Ten Foot Poles: “We’ll be lucky to get to the end of this corridor”
Check for Traps: “I imagine instant disintegration”
Secret Doors: “We overestimated this dungeon”
Roll for Intelligence: “This is bat shit crazy”
Strength Save: “I’m worried about the owner of that crown”

---

Ten Foot Poles

---

The company arrived at the site of the demilich’s haunt. Before them was a low, flat topped hill, about 200 yards wide and 60 feet high. Only ugly weeds, thorns, and briars grew upon the steep sides and bald top of the mound. There are large black rocks covering the hill arrayed like a human skull, the jagged teeth a grinning death’s head.

The north side of the hill had a crumbling cliff of sand and gravel about 20 feet high in the middle of the whole. A low stone ledge overhung this eroded area, and shrubs and bushes obscure it from observation at a distance. Uthar led the company up to the cliff as the most likely means of egress to any tomb that may lie within.

After some prodding and poking with swords and Marko and Eli’s extendable poles, three entrances were revealed. To the left and right were short passages that both ended with a pair of double doors; the tunnels were made of plain stone, roughly worked.

The right side entrance was only thirty feet deep, though dark and full of cobwebs. The ceilings overhead were obscured by hanging strands of webbing. The dimly visible doors were reinforced and opened from the centre.

---

The left was twice the length and clear of webbing with a 10-foot ceiling. The barely visible door at the far end were wooden with skull motif frames.

---

The middle entrance was quite different. Every surface was covered with bright, brilliant colours, the stones and pigments undimmed by the passage of decades. The floor of the corridor was a colourful mosaic of stone, with a distinct, winding path of red tiles about two feet wide snaking its way south down the corridor. No stonework could be seen on the walls or the ceiling twenty feet above, as some sort of cement or plaster had been smoothed over all of the surfaces and then illustrated.

---

The scenes on the walls showed fields with kine grazing, a copse with several wolves in the background, workers of various races and strange human-animal mixtures—pig-human, ape-human, and dog-human—going about various tasks. Certain of the frescoes show rooms of some building; a library filled with many books and scrolls, the door of a torture chamber, and a wizard’s work room. There were chairs, windows, boxes, bales, doors, chests, birds, bats, spiders, and all manner of things shown on the walls.

“Middle,” Eli declared unilaterally.

“We’ll be lucky to get to the end of this corridor, let alone the end of the tomb,” Three groaned.

“Let me go first, Eli and Uthar,” Marko warned, stepping to the threshold of the corridor. The thread of red stones forming a path drew his attention and suspicion. He squatted low to the ground, following the path into darkness. He studied the small tiles that made up the whole, looking for footsteps or dirt and grit that might indicate passage. He was surprised to see nothing, not even a grain of sand. Marko stood and was about to step forward.

“Wait,” Uthar said, releasing a rope and tying it around Marko’s waist. Marko nodded his thanks, then secured his 10-foot-pole and started to prod the ground of both the path and the non-marked passageway beside. Neither budged, so he took his first tentative step into the tomb, following the red path. Three held his breath but Marko didn’t plunge to his doom.

With each step, Marko ran his blade over the mortared surface of the wall, looking and feeling for any tiny holes or indentations that might conceal needle or arrow holes. He continued his careful route, until, thirty feet into the corridor, he found a painting of two jackal-headed human figures painted so as to appear to be holding a real bronze chest that protruded from the wall.

---

“Mordenkainen mentioned a ‘Sea of Dust’, which might mean a desert which is where those creatures might be found,” he called to Marko, in case it helped his investigations.

The chest was at his head height—“headshot if it’s a trap” he muttered, and indeed there was a very obvious needle sticking 3 inches out of the wall below the chest. “Uthar, come forward and hold me while I get up the wall,” he said quietly. Uthar obeyed, bracing himself to allow Marko to reach over to the chest. He examined it closely, noting it was hinged on the bottom so as to allow the lid to swing down if a catch on the top was pressed. He cautiously removed the needle which was coated in a nasty poison.

“Thank you,” Marko said to Uthar, “But I think from now on I’ll use my winged boots.” He floated into the air in front of the chest.

“Could have done that to start with,” Idris observed, still standing well back at the entrance.

“Could have, but safety in numbers,” Marko retorted. He checked the chest for traps again, then depressed the catch. The box was empty. He waved his torch above it, which revealed a small lever protruding vertically from the bottom. “There’s a lever here I can move,” he announced.

“I’m betting a grill falls down in front of the entrance trapping him in there,” Idris said to Three, flipping his lucky coin.

Throwing caution to the wind, Marko pulled the lever. Immediately the floor below him fell away, revealing a thirty foot pit with sharpened spikes at the foot. Uthar flinched back as Marko cried “Holy crap!” before remembering he was flying.

“If he weren’t flying he would be dead,” Three observed idly to Idris.

“But there was no trap?” Marko muttered, confused. Then he realised: the floor wasn’t trapped, nor was the chest. Pulling the lever wasn’t a trap—it was more basic than that and he had fallen for it. He vowed to take a lot more care from here on in.

“Can you put the lever back to the first position?” Idris called. Marko did so, but the pit stayed open. He continued to work his way down the corridor, floating over head and prodding the ground below. Without pulling any levers, he found a total of five pit traps, some on the red path, some off.

The company slowly, carefully negotiated the corridor, avoiding the traps as Marko progressed. Idris, passing the first revealed pit, was surprised to see no bodies pinioned on the spikes below. “Self cleaning,” he mused.

Eli, running along the wall out of terror of the floor, stopped at the fresco of the jail door or torture chamber. A pit lay directly in front, but from the other side he could see pair of painted hands emerging from darkness to grasp the bars of a wooden door, trying to escape the horrors that lay within. The fresco was flat and unhinged, much as Eli peered to see if the painted door might in fact open.

At the far end of the corridor was a stone gateway shrouded in mist and a Devil’s face with a gaping maw.

---

The stone archway was filled with a veil of thick vapours. Stones on either side of the base and the keystone protruded slightly from the stones around them, and as Marko moved to within touching distance, a large gem in the left-hand base stone began to glow yellow, the right-hand orange, and the keystone seven feet above blue.

---

He called this back to the company, causing Idris to turn his attention to the frescos and visuals hoping to see a thematic link with the colours of the gems. But it was too chaotic; determining a sequence or pattern in the tilework and painting was nigh impossible.

Marko turned his attention to the relief sculpture of a Devil face formed of a mosaic of green-hued tiles. The face had a huge ‘O’ of a mouth, inside of which the space was dead black.

---

“There’s a secret here we need to reveal,” Marko said, “Watch this.” He pulled a rod from his belt and waved it around impressively—the rod would reveal any secret within thirty feet. He frowned, waved it harder, then sighed. “Nothing. It must be safe then,” he said wryly.

Sifer working his way toward Marko, paused. “Should I fire an error in there?”

“Good idea,” Marko said. “With a string attached.” He pulled out a ball of said string and Sifer tied it to the fletching. Marko cut it to a thirty foot length and held the loose end.

“The mouth points straight down the corridor,” Idris warned, pressing himself flat against the wall. Everyone quickly followed suit, other than Marko who floated to the corridor corner above the Devil-face.

Sifer fired and the arrow vanished inside, pulling the string taut before it was suddenly severed, leaving Marko clutching a limp section of string. “Sphere of annihilation,” Marko announced.

“I’m not going in there,” Sifer nodded. “Perhaps we should consider the misty portal?”

“Do you think those gems might be buttons of some sort?” Eli ventured.

“I do. Could we devise a way of testing them? Yellow, orange, blue,” Sifer said, pointing.

Eli walked back up the corridor scanning the walls and ceiling for pictures that might match the arch. He found nothing, and was on the verge of giving up when he noticed a pattern the vaguely resembled an arch in the red path half-way up the corridor. He crouched down to look closer and, to his great surprise, found that there was a tiny script traced between the mortar of the tilework. “Hello,” he murmured. “'These keys and those…'” he read, twisting his head to follow the line. With growing excitement he saw the writing continued in both directions, skipping over the pits to make a continuous phrase.

“Three! Come here!” he called. He pointed out what he had found, and Three drew a pencil, opened his notebook, and stood ready as Eli dictated. It took some time to capture the message, but once complete Three read it aloud to the company:

Acererak congratulates you on your powers of observation, so make of this whatever you wish, for you will be mine in the end no matter what!

Go back to the tormentor or through the arch, and the second great hall you’ll discover.

Shun green if you can, but night’s good colour is for those of great valour.

If shades of red stand for blood, the wise will not need sacrifice aught but a loop of magical metal—you’re well along your march.

Two pits along the way will be found to lead to a fortuitous fall, so check the wall.

These keys and those are most important of all, and beware of trembling hands and what will maul.

If you find the false you find the true, and into the columned hall you’ll come, and there the throne that’s key and keyed.

The iron men of visage grim do more than meets the viewer’s eye.

