Chapters

Upside down: “Vengeance is great, but stopping winter is better”
Dzaan it: “Is the pantomime over?”
Abominable: “I’ve changed my mind about the igloo”

---

Upside down

Morgan made sure the Northern Light would be maintained and the lantern lit. Trovus explained that Allie and Cori’s bodies had to be burned to ensure they weren’t reraised, so Morgan organised for headstones to be crafted for the town graveyard.

Arlington fitted out the sleds and dogs with gear for frozen river travel, assisted by Atenas who also sketched out a detailed map of the northern reaches and the location of the Spire. “You don’t mess with the Glacier,” Atenas cautioned, “You respect it.” The sled skates were reground, the entire township mucking in to assist. Everyone was motivated and excited to help however they could—furs, supplies, lard, advice.

“Before we set out, what is the consensus on whether we visit this Spire, or ignore it and push on to wherever eyepatch’s trail leads?” Arlington asked.

“I think we should,” Eearwaxx said simply, to nods from Jankx and Tarquin. “Erky made it clear the wizards were competing with each other to find it, and whilst Ythryn was the goal the Spire was important to them. I think if we can find the Spire, it may be a avenue to finding Ythryn. We must go for that reason.”

“We’ve been meaning to go there for a long time,” Octavian agreed, “And it is nearby, relatively. It’s not too much of a diversion, and once we get close if Arlington said she continued on, I can go into bird shape and scout ahead for camps or signs of life.”

Morgan knew he didn’t have perspective to argue otherwise, plus there was a good chance that Vellynne could be at the Spire—it interested Dzaan enough for him to murder a half-dozen people, so there was something there. “Vengeance is great, but stopping winter is better,” he conceded.

The following morning Arlington led the heavily laden company north out of Caer-Konig, cheered on by an honour guard of locals. He followed the shoreline of Lac Dinneshere until it narrowed into the Reghed River, at which point he steered the sleds down onto the frozen river. Arlington was quite a sight at the helm of the sled, his frozen beard and piercing eyes starting forward with intent and purpose. He seemed newly invigorated by Morgan’s quest.

Arlington followed the river, occasionally hopping down from the sled to clear the ice and study the tracks left by Vellynne’s company. It started relatively easily, scratches and chips of ice from the kobolds, but became harder the further up river the company got. “Atenas was right, she has left no trace. But her friends have,” Arlington advised turning to Octavian. “Did she touch the ground when you saw her in Easthaven?”

“My memory is that she was walking, yes,” Octavian pondered, “But any magician of her ilk could levitate or fly if she wished. So it’s not too surprising.”

An hour or more of travel through increasingly empty ice-scapes led the company to the spot Atenas described as best to divert to the Spire. Vellynne’s trail had become cold, only hints now and none certain. “I can’t be sure if she continued or diverted,” Arlington reported, “But either way we agreed the Spire is our first destination.”

He led his companions east, following Atenas’s directions. There was nothing out here, no trees, no life, just ice and snow as far as the eye could see. Everyone was rugged up heavily to block the cold as best they could, but it penetrated deep. “How does anyone, or anything, live out here,” Jankx muttered. It was slow going, but it didn’t take long to find the distinctive landmark wherein the Spire was hidden.

---

Gigantic shards of splintered stone had erupted out of the frozen ground, reaching hundreds of feet into the winter sky. Arlington was stunned despite himself, his mountainous expertise concluding that these must be snap-frozen explosions of lava. He called for a halt and stepped down, pulling off his glove and placing his hand on the ground. He almost recoiled at what he detected. “Undead, and close. I can only assume these are of your kind, Octavian.”

Arlington followed the maze of sharded stone, looking for landmarks—two shards that crossed at rakish angles, a cracked and shattered half tall outcrop—until he saw what he was looking for. Ahead a twenty-foot-high, irregularly shaped spur of rock jutted out of the tundra. It was an oval shape, almost circular, and much smaller than the gigantic rock outcrops, well hidden in the forest of stone.

“That’s it,” Arlington muttered, his trained eye knowing. “Look at the surface—smooth and shiny, and not wind-worn. And that has been thrust into the ground, not pulled out.”

“Which means some of it might be under the ice,” Morgan suggested.

The company quickly built a shelter for the animals under one of the outcrops, Morgan carving massive chunks of ice that Arlington crafted into a ice-wall that protected from the winds. Eearwaxx tried to do the same, but his ice-works were rather more artistic.

Once done everyone started trying to find out how to enter the frozen edifice. Morgan and Jankx circumnavigated the Spire, finding no obvious entrance. It was made of a seamless metallic substance, unlike any they had seen. “It’s magically shaped,” Eearwaxx said excitedly as he ran his hand along the smooth surface.

Arlington studied from a distance, noting a thinner torn buttress rising into the air that peeled off the central tube. He pulled out his crossbow and fired it into the top of the Spire, then pulled himself across. Jankx gasped as Arlington shot through the air as if flying, landing comfortably atop the outcrop. He grinned with delight—the crossbow was definitely better value than the Heart. The top of the Spire looked like it had been sheared, snapped off. Jagged metal was covered in a thick layer of ice—it had been here a long time.

“There’s no way in up here either,” he called down to Morgan and Jankx. “Just a slab of torn metal under solid layers of ice. There’s a buttress or broken arch above it, but it’s too thin for an entryway.”

“Maybe this thing fell out of the sky, so it’s upside down?” Morgan pondered. Arlington glanced down at his feet, slightly dizzy and Morgan’s suggestion.

Octavian was stomping, as best he could, while circling around the Spire to see if he could find anything unnatural. After some minutes he found something—the snow gave way underfoot, unlike the hard packed ground nearby. He flew into the air to get a better look and there was definitely a depression, maybe only five-feet wide. He landed gently next to it and started to press into the depression. It sunk slightly as he pressed before suddenly collapsing underfoot. He shot up into the air. “Here!” he cried, staring down at a five foot hole that dropped into darkness.

Arlington crossbowed himself to the edge of the hole, joined quickly by everyone else. The tunnel was made of ice, not a tube of metal connected to the Spire. “Someone has dug this,” Morgan warned. Octavian floated down into the tunnel. It curved forty-five degrees for ten or twenty feet, then curved back the other way at a similar angle. “We’re going to need to rappel down,” he reported.

“That’s how you would build it if you were trying to climb upwards,” Arlington noted, “Something getting out, rather than getting in.”

Morgan grabbed the cleats from the sled as everyone prepared to descend. There was a fare risk of slippage on the icy surface of the tunnel, so ropes were deployed. Jankx went down first, followed close behind by Morgan. After the two curves were taken, the tunnel dropped down another twenty feet to a flat surface that led east. Jankx dropped down with a thud. “Would have been more fun to slide,” Jankx grunted as Morgan landed by his side.

Before proceeding everyone made their was safely down to the landing. “I saw no trace of tracks in the tunnel,” Morgan warned. “So nothing has been down here recently—unless she floated, like she did on the river.”

