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 ???