“OURS IS NOT TO QUESTION WHY…”
The distance between the Brine Flats and the jungle portal was measured in tens of miles, according to the map provided by Iggwilv. By conventional means, even flight, it would have taken the Legionnaires hours to travel there…hours they did not have to spare. It was Daelric who came up with the solution by calling upon the Traveler to transform himself and his companions into living air, which could be whisked along on the Abyssal winds at incredible speed. So it was that they reached the site of the jungle portal some thirty minutes later, and beheld the fate of the V Asphyxian.
The jungle suddenly came to an end at a blackened swath of char and blood. The desolate clearing sprawled for miles, only recently formed by the wicked blades and fell spells of demon spawn. A field of blasted stumps and ruin was all that remained of the once-tangled junglescape. In some places, the trees looked burnt, in others they were melted, and still others appeared frozen and shattered. Black blood, gore, and bile…still fresh from the stench of it…were splattered across mounds of dead fiends and other horrors. The calamity seemed to have been complete, with no clear victors, almost as though both sides annihilated each other. At the center of the desolation stood a sinister totem, a ten-foot-tall pole of carved demon faces. A tattered battle standard bearing the black death’s head emblem of Orcus’s V Asphyxian Legion hung from the totem, and dangling from its lower border by its hair was the decapitated head of the legion’s undead general.
Cautiously, acutely aware of Iggwilv’s warning about Arendagrost’s presence, the Legionnaires stepped out onto the blasted battlefield. It was Octurus who first saw that something, beyond the obvious, was not quite right. His hawk-like eyes took in the whole of the carnage, but also picked out small details, such as the abundance of nabassu, tieflings and various undead, all bearing Orcus’s brand, and the smaller number of bar-lgura, hezrou and babaus…and the large, yellow eye peering out from beneath a mound of bodies. Holding up one hand, he silently called the group to a halt, pointing towards the vicinity where he guessed the rest of the concealed creature’s body to be…a distance about forty feet away from the totem. Marius cracked his knuckles in anticipation.
“I’ll flush’im out,” the little gnome grinned. Fire crackled around his hands as he spoke arcane words. He released it in a towering column of white-hot flames, centered on the spot Octurus had indicated. To his open-mouthed shock, however, the fire simply…vanished at a point some sixty-feet above the ground.
“What the…?” he gawped.
“I think we can guess why the portal’s not open,” Mandi said, her voice bitter.
“Why?” Sepoto asked, not grasping her conclusion.
“Null-magic,” she replied. “A zone where no magic functions. I would hazard a guess that it’s centered on the totem, and Arendagrost is just waiting for us to make a move for it.”
“So…what do we do?” Daelric asked, fear in his voice.
The sorceress shrugged. “Without my spells, I’m just a glorified librarian, and Marius is simply an angry little man with compensation issues. A blade still cuts, magic or no magic, though.”
She looked pointedly at Sepoto and Tower Cleaver. The goliath sighed deeply.
“It always comes down to this,” he said. “Well Cleaver, it looks like it’s you and me.”
“What about me?” Octurus protested. “I’m not exactly a novice with these.” He held up his blades.
“I realize that,” Sepoto said, “and I definitely have a job for you. Let Cleaver and I draw out Arendagrost, and then you move in. Your target, however, is the totem. It must have some powerful enchantments woven into it. Your blades are not steel. They’re adamantine. They can slice iron as if it were butter. I’ll guess they can take down that idol as well.”
The Maztican nodded.
“As for you,” Sepoto seized Daelric’s tunic. “You’re coming with me and Cleaver.”
“Wh…what?” the priest stammered. “True, I can swing a mace, when desperate, but I’m no warrior, and my magic won’t function any better than Mandi’s or Marius’s!”
“Which is why you’re staying outside the zone,” Sepoto explained. “But I still want you nearby. We’re going to try and find the edge of the dead magic and do most of our fighting there, but if one of us should fall, you need to be there to bring us back. Understood?”
Reluctantly, the young priest nodded. Like a man walking to his own hanging, he followed glumly when the goliath and the minotaur started across the field.
Cautiously, they circled the totem, moving past the point where they believed their foe to be hidden. Finally, they reached a point directly south of the pole.
“Are you ready?” Sepoto asked
“Ready,” Cleaver snorted, hefting his axe.
They began moving forward, one step at a time. Then, between one step and the next, the pair felt all of the magical defenses layered over them, all of the dweomers on the equipment they carried, suddenly wink out. Even Cleaver’s sun-bright axe was snuffed. Two paces behind them, and still cloaked in invisibility, Daelric came to an abrupt halt.
“I’ll wait here,” he whispered.
Sepoto turned to snap off a retort, when an earth-shattering roar sounded from the other side of the pole. The creature that rose from the abattoir of death was huge…a corpulent thing of darkness and hate and madness. A trio of maws gaped from vaguely fiendish heads, each gigantic rotting mouth filled with row upon row of fangs. An obscenity of anger the size of a house, its body was little more than a writhing tangle of tentacles, each large enough to crush the life out of a man with but a moment’s idle whim. Howling with rage, Arendagrost, the Maw of the Abyss, surged across the intervening space between itself and its prey. Cleaver tried to brace himself, but how could one brace for a tidal wave? One of Arendagrost’s heads snapped out and clamped down on the minotaur’s bicep. Roaring in pain, Cleaver jerked back, leaving bits of flesh hanging from Arendagrost’s teeth.
“They’re dead,” Mandi said, matter-of-factly.
Octurus looked at her in shock, while Marius just shrugged.
“If we don’t do something, they’re dead,” she repeated.
