Wulf's Collected Story Hour -- FINAL UPDATE 12/25

LORD OF THE IRON FORTRESS-- Part I

The cleaning up and scrubbing down took considerably longer than the fight, giving them all time to reflect upon the attack. Without dissent, they decided that the drow wouldn’t be hurrying back anytime soon for another ass-kicking.

So much for the Queen of Lies.

Many brave dwarves had died defending the Forge. Wulf had missed Dorn’s battle prowess, but he reflected that this was perhaps the first time he’d missed the priest in times of peace. The situation was made worse by the fact that they’d lost one of their better smiths, a hardy fellow by the name of Karn. Wulf knew him only in passing, but he shed a quiet tear nevertheless.

After all, they were sitting on a friggin’ mountain of adamantine, and he couldn’t stand the thought of waiting on his sleek black blades.

“I’m sorry,” Diessa announced, standing up and straightening her frock. The Old Man was recovering and Diessa had temporarily assumed his duties. Karn lay at rest before her and was stubbornly refusing to get up. “I cannot seem to raise him.”

“What, he’s refusing to come back?” Wulf had some experience-- second hand mind you, second hand only, praise Moradin!-- with the whole after-life business. Apparently the soul could refuse the calling. Wulf found it very hard indeed to believe that the lure of Moradin’s halls could outshine his own growing Forge. “Yer told him Wulf needs him back, right? Can’t just leave work unfinished… That ain’t right…”

“No, no,” said Diessa, frowning. “It’s something else entirely. I sense that he wants to return, but for some reason he cannot. It’s very puzzling.”

“Oh, for the love of… Right. Look, we’ll sort it out tomorrow.” He wished again he had Dorn “The Divine Oracle” Ironfist handy. “I’m gonna need a commune, lady. Tell Moradin I’ll be callin’ on him!”

Wulf was getting bloody tired of relying on other lack-wit spellcasters and for some time he’d been secretly working out the details himself. He had a small collection of scrolls “borrowed” from Dorn, Karak, even Keldas. He’d made some progress deciphering the scrolls but had to admit that he just lacked the “knack” for the whole business.

“Well,” he thought. “Where yer lack talent, yer just bull on through, as father used to say.”

(On reflection, he didn’t think his father was being entirely complimentary.)

Wulf collared one of Keldas’ apprentices and had him whip up a wand of read magic. “Now if I can just get this ferkin’ thing workin’,” he said, whipping the wand violently through the air, tapping it and rapping it and pounding the bloody thing on his paper strewn table, “We’ll be in business.”

The wand fizzled and zapped for a moment before finally exploding with a cloud of light. When the motes stopped dancing before his eyes, Wulf looked down on his scrolls with newfound clarity. “Ach. Now we’re rockin!” He grabbed Keldas’ teleport scroll and quickly skimmed it. “Ahh… Right. Good enough. Next!”

Morning finally arrived and Wulf staggered bleary-eyed into the great hall where the group was assembled, including many reverential dwarves who had come to see Diessa perform the miracle of commune. “I am ready,” she advised. “You have nine questions.”

Diessa’s eyes had rolled back in her head and a glow like forge-fire surrounded her. Wulf knew that, when next she spoke, it would be the booming voice of divine authority. If Wulf ever entertained romantic notions about Diessa, seeing her body, mind, and soul possessed by the great, hairy, hoary, omnipotent, and capricious Moradin cured him of that.

Wulf blinked away that disturbing image and concentrated on his first question.

“Is the soul of Karn being restrained?” YES

“By another Power?” NO

Wulf’s suspicions turned immediately to his stubbornly un-slaughtered foes, Rourmed, Engram, and by implication, Imperagon.

“Is the soul of Karn being restrained on Acheron?” YES

“Against his will?” YES

“Are the souls of other dwarves similarly restrained?” YES

“Are these souls restrained by Imperagon?” YES

Six questions down, and Wulf hadn’t learned anything a healthy case of paranoia couldn’t have told him anyway. Time for pragmatism.

“Is Imperagon a fiend?” NO

Wulf shrugged. Dead man walkin’, all the same.

“Is it yer will that we rescue these souls?” HOW GOOD OF YOU TO VOLUNTEER.

Wulf steamed visibly. He hated-- he loathed-- being a pawn of the gods, or anyone else. What’s more, he reckoned if the gods wanted to jerk him around, the least they could do is be a little more forthcoming with the pertinent info.

“I’m done playin’ guessing games… Anybody got any suggestions for this last question?” Wulf stared around at their faces and detected the same hint of resignation that he was sure reflected in his own face. Karak, in fact, looked almost eager.

Oh, I get it. Home-town boy, huh?

Wulf turned to face the Moradin-thing for his last question. He shrugged. As long as he had access to Moradin and a hall full of onlookers, he might as well get his opinion on one last nagging question. Sort of settle the matter once and for all.

“Is Karak a big nancy-boy or what?”

There was a long pause. No, surely not a long pause as gods must measure time, but long enough for Wulf to notice it.

He’d stumped Moradin.

Well, maybe not stumped, exactly, but he certainly got his attention. Wulf certainly wasn’t the type to sit around debating theological points, but somewhere in midst of that interminable pause it occurred to him that stumping or even merely surprising the gods sort of put a kink in their whole “omniscience” schtick.

”HE’S TYR’S PROBLEM. ASK TYR.”

Another pause, and then:

”SEEK YOUR PATH IN RIGUS, IN THE OUTLANDS.”

**

Ahh, plane-hopping. The party scrambled to dig up some details on their impending journey. Shorty did most of the leg- and brain-work; he was enjoying it more than Wulf was comfortable with.

The Outlands, they discovered, were a huge, flat, featureless, grey, and absolutely neutral plane. On the edges of the Outlands, where they bordered the outer planes, the area started to pick up characteristics of the nearby outer planes.

Rigus was a small city on the border with Acheron.

“So all we have to do,” explained Shorty, “is plane shift into the Outlands and head to Rigus.”

“Aren’t the Outlands essentially infinite, though? There’s no telling where we will end up.”

“Well, once we get to the Outlands, we can teleport to Rigus-- or damn near, anyway.” Shorty shrugged. “If we get it wrong we just teleport again.”

“Nothin’ to worry about in the Outlands?”

“Oh, I don’t think so. Closer to Rigus, closer to Acheron, might be bad. We’d want to stay sharp there.”

“What’s Acheron like?”

“All my references describe it simply as ‘oppressive structure.’”

“I’m not good with structure,” Wulf growled.

**

Rigus, so near to Acheron, was itself a place of oppressive structure. The town was surrounded by a huge iron wall, and inside Wulf could see rows upon rows of featureless buildings, each perfectly square.

The gate was guarded by four humans and a near-human that Wulf guessed to be an aasimar. He dug an elbow into Karak’s side. “Assmar. Just like yer… ooh, sorry.”

The aasimar wasted no time showering the group with his disdain and laying down the ground rules, the first of which was that ignorance of the law was no defense. Second, “troublemakers” would be dealt with harshly. At this point Wulf only compounded his problem by tuning out the rest of the aasimar’s speech entirely.

Pointless drivel, he thought. If they’re gonna get me, they’re gonna get me. No sense walkin’ around on eggshells in the meantime.

Eventually the group was waved through, and they arrived at their inn, The Twin Stars, at precisely 4:00 in the afternoon. Shorty seemed oddly comfortable, arranging their rooms without hesitation.

“Rooms are 10 gold pieces a night…” said the innkeep.

“TEN GOLD!?” Wulf bellowed. His eyes bulged in genuine shock. “Yer get a hand job with that?”

Wulf reeled away to the common room to spend his coin on something that was actually worth the price: the local fare. He’d left most of his money behind at the forge, keeping only a small travelling sum of about 500 gold with him. Clearly, it wasn’t going to go far. What with the assmar at the gate and the crazy rip-off pricing he was starting to hate the outer planes.

Of course, he’d suspected he might.

Shorty went out during what was left of the daylight hours-- the guard gate had warned them in advance that the sun fell at precisely 6 PM every evening-- to gather more information from the inhabitants of the city. It was a crucial bit of investigation by the halfling, as the party really had no leads on Imperagon other than a half-assed divination to seek their path in Rigus.

Before long Shorty had gathered a little more information about Acheron, Rigus, and Imperagon specifically. The nearest gate to Acheron opened onto a huge metal planetoid called the Battlecube. Wulf was probably the only one who looked forward to a place called the Battlecube, but nobody had any better suggestion for entering Acheron with any sense of their bearings.

As for Imperagon, Shorty got a hot tip that an arms merchant by the name of Verachus had some dealings with Imperagon.

Without delay, they set out to find Verachus.

The party walked calmly but resolutely through the impeccable streets. It was not long before Wulf noticed that they were being shadowed. Down a featureless alley between the equally bland square buildings, Wulf got a glimpse of two silvery lions, heading in the same general direction as the group. At each intersection of street and alley Wulf could see them, keeping pace right alongside them.

“Screw this,” said Wulf. “Follow me. If we’re gonna play cat and mouse, I’m gonna be the goddam cat.”

Wulf veered off down the alley, directly towards the two lions. As they got closer, Wulf could see that they were made of some kind of metal, like the skin of a gorgon, a golem, or some kind of clockwork. But as to what they really were, Wulf knew bugger all.

If there was an intelligence behind them, it was amazingly casual. The lions stalked right past Wulf and company and did not so much as look around as the dwarf swung into the street behind them. They just kept right on walking, wherever they were headed.

“Well, what now?” asked Keldas.

Wulf briefly considered the possibility that these steel lions might be some sort of local patrol, a kind of clockwork watchdog on the lookout for troublemakers.

Briefly, he considered that. But his instincts knew better. “Ferkit, let’s follow ‘em. See how long they wanna play.”

Now the party stalked along behind the lions, following through twists and turns, though the lions never tried to lose them—indeed, they hardly seemed to notice them at all. Just as the party was about to give up, just as Wulf was about to second-guess himself, the lions glided to a stop outside a blacksmith’s shop.

“Uh oh…” said Shorty, though before the utterance had even crossed his lips the lions had turned towards the shop, leaping through the door in a shower of splinters.

Wulf was surprised to find axe and dagger in his hands, and his boots rang on the pavement as he sprinted to close the distance between himself and the shop. He was dimly aware of Karak shouting behind them, “The laws strictly forbid vigilantism!”

Wulf skidded to a stop in front of the shattered doorway. The lions were already scattering the remains of the smith around his small shop. There wasn’t much left of the poor fellow-- though it was plain to Wulf the victim was a dwarf.

Wulf’s face flushed red with anger and yet somehow he heard the paladin shouting behind him, “You cannot draw steel except to defend yourself!”

Wulf snarled and stepped into the doorway. Fine, yer want out, yer comin’ through me, he thought. He yelled to Karak who’d finally reached his side, “Block the door!”

The lions didn’t seem concerned in the least. The one closest to the door opened its mouth and an ear-splitting roar washed over them. It wasn’t something Wulf could dodge, and he took the full brunt of it. His ears were still ringing when the second lion leaped over its partner and dragged Wulf into the smithy with both paws. Wulf thanked the gods for his long coat of mail as he felt the thing’s rear legs scrabbling across his guts.

Oh gods, that hurts, he thought. Can’t take even one more hit like that.

Wulf tumbled out of its grasp and took a swipe at it with Taranak. The blade bounced off harmlessly and Wulf switched his stance, now advancing sinister with the bone dagger in his other hand. “Somebody kill this prick before it kills me…”

Shorty pelted the area with an ice storm. “Crap,” yelled Wulf. “Can’t dodge that, you know!”

Karak still stood at the door, clearly torn among several difficult decisions. His hand hovered briefly over the hilt of his sword before he swung it out and stepped up to flank the first lion with Wulf-- but still he wasn’t sure. Wulf slammed his dagger into the ass-end of the creature and that, too, slid harmlessly off its metal flanks.

“Should I use my scroll of Holy Sword?” asked Karak.

Wulf brandished the two apparently useless weapons in his own hands. “YES!”

The lions roared again, this time in tandem, catching everyone but Wulf in dual cones of sound. Shorty was completely deafened by the blast and obviously having trouble spellcasting. Keldas, clearly a little more practiced, called up a crackling green bolt from his fingertip and managed to disintegrate one of the lions.

Shorty and Alliane were whimpering and limping away, and Karak, who was in no great shape himself, finally acted. One more roar would probably kill two or three of them. He read his scroll and his sword burst forth with brilliant holy energy. Karak stood to his full height in the doorway, challenging the lion to get past. The creature advanced on Karak, who smited it across the chops. The blow should have cleft the thing in two but it merely shook its sleek head and kept coming. It pounced, dragging the paladin to his knees.

As if he’d been waiting for the opportunity, Keldas used another of his tricks that was proving more and more successful: Hold Monster. Wulf thought the lion creatures were still firmly in the “golem” column, and didn’t have high hopes for Keldas’ spell-- but it worked! The creature stiffened up and fell over with a ponderous crunch.

Wulf sheathed his weapons with lightning speed and yanked a length of sturdy rope from his haversack. In no time flat he had the thing expertly trussed-- though it had been some time since Wulf had practiced with his knots, and he was less than sure that mere silk rope would hold the thing for long.

Shorty, Alliane, and Keldas joined them in the room, and the town watch was hot on their heels, drawn by the sound of battle. The assmar from the front gate was with them. “WHAT IN THE SEVEN HEAVENS IS GOING ON HERE?”

Wulf looked around-- at the gore-spattered remains of the blacksmith, at Shorty, Keldas, and Alliane sitting quietly and nursing their wounds, and at Karak, standing in the center of the room brandishing a holy sword that still shone like the north star.

“Ahhh…” he expertly lied, “the paladin here went crazy, see....”

LORD OF THE IRON FORTRESS-- Part II

Shorty, Alliane, and Keldas joined them in the room, and the town watch was hot on their heels, drawn by the sound of battle. The assmar from the front gate was with them. “WHAT IN THE SEVEN HEAVENS IS GOING ON HERE?”

Wulf looked around-- at the gore-spattered remains of the blacksmith, at Shorty, Keldas, and Alliane sitting quietly and nursing their wounds, and at Karak, standing in the center of the room brandishing a holy sword that still shone like the north star.

“Ahhh…” he expertly lied, “the paladin here went crazy, see.... but we reigned him in and took this ‘un alive.” Wulf booted the critter and it stirred ever so slightly.

Wulf’s blatant lie seemed genuine enough-- from the right perspective. The aasimar raised an eyebrow, clearly aware that Wulf was lying and making the logical assumption that he was deliberately trying to stir up trouble for Karak.

Keldas smoothly stepped in to take over with just enough of the truth to sweeten the deception. He thought it best not to even mention its disintegrated counterpart, but he stayed as close as possible to what had really happened. “We found this creature attacking the keeper of this shop. We were too late to save the poor shopkeep, but we did our best to take the culprit alive.”

The aasimar seemed satisfied with the evidence at hand. “Don’t stray from the city and keep yourselves available at the inn. We may have additional questions for you.” He gestured to his men to drag away the captive.

“Poor Verachus…” muttered Shorty.

The aasimar turned, laughing, as he departed. “This isn’t Verachus,” he said. “Verachus is an efreet, and, believe me, more than a match for any assassin.”

“Well,” Wulf mused, standing patiently while Alliane attended to his wounds with a wand of healing, “let’s check it out tomorrow. I’ve had enough for one day.”

“I say we press on!” said Karak.

“What’s yer hurry? Assmar just told us Verachus is safe.”

Karak started to cast his eyes down, almost sheepishly, then looked up. Now, his eyes were blazing. “I have accepted a quest from my church. I must eliminate Imperagon!”

The paladin looked around at the incredulous faces of his companions. “Of course, you guys are welcome to join me.”

“Bloody friggin’ gracious of yer.” Wulf knew a bit about quests and geases. Why anyone would willingly accept a debilitating disease to run some other fool’s errand, he had no idea. “Well… Those lion things were no fun. We got no weapons to match ‘em. I say we head home for… oh, a month, two months, yer know, make summat ‘at can hurt ‘em.”

Shorty joined in. “Sounds like a plan to me, too.”

Wulf kept on. “Well,” he said, shaking the paladin’s hand. “Good luck with all that.”

The group headed for the inn, leaving the paladin sputtering and muttering in disbelief. “Hey!” he yelled, running after them.

“Calm down,” said Keldas. “They’re only kidding.”

“Ach… right, I suppose so,” said Wulf.

“Let’s go talk to the genie,” suggested Shorty.

“Do me a favor,” said Wulf, nodding. “When we meet him, call him a genie.”

**

They came upon Verachus as he was closing up his shop. The efreet, with flaming hair and shining brass-colored robes, sat arrogantly astride an enormous, horned, 12-legged wurm. His fire giant bodyguard stood up from locking the door, then crossed his arms and did his best to look imposing.

Wulf looked up beneath the fire giant's steel-plated kilt. "Guess it ain't true what they say about giants after all. We’re lookin’ for Verachus.”

“Verachus does not deal with ignorant primes,” sneered the efreet.

“That so?” asked Wulf, suddenly inspired to kick his teeth down his throat. Giant, no problem. Behir, no problem. Might kill Shorty and Keldas, though. Efreet could be unpleasant if he’s got any spells. “Perhaps Verachus deals with Imperagon, then?”

Judging from the look on Verachus’ face, he clearly had some dealings with Imperagon. They had his attention now. “Come by at noon tomorrow, when Verachus’ shop is open. We will talk further.”

Wulf shrugged, oblivious to any duplicity. “Ok.” He waited until Verachus and his menagerie had walked off. “Don’t think I coulda took another second o’ listenin’ to him refer to himself in the third person. Halma had better grammar, for cryin’ out loud.”

Shorty hopped from foot to foot. “Guess we head back to the inn, then?”

**

The night passed uneventfully. No scrying, no unexpected assassins sent by either Imperagon or Verachus.

They gathered up and discussed what to do with their morning. Wulf would have preferred to head back to the forge but was content to search Rigus for the supplies he needed.

“Keldas’ spellbook is in dire need of Greater Magic Whuppin’-- at least till Dorn rejoins us. Let’s find a scroll shop. Anybody got the cash?”

Keldas nodded. “I brought all my gold. I have a few thousand.”

Wulf wanted to thump him. “Yer outta leave that behind at the forge where it’s safe. Then again, can’t hardly complain about it right now.”

Shorty helped them find a scroll shop, though they were disappointed to find the shopkeep had only two scrolls-- and at inflated prices. Wulf figured that greater magic weapon was in pretty high demand in the outer planes, what with everybody and their brother having some kind of immunity. He bristled at the high price, but it couldn’t be helped. The shopkeep could tell he had them over a barrel.

They bought the two scrolls, one for scribing into Keldas’ spellbook, one as a backup, and headed out to meet Verachus. They found him waiting in his shop-- his enormous shop, with room for an efreet and a fire giant to easily work inside.

If Wulf’s skill at diplomacy had taught him anything, it was that an honest and direct approach worked best. “Well, we’re lookin’ to kill Imperagon. Hope yer not working with him cause that would just mean we’d have to kill yer too. So… ahh… where can we find him?”

