# Umbral Gaze 4: Candle-head

On the heels of their seafaring victory over [the Cyclone](/writings/umbral3/), the party takes a portal to Neverwinter[^neverwinter], "the City of Skilled Hands", lying not far from where the next beholder is reported to dwell. The settlement offers plenty a nook and corner from which our heroes are able to obtain much-needed supplies, and they stock up with vigor--- Clementine is lucky enough to find some gilded acorns; Gottlob replenishes his stash of components for "revivify". Come dawn, members of the Wintershield Watchmen[^ww]--- at Tasha's behest--- brief our heroes on their quarry, and the burly dwarves who explain leave the party with an impression of otherworldly absurdity.

The beholder's lair is known to the denizens of Neverwinter as Brog Burgest, "cake pile", for to call that dulcet preponderence a "mountain" would be a travesty, but "pile" fails to capture the scale of its topography; Brog Burgest's peak vanishes upward among clouds. The beholder is known by the locals to have taken up residence at the pile, and since it arrived, townspeople and passers-through have been vannishing at terrible clips. The causality must surely be assumed.

{.thematic}
***

With only these vaguest of hints about what they'll face when they arrive, our heroes depart. The journey to the mountain is not long, and soon a warm, sweet wind--- as from a baker's oven--- tousles the party's hair and delights their nostrils. Boots squelching in what moves and smells like buttercream frosting, they rock back on their heels to regard the meeting of caky cliffs and gulleys with azure sky. Having acheived the mountain's base, our heroes discuss how to atain the peak at which they can only assume an apron-clad beholder waits by a gargantuan oven. Dutifully, flight-capable Louisa goes ahead by air to scout the narrow path that meanders its way up along the mountainside--- clearly not laid for easy passage--- but as she ascends through quickly gathering clouds and roiling mists, the solidity of her surroundings wavers; temperate farmland replaces slopes of sponge, and the wizard's arcane senses tell her that powerful dimensional magic permeates the otherworldly scene before her.

Humanoids--- dead-eyed humans, mostly--- labor on gentle hills in fields of blue-topped grain. Gnomes in stark red hats[^redcap] keep the workers in line, their sickles and whips employed with smirks and jeers, _encouragment_ for any slaves who seem to fall behind. Manacles at the ankles of the fitter of the masters' charges seem aimed to prevent escape, though to where a runaway _could_ escape, Louisa cannot tell; all is fields and cliffs and mist as far as she can see.

Rendering herself invisible with a spell, the llama swoops closer to investigate, but cold fingers of dread arrest her progress and grip her heart at what she discovers. The wizard's own body, her _human_ body, threshes indigo grass at the edge of the nearest plot; the gaze of a scythe-wielding slave master fixes... her? it..? in cruel contempt from a flanking position. The intensity of labour demanded by the redcaps shows itself in her body's condition. Thin, trembling arms beat the grain at an ever slower pace, just today's hours of hard labor taking their toll of strength. Her dark brown hair sports bits of straw and chaff among its tangles; her olive skin is caked with dust and sweat. Whether her glassy, unblinking eyes are a product of exhaustion or of whatever magic moves the wizard's presumedly uninhabited form, Louisa only wishes she could tell.

She pauses here, for a moment, to consider her options. Louisa knows that all the desperate longing in the world won't overcome the tactical reality of the situation on the farmland below--- there is no way she can rescue her human form unaided--- but her nature won't allow her to leave without some sort of consolation. Taking a diving pass, the llama spits upon the redcap slave master that pokes mirthfully at her vacated flesh, but, as she does, a twisted and ancient three-armed woman appears, black cloth obscuring all but her hands and the dome of her spiral-horned head[^hag]. Locking eyes with Louisa, the creature wields a hammer of arcane force that sends the llama hurtling, insensate, back down the mountainside--- but as she plummets, a single thought batters its way through shock and pain to the forefront of her mind: she's seen that twisted hag before, on the night she was trapped in her present form, cursed, to wander Faerûn a llama.

