The Platinum Ruse (The Voidbringer Campaign Book 2) Read online

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Letter from the Author

  OGL

  Product Identity: The following items are hereby identified as Product Identity, as defined in the Open Game License version 1.0a, Section 1(e), and are not Open Content: All trademarks, registered trademarks, proper names (characters, deities, etc.), dialogue, plots, storylines, locations, characters, artwork, and trade dress. (Elements that have previously been designated as Open Game Content or are in the public domain are not included in this declaration.)

  Open Content: Except for material designated as Product Identity (see above), the game mechanics referred to in this product are Open Game Content, as defined in the Open Game License version 1.0a Section 1(d). No portion of this work other than the material designated as Open Game Content may be reproduced in any form without written permission.

  Copyright © 2022 M. Allen Hall

  ISBN 979-8-9850231-3-8

  Cover by federikary

  All rights reserved.

  For Madison

  PROLOGUE

  SLAM!

  The entire house shook with the force of the front door being thrown closed.

  SMASH!

  A backpack sailed through the air from the family room into the laundry room, knocking a basket of dirty clothes onto the floor.

  “I can’t take it anymore!” screamed Madison as she stomped up the stairs. She tried to slam her bedroom door, but the basketball hoop that was hanging on it prevented the door from closing. She let out another howl of rage and resigned herself to falling onto her bed with the door ajar.

  “What’s up with her?” Amelia, nonplussed, asked her older brother Logan.

  “What’s up with who?” he responded, finally looking up from his video game.

  “With Madison. Did you not hear her come in? Upset might be an understatement.”

  “How should I know?” he said as he went back to playing his game. “Why don’t you go talk to her and see if she wants to play with us? We have so much left to do, and we just got to level five. Dad said that he was ready whenever we wanted to keep going.”

  “Sure. Wish me luck,” Amelia said, and she carefully made her way upstairs and peeked through the open door to the girls’ bedroom. She pushed the door open quietly and then tiptoed over to Madison’s bed, where her older sister was lying with her face in the pillow.

  “I hear when you’re prone it’s harder for them to hit you,” Amelia quipped to break the silence.

  Madison rolled over enough to see her sister out of one eye. “Hi, Amelia.”

  “You wanna play?” Amelia jumped right to it. “We still need to open that box of loot that Valduin found in Azereth’s room behind the altar room. There might be some gold in there,” she tried to tempt her sister.

  “I’m not in the mood,” Madison mumbled.

  “Ok, then what mood are you in?” Amelia asked, sitting down on the bed.

  “Rage.” Madison turned her face back into her pillow. “Nothing ever works out for me. I want to do one thing, and I miss out on something else. I try this, and everyone else does that. I wish things would just go the way they are supposed to go.”

  “Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yes, it’s important to embrace the anger. Feed it like a little baby. Only then can you reach your full potential,” Amelia said in the snootiest voice she could muster.

  Madison let out a single giggle. “I’m pretty sure that is NOT what you are supposed to say, Dr. Hall.”

  “Well, whatever. Let’s go play. You can hit some pretend monsters. That’ll make you feel better.”

  Madison let out a groan as she sat up. “Yeah, maybe it will help. And if Logan makes Valduin go prone again, I’ll get to hit him too.”

  “‘Hit Valduin or hit Logan?” Amelia asked.

  “We’ll see how things go,” Madison replied with a mischievous smile. Both girls laughed as they headed downstairs.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “ROSE?” VALDUIN WHISPERED. He waited.

  “Rose,” Valduin stated, a bit louder this time. He leaned against the front wall of the small house they were hiding in, next to the single window. Another moment passed.

  “Rose Fairfoot! It is time to wake up!” hissed Adelaide, shaking the halfling’s shoulder. Another explosion sounded from outside the building, this one close enough to rattle the coins on the table. The sound reminded Adelaide to sweep the money into a pouch. The coins jingled as her hands shook. She struggled with the clasp on her bag for a moment before giving up and shoving the pouch into Rose’s open pack.

  Rose sat up slowly. She yawned in the low light of the ancient abode. Glancing around the room, she realized that everything was lit by a pale red glow coming from the single window at the front of the room. “What’s going on guys? It can’t be morning yet,” she said as she looked at Adelaide, who now stood by the door with her magic battleaxe, Fiend’s Lament, held tightly in her hands. Getting worried, Rose looked to Valduin, who was peeking out of the window with his brass-capped, ebony wand at the ready. “Did I miss something?” the halfling cleric asked as she leapt up off the sofa.

  “We all did,” Valduin whispered in reply as he ducked away from the window. “It seems that the death of Azereth, and the attack by Luvrolen’s remaining war band, has led to some infighting among Azereth’s troops. In the last hour, we have seen devils fighting demons, drengarn fighting hobgoblins, and demons and devils together fighting more of those giant gorillas.”

