by Phil Tucker
“By the way, this room’s all wrong. It’s far larger than the old grand hall. The way it is now, it should extend right out the back wall of the keep, and the ceiling’s high enough to eat into the third floor. No way it’s contained within the keep walls.”
“Like a bag of holding,” said Michaela. “Larger on the inside than without.”
“Lotharia hinted at that,” I said. “Something about the keep being a shell that contains multitudes. Great. Who knows how big it is now?”
“Another thing,” said Falkon. “You notice we didn’t get any XP for winning this fight?”
I opened my character sheet. No new windows popped up. “You’re right. What’s up with that?”
Falkon shrugged uneasily. “My best guess? Maybe the keep’s being treated as one extended encounter. It means we won’t level up while we’re in here.”
“Which really blows,” said Michaela.
“Great,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “Just great.”
Delphina finally roused herself and rose groggily to her feet. It took her a moment to understand what had happened, and when she finally did she gave me a bleary salute. I decided to let her keep the periapt for a while longer; the gash along her side had scarred over, but was still horribly inflamed and red.
“Very well. Time to test the keep’s defenses,” said Vanatos, voice overly hearty. “Come.” He led us down the stairwell to the front door, and there stepped aside for Balthus to move forward and inspect it. The inquisitor ran his heavy black gloves over the obsidian stone, then muttered a spell and sank a single rune into it.
“Strong,” he said, stepping back. “Blocks teleportation, spirit transfer, all kinds of stuff. I’m guessing it’s nearly impossible to shatter, too. Looks just like the ward over the dungeon entrance.”
Vanatos hissed in displeasure. “In which case there’s little point in our expending mana trying to blast our way out. Unfortunate. Xylagothoth is really starting to irk me.”
“Let’s irk him back,” said Makarios. “Let’s go irk the fuck out of him.”
“Indeed. Delphina, are you ready to proceed?”
The elf curled an errant strand of hair behind one pointed ear. “I still feel a little achy breaky, but yes.”
I didn’t believe her. She had a perilously delicate look to her, as if she were made of fine china and would break from one solid blow. Her ashen skin was nearly gray, and her sinuous body was drawn and wasted within her armor. My periapt still glowed on her chest, however. I really wanted it back, but it would be needlessly cruel to demand it when she was in such rough shape.
“Then let’s return to the second floor and resume our explorations. The way we operate is as follows: Lagash takes point, with Balthus and Makarios just behind. Delphina and I move in the following rank, with Eletherios covering our rear. I suggest Falkon join Lagash, Michaela move with myself and Delphina, and Chris – well, you’ve already made it clear you’ll do as you wish.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said. “Falkon, remember you’re a third of Lagash’s level, all right? Don’t try to impress her.”
Falkon flushed even as Lagash threw a brawny arm around his armored shoulders. “Come, little man. Let’s go find danger.”
“Little man? First, I’m not even a dude—” I could hear Falkon protesting half-heartedly as the pair of them climbed the steps. I decided to come right after, moving ahead of Balthus and Makarios. We tromped up the steps back into the grand hall, and then walked down its glittering length to a broad doorway in the back.
“This should have taken us to a private meeting room in the old keep,” said Falkon quietly. “Now? No idea.”
I did a quick mana check: eighteen points left. I’d have to be much more conservative moving forward. Lagash rolled her broad shoulders, cracked her neck to one side then the other, then placed the pommels of her falchions against the doors and pushed. Muscles coiled across her back and then, with a creaking, laborious groan, the heavy doors gave way.
15
I followed Lagash into the next chamber, which proved to be an extended hallway of great height and length. No doubting the impossibility of these internal geometries now. The floor was paved in great pale green flagstones, while the walls were draped with exquisite tapestries. A single archway at the hallway’s end led to the next room. Lanterns burned with a pale, ivory radiance between the tapestries, and the air was cool and smelled of damp.