You’ve left and left and found my tomb, and now your souls will die.

“The archway colours were blue, yellow, and orange,” Three added, “Blue and yellow make green so does that mean we should pick orange?”

“Yes,” Idris nodded, thinking the same thing, “‘Shun green’.”

“‘If you find the false you find the true,'” Eli muttered, utterly nonplussed. “And who’s the ‘tormentor’?”

“The picture of the torture chamber?” Uthar guessed.

“You think it’s a secret door behind the picture?” Three asked to a shrug.

“‘Fortuitous fall’,” Uthar mused, “So maybe inside the pit there is something good, if you get down in it?”

“I feel like the things at the top of the poem are the things we need to worry about now,” Eli said, “Because the arch is right here. So the first thing we need to deal with is the first line of the poem: ‘the tormentor or through the arch’.”

“So both are somehow okay ways forward,” Uthar nodded.

“There’s no obvious green on the fresco or floor,” Idris reported, “Other than the occasional tile. Nor ‘iron men of visage grim’. Just your regular soldiers.”

“What’s ‘night’s colour’,” Eli said.

“Black normally, I would have thought,” Uthar said. “Or a navy blue, but really: black.”

“The mouth of the devil is black,” Three pointed out. “And what’s ‘a loop of magical metal’—oh! A ring?”

Uthar was still focussed on the pit. “If we want to find the ‘fortuitous fall’ we can just check the wall apparently. I’m not the best person to try and pull that off,” he said looking to Marko.

“I can check the pit below,” Marko offered. “Or the fresco?”

Idris shook his head. “I agree with Eli—I think the only part of this that refers to this hallway is the first line. I think the other stanzas refer to things we’ll find inside.”

Eli beamed.

“And there is the arch here,” Three said, reading back.

“So—through the arch?” Idris pointed.

“Or back to the tormentor,” Uthar pointed the opposite way.

“Marko—check the prison fresco to see if its a red herring,” Three directed.

“Why not bring the magic wand down there and try?” Eli suggested.

“No, no,” Three said, “It’s too valuable. Just check for secret doors and traps.”

Eli was crestfallen. From the heights of praise to the depths of criticism.

Marko did his best, but could find nothing to indicate a mechanism or entryway, both on the wall and in the pit below.

“What about if it’s simply covered by fresco,” Eli said remembering the simple lever in the chest, and trying to regain the front foot. Alas no-one seemed to pay much attention.

“Gentlemen I think we’re just going to have to walk through the arch,” Idris said, leading the company away.

“Marko’s checking won’t discover that,” Eli muttered. He refused to be so easily dissuaded. He whipped out his one foot pole and made it ten, then smashed it at the fresco depicting the jail door. To his delight, a chunk of plaster and lath beneath broke away revealing a hidden, inward-opening door. He coughed loudly, then louder again, until the company turned back to find him grinning widely.

After a round of Eli back-slapping, Marko checked the new door and opened it. He stepped into a twenty foot corridor with another door. He quickly checked the second and pushed it open, forgetting to check the floors below. He stepped into a rectangular room thirty feet long, Eli close on his tail. In the corner of the room was stone statue of an eight-foot tall, four-armed gargoyle that sprang into life before his eyes, flapping its wings and hissing.

---

“Gargoyle!” Marko cried as he sprinted over to it and striped it with his rapier. Sifer leapt over the pit and stood on the wall, shooting over Eli and burying three arrows into the beast. The gargoyle staggered and fell face down, shattering into crumbled stone. Eli, who had just drawn his sword, stuttered to a halt. “‘Horrors’ they say?” he shrugged.

Sifer crouched at the remains, shifting through the rubble. He lifted free a collar, studded with ten gleaming blue quartz gems. “100 gold each,” Marko reported with a quick glance as Sifer pocketed the collar.

---

Three doors exited the plain walled gargoyle room: two south and west. “I’m thinking the west door,” Eli said. “How bad can it be? Where could it go, it must just be a cupboard.”

“I like your thinking,” Sifer said, training his bow on said door. “But just to be clear—that creature wasn’t alive until we got into the room?”

“Correct—it came to life as Marko saw it,” Eli said.

“So it wasn’t trapped here, like the cell in the fresco. Could it be that it was the guard for these cells?”

“Oh,” Uthar nodded.

Marko sighed. “I’ll check the door.” He carefully did so and suddenly stopped. He felt sure there was something wrong, but couldn’t put his finger on what exactly. “This door is a bit dodgy. You can open it if you want…Uthar.”

Uthar grunted. This was the first time Marko had been worried.

“You don’t have to,” Three said. “Maybe we should a charge of Marko’s wand because these aren’t normal traps,” he said going back on his earlier advice.

“There’s just pits?” Idris said, unconcerned.

“Do it,” Sifer agreed.

Uthar shoved the door open…to find an empty, plain, ten-foot room. “Marko? Is there something in here I can’t see?”

Marko checked and this time he found what must have been worrying him earlier. “There’s a hidden door here—pull it down and inward, it’s hinged on bottom. I don’t think I’m strong enough,” he lied, stepping back. He suddenly had the heebies.

Uthar did as he was told, finding another identical room beyond. “Marko…” he sung out.

The process repeated itself through a series of hidden doors, each opening differently to the last; central hinges, sliding up, inward panels. Eventually Marko arrived at a door that had seven studs in a horizontal row. “This looks more complicated,” he muttered.

Uthar called the company through the doors behind. Sifer noted that the ceiling overhead in each room was pitted with tiny holes and was surprised that nothing bad had emerged, putting it down to Marko’s expertise. Or dumb luck.

They found Marko pondering the buttons but had no insight. “Did the poem say anything about this?”

“It just said it would take us to the hall,” Sifer recalled.

Marko nodded, then pressed one, three, five and seven. Nothing happened as he pressed the first three, but when he pressed the seventh the stone door suddenly collapsed inward. “Oo shit!” Marko cried leaping out of the way in the nick of time.

Beyond the door was another corridor similar to the tomb entry. The floor was inlaid tiles and the walls painted with figures of animals, strange signs and glyphs, and humans and human-like creatures posing with two-dimensional spheres of different colours. Two doors stood on the opposite wall amongst the pictures.

---

The nearest murals depicted a human holding a globe stretched high overhead, a bird-headed figure with a sphere on its shoulder, a lizard balancing a circle on one hand, and a five-headed dragon with a globe mid-claw.

Before anyone could react Marko flew over to the dragon mural and started bludgeoning it with great force, not stopping until the fresco was utterly destroyed. The company watched on, speechless, each reviewing vague memories of Marko’s fame. Some recalled how with Stormwatch he had defeated the dragon queen Tiamat? Others that Marko had protected—or was it slaughtered?—a nest of innocent Kobolds?

Despite his rage Marko managed to leave the sphere undamaged. He stood lost in thought staring at the remains of the fresco as the company started to explore the long corridor. Traps and floor-pits were forgotten (even briefly by Sifer whose eyes were on Marko) as an inventory of the coloured spheres was slowly made.

West wall: gold, orange, purple, bronze, grey, bright blue, white, turquoise, scarlet, and pale green

East wall: pale blue, silver, green, yellow, pink, black, pale violet, red, buff, and indigo

At the far end of the corridor was another stone archway filled with cloudy vapours that prevented sight beyond. As with the first arch, as Idris drew close three embedded gems in the archway began to glow. The left-hand base stone shone with an olive hue; the one on the right glowed citron, and the keystone seven feet overhead gave off russet light.

“Lucky we’re so good at solving this kind of thing,” Uthar said rubbing his head ruefully.

“So. ‘Shun green if you can’,” Idris said pointing out the matching spheres. “And ‘night’s good colour is for those of great valour’", he said pointing to the lone black globe. “Or indigo,” he added with a nod toward it.

“I’m a bit worried about activating these things,” Sifer warned, “I think it will be the floor. Oh—and I’ve always understood that ‘night’s good colour’ is white. The full moon.”

“Ah,” Uthar said.

“Or could it be a play on knights,” Three said overthinking it.

“Well there’s two actual doors,” Eli pointed, “So they seem like a good option, surely? Rather than probing the fresco?”

Everyone seemed shocked by the simplicity of Eli’s argument.

“Because it says ‘you’re well along your march’, so we need to do things here,” Sifer muddied.

“I don’t necessarily think that’s true,” Idris frowned.

“‘These keys and those are most important of all’,” Sifer continued.

“Just open the doors!” Eli cried despairingly. “Marko! North door! Please. I’ll be right by your side.”

“Okay,” Marko nodded, breaking free of his trance.

“Wait!” Sifer insisted. “Three—can you please read us the whole thing again because I feel we’re moving in haste.”

Three nodded and reread the script as Marko checked the door. On finishing Three offered his analysis: “Some of these colours might stand for the various orbs, obviously. There’s a debate about the night colour—black, white like the moon, maybe silver like a knight? ‘Shades of red stand for blood’. A loop of magical metal is a ring, and it seemed for a little while that we might be making a ring, but that may be further along?”

