3 sessions to go. . .
Session #100 (complete)
“Be careful, there is a great maw in that corner that acts as a gate,” Adder said.
“I’m surprised the big mouth in the floor isn’t the way we have to go,” Martin the Green replied. He could hear the smacking and licking of the giant mouth in cloying darkness.
“That way leads the Abyss,” Adder said. “It is the sliver of dark that you want. Hold out your hand. I will guide you.”
“You can see?”
“I can.”
Martin the Green attempted to cast darkvision, but it did not seem to work.
“That will not work,” Adder said.
“How is it you can see?” Martin asked.
“I have a clearer vision of the world. Darkness cannot abate my senses,” Adder answered. “Take up the Book of Black Circles and you may be able to see.”
Martin hesitated, and raised his arm out instead, feeling the monk take his elbow and walk him towards one corner of the unseen Dark Room chamber.
“It is before you, you need only…” Adder began.
“Why are you doing this? Why do you want it to happen?” Martin the Green asked.
“You already know the answer. You are trying to stall again,” Adder replied. His sibilant voice tickling the watch-mage’s ear from close beside him in the dark.
“No, I am serious,” Martin insisted. “Why do you want to do this?”
“You know of the weakness of men. You know how flawed and far from the divine they truly are,” Adder said, calmly. “Even those with good intentions can cause the greatest of evil. Everything they touch goes awry and sours. The stench of corruption hangs on every act of humanity. But no longer, when our lord returns, he shall be a beacon to all who wander from what they once cherished, so they might see the falseness of it all. But the meaning of it lies in rejecting those laws and rules from a place where you once held them to be true. Does that answer your question?”
“That is pathetic,” Martin spat. “You are doing this because you are a failure at following Anubis and you are justifying it by turning to Rahkefet. It is your own weakness that is at fault here.”
“You may try and bait me into anger, but it will not serve you,” Adder replied. “You have just iterated the essence of our order. We have no shame at being flawed men. It is the flaw that makes us men. We embrace it.”
“If I were to follow your view, I would turn away from this task you want me to undertake.”
“But you will not,” Adder said. “There are ironies in this universe, and one just might be that for more to become lost, you must stay true to your path. One extreme reinforces the other.”
Martin the Green did not reply. He took a deep breath and unsealed the form-fitting bag about the Book of Black Circles. It was all he carried with him, having left all his gear and magical items back with his companions, except for the book and Lacan’s Demise, which he still wore. He shuddered as his fingers brushed the leathery hide of the book’s cover, but suddenly the darkness around him abated. The room was still dim, but now he could see there was something in each corner of this room: A slavering mouth fifteen feet across on the floor near where they had entered the chamber, a mirror of red-black glass in a black iron frame that steamed, and a strange metal wheel set with colored glass before a blank white wall. The wheel had a crank and handle attached.
Before him the portal to the negative material plane was a shivering sliver of black light hovering before a paneled partition. Martin stepped forward and looked at it from one side, and saw it did not touch the partition, and nor did it have any depth. He sighed again, and then got down on his knees and lowered his head.
“Osiris, show me what to do,” he prayed aloud. “What must I do to avert the disaster that may come of this?”
“Before you is what Osiris would have you do,” Adder said. “Any means you find to get around what you fear doing will just be admitting that the way the order I founded looks at things is the right way…”
“Need I do anything special to step through?” Martin looked up at the scarred monk’s face. It was as impassive as ever.
“All you need do is will yourself through and take a step,” Adder replied. “But let me warn you, if you touch it without sufficiently willing yourself you will only suffer some of the consequences of having passed through, without passing through…”
“What is the nature of this portal?” Martin asked. “How does it hang here?”
“Martin…” Adder paused.
“Adder?”
“You are stalling again. Need I remind you of the half-breed’s fate if you should not go though?” (1)
Martin the Green sighed profoundly once more, and then standing straight, took another deep breath and stepped through with his eyes open.
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There was confusion among the other Keepers of the Gate as they entered the Dark Room. Both Bastian and Ratchis tried to cast light spells, but neither worked.
“Huh? What is going on? Someone get some light in here,” Gunthar said.
