After giving an explanation of the ambush and diabolical trap to which they had fallen prey, as hurriedly and succinctly as Lekorm and the Prince would allow, the group was relieved to learn that no word had come from Dor Dür of any trouble. Lekorm’s agents’ last report had come only the day before, and confirmed that Raven was still pregnant (and increasingly irritable). Recognizing the futility of trying to restrain Devrik, the Prince granted them all leave to depart immediately, with the promise of a fuller report after Raven and the unborn child’s safety was assured.

But his companions convinced Devrik, once Mariala had used her enchanted paper to let their friends and relatives in Dür know they were alive and to confirm their own well-being, that a good nights sleep and an early start would serve his cause better.

“I’ll never be able to sleep,” he muttered, but assented to the delay. Recognizing the truth of his words, and his agitated state, and knowing they might soon need to rely on his strength and clarity of thought, Mariala surreptitiously cast a small cantrip as she left his room. In just a few moments Devrik was sound asleep, snoring deeply, and he slept through the night.

At dawn the next morning, 10 Margas,  the Hand rode out from the gates of Dürkon at a gallop, Devrik in the lead, into the towering clouds of a gathering storm. But the fire mage had no intention of letting mere weather slow him down. He set a punishing pace, and when the storm finally struck a few hours later, the group simply lowered their heads and rode on through the howling winds and driving rains, into a day that never got lighter than dusk. Even using the remounts supplied by Lekorm Darkeye, it was a ragged and exhausted group of humans and horses that staggered into the village of Dür in the wee hours of the morning of 11 Margas. Although the rain had long since stopped, they were all damp and the horses steamed.

Stopping first at Draik’s apothecary shop, they found it dark and the man himself not at home. His sleepy cousin/apprentice, once roused from his bed, informed them that Draik had been in attendance at the keep since late afternoon, summoned when the Lady Raven had gone into labor. The words were hardly out of the lad’s mouth before Devrik was back on his horse and galloping up the hill to the keep’s main gate. His friends scrambled to follow, and caught up with him in time to keep him from slaying the guards who attempted to stop him from entering. Identities were quickly confirmed, and in a matter of minutes the group was ushered into the solarium, where Ser Alakor and his brother Draik sat nodding in comfortable chairs, while Black Hawk paced nervously before the fireplace.

“My wife,” Devrik rumbled, after perfunctory greetings were exchanged. “Where is she?”

“She’s about three meters below your feet, my friend,” Alakor said, smiling tiredly. “I gave her my own chambers for the lying in. We took your warnings about this Kirdik Hanol very seriously, and that’s the most secure room in the keep.”

“And we were with her until a few hours ago,” Draik added, pouring some wine into a goblet and handing it to Devrik. “Until that old battle-axe of a midwife forced all of us superfluous males out of the room at last… she never liked us being there in the first place, but Raven had insisted. Once the heavy labor began –”

“Well, she’d best not think to keep me from my wife’s side,” Devrik growled, draining the cup in a single gulp and slamming it down on the table. “Come!”

He lead the way back down one floor, to the door to Alakor’s rooms, where two men-at-arms stood guard and three annoyed looking women milled uncertainly in the hallway. The women turned out to be the apprentice midwives, who had themselves just been shunted out of the room by their senior, somewhat to their confusion. Devrik brushed aside their protests as he flung open the door, and and at a gesture from the Constable the guards stood down.

The large main room was comfortably, but not opulently, furnished, and lit by several crystal-and-brass lamps, most placed strategically around the large bed. But Devrik saw nothing but his wife, sweat-soaked and pale, her face twisted in pain as a contraction wracked her body.

“About time you got here,” Raven gasped as the contraction waned, reaching out for his hand. The midwife, a stern, hatchet-faced woman of middle years, turned to berate the intruders for the interruption, but one look at Devrik’s grim face silenced her, and she vented no more than a muffled “harrumph” before turning back to her patient.

“It’s almost here, m’lady,” she assured the panting woman. Raven’s grip on her husband’s hand tightened as the next contraction came, to the point he felt bones grinding together, but he only grinned at her.

Seeing his grin as the contraction receded, she said “If you think you’re every going to touch me again,think again, you bastard!” But the faint smile she managed belied the words… and with the next contraction the baby crowned.

Devrik’s grin disappeared and he turned an interesting combination of pale and green as the midwife pushed down on Raven’s belly and his son shot bloodily into the world.

The apprentice midwives crowded around at that point, pushing the unresisting new father to one side, as the infant was wiped off and the umbilical cord was cut and tied off. But even as the midwife took the baby over to a small table near the door to Alakor’s study, leaving the others to attend to the exhausted new mother, two guards burst into the room.

The new arrivals made straight for their lord, with Erol close on their heels. He had been on guard at the head of the stairs, but had let the men-at-arms through when he’d heard their news.

“Sir, the village is under attack,” one of the men gasped out, breathless after running up three flights of stairs. And even as all eyes turned to the messenger, the sounds of conflict could be heard coming faintly from the open window.

“Gülvini,” the man continued. “Two score or more… they just appeared from the Elven Wood… the garrison is arming, m’lord…”

Before Ser Alakor could reply, one of the assistant midwives cried out in alarm. “She’s bleeding! Something is wrong!”

The room erupted in confusion. Alakor, with his duty clear, turned reluctantly from the birthing crisis to deal with deal with the external attack. He didn’t dream of asking Devrik for help – the man was focused in pale intensity on his wife from directly behind the women who huddle around her – but Erol and Toran immediately prepared to follow him to the fight. Draik rushed to the bed, pulling vials from his scrip, with Mariala and Vulk in his wake, while Korwin stood torn between the two crises. It was that indecision that caused him to notice something odd…

“What are you doing with the baby?” he called out suspiciously – perhaps the only words that could have drawn Devrik’s attention away from his now unconscious wife. He looked up and across the room at the second of the guards who had brought word of the attack. Instead of moving to follow Alakor and the other fighters toward the door, he had quietly moved to where the midwife stood holding the newly swaddled baby, and had just taken it from her unresisting arms.

Devrik’s eyes widened in shocked recognition as the guard smiled triumphantly at him,  his features shifting and melting into – the face of Kirdik Hanol!

Even as Devrik gave an inarticulate roar of rage and leapt over the blood-soaked bed, drawing his sword, Kirdik and the now-grinning “midwife” slipped through the doorway into the study, slamming the door and barring it behind them. The enraged warrior rammed his massive shoulder into the solid oak and iron door… and bounced off.

“There’s another door from that room,” Alakor cried out, arrested in his departure by this new drama.

“Rally the troops, I’ll join you shortly,” he order the true guards. “You two follow me,” he added to Erol and Toran as he dashed from the room and down the hallway to the back door to his study. “We’ll cut them off before they can reach the stairs!”

But they encountered no one before reaching the door at the end of a narrow hallway.

“They could not have made it past us,” Alakor muttered. “But why would they barricade themselves in a dead end…”

He thrust the door open suddenly and leapt into the room just in time to see a section of stone wall sliding back into place – a hidden door that he had known nothing of!

Erol moved to unbar the other door, which Devrik continued to batter from the other side, and soon the entire group was crowded into the study, save for Vulk, who remained with Draik at Raven’s side, desperately working to save her life.

” I must go and lead the fight against these invaders,” Alakor said, after showing Devrik the section of wall behind which lay the hidden passage. “Obviously a diversion, but not one I can ignore. I must leave you to find a way to open this door and follow the bastard!”

Devrik, still in a red rage, was of little use in finding the hidden latch to the secret door, alternating between pacing the small room and attacking the wall with the pommel of his sword, sending sparks and stone chips flying. The others methodically set about searching for the trigger, and it was Toran who found it after  a few minutes. Just as he called out his triumph and activated the switch, causing the stone wall to slide silently open, Vulk stepped in from the bedroom, wiping his bloody hands on a rag.

Devrik, poised to rush through the door, turned suddenly pale as he stared at his friend. “Is she…” he couldn’t finish the question.

“She lives, Devrik,” Vulk assured him, looking grim. “She’s lost a great deal of blood, and if it wasn’t for Draik’s Baylorium and the blessings of Kasira, we would’ve lost her. But she will recover, in time, although she’ll be unconscious for some time yet…”

“I… I have to… I have to go after the child,” Devrik seemed suddenly uncertain. “But…”

“Of course we go after the child,” Vulk barked. “Do you think Raven would want you to do anything else? Draik and Black Hawk will keep watch over her, and you can do nothing to help with her healing – but I can think of nothing better for her than to return her child to her arms when she wakes up, can you?”

The indecision was gone from Devrik’s face in an instant, and without another word he turned to plunge down the dark, narrow stairs  the secret door had revealed. His companions were on his heels, weapons drawn and arcane energies gathering.

♦ ♦ ♦

The passage led through the core of the keep, finally ending in an antechamber of the subterranean Great Hall. From there no one had a doubt where the fugitives had gone – into the secret passage in the room behind the dais that lead down into the ancient Khundari mine-cave system. Once into the caves the occasional trace of blood and mucous from the infant’s umbilical cord proved enough to confirm what they all believed – they were headed for the Nitaran Vortex at the heart of the Elven Wood. They raced on without pause.

Bursting out of the cave entrance into the night shadows of the wood, they encountered several Gülvini standing guard, wicked looking and surprisingly well-made weapons at the ready, feral red eyes gleaming int the light of Devrik’s now-flaming sword.

Devrik slew them all without even slowing down – Vulk wasn’t sure he had even really noticed them, for several dozen yards ahead he could see the backs of Kirdik and his accomplice, hurrying up the hill toward the summit and escape.

As Devrik reached the hilltop he could see his old enemy holding his child in one arm and gesturing with the other, seeking to open the portal. But between them stood a mass of Gülvini, armed and hungry for blood, having been held back from the attack on the village. And these were the larger güls, the gül-Hovgavui. How many exactly it was hard to say in the waning hours of the night, with both moons down, but enough to stop even Devrik’s rage-blinded rush to burst through them. A slash across the face from a Gülvini mang finally woke him to the fact that he would have  to stand and fight.

Toran and Erol leapt to their friend’s side, hacking at the beastmen, while Vulk summoned the power of Abon’s Authority, and called out in the Voice for Kirdik to stop and stand down. The other cantor shuddered briefly, but never paused in his gesturing, laughing as he shrugged off his opponent’s power.

Mariala stood back from the fray and focused her arcane energies on the pair at the hill’s crest, releasing a blast of searing Fire Nerves toward them, her effort bolstered by Vulk’s prayers. She dared not risk hitting the baby, but that bitch of a midwife…

At that point, several things happened at once – the false midwife fell to the ground, screaming and writhing in pain, Erol threw his net into the face of his nearest opponent and leaped past the creature to race the last few yards up the hill… and Kirdik succeeded in opening the portal. With no more than a glance at his shrieking companion, he stepped forward and vanished.

Devrik slashed down the last of the güls directly in front of him, and with a scream of rage bounded up the hill and vanished in turn.

Korwin, having made an end run around the fight, raced to follow him.

“Erol’s power must be holding open the gate! Hurry!” he yelled over his shoulder as he also disappeared into the invisible vortex.

Vulk, Toran and Erol were all still engaged with the surviving Gülvini, who were holding their own until Erol hurled his trident straight into the face of their leader. This allowed the others to press forward and disarm their opponents, who wisely decided they had other places to be. As the beastmen fled into the dark, Erol grabbed the still pain-wracked “midwife” in passing and they both vanished through the portal. Mariala was on their heels, with Toran and Vulk bringing up the rear.

♦ ♦ ♦

Orange-red light, stifling heat and a subsonic roar more felt than heard. Those were the  first impressions of the group as they each arrived… someplace familiar.

It took Vulk, the last one through, a moment to realize why – splashing magma, frozen now to rock, had somewhat changed the contours of the place, but they were in the ancient Khundari cult’s ritual chamber beneath the city of Dürkon!

And Kirdik Hanol, looking confused but trying to hide it, was standing on the great pier of stone that jutted out into the magma lake, just where his compatriot, Arlun Parek, had met his interdimensional fate many months earlier. The lava fall behind him seemed even larger than it had the last time they were here, the deep roar even more overwhelming, and the heat more oppressive.

Devrik stood at the foot of the pier, rooted in place as his nemesis threatened his son, Toran and Erol  at his side and back a pace. Erol still held the false midwife in his grip, his blade to her throat, a threat at which Kirdik just laughed.

“Just stay where you are, you lumbering ape,” the Korönian yelled over the deep thrumming roar of the lava fall. “And your little friends, too… if I feel I’m in danger of losing the child to you, I’ll make sure neither of us will have him!”

“What of your prophecy, false cleric?” Devrik rumbled, his already low voice almost drowned out in the pulsing harmonics of the magma chamber. “How will he free your Chained God if he is dead?”

Farther behind him and to either side,  Mariala and Korwin were each unobtrusively preparing arcane attacks.

“Prophecy is a tricky thing,” Kirdik shrugged distractedly. “It also implies the child might help bind the God for another thousand years… if I can’t be sure of the one, I can at least prevent the other.”

He suddenly smiled. “But I have no intention of losing!”

His free hand flashed up suddenly as he reflected Mariala’s Fire Nerve spell  back at her, and she fell to the floor in burning agony.  “I think not my dear,” he laughed. “This is between me and–”

His words were suddenly choked off as a sphere of ethereal water suddenly materialized around his head, and his laugh turned to a surprised gurgle.

Korwin had managed to overcome the handicap of performing water magic in the heart of a fire sanctum, and had cast Effluvium on their enemy. He could feel Kirdik resisting the spell, as their wills met and locked… but he soon sensed the cantor’s will slipping.

Devrik leapt forward, dropping his sword to reach for his son, just as Kirdik pierced the bubble around his head with his free hand, palm outward – and the ethereal water blew away in a ball of very real steam. Devrik was momentarily blinded, and when he was able to see again both cantor and infant were gone.

“He managed to open another vortex,” Vulk called, rushing to Mariala’s side. “I think he has an amulet or talisman he’s using. Erol–”

“Yes, I can feel the surge, my power has amplified his again… the gate is still open – there, just beyond the edge of the pier!”

Without a backward glance, Devrik scooped up his sword and plunged over the lip of the pier, vanishing as he did so. Helping a still dazed and wincing Mariala to her feet, Vulk this time lead the rest of the group through the new portal –

♦ ♦ ♦

– and into another cavern. This at first appear much smaller, and was certainly less oppressively hot, than the magma chamber they had just left. And quieter. But down a rocky slope in front of the them was an opening into a larger cavern, where a pulsing light glowed yellow-orange and voices could be heard.

“Kirdik, what are you doing here?” a melodious, yet somehow… unnatural voice called out.It was impossible to tell if it was the voice of a cultured man or a strong woman. “How did you learn of this place? And why do you have a child – you fool! Have you been wasting our time and resources on your obsession with the Fire Prophecy again?! Were you not warned –”

“Master,” Kirdik interrupted, sounding uncharacteristically uncertain and even – frightened? “I– I have used only my own temple resources –”

“All resources at your disposal ARE our resources,” the voice went on, never raising its volume, yet overriding the cantor. “You know this, you swore an oath to put the Vortex before all else… and in so doing, knowing you would eventually gain all you wished for.”

“I saw an opportunity, Master… and- and I seized it! Here, take the child. This will not harm our larger plans, I swear–”

“And yet here you are, where you should not be, interrupting plans you know nothing of… ah, and you have brought unwelcome guests, too, I perceive…”

When Kirdik had made as if to offer the infant to his mysterious “master,” Devrik had stepped out of the small entrance cave and into the much larger chamber beyond, followed by his friends. Their eyes widened at the sight before them.

They stood in the lower right corner of a cavern roughly 70 meters from side-to-side and slightly longer front-to-back, with a jagged ceiling some 20 meters high. The floor was paved in stones of muted earth and fire colors, and in the center of the space was an eight-sided pedestal of intricately carved black stone from which a column of granite rose to a height of 5 meters. Atop this pillar sat a sphere of crystal, polished smooth and radiating a pulsing deep yellow light that filled the space. The whole affair was surrounded by a hemisphere of shimmering yellow light. Two meters in front of the pedestal was a rectangular stone pit, 20 meters long and 10 meters wide, from which came the reddish glow of slow-moving magma. Stone steps rose up from either side to a rusted iron catwalk that spanned the pit lengthwise, and on this platform stood a striking figure.

Dressed in flowing, high-collared robes of midnight blue, trimmed with a flame pattern of reddish-gold, it was impossible to say if the figure was male or female. A skullcap of red leather, sporting horns of ornate gold spirals, covered the head, while the face was concealed behind a mask of mirror-polished gold, whose eyes glowed white. The hands and as much of the forearms as could be seen were wrapped in strips of cloth-of-gold, and the left hand held an ebony walking stick/staff, its golden head topped with a massive ruby of deep, blood red.

But as striking as this mysterious figure was, what truly arrested the eye were the four Summoning Circles set in two-thirds of an arc around the pivot of the central pillar. Two mages stood outside each 7-meter circle, concentrating intently on what lay within –  massive, towering winged shapes of black, shot through with glowing red cracks, barely contained within their prisons. By the colors and ornamentation of their garb, each pair of mages consisted of a Fire mage and an Earth mage, and they seemed to have worked together to summon fire and earth elementals and merge them into – some sort of magma elemental? In any case, the mages seemed oblivious to anything else going on in the chamber.

At the fifth point of the circle that would have closed the arc of Summoning Circles instead lay an inset stone pentagram of deepest jade, incised with various arcane runes and sporting meter-tall black candles at the corresponding points, with flickering blue flames burning. A paper-strewn table, flanked by two braziers, lay against the far wall, beyond the pentagram. The floor was littered with long sections of massive chains, each link of which was larger than a big man’s hand.

In contrast to all this, the four hulking Gülvini guards at either end of the magma pit seemed quite homey and normal, Mariala thought dazedly – until she realized they were of a sort she had never seen before, larger and even more monstrous looking that the Hovguvai.

For a moment they were all frozen in this tableau, Kirdik holding the baby up as if to hand it to the figure on the catwalk above him, the figure impassive and still, the Hand stunned by what they saw.

“My friends,” the figure in the golden mask began, holding out its hands towards the newcomers. “I’m sure we can–”

But before any more could be said, Devrik had raised his sword, which burst once again into flame, and leaped to the attack. Whether from sheer surprise or simple confusion over Devrik’s intended target, the figure on the catwalk raised a hand in a sudden sharp gesture, and one of the massive chains on the floor leaped into the air, whirling and whipping about like a thing alive. Before Devrik could close on Kirdik, his true target, the chain had whipped across his torso, spinning him around and hurling him into the wall. He collapsed to the floor, bloody and unconscious.

