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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1985776" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 315Ten minutes later found the adventurers reunited in the long hall beyond the beholder door.  The portal had started to close automatically shortly after it was opened, but Mole and Fario were quick to jam it open with iron spikes from Mole’s bag of holding jammed into the threshold.  The opening left in the partially-closed door was small, but enough for all of them to fit through with a bit of effort. They left their rope dangling in the shaft behind them, a tenuous avenue of retreat.  “Not goin’ get back up as easy as we came down,” Hodge said, the last of them to make the descent.  He only spoke what most of them were thinking; if they ran into trouble down here that they couldn’t handle, there were no easy escapes. The hall broadened as it penetrated deeper into the volcanic rock, forming a wide area maybe twenty feet across halfway down its length.  That open space had been used to form a gallery of sorts.  Another of the beholder doors was set in the wall to their right, and facing it was a curving wall where a half-dozen stone statues of exquisite detail were carefully arranged.  Unlike the statues they’d encountered in Vhalantru’s mansion above, these figures were cut in the shape of terrible monstrosities, fell creatures that had fallen prey to the beholder’s flesh to stone power.  They recognized several of them, including a small black dragon, a kuo-toa, and a minotaur, but several others were of creatures none of them had ever seen before.  “These, I don’t think we should restore to life,” Dannel suggested. Mole shone her light down the far end of the hall, revealing another terminus at a sealed beholder door.  But the others were already turning to the portal in the middle of the corridor, the object toward which all of the monster statues were oriented. “I get a real bad feeling here,” Arun said.  “Everyone, be ready for anything,” Beorna said, taking the opportunity to summon the power of Helm to bolster herself. “Let me cast my clairvoyance spell,” Zenna suggested.  “We’ll know what we’re getting into.”The templar nodded.  They all knew that the spell took time to prepare, so they settled down to wait as Zenna came forward and knelt before the portal, gathering her thoughts to focus upon her casting. But she’d barely begun her incantation when she slumped back, her expression twisting in pain.  They all felt it, a tangible wave of pure evil, hatred and pain sweeping out in an invisible but tangible tide from somewhere beyond the portal. “What was that?” Fario said, rubbing his head.  Fellian looked worse off, clutching his temples.“Something’s happened,” Beorna said, her sword held before her in a ready position, as if expecting an enemy to materialize from thin air before them.  “Open the door.” “That might not be a good idea...” Zenna began. “Whatever it was, it wasn’t good, and it can only strengthen our enemies’ position,” the templar said.  “We have to strike, and quickly.”Zenna looked at her friends, but Arun had already turned back to the door, and Dannel shook his head, fitting an arrow to his bow, filling the air with the nearly-silent melody of power that surrounded him in his archery, infusing the missile with potency.  Mole shrugged, but Zenna knew her well enough to know that she was far too excited to be worried about whatever it was that was waiting for them behind that door.  So be it, she thought, a grim fatalism drifting over her.  As Mole moved toward the door, the magical chime in hand, Zenna took the opportunity to summon her own wards, adding to the magic circle that she’d called upon before.  Fellian, likewise, placed shields of faith upon himself and Fario.  Mole reached the door, and glanced back at her companions. They were ready, but Zenna couldn’t shake the black feeling that had settled over her, a certainty that only disaster awaited them behind the beholder portal. “Do it,” Beorna said. The chime sounded, and as its clear note reverberated through the hall, the slabs of the door parted and slid back. Beyond the door was another great chamber, a smooth hemisphere blasted from the surrounding rock by the beholder’s magic, the ceiling rising in a perfect dome above.  The chamber was lit, with flickering blue flames in sconces around the perimeter filling the place with a surreal aquamarine glow.  There were no furnishings or other mundane details; the only other unique feature of the room was a magical diagram, easily ten paces across, carved with glowing blue runes, set into the center of the floor.  The diagram formed a triangle inscribed inside a circle; at each point of the triangle was a dark object, roughly the size of a man. And hovering above the diagram was the creature they had come to find. The beholder was turned away from them, quivering within a glowing nimbus of soft gray wisps that surrounded it like a haze of fog.  The companions readied weapons and spells, but before they could strike, another surge of power slammed through the room with the force of a physical blow, stunning them.  Black tendrils of energy exploded up from the three figures imprisoned on the perimeter of the magic circle, each disintegrating into ash as the power was released from them.  Those flares rose up and tore into the beholder, whose form swelled and distended.  The gray haze vanished, and even as the companions felt control over their minds and bodies slowly returning, the dark orb slowly began to rotate. A grim laugh that was too jarringly human came from the beholder.  “You’re too late, heroes.”As it turned to face them, they saw that the beholder had... changed.  Its already thick and mottled hide had darkened, cracked and broken with sores that oozed a toxic black putrescence like tar seeping from the earth.  As Vhalantru’s huge jaws opened, its mad laughter continuing to roil from within, a great gout of putrid green ooze erupted from its body, landing in a noxious splat on the floor below.  And as its large central eye opened, unleashing its potent cone of antimagic upon them, the companions could see the glistening organ ripple and move.  For within that eye, quivering as if trying to break free, they could see the face of a trapped fiend...“By the gods,” Dannel said, his face as white as a burial shroud.</blockquote>

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