“I still don’t think anything in here relates to the verse,” Idris said.

“Not even the colours?” Uthar said with surprise.

Sifer looked at Idris as if he had lost his mind. “The words have just told us all the colours that are on the walls here!”

“It’s told us some colours, many of which were in the first corridor too,” Idris countered.

“‘Shades of red’,” Sifer pointed, “One, two, three.”

“Why don’t we open the door, Marko,” Eli sighed.

Marko did.

Three mused on. “You know what I think there is a pattern—”

A spear shot out and buried itself in Three’s surprised torso.

---

“What!” Three cried.

“Let’s check the other door?” Eli said to Marko, before rushing over to Three. He looked at the spear and frowned. “The only way is to push it all the way through.”

“It didn’t go that far you idiot,” Three grimaced angrily. The spear was lodged in his armour and he hacked away at it until it was gone. “I’m ok.”

“I’ll make you a salve,” Eli said doing so.

“You don’t need to make me a salve! I am a magical healer!” He healed himself to keep Eli’s hands away.

Eli looked at his hands covered in a sticky, goopy mess, and shrugged.

“We were overly cautious in the first corridor,” Sifer frowned, “But now we’ve thrown caution to the wind.”

“Marko checked the door,” Idris protested, “He just didn’t detect the trap. And none have gone off as we walked this corridor.”

“One did,” Three grunted.

“My tutors in my creche called that a ‘statistical anomaly’,” Idris grinned. Three waved Idris away, the word ‘creche’ causing more psychic pain than the spear.

Sifer turned his mind, once more, back to the message. “‘If shades of red stand for blood, the wise will not need sacrifice aught but a loop of magical metal’.”

“The question is what’s behind this other door,” Eli said ignoring Sifer.

“Yes open the other door,” Three said, ducking behind cover.

“I think we should,” Uthar said.

Marko checked, made sure no-one was in the path, and opened the door. A second spear crashed into the mural opposite, cracking the fresco. The head of the human holding the yellow sphere split in two.

Sifer scratched his head. “‘A loop of magical metal’ could mean that yellow orb.”

“Metal isn’t yellow, it’s gold,” Eli frowned.

“We have a bronze,” Sifer started.

“Forget the yellow! It’s green or black or white!”

“But there’s also a magical metal.”

“That’s the next stanza down!”

“But it mentions a colour—‘if shades of red stand for blood’,” Idris said.

“We’re not at that stanza yet,” Eli said, incredulous.

“No, because ‘two pits two pits along…will lead to a fortuitous fall so check the wall',” Sifer recalled.

“That’s another stanza again,” Eli scowled. “We’re just worried about shades of green or night’s good colour! Let’s check them?” He found the closest green sphere, and without touching it or getting too close, studied it. The figures holding the orb were more unpleasant than some, but there was nothing special he could see. He found another and tried to see flaws or messages in the plaster, but again there was nothing. “White and black,” he muttered, checking them next, finding both just simple pictures. The black was unusual in that it was at floor level but nothing more.

Idris followed Eli’s lead, walking to the nearest sphere, bright blue. He peered close, finding only a picture as far as he could see. The next, grey, was similar.

“Someone has to touch one,” Eli groaned from the black sphere. Idris wasn’t so sure, but he walked over and crouched next to Eli. “There’s a crawlway through this,” he said to Eli.

“What? No I’ve just checked, it’s just plaster.”

“Look,” Idris said, and Eli could suddenly see it. The black sphere was obviously an opaque illusion covering an enclosed crawlway beyond.

“I knew there was something funny about this one,” Eli muttered defensively.

Idris repeated the check on the green and white spheres but found no repeat. But at the red one next to Uthar he found another, waist-high crawlway. “This is one too,” he said, surprised Uthar hadn’t found it.

“So we have two possibilities which could link into the poem,” Idris said. “Black, requiring ‘great valour’, the red which talks about sacrificing a loop of magical metal, so pick one. Or there’s the archway.”

“I think the arches,” Uthar posited, “Might link to each other. Just transport. I don’t know that that’s true but from the poem you can get to the great hall through the arch. So I think if you went through the other arch you’d end up here.” He scratched his head. “Though there’s probably a version where the arch kills you?”

“That’s as good a supposition as any,” Idris said, agreeing with both of Uthar’s theories. “But we should double-check the rest of the sphere—look for illusions,” Idris ordered.

Everyone started checking again, following Idris’s instruction. Eli checked particularly carefully, secretly shamed by not finding the black pathway, and he was rewarded when he found the final crawlway far overhead at the northern-most gold sphere. “Here!” he cried triumphantly.

“‘A loop of magical metal’,” Sifer said with satisfaction, pointing to the gold sphere. “This is where we go first— it sounds a lot better than blood red of black valour.”

Uthar lifted Marko into the crawlway and he crept inside. A short passage bent right and he crawled into a twenty foot room. Inside was another statue of another four-armed gargoyle. “Fuck me!” Marko cried before seeing one of the arms had broken off and the gargoyle still wasn’t moving. The arm lay on the floor in front of the statue.

---

“Follow me in,” Marko called back, and the company dutifully followed. Uthar was first, finding Marko hanging from the horn of the gargoyle as he tried to rip it free. He made the generous assumption that this was some great plan. “I was going to shove it down the gargoyle’s stupid throat,” Marko explained, ruining that theory.

“Maybe we should check for secret doors?” Uthar suggested.

Marko nodded and did so. “Nope. But I did notice something while I was swinging on the horn.” He peered up at the attached arms and pointed. “There’s a divot in each palm,” he said. Uthar peered closely and saw the gem-sized carved depression in each outstretched hand.

“For holding a gem like the gem from the base of the archways?” Sifer called from outside.

“Maybe,” Eli said from inside the room. He checked the fallen arm. “This one is missing the divot,” he said curiously.

“If we reattach the arm it could animate,” Marko warned.

Outside Sifer wandered back to the archway and sized up the gems. He jumped into the crawlway and mentally compared the sizes. “I think the gems from the gate would fit…”

---

Check for Traps

“…or any of these ten,” Sifer said, holding aloft the necklace he recovered from the first gargoyle. “They look to be a perfect fit.” He prised one free and held it over the open palm. It was indeed an exact fit.

“Normally I’d say drop it in,” Three said nervously, “But in this place…maybe don’t do that? I’m terrified of everything even though it sounds like the right thing to do.”

Eli nodded his agreement. “My reasoning is this: the previous gargoyle was brought to life by the magical gems in this collar, so if we give these magical gems to another gargoyle? What could possibly go wrong.”

“Gems of animation—let’s see!” Sifer smirked hovering the gem tantalisingly.

“They’re not magical,” Marko guessed. “Just simple cut gems, not particularly valuable.”

“What are we expecting to happen?” Eli asked cautiously eying Sifer.

“Don’t know!” Sifer grinned.

Everyone slowly backed away. Marko nodded his approval, watching Sifer and the gargoyle carefully.

Sifer dropped the gem, which nestled into the divot with a soft ‘tink’. For a beat nothing happened, then the gargoyle’s stony fist slowly closed around the shining gemstone until it was no longer visible. Sifer quickly dropped a second gem in a different hand, and it too started to slowly close.

The first hand began to rotate until it was facing the floor, then stretched its fingers wide. A fine powder of crushed quartz fell to the feet of the gargoyle, then the hand returned to its original position: palm open, facing up. The second hand followed the same pattern moments later.

“Oh. It’s the gargoyle of gem devaluing,” Idris groaned.

Sifer shrugged and plonked a third gem in the last untouched hand. It repeated the performance, leaving a small collection of gem dust.

“Could be worse,” Marko ribbed Sifer, “It could be our short and curlys in that fist.

“Maybe it doesn’t like these gems?” Eli said.

“I think it does,” Sifer countered. “They fit just right.”

“Or you need to do them all at once?” Uthar shrugged.

“Put them in faster? Or one in the hand on the ground?” Eli suggested. “Or more valuable—they’re only quartz.”

“I have seven left,” Sifer counted. “I think I’ll hold on to them before we try all the combinations?”

“How much quicker could you have put them in?” Eli asked.

“If there were three of us…”

“The problem may be,” Idris interjected, “Is that one arm is snapped off. It may not work at all.”

“But it doesn’t have a divot,” Eli observed wisely.

“Maybe it was frustration from a previous user, snapping it off,” Sifer smiled. He dropped a gem in anyway: nothing happened. “Do you want to put all three in at once: one-two-three?”

“Let’s try—it eliminates something, right?” Uthar said.

“Ok,” Sifer said, passing a gem to Marko, and another to Uthar. “On three…”

The gems were dropped simultaneously. Three fists closed, rotated, and the mounds of dust on the floor grew slightly larger.

“Excellent,” Sifer groaned, looking at his four remaining gems. “I think we’ve established nothing—let’s move.”

