The battered, ancient landscape of the fractured cube hung suspended in the void of Thuldanin, the 2nd layer of Acheron, slowly tumbling through the darkness. Nestled upon the surface of the continent sized hunk of iron, something moved to keep pace with the turning of the surface in order to stay suspended in the shadow of one of the larger cubes that hung in the sky like a black sun.
The mobile fortress moved like a living thing, and perhaps it was in some ways, though it was constructed of steel and stone, rather than bone and sinew. And rather than living flesh, flush with life, it was held together by the unholy union of tens of thousands of mortal corpses, suffused with the grim touch of negative energy that washed through its veins like slowly pumping blood. The fortress was insensate and uncaring to the ring of the cubes that echoed through the eternal night above, below, and all around, like the bells of a choir of fallen angels still pining for their lost glory.
But while the fortress may have been oblivious to the logical disharmony of the crash of the cubes of Ocanthus, the occupants of the vessel were not. Four of them in all, brought together by little more than the mutual fact that they were all, in their own unique ways, exiles. All of them sat in silence and gazed up through the glass dome above their heads, watching the dim and distant glow of the cubes above them slowly turn like cold, dead stars.
“And another year closer…” The second of the Pentad, the one known only as Death, whispered softy as their moment of somber silence in respect for their missing and imprisoned fifth member ended.
“Once more, as we have every five minor cycles of the gears, we meet again. Still four of five, but still resolute in our mutual, disparate aims, we come together to reaffirm our views and report on the progress that another cycle has brought to us.” The soft voice of the one known only as The Visionary rippled over the chamber.
The first of the two heads of the one known as Tyranny glanced at the porcelain mask over the speaker’s face, nodding, as his other head still stared up at the darkness above. “Much has occurred, though precious little of it directly at our instigation.”
The telepathic whisper of it known as The Risen answered, “If you feel that way, then you’re thinking far too conventionally. Look upon the Astral and the chaos that swirls in the silvery void. True, it may not be directly at our instigation, but we stoke the fires and grow ever closer to the goals of at least one of us.”
Death nodded and a wash of silvery, filamentous light erupted from beneath the hood of his robe as he moved and smiled.
The Risen continued, “And your own actions of late upon the Waste have served a purpose, even if our eyes are not concerned with the yugoloths in the slightest.”
“Not yet at least.” Tyranny’s second head said ambitiously, its mandibles clattering.
“Of course, that begs the question of what to do at all currently regarding the ‘loths. How do we approach or handle the… events… that transpired there?” Death whispered with yet another wash of silvery light from under his hood.
The Visionary answered quickly with neither emotion in her voice, or showing on her mask, “The same as the ‘loths themselves: we act as if nothing has happened whatsoever. If nothing has happened then there is no need to rationalize, make excuses, or answer questions regarding it. The ravaged status quo is unblemished so far as we need concern ourselves.”
“But,” She continued, “As the Risen has said, our eyes are not concerned with them. The other fiends are of course, another matter entirely, be it they in general, or certain of them in specific…”
The Visionary’s hands began to shake as she paused and inhaled deeply. The others gave her time to recover from her memories, given that the Risen and Tyranny experienced emotions very much differently from her, given her status as the only mortal among their ranks, and that Death no longer had the capacity for true emotions.
“What of The Imprisoned?” Tyranny asked them all as he conjured forth a diagram of the planes in the center of the room, focused on the inner planes.
“That question has raged on our minds for the past century, ever since his whispers to us ended. His jailors are powerful, that is certain.” Death replied.
“If they exist.” The Visionary said slowly, “And I know more than something about jailors…”
“It is up for debate, but I may have some way of testing that. We shall see in the next cycle.” Death answered.
There was a distinct pause as their collective thoughts wandered to the circumstances surrounding the loss of their fifth member. It was every bit as much a member of the Pentad as they were, and it had been as valued a partner in their mutual goals since the formation of their order. Still, its silence was lengthy and weighed heavily on them all.
“And of the Astral? It seems that the status quo has simply been shifting back and forth from one side to the other.” The Risen spoke, breaking the silence.
