Meanwhile With the Other Champions III

Keira Rangi had taken to the powers given to her by Whiro well. She'd always been a bit of a contrarian, so being given dark powers by an evil god wasn't exactly something she was gonna turn down. It helped that she'd been given this smoking hot body as part of the experience, though honestly, she could do without the creepiness of some of the minions she was able to summon. All but the very most powerful of her summons were the sort of thing that would have made her skin crawl back before she had been sent by Whiro on this trip. Now? She was over it.

Initially, it was shadowy creatures that were part insectoid and part reptile, the sort of thing you'd expect Whiro to have under his command, but she'd since graduated to commanding the Undead as well. Her most potent creatures were neither undead nor shadows, though. Instead, she had bound a Pair of Djinni of Decent Power named Housh and Kashu. The Former appeared as an eight-foot-tall Man with coal-black skin, three jade-green eyes, and fiery reddish-orange hair. He was capable of great defensive magics. The latter appeared as a large, bull-headed, man with a lion's tail and clawed fingers. He was possessed of great strength and durability.

Keira had also been preparing to create a Mummy, though she didn't have a suitable corpse as of yet. An extremely durable, untiring, soldier who would, if not match Kashu in strength and durability, exceed him in stamina. Of course, Keira didn't have all the pieces she'd needed for that just yet, though she had spent the past few months gaining in power in the shadows of the town she had arrived in.

Mind you, her ability to command the undead and bind Djinn hadn't been due to any power of Whiro's, not directly. Instead, it had been due to the Tome suddenly providing the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Book of Amun-Ra, and the Lesser Key of Solomon to her. Apparently, Whiro had stolen copies from Anubis, Ra, and El back in the day, before El had been supplanted by Yahweh along with all the other Canaanite Gods. Either way, this had helped her out immensely, especially since she'd found the Fortress.

Oh, sure, Keira'd gone into the mountains willingly, ever since the word that some sort of Army of Dragonmen backed by actual Dragons commanded by a Dark Knight of some kind was massing near the Town where she'd wound up, a town attached to a Fortress called Pax Tharkas. The whole world that Keira had been tossed into seemed like it was in the middle of some kind of High Fantasy War to End all Wars. Keira hadn't been in Pax Tharkas for three months before word had come in about that. Apparently, the war had already been ongoing elsewhere and the big army in the Area, called the Red Dragonarmy, had already attacked a place called Silvanost and gotten destroyed by Elves. Keira wasn't too sure about the details, but that had been a bit under two years ago and it looked like the Red Dragonarmy was already starting to move troops around again.

Keira had decided that Pax Tharkas was obviously too tempting a target, and that would by necessity mean that the town she had been hiding out in would be a target too. The town supplied the fortress, after all. Keira had upped stakes and headed for the Mountains, which she'd learned since showing up were called the Tharkadan Mountains and were home to Dwarves. They had a Kingdom called Thorbardin there, and more importantly, there was plenty of potential mystical treasure to gather in the area thanks to the Ancient Dwarfgate War.

So Keira had set off into the mountains. Unfortunately, the personal equipment she had been using was rather light on armor. She'd rather quickly ditched the conspicuous outfit she'd arrived with. It was something from the Dishonored Games, which had been a thing that Keira had liked very much to start with, since those had been some of her favorite games. But then, Keira always had been a sucker for steampunk and horror. In a lot of ways, this high fantasy stuff just wasn't really her thing, probably the reason Whiro had sent her here. The guy was a god of Evil, after all. Wouldn't want her to be too comfortable.

Regardless, she'd traded in a pair of Sokolov Elixirs for some more useful studded leather armor, which was odd to her, since it seemed to be some sort of mistranslation of Brigandine armor from real life, but Keira wasn't too bothered. With a bit of innuendo, she'd even managed to get the guy to toss in provisions for the trip. It was amazing what looking like she did and having the perks she did could do for a girl.

