“Woah! Hello there…” Florian exclaimed as her hands went reflexively to her holy symbol and the handle of her axe.
Toras muttered under his breath, “Don’t look at the fiend children. Just ignore him. Smile and wave if you must, but keep walking.”
The Molydeus tilted its feral lupine head while its serpent head softly hissed and tasted them on the air with the rapid, grotesque, and obscene flicker of its tongue. It tasted weakness. It tasted uncertainty. It tasted fear. And it tasted opportunity.
“Greetings mortals…” The voice was the howl of a war dog and the grim orders of an executioner at once, inhuman and terrible.
“Greetings to you as well.” Tristol said, without lifting his eyes up from the elegant and intricately inscribed binding circle that contained the fiend. It was old and it was impeccable.
“And who would you be?” Florian asked the beast.
The wolven muzzle of the Molydeus lifted its black lips back in a difficult and forced smile as the serpent head lowered itself to the ground in humble greeting, still tasting the air.
“I am Garthranix, one of the legion of the Molydeus, guardians of the Tanar’ri, enforcers of chaos and bloodshed of the lawful, prolongers of the Blood War.”
“This isn’t a good idea…” Toras complained again, the second time loud enough for all of his companions to overhear.
The ears atop the fiend’s primary head swiveled and perked in the fighter’s direction. It sneered.
“Say nothing till you know the circumstances of what binds me here. I am bound here with words of iron and power, but I cannot starve. You are lost, you are tired, and you are only mortal… I can help you perhaps.”
Toras and Fyrehowl scoffed, Clueless raised an eyebrow, Florian gave the fiend a wary look, Tristol paced around the circle without saying anything, and Nisha held onto Skalliska’s tail to stop her from walking off without the rest of the group.
“How can you help us?” Clueless asked.
The fiend nodded both of its heads and spread its hands in some manner of gracious gesture. “I am bound to not reveal the reasons or initial conditions of my binding here till I am free from the labyrinth and have guided another out of my own free will.”
Garthranix rattled the massive iron chains at his wrists and ankles. “ I am also bound that I cannot free myself from my own chains. Another must voluntarily release me, in return for my aid or not, and that I must…speak the truth while bound here thusly. It is most …uncomfortable…”
The fiend sneered at the very idea of being held truthful by magical means. It all seemed to sorely conflict with its chaotic mind.
“So you can lead us out of this place if we release you?” Florian asked.
“Yes.”
“And you have to tell the truth while you’re bound in there?” Skalliska said before swatting at Nisha's hand on her tail.
It rolled its wolf’s eyes and the serpent head yawned. “Again, yes.”
“Then why do we even bother letting you out if we can just ask you how to get out of here and you have to answer truthfully?” Toras asked.
The fiend smiled, “Because I could simply say nothing and watch you either starve, die of old age, or be slaughtered by any number of the beasts that roam these halls. And I would enjoy doing so to be perfectly honest.”
“Oh…”
Florian smacked the fighter in the back of the head.
Clueless stepped forward till he stood at the boundary of the circle. “We let you out on the condition that you lead us out of this place and don’t harm us now or afterwards, nor do you hurt our relatives or descendants.”
“Agreed.” The fiend said without hesitation as the serpent head leaned closer with its tongue lashing the air like a master to a beast of burden.
Garthranix leaned in closer towards the wizard and bladesinger, and very carefully and slowly asked them a question. “Do you break the boundary of the circle and remove my chains out of your own free will, devoid of magical compulsions or force? Do you free me by your own hands by choice?”
Tristol looked at the runes of the circle, all of them wrought of iron and molded into slots cut into the stone of the floor. Portions of the decorative designs that focused them were carved into the stone without any inlay of metal and could be defaced to break the circle. There was no evidence of any retributive wards either.
Clueless glanced at Tristol for some sort of confirmation before he nodded to the fiend and gave his reply. “Yes, we do this of our own free will.”
The Tanar’ri closed its eyes and smiled as if from the sudden rush of a drug. A moment later Tristol motioned for a series of lines for Clueless and Florian to deface and break the circle. As soon as they had, the chains on the fiend began to smoke, then fracture, and then crumble to dust.
There was a single awkward moment when the fiend abruptly stood up and strode past them towards the exit on the far side of the chamber. They were worried that it had lied and would suddenly attack them, but he did no such thing, rather he simply stood waiting next to the exit door impatiently, both snarling and hissing at them softly.
“See, not so bad at all.” Clueless said with a shrug towards Toras and Fyrehowl. They seemed largely unconvinced still.
“All right, now you can run off and be first into the traps.” Nisha said as she released Skalliska’s tail. The kobold however was no longer moving quite so rapidly towards the exit, what with the towering fiend standing next to it.
And so with the hulking Molydeus leading the way, the group passed beyond the chamber and through a mazework of passages and corridors. The fiend moved with speed and prescience through a number of minor traps and obstacles, showing a very obvious knowledge of the layout of the labyrinth to an extent.
