The Labyrinth of Eyes: “There’s no traps here, people”
The Briny Maze: “It’s a fancy fork set”

---

The Labyrinth of Eyes

The company emerged from the portal into a dark corridor, illuminated by a strange silver-and-grey light. The moist stone walls, almost twenty feet high, were covered with dozens of staring eyes that twitch and blink, following every move.

Not surprisingly, everyone had the strange sensation they were being watched.

As the company oriented, the portal shrank down to a pinprick and vanished with a faint pop.

“That’s the same ‘pop’ that happens when I do this,” Sifer said as he jammed his dagger into the nearest eye. It withered and closed in an instant before blinking out of existence. “Magic?”

“Or freaky,” Uthar shrugged.

“It will take time, but are we going to puncture all these eyes?” Sifer said, daggering a few more for good measure.

“It’s the Lord’s work.”

Eli had not time for that. He walked ahead, following the north corridor.

“I notice we no longer check for traps?” Sifer said. Pop.

“There’s no traps here, people,” Eli called over his shoulder.

“Are we ready, mentally, for this?” Three said tiredly. “Walking down a corridor covered with eyes without Marko checking seems a bit lackadaisical.”

“It is.” Pop.

Eli found himself facing a very long corridor that led to darkness, with another corridor leading south at the midpoint. “This place is huge,” he called over his shoulder.

Uthar took the other passage, seeing Eli ahead once he rounded the corner. The company followed, Three examining the floor but seeing it was too damp for tracks. There were however spores floating in the humid air, so he covered his face as a precaution.

Sifer looked to Eli standing at the further junction. “If you go around that corner I’m just going to let you go,” he shrugged.

“Sifer you don’t let me do anything. I’m not answerable to you.” None the less he waited for Uthar and his aura. The eyes followed the company accusingly with every step.

The small corridor to the south was truncated at a large circular hole, eight-foot across, surrounded by a reddish-purple ring like an iris around a pupil. “Mister Marko do you want to stealth ahead to see what’s down there?”

Marko nodded and shifted down to the opening. A semi-circular, constructed groove lay in the floor and ceiling above. Both were covered in a vivid lime slime, as were the walls that line either side. “Dwarven work, perhaps,” he reported. he peered into the ‘eyehole’ and saw a circular tunnel continued ahead. He poked the rapier into the green goop, drawing a sample level with his eyeline. He smelled it carefully, studying it for poison. “Smells like a naturally occurring slime, not poison,” he called, “Come to me.”

The company gathered at the strange opening. Water had pooled in the floor tracks, like run off that might explain the goop. Marko flew inside, checking carefully. The rounded walls made it feel like the inside of a sewer or pipe. He landed on the floor and continued ahead, following the corridor around in a right angled bend. “Follow, it’s safe.”

“What are these corridors here for?” Eli asked as he climbed inside. “What was the point of the corridor we came from?”

Marko looked around the corner to see a large heap of broken glass that sparkled in a variety of colours. Another circular opening, with the same slime-covered grooves, lay before the piles of glass. He approached, finding the small room ahead was a dead end. “Decorative I think, not just smashed bottles,” he said picking up shards. On the walls he noticed small alcoves and some mounting points, perhaps for shelving now removed or destroyed. He tried to piece together a selection of same-coloured glass but quickly realised it was a fruitless task.

Three joined Marko, his steps crunching underfoot as he entered the room. He too looked closely at the glass, and his background made him sure of what he saw. “I think we’re walking through a museum, or gallery. This was a fine vase,” he said holding a semi-intact piece aloft.

Idris remained behind, trying to make sense of the slime in the groove. Whilst it was natural, it was different to the ooze covering the eye-laden walls. More like lubrication…

---

“Marko? These tracks look like a circular arc. I think this thing we’re in rotates?” Idris said.

“I do too. Look at the crack in the wall at each of the entrances around the tracks.”

“Then we need to take great care because if this piece turns and we don’t know how to unturn it then we’ll be trapped.”

“But why is it like this?” Three said, “Why the eyeballs?”

“No idea, you’re asking the wrong eyeball.”

“Should we look around the non-swivelling part of this maze before we attempt to swivel this part?” Eli suggested.

“That sounds wise,” Idris said.

“I agree,” Three said.

“Thank you for your support, master,” Eli smiled.

Idris nodded, despite Eli’s eyes being firmly trained on Three.

Pop. Pop. Sifer continued his eye destroying ways as the company retreated.

“You’re going to pay a price for that,” Three groaned.

“Interestingly some of the ones from the entrance have started to respawn,” Sifer said glancing back along the corridor where fresh eyes were emerging.

Marko led the way opposite, clearing the floors for traps. Eli followed close behind, impatient to get ahead. At the end of the corridor Marko stopped and held his hand up. “I hear…crying?” he whispered, confused.

“Is it Eli?” Three whispered back to a stifled laugh. Eli waved Three away and stepped around the corner into a large chamber divided by thin stone walls, with smashed tables and tools filling shallow alcoves. “Like the glass—smashed in anger not just looted,” Eli muttered to Uthar.

“I hear the sobs too,” Uthar said quietly as he stepped south. Eli nodded, taking the northern path to circle toward the sound. Uthar stepped ahead toward the sighs and tears and stumbled to a halt when he saw the source of all this misery.

---

A slimy conglomeration of tear-rimmed eyes in many sizes and shapes floated in the corridor ahead. As Uthar appeared all the eyes turned on him.

“Why do you disturb Goculus’s misery? Is it not enough that I am stripped of my reason to exist?” From the depths of melancholy the creature bellowed out a heaving sob, a wave of crushing despair that sent Three and Marko into a fit of sympathetic wallowing.

Eli, seeing Marko suddenly bawling, sprinted past but took the wrong turn. He skidded to a stop on seeing Three also collapsed to his knees, deep anguish etched upon his ruined face. Eli dropped too, wrapping his arms around a grateful Three. “Devourer! What has happened?”