{.thematic}
***

Back on the ground, the rest of the party are alarmed to see their friend come punching through the cloud layer, falling more quickly than gravity or flight would normally allow. Unable to stop her fall, they're subsequently relieved to see her plow into a meters-high bank of frosting, from which she emerges apparently completely unharmed. Shaken, but steady of foot and voice, Louisa explains to her party the unnatural vista lying above the clouds. The thrills at the prospect of recovering Louisa's human form, and though Almuth detects some traps on the path ahead, they forge boldly onward, upward, headed to the peak of Brog Burgest and--- with luck--- to the rescue of their companion's quite literal other half.

Despite their cleric's apprehension--- the traps he detected having been neither identified nor disarmed--- the party makes steady progress and encounters few obstacles, but as they come some way up the slopes, perhaps half by Gottlob's reckoning, the path underfoot widens to an overlook. There on the mountainside, a troupe of dancers carve a half-dozen interlocking circles in rhythmic starts and stumbles. The grooves are deep--- it's plain the performers have been at it for an inhumanly long time. Frosting coats their every inch of skin, and the heroes have to wonder whether the path is blocked by monsters or by men.

The party has no wish to engage, and Clementine's "pass without trace" should be more than a match for the figurants' perceptive abilities, but Gottlob and Almuth pass far too loudly, boots squelching in dulcet slop, and a thrall pulls each into the group's fiendish waltz. Gottlob shows uncommon agility and grace, practically flitting between partners as he leaps his way free, but Almuth too escapes with just a bit more effort. The party carries on, followed by a sense of having avoided great danger with undeserved ease.

Coming finally to the oddly-flat top of Brog Burgest, party members note expanses of smooth, solid cloud that extend in layers both above and below as though to sandwich the peak between a massive pair of sheet cakes. The path gives on to an open-air enclosure in which torches of purple and orange wax burn atop plinth-raised statues of dragons in various states of noble contortion. In the corner opposite the party's ingress, a beholder--- a conventional beholder, it seems--- erects yet another torch and statue, its back to the middle of the room. 

Party members are wary to attack, and anyway hope to carry out Tasha's assignment, so after Almuth checks the abberattion's alignment--- Lawful _Neutral_; now there's a boon--- he announces his presence to their host. At once, the beholder is all anger and anxiousness. If the interlopers don't leave _right now_, so he says, they will surely die! He wishes them no particular harm, but no particular safety either, and if they fail to heed his warning, he shan't feel the slightest remorse except that their presence should interfere with his plans, and so, in any case, so as not to spoil to fruits of his meticulous labors for the pleasure of his good friend Themberchaud[^dragon], as not to cause his chum some wicked indigestion, but just as much so as not to die writhing in fits of flame-quieted shrieks, they _must_ leave _at this very instant!_

Alas, the heroes are too slow to escape what follows. Before the blustering beholder can be convinced to make his motivations clear, a rush and clatter approaches from above. The hole its maker punches in the cloud layer puts that of Louisa's fall to shame; an adult red dragon alights at the far end of the summit-plateau in a solitary column of Sun, engendering instant panic. There is nowhere to run on the peak of a mountain from a fully-grown dragon--- but little do they know, the adventurers need not fear! As Almuth reaches out to his Goddess in a deperate, hail-mary effort to save his party, his Goddess reaches back. Hearing the cleric's words[^divine], she plies her power to a subtle adjustment deep within Themberchaud's psyche, a faint push in a new direction, a slight reshaping of how he weighs investment risks, and a sigh of divine peace washes over the monstrous creature.

As Themberchaud and Cogyth--- so the dragon addresses the party's quarry--- get to talking (rather than killing?), all becomes clear. The "cake pile" is just a cake, baked by Cogyth for the occasion of his close friend's birthday. The purple and orange torches that paint the peak in lurid dichrome flickers, candles. The strange fact of the party's continued survival before a plainly very hungry red dragon, down to Eldath having put him on a strict no-people diet _per_ Almuth's request! In all his newfound compassion, the dragon asks his friend to let the party leave in peace, at which Cogyth exclaims in wonderment:

> Themberchaud has finally respected my wishes about... his _health!?_

Assured for the moment of their security, but acutely aware of the need to depart before the dragon gets to devouring the cake beneath their feet, the party question their orbic interlocutor. As Carmal explains the chaos Cogyth's _festivities_ have brought about in the surrounding country, conversation turns to the vanished villagers and to the farmland Louisa saw, now nowhere to be found. In answer, the beholder calls out a name, "Cheshira", and the three-armed hag of before winds into existence at his side. Party members glean details of their relationship, and of the situation there concerning, in snippets of heated conversation between the fiend and the aberration. Cogyth employed Cheshira as security, to prevent interference by townsfolk with his celebratory preparations, but, in attracting an adventuring party to his abode, the hag has gone too far. Were their business not concluded, she would surely be fired, but since it is, she should take her things and get out of his sight.