“Not forever it won’t. Our contacts in Slaan, Ilkool Rrem and the City of Devourings have made that abundantly clear.” Death said with a whisper.
“And if it does, when they enter the conflict, what side do we support? Though the answer seems obvious to me.” The Visionary responded.
“As you said, the answer is obvious. Our own side.” The Risen replied swiftly and with a maw of fangs flashing in the subdued light.
“Though admittedly I am predisposed to certain specific persons, if not their entire side. Past debts and all, though the past may swiftly be catching up with them if the other business I had referred to in my sending before today have even a shred of truth to them.” Death said as he clasped his glistening, ethereal fingers together in a semblance of prayer.
“And what of Object 105?” The Tyrant asked bluntly and abruptly.
“Please do not speak of it so casually…” The Risen said as its eyes glowed in the shadows where it sat like twin lamps in the gloom of Hades.
Death gave a deep breath before answering, “We have leads on material linked to it, but the archives have been expunged and stripped bare of any reference to its existence. Njul is dead and seemingly unwilling to return to life to answer our queries, and the once and current factol who was responsible for that fact seems to have been responsible for the purge. The Sodkillers have washed their hands of it entirely.”
The Tyrant nodded and spoke, “Ortho seemingly has nothing on the matter and I am nearly certain that it was done without the Harmonium’s prime material power base even being aware of its existence. The Arcadian and Sigilian branches of the faction have also been similarly purged of any records of the period. However while I am certain that they existed, like the Sodkillers, they seem to have divested themselves of culpability.”
“They would… as if willing it to be so would divest them of their sins…” The Risen’s eyes flickered with inner flames.
“Calm yourself. There’s nothing you can do regarding it at present till we know more. Besides, entry into Sigil seems out of the question for you, and me for that matter, and something makes me think that Ortho would have nothing to do with you, current status or not.” The Visionary said in the direction of the Risen.
The Risen gave no reply, but the tension was reduced drastically.
“But earlier, you mentioned other material. From the scraps that we have found so far, what does it suggest?” The Visionary asked of Death.
“They were afraid of it, horrified enough to rewrite history, whatever it was, and they have sought to erase it from existence these past hundred years. I am keenly interested for my own reasons, as is the Tyranny, but I have begun to worry of late that there are others involved in this as well. It takes much to worry me you understand…” Death responded.
The Risen nodded, “Indeed.”
“Object 105 was important to them, and then something happened and it was buried. It was forgotten and nearly erased from history, and for reasons that are not entirely certain, everything that touched it has suffered nearly the same fate as it.”
“An entire cube does not simply vanish, and I of any of us should be keenly aware of that. What in the name of Marsallin did they do?” The Tyrant questioned.
“I have my theories, and most of them are my worries.” Death said coldly.
”I hear Him, though but dimly at times. He whispers to me in the darkness of my heart and I am afraid. I am afraid that I will not hear Him clearly, and that I will ere in my actions. I fear that my interpretation of those commands may be false, and He demands and deserves better from his chosen. But I do not speak this to my flock, to His faithful. No, no I do not. Truth and control do not matter, only that their illusion exists.
I listen to the darkness and there He rages! His fury at Her is ceaseless! Who is She!!? Who does She think She is to deny both birthright and destiny? What does She hide and what does She want? She fears us, She fears my Love, but why?”
The silvery void of the Astral, perfect and timeless, was sullied and impure. If to view the void was to touch the serene face of a god, it would have had a mote in its eye. The Astral was aflame with war. Distantly the Psurlon city of O’pak’shael burned in the glowing serenity of that vast and pure emptiness. A million githyanki knights swarmed above the rubble, intent on the extermination of every living thing that had once called the city home. The githyanki screamed out their devotion to Gith and Vlaakith while their hearts yet lingered on the ashes of Tu’narath, itself a funeral pyre to all that was and all they were.
They screamed their rage up into the unending vault above and below, stretching out to infinity on all sides around them. They screamed out their promises of unending death and misery to the enemies of the People out among the uncaring corpses of the dead gods, all of them drifting in eternal somnolence.
Distantly, the massacre was watched in contemplative silence by a being who had witnessed their enslavement to the Illithids eons before, watched their rebellion and rise, watched their disintegration and the Pronouncement of Two Skies, and now he watched them once more, stumbling towards apotheosis.
