The pale warrior regarded his five opponents with a wary eye, bringing his hands up into a defensive posture. The early morning light shimmered through the lush summer foliage overhead. It hardly seemed worth drawing his sword for opponents such as these. The tallest of his opponents rushed in headlong, robes flapping in the breeze, and was greeted by an uppercut that would have felled an ox. The other four looked at each other nervously and circled, waiting for any of the others to make the first move. The warrior grinned and stepped sharply towards the figure in front of him. His quarry panicked, stepped backwards, stumbled over a tree root and slammed into the trunk of the tree. Facing certain defeat, two of the remaining three combatants attacked from the sides. With a swirling maneuver, the warrior grabbed the wrist of the first and slammed him into the second. A slight sound from behind indicated the approach of the fifth. Drawing his sword, the warrior blocked the club the man had produced. A flick of the wrist sent the club skittering into the undergrowth. The man eyed the tip of the rather impressive two handed sword as it hovered in front of his eyes and gulped nervously.
"Nothing like a little exercise before breakfast!" remarked Than to the woman bending over the first of his opponents.
"You did not have to hit him that hard." returned the woman, applying a small healing charm to the man in front of her. "After all, they are only novices in the temple here."
"They said they wanted to know how to survive in the world. Besides, I never could resist the opportunity to beat up on K’norians. Anyway, walk with me to breakfast, and you can tell me why you summoned me here. Its not every day that a V’garnian accepts a summons from the High Priestess of the Abbey of Light."
"True," replied Nightingale, linking her arm through Than’s, "but I thought you could answer some questions about the gate of Haven."
"Provided your cook can do a decent bacon and eggs, I will be happy to tell that tale! But I suggest we retire to your chambers; T’sardan was ever a bit twitchy about Haven, and the events that led us there."
I’ve never liked deserts. They’re too hot, too bright and especially they are too sandy. Hell is wearing chain-mail with sand on the inside. Thus I was less than impressed to awake face down in a dune with the sensation that the back of my neck was starting to sizzle. My head was throbbing with that "you know when you’ve been T’sardaned" feeling. A fact that was confirmed when I was rudely hauled to my feet and found myself facing the immortal himself. "One day" I thought to myself, "we’ll test the definition of immortal. And test it to destruction." But now was not the time. The stepson of L’denon thrust a bit of parchment into my hand.
"You must protect this woman?" he said urgently.
"Why? Where is she?"
"There is no time. Go south west. Protect her..."
T’sardan’s image flickered as if someone had thrown a stone into a pond and then faded from view. It was a better introduction than my friend Jedran had once been given, but it was not exactly a lot to go on.
Looking around I saw several familiar faces. The reprobates present were: Walker, lycanthropic mage; Deathlord, a pale figure of a vampire, apparently unarmed and unarmoured; Mara, a weak looking female mage; Elway, an A’stall fighter (if that’s not a contradiction in terms!); Toam, another warrior; Xavier, a warrior resplendent in his gold armour; Blake, another fighter, immaculately dressed in blue tabard, falcon mask and plumed helmet; Fatty, T’gellen man mountain; Dar, voted hairiest warrior on Peldere; Raistlin, a pale mage, strangely reminiscent of Deathlord; Mallon, carrying his feared black wood bow. And me - Than, V’garnian warrior. And, no, I am not undead.
Given that we had little to discuss, we set off in the nominated direction. Deathlord called down a mystic darkness which served quite well as a sunshade as we walked. Mara was acting very strange - she seemed to believe that she had been eaten by a dragon and had gone to hell. We tried to convince her otherwise, but it seemed that she was convinced that being on the same continent as the rest of us was her definition of purgatory. After five or so minutes, Walker decided that the sand in his paws was getting too much to bear, and used his arcane arts to fly off. He returned shortly with news of a city not too far away.
The city of Aruta is a classic desert town; think Masmax, but bigger. As we crossed the bridge into the town, we were accosted by a gentleman in highly ornate armour, backed up by perhaps a dozen soldiers. A muttering from the back suggested that we could take these down with ease, but the consensus was that one to one odds was not really very sporting. Dar elected himself to act as spokesman, and rapidly determined that Aruta was a town where you required a license to breathe, let alone do anything else. With breathtaking gall, he offered the man one thousand gold for a series of licenses that essentially stated we were nobles and could bear arms and perform the magic arts. The permits would also allow us to own and buy slaves and various other fringe benefits. As the man returned to the guard post to get the various permits, Dar turned to the rest of us and casually asked "Does anybody have one thousand gold?" A frosty silence descended, broken by a muttered cantrip from Mara.
"Here you are" she said, turning back to Dar and presenting him with a heavy gold pouch. Just make sure we are out of town within the next twelve hours, because then he’s going to be really pissed!"
