Herein continues the story of the Heroes of Slanawall, and their assistance in the bloody struggle for the fate of Owen's Vale in the Spring of the Two Thousand Twenty-Second Year of Empire.

Balthazar, Kagan, and Svetlana found themselves summoned to dinner at the Queen’s Coffer in Dun.  There, they met with Valdis Rimaros, son of Raimonds Rimaros, a wealthy noble from Westernesse.  They were also introduced to his valet, Chauncey, and his bodyguard, Oddmund Stormforge, a dwarven warrior.  Valdis had "come into possession" of a family heirloom—an old map showing the location of a ruin in the Owen Vale called Vraath Keep that hints at a hidden vault containing great treasure.  Valdis expressed more concern with the potential adventure than the treasure, but sought to enlist the heroes to accompany him to Vraath Keep.  They agreed.

The group planned to set out for Drellin’s Ferry, the town nearest where the Keep should be.  Upon learning that the heroes’ only transport was a cart and some mules, however, Valdis sent them ahead with Oddmund while he and Chauncey stayed back to find a suitable coach.

During their travels, the heroes became aware of a pair of wolves keeping pace with them.  When they made camp, one of the wolves padded directly up to them, and to their surprise transformed into a man!  “I am Adriel Emrys,” he told them, “and I have been sent by Dovan to aid her chosen, Balthazar.”  He warned them of a darkness that lay ahead to the West, and insisted he accompany Balthazar to face it.  The party, impressed with his entrance, welcomed him into the fold.

"Like paratroopers."

"Right. If the parachute attacked you."

Dauth & Prosser. That's a law firm.

Sending to Averill Bancroft - Thousands of hobbos marching on Brindol, need help. Response: Civil War, House Grosh locked Dun down, help unlikely.

Spend approx. half next day trashing roads.

Prone not detecting ranged vs melee

2022 Spring Emerald 28

The battle in the blockade raged on.  The hobgoblins tried in vain to penetrate Oddmund's defenses while Valdis's fire roared through the open tower.  Balthazar steadily made his way into the tower to join his allies.  Kagan seemed to have trouble building up his usual momentum, but regained steam after a stand-off with one of the ogres.  Svetlana snuck around and got the drop on that ogre, sending his kin into a murderous rage.  It charged into the main tower and dealt Oddmund a crushing blow with its massive club.  Many of the hobgoblins, wounded and demoralized, took advantage of the distraction and began to flee.  With strength from Balthazar's blessing, Oddmund rose to the challenge and hewed into the ogre with his mighty Dwarven waraxe.  Balthazar channeled necromantic energies into the ogre, causing it to erupt in wounds and collapse into a piteous heap, bleeding out.  Valdis, Oddmund and Kagan pursued hobgoblins fleeing north, as Svetlana fired after them with her crossbow.  While two hobgoblins escaped through the south, a blast of Valdis's fiery breath dropped two of those to the north into smoldering corpses.  The last retreating hobgoblin dropped his weapon and raised his arms in surrender, but brought his shield back down just in time to stop a mighty swing from Kagan's falchion.  Balthazar prayed for Dovan's intervention, drawing from the hobgoblin his very will to move.  It stood there, unblinking eyes wide with terror, as Kagan cut it cleanly in half.

Valdis assessed the blockade.  It was recently and hastily constructed--no more than a few weeks old.  It was stocked with aggressively bland rations, two score ogre-sized spears, and some coins undoubtedly taken from travelers along the road.  The heroes made camp in the tower and passed a quiet night of rest.  

2022 Spring Cat's Eye 1

In the morning, they burned the blockade to the ground and continued along the Rhest Trail.

Around mid-day the party came to a fork in the trail, and turned west into the Blackfen swamp.  The afternoon wore on, and the end of their first day in the Blackfens approached.  A low, mossy island of mud and peat protruded from the marsh waters ahead.  Two gnarled trees grew fitfully on the rugged ground,  and sprawled across their turgid roots was the ruined and bloody remains of a horse-sized owl.  The once-magnificent bird's body had been partially dissolved in places, and swaths of foul, dark green fluid still sizzled and popped, eating away at exposed flesh and bone.

Kagan charged across the clear ground ahead, leapt over the bog surrounding the hillock, and landed next to the nearer of the two trees.  His falchion descended with as he did, rending a massive crack into the tree's ancient trunk.  For a brief moment nothing happened.  The thunderclap of splitting wood died into the marsh, as the sound of something moving through the water grabbed the heroes' attention.  A massive shape was gliding through the water toward them!  Before they could react, a large scaly green humanoid with wings, a tail, and a suspiciously draconic head leapt out of the water and breathed a cone of acid, covering Oddmund and Balthazar.  Svetlana sprang into action, firing her crossbow at the beast.  Taking advantage of the distraction, Valdis exhaled a cloud of enervating miasma upon the monster, slowing its movements.  Not expecting such resistance, the creature swam away around another land mass.  The heroes readied for an intense battle as the beast shook off the torpor and nearly eviscerated Valdis with razor sharp claws along its wing.  Balthazar had the matter well in hand, however.  Channeling Dovan's wrath, he struck the monster blind.  His allies made short work of it after that.

While Kagan decapitated the "dragon," Balthazar approached the fallen owl.  The monster's acid breath still clung to the areas where it had eaten the owl's feather's, flesh, and bone.  One of the owl's legs bore a jade band, inscribed in Elvish with the name "Hibou."  Beyond the owl, at the highest point of the islet, sat an unnatural cubic shape.  The heroes gathered around to investigate what turned out to be a rusty iron coffer.  Svetlana checked for traps before banging the coffer in just the right place with her elbow, popping the lock and opening it to reveal a bit of treasure.  The coffer contained a burnished golden circlet with a modest ruby, a large pearl, a bronze ring, and 720 gold coins.

As the heroes investigated the treasure and tried on the finery, they heard a strange rush of wind and saw soaring overhead five giant owls like the one that lay dead before them.  Each bore a rider--a dark-haired elf wearing leather armor dyed green and brown to match the colors of the marsh.  The flying elves circled the area twice, and the alit next to the slain owl.  They studied the heroes with narrowed eyes.  Then one spoke.  "Who are you?" he demanded.  "What are you doing in the marsh?"

2022 Spring Cat's Eye 1 (cont'd)

“I’m Kagan.  We’re going to kill a guy.”  A puzzled look crossed the elves faces as they heard Kagan's reply.  "I'm Gareth," Valdis added before they could respond, "and I am also out to kill some guy."  The elf who spoke introduced himself, "I am Childebert Flécherapide.  Who is it you seek to kill?"

"A guy," Kagan replied.  "Do you know anyone named guy?"

"I have a friend named Guy," Flécherapide replied, "but I do not believe that is who you mean.  It does not translate well."

Flécherapide inquired about the scaly green monster at the foot of the hillock, and was impressed to learn the heroes had killed it.  "We call them harrowblades," he said, "and we are grateful our swamp contains one fewer."

One of Flécherapide's companions stepped over to the mouldering corpse of the great owl and appeared to examine its leg.  "Looking for this?" Balthazar asked, holding out the jade band that once circled the owl's ankle.  "We are," replied Flécherapide.  "It means this owl belonged to our friend who had gone missing.  But we see no sign of him."

"You could gut the 'dragon'."

Flécherapide uttered a command in elvish, and two of his companions stepped over and quickly began to field dress the harrowblade.  It was probably easier with the head already gone.  After a few minutes of skillful work, one stood solemnly and handed Flécherapide an obsidian ring set with a single white pearl.

"This belonged to our brother, Lohier.  Now his fate seems certain."

Flécherapide remarked that the harrowblades began appearing recently, after a great evil settled into the swamp.  The heroes explained they were there to kill someone evil who recently entered the swamp on a mission for a hobgoblin army.  "You should return with us to our tribe, Flécherapide offered.  "A conversation with our Speaker may prove mutually beneficial."

The heroes accepted and each was born up on one of the hunters' giant owls.

The owls were silent as they glided through the gloom, navigating effortlessly through the darkness.  The parties' elf escorts were also silent, aside from softly pointing out some dimly glimpsed landmark far below from time to time.

Before long, they reached their destination.  Rising from the marsh was a low hill of solid ground, encircled by a thick ring of trees.  Dozens of pinpoints of light dotted the hill—small lanterns filled with fireflies, each hanging from a tree-platform or the upper reaches of a conical tent.  Many elves silently emerged to watch as the heroes flew overhead.  Flécherapide produced a sleek, silver horn of some sort from a saddlebag and blew one wailing note similar to a loon’s cry.

Near the hill’s peak stood three large trees, and built into their boughs were wooden structures.  One glowed softly with luminescence of its own and seemed to be a temple.  Another looked to be some sort of public building or town hall.  The smallest of the three was their destination—a cozy-looking tree house set above a large pool. 

Flécherapide asked the party to wait, and stepped inside.  A few moments later, he emerged and asked the heroes to enter.

Waiting inside was a wise-looking and ancient elf.  She wore flowing golden and green robes, and her hair was braided around a complex headdress made of wicker and wood.  She stood next to a much younger female elf in plain brown and green robes who looked to have been crying recently.  The younger elf was seated in a large wicker chair, and the standing elf indicated nearby chairs for the party.  Behind them, Childebert the hunter took a silent stance near the door.  

“I am Antoinette Astrechanteur, Speaker for Les Farouches,” the standing elf said.  She indicated the seated elf and continued, “This is High Singer Taylat Nuitombre.  We do not often see strangers in our homeland.  What brings you to the Blackfens?”

The party explained the hobgoblin army marching through the Vale, and their plan to strike down Saarvith, one of the army's leaders.  Antoinette thanked them for their aid in killing the harrowblade and bringing closure to Lohier's fate.  He was Taylar's brother, and had gone missing some time ago.  Valdis charmed the elves with his courtly graces, and over time they seemed to open up to their visitors.

“As you have seen, the marsh is growing dangerous," Astrechanteur explained.  "We have long struggled to hold these beautiful lands for our own.  The local lizardfolk have vexed us for many decades, but now a new peril stalks the Blackfens."

The heroes asked about Rhest, and learned that the elves did not go there, our of respect for the bad memories of the dead.  It was once the center of a proud nation, but had become little more than ruined buildings slowly sinking into the mire.  Months earleir a dark power settled there and brought the disparate lizardfolk tribes to heel.  The elves monitored from afar, but dared not kick the hornets' nest.  They observed a small force of strong hobgoblins, led by a cruel goblin chief and accompanied by a small black dragon.

The elves explained the harrowblades were not themselves dragons, but were something different, something new.  Only a few had been spotted in the past weeks, and none so close to the Hill as the one they slew.  The elves' high priest believed them to have infernal origins.

Astrechanteur offered hospitality, trade, and healing to the heroes, but would provide no further aid.  The elves' focus was on defending their homes.  Their forces, particualrly their owls, were reserved for that purpose.  The heroes were invited to stay for Lohier's funeral, the following evening.  

They were shown to an area of tents, many filled with food, firewood, and other supplies.  Other elves were already working to clear out three of these tents to accommodate the heroes for the evening.

2022 Spring Cat's Eye 2

The next day, the party busied themselves about Starsong hill.  Kagan sparred with some of the elves best hunters, teaching them a thing or two about might over agility.  Svetlana befriended some archers, and though she could not quite get the knack of a longbow they admired her shortbow skills and gifted her an elven shortbow.  Balthazar, meanwhile, communed with the owls and used airwalk to dance throughout the Hill with them--much to the elves amazement and delight.  And Oddmund found an elven blacksmith who ran a forge that made no smoke.  Together they forged the first elven dwarven waraxe--quite a feat of artisanship and diplomacy.

That night the funeral for Lohier Nuithombre consisted of an hour of song, led by his sister, Taylar.  A pyre was constructed of boughs and branches collected by all the elves and annointed with holy water and small mementos.  In lieu of a body, they placed his ring atop the pyre.

After the ceremony, the rest of the evening was spent in celebration of Lohier's time with them, with feasting, dancing, and storytelling.  Both Valdis and Kagan entertained the elves with lively stories of the party's past exploits, managing to weave them into the themes developed in the stories about Lohier.  Taylar Nuitombre became inebriated, and swore vengeance against those responsible for bringing the harrowblades to the Blackfens.  She even offered to adventure with the heroes into Rhest.  They suggested she sleep it off on it.

2022 Spring Cat's Eye 3

The next day, however, Taylar's resolve held firm.  She introduced the party to the Hill's cleric, Jacques Neigemanteu, and helped them obtain potions for their journey.  Then she showed them to the boats and they departed for Rhest.

In the early afternoon, they came within sight of the ruins.  A large, dark lake brooded in the marshland, measuring nearly two miles wide.  The cloying reek of decaying vegetation and swamp ooze hung thick in the air, and countless frogs, insects, and marsh birds chirped and croaked and called to each other.  Out near the middle of the lake, dozens of decrepit stone buildings jutted from the black waters.  In most cases, these buildings sagged and leaned treacherously, the windows of their upper stories even with the still lake’s surface.  Two buildings that seemed to have survived relatively intact drew attention—one a large stone tower, about a quarter-mile from the southern shore, and the other a large stone building near the lake’s center.  Both structures had rickety wooden walkways ringing them at water level.  These looked like recent additions; it would seem that someone had made an attempt to settle down here.

FIGHT WITH LIZARDFOLK / DRAGON

9/21/2023 – Everybody

K has idea to lure out lizardfolk in groups

Party ambushed by six liazrdmen wwhile Svetlana scouting

Valdis sees a large shape rise up and head east – pretends not to see it – guys, a large shape rose into the sky and headed that way, in the direction I am not looking.

“We’re the bad guys.”

“We’re killing villagers.”

I mercilessly drop my shield and two hand this axe into his skull.

Kagan charged through back wall of burning hut to 20/20 crit last lizardfolk.

10/19/2023 – Yay, Murder

“We don’t need to forage, we have all this lizard meat.”

“Nah, it’s probably got worms.”

Party killed lf and headed NW

2022 Spring Cat's Eye 4 (cont'd)

As the dragon's form diminshed toward the distant buildings in the center of the lake, the heroes gathered themselves and prepared to move.  "Whatever place looks like it would be good cover from above," said Valdis, "we don't stop there.  We stop at the next place."  Kagan took point and led them safely through the swamp.  The second safe haven they found was a tree with exposed roots arching out of the ground as though the tree were about to leap.  They found enough room under them to set up a comfortable camp.  Battered and beleaguered, the heroes took advantage of Balthazar's healing prayers, then rested the remainder of the day and through the night.

2022 Spring Cat's Eye 5

The next morning, the party discussed their options.  "They don't learn from their mistakes," the heroes reasoned, "and neither do we!"  Kagan led them back toward the water's edge.  By mid-morning, they reached another of the lizardfolk's huts and promptly set it ablaze.  It was not long before they saw the silhouette of the dragon rise up from the center of the lake again, and head directly for their position.  

In the few minutes they had while it closed the great distance between them, Balthazar prayed to Dovan for intercession.  Heeding the call of her faithful servant, Dovan blessed Kagan and Valdis, granting them the ability to tread upon the air itself as though it were a simple uphill climb.  Invoking the spirit of the ox, she hardened Kagan's stubbornness and strength against the enemy.

When Regiarix, with Wyrmlord Saarvith upon his back, dove to skim the surface of the swamp and exhale a line of foul acid upon them, they were ready.  Though Kagan and Balthazar were seared in the black dragon's spittle, Valdis released his own dragon's breath, burning the dragon and its rider.  As Saarvith pierced Kagan with a shower of miniature arrows, Oddmund and Svetlana returned fire with their own bows.  Kagan charged in close and kept pace with the dragon, suffering relentless bites and delivering devastating blows to its rider as each tried to outmaneuver the other.  As Regiarix flew past and gained altitude, Balthazar prayed a desparate prayer.  Hearing her servant, Dovan struck Regiarix blind.

This did not bode well for Saarvith.  Astride a blind dragon steadily climbing through the air, Saarvith struggled to regain control of the situation.  His storm of arrows could not hold back Kagan's savagery.  Meanwhile Valdis harried him from below, constantly keeping pace and waiting for his inevitable descent.  Balthazar, seizing upon the Wyrmlord's distraction, uttered a final prayer.  Aiding her acolyte once again, Dovan gripped Saarvith by his very soul, paralyzing him.  

As Regiarix wheeled round toward the lake Kagan struck Saarvith yet again, knocking him from his mount.  He fell over fifty yards, narrowly missing Valdis as he plummeted to his death.

Such a triumph, however, came at a hefty price.  Kagan had overextended himself and the black dragon snake its mighty head around to clamp its jaws down through Kagan's torso.  Vicious fangs covered in caustic spittle tore through Kagan's flesh, muscle, and sinew.  The dragon tore his teeth free and let Kagan's body drift down to the ground, still buoyed by Balthazar's Prayer for Air Walking.

The party rushed to stabilize Kagan and restore him to consciousness.  As he woke, each of the heroes heard a voice whispering to them.  "Saarvith underestimated you.  A pity for his family, who will pay the price for his failure.  I will not repeat his mistake.  You are formidable.  You should take his place as my loyal Wyrmlord."

"What would we get out of it."

"You will lead a portion of my army, and rule a piece of this vale when the humans have been driven out."

"Ruling a bunch of dead ruins does not sound like much fun."

"The choice is yours.  But should you choose wrongly you will suffer a far worse fate."

The heroes persisted in declining the voice's invitation, and it subsided.  A search of the scattered remains of Wyrmlord Saarvith yielded an excellent quality chain shirt, a greatsword and longbow of exceptional quality, x arrows--x-10 ordinary and 10 of fine craftsmanship with strange arrowheads, a cloak in amazingly good condition, a pouch containing gold and platinum, and an iron key.  Balthazar could tell the fine arrows and sturdy cloak emanated an aura of magic, and Taylar identified the cloak as a cloak of resistance.  The equipment was all goblin-sized--indeed the cloak became little more than a cape when draped over ___'s shoulders.

Kagan and Taylar were badly in need of rest, and the party decided to make their way back to the tree to camp.

2022 Spring Cat's Eye 6

After a full night of rest, and Balthazar's prayers to Dovan for healing, the heroes were back in action.  They approached the lake obliquely again.  As they reached the shore they saw the distant shape of the black dragon rising from the buildings in the center of town and flying off southwest, toward the hobgoblin horde. The party boarded skiffs left behind by the lizard folk and made their way across the lake.  Southeast of the center of town, they found an old stone bell tower protruding from the lake at a slant, reaching a height of thirty feet above the surface of the water.  Eroded images of dozens of lions--stalking, sleeping, and pouncing--adorned its sides.  A rickety-looking wooden platform had been built around the tower’s circumference at water level.  

The party climbed a ladder to the top of the tower.  Beneath the pointed roof hung a weathered old bell with no clapper, upon which someone sounded an alarm just days ago.  It now hung lonely and abandoned.  Stairs led down, and the heroes followed.

The room below reeked of stale body odor and rotten food.  Three double bunk beds were pushed up against the east wall, and a single bed sat to the south with a wooden chest protruding from beneath it.  A wooden table and three chairs rounded out the room’s cramped furnishings.  A long dagger had been thrust up through the table from below, its thin blade protruding from the table’s center.  No fewer than three dead frogs were impaled on the blade.  A small chest sat open at an odd angle near the single bed, as though it had been dragged out quickly from beneath and ransacked.  It was as empty as the room.

