Gilgamesh and the Golden Palace of Za-Hadrash - Introduction - Part Seven

 Previous installments:

• Introduction - Part One
• Introduction - Part Two
• Introduction - Part Three
• Introduction - Part Four
• Introduction - Part Five
• Introduction - Part Six

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A clearing came into view, lit by twinkling lights of varying hues that seemed to be emitted by glowing fireflies that moved in swarms through the trees. There were several firepits, also, arranged around a central mound with a flattish top. Around the summit of the mound, was a ring of colourful toadstools. Three naked young women, all very beautiful, with hair like tangles of vines and greenish-hued skin were dancing wildly within this circle to music that was being played by a number of musicians sat around one of the fires. One of them was a harpist with copper-coloured hair who looked almost human aside from his pointed ears and somewhat angular features, and eyebrows that rose up at the corners. Though they did not inhabit his lands, Gilgamesh was well traveled enough to recognize an elf. There was also a man with goat’s legs and horns who pranced about as he played on a set of reed pipes. A goblin drummer. A startlingly fetching girl with an elfin face framed by masses of dark curls, wearing a pearl-studded bodice and boots, who plucked on the strings of a mandolin with amazing skill as she danced about. Some tiny half-human, half-cricket creatures played on fiddles, flying overhead. Their audience was a motley gathering of other folk of all different shapes and sizes, some with wings that flitted about, sometimes appearing and disappearing out of nowhere, playfully conjuring dancing lights or faerie fire’ing each other. There were two large humanoids that might have been ogres, or half-ogres, which were familiar beings to the folk of Uruk though almost universally regarded as a dangerous menace. A few half-horse, half-human creatures pranced about in the firelight, whooping savagely. Many of these strange folk were dancing around the firepits or the sides of the mound. There was an infectious quality to the music, and the listening expedition from Uruk found themselves gently compelled to join in; it took an effort of will to resist. Ur-Zababa came close to failing that test, but managed to pull himself together and maintain his warrior discipline.

A very handsome brunette woman paced about, talking with someone here, dancing playfully with someone else there as she made her rounds, flighty and yet with something of an air of graceful leadership about her. She might almost have been taken to be the woman they sought, but she did not fit the profile. She had an extremely large bear, of dire aspect, as a companion, lumbering along beside her. The trees seemed almost to bow slightly to her as she passed them, and she nodded her respects in turn.

None of this seemed to quite gel with the ideas they had had in their minds about the subjects or followers of the so-called “King of the Sea People”.

“Perhaps this matchmaker dwells far away from him, after all. Still, she will be a useful hostage and source of information.” whispered Gilgamesh.

“I am not detecting significant signs of evil in the hearts of these creatures, my King” said Ur-Zababa. “One or two have slightly malign auras but probably no worse than commonplace meanness of spirit or bullying natures. And those are much the minority of them.”

“There are ways to hide such things, though” whispered Sumu-Abum.

A flitting shape appeared hovering just beneath their party, a small waifish girl with dragonfly wings and long red hair. She laughed, and uttered some words that Gilgamesh understood:

“I know you’re up there, silly. Come down, don’t be shy.” And they all of them felt the intrusion of her mind-reading gaze sweep over them…

“Fall back, everyone! Fall back!” the King ordered. And they beat a hasty retreat with all swiftness.
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Sumu was apologetic. “I fear my thought detection was itself detected.”

“Did you learn aught of use to us?”

“I…don’t think that little flying girl has laid bare the secrecy of our mission. It is almost as if she were entirely unsurprised that there are invisible beings around. We were not being scanned by her long enough for her to have picked up our thoughts in detail.

“I could not read all of the creatures down there. Some are resistant to magic, others strong willed. They are undisciplined and fearless, in a convivial mood. Many are intoxicated, and they were thus easier to read, though less coherent. There is much mischief in some minds. But no-one that I read had any thoughts about this fishy King Sunaeco, or your sweetheart Mishari Al-Khalifa, or anything about Uruk, or the Palace of Za-Hadrash. Many were feeling a mood of anticipation, however, and I picked up thoughts of excitement concerning a golden-haired dancer, just as the matchmaker was described, and yes, I picked up the name ‘Serise’. No, more than just excitement – reverence, she is their idol. I think she is expected to make an appearance very soon.”

“Hmmm. The woman with the bear?”

“She is greatly respected by all who had any thoughts about her that I could detect. An authority figure. As for her, she batted my Detect Thoughts aside. With a brief glance of admonishment my way, unless I imagined it. But she wasn’t perturbed, it is as if she expects it.”

