“I’ve got a question,” Edge announced. “Why is Crow leading us to him, when he’s busy with the rite to free the beast? Won’t he be too busy to fight?”
“He assumes he’ll kill us, then free Thuriaq,” Dartan said.
“But… why leave his only known accomplice behind to die? He should know that no one mage has had any luck standing against us.”
“He must have some plan.”
“Or he really can beat us one-on-one.”
“No chance,” Kizzlorn said. “I toppled one of his precious titans with one spell. One man will go down easily, no matter how powerful he thinks he is at spellcasting.”
Dartan added “Which is why he’ll have a plan. He’s too smart.”
The ladder ended and they dropped down to a horizontal passageway which led north for about twenty feet before sloping down in a clockwise direction. They readied their weapons and started walking.
Broldek snarled under his breath. “Anything you’d care to tell us about this area, ‘Bree’?”
“My memory… remains foggy. Do take care, though.” The troll did not seem comforted.
After turning the corner, the passageway began a steep slope downwards, curving off to the right. The corridor is roughly rectangular in shape with rounded edges along the floor and ceiling. There was a glint of metal along the left side of the wall, about fifteen feet down the passageway. “Oh, I like the look of this,” Broldek muttered.
“Calm down,” Edge said. “I’ll have a look.” He skirted away, keeping to the shadows, avoiding obvious places to step, warily looking about as he went.
The hulking troll shrugged. “Sorry. Just… nerves. You know.”
Edge came back. “Doors, along the left side of the corridor, all the way down. There’s one every twenty feet or so.”
Kizzlorn nodded. “What’s behind the doors?” Edge opened his mouth to reply, closed it, and turned bright red. Kizzlorn looked up and saw that the barred window looking into the door was at least five feet off the ground… far too high for the little halfling to see into. “Oh. My apologies, Edge, I didn’t mean to be insensitive.”
Menerous snickered. “You could ride on my shoulders…”
Myramus turned on him. “Brother, that is not kind. Mocking another’s physical disabilities. And from YOU, a big fat oaf.”
The portly Maximus brother frowned. “I’m not fat! I’m a little large. Mother always said that I was just made large so that I could hug better.”
“Yes, and in the meantime, you barely fit down this corridor. Shall I smear you with some oil of slipperiness, brother, so you can squeeze through this hallway safely?”
“I’ll not stand here and be insulted by a dog-faced stupid-head!” Menerous lunged, and the Maximus brothers were soon rolling on the floor, wrestling and shouting names.
“Stop it, both of you,” Dartan said. He looked down in disgust on Pelor’s champions. “Get up.”
The brothers stood, brushing themselves off. Myramus laughed. “I apologize, brother!”
“Apology accepted, brother!” They bumped fists together, grinning.
A voice came from down the hallway. “Is… is someone there?” The Knights froze and listened. “Please… help…”
“Keep talking,” Kizzlorn said. “Lead us to you.” They began to walk quickly towards the voice. It seemed to be coming from behind one of the iron doors further down the corridor.
“Please,” the voice said. Its owner sounded piteous and frail. “So cold. Please.”
“We’re coming!” Kizzlorn moved quicker and got to the door, pressing her face close to the window to look inside. “Who are…” she stopped and whispered “Oh, no…”
“What is it?” Edge asked.
“An empty room.” The cobbles beneath her feet gave way to her weight and sank down about two inches. A muted clicking noise was heard, and the sounds of large, hidden mechanics shifting boomed all the way up the corridor they’d walked down.
Edge yelled through his clenched teeth. “TRAP!!” They began running from the rumbling sound, coming from the way they’d come. Behind them, something monstrously large was grinding its way down the thin hallway. Edge, who was at the rear of the group, looked back to see a gigantic stone wheel rolling down at them, gaining speed. There was no space at either side for even him to hide. At the top of the twenty-foot high wheel, however, there was maybe five feet of clearance between it and the ceiling. He saw cobwebs whip back as it passed them, violently displacing the air in the corridor.