Three looked up to meet Eli’s concerned gaze, then his eyes lowered to something over Eli’s shoulder. There were no tears, just gasps of barely contained despair. Eli turned his head and startled on seeing Goculus. He sprung to his feet and drew his sword, ready to defend his mentor.

Further back, Sifer shrugged the sadness away. He couldn’t see the threat, but he guessed: he reached into his pocket and jammed two globs of well-used wax into his ears, then ran down the corridor to join Eli. He grabbed the incapacitated Three and pulled him to safety.

Last to arrive on the scene was Idris, who was the only one to remain unshaken on seeing the monstrosity ahead. He was curious about what this creature could be, and why it was so disturbed. He probed what he hoped was the mind behind the eyes, detecting the thoughts that lay within. The surface level was obvious: Goculus was drowning in misery. It had been transformed from something far more powerful into this new form, a useless, worthless, nothing. A bundle of eyes stripped of all worth. Idris probed again, looking for what this thing was prior to this regretful transformation. He found a hidden path the led deeper, and followed it. Goculus was right: it was once a dreaded and dreadful beholder, with a towering ego and every trapping of power and success. This maze was its lair and it ruled supreme, before a troupe of uppity mind-flayers blasted the beholder’s sanity and transformed it into a miserable, obsessive shell of its former self. Only one thing remained of Goculus’s ego: an abiding and deep hatred of mind-flayers.

“Just like me,” Idris muttered to himself. He knew beholders were all total assholes, but Goculus was no longer that. He turned to Uthar. “This used to be a beholder before it was tortured by Ghaik,” he spat. He turned back to the creature. “Goculus, are the flayers still here?”

“They live! Theyyyy liivvee! They have tortured me, taken everything from me!!” Goculus cried with growing rage.

“Where?”

“Everywhere. They’re everywhere!!”

“It’s insane,” Idris said softly.

Uthar was shocked to here empathy in Idris’s tone. Just look at that thing. He wasn’t going to wait to find out if Idris was right. He jumped ahead and sliced his sword through the soft flesh of Goculus, who let out a writhing howl.

“You will pay the price that they did not!” Goculus cried with a sob. Every eye opened wide to release a withering glare, scarlet energy sweeping the room ahead. Eli was directly in the path, bombarded, whilst the rest of the company variously avoided most of the impact. Two pseudopods reached out from the blob of eyes and wrapped themselves around Uthar and Eli; Uthar fought it off, but Eli felt the dreadful contact and rocked back to the psychic flash, resisting the accompanying urge to flee but barely. “You feel my pain, you know my pain!” Goculus bellowed.

Sifer watched the eyes on the wall, wondering if they would respond to Goculus. But they were all focussed on the fight, nothing more sinister. A surveillance system, he thought. He stepped out and lined up Goculus; it was an easy target. He loaded up with all he had and unleashed three precise shots. POP POP. Rather more satisfying than the eyes on the walls. The third shot caused Uthar to duck his head as it shattered into the wall by his side.

Seeing the writing on the wall, Idris joined the fray. He had tried, but now it was time to finish this—his sorcerer’s burst sent Goculus further into insanity. “It’s a mercy killing,” he muttered. Uthar swung, but such was the flood of offal and eye viscera that he failed with both attempts.

Sifer hauled Three to his feet, bolstering him with an encouraging slap across the shoulders. Three took a breath and walked forward toward the chaotic scene, praying. He opened his eyes, made direct contact, and held his hands aloft: “Go to sleep!” A burst of radiance shone forth and sent Goculus to the death it so deeply deserved.

---

“Master, can a thing like that even find heaven?” Eli said, toeing the mass of flesh and mucus.

“I think Goculus was already in hell,” Three said before Idris could answer.

“Then you have done great work.”

“We all have. It was living in a misery.”

“So should we kill hobos then?”

“Think on it, Eli,” Three frowned.

“And master, I don’t like to put myself ahead of others, but I am losing a fair amount of blood?”

Three nodded and fixed that situation, rather weakly (had Goculus’s sorrow impacted his healing magic?). He sighed and started rifling through the detritus in the room. There was very little of worth, but a few items stood out: a set of jeweller’s tools, three rubies carved to look like eyeballs. Marko uncovered a statue that he showed triumphantly—a statuette of a beholder with emeralds at the ends of the eyestalks and a huge diamond for a central eye.

“He did have a big ego,” Idris smirked on seeing the self-portrait. “There is no more path,” he added having followed the various turns in Goculus’s lair.

“So we all need to gather on the rotating circle,” Eli said. “How did that floating ball of eyes use it?”

“The same way I do,” Idris said. “With their minds.”

“So you know these guys?”

“I know of them, but I’ve never seen one—thankfully. I hear they’re not pleasant.”

“I don’t know that anyone has seen whatever that was,” Three said.

“Three, that was a beholder. It was changed by mind flayers.”

“I hope it’s not mind flayers, plural. Because I know from my reading, and you know from reality, they are—”

“We’ve killed two!” Idris protested.

“Yes but not ones ready to go to war. You know that.”

“I’m familiar,” Idris deadpanned.

“The eyeballs have all regenerated,” Sifer noted as the company returned to the middle of the maze. “They’re not to do with the assailant, they’re to do with the jailer. The mind flayers.”

Eli stood before the circular central chamber. “Can I make a suggestion? Surely, if that room were to rotate, the controls would be within it. So that someone who stepped inside could rotate it themselves?”

This made good sense given there had been no sign of an external control. But despite a thorough search, no mechanism could be found. “We could shut down all their eyes?” Sifer said hopefully, to shakes of ‘no’. Idris tried speaking in Deep Speech inside the centre, trying variations on ‘turn’, ‘rotate’, and the like, with no luck. Telepathy was no better.