The heroes turned their attention northwest, to the ruins of the town hall.  It must once have been an impressive stone structure, but now lay half-submerged in the lake.  Its facade still displayed majestic heroes bearing heraldic lion devices and armed with swords, spears, and bows, their countenances carved into marble pillars.  The building’s ground floor was completely submerged and its second floor sat just above the water level, its marble heroes caked with moss and mud.  The third floor was partially collapsed, exposing the rooms to the sky above.  A wooden walkway had been lashed together around the building’s perimeter, and a floating bridge led to a nearby low ruin surrounded by a wooden fence.  Two flights of wooden stairs led up along the facade to the ruined roof above.

Their approach raised no alarms and they were greeted with no signs of life.  The devastated second floor of the building--now the roof--bore several gravel piles that Valdis recognized as ogre nests.  The ogres themselves were strangely absent.  The heroes found an entrance into a stairwell, lit only dimly by the natural light from above.  It led to what was once probably a grand hallway, now bare except for shaggy furs piled against one wall.  A foul, fetid smell rose up from this place, as if it were the den of some great beast.   A second flight of stairs below the first led down into the flooded ground level, doors to the north and south led out of the hallway, and a large double door led west.

Three large animals--a leopard, a wild boar, and a crocodile--stood at the ready in the room to the north . . . but on second inspection, they proved to be stuffed and mounted for display.  The walls were decorated with a striking tapestry depicting a five-headed dragon in a pose of destructive rage.  A free-standing perch for a falcon or eagle stood in the room’s northwest corner.  A cot heaped with fine furs lay to the west, next to a large table.  Atop the table lay a dead batlike creature, its abdomen cleaned and stuffed with salt and wood chips and its wings pinned to the table’s surface with several thin pins.  An iron chest sat on the floor beneath the table. 

The chest was locked, but yielded to Wyrmlord Saarvith's key.  Inside were six large leather sacks, each containing 100 pieces of silver and 20 pieces of gold.  Wedged between some of these sacks was a delicate-looking wooden and silver box.  Inside the box was a single folded letter that smelled of strange perfume, and an indention in the velvet lining the size of an apple.  The letter was written in Goblin and, for the moment, inscrutable.

The south chamber was clean and well organized, despite its grim furnishings.  Small barbed cages rested against the wall, not quite large enough to stand in and not quite wide enough to sit in.  Several barrels of water were on the floor, along with a bloodstained mop.  A simple cot, a chair, and a desk rounded out the room’s contents. 

Through the double doors to the west they found a large room that might have once been a well-appointed library, but its shelves now lay in disarray along the east and west walls, with no sign of any books.  A large portion of the ceiling was missing, as was a corresponding portion of the floor, which opened into the dark waters of the lake below.  At Balthazar's plea, Dovan imbued the heroes with the gills of her sea creatures, allowing them to breath water.  Kagan leapt through the hole in the floor and into the murky water.  Visibility was low, and though he sank only 30 feet or so, it seemed to go on for ever.  He had little time, however, to reflect upon his descent.

He was almost immediately beset by six lizardfolk who had been lying in ambush.  With their stabbing javelins and sheer numbers, they swarmed upon him.  Valdis sensed the churning waters and jumped in, his freezing exhalation turning the murk before him into an icy slurry.  As Kagan fought off his opponents, the other heroes plunged into the water one by one.  Though thankful for their gills, they wished more for flippers as the lizardfolk outswam and outmaneuvered them.  But in the end such meager creatures were no match for the seasoned adventurers.  Not a single lizardfolk made it out of the water.

Searching the underwater area of the building, the heroes found a small hoard tucked away in the rafters, just out of reach of the corrosive swamp water.  Unraveling various protective wrappings, they found a full suit of plate armor, a small amulet, a beautiful horn of ivory with clouds carved across its surface, a golden necklace, eleven small gemstones, and a wealth of silver, gold, and platinum coins.  They also found a small unlocked iron coffer, containing a pendant of teeth on chain of adamantine threaded with claws.

[They had previously killed 12-16 lizardmen

11/2/2023 Valdis, Kagan, Balthazar, Svetlana

V - Whatever place looks like it would be good cover from above, we don’t stop there, we stop at the next place.

Travel about 3 mile (2 hrs due to an hr of water/air walk), find shelter and rest.

“They don’t learn from their mistakes.  And neither do we!”

Lit hut on fire, used blindness on Regiarix

Hold person Wyrmlord Saarvith, plummeted to his death

Kagan almost killed, got scar of dragon’s teeth

Azar-Kul messaged them through scry, offered them position as Wyrmlord.  They declined.  Did not know who they spoke to.

Looted Saarvith’s body

NTS Town Hall and Bell Tower will evacuate – One Fist (5 hobgoblins), Nurkelnak, 7 giantkin, a razorfiend, and Regiarix.  Together they most of the eggs.  Regiarix sinks his hoard.  

“There’s also a lot of chum down here.”]

"Like I said, we don't build bridges."

The gods have mercy!  Elspeth came running up the street to Balthazar, handing him two curative draughts and some kind of book.  "A Prayerbook of Ghrian," her voice could barely be heard above the twang of short bows and crossbows and the roars of the massive blue beasts that stomped and snorted before the barricade.  Their thick, tough hides turned aside bows and blades as they pawed and mauled the makeshift wall, trying to tear it to the ground.  Arcs of lightning crackled menacingly in the air between them. 

"If you call upon Her, She will answer."

Above, Svetlana crept through the shadows of the rooftop, and set her sights on a softer prize--the goblin rider atop the nearest beast seemed unsettled by his unfamiliar mount and totally unaware of her presence.  An arrow streaked from the rooftop and lodged laterally through the goblin's throat, dropping him out of his strange saddle.

The town guards turned their crossbows on the remaining goblins, while the front-line fighters took the fight to the big lizards.  Thearch and Cooper boxed one into a corner while Oddmund came up behind two of the beasts to flank with Gilford.  Unable to reach the wall it had been sent to demolish, a lizard reared and brought its front feet down hard in Kagan's direction, blasting lightning from its hide through its horn and straight at him.  Kagan was caught unaware and took its brunt.

Balthazar called Kagan over and recited a prayer of healing from the book, while Elspeth administered a healing draught.  Though little better, Kagan was quickly back in the fight just in time to witness Oddmund swing his Elven Dwarven waraxe with immense force up under the lizard's soft belly.  As its entrails spilled across the paving stones Oddmund bellowed a Dwarvish warcry.  Heartened by his companion's uncharacteristic display of passion, Kagan bellowed back.  As Makungu distracted the lizard with his glaive, Kagan hew through its neck in wide arc, cleaving into the unsuspecting lizard next to it.

The deaths of the goblins had caused little stir among the weary and beleaguered defenders, but the rumbling crashes of the two falling monsters brought hope that victory may yet be possible.

Thearch continued to lash out at the beast before him, though it stomped and gored him.  His persistence was inspiring and drove the town guards and Imperial polearmsmen to dare greatly and occasionally succeed.  His presence and encouragement revivified them, even after the beast threw its lightning and caught both Thearch and Cooper in its blast.  Bloodied but unbowed, Cooper continued to support him and get in the occasional strike with his glaive.

They bested the beast and the battle turned.  The two remaining lizards had no riders and no allies and fought blindly.  They, too, were soon dispatched.

As the town guard rebuilt the barricade and re-stocked their quivers with bolts from the page, Eadbhert, the heroes distributed and downed as many curatives as they could muster.  Elspeth had brought a dozen draughts from the church's supply and they went quickly.  Oddmund noted that the monsters' hides would likely make fine armor, and at his request Kagan set to work skinning them.  Others nursed their wounds and reset the defenses as best they could.  Oddmund shared a drink with a town guard while Elspeth explained the Prayerbook to Balthazar in more detail.  Makungu looked in on the town guard whose life he had saved on the barricade--she was stable and pleased to see him.  Rama helped Svetlana climb down from the rooftops.

Then came a runner.

"You must come!  It is woeful tidings.  There has been some kind of attack at the Cathedral.  Lord Jaarlmath has been struck down."

They grabbed their gear and asked the runner to take them by the shortest available route.

---

The heroes hustled through the war-torn streets of Brindol, following the runner to the Cathedral Square.  As the spire of the Cathedral of Ghrian grew closer, they heard the percussion of hoofbeats on the cobblestones.  Four Lions of Brindol, the city's elite knights, fell in with them as they reached the square.  Chaos lay on the field before them.

At least seven soldiers lay dead or dying on the southern road, and a small squad was dragging Lord Jarmaath's unmoving body up the Cathedral steps.

"Sniper!" a soldier shouted.  "Everyone down and take cover!" cried another.

As the heroes moved into the square another knight, this one bearing the red cross of the Knights Hospitaller, came barreling out from the Cathedral.  He leapt astride a massive warhorse and began galloping to meet them.  A sudden clang rang through the courtyard as one of the Lions, Sir Stroud, was struck by a crossbow bolt.

"From the south," called the Knight Hospitaller.  He waved and pointed toward the crematorium in the southwest corner of the square.

"Where is Oddmund?" called Svetlana.  "Probably fell behind," replied Balthazar.  "Stumpy little legs," grinned Kagan.

The majority of the warriors headed for the building.  Kagan and Balthazar used potions of invisibility to foil the sniper, while Svetlana and Thearch used the buildings to their advantage and ran from cover to cover.  Three of the Lions charged headlong while the fourth, Sir Marsden, made for the Cathedral to ensure Lord Jarmaath's safety.

As they charged the crematorium, Sir Stroud took a second bolt, and his wound began to burn with a vicious poison.  He alerted his allies to movement on the second floor, and fell back to treat his injury.  The brave Knight Hospitaller, having reached the building, struck off the shutters of an upstairs window with his lance, causing the cloaked figure within to drop backward, out of sight.

Lady Constance, a Lion of Brindol, reached the building and dismounted as the sound of running feet and a grunt of extreme effort and will rushed past her.  Kagan, invisible, vaulted himself up to the now open second floor window.  Though invisible, his noisy jumping and climbing alerted the sniper to his presence.  As the cloaked figure backed up, its hood dropped back, revealing a black-scaled draconic head.  It dropped its heavy crossbow, drew a short sword, and with a practiced sweep of its arm quickly doused it with a sickly purple fluid that coated and clung to the blade. 

Meanwhile Lady Constance kicked in the front door, allowing the Knight Hospitaller to rush the breach!  He was met with two furious blasts of lightning!  As if from thin air a hobgoblin appeared at the source of the first bolt, in an adjoining room ahead.  He was dressed in a dark robe and a tabard with a large red hand and he sneered as though he could kill the human warrior with contempt alone.  A second, adorned similarly, appeared where the second bolt originated, in another adjoining room to the left.

As the Knight Hospitaller charged heedless toward the first hobgoblin, Lady Constance moved into the room and took cover behind the left doorframe to avoid another blast.  Instead she heard the hobgoblin chanting and watched in horror as the very air before her split open in fire and blood, and two hellhounds burst through.

Outside, another Lion, Lady Isolda, followed the Hospitaller's lead, opening windows with her lance.

Upstairs, Kagan leapt forward, becoming visible as his first attack struck home against the sniper.  They traded attacks as Kagan drove him backward through the building.  A solid hit from the short sword left a burning wound that seemed to drain some vigor from Kagan's body and fatigue his muscles.  But he pressed on, giving much worse than he got.  As the dragon man stepped back yet again, in front of an open window, he was struck by an arrow.  Down on the ground, Svetlana's aim through the open window was sure and true.

Inside the first floor, Thearch and Lady Isolda stormed the building and helped Constance dispatch the hellhounds by constantly wheeling around them to keep them flanked.  The hobgoblins fell back while the Knight Hospitaller pursued them, but a clumsy sword swing threw him off balance and gave them the opening to throw their sorceries before retreating out a back door.  One hit him with a blast of dark, vacuous energy that sucked the very strength from his bones.  The other flung a barrage of bolts, seemingly made of light, that arced unerringly toward him, rocking him with the force of their impact.

Svetlana continued her cautious approach, taking shots at the sniper through the window when they presented themselves.  But the sniper was now locked in brutal melee with Kagan.  As the black dragon man backed away and quaffed his own potion of invisibility, Kagan smiled a malicious smile.  The purple eye in his forehead blinked once and savored the look on the assassin's face as Kagan, still able to see the sniper clearly, continued his relentless assault.

The other heroes converged on the hobgoblins behind the building as Kagan cut the dragon man down.

One of the hobgoblin sorcerers stepped away from the pursuing knights, but remained within reach of Thearch.  It muttered bizarre arcane words while maintaining its focus on Thearch, denying him an opening.  It raised one hand from its spear and contorted the fingers while moving the wrist in a pentagram.  A strange blue energy crept into the hand, and if there is an opposite to glow, that is what it did.  The hobgoblin managed to brush the hand of crackling blue energy against Thearch's armor and he felt a slight tug, as though someone were trying to draw the life out of him like pus from a wound.  He quickly shook it off and pressed the attack.

The other hobgoblin had conjured dopplegangers of itself, which stood very near it and made it impossible to tell which image was real.  The gaggle of hobgoblins stepped beyond all of the warriors' reach and drew from a pouch on their belts a bit of mangy fur and a crystal rod.  They rubbed them together, causing a spark grow in the air between the fur and the rod.  They flung the debris forward and a bolt of seething lightning flew from all of them simultaneously across the yard, charring Thearch and the brave Knight Hospitaller.

Svetlana continued her measured steps around the building, keeping a steady bead on the hobgoblins.  She fired an arrow that punched through one of the hobgoblin images, dispersing it completely.  As she stalked around the corner, she loosed two more--destroying another image, but missing with the last shot.

Isolda, Constance, Thearch, and the Knight Hospitaller surrounded the hobgoblins as they advanced, and overwhelmed them with striked from blades and bludgeons.  The fight was quickly over.

The heroes pulled some promising potions from the bodies before heading to the Cathedral of Ghrian to check on Lord Æthelheah.

Wynflæd Gyldenfax, the High Priestess of Ghrian, and of Brindol, met them upon their entrance.  "Our Lord remains unconscious, but he seems stable.  I believe he will live."  She introduced the heroes to Sir Garrick Balerion, the Knight Hospitaller who has been protecting the Cathedral and assisting with the wounded.  She offered potions of lesser restoration to reinvigorate Sir Balerion, and prayed over the heroes and the Lions of Brindol, that Ghrian may heal their wounds and renew their strength.

As if to underscore the need for her aid, Kagan suddenly stumbled.  He coughed violently, spitting out a deep purple sputum, and seemed to struggle with the weight of his arms and armor.  The black dragon-man's poison was running its deadly course.  Priestess Gyldenfax and General Balthazar assisted him potions and scrolls, and soon he was nearly back to health.

The party began to feel hopeful that they could face the night's next challenge, despite the sudden appearance of stormclouds darkening the sky.  Lady Treowða Tidfrið approached the Cathedral with a cadre of her personal guard.  Her red hair was swept up off of her neck in an elegant braided twist, and she wore a fine courtier's dress despite the dire conflict raging around her.  Sure and self-possessed, she exhibited the confidence of someone who does not lose the game because she does not lose composure.

"I am told Lord Æthelheah is . . . incapacitated," she addressed the High Priestess.  Wynflæd nodded.  "I am assuming command of the city," Lady Tidfrið continued.  "General Balthazar, ready your allies.  Priestess, muster anyone from the Cathedral who can still fight.  We are going to countercharge them before they are ready.  We must drive them west, back down the hill."

The sky brightened with distant lightning and the thunder rolled in from the west.

Garrick began to suspect that the successful defense of the city was not at the forefront of Lady Tidfrið's mind.  Thearch knew at least that she was hiding something.  "Yeah, Dwarves don’t lie to each other so I’m not really good at this sensing deception stuff," he said.

Before anyone could answer, a different thunderous sound filled the courtyard.  The hoofbeats of Captain Wulfric's steed came fast and furious across the cobblestones.  "Ready a defense!  The Horde is coming en masse," he announced.  As he dismounted, he explained that they had just been forced to withdraw from the marketplace, and the enemy general himself was leading a host of monsters toward Cathedral Square.  As he spoke, a battered and bleeding group of frontline soldiers made their way into the square from the way he came.  The lightning and thunder were closer now, and rain began to fall.

"We were able to bring down a few giants," Captain Wulfric continued, "and the last of his manticores.  But there are still quite a few giant-folk in his personal entourage, and an army of hobgoblins at his heels.  I estimate ten minutes until contact."

Lady Tidfrið wordlessly stepped back, allowing Captain Ulverth and General Balthazar to arrange the defenses.  She bristled as members of her personal guard were ordered to the northern barricade, but said nothing.  The rain picked up into a storm as the heroes set up lines of crossbowmen and cavalry to receive the enemy.  They sent their remaining allies from Les Farouches to reconnoiter the advancing forces.

Through the rain, the party could see more of Brindol's defenders finding their way into the square.  They arrived seeking the shelter and respite of the Cathedral, but there was to be no comfort.  With a grim fatalism, they took up their arms and prepared to defend their home.  The Cathedral's remaining priests ran along the lines, distributing what healing and support they could.

Adélard and Jehan returned on their owls.  "They have no air support, but a large and monstrous ground force," Jehan reported.  "There are wyverns harrying the walls, keeping the archers from effectively assisting," Adélard added.  "We will address the problem."  They took back to the sky and headed west, toward the embattled defenders on the walls, cut off from their allies by the horde inside the city.

---

Between the intensifying thunderclaps, the sound of horrifying howls, guttural roars, and bone horns carried across the wind to the beleaguered soldiers in Cathedral Square.  Massive lumbering shapes could be made out approaching from the north, but the full horde seemed to arrive from every angle at once.  The savage warriors clashed with the men and women of Brindol and their dwarven mercenary allies.

And then the heroes' battle was engaged--a pair of giants and a handful of ogres formed out of the mist and the rain.  Sir Balerion called upon Baiste to bless his allies as the giant-folk advanced purposefully, hurling great javelins and giant rocks as they approached.  Between and among them strode a towering hobgoblin nearly seven feet tall.  It wore full plate armor made from red scales and carried a large shield and a heavy war pick, slick with blood.  There was no mistaking that this was the hobgoblin's general, Wyrmlord Kharn.  It called out a challenge to the heroes in a voice hoarse with rage.

As the giant-folk approached, shielding their leader, Sir Balerion and the Lions of Brindol circled the barricades to charge from both flanks.  Sir Kagan, meanwhile, drank a potion of invisibility and was gone from his allies' sight.  Svetlana, hidden atop a roof, waited patiently for a clear shot.  Balthazar and Tidfrið's personal guard peppered the giants with crossbow bolts, while Thearch peppered them with taunts in giantish as he and the Imperial footmen waited for the enemy to close.

"That ain't rain, cupcake.  It is tears of laughter from the gods!"

Above the battle and the rain the heroes could hear Kharn invoking evil and unholy powers as it approached, suddenly accompanied by a familiar singing.  A beautiful voice sang in the harsh, upsetting syllables of goblins, as it had back in the Ghostlord's lair.  And as it sang it gave courage and ferocity to its allies.  