The gold was duly exchanged for the various permits, and we walked into town, wondering what to do next. In the end, we agreed to meet at a well known tea shop and split into various groups to investigate various prominent buildings. The head guard had told us that there were several groups in Aruta all looking for the woman in the picture. Precisely why they were looking for her was a matter of some debate - the groups were certainly not telling! The guard thought that his brother had heard that she had stolen something of great worth. Others had suggested that she knew too much or had offended the gods. One group was seeking her for "crimes against Lord Balcot", but the largest group belonged to Lord Borag, the dragon rider from Mount Kanos.
Myself and Elway elected to pay our respects at the temple, a huge building visible from the customs post. However, when we got there I was surprised to see that all the gods were represented in the building, and there were even followers of V’garn and T’gellen in the same room! I looked around and spotted al the usual gods and one unusual one: L’denon. Powerful as he is, he is often not recognized by town temples. I pushed my way through the temple crowds to the altar dedicated to the god of death. After paying my respects, I spoke to the priest who said that the high priest of V’garn would pay well if I could bring him this girl that everyone was seeking. He confirmed that several other groups were seeking the young lady, including most of the religions. When I asked him why, he looked sly and said that was between him and the high priest. I guessed that he did not really know, but thanked him for his time. Elway had failed to find a local A’stall priest to talk to and so we approached the L’denon shrine. Unfortunately, this proved to be over-optimistic. When we asked the Death priest, he said that there was a new priest of L’denon, and he felt that the only way to bring religion to the masses was to go to the masses. If I wanted to see him perform (it seemed that he gave live performances of the concept of "maintaining the balance"), I would have to go to the bazaar. "But he is a bit strange".
With no other prospect of information here, we elected to head for the bazaar to talk to the priest of L’denon. Finding him was not difficult - he had a fair crowd around him. The man was on a see-saw, wearing an outfit as outrageously colourful as ever was seen at the Rampant Unicorn. Elway glanced at me, and I raised an eyebrow. Without a word needing to be said, we turned and headed off towards the tea rooms.
When we arrived, we found Mara, looking far cleaner than she had done; the draconic scorch marks were mostly gone. Whilst at the town baths, she had discovered similar information; that the unnamed woman in the picture was wanted by several groups in the city, but no one knew why. She had also learned of the island of Skyral, purveyors of silk and other baubles to the rich and famous. The world renowned sky boats plied the skies to the island from Aruta, with one leaving today from the dock to the south of the town.
As we enjoyed the tea, the others straggled in. Raistlin had been on a quick tour of the slums, and in my view was lucky to come back with his life. Xavier and Blake had been to the travelers hostel and booked rooms for us. Neither they nor Raistlin had learnt much of use. From outside came the tramp of feet, accompanied by a squeaking sound, like a badly oiled wheel. My hand strayed toward the hilt of my sword - the tramping feet had the well-regimented-squad-of-soldiers sound to it. The door opened and in came Deathlord and Walker pushing a large wheel barrow full to the brim of gold and gems. It seemed that they had been for a chat with the chief magistrate of Aruta. Using guile and magic, they had obtained an audience with the chap, who they kidnapped and deposited in the desert. Deathlord, using his powers, had "convinced" the magistrate to provide several useful things in addition to the wheel barrow full of loot. The most useful item was a permit naming the holder as an agent of the magistrate, investigating treason against the state. All persons were instructed to cooperate with the bearer. Or else.
The last to arrive were Dar, Mallon and Fatty. With them was one of the most scruffy and decrepit individuals I have ever had the displeasure to share a tea room with. Dar was looking the worse for wear, and seemed to be having difficulty focusing enough to pick up a tea cup, so Fatty explained that they had been to the bazaar, where they had found Rakoss, a seller of brain weed. To my knowledge, everyone immediately forgot his name, and he was only referred to as "DrugHed". What had led Dar straight to him was anybody’s guess. After a certain amount of brainweed had exchanged hands and been smoked, together with a careful application of Mallon’s Sword of Law, they had learned that the man actually knew the woman in the picture! Her name was Larna Mhorvanna, a local prostitute and small time thief. She used to live on Kalath street, but had gone underground when her place had been searched by persons unknown. The miscreants had also killed her hovel mate, another working girl called Harias. Larna had hidden out for three days and was planning on taking today’s sky boat to Skyral. Mallon apologized for having to bring DrugHed along, but a group of soldiers with dragon emblems had started to search the bazaar, questioning people. Rather than leave DrugHed, still under the influence of the sword of law, to be questioned, they had brought him with them.
Little discussion was required at this point; we had one lead to follow and this was it. Pausing to scoop a handful of loot out of the wheel barrow, I escorted "the Lady Mara" to the dock.
