The room in which they stood might once have been a monster's fighting arena, with stone floors that sloped gradually down to a pit at the center. The remains of sigils drawn in crimson paint around the pit indicated a ward of some kind, perhaps a summoning circle.
Four statues of rusted, broken armor stood at the corners of the room, two shattered beyond the faintest possibility of repair, and the others propped against the wall like inebriated knights set there by obedient squires and left to rust by those less loyal. Six doors led from this chamber.
"What do you suppose-?" Liet started.
In retrospect, Twilight should have seen it coming.
"Whee!" Slip exclaimed, sliding down the slope to the bottom of the shallow pit. She bounced and landed face down with a great "oof!" and moved no more.
"Are you well?" shouted Liet.
"Oh aye!" Slip called back. "My face broke my fall!"
"Pity," Davoren murmured.
He might have said more, but there was a sudden creak of metal too long left to mold and dust. The two statues that still resembled upright people shuddered into motion.
Too late, Twilight understood the significance of the statues. Too late, she realized what would trigger their purpose: a creature at the center of the circle when the runes of protection were not operating. Wizards sometimes kept guardians for just such an occasion, particularly when they summoned creatures strongly resistant to magic.
"Slip!" she shouted. "Run! The-!"
That was as far as she got before the first of the helmed horrors drew its rusty blade and lunged at her. The weapon burst into flames as the creature charged.
Everything seemed to happen at once, in that moment. Twilight rolled away from the one that swung at her, only to see Liet stumble into its path and be dashed to the ground. Gargan leaped upon one of the horrors as it loomed over Davoren and Taslin, his acid-coated sword smashing it. Slip blinked, transfixed by the statues' sudden movements, and screamed.
That doesn't help, thought Twilight as she dived between a pair of armored legs. With an upturned wrist and a dip, she thrust her rapier up through the monstrosity's breastplate, an angled strike that would have unmanned, disemboweled, and slain a living man, but had no such effect on the creature. Her sword did stab into the horror's essence, and a blue-white mist began to leak between the fringes of its armor.
The construct shuddered but did not slow. It swung down one rusty fist with not-so-rusty speed, which Twilight narrowly dodged. She danced back, keeping impeccable balance, until Liet sent her stumbling as he charged at the horror.
"Fool!" Twilight cursed in anger and fear.
Liet might have replied, but Twilight saw energy crackling around the horror and her eyes went wide. She hissed, and Liet dived just below a swath of flame that sliced the air overhead, erupting from its breastplate. She dodged, but just barely.
"Davoren!" Twilight shouted, gritting her teeth against the pain and the heat.
The warlock didn't need to be told twice. Crimson power erupted from his hands and dark tendrils appeared from the ground, surrounding the helmed horror, enwrapping and entangling it. The creature swung its deadly, flaming blade at Twilight and Liet, but it could not reach them-its sword cut just a hair too short. Twilight flinched away, putting as much distance between herself and that burning steel as she could, and the flames kissed her cheeks. As she did, she caught a glimpse of Gargan and his foe, and that stunned her.
The goliath faced his opponent in a sword duel that rivaled a tropical storm at sea. Swords flew and spun, cutting like scythes caught in a whirlwind.
The horror might have spent centuries moldering and rusting, but it moved as though it had been built a tenday past-like the deadly weapon it was meant to be. Its attacks left and right, up and down, flowed through continuous motion as though launched by an elf duelist with a mithral saber, rather than a suit of armor with an iron greatsword. All the while, the horror itself was the picture of mechanical calm, simply fulfilling its appointed task.
Its unruffled exterior, however, made for a poor reflection of Gargan. While many swordsmen fought with their muscles, backing fierce blows and counterstrokes with hot fury, and those trained in the fencing arts like Twilight fought with their heads, knowing every strategic attack, parry, and riposte through long practice, this was something far different. Gargan fought not by heart or mind, but by spirit.