Thearch charged into the enemies' midst, under their reach, leading his allies to battle!  He hewed with his wrench at one of the towering menaces, as the Imperial footmen brought their polearms to bear.

Kagan suddenly appeared behind the enemy's ranks, as big as the giants and twice as fierce.  He swung his mighty falchion, Erkattesan--also much larger than it had once been--through empty air.  Yet blood spilled from the air, spraying across Erkattesan and soaking the ground.

Praying as he stood up from the cover of a low barricade wall, Balthazar called upon Dovan to silence his enemies.  An unnatural silence descended around Thearch, enveloping the hobgoblins' prayers and songs and snuffing them out.

Unable to further buttress its great strength with its dark god's power, Wymlord Kharn swung its heavy pick in a great underhand arc, bringing it up under the breastplate of an Imperial guard, Rama, and into his abdomen.  Kharn pulled it back out with a disturbing motion and a sickening squelching sound.  Rama staggered backward, clutching his belly and barely maintaining his grip on his glaive.

Sir Balerion and the Lions charged in, and as the Lions' lances struck home in giant flesh, Sir Balerion's lance took Kharn in the shoulder, spinning it around and knocking it completely off guard.  Kagan and Thearch weathered a barrage of club swings from the giants.  They struck back with mighty blows, but attacks that would cripple a man merely wore the giants down a bit.

Svetlana, realizing no clear shot would present itself, rolled off the roof and into hiding behind the barricade.  She popped up and put an arrow into a weak spot in Wyrmlord's armor before ducking back into hidiing.

A giant swung true and its blow to Sir Marsden's head with its massive club struck him dead in his saddle.  Thearch fell beneath the constant pounding of giant clubs, unconscious and barely alive.  Sir Balerion leapt from his mount and lay hands upon him, praying that Baiste might close his wounds, mend his bones, and restore his health.  As Thearch gasped back into consciousness, Sir Balerion leapt back upon his great steed, Brutus.

Kharn backed away from Thearch toward the barricade.  Svetlana sprang out and stabbed at it with her rapier, Épée de Feu.  It sparked its Elven fire against the crimson scales of the hobgoblin's armor.  It stepped back in surprise, while sneering in contempt.  This was one of the so-called heroes it had come to kill, and by its god it would do so.

From out of the shadows of a nearby building, an owl flew determinedly toward Svetlana.  It alit upon her shoulder and brushed its head against her cheek.  Magical energy suffused the air around her, and she fetl emboldened by the wards and abjurations against evil that wrapped around her life and limbs like armor.  Looking back toward the house she could barely make out a short, humanoid form in the shadows, and she nodded to it in thanks.

One of the giants swung his mighty club in rapid arcs, slamming into the noble Stroud over and over again until he lost consciousness and slumped in the saddle.  Attempting to coutnerattack and make space between the giant and its prey, Kagan overextended himself and lost his stance.  Isolda, meanwhile, came under attack by a flurry of greatclub swings.

Bolts from the barricade drew Wyrmlord Kharn's attention, if not his blood.  He turned sneering to face the barricade and reared his head back with his mouth open, as if in a silent roar.  The next second his head dropped beck ino place and freezing wind belched forth from his open maw in a cone of sleeting ice that washed over Svetlana, the owl, the barricade, and the crossbowmen taking cover behind it.

Thearch, conscious but prone and unarmed, swung his gauntleted fist overhand and brought it down, hard, upon the foot of the nearest ogre, who snarled at the sudden pain.  Taking advantage of its distraction, Garrick pulled hard on the reins of his steed, Brutus, while willing him to great violence.  Brutus spun quickly around and kicked the ogre with his powerful hind legs before spinning again to allow Garrick to capitalize on the chaos with a well-placed thrust of his lance.  The beast dropped in a heap.

Nearby, Svetlana ignored Kharn's attempt to draw her further from the lines, and instead danced under the other ogre's reach, stabbing it twice with her Elven fireblade.

Stepping out of the suffocating silence surrounding Thearch--and into visibility--Wyrmlord Ulwai Stormcaller raised her hands and her voice to the sky in song.  As if in refrain, the clouds above crackled and lightning lased out at Balthazar.  Hair and skin singed and smoking, he managed to keep his feet despite the powerful jolt.  He replied with a bolt of his own from his crossbow, but its effectiveness was markedly less.

As Kagan brought Erkattesan to bear with incredible speed, slashing through the remaining giant's defenses with hit after hit, Wyrmlord Kharn muttered an incantation and its hand began to glow with dark, sinister power.  Stepping into the silence, it bent down and touched the fallen ogre.  The giantkin shuddered once and then lay still, its grotesque flesh grayer and more lifeless than a moment ago. while the hobgoblin general's stamina was visibly restored--its stance became more confident, its posture resolved, and it rose with renewed vigor.

Garrick ducked low under the swinging club of the last remaining ogre and kicked Brutus forward, charging Wyrmlord Kharn and burying his lance in the hobgoblin's shoulder.  As the ogre cursed the Knight Hospitaller's escape, it suddenly roared in pain before collapsing.  Isolda pulled free her lance as the giant's body crumpled.

Seeing the focus of the fight shift to Kharn, Svetlana attempted to confuse Wyrmlord Stormcaller by tumbling past her.  Ulwai caught on to her intentions at the last minute, lashing the air over Svetlana's head with its whip as she went past.  The attack proved distracting enough, however, to spoil Svetlana's concentration and allow Kharn to swing the butt of his pick in a parry against her rapier.

Furious, Ulwai sang to the storm again and called lightning down upon Svetlana.  The canny rogue leapt back just in time and was spared the blast.

Ready to end the battle, Kagan launched himself headlong at Wyrmlord Kharn.  Kharn turned as the falchion came down, deflecting the blade against the hardened scales of its red plate armor.  It brought its heavy pick up in an underhanded swing, stabbing it into Kagan's flank.  Isolda, however, took advantage of Kharn distraction to jab him under the shoulder plate with her lance.

Thearch grasped his wrench and stood--muddied, bloodied, but not yet broken.  He loosed an inspiring battle cry while swinging the heavy iron over his head and down onto Kharn's armor, unbalancing it.  Seizing the opening, Cooper followed Thearch's lead and swung his glaive in a wide arc that caught the hobgoblin inside the thigh of its kneeling leg, and tore through flesh and vital arteries as Cooper pulled it free.

Kharn fell into the mud as its blood pooled around it.

Ulwai looked upon the fallen body in horror as Sir Balerion's lance ran her through.

With Kharn dead, the other hobgoblin forces fighting throughout the courtyard broke ranks and fled.  The battle was finally over.

Kagan spotted a small, clear sphere, about the size of an eye, floating nearby as the voice suddenly returned to their minds.

Kharn thought he could not be defeated.  He was wrong.  No matter.  The city will fall soon enough to my allies.  My true army.  Your opportunity to serve me has passed.

"Do we know who this guy is?" asked Balthazar.  "Yeah," replied Kagan.  "Next."

The heroes regrouped in the Cathedral, where they found Lord Æthelheah recovering from his injuries.  They secreted him away, in case of assassins, and Sir Balerion slept in his place.  Blessedly, the night passed uneventfully.

SS 2022 Cat's Eye 24

The next day, a victory celebration was held in Cathedral Square.  It began with a rousing speech by Lord Dearden Æthelheah about the city's strength through its great losses.  And about its welcome heroes.

"We owe much to those from beyond the Vale who came to our aid in the face of the horde.  Sir Balerion, Knight Hospitaller, was called as if by Baiste himself, to protect our roads and give assistance and confort at the Cathedral.  When the battle came to Cathedral Square his valor helped to break the tide.

"We are thankful for our Dwarven allies from their holds to the South.  We sought mercenaries, but they sent us heroes.  Captain Hjálmbrjótur and the Shining Axe Company held key positions along the wall, and kept the enemy from overwhelming us.  They stood with us at Cathedral Square and set the enemy to rout.  We thank by name Thearch Ironthew, who fought the hobgoblin general hand-to-hand, and led the attack that finally brought him down.

"And we are forever grateful to General Balthazar and his companions, without whom we most certainly would not have prevailed.  Their tireless efforts to gather intelligence and harry the enemy gave us the time and information to plan our defense.  We thank General Balthazar for his wise and pious counsel; Sir Kagan, the Wild, of Dun, for his courage and ferocity in battle; Svetlana for her cunning and precision against the enemy.  We are especially grateful to their fallen comrades, Lord Valdis Rimaros of House Rimaros and Oddmund Stormforge, who gave all in the fight to keep Elsir Vale free.

"Now is a time for mourning, and burning our dead, yes.  But it is also a time for rejoicing!  The Vale remains free!  We will help our brothers and sisters return west, to rebuild their homes, farms, and towns.  Dawn comes again!  Long live Ghrian!  Long live the Dawn Way!"

The crowd erupted into cheering.

General Balthazar strode up and delivered his own speech.  "Was there screaming?  There was.  Was there blood?  So much, so much."  He relinquished his title as general and praised the people of Brindol for the faithfulness.  Delirious with relief at their victory, the crowd applauded him.

Later in the day, the heroes were on hand when runners brought Oddmund's body to the Cathedral, vicious hobgoblin arrows sticking out from the weak points in his plate armor.  Lord Æthelheah apologized for their loss, and released his body to their keeping.  Thearch noticed that Oddmund's armor was shoddier and a poorer imitation of the Rhestilorian style than he recalled.  

They built a pyre in the Cathedral Square, or so the people of Brindol thought.  But Balthazar instead prayed intently over the body.  As he prayed, animals of the forest began to appear, drop berries, nuts, sticks, mud as if in offering, and bow their heads.  Energies from Aon Rud itself began to flow through the wood of the pyre and surround the body, flaying and stretching it.  Over the course of an hour, the energies wove the animals' offerings together around the shredded remains and a new body began to take form in its place.  As the magic died down the animals departed, and  left on the pyre was a naked female orc.

She gasped suddenly and sat up.  "I'm alive!  I have to tell my wife and son!"

She leapt off of the pyre and started running out of the square.  "Oddmund!" Balthazar called, but the orc did not even break stride.  "Maybe I didn't get the right oils," Balthazar muttered.  That's strange, thought Svetlana.  He always told me he had no family.

Later that afternoon, a messenger invited the heroes back to Brindol Keep to again meet with Lord Æthelheah.  They returned to the great hall with smooth polished floors and alcove-set walls.  The high ceilings that normally lent an air of gravity instead felt somber, despite the light coming through the tall, narrow windows deeply set in the walls.  The long table remained in the middle of the room, strewn with the work of the Brindol Defense Council.  

Standing next to it, looking up to Lord Æthelheah's dais, was a figure in a dark cloak, the hood pulled back to reveal taut yellow skin over flat features--a strange visage.  "Please, come in," Lord Æthelheah called, waving the heroes over.  "We have the honor of receiving a Hawkshaw of the Emperor."

"My name is Gith," the creature rasped.  "I am here to collect Ambrose the Red for his journey to the Cloister.  But I may also have useful information."

They learned that the Empire maintained an elite school of magic, called the Cloister, and Ambrose the Red had finally gained admittance.  He looked more than a little put out when Gith also offered, on the spot, to take Balthazar.  "You are powerful," Gith noted, "but you could become even more so with proper training."  Balthazar declined, for the time being.

They also learned that documents seized from the horde's camp revealed a temple in the mountains beyond Vraath Keep.  The architect of the Red Hand, Azarr Kul, remained in the temple performing a long and complicated ritual to open a gate to the Abyss and bring forth an army of demons.  The ritual required a massive blood sacrifice, which the Battle of Brindol had provided.  There was no telling when the ritual would be complete, but it was a matter of days, rather than weeks.

Svetlana stepped cautiously up to the doors, ready to spring away if necessary.  Nothing happened.  She stepped back, but her focus on the doors distracted her from the necessity for stealth.  She heard her boot scuff on the rocky ledge.  A quiet noise, but louder than the silence of the mountain.  She held her breath and remained perfectly still, willing whatever might hear her to ignore the noise.

Moments passed and she let her breath out slowly, silently.  She trod back to the party as quietly as she crept in.

---

After hearing Svetlana's report, Kagan spoke, "Let's wait a while longer and see if there are any returning patrols.  We could learn how to bypass the trap."

"Are you sure we can wait that long?" Sir Balerion asked.  "Are we that afraid of a trap?"

"I just don't want to be set on fire again," Kagan replied.

Svetlana found a sheltered spot on the trail where a rocky outcrop provided cover.  Fashioning a crude blind out of brush, she herded her fellows inside, where Thearch unceremoniously sat with a clang of chainmail.  Svetlana rolled her eyes at the noise, and they settled in to watch and wait.

---

After some time, there was noise on the path from the same direction they had come.  A thumping and dragging noise.  Regular, persistent, and somehow . . . annoyed.  More of the noises began to reach the heroes ears until it was clear that three or four somethings were coming up the path toward the temple.

Slowly into view of the blind walked a pale humanoid creature with rubbery looking skin, about four feet tall.  Its squat, rounded body bore strangely gaunt, emaciated limbs that ended in clawed hands.  Its skin was sparsely covered by bristly hairs as well as pulsing, varicose veins.  Its eyes slanted downward, its nose was squashed, and its ears were pointed and lopped.

Neither it nor the three others that followed it seemed to notice the heroes as they passed the blind.

The creatures made it all the way to the door unimpeded, then stopped.

"Does anyone hear what they're saying?" Balthazar asked.

"I couldn't even tell they were talking," repled Svetlana.

"I can't make it out, and I don't think I recognize the language," Balthazar replied.

The creatures pushed open the doors and entered.

As the doors swung shut behind the hideous creatures, the heroes debated their course of action.  Climbing to the cave in the mouth of the second head seemed a daunting task, especially in heavy armor.  Kagan recalled that Balthazar had a prayer for shaping the very bones of Aon Rud herself, and wondered if he could somehow shape the doors off of their hinges.  Balthazar explained that he would not be able to prepare that prayer until the next day--both Thearch and Sir Belarion did not believe there was time to wait.

“Have we considered the possibility we’re being too careful?” Sir Balerion asked.  "I was cautious with the wyverns and still almost died.  Maybe our best bet is to just charge through the doors at haste."

"If only Kagan could carry each of us," Thearch rued aloud.  "Balthazar could pray that he walk on the air again and he could take us right up to the cave."

"Kagan cannot," Balthazar realized, "but Sir Balerion's horse can!"

And so plans were made and weights considered.  It seemed most efficient for Balthazar and Thearch to ride up together first, followed by Svetlana and Kagan, and finally Sir Balerion at the rear.

“If the dragon’s up there, isn’t it going to be like delivering snacks one at a time?” asked Kagan.

"Well, two at a time," replied Thearch.  "It won't be up there.  Or if it is, it will be further back.  We'll be fine."

"Okay," Balthazar said.  "Conjure up Brutus, Sir Balerion."

Sir Balerion blanched.  "Oh.  OH.  Um, I dismissed him so we could hide from those things, and I can only summon him forth from the celestial realms once per day."

After many expressions of consternation, the heroes decided to send Svetlana for a thorough re-examining of the trap.  Moving silently, she again crept down to the doors and examined them.  This time, she stayed as long as she dared.  Her eyes roamed over every inch of stone, searching for clues or tricks to the trap's mechanism.  She returned confident in only two things:  there were no pressure plates, trip wires, or other mechanisms in front of the doors; and she had no other idea how the trap would be tripped.

"We can't eat the trap," Thearch reasoned.  "So we are back at plan 4."

The heroes set up a makeshift camp within the blind, so that they could get some rest.

---

As his companions slept nearby, uncomfortably near because of the small size of the blind, Kagan kept watch.  He did not care for the delay, but valued it as an opportunity to gather intelligence on the enemy.  Things like that used to matter little to him, but as he gained experience he began to see the value of knowing your enemy before you strike.  And knowing your friends before they do.  Defeat at Erkent's hands had been a hard lesson.

His reverie was broken by a familiar shuffling gait.  Four more of the creatures shuffled past the blind, not seeming to notice him or the other heroes.  He took note that they carried no light source, and so presumed they could see well enough in the starlight.  Once they were passed he quietly roused Svetlana.  Gesturing after them, he indicated she should follow and learn the passphrase.

Svetlana crept after the things as near as she dare, moving silently but completely exposed without cover.  She tried to stay low and blend into her surroundings as much as possible, and kept far enough back that even night vision would have trouble picking her out.  Her own human eyes, of course, also had trouble seeing much more than shadows in the starlight.  She heard the creature at the head speak when it reached the doors.  She swiftly and silently crept away.

---

SS 2022 Turquoise 6

In the morning, Svetlana and Balthazar compared their recollections of what noises the beasts made to gain entry to the doors.  Their recollections were similar, but not the same, and definitely not reliable for mimicry.  And, as Thearch pointed out, there was no guarantee that the creatures had used the same passphrase.

Sir Balerion called forth Brutus, who sprang onto the path from the air itself.  Brutus neighed happily and nuzzled Sir Balerion, who did not let his companions' presence prevent him from showing affection.  He outlined the plan for his steed, who at first seemed confused, but then rapidly understood his role.

Balthazar prayed that Dovan might lighten Brutus's steps, and permit him to trod the air as well as the earth.  With some help from his friends as stepping stools, Thearch sat astride Brutus in his military saddle.  He helped pull Balthazar up behind him.  "You should probably hold on to me," Thearch said.  "But if we fall off I will definitely be holding onto you."

Balthazar smiled as he recalled the ring of feather falling on his finger.  And then they were off, galloping in a tight spiral upward to the level of the second dragon head's open mouth before cutting a path straight toward the cave.  Sir Balerion waved his faithful mount off, hoping all would go well and he would see him again soon for a second trip.

As Brutus strode into the cave mouth and his eyes adjusted, he was first greeted by the appearance of a man-sized dragon, with four legs, two wings, and a green hide.  He barely had time to register this as he took his next step and saw two more dragons, as big as himself or bigger, with blue and black scales respectively.  Sir Balerion registered Brutus's fear as the mount spun on its hooves and ran back the way it came.

Thearch turned in the saddle and prepared to strike out at anything that followed them, but over the wind he could hear Balthazar's voice, praying.  

Balthazar knew they were no match for three dragons, and was fairly sure the dragons could catch up with ease.  There were no vines, moss, or other vegetation to grow and entangle them.  But he had mastered a powerful prayer, one that bring to life a plant from nothing but the seed of his own faith.  As he thanked Dovan for that gift, a massive tangle of briarwood grew rapidly across the mouth of the cave and even out around the edges.  It began to shake dully as the dragons on the other side clawed at it, but Balthazar knew it would hold for a while.

"What was that?" Thearch asked as Brutus carried them back to the others.

"Wall of Thorns," Balthazar replied.  "Over a dozen feet thick.  It'd take a couple hours for a man to hack his way safely through it.  I think it will hold them for a few minutes."

---

Back at the blind, the heroes regrouped.  They had little time before the dragons escaped their thorny capture, and did not care for their odds in the open.  "Back to Plan 3," Thearch sighed.

---

The party grouped around the massive stone doors.  None of them could understand the strange writing on the doors any better than Svetlana had, but soon that would not matter.  As the wall of thorns shook with assaults from within, they readied for whatever may lay beyond the doors.