“What about if it just needs a push?” Uthar said to the stumped company. “Maybe we just need to physically rotate it?”

“But there’s no leverage point?” Sifer sighed.

“If you stand and push against the outside wall?” Eli said, “One of us in one entrance, one in the other?” He and Idris positioned themselves before both had the same thought: once the walls move will there be no further purchase? If not the company would be trapped inside.

Sifer had a sudden flash. “You know what we need? An immovable bar. You put it in position and haul away! And as luck would have it I believe Acererak left us one,” he grinned.

“Of course! You’re a genius!” Idris cried as Marko pulled the said object out of his sack.

It was a very strange thing. The holder could position the rod in empty space and it would lock into place with no support. One of the simplest but most powerful demonstrations of magic, often used to entertain children and vaudeville shows. But Marko, on finding it, had known just how useful it was.

Uthar, strongest of the company, set the rod in place in the midpoint of the internal corridor. He gripped it and hauled with all his strength.

The entire centre of the maze started to shift anticlockwise, making the corridor beyond slowly disappear as it turned. “It moves far more easily that I would expect,” Uthar said happily. He released the rod and repositioned it, repeating the trick. Idris ran his hand along the revealed inner wall, finding it heavily greased, near impossible to grip or get a hand hold. “And this is why we had to be careful,” he said.

---

After several moves, a new corridor leading west was revealed. Uthar grinned, wiping the sweat from his brow.

Marko stepped out, finding the same dank atmosphere and eternally watching eyes. He led the company ahead, turning south until a smallish chamber was revealed to the east. “Get up there Uthar before Marko walks in there on his own,” Sifer urged.

“Would you mind, Mister Marko, if we put a—long, not short—but a longish leash you on?” Eli asked innocently.

Marko turned back. “Yes I would mind. Would you mind if you got stabbed in the eye accidentally?”

“Well to be fair, Marko,” Idris said, “In the Tomb you did that to yourself!”

“Stabbed himself in the eye?” Uthar asked, wracking his memory.

“No—he roped himself onto a leash!”

“That was a Tomb. Of horrors,” Marko frowned and stepped into the room. On the far end of the room, ten stone rods protruded from the wall. One ended at a cup the size of an eyeball, while the others all had jagged ends. The stone floor beneath the rods was stained a sickly pink colour. Marko flew to the intact rod and hovered before it. It was obvious that the cup was designed for resting an eye against to look inside the rod. “The pink stain on the floor—blood I guess—is old. Dried and cracked,” he reported.

Sifer walked up behind Marko and rested a hand on his shoulder. He motioned to the eye-cup. “Look inside,” he suggested.

Marko wasn’t so sure that was a good idea. He did a careful check but could find no trap or obvious danger. “Maybe step away, just in case?”

“I was going to protect you if something happened, but ok.”

Marko leaned into the cup. It sealed over his eye with a soft slurp. He saw a hideous pool of grotesque brine, miles-deep and swirling slowly with murky dim green light that welled up from the depths. The sight filled Marko with an existential dread like a psychic sliver inserted into his mind. At the pool’s bottom he saw a tiny, dark hole and somehow knew it to be a powerful gate to a place deep in the Far Realm.

As the knowledge flooded Marko’s conscious mind, his unconscious mind started to collapse. So wrong was what he was seeing that it could no longer function, and the horror quickly overwhelmed his every sense. His mind blanked and his every motivation disappeared. The last thing he saw before insanity took him was a dark shadow flittering through the murky depths.

Marko’s head dropped, breaking the seal, as he stood swaying softly. “Marko?” Sifer called. Marko turned, blank faced, though there was a hint of recognition.

“It’s just like what happened to Eli in the Tomb,” Three groaned, “I can restore him.” He prayed for Kelemvor to return Marko’s intelligence, and moments later Marko’s glance sharpened as he looked around. “I saw something I wish I hadn’t seen it I…I…it was a pool it was green there was something in it and it was deep and it was long and—”

Marko’s usual florid and rapid speech was a dull, monotonous monologue. “I’ll have to do more,” Three said, and added a second more powerful prayer into the mix.

“—There was no end to it. Until there was! At the very foot of the pool: a gateway, a tiny hole. And that hole led somewhere that I instinctively knew, without knowing why,” Marko said dramatically, his vim fully returned. “The Far Realm…”

“Oh he’s actually saying something,” Sifer laughed. “I thought he was just dribbling.”

“I wasn’t listening, I couldn’t stand it,” Eli nodded.

Marko turned to Three. “Thank you!”

“Did you say you saw the Far Realm?” Idris said cautiously.

“Yes—what is it?”

Idris looked around the company. “It’s a place that exists outside our reality, where eldritch gods of insane and unknown provenance dwell.”

“What??” Marko gasped.

“And it’s the place from which spawn many things that would be categorised as aberrant and unnatural. Like beholders…and mind flayers. I know of warlocks that have treated with these powers to get their abilities.”

Marko’s thoughts drifted to Donald, his old companion and trusted accountant of Stormwatch. Surely not? “Why would you?”

“They offer a great ability to influence others,” Idris said simply. “Every warlock makes their own bargain.”

Phew. Not Donald, Marko nodded to himself, relieved.

“That was a terrible thing for you to go through, Marko, it’s not meant to be seen.”

“It was horrific,” Marko confirmed.

“Does it bring us any insights?” Sifer asked.

“And what is the purpose of this room?” Eli added.

“Communication with the Far Realm perhaps?”

“Why are nine of the ten rods broken?”

“Because it’s obviously a bit hard to communicate with them,” Sifer snorted, glancing at Marko.

“So should we smash this last one?”

“No because we don’t know if one of us is going to have to do something with it later,” Idris said.

Three held a mirror to the eye-cup, hoping to see something of what Marko did. But all he could see was an echo, a sworl of sickly green and nothing more.