Gargan's face was serenity itself, and no rage burned beneath its surface. The blade in his hand danced seemingly of its own accord, turning away strikes Twilight barely saw coming. The goliath never batted an eye as he parried steel a finger's breadth from his nose. He slapped the sword wide, reversed his grip as though spinning a baton, and slashed back in underhanded, tearing a burning gash across the creature's helm. The blade's acid took its toll upon the thing, impeding its flexibility and movements.
Davoren bellowed with fiendish laughter and threw blast after blast at the horror. Taslin summoned Corellon's power to melt away its armor, piece by piece. All the while, it slashed at Twilight and Liet, where they cowered, with the determination only the dead and the mindless possess.
"Corellon!" Taslin cried, throwing her melted sword-and-symbol skyward, where it stopped and hovered in the air just out of reach. White fire crackled around it, and the blade blazed suddenly whole. Twilight thought she saw something skitter out of the way above, but it fled her mind when she had to turn away to keep from being blinded.
A column of divine flame tore down through the ceiling, engulfing the monstrosity. The Lord of the Seldarine's wrath tore through the suit of armor with its flaming sword. A biting squeal of metal rose over the roar of the inferno. The smoking horror gave a disappointed hiss and crumbled to the floor, inert and useless. Its form fell with a solid thump, fused by the extreme heat of Taslin's spell.
A heartbeat later, Gargan slashed and ripped his foe to scrap. The horror gave a pitiful hiss as the goliath spun with his final backhand and lightly tapped the sword point to the floor. Behind him, it clattered into a pile of half-dissolved rubbish.
"Well," breathed Twilight.
"What a deep thought," Liet said with a grin.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"So…" Slip said in the resulting silence. Her demeanor could not have been more tranquil. If a battle had been fought, she seemed not to have noticed.
Liet decided to bite. "Aye?"
"So we all came from different places!" exclaimed Slip. "Through different portals!" Apparently, she truly hadn't noticed.
"Remarkable concentration," scoffed Davoren.
"Belt up, and give the little one a chance," Taslin shot back.
Slip continued undaunted. "Thus… thus!"
Liet thought the brainless halfling should get a third chance. "Thus?" he prodded.
"We all have different dirt upon our boots!" the halfling said excitedly.
The others rolled their eyes and Liet sighed. Twilight gestured to the floor.
Slip looked down at her bare feet. "Oh."
"You twit," growled the warlock. "It means we have come to this foul place by means of twisted Art. Someone is interfering with our portals, likely." His eyes fell on Twilight venomously. "I recall that the leader of my band led us through just such a conveying path, without regard to the consequences, of course."
Liet looked at Twilight as well, but the elf's face was blank. Her eyes, though, shifted back and forth uneasily. That struck Liet as odd. He felt perfectly calm, the thrill of combat fled. Hadn't the battle ended?
"So some force has drawn us here," said Taslin, standing amongst the group, "bringing us through various portals, all to the same place. The question is why."
Gargan said something then, in his strange goliath tongue. Deep and rough, yet noble. He had no idea what the words meant, but he could see the impact they left on Taslin, who could understand somehow, and Twilight, who seemed to have a sense of such things.
"You did not come through a portal," Twilight said softly.
&nb
sp; "Eh? Wait a breath-" Slip started.
Gargan said something, and Taslin nodded her head.
"It seems he came upon a cavern while hunting a troll that had been spotted in the area," she said. "He followed the beast in and-"
"And there must be more of them," said Twilight.
"Why must-?" Liet asked. He was so confused.
"Goliaths are social creatures, even more so than humans," she said. She looked at Gargan sharply. "Where are the other goliaths?"
It took Gargan a breath to understand her question. He shook his head and spoke.
"He is an exile from his people," said Taslin. "Called… hmm. The closest word in the Common tongue is 'dispossessed.' "
Gargan nodded. "Dispossessed," he repeated.
"I see," Twilight said. "Second time I've heard such a name. The first wasn't so pleasant, as I recall."
Liet looked at her, expecting more, but she left it at that. He wondered if that was true-and what it all meant. She resumed pacing about the room.
