The Labyrinth of Eyes: “There’s no traps here, people”
The Briny Maze: “It’s a fancy fork set”
Denizens of the Maze: “There is, in general, a preponderance of eyes”
A Long ‘Rest’: “It knows we’re here”
Ask Questions Later: “And people think I’m a monster”
Boating for Beginners: “Didn’t see that one coming”

---

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 undoubtedly 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, three foot apart and each 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 these ones are assholes,” Marko inserted, rewriting history as only the victors can.

---

Denizens of the Maze

“You know this feels less like a brain and more like a bowel?” Eli asked apropos of nothing as he studied the two rods. They weren’t corroded and there was no fresh wound in the briny wall from which they poked. Each was twisted like black liquorice and hard as iron—manufactured, not natural.

Three clutched his gut in subconscious sympathy. “Idris—are these rods something the gith do at their camps, or is it just coincidence that they hunkered down here?”

“A mining tool, perhaps?” Eli added.

Idris looked thoughtful. “In answer to you, Three, no we don’t, and they’re not mining tools that I know of…but there’s something familiar about them. Something uncomfortable. I’ve seen them before but I can’t remember.” The ends of each rod looked slightly smoothed, perhaps from hands gripping them. He tried twisting one to unwind the spiral from the wall but it didn’t budge.

“When you say you’ve seen them before,” Three asked, “Do you mean this is of your people, or do you mean just in your travels?”

“No, not of the gith. I just know they’re not good but my memory fails.”

“And yet it clearly didn’t worry the other gith,” Three said. “They made their camp here and didn’t avoid them.”

“Could they have been inserted from outside the brain?” Uthar posited.

“Maybe but the tips aren’t sharp like you would expect,” Eli noted. “But Idris, just trying to jog your memory, could these be the quills of some kind of giant porcupine monster?”

“No. I’ve never encountered a giant porcupine monster.”

“Sound like giant porcupines are about the only thing you don’t encounter on the Astral Plane.”

Idris stared at Eli, then took the flat of his short-sword and tanged it against each rod. It clunked more than sung, nothing special. “It might come to me later,” he sighed, frustrated he could not place them.

“Maybe the musical fiend they spoke of can shed some light on them,” Three shrugged.

“That reminds me,” Uthar said, “There was music from an alcove behind us—panpipes? The gith interrupted us before we could explore it.”

The company retreated to Uthar’s alcove, a short corridor that narrowed into an unnatural and utter darkness. A melody played on, yes, panpipes, echoed from the darkness, and shadows shifted rhythmically on the sticky walls.

Idris tossed a glowing coin into the darkness. It vanished into the black and landed with a soft thup. “That’s magical darkness, and of an uncommon kind.”

“I could dispel it,” Three offered.

“We could just run our hand along the wall and follow it, it might not be dark for long,” Idris countered.

“That sounds like a recipe for falling into a brain hole.”

“We can get Marko do to it,” Eli suggested with faith in Marko’s prowess.

“Just follow me—Uthar, hand on my shoulder,” Idris said. He placed his hand on the wall, not enjoying sensation as he ran his hand through the slime. The corridor narrowed to a point, the music still playing softly. “Is anyone…here?” he said softly. There was no answer.

Idris turned and traced the opposite wall back, emerging into the light before long. “It narrows in about thirty feet, no-one down there and the music didn’t get any louder the further we travelled.”

“A good place to rest?” Eli suggested.

“It’s not comfortable to be in. I don’t know if any of you have been light-deprived for long periods of time?”

“My uncle Funglemunchkin used to lock me in the cellar when I was bad.”

“I don’t like the idea,” Three said, raising an eyebrow toward Eli.

“There’s a perfectly good encampment just up there,” Idris said pointing toward the gith camp.

“You’re right. Let’s head north and see what’s up there before we do that.”

---

Uthar led the way, followed closely by Eli. At the next junction both stopped as they heard someone, or something, humming. It was accompanied by the sound of digging, and the hum seemed designed to match the work.

It reminded Eli happily of how his people would sing as they worked the fields. He stealthed forward as best he could to look for the source.

Standing above a shallow pit ringed with black ridges like necrotized flesh was a man, with too many eyes in the wrong places, vigorously digging with a rusted trowel. He hummed his merry song, surprisingly tuneful given the environment in which he worked.

---

“We’re close, Jitter, we’re close!” he exclaimed as he removed a tiny chunk of flesh from the floor. “I can feel it! ♪ Close, close close, the harder we dig the closer we get ♫”

The man stepped back to admire his work, then looked up to the ceiling. “Jitterjaws? Your turn!”

Eli turned his gaze to the ceiling just as an enormous lump of sewn-together flesh dropped from above into the ‘hole’, gnawing the rim with multiple mouths of razor-sharp teeth. Moments later it leapt back into position above, dripping saliva as the man clapped enthusiastically and started his singing and digging once more. “One or two more strikes and we’re through to the dragon, Jitters! ♪ One-two one-two and through-and-through! ♫”

---

Eli looked back to the company, drew a finger over his throat, drew his weapon and charged into the room. “Stand to and prepare to be sent back to thy maker! Whoever that was,” he added staring up at Jitterjaws.

All Jitterjaws’ tentacles twisted to face Eli, slavering in anticipation of a meal rather better than that of the floor. The digger spun too, holding his garden-spade aloft. “What is the meaning of this?!” he demaned. “You’re interrupting important work!”

Three jogged up to Eli and placed a hand on his shoulder, holding him back for a moment. “Let’s talk, for once,” he whispered.

“Master it is an abomination and must die!”

“Okay but let’s talk first,” Three stressed.

“There’s only one person who will die here and it won’t be me if you don’t get out of my way,” the many-eyed man threatened. “Unless that sword for digging not killing?”

“We are sorry to interrupt, sir, but we found a music box not far from here,” Three said. “Then we heard your wonderful singing and thought perhaps it’s yours?”

“Ah! Not mine, but it holds a wonderful melody indeed,” the man beamed, then sung the tune from the music box in question, note for note. “Do you also know this one?” he added, then hummed the music from the dark shrouded corridor.

“We do—”

“And did you like my composition?” the man interrupted, narrowing all his eyes keenly.

“Of course we did—amazing!” Three assured, “Particularly in such an exceptional landscape. And what is your name sir?”

“My name is Shalfi,” he said, brushing his filthy clothes proudly, “And we are digging for a dragon!”

Three paled. “A dragon?”

Ignoring the question, Shalfi turned back to his pit and started digging. “And if you will all help we’ll get there all the sooner! ♪ I get by with a little help from my friends, oo I get by ♫”

Three scratched his head. “We are a little bit concerned that were we to help that your…pet?…would maybe confuse things?”

“Jitterjaws? Won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt him—or me. But enough talk; if you could stop talking and help?”

“Can we just ask one more question?”

“Ask while you dig,” Shalfi said, exasperated. “And put that sword away unless you’re going to use it to dig.”

Eli turned to Three. “Master. What are you afraid of? Are these not evil beings?”

“They are but we are in desperate need of information.”

Idris, overhearing, held his hand up. “Eli—aberrant and evil are not the same thing,” he said softly. “Things are changed by the Far Realm, often beyond their control. They appear in a visage that is antithetical to their true self, and not necessarily evil.”

“Again I say: are they not evil?” Eli said, first to Three then turning to Uthar.

“Well it’s not looking good,” Uthar observed, his evil radar pinging wildly. “But perhaps we should ask just a couple more questions, just to be sure.”

“Yes, for we must determine: do they have evil intent?” Three added wisely.

A shluuuupppp from behind announced Jitterjaws was once more on the floor and working the pit, one head continuing to stare hungrily at Eli.

“That sight is not helping my cause,” Uthar conceded. As Jitterjaws rose once more to the ceiling, it was clear that the pit was only an inch deep at most. It almost seemed to be healing over even as Shalfi went back to work.

“Do we negotiate with ev—” Eli started.

“I will help you dig,” Three interrupted glancing knowingly at his companions. As he walked toward the hole, looking warily up at Jitterjaws, he drew the music box forth and wound it.

“Lovely, just lovely,” Shalfi said approvingly, then started to harmonise with the melody. “Do you know that Dwarves cannot hear that? They don’t know what they missing.”

“How long have you been here?” Three tried.

“You talk a lot but you don’t dig. Get to work! ♪ Work, work, work, work, everybody loves work ♫”

Three pulled his dagger free and ‘dug’, though it was more a pantomime.

“Good, good!” Shalfi enthused. “Cut that necrosis off! Step back, step back!”

Shluuuupppp

Shalfi examined Jitterjaw’s work. “Progress, definite progress! I can hear the dragon, I can smell the dragon!”

“What type of dragon?”

“A large one! And you know what dragons have?”

“Gold?”

“Gold!”

“And is that all you want? Just gold?”

“We’ll take whatever he has!”

“And you came here to get this dragon?”

“Oh, no, but once we got here we found it was down there, and the only way through is digging.”

“How do you know it’s down there,” Eli scowled.

“Well it’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“Not to us. How did you get here?” Three said, poking at the flesh pit.

“Not really sure. But it is of no matter—now that we are here, fortune awaits! ♪ Blue eyes, dragon’s got blue eyes, like a deep, blue sea ♫” he sung sonorously.

“Can you play that lute?” Three asked.

“Of course!” He swivelled the lute around to his front and somehow managed to continue to pick out his song even as he shovelled, the rhythm of both in keen syncopation. Despite all appearances, his lute barely held together and clothing threadbare, he was very good, the beauty of his song perhaps supporting Idris’s earlier supposition.

“Master Shalfi, may I ask a brief question?” Idris said.

“If you dig you can ask,” Shalfi beamed.

Idris groaned, crouched, and started trimming with his dagger. “Did you happen to come across three others of my kind?”

“You mean githyanki? Yes I saw them—they ignored me and I ignored them after they wouldn’t help. I let them live.”

“We can’t say the same,” Eli muttered.

Idris worked his way around the hole, putting his back in a little more as he did. “You’re a strong one,” Shalfi admired. He glanced over to Uthar. “But you look a lot stronger! And you with the sword, young orc,” he nodded sternly at Eli. “Come over and help! I’ll setup a rhythmic beat which will help us all work. First you, red fellow, then you big orc, then everyone! ♪ Hi ho, hi ho! ♫”

To keep things on an even keel, Uthar started digging. He glanced down the only concealed section of the chamber, hoping to see what lay ahead, but was disappointed to see only a dead end. He glanced at Idris who had noticed the same thing; there was nowhere further to go. Uthar tilted his head back toward the gith encampment and Idris nodded. He stood, stretching, and turned to Shalfi. “Master Shalfi, we shall undoubtedly see you very soon, but one of our companions has summoned us. We will take our leave for now, but best of luck.”

“Well, if you must. If you can convince those gith to come and help, with you six that will make…nine? Plus we two—it will only be a matter of days and we’ll be through!”

Three nodded enthusiastically. “Let’s go talk to them, Idris, and see if they’re interested.” He turned on his heel and walked briskly away. “I’m going to go and see them now!” Idris bowed to Shalfi and followed.

Shalfi glared at Eli who glared back. “You didn’t help at all,” Shalfi scowled. “We will remember that and expect better behaviour next time—understood?”

Eli considered his options, reluctantly deciding the lessons of his betters should be followed. He turned and jogged after Three.

“Ha! We scared him off, Jitters, we scared him off! ♪ Run—run—run! I’m coming to get you! ♫”

---

“Master I’m sorry that had the appearance of cowardice,” Eli said drawing up to Three, “But I could not respond without dying.”

“Always remember, Eli, what is our mission?”

“We must get the rod.”

“Yes. And if that means we don’t have a combat here, with a madman and his monster, who’s not harming anyone because they’re stuck in hell anyway, then we get to move on and hopefully make progress towards our actual goal. Come on, let’s go.”

“Are you saying we should allow evil to walk the land for the sake of the greater good?”

“Normally I would not; I would strike them down. If they were in a populous city or near people that needed protection. But they’re not. They are actually suffering more here than they would be dead.”

“So sometimes we allow evil—”

“If it is quarantined,” Three interrupted.

Eli paused, pondering. “Where is that written?”

“Some things are not written on parchment—they are written on our souls and we know it for a truth.”

