The Gate Pass Irregulars: A War of the Burning Sky Campaign

[RangerWickett]

I'll wait patiently, since this is the first time since my playtests that I've had the chance to hear what people went through in these later adventures. Keep it up, please.

Also I'm fascinated by the absence of something, but I'll wait until you reach the end of the adventure before I ask about it, in case your GM changed it intentionally.

 

[Azkorra]

Ok, so I'm startin' to get a bit worried here as your breaks have never been that long, Cafu. I really hope you are all well and the campaign is still goin' on. Your story hour is one of the best here on these boards so it would be a real shame to see it trickle out after so many years...Eagerly awaiting your next post!

 

[Cafu]

Thanks for your interest Azkorra; in reply to your post above, yes the campaign is going strong; I have just returned from a session today in fact. The reason for the breaks is several fold; real life takes over around Christmas and we have not met face to face as often as we usually do; one of the players changed his role at work which means he travels a great deal more, meaning that Fantasy Ground sessions are not as easy as they used to be and finally, this part of the game very difficult to write up and try to do it justice.

Having said all that, I do have a chunk ready to go and today's session still to do so hopefully, I will be able to resume my schedule either this Tuesday or Tuesday next week.

Again, thanks for your interest.

 

[carborundum]

I was just going to pile my curiosity and hopes on top of Akzorra's but you beat me to it
Glad to hear all's well, the RL monster is a true beast and no mistake. I'm looking forward to your next post, but patiently ;-)

 

[Cafu]

It didn’t take us very long to finally reach to the water’s surface. Although the Abyssal Pillars rose out of the water, there was no sign of any land anywhere; however, we could all clearly see a darker stain on the surface, which I assumed must have been the blood slick that Sagrimar had mentioned.

As instructed, we followed the slick.

It took quite a long time but finally we saw that the slick led to a small rocky outcrop rising out of the sea. I frowned; it didn’t resemble the outcrop which we had seen in the crystal ball situated in Sagrimar’s castle. It was shrouded in fog and we could only glimpse a patch of rock here and there. Oddly, although it was difficult to feel any wind, it looked as if something was moving the fog on the island or outcrop or whatever it was.

We stopped briefly to consider our next course of action. John cast a spell on, Longhelim, Drudge, me and himself which allowed us to communicate without speaking; we were able to hear and formulate words mind to mind; this was most useful.

Longhelim spoke aloud:

“Well, according to Sagrimar, that’s where she’s supposed to be; doesn’t look big enough.”

Looking dubiously at the bank of fog, I replied:

“Appearances are meaningless in this place; there could be a whole city nearby and we wouldn’t be able to tell. We may as well approach.”

So, we flew on and closed on the crag. The fog became so thick that it looked almost solid but as we finally were about to land, suddenly there was a rustle and a swish of air and then the fog parted only for us to hear an enormous thump as a huge drawbridge suddenly appeared to be falling on top of us.

Fortunately, we were all able to react and get out of the way.

The drawbridge stretched from a huge building which had been shrouded in the fog. I wasn’t sure if the building had been invisible or hidden in the fog bank but suddenly it was just there. As usual for this place, the island was obviously bigger than it looked and things were never what they seemed.

The building was an impressive structure, a veritable palace and the drawbridge led to a pair of fittingly large doors. Just as this happened, the fog began to move in eddies, as if there were hundreds of odd shapes moving inside. I was about to point this out to the others when I saw that everyone was already aware; as usual, I was the last to see anything like this.

Rather than find out just what was inside the mist, we began to fly towards the doors. Just as we landed in front of them, I heard a voice in my head:

“You have done well, far better than I expected. It has been a very long time since mortals have been able to penetrate so far into my realm. Come in, come in. There is no need for aggression. Instead, let us parley. I am sure we would find it mutually advantageous to converse with each other.”

The voice was young and female, almost merry; it was also obvious by the startled looks on everyone’s faces that we had all heard her voice. Mentally, I said to the others:

“That would be Freedom I would think. We were told this trillith was a lady and she’s obviously aware that we are here so we may as well oblige her.”

John quickly checked the doors and gave Victor a quick nod. The warrior stepped up and opened them.

They opened to reveal a large, luxurious room with a stone floor and walls. The main features were two large fountains shaped like statues of hydras, each of the twelve heads gushing water. Each of the fountains was surrounded by benches. In the back of the room a wooden stage wooden stage had been built, above which was a balcony. The stage was flanked by two sets of stone stairs leading up to this balcony. The back wall was completely covered with a heavy, dark curtain. Something was glinting on its surface, as if affixed there. Finally there were three doors on the side walls; one at each corner of the left wall and the last on the upper right.

I wasn’t paying a great deal of attention to the interior of the room as the movement in the outer mists became more pronounced and I could finally see hundreds upon hundreds of incorporeal trilliths flying rapidly in and out of it.

I cleared my throat and said:

“Ah….Victor, Longhelim, if we’re going in, now would be a good time…….”