Gilgamesh frowned in mild consternation. “None of this is quite as expected. We know from our divinations that the last creature to have seen this King Sunaeco, is in the lands of Uruk, or was at the time we left, which incriminates him. The woman Serise, we know is here somewhere, and will make an appearance soon. These folk have no wicked intent, though for all we know, she might. By her association with the villainous Sunaeco, she may simply have a mercenary nature. Both worked to further the goals of Elysium, but again perhaps merely mercenaries paid a share of the spoils. Serise of the golden hair is most likely here as a paid entertainer for this motley bunch, who mean nothing to the King of the Sea Folk. The goal must remain, to find his stronghold that we may counter-threaten him.”

Sumu-Abum coughed. “Might we try a diplomatic approach, sire?”

“Ever the peacemaker, Sumu. Much as I would like to do that, here is the problem: what if we walk up to this woman and say hello, and she realizes who we are and takes flight at the first sight of us?! Where will that leave us? This is no stronghold, it is just a gap in the woods; it has no value, and if she is only here to dance for these people, she won’t care about them. We will have no leverage and she will just run. We can’t track her with divinations, we know that. The ‘last creature to see her’ trick won’t work again, not in time for our purposes anyway; the oracular shedu Lidunnamu can only use his power of Discern Location once a sevenday. We’ll have come all this way for nothing. No, it is too risky. We must use the element of surprise and seize her, carry her off as hostage. Then we will interrogate her, and if she can prove she is innocent of wrongdoing and gives us the information we require about her man Sunaeco, we’ll set her free and I’ll compensate her for her trouble.”

“Very wise as always, O my King” replied Sumu.

“And Ur-Zababa, how about we make a grab for bear-lady while we are about it, too, she looks quite the prize! She would make you a fine bride. If I were not already pursuing this Janni princess I could settle for her myself. And maybe that gorgeous little mandolin player for you, Sumu. Another I could go for, but a bit too small for my manly dimensions.”

Ed-Wyna groaned. “Here we go again…”

Gilgamesh and the Golden Palace of Za-Hadrash - Introduction - Part Six

 Previous installments:

• Introduction - Part One
• Introduction - Part Two
• Introduction - Part Three
• Introduction - Part Four
• Introduction - Part Five

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After Gilgamesh had solved Lidunnamu the oracular Shedu’s conundrum:

“The animal you seek, dwells in a tree in a forest glade which has no name, but may be found lying close to a southwards-running stream and approximately five and a half miles west-by-southwest of a small recently established cave settlement of humans that has been named by them, Camp Ragfried, which itself lies around fourteen miles roughly due west of the larger village of Lasehona, peopled by beings that are like, and yet unlike humans, though not disagreeable to the human eye I think. Lasehona is in the southwest part of the forest they call, The Dreadwood. Which lies within the Kingdom of Keoland, in the sub-continent of the Flanaess, which is a part of the continent of Oerik, in the world they call Oerth.”

“Do you have enough information now, King of Uruk? I grow weary now.”

“Yes…I think we do. Many thanks for your wisdom, Lidunnamu.”

“I trust that you will use this information only for good and just purposes, Gilgamesh.”

“But of course.”

Sumu added: “My King Gilgamesh is famed for his just rule.”

This was enough information for Ur-Zababa to call upon Marduk’s wisdom and cast a Divination to determine precisely what manner of creature it was, that dwelled in the tree, in the glade, in the forest etc that had most recently seen etc.

It was a squirrel.

“Good, it should be stupid enough to easily scry on then.”

And this indeed proved to be successful. The scrying revealed a place that was resplendent with beautiful wildflowers, and colourful fungi. There was also a small-ish looking humanoid with large ears and green-tinted skin sitting with its back to the tree, patting out a rhythm on some goatskin drums. As Ur-Zababa watched, he saw a small, pretty looking humanoid with translucent wings flitter into view and converse with the drummer. They laughed, sharing some joke. She flittered away.

“The shadows are very long, my King, it is late in the day there, later than here I think. There are strange creatures, possibly daeva servants of this matchmaker of Sunaeco’s. They are small and do not look like much of a threat.”

“Keep studying the scene well, Ur-Zababa, while I summon further aid…”

Gilgamesh activated his Ring of Djinni Summoning. The djinn swirled into view and bowed.

“Greetings, Zarif, I have need of your aid.”

“What is you wish, O Master?”

“Peer into the mind of my vassal Ur-Zababa, for he escries a location we wish to travel to. I would have you take us there, Zarif. It is in a world called Oerth.”