“Wait,” Idris said, “Maybe we can put the gem power somewhere?” He scanned the room for likely a receptacle, but the only object of any interest was the gargoyle itself. “Maybe in the mouth?” he said, glancing at the open cavity.

“Or the hand on the floor?” Eli added.

Idris scooped up the dust, reached up and carefully tipped it into the mouth. Again nothing happened.

“Are you going to put your hand in there to get that back out?” Sifer teased.

Idris rolled his eyes, summonsed his magic hand, and removed as much as he could. “The gargoyle obviously has a purpose, and crushing gems seems to be integral to that purpose. But the only other thing I can think of, gentlemen,” he said, “Is to scatter the dust aerially across the room and see if anything becomes apparent.”

No-one seemed interested in his approach. “Does anyone have a coin?” Eli (a man who never failed to give away any coin he acquired) asked. Marko passed him a silver. “I assume this is not very valuable?” Eli asked.

“No. May even be fake.”

Eli nodded and dropped it into one of the open palms. It tinkled down and rested in the cavity but the fist didn’t close. “So we were right that it likes gems,” Eli observed.

“It is odd they fit perfectly,” Three agreed. “That obviously means something.”

“Give me the collar,” Marko said, then clambered up the gargoyle and attached it around the neck. It settled nicely but statue didn’t move. “Not animating this gargoyle at least,” he shrugged.

Uthar rubbed his head. “I wonder if it’s just about the number of gems. It just need to crush ten gems and then it’s happy?”

“The price of admission,” Idris nodded.

“Can I suggest that is a possible thing to once we’ve exhausted all other possibilities?” Sifer said, hosing down Uthar’s spark.

Eli nodded. “We don’t need to do this—we have two other tunnels to explore.”

---

“'Night’s good colour is for those of great valour',” Sifer read as Eli stood before the black sphere. “After you!”

Eli stuck his ten-foot pole through the illusion, probing the crawlway beyond. It seemed safe enough, so he got down lose the floor and crawled inside, probing with his pole as he moved. He suddenly stopped when he found something peculiar ahead: “A trap!” he called. “Mister Marko?”

Marko scurred into the tunnel, shuffling past Eli. “It’s just around the corner,” Eli whispered, “Careful!". Marko pulled his tools free and made a careful check. “There’s no trap here,” he reported. Not wanting to mistrust Eli, he pulled his Wand of Secrets free and tapped it for knowledge. “But there is something through the south-east wall, some twenty or thirty feet away,” he pointed.

“There’s a tunnel there, through the red sphere,” Eli whispered excitedly.

Marko kept moving, finding the passage wrapping back and dropping several feet. “Keep coming,” he called to Eli, who passed the message back: “Everybody in!”

Uthar grunted, not comfortable but realising there was no choice. The rest of the company followed. The claustrophobic crawlway gave Uthar the jitters; it was like the hellish tunnels under the river, something he’d rather forget. Breathing was hard, armour was heavy, and the space was pitch black.

“There is a trap ahead somewhere,” Marko called back, doing nothing to help the nerves. Sifer studied the walls, seeing they weren’t finished like the tomb so far. This was a tunnel, roughly hewn through bedrock. It gave him some hope—a shortcut, or route hidden from the Tomb’s maker, perhaps.

Ahead, Marko found the passage burrowed below the sphere corridor and bent southward. He kept shuffling forward, no longer bothering with the checks as he trusted the wand. After another few minutes of crawling the passage ended in a solid stone wall, as if whoever had dug this passage had run out of steam. But Marko was no rookie; he immediately looked for a hidden entrance, and immediately found it. “Shoddy work, not sure why they even bothered,” he relayed back to Eli.

“Good work, little Master.”

“We’re dipping in and out of being careful here,” Sifer warned, “We’re not really acting like the cohesive team we have in the past.”

“A fair comment,” Uthar agreed, brushing tunnel dirt from his armour.

“Surely we need to get a little bit shaper here, people.”

“I think the problem is your attitude,” Eli said stridently. “The fact that you’re saying ‘surely’ we need to. What you need to say is ‘Hey! We need to.'”

“Good point,” Sifer said—too late as Marko pushed open the secret door.

---

The passage opened into what was obviously some form of temple. There were scenes of normal life painted on the walls, but the people depicted had rotting flesh, skeletal hands, worms eating them, and worse. There were also various religious symbols depicted, scattered amongst the mutated figures. Another mosaic path, this one plain sandy tiles, led between four rows of wooden pews that faced a worship area.

In front of the pews a wooden railing divided the room; south of it was an softly glowing altar in front of a tiered dais, on which sat a plain wooden chair. On either side of the dais were large, free-standing brass candelabras each holding five white candles, and in each corner of the southern wall was a large white pottery urn.

“Someone tunnelled into a chapel?” Eli wondered.

“Don’t forget the journey through the tunnel is for those ‘of great valour',” Sifer said. “People like us.”

“I’m also curious that there’s another paved pathway.”

“Like the one at the entrance,” Three nodded.

“But this one just leads to a secret door, and behind the door is a crawlway. This doesn’t make any sense—the main entrance to the chapel is by crawling through a muddy tunnel?” Eli frowned.

Three shrugged then turned to scan the symbols and was surprised at what he found. “These are all of good alignment,” he said softly. “I recognise some that I assume are Oearth variations of our gods—Lathandar, The Morning Lord, Tyr,” he pointed.

“Or this might be parody,” Eli suggested as he followed Marko’s careful path into the chapel. He pointed to the far corner of the room. “There’s another clouded archway.”

The archway was shrouded in opaque, bright orange vapours, and sprawled on the floor near the portal was a human skeleton in badly rusted and damaged black chain mail. The skeleton’s outstretched arm pointed directly to the arch.

---

“If you find the false you find the true,” Sifer recited, “And into the columned hall you’ll come, and there the throne that’s key and keyed.” He glanced meaningfully at the plain wooden chair atop the dais.

“This is not a columned hall,” Eli observed.

“True, though there is a throne here. I also note the stones in this archway aren’t glowing,” Sifer said drawing near. The orange shroud was impenetrable.

Idris stepped close to the altar. It was made of a solid block of unmarked material he did not recognise, and glowed with an inner light of opalescent blue. The top was slightly concave.

“Is this like churches where you come from, Idris?” Eli asked stepping to Idris’s side.

“No. The ‘yanki don’t have churches.”

“I get no sense of any religious meaning,” Three said as he too studied the altar. He had seen many, but could discern no symbolism. “It does look like it could be used for sacrifice—the basin shape would catch spilled blood.”

Sifer was still poring over the poem, and found something he thought relevant. He pointed to the skeleton and read: “These keys and those are most important of all, and beware of trembling hands and what will maul.”

Eli took the cue. He crouched by the skeletal body, searching it gingerly for a key given Sifer’s theory. He didn’t look hard. Three walked over and knelt, hoping to discover how the victim died. But it was too old—bones collapsed under his touch and there was no flesh remaining.

“What are we hoping to find, gentlemen?” Idris asked.

“Something that matches the poem,” Eli said. “The only thing I can see so far is that trembling hand,” he said looking to the pointing hand. “Not that it’s trembling. But it is a hand.”

Idris nodded and joined the investigation, making a more thorough search of the body and armour. But he too found nothing of any consequence. The ruined armour fell apart under his touch, but he made sure not to move the hand. “There’s nothing here. It’s a dead body that was either trying to get through the portal…or was posed. Which is a bit macabre, but given all this—not out of the question.”

“What was the colour of the other passage we didn’t take?” Eli said, stumped.

“Red,” Sifer said.

“And Shades of red stand for blood,” Eli frowned, “So this would appear to be the right way.”

“I would hazard a guess that we’re not going to be able to avoid the portals forever,” Idris said glancing to the arch.

“I think we should try the other path before we decide to go through a misty portal,” Sifer said.

“Yes. But we should check this room for more secret doors before we do,” Eli suggested.

“Surely also light these candles,” Sifer grinned.

“Surely we shouldn’t. Surely we should get Marko to check the room for secret doors.”

Marko started working his way around the walls, everyone chipping in the best they could. Idris checked around the throne; it was nicely carved and padded but seemed unremarkable and the walls behind it were smooth and unmarked.

Sifer walked along the pews starting at the second row. He noticed that each was hinged, allowing the seat to be lifted. Against his better judgement (and later he asked himself exactly why he did this without Marko’s trap-finding skills) he opened one. Inside was thousands of gold coins. “Marko!” he called, coming to his senses again.

Marko was busy on the wall opposite the archway, tracing his dagger over the fresco. He stopped when he felt a tiny inconsistency. He peered closely at the spot: “Here! A small slot, big enough for a coin—with the letter ‘O’ faintly traced above it.”

“‘O’? Like a loop of magical metal?” Sifer said sharply.

“The wise will not need sacrifice aught but a loop of magical metal,” Eli recited, filling out the prophecy.