While most of the others were momentarily stunned by this shocking turn of events, Toran had leaped suddenly from the shadows where he had concealed himself, and landed a flying kick to Kirdik’s back. At the same moment Erol hurled his net at the cantors legs, entangling them and bringing the man to his knees. In one whirling motion Toran seized the baby and landed another flying kick, to the head this time, leaping away before the dazed Kirdik could respond.

Thus wide open, Erol  moved in, trident raised, when a sudden cry of pain diverted his attention. In the sudden confusion, his prisoner, Kirdik’s catspaw, the false midwife, had been forgotten. With everyone’s attention focused elsewhere, she had pulled a hidden blade from her bodice and had moved to plunge it into Mariala’s back. Some sense of movement had alerted her victim, however, who turned just in time – instead of a lethal blow to the back, the knife instead took her in the left side.

The midwife pulled back for a second blow as Mariala staggered against the wall, clutching her bleeding side with one hand. Fortunately the other hand had drawn her own dagger, a longer and better blade than the small punch-knife her adversary wielded, and she blocked the second blow, with a grunt of pain.

Kirdik had used Erol’s moment of distraction to kick free of the net, gesture with both hands, and burst into ethereal flame. Erol realized his advantage was lost, and that Mariala was weakening fast. He made his decision, and with a sharp twist of his trident he forced Kirdik to drop the mace he had drawn, then leaped away towards Mariala and the false midwife. Bringing the trident around as he sprinted forward, he took the snarling woman in the side, lifting her up and pinning her to the wall. Her expression slid from feral rage to shocked disbelief, and then relaxed into the glazed stare of death.

Meanwhile, Vulk had rushed to Devrik’s side, lifting his friend up and examining his injuries. Serious, and possibly fatal if not dealt with immediately. But in the middle of a fight… he took a moment and composed himself, and then began the ritual of the Herald’s Peace, an invocation that would cause combatants to ignore him and anyone within his small circle of protection, as long as no one within that circle took aggressive action.

With this protection in place, he let awareness of the battle around him fade, and he focused his healing talents on the most serious of Devrik’s injuries, the blow to the head and the broken ribs. Thus he was unaware of the two of strange Gülvini guards who started to move toward him, only to suddenly turn aside and instead join seek other prey. One of whom was Korwin.

Korwin, like the other mages in the group, had immediately figured out that some sort of massive elemental demonic summoning was going on here. He didn’t know to what purpose, but he was sure that interrupting it would be a good thing. And the nearest likely way to do that, he thought, was the pentagram.

Golden Boy, as he thought of the figure on the platform, seemed focused on whipping chains around the room trying to hit Toran, who managed to jink and dodge each attack, bawling baby in his arms. This was the time… but as he moved toward the carved sigil, with the intent to kick over and snuff those candles, he was intercepted by one of the monstrous new Gülvini, forcing him to draw his saber and defend himself.

Jinking and dodging himself, he managed to avoid the creature’s blows and lop the nearest candle in half, toppling the pieces to the floor and extinguishing the blue flame. He looked eagerly about for some sign of effect on the summoning circles, but was disappointed. No one seemed to have even noticed. Continuing his saber dance with the hulking Gül, Korwin one by one snuffed the rest of the candles, knocking many out of the pentagram altogether.

Still no apparent effect, but now someone had apparently noticed… he never saw the chain coming until the last second. And he almost dodged it, leaping high as the massive links whipped by beneath him. But the chain kinked suddenly upward, catching his left foot, to spin him up and then down, hard, into the floor. That it also took out one of his Gülvini opponents was small consolation, as the last thing Korwin saw as the world went black was the slavering grin of the other Gülvini, moving in for the kill.

Toran, once he had grabbed Devrik’s son from that crazed cleric (and they hadn’t even had time to name the kid yet, he thought), spent the next several minutes dodging the whirling chains Captain Chaos kept whipping at him (don’t really know his name either, he also thought). He was certainly getting a workout of his acrobatic combat skills, but burdened with a squalling, squirming infant, a few of those chains were coming too close… and had the little guy…? Yes, he had… although how he could pee when he hadn’t even experienced his mother’s nipple yet, he didn’t know.

Seeing that Vulk seemed undisturbed as he knelt over Devrik, who had finally sat up and was holding his head, Toran decided that was the place for the kid. Using all his Shadow Warrior skills, he managed to lose himself in the shadows long enough to make it into the cantor’s little bubble of quiet.

“Here’s the kid,” he said shoving the squirming, disheveled and smelly bundle into Vulk’s arms. He’d been going to give him to Devrik, but on closer inspection the big fighter didn’t look so good…

“Gotta go,” he added before either man could say anything.”Korwin’s in trouble!”

With that he was gone, leaping across the room to block a Gülvini’s killing blow, spinning around over Korwin’s prone form and driving his axe into the creature’s chest.

Vulk looked at the bawling infant in his arms and tried to hand him to Devrik. But the fighter shook his head, as he staggered to his feet,

“No Vulk,” he said, reaching for his sword. “Even if I trusted myself to open a portal, I can’t leave until Hanol is dead. Otherwise my family will never be safe! So you must take my son and flee. Get him to his mother if I fail to rejoin you…”

With that he swallowed the vial of Baylorium the cantor had handed him just before Toran’s sudden arrival, and strode out of the circle of protection to confront his oldest enemy.

Recognizing the necessity, but hating it nonetheless, Vulk turned from his friends, fighting for their lives, and moved as stealthily as possible for the portal cave.

As he did so, Devrik did his best to draw all eyes to himself, roaring out a challenge to Kirdik, who was again locked in battle with Erol and the surviving Gülvini. The latter seemed equally happy to attack both men, and roared in apparent delight at this new element to the fight.

Kirdik, still wreathed in ethereal flame, had set his mace to flaming mode as well, and once again Devrik summoned up the fire on his own sword. When the two weapons met there was a flare of green flame, and a hiss like a burning snake.

A three-way fight now ensued, Kirdik against Devrik and Erol and the two surviving Gülvini against all. Mariala, her wound staunched, hovered near the cave wall, and considered following Vulk, but decided she would be more use here. Unfortunately, her attempts to put Kirdik to sleep and to Mote him failed, no doubt due to the severity of the wound in her side.

Toran, having killed the beastman who had threatened Korwin, had revived the fallen water mage and was eager to rejoin the fight. But he realized that taking out the leader of the Vortex (for he was sure that was exactly who Captain Chaos was, standing above the fray, observing it all in seeming disinterest) might be the wiser move . He couldn’t reach the bastard, up on his perch, without being seen, but perhaps… he drew out his best throwing knife, and taking aim at the back of the neck, hurled it with all his strength.

Without even turning, the figure on the catwalk raised one gold-wrapped hand, and the knife turned suddenly red, then white, melting and warping and finally disappearing in a spray of molten droplets less than a foot from its target. Another gesture, this time with the walking stick, and Toran was again dodging the whirling chains of death.

Meanwhile, as Erol held off the Gülvini, with a Fire Nerve assist from Mariala, Devrik and Kirdik hacked away at one another, locked in a furious dance of hate and pain, neither one able to land a decisive blow and neither one inclined to surrender. Both were bloody and staggering, when Kirdik’s putative master apparently had enough.

“You have become a liability, Kirdik,” the melodious voice wafted down from above, serene and perhaps a bit bored. “I have vital work to do hear, and it’s time you – and your friends – left us.”

With that he whipped his right hand forward, spreading his fingers wide, and a spark hurtled toward Kirdik’s head, growing larger as it flew, until it was a fireball that engulfed not only Kirdik, but Devrik, Erol and the last Gülvini as well. Devrik attempted to use his pyrokinetic ability to shield himself and Erol, and though he no longer feared the fire, he was exhausted, wounded and enraged. He failed, and the flames seared them both. But Kirdik took the brunt of the attack, and his ethereal flame absorbed much of the damage; though they were all injured, only the Gül was killed (to no one’s regret).

In a rage at this base betrayal, Kirdik turned on his former master, calling forth the full powers of his god, and prepared to hurl them at the shining, untouched and unmoved figure above them. But his rage, and the fates, betrayed him – in focusing on the Golden One he forgot his first enemy. Even as Kirdik unleashed his final invocation, whatever it was, Devrik staggered to his feet behind him and drew his blade, cold steel once again, across the cantor’s throat.

As his life’s blood pumped out him, so too did the eldricht energies spew forth, uncontrolled now by will… and were met with Erol’s own poorly controlled, barely understood ability. Suddenly the eight fire and earth mages, who had until then ignored the conflict in the room, screamed out as one. The glowing circles that imprisoned the enraged chimera elementals flickered… and went out.

With howls of inhuman joy the magma elementals stretched up to their full height, shadowy wings unfurled, and unleashed their rage on their former captors/tormentors, who burned like torches and died. And the earth shook.

On the high platform, the Golden One staggered and clutched at a railing, at last shaken from that bubble of indifferent superiority. The melodious voice was now twisted with rage, and fear.

“No! What have you done, you fools? It’s too soon, too soon…” With a cry of anguish and rage, and one last look toward the surviving heroes (they all wondered what expression lay beneath that shining mask), hands traced a strange pattern though the air, and a golden nimbus engulfed the figure. When it faded away, the catwalk was empty.

But the room was not empty. Having so quickly dispatched their captors, the magma elementals seemed bent on turning their rage on everything around them – the floor shook, and cracked, and magma leaped up from both the pit and the new fissures. And glowing, eyeless faces turned toward the remaining mortals…

“It’s time to get out of here!” Mariala screamed, and they all ran for the portal cave. Devrik doubted he had the strength to open a vortex, but he would die trying. At least his son was safe. Vulk – was standing there waiting for them. Devrik was torn between fury and hope, and Vulk gave him no time to pick one.

“Hurry, I’ve been holding this open, go, go, go!”

Devrik grabbed him by the arm and pulled him through the portal, the others close behind. When the last person was through Vulk shoved the baby at its father and focused on sealing the portal behind them. Only when he was sure it was closed did he look up to see where they had landed.

The battered, burned and bloody group stood an a high upland moor, overlooking a long lake that stretched far to east and west. Across the lake rugged foothills piled up to a great snowcapped mountain, which rose up into the blue sky of early morning, tinged pink by the light of the rising sun. Directly below them, on the shores of the lake, was a large cluster of stone buildings, with red slate roofs and carved timber end beams.

“I know where we are,” Mariala said dazedly. “That’s my old chantry down there, where I studied… and that’s Dragon Lake, with Mount Katai there in the –”

But before she could finish the sentence, the top of the distant mountain suddenly bulged upward and out, and then exploded in a black cloud of ash, smoke and pulverized stone, shot through with lightening and lit from beneath by an orange glow, all in perfect silence. And then the sound hit them, like a wall of solid air, and knocked everyone off their feet. Then the ground bucked and jumped beneath them, and at the chantry the wall of one of the buildings crumbled to rubble, and the smooth surface of the lake was suddenly filled with whitecaps…

♦ ♦ ♦

 

Below, for your enjoyment, are Davy’s cliff notes from the game of the above adventure. I always enjoy them so much, I thought you guys should too!

A Fire Mage Ate Your Baby!

Morning Comes

We Ride

Surprisingly Uninterrupted

Big Storm

Drake’s is dark

Keep is Dark

Raven in Labor Mid Afternoon

A birthin’ going on

It’s a……Boy!

Oh No!

Midwife took the baby

Devrik recognizes Kirdik

Who let him in, Erol Blows it

After Them

Follow the umbilical cord

Through the tunnels, caves and out to the Elvin Wood

 

Vulk tries Abon’s Authority to halt Kirdik

Guls in the way

Toran, no effect, takes a slight injury to forearm

Erol trie to net a gul, he misses then runs past

Mariala attempts fire nerves, Vulk adds 20 piety

Fake midwife goes down

Vortex opens, He’s gone

Devrik gets beat on by guls as he charges thru

Minor wound to face

Devrik hit again

 

Into the Portal!

Devrik into Portal

Korwin into Portal

Vulk attacks gul, blocked

Toran attacks, gul counterattacks no effect

Erol throws trident, into the head gul dead

Toran disarms gul

Erol grabs fallen crony and into the portal

Gul fails to pick up weapon decides to flee

Mariala into the portal

Toran & Vulk into the portal

 

…Moving to other map…

Magma, Liquid Hot Magma

Back to the fire sacrifice pit?

Kirdik is confused

Korwin starts effluvium

Mariala starts fire nerves

Kirdik blocks fire nerves and sets them on Mariala.

Down goes Mariala

Effluvium forms around Kirdik it becomes a test of wills, Korwin succeeds

Kirdik explodes effluvium ball into steam and disappears

 

Into the Other Portal!

Devrik disappears

We go through

Into a Volcano

“That’s some What the Fuckness”

Fire Demons!

Golden Boy, Captain Chaos, Cabbage Head, Mr. Scratch, Aurum Caput , Cabeza de Oro

Golden Boy whips battleship chain at Devrik taking him out

Toran kicks Kirdik

Erol entangles Kirdik in net

Korwin goes to pentagram

Vulk goes to heal Devrik using Herald’s Peace

Erol’s prisoner attacks Mariala, stabbing her in the side

Kirdik bursts into ethereal fire

Toran grabs the baby

Erol tridents Kirdik forcing him to drop his mace

Erol attacks again, no effect

Mariala evades a dagger thrust, Erol comes to her aid

Korwin attempts to extinguish candles and gets attacked by a gul

 

Let’s Just Interrupt a Bigger Dark Ritual

Korwin successfully dodges and extinguishes some candles, no effect

Vulk psionically heals Devrik

Chains attack Toran, he dodges and passes Jack Jack to Vulk

Erol finally takes out fake midwife

Mariala Fire Nerves a Gul

Kirdik Flames on his Broadsword

Korwin makes a wish and extinguishes the rest of the candles

Devrik attacks Kirdik forces him stumble

Vulk and Jack Jack make it to vortex point

Golden Boy directs chain at Korwin, hitting him in the foot and sending him unconscious

Chain also hits gul

Toran rushes to Korwin’s aid by taking out gul

Erol attacks Kirdik, minor damage

Kirdik and Devrik trade blows

Mariala attemps to put Kirdik to sleep

He saves

Gul attacks Devrik he takes some damage

Devrik attacks Devrik hits for 2d6

Korwin whimpers

Vulk starts to open a portal

Chain attacks Toran, he dodges

Toran throws his knife at Golden boy, loses knife in liquid hot magma

Erol attack Kirdik, no effect

Lirdik attacks Devrik, wash

Mariala attempts to mote Kirdik

Devrik hits Kirdik for 2d6

Gul attacks Devrik, he blocks

Vulk opens gate

Golden Boy fireballs Kirdik engulfing Gul, Devrik and Erol as well

 

Now we get to take on Golden Boy

Devrik fails pyrokinesis

All fire balled take damage

Kirdik attemps a spell that backfires

Fire Demon released!

“It’s too soon”

Fire Demon Free for All

Golden Boy Retreats

Mariala Mote fails

Devrik attacks Kirdik slicing his throat

Marines we are out of here

Portal to ???

The preparations for travel were made hurriedly and in unusual silence. Devrik rejoined his companions after seeing messages off to both his wife and to her two guardians, Ser Alakor, Constable of Dür, and her brother Black Hawk, alerting them to be especially alert for any attempts from their enemies.

“This whole thing has the smell of a trap or feint,” was all he would say to Vulk as they loaded their packs. “But if a feint, to leave Raven and my unborn child unprotected, they will find find her far from so… unless they send an army, in which case even my sword would be of little more aid…”

That last sounded more like Devrik trying to convince himself, but Vulk wisely said nothing, merely making affirming noises and assuring his friend that they would all be back at Raven’s side in half a tenday or less.

An hour before noon the group rendezvoused at the entrance to the Western Deepway with Toran and his two men-at-arms, Khorez and Dembhor. The Khundari soldiers were older men, taciturn and uncommunicative beyond a polite but laconic “yes m’am” or “no sir” in response to direct questions or requests. They seemed competent enough though, and, Mariala sensed, mildly amused at Toran’s obvious nervousness about commanding older and more experienced men.

Cris, bitterly disappointed at being left behind to oversee the group’s affairs, and especially their horses, waved the group off as they entered the dimly lit tunnel. Toran and Devrik led the way, with Mariala, Vulk and Korwin immediately behind, followed by Erol and Jeb, with the two Khundari guards bringing up the rear.

At this eastern terminus, the Western Deepway was still in good repair – twelve meters wide, the walls smooth stone that arched overhead to a ceiling six meters high, and intricately carved pillars and arches every 20 meters or so. The floor was smoothed gray rock, with a an inset of paved flagstones of a mellow, golden sandstone running down the middle, three meters wide. Occasionally the road would come to a small river and arch up over the rushing black waters in a graceful curve of stone, beautifully carved in traditional Khundari patterns.

Every ten meters, midway between the pillars on alternating sides, the crystal panels of glowstones cast pools of rich yellow light. Although dim by surface standards, they gave more than enough light for even the humans to see well enough to maintain a brisk pace. Even so, Vulk and Erol each carried a lit torch just to be sure. Toran explained how cunningly designed vents allowed air to move down from the surface, causing the slight, fresh breeze that made the flames dance.

After several kilometers the nature of the passage began to change… while the overall dimensions remained the same, as did the smooth sandstone pathway, the walls became rougher, the verges of stone floor more uneven, the evidence of artifice more utilitarian. The lights remained steady, but the natural effects of water and time began to be seen, stalactites and stalagmites sometimes narrowing the passageway, slowly covering up the work of the ancient Khundari.

After several hours of steady traveling, Korwin decided to break out his flute and lighten the grim mood with a sprightly tune of the Shattered Sea. To everyone’s surprise, he was actually quite good, but what was really shocking was his success in cajoling the morose (and usually monosyllabic) Devrik into singing! Devrik’s singing, sadly, was no more appealing than his speaking voice, and Vulk quickly put an end to the musical interlude by pointing out that they didn’t want to attract the attention of whatever might be living in these depths, like bears or what have you…

“I hardly think there are bears down here,” Korwin sniffed, as he grudgingly put away his flute.

“Actually –” Toran began, but Korwin plowed on.

“But that does put me in mind of the tragic tale of the wreck of the Sea Princess and the fate of Captain Ratclif Mastborn…”

Korwin was barely launched on his story, however, when the air was suddenly rent with a tremendous roar. Out of the darkness to their right, a huge form lumbered into sight, an enormous bulk that growled menacingly as it towered up on two legs. Up and up and up…

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Korwin squeaked as the giant bear, all four meters of him, loomed over them and let loose another deafening roar.

