The Lord of Oblivion
As their heads slowly cleared from the disorientation of interdimensional travel, the first thing that Dalthon, Rusty and Grimm became aware of was a terrible howling that filled the air. Their vision blurred into focus, and they saw that they were in a large, mostly empty chamber that smelled strongly of animal musk. Three more OBLIVION doors led from the chamber, while a pair of mundane double doors stood closed on the far side. Closer to hand stood the source of the unearthly howling…three huge wolfish-looking canines with glowing red eyes. They wore thick, black leather collars studded with diamonds and rubies, and smoke rolled from their mouths each time they expelled their fetid breath.
Just then, two events occurred simultaneously. First, Kiko, Tilly and Gunther made their appearance in a brilliant flash of eldritch light. Second, the double doors on the far side of the room swung open. From them emerged a tall woman with hair like flames. Her body was covered with a layer of rust-colored fur and her eyes smoldered. She was clad in a mithral breastplate with metal gauntlets, and a large shield floated beside her in mid-air, moving as she moved. A pink, rhomboid-shaped stone orbited her head lackadaisically, and a red, lacquered armband adorned her upper left arm. She carried a greatsword before her, and as she casually swung it through the air, flames played across one edge, while ice crystals formed on the other. Standing behind her was a man, also with flaming red hair, and the same fine layer of downy fur, though his face appeared more lupine than human. He was clad in a chain shirt, and bore the same sort of armband as the woman. A long, sturdy bow was slung across his back, and in his hands he gripped a wickedly sharp greataxe. “Welcome, Flameless Ones,” the male said in a voice that sounded like gravel. “Have you come to pay tribute to Ti’irok Coalfire? If so, the tribute will be ten-thousand gold coins…each!”
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From her chambers beyond the northern-most OBLIVION door, Lady Thifirane Rhiavadi could hear Khetru and Aszithef challenging the Bright Axes. She had warned the haraknin that the intruders would follow her here. It was only a matter of time before they deduced Vhalantru’s involvement in the Cagewrights’ plans. She had also told the shapechangers to stall them and buy her some time, so that she might prepare a proper welcome for the meddlers. Now, with her magical defenses fully in place, she was ready to make her move. She silently commanded her shield guardian to stay put and kill anyone who entered the room. Then she began casting, instantly transporting herself inside the haraknins’ quarters, where she waited for the final battle to begin.
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“Ten-thousand, you say?” Rusty replied, scratching his beard thoughtfully. “Well, this Tickle-butt Old-fart must be quite the muckety-muck to demand such tribute. Can’t say as I’ve heard of him though. Tell you what, we’ll give ya ten gold each and call it square. What do ya say?”
Khetru’s eyes blazed in anger. “You dare!” he growled, “I don’t care what the human woman said, Aszithef, these hairless apes must pay for their insolence!” With that, the shapechanger hefted his axe and charged forward. Behind him, the one called Aszithef began swinging her greatsword to and froe, sending alternating patterns of frost and fire dancing along its length. “Khetru can be hot-blooded,” she said in a tone of mock apology, “but his anger is easily sated once he has tasted blood.” Then she too lunged to the attack.
Grimm prepared himself for the onslaught, fully intending to stop the were-creatures dead in their tracks with a well-placed snap of his chain. However, just as he was preparing to strike, his sharp ears picked up the distinct sound of chanting coming from behind the doors the haraknin had entered through. Spell casting! “Kiko, Tilly, Rusty!” he shouted. “Hold them off! We’ve got more trouble coming!” He quickly dodged to the side of the oncoming warriors, and then threw his full body weight against the doors. They buckled under the blow. Sconces shaped like stony fists protruded from the walls of the room beyond, each one grasping a brightly burning torch. Standing against the far wall was none other than Thifirane Rhiavadi. “I’ve been expecting you,” she said with a smile as Grimm stumbled into the chamber. The smile turned into a grimace of pure hatred as her spell reached completion, and Grimm found himself encased in a box-like cage of pure force.
Caught off guard by Grimm’s sudden feint, Kiko was a fraction of a second too late to avoid Aszithef’s first strike. The huge blade she bore scoured a deep furrow along the monk’s left arm, searing the flesh simultaneously with bone-numbing cold and scorching heat. With a monstrous force of will, Kiko pushed past the horrific pain, and quickly stepped inside the arc of the sword, making it difficult for the haraknin to bring it to bear a second time. Instead, she raised the weapon straight over her head, preparing to bring the pommel down on Kiko’s skull, but at the last moment, the monk grabbed both of her wrists, pitting his strength against hers in an effort to wrest the blade from her grasp.