Eearwaxx cast his locate spell again, this time searching for the eyepatch. He was less familiar with it than the feathers, having only seen it from a distance, but he could find no sign. “She’s not here that I can detect,” he whispered. “But there is great magic here, and not a magic that I know,” he added excitedly.

The eastern tunnel opened into a steadily-lit room, twelve feet high, the contents of which were coated in frost. Across from the tunnel was a wooden door flush with the ceiling but with a four-foot lintel to climb over from the floor.

“You were right, Morgan,” Arlington said quietly, “It’s all upside down. Even the torches”

The door was ajar, and flanking it were two identical stone statues that hung down from the ceiling like stalactites. They depicted long-faced humans dressed in wizard’s robes and clutching staffs. Across from the statues were sconces with upside-down flames burning in them.

Eearwaxx stared up at the statues. “There’s writing on the plinth of each statue.” Octavian flew into the air to look at the script closer. It wasn’t a language he knew, but there were some glyphs that reminded his strongly of draconic. Morgan lifted Eearwaxx to allow him to study it too. “It’s a mixture of elven and draconic,” he suggested.

“I agree, though I don’t know Elven. It reminds me of some of the scripts we saw in the Sunless Citadel,” Octavian said thoughtfully. Both discussed it further, eventually parsing it out as best they could. “I think both have the word Watches or Watchers,” Eearwaxx explained “And the second is The Watches.”

“And there is a word before the first one that we’re not sure of, but it’s something like We or What,” Octavian added.

Jankx looked through the half open door, seeing a corridor also lit by upside down torches. Doors led off north and south, and at the far end were what looked like a collapsed stairway in the ceiling, which used to be the floor. Jankx stepped cautiously through the doorway—and found himself falling from the ceiling back in the statue room, landing with a thump on the ground.

“Try again,” Arlington said, “We’ll catch you.”

Jankx did, and Arlington did.

“It’s a teleport trap. Do we need to dispel magic?” Octavian suggested as he tossed a rock through that did the same thing. “It’s a big spell to use.”

“I would say so,” Arlington said.

“Let me try something,” Eearwaxx said. He traced a dimension door into space, making the exit at the far end of the corridor near the collapsed stairs. He stepped through and appeared with a grin inside the corridor. “It worked!” He walked back to the door and wasn’t teleported back outside.

“Stops people from coming in, not out,” Octavian nodded.

“The statues must be part of this,” Morgan suggested. “Let me try and spin it.” He tried his best but they didn’t move at all.

“Nor do the torches,” Arlington said as he tried to manipulate them. “Interesting—they don’t give out any heat.”

“Let me bag the flames, maybe that will stop the teleport?” Morgan suggested as he covered each torch.

Jankx fell again.

Arlington turned back to the statues. “What did you say they said? ‘Something’ watches and The Watches?”

Octavian nodded as he described the glyphs, helped by Arlington who had some Elvish. Suddenly it became clear. “The first word is Who. So the full phrase is Who Watches and The Watchers!

“Would the statues be the watchers?” Arlington asked.

“Seems likely. I’ll blindfold them,” Octavian suggested, “Stop them from watching. Then let me try to save Jankx from falling.” He tried it but was teleported back outside when he stepped through.

“Octavian—close your eyes,” Arlington suggested.

It didn’t work. Octavian was getting frustrated. “Shall I just dispel it?”

“Try saying the phrase then flying through,” Morgan suggested.

Octavian sighed, then tried: once in Draconic (no), once in Elvish (nope,) and finally in a strangled attempt at what he though the mixture of languages would be…noooooo.

“What about walking through backwards?” Morgan said without much hope.

Octavian rolled his eyes, but dutifully flew himself backwards through the opening—not the easiest thing to do. And…it worked!

---

Dzaan it

Everyone backed through the door, climbing over the four-foot lintel. The stairway at the far end of the corridor was choked with ice, rubble, and twisted metal, obviously destroyed by the impact.

Jankx listened at the near door, hearing nothing beyond. He popped it open to allow Morgan to gracefully hoist himself over the lintel. Inside was a small room, the roof-now-floor covered in shattered and jumbled equipment, much of it near two heavy wooden worktables—one on its side, the other upside down. From the look of the scars and dings covering them they had been well used. There was otherwise nothing much of interest, just the same upside down torches and freezing cold.

Arlington pondered how much displacement must have been caused when the Spire crashed down, the massive lava spikes outside being forcefully ejected from the earth by the event. And yet the furniture in here was more-or-less intact, only damaged by their gravity being reversed. “My guess is inertial dampening,” he muttered to someone in the future.

Tarquin traced his finger over the floor, looking for dust, but there was only a layer of frost. It felt like it had been preserved for all this time. Octavian looked around for signs of disturbance. “No-one has been in here for a long time,” he reported.

There was a door in the east wall that Jankx checked before shoving open. Ice cracked off the frame as the door revealed a smaller room, the floor covered with shards of glass, frozen pools of spilled fluids, and the wreckage of two cabinets. In a niche in the far corner of the room a metal chest is bolted to the now-ceiling.

“If we open that we need to be ready to catch whatever falls out,” Octavian said, “Judging by what’s smashed here it’s going to be potions or similar.”

Morgan hoisted Jankx so he could try the chest. It was locked but took no effort to solve—it was more a safely lock than trying to protect anything valuable. He carefully lowered the lid and reached inside. There were four small potion vials that he tossed down to Eearwaxx.

Eearwaxx put on his eyeglass and peered into the flasks. “Green, blue, red, and purple,” he muttered. “So acid, cold, fire, and…force. Unless the occupants of this tower are from another world. I’m not sure if they’re protection potions, or more like the fire-breathing one Jankx used in the Sunless Citadel, or something else entirely.”

“I’m pretty sure these are dragon’s breath potions,” Arlington said confidently. “Tuck them away for now and we move on.”

Jankx checked the southern door in the corridor again hearing nothing. “I think this place is dead, it’s so old and ancient,” he said.

“It is interesting though that we know people were actively trying to come here,” Octavian nodded. “So is it that they couldn’t find the entrance? Or couldn’t solve the puzzle?”

“Or got taken out by something beforehand,” Jankx mused.

“As I said before,” Arlington said, “It looks like that entry tunnel was from someone tunnelling up, and yet there’s no sign in here of anyone alive that could have tunnelled.”

The room beyond took fully half the diameter of the Spire. Tall bookshelves affixed to the outer wall had spilled their contents onto the ceiling-turned-floor. A large table lay on its side, one leg broken. And there was a roughly-hewn five-foot-wide tunnel in the floor to the east.

Arlington crouched by the hole. “This has been ripped open from below, and not gently. Something definitely tunnelled its way out of here.”

Octavian and Eearwaxx didn’t hear a word of Arlington’s thoughts when they saw what lay scattered around the floor of the room: remains of books, most destroyed by time and neglect, but a few appeared to be intact, and there was loose pages with remnant text. “A library,” Eearwaxx whispered in awe.