The others looked around at the trilliths and rapidly moved into the room. As soon as Drudge crossed the threshold, the doors slammed and we heard a portcullis crash down behind them.

Curiously, we looked around for a few moments when the drapes ahead of us suddenly moved and a figure appeared from behind the upper left corner. It looked like a young woman, with very dark hair, pale skin and a very comely face and figure. She was dressed in very little, with only a small brassiere covering her upper torso and a longer split skirt coming down to her ankles but with the split going up her waist. She wore various pieces of decoration around her upper arms, ankles and wrists; oddly, she had a key in her hair, another attached to her waist and a last one around her ankle. She also carried a dagger in her hand. I had seen outfits like that before, normally on tavern entertainers, dancers to be exact. In fact, that was exactly what she reminded me of, now that I thought about it; a dancer from a tavern; a very good one of course.

She looked at us and then gave us a slight bow:

“Greetings, gentlemen. As I said previously, it has been a long time since a group of mortals has passed all of our tests.”

She paused as if she was searching for the right words to say and began to descend slowly down the left bank of stairs.

“From my understanding, you have come to stop us, I believe?”

Before we could reply, she continued:

“No need to reply, I know you have. Please, before else happens, let me explain our situation to you. We are a race of beings just like you; but….unlike you, we can exist in two states, one of which is much weaker than the other. When our Mother is awake, we can only exist in our corporeal form which makes us very vulnerable. My people, all of us, are very afraid when we are bound this way.”

I was listening very carefully to this; finally, the secrets of the trillith were being revealed to me; after months of speculation and assumption, Freedom was telling us about the nature of the trillith.

She sat down on the bottom step and continued speaking:

“In a few days, we will be able to transcend this plane and turn it into an entity of the soul, setting us free. Mother will join us and she will also be free. This freedom will spill into your world and everyone else will also be liberated from their forms of the flesh. But it does not stop there: not only will you be free of your corporeal forms but you will also be free from the capriciousness of gods and devils who rule your lives now. They will no longer have any power over you.”

She stood up and smiled at us; it was a very dazzling smile:

“Please, join us; you must see how glorious this new state of being would be. You would be immortal, free of your flesh and have everything you dream of.”

She waited expectantly as she looked at us.

I heard John mutter:

“Everything I can dream of? I can dream of quite a bit actually.”

Mentally, I quickly spoke to Longhelim, Drudge and John:

“I am sure you caught this but when she spoke of liberating everyone from their forms of flesh and setting them free, that meant that they would die. I am not sure how we would become forms of the spirit but that could probably work in this plane but it certainly wouldn’t work on our normal plane. Everyone would have to die. She’s planning genocide. That’s not really compatible with our plans.”

Longhelim murmured in return:

“No, it’s not really, is it?”

Drudge whirled with his bow at the ready and shot her.

I must say, it took me a little by surprise but Victor and Longhelim were obviously expecting it. She must have been as well since she dodged most of the arrows and leapt forward with uncanny, fluid grace. She swept past us, her dagger glowing and slicing into Longhelim. Something odd happened which I couldn’t quite catch as I was at the back of the room at this point but whatever it was, it made Longhelim sag, as if he had been badly hurt; obviously not just an ordinary dagger. Simultaneously, I saw something equally strange. Everyone’s clothes became loose, including armour, backpacks, belts; in fact any sort of fastenings on containers or clothing had unravelled. While this was annoying on something like a belt, it was far more serious for the warriors as their armour suddenly sagged around their torsos and became far less protective than it should have been.

The two fountain statues of hydras suddenly transformed into flesh and attacked; with their twelve heads, they were already fearsome opponents, but they became even deadlier since the armour of the warriors wasn’t working properly. Just to make things even more interesting, Drudge shouted:

“Something just triggered my ring! There’s more of them! Invisible!”

His ring acted as a defence against the spell which dissolved magic; what was more concerning was that there were more of them I could not see them, even though I had a spell which normally allowed me to see invisible beings; so did Felix for that matter. There were magical ways around those spells but they required a great expertise in magic.

The two hydras were lashing out with their heads and poor Longhelim, having been badly hurt previously, collapsed, his body burning. Drudge was shooting at Freedom while Felix managed to bolster us with the power of his god. I looked around and decided that I would put a little prison of force around Freedom. It would no doubt keep her occupied for only a few moments but at least she would not be able to vacate it by turning incorporeal as it was specifically designed to prevent that. She would have to find another trick to escape.

Victor moved to her and tried to approach without realizing that she was now imprisoned. Felix managed to put a barrier of force blades into one of the hydras but then another spell was cast from somewhere; frustratingly, I was unable to locate the source. So, I cast another spell, this time designed to weaken the hydras. Victor had approached one of the hydras, while, amazingly, Freedom was still inside my spell. She was not doing anything. John was shooting the other hydra and then suddenly……..

