A good meal and a good night’s sleep proved to be just what the Hand needed. Departing Zurhan at the last turn of the Phoenix watch, they rode a steady, sustainable pace of walk-and-canter that brought them to the gates of Kar Gevdan at the middle of the Unicorn watch, just after noon. Leaving the castle’s groomsmen to see to the care and stabling of their horses, most of the friends made their way quickly up to the Baron’s study where, his seneschal informed them, a light lunch had been laid out for them.

Devrik, however, made a beeline for the rooms set aside for his family, and an intense, if briefer than either would have liked, reunion with Raven. Afterward (and following the few minutes he allowed himself to play with his son) Devrik made his own way to his uncle’s study. He arrived just as the others were finishing their meal and preparing to get to work.

Lord Tynal recounted what little he knew, all of which turned out to be secondhand, gathered from the reports of his Captain of the City Guard– strange goings-on in the town below the castle, with strange animals appearing in the streets, rumors of ghosts and the walking dead, and several people mysteriously vanished. The only new intelligence concerned a suspicions shipping concern that might possibly be involved in moving the victims of the Darikazi slavers. Their ships and warehouse were in the Eastport Docks district, to the east of the castle and High Town, while the mysterious events, and supposed Darikazi base of operations, were both in the western Low Town.

It was decided that Haplo and the Guard captain would investigate Sheltam & Sons Shipping, while the bulk of the Hand would look into the more uncanny events in Low Town. At the fourth turn of the Wolf watch they set out on their various tasks, with the Baron’s blessing and good wishes.

Wending their way down the steep, narrow Rockfoot Lane from the High Town, headed for the Farmer’s Market, the larger group decided to split into three and approach from different streets, so as not to appear too overwhelming or intimidating a group. Mariala, Erol and young Jeb took the northern approach, whilst Toran and Korwin assayed the central passage, and Vulk, Devrik and Therok claimed the southern route.

The Low Town of Gevdan lay between two arms of of blue-black basalt to the east and the west. The western arm was lower, no more than 20 meters high in most places, while the eastern arm was both larger and higher – atop it’s 60 meter headland sat the castle, one wall and tower of which extended into the district. The area was dominated, however, by the great pinnacle of stone that rose up more than 40 meters from its heart . Upon its peak stood a circular tower of grey-white granite topped by crenelations and a great beacon, lit day and night by an oil-fed bonfire and a reflecting mirror of polished bronze.

The Farmer’s Market occupied a large area at the NE foot of the Lighthouse Rock, and should have been a bustling place on a springtime morning, Mariala thought. But today several booths stood empty, and the crowd was thin and nervous. Taking the lead, she set about putting the booth merchants at ease before bringing up the strange events of recent days. Most of the vendors appeared sullen and fearful, unwilling to talk. But eventually a baker proved not only willing, but downright voluble – Virnok was not shy in his complaints of the recent uncanny occurrences in the district.

“It’s bad enough that wild beasts and such have come into the town – why, two of the City Guard killed a great silver-back bear just a few days ago, not two streets from here (and didn’t they have a time of it, the creature near killed them before they managed to bring it down) – but now dark specters are prowling the streets and upsetting decent folk!”

“Specters?” Mariala asked. “Do you mean–”

“Specters I said and specters I meant!” the man continued obstinately, as if she’d been about to contradict him. “Dark specters! My own dear wife saw one just last night, and it near frightened her straight into her own grave! When a gods-loving woman can’t even get up at night to use the chamber pot without being terrorized by haunts and whatnot, well, I don’t know what things are coming to!”

“Um, yes… now, your wife–” Mariala tried to interject.

“Esmalda, a gem of a woman and a great helpmeet to me, I can tell you. She’d be here now, of course, she always is, but she was that upset by the specter. She left not a turn of the glass past, daren’t stay out now the sun is getting low!” The baker plowed on, warming to a new theme. “At least she had the heart to open with me – not like some of these jelly-knees who won’t even open their booths the last couple days. Why, all the standards have just gone to shite these days, if you’ll pardon my Khundari, and don’t get me started on the young folks–”

Mariala managed to stem this flow after a minute, and drew him back to the matter of the specter. “Well, I didn’t see it myself, of course… it had vanished by the time I’d leapt out of bed at Esmalda’s shriek – gods, that woman can scream – but she described it clear enough, once her heart stopped pounding so.

“All glowing green and transparent, she said it was… a gaunt, bearded fellow with a great helm on his head and armor beneath tattered robes. No, no, not anyone she recognized – who would she know who went around in such ironmongery in life? Probably some knight or warrior-cantor whose ashes were laid to rest beneath the temple in the old days, I should think.”

Erol was at first inclined to dismiss the man’s story, or rather the wife’s, as no more than a bit of undigested beef, but further questioning of other vendors revealed similar stories of a similar spectral figure, seen in the last tenday or so. Some said that it was a Khundari knight, others a great human warrior, although no one actually claimed to recognize it.

Several people also claimed to have seen actual walking corpses, however, and those were sometimes recognized. “Why ’twere the very corpse of that Nedor Felkin, ‘im what was killed last month by that run-away cart down to the docks!” one old woman told them breathlessly. “I saw ‘im clear as I’m seeing you, milady, from my bedroom window, when I ‘eard that poor young girl screamin’. I yelt at ‘im to let ‘er be and go back to the undertaker’s for proper burning! But he paid me no heed, and dragged ‘er into the dark, right from in front of the temple doors! ‘Twasn’t right, even if the lass was no better ‘en she should be!”

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Meanwhile, at the small park on the south edge of the market square Toran and Korwin were questioning a pig butcher and a barber who plied their respective trades there. After some general remarks about the weather and the chances of the fishing fleet having a decent catch today, it soon came out that the victim the old woman mentioned was not the only person to go missing in recent days. At least seven others had been reported by friends or neighbors to have vanished in the night over the last half tenday or so.

“I think the first one I can recall ‘earing about,” the ruddy-faced butcher said, frowning in thought when pressed on the matter,” was that n’er-do-well Bektram the Khundari. Er, meanin’ no offense to your lordship, of course…”

“None taken,” Toran replied with a dry smile.

The butcher coughed in embarrassment before continuing, “Ee does odd jobs ’round the town… mainly ‘ere in Low Town… and mostly bad repairs on metal-work, If’m honest. A surly fellow, and none to popular, yet underfoot all too often – though I can’t recall a sight of ‘im in the last tenday.”

“Well I saw him the day before the earthquake,” the barber offered. He was a tall, slender man with a surprisingly refined manner, in sharp contrast to the bluff, stocky butcher. “It was in the temple side yard. He was talking to that scruffy young fellow… I can’t remember his name… the one who’s always hanging about with one or another of those stand-offish foreigners. Anyway, the two seemed quite intent about something, until Bektram noticed me watching and dragged the boy off.”

The barber thought that the troubles in town had begun not too long after the earthquake… definitely by Saridás, though. “I hadn’t really thought about it before,” the barber said thoughtfully, “but now I wonder if that earthquake itself wasn’t the first of the troubles?”

“No, no,” the butcher disagreed, in that dismissive way only old friends can pull off. “I’m certain I first ‘eard about a missing ‘lura a day or two before the ‘quake… that blond-haired boy, it was; and old Randorf said he saw that ghost of ‘is before that.”

“I think not, you country bumpkin,” the barber disagreed amiably. “I was there when Randorf told you about seeing the spectral warrior, and it was two days after the earthquake at least…”

Korwin and Toran slipped quietly away as the two men fell into what was obviously an old and comfortable pattern of bickering. They joined Mariala and Erol, who were just passing on the street to the west of the park, and headed south toward the smaller Fishermen’s Market near the docks where they could see Devrik, Vulk and Therok.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Those three worthies had found the Fishermen’s Market to be even more anemically attended than its larger neighbor to the north. Part of that may simply have been that the fishing fleet was still out on the bay plying their trade, but the few vendors and patrons present seemed just as nervous and skittish as everyone else in the district. The first person they struck up a conversation with was the local ratter, a lucky break as he quickly proved very informative. He seemed rather an upbeat fellow, considering his profession, and he set down his wheelbarrow full of rodent corpses amiably enough when Vulk hailed him.

“It’s just as well her Ladyship isn’t here,” Therok muttered to Devrik as they peered at the pile of dead rats. The fire-mage grunted an amused agreement, while keeping a watchful eye on Brann and the ratter’s little terrier. The two dogs were circling one another and sniffing butts, and after a moment fell to playing, despite the size difference.

“So, how is business my good man?” Vulk asked heartily, leaning on his staff in a way he hoped was friendly and conversational. The man eyed his cantor’s colors a bit bemusedly, but seemed willing enough to talk, once he saw his dog was in no danger from the gentlemen’s hound.

“Well, your worship, it’s been a right windfall, truth be told, this tenday past. Or so I’d’ve said before yesterday… now I’m ‘avin’ me doubts.”

“Really? That looks like a, um, good haul,” Vulk offered, waving a hand at the man’s wheelbarrow. “Why are you having doubts?”

“Well, ser, ’cause of this!” The man reached into the pile of corpses and pulled out the body of an enormous rat. As he held it up by its tail for a proper viewing, Devrik could see that it was easily three times the size of any rat he’d ever seen. Vulk was less impressed, having once encountered the giant rats of the deep sewers of Tekolo, in the Theocracy of the Faith… but he had to allow that it was a rodent of unusual size.

“I figure the ‘quake musta shook up the usual beasties,” the ratter went on. “For awhile afterward it was a boom business, let me tell ya! But then the big ‘uns started showing up… which was fine, I suppose… they was a bit ‘arder to kill, but worth the effort. But when some buggers showed up four times bigger than this–” he raised the giant rat corpse a little higher, shaking  it for emphasis… and gave a shout of surprise and dismay when Cherdon swooped down and snatched it from his hand. Over his angry shouts the raptor soared back up to the nearest rooftop to devour his meal.

“Did you blokes see that?!” the ratter demanded of his visitors, his outrage momentarily overcoming any class consciousness. “That bloody ‘awk just stole m’ rat!”

“Er, yes,” Vulk agreed, looking blankly innocent. “Well, birds… what are you going to do? Shameless scavengers, the lot of them!” Devrik disguised his snort of laughter with a sudden cough, while Therok didn’t even try to hide his grin. “So, you were saying about these even larger rats…?”

With a disgruntled sigh, the ratter resigned himself to the loss of his rat, and continued on with his tale of rodents the size of the gentlemen’s hound. “One of ’em almost took off me ‘and last night!” he said, showing the still red welts and punctures on said appendage. Between monstrous rats, silver-back bears, and all the missing ‘luras and other night folk, it was getting too dangerous to be out after sunset, he was beginning to think…

“Last night ’twas the last straw, I’m thinking. Once I turn in the bounties for this lot,” he kicked the wheelbarrow, “I think I’ll take a few nights off…”

“Probably a good idea,” Devrik agreed. “Before you do though, could you recommend an inn or tavern nearby where a man might quench his thirst?”

“Oh, aye, you’re not far from the best place for beer on the docks, though it might be, er, a bit rustic for your lordships…” his gazed flicked to Vulk in particular. “It’s the Brass Kraken, just along the High Street there. You can’t miss it, there’s a big kraken, made ‘o brass, o’er the door…”

The three men thanked the man and made their farewells to him and his dog, Brann only reluctantly being pulled away from his new friend. As they walked up the street they paused as the rest of the Hand emerged from a northern cross street and joined them. They, too, had been directed to the Brass Kraken as the best establishment they were likely to find in Low Town, and the party repaired thence to compare notes and quench the thirst that such intense sleuthing had given them all.

The tap room of the inn was not empty, but was not nearly as full as might be expected given the afternoon hour, Devrik thought. Despite this, the service was somewhat slow, as only the proprietor and one young woman, presumably his daughter, seemed to be working. After an hour and three rounds of drinks, the debate on their next actions had degenerated into a scientific discussion on the relative merits of troll farts vs. troll belches as the primary cause of earthquakes, and whether or not Nitaran Gates required sentience to function.

Devrik, while firmly in the ‘uncertain’ column on the issue of subterranean humanoid bodily gasses and their possible relationship to earth movements, was able to definitively state that the Gates did sometimes activate spontaneously, and that people and animals were well known to pass through them, sometimes quite unknowingly. Mariala and Vulk were able to confirm this, so Vulk’s idea that the earthquake, whatever it’s ultimate cause, could not be ruled out as having triggered random Gate openings and therefore the recent flood of strange visitors.

But even if that were true, it didn’t explain the rash of ghost sightings, the walking dead, or the disappearance of seven or more of the Baron’s subjects, however lowly. Given the profession of many of the missing persons, Toran asked their host about local brothels, which brought a diffident suggestion that the gentleman might enjoy the delights of the Sow’s Silk Purse, just two streets over. A moment of confusion ensued before the man was made to understand that they were interested in the missing alura, at which point he was suddenly more congenial.

“Oh, I do beg your pardon, Ser,” he said, laying down the fourth round of drinks, a pile of wooden bowls and spoons, and the large ceramic pot of beef-and-onion stew Mariala had order in a probably futile effort to soak up some of the alcohol.

“I completely misunderstood your interest… but it wouldn’t do you any good, then, you see. The lads and lasses who sell their, er… that is, work freelance, as it were, ply their trade up in the temple side yard, as tradition dictates. So none of the proper houses of good repute would be like to know anything about them, I’m afraid.

“And my apologies again, gentlemen, lady, for the slow service this afternoon. I’ve been short-handed this six months past, ever since my tap-boy ran off to take up with those foreigners. Now Kemis was no great shakes, and I had sometimes wondered if he was worth half the trouble he caused… but he did know how to keep the beer flowing, a virtue I didn’t perhaps appreciate until it was gone, as the saying goes. With the disruption of the war I could never replace him, and now half my servers are afraid to come in, thanks to all these uncanny goings-on, well…” He shrugged apologetically and began gathering up the empty tankards and mugs.

“What’s this about foreigners?” Korwin asked sharply, grabbing the man’s sleeve to stay him. The barber had said something about foreigners too, but he’d not been able to follow up on it once the debate with the butcher had started.

“Oh, meaning no disrespect, of course,” the innkeeper assured him hastily. By the intense young man’s accent he was clearly a foreigner himself, though it was hard to place him exactly. West of the Worldspines, certainly… “Being a port town, we get folks from all over, and we’re really quite cosmopolitan –”

“Yes, I’ve no doubt,” Korwin assured him, if a tad impatiently. “No offense was taken. But tell us more of these specific foreigners, the ones your tap-boy – Kemis, you said his name was? – took up with.”

“Oh, well,” the portly man sighed, setting his tray back down and frowning. “Not much to tell really. Several men, showed up maybe half a year past… not sure from where exactly, but they sound Aruhsali to my ear. They took lodgings up near the temple, and soon enough Kemis had taken off. I assume hired to do for them… but given his slovenly habits, I’ve no idea why. I’d’ve thought some local widow might’ve served better…”

“What business do these men follow, do you know?” Vulk asked, dishing himself a second bowl of the stew, which smelled like ambrosia and tasted of paradise.

“Well, not as such, your reverence… they’ve always kept very much to themselves; usually send the boy to do the shopping and such, come to think on it. But I believe they’re about some sort of scholarly work… what I’ve seen of any of them, they seem a bit bookish… I know at least one of them makes regular visits to the old book seller. I’ve little use for books and such things myself, of course, but to each his own, as I always say.”

The only thing he could add, before insisting he had to be about his work and bustling off, was that the foreigners lodged in a building north of the temple side yard. A location that kept coming up, Vulk thought – the missing alura, the killing of the silver-back bear nearby, the conversation between the surly hobo dwarf and the renegade tap-boy, and now these mysterious foreigners…

A suggestion was made that maybe they should lay a trap that night in the temple side yard – either Mariala all tarted up, or perhaps Vulk in drag, since he was prettier. The cantor pointed out there was no need for that, as both men and women worked the trade, and some of both had been taken… and besides, he wasn’t shaving his goatee! After a few more desultory sallies of wit the idea was tabled, at least until they’d had a chance to investigate the area… something they should probably do while the daylight lasted.

After polishing off the last of the amazing stew, the group had barely stepped into the street when the sound of distant shrieks and screams brought them instantly alert. The commotion seemed to be coming from the north, the direction of the Farmers Market. They set off at a run and soon encountered a score of panicked citizens fleeing south. The reason became obvious as they entered the plaza – an enormous black cat, sleek, beautiful and deadly looking, was padding silently through the stalls, ignoring the fleeing humans, mostly. Instead her brilliant green eyes were fixed on the little park – and the butcher’s milling pigs!

Erol was in the lead, and he rushed the panther with his net. He feinted left then, as the claws swiped out, released the net to the right, entangling the creature’s head and front claws in its mesh. As the big cat snarled and twisted about, trying to free herself, Mariala squeezed between Therok and Vulk to cast Fire Nerves on it. With a yowl the big cat collapsed to the pavement, writhing and mewling piteously for several seconds before slipping into merciful unconsciousness.

By the time Toran and Therok had the creature hog-tied and muzzled the City Guard arrived in the person of four sweaty, slightly worried looking men-at-arms. They seemed instantly relieved to find that someone had already dealt with the problem, but quickly reverted to worried when they were told to take the still very much alive beast up to the castle and find some secure place to keep it for the time being.

As three of the Guardsmen hefted the still groggy cat, Erol then began to track the panther back along its path, uphill to the north. Although he lost the certain trail around the still blood-stained cobbles where the silver-back had been killed, there was little doubt the big cat had come from, or at least through, the temple side yard. The bear, too, had been in the side yard as proven by the single footprint Toran discovered in a patch of thin grass and damp, clayey soil.

The group decided to split their efforts again. Toran, Vulk and Therok headed north, to the building where they hoped to find the mysterious foreigners lodging. It was, not incidentally, also the direction all these unusual animals seemed to be coming from. The rest of the party followed Korwin into the Temple of Tyvos, where he had already gone to pay his respects to his patron, the Immortal Lord of the Seas. Erol briefly checked out a glass shop on the east side of the yard, called the House of Pane, before joining the others in the temple.

As they approached it Toran could see that the two story stone and timber structure on the north side of the temple side yard was actually two buildings, sharing a common courtyard. A narrow passage between the buildings led, via an iron gate from the street, to the courtyard. The gate was hanging open as they approached, swinging slightly in the spring breeze off the bay. Toran pointed out the tufts of coarse brown bear fur caught on a rough patch of the iron bars to Vulk, and they proceeded cautiously into the narrow alley.

The door to the larger building, on their right, was also wide open, and Vulk called out a hail. There was no answer. Toran moved past him into the small courtyard, knocking on the two doors of the western building, then peering into windows when he got no response. All three residences seemed empty.

Therok bringing up the rear, the three men stepped cautiously through the open door of the eastern house and into a modest, if well-appointed, study/living room. It was a strange mixture of academic and slovenly, as if a brilliant but careless student lived there… or several scholars and a wastrel youth, perhaps?

There were books everywhere, on a range of subjects, from geography to Khundari history, metaphysics to navigation. Spread over a large desk were sheets of cheap paper covered in calculations of the most arcane sort. Scattered amongst and over almost everything were dirty clothes, plates of dried food, and at least two empty bottles of wine.

There was a small kitchen off the main room, and stairs up to the second floor, but between them stood a doorway into a storage area. It was this that immediately drew their attention, as a trap door could be seen within, open against the far wall. More arresting was the fact that the door to the room had been shattered into flinders. As if a great beast had forced its way through…

“Looking at these marks around the opening,” Toran said, crouching down to examine the trap door, “I’d say the bear actually came up these stone stairs from the cellar and then clawed its way out of the room. The panther came afterward, obviously…”

Vulk and Therok stared dubiously down into the darkness below and then at the dwarf. Toran shrugged. “It’s what the evidence suggests, odd as it seems.”

“It’s not that,” Vulk said with a short laugh. “I’ve no doubt you’re right. It’s just I’m not too sure about following this trail any further on our own. It’s one thing to split the party for a little light reconnaissance around town, but…”

“Oh, well, I suppose you’re right,” Toran sighed. “We should probably go fetch the others… although I’m sure we’d be fine, and I’m cursed curious about how these animals are getting here… it must be some sort of portal or gate, as you first suggested, Vulk, but…” With a shrug he his friend chivy him back out of the empty house and towards the temple.

When the others had entered the vast, shadowy silence of the temple they’d found Korwin at the main alter, making whatever silent communion with his patron Immortal as was his custom. Mariala, moved by the grandure of the place, and the beautiful patterns the westering sun sent through the stained glass, stepped into the niche set aside for her own Immortal patron, Shala, to offer up her own thoughts and devotion.

Devrik, after convincing Brann to sit outside the temple’s main doors and be a good boy, entered and found the somewhat larger alcove devoted to Cael and made his own obeisance. By the time Erol and Jeb had made their way into the sanctum the others were finishing their devotions and beginning to look around. They all found it odd that no one seemed to be attending to the temple… even with all the uncanny activity that seemed centered on it, surely its religious custodians wouldn’t;t abandon it…

Mariala was thinking about going upstairs, where no doubt the high cantor had his office and perhaps other functionaries might be found, when her attention was drawn by a sound coming from the stairway leading down into the crypts. Stepping to the head of the stairs she peered down into the dimness… torches must be lit in the crypts, because all was not pitch black. In fact she could see four small red lights…

Creeping up the stone stairs were the two largest rats she had ever seen — each one was almost as large as Brann, and their feral eyes gleamed red and malevolent in the dimness. It took a moment for her brain to process what it was seeing, and when it did, it froze up entirely – adrenaline flooded her body and every muscle locked up, while her mind simply went white as her life-long phobia seized her.