“I don’t…I don’t know that for a truth,” Eli said softly, eyes downcast.

“Some things you just have to take on faith, Eli,” Uthar comforted.

Idris nodded. “Eli you know that good and evil aren’t necessarily of massive importance to the keeper of the dead. Kelemvor’s job is to ensure everyone goes where they are supposed to go.”

“I didn’t know, but I do know I had never heard the name Kelemvor until I heard Brother Cooper speak it,” Eli confessed.

“Well it is my understanding this his remit is that all pass on to their destined end, whether that be a good place or bad.”

“‘Shepherd’ is the word you are looking for,” Three added.

“If you’re looking for a deity that is doing good things for being good, all the time,” Idris said nodding to Uthar, “Then that’s where you should seek.”

Eli looked confused, eyes flitting between the speakers. “It’s apparent that everybody has a lesson for Brother Eli,” he said stridently, reverting oddly to third person. “But the lessons of his parents somehow would be diminished. Thank you for your wisdom; I will keep in in mind.”

“I’m not intending it as a lesson, Eli,” Idris said not quite apologetically.

Uthar rounded the next corner and found a filthy bedroll and small cask tucked into the back corner of a dead-end alcove. “A snapped lute string,” he pointed out, solving the question of who laired here before it could be asked.

A quick search of the grotty detritus revealed nothing of interest, other than that the cask had a solid gold stopper. Three picked the cask up and shook it, hearing it still contained liquid. He sighed, turned, and popped the stopper. An aroma of weak ale wafted forth; Three was surprised—why such a fancy stopper for such nondescript drink? He returned the cask to the bedroll. “Nothing of interest,” he announced. “How did Shalfi live here—how is he still alive?”

“My knowledge of the Far Realm is very sporadic,” Idris said, “But it isn’t necessarily lethal. But if this places borders the Realm we probably don’t want to stay here longer than we need to. He probably didn’t start out with eyes in his neck and forehead.”

“There is, in general, a preponderance of eyes,” Eli agreed.

---

Marko pointed to the second set of tracks back at the entryway. “Six, maybe seven, went this way, booted all. Months old I would guess.”

“If these ones are evil can we kill them?” Eli said loudly and somewhat sullenly.

“Sure,” Three nodded.

More of the fleshy nodules emerged from the floor ahead, and amongst them lay four corpses that had been rent asunder. “Would these match the tracks, Master Marko?” Eli asked quietly.

“They would.”

Three walked to the corpses, unafraid. “Duergar, warriors. Dead for some time.” He was careful not to touch them, recalling Idris’s recent misadventure, but he studied them closely. Their bodies were drained of life and faces etched in terror

Eli wandered forward and glanced around the bend of the corridor. The wide space ahead was filled with diaphanous web strands, the webbing thicker on the far side of the room. Something unseen scuttled inside the webbing, drawing Eli’s eyes: hanging entangled in the web, dripping fresh blood, was the third gith, now dead. “Spiders,” he called back in warning.

“These warriors weren’t killed by spiders,” Three said pensively. “Their wounds were caused by magic—shards of stone are embedded in their chests. And there’s worse: all of them have post-mortem head wounds. Their skulls have been torn open after they died. Something has eaten their brains,” he said looking to Idris.

Idris crouched by one of the dead. “Not Ghaik. They don’t eat dead brains; they are sustained only by live ones.”

“This one has a very nice cape,” Marko said pulling it free. He held it aloft, showing off the silver-threaded runes along the hem of the greyish-purple outfit. It was Duergar-sized, a little large for Marko but otherwise a good fit. Before donning it, and much to everyone’s surprise, he bit down on the cleanest section of the dirty cape. It didn’t react, so he slipped it on, pleased with silhouette it created. He strutted over to Uthar, noting the cloak flowed beautifully as he moved.

Eli stood fixated watching the webs, following the movement of something hidden in the far corners. A large, brilliantly ice-blue spider appeared suddenly, carefully wrapping the corpse of the gith.

---

“Uthar!” Eli hissed.

Uthar stood stock still, for once reluctant to approach as the spider caressed the body and lifted it into the webbing.

“Is that evil enough?” Eli stage-whispered.

“Fireball that thing,” Three encouraged Idris, who needed none. A tiny flame flickered on his fingertip. “The best thing about webs is they go up like a tinderbox,” Idris grinned.

And indeed it did. The fireball melted the huge web in an instant. The spider was killed instantly, dropping to the ground with legs aloft, but the lack of webbing revealed two howling, hooded Duergar who leapt from the flames.

---

The Duergar hollered something unintelligible, which Idris translated quickly. “‘Ilvaash’s betrayal shall become ours’, apparently.”

“Kelemvor!” Three cried, and from his open mouth a plague of insects swarmed forth, surrounding the Duergar who swatted futilely at the flood. Eli made a mental note to reassess all of his values at the sight of Three’s living vomit. Perhaps it was all the flies Three had swallowed in his time at the cemetery?

Eli sprinted into the swarm, striking the nearest Duergar with ease with blade and fist. Alas a lone strand of webbing drifed down and caught his fist before it could drop the fiend. As he cursed his ill luck, Eli caught something moving out of the corner of his eye. “Another spider!”

As he cried out a crown of jagged spectral crystals materialised around his head. “Ahhh!” he cried, before suddenly realising he wanted to apologise to the psionicist he had attacked of late. “Sorry,” he whispered, rummaging for a potion to help his new friend.

The other Duergar flung two necrotic shards of stone—“That’s what killed the others!” Three cried—which skimmed past Marko and pinged off the wall instead. Two more shards also missed Uthar. With a guttural curse the Duergar started to shimmer a second crown around Uthar, but the holy warrior had no trouble fending it off with his faith.

Idris decided to retaliate in kind. A distorted crack in reality rent the air and a huge slaad stepped through to stand behind Eli’s friend. “Eli! That’s mine!” Idris cried as the slaad struck hard, missing as it too was tangled by the webbing.

The second spider blinked on top of Uthar, who recoiled, terror etched on his face. It bit down on the hardened steel of his helm, doing no damage but cowering Uthar none-the-less. Three stepped up and tolled the death of the spider, who shuddered, its gelatinous body falling away. Uthar gritted his teeth and struck with his blade, once, twice, killing it and shoving it away, relief flooding his body.

Marko silently made his way to the Duergar, slaughtering Eli’s friend with one strike. Eli considered a truth revealed: that the Duergar’s soul was as worthy as any other. He whispered a little prayer reflecting such, then turned to the other Duergar. “And you should join him,” he said as he punched and fulfilled that promise, mumbling another prayer. Finally he looked to the slaad, who’s open maw snapped closed as it trudged away toward Idris. “It’s with us, Eli,” Idris repeated, for the benefit of all, as Eli, still full of adrenalin, sprinted away out of sight.

“How long will that be with us?” Three asked.

“About an hour?”

“Hm.”

“It’s here, we may as well take advantage of it.”

An uncomfortable silence met this declaration.

Three searched the Duergar bodies, finding nothing, and gave absolution to the charred body of the dead gith (after Idris and his slaad stripped the body), asking Kelemvor to allow it to pass on. “This is an odd place to find Duergar,” he said. “In cahoots with spiders. Why? And why did they kill their kind?”

The questions were left hanging as the company moved on toward Eli, who stood with his spear set against an imagined oncoming charge.

---

Uthar rounded the next nodule to find an short alcove. A spherical creature with eyestalks hovered at the back of the chamber, ignoring the company.

---

In front of the creature a large, open book rested on a three-foot-high lump of sickly, organic material that rose naturally from the floor. The fiend appeared to be reading from the book, carefully enunciating each word: “The inward facing mind must con-cen-trate…no, no, that’s not it…The inward facing mind must concen-trate…”

Eli looked at his companions with the same question he had asked earlier clearly etched on his face. Are we seriously not going to kill this?

Three shook his head quickly. “I know that phrase,” he said. “From a famed tome, The Truth of the Inward Facing Mind. A book no-one has ever managed to successfully understand or translate.” He was stunned it could be here, now, in this place.

The creature continued reading, restarting the same phrase, each time with slightly different intonation and emphasis.

“He’s reading the opening line again and again,” Eli scowled.

Three stepped forward. “Excuse me…sir?”

One of the tentacled eyes swung toward Three and blinked. “Yes?” it answered after finishing the phrase once more.

“May I ask what you are doing here? Are you just reading?”

“You may. Ask what I am doing. Here. It is a good. Question. I am…reading, yes. Thank you.” The creature spoke in broken phrases, thoughtful before each word.

“What is your name?”

“My name. Is Jomlus. My task is to. Read.”

“Anything?”

“Only this tome. For it holds. Alllll knowledge. If only we. I. Can speak it correctly. Clearly.”

“Have you got past the first paragraph?” Three asked.

“We have not. The secrets remain. Hidden from us. As they were hidden from. Master Kamven.”

“Master who?”

“Master Klaudel Kamven,” Jomlus said with some reverence. “You may know. Him. A great scholar, sadly. Now passed into this chapel. Absorbed into the living. Flesh.”

“Do you know what else is around here?”

“There are many strange. Creatures in this chapel. They leave me. For they. Believe me to be a beholder. But I am. Not.” The many eyes seemed to smile at this realisation. “I am Jomlus! And I read.”

“Well, Jomlus, good luck with The Truth of the Inward Facing Mind,” Three said kindly. “It is quite a challenge.”

“You have heard of. It?”

“Oh, I have ready it,” Three assured.

“You have?” Jomlus seemed astonished. “Would you assist. Me in reading?”

“Unfortunately the rules of reading that book mean that you cannot be assisted, for then you would forfeit the wisdom.”

“But. But. Surely. I assisted Master Kamven…is that why we failed?!”

“Probably. It is a strictly solo endeavour. Or it was for me.”

“Your wisdom. Is a great blessing to me. I will redouble my efforts to read. To understand. To reveal to the multiverse the knowledge! It contains!”

“Well…yes, that sometimes happens. Not always,” Three warned. “We’re leaving, but we might talk to you later.”

“Master Three I did not know you had read that book?” Eli observed quietly.

“I have read many books,” Three said walking away.

As the company departed Jomlus started once more on his endless task, the words grating and tickling the back of the listeners minds. “The inwardfacing mindmust concentrate…”

---

The next chamber revealed yet another floating horror. Slime coated the walls and floor of a nook lying dead ahead, in which an enormous creature shaped like a brain hovered above a puddle of goo while four fleshy nuggets bounced nearby.

---

Uthar pointed and sighed.

“Well that’s not good,” Idris groaned.

Marko didn’t wait for conversation, firing his shortbow into the bulbous creature. Eli clapped eyes upon the beast and, without intending so, a bolt of fire shot from the scar on his face and exploded in the nook. Goop sizzled and the brain floated forth down the corridor.

“Bring it on, disgusting gloop monster!” Eli cried in orcish, not understanding a word he spoke. Several of the smaller things followed their leader forth.

“Are those baby beholders?” Eli yelled with disgust.

Three dropped to one knee and cried, “KELEMVOR!” A pillar of flame struck down from heaven itself, every sinew of Three’s being pulling the holy punishment forth. The ‘brain’ was engulfed, emerging worse-for-wear but alive.

Not seeing Three’s action from behind him, Eli gaped, impressed and somewhat taken aback at the delayed effectiveness of his face-flame. Uthar leapt into the combat, satisfied with two heavy schlooping blows from his blade. One of the smaller fiends tried to avenge the blows, four tiny tentacles pulling back and shooting forth. Uthar ducked away with ease.

A moment later he was warmed by an explosion as Idris dropped a patented precision fireball into the corridor beyond. All the creatures were singed and flung, but surprisingly none fell. The slaad didn’t seem pleased with that, slashing out at the floating brain. It retaliated, choosing Uthar as it bludgeoned him with a psychic slam which knocked him off his feet. A gemmule latched itself over his face as he fell, sinking psychic tethers into his mind.

Marko dived forward to protect Uthar, burying his short blade into the nerve centre of the brain. It exploded into horrible goo, covering the fallen Uthar who was none-the-less thankful.

Eli pounded one of the little buggers, killing it quickly and efficiently, bursting over and spraying both Eli and Uthar, again. Eli let out a blood-curdling cry of pure joy, using his momentum to near punch the lights out of another floater.