“And someone has already rifled through them,” Octavian said, noting the remains were shoved into piles. “The first sign that we’re not the first to come down here.”

A quick search found two intact volumes. All were written in the same language used on the statues, mixing ancient elvish and an unusual variation on draconic. There was no time to delve deeply, but nutting out the first few pages revealed the books' content.

Magical Wonders of Netheril was a collection of interviews with Netherese archmages, who discuss their studies of ancient elven magic and the creation of mythallars. “I don’t know what they are,” Eearwaxx whispered, “But there are sketches,” he said with wonder.

---

Morgan peered at the image, eyes wide. “Looks like a gigantic arcane power source.”

“Or it could be a planet,” Arlington said casually.

“I want one,” Eearwaxx grinned.

Octavian paged through his volume, Wizards in the Hollow, which appeared to chronicle the birth of the Netherese empire, a history of a civilisation. Octavian was excited to read more, despite the fact it appeared to be framed around a rather plodding story about the lives of three Netherese wizards.

“These are artefacts,” Octavian said, stunned. “Priceless. It pains me to imagine what the earlier explorers found and removed.”

Eearwaxx agreed—anything to do with the Netherese empire was valuable, and these were original scripts. Even the nails jammed into the table legs would be worthy of study.

---

Morgan peered through the hole down the floor below, a twenty foot drop. “Let me go first,” Octavian said looking up and spreading his wings. “I can fly back up.”

“That doesn’t happen anymore,” Morgan glared, “Because every time you go first—”

“You know what,” Octavian interrupted, backing off, “Be my guest—slide down the mysterious hole.”

Morgan ignored the jibe, propped himself against the tunnel walls, and supported himself down the ice-laden tube. Jankx, somewhat overconfident, tumbled unceremoniously to the floor below. “Ow,” he muttered sheepishly. Octavian floated down, followed by Tarquin who had no trouble. Eearwaxx on the other hand, head buried in a book, fell but was saved by Morgan. Arlington shook his head, nonchalantly fired a bolt into the floor, and rappelled down in style.

The room mirrored the one above and appeared to be a laboratory containing two metal cages, both badly damaged. Another roughly dug tunnel led further down, and narrow windows along the bowed outer wall afforded glimpses of the permafrost into which the spire had impaled itself.

One of the cages held the inert sandy-yellow carapace of an insect-like creature, shaped like a giant praying mantis. It was seven-foot tall with six limbs and four-fingered claw-like hands. No-one could place the creature. “Though I will say that it’s colouring would indicate a desert ecosystem more than ice,” Arlington observed.

“That thing couldn’t have dug that tunnel,” Tarquin guessed. The metal plating between the floors was far too strong for mantis claws. Octavian checked the other cage, fearing that the tunnels may have been bored out by something that was now free, but the cage had only signs of ancient captivity.

An eastern door opened only to another destroyed stairway, this one spiral but just as impassable. Jankx cleared and opened the northern door. The door opened directly into another half-diameter room with another upside-down table and more books scattered around. Two were still readable:

Ajamar’s Guide to the Phantastic A breezy, light-hearted treatise on illusion magic, describing clever ways to use illusion spells. “I think these are new illusions, new techniques,” Eearwaxx said excitedly to Tarquin. “I’ll decipher it for you later.”

“This one is called The Unfettered Mind,” Octavian said. “It’s lunatic—the text discusses how one might exist solely as a disembodied brain, preserved for eons in a magical suspension fluid. Interesting but insane.” His tentacle twitched as he studied the unhinged theories.

When Jankx listened at the door to the west it sounded different to everything thus far. It was somehow even quieter, no sound nor atmosphere—not even emptiness. “Careful here,” he warned as he inched the door open a crack. The room contains the shattered remains of a desk and some chairs but nothing more. He pulled the door fully open and stepped inside and found he couldn’t hear anything, as if he was in a void of sound. He stepped out and sound returned.

“It’s like there’s a silence spell in there,” he muttered. He went back inside and searched, but found nothing of interest—a few broken writing nibs, shards of faded paper, a broken bottle of ink.

“I know what this is,” Tarquin said, “A place of seclusion—maybe for study, maybe for prayer. It’s a writer’s cubby—how to get away from all of this.”

“Not a prison? Is the door boltable from the inside?” Arlington asked, not sure that Tarquin was right. Jankx shook his head. “Or maybe it’s a safety room from something that made a noise you didn’t want to hear?”

“Or it’s a writer’s cubby,” Tarquin grinned. “I think we’re coming toward the top of the tower, so now we’re in the officers' retreat. Personally I think this is the captain’s library.”

“And those were the captain’s cages?” Arlington questioned.

“The captain may not have lots of personal space, but that space is theirs.”

“It’s the tower of a city, not a boat,” Arlington guffawed.

“We don’t know how tall the tower is?” Morgan said.

“True. But it doesn’t make sense to me that someone that someone who has the right to have this area of seclusion should be relegated to the bottom.”

“I will concede that point, sir,” Arlington said. Back home the tips of the mansion were always reserved for his family, as it should be. Well for his mother anyway. “Down the hole we go!”

---

The tunnel opened into another largish room on the third level. In the middle of the room another tunnel was punched through the floor, a nearby a partially collapsed wall exposed a room that lay to the west.

“It’s a wizard’s laboratory,” Eearwaxx said immediately. Upside-down storage cupboards and empty shelves were fastened to the walls, and shattered glass and alchemical equipment strewn were across the floor. Most tellingly, faded arcane symbols were painted on the now ceiling.

“This is a wizard’s tower, not a captain’s tower.” Eearwaxx had dreamed of one day occupying just such an establishment—his mentor, Archmage Eearl’wixx, had told him tales of the infamous Archmage Zandeyr Grawarith and the tower beyond time and space that floated outside Candlekeep. He imagined the magiks that had been spun here before the fall and shivered with delight.

“Why do wizards always want to live in vertical spaces, that’s what I don’t understand?” Arlington asked.

“It’s an aversion to sprawl,” Tarquin proposed.

Arlington moved to the collapsed wall. It had clearly been bludgeoned down, and relatively recently. Inside the wall cavity he could see mechanisms that might have been a secret door hiding the room beyond. “Presumably whoever got here first decided to smash their way inside,” he reported.

“I’m becoming acutely aware that we are chasing a dragon’s tail,” Tarquin nodded. “Because whatever has made these tunnels and bashed through doors, we are rushing to go and find.”

“The tunnel is far older than this wreckage,” Arlington added, “So perhaps we are chasing two different dragons.”

“The timescale might align with Dzaan being here,” Octavian mused. He stepped through the broken wall and looked up. A black stone alter was attached to the ceiling of the otherwise empty semi-circular room, with an eight-pointed star carved into the outward face. He didn’t recognise the symbol, but Arlington, surprisingly, did.

“My brother, an itinerant adventurer if ever there was one, returned from an expedition to places unknown,” Arlington recounted, casually spinning the story as he studied his fingernails. “He was a very successful looter, or as he would put it, preservationist, and he recovered an artefact that had this exact symbol. I later discovered it to be a holy symbol of Mystryl, the first incarnation of Mystra, the god of magic.”