The Skyral sky boat was an impressive piece of engineering. A large gondola, sufficient to hold thirty or so passengers and up to a hundred rowers was suspended from a huge bag like construction that held the thing aloft. Quite how it worked, and quite what held it up was something I did not feel like contemplating. As we approached the dock, we were over-taken by a fast moving squeaking as Deathlord and Walker came past. They approached the ticket office and were informed that the passenger list was full for this trip. Strangely, after Deathlord had produced his license, and some of the contents of the wheel barrow had changed hands, two places mysteriously appeared! However, it seemed that the rest of us would have to work our passage as there were no more passenger berths. A few more coins changed hands, and Mara and I were upgraded to passenger status, albeit in the servants quarters. The rest of the party were told that they would have to row!
As the sky boat took off, there was some commotion on the ground as a group of dragon epaulette warriors attempted to reach the sky boat. Simultaneously, a group of T’gellen priests also tried to book late passages. All were cut off when a wagon drove at high speed into the groups. As it went past, I saw the gaunt visage of the V’garnian priest. Perhaps religion in Skyral would be a little more entertaining from now on!
Whilst most of the party were getting some exercise, Deathlord and Walker used their permits to intimidate the captain of the vessel. A quick perusal of the manifest showed two unaccompanied females, one of whom turned out to be Larna Mhorvanna. To my complete lack of surprise she turned out to be nervous and hostile, and we only got some sense out of her when we applied the Sword of Law. Unfortunately, she was not very helpful even then. She had not stolen anything of note, nor did she know anyone of great power. Her clientele was more the guards than the guarded. She had been told to head for Skyral by an old gentlemen, whom she (for some reason) implicitly trusted, despite having never seen him before. There she was supposed to seek the "Tome of Urkhanorphis". When her friend was killed and she had little better to do, she decided to take the old man’s advice - anywhere had to be better than Aruta. Whilst Deathlord was interviewing her, we looked through her bags. Nothing.
Suddenly an alarm bell started ringing and the airship’s guards could be seen running down the corridors. Deathlord grabbed the captain and demanded to know what was going on. The captain replied that the lookouts had spotted riders approaching. Since we were several thousand feet off the ground, this made the riders more than a little unusual! Looking out of the starboard windows we could see seven riders mounted on wyverns. That didn’t sound too bad. However, the rearward lookouts reported upwards of thirty flyers including a large black dragon. That sounded more serious and so we did the obvious. We used the mystic arts and departed the sky ship, appearing instantaneously on the isle of Skyral. Later reports suggested that the dragon riders had spent the next several days picking over the remains of the sky boat which had mysteriously exploded moments after we left.
Skyral is an impressive piece of magic. Looking as though it had been torn whole from the ground, this large chunk of rock hangs five thousand feet over the ocean. The inhabitants are decadent, inured to their own use of magic, and use slaves to work their silk factories and mines. Mining in such a place must be quite an exciting career!
Not that we had time to admire the scenery! As we arrived on the south west of the island, alarms sounded through out the island, and guards started pouring out of the larger building to the north. A second wave of guards appeared over the west wall riding pegasi. A standoff and negotiation occurred. On another day we might have elected to take the guards apart (and on another day perhaps we will!) but today we wanted merely to have a quiet look through their library. The guards seemed somewhat upset that we had arrived, four days early, without the sky boat, and even more upset that we were armed. After some negotiation we bagged up our more obvious weapons and were marched off to see the local royalty to answer for our "crimes".
The local royalty appeared to come in the "bored spoilt brat" category. Although nominally headed by the king, the monarchy was run by the queen, Sisteria. She asked why we had come, we replied that we only wanted to look at a book called the "Tome of Urkhanorphis". She asked why we wanted to look at the "Tome of times forgotten" and we were forced to admit that our reasons for coming here were slim!
Fortunately, such people always seem to have one redeeming flaw: boredom. She challenged us to a game of "Kastathon". Now, I had never heard of Kastathon, but it seemed very similar to a game played in my home town of Zard - football. Each team consisted of twelve players; a net minder and eleven others. No arms or armour was allowed, but the goal minder was issued with an eight foot long club. The field was two hundred feet in length and had a net at each end, raised eight feet off the ground. The objective was to get the ball in the net. About the only other rules were that you could not touch the net minder, and that contact off the ball was considered uncivilized. The queen nominated three goals as the winning criteria, and combat was joined. The queen was represented by her own team.
Now, the way I imagine the game is played is a series of swift, deft passes and kicks of the ball until a nominated striker managed to get the ball in the net. This simply failed to happen. The game immediately broke down into a series of fights occasionally involving the ball, and usually involving some exceptionally low blows. By the time the first goal was scored (a beautiful shot by Dar I might add), the opposition was reduced to one man - the goal minder. The queen conceded the match and stormed off in a huff, though I noted that the king looked carefully round to check she had really gone and then gave us a surreptitious thumbs up!