Vulk, heart pounding, leapt forward with his torch, waving it frantically in front of the great creature, dancing about and yelling incoherently. Rather than fleeing, or even pausing, the bear turned its massive head toward him and lashed out with a great razor-clawed paw.

“That won’t do any good,” Toran yelled as the cantor leaped back. “It’s a cave bear, it’s completely blind!”

“You might have said so sooner!” Vulk muttered as he dropped the torch and reached for his sword.

Toran wasted no breath pointing out there had hardly been a sooner, instead swinging his battle axe in a two-handed blow that met the bear’s left shoulder as it came back to all fours. It was a mighty blow, but the bear seemed to shrug it off, responding with a backhanded blow that Toran neatly dodged.

Devrik’s own battlesword was out and whirling in a deadly flash of light on steel, and the bear turned its rage on him now. But neither opponent did any damage to the other as they gavoted around one another. Erol rushed forward from the back of the group, hefting his trident, as Mariala attempted to cast a sleep enchantment on the monstrous ursine and Korwin summoned up his frost blade. Vulk could be heard praying up his holy armor.

The bear took another lunging swipe at Toran, who again nimbly ducked under the lethal blow, but was unable to connect with his own weapon. His attack did distract the bear long enough for Erol to stab with his trident, driving the triple points into the beast’s paw. It reared back with a roar that seemed as much surprise as pain, almost wrenching the weapon from Erol’s hands.

After a tense moment of stillness, as everyone paused to catch their breath, the cave bear apparently decided it just wasn’t worth the effort. With a last rumbling growl it turned and loped off into the shadows, back to whatever hidden lair it had emerged from.

“Not a music loving bear, apparently,” Vulk said at last, when it was clear the creature had truly departed.

“Nonsense,” Korwin snorted shakily. “It wasn’t my flute that enraged the beast, it was obviously Devrik’s singing!”

This got a general laugh and even Devrik smiled, saying, “Everybody’s a critic.”

“It’s about time to call a halt for the night, in any case,” Toran said, once the laughter had quieted and everyone’s nerves had settled. “The first of the old Deepway Inns is just a short way ahead, that should give us a secure camp.”

The place he spoke of was the first of three long-abandoned hostelries that had once served this underground road between Dürkon and Khorakas. A few minutes more brisk march brought them to the first branching that yet seen in the central pathway of the road, off to the left. This led to an elaborately carved archway set into the tunnel wall, without door or gate. Passing through, the group found themselves in the “front porch,” a rectangular area of paved stone 20 meters wide and seven meters deep, with a fluted vault ceiling. Six glowstones had once lit the space, but now only three provided a dim illumination.

Two more archways were set in the rear wall at either end of the porch, with steep stairs leading up into darkness. Taking the torches, Toran and Devrik led the way, with Erol and Jeb bringing up the rear, lighting two more torches. The inn itself was dark and cold, it’s oak floors and walls black and hard as iron with age. They decided to camp together in the common room, rather than try to light, heat and guard the upstairs sleeping rooms. They were probably as stripped of furniture and fixtures as this lower floor, in any case…

With a fire going in the great fireplace, a hot meal inside them, and time on their hands, Korwin decided to try his hand at magically turning some of their water into beer. This was an abject failure, however, and he was relieved when Mariala pulled out her Tarot deck to query their course, which drew everyone’s attention.

The Three of Coins, the King of Swords, the Seven of Cups atop the Three of Swords, covering the Ace of Swords… while Mariala felt this was somewhat ambiguous, Korwin was quite certain it all fit together, that they were certainly on the right track!

Devrik remained dubious of his father’s involvement with the Vortex, and opened up somewhat to his friends around the fire that night. He talked of his sometimes difficult childhood, a distant but still respected father, the assumption that he would be recognized and made heir one day, until the birth of his half-brother…

“He was always a man of integrity,” Devrik summed up. “Which never made him an easy man, or a particularly kind one. But always an honest one.”

•••

The next “morning,” as their Khundari companions assured them it was, the group set out again at the steady, kilometers-eating pace they had set the day before.

“At this rate we should arrive in Khorakas around the evening bell,” Toran assured them. But around midday, as they passed the second of the abandoned inns, which marked the halfway point, their plans were suddenly altered.

Ahead of them, out of a darkness where several glowstones seemed to have been destroyed or removed, there was a sense of movement, a rustle of cloth and creak of leather armor… and moving into the light was a mass of Gülvini! Practiced eyes told the warriors in the group that there were 15 of the smaller güls, five of the great black güls, and… was that? Yes, towering over them all, at the rear, was an enormous cave troll!

“I thought those things were extinct in this part of the world,” Toran muttered as he readied his battle axe. Vulk was already chanting to raise his holy armor of the goddess.

“Back the way we came,” Devrik called, drawing his own weapon. But as they turned to flee, the sound of boots on stone rang out behind them. Another group of Gülvini had somehow appeared behind them, and was closing fast. And they, too, were accompanied by a massive cave troll…

“Damn!” Erol cried. “Devrik, the hostel, we have to get inside, we can hold off an army there!”

The dark arch of the front porch was just behind them and to the right, and as they made a mad dash for its shelter a massive, gleeful howl went up from the throats of forty or more bloodthirsty gülvini, counterpointed by the deeper roar of the two cave trolls. One of the last under the arch, Erol saw one of the four-meter tall monsters twirling two great stone axes about its head, before the walls blocked his view.

As Erol and the two Khundari soldiers held the narrow passage against the horde, the others briefly debated the best course – try and hold this single entry, or retreat up the twin stairs, where there were at least solid oak and iron doors to bar the way? But as the rear guard was forced back, step by step, it was clear that, with the trolls to contend with, they would have to retreat eventually. Best do it now, while still in some semblance of control…

With the bodies of several of their comrades momentarily blocking the passageway to the Gülvini, Erol and his Khundari companions disengaged, and the group split in two, retreating up the dark staircases behind them. Devrik, Toran, Korwin and Dembhor dashed up the lefthand way, while Erol led Vulk, Mariala, Jeb and Khorez up the righthand stair.

Kowrin attempted to send a blast of ice across the stairs behind him, but his concentration was too divided, and the spell sputtered out to no effect. Mariala, on the other staircase, had better luck with one of her remaining light grenades, tossing it into the pack ravening up behind her. The whirling explosion of solid light blades whirled out in a scything sphere, taking out several of their pursuers… two would never rise again, and the others were bloodied and dazed.

Korwin, muttering to himself to pull it together, frowned in concentration and tried again – and this time a blast of white mist leapt from his outstretched hands, aimed straight down the stairs, which suddenly became coated in a crust of shining, slippery ice! As the maddened güls tried to mount, their feet could find no grip and they stumbled and fell in a writhing mass. Those behind began to climb over the prone forms of the fallen…

But it gave Devrik enough time to slam the great door shut – only to find that it was not the solid bulwark they had expected. Unlike the inn they had spent the previous night in, this one was a burned out shell, a great empty space 30 meters square and eight meters high, with nothing but a few smoke-blackened stone support walls around the edges, and charred timbers on the floor. The doors themselves were half burned through, and the on on the left had several gaps in the weakened wood.

“Toran,” Devrik called over his shoulder as he pushed against the door, slashing at the clawed hands poking sharp things through the gaps. “There must be a back way out of here, right?”

“Yes, there should be,” the young dwarf replied. “I think I know where to look…” With that, he dashed off into the darkness outside the circle of shifting light cast by the group’s torches.

Swords, tridents and spells kept the gül at bay – Mariala’s Fire Nerve spell and Erol’s trident slowing the fight on the right, while Devrik’s sword taught the left some caution… although his attempt at a Fireball fizzled out, it being tough to fight and cast at the same time, even behind a door. Behind him Korwin gathered his concentration and prepared to try the Breath of Arandu once again…

Suddenly, there was a lull in the attack, a restless silence from beyond the damaged, splintering doors… and then they shook, boomed, and bulged as the a cave trolls took stone axes to each one! Toran returned at that moment, with bad news.

“It’s no good,” he grated furiously. “The rear exit is blocked with rubble; if we had half a day, I could clear it, perhaps, but –”

“These doors aren’t going to hold another half a minute,” Devrik growled, “much less half a –”

At that point, both doors blew inward in a shower of charred splinters, and the two cave trolls lumbered triumphantly into room as the defenders reeled back. A few of the more daring güls darted in around them, although Erol spearing one with his trident, and the sight of its guts slithering to the floor, briefly slowed its companions… but the trolls took no notice, roaring and swinging their two great stone axes.

Devrik, with a roar of his own, leapt at the troll before him, his great battle sword flashing a lethal arc, and met the downward force of an axe – which went flying, along with two troll fingers. This just seemed to enrage creature, which roared in fury and moved in to bear its smaller opponent down with shear mass… only to be hit by a blast of icy air that knocked it back and to its knees. Two of the güls near him were also caught in Korwin’s freezing cone, and dropped like frozen stones.

At the other door, Vulk swung his broadsword at one of the great black güls that had slipped past the troll in the doorway, but was blocked, while Jeb’s arrow was simply knocked from the air by the troll itself. It then lunged forward to swing an axe at Erol, who blocked and dodged aside. Toran leapt up beside Vulk and saved him from a savage blow from the gül.

At this point both of Erol’s psionic talents kicked in – time seemed to slow for him, and Mariala’s latest Fire Nerve spell was amplified tremendously. A swath of Gülvini in the righthand doorway and on the stairs went down in a mass of writhing agony, while Erol launched a flurry of attacks on the troll, the last of which ripped a chunk from the creature’s thigh, bringing it to one knee. But even as it staggered it landed a blow that drove Erol back, dazed and bleeding.

But before it could take advantage of this momentary respite, Mariala gestured toward the creature with both hands, and felt the power within her – the form was perfect, the power channeled properly – and suddenly every nerve the cave troll had was burning with a terrible fire. It collapsed to the floor, helpless in its agony, and Erol was able to dispatch it with a thrust through the neck.

Meanwhile, Devrik had counter-struck his own troll, dazing the beast and driving it to the ground. But before he could finish off the creature, there was a commotion at the door and his attention was riveted as a lone human pushed past the now-cowering Gülvini to stand just inside the room. Dark haired, sallow, pale skin that seemed never to have seen the light of day, face like a weasel, dressed in red and black – Devrik would never forget Kirdik Hanol!

Cantor of Korön, the Chained God of Fire, young Devrik’s nemesis from childhood, when the man had attempted to seduce him to the cult, for the sake of the boy’s natural affinity for fire. The man who had kidnapped Raven in an attempt to gain control of both Devrik and his unborn child, for the sake of some insane prophecy, in the name of freeing his dark god. The man he had sworn to kill at the earliest opportunity!

Even as Devrik lunged forward, over the unconscious form of the cave troll, sword dripping black blood and aimed at his enemy’s neck, Kirdik just smirked at him, pulling a small device from his sleeve. He seemed to press the face of the small rectangle of metal with his thumb – and he was gone! Before Devrik could fully absorb this, he cam e to a bone-jarring halt as he slammed into… solid air? He staggered back, stunned, his nose bleeding.

Not only Kirdik had vanished, the group quickly realized. Aside from the two cave trolls and a few scattered Gülvini bodies in the room itself, the horde of bloodthirsty gül were gone, apparently vanished into thin air! Before anyone could do more than stare in shocked bewilderment, Toran stepped over to the downed troll at Devrik’s feet, and dispatched it with a single blow from his battle axe.

“Better safe than sorry,” he said as he cleaned his blade.

“What the Void just happened?” Devrik said at last, wiping the blood from his face. He moved cautiously forward, hands out, until he met the resistance in the air again. It was neither warm nor cold, and not exactly hard… he could press into it a bit, but only so far, then his hand was stopped as if by stone. The others moved forward themselves, tentatively feeling their way, and soon discovered that the barrier, whatever it was, seemed to define the arc of a circle that almost filled the large room. And no amount of force could penetrate it, neither slow and steady nor fast and sharp, as Jeb’s arrows proved.

The arc also happened to bisect the body of the troll Devrik had fought, and when they tried to pull the body away, it proved immovable, wedged in place by the… whatever it was. Korwin was able to determine that it was in fact a squashed hemisphere – circular in horizontal cross-section, but not in height.

“Given the angles I can feel by climbing the ruined walls,” he said after finishing his calculations, “I’d say the apex just brushes the center of the ceiling.”

As everyone stared up at the ceiling, Mariala noticed something odd… all of the stone work in the room, and most especially the ceiling, was blackened with soot from the fire that had gutted the old inn – except for a roughly circular patch about a meter across in the center of the ceiling. No one could quite figure out what this area of sootless stone might mean, and after some minutes of debate they went back to trying to move through the barrier.

Erol, with the help of the Khundari guards, heaved the dead troll on his side of the room up and against the barrier, and they attempted to push it through. But even with Devrik and Toran lending their strength, it would go no more than a few centimeters before stopping dead. So to speak.

Korwin suggested burrowing through the body of the troll divided by the barrier, to disgusted noises from the others. But it was at this point that they noticed another strange fact – the part of the troll’s body that lay outside the barrier seemed to be decaying. Seriously decaying…

“It’s like it’s been dead for a tenday or more,” Korwin mused, getting as close as he could. And that’s when the hammer finally dropped, and they realized they must be trapped within some sort of temporal bubble, where time moved much more slowly than without. Vulk was particularly freaked out by this revelation, and kept denying it could possibly be true! But as the minutes passed and the troll’s lower half decayed more and more, there could be little doubt.

Now everyone, but most especially Devrik, was frantic to escape this trap. How much time had already been lost? Was Raven safe, or was this some part of a plot to seize her? Did she think them all dead? And what of their other allies?

They unscorched stones on the ceiling being their only clue, Korwin attempted to move or dislodge one with both his telekinesis and the spell Magic Hand, but while he knew they had both been successful, nothing had happened. They attempted to combine the mages’ powers and dispell any magic, but to no effect.

Mariala suggested physically poking the stones, so Vulk mounted the shoulders of Devrik and Toran, using his staff to prod the ceiling – only to see the staff pass through the stones as if they weren’t there!

“An illusion,” Mariala cried triumphantly. “I thought so!”

But what did it mean? Grappling hooks on rope, arrows shot into the area, nothing seemed to have any effect on the barrier. Finally, with Vulk summoning the blessing of Kasira, they built a human pyramid, with Mariala on top, allowing her to poke her head throughout the illusionary stone. There she was able to see a disc of smooth white – glass? But it was very, very hard – set into a metal ring embedded in the stone.

Unable to break it, the group decided to try a fireball, immediately followed by an ice blast – after a false start, Devrik managed to fireball the area, to no apparent effect, and Korwin was called on to use his Breath of Arandu spell to freeze the object. Unfortunately, nerves, exhaustion and tension led to a critical misfire of the powerful spell, and everyone in the room was engulfed in a sudden storm of icy, bitterly cold air.

Every inch of exposed skin suffered minor frostbite, to everyone’s annoyance and discomfort, but luckily the blast reached the hidden disc as well, and it proved to not be immune to sudden drastic temperature changes. With a sharp crack, the disc shattered, and suddenly the barrier was gone!

But how much time had passed, that was the critical question they now had to answer…

“Are there any portals along this road?” Devrik demanded of Toran.

“None, I’m sorry,” the Khundari replied grimly. “I’m afraid the quickest way out is either ahead to our destination – or back to Dürkon. We’re pretty much half-way between the two…”

“There’s no point in going on,” Devrik growled, pacing restlessly as he thought out the ramifications. “As we suspected, my father’s name was almost certainly a ruse to lure us into this trap. Kirdik want’s my unborn son… and he wants me to suffer, knowing he has him, I think. I think he planned to come back for us once he achieved his goal…

“But has he achieved it yet? How much time has passed?!”

There being no sure way of answering that without contacting the outside world, the group hurriedly set out back down the Deepway, towards Dürkon. Devrik set a brutal pace, and would have continued without stop, alone if need be, if Vulk had not eventually convinced him that there was little point in arriving too exhausted to take effective action. He allowed four hours for sleep, then drove his friends onward.

They arrived back in the Khundari city at mid-day, and brushing aside the amazed exclamations of “You’re all alive!” from the guards at the exit from the Deepway, Devrik seized one by the shoulders and shook him to shut him up.

“Never mind that, time for stories later – what day is it? HOW LONG HAVE WE BEEN GONE?!”

“A-a-a month, sir! It’s the 10th of  Margas, you’ve been missing almost a month!”

“Then there should be time,” Devrik muttered, turning to Mariala. “All the signs, and the midwife, pointed to the 15th as the likely birthdate, right?”

“Yes, Devrik,” she replied cautiously. “But these things are never exact, it could be off by a tenday, especially with a first child –”

“We need to hear the latest news,” Vulk interrupted. “There’s no point in standing here guessing, let’s find Lekorm Darkeye and see what he can tell us. If anyone knows how Raven is doing, surely it will be him.”

“Of course, you’re right,” Devrik agreed. “Jeb, find Cris and have our horses made ready. Whatever the news, we ride as soon as we can!”

It was a short ride to the hamlet of Kadail, a moderately prosperous manor tucked into a small valley surrounded by gently rolling hills. Like most manors in these northern mountains, its lord kept a fair-sized flock of sheep to supplement the agricultural output, and the brilliant green hillsides were dotted with sparks of white. Many of the beasts were greatly pregnant, Vulk noted as they rode down the last stretch of rutted track to the manor house … it made him think of Raven, who would be dropping her own lamb around the same time as these ewes, this upcoming spring.

As bucolic as the sheep on winter-green hillsides were, they were instantly forgotten as the Hand entered the small valley and saw the great Common field before them, to the left of the road. The vibrant green of the grass was barely visible beneath a blanket of winterstar, whose thousands of small, brilliant white blossoms made the sun-dappled sheep seem grey in comparison. The group stopped for a moment in sheer delight as the shifting patterns of sun and shadow from the scudding clouds turned the field into a shimmering sea of stars fallen to earth.

But the day was cool and windy, and there was business to see to, so after a few moments they nudged their horses into movement and continued on into the open yard of the manor house. The usual late winter routine of the manor village was clearly disrupted, with groups of men arriving and departing from and to various quarters of the fief, obviously search parties. A distracted beadle pulled away from one such group to greet the new arrivals.

“We’re grateful for any assistance, m’lords, lady,” he said after Vulk had explained their mission. “We’ve searched every inch of the fief, with no trace of the lad… it seems he might be a runaway after all, despite what his parents say…”

“Tell us the particulars, and then we’d like to speak with the parents,” Vulk said as grooms led their horses to the stables. “Start with the last time the missing boy was seen.”