As the nearest dire rat leapt for her throat Mariala finally let out a piercing shriek of horror and her body unfroze just enough for her to throw up her arm in defense. The vicious rodent sank its teeth into the hardened kurbul of her vambrace, and its rear claws shredded her tunic but failed to find purchase against the acid-washed kurbul cuirass she wore beneath it.

She tried to fling the creature from her, but it clung, and its stench filled her nostrils as it clawed at her… it was simply too much for her over-loaded brain… she just shut down. As Mariala collapsed to the flagstones, however, the immense rodent lost its grip on her vambrace and rolled away. But it was back on its feet in an instant, preparing to leap again for her throat.

Erol, only a few feet behind Mariala when she screamed, lunged forward with his trident in hand as she collapsed. Standing over her prone form as the rat scrabbled for traction on the stone floor he skewered it, flinging its body away behind him and nearly hitting Jeb. While he didn’t share Mariala’s crippling fear of rodents, he had come to loath them during his time as an enslaved gladiator, and that hatred combined with his sudden fear for her well-being to drive his fury.

The second rat managed to evade his next thrust, but it failed to dodge Grover, who leapt from Erol’s shoulder onto the immense rodent, savaging it’s throat. The creature died, but not without exacting a price – in it’s death throes its rear claws raked the ferret’s side, drawing blood and causing him to limp back to Erol and curl up in his pack, licking his wounds.

Erol would’ve loved to take the time to tend to his friend’s wounds, but already another of the huge dire rats had appeared, and by the sound of it more were swarming up the stairs behind it. Korwin impaled that next beast on his Frost Blade, while Erol skewed the one behind, but more were coming…

Vulk, who had arrived via a side door with Toran and Therok just in time to see Mariala go down, rushed forward to lean over the carved wooden railing above the stairs. He aimed the Staff of Summer downward and the glowing, milky strands of the Weaver’s Web shot out, filling the stairwell with scores of binding ropes, ensnaring another five of the slavering creatures.

The rodents snapped and hissed, struggling to free themselves, but they had no leverage and the strands resisted their teeth. Vulk considered what to do next… they really needed to investigate the crypts he supposed, and they did make a nasty roadblock to that end…

“Say, Devrik,” the cantor called suddenly, tuning to his friend, who was just helping a pale, groggy Mariala back to her feet. “Think you could give us a little fire over here.”

Devrik, passing the still shaken Mariala off to Vulk for medical attention, stepped to the head of the stares and peered down at the writhing mass of trapped dire rats and grinned as he caught his friend’s meaning. The flickering flame in a nearby presence lamp was all the seed he needed for his pyrokinesis to feed off of, and a small sphere of fire appeared above his open palm. With a flick he sent it flying into the midst of the faintly glowing tangle of giant rats.

As they’d found in the hamlet of Hart’s Lodge, the strands burst into sudden flame, eventually burning away – but not before immolating all of the ensnared rodents. The stench of burning rat fur and flesh was unpleasant, but in a very short time Devrik was able to kick the smoking corpses off the stairs, clearing the path into the crypts. Any other dire rats that might have been lurking below seemed to have taken the warning and fled.

Mariala, however, having regained her composure and gotten a grip on her phobia, was reluctant to go down to the lower level until she was absolutely assured there was no more immediate evidence of even so much as a mouse visible. When she finally made her way down, with Erol and Jeb bringing up the rear, she saw that Devrik had missed one burned rat corpse. She viscously kicked the smoldering body off the steps, sending it flying into the dimness, before continuing down with some grim satisfaction.

The crypt of the Temple of Tyvos was one vast open cruciform space, upheld by a dozen pillars of stone carved in a stylized wave motif, and dimly lit by a half-dozen bronze braziers filled with slow-burning sea peat. Eleven elaborate stone sarcophagi were scattered about, and the walls were lined with scores of bronze plates marking burial niches.

At the north end was an area enclosed by three walls, tiled with beautiful mosaics, and housing a large stone statue on a marble plinth. According to the inscription carved on it, this was the final resting place of, and eternal memorial to, the great cleric who had founded the temple and oversaw its construction 140 years ago. It also appeared to have been used more recently as a lair for creature or creatures unknown – bones, both old and well-gnawed and quite fresh ones with bits of meat still on them, littered the floor.

Korwin, trying to determine where the bones had come from through the use of his psychometry talent, became quite convinced the older bones had belonged to a show girl named Lola who’d worked at a cabaret named… the Cobra? The Cobra’s Bandana?… anyway, the hottest spot north of Sydora… sometime around the turn of the last century…

The others exchanged meaningful glances (and the odd eye-roll) when he shared this intelligence, and went on about the business of searching the crypts for secret passages, mysterious glowing portals, or other such subtle clues.

It was a full turn of the glass before the Hand found the thing they were looking for – in the shadows of the northwest corner of the crypts, behind a particularly large and ornate sarcophagus, a section of the foundation had been cracked and partially collapsed. The breach looked new, no doubt a result of the recent earthquake, as Toran agreed (his eye-rolling was getting a workout today) when Erol suggested it. The resultant opening was just large enough for a grown man to squeeze through, after squeezing by the sarcophagus first.

“Well, the panther might have gotten through this,” Korwin said, eyeing the hole dubiously and rubbing his temples. The psychometry attempt had given him a headache. “But there’s no way a silver-back bear got through there. There must be another way to the surface…”

“Oh, there is,” Vulk and Toran said simultaneously. The Khundari gestured for the cantor to continue. “We didn’t get a chance to mention it, with all the excitement and Mariala fainting and all.” Mariala cast him dark look, but said nothing.

“We were coming to get you all,” Vulk went on, oblivious. “We found the house the foreigners were renting, we think… it was certainly where the bear and panther, at least, came from. Up from the cellar, actually. Maybe we should – Hey!”

That last was directed at Erol who, impatient with all the milling about jaw boning and anxious to see where the hole in the wall led, had squeezed past the sarcophagus and was just vanishing into the dark gap. With a shrug Toran followed, and one by one the others did as well, Vulk invoking Fortune’s Light on everyone.

The gap in the foundation opened into one of the main sewer lines of the town. The fading light of the setting sun cast the shadow of a street grating above them onto the surface of the murky waters of the drainage channel. The smell was not as bad as it might have been, the spring rains having kept things flowing relatively recently. The arched walls and ceiling of crumbling brick were damp and covered in patches of dark moss.

A raised walkway allowed the party to keep their feet dry and relatively clean as they followed Erol single-file while he tracked the spoor of some large rats. The party hadn’t gone far when they suddenly encountered a pack of living rats in the odoriferous flesh – not the terrifyingly large dire rats, true, but giant rats nonetheless, clearly close cousins of the one the ratter had shown them (and Cheron had dined on).

Their eyes gleaming a feral red in the dim light, the rats paused as they saw the group — and then began a mad, chittering rush forward. Erol managed to get off one arrow, skewering the lead rat, which slowed the others only momentarily. But that was all his companions needed.

Toran cast Stavin’s Arrow and killed two of the nearer rats with the translucent bolts of force. Mariala, again in iron control of her phobia, was nonetheless staying far enough back that her Fire Nerves only managed to fell three of the creatures – although she was gratified to see them collapse twitching into the filthy water, where they would no doubt drown.

Devrik finished off the pack with an Orb of Vorol hurled into their midst. Two of the rats closest to the fiery orb simply exploded in superheated balls of flaming body parts. The remaining giant rats either burned to death in a more conventional manner or died in the searing cloud of vaporized sewer water that engulfed them.

Unbeknownst to the Hand, a hunting pack of a dozen Taloxta, silently approaching from the darkness of a smaller nearby tunnel, had witnessed the demise of their rivals and, in a rare display of intelligence, decided that they weren’t really that hungry after all… so many tempting eyes notwithstanding. They slunk off into the dark, and so lived to torment other victims another day.

After a brief and fruitless foray to the north, whence came the giant rats, the group turned south again and soon came upon a short, narrow corridor that led to a half rotting wooden door, ajar. The small chamber beyond appeared once to have been home to a down-on-their-luck itinerant or two, although now nothing but two moldering beds and a half-rotted chest remained.

More interesting was the collapsed section of wall in the southwest corner of the room. This damage looked older than the damage to the temple’s foundation – at least a year, Toran estimated after crouching down to study the fall of stone and dirt. He also peered into the fairly large tunnel that sloped down into darkness… although it wasn’t quite dark, now was it?

While Toran studied the damaged wall and the tunnel beyond it, Erol, who had quickly decided that the room held nothing of interest, at least to him, had returned to the corridor and continued south. Most of the others, finding the room equally uninteresting, shrugged and followed him. Only Devrik and Korwin remained, the former to watch his Khundari friend’s back, the latter to make absolutely sure that old chest didn’t hold any secrets. Or valuables. Or valuable secrets…

When Toran finally turned back to his companions he was briefly surprised to see the others were gone… but in his excitement barely gave it a thought. “Devrik, come here, you have to see this!” he called, gesturing urgently at the tunnel. “There’s a pulsing light down here!” Warily, Devrik moved up beside his friend, discreetly checking to make sure he wasn’t somehow ensorcelled by this suspicious light. Korwin, finally giving up on his fruitless search of the rotting chest, joined them.

“Look, all this dirt has been well tamped down,” Toran pointed out. “A great many feet – booted feet – have trod this tunnel. And several animals, too, more recently… see, there’s the print of a big cat… and the tunnel is big enough for a bear, certainly. But look down the tunnel… see that pale white light that seems to flicker from around that first bend?”

Devrik glanced cautiously down the dark passage, and did indeed see a faint glow once his eyes adjusted. It didn’t seem particularly enchanting, so that was good. Korwin also saw the light, and was immediately on board with the ninja-dwarf’s suggestion that they investigate, scoffing at Devrik’s reluctance to split the party.

“Oh, the others will come back soon enough,” the water-mage urged. “It’s not like they’ll find another glowing mystery light, or anything else half so interesting, wherever they’ve gone. Once they get tired of roaming the sewers they’ll figure out where we’ve gone quick enough, and follow right on.”

Despite his misgivings, Toran’s intensity and Korwin’s enthusiasm combined with Devrik’s own strongly itching curiosity, and he gave in. Probably there was nothing too untoward down there any way, and they’d likely be back before the rest of the gang returned… what’s the worst that could happen?

♦ ♦ ♦ 

It was barely a score of meters down the southern branch of the sewer line that Erol, Mariala, Vulk and the minions did, in fact, come upon something rather more interesting than a mysteriously glowing light in a hole in the ground. A large section of the sewer wall had recently collapsed, and the gap thus created revealed a moderately large chamber beyond – a chamber that appeared to be a very old Khundari burial chamber.

Clambering up the large pile of fresh rubble that half choked the sewer, then down into the chamber, they found that they hardly needed the goddess-given sight of Vulk’s ritual – the room appeared to be suffused with a faint greenish glow, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere. Four distinctive Khundari sarcophagi were set in small niches around the room, and four carved pillars upheld a central dome. But it was a larger sarcophagus in an alcove in the north wall – almost a small room of its own, really – that drew their attention. The stone coffin was made of matte black basalt and was covered in arcane symbols and runic text.

“This is an ancient version of the runic alphabet,” Mariala said, peering at the large words spelled out on the side, but not moving from the center of the main chamber. “But if I’m reading this right… let’s see… yes, this is the tomb of someone named Kordäth… the… Bleakheart? It also seems to be a warning… and those symbols are defiantly wards of some–”

Before she could finish her sentence the sound of grinding stone-on-stone filled the fetid air as the lid of the sarcophagus slowly slid aside. Jeb and Therok both stepped back, subtly shifting to place themselves behind their principals, as a ghoulish figure sat up and began to pull itself out of the sarcophagus. It appeared to be a gaunt, white bearded Kundari, dressed in ragged, once-rich robes, beneath which pitted and corroded armor could be seen. It glowed with a sickly green aura, and the stink of the grave was on it.

There was nothing spectral or translucent about the figure, however, and as soon as its feet were planted on the stone flags of the floor it drew a wicked looking black dagger from its belt. It began to stalk slowly toward the party, it’s glowing green eyes mesmerizing, a greedy gleam flickering in the depths…

Mariala felt a sudden lashing of malevolent force against her mental shields, and she recoiled in distaste. In the brief instant of contact, before she repelled the creature’s attempt at domination, she experienced something of its mind – thoughts of rage and betrayal… buried alive, but sustained by an indomitable will and… a connection to… some great force… long centuries of imprisonment… rage banked to embers, but never wholly dying… sudden freedom, at last! And a terrible thirst… a thirst for the life of others…

“I don’t know what this thing is,” she warned the others. “I don’t sense the Shadow within it, thank Shala… but nevertheless, I think it would be an extraordinarily bad idea to let it touch you!”

Vulk, even more familiar with the cold nothingness of the Shadow, was greatly relieved himself to get no sense of it radiating from the creature —but he was taking no chances. Once again he summoned up the Weaver’s Web, filling the mouth of the alcove with glowing strands from side-to-side and floor-to-ceiling, imprisoning the horrifying undead dwarf.

His feeling of satisfaction was fleeting as a shriek from Jeb, followed by a slightly more manly bellow of fear from Therok, caused him to whirl around. Two skeletal knights, chests and skulls glowing with a brilliant green light from within, lumbering toward the group from behind.

As Jeb fumbled to nock an arrow and Therok grabbed for his sword, Erol leaped past Vulk to thrust his trident at the nearest skeleton. It’s pitted sword knocked the shaft down enough to avoid a blow to the spine, but its legs became entangled in the weapon’s tines and it stumbled to the ground with a clatter of rusted armor.

Marila, meanwhile, had whipped up her cross-bow, kept (like her nerves) on a hair trigger since they’d entered the temple crypt, and fired off a bolt at the second skeleton that was reaching for a shaking, wide-eyed Jeb. The iron shaft pierced the base of the spine, shattering it to dust. This seemed to break whatever unholy magic was animating the thing, and the undead horror collapsed with a clatter into a pile of bones and corroded armor. The sickly green light at its core quickly faded into nothingness.

Vulk aimed his staff at the first skeleton as it staggered back to its feet and let loose a flight of Stavin’s Arrows. The translucent force bolts seemed to have little effect, however, and the creature swung a surprisingly swift blow at Erol, who countered with his trident. This time he plunged the weapon into the verdigris light of the undead thing’s chest. Ribs shattered and the spine snapped, and it joined its companion as just another pile of decaying bones and rusted armor, its own green glow fading away.

The heroes were allowed no breathing room, however, as they turned once more to find Therok engaged with the revenant Kordäth, who had made short work of Vulk’s webs, slashing through them with his black dagger as if they were spider webs in truth. The barbarian retainer had been the first to notice, and had dashed forward to place himself between the creature and Mariala’s back.

His sword parried the blow aimed at his heart, but as the slashing blade slid aside Kordäth twisted it, managing to drive it into B-Fiddy-five’s calf. The barbarian staggered back with a yell, his leg giving out and dropping him to the floor. The undead Khundari reached one leathery, desiccated hand out toward him…

Mariala’s Fire Nerves struck the undead warrior full in the head… to no effect, beyond drawing its malevolent gaze toward her. She felt the draining cold of its mental assault on her shields again, but had no trouble deflecting it once again.

The delay had been enough to give Jeb time to loose the arrow he’d finally nocked and drawn. It flew true, straight for the ghoul’s head – only to be snatched from the air by the creature’s leathery hand, just centimeters from its left eye. With a malevolent grin the thing snapped the shaft in two and turned its cold gaze toward the young archer.

Before it could launch a psychic attack on the boy, however, Erol was on it with his trident, slashing and jabbing, forcing the revenant to dodge and twist, with surprising agility, and parry with its glittering black dagger.

At that point the undead thing that had once been Kordäth made a tactical error. It turned its back on Mariala to focus on the tall Telnori warrior, representative of an ancient enemy which its black soul remembered well. It dodged another feint, and then went in for a counterstrike, the wicked sharp edge of the obsidian dagger, glinting in the unnatural light of the crypt, barely missing Erol’s face.

The crossbow bolt took the undead warrior in the back of the head, piercing the skull with a sound like a mirror cracking, the iron shaft exiting though Kordäth’s open mouth. With a psychic wail that only Mariala heard the green light faded from its eyes even as Erol watched, the nimbus surrounding the body and filling the room dimming to nothing. As quickly as that, the revenant spirit was gone.

“Where the Void are the others?” Vulk asked as he invoked the Besssing of Kasira over the remains of all three of the former undead, now hopefully really and truly dead. He really hated the undead, and generally preferred a lot more backup than this when facing them…

“Hmmm, I guess it’s not such a good idea to split the party,” Erol said diffidently, wiping the gristly gore from his trident and checking on Grover, who was doing well, nibbling on his Baylorium®-infused Ferret Treat™ in his nest in his master’s pack. “Although I think we did rather well on our own… mostly.”

Therok, who was being helped back to his feet by Mariala, gave the former gladiator a narrow-eyed look, but said nothing. Vulk bent to tend to his gashed calf while Mariala turned to look out the collapsed wall into the sewer. Still currently-rat-free she noted, and sighed.

“I suppose we should head back and find the others…”

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Toran, Devrik and Korwin made their way down the mysterious tunnel to find themselves in what looked like an even more mysterious ancient Khundari chamber (easily 2,000 years old, by Toran’s estimate). Most of the walls had collapsed long ago (only the rubble-strewn tunnel they’d entered through looked fresh), leaving only a three cubic meter open space. In that space a column of shifting white light rose from floor to ceiling.

They all assumed it was a portal, of course, and this was confirmed almost at once. Appearing as if through a glowing fog, another panther, this one male, had materialized from the column. It stalked out of the shimmering light, giving them no more than a wary glance, and quickly disappeared up the tunnel.

Once again, at Toran’s excited insistence and Korwin’s relentless badgering, Devrik let his common sense be overruled. But not so far as to fail all basic precautions – before they plunged into the mysterious portal he wrote a note for the others on one of Mariala’s entangled papers. For good measure he left the original near the mouth of the tunnel, using a bit of rubble for a paper weight.

Then they’d stepped through…

… and out of a hazy white light to find themselves on a circular stone platform about 10 meters across. At the center of the platform, now behind them, rose the column of milky white light from which they’d just stepped. It was centered in a circle of what looked like melted, twisted and fused metal, three meters in diameter. Within the column’s light faint whorls of shifting, pale colors could be seen slowly writhing and curling in on themselves, like smoke from a pipe.

But what grabbed the attention almost instantly, was the fact that the platform was floating in the air very far above the ground… and the ground was the bottom of an immense spherical cavern perhaps 200 meters in diameter. A diffuse gray light filled the immense space, revealing three other identical platforms floating in the air nearby, each one, like their own, connected to a much larger circular platform between and below them by short flights of stairs. The large central platform was more than 30 meters across, the stairs that connected it to its satellite platforms spaced even around its rim, and the whole assembly floating uncannily at the center of the immense space.

The stonework of all five platforms looked old and worn, Toran noted, with a hint of scorch marks over large patches of the surfaces. The edges of the platforms were jagged and crumbling, and the stairs were in particularly bad shape. The shattered remnants of what may have been a circular walkway that once connected the outer platforms floated in a slowly orbiting ring around the  large platform.  The whole construction had an air of very great age… and an indefinable aura of long abandonment.

Each of the satellite platforms had its own central column of shimmering light, while the larger platform did not. At its center was a slowly rotating disk of matte black stone (basalt, Toran absently noted to his friends) into which sigils of glowing white light were etched. Around the perimiter of this disk was a band of shiny non-rotating black stone (obsidian, Toran observed in passing) that was etched with silver-inlaid runes. Runes of the very most ancient Khundari form.

“I think I might know where we are,” the Shadow Warrior said, almost too low to hear. A thrill of excitement and awe ran up his spine, and he shivered. “I think this is… the Fane of Gheas!”

“The what of who, now?” Korwin asked after a moment of blank silence. Devrik winced and swatted him upside the head, giving Toran an apologetic eye roll.

“The Fane of Gheas,” Toran repeated in annoyance, as the wonder of the moment slipped away. “It is a legend of my people, almost a myth I would’ve said. But this is so much as it’s described in the tales of the ancient world, tales I learned as a child…

“Tells us about it,” Devrik encouraged, as Korwin rubbed his head.

“During the time of the Codominion, when Khundari, Umantari, Telnori and the Immortals all lived together in harmony and peace, before the coming of the Demon Plague and the tragedy of the Demon’s Fist, during the time of the building of the Eight Cities of the Dwarves –”

“Yes, yes, it was a long time ago,” Korwin interrupted nervously. He really didn’t like heights, and even thought they weren’t that close to the edge… “Can we move it along?”

Toran stared at his companion for a moment, resisting the urge to put a throwing star into his shoulder. But he sensed the other man’s discomfort with their position and his jangled nerves, and with a sigh he let it go.

“So, the Fane of Gheas was said to have been built in that age, a master work of the Khundari priests of our Great God Gheas, made with His blessing and guidance. It was said to be a spatial nexus connecting many different places on, above, and beneath the world, by a method unrelated to the naturally occurring Nitaran Gates. Some say it could even connect to other worlds and dimensions, but that always seemed to me to be too fantastical…”

“Well, this seems pretty fantastical already,” Devrik growled, a little awed himself by the immense structure… and its unnerving defiance of gravity. “So I’m not discounting anything. But where in the world was – is – this Fane of yours? Where are we?”