“First get over here, Marko,” Sifer repeated. “I haven’t put my hand in, but I lifted the lid…without checking for traps,” he said ruefully.

Marko did his own checking, and was surprised to find it all looked clean. The bottom of the pew wasn’t false, the hinged seat a simple seat, the backrests plain. He put his dagger into the coins and sifted through it, again finding only what he would expect. “Coffers for the faithful I guess,” he shrugged.

“Perhaps we should check under all the seats for a ring,” Idris suggested.

Marko carefully checked each seat, working toward the back of the room. Each proved safe: the second row with at least 2000 gold per seat, the third 3000 each of some kind of dull silver he did not recognise, and the back row 4000 silver each.

He walked back to the front row, and this time found something that gave him pause: the hinges were notably larger and stronger. He compared the other three rows again and found they all matched each other. “This might mean the seat is heavier?” he pointed out.

“Or to contain something, like a cage?” Uthar warned.

“I don’t know. Maybe coffins?” Marko kneeled and made a very careful check of the hinges. The more he studied them the more suspicious he became: his intuition told him there was something wrong here. “Any cage or coffin would require the seat to be locked or sealed—the hinges would not stop anything from emerging,” he muttered. “There must be another purpose.”

“It sounds like a temptation,” Uthar said, “The back three rows tempting you to the biggest prize.”

“Could it be the hinges are only bigger to hide some internal mechanism like a gas chamber or a spring or acid?” Eli guessed.

Hearing these possibilities Sifer clambered up the wall, getting as far away as possible. “Good idea, can I suggest everyone get to the back of the room,” Marko nodded. No one hesitated. He turned his attention to the hinge. “I think I can dissemble these,” he reported, and set about doing just that. A minute or so later he had it: inside were tiny rods connected to valves inside the pew. Lifting the seat would engage the rods and open the valves. He cautiously set about reengineering the pistons so they would stay idle, and soon had the solution in place. He stood, brushed off his hands, and lifted the pew confidently while everyone held their breath. “Empty!” he laughed.

Everyone relaxed as Marko clambered in hoping to find a false bottom. Nothing. He looked at the valves under the seat, finding a reservoir of poison gap ready to be released. “Ingenious,” he grinned. He repeated the disabling procedure on the other pew and found it exactly the same and also empty.

Uther nodded, “Greed tempts you to open these hoping for more—a fatal lesson for the unwary.”

Idris spread his black circle of cloth on the ground, dropped down the rope ladder and emerged again with a handful of hessian sacks. “Fill ‘em up,” he grinned.

“I’m of the belief that this is not a good chapel despite the iconography on the walls,” Eli said piously as he filled his bag, “So I’m happy to send this gold back to those who need it.”

“A wise man once told me money can’t buy me happiness,” Idris smiled, “But neither does poverty.”

Sifer wandered over to one of the urns. It stood about chest-high, pottery finished in a simple white glaze. Each was stoppered with a brass and wooden plug, with nothing that might resemble a ring. The candelabras next to them held the fresh white candles; none had ever been lit. He lent against one of the urns and rocked it slightly, determining it was likely empty. “Gas,” he reported. “Open the stoppers, light the candles, and…”

“Well leave it alone,” Eli urged.

Sifer laughed and turned his attention to Marko’s hole in the wall. It was only small, coin or, indeed, ring sized. The O was traced faintly above it, not a perfect circle, hand drawn.

“Can you fit a ring in that O?” Idris called.

Sifer rubbed his hand over the letter, finding no depression. “No, it’s a mural flat against the fresco. Toss me a coin?” Idris flipped a gold coin over, which Sifer deftly caught and held up against the circle symbol. It was smaller than the O, but would fit into the slot. “Gentlemen—shall I?”

“Yes,” Uthar said from the far side of the room.

Sifer clambered back up the wall, hanging upside down, and slid the coin into the hole. It vanished inside the dark cavity—and there was no sound of it landing or falling. Nothing in the room had changed. “Let’s try those other coins?”

Both the silver and dull silver coins had the same result: vanishing without a trace. “This is the second thing we’ve found that I don’t know how they work,” Sifer sighed.

“What about stringing it?” Three suggested. “Tie a string, drop it in, pull it back out.”

“Or does anyone own a non-magical ring that is gold?” Eli asked.

“The wise will not need sacrifice aught but a loop of magical metal,” Sifer said. “So we don’t need to use the altar and take the blood out of a soul, instead all we need is to place a magic metal in the socket.”

“Imagine a ring—” Eli started.

“It’s not ring-shaped though,” Idris interrupted, “It’s an ‘O’.”

“No—but the slot can take a ring,” Eli clarified. “And the ‘O’ could have been drawn by somebody else. I’m just saying imagine it’s a ring and we need to put a ring in. Or alternately is there any way we can punch a hole through a gold coin?”

Uthar laughed, then reconsidered. “You know…that sounds like something we could do.” He pulled a piton from his pack and flexed his not inconsiderable muscles. Idris flipped another coin, and after a few minutes of practice swings and positioning, he punched a hole through the centre of the coin, creating a makeshift ring. “It’s not attractive,” he grinned, tossing it to Sifer.

“Nor magical,” Sifer grinned, sliding it into the slot. Nothing happened.

“I have a magical silver ring,” Uthar said, holding a finger up. “The only one I have, but it’s not of much use to me.”

Idris shook his head. “Don’t forget the full poem said If shades of red stand for blood, the wise will not need sacrifice aught but a loop of magical metal. We came down the black tunnel, not red, so this is not for here. I believe all you’d be doing is dropping your ring into a bottomless slot for no good reason.”

“It must be a thing for a ring,” Eli insisted.

Sifer, still on the wall, pulled out a string, grinning at Three. “There’s two things we can do here, Uthar. We can try the string or you can lie down on that alter.”

“I choose the first one,” Uthar deadpanned.

“Or,” Idris said, lifting his finger and pointing it to the portal in the exact same pose as the skeleton.

Uthar groaned. “I hate those. I imagine instant disintegration. If that’s the three options I choose the ring,” he said slipping it off his finger.

“I think the first two will work and the third will kill us,” Eli posited.

“Why don’t we just test the portal to start?” Idris said, “To see if it is a portal. Flick a coin through.”

“That is the lowest risk option,” Uthar nodded. Everyone cleared a path between the archway and slot as Idris directed. He magic handed a silver coin into the clouded gateway. It didn’t come back out, but everyone did hear it ping against something and again as if it dropped to the floor.

“Let me try my pole,” Eli said, extending it to a full ten-foot length. He stood on the threshold of the gateway and prodded. He couldn’t reach anything when probing directly forward, so he directed his poking toward the floor. This time he did feel it, solid beneath the pole. Similarly there felt to be a wall on either side of the gateway. “Well, there’s a space back there at least ten foot deep. And my pole is ok.”

“I hate the portals,” Uthar repeated darkly. “Hate them.” He couldn’t explain his loathing, but it was undeniable.

Eli scowled, picked up the nearest candelabra and hurled it into the archway. It crashed into something and clattered a few times as if falling to the ground.

“There’s enough stuff through there now to go and see if it came out one of the other arches,” Sifer said.

Eli grabbed the other candelabra, then with Sifer made his way back to the sphere corridor. It wasn’t an easy crawl. None of the objects were there. The portal by the green devil in the entry corridor was the same. Eli hurled the second candelabra into that portal. It clattered, then both retraced their steps. The candelabra was nowhere to be found. In the sphere room Eli hoisted the spear inside. This time there was no sound. He raced back to the first portal—no spear. Eventually both Eli and Sifer returned to the chapel and weren’t surprised to find nothing had emerged.

“It does occur to me,” Idris said when they returned, “That these might not be portals. It may just be an illusory door. An effect.”

“I want to try the ring,” Uthar sighed. “It’s not the greatest plan, but it’s a plan.”

“We’ve got enough gold now to buy you a new one,” Sifer grinned, attaching his string. He again hovered above the hole and carefully dropped Uthar’s magical ring into the slot.

The sting went instantly limp. Sifer yanked it free to find no ring attached. A moment later the entire wall slab started to grind and lower slowly, sinking into the stone to reveal a narrow walled passage. “Bingo!” Sifer smiled. “You’re well along your march!”

“That actually sounds pretty good,” Uthar smiled as he crouched to see if he could retrieve his ring. There was no sign of it, nor the coins. “Crushed under the slab I would guess,” he shrugged.

The company followed Marko into the passage beyond. All but Three, who stepped back to the altar, focussing his religious knowledge again on the slab. He was sure it was active—the glow a giveaway—but try as he might he could not discern the god it was dedicated to. Maybe none?

---

Beyond the gate stone the corridor widened to ten feet and turned southward where steps led down steeply to a west bound corridor. A stone door blocked the passage forty feet ahead, so Marko alighted with his winged boots and cleared the floor below for traps, finding none.