Another tried to latch itself to Three, who instead caught the incoming creature in his bare hands in a display of incredible dexterity. He laughed triumphantly, and ripped the creature in two as a bolt of radiance shredded the tiny floater. “Kelemvor!” Three cried as light exploded.

Eli, once again, missed Kelemvor’s might, facing the opposite way as he was. Uthar, by his side, ripped his own leech free, leaping to his feet and holding the creature away. Idris instantly shot a barrage of magical missiles into the gemmule, exploding it as his slaad killed the remaining floater.

---

Eli stepped around the next corner to find shreds of flesh and broken bones scattered around the room beyond. An enormous double door made of the same spongy material as the rest of the maze stood firmly shut at the far side of the chamber. “The remnants of combatants,” he reported back, “And a door.” He stood poised for action as he waited for the inevitable debate.

“We need to rest,” Three groaned, wiping his hands clean of the remains of his gemmule. He walked into the nook of the brain creature, finding a cluster of unbroken eggs in the fetid pool inside. “We might want to finish these first.”

Idris did so, quickly toasting everything within. The resulting stench was horrendous. “I would suggest, gentlemen, that if we’re going to rest we should do it before we venture beyond those door.”

“I agree, the doors present a new challenge,” Uthar nodded.

“Back at the githyanki camp?” Three suggested.

“We need to kill the reader first,” Eli scowled.

“There’s no need to kill him,” Three explained. “He’s just read—”

“BY WHAT BOOK!?” Eli yelled.

“The Truth of the Inward Facing Mind,” Three sighed.

“BY WHAT BOOK do you declare that WE DO NOT HAVE TO KILL THAT PATENTLY EVIL CREATURE?!” Eli continued.

“Is he patently evil? He’s no threat and we have bigger fish to fry.”

“I didn’t know those were the parameters under which we operate,” Eli said angrily as he stormed off.

Three rolled his eyes and followed.

---

A Long ‘Rest’

The company bedded down at the githyanki camp, with the exception of Eli who took first watch. “And I’ll take next,” Marko volunteered. “I won’t,” Three said with a groan.

As Idris settled he glanced again at the two metal rods. In an instant he had it. He let out an involuntary growl, sitting bolt upright. “What is it, Idris?” Uthar asked.

“I remember what the rods do. If they’re touched simultaneously they’ll open a door.”

“A portal or a physical door?”

“A door. Or more likely a sphincter,” Idris grimaced. Uthar, already tired, looked even more weary at this news. “Let’s leave it until after we rest.”

---

Eli’s watch was uneventful—other than the soft melodies of Shalfi’s work, who seemed never to rest. For a period he seriously considered sneaking up to their pit and snuffing them both.

He idly watched his companions rest, noticing none rested easy. Hands flicked away imaginary pests (or worse), Sifer curled himself into a tight ball, Three spent some moments choking himself, stopping before Eli needed to intervene. Jitters and twitches for all; it was not a peaceful sleep and Eli felt their restlessness.

---

“Master Marko,” Eli whispered some hours later, shaking the rogue to wakefulness.

Marko blinked and sat with a start, feeling like he had barely slept at all. “Mmm,” he grunted rubbing his face. He desperately wanted more rest but knew that was not an option. “Your turn,” he sighed, standing and pacing to try and come alive.

He too witnessed the disturbed sleep of his band of friends. “I’ll kill you all!” Eli said with a strangled cry soon after he lay. Uthar muttered something about the river, the river, the river, and Idris clutched at his head as if trying to pull out something from within. Marko did his best to settle them but there was no calm to be found.

---

“Sifer,” Marko said quietly, “Your turn.”

“But I have slept, if it may be called sleep, only for a moment,” Sifer groaned.

“I know, me too,” Marko said as he collapsed to his bedroll, and in an instant he was back in his own struggle.

Sifer shook his head trying to rid it of the bad dream he could not place. It reminded him of a battlefield rest, a snatch of sleep but no more. And this battle was very vivid.

---

When finally the company roused, all felt deeply disturbed. Each had passed into that vague state that is neither sleeping nor waking. Teetering on the edge. At other times this might have been pleasant but it was not so now—so conscious of the need for sleep were they.

Adding to the disturbance was the sense of a deep, heavy, alien intelligence that had spent the time probing each dream and nightmare…and there was nothing that could be done to stop it. Trying to wake to stop the violation had been impossible. It hungered and it fed.

And even in waking the shadow lingered. That intelligence haunted everyone still; something was still listening, watching, waiting.

---

“Up until now we’ve been methodical,” Sifer said, “After this we have to be quick. Now we have to be more urgent in the way we work this place.”

“Everyone was restless in your sleep, and that’s not good,” Marko added. “Exhaustion won’t keep us on our toes.”

Idris nodded. “Something is watching us.”

“Idris, let’s try your door trick,” Uthar grunted.

Idris explained the rods again to the rest of the company. “It may open a door here, or it may be elsewhere. I’m happy to try it.”

“Are you the only person who can?” Three asked.

“No. I’m not even sure I can.”

“You’ve seen them before and have some idea, so I think you should,” Uthar encouraged.

Idris frowned, a cold fury passing over his face. “Yes. I have.” He removed his gloves, rubbed his hands to warm them, and lowered both. He hesitated for a moment then gingerly wrapped his hand around each. An electric shock rocked him as he gripped. He jerked back but held on until it passed.

“No door has opened here,” Eli observed. “Maybe it opens the double doors we saw on the other side. Want me to run around there?”

“We were going to go there anyway, before we decided we needed rest,” Three said. The company agreed.

---

Two flesh-doors stood open at the foot of the shredded flesh and broken bone scattered chamber.

“Are we calling it a sphincter or are we avoiding doing that?” Eli said.

“Sphincter,” Idris confirmed. “I’ve seen them before.”

“Haven’t we all,” Eli nodded, drawing an uncomfortable laugh from Uthar who led the way. As he approached he held up a hand as a baritone voice became audible beyond the entrance.

“94…95…96…97! Ninety-seven! Soon it shall be mine!” the voice counted determinedly.

“He’s measuring our insanity level,” Sifer whispered as the voice started again. “1…2…3…oh that was a good one…4….5….wait. That can’t be right. Ilvaash would have told me if guests were expected.”

“It knows we’re here,” Uthar whispered urgently.

“One of the spellcasting Duergar mentioned that name: ‘Ilvaash’s betrayal shall become ours’,” Idris recalled. “And remember the two Duergar we dispatched appeared to have killed the other four.”

Sifer, breaking character, stepped through the doorway first and stumbled to a halt at what he saw.

---

A blob of purple-pink flesh with one large central eye atop a mouth of razor teeth floated vigilantly ahead. Ten tentacles writhed off the central blob, each with an eye of its own.

“Ah—tremendous! How wonderful that you are here, thank you, thank you! And so many of you—finally the maze will become my lair!” the creature said gleefully.

“Beholder!” Three cried. He dropped to his knees and held his hands aloft. “KELEMVOR!!” A divine string of golden light, connected directly to the heavens, washed out of Three and coalesced over the company filling each with Kelemvor’s blessing and protection.

“What’s this, what’s this?” the Beholder murmured. A beam of something foul shot out from one of the tentacled eyes and lasered into Uthar, who for a moment felt his limbs start to seize up before he broke the ice that was paralysing them.

“Thank Kelemvor!” Three urged, and Uthar, silently, did.

Eli did too as he moved faster than seemed orcishly possible. He had considered using his bow but decided that was lame. Instead he swung his sword toward the eye but at the last moment three of the tentacles wrapped around his hand and flung the sword away into the far corner of the room. Eli was mortified. He sunk his fist into the wobbling flesh in compensation, not enjoying the soft squelch.

“I think he has a cunning plan,” Uthar observed as he watched Eli fling his weapon.

“Seems an unusual strategy,” Three agreed.

Idris was preparing his attack when another tentacled eye shot him with a black beam. His life flashed before his eyes and he almost fell before angrily resisting the promised death. “I see your death ray and raise you another!” he cried as all the Beholder’s eyes frowned as one at the second failed beam.

They frowned further when Idris’s spell finally erupted. The return beam shook the Beholder, shrinking and expanding in a panic before recovering it’s equilibrium.

“That’s an assassination ray not a death ray,” Three mused.

“My lair! Ilvaash promised me my lair!” the Beholder cried, “Don’t think fools such as you can deny me!!” Another beam shot forth targeting Marco. His legs wobbled and he could feel the sleep he so longed for calling. But his friends needed him more than he needed rest. “Not yet,” he muttered determinedly. He fired his bow in return but missed very badly.

“This will not do!” The Beholder growled with frustration, muttering something in a language only Eli understood (but chose to keep to himself such was the severity of the words). Having purged its anger, the eyes all turned to the company and the Beholder’s mouth opened in a wide grin. “I only need three…”

Accordingly, three stalks blinked and three rays shot out simultaneously.

Sifer looked down at the beam in his chest, looked back at the Beholder and found himself considering what a great friend a floating bundles of eyes would be…but then again, he was quite fond of his current company.

Eli, directly in the flight path of the rays, felt every nerve in his body start to shudder and tear as if they were ready to disintegrate. “I’ve felt that before,” Eli scoffed as he pulled everything back together.

Three, appropriately, was the third target. He took a half step toward the Beholder, almost toppling as his limbs slowed, before Kelemvor returned him to his full facilities.

Now it was the Beholder’s turn to be mortified. It didn’t understand what was going wrong. 97 others had fallen to its beams, nary a survivor amongst them. Ninety-seven! And now six willing sacrifices had shrugged off each and every ray. “Ilvaaaaaasssh! Why do you forsake me!!” it wailed.

Sifer decided it was time to forsake the Beholder further. He envisioned his five shots and went to work. The first arrow ripped a tear in the mouth of the Beholder, interrupting it’s cry. His second was rather less successful, the bow string snapping in his hand as he sought a little too much power.

The Beholder’s central eye closed briefly, then reopened with a furious glare that encompassed the company. Three gasped as he felt Kelemvor’s protection vanish. But that can’t be. He sprinted forward and quickly called for a strike of flame from his protector…but it fizzled to nothing in his hand. Three paled. “I am bereft,” he moaned softly, “There is no Kelemvor here!”

“Enough!” the Beholder cried, turning it’s attention to Eli. A dark ray engulfed him and Eli finally relented. Blackness filled his being as life was drawn from him. He shuddered but did not fall as the voice cackled. “So close, so easy, thank you Ilvaash!!”

But Eli wasn’t going to make it easy. He punched through the blackness and felt the satisfying pleasure of flesh giving way. A flurry of equally effective blows followed. “Finish him! He’s done!” he cried, more out of hope than certainty. The Beholder flung another beam toward Uthar, who stood tall and proud in the path. He didn’t feel a single thing as the beam passed harmlessly through him. “Bring more!” he taunted with a laugh.

“Nooooooooo!” the Beholder bellowed. “No no no!!”

Idris tried to volley a series of missiles but all popped into nothingness. Three watched from his despair; to be cut off from his god was far worse than the be cut off from simple magic.

“It’s large eye has cancelled out magic!” Idris cried. “We need to kill it the old fashioned way.”

“What do you think I’m trying to do!” Eli yelled.

Empowered by the Idris’s call, Marko took his chance. With a single perfect shot he pierced the bulbous eyeball, sending the Beholder into a death spiral. One by one the tentacled eyes closed, for good this time, until only the weeping single eye remained open. “I was so close,” it sobbed, and with a finally sighing whimper fell to the floor with an unceremonious splat.

Sifer, bow restrung, looked at Marko with renewed respect. It was a fine shot. He had begun to question the famous Mister Marko, but that was a true leader’s shot.

Idris reflexively cast a tiny ball of light in the palm of his hand, turning to Three when it lit. “Everything should be fine now,” he smiled. Three shook his head, disbelieving. He stood and called his own light, frowning when it too worked. He sighed, then healed everyone with Kelemvor’s return.

Eli in particular needed the help. He reached over to Three. “My faith is wavering,” he whispered.

“But no longer, surely.”

“This gives me strength,” Eli allowed, nodding to the fallen horror.