Octavian and Eearwaxx were disappointed to be out-lored by the great hunter, but had to admit that it was a pretty great story.

“My brother came back for Mother’s birthday and he would not stop going on about it. I should add that holy shrines to Mystryl, not Mystra, are exceedingly rare and often full of great mystery,” Arlington added, rubbing it in.

“Particularly shrines from outer space,” Octavian muttered, trying to reclaim some ground. He had the feeling this was a really big deal, but no-one else seemed particularly interested.

“No-one implied that this place is from beyond the sphere,” Morgan said scratching his head. “Eearwaxx and Tarquin’s knowledge said that the Netherese empire was from this world. It’s just that the city flew.”

“It isn’t too much of a leap—we are talking about floating cities, cities that have crashed to earth, and we actually saw a ship that travels out,” Octavian said pointing to the sky.

“I saw a snail in the snow,” Arlington scoffed.

“You saw the creatures within!”

“And nothing about that said ‘I go beyond the stars’.”

“They told us they did!”

“Did you see those guys?” Arlington laughed. “I have trophies better than them on my bedroom walls!”

“Wasn’t there a flying citadel during the dragon wars?” Morgan added, recalling the histories.

“The storm giant’s castle, Skyreach,” Tarquin sighed, only too familiar with the story.

“That’s where the great kobold massacre happened,” Eearwaxx added.

“I heard that was bullshit,” Arlington said. “I heard it was goblins and there was only five of them”

“That is a documented war crime!” Octavian scowled, his face darkening.

“All exaggerated,” Jankx said. He didn’t often take a position on controversial subjects, but he’d read the comics. Obviously a group as heroic as Stormwatch wouldn’t massacre a bunch of hapless kobold chefs—it was preposterous to think otherwise.

“There were survivors,” Octavian growled, “Who the war criminals missed, and those survivors hid under the bodies of their compatriots. And we know what Stormwatch did.” He looked more serious than anyone had ever seen him, scarily intense.

“I agree,” Eearwaxx piped up, defusing the tension.

Jankx shrugged and listened at the northern door. He froze and held his hand up in warning. “Pages being turned, maybe the scratching of a pen,” Jankx whispered. Arlington raised his crossbow and trained it through the door as Morgan and Tarquin pulled their blades free. Everyone was immediately on high alert after the relatively relaxed descent thus far.

Morgan kicked the door open. Sitting at a table in the middle of the room, surrounded by small stacks of books, were two figures. One was an undead warrior in studded leather armour, its dead-grey flesh drawn tightly over its bones and its face locked in a terrible scowl. The other was an attractive young man in cold weather clothing. His face was hidden beneath a frayed witch’s hat as he scrawled in a notebook. He looked up, displaying studious eyes and a warm smile. Everyone gasped.

---

“Welcome to the lost spire of Netheril!” he beamed, “My name is Dzaan.”

Morgan burst across the room, leaping over the table to shove Dzaan, for it was indeed the disgraced wizard, into the wall. “Keep that thing where it is,” he hissed, nodding toward the undead warrior as Ezra appeared close behind.

“Krintaas!” Dzaan called, “Stay where you are, do not attack!” The bodyguard frowned but didn’t move.

Arlington managed, just, to hold his trigger finger. This was the wizard he had shot in the ear whilst he was tied to a stake ready to burn. “No wonder Dzaan hadn’t seemed concerned about dying,” he hissed to Tarquin, the called out to Morgan, “Pantomime?”

Morgan hesitated, then realised Arlington was referring to the charade to gather the cultists in Caer-Dineval. He didn’t turn, just nodded. “Maybe we should get answers,” he called over his shoulder.

“Pantomime it is,” Arlington grumbled.

Octavian stood in the doorway, shaking his head to try and remove what he suspected might be an illusion, but everything stayed just as it was. The undead creature was obviously a wight, which worried him, but Ezra was ready should it try anything. He turned his attention instead to surveying the room. Some effort had been taken to arrange the contents of this room into a functional study. His attention was drawn to a sound emanating from the table, centred on a whirring amulet on a chain.

Dzaan peered past Morgan who was looming over him threateningly. “Thank you for not attacking me, gentlemen. You certainly look like you mean business,” he smiled. “I am glad you didn’t.” He glanced nervously at Arlington’s crossbow which was trained on his forehead.

“Are you Dzaan?” Octavian called across the room.

“Why yes I am. Of a sort—I am Dzaan and yet also not Dzaan.”

“We saw Dzaan burn, we saw you die,” Octavian scowled.

Dzaan looked pale, glancing over at his companion. “I died? You mean Dzaan is dead?”

“Very dead,” Octavian nodded slowly.

“This is terrible news. But it also means…” Dzaan hesitated, deep in thought. “It means that I am his last chance! There is still hope, for I am a simulacrum created by Dzaan!”

“What do you mean you’re his last chance?” Eearwaxx asked.

“Well if I can be given life, then I will be Dzaan—maybe you can help me?”

“If you can be given life,” Arlington said with disquiet.

“I know what the word ‘simulacrum’ means,” Tarquin frowned, “How many of you are there?”

“Only me and Krintaas, my bodyguard.” The undead warrior didn’t move.

“So there are only two of you?”

“Now only one. If the real Dzaan is dead, then I am the last. The only chance for him now is me—the spark of life must be given to me.”

“Do we know the one on the stake was real?” Jankx said softly.

“Yes,” Eearwaxx said, then immediately saw Jankx’s point.

“Yes,” Tarquin echoed, “Because this is his backup.”

“But do we?” Jankx stressed. “There could be more.”

“Oh no,” Dzaan said, “That was the real Dzaan. I am the simulacrum, no question. Why would I lie to you?”

“That’s exactly what Dzaan would say if they were trying to fool us,” Octavian scowled, seeing what Jankx was getting at. How could anyone know for certain the Dzaan on the stake wasn’t fake and this one real. “How did you get here?” he asked Dzaan.

“Dzaan placed me here to guard and study when he left to retrieve supplies and information.”

“What happened to the guide who came with you?”

“The people who led Dzaan here? I wasn’t created then, but when he left he took them with him. A dwarf and some others, if I recall.”

Morgan grunted hearing this, thinking of Atenas’s sorrow and Jarthra’s murder, He tightened his grip on his sword and stepped closer to Dzaan who retreated further into the wall.

“What have you found?” Tarquin probed.

“It is interesting you should ask—I think I, or Dzaan anyway, found something quite remarkable. I think our discovery is why Dzaan left, to cover his tracks so no-one else could discover it too—he was quite competitive in that regard.”

“So we have heard,” Tarquin scowled. “Go on.”

“Dzaan found a chamber on a lower level of this inverted tower, and in that chamber is a mechanism that can turn illusions into reality,” Dzaan said with growing excitement.