With several other villagers offering corrections and comments, the story that unfolded seemed simple enough: the 16-year-old son of a prominent villein family, Karl Vesson, was last seen at the bonfire party on the night of Kristala Va. The next morning his younger brother, 14-year-old Lernan, woke to find the pallet next to his empty. The father, Selad Vesson, began an angry search, assuming his son was goofing off, trying to avoid his chores, but by mid-morning had come to realize the boy was really gone. Most telling to the increasingly frantic mother was the fact that he was apparently still wearing his good holiday clothes, a fine blue wool tunic and white leggings.

Most of the villagers were disinclined to get too excited, at first – Selad Vesson was not the most beloved man on the manor, though well enough respected for his hard work, and his sons were seemingly universally disliked as bullies and mean-spirited pranksters. But when the boy had not shown up by nightfall, even the most cynical had come to believe something was wrong, although most seemed to feel Karl was likely a run-away; only a minority thought he might be the victim of an accident or foul play.

Fearful of the attention from their overlords that a fleeing serf would bring on the manor, the next day the search was begun in earnest. While the men formed search parties and the women gathered to console the increasingly hysterical mother (apparently the only person who actually liked the missing boy), a runner was sent to Dor Dür to inform the Constable.

“I’d like to speak with the family,” Mariala said after this tale wound down, and the beadle led the way to the largest of the villein’s crofts. There the local women were shooed outside while the Hand stepped inside. Selad Vesson was a large man, with rough, strong hands and a thick head of shaggy brown hair, just beginning to be streaked with gray. His wife was a short, raw-boned woman, rangy, with auburn hair now gone almost totally gray, her eyes and nose red from crying. The younger son, Lernan, seemed to be big for his age, obviously taking after his father, and sat quiet and sullen in a dark corner, eyes locked on the floor, perhaps as much to avoid his mother’s hysterics as anything.

Questioning merely reiterated what had already been learned, until Mariala spoke to Lernan. He seemed shy and hesitant, but she sensed that he knew something. With Vulk’s rhetorical eloquence they were able to convince the boy’s clinging mother to let him out of her sight for a few minutes, and once away from his parents the lad slowly began to open up under their persistent questioning.

“We got in a wrasslin’ match that night, after the bonfires,” he finally admitted, with a sheepish look. “I’m bigger than Karl now, even though he’s older, and I thrashed him… I might’ve been… I gave him a hard time, I guess, he was madder than anything. He slugged me in the gut and took off… that’s the last I saw him, I swear… I don’t think he run off, though, he wants the farm after Da is gone…”

“Do you have any idea where your brother might have gone,” Mariala prodded, giving the boy a sympathetic smile and touching his shoulder. He blushed, and stammered a bit, then looked thoughtful.

“I… maybe… we had a dare, for a long time now, about proving who was braver… we never actually did it, but we talked about it…”

“What?” Vulk demanded. “What dare?”

“Going into the Moaning Mouth Cave…”

Murmurs from the beadle and his cronies, when told this information and asked about the cave, were shocked and horrified.

“Oh no, m’lord,” the disturbed beadle assured Vulk when pressed. “Surely the boy was not so mad as to do that! Everyone knows that place is haunted by the spirits of the restless dead… you can hear them moaning and calling out for the warmth of the living, we’ve all heard it. The children might dare themselves to go near enough to hear the ghosts, I did it as a lad, we all have…. but no one would actually go in there!”

“Has anyone searched the cave, or even the area around it?” Erol asked dryly, unimpressed with talk of ghosts and hauntings.

“No, no, m’lord,” the man replied, looking shocked. “No one would go near, even if they thought… no, no he couldn’t have gone there.”

“Has anyone else gone missing recently?” Erol changed tack, deciding he wasn’t going to get anything useful about the cave from this superstitious lot of peasants.

“No, no one –” the beadle began, only to be interrupted by one of his cronies.

“Well, what about old Tarvo?” the graybeard said. “That was a bit odd, though I hadn’t thought it’d anything to do with the Vesson boy.”

“Well, yes,” the beadle admitted, frowning. “That was a bit odd, but as you say what could it have to do with the missing boy?” At the impatient looks from his noble visitors, the man hastily explained what they were talking about.

“Towards late winter every year an old peddler, Tarvo Arken, makes his rounds in the hundred, selling small goods, sharpening knives and especially selling winter oats. He showed up early this year, no doubt this mild winter encouraged him… it was a tenday ago he arrived, just as the sun was setting… several people saw him setting his tent up on the Common. I think a few spoke to him that evening, but he seemed crankier than usual, and said he’d deal in the morning.

“But come the morning he was gone, pack, wares and all… well, except for his tent. We thought it odd, but then he always was a bit… strange. And he’s not one of ours, so not much thought was given to the matter, except a s a curiosity. The holiday, and then the missing boy, well, they just drove it right out of  mind…”

“You didn’t find it suspicious that he left his tent?” Korwin asked, frowning.

“Well, it did seem odd, as I’ve said m’lord, but it was an old and patchy tent, with more than one hole… perhaps he decided it was more trouble than it was worth to take down and pack.” The beadle looked troubled though, as he considered the matter more carefully. “But I still don’t see –”

“No, obviously not,” Erol interrupted. “But we will. Can you take us to the spot where he’d pitched his tent. And do you still have the tent itself?”

They did and they could. While several men went off to fetch the tent, the beadle led the Hand to a spot on the winterstar-bestrewn Common, near the western edge. A close examination of the sight showed where four iron spikes had been driven into the ground. Or rather three spike holes, and a long, shallow stretch of disturbed earth where the fourth would have been. It had been covered back over, but Erol was quickly able to determine that a shallow trench had been dug up, maybe half a meter long, 100 cm wide and 150 cm deep.

“Interesting,” he said after he had dug out the loosened dirt and they all stared down at the dark scar amidst the brilliant flowers and grass. “I wonder what the old peddler uncovered that night, as he was pitching his tent?”

But no one had an answer to that, and examination of the tent, its ropes and its spikes revealed nothing of interest. It seemed the only line of inquiry left to the group was to check out the mysterious Moaning Mouth Cave.

The beadle reluctantly assigned two of the village youths (none were willing to do it alone) to lead the party to the area of the cave, with repeated pleas that it was unnecessary and foolish, though he couched the latter sentiment very carefully…

Leaving Cris and Jeb to tend the horses and watch over their saddlebags, the group followed their nervous guide into the thick wood of winter-bare trees west of the manor’s fields. A half hour walk brought them to a short bluff, crowned with overhanging oaks. As they neared the spot, a low, eerie moaning could be heard over the sloughing of the wind through the branches of the trees. The sound got louder and more unnerving, seeming to grate on the nerves, until they stood at the foot of the steep slope of scree that led up to a small dark opening some 3 meters up the face of the bluff.

“That’s it, m’lords,” one of the native guides mumbled nervously, gesturing to the cave mouth. Before anyone could reply, both youths had turned tail and dashed off back toward home.

The climb up to the cave mouth was treacherous, but everyone made it without mishap, and the group soon stood on the narrow shelf before the black opening. About 2 meters wide and 1.5 high, it had an uninviting look, and the low moaning emanating from it, which did indeed sound like the cries of lost souls, didn’t help the matter.

“It’s just the wind, blowing through cracks in the damn rocks,” Korwin pointed out.

“Yes, we know,” Vulk replied testily. “But you can see why the ignorant might fear the place. Do we really think the boy went in here, at night, whatever the provocation to his manhood?”

“If it was a calm night, with no wind, there’d have been no moaning,” Mariala pointed out. “That might have been enough for him to work up the nerve…”

With a collective sigh, the group lit torches and bent to enter the cave. A long narrow passage wound into the hillside for about 6 meters before opening into a wider chamber. Stepping into this larger space they immediately noticed two things: the moaning had died to almost nothing here, and the stench was terrible. They soon discovered the stench was due to a large colony of bats in the NW corner of the space, when, disturbed by the noise and light, they swirled around the adventurers in a mad dash for the exit.

The floor of the cavern was uneven, with several large depressions, including one especially large one with a pool of fetid water at the bottom , and strewn with rocky debris that made footing treacherous. It was cold and dank, and the flickering torches only served to make the place more spooky…

The northern exit from the chamber was narrow, as was the southern one – both so narrow that everyone except Mariala would need to remove their armor before they could squeeze through. Fortunately for the group, Erol’s sharp eye caught the  signs of the mornoga fungus colony that occupied the SW corner of the cavern before anyone stepped into it and died a horrible acid death. Unfortunately, their first clue, a thread of bright blue wool caught on a rock near the southern exit, forced them to tread carefully past the deadly mushrooms… but there were no slips, and after several minutes of removing armor everyone squeezed through the narrow opening.

They debouched onto a narrow ledge that ran around a large, sloping pit, at the bottom of which could be seen another pool of dark water. Unfortunately the footing was no less treacherous here, but with less margin for error – Mariala was the first to lose her footing and tumble and slide down the steep slope, but was soon followed by Korwin and Vulk. None were seriously injured, just a few bruises, but the water in boots and soaking trousers made the dank, cold air even more unpleasant. Toran skipped lightly along the rocky shelf, of course, and Erol, while not as nimble, also avoided a fall.

The northern portion of this cavern was flatter and less rubble-strewn, and after re-armoring, they searched it carefully. A southern exit led to a steep slope down, and the northern one was far to narrow for even Mariala to get through. This left the middle passage as the most likely path Karl might have taken, and the charred remains of a crude torch, a meter down the passage, and Korwin’s psychometry, confirmed it. Unfortunately, the entrance was low and the passage beyond sloped sharply upward, which meant no weapon much longer than a meter could be taken through. Erol was forced to leave his spears behind, leaning against a nearby wall, and Korwin was barely able to manage his new Khundari-made cutlass.

From here the passage again sloped downward before opening into a small chamber with several possible exits. But before the group could even begin to ponder which one they should explore first, a sudden and horribly familiar chittering brought them to sudden alert. Even as they turned, a toloxta leaped towards Toran’s face, attempting to live up to its moniker, the Eater of Eyes. But the Khundari’s well-trained reflexes were faster, and his battle-axe clove the beast in two, midair.

Erol was not so lucky as several more of the monstrous little beasts leaped out of the dark, and he took a nasty, raking claw wound to the face and neck. Mariala and Korwin insantly began spells of confusion and drunkenness, as Toran missed his swing at a second beast. Erol’s own second attack took out a creature confused by Mariala’s spell, while Vulk attempted to raise his holy armor, to no avail.

A confusing, fierce battle ensued

It was little more than an hour past dawn, on 10 Glacia, that the Hand of Fortune was summoned by a servant of Lekorm Darkeye to attend upon himself and the Prince in the High Dungeons. The cells, high in the face of the cliffs that overlooked the Outer City, had stunning views of the freedom denied to their occupants, and were freezing. Fortunately, two large braziers were burning brightly in the interrogation room to which the servitor led them, over one of which Prince Rhoghûn was warming his hands. Nearby Captain Darkeye stood silently, his axe drawn and his eyes firmly on the iron-bound prisoner at his feet.

This was a pathetic figure, a wet, shivering and terrified-looking gül-kobal, whose amber, cat-like eyes darted continuously from his guard to the Prince, and now to this group of (mostly) humans who stared down in surprise at him. He was small, not much more than a meter tall, but wiry and strong-looking, with white fur, streaked with tawny bands around his weasal-like face. His fur and leather clothes were soaked, and he had been relieved of any weapons when he had been chained hand and foot. The Captain nudged him with his boot, and addressed the newcomers.

“He arrived at the Third Upper Gate an hour ago, waving the blue spruce branch of truce. It was a near thing with the gate watch, but they didn’t put a bolt through his eye immediately. Instead, they brought him to me. When I heard his story, I sent word at once to his Highness…”

The Prince nodded and took up the story himself. “Normally I’d have the mewling thing strangled and thrown from the Rock… we have no interest in any gülvini, save that they should die!

“But this one tells an entertaining story, I’ll admit… it seems that a gül-hovgavu female, one of the so-called “Queen’s Guard,” slew the ”king” of her tribe this summer, when he tried to rape her… she’s apparently quite large and strong, even for her breed… she and her fellow female “guards” then killed all the other males in the hive… and the “queen” too, seemingly out of pure spite!

“Ever since, this Khana, as the litle shit-eater names her, has been cutting a bloody swath through the gülvini tribes of the northern mountains. They attack a hive-nest, killing or castrating and enslaving the males and recruiting the strongest females to her service. She always kills the ”queens,” however… apparently she wants no competition, and seeks a male worthy to be her consort!”

The Prince shook his head in amused wonderment at the thought of his peoples hated enemy so decimating themselves. “Well, it is ever so with these creatures, they turn their murderous violence on themselves when no other enemy is available. I’ve not heard of anything like this before, though it is said the females are often even more vicious fighters than the males. Apparently true, ha!”

Looking down now with a frown on the bound prisoner, he continued “Now this band of gül-kobali have lived high in the valley of the Darl River, in the foothills of Mt. Muntursk, for several years now; my father was content to ignore them, as they kept away from our shepherds and charcoalers. Although there has long been a sentiment amongst my people that we should destroy them, or at least drive them out, as long as they caused me no trouble I was willing to leave them in peace.

“Not so this Khana creature, however! Yesterday she and a band of her female warriors attacked the kobali nest, apparently seeking scout-slaves for her growing band. This cringing rat, who claims a name… what was it Captain? Oh yes, Metotha… along with two of his fellows, escaped the carnage and apparently thought they would find help here.” He barked a laugh. “A fools hope! No Khundari would lift a finger to save any of the deathspawn, and I am no exception, whatever some of the stone-brains amongst my enemies believe. But…

“It was his description of the weapon this she-demon wields that gave me pause…” he began to pace a short trajectory between the two braziers. “It just may be the Axe of Arghün, a great artifact of my house, lost many years ago when my foolish older brother fell into a trap set by a cunning chieftan of the gül-Hovgavu of Zherin. He lost his head and the axe, and we have sought in vain to learn of its whereabouts ever since. Now it seems it might be within my grasp!

“But I must be sure, before I send my troops… the poitical situation in the city is still fragile… so I would ask you to investigate this for me. This worm claims she has only a score of warriors, surely no match for your skills, should it come to a fight. But if you can confirm that this Khana does, in fact, possess my family’s Axe, then I will send my Shadow Guard to burn out this nest to recover it if need be!”

The group readily agreed to help their host in this matter, the more readily because the fighters, at least, were beginning to grow weary of inactivity, despite the hours of training with the Shadow Warriors. A little outside air and some real fighting might be just the thing! Captain Darkeye hauled the gül, Metotha, to his feet and frog-marched him from the room.

“I’ll have him at the Third Upper Gate when you’re ready,” he said to Devrik. “He and his… friends… can guide you to their nest. Since they want our help, I doubt they’ll pose you any threat, at least on the road… but don’t turn your back on them!”

Once the gül had been removed, with many anxious looks over its shoulder, the Prince visibly relaxed.

“It takes all I have not to slay such beasts on the spot,” he growled. “But the possibility of regaining the Axe is too important to allow reflexes to rule me. And if I can regain the Axe of my ancestors… well, it will help calm the fears of some of my more reactionary subjects, I do believe.

“Now, before you go, there is somethings you should know about this great weapon… the Axe of Arghün is a battle axe of outstanding beauty, bronze hardened to the strength of steel, shaped and engraved into the likeness of the great Khundari warrior Arghün Gülsbane, who died after repulsing three waves of a gülvini army before the gates of Zakiruth. Though the city later fell to the armies of the Necromancer, his bravey was remembered and the first ruling Prince of Dürkon, my great-great grandfather, commissioned the greatest weaponsmith of his day, Kharat Ironbinder, to create a weapon in Arghün’s honor.

“It is a Great Artifact, possessing its own kind of intelligence, in the manner of the great artificers. It is said, and I have seen it myself, in my youth, that the Axe will cause intense dread in any who oppose its wielder, often causing them to quail and even faint. But if it is wielded by a Khundari warrior against gülvini foes, it causes those beasts to cower and even flee in outright terror. To think that it might be used by one of the damned monsters is an affront! It makes my blood boil! It must not be allowed!”

After a moment the Prince, who had grown quite red in the face, took a deep breath and smiled ruefully at his guests. “My apologies, but this touches me deeply… my brother…

“Well, never mind, what’s past is past. If you can return this great treasure to my House, or even confirm that it is, indeed, in the hands of this Khana, I will owe you yet another debt of gratitude.

“In any case, when you have no further use for the kobali who will guide you, I would appreciate it if you could dispatch them. And any others you might come across. With their hive-nest already decimated, I see no need to allow them a chance to rebuild, eh?”

Mariala and Devrik frowned at this last request, called out as they were leaving the room, but said nothing just then.

♦  ♦  ♦

It took less than an hour for the Hand to prepare for their mission, and they were soon at the Third Upper Gate, with Cris and Jeb in tow. The youngsters were excited and nervous, especially Jeb, who kept checking and rechecking his bow. Captain Darkeye and two of his soldiers waited for them, and a few meters off huddled Metotha and his two companions, watching the Dwarves warily. It was overcast and cold, with a foot of snow on the ground and blanketing the trees of the forest, but a new snowfall didn’t seem likely anytime soon.

The group planed to travel first to the Khundari outpost nearest the kobali hive-nest, where they would find four soldiers on duty. Toran had been given tokens of authority by which the group could command these fighters, should they need to. From there they would approach more cautiously the current lair of this gülvini she-demon…

Along the way they learned something of the three kobali who guided them. Metotha was a hunter/scout for his tribe, as were his tow companions, Ghek and Hurjen. They had been just returning from a night hunt, with several others, when they came across the massacre in front of their nest. Hovgavu females were tearing through the kobali, little more than half their size, with ferocious abandon, killing and castrating without even trying to take slaves!

They had heard rumors of Khana for months now, but had not quite believed them, nor realized she might be so close. Some of their companions leapt into the fight, but Metotha saw that is was hopeless, and convinced his two friends that they would only die if they did the same. Recognizing Khana from her size and the weapon she wielded, and knowing the axe to be of Khundari make, he conceived the idea of seeking help from their traditional enemies… after all, they had lived for many years now in proximity without conflict… Ghek and Hurjen were dubious, but in the end they agreed, as long as he was the one to approach the dwarves…

While the gülvini were clearly nervous about their companions, especially Toran, they also tried to be obsequiously nice, praising them for aiding their people and offering up crude jokes in their broken but intelligible Yashpari. Toran tended to ignore them, but the others, to one degree or another, were willing to interact with the little beastmen. It was the first time most of them had experienced any gül outside of combat, or at least potential combat.

While still more than an hour out from the outpost, by Toran’s estimation, they caught flashes of lights thhrough the snow-covered firs around them.