“You saw the work of Kelemvor today,” Three stressed. “You don’t think that arrow travelled so true by itself?”

“I hadn’t even considered that, master,” Eli said, eyes widening. He glanced over to Marko who shrugged, “Yes, probably?” Everyone had felt the palpable sense of a deity watching over them, a shockwave of holy power, so why not directing the fatal arrow too.

---

Another flesh-door stood ahead, but despite trying strength and leverage, nothing worked to open it. “We need to find more tines,” Idris sighed, reliving the electric shock.

Uthar led the company up the only other path. Stepping around into the next chamber revealed an unusual sight: a tattered canvas hung from ceiling wires to conceal a central area twenty feet square. A high-pitched whine, as from a plucked wire, echoed from within.

Sifer stuffed his ears with wax, making sure the company saw. Three and Marko followed suit, dulling but not silencing the twaaang. Marko cautiously approached the canvas, the sound growing as he drew closer. He flew into the air and observed from above, but was unable to see anything as the top too was covered.

“Who would do this?” Three said with concern.

Marko sliced a tiny incision in the canvas, placing his eye to the gap created. Inside was a vast and complex web of taut wires. Not randomly placed; there was an obvious if difficult to decipher pattern. The wires vibrated and whined under the otherworldly strain. He flew back to the company and reported, removing his wax. “It’s like the centre of a incredibly complex spider web. It’s under a lot of tension from the wires so disturbing it could either be a really great thing or a really bad thing,” he said prophetically.

“Was there anything living in it?” Idris asked.

“Not that I could see.” Marko walked back and lifted the canvas for all to observe. It was breath-taking; a patterned geometry of great beauty. “It reminds me of a globe,” Marko observed, “Much like many of the inhabitants of this place.”

“How is it staying together,” Eli wondered. “It is somehow self-sustaining, the wires don’t connect to anything but each other.”

Marko looked for a way into the centre but there was no obvious path. The tension hum started to press on his mind as he tried to decipher a pattern. Idris stood well back, also trying to understand what he was seeing. “The best I can guess it it’s an artwork,” he muttered, unconvinced.

“Maybe someone found this thing and put the tent over it to hide it,” Eli shrugged.

Marko lent in, smelling the wires. “Metallic,” he grunted. “Maybe electrum, or an alloy of silver and copper?”

“It’s magic then because you can’t put those sort of soft metals under that kind of tension,” Eli snorted, remembering similar attempts from his short-lived Hin smithery apprenticeship.

Marko drew his weapon. “I’m going to touch it, not with my flesh but with my dagger. I’m not going to cut it, just tap it, but be prepared.” Idris rapidly withdrew…but not rapidly enough.

Marko tapped the wire gently and the wire instantly snapped with a thunderous and discordant surge. Everyone grasped their heads which echoed with the piercing discord, and reeled under the bludgeoning force of the roar of sound.

“Ow!” Eli glared at Marko.

“Yeah,” Marko agreed, rubbing his forehead. “And I have more bad news: the artwork’s not exactly looking like art anymore.”

The wire had collapsed into a solid ball only a foot across, the tension released and wrapped in upon itself a thousandfold. “We’re lucky no-one was in the middle of all that,” Eli said with some understatement.

“At least we have a tent to sleep in now if we want,” Marko grinned. He picked up the cannonball shaped remains of the art and dropped it into his sack.

“What do we think that was?” Eli asked again.

“It was a trap,” Sifer said simply.

“By who for what? Protecting what?”

“I think it was for communicating with something. Something somewhere else,” Uthar offered.

“It was in a tent!”

“The first wave of energy that hit us is something I’m familiar with,” Idris said. “It could just be a trap, as Sifer said, but it may have been containing a consciousness.”

“Like trapped inside it?”

“It’s not there now,” Marko grinned.

“So that consciousness has now been squished? Or…freed?” Eli said.

“There was a psychic release when it was collapsed. Given it was an apparently empty space, that is unusual,” Idris explained. “But then that is the nature of the Far Realm. Thought and matter mix together in unsusual ways.”

“I don’t understand why.”

“It’s not for us to understand. It’s a place we were never meant to be or live in. It’s the home of places like this and mad elder gods.”

“I would like to go to my home,” Eli said sulkily.

Three healed first himself (Kelemvor blessing him fully), then everyone else who needed it (Marko and Eli, who had been at the tent’s edge, were in particularly bad shape). “I’m running low,” he announced. Eli was shocked to see Three was sweating with the effort, flesh pallid, the chant of Kelemvor running him dry. A trickle of blood ran from his mouth where he had bitten his tongue as he forced more from his wrung out flesh.

“Are you ok?” Marko said, noticing and clapping a hand on Three’s shoulder. “Take a break.”

“It’s….we go on,” Three replied with an exhausted but determined look.

---

The next alcove was stacked haphazardly with furniture and other supplies. The pile included a spiked divan, a table with a single central leg, and a clockwork machine with the gears fused together. A toppled worktable at the back of the room was all but obscured by the clutter. It all looked like rubbish more than anything else.

“Why would anyone drag all this in here,” Three wondered. “Like it’s blowing in from a different universe.”

“There’s a pram,” Eli pointed out. “And a head like one of those things from…the Mournland,” he muttered, a ghost walking over his grave as he remembered.

“And a globe,” Idris said hefting a two-foot ruin. It looked to be a celestial map of some kind, but badly damaged and illegible.

Marko was enjoying himself rummaging through the chaos, keeping an eye out for trinkets and tools—and any wire that resembled his recently acquired ‘artwork’. But even Marko’s sharp senses struggled to find anything of worth.

Working his way to the back of the nook, Idris peered over the fallen table. “Oh!” he exclaimed. “There’s a shaft, with a rope dangling down into it. A calcified hole in the flesh.”

“Wasn’t Shalfi trying to dig through to get to…a dragon?” Three recalled. Eli and Idris nodded furiously. Surely not…?

“We’re probably going to have to go down there,” Idris sighed.

“Let’s check the other corridor first,” Uthar said, leading away.

---

Uthar rounded the corridor to step into a large chamber with another double flesh door on the far side. He turned to announce this when he caught sight of two figures emerging from the shadows in the edges of the room.

---

Slumped humanoids with sloughing swap-green skin and tentacles growing from their back shuddered forward, backed by two nothics whose eyes stared with hungry need.

Marko reacted fast, stabbing the closest twice. The further creature reached all its tentacles forward and a rend of psychic power filled the room. As was becoming expected, everyone resisted the promised horror. The creature frowned and vanished, reappearing at the far side of the room. At the spot from which he disappeared, a void appeared and sucked everyone inexorably toward it. Or it would have if everyone had not been feeling particularly strong; only Idris failed to resist the call. He was rocked with force and yanked to the void, which petered out on his arrival.

Three attempted to subdue the fiend, but the tentacles writhed and shielded the creature’s mine. Eli, serenity returned after feeling the touch of the lord following his talk with Brother Cooper, struck with a flurry of sword and fist, leaving the near aberration on death’s door.

The nothics did their best to suck secrets from the company, but failed with every attempt. Their pathetic flailing fists were similarly ineffective.

Feeling untouchable, the company stepped into their murderously effective roles. An irresistible combination of arrows, magic, fists and blades finished the four assailants in a matter of moments.

“That was easy,” Eli said, brushing goop from his hands.

“Thank Kelemvor,” Three nodded.

With the combat ended, Idris found a filthy bed hidden in a sheltered alcove, upon which lay a gith that had been rent asunder, obviously by tests that had been performed upon it. The skull was split open and the brain was gone. Idris grunted and leaned in to study the head-wound, finding exactly what he was looking for.

“Mind flayers?” Three whispered, hovering over Idris’s shoulder.

“His mother?” Eli whispered in Three’s ear, hovering over his shoulder.

Idris let out a guttural growl. He placed a hand on the gith’s forehead and spoke a quiet prayer in githyanki: “*I lament this soul, consumed by the souless”

Eli was close enough to hear, and now he understood every spoken language he was happy to eavesdrop. “Amen, brother,” he said without thinking, but Idris was too focused to notice as he collected the few remaining identifying items.

“It’s only been dead a day at most,” Three said. “Which means there’s a mind flayer near.” Eli glanced nervously at the doors on the far side of the chamber.

“That’s what I was assuming because of the tines in the wall,” Idris grunted. “Now we know. But that’s ok—we’ve killed them before.” He looked around at the company with a dark, stormy glare. “They’re not invincible. And I need two more skulls for my desk.”

---

Another attempt was made at opening the doors, but once again it failed. Idris even tried asking, in many languages, for the doors to open. He was somewhat astonished when a reply came when he tried in deepspeech, imitating a Ghaik. He didn’t hear a voice, but sensed the meaning in his mind. He turned to the group. “The same presence that was in our sleep does not want this door opened,” he announced. “It said ‘no’.”

“We need more of the iron prongs,” Eli said. “Was there none in the junk-room?”

A quick search determined there were indeed none. “Time to go down the hole?” Uthar suggested.

“I need to rest,” Three said quietly.

“We’ll have another level of fatigue if we do,” Eli warned. “Even with your spells back, that’s bad.”

“I think we need to take the no-spell risk,” Idris agreed. “If we go down the hole there’s a small chance the presence won’t effect us as much because we don’t know what’s down there.”

Eli agreed. “I think we’re on a contracting time scale. We can’t afford to stop.”

“I think we probably are too, Eli. As I said, this is not a place we should be.”

Sifer took out an elixir of health and held it aloft. “Keep ‘em ready.”

“Down we go,” Uthar nodded.

---

Uthar landed in a vaulted chamber coated with slick mucus that stank of rancid grease. The first thing he notice was two metal rods jutting from the wall. The second was a human mage deep in conversation with…a young purple dragon. The dragon turned it’s head to study the new arrival.

---

“Welcome,” it breathed with what Uthar could only characterise as a hungry grin.

---

Ask Questions Later

“And who might you be?” the dragon said taking a menacing step toward the company.

Not one to be menaced, Idris took a corresponding step forward. “My name is Idris, and these are my boon companions.”

“And what brings you to our little nest?”

“We are in search of something.”

“Us?”

Idris shook his head. “We didn’t intend to come into your nest intentionally. It was more as part of our search of this place. We are hoping to find an…object.”

Sifer, as per Sifer, had shuffled as far away from the dragon as he could manage, drawing near the rods. The dragon swung its head toward him. “Are you scared?”

“Ah…no,” Sifer smiled, “But I am experienced in life.”

The dragon snorted, enjoying Sifer’s honesty.

“Pardon, but I didn’t quite catch your name,” Idris said.

“Lowarnizel, and this is Gossa,” the dragon nodded to the dark elf mage.

“You might not be looking for us,” Gossa said inclining his head, “But someone is.”

“Yes. There’s a gentleman upstairs who’s been looking for you for some time.”

“A man affected by aberration,” Three added, “Trying to dig his way to you.”

“Did he say why?”

“He believes you have treasure,” Idris explained.

“Ha, if only! Well he’s welcome to what we have,” Gossa smirked, waving toward a pile of dishevelled bedclothes.

“Then why are you here? It is an odd place to find you,” Three pushed.

“It certainly is,” Gossa continued, “We tried a plane-shift spell and ended up here instead. A scroll, so it was a one-way ticket.”

“How long ago?”

“Oh…days? Time seems quite strange here.”

“There are many things strange here,” Idris nodded, “Proximity to the Far Realm may explain that.”

“I bet they’ve been here for aeons,” Eli said softly. He was slightly agog at the sight of Lowarnizel, his first sight of an actual dragon, but also slightly disappointed. Lowarnizel wasn’t very large and, whilst quite impressive he supposed, with those wings and intelligent eyes, it was not what he had been expecting. He expected majesty. Doom. Mythical power and legendary presence. Lowarnizel was a little…lightweight? He stepped forward and cleared his throat. “Are you stuck here?” he asked, sizing up the ‘dragon’ and the hole in the ceiling.

“Well…for the moment, yes. I can’t fit, but Gossa can, and he can find feed for me. That’s what I was hoping you were,” Lowarnizel said focusing his gaze on Marko. “That little one looks very tasty!”

“May I be so bold to ask you,” Three said, “When you read that scroll where did you think you were going?”