I caught a glimpse of the two hydras striking at Victor in one fountain and at Felix in the other before suddenly I was enclosed in stone; or rather, a small stone box grew out of the floor and formed around me, effectively shutting me in. Immediately, John spoke to me through his mental communication spell:

“Aaaah, we’re in a stone box. It’s very dark and I don’t like it. I think hydras are still wreaking havoc outside.”

This new development was irritating but not that threatening. I turned myself invisible and then I turned into a creature of the earth; my shape was like an enormous worm with a red hot head. However, it’s main feature was that it could burrow through stone, which I promptly did. Getting out, I saw that the hydra which had been in the fountain next to Victor was no longer there but there was a stone box next to the fountain. There was also another of these boxes fairly close to me and I was sure that was where John and Drudge were being currently confined, so I promptly burrowed a hole in their wall.

While I realised that we were inside a dragon’s dream, it was disconcerting that we had no indication as to who was creating these walls or how they were being formed. Drudge had stepped through the hole I had made and I could also hear as Victor smashed the wall of one his box only to be immediately enveloped in another.

I heard a roar as the final hydra stooped down and attempted to strike a fallen Longhelim, who was no longer burning; in fact he was swinging his axe very effectively from the ground. I assumed that Felix had done something to heal the paladin. He was still being hit by the creature but with one final mighty heave, he managed to strike it and it ceased to move.

Just then, the fallen trumpet archon which we had slain before reaching the palace, appeared in the room and began to advance on Victor, who was smashing his way through the latest stone box. I groaned, thinking that the dream had somehow managed to find and return her here.

“It’s an illusion! She’s not real!”

We all heard the cry from Felix, who fortunately, still had his spell which allowed him to see through such magic.

Then suddenly, a very large tent appeared over the whole area; yes, a very large tent; it was a very nice tent. I gaped at this and then I remembered; Felix had obtained a strange, magical rod; amongst other things, it could create a large tent with a repast and the comforts of a palace. I realised that Felix was attempting to hide himself and Longhelim from those who were creating the stone boxes and the illusions. His logic being that if they could not see their targets then they would not be able to be affect them. Unfortunately, this theory was quickly disproved when Felix shouted:

“There’s a stone box around Longhelim!”

The paladin was in the tent with him and it obviously made little difference. I was still in the shape of a terran worm while I could see that Victor was in the air, flying towards the balcony with the curtains. Then, I saw a hole being cut on the roof of the tent and Felix flying out of it; he joined Victor on the balcony and together they drew the curtain to one side. I had been watching and readied to change back to a dwarf and cast one of the few spells I had left but they revealed only an empty room, leaving us with the mystery of just who or what was enabling the formation of the stone boxes and the creation of the illusions?

I saw Victor glancing at Felix, who shook his head; it was obvious that the room was truly empty. So, somehow, something somewhere was creating illusions and shaping stone boxes around us. However, all of this was being done without any sort of detection; as if the whole castle was alive or sentient.

We spent a few precious moments looking around, trying to find the beings responsible without success, although these actions did reveal something else. As Felix ducked his head down into the tent, he shouted:

“Freedom’s gone! That magical cage is an illusion!”

So, she had disappeared as well.

 

[carborundum]

I'll shout "YES!" first and then get reading

 

[carborundum]

Wow, that's quite the situation. Armour-less, out of spells, equipment on the floor, pants round the ankles, and it's end-boss time. Harsh!

 

[Cafu]

We looked at each other and then Longhelim signaled to us to get to one of the doors; we decided that we would try to open the single door to our left as we first entered the room. So, flying over to it, we waited until John had finished using his strange chime.

I could hear him muttering as he took out the item:

“Everything in this place is locked of course!”

Still, whatever magic he had in the chime worked and he moved aside so that Victor could open the door. The warrior did so and we all peered into the newly revealed room.

It was quite ordinary, relatively speaking of course; three large tables surrounded a fire pit in its center. There were several large windows looking out over the ocean while a set of stairs led to another balcony and another door leading out of the center of the left wall as we entered. The other interior walls were covered with tapestries showing differing races of the world. Cautiously, Victor moved in; as soon as he did so, there was a shout from Felix:

“A golden triangle has lit up on the curtain here!”

Curiously, I peered back into the room with the fountains and saw that indeed the priest was correct; a newly revealed triangle had begun glowing on the curtain.

Longhelim quickly thought out loud:

“So, as soon as we enter into a new room, another triangle appears? So, how many do we need to light up, do we think? And why? And what happens when a sufficient number shine?”

His thinking was interrupted by suddenly another box enveloping Victor who had come too close to the floor as he flew through the door. Unfortunately, it looked as if that was going to happen to everyone as there was no other way of entering into the room.

John had been looking through the door and he alerted us to other concurrent events:

“Something’s happening! Ah, Freedom’s turned up again through that other door! Oh, and there are people walking out of the tapestries! Really big people!”

