The Danger Gang Has a Bad Day
Their adventures in Wales put temporarily on hold, the Danger Gang heads off to Chyrsopolis to aid in the defense of Constantinople whilst somehow preserving official neutrality? Whatever, politics. Anyways, once there (accompanied by some Jomsvikings), there's a lot o' lookin' around. Outside the walls of Constantinople (hereinafter referred to as Ol' Const. cause I hate typing out the whole word), Bardas Phocas is riding about exhorting the troops and carrying that inconveniently-acquired horn of blasting...OR IS HE?!?! No, he's not, it's totally that necromancer he said he would fire. So where is he? And for that matter, where's Basil II, who can't be raised on telepathy-phone? Gershom does some flying recon, which gets him in Dutch with a local priest, while Cormac polymorphs into a crocodile and sneaks Eorl and Zombres (the latter as life force Magic Jarred within a gemerald) across the Bosporus close enough to Majid al-Din to possess not him, but his horse, who runs into the water, thus chumping out Mr. al-Din in front of the whole army. While he's flummoxed and damp, Eorl steals his magic ankh and promptly sets himself on fire. (He gets better.) Meanwhile, Gershom, who's been paralyzed by the priest but remains airborne, notices a fancy building (the palace, in fact) in Ol' Const. guarded by two, well, guards...dead ones, propped up to look not-dead. He manages to communicate such to the aforementioned priest, who grudgingly takes him to the patriarch. This august gentleman requests the presence of the rest of the Danger Gang, and sends them off with a chatty eunuch to see what's what. This...does one still call him a gentleman?...individual shows them the treasures of the palace and tells a tale of a Shadow Palace, an esoteric one hidden within the exoteric one, which contains the Porphyria, the chamber where emperors are born. Sure enough, tracks from outside the palace (two booted men, one shod, and a lot of unsettling little stick-like prints) disappear down some velvet roped-off stairs. The DG follows. The room at the base of the stairs contains a crumpled iron man, a dead what-looks-like-a-monk oozing bluish goo (yeah, he's totally an insect man), two pretty fearsome amber lions, and worst of all, a mystical trap that turns echoes into ominous whispers. Said whispers convince both Arben and Marcella that it would be a great idea to just fall down dead. Then a lion kills Eorl! Then Gershom is stunned, and Zombres takes over his body! Then Gershom's body with Zombres at the helm is blinded! And the Shout of Sharur deafens Al! Seriously, it is chaos, and calls for a tactical retreat, aided by some lion-distracting giant snakes summoned by Zombres. The plus side is that the elven Rod of Resurrection they picked up a while back brings everybody neatly back to life (once Gershom's blindness is cured by Arben managing to read a scroll for once). However, the snakes are summarily dispatched by the lions. And this is just the first chamber. Wales looks better all the time...