“Imperagon is no ally of Verachus. You will find him in Avalas, in a cube known only as ‘The Lost Cube.’ It is so called because it has no gates that lead directly to it.”

Wulf nodded, indicating that Verachus should go on.

“Now as to what you can do for Verachus… Imperagon has stolen a large amount of adamantine from me.”

Wulf felt the familiar stirring in his pants-- err, in his soul, rather-- at the mention of the precious ore.

“This is no small sum,” said Verachus, doing calculations in his head. “About 200,000 of your gold crowns’ worth of ore. Verachus would very much like it returned, without any particular consideration of the methods.”

Wulf jumped, perhaps a bit too eagerly, at the opportunity. “No problem.”

Verachus was suddenly suspicious. “Perhaps some insurance is appropriate…” He began casting.

Keldas interrupted him. “You can’t come off any worse. Either Imperagon will have your ore or we will.” He paused. “And if you try to cast Geas on me I’ll kill you now.”

Verachus held up his hands in a peaceful gesture, then turned to the fire giant. “Snurreson?”

“I wish that if they attempt to betray you in any way, you will immediately know.”

Verachus seemed satisfied, as did Wulf. He was really more interested in killing Imperagon than in the adamantine. He didn’t have any plans to betray Verachus.

Verachus handed Keldas a small crystal rod. “You will want to enter Acheron via the Battlecube. From there, this crystal rod will point the way to Imperagon’s Lost Cube. Return here when you have the ore.”

**

The party walked through Rigus and exited out the other side, crossing a bit more of the outlands until they reached the gate to the Battlecube. The gate was an enormous arch, at least 50’ high by Wulf’s reckoning, and made entirely of bleached bone piled up and fused together by some unholy magic.

“Oh,” Keldas understated.

“Ready?” said Wulf.

They stepped through.

The Battlecube was an enormous flat plane of hard, black iron. In the distance they could hear the sounds of battle: weapons rang, foes shouted, others cried out in agony. It would have been an experience to remember had they not been distracted by what they faced as soon as they stepped through the gate.

An enormous spider, as big as a summer cottage, 40 feet across from side to side, scuttled forwards, towering over them. Wulf craned his neck up to take in the entire gargantuan monstrosity. Atop its back sat a female drow, riding easily and confidently atop the hairy, lurching platform.

Wulf tensed. He couldn’t see Keldas, but he could almost sense the hairs standing up on the elf’s neck.

“Step aside,” the drow announced from her high perch. “I would use the gate...”

Keldas stood fast in front of the gate. “Who do you serve?”

“’Whom’,” Wulf whispered. “And don’t be an ass.”

“I serve my own interests,” the drow replied. “Now, will you step aside?”

“NO.”

Deeper Darkness fell across the group, but at least a few among them knew what Keldas’ inevitable stupid decision would be, so they were ready. Shorty responded immediately by dispelling the darkness, just in time for Wulf to see the spider looming over Keldas.

Wulf grabbed the elf from behind and spun him around, putting his own back to the spider and doing his best to shield Keldas. He felt huge fangs sink into his back, where the neckline of his chain shirt left his flesh exposed. So close to the throbbing arteries in his neck, there was little Wulf could do to resist the poison. Sons of Odin, he thought, it burns like hellfire!

Wulf’s knees felt like jelly and it was all he could do to quickdraw his daggers. He turned and backhanded them towards the drow, but the poison in his veins was eating his muscles alive-- and it wasn’t exactly taking its time about it. All three daggers fell short or bounced away harmlessly.

Loyal drew and fired three times, each shot nailing the spider dead on-- and glancing harmlessly off its hide.

Not good. It’s infernal.

Clearly not one to take any chances, the drow cast a flame strike on the group and centered it directly on Loyal-- catching Keldas and Alliane as a bonus. Wulf managed to dodge the blast and Keldas and Alliane did their best, but Loyal was caught completely off guard. He took the full force of the blast. He staggered on his feet for a moment, teetering on the brink of sudden death, drawing desperately on a deep hidden well of elven fortitude.

Well, perhaps more accurately, lapping desperately at the puddle of elven fortitude. At any rate, despite the power of the blast, he somehow held on.

Keldas straightened his robes where Wulf had roughly grabbed him and cast mass haste. He was still within reach of the spider-- a spider that big, Wulf figured, had a reach of 15 or 20 feet!-- but he cast defensively and immediately chained into a second spell, a hold monster for the spider. Unfortunately, the infernal spider was a little more clever than Keldas gave him credit for. This time, the spider read the elf’s movements and lunged at him unexpectedly. Keldas skipped back out of the way-- but it was enough. He lost his concentration and his spell fizzled.

From deep in the back ranks Alliane acted, first with a flame strike that caught both drow and spider, then with a divine storm of whirling blades that hovered high in the air and sliced through both enemies at an angle. To Wulf’s eye, it was obvious that the spider ignored both spells.

“Take out the weak link!” Wulf shouted. “Drow first!”

Loyal responded by stapling the drow with three arrows in rapid succession. Shorty was next, first casting a spectral hand then blasting the priestess with a brutal seething surge. Wulf had seen this new trick of Shorty’s a couple of times. It wasn’t pleasant in the best of circumstances, but Shorty had managed to work his spectral hand into a critical spot before unleashing the surge. It seethed. Brutally. The drow fell dead in crispy blasted tatters.

Though it was now on its own, the spider moved with unnerving intelligence, leaving the entire group to wonder exactly who was enthralled to whom in drow-spider relations. The spider raised its bulk high over the group, moving out of the divine storm so that it could sink its fangs into Alliane.

Wulf knew from first-hand experience, but the super-concentrated poison of the infernal spider came as a shock to the rest of the group, starting with Alliane. She spasmed for only the briefest of moments before collapsing. In mere seconds every muscle in her body was useless.

Seeing the lady go down, Karak charged in, bellowing his usual “SMITE!” warcry. Of course, he didn’t figure on the spider’s reach, and as he moved within its range it sank its fangs deep into his flesh. Karak’s luck was little better than Alliane’s. His strength vanished, and though he managed to complete his charge, he struck the spider with all the ferocity of a mewling babe.

Then he collapsed under the weight of his own plate mail.

As the paladin lay there on his back, his arms and legs flailing feebly, Wulf couldn’t help drawing the comparison again: Karak looked like he needed someone to change his nappy.

Keldas summoned a celestial dire bear to attack the spider from behind while Wulf stepped up to flank it. With Loyal’s arrows providing a distraction, Wulf managed to land four solid blows on the spider-- two with Taranak, two with the dagger. The spider ignored the flames from Taranak, indeed it ignored both blades for the most part, but Wulf had managed to work both of them into tender spots on the creature’s belly. It couldn’t ignore that.

Still the spider acted with uncanny intelligence. Perhaps, like Wulf and his companions, it knew to concentrate on the weak link. Perhaps it ignored Wulf because the sturdy dwarf was the only one among the group to have taken the spider’s poison and stayed on his feet.

But it chose to attack Karak, and so Wulf chose to imagine that, whatever intelligence lurked behind those multifaceted eyes… well, this spider had a sense of humor:

The spider smited Karak.

The fangs sunk deep but the bite didn’t kill him. The smite didn’t kill him. It was the poison that did the work. Karak was finally completely paralyzed, as helpless as Alliane.

More worthless than the peck on a bad day.

“Goddamn yer!” Wulf shouted. “It’s just poison! Are yer even tryin’ to resist it?”

Using Wulf as a distraction, the paladin managed to activate his helm of teleportation by thought alone. He teleported away, about thirty feet, just enough to take himself out of harm’s way.

“Ach! Yer complete puss!”

Never one to let his emotions get in the way, Keldas moved blithely along, stepping up to cast greater magic weapon on Loyal’s quiver. While Shorty’s spectral hand chased the spider around with brutal seething surge, Loyal filled it full of arrows: four solid hits. The spider noticed Loyal anew. Those arrows bit deep.

The spider leapt away from from Wulf and the dire bear and closed in on Loyal. One gargantuan bite later and Loyal was staggered-- he couldn’t resist the poison either, and although it didn’t take his strength out completely, he’d simply had enough, what with the flame strike from before, that he settled on discretion. He fell over and played dead.

They were down to Wulf, Keldas, and Shorty-- and Wulf wasn’t counting on the two mages sticking around if things got any worse. He tumbled through the spider’s tree-like legs and came face to face with it. Try as he might, he couldn’t keep it at bay, and once again the spider sank its fangs deep into Wulf’s flesh. Wulf grit his teeth and somehow-- perhaps by his great fortitude, perhaps by his dwarven resistance, perhaps by sheer force of will alone-- managed to fight off the effects of the poison. Wulf waited the briefest of moments while the dire bear lumbered up into flanking position with the spider.

Thousands of axes and daggers glimmered in the spider’s eyes as Wulf suddenly sprang to action, hacking and stabbing. Indeed to the spider it may have seemed like an army of thousands was at work on his underbelly. The spider was split open and collapsed like an enormous, rotten plum.

Wulf bent over with his hands on his knees. He could feel the poison still coursing through his veins. “Comin’ again...”

Keldas grabbed Shorty and started pulling off rings and cloaks to aid Wulf’s resistance, but he waved them away. “Nah, I got it… Just a little spider bite, right?” After a minute of intense agony, Wulf finally stood. He could use a restoration, sure, but the poison had spread so far through his body that, in dispersed doses, he’d fought it off.

Wulf looked up to see Keldas standing up from the body of the drow. He’d sorted her magical belongings into a neat pile and as he stood, the elf tucked a scrap of paper into his sleeve. Wulf caught only the briefest of glimpses before the scrap disappeared. It didn’t mean anything to him but it clearly meant something to Keldas. The scrap said, “KOLYORAL.” It was nonsense to Wulf and so, therefore, file and forget. He had other things on his mind, anyway. He started dragging his fallen comrades back towards the gate to Rigus.

“Yer complete an’ utter prick…” Wulf muttered to Keldas. “Get it through yer head now, we’re gonna meet a lot of unpleasant folk out here. An’ some of ‘em yer just gonna have to ignore, right? Between yer and Karak I reckon we’ll be pickin’ fights with every pit fiend an’ ‘is brother before this is all over.”

LORD OF THE IRON FORTRESS-- Part III

Stopping only briefly to loot the fallen priestess, they returned to Rigus to lick their wounds. Once they were safely back in the Twin Stars inn, they took a closer look at the loot.

A chain shirt, a buckler, some potions. Alliane identified a scroll of heal that Wulf discreetly tucked into his belt. See if I can’t figure that out later…

No one noticed. Alliane had already moved on to the drow’s wand. “Bull’s Strength,” she announced. “And plenty of charges. That will come in handy.”

Wulf nodded as he cinched up the buckler and strapped it across his left forearm. “Not the sort o’ thing I’d waste time and money makin’ myself, but a nice little bonus.” He flexed his buckler arm once or twice and did some practice draws from the wide band of daggers across his chest.

“I guess we probably want to sell this,” said Karak. He was turning the drow’s light mace over and over in his hands. The top of the mace was rather unsubtly tipped with the multi-pointed star of chaos.

“Like hell we do,” said Wulf, snatching the mace away and looping it through his belt alongside his growing collection of oddball weapons. “I reckon that’ll be handy out here in lawful-lawful land.”

*****

The following day they risked their luck at the gate again. Moving through the bone portal they arrived in Acheron, care of the Battlecube once more.

“Well,” said Wulf. “Guess we try to teleport from here to the Lost Cube, right?”

“Sight unseen?” Keldas was alternately looking down at Verachus’ crystal, then scanning the grey skies of Acheron for Imperagon’s cube. They could see other cubes flying through the void, but it was impossible to tell them apart. What’s more, there wasn’t any good way to gauge distances: what could appear to be a large cube many miles away could in fact be a small cube fairly close.

Wulf shrugged. “Yer got a better idea? I’m game.”

“Come on,” said Shorty, “What’s the worst that can happen?”

*****

Their first attempt was wildly off.

They found themselves standing on the featureless flat plane of a floating cube-- not their cube, of course, not the one they were looking for, but a cube that had apparently been selected as a battleground by warring factions.

A boulder skidded past them, striking sparks off the iron. “Giants!” yelled Wulf.

The party had arrived in the midst of a battle-- actually, physically, between fire giants on the one side and frost giants on the other. Shorty immediately began casting, thinking he’d blow a few giants to smithereens without being particularly fussy about which side he chipped in on.

Wulf stayed his arm. “We need to get out of here… NOW.”

“You don’t think we can take them?”

Wulf looked around. The battle was in full pitch, with dozens of giants on either side. “Trust me on this.”

They teleported again, trying once more for Imperagon’s so-called Lost Cube.

*****

Keldas sat uncomfortably on Shorty’s small flying carpet and bent to peer around Alliane, who herself was seated uncomfortably between her cousin’s legs. Behind her on the 5’x9’ carpet was Loyal, and he had Shorty in his lap.

All in all, it was a little too chummy for Wulf’s tastes-- sittin’ lapsies with the cohorts. He was grateful for the wings of flying he’d inherited from the peck. Karak hovered nearby on his own set of wings and waited for Keldas to give the word.

“Well,” he said. “That’s the right cube. I’d say it’s about a 100 miles out. Shall we?”

The party flew ahead through the featureless sky of Acheron, and the Lost Cube loomed slowly larger. They had covered about half the distance when Keldas suddenly shouted a warning. “There’s something…”

“Over there…” Wulf finished for him.

Before they could truly register the threat, a pair of spectres materialized around Karak and drained a good chunk of his life-force.

Wulf drew his bone-handled dagger-- the one he’d picked up in Nightfang Spire, the dread bane of ghostly creatures . “I hope yer still got that bastard sword I gave yer, assmar…”

“I have it! I have it!” the paladin swore.

Unfortunately, their weapons would be of little use to them. Materializing out of the mists came two dark, winged horrors, the likes of which none of them had ever seen. The creatures chuckled to themselves as the party’s surprise and horror turned to full-fledged magical confusion. Wulf stood dumb-struck for several precious moments, looking back and forth between the dark horrors and Karak, unsure of who to attack. Something deep inside him hoped the paladin would stray within reach of his blade, and he chuckled to himself, echoing the mad laughter of the dark horrors.

Wulf watched as Keldas, Loyal, and Shorty succumbed to the confusion as well. Alliane leapt off Shorty’s carpet and hovered in the air beside it. You couldn’t really “fall” in Acheron, but neither was she able to move. She bailed out just in time as Shorty, in command of the carpet, decided to wander away. The spectres moved in to Alliane and began draining her lifeforce as well.

More importantly, they drained away memory of certain key spells, not the least of which was her plane shift.

The carpet sailed off with Loyal, Keldas, and Shorty on board, and the dark horrors followed. Leaving the spectres behind to deal with Wulf, Alliane, and Karak, the creatures flew alonside the carpet, swiping at Loyal from time to time with wicked talons. Their laughter increased in intensity as the entire party of seasoned adventurers was completely incapacitated by their confusion ability.

In a dim corner of Wulf’s mind he registered all this. Frankly he couldn’t believe that Keldas and Shorty both had lacked the will to resist the effect, yet he could still see them out there, sailing away into the distant skies of Acheron. Loyal sat on the carpet, eyes blank, doing nothing even as the dark horrors shredded him bit by bit.

Eventually Loyal had enough. He stood and drew his bow, nocked an arrow, and fired.

At Keldas.

We are so dead, thought Wulf. Still he sat dumbfounded. His hands itched to attack something. Anything. Just let the paladin get a little closer…

Karak did just that. Grabbing Alliane by the scruff of her neck, he dragged her over to Wulf. Then he grabbed Wulf and unceremoniously teleported the three of them the hell out of dodge.

While half the party cooled their heels and counted their blessings back at the gate to Acheron, things got worse for Keldas, Shorty, and Loyal. Before Keldas made up his mind to attack Loyal, the elf archer finally pitched face-first onto the carpet, bleeding out from the wounds of the winged horrors. They’d fled for nearly a full minute, and though they easily outpaced the spectres, the horrors had kept up with them, occasionally unleashing “bursts” of confusion on their hapless prey. By the time Shorty had finally had enough of wandering away aimlessly, he was “re-confused”—and, unfortunately, clearly pissed.

Loyal lay dying on the carpet before him and Shorty lashed out at the nearest enemy: Keldas.

Firing up a brutal seething surge, the little peck’s hand shot out and grabbed Keldas in the most uncomfortable of places. Massive energies pulsed through the link, and had it not been for Keldas’ energy buffer, he’d have easily been slain by this single spell.

Keldas’ thrice-addled mind concocted an appropriate response:

He fired a disintegrate ray into Shorty’s face.

Fortunately, halflings are made of sterner stuff than most-- or so it’s said-- and Shorty looked ready for more. This realization slowly seeped in to Keldas and he backed up, stepping off the carpet to float in midair.

Shorty’s brain struggled with options: Kill the elf? Kill those winged things? In the end, he decided once again to simply wander away. The carpet took off like a shot and Keldas was left hanging in mid-air to face the horrors alone.

Fortunately, Loyal’s wounds were not as bad as they appeared, and before long he stabilized and his breathing returned to normal. By the time Shorty regained his senses, Keldas was a thousand yards away. Sadly, Shorty could do nothing but teleport to safety.

*****

In the interim, however, Wulf had not been idle. He roughly shoved a scroll of plane shift into Alliane’s hands, and with Karak’s helmet the three of them were soon back in the Forge.

The Old Man hardly seemed surprised to see them. “You look like you just walked off a battlefield in Acheron,” he deadpanned.

“No time for jokes, Old Man! We need a miracle and we need it now!”

“Ahh, as you know…”

“Right, right, 28,000… We’ll settle up later. Bring Keldas, Shorty, and Loyal back here before it’s too late.”

“Are they dead?”

“Dead or alive, don’t care, just wish ‘em home.”

“Miracle.”

“Whatever. They WILL be dead if you don’t move yer ass.”

All things considered, it was a simple Miracle. They weren’t unravelling time or raising folks back to life. Wulf figured if they acted quickly enough, it wasn’t all that much more complicated than a planar summons. And it worked: Their three companions were returned to them, bodies, gear, and all.

“How did you defeat those winged horrors?” Shorty immediately blurted out.

“I didn’t. They were taking their time with me.” Keldas frowned. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Bet they were sorry to see yer go… Ach, by the way, yer owe the old man here twenny-eight large.”

*****

After a brief rest (and one more misadventure with some infernal rocs) the party finally managed to set foot on Imperagon’s so-called Lost Cube. A flat iron plane stretched off for hundreds of miles in every direction. There was no sign of any “Iron Fortress.”

Wulf thought for a moment. “Right… Let’s head to the corner, then we can peek over and scan three sides at once.”

They took to the sky and headed for the “southeast” corner. It took them the better part of the day-- or at least, what apparently passed for a day in Acheron-- before they reached the corner. Luck wasn’t with them. Shorty lay down to peer over the edge and reported the disappointing news.

“No tower. What now?”

“Reckon we head for the opposite corner and try again.”

It was a journey of several hundred miles back across the surface, covering acres they’d scanned already. There was a growing suspicion in Wulf’s mind that the side they wanted would be on the opposite face of the cube. Fortunately, before he could get work himself into a foul mood, they struck paydirt.

