(Continued from Ch 49, Land Of Desolation)

The Chronicles of Rapina
Chapter 50, Lady Doe


As the shaman's last warding spell faded, the shadows beyond the pentacle stirred and disgorged a lithe skeleton. She scouted briefly and then Rames appeared followed by Thane dressed in his mortancer robes.

"It was Mortaebius or one of his greatest minions, I feel sure of it. The presence, did you feel it Elizabetta?" Thane's deathly voice rasped through his robes.

"The master or his hand," the skeleton nodded in the affirmative."

"For us to have felt the presence while on the shadow plane and in Jooldig as they appear to call the orc town, it had to be powerful. It was fortunate that we picked this time to map the caverns and search for Rapina."

"Rapina!" Rames ran to the pentacle and lifted the woman who lay there. Her left hand had been pushed against the ribcage in the midst of a pile of blackened bones. Uh! Rames nearly dropped the woman when he realized her dead hair was a dull, ruddy auburn. Her clothes fell to dust as he lifted her. He turned her over in his arms. Her face was not Rapina's. Much of her hair fell out and joined her clothing as he turned her, yet she was breathing, just barely breathing.

"Unfortunately, it is not Rapina," Thane said. "She does appear to be just barely alive, however. Her skin is a mess, as though it had been sorely damaged and then partially restored."

"But her size and her behind is a lot like Rapina's, without seeing her face I thought..." Rames choked back a tear.

"Odd, she is wearing Rapina's mage light, but there is no question that she is a different young woman," Thane said. Hold her steady. I will have to bestow a portion of my life force on her or I believe she will die shortly. Thane droned arcane syllables and shaped his bestowal spell with mystic gestures. He placed one hand over the girl's eyes and another just below her ample breasts and poured a portion of his life force into her. He shook himself against the pain and then drank a healing potion to restore his life force. It was a testament to the seriousness of her wounds that she did not wake up. "Strange, it appears that the girl did the draining of the blackened skeleton. I do not understand why that would have caused nearly lethal damage to herself. Necromancy! Thane exclaimed as he looked around.

"Hmm?" Rames asked.

Thane examined the blackened skeleton. "I believe this was a living man or orc not long ago. Now it appears as if he were long dead and then some. The spell used to drain the life out of him must have been exceedingly powerful because I can still see the dweomer of necromancy clearly by using mage sight. There is a powerful residue on the girl's left palm as well. She looks awfully young to be a necromancer with such astonishing power. I'd say she's about Rapina's age, wouldn't you, Karmoz?

Rames sniffed but pulled himself together, "Yes Mortancer Kroz."

"And you are right; her rump is like Rapina's but the shape is not quite the same because their hips are shaped just a bit differently. She does appear to be approximately the same height and weight as Rapina and her build is similar. I believe we saw Rapina's pack on the way in, sitting on a trunk. Thane collected generous samples of the dust of the skeleton in several vials as though he felt there might be some use for it. After sweeping up most of the skeleton's dust, he inspected the pinnacle. "The chains appear to have rusted through; again I see the aura of necromancy. The room verily reeks with it." After several more minutes of investigation Thane packed up his samples. Let us see if that really was Rapina's gear. Bring the girl. This is no place for a human woman."

Thane looked at his ring, "Astonishing."

"What is it?" Rames asked.

"Rapina's collar must be within a hundred yards or so of us to be faintly registering in spite of the fact that we are so deeply underground, come," Thane said.

It took several false turns and some circuitous wending but at last Thane was led to the edge of a pool in a nearby room. There, sitting amongst a plethora of beads and shiny stones was Rapina's collar. "This pool is enchanted to drain away magic, but I believe the death of the lord of this place has diminished its power, just as the wards that once protected the lair from access via the shadow plane dissipated as we waited. Even so, had we not been so very close, the collar would never have registered. The signal is very weak while the collar is in the pool. Thane requisitioned a large jawbone from one of the nearby hangings and used it to fish the collar out of the pool. Once it was out of the water he touched his ring to it. "I think it is all right, but the fact that it is here may mean that the lord of this lair knew how to remove it without harm to its wearer or himself," Thane said.

Rames shook his head.

"I am sorry, Karmoz. My hopes were dashed as well. Let us investigate the pack we saw that looked like Rapina's," Thane said.

A few minutes later the group had found the appropriate room and Rames was going through a trunk of items while Thane looked through a sack and the pack he had seen on top of it. Elizabetta stood guard.

Thane held up a green silken bustier, "It bears the craftsmanship of the clothier we use in Argos. This is Rapina's pack. I recognize it and many of the items here."

Rames held up a letter he had found in the trunk with several dresses and an assortment of women's finery, "It is from Bellany Norwit to her Mother, Lady Eleanor Norwit. The stationery bears a baronetial watermark. It is written about the start of a trip to a school in Bristol, but she never finished it. Are you familiar with Norwit?