He dropped to the ground at the door and listened closely. “Something behind here,” he whispered, hearing a rattling beyond.

“Sifer!” Eli hissed, pulling his bow. Sifer stayed on the bottom stair, just in sight of the door if he lent—but out of the path of anything that might shoot forth.

Marko turned back and, seeing Sifer’s half-hidden form, gave him a long hard stare. It was one thing to be the back-marker, another to be a coward. He held the gaze for a long minute, perplexed as much as anything. Sifer, growing uncomfortable—and also perplexed—as Marko’s stare lingered, looked behind him in case he’d missed something. But it was just a finished stone wall. When he turned back Marko was busy opening the door.

“We are ready,” Eli whispered.

Marko shoved the door open…and toppled into a pit on the other side. “Ow!!” he cried as he was pinioned on the vicious spikes within.

“Master!” Eli cried sprinting forward and sliding on his belly to try and reach out and grab the fallen thief. He was too late, so he leapt into the pit landing cleverly between the spikes. He lifted Marko off the blades, thankful to find him still breathing. Of more concern was the foul green liquid dripping from the wounds—and the sound of his body schlupping off the spikes. He hefted Marko in his arms and sprinted up the walls of the pit in a full 360, gaining speed as he did.

“Uthar! The great Master Marko has suffered a grievous injury! Is there anything you can do or do we leave him to die?”

Uthar raised an eyebrow and knelt by Marko’s fast-breathing body, closing his eyes to pray.

“Don’t you have to suck on the wound?” Eli asked.

“No!” Marko’s strangled voice insisted.

“I don’t,” Uthar confirmed calmly. He laid his hands on the piercings and black ichor excreted from the wounds. A moment later Marko sat up. “I feel better. Thank you very much!”

“Oh. I thought that would be harder,” Eli said. “Rest here Little Master.” He raced over the pit to another door ten feet ahead, ignorant of the danger.

“No Eli!” Sifer called, too late. He sighed and descended into the corridor, ignoring another stare from Marko.

Marko flew over the pit to land by Eli’s side, checked the new door, and pushed it open…with more care. Another pit was revealed, just like the first. There as another door twenty feet ahead. Marko continued his flight, clearing the floor. “I would put two traps here,” he muttered. He opened the next door and again there was a trap beyond—but no further doors. The corridor continued some thirty feet ahead before turning north.

“Another trap here,” Marko reported, “Take care.” Eli, following on the wall, banged and poked the ‘trap’ with his pole but couldn’t get it to spring. Instead he called the rest of the company forward and warned of the possible pit. Sifer assisted by planting himself on the wall above each pit and swinging everyone over like a living fulcrum. Everyone made it safely, until Uthar stumbled on the last leap falling onto the trapped square Eli had warned of. He braced himself to fall…but nothing happened.

“Probably rusted up?” Eli said, and this time it was Sifer’s turn to take a long hard look at Marko.

Marko meanwhile had turned the corner to find a very long, very straight corridor. He sighed and started working his way along it checking for traps constantly. After some 150 feet he found another door ahead. A thick wooden door heavily bound with iron bands, and several locks securing it shut—two padlocks, two keyholes, and a locked bar. He leant his ear to the woodwork and was surprised to hear far-off music and happy singing, obviously coming from the other side of the door.

“These keys and those are most important of all” Eli read from Acererak’s poem, glancing at the keyed locks. “And wat key are those voices singing in?” Eli’s guess was clever but no-one had an answer for that.

“And I can’t pick the melody,” Sifer added. He was a huge fan of Tarquin Rose’s ballads, but this didn’t ring any bells. Oerth didn’t know what they were missing out on.

“Locks on our side,” Three pointed out. “And how has a wooden door lasted here so long?”

Marko shrugged and went to work on the five locks. Only one proved difficult and he felt lucky to solve it, and none were trapped. With each lock removed the singing became a little clearer.

“Wait!” Three suddenly said. “Block your ears—candle wax or anything you have. Could be a monster. And I have a silence spell ready.” He was very familiar with the use of music and singing to deaden minds.

“Yes! Good idea, well thought,” Marko nodded, handing out soft bees wax he used for making key impressions. Once everyone was ready Marko nodded and pushed the door. It didn’t budge. He frowned and tried pulling, but again it didn’t move at all. “Must be magic,” he muttered, pulling the wax free as everyone followed suit. He pulled out his crowbar and wedged it under a hinge, pulling for all his might. A few splinters cracked off the wood.

Eli tapped on the door. It sounded solid, thick, at least six inches if not more. “This is thick, but we could hack a hole in it?”

“The door may be a ruse,” Idris said shaking his head. He didn’t fancy attacking a door.

“Then can we dispel the magic locking it?” Eli asked.

“I could,” Three said looking to Marko.

Sifer was studying the poem again. He held a hand up: “The throne that’s key and keyed”

“You think someone’s got to sit in the throne?” Three asked.

“If the throne is key, and this is keyed, then yes, maybe?”

“It also says If you find the false you find the true,” Idris said, muddying the waters.

“I think the false and the true are the misrepresentations of good in the chapel,” Sifer said.

“I’ll fly back to the throne room,” Marko announced. Eli followed immediately behind.

“I’m going with them,” Sifer said. “Everyone else take up positions on the corridor corners so we can communicate.”

Marko made a thorough check of the throne. Very thorough. When satisfied it was safe, he nodded to Sifer and sat carefully on the plain seat.

“He’s in, Eli,” Sifer called.

Eli mimed a seating motion to Idris.

Idris sighed. “He’s siting,” he called to Uthar who was standing at the door.

Uthar turned to the door, which hadn’t changed at all, and shoved. It didn’t budge. “Nothing!”

The message was passed back to Marko who jumped down.

Eli walked into the chapel. “This is not the columned hall. It says ‘And there the throne that’s key and keyed'.”

“It does, you’re right,” Sifer agreed.

Marko, out of ideas, stood before the altar. He looked back at the chair, seeing it was too far to sit in and reach the altar at the same time. He sighed and lifted a coin from his pocket, tossing it toward the bowl of the altar.

“He’s throwing a coin on the altar!” Eli cried.

“Oh god,” Sifer groaned, slapping his head.

Nothing happened. The coin pinged off the surface and rolled to a stop in the cavity.

Eli passed this back to the rest of the company.

“See if the altar will move,” Idris called and Eli repeated.

“Marko? What are we doing?” Sifer said with a frown.

Marko shrugged and put his hand on the altar. He was flung away as a lightning bolt exploded from the altar, streaking down the centre aisle and tracing the path of golden tiles before crackling to a stop at the secret door.

“Ow!” Marko groaned, shaking, but surprised to find himself unharmed. He thanked his lucky stars. Behind him the alter glowed angrily, now a fiery blue-red like it contained a furnace.

“Shades of red was the signal for the magical loop, so there you are,” Sifer sighed.

“Why do I smell ozone?” Idris called, alarmed.

“It’s not ozone, it’s Marko on fire!” Eli cried. “But he’s ok!”

Idris glanced up toward Uthar. “Let’s go back,” he said with resignation.

The company regathered in the chapel. “The door didn’t move an inch,” Uthar reported.

“I don’t think that’s even a door,” Idris said firmly. “I think it’s just a wall with a hole lot of locks to make it look like a door.”

Three reappraised the altar after Marko’s heroics. The throbbing red glow was obviously a concern, and he was now even more convinced that the altar was simply what it appeared. “Just a trap, not connected to any god,” he muttered.

“It’s fireball next time, so let’s not tarry,” Eli joked nervously.

“Unless we just have to keep touching this thing until it turns the right colour,” Idris suggested. “Because it did say that the black is for people of ‘great valour'. Two paths, one false, one true,” he said pointing to the now scorched path. He was a betting man, but the best odds he could lay on this theory being right was 50-50.

“I say this is the false path,” Sifer shrugged.

“As a brave man of faith,” Eli said, “We need to try another approach before we try anything as baroque as killing ourselves a second time. We can come back and set off this explosion any time we choose. There’s another path in the sphere corridor we haven’t been down. Someone once said something about never leaving a door behind?”

Idris nodded. Strangely he almost thought it was he that had said that, but he shook that off as a false memory. But whoever had said it was wise indeed.

“Eli, I agree. We know what’s here,” Sifer said leading the company back to the crawlway.

---

“Who’s going first into this nightmare?” Uthar grunted standing afront the waist-high red sphere.

Marko hauled himself into the new crawlway. It was fifty feet to a bend left.

“Who’s going in with him?” Sifer hissed.

“No-one,” Uthar said bluntly. He was increasingly disliking this entire experience.

“This is where the trap was!” Eli suddenly remembered, diving into the passage.

“Since no-one is protecting these people I’m going in,” Sifer announced glaring at Uthar, Idris, and Three.

“What do you mean no-one?” Eli’s muffled call came from within. “What are you going to protect me from, Sifer—harsh language?”

“The one thing you can’t save Marko from is himself,” Idris snorted to Uthar.