No, it wasn’t the Iron Fortress, but it would do. Below them on the surface of the cube, some sort of nasty scrap was going on. Wulf looked at both sides like he was scanning a menu and couldn’t decide what to order for his main course: Three formians were lined up in orderly fashion against three humanoids.

Like Wulf, Shorty was itching to let fly with something nasty. “Who do we blast? The bugs?”

“Not sure yet… Let’s get closer and give it a second to decide.”

Wulf was glad he’d waited. As they swooped closer the humanoid figures resolved into better clarity. They were fiends of some sort, and from the looks of the dead formians lying around, they were getting the better part of the deal. It took no time for the group to move into attack formation alongside the formians.

As soon as they had closed the distance to the melee, the leader of the fiends stepped back, cackled madly, and belched forth a power word: blind. Keldas and Alliane were both temporarily blinded by the blast, but Shorty took the worst of it. With a flash and a bit of smoke, his eyes were completely vaporized. Loyal held on for dear life as Shorty wheeled the carpet around and flew off in full retreat.

The other two fiends weren’t idle, either. They each blasted the area with a chaos hammer, pounding the formians and the two elves-- much to Wulf’s amusement, of course. Unfortunately they’d acted a bit too soon, otherwise they might have caught the paladin who came charging into their ranks to smite their leader. Wulf took the opportunity to dart past the three fiends and come up in a nice flanking position, his weapons hacking away in a blur of destruction.

Though blinded, Keldas stepped back slightly and polymorphed himself into an umber hulk. Clever move, Wulf thought. Tremorsense! Alliane, also blinded, back-pedalled out of the area just as another two chaos hammers rained down on the group. This time, Keldas and Karak were caught, and they were both staggered by the blast-- again, much to Wulf’s amusement.

Wulf changed his tune a moment later when the formians unexpectedly countered with Order’s Wrath, leaving Wulf dazed for a moment. Through the haze over his eyes he saw Loyal grab control of Shorty’s carpet and come sailing around in a wide circle on their flank. Loyal had pushed Shorty to the front of the carpet, and though the little blind halfling should have been holding on for dear life, he was gritting his teeth, staring forward with his empty eye sockets, and casting.

“What the hell are yer doin’… oh, no…”

Wulf realized just in time what Loyal had in mind. He was already dodging before he heard Loyal shout, “Now, Shorty! Lighting bolt, dead ahead!”

The stroke of lightning would have caught Wulf had he not jumped at the last moment to hide behind the fiend’s leader. Karak finished the work they’d started, finally dropping the fiend’s leader. One of the hench-fiends, acting with military precision, dropped back from the front line to grab a potion from its belt. Wulf acted quickly as the fiend tried to pour the potion down the throat of their fallen leader.

“Ach, no…” Taranak lashed out and smashed the flask into a thousand pieces. The potion sizzled in the wake of the fiery axe.

Thinking they’d got the better of him, the second fiend stepped up to try the same trick.

“No, again…” Another flask was smashed to pieces. Clearly, they’d underestimated Wulf’s combat reflexes. The dwarf with the fiery axe seemed to tower over their fallen leader, and there was nothing they could do but watch his life bleed away. Oddly enough, the fiends chuckled, a deep throaty sound that was oddly familiar. They continued chuckling and babbling even as Loyal and the formians cut them down.

Wulf was genuinely surprised to see the “fiends” revert to their natural form as their bodies finally gave up the ghost.

Slaadi! Wulf slapped his forehead in frustration. I guess if I’d ‘a known that, I might’ve fought with ‘em.

But it was all for the best, as they soon discovered through Wulf’s canny interrogation.

“What yer doin’ out here?”

“We were on a hunting / reprisal raid versus the metallic cats,” came the nearly monotone reply. The party instantly recognized the metallic cats-- surely the same assassins that had been sent to Rigus.

Wulf grinned his friendliest, most genuine grin. “Reckon we ought to talk, then. Take us to yer leader.”

LORD OF THE IRON FORTRESS-- Part IV

While they walked towards the formian lair, Wulf chatted with the ants to get a better feel for the metallic cat situation.

“How many yer killed?”

“A handful,” came the reply, though Wulf was left wondering what exactly a handful meant to a horse-sized ant.

“How many yer ever seen in one place at one time?”

“Two.”

Wulf raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s somethin’, then. We can take two.”

They rested briefly with the formians-- long enough to trade out Shorty (who was due for a rest, along with Loyal) and to meet up again with Dorn, newly arrived from the prime and fully updated by the Old Man.

Wulf shook his hand. He was clearly glad to see him. “What yer been up to?”

“Crafting wands… Doin’ the temple thing...”

“Hmm,” Wulf grunted. “Well, right. Let’s take care of this cat business then.”

The formians directed them to the steel cats’ lair, and before long they found it: a faint path that eventually disappeared into the earth between two steep canyon walls. It was about 80 feet from the top of the walls to the cave mouth at the bottom.

The group turned to look at Wulf, apparently under the impression that he was qualified (and expected) to do some sort of scouting.

“Get in there and do it,” Dorn said. “You can take ‘em, right?”

“Well, all right,” he started, looking at Keldas. “Invisibility, please.”

Wulf winked out of sight, and Dorn felt a tap on his shoulder. “Silence, please.”

Wulf turned and pointed to the paladin. “Gimme yer shield.”

Karak ignored him.

“Gimme the goddam shield.”

Karak continued to ignore him-- then jumped with surprise when Wulf wrenched the large Lion’s Head shield from his arm. Obviously, the invisibility and silence were working just fine.

Even so, Wulf wasn’t taking any chances. He crept into the cave, every bit as quietly and stealthily as he could manage. The tunnel ran back about sixty feet before it horse-shoed and opened into a larger cave. Wulf crouched quietly by the opening, eyeing the occupants of the lair: three regular-sized steel cats and one enormous friggin’ den mother. He sat and thought for a moment, remembering the way the cats had easily mauled him back in Rigus. True enough, this time Taranak and his trusty bone dagger were enhanced by Dorn with greater magic weapon, but he wasn’t confident that if he was grappled again, he could overcome even one of the cats, let alone three, before he was ripped to pieces.

Outside the cave, Keldas stood over Dorn’s shoulder. “You’re scrying him, right?”

Dorn’s scrying sensor followed Wulf closely. He had taken flight with his wings of flying and sailed up to the top of the cavern. He hovered over the largest of the creatures, trying to decide whether or not to pounce on it, when the largest creature suddenly lifted its smooth, steel, eyeless head and sniffed about. It could sense that something was up.

“Yes, I’m scrying him,” Dorn answered, “and getting a good chuckle out of it, too...”

One of the smaller steel cats suddenly got up and padded out of the cave. Wulf followed after it, furling his wings at the last minute to follow it into the narrow corridor. Wulf lost sight of it briefly as the creature rounded the bend. He was being careful to stay at least fifteen feet behind it, lest the radius of his silence spell suddenly overlap the creature and give him away.

There was little need for his precautions. As he rounded the corner, the creature sprung at him from a narrow crevice. It struck him with unerring accuracy.

Blindsight, Wulf thought. Ferkin figures. He swung his axe into the hide of the creature, and it bit deep.

Wulf was expecting help at any moment from his friends outside, but it would have to wait. From the middle of nowhere a shadowy figure suddenly appeared, flanked by two dire tigers. The creature barked out an order and Wulf recognized the hobgoblin tongue.

“Attack!” He punctuated his command by firing his bow at Alliane, who hovered far above. The arrow struck her breastplate with such force that it nearly disappeared under her armor. Despite her grave wound, and eschewing her spells completely, Alliane drew her mace and charged the hobgoblin, dive-bombing him from above. She struck him a near-fatal blow and he staggered back a few steps.

The hobgoblin acted to shift the tide of battle. He drew a bead from within his vest and cast it down between his dire tiger pets. Immediately, the creatures grew to immense proportions. Wulf estimated them at twenty feet wide and sixty feet long-- or, measured in the common parlance of dwarven engineers, “Ferkin’ immense!”

The lead dire tiger now completely filled the width of the narrow valley leading to the cave, so Karak and Dorn rushed in before it could completely block it off. Dorn skidded to a halt as silence washed over him, then hopped back a couple of feet. Unfortunately, it put Karak up against his back with nowhere to run.

Dorn could see Wulf standing several feet away now, doing his best to hold back three of the steel cats. Suddenly, the enormous den mother appeared around the corner. Wulf sidestepped, putting putting the other steel cats between them, all the while hacking away with his axe for all he was worth.

“This is real bad…” he observed silently.

It was getting quickly worse. Toe-to-toe with the hobgoblin, flanked by dire tigers, and nearly dead from a single arrow shot, Alliane decided that discretion was the better part of valor. Casting defensively, she plane shifted back to the prime, leaving Keldas alone to face the hobgoblin and his enormous dire tigers.

Enormous awakened dire tigers, as it turned out. The tiger nearest the cave muttered something about “Play time!” then grabbed the paladin firmly in his mouth. An awful sense of déjà vu washed over the paladin as the tiger yanked him out of the cave mouth and lifted him straight up into Dorn’s blade barrier. The whirling blades sliced paladin and tiger equally but the tiger had a grin on its face that clearly indicated it was prepared to take it.

Apparently it was a day for the bad guys to ignore blade barriers. The huge steel predator lunged forward, ignoring the blades inside the cave, and grabbed Dorn, yanking him back into the blades as well. Using every last ounce of luck he had, Dorn somehow managed to struggle free from the predator and stagger back a few steps. He cast plane shift and was gone.

Wulf saw the paladin trigger his helm and teleport out of the tiger’s mouth. Now it was just Wulf and Keldas-- and though Keldas probably had a plane shift memorized as well, he was flying about two hundred feet above Wulf at the moment.

Wulf had a few choice words about this turn of events, but unfortunately the aura of silence around him prevented these newfound profanities from filtering down to posterity. One of the smaller steel predators, already weakened by Wulf’s earlier attack, retreated back into their cave to avoid the blade barrier, but the other two and the den mother still lurked nearby, sniffing around for him. Wulf nipped out of the cave and crouched under the blade barrier. There was only one way out: right through the twisted guts of the dire tiger. Unfortunately for the dire tiger its senses were not as developed as the steel predator, and it was unable to defend itself. Wulf whisked through it like dwarven brew through an elf-- a particularly apt metaphor as Wulf emerged through much the same orifice and with essentially the same level of discomfort to the hapless tiger.

Wulf waded through the shaggy remains and sprinted up next to the hobgoblin-- and yet, something made him pause for a moment. Taranak waited in his hand.

Keldas had summoned a dire bear to deal with the other dire tiger, and while the two huge beasts grappled atop the valley, the wizard flew down to help Wulf. He cast haste on the dwarf, then turned and belched acid breath onto the steel predators. One of the smaller ones collapsed in a sizzling puddle, but the den mother emerged from the cave and snarled loudly. The remaining smaller predator bounded out of the cave right behind it.

Much to their surprise, the remaining dire tiger turned from Keldas’ bear and leapt into the valley-- right onto the huge steel predator. While the two creatures struggled, each raking with their hind legs in a desperate attempt to disembowel the other, Wulf, ever the opportunist, stepped back from the hobgoblin to concentrate on the huge predator.

His instincts were vindicated once again, it seemed; he hacked mercilessly at the huge predator and grinned with satisfaction as a volley of arrows from the hobgoblin downed the smaller predator. Unfortunately, the steel predator was better armored than the tiger had been. Only a few of Wulf’s blows actually bit deep enough to hurt the thing.

The den mother finished off the dire tiger with ease, then turned and snapped at Wulf. He was caught off guard by the speed of its attack, and found himself gripped tight in its jaws. It twisted its head and held Wulf helpless in Dorn’s blade barrier.

That’s going to sting a bit, Wulf thought as axe-heads whizzed and axe-handles thudded around him. But not for much longer, I reckon.

Wulf squinted and could just barely make out a shape diving out of the grey sky. Karak flew into the blade barrier, grabbed at the invisible shape struggling in the predator’s mouth, and teleported the both of them to the Battlecube gate. Wulf staggered through the gate and started stumbling towards Rigus.

Perhaps he thanked the paladin for his trouble, but it was swallowed by the silence.

*****

They gave the steel predators-- and their hobgoblin protector, if such he was-- one day to prepare for their return. When they scried the lair for their return trip, however, they were surprised to see a human standing guard in the cats’ cavern lair-- a human in robes, wreathed in flame.

“Some kind o’ sorcerer?” suggested Wulf.

“Whatever he is, he’s about to taste boot leather,” Keldas boasted.

Wulf raised an eyebrow and looked the elven mage up and down. “Reckon yer mean to say he’s about to taste silk slipper, don’t yer?”

Dorn chuckled.

“I knew you were going to chap my ass about these slippers of spider climbing when I picked them up,” Keldas grumbled. “I should have known better…”

“Aye, that yer shoulda.” Wulf agreed. He rolled out the portable hole and lifted Karak’s helm of teleportation off his head, handing it to Dorn. “But yer can make good in a second here. Yer ready?”

Dorn nodded. “Get in the hole, paladin.”

“Why is it always me who has to go in the hole?” Karak complained.

“Cause yer over six feet tall an’ fourteen stone an’ yer wearin’ full plate. Yer weigh a ferkin’ ton, jackass.”

Dorn nodded in agreement. “I’d rather have Wulf out here with me anyway. Quit bein’ a Nervous Nancy and get in the hole.”

Alliane patiently beckoned Karak into the hole alongside her, and he grudingly hopped in once again. Keldas cast mass haste, and Wulf quickly rolled up the hole and tucked it into his belt. He nodded to Dorn and stepped close, with Keldas on the other side.

“Ready!”

Dorn activated the helm and they teleported through. Keldas acted first-- as he always seemed to do-- and cast Power Word, Stun on the flaming sorcerer. “Say goodnight,” he chuckled smugly.

Much to everyone’s surprise the spell had no effect. “Spell resistance!” Keldas shouted.

Dorn was unimpressed and started casting. Wulf thought he recognized a flame strike on the way, and while their enemies were busy with that, he stepped to one side and unrolled the hole, reaching in to boost the lady Alliane out of the extra-dimensional space. Wulf ignored the flash of flame and the back-blast of hot air, but looked up as the sound of Dorn’s swearing overpowered the roaring column of fire.

“I didn’t get him, neither…” he grumbled. The sorcerer was unscathed. But Dorn’s flame strike had certainly gotten the attention of the steel predators. Wulf wasn’t sure, but beneath the fresh black scorch marks he thought he saw the signs of wounds inflicted on their last encounter.

This might be easier than I expected, he thought, just before the predators charged the group and disabused him of that notion. The huge predator, the one Wulf reckoned was their den mother, bore down on him like a steam drill before screeching to a halt in front of him. She almost seemed to grin as she gingerly reached down and used her teeth to pick up the portable hole-- with Karak still in it.

“Oh, yer sneaky bit---“ Wulf started to say, just before one of the smaller predators slammed into him. He just had time to draw his bone dagger before the thing pulled him close and started raking away at his tender bits.

Keldas stepped away from the fray and summoned a dire bear to help Wulf. The bear reared up and slammed its bulk down on the predator that was grappling with Wulf.

“Right,” Wulf grunted. “Ferkit, why doesn’t everybody just pile on…”

The sorcerer at the end of the room finally acted. Keldas recognized the incoming spell with perfect clarity-- it was a feeblemind aimed at Dorn!-- and reacted with blazing speed to counterspell it, but to no avail. The sorcerer’s magic was more than Keldas could overcome.

Dorn shook his head, though, and his eyes were still clear. “No problem, no problem, I’m fine…”

The sorcerer responded to this by sending a lightning bolt screaming down the cavern. The blast caught everyone-- especially Wulf, who was buried under a mountain of bear-flesh and steel claws and unable to dodge out of the way. Right… Another two or three of those and I’m in trouble...

Dorn cast two flame strikes onto the predators, while Wulf stabbed away at his own opponent, plunging the dagger into it two or three times and trying to force his way out of its grip. It was no use. He was caught, and the predator ripped into him again with teeth and claws.

Two more lightning bolts thundered through Wulf. I’m in trouble.

Alliane pitched in with a flame strike to get the den mother’s attention. It seemed to work-- the predator dropped the crumpled portable hole onto the ground and leaned forward to grab Dorn in her jaws. Dorn had been in this situation before and he knew he had no chance of breaking free. He activated the helm and teleported over to Wulf. Stretching his hand into the mass of grappling bodies, he cast heal on Wulf, who immediately felt like a new man. Wulf stabbed and struggled free of the press and took up a defensive stance next to Dorn.

“Thanks, mate.”

Alliane cast a divine storm and centered it right on the den mother. Now she really had its attention. The huge predator grabbed Alliane in its jaws, clearly intent on hoisting her through her own divine storm. Alliane lost concentration and the whirling blades winked out.

Disappointed, the huge predator bit Alliane clean in half and tossed aside her remains with a shake of its head.

One of the smaller predators leapt on Wulf again, pinning him to the ground. Thanks to Dorn, Wulf wasn’t in any great danger, and he didn’t even flinch when Keldas burped up an acid breath over his predator and the den mother.

Satisfied that Wulf could take care of himself, Dorn whipped out his carpet of flying and zipped off to the back of the cave to deal with the sorcerer-- one good whack with Syrius and a promise of more where that came from. The melee was a mess, good guys and bad guys mixing it up all over the cave. Wulf was actually pretty happy to be pinned under one of the smaller predators.

The den mother ordered one of its minions to attack Keldas, but its jaws closed around a mirror image and Keldas was unscathed. The den mother responded by roaring at Keldas, who counted himself fortunate not to be deafened by the sonic blast despite the fact that his guts felt like they’d been scrambled with an egg-beater. Keldas stepped back and fired two bolts of conjuring at the smaller predator, finally finishing it off.

Dorn had backed the sorcerer up with his great-axe, but he was having trouble slicing through all the magical protections. He cast a dispel magic onto the sorcerer with limited success-- he couldn’t tell what he’d dispelled, but apparently it was enough that the sorcerer cried out for help. The huge den mother turned and dashed to the back of the cave to deal with Dorn.

As the huge predator turned, it finally dropped the portable hole. Keldas reached down and unrolled the hole with one hand, while simultaneously casting a greater dispelling on the sorcerer. Protective spells melted away just in time for Karak to come bounding out of the hole.

“Glad yer finally decided to join the party…” Wulf muttered from beneath the snapping jaws of his predator opponent.

Karak took only the briefest of moments to size up the situation before charging the sorcerer, smiting him full force. The sorcerer was sorely wounded but scoffed arrogantly.

“Sorry to leave you,” he said. “One haste, one teleport, and we’ll meet some other time.” He stepped back from Karak and began to re-cast his haste spell.

“You’re not going anywhere.” Keldas whispered. There was menace in his monotone. The sorcerer’s haste spell fizzled as Keldas reacted to counter-spell it. There would be no teleport follow-up, either: Dorn stepped up and in two strokes had seperated the sorcerer into three parts.