It sounded like he was spouting nonsense so I quickly went to see what was going on; Victor was smashing his way through the ceiling of the box and beginning to get out; and John had been right; five beings had appeared; they looked like giant versions of a dwarf, an orc, a human, an elf and a gnome. They were armed, armoured and converging on the doorway; Freedom also seemed to be getting ready for something, if quite nonchalantly. Nothing loth, Victor immediately stepped towards the giant dwarf…..and that was the last that I saw since when I moved through the door, I had to stoop quite low and suddenly I found myself inside a box. I had to turn into a terran worm again and burrow my way through the stone.

When I poked my head out, I saw that Victor was already managing to contain the dwarf while the others were still approaching. Drudge was looking disgusted and muttering:

“Not one hit! I can’t believe how fast she is!”

I changed back to being dwarf and flew up into the air again. I could see that the creatures all moved towards Felix and several of them struck him. He was reeling and in trouble so I cast my last powerful offensive spell. I didn’t have the range to affect all of the enemy so I concentrated on two of them and Freedom. The spell worked, weakening them all but unfortunately, it didn’t stop Freedom from sprinting forward with feral grace and slicing her dagger deeply into Felix. The wound was peculiar, driven by her power and speed and far more powerful than a dagger should normally be; it was almost as if she drove her dagger and arm straight through his torso. The priest staggered and dropped to the ground; another stone box immediately enveloped him; ironically, that helped enormously as it stopped Freedom from coming back and attacking the priest again; instead she sprang towards Drudge with those bounding jumps and sliced the ranger instead. Again, the wound was deep but not nearly as powerful as the one dealt to Felix.

Victor took the opportunity to step forward and in one of his complicated combinations of blows, dodges and steps, managed to slice his way through two of the giants, the elf and the human; Drudge shot the gnome leaving only the orc. Unfortunately, then he was trapped into another stone box and irritatingly, he had no way of getting out. I turned into the worm shaped earth elemental and put a hole into one of the walls. Victor stepped up and dealt with the giant orc who had also just been hit by one of Drudge’s volleys.

I was about to fly up when I realised with a shock that Freedom was next to me! Her arm swept up and her dagger went deeply into my side with such strength that I only felt a thump in my side when everything went black…….

When I opened my eyes, I was inside a stone box again; this one had a hole in its roof though. John was in the same box and he had just tapped me with his wand. Quickly, he whispered:

“She’s still about. Drudge managed to get two arrows into her and she hit Victor badly. Watch yourself! You’re still very weak!”

Carefully, I floated up and saw her near the door through which we had come. I drew out my wand of lightning bolts and fired one off at her; she dodged it contemptuously and then grinned at me, as if inviting another. Then Victor literally leaped as gracefully as he could with half his armour falling around him and hit her with a precise, powerful blow which even drew a frown from her.

She withdrew, running through the door at a speed that none of us could match.

We all flew up into the air and various healing wands were produced. As Felix, Longhelim and John were using them, we all held a hurried conversation. First, Longhelim spoke:

“As I said previously, I think that as we enter each room, a triangle will light up. How many we have to enter and what happens at the end is anyone’s guess.

The first room contained the hydras and this room had the giants. I suspect that each room will have some sort of guardian or obstacle; as well as Freedom stalking us of course.”

Drudge was taking some more arrows out of various magical containers and replenishing his assortment of quivers:

“This building is almost alive; all the doors are locked to us but not to her; and as soon as we get near the floor or walls, they reach out and put us in boxes, so we have to make sure we stay away from them; some of us have ways of getting out of them but others don’t and they are annoying.”

John in the meantime was nonchalantly flicking something up in the air and catching it again. The motion drew everyone’s attention and I asked:

“John, what’s that?”

He flicked it up again and then caught it:

“It’s one of Freedom’s keys. I snatched it off her as she stabbed Faden. It could be why she can just casually go through the locked doors of this place without a care in the world.”

I remembered the three keys which we saw upon Freedom when she first introduced herself; they were in her hair, her belt and on her ankle. Considering how fast she moved, snatching it from her was no mean feat.

John grinned:

“Now, I’ll just have to get the other two from her and maybe she’ll bounce!”

By this point, we had all healed so Longhelim asked:

“Is everyone ready? We need to go through this new door!”

We all nodded and after John performed his trick with the chime, we opened it.

It revealed a room which was obviously a kitchen. It was split into two levels, the lower of which had several tables which were used for food preparation; a set of stairs led up a large balcony which had a door opposite to this one and another door on the wall to the right. There was another curtain on the left.

There was no sign of anyone.

We flew in, making sure to be as far as possible from the floor and the walls. We gathered near the door to the right and began to get ready to open it. Suddenly, a group of elaborately dressed individuals appeared out of thin air; from a quick glance, they looked like kitchen staff; a cook with his distinctive hat, a scullion in a short sleeved shirt, a maid in uniform, a housekeeper of some sort in a long dress. However, normal kitchen staff didn’t appear out of thin air and this group immediately began to attempt to grab the magical stones floating above our heads.