But the being, the Guardian of the Dead Gods, He formerly known as Anubis, cared little for the rage and bloodshed of the mortals. It would pass, and his thoughts ran towards other, deeper things at present. Besides, he was not alone as he hovered in the void and mused over what stretched out before him.
Anubis pondered the implications of it all as he sifted among shadows and memories that swirled within the winds of the void. He listened to the whispered thoughts, joys and pains of the forgotten, honored dead and to the echoes of what was and would be through the color pools, those keyholes of creation. Anubis listened to the psionic pulses that dimly echoed through the dead and atrophied synapses of the Elder Brain Collective that been silent since the days of Penumbra.
He watched as the latent connection between they and the Godbrain, Ilsensine, fired and twitched. It was thinking, just as much as he was, pondering both the war in the Astral and that something else that Anubis and his silent companion also watched in the dim, flickering light of the flames of O’pak’shael. The other didn’t speak, but Anubis heard and understood anyway as he touched the surface of the colorless pool.
Finally, after he had brushed his fingers against the surface, Anubis turned to his companion and spoke. “There is no such thing as a quiet death. There is only a long, slow, lingering twilight and the rage against the coming darkness. But perhaps we are all simply ashes and embers, flaring brightly for a time before scattering our dust on an uncaring wind.
We are forgotten and then we are gone. At least that was always my impression before you showed me otherwise.”
And then he was gone, slipping through the surface and into what lay beyond. The other only nodded and said not a word.
Victor awoke with a start. He blinked and his eyes focused on his surroundings, unburdened with the fog of sleep; he had simply stepped away from some moment in time and found himself somewhere else. He was cold and hungry, his throat was parched from thirst, and his clothing was damp with foul smelling moisture that clung like an ice-cloaked imp to his flesh.
The sun elf sat up suddenly, reflexively clutching a hand to the symbol of his god.
“Where the hell am I?”
His eyes glanced rapidly to survey the dim room in which he sat surrounded by the still forms of six others who lay still slumped on the floor. He wasn’t sure if they were dead or alive, but he was the only one who had woken. Metal walls all around, floor and ceiling as well, a dull gray base color that was unwelcoming and drab. Under the soft glow of a diffuse arcane light focused in the center of the chamber he could see the walls were tarnished with age and marred by the rust from tiny rivulets of moisture that collected, pooled and dripped from tiny cracks in the surface.
He briefly looked at the five exits from the room, the cardinal directions and another in the ceiling some fifteen feet above the floor. A small pedestal sat in the very center of the room, the light centered upon it, and some symbol scratched into the floor surrounding it. But that was not what drew his gaze as he struggled to his feet.
“Marcus!” He whispered harshly as he touched his brother’s shoulder. “Wake up! I don’t know where the hell we are or why we’re here.”
His brother stirred and blinked his eyes, “What? What are you doing here?”
Though full brothers, both descended from elven aasimar and tieflings, Victor appeared wholly elven while Marcus clearly showed both of the planetouched heritages of their parents. The last thing that Marcus remembered was being in Tradegate, and his brother was off elsewhere in the Outlands.
Outside of their elven features it was somewhat hard to tell that the two were in fact brothers. The physical resemblance was tenuous, and the normal sibling mannerisms were more or less muted; they hadn’t had much real time together over the past century. As well, their vocations were very much different. Victor had become a cleric of the primary deity of sunlight, life, and time for their world on the prime, and Marcus had gone down the path of the cultured aristocrat and nominal military officer. Victor was dressed in clerical vestments and Marcus was dressed in armor and uniform that would have not been the least out of place on a sailing vessel back on the prime.
Victor glanced around at the other forms in the room, “Where were you the last time you remember anything?”
Marcus shook his head and stood up, drawing one of the half dozen pistols hung in a bandoleer across his chest. “In Tradegate. I was working on hiring some mercenaries for a trade caravan.”
“You know any of the others here?”
Marcus pointed to a human woman on the ground next to him, “Francesca there. She was with me in Tradegate as an attaché. You?”
