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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2136530" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 359Once they had bound the minor wounds suffered in the brief battle with the vrocks, the companions continued deeper into the complex.  Shortly thereafter they came to a split in the tunnel.  Both options appeared identical, so they turned to the right.  Their chosen way seemed to curve ever so slightly around to the left as they progressed further, until they’d left the intersection well behind them. “It’s getting hotter,” Dannel commented. “Well, we be in an active volcano,” Hodge grumbled. “We could be nearing an active lava tube,” Arun said.  “Be alert.”“There’s a door up ahead,” Mole noted.  The corridor came to an end there, with a pair of massive stone portals, each easily ten feet in height, offering the only obvious way to continue their explorations. “Not a casual entry,” Nidrama said, stepping forward. “Too bad Zenna’s not here; she could use her magic to see what lies beyond,” Mole said.  As she finished speaking, she could sense the sudden tension that had come over the rest of them, in particular the stricken look that had crossed Dannel’s features before he was able to school his expression back to one of hard neutrality.  “Ah, yeah, right, way to put your foot in it,” she mumbled to herself, before busying herself with the door.  “I don’t see any traps,” she reported, after a few moments. Arun gestured to Hodge, and the two dwarves sheathed their weapons, stepping up to the nearer of the double doors.  Even with their combined strength, the door edged open only fractionally, as if resisting their efforts.  A wave of heat greeted them as the doors slid open enough to reveal the area beyond, and a line of orange light glowed through the narrow slit.  Mole leapt up onto Hodge’s shoulder, eliciting a protest from the dwarf, and peered through. “Looks like a big cavern, full of lava,” she said. “Any bridge or ledge that runs across?” Arun asked. “I don’t see one.  Open the door a bit more.”The dwarves complied, with Nidrama reaching over them to add her strength to the effort.  Finally Mole slid her head through the opening, and looked around, including a scan of the ceiling above. “No way,” she said.  “The whole floor is lava, with maybe a few islands here or there.  I could hop across, but there’s no way you dwarves are going to make it without sprouting wings.”“Is there another exit on the far side?” Dannel asked. “I didn’t see one,” Mole said.  “But it’s a big cavern; there may be something on the far side that I cannot see from here.”Nidrama drew back.  “I sense evil… old, deep.”Arun nodded.  “We may have to come back here… but for now, let’s try the other passage.”They closed the door as best they could, and then retraced their steps back to the intersection.  The other passage continued for only a relatively short distance, a few dozen paces, before splitting again into another passage that ran perpendicular to each side.  To the left, they could see that the passage quickly opened into a larger chamber; to the right the corridor ran on for some distance straight ahead. “Let’s check out that room,” Dannel said, but he hesitated as Mole suddenly appeared ahead of them.  The gnome was pale. “Torture chamber,” she said.  “Recently used, I’d say.  Stinks of demodands, but there aren’t any there now.”“Any exits?” Arun asked. “No, not that I could see.”“It’s quiet,” Dannel said.  The others shared a quick look.  They were all thinking the same thing; the Cagewrights were likely waiting for them somewhere ahead, at a point where they could attack from a position of best advantage. “Well, let’s get to it, then,” Arun finally said, leading them back in the other direction.  Mole, once again, had disappeared. The remaining passage continued for maybe forty feet before ending in a small recessed door to the right.  Mole—or rather, her voice, for she was still invisible—pronounced it free of traps, and after waiting a moment for them to check their weapons, Arun shouldered it open.  A spacious room with a spartan décor lay beyond, obviously personal quarters for someone of at least medium rank.  They took in the weapons racks, the narrow bed, the heavy carpets laid out upon the floor and hung upon the walls as cheap insulation.  A plain iron brazier, currently unlit, likely served as a source of both heat and illumination.  But the oddest thing about the place was set into the far wall; a bulky pipe organ, large enough to have served adequately in a cathedral to one of the more favored gods of the Realms.  The thing appeared to have been built into the back wall of the room itself; apparently its owner had not been planning on relocating anytime soon. “This place… there’s somethin’ not quite right about it…” Hodge said. Arun nodded.  There were little signs, subtleties in the arrangements of the modest furnishings, the choice of coverings for the walls and floor.  Nidrama said, “The resident of this chamber is possessed of a damaged mind.”“Guys,” Dannel said from behind them, directing their attention back out into the corridor.  “There’s a secret door here.”They retreated, giving the room a final cautionary look, and joined the elf.  “Here,” Dannel said.  “Either someone was careless, or we were meant to find it.”  The portal was of excellent design, and looked indistinguishable from the surrounding wall, but Dannel indicated a narrow crack where the door hadn’t been returned fully into its setting. “Trap?” Arun asked. “Yer ain’t been payin’ attention,” Hodge said.  “O’ course it’s a trap.  Everythin’s a trap!”“We might have missed something, another secret door,” Dannel noted.  “And there’s the lava room.”“Nidrama?” Arun asked.  “We knew when we came here that the road would be fraught with suffering.”“Oy, that’s inspirin’,” Hodge said sarcastically, wiping his hand across his mouth.  “We should be prepared,” the celestial said, ignoring the dwarf as she refreshed their wards. “Well, here we…” Arun began, turning to the portal. He never got a chance to finish, for at that moment the entire door, along with a good section of the surrounding wall, just vanished, leaving behind only a few motes of dust that slowly drifted to the floor.  Beyond lay a considerable chamber, a council room of some sort, dominated by a long, thin, oddly shaped table that ran most of the length of the room.  The room was filled with a ruddy light that emitted from pools of lava at the corners.  A single exit was visible at the far side of the chamber.But they did not have the luxury of examining the chamber further, for it was here that the Cagewrights had prepared their ambush.  Behind the table was arrayed a line of over a half-dozen humanoid warriors, muscular, dark-skinned creatures with ferocious, vaguely canine visages and thick layers of jet black fur covering their heads and the backs of their arms.  They had longbows, with arrows at the ready.  At the end of the table stood a massive fire giant, armed with a huge greatsword that burned with a bright, eager flame.  Standing in the doorway opposite, behind the warriors, a figure stood in the shadows, its form obscured by the familiar shifting of magical displacement.  Beside that figure stood a vrock demon, its wings twitching in anticipation. And there was one other present, one already familiar to the companions.  As the doorway was disintegrated, the glabrezu Nabthatoron lifted its adamantine claw, barking a sinister greeting as it fixed the Heroes of Cauldron with a terrible, eager stare.</blockquote>

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