.^^ Spectator ^^

— Cassidy —

I couldn't help but be a little horrified at the state of the city, once a semi-thriving village of Dwarves and Gnomes, now a molten wasteland, 10 miles wide. The city portion was only 3-4 miles wide, situated like the hollow portion of a fat crescent moon, snug up against the entrance.

The river was gone now, but the deep pockmarked riverbed that went straight from the Steps to the tower, then around it, and to the far wall to create a lake, that still existed, a smoldering white scar in the black and gold landscape. The stalactites were gone from the roof, having been liquified by the blast, and now littered the ground, creating large piles almost like giant petrified shits.

The door to the tower opened as I explained Karma to Sandy again, this time with an example, and I pointed my spear at it instantly.

A deep voice spoke from the shadows inside, where I could see a floating orb lurking. "Duchess Thomas Gunnar Skøll of the Golden Coast... and entourage... Your wish for an audience has been graciously granted by the Hive-Mother." The spectator said calmly in common, then turned and began floating away.

Tommy grinned and crossed her legs, floating after him with her tongue out at me childishly. "I'm the cooler Twin again!!!" She smirked infuriatingly.

I frowned and followed, keeping my spear on my shoulders warily, the girl's and Glade following behind me, though I noticed Glade slip into the shadows and then go invisible, crawling up a wall like a spider and following us on the ceiling. Sandy hummed, and nudged Kiri and Iris, speaking mentally no doubt, and they each went invisible as well, sidling away and walking on either side of the hall, out of anyone's like of sight.

'Good idea. This could get ugly...' I frowned. Sandy nodded and patted my butt, pushing me forward, as I'd started to fall behind a bit.

We went up four sets of stairs, and I noticed the windows get smaller each floor, until they were clearly too small to jump through, though Kiri could likely squeeze through, as she was the skinniest one.

At the top of the stairs, we reached a large room, taking up this entire floor of the tower, 200ft across in a near-perfect circle, with a throne on the far side, the raised Dias almost ten feet above everyone else.

I smelled instantly almost twenty Beholders in the room, invisible, hiding in the rafters, as well as an equal number of humanoids that smelled oddly similar, which I assumed to mean they were ocular adepts. A number of Spectators and Duergar lined the walls, visible but inactive and staring ahead. Floating around the room freely were dozens of the tiny Beholderkin that were only 6in in diameter, their eye-stalks completely useless.

I relayed everything I could sense to the others mentally, and I sensed Glade alter his course along the ceiling to avoid the Beholders who had done the same as he had, while the girls simply moved up behind us again, staying invisible for now.

In a moment of inspiration, I told Glade to attach a silver disk to the roof, and open it if anything went wonky, relaying to Kiri, Iris, and Sandy that they should make themselves immune to fire immediately.

But with all the invisible enemies, there, in plain view above the throne, was the Queen, I was sure of it. A full 12 feet diameter, triple the size of the normal Beholders, but this one had no eye-stalks. All her eyes were embedded in her body, flicking calmly to and fro, with her singular central eye gazing at us.

I noticed that the pieces of Kiri and Iris's invisible forms that came out from behind me became briefly visible, and instructed them to hide better.

"Welcome to the Ruined Tower, my most Honored Guests. Your way of knocking down my doors and requesting an audience was... unorthodox, but most definitely attention-grabbing!" The Queen's voice was smooth like butter, and I felt myself fighting the magical effects of her tone.

Tommy frowned. "Had I wished to Knock, I would have done so. Your people vexed me, and so I brought upon them a mild cataclysm. Any that survived will remember my wrath, and be wary of it." She said arrogantly, adopting the personality she knew they expected of her, the little actress.

The Queen blinked slowly. "And what would your Knock have been, I wonder?"

Tommy smirked. "One should never ask for whom the Bell Tolls, as it then Tolls for thee."

The spectators shifted, murmuring, and the Orb snapped her gaze to them, silencing them perfectly, then slowly looked at Tommy again. "I see... be that as it may, you have my full attention, Duchess. What do you want?" She asked calmly, but the magical persuasion was gone from her voice.

"What do I Want? Not much, really... I want the Treasury of this city, the Hoard you've built of all of the wealth this city had to offer. I have room for it all in my Everchest." She patted her satchel confidently.

The Queen chuckled, then cackled madly, a horrifying sound that made all of the creatures in the room appear, but luckily they couldn't see Glade, even visible, because of his location behind a beam.

"The Hoard? Truly? Is that all?" She laughed softer.

"Not at all, that is only the first part of my request. If we make that happen, we can continue my list of Demands." Tommy nodded calmly, and gazed at the Orb disinterestedly.

The Queen hummed. "I suppose a Hoard is nothing, without subjects, and you have removed mine." She nodded, and all of the Duergar on the perimeter began making a fireline, down to the floor below us, where the Hoard was located, and began pouring gold, silver, jewelry, and even magical weapons by the sackful into the satchel.

