call it here. But the oracle said something else was calling them here, and then that really big one showed up. I…I don’t know what else to ask, I heard miss Betty talking to her crew, I can hear them down there talking, they are all really freaked out. Someone of them have even been saying the world could end and that they need to work faster to get off this rock before its gone.”

 

    Hollia wipes a tear from her eye as Betty comes over, “Oh, don’t worry about my guys, they’re a little jumpy.”

 

   Betty with a broad smile pats Hollia on the back, “Just look at’em, they’re mice for crying out loud…and one cat, they jump at everything.”

 

   “A little condescending.” says Cata coldly earning her a rare mean look from Betty, “She wants to know, let her know. The Dah-Hoth are monsters of the worst kind. My father’s race even has myths about them, aside from having all out wars with entire planets controlled by those hideous bastards.”

 

    Hollia is turning pale.

 

   “Enough okay.” says Rhulan.

 

   Betty sits down next to Hollia, where she had been before, as Rhulan shakes her head.

 

   “Hollia, the Dah-Hoth are like zombies, crossed with a sentient disease, and throw in a demon for good measure. They pop up from time to time, back when I made myself out to be a dimension hopping hero I would fight them. They always had the same calling card, the same method. They would whisper sweet nothings into the ears of over zealous cultists and religious types, pretend to be their God or something along those.

 

 

 

     I first ran into them about eighteen hundred years ago, back before I came back to Aesperia, before the whole legend about me saving the world from the Stingers.”

 

   She pauses seeing the confused looks from Betty and Cata, “Back then I was looking for my brother.”

 

   Betty and Cata exchange looks and look at Scrags and Hollia who apparently already knew this.

 

   “Any who,” says Rhulan, “During this one…adventure, I had joined up with a group who called themselves space rangers. They were being sent to investigate a space station they had lost contact with, well lost contact with right after a transmission about the people onboard turning into hideous monsters and killing everyone else.”

 

   She pauses looking around the fire, “too make a long a gruesome story short, it turned out some of the civilian population onboard this giant meteor based space station…well to be honest I guess I could call it a space colony more so than a space station, well any who, these people had lost their faith or something, something about living in deep space causing conflicts with faith or something. These people were no where near as advanced as the people from my world, or a lot I had met who lived in deep space, but as I was saying Gabrielle.”

 

   “You mean the same guy we fought with?” chimes in Scrags.

 

   Scratching his chin, “Come to think of it that thing did say you two had met before didn’t yet.”

 

   “…yeah…” says Rhulan, “That’s what I was getting too, it did what it apparently always does, imitates an angel,”

 

   “What?” interrupts Betty.

 

  “Yeah,” says Rhulan again, “This thing likes to mess with people who believe in religions with white winged robed deities or messengers of some deity or another. It had gotten the people to worship it, thus allowing it to come through and infect them, the infection spread from the faithful ones to the others in the population, they would brutally kill each other and then the bodies would mutate, or even be assimilated by others who figured out they could do that. Like monstrous zombies…well more monstrous. Oh what the hell, zombies are nothing compared to these things, they absorbed others, absorbed machines, inorganic rocks, altered their bodies in all sorts of messed up ways. I couldn’t begin to describe the horrors we had to face before escaping from that place and vaporizing it from space.”

 

   Hollia looks less than satisfied with this, “Why would they need people to worship them?”

 

   “I think I’ll fill in this part.” says Cata, “To start with, despite my appearance to you Aesperian, my father is in fact a Kuhrai, a very old and very powerful race that travels between whole universes. Our people have a myth, or legend, about the Dah-Hoth. I’m sure Rhulan has heard it.”

 

   Rhulan nods her head

 

  “Well, a long time ago, apparently early in the birth of some void universe.”

 

   “You know what void universes are right?” she says pointing to Hollia and Scrags.

 

   “Yes, miss Cata.” says Hollia sitting up as though she had been pointed out in class, something of a conditioned response.

 

   “Yeah, uh, airless space between spherical planets.” She says looking at Scrags who just shrugs.