They didn’t shout or speak, they just stretched their hands and tried to snatch the stones. The silence was most eerie. Longhelim was the first to react as he pummeled one to the side. Then one maid actually managed to snatch one of Felix’s stones; she tried to run away but at this point Drudge shot her. Thankfully, I was too far away from them to try to steal from me but that didn’t stop them from continuing to try and then Freedom appeared through the other door and sprang forward again, attacking Victor this time. She obviously realised the danger he represented after his last blow. The warrior staggered but stayed upright. Having struck, she ran through the door below.

By this stage, we were all fighting the kitchen staff or whatever they were; it was obvious that Freedom was using them as a distraction. This, in combination with their obsessive attempts to take from us, made them too dangerous to spare or ignore and Longhelim, Victor and Drudge began to dispose of them.

Freedom appeared again and again sped towards Victor with her unearthly speed but this time, the warrior seemed to wait carefully and swayed at the last moment, timing it to perfection and allowing her dagger to pass harmlessly past his side. Even with most of his armour falling off him, Victor was capable of using his skills at avoiding weapons. For the first time, I heard a sound of frustration from Freedom as she swept through the door opposite.

In the meantime, Longhelim and Victor had managed to finish or drive away the rest of the kitchen staff and Drudge shot the maid who had stolen Felix’s stone. We quickly opened the door near which we had congregated, with both Longhelim and Victor keeping a careful lookout for Freedom. The door revealed nothing but a storeroom and we did not have the time to examine it properly. The key thing was that when John stepped into it, a triangle did not appear on the curtain.

That left the other door in the room, through which Freedom had disappeared.

Again we congregated around the door and, using our usual precautions, we opened it to reveal a garden. The first thing I noticed were thousands upon thousands of trillith hovering in the air and watching us, silently. Once I had recovered from seeing them, I saw that the garden had three trees in it as well as another exit in the middle of the left wall.

John whispered:

“Those trees are going to animate; just like they did in the Haunted Forest of Ycengled. We all know it’s going to happen; ordinary trees? In this place? Not a chance!”

Longhelim just nodded and then flew into the room. We all followed him. As soon as the last person of our group, namely Drudge, flew over the threshold, the doors behind us slammed shut and a mass of brambles and thorns appeared, trapping us. I gritted my teeth; this was the very annoying spell which had been used against us very recently. The thorns and brambles got everywhere and scratched in places most painful. It helped if one was wearing armour of course but even so, these brambles just trapped everyone. Last time, Victor and Longhelim were subject to a powerful magic which allowed them to move through the brambles without any hindrance, but sadly, that spell had finished.

Felix of course did not have any problem with this; Farlaghn gave his priests specific powers to cope with situations of this type and I could just change into something so tiny that I would not be affected by the thorns, but the others were in trouble; especially, as the slightest of movements drew blood and then Victor shouted:

“The trees are moving!”

That had also been expected and I waited for them to begin to attempting to strike us. Then Drudge shouted:

“They can’t get into the brambles! They can’t get at us!”

Well, that was unexpected. I was thinking I would have to employ my transformation magic to turn into something so small they would not be able to see me but since they couldn’t actually reach me, it would not be problem.

Then Freedom opened the door behind us and saw the situation; immediately, she turned transparent and stepped into the room, gently floating upwards; curious, I watched her latest deviltry. Abruptly, she became solid and fell past John, slashing him with her dagger as the dropped, before becoming insubstantial as she reached the ground. John groaned and writhed; he had obviously been hurt quite badly. This was also a tactic that we were unable to prevent as we were all held fast with the exception of Felix and myself as I mentioned previously.

Seeing this, Felix shouted, as he positioned himself in the centre of our grouping:

“Everyone get ready!”

And then we were suddenly in another room. This space seemed to be completely empty with the exception of the curtain to the left of us and a door facing us in the opposite wall; by this point, we had little interest in exploration; our main aim was to go through each room and light up the triangles. We were getting very low on healing and Freedom’s persistent attacks were wearing us down.

So, we flew across and opened the door. This time, as we flew in, the room proved to be far more interesting. Potentially far more dangerous but certainly more interesting. It was lined with a multitude of shelves which held a whole collection of crystal spheres. It was impossible to see what was inside the spheres but from my own experience, these normally held precious gases or liquids; more often than not, dangerous dangerous substances.

I spoke quietly to the others:

“This could be something alchemical. Let’s go quickly and quietly. I have a horrible feeling that if one of these shatters, it could set off a chain reaction.”

There were other floors in this room but there was also a door leading south or to our left. No doubt there may have been other interesting things on those two upper floors but mindful of our state, we flew straight south.

Again, we opened the door with little difficulty and revealed another large room. The walls of this room were covered with tapestries depicting maps. My attention was riveted to them. I recognised many of these. One of them purported to show the way to the location of the Ring of Gax; another showed the route to a cave which contained the Hand of Vecna; yet another showed a large Temple which apparently had a secret room which contained the Cudgel of St. Cuthbert. Of course we were flying through the room as I was seeing these and I whispered urgently:

“Look…….,” as I veered to the left to another tapestry only to be caught by Drudge who shook his head and motioned me urgently towards the door directly to the south of us. This room was on a split level as usual, with us beginning our flight on a balcony which the dropped a little distance. Just as we cleared the edge of the balcony, a pile of gold coins suddenly appeared behind us; we all heard them and looked at this new development with suspicion as gold coins don’t usually just appear out of nowhere; not only did it just appear it suddenly began to move and attain a shape; a dragon shape and it breathed fire just like a dragon as well; as we found out a moment later.