“To Oearth on the Material Plane.”

“We know that place,” Eli nodded, happy to have remembered his newfound knowledge of the ‘planes’. “What plane were you coming from?”

“It is of no consequence. But where are you from?”

“An orb called Toril,” Idris said.

“Ah yes, been there—too many dragons!”

“Less of late,” Idris smiled.

“So tell me—what is it exactly you are looking for?” Lowarnizel asked again.

Idris was unsure of Lowarnizel’s intent. He glanced at Three who shook his head shortly. “We’re looking for…a piece of an object.”

“Well there’s a lot upstairs,” Gossa pointed. “All manner of ‘objects’.”

“That’s not what we require.”

“Are you sure? I saw many interesting things; a doll’s head, a piece of old metal shaped like a sieve, a broken hammer?”

“It’s an item of…significant magical worth,” Idris stressed.

Lowarnizel lifted his head and took another step closer. “Magical, you say. Perhaps that is something I would be interested in.”

“Well it only works on Toril,” Three said, thinking fast. “Are you going to go there?”

“If this object is powerful and useful, then yes, I will.” The dragon loomed closer, quite intimidating despite its relatively small size.

“Unfortunately it’s required for something else,” Idris apologised.

“And attuned to Idris. Useless to anyone else,” Three added. “Have you found anything interesting in whatever this place is?”

“I haven’t ventured far,” Gossa admitted. “I find myself weary. It’s not a nice place and it smells bad.”

“It’s a giant brain, constantly attacking, and the weaker you are…”

“Maybe you can help us get out of here?”

“We would if we could, but we can’t. We’re also stuck here,” Three said.

“We haven’t yet ascertained a way to get out of the larger edifice above,” Idris explained. “But we may have a way to get Lowarnizel out of here,” he added indicating the chamber.

“Well I would be very grateful if you could,” Lowarnizel breathed. “But don’t trouble yourself—I’ve got these,” he grinned, lifting a massive claw.

“Have you had much success with that?”

“I haven’t tried yet. Like Gossa, I find myself still gathering my strength.”

“It’s like a malaise on them,” Eli whispered.

Idris nodded. “Why don’t you have a think if you want to take us up on this offer. In the meantime we need to do something here.”

“Here? In this room?”

“We need to utilise a…feature of this room to open a door upstairs,” Idris said as Eli slid over toward the rods and Sifer.

“Ohh, the rods,” Lowarnizel said, turning to Gossa. “I told you!”

Gossa shook his head. “I wouldn’t be touching those if I were you—they’ll set off an alarm!”

“No, no, they’ll open a door,” Lowarnizel countered, “Just as our new friends say.”

“Alarm!”

“Door!”

“Your draconic companion is correct—they do indeed open doors,” Idris said, breaking the stalemate (and pleased to be on the side of the dragon). “Although they have a bit of a sting.”

“You know this or you are just speculating?” Gossa probed.

“I opened one upstairs,” Idris said brushing his hands, “That’s how I know about the sting.”

“Gossa might be right,” Three hissed to Idris. “They might all be different and Gossa has been here a long time. Let’s not be too hasty.”

Idris glanced at Eli and gave a short nod. Eli reached out and grabbed the rods, just as he had seen Idris do.

“Stop!!” Gossa and Three cried too late, Eli shuddering under the charge that his grip had connected and screaming unintelligibly in a language only he understood.

“Told you,” Gossa said.

“You were right,” Three nodded.

“That didn’t look pleasant,” Lowarnizel observed looking around the room, “And I’m sorry to say but there are no new doors open here.”

“It’s not for the door here, Lowarnizel,” Idris said.

“Kelemvor,” Three said softly, trying to disguise it with a cough as he healed Eli. Eli muttered something in Orcish, causing Sifer to raise an eyebrow.

“Kelemvor?” Lowarnizel said staring at Three. “Are you sure? An unusual choice.”

“Of the Grave,” Three said devoutly, ignoring the dragon’s implication.

“If you’re still here when we leave,” Idris said, “And we have an opportunity—assuming we find a way out—we’ll come back and see what we can do to help.”

“Very good,” Lowarnizel smiled, long teeth bared. “And if you find any more morsels like that small friend of yours, drop them down the hole.”

“And I’m not sure you want to eat any of the local fauna,” Idris laughed.

“You’d be surprised—I do get hungry,” Lowarnizel said, eyes still on Marko.

Idris stepped in front of Marko. “I’m not sure why he’s silent, but let’s just say he’s not for eating by dragons.”

“Not yet!”

Idris smiled weakly and the company scampered up the rope.

---

The doors in the northern chamber still stood closed, so the company headed back toward the middle passage. On the way, Sifer picked up and tossed a dead nothic down the dragon hole.

“Tremendous!” Lowarnizel’s voice boomed from below. “Plenty of jelly—I will remember this!”

The dead Beholder lay in the pool of its own goop, and both doors it had guarded now stood open. Sifer checked the entrance border for tracks, but there was no sign of recent passage. But there were two bodies lying in the chamber beyond, illuminated by amethyst crystals embedded in the walls.

“Careful now,” Sifer pointed. “Bodies, and those crystals are a very similar shade to our friend the dragon.”

“That’s a ghaik,” Idris growled. He stepped forward and raised his hand and pinged a burst of sorcery into it to see if would move. “Dead,” he announced when it didn’t.

“Is there any sign of what killed it?” Eli asked.

“Not from this distance.”

Uthar led the way inside, revealing a third dead flayer around the bend ahead. Sifer examined the crystals. “There’s something pulsing inside them,” he said softly, “And they’re embedded in the walls, not something that has grown out from it.”

“I want to go home,” Eli groaned.

“Did they kill each other?” Sifer asked Idris who crouched over the nearest body.

“I don’t think so,” Idris frowned, “This one was killed by a…trident? Ghaik don’t use tridents—devils do? And you’d need to be strong to kill a flayer with a trident.”

“A sahuagin,” Three suggested out of nowhere. “Who else uses tridents?”

“And this one took an axe to the head,” Eli pointed. “A warrior, as was the first body, but the far one is in robes.” He looked at the positioning of the bodies. “They’ve been staged to look like they killed each other, answering your question Sifer.”

“And they’ve been stripped of anything valuable,” Idris observed. “They were killed by something else, not each other.”

Three crouched by a mark he found in the floor, almost healed over. “Claw marks here. Not boots. Idris?”

Idris turned, holding the dripping head of the first flayer in his hand. “How far apart are the claws?”

Three raised an eyebrow at Idris’s loot. “Larger than the human hand.”

“I’m thinking a foot, not a hand,” Idris said as he went to work on the next head.

“Dragon sized,” Three nodded, “A small dragon.”

“We just saw a small dragon,” Uthar said warily.

“A small crystalline dragon made of something the same colour as these wall crystals,” Sifer said even more warily.

“I wonder if it can just explode crystals in all directions,” Eli mused.

“There are no crystals on the bodies. But the dragon liked magic so I think we should be very careful.”

“I think we should too, though he was very amenable,” Idris said as he tossed the third head into his bag.

“Maybe, but I think we’re lucky that, for once, we didn’t cause trouble with our two friends back there,” Sifer grimaced.

---

Uthar rounded the next bend and stopped. A jackal-headed woman sat at a writing desk, reading intently.

---

She looked up and gasped. “Spare me! Spare me! I mean no danger to anyone!” she begged, hands raised in surrender.

“Of course madam, we’re not here to do anyone any harm,” Uthar nodded.

Eli glanced around the company and raised an eyebrow at that declaration. He scanned deeper into her alcove for tridents, but saw only a folding cot covered with soft furs.

“Oh thank goodness for that,” the woman smiled.

“Unless you’re evil,” Uthar added, cocking an eyebrow at the jackal.

“And is she?” Eli whispered. Uthar, despite knowing the answer, didn’t respond. He guessed how this would go but hoped this was an opportunity to find some answers.

“How may I be of assistance, gentlemen?”

“Yes, how can you?” Sifer smirked.

“That’s what I asked you, sir,” the woman said sharply, arms still raised.

Three sighed. “How are you here? How are you alive? How are there three dead mind-flayers in the room adjoining you? How are you eating?”

“My, my, that is a lot of questions. May I take one at a time?”

“Very well: how are you here?”

“Do you mind if I lower my hands first?”

“Very well. But no tridents!” Three said.

“Indeed.” The woman laid her hands carefully on the open book before her, obscuring the writing therein. “Now. How am I here?”

“Wait a minute,” Sifer called from the back, watching her hands carefully. Eli agreed: “I prefer the arms stay up.”

“My companions would like you to step away from your desk and that book,” Three advised.

“Is this really necessary?”

“Yes. That’s why we’re alive.”

“As am I.”

“Are you arguing?”

“I mean you no harm.”

“Step away from the book,” Eli scowled.

“Or else these people around me will get angry,” Three added.

“Well I wouldn’t want that,” the woman sighed, standing and stepping back from the desk. “I see you are a belligerent lot.”

Marko finally found his voice. “No, no, I apologise for our…concern,” he said with a bow.

“Finally a voice of reason,” the jackal smiled. “The halflings always were a noble race!”

Eli grunted at this. How would she know.

Marko moved into the alcove and offered his hand. She lay her paw in his, and Marko found himself pleasantly surprised at the tenderness of her gesture and the softness of her hand. “A gentleman,” she said with a squeeze, “They are so few and far between.”

Marko almost, but not quite, kissed her paw.

“You don’t know how much that means to me,” she said softly, “In a place like this, meeting a simple man such as yourself is wonderful.”

“May I enquire as to what you are doing here?” Marko probed.

“Well I am studying, as you can see,” she said nodding to her desk. “My book, my dangerous book—”

“Dangerous?”

She laughed. “No, it’s not, but your friends here seem to think it holds grave terrors!”

“I thought books were for wisdom, not danger,” Marko said charmingly.

“Precisely, sir, precisely! So much insight you have,” she beamed.

Marko glanced down at the open book as casually as he could manage. He didn’t recognise the language, but it did look like a diary more than a spellbook or grimoire.

“It is my journal,” the jackal continued. “I travel the realms searching for forbidden knowledge—and as luck would have it I stumbled upon this wonderful place. Isn’t it a marvel!”

“Let me have a look,” Three said, stepping toward the book.

“It’s personal,” the woman said quickly. “Would you allow me to read your journal?”

“No. But you’re not inside a giant brain for no reason.” Three spun the book to face him and his face darkened at what he saw. Seeing Three’s recognition, the woman stepped forward and closed the tome softly. “It’s personal, as I said.”

“The rules of personal are a bit hazy when I find three dead mind-flayers nearby,” Three scowled. He turned to the company. “This is written in a combination of Abyssal and Infernal. Which is a very, very odd mix.” At the back of the room Sifer slipped into a martial stance.

“Do we allow evil beings to persist?” Eli said, drawing his sword.

“Before this gets out of hand,” the jackal protested hotly, “Are you telling me you would rather those flayers were alive? Can I have a chance to explain myself before you lop off my head?”

“Of course, my lady,” Marko said, trying to win back her favour.

“If you were to record knowledge, forbidden and deeply held knowledge, and you didn’t want just anyone to walk up and read it,” she said glaring toward Eli, “Would you not also use a script that very few understand? So it could remain out of reach to those who would misuse it. Men not like you sir,” she said with short nod toward Three.

“I will read the first paragraph and then I will judge,” Three said, not one for flattery.

“You will read nothing,” the jackal said quietly.

“Sifer?” Three said flatly.

Sifer levelled his bow. “I think we will.”

Dropping his head, Idris put his hand up, flayer ichor dripping down his arm. “May I ask your name, lady?”

“You may. My name is Ashripask.”

“And am I to take it that you are in this place voluntarily?”

“You know in most society, once someone offers their name it is expected you will offer yours in return?” she said with a wry look.

“Idris.”

“A fine gith name, though you look different to your compatriots in the maze. Did you meet?”

“Mm. Yes. We did.”

“A friendly reunion?”

It was clear she knew more than she was letting on, but Idris stayed calm. “No it was not.”

Three was tiring of the attempt at diplomacy. “Again, why are you here?” he snapped. “Is it written in this book?”