Khetru ignored Aszithef’s struggle, feeling confident that his superior could handle one unarmed human. Instead, he bore down on the heavily armored dwarf. Ducking his shoulder, he barreled into the stout priest, hoping to bowl him off his feet, but he underestimated the stability of Rusty’s race. The Mystran planted one foot a half step firmly behind him, and braced himself. Khetru rebounded back and while he was momentarily off balance, Rusty swung his hammer, catching the haraknin square in the gut. Khetru doubled over, his breath driven from his lungs.
Thifirane chuckled evilly as she watched Grimm feel his way around the bounds of his prison, searching in vain for some means of escape. “You should never have followed me here,” she said. “You and your friends don’t know what you’re meddling with, but you are about to learn the error of your ways. Now, let me see…I think I would like you better as a rat.” She began moving her hands in a complex pattern, the words of a spell coming to her lips once again. Grimm watched her carefully, waiting for just the right moment. Just as she completed the final gesture, the half-ogre spoke a brief command word, and the wrapped his cloak about him, vanishing into thin air, only to reappear right beside Thifirane. The sorceress’ eyes bulged in disbelief, but she had not survived for so long by letting the unexpected distract her. Instantly, she began a new spell, and a thin beam of green light arced from her index finger to Grimm’s chest. The big warrior cried out in anguish as his body was wracked with burning waves of agony. For a brief moment, he saw pieces of the flesh on his arms actually seem to disintegrate from the bone before solidifying once more. The attack passed as quickly as it came, and Grimm knew that he had only barely managed to escape with his life.
With a final grunt of effort, Kiko twisted his arms beneath Aszithef’s, ripping the sword from her and hurling it over his shoulder to land several feet away. As the haraknin’s weight carried her forward, the monk drew in his knee to his chest, and then planted his foot squarely into her chest, sending her crashing to the floor. As she tried to rise, the heel of his palm caught her under the chin, rocking her head back to smash against the flagstones again, and leaving her briefly stunned. Though Kiko hated senseless violence, he also understood the need to end a threat quickly and decisively. While Aszithef lay dazed, the monk placed a hand on either side of her head, and with a quick twist, ended her threat.
Khetru regained his balance in time to parry Rusty’s next swing and counter with one of his own. The priest narrowly avoided having his head parted from his body as the shapeshifter’s axe came within a hair’s breadth of his windpipe. As it was, his own weapon was carried wide, away from his body, leaving him completely open to the next incoming attack, but just as Khetru was about to press his advantage, a barrage of glowing bursts struck him about the head, sending him reeling backwards. Ever the opportunist, Tilly was waiting. As the haraknin stumbled, the little rogue buried one blade in his abdomen, and the other in his heart. Tilly quickly whirled about, looking for the three huge hellhounds that Gunther and Dalthon had been fending off, only to find a trio of smoking carcasses.
“You are a resourceful rat, I’ll grant you that,” Thifirane panted, spitting the words at Grimm as he still struggled to recover his wits, “but you are still a rat, nonetheless, and so now I will make your form match your character.” One final time, she began her incantation, but Grimm was determined she would never complete it. Though still weak, it didn’t take much strength for the half-ogre, at such close range, to wrap his chain once around Thifirane’s body and then pull it taught, snapping her spine. The Cagewright crumpled to the floor, her part in the saga finished.
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A quick inspection of the room where Thifirane had made her last stand revealed no other exits. The only means of egress from the haraknins’ suite was either back thru the OBLIVION door that had bypassed, or thru one of the other three leading off the kennel.
“Gunther and I can probably get us past one more portal,” Dalthon offered, “but there is no way we have the resources to take us past all three, and then back again should the need arise. We have to find a better alternative.”
“Fine,” Grimm said decisively, “I have one. Rusty, you stand by. I have a feeling I may need you.” With that, the half-ogre uncurled his chain and approached the nearest sealed portal. Before any of his comrades could protest or intervene, he began smashing at the door repeatedly, knocking great chunks of metal from its face with each blow. Also with each blow, the embedded gemstones in the barrier unleashed a volley of multi-colored beams of light. As they struck the planar champion’s body, passing thru his armor as if it were made of paper, he grimaced in agony, yet did not relent in his assault. After three massive strikes from the spiked chain, the OBLIVION door shattered. Grimm collapsed to one knee, blood pouring from numerous burns. Rusty rushed to his side, calling on several of his powerful healing prayers to mend the half-ogre’s wounds.
The area beyond the destroyed portal appeared to be Thifirane’s private chambers. A wooden floor had been placed across the room to flatten out the normally hemispherical surface. Several pieces of fine furnishing were arrayed, as well as numerous trunks overflowing with outlandish clothing. Standing inert on the far side of the area was the sorceress’ shield guardian. Grimm instantly dropped into a defensive stance, ready for the construct’s inevitable charge, but the hulking behemoth remained quiescent. Stepping into the room behind the half-ogre, Rusty eyed the guardian for a moment and then nodded knowingly. “I think we may have just stumbled upon a little bonus courtesy of Lady Rhiavadi. Gunther!” he called. “Bring me that amulet we retrieved from her corpse!” Obediently, the theurge complied, and no sooner had Rusty placed the amulet around his neck, than the shield guardian lurched into motion, sketching a deep, clumsy bow before its new master. “Ahhh!” Rusty laughed, “I think I shall call you…Sherman!”