---

Marko led on. Idris, watching Sifer’s continued eye-popping, nicked one off the wall intact. The second it detached it too blinked out of existence. He studied the connectors to see if they may form one networked presence, but they all seemed individual, a theory supported by their respawn. “Things like this are on brand for the Far Realm,” he muttered to Sifer. “As is something like Goculus.”

“I don’t want to have to go there,” Eli said, overhearing.

“The more we move down this corridor the closer we get to it,” Sifer shrugged. “We’ve got a job to do—let’s keep moving, people.”

The winding passages led to a long, wider chamber. One the southern wall a green-and-silver rift roiled and throbbed on the wall, and fleshy tendrils reached out toward others on the opposite side that surrounded several much larger wall eyes. As Marko drew close he found he could see through the rift: beyond it lay a greyish-pink tunnel that resembles the folds of a titanic brain.

“That should be our last resort,” Idris pointed to the rift.

“It looks like a one-way trip,” Sifer agreed. “Let’s continue ahead.”

Eli led the way now, convinced there were no traps to worry about. Marko kept checking, but Eli wasn’t stopping. He was proven right, eventually finding himself at another of the rotation points. It was blocked, as the central chamber was locked to the opposite passage.

Uthar went to work to rotate until an access point was revealed. Everyone stepped inside, and again Uthar shifted the chamber. A new exit was revealed, to the south this time. A short corridor led south before twisting back north. At the end of the dead end a withered corpse dressed in leather armour lay slumped into a corner.

Uthar approached carefully. The leather armour was so dried out that it was cracked and peeling in strips. “It’s a—”

“Gith,” Idris finished. He crouched down before the corpse. Blackened marks covered the chest, as if the victim had been struck by a beam of energy. A cracked leather belt held four small, crystal daggers, obviously ornamental—perhaps kill trophies. Three arrived by Idris’s side to examine the remains.

“There’s something different about the limbs,” Idris pointed. “The torso and head are withered away, but the legs and arms are almost still intact, even fat?”

Before Three could speak Idris reached forward and, very gently, lifted the dead gith’s head.

WHOMP!

The corpse exploded. Idris and Three were thrown back, the rest of the company more sheltered but still covered in the remains. “Kelemvor,” Three said, near reflexively, quickly healing everyone.

“Apologies,” Idris said to Three, wiping the goop away. “That was very unexpected.”

“Apologies for what?”

“I should have been more careful with the corpse.”

“Do the corpses of your dead normally do that?” Eli asked.

“No. I’m wondering if this was residual or if the body was trapped.”

“The limbs were swollen,” Three said, wiping his face with the filthy corpse cloth he carried for just such a purpose. “I would guess a necrotic build up that was triggered with the slightest touch—not a trap, just unlucky. Those black marks on the chest looked like burns, or energy.”

“It was chased into a corner and zapped by a beam,” Sifer explained. “Probably Goculus before he was neutered.”

Idris reached down and retrieved the daggers, the belt disintegrating in his hands. He said something softly in gith, a blessing of farewell.

---

The company returned to the glowing portal. Eli stood before it thoughtfully. “I have two questions. First; do we think this gate through to wherever-the-hell, and I’m not being figurative, is Goculus’s front door back to wherever-the-hell? And second question: how the hell did the beholder rotate the centre of this maze?”

“It didn’t,” Idris said flatly.

“It was like a prisoner,” Three said wrongly.

“This was his lair! And then he became a prisoner,” Eli corrected.

“Oh, you’re right. Well then it would have used telekinesis,” Idris explained. “It would have moved the stone with its mind.”

“Seemed slightly unnecessary.”

“They don’t have hands, Eli.”

“No I mean it seems unnecessary to have this structure within its home.”

“It’s like you trying to explain why an ant builds its colony in the way it does,” Idris said in all earnestness. “The intelligence of things like beholders is as different to you and me as how you and a worm think.”

“Got it,” Eli nodded, despite the mixed metaphor.

“It’s lucky we’re so similar to the gith that we can communicate,” Sifer added.

Three raised an eyebrow. “From the river to the sea, Sifer, we’re all people.”

“You’re lucky that I’m a gith that wants to communicate with you, Sifer,” Idris growled. “Most of them don’t.”

“Well. There’s only one way left for us to go,” Three said, pointing to the rift dubiously.

“You have to remember, people,” Sifer said, “Everything always gets worse. That’s where we’re going: always a descent.”

“Is that true, master?” Eli asked. Idris turned, before realising it was Three Eli was addressing.

“I believe so,” Three nodded.

“There is a possibility that this is not going to be good,” Sifer repeated. “Let’s give it a moment’s thought before we all dive in.”

After two seconds of thoughtful silence, Idris nodded to Uthar and stepped through.

---

The Briny Maze

The company emerged into a humid chamber with swooping, wrinkled, pinkish-grey organic passages leading away left and right. Every surface was coated with a thin sheen of moisture and the air smelled slightly spoiled. An eerie, violet light emanated from no particular source.

Marko tested the ground underfoot. He stomped it with his boot finding it gave only a very little. Poking his rapier bent the blade, and pressing harder only pierced an inch. The material was as tough as stone. He pulled the blade free, watching the pink floor seal over in an instant.

---

“There are two faint sets of tracks,” he pointed. “Several left, and a different set more recently to the right.”

“How fresh?” Eli said.

“Maybe a few days. All humanoid, wearing boots, and more went left than right.”

“This feels like we are in the Astral Plane—there are no cardinal directions. No north, south, up, down,” Idris observed. “But this is not the Astral.”

Three ran a finger through one of the oozing seams between the bulging walls. He smelled it (foul) then lifted it to his mouth and licked (bitter). “This is cerebral spinal brain fluid—it cushions and holds the two meninges. And unlike any I’ve sampled.”

“Is it off?” Eli said, doing his best not to picture Three’s other experiences sampling brain fluid.