“Light does not work in here for some reason,” Ratchis replied.
“I guess they call it ‘the Dark Room’ for a reason,” Roland quipped. “However, I can tell you the smell in this place is nearly overwhelming. Blech!”
“Ugh! What terrible things are in this room!” Sergio cried as he came in. “Watch where you walk! There is a slavering maw in the floor larger than the mouth of a well, and it seems… well, alive!”
“You can see?” Ratchis asked.
“Yes… Can’t you? I mean, it is dim, but…”
“There is nothing here but darkness,” Kazrack said.
“How is it you can see?” Roland asked. “What else is there in here?”
“I don’t know why I can see and you cannot, perhaps I am simply blessed, but the chamber seems much like the others in size, and there are objects in each corner of the room, which the mouth is one of. There is also a scarred monk looking at us from a place across the room. He stands by a partition with some plane of black light before it…” Sergio described the scene.
“Step forward, monk!” Kazrack bellowed into the darkness, slamming the butt of his halberd into the stone floor. “We would speak with about the location of our friend, Martin the Green.”
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their breathing, and the disturbing smack of the abyssal maw in the floor in the darkness, but then Adder spoke. “Then you may as well go back from whence you came, for he has already gone on to complete his destined task. You will not see him again…”
“And why is that?” Kazrack asked.
“He has passed on bodily out of this world to the realm from whence evil originates,” Adder replied. “He is dead. Gone forever.”
“We should go after him!” Kazrack said, addressing his companions. “He should not have to enter into the realm of death alone.”
“Actually, that is exactly what he had to do,” Roland said.
“Monk! Which way did he go?” Kazrack called across the Dark Room.
Again, a long silence, and finally the voice came. “He had to allow himself to be swallowed by the mouth in the floor.”
“Kazrack, you are not going into that mouth,” Ratchis told the dwarf.
”We have to free Hurgun…” Roland began.
“Well, if we must abandon Martin to his own demise, then should we not at least destroy the mouth, so this god he going to awaken won’t come back through it?” Kazrack asked.
“Adder,” Roland called to the monk, ignoring Kazrack. “If Martin has gone to his death, why is it you still wait here?”
”I am on my way out,” Adder replied.
“Since you don’t seem to be leaving just yet, do you mind telling us what exactly happened while the rest of us were unconscious?” Roland asked.
There was no reply. Sergio confirmed that the monk was still standing very still by the iron mirror.
“Didn’t Martin say something about a mirror?” Kazrack mused aloud. “Perhaps it was really the mirror Martin went through and the monk guards it so it will not be broken and keep his god from entering the world…”
Ratchis leaned over to the dwarf and whispered, “Or else he waits here because he fears we might attack him and in the dark he has the advantage.” The half-orc knelt beside Roland and repeated his thoughts, and went on to add. “If Martin is gone we must trust him to do what he was meant to do.”
He leaned back over to Kazrack and continued with his whispering. “All we can do is try to find a way to brighten the room to fight that mouth thing, or simply leave and see if we can free Hurgun. There is nothing left to be done for Martin.”
“I am…” Kazrack began at normal tone.
“Whisper,” Ratchis admonished.
“I said, I am…” Kazrack voice grew a bit louder with anger.
“Whisper,” Ratchis said more gently.
“I am…Stop shushing me! I do not care that this foul monk hears what I have to say,” the dwarf barked. “I do not want to leave whatever portal used open for a god to come through. If we cannot fight the mouth, but we may be able to destroy the other portals and deal with the mouth later.”
“We have no reason to think a god will pass through any of these portals,” Ratchis said to Kazrack. “If it is truly a god, what does some portal here matter? So destroying the portal may make no difference to the god, but might have bad consequences for us. We should not do it.”
“Hey the monk is stepped closer,” Sergio reported. “He is near the middle of the room now!”
“Adder, please move off,” Roland warned. “Did he move off?” he asked Sergio.
“No,” the bard replied. Roland growled.
“We cannot start a conflict in here,” Ratchis whispered to the Bastite.
”I know, but… it is just rude!” Roland replied.
“But it is rude to whisper in front of people, too,” Bastian quipped.
“What kind of consequences?” Kazrack forged on with his point.