“Certain portions of the maze have changed since my imprisonment here.” Garthranix muttered back to them, turning his wolven head to speak while the serpent looked forwards. “You will have to take your chances at some point if I am uncertain.”
Tristol raised an eyebrow. “Alright. Let us know when.”
Behind him, Toras, Fyrehowl and Florian exchanged glances. The fighter’s and lupinal’s expressions seemed to indicate a ‘told you so’ to the cleric without them actually saying it. Toras was smiling smugly as they approached a small room at the end of the current corridor.
The fiend paused and looked at the trio of exists from the chamber. Three archways opened into dark passages. The first archway was of polished jade, dulled with time. The second was of glass that was flecked and chipped, and the third was of gold that was slowly flaking away from a lead interior like the gilding of an ancient icon.
“I am unfamiliar with the archways leading out of the room. They will eventually reach the same point, but I cannot say what properties the exits themselves have, if any. Nor would they be likely to affect me in the first place. You however…”
Garthranix sat down and smiled as he waited for them to decide.
Tristol reached down into one of his pockets for a bent copper piece that they had earlier decided was ‘Tristol’s lucky copper’. He didn’t find it where he’d last put it. Nisha however pulled it out of his ear with a flamboyant ‘ooooooooooh magic’ and then tossed it a few feet down the jade passage.
There was a crackle of magic from the corridor as the copper sailed through.
“Heh, and you’re going to go get the copper back now.” Tristol said to the tiefling as he crossed his arms and tried to look imposing. “Pick my pocket and see where it gets you.”
“A copper richer?” She said with a grin as her tail flicked side to side happily.
Behind them the fiend snarled loudly.
Tristol ignored the Molydeus as he answered Nisha, “Get it back and we’ll try the next one. The archway was a dispelling screen, so it won’t hurt you.”
Nisha grinned and whispered a few arcane phrases under her breath. “I love magic.”
She gestured her hand out towards the copper on the ground, gesturing for it to respond to the magic she had invoked. Instead of flying to her hand, there was instead a crackle of magic from the archway as it dispelled her cantrip.
“And we now know it resets itself.” Clueless said.
Nisha frowned and slunk through the archway to retrieve the copper, muttering a soft, “Pike it” as she walked back and handed the coin to Tristol.
Tristol took the coin from her as she backed up a few steps and he tossed it through the glass archway. Nothing happened at all.
“Nothing obvious at least.” The mage said with a shrug as he walked over and picked up the coin and promptly tossed it down the leaded gold archway.
“Hmm, nothing there either.” Tristol said as the coin plinked down the dark passage with no obvious effect. He was very nearly ready to walk down to retrieve it when something tossed the coin back at him. Inside the corridor, the darkness opened its eyes and charged at them.
Tristol immediately fell back behind Toras and Fyrehowl as something like a squat, six-foot tall toad with jet black skin ran babbling out of the corridor with a gleaming black, smoking sword brandished over its head. It was partially transparent and wispy looking, and it glowed with the telltale flicker of conjuration magic. It may have looked like a black slaadi, but it was more like the crafted astral puppets of the cranium rats than a true harbinger of chaos.
Garthranix smiled and did nothing as his mortal comrades surrounded and rapidly took down the solitary creature. It was all over quickly, though Toras did suffer a blow from the creature’s sword and he was stumbling after it died and evaporated to leave nothing of itself or its weapon behind.
Fyrehowl shot the fiend a scathing look. “You could have helped us.”
“Could have. I
could have helped you. I was under no obligation to do so celestial.” Both of its heads stared her down till she turned away and back to Toras.
“Guys… I can’t see.” The fighter said as he held onto Florian’s shoulder to steady himself.
Florian winced as she looked at Toras’s eyes. The sword blow had struck him in the side, not the face, and so whatever was causing his blindness was magical and not actual physical harm to his eyes.
The cleric sighed, “It’s magical, and I’m out of anything that could help. I used most of my best spells against those things in the arena.”
“Stop looking pleased. Abyssal filth…” Fyrehowl said as she glanced back at the still idly lounging Molydeus. It gave no reply.
Clueless waved away their concern as he reached into a bag of holding at his waist and pulled out a slim, light blue staff.
“Don’t worry at all. Remember all the stuff we got in the Incantifers’ tower? Well this wasn’t in there, but my share of that all went towards buying this.”
“I adore you.” Florian said as she took the proffered staff of healing. A slight prayer to Tempus later and she invoked the power of the staff and restored Toras’ sight to him once again.
“I’ll stop making jokes about you and the Sensates now I promise.” Toras said to Clueless as he blinked his eyes and smiled in thanks.
Clueless shrugged and put the staff away for later. “Don’t mention it. And if the jokes are funny I’m sure my girlfriend would love to hear them actually.”
The sudden snarling, hissing twofold voice of the Molydeus broke the feeling of camaraderie. “When you are done expending resources on the weak, I am ready.”