“It smells slightly spoiled, likely due to exposure to the air in here. Marko? Which way?”

“Let’s follow the tracks right. Or what I think is right—Idris is right, my direction sense is confused. I think there are three, maybe four, different footprints.” Marko was feeling rattled by his earlier vision, and feared that this place was the source. He hid behind Uthar and followed, trying to quell his doubt.

Uthar led, stepping cautiously over the greasy floor. The passage wound around itself, and at the intersection he stopped and held up a hand in warning. Five human corpses slumped against the chamber’s wide, rounded wall. They merged seamlessly with the wrinkled grey walls and floor as though melted into them. Only their upper torsos and heads remained free, each lifeless face frozen in a scream.

Three ignored Uthar’s caution, captivated. He strode toward the wall, Eli hastening behind. “Horrific but amazing,” Three muttered, “It appears they are being absorbed into the wall.”

“Do you think their souls can still be saved?” Eli whispered.

“I…don’t know. Fascinating—imagine if we could save them, because they are obviously in hell.”

“I hope so,” Eli nodded.

Three stepped closer and suddenly the dead eyes of every face sprung open.

“I don’t think they can be saved!” Eli cried as flaming skulls burst free of the rotting bodies and flew toward the company.

---

Eli raced forward and struck the closest skull. His second swing felt right but at the last moment the skull swept out of the path of the blow…and into the path of two brutal fists. The skull exploded in a flurry of bone, Eli smashing the shards into the floor. “Yehhwwwooooaaaaah!” Eli cried, casting the detritus and turning his attention to his next victim.

“KELEMVOR!” Three boomed, dropping to one knee and holding his hands aloft. A wave of sacred power swelled forth, Turning the remaining four skulls in an instant. Rattled by Kelemvor’s righteous rejection, they raced away from Three and disappeared around the corner of the maze ahead. One was caught by Sifer’s rapid fire from the rear, splitting into component parts with the third arrow.

Eli sprinted after them, travelling further than seemed orcishly possible. Such was his speed that his strike was badly timed, stumbling as his sword caught a stray brain strand. The skull moved away and out of sight.

Job done, Three examined the bodies still embedded in the wall. “Wizards,” he observed as he tried to determine if they had wanted to be absorbed—some kind of self-sacrifice for a greater god? Recalling the frozen screams on the now shattered faces, he guessed not, and there was no evidence to contradict that theory. They were forced into it.

Having witnessed the flameskull retreat, Uthar followed, rather more cautiously than Eli. Marko shadowed his every step, the exploding heads not helping his nerves. At the next corer several fleshy lumps in the floor rose like stalagmites to heights of two or three feet. Above one, a ball of viscera two feet across was pinned to a wide, flat wall with a large sword. A puddle of slime had leaked down the wall and onto the floor beneath the entrails.

Idris searched the wizard bodies, found nothing, then moved toward Uthar to study the viscera. “That’s a githyanki sword,” he gasped. It was silver with elaborate design-work and quite obviously out of place. He tilted his head, trying to work out how the sword managed to get where it was. “Someone attacked whatever that lump is,” he guessed. “But a githyanki would never willingly leave their weapon behind.”

“How long ago?” Sifer called.

Three stepped toward the pinned viscera. “It’s too foreign for me to know. But that isn’t a scab, it’s a dead creature. Killed by your sword wielder, I assume. If you want I can try and open it to see what it is?” he said, flicking a scalpel free. Idris nodded. Three stepped forward and started slicing around the blade to try and free the dead creature. His scalpel had no difficulty slicing through the remains, the dead flesh no match for the finely-honed blade.

As he worked a cackling laughter sounded and the three remaining flameskulls came racing back from their fear.

Three, having forgotten all about them, turned to look. He saw Eli and Sifer drawing their weapons, so turned back to finish his work, satisfied his martial companions had the skulls in hand.

A mistake, as it turned out.

The eyes of the leading skull glowed red and a pinprick of light appeared in the midst of the company. An instant later it exploded into a ball of expanding flame. A moment later a second fireball exploded, then a third. The skulls laughed in riotous triumph as their targets writhed under the flaming assault.

“That’s on me,” Three apologised quickly, seeing the carnage but safely out of range.

Uthar, tired of being a spectator, sprinted as far as he could manage then angrily threw his hammer toward the nearest skull. He groaned as it flew well past, missing by a good several feet. Hammer hurling was not his forte. Marko, hovering behind, fired his tiny bow but he too shot wide. The still smouldering flames didn’t help his aim.

Sifer too was fed up. Unlike Three, he had anticipated the flameskull’s return, but their magic had trumped the speed of his bow. He was in some considerable pain from the burns as a result, and wanted to deal similar in return. Two sharp shots did so, but to his disappointment two missed wide.

“Stay back,” Idris muttered, rising smouldering and irritable.

Eli ignored this entirely, pouncing forward. His blade missed but once again his fists were unavoidable. He hurled it to the floor, shattering the bone, then Idris’s message sunk home: Stay back… He turned and ran back toward Idris who was preparing some undoubtably hideous spell.

Moments later that spell landed square in the midst of the remaining flameskulls. Two tiny motes flew up the corridor and a thunderball was released. The puny bone stood no chance against the quaking explosion, each vibrating themselves to a final death.

Three finished removing the goopy jelly which dropped to the floor, hauled the sword free and passed it over his shoulder pommel first to Idris’s hot and waiting hand. He crouched to study the viscera now collected on the floor, noting the puddle it lay in was different to the beast itself. “Brain fluid,” he realised, glancing up at the spot where the sword had stood. A wound was rapidly healing now the sword had been removed. “Whatever that sword is can harm this thing we stand within,” he said without turning.

Idris hoisted the weapon. It was a sergeant’s greatsword, Astral-alloy but otherwise nothing special. “Was it a tumour they killed, or something else?”