“No idea… and no one knows,” Toran said with a shrug. “Only the most outrageous of the tales ever claimed to know where the Fane was located, some even claiming it wasn’t in our world at all. But whatever the truth, the secret of its physical location was known only to the founding priests of the Dha’ghean Khor sect. Through the centuries that and their successor brothers acted as “ferrymen,” of sorts, for travelers they deemed worthy to use the Paths of Gheas, whether individuals or small armies. It was also known as the Eye of the World–”

“What the Void is that?” Korwin interrupted again, grasping Toran’s shoulder and pointing to the platform directly opposite theirs. In the pillar of light at the center of that platform a figure had begun flickering in and out of sight – it appeared to be a Khundari, his face twisted in a rictus of fear or pain. Even as they focused on him, however, he faded away altogether…

“Huh!” Toran said with a surprised grunt, and immediately headed for the shattered steps down to the central platform, pausing only to pull a stick of charcoal from his scrip and mark “their” platform. Leaping down the steps he barely seemed to notice the crumbling stone, the gaps, or the 100 meter drop they revealed, moving as nimbly over them as if on a grand staircase in a ballroom… the benefits of a ninja education.

Korwin, on the other hand, very much noticed the gaps and the extremely dubious condition of the stairs. Moving to follow the dwarf, he paused with a jerk at the first step. But under Devrik’s sardonic smirk, he flushed, gathered his resolve, and… staggered was really the only word for it, the fire-mage decided… down the stairs.

While Devrik held his position on the high ground, Toran went right around the central basalt disk on the main platform, while Korwin went left – neither was prepared to risk those arcane glyphs without knowing more. Just as they came abreast of the stairs to the two intermediary satellite platforms the pillars of light on those two, as well as on the one ahead, shifted from white to a pulsing pastel, each one a different color. Devrik glanced behind himself, but the pillar they’d enter via remained a soft white, with only swirling hints of pastel colors in its depth.

Toran, glancing up to his right, was arrested by the sight of something emerging from the violet glow of the pillar there. As it stepped into focus, he found his battle-axe in his hands reflexively. The thing was perhaps the most hideous abomination of life he’d ever witnessed – a mass of writhing tentacles and scores of eyes of varying sizes and colors forming its central mass, which was upheld by two tree trunk-like legs, themselves made up of entwined tentacles. The body, if it could be said to have one, was an electric blue, fading to a translucent, pustulant green at the tips of the upper tentacles; the legs were a dark brown.  

The creature immediately spied Toran, and with a weird, wet ululation began to lumber, with surprising speed and grace, down the crumbling stairs towards him. Holding his battle-axe in one hand the Shadow Warrior gestured with the other and sent an almost-invisible flight of Stavin’s Arrows into the writhing abomination. The magical bolts struck its center of mass, the thing shrieking and falling apart as if each tentacle was a separate entity.

The pieces struck directly by the attack withered and died quickly, but the rest began to writhe about blindly for a moment. But within seconds they began to wriggle and squirm their way towards one another; in another few seconds they began to reform, twisting together once more to form a hideous whole.

Just as the transformation was nearing completion, however, Devrik’s Orb of Vorol, hurled from his own platform, struck the writhing abomination dead center. The reassembling pieces instantly flew apart again, this time with much greater force and in flames. The burning pieces of twisted flesh mostly plunged over either side of the stairs, raining down on the cavern floor far below like some hideous meteor shower.

With an acknowledging wave to Devrik, Toran re-stowed his weapon and resumed his jog over to the far platform, mounting its shattered steps as easily as he’d come down the first set. He had only to wait a moment before the colors of the three columns, including the one he now stood by, shifted back to white. Seconds after they did the shadowy form of the Khundari appeared again… it grew as if rushing towards him from a great distance, then flickered in and out of sight, never quite gone but never quite there…

Just as Korwin made his queasy way up to join Toran, the trapped Dwarf seemed to notice them. His expression changed from fear and pain to one of desperate hope. His mouth moved, but at first they could hear nothing, and the hand he reached out, although appearing solid, moved through Toran’s grasp as if made of smoke.

A few words became audible, but as if from a great distance. “…blood of a… Kundari… must take the…” There were gaps, though, where they saw the lips move but heard no sound, and the figure seemed to pulse in and out of phase with reality. Then, as quickly as he had appeared, the mysterious figure was gone, receding away again… but not completely, Toran realized. He could still see the faintest, ghostly hint of the man. A moment later, another cycle of colors began pulsing through the three active columns, eventually settling into three new shades. Through it all he could just make out the trapped figure, so translucent as to be almost invisible, and seeming both very distant and immediately present.

“I think I know what we need to do,” Korwin cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted across to Devrik. Fortunately sound seemed to carry well in the strange, dead air of the immense cavern, and the fire-mage had no trouble understanding him. “We need Toran to cut himself – a good cut right across his palm is probably best – and drip his Khundari blood into that central sigil, in the middle there. I think…”

Toran paid no particular attention to his friend, focused as he was on watching the pillar of light, waiting for the cycle to begin again. While the Imperial went on about his theory of Dwarven blood being needed to operate the Fane of Gheas Toran readied himself…

When the imprisoned Khundari, who he was fairly certain was the probably clan-less derelict Bektam, made his next phase back towards reality, he was ready. When the man seemed as solid as himself, when his words were audible, if distant, he shot a hand out to grasp the other’s arm. For an instant he felt an almost solid touch… but even as the sensation registered it was gone and he held nothing but misty light.

He’d tried to read Bektam’s lips, but the phasing flicker seemed to blur him around the edges and he could make out nothing. A few different words came through, but were little more help… “pure blood… sigil of… four-fold path…” It was so frustratingly close to being clear, he felt the answer was hanging just out of his grasp, like the delicious peacock tail fungi of old Farmer Mhyklop, growing from the ceilings of the cultivation caves.

He was torn from his thoughts by a warning from Devrik – something was coming through the portal from Gevdan Town…

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Erol, Marila, Vulk and the rest returned to the sad little bedroom off the main sewer line to find it empty, their friends nowhere to be found. Erol, checking for tracks, seemed certain that a large cat, at least as large as the panther they’d encountered early, had come through the room. But as there was no blood, and it was unlikely that such an animal could have bested all three of the men in any case, it was dismissed as irrelevant.

“But the tracks come from this tunnel,” he concluded. “And it looks like our friends went down the tunnel… before the cat came up, in fact. I just can’t believe they’d go down there without us.”

“Perhaps they had a good reason,” Mariala said, frowning. “Still, I’d expect Devrik, at least to – oh!” A sudden inspiration struck, and she reached into her scrip for her entangled parchment. Sure enough, there was one of Devrik’s with his surprisingly beautiful handwriting visible. It explained what they’d found and what they were doing.

“No, no good reason at all,” she sighed, handing the note to Erol to read. He snorted and handed it to Vulk, but the cantor waved it away with a distracted motion.

“Wait, I’m getting something… Cherdon is trying to… oh! I see what he’s trying to tell me… ” he smiled as he came out of his semi-trance. “I think we need to wait a few minutes before we follow the others. Jeb, Therok, I think you should head back to the surface…”

♦ ♦ ♦

Haplo made his way down from Kar Gevdan at a brisk pace. His mission to the High Town and the Eastport docks had proved both long and fruitless. The shippers had turned out to be no more dishonest than any successful merchant, and after extensive questioning and a very thorough searching of their various holdings, almost certainly not in league with Darikazi slavers. Or spies.

The one irregularity he’d stumbled across, the smuggling of a certain illicit substance from Pangonia, was so minor, in his eyes, that it seemed unfair to call them on it under the circumstances. The rather uptight Guard captain might have felt differently, but he’s missed the clue and Haplo saw no need to direct his attention toward it.

The younger of the Sheltam sons had been present and had blanched when he’d realized what Haplo had found. And had then shot the young mage a deeply grateful look when he’d realized he was going to let it pass – a byplay that, once again, the captain failed to note. Nor did he see the small pouch that was slipped to his companion as they were leaving the shipper’s offices to return to the castle.

Having made their negative report to the lord Baron, the captain had returned to his wife and home for supper, while Haplo had declined Lord Tynal’s invitation to dine. He was hungry, certainly, but decided to try and find the others. Perhaps they’d discovered a decent inn during their afternoon’s investigation, and he could hear all about their findings over a meal and tankard or two. And now he had something to share for afters, as it turned out.

The sun was already near the horizon when he reached the Low Town, and he was grateful for the torch the Baron’s seneschal had insisted he take. He lit it now with his flint and steel, and set out to find his friends. A few questions of the locals, and some garbled tales of giant black cats and magical nets, led his to the side yard of the local temple devoted to the Sea God Tyvos.

He was just casting about, trying to decide where to check next, when Vulk’s familiar, the sleek and beautiful peregrine falcon Cherdon, had dropped down onto his shoulder. Momentarily startled, he’d relaxed once he’d recognized the bird – and then had the sudden realization that Vulk might be looking at him through those too-intelligent black eyes. When it motioned with its head toward the temple, he took the hint.

At the temple doors he found Brann, Devrik’s good natured hound, dozing with his head resting forlornly on his paws. The beast leaped up when he smelled Haplo, and seemed pleased at a familiar scent, if not that of one of his own people. Man and dog followed the raptor into the temple, where they ran into Jeb and Therok coming up the wide stone steps from the crypt…

♦ ♦ ♦

As Vulk, Mariala, Haplo, and Erol stepped through the light and out onto the floating platform, they suffered the same sense of awe and vertigo that their friends had experienced earlier. They explained that they had left Jeb and Therok behind, with orders to report all they’d done and learned to the Baron if none of them had returned by the end of the Cat watch. But Cherdon and Brann were with them, and Grover was still comfortably ensconced in Erol’s pack.

The raptor took immediately to the air, and seemed to enjoy the strange open-and-yet-enclosed space. Brann seemed uneasy and stayed close to Devrik, who thumped his side reassuringly. Grover peered over the mouth of his pack, glanced around, and went back to sleep.

Once the people had acclimated themselves to the wonder of the Fane, and been told of the dangers (they all peered over the edge to look at the small, smoking dots that were the remains of the writhing abomination), they began to brainstorm the puzzle of freeing the trapped Khundari. They all agreed he was probably the mystery-Dwarf Bektam, and they had a great many questions for him.

Korwin, who preferred not to traverse the fractured stairs any more than necessary, stayed on the far platform, ostensibly to watch for the returning phase-shifting Dwarf, and called out his continued insistence that they needed to bleed Toran to make everything work… to no avail.

After examining the slowly revolving central disk Toran eventually pronounced that the thing to try was a drop of his own blood in the central, and probably controlling, sigil of the interlocking wards.

Korwin threw up his hands and shook his head in disgust…

But as Toran was moving towards the central disk, and Devrik moved down from the other side to occupy one of the outer sigils, the portals shifted colors once again. And this time, out of the column of light opposite the one from which the writhing abomination had come, an immense shape appeared.

It was at least 8 meters long, resembling nothing so much as a bizarre eel, with a long tubular body that ended in a wide tail and two fins just in back of the head. It’s underbelly was pale violet, while its topside was a deep, mottled purplish color, fading to teal at the tips of the extremities. A little bit back from the head were four long, clawed tentacles, two sprouting from across each other on the top, and two more of the same on the underbelly. The head was roughly triangular-shaped, with a spherical, somewhat beak-like nose and a round mouth like a lampreys, lined with razor teeth. Above the nose were their three glowing blue eyes, each one set atop the other. Tendrils and a few shorter tentacles dangled from the bottom of the head.

As the Hand watched in horror the thing drifted out, undulating through the air as if it were in water, a wave of psychic malevolence and self-satisfaction rolling off of it, to those sensitive to it. And with that psychic emanation seemed to come a name… Lagor’enth. But whether a proper name or species name was unclear, even to Mariala.

It seemed to focus its immediate attention on Toran, who had the misfortune to be in its direct line of sight as it cleared the smaller platform. The Khundari loosened his battle-axe and dropped into a fighting crouch…

The Lagor’enth suddenly stooped and whipped out two clawed tentacles. Toran rolled under the first to drive his axe along the creature’s pale underbelly, but to no effect — its skin seemed as hard as stone. The second tentacle he dodged with a brilliant leap and roll, coming to one knee as he loosed a barrage of Stavin’s Arrows. These struck the creature full on but seemed to do no more damage than his axe.

Erol, having taken Devrik’s place on the original platform, drew a shaft to his longbow and let fly, hitting the flying behemoth at the base of one of its main tentacle-fins. It snapped around as if bitten by some annoying tick, briefly thrashing its long tail.

Mariala stood at the base of the stairs below Erol, and as his arrow struck she released a blasts of Fire Nerves. This, too, seemed merely to discomfit the beast but not really damage it… although… was it moving a little slower now, and maybe a bit less smoothly?

Toran aimed his second casting of Stavin’s Arrows at what looked like a softer, less well-armored patch of the creature’s thorax, just below the mouth. This time the near-invisible bolts got a reaction – it reared back and thrashed the air, sending out psychic waves of disbelief, anger, and pain. Enough pain, apparently, that it turned from this small tormentor to go for seemingly easier prey – Devrik.

The Lagor’enth’s tentacle-claws whipped out viciously, but Devrik was ready, having keenly watched the others’ attacks and the beast’s responses. He nimbly dodged the two-pronged attack, leaping to use one tentacle to push off and into his counterattack. He struck at the same soft spot Toran had found, and from which blue-black ichor was already flowing. He drove his battlesword deep into the beast’s thorax, then ripped it down as he dropped to the stone floor, rolling away as the dark ichor gushed forth in a flood.

The creature reared up, emitting an almost ultrasonic squeal and another psychic blast of shock, fear and pain. Even those with limited psionic talent felt that one, and no one escaped the headache that followed. The body crashed to the main platform at its very edge, spasmed once, and then slowly slid off. The sound when it hit the cavern floor, joining the still smoldering bits of the writhing abomination, was like the world’s largest pumpkin dropped from a tall tower.

Once everyone was recovered, they decided they’d best move fast if they had any hope of gaining control of this immense artifact before something even worse emerged from one of the shifting portals. Toran, after a fruitless attempt to stop or slow the central disk’s rotation by hand, took his place in the center circle, while Devrik, Mariala, Haplo and Vulk took up positions in each of the satellite circles. Korwin stood ready to pull Bektam from his prison, while Erol guarded the portal home, arrow nocked to bow in case anything else came through another gate.

Toran pricked his thumb with his dagger and let several drops of blood fall to the basalt upon which he stood, then began to recite the words inscribed on the encircling stone band… the pace of the disk’s rotation was perfect for the task. The others focused their thoughts on Gevdan and home. A thrum of power began to build, and as it reached a crescendo the disk slowed and then locked into place with its four outer circles aligned with the four outer platforms. The pillars of light all flared once, then settled into four new shades of pastel colors. The sound died away.

A cry from Korwin drew everyones attention to the platform where he stood, now attempting to hold up the half-collapsed figure of a dazed and gasping Khundari. Everyone looked to Toran before stepping off their circles, and after a moment’s consideration, he nodded, freeing them. They all rushed to join Korwin and the now freed Dwarf. The central disk remained motionless.

“Bektam of Gevdan, I presume,” Toran said, taking the weight from Korwin and letting the weakened man sink to his knees.

“Yes, cousin, I am,” the Dwarf replied in Khundari accented with the sounds of the western Greatsone Mountains. “My eternal gratitude for freeing me from that horrible, horrible trap, may your sons carry your memory forward ten thousand years!”

“You’re welcome,” Toran replied drily. “But we’ll circle back to that gratitude after you’ve answered some questions we have. And not all my friends speak our tongue, so stick to the Common… I know you speak Esparic perfectly well.”

Bektam was reluctant to answer the Hand’s questions at first, his gratitude not withstanding, trying for vague generalities and noncommittal answers. But they quickly impressed upon him the fact that he wasn’t leaving this place until he’d provided the answers they sought. With a surly sigh, he grudgingly told his story.

“I’ve been a, a wander for twenty years now,” he began. “A free spirt of the open road.” (A renegade or outcast, Toran thought grimly, but let the deception, maybe even self-deception, pass).

“I came to Gevdan Town about seven years ago, and I’ve made my living as a handyman, of sorts, providing the Umantari with the benefit of Khundari metal-smithing skills and stone working…

“But I’ve never liked sleeping aboveground, and for several years past I’ve made my home in a snug little room in the Underneath, near the temple of Tyvos. This was going on just fine, I guess you’d say, until about a year ago. An earthquake shook the city… from that eruption of Mt. Katai, way off west, they said afterward.”

His audience studiously avoided looking at Devrik, whose infant son had been more-or-less responsible for that eruption. Devrik merely tightened his jaw and glowered at no one in particular. Bektam missed the byplay entirely and went on with his tale.

“It didn’t do much damage, though I was busy for a tenday, checking people’s chimneys and foundations. But ’twas my own digs that took the real damage. One corner of my room collapsed, opening the way to… well, if you’re here, you know to what. Took me awhile to widen and shore up the tunnel, but eventually I found the glowing portal to… here.

” I knew at once what this place must be… I remembered it from the tales my grand da told me before I– back when I was a young ‘un. It took me a bit to… well, I had all that work, you see, after the quake… anyway, eventually I tried one of the other portals. It took me to a frozen mountain top, with air so cold and thin I could hardly breathe! I didn’t stay long, ha!

“The next portal took me to an island in an endless sea… hot and humid, and all that horrible water as far as the eye could see. I went inland, hoping for better, but it was a small island.. and the dark-skinned Umantari were none too friendly. Besides, who could understand that jibber-jabber?

“But third time’s the charm as they say, and by Gheas I thought my luck really had changed with the last portal. I found myself in a cave in the foothills of the mountains, near a forest meadow, spring flowers abloom. I even thought the mountains looked familiar, like those of home. As it turned out, they were a part of the range north of my old home. A few hundred kilometers and I could have –

“Well, but these mountains were in Darikaz, that pit of vipers. A dark land, for all its beauty, the very worst of the cursed humans blighting–” He seemed to remember his audience, and grew silent. Although certainly Vulk looked to be in perfect agreement with his assessment.

“To cut the tale short, I wasn’t there two days before I fell into the hands of fiends in the guise of men – a Korönian clerical sect I came to learn, the Order of the Burning Tower. Over time I learned more — that they were in decline, having ended up on the wrong side of some religious dispute (or more likely a power grab) within their cult some years past. These, the last score of surviving brothers, now moved from place to place, plotting their revenge on all who had betrayed them… but most of all on the primate of their own religion. 

“By sheer bad luck (really the only kind I know) I arrived and had been enslaved just as the chaos caused by the assassination of the Darikazi king reached the hinterland. Their country had collapsed into civil war, but as things fell apart this Order saw only opportunity, a chance to regain their lost power. And maybe more… for I had told them how I had come to their land… and the legends of the Fane.

“One of their number, a leader amongst them, was a powerful mage and telekinetic named Sevrok Baltan, and he had actually heard tales of the Path of Gheas. He compelled me to take him through the portal in the hidden cave, to the Fane itself. He was… besotted by the possibilities.

“It took him five months of intense study and constant experimentation, but he slowly learned, and eventually was able to make the Fane function, at least in a semi-random fashion. My own status rose during this time, for he realized early on that he needed one of pure Khundari blood to make it function at all. I was still a prisoner and slave, but now at least a well cared for one.” He frowned bitterly at some memory, but didn’t elaborate.

“He learned to keep the connections between the Fane and Darikaz and Tharkia active, while allowing the other two portals to be shifted. But his control of those other portals was erratic… really little better than sheer chance, as far as I could tell. But slowly Sevrok did seem to be making progress…

“About six months ago, as their hoarded coin began to run low, they hit upon a plan to make the Paths begin to pay them for all their work. They began by setting up a network of spies in Tharkia and took to stealing slaves to fill their coffers back home, while Sevrok worked to discover how to open the Path to exactly where they wanted to go – the Korönian primate’s palace!

“Everything seemed to be going Sevrok’s way… until the 11th of this month. Gheas, please tell me it’s still Sarnia! I can’t have been trapped more than a tenday, could I?” He looked briefly panicked, until reassured it was only the 22nd of the month. He let out a deep breath and continued.

“Most of the brothers in Tharkia were in Zurhan that day to gather the latest harvest of slaves (they’d begun taking special orders from “clients”) and collect the reports of their spies. How they slipped up, I don’t know, but the King’s men apparently laid an ambush for them in the tavern they used for these meetings, and the ring was exposed and broken up.

“The only reason I know this was that a single member of the Order in Tharkia not taken or killed was an idiotic young acolyte, named Kemis. They’d recruited him as a local face for their mundane business, and had eventually come to use him as a native decoy to lure victims into slavery in the capital. The boy fled back to Gevdan after the debacle at the Mermaid’s Song Inn, and found me.

“And once he’d told his breathless tale, I saw my chance. Oh don’t look at me like that, cousin. Yes, they’d left me free in Gevdan, had done so for months. But there are other restraints besides the physical, and Sevrok’s hooks were deep. There was no escaping from them, except through death. My own, I’d always thought, but now I realized their deaths would serve me just as well. As long as I could stay out of the hands of the few remaining brothers in Darikaz!

“I knew the boy, Kemis, would never betray the Order – he’d drunk the wine too deeply – but I knew I needed two, at least, to operate the Fane. That bastard Sevrok had made sure to keep me far from his work, and as ignorant as possible of how he was achieving even his limited control of the paths. But he still needed me to actually do it, and I learned more than he realized. I was sure I could operate the Fane, and I had no care where the portals took me, as long as it was far from Darikaz or Tharkia!