Sir Balerion sat astride Brutus, several strides away from the doors, but facing them head on.  Thearch stood off to the left, much closer, ready to support him.  Kagan took a similar position to the right.  Svetlana remained further back, stage right, to retain the element of surprise.  And Balthazar prepared to lay hands upon the stone of the mountain, beseeching Dovan to work it to his will.

Thearch looked down at his feet, then at the ground around him, then widened the swivel of his head to include the ground around Sir Balerion and Kagan.  "What's this dark area?"

"Oh, that's burnt earth and stone from the trap going off."

Thearch shuffled ten feet further from the door, out of the area of scorched earth as Balthazar began his prayer.

A low noise of grating stone began to rumble forth from the stone before them, as though the slumbering mountain were grinding its teeth in some horrible dream.  The doors began to pull in opposite directions.  Rather than falling off of their hinges, however, they disengaged from each other's locks and swung open, crashing into the walls of the hallway beyond in a loud cacophany.  The wide hallway stretched 20 feet forward before turning into stairs going up.  A second set of large doors could just be seen over the top of the stairs, with colorful light spilling through its cracks.

Sir Balerion wasted no time charging forwardand up the stairs, his compatriots close behind.  The dragons roared furiously, but the brambles continued to hold.  For now.

---

The second set of doors were wrought of iron, with more draconic art.  They proved locked and resistant to efforts to force them.  Svetlana set to work with her tools and had the lock open in under 20 seconds.  She threw open the doors to allow Kagan to rush in, but both were momentarily struck by the scene before them.

The rectangular room was awash in a riot of color.  A chandelier of five exquisitely sculpted stone dragon heads protruded from the center of the ceiling and in each of their open maws burnt a different color flame—blue, red, green, black, and white.  Directly across the room was another pair of iron doors, bearing the image of a clawed red hand.  Single iron doors set in the left and right walls bore the same image.  Flanking the door ahead, about halfway to the 20-foot ceiling, two balconies were carved into the walls.  A blue-scaled demonic form, about the size of a person, crouched on each.  Thearch's study of the planes led him to conclude they were "abishai", draconic demons from the Abyss.

"Hello friend, we have expected you," the left one said to Kagan.  "Come in."

Kagan felt a pull exert itself on his mind.  Something was trying to tell him this thing was an ally.  He shook it off as Brutus brushed past him, charging up a slope of air to attack it on its level.  As Sir Balerion cleared the doorway, he realized the near door was flanked by two wyverns that had definitely seen better days.

The battle was swiftly joined, with the left wyvern moving to attack Sir Balerion while Svetlana, Kagan, and Thearch surrounded it.  Thearch recognized that the wyverns were zombies, raised from the bodies of the dead.  He knew them to be slow and willful, still capable of flight, but no longer poisonous in their stingers.  "Use something with an edge," he said.  "Other weapons are less effective against zombies."  The second wyvern moved to flank him.

Balthazar remained in the doorway and pointed at the demons.  "They are called 'abishai'," he called to his allies.  "They are resistant to most things:  spells, acid, cold.  Fire and poison affect them not at all.  They are vulnerable only to holy weapons and holy water."

As his heroes traded attacks with the wyverns, Balthazar prayed to Dovan for the searing light of life, to counter the beasts' undeath.  A blast of near-sunlight brightness flashed from his outstretched palm and tore flesh and necrotic energies from the second wyvern.

Flanked and without momentum, Sir Balerion wheeled Brutus around and charged away from the western abishai, lance leveled directly at his eastern brethren.  The western abishai hissed and used the opening to lash out viciously with its tail.  The air was rent with the smell of lightning as the tail crackled and burst electricity through the knight’s armor.  The wyverns, meanwhile, took full advantage of his charge, raking at Brutus’s side as he galloped past them through the sky.  

The savagery of the wyverns’ attacks and the unexpected burst of electricity jarred Sir Balerion, knocking his lance off its mark.  The abishai locked eyes with Sir Balerion, saying, “You are a great hero.  Only you can stop the monsters of the Abyss.  You must allow the portal to open, so you can face them and defeat them.”  He has a point, Sir Balerion thought—but only for a moment.  Baiste’s truth shone through the deception, and the paladin’s will was too strong to be overborne.

The wyvern that had been flanking Sir Balerion turned round to find Thearch standing between it and its companion.  It lunged at him, slamming its bulk into his body even as he stood fast against its onslaught.  As it did, Kagan hacked and slashed at its exposed flank, tearing away scales and rotted flesh.  Thearch returned the wyvern’s aggression in kind, smashing it solidly with his trusty wrench.

Svetlana stabbed and slashed at the undead wyvern in front of her with her flaming rapier and flashing kukri.  Behind her, Balthazar raised the symbol of Dovan, mother of nature and scourge of the unnatural, and exhorted the other wyvern to flee.  The wyvern, however, failed to acknowledge Dovan’s authority.

An eerie screeching chant began as the western abishai moved its clawed hands in arcane patterns.  It became flustered, however, losing focus as its eyes tracked the tip of Sir Balerion’s lance, trying to forestall an attack.  Whatever arcane energies it wove were instead unraveled harmlessly.  Ironically, this failure allowed Sir Balerion an opening.  He signaled Brutus to counterattack the zombie as he thrust his own lance deep into the demon’s flesh.  But as Brutus’s hooves beat a brutal staccato against the undead wyvern, the knight withdrew the lance and saw no blood came from the wound.

The other wyvern, meanwhile, literally pressed its assault against Thearch, smashing into him again and catching him completely by surprise, winding him.  Kagan continued to swing at the zombie with the mighty falchion Erkattesan, allowing its weight to build a deadly momentum and severing more of its undead flesh with each pass.  

Thearch reared back to strike with his wrench, suddenly surrounded by an aura or light that could only be described as divine.  As the wrench slammed into the zombie wyvern’s jaw, crushing out teeth and bone, the aura flashed and dissipated, revitalizing him and restoring his faith in himself.

The eastern abishai managed to maintain its concentration while avoiding Sir Balerion’s lance and steed.  It flexed its clawed hands in strange shapes while chanting in a strange language, then pointed at Kagan, saying, “Drop.”  Kagan’s hands instinctively tightened on his falchion while his conscious mind fought off the urge to let it fall to the floor.

Balthazar centered his mind and refocused his faith, again thrusting forward Dovan’s holy symbol.  “Dovan appoints every season: a time to be born, and a time to die, and no one may add a single day to their time.”

The wyvern zombie hissed evilly and retreated backward, fleeing into the corner and trying to claw its way through the wall.

With a reverberating snap that could be heard above the din of battle, Svetlana loosed an arrow that struck deep into the chest of the western abishai, right where a human’s heart would be.  It winced briefly, but reached over and snapped off the protruding end.  It stepped of the ledge and dropped out of reach of Sir Balerion’s lance.  It wove an incantation and called out to Kagan, “Your friend has been bitten by the zombie.  You must kill him before he turns!”

But Kagan had learned not to trust the blue demons, and his will pushed back against their influence.

The thundering of Brutus’s hooves against the cowering wyvern zombie to the east was punctuated by a loud screech from the eastern balcony—Sir Balerion had thrown a vial of holy water and the abishai there howled unnaturally as its flesh cracked, sizzled, and wept. 

Thearch and Kagan continued to maul the abishai to the west, but no amount of strikes, however true or deep, seemed to cause more than a fleeting injury to the demon.

Svetlana noticed the air next to her begin to shimmer and invert.  The other abishai, collecting itself through the smoke of its own decay, ritualistically called upon another of its kind to cross the thin membrane into this world.  Whether none answered or it was unsuccessful in piercing the veil, the effect dissipated harmlessly.  Svetlana breathed a sigh of relief even as she drew and loosed another arrow into the abishai’s smoldering hide.

Balthazar asked Dovan for some gods-damned peace and quiet!  The abishai’s screams faded to nothing as an absolute silence engulfed almost the entire room.  The abishai on the ground, however, was free to screech as it flailed its teeth and tail and claws at Kagan.  Through sheer volume of attacks, it managed to claw and bite through his defenses and score minor wounds upon his flesh.

And then the double doors to the north swung open.

A hallway stretched away from the doors, and there stood a green dragon.  It was slightly larger than a man, its sinuous scales glistening in the colored lights radiating from the torches within the room.  It rose upon its hindlimbs and roared.  This was Ozyrrandion, who failed to stop the heroes from destroying the bridge at Skull Gorge, and failed again to stop them as they boated downstream through Drellin’s Ferry on their way to the Draw Weal.  He would not fail a third time.

Unable to see the dragon under the doorframe, Sir Balerion drew Ork Xyrafi from its scabbard and called upon Baiste to smite the abishai demon, and cleanse the world of its presence.  To his great relief, his sword bit deep into the creatures chest and released a torrent of ichorous blood.  It lashed back with all its frenetic energy, but the knights armor and force of arms kept all but its tail at bay.  That lashed upon him unexpectedly, delivering a jolt of electricity along with its pummeling slap.

Kagan, wrapped in silence, held back a moment and pointed at Ozyrrandion.  “So,” Thearch thought, “Kagan wants me to attack the dragon.”  He did not know Ozyrrandion, but knew dragons were not to be trifled with.  He called upon Ghorhaedin as he charged it, battering aside its defenses with a vicious, overwhelming swing of his wrench.  Knocked off its guard, the dragon was vulnerable as Kagan dove into the fray, smashing it with Erkattesan, the mighty falchion.

Svetlana smashed a vial of holy water against the western abishai’s chest, causing it to wail in agaony.  Through its screams, Balthazar concentrated the energy of his faith into an ephemeral Warhammer, which appeared next to the eastern abishai and began to batter it mercilessly.

The western abishai’s screams turned to defiance, and then dominance, as it pulled arcane energy from its own suffering and forged it into a single word, directed at Svetlana:  “Flee.”  Svetlana was immediately overcome with terror and turned to run.

She leapt and rolled as she ran, diving out of the way of a whirling cone of acid gas.  As Ozyrrandion’s exhalation nearly filled the room, she found her way out without harm.  Her allies were not so lucky—Thearch, Sir Balerion, and Brutus felt the acid make its way under their clothing, armor, and barding, burning their skin.

Svetlana fled back into the hallway form which they had come before her wits restored and she came to her senses.  In the meantime, her companions fought fiercely against the remaining monsters.

But doors swung open to the west and the north, and the stomp of draconic feet could be heard, though only by Svetlana and Balthazar, as black-scaled dragonspawn poured into the room from the western door and took up defensive positions around the western abishai, and poured into the northern hallway, attempting to grapple Kagan and tear him off of the now badly-wounded Ozyrrandion.

As she burst back into the room, Svetlana hurled another vial of holy water at the eastern abishai, striking home and knocking it unconscious as more of its skin peeled away in smoke and boils.  Despite the enemies' reinforcements, the tide began to turn in the heroes favor.

Thearch and Kagan dispatched Ozyrrandion, despite the dragonspawns' efforts to screen him from them.  Sir Balerion shoved a vial of holy water in the unconscious abishai's mouth and kicked its jaw shut.  Brutus kicked the zombie wyvern to pieces while the abishai's head dissolved into gruesome and unrecognizable shapes.  Balthazar and Svetlana traded ranged attacks with the remaining abishai and its dragonspawn bodyguards, holding them at bay until the frontline fighters could return.

A distant but loud roar of triumph echoed into the chamber from the entrance hallway.  It sounded as though the dragons had freed themselves from their lair.

Meanwhile, the blackspawn raiders gave their own fierce accounting, critically wounding Thearch in the process.  He remained upright, and his courage and devotion to Ghorhaedin inspired his allies to fight harder and ignore the pain of their own injuries.  Inspired, Sir Balerion whirled Brutus and charged the remaining abishai, invoking Baiste's holy power.  His lance ran straight through the demon, splitting it in half as it tore out the other side.

Suddenly, there were flashes of light and the sounds of multiple bursts of energy to the south.  Looking down the hall, Balthazar could tell that the blue dragon had entered the hallway, casting a massive shadow before its large body triggered the still-trapped doors.  The hallway was awash in blinding color and deafening tumult as the doorframe delivered massive blasts of acid, cold, fire, and electricity simultaneously.

As the heroes finished off the black dragonspawn, the light from the hallway remained obscured by the blue dragon's form.  It sounded as though it were chanting, and magic energies began to swirl around it.  Balthazar could sense the protective energies of the dragon's magic, even as he used his own magic to crush his enemies with Dovan's spiritual warhammer.  

Svetlana noticed the southern doors, were large, sturdy, made of iron, and able to be barred from the inside.  She called attention to bar, and Thearch moved to shut the doors and swing it into place.  Kagan swung Erkattesan in several mighty arcs, cleaving through the last of the dragonspawn.

Before the silence of the battle's end could settle in, a loud roar erupted from the other side of the barred doors, followed by a crackling explosion of lightning.  The doors glowed with heat and sparked loudly, but held firm.

"Is this normal for doors?" Balthazar asked.

"We should probably get moving," Kagan replied.

"Agreed," Svetlana said, already on her way down through the door to the west.

-----

“I have seen dungeons filled with bones and sorrow, but never chains that bore the carcass of a dragon.  That night, the Company’s courage was tested not by death alone, but by the truth that hung above them.”
— Archivist Merial of the Silver Quill

The heroes pressed westward into a narrow corridor, a door to their left and another standing open ahead.  

Svetlana tested the left-hand door--unlocked.  Inside lay only a cluttered storage closet.  She slipped inside to restock her dwindling rations while the others advanced.

Beyond the western threshold, the passage opened into a great hall.  Vaulted ceilings arched twenty-five feet overhead.  Crude bunks lined the walls and alcoves, and long tables strewn with gnawed carcasses filled the central area.  A single heavy footlocker squatted beneath one table.

Crossing the threshold, the heroes felt a sudden and fleeting rush of stark honesty, as though Truth itself had brushed against their souls before slipping away.

Their gaze rose.

Suspended in a cruel lattice of iron chains loomed the corpse of a dragon--bronze-scaled, thirty feet long, its belly carved open from throat to tail.  The air reeked of rust and decay.

From behind them thundered the sound of the blue dragon battering the entrance doors.  They searched the great hall swiftly.  Svetlana cracked open the footlocker to reveal the dragonspawn's pitiful treasures: a pair of bracers, a gold and ruby rod wound with a triple serpent motif, and a satchel holding three vials--two drained, one sloshing with thick liquid.

"Antitoxin," Thearch muttered over her shoulder.  "Looks like they've already used two."

The party regrouped.  Balthazar's prayers mended torn flesh, while Thearch hastily closed every door--their own entry, another exit into the hallway where Ozyrrandion's corpse lay with several dragonspawn, and a third portal in the north wall.  Kagan planted himself across from the door, ready to charge should the dragon break through.

The waiting outgrew their patience.  

Thearch crept to the northern door, "just to check."  It opened with the loud creak of old iron hinges.

-----

"Monster!"  Thearch called out.  "It's a vrock!"

Beyond the open door six torches guttered in sconces on an iron railing that separated a raised walkway lined with cells from the central floor littered with implements of torture.  The dim flickering lights played over a rack, an iron maiden, and some kind of metal tank.  An assortment of pulleys, chains, and ropes hung from the celing, some terminating in manacles, and others in cruel hooks.

Next to the rack hunched a demon.  Eight feet tall, vulture-like, gray wings folded in against its back.  It ruffled its feathers, flexed its claws, and shrieked.  Rows of jagged fangs gleamed within its hooked beak.  Its claws wove arcane symbols in the air.

Thearch's study of the planes sprang to mind--the demon strained to call its kin forth from the Abyss.  Thankfully, it failed to pierce the barrier between worlds.

Thearch maneuvered around the vrock--it lunged as he passed, claws raking before he could defend himself.  Gritting his teeth, the dwarf circled, wrench flashing, and drive the adamantine into its ribs.  The beast staggered, its flank left open.

Kagan charged beside him, slashing at its feathers with Erkattesan.  Svetlana slipped through the shadows.  Behind them, Balthazar uttered a curse of doom upon the vrock while Sir Balerion stormed in with sword raised high.

The vrock's wings snapped open with an audible crack.  A cloud of strange motes erupted into the air, drifting like spores.  Wherever they touched, they stretching into thin, writhing vines that wormed through armor seams.  On Sir Balerion they withered harmlessly, but on Thearch, Kagan, and Balthazar, they burrowed into flesh, rooting and growing with painful insistence.

The demon shrieked again.  The sound struck like a hammer.  Svetlana and Balerion dropped their weapons, ears ringing, hands pressed against their skulls.  Still reeling, Thearch focused and struck with the Mountain Hammer technique--shattering the vrock's supernatural defenses by force of will alone.  Kagan's falchion flailed wildly, his balance disrupted by the hideous screech.  Balthazar wrapped Kagain in his faith like a shield, even as the vines dug deeper.

The vrock screeched again in triumph and tore at stunned Sir Balerion with claws and talons.  Kagan's persistence bore fruit--blow after blow cutting across the demon's hide.  From the shadows, Svetlana loosed an arrow, only to swear as it flew wide.  Thearch struck again, divine radiance bursting from the impact to heal Kagan's wounds.  Balthazar, unwavering, called again upon Dovan to knit SIr Balerion's flesh.

The vines writhed, burrowing deeper as they grew.  The demon raised its claws in defense, sketching runes in the air.  Light erupted at its feet, racing up its body.  The radiance engulfed it--and with a final screech, the vrock was gone.

-----

Garrick watched uneasily as the vines continued to grow upon his companions.  He knew little of gods and demons--his vows were born more of gratitude than of faith--but he suspected a curse of some kind.  He clutched his holy symbol, bowed his head, and prayed softly to Baiste.

He asked nothing for himself.  Only that his friends be blessed.

"They're stopping," Balthazar remarked, surprised.

"More than that," Thearch said, pulling one free.  It crumbled to dust.  "They're dying."

Sir Balerion smiled, whispering thanks to Baiste.

-----

"Quite a fight there, Chief," came a voice from northwest cell.  "Not much fight left in me, muhself."

Thearch stepped to the bars.  Inside sat a gaunt woodsman, face and arms weathered, clothing and skin crusted with blood.  He wore a grim smile despite his broken state.

"Didn't think I'd see another mortal before my end."

"Stand back," Thearch said.  He raised his adamantine wrench and smashed it against the bars.  The iron bent, but did not yield.

"Now you stand back," Svetlana slipped her tools out and shooed away the reluctant dwarf.  In moments the lock clicked free.

Svetlana froze.  Recognition lit her eyes.

"You--you're the forest guide from the beginning."

"Aye, young lady," replied Jorr Natherson.  "We're not so far from the Witchwood, but I've been a world away."

Jorr explained that he had harried the Red Hand as long as he could before capture.  The vrock had tortured him since.  He spared the details.  When asked of other prisoners, he told of an elf who once whispered of a secret passage hidden in a call.  The elf tried to escape one night and was never seen again.

Svetlana began searching for signs of this vanished passage while the others returned to the great hall.  The dragon's blows at the entrance still reached them faintly through the closed doors, and they were surprised it had not yet broken through.  Thearch closed the last door, quipping, "I just bought us another three hours."

Svetlana abandoned her search to rejoin the party.  Sir Balerion splinted Jorr's broken bones; the woodsman had been tortured nearly to death and would need a long time to fully recover.  