The Djinn bowed once more. “Your wish is my command, as always.”
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Via a brief sojourn on the Elemental Plane of Air, Gilgamesh and his party arrived on Oerth on an uninhabited stretch of scrubland a few miles south of Westkeep. They did not expect the Djinn’s plane shift to accurately place them at their goal, so this was not unexpected. They had departed in the springtime of their world but here it was a warm autumnal evening and a little later in the day than in the lands of Uruk.

To what they decided to call North, they espied the walled town, as yet nameless to them; beyond it, a great river, and then marshlands beyond that as far as they could see. To the South, more scrub. West and East the scrub gave way to cultivated lands. Though having not observed the sun’s passage across the sky, and with the unfamiliarity of the few stars they could see twinkling through the dusk, and their total lack of knowledge of the topology of this world, any ideas about compass bearings were fairly arbitrary.

Colours here seemed just a little different, as if the sun’s radiance were not quite the same.

“My King, should we visit that habitation yonder to ask which way to King Sunaeco’s realm?” queried Ur-Zababa.

“I don’t think we have time to deal with that.” Gilgamesh replied. “Sumu has his Find The Path spell, and we have a location for his matchmaker, or a place she has been recently spotted, and Wind Walk still to spare. Let us go there without delay and not alert any spies working for this King Sunaeco to our presence.”

To Sumu’s relief, his prayer to Anu for him to Find The Path for them was answered, confirming that his connection to his god was not severed in this unfamiliar world. Does Anu have worshippers here? He wondered.

A gentle breeze picked up around them which Sumu knew to be guidance from Anu. “That way” he gestured towards the North.

They resumed their Wind Walking, and rose steadily to an altitude of 3000 feet to get a good look around; though after an hour or so of flight it became increasingly difficult to make out anything on the ground as night had fallen. There were two lunar crescents in the sky, both quite slim, one larger than the other, the smaller one shedding a bluish radiance. They descended to a lower altitude, and followed Sumu’s divinely-given instincts. Here and there, they would see the flickering lights of villages and other small habitations where there was evening activity going on.

Another hour and a half of flying through the night air, and they became aware of denser vegetation beneath them, and it was soon apparent they were overflying a forest.

They swooped down and hugged the treetops as they flew onwards for another twenty minutes before Sumu’s instincts told him they were close now and he pulled up the Wind Walking group to talk with them. They landed amidst dense vegetation and whispered in the darkness.

“My King we are very near to our objective now. That way to the East I saw from above a clustering of twinkling lights that may be the village of Lasehona that the oracle described. Northwards, the direction we must go in, I could see nothing to indicate a large dwelling of any kind in our vicinity, though I think I hear music from somewhere. There is a wildness of tone to it that I find a little disquieting, though somehow, also, inviting.”

“Yes, I hear it too, Sumu. Before we go further, I will employ my magics to render us all invisible, so we may better observe our hosts.”

“And I will cast Detect Thoughts, my King.” Sumu responded.

“And I, shall cast Detect Evil” said Ur-Zababa.

“Before that, give me a Tongues spell.”

“Yes O my King, at once.”

In the form of invisible mist they proceeded, concentrating on their respective magics......

Gilgamesh and the Golden Palace of Za-Hadrash - Introduction - Part Five

THE ROAD TO OERTH

Previous installments:

• Introduction - Part One
• Introduction - Part Two
• Introduction - Part Three
• Introduction - Part Four

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The road to Oerth was not simple. Sumu augured that it would not, in fact, be an easy task to find Sunaeco’s realm from the standpoint of the Janni oasis on that world.

Gilgamesh had certain powers of planar travel that derived from his divine ancestry; he could part the veils that lay between worlds for a short time by an effort of will but he was not empowered to open a portal to a place he had never visited before or he had no material from to act as a focus. The Janni merchant might possibly be located and pressed upon to take them to the oasis by his own means of plane shifting. That would put their feet on the ground of Oerth as a starting point. Or the merchant might provide them with some goods he had traded from that world, which would let Gilgamesh open a portal to a random location. But that would still leave them with no orientation and potentially thousands of miles from their intended destination. A map obtained locally, or from the Janni merchant if they were lucky, and a Divination might point them in the right direction. Or it might just tell them it was somewhere “off the map”. Sumu still had the ability to cast a Find The Path spell that day, but that would only be useful when they were quite close to their destination.

Ur-Zababa, meanwhile, had a Scrying prayer still ready to expend. If he had a good enough description of Sunaeco, or his matchmaker, or preferably some other being in that area that was weak willed and might not easily shrug off a scrying attempt, then he might scry on them and gain knowledge in his mind of the locale; but he had no means of planar travel and they had no means to transfer that knowledge to the mind of Gilgamesh. A verbal description was not enough.