Thankfully, Victor, John and I still had our scaly skin which protected us against fire but the others did suffer slightly despite their magical protection against fire. Victor hit it very hard; it recoiled from his blow, which meant that it did react like a creature. I shook my head; a golden dragon? Made out of gold coins? Trilla’s dreams really were getting stranger and stranger, I thought as I changed into an enormous frost worm and breathed over the dragon, causing it to rear back. The door behind us opened and Freedom sped through, striking Victor on the way past. The warrior staggered and his side quickly turned red. Looking around, she was gone through another door.

A weakened Victor was left in front of the dragon, who hit him with everything it had; it bit him, clawed him, a golden tail smashed against the warrior and he was pummeled with a pair of wings. Victor could not withstand that and fell to the ground, burning. A box of stone immediately enveloped him. However, this did leave the dragon open to a volley from Drudge, followed by a series of mighty strikes from Longhelim; this left it staggering and so I struck the final blow as a huge worm. That was the final blow and it dissipated into a pile of coins which then disappeared into the ground.

 

[carborundum]

This is excruciating!

 

[Cafu]

Somehow, I had managed to strike the last blow in a fight against a dragon; all right, I was in the shape of a frost worm and the dragon was made of gold coins but still……I didn’t think many wizards, dwarven or otherwise, could say that.

Freedom appeared again, and this time she threw her dagger at me. That hurt. I changed into a gelugon. It seemed a nice, friendly shape and gave me all sorts of advantages, including self-healing. Freedom rushed past and disappeared through the door yet again. Longhelim had to get close to the ground to avoid her and annoyingly, he was again enveloped in a stone cage.

A moment later, John grinned at the rest of us and held up his hand; this time, we could all see that he held two keys; I had to hand it to him; I had no idea how he had managed to get the second key but somehow, he did.

Felix, in the meantime, had been able to get to Victor and heal him a little; once conscious, the warrior had smashed his way through the roof of the box and we flew towards the exit. As he flew by the cage that was imprisoning Longhelim, he smashed the ceiling. The paladin took the opportunity to fly out and joined the warrior. Freedom had run through the door and stood to one side albeit some distance away; this time she just watched us. Ominously, she wasn’t even sweating; she looked unhurt, unhurried and completely unconcerned about our progress. It was almost as if this was just a game to her and to see just how far we could get. I had a horrible feeling that she could intensify the defense of her Mother’s sleeping place whenever she wanted.

The two warriors reached the door and Freedom still just watched. John took this opportunity to fly up to Victor and heal him a little. The warrior was still very badly hurt from tangling with the dragon a few moments ago. Longhelim was also tapping him with wands; ominously, I saw Freedom smirking as she watched all this. Once Victor was a little better, John moved to the last door and used his magical chime, which was followed by Victor opening the door.

This time, the door revealed another balcony with a set of stairs leading down. The walls were full of jagged spikes coming out of the walls; apart from that it was empty with the exception of a huge fire pit in the middle of the room. Curiously, the wall to our right was staggered, as if it had a set of stairs on it.

Victor flew in and shouted:

“I’m being pulled to the wall; the gravity’s changed……”

He was about to say more but suddenly one of the sections of the wall shot forward and he was stabbed by several of the spikes, which interrupted anything else he was going to say. The spikes withdrew from his body but Victor yet again was covered in blood.

Longhelim moved in just as another section of the wall shot forward but this one mistimed its attack and missed him by a whisker; more importantly, just as Victor entered into the room, another of the triangles lit up on the curtain. By my calculations, that was the last one and I was really curious as to what was behind the central curtain so I flew there and reached the corner.

Just as I did so, I heard John shouting:

“Longhelim, Victor, the last triangle has lit up; get out of there!”

I saw the warriors flying out, both of them bleeding now; Longhelim must have been hit by the spikes as well. Freedom was still just standing there, smirking, watching all of this. Stupidly, as I was trying to watch her, the warriors, the curtain and everything else that was going on, I must have strayed too close to the wall as suddenly my view of obstructed by being enclosed in the stone box. I changed into a earth elemental again, and burned my way through but it was tiresome and took time; this time, as I emerged, I saw Freedom contemptuously dodging one of the Drudge’s volleys of arrows. It was quite amazing; she was so fast! He could not touch her.

The warriors were being healed when Drudge shot her again, and this time one of his arrows hit her. Deliberately, she just strolled through the curtain and out of the room; it was a very unhurried, cool maneuver. I wasn’t sure what she was doing but seeing that everyone was in the room, I shouted:

“I’m going to open the curtain!”