“Hm,” Eearwaxx said with uncharacteristic understatement.

“Are you an illusion?” Jankx asked.

“I am, of a type, so if we can enable this device then I can become Dzaan! He can live again!”

“Why would we want that?” Arlington said. He didn’t want to have to kill the same man twice.

“Do we not want that?” Jankx countered.

“Just remember Dzaan is a mass murderer,” Morgan growled, his blood rising.

“But we are talking to an innocent here,” Tarquin warned, trying to placate his friends.

“Tarquin, I have killed baby deer for sport,” Arlington grumbled, “Innocence is not a problem for me.”

“I’m not talking about innocence, I’m talking about the panto,” Tarquin hissed to Arlington.

“Well I killed him once…” Arlington whispered back. “Is having an undead as a companion something that innocents do?”

“Stay alert, but not alarmed,” Tarquin whispered, elbowing Arlington and standing in the way of his bolt.

“Can you show me this chamber?” Eearwaxx said enthusiastically.

“Of course! I would like nothing more!” Dzaan beamed.

Octavian held his hands up for quiet. “Dzaan-two, are you saying that Dzaan-one took you to a chamber, created an illusion of himself, and that became reality which is now you?”

Dzaan shook his head. “No, no, he created me with his magics. I am not real, not yet. I have no life.”

“Is this a known magical ability?” Octavian looked to Eearwaxx for confirmation, who nodded. Octavian turned back to Dzaan. “Have you got anything that was created by illusion and transformed into reality?”

Dzaan shook his head sadly. “I haven’t been able to quite make it work. What it seems to do at a basic level is transmute illusionary objects into real. But there is another far more powerful magic: transferring life into that which has none. Like me.”

“Show us!” Eearwaxx repeated.

“First let me explain one more thing,” Dzaan continued. “As I said earlier, life needs life to create more—the spark of life.”

“Can I suggest that you have been looking for this moment,” Tarquin grimaced, “Because your friend is not alive, and nor are you.”

Dzaan nodded slowly. “I thought that Dzaan would come back and give me the spark. But now that he is gone—perhaps you can.”

“And there it is,” Tarquin nodded. “Before we step over that rubicon, tell us about this object on your desk?” he said, pointing to the whirring amulet.

“Oh that? I’m not sure what that is, it hasn’t been the focus of my study. We found it down here.” He lifted the amulet by its chain. A circular metal frame encased a round of wood with three symbols carved into it. It looked ancient, certainly belonging to the spire.

---

“What are those symbols, do you know?” Octavian asked.

“No, they are not familiar to me.”

“May I have a look?” Eearwaxx asked, holding out his hand. He was equal parts fascinated and infuriated that the symbols didn’t mean anything to him. And why was it whirring?

Dzaan smiled and withdrew the chain, sensing an opportunity. “I can see you are a wizard like me! You can certainly have this—if you help me.”

“I would have tried to unravel the secrets of this amulet,” Dzaan continued, “But I have no spells, no spellbook. Dzaan has his with him—”

“Had,” Tarquin emphasised.

“Had. Right. Well that will be a problem when you do bring me to life, as I will need one. Perhaps we can recover Dzaaan’s? Or kill one of the others to get hers?”

Eearwaxx’s ears pricked up. “Whose? Who is ‘her’?”

“Why Vellynne—maybe I could have her spellbook?”

Morgan cursed under his breath hearing Vellynne’s name.

“Where is she?” Arlington asked casually.

“I don’t know. I don’t have Dzaan’s recent memories. I know she would have loved to have found this place, maybe Dzaan put her off the scent before he was killed.”

Eearwaxx reached for the amulet again. Despite not knowing the symbols, he had seen enough to know what the object likely was: a control amulet for directing or controlling something, maybe a construct, maybe an undead, but something.

“Ah ah, no, young wizard. I need your help before you can have this,” Dzaan said.

“We’re trying to help you but I need to see it closely before I can identify it.”

“I don’t care about this trinket. If you help me with your life sparks, I will give it to you. It seems a fair price.”

Arlington snorted. “Do you have all the intelligence of the original Dzaan?”

“Yes he does,” Tarquin muttered. “But not his lifeborn nous—”

“I’m not asking you, Tarquin,” Arlington interrupted. “I want to know if we overestimated the previous Dzaan, or whether we’re underestimating this one.”

“It’s a good question,” Jankx nodded, twirling his dagger.

“‘Let me take you life sparks into the life spark chamber’,” Tarquin answered the question wryly.

Jankx and Arlington chuckled despite themselves. “Is the pantomime over?” Arlington asked, assessing the power of the undead creature as he raised his crossbow.

“No! Not yet,” Octavian cried. “Dzaan two, what is the process to give you a life spark? Could you describe it?”

“As far as I can understand we go into the chamber, I stand on the crystal, and then someone living—one of you, assuming you are all living—one of you, joins me on the crystal, or touches me, I’m not sure. And that will transfer the spark into me!”

“And what happens to the other person?” Octavian said slowly.

“Oh I assume nothing. In fact I assure you nothing. There is no danger—for why would the Netherese create a magic that killed or harmed its creator?”

Morgan, standing atop Dzaan, snorted. He sensed the creature had no idea if what he said was true.

Tarquin rolled his eyes. “So in essence this isn’t an innocent. This is Dzaan without the history, it’s just malevolent.” He turned to Arlington and raised his eyebrows. “It’s over now,” he said, lifting Arlington’s crossbow so he could skip underneath and into the room. He sprinted across the room humming a melody that filled Morgan with the fire of heroism, then leapt atop the table and tried to rip the amulet from Dzaan’s grasp.

Morgan felt the anger and sorrow that had been bubbling inside overwhelm him as Tarquin’s spell took hold. With a single fluid movement he backhanded Iceblink through Dzaan’s neck, severing his lifeless head from his also lifeless body. Tarquin grinned as he decisively won the battle for the amulet, yanking it from Dzaan’s cold dead hand.

“Oh my god,” Krintaas rumbled as he watched his master fall and looked down a moment later to see Iceblink buried in his chest. He looked up with astonishment as Ezra matched Morgan’s blow, then exploded into component undead wight parts.

Morgan wiped his sword clean and sheathed it. “Let’s head downstairs,” he said nonplussed as everyone stood in awe of what they had just witnessed. Arlington looked at Morgan, then Ezra, shrugged and put his pipe in his mouth. A good hire, that one.

Tarquin handed the amulet to Eearwaxx who went to work on deciphering it what it was. Octavian scowered the room and found four books of note.

The most immediately relevant was From Shadow, Substance, a speculative work discussing how one might harness the Weave to turn an illusory object or creature into its real counterpart. It was obviously from this that the Dzaan’s had been trying to unravel the chamber that lay below. Eearwaxx was fascinated that even that long ago the Weave was recognised as the source of all magic.

The Lost Scrolls of Sabreyl was written in in Elvish, so Octavian handed it to Eearwaxx. He was engaged with the amulet, but a quick glance told him that the rather scholarly tome copied and analysed fragments of eight ancient scrolls left behind by a sun elf wizard who taught magic to the cloud giants of Ostoria, a bygone empire that collapsed 40,000 years ago.