“It’s the heliograph at the outpost,” Toran explained. “Sending some message back to the City… I’m afraid I can’t make it out clearly, through the trees. Something about Gülvini… doesn’t seem urgent, though.”

“Perhaps they’ve had word of last night’s attack,” Mariala suggested. “They may have heard the battle…”

“Hmmm, perhaps,” the dwarf agreed. “But I think we should pick up the pace…”

♦  ♦  ♦

On arriving at the outpost, which was  built into a stoney hill that rose sharply above the surrounding forest, they found everything quiet. No sign of combat or activity, save for a mish-mash of bootprints in the snow around the hidden entrance Toran lead them too. The tracks headed off in the direction that Metotha said his hive-nest lay. It was decided that the güls should remain outside, under the eves of the forest, while the Hand met with the watchmen. No sense in complicating things more than necessary.

Toran located the hidden lever than would alert the watchers within that visitors awaited. It took almost ten minutes, but eventually the door swung open, and they were greeted by an elderly Khundari who identified himself as Hemdan, caretaker of the outpost. Seemingly out of breath, he motioned them to follow, and they ascended a spiral staircase carved from the living stone, up to the outpost’s main chamber.

“I was surprised to hear you out there,” he wheezed as they entered the large circular room, whose eight windows looked out in every direction. They could be opened at need, but were currently sealed by thick glass panes set in iron frames. “We sent the message to the City not three turns of the glass past!”

“We were already on our way,” Toran replied. “What was the message you sent?”

“About the gülvini attack on the charcoaler and his family,” the old man replied, sinking into what was obviously his usual well padded chair. “I’ve said for years we should burn out that nest of vipers, that they were just lulling us… and now here we are, young Estavas and his family taken off, to be eaten no doubt, unless Sgt. Jhundar and the men get there on time…”

It took a few minute to get the story from the querulous old dwarf, but it became clearer when a young human boy suddenly poked his head up from a pile of sleeping furs where he had been dozing, exhausted. His name was Benet, he was 12 years old, and he had been out at the henhouse gathering eggs when his family’s small home had been attacked by “hugh monsters.” He had fled in terror, and then watched from the edge of the forest as his parents and two sisters were dragged out, roped to gather, and marched off into the early morning mists. When the cottage began to burn, he ran for the Khundari outpost – they were subject of the Prince of Dürkon, his soldiers would rescue his family…

And the guard sergeant had leapt into action, although he had dismissed the boy’s description of the culprits as the exaggerated fears of a terrified child; clearly this outrage was the work of the soulless gül-Kobali who had been allowed to fester nearby for far too long! But he knew the shortest way to their stinking den, and he would cut them off before they could reach it, by Gheas!

When the Hand had explained their mission to the elderly caretaker, and revealed that the attackers had almost certainly been gül-Hovgavu, not kobali, he became deeply concerned… Jhundar was not expecting to walk into such a situation…

The group wasted no more time, as speed was now of the essence if they had any hope of saving the human family from becoming supper for Khana and her amazon horde. Leaving Hemdan and Benet safely locked into the outpost, they regrouped with the Kobali outside and began a steady, sustainable jog towards the nest of contention.

As they came near to the entrance to the hive-nest, Metotha indicated they should take cover, as they were close to where sentries might be expected. From the cover of a thick stand of snow-laden evergreens they peered out into the cleared area around the hole in the ground they could see numerous corpses of mutilated kobali, thier blood already pale beneath new snow… and not far from their cover was the severely hacked up and mutilated body of what had to be one of the Khundari outpost guards. Mariala shuddered as the image of the bright red blood on the white snow brought back memories of the killings at Eldora Abbey, almost a year ago…

Closer to the opening in the ground another body could be seen, also a dwarven soldier, apparently, and equally dead. It was Jeb who spotted the gülvini lurking in the branches of a tree almost directly over the entrance. He didn’t think it (she?) had seen them yet, and he motioned to Erol, who nodded. They both nocked arrows into their bows, and stepped from their cover to loose them. Erol’s flew wide of the mark, but Jeb’s arrow pierced the creature’s chest almost dead center, and the gül fell almost silently from its perch.

The group moved cautiously forward, warned by Metotha of the ruins of a small tower nearby, where his own tribe was wont to post a guard. As Vulk and the others checked on the fallen sentry, still alive but unconscious, Erol moved past them towards the tower. Bet even as he drew near, there was a sudden blur of movement as the second sentry leapt from behind a crumbling, snow-capped wall onto him. He whirled, bringing his trident up, and the hovgavu nearly impaled herself on its tines. With a twist of the wrist Erol ripped his weapon from her side in a gush of blood, and the creature collapsed in the snow at his feet.

Toran had followed Erol towards the ruined wall, and as he started to say something he caught a movement from the corner of his eye. A third hovgavu sentry was running up from the cover of the forest behind him, mang raised, and he turned to meet the charge, his own battle axe at the ready. But his foot slipped in the snow as he did so, and he staggered, trying to regain his balance… the gül’s blade slid past his guard and bit sharply into his neck.

Even as Toran went down, Erol was leaping forward. Before the deathspawn could move in for a killing blow, his trident had taken her in the gut, and he lifted her off her feet, hurling her body aside with a grunt. The creature was dead before it hit the ground. He knelt at his friend’s side and tried to stop the bleeding, calling as quietly, but urgently, as he could for Vulk.

After a quick examination, Vulk was relieved to see the blade had missed the jugular, if not by much. His healing touch soon staunched the flow of blood to a trickle, and he reached into his scrip to pull out a blue-green ceramic vial.

“It’s Kasira’s own luck that I brought back Draik’s latest Baylorium potion from my last visit to Dür,” he said as he unstoppered the bottle. The yellowish, viscous fluid poured into the wound. “It’s supposed to be particularly good at healing open wounds and blood loss…”

Indeed, even as he watched, the bleeding stopped altogether and the edges of the cut began to move pull in. In less than a turn of the glass the wound had become nothing more than an angry red weal, still a bit tender to the touch, but nothing the grateful Khundari couldn’t live with. He thanked Vulk sincerely, and the cantor just grinned that charming grin of his and said he should really thank Draik!

While Vulk had been tending to the recovery of Toran, the others had secured the area around the entrance to the gülvini hive-nest, and tried to question the two wounded, but now conscious, hovgavu sentries. Unfortunately, they could get nothing more than grunts and hisses around the gags they were forced to use to keep them quiet, and in the end Devrik simply put them out of everyone’s misery. The kobali seemed very pleased at that.

They were less pleased, apparently, during the discussion over their next course of action – when it was suggested a frontal assault didn’t seem too wise, the three kobali erupted in a fierce, but quiet, dispute in the chirps, grunts and hand gestures of their own language. After a moment Metotha silenced the others and sidled up to the humans.

“There a back door,” he admitted. “But not so good… goes right into King’s Chamber… very crowded, probably…” He then proceeded to draw a very rough diagram of the hive-nest in the snow.

This began a spirited debate about splitting the group and investigating the gülvini dispositions from two sides. Toran volunteered to use the illusion charm he’d taken from Arlun Parek to disguise himself as a gül, as much as the thought repelled him, but in the end it was decided that it made more sense for Vulk to attempt the charade. He could use his ritual of tongues to communicate, should that need arise, and he would take Toran and Metotha with him, as his “prisoners;” if it went south, they could all attack if need be.

Vulk studied the face of the dead sentry who had been in the tree, then invoked the amulet… everyone agreed the illusion was uncanny! Everyone except the Kobali, who rolled around on the ground laughing. Metotha was finally able to explain that he wouldn’t fool anyone inside, because he smelled like food, er, that is, an Umantari. Even after Vulk had pulled the dead gül’s clothing on over his own, and rubbed her greasy hair all over himself, the kobali remained dubious that he could fool anyone up close. Maybe from a distance…

In the end they decided they had to risk it, and Vulk lead Toran and Metotha, loosely bound with rope at the wrists and on a leash, into the gülvini nest…  The entrance was little more than a large hole in the ground, leading to a narrow shelf of stone that curved down and to the left over a rushing underground stream. This shelf soon opened into a larger chamber, the cleverly named Entrance Chamber, according to Metotha.

 

From this point on I’m just doing an outline of what I remember, so read it over and e-mail me ASAP, filling in the details you remember… please!

 

They find a lone hovgavu on sentry duty, although she’s occupied looting a dead kobali and doesn’t notice her guests right away.

Vulk lures her closer, she’s suspicious as to why “she” apparently abandoned her post outside, but seems to buy the story of capturing another Khundari spy and a run-away kobali. She gets suspicious again when she’s close and can smell something wrong…

At this point I can’t recall exactly how she was dispatched, only that she drew her weapon and was eventually done in, then the rest of the group came on down… did it require outside help to put down the sentry? I know Korwin cast his shadow spell at some point, so he could be stealthy…

Once everyone was together again the group headed out the southwest exit, following the crude map to the cell where Metotha thinks the captured humans would be.

Vulk creeps forward to check the cell, potentially visible to the three kitchen workers nearby… Toran picked the lock on the cell… I seem to remember Jeb (and Erol?) coming forward and shooting an arrow or two, but I’m fuzzy on the sequence of battle that took out the hovgavu and two kobali females in the kitchen… I know the group preventing anyone from raising the alarm.

Jeb and Cris were then detailed to take the traumatized captives (sans the already butchered husband/father) to the surface and safety, while the Hand continued deeper into the lair.

The group chose the more northern route towards the living areas of the nest, and Korwin went north to the Warrior’s Chamber to see what was up there, and discovered three hovgavu looting the dead kobali’s meagre possessions…

To the south you heard the roar of combat and cheering from the King’s Chamber, and I think it was Vulk who moved forward in his disguise to see the two kobali females being pitted against one another for the amusement of about 15 hovgavu; no sign of Khana. Devrik forced to remind everyone that his fireball is only 10′ in diameter, he can’t take out the whole room!

Vulk (?) checked out the lightly concealed passage leading to the Queen’s Chamber, where he was able to glimpse Khana and hear that she was speaking to at least one other “person.”

With Vulk blocking any view form the larger room, the group snuck into the passage leading to the Queens Chamber, Korwin cast his misty fog spell to obscure vision and muffle sound, and Mariala was left at the entrance to keep an eye on events in the King’s Chamber.

The party leapt to the attack, finding the amazon gül leader with just two of her lieutenants amidst the mostly shattered eggs of the now-dead queen. Again, the precise order of events is fuzzy… I know Vulk manages to slip past Khana and engage one of the lieutenants, doing some damage but not taking her out immediately… Toran and Devrik attack Khana, Erol attacks the remaining gül?

Khana invokes the Axe’s dread power, and somebody (Toran?) faints, while Devrik is unmanned and forced to retreat to the farthest point in the chamber… Khana takes the opportunity to try and flee, Erol tries to stop her, but she again invokes the Axe, and while he isn’t sent fleeing, the dread makes him able to only defend… Korwin attacks as she moves past, with his cutlass, which is broken in half…

Erol recovers quickly (?) and pursues Khana, with Toran close behind… Khana slams into Mariala in the mist… does Mariala block a passing blow, or is it Erol’s immediate arrival that saves her?

Erol & Khana parry blows, she makes it out into the King’s Chamber, Erol still in pursuit, Toran right behind. While all this is going on Vulk is STILL trying to put down his opponent, who refuses to fall despite numerous wounds, and Korwin (?) is attempting to snap Devrik out of his artifact-induced funk…

Eventually they succeed and follow the others out into the Kings Chamber, where Khana has rallied her troops… Erol and Toran are surrounded, trying to get at the leader, Mariala stands back, looking for an opening…

Devrik arrives and cast a fireball into the melee in an attempt to kill or at least wound as many hovgavu as he can; his aim is a bit off and it actually hits Khanna in the back of the head. She takes some damage, as do 5-6 others, only one of which is killed outright by a freak chance (yeah, yeah, I rolled wrong, but what the heck – it was Kasira taking a hand, right?)

The battle rages, Mariala tries her Fire Nerves spell and has a critical failure (or was that earlier, elsewhere?). In any case, she eventually gets off a successful blast at Khanna, taking her down for 7 seconds of screaming agony, and she drops the Axe.

Once she recovers, Khana tries to retrieve the Axe, but fails, and seeing the tide turning, the smoking, pain-wracked leader abandons her troops and heads for the rear entrance. Toran tries to grab the Axe, but fails, and then Erol tries and succeeds. Once it’s in his hands he tosses it to Toran, who invokes it’s fear power against the gals. Two flee after Khana in terror, one or two are only able to defend and can’t attack Toran.

Vulk and Korwin head back north, through the kitchen area, to come in from the south and so behind the remaining hovagvu battling their friends. They meet the two fleeing kobali, who had exited as soon as the hovgavui attention was focused on the invaders – still under his illusion, Vulk sends them running on, avoiding combat; presumably they failed to note the sitll-shadowy Korwin. They come into the battle, Korwin with his frost blade and Vulk sowing confusion looking like the gül’s comrade.

As the battle is winding down the three hovgavu who had been looting in the Warrior’s Chamber try to enter the fray, but are mostly stopped by Metotha, Ghek and Hurjen, who are killed in the attempt. But they take two of the females with them, so only one comes up behind Mariala, who’s in trouble at this point. She draws her dagger (blocks a first blow?), and is save when Devrik (?) leaps to her defense and dispatches the creature.

At this point the few remaining hovgavu are dispatched, the group is spared the moral dilemma of killing Metotha & Co., and the looting begins. The main item of note is a Matrix Crystal attuned to the Yalva convocation, which allows Devrik a +5 bonus to his fire spells.

The first great storm of autumn was raging across the North on the late morning of 5 Vento, but the members of the Hand of Fortune were aware of it only as an occasional rumor of thunder, warm and comfortable in the suite of rooms given over to them by Prince Rhoghûn.  They were just sitting down to enjoy what had become their favorite meal of the day, what the Khundari called “brunch,” when Toran was shown in by Cris, interrupting Korwin’s lecture.

“Brunch is actually an old Telnori innovation,” Korwin was saying as he poured syrup over the battered, toasted bread on his plate, “one still very much in vogue in their lands, at least in the Empire. The Khundari “borrowed” the concept long ago, though of course they would deny any connection–”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Toran rumbled as he strode in, and at Mariala’s gesture pulled up a chair to the food-laden table. Though now officially on detached duty with the Hand, while in his home city he continued to bunk in the trainee’s quarters of the Shadow Guard, joining the group for strategy sessions and occasional social gatherings.He poured himself a glass of sparkling wine mixed with pear cider as he continued.

“I’ve just come from a meeting with Commander Darkeye. It seems that His Highness wants the old Fhorgîn complex sealed up again, but before that happens he wants it thoroughly explored and made safe. Unfortunately, he is reluctant to expose any more of our own people to the possible taint of that old heresy… there’s enough unrest and anxiety in the City right now, we don’t need the malcontents latching on to another tool to promote isolationism.

“To that end, I have been given the job of asking you all if you will undertake the task with me, since you are hardly likely to be corrupted by Khundari Supremacist philosophy.”

He took a long gulp of his drink before adding wryly, “Apparently I don’t count… why risk a fully trained Kahar-ün-Tem, when an acolyte has already been exposed, eh?”

The group discussed the particulars over their meal, and by the time Cris had brought in the steaming cups of chocolate it had been agreed that they would undertake the mission for the Prince.

“Excellent,” Toran exclaimed, slamming his palm down on the table. “We’ll prepare this afternoon, and enter the complex tomorrow at the second hour after the lamps lighten!”

♦ ♦ ♦

The next morning found the six members of the Hand once more sifting through the charred ruins of what had been Arlun Parek’s secret bed chamber cum study. Although both they and the Shadow Guard had scoured the ruins on the day of the assassination attempt, it was decided it was worth one more fine-tooth-comb-search, for secret doors if nothing else.

But it proved fruitless, and once they were convinced of that, they moved on towards the lava chamber. At the end of the hallway opposite Arlun’s chamber they re-examined the small 3×3 meter chamber behind the ancient oak door. It took Toran only a few minutes to find a hidden door, and everyone tensed as he searched for the locking mechanism. But when the section of stone wall slid grindingly aside all that was revealed was another wall of tightly packed rubble.

“It looks like this was purposefully sealed off,” Toran informed his companions after a few minutes of close examination. “And quite a long time ago… no doubt when the sect was suppressed, so almost 600 years past.”

Since it was his considered opinion that it would take a team of engineers and miners several days to even begin clearing the blockage, it was agreed that they should reseal the door, note it, and move on.

Over the next hour, moving slowly and carefully along the long corridors and numerous steep stairways that led down to the lava chamber, Toran discovered four more secret doors. All of them were similarly blocked with solid walls of rubble, and were similarly resealed and noted in his ledger.

Coming at last to the heat and ruddy light of the great cavern, they stood once again on the pier of dressed stone that jutted out into the lake of molten lava. It seemed unchanged from the last time they’d seen it, save that the great gouts of lava that had been thrown up by the inter-dimensional portal had hardened to stone, encrusting parts of the platform. They began a methodical examination of the large, uncomfortably hot chamber, the almost subsonic rumble of the lavafall requiring them to almost yell… Devrik’s own low rumble of a voice was almost unhearable.

A close examination of the cavern walls accessible  to the platform, the pillars, and the platform itself revealed no hidden doors or other interesting features. The rocky shelves along the far walls of the chamber appeared inaccessible by any means at the group’s disposal, and so they turned their attention to the long shelf running west from the platform. It was about a meter-and-a-half drop from the edge of the stone platform, and the shelf was narrow, often little more than a meter wide, sloping down from the rough cavern wall into the magma.

No one was particularly anxious to risk the treacherous-looking path, and finally Toran sighed, and stepped forward.

“I’m more accustomed to this kind of heat, in any case,” he said, as he lowered himself over the edge, Devrik steadying him. “And the Commander did put me in charge…”

The others watched with varying degrees of concern and interest as he slowly made his way along the rugged shelf, one hand always touching the wall. He examined it closely for any signs of hidden doors or concealed tunnels, but he was taken completely by surprise when, near the end of the shelf, his hand went through the stone. The sudden loss of balance sent him tumbling, and from his companion’s point of view he vanished bodily through the solid rock wall.

The group stared in confusion at the place where Toran had been for a moment, and were just scrambling to go after him when his head suddenly poked out through the rough stone wall. His arm followed, and he waved.

“It’s an illusion,” he yelled. “This whole section of wall here is just a very realistic illusion… there’s a corridor beyond it!”