“Something different—not part of the brain. Whereas those growths on the floor do look more like tumours,” Three said observing the nodules. “There was a creature, the sword went through the creature fixing it to the wall, metamorphosising it into some gloop and piercing the wall. The pool was from the brain material, not the creature.”

“The damage to the brain could have been either the sword of the body connecting to the wall,” Sifer said. “We’ve now seen two sets of bodies affixed. One way to tell would be to put your sword through a tumour, though that might lead to other unintended consequences.”

Three approached the closest flesh stalagmite and sliced it with his scalpel. “Like cutting through muscle. Very tough.” He wiped the scalpel clean. “May I have the sword for a moment, Idris?” He made an incision, finding it harder work than his medical tool. “Interesting. The sword is less effective. But my hunch is right—it’s a tumour growing out of the brain.”

Idris unfurled his storage hole and placed the sword carefully inside.

“What would happen if we all had a short rest in that hole?” Eli asked, brushing char from his armour.

“It would be a little cramped,” Idris shrugged.

“When you say cramped, you mean snuggly?”

“Very snuggly.”

“Well if not in there shall we have one in any case? I’m burnt and half of you are too,” Sifer observed.

“I’m more wounded than you,” Eli said, adding you coward with his eyes.

“That’s not strategically intelligent,” Sifer muttered under his breath.

“It’s not just strategic intelligence I lack,” Eli muttered back.

---

Uthar led on, approaching the doorway through which the skulls had retreated and returned. Opposite the entrance was a crevice that narrowed into pitch black. Uthar stepped toward it and was surprised to hear…panpipes? Playing an eerie melody that grew louder as he approached. Shadows shifted rhythmically over the swollen walls as if mimicking a simple tune. “There’s a darkness down here,” he called softly. At his feet, Marko stuffed wax into his ears.

Before anyone could respond, a cry came from through the doorway behind. “Ahh! Idris!” Eli’s voice called urgently.

Sifer, closest, arrived a moment later. Three githyanki stood, weapons raised, prepared to defend themselves. The closest and most heavily armoured spat on the ground. “Stay back!”

---

Sifer raised his hands, mimicking Eli, and spoke carefully: “We have your sword.”

“What do you mean you have my sword?” the leader snarled, stepping forward.

“Is that not yours stuck in the wall?”

“Show it to me.”

“Our companion has it, he’s coming now,” Sifer said.

“How many of you are there?”

“Six.”

The three gith stepped back again, weapons raised, as Idris finally sprinted through the entrance. He quickly surmised the situation: one knight, a woman, and two support. The knight held only a dagger while the others were fully armed with longswords.

“Give me my weapon,” the frontwoman demanded.

“Now, Idris,” Eli whispered.

“Why are you here?” Idris asked, not moving a step and switching to Gith.

“I could ask the same of you.”

“You could, but I have your sword.”

“I expect an answer,” the knight demanded.

“You’ll get one when you answer. I’m not arguing about it.”

“Oh no. It doesn’t work like that; I am the leader here and you will follow my orders.”

“You’re not my leader.”

Sensing if not understanding the escalating tension, Eli leant in to Sifer. “Maybe we shouldn’t have called Idris?” he whispered to a soft chuckle.

“And I do not answer to you,” the woman grunted. “Where is my weapon?”

“I have it,” Idris conceded.

“Give it to me.”

“No!”

The knight growled and took a step forward. “What do you mean, ‘no’? It is not yours, it is mine. Are you a nought but a thief?.”

“How do I know it’s yours?” Idris scoffed.

One of the knight’s seconds, standing well back, answered with a sigh. “It’s hers. You found it jammed in the wall, right?”

Idris turned his eyes to the speaker, noting with surprise that there was a sense of resignation and embarrassment in her words. As if slightly ashamed of the leader’s actions—which made sense to Idris; a githyanki never relinquished their weapons. Death was preferred. In deference to his companions, he switched back to Common. “What were you attacking that was left on the wall?”

“An intellect snare,” the leader snapped. “They are deadly and there are many more of them.”

The third gith shook his head. “They’re aren’t,” he said softly.

“And the slime it leaves is equally dangerous.”

“It’s not,” the second woman muttered.

“Quiet!” the knight hissed, adding a githyanki curse that Idris chose not to hear. He was shocked at the insubordination of the two warriors.

Eli, relieved to be able to join the conversation, did so. “Tell me what do these intellect snares look like so we can be wary?”

“A floating bundle of tentacled viscera.”

Eli turned to the back guard. “And you’ve only seen the one?”

“So far, but there are many more,” the leader answered, but the man and woman’s eyes said otherwise. “If you do find one,” the woman volunteered tiredly, “Their tentacles will incapacitate you, siphoning your thoughts. It is an unpleasant occurrence.”

“A little bit like a conversation with Idris,” Eli mumbled. “Very well. And is your presence here an incursion, or are you based here as part of a guard?”

“We are here to hunt the Ghaik,” she spat.

“You’ve been here in this…nodule…for some time?” Eli said, glancing around at the bedrolls and detritus tucked inside the alcove behind them.

“We were, perhaps, reckless. We followed a tenuous set of clues to arrive here. We do not know where this is, but we do know that there are Ghaik here and we will slaughter them when we find them.”

“And when was the last time you saw one?”

“We haven’t,” the man at the back said, eyes down.

“Riiight,” Eli said, glancing at Sifer with some amusement.

“They know nothing,” Sifer stage-whispered to Idris. “I think they lost their way,” Eli added. Idris didn’t take his eyes off the trio.

Sifer shrugged and stepped back, pointing ahead to another entrance through the brain. “What’s through there?”

“A mad musician who makes music, you may have heard it,” the second woman said to a slow nod from Uthar and Marko. “We overheard him speak of a trio of Ghaik but we have not seen them.”

“Can I ask one question, and make one observation?” Eli said to the gith. “Would that be ok with you people?” There was no answer, so Eli continued. “Um. The question, first of all: what is this place?”