"Not particularly, but I believe Rapina is from that particular baronety of Avengene. Baronet Norwit keeps a small baronety for the Marquis in northwest Avengene. Being on the western border of Avengene's territory, he is one of Daelrath's neighbors, but his keep is too far south for the two of them to have had much regular interaction. "I think our giants severely cramped Norwit's style last year," Thane chuckled.

"Yes, the ruined fort where we lost Rapina was in his territory," Rames said.

Thane nodded.

Rames held up an undergarment from the trunk. "There is no way that woman would fit in this garment. The bust is much too small."

"You have a point, but being a teenager she may not have been fully developed when she arrived here. Then again I agree her bust is very like Rapina's but the nipples are different. Rapina's were more distracting, don't you think?" Thane asked.

Rames nodded, "I've seen plenty of women in my day and very few of them are built like Rapina. This girl is though, but it's an odd coincidence."

"Hmm, let me look at her aura. Thane shook his head. This woman's aura is more like Rapina's than it is like most of the normal women's I have seen, but it is certainly not exactly like Rapina's. I cannot make a positive identification, either her aura is strange but normal for her, or perhaps there is a subtle magic that pervades her aura everywhere. 

Rames carefully turned the girl over. "Is the magic uniform everywhere?"

Thane looked carefully. "It is all so subtle and mixed with the powerful residue of the event that transpired at the pentacle. I would have to say that her aura is not quite the same over the curve of her rump as if less subtle magic had been used on it than had been used elsewhere. It could be I am only picking up residue of a recent spell that affected this woman's body, but why not so much on the rump? I do not know," Thane said. "Turn her over again."

Rames complied and Thane studied her breasts. 

"Again here I believe I see somewhat more residue on her nipples than on the rest of her breasts and then more again on her chest and arms. I will admit that there are some elements of her aura very like Rapina's, and Rapina has an unusual aura, subtly different than any normal woman I have looked at. I am sure it is the inheritance she gained from the lust spirit that distinguishes her. I may be wrong that there are similarities in this woman; perhaps I am thinking wishfully in my interpretations. I am a necromancer, not an enchanter. My mage sight is not as sensitive as it could be. In any case this young woman is likely to wake up, but we cannot simply show our faces and ask her if she knows us. We may wish she were Rapina, but it is far more likely that she is Bellany Norwit," Thane said.

Rames nodded gravely.

"I suggest our only course of action is to drop her at a leech in the northern reaches of Norwit and observe her remotely. The likelihood is that she is Miss Norwit and will try to contact her parents immediately. If she does then we will know we were engaging in wishful thinking, if not then we shall see. Since she has no hair or nails I will take blood and a skin sample from one of her feet to aid in locating her. We will leave her off with her mundane possessions. We can pawn any valuables we do not recognize as Rapina's just as a couple of adventurers might if seeking remuneration for a rescue, but without wanting to face the possibility of a nobleman's wrath for being mistaken for the ones who kidnapped her in the first place. We will keep any items we know belonged to Rapina..."

As he listened Rames was fiddling with the armor in the sack next to the pack Thane had been looking at. "Look at this, the banded armor breast cover nests down to expose the breast," Rames said.

"For a nursing mother wearing armor?" Thane asked dubiously.

Both began examining the armor more carefully.

"The skirts lift quite convincingly," Thane observed.

"Look at the way the tops of the leggings are cut," Rames said.

Thane held up a pair of silk panties with a reinforced opening at the crotch. "This is not something the daughter of an Avengene baronet would wear," Thane said.

"It looks newly made, or at least newly assembled," Rames said.

"It looks like something Rapina might find useful, and it is her size. Perhaps she did better with the orcs than we had feared. In any case we will retain the armor. Norwit would dispose of it in an instant," Thane said.

"I have never seen finer chain, and the alloy of the plate is not one I recognize. What of...? Rames moved the chest away from the wall. He reached down and held up Rapina's weapons belt with her rapier, main gauche and several pouches."

Thane smiled. "I wondered where that might be. No doubt the new armor takes advantage of some metals found only deep underground. If this armor belonged to Rapina, then she must have been here recently. The state of her collar would tend to reinforce that hypothesis. Yet we made a thorough search of this maze from the shadow plane and came up with nothing more than what we have thus far investigated."

Rames nodded as he began stuffing finery back into the chest. "We better hurry; whoever this young woman is, she cannot stay unconscious forever."

"Agreed; The lady must be our chief concern for the moment. We will return later for valuables and items of magical significance," Thane said.
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This ends, Lady Doe, chapter 50 of The Chronicles of Rapina.
The story continues in chapter 51, Leeched.

Copyright 2001 by Rapina