come and get it!! Aaaaaaaaa!!!" She charged forward, swinging the sword above her head.
The guards answered her challenge with howls of their own, but not of rage. Even as she started towards them, they screamed in terror, turned, and fled back up the tunnel.
Stunned, she came to a dead stop after only a few steps. "What the hell?!"
As their shrieks receded into the distance and the chamber grew quiet again, she became aware of what sounded like heavy, labored breathing behind her. Her hairs stood up and her blood ran cold as she slowly turned to look over her shoulder. The sound seemed to come from the statue, but it looked no different. Confused, she began to turn back, when the ears twitched.
Jolted, she spun around, her heart pounding in her chest as she broke out in a cold sweat. She stared at the statue for several moments, trying to convince herself that she only imagined what she saw.
Then the eyes snapped open.
"Yaaaugh!" She tried to back away in haste. The eyes were fiery orange, with slitted opal pupils like cat's eyes.
"Holy Jesus God!!" Moments later she tripped and fell flat on her backside.
"Not quite," a voice rumbled, "but close." Though sonorous, it nonetheless had a feminine quality to it.
"Wh--who are you?"
"In this place, I'm worshiped as Ubasti, but collectively I'm known as Nyarlathotep."
She stood up. "I've heard of you."
"From Medb hErenn, no doubt."
"You know her?"
"Who in the Dreamlands does not?"
"Well, yeah, that's probably true."
"I sense she's near."
"She accompanied us."
"You refer to your lover."
"How do you know--?!"
"Who in the Dreamlands does not?"
"Are we that famous already?"
"Hang around with Imperious Medb long enough, and it happens. Though the Kraken adventure, the Cat Rescue adventure, and the Orphans adventure alone would've guaranteed it."
When she didn't answer, the voice added, "What, did you seriously believe that word of your exploits had never gotten around?" There was a hint of derision in its tone.
"Whatever. Yeah, I meant Sunny, and Shadow-stalker."
"I sense their presence as well."
"But how did you know Sunny and I were...uh..."
"Please. A blind man could see it."
"It's that obvious?"
"You take no great pains to conceal it. But no matter. Now, to business. Name your desire."
"Wh--what? I don't understand."
"You summoned me."
"Summoned you? What are you talking about?"
"You made an offering of blood upon the altar. That's all it takes."
She looked at her bandaged hand; the memory of the blood dripping off onto the ground replayed in her mind.
"But it wasn't intentional."
"That doesn't matter. The shedding of human blood will bring me here, provided the one who sacrificed it is still alive. And even then, it's only her wish I will grant."
"Gaaah! This is so retarded. Altar? Sacrifice? Wish? You're not making any sense!"
"Then let me try to elaborate. Anyone who comes to this place and sheds some of her blood on the altar will summon me. The shedding of blood is the sacrifice; the altar is the mosaic set into the rock between the obelisks. She is then entitled to ask me to fulfill one wish that is within my power to grant."
"Oh. Okay, I get it now. Any wish I want, eh? So, if I brought Sunny back here and cut out her heart for getting us all inta this mess, I could get another wish?"
"No. I should've explained better: it must be a self-sacrifice."
"Aw, nuts. Well, I guess I'll have to let her live, then. Besides, it's really Mayv's fault for encouraging her. Anything I want, that's what you said, right?"
"Anything within my power to grant. I am not omnipotent."
"Can you send us all back to the day we arrived, so I can whack Sunny over the head when she first mentions this screwball adventure?"
"No, I have no power to manipulate time."
"Uh-huh. Can you teleport Sunny and the others here?"
"No, not within the confines of my own temple."
"Why not?"
"It...would take too long to explain."
"Okayyy. So you probably can't send me to them. What about sending us all back to Ulthar?"
"I can do that, but you would have to all be together. With you here and them elsewhere, I would need to perform two separate teleportations, which would require a second wish."
"Well, I suppose I can afford to lose a little more blood." She started to remove the bandage.
"No. One wish must be fulfilled before another can be granted."
"Alright, send them to Ulthar, then I'll--"
"And another cannot be granted unless you leave the temple complex and return tomorrow."
She felt her exasperation growing. "Then send them back to Ulthar anyway. I'll find my own way out."