Everyone readied themselves and I did just that.

What I revealed was quite extraordinary; the room was no longer empty. It was dominated by a huge multi-coloured sphere floating in mid air. Within its shimmering colours, I could see a beautiful, sleeping dragon of golden hue. Under the sphere, carved into the floor, was a large stone ring, with three key holes; these were surrounded by elaborate carvings of some sort of red stone; in the centre of this ring was a large, clear crystal, which again held a key hole.

I also managed to catch a glimpse of four statues, standing in each corner of the room but it was difficult to tell just what they were.

I recognised the sphere; it was a very powerful defensive spell and each of the layers had a different defense. The rest was more of a mystery but I had no time to ponder it as suddenly, I was no longer in the room; I felt a magical attack and a moment later, I had been transported to the garden with the trees and the tanglewood of briars and bushes. Of course, the trees began to move again ominously.

Thankfully, Felix appeared a moment later and was getting ready to retrieve me but not before the walking trees rushed forward and literally walked all over us. That hurt; a lot; then Felix managed to get us back to the room with the treasure maps.

There was no sign of Freedom and I quickly described what I had seen.

As we were all being healed, Longhelim asked some quick questions:

“The sphere? What is it?”

I replied:

“Well, it’s a defensive spell which is very useful……”

The paladin rolled his eyes and interrupted me:

“Just tell us what it does; how will it affect us if we walk through it?”

“I really wouldn’t recommend that: there are various elemental effects, some of which will burn you, electrify you and more; you could also end up on a different plane, poisoned, insane……..and that’s only the version that I know; this is Trilla’s dream world, remember. Only she knows what it can do here.”

The paladin furrowed his brow:

“So walking through it is not an option. What about the keys and rings?”

“That I have no idea about except that I very much suspect that the keys that were on Freedom’s person and which are now property of John, will unlock something in the ring; what happens after that? Your guess is as good as mine.”

Suddenly, Drudge pointed and said:

“Look!”

We all turned around, trying to see just what new disaster was happening and we saw that there was a stone wall building itself in front of us, attempting to seal the an entrance into the central room. One layer was almost finished and another was just beginning.

Longhelim muttered:

“How bloody annoying!”

I spoke:

“I have one final transport spell left. I can get into the room beyond the walls but we need to heal first.”

The warriors needed healing but that didn’t take too long; John also took the opportunity to turn himself invisible; as soon as everyone finished, they grouped around me and we transported ourselves into the middle of the room with the sphere.

Everything began to happen then. Freedom was there and she immediately threw a dagger at Felix. The weapon seemed to burrow through him and erupted on the other side of his torso with a mass of blood and entrails; he almost collapsed but managed to stay upright as he healed himself desperately. I threw one of my last offensive spells at one of the statues as a blast of lightning sparked from my hands. I needn’t have bothered; no effect.

On closer inspection, the statues were cowled but there was a hint of features under the cowls and they looked draconic. Victor moved towards one of the statues and hit it very hard, smashing it to smithereens, leaving only three of them.

Moments later, Drudge disappeared.

Then, suddenly I saw Kreven in front of me. He was getting ready to cast a spell and grinned evilly. That was the point when I saw through the illusion. Kreven didn’t grin. He was an Inquisitor fanatic. He didn’t have a sense of humour.

As soon as I realised that it was an illusion, it disappeared; but then a disaster happened. Victor had obviously been struck by the same spell, but he had not managed to see through the illusion and suddenly pale and sweating, he began to swing his sword wildly, screaming; then he groaned, and collapsed to the ground.

We were in desperate straits now. I wasn’t sure quite what had happened to Victor but I feared the worst; with Drudge gone, that left just the four of us. Freedom was still leisurely looking over us, as if assessing the situation but in no great hurry. Then, as if she had made up her mind, she ran forward with that extraordinary grace and slashed at Felix’s side, causing a spray of blood and making the cleric almost fall. Then she disappeared.

“She’s…..she’s still there,” groaned the priest as he quickly began to cast a spell which at least stemmed the blood.

My spell situation had not improved; I was still almost completely out of spells. Then I saw Victor’s body on the floor and spoke quickly to Longhelim:

“Can you get him up? Otherwise he’s going to go into a stone box which may complicate things later.”

The paladin quickly flew over and tried to lift the fighter but with most of his armour hanging off him as well as his body being dead weight, the best that the paladin could do was to drag him; unfortunately, that meant that the stone box appeared around both of them.

John seemed to be having more success; I wasn’t sure what he was doing but he had the three keys which he had filched off Freedom and seemed to have unlocked one of the locks in the stone ring and had swiftly moved to the other. Thankfully, he was still invisible, meaning that Freedom could not see what he was doing. I sincerely hoped that the rogue had some sort of plan because we were certainly out of ideas and getting rapidly low on resources.

Felix was still rapidly healing himself and not one minute too soon as Freedom attacked him once again. Thankfully, this time, he managed to dodge out of the way of much of the blow and wasn’t hurt nearly as badly as previously.