Victor pointed at a man on the ground near where he had woken up, “Garibaldi had been traveling with me in the outlands as a service to the church. I don’t know any of the rest of these people though.”
As Marcus was busy talking to his brother and then waking up their two vassals, one of the others stirred from the murky haze of whatever slumber had claimed them all and led them to their current location. Inva Ebonblade opened her eyes and the violet slits of her pupils dilated instantly as she regained her bearings. She didn’t move and kept her breathing shallow as her ears perked to the voices of the people around her.
She didn’t recognize their faces, nor their style of clothing, and their accented common bespoke of a quartet of primes. But this didn’t seem like the prime to her. The last thing she recalled was having been in Sigil’s Lower Ward, and then the memories simply vanished in a slow trickle of details till it was gone. That didn’t make sense. There was no sudden break in her recall of the past, no violent action that might explain a loss of memory and a sudden change in location. But the cold trickles of foul smelling water that dripped from the ceiling of the room told her at least a little, and possible more, it was Styx water.
She pondered slitting the throats of those with her, even mentally whispering a prayer to her goddess as she tapped her fingers across the hilt of her blade; but that would serve no immediate purpose and she did not yet know them or why she and they were in their present circumstances. And so, silently, unseen and unheard by the elves and their cohorts, Inva stood and slipped into the shadows a few feet behind herself and vanished, blending in seamlessly with the darkness.
Marcus looked back up as the sound of another voice reached out to his ears. A slim human female, seemingly a mage of some sort given her attire, was sitting up and glancing around nervously. Marcus also noticed that one of the unconscious figures that had been there a minute before was gone.
Ankita looked around as the fog that had shrouded her mind lifted and she realized that she wasn’t in Sigil, nor did she have a clue of how she had gotten to where she was. Her coppery brown eyes darted to the walls, ceiling, and then to the others in the room, shifting into the spectrum of magic and watching the contorting flux of dweomers on the others in the room, and the lack of such otherwise save for the light.
No fiends… good… She thought inwardly, easing the terrible, wretched, sinking thoughts that had immediately come to her mind when she had awoken.
She looked at the two elves and the humans who stood next to them. They seemed friendly enough and they didn’t have any real weapons drawn that she really needed to concern herself with. A cleric and three fighters, not likely to be responsible for whatever had happened to her.
“Welcome back to the waking world there. And you would be?” The cleric said to her from across the room. His tone immediately set her at ease, something that given her history and even her nature, was something that came hard: trust.
Ankita stood and brushed the hem of her robes; they were damp and cold, though the cold didn’t bother her in the slightest, but the reek of Styx water brought back those flashes of concern.
“Ph… Ankita,” She said in planar common. “You?”
The blond elf in the clerics vestments pointed to his holy symbol, “My name is Victor and these others are my brother Marcus and our two companions Francesca and Garibaldi.”
“It’s odd that we’d be here together since we were half a plane apart in the last memories we have. And given our relation, whatever has us here it wasn’t anything random.” Marcus said as he gestured around the room. “Is there anything that you can think of that might explain all this?”
She brushed her chestnut brown hair back from her face. “No clue. I was in Sigil so unless we’re still there, it wasn’t magic that transported me here. Cleared out memory, sure, but a wizard didn’t go around playing snatch and grab with us randomly.”
“I take it that you’re a wizard?” Victor asked, noting her oddly cut robes.
“Close enough. A sorceress. The robes probably gave it away, even if they’re styled a bit differently than most.” Ankita replied back.
“Not as ‘different’ as the other woman who was here a few minutes ago.” Victor said with an emphasis on the word ‘was’ hoping to give her the grace of showing back up amicably.
“Come on out…” Ankita said. She had noticed the vague presence of a dweomers in the shadows earlier, but Victor’s comment about ‘missing’ one of those who had been present settled the issue.
A moment later a slim figure slipped out of the shadows at the edge of the room like a snake slithering out from the edge of a placid body of water.
“Where the hell did you come from?” Marcus asked.
The tiefling smirked with flair, “Oh I’ve been here the entire time just watching in case any of you had something to do with me being here in the first place. But you berks are here in this mess all the same.”