“But I was not as clever as I thought I was… or else the Korönian scum had been better at keeping vital parts of the procedure secret. I put Kemis in the Gevdan circle, since he knew enough to know we needed to anchor that point. And I did succeed in shifting the pattern! The boy might have begun to suspect then, but he was never the sharpest blade in the rack.

“But I’d missed something. I made my dash for a portal but as I stepped off the central disk an intense pulse of energy burst out from the central platform. It shook the entire cavern, as if a giant had kicked it. I felt myself thrown forward, and for a moment I lay half stunned.

” When I staggered up I could see that the boy had been hurled from the center disk as well, and was laying unconscious on the far side. But I had no thought for him, I just wanted out. I stepped into the former “Darikaz” portal, knowing it had shifted destinations – only to be gripped as if by ten thousand tiny hands, all trying to tear me apart. I turned, trying to retreat, but I was trapped.

“My body began shifting in and out of phase – one second I was in the Cavern, the next in an open field, then back to the Cavern, and then a mountain top. Or rather, I was almost in those locations. It was an agonizing sensation, and I could never pull myself free. The three portals began randomly shifting, and every time they did I was torn between here and some new, random place. 

“It was the boy’s presence on the “Gevdan” circle that kept it locked to that location, and when he finally came around he took one look me, silently screaming, begging for his help… and he fled. Into the wrong portal.

“As I said, he wasn’t very bright. I have no idea where he ended up, he never came back. Never had a chance to, really, given when in the cycle he went through – they changed again within seconds of his passage.

“For… I don’t know how long… I was trapped in my painful limbo, only occasionally phasing into reality enough to communicate, but never for more than a few seconds, as you saw. Nothing came through my portal, I think because I was blocking it… but the other two saw a strange stream of traffic… wild beasts, monsters, and some things I can’t even describe passed through the open portals. 

“The creatures tended to wander the platform, then leave again… sometimes through the same portal (although it would almost always have reset to some other location by then), more often through one of the other functioning portals. Including the one to Gevdan.”

With Bektam’s technical description of what he understood of the function of the Fane, the Hand suddenly realized that all four portals had almost certainly been reset when they’d freed him. Erol volunteered to go through what had been the portal to Gevdan.

He was only gone a minute before returning to confirm that yes, the other side of the gate was no longer under the town of Gevdan. It was instead in the middle of a steaming tropical rain forest, and daytime, rather than just after sunset, as it should be. No one looked happy.

Korwin tried another portal, finding a white-capped gray sea below high white cliffs and a scudding wrack of clouds. It was either early morning or late afternoon, but he had no reference to be sure of which. Devrik stepped through a third portal into a burning dessert of red sand, dunes stretching as far as he could see, a deep blue bowl of sky above and the sun almost directly overhead.

Mariala was about to step through the last portal when Bektram suddenly leapt to his feet and, with surprising speed given his debilitated condition, dashed past her into the column of light. While Mariala hesitated a moment on whether or not to follow and drag him back, he suddenly staggered back through on his own. His eyes were wide and fixed, and sticking from his chest and back were a score of thin wooden darts.

Without a sound he collapsed at her feet and expired.

“I don’t think we need to try that portal,” Mariala said faintly, kneeling to take the Khundari’s pulse, careful not to touch any of the almost certainly poisoned darts. “Toran, can we spin the wheel again? In case whoever did… this… decides to come through. Maybe we’ll get lucky…”

There was some discussion about whether the Paths all led to places on Novendo, or if they really did sometimes lead to other worlds or dimensions, as they took their places on the sigils. Or even other times, although Vulk maintained time travel was impossible. Still, how could they be sure?

The second attempt to shift the Paths of Gheas at first seemed no more promising than the previous, until Erol stepped through the fourth portal. He was gone longer than usual, and Devrik and Vulk were preparing to follow him, when he stepped back through.

“I think this one might be our best bet yet,” he said. “It’s early evening, so it should be on the same side of the world as us. The stars are familiar, but seem shifted – I’d say it’s significantly south of home, but not in the southern hemisphere. And it is grassland as far as the eye can see. There’s an encampment maybe two kilometers away, on a slight rise, I could see their campfires.”

“That sounds like if could be the great steppes called the Sun Plains that lie along the southern reaches of Ysgareth,” Mariala said, a hint of optimism in her tone. Erol nodded in agreement. “The Sea of Storms lies to the south, the Hellstorch Mountains to the west, Tur Kovan to the east… and the Garlini horsemen could be a problem… but depending on exactly where this portal is, civilization could be only 100 leagues away, maybe less!”

“Assuming this is really the Sun Plains,” Devrik frowned. “How can we be sure? And what risks are we willing to take to get home?”

And so the debate began…

It was a lovely early spring day when the Hand set out from Zhuran, the sixth such day in a row the region had enjoyed. But pleasant as that was after the harsh winter, the resultant thawing had left the kingdom’s roads a muddy, gluey mess. The main road south was no exception, and they made poor time as a result – despite setting out an hour before noon, it was well after dark before the group arrived in the town of Ondazel, 25 km away.

Dor Ondazel was the keep long charged with guarding the southern approaches to the capital, and possessed of some of the best-maintained fortifications in the kingdom. For three years prior to his coup, it had been held by Crown Prince Laravad as Constable, a post his father had hoped would steady and calm his increasingly wild and erratic son. But Laravad had become, if anything, even more unstable, eventually using the keep as the focal point of his plot against his father, replacing the veteran soldiers of its garrison with his own creatures.

Now the keep was back in King Balen’s hands, the traitorous younger knights and mercenary soldiers rooted out and a new Constable assigned to oversee the rebuilding of the garrison. Ser Barot Atlar, a Knight of Tanar and married to a distant cousin of the king, greeted the Hand with courtesy and a hot meal. He had remained loyal to the king during the usurpation, leading a group of men and women in a guerrilla campaign from the nearby Verduth Woods. During the meal he was happy to tell his guests all he knew of the area and of the former prince’s infamous hunting lodge.

“Hart’s Lodge was by far Laravad’s favorite place,” he said as a servant passed around the table pouring the port that ended the meal. “He visited it every month for years, in hunting season or out… for all his passion for the hunt, it was passing strange, I always thought. Even as his madness grew, and his plots were set in motion, he always found time to visit for at least a day or two, and often held meetings there with his chief lieutenants.

“In fact, I and my little band of merry loyalists had some thought of ambushing and seizing the traitor on one of these visits – they were almost like clockwork, which made the prospect very tempting. But once his coup had succeeded, he never travelled without a large and well-armed party of his mercenaries and suborned knights around him. So close to the edges of the Porgos Marsh there is little high land or natural ambush points, and the one attempt we made proved futile when the usurper’s party took an unexpected detour… almost as if they anticipated us.

“Well, we never had a chance to make a second attempt, thanks to your timely intervention this past Kristala Va,” he raised his glass in salute. “Since then, the lodge has remained empty and abandoned… I can’t imagine His Majesty, nor the Crown Princess, has any desire to make use of the place, and I suspect it will be allowed to fall into ruin. A pity for the nearby village that supported it, of course, but there’s little help for it. Frankly, that’s probably where this talk of “disappearances” comes from – folks simply recognizing the inevitable and moving on to greener pastures. The kingdom is still in such a roil, it’s a good time to make such changes I should think!”

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The next morning the Hand, although having less distance to travel, nevertheless set out at an early hour, after a hearty breakfast served up by Ser Barot’s servants. By early afternoon they reached the small village that took it’s name from the royal hunting lodge, which itself lay a further two kilometers into the forest. Almost immediately it was obvious that something was terribly wrong.

The village consisted of more than 30 buildings, mostly homes, several with business occupying the lower floor. Apple trees abounded, just beginning to bud, and it should have been a charming scene. But, while smoke drifted lazily up into the pale blue sky from many chimneys, the streets seemed abandoned. No one could be seen moving outside, no one gathered at the well in the center of the village, and no one worked the small garden plots or grazing pastures nearby. And something else… it took a moment before they realized that the usual cacophony of bird sounds, ever-present in the countryside, was entirely missing.

The uncanny feeling was only deepened when the group, entering the village proper, was assaulted by the stomach-turning stench of rotting flesh. The sudden fear that the villagers had all been murdered was eased, if not completely erased, by the sight of mutilated and gore-covered corpses of sheep and pigs all around – in pens and yards, some in the very streets. Covering their mouths and noses with scarves or handkerchiefs, they paused in the village common, near the common well, to ponder their next move.

Furtive eyes peered out at them from between slats of closed shutters in the upper windows of a few houses, and eventually Vulk sent Jeb to go knock on the door of one such. His first knock elicited no response from within. He knocked again, more forcefully, and called out “Halloo the house! Is any one home? We are–”

“Go away!” screamed a frightened male voice suddenly. “Leave us alone, for the love of Alea!”

“Please, don’t hurt our children!” sobbed another voice, female, followed by the muffled crying of at least a couple of children. Jeb was taken aback by this response, and took several involuntary steps back, looking over at Vulk in puzzlement.

Not inclined to force their way into the obviously terrified peasant’s home, Mariala instead reached out with her arcane senses, heightened by casting Deana’s Perception. She almost reeled from the resulting wash of horror, fear and overwhelming terror that flowed over her. Staggering back a step herself, she quickly ended the spell.

“Dear Shala, these people are deeply, deeply afraid,” she told the others, rubbing her temples. “It’s not clear what has traumatized them so… not exactly… but clearly our presence is exacerbating it.”

The party decided to head the rest of the way through the settlement, to see if they could find anyone out or at least figure out which home was the village reeve’s, the man who’d sent the requests for help. As they left the common and turned south on the largest of the village’s five roads, they finally caught their first sight of someone actually out-of-doors.

At the end of the road a man had his back to them, apparently intent on carving something into the wall of one of the larger houses in the settlement. A common peasant by his clothes, the man seemed oblivious to their approach, muttering unintelligibly to himself, until they were about 5 meters away. Devrik cleared his throat to speak, and the man whirled around with a snarl. Everyone froze in horror.

The left side of the man’s face was a pustulant mass of slimy green scar tissue, out of which erupted half a dozen writhing tentacles of various sizes. His left eye was missing, the socket filled with a gelatinous blue substance,  and within its depths a shadowy shape appeared to be… swimming. But more ghastly than his face was his right arm. The hand had been severed and the flesh of the forearm stripped entirely away, its bones sharpened into vicious double points. Bloody rags encircled the upper arm, where the flesh remained, and the smell of putrefaction was strong.

He appeared to have been using the sharpened bone ends to carve mysterious glyphs into the plaster wall of the house.

His one good eye glared at them, ringed in bloodshot white, the pupil fully dilated. Movements jerky, almost spastic, he lunged forward, bone arm extended, shrieking in a voice like finger nails on slate “Sacrifices for the Dol’Gurthog!”

Devrik drew his battlesword, Erol and Toran drew arrow and bolt, Korwin reached for his cutlass, and the others began to prepare spells – but it was Vulk who acted first. Leveling his staff at the lumbering figure he spoke a low word. The green resin ovoid at its head flared and glowing white strands of writhing energy erupted from it.

The Weaver’s Web spell engulfed the gibbering creature (Vulk could hardly think of it as a man), the countless ends of its milky strands attaching to the walls of the house. In seconds the man was ensnared in a glowing web of energy, immobilized completely, despite his thrashing and shrieking, in the “L” formed by the two wings of the house.

The Hand stared at the struggling thing and at one another. For a moment, no one spoke. Even the strongest of them felt a queasy, unpleasant roiling in the gut and the shivering goose-flesh of fear on their skin.

“I don’t recognize this script,” Mariala said at last, trying to shake off the feeling of creeping dread that was nibbling at the edges of her mind. Keeping a safe distance from the ensnared… individual… she peered at his unfinished carving.

“Maybe…” she cast a spell of understanding, but while the sounds the symbols represented swam clear to her mind’s ear, no meaning followed. Gibberish it might be, but her feeling of unease grew stronger the more she studied the jagged symbols… Erol, trying his own arcane methods of translation, had the same result. They both desisted quickly, looking at one another in consternation.

As they tried to explain to the others what they’d felt there came a series of answering calls to their prisoner’s continuing shrieks. The responding cries came from the woods beyond the village, and in moments several more cultists were rushing at the group from three directions.

Vulk immediately slipped into his link with Cherdon, the falcon already aloft and surveying the scene from above.  His attention was immediately drawn to the nearest threat, two men to the west moving from the woods into the narrow lane between two houses.

One man was equally as disfigured and brutalized as their first acquaintance, if in a different fashion – while he had his hand, the flesh on all his fingers had been stripped away and the bones sharpened to lethal claws. He had a chain around his neck, the other end of which was looped around the wrist of the other man. This fellow was somewhat better dressed, in robes of dark red and brown – although they were filthy with dirt and dried gore. There was no way to tell if his face, too, was disfigured, as it was covered by a crudely carved and painted frog mask. A necklace made of frog skeletons haphazardly woven together rattled at his neck, and the hand not holding the chain/leash appeared to be a single, massive tentacle.

“Therok!” Vulk called urgently but quietly to his barbarian follower. “Go up over that roof and come down on the other side… two of these… men… are moving up between the houses. Get behind them and attack!”

The Firilani warrior nodded his acknowledgment, and with feline grace leapt atop the stack of barrels against the side of the house, and from there to the roof. In a moment he had scrambled up the shakes and vanished beyond the peak.

Erol, meanwhile, had moved to engage the first of the new arrivals as they stepped into the road – another disfigured, tentacle-faced monstrosity brandishing a flail. The weapon was made of bone and wood, its head a small human skull and the leather strands of the whips knotted with human teeth. When the madman opened his mouth to shriek “Sacrifices! Flesh for His spawn!” it became obvious where the teeth had come from.

Erol’s thrust his trident forward, taking the rushing figure in the chest, and bright red arterial blood gushed from both the savage wound and the man’s toothless mouth. Unfortunately, even as the man collapsed with a wet, gurgling death rattle, the flail whipped out and dug into Erol’s leg, just below the leather of his hauberk and above the plate of his kneecop. The leg gave out and he went down, teeth clenched in pain.

Toran, alerted by Cherdon through Vulk, was prepared for the frog-masked, dark-robed zealot that lurched out of the alley northwest of the group. The Khundari Shadow Warrior swung his battle-axe in a horizontal arc that should have intersected with the cultist’s chest – but with a speed and finesse that astonished the Dwarf the man brought up his brown-stained bone sword and turned the blade. In the return motion he attempted to slash Toran’s face, but the hero leaned back, easily avoiding the counterattack.

Mariala had, for a moment, wrestled with getting her cross-bow from where it hung down her back, cursing herself for not preparing it as soon as they’d entered the eerie village. But as another disfigured horror staggered into the roadway near her she gave up and grabbed one of her throwing knives from its wrist sheath. The black-bladed taburi flew out and buried itself deep into the creature’s chest. It collapsed, gurgled wetly, twitched twice… and died.

Once he had sent Therok off and warned the others of what was coming, Vulk immediately turned to prayer, silently chanting the ritual of Kasira’s Smile to bring down the Immortal Lady of Luck’s blessing on his friend Devrik. The fire mage felt the subtle tingling that he had come to associate with the blessing of the goddess, and his sword flamed to life at his murmured  summoning.

Haplo’s Karmic Missiles missed their intended target, but Korwin’s Ice Needle took the same cultist in the thorax, and the man collapsed, shrieking and grasping ineffectually at the spike of ice protruding from his chest. As the cultist collapsed Haplo rushed over to join Toran’s fight, while a pained grunt and the sound of flesh and bone striking wood drew the others’ attention to the wide alley to the west…

Therok had scuttled quickly across the roof of the house to the north, and dropped down behind the two cultists, as per Vulk’s instructions. Unfortunately, the element of surprise he’d expected to enjoy didn’t materialize – before he could do more than bring his sword up the dark-robed man whirled on him, his tentacle-arm whipping out with blinding speed. It slammed into the barbarian’s chest, sending him flying sideways almost two meters to crash into the wall of the house whose roof he’d just traversed.

With a grunt, as ribs broke and his skull slammed into the wall, Therok crumpled to the ground, unconscious and bleeding from nose and mouth. His demented attacker loomed over him, raising a bone sword in his scarred but human-looking right hand to deliver the killing blow. The cultist’s twisted features relaxed into a look of bewildered surprise, however, as three sharp tines of metal suddenly erupted from his chest. His own blood gushed forth as his eyes rolled upward and he collapsed bonelessly at the feet of his would-be victim.

Erol, levering himself up on his wounded leg, had seen the attack on his friend’s bodyguard, and knew no one was in a position to reach the fallen man in time. Instinctively he’d whipped his trident back and hurled it with all his strength and skill, taking the thing full in the back. The deformed creature it had held on the chain, suddenly freed from control, rushed headlong at Erol then, stripped-to-the-bone finger tips clawing for his face. The fighter drew his gladius just in time for the shrieking thing to impale itself on the blade.

Meanwhile, Toran and Haplo between them finally managed to put down the Rasputin-like cultist they faced, who simply would not die. Even after Haplo almost severed his hand, the raving madman merely passed out… but at that point even his stamina couldn’t survive a battle axe to the neck, as Toran was happy to demonstrate.

Mariala hit the last attacking cultist with a second thrown taburi, burying the blade in its shoulder. Devrik followed up with his flaming blade, nearly severing the man’s arm and then leaving him to bleed out in the dirt.

While Vulk rushed to tend to Therok’s near-fatal injuries, Erol pulled his own vial of Baylorium-7 from around his neck and dosed his injured knee. In a matter of minutes the gash had begun to knit together, and by the time he joined the others gathered around the one crazed villager who was still alive and conscious, struggling in Vulk’s webs, only a slight ache and a thin pale line remained.

During the sharp, brief fight, the demented cultist had been hacking at the bands of white energy that restrained him with his mutilated blade-like forearm, and several of the strands had actually parted. Thinking to put a stop to that before they tried to question the prisoner, Devrik whipped his sword up in a sudden slash that severed the man’s arm at the elbow.  Unfortunately, the blade was still flaming with Goraten’s Brand, and the magical webs turned out to be highly flammable…

As the writhing creature became engulfed in flames, its shrieks quickly tapered off along with its struggles, and Mariala pinched the bridge of her nose, casting a baleful glance at her old friend.

“It would have been nice to have at least one of these… things… alive to question,” she sighed, shaking her head in exasperation. “I hope you’re not planning on burn down the whole village – again.”

“No, it’s not my intention,” Devrik growled, returning the glare. “How was I to know the damn webs were so flammable.” He focused his pyrokinesis on the burning corpse, now collapsed to the ground as the last of the magical webbing vanished into smoke, and then reversed the usual flow of his power… the flames flickered out quickly and only the smell of seared flesh remained. The usual nauseating-appetizing pork-like smell of burned human flesh was underlain by a disturbing stench of fetid rot.

“This one’s still alive,” Erol said diffidently, gesturing to the leashed creature that had spitted itself on his short sword. But even as the others turned to look, the body gave a last shudder, a rattling sound escaped its throat, and it settled into the unmistakable stillness of death. Mariala sighed again, but before she could say anything further a sudden sharp crack caused everyone to wheel back around to the first body.

To the group’s horror, the burned cultist’s head was bulging grotesquely at the base of the skull. The corpse began to jerk and shudder as the bone cracked again, the bulge expanding… and then suddenly the whole back of the former villager’s head exploded outwards in a spray of bone, blood and brains. From the gaping hole a slimy shape lurched out into the pale sunlight, and everyone took one horrified step backward.

The creature was slightly smaller than an average bullfrog, to which it bore a passing resemblance – save for the shiny green-black skin visible through the blood and brain matter dripping off it, the four small tendrils waving from its head, and the dark, empty sockets where its eyes should have been.

It turned its blind gaze toward the group and as one Devrik, Erol, Toran and a still shaky but revived Therok all raised their weapons, while Mariala, Korwin and Haplo each began to gather energy for various spells. Jeb whipped an arrow from his quiver and nocked it to his bow as Vulk aimed his staff, prepared to unleash–

“Stop!” a quavering voice called out, as the door to the house before which all the action had taken place suddenly flew open. “Don’t kill it, for the love of the Immortals, don’t kill it!”

As the Hand stared in surprise, a short, round-bellied man of late-middle years dashed out of the doorway, a large metal wash basin clutched in his pudgy hands. Sidling skittishly around the smoking corpse on his doorstep, he bent down and slapped the container over the unresisting frog-thing. With a relieved sigh he stood up straight and smiled tentatively at the group.

“We need it alive, you see,” he said, as if continuing a conversation. “So that you can defeat the beast. It – it–” At their blank stares he stuttered to a stop and looked momentarily doubtful. “That is, assuming… I mean, you are here to kill the Dol’Gurthog… aren’t you?”

“What in the Void is a ‘Doll Girth Hog,’ and who the Void are you?” Haplo demanded. “And what the Void is going on in this cursed village?!”

The man looked momentarily taken aback, but he quickly gathered his obviously frayed nerves and made a slight bow, first toward the silver-haired illusionist and then to the group as a whole. “My name is Hal Neelow, sir, and I am the Reeve of Hart’s Lodge Village. As for what is going on here, and the Dol’Gurthog… well, those are much related, I’m afraid…”

The nervous little man then explained to the Hand as much as he could. The village had been under siege from these horrifying cultists for two months now – most of whom were actually former villagers. He assured the party that his fellow citizens, all of whom he’s know his whole life, would never harm a fly – but after the first cultists appeared, strangers to the village, people began wandering off into the woods, seemingly in a daze… and coming back as savage monsters who can no longer even be called human, as they’d just witnessed.

