"How mad do you think Iyachtu Xvim would be if he suddenly came home and discovered us vandalizing his tower?" Emilo asked.
Jas snorted. "From what I've heard about him, you'd be dead before you found out, which is probably preferable to being left alive. The church of Xvim is known for its elaborate methods of torturing their sacrifices to death, which they wouldn't do if it displeased their god."
"I wonder why they locked Joel in there," the kender mused.
The tip of Jas's dagger chipped on an iron plate beneath the wood. "Damn!" she cursed, kicking the door with irritation. She fingered the dagger blade to survey the damage. "What I wouldn't give for a packet of smoke powder," she said.
"What's that?" Emilo asked.
"Magic powder that causes explosions," Jas explained. The beauty of it is you don't have to be a wizard to use it."
"But wouldn't an explosion attract too much attention?" Emilo asked.
"Probably, but it would tear this door to shreds in moments," Jas replied.
Suddenly the door moved. Emilo, who'd been sitting on top of it, hopped off in alarm. Jas flew straight up into the darkness.
The door swung open, and a tall, black-scaled figure with a crest of red hair climbed out of the tower. He had his sword drawn and a grim look on his face.
Jas landed behind the figure with her sword at its back.
In Joel's voice, the figure cried out, "Hey, watch who you poke with that thing."
Sheepishly Jas lowered her weapon, remembering that Joel had disguised himself before they'd arrived. "About time you got up here," she chided the bard. "We've been trying to dig our way through this door for nearly an hour."
Joel collapsed on the rooftop, gasping for air. "You try climbing all those stairs in better time," he challenged Jas when he'd caught his breath once again. "That was worse than the staircase in the Blood Tor. The steps are huge. I had to abandon one of the backpacks after the first hundred steps." The bard tilted his head and peered at Jas. "So you're all right now?" he asked. "I thought-"
"That I'd lost my sanity?" Jas asked. She looked over at the kender and winked. "I gave a pretty good performance, didn't I?"
"You're telling me that was an act?" Joel demanded with disbelief. "What about the way you were transformed?"
"Well, that I can't help," Jas admitted.
"You really had me worried," Joel said.
"Sorry," Jas said.
There was an awkward silence as the bard stared at Jas, trying to discern if she was telling the truth about her earlier behavior.
"So what's down there?" Emilo asked as he peered down into the darkness of the tower.
Joel put the question of Jas's sanity aside for now. "I didn't stop to look into any of the rooms in the upper stories," he explained. "The first floor was interesting enough." The bard described what he'd seen in Xvim's throne room and related everything he'd learned from Ratagar Perivalious.
"Xvim didn't even come back to save his followers from Beshaba?" Emilo asked, wide-eyed with astonishment.
"It's not like he really cares about any of them," Jas pointed out.
Joel shook his head. "He may not care, but he must realize that without his followers, he has no power. And not coming to their defense is a tremendous display of weakness," Joel pointed out. "He didn't even return when Beshaba became unconscious. It's very strange. It's possible he can't return."
"So what now?" Jas asked.
"From what I can tell," Joel said, "all Xvim's priests and followers are cringing in the temple, trying to keep away from Beshaba's bad luck. I noticed one exception. There was a human at the gate. The priests don't dare leave the fortress's only access in the hands of yugoloth mercenaries. Xvim doesn't trust anyone or anything, but his priests preach that humans are the chosen people. My bet is there's a human priest at the gate. He could be fanatically loyal, or he could be dying to leave his post so he can cower in the temple with his fellow priests. I'm going to change my shape into another priest and check him out."
"What about Emilo and me?" Jas asked.
"Well, I thought the pair of you could just run around causing trouble… without getting caught, of course. One of the priests told me the yugoloths live in caverns in the cliff wall, but the lava from the mount makes it too dangerous there for humans. I saw several yugoloths coming and going from the bastion walls. Concentrate your sabotage there. Take advantage of any opportunities that present themselves. Scatter Walinda's false gemstones, steal or destroy any weapons or magic you can. When you're done, fly back up here and hide. I'll signal you with the finder's stone when I'm finished at the gate."
Joel used another scroll to change his shape back to human form, creating the illusion of a shaved head and pierced lip and the robes of a hatemaster. In a superficial way, he now resembled Hatemaster Morr.
Joel took back the finder's stone from Emilo. He slid the stone into his shirt with a visible sense of relief. Then Jas flew the bard down to the bastion wall, as near to the gate as she dared to go. She landed in the shadows of the parapet. The eternal darkness of Gehenna, lit only by lava and torchlight, made sneaking around the fortress possible, especially since no one suspected the adventurers were roaming around unconstrained. The wall adjacent to the gate, though, was better lit.
As Joel made his way toward the gate, Jas returned for Emilo. Together she and the kender slipped into a window in the inner bastion wall that looked out over the courtyard. Then they began exploring.
Although the yugoloths lived in the caverns in the cliff, Jas and Emilo discovered several great mess halls on the ground floor of the structure built between the bastion walls. Most of the tables and benches were suited to the size of the giant cricket-shaped yugoloths, but there were smaller accommodations as well, either for humans or for the lobster-shaped yugoloths.
"This must be the mess hall," Emilo said.
"I thought Joel said the yugoloths live in the caverns in the cliff," Jas murmured. "Why would their mess halls be near the wall?"
"Maybe it's like oats and horses," Emilo suggested. The food brings the yugoloths in from the cliff like oats bring horses to the stables. Then, after they've eaten, Xvim's men put them to work."
Jas nodded. It made sense. The yugoloths were mercenaries, They weren't going to assemble for work for the love of Xvim; they had to be bribed.
They discovered one mess hall where four human priests, acolytes by the look of their robes, were scooping some white gelatinous porridge into giant bowls and setting them out on the table. The priests finished serving and moved on to the next mess hall.
"This looks like a good place to start," Jas suggested.
An indescribable stench rose from the putrid white globs in the bowls.
"That stuff would send any decent horse running back to the pasture," Jas declared.
Emilo scampered down the benches alongside the yugoloths' mess tables as Jas kept watch from the doorway. He sowed the tables with Walinda's phony gems at random intervals. Occasionally he'd drop a gem into a bowl. Some yugoloths would be rewarded at dinner, while others would go wanting.
Somewhere nearby someone rang a gong four times.
"They're coming," Jas hissed, hurrying to one of the narrow windows that looked out over the courtyard. Emilo hopped down from a bench and hurried after her. Jas squeezed through the window and perched on the window's keystone while the kender watched from the windowsill.
It was only a matter of minutes before discord erupted as the large yugoloths and their shorter commanders set to squabbling over the gemstones. Within another few minutes, there was all-out warfare in the mess hall.