 

   “To get back to what I was saying, early in one of these universe life began before something called evolutionary energy had appeared, what ever that means. This early life on one planet was more like a cancer than normal pond scum, it ate everything, and changed its self to adapt to any environment quickly. They smaller bits ate each other, linking up. In real life we know these damned things operate as individual organisms, but will assimilate each other, the larger ones having more intelligence and when they merged the stronger will would take over, or a new mind would appear. Well this whole world was covered in this, slime. I can’t even imagine what that would be like. The slime got so big that it actually realizes as it was feeding on the ground under it that it couldn’t eat lava.”

 

   She shrugs and takes a sip of her mug, “Guess in the end its still alive, and fire and heat have always worked against them for some reason. Well can’t go down I guess they decided to go up. They actually reached out into the coldness of space. We should be thankful they didn’t come from a universe like this or else it would have been a hell of a lot easier to do that.”

 

  “If that was the case,” interrupts Rhulan, “as the story goes they would have been outright erased.”

 

   Hollia looks between, as does Scrags only just with one open eye as he lies on his mat.

 

   Cata shrugs, “Yeah, guess you’re right about that. In the story these things managed to make a space bridge out of their body and with so much mass actually fling a good chunk of themselves off the planet into space. They adapted to the cold and fed on space rocks, comets, and landed on nearby planets.”

 

   Cata takes another sip from the brown frothing liquid in her mug to wet her throat, “Guess by this time the evolutionary energy what have you had appeared and life was beginning elsewhere in that galaxy and the universe. And the blob of the Dah-Hoth had become self aware, calling its self Demiurge, and I guess had some insane plan to link all matter in the universe and consume everything. Guess it figured it was supreme or something and all life and matter belonged to it. Well the story goes that three goddesses.”

 

   “The three goddess.” corrects Betty.

 

   “The way I heard it,” says Cata, “it was the three goddess of yeah, Other World, Hell, and Nirvana, but they didn’t create that universe the Demiurge Dah-Hoth thing was in.”

 

   Betty looks up with a thought full expression on her face and finger to her lip, “yeah I guess the old story does go that way huh.”

 

   Cata shakes her head, “These three beings, my people call the trans-dimensional goddesses, or some of my people do, others call them hyper-dimensional life forms…or something along those lines, had ventured into that early universe. They had some plan, or something, regarding life and the Dah-Hoth…Demiurge thing was viewed as a threat to it. So they ripped it apart and flung the remains into sub-space. Well I guess they had viewed it as one big life form and didn’t think more about it. But while in sub-space the smaller pieces became self aware, and fought and consumed one another. You even had some afraid of each other, afraid for their own consciences being lost. The goddesses it says argued with each other over what to do with them, but ultimately decided to leave them alive in sub-space to see if they would become something new.”

 

   Cata shrugs, “guess they were right, they became the Dah-Hoth.”

 

   *…..chirping crickets….*

 

  “Is that it?” says Hollia, “what about the whole religious cults thing, and people turning into them. If what you said is true they could just jump into any world and start eating everything and go all giant blobby again. What does religion or mutating people have to with that.”

 

    *The fire turns blue and short for a moment before going back to normal*

 

   “Now calm down Hollia,” says Rhulan, “you’ll snuff the fire out. From what I could gather from other, more powerful sources, the Dah-Hoth are locked in sub-space, much like other beings called Dark Lords, and what not. Sub-space for them is like a prison, in fact I’d guess ships going through it is actually kind of a risk really, but the dimension wave they produce tends to make ships going through sub-space ghost like to beings living in sub-space. What I was told is that they learned from these dark lords, which being astral life forms the Dah-Hoth can’t do any harm to, that if they focused they could speak to mortal beings, and if those beings worshiped them and had enough faith in them that they could break through back to the material world.”

 

   Rhulan looks back out at the sea to the spot Ravana sank, “It has something to do with psionic manipulation of the reality membrane. But any who, at some point early on they figured out a mean little trick, while it takes a lot of faith power to bring the bigger ones through, just a little can get them to send smaller ones, or pieces of themselves like tentacles or a shrunken head like we fought.”