The rest of the Hand quickly, but carefully, made there way to Toran’s head, wary of the pebbles they dislodged that skittered and slid down into the molten pool, where they disappeared with a hiss. They soon joined him in a corridor of ancient worked stone, three meters wide and a little over two meters high – Vulk’s head nearly brushed the ceiling, and he had to resist the temptation to slouch. The light from the magma chamber filled the corridor, the illusion apparently only working from one direction, fading into dimness 10 or 12 meters down ahead of them.

Dimness, but not darkness they discovered as they moved slowly down the dry, crumbling passageway. Every five meters or so the way was lit by the low yellow glow of Khundari glowstones, dim with age but still casting enough light for even the Umantari to see adequately. The corridor continued west (or so Toran assured the others, who were completely lost direction-wise when underground) for twenty meters or so, where they were confronted with a steep flight of crumbling stone steps going up into dimness. As they climbed the steps, Vulk this time having to stoop to avoid hitting his head, the stonework grew less friable and more stable.

“The heat from the magma chamber has a corrupting effect on the dressed stone,” he explained to his companions. “Things should be in better shape as we go on…”

And go on they did, for several hundred more meters, as the corridor turned first north and then east, rising on several sets of steep stairs. By the time they reached the arched doorway at the end of a long, flat stretch of corridor Toran estimated they were more than 100 meters above  the level of the magma cave. They paused outside the doorway, examining what they could see of the space beyond. Eventually they step cautiously across the threshold.

The room was 10 meters square, with plain dressed-stone walls. On the far wall, opposite the doorway, was a small stone basin set at about chest height for the average Khundari. But what dominated the room was the ceiling – considerably higher than that of the corridor, and slanted up at a 20° angle from the wall the doorway pierced, it was carved in a likeness of the face of the Immortal Gheas, Lord of the Khundari, God of the subterranean places of the world. The visage was a stern, even angry one, staring down on the room’s occupants with deep-set stone eyes and a black mouth opened as if to pronounce judgment on those below.

Etched into the stone wall above the basin, and inlaid with bronze, were words in the Runic alphabet of the Khundari. Toran read them aloud to the others:

“Let the hot blood
of the Suplicant Child
be offered to the Great One
and thus the test begins
his worthiness to prove.”

 The bottom of the inside of the stone basin was a dark reddish-brown color, the color of old, dried blood, and the inference seemed obvious. A blood sacrifice was required, although for what was not really clear. Before considering that option, they searched the the walls and floor of the room for any sign of hidden doors or trap panels; but even Toran could find no hint of where an exit might lie.

“So whose blood do we use,” Erol asked at last. “And how much of it?”

“Well, it seems pretty obvious whose blood is required,” Korwin replied with certainty. “This is a Khundari construct, and apparently a racist Khundari one at that… if it’s blood that is needed, then surely it must be Khundari blood. Obviously.”

There was some argument about this, but in the end Toran agreed with the logic. He used his dagger to prick a finger and squeezed a few drops of blood into the basin. Nothing happened.

“I’m afraid they want more than that,” Mariala said regretfully, after a few minutes had passed. “Look at the basin, where the stain is darkest…”

The ninja-dwarf-in-training sighed, and cut a gash along his left forearm, letting the blood drip into the basin until it had reached the line of the old stain. As he was wrapping a strip of cloth around the wound there came a deep rumbling sound from behind them, and the group whirled to see a great slab of black stone drop down across the doorway. But before anyone could react, a second rumbling began and a section of the north wall began to rise slowly upward, revealing a room beyond.

This room was slightly smaller, a 7×7 meter square, again with plain dressed-stone walls. The ceiling was flat and unadorned, a bit less than 3 meters high – this time it was the floor that was of interest. The paving stones were laid out so as to make an obvious grid of squares, five by five, with the center square being a single stone, carved with a stylized sun and glowing with a soft yellow light. The rest of the light in the room came from five huge, gently glowing crystals of transparent faceted blue stone that seemed randomly scattered across the floor. There were also three stone “pillars,” each about a meter high, placed around the room. These were carved in the distinctive stylized faces of the most ancient of Khundari art, and atop each one was a raised circle of red stone, almost like a button.

Careful not to touch anything, the group spread out around the chamber, examining everything as closely as possible… the crystals seemed to actually float a hair’s breadth above the floor, while the carved “pillars” seemed solidly embedded in place. There was much quiet discussion about what it might all mean, although Toran was quiet, thoughtfully examining the set up.

Vulk finally shrugged and placed a hand on one of the faces of the crystal closest to him… it was warm to the touch, and even as he started to say so, the crystal moved away from his hand, gliding silently across the floor until it came to rest against the far wall. At the same time the door to the blood basin room slid shut with a grinding boom.

“I hardly touched it!” he objected over the sudden excited babble. When nothing more untoward happened, and no other door revealed itself, everyone quieted down, and began experimenting… it soon became clear the crystals would move in the direction desired with even the slightest touch on the opposite face, and would not stop until they encountered an obstruction – wall, bumper pillar, or other crystal. A person didn’t count as an obstacle, as Korwin discovered to his annoyance and the others momentary amusement.

Vulk pointed out, as Korwin picked himself and his dignity up off the floor, that once an obstruction was met a crystal could not be moved from that side, even if one reached across and shoved hard on the appropriate face. Apparently you needed to stand directly in back to make a crystal move forward. What the purpose of all this might be evoked some heated debate, until Toran finally spoke.

“I’ve seen something similar, during my training at Areth-Mar,” he said. “it’s a logic puzzle… Khundari priests and scholars use such things to train and test students or candidates. I’ve never seen one exactly like this, but if the form holds true, then the goal is to get a crystal onto the sun icon in that glowing center square…”

“Which one, though?” Erol asked, apparently somewhat bemused by the whole thing.

“If one was a different color, I’d guess that one would be the obvious choice. But since they’re all blue, I don’t think it matters.”

“But we’ve been moving them around now,” Mariala pointed out. “Several of the crystals are blocked now… is it even possible to achieve the goal at this point?”

“There is often a way to reset a puzzle,” Toran answered. “But not always… if this is some kind of fitness test…”

“Hmmmm,” Vulk murmmered, almost to himself. “Maybe…”

He reached over to the red stone “button” on top of the nearest bumper pillar, which he had noticed Korwin studying for several minutes, and pressed down on it. The circle of stone clicked and began to sink into the top of the bumper, not stopping until it was several centimeters below the surface. At the same time all of the crystals that had been moved began to slide across the floor, causing several of the Hand to jump hastily out their way. In less than a minute they had rearranged themselves into their initial pattern.

“It looks like the sect’s candidates, or whatever, had three chances to solve the puzzle,” Korwin said in approval. “One reset per ‘bumper’ pillar.”

“Yes,” Mariala agreed. “And now we’re in the same position, and have only two tries left. So what happened to the… whatever… if they didn’t get it in three? And what happens to us? ”

No one had an answer for that, however, and it seemed there was no choice but to try and solve the puzzle. Korwin, Vulk, Toran and Mariala discussed the various permutations and sketched them out with the tip of a dagger on the walls, while Erol and Devrik examined the walls for signs of a hidden door they might force open by main strength. But even knowing where the door by which they’d entered the room was, they could see no trace of it now that it was closed, and had no better luck finding an exit.

Eventually Korwin was certain he had the correct sequence of moves required to move a crystal onto the glowing center square, and the others took up stations around the room to move the floating stones at his direction. And in seven moves he was proved right, as the last crystal slid silently into place over the carved sun symbol. Everyone held their breath… and a section at the center of the north wall began to slide upward. They all exhaled in relief.

The new corridor that was revealed was dimly lit by the usual ancient glowstones, and ran flat for 10 meters before it jogged to the east. And 1o meters beyond that, it opened into another 10 x 10 meter square room. This one was bare of any ornamentation on walls or ceiling, but a black stone slab door was clearly visible in the center of the eastern wall, facing the party as they entered. Even as the last member of the group entered the room, and Devrik turned to consider how he might prevent them from being trapped should another door come down behind them – and one did, as another slab of smooth black stone slid almost silently into place, sealing them in once again.

“Damn it!” he bellowed. “Why did we all enter the damn room together?”

“Because it’s unlikely any of us being out there would do much good,” Toran pointed out calmly. “This place seems to be a gauntlet of tests, and probably designed to be run by a single candidate… two maybe. The mechanisms for opening the doors would not be inside the test area. There’s either a separate control area, or, given the bloodthirsty nature of this particular sect, it’s more likely that they won’t open until the tests are all either successfully completed or the candidate dies… of dehydration or whatever gruesome punishments failure might lead to. Then the ones in charge would simply come in and remove the body and get everything ready for the next run. Anyway, the other doors are already sealed behind us, so there’s really no option but to go forward…”

No one could argue with that logic, and since the combined strength of Erol and Devrik wasn’t enough to budge the door behind them even the slightest, they moved on to examine the probable exit door. Like the one behind, it was of a single slab of smooth black stone, but possessing a small hole in the center, just a bit wider than the average finger. The surface of the door below the hole, however, was streaked with what looked like the reddish-brown of old dried blood, and on the floor beneath it could be seen several small bones.

“They’re finger tips!” Mariala exclaimed as she pick one up to examine it more closely. “Ugh!” She let it drop back to the floor and surreptitiously wiped her hand on her dress.

The conclusion seemed obvious, and no one was anxious to stick their finger into the mysterious hole. Korwin shone the light from his lantern into the opening, and tried to peer within without putting his face directly in front of the hole, but could make out nothing. Erol borrowed one of Devrik’s spears to probe the hole, but found it too large in diameter. Toran drew out one of his blow darts and inserted it into the opening, but it went no further in than a finger’s length or so.

No one could decide what this might be a test of… courage? A willingness to sacrifice for “the Cause?” Cleverness? Toran did point out that he’d never heard that members of the Fhorgîn sect had only nine fingers, which would, after all, have been a bit of a give-away for a secret society. With a deep breath he stuck his finger into the hole. Rather than feeling the pain of a blade, he felt another opening to the left, and a solid pad he could touch when he crooked his finger. He pushed.

With a slight grinding noise the slab began to sink into the floor, and he hastily removed his finger from the hole.

“So maybe that was a test of the willingness to sacrifice after all,” he said as they moved cautiously into the corridor now revealed beyond the doorway. “But no sacrifice was actually taken.”

“This time,” Vulk muttered darkly.

The new corridor was only about 15 meters long, and ended in a narrow doorway onto a small room. Looking at one another, with a collective shrug of their shoulders, the group crowded into the 3 x 3 meter square room, and were unsurprised when another black slab slid into place behind them. Another plain, low ceilinged room, with only a large lever set into the floor at the center of the space. Before anyone could do more than glance at the pitted bronze handle, however, a deep, booming voice suddenly filled the room.

The words were Khundari, and both Toran and Mariala said at the same time “It’s counting down from eight!”

As the countdown reached its end, Mariala reached out and pulled the lever toward her with a loud ratcheting sound, fully expecting ravenous beasts or something to leap out at them. But instead the lever snapped back into place when she released it, and the booming voice stopped in mid-word. The silence stretched on for several seconds.

“Well, that turned out–” she began, only to be interrupted by the voice again beginning to count down from eight. Again she pulled the lever, again the countdown stopped, and again it resumed from eight after an eight second pause. Eventually the party all agreed that they would have to let the countdown complete without pulling the lever, and they braced themselves for whatever dire challenge would face them…

The countdown finished, and a hidden door to their right, on the south wall, slid open almost silently. After a few moments of waiting for something to come through the door, the group cautiously moved forward into the next corridor.

Less than 10 meters further on they found themselves in a somewhat larger room, about 7 meters deep by 10 meters wide. Directly ahead of them was a large alcove set into the south wall, in which stood a large mechanical device of bronze, iron and stone. Two levers stood at either side of the device, and above it were three tiers of what looked like stone gears laying horizontal to the floor. Each gear had eight faces, and on each face was carved a Runic number, from one to eight. The three faces that faced directly outward, towards the party, read, from top to bottom, 2–1–1.

Carved into the wall behind the strange contraption was another inscription, and like the one in the entrance chamber inlaid with bronze. Toran read it aloud to his companions:

“So honor Gheas who made us all
The Patriarchs who sired us
The Matriarchs who bore us”

While they pondered what this might mean, Korwin reached out and pulled one of the levers, causing the lower and middle gears to spin right, changing the numbers facing outward to 8 on each one. At this point it became obvious to everyone what was required – arrange the numbered gear faces so that they read down as a specific sequence. And while Devrik pointed out there were only 512 possible combinations to try, what the sequence might be seemed equally obvious, as almost everyone knew that the number of Khundari Patriarchs and their wives numbered seven each.

“That’s true,” Toran agreed when Mariala pointed this out. “But one of the heretical beliefs of  the Fhorgîn sect held Gheas himself to have been the First Patriarch, and Alea his wife to be the First Matriarch. They aren’t the only heretics to believe so, but it would weed out any adherents of the true Gheasin faith, who would likely automatically answer “seven”… so I believe the required sequence will be 1-8-8.”

“This seems rather simple,” Korwin commented as he reached for the opposite lever. “We’re two-thirds there already, we just need to move the top number to “1.”

He pulled the handle toward him and the top gear did indeed turn to the right, bringing the “1” into view. But the center gear also moved again, changing the center “8” to “7.”

“Not quite so simple as it seems,” Vulk murmured dryly. Korwin pushed the handle away from himself this time, and now the top and center gears spun to the left. When he pushed the opposite lever the lower and center gears moved left, and the sequence was back to 2-1-1.

“We just need to figure out the right sequence of pushes and pulls,” he muttered, his mind racing over the permutations.

“I don’t think it’s going to be possible to achieve,” Mariala said after a few minutes of considering the problem herself. “Not if the center gear always turns in lockstep with both of the others…”

“No, I’m sure it’s just a matter of the right equation,” Korwin replied distractedly.

“Maybe if we just held down–” Vulk started to say, but was shushed to silence by the deeply concentrating mage. After a couple more attempts to get through to his companion, Vulk simply reached past him and pulled down on one of the levers, holding it down while the top and center gears moved right. He continued to hold it, and while the top gear stopped moving the center one continued to spin until he released the lever.

“Oh,” said Korwin in surprise. “Yes, I see…”

It was but the work of a moment to spin the gears into the proper configuration, and when they did two things happened at once – a hidden door in the center of the eastern wall ground slowly open, and a compartment in the bronze bass of the the gear device slid open. Within the compartment was another inscription and a crystal vial of a faintly luminescent yellow liquid. Toran again translated the writing for the others:

“For one who honored our past, a gift – if you wish to go unseen by those with no eyes to see you, then drink.”

Vulk pulled the vial from its resting place to examine more closely, while the others discussed what it might mean.

“I think I know,” Devrik called from the newly opened doorway. “Undead!”

The others quickly gathered around him to peer down the long corridor beyond the doorway. It was very dimly lit, the glowstones giving off a low reddish illumination, about three meters wide and four meters high, with a barrel-vaulted ceiling. An arched doorway could be seen at the far end, perhaps 30 meters away, and a wide swath of red-stained stone ran down the center of the passageway, faded with age, but clearly once a deep Khundari red. On either side the walls were lined with alcoves… sixteen in total, as far as they could tell in the low light.

Each alcove was set half a meter above the floor, and contained a stone chair in which was seated a skeletal figure. The ones that could be clearly seen from the doorway appeared to be clad in ancient armor, pitted and corroded by time, the clothing beneath rotted and hanging in tatters. Korwin brought out his lantern and focused the light down the corridor, trying to get a better look at the skeletons… the first pair seemed to hold no weapons, but the second set of facing corpses each held a long knife, while the third pair seemed to be holding short swords…

Vulk felt a chill go down his spine and his stomach lurched as he stared down the long passage lined with what were almost certainly going to turn out to be the undead… he flashed back to that horrifying moment months ago when he first felt the icy touch of the Shadow, and the agonizing pain of feeling his very life force being sucked from his body. He was barely aware of the others as they debated who, if anyone, should drink the potion, and what their strategy should be, as he struggled to reign in his fear and master himself.

After a moment of this internal struggle, he suddenly straightened up, invoked his holy armor as he drew his sword, and strode into the sepulcher-like hall. His companions turned to stare in astonishment as he came abreast of the first pair of remains and stopped, ready for an attack. But after a moment, when nothing seemed to be happening, he slowly moved further down the corridor… only to find that when he was between the first and second set of alcoves the skeletons in the first pair suddenly stood and stepped down from their resting places.

Vulk whirled around and prepared to dash past the shambling things, but they were fast and very focused on him, reaching out for him with razor claws. His holy armor flared as one raked his chest, and he swung his sword wildly, panic again overcoming him. But when he had first stepped into the corridor Devrik and Erol had ended the debate over the potion, each one gulping down half the vial’s contents, and now they dashed in, weapons raised.

The animated skeletons paid not the slightest attention to the newcomers, and remained focused on Vulk, if only briefly. A single blow from Devrik’s battelesword and one thrust and twist of Erol’s trident left them two crumpled piles of bone, cloth and metal. With a relieved sigh Vulk stepped over the remains and the three friends stepped back into the relative safety of the gear room.

“Well,” said Devrik in satisfaction, “the potion seems to work as advertised. The cursed undead things didn’t seem to know we were there, even when we hacked them to pieces!”

“I’m not so sure they’re actually undead,” Vulk said somewhat shakily. “We’ve been in the presence of the real thing more than once, me more so than anyone else… I felt no chill of the Void, even when one of the things hit me.

“If these really are reanimated dead, I don’t think it is the Shadow of Torzhalo that’s doing the reanimating…”

“Well, whatever it is, they’re still dangerous,” Erol shrugged. “And since they can’t seem to see Devrik or me, it seems obvious the best way to solve this particular puzzle…”

And so the two fighters strode back into the hall, and passing down its length they systematically hacked each skeletal Khundari warrior into powdered piles of debris. Not a single skeleton raised even a finger bone to resist them. When the work was done the rest of the group moved cautiously to join the two warriors in the red-floored chamber at the end of the corridor… Vulk was quietly relieved when the piles of bone showed no signs of reanimating as the unpotioned living passed them by.

The red-floored room, seven meters square, had a bas-relief frieze running along the walls at about chest height for most of the humans. The colors that had once enlivened the scenes of Khundari military triumphs over Gülvini, Umantari and Telnori foes were chipped and faded now, and if the room had at one time held a test or trial, it apparently did so no longer. A doorway on the far side of the room stood open, leading into a short eastern-running corridor of the usual two meter width.

In their standard marching order the Hand made their way along the latest passage, which quickly turned south. Ten meters later it turned to the west, and for a long stretch of 60 meters or more it continued so, before debouching into the largest chamber they had yet encountered in this “Gauntlet of Gheas” as they had dubbed the complex. They all groaned as they viewed the scene before them.

“Not another one!” Erol complained as he viewed the dozen large blue crystals scattered about the large space.