Balthazar petiitioned Dovan to heal his allies and strengthen them for the fight ahead.  Sir Balerion felt his skin tighten, hardening into bark.  The blessing of Dovan settled over him like a mantle.  Kagan and Thearch quaffed healing draughts, and strength returned to weary limbs.

The heroes, bloodied but unbroken, braced themselves for what was still to come.

-----

“Some wars are fought against steel, and some against faith.  In the ruins of Tiamat’s Temple, the Companions would face both—talons of a demon and prayers of priests.  Both lethal.”
— Chronicler Veyas Thandor, Annals of the Reclaiming

Kagan and Svetlana stood guard over the eastern doors, their eyes sharp, while Sir Balerion bent over Jorr's broken body, splinting what he could.  Thearch prowled the southern end of the great hall, seeking anything overlooked by his allies.

Then it came again—the shriek of arcane syllables in a voice piercing as broken glass.  The vrock had returned.

Svetlana saw it first through the doorway.  Her bow sang; the arrow hissed low and caught the vrock by surprise, beneath its feathered ribs.  The demon staggered, clutching its kidney, yet forced its guttural chant onward.  In an eyeblink it had tripled, phantom copies moving with and around its true form.

Kagan’s third eye pierced deception.  He charged, Erkattesan raised high, and struck the true fiend.

Thearch sprinted to join him, while Balthazar forward for a clearer view.  Sir Balerion rose from Jorr’s side, snatching sword and shield with practiced speed.

Svetlana melted into the shadows, rolled behind Thearch, and loosed again—swift, clean, but wide.  The vrock retreated up the torture room stairs, hidden around the stone corner of the doorframe.  Only Kagan could see it, and Thearch meant to change that.

He broke into the room—but the demon was ready.  Claws carved sigils in the air, and a pulse of sorcery hurled Thearch bodily into cell behind him.  Adamantine rang against stone as he struck the back wall and crumpled in a heap.

Kagan and Sir Balerion stormed in.  The half-orc raised Erkattesan high, ready to shatter spellcasting with sheer steel.  The paladin vaulted a torture tank, now eye-to-eye with the demon, his sacred sword, the Ork Xyráfi, in hand. Svetlana tossed Jorr his bow.

"Time for revenge on your torturer."

The vrock shifted, wings snapping.  It sidestepped Kagan’s strike as it wove its spell.  Light devoured it from claw to crown—and it vanished.  A flash of that same light and it reappeared on the far catwalk, slamming the cell door and locking Thearch in.

The dwarf battered the door with his Mountain Hammer technique.  The barred door bent, but did not yield.  Kagan charged across the room, slipping beneath the demon’s claws to drive Erkattesan deep into its flesh.  Still the fiend endured.  Sir Balerion was there in a moment, longsword swinging with holy wrath.

The vrock scowled, buffeted them both back with a hurricane of wings, and vanished yet again.

-----

The companions freed Thearch and secured the doors of the cells, vowing they would not be tricked twice.

“When it comes back,” Kagan growled, “we do not let it get away again.”

They waited.

Ten minutes passed; twice as long as before.  No flutter of feathers.  No screech or sound.

Thearch, restless, cracked open the northwest doors.  The corridor lay still, strewn with the corpses of the green dragon Ozyrrandion and the black-scaled dragonspawn.  Kagan lingered, grinning as he saw the dragon’s head.

“Oh, good, it’s still here,” he said.  “I need a green one.”

He set to work decapitating it with his falchion while the others pressed on.

The passage turned to the south, revealing another hallway, with iron doors ahead on the right, and nearer at hand on the left.  Thearch tried the nearest—the unlocked iron portal gave way with a metallic shriek.

“So much for surprise,” he muttered.

A hall of monastic cells lay beyond.  Each held only a bunk and a strange shrine: a basin ringed by serpentine coils and draconic heads.  Thearch advanced slowly; Sir Balerion’s full plate clattered behind him, while Balthazar wisely paused at the threshold.

Movement flickered—just a foot, an arm—in a northern cell.  Balerion’s magically illuminated blade threw soft light through the hall.

Yup, thought Thearch.  No surprise at all.

Svetlana’s bow bent, her focus absolute.  She drew on the hobgoblin limb she glimpsed—Balthazar, strode in and announced, “Oh, there are hobgoblins here!”

Her arrow flew wide and scraped stone.  The creature pulled back.  Voices barked in Goblin.

“Your mom sent me,” Thearch called back in Goblin, “to beat your ass.”

The cells erupted with chanting.  Priestly voices invoked divine magic in Goblin.

From ahead, one voice thundered above the rest.  “We have a holy purpose!  Leave now and live.”

Balthazar, recognizing their magic, shouted down the hall, “We’ve got some invisible assholes here!”  He hoped Kagan was not too far back to hear him.

The barbarian abandoned his grisly work and sprinted to his friends’ aid.

Sir Balerion surged forward, storming to where the hobgoblin had been and finding nothing.  He swung his sword through the air.  “Show yourselves, cowards!”

Svetlana blind-fired into the cell across from him, hitting only the stone wall ten feet away.  Thearch swung blindly with his wrench.  Balthazar’s aspergillum whistled through open air.  But he heard another sound:  the hobgoblins now prayed for protection.

Svetlana turned toward the sound of prayer and fired an arrow that disappeared in mid-air with a wet thunk and a pained hobgoblin groan.  Kagan followed the sounds of prayer into the cell.  He struck the invisible hobgoblin cleric with his falchion, guided by the Eye of Sight.

From the cells ahead, more prayers issued forth, but the party was too distracted to identify them.

A chain-mailed cleric of Tiamat appeared beside Balthazar, mace smashing down.  He reeled, but a vision from the Eye of Omens saved him from another hobgoblin appearing on his flank.  Balthazar’s counter was a simple touch.  

The hobgoblin collapsed.

“What was that?” asked Thearch.

“Death.”

“What kind?”

“Instant.”

“There was no sound,” Thearch protested, “he just died!”

“Yeah, terrifying.”

Another cleric appeared, smiting at Thearch with its mace.  “Your ‘god’ is weak,” it snarled in Goblin.

“Your mom’s ass is hairy, like a goat,” replied Thearch.

“Don’t talk about my mother!  Yaga Snarltooth is a SAINT!”

Thearch and the cleric squared off, but their duel quickly ended with the dwarf’s wrench driven deep into the hobgoblin’s skull.

Kagan, meanwhile, felt his body stiffening with paralysis as the hobgoblin before him invoke Tiamat in prayer.  Svetlana assailed the now-visible cleric with arrows, driving it for cover.

Sir Garrick Balerion followed the sounds of prayer to the north and was ambushed by an invisible hobgoblin’s mace.  He engaged the cleric in combat that ended in the Ork Xyráfi plunged into its collarbone.  It fell, lifeless, as the paladin withdrew his longsword.

Balthazar used Dovan’s blessing to debilitate another hobgoblin with poison.  He set upon it with Thearch and they clubbed it to ruin.

Kagan steeled his will and gradually, his limbs obeyed.  The hobgoblin before him prayed frantically to Tiamat—too slowly.  Erkattesan cleaved it completely in half.  And again.

The chanting from the eastern cells swelled.  Kagan alone, with his third eye, saw two warpriests walking upon the very air above, scrolls unraveling in their hands.  

He leapt, falchion flashing through the air and wounded one.  But the scrolls ignited, and the stone surrounding Svetlana and Balthazar dissolved to black water.

From those pools crawled six beasts, hounds with fur like midnight tides and green fire in their eyes and maws.  They rose, dripping shadow.

And the hall filled with their hunger.

-----

"Abyssal hounds are no natural beasts.  They are contracts given form, teeth sharpened on the parchment of broken oaths."
—Anonymous marginal note in the Codex of Binding (authorship doubtful)

“Hell hounds!” cried Sir Balerion.  “Beware their fiery breath!”

Three of the beasts encircled Svetlana, jaws snapping viciously.  The others harried Balthazar with practiced deceit—one feinting high, the other lunging low. Fangs sank through mail into flesh before he wrenched free.

Balthazar remembered the old tales: abyssal hounds sent to collect debtors from the mortal plane.  He recalled their gaze held some peril—then met one's eyes and felt his body stiffen like clay left too long without water.  He broke free through sheer devotion.  Words of prayer became a weapon, and Dovan robbed the beast of its sight.

Thearch, too, recognized them.  He turned his gaze aside, for he knew those eyes dragged men into stillness.  He also knew their hide laughed at steel—they needed cold iron.  His wrench was no such weapon, but when Ghorhaedin's power surged through it he felt the crack of bones breaking beneath their flesh.

Sir Garrick Balerion did not look away.  The gaze clung to his limbs like a bog’s sucking mud, but he strode on, chanting wards as he carved protective sigils into the air.

Jorr hesitated, bowstring drawn, eyes skittering from hellfire to stone.  His arrow flew wild.

Epée de Feu flashed in fiery fury as Svetlana struck—every blow a brand across the hide of her foe.  One howled, its cry drowned by Kagan’s thunderous shout that shook the air and set half their enemies to flight.

Still, the four hounds remaining fought with cunning.  Three coordinated upon Svetlana, forcing her guard wide.  The blinded beast, raging, clamped its jaws on Balthazar’s robes and tore free cloth—and blood.

Thearch swung again, his wrench smashing shoulders though the fiendish resistance turned killing blows into glancing ones.  Balthazar struck another with sickness that rotted its strength as well as its sight.

The hounds pressed back.  Jorr faltered as their eyes met his—his arm froze, his breath locked.  Svetlana followed, rigid as a statue mid-swing.  Then Kagan, even Kagan, arrested mid-charge.  The abyss had them.

The beasts turned on Thearch, ringed him, and their jaws found flesh.  His wrench alone could not harm them—but his strike sang with divine energy that poured life back into Svetlana’s still frame.  Sir Balerion carved his own path through them, brute force and stubborn steel battering against unnatural endurance.

One heartbeat at a time, they endured.  Paralysis broke.  Svetlana breathed again, Kagan roared free, and the pack was forced to yield ground.

But their wounds healed slowly—too slowly.  The hounds seemed endless, shrugging off strikes that should have crippled them.  Worse: their howls were answered.  From the black halls came the pounding of more paws, the glow of more burning eyes.  Their packmates returned.

And then—sudden silence.  The stone beneath each beast became water, churning with alien foam, and the hounds sank with a hiss into nothingness.

“Heh,” grunted Thearch, wiping blood from his brow.  “The summoning spell ran out.”

The party barely drew breath when Kagan leapt skyward, blade flashing at empty air. “The warpriests are back!”

The veil cracked—a hobgoblin warpriest strode the air itself, hurling a divine command at Kagan.  But stillness was no more in his nature than silence in a storm; he shook it off.

Jorr and Svetlana loosed arrows, even as the priest unfurled a scroll.  Dark syllables split the air and a pillar of profane fire fell from ceiling to floor.  Svetlana tumbled clear.  Jorr escaped with only minor burns.

Thearch hurled his spear with perfect form—its tip buried deep in the priest’s flank.  Sir Balerion bared his teeth, no weapon in hand, and spoke a promise of death so grim it chilled the hobgoblin’s heart.

Blades and bows struck from below. The priest’s magic kept it aloft, but desperation showed.

Then its ally returned. The second priest slammed Kagan with its mace, while the first tried to curse him into ruin.  Kagan stood through both.

Thearch drew forth Kharn’s warpick, its haft heavy with remembered blood, and met the air-walker blow for blow.  Sir Balerion held a doorway like a bulwark, turning the hall into a killing ground.  Svetlana and Jorr’s arrows sang through the gaps.

The first warpriest faltered.  It fell under blade and shaft—only for fire to fall again.  A second scroll, a second pillar.  This one struck true.  Balerion burned.  Kagan staggered.  Jorr dove—and did not rise.

The hall stank of blood and scorched flesh.

Sir Balerion pinned the surviving warpriest with the Ork Xyráfi, giving Kagan the opening.  One cleave, one roar, and the hobgoblin died split to the spine.

The battle faded into silence, save the echo of their breathing—and the absence of one.

Jorr lay still.

-----

“When the gods turn their faces away, mortals must tend their own dead. It is a holy work—and a lonely one.”
— Father Pelthas of Ebermere, Letters from the Front

Sir Balerion rushed to Jorr's side, but confirmed the worst—dead before he hit the stones.  The Knight Hospitaller knelt where the woodsman had fallen, whispered a short litany of rest, and began the slow, practical business of the dead:  unbuckling armor, closing eyes, arranging the body for cremation.

While the knight worked, Balthazar prowled the eastern cells, source of the warpriests.  Each alcove held a crude wooden shrine to Tiamat, its bowl half-filled with stagnant water.  The true find, however, was a burlap sack shoved beneath a bunk—heavy with every sort of coin, and a letter in cramped, jagged characters.

"It's Goblin," Thearch muttered over his shoulder, squinting.  He read aloud:

Luraz,

Keep these potions on hand in case of an incident with the wyverns— they are dragonkin, but truly beasts at heart.  We must not grow complacent in our allies.  They would turn on us as easily as we they.  Give the minor scrolls to your clerics—they risk exposure in their trips to the torture chamber.  Keep the others among yourselves, in case of betrayal

You are banned from the Inner Sanctum for the remainder of the ritual. The pull of the portal is too strong to resist for those who may reach it.

And watch your tongue around our guests. The aranea takes notes on everything.

Kagan regarded him blankly, then turned without a word and strode out.  When he returned, a severed green dragon head was strapped to his pack, still dripping sickly ichor.  He held up a key.

"Dragon had this.  It fits the door."

They stacked the dead in a cell and took stock.  Wounded, spent, spell-less—they needed rest.  They locked the door from within, built a barricaded of bedding, and prayed the keys were scarce.

-----

Thearch stood in the dark hallway alone.  In the cells, his friends tried to rest.  Now and then, Balthazar drifted past, tending the wounded.

THUMP THUMP THUMP.  A pounding on the locked door startled him to alertness.

"Open up!" called a gravelly voice in Common.

"Go away!" Thearch barked back in Goblin.  "We're praying!"

"Speak Common," the voice grated.  "We're hunting intruders."

"There's no one here but us priests," Thearch insisted in Goblin.

"Common, uncle-rutter!  Do you speak it?" the voice snapped.  "Ozyrrandion and six of our brothers are dead in the main hall.  Have you seen anything suspicious?"

"Oh, no," Thearch replied, finally switching to Common.  "No one suspicious in here.  Just prayers."

A pause.  "Hmm.  We will look elsewhere and come back."

Balthazar appeared from a nearby cell.  "Thearch, who the hell were you talking to?"

"I dunno."

-----

Four hours later, the pounding came again.

"What?" Thearch demanded before the knocker could speak.

"We can't find the intruders," said the same gravelly voice.  "We're coming in to secure the room."

"Go bother the dragons in their lair."

"Tygarun would kill anyone who dared entered his lair!"

"Well they're not here.  We have very important things to do."

"We're coming in," came the reply.  Metal jingled, the sounds of keys—

"Interrupt our prayers and I'll blind you!" Thearch roared.  

The keys went still.

Outside the door there was a whispered conference.

"I think he's bluffing."

"I've seen them do it."

"I don't want to be blind."

Finally, the gravelly voice spoke up, "All right, priest.  We'll come back at shift change."

-----

Nearly two hours passed before the pounding came a third time.

"Come back at shift change!" Thearch bellowed.

"We've checked everywhere else," the gravelly voice replied.  "We're not waiting."

"Oh . . . alright," Thearch sighed.  "Just wait a minute."

-----

Thearch unlocked the door and stepped back.  "Come in."

The door swung open and chaos erupted.

Six black dragonspawn attempted to funnel their way into the hall.  Kagan and Thearch struck from opposite cells, Erkattesan and Thearch's heavy wrench turning the hall into a slaughterhouse.  Those who pushed through met Sir Balerion and Svetlana crosswise in the intersecting hall.  Between their blades none escaped.

Balthazar lying on a bunk, rolled over and pulled the blanket to his chin.  They've got this, he thought.

When the last dragonspawn fell, spluttering its own blood, they dragged the bodies into the hall and secured the door again.

"This doesn't feel very restful."

"What else are we gonna do," Thearch said, wiping gore from his wrench.  "If we go outside that blue dragon will fry us."

Svetlana took Thearch's place on watch.  The rest lay down again and tried to sleep.

-----

An hour and a half later, Svetlana heard shuffling sounds from beyond the closed door.

-----

“To stand before the door of horror and not yield—this is the shape of courage.  The gods require no victory, only the refusal to run.”
—Sir Caelon of Vyr, The Discipline of the Shield

Balthazar muttered as he crossed from Thearch's room to Kagan's, a bloodied rag in one hand, a clean bandage in the other.  "Tell them to go the hell away," he grumbled.

Svetlana answered only with a glare, colder than iron.  The noise outside the door ceased, and did not return.

-----

A growing peace settled over Balthazar's mind.  He could not see the sun—their only light the eerie glow of magic—but as his connection to Dovan pressed faintly on his soul, he knew dawn was coming.  Soon he would pray, and be answered.

From a nearby cell came the soft clank of armor.  Sir Garrick Balerion would also be praying, and dressing for war.  The others would soon rise as well.  Dawn moved unseen but unrelenting through the stone.

-----

The barricade at the main door had been dismantled.  The heroes took up their positions.  Kagan waited at the far end of the hall, falchion in hand, still as a stalking predator.  Sir Balerion and Thearch flanked the entrance from opposite cells.  Svetlana and Balthazar kept an eye on the door from the back rank.  They waited.

Nothing happened.

Thearch crept to the door.  No sound.  He drew a breath, pressed the handle down—and found himself face to face with something squat and pale, its flesh rubbery and covered in patches of bristly hair.  Clawed hands flexed.  Its sunken face betrayed no surprise.

The hall beyond teemed with them.

The creature screamed in Thearch's face, an horrific, otherworldly noise.  A red wound opened in midair, peeling wider until another of the creatures tumbled through in a mess of blood and membrane.  It landed snarling before Balthazar.  Kagan met it mid-lunge—Erkattesan swept through its flesh, and the thing ceased to be.

The demons pressed through the blocked doorway of the priest cells, howling, clawing.  The bottleneck became a slaughterhouse.  Their numbers choked the hall, more tearing into the world as the heroes watched.  Kagan roared a battle shout mighty enough to terrify even demons—those nearest him fled in panic.  Sir Balerion, Svetlana, and Thearch rushed into the opening and brought death to the monsters.  The stench of unnatural ichor clung to the air, acrid and hot.

Kagan and Svetlana pressed northward, battling the remaining demons.  Thearch and Sir Balerion pursued others south.  Thearch paused long enough to try his captured key on a locked door before continuing.  Sir Balerion, however, opened the door.

He found, impossibly, a kitchen.  Firelight flickered over copper pots and a steaming cauldron.  A young elf maid cowered beside a table, auburn hair disheveled, fear bright in her eyes.

"Oh! Please—do not hurt me!  You must leave before they find you!"

"It's alright," said Sir Balerion, lowering his weapon.  "You're safe.  Is there anyone else here?"

"No," she breathed, voice trembling.  "But you cannot stay.  They will hurt me."