“The portals may hold something out…” Ratchis speculated.
“You know who’d know the answer?” Gunthar asked.
“Martin?” Roland replied.
”Ya damn right, Martin!” Gunthar laughed.
“You know, it is possible that Martin may return and Master Adder here is deceiving us, and wishes our watch-mage some ill,” Roland said. “If Martin does return, I do not want Adder here when it happens.”
“Monk!” Kazrack called across the room again. “Why have you not left? Did you not say you were leaving?” He turned to Roland. “Can you not sniff him out?”
“The stench is too foul in here,” Roland complained again.
“There are six of us and one of him,” Kazrack said. “Even in the dark we should be able to defeat him.”
“Um, he can hear what you are saying, Kazrack,” Bastian said.
“He’s got rocks for brains,” Gunthar laughed again.
”Monks are fleet-footed, and did not Beorth say Adder was the head of the order of the monks of Rahkefet? I am not so sure,” Ratchis said. “But if Martin returns we may be forced to act anyway…”
“How long should we wait?” Kazrack asked.
“A day? That should be long enough to see if he returns,” Ratchis replied.
“But shouldn’t we be trying to free Hurgun?” Bastian asked.
“It’s okay, since we are in the Plane of Time, we essentially have all the time in the world,” Roland reasoned.
“Or no time at all,” Bastian replied.
“There is that view of it, too…”
“We should go about our business,” Bastian said, his voice was still his usuall steady breathy sound with many pauses. “I know I did not know Martin as long as the rest of you and am not as familiar with his quest, but from what he told me, no one expected him to survive it, so why are you expecting it now?”
“He is our friend, and sometimes it is hard to accept the death of a friend, especially when he is not lying there dead to be seen with your own eyes,” Ratchis replied, sadly. He felt Thomas convulse on his shoulder and the squirrel let out a squeak.
“He’s friggin’ dead!” Gunthar yelled. “He said he would be, and he’s been a friggin’ nancy-boy about it the whole time I knew him, but he’s gone and he’s done it, which is more than I ever thought he’d accomplish.”
The room rumbled faintly, in a way reminiscent of just before they had all been knocked out during their combat with Richard the Red and his companions.
“Adder, if I may ask,” Roland called to the monk. “Why did you turn apostate?”
There was a long silence, broken only by another rumble and a fleeting sense of vertigo.
“Oh, I don’t like that,” Sergio grumbled.
“I found the rules of Anubis to be hollow,” Adder finally replied. “I discovered all the rules and customs of all the gods are equally valid or invalid, and thus have no real weight at all, except that which we choose to give them.”
“That is true of the human gods,” Kazrack said.
“I said, all gods, and I mean, all of them, regardless of the race that revere them,” Adder continued.
“Even Rahkefet?” Roland asked.
“Even Rahkefet,” Adder replied. “But my master knows that failure and corruption are the true eternal gifts of mortals. The laws of the gods only have meaning in this world in terms of how far short we mortals fall of them, and we always fall short.”
“But what does Rahkefet want?” Kazrack asked.
”For men to be as men are.”
“And that is…?” Roland asked.
“Men are untrustworthy,” Adder said.
“Yes,” Kazrack nodded in the dark.
“They abandon customs and laws when they become old and inconvenient,” Adder continued.
“Yes,” Kazrack said, again.
“On a whim, sometimes…” Adder said.
“Yes!” Kazrack said. “On that we are in full agreement.”
“The same is true of dwarves,” Adder added.
“Bah!” Kazrack scoffed. “Dwarves may change, but if so only as rocks with water. And if a man remains steadfast, what does Rahkefet think?”
“No man remains steadfast in his heart,” Adder replied.
“I am loyal to my goddess no matter what!” Roland protested.
“Sucking on the teats of the cat goddess may bring you some power,” Adder said. “But you are still but a mewling kitten.”
”Mmmmm, I love sucking on some teats!” Gunthar laughed.
“I think you are a liar,” Roland said, anger growing in his voice. “I think something happened to embitter you against Anubis, and you drape it in philosophical nonsense…”
“Perhaps there was something,” Adder replied. “But if so, it was only the trigger that allowed me to see clearly. I have forgotten most of my former life, perhaps you might ask my one time companions, the Oath… They might tell you a version of the tale that fits the illusions you refuse to dispel.”