Though questions still burn on party member's tongues, the dragon's desire to eat cake soon overcomes his contentedness in companionable conversation, and he bounds forth to shovel untold quantities of sponge down his smoking gullet. Not even Themberchaud could possibly consume the whole of Brog Burgest, but our heroes aren't ones to stick around a ravening full-grown dragon--- party members split as best they can. Louisa takes to the air with Gottlob in tow. Clementine, polymorphed into an ancient winged beast by Carmal, carries the rest of the party cloudward. Cheshira, for her part, makes haste down the mountainside, hoping to escape before her absence is noticed.

The hag has no such luck. Adventurers so reputed, so accomplished as these, would never let a fiend escape unmolested; certainly not a night hag that cursed one of their number and holds a score of people enthralled in servitude. Dropping from the air in amongst a cluster of cottages that lie just beyond an outlet of the path to earthen ground at the mountain's base, party members cut off Cheshira's escape on all sides. Almuth encases her in a resilient sphere before she so much as objects. With flight denied to her, she turns to a hag's most trusted and potent weapon: talk, deception, her corrupting tongue. Addressing Louisa directly, Cheshira spins a tale in which the curse she laid was a boon, an impetus to struggle and improve that pushed the wizard to far greater heights than ever she could have achieved on her own, in that school of small-minded hacks she used to attend, but the llama is unconvinced; a wizard knows better than to fall for a hag's tricks, and Louisa reads disdain in Cheshira's eyes. Cornered, as Almuth's spell expires, Cheshira turns to her last resort: battle. 

Leaping atop a snug hovel, the bedeviler shutters reality beyond a crimson sky. Wavering bands of tinted cosmic force--- products of Cheshira's casting--- surround the cluster of cabins to cut them free of their worldly tethers, to let them and their surrounds slip unhindered into the falsity of the Hag's domain. Far above, misty, distorted images of Themberchaud and Cogyth ripple like reflections in a pond under high winds, anguished spectres that dance nearer and nearer the field's delimitations--- the hag grasps at the wispy forms as they come into focus. Three craggy arms weave two images into one[^make_eyedrakes], mixing, from the red-yellow mists, an eyedrake the hag cleaves down the middle as it threatens to become flesh. So rended in the womb, _two_ eyedrakes are born.

Surprised by the beholderkin and vanishing of Faerûn's firmament, the party are too slow to forestall Cheshira's next move. Minions unleashed upon her enemy, she seals herself again in an impenetrable sphere, now of her own device. Though unable to approach their true enemy, the party's contention is admirable. Handling two eyedrakes' combined might would be a tall order on any day, but Louisa is incensed; she sees no world in which the party's victory is not assured, in which her human body is not returned to her. The first beholder catches Almuth about his face with a wave of anti-magic breath, wounding him badly, before it falls to the the wizard's evocations--- the second exhales its retaliation across the battlefield, but in haste to recover from the loss of its twin, makes made a fatal mistake: the fresh cone of anti-magic shatters Cheshira's barrier.

As off a spring, Louisa acts. She knows exactly what spell the situation demands, a spell only she can cast in this moment. The hag's glance of dismay as her barrier falls catches Louisa's glare of determination; sounds of the party clashing with the remaining eyedrake fall away, and for a moment, for the second time, the two lock eyes in their own yet-smaller pocket of reality, before, at a word from the llama's mouth, the hag is gone! A _crack_ sounds over the battlefield as air rushes to fill the vacuum where she stood. As though in grief at the loss of its creator, the vague crimson field that encloses huddled huts with the party therein shudders and keens like a bundle of girders about to snap.