The post-match party was fun; it seemed that the local nobility was most intrigued by us. Disappointingly, I had to keep reasonably sober because I expected violence to break out at any time. I noted that Mara and Larna went off with the king, having persuaded him to let them take a look at the library. They returned later, Mara looking thoughtful and Larna looking as though she was in shock. It transpired that they had found the millennia old tome, and had discovered that Larna was mentioned by name in it. Unfortunately, the page with the reason behind it all was missing, but the book did say that Larna must pass through the gate to Haven, which lay at the centre of a labyrinth designed to test one’s worth to enter Haven. A star map was provided and I was immediately suspicious of the fact that the reason was missing but the directions were still intact.
As the party wound down we returned to our quarters. There seemed little point in remaining on Skyral, especially as the Queen might decide that the destruction of her favourite Kastathon team was worthy of some particularly exquisite death sentence. The mages arranged to get us into where our gear was stored, and we were soon re-armed to the teeth. From there, we quietly moved down to the pegasi stables. The two guards were quickly subdued, and we offered the slaves present a choice: come with us to freedom or stay here in servitude. The slaves were not entirely clear on the concepts involved and seemed to think that the queen might exact some retribution from escapees. Two of them elected to join us whilst one elected to go and tell the guards. To my disgust, my first crossbow bolt was wide of the mark. However the second shot caught the ungrateful slave neatly in the back of the head causing a gratifying spray of brains and blood. Dwarven crossbows definitely have advantages in terms of fire rate.
The remaining slaves rapidly came to the conclusion that freedom was the best course of action and we soon found ourselves in the air. Pegasi, it turned out, are temperamental beasts, and learning to sit on a horse at five thousand feet takes a bit of practice. Mara promptly leapt off her horse, and had to be rescued by Walker. After a few false starts, we oriented ourselves and flew away according to our star map.
After four days of traveling, using the star map to guide our way, we came upon a series of islands. The island we were interested in was the biggest; a gloriously rugged scene with jungle and one towering mountain. On the plains to one side of the mountain, we soon spotted something very strange - a large labyrinth had been carved out of the rock. At the centre was an entrance in to the mountain side. Various members of the party used their powers and determined that the labyrinth contained several life forms, all of which seemed well concealed in that "trap" sort of way. Some discussion ensued between those who favoured challenging the labyrinth on the grounds that the entire place was supposed to be a test of worth, and those who suggested that skipping the first test might be exactly what was called for. In the end, the idle among us won; we set the pegasi down at then entrance of the maze, and one of the mages invoked the powers to move us to the entrance to the mountain.
The mountain tunnel initially looked to be natural, but as we progressed, we found ourselves in a more artificial looking passage that led down some steps. Halfway down the steps was a nasty cross piece, obviously designed to make attackers bend double to get under it. Negotiating that, we came to the first problem: a really noxious mud bath! From where we were, we could see that the tunnel turned left, and then right, going out of sight. The entire place was filled with a thick, brown, appalling, mud which filled the place to about three feet from the ceiling. Arcane investigation suggested that the mud was teeming with life. Deathlord’s form shimmered and transformed into a bat, which fluttered off down the corridor. As he approached the turn on the corridor, the mud oozed and heaved, forming two vaguely humanoid figures, which swung at the frantically fluttering bat. The first one missed, but the second one grabbed hold of the V’garnian and pulled him under the mud. We watched, expecting that Deathlord would soon free himself, but nothing happened.
The disappearance of the vampire caused a great deal of perturbation; if this mud was powerful enough to subdue a creature as powerful as him, what chance did the rest of us have? Further mystical analysis of the mud suggested that it was a single organism with frightening regenerative powers, which were tested when Walker dropped a firestorm on the corridor. Although the life force in the mud was briefly obliterated, it soon returned. Elway took it upon himself to communicate with the creature, and quaffed a few drops from some magical goblet. Soon a muddy figure collected itself in front of him.
"We come in peace!" announced the A’stallian.
The creature studied him briefly and then punched him with sufficient strength to knock the warrior back up into the corridor, armour melted and smoking apparently from an acidic attack. This prompted more discussion as the learned among us argued over the best course of action. I was standing at the back, but, as a warrior, the course of action was obvious. Naturally, the users of arcane arts soon came to the same conclusion as I would have - surround Larna in a ring of steel and march off down the corridor. To hell with the mud men!
And this we did. The mud proved to be only about four feet deep, so we splashed unhappily down the corridor. We were attacked several times by the mud creature, which formed several of its homunculi for each attack. They were easily dispatched, but very powerful; Walker and Tomes were both knocked cold by their assaults. The corridor spiraled in on itself, ending in a large room - with no exits! As we searched the place, Fatty, who was watching the door, reported an oozing, slobbering sound coming closer, as if a tidal wave of mud were making its way down the corridor after us.