After a few days the missing villagers first began to return, and if they seemed a bit ‘off,’ they weren’t actually mad – not slicing-off-their-own-hands mad, anyway. In the beginning they just tried to recruit others to come with them, talking of enlightenment and joy. A few villagers actually followed them back into the woods. Later they, too, returned, if anything even more violent. Their minds apparently were deteriorating over time, withering away, breaking down what control they once possessed. Eventually they began demanding that more townsfolk go with them, or the entire village would face the consequences.

The people of Hart’s Lodge fought back that first time the demand was made… Five men were left dead and another four were dragged off into the forest. Reeve Neelow pointed to the man with bone claws, the chain leash still around his neck.

“That’s one of them that was taken in the first attack – Jerama Merrol. So now the people of the town are too terrified to fight… I sent off messengers to the Chancellory, begging for soldiers to come to our aid.

“And the next day the Learned Rythek, a master of the arcane arts who makes his home amongst us, followed the cultists into the woods, determined to confront the evil at its source. For all that he was a mere hedge-wizard, he was quite strong, especially with fire.” He gave a sidewise glance at Devrik, whose flaming sword had been re-sheathed after the Reeve had begun his tale. “But there’s been no word from him since.”

“A tenday past two of the King’s (may the All preserve him) men-at-arms arrived, and they went off into the woods as well. They were quite big, strapping fellows, and very sure they could handle some ‘damn frog worshippers,’ as they said… but we’ve not heard from them again, either.”

“So what exactly is this Dol’Gurthog,” Devrik asked impatiently. “Have you actually seen it?”

“Well, no, not myself,” Neelow replied, “but others have described it… A frog the size of a wagon with nothing but empty sockets where there should be eyes. Four massive tentacles extending out of its back, lashing out wildly for meters around it, and spikes of bone running down the length of its spine. A beast of nightmare, it seems to me… but those besotted by it seem to think it is glorious and the source of all bounty and goodness.”

“So, essentially a larger version of the frog-thing you’ve trapped under your wash basin,” Mariala stated, glancing dubiously at said kitchen implement. “Why is it so important that we not kill the creature?”

“Because I’ve seen this happen before,” the reeve replied. “One of them emerging from the head of a cultist and all. That um, frog, hopped off into the forest, going back to its progenitor I believe. If you were to follow the creature, it should lead you to the very root of this evil…” He paused again, doubt and desperation warring on his round face.

“You are agents of the King, are you not?” he asked again, almost pleading. “Sent to succor us in this terrible time, in response to my second messenger?”

“Yes, yes,” Vulk assured him gently. “We are indeed sent by the King and his advisors to sort all this out. Have no fear, the Hand is here.”

♦ ♦ ♦

It was eventually decided that the village reeve’s plan was, in fact, the best they could come up with under the circumstances, lacking any actual living cultists to act as guide. No further deranged people emerged from the woods, so following the baby frog-thing it would be.

Reeve Neelow having retreated to the relative safety of his home after securing the groups horses in his stable, Erol lifted the sieve off the creature, which had remained silently unperturbed by its brief imprisonment, and the Hand stared down at it expectantly. The thing seemed to have almost doubled in size during its brief captivity, which was disturbing in and of itself.

After a moment of staring sightlessly back at its liberators, the frog-thing gave a deep croak and suddenly leaped forward, heading down the road toward the wood’s edge.

“Maybe we should put a… a harness, or something, on it,” Erol suggested, and reached down to pick the creature up before it could get too far away. But Haplo put a restraining hand on his arm.

“I wouldn’t touch that thing with a bare hand,” he said, frowning. ” Some frogs can secrete toxins through their skin, I’ve heard, and given what we know about this little monster… well, I shouldn’t think it worth the risk.”

“I agree,” said Mariala. “Given the rate it seems to be growing, I’m not sure we could keep a harness on it anyway. Besides, it’s not moving that fast, we shouldn’t have any trouble keeping up with it.”

She proved correct, and the frog-thing seemed to be perfectly happy to follow the rutted track that led westward into the woods, in the general direction of the royal hunting lodge – which meant the Hand didn’t have to scramble through the underbrush to follow it. The creature seemed to have no trouble avoiding any obstacles in its path, despite its lack of eyes, and occasionally the tendrils atop its head would lash out at insects, pulling them into its mouth to be devoured.

Despite the pleasant spring day, the woods were gloomy and nerve-wracking… shadows seemed to stretch longer than they should, and to be deeper, the flowers in the understory smelled foul rather than sweet, and not a single woodland creature was anywhere to been seen. Like the village, no sound of birdsong could be heard, and the silence was both eerie and unnerving. Cherdon, flying low over their heads, was the only other thing moving.

After some 15 minutes of steady travel the unnatural monstrosity had again almost doubled in size, and its leaps were becoming longer… though its pursuers had no trouble keeping up. It continued with a swift and confident determination, and as they all moved deeper into the woods the party began noticing disturbing things… strips of human flesh nailed to trees with spikes of bone… remnants of scattered fire pits, visible off the path, appeared to contain scorched bones, both animal and human… and at last some birds. But these sat in the trees, unmoving, eyeless, and giving out low sounds of anguish rather than pleasant chirps – the sound seemed almost taunting.

Another ten minutes brought them all to a fork in the road. The main path bent sharply to the left, while a narrower and partially overgrown track led straight on. The frog-thing took the narrower path, but as they came to the bend the party was stopped by sudden movement to their left.

Ten meters down the main road two cultists were hunched over the carcass of an enormous elk laid out in the roadway. One man had a needle and thread and the other held a vicious looking bone saw. The cultists turned to stare at the group as they came into view, and both dropped their tools to draw weapons. One grabbed an executioner’s axe while the other took up a sort of club with rib bones shoved through the wood, forming sharp spikes.

With a staggering, bucking motion the dead deer stood up as well.

The horrifying monstrosity stood over two meters tall at the shoulder. An open wound in its side revealed where some ribs had been removed – apparently the same ribs now sewn along its back to form a set of curving spikes. Its antlers were sharpened to jagged points and its eyes, while still intact, appeared to be bleeding. There were distinct wounds and stitches around the deer’s back legs… almost as if they had been hacked off and then hastily reattached. The revenant corpse was partially covered in a dark-blue slimy substance, and even at this distance the smell was strong, and foul.

With inarticulate shouts, the taxidermist cultists raised their weapons and rushed the party, their undead class project lumbering behind. Before they had moved more than a couple of meters, however, Erol had loosed a single shaft from his longbow. It plunged deep into the monstrous elk’s chest and through the heart it apparently still had… and needed. The beast crashed down with an impact that everyone felt in their feet and lay there, its legs twitching spasmodically.

At the same time that Erol was letting the grey goose fly Mariala and Haplo were unleashing their own arcane attacks. As the undead elk crashed to the ground behind them the two cultists were struck almost simultaneously by Fire Nerves and Mokel’s Karmic Missiles. Their jerking spasms and shrieks of pain caused by the first spell were almost instantly stilled as the invisible bolts of the second slammed into them. They fell like puppets with their strings cut.

It was all over so quickly that Vulk, who had continued to follow the baby frog-spawn, and Devrik, who had followed Vulk to keep him safe, were still in sight down the narrower track. After a desultory search of the dead cultists, which yielded nothing more interesting than a few coins and a crude sketchbook, the others hurried to catch up.

Mariala and Korwin studied the sketchbook, and passed it on to the others as they continued deeper in to the increasingly wrong-feeling woods. The pictures in the book were all charcoal renderings of a monstrous frog, with empty eye sockets, clawed feet, and waving tendrils snaking from its head. In the early pages the drawings were actually quite good, but as they progressed the images became cruder, more simplistic. The last sketch was so abstract that it could be construed as the Dol’Gurthog only by context.

Looking though the book only deepened the oppressive disquiet everyone felt as they moved deeper into the woods. No one objected when Korwin pocketed the book after everyone had seen it. What the Void, he thought, maybe he could publish it back in the Empire, perhaps as illustrations to his recounting of this adventure… suitably edited, of course… this sort of macabre shit sold big back home, in certain circles.

♦ ♦ ♦

Another half hour of steady walking at last brought the Hand to what seemed to be their destination – a massive cavern entrance set into a low, treeless hill that rose like an island from the forest. Stalagmites and stalactites lined the mouth of the cave, giving it the appearance of a snarling maw. The skeletons of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of frogs littered the ground in front of the opening.

Their own amphibious guide hopped toward the entrance without slowing, and vanished within.

“Maybe we should’ve killed that thing before it went in,” Erol muttered, but it was already too late, and none of his companions replied.

As they approached the entrance themselves, the group stopped suddenly in their tracks, almost as one. A delightful smell wafted out of the cave, making all of their salivary glands suddenly start working overtime. The odor was utterly alluring, yet impossible to identify precisely… it seemed to hit all the pleasure centers in the brain, evoking memories of baking cookies at Grandmother’s, holiday roasts turning on the spit, savory mushrooms fresh from the farming caves, brillberry wine fermenting in the cellar, clams hot from the coals… it smelled like all of these things and like none of them.

Half entranced by the smell, the group stepped into the cavern, where the same blue slime they’d seen on the cultists in the village and on the zombie elk in the woods coated the walls, flowing down as if oozing from the very stone. It seemed to be the source of the magnificent smell, and the urge to run a hand through it and then lick it off one’s fingers was almost irresistible. Almost.

It looks more like blueberry jam, Mariala thought. Just like old Nan used to make when I was a child. She’d baked it into the most delectable tarts… Mariala could smell them baking right now, in fact, and she longed for that innocent, beloved taste of childhood… she reached out for the wall and the beautiful blue jam…

Devrik was torn from his own reverie, of roasting venison and the sour cherry reduction that had covered it each Höl Kopia before he’d been sent off to the chantry, by the sight of his friend reaching out to touch the dripping slime. He hastily grabbed her wrist, pulling her back and speaking her name sharply. For a moment she stared at him, her eyes blank and glassy, then she frowned and shook her head.

“I’m… alright,” she said, pulling her arm from his grip and shaking her head as if to clear it. “By Shala, I really was going to eat that! Ugh!” She looked slightly green and she shuddered. While it still smelled wonderful, the spell was broken and she no longer had any desire to put the stuff in her mouth!

“Thank you Devrik,” she said, patting her companion on the shoulder. “That could have been… unpleasant.”

“No problem,” Devrik rumbled. “And I think we all need to keep an eye out for each other, and not just for enemies… pair up and make sure your buddy doesn’t try to taste that crap. Whatever it smells like, there’s no way it leads to anything good!”

Everyone agreed, with the exception of Haplo, who, a look of fascinated anticipation on his face, was reaching out to run his own finger though the goo even as Devrik spoke. Fortunately, Korwin was close enough to stop him before he could succeed, and after a sharp shake Haplo, too, snapped out of his trance and felt the urge to eat the horrible stuff subside. Despite the lingering scent of positive-reinforcement-memories in the air, no one else seemed terribly tempted to lick the walls after that.

The group continued cautiously into the cave. The initial cave, beyond the opening,  was over seven meters wide. Painted on the walls beyond the blue slime were various depictions of the monstrous Dol’Gurthog, primarily in white paint. But the void where the being’s eyes should be used some darker pigment… dried blood, as it turned out on closer examination.

The cave narrowed quickly as it led further into the hill, and downward. Rarely more than two meters wide, the descending pathway wound lazily and was lit by flickering torches mounted periodically along the walls. Whispers seemed to echo around them, with no distinguishable origin.

More of the strange blue slime began to appear, coating the walls in wide patches. Fortunately, the appetizing smell was no more compelling than it was near the surface and the urge to consume it was no longer strong. After traveling down a narrow path for a score of meters the way turned into a series of winding natural stairs which opened up into a large, roughly “L” shaped chamber.

In the center of this area, between four slender pillars topped with carved frog capitals, sat an enormous, if crudely realized, statue of the Dol’Gurthog. While not well crafted, the emotion that the artist was attempting to capture was clear – madness, deep and utter. Aside from the feelings it evoked, the most notable part of the statue were the two massive jet gemstones  set into the empty eye sockets.

Around the walls of the space the party noticed furtive movements in the shifting shadows cast by the few torches that lit the area. This quickly resolved into 30 or more large albino squirrels, scattered about the space and eating from various pools of the blue slime that formed near the walls. They seemed calm and docile, and some ran across the floor, large red eyes faintly glowing in the torchlight, as they curiously examined the visitors.

As the group made no hostile move, a few of the small creatures came hesitantly forward, sniffing warily at their clothes. One ran up Jeb’s leg and torso to perch on his shoulder, and began examining his hair. The youth was clearly freaked out, but before he could decide what to do Therok had stepped up and plucked the squirrel from him. He set it chitttering on the floor, and it ran off to join a knot of companions.

“If one of those things tries to climb up me, I’m Fire Nerving the lot of them!” Mariala said nervously, eyeing the milling crowd of subterranean rodents. While not mice or rats, the albino squirrels were close enough to set her musophobia to a hair trigger. Keeping a wary eye on the creatures, she made sure her back was to an empty section of wall.

Toran began examining the walls of the cavern, eventually coming to a bronze-bound door of black ironwood at the bottom a narrow sloped passage. The door was locked, with only a smallish hole in the center of the panel, and neither his lock-picking skills nor his magic key had any luck opening it. Half a dozen of the albino squirrels gathered around him to watch his attempts with apparent fascination.

Korwin scouted out the exit to the north and east, going only few steps down the narrow passage before retuning to the statue chamber, while Devrik, suppressing disturbing memories of Taloxta going for his eyes in another cavern, moved to examine the statue. As he did so, he noticed that the alluring smell was hardly noticeable any more… indeed, he had to strain to smell anything besides musty, wet stone.

Must have finally gotten used to it, he thought as, keeping a wary eye on his furry audience, he cast Goraten’s Brand, lighting up his battle sword with comforting yellow flames. As he examined the crude statue in the better light of his flaming weapon, he realized that a new smell was making itself noticed – a foul smell, as of putrefying flesh and rotting vegetation. As the stench grew, his tension ratcheted upwards, and he felt suddenly uneasy and angry… had his flames caused this terrible smell? Was it coming from the statue?

He poked experimentally at the ugly sculpture with the tip of his sword – and as if that were some sort of signal, every squirrel in the room suddenly burst into frenzied action. With a mad chittering they attacked whomever was nearest, running up clothes, leaping from niches in the wall, biting and clawing at exposed skin.

For a moment it seemed that sheer surprise would allow the swarming rodents to overrun the group, but the tide was quickly turned. True to her word, with a shriek of fear-fueled rage Mariala sent a wave of Fire Nerve energy fanning out across half the room and eleven of the attacking rodents fell writhing in agony to the stone floor. She kicked and stomped the ones nearest her to bloody pulp, and plucked one surviving creature from her hair to fling it across the chamber in disgust.

Therok and Jeb, having been more-or-less out of the initial attack by being still on the stairs, rushed down and began dispatching the writhing, chittering victims of the Fire Nerve spell, and then stomping or spitting any others that came near.

Erol, having dropped his trident when several of the albino vermin had sunk their teeth into his wrist, took to pulling them off himself and smashing them against the nearest wall. He also followed Mariala’s lead and began stomping the ones underfoot into paste until he could retrieve his trident, at which point it became a game of spit-and-hurl.

Vulk attempted to invoke Kasira’s Smile, but whatever foul power held sway in this place seemed to block his access to the Lady’s blessing. With a grimace he began to lay about him with his staff, sending vermin flying with each blow, breaking legs, backs and skulls.

Toran cast Fist of Kuhan on himself, and as his arms began to harden into mace-like strength and durability he merrily worked his way back up from the locked door to the main chamber, smashing albino squirrels right and left as he went.

Korwin’s hastily summoned Frost Blade allowed him to slay several of the insanely attacking vermin, and kept the rest of them at bay while Haplo’s invisible karmic arrows impaled three of the hoard. Both men stomped a few more into ruin for good measure.

Most of the remaining albino squirrels were incinerated by Devrik’s Orb of Voral, and as their smoldering corpses twitched on the smoking stone of the floor, the few survivors skittered away into the shadows.

The brief Battle of the Squirrel Temple had lasted less than a minute, but it left the group shaken and on edge, their nerves frayed and tempers short. Matters weren’t made better by the overpowering stench that now filled the air. While no longer getting stronger, the miasma showed no sign of abating, either.

Mariala attempted to cast Feel on both the statue and the door, but achieved little more than a pounding headache and the sense of powerful, chaotic, almost alien magic permeating everything around them. Unable to open the locked door, the group continued on through the northern exit.

Another 15 minutes passed as they moved slowly through the dimly lit, twisting passages, and as they did the stench began to slowly fade. The removal of the horrible odor lifted everyone’s spirits just by its absence, and by the time they arrived at a curtained doorway the pleasant smell of all things delicious had begun to fill the air again. As they pushed through into the chamber beyond, everyone was feeling optimistic and upbeat.

The new chamber appeared to be a living area. A rotting bed, with a nightstand nearby and a small chest at its foot lay at one end of the room. On the nightstand was a candle and a small green dragon statue. Closer to hand a pile of mostly decayed scrolls was visible on and around a battered desk – at least twenty scrolls in total – and uncomfortable-looking chair.  A moldering deer-skin rug lay in the center of the room and scraps of cloth were scattered around the room.

But what immediately caught their attention, just to the right of the entrance, was a man sitting against the wall and gazing up at the ceiling as if it were a night sky filled with stars, or perhaps a fireworks display. Dressed in soiled but still serviceable robes he possessed a long, grey beard and gnarled hands. He didn’t appear to be sliced up or otherwise mutilated like so many of the other cultists they’d encountered… but there was a madness, nevertheless, behind his gaze.

Stepping forward Toran, his battle-axe lowered but at the ready, cleared his throat. The man’s head snapped down and whipped to the left, his bloodshot eyes going wide as he stared at the party as if they were phantasms.

“Guests!” he gasped out suddenly… and in apparent delight, a smile lighting his face. “Here to see the Master, no doubt?” he asked, using a gnarled staff that had been leaning against the wall next to him to lever himself stiffly to his feet. “You have heard His call and seek to give yourself into His embrace, yes?”

The man was clearly mad, but it seemed a very manic sort of insanity, and his enthusiasm was almost disarming. Compared to the other cultists they’d met so far, he seemed almost normal, if a trifle eccentric. He stared expectantly at the group, his gaze moving hopefully from face to face.

Small flames flickered occasionally between the fingers of his right hand, something he seemed completely unconscious of, like a deeply ingrained habit…

“Er, yes,” Vulk said, stepping forward, his own magnificent staff held slightly forward. “We have indeed heard a call, and have come here to learn what it means… who is your Master, and who are you?”

“Oh, I am the Keymaster,” the old man chuckled as if at a great joke. “Yes, or the Keyholder… though some still call me Rythek, my name from before my Enlightenment and being granted my holy task…”

At which point he pulled a small book from his robes, one that seemed to be bound in leather made from human flesh, and reading from it went off on a rant about his deep love for the Dol’Gurthog and his “god’s” unsurpassed magnificence. Eventually, however, Vulk was able to bring him back around to the whole Keymaster/Keyholder subject.

“Ah, well, you see…” he began, tucking away his horrid book in the folds of his robe. “There is a special key to open the Inner Sanctum, allowing entry into the Holy Presence itself. The Dol’Gurthog, in His infinite wisdom, has made me His Keymaster, solemnly  charged with the duty of seeing that only those worthy of His radiant presence, those able to endure his puissant power without dying, may pass within.

“To do this, He has created a puzzle of sorts… to test the strength of mind of those who would worship Him. The Dol’Gurthog wishes to have only those who are strong of mind, who will not crumble so easily before his glorious presence, come before him. This room contains all of the clues you will need to get through the door behind me.” He gestured at a closed door set in the north wall of the room. Glowing numbers appeared to be etched into its surface: 5612469 2 23015.

“Just say the password and it will open for you… then down in the pit, amongst the playful Children, you will find the key to the Inner Sanctum.” He smiled widely then, and for the first time his teeth were visible. All had been filed down to needle-like points. He gestured again, this time at the wider room, encouraging them to begin the search for clues…

The group spent some time examining everything in the room, which contained scores of items from the mundane to the arcane, including such esoterica as: a commemorative platter on the liberation of Tharkia;  an ornate Lirilalian Carnivale mask, in red and gold metallic foil over leather; a silver-plated gauntlet set with six multi-colored glass gems; a crystal punch bowl and seven small glasses; an onyx statuette of a panther; and a great many musty books.

In the end the group narrowed their focus to three items that seemed of particular interest, as they were the only three items with numbers written on them in some fashion. First, the carved jade statuette of a green dragon from the nightstand had the numbers 412 7142 scrawled on a piece of parchment glued to the underside of its base.

“Ah yes, the very inspiration for the cypher,” Rythek said with a fond sigh of reminiscence as soon as Devrik had picked it up. “Where it all began… the clever green dragon.”

The second item was the small chest, or footlocker, at the foot of Rythek’s bed. When Korwin opened it and began shifting through the odd little “treasures” within (frog skeletons, strips of human flesh, bone dice – the usual sorts of things one would expect to find, really), Rythek again spoke up. “Oh yes, my treasures, my collection of beautiful things… please make sure they remain within my treasure chest.”

As Korwin turned to stare at the demented arcanist standing at his back his eye caught the numbers scrawled in dried blood on the inside of the chest’s lid: 6151 8956. Making note of it, he gently shut the lid, leaving the “treasures” undisturbed within.