"I wouldn't recommend that."
"Why not?"
"Think about it. The chances of you escaping are slim; most likely, you would just be captured. Even if you did find your way out, it's four days back to Ulthar. If the others arrive without you, they would surely return to look for you. You would probably miss them in the wilderness, and then they might be captured again. By the time you discovered this and returned yourself, it would be too late to save them."
"I can arrange to meet them in Oonai."
"How would you get word to them?"
"I can ask the city guard ta keep an eye out for them."
"And what if they bypass the city altogether?"
Her patience breaking, she put her hands on her hips. "Dammit! Yer not being very helpful here."
"Perhaps you are not asking for the right wish."
"What have others asked for?"
"Some have asked for gold, some for beauty, some for magical power, some for prowess in battle--"
"Okay, I get the picture!"
"Most, however, have simply asked to be set free."
"Huh?"
"This temple serves two purposes. The first is to worship my avatar of Ubasti. The second is to trap sacrifices."
"Holy shit! The treasure!"
"Precisely. The treasure is real enough, but it's merely bait to lure foolhardy adventurers here to be captured."
"Then Sunny and Mayv--?"
"Are even now being prepped as offerings."
"What?! I've got to save them!" She turned towards the tunnel.
"Wait!"
She paused and looked back. "What for?"
"You cannot rescue them on your own. First, you do not know where to find them. Second, even if you did, there are too many guards between here and there. You would simply be killed, or captured and sacrificed in turn."
"So what? You obviously can't help me, so what difference does it make?"
"Is that what you'd ask? To help you rescue your friends?"
"What the hell do you I think I've been doing all this time?"
"Do you want me to help you rescue your friends?"
"Alright, already! Yes, I want you to help me rescue my friends. Satisfied? Cripes!"
"That's all I needed to hear."
Twin beams of black light shot out of the pupils and struck the obelisks. They glowed in the same color, and a pinwheel kaleidoscope of hues formed in the air between them. Though they appeared to be the familiar primary and secondary colors, they seemed strange to her, as if they were her mind's attempt to visualize alien hues using what it understood.
As the pinwheel spun faster, a central black void appeared and grew larger, until it nearly swallowed the whole effect. A figure stepped out. It had a human feminine body, with an athletic build similar to hers. She wore an Egyptian style dress that exposed the breasts, but the skirt was as short as a shendyt kilt. The breasts were covered by an armored bustier with individual cups, and sandals covered her feet. The hilts of twin kh
opesh sickle-swords stuck out from behind her shoulders. She was decorated with bejeweled gold arm bands and a pectoral, and she wore a brightly colored nemes headdress. However, her head was that of a domestic cat with fiery-orange eyes, and her skin was charcoal black.
As she stepped away from the pylons, the void collapsed and the pinwheel slowed. Then the twin black-light beams shut off, and the pinwheel stopped and faded away as the stones' glow died. She walked right up to Eile, who watched her approach with some trepidation. The cat-headed warrior was not as tall as Medb, but she still looked down at her.
"Ubasti?"
From "The Golden Mushroom"
By that time they had reached the spot indicated on the map. It was a boggy hollow, in area a little larger than a baseball field. Pools of debris and silt-filled water lay interspersed by mounds and ridges of soggy earth. The trees were small and thinner there, and more widely scattered, but the only other vegetation were thick mats of a ground-hugging herb.
Shadow sat on a rock waiting for them as she gazed into the hollow. The long, lean, smoky-gray cat looked up at them with her mint-green eyes as they came abreast of her. "This may be a little more difficult."
To Eile she sounded smugly satisfied. "What do you think?" she asked Sunny.
"It doesn't look too bad." But there was a hint of uncertainty in her tone. Eile couldn't blame her. While it wasn't going to be as easy as the other items, it looked simple enough: avoid the pools, stay on the land, and hope it was solid enough to support them. But it would make searching for the gilded toadstool all the more difficult.
"If only we knew where to look," Sunny added in frustration.
As if her words were a prayer, a shaft of sunlight dropped out of a break in the clouds and fell on the central mound. At its center an object winked and twinkled with a distinctive metallic sheen.
Though stunned, Eile felt suspicious too. "Alright, now that was