Lagash moved forward carefully, one falchion extended before her, the other raised just above her head. Balthus muttered something behind me, and a disc of spinning crimson runes flew out from under our feet to whisk down the length of the hallway and back.
“No traps,” he muttered. “At least, none I can detect.”
“Comforting,” said Falkon by my side.
Lagash continued to pace forward, and I took the opportunity to glance at the tapestries. I’d grown up on enough fantasy fare to half expect the creatures depicted within to animate and attack, but mercifully they stayed still.
Mercifully, because they were a particularly horrendous bunch; if anything, they looked like fan art created by Lovecraftian aficionados. The tapestries depicted great cyclopean rooms in which strange, tentacled monstrosities lurked. There was something Dali-esque to it all, or maybe more accurately Escher-esque, as geometries and gravity were all broken and strange, such that different creatures stood on different walls, or bled around corners, or transposed themselves through each other. My gorge rose and mouth flooded with sour saliva as I tried to figure out the images, so I tore my eyes away from the tapestries and focused on the hallway once more.
“Look,” said Delphina from the back. “Aren’t those the xythagas we fought downstairs?”
She was gesturing with a curved dagger at one of the tapestries, where a dozen of the spider goblin creatures hidden in the shadows of a vast room in which a shoggoth-like travesty heaved itself out of the wall.
“And there,” said Michaela, her voice a whisper. “The mud child we just fought.”
“A regular rogue’s gallery,” said Vanatos.
“I hope not,” I replied. “That’d mean there’s a chance we’ll be fighting some of these other horrors.”
No one responded. Instead, we followed Lagash all the way down to the archway, and out into a T-junction hallway which extended into the gloom in both directions. Lagash grunted and turned right, and since nobody gainsaid her I simply followed behind Falkon.
The silence was unnerving and absorbed the sound of our footsteps. The air had a thick, underwater feel to it, and the lantern light here was tinged a faint green. Lagash stopped at the first doorway. We gathered around her, and when she pressed it open with the hilt of a falchion I tensed, ready for violence – only to see the inside of what seemed to be a broom cupboard.
“Huh,” said Falkon. “I guess even Zai-Zai needs to clean up every once in a while.”
We moved on to the next door, which opened into a library. Or many libraries. With lay an elegant room with floor-to-ceiling bookcases – minus its ceiling. Instead, another library room had been dropped atop the first, and this higher one turned on its side. Looking up, I saw a bookcase across what would have been the ceiling of the second room, but none of those books were affected by gravity. Furniture appeared to stick to the wall directly above our heads. Its ‘ceiling’ was also missing, with a third library attached to it, leading out of sight ahead of us.
“We go in?” asked Lagash, turning to Vanatos.
“Let me send Eletherios to take a look,” he replied, and the angel slipped by us to float up into the room, spinning in place as it took in the warmly lit environs and then rising to the second floor. I craned my neck to keep it in sight, then watched as it flew forward and disappeared into the third room beyond.
“Can it communicate with you while out of sight?” asked Michaela.<
br />
“Alas, no.” Vanatos rubbed his thumb into the palm of his other hand. “It must be close for us to communicate.”
The seconds crawled by, and then Eletherios retreated into view, flying hastily and with several thick slashes lacerating its body. These healed as it descended toward us, and it turned to regard Vanatos.
“The rooms continue,” Vanatos said. “Looks like a warren of them, with branches bifurcating and then splitting again, becoming a small labyrinth. All the rooms alike. Some kind of spider beast lives up there. It threw gusts of wind at Eletherios that cut like an ax.”
We all exchanged glances.
“Shall we come back to this one?” asked Falkon. “Find something a little less daunting?”
“I’d vote for that,” said Delphina, her voice robbed of its usual mockery.
“Very well,” said Vanatos. “We’ll come back if we must.”
The next door opened onto a small chamber whose walls were lined with mirrors.
“No,” said Lagash, closing the door firmly. “Never go into a room full of mirrors.”
“Agreed,” said Balthus, voice low.