Finally, some bright spark (Xavier perhaps?) figured it out. The exit was cunningly concealed below the level of the mud! Ducking under, and swimming for a few yards brought him out into a small room with a set of rungs on the far wall. Xavier swam back to inform us of this fact, and then went back to the room. I followed him, and presumed the others would do likewise. When I got to the other room, Xavier had vanished. The only sign of him was a few bubbles in the mud! Prodding the floor with a sword soon revealed the reason; the rungs went down as well as up, and the heavily armoured warrior had sunk immediately. Fortunately, as I watched, he resurfaced, having been caught by Deathlord (it transpired that the V’garnian had been on a tour of the sewers, and had only just found his way out).
As Xav’ tried to wipe the clinging viscous (or should that be vicious?) mud off his formerly bright clean gold armour, I headed off up the ladder. One of the things that V’garnians learn very early on is that your own life is always in danger, so I was unsurprised to find a couple of rungs that wobbled in a "I’m a trap" sort of fashion. These I flagged for Xav’ and the others and continued on up. From below I thought I heard a couple of loud explosions as the others dealt with the mud creature, forcing it to retreat.
Most people managed to negotiate the ladder with ease. The exception was DrugHed, whose first action was to try and fly up the passage - probably inspired by the mages who were doing exactly that, having used more of their arcane arts. Dar calmed him down, and pointed him towards the ladder. As he got half way up, there was an ominous "click", followed by a scream as a spear leapt out of the opposite wall and impaled the unfortunate drugs dealer in the back before retracting back into the wall. He was dead before he hit the mud, though whether from the spear or the poison on it was not clear! Mara retrieved his body, and there was some discussion over trying to resurrect him. The consensus was that, between us, we could resurrect one person per day, and since a lot of other people might well be in need of a little resurrection by the end of the day, we would take the body with us and see how it went. I noted with a grin that Deathlord managed to restrain himself from animating the corpse as some hideously powerful undead. All that mud must have made him feel unwell!
With the party assembled and accounted for, we carefully moved down the corridor until we came to a large room with a huge mirror in the far wall. Subsequent attempts to break the mirror by certain T’gellenites who shall remain nameless proved this to be an indestructible metal mirror. The room was lit by row upon row of candles which neither went out nor dripped wax. In the other side of the room from the mirror was a large organ. Searching this, Elway discovered a piece of sheet music entitled "Give yourself unto Death". This sounded like a good tune to me, but the others seemed less than taken by the concept! After some bickering, Larna threw up her hands in disgust, grabbed the music and started to play. The tune was quite rousing, but ended on a sufficiently piercing bass note that a couple of those present lost control of their bladders. At least Xav’s armour was a bit cleaner though! We also discovered that the organ area was an anti-magic area, which came as a bit of a shock to the priests and mages.
Corridors led from the organ chamber to three other rooms, which were, of course, hideous death dealing traps! Deathlord, having recovered from his swim led the way down one of the corridors, and with true skill and determination managed to trip another trap, falling through a trap door in the floor. As we wondered what to do, the vampire appeared through a hole in the ceiling, shot past us and vanished into the floor. And appeared out of the ceiling into the floor. Ceiling into floor. Ceiling, floor. It may have been my imagination but I had the distinct impression that he was accelerating!
Walker fired up his "fly" spell and headed for the trap, unperturbed by the wobble in his spell as it seemed to falter and pick up. He managed to catch up with the speeding vampire and put a fly spell on him. As he did so, his own fly spell gave up the ghost, leaving Deathlord to haul the pair of them out of the trap. It was definitely not a good day to be a magic user!
Several of the others had moved down another corridor, and came to a door, unlocked and untrapped. Inside they found a sarcophagus with an ornate carved lid, showing the figure of a man, lying as if asleep. They readied their weapons, and opened the tomb. Inside they found a corpse impaled by six impressive daggers with the tips of the hilts shaped like open mouths; the clothes of the corpse were bloody and torn. Also visible was a small coffer which Mallon reached for. As he did so the daggers quivered slightly and then rose smoothly from the corpse, where they hung briefly, rotating to horizontal. The tips of the daggers moved from side to side, like snakes trying to hypnotize their prey. Suddenly, as one, the daggers hurled themselves at their targets. Mallon and Dar reacted with speed and managed to knock the daggers to one side, where they ricocheted off the wall, coming around for another pass. The other four found their targets: Xav’ took blow to the throat, Blake caught a dagger in his side and Elway was hit by two. However, these were no ordinary daggers - after they hit, blood shot out of the mouths, with sufficient force to spray the far walls crimson. As one man the three turned and staggered towards the organ room in the hope that the anti magic field would nullify these vampiric daggers. The daggers resisted all efforts to remove them, but fortunately the organ room proved to be the brave warriors salvation. Meanwhile, Mallon had managed to subdue his dagger by wrapping some crystalline device around it, and had returned to looting the sarcophagus. Dar had captured his dagger by the simple expedient of getting it to impale itself on his shield, and using his forearm to keep it interested. Soon all the daggers had been accounted for, but several of those present were looking pretty pale from shock and blood loss. Mallon kept "his" dagger, and the others were placed in Raistlin’s bag of holding. I wondered what would happen the next time he put his hand in the bag, and then decided to keep my mouth shut! Mallon checked the coffer to find that the contents were valuable but otherwise insignificant. Deathlord, bored, animated the corpse as a mummy.