Eli’s warning gave Marko pause and he double checked his surrounds. Instead of a trap he found a secret door. “It detects secret doors too,” he explained to Eli as if he hadn’t forgotten that fact. He turned back and pressed the door open. “Ow!” he grunted as the floor suddenly tilted below his feet and dumped him ten-feet lower in a thirty-foot square room.

After determining Marko was ok, Eli laughed when he saw what lay within. Three large chests were affixed firmly to the floor; the western one gold (plate covering iron), the centre one silver (plate over iron), and the eastern one made of oak bound with thick bronze bands. Each is about four feet long, two feet wide, and three feet high.

---

“Oh god,” Uthar groaned arriving and dutifully taking up position beside Marko. “Why must we be punished like this?”

“Or what would a mimic do?” Marko said suspiciously eying the chests. “I’m checking for traps—this looks too obvious. A gift horse that no-one gives you.” Noting the chests were unmovable, he checked every floor tile for possible traps. “All clear. Chests next,” he nodded.

“In the name of Kelemvor,” Three intoned, healing Marko before he killed himself.

The first check Marko studied was the gold one, checking it for everything he could think of. “It’s not trapped. Or breathing. Or even locked.” He prodded it with his rapier just in case. “Do you want to reef it open, Uthar?”

Uthar, who was looking unhappy already, glared at Marko. Of course he didn’t want to, but he did.

A tangle of writhing snakes swarmed out of the open chest, wrapping themselves around Uthar and sinking their fangs into his exposed flesh. “Ahhh!”

---

“Why did it have to be snakes!” Eli groaned.

Marko made up for putting Uthar in the line of fire with a brilliant flourish of his rapier, the tip tracing a line that sliced off every single serpent head with one precision swoop. They dropped to the ground with a plop as Marko grinned. “Sorry about that.”

Uthar found his spirits lifted by the beauty of Marko’s strike. And instant later they were fallen once more when he saw the chest was empty. “Oh my god.”

Marko repeated his checks on the silver chest. “Ready?” he said to a nod from Uthar, this time lifting the lid himself. Nothing sprung forth. Instead he found a clear crystal box with a silver ring housed inside. The box was set neatly into a cavity in the chest bottom.

“Oh come on,” Idris groaned on hearing this.

“We were supposed to get this ring first, not sacrifice one of ours,” Three laughed. What was this place?

“If that ring has magical powers you get it Uthar,” Idris called from the safety of the corridor.

The box didn’t have a lid, and he could see no way of opening it without lifting it out. He looked for a pressure plate that might activate when the box was taken but could see nothing. Marko found this very suspicious. “So when we remove the box it triggers a trap?”

“That’s for you to tell us!” Eli scoffed.

“Maybe don’t touch this yet,” Marko said moving to the oak chest. “Uthar? Do you want to hop out of the room?” he said, still feeling guilty over his earlier suggestion.

“Mister Marko, I appreciate the offer but I really can’t do that—I have to stay with you.”

Marko stabbed the box—“not a mimic”—but was surprised to find it trapped. He turned to report this to Uthar but caught his sleeve on the lid of the chest and it sprung open.

A giant skeleton bampfed into the room in a puff of smoke, emerging impossibly from the chest.

---

“Gods!” Uthar swore as the skeleton swung three times at Marko, striking him twice. Marko poked his rapier in retaliation, shaving chunks of bone. Sifer loosed four arrows in the blink of an eye, then Uthar shattered every last bone in a holy fury until the skeleton exploded in a shower of bone.

“He wants to get that ring,” Sifer smirked.

---

Secret Doors

Uthar peered into the chest at the crystal box. “This feels like some kind of mage hand moment?”

Sifer motioned to Three, who crawled back out into the corridor of spheres to find Idris smoking a cigarello. “I think they need you? I’ll stay here.”

“Finally,", Sifer called approvingly, “We have our martial form back. About time.”

Idris ground out his smoke with a wry grin at Three. “I think he thinks you’re keeping watch.” He crawled into the chest room and examined the open chest. He summoned his hand and positioned it above the crystal, lowered it carefully to wrap around the box, then backed out of the room, maintaining his mental image. He looked to Marko. “Are you planning on dropping in a counterweight or something when I lift it?”

“The crystal looks very heavy,” Marko said to some scepticism. He pulled a grappling hook from his tools and stood ready.

Uthar raised his shield with a sigh. “It’s going to be a fireball isn’t it.”

“One…two…three!” Idris called. Marko dropped the grappling hook as the hand lifted the crystal box free. As the box rose a flurry of arrows sprung from the bottom of the chest.

---

Marko froze and Uthar ducked, but every single arrow managed to miss them as they cracked into the ceiling. Nothing else bad happened.

“We overestimated this dungeon,” Eli grunted.

“That’s the lesson I’m taking,” Three called.

“That’s the right lesson,” Uthar nodded. “What’s the ring, Marko? Someone just lost one, I’m just saying.”

Marko cracked the crystal lid, after confirming it wasn’t trapped, and lifted a fine but simple ring free. It had no markings. He flipped it over to Uthar who caught it and held it in the palm of his hand. Not trusting anything, he detected what magic aura it had: Abjuration. “A ring of invisibility, maybe?”

“More likely to be protection,” Idris said. “But Red, if you want my advice, wait for the Three Wizards to identify it for us before you put it on. And whilst you’ve got that detection running, why don’t you check those portals?”

Uthar both pieces of advice, dropping the ring into his pocket and returning to the portal at the south end of the great hall of spheres, cautious as the three stones glowed when he approached. “I don’t know much about this stuff but this one is Conjuration.”

“Conjuration would cover portals,” Idris nodded thoughtfully.

He next led the company back to the chapel to stand in front of the orange-smoked portal, the stones inert. “My sense is fading but this one is different—Transmutation, and the altar is Evocation.” He looked to Idris and Three hoping they could explain.

“So this portal is very different to the other,” Three mused.

“If this one isn’t a portal at all,” Eli said pointing to the archway, “And it’s just a room full of gas, which is what I’m suspecting because stuff lands in it and I can hit the walls with my pole, could it be conjuring gas continuously or something like that?”

“It is 1000% that one of these portals we are supposed to go through,” Three observed, “And the others kill you instantly.”

“Are you suggesting that Uthar should go in?” Sifer smirked.

“Yes. Just hold your breath,” Eli said, quite serious.

Uthar didn’t move a muscle.

Idris pointed to the altar. “Evocation is obvious because this emanates hostile, elemental based spells. But do not—do not—step into that portal.”

Eli still felt suspicious. “Mister Marko, sir please—I observe you have a grappling hook with a rope?”

“Yes?”

“Would you throw that into this portal, maintaining a hand on one end of the rope, and see if you can drag the candelabra I threw in back out?”

Marko shrugged, tossed his hook into the orange vapours and felt it latch onto something. He jerked it back and Eli’s only slightly dented candelabra clattered out.

“It may only work on living things,” Idris said, unimpressed. “Things like polymorph spells, also transmutation, generally work like that.”

“And the only thing down here that’s got flesh is us,” Sifer mused. “Transmutation could also create a portal through a wall,” he added, “I’ve witnessed a mage melt a stone wall so troops could step through.”

“Well we’re at a dead end. What else haven’t we tried?” Uthar said.

“You haven’t put the ring on and gone through that portal,” Sifer said.

“The ring was for the sliding door on the opposite wall,” Idris reminded him, saving Uthar a negative grunt.

“I agree with Brother Cooper—at some point we have to go through one of these gas doorways,” Eli said.

“Do we? Do we?” Uthar groaned. “I don’t know that we do. There must be another way!”

“There’s no way I’m going through that one,” Three motioned, “But I feel certain we’ll have to teleport somewhere somehow.”

“There’s the very first portal that we haven’t checked,” Uthar shrugged, “And we never really solved the glowing stones on the other two.”

“Three—can Kelemvor give you an indication as to the outcome of walking through a particular portal?” Idris said, searching for a definitive answer.

“Yes? Though the answer isn’t always as clear as you might wish. All I ask is we craft the question very carefully.”

As the discussion continued about how to phrase the plea, Sifer found himself rolling the Acererak’s poem through his head. He was sure something had been missed, it had been nagging him for sometime. “Go back…shun green if you can…shades of red. We’ve done all that,” he muttered. Then he suddenly sat bolt upright. Check the wall! He jumped to his feet and headed through the ring-doorway, hurrying down the steps beyond to arrive at the corridor with three pits.

He glanced back to find Uthar watching him. “Two pits along the way will be found to lead to a fortuitous fall, so check the wall!” he called, almost joyfully. “There’s three here, but still…". He climbed to stand on the wall with his boots. He walked along the wall to the second pit and carefully descended, then checked each of the four walls. He was disappointed to find nothing.