Octavian quickly paged through Here Lies the King, the blurb promising an elaborately plotted novel featuring an illusionist who uses magic to impersonate a prince, supplant a king, rule a fictional kingdom for sixty-one years, and fake his own death.

“Sounds like your classic egomaniacal impersonation narrative,” Tarquin mused. “A story told a thousand times. Fake Dzaan probably enjoyed imagining his own rise to power along those same lines.”

The final tome was The Fall of Ventatost, a book that used testimonials and conspiracy theories to piece together events leading up to the destruction of a Netherese city called Ventatost, which disintegrated as it flew over the forest of Cormanthor nearly two thousand years ago—before the fall of Ythryn.

Finding nothing more, everyone moved back to the tunnel leading down. Morgan was deep in conversation with Ezra, who placed a hand on the young warriors shoulder as he spoke. Morgan nodded as he wiped away a tear. “We’ll tell him when we get back to town,” he said softly as Ezra vanished.

Arlington put his own hand on Morgan’s other shoulder as the warrior prepared to descend to the next floor. “You’ll let me know if we’re ever not on the same side, right?”

Morgan smiled—or was that a grimace?—causing Arlington’s stomach to flip. “Well in any case…why don’t you pop down that hole?” he suggested weakly.

Abominable

Morgan shimmied his was down the rupture with his cleats. He quickly realised the drop this time was more precarious—it appeared that the spire had been sheared mid-way down where the tunnel worked through solid rock instead of the spire’s metal casing. Thirty-feet of descent later he dropped the final ten to the ceiling-floor of the room below.

The room was covered with the shattered remains of tableware, chairs, and two broken tables. As Morgan landed with a soft crunch two hulking eight-legged lizards with intensely glowing fly-like eyes scuttled from behind the tables and charged toward him, hissing with what he presumed was deadly intent.

“We’ve got company—it’s not good!” Morgan cried.

Upstairs everyone reacted quickly, hustling to drop down the tunnel.

The first lizard ripped a chunk of flesh from Morgan’s thigh, flooding his nervous system with a bitterly painful poison. As Morgan tried to react he locked eyes with the beast and suddenly felt his limbs slowing as if they were moving through molasses. The lizard’s eyes bored into him and within moments he was barely able to move at all. Trying not to panic he quickly summoned Ezra, hoping whatever the poison had done to him wouldn’t slow his brother.

Morgan was in luck. Ezra sliced his blade through the closest lizard thrice, sloughing off chunks of flesh with each strike.

Tarquin sung a poem as he popped into the hole, hoping to inspire Morgan, but it didn’t come out quite right, perhaps due to his reliance on a rather poor ‘artificial’ poetry generating formula his now-disgraced mentor had once taught him.

“Not ‘doom’, glory!” Tarquin cried hastily before realising that didn’t rhyme and cursing softly.

Half-way down the climb, hearing Morgan was in trouble, he let go of his hold and slid uncontrollably, stepping through the mists as he emerged into the room to appear on the ground behind the lizards. One spun its head and glared at the bard who, much to his dismay, felt his body slow down to a stop as the lizard’s mind-games took hold.

Tarquin quickly intuited that Morgan too was incapacitated and that they were both vulnerable to the lizard’s slavering jaws. Thankfully his mouth still worked, so he called out a spell that sent one of the lizards scurrying to he far corner of the room, desperate to get as far away as possible. Tarquin saw the same fear in Morgan’s eyes, who dropped his weapon as a result, and grinned as he realised that Morgan wasn’t going anywhere thanks his similarly frozen state.

Arlington fired his crossbow into the lip of the hole, dropping like a stone on the end of the deployed cable. He fired a bolt into the lizard below him as he entered the room, landing safely on the floor and scoffing at the lizard’s attempt to freeze him. A basilisk, he realised, chuckling as he realised both Morgan and Tarquin had fallen for the lizard’s predictable trick.

Eearwaxx followed Tarquin’s lead, dropping and misty-stepping into the room with his dwarven staff. He too resisted the lizard, instead roasting both with rays of scorching fingertip-flame.

Next to arrive was Jankx. He deployed his best roguish skills to descend, jamming a dagger into either side of the icy-tunnel to gracefully slide down to the room. Pleased with his efforts, he decided to make a heroic entrance, hoisting his feet above his head to drop into the room head-first, daggers poised to bury into the foe below.

Alas the foe below was anticipating his arrival, turning its evil-eyes upward and locking onto Jankx’s. Jankx felt his body petrify as he plummeted freely, but his earlier preparation worked in his favour—the daggers were already in position so he dropped weapon-first into the basilisk, burying both into its waiting back.

The basilisk collapsed onto its chest as the dead-weight of Jankx crashed on top of it. It screeched with fury and spun over to bite at Jankx, but somehow missed despite its victim being effectively frozen. Ezra on the other hand didn’t miss, his blow killing the basilisk with ease.

Morgan felt his restraints removed as he stared in abject horror at Tarquin who, he realised with a cry of terror, was also now free. He yanked the nearby door open and ran for his life.

Tarquin grinned wryly as he turned his attention to the remaining basilisk, jamming his rapier into its spine and killing it instantly. He poked his head around the doorway and grinned evilly at Morgan, who felt the fear suddenly drop. None-the-less he hesitated wide-eyed for a moment before shaking his head and returning to his companions.

Arlington was busy sawing the head of one of the fallen beasts, figuring the eyes must be worth something and the head a nice trophy. Tarquin took a more direct approach, pulling out a spoon to scoop out the second creature’s eyes and depositing them in a phial.

Arlington raised an eyebrow. “I know you’re the storyteller, Tarquin, but I don’t think you’ve got the guts of the story there. I think what you’ve got there is the testicles.”

“This room looks safe,” Eearwaxx said, “Why don’t we have a rest?”

“I think we should clear this floor first,” Jankx suggested.

“Do you need a rest, Eearwaxx?” Arlington asked.

“I’d like one soon, but I’m ok. I’m just running out of spells.”

“Right. We check the rooms—for safety’s sake—and then we rest.”

The corridor outside the room had two doors, one either side. Jankx moved to the far door, checked it, then pushed it open for Morgan to step through.

---

The walls of the chamber were inscribed with interconnected runes and marred with cracks. What is now the ceiling bore similar inscriptions that swirled inward, converging around a golden crystal disk five feet in diameter. Morgan moved inside, ensuring he wasn’t standing below the disk. Everyone followed behind, Arlington manning the doorway to cover anything approaching from behind.

A few moments after entering, an illusory figure appeared in a swirl of shimmering air, upside down in the far corner of the room and standing on the ceiling. It appeared to be the same long-faced human wizard depicted in the statues just inside the spire’s entrance. As soon as it appeared it spread its hands in welcome and started speaking. Octavian, Eearwaxx, and Morgan recognised it was the same strange mix of elvish and draconic the books were written in.