Walker had found his way to another room, bare except for a circular pool in the floor and a similar one in the ceiling! On the other side of the room to mage could see the remains of a skeletal arm, clutching something. With a wolfish grin, Walker stored a blink spell and then teleported himself into the room next to the arm, where he picked up the scrap of parchment the arm had clutched. Immediately he arrived, a large "arm" of water erupted from the lower pool, and a vortex formed in the upper pool. Fortunately for Walker, the arm could not quite reach him, but it did block his way out again. "No problem" murmured the mage, and activated his blink spell to take him back to the corridor. Nothing happened. With a howl of annoyance, the mage looked round the room. His exit was barred by the watery proboscis, and there were no other ways out. Walker paused for thought and then used his arcane arts to summon a small demonic figure. This he sent one way around the pool, and, while the watery arm was otherwise occupied, sauntered out of the door way. From behind him came rending sounds, and then silence.
Walker examined the parchment and growled in annoyance. It was a map of the area we had already seen, together with the cryptic note "Fear but yourself". He sauntered back to where I had just destroyed one of the organ room doors to make a bridge over Deathlord’s last discovery. We then headed for the last unopened door.
We opened the door we found at the end of the corridor and found ourselves in a room with a single occupant - a chair carved from bone! As I got closer, I could make out tiny runes engraved into the surface of the bone, but before I had the chance to look closer, the chair reached out for me! Skipping nimbly backwards, I discussed what to do with Walker and Deathlord. We agreed on a plan, and Walker summoned one of his demons. The dark kin looked around nervously and did not look at all happy to be told to go and sit on the chair! As it got close to the chair, the bone construct animated and the dark kin turned and ran. So much for that "control demons" spell! However, the demon made the mistake of looking over its shoulder at the bone throne, and failed to observe my carefully aimed foot which caught the demon in the groin, lifted it effortlessly into the air and deposited it onto the throne. Goal! Oh, sorry, that was days ago. The bony arms of the construct closed upon the struggling demon and the chair vanished smoothly into the floor. It returned seconds later, sans demon.
So, what now? We had explored the rooms, all of which appeared to be suicide, beaten the walls to within an inch of their collective lives looking for secret doors and the like, and found nothing. But all this was supposed to be an ornate test of worthiness, so what had we missed? Suicide? Did I say suicide? The tune played on the organ came to mind... "Give yourself unto death". Suddenly it all made sense - the chair was the entrance to the next level of this maze.
As the chair dropped out from under me, I started to wonder whether this was really a good idea... with a bone jarring thud the chair stopped, tilted and deposited me into an untidy heap on the floor. Around me I could hear noise of the others who had preceded me, but there was no light. None at all. Neither witch fire not mage light would function in this place. In fact no magic at all seemed to be functional. I fumbled for a torch and tinder box, and after a few false starts (it is really difficult to light a torch in the absolute dark!) got it going. Mara also produced a torch and lit it.
The room was bare, except for a frieze on the wall, showing the pilgrims to the Haven gate. The one door led into a second room, much bigger than the first. The frieze continued through out this room, changing into a gentle pastoral scene. An ornate door stood at the other end of the room. The only thing that marred the beauty of the room were the eight rather lumpy pillars on the room, which had obviously been added by someone far less adept at interior decorating.
Mara led the way into the room, holding her torch aloft. Xav followed her, then Walker and Deathlord. Just as I was about to enter the room, the trap went off - the pillars exploded into showers of masonry, some big enough to knock Mara from her feet. Inside the pillars were a grand total of twenty four skeletal warriors, armed with swords with ominously glowing pommels. Deathlord drew himself up to full height and announced imperiously
"In the name of V’garn I command you to stop!"