-----

Thearch, meanwhile, hunted south.  The air grew clean—no hint of mold or mildew, and floors swept of dust.  The corridor turned, and he found four doors.  He chose one and turned the handle.

"Bird man!" Thearch exclaimed.  "You're gonna die!"

The door opened into a comfortable room furnished with a bed, a desk and chair, and a free-standing armoire.  Brooding on the bed, its wings folded like a cloak, sat the vulture-like vrock.

"You again!" it hissed contemptuously as it sprang from the bed.

Thearch's wrench cracked its ribs as it rose, scattering feathers.  The vrock vanished in a flash of bitter light.

-----

"Calm down, I want to help you," Sir Balerion reassured the young woman as he moved closer to the table where she clung.

She glanced back and forth between him and the door, where Balthazar and Svetlana entered the room.  "They keep me here," she said, "and make me cook for them.  I just want to be free.  Can you--can you get me out?"

"Yeah, we can do that," Sir Balerion replied.

She moved to the shelves and began packing a bag: bread and food and jars of tea.

"Balerion, why are you comforting that hag?" Kagan asked as he entered, Erkattesan still dripping demon ichor.

-----

Thearch found the last demon in another of the guest chambers.  Mortally-wounded, it was easily finished.

He turned to leave, then paused.  A single stone near the door sat slightly out of its mortar.  To human eyes, it would be nothing.  To a dwarf, it shouted imperfection.  He tested and it came loose.  He tasted the stone.  Sedimentary, but also something else . . . 

In the exposed hollow he found a leather-wrapped sheaf of notes in a foreign alphabet and a long sackcloth parcel.

-----

"She's a hag," Kagan explained.  "Like the one we pooped on."

"Ohh," said Balthazar, recognition dawning.  "By that inn that time.  Before the lizard temple in the swamp.  Right."

"I wasn't there for the poop," Svetlana stated.  "I met you later."

"I have no idea why everyone's talking about poop," muttered Sir Balerion.

Kagan fixed the elf maid with a hard stare, his third eye intense.  "I can see you, drop the act."

"I am afraid of how you would treat me if you saw my true form," she said softly.  "Have you never been hated for what you are?"

The half-orc could not pretend he had not.  Instead he said, "It's dishonest.  You're not fooling us."

"I haven't said anything that isn't true," she said.  "And I still want you to get me out of here."

"You can go," Kagan said.  "Just not with us."

The elf maid lowered her head sadly and began to unpack her satchel, more slowly now.

"I'll see you to the front door," Sir Balerion offered.  "I don't think my friends will have a problem with that."

As she set the next jar upon the shelf, she struck it once, sharply, against the wall.  "Maybe not," she sighed with resignation, "but my friends might."

The pantry door burst open.  Red eyes glowed in the darkness, as two gaunt shapes stepped forward—nearly skeletal, their leathery black flesh oozing red, their claws too large for their frames.  Horns gleamed in the firelight.

The elf maiden was gone, replaced by a horrifying hag.  Her night-black nails raked the shelf as her blue-violet face broke into a hideous, broken-toothed smile.

-----

“In the dark kitchen of the world, the gods cook us as they please—some to glory, some to ash.”
— Orvalin the Unreliable, itinerant sage and tavern prophet

"Get them!" the hag shrieked.

Sir Balerion moved first—shield high, blade ready—boxing the demon in the pantry as Balthazar’s voice rose behind him, bestowing strength from Dovan.

"They are called babau," Balthazar shouted.  "Demons steeped in acid and sin."

Svetlana loosed two arrows, catching the demon off guard.  The shafts hissed as they sank into the babau's oozing hide. 

The demon's reply was a rasping curse in Abyssal.  Its claws brushed the paladin's armor and instantly the metal bled shadows.  Living darkness swept through the kitchen, swallowing it.

In the shadows, the hag wove another spell, flinging four bolts of crackling energy from her outstretched fingertips that hammered into Kagan's chest.  He barely flinched.  Erkattesan roared through the dark, carving deeply into the witch's side.

The second babau slipped forward unseen and raked Balerion across the flank, the acid of its touch biting even through sanctified steel.

-----

In the foyer, Thearch shoved one of the massive northern doors shut just as a thunderclap shook the hall.  KRAKADOOM!—a surge of light and sound, then a figure stepped through the smoke: a human in charred robes, slightly smoking, clutching a staff crowned with a faintly glowing flame.

"Psst," hissed Thearch, gesturing.  "This way."  He stepped through the remaining open door and held it open.

The man ducked through without hesitation—he knew there was at least one dwarf among the heroes.  "Well met," he whispered.  "I am Jace of the Ārḍar.  I'm here to help."

"Sure you are," Thearch muttered, but led him toward the fray.

-----

The kitchen had become a storm of shouting, steel, and shadows.  Sir Balerion's sword flashed once, twice, tearing into a demon's gut—but the acid hissed, eating into Ork Xyrafi's mystic edge.  Swearing under his breath, he sheathed the blade and drew holy water instead.

Balthazar's prayer's rose above the din, blessing the paladin with Dovan's protection as Svetlana's arrows whistled through the gloom.  Kagan pressed the hag mercilessly, his strikes so relentless she could do nothing but stagger back, trying to defend herself.

Holy water burst against demon flesh in sizzling bursts of steam.  The smell of burnt copper and sulfur filled the air.

Outside, Thearch unlocked the kitchen door and Jace waved a wand that split him into five identical copies.  Through the open doorway he spied chaos within—two babau, fighting a knight through a pantry door, while a priest and an archer tried to support him.

One demon vanished in a flicker of black light, reappeared behind its foes, and overreached while lashing out with claws and teeth.  It fell prone.

"Not your day," Thearch grunted, bringing his wrench down on it with a crunch.

Jace uttered a spell that sent ribbons of fire into the remaining babau, burning its oozing flesh.  The smell was unbearable.

The hag, bloodied and desperate, vanished with a shriek of hate.  Kagan's third eye watched her ethereal form drift through the wall.  He rushed out the western door, saying, "I'll be right back.  I gotta take care of something."

Sir Balerion and Svetlana drenched the remaining fiend in holy water while Jace scoched it with fire and battered it with magic missiles.  Balthazar declared its doom and struck upside its head with his aspergillum.  The demon's cheek bore the weapon's imprint, and holy water sizzled down its face from the wound.

Thearch performed the Elder Mountain Hammer maneuver, smashing the babau's defenses—and skull—with his wrench.

Kagan returned a moment later, his blade wet and his grin feral.  "Look what the hag had!"

He held up an amulet with a glossy black gemstone.

-----

"Well met," Jace began again, brushing soot from his robes.  "I am Jace of the Ārḍar.  I have trained at the Cloister to join the Emperor's wizarding order—"

"Oh, man," Balthazar interupted.  "He's here 'cuz we're taking too long."

The paladin ignored him and extended a gauntleted hand.  “Sir Garrick Balerion, Knight Hospitaller of Baiste.”

“I am Balthazar of one name," said the priest of Dovan.  "A fun fact about me is that the Cloister tried to recruit me.”

“I thought the fun fact about you was you used to be a general,” Svetlana said.

“Oh, yeah," Balthazar recalled.  "That too.”

“I am Thearch of the Lost Halls,” the dwarf rumbled ruefully.

“I’m Svetlana.  That’s the only name you have to know.”

“I’m Kagan," the half-orc said cheerfully.  "I like to hit things.”

"Well met," Jace responded.  "Your, uh . . . third eye is quite interesting."

"Thanks."  Kagan said brightly.  The purple eye in his forehead blinked once.

Jace blinked twice.

Balthazar raised his right hand, revealing a matching eye in his palm.  "D'you like that?  I have one, too."

Before Jace could answer, Sir Balerion muttered, "It's a bit disconcerting that my armor is emanating darkness."

Kagan grinned, "Now you fit in with us better."

"That's what's most disconcerting."

"I was sent to help stop the demon army entering our world from the Abyss," Jace continued.

"Told ya," Balthazar seethed.  "They sent you because we're too slow."

Jace ignored him, crouching beside the demon corpses.  "We can make use of these."  He pried horns, scraped acid into jars, and clipped nails with a scholar's focus.  The others watched, half impressed, half disgusted.

When the grim harvest was done, they moved north once more.

-----

A door opened onto a chamber of horror rendered in exquisite art: bas-reliefs of dragons devouring towns and peasants in an orgy of fire and claws.

"It's Elsir Vale," Thearch whispered.

Papers littered the central table—maps, troop counts, letters of command.  Sir Balerion scanned one.

Brindol's Lion Guard number 200 strong, with another 800 militiamen ready to serve.  Wulfric, the leader of the Lions is old and conservative.  He is likely to keep his troops in the city and conserve food and arrows.  They also have a powerful wizard, but he is vain and his interests lie farther afield from home.

He gathered them up, jaw tight.  "This is war planning.  And they had a lot of information."

The group pressed on, opening another set of double doors.

A great chamber spread before them, lit by hundreds of candles.  Stone pews lined the southern floor, while to the north an altar rose, flanked by twelve-foot statutes of the five-headed dragon.

"Stay back," Sir Balerion hissed—too late.

Kagan strode forward through the archway and into sight of the massive blue dragon perched upon the ledge to his left.

-----

"Many warriors boast they fear no dragon; fewer still speak truth.  Yet now and then a company arises who, when the storm breaks upon them, stands long enough to strike back.”
— Archivist Maelion of Sophaneroth Seminary, Third Scribe of the Skystrife Annals

Before Kagan could react to the vast shape stirring upon the ledge, a furious wyvern hurled itself from a high alcove opposite him.  Its hooked talons raked at him, seeking to a grasp that would allow it to lift him from the ground.  He tore free with brute strength, only to confront another, and then another, diving at him from the far wall through the candlelit gloom.

Behind him, Jace intoned the first syllables of swiftness.  He scraped small shavings off of a licorice root.  They had fallen halfway to the ground when the world lurched.  Sound thickened and the world seemed to slow around the heroes as they now moved with magical haste.  The mage, now swift as a falling star, sped away down the corridor.

Svetlana moved through cover and loosed an arrow whsoe head crackled with stormfire.  It struck deep beneath the scales of a wyvern's hindquarters and the creature spasmed in pain, its wings stuttering mid-beat.

Lightning crackled in the blue dragon's throat as it reared.  Like a serpent striking, it unleashed a bolt of murderous brilliance.  In Jace's slowed motion world, Kagan and Garrick could make out each forking branch of lightning—but not sidestep their fury.  The blast tore through them.

Garrick took one step into the chamber and realized that no sword--no matter how storied--could reach the airborne dragons.  He withdrew to the hallway and called upon Baiste, his prayer rippling outward like a bright wind through the hall.

"Draw them into the hall!" Thearch barked.  He was already moving with magical swiftness toward the map room, bull's strength draught in hand.

Calling upon Dovan, Balthazar brought down a pillar of fire from the vaulted ceiling.  Two wyverns shrieked as the flames engulfed them mid-flight.

Kagan gazed into the chamber of circling dragonkin and reluctantly withdrew to join Thearch.  The blue dragon's head would be the height of his collection, but he knew a bad situation when he saw one.  Instead he uncorked a healing potion, the cool magic soothing his burns as he jogged after Thearch.

Seeing three wyverns swing near each other in the air, Jace tossed up three nutshells.  The shells sublimated into a wave of mental static that crashed outward and burst around the beasts.  Their minds blanked; their wings faltered.  All three crashed hard into the stone floor below.

One of the two wyverns still lucid dove directly at Garrick, talons hooking him cleanly and hauling him up.  Its stinger lashed out at him--but deflected off of his armor.  He already had far too much experience with wyvern poison.  Garrick twisted and wrestled, breaking the wyvern's grip and dropping to the stone stairs below.

"You're supposed to pull back!" Thearch shouted as he rushed to Sir Balerion's side.

"They grabbed me!" the exasperated paladin snapped back.

From his position on the stairs, Thearch just managed to swat the wyvern with his wrench—slamming divine healing into Garrick with the same swing.

Balthazar rooted his power through the earth; a monstrous briar patch erupted from the stony ground with the ferocity of wildfire.  It filled the doorway—overtaking the wyvern in midair—and flooded into the chamber.  The wyvern hung in the air, trapped in a snare that hadn't existed two heartbeats earlier.

"Things are not going according to plan," Jace called.

"Don't worry," Garrick replied.  "That will become a familiar feeling the longer you spend with us."

Jace sprinted past Balthazar, casting aside his staff.  "Grab that," he commanded.  He seized Thearch and Sir Balerion, one in each hand, and called out "Nemo hic esse vult!"  In a sharp twist of space, all three vanished.

Svetlana sent a volley of arrows into the trapped wyvern while Kagan stepped forward, hacking through vine and scale.  The draconic body fell still in a mess of sap and blood.

The sounds of confused wyverns tearing at one another shrieked through the wall of thorns as Kagan and Balthazar fell back toward the foyer.  Svetlana covered their retreat with her bow.  Thearch opened the doors at their approach, and closed them immediately behind his companions.

-----

"We are not prepared for dragons," Jace said.  "I prepared for demons--dragons are immune to my best spells!  The blue one nearly killed us with a single breath."

As he spoke, Balthazar set down his aspergillum and took up a quiet prayer, knitting Kagan's wounds together.  "We've fought a few dragons," he offered with a shrug.

"I think we would have been okay," Thearch said.

Nothing—facts, logic, or reassurance—could slow Jace’s lecture about dragons.

"We should explore everywhere we haven't been yet," Thearch proposed.  "The places that don't have dragons."

"I think we have," Balthazar said, moving to tend Sir Balerion next.

Jace shook his head hard.  "We should leave and go rest so I can memorize different spells tomorrow.  I can ward all of us from the dragon's breath.  Then we fight."

"We just did that," Balthazar objected.  "We slept for like, fifteen hours!"

Sir Balerion frowned.  "I'm also concerned the clock is ticking on shutting down this portal."

"Oh, it definitely is," agreed Thearch.

"I just don't want to sleep away another day," reasoned Garrick.

"But the dragon's gonna come after us before we're ready," Jace insisted.

"Well . . ." Garrick thought back.  "He chased us in here and then left us alone."

Jace blinked.  "I didn't think the ticking clock was that close to midnight."

Thearch stood abruptly.  "Let's go get' em."  He produced a black arrow, its shaft carved with dragons, a scythe, and a fig leaf.  "Arrow of Dragon Slaying," he pronounced gravely, handing it to Svetlana.

"We've already looked everywhere else," Balthazar agreed.

Svetlana snapped her fingers, "Didn't Jorr say something about a hidden door out of the prison?"

"Let's ask him!" Thearch said cheerfully.

Balthazar groaned, "We'd have to rest—again—so I can prepare to speak with the dead."

"You never have the right spells!" Thearch complained.

"We keep winning, though," Balthazar countered.

-----

They trudged back through the guard barracks, under the decaying bronze dragon corpse.  "What'd you guys do to this thing?!" Jace exclaimed.

They reached the torture chamber, and searched the cramped cells.  Garrick, recalling Jorr's story, scoured the cell nearest the ranger's own.  At last he found it: a loose stone that, when pressed, released a hidden section of wall large enough to slip through.  A narrow passage curved downward into darkness, ending in at what seemed another dead end.

"My turn," said Thearch, determined not to be outdone in masonry by a human.  He tapped and tested the stone, listening with dwarven ears.  When he found the concealed lever, he pushed hard.  The wall shifted, opening like the cover of an ancient tome.

-----

“Some dragons hoard gold.  Others hoard sins.  The worst hoard certainty.”
—Brother Alcuin, last chronicler of the Azure Fall

The wall slid down and to the left with a speed unbefitting stone.  A harsh grunt echoed into the passageway, nearly swallowing the sound of the hidden door's opening.  But not quite.

Candlelight flickered in small trembling globes, insufficient to light the cavernous darkness of the temple.  Enough, however, to reveal the enormous tangle of briars flooding the great doors.  And to see the dead eyes and lolling tongue of a wyvern lying on the stone floor before them.  To see it jolt as the wyvern's body jolted.  As the hips of the blue dragon mounting it finished an obscene thrust.

Engrossed in its foul rutting, it noticed too late that the heroes had found the hidden passage.  With a snarl, it scrambled free of its profane entanglement.

The room smelt of burning tallow, death, thornwood, and the musk of draconic lust.

Svetlana acted before the dragon had collected itself.  From the rear rank—thirty feet distant, half shrouded by stair and shadow—she loosed the black arrow.  Instinct had outpaced aim, and the magical arrow skipped off stone and lodged in a pew in the lower level.

Sir Balerion, Thearch, and Kagan surged forward to encircle the beast, but the wyvern's corpse betrayed their footing.  None fell, yet only Kagan's wild, savage swing managed to penetrate the dragon's armored hide.

Balthazar focused his faith, manifesting a warhammer of pure force.  It took the dragon by surprise and slammed into its haunch, cracking scale and bruising muscle.

With an exuberant roar, the dragon took flight, lifting effortlessly into the central alcove twenty feet above.  In its wake a wyvern dove, raking at Thearch.  Its talons grasped at shield and mail, but the dwarf tore free, boots remaining firmly on the ground.

The second wyvern fared better.

It seized Thearch in its talons and, though the thrust of its poisoned stinger clanged uselessly against his armor, it hauled him skyward.

Svetlana took breath and took aim.  Her arrow took flight.

The wyvern howled as the shaft pierced its right eye.  Another followed into its throat.  The creature collapsed mid-flight, a bloody wreck, and Thearch fell clear—landing hard but unharmed at the base of the wall.

Jace had been concentrating.  Drawing deeply from the Ārḍar's magical reservoir, he bit down on a shaving of licorice root as the spell snapped into place.  Sweet anise flared across his togue—and across the senses of Garrick, Kagan, and Thearch.  Their world slowed.  Motion thickened.  Opportunity bloomed.

Kagan ran after the remaining wyvern, leaping from the chancel floor into the air over the pews—and driving Erkattesan through scale and sinew in a devastating arc.  Sir Balerion followed, fleet and relentless, looking for a chance to bring Ork Xyrafi's to bear.

The wyvern circled back and swept down low.  Talons pierced Balthazar's tunic and pulled him off his feet into the air.  With a flash of insight, he twisted his hips, throwing his lower body to the side as the wyvern's stinger barely missed him.  Before the wyvern could gain altitude, Thearch swung his wrench in a high arc, crushing its skull and sending Balthazar tumbling to the ground.   

Above them, Balthazar’s spectral hammer harried the dragon.  Snarling, the beast drew a slender wand and with a roar of “Ardeat!”, hurled flame into their midst.  Fire blossomed into an inferno.  Shields turned aside the worst of it; Balthazar ducked behind stone and emerged scorched but unbroken.

Sir Balerion called forth Brutus from the celestial ether and thundered across the chancel, reins taut, eyes fixed beyond the wicked altar.  Svetlana vanished into the pews, rolling into shadow.  Jace wove lightning wards about himself, layers of arcane defiance against the dragon’s wrath. 

Thearch planted his shield and braced himself.  Kagan stepped, climbed, and vaulted—knee to shield, shield to shoulder—hurling himself upward toward the alcove.

Tyrgarun recoiled in astonishment as the half-orc hauled himself onto the ledge. Talons, teeth, and tail lashed out in a brutal storm. Kagan endured it all, jaw clenched, muscles screaming, will unyielding.