  Another explosion rocked the house. “And we can’t figure out what is doing that,” Adelaide added. “One of those explosions woke me up, and they have been getting closer. I’m not sure how much longer we can stay here.”

  Rose quickly sorted out her gear. This did not take long; she had fallen asleep in her armor after their harrowing escape from the underground temple the night before. They had successfully dispatched Azereth, the devil that had been organizing this strange fellowship of evil creatures. However, getting out alive had required triggering a battle that had escalated into a war overnight.

  “So, how do we get out of here?” Rose asked as she joined her taller companions near the front door. “I can’t see through that window. Is there anything out there?”

  “I just saw one of those big vulture-looking demons fly past. A vrock,” Valduin replied. He stole another glance outside. “The street looks clear for now. We need to get to those magic stairs to get out
of the city.” Valduin gave Rose’s armor a pained look. “And we need to do it quietly.”

  “I think I can help this time,” Adelaide said. “I had an idea—,” her voice trailed away as she closed her eyes and reached up to touch the eagle feathers in her hair. Deliberately, she spoke an incantation that Rose and Valduin had not heard her use before. “Now you see me; now you don’t.” Valduin’s eyes rolled as Adelaide’s opened again, dimly glowing with the dark green light of her nature-based magic. But the green was quickly obscured by black as the shadows in the room climbed up and swirled around their bodies. “This should help us be sneaky.”

  “Very nice!” Valduin commended his human friend. “Alright, let’s get out of here. Stay close together. We’ll head for the same bridge as last time, then east along the aqueduct until we get to the building with the magic stairs.” He opened the door carefully and glanced up and down the street outside. The sky over the northern part of the city glowed a pale red. The large aqueduct flowed down the center of the street, indifferent to the commotion within the city. The buildings lining the wide street sat silent and dark, as they had for the past few centuries. Satisfied that no one was watching, Valduin ran to the center of the street and ducked down next to the ledge that contained the aqueduct.

  Adelaide and Rose each dashed across the gap to the ledge, and the party began the painstaking task of crawling the forty feet back to the closest bridge over the water. At the bridge, Valduin snuck another peek at the surrounding city. The more he looked to the north, the more confident he became that the city was burning. He watched as a lone tower, smoking like a chimney, toppled out of sight. The shock of triggering the destruction of this ancient elven city left him stunned.

  Adelaide noticed the concerned look on his face. “Is something coming?” she hissed at him, not daring to stand up herself.

  Valduin quickly returned to his senses. He looked up and down the far side of the street. Seeing no immediate threats, he silently indicated to Adelaide and Rose that he was going to continue to crawl, hiding below the solid wall that served as a railing on the bridge.

  “Did we check if there was anyone near the magic staircase building?” Rose whispered to Adelaide. “I think we could see it from the top floor of the house.”

  “Uh, not recently,” Adelaide replied. “Once I realized the explosions were getting closer, I came downstairs to get you two ready to leave. That was a while ago, though.”

  “Well, that’s on-brand,” Rose said, her eyes narrowed in disappointment. “We wouldn’t want to over-prepare.”

  “You could have looked!” Adelaide shot back, her voice no longer hushed. “If you didn’t have to sleep in every day, then maybe you could have helped us get ready.”

  “Don’t make this about me!” Rose shouted. “I’m just trying to get us out of here alive.”

  “And what do you think I’m doing?” Adelaide shouted back. “It’s my magic that’s keeping us hidden right now!”

  “What are you two doing!” Valduin hissed. “Keep your voices down! Get behind the wall!”

  Adelaide and Rose realized that they were standing up, glaring at each other in the middle of the bridge. The tension broke as they checked their surroundings again. As Rose turned to look up the street to the north of the bridge, another explosion sounded to the northwest. The detonation was close enough that the party could feel the concussive wave of sound wash over them. A chorus of screams and screeching followed the explosion, another reminder of the ongoing conflict within the city.

  “No time left to be sneaky,” Adelaide said. “We gotta run.” She took off across the bridge, turned east toward the magic staircase, and continued running. Valduin got to his feet and gave chase, easily keeping up with Adelaide.

  “Hey! Not too fast!” Rose called after them. She started to run, but she knew she was the slowest of the three. “Going to have to jump for it,” she said to herself, activating the magic in her ring of jumping as she leapt from the bridge to cut the corner over the water. Aided by the magic, she landed effortlessly in the middle of the street, a couple of feet in front of Adelaide and Valduin.

  “You are not leaving me behind,” Rose growled at Adelaide. She turned and continued to run, trying to match pace with the human.

  “I told you once if those little legs of yours slow us down, you’ll get left behind,” Adelaide retorted. But she did slow down enough for Rose to keep up. Far behind them, a battle had spilled out into the same street on which they were running. Valduin glanced over his shoulder to see a dozen or so hobgoblins in a fighting formation squaring off with a handful of bearded devils, also lined up like soldiers.