Tommy didn't look at it, staring instead at the Queen, and spoke again. "You are most welcome, by the way. I'd like to think of this as my Payment, for services rendered." She nodded.

The Queen paused, staring at her directly. "What could you possibly mean?"

"For removing your servants. They were rude, and weak. I even cleaned up all their filth for you, and made this place more like your home in the Far Realms, as a courtesy. After all, weak servants reflect poorly upon their masters." Tommy nodded calmly.

The teeth of the Queen clicked together a few times as she physically chewed her response, choosing her words carefully. "I suppose... that from a certain point of view... that can be considered a valid point. What is next on your List of Demands, O' Great Duchess 'Söndra'?" If she had arms, I swear she would have air-quoted, it sounded so bland and sarcastic, but Tommy just nodded calmly.

"Söndra, Old Swedish for The Sunderer, the Battle Maiden who burns the Ships and Homes of her enemies... I like it, thank you." She smiled casually, and sighed, checking her pocket watch. "But honestly, you can't do this any faster? We've all got things to do." She frowned at the Dark Dwarf who was dumping the sacks into her satchel.

The fireline started moving faster, but still another thirty minutes of toe-tapping awkward silence passed as we watched a nearly-endless amount of gold and silver and even small purses of platinum, tumble into the satchel.

Finally, the fireline came to a halt, and 24 enlarged Duergar carried out 12 huge chests, which made Sandy gasp a little. Each chest held a crest on the lock, and likely belonged to one of the Twelve Great Houses. I spread the tarp, taking all twelve chests one by one, then tucked it away.

"I take it that's everything? Wonderful. Now on to the next piece of my Demands. I want all your Duergar, Spectators, and other Lesser Beholderkin to swear fealty to me; all your Spawn to either return to the Far Realms or Die, their choice; all your Ocular Adepts to submit to having their Third Eyes, Brains, and Souls removed for study; and finally for You, the Hive-Mother, to submit to me as your new Master, or Die and allow me to harvest your eyes and brain for the Forward Progression of Science." She said just as calmly as if she was talking about the weather.

The Queen blinked slowly. "Unacceptable!"

"That's really too damned bad, my dear. You saw what I did to your city, and you know that you survived because this tower is magic. If I were to do that same thing, here in this tower, while you have no magic walls to stop me, you would all die. I prefer not to do that, y'all would make very interesting materials, but I will scavenge your charred corpses if I must." Tommy gazed at the Queen sagely, making me shiver at the coldness of her voice.

The Queen's main eye narrowed, and her teeth curled into a snarl. "I will not be talked down to in my own court!!! Children, Tear her to pieces!!!" She hissed savagely.

Tommy shook her head, and raised her hand slowly, as if weaving a spell, then I felt her signal Glade. He whipped open the trap door I'd placed in the Plane of Fire over an endless jet of flame, and the Queen gasped as Tommy appeared to be doing magic even inside a Null Field, which was being created by the direct eye-contact of 25 different Beholders, one of which was a Hive-Mother.

"I would really like it if you would understand your position here, my Little Beholder Queen. You lost. Your city is a pile of molten slag. Your ultimate weapon, your ability to stop magic, doesn't work on me even with 25 different angles for your Null Stares. Oh yes, I knew about the Beholders in the rafters, but they don't intimidate me, because you've royally fucked yourselves with this setup! You can't cast magic at me while looking at me, and I can cast magic all day long, so who do you think will win this little Staring Contest, Hmm?" Tommy growled, letting the fire hit her hands, and absorbing its power slowly but surely, until her presence made the floor under her white hot, and the air rippled around her because of the convection of her perfectly golden skin and flaming white-red hair.

The Queen shifted backwards from the heat, narrowing her eyes, and I realized what Tommy was doing, drying out the room and therefore drying out the eyes of all the Beholders, making their abilities useless, as they had to open their eyes to use them.

I subtly placed a hand on her back, and casually handed her my staff, ducking away just in time, as it began shining so brightly the entire room shut their eyes, screeching with pain. After a moment I remembered that I was a Light Genaasi, and light shouldn't bother me, and so I ran at the screeching Hive-Mother, and shoved an entire incendiary grenade belt into her throat, pulling the pin and running back behind Tommy.

The Hive-Mother exploded violently, and I took my staff back, for now, while Glade shut the fire Portal, allowing the Beholders to see what 'Tommy' had done to their Queen.

She nodded and floated forward, turning and floating above the gore-covered throne. "Questions, Complaints?" She asked coldly, staring at the people and things gathered.

'Sandy, you an the girls need to go flame elemental. The room is about to go Supernova.' Tommy contacted us, as Glade opened the door again, and she drew the fire in again, directing it in every direction.