They weren’t out of the water yet, unfortunately; there were still two predators left, including the big one. Keldas saw Wulf still struggling with his and shouted out, “Wulf, you know I can’t do this!”

“What the hell are yer talking abou—“ Wulf began, as a fireball exploded around his ears. If it was an illusion, it was a damn painful one, and the predator seemed to think so, too. Wulf put a boot against its chest and popped himself free of its clutches. He rolled to his feet with his weapons ready, slashed the thing four or five times, and finally dropped it in a heap on the ground.

Dorn and Karak had teamed up on the den mother, but the thing seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of energy. Ignoring Karak, it turned and clamped its huge jaws on Dorn, engulfing him from the top down and settling its razor-sharp teeth around his waist. Wulf grimaced and turned aside, leaving a single eye open to witness a repeat of what the thing had done to Alliane.

But Dorn was Haela’s special guy. At the last moment Dorn’s banded mail slipped through the predator’s jaws, which chomped down unsatisfactorily on Dorn’s shoulder. It was still a bad wound, but not nearly as bad as it should have been.

“Yer lucky bastard!” Wulf cheered.

Dorn didn’t feel so lucky at the moment. The predator didn’t miss a beat, grabbing Dorn with its claws and dragging him in where its hind legs could rake him over. Wulf charged up and slammed Taranak into its side. The distraction worked; Dorn managed to wriggle free, and Wulf got back-handed with another paw for his trouble.

Wulf noticed with some concern that he, Dorn, and Karak had the creature blocked in on three sides—and unfortunately, it was he who was standing between the critter and the exit. He skipped back a few steps to give the predator room to run without having to go through him first. Sure enough, the den mother took the bait and bolted for the exit. Karak and Dorn slashed at its flanks as it fled, but it kept its feet and blasted past Wulf like a bullet train.

Good riddance, Wulf thought.

Dorn was not so easily deterred. He kicked his flying carpet into high gear and chased off after it, out of the cave, through the valley entrance, and off onto the vast iron plain of the cube, all the while calling down flame strike after flame strike. Soon enough, he’d blasted it into oblivion. He returned, satisfied at last, to the rest of the group.

Wulf was using the tip of his boot to roll Alliane’s remains unceremoniously into the portable hole. Noting Keldas’ scowl, Wulf crossed himself and said a quick prayer for her soul. “Benedice, benedictus… ahh… ipso facto an’ habeus corpus…”

Wulf looked up at Dorn. “Reckon yer can bring her back tomorrow?”

Dorn shrugged. “No problem.”

“No,” Keldas said.

“What yer mean, No?”

“Alliane did not wish to be brought back again. She has earned a rest: a graceful, innocent follower, always getting yanked into terrible danger by people she should know better than to trust.”

“But I need her,” Wulf said. “We all need her.”

“What’s done is done,” said Keldas.

**

They grabbed the den mother’s head on their way back to the formian lair, and as soon as they were spotted by the colony, the formians raised a mighty cheer. For some reason, Wulf was in no mood for celebration; while he sulked in the back, Keldas stepped forward to lead a delegation to the formian Queen, and to handle any negotiations.

When it was all said and done, Keldas returned to the group with a magic necklace, given as a gift from the Queen for their help against the steel predators.

“Just great,” Wulf said. “Yer lost Alliane, but, hey, at least yer got a pretty bauble for yer trouble.”

Keldas scowled, but let it go. “Well, it allows us to see through illusions; it could be very useful.”

“What would be useful is some allies against Imperagon. How’d that go?”

Keldas frowned. “The Queen will grant us safe haven here, but assures me that if we bring trouble down on them, she’ll hand us over.”

“Mighty utilitarian of her.”

“Best she can do. So what now?”

“I don’t care, ask the Oracle over there.” Wulf nodded towards Dorn. “Or is today a Templar day?”

“Tomorrow I will commune with Haela Brightaxe. She’ll see us on our way, right enough,” said Dorn. “Start thinkin’ of questions to ask. Serious questions, Wulf.”

The next day, as soon as Dorn was ready, Wulf guided him through the questions he wanted answered. Tactical questions. Strategic questions. Serious questions. Wulf had a little over half a dozen questions written down, and figured he’d fill out the rest as the answers to the previous questions inspired him.

What are the names of the three blue dragons who have allied with Imperagon?
INDRAZAR, HUNDRAZI, KHALATAIC.

Do the dragons have any allies besides Imperagon?
IMPERAGON’S ALLIES.

“Ohh, that was some friggin’ useful info,” Wulf said. “Very timely, very helpful.”

As if to annoy Wulf further, Dorn deviated from Wulf’s questions:

Is Haela happy with my work so far?
There was no answer, but Dorn felt a strange sensation.

“Waste of a question…” Wulf said. “Yer big momma’s boy.”

“I got a warm fuzzy feelin’.” Dorn smiled.

“That so? Hell, if I’d ha’ known I could have got a mystical hummer from Haela herself, I woulda been a priest, too.” Wulf said. “Now can we get back on track?"

Will killing the dragons assist us against Imperagon?
YES

What kind of dragon cross-breed is Imperagon?
RED

Is Verachus planning to double-cross us?
NO

Is Imperagon making preparations specifically against us?
YES

Is the hobgoblin sniper a threat to us in our crusade against Imperagon?
NO

Is Imperagon a psionics user?
NO

Karak was waving his hand wildly in the air. “Ooh! Ooh! I have a good one! Ask her what weaknesses we can exploit!”

Wulf started at him like the idiot he was. “It doesn’t work that way. Yer have to ask questions with simple answers, and besides…”

Dorn asked the question:

What weaknesses does Imperagon’s fortress have that we can exploit?
There was no answer.

Wulf shut his eyes and tried to control his temper. He found it easier if he just reminded himself that he was surrounded by fools. “And besides, I was sayin’, the gods don’t work that way. It’s never that simple. Haela wants us to throw our asses on the line, don’t yer get it? Yer think she’s just gonna roll Imperagon up in a neat package for us?”

“Keep the questions comin, then,” said Dorn. “If ya slow down, it’s no wonder the paladin’s gonna jump in.”

Are Imperagon’s blue dragon allies making preparations specifically against us?
YES

If we wait for the dragons, will they come to us?
NO

If we attack the dragons right now, what allies can we expect them to have?
STEEL CATS.

“That’s it,” said Dorn. He was visibly drained from the communion with his goddess, but he seemed game for more-- as ever. “So?”

“Well," Wulf said, stroking his beard. "I reckon we leave now and go kick the sh-- out of some dragons.”

Wulf looked around. He didn’t see the unanimous approval he was hoping for.

“Why don’t we wait a day and take some protection spells?” said Karak.

“Another day?” Wulf said. They’d already wasted a day waiting for Dorn to switch out his spells.

“Protection from elements goes a long way, against dragons.” Dorn said. “I loaded up on Oracle crap today, so I don’t have as much whammy as I might like, includin’ protective stuff.”

“I’m not worried about dragon breath,” Wulf said. “ I’m too quick for ‘em. Yer got that freaky Oracle danger-sense thing goin’ on, yer never get hit neither. We know Keldas is bound to have something to protect himself, leavin’ only the assmar to worry about. If yer was inclined to worry about him, which of course I’m not.”

Karak scowled at Wulf.

“Ach, I just mean yer can take care of yerself, that’s all.”

Wulf noticed Keldas and Dorn staring off into space.

“You see that?” asked Keldas.

“Of course,” said Dorn. He looked back to Wulf and Karak. “Someone’s scrying us.”

“Aye?” Wulf said. With one hand he pulled Taranak off his belt, and with the other he heaved his privates. “Get an eyeful o’ this! Hope yer usin’ yer wide-angle sensor, take in the whole show.”

“Well, as long as I’m prepared for it today, I might as well scry ‘em right back,” Dorn said. He cast his own scrying. “Who do I look for?”

“Pick a dragon, any dragon,” Wulf said.

“Indrazar,” Dorn said, and suddenly he could see the dragon, a full-grown adult lying in a deep crevasse at the bottom of a cave. Dorn moved the sensor around, spotting Khalataic next, another adult lying on a ledge that overlooked the cavern below. Next to Khalataic was a smaller dragon, the juvenile Hundrazi.

Dorn recounted all this to his comrades. Somehow, looking at them and having it confirmed for sure, three dragons suddenly seemed like an awful lot to tackle.

“Anything else? Steel cats?” Wulf said.

Dorn moved the sensor around the whole cave. He didn’t spot any steel predators, and was ready to give up, when he suddenly started. “Hang on, what’s this?”

Nearly hidden in the crevasse behind Indrazar, he spotted something. “There’s a big glass block or somethin’ in the pit… And… Lemme look closer… Hmm.”

“What? What is it?” asked Karak. He seemed agitated.

“Hmm. There’s a nekkid human boy trapped in the glass.”

There was a moment of silence while they all tried to process this strange new information.

“Ferk’im,” Wulf said. “If they’re scryin’ us, they’re tipped off by now. Let’s wait till tomorrow, juice up.”

“I think we should go now,” Karak said. “The boy…”

“Boy’s on ice, he’ll keep.”

“Well,” Karak said. “It’s just…”

Wulf’s suspicions were suddenly flaring up, a really creepy feeling he hadn’t felt since the peck was around. He stepped closer to Karak. “Out with it!”

“A while back, I had a dream about this boy,” Karak said.

Dorn held up his hands. “Ach, man, I really don’t need to hear this… Not now, not never.”

“In my dream, I saw a teenage boy trapped in a block of glass, with lightning arcing all around it. I stepped closer to the boy, so close I could feel the electricity.”

Wulf and Dorn were inspecting their boots and humming to themselves.

“…and when I cast a spell at the block, I suddenly woke up.”

“Please tell me yer done,” Wulf said.

“What spell was it that you cast,” asked Keldas. Believe it or not, he seemed genuinely interested.

“I don’t know,” said Karak. “I told you, I woke up.”

“So, what, now yer sayin’ yer want to go in right now, guns blazing?”

“Yes.”

“No protections?”

“Right.”

Wulf and Dorn looked at each other, and to Keldas. Everyone seemed in agreement. Wulf rolled out the portable hole for Karak-- but he had to admit to himself, he was starting to get cold feet.

“All right, just so yer all realize, this is yer own decision.”

They prepared with what spells they could-- Bull’s Strength from the wand they’d found; protection from elements where it could be spared, (“We got just enough to go in with, so if it gets dispelled, we got problems,” warned Dorn), Keldas’ usual wizard’s tricks like mage armor and shield and mirror image, and finally, mass haste all around, just before Dorn teleported them all through.

***

They were spot on, and as usual, Keldas was the first to open the ceremonies. Dorn had teleported them onto the shelf, and Keldas took only a split second to gain his bearings before casting his first spell.

He disintegrated the baby dragon.

“Well, that’s certainly got their attention,” Wulf said as he unrolled the portable hole into the corner of the shelf.

Dorn proved that he wasn’t travelling completely in Oracle mode that day by casting Destruction on Khalataic, the adult male. Wulf had hoped to see another dragon instantly “dusted” but unfortunately, the dragon resisted; huge chunks of flesh shriveled and dropped away nevertheless, but it was clear the dragon could take plenty more.

The group was unrelenting. Despite the ominous scrying, it seemed the party had caught the dragons by surprise. While the two adults scrambled to prepare themselves with their own protective spells, Keldas cast know protections on Khalataic then started summoning a dire bear. They still shared shelf-space with the male and Keldas wanted a meat shield between him and the claws, teeth, wings, and tail of the big blue.

Indrazar, the female, somehow managed to find one of the steel predators. Wulf guessed that she was hasted, as she flew across the cavern, scooped up a cat, then flew up to deposit it on the shelf in front of them. As if on cue, the predator bounded off to their flank and roared its sonic blast across the party-- at the same time that the male sizzled them all with its lightning breath. The lightning hit Keldas’ energy buffer first and was harmlessly dissipated, but unfortunately it left him open to the sonic blast. Keldas grit his teeth and somehow managed to keep his concentration on his summoning.

Dorn decided to make the best of the situation while their enemies were all grouped up in front of them. Two flame strikes softened up the two dragons for the dire bear, which appeared in front of the male and did its best to claw at it through the dragon’s shield.

Keldas cast slow, knowing full well that if it worked, they’d pretty much have the dragons at their mercy. Unfortunately, the first spell fizzled against the dragon’s spell resistance. He tried again, and though this time the spell manifested fully, neither dragon seemed affected by it.

The dragons responded in force. Lightning crackled across the shelf, and the steel predator lent a hand with its roar as well. The party was still well protected from the lightning; that was the good news. The bad news was that the dragons finally seemed to figure it out. Even worse, Keldas was completely unprotected from the roaring of the steel predator, and if the lightning didn’t kill him, the sonics soon would.

Dorn had another two flame strikes for the dragons and the cat-- apparently Oracles had nothing better to pray for than dozens of flame strike spells-- which softened the predator up enough for Wulf and Karak to charge up together, flank it, and drop it. Wulf noticed that Karak fought with unusual vigor, even for him; he kept stealing glances down to the crevasse, and Wulf got the sense that all these enemies had faded to mere obstacles to the paladin.

Fighting with unusual vigor, good. Not keeping your eye on the ball, bad.

Now Keldas cast greater dispelling on the female, and to his trained eye he could almost see the spells melting away from her: haste, shield, endurance, mage armor. Then he did the same to the male, dropping Khalataic’s haste and endurance as well.

The female attempted to haste herself again, but Keldas was too quick, counterspelling it easily. The dragons took to the air and wheeled away below the level of the ledge. Dorn took advantage of the brief pause to heal Keldas with their newly crafted wand of curing. Keldas felt his sonic-blasted insides re-arrange themselves into a more life-sustaining formation.

Wulf readied his weapons for the dragons’ return, and turned to ensure that the paladin was doing the same. Much to his dismay, Wulf spotted the paladin dive-bombing straight for the young boy’s crevasse. Karak was on his own, distracted from the task at hand and separated from the group by a good hundred feet or so.

Wulf’s view of the paladin was abruptly blocked out as the dragons suddenly returned, dropping off two more steel predators onto the ledge. Khalataic followed up by casting his endurance spell again.

Wulf looked on in admiration as Keldas taunted the big male. Wulf couldn’t understand the Draconic but the elf’s arrogant sneer was all too familiar. “What, not strong enough to take us?”

That’s one elf what’s got a pair, true enough.

The dragons ignored Keldas, dropping down to hover in front of the ledge with just their heads above the level of the rim-- plenty of cover and perfect for breathing anytime they were ready. Dorn decided he’d back them off a bit, and cast a blade barrier such that it would spin parallel to the cliff wall. Good thinking, Wulf thought. Now if we need to get over, we can just hop the blades.

Unfortunately, the dragons just seemed to ignore the blades. They were turning towards the paladin at last.

Karak had located the boy’s icy prison and cast dispel magic. The prison shimmered and disappeared, and the boy slumped to the ground.

“Karak! Stop screwin’ around with that boy and get back in the fight!”

Karak shouted back over his shoulder. “I’m trying to see if he looks okay!”

“Okay? He’s looks totally HOT! Happy? Now get yer ass back up here!”

Karak saw the female headed his way and he flew out of the crevasse to meet her before she could get close enough to threaten the boy. He ended his charge with a powerful smite, infusing the strike further with his own life-force by way of a divine sacrifice. It was a solid blow; it was obvious she felt it. Still, Wulf couldn’t hide his disgust with the paladin.

Never, never move to attack the dragon; the dragon just gets to hit you with everything it’s got. Let the dragon come to you.

Wulf didn’t stop to think know how he knew it; he just knew it, like instinct. If he’d stopped to consider it, this was probably the third or fourth dragon he’d seen in his lifetime-- three or four more than the average dwarf would ever want to see.

Sure enough, Indrazar beat her mighty wings and lashed out at the paladin with everything she had. Karak was very lucky: only one claw met its mark and he suffered the merest graze from her jaws.

Wulf tried his best to keep an eye on the paladin, as if he could effect the battle through telepathy or osmosis of talent, but he had his own problems. He and Dorn both were tackled by steel predators. Taranak and Syrius hewed into their enemies with every ounce of strength the two dwarves could muster. Keldas cast a bolt of conjuring at Dorn’s foe. Huge chunks of flesh were torn from the predator, dropping to the ground and forming themselves into a small (but angry) celestial badger. The predator collapsed from the transformation.

Keldas followed with a duplicate bolt to Wulf’s foe, but the thing didn’t drop. Wulf was desperate to break free of his combat and charge to the side of Karak-- to slap a little sense into him, of course-- but he could only watch from the ledge. Karak probably should have moved away from the dragon-- he was certainly more maneuverable-- but Wulf was amazed to see the paladin stand toe-to-toe with her. He was going all out in his attack.

Precious few of the paladin’s blows struck the dragon, and in return he was nearly ripped to pieces. She clamped her jaws down on him, shredded him with both claws, and to add insult to injury, clouted him with her tail as well. Wulf had a pretty good sense of what the paladin could take-- and that was just about it. He was lucky the female had missed with her wings and rear claws; if she’d been more cool-headed and less charged with fury, the paladin would likely be dead.

I can’t believe he held his ground.

Wulf had been struggling with the steel predator, trying to force its snapping jaws out of the way long enough to get a clear view of the paladin’s struggle, when suddenly the thing went limp against him. Dorn wrenched his great-axe from the thing’s back and touched Wulf firmly with his other hand. Wulf’s wounds-- quite serious, though he’d hardly noticed them-- closed up. Save the hang-nail he’d had since morning, he was whole again.

“There ya go. Do yer thing.” Dorn jerked a thumb towards the female.

Wulf was off like a shot. Still hasted, he charged in against the female on the opposite flank from Karak. Praise Moradin, the assmar held his ground! Wulf hefted Taranak in one hand, as always, but his bone dagger was still in his belt. Instead, he wielded the light mace they’d taken from the drow, and he gleefully pounded the pointed star of chaos into the dragon’s ribs.

The dragon had never felt such pain before in her life; molten fire and inky chaos seeped into every wound. She wouldn’t have long to ponder the pain, because Keldas had been waiting for a moment of weakness.

He cast power word: stun. There was no resisting it. Indrazar hung stunned in mid-air.

Khalataic realized what was happening to his mate, but it was too late. He made a flying run past Wulf, snapping at him with his jaws before flying off to circle back for more.

“Right, right, we can play that game…” said Wulf. “But just for that, yer whore wife is dead-- and there’s nothing yer can do about it.”

True to his word as always, Wulf laid into the helpless female in a flurry of activity, breaking nearly every bone with his mace before Taranak opened her up and rained her steaming guts down onto the cavern floor.

With the death of the female, Wulf thought for a moment that the party was about to have a rare, unspoiled victory. Foolish thoughts, of course.

A glowing portal opened on the north end of the battlefield and two familiar figures stepped through.

“It’s Engram and Rourmed!”

There was no mistaking their intentions; they’d come ready to bring the heat. They appeared to be hasted, Engram had multiple mirror images swirling around him, and Wulf suspected a shield spell as well. To top it off, Wulf had a nice, warm, paranoid feeling about the crooked staff that Engram brandished in one hand. Even so, he was far more worried about what Rourmed could do-- if only because he knew too well what Dorn could do; still, when the priest started running across the cavern away from the battle, he had to admit to himself he had no idea what Rourmed would do.