  As the party approached the building containing the exit from the city, Valduin slowed their pace. “Let me look around the corner first,” he said. “I’d hate to walk into an ambush.”

  “Sure thing, but make it quick,” she replied, looking nervously back down the street. Despite their lesser numbers, the bearded devils had made short work of the hobgoblins, the last of which dove into the aqueduct in an attempt to flee. The devils had regrouped and were now heading toward the adventurers. Adelaide turned back to Valduin and said, “Like, really quick.”

  With the protection of Adelaide’s spell still active, Valduin snuck up to the corner of the building and carefully looked around it. With a sudden jerk, he pulled his head back and spun to put his back against the wall. The half-elf raised his wand, his hand trembling, toward the corner of the building.

  He waited.

  Breathless seconds passed before Valduin’s shoulders relaxed. He crept back to where Adelaide and Rose had crouched down to hide while keeping his eyes and his wand trained on the corner of the building.

  “What did you see?” Rose asked nervously.

  “There are a bunch of bearded devils guarding the exit,” Valduin reported. “Maybe five or six of them. I don’t think we want to fight them all. We just need to get out of here.”

  “Do you think we could sneak past them?” Adelaide asked. “I think I can keep this spell going for a few more minutes.”

  “Not really,” Valduin replied with a shake of his head. “They are lined up within the entrance to the building. Shoulder to shoulder, blocking the way to the staircase. There is no way to get past without physically moving them.”

  “Maybe you could cause a distraction,” Rose wondered out loud, “and then, when they chase you, we sneak down. Then you can turn invisible and meet us at the bottom?”

  Valduin had started shaking his head at distraction, but he stopped. He looked from Rose to Adelaide. “Maybe we can do it another way,” he said, more to himself than the women.

  “Well, whatever it is, we need to do it fast,” Adelaide reiterated. “When this spell ends, we will be easy for them to spot.”

  “Ok,” Valduin said decisively. “Rose, we will use your plan. But you two go first. Get down the stairs at the first opening you see. Just keep running. I’ll catch up with you soon. And I’m sorry, but I need this.” He pulled one of the feathers out of Adelaide’s headband.

  “Hey!” Adelaide started to protest, but Valduin was already reciting an incantation that Rose immediately recognized, even though it was spoken in Sylvan.

  “To seek, but not to find.”

  Instead of only tapping Rose, this time Valduin put a hand on the shoulder of each of his companions, and both Rose and Adelaide turned invisible.

  “Good luck,” he whispered. He took off at a run around the back of the building that the devils were guarding.

  “We need to get to the corner so we can sneak through the doorway when Valduin leads the devils away,” Adelaide whispered into the air, hoping Rose was still near her. “Where are you?”

  “I’m right here,” Rose replied. “I haven’t moved.”

  “Okay, let’s go,” Adelaide said, and she stepped forward, right onto Rose’s foot.

  “Ow! Don’t trip on me!” Rose hissed. “Just stop. Let’s hold hands.” Rose wave
d her arms in front of her. After a moment, she knocked into Adelaide’s leg, and Adelaide quickly caught her hand.

  “One step at a time,” Adelaide said, and the two invisible women crept around the end of the building to find themselves only ten feet away from a line of six bearded devils. The devils stood at attention, their glaives at the ready, completely blocking the exit from the city. Adelaide unconsciously squeezed Rose’s hand at the sight of the devils and their writhing beards.

  A moment later, Valduin came running out from the other side of the building. As he ran, he swung his wand over his shoulder and fired two pale green sparks of magical energy at the line of bearded devils. The shots connected with two of the devils, but Valduin did not wait around to watch. After releasing the attacks, he disappeared in a cloud of silvery mist. He immediately reappeared thirty feet farther away from the devils, standing at the edge of the terrace that overlooked the Virdes Forest far below the mountaintop city.

  At first, the devils did not move at all. They merely looked out of the corners of their eyes at each other. A moment later, however, when two more eldritch blasts struck one of the devils, all but one of the fiends broke into a run toward Valduin. Only the most injured remained at its post.

  Adelaide and Rose tiptoed past the lone guard. They crept toward the stairs that would take them off the plateau and out of Eydon, the formerly lost city that they had turned into a war zone. In the same manner as when they had come up the stairs, there was no feeling of speed or movement. Once they had descended out of sight of the top of the stairs, the bottom came into view. They stepped through the illusory wall and arrived behind the waterfall that was the source of the Virdes River.

  “Can you make some light?” Adelaide asked Rose as they felt their way along the slick ledge in the darkness of the early morning. “I don’t want to fall in.”

  “I guess so,” Rose replied. “It will break my invisibility, but I don’t think I need it anymore.” Taking her amulet in her hand, she prayed in Halfling, “Selaia, be my light in dark places.”