It did seem to be another logic puzzle, but on a much larger scale. The room was L-shaped, with the long axis running 30 meters north to south and 12 meters wide, and the short axis jutting out from the southeast 20 meters wide and 10 meters wide. Twelve blue crystals, four carved stone bumpers, and two glowing sun-etched plates, one red and the other purple, were scattered about the space. The ceiling was a ribbed-arch barrel vault, five meters high at the center. The door the group entered the room by was in the eastern wall, just south of center, and no other exits were visible.

“Well, I think we know how this works,” Korwin sighed happily, and he immediately set to work puzzling out how to move a crystal onto each of the glowing squares. With the help of Mariala, Vulk and Toran, while Devrik and Erol again searched for the hidden door or doors, he soon had the solution worked out. The group didn’t need even one of the four resets the room’s bumpers seemed to imply, and as the last crystal slid into place a hidden door slid open a few meters south of the one they had entered by.

Forming up again, the group headed east once again, down another 30 meters of gray, dimly lit stone corridor. At the end of the passage they found themselves in the northwest corner of another 10 x 10 meter square room, this one with a domed ceiling eight meters above them, from which began to emanate a brighter than usual glow. This mild yellow light revealed a startling scene that stopped the party in their tracks. Three semicircular stone daises lined the walls of the chamber, one centered on each of the north, east and south walls, and on each dais stood a living figure!

Closest to the party, on the north platform, was a tall Telnori warrior, in shining armor and high, plumed helm, armed with a broadsword and shield. His cold, arrogant face twisted into a snarl as he turned to look at the intruders, and he instantly lunged forward to attack. But he was brought up short by a steel chain, attached to an iron collar around his neck, kept just out of reach of the group crowded near the door.

As the tall warrior leaped forward, so too did the figures on the other platforms – a snarling, foaming Gülvini, ebony skinned, blue haired, and heavily tusked, wielding an enormous curved mang, from the eastern dais;  and a well-muscled Umantari warrior with blond hair, a spear, and an equally enraged visage from the southern. But like the Telnori, they were brought up short by the chains and collars that restrained them. Although they were certainly within reach of one another, they showed no inclination to fight amongst themselves, but seemed totally focused on the group.

Or rather on Toran they soon discovered, as they moved about as much as they could while remaining out of reach of the slavering fighters.

“The three great enemies of my people, according to the Fhorgîn Sect,” he said thoughtfully, as he studied the figures. “Apparently I – or the would-be sect member – was supposed to slay these representatives of Khundari oppressors.”

“That seems obvious,” Mariala agreed. “But the real question is how could they still be here, alive? The Telnori, maybe, but even they can’t live out their long lifespans without food or water… this whole place is imbued with arcane energies, and I can’t sense any specific spell operating here. Could they be illusions?”

Erol stepped forward and jabbed his trident at the Telnori, who blocked with his shield. He felt the jolt up his arm, and almost had his weapon wrenched away before stepping back.

“Seems real enough to me,” he said laconically.

“Could they have been in stasis until we entered the room?” Devrik wondered, hefting his own weapon suggestively.

Attempts to communicate with the three chained warriors elicited nothing more than anti-Khundari rants from the Telnori and the Umantari, and grunts and howls from the Gülvini.

“Perhaps we could get by them if they could be calmed,” Vulk offered, even as he began the chant to call down the blessings of the Herald’s Peace on the room. True, it would make them all disinclined to fight, but since the Hand really had no desire to do so in this case, it didn’t seem to be a problem. The ritual completed, the strange calm settled over the group, and their weapons slowly lowered as any urge to combat faded from their minds.

Unfortunately, the chained warriors showed no similar inclination towards passivity… indeed, if anything, their efforts to reach the party redoubled as their defensive posture relaxed. For the next 30 minutes or so the group stood around and calmly discussed their options (always shying away from anything involving violence, of course), and waited for the effects of the ritual to fade.

Even after the Herald’s Peace wore off, Erol was still all for finding some way to bypass the three to find an exit, but it became increasingly clear that would be impossible. Eventually, despite misgivings about the true nature of the obstacle in their path, it was decided they had to take them out.

Toran unlimbered his crossbow, loaded a bolt, and aimed at the Gülvini… at least if they turned out to be real, he’d lose no sleep over destroying one of that cursed breed. The bolt struck the creature in the left shoulder, knocking it back on its dais. The second bolt took it between the eyes as it struggled to rise. Despite attempts at blocking and dodging, the other two chained fighters soon joined it in apparent death.

“Well, that was like shooting fish in a trough,” Toran sighed as he slung his crossbow over his shoulder. To the south, along the same wall they’d entered the chamber through, another hidden door ground slowly open.

But as the group moved toward it, Mariala held up her hand, looking about in some consternation.

“Wait! Don’t you hear that?”

The others all looked at her blankly. They heard nothing, and said so.

“I hear a voice,” she continued. “It’s in my head… so faint… and look at the bodies! There’s no blood…”

The group quickly saw that she was right, despite bolts through various bits of them, where there should have been large amounts of blood on bodies and floor, there was nothing. As Mariala put her hands to her head to concentrate on the voice in her head, Devrik gestured at the bodies and muttered an incantation of dispelling.

For an moment nothing seemed to happen, and then the bodies began to flicker slightly… and when they did, the watchers suddenly saw not Telnori, Umantari and Gülvini corpses, but rather vaguely humanoid clumps of clay. The two visions continued to flicker erratically across one another, as Mariala began to speak.

“It’s the soul of a Telnori warrior,” she said. “He is so weak… but he says they are trapped souls… captured long ago by… he says, ‘thrice-cursed Khundari wizard-priests’… imprisoned within shells of clay… bound all about by spells… of illusion and compulsion… he is the only one… with the skill to speak mind-to-mind… but only with one also trained to it…”

She stopped, looking up at the others, her face a mask of horror and grief.

“I can feel some of what they feel… just a fraction, but it’s so awful! We need to free them! If we don’t, who knows how long it will be before someone he can communicate with will come along? It’s only after they have been ‘killed’ that the spells weaken enough for him to try this communication… he says even a gül doesn’t deserve this torment!”

“But how can we free them?” Devrik asked, frowning at the flickering forms on the floor. “Destroy these clay puppets completely?”

“No. They need the blessings of a god,” she said simply, and everyone turned to look at Vulk.

“Well of course I’ll try,” the Kasiran cantor said immediately, and quickly began to prepare himself for the ritual that would call down the blessings of his goddess on these tormented souls. While the others watched in subdued silence, he prayed and sought Kasira’s luck, and then he began the ritual phrases to summon her blessing.

There was nothing dramatic, no beams of godly light or celestial music, but as the cantor finished the ritual there was a moment of silent peace and a lifting of an oppressive weight they had hardly been aware of since entering the complex. No one spoke even after the moment had faded to memory, until Mariala stepped up to Vulk, touching his arm, smiling through tears.

“It worked,” she said simply. “I saw them, ghostly images of the forms they must have worn in life, as they rose from their clay prisons. They bowed towards you, Vulk, even the gül, and then they turned to me and saluted before they just… faded away.”

It was a sober and reflective group that exit the dais chamber, leaving behind three lumps of clay and mud, no longer shrouded in even the illusion of life.

It was a long corridor they followed westward now, again dimly lit with dying glowstones. Eventually they came to a turn north, and a short while later, an apparent dead end. As Toran stepped forward to search for a hidden door and its locking mechanism, he once again found what he had expected to be solid to be in fact quite insubstantial. His hand passing through the wall was followed quickly by the rest of him.

When he didn’t reappear after a moment, the others decided there was nothing for it but to follow. The party soon found itself in a familiar room, with the stern carved visage of an angry Gheas staring down at them from the ceiling, the blood-stained basin on the wall to their right, and the once sealed entrance again open to their left.

“Let’s get out of here,” Toran suggested. “I think we have enough to satisfy his Highness, and the sooner his engineers seal this place up, the better.”

No one was inclined to disagree with that sentiment, and so they slowly made their way back up into the living Khundari city and away from the evils of a dead past.

A few moments of discussion was all it took for the Hand of Fortune and High Priest Horgûn Entargel to devise a plan of action. Speed was of the essence, and secrecy. The High Priest agreed to keep Gerif Urnoketh in custody and incommunicato while the Hand attempted to forestall the planned assassination of the Imperial Ambassador in Dürkon. He has trusted aides, and his own holy powers, to keep the man under control.

“I will keep him in my own chambers, while giving out that I have sent him on a task up the valley to our clay works… we have had some small problems there, it will be believable. Knowing who his spies are, I will see that they are kept too busy to think much about their master’s whereabouts, at least for half a tenday or so. Between a few trusted aids and my own powers, I should have no trouble keeping him subdued until your return.”

On the best method of reaching Dürkon in a hurry he also had some advice, after regretfully reminding the group that Nitaran Vortices didn’t work in this area, by the will of Kalos. So portal travel was not an option.

“However, ” the old man continued, “there are already several lake boats at our docks, preparing to carry some of our wealthier pilgrims back to Vespina Abbey and their road home – I’m sure enough silver could persuade one of them to carry you north instead… Indeed, I am almost certain that the boatman Gerif had in his pay is amongst them… what was his name? Ah, yes, Joreth Vederzin…”

While Mariala and Erol assisted Horgûn in getting their prisoner back to the High Priest’s private quarters, and Korwin went to find their entourage and explain what was afoot, Vulk and Devrik headed for the docks. The holy day fetsivities were just beginning to wind down, and they found several of the boatmen staggering back to their vessels.

The one they sought for specifically, however, had apparently skipped the party, and the drinking – they found Joreth Vederzin sober and sharp-witted, watching his competitors drunken revelry with a sardonic smile. He would have no hangover when the sun rose, and would thus be able to drive a harder bargain with the pilgrims (who would themselves most likely be worse for the wear) than the other boatmen.

And seeing a lucrative morning ahead, he was disinclined to take a party north, where he was not guaranteed any return business. He appeared a shrewd and hard man, if affable enough in the bargaining, and Vulk soon realized his diffident manner masked a keen intelligence. He was no doubt calculating who might pay for information on a group so anxious to reach the dwarven city. He was also extremely handsome, in a dark, rugged way, and Vulk was certain his appraising gaze held more than just pecuniary calculation.

“Devrik,” he said, pulling his friend aside, “why don’t you head back and get some rest? I think I can handle this negotiation on my own…”

Devrik glanced back at the boatman, who was watching them intently, then back at Vulk. He grinned knowingly, and gave the cantor a friendly slap on the back that almost sent him into the water.

“Just see that you get the better end of the deal, my friend,” he said as he strode off into the twin-moonlit night.

“I always do,” Vulk murmured as he turned back to Joreth.

The boatman gestured to the small cabin at the aft end of his boat, and suggested, with a grin, that they take their discussion to a more comfortable spot… When Vulk emerged back onto the dock some time later, having settled on a gold crown to ferry the group to Dürkon, both moons had sunk behind the western mountains, and the eastern sky was beginning to lighten. With a satisfied smirk he headed back toward the monastery complex.

Meanwhile, with the prisoner secured, the High Priest arranged with Mariala and Erol to keep the Hand’s horses and servants safe for them. This was not an unusual occurance when pilgrims failed to return from the Labyrinth, he assured them. Usually such livestock and possessions became the property of the monestary, and abandoned servants were known to take up a calling or engage in lay work for the monks, so no suspicions should be aroused.

With all done that could be done, the friends grabbed a few hours of rest, although no one was really tired. They had entered the Triple Labyrinth in the early morning, and had surely spent no more than two watches within (it was hard to be sure… time had seemed to move so strangely there), and despite the missing days their bodies felt it should be no later than mid-afternoon. Having the Mad God heal their injuries had, perhaps, something to do with it too.

Devrik returned to their chambers just as Mariala was settling in under her covers.

“Where is Vulk?” she asked quietly, as the warrior-mage hung his weapons on his bedpost.

“He’s… negotiating… a deal with the boatman,” he replied, giving her a knowing grin. “I wouldn’t expect him back any time soon.”

Mariala just rolled her eyes, sighed, and turned over to try and sleep… it had been rather a long time since she’d done any… “negotiating” herself… if only Korwin wasn’t such an arrogant ass, maybe…

♦ ♦ ♦

Vulk roused his friends just before dawn, with an annoyingly cheery tone to his voice. “Come on, you slugs, we’ve an assassination to stop!”

Mariala slugged him as she headed for the latrine, which only made him grin more. The others just muttered darkly, save for Devrik, who asked if he’d gotten the best of the boatman.

“I think we both came out ahead, in the end,” Vulk laughed, slinging his pack over his shoulder and buckling on his sword belt. Devrik laughed and gathered up his own weapons.

The group was down at the docks, cloaked and shrouded against any curious eyes, as the sun was rising, and boarded Joeth’s boat quietly – a fact he no doubt noted keenly. With the sun low in a clear sky over the eastern mountains, Joreth poled off from the docks and set his sail to catch the dawn wind.

The boat ride was calm and uneventful, an easy sail on the deep blue waters of Lake Everbrite. The brilliant snow-capped peak of Mt. Ratonkül loomed ever larger ahead and to the left as it became another warm, brilliant fall day, with the sunlight reflecting brilliantly from the rippled waters.

“I can see why they call this Lake Everbrite,” Korwin commented idly as it grew on to mid-morning. “The light is quite dazzling…”

“Actually,” Mariala pointed out, “it was called Darl Lake for many centuries; but in the mid-26th Century it was renamed by Hain, the first king of Gostrial, in honor of his favorite daughter, Loryn the Everbrite.”

“And the light sparkles just the same on any body of water,” Devrik added dryly. “As I’m sure a water mage would know.”

Vulk snorted a laugh at that, while Korwin merely rolled his eyes and went back to admiring the view. Erol shook his head and sighed at the snarkiness of wizards…

♦ ♦ ♦

It was the middle of the third watch , just as the sun neared its zenith, when the group arrived on the stone docks of Kirak’s Anchorage, the bustling little port of the Khundari city of Dürkon. A dozen lake boats and barges lined the quays, loading up the ore and metal goods of Dürkon for the last trade journey of the year to the southern Umantrari kingdoms. Scores of Khundari and Umantari longshoremen swarmed the docks and ships in a dance of controlled chaos, amidst a cacophony of cursing sailors, screaming gulls, and pounding hammers. There were as many fishermen, all Umantari, bringing in the morning’s catch and adding to both the smells and boisterous energy of the area.

Paying off Joreth, and copping a feel while slipping him an extra crown to keep his eyes and ears alert for any interesting coming and goings, Vulk soon joined the others on the dock. Korwin had already begun asking after Trade Master Vorgev Greatcoffer, and was quickly directed to one of the nearby lake boats, in fact the largest and best equipped of those currently tied up, The Lake Goddess. A stout, business-like Khundari, sporting a black beard twined with colored cords in the pattern of a middle rank clan, was directing the loading and stowing of cargo from the foot of the gang plank. He looked up in surprise when Mariala was finally able to capture his attention. Initially annoyed at the interruption, he was quickly charmed by her  idiosyncratic Khundic, and smiled indulgently upon her, if not her companions, when he learned what she sought.

“I’m afraid Master Greatcoffer is not presently here, mistress,” he informed her, tucking his manifest temporarily under one arm and rocking back on his heels to look up at her. “He’s up in the Inner City, attending an official reception at the command of the Prince – one of the responsibilities of important men such as he, however much it might conflict with business. But it’s an honor of course, and the master has me to oversee the work… can I perhaps be of service to such a lovely lady in his stead?”

“I’m fearing my business is for hearing his ears alone, good sir, though I thank you for your much courtesy,” Mariala replied, flashing him a demure smile of her own. “But what of this official reception speaking you say? I am but newly present…”

“Ah yes, of course you’d not know, mistress, but an ambassador has only recently arrived from the Ocean Empire, a Khundari lord from the Imperial Princedom of Lakzhan they say, and Prince Rhoghûn will receive him before the Court this very noon… however many of his own folk wish he wouldn’t,” he added soto voce.  He then squinted up at the sun, and nodded. “In fact I expect the ceremony will begin quite soon –it’s almost noon now!”

With hasty thanks and assurances that she would see out Master Greatcoffer later in the day, Mariala and the others retreated towards the relative privacy of an alley between two warehouses. It was agreed they could waste no more time – although they didn’t know with certainty when the assassination was scheduled to occur, it was obvious that the most damning time, creating the most chaos and ill will, would be during the public ceremony. Vulk dug from his pack the Letter of Transit that Lekorm Darkeye had given him, granting the group free passage through the lands held by Dürkon and inviting them to an audience with the Prince, and they began to make their way to the city gates.

The road from the docks was straight and wide, a great stone-paved course, leading steadily uphill just over a kilometer to the sheer cliffs of the eastern foothills of Mt. Ratonkül. Ahead of them the snow-capped mountain loomed, and on either side clustered the homes and businesses of the Umantari subjects of the dwarven prince. The road ended in a great plaza at the foot of a sheer wall of granite that soared upward for over 200 meters, and a massive gate of stone and steel that guarded the entrance to the great underground city itself. Ten meters wide and 30 meters tall, at this hour the gates stood open with two Khundari warriors standing sentry. Each was fully armored in shining mail and plate, tall helms on their heads and lofty spears held firmly at rest.

As the Hand approached the gate both guards stepped forward and brought their spears down in unison to block their path.

“Who are you, Umantari, who seek to enter the Inner City of Prince Rhoghûn?” the shorter, and apparently senior, of the two barked as they came to a halt.

“We are friends of Lekorm Darkeye, Captain of the Shadow Guard,” Vulk replied in his best herald’s voice, stepping forward and offering their papers. “And invited guests of his Highness, Prince Rhoghûn.”

The guard commander looked briefly shocked, and for a moment Vulk thought he would refuse to take the proffered documents. But gathering his dignity the man frowned and reached to take them, snorting and harrumphing as he looked them over. His junior partner, looking considerably more impressed at the relationship they claimed with the head of his ruler’s personal guard, peered over his shoulder. After several minutes of examination, holding them up to the light, fingering the paper, and glaring suspiciously at each of the humans, the guard sergeant finally handed the papers back to Vulk.

“Well, they seem all in order,” he admitted, his tone implying otherwise. “But now is not a time for foreigners to be entering the city… a great ceremony is about to take place…”

“Yes, and it is that ceremony were are here to attend.” Vulk said in exasperation. “We were delayed in our travels, true, but are here in time, you must let us pass.”

The sergeant put up further arguments and excuses, to the increasing dismay of his partner, who finally coughed politely and touched his senior on the shoulder. “But Hargên, they have papers from the Shadow Commander himself, with his signature and seal. If you – we – keep them from something the Prince has invited them to attend…” he trailed off suggestively.