“Kill the priest!” Wulf shouted.

“Which one is the priest?” Dorn yelled back.

Wulf rolled his eyes and pointed. “He’s the one makin’ a beeline for the naked boy!”

Wulf would never know what the priest originally had in mind, because his shout had brought the priest up short. Rourmed stopped at the edge of the depression and turned to look up at the shelf where Karak had retreated to seek healing from Dorn. The paladin was sorely wounded from his fight with the dragon, and when Rourmed’s blade barrier whirled into force about four feet above the level of the shelf, Karak was sliced to ribbons. He dropped below the level of the blades.

Keldas had moved forward to deal with Engram, the wizard. He hovered in mid-air and launched a bolt of conjuring just in time to disrupt Engram’s spell-- some sort of summoning, though it was beyond anything they could identify. Unfortunately, Keldas was far too close, now, to the bull dragon. Khalataic turned in mid-air and blasted Keldas and Wulf with a bolt of lightning. Wulf dodged, of course, and although Keldas wasn’t particularly hurt, his protections would not last much longer.

Wulf watched as something invisible attacked Keldas, but soon enough he had problems of his own. He couldn’t see his attacker either, but the stench reminded him of half-orc, and the thing’s battle-cry smacked of barbarian desperation. Wulf suspected that his foe had hoped to rattle his nerves, but he was unimpressed.

“Yer’d be a lot more intimidatin’,” Wulf said, “if I could ser yer...” He hefted Taranak and squinted around for his opponent.

Dorn had managed to crawl beneath the blade barrier to Karak’s side. The paladin wasn’t quite dead yet. Dorn laid a hand on the assmar’s brow and healed him nearly to full strength again. When he was satisfied the paladin was going to make it, he carefully unrolled his carpet of flying and charged out to help Wulf with the raging half-orc.

Engram gripped his staff and pointed it at Keldas. “I’m killing you with your own staff,” he said, as fist-sized hailstones pounded down on the elf.

Keldas had had enough. “I’m leaving!” he said.

Karak had managed to recover his feet, and ignoring the blade barrier as best he could, he grabbed the portable hole and ran to Keldas’ side. Keldas grabbed him and they disappeared.

“We’re not done dancin’ yet,” Wulf said, slashing into the half-orc with a flurry of attacks. Several times, Wulf whizzed his chaos mace through empty air before striking elsewhere with Taranak. Not every blow struck true, of course, but Wulf took particular glee in the sickening crunch and sizzle of the ones that did. He’d figure out where his opponent was, line him up with Dorn, and then…

“Dance is over,” Dorn said. He grabbed Wulf by the back of the neck and cast plane shift.

LORD OF THE IRON FORTRESS-- Part V

“Did he say he was killin’ yer with yer own staff?” Wulf asked.

“Oh. Yes. That’s the staff I have been looking for my entire life,” said Keldas, the very picture of understatement.

“Well,” said Wulf, “We’re goin’ back, right?”

“Tomorrow,” said Keldas, and so it was agreed.

***

By the next day they were fully rested and Wulf was nearly squirming at the thought of all the heavy-duty spellpower that Keldas and Dorn would be bringing. Thus, he was more than a little surprised to find that Dorn had come prepared with a scrying for the day. “No sense goin’ in blind,” he reasoned.

Dorn cast his scrying and zeroed in on the dragon’s cave, near the spot where they’d arrived last time. The dragon himself was out of frame, but they were looking in instead at Rourmed and Engram. The priest and the wizard were themselves huddled over a mirror, and it took only a moment for Keldas to glance around and spot their scrying sensor.

Wulf could not help chuckling. “They see us, we see them… Fine. Let’s go!”

He rolled out his portable hole for the paladin.

“I’m not going in there,” Karak said.

“This is gettin’ old,” Wulf said. “I’m tired of yer bitchin’ but I’m more tired of arguing with yer. So we’ll do it yer way.”

They were forced to split up into two groups, since neither Keldas nor Karak alone could teleport the entire group.

They prepared with spells and on cue, Keldas teleported in with Dorn, and Karak did the same with Wulf.

At least, that was what was supposed to happen.

What happened instead was that Keldas and Dorn arrived in the dragon’s cave, alone, while Karak botched his teleport and sent himself and Wulf off into the featureless void of Acheron. Wulf had one hand hitched into Karak’s belt, but that didn’t stop him from smacking him around with the other. Karak tried his helm again.

Again, they were off target. With two of his three daily uses now wasted, Karak had just one teleport left. He lobbied hard to try one last time. “Keldas and Dorn are there all alone!”

“Then yer better start prayin’ that Keldas and Dorn have enough sense to leave, cause we are not headin’ in with no escape route. Take us home… arsehole.”

Meanwhile, as Wulf had hoped, it took only a moment for Keldas and Dorn to realize that they were alone. Fortunately, they had the drop on Engram and Rourmed. “Stay or go?” Keldas said.

Dorn briefly considered staying. Half of him expected the paladin to try again and actually get it right, and half of him thought he and Keldas could take it alone. In the end, he decided that neither supposition was very likely. “Home!” he said, hoping that Wulf had enough sense not to let the paladin teleport in without an escape route.

Before their enemies could act, Keldas cast teleport again. As he and Dorn were whisked away, they noted a contemptuous sneer on the faces of the priest and mage, their nemeses. “Leaving already?” they said.

They met up on the Acheron side of the gate back to Rigus, their agreed meeting place-- the only feature of the plane they were all comfortable with.

“Let’s go!” said Karak, as soon as they were all assembled.

“Nah, tomorrow,” Wulf said. “We’ll need your helm at full strength.”

“But the boy…” Karak started.

“Is still alive,” Wulf guessed, “and I reckon he’ll be so tomorrow.”

“But…”

“Go on then,” said Wulf. “But count me out.”

“Me too,” said Dorn. “I can always raise him later… If there’s anything of him left.”

Karak looked ready to cry.

“You know, worst case scenario…” Dorn suggested.

***

Wulf and Karak took turns watching throughout the night while Keldas and Dorn recovered the few spells they’d used in their botched attempt. Wulf was up bright and early. He had the portable hole all ready for the paladin.

Karak balked again. “I already told you, I am not going in there again.”

“Get in the hole!” Wulf shouted.

“No.”

“You do realize you are doubling the chances of something going wrong?” said Dorn.

“It’s only a very small chance…”

“GET IN THE GODDAMN HOLE!” Wulf yelled again.

“No.”

Wulf was done shouting. Now, he merely stared at the paladin, and somehow, something in his demeanor must have finally impressed upon the paladin that today was a killing day.

Karak got in the hole.

Dorn reached in and plucked the helm of teleportation off his head. “Thank you.”

Keldas and Dorn cast their preparatory spells, Wulf rolled up the hole, and they were off:

Dorn nailed it on the first try. They teleported in and landed literally toe-to-toe with their enemies.

***

Wulf was the first to act. He was standing within arm’s reach of Engram, and though he was sorely tempted to hack him open in one shot, he stuck true to the plan and unrolled the portable hole. But Engram must have seen the glimmer in Wulf’s eye, for despite the fact that he was the next to act, he took the opportunity to skitter back away from Wulf.

Dorn had gained his bearings and showed with his opening salvo that he wasn’t playing around. He cast destruction on Engram, and for one brief moment it looked as if the mage would be completely obliterated. Somehow, he held himself together, but the damage from the destruction wracked his frail frame hideously.

Keldas took one look at the blue bull dragon and with a flick of his wrist, it was gone.

While Rourmed’s dwarven bodyguard fired at them with his crossbow, the half-orc barbarian rushed at them from across the cave, frothing and bellowing as he charged directly at Wulf in another attempt to intimidate him. Wulf was, again, staggeringly unimpressed.

Rourmed was up and acting now, and the group felt a sickening lurch as an unholy aura descended over all of them. Wulf quickly decided that Rourmed was probably a greater threat than Engram, and he tumbled over to the priest’s flank, waiting for an opportunity. He was too quick for the half-orc but Rourmed was ready with his weapon. He cracked Wulf solidly across the back as he tumbled into position. There was unholy power in his morningstar, and Wulf was painfully reminded that as far as such things went, he was counted among the “good guys.”

Engram was standing in the clear and he cast haste to better deal with his foes. Wulf recognized the spell but before he could wonder what unpleasantness would follow, Keldas had counterspelled the haste and Engram was left hanging out to dry. Dorn pounded him with a flame strike and Engram was blasted to cinders. Dorn was clearly surprised that the wizard had died so easily, but he merely shrugged and jogged over to flank Rourmed with Wulf.

Wulf drew a second weapon and hacked away at Rourmed in a hasted blur; still, Rourmed kept his feet. Wulf hadn’t expected to drop him too quickly, but the damage done was enough for Keldas: he cast power word, stun and Rourmed was toast. It was a simple matter for Dorn to finish him off.

The crossbow-wielding dwarf had seen enough. He took off running, leaving only the half-orc for the party to deal with. He charged Wulf again, landing a solid blow, but Wulf merely chuckled; the half-orc had run right into a threshing machine. Wulf chopped and slashed with glee, but the half-orc didn’t drop.

In fact, he responded with a frenzied flurry of his own that left Wulf very nearly dead. “Little help here!” Wulf shouted.

Keldas was busy recovering his staff from Engram’s remains, but Karak came to Wulf’s aid. He charged the half-orc from behind. Six inches of longsword came bursting through his chest from the back way, but still the half-orc kept fighting.

Keldas tried hold monster to no avail; a bolt of conjuring sizzled his skin but did little to deter him. Wulf and Karak landed some half a dozen telling blows between them, and the little celestial badger summoned by Keldas’ bolt even lent a hand, scratching feebly at the berseker’s shins.

“He’s a frenzied berserker!” Wulf said. He’d seen battleragers among his own people who boasted similar fortitude. “He’s not going down while he’s raging…”

Dorn nodded and tried a simple command. “Relax!” he said, hoping to end the rage. It was useless. The half-orc had a will of iron. Dorn hacked away with his great-axe. It, too, was useless.

“How much can he TAKE?” Wulf shouted, frustrated. “Somebody please kill this bastard before he kills me…”

“One way or another, you better kill him soon,” Keldas said. He cast another hold spell and, miraculously, it worked.

Dorn wasted no time. He was ready to take off after the dwarf who had run away. “Let him go,” said Wulf.

“Yes, do,” said Keldas. “We’re going to need you here any minute now.”

“Why?” asked Karak. His question was answered as the blue dragon suddenly reappeared. It looked very, very angry.

“AH!” the paladin yelled. Almost by instinct, he smited the dragon.

The dragon’s heaved its haunches and breathed a bolt of lightning across Karak and Dorn. Keldas, non-plussed, cast a dispel on the dragon to drop any protections it might have cast while it was trapped within his previous maze spell.

Karak ducked around the dragon, narrowly avoiding a tail slap from the mighty beast. He stabbed at its left flank while Wulf did his best to flay it alive from the right.

The dragon looked like he had a little more fight in him, but he was no fool. He took to flight and sailed out of the cavern with amazing aerial agility for such a large beast. Keldas and Dorn both gave chase, but despite Keldas’ attempt to disintegrate it and Dorn’s incessant flame strikes, the dragon’s spell resistance and flight speed soon carried it out of harm’s way.

Wulf had followed them out to watch the brief pursuit from the cave mouth. He returned with Dorn and Keldas to find Karak ministering to the boy.

The boy looked sorely wounded. Karak cast heal mount and, to everyone’s surprise, all of his wounds were healed.

“So now he’s your servant?” Dorn asked.

“I haven’t got that far with him yet.” Karak said.

“So… what are we talkin’ then?” Wulf asked. “First base? Second base?”

“He is a dragon,” Karak explained. “His name is Azimuth.”

Wulf snickered. “Whatever. Let’s loot these bodies and head back to Rigus to sell it.”

They shoveled the dragon’s hoard and the corpses into the portable hole. Karak noted a few pearls as they slipped into the hole and he spoke up.

“Can I have some pearls for the dragon?”

“What for?”

“He just… likes pearls.”

“Hm. Ok. So yer’d like to give him a nice pearl necklace then?”

“Well, I am sure he would like a share.”

Dorn had a fine ear for the sound of coin being drained out of his own pockets, and now he stepped into the conversation. “What exactly is the fair share for allowing yourself to be rescued?”

Karak was oblivious to the sarcasm. “Well, I think he deserves a half share, just like Alliane.”

“He’s a mount,” Wulf said, nearly stunned at the paladin’s twisted logic. “So if I ride a pony, he gets a half share?”

“He’s an intelligent mount,” Karak insisted, thinking he’d won the argument.

“So’s ol’ Bill,” Wulf said, “He can count to three!”

LORD OF THE IRON FORTRESS-- Part VI

Back in their room in Rigus, Wulf was having trouble resting. Keldas hadn’t said a peep about his new staff, but it wasn’t as if he was being discreet about it, either-- there commenced a long and, in Wulf’s opinion, overly intimate inspection for what Wulf rightly asserted was a glorified walking stick. Naturally, when the elf volunteered to take a watch, Wulf volunteered to stay up with him. There was a warm spot in his belly nurtured by a healthy paranoia and the thought of having finally put those pricks Rourmed and Engram down for good.

The thought that Keldas was hiding something was titillating in its own right. Wulf hoped that the daggers he cut with his eyes would appear as no more than his usual disgust, though truthfully he admitted that there was little danger the elf would notice, rapt as he was with his staff.

The hair stood up on the back of Wulf’s neck and suddenly Keldas was looking into his eyes. “We’re being scried…” Keldas whispered.

“Wake up!” Wulf said-- or at least, he thought he said it, for a surreal, dreamlike state seemed to settle in. There appeared in the center of the room a tall, beautiful winged elf. The archon smiled, raised a long, fluted trumpet to its lips, and blew a shrill note.

“Yer don’t see that every day…” Wulf thought, as Keldas turned stark white and fled up into the corner of the ceiling, skittering like a spider. Come to think of it, he didn’t feel quite 100% himself. Still not quite sure what was going on-- yet fairly certain it would involve bloodshed-- Wulf downed a potion of haste, just in case.

Still wearing the same beatific smile-- no doubt that same smile reserved for the slaughtering of firstborn babes and similar missions-- the archon stretched forth his hand. Wide strokes of lightning leapt from his fingertips and scorched everyone in the room-- everyone, of course, except Wulf, who dodged out of the way, and the paladin’s boy, who seemed immune to its effect.

Without missing a beat, and moving with unearthly speed, the archon’s trumpet suddenly shifted and changed into an enormous greatsword. The archon seemed to laugh just a bit as a black bolt of destruction slithered down the blade and struck the boy full in the chest. Wulf had seen the effect before, and if the boy’s reaction was an indication of the spell being successfully resisted, he had no desire to see the spell’s full force.

Still not quite sure of himself, Wulf stammered once again for his comrades to get up, all the while pulling darts and daggers from the bandolier on his chest and hurling them ineffectively at the archon. The next moment, a female duergar appeared in the room, enlarged to twice her size and wearing the loose-fitting garb of a monk. Wulf sensed something else out there, as well, lurking invisibly amongst their other foes.

Karak finally managed to get to his feet, just in time to be set upon by the invisible creatures. Wulf could not see the attackers, but he recognized the arterial spray easily enough: nary a weak spot on Karak’s armor and anatomy was left unbloodied by the attack. The paladin staggered backwards and the boy sprang to his defense, changing form into a young bronze dragon as he positioned himself unerringly between his master and the invisible rogues.

Dorn was awake. Activating his boots of speed, he sprang to his feet and cast destruction on the archon-- to absolutely no effect.

Karak groaned something pitiful and slipped backwards, fumbling desperately to lay his healing hands on himself. Before the young dragon could retreat alongside him, the archon stepped forward and slashed twice across the dragon’s hide, opening deep wounds across his flank.

Wulf wanted nothing to do with the archon; he wondered vaguely if the two invisible rogues were of sufficient skill to bypass his own uncanny reflexes. Never one to take unnecessary chances, he grabbed Taranak in one hand and his chaos mace in the other, and attacked the female duergar.

“Yer gonna like this,” Wulf said, pounding the chaos mace into the monk’s unarmored body. He scored several good hits, sending the duergar into a desperate defense. The monk struck once at Wulf’s chest-- no doubt attempting a stunning strike, for all the good it would do her-- then thought better of that approach. She stepped back and downed a potion of invisibility.

Meanwhile, the rogues were relentless in their assault on the paladin. The dragon did his best to defend him, and the room echoed with screams of pain as its jaws bit down solidly on vulnerable flesh. Dorn rushed to his aid as well, casting a heal spell while swinging away wildly around him. “Fight!” Dorn yelled, trying to spur the paladin into something other than endless retreat.

Karak finally struck out-- a lucky shot. His sword crashed down solidly on the other rogue. Their cries of alarm bought Wulf a little more time as the archon stepped over to deal with the growing scrum of combatants surrounding the paladin. The dark angel first tried to poison the dragon with a spell, and when that failed, resorted once again to his greatsword. That, at least, had the desired effect: Another solid blow, and suddenly the dragon wasn’t looking as if he’d be in the fight for the long haul, either.

Wulf decided he couldn’t wait any longer. He stepped up and hacked away at the archon, landing a solid blow. Almost at once, the cloud of menace and despair that had dogged Wulf's subconscious seemed to lift away on a breeze. Yeah... I can win this fight.

Karak had backed into a corner in some semblance of strategic defense, but to no avail. Still the rogues carved away at him and again the paladin see-sawed from vigorous health to death’s door. The monk appeared once again to attack Wulf, but her fists found nothing but empty air. Wulf was fighting at full strength, now-- and the monk suddenly realized she’d become visible with the first punch.

Dorn reached out to heal Karak again, shrugged, then made a wild guess at a rogue's location. He slammed his new axe down in a splintering stroke that somehow found its mark. There was a blast of electricity, a puff of ozone, and shards of rogue showered the area.

“Is he dead?” Karak asked. The archon answered his question by stepping forward into the space just vacated by the slain rogue.

Keldas chose an opportune moment to join the fight. Two summoned archons of his own joined the fray, bobbing forward to attack the dark archon. “I think, brothers, you should return home,” the dark archon boasted.

“Eat sword,” they responded.

Things were looking up, but the party was not ready for one last trick of evil. From across the room one last invisible rogue finally acted, stepping forward to thrust a blade between Keldas’ ribs. Keldas body stiffened as poison took hold; he was paralyzed almost instantly.

The duergar monk assessed the new development and acted with practiced precision. She ran to join the rogue, grabbed Keldas, and together they all teleported away. The dark archon didn’t wait long before he, too, teleported away, taking the rest of their strike force with them. “Another time…”

“Sons of…” Wulf growled. “Gah!”

He grabbed a ring from the finger of the fallen rogue and tried desperately to get it working. There was a brief spark, followed by not-so-brief cursing. What did he hope to accomplish? Wulf’s frustration threatened to overwhelm his usual good sense.

“Let’s go!” said the paladin. “We’ve got to rescue Keldas!”