Victor gave a soft nod, “Fair enough. And your name? You haven’t mentioned it yet.”
“No, I haven’t said it have I?” She said with a grin as she trotted out of the shadows and gave them a better view.
That she was a tiefling was obvious by any means, and given the nature of her features, she seemed more Tanar’ri than not. Her legs from the knees down were hoofed and goat-like, and a long, thin, dark scaled prehensile tail curled and waved in a sinuous pattern behind her, its tip ending in a slim, black metal spade. Inva’s skin was a dull sort of grayish color, blending almost to a pale yellow when she was more firmly illuminated by the room’s dim light. Offsetting her skin was the length of scarlet shoulder length hair that she kept tied back in a ponytail. As far as clothing, she wore loose fitting leather breaches which were tinted a slight red to match her hair, and a leather corset of the same color.
The tiefling wasn’t exactly modest in any capacity, and it seemed likely that the corset was held up solely by its lacing at her back and the tight pressure applied by her cleavage on its front. The males in the room had to pause and turn their gaze from there and back to her face, and the tiefling seemed well aware of the fact as she smirked.
“Well, you’ve already heard the rest of us make our introductions and what we do and where we were before waking up here. So what sort of stuff do you do?” Marcus asked.
“A bit of magic, a bit of this,” She tapped her fingertips on the hilt of a slender, black bladed rapier at her hip that seemed almost to be a more elegant, larger version of the spike that tipped her reptilian tail.
“Sounds like whoever dumped us here got all of the bases covered.” Ankita mused.
“And we don’t seem to be missing anything so this wasn’t just a dump after a kidnapping. And we’re not hurt either, so it was probably magic.” Victor nodded in agreement.
“Any idea how long we’ve been out for? I’m starving…” Marcus asked.
“It’s been a while as far as I can tell.” Inva pointed the tip of her tail towards the last person on the ground, “And there’s always one more to ask if he ever wakes up.”
The final form on the ground was breathing more visibly and he blinked his eyes and looked up, though with less of a start than might be expected; he’d probably been awake and listening for a short period before the others had noticed him being active.
“Wow. I need to stop drinking dad’s liquor.”
Velkyn glanced around the room and the sea of unfamiliar faces with a nervous furrowing of his brow as he brushed back his blond, nearly white hair from a thin, fine angular face and dusky gray skin that bespoke of dark elven heritage and perhaps something more obscure in his blood. Three earrings ran in a line down his left ear as he brushed the hair back and looked up with a set of piercing blue eyes; an odd color for a drow, or a half-drow in his case.
‘One of the evil ones!’ Victor immediately thought to himself in a reflexive panic as he brushed a hand over his holy symbol. He knew better frankly, but it was something ingrained to an extent in his people on the prime, though he’d been exposed to the wider views of the planes for some time.
Both Inva and Ankita noticed his manner of dress, and the spellbook at his hip that bespoke a wizard. Ankita however recognized his face immediately: she’d been sitting with him in Sigil around the time that her memories became a blur. However the fey-touched half-drow mage didn’t recognize her since she had yet to take her true form. Given the others in the group, taking that form might not be a safe idea until she knew the exact circumstances behind wherever they were and how they had gotten there.
“Where the hell am I?” Velkyn said as he stood up, revealing a frame that was even more lithe than had seemed originally. While a drow might ordinarily be considered slight by human standards, Velkyn’s features were even finer than a typical elf. It was only the soft leather cloak, really a greatcoat, which he wore, that gave him a fuller appearance. But at least it was insulation against the cold.
Velkyn brushed himself off and ruffled any loose water from the edges of his cloak. Underneath the greatcoat he wore supple leather pants and a blue shirt, open slightly to the chest to reveal an odd sapphire pendant. While he wasn’t a physical paragon by any means, it was obvious that he kept himself fit, if by nothing else than by the way the pants hugged his form.
“Same question we’re all asking. Beats the hell out of us.” Inva said, obviously a bit colder than the others given her manner of dress.
“Wonderful…” He muttered as he glanced around at his surroundings just the same as the others had done when they had regained their senses.