 

   She looks at Hollia and Scrags, “Make no mistake what we fought was just a small piece of that bastard, if you could see what was beyond that little portal you’d be horrified, imagine a giant gelatinous blob the size a small town.”

 

   Hollia and Scrags exchange looks.

 

   “Yeah, that’s what we were actually fighting against. The only way to have ended that fight was to do exactly what we did, close the portal and roast what got cut off. The rest of that bastard no-doubt has grown a new head by now.”

 

   Rhulan puts her hand out, causing her own cup to levitate up to her waiting hand, Scrags mutters something that sounds like *lazy* but no one pays him any mind.

 

  *sip*

 

 “Well the smallest bits they can send through are individual cells, yeah these things are like that. But there’s a catch, while a strong magic or a lot of faith can open portal in the ground or in the air, such small portals aren’t focused in front of people, but inside them. So they modify some cells of their bodies to act like a virus. They invade the body, mutate the host into a Dah-Hoth and then it can spread from there. What’s worse is that they aren’t like zombies; they don’t become mindless drone monsters. They actually retain their original memories and sometimes personalities depending on what the person was like before being infected. Their minds are altered otherwise to like the feeling, some even view it as being closer to their gods like some really messed up blessing.”

 

   *sip*

 

   “Any who, in some cases like when I first encountered them they go all zombie apocalypse about it, but others they’re slower and more methodical. Only infecting chosen people, and treating the rest of the world or where ever as inferior food slaves. It all comes down to the main Dah-Hoth that caused the infection. Guess after who knows how long acting like Dark Lords a bunch of them have started to act like Dark Lords.”

 

 

   She points out at sea, “and that was really disturbing. I don’t know if Gabrielle is still the way he was eighteen hundred years ago, but I had stories of this Ravana, on some worlds he’s regarded like a final boss, the biggest and baddest, manipulating whole world wide religious orders to do his bidding with out their knowing it.”

 

   *sip*

 

   “To put it bluntly, these aren’t two guys who would be working together, or acting like co-henchman, what Polymoebial said is the only explanation, something worse than either of them has to be pulling their strings. My money would be on a Dark Lord, but the who and why I don’t have a clue. If it was about assimilating this world there would be a hell of a lot subtler ways to do than attack a place guaranteed to have people able to eradicate them…or send…”

 

   She looks down at Hollia, “They attacked the school, and then another big name Dah-Hoth attacked the boats. I wander…”

 

   “You wander?” says Cata.

 

   “Hollia,” says Rhulan, “I got the feeling they were after us specifically. The attack on the school was more like a test, and then this attack on the best bet to go to Croix after being told about it by Polymoebial.”

 

   “Or what ever was controlling her.” mums in Scrags recalling the whole scenario.

 

   “Yeah,” says Rhulan thinking about it, “In any case we need to get some rest, we should discuss this more in the morning.”

 

   “So whose keeping guard first?” asks Cata,

 

   Hollia with a semi-happy look says, “Oh Miss Rhulan and I put up magic wards earlier, nothing should come near the camp site or the beach.”

 

   That night is not a peaceful rest, Hollia has nightmares about her family and friends turning into zombies with tentacles and telling her to join them. Just as the zombies reach out to her she finds herself standing next to Rhulan on a pedestal. A blue light arises around Hollia, the light turns the Dah-Hoth to stone which crumbles to dust, her friends and family included. Everything turns hazy as a green light emanates from Rhulan, two things appear in her hands, spears, scythes, swords, Hollia can no longer see clearly, all she can pick up from what seem like tear filled eyes is the light and rough shape.

 

   “There is no cure,” says the dream Rhulan in a voice that is like Rhulan’s only different somehow, “Only death can free them.”

 

   Hollia awakens to the morning light with a whimpering LinLin licking her face, “Its okay LinLin. I just had a nightmare is all.”

 

    As Hollia gets up she sees the others standing around a glowing ball of light about four fists in size.