Gargan continued speaking to Taslin, who translated for the others. Liet assumed it was magic of some kind. "The troll he was tracking-Tlork-ambushed him in the cave, and they fought. Blackwyrm, his acid-weeping sword-the one he carries now-was key, but the creature defeated him. When he awakened, he was in the dark cell."
"This begins to make sense," Twilight said. "The master of these depths-"
"The Mad Sharn," hissed Davoren.
"We don't know that for sure," said Twilight. "This labyrinth…"
"Whatever he calls it," Slip said. "Midden's more like it. A foul pit!"
Gargan eyed her curiously, but Twilight didn't know why. "It's not so foul, as dungeons go," the shadowdancer said. "I've seen-"
"Stranger?" filled in Liet.
"Fouler," Twilight corrected matter-of-factly. She turned to Gargan. "What land have you come from? Where do these caverns lie?"
Gargan looked away, something like sadness falling across his stony face.
With a shiver, Twilight understood somehow. "What awaits us above?"
"Death," said Gargan.
Taslin let out a hiss, her eyes narrowing. Her voice sounded upset, eager, and her face gleamed in frustration. "Death?" she asked. "Can you not be more specif-?"
Then a long cord slithered down from the ceiling, curled about Taslin's throat, and drew the priestess into the air with a quick jerk.
Twilight was too shocked to do anything more than stare at the ceiling, from which hung the struggling Taslin and her attacker. The creature was vaguely humanoid, if twice the height of a man, fashioned out of slithering, whipping ropes of black silk. Two white orbs blazed where its face should be.
She ignored the sinking in her chest and yanked Betrayal free of its scabbard. As she did, she felt the choking herself, though nothing clutched her and fought it down. She knew Taslin was dead, and if she did not act, the others would soon be as well.
" 'Light, what is that?" Liet stammered.
The tendril from which the priestess twitched and kicked recoiled and the other appendage extended toward them, sending a dozen ropes to claim their next victim.
"Down!" Twilight shouted, pushing Liet to send him staggering.
The quick motion saved him from being caught up by the rope tendrils, which went for her instead. Flicking like silent snakes, they lunged for her arms, and Twilight almost screamed despite herself.
She settled for a startled hiss and invoked her powers. Dancing into the shadows, she vanished before the ropes could catch her and reappeared across the chamber near Slip. Liet, running toward that spot, gasped when he saw her appear.
"A simple matter," Davoren said calmly, preparing a blast of fiery energy to throw at the creature as it looked about for a new target.
"Wait!" Twilight shouted, but it was too late.
The warlock's burning power stabbed into the creature's chest but boiled away, fizzling to no effect. "What?" the warlock shouted furiously.
"As I thought," said Twilight, dropping one hand to her belt. "A golem."
"A rope golem?" asked Liet at her side. "What-?"
The creature, moving in absolute silence, snapped its tendrils, and Taslin jerked spasmodically. Her arms fell to her sides. It flung the sun elf to crunch against the wall, where she collapsed limply to the floor. Cowering behind Twilight, Slip screamed. Liet caught her and shielded her eyes in his chest.
With both limbs free, the hangman golem lunged at Davoren, who fled, and Gargan, who met its grasp with sword swinging. The ensorcelled steel, streaming its acid, caused only minor damage to the creature, scratching and nicking the rope limbs.
Davoren dashed to the wall and began searching it with his hands, as though he had detected something nearby. Twilight could not have sensed any magical emanations, not with such a huge magical creature attacking them.
"Get back here!" Twilight called to him, but the warlock did nothing of the sort. Soon enough, the wall opened and the warlock slipped through a hidden passage.
"What do we do?" shrieked Slip, tugging at Twilight's belt.
"Anything," she said, slapping the little hands away. She rummaged through the vials stuck through the laces of her belt. She retrieved one, which held a silvery liquid within. "You have power, aye?"
"B-but…" Slip said.
"Any spells of aid, cast them on Gargan," said Twilight. With that, she dashed toward the combat. As she stalked, she picked out a rope tendril and followed it with her eyes, focused, making it the center of her world.
The halfling sent a twinkling star of white trailing toward the golem, where it burst into a discordant roar. The sound jarred Twilight and Gargan alike, sending them reeling, but it did little to the hangman golem.
