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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2203831" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 378The wall of ice, already melting with the heat of the nearby lava pools, disintegrated completely in a few minutes, leaving the passage clear.  The corridor remained empty save for the wreckage of the earlier battle.  They quickly returned to the bend in the tunnel where the ambush had begun.  The sides of the passageway were scorched black from the multiple flame strikes that had been unleashed here, and the corpses of the slain Cagewrights, hastily looted and covered with loose cloaks, formed dark mounds that they gave a wide berth.  The stench of death hung heavily over the tunnel, even in the relatively short time since the battle. “Well, do we retrace our steps, take down this wall, or press on?” Dannel asked. “I suggest we go forward,” Cal said, indicating the secret passage where the Cagewrights had waited to ambush them.  “We should find the Tree of Shackled Souls first, and remove any lingering defenses that the Cagewrights have established.”“Including this Dyr’ryd fellow,” Dana added.  “From what Wiejeron said, I do not like the sound of him.”“I think they’re all mad, to some degree,” the gnome replied.  It’s likely a byproduct of their interactions with Carceri, and their bond to this Adimarchus.”“Yeah, his digs were nuts,” Hodge said, with a shudder. “Occipitus,” Dannel clarified.  “An abyssal demiplane, the former home of the fallen angel-turned-demon.  We left one of our companions there, a cleric of Helm, who believed that he could rehabilitate the place.”“Well, if this Adimarchus gets out, he might try to return there,” Cal said.  “You might want to warn your friend.”“Enough chatter, we have something to do here,” Benzan said, slipping through the ruined doorway into the far passage.  The others followed behind, stepping around the covered bodies of Freija Doorgan and Shebeleth Regidin.“We should dispose of these corpses more permanently,” Mole suggested as they passed.  “Keep them from being raised.”“A good suggestion,” Cal said.  “Before we depart, we’ll drop them all into the lava.”The tunnel, which had the look of a natural lava shaft worked to make it more passable, continued straight for about thirty feet before it gradually began to bend to the right.  Right around the start of the bend, however, they encountered a set of stone double doors on the left side of the corridor. “Tunnel ends at another set of doors up ahead, maybe forty feet further down,” Benzan said, emerging from the shadows ahead of them. “They’re warm to the touch,” Mole—or rather, Mole’s voice; the gnome was invisible again—said from in front of the doors. “Careful,” Cal said, nodding to Arun and Lok, who took up positions opposite each other at the doors.  While the others prepared weapons and spells, the two warriors pushed the heavy portals open. They were greeted with a wave of heat and orange light from a broad pool of lava, maybe thirty feet across, directly beyond the doors.  A path of evenly spaced stones led across the obstacle, beyond which they could see a large chamber.  The larger room was adorned in an unusual décor, with woven mats covering much of the floor space, and brightly colored paper screens laid out around the perimeter along the walls.  There were a few pieces of furniture in their line of view, including a cot and an armoire, but overall the effect was very Spartan. “Bodies, hanging from the ceiling,” Dannel said, pointing across the room toward the shadowy far edge. “I detect no evil, other than the Taint which infuses all of this place,” Arun reported. “I don’t like the looks of this,” Cal said, indicating the conveniently-placed stepping stones. “Ah, it’s not so hard,” Mole said, and before the others could intervene she was darting across the steps, popping into visibility briefly at the far side of the lava pool to take a bow before sliding the ring back onto her finger. “Gnomes,” Hodge muttered meaningfully. “Come on, let’s not get split up,” Arun said, starting across the stone bridge.  The flat slabs were close enough so that moving across the gap wasn’t that great a hazard, and soon they were reunited on the far side.The cavern looked to be part living space, part training hall.  The “bodies” that Dannel had spotted turned out to be training dummies suspended by long chains from the ceiling forty feet above.  In addition to the paper screens they found several weapon racks, which held a diverse collection of exotic weapons of the sort used by monks.  Lok pronounced the weapons to be of masterwork quality, and soon produced a kama that possessed an odd, almost translucent blade.  Dannel investigated the armoire and reported that it contained a selection of expensive men’s clothing.  There were no apparent threats or exits, however. “Looks like quarters for our monk, and perhaps for the assassin as well,” Cal said.  “Well, they won’t be needing it any more,” Benzan said.  “Let’s get going.” “Hold a moment,” Cal said, humming a melody to summon his bardic magic. “Like the paladin said, we don’t have a lot of time,” the tiefling impatiently said. “If we have to come back and search this room again because we missed something, we’ll waste more of it,” Cal said, as slowly turned, scanning each segment of the room in turn.  “This will only take a minute.”But it was only a few seconds before he pointed at the cot.  “There.  Strong magical auras.”Almost immediately the blankets covering the cot were thrown back, as Mole quickly examined the cot.  “There’s a secret compartment in here,” the gnome reported.  “Good catch, Uncle Cal.”