“What must I do to understand?” Kazrack asked.
“Give up everything you have,” Adder replied.
“I have nothing to give up.”
“Your weapons, your companions, the bag of stones about your neck,” Adder said.
“I cannot.”
“Then you will never understand.”
“Kazrack, is there a point to all of this?” Ratchis asked his companion.
“I am just killing time,” Kazrack said. “Waiting for Martin’s return. Unless you have changed your mind about destroying the gates.”
“No…” Ratchis said.
“Martin may still come through one,” Roland said.
“Martin will never return,” Adder voice came out of the darkness.
“You sound like the voice of doubt in my mind,” Roland replied. “But I have faith in my heart, and never listen to doubts.”
“Doubt and faith are two sides to the same coin,” Adder said. “No matter how many times it flips, the outcome will always lead you astray.”
“I have faith he is coming back,” Roland said.
“Even Martin said he is not coming back,” Bastian said. “I think we are accomplishing nothing by staying here. The Maze is already in the deep realm of the Plane of Time, which means it is far from Aquerra, and no longer poses a threat to Greenreed Valley and beyond. We should be looking for a way out.”
“We still need to free Hurgun,” Roland said. “If we hope to get out of here, he will be the one to see that it happens. We need to go to the Control Room and free him, even if we don’t know how.”
“Maybe we should go,” Ratchis said, and suddenly the entire chamber rumbled and then jerked. Everyone was forced to fight to keep their balance. Bastian fell and slide fifteen feet across the room with a yelp.
“We go,” Roland said. Ratchis nodded, and Kazrack sighed his assent. The whole Maze rumbled again.
The Keepers of the Gate hurried back out of the portal after a few bumbling moments in the dark. Ratchis led the way. The first portal led to the Light Room, so they ran through that into the Hell Room. Here the screaming man in the dark corner of the chamber (2) had slid out of his place, and his agonizing bellows clawed at their ears. On a hunch, Ratchis led the group to the right, and they were back into the Water Room, with its rows of faux columns, marble walls and pool of blue-green water. (3)
As they hurried around the pool, a great vaguely humanoid-shaped wave rose up in and smashed out at Roland and Kazrack, sending them flying back bruised against the wall. Roland, still in panther-form, made a beeline for the portal on the left, sliding and tumbling to avoid another watery tentacle that waved out at him. The Bastite leapt through the portal. Gunthar was right behind him.
Ratchis dragged Kazrack behind him as the dwarf struggled to get back up, and Bastian hung back trying to draw the thing off to let the others escape. Sergio pushed past Ratchis and Kazrack and hurried through the portal after the others, as Bastian grunted with the pain of a blow from the water elemental.
Kazrack managed to get out of the chamber on his own feet, and Ratchis turned back to look at Bastian, who was making his way to the portal as well. The half-orc grabbed him and pushed the bearded warrior through the portal, going through as well, close behind.
They found themselves back in the Kitchen Chamber, and quickly Roland and Ratchis used some of their healing on the failing dwarf. They decided to move on, but Ratchis warned, “If there is some kind of enemy or guardian through this portal, everyone immediately come back in here.” The others agreed.
On through another of the black doorways they found themselves back in Dining Room, where once again, Razzle had nearly succeeded in freeing himself, and Richard’s bond were loose as well. The crimson-robed mage looked up as they entered and smiled.
“Fine, you have won,” he said. “You may free us now.”
Instead, Ratchis tightened their bonds again and gagged them both. Richard the Red glared at them with disappointment.
The Keepers of the Gate did not wait long despite being low on spells and at various states of injury. Ratchis led the way through the portal that had once led to the Control Room, but now it led to Hurgun’s Chambers. They entered the hallways with the great stone statues of Hurgun, with his skull cap and broad bare chest. (4)
As Ratchis crept up the hall to look around the corner, there was the sound of stone scraping stone, and he looked up to see the statue of Hurgun come to life, a stone golem, stepping with unexpected speed in his direction.