“At this rate we’re not going to go into any room,” snarled Makarios. “What is this, a sightseeing tour?”
“There’s no real rush,” said Vanatos. “Let’s proceed apace. We can always return.”
I turned to continue down the hall, only to see that a door had appeared just a few yards beyond, truncating its seemingly endless length.
“Um,” I said. “Did I somehow miss that door before?”
“No,” said Lagash. “It’s new.”
Balthus rubbed at the side of his stylized skull mask. “Which means the keep is changing around us. Not good.”
“Shall we knock?” asked Falkon, looking to Lagash. “Want me to?”
“Move back,” said Lagash, her tone flat and hard. Nobody argued, all of us shuffling away as she examined the door, sniffed at it, then levered the handle down with the tip of a falchion and pulled it open.
“Watch out!” bellowed Lagash, crossing both falchions before her as a heavily muscled man burst through the door, a hand ax in each hand. His head was completely encased within a horned helm of dull iron, huge wire mesh bulbs extruding on each side like insect eyes. His skin was gray, and he was muscled in the manner of real laborers, compact and massive and without an ounce of fat. His lower half was armored in overlapping black plate, and a huge shaggy fur draped down from his waist so that for a moment I mistook him for a satyr-like monstrosity.
His first ax crashed down on Lagash’s crossed blades while the second came sweeping in from the side. Falkon lunged forward to parry it, but a second man came out from behind the first, his helm spiked and insectile, a spear clenched in both hands. He stepped up alongside his companion and thrust his spear’s head deep into Falkon’s side. Falkon screamed and fell back.
There were more of them behind the first two, a shadowed crowd right within the door. Lagash roared and threw the first back, knocking him onto his heels so that he stumbled into those behind him, and then Michaela shouted and a shield of faint green light flickered into being between us and them.
The helmed warriors immediately began to hammer at the Unholy Ward, which looked like it was about to collapse till Balthus threw out his hand and a spinning vortex of blue runes burst into being and embedded themselves in Michaela’s magic.
“Falkon?” I pulled him back. He drew his hand away from his side. It was dark and wet with blood. “Delphina! Give him the periapt!” I shoved him back, past Balthus and Makarios.
“On my count,” barked Vanatos, “drop the shield. Makarios, to the front! Thunderstomp, then fall back. Anyone with a ranged attack, let loose as soon as the enemy falls. Everyone else against the walls. Michaela, Balthus, prepare to throw the ward back up if we fail to rout them!”
The helmed warriors were bellowing as they attacked the curving green wall, throwing themselves at it in a barbaric frenzy. Each blow caused white cracks to flow out, only for Balthus’ runes to seal them over.
Makarios elbowed his way roughly past me and then more carefully past Lagash, and then turned to nod at Vanatos.
“One!”
Should I summon my Grasping Shadows? No. I needed to conserve my mana.
“Two!”
An ax blow shattered through the ward, emerging in a shower of green sparks.
“Three!”
The ward fell and Makarios stomped his foot, unleashing a thunderous blast of power and energy that he fortunately directed away from us. The helmed warriors before him staggered, most falling to their knees or lurching against the hallway walls. Scores of them were lined up beyond the door, weapons raised, eager to join the fray. They shook and fell about, and then Vanatos screamed:
“Fire!”
A massive bolt of golden light blew past me, accompanied by the deafening sound of a heavenly choir run amok, while Makarios unleashed his flaming blast and Michaela threw her own Necrotic Bolt. They slammed into the front ranks, causing the helmed warriors to blow apart in a welter of gore, arms severing from shoulders, chests exploding, heads vaporizing despite their helms.
The hallway before us emptied of combatants, but a roar from beyond the door rose and more foes overran their fallen comrades to charge at us from the shadows. Almost I cast Ebon Tendrils, but I checked the impulse.
“Again!”