Ashripask ignored Three’s words, turning to Sifer instead. “You at the back with the bow—you intend to fire on me, despite me having done nothing to warrant it?”

“Not sure,” Sifer said, not moving.

Three reached for the book. “No,” Ashripask growled, vanishing and reappearing at the far end of the chamber, behind Sifer. “I said no. I have worked hard for this knowledge. It is not for fools who judge without knowing.”

“You did not answer our questions—” Three started.

“I have answered every question,” Ashripask snapped.

“Why. Are. You. Here?”

“I will not repeat myself. If you will not listen it is not me to blame.”

“My lady,” Marko tried again, “What is the book about?”

Ashripask’s gaze darkened. “I have said many times. It is my journal! Knowledge that I have accumulated over many, many, many years. And I keep it for myself. Why are you so fascinated by it at the exclusion of all else?”

“Because knowledge, as I said earlier, is for sharing. For wisdom. And others like ourselves are on a similar quest.”

“And as I said earlier, some knowledge is too dangerous to share. And some knowledge is personal.”

“This is a dangerous place,” Sifer said.

“It is.”

“And we would seek your support to avoid such danger,” Marko pleaded.

“You have an unusual way of seeking support,” Ashripask said glancing at Sifer and Eli’s drawn weapons.

Eli shook his head. “I don’t seek her support. She is a creature of evil. Every one that we leave behind is our failure.” He looked over to Uthar, who sighed before giving a short nod.

“Ashripask,” Idris said, still hoping for something more than bloodshed. “Am I to take it that you have a method of leaving this place?”

She paused, sensing a trap, then nodded.

“Do you have a portal to take us out? Or do you travel via your own means such as a plane shift?”

“The latter.”

Idris nodded. “And am I to take it you dispatched the three ghaik in the corridor?”

“That was not me.”

“Were they dead when you got here?”

“No. I had assistants but they abandoned me—and killed the ‘ghaik’.”

“She summoned minions,” Eli growled.

“Mezzoloths, a Nycaloth,” Ashripask confirmed.

“Are they devils or demons? Infernal or abyssal?” Idris asked. “One being far more reasonable than the other.”

“Infernal. Fiends.”

Eli lifted his blade. This was too much. He didn’t know what the creatures were but they sounded bad.

“May I ask one last question?” Idris said.

“Before you kill me, or?”

“Did you happen to see a pair of metal—”

Eli coughed, leaning on the exact thing. Idris rolled his eyes, seeing another fifteen feet from the first.

“You really aren’t very observant are you?”

“It’s been a long day,” Uthar said.

Ashripask snorted. “You know there’s more to those rods than…but no, no. You’re not interested. And not worth the telling.”

“To the contrary, we’re very interested,” Idris countered.

“I don’t think you are. My book is the only thing you care about. You are very unpleasant, gentlemen—other than you, my halfling friend. That kiss touched my heart,” she said with a soft nod. “Farewell.” She started to walk away toward the crystal chamber.

Eli stepped in front of her.

Ashripask looked up at him. “Excuse me. I would like to pass.”

“You are a cancer on the world and must die,” Eli declared dispassionately.

“I think that’s overstating things a little, don’t you?”

“Not really,” Eli said, whipping his blade into her torso. The first blow skimmed her, and with the second he jagged the sword into the wall. He wailed with fury at his failure.

“This was a terrible mistake,” Ashripask growled. She reached a finger out and touched Eli’s neck, softly, so softly. He jerked as a fire of deadly necrosis surged through his pores. He staggered and cried out but did not fall. “Still alive, I see,” she purred.

Marko sprinted around the corner, dagger drawn. “I’m sorry,” he whispered as he sunk his blade into her thigh.

“As am I,” she growled through the pain etched on her face.

Sifer point blanked her, but at the last moment she slipped her head out of the way. And again, for the next. She smiled and Sifer cursed. Recalling Marko’s success, he stepped through the mists to stand by her side, surprising everyone. But much to his frustration his blade also failed to find the mark.

Uthar had more success. He pounded her with his sword, using it more like a bludgeon than a blade. She tried her best to avoid the blows but staggered, barely maintaining her feet. Blood pooled at her feet as Three tolled her death, locking eyes. “Kelemvor,” he said grimly.

“He won’t save you. You are doomed,” Ashripask gasped as she but barely escaped Kelemvor’s embrace. “He won’t take me yet,” she smiled, then vanished into a pinpoint of golden light.

“Damn it!” Three cried.

“She didn’t move far last time so keep your eyes peeled!” Idris warned.

Sifer shook his head. “She’s plane shifted,” he said.

“She might have gone home,” Idris nodded.

Eli stalked away into the crystals.

---

“I hope we don’t die here,” Idris sighed to Uthar.

“Oh no, we’re just going to be trapped here,” Uthar groaned.

“Form a chain,” Sifer said, standing by the rod. Uthar walked to the other, waiting for a third to form the link. “Idris?”

“I’ve already had my turn,” Idris frowned.

“I hear you,” Uthar said, but still holding his hand out ready.

“So irritating,” Idris scowled, taking Uthar and Sifer’s hand. The jolt rocked the three volunteers.

Three spent some time searching Ashripask’s hovel. Trinkets (one of which he collected, a paperweight shaped like a paw), writing materials, and a rough bed. In one of the desk draws he found a soft, violet skullcap, stitched to mimic the folds of a brain.

“Put it on!” Marko encouraged when Three displayed it.

“Do you want to, Marko?” Three offered.

“Noooo.”

“Right answer. We should identify it first,” Three said.

“Can I have a look at it first?” Sifer said. Three handed it over and Sifer rotated it and squinted. “It’s a map,” he declared. “Of where we are. Isn’t it?”

Three shook his head. “It’s symbolic. It’s a brain, but not this brain. I would guess it augments your thinking.”

Sifer nodded, tossing it back to Three. “That was the first creature we’ve met that has power to come and go from this place.”

“Which is why it’s unfortunate we attacked it,” Idris said walking down the corridor.

“Well we didn’t attack it,” Sifer said with a nod toward Eli who was stalking ahead.

“Three you may need to tweak whatever indoctrination you’ve imparted on Eli,” Idris said thoughtfully.

Three scoffed and tossed one of his last heals at Eli, who ignored it entirely.

---

The orifice doors were open at the top chamber, but the entire company paused at seeing what lay beyond.

Most of the large room was taken up by an enormous briny pool sixty feet across. The liquid in the pool was murky, but dim green light welled up from the depths.

Marko staggered when he caught site of the pool, his mind and pulse racing. He clutched Sifer to stop from falling. “What is it?” Sifer asked with concern.

“T-t-this is what I saw…before,” Marko spluttered, faint headed.

“When?”

Marko’s gaze was blank as he relived the horror of his vision through the eye-stalks in Goculus’s lair. “The p-p-pool…”

“When he looked through the eyes,” Three muttered. “And I couldn’t see anything.”

“In the stone passages on the other side of the portal,” Idris added, “Something he shouldn’t have looked in. This is the place that he saw.”

“What’s the implication?” Sifer said, still holding Marko steady.

“That this place has a link to those corridors,” Idris guessed. “Which means we might be able to utilise it to get out of here.”

Sifer nodded. “But we don’t want to leave until we achieve our goal.”

“Do we have a reading?” Three said, nodding at the pool.

Idris pulled out the half-constructed Rod and empowered it. “There’s no direction, only chaos,” he muttered, “This place is wreaking havoc.”

“And the g-g-gateway lies below,” Marko stammered, coming to his senses slowly.

“Oh, that’s right,” Idris nodded. “He saw a portal at the bottom of the pool that led somewhere in the Far Realm.”

“We all know what this means,” Eli declared, flexing his shoulders.

“I don’t think Marko can do this,” Three said, projecting his own qualms.

The company approached the pool, careful to remain within Uthar’s protective aura. Clouds of blood and strange lumps of flesh floated throughout the fluid below the surface…and a sigmoid shadow twisted and turned far below in the bottomless depths.

Marko twitched.

“Smells like swamp or worse,” Idris reported. “Dense, dirty—and thick,” he added after drifting a gloved hand through the fluid. “This is going to be very difficult to move through, if we’re planning on that.”

“I don’t think we have any other plans, right?” Uthar shrugged. Three watched the goop dripping slowly from Idris’s fingers and knew exactly what the fluid was. He kept it to himself; no need to cause panic.

Idris lit up a coin and mage-handed it into the pool. He sunk it down to sixty-feet, through the blood clots, the edge of his range. He dropped the control and watched it continue to sink until it was out of sight. “This goes very, very, deep.”

“Mister Marko,” Eli asked. “When you had your vision, and saw there was a portal at the bottom, did you have any sense of how far down the portal was?”

“Forever,” Marko said, blinking furiously. “I don’t think it can be done.” He remembered getting close, so close, but never reaching the end. But he was convinced there was a gateway there. He was certain.

Sifer turned to Idris and Three. “Do you have any way of producing a shape that we could be safe inside if we submerged in the pool?”

“I am down to the barest of spells,” Three shook his head, “So even if I did I cannot do it without rest.”

“I think time is less pressing now,” Sifer said, “We are past the dangers of this place. Nothing is here to threaten us…except ourselves. We’ve cleared this place and we have a vision to follow, if it takes another rest then so be it.”

“No, you would all get further effected by the malaise,” Three said shaking his head, thinking of the dragon’s inertia and his companion’s discombobulated sleep.

Everyone stared at the pool glumly. “This may not be the way?” Idris offered. “Recall the Archmage’s said there was some confusion about where the next rod part lay on Oerth. Maybe we have missed some other path?”

Uthar nodded. “I feel the same. This brain is a symmetric world and we have not explored everything.”

“I disagree,” Eli said. “We have passed through every door, three gates to get here. This is the end of the path.”

“As a veteran of many battles,” Sifer agreed, “This is the way.”

“We just have to make the leap of faith,” Uthar sighed.

A loud SPLASH! announced to the company that Eli had done just that. A ‘leap of faith’ was just what he needed to hear.

Eli dived below the surface, feeling the fluid pressing in on all sides, hugging him uncomfortably. He descended as fast as he could as far down as he could. Contact with the pool connected his mind to the same vast, alien presence that had been haunting the company, watching and waiting.

“Oh noooo, Eli,” Three cried, not looking. “But not my fault!”

“But you should take responsibility,” Sifer smirked.

Three rolled his eyes, then jerked a vial from his satchel and poured it over his head. A slick oil covered every inch of his flesh, spreading magically as he jammed a candle in his mouth. He lowered his goggles, looked around the company and nodded, then dived in after Eli.

After several minutes Eli was seven-hundred feet deep and there was no sight of the bottom. Another two minutes and he was over half a mile down and his lungs were bursting. He realised he had miscalculated—there was no going back. He glanced up and saw a tiny flickering glow dropping down fast, but couldn’t make out what it was, and in any case it was too far away to help.

Death reared in his mind, a life wasted, the mysteries of faith still hidden, his mother waiting for his return, his father lying dead before him.

He had no choice but to breath.

He opened his mouth and gagged as the viscous fluid flooded his mouth, throat and lungs. He spluttered and choked and drew in another heaving load. And with shock and rising joy realised…he could breath!

Moments later Three shot out of the gloom and reached for Eli. Eli spun, expecting trouble, and shoved Three away before he realised who it was. Three careened backwards into a two-foot hunk of torn and rotting flesh, sending a pulsing ripple through the pool.

Both Eli and Three sensed something move. The glanced down into the hidden depths and saw the sigmoid shadow straighten and surge toward them at an impossible speed.

---

Eyes wide, Three pointed to the enormous serpent, jaws big enough to swallow a horse whole. He tried again to grab Eli to try and force him toward the surface.

It was too late. The serpent’s tail whipped through the pool and jammed into Three’s back, sending a wracking pain through his every nerve. More pain that he had ever felt. He screamed noiselessly, almost losing the candle as his body spasmed. Through some miracle he avoided the wyrm’s gaping jaws, the oil coating his body allowing him to slip out of the path by the narrowest of margins. He braced himself for a follow up, but, thank Kelemvor, the serpent instead dived back down and out of sight.

Three flung himself upward, and Eli, having finally realised it was his master who was with him, followed close behind, horrified at what he had witnessed.

