The whereabouts of the righteous dragon-god that the priest professed to be an acolyte of were unknown to him. Yet he felt certain that Bahamut, wherever his draconic divinity might dwell, was far away from him.
If the jostling and brusque entry of a cloaked host was only a little more obstreperous than normal in the Yawning Portal, then either Vodalus must have not been a regular, or he had cause to be truly afraid. Both were true.
His instincts, slack and ill-made for battle, but adroit for this sort of situation, sent his eyes darting to the nearest secondary exit. Those same instincts soaked his brow in a fresh coat of sweat when that exit was found first by another band of intruders, bent on the same purpose as the others. He ducked behind a table to gain a respite while he searched for a tertiary escape.
“We are blessed! The priest has come to join us!” The table’s occupants, thin, pallid refugees Vodalus had promised the deliverance of Bahamut to, rejoiced.
The priest froze.
His pursuers were not so courteous. At the noise, they turned towards its source.
“We were meaning to ask you if you could stay in town a little while longer to bless our friends, who also were devastated by the- wait, where are you going?”
“Holy business, I am sure!” said one of the others, seconds before entering a pitiful coughing fit.
Vodalus had absconded to undertake a business nothing short of empyreal: saving his skin.
Unfortunately for the cleric of sacrosanct morals, four hundred pounds of flesh and a mauve cassock large enough to cover it are not easily hid, or deftly handled. He knocked over almost the whole contents of the adjacent table.
Were he a common tavern-monger, he could have expected to have been struck in the center of his gelatinous mass, toppled flat, and pummeled without hope of aid. Instead, the victims of his clumsiness forgave him immediately.
“Your holiness! Such a pleasure to see you again! We were actually in the midst of a theological discussion, and were wondering if one of your sagacity in such matters could-”
Vodalus allowed himself no time to appreciate the incongruity of scholarly discussion coming from the mouths of brawny, bare-armed stevedores, pounding into full flight. He had no specific objective, only the vague hope that the motion of his legs, like the pulleys of an engine, would spark a coruscation in his desperate mind.
This did not happen. Something even more unfeasible to the paragon of piety did:
A miracle.
Well, if it were a miracle, then it was the most sardonic one Vodalus had ever heard of or preached about. A call for volunteers had been raised in the tavern, audible even over its characteristic cacophony. Dungeoners to brave the perilous depths of the Undermountain.
In Vodalus’ learned opinion, “Dungeooner” was just another word for “suicidal maniac.” Which was why he was quite happy to stay above ground, in sight of the sun, in an occupation that allowed himself to make a comfortable living– albeit with its own share of dangers.
I guess I’m a suicidal maniac then! Vodalus would have sighed if he had the time for it. As it was, he scurried towards the boniface. He was greeted with considerable less gruff enthusiasm than he typically showed his habitués, and a good deal more plain gruffness; Vodalus suspected that Durnan had disliked him from the moment he had stepped through into his “Yawning Portal.”
Still, he could offer him a sheepish grin, and inquire as to the nature of this offer.
Vodalus grimaced at the price. But he expected something far more grimace-worthy would be done to him by the men chasing him. Men who had finally spotted him, and were rounding past every nook and corner in the establishment.
Vodalus shoved a hand in his purse and tossed a handful of coins at him. Durnan blinked, then smiled at the total (4 gold pieces) and chuckled. Vodalus scowled and searched frantically for the adventuring party.
A minute flew by like a sparrow. This was all the time Vodalus had, and also all it took for him to hastily and fervently make the acquaintance of a certain Jhimas.
Durnan prepared the winch, and a hush fell over the tavern. Vodalus, glancing over his shoulder, happily obliged himself to go first.
Except the party insisted that the horse have the honor.
Very well, very well. I shall go shortly after, and… No, but it was one of the others. And another, and another.
Vodalus was the last one down. And it may have already been too late.
“There he is! The imposter-priest!” At least a dozen men with arms, armor, and vengeance filed into the space around the open pit. “Seize him!”
The hush brought about by the descending adventurers was naught compared to the shock brought about by this accusation. Cries of disbelief, denial, and anger split the air and the hearts and minds of every patron. The rolling of Durnan’s eyes could have powered a windmill for a year.
And Vodalus would see none of it. He had already jumped into the winch.
Once there, he found that his inadvertent munificence had not attained him a comfortable ride. Far from it. He had hurtled, just as inadvertently, past the platform and into the open air. He tried to reach for the rope holding up the smaller pay-bucket. Bahamut had not created his frame for feats of dexterity, so he missed the mark utterly.
140 feet. 140 spans of plummeting, stomach-churning, darkness.
And, of course, a lot of screaming.
Such a drop could have been terminal. Yet Bahamut apparently changed his mind about the maneuverability of the priest’s figure. For, when the beleaguered cleric spied, at the highest point of his despair (the lowest point of his plummet), the horse and its saddle, he knew what he had to do.
Survival demanded it. Humanity– albeit not for the horse– demanded it as well.
All 400-plus pounds of him landed on Architend.
The blow smarted like a hammer to his stomach, and there was not a trace of wind left in him. In such a condition, he could do nothing to stop the beast from rising from underneath his ponderous mass and throwing him off. He landed prone, but alive, on the dungeon floor.
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