“Watch out for traps,” Benzan suggested.  Because Mole was still invisible, the others couldn’t see her roll her eyes at the tiefling.  But a moment later the gnome appeared holding a number of objects, the most obvious of which was a six-foot staff of wood so pale that it looked almost like ivory. “Got a scroll, this vestment-thing, and the staff,” she said.  “You want to take a look at it, Uncle Cal?” “Yes, but later, when we have more time.  Benzan, if you would store the staff in your magical quiver?”“Fine.  But let’s get moving.”They retraced their steps and made their way back down the tunnel to the doors at the end.  Again after a cursory examination for traps Arun and Lok shouldered them open to reveal another large chamber beyond.  This one was dark save for the light shed by their magical weapons and Cal’s light spell.  That light revealed ugly red walls, either painted or some natural property of the stone here.  The place was dominated by a huge mound of cushions, a veritable mountain nearly thirty feet across and six feet high at the center.  The cushions and the floor alike were covered with a layer of gooey gray slime, hinting at the resident of this chamber. “Demodand gunk,” Mole said, looking around.  To their right a deep alcove almost twenty feet deep held a stone desk sized for an individual ten feet tall, and to their left the gnome quickly identified another of the heavy curtains colored and textured to look like another wall to the casual glance.  “Couple of urns, back here,” Mole reported, pulling back the curtain. “If there aren’t any bad guys, we’ll worry about them later,” Cal said. “Apparently you don’t know your niece very well,” Dannel said dryly.  “I’d wager that one of those urns is being opened as we speak.” A moment later, a voice from the curtained nook reported, “Gold and platinum… a few thousand.  Looks like there was a lot more here, not too long ago.”Dannel looked at Cal, who shrugged.  “Curiosity’s a family trait,” he admitted. “Probably used most of their wealth to finance their operation,” Lok said.  “Mercenaries like those haraknin don’t come cheap.”“Nor does the creation of an artifact,” Dana said, her face shrinking in disgust as she pulled her boots from a thick patch of clinging slime. “This could be another dead end, but spread out, take a quick look,” Cal suggested.  “There may be another secret door, or we may have missed something in one of the earlier rooms.”“There’s still that conjured wall back at the ambush site,” Dannel reminded them.  “I am sure it was created to hide something.”But they didn’t get a chance to go back to Freija’s barrier, not yet, in any case.  Benzan found a secret door in the back wall of the chamber near the edge of the heap of slime-encrusted cushions.  Lok was able to discern its function, and pushed open the relatively large slab, roughly seven feet square, that sank back on a recessed stone pivot into another short tunnel.  This one only ran for about fifteen feet before ending in another secret door, its function more obvious from the inside.  Again Lok applied his strength, and the cumbersome portal dragged slowly open. Beyond lay a vast chamber, dwarfing anything they’d encountered in the Cagewright complex thus far.  The place was a great bubble in the mountain, a hemisphere maybe a hundred feet across.  Rivulets of molten lava flowed slowly across the floor, shedding enough light to see, but leaving much of the room deep in shadow.  And in the center of the room stood the objective of their quest. The Tree of Shackled Souls was a warped, twisted metal monstrosity, rising on a trunk fully six feet across before spreading into a dense network of branches dominated by thirteen thick primary boles that each culminated in a dangling black metal cage… the soulcages described by Dannel and the others.  The Tree was wreathed in a furious nimbus of unnatural violet light interwoven with tendrils of semi-substantial black energy.  Strands of that weave twisted outward from the tree to vanish into the cavern walls above.  The artifact was at the center of a web of power unleashed by the Ritual of Planar Junction, and none of the adventurers needed much insight to sense that something Very Bad was happening in this place. Benzan had moved forward quickly, ignoring the cautions offered by the others, trying to get a good look at the motionless lumps that lay at the base of each of the cages.  “So much evil,” Arun said, staring up at the Tree in grim horror.  His fingers tightened on the grip of his holy sword until they were white within the shell of his gauntlet. “So you have come to the end at last,” came a deep, throaty voice from across the chamber.  “The end!” echoed a higher-pitched, demented voice that broke off into a sinister cackle. Shedding his invisibility, Dyr’ryd appeared on an island formed by several lava streams about forty feet ahead of them to the left.  The massive, bloated shator looked down at the intruders into its realm with eyes that burned with unreadable emotion.  The symbiant creature, Ryd, twisted its tiny limbs that jutted from the side of the demodand’s oblong skull.  It was obvious that the fiend had not neglected his defenses, from the obvious shimmer of magical displacement that surrounded its massive form. It wore a metal gauntlet on one hand, which held a large polearm with a blue-steel blade that almost seemed to scream “powerful magic!”“It is fitting that you should be witnesses, after all that has transpired,” the leader of the Cagewrights said.  “The Ritual draws to a close… and with it, the melding of our worlds will be complete.”“Complete,” Ryd echoed, with an evil grin.</blockquote>

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