Three flame elementals appeared where they'd been standing, and then all hell broke loose, as Glade locked the only entrance or exit, barring it from the outside and then using his Etherwalk spell to get back in, and assist us as we all worked together to flambé the room.

As we did this, the remaining Beholders began muttering a spell, opening portals and trying to run away, and I allowed them to run, knowing that trying to keep them here would only prolong this battle. Instead, I just shot them with my special Mithril Needle Bullets, because their backs were turned, meaning I could use magical items against them now. This managed to kill or severely wound most of them, thankfully, so even if they were still in this dimension, they were going to have to heal up before they screwed with us again.

While I'd been focused on the rafters, Sandy and the girls had begun fighting the Duergar again, while Glade was dancing across the rafters, attacking the Adepts at Melee range.

The spectators and tiny Beholderkin were huddled up in one corner, away from all the danger as best as they could, so I ignored them for now, and focused on the people with three eyes, who were still firing spells at us as best they could in the sweltering heat, which made it nearly impossible to even open their eyes.

I raised my staff, letting it flash randomly like a rave strobe light, and the attacks stopped altogether, helping Glade go wild and remove several of their heads before they could begin to react and regroup. The Ocular Adepts finally lost entirely, Our combined efforts to immolate them and chop them into itty-bitty pieces killing the last of them.

The Duergar were just about destroyed when they surrendered, and we managed to capture three Beholders before they finished their portal spells, so I nodded, looking at Tommy as Glade shut the trap door and retrieved the disk. "Well, your bluff at least managed to save us a fight with the Queen, which would've been interesting."

She grinned and stood on her own two feet. "Good, because I was absolutely terrified. I'm so happy I can't Sweat in this form, it really helps with bluffing."

I laughed. "I'm sure it does. Now let's clean the rest of this up. The Spectators and Little Orbs could be useful, patrolling the city and the tunnels. The Hive-Mother's body should help us make more, if we need them. And the Ocular Adepts will be studied by those who study such things. I think we left one or two alive, yes?" I looked up at Glade.

He nodded and dragged two unconscious people out of the rafters, walking down the wall with them like a spider. I dumped them into the vault, only to halt as I realized they didn't fit all the way.

I opened a door to the Vault, and the two dwarves poured out in a pile of gold, gasping for air. "Oh, shit, I'm so sorry, guys! Are you alright?!?" I asked, helping them up.

"Oh aye, no' a problem, jus' didnae get tha' door open in time! We'll be righ' as rain in jus' a few! Back to work in no time at all!" One of them wheezed, and then opened the trapdoor into a new Vault of Tommy's design; an airtight, sealed box that was magically expanded to almost the size of the interior of the tower, (several dozen times the size of the current one, and designed much the same, for items that wouldn't be accessed every day,) which received air by way of a portal door opening every hour or so.

Tommy nodded. "Alright, then it's easy, now I think about it. Spectators and remaining Duergar! How would you like a job that doesn't involve dying?"

They glanced around, then nodded slowly.

"Wonderful! Fly into the trapdoor, and protect the Hoard inside with your lives, as well as keeping it neat and orderly. When the dwarves here ask you for something, you do it! It's a very simple job, and I'm sure you can do it! In you go!" She nodded calmly.

The dark dwarves bowed, thanking her in undercommon for sparing them, then climbed into the portal, glancing around once they were on the ground.

I looked at the dwarves in charge of the Vault. "Give them what they need, food and other necessities. We'll discuss their wages later. Also, give me a Disk to access the Vault, I intend to let them roam around, should they be so inclined."

They nodded, and then after the spectators were in, they began shoveling in the gold with our help. After all the money was in the new Vault, we gathered all the gore and trophies for their placement in the freezer, and the chests were also left in the Vault.

I approached them, intrigued, while Tommy went to collect the rest of the Duergar, and Sandy opened the one labeled with her clan's seal. Inside was a massive collection of books, which she gasped softly at the view of.

She stroked one leather spine, careful of the fragile leather, then nodded. "The Records of our Clan and our Druidic Texts, the Secrets we held... Mother will be ecstatic. And the girls will receive the first proper Druidic teaching since my childhood." She nodded and closed the chest.

I found the ones for the Rashan and the Queen's Clan, the Kalen'i, pushing them aside slowly. Each chest was about ten feet tall and twenty wide, heavy enough that four of us were required to move them at any speed other than a slow scrape. The rest, however, were added to the Hoard.

I didn't ask for an estimate, and I didn't really want one. I knew what it would mean, knowing the numbers, and I did my best to just leave it be.

I did, however, attempt to swim in the pile of gold pieces, and that went about as well as you'd expect. I got stabbed by an errant dagger for my troubles, and bellyflopped onto a pile of metal, as well, so I felt like a walking bruise, afterwards.

I stood up quickly, when I heard the rockslide that we'd created crash open, and a massive Dragon began to crawl through.