“Get out of here!” he cried to his companions, and Roland who was just coming through the portal near the rear of the group wasted no time in leaping back through. Ratchis cried out again, as he felt two heavy blows on his shoulder and the side of his head and he fell to the ground bleeding.
Seeing this, Bastian ran right at the statue, ducking under its blow to draw it away from the dying half-orc. “Come here, ya big statue!” he taunted.
With a word to Rivkanal, Kazrack was able to stabilized Ratchis, but the half-orc was still unconscious. Gunthar hurried over, aided by Sergio’s quickly cast haste spell, to stand over their fallen companion ready to attack if the statue turned towards him again.
The golem stopped, its head reared back and it let out a cloud of green gas that roiled over Gunthar and Kazrack. As quickly as the Neergaardian felt the speed in his limbs from Sergio’s spell, did he feel it cancelled, but Kazrack was able to shake off the effect. Having done his part, Sergio ducked back through the portal after Roland.
Gunthar as unable to react in time to avoid two devastating blows to his chest and neck, and he coughed blood and stumbled. Bastian came back past the golem to draw it off again, but this time, he caught the back of its fist to his face, and he spat blood as he continued to duck past.
Kazrack was dragging Ratchis back into the Dining Room when the golem slammed Bastian twice more and the Gothanian fell down to bleed out. Gunthar leapt through the portal as well.
“Where is Bastian?” Roland asked, when the rest were through.
“He must have fallen!” Kazrack replied, alarmed. The dwarf had bruises all over his body from the day’s battles that had not been dealt with. “The statue was closing on him when I came through, but I was certain he would be able to get away. Someone cure me so I can go get him.” He turned to Roland, who shrugged.
“I have nothing left,” the Bastite said. “I am afraid Bastian may be dead already, unless… if he is unconscious then perhaps the golem will not recognize him as a threat and returns to its position.”
“I thought the guardian were supposed to be turned off?” Kazrack complained.
”It must be a temporary thing and they come back on,” Roland shrugged.
The dwarf sighed, and calling to his gods, cast bear’s endurance and shield of faith on himself. “Come on, Gunthar. I will need your aid in retrieving Bastian. The rest of you wait here.”
Back in the Chambers, the golem had returned to its position, and began to move again, as Kazrack stabilized the Gothanian with a cure minor wounds orison. They quickly dragged their unconscious companion from the room, but leaving last, Kazrack took a final blow to the back of the head that made him see stars.
“When the miracle I asked my gods for wears off I will collapse,” the rune-thrower told his companions. “Someone must be ready to stabilize me, and then we must rest.”
“We have no time to rest,” Roland complained.
“Two of us are near death, and I, too shall be there soon enough,” Kazrack said. “We have no choice.”
“Well, there is a little bit of choice,” and with some melodic words, Sergio was able to cure some of Kazrack’s lighter wounds.
“We will still need to rest,” Kazrack said. The others acquiesced.
“You need our help. Release us,” Richard said. He had managed to work his gag off. “As I said before, you have won. I do not see Martin with you, so I assume he has gone on to his task. Our attempt at stopping him is over…”
“No, you will not be released,” Kazrack replied. “But… Do you have any means of healing? You may aid us that way. Have you any potions?”
“Perhaps,” Richard replied, cagily.
“We can just kill you and search your body,” Gunthar said.
“Kazrack would not allow that,” Richard replied.
“Do not tempt me, mage,” Kazrack said, walking over. “Now tell me, if you are sincere in wanting to aid, do you or do you not have means of healing we can use?”
“You will have to free me, if you want them,” Richard said.
“Give them to us and we will let you live, that is assuming at least one of us survives to fulfill the promise,” Kazrack said. The Dining Room shuddered again.
“If Martin is dead, you have no more reason to keep my bound,” Richard re-iterated.
”I have plenty of reasons,” Kazrack said.
“Like?”
“Mostly, because I don’t like you,” the dwarf spat, and then re-gagged the rogue watch-mage.
“I may be able to help,” Razzle offered. “But if I want my rapier back and be allowed to leave. Whatever your past with Richard, I was only here aiding him in a cause I thought was just; that is over now. A Greyish Brother always keeps his word.”