“If you ask me, my King” Ur-Zababa mused, “the best thing to do is send word to Mishari’s people, come clean about the whole affair because you have done no wrong, and ask for their help in looking into this. You once told me her grandfather the Vizier of the Amir was a mighty wizard. What’s the worst that can happen?”

Gilgamesh shook his head. “I envy the simplicity of your mind, Ur-Zab. But it is not so simple. I have not remained King of Uruk for so long merely by the strength of my two arms. There are two reasons why I do not wish to pursue such an obvious solution.

“Reason the first, I do not know the full consequences of this Sunaeco making good on his threat. I do not fear a battle with monsters unleashed from Za-Hadrash. But I may not hold the tide back in entirety, and those waves that get past my blade might wreak havoc on my populace.

“Reason the second, it will show weakness to the Janni and Mishari in particular if we cannot deal with this ourselves. A suitor does not call on his sweetheart for favours if he wants to remain long in her affections.

“This Sunaeco – if it is he – being here, in our world, in a position to do us harm, when we have not the first idea of where his own treasured lands and possessions lie to strike back at puts us at a huge disadvantage. No, Ed-Wyna spoke rightly, our first act must be to redress that balance and we must do it ourselves.”

“I have a plan forming. Let me tell you of it, first, then let Sumu augur whether it might bring us success…”
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The omens were positive for Gilgamesh’ idea, and so they put it in motion.

First, they needed to travel to a faraway place where dwelled a blind Shedu that Gilgamesh knew of, that was blessed with oracular powers. Gilgamesh parted the veil of existence to transport his group to a place of solitude he maintained on the Plane of Radiance, a floating cyst of smoky, multi-hued crystal that had been a gift from his patron Shamash the sun god. The extreme conditions of heat on that plane were harmful to some members of his party and spells of resistance were first cast, though they were not to remain there long. The interior of the crystal was shielded from the otherwise blinding radiance without, and very beautiful. This was merely an intermediate point on their journey to the plateau where the Shedu, called Lidunnamu, dwelled with his family. Gilgamesh shortly afterwards opened the way to the Lidunnamu’s lair and greeted the creature and its kin respectfully.

Lidunnamu’s oracular powers were risky, for to activate them, it was necessary to answer a series of riddles. Success provided the answer to the question, but failure came at a forfeit of some kind or another. The information provided would be the equivalent of various divination spells, such as Commune, Legend Lore or Discern Location.

Most useful of all, was the Shedu’s ability to divine the location of, or information about, even creatures it had never itself encountered.

Lidunnamu’s information came also at a price, in addition to the potential for risk if the riddles were not correctly solved. Gilgamesh would owe the creature a quest. But the precise nature of this and its resolution will not be told here.

Fortunately, Gilgamesh and Sumu-Abum were quite accustomed to the game of riddles, and played often between them to pass the time. And so, they were able to unlock the shedu’s powers to their advantage.

Lidunnamu’s power of Discern Location would be used to obtain information about the locale they needed to reach, but it was known that this was not guaranteed of success if the subject was protected in some way by powerful spells. So first, they required a Commune to find out what target would offer them the best chance of success.

The first handful of questions soon eliminated the notion of directly discerning the location of either Sunaeco or his matchmaker Serise. Evidently, both were shielded by powerful magics such as Mind Blank.

Ur-Zababa for his scrying needed a creature of small will, likely to be an easy and unprotected scrying target, so no familiars or animal companions, that had seen Sunaeco (specifically, the Sunaeco who was Gilgamesh’ rival for the hand of Mishari) within the past day and had not traveled more than a mile from where it had last seen him. They phrased their questions to avoid directly asking things about Sunaeco or his own location or state of mind, which might be shielded from divinations. The answers to their carefully worded questions indicated that yes, at least one such an animal existed that remained in the vicinity of its last sighting.

They then asked if the creature fitting that description that had seen Sunaeco most recently, was in the world of Oerth, or else in Gilgamesh’ lands?

The Shedu’s response, was: the latter.

This was rather damning.

“Now to determine where his stronghold lies on Oerth.” Gilgamesh said grimly. “Ask about the matchmaker. She will at least know where it is, if she is not there already.”

They asked the Shedu if such a creature as had previously been specified, existed, but that had recently seen Serise Lendri the matchmaker for Sunaeco famed for her dancing skills. The answer came back: yes.

And did this creature reside on Oerth? Yes.

And was it amenable to Discern Location? Yes. Scrying? Yes.

Were there any people within a mile of this animal that had seen this woman within the past hour? Yes.

“Oh great and wise Lidunnamu, I implore thee to tell us of the location, precisely, of this creature. After I have answered the riddle you will surely now test me with.”