“Behold my masterpiece! Here can illusions be made real, shadows become substance! Create your illusion, let it stand atop the crystal disk, and watch my rune chamber do its work!”

As quickly as it had appeared, the illusion vanished.

“This is the room of making fake Dzaan talked of,” Jankx muttered.

“I’m not confident we can handle this,” Arlington said. “As someone who is adept in the way of magic, I assume he means we have to cast an illusion up there? Or make a small model of what you want? Or?”

Eearwaxx took Arlington’s claim of expertise at face value. “I think it is about making an illusion.”

“Well why don’t you give it a try,” Morgan suggested wryly. “Have a play with the ancient and powerful magic we know nothing about.”

“Exactly,” Jankx laughed. “The less we know the better.”

“Dzaan said he needed a ‘life spark’ to make himself real,” Arlington mused, “Does that mean the life spark we would put there would be the illusion of a spark?”

“It’s getting very inception at this point,” Jankx said scratching his head.

“Maybe it means that you can’t make anything that’s alive, but you can make something that isn’t?” Morgan suggested.

“Or you can take a life spark and make something with it,” Eearwaxx said. “That was what Dzaan was asking for—for one of us to give him our life spark to make him real.”

“I won’t be doing that for anyone or anything,” Morgan said firmly. He turned to Tarquin. “Why don’t you make one of your illusionary tricks and put it on the disk?”

“Not a wall ten-foot high,” Arlington warned, “Make it a small horse?”

Tarquin shrugged and conjured a tiny snow hare on the disk, feet on the ceiling. The disk started to glow with a soft, golden light—but the hare didn’t changed. “It reacted to the presence of the illusion, but nothing more.”

Eearwaxx had an idea. “Horseradish,” he whispered to his owl, “Will you please fly up there and stand on it?”

Horseradish tilted its head, and even those not au fait with the ways of animals could tell the snowy owl was deeply sceptical about this plan. Nonetheless it hooted and flew up to the disk, finding purchase in the metal floor and folding its wings.

Tarquin raised an eyebrow at Eearwaxx as he dismissed the hare. The disk faded once the hare disappeared.

“Now I’m going to summon a tiny dragon,” Eearwaxx declared. He pulled out the chardalyn model he had ‘borrowed’ from the dwarven fortress and used it to create an illusionary copy. He then ordered the illusion to fly up to the disk and land beside Horseradish.

The disk reacted instantly. The golden light pulsed brilliantly as the runes on the floor swirled with transmutation magic, feeding the disk with a surge of power. Horseradish let out a strangled screech and plummeted to the floor, Eearwaxx scrambling to catch his fallen companion.

“What did you do to me,” Horseradish croaked.

“You’ll be alright—we made a dragon!” Eearwaxx exclaimed, pointing to the ceiling.

Everyone stared up in wonder—or fascinated horror—at a now living tiny dragon that was affixed to the ceiling. It spread its leathery wings as it detached and started to glide around the room. Eearwaxx held out his arm and the beautiful creature circled to land gracefully on his forearm. It let out a breath of warm air—not yet fire.

Arlington rubbed a weary hand over his face. “I just know that if you create a dragon, it’s bad. Nature did not intend this dragon.”

“I came up here to remove dragons,” Tarquin nodded, “And so far we are negative-two on my goal.”

Before anyone could respond, the ground suddenly tremored, shifting underfoot. At the same time a deep whoomp, like something pounding rock, sounded from below. Whoomp. Morgan stared at his feet. He could feel it coming from deeper below the room. “We need to get out of this room—now!”

Jankx wasted no time, racing into the corridor. “Off the floor our just the room??” he cried.

“It’s centred on the room, but I don’t like our chances even out here,” Morgan said.

“How are we going to get upstairs?” Arlington said, thinking of the thirty foot ice-bound climb. “Jankx?”

“I can climb, but it won’t be easy. We can pull the tables over to get to the chute.”

WHOOOMP the ground shook hard, causing everyone to stagger slightly as they moved.

“Eearwaxx—can you get up?”

The wizard nodded. “And you, Tarquin?”

Tarquin also nodded, figuring he could misty step his way out of trouble.

“Don’t worry about me,” Morgan said.

“In that case—Jankx, take my hand,” Arlington said as he fired his crossbow up the chute. Jankx obliged, forming the strongest grip he could as Arlington caused the crossbow to reel itself up.

Jankx immediately lost his grip as Arlington vanished up the chute. He toppled ungracefully to the floor. Arlington winched out of the tube and landed on his feet, nodding to Ezra and understanding why Morgan hadn’t required assistance.

“Hop on this,” Eearwaxx said to Tarquin and a sheepish Jankx, creating a five-foot floating disk for them to stand on. He then levitated the disk up the tunnel to safety. “Very good, Eearwaxx!” Tarquin called from above.

“You go,” Morgan said to Eearwaxx, “I want to see what—”

WHOOOOOOOOMP

The ground shuddered and rolled, causing Morgan to grab the wall to steady himself—and Eearwaxx. The young wizard nodded his thanks and wasted no time hopping on his disk and floating upward. Morgan turned back to the corridor and crept along it to look into the illusion chamber. The floor was starting to crack and splinter as something hammered it relentlessly from below, each thumping blow causing the ceiling floor to break open a little more.

Morgan quickly ducked into the corridor to check the last unopened door, yanking it open and peering inside. It was obviously a bedchamber, the bed lying upside down on the now-floor with its rotted blankets peeking out from underneath a disintegrating mattress. Mounted to the north wall was a tall, cracked mirror in a stone frame that merged seamlessly with the surrounding wall.

But Morgan’s attention was drawn to a partially crumbled, rime-covered humanoid skeleton in the tattered shreds of a nightgown. He rushed over to it to quickly frisk the skeletal remains, hoping to find something Eearwaxx and Octavian might be interested in. As he swept the rotting gown aside a ghastly spectral figure swelled out of the skeleton’s chest cavity. It let out a howling shriek as it buried its long, smoke-dark fingers into Morgan’s abdomen.

Morgan flinched back, extracting the claws from his body as he did so, but not extracting the intense pain that resulted. For a moment he feared the ghostly creature had ripped his very life away, but a moment later he knew he was still whole.

Behind him it sounded like the floor was about to be broken through. He considered attacking the spectre before deciding safety was the better part of valour - particularly given everyone else was already gone. He closed his eyes to focus on Ezra, and instantly they swapped position—Morgan upstairs in safety, and Ezra swinging his blade into the ghostly apparition.

The dark smoke that formed the spectre sworled and reformed as Ezra’s blade passed through it. The ground was now quaking as the hammering became fast and insistent, whatever was causing it ready to break through. Upstairs, Morgan sent his vision into Ezra and directed him to forget the ghost and concentrate on the other room. The spectre missed Ezra with its grasping hands, allowing Ezra to withdraw to the corridor and turn to face the illusion room.

What exploded through the floor was not an illusion, much as Morgan wished it was.