The last item was a seemingly mundane broom that Toran found in a nook after he had finished a fruitless examination the pile of rotting scrolls around the old desk. The implement seemed nothing special, and Rythek offered no musings on it when the Khundari picked it up, but the numbers 013 were etched deeply into the broom’s handle.

The Hand wrangled the problem about for awhile, and to Mariala’s chagrin it was Devrik who first realized it was a simple substitution cypher that used only the consonants, ignoring vowels altogether. To Devrik’s chagrin it was Korwin who actually decoded the password first, blurting out the phrase “strength in numbers” before the fire mage could.

Rythek looked inordinately pleased, and clapped his hands together in child-like glee as the door in the north wall popped open with an audible ‘snick’ of a bolt releasing. There seemed to be a glimmer of true happiness behind the madness in his eyes.

“Now you need only retrieve the Key, the Eye of God, from its resting place amongst His Children,” he said, flashing his sharklike smile once more and gesturing them on toward the now open door. With a communal sigh, the Hand filed through the narrow doorway…

♦ ♦ ♦

Beyond the doorway was an equally narrow stairwell that descended another six meters. At the bottom the group found themselves on a stone platform with a drop of at least another seven meters into a pit of darkness. From within the darkness the croaking of hundreds of frogs could be heard, and the slithery, wet sounds of amphibian skins rubbing together.

The darkness was utterly impenetrable, pierced by neither torchlight nor spells nor rituals. Hoping there was another way to accomplish their goal, they searched beyond the platform area, but the only other thing to be found was a small chamber to the northeast that contained thousands of squirming maggots and the hunks of rotting meat that hosted them. Even the alluring smell of the blue slime could barely counteract the stench when actually inside the chamber.

Retreating back to the pit of darkness, Korwin had the brilliant idea of trying his glowstone bullseye lantern. To everyone’s surprise, it worked, actually piercing the uncanny blackness at the bottom of the pit. It revealed a writhing mass of juvenile frog-things, much like the one they had followed into this nightmarish cave complex, crawling over one another in a shallow pool of black water. To the left a narrow, crumbling set of natural stairs led down to the pools edge.

Toran produced the Cord of Qorelia-Sym, the magic Telnori rope he carried for Vulk, and tied one end around his waist. Korwin and Erol tied the other end around themselves, and began their descent into the pit as the Dwarf cast Joining of Merkünon on himself, causing his feet to become temporarily welded fast to the stone floor.

At the bottom Korwin cast a ball of freezing energy into the center of the squirming mass of frog-things, hoping to at least slow them down, but the additional cold seemed to have little effect on them… it didn’t even freeze the water he noted with consternation.

After considering his options for a moment, Korwin heaved a sigh and slid off the last step and into the icy, calf-deep water and thigh-deep scrum of squirming amphibians. The creatures didn’t seem to react to him, and after a moment, with Erol shining the light from the lantern around, he began reaching into the mass of wriggling flesh to feel for the Key.

The light proved to be less useful than one might’ve expected, and after almost two minutes of fruitless groping amongst the frog-things even Korwin was beginning to go numb from the penetrating cold. Then his fingers brushed against something not living flesh nor rough stone – something smooth and curved. He groped back, found it again, and closed his fist around it.

Opening his fist in the beam from the lantern Korwin and Erol saw a glass sphere the size of a large plum, greenish-black with an iris of virulent yellow and a slit-like pupil of pure black flecked with gold. The Eye of God, obviously, and their key into the Inner Sanctum.

♦ ♦ ♦

Once they had dried and warmed Korwin as best they could under the circumstances the Hand had returned to Rythek’s chamber and presented him with the Key. He had merely smiled his needle-like smile at them and waved them on.

“Back to the Outer Temple,” he’d chuckled, beaming in pride at their accomplishment. “Now you can open the way, and soon you will join us and be as one in the Dol’Gurthog… if not in His heart, then at least in His belly.”

On that unnerving note, the group headed back to the site of the albino squirrel massacre and the magically locked door that had previously barred their passage. Fortunately no more of the demented rodents had yet repopulated the chamber, and they passed unmolested.

Toran took the Eye of God and inserted it into the round slot in the center of the door. With a ‘thunk’ the glass sphere dropped out of sight, and then a flurry of clicks, whirring and clanks followed. In a few seconds there was a louder ‘ker-chunk’, as of a massive bolt withdrawing, and the door swung inward.

Beyond the doorway was another narrow flight of twisting, uneven stairs. They descended steeply some eight meters, over a span of perhaps 20 meters, to open out into the largest cavern the group had yet seen in the complex. The dim light from a score of torches, spaced erratically around the wall, reflected off the black, glassy surface of a large body of dark water that filled much of the center of the space. A smaller pool of equally still, black water lay off to the left, beyond the larger lake.

On the far side of the chamber, in a large natural alcove or bay, the Hand could see a collection of tables, shelves, what looked like a rack, a large glass aquarium, and a stone basin with a large fire burning in it. Three robed and cowled figure were moving about purposefully, obviously engaged in some arcane job of work. They made no sign that they were aware of the groups entrance into the cavern.

As the group slowly made their way around the dark lake several of the adventurers noticed four largish lumps rising from the black water near its northern end. It was Vulk who realized, with a shock, that they were the dark brow ridges, and empty eye sockets, of two enormous, monstrous frogs, apparently at rest beneath the water.

“They must be two-and-a-half meters tall, if they’re to scale with those, um, eyes” he whispered to the others as he quietly pointed out the beasts. As the group moved past them the glass-like surface of the lake was disturbed by small ripples as the giant amphibious heads turned to follow their progress.

As they rounded the end of the lake one of the cultists finally noticed their approach and stepped forward to hail them. “Who are you? I don’t know your faces… what is your business here?” His voice was cracked and not a little mad-sounding, but friendly enough for all that. His eyes glinted with a feverish excitement as he stared at the newcomers, and seemed to harbor no suspicion of them.

“We are, um, new to the worship of the Dol’Gurthog,” Vulk offered. “We have been sent by Rythek, the Keymaster, to meet the Great One and become one with Him.”

“Oh, how marvelous!” the cultist exclaimed, and the other two turned briefly from their own indecipherable tasks to grunt pleased agreement. The one nearest the speaker seemed to be working with frog-things taken from the large, dirty glass aquarium, stroking them to encourage the flow of blue slime from their skin. The one nearer the blood-stained rack seemed to be working on creating bone weapons, reinforced with iron bits… a barrel full of completed such stood nearby.

“But the God is sleeping now, as you can tell… Speaker Kythel will come for you when the Great One wakes,” he smiled and gestured at the dark archway off to the group’s right. “Would you like to help with our experiments while you wait?” This time he gestured at the array of bloody instruments strewn about the surface of the scarred and stained workbench behind him.

“Um, well, perhaps another time,” Mariala temporized, and the man seemed to take it in stride. “But if you’d like to tell us about your… experiments… what, for example is that blue slime –”

“Ooooh, the Primordial Ooze!” the man gushed, his excitement doubling. “It is from the Dol’Gurthog Himself! He exudes it and He causes the very earth to put forth a form of it,  here in His womb. To consume it is to be one with Him… and with it, the world shall be reborn.

“Once we have enough gathered, the forests, the lakes, the world will all fall under the influence of the Dol’Gurthog… and we, His humble servants, have been tasked with finding ways to better utilize the Blue Mana to this end… but so many tests require live human subjects, and there are never enough…” He eyed the group speculatively, but was easily diverted by another hurried question from Haplo.

It quickly became obvious that all three men were so far gone in madness that they had lost all sense of reality. They seemed highly suggestible, and Mariala suspected they would be very easy to manipulate into doing almost anything – if they believed their “god” desired it of them…

Before she could think of a way to take advantage of this, however, she noticed that the alluring odor in the cavern had faded away, and a growing stench was quickly beginning to take its place. At the same time, Erol made a slight miscalculation, in the sudden surge of annoyance and impatience that came over him…

Noting, as had Mariala, that the cultists seemed unusually gullible, he decided to cut to the chase and probe for more information about their nasty frog-god. “So, the um, Mighty One must be quite powerful,” he began. “Is there anything He is particularly vulnerable to, that might –”

He wasn’t even able to finish the question before the faces of all three men went from vaguely idiotic friendliness to masks of full-on twisted rage. “Why would you ask about how to harm the Master?” snarled the one near the weapons barrel, reaching out to grab a nasty-looking double-edged blade of razor honed bone.

As the other two also reached for weapons as well, from behind them came the sound of water cascading. As Toran darted forward to intercept the cultist coming at him, Erol turned and whipped up his longbow, nocking an arrow and letting it fly at the nearest of the gigantic green-black frogs lurching out of the lake. But the creature took a prodigious leap, and the shaft flew under its massive form. It came down less than three meters from the party, its companion tight behind.

Toran blocked the maddened cultist’s first blow with his battle-axe, chips of bone flying as the macabre weapon met the enchanted iron of Ergonkïr. The crazed zealot, unbalanced by the block, completely failed to dodge the Khundari’s counter attack. He collapsed with an almost soundless exhalation as his intestines poured out of the gash the axe opened in his abdomen, spasmed, and was still.

Vulk had instantly aimed the Staff of Summer at the remaining cultists, and the faintly glowing strands of the entangling Weaver’s Web shot forth, enveloping both men and their workbench in a cocoon of nearly unbreakable energy, while Mariala had whirled and fired of a blast of Fire Nerves at the nearest of the giant frogs.

The creature was just opening its mouth to launch its no-doubt lethal tongue at Erol, who was scrambling to drop his bow and bring up his trident, and the blast caught it full in the face. With an enraged croak, the beast turned its blind gaze on Mariala and leaped over the gladiator, intending to come down on the woman and devour her in a single gulp.

Devrik swung his battlesword up over his head in a mighty arc which bisected that of the monstrous amphibian – the creature’s guts spilled forth, much like its human compatriot’s had moments before, and it crashed to the ground less than a meter from its target. One clawed, webbed arm reached for her, but fell limp as the beast shuddered and died.

“Thank you, my friend,” Mariala gasped, more than a little shaken by the close call. That gaping mouth rushing down on her had looked big enough to have swallowed her whole! “I don’t think –”

“Ah, I doubt I could have reached the thing if your magics hadn’t weakened it before it leapt,” Devrik shrugged and gave her a wry grin. He flicked the blood and guts of the dead frog off his blade, and they both turned to deal with the last frog.

That beast was preparing to leap into the midst of the group, but even as it left the ground Haplo gestured and gave a shout – three shimmering, almost invisible bolts of karmic energy shot forth from his hands and entered the frog in head, throat and belly. It collapsed to the ground much like its companion, although it continued to twitch until Erol drove his trident through its skull.

The web-bound cultists were trying to shriek in rage and fury at the death of the giant frogs, but their mouths were bound by the glowing strands, and little more than muffled squeaks escaped them. Ignoring them, the Hand drew together to discuss their next move… they knew where their ultimate adversary in this labyrinth lay, but how to deal with such a powerful being…

“It’s clearly a demon-spawn of some sort,” Mariala said. “And we do not have the best record with demons… I don’t think we want to loose a third demon on the world…”

“Well, technically, we only freed one demon,” Vulk argued. “Admittedly, one of the five most powerful demons in existence, but… anyway, the spider-demon was already free in the world, we just failed to banish it once we’d killed its physical form.”

“Well, that’s not a mistake I plan to repeat,” Mariala declared firmly. “Here’s what I propose…”

♦ ♦ ♦

A few minutes later, the group was ready to descend into the thick, noisome darkness of the Dol’Gurthog’s inner sanctum. Both Erol and Devrik had tried, and failed, to enflame trident and battlesword, respectively; the oppressive, cold chaos magics of the caves seemed to choke off their own power.

Toran, however, managed to cast Bladesharp on his battle-axe, giving his already powerful blade a particularly lethal edge, while Vulk spent several minutes in mediation and succeeded in gaining Virtues Armor, its faint glowing golden light providing him with the Lady’s holy protection in the upcoming fight.

In the hopes of softening up whatever waited below for them, Erol tossed one of his crystal spheres, imbued with the power of the Blast of Norinos, down the broad steps and into the darkness of the lair… but whatever uncanny blackness filled that space seemed to be too much for the light magic, and nothing occurred.

Erol then used his psionic Amplification ability to power up his companion’s defensive spells and rituals, while Korwin opened the lens on his bullseye lantern, hoping that its arcane light would again prove able to pierce the frog-demon’s arcane darkness.

And so it proved to be, the beam punching through the murk as the Hand descended the wide, rough stairs into the inner sanctum of the Dol’Gurthog, leaving Jeb and Therok above to guard their retreat.

The chamber was not as impressive as one might have expected for a supposed demon-god – maybe 30 meters wide and 15 meters deep. Its black stone walls dripped with the blue Primordial Ooze, while pulsating, bilious green masses of fungus grew in patches on the rough floor. Scattered bones, human and animal, littered the area, including an large pile of human sculls, topped by an immense giant’s skull, that formed an alter of sorts. A black-robed man stood near this structure, but his fierce glare at the intruders hardly registered, given what loomed behind him in the darkest corner.

Even after seeing all of the sketches and monuments, the Dol’Gurthog’s actual appearance was both horrifying and fearfully impressive. It stared in the group’s direction with empty eye sockets as the four large tentacles rising from its back flailed around above its head. Massive warts covered its body and a dozen horns jutted from the top of its head. Blue slime dropped from monstrosity’s flesh to form puddles on the floor around it. The eyeless stare seemed to flay the soul, and for a moment they all hesitated, caught in a grip of overpowering terror.

But with a collective shudder the companions all threw off the stultifying horror of the creature’s gaze. The Hand grit their teeth and moved forward, weapons ready, and the demonic amphibian gave out a croak that shook the chamber. As the echoes died away a thousand higher-pitched croaks answered, as from a great distance.

“His children come!” shouted the robed figure, presumably the infamous Speaker Kythel. “You shall suffer for your insolence in entering the presence of the Great One with violence in your minds!” He drew a wicked looking dagger and lunged at Vulk with a shriek.

Vulk easily blocked the attack with his broadsword, but the wiry man was limber and fast, dodging his return blow. At the same instance a tentacle whipped out from the Dol’Gurthog, sending Korwin’s lantern flying, and darkness descended like a shroud.

As the light failed Toran leapt forward to strike at the now-invisible bulk of the demon, but the attack was blocked by a tentacle that in turn sent the Khundari flying into a wall.

Mariala cast the Syncope of Shala on the monster, and for a moment it seemed to have staggered the thing. The stench that permeated the air began to fade somewhat… but then, suddenly, a tentacle flashed out of the darkness, just missing her head as she stumbled back. The stench returned in full force, and another enraged croak shook the room.

Erol shot shaft after shaft into the darkness. If the arrows hit he couldn’t be sure, but he suspected, by the sound of  wood clattering to stone, that at least some were knocked out of the air by those damn tentacles. Haplo’s karmic missiles vanished into the darkness as well, but by the squeal of rage that followed, there was little doubt they had hit.

As the others did their best to damage and distract the beast, Devrik stood still in the darkness and gathered all his arcane and mental strength. When he had found his calm center, and the heart of flame that burned there, he closed his currently useless eyes. He sensed the massive bulk of the hideous creature… there! He opened his mouth wide and with a roar unleashed the Breath of Zhone.

The cone of intense flame that blasted forth burned the darkness away and engulfed the monstrous demon frog. As the searing flames made a living bonfire of it, the Dol’Gurthog writhed and shrieked in agony and fury, tentacles lashing out at random. In the light of the burning Toran had no trouble nimbly leaping and ducking away from the flailing limbs, but Kythel, stupefied into immobility at his master’s  immolation, was struck and sent flying into a wall.

Mariala clutched the Bowl of Barsol tightly in both hands, and she felt the moment when the demonic entity that animated the mutant frog monstrosity fled its dying host. She sensed it trying to leap into Devrik. But the power of the bowl was irresistible and the arc of its trajectory, visible only in her inner eye as a streak of violet light, was bent and sucked into the bowl. It swirled ever faster, caught in an inexorable vortex that forced it to the center of the shallow concavity – and then it was gone, at least to her mind’s eye. She felt its raging presence within the artifact, however, and she smiled coldly in triumph.

“Did it work?” Vulk demanded, rushing up to her, the others close behind.

“It did,” she replied, her sharklike smile widening. “Just as planned. The demonic form is trapped in the Bowl, and once we can get it to a proper Temple sorcerer it will be cast back out into the Void.”

The group’s rather raucous response was interrupted by a sudden, heart-stopping shriek. Kythel had regained consciousness and he now knelt on the cold stone floor near the charred, smoking remains of his god, hands clutched to his head and unintelligible sounds – moans, grunts, shrieks and even less identifiable noises – poured from his writhing mouth.

As the Hand soon discovered, all of the cultists still alive in the complex were in a similar state. Their minds seemed completely gone, leaving them trapped in what seemed an unending horror they couldn’t articulate. No amount of talk could get them to respond, and mental probes only threatened to spread the madness to the prober.

The only exception seemed to be old Rythek. When they found the hedge wizard in his chamber he seemed dazed and listless, but clearly not raving mad. As Vulk tended to him he slowly came to his senses, and under gentle prodding, he answered some of their questions. It seemed that he had been kept relatively sane by the Dol-Gurthog so as to act as the demon’s interface with the human world… just as the Crown Prince Laravad had done for the previous two years.

This revelation shocked the company at first, but on reflection made perfect sense. Papers recovered from Kythel’s “office” had further fleshed out the tale – never stable, the Prince had discovered the lair of the proto-demon on a hunting foray from his lodge, while the creature was still fairly young. It had found easy purchase in his mind, and seemed to understand that their ambitions ran parallel, at least for the time being.

The Prince had fed the demon on outlaws taken by his men, travelers seized on remote roads, and eventually on his own servants and peasants. His own sanity had deteriorated, as the months went on, and whether he directed the Dol’Gurthog’s actions or the demon controlled his was unclear. But when the Prince died the demon frog was left to its own devices… and had quickly spread its influence to seek followers/victims in the nearest settlement. If not stopped, there was no telling how far its insanity and power might have spread…

Rythek eventually grew strong enough to move, and agreed to return with the Hand to the village of Hart’s Lodge.  Making their way out of the cave complex the group came across thousands of baby frog-thing corpses, which had apparently been on the way to answer their progenitor’s summons – and died with it. They trod carefully, and with great disgust, over the stinking corpses, already beginning to slough into a fetid slurry.

Once out into the relatively fresh air of the surrounding woods, the group turned to look back at the mouth-like entrance to the caverns. There was a brief discussion about how to keep innocent people from wandering into the underground shit-show, and what to do about the mindless cultists still within, but before anything could be decided Rythek took the matter into his own hands. With a look of fierce concentration, he reached out with both hands and used his apparently substantial telekinetic powers to bring down the entrance to the cavern, sealing the madness away forever…

“Works for me,” Devrik said with a shrug after the dust settled, and turned to lead the way back to civilization… and a cold beer.

Devrik was deeply skeptical of Vulk’s “plan” to seek out and recover the long lost Staff of Summer, but eventually he succumbed to the peer pressure – that, and the boredom of enforced inactivity, due to the winter weather, in a city he knew little of. The execution, by beheading, of the treasonous and arguably mad Crown Prince the day before had also left everyone unsettled, and a little action might do them good. Still, his doubts remained…

“After all,” he grumbled as they rode out of Zhuran’s South Gate two days later, “it’s not like we’re two for two in the freeing-malevolent-entities-from-their-justly-deserved-imprisonment game or anything… so what could possibly go wrong this time?”

The others, having heard it all before, said nothing and the cavalcade proceeded west into the Arnoth Highlands as quickly as the frozen, snow-covered roads allowed. Fortunately the weather was clear and dry, if very cold, and promised to hold so for at least the next fivnight, according to Korwin. And so it proved, somewhat to his companion’s surprise.

They crossed the semi-frozen Eigaril River at the Sarnik Ford on the third day out from the capital. The narrow but fast moving stream’s rocky shallows were slick with a coating of ice, which nearly brought down Haplo’s horse, rider and all. But disaster was averted, if narrowly, and the next afternoon brought the group to the small mountain hamlet of Winter’s Forge.

Nestled in a narrow alpine valley in the foothills of Mount Eigarstal, this was one of several small communities in the region that claimed to be the settlement closest to the Halls of the Winter King. Vulk, after careful study of what texts he could find, and strongly influenced by his dream-intuition (he carefully didn’t emphasis the latter point, especially to Devrik) had come to the conclusion that Winter’s Forge was the real deal.

The hamlet consisted of a half score of ramshackle buildings, the largest of which appeared to be both town hall and occasional inn. It’s two modest arms (they could hardly be called wings) encompassed the local well, and a decrepit sign depicting an ice-covered anvil swung above the main door. The Hand’s arrival was known to all the locals before they’d even managed to inquire about rooms, apparently by some species of psychic osmosis, and the main room began to fill up quickly with curious natives.

Stabling was found for the horses in various stalls or sheds around the hamlet, as were rooms for the humans, eventually – the hamlet rarely received more than three or four travelers at a time, and the Frozen Anvil had only three rooms.

“None of which are fit for a Lady,” the proprietor exclaimed, almost wringing his hands in anxiety. He was a tall, slender man of middle years, his face leathery and his sandy hair fast receding from a high forehead, who went by the name of Olberth.