The skeletons ignored him and combat was joined. On the right end of the line, Xav found himself badly outnumbered. Worse, he could feel Mara crawling behind him, so he could not retreat. Unsighted by the brick dust in the air, Xav allowed the skeletons to get the first attack. Three skeletons swung their swords at him, with two connecting. With a crack like summer lightning, the swords discharged into the unfortunate warrior, electricity dancing from his armour. The shock was such that the golden warrior was unable to reply. The only saving grace was that the glowing gems in the pommels faded and died. Walker and Deathlord were giving as good as they got, but were also struck by the enchanted blades, causing their bodies to dance and jig. Deathlord snarled in pain - he had thought himself immune to such frippery!
The left side of the line was fairing much better. I stepped through the door and moved up beside Deathlord, striking down several of his opponents. Although their weapons made them fearsome, they were quite fragile opponents. A skilled swordsman could take them down before they could attack. Blake was to my left, and was doing similarly. Unfortunately he let one of the skeletons through his guard, and he too was struck by the charged sword. Fatty had bulldozed his way through the lines and was engaging several of the enemy. Although he downed a couple, the others managed to hit him, and the sound of sizzling fat could be heard across the room. Mallon had entered the fray with a large double handed axe - not his usual weapon, but then a bow was not really the thing for today! He swung at the nearest opponent with a mighty blow... and buried the axe into the plaster on the wall. An electric counter attack perhaps taught him to be more careful. Elway and Toam helped him out of trouble with several well placed sword blows.
In the end we won. Xav, though critically wounded, had hung on for long enough for me to come up behind his opponents and finish them. We gathered the swords and distributed them among the warriors, thinking that they could be useful in the future. Several of those present were deeply wounded, but, with no magic, there was no prospect of immediate healing.
The door led into a corridor with another door at the end. On that door was nailed a scrap of parchment bearing the inscription "It always has been and ever will be. It moves and moves and never tires", to which the answer seemed to be "time". The door led to another room, with a further six skeletons. These were almost obliterated on the spot before we realized that they were not hostile. They merely said (repeatedly and irritatingly) "Choose your way".
Before us we could see several ways to choose. Three holes in the ground, complete with rungs, led down into the darkness. A door at the other end led to a flight of stairs up to a snarling demonic face. Deathlord ordered his undead friend up the stairs. It got about half way and stopped, still straining to move but unable to lift its feet. The demon’s eyes started to flame red and the mouth spewed forth some sort of black ichor. When the ichor reached the feet of the unfortunate mummy, a fireball shot forth from the demon, torching the undead. We shut the door on this sorry scene and wondered what to do next.
Dar was volunteered for the exploration of the wells. Since he was well stoked with brain weed, he did not argue too much. We tied a rope round him and he climbed down the rungs. All three of the wells had their little foibles. As Dar got half way down the one nearest to the door the rungs retracted, and water rapidly filled the shaft. It soon drained away. The middle shaft was filled with some form of flammable gas, whilst the furthest was guarded by an extremely large serpent.
It was then that we realized that we had mis-answered the riddle on the door - the real answer was "water" not "time". We sent Deathlord for a trip down into the first well, as he did not require air, and he soon returned with a glowing red key. The skeletons changed their litany to "you’re the one", but it was still as irritating as before. We stood and contemplated the corridor up to the demon door where the smoking remains of the mummy could still be seen. Discussion ensued over how to avoid a similar fate.
"Give me that." snarled Mara coming to the end of her patience. She gabbed the key and started up the steps, prodding her way with a bit of wood. Just as she got to the place where the mummy had expired, her bit of wood stuck to the floor. The demon’s eyes started to acquire just a hint of red. With a gallant flourish I removed my rather fine cloak and deposited it on the stairs. A couple more cloaks allowed the mage to get to the door. As the demons eyes started to glow fierce, the mage slotted the key in through the fangs. The door leapt upwards, it and the key vanishing from sight. We nimbly raced up the stairs and into the next room just in case the door decided to return.
There are times in life when you look around and feel at one with the universe. Everything is in its place, and life, or death, is marvelous. This was not one of these times. At the other end of the room stood ourselves. Exact copies of ourselves. And if they had half the stuff we had, someone was about to be in deep, deep trouble. The parties paused and looked at each other; time stood still as if it feared it might attract unwarranted attention if it did anything. Then the spell was broken and both sides reacted.
On their side, other Deathlord and other Walker vanished, blinking away to somewhere else. Several of the fighters quaffed every healing potion they could lay their hands on. Other Mallon took a slightly different approach and quaffed two dark looking potions. As we watched, his skin rippled and thickened, taking on the aspect of scales. Muscles formed, ripping away chain-mail armour. He raised his black wood bow, drew it so taught that the wood quivered and unleashed an arrow straight at Blake. Other Blake also fired at the unfortunate Blake. The other warriors present advanced, whilst Raistlin raised his staff.