From concealment, Svetlana recovered the black arrow and loosed again.  The shaft found a bare patch of flesh beneath a missing scale and vanished into Tyrgarun’s breast.  The dragon roared, clutching at the wound, convulsing as if retching something foul from within.

But the beast did not fall.

Jace seized the opening and detonated a fireball in midair, precisely placed.  The flames washed harmlessly across the dragon’s scales, dispersed by occult protections.

Then Sir Balerion charged a blank wall.

He had traded blade for lance.  At the last instant he signaled Brutus to leap.  Hooves scrabbled desperately against stone as horse and rider defied gravity—and Sir Balerion thrust upward, lancehead driving into the dragon’s side.  The dragon howled in pain and surprise.  No one had seen that coming.

Kagan pressed the assault.  Balthazar marked the dragon with Dovan's disfavor, invoking its inevitable doom.  Svetlana's arrows struck again and again.  Another of Jace's fireballs engulfed the dragon, this time burning through defenses, searing its scales.

Tyrgarun faltered.  He was no longer enjoying this.  The half-orc would not relent.  The spectral hammer would not leave him.  The archer struck where he was weakest.  And the paladin was already wheeling for another impossible charge.

The alcove was no longer high ground.  It was a snare.

The dragon tensed to leap into the air.  Its head dropped, struck the ledge, and fell to the chancel floor below.  Its body slumped the alcove, collapsing in the wake of Erkattesan's passage through its neck.

-----

"Hey, throw me that wand of fireballs," Jace called up.

Kagan pried the baton from the dragon's claw and tossed it down.  From the other claw he pulled a ring of black iron and held it aloft.  "He had this ring," Kagan said, tossing it to Svetlana.

She examined it with a jeweller's eye.  "Fine work," she murmured.  "Too fine for such a base metal.  It's enchanted.  Probably something defensive."

"Only one way to find out," Thearch said.  "The Balthazar method."

Kagan slid the ring onto his finger.  "I feel the same."

Jace frowned and began an incantation, eyes widening as the auras around Kagan revealed themselves.  There were more than he expected.

"Transmutation . . . abjuration . . . divination . . ." he muttered to himself.   "Eagle's splendor.  That's probably the ring.  Bull's strength, bear's endurance, mage armor, shield of faith . . ."  He paused, troubled.  There something else.  Something he could not name.

"It's a ring of charisma," Jace concluded.

"Oh, said Balthazar mildly, "he already has that cloak of charisma."

Jace stared.  "Why do you have a cloak of charisma!?!  Give it to the paladin!"

"Kagan," Sir Balerion said gently, "is not a 'sharer'."

Kagan smirked.

-----

"The whispering dark holds no secrets for those who cannot find the light."
— Usarde Brookhollow, Dungeoneer

Jace could sense an unclean lattice of divine power, that had clung to the altar, seeped into the floor, and pooled against the walls like stagnant water.  He turned to speak, but was interrupted mid-thought by a sound like thunder breaking underground—a heavy wrench striking stone.

One of the carved dragon heads shattered from its statue and clattered across the floor, its snout splitting on the dais.  Thearch hauled his wrench back for another blow, face set and determined.  Sir Balerion joined him, spurring Brutus forward; the great destrier reared and came down hard, hooves pulverizing profane stone.

"The altar is unhallowed," Jace called over the ruckus.  "To ward the area against goodly creatures."

"Didn't help much against me," Kagan said grimly as he began the grisly work of flensing the blue dragon's severed head.

"Yeah," Thearch agreed, swinging his wrench again. "Lot of good it did them."

Sir Balerion urged Brutus on without comment, eyes forward, jaw tight.  The altar spiderwebbed with cracks beneath their assault.  Svetlana searched the wreckage, fingers seeking seams, hollows, or tricks, but found only solid stone.  As the altar split, the enchantment thinned to nothing, like smoke in a strong wind.  Jace watched the aura fray and vanish, then dropped to a seat beside Balthazar on the edge of the chancel.

"I don't know if we are going to live through this experience," he began quietly.  "But there's another reason I came out here.  You've got a real talent for magic and its a rare thing.  The Cloister would like you to come teach."

"Maybe," Balthazar replied thoughtfully.  "I'd need a few assistants.  Access to a lounge.  Make my own schedule."

"I teach there and they are very accommodating," Jace cut in.

"I'll give it some thought."

With a loud crash, the altar collapsed in earnest.

"So," Sveltana sighed, skeptically.  "Do we think we're done?"

"No," Thearch and Kagan said together.

"We still haven't found the guy who talks in our heads," Thearch added.

"He's been quiet," Balthazar noted.

"Could've been this dragon," Sir Balerion ventured.

"No," Thearch said.  "Who'd have a dragon for their high priest?  It doesn't fit right."

"What about the vrock," Kagan asked.  "Could that have been him?"

"The voice was wrong," Thearch replied.  "But he had telepathy and was a powerful sorcerer.  He could cast teleport at will!"

"Did you kill him?"

"He cast teleport AT WILL!" Thearch repeated.

"Just hit him when he does that," Kagan answered sensibly.

"Well then let's get him," Thearch agreed.  "But this room seems like a dead end, I guess."

Sir Balerion guided Brutus away to the eastern side of the room.  "There is a secret passage on the western side, so the law of mirror images says there ought to be one about . . . here," he reasoned.  He tapped the wall repeatedly with his lance, while Brutus snorted and sniffed the air for scents.  There was no sign of a passage beyond.

He startled to notice Svetlana had appeared beside him, "Whatcha doin'?"

"Checking for a secret door.  There should be one around here."

Svetlana began searching the entire length of the wall, hands roaming in patient, practiced motions.  No seams escaped her notice, but after fifteen feet there was still no sign of a handle or mechanism, no inexplicable draft, no hollow noise from beyond.  And then--

Click.  

Stone rolled quickly away.  A tunnel yawned open to the south.

"Symmetry," Thearch said.  "Secret passages on either side of the room."

Sir Balerion rolled his eyes silently.  Kagan was already moving down the tunnel with Svetlana on his heels.

"They always rush ahead," Thearch lamented.

The passage dead-ended quickly, but Svetlana found the catch from within, opening a door into the old monastic cells—familiar ground, stained by past blood.  A black-scaled dragonman stood at the intersection, watching.  It raised its head and breathed acid down the narrow passageway.

Kagan ducked back into the doorframe.  Svetlana flowed aside.  The blackspawn turned and fled west.

Kagan gave chase, hounding its steps, yelling over his shoulder as they went.  "Out the door, take a left, end of the hall take a right," his voice filtered back through the halls to his allies.

Balthazar called forth a holy glow from the sturdy yew of Svetlana's bow, pushing back the darkness as she followed after Kagan.

Jace and Balthazar strayed south in the gloom and nearly blundered into an ambush—two more dragonkin in flanking cells.  Balthazar crossed the hall in three strides and laid a hand upon one.  It died without a sound.

The second charged.  Tiny dessert tarts scattered against its scales.  It turned in confusion.

"Os ridiculum tuum titilla!"  Jace intoned, waving a feather at it.

A chuckle wracked its body.  Then another and another and it could not stop.

"Let's try to take this one alive," Jace said.  "To interrogate."

Thearch arrived like judgment.  His wrench fell, divine sparks leaping.  Balthazar’s aspergillum bruised hide.  Jace’s staff struck scales.  The wrench fell again, and the hideous laughter ceased.

Kagan's chase had brought him to the temple's foyer.  "Entrance hall!" he bellowed—just as an iron door slammed shut in his face and its lock clacked into place.  Commands barked beyond.  

Another dragonspawn cut off Svetlana's pursuit, slamming and locking the eastern door to trap Kagan in the foyer.  Svetlana withdrew, raining arrows on the black-scaled beast.  Sir Balerion interposed Brutus, lance flashing, hooves pounding.  They traded blows until Sir Balerion's lance twisted free of his grip and fell.  Shielding himself with another round of attacks from Brutus, he drew Ork Xyrafi.

Behind him, Jace trotted down the hallway to join the fight.  A door opened next to him—a falchion swung out, nearly knocking him off of his feet.  Reflexively, Jace drew out a bit of spider web.  He wove it into the air before him, calling, "Telam improbam texere!"  

A mass of strong, sticky strands filled the kitchen around the blackspawn raider.  It narrowly avoided entanglement.

"Outta my way, finger-flicker," Thearch sneered.  He shouldered past the archmage to face the dragonkin.

"There's uh, not much I can do here," Balthazar said.  "Running low on spells."

"You could stabilize the prisoner," Jace suggested.

The two ran back to the monastic cells to secure their wounded foe.

A clanging thud resounded through the hallway as Thearch's wrench crushed ribs.  The blackspawn raider dropped into the webs.

In the foyer, keys flashed in Kagan's hand.  He unlocked the western door and forced it open against the dragonkin holding it shut.  Erkattesan flashed twice and the raider fell.  Kagan closed the door against a flight of javelins that came from further down the hall.

Outside the eastern door, acid washed over the Knight and the Rogue as their foe exhaled.  Chartreuse drops sizzled and popped across Svetlana's silver diadem, pitting its surface.

A lock clicked loudly behind the blackspawn raider, who turned to look into Kagan's eyes as he cut it down.

Silence fell, thick, uneasy, and temporary.

-----

“When the hunt nears its end, the quarry grows bold—or desperate.”
—Captain Ardras of Dun, On Clearing a Fortress

“Are we done?” Svetlana asked, bow still in hand, eyes sharp despite the blood on her sleeve.

“I could use another eighteen hours,” Balthazar said lightly, “to reacquaint myself with my better miracles.”

“It isn’t over,” Kagan replied. “One ran west. And I heard somebody lock the northern door from the other side."

“Better get ‘em now,” Balerion said.  “Before they spring another ambush.”

Kagan bared his teeth.  “Like I always say—I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid.”

He strode to the great northern doors and threw one wide.

Empty hall.

His scowl darkened. He pivoted, stormed down the western hallway, wrenched open the barracks door—

—and two javelins came shrieking through the gap.

One kissed stone.  The other shaved stubble from his throat.

“Found ’em!” Kagan roared.

Sir Balerion forced Brutus into the narrow passage, lance darting past Kagan’s shoulder like a striking serpent. Thearch rounded from the east just in time to see steel clash in the doorway.

“Hey! I can see Kagan!” the dwarf barked. “Wait for me!”

A javelin answered him from the north, hammering against his shield. Seeing the western corridor clogged with horseflesh and fury, Thearch veered and charged the northern door alone.

Sir Balerion saw him break off and did not hesitate. Brutus wheeled in tight quarters—armor scraping stone—then thundered north. The second door burst inward beneath the destrier’s weight, and the knight’s lance drove clean through a dragonkin moving to flank Thearch. The creature shrieked and fell twitching.

In the west, Kagan fought a grinding war at the barracks threshold. Blackspawn rotated through the choke point—one held the doorway while another hurled a javelin from behind. Again and again the missiles bit him. Again and again his falchion answered, carving scale and bone. Blood slicked the stones. His own ran freely.

Arrows from Svetlana’s bow stitched the north hall with precision. Under her covering fire, Thearch and Sir Balerion broke the dragonkin there in short, brutal order. One fell senseless but breathing.

Thearch seized it by its leather harness and dragged it south, then west, its heels thumping over stone.

He came up behind Kagan, lifted his wrench, and whispered a prayer to Ghorhaedin—a covenant of sacrifice.

The blow fell.

Bone shattered. Life fled.

And divine power surged from the dying husk into Kagan, knitting torn flesh, sealing punctures, driving pain from muscle like smoke before wind.

Kagan inhaled once, deep and steady.

Then he went forward again.

The press broke. The barracks fell silent.

-----

Balthazar rose from his crouch over a blackspawn sprawled among the dead.

“This one lives,” he said. 

“Not for long,” Kagan replied.

"We need to interrogate them to find their boss and stop the ritual," Balthazar reminded him.  "And this is the only one, alive besides the prisoner Jace is watching."

“We are still killing them both,” Kagan said.

“Yeah.”

“I wasn’t asking.”

“Of course he’ll kill ‘em,” Thearch chimed in.  “Dovan isn’t the god of letting people get away with shit.”

-----

They returned to the priests’ cells with the captive bound and bleeding.

“Let’s torture them quietly,” Svetlana suggested.

“No,” Kagan said. “Close the secret door. Then we don’t have to be quiet.”

“Let us begin with questions,” Balthazar said. “What are we asking?”

"We need to find their boss and stop the ritual," Thearch said.  "Do you speak draconic?"

Balthazar shook his head.  The rest were silent.

"Thearch is the only one who can speak their language?" Sir Balerion asked.  "We are fucked." 

Balthazar prayed, and wakefulness returned to the captives.  Surrounded by enemies, they sprang upright in reflex.

Kagan cut one down instantly.

“Stop it,” he said.

The remaining dragonkin glared, hatred coiling in its slit pupils.

“You cannot stop what has already begun,” it hissed—in Common.

"Stop this, then," Balthazar stepped forward and flung holy water into its face. The liquid ran down its black scales.

“The Mother is coming,” it spat.

“From where?” Kagan demanded.

“The Abyss.”

Kagan sighed. “Where in here?”

“Everywhere.”

“Where’s your boss, numb-nuts?”

Balthazar lifted his hands, voice turning solemn. “Poor creature. I will pray for your soul.”

He began the rites of redemption.

“Mother!” the dragonkin rasped.

“You no go to Mother,” Balthazar said calmly. “You go to Dovan.”

“Mother, do not abandon me!”

“In the name of all the cool things—”

“Release my soul!” it shrieked.

Balthazar paused mid-rite.

“Only if you tell me where.”

The dragonkin’s will cracked.

“Beyond the temple. A secret door to the north. Only the elect may enter.”

"What does that mean?" Kagan asked.

"The priests, they go beyond.  They change in shifts—or they did before you killed half of them."

“Very good,” Balthazar said gently. “You may go to your Abyss after all.”

Sir Balerion watched in troubled thought.  silence. “I’ve never seen the power of prayer used to interrogate.”

Balthazar shrugged.  “It worked because he is stupid.  No repentance, no redemption.”

They spoke of the path ahead—of the altar chamber, of symmetry, of hidden ways. When the matter of the remaining prisoner arose, Sir Balerion excused himself stiffly to groom Brutus.

From the far end of the cells came his raised voice: “You’re the best horse, Brutus! The best a paladin could ask for!”

“He’s really yelling at that horse,” Kagan observed. "He better watch out; it's a better fighter than him.  It'll fuck him up."

With Sir Balerion looking the other way, and Jace engrossed in his spellbook, no one intervened.

The last prisoner died.

-----

They stood once more in the vast temple, candlelight trembling across the walls and reaching up into the shadows of the vaulted ceiling.  They surveyed the northern wall.

“I think it’s there,” Kagan said, pointing. “For symmetry.”

He glanced at Thearch as he repeated the unfamiliar word, but the dwarf gave no sign.

Sir Balerion asked, “Aren’t dwarves good at finding doors or something?  Can’t Thearch search the entire wall.”

“He can lick the entire wall,” Kagan offered.

Click.

Stone ground against stone.

A hidden door rolled aside about where Kagan had indicated.

Svetlana stepped back from the lever, calm as ever.

“Found it,” she said.

-----

“The earth keeps its own sentries in the deep places.  If you pass beneath the mountains, do not trust the stone will remain stone.”
—From the field notes of Ardras the Delver, explorer of the Western March

The secret passage led to a large cavern, where cold air whistled through a forest of stalagmites.  The stone floor rose away from the entrance in three rough tiers, each standing five feet above the last like the steps of some titanic altar.  To the left, a massive, irregular pit yawned into darkness.  Across the cavern, upon the highest tier, a broad passageway continued north, spilling faint light and distant sounds.

Kagan climbed the first rise without pause, hauling himself onto the second tier.  Sir Balerion’s heavy armor afforded him considerably less grace, and he clattered back to the first tier.  Thearch fared worse still; the weight of his armor and the stubborn brevity of his dwarven limbs left him stranded below.  

Svetlana and Jace stepped in together, bracing him and pushing as the dwarf hauled himself upward.  At the same time Balthazar lifted a pebble and called light from it, the glow swelling like a torch.

Thearch pulled himself onto the ledge as Balthazar dropped the glowing rock into the pit.

"One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thou—"

The rock struck far below with a distant clatter.  Its light came to rest nearly two hundred feet down among jagged shadows.  

Beside Thearch, a moss-covered stalagmite shifted.

Scales unfurled and the shape resolved itself into a greenspawn razorfiend—one of the terrible harrowblades bred in the Ruins of Rhest.  It spat a line of sizzling corrosion that caught Thearch unarmed, unshielded, and off his guard.  Acid splashed down the ledge, hissing across the stone and spattering Jace below.

Thearch jerked aside as the creature’s bladed wing scythed for his throat.

Another stalagmite stirred.  Then another.

A second razorfiend erupted from the cavern floor and spewed its caustic acid across Balthazar and Sir Balerion.  Svetlana twisted through the air with impossible grace, landing clear of the stream and rolled past the monster in one smooth motion.  She rose behind it, rapier already thrusting forward.  The enchanted blade burned torch-like as it pierced scale.

Garrick took a deep breath and lunged upward from below, Ork Xyrafi flashing as he struck over the ledge toward the beast threatening Thearch.  Thearch brought his war pick to hand and with a grunt he brought it down, the wrath of Ghorhaedin crackling along its head.

A third harrowblade glided through the stone forest, its bladed wings ringing against the dwarf’s weapon while its jaws snapped for his throat.

Fire fell from above.

A column of roaring flame crashed down from the cavern ceiling, engulfing the two beasts pressing Thearch.  When the inferno faded, one lay blackened and smoking. The other staggered, hide charred and blistered.

“Una pars te altiorem,” Jace chanted, and flung powdered iron toward Sir Balerion.

Garrick felt the cavern shrink.

Or perhaps it was he who grew.

The stone floor dropped away beneath him as his body expanded.  Twelve feet tall now, he stepped easily onto the second and brought the colossal blade of Ork Xyráfi down on the wounded razorfiend like a falling gate.

The creature facing Kagan and Svetlana turned to help its kin, dropping its guard.  Kagan’s falchion swept out its legs; Svetlana's rapier plunged into its chest.  

For an instant the flames along the blade guttered.

Then they burst forth furiously from inside the thing's chest, burning the heart out of it.

The corpse collapsed smoking at her feet.  Svetlana looked over to be sure the last harrowblade was watching.

Thearch crushed his pick into the dragon-beast's hide as it lashed out futilely against him.  He looked up to see Kagan step forward.

He drove his falchion down through its scales and into the cavern's stone floor.

The cavern grew suddenly quiet.

-----

The heroes helped each other up the remaining tiers of the cavern to the far end.  As they drew closer, the flicker of distant light spilled out of the northern passage.  The low murmur of rhythmic chanting drifted down the tunnel.

Sir Balerion knelt briefly, invoking Baiste’s blessing and warding the company against evil. Balthazar called upon Dovan to mend their hurts and to grant Kagan the strange grace of walking upon the air itself. Potions were drained, blades wiped clean, plans spoken quietly.

"We can take them by surprise," Thearch suggested.  "It'll be easy!"

"I'm huge," said the twelve-foot-tall Knight Hospitaller.  "I don't think I'll be able to sneak."