The halfling quickly made a choice and dropped to the ground. His foot swept out in an arc and clipped Kizzlorn in the ankles, causing her to fall backwards with a cry. He spun completely around and stood, and she fell neatly into his arms. Edge may have been a few inches under four feet tall, but his strength was mighty and his courage true. He crouched briefly and leaped up into the air, towards the stone wheel. Kizzlorn screamed as they passed through the empty space between it and the ceiling. With a twist and a bend, they landed on the other side as it continued to roll down their friends.
Edge put Kizzlorn down and cupped a hand to his mouth. “THERE’S ROOM AT THE TOP! FLY OVER, OR JUMP, HOVER, SOMETHING!”
Kizzlorn, Edge, and Snooky watched as Bree the skull floated over the lumbering thing. Then, Broldek’s face and arms appeared at the top of the wheel. He looked like he might make it, then he landed… on the wheel. His arms clutched at it and his mouth was shaped like an O, and then he was gone. The stone wheel shuddered, and it left behind it a vast, very flat puddle of viscous black goo. It twitched as it gleamed in the torchlight.
On the other side of the wheel, Dartan and the Maximus brothers were running out of time. The brothers’ wings had melted away after they’d landed on Oerth, so they couldn’t fly over as Bree had. They were each running while wearing armor, and the wheel was closing in. “To me,” Myramus yelled, stopping in the center of the corridor. He pulled out Starfire and it shone in the darkness. The others clutched closely to him and he used his sword to create a passage through the stone wheel as it passed over them.
It had been a grand plan, for something at such short notice, but what Myramus hadn’t known, what none of them knew, was that the wheel wasn’t solid. It couldn’t be, for the beholders to levitate it into place, so Crow had made it hollow and filled it with an alternate substance in the event that it be broken or pierced, as it was just now.
As the wheel passed over them and the glaring sword made the space for them to stand in, the liquid green slime center of the wheel was released and it gushed out at them, to their horror. The pure sunlight emitted from Myramus’ sword Starfire burned it to ash as it neared them. The wheel passed by and rolled away, smashing at some unknown end of the spiraling corridor some way down. The trembling three stood frozen. It was only by luck that Starfire had happened to save them from the slime, and the near-death experience left them shaken. It would have eaten through their weapons, armor, and their very bodies in moments.
“This,” Myramus said, “Is a good sword. Thank you Pelor.” He kissed it and resheathed it.
Menerous clapped a hand on Dartan’s shoulder and said “The Shining One is merciful, eh?”
Dartan shook off the friendly hand and composed himself. He glowered at Menerous for a moment, then walked back up to Kizzlorn and Edge. “That was very close,” he said.
Myramus, behind them, began to scrape the black paste that was Broldek into a small sack. He was regenerating quickly, but he was by no means in a good mood. The paste formed a mouth. “Hurt,” it groaned. “Ow.” His potions and breakables were smashed beyond repair, but Broldek himself was only momentarily injured. He’d be back to his old self within the hour.
“Curse me for walking us into such a trap,” Kizz muttered.
Edge put a hand on hers and looked up at her. “You didn’t know,” he said. It was supposed to be comforting. She replied by clearing her throat and pulling away. “Anyway. It won’t happen again.”
“Is someone there?” a quavering voice called from the cell beside them. The iron door’s window showed only darkness beyond. No one approached it to look within.
“I’m not falling for this again, Crow,” Kizzlorn said, mostly to herself.
Everyone jumped when a face shot up at the window and bony hands reached out for them. “Please,” it said. “Please, get me out of here!” It was a girl. Not a day older than seventeen, by the look. She might have been pretty, but her eyes writhed in her sockets like trapped animals and her cheeks were pale and gaunt. Her hands scrabbled at the iron surface of the door as she called to them. “Get me out. Out.”