Once more the blast of fire and gold, the green Necrotic Bolt. Another dozen warriors collapsed, falling apart in sprays of red. Corpses lay just beyond us now at knee height.
More shouts, and a third wave came charging out, axes and spears held high, completely undeterred.
“Again!”
This time, Eletherios kept his attack up, raking the hallway from side to side with his heavenly blast, the choral song rising higher and higher in pitch. It illuminated the corridor beyond, and what I saw chilled me to the bone: his beam cut down scores of warriors. A vast crowd choked the passageway, receding into the far distance, pressing forward to attack.
“Wards up!”
Michaela’s green shield flickered into place, reinforced immediately by Balthus’ runes.
Lagash leapt through it, straight at the oncoming tide, her powerful thighs working as she muscled through the corpse-choked hall.
“Lagash! Get back here! Now!” Vanatos’ bellow was colored by something akin to panic, but the orc warrior ignored him. She grasped the open doors, and with a mighty roar forced them to close. Bodies and limbs slid before them, and her whole body shook as she wrestled against the weight.
Eletherios shot a beam no wider than my wrist over Lagash’s shoulder to drop the closest warrior. A moment later and the orc somehow forced the doors closed, then turned and pressed her back to them.
Powerful thuds and thumps sounded from the far side, jostling Lagash where she stood. Falkon ran up to press his shoulder against the door beside her. For a few moments more the thumps sounded, then everything went still.
Nobody moved. We stared, waiting, and then finally Lagash stepped back, turning to regard the doors.
“The doors are thick with magic,” said Balthus. “As long as they’re closed, it seems the warriors cannot pass.”
“Let’s keep ‘em closed, then,” said Makarios. “I’m starting to run low on mana here.”
“Agreed,” said Vanatos shakily. “Good—good thinking, Lagash.”
The orc gave her leader a flat stare, then looked away.
“Looks like a dead end, then,” I said. “So either the mirror chamber, the library maze, or we try the other corridor. I vote for the latter. Thoughts?”
“I’m with Lagash,” said Falkon. “Avoid mirror rooms.”
“I’ve no desire to climb around a library maze,” said Balthus pensively. “Vanatos?”
“Back,�
� he said, then, in a firmer voice, “We need to bring the fight directly to the main enemy, not waste our resources on his pets. Let’s try the other fork.”
We resumed our formation. Falkon moved to stand before me, but I pulled his arm aside. The wound was still grave. “Why don’t you hang back till that patches up?”
He grimaced, glanced at Lagash, then pressed his arm back to his side. “I’m fine.”
We moved back past the doors to the fork, then proceeded down it till it passed through an archway into a large feasting hall.
Two long tables ran down its length, each with a full complement of warriors seated down their length. A third table completed the horseshoe shape on a raised dais at the back, and at this table’s center sat a massively armored warrior in monstrous full plate. He shouldn’t have been able to move under all that iron, and when he did the metal scraped against itself horrendously.
Flames leapt high from a massive firepit in the center of the room, and support beams of intricately carved wood arose behind the tables to hold up the raftered roof. The warriors all had the look of seasoned fighters to them, bearded and broad-shouldered beneath cloaks of wolf fur and with their weapons set by their side.
Vanatos stepped forward, gaze locked on the massive knight seated at the end of the room. “Greetings. Apologies if we interrupt your feast.”
The knight rose to his feet, shoving his throne back. He was a beast of a man, seven feet tall and with room inside his armor for three regular-sized people. His helm had the classic ‘Y’ slit down the front, with more grooves cut alongside his cheeks that gave him the appearance of a skull, while a bear’s skin fell from his shoulders, further increasing his size. Bronze runes were inlaid across his armor, and the haft of a spear was propped against the table by his side.
“Well met, interlopers,” said the knight, his voice gravelly as if he’d been gargling on flakes of rust after a lifetime spent chain-smoking raw tobacco. “If you wish it, you may be seated at my table and feast upon my food. Swear allegiance unto me, and you shall be gifted with life everlasting.”