“Screw it,” said Wulf. “They must’ve took him alive for a reason. Either he’ll get himself out of it, or we’ll just have to go get him tomorrow. Put it on my friggin’ schedule.”

“Right…” agreed Dorn. “Let’s loot this body, and identify what we can.”

“I’ll tell yer one thing,” Wulf said, nursing his sore finger. “When I get this ring of invisibility workin’, some bastard’s gonna pay.”

*****

Returning home to the Forge, they scried on Keldas at the first opportunity.

He was bound with thick chains, spread-eagled between two sturdy columns in what appeared to be Imperagon’s war room. A gag was in his mouth-- yet, he was awake, and apparently cogent.

Looking around, Dorn could see curtains at both ends of the room. Imperagon was there, seated in a throne, his allies arrayed around him: the duergar monk, the dark archon, a cloud giant with a cryohydra pet. An old woman stood near Imperagon, clutching Keldas’ staff. They also saw a kyton, and now noticed the chains hanging from every surface.

“We need to buy ourselves some rust monsters,” Wulf suggested. “Any ideas?”

“We’re gonna need a miracle,” Dorn said, looking at the Old Man. “What’s it gonna cost us?”

“This time, fourteen-thousand.”

Wulf rolled his eyes. “Hey, thanks for the discount. We’ll keep it simple, then; an easy miracle. Just remove the gag from his mouth-- nice and easy.”

The gag slipped away ever so slightly. Acting quickly, Keldas spoke the words to invoke a teleport. They saw him disappear, and moments later he appeared beside them.

“Welcome home,” Wulf said.

“They got my staff…”

“Am I gonna have to tie that thing to yer mitten strings?”

“Wanna hit them now while they’re all gathered up?” asked Dorn.

Wulf thought about the chains on the walls, and how effective his party of spellcasters would be, bound up and grappled by the kyton. “I’d rather not.”

“We can’t enter directly, at any rate,” Keldas advised them. “The place is sealed with forbiddance. It is proof against ingoing teleport.”

Dorn nodded. “We likely won’t be able to enter at all unless we’re evil. The spell will hedge out good-- or anyone not of Imperagon’s ethos.”

“That can’t be right,” Wulf said. “Surely he has to be able to receive visitors. He’s a businessman, after all.”

Dorn scratched his beard. “I guess you can key the spell to a password. If we had the password, which we don’t, we could enter.”

“I’ll go have a nice chat with miss Arrinna, then,” Wulf said, already heading out the door to see their prisoner. He looked at Keldas and the Old Man. “Yer… ach, right, yer just wait here for me. Shouldn’t be long.”

But one can always hope, he thought.

*****

Wulf returned shortly. “Fiery might conquers…” he announced, grinning happily.

“She told you?”

Wulf nodded. “Diplomacy.”

“So… tomorrow, then?” Karak asked.

They all nodded.

“I suppose I should see about warding this place with our own forbiddance,” said the Old Man, excusing himself.

“Yer just let me know if yer want any suggestions on the pass-phrase,” Wulf called after him.

*****

The next day they stood several hundred yards off the main gate of Imperagon’s mighty fortress. They could see that the front gate was guarded by an immense iron golem with wicked bladed hands. Steel predators slunk about in the shadows under the gatehouse.

“Now, we have the password,” said Keldas. “So we should be able to just bluff our way past the golem.”

“Right,” Wulf nodded. He gave Keldas the thumbs up.

They walked to the front gate, and the golem rose to meet them as they came near the gate.

“WHO SEEKS ENTRY?” it bellowed, its voice sounding forth from hollow lungs that boomed like empty drums being kicked down a long flight of stairs.

“Wulf DRAGON-bane!” Wulf shouted back.

The party stood agape at him. Wulf’s weapons had somehow found their way into his hands.

“What?” Wulf said, shrugging. “I’m incognito.”

And the fight was on.

Keldas’ dragon launched itself through the air at the golem, snapping feebly as it flew by, but its jaws could not penetrate the golem’s metal hide. The golem was prepared, and slashed at the dragon’s side as it passed, scoring a deep, bleeding wound.

Karak charged forward and was immediately pounced on by both predators. They took turns savaging him.

Keldas cast rapid strikes on Dorn and keen edge on Taranak and shooed the two dwarves into the fray. Wulf stepped quickly to Karak’s aid: the predators were intent on grappling with the paladin, and Wulf had little difficulty shredding the predator’s exposed flanks. Dorn was right behind him to finish it off. Karak stumbled to his feet and watched the remaining predator warily.

Somehow the golem had settled on Dorn as the greatest threat, and it slashed at him twice with its huge, cleaver-like hands.

“Finish off that predator so we can take this thing down!” yelled Wulf. He was a firm believer in attacking the weakest link of a chain first, but they couldn’t afford to spend much time on the predator with their backs to the golem.

Keldas cast hold monster on the predator, once, twice, both times with no luck. The predator had backed off now, having learned from the other’s mistake not to grapple up with enemies at its flanks. It sat back on its haunches and roared at the group, pounding them all with sonic energy.

“Screw it,” said Wulf, grabbing Dorn and steering him towards the golem. “Let the assmar worry about the cat, we need a heavy hitter on this golem.”

He swung Taranak at the golem, but even prepared with greater magic weapon, he couldn’t seem to hit it.

“Are you holding back or what?” Dorn asked.

“A bit,” Wulf admitted, maneuvering to keep Dorn within arm’s reach.

Karak and the dragon continued to work on the predator, but it wasn’t falling for the bait. It continued to elude them and roared across the group once again. Wulf and Dorn were unimpressed but it was surely taking its toll on Keldas.

Wulf and Dorn continued working on the golem. Dorn would take a step to flank the golem with his great-axe, and Wulf would take a step to follow him.

Dorn was getting impatient. “Gimme some room and flank him, yer not even hurt yet!”

The golem’s bladed arm came whistling down on Dorn. Wulf hauled Dorn aside, then nimbly stepped under the blade to take the blow instead. He tried his best to turn it aside with expertise, to no avail.

“Sorry,” he panted. “Yer was sayin?”

Keldas saw Wulf’s plan and cast a haste on him before retreating to the sky, out of reach of the predator. The thing roared one last time; Dorn finally dropped the golem, and Wulf was clear to pounce on the predator with everything he had. In moments, it collapsed, and the way was clear.

Korak and Dorn brought out their wands of cure serious wounds to hurry the party along. Keldas was severely wounded, as the predator had made sure to center Keldas in every sonic blast. Dorn couldn’t help commenting as he healed him up.

“Why do the bad guys always pick on you, Keldas?”

“They can tell who’s the man, I guess,” he deadpanned.

“Yeah,” Wulf snorted. “It’s the guy in the slippers, right?”

***

Just inside the main entrance they found a storeroom holding some uniforms marked with a fiery scimitar. “Let’s wear these,” Wulf suggested. “Maybe it’ll fool the golems.”

They found the interior of the fortress surprisingly small and cramped-- all the better, as it narrowed their options. At the end of a short hallway to the north, they found a door, warm to the touch, and the dragon informed them that he could hear a low, animal snoring from inside. Assuming it would be more steel predators, they turned south.

Wulf slowly opened the door they found there. An ogre-mage stood inside the spartan room, flanked by a couple of stone guardians. He seemed to be watching the north wall, where a long curtain bisected the room. The ogre-mage looked askance at the group, then turned away, disinterested.

Wulf shrugged, walked into the room, and cut the legs out from underneath the unsuspecting ogre. Dorn stepped in quickly behind him.

“Stick on him!” he said. “Don’t let him cast!” Dorn cast a silence spell on Wulf, who was already grinning in eager anticipation. But it was not to be: the ogre-mage retreated behind the curtain, as the statue guardians came to life to attack Wulf and Dorn.

Wulf disengaged from the statue, tumbling off behind the curtain in pursuit of the ogre-mage. When he rolled to his feet on the other side, he was standing in a smaller curtained cell-- and face-to-face with a mind flayer.

Like clockwork, Wulf’s dwarven instincts took over: He succumbed to a sustained screaming fit.

A long, silent, unanswered scream.

Desperate, Wulf fumbled at the ring of invisibility on his finger. Somehow, miraculously, he got the damn thing to work. Things were looking up, now. He was isolated on the other side of the curtain from the rest of his group, true enough, facing a mind flayer, silenced and with no way to warn them, yes-- but at least you couldn’t say he wasn’t invisible. He grinned and gave himself a little mental “Thumbs up!”

Back in the other room, Keldas stepped in, saw Dorn hacking one of the statue guardians to pieces, and nonchalantly leaned up against the wall. “Looks like you guys have this under control.”

The mind flayer turned towards Wulf with a hungry little quiver of its tentacles, feeling for him, feeling for his presence with its tentacles as well as its mind. Wulf knew what was coming, and it was then that he felt the almost tangible presence of Haela Brightaxe, hovering over his shoulder, offering him good luck.

Piss off! Wulf thought. He had enough problems just worrying about Moradin’s steely-grey peepers on him all the time. Wulf Ratbane ain't none o’ yer concern!. A powerful wave of psionic energy washed over Wulf-- but he fought it off.

I don’t believe in luck, he thought. Good or bad.

Another mind flayer suddenly stepped out from the adjacent curtained cell.

Ok, that’s pretty bad…

The second ‘flayer blasted Wulf; again he felt Haela calling to him, and again he refused her aid and stubbornly resisted the overpowering psionic energy on his own. “Luck’s got nothin’ to do with it!” He shouted and shook his fists, though there was no one to see or hear.

The ogre-mage cast a cone of cold at the group hovering around the doorway. The dragon shook it off and slinked into the room. Its keen senses had somehow warned it that there was something lurking behind the curtains, and it fired a blast of its lightning breath across the ogre-mage and both mind flayers.

The ogre mage had had enough, and wisely turned to gaseous form. But the dragon’s lightning blast had provided just the jump-start Wulf needed. He grabbed the closest mind flayer by its face-tentacles and frenziedly beat its brains out in about three seconds flat. Now visible, and covered in mauve-colored gore, Wulf staggered backwards out of the cloister, ripping down what was left of the curtains and gesturing wildly the way he had come.

The second mind flayer knew the jig was up. It stepped out and positioned itself to blast everyone in the room. Wulf and Dorn, the two dwarves, were the only ones stunned. Wulf stood there slobbering stupidly, surprised as he was to see Dorn standing there slobbering stupidly as well. He took this as proof positive that Haela Brightaxe was full of…

Shifting over slightly from behind the stone guardian, Karak finally hove into view. He smoothly drew his ghost touch bastard sword and swung full-force at the misty form of the ogre-mage. The ghostly vapor was scattered and Karak continued his swing right into the mind flayer. It dropped to the ground, cleft nearly in twain. Karak wrenched his sword from the rubbery hide and turned just in time to see his dragon finish off the last statue guardian.

Lord of the Iron Fortress-- Part VII

Dorn quickly busied himself with healing their minor wounds, then suddenly announced that he was leaving. “Haela’s business. I’ll send Shorty and Diessa along in the meantime.”

“I thought this was Haela’s business,” Wulf grumbled.

Losing Dorn for Diessa was a bitter pill, but it went down a bit sweeter when Shorty showed up. The little halfling was eager to get down to business. “Where to?” he asked, as they gathered up just inside the fortress entrance.

“Well, let’s keep exploring this floor round the same way we have been,” Wulf suggested. “Counterclockwise.”

Keldas nodded in agreement.

The next door opened onto a magically darkened room. The party huddled briefly to bicker over how to tackle the room, but their decision was made for them as a toothy steel maw suddenly lunged out of the darkness. Karak was knocked off his feet and dragged into the room. There was a sickening crunch, followed by a shrill and lingering shriek of anguish.

Keldas dispelled the darkness so they could move in. A steel predator had pinned Karak under its paws, while a second one nearby munched contentedly on his sundered long sword. A third predator sat nearby with a bemused look on its non-face.

Shorty carefully dropped a hemispherical wall of force over two of the predators, while Wulf stepped up to deal savagely with the predator preoccupied with Karak. All things considered, it wasn’t too bad.

But the loss of his magic longsword seemed to have shattered Karak’s spine, as well. He activated his helm of teleportation, hoping to teleport just a few feet away and re-enter the fray. Instead, he disappeared completely.

The predator hardly missed a beat, switching quickly to focus on Wulf. He too was grappled and pulled into the thing’s embrace.

“Gimme a sec, I got it,” Wulf said. He twisted, slipped out of its grasp, and brought Taranak around on it with crushing force. Smoke and flame burst around the wound, and the thing was so grievously wounded that Shorty easily finished it off with a magic missile.

Inside the dome of force, the predators lay down to munch on the remains of Karak’s sword. He’d been slowly building up its enchantment, hoping one day that his temple would turn it into a full fledged Holy Avenger.

So much for that.

Eventually, Karak came shuffling back into the room with them. “The teleport popped me just outside the fortress.”

“Forbiddance, I assume,” said Keldas. “Interesting effect.”

“We’re leaving, right?” Karak asked.

“What the hell for?” Wulf said.

Karak tried his best to be condescending. “Well, in case you didn’t notice, I just lost my sword.”

“Yer got another weapon, right?” Wulf asked, patting down his own bristling armory. Axe, dagger, hand axe, another dagger, light mace, dagger, darts… Check check check.

“Yes, but I like my long sword. That’s my best weapon.”

“Cry me a river,” Wulf said. “Next time yer know to diversify. Get out the bastard sword and let’s go.”

Shorty pointed at the two predators he’d imprisoned. “What about these? That wall of force won’t last but a few minutes.”

Wulf sighed. He really didn’t want to fight steel predators. They weren’t deadly, but those claws were hell on his shins.

“Well,” said Shorty, sensing his hesitation. “How about I drop the wall of force and hit them with a prismatic spray? That would be fun…”

Keldas arched an eybrow.

“Shorty’s got some new tricks,” said the halfling, grinning from ear to ear.

“I’d pay to see that,” said Wulf.

Shorty prepared himself, dismissed the wall of force, and was just about to let fly with his prismatic spray, when a small boy suddenly appeared between him and his targets. Shorty paused only briefly to decide that small boys who appeared out of the thin Acheronian air in the fortress of an evil half-dragon were probably up to no good, and he let fly anyway.

One predator was turned to stone, one was bathed in acid. The small boy was blasted with a ray of poison but it might as well have been a ray of gumdrops and lollipops for as much as he seemed to care.

Definitely up to no good.

The remaining predator dragged Wulf into its razor-sharp embrace, but Keldas was ready: He turned it into a fish.

By now the small boy had started casting a spell. Wulf rolled to his feet and charged him with both hands wrapped around the haft of his axe. If only it could have been a real small boy, Wulf would have lopped his head off from the waist up. As it was, however, the thing had no trouble maintaining its concentration to finish its spell. A fireball exploded into the room.

Wulf was unscathed, of course. He watched as Keldas’ own small boy, now transformed into his natural dragon form, breathed a scorching bolt of lightning across... err... the other small boy.

Wulf cursed. Vicious small-boy-on-small-boy action was one thing, but wasting precious time breathing lightning on outsiders was quite another. So he was quite surprised when the boy disappeared in the wake of the blast.

“Did yer get him?” Wulf asked, highly skeptical.

The dragon ignored him. It was staring over his shoulder to the back of the room, where a cloud giant and its pet hydra had suddenly appeared.

The cloud giant was either fast, or it had been preparing for them. It cast a spell almost as soon as it appeared.

And just as quickly—faster, actually, to be precise—Keldas countered it. “Abu Dalzim’s Horrid Wilting?” said the frail elf. “Ahh, I think not…”

The hydra breathed—a bath of frosty cold. Wulf evaded the blast, but he wasn’t confident of his allies behind him. The blast, apparently, had frozen their brains.

For starters, the assmar, unsatisfied with a “mere” Ghost Touch bastard sword, tried casting holy sword on his weapon—though in the cramped confines of the room, he was well within reach of the cloud giant. The giant wasted no time in utterly pasting the paladin with its huge flaming morning star. Karak buckled with the blow.

Now it was Shorty’s turn, and he made the best of it by casting cone of cold. Onto the cloud giant. And its cold-breathing cryohydra.

“Stupid sons of…” Wulf’s knuckles cracked in frustration. “Ach!”

Keldas, at least, had his wits about him. He cast mass haste.

“Now we’re talkin’.” Wulf twisted the ring of invisibility on his finger and disappeared. One short step brought the hydra within reach, and pulling his dagger into his off-hand, Wulf proceeded to dismantle the thing with grisly precision. When he reappeared, there wasn’t much left of the hydra.

Wulf had hoped to lure the giant, confident of his inborn giant-slayin’ abilities, but the giant was simply having too much fun with the paladin. It heaved about with its morning star, slamming the assmar twice more despite his best defenses.

Karak stumbled back into the corner, trying to escape the thing, but he’d clearly learned nothing from his previous mistake. Once again he dropped his defenses and turned his attention to his wounds, trying to lay on hands. The giant laughed—truth be told, Wulf couldn’t stifle his own chuckle—as the giant took advantage of the opportunity to knock the paladin to death’s door.

Shorty picked up the slack, first casting slow on the giant and then hold monster for good measure.

Against his better judgement, and with hands shaking from barely suppressed laughter, Wulf bound the paladin’s wounds… just in time.

Wulf rolled the gargantuan morningstar into his portable hole as the others looked on in disbelief. Wulf just shrugged. “Ach… maybe Verachus will buy it. I’m not in this for my health, yer know.”

After healing up they adventured on. Following their inward spiral of the tower, they opened onto a room with two of the blade-handed iron golems. The golems stood inert, but waiting. They decided to backtrack before triggering the golems.

Spiraling out to the outside of the tower, they found what appeared to be the cloud giant’s bedroom. Wulf snuck in, needlessly wary of traps, and looted the room for the few gems he could find.

And that was it. They’d seen everything there was to see, so it was back to the iron golems.

Wulf sighed. “I’m looking forward to tangling with these about as much as having my pants full of steel predators.” Without Dorn, and knowing the paladin’s backup weapon wouldn’t so much as scratch the finish on them, Wulf knew he’d be handling the brunt of the combat.

Shorty tugged Wulf back by his belt. “Pardon…” he said, as he cast a wall of force that trapped the two golems safely into the corner.

“Moving right along,” he said. “Quickly though.” He wagged his stumpy finger in warning. His spell wouldn’t last forever.

The golems guarded a short, narrow passage that led out of the room and ended in two doors. They could feel heat emanating from the doors. Wulf turned and hustled everyone back out of the room so he could work them over for traps.

Grand adventures call for grand heroes, Wulf thought. He looked around the corner at his comrades, who waited patiently for him to detect any traps the doors might hold. Wulf knew full well that his skills—though often tested—were useless. He gritted his teeth and just yanked the bloody doors open.

Wulf was never quite certain what the two symbols were that he triggered that day, but he could tell from the queasiness in his guts that only his epic fortitude and dwarven resilience to magic saved him from an unexpected date with Haela. Or Moradin. Or whoever the hell was runnin’ the show.

The doors opened onto two staircases: one up, one down. Wulf called the party over and gestured at the staircases. “Decisions, decisions,” he mused.