"Magic does nothing!" Liet cried.
"Sorry! Sorry!" yipped Slip. "I'll try harder!" She sprinted toward Gargan, tearing free of Liet's grasp.
Stunned by the sonic blast, Twilight almost caught a rope in the face, but the goliath stepped in the way. He caught the rope in one hand and yanked, pulling the creature with him. It slithered along the ceiling, diverted from the others.
"My thanks," shouted Twilight, but Gargan did not respond.
The goliath held the hangman golem in a toe-to-toe duel-a strange sight with the creature fighting upside down from the ceiling. His sword left dozens of rope pieces flopping like worms on the floor in its wake. This hardly slowed the golem, but the acid leaked by the black blade ate at the strands of its body hungrily. The creature sensed this damage and focused its attention on Gargan.
Mistake, Twilight thought. She saw her chance and jumped, rapier extended, and ran a single tendril through. The golem hardly noticed. What was one strand to a creature composed entirely of ropes? The rapier did not even sever the strand.
Holding tight to her blade with both hands, Twilight swung across the room on the rope and tossed a vial to the goliath in the same motion, praying that he understood. "Gargan!" she snapped.
As Twilight swung, her single rope slapped across dozens of seeking tendrils, tangling them all. The creature twisted and shook, thrown off balance and distracted.
Gargan spun and flung out a massive hand to catch the vial. In one smooth motion, he leaped away from the golem's tendrils and shattered the vial against his black blade, which suddenly gleamed with silvery-white radiance. At almost the same instant, Slip arrived at Gargan's side and touched his hip, completing her spell. The goliath's body showed no change, but his aura of strength grew.
Twilight dodged back and forth, twisting this way and that, avoiding the slapping ropes at all cost. She blocked ineffectually-the ropes simply whipped around her parries, regardless of how wide she held the blade. Here and there, her billowy blouse became stained with red, or open gashes appeared along her leather breeches.
Only reflex kept Twilight from being pummeled into a crimson stain on the stone. Even so, she screamed as the golem whipped her, desperate dodges or no.
"Strike it, Gargan!" Twilig
ht shouted. "Stri-"
At that instant, a rope whipped under her high parry and struck her across the cheek. Twilight's head snapped back and she spun to the ground. She heard her head strike the stone with a loud crack, and darkness took her.
Liet almost cried out when Twilight went down, but he was too busy panting, trying to drag his sword back and forth. He ran to her side, slashing at the tendrils again and again, but to no avail. The ropes were too hard. Then they knocked him flailing.
Unhindered, the rope golem flowed along the ceiling, soundless. It drew itself along the ropes that held it aloft and loomed over Twilight. If it had been a living thing, the golem would have hissed hungrily.
Liet knew Gargan could not have understood Twilight's words, but from his actions, he understood her plan intuitively and acted accordingly.
With a pulse of powerful legs and arms, the goliath hurled his huge sword, slathered with the alchemical concoction, into the air, where it spitted the hangman golem's chest. The creature reeled, though it made no sound.
Gargan wasn't done. He followed the sword with a mighty leap, his legs strengthened by Slip's divine magic, and caught the hilt in both hands at the apex of his jump. The goliath's momentum carried him past the golem and his firm grasp on the sword ripped the weapon through its innards.
Gargan's sword tore the creature in two in a way that was anything but tidy.
The golem reeled, pieces of itself flopping all over. The tendrils holding it precariously to the ceiling strained and snapped free of the stone, and the golem tumbled to the ground. It wheeled and writhed, trying to reform. Its tendrils slithered and whipped, caught in death throes.
Climbing to his feet, Liet breathed out in relief, but his eye fell on the fallen elf. " 'Light!" he shouted, taking a step toward her.
When Twilight's gloved hand moved, Liet's breath caught. Then her blood-streaked face turned up to him. He smiled, and the tiny twitch of her lips might have been an attempt to return it.
Slip was on her way, healing at the ready, a tremendous smile on her face. "We got it!" she squealed.
Depths of Madness td-1 Page 16