Skalliska rolled her eyes and Fyrehowl made no comment. The fiend was simply trying to goad her into doing something most likely to do what it could to circumvent what bound it from its normal actions in their presence.
“Alright. Fine. Down the central archway.” Tristol said as he pointed. “And you first.”
The fiend stood up and walked through the glass archway and they followed in turn. The blank and dusty hallway continued for some time before it forked. The fiend paused and directed them down one fork as opposed to the other, and again at a subsequent fork in the passage. Eventually it ended in a series of two rooms, their doors facing opposite to one another.
“The one on the right.” Garthranix said without further commentary as motioned to the doorway.
The others followed his cue and stepped into the relatively small chamber and glanced at the interior. It was small and circular with a high vaulted ceiling and long panes of colored glass set into it. Shafts of glimmering, colored light streamed down from above like daylight through cathedral windows. A soft bubbling sound of water filled the tiny room from a fountain in the room’s center.
Reluctantly the fiend stepped in after them. “The fountain has something to do with getting out. That’s all I know.”
Punctuating his statement, the doorway glimmered and a slab of crystal seemed to materialize in place, sealing off the exit. A split second later a multicolored wall appeared, sandwiched over it, and something else as well that snuffed a portion of the faerie fire on Clueless’s wings: an antimagic field that overlapped the prismatic wall blocking the entrance…
Fyrehowl looked at the fiend who simply shrugged as he looked at the fountain.
“I don’t know everything about this place. Besides, the fountain not the doorway is what matters.”
The wandered to the fountain and glanced down at the separate spouts and their common basin. As he looked at the fountain curiously a sudden telepathic voice echoed in the minds of all of them:
Drink but one sip of one of the founts and find your freedom through the door with safety, read the riddle, know the signs and hearken the Rule of Three
And then the fiend vanished. Fyrehowl sighed and turned to say something to Clueless about fiends, except the bladesinger was no longer there. None of her companions were there in the room with her; she was alone with the bubbling fountain, and the door and its suicidal exit were there as well.
Likewise, all of them were standing in their own version of the same chamber, each of them having just seen their companions vanish to leave them alone with the fountain, there to examine it and make their own decisions. Garthranix meanwhile was smiling. Alone in his own version of the room, his dual heads stared at one another, mutually pleased, as he held out his hand and called to the weapon bound to his essence…
Separated from one another, they each spent their time cursing the situation, pondering the telepathic message, pondering if they would survive a trip through a prismatic wall, or in one tiefling’s case, singing and tossing coins into the fountain for ten minutes till they realized that everyone else was gone.
The fountain itself was unique in that it had three separate upper waterspouts, each with a collecting basin that spilled out into a common lower pool as they each bubbled over. The common basin was made of marble and the water was pure and glistening. In fact, the bottom pool’s water was perfectly normal, if aside from a slight metallic taste. The upper basins then were all identical, except for the material they were crafted from: one of silver, one of copper, and one of gold.
Around the bottom of that common pool of the fountain, inscribed in the random tile mosaic of its base, and repeated upon the ground ringing the fountain as well was a riddle, or a refrain of some sort.
‘Of gold I am, and by gold I’m plied, drink of copper and find no peace, but drink of me and find release.’
‘Copper gilt, and burnished bright, bright as sun where there is no night, wise men chained and wise men seek, bubbling visions not for the weak.’
‘Silent flow and silent passage, archon, guardinal, eladrin drink, cross chaos and order, but good alone, tainted of evil, drink and atone.’
***
In his own chamber the fiend snarled and braced himself as he drank from the fountain of his choice.
***
Nisha, once she realized that everyone was gone and that she had to drink, she flipped a coin that she’d snagged from Tristol’s pocket. Eventually she realized that a two-sided object wasn’t going to handle a three-sided decision in any real way, and, befitting the Xaositect, she picked at random and gargled from the copper fountain.
***
“I like gold, and it’s talking about release. And well, I’m stuck in here.” Skalliska thought to herself as she glanced at the riddle and the fountains. “Well, gold it is.”
***
Fyrehowl glanced at the riddle and then at the fountains. “No question here…”
She smiled and took a sip from the silver fountain.
***
“Three fountains, three planar rivers. Duh.” Clueless said as he pondered his choice. “Please please please, nobody drink from the gold one…”
***
Like Clueless, Tristol had reached the same conclusion: Styx, Ma’at, and Oceanus. Neither wanting to end up a bereft of his memories or a delusional if sometimes prophetic madman, he drank from the silver fountain.
***
Florian said a prayer before she drank from the silver fountain since it seemed to be the least hostile choice unless there was a trick somehow. “Tempus, I pray that I don’t end up dead for this…”
***
Toras glanced down at the water and the riddle. “I should have listened to Tristol more on this stuff… oh hells… your fault Nisha if anything goes poorly.”
He took a deep breath and drank randomly.
, redubbed as the Klaruchar.
.