Of course, the second she was up in the mountains, she threw the overcoat, with all its useful hidden pouches, back on. Eventually, she managed to make it to a cave in the mountains on the first night in the mountains, though that wasn't exactly the respite she had thought it would be, as she'd startled a hive of giant goddamned bees. A swarm of fifty-three giant honeybees protecting a giant honeybee queen forced her back out of the cave, though she eventually managed to kill them all using summoned minions, her pistol, her whalebone blade, and spells like Barrage, blasting the bees four at a time with mystic flame, shooting down some with pistol fire, cutting others out of the air with her Whalebone Blade, and directing her minions to handle others.

Though Keira'd come away from the fight victorious, it took the entire night to do. She was dead tired by the time the sun rose and all she wanted to do was kill the Queen and sleep. She sent her minions in to kill the queen, while she took stock of what she'd won. The cave was full of honey and Royal Jelly that her magical senses were telling her would not only heal wounds like the Sokolov Elixir but also remove diseases as well. She set her minions to bottling that along with some of the honey while she slept. By the time she woke up, the cavern had been cleaned out by her minions, containers of Royal Jelly and honey stashed away in the Darkhold, her library fortress in the shadowy realm between worlds that the Tome had conjured for her. She'd also managed to get more powerful, just by slaying enemies, and she'd even gotten a few achievements in her book.

After a week, though, she'd been forced to move on, thanks to wildlife noticing that the giant bees were gone. A bear had come sniffing around the caves that had forced Keira to kill it with her Whalebone Sword and a Beam Spell. She'd taken the corpse into the Darkhold to feed to the Bloodflies she kept to produce Blood Amber for crafting. However, she decided that it was time to go. She found her way through a few different valleys and forests, gathering food and sacrifices as she did so, thanking her Grandad for taking her hunting when she was a kid. True, she'd never had to hunt with a flintlock pistol before, but she managed to adjust. She even passed through an area that had a bunch of fruit trees.

Eventually, it was another two and a half weeks before she found the fortress, punctuated by a pair of battles against a small tribe of Ogres that had gone into the Mountains and turned into Brigands, which had necessitated the use of all the minions she could conjure up. Fortunately, Keira had been able to raise the dead ogres on the fly to compensate for the sheer number of enemies, plus having two actual Djinn to help bolster her force didn't hurt. Even still, it had been close, but she had managed to set the Ogres to fleeing back to their hideout after a closely-contested battle. She and her minions followed them, and that was when she sent her forces into the Small Brigand Village to sack it.

When Keira ran her Whalebone Blade through the throat of the last Ogre in this second battle, she got to looting and suddenly realized that this world's economy was bonkers. The coins were steel! Who does that? She thought all these Lord of the Rings, Dungeons and Dragons, High Fantasy Nonsense Worlds used gold coins. It made no sense, for fuck's sake, Pax Tharkas mined iron out of the mountains! If the fortress wanted to, all they had to do was smelt a bunch of coins instead of weapons and they could crash the regional economy overnight!

Regardless of local stupidity, Keira was satisfied with the loot, trading in her studded leather for magical chainmail that re-sized to fit her, and even grabbing a magical battle axe she wasn't going to use, a magical silver ring that let her float to the bottom of deadly drops, and a magical gold pendant that would help her to speak any language just by rubbing the pendant, which was fantastic because while the People of Pax Tharkas spoke English, which they called the Common Tongue, somehow Keira doubted everyone would. There were also a bunch of steel coins, provisions, furs, and a whole lot of weapons, though strangely the only armor she found was either the chainmail that she had pilfered from the Ogre Leader or the large, none-magical, furs worn by some of his more powerful warriors. Those furs were useless to Keira, though because they didn't re-size themselves. Keira also achieved some more of the achievements in her book and

In the Keira cut the spells animating her Undead Ogres off and set her Shadows to storing the weapons of the Ogres in the Darkhold, before destroying the Brigand Village entirely. Then she headed west for another valley, where she found a small clan of Dwarves who purchased ten percent of the remaining Giant Bee Honey and cured furs for yet more pointless steel coins and pointed her in the direction of the Kingdom of Thorbardin. She headed that way, passing through burnt and blackened woodlands and into a swampy mire.