Then, suddenly, with a roar, fire and lava erupted from one corner of this room!

Felix shouted again:

“Ignore it! It’s another illusion!”

I wasn’t sure where all this magic was coming from but I suspected the statues.

John had finished unlocking all three locks and was now in the centre of the ring under the sphere with the sleeping dragon. He was looking curiously into the large crystal with one last lock. However, I had to stop paying attention to him then as suddenly, wall began to appear between myself and Felix.

Longhelim had managed to smash his way through his stone box and I was flying to the top of the wall; Freedom had an unearthly ability to leap into the air and I felt it prudent to get as high as possible to try to stay out of her reach. Then it suddenly went dark as a stone box appeared around me. Oddly, this was even better as being high up inside one of these boxes, there was even less chance of her reaching me.

Unfortunately, that didn’t last. One of the walls of the box disappeared and Freedom was quite close to me, grinning. There were a series of stone cubes built on top of each other, creating an artificial set of stairs, which allowed to her to get quite close to my close; more importantly, she could throw her dagger with impunity. It landed solidly with a thump in my side and I felt that it tried to burrow its way into my innards, almost twisting reality. I managed to pull it out before it got any further but it still hurt like…… well, a lot.

Suddenly, there was a shout from under the sphere; from John:

“Freedom’s the key. She’s the only way! We’ve got the get out of here and come back!”

That was the last thing I needed to hear. I wasn’t sure if we would have the time to come back. I wasn’t even sure if we had the magic to get out of here at the moment. I certainly didn’t. However, I had other things to worry about as I saw that Longhelim was looking at Freedom, axe out; but he could only wait as she moved so fast; there was no way he could match her movement. He glanced at me and quickly pointed to one of the stone boxes around the wall.

I turned into an elemental worm and burrowed a hole into the roof, to see Felix inside. The priest quickly began to climb out of the box when suddenly he froze…..:

“Where?…..John’s gone! From this plane! Gods, what’s he done now?”

As I flew out, I saw that Freedom was still lurking on top of the strange steps that had been built for her. She was still grinning, and seemed to be juggling with her dagger as she lithely leaped from one block to another, then she jumped down and ran under the multi coloured sphere.

I turned into the gelugon again and began to heal the damage she had inflicted on me the last time. Longhelim was watching here warily while Felix was healing the paladin. I could feel myself getting stronger while all of us were maneuvering carefully around. Then, with dread, I saw that her dagger began to glow in that sickly green manner again which meant that someone was going to suffer.

Indeed so; as I watched in fascination, she bounded up the blocks again and spun past me in mid-air, slashing with the dagger; it felt as if it went through me; judging by the amount of blood gushing out of my side, it probably did. Thankfully, I was still in gelugon form so I could literally see the edges of the wounds sealing themselves together.

Freedom of course landed gracefully on the floor and bounded to the other edge of the room.

Just then, Felix shouted:

“Drudge is back! I can feel him again!”

He was referring to the magic that allowed the priest to keep track of us if we were in the same plane as he.

Longhelim shouted:

“Good! Where is he?”

I remembered and pointed at one of the stone boxes; simultaneously, I flew over and changed into one of the burning elemental worms which was able to melt a hole into the stone roof.

Felix had been right. The ranger was there and as soon as he saw the hole, he flew out and shot at Freedom. The arrow barely grazed her and we saw the wound close as soon as it appeared but it still brought a small frown to her face as Drudge’s sudden appearance changed the tactics of the battle. She could no longer run around with impunity, safe in the knowledge that no one would be able to catch her as she bounded towards us, sliced someone and bounded out again. Drudge’s arrows would be able to find her anywhere in the room, no matter where she stood. She would be able to dodge many of them but not all.

Personally, I was in a very bad way; I could still feel myself bleeding internally from Freedom’s last visit and so, taking advantage of my position in the stone cage, I turned into a gelugon again and began to heal. I could feel the muscles and tendons knitting together again but oh so slowly. Simultaneously, I could not see what was happening outside but I assumed that it was continuing as before, with Freedom bounding around the room and the rest of us flying above and getting ready to heal her unfortunate victim.

Then I heard a shout. It was Drudge’s voice:

“Hey, there’s John! What’s he doing in there? He’s got the girl!”

Unable to help myself, I shouted:

“Where is he and what girl?”

The reply left me even more perplexed:

“He’s in the crystal and he’s carrying the golden elf girl.”

I was racking my brains trying to make sense of what he was saying. I could only think that somehow, John had managed to get into the crystal and there he had found the elven girl with a golden cloak which we had seen in Sagrimar’s castle. The one which we had interpreted as the humanoid form of Trilla. Although, of course, Trilla herself was sleeping in the multi-coloured sphere; so, did that mean that the crystal was some sort of repository for Trilla’s dreams? And the Freedom had somehow managed to trap the dragon’s dream self in a prison of some sort? Was that how she was forcing Trilla to produce, create and control her dreams?