“I think we should retreat and regroup,” suggested the paladin.

A tiny, mocking voice piped up from behind. “Aww, does Karak miss his wittle sword?” Shorty was uncharacteristically bitter. Wulf was liking him more by the minute.

“Up we go,” Wulf said.

The stairs at the top ended in a door that resisted all their attempts to open it. Shorty tried to dispel it, to no avail.

“Are yer sure yer usin’ that spell right?” Wulf asked.

Shorty ignored him and tried again. And again. And again. Four times, no luck.

While Wulf was busy both admiring the halfling’s tenacity and bemoaning his general ineptitude, and Shorty was trying to curse his way through the door, Keldas glided past to think his way around the problem. He disintegrated the wall beside the door. He stepped aside to give everyone a clear view of the room inside.

The room was dark—not so much magically dark as rather supernaturally so—but they could make out rows and rows of dark, tattered hangings. It was like a side-show haunted house, divided up by curtains to screen the deeper portions of the room.

They were unanimous in their suspicions. Even the most optimistic adventurer couldn’t help a sense of paranoia at the creepy décor.

“Who’s going in?” asked Karak, trying unsuccessfully to keep the tone in his voice from betraying the answer he already knew.

“Well,” said Wulf, “I have an idea for starters. Diessa, cast a divine storm in there—about head height—and shred those hangings to pieces. Then we can talk about who’s goin’ in.”

Diessa complied and in moments, the curtains were shredded around the room. Though the room was darker than it should be, they could see into it. There was lots of dust, and… were there bits of bone here and there?

Wulf looked at Karak.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “One o’ them curtains drops down an’ surrounds yer, I promise to come in and hack on yer. Ach, it, rather.”

After much coaxing, Karak took the first tentative steps into the room. “What exactly do you want me to do here, Wulf?”

Wulf kept a safe, respectable distance from the room, and called in. “Yer know. The usual. Kick some o’ them bones around. Disturb things. If there’s an altar, lick it!”

The paladin shuffled around in the scraps. Ere long he discovered a small black pouch. He picked it up and came trotting out of the room. Wulf retreated from the paladin’s proffered pouch. Grabbing Keldas, he hustled him forward. “Looks like magic, elf. Check ‘er out.”

Keldas took the pouch. “Hmm… Conjuration magic.” He opened the pouch.

A huge, cat-like, ghostly figure suddenly appeared and attacked the wizard. Karak acted so quickly Wulf barely had time to be impressed. The ghost-touch bastard sword whistled out and sliced the hellish, hissing creature in half quicker than you could say, “Fras!”

The pouch contained a valuable black pearl, and as the room had no other methods of entry or exit, and the party was otherwise stymied, Wulf amused himself by arguing with the paladin over the pearl.

“Can I have that pearl for my dragon?” “No.” “Please?” “Hell no.”

“Quiet, you two,” Keldas said. “The tower is obviously larger than just this single room. I am thinking of a way past these walls.”

“Just disintegrate it again,” suggested Shorty.

“I have used my only disintegration for the day.”

“Tee hee!” snorted Shorty.

Keldas snapped his fingers. “Polymorph Any Object,” he said. And like that, he turned a large section of the iron wall into mud.

Wulf stared at the oozing slop. “Mud? MUD? Yer can turn it into anything yer want, anything in the world, and that’s the best yer come up with? How about diamond dust? Or a nekkid woman?”

Diessa rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. “Please, can we move along?”

“Nice rack!” Wulf exclaimed, pushing past the priestess.

The gap opened onto a vast chamber—definitely giant-sized, Wulf thought—with a large table, chairs, and a long curtain that served as the western wall. But it was the weapons rack on the southern wall, full of masterwork blades, that lured Wulf into the room. Most of the weapons were giant-sized, but Wulf studied them briefly with a craftsman’s curiosity. They bore Imperagon’s maker’s mark.

“Wulf, come check out this desk,” said Shorty. Wulf stumped his way over to the east side of the room and gave the desk a cursory once-over before coming across a metal box. Like the door they had experienced earlier, the box somehow “resisted” being opened.

Wulf now moved to the door next to the weapons rack. Though the party was still mulling about in the room behind him, the lack of enemies on the upper floor had lulled Wulf into a false sense of security. He tugged open the door.

The door opened immediately onto the corner of an L-shaped balcony that overlooked a deeper chamber below—an area of the lower level they had not previously uncovered. Wulf spotted two giants standing on the lower level—even with his limited powers of observation he could hardly miss them, especially as they were staring right at him and reaching for hefty boulders.

“Sorry, wrong room,” Wulf said, speaking Giantish. He hadn’t found much use for it since Halma died, but he was glad to have it handy. He casually slammed the door.

“SHORTY!” he hissed. “Get up here and chain lightning them-- again and again!”

“No way,” Shorty said. “Maybe you guys get in front, gimme some cover first, I’ll do it.”

“For goodness sake!” Keldas moaned. “All these demands, you’d think he was a teamster or something.”

It took them far too long to get themselves organized and open the door again. The scene was a little different when they yanked the door open again.

Two steel predators. Two fire giants. The duergar monk. An old woman-- with Keldas’ staff. A gelugon, no doubt summoned from that staff. The evil “trumpet archon,” aka, small boy #2.

Helkitren.

And Imperagon.

Wulf drew his weapons. “Let’s roll.”

Wulf was jostled out of the way as Keldas and the dragon plowed into the room. An unexpected move, Wulf thought, but the element of surprise was already lost to Imperagon and his allies. Imperagon cast a spell and a ghostly warhammer appeared in the air above Keldas.

“Oooh! Watch out,” Keldas sneered. “He’s a low-level cleric!”

True enough, Wulf thought. Is that the best he’s got?

Wulf could hear Shorty’s incantations behind him. The hair on the back of his neck stood up, in anticipation of the chain lightning that would blast their enemies apart—but nothing happened. Shorty’s spell fizzled, countered by some unholy aura that protected all their enemies. He tried again, but his second spell fared no better.

Shorty cut loose with a blast of profanity that turned even Wulf’s ears red. “This sucks! I’m useless! I’m teleporting home!”

“Nooooo!” Keldas shouted. His eye was on the prize: the staff carried by the old woman.

From somewhere ahead Keldas heard an infernal cackle and the sound of spellcasting. An invisible devil—clearly, a very powerful devil at that—cut loose with a meteor swarm, with Shorty at ground zero. Shorty’s skin flared, red and scaly, and he counted himself lucky that he’d prepared a dragonskin spell earlier.

“Impressive,” said the fallen archon. “Now try this.”

Shorty resisted the destruction spell—barely.

“And this…”

Shorty lit up like a lightning rod at the center of a chain lightning.

“They’ve got a hard-on for Shorty today…” Wulf couldn’t defend the halfling against spells. There was nothing he could do but hold the door.

Two steel predators crept up in front of Wulf and roared. Shorty was completely shredded by the sonic blast. Dead and gone—but at least the roaring drowned out the tiny whimper.

Keldas knew he’d be next. He cast power word stun on the old woman, to no effect, followed by maze, with similar, unsatisfactory results.

“We can’t get spells through!” he groaned.

The old woman flashed a toothy grin and blasted Keldas with a spell from the staff. Wulf didn’t recognize the spell, but he could recognize the effects from the vapid stare on Keldas’ face. A fate worse than death: feeblemind.

With rocks from the giants raining down around them, Wulf grabbed Shorty’s remains, Diessa cast plane shift, and they all returned home. Well, almost home.

Wulf and Diessa compared notes. At a conservative estimate, they were several hundreds of miles from the Forge, with no easy way to teleport home besides the paladin’s helm.

Wulf unrolled the portable hole.

“Not again,” said Karak.

“It’s all right,” Wulf said. “Keldas, get in the hole!”

With all the happy obedience of a lobotomized puppy, Keldas obliged. Wulf tossed Shorty’s remains in after him.

Wulf stared at the dragon. “Yer turn, boy.”

The dragon transformed and hopped into the hole. He stood looking at Shorty’s remains, and seemed genuinely touched.

They rolled up the hole, and Karak teleported back to the Forge with the two dwarves. The Old Man was waiting for them.

“You’ve failed again?” he asked.

“Sarcasm noted,” Wulf said. “Just get busy with the feeb-healin’ and peck-ressurectin’.”

Karak sat down with a pathetic sigh.

“And get somebody to fix his bleedin’ sword!”

Wulf stomped off to make his own preparations.

***

Soon enough, as usual, they were ready to try again. Imperagon had beefed up his front gate security: Two giants, a golem, and—if the dragon was to be believed—some kind of invisible bird now guarded the front door.

One of the giants turned to run for help and was immediately disintegrated by Keldas. Playing tit-for-tat, the bird somehow attempted to disintegrate Keldas, but the unusually hearty elf resisted its effects. The battle was soon in full swing; with Shorty and Keldas lending magical support, Wulf and Karak took care of the golem and the dragon tangled with the invisible bird.

Two concussions and an inertial barrier later, they realized the bird was some kind of psion. Little help against the jaws of the dragon, however. Soon enough, Imperagon’s guards were dispatched, and they stepped to the front doors.

They were locked—and the password had apparently been changed.

“Yeah,” Wulf said. “That’ll stop me.” Taranak blazed to life in Wulf’s hands and he started hacking his way through the front doors. After a moment of disbelief, Karak stepped up to lend a hand with his reforged sword.

“Remind me,” said Shorty. “Why are doing this, again? Other than HIS quest?” He pointed an accusatory finger at the paladin.

“Well, there are some dwarven souls trapped here,” said Keldas, clearly struggling with it himself.

“Oh, so NOW there’s a point,” said Shorty.

Wulf was through the doors and in the sudden silence overheard their conversation. “Ey! Don’t look at me. I’m here for adamantium, and if I’m not mistaken, there’s the little matter of yer staff…”

Wulf booted his way through the remains of the doors and led the charge up the stairs. The dragon bounded alongside, his keen eyes, ears, and nose on the look-out for invisible enemies. “Mephit,” he announced. “Running off to warn them, no doubt…”

“This is suicide… again,” groused Shorty.

“It’s all right, I got a plan,” Wulf said.

“Now?” asked the dragon.

“Not yet. When yer see two out o’ three bad-asses,” Wulf said. He handed a scroll to the dragon.

“Wait a second, what’s up?” asked Karak.

“Anti-magic shell.” Wulf shrugged.

“But that will remove all his protections…”

Wulf tried hard to contain his exasperation, hoping there was a chance that logic would persuade the paladin. “Yer see anybody else standin’ here as good in the buff as yer dragon?”

“Keep that thing away from me,” Shorty said.

“Seconded,” said Keldas.

“I don’t mind,” said the dragon. “It’s a chance…”

Karak was unconvinced.

“He’s a friggin’ dragon,” said Wulf. “Not a horse. Not a boy. Grow a pair already.”

“Maybe he should read it now, then,” said Karak. He was slowly warming to the idea.

“Two out o’ three,” said Wulf. “Old woman and Imperagon,”

“Imperagon’s a low-level cleric,” Keldas reminded him.

“… Trumpet archon and pit fiend,” Wulf continued. “Yer get the idea, right?”

Diessa was wasting no time with conversation. She cast freedom of movement on Wulf and silence on a small stone. That would reduce the impact of the steel predators. She gestured to the door.

The spellcasters backed up and Wulf booted the door. A gelugon stood ready on the balcony, towering over the doorway, but he was too slow to handle Wulf. Taranak blossomed in his right hand and his chaos mace found its way into his other. His helm of protection from evil would protect him, but with a rousing cry of “Ferkit!” Wulf was committed to action. Mere seconds later the gelugon was nearly out of the fight. Wulf’s wide stance left no doubt that they’d have to go through him if they wanted to hassle his friends behind him.

Diessa cast recitation and invisibility purge while giants from the floor below the balcony hurled rocks. Wulf held his ground until he heard the dragon reading the scroll behind him. Wulf crossed his fingers, well aware that there was some chance the dragon would flub the powerful magic. Soon, however, he felt his magic items wane, and he stepped aside long enough for the dragon to slink through the door and charge the old woman.

The pit fiend appeared, and proving himself a creature of habit, he sent another meteor swarm Shorty’s way. Once again, red dragonskin made the difference between life and death for the little sorcerer.

Now wrapped in an anti-magic field and faced with the powerful jaws of a dragon, the old woman took the better part of valor, tucked up her skirts, and raced for the back of the room. The trumpet archon scoffed at this turn of events, and it soon became clear that he had his own agenda. He cast greater dispelling on Karak and started making his way along the balcony to get to grips with his hated foe.

Shorty cast slow on a group of villains that had assembled in front of the door. Among the predator, gelugon, the duergar monk, and the smoke mephit, only the mephit seemed affected.

Keldas was puzzling over the insane amount of spell resistance that all of Imperagon’s allies seemed to share, and he finally figured out that it was due to an unholy aura that protected them all. He had little time to act on his knowledge, however, as the gelugon suddenly disappeared from Wulf’s reach and teleported itself into the room behind him. Shorty, Keldas, and Diessa were all within reach of its wicked claws.

Imperagon appeared suddenly as he stepped within range of the invisibility purge and he took a swipe at Wulf. “Bring it!” Wulf grinned as he easily dodged the blow. Wulf’s attention was diverted from the huge fire elemental that suddenly appeared on the balcony. Unable to attack Wulf directly due to his protection from evil, the creature took a swipe over his head at Karak. Wulf felt the heat wave pass over his head but didn’t give the creature a second thought.

Helkitren, Lord of the Salamanders, stepped out from the room below and showered the group with lightning.

That bastard is three or four adventures overdue for his ass-kickin’, Wulf thought. What with Imperagon, Helkitren, and the sight of the dragon down below, absolutely freaking out on one of the giants with jaws, claws, and wings, Wulf didn’t see the steel predators leaping at him. The first dragged him down with its jaws and the second clamped down on Taranak. Its teeth glanced harmlessly off the shaft.

“Greater magic weapon…” Wulf growled. “No go.”

The female duergar stepped up to Wulf and rained blows on him with fists and feet. “That would work better with an axe,” Wulf said, still struggling in the jaws of the steel predator. “Gimme just one second, I’ll show yer…”

“Enough boasting,” said the archon. He cast destruction, and once again Wulf felt the now-familiar calling of Haela Bright-axe. Bad luck now could kill him.

I’ll take my chances, he thought. He brushed away thoughts of Haela and steeled himself against the spell. It hurt—but he wasn’t dead.

Beneath the claws of the gelugon, Keldas bent his concentration on dispelling the unholy aura. Twice he tried greater dispelling, twice he failed. Shorty, too, failed with his own greater dispelling. He wasn’t willing to waste a second action, however; he cast confusion into the room—but it was countered by the unholy aura! The gelugon chuckled and created a wall of ice to separate the three spellcasters from Wulf, Karak, and the dragon.

It began to dawn on the group that they were losing… again.

Karak stepped up to lend aid to Wulf, landing blow after blow and wounding the steel predator just enough for Wulf to finish it off and regain his feet. Wulf’s mace swept out and landed two powerful blows into Imperagon’s ribs. Imperagon staggered back and Wulf took a quick step of his own back through the doorway, putting the wall of ice at his back.

Diessa cast dispel evil and with one touch, the gelugon’s wall of ice was gone. They could see into the room again, but it wasn’t a pretty sight: The giants had surrounded the dragon and were dismantling it limb from limb. Its duty unfulfilled, the dragon was forced to flee—and was nearly killed in the fleeing.

“To the side door!” shouted Karak. A door to their left led off the balcony and (if they were lucky) should join up with the others in the back room. The dragon limped and bounded towards the door, well aware that the slinking mephit was on its heels. The dragon knew it was near enough death that the mephit might actually finish it off. But it was the evil archon on the balcony that was the prime concern.

All of Karak’s focus was suddenly on his dragon and he just barely pulled his sword out of the snapping jaws of the last predator. Their enemies, sensing weakness, converged on the paladin. The duergar monk tumbled past Wulf, hoping to strike Karak with a stunning blow, but the paladin’s growing determination was not to be deterred so simply. Imperagon stepped over to block the paladin’s path. Summoning his will, Karak twice tried to smite Imperagon, but his determination had given way to desperation, and he missed wildly. Imperagon’s own hammer struck true, however, and Karak was pressed back. He could only watch in frustration as the giants hurled boulders at the retreating dragon, determined to bring it down. By the narrowest of margins, the dragon somehow cheated death and escaped into the side door—with the archon in hot pursuit.

Back in the room behind them, Keldas attempted to disintegrate the gelugon, and failing that, followed with a power word stun. This time, at last, his magic was true. And while the gelugon stood reeling, Shorty was finally able to dispel the unholy aura!

A second gelugon, summoned by the old woman—more precisely, summoned by Keldas’ staff—suddenly appeared in their midst, cackled wildly, and created a new unholy aura. A third gelugon created a wall of ice across the main doorway. They were right back in the frying pan. The laughter of their foes was drowned out by Wulf’s howl of frustration. “Sons o’ bitches!” Wulf stepped back into the room and, in one swift stroke, crushed the skull of the stunned gelugon.

The old woman was non-plussed. A fireball streaked from the tip of Keldas’ staff and detonated in the room, blasting friend and foe alike. Among her allies, only the duergar monk was harmed—and neither the old woman nor Wulf and his allies gave her a second thought as she fled the battlefield.

There was no doubt that Keldas was the more experienced caster as he managed to fire off spell after spell. However, though he seemed able to overcome the unholy aura, he couldn’t seem to best his enemies’ natural resistance. The second gelugon easily resisted both a polymorph any object and a hold monster.

Karak raced across the back room and threw wide the door into the hallway where his dragon had retreated. He cast heal mount and the dragon was back in the fight. Unfortunately, Karak had wounds of his own to worry about, and the archon was eager for his blood. The archon’s trumpet transformed into a huge sword.

Wulf suddenly burst past Karak into the hallway, and together with the dragon assailed the archon. The creature’s defenses were nigh impenetrable—its natural armor, its supernatural reflexes, and its skill at arms were too much. The archon sneered at Karak and turned to stab its sword into the dragon’s chest.

Back on the balcony, their foes suddenly realized that the battle lines had completely shifted. Helkitren fireballed the wall of ice and a giant and a steel predator charged through. The pit fiend stepped through a dimension door and attempted an aura of fear, but the group had come together around Karak and the paladin’s courageousness carried them all through.

Karak cast Holy Sword on his weapon. Clearly, he was pissed.

He stepped up to strike the archon, one! two! three blows!—or was it four? Truthfully, Wulf lost count in the deafening whiff-whiff-whiff of unsuccessful strikes.

Shorty cast cone of cold at the enemies pouring into the room. His first attempt, in a nod to the traditional uselessness of halflings, failed utterly to beat the spell resistance of their foes. But the second attempt! A wave of cold washed over the giant and the predator in the room, killing the giant dead and wounding the predator severely. The spell picked up momentum as it passed through the chilling breach in the wall of ice, and spilled out again onto the balcony, where it blasted the fire elemental, Helkitren, and Imperagon.

“To hell with this!” shouted Helkitren, his wiry beard still steaming. “Imperagon, the deal is broken!” And with a puff of sulfur, the salamander was gone!