“I’m sure your rooms are perfectly adequate,” said Mariala with a reassuring smile – which in no way conveyed her certainty that nothing in this miserable mountain pimple was even close to adequate. Thank Shala she’d learned that cantrip for killing vermin in her first year at chantry. “If I may have the smallest chamber, the men can share the other two rooms between them–”

This suggestion was greeted with more hand-wringing. It seemed all the rooms were small, the beds not only small but few in number, and what with the leaking roof in the owner’s own room, well… Eventually, with the help of several of the locals, it was all sorted out and the men assigned various beds in either the inn or one of three other nearby houses. No one, however, seemed willing to put forth their own home as adequate for the Lady’s (Mariala could hear the capitalization) unquestionably refined needs.

The Margrave of Greentower was about ready to put her noble foot down when an older woman, who had entered the common room in the midst of the discussion on settling the men, spoke up. “Oh for the love of Alea, the poor woman can stay with me,” she snorted in exasperation. “I don’t imagine, having ridden out to the arse-end of nowhere, she expected to find a palace. If she says she’s fine with what’s available, why must you make a fuss, Olberth?”

Clearly abashed at this rebuke, but equally clearly relieved to have the intimidating noblewoman taken off his hands, Olberth managed a few garbled words before dashing off to get Vulk, Devrik and Erol settled in their rooms. As the others were carried off by their new hosts to settle into their own accommodations the old woman offered Mariala an awkward half-curtsey, half-bow. Mariala smiled, genuinely this time, and offered her hand, introducing herself. “Mariala, and thank you so much for your hospitality.”

The old woman snorted again, but this time with a smile of her own, and took the proffered hand. Her grip was dry, firm and surprisingly warm. “Arella, pleased to meet you m’lady. And you might want to actually see the accommodations before you thank me.”

As it turned out, Arella’s home was the second largest in the hamlet, after the town hall/inn, and although worn with age it was tidy and clean. The small bedroom she installed Mariala in was both pleasant and entirely free of vermin. She had dragooned a neighbor youth to bring Mariala’s horse along, as her own small stable was, she assured her guest, drier and warmer than the shed they’d planned to house the poor beast in. “My late husband, may he be one with the All, was very insistent that the animals be properly tended to, and I’ve kept it up since his death.”

After she’d had time to clean up and rest for a bit, Arella knocked on Mariala’s door and asked if she’d be joining her friends for supper at the Frozen Anvil. “Everyone will be there, it’s unusual to get any visitors this time of year, never mind so many. It’ll be crowded, but one thing old Olberth does well is set a decent table.” The man in question had to be at least a decade younger than Arella, Mariala thought in amusement.

“Yes, I’d planned on joining my companions,” Mariala replied, reaching for her cloak. “We’re searching for some… information, and were hoping the local common room might be the best place to find it. Will you be joining the crowd?”

It turned out she was, and that she’d been right about the village turning out for the excitement of the exotic visitors. Although every seat in the common room was taken when they arrived, and people lined the walls, Mariala had no trouble finding a spot between Vulk and Devrik. Arella gave one young man near the door a look, and he quickly scrambled to his feet and offered her his seat. Patting him kindly on the cheek with an approving smile, she asked him to be a dear and fetch her a hot cider as she sat down.

The Hand shared with the room what information of the larger world they seemed interested in, telling tales of the recent battles, the narrow escape of the Crown Princess, and the restoration of the king. These remote subjects of his seemed genuinely to think well of the old man, and to be grateful that he was again ruling over them. The fate of the late Crown Prince was glossed over, and no one seemed inclined to pursue the matter – it seemed the usurper was likely to be quietly and quickly forgotten by his own would-be subjects.

The crowd also seemed very interested in the marriage that had united the kingdoms of Nolkior and Arushal, and even the men seemed fascinated by the details of the event. Much discussion was given to how this union would affect Tharkia – would the new Kingdom of Ukala retain Nolkior’s claim to their own country, or would they relinquish it, leaving only Serviar’s claim to hang over the throne, and poor, beleaguered King Balen?

Eventually the conversation was brought around to local tales, and to the legend of the Winter King. A strange reluctance seemed to fall over the crowd as Vulk and Mariala pressed the point. It was clear from their own stories that the hamlet milked the legend for all they could, and that it was the main reason they even had visitors, now that the old iron mine was played out. Yet with these visitors they seemed oddly reticent… the Hand hadn’t identified themselves directly, but the stories they’d told had made it clear that this group was, at the very least, competent.

Eventually several people offered up directions to the supposed “mountain seat” of the Winter King, although claiming that at this time of year it was too dangerous to make the several-mile journey. Both Mariala and Vulk had no trouble detecting the falsehood of these statements, but they also could sense that there were lies of omission going on as well. Letting the conversation be led off onto other paths, the two leaned in to speak quietly amongst themselves and to Devrik.

“I think they know where the true Halls are,” Vulk said in frustration, “but they are adamant about keeping that information secret. They’re happy enough to make some coin sending seekers to some made-up spot, but not to the true location. Why?”

“I agree, my own spells have made it very clear that we’re being actively lied to,” Mariala said, “and that other truths are being deliberately withheld. But I’m no clearer on the why than you are… Devrik?”

“I take your word on the lying, of course,” the fire mage rumbled. “But I don’t see what we can do about it. We’ve offered money, rather a lot, and yet they seem absolutely –”

“Oh, they are hide-bound, superstitious and fearful fools,” a querulous voice suddenly interrupted Devrik. The three friends turned to find Arella standing close behind them, a look of mixed resignation and annoyance on her face. “I suggest you three join me for some tea at my home. It will be easier to explain there than in the middle of this barn dance.”

An hour later the four of them where seated comfortably enough around the small fire in Arella’s parlor, as the old woman began her explanation. “It’s pretty damn obvious that you lot are more than the usual run of souvenir hunters, thrill seekers or arcane historians we usually get here, seeking the way to the Halls of the Winter King. I’d say you’d be what they call them there “adventurers,” like what the old stories talk about… and the others sense that too.”

She waved her hand impatiently when Vulk began to offer explanations. “Pish, it’s neither here nor there, as long as you’re competent adventurers. That’s what we need right now, though the others might deny it.”

“I’d like to think we’re above average,” Mariala said smoothly, noting the sardonic gleam in Devrik’s eye and cutting off any snarky comments he might have been inclined to offer. “But please, won’t you tell us why you feel the need for someone like us just now?”

“Well, that’s why we’re hear, dearie, init?” the old woman said with a laugh, apparently satisfied about the group’s bona fides. “You see, it’s well know in this hamlet where the ancient fortress and high seat of the Winter King can be found – and has been known for generations. In truth, it’s not far from here at all.

“But you see, our folk were charged long ago to keep the secret from all who might come looking… legends say that after the great Telnori wizard Hastur had defeated the Winter King and imprisoned him in a block of ice deep beneath the mountain, this was the first place he and his apprentice reached.

“Hastur was near to death, having been mortally wounded by the fell magics of that giant necromancer, and would never have made it even this far without his apprentice’s help. This was a larger town then, although already much reduced thanks to the years of eternal winter, and there was a physician here… sadly, his skills were not enough, and after a tenday the great wizard passed to the All. But not before exacting a promise from the townsfolk that they would not let anyone near the old fortress, lest his spells be broken and the Winter King freed once more.

“Already the terrible, endless winter had ended, and a marvelous spring was bursting forth with astonishing speed, as if nature wished to make up for all the years of growth lost to the cold. In their gratitude (and fear, lest the miracle be withdrawn) the men and women of Winter’s Forge agreed, and their oath was reaffirmed and taken up by each new generation. Even as time took its toll, and the town shrank to a village, and the village to a hamlet, the faith has been kept.

“But I fear that the time has come to break that faith.” She paused for a moment, lost in some melancholy thought, before resuming her tale.

“In my lifetime, I have seen the winters in these hills grow ever harsher, ever longer, and the effects spreading ever-farther afield. My dear Harult traveled much in the region, and became convinced, near the end, that the spells of Hastur were slowly beginning to fail, and the power of the Winter King was growing and spreading once more. Some in the village dismissed our arguments, saying there have been harsh winters before; but they are willfully blind to what is happening, hiding their fear behind “faith” and “honor.” Others simply no longer really believe in the old legends.

“The believers fear to tamper with what has always protected us, the unbelievers don’t care, and so we sit, sliding ever closer to a terrible doom, I feel it in my bones. I don’t know what you can do, exactly, but you lot practically reek of the uncanny… if you can renew Hastur’s spells, or destroy the Winter King for good, either one… well, I think it’s better to risk it now than wait for him to regain his full strength. I’m too old to be living in eternal winter!

“I will tell you how to find the true High Seat of the Winter King.”

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

That night Vulk had “The Dream” again. Like the previous two times, it was identical in the action it portrayed, feeling far more like a memory than a dream. But this time when the dream faded he didn’t immediately wake up. Instead he floated in a dark void, and after a few moments he heard a voice, soft but piercingly clear… the voice of his Great Beast mentor, Dügora.

“He who takes the High Seat of the Winter King
If his heart be open to Winter’s beauty
Shall see all of Winter’s Realm laid bare
And then the Wheel of Heaven shall be his
To be turned at his will and with the path unlocked
Shall the treasures of Winter’s Heart be opened”

As the last syllable faded away, Vulk woke suddenly and completely. He reached for the stick of graphite and scraps of paper he’d been keeping by his bedside since the dreams had begun, and quickly wrote down the words – although they seemed etched in his mind, and he doubted he’d ever forget them. Re-reading them he realized, with a start, that some version of this had been in the Ur-Tel’naru documents he’d been translating – a section that he’d had trouble deciphering, but that now seemed perfectly clear.

He eventually laid back down, certain that he’d be unable to sleep.. but in minutes he had drifted off into a deep and, this time, dreamless slumber.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Early the next morning the Hand, having reassembled themselves in the yard in front of the Frozen Anvil, set off along the almost non-existent, overgrown, snow covered track Arella had described for them the night before. The few locals who were up to see them off, which included the anxious Olberth, seem dismayed at their choice of direction, but uncertain of how to dissuade them. All their blandishments and suggestions about the desirability of the opposite, much wider and better tended trail seemed to fall on deaf ears. No one had any illusions about using force on this group, of course…

After several hours of hard travel, they were forced to leave the horses behind, securely tied to trees in a wide clearing at the foot of a steep, stoney slope. Jeb and Therok were detailed to keep watch over them, and the rest of the party continued onward and upward. Arella’s directions had been admirably clear, and they knew from this point it was less than a mile to the “High Seat,” but a mile the horses could never traverse. Indeed, it took well over an hour for the humans (and human-adjacents) to finally come within sight of their goal.

Stepping out of a stand of snow-covered firs, a wide plateau opened suddenly to the east, a steep slope rolling down to the south and sheer cliffs to the north. A frozen  stream cascaded down from the highest cliff in undulating, icy sheets, to “flow” around a pier of stone on a middle level, before tumbling in silent, motionless waves down the lower cliff into a narrow pool then running down the slope to the east.

On the rocky pier was set a circular dais of light gray stone, upon which sat a massive chair of carved granite. Clearly meant for one of the larger species of Gyantari, it remained surprisingly free of snow and ice. A narrow flight of large, deep and high steps was carved into the stone of the nearer cliff, leading up to the central plateau and the High Seat. Unlike the seat itself, the stairs were covered in snow and ice, and looked treacherous. A cold, oppressive weight and a sense of foreboding seemed to bear down on everyone, with the exception of Korwin, who actually felt quite energized.

Before continuing, it was decided that Vulk should send Cherdon aloft to scout the stone chair and the area around them. But as the falcon soared upward in a widening gyre a series of sudden, sharp cracks, like a score of whips snapping at once, broke the snow-muffled silence. Rising up from the shattering ice of the frozen stream to the north were a dozen skeletal corpses of men, the “flesh” that knit their bones made of glittering blue ice. Some bore pitted, rusting blades, others merely razor claws of ice. Between these hideous specters, rising from the ice with them, were great hounds, the size of dire wolves, the solid ice of their forms cracking and instantly reforming as they stalked forward, eyes glowing red.

Erol was the first to leap forward to meet the shambling hoard as it moved toward the group, his trident flashing in the winter sun as he drove it into the flank of the nearest ice hound. It made no sound as it staggered back, great cracks radiating from it side… and it didn’t go down.

Toran had his battle-axe out and chopped mightily at the legs of another ice hound, causing it to stumble but also doing no real damage.

Near the back of the group, Mariala cast Resistance on herself, while Vulk attempted to cast Kasira’s Smile on Devrik, who was rushing forward, roaring out the incantation to Arkel’s Fiery Ribbons. Unfortunately both Vulk’s ritual and Devrik’s spell failed in the cold, forbidding atmosphere of the area.

Haplo, near the front, whipped his hand axe from his belt, swinging it in a mighty arc at the “belly” of the nearest ice zombie, shattering its spine as it claws scrapped uselessly against his armor. Even as it fell to pieces, once again merely lifeless bone and ice, a second one attacked. Haplo continued his follow through, turning it into a powerful counterattack that embedded the axe in the creature’s skull. It, too, collapsed in ruin.

As his spell sputtered out into nothing, an ice hound leapt for Devrik’s throat. The fire mage pulled his massive battle sword from its sheath on his back and counterstuck as he ducked beneath the glittering body. The blow shattered the beast’s hip, and it fell to the ground, writhing as widening cracks ran up its body, until it shattered into a thousand inanimate shards.

More ice hounds, outstripping the more shambling zombies, leapt to attack Erol and Toran, who blocked and evaded, waiting for their moment. Two bore down on Erol, who countered the first attack, piercing the ice warrior’s chest, and nearly dodged the second but couldn’t avoid a freezing gash to his thigh. Toran’s opponent wielded two ice-coated blades, and its attack was swift and vicious. It scored a screeching hit across the armor covering his belly, and managed to dodge the Khundari Shadow Warrior’s counterattack.

Devrik and Haplo both dodged attacks of their own, while Korwin summoned up his Ice Blade. The spell seemed to flow effortlessly from him, and the resultant blade that encased his right forearm seemed both sharper and stronger than any he’d yet manifested. Even so, the ice hound he first swung it at easily dodged his blow, circling around to try and get behind him.

As more of the ice dead swarmed over them, Erol shattered the brittle metal of a frozen sword and the hand that wielded it. Again, fractures radiated out from the destroyed limb, causing the zombie to collapse into shards. At the same moment Toran drove his battle-axe through shoulder of another ice zombie as it clawed at his chest, cleaving the creature almost in two and it shattering it.

Vulk had attempted to turn the clearly undead mob with his holy symbol, but in doing so had sensed no hint of the Shadow. Whatever these monsters were, they were not true undead. Of course, merely necromantically animated corpses were bad enough… Focusing past the dampening effects of whatever magic ruled this place, Vulk again cast Kasira’s Smile, and this time it worked – with a vengeance!

Devrik felt the surge of power flow through him, recognizing the blessing of Kasira. Momentarily free of opponents, he tried again to cast Arkel’s Fiery Ribbons, and this time achieved some measure of success. The spell seemed weak, however, and the ribbons moved sluggishly. Only one fully hit an ice hound, which collapsed to the ground as its legs melted beneath it, while a second hound almost dodged another ribbon, taking only a glancing blow to its left side, which sagged a bit.

The damage caused the beast to turn aside from Devrik, however, and instead it leapt toward Korwin. The water mage’s ice-blade managed to block the bite attack, the ice hound biting down on the blade and inadvertently driving it it through its own skull. It shattered into pieces at Korwin’s feet.

As Haplo and Erol caused more damage to the relentlessly approaching enemies, yet another ice zombie lunged at Devrik. As the fire mage’s counterstrike shattered its right arm and blade, sending a lethal spiderweb of cracks along its torso, the creature still managed to drive its second blade through his armor, scoring a deep cut along his abdomen. The injury itself was relatively minor, but the shock of the supernatural cold hit Devrik like a sledge hammer, driving him down into darkness…

Erol saw his friend topple over, and immediately felt his extratemporal psionic power engage. Time slowed to a molasses flow as he ran across the field to drive his trident into the side of the ice hound that was scrambling over the disintegrating corpse of its former companion to savage the unconscious Devrik. The hound cracked in two, and both halves shattered as they hit the ground. His second attack took the ice zombie shambling toward his friend in the neck, neatly decapitating it.

Haplo and Vulk, momentarily back-to-back, both managed to dodge attacks from an ice hound and an ice zombie, respectively. Toran sent a cross-bow bolt into the ice zombie threatening Vulk, taking off its weapon hand and causing a chain reaction of cracks that ended with it collapsing into shards off ice and bone.

Mariala, drifting back into the cover of the trees, managed to position herself behind another ice zombie as it lurched toward Devrik, who was being helped to his feet by Erol. Neither seemed aware of the danger, and she leapt to the attack with her Khundari dagger, taking the creature in the upper back, shattering it.

Korwin killed another ice hound at the same moment, but was wounded himself in the process – the gash sent a wave of intense cold through him, momentarily dazing him, enough so that, as he staggered back, he was unable to completely block the next ice zombie’s slash at his abdomen. Even as a second wave of black cold washed through him he drove his own ice blade into its head… as it disintegrated into its component parts he collapsed on top of it, unconscious.

Toran was forced to drop his cross-bow as an ice hound lunged at him from less than two meters away; he barely had time to whip two tabûri throwing knives from his belt and hurl them. They met the beast in mid-leap, taking it in the throat and belly, shattering it into several pieces. The creature’s momentum, however, couldn’t be stopped, and the disintegrating body slammed into Toran’s head, momentarily stunning him.

Another ice hound, thinking to take advantage of the situation, had time to be only briefly surprised when the Khundari, whirled around and cut its legs out from beneath it with his battleaxe. Erol took out the last of the ice hounds before turning to help Mariala, who was facing one of the last two zombies. But despite a few dodges and feints she needed no help, driving her dagger into the monster’s thigh, then whipping it back up to shatter its jaw with the pommel as it collapsed.

The last ice zombie lunged at Haplo, glittering claws grasping for his face, only to meet the head of his hand axe instead. As the mindless creature gnawed on the weapon, held at arms length, its arms flailing, Toran stepped up from behind and cut it in two at the waist with a single powerful swing.

As the silence of the snow-muffled mountains settled over them again, the Hand stared warily around, cautious of a second wave of uncanny enemies arising from the again-frozen stream. But when, after several minutes, there appeared no new attack, they began to tend to their wounds. Korwin was revived, and Vulk’s healing ability, along with the group’s vials of Baylorium 7, soon had everyone back in fighting condition.

Once everyone was rested and generally healed up, the group cautiously mounted the stone stairway up to the middle shelf of land that held the small island of the High Seat of the Winter King. The stairs were covered in drifts of snow and coated in ice, the stone cracked and uneven, making the ascent just as treacherous as they had feared. Only Korwin seemed to have no trouble, skipping eagerly up the stairs as if he was in his own home.

As the last of the others made it to the top they found the water mage standing at the edge of the frozen stream that flowed around the pier of rock containing the giant seat.He was unsure, as were his companions, whether crossing the stream might not be a very bad idea – another wave of undead? The water suddenly unfreezing and sweeping people over the falls? Worse?

Erol volunteered to go first, tying a rope around his chest, under his arm pits, while Toran cast Joining of Merkunon to anchor himself to the bedrock of the mountain, the other end of the rope firmly tied around his own waist. Certainly no one would be swept away, should that be the trap that awaited them, and if some other dire eventuality occurred they could at least drag Erol’s body back. Korwin cast Demokirian’s Freeze over the ice and touched everyone in the group, making them able to tread on the ice as if it were packed earth.

With the others gathered near the shore, except Toran who was anchored further back, Erol stepped out onto the ice and cautiously moved forward, wary of any hint of change to the opaque surface. “It seems very solid, very thick,” he called over his shoulder. “I don’t see any indication of water below, even; I think it’s frozen clear to the –”

He was halfway across when he suddenly stopped, in both mid-sentence and mid-stride. After a moment he looked around, then down at the rope tied around his chest, then back at the others. “Why is there a rope around me?” he asked, almost conversationally, as he loosed it and let it drop to his feet. “And who are you folks? It’s certainly very cold, isn’t it?”

“Oh shit,” said Devrik as his friend stepped over the coil of rope and started to wander away. “We can’t pull him back now – I’ll grab him!” He stepped out onto the ice and headed towards Erol. Kowrin also headed out on the ice, but more to get to the other side than to help his companions.

“You idiots, no!” cried Mariala, just a second too late. Devrik, less than halfway to Erol, suddenly stopped and looked around in confusion. Who was the read-headed lady who seemed so upset? What was she so upset about? And why was he standing in the middle of some frozen pond? Come to think on it, who the Void was he, never mind the odd group of people milling about over there?

Korwin, meanwhile strode briskly to the opposite side of the frozen stream and climbed up the short rocky path to the dais that held the giant stone chair. He mightily resisted the temptation to hoist himself up onto it and sit, despite his conviction that he was meant to do so. He’d felt, ever since he’d heard Vulk’s little dream ditty about the High Seat of the Winter King and the treasures of Winter’s Heart, that it was meant for him – the rhyme called to him in a way he’d never experienced before, and he was sure it was his destiny to sit on this throne…

But they’d agreed to go carefully, so he restrained himself, turning back to his companions. Devrik and Erol still stood on the frozen stream, and seemed to be introducing themselves to one another. Trying to, anyway, as neither seemed to know what their name was or who they were. They were distracted by the calls of the others who, with gentle words and promises of answers, gradually lured them back to the “safe” side.

Erol and Devrik approached the strangers warily, hands hovering near their weapons, but they didn’t draw and they didn’t bolt. Mariala tried to explain who they were and what had happened, but it seemed to make little impact on either man. Devrik continued to eye everyone suspiciously and looked dubious as the tale unfolded.