"Not if you're talkin' out loud," Thearch chided.

They advanced.

The narrow passage opened suddenly into a circular chamber whose vaulted ceiling vanished into shadow. At its center rose a three-tiered dais. Five long dragon necks of carved stone arched upward from the second tier, their open maws aimed toward the ceiling above.

Suspended there hung a pulsing hemisphere of raw power.

Within each dragon’s jaws burned a sphere of light—white, red, green, blue, and black—flickering faster and faster as the hobgoblin priests below chanted their ritual.

Jace snapped into a strip of licorice root, dispersing arcane energy that hastened his comrades.  

Kagan charged, heedless of the sudden appearance of dark, spectral figures around the walls.  

A shadowy limb reached out--and passed through him, pulling his vitality in its wake.  He shrugged off the darkness.

Erkattesan cleaved into a hobgoblin priest.  Two more wraiths swarmed Kagan, clutching at his essence but struggling to drain it.

Balthazar strode forward, holy symbol aloft.

"By Dovan's will,” he declared, “the dead stay dead!"

Radiance burst from the talisman, shredding the wraiths into pale tatters of resentment.

The hobgoblins’ chanting faltered, replaced with prayers of war.

Sir Balerion, Thearch, and Svetlana surged forward while Jace hurled twin lances of fire down the corridor.

Kagan whirled his falchion through the priest before him and into the next, catching it by surprise.  Before it could react, he brought the blade 'round again and struck it down.  As the two collapsed to the floor he turned to the rest.

Very politely, he asked, "Who's next?"

Balthazar watched the priests weave defensive blessings about themselves.  He smiled wickedly.  With a gesture and a single prayer he unraveled their magic like rotten thread.

He said simply, "I give boons and I take boons."

A warpriest wrapped Kagan in bands of binding prayer.  His body froze mid-swing.  Another reached into the warrior’s mind and seized it like reigns, prepared to turn Erkattessan's edge against his allies.

Kagan fought.

His muscles broke the chains of prayer—but his mind could not break the invader’s grip.

His own blade lifted toward his friends.

Then another power struck.

Balthazar staggered from the effort of breaking the enchantment with brute faith.

Kagan roared free.

The battle ended quickly thereafter. The last priest turned just in time to see Svetlana tumble past him and drive Épée de Feu straight through his chest.

-----

“Now surely we are finished,” Jace said, studying the chamber.  "Though these clerics hardly seemed powerful enough to open a portal to the Abyss on their own."

Kagan eyed an opening in the northern part of the ceiling, circular and fifteen feet across.  Dark.  "We should check up there."

Thearch rummaged through his pack for rope.  A bundle of parchments slipped free and scattered across the floor.

“What’s that?” Svetlana asked.

Thearch looked at the papers as if for the first time.  "Oh, just some notes the black arrow was wrapped in.  Can’t read ’em.”

Svetlana skimmed them, scowled, and handed them to Balthazar.

“Sylvan,” he said after a moment. “A journal of someone who worked with the Red Hand.”

He read aloud of a treasury west of the sanctum, a terrible invocation guarding it, and a toad demon set as its watchman.

"Treasury," Svetlana said.  "I like the sound of that."  

Thearch nodded.

Balthazar flipped through other entries and read further.  An assessment of Azarr Kul’s personality.  References to his ritual and scrying on his enemies.  Notes about his bodyguards.

"Definitely worth checking out whatever's west," Svetlana concluded.

"Nothing is west," Jace said, gesturing to the curved western wall of the chamber.  "But there is a way up."

Balthazar touched Thearch’s shoulder with a blessing that allowed him to tread upon the air.

"You check it out with Kagan," he said.  "No harm in Svetlana poking around down here a bit."

Thearch and Kagan ascended into the shaft.  

Jace plucked an eagle's pinion from his pouch, whispering, "Credo me volare posse."  As his feet lifted from the stones in flight, a loud ratcheting clank came from the west.  

Where once stood a solid wall an open hallway now gaped before Svetlana, dark and mysterious.

-----

“The most dangerous lies are those that ask nothing of you but kindness.”
—Sister Alenne, On the Temptations of the Lower Planes

Kagan climbed the shaft as though the air itself bore him upward, boots finding purchase on nothing but will and the blessing of Dovan.  The stone walls sweat cold around him, the damp breath of the mountain pressing close.  Behind him, slower but relentless, Thearch trudged upward, gait and breath both steady.

It was Kagan, then, who first heard it.

A rusted gate grinding on its hinges.  A low, ceaseless hum, like a voice too vast to form words in one lifetime.  Tearing sounds.  All at once.

And below that a staccato chanting.

-----

Svetlana, meanwhile, moved down the hidden passage, which ended abruptly in a 'T'.  Two shallow alcoves flanked her with two doors—north and south. She chose the southern door without hesitation.

Her fingers traced the wood and iron, searching for signs of tricks or traps—wires, seams, false hinges.

Nothing.

She drew a quiet breath and pushed it open.

-----

One hundred feet above, Kagan eased his head over the lip of the shaft. 

Five geysers of liquid radiance erupted from the upturned jaws of stone dragon heads set upon a low central platform.  The streams arced upward, converging in a roiling pool of brilliance that hung inverted against the domed ceiling like a lake defying gravity.  The light churned and rippled, and from it fell long, viscous strands that struck the stone below with hissing bursts of acrid smoke.

The chamber itself was vast and oval, its walls carved in a repeating pattern of scales that curved inward, enclosing the space like the interior of some colossal dragon’s egg.  A narrow balcony ran along its perimeter, broken by five alcoves, each holding a towering dragon statue—red, blue, green, black, and white—each carved in terrible, majestic detail.

Within the suspended pool above, shapes writhed.

Dragons with burning eyes.  Twisted fiends.  Shadows that should not have form.

At the heart of it all, upon the platform, stood a figure.

Blue scales covered the hobgoblin's flesh.  Its brow and jaw bore the unmistakable cast of draconic lineage.  Power radiated from it like heat from a forge.

"Azarr Kul," Kagan breathed.

He slipped back into the shaft, unseen.

-----

Svetlana stepped into a chamber that seemed wholly at odds with the ruin beyond.

Rich carpets softened the floor.  Tapestries of exquisite make adorned the walls—a five-headed dragon rose triumphant from a burning city in one and in another it loomed over the broken form of a platinum-scaled rival.  A canopied bed stood in one corner, draped in fine linens. In another, a mound of furs and cushions lay arranged beside an ornate water pipe shaped as a five-headed dragon, its jeweled stems curling outward.

Two women occupied the room.

One reclined upon the bed, her hair a cascade of flame, her expression one of languid boredom. The other sat nearby, dark-haired and poised, her gaze lifting as Svetlana entered.

Both brightened instantly.

“Oh, thank the gods,” the red-haired woman breathed. “You’ve come at last.”

“Who are you?” Svetlana asked.

“Prisoners,” said the dark-haired woman softly. “Of the High Wyrmlord.  But you, friend, are a welcome sight."

Something in her voice, in her presence, drew Svetlana forward.  Subtle.  Insistent.

“I am Franchesca,” the woman said, taking her hands. “This is my sister, Luchia.”

“I can help you,” Svetlana said, though she did not remember deciding to speak.

“You can,” Franchesca murmured, stepping closer. Too close. The air between them thinned to nothing.

Svetlana flushed and turned aside.

"We should pack up your things," she said quickly.

"Pack what, now?" Balthazar asked from the doorway.  "Did you find the treasure?"

“The gods are generous with good friends!” Luchia exclaimed, rising gracefully. "We have longed for the company of heroes."

“We have nothing of value,” Franchesca added. “Only dresses. Personal effects.”

Balthazar regarded her skeptically.  "Well pack it up, sister.  We got treasure to find, rituals to interrupt."

"It is not so simple—” Luchia began.

“Sure it is,” Balthazar snapped.  "Grab your stuff and go!  You're free!  We killed everything between here and the exit."

"We are not ready to leave!" Franchesca replied.  "We need our belongings and we need to feel safe.  You do not know how long he has kept us here.  The things he has done to us!"

Kagan appeared behind Balthazar, gaze sweeping the room. “Who are they?”

“Please,” Luchia said, her eyes catching his. “Do not let your friend upset her.”

For a moment, Kagan hesitated.

Then he stepped inside.

“Pack your things,” he said gently.  “We’ll get you out safely.”

Thearch’s voice came from the hall.  “Get who where?”

He entered—and stopped.

His scowl faltered as he beheld the red-haired woman.

“M’lady,” he said, attempting a human bow.

“Sir Dwarf,” she replied warmly.  “Perhaps you could remain and the others step out?  My sister is overwhelmed by the crowd.”

"You heard her," Thearch said, turning.  "Out!"

"But—" Svetlana faltered.  "We are pressed for time.  We do have a ritual we're supposed to stop.  To save the world or something.  And there's treasure around here somewhere."

She turned back.  "There's no treasure here, right?  Can we get your pretty dresses and maybe comfort you as we walk you out?"

"No treasure," Luchia said regretfully, "though . . . Azarr Kul keeps these."

She drew forth a ring of keys—five dragon heads each a different color.

"You could pursue your treasure while Sir Dwarf ensures our safety."

"That's enough,"

Balthazar stepped forward, holy symbol raised, voice hard with certainty.  He spoke the prayer that had blinded so many foes.

Nothing happened.

"He tried to hurt me!" Franchesca cried.

"Stop him!" Luchia urged.

Thearch and Kagan barred the door.

Sir Balerion, still a behemoth, pressed through the cramped hallway behind Balthazar.

"What's all the ruckus?"

Garrick had heard most of the conversation from the hallway.  He had some questions about the women's story.  Then he saw them.

"Stop trying to hurt the ladies, Balthazar" he chided.

"You're right," Balthazar said.  "Please, allow me to apologize."

He stepped forward, hands raised in peace—or prayer.  His hand touch Franchesca.

She died.

Collapsed on the chair where she had been sitting, she appeared strangely peaceful.  Her brown hair fell in perfect waves around the small horns on her head, and the cut of her green dress accentuated the curve of her body while accommodating her batlike wings and tail.

Luchia shrieked.

Balthazar grinned in victory.  "See!" he said.  "She's not even human!"

"You monster!" Sir Balerion roared as he rushed Balthazar and pinned him to the wall.

Thearch moved to help hold him.

Luchia's grief stilled.

"It's alright," she said softly.  "He does not understand."

She stepped forward.

"I forgive him."

Her hand rose to Balthazar's cheek.

"With a kiss."

She lunged at him.  Even restrained, Balthazar twisted, denying her.  Her composure shattered.

"Do not fight!" she shrieked.  "Let me mend what is broken!"

Sir Balerion's massive arm barred her path.

Something in her face changed.

"Curse you!" Luchia hissed at Balthazar.  "I will make you pay for my sister!"

Light engulfed her.

She vanished.

Silence followed.

"You gonna let go of me now?" Balthazar asked mildly.

Sir Balerion released him slowly.

"Yeah," Thearch agreed.  "But seriously man, you didn't have to be such a dick to them."

"They were demons!" Balthazar snapped.

"You guys didn't know that?" Kagan asked.

Balthazar stared at him.

"What?" Kagan asked.  "They were nice."

-----

"The end of great evils is seldom marked by trumpets. More often it is a gasp, a shudder, and a sudden silence where once there was blasphemy."
—Brother Halwen of the Sapphire Cloister

Thearch planted the butt of his wrench upon the stone and surveyed the chamber with a soldier's impatience.

"Enough sideshow," he declared. "We're here to kill a guy. Let's go kill him."

No one disagreed.

The final preparations began.

Balthazar moved among his companions, laying the blessings of Dovan upon them one by one.  Wounds closed.  Bruises faded.  Muscles strengthened beneath skin and armor. 

Potions passed from hand to hand.  Corks popped.  Bitter draughts vanished down throats.

Kagan drank deeply and grew.

Armor groaned.  Leather straps creaked.  In moments the half-orc stood twice his usual size, looming over his companions like a living siege tower.

Then he drank another and vanished.

Moments later the priest disappeared as well.

Only the sound of breathing remained where they had stood.

One final blessing followed.  Air thickened beneath Sir Balerion's boots until it bore his weight like invisible stone.  The knight tested a step and found himself walking upon nothing at all.

As Sir Balerion, Kagan, and Thearch walked up the open shaft upon the very air itself, Jace gestured for the others to come closer.

"Join hands," he said.  "I will transport us into the chamber when they are ready."

The heroes formed a circle in the darkness of the lower sanctum.

The waiting seemed longer than it truly was.

The cold stone walls drank every sound. Their armor creaked. Sweat dampened palms. Somewhere far above, the pulse of the ritual beat through the mountain like the heartbeat of some colossal beast.

Then came Thearch's voice.

"Abishai!"

The warning boomed down the shaft.

Jace spoke an arcane phrase and the lower sanctum vanished, replaced with a vast oval chamber.  Scaled walls arched upward toward a shimmering pool of liquid light suspended across the ceiling.  Behind its glowing surface, monstrous shadows paced and twisted.

Five immense dragon heads rose from the central platform, each vomiting a torrent of luminous energy into the celestial lake above.

Standing amid it all was Azarr Kul.

The High Wyrmlord.

Son of a dragon.

Chosen of Tiamat.

His blue-scaled body gleamed in the unnatural light as he continued his ritual atop the dais.

But he was not alone.

Blue-scaled abishai demons plunged from the balcony overhead.

One struck Sir Balerion with a hammering tail blow.

Another smashed into Thearch.

A third descended upon Svetlana, claws and tail flashing.

She rolled beneath the attack as though dancing with death itself and came up behind the fiend, Épée de Feu punching through infernal flesh.

Balthazar, invisible, seized the moment.  He sprinted across the chamber unseen, divine poison gathering around his hands like black mist.

Azarr Kul sensed him only an instant before the priest emerged from nothingness and slammed his palm against the High Wyrmlord's chest.

Sacred venom flooded through the hobgoblin.  Azarr Kul convulsed.

Then stubbornly remained standing.

A heartbeat later a giant half-orc appeared beside him.  Erkattesan crashed against shield and armor with enough force to impress even the High Wyrmlord.

Sir Balerion found an opening in this distraction--Ork Xyrafi flashed silver through the strange light and bit deeply into Azarr Kul's side.  More demons descended, tail strikes cracked against armor, claws raked flesh.

Thearch answered in kind.  Caladbolg rose and fell like a smith's hammer, each strike landing with the weight of divine judgment.

Tiamat's blessing settled upon Azarr Kul, repulsing those who would harm him.

Above them, the pool of light churned.

Svetlana's eyes strayed upward.  The liquid light made her feel as though she were underwater.  She moved dreamily toward the center of the room, yearning to swim up.  To surface.  To feel the light of Ghrian and breathe fresh air.

Jace bit into a shaving of licorice root.  The familiar taste spread through his mouth.  An instant later it spread through the mouths of his companions.  The world slowed.  The heroes accelerated.

The battle became a blur of motion.

"Svetlana!" Balthazar called.

The rogue blinked.  The pool's hold shattered.  Realizing her danger, Svetlana ducked into a roll past an encroaching demon.  Gaining her feet with grace, she drove her rapier through the abishai's ribs.

The demon screamed.

Jace glanced upward.  Only once.  His expression emptied, his staff lowered.  Without a word he drifted upward, borne by his magic.  Toward the pool.  Toward the impossible light.  Toward whatever lurked beyond it.

High above the battle, he reached into the pool of light.

And vanished.

Fueled with spite, Balthazar worked the energies of a curse into his palm.  He reached for Azarr Kul, feeling the dark priest's magic push back, urging him not to move against the High Wyrmlord.  Gritting his teeth, he forced his palm against the hobgoblin's armor, delivering the curse.  The half-dragon resisted through sheer force of will.

Kagan found his own will shackled by draconic magic.  Every instinct screamed for him to strike; every muscle failed to obey his command.  Unable to attack Azarr Kul directly, he turned his wrath upon an abishai instead.  Erkattesan hacked through demon flesh, spraying demomic ichor across the dais.

But Sir Garrick Balerion, Paladin of Baiste, Knight Hospitaller, would not be denied.  He cast aside caution and flung himself bodily at Azarr Kul.  The two champions collided atop the platform.  Armor crashed against armor.  Garrick grabbed the hobgoblin beneath the pauldron with one gauntleted fist, and backhanded him with the other.

Unable to escape, Azarr Kul inhaled deeply and drew upon the blood of his father.  Lightning exploded from his jaws, illuminating the chamber in blue-white brilliance.  Sir Balerion sidestepped the blast.  Kagan was less fortunate.

Smoke curled from his armor.

Still he advanced.

The battle became a maelstrom.  Abishai swarmed the Holy Knight.  Thearch swung Caladbolg through their ranks.  One fell.

Sir Balerion glanced up at the pool of light.  It gave the impression of holding back an immense depth.  Faintly he heard his mother's voice calling "Garrick, please!  Help us!"  His heart twisted, but his grip never loosened.  He prayed to Baiste the voice was only a trick.

Behind him, a dead abishai rose as necromantic energy flooded its corpse.  The zombie lurched forward hungrily.  Rolling under its grasp, Svetlana set it ablaze.

Thearch heard a voice, one he had not heard in many years.  "Son," his mother said in Dwarven.  "Please come for me."  Pain crossed the dwarf's face.  Only a moment, then he lowered his eyes and returned to the battle.  He was needed here.

Atop the dais, muscles strained.  Garrick swore under his breath as Azarr Kul fought desperately to escape.  Balthazar laid a hand upon the knight's brow and holy strength surged through him.  Just in time.

The flaming zombie abishai seized Garrick from behind, trying to break the grapple.  The knight held firm.

Kagan stepped forward.  Erkattesan rose, then fell.  Blood erupted across the dais as Azarr Kul's body collapsed in Sir Balerion's arms.  

The abishai screamed.

The High Wyrmlord's ritual began to unravel.  The upturned stone dragon mouths went dark.  The pool convulsed as the last of the liquid light poured into it.

The surface went still.

Suddenly it folded inward, collapsing into the ceiling.  The air and the ether in the room were pulled into the pool as it imploded.  For a moment it felt as though the dying vortex would consume reality itself.

Then—

The light vanished.

The pressure broke.

The sanctum lay in darkness and silence.

Azarr Kul was dead.

And somewhere beyond sight, Jace was gone.

SS 2022 Turqoise 8-9

The heroes slew what few demons remained guarding the hobgoblins' treasury.  Madeleine's notes were not mistaken--the treasury's chests bore far less wealth than their capacity.  A fortune nonetheless for four peasants from Slanawall and an orphan turned paladin.
They rested in a secured area of the now ruined temple.  Debate ensued about what to do next.  Sir Balerion favored finding a way to retrieve Jace from the Abyss, but was unsure where to begin.  Kagan felt no obligation to cross planes looking for a wizard they just met.  Balthazar agreed that the Abyss sounded unappealing.  Thearch hit upon an idea more to their liking:  find Averill Bancroft and get back the gold he once took from them in taxes.  This sat poorly with the Paladin of Baiste, until Balthazar hinted they would probably also swing by the swamp to put a stop to a lizard king who sought the destruction of humanity.

In the morning, they set out from the temple, down the mountain pass, toward Vraath Keep.