---

It looked to be fifteen feet tall, with no face but a gaping tooth-filled maw in place of its belly. It wielded a massive long-handed hammer that it crunched into the runes in the chamber, cracking the metal walls which shrieked as the panels tore asunder.

“Oh my gods,” Morgan gasped as his vision returned as Ezra was pierced from behind by the wraith. “WE HAVE TO GO NOW! There’s something coming and it’s bad!!”

“Whatever it is is going to follow us up every floor—we need to get out of this hell-hole,” Jankx said, not quite calmly.

“Let’s move!” Arlington ordered, concerned that even the normally unflappable Morgan looked scared. Eearwaxx obliged, helping those that needed it.

The company bolted up and up, scrambling and racing. “It’s fifteen foot high, it has no head, it has a gaping maw full of teeth in its torso, it’s got a hammer!” Morgan panted as everyone bolted up and up, scrambling and racing to stay ahead of the cracking and raging sounds that were drawing ever closer as the creature hauled itself through the tunnels and hammered its way through obstacles.

“How many of them are there?” Tarquin cried.

“One! But it is horrific!!” Morgan gasped.

Arlington was first to the upper level, everyone else close behind. He adjudged the abomination was only a floor below despite the head-start.

“This was the way out, right?” Jankx cried pointing to the west.

“It will follow us out! We should fight it here!” Eearwaxx said.

“No! You want to fight it in open ground,” Morgan said.

“This is as open as it’s going to get,” Eearwaxx said, looking to Arlington.

The great hunter shook his head. “Boy, you don’t know nothing. We fight it up on the snow!”

Everyone rushed up the final tunnel and burst out into the frozen landscape and prepared to face the beast. “Never fear! We’ve died before so we know it’s possible and nothing to be afraid of,” Arlington said, trying to rally his troops.

“But you haven’t seen it,” Morgan whispered. He realised with surprise that he was scared.

Arlington realised Morgan was probably right—living instead of dying to fight another day seemed wise. “Tarquin! Make us an igloo—now!!”

Tarquin understood Arlington’s intent—hiding. He started to conjure the impenetrable ice-hut before Morgan interrupted: “That’s not going to protect the axebeaks and dogs!”

“We were going to eat them eventually anyway,” Arlington snapped.

“Not on my watch,” Morgan growled. Tarquin agreed—without the animals the expedition was doomed—so he stopped his cast.

Morgan and Ezra turned and took their battle stances, ready to face the beast. Everyone else spread behind, ready to bombard it with everything they had left as Tarquin inspired the front liners with a heroic stanza.

The abomination erupted from the earth, chunks of stone and ice exploding as it emerged howling into the open sky.

“OH MY GODS!” Arlington swore.

“I’ve changed my mind about the igloo,” Tarquin quipped, swallowing his horror.

Eearwaxx almost fell over with shock at seeing it. The creature sensed the wizard’s vulnerability—or was it magic it hunted?—and hurled its massive hammer. It caught Eearwaxx dead centre, winding him and knocking him back. And worse still the hammer spun through the air and whipped back to the grasp of the creature’s waiting hand. With it’s other sharpened claw it swiped Morgan who felt his flesh ripping apart.

“I warned you!” Arlington yelled.

Jankx fired his crossbow into the flank of the creature, trying to aim for the mouth, then withdrew to get out of further out of range.

Tarquin healed Morgan, realising how badly Eearwaxx had been hurt but knowing Morgan was likely to take the brunt of the attacks. Then he sprinted into the fray, singing a song of courage and flexing the Dirgeblade into the beast’s maw. He felt his strike was missing, so called on the luck of the bards—and hit true. The blow was only glancing, but that was all he needed. The bards had helped him once, and now they would help again: he willed the grief the beast must surely feel for the fall of Ythryn and channelled it through his blade.

The massive abomination staggered, dropping the weapon and bringing its hands to its head. He dropped to its knees and shuddered, a wail of great sorrow howling from it’s open belly.

“I see inside your abyss!” Tarquin yelled triumphantly.

Morgan set his face and held his sword aloft. A green, wet, swirl appeared around the blade, dripping acid that sizzled into the snow at his feet. He drove the blade into the creature’s back, once, twice, butchering its flesh with each strike.

Arlington smiled softly at the incapacitated beast. Time for a show. He summoned the speed of the zephyr, running forward and sliding under Eearwaxx’s legs as he fired his first bolt directly into the mouth of the horror. He continued sprinting forward and skidded beneath the creature, rolling free and firing into its back. He considered pulling out his pipe as the coup de grace. Morgan was impressed—the old man could move.

Eearwaxx, breathing hard from the hammer-strike, couldn’t believe he was out of spells, his fireball still waiting to be unleashed. He sent three scorching rays in its place, only one hitting, then used the staff to step as far away as he could get.

The abomination was still under the spell of Tarquin’s cursed words. Jankx couldn’t believe their luck as he fired freely into its torso. Tarquin pierced it with his stiletto and followed up with a dissonant whisper, trying to rub it in: “Your end is now!”

And it was—Morgan didn’t waste any time fulfilling Tarquin’s promise. It was a strange feeling being able to slice it apart with impunity, after the fear and horror it had inspired. A final swing from Ezra sent it back from whence it came.

As it collapsed it shifted from shredded flesh to solid stone, sinking deep into the snow under its enormous weight. Morgan prodded the stone with his blade, not quite believing it was over.

“I think this is the thing that was making the tunnels,” Morgan said.

“I agree,” Tarquin said, “And it’s now turned into stone, which would appear to be something related to the wizard, like the entry statues.”

Eearwaxx approached, brushing himself down. “Well actually, they were experimenting a lot with becoming effectively gods. So what they were doing is taking their brains and putting them into jars, I guess, is the best way of describing it. Or something along those lines from what I’ve read,” he rambled.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Arlington said after a pregnant pause.

Morgan scratched his head and grinned. If there was one thing Eearwaxx was good at it was relieving the tension with non sequiturs.

Eearwaxx pulled out the relevant Ythryn book and paged through it. “I’ve been reading and, well, they were trying to become immortal.”

Tarquin put his foot up on the lifeless statue and turned to Eearwaxx. “Yes, what are you talking about? All I know is there were wizard statues, basilisks, and now this.”

“Could be! But you know, these crazy mages, they’ve been playing around with bodies and illusions. We’ve got to go back inside because there might be more to unveil.”

Tarquin smiled and doffed an imaginary cap. “Gentlemen I am proud to be associated with you. That was heroic.” He turned and finished the cast he had abandoned earlier, creating a stylish igloo.

“Thank you Tarquin,” Arlington said, lighting his pipe. “When we get into the igloo, we may have a restless night’s sleep after that horror. But, you know, we can also just have cuddles. Because what happens in the hut stays in the hut.”

Eearwaxx burst out laughing.

Tarquin looked askance at Arlington. “My igloo—my rules.”

---

Session played: July 3, 10, August 14 2023

Ythryn Lore books

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