Kazrack looked to Roland, who shrugged. “I think he’s telling the truth,” the Bastite said.
Kazrack loosened the half-elf swordsman’s bonds and rolled him out of the rug. Razzle rubbed his wrists and ankles, and then reached into his satchel, drawing out several metal vials. He pointed them out, saying “Eagle’s Splendor, Bull’s Strength, and two of cure moderate wounds.”
Gunthar dropped Razzle’s rapier in the half-elf’s lap and sneered at him, while Kazrack fed one of the healing potions to Ratchis.
The friar of Nephthys sputtered awake and was informed about what was going on. He cast cure light wounds on Kazrack, while Gunthar drank the other healing potion.
“We should have used that on Bastian,” Kazrack complained.
“Too late!” Gunthar smirked.
“Can you not even try to be part of a team?” the dwarf asked.
”I am perfectly fine on a team, you all just don’t give me the respect I deserve,” Gunthar replied, still smiling.
“Actually, Bastian is too injured for that potion to have brought him around,” Roland explained. “So we might as well use it on Gunthar to keep him conscious. If we are planning on resting here, I am going to light my last block of incense of meditation and get ready for when I prepare my spells.” (5) He proceeded to do so.
Ratchis and Kazrack fell to discussing what to do with Richard the Red, but first they dragged the watch-mage across the room. Razzle was checking on the still unconscious Norena and Cordell.
“He is going to continue to try to free himself,” Ratchis said, keeping his voice down. “And if he succeeds we have no assurances that he won’t act against us. If we can get him to promise to aid us, and free him, it might be a better choice.”
“Or, we can break his fingers,” Kazrack replied.
“I’ll do it!” Gunthar said, walking over.
“No…” Ratchis growled. “But since we are resting , we can wait to decide what to do with him.”
“That’s another thing,” Kazrack said. “I know Roland thinks he has decided for all of us, but I do not like the idea of resting now. The monk is still free in the Maze, and those rumblings seem to be getting worse…”
“I don’t like it either,” Ratchis replied. “But we all exhausted and sore from the many battles we have fought while in here. We will need rejuvenated spells and Bastian among the living if we hope to succeed. And while there come a time when we have no choice but to interrupt our rest and move on, let us rest while we can.”
Kazrack grumbled his assent.
----------------------------------------------------
Martin the Green gasped and wheezed as he came out into a cold stone room that looked like some kind of mausoleum. (6) He turned back and saw that he had somehow walked out of the chest of a great bust of Rahkefet. The ram-headed god had his arms open, hold a crook in one hand and an ornamental flail in the other.(7) He walked down the steps off the raised dais, and looked around. There were pillars lined with striations of gold with stylized pictograms of people preparing the dead; some stealing the items interred with them. The pillars held up the vaulted ceiling, and the far end of the room, was an arced glass wall with metal doors, that looked out on the horizonless black beyond.
The walls of the mausoleum were lined with open caskets, leaning upright in two rows. The corpses within were hanging out, suspended from the ceiling by hooks on the end of long chains that were inserted under their chins. The center of their bodies were cut open, and their lungs hung out distended, but a healthy pink, though there was crusted line of black at the top of the exposed trachea.
Martin shuddered and began to walk past the corpses. As he did they began to stir and moan, but the could barely lift their arms and could not move their heads to look at the watch-mage. He hurried past to the glass wall and looked out. He could now make out dark forms in the inky eternal night beyond. There were large stones floating out there, and the mausoleum itself seemed to have been built on just such a floating rock. He guessed that the mausoleum was protecting him from the vacuous environment beyond, but that once he left it, he would benefit from no such protection.
Martin the Green walked back towards the zombies and examined the hanging lungs. He reached up for the trachea of one and it snapped off in his hand at the black line. He looked at the broken end, and brushed away the cracking rotted flesh. He walked back to the metal doors, and held the end of the trachea up to his face. He felt it squirm as it fit tightly over his mouth, and then he nearly vomited when he felt some long tendril reach out from within and squirm down his throat and snap onto something in his own lungs. Martin stumbled back for a moment in shock, but then he realized the lungs were now hanging from his mouth of their own accord, and they expanded and retracted with each of his breaths. He stepped over and opened the doors.