“You’re very pretty,” Erol said suddenly, interrupting Mariala’s monologue. “When we get back to a city or town or whatever, would you like to get a drink?” This stopped Mariala in mid-sentence, her mouth open in surprise. When she didn’t respond immediately, Erol asked if anyone wanted to make a snowman.

“Snap out of it, man!” growled Toran in annoyance, and he slapped the ex-gladiator upside the head, despite their height difference. “Wake up!”

Erol, looking surprised and then annoyed himself, took a swipe at the inexplicable Khundari, who nimbly dodged. He realized he knew what the shorter man was, but not who he was, which seemed odd… his disgruntlement at being slapped vanished when the silver-haired stranger bopped the dwarf on the helmet and told him to stop. As they began to argue he turned with a shrug and began rolling the base of his snowman…

Vulk managed to lead a wary Devrik over to stand near the happily whistling Erol, where he performed the ritual Blessing of Kasira on both men at once. Instantly they froze, their faces suddenly stiff and blank. Then it was obvious that memory and personality were flowing back into them. Erol looked down at the large sphere of snow in his hand, the torso of his snowman, and dropped it in puzzlement.

“Am I making a snowman?” he demanded of Devrik, in some confusion. “If so, why?”

“I have no idea,” Devrik replied. “Anymore than I understand how Korwin got to the other side of the river.”

Vulk, emboldened by Korwin’s safe passage across the ice and his own restoration of his friends’ minds, performed the Blessing of Kasira on himself, then set off across the ice to join the water mage. Safely on the far side with both mind and memory intact, he called across to the others.

“I don’t see any point in risking anyone else at this point. Korwin and I will go up and see what the situation is with this High Seat; the rest of you keep a sharp watch for anything unusual while we’re at it, please.”

The others agreed. No one was anxious to lose their minds just to sit on a no doubt very cold hunk of granite, even if Vulk could probably restore them. As the two men headed up the short path to the dais, they argued about who should sit in the throne first. In the end Korwin deferred to Vulk… right up to the moment when the cantor was pulling himself up onto the seat. Before he could turn and sit Korwin had leaped up beside him, and they sat simultaneously.

To Vulk’s chagrin, he saw nothing, felt nothing – beyond the searing chill of the frozen stone on his ass – even as it was obvious Kowrin was having a different experience. He felt the cold not at all, and as his own ass hit the stone his vision suddenly sharpened – the high seat looked out over the Arnoth Highlands below them, and he could see to the horizon with a clarity, and in such detail, that it took his breath away. The hamlet of Winter’s Forge looked like it was a model just a few feet away… he could actually make out the individual faces of various villagers going about their business…

His attention was wrenched away from this voyeuristic pursuit, however, when a sudden vision appeared in the air before the throne. It was a glowing blue-white orrery of the Ziran system, hovering in translucent three dimensional glory before him. The date glowed in large letters and numbers above the model, and as he reached out to try and touch the beautiful structure he found the planets of the system moved with his motions. As they moved, the date changed, and he quickly realized he could select any date by positioning the planets and moons in their configuration on that date – past or future!

Vulk saw nothing.

Once Korwin had described what he was seeing some debate followed about how the orrery should be manipulated to achieve “the path unlocked.” In the end they found that it was the date of the summer solstice, for any year, that was the key. When the model was set thusly, the vision faded and there was a sudden rumbling beneath their feet. Down the cliff, near the base of the southern slopes, a sudden spray of powdered snow could be seen puffing out and avalanching down into the trees below.

Rejoining the others, the group headed down the slopes to find a massive cave entrance had been revealed by the swinging open of great stone doors disguised as part of the hillside. Cautiously entering, the Hand found a series of large caverns and sinuous, winding passageways leading deeper into the mountain. Great outcroppings of glowing blue crystal grew in patches from walls, floors and ceilings, illuminating everything in a cold, eerie light. A natural stone bridge arched over a chasm where a once rushing stream was frozen far below, and giant steps lead downward.

One level was clearly a living space for a giant of tremendous size… ethereal fires burned still in great hearths in kitchen and hall, giving off no heat, as well as in braziers of bronze and onyx in study and bedroom. An immense bed occupied the center of the latter room, and beyond it a hidden door lead to what appeared to be a treasury. Although the shelves were bare, a massive chest stood at the far end of the long, narrow room, and it drew the party.

Toran quickly determined that the chest, almost as tall as he was, was protected by locks and traps both physical and arcane. While he could defeat the former with his own skill and his magic key, the latter were far beyond his ability to dispel. After the other mages tested their own skills against the magic defenses, Korwin decided to try a more practical tactic. He used his telekinetic hand to unlock the last lock and lift the lid – instantly the chest and everything for two meters around it were encased in ice.

Fortunately no one had been caught in the frigid explosion, but the resultant ice was like steel. Most of the Hand had felt the oppressive weight on their souls increase as they moved deeper in to the Halls of the Winter King, and their own arcane powers waning, especially Devrik. Attempting to summon fire to melt the ice, he found he couldn’t generate so much as a magical spark. Even his psionic pyrokinesis could produce no more than a pale, flickering flame.

Korwin was the only exception, in most regards, to the general malaise. His own powers felt energized and sharper the deeper they went, but at the same time he sensed a malevolence that seemed directed at him in particular. This feeling of jealous rage kept him on edge, and he felt it trying to subdue his powers, even as the sanctum itself (for that’s surely what this was, a natural Avikoran sanctum) boosted them. He was forced to admit that it would take him hours to sublimate the ethereal ice around the chest.

The group decided to leave the chest, for now, and see what they might do once the primary objective was achieved. Moving out of the living quarters they followed more winding, giant stairs down to an even lower level, and so found at last the Great Hall of the Winter King. It was a huge chamber with multiple levels of natural shelves rising from the solid ice floor, and a great dais inset in the southwest wall, upon which was a far more massive and ornate throne than the one outside.

And seated upon that throne was an enormous humanoid figure of solid blue-white, translucent ice, much like the ice hounds in fact. A cold blue light burned in the deep-set eye sockets as it turned its gaze on the intruders, the mere moving of its head sounding like the groaning and calving of glaciers. Massive fists clenched at the arms of the throne, their ice cracking and refreezing as it flexed.

“Who dares disturb the counsels of the Winter King?” a voice both deep and crystalline growled as the Hand stood frozen in their tracks.

“We seek an audience with you, mighty King,” Korwin said, before anyone else could answer. As he stepped forward the figure rose from its seat with the sound of an avalanche and gestured toward the much smaller mage.

“Die, interloper!” it rumbled as a large icy spike flew from the out-flung hand. Korwin’s eyes widened and he tried to dodge, but the freezing spear took him in the thigh and he fell screaming to the floor. His blood froze as it tried to pool around him, and his mind sank into blissful, pain-free darkness.

Erol immediately sent a shaft from his longbow into the left hip of the Winter King, followed almost without pause by a bolt from Toran’s cross-bow, which embedded itself in the giant’s right shoulder. Mariala hurled her dagger at an eye, but the blade was batted aside with ease, sending it skittering across the ice floor.

Haplo pulled his axe free with one hand and gestured with the other, sending a blast of invisible force, in the form of four Mokel’s Karmic Missiles, at the looming enemy. Cracks appeared at the left thigh, both shoulders and the right elbow, but they seemed to heal over almost as quickly as the formed.

The Winter King in turn made a similar gesture, and another spike flew from his hand, piercing Haplo’s right bicep, sending his hand axe and a spray of blood flying and the young mage to his knees, clutching at the wound and attempting to stop the bleeding.

Erol’s extratemporal power kicked in as he tried to cast Burning Shaft on his trident before hurling it at their foe. But the oppressive weight of the Avikoran sanctum caused the spell to sputter out in failure, even as the weapon itself shattered the left shoulder of the giant. The Winter King screamed in crystalline rage, seeming at last to feel something – just as Toran’s next bolt pieced his mouth, blowing out the back of his icy skull in a shower of glittering shards.

The blue fire in his eyes flickered out, and in slow motion the body of the Winter King toppled forward off his dais, to shatter into a million pieces on the floor of the Great Hall. For a moment there was a deep silence, broken only by Haplo’s muttered curses as he tried to staunch the flow of blood from his arm. Then the flood burst as everyone started talking at once.

“That was… surprisingly easy,” Toran said suspiciously.

“Tell that to Korwin,” said Vulk as he knelt by the unconscious man. “And Haplo.” Mariala was kneeling by the silver-haired mage, wrapping an improvised bandage around his arm. “Damn, he’s lost a lot of blood. Go through his scrip, see if you can find the rest of his Baylorium 7s!”

As Toran searched for the precious ceramic bottles, Vulk pulled the chain around Korwin’s neck from beneath his tunic and unstoppered the brass and crystal vial it supported. He slowly poured the dose into his friend’s mouth, making sure he swallowed it and didn’t choke or spit it back up. When Toran handed him the green ceramic bottle which contained a triple dose of the miracle elixir, he poured the entire thing over the gaping wound in Korwin’s thigh.

Almost at once the bleeding slowed, and in less than a minute it had stopped completely. Within five minutes the edges of the wound were visibly beginning to close, the flesh knitting itself back together. Two turns of the glass later, Korwin was back on his feet, if still weak and pale from blood loss, and favoring the wounded leg a bit.

Once satisfied that his friend would live, Vulk moved to check on Haplo. With Mariala’s help he had managed to swallow his own emergency vial of Baylorium 7s, but was more than willing to let the cantor apply the topical version to the wound itself. Nasty as it was, not having nicked an artery it began to heal even more quickly than Korwin’s injury, and by the time the group gathered at the foot of the giant throne he was already flexing his bicep and hefting his recovered hand axe.

“There is no way that this was the actual Winter King,” Vulk began once they’d all gathered. A thorough search of the hall had revealed no sign of the Staff of Summer, and in any case in his visions the Gyantari wizard had been a flesh-and-blood being, not a creature of solid ice.

“I don’t think Hosara-Tar actually turned his enemy into ice… that just feels wrong, somehow. No, I think this was just another animated trap of the actual Winter King, much like those ice zombies and even more like the ice hounds. But I’m not sure what to do next, we seem to have reached the bottom of this fortress…”

“Actually,” said Toran diffidently, “I found a hidden door while searching around for the Staff. I figured if no one else found the thing, I’d suggest we try there. Or even if they did find it, that we might find something worthwhile to loot…”

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The secret door did, indeed, lead to something worthwhile… after winding down narrow, twisting passages, the Hand came at last down a final set of stairs and out into another large chamber, unlike any they had yet seen. The clumps of crystal there glowed with a pinkish white light, and the floor was made of deeply glowing violet ice. A huge ward was etched into the ice, filling the center of the room, and across from where they stood was a massive throne of amethyst. On that throne sat the true King of Winter, and he was terrible.

His flesh had fallen from his bones at some point, and in its place flickered a cold blue flame. This searingly cold new “flesh” mostly covered his bones, save that his skull shone through the flames wreathing his head. The deep sockets of his eyes glowed with a piercing blue light and a malevolent intelligence. Tattered robes and blackened armor covered him, and in his hand was a black spear of twisted wood, with a black metal point across which pale blue flames flickered.

As the Hand stepped into the room, crowding onto the area of bare stone at the entrance which rose slightly above the glowing violet ice, he rose. He stood almost seven meters tall, and when he spoke his voice was as dead and cold as the void between the stars.

“So, once again the little folk come to challenge my power, the power of Winter. You are fools, and will fare no better than the last witless child to face me.”

“That ‘witless child’ may not have been able to destroy you,” Vulk said, stepping forward to the edge of the ice, inwardly praying to Kasira for strength and wits. “But he certainly succeeded in imprisoning you here for over 13 centuries.”

For a moment the Winter King was silent, and when he spoke it was almost wistful, if only briefly so. “Has it truly been so long? But it is no matter… I may have fallen into that mageling’s trap, my power indeed confined herein – for a time. But for many years since that trap has become my own bastion, its power my power. I have slowly subverted its energies to my own purposes, and am its prisoner no more!

“Whether you come to steal the Staff of Summer or to make sure that the King of Winter is truly dead, you have failed already – for I live! Indeed, I have become immortal; and the Staff of Summer is no more! For behold, it has become the Spear of Winter, and soon it will usher in a never-ending Age of Ice across the globe!” He lifted the spear and slammed its haft down against the ice three times.

While this had been going on, Devrik had been desperately trying to ignite his battlesword with Goraten’s Brand, struggling against the tremendous pressure of not fire that beat against him like an ocean. Five times he tried to empower the spell, and each failure drained a little more energy from him… he could feel the fatigue beginning to sap his physical strength as well as his mental agility, and that last attempt had been almost as draining as the first four combined. Closing out all distractions, he focused his will inward even as he sent out prayers to Kasira and Xydona…

As the echoes of the last tap of the Winter King’s spear reverberated, and before Vulk could respond,  Erol and Toran, almost simultaneously brought up their bows and fired. Erol’s shaft flew true, he could feel it, straight for the monster’s heart – almost contemptuously the giant flicked his hand and the spear knocked the arrow aside like it was standing still. A second flick and Toran’s bolt was also knocked aside before it could pierce the “royal” breast.

“Impressive,” muttered Toran, and Erol echoed the thought with a respectful “Well played!”

As soon as the missiles had flown, Vulk had begun the ritual of Kasira’s Smile, seeking to aid Devrik. He knew his friend would need it in this frigid Avikor sanctum more than any of the others. His own will was oppressed by the cold, dark weight of the sanctum, but even through the darkness he could feel the light and power of the Immortal Lady of Luck. And even if it wasn’t the widest channel he’d ever opened, nonetheless he felt Her power flow through him and into Devrik…

With a roar, Devrik leapt up from where he had been kneeling behind the others, and his sword burst into flame with a roar of its own, its light and heat pushing back the cold and the dark. The fire mage pushed past his friends and rushed the giant, sword high. “Prepare to meet the true King of Summer!”

The Winter King rushed forward to meet the charge, chanting some incantation that caused his spear to burst into blue flames that radiated a deathly cold to match Devrik’s heat. The two met near the center of the chamber, and the giant was slightly faster – he thrust his flaming spear forward with all his considerable strength straight for his smaller opponent’s gut.

Devrik, still feeling the power of Kasira within him, went low and for the counterstrike. The shock of the blow numbed his right arm, but he kept his grip on his sword even as the Spear of Winter went flying from the Winter King’s grasp to clatter onto the ice to the right!

As the giant reeled back in apparent shock and fury, he was hit at almost the same instant by Mariala’s Passion Nerves spell, and Haplo’s four Mokel’s Karmic Missiles. Unfortunately both seemed to do little more than momentarily confuse, and then further enrage, the giant.

Erol went extratemporal with practiced ease, and hurled his net. The Winter King dodged it easily and dove for his Spear. Toran made a grab for the weapon as well – and beat him to it. The dwarf rolled quickly away and the spear’s icy flames flickered out as he tossed it to Vulk.

Vulk, who had been taken aback by the giant’s claim to have corrupted the Staff of Summer, quickly realized it had been a lie. He sensed the power in the spear, but it had no relationship to the Toraz convocation, or indeed to life itself. It was strictly a tool of death and entropy, and he tossed it out of the cave, into the passageway behind them.

Meanwhile, Haplo had kept the Winter King busy with a flurry of attacks with his flashing hand axe. The giant blocked each blow with iron bracers, but it kept him distracted long enough for Erol, still moving at speed, to entangle the giant with his net, causing him to stumble. To the ex-gladiator’s accelerated senses the opening this gave him was wide and long – his trident thrust pierced the necromancer’s armor and blue fire surged out of the wound in the giant’s side, staggering him.

With the Winter King reeling, Korwin cast his Drunken Hand spell, while at the same instant Vulk Cursed him. Seeing their enemy dazed, Devrik attacked again, bringing his fiery sword around for a mighty blow. The Winter King, who had retreated almost back to his throne, grabbed his own battlesword, propped against it, and ignited it with his icy flames even as he made a lightning counterattack. Fast as he was, he was clearly still feeling the effects of Korwin’s spell, and he staggered just a bit as he attacked – and by that was saved as Devrik’s blade missed him by a hair. His own blade cut into Devrik’s right thigh, however, splitting his armor.

Ignoring the pain, Devrik instantly moved in for another attack, and the Winter King muttered an incomprehensible incantation… three balls of crackling blue energy appeared around his upraised hand, and he hurled them at the fire mage. Devrik just managed to dodge the spheres, and could feel the burning cold radiating from them as they passed.

The giant took advantage of Devrik’s momentary distraction and raised his sword to attack – but before the blow could fall, one of Toran’s tabûri bloomed in his forearm, piercing the fiery flesh between the bracer’s straps and causing him to drop his weapon.

Mariala had been preparing to throw her own knife from behind Devrik, but in having to dodge the Blue Balls of Icy Death herself, she fumbled the blade. Cursing silently to herself as the blade clattered to the ice, she dove to retrieve it and hoped no one noticed her ungainly scramble.

Erol, Haplo and Toran kept up a barrage of attacks on the Winter King, keeping him from picking up his fallen sword and able only to block with his armored forearms. Fire continued to flicker from the gash in his armor, but he seemed little effected by the wound.

As he prepared for his next run, a sudden flash of inspiration struck Devrik. He disengaged from the battle with the Winter King, ducking a blow from his massive fist and rolling away toward the center of the room. Coming to his feet over the heart of the warding sigil etched into the ice, he yelled “This is either going to succeed wildly, or fail spectacularly!” as he raised his flaming blade over his head. Everyone in the chamber froze as he drove the burning sword deep into the heart of the mystic symbol.

The was a flash of blinding violet light, a tremendous CRACK like thunder, and everyone was hurled away from Devrik as if lifted by an invisible hand. Cracks propagated outward at terrible speed, and the icy floor of the cavern broke into dozens of fragments floating on a sea of bubbling, steaming mud. Devrik lay stunned on the largest fragment, his sword cold and inert nearby, the Winter King had been thrown back against his crystal throne, and the others were scattered variously across the floor fragments.

As the combatants slowly recovered from the shock of the blast, a low hum began to fill the chamber and all eyes were drawn toward the center. Rising up out of the mud, surrounded by a glowing green nimbus, was a staff of twisted ironwood, its branches forming a sort of basket at the head that encased a glowing ovoid of translucent green resin.

“At last!” cried the Winter King, his deep, crystalline voice sounding truly alive for the first time since the Hand had entered his prison. He leapt from his throne to the nearest segment of floating floor ice, headed for the Staff of Summer. But Devrik was closer by far, and he staggered to his feet, reaching out to seize the artifact – only to be blown back and slammed into the far wall.

Korwin, taking note of his companion’s fate, attempted to grasp the Staff telekinetically. But it proved impossible – the mental sensation his mind generated was like trying to grasp a perfectly frictionless oval, he simply couldn’t get a grip on it. With a curse he gave up and prepared to focus on tripping up the Winter King as he hopped from floe to floe…

But Vulk had started moving as soon as the head of the Staff had broken the surface of the bubbling mud, leaping like a gazelle from ice fragment to ice fragment, never stopping, never losing his forward momentum. With a final leap he snatched the glowing artifact from where it hovered and came down, the Staff firmly clutched in one hand, on the large floor fragment Devrik had first occupied. He whirled to face the Winter King, who now stopped one ice floe away…

In a timeless moment inside his own head, Vulk confronted the intelligence within the Staff of Summer. Two wills clashed, for what seemed hours, until the will within the Staff retreated, submitting to its new wielder. Vulk knew it would take much more time to fully master the powers of the artifact, but for now he was truly in control. His mind snapped back to full awareness, and he realized only seconds had passed.

He raised the Staff, preparing to deliver a stirring monologue before blasting the Winter King into the Void, when the giant burst into a long, deep laugh.

“Thank you, little would-be mageling,” the giant gusted out gleefully. “So easily manipulated, so deeply foolish. Everything you have done since entering my realm has been by my will. Now, by seizing Hasora-Tar’s cursed staff and making it your own, you have broken his spells of binding and restraint, freeing me at last from the bonds I could never have broken from the inside, not in less than another thousand years! No more painfully extending my power meter by creeping meter, year after slow year; now I feel it all rushing back into me at once, like a river! Soon I – I –”

He faltered suddenly in his gloating, and staggered, dropping to one knee. “No! What is– what–” He held one hand up to his face and watched in uncomprehending horror as the blue flame flickered out and the bones beneath, suddenly visible, began to crack and fracture. In seconds his hand was gone in a spray of glittering blue dust. “How?” was the last, anguished word from his lips before his legs crumbled away beneath him and he collapsed all at once into a swirling mass of glittering flecks. Eventually only the scattered pieces of his armor and scraps of cloth remained atop a pile of bluish dust, before dust, armor, and all sank into the bubbling mud.

“What did you do, Vulk?” asked Devrik as he wincingly pulled himself up from where he’d hit the wall. “Did you use the staff to…” He gestured toward where the last of the Winter King was disappearing.

“No, that wasn’t me,” Vulk answered slowly. “Not directly, anyway. I think… the Staff is telling me… it’s hard to explain! But I think the powers of life contained in the Staff of Summer, combined with his own magics, was what was keeping the Winter King “alive.” He’d tapped into somehow, but he never controlled it, and when the spells were withdrawn – when I took control of the Staff – all the centuries caught up with him at once.”

“So, if he wasn’t lying about manipulating us into all this,” Haplo mused, “then he really killed himself. Ha! Great twist, I love it!”

“Well, now that that’s taken care of,” Korwin said once the general chuckles had died down, “and Vulk has his new toy, I suggest we head back to that treasure room and see about that large, promising chest we left encased in ice. I have a feeling that there’s some really nice stuff in there…”