---

Three crawled from the pond gasping in agony. He threw up, trying to rid his system of the poison. The rend down his arm was bleeding freely, merging with the purple-tinged vomit he coughed out. He healed his wound but the poison pain persisted.

Marko rushed over, finding Three terrified. “It’s coming!” Three gasped.

“What’s coming?”

“Dragon!”

Eli burst through the surface of the pool minutes later, spewing fluid from his lungs and crying as if to confirm Three’s report. “Ahhhhhhhh!”

The company gathered around the pool-men. Idris had assumed them dead so long had they been submerged, and Uthar was equally surprised. “What happened?” Idris asked quickly.

“Give them a minute,” Sifer said, “They’re in shock.”

Three glared at Sifer and jerked a thumb toward Eli. “I got him, like you asked.”

“There was a monster!” Eli cried.

“You were both below there for an inordinate amount of time,” Idris said with some wonder.

Three was sitting in a pool of oil, vomit, and brain juice. “You can breathe under there. It’s cerebral-spinal fluid—I didn’t want to say it because Eli’s so fucking sensitive,” Three spat, his panic and fear bleeding into blind anger. He yanked his googles off and wiped the wax from his mouth, quenching the candle.

“Ok,” Idris said calmly, “And there’s a dragon under there?”

“A real dragon!” Eli side, “Not like that crystal one.”

“It could eat a horse in one swallow,” Three confirmed.

“As big as a house, as long as a river!”

“That’s a big dragon,” Idris said, slightly sceptical.

“I don’t know if it’s a dragon,” Three said to Eli’s surprise. “It might be a sea-serpent? Or, if you’ve ever seen in the old books, a remorhaz? It looked like that.”

“Did you beat it?” Sifer asked.

“No,” Three shook his head. “It stabbed me with it’s tail, and tried to swallow me.”

“And it swam away,” Eli added.

“Why?” Sifer asked.

“I don’t know,” Eli scowled. “Why don’t you go and ask it, Sifer!”

“That’s enough out of you!” Three snapped.

“Yes, you’re the one that dived into the pool unbidden, Eli,” Idris added accusingly.

“I’m not the one that banged into a dead lump and woke the monster!” Eli glared.

“What?!” Three screeched, flinging goo from his eyes.

“Ok, ok,” Idris said trying to calm things. “Did you see the portal at the bottom?”

“No,” Three and Eli said together, sulkily.

“But you could both breath?” Idris stressed, to a nod from both. “So we need to rest before we try this. Three, you seem like you’re hurt and in a lot of pain—”

“You know how much pain?” Three interrupted. “That stab was equal to the day I lost my god. That’s how bad that was.”

“Well that doesn’t worry all of us,” Sifer mocked cruelly.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Idris said scowling at Sifer, “What I’m asking is: do you want us to wait here while you rest, or should we just go?”

“If you go in the fluid it will come back. You will have to fight it under there.”

“Hold on, hold on,” Sifer said. “What was it you said Eli? You said it was bidden—how? How did it come?”

“He banged into a chunk of flesh,” Eli said nodding to Three, “A nodule that vibrated and called it…I don’t know.”

“So we just need avoid those as we go down,” Sifer said hopefully.

“That would be a good idea, Sifer,” Eli said grudingly.

Three repeated the tale of the chaos below, agreeing finally that Sifer’s reasoning made sense. “This leaves us with two options. One we go down and avoid it, or we draw it to the surface by creating enough disturbance and we can kill it here. Both options are bad,” Three conceded.

“Bring it on purpose you say,” Eli said thoughtfully, “Lure it.”

“Maybe. But do you think it would come out?” Uthar said doubtfully. “It seems like it wouldn’t leave it’s own territory.”

Idris nodded and walked over to the pond. He knelt down, breathed out fully to empty his lungs, and put his face below the water. He drew a full and deep breath of fluid, then another, until his lungs were once again full. He stood and faced the company as his neck spasmed and a neat jet sprayed from his nose and mouth.

The company watched on, somehow not surprised. Of course Idris could do that.

“We don’t have time for a rest here after all,” Sifer said. He turned and strode to the pool, followed Idris’s lead—but with a lot more gagging and choking—until he too could breathe the fluid. Then he sunk below the surface.

“Can we start using our words before acting!” Three cried as he watched in horror.

“He did,” Idris grinned, loosening his hood. “He said ‘we don’t have time for a rest.'” This time the company did gawp as gills were revealed on his neck and webbing appeared between his fingers. “This it just so I can move faster and see better,” he announced as a third lid slipped over his eyes. He dived in behind Sifer.

“And people think I’m a monster,” Three said after a short pause.

“I think Sifer’s right. We’ve got to go, there’s no other option,” Uthar decided. He took a last look around and jumped in.

Three sighed at Eli and Marko, snapped his goggles back on and dive-rolled into the pond. Marko, who had been standing on the edge of the pond speechless, held his hand out for Eli to go. Eli tilted his head and jumped, leaving Marko alone.

The pool beckoned Marko, his memories warned him to stay away, and his determination led him. With a deep breath and closed eyes, all the while fearing it was a great mistake, he leapt in…

…and found his mind miraculously free and calm. He realised he intuitively understood the pool and what it held, what it represented, and how to traverse it. He smiled, happily, the weight and dread that had hovered over him since his vision replaced by a clarity of purpose.

Below the surface Sifer was waiting. He used his martial hand-signals to direct the company, indicating what to avoid and how to spread. Most didn’t understand why he was jerking his hands around, but Uthar at least followed and appreciated the attempt at order.

“Speaking doesn’t work,” Idris sent to Sifer. “But I will check in with everyone on the way down.”

“That’s good but if we’re in action we need to respond simultaneously, so watch for the signals.”

Idris, who had been paying at least some attention to Sifer’s attempts, acknowledged the advice with thumbs up. He checked in with Marko first. “Are you ok?”

“I am, I feel much better. Let me lead, I know the way.”

Idris raised his eyebrows, but nodded, passing the message on to everyone. Marko, eyes sparkling, grinned enthusiastically at everyone before diving down to lead the way.

It was remarkable how Marko intuited the journey. He easily avoided the lumps of floating flesh, and even managed to anticipate the clouds of blood and poison that spread unpredictably. The first mile passed without danger, the second drew a few close calls as muscles started to ache and the mental pressure grew; occasionally glimpses of the great wyrm in shadows below adding to the stress. For the third mile the omniscient mind bore down upon the company, weighing on everyone but Three, the sense of being observed and exhaustion leading to half a dozen near misses.

And then, finally, there was a tiny, dark speck, a black hole in the depths of the bottomless pool. It called Marko forth and he raced forward, vanishing as he crossed the event horizon.

Everyone followed without question.

---

The company emerged on a stone plinth carved with nightmare motifs. Stairs descended from a high platform to a wide entryway framed by slowly undulating tentacles. Arches formed a high ceiling from which chains dangled grasping glowing, violet orbs.

A voice, the voice, deep and resonant, slippery and alien, the mind that had lingered and watched, slithered into everyone’s head.

“Ahhhh, good, you have arrived. The ritual can begin…”

---

Boating for Beginners

“Did everyone hear that?” Idris asked.

“Hear what?” Three frowned.

“Ah. The voice, the one that has prevented our rest is inside—it just told us ‘the ritual can begin’.”

Three shook his head. “I have nothing left to fight that.”

“We should have a rest,” Idris said, “But if we do we’re going to be even more exhausted. We may just have to push through without your divine aid.”

“No rest for the wicked,” Uthar sighed.

“If we don’t rest and we could have,” Sifer argued, “Then we shoot ourselves in the foot.”

“Not here,” Marko warned.

“What if just I rested?” Three suggested.

Eli took matters into his own hands, stepping down into the atrium ahead. Overhead ceiling writhed slowly with undulating tentacles, dimly lit by orbs held at their tips. Marko flew up to hover close by one. It pulsed with an internal light, enclosed in the fleshy grip of a slim tentacle.

“I have watched your journey, feeding on your secrets,” the voice whispered.

Marko ignored this, as was his nature. He wrapped his hand around the orb, feeling the intensity of the watcher increase. He pulled it gently, feeling the tentacle resist as it stretched. “Give it up,” he smirked in his head.

“Mwha-ha-ha,,” the voice chuckled deeply.

“Um, Mister Marko?” Eli called warily, “Let go of the thing!”

“Three—the being says it’s been watching our progress. And feeding upon our secrets which I assume—”

“You carry a gift you think dormant. Ilvaash thinks elsewise…”

“It’s obviously talking about the Rod,” Sifer hissed.

“The Rod isn’t dormant,” Eli protested, “We know it does all sorts of tricks.”

“But we aren’t using it. He’s only observed us not using it.”

Idris stared up at the tentacles, eyes narrowed. “I’ve always treated every day as if it was going to be my last,” he sent.

“And I will enjoy seeing what flashes through your mind when you die.”

“Probably my backside the way my luck runs,” Marko smirked, letting the globe snap back into position.

“Why the hostility,” Idris sent.

“There is no hostility.”

“That’s good to know,” Eli nodded.

“You will join me.”

“I’m starting to get a sinking feeling about this,” Idris groaned.

“You have a sinking feeling now?” Sifer mocked.

“Your order is unbalanced and false; chaos waits, without it you are incomplete,” the voice hinted.

“Yep,” Sifer shrugged.

Marko led the company left, following the fleshy corridor as it bent north.

Ahead, six long, stone slabs protruded from the walls of a large chamber like crude beds or benches. Two held apparently dead insectoid creatures in the process of being dissected. Their chests were rent and limbs limp. Beyond the beds a wide set of stairs rose into darkness.

“Mezzoloth’s,” Three declared. “Devils who work in the service of infernal lords.”

“Our jackal-headed friend mentioned those,” Sifer recalled.

“Are we now agreeing that evil is evil?” Eli scowled. “She summoned them—I told you she was a bad egg!”

Marko crept to the insects, relieved to see they were dead, ichor dripping from their chests. As he turned the voice spoke. “She awaits your supplication; and you crave it more than life itself.”

“I don’t want to be a supplicant,” Eli protested.

Uthar looked to the opposite side of the room, where an altar bore a three-foot-wide, five-foot-tall statue adorned with diamonds. Held in the open top was a fresh brain, fluid pooled on the floor beneath. “Something there,” he warned.

“You deny what you witnessed; are you too cowardly to embrace it and set yourself free?” the voice whispered again.

“Do we know what he’s talking about?” Eli whispered.

“I suspect it’s taunting Marko about his encounter earlier with the viewing funnel,” Idris guessed. He walked over to the altar and leaned in to examine the brain. “That’s used to belong to a gith,” he said softly. “Fresh, so likely retrieved from the body upstairs just beyond the pool.” He looked around again. “Are you there?”

There was no response.

“Is this ceremonial, Idris?” Sifer asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t they steal your brain?”

“They normally eat them…and the soul within.”

Three checked around the altar, trying to understand the religious purpose if there was one. The best he could guess was the brain was to be used to power the ‘ritual’ that had been spoken off. But the statue looked more ceremonial than functional. He found several stone tablets, finding them covered in a script he could not read. “Idris, I don’t understand this language but you might?”

“Deep Speech,” Idris nodded. “It describes a ritual to create a Netherese obelisk…by merging empowered fragments using an…item of great power…” he read.

“The Rod piece!” Eli exclaimed.

“Yes! Alustriel spoke of exactly that,” Idris nodded.

“And that is what the voice alluded,” Sifer said. “That we don’t know what we carry because we are not using it.”

“And when we have tried it has pointed nowhere, only "

“Alustriel said the mind flayers were using the obelisk to grow an empire using the power of the Rod,” Eli recalled, “Could we be inside that empire or obelisk? And that is why it seems to be all around us when you try and detect a direction?”

The voice hissed. “All you have seen, all you have been through, and you left her. Can you turn a blind eye forever?”

“My mother? Are you talking about my mother!?” Eli exclaimed, looking around wildly.

“No, no, that was the woman that was sleeping in the head of Landro,” Marko said.

“I think there are several interpretations of everything it says,” Sifer scowled.

“It is just playing with us,” Idris scowled. “Ignore it. And Eli, I think it’s more likely we are near it, rather than in it.” He frowned as he continued reading. “There is something more hinted at but it is obfuscated, too arcane for a quick understanding. But I think we’re in the right place,” he grinned. “Marko? You might want to dig these out,” he said pointing to the large diamonds.