Winds tugged at Martin’s emerald robes as the air in the mausoleum rushed out into the cold beyond. The watch-mage shivered as he stepped out into the courtyard, noting quivering black vines growing along cracks in the stone underfoot. He moaned as he felt some of his life energy immediately drained, and a coldness so harsh it hurt. (8) He walked out to where the floating stone island he was on ended and could see another bigger island of stone floating way out at the edge of his vision. Everything was shades of gray and black, like a dimmer version of darkvision, and the more distant something was, the more like a silhouette it seemed.
He looked down and saw another smaller and more barren island of stone about forty feet below. Willing himself to not have fear, he leapt out and floated down, landing harder than he expected as the stone was floating up to meet him. He looked around and saw another stone passing above from left to right. As his island crossed its path, he leapt again, barely making the edge. (9)
Martin the Green noticed cloud-like nebulas of utter darkness that floated by in bunched and swirls, and as he leapt from island to island, he had to duck and wait to avoid them. When the edge of one brushed his leg in mid-leap, he felt the drain of more life energy from him.
He continued to leap several time until he finally found himself floating way above the largest of these floating stone islands. The center of it was cloaked in a darkness he could not penetrate, and all around he saw ruined building creating a corridor that led up to the dark area. Martin leapt down one last time.
On the island, he could now see that there was a free-standing narrow stone stairway that led up into the column of darkness. He still had the Book of Black Circles, still tucked under his left arm. The buildings on each side appeared as ruined temples, each with a desecrated holy symbol above the door. There was the ankh and solar disk of Ra, the silver spear of Anhur, the cat’s eye with emblazoned ankh of Bast, the rising star of Isis, and then he saw on his left, the tree growing from an ankh that represented Osiris. This symbol was not scratched out or smeared with gore, as the others had been.
Martin walked in that direction, seeing that the doors that led with in were smashed off the hinges, and beyond was a walled in courtyard about another mausoleum. The courtyard was a shriveled garden. He approached the mausoleum and he pushed at the cracked door, there was a sharp pain in his right arm. He winced and for a moment saw stars. Martin looked down at his arm, to see the flesh of it rot away at incredible speed, leaving behind near bare-bone tied together with thin stretching sinew. His tears were frozen on his cheeks as he raised the skeletal arm and flexed his boney fingers.
“Osiris,” Martin prayed silently, unable to speak with the strange lungs still hanging from his face. “I am bereft of wisdom and of hope. I will obey your command, but I fear I do nothing but bring evil into the world. If there is something I can do to ameliorate this evil, please give me a sign.”
Within the mausoleum things were in an equal state of disrepair. Upon a stone bier was a sarcophagus, and as Martin entered, the form of a mummified corpse rose and lifted a leg over the side, to sit on the edge of the bier. “Martin the Green,” it hissed, its eyes glowing red within the shadow of its stained wrappings.
“Martin the Green,” it said again. “Turn back. Only evil comes from this place. You are only choosing between them…”
“This may be true,” Martin thought, having faith the gods could hear him. “But you are not the voice of Osiris.” He turned around and left the mausoleum and the courtyard, going back out to path leading to the narrow stone stairway.
As he climbed the first step, he felt another shudder of cold through his body, as he continued to feel his energy and will drain from him. Slowly he climbed towards a ring of darkness that surrounded whatever the steps led to, and each step felt more difficult than the last. He stopped right at the edge of the darkness, and before he knew it, he found himself halfway back down the stairs. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath that made the lungs hanging from his face wheeze and crack, and then began to climb again, with even more difficulty then before. This time he did not hesitate, but made to step right into the darkness. Instead, the mantle of green and black fire that sometimes appeared when he cast spells ever since he got possession of the Book of Black Circles ignited around him, and again he found him back down the steps, this time at the very bottom. He shuddered as he felt even more life energy drain from him as he began to climb a third time.
This time he penetrated the darkness. It was even colder than the rest of this foul plane, and he shook violently as he stumbled out the other side a few steps later.