Having handled the main threat for now[^banish], Louisa turns her attention to the final eyedrake--- already nearly fallen to her party member's efforts--- on the heels of another anti-magic blast that targets Clementine and Almuth; for his part, a second time. The monster's breath weapon whips the feeling from their limbs; eddies of featureless force tug their bodies to and fro and toss them bodily, writhing, into the dirt. Clementine falls unconscious immediately, but Almuth is awake to feel the catastrophe the creature wreaked upon him. His limbs are shattered, his torso crushed, his flesh made so much pulp. The world shrinks away like a falling star, and with a final, gasping prayer to his Goddess, Almuth Cheerio, Peace Cleric of Eldath, grows Still. [^still]

Guided by a llama's deep-borne instinct, Louisa spits her retaliation: a fireball that sends the eyedrake crashing dryly to the ground, body singed and wasted like a black-burnt piece of toast. The dissolution of the dimensional magic that holds the party apart from material reality, which began as Cheshira disappeared, is completed with the death of her last creation, and Brog Burgest quakes back into view. Gottlob quickly revives his fallen comrades, Almuth included--- thank Eldath the paladin had diamonds--- and Carmal is sure to grab an eyestalk or two off the blackened eyedrake to keep as proof for Laeral that the party indeed _killed_ a beholder today.

In the afternoon's clear air, it's plain to the party from afar that the dragon has finished his meal, and with the Hag's captives in mind, they start back toward the mountain with hopes to find the scene from which Louisa was hurled so violently before, but empty-eyed figures met wandering by low-laid slopes are sure indications that the unnatural place went with its maker. Trawling at the base of Brog Burgest's remains, the party recover each and every person of the cyan fields, and Louisa's body is happily among their number. Cogyth appears on the ground, to greet them with words of peace, as the last of the abductees are rounded up, and assures the party of his innocence concerning the rise in missing persons--- to willfully sow chaos in the northern lands is wholly counter to his nature. Seeing the earnestness in his eyes and knowing firsthand the affection he has for his friend, they can't help but believe the beholder--- an aberration in more ways than one.

Search and rescue and the parting pleasantries with Cogyth constitute a lengthy affair, and what's left of the cake pile bathes hills below in reflected russet sun as the party makes its return on foot to Neverwinter. Through a drumlin foothill's gentle bend from which they first beheld Cogyth's postprandial behemoth, party-members turn to regard the pile once more. In that warm, right light, they cannot help but find it... beautiful.

Back in Waterdeep by portal, adventurers receive news that dulls the excitement of victory more even than their regret at the brief death of their compatriot. Words set in Carmal's mind by Tasha's "sending" alert him that the greatest fear of course has to pass--- Open Lord Laeral Silverhand has learned of the party's deceptions. [Rwntincer](/writings/umbral3/), "the Cyclone", sent an emissary of goodwill, an elemental, that found Laeral and an unexpecting and un_welcom_ing host--- this is Tasha's warning to her pawns and protégés. Stern words will be had with Rwntincer if he ever shows his face again, but for now, it's their own consequences that the party must consider...

[^neverwinter]: [Neverwinter](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Neverwinter) is a northern city of craftsmen and artisans regarded as among the most cosmopolitan metropoleis in Faerûn.

[^ww]: The [Wintershield Watchmen](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Wintershield_watchmen) is a local volunteer militia that polices the city of Neverwinter and sees to its interests in the surrounds.

[^redcap]: [Redcaps](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Redcap) are evil, bloodthirsty fey--- gnome-like in appearance--- known for their brutality and need to kill for self-sustainment.

[^hag]: A [night hag](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Night_hag), a hag from the Hells.

[^dragon]: [Themberchaud](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Themberchaud), the Wyrmsmith of Gracklstugh, the Father of Flame, the Everburning! What a pickle...

[^divine]: Almuth's player rolled 20 on "Divine Intervention" (in his birthday session, no less)

[^make_eyedrakes]: Extrasessional information: "Through the nature of a beholder's dreams, the lingering sentiment Cogyth felt while wishing to reunite with Themberchaud crossed into the feywild, and Cheshira gives it the shape of an eyedrake[^eyedrake]. Just before making it flesh, she splits it in two."

[^eyedrake]: An [eyedrake](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Eyedrake) is a lesser beholderkin that comes about when beholders dream of a dragon.

[^banish]: Louisa casts banishment, sending the night hag directly to hell.

[^still]: As in the Stillness. Mhm.