Marko walked over and tilted his head at the brain fluids oozing over the gems. “Even I’m not sure about that.”

As he spoke, Sifer unleashed an arrow. It pierced the brain and carried it into the wall behind where it drooped off the bolt. “Don’t give too much reverence here,” he said to Marko.

“I’m not giving any,” Marko shrugged, then pried the diamonds free.

In the background the voice chuckled again. “One of you is hidden from me…not for much longer now.”

“Let’s call a spade a spade,” Marko replied in his mind, turning to Three. “Hey Three—you’re hidden from the voice.”

“But not for much longer, it said,” Idris added.

“We’ll see. Kelemvor is strong, so…” Three shrugged.

“Did you hear what he said, Mr Voice-in-my-head?” Marko laughed.

---

Uthar led the company up the short flight of stairs. “Ohhh no,” he groaned.

---

Stone arches reminiscent of tentacles reached over a vast space. Standing on a dais was a cracked black obelisk held together by seams of bright-green energy. Two Mind Flayers were focused on the ritual, aided by a ten-foot tall fiend with leathery wings and a massive axe.

Floating between the dais and the obelisk was something pulsing with arcane power: a section of the Rod of Seven Parts!

The dais overlooks a misty pit full of liquid, the shallow pool covered by obscuring mist. On the pool’s near edge, an enormous, slime-covered brain slouched, covered in pulsing pustules. The brain oozed over the pool’s lip, sending tendrils running around the crusted-rim of the pool as if seeking knowledge or worse.

---

Sifer assessed the field of battle and determined the large devil was the best first target—assuming the flayers continued their work on their ritual. For a moment he considered firing at the rod piece to interrupt proceedings, but quickly realised that would bring the entire enemy cohort into the battle. He unleashed a volley of arrows, drawing a howl of fury from the winged fiend.

Almost as if in response, a sharp psychic pulse struck the entire company, slowing the approach. Only Three was untouched.

As the fiend started toward Sifer, Marko slid along the near wall. He had a plan, a cunning plan, but needed to get closer before he could implement it. He flew close then fired a casual single arrow into the brain, almost as an afterthought. It plinked into the throbbing horror, but Marko wasn’t concerned about the damage done. “Did you love that? Did you enjoy that?” he mocked, but his eyes were firmly focused on the obelisk.

Uthar ran into the fray but the nearest flayer was just out of range. He cursed under his breath and…misty-stepped the extra five feet. His swing was strong and true, but the moment it was about to strike the tentacled creature it vanished! Uthar spun to find it reappearing on the far side of the room speaking a string of foully unintelligible words.

Behind Marko a word rung out: “Kelemvor!” Three boomed, and a tolling ring shook over the slurping brain…which scoffed mockingly in response inside everyone’s head.

The fiend ran to the edge of the dais and leapt into the air, wings spread.

---

With a snarl it swung its axe at Three, staggering him into the wall. The return swing was worse: the blade singing through the air and slicing a deep wound through Three’s chest. Three staggered, gasping for air. The devil let out an uproarious and triumphant laugh.

The closest flayer raised its arms high and a sworling psychic vortex appeared in the midst of the company.

---

A wave of cold and psychic pain swept out from the vortex. Three dropped to his hands and knees, near death, and Eli was struggling to remain upright. “Target reduction!” Sifer yelled pointing to the devil; the fiend would be dead with a focused attack, but instead there were three barely wounded foes and his companions were about to fall.

Eli couldn’t or wouldn’t hear Sifer, such was his pain. The scar on his face erupted and a bolt of fire struck the disc-riding flayer. He followed up with a flurry of fairly ineffective punches.

From the stairs Idris moved into the field of battle. He raised one palm and a small green glow appeared, then raised the other where a second glow flashed. He thrust his arms toward the brain and two brilliant green beams shot across the room into the throbbing pile of flesh. The only way to avoid this was to dodge, and Idris was confident that was not the brain’s strong suit…

…but to his horror the creature simply sunk below the surface of the pool at the last possible moment. “Not today,” it hissed. Idris could not believe what he was seeing. He howled with uncontrollable rage.

A repeat wave of psychic pain pulsed from the brain, and the second flayer pointed ten sucker-ended fingers at the company.

---

Another rift opened amongst the company, and this one was fatal. Three collapsed to the ground, face down, unbreathing. “Join me,” the brain sent, swelling to emit a wave of shimmering darkness that stunned the company. Sifer froze, Uthar stumbled, and Eli…Eli fell by Three’s side, wracked with unimaginable pain. He looked at his fallen master, dead. He turned his mind inward and squeezed his eyes shut. No. NO! Eli refused to go down. With a heaving gasp his eyes sprung open and he hauled himself to his feet.

Sifer was unable to move, his mind locked by the brain’s power. He sensed the end approaching but could do nothing to stop it. An inglorious way to die, he rued, eyes darting around to watch his companion’s last moments…

…what was Marko doing?

Despite being set upon by the fiend, Marko flew toward the obelisk. The devil raked a fetid claw though Marko’s side, drawing a gasp of burning pain, but nothing was going to distract his progress. He drew up twenty-feet from the glowing obelisk and reached into his pocket.

In his palm he held a tiny toy boat.

Marko directed his gaze to the obelisk and the rod piece sitting below. He lifted his hand and commanded the boat to open. It started to expand, growing to ten feet with a pair of oars, an anchor and a lateen sailed mast. Marko grinned and issued a second command: “Twenty-four feet,” he muttered. The vessel grew as ordered: four further oar rows, a cabin, and a lovely square-set sail.

The boat’s prow grew to extend four-foot beyond the obelisk, encompassing the rod in the neatly fashioned prow!

---

Sifer laughed. Idris shook his head in wonder. Uthar grinned. Eli’s eyes widened.

Marko turned to the company and winked, then issued his final command: “To me,” he chortled happily. The boat folded back into his hand.

An ear-splitting CRACK! rung through the chamber, causing the two flayers to spin, horrified. The obelisk was shattering, the missing Rod piece destroying the ritual.

“Whaaaaat??” the voice whispered, for the first time sounding unsure.

“Didn’t see that one coming, did you?” Marko smirked in his mind, slipping the precious boat into his pocket. As he did a tentacle whipped out from the brain toward him which he easily avoided.

Uthar was first to react. There was still a chance!. He sprinted over to Three, reaching down to touch his forehead. Three twitched and jerked, then groaned: he was alive! Uthar hefted a healing potion, hesitating between Three and Eli. “Take it yourself,” Eli croaked. “We need you more than we need us.”

Three staggered to his feet, healing himself. He vanished, making himself invisible and retreating out of range.

A second tentacle ripped out at Marko as the brain urged its minions to recover that which Marko had stolen, but again Marko slipped out of the embrace. Obeying, the devil turned its attention to Marko, allowing both Eli and Uthar to flash out with strikes. Uthar’s blow lit the creature up with holy light, much to its disgust, and Eli took good advantage. The devil was flying out of range, and he barely caught it with the tip of his blade. But the slice ran down the length of the fiend’s back, butterflying it open. It fell to the floor with a groan and resounding thump.

The closest flayer flew to Marko and grabbed his head. Snarling something unpleasant it wrapped its face tentacles around Marko’s skull. Marko felt his head being crushed as a shock of agony throttled his brain. “If you’re going to kiss me,” he managed to gasp, “You’d gotta take me to dinner first.”

Eli watched Master Marko flailing under the assault, clearly in big trouble. Both were out of reach so he fired his bow…and missed, twice. He cried out in frustration. “Get out of the pulse!” Uthar cried. Eli hesitated, not one to step back, but Uthar was right. Gritting his teeth he withdrew to stand by Three’s side.

Both turned their attention to Idris, who was drawing himself up. He stepped next to Uthar and looked up at his old friend. “Red—I’m glad I’m with you.”

Sifer’s head dropped. Idris was making a final statement.

“We have one shot,” Three whispered softly.

Idris slowly but surely raised both his hands again, opening the palms simultaneously to reveal pinpoint green glows. He stared hard at the swelling, itching brain, and unleashed his deadly touch.

“Today!” Idris snarled triumphantly, his hands blistered from the pure power he channeled.

Just like last time, twin rays of disintegrating light shot across the chamber. But this time there was no mistake. For a moment the brain was bathed in a rapidly vibrating sheen of emerald green energy. Then with a thunderous SNAP it disintegrated into grey dust that fell gently to the surface of the pool.

The destruction of the brain released the psychic lock on the company, minds freed of the looming alien observer. The flayers, on the other hand, flung their heads back in agony, their tentacles writhing in agony. Marko found himself free as his assailant descended into madness.

Sifer shook his head as he came to his senses then raised his bow. Four arrows near killed the flayer. Marko slipped a dagger into an exposed eye. “He tried to slip me a tentacle!” he cried, his face still recovering from the puckering. Uthar struck it with two hefty strikes, but still the tenacious beast remained upright…until Three, barely alive, sprinted through the chamber, mace raised. Uthar couldn’t believe what he was seeing as Three’s angel headed weapon bludgeoned the flayer’s skull, shattering and splattering.

Eli followed Three’s example, leaping toward the final flayer despite his also perilous state of health. His face erupted again as he approached, and he followed through the flames with a series of hard, punishing punches. Idris pointed a beckoning finger at the creature, space twisted, the the flayer reappeared atop his fallen brother, surrounded by Uthar, Marko, and Three.

The flayer shook its tentacles, looking around in confusion. It blinked twice and muttered a few words.

“Ilvaash betrayed it, apparently,” Eli translated staring down at the suddenly pathetic creature. He was still getting used to understanding everything any thing spoke. He raised his fist…

…and the flayer vanished in a subtle shimmer.

It was over.

---

Everyone but Uthar seemed surprise to still be standing. Uthar had never lost confidence, and buzzed around clearing and checking the area. He was ready for more, but the obelisk had disintegrated into rubble and all was quiet. Despite his high, Uthar was relieved.

Marko resprung the boat and hopped atop the gunwale.

“You, my friend, are a genius,” Idris grinned, leaning against the edge of the boat and lighting a cigarillo. His earlier screaming rage had morphed into an almost delirious happiness. Notching an elder brain on his belt? That was a story to tell the grandkids.

Marko vanished into the hull, finding the part of the Rod resting easy inside. He tossed it up and Idris caught it with his magic hand. He slotted comfortably into the larger Rod, pulsing hungrily. “Two to go, people.”

Sifer assessed the situation was under control and dropped to his haunches. He drew his knees up, wrapped his arms around them, and fell instantly asleep.

Eli stood in semi-shock, the adrenalin in his system slowly leeching away. What had happened? How had it happened? Was that a real boat? He glanced over at Three, who was covered in blood and wiping himself clean, stone-faced but calm, giving nothing away. A old scar ran the length of his torso, mirroring his new wound.

Marko He jumped on the foredeck and smiled. Surveying the pool from above he had a sudden realisation from his vision: “You know…this pool is also a gateway,” he announced lazily.

“With another dragon?” Eli said wryly.

“I don’t remember a dragon being in this one!”

Uthar drew near the pool and frowned. He lent forward and raised an eyebrow. “There are…houses in the pool? Marko might be right?”

“I think we should have a rest first,” Marko’s voice called from the boat. “There’s a deck cabin up here—I’ll put the tea on!”

---

Rested, refreshed, and ready, the company approached the edge of the pool.

Eli stared in wonder at the small village in the pool. He swore he could see people moving around in it, but that seemed impossible even for this place. “Is that anywhere we recognise?”

“Not yet,” Sifer quipped.

“Time to go,” Uthar said, placing a hand on Idris’s shoulder. Idris put his on Sifer’s, and soon the company were all joined. “On three?”

---

This time the transition was near instant, a brief swim toward the ghostly buildings led to a dark flash, and the company found themselves in a rain-sodden field. In the near distance a slumping village withstood the torrential rain, but barely.

An instant later a shimmering gold portal sprang up.

“Hurry now, no time to waste!” Mordenkeinan’s voice called from within.

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Session played February 9, 23, March 9, 30, April 20, May 4, 18, 2026

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