“For what it’s worth, I’m a mage out of Sigil. Last thing I remember I was sitting and sipping a drink in a bar in the Clerk’s Ward. And from what I heard from the rest of you, you all don’t remember anything that might have led up to this.” Velkyn said with a stretch. “And from the looks of you all it seems like I’m not the only mage, and a cleric and some fighters too.”
“Someone had their bases covered when they stuck us here.” Inva said as she curled the bladed tip of her tail behind her, tapping it against the metal of the wall.
“Wherever here is.” Ankita said, hiding any suspicions, just the same as Inva was doing.
“So what about the room and the doors. Anyone looked at them for anything special about the place?” Velkyn said as he looked at the five exits and the pedestal at the room’s center.
Victor recited a soft prayer and glanced around the room, looking at the doors, then the pedestal in the room’s center, and finally the others whose company he found himself in. The prayer would have allowed him to sense any latent evil, either from a spell waiting to be sprung, or the taint of evil in a person’s soul.
Inva heard the prayer and inwardly grinned as she spun a small ring on her left hand in an otherwise unremarkable manner. The Lady of Loss wouldn’t allow her followers to be outed so easily, not that she had any need to do them harm since more than not she would need them to get out of wherever they were. Keep the pretty face for the moment and see what came of it.
Victor blinked in surprise as he felt a distinct background presence of evil that pervaded the ground, walls, ceiling, and even the very air in the room. Perhaps a spell, or perhaps it was suggestive of their location on the planes. Then his vision went white for split second as an overpowering aura of evil flickered and then vanished.
“You alright?” Marcus said to his brother.
Ankita chuckled nervously to herself. She had that effect on people sometimes. She was a bag full of contradictions, poisoned candy, knives and velvet, love and hatred on a fulcrum. No wonder the cleric was confused. But if he even glanced in her direction because of that spell, she didn’t notice. Hells, they’d probably be looking at Velkyn or the spunky little tiefling if anywhere. She herself was just a human sorceress with nothing spectacular about her. No, nothing at all.
Victor shook his head, “Just got a really strong sensation of evil for a moment and then it was gone. The whole place is evil though, either from a spell or the plane that we’re on. Not one of the extreme lower planes if that’s what it is, but it’s there permeating everything. Make your guesses. Or the place just might be cursed or unhallowed.”
“So what about the book?” Velkyn asked with a glance to the others. “Has anyone taken a look at it yet?”
Victor looked to Inva, “Any chance you’d like to check if it’s trapped for me?”
She flicked her tail through the air and tossed her hair to one side flippantly, “Not particularly, but if it’s trapped I don’t care to be caught in the aftermath of anyone’s ham handedness. So by a roundabout way, I’d be pleased to check.”
The tiefling winked as she trotted up to the book.
Meanwhile Ankita was staring less at the book, which didn’t glow with even a flicker of magic, but rather at the symbols carved into the floor surrounding the pedestal. It was magical, but not. She’d seen similar symbols before, and this one was inscribed entirely in draconic whereas the ones she had seen had mostly been in infernal or abyssal. It was a teleport circle, but an incomplete one. There were several symbols intentionally missing, and elaborate lines and additional runes traced from the points they should have been and up to a pentagram symbol that the book lay within, five slots or notches set into the points of the figure.
“Well, it’s not magical.” The sorceress said as she looked up from the book, “and there’s a partially completed teleport circle around it.”
Inva meanwhile had flipped open the otherwise unmarked cover of the book with the tip of her sword. The soft leather cover opened with a soft tap of its cover on the stone of the pillar and its pages rustled loosely in the soft breeze that periodically blew from under one of the room’s exits.
She flipped through the pages quickly, noting that it was mostly blank but for two pages at the front. The first was a series of passages written in draconic by a practiced hand, either a mage or a native speaker, and the second page was a list of signatures… 7 of them. The tiefling noticed her signature and the soft glimmer of her own personal arcane mark immediately next to it, second to last on the page.
“Well… this is getting more disturbing…” Victor said as he described the list of signatures on the page. There was even a melted and pressed wax seal next to his brother’s and his names; not something that could easily be faked.
“Why in the hell would I sign my name for something like this?” Velkyn mused.