On our side, Walker reached into his rucksack and produced two glowing orbs. "By the power of H’ragul I damn you!" he proclaimed. As he did so, a shadowy wolf like head appeared and swallowed other Xav, Toam and Dar. To his right, Deathlord called upon the powers of Death and hurled a spell at the approaching warriors, knocking several down. A peppering of arrows followed, to little effect. Several arrows bounced off the impressive torso of other Mallon. Our Mallon had taken a similar set of potions and we looked set for a battle of the titans. Xav and Toam stepped forward to deal with some of the other warriors, and stepped straight into a storm of magic coming from other Raistlin, who had been shooting at his alter ego. Xav, continuing his lucky streak, was only hit by three or four of the bolts. He was flung against the wall, armour smoking. The unfortunate Toam caught the brunt of the blast, struck by at least ten bolts. His smoking corpse dropped to the floor and did not move. Xav shook himself and approached my alter ego’s recumbent form, which he started to hack apart with "Light Bringer", a truly repugnant K’norian holy sword. However, he did not act fast enough, and other Than regained his feet. He looked at his assailant, a puzzled look crossing his face. And then he vanished, a bemused Xavier cutting through the space he had occupied. This was perhaps the luckiest that Xav’ got that day.
Dar bravely stood in front of Other Mallon’s first shot, and staggered back, shock draining his features as the arrow punched through his armour, torso and armour and continued on to hit Blake. The Mallons then proceeded to exchange shots until Walker and Raistlin intervened and dropped a Firestorm and a fire elemental on other Mallon.
I fired several lightning bolts into Raistlin and then found myself facing other Elway and other Fatty. I swung my sword in one of those fancy wrist crunching arcs that looks so good in displays. "Come on you T’gellen woofter! You and me!" Other Fatty snarled and battle was joined. To my right I could see Elway engaging himself with help from Deathlord, who had appeared like a wraith behind the enemy. Fatty and I proved to be an even match, matching each other blow for blow. But then, from behind I could feel the ground shaking. Thump..... thump....thump...Thump..THUMP..THUMP "Than, get out of the way!" Risking a glance over my shoulder, I saw Fatty approaching at speed. Rather than be pulped between the two man mountains I elected to step nimbly out of the way. Fatty and Fatty squared off, eyeing each other suspiciously. Then one of them spoke "Come on. Just you and me. Mano a mano." Fattys sheathed their swords and let the sword belts fall to the floor. Fists were formed, and battle was joined.
Elsewhere, the war was pretty much over. Other Mallon had somehow survived the fire storm and the elemental, but was easy prey. Elway and his twin almost annihilated each other, but "our" Elway just won. Other Blake had escaped out of the doors at the other end of the room. Other Raistlin had made an abortive attempt to kidnap Larna, but had been put in his place by Mallon.
Leaving Dar to watch over the man mountains, the rest of us went through the doors at the end of the room. Just on the other side we found a remarkable well made crystalline statue of Blake, now sadly decrepit (a bit like the man himself!) and crumbling. The room opened out into a massive cavern, rising several hundred feet to a vaulted ceiling. The floor was covered in a glowing smoke. At the centre of the cavern was a large acropolis, and through the pillars we could see a large ball of light whose colours moved and shifted. This was obviously the Gate. Mara immediately set off towards the acropolis, and was thus the first to be spotted by the demon that appeared around the side of the building! The demon was an impressive figure with four arms clutching an ornate trident, but it’s movements were slow and erratic.
"Finally! Larna Mhorvanna, you are here so I can kill you for the glory of F’nor! My long wait is over and I can become most beloved of F’nor!"
Mara responded with the peaceful nature we have come to know and love..... she dropped a volley of Fireballs on the creature’s head. The creature roared in pain and replied by raising its staff and dropping a flaming vortex near to the amazon mage who turned and fled, the vortex close on her heels. With a slight popping sound Deathlord and Walker appeared next to the creature and dismembered it. Frankly I would like to make this sound more heroic, but it turned out that the demon was half human and nigh on a thousand years old. The poor old geriatric demon would have been no match for a rabbit with a blunt penknife, let alone those two. Thus it expired.
T’sardan’s voice echoed across the cavern. "Quickly, Larna, you must step through the portal. But not the rest of you - I will explain later." Larna moved to the portal, thanked us and stepped into the coruscating light.
"Where are the rest of your colleagues?" asked T’sardan. "We must leave. Quickly. Before they observe us." We sent a runner to collect Dar and Fatty, but life is never that simple. The Great War was still on, the two Fattys bludgeoning themselves into oblivion. However, when Dar attempted to intervene, the two turned menacingly towards him and in unison asked "What?" They then returned to their private war. Eventually Dar realized that one of them had the pommel of a lightning sword sticking out of his pack, and promptly belted the other one with his own electro mace. The survivor and Dar then jogged round to where T’sardan was pacing nervously. We were soon transported elsewhere.