“The papers don’t say anything about the reception for the Imperial Envoy,” Hargên pointed out. “But fine Bhergan, I’ll not take it on myself to gainsay the orders of Darkeye.”

As everyone relaxed, prepared to continue on into the city, he added, “But I will also not let strangers into the city at such a time without specific orders from my own commander. You will wait here while I seek approval.”

Before anyone could react to this he whirled around and headed into the city, motioning for another guard in the shadows of the gate to take his place. The new guard threw a quizzical look at Bhergan, who looked rather embarrassed.

“I’m sorry about this,” he smiled apologetically at the human party, “I don’t know what’s gotten into the sergeant today. But I’m sure he’ll get it all straightened out in a few minutes… the Gate Commander is not far…”

But as the minutes crawled slowly past, and the sun rose ever closer to noon, it became increasingly obvious that Hargên would not be returning soon. It took very little effort on the part of Vulk to convince the remaining guard that he should let them pass. He didn’t even have to resort to using Abon’s Authority. The warrior was unwilling to desert his post, but more than happy to give them instructions to the audience chamber where the reception was, perhaps even now, taking place. With a wave of thanks the group hurried through the gate and entered the underground city of Dürkon.

The great plaza outside was mirrored by an identical one inside, from which various great halls lead off in eight directions. Immense lamps of bronze and crystal lit the passageways, and broad steps led either up or down. Taking the third passage on the right, as instructed, the Hand headed upward, making their way through the crowds of Khuindari going about their daily business. Many stared at the Umantari visitors with varying shades of curiosity or hostility, but most simply ignored them.

Lesser halls branched off, and great landings jutted out from some stairways, providing platforms from which, apparently, speeches could be made. One of these was being put to just such a use, and a great crowd of Khundari had gathered to listen to a grey-bearded fellow harangue and lecture them. As far as Mariala could make out, it was some anti-Imperial screed, with not a little Umantari-baiting thrown in. The crowd seemed about evenly divided in mocking or cheering the man’s pronouncements, but in either case rather restless. They were blocking the way, but Mariala assured the others that it would be best to go around, not through…

It took some meandering through a two-level shoping arcade/market square and some side passages, but eventually the group found themselves approaching the bronze gates of the Carnelian Reception Room. And who should they find there before them, but Guard Sergeant Hargên. The man was red in the face and blustering, in obvious argument with an ornately dressed older Khundari carrying a staff of office, who blocked his way.

“But I must get in, I have a vital message for Master Greatcoffer, it’s of the first importance –”

“I don’t care how important it is, sergeant,” the older man replied somewhat testily, “the ceremony is about to begin, and as Butler of the Chamber it is my responsibility, one of many, to see that no one interrupts it simply to carry messages that can wait for an hour. So, unless the city is under attack, leave me to my business, and go attend to your own… which I believe is at the Lake Gate, is it not?”

Before the enraged guard could argue further, Vulk stepped forward and addressed the court functionary himself.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but we are guests of the Captain of the Shadow Guard and of the Prince… I apoligize for our tardiness, but we were delayed at the city gates by certain… officious and overly zealous persons.” He stared pointedly at Hargên as he handed the Butler of the Chamber their papers. The man looked displeased to have yet more gate crashers to deal with, until he had scanned the documents and noted seal and signature. Then his countenance cleared and he made a small bow toward Vulk.

“I can’t imagine why you were so delayed, Cantor,” he sniffed, not even looking at the chagrined sergeant. “Your papers are entirely in order. If you hurry you might yet take your places before Ambassador Grimbold enters…” Even as he spoke he was turning to the bronze gates and lifting a key from the bunch hanging from his belt, unlocking them. With a flourish he waved the humans into the large room beyond, while blocking Hargên from following. The soldier gave a hiss of frustration and turned to stalk away.

“Across the banquet hall and down that corridor,” the Butler motioned them in the right direction. “Now excuse me, I have the final preparations for the feast to follow to oversee.” With that he bustled off to correct a menial who was placing a silver utensil on the wrong side of a plate…

But even as they hurried across the table-crowded room, they could see down the hall ahead the Imperial party leaving the vesting chamber where they had been preparing, and entering the audience chamber. By the time they reached the entrance to the Carnelian Reception Room, the Ambassador was already in the Speakers Circle before the dais where Prince Rhoghûn was seated, and making his formal greeting to the ruler. To either side of the Prince, along the back wall of the chamber and between the pillars that line it, were ranged eight Shadow Warriors of the Prince’s personal guard, two on the dais on either side of him, the others on the main floor. The Hand recognized some of the Shadow Guard from their earlier encounter, while others were new to them.

Just inside the Hall they were intercepted by Captain Darkeye, who was clearly surprised to see them, and somewhat confused at their presence at this particular moment. But even as Vulk began an urgent, whispered explanation, events began to spin out of control. As the Prince began his own greeting to Ambassador Grimbold, two of the Shadow Guard stepped forward from either side of the dais, raising their cross-bows, slamming bolts into place, and firing, all in one fluid motion. One of Grimbold’s bodyguards leapt forward, taking a bolt in the chest, while the Ambassador himself blocked the second bolt with his Staff of Office, his reflexes as sharp as ever.

Even as Lekorm was screaming orders to protect the Prince and drawing his own weapon and rushing forward to protect the Ambassador, the two Shadow Guards next to the Prince had leapt to his side, alert and tightly strung, shielding him from attack; in moments they had hustled him out the concealed door behind the throne. Vulk and Korwin scanned the suddenly roiled crowd for any sign of Arlun, the architect of this madness, while Devrik and Erol moved after Lekorm to engage the renegade Shadow Warrriors. These had dropped their cross-bows and drawn their ceremonial axes as they moved forward to attack the Imperial envoy and his party. Mariala began to summon the energies to cast her Fire Nerves spell.

But even as the fight swirled around them, and the panicked crowed tried to flee the room from the single entrance, Vulk and Korwin spotted one figure moving purposefully away from the crowd toward the western wall of the room. He wasn’t Arlun, to be sure, as he was clearly a Khundari, but for all they knew it might be his catspaw, Vorgev Greatcoffer. They moved to intercept him, struggling against the crowd, and yelled for the remaining Shadow Guards nearby to stop him. Whether he heard their calls, or simply found the man’s actions suspicious on his own, the Guard in the far left position dashed forward, even as the fleeing man reached the wall and activated a hidden door there.

Before he could enter the secret passage the mystery man found himself on the floor, the guard’s hands clutching at his clothes to gain a grip and pin him. In this the guard succeeded, and he felt something give – with a start that caused him to lose his grip he saw the man beneath him suddenly change from Khundari to Umantari, and found himself holding a bone-carved amulet of some sort, on a leather thong. Before he could regain a hold on his prisoner, however, a movement in the corner of his eye caused him to turn his head just in time to avoid the full impact of a savage blow from behind. Stars flared behind his eyes, and darkness swallowed him for a moment.

As they fought through the crowd Vulk and Korwin had seen the supposed Kundari shift into the known and despised form of Arlun Parek. As his accomplice, yet another of the Shadow Guard, helped him to his feet and toward the secret passage, Vulk called out to Devrik and the others. “It’s Arlun! We can’t let him escape!”

But already their nemesis was gone, the hidden door swinging shut behind him, and Vulk knew it would take time to find the trigger mechanism, time Parek would surely use to good advantage. Even as he broke free of the crowd  the door was almost closed – and then the stunned guard was on his knees and sliding his dagger across the floor into the narrow opening, wedging the door open!

As Devrik and the others hurried towards Vulk and Korwin, the other Shadow renegades being subdued and in Lekorm’s custody. Unable to pursue himself, the Shadow Guard commander called out to his man, “They’re friends, Toran! Go with them, help them, we need that man alive if possible – but kill him if there’s any chance he’ll escape the City!”

Vulk and Korwin had pulled the dazed Khundari to his feet by this time, and the man saluted his commander before turning to pry open the secret door with a grunt. As the rest of the group arrived he plunged through the doorway, calling out “Follow me!”

They did, and found themselves in a short, narrow hallway that led to a steep, narrow flight of stairs that plunged down into darkness. Toran pulled a cloudy crystal from his belt and muttered a word, and the stone was soon giving off a mild, warm light. Bringing up the rear, Devrik muttered a few words of his own and caused a small flame to appear in his palm, providing more warm light. Vulk stared at his friend in surprise, never having seen him so easily and casually wield flame before; but there was no time to comment. Between the two lights, the group was able to see as they began the winding descent of the stairs, which turned every seven meters or so, spiraling into the depths of the city.

After twenty minutes or more of headlong flight downward, the stairs came to an end in another corridor running south, at the end of which was a stone door. Pushing it cautiously open, the group found themselves in what appeared to be a mine, complete with tracks for ore carts. Reading the runic script carved in a nearby support beam, Toran recognized the area.

“It’s one of the older, upper mine levels, the Third Deep,”he explained quietly to his companions. “It’s been played out of the valuable minerals for many years now, and is seldom used except as access to the lower, more productive levels.”

He affixed his glowstone to the metal band around his helmet, drew his battleaxe, and motioned the others forward silently. Drawing their own weapons, the group followed him across the tracks and under the arch of an opening into another, larger chamber. The caution was well advised – as the last person entered the chamber two armed men, City Watch by their armor and weapons, leapt to the attack. The battle was short and sharp, but even as the last attacker was subdued the third renegade Shadow Warrior appeared from the shadows and the fight was renewed. He was good, to be sure, and fought hard, but in the end he was no match for the fighters of the Hand of Fortune.

Examining the fallen fighters, Vulk noticed something odd, and called for more light. This revealed a gray-green mass of plant matter at the base of the neck of each man, with thin tendrils penetrating the skin over the spine.

“This must be how Arlun was controlling these men,” Mariala exclaimed, and the others agreed.

Toran seemed relieved to realize his comrades hadn’t been suborned, but only mind-controlled. Unfortunately, when they pried the plant mass off one of  the City watchmen, the man suddenly convulsed uncontrollably, and was dead in less than a minute, to the shock and consternation of all. They all knew time pressed, but they couldn’t leave these men behind still mind-controlled, and they couldn’t kill them.

“Let me try something,” Devrik growled suddenly, and he leaned forward over the neck of the second watchman, bringing the flame in his hand to the plant mass. He muttered another word and the flame flared suddenly white and hot, turning the vegetable matter to ash, and scorching a patch of the man’s skin, but leaving him breathing, if still unconscious. Vulk was soon able to rouse him, however, and though confused and sick, the man seemed essentially unharmed. Devrik quickly applied the treatment to the ensorcelled Shadow Warrior, who recovered his wits much quicker.

Anxious to be off after Arlun, the group explained all to the the warrior, and sent him back with the watchman to find Lekorm and pass on the method for freeing the other victims of Arlun’s mind control. Hopefully they hadn’t yet tried to remove the plants…

Toran was able to pick up their prey’s trail, and the group followed him through the mines to a narrow side passage off a main line, one partially obscured by rubble. At the end of this close, narrow tunnel, they came on a breakout into a corridor of ancient finished stone… clearly Arlun, or someone, had excavated this passage either into or out of some very old finished section of the city. Although Toran was puzzled as to what it could be at this level…

He didn’t have long to ponder the question, for as he stepped cautiously into the corridor, which stretched both left and right, he heard a sudden intake of breathe and a muttered curse to his right. As he turned he saw Arlun Parek framed in a doorway, perhaps 5 meters away, a leather pack slung over one shoulder. Even as their eyes met the mage was raising both hands and muttering under his breath – Toran leaped backward into the tunnel, shoving Erol and Vulk down as he did. The fire ball filled the corridor and the intense heat washed over the prone figures in the tunnel, forcing the others to stagger back as well. Almost immediately there was the “whoosh” of a second fireball, but no flame or heat.

Dazed and singed, it took a moment for everyone to pull themselves together enough to peer out of the tunnel… the stone walls of the corridor beyond were black with scorch marks, and heat still radiated from the walls, but of Arlun there was no sign. The group cautiously approached the now-closed door where Toran had last seen him, and Devrik pushed it open with a booted foot… a rush of superheated air gushed out, nearly singeing him. As the heat abated, he peered into the smoldering remains of what looked to have recently been a modest bedroom/study. Clearly the Vortex mage had wanted to leave no evidence behind!

Turning back down the corridor, the group went quickly but warily in the only direction their enemy could have taken. A turn of the corridor brought them to the first of several flights of crumbling stairs going down; after another 45° bend they could see, past yet more steep, crumbling stairs, a ruddy glow on the dark stone walls and floor. Several dozen more meters of descent brought them at last to a long, level corridor, at the end of which was a doorway through which an orange light poured.

With Devrik in the lead now, ready to defend the group with a pyrokinetic shield should it be necessary, they entered a large natural cavern of irregular shape. They stood on a platform 5 meters deep and 10 meters wide, in the southeast corner of the cavern, and from the left side of the platform a peninsula jutted out towards the center of the space, narrowing to just 3 meters. Arlun stood at the end of this tongue of stone, between two intricately carved pillars of basalt, and smiled at them as a wall of spectral flame rose up, cutting them off from him.

But the aspect of the room that caught the attention, more so even than their enemy, was the roiling lake of lava that surged and bubbled perhaps 5 meters below the platform, filling the cavern from side to side. A great cascade of molten rock poured into the lake from a vent maybe six meters up the northwest wall, like a viscous, yellow-red waterfall. The heat was tremendous, and a low, almost subsonic roar filled the air around them. If Arlun spoke, they didn’t hear him, but his hand moved in a sharp gesture, and another wall of ethereal flame sprang up behind the group, blocking their exit from the chamber.

“You have been a thorn in our side for many months now,” he called from his perch above the churning lava. “Particularly for me – you have made me look bad, and for that you are now going to pay!”

With that he began a low chant, raising his arms toward the roof of the cavern. There came a sudden shift in the background rumble. A shimmering vortex of energy, almost invisible in the already wavering superheated air of the cavern, began to swirl over the lava pool. A form began to take shape there…

“Dear gods,” Devrik shouted, aghast. “He’s summoning a Lava Elemental!”

He began to prepare the only spell he could think of, a Dispel, despite the unlikelihood of it succeeding. Behind and beside him, the others who could do so began their own preparations – Vulk his holy armor, Mariala her Fire Nerves spell, and Korwin a spell of freezing… and Erol focused desperately on invoking his talent for amplifying the results of arcane energies around him.

Suddenly there was another change in the thrumming of the air in the chamber – it ratcheted up to a high-piched whine for a moment, and then seemed to implode in a great “whomp” that was more felt than heard. In that instant the vaguely humanoid shape forming in the lava suddenly lost its form, collapsing into itself in a whirpool of molten rock. Arlun staggered on his stony perch, and turned to stare in shock as his summoning disintegrated. But his shock quickly turned to fear as the maelstrom of lava, instead of tamping down, grew ever larger and deeper.

A wind sprang up in the cavern, blowing toward the expanding maw of elemental energy, whipping the clothes of those on the stone platform about them, and staggering the lighter figures. Arlun, much closer to the vortex, grasped at one of the pillars next to him, but the stone was smooth and worn with age – despite the carvings he could gain no purchase, and began sliding toward the edge of the stone pier, his robes and cloak snapping out ahead of him like the pennants on a ship in a gale. He fell to his knees, scrabbling at the paving stones, but here again he could find no hold. Suddenly, with a shriek of combined fury and despair, he was pulled into the air and plunged down into the heart of the maelstrom.

In an instant he was gone, and in a blinding flash the swirling whirlpool collapsed in on itself, sending a great gout of molten stone straight up to splash against the cavern’s ceiling. With Arlun no longer there to sustain them, the walls of ethereal fire had vanished, and the Hand beat a hasty retreat from the cavern as gobbets of liquid rock began to rain down around them.

Once safe in the relative coolness of the long stone corridor, they turned to one another in amazement and relief, and began to talk all at once.

“What the Void just happened?!”

“Is he dead, or did he escape again?”

“Did you see his face? Hear that scream?”

“Was that you, Devrik?”

“What happened?!”

Erol’s voice cut through the babble after a moment.

“I think it might have been me, actually.” They all turned to stare at the former gladiator. He shrugged and looked a little embarrassed. “I was trying to summon up my ability to boost your spells, you see… and I’m learning to tell when it works, I get this sort of… shock, or thrill, under my breastbone… and I sure felt it this time! I’m not sure, but I think that it affected Arlun’s spell… none of your spells could have been active yet, right?”

Mariala and Devrik laughed in sudden understanding, as did Korwin after a moment’s chagrin. They explained to the others the process of summoning or creating an elemental creature, and how it opened a pin-prick into another dimension, through which was summoned an intelligence to animate matter in this world. When Erol’s ability suddenly increased the power of Arlun’s spell, it ripped open a much large portal into the elemental plane, and rather than bringing something here, it sucked him from here to there… whether or not the mage could have survived the journey was uncertain, but it seemed unlikely.

With Arlun beyond the reach of any mortal justice, the group went back to the torched room that seemed to have been his quarters when he was in the City, to see if anything could be salvaged. After an hour of sifting through the charred remains of desk, shelves and bed, they found only a handful of items… in a scorched box of ivory, three pieces of jewelry: a silver ring set with a carved onyx stone, surrounded by four faceted black crystals, a broach of silver adorned with 5 cut amethyst, and a jade pendant carved in the shape of a cat’s head, in the style of Azdankür, hung from a silver chain; on the floor behind the remains of the desk, a brass ring, etched in an interlocking Torkel pattern, and a leather pouch containing two ivory earrings, each set with a single carnelian stone, in the style of the southern Ukalis kingdoms.

But the most important find might have been the three documents to survive the conflagration. Two were found together, at the center of a large folio of papers, and were only lightly singed around the edges – they appeared to be spell descriptions of the Yalva convocation, and Devrik took to them hungrily. The last document was found tucked into the charred remains of a notebook… more heavily damaged than the spell treatises, it was nonetheless readable, and proved to be a transaction record for the sale of 100 broadswords and 100 cross-bows, made by a Dürkonian weapon smith, brokered by one Vergov Greatcoffer, and shipped south to Kar Lakona two months earlier.

“But it is illegal to sell cross-bows to the Umantari!” Toran declared when had scanned the paper. “And Kar Lakona is the Republic’s fortress on the shores of Lake Everbrite, their trading hub with us…This must be reported to the Prince at once!”

“Yes,” Vulk agreed. “I think there’s going to be a great deal of housecleaning in Dürkon this autumn. I wonder if they managed to take Arlun’s agent, this Greatcoffer, alive? We’d better get back to City and fill the authorities in on what we’ve found…”