 

   “A reply already?” she says as LinLin flies over top of everyone as they stand aside.

 

   “why is the message still sealed?” asks Hollia looking around.

 

  “Jinron locked it so only you could open it I guess.” says Rhulan with a shrug.

 

   Hollia just nods knowingly; the message summoning spell may look like a dove but in reality once in the air turns into a ball like this. Normally the spell is meant for aesthetic reasons to look like a messenger bird, but her grandfather never was one to care about a message spell looking pretty. But as they suspected the return reply came back to the exact same spot Hollia had sent it from.

 

    Hollia opens the spell, the floating letter says exactly what they feared, that it would take months to get another boat, even to go as far south as the peninsula let alone to the other end of the world. However they will send some men and supplies to help fix the ships of the people Hollia said helped them. Jinron also voices several personal concerns given the details Hollia told him, wanting her to return.

 

    Hollia smiles weakly, “Grand-father wants me to go back.”

 

   “And what do you want?” says Rhulan.

 

   Hollia looks out at sea, standing much as Rhulan had the night before, “Its not about what I want, it’s about the duty of an adventurer. My ancestors didn’t do what they did thanks to permission, they did what they felt was right.”

 

   She looks at Rhulan waiting for some reply, but none comes.

 

   “Be it good or bad,” she says a little flushed, “We have to do something.”

 

   “Well,” says Cata, our ships aren’t going anywhere for at least a few months.

 

  Betty nods in agreement.

 

   “In that case,” says Rhulan, “We’d better get going on foot.”

 

   “Did we just decide this?” asks Scrags, “Or did you all just collect up all these supplies, and strap them in packs, and make me carry twice as much as any of you for the fun of it.”

 

    The girls give each other knowing looks. They had all suspected what the reply was going to say, and had already gotten ready to head out on foot.

 

   “In any case.” says Rhulan, “I thought this over last night. I am pretty certain that who ever is behind the Dah-Hoth showing up sent them after me and Hollia specifically, so where ever we go they might attack. Suspecting this it would be better to actively go pursue our attacker.”

 

    Rhulan smiles at Hollia, “Besides, this is a chance to get some adventurer experience under your belt, and for me to stretch my legs a bit more. See what’s come of the world. Besides all this the ships could take who knows how long to fix.”

 

   “At least three months.” says Cata, “according to my engineer. My ship will need some pricey parts, especially given the size and the fact half of its underwater. Nothing I can’t afford of course, Captain Betty’s ship…is strange.”

 

   Cata turns to her, “Is that thing actually healing its self? What the hell is the core made of?”

 

   Betty puts her hand behind her head, “Uh, I, honestly don’t know. Its actually my mom’s ship, she got it as a present from this guy….”

 

   Betty taps her index finger tips together and whispers, “from hell.”

 

   “From where?” asks Cata

 

  “Hell…” says Betty a little louder, “The ship, er, or, the ship’s engine anyway is some living power source thingy they use to power hell ships.”

 

   Hollia looks like she wants to ask but Rhulan shakes her head at her, “Don’t ask, Hell and its technology isn’t something anyone here can really describe am I right?”

 

   Betty looks a little ashamed but admits, “Yep, I got no clue. But my guy says the engine will heal its self over time. It’s the rest of the ship that needs fixing. The list we got has all the materials we’ll need to fix it so just leave it to my Adorables to get the job done.”

 

   “So where to?” asks Scrags, a bit urgent to at least start walking while he’s holding what he suspects is the pack with the cooking gear.

 

  Rhulan pulls from the shadows in her cape and old looking paper map and unfurls it. The map shows the entire continent of Ravashira, but the place names are from a thousand years ago.

 

   “It’s not up to date,” she says, “but it does show the entire continent.”

 

  “Uh, I have a much more modern map.” says Cata pulling out a rolled up book, “It gives us pretty much the same land marks, but the big modern cities and town are listed so it just might be a bit more useful. No offense.”

 

   “None taken,” says Rhulan, “I should have suspected a captain would have a better map.”