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Grimm repeated his door-opening trick on the second OBLIVION door leading from the kennel, with Rusty once again healing his injuries. Beyond this portal, they found themselves at the bottom of another shaft, which rose into darkness far above them. At the far side of the shaft was another OBLIVION door. Kiko spoke a brief word of command, and from his boots sprouted a pair of tiny wings, lifting him easily into the air. The monk flew a short distance up the shaft, intending to scout ahead of his companions. After about one hundred feet, he found, as he had expected, a side-shaft, blocked, of course, by an OBLIVION door. Quickly, he descended back to his friends.
“There has to be an easier way around these portals,” Dalthon sighed. “We can’t just keep smashing thru them. We don’t know how many there are, and Rusty doesn’t have enough magical energy to keep Grimm alive. The rest of you stand down for a few minutes. Give Gunther and I a chance to study this on our own.”
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“What does the lay-out of this place put you in mind of?” Dalthon asked Gunther as they stood contemplating the portal.
“Well, it’s not hard to imagine that it was not created with biaxial creatures in mind,” the dwarf replied. More like spherical ones, I’d say.”
“And what sort of spherical creatures are you familiar with?” Dalthon asked with a smile quirked on his lips.
“Surely you jest!” Gunther laughed. “Why, beholders! What else?”
“I just wanted to make sure you had reached the same conclusion,” the sorcerer said. “Now, observe this door. It is in the likeness of a beholder, including ten eyestalks. Each eyestalk bears a separate gem, and then there is the central one to consider. Do you recall the powers of a beholder’s stalks?”
“I do indeed,” said the dwarf. “Are you implying that by replicating those spells, we might bypass the trap?”
“Not all of the spells,” Dalthon said thoughtfully, “One per door, I should think. Now, to figure out which spell opens which door…”
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As the final words of the slow spell faded from his lips, Dalthon watched in satisfaction as the giant door made a dull grinding noise and then split into three sections. Each section quickly retracted into part of the adjoining doorframe, leaving the passage open. “As simple as that,” Gunther said to their duly impressed colleagues. “Beholders may be devilishly crafty, but they are not exactly deep thinkers. Knowing their minds is no great feat.”
The lower half of the room beyond was filled with approximately three-feet of murky, steaming water, obviously run-off from Cauldron’s central lake. On the north wall of the room stood another OBLIVION door. Dalthon and Gunther quickly made their way over to it and began to study the patterns inscribed there. “Damn!” the sorcerer cursed after a moment. “I don’t have the spell to open this one, and I’ll wager Gunther doesn’t either. Charming monsters has never been my forte’. I’ve always preferred the more direct approach.
“Guess it’s back to the old-fashioned way,” Rusty said. “But this time, I’m gonna save ya some licks Grimm.” Muttering under his breath, the old dwarf chanted a spell that erected a hemisphere of total null-magic around him. He felt all of his protective charms wink out, and all of his personal magical items and weapons revert to their mundane forms, but he also knew that the deadly eye beams from the door would be equally suppressed. Standing to one side, he let Grimm go to work, and in short order, the half-ogre had the door removed.
The twenty-foot square (not hemispherical, of all things) room on the far side had a ten-foot diameter, bowl-shaped indentation carved out of the floor, ceiling, and every wall. Floating in the exact middle of the room, just out of arm’s reach from the floor, was a single book with a red leather cover. Undeterred, Rusty strode boldly into the center of the room. The anti-magic field still radiated from him and as soon as he approached the book, it floated gently into his hands. Rusty examined the writing on the cover: Zar’ilkoth Tarteros. “It means Carcerian Transformation.” Gunther translated from over Rusty’s shoulder. He took the book from his master’s hands and flipped briefly through it. “It seems to detail a ritual of some sort, that allows a Carcerian spirit to transfer some of its power to a creature on any other plane in exchange for a brief moment of freedom before the spirit is annihilated.”
“That doesn’t sound promising…” Rusty said, voicing the fear raised in all of them.
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There seemed only one way to go at this point, and that was back up. The company returned to the shaft Kiko had scouted, and with the aid of various spells, flew en masse to the OBLIVION door that the monk had discovered. Dalthon was quickly able to determine that a fear spell was needed to bypass the portal, and Gunther ably provided the requisite magic. The walls of the large room beyond were carved with myriad bas-reliefs depicting various Underdark creatures and terrains. The hall also held an impressive collection of monstrous statues, arranged in a semicircle and all very lifelike. These included: a young black dragon, a young minotaur, a harpy, an otyugh, a rust monster, a kuo-toa and a phantom fungus. The chamber was obviously intended to be some sort of trophy chamber. Two more OBLIVION doors led from the chamber, one directly across from the portal the party had just come through, and one to their left. Guessing that the far door led onto the first shaft they had descended, Dalthon suggested the left –hand portal might be their best bet.