“Well done, Shorty!” shouted Keldas. “One down is good enough for me-- retreat!”

Keldas heard a low dwarven growl from the next room. “We are not leaving without your staff.”

“I have almost no sp—“

“WE ARE NOT LEAVING WITHOUT YOUR STAFF.”

“You may not leave at all, mortal!” screeched a gelugon, as yet another wall of ice sprang up—this time, inside the room and across the side door. Wulf, Karak, and the dragon were once again separated from the spellcasters.

A second gelugon entered the room and hissed at Shorty. “I suggest you drop all your magical protections…” Shorty’s will was weak, but among his various spells, only his mage armor could be dismissed at will.

On the other side of the wall of ice, the hallway was blasted with heat as the huge fire elemental flowed towards them. It moved past Wulf, still ignoring him, and put a fiery fist into the face of the dragon.

“Enough of this bullsh--,” Wulf grumbled. He dashed down the hallway, past the archon and the elemental, and hurled himself off the balcony. He flipped, rolled to his feet, and continued his headong charge right into the old woman. Taranak flashed eagerly as he swung it overhead, right down the center of the old woman’s forehead. Her wide-eyed, startled look gave way to an evil sneer as Wulf’s blow struck empty air.

“Displacement,” he said. “Oh, yer sneaky whore…”

Back in the hallway Karak had his hands full with the archon, who had finally decided to focus his attacks on the paladin. The dragon did his best, breathing lightning across the archon, elemental, and even the mephit, but for the most part their other-wordly foes were unimpressed. Keldas struck and struck again at the archon with his holy sword, missing repeatedly. With a burst of hasted action, he finally struck true, and the sword bit deeply into the evil heart of the archon.

The spellcasters were not having a good day. Imperagon walked into the room and breathed fire across them, the pit fiend cast a fireball, and the predator was snapping relentlessly at Diessa’s warhammer. Keldas managed to summon a dire bear to deal with the predator, while Shorty’s fingertips flashed with two prismatic sprays in a row. Unfortunately, among the various rays that struck, their infernal enemies had little trouble with fire, electricity, and poison. The gelugon responded with a cone of cold that struck them all—including the steel predator. The second gelugon did the same, striking even Imperagon. The gelugon’s gaffes were little consolation: when the frost and steam cleared, Diessa lay dead.

On the floor below, Wulf fought alone against the old woman. She skipped back several paces and cast a charm monster on Wulf, and he was tempted once again to call for Haela’s luck. Not today, he thought. By his own will, the spell failed.

The old woman saw the determination in Wulf’s eyes and thought better of the direct approach. She conjured a crackling blue fire shield to protect her. Wulf charged up and pushed her roughly against the wall. If he was going to strike through her displacement, he needed time to bring all his weapons to bear.

Another giant had entered the hall with Karak and the dragon. Sensing that the archon was a lost cause, the dragon unleashed its fury on the giant. His jaws struck a telling blow, followed by two claws and a rake with its wingtips. Feeling a rising confidence, his tail lashed out behind and struck the archon!

“I’ll deal with you in a moment, little gnat…” said the archon, pressing the attack on Karak. Dim explosions rattled the wall of ice behind him and the paladin knew that things were not going well for Keldas and Shorty.

Imperagon cast a fireball on the pair of them, while the predator wrestled viciously with the dire bear. Keldas could tell that the bear would not long survive, and neither he nor Shorty could contend with a steel predator. “We’ve done our best,” he said. Grabbing Shorty and Diessa’s remains, Keldas cast plane shift, and they were gone.

Fighting defensively, Karak drew on his divine powers to heal himself with one hand even as his other hand wielded holy vengeance. As the giant leaned in to attack him, Karak struck its head clean off its shoulders. So powerful was the blow that it carried straight through into the archon, powering past its defenses and biting deeply into its side once again. There was little time for Karak to enjoy the grim satisfaction, as the gelugons began teleporting into his hallway, looking for new prey. The pit fiend followed close behind, announcing its arrival with a wall of fire that surrounded Karak and the dragon.

“Change back,” Karak said. “We need to go!”

“But… the others?”

“They must already have left,” said Karak.

“Wulf?”

“I am sure he got out ok,” Karak lied. The paladin grabbed his boy, activated his helm of teleportation, and fled-- abandoning Wulf to his fate.

***

The old woman ran from Wulf once again, clearly knowing the odds were on her side as long as she kept the dwarf off his game. She tried charm monster again, and failing once again, conjured up a hemispherical wall of force to trap him once and for all.

“Cool your heels a bit, dwarf,”

Wulf nodded. Taranak and his mace were quickly and coolly stashed on his belt and Wulf reached over his back to draw something from his magic haversack. He brought his arms down and leveled a cocked and loaded crossbow at the old woman. A look of fear and recognition filled her eyes.

“That’s right,” Wulf said. He crimped the toe of his boot against the inside of the wall of force so he’d know instantly when it vanished. “I’m on to yer game. Nobody resists a maze, rakshasa.”

The pair of gelugons and the pit fiend arrived to surround Wulf, but he never took his eye or his aim off the old woman. Still, it was looking pretty bad. Wulf held the crossbow under one arm and grabbed a scroll of plane shift off his belt. He unrolled the scroll and scanned its contents.

Complete jibberish. “Dammit.”

The pit fiend stepped forward to demand his surrender. Wulf feigned deafness. “Eh? Can’t hear you through this wall!”

“Lower your weapons and perhaps we can come to an… arrangement.” Fiery spittle dropped from its jaws and fell hissing to the floor.

“What?” Wulf asked. “You mean… this?” He held out the useless scroll and grinned.

An ass to the last, Wulf thought. He gave himself a little thumbs up.

Wulf suddenly found himself standing back in his Forge.

“I’m saved! It’s a miracle!”

“You got that right,” said the Old Man.

Wulf had delayed just long enough. Once Keldas had plane shifted back, it was a simple matter for Shorty to teleport them back to the Forge, and thence to the Old Man.

The paladin was returned by the same manner.

“How did you get back?” he asked Wulf.

“Not YOU,” Wulf said.

The paladin’s boy spoke up. “I really thought you were better than this…”

Karak felt a sudden coldness in his heart. Tyr was not pleased.

The party fell to bickering for several minutes.

“You left! I couldn’t see you!” the paladin protested. “I assumed you were dead or gone.”

“Let me just see if I got this straight,” Wulf said incredulously. “Yer walk around the corner over there, I should just assume yer dead?”

“Staying was pointless! What good would more death have served?”

“I was pretty much fully healed,” the boy reminded him.

“So, Tyr is, like, the God of Valor, right?” asked Keldas, feigning ignorance.

“We were surrounded! That’s not valor, that’s suicide!”

“Chickensh*t,” Shorty said.

“And thank YOU, by the way,” Wulf said, rounding on Keldas. “Thanks for comin’ with me. Yer want that staff or NOT? I tell yer what, we get that thing back, yer better stick it in a friggin’ VAULT.”

The Old Man stepped in to intercede. “I think you will need to visit your temple, Karak, to seek an atonement.”

“I don’t think I WANT to atone!” yelled Karak.

The rest of the group was stunned to silence, but Wulf smiled and pounced on the paladin’s moment of weakness. “Aye, I’m with yer! Screw the gods, right?”

The argument continued unabated until the Old Man had heard enough. “I must resurrect Diessa.”

“Well, we’re out of cash, yer leech.”

The Old Man smiled. “Diessa is a child of Moradin. This one is on me.”

“I told you getting rid of Alliane was a good idea,” Keldas deadpanned. “She just saved us eight grand.”

***

Karak eventually returned from his temple.

“How’d it go?” asked Shorty.

“There is room for atonement. I must complete my quest—without resorting to any of my divine abilities. I don’t know how they expect me to complete this quest as a…” Karak gulped. The very thought was making him ill. “As a fighter.”

“Interesting,” Shorty said, kicking back and putting his feet up. “We were just thinking about dropping the whole thing.”

“Aye,” Wulf said. “So, ahh… good luck with all that.”

Karak looked ready to cry.

“Oh, cut it out,” Shorty said. “Unlike some people we don’t let our friends down. We’re not done yet.”

“Pfft… These paladins today,” Wulf said. “Back in my day yer’d be stripped o’ yer powers, no questions asked. So shut up and count yer blessin’s.”

“What’s the plan, then?”

“I figure we do the same thing, only this time without all the runnin’ away and abandonin’ yer friends.”

“Third time’s the charm,” said Shorty.

“Do we try the anti-magic scroll again?” the dragon asked.

“Next verse, same as the first!” Shorty sang.

“I’m outta cash,” Wulf said.

“I have a little tucked away,” Keldas admitted. “We’ll try it again.”

**

They returned to Acheron and prepped up about 200 yards off the main gate.

“The guards have changed,” said the dragon.

“What yer got?” Wulf asked.

“A black golem... and a kyton—or so I’d guess from all the chains.”

As they approached the gate, the kyton shouted, “Halt, in the name of the Lord of the Iron Fortress! I have been sent to parlay.”

“Start parlayin’ then.” Wulf crossed his arms.

“Imperagon seeks peace, and is prepared to offer you adamantine and baatorian steel to buy your favor.”

Wulf spit. “We’re not leavin’ without the head of Imperagon.”

Wulf paused. “Err... How much adamantine are we talkin’ here?”

But it was too late. His allies had already begun the attack. Karak and the dragon rushed past in a fury, and it was all Wulf could do to keep up with the dragon.

“Gotta protect him till we hit Imperagon!” Wulf said. “He’s my mobile fightin’ platform.”

Shorty, Keldas, and Diessa stood in the back and applauded politely at Karak’s efforts—their spells were of no use against their foes. Keldas stepped forward for a moment as if to join the fight.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Shorty asked. “Stay clear.”

Keldas waved him off. “It’s all right. I’m going to cast rapid strikes on the false paladin.”

With that aid and some timely healing from Diessa, they were once more inside the fortress. They paused just long enough for Shorty to dispel the forbiddance that permeated the area. “That might help a little...”

Once again they charged up the stairs, threw open the door, and began their third and final assault on Imperagon. They had all learned a thing or two in their last encounter. The dragon flew inside, shielded with anti-magic, and hovered in mid-air for the entire battle, simply doing his part to keep three summoned gelugons suppressed.

Shorty made quick work of their enemies with wall of force, seperating them out as best he could, and to counter the forcefields thrown up by their enemies, he used dimension door to keep the party on the offense.

The old woman had changed forms for the occasion, this time appearing as a small boy; little did she know if there was one thing the paladin couldn’t resist, it was a chance to tangle with a small boy. Karak pressed the attack on her, striking blow after blow through her displacement, until at last she was forced to withdraw. She threw a wall of force around the paladin and the fallen archon, trapping the two nemeses inside together.

Karak held for a moment while Wulf pounded on the outside of his force bubble. “What are yer waitin’ for?”

Karak chose retreat over redemption. With the forbiddance wisely taken care of in advance, he was able to use his helm to teleport just outside the bubble, into the healing touch of Diessa. The archon followed quickly with dimension door, but Keldas was ready and sent him off with a maze spell.

“That won’t hold him long,” Keldas warned.

Indeed, the archon was back in mere moments, having simply used plane shift to escape the demi-plane.

Keldas wasn’t finished by half. He cast power word stun on the pit fiend—adequately weakened by Shorty’s repeated blasts—and while Wulf and Karak set about dismantling the devil, Keldas summoned a dire bear to deal with the rakshasa. Thinking back on the number of times he’d been threatened by the grapple of the steel predators, he thought it only fair to give the rakshasa a taste of her own medicine.

Huge claws grabbed the rakshasa and pulled it in. The rakshasa struggled for several rounds, using Keldas’ staff to detonate fireball after fireball right into the dire bear’s jaws, with no regard for itself, friend, or foe that might be nearby. But with Diessa standing behind the bear with a wand of healing-- the bear was so big, in fact, its ass protruded a good 10 feet outside the blast of the fireball-- there was no escape. The rakshasa fell, at last.

Keldas scooped up his staff. “Let me show you how this is done!”

He summoned an angelic deva.

The deva casually killed the pit fiend with a backhand stroke and headed for the archon. “You’ve been very naughty, brother...”

The archon didn’t stick around for his punishment.

One by one, they mopped up their enemies until at last, only Imperagon was left, broken and beaten.

Wulf grabbed him roughly. “Who’s yer daddy?”

“Ashardalon,” Imperagon said. “Can’t you tell?”

“Not really,” Keldas said. “We’d heard Ashardalon was kind of tough...”

“Tell me what yer been doin’ with the souls of dwarves,” Wulf asked.

“Working to complete an artifact for myself.”

“What?”

“The Blade of Fiery Might.”

“Already got one.” Wulf said, shoving him away.

“What else can you tell us about Ashardalon?” Keldas asked.

“For the love of god,” Wulf said. “We just got done with one adventure, yer settin’ up the next one. Give it a friggin’ rest already.”

Imperagon ignored him. “He has been revitalizing himself!” The dwarf grinned and would have laughed, but wisely choked it off. Keldas’ face didn’t show the slightest tolerance for a sense of humor, let alone megalomaniacal dramatics.

“Revitalizing himself?” Keldas asked. His hands tightened on his staff.

“He found a... power source. In the Abyss. Something to restore his heart.”

“Yer know who destroyed that heart?” Wulf asked. He stood behind Keldas and pointed a silent, accusatory finger at him. HE DID! he mouthed.

The deva stepped forward. “Allow me to take Imperagon into custody.”

“I’m more the whackin’ persuasion, myself,” Wulf admitted.

“He is harmless now,” the deva said. “A proper welcome—and an impenetrable cell—has been prepared for him in the heavens.”

“All right, all right. I can agree to that.” Wulf said. “Just after I strip him naked and paint his ass blue.”

Lord of the Iron Fortress -- EPILOGUE

EPILOGUE

While the rest of the group scoured the tower for magic items and more traditional loot, Wulf was whistling a jaunty tune and shovelling a king’s ransom in pure adamantine ore into his portable hole.

He paused at a smaller mound of green baatorian steel.

“Demon-steel?” he thought. “Ferkit, I don’t care.” It joined the adamantine in the hole. Wulf rolled it up and stuffed the little velvet pouch in his belt. You wouldn’t know to look at him that he was carrying over 300,000 gold crowns’ worth of raw ore.

Which I can double or triple by working at the Forge! Wulf nearly hopped with excitement.

They returned home, but it was not long before the group split up. Wulf stayed on at the Forge, of course, and encouraged Dorn to expand his temple to Haela. He even allowed Keldas to build a wizard’s tower atop the mountain above.

Shorty felt a calling back to Ossington and took possession of Dyson’s old tower.

Karak went back to his temple, no doubt, to properly train his boy.

TWO YEARS PASS

Wulf got an unexpected visit from Karak.

“Well...” Karak said. “If you wouldn’t mind, I was hoping you would make a holy sword for me.”

“Let me see,” Wulf said. “Last time we were together yer abandoned me, then yer don’t say a word for two years, and now yer suddenly show up and yer askin’ ME to make yer holy sword?”

“Yes.”

“Just checking,” Wulf said. “Thanks for the vote of trust.”

Karak smiled. “Great! I hear you do good work here...”

“Only the best,” Wulf said. Indeed one of his earliest moves was to enchant his hammer, tongs, even the Forge itself, to greatly enhance his smithing abilities.

In due time he sent Karak a parcel containing a magnificent blade of green-hued steel.

**

Wulf chuckled to himself, but it didn't last long. The Old Man hounded him on a near daily basis. “You need to marry,” he said. “I will not allow you to be King unless you are willing to leave an heir...”

“Well...” Wulf began.

“A legitimate heir.” The Old Man rolled his eyes.

“Wives and babies aren’t for me,” Wulf said. “I don’t need that kind o’ vulnerability.”

FOUR YEARS PASS

Over the next couple of years Wulf, Dorn, and Keldas enjoyed some simple adventuring, enough to keep their skills fresh and to support the creation of a few new magic items.

Wulf himself had been VERY busy over the past four years. He had a nice black market in baatorian steel weapons, which of course necessitated certain dealings with the local Thieves’ Guild—though Wulf was suitably removed from the transactions through several middlemen. Of course, when the upright citizens of the area discovered the illicit trade, Wulf was more than happy to volunteer to crush the local Guild.

And then take it over.

“Maybe not King,” Wulf admitted. “But I’ll take Guildmaster.”

Wulf had slowly but steadily been attracting “his kind” of people to his banner. In addition to many smiths, spies, thieves, and other experts in his employ, he spent a good deal of his time training a loyal group of dwarven tunnel-fighters. The group spurred Wulf’s creativity at the forge as well, and he developed a fine chain shirt specifically for their use:

The simple secret to his “Dwarven Chain” was a single ring of adamantine joined by four rings of mithril. Strong, light, flexible, quiet, and comfortable. His own prototype shirt was enchanted with silence and shadow.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to,” the Old Man told him one day. “You really ought to think about getting married. Diessa, you know...”

“Give it a rest, already. Yer got my money. Yer got a nice temple... Yer and Dorn both, plus all the rest...”

“Yes,” the Old Man said. “I can’t tell you how happy I was to see that you had commissioned... What was it? ‘An unspecified altar to a giant fist.’”

Wulf made the fist.

TEN YEARS PASS

Ten years of prosperity and peace—if one didn’t count the constant nagging of the Old Man. “You ready to marry yet?”

“No.”

“Okay... How about now?”

FIFTEEN YEARS PASS

In year fifteen, the Baron of Brindenford was assassinated.

Always one to see the silver lining, Wulf sought out the Old Man and found him in the temple with Diessa.

“NOW I am ready to marry,” Wulf announced. “Seems the baron had some enemies.”

“Let me guess,” the Old Man said. “The Baron’s daughter is ascending to leadership.”

“Aye. Good time for an alliance, right?”

“Out of the question. The baron’s daughter already has a suitor.”

“Son of a...” Wulf growled.

“What do you have against a good dwarf woman?” the Old Man asked.

Wulf looked at Diessa. “Well... There’s always room for concubines... What? What did I say?”

SEVENTEEN YEARS PASS

At last, the Old Man passed away.

Wulf got a little carried away in the ensuing celebrations, and in due time Diessa came to him with her own “happy news.”

“Yer ferkin’ kiddin’ me.”

They were married quickly, and in the natural way of such things, it wasn’t long before Wulf was ready to go adventuring again.

“I’ll go with you,” Diessa said.

For Wulf, it was a fate worse than death. Marriage was one thing, but at least with Diessa it wasn’t so bad: you didn’t really worry at night when your wife could cast holy word.

But a child? That had “plot device of the gods” written all over it.

He was trapped.

Screwed.

“Great!” Wulf said. “I was thinking maybe some deep dungeon with lots of dangerous, crumbling stone stairs.”

Hey Wulf,


I just wanted to take a minute to offer up a quick thank you for all of your hard work and effort in keeping 'those of us who lurk' entertained. I've been reading the Big Three (PC, Sagiro, and your Story Hour) since the inception of the Story Hour back on the old boards.

I figure it's about time I said thank you! Your writing is inspirational, witty, and down-right FUN! Keep it coming!


Tempest