Martin looked up and seeing where the steps led to, felt something unlike anything he had ever felt before. It was a profound awe. It was a sense of smallness and insignificance that subsumed his whole existence. He looked down at the steps before him, as he collapsed onto his hands and knees, dropping the Book of Black Circles onto the stairs.
Martin had seen the colossal chained form of Rahkefet. With ebony skin and muscular arms folded across his broad bare chest, the god stood nearly motionless upon a great stone pedestal. The chains were black, but currents of white energy sizzled along the links here and there. Martin crawled forward, dragging the book with him, and looked up again. Rahkefet’s immense ram’s head looked down at him, and Martin was pinned to the steps in utter fear. He put the Book of Black Circles two steps before him, and then managed to get to his feet, not looking up until the steps ended in mid-air.
The narrow stone stairs stopped right before the great black metal lock that held the great knot in the chains closed. It hung before the ram-headed god’s folded arms like a misshapen medallion nearly six feet high. There was a depression in the lock the size of the Book of Black Circles.
“Blessed Osiris,” Martin prayed silently again. “Richard the Red claimed that I was being tested, but you did not test Ratchis, who follows your beloved sister, or Jana, who was on a far darker path than mine… before now… I am not special. I am not unique. Therefore, I must conclude that this is not a test, but simply a task you need done. Who am I to deny you?”
Martin the Green raised the Book of Black Circles before him, but he felt his skeletal right arm fighting him, and every muscle in his body screamed as cramps rolled up and down his limbs and side. Concentrating all his will and resolve, Martin thrust himself forward and slipped the book into the depression in the lock. (10)
There was a silent explosion as the chains burst asunder and the ram-headed god opened his arms. The narrow stone stair broke apart, but Martin the Green felt the vertigo of flight for less than a moment, as he was consumed in the explosion of divine energy, ceasing to be.
----------------------------------------------------
It was sometime later that Adder arrived. Ratchis had been catching some quick sleep, while Razzle and Gunthar told each other bawdy jokes. Roland was still meditating in panther-form before the burning incense, and Richard had been dragged back into the middle of the room, where he could be watched. “He’s as ugly as you are,” Gunthar said to Ratchis of the monk as he woke the Friar. They noticed Adder’s lattice of facial scars. The monk leaned his cruel-looking spear on his shoulder, and bowed, though his eyes never left them. “You are all here,” he said. “Are you ready?”
“Ready for what?” Kazrack asked.
“Martin has succeeded,” the monk replied. “It is time to go.”
“We need to rest,” Kazrack said.
“Fine. I will I try to do it on my own,” Adder said. “Good-bye.”
“You cannot let him go,” Richard suddenly cried, his gag loose once again. “He is going to try to gain control of the Maze. There is no telling what he might do!”
But the leader of the Brotherhood of the Lost, stepped quickly through a portal to the right of where he had entered.
Ratchis walked over to Richard, hunting knife in hand. “If I free you, do I have your parole? We want your help, but I want you to understand that you are still our prisoner, and we plan to bring or send you to the Academy for justice, as Martin would have wanted…”
Richard the Red agreed and the half-orc cut him free.
“Roland! We must go,” Kazrack smacked the panther awkwardly on the top of the head, but the Bastite did not respond.
“We will leave him here with the injured,” Ratchis said, throwing Richard his satchel of spell components along with a threatening glare. “Let us go!”
The Keepers of the Gate hurried through the portal Adder had left through. Ratchis and Gunthar led the way, followed by Richard and Razzle. Kazrack and Sergio took up the rear. Suddenly, they were back in the Dark Room.
“He is not in here,” Sergio said.
“This is a foul and powerful spell Hurgun has cast in this room,” Richard commented. (11) “I would cast analyze portal, but I need to see the portal to know where it will go.”
“We need to guess,” Ratchis said. He had Sergio guide them to the portal directly across the way. It led to the Hell Room.
After a quick search of the floor, Ratchis said, “Let’s go back and try another way. I have a hunch.”
Back in the Dark Room, Sergio led them to the left, and they fumbled through the portal and appeared in the Control Room, where Adder stood at the edge of the blue-white spiral about Hurgun, rocking back and forth as if trying to sync up with its turns and pulses.
End of Session #100