“What can we do?” Marius asked. “You said it yourself; our magic won’t work in there. Should we sacrifice our own lives needlessly?”
“No…not our lives,” the sorceress said cryptically, and then she began to chant. As she did so, a shimmering oval appeared in the air behind Sepoto and Tower Cleaver, just outside the border of the totem’s zone. It grew rapidly and flared with orange light. As it did, a hole tore open in reality, breeching the boundaries between the Abyss and the Plane of Fire. Flames roared out of the Gate, followed by a monolithic creature made of living fire, easily a match for Arendagrost in size alone. At Mandi’s command, it sprang forward, hammering one massive fist into the demon’s body before leaping away.
“If you’re going to go, it had best be now!” Mandi shouted to Octurus. The Maztican nodded and sprinted across the battlefield.
Arendagrost snarled in anger at the newcomer, yet some part of his dim intellect still understood where the true threat lay. The elemental’s blow had been glancing, at best, and the flames that comprised its body did not scathe his demonic hide in the slightest. No, the elemental was of little concern. Instead, he turned his attention back to the hulking minotaur. Snapping one of his heads forward again, he seized Tower Cleaver bodily in his jaws, and then tossed him like a rag doll several yards away. Cleaver landed prone, the wind driven from his lungs. Quickly, he rolled to his back and struggled to his feet, but as he did, Arendagrost struck again, inflicting another vicious bite. Enraged, the barbarian struck back reflexively, managing a deep gash by sheer luck alone. Meanwhile, wtih the gargantuan demon distracted, Sepoto raised his own weapon, and bellowing Savras’s name, charged. Behind him, subconsciously stirred by his fervor, the elemental followed. Both of them struck and struck hard, and Arendagrost reeled from the blows. Tower Cleaver, still in blind rage, attacked as well, his axe falling again and again.
At about that time, Octurus bounded across the clearing and reached the totem. As he did so, Mandi shouted a command to the elemental, ordering it to focus on the totem as well. Obediently, the creature turned and slammed both its fists against the wooden idol, sending shivers down its length. Arendagrost whirled like a cobra, but as he did, Octurus darted in, smashing the hilt of his scimitar into one of the demon’s jaws with an audible crack. Arendagrost howled, pulling away, while at the same time lashing out with one of his tentacles. The huge appendage smashed into the Maztican, sending him hurtling through the air until he struck the totem and slumped to the ground. Rearing up to his full height, Arendagrost readjusted his shattered jaw with a sickening grinding sound. A moment later, he howled in pain again, as Tower Cleaver’s axe hacked through his tentacles with blind fury. Arendagrost coiled into himself, like a cobra preparing to strike, and then launched himself at the minotaur. He was fury incarnate, and he ripped into Tower Cleaver like a hound with a rabbit. He pinned the barbarian to the ground and then flailed again and again with his tentacles until the minotaur was no longer moving. Sepoto could only look on in horror, wondering what hope he had against a creature that could so easily defeat his hulking friend.
Octurus climbed slowly to his feet, and then edged around the back of the totem while Arendagrost’s gaze was averted. Once there, he readied his blades and began hacking at the pillar as the elemental continued its assault. The wood seemed made of iron, but slowly, bit by bit, it began to yield and crack. Just a little more, and the zone would be down, allowing Mandi and Marius to unleash their full power upon Demogorgon’s spawn. He raised his blades again, but then a massive shadow blotted out the sun above him as another of Arendagrost’s arms came swinging in. Once again, Octurus was lifted off his feet, landing head-over-heels several yards away. His head spinning, he climbed to his hands and knees. As he looked up, however, trying to see how much time he had before the next assault, he realized his time had run out. The last thing he saw was the behemoth’s maw descending towards him.
Sepoto charged, pelting pell-mell towards the totem. His friends were beyond his help. The only chance he had was to destroy the idol. He ducked between the elemental’s legs, adding his own might to the creature’s massive blows. Arendagrost turned towards them both as the totem’s wood cracked and splintered. In desperation, he launched himself at the elemental, the pair colliding like titans. But it was too late. With one last swing, the elemental split the totem in two, then shattered it into splinters.
Daelric saw his chance. Running as fast as he could, he closed the distance between himself and Tower Cleaver. As he placed his hands upon the minotaur’s chest, he began to pray. Within moments, Cleaver’s eyes opened, but he did not draw breath. He was only a revenant, a half-living vestige of himself, but the spell would buy some time.
“Stay down!” Daelric hissed as the minotaur struggled to rise. Too late, the priest saw all three of Arendagrost’s heads turn towards them. All three mouths gaped, and then unleashed a hellish torrent of fire, ice and acid. Daelric’s celestial nature protected him from the flames, but the cold froze his limbs to the bone, while at the same time the acid melted the skin where it touched. Then, as he looked down, he saw that the light had left Cleaver’s eyes once more.
Sepoto stood, looking at the destruction of the totem, feeling the power of his magic flow back into him. Yet, Arendagrost towered over him, the demon’s own magic obviously functioning as well. He steeled himself for the inevitable, watching as the son of Demogorgon prepared to strike him down. But then, as Arendagrost pounced, his attack was brought up short as he seemed to hit some sort of invisible wall. Then, as the whirling walls of death began to appear, slicing through the giant demon, Sepoto realized what was happening. Arendagrost was trapped, caged by bars of force created by Mandi. It was Marius who was conjuring the blade barriers, one-by-one, slowly filling the cage with them, and inexorably shredding the Maw of the Abyss to ribbons. After that, it was only a matter of time, but Octurus and Tower Cleaver were still just as dead.