“Well whatever it was, they had to be paying me a pile a jink to even consider it in the first place. If they did I’d agree to it, whatever this all is.” Inva said as she started to match names in the book to faces of her companions.
“This is looking less and less like something entirely forced on us.” Victor said, “I wouldn’t give my seal unless it was something I’d agreed to. And neither I nor Marcus give our word lightly.”
“What’s the first page say?” Marcus asked.
“It’s in draconic.” Victor replied. “Who here besides me speaks it?”
All of the hands in the room went up with the exception of Victor and Marcus’s vassals.
“Well, that settles that.” He replied as he started to read the words on the first page aloud:
“I am the millstone, the device by which the kernels of grain are forcibly separated from the chaff. The grain is purified, weighed, valued, and judged. Chaff is consumed in the fires of the ovens in which the finished product is formed and baked. So it shall be with you.”
“There is a single exit and it exists through me. There are four keys to your salvation, three without, and one within. Find them and you will find me. Do not, and 24 hours from this point I will devour one of you, randomly, to amuse myself. If one of you is already dead by that point, well, you’ve made the choice for me and I do enjoy initiative from the as yet unproven.”
“Yeah, they’re paying me a lot for this…” Inva said dryly with a twitch of her tail.
“Well sh*t…” Velkyn cursed.
That original shudder of fear rippled through Ankita again. Trust came hard, and she didn’t like the sound of their captor or captors’ intentions. And not only her, but the nervous atmosphere from when they had just all regained consciousness returned in full force as they glanced at one another and then at the five doors that led out of the room.
The elves started to walk a slow circle around the edge of the room, glancing at the doors and talking amongst themselves. Velkyn was still paused and looking at the book, Inva had once more seemed to vanish into the shadows, and Ankita was glancing up at the door in the ceiling.
“Alright. So five keys and five doors. Seems simple enough and fairly straightforward.” Marcus said as he looked at the doors.
“I dunno, what was it saying about four without and one within?” Velkyn asked.
“Do we have one already on us, or maybe we’re the fifth key?” Ankita mused.
“Lemme see that book again…” Victor said as he picked the book up and examined the front and back covers, feeling for anything within the leather. Not finding any bulges or compartments in the leather, he put it back down.
Inva, once again seeming to appear out of nowhere, slinked over to the book and put a thin claw into the binding of the book and rattled it softly. She grinned and raised the blade on the end of her tail, cutting into the material on the spine and then with her hand, removing a slim metallic object.
“Cute…” She said as she held up the slim, metal tile. “One down.”
The others looked at the object. It wasn’t a key in the conventional sense, but it seemed to fit one of the spaces among the five slots in the pentagram that would complete the teleport circle. It slipped neatly into place.
“Five doors still left, so presumably one of them is a dead end.” Victor said.
“Even more cute…” Inva said darkly.
“Well, let’s take a look at the doors then. Some of them have a carving above them, probably about what’s beyond them.” Ankita said as she pointed to the door in the ceiling.
Looking up at that door, they noticed a mural shaped or molded into the metal above the wood door. Two rampant dragons or great serpents were embraced in a fierce battle. Judging by the shape of the drakes, one of them was a blue and the other was a rust dragon.
There was something odd about the dragons that seemed to dance about the edges of Velkyn’s mind, but it didn’t quite come into the forefront for him to snatch upon it and realize what was significant about it.
“… I’m not up for dragons right now. What’s next?” Ankita said as they turned to the next door on the western wall.
That door was made of wood as well and featured a carving of an armored man turned away from something and raising his shield as if warding it away from sight. Otherwise there was no other clue.
“Is the shield mirrored? That might explain it.” Marcus asked.
“Can’t tell from the mural really.” Inva replied. “But obviously there’s something directly harmful past the door.”
The south door was made of metal and caked in rust at the edges. Water was pooled at its base and tiny rivulets ran down its face in much greater frequency than the random drip of the same from the walls and ceilings of the main chamber. A mural above the door showed a female figure standing in a pool of water, motioning seductively to a armed man while holding a dagger behind her back.
Velkyn pointed to the woman in the mural, “I know what she is. A type of fey known as a Rusalka, usually Unseelie.”
“What do they do?” Victor asked the mage.