“We do not know. It is part of the Far Realm, but we do not know where or what,” the man replied. Marko felt his knees go weak at the mention of the Far Realm, clutching Uthar for support.

“Is your halfling ok?” the leader smirked. Eli hissed, and Idris frowned. “He’s not your concern.”

“The F-f-far Realm? Did I hear you right?” Marko said softly.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“No. Explain?”

“Tell your friend to explain,” she said.

Idris sighed. “It’s a very long explanation.”

“This is the place nightmares come from?” Eli tried.

“Sure. The best description is that it is everything that we know…is not,” Idris said, realising this was anything but clear.

“B-b-but this is a b-b-brain, isn’t it? No?” Marko stammered.

“So it would appear,” the female gith nodded.

“Ok. So if we kill the brain do we kill the Far Realm?” Marko said, hope swelling.

It was dashed as the gith all scoffed cruelly.

“No, Marko,” Idris said kindly, seeing Marko’s despair.

“Why not!?” Marko snapped, drawing his rapier and stabbed it into the floor. He pulled his dagger and jammed it hard, once, twice.

Both gith lifted their weapons and stepped forward on seeing Marko’s drawn before stopping when they saw what he was doing. “That won’t work,” the woman said flatly.

“What about fire?”

“Nothing will work.”

Eli coughed to get the gith trio’s attention back. “Now. My observation is that it looks like you could do with assistance on your quest, and we are nothing if not completely benevolent, and would help you. Because I understand from my companion here,” he said slapping Idris on the back, “That we have no love for the…?”

“Ghaik,” Idris said with a sharp-toothed grin.

“Ghaik, thank you. We have no love for the Ghaik either.”

The leader turned her attention from Eli back to Idris. “I will trust you if you will give me my weapon.”

Three had been studying the gith, noting their orange-green skin was in stack contrast to Idris’s pallid grey. “Before we do that,” he said, “Why is your skin a different colour to our friend?”

“That is a question for your friend,” the man said with some suspicion. “I would be wary of him.”

“We are,” Eli smiled innocently. “But we are here to help.”

“We trust him; we have just met you,” Three shrugged.

The leader shook her head. “I am not asking you to trust us. I am asking you for my weapon.” She stepped forward again to stand face to face with Idris. “My name is Varakkta,” she said through gritted teeth. “And I would appreciate it if you would return to me my sword.”

“Give the woman her sword,” Eli urged.

“Why did you leave it?” Sifer called from afar.

“As I have said, the intellect snares are dangerous and we did not wish to tangle with it any further,” Varakkta snapped as her companions exchanged a quick look. Idris frowned. It was quite clear that Varakkta was in over her head, unable to stand as a gith should.

Sifer too, knowing a good military leader from bad, had heard enough. “Give back the sword. They can follow us,” he said, an order rather than suggestion. To his surprise, the knight nodded to him respectfully; the martial tone of Sifer’s words suiting her nature.

“Listen to your sergeant,” Varakkta glared at Idris, “We are here to hunt Ghaik—you should know that. Or have you forgotten your kind the same way you have forgotten—”

Idris put his hand up to stop her words. Varakkta paffed it aside contemptuously. Idris growled and telekinetically shoved her back—or tried to. “Enough! How dare you!” she swore, pushing through the force.

“Oh oh,” Three said quietly as Eli quickly dropped to a combat stance. Sifer pulled his bow free as the two lower-ranked Gith readied their blades.

“Step away or I will kill you,” Idris snarled stepping close so he was nose-to-nose with Varakkta. Uthar glanced with surprise; Idris meant every word.

“Varakkta. Leave it,” the woman spoke from behind.

“Are you a coward?!” Varakkta replied, not breaking Iris’s glare. “He has my weapon! His every word an insult!”

“You left your weapon. I do not need to explain to you what that means,” Idris hissed. “Step away or I will kill you. You have three seconds. Three…”

“You are a thief!”

“Two…”

“A traitor!”

“One…”

At the last possible moment Three stepped forward, hand to Idris’s shoulder, hoping for a moment of clarity to stop the looming catastrophe. “Idris, just give her the sword,” he said softly.

“You are surrounded by people more intelligent than you, ‘Idris',” Varakkta taunted.

Idris laughed heartily. “You are a feckless toddler out of your depth. You lost your weapon! You are the one that needs to see sense. As soon as you step back I’ll think about giving it back to you,” he grinned evilly through sharpened teeth. It was enough, but he couldn’t resist more. He lent in until their faces were all but touching. “And the next time you speak to me in that manner will be the last time. Am I clear?”

Varakkta held Idris’s gaze, a snarl on her face. She spat on the floor, then vanished. A curse sounded from her two companions, and both also vanished.

Three gasped as he saw Varakkta reappear behind Idris, her jewelled dagger poised to be buried deep in his neck. He flung out a spell designed to freeze her in place, but she shook it off with ease. “Another failed attempt! Your life is forfeit!” she grinned as she slammed the dagger home…but the blow deflected off Idris’s armour, drawing a foul curse from Varakkta. The second woman gith appeared on Idris’s other flank and swung her sword, but she too missed as she recovered her equilibrium.

Marko, knees recovered, pierced Varakkta with his rapier, following up with a flash from his dagger. Sifer lined her up and his first shot struck true, but both follow ups were lost in the melange of the melee—complicated further as the third gith appeared to swing toward Idris but also missed.

Seeing all the failed assassination attempts, Eli wondered idly if Idris was somehow blessed as he leapt forward and pummelled the female gith with his fists. “Stop it!” he cried. “I will die before I stop,” she snapped back. Eli, thinking back to Idris’s words, intuited that once battle was enacted it was unlikely a gith would step down.