It was in that mire, three months since she'd shown up to this place, and one month since coming into the mountains, that Keira had found the Fortress. The moment she saw it, she knew she had to make it her base in this world. It was even shaped like a skull for Crying Out Loud! Of course, as she entered, she realized exactly why it was shaped like a skull. The place was crawling with the undead. Of course, that hardly proved a challenge for Keira, as she went about testing her will and magic against the wills of these mindless spectres and skeletons. That was fairly easy, of course, and by the time she was finished doing that, she had a veritable army of minions to throw at any problem, even without summoning her shadows or Djinn!

Once she had her army, she set them to looting the fortress down to the bedrock. Most of the parties she sent from her brand new army of undead minions came back with all sorts of neat stuff, a magic sword that had a chance to kill any creature it struck every time it did so, magical shields, magical javelins that arced with electric power, magical cloaks that had protective enchantments on them, suits of non-magical plate armor, and even a bunch of silver that looked like it had been pried out of doors.

It was as Keira watched the minions convey all of this into the Darkhold that she noticed that three groups hadn't returned, and one group had returned badly burned. Frowning, she realized that there were things in her she would have to concentrate her forces against. First, however, she headed for the area where one of the groups had disappeared, conjuring shadow minions along the way while summoning her Djinn. Here, she found a cavern with ledges and a pool of water, as well as a gigantic loot pile. She also found her missing minions, dashed to so much ectoplasm, broken gear, and scattered bones by a giant dragon covered in translucent scales.

"More thieves! I should have known! Die!" Roared the Dragon.

As it did so, Keira immediately sent in her minions before blinking away using the powers she'd gained from Dishonored. That proved to be a good idea because as she reappeared the Dragon breathed out a cloud of darkness that dripped with necrotic energy. The minions that Kiera sent at the Dragon would be fine, but Keira would definitely feel getting hit by that. As she reappeared, Keira bent time with similar Dishonored Powers, slowing time down and allowing her to duck under the swipe of the Dragon's Tail. As she did that, she came up firing her pistol, the weapon punching into the base of the Dragon's Tail and causing it to roar out in pain. Keira reloaded her pistol, blinking away from a powerful blast of wind from the wings as the Dragon turned to buffet her, time speeding up as she finished reloading and took aim once again, striking the Dragon in the back once more.

The Dragon meanwhile, thrashed about destroying skeletons and scattering spectres with claw swipes, wing buffets, and bites. Then her Djinn came into play, as Housh finished casting enhancing magics on Kashu, who surged forward and smashed his fist into the Dragon's jaw, even as it tried to cast a spell. The punch smashed the Dragon's maw shit, knocking out a dozen dagger-like fangs from its maw, and stopped its spell from going off. Keira fired her Pistol into the Dragon once more, punching into the thing's side as it roared in pain. The Dragon tried to fly up, but Kashu leaped up into the air and knocked it back down with a knee strike. The Dragon fell to the cavern floor in a spray of water and a plume of rock dust, having formed a crater in the cavern floor that was even now filling with water.

Keira took the opportunity that presented and blinked into place next to the dazed Dragon, planting the tip of her Whalebone Blade through the Dragon's Eye and into its brain, killing it. And that was all she wrote. The Dragon shuddered once, before going very still.

Looking around, Keira saw that of the sixty-some-odd skeletons and spectres she had wrested control of at the start of this, she was down to around thirty. That Dragon had been no joke, though the fact she was using equipment and abilities that were an outside context problem had allowed her to pull through. Now, though it was time for loot.

"Gather up the loot while I figure out what to do with this Dragon Corpse." Commanded Keira.

As her remaining minions hastened to do just that, Keira realized there was really only one thing she could do that would be worthwhile, turn that Dragon into her first Mummy. It should retain some capability to cast spells with the rituals from the Book of the Dead. For now, though, she couldn't do that, so it went into the Darkhold with everything else, all while she put on the suit of more powerful magical chainmail and the magical boots of levitation that she'd found in the Hoard. The Hoard was mostly that armor, those boots, a couple of potions, and a whole lot of coins and gems, though some of the coins were platinum if you could believe that. What kind of world was this where coins were made out of platinum and steel? It was insane!

Keira, however, found the next battle much easier, helped by the fact that apparently, the keys that her minions had brought her allowed her to bypass some of the danger. A construct of an Iron Hydra with fire-breathing heads attacked them, though owing to age and the recent battle with her minions, only three of the heads still spat flame. Keira sent in her Undead and Shadow Minions to bog down the heads while Kashu destroyed them. Another dozen of her Undead Minions went down, but they brought the construct down.