“Sing or otherwise beguile people, usually men, into falling in love with them. If they’re of the Seelie variety they’ll enchant them to be able to breath underwater and then they force them to love them and live with them till they die of old age. The Unseelie don’t let them breath underwater and they kill them for fun after they’ve used them for fun.”
“Lovely.” Victor said as he looked at the mural.
“For what it’s worth I’m immune to the effects if we meet her. My bloodline is… odd.” Velkyn said with a shrug.
“Outside of gender, if that even matters, I’m immune to most enchantment effects as well.” Ankita added to the conversation.
Inva eyed the sorceress oddly at the comment, wondering why she would be immune to a school of magic like that.
The eastern door was made of wood and carved with the image of a laughing fool, smiling as he leapt off of a cliff with his neck wrapped in a noose of chains. At his heels, a small dog seemed to be chasing him and barking, running off the cliff as well. The archetypal ‘Fool’.
“Yet another of these wonderful images.” Inva added as she noticed the soft breeze flowing out from under the door. “Nothing overtly dangerous to us though.”
“Looks like the figure on the ‘Fool’ card that the fortune tellers in the Great Bazaar use all the time, or that some less apt diviners might use for showmanship.” Ankita said idly.
“It’s all about showmanship there. The cards are pretty much a façade.” Inva remarked.
The last door, the one to the north, was made of metal just like the southerly door, only this time there was no mural or carving, but the entire door radiated a definite chill and was coated in a thin, reflective veneer of ice and frost.
Inva crossed her arms. “Fun.”
“No murals.” Marcus said as he tapped at the ice. It was fairly solid and the door would have to be forced eventually.
“No clues.” The tiefling replied.
“Sounds like one to try after the others.” Ankita said with a shrug.
“I’m in favor of the Fool’s door. It doesn’t seem as immediately dangerous, given what it’s got on the murals. Anyone else have an opinion?” Marcus said as he drew his saber.
There were several slow nods.
“Sounds as good as any other idea.” Victor said.
“Hey, do we really want to leave the first key here by itself?” Inva asked the others with a fair amount of skepticism.
“Might be other people here as well.” Ankita said warily.
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Velkyn nodded in agreement to the tiefling.
The key was already out and slipped somewhere on Inva’s person.
And so with one final look at the other doors, they approached the Fool’s Door and tentatively glanced at its metal surface. There was a soft breeze blowing out from under the door and from the spaces between it and the doorway, rustling their hair like the breath of a lurking giant.
“It’s not even locked.” Inva said as she looked for one of the others to open it first.
Francesca shrugged and pushed open the door. The breeze was stronger as the door was opened and it seemed almost cyclical, like actual breath of some monstrous being. Nervous glances were exchanged and they proceeded forwards through a short metallic corridor and then into a larger chamber shrouded in darkness.
Ankita whispered something under her breath and a globe of light hovered about her head, illuminating the first thirty feet of the room’s interior. The radius of light extended outwards before it was swallowed by darkness; it didn’t even reach the edges of the room in any direction except the ceiling. Inva would have done the same except that she couldn’t, a usually unbridling restriction that paid off in spades in other areas.
The room was a forest of chains that hung from the ceiling like softly swaying metallic vines, all of them graced by that same cyclical and steady rush of air. The metallic clatter of the chains rang out like a discordant chorus of bells as they tried to discern more detail about the chamber’s contents.
Several limp forms hung suspended from the chains further into the room. Half rotting corpses, they were run through with jagged spikes or barbs that dotted some of the chains as they swung slowly and rhythmically on the eerie breeze. Perhaps four bodies in all, with another possible fifth one wrapped and snarled nearly from head to toe in the jagged chains.
Then they heard it, the serpentine slither of chain upon chain, winding and unwinding from out in the darkness and something slinking from nest of chains to nest of chains all suspended in the airy darkness. Something was moving and it knew where they were.
"How much do you wanna bet there's a kyton in there?" Inva mused, drawing steel, as they heard the sounds further back in the chamber’s umbral recesses.
Velkyn brandished a short length of polished ashwood, tipped with a sapphire. "How much do you want to bet this is an invisibility wand?"