Uthar, somewhat reluctantly for the subordinates had clearly wanted to avoid this, stepped into the fray and finished off the wounded warrior. “We die for nothing,” she gasped as she fell. Uthar uttered a silent penance, and was surprised to find Three had dropped to his knees beside him, offering a blessing—Kelemvor—to the corpse sending his soul to rest. He wanted no part in the killing.

Idris decided to follow the gith lead, bampfing out of the tangle and appearing in the clear. Six tiny missiles shot from his outstretched fingers and buried into Varakkta. “Just her!” he cried to his companions.

Varakkta stepped again through the mists to stand directly before Idris. “It is not for nothing that he died,” she snarled, ramming her dagger twice into his chest. Her second strike would have taken his heart but a shimmer of shield appeared at the last instant and deflected the blow. “Last chance!” Idris hissed.

“I need no second chance!” Varakkta cried with a curse.

Marko didn’t make the same mistake with the male gith. He rammed his rapier into his abdomen, then his dagger into his solar plexus. The gith staggered but managed to remain on his feet, out of pride more than anything.

“Don’t kill them Sifer!” Eli cried as he saw the sharpshooter line up Varakkta. “Don’t kill any of them!”

“Kill her,” Idris corrected sharply.

“Kill ‘em all!'” Marko yelled, blood running. “Let Kelemvor sort them out!”

“Kelevmor will,” Three intoned formally, surprised at Marko’s sudden piety.

Sifer found himself agreeing with Idris. Varakkta shuddered as the bolt sunk into her breast, staggering forward and grabbing Idris to stop her self from the shame of falling at his feet. It left only a small target for Sifer but he made no mistake.

“I know what you are, Ghaik!” Varakkta gasped as she collapsed dead.

Idris spun to the last remaining gith. “Your duty is fulfilled! Stop now!” he cried with deadly seriousness.

The man vanished mid-word and reappeared with his weapon held high over Idris’s head, swinging it down toward the exposed neck as Idris’s cry rang out. Eyes wide he froze his swing only inches away. He looked down at the fallen figure of Varakkta at his feet, breathed out, and slowly, carefully, lowered his weapon. “What a waste,” he said softly, stepping back.

“I understand,” Idris said cautiously.

“You are partly to blame; you provoked her. This didn’t have to happen.”

“Each of us is responsible for our own actions,” Eli interjected. “Idris made it clear what would happen. She was a fool.”

The man growled deep from his throat. “It only reached that moment because he would not give Varakkta her weapon. A weapon that was rightfully hers. It is shameful that it has ended with this slaughter.”

“Heal him, Three,” Sifer said, an offering of peace.

“I do not want your healing,” the man snarled at Three, “For you are not men of honour.”

He turned his back on the company, knowing his death was only a single blow away. He collected his belongings and walked away toward the entryway.

Idris, meanwhile, had retrieved the sword from his hold. “Warrior!” he called.

The man turned to see Idris proffering Varakkta’s sword. “Too late. They are dead because of you.”

“You know where this belongs. You should take it to her home.”

“I am not taking anything from you. You are a thief,” he spat, holding Idris’s gaze for a moment, then turning and walking out of sight.

---

Marko was bouncing around, shaking off all the nervous energy he had accumulated. “This place isn’t so bad, this ‘Far Dark’,” he grinned. “It’s alright, pretty safe, I feel better. That was good,” he said moving to the fallen bodies and smiling widely.

Three, feeling rather less celebratory, added Varakkta to his blessings, and healed the company of their lingering wounds. Finishing up her turned to Idris. “Should we search their bodies? Their belongings?”

“Gith who die on hunts, their accoutrements go back. So we collect everything personal—house insignia, armour, weapons, anything of note. I will collect it and return it when I can.” He set about doing so, assisted by Marko and a willing Uthar who felt relieved to be able to further honour the dead. Varakkta’s dagger was unusual but the rest was standard issue and stored in the hole.

At the rear of the nook Three noticed two blackened metal rods, a foot apart and a foot long, extending from the brain-wall. They looked different to the brain; hard metal not flesh and weathered. He also found a small chest and called Marko forth. “Not trapped, but locked,” he reported, making short work of it.

“What’s in there?” Three asked.

“There’s teeth, gems, a music box. And another box.”

“The teeth are trophies,” Idris called. Three hurried over and asked for the teeth which Marko handed over gladly. Idris examined them with Three, naming every single one accurately, to Three’s surprise. “Humans, a Ghaik, this is an orc and that could be a Drow canine.”

“Can I have them?” Three asked with childish glee. Idris nodded; Three was an odd one.

Marko meanwhile held the music box aloft and wound it very carefully. A sweet melody sounded, elvish perhaps, though Marko found it slightly difficult to hear. Three, nearby, had no such trouble. “Quiet, Marko, we don’t know what is listening,” he suggested. Marko shrugged and passed it to Three (who passed it to Sifer), turning his attention to the other box. It was rectangular, six inches long by three tall, and very narrow. “Trapped,” he warned, “Idris can you open it with your magic hand?”

Idris did so, nonplussed when the box opened quite safely with no trap. He walked over to find eight fine, silver, six-pronged forks resting in velvet cushioning. He lifted the box and displayed it to the company. “It’s a fancy fork set,” he announced with a grimace.

“There’s something weird about them,” Three noted. “Forks don’t have six tines. Tuning forks perhaps?”

Eli found himself suddenly overwhelmed by events. “This is your problem?! We finally find some of Idris’s people and we murder them, and you are worried about the forks!?”

“We did just have to give the sword back and we would have had three guides,” Three conceded.

“What he said!” Eli yelled, flopping onto floor.

“We have to remember there’s a reason he hangs around with us,” Sifer smirked.

Idris drew himself up. “These githyanki were very different to those we met on the boat in the Astral Plane.”

“Yeah they’re assholes these ones,” Marko inserted, rewriting history as only the victors can.

---

Session played February 9, 23, March 9 2025

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