It was the last battle that truly was a loss. A floating skull that turned out to be a powerful spellcaster attacked with a maddening array of powerful spells, scything down minions as they fought. Keira tried to summon more to replace the ones that fell, but that only made her a target. The Skull cast a beam at her that was full of cloying, necrotic, energy. Keira had to blink out of the way of the black, crackling, beam of light. It splashed against the wall in a display of foul power and as Keira reappeared away from the fighting, she could tell it would have stolen her soul had it hit.

"I have a fix for this, Mistress." Spoke up Housh.

"You do?" Questioned Keira.

"I do." Nodded Housh.

"Why aren't you doing it then?" Queried Keira.

"Because if I do it, I wish to be freed from my bindings afterward, Mistress." Intoned Housh.

"And if I free you, what's to stop you from taking revenge on me for binding you immediately after?" Asked Keira.

"If you do not trust my word, at least trust that Kashu is a more powerful combatant than I. Besides, Mistress, you hardly have a choice in the matter. You may very well die here if you refuse, after all." Pointed out Housh.

"Fine, do it! I'll free you after." Agreed Keira.

And like that, Housh flew forward, launching beams of golden white energy from his eyes. These struck the skull as it was aiming another of those deadly, soul-stealing, beams at Kashu. The Skull jerked in place in mid-air, its teeth clacking as it shut its grinning mouth one last time, and then there was a brief burst of golden-white light as the animating mind and soul were torn forcibly from the skull and cast into the Aether, where it proceeded to dicorporate into wisps of soulstuff.

"That is incredibly odd, normally when hit by such a powerful exorcism spell, the animating soul gets sent to the proper afterlife. Why did it simply vanish into nothingness? Are there no Gods here to claim the soul? I suppose it matters little. I have held up my end of the bargain, now you hold up yours." Mused Housh.

Keira did so, as while she may be dark, she wasn't willing to go back on her word so blatantly. The rest of the fortress was looted, and Keira's minions were dismissed after the loot was all safely stored away in the Darkhold. Three Circlets, a suit of incredibly well-crafted Magical Plate Armor that was better than the Chainmail that Keira had on now, an incredibly magical helmet that had some sort of soul bound into it, twenty-four pieces of Jewelry, more gemstones, this time with more than just opals, onyxes, jet, and sardonyx, more weird platinum and steel coins, and thankfully, proper gold coins.

Once it was all stored away in the Darkhold, Keira decided it was time to claim this fortress for her own. She would use it to act as an anchor to the Darkhold on this world. She did so and for the next two months, focused on turning the corpse of the Dragon into a Mummy, bound to serve her, alongside crafting various charms and talismans of whalebone and blood amber. She had just managed to awaken her new Mummified Dragon Servitor two and a half months later when her peace was shattered by a group of interlopers looking for the Helm of Grallen, whatever that was.

It would wind up being the thing that sucked Keira into the adventure that would finally see her leave this high-fantasy bullshit world. . .

XXXX

AN: All right, this one is getting a bit long already, so I'm breaking up Keira and Aleksander Yurinov's Interludes. In fairness, most of the others didn't go through an entire dungeon from a Dragonlance Module in their interludes so I feel justified in doing this, here. Also, yes, that does mean that Keira Rangi is on Krynn during the War of the Lance. If none of you know Dragonlance, it's big momentous stuff that's happening around her and she's mucking about with, simply by clearing the Skullcap dungeon two and a half months before the Canon Heroes of the Lance get there. As you might have already guessed, she is going to jump because she's going to break the railroad that the original War of the Lance Modules have the party on.

As for why she didn't recognize Krynn or the Dragonlance Setting? Keira isn't into Dungeons and Dragons. She was much more of a World of Darkness type of person, though she has played some Ravenloft and didn't much care for it. Fortunately, there's not many problems that can't be solved by throwing an overwhelming amount of minions at it. it's covering for her lack of familiarity with the setting.

At any rate, the next chapter will be the final interlude with Aleksander Yurinov, then we'll get character sheet updates and images as well.

Stay tuned. . .