 

    They open the book to the continent of Ravashira, a landscape both familiar and alien to Betty, even though she had seen it from the air, the similarities and differences to a continent on another world are striking, yet confusing. She had heard about sea level rises and what not, but for the life of her she can’t figure out how the peninsula to the south of the East coast is still there yet the big river right in the middle is replaced by an large inland sea.

 

    “Even if we could go straight across,” says Rhulan, “it would take us days to reach the Archae Sea, and given the landscape beyond that weeks to reach the coast line in the country of Calif. And all that is just going straight no stops, which we of course can’t. In fact we have no choice really but to follow the coast line at least till we get to the northern point of the peninsula.”

 

    “Uhhhh…” trails Betty scratching her cheek, “Why don’t we just go straight across?”

 

   She trails her finger directly across the length of the continent on the map from their position just below the cape, to the other coast.

 

  “I mean, really, our ships should be done by the time it takes to walk right across. So why not?”

 

  Rhulan points at the mountains just to the East of them, “First that would mean walking through the smoke mountains, home to were-cats, lycanthropes, were-wolves, and even steel claw bears. These things aren’t that big a deal, but there are also demon rattle snakes and dagger snakes to contend with…”

 

   She eyes Betty, “their venomous. Even for us…and you.”

 

   “Oh,” says Betty.

 

   Rhulan trails her finger even further east to the giant crack of a sea splitting the continent almost clean through, “and here is the Archae Sea, up this far north there aren’t any ports to get across, its way too far to safely fly, especially for those of us who aren’t experienced in it…or for that matter would need carried via a spell. The ports across are either clear to the farthest north in the land of a thousand kingdoms.”

 

   She points to the northern expanse with its ridiculous multitudes of lakes, “Up here you have who knows how many kingdoms coming and going in constant wars over the territories between and around the lakes; been that way even back in my time, real difficult place to keep under control, too wild. Getting a boat across up there would mean likely getting involved in a war or some other aristocratic dispute, and then we have coming back down around.”

 

   She taps the mouth of the sea down at the C-curve of ocean into the continent, “this is where we want to go, the port city of Osopika. It’s a major merchant port between the upper and lower continents and even between East and West Ravashira. There is a ferry across the sea there.”

 

   She looks at Hollia who has a quizzical look on her face, “There is an atlas in the library, just because I couldn’t touch any books doesn’t mean I could observe remember.”

 

   A look of understanding comes over Hollia, or more like a look of *oh, duh, of course*.

 

   The others just exchange looks, they learned from Polymoebial who this woman really is, and as far as Scrags is concerned questioning her past too much might not be a good idea if they don’t want to hear stories that make a granny’s war stories sound like summarized nursery rhymes by comparison.

 

    Hollia smacks her fist in her palm “OH!” grabbing everyone’s attention.

 

    “I just remembered, my brother lives in Osopika, in fact…”

 

   she scratches the back of her head, “He runs the ferry and the whole merchant’s quarter of the city.”

 

   Cata and Betty exchange looks.

 

   “You’re a Lia?” asks Cata, who in a flash remembers the words of Polymoebial, referring to Hollia, as Holly-Lia, “Huh, I guess you are aren’t you. Well damn, what a waste of a ransom.”

 

   She looks up seeing their expressions, “Uh, just kidding. Heh.”

 

   “Any who,” says Rhulan, “There aren’t any inns, taverns, or restaurants going that way.”

 

    She looks right at Betty, “you really want to camp out each night, with no horses to carry proper supplies or a carriage of any sort.”

 

    “Uhhh…no.” she says with a weak smile.

 

   “Great!” suddenly bursts out Hollia who is quick to cover her mouth in embarrassment, whispering, “I mean…we…uh.”

 

   Rhulan laughs and pats the blushing smaller girl on the shoulder, “Don’t worry about; time to head out and get this world saving adventure on the way.”

 

   *sigh*

 

   Scrags just shakes his head trailing behind the others, “what in the goddess’s name have I gotten myself into this time?”