Once again, Dalthon was able to decipher the magical script on the massive door, this time seeing that a disintegrate spell would be necessary. The sorcerer immediately prepared the incantation, while Kiko, Grimm and Tilly stood ready, preparing themselves for whatever might lie on the other side of this final barrier. To Dalthon’s great surprise, instead of separating and opening like the previous doors, this one simply disintegrated, crumbling into a large pile of dust. Instantly, the half-ogre, monk and rogue felt all of their magical dweomers that surrounded them vanish. The effect was identical to the null magic field Rusty had created, only on a much larger scale. Through the open archway could be seen a fifty-foot high, fifty-foot wide hemispherical chamber, with weird, abstract murals painted on the ceiling. Torches in sconces brightly illuminated the room, revealing a bloated sphere with nine flailing eyestalks floating in its center. Pale, green fluid wept from knobby, festering sores covering its body. It hovered above a large symbol carved into the floor: a triangle inscribed within a circle, both inlaid with gold. At the three corners of the inscribed triangle, chained to the stone floor, were three figures wearing crude leather straitjackets fitted with black straps and iron buckles. They appeared to be a human male, a half-orc male and a gnome female. They were held in place by ankle and wrist manacles, their heavy chains looped around iron rings securely fastened to the floor. Suddenly, arcs of black lightning leaped from their eyes and struck the beholder, causing its great bulk to heave and become even more distended for an instant. The three figures then collapsed into heaps of ash on the floor, leaving behind nothing but charred straightjackets and burn buckles.
The beholder turned to face the Bright Axes, as though just then becoming aware of them. Pressed up against the convex pane of its enormous central eye could be seen the horribly fat visage of some demonic creature with a wide mouth full of sharp, triangular teeth. At the moment, the beholder’s own mouth spread wide and slime poured from its gums and onto the stone floor.
“I suppose this moment was inevitable from the first moment you creatures decided to meddle in the affairs of my city,” Vhalantru said in a harsh, otherworldly voice. “You will never know the time and effort I have invested over the years to usurp ultimate power over Cauldron and remake it in my image. It was my hand guiding Kazmojen and his slave traders. My will that prompted your descent into the Underdark to retrieve Zenith Splintershield. My power that brought the half-orc mercenaries into the city and instigated the riots, and yes, my genius in allying myself with the Cagewrights so that Cauldron could become the gateway to Hell on Faerun. I have also guided your careers. I have eliminated other adventuring groups who might have been competition for you. I have placed certain bits of information in your path to lead you in directions of my choosing. Yes, you have indeed played your roles well, but now, I’m afraid, you have outlived your usefulness to me, and like any other played out tool, I will now dispose of you.”
With that, the demonic beholder once again opened its gaping maw and spat out a wad of steaming, green ichor. The horrid substance splashed messily against Grimm’s breastplate and began to sputter and hiss, pitting and gouging the now non-magical metal. Grimm looked down at the foul excrement, and then raised his narrowed eyes to the beholder once more. “Well,” he grumbled, “since my friend Kiko and I didn’t join this merry little band until just recently, I guess you didn’t account for us in all your sordid plans. So, here is where we throw a wrench into your schemes. Kiko! Fastball special!” In an instant the monk leaped onto the half-ogre’s shoulders. With one smooth motion, the huge warrior lifted the lithe human into the air and hurled him bodily at the levitating monstrosity. Kiko’s arc carried him over the effect of the anti-magic field emanating from Vhalantru’s central eye, and once again the small wings on his boots began to flutter, lifting him even higher. As the beholder quickly attempted to reorient himself to keep the flying monk in the effect of his field, Grimm charged, coming to a halt directly beneath the beast. Too late, Vhalantru realized he’d been duped. He quickly fired a volley of his deadliest beams at the approaching monk, while at the same time twisting his body to engulf Grimm once more in the null-magic zone. Kiko deftly avoided each of the lethal rays and landed atop the beholder, just as Grimm struck from beneath. Vhalantru’s body shuddered with the force of Grimm’s blow, and the creature began to careen about the room wildly. Kiko held fast and rained strike after strike at the sensitive eyestalks, crippling them one by one. Finally, as the beholder slammed into the far wall, the monk summoned all of his ki, and buried his fist straight thru its tough outer hide, deep into the soft brain matter beneath. With one final convulsion, Lord Orbius Vhalantru settled to the floor of home, and closed his eye forever.
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