Edge examined the entrance to the door before anyone was allowed to step there. When he was convinced there was no trap there, Kizzlorn stepped forward. “Who are you?” she said warily.
Bree floated close and said “Don’t be fooled.”
The girl said “B. Beckamy. My name. Beckamy. Out.”
“Why are you here?”
“Please, let me out. Out. Now, please.”
“We’re not letting you out until we’re convinced you’re not here to hurt us. Now tell us what we ask of you.”
The girl sobbed and said “I’m here for food. I’m his food. He drinks. Drinks me. His food. Out.” Kizzlorn saw the wretched marks at the left side of her neck, where something had bitten her, many, many times. “Says I’m food. He says I’m food.” She started crying desperately, pulling at her cheeks with her nails.
“Easy, easy. We’ll let you out. Edge?”
“Don’t,” Bree’s skull warned. “This one is not what she seems. This one stinks of death. Do you smell it?”
Kizzlorn considered for a moment. “Menerous, is she evil?”
The angel closed his eyes for a moment and said “I can’t tell. There’s a field on this door. It blocks my telling whether or not she’s evil, or undead. She could be either, or both.”
“I’m not,” the girl moaned as tears rolled down her face. “I’m not.”
Bree growled. “She is. Leave her.”
“Everyone back,” Kizzlorn said. “Be ready. Edge, open the door.” Edge went to work.
The floating skull said “Are you mad? She’ll kill you all! Don’t you know not to free attractive women you meet in dungeons? She’s a monster!”
“We don’t know not to take the company of talking skulls of dead friends,” Kizzlorn observed. “Shut up.” The skull floated back, sullenly.
The door was opened and Edge jumped back. The battle-ready Knights watched as Beckamy collapsed onto the corridor floor before them. She was dangerously thin, wearing filthy rags spotted with dried blood. She crawled forward weakly, then lay still, breathing shallowly.
“She’s not evil,” Menerous said, kneeling by her. “And she’s not undead. She is, however, dying. We must help her. Brother!” Myramus came near, and together they healed the girl’s wounds and nourished her with potions and water. Her mind, though, was still shattered.
“Muh. Get out. We have to get out. Go home. No more food.”
“Where do you live? We’ll take you there.”
“P. Poddleton. Take me to my father.”
“We don’t have time to waste,” Edge said. He caught Kizzlorn’s disapproving glare and blushed again. “By that I mean, this is a good thing, but have we the time, Mistress Kizzlorn? And will we be amply repaid for our services?” He didn’t catch himself in time to stop from saying that, and he bit his tongue, cursing himself.
“We will take her. It will take a few moments. Broldek is still healing, besides,” she said coldly to Edge. “Come.”
Together they teleported to the mouth of the Gauntlet, then again to the center of Poddleton, where the girl was returned to her grieving family. “Becka?” her father called. “BECKA!!” He wrapped his arms around his daughter and wept. The hysterical family hardly noticed the Knights at all until Beckamy introduced them. “You have our undying thanks,” her father said. “I thought my girl had been surely doomed at the hand of that monster. A vampire, did you know? Wretched thing! It’s plagued our town for too long, but we are too weak from its attacks to fight back!” He made a fist and shook it angrily.
“A vampire, you say,” Myramus murmured.
“Yes. Unholy thing. Wears all black, comes into town as he pleases and plucks our children from their beds. He is far too powerful for us to fight. All our defenses have been for naught. He is ungodly fast, and he wields the powers of the shadow.”
“All in black,” Kizzlorn said. “Supremely powerful. Alone.” The father nodded and she turned to the others. “Gods, could Crow be a vampire?”
“It might explain a lot,” Dartan said.
“Yes… Crow. A vampire. Damn!”
The father’s brow furrowed. “Crow, did you say? I don’t know the creature’s true name, but it’s an elf… Calls himself Nightwalker. Tall, thin, with a longbow and not a devil’s care for all the good in the world. ”
MORE TO COME…
