NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1666738" data-attributes="member: 143">Nah, that's not a cliffhanger. THIS is a cliffhanger...  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> * * * * *Chapter 184After directing the others through the maze, Zenna was the last to step through the final portal, passing through another mirror-doorway into the small stone vault where Alek Tercival was imprisoned.  Morgan and Dannel were crouched over the paladin, with Arun and Hodge close enough behind to block a clear view.  Instead, she turned her attention to the rest of the vault.  The place was fairly cramped, a cube of empty space perhaps fifteen feet on each side, surrounded by seamless heavy stones.  A heavy iron door, its frame marred by hundreds of shallow gouges—no doubt inflicted by Alek, in his desire to escape—was the only means of exit apart from the mirror-doorway.  She turned back to the portal, knowing already what she would find, even before Mole said it. “The portal’s one-way only from this side.  No going back,” the gnome said.  She went to take a look at the door, but Zenna could already see that it was similar to the slab portals in Vaprak’s Voice, with no keyhole or other apparently mechanism that might grant them easy egress.  Well, if it came to that, she figured that Arun and Hodge would be able to figure out a way to force it open.  She walked over to where she could get a clearer look at their reason for coming.  Morgan was speaking to the paladin, but he seemed insensitive to their presence, and when Zenna got a clear look at his face, she saw that his eyes were vague and distant, lost in some private abyss.  The paladin was older than most of them, maybe thirty, and while he was still ruggedly handsome, it was clear that he’d suffered a great deal of abuse.  How he’d survived here, without food and water, Zenna had no idea.  In fact, if it wasn’t for a small crack visible at the base of the iron door, she suspected he would have suffocated.  Even so, with seven of them now here, she wondered whether that vent alone would suffice.   “How long have you been here?” Dannel prodded, to no avail. Morgan placed his hand on the paladin’s shoulder.  “We have come for you, brother.  We have slain the evil hags and their servants, and will find a way to get you out of here.  Do not fear, your shadowed journey has come to an end.”“Bah, he’s gone daft,” Hodge said.  Morgan looked up and shot him a dark look, but Arun drew his cohort aside.  “We’d better take a look at that door,” he said to his fellow dwarf.  Morgan, however, did not give up on his colleague, fighting to reach through whatever trauma had disengaged his conscious mind.  Zenna, looking around the bleak emptiness of the vault, thought she could understand the root causes of his despair; all that he’d believed in had come crashing down around him, leaving him bereft of the lifeline that had anchored his life.  How long had he spent in this place, sealed in, awaiting death?The cleric had taken up Alakast, and placed it standing on the floor between them.  He took up the paladin’s limp hands, and drawing off the man’s gauntlets wrapped them around the smooth white bore of the blessed weapon.  “An angel has guided us to this ancient weapon,” he said, earnestly, his hands embracing Alek’s, holding them to the staff.  “Feel the power within it, a power that also flows within your veins, my friend...”Alek Tercival’s eyes seemed to flicker, and he blinked.  “Angels... my angels... they... they...”“Yes, what is it, my friend?” Morgan encouraged him.The paladin’s body was wracked by a terrible sob.  “They betrayed me!  The three archons... my angels... they told me I was worthy!  Their false promises were a test... and I failed!”“Angels, hah,” Hodge snorted.  Dannel elbowed him. “I understand,” Morgan said, and although Zenna could not see his face, she could hear the depth of pain in the cleric’s voice.  “We have to get out of here,” Mole said, softly so that her words would not disturb the fragile connection between Morgan and Alek.  “And that door’s not coming off unless forced.”Arun had already taken up position at the door, running his thick fingers along the cracks in the threshold.  “I’ll need a lever,” he said. “I left all me tools behind,” Hodge said.  “Me pry-bar would’a made short work o’ that door, gods be damned!”Morgan and Alek both turned to look at the dwarf, the cleric’s face disapproving, the paladin’s stricken. “Um... yeah, I think I gots a spike or two in ‘ere...” the dwarf said, digging in his pack. “So, the ha—um, angels, they sent you into the portal maze?” Dannel said to Alek. But the paladin’s gaze had fallen back to the white shaft between his hands.  He ran his calloused, weather-cracked fingers up its smooth surface.  “When the final cage is shackled, the burning doom shall rise,” he said, his voice so low that they had to lean in to her him. “What’s that?” Mole asked.  She’d been “helping” with the door, and turned to make sure she hadn’t missed something interesting.  Dannel looked at Zenna.  “Do you know what he’s talking about?”Zenna shook her head, but she felt a strong sense of unease, along with a tickle at the edge of her memory.  Something...A loud banging noise made her jump, and Alek Tercival drew back, his hands leaping from the bore of the staff as if burned by it.  The sound was Arun, driving a spike into the frame of the door with one of his light hammers, while Hodge, using his dagger as a wedge, tried to widen the gap below it.  Morgan was still talking earnestly to Alek in a low voice, but it appeared as though the paladin had withdrawn inside himself again.The noise redoubled as the dwarves intensified their efforts upon the door, driving larger the crack in the threshold, then using their larger weapons to lever the portal open further.  Finally Arun was able to get his fingers into the crack, and he and Hodge combined their strength to slide the door into its jam, the metal protesting loudly with each inch.  Mole, of course, hopped through the instant that the opening was wide enough to accommodate her.  Behind the door was a steep staircase that led upward; they could see light that appeared to be natural daylight filtering down from above.  The fresh air was hot, and dry. The dwarves finished open the door, and recovering their weapons, started up the stairs.  The others followed behind, Dannel helping Morgan lift Alek to his feet.  The paladin complied woodenly, but leaned heavily against Morgan as the cleric directed him toward the stairs.  Dannel took up Alek’s glowing sword from the floor of the vault, and slid it back into the paladin’s scabbard.  Zenna was the last to leave, taking one last look about the vault before following them up the steps. They emerged into a larger chamber at the top of the stairs.  Four thick stone pillars supported a vaulted ceiling almost twenty feet high above them.  The opposite wall was breached, leading outdoors, and a wide landscape of rolling sand dunes that extended as far as they could see.  A pile of sand gathered by the wind had collected at the base of the opening, spreading out across the floor of the room.  A bleached skeleton lay on the floor, its lower body buried under the sand, a rusted pick-axe lying beside one outstretched hand.  “This doesn’t look like anywhere near Cauldron that I’m aware of,” Dannel said, regarding the vista through the gap in the wall.  The others had already moved out into the room; Mole standing near the doorway, the dwarves a short distance behind her, near the skeletal remains at the edge of the pile of sand. Zenna stepped out from the staircase into the room, but suddenly felt an oppressive feeling descend over her.  It was a feeling she recognized, as he eyes were drawn to a high corner of the chamber.  Something’s scryingus...She opened her mouth to shout a warning, but before she could speak, there was a loud noise directly to her left, a sudden bang accompanied by an eruption of noxious wisps of cloying gray smoke that appeared out of nothingness.  The gray pall persisted only for a heartbeat, dissolving to reveal a monstrosity. Zenna’s eyes lifted up... and up... to look into the face of the horror that loomed over her.  It was huge, easily fifteen feet tall, its body roughly humanoid, a pastiche of bulging musculature and bony ridges.  It had four arms, two massive limbs that ended in pincers big enough to slice her in twain, with two small arms with articulated hands that jutted from its chest.  And its face... its face was a horror, looking at first glance like that of a hound, but with huge, slathering jaws, and eyes that burned red with a fearsome, malevolent intelligence. The demon regarded them with a look of hateful contempt.  Its voice filled the vault with an echoing roar.  “YOU SHALL NOT SAVE YOUR FRIEND, MORTALS!  THIS TIME OF PEACE IS AT AN END!”</blockquote>

Verification