Sifer emerged again, shook his head at Uthar, and moved onto the third pit. Almost immediately he saw what he was looking for: on the southern wall was a wooden door painted to look like stone! “Here!” he cried. It was so obvious! He popped his head up to find Uthar grinning widely.

---

The company was soon gathered on the edge of the third pit—Idris had checked the first pit but found no further doors. Marko cleared the door for traps, then gently pushed it open. Another narrow crawl space emerged at the top of a short flight of stairs leading down.

“Before we continue—we’ve learnt that Sifer is on the money studying the poem,” Uthar said approvingly. “Let me read the next line: These keys and those are most important of all, and beware of trembling hands and what will maul. I don’t know what that means but that’s going to be the next thing?”

“Well obviously one will always be careful of what will maul,” Eli nodded, “That’s why we don’t like tigers, right?”

“‘Trembling hands’ could be a reference to disarming a trap,” Idris said.

“Or a mouth of truth where you put your hand in and hope for the best?” Sifer added to concerned stares.

Marko floated forward, tapping the ground with his pole to clear the way as Eli carried Brother Cooper into the pit and Sifer helped the others. Another set of stairs descend to the west, and the corridor that extended past the bottom of the steps was slightly cloudy.

As the company gathered, Marko pulled out his poisoner’s kit and stepped down the first step. He gently wafted some of the white smoke toward him, doing his best to smell but not breath. Alas his best was not enough. A moment later he was overcome with terror, convinced that what lay below was the worst of the worst. He sprinted away, past his stunned companions—“Kelemvor!” Three cried as Marko passed, healing him briefly—and out of the pit.

Somewhat surprisingly no-one followed their great leader, his face etched with fear. “He’ll come back,” Idris said, unconcerned. Eli stepped down the steps and dropped to his belly. He breathed in deeply, confident his poison immunity would save him. He felt a shudder of fear wash over him, but put it out of his mind with studied focus. “It’s fear gas, everybody,” he announced, “Not poison.”

Behind him, Uthar gathered everyone. “Stand close to me—you will be immune to fear.” He led the company into the gas—Idris taking a deep breath and holding it, just in case—which became thicker as the corridor led on. After thirty feet a door emerged from the lightly obscured fog.

Marko meanwhile was still running for his life. He entered the chapel, looking around wildly for a safe exit. His eyes focused on the portal and he raced toward it. Just as he reached the threshold he felt the horror that had gripped him suddenly fade as quickly as it had rose. He skidded to a halt just afront of the portal, gasping in lungfuls of air. He spun and flew back to the shelter of Uthar’s bubble, arriving to find Uthar pointing at the door expectantly.

The door was clear, so Marko pulled it open. Beyond another stairway led down, the way blocked by thick webbing that filled the area from steps to ceiling. The gas, oddly, didn’t seep down the stairway.

“Webbing is good,” Eli said, “Because that’s something we can kill.”

“Webbing implies a webber,” Three groaned.

“Giant spiders,” Uthar predicted.

“And beware of trembling hands,” Sifer intoned.

“We touch the web with trembling hands?” Three suggested.

“We’ve already had the trembling hands!” Eli declared. “That was young Master Marko running for his life.”

“And what will maul,” Sifer said, completing the phrase.

“That would be the spiders,” Eli nodded.

“The webbing’s not a problem, I can burn that out,” Idris advised.

“Wait—could that go wrong?” Uthar worried.

“In what way?”

“Fire in this enclosed space? The gas?”

“The only thing that could go wrong is angering whatever is in the web. So if everyone gets ready…”

“I’d enjoy a stand up fight at this point,” Eli said prophetically.

“We can make friends later,” Three grimaced.

Idris shot a bolt of fire into the webs, which shrivelled quickly into nothingness. Nothing emerged, and nor did the gas behind explode.

Before anyone could move, Eli grabbed Marko by the collar. “Brother Cooper? Young Mister Marko is quite injured, I fear for his life as we step further into the tomb.”

“I just healed him,” Three said.

Eli looked down at his clearly wounded leader. “Perhaps your god is weak here?”

Three frowned. “My healing is more effective for multiple people than it is one.”

“I get it. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. Off you go Marko!”

---

Lying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs was an iron mace inlaid with silver. A modest-sized room opened beyond, and from the stairway the company could see glimpses of rotting and decayed furnishings.

“That’s going to come alive and take over Sifer,” Three predicted, seeing the warrior’s eyes trained on the weapon.

Marko descended, checking the stairs as he moved. He lifted his eyes from the mace to look into the small room. A solid gold couch along the back wall and the room was covered in detritus.

As Marko led the company forward and stepped inside, a skeletal figure wearing a crown on its head slowly rose from the couch.

---

“Holy shit a lich!” Three gasped seeing the mummified creature and knowing just how bad things were about to get.

“Looks like a mummy to me,” Idris countered.

Never fear—we’re the A-team! We were chosen by God!” Eli cried.

The lich-or-mummy was waving it’s hands preparing a spell, so Marko, ever tanking, charged forward and jammed his weapons into the undead being.

Uthar moved to join Marko before recalling his protective aura would be dropped from the company. “Come with me if you want to live!” he cried.

Taking the hesitation as an invitation, the bandage-wrapped foe swung a sceptre at Marko. Marko easily stepped out of the first swing, bracing for the return blow. But the sceptre caught on the headpiece of the chaise-lounge and clattered to the floor. “Curses!” the beast cried as it continued to prepare its spell.

Sifer jumped into the room and fired a brace of walloping arrows, hoping to disrupt the spell. Most hit and Sifer was rewarded by the lich toppling back onto the lounge as it reached for the sceptre. “This shall not be borne!” it howled.

Seeing the lich prone, Three changed his tactic. Instead of silencing the spell, he covered it in a necrotic blight. The bandages shrivelled and tightened around the creature. “Kelemvor!” Three cried as if it were a swear word, such was his hatred of the undead.

Eli raced into the room, seeing the evil creature so close to Marko. There was no grace in the killing blow he landed, pounding the flat of the blade into the fallen lich-or-mummy with furious passion. The figure within disintegrated, leaving a pile of rotting bandaged atop the chaise-lounge.

As the blow reverberated around the chamber, the room started to shake and stones started to come down from the ceiling, as if the overwhelming power of Eli’s attack had made the tomb begin to collapse. Eli hauled Marko up and tucked him under his left arm, running back up the stairs.

The floor tremored and the tomb filled with the grinding noise of stone on stone, hunks of ceiling fell all around, and ominous rumblings filled the air. “Follow me out, stay close!” Uthar called watching the gas in the corridor swirl angrily.

“That room needs to be checked!” Idris choked through the billowing dust, “What we need might be in there!”

Sifer jumped into the room, dodging the stones falling from the ceiling. One landed close-by and he lashed out a foot at it. It disintegrated below his foot—and he felt nothing. He looked up. “If you find the false you find the true,” he muttered. He put a hand out under the next chunk that fell and it vanished with his touch: no weight, no rock. “It’s safe!” he yelled.

Idris who was running with Uthar and the company, skidded to a halt. He focused his attention on the collapsing tomb and saw through it almost immediately: an illusion. He turned back to see Sifer standing calmly amongst the ‘falling’ rubble with both arms out, grinning. “Excellent work, my friend,” Idris smiled.

The chaos continued—tactile noise, visible dust, crunching stone—but once ignored it was perfectly safe. After a few more minutes the entire show subsided and everything returned to normal.

Eli arrived back with Marko after their short escape. “I didn’t leave because I was afraid, I just wanted to save Master Marko,” he said challengingly. No-one reacted. “And I don’t lie!”

Sifer scanned the room. The chaise-lounge was the main feature, made of solid gold and weighing just as much. A jade coffer lay nearby, and the creature’s gold crown lay fallen on the floor. A fine leather bag was the only other non-ruined object of note.

“That bag could hold a Rod piece,” Idris said hopefully. He could see something of that shape bulging from the inside. Marko checked it was safe, then peeled it open. “No Rod unfortunately,” Marko said, “But there is some platinum…a handful of cheap gems, some spell scrolls…and this!” Marko said triumphantly, pulling out a rolled up map which he passed to Idris.

Idris floated the map before everyone and unrolled it. It showed the tomb and an island marked The Isle of Serpents, some hundreds of miles distant. An X was marked over the centre of isle, and scrawled beneath in a scratchy hand a phrase : Wherein the true treasure is found. It was initialled with a familiar A.

“If you find the false you find the true!” Eli recited excitedly.

“The false is the cross, and that’s where the truth is—the true treasure,” Sifer predicted.

“Maybe,” Uthar sighed. “I was hoping it was going to be a map of this tomb.”

“Me too,” Three grunted.

“Acererak had this map, and has his name on the map,” Sifer stressed. “Let’s go there!”

“It’s miles away!” Eli frowned.

Idris too raised a very sceptical eyebrow. “The only question is does one of the portals here lead directly there?”

Uthar shook his head. “They are all horrible.”

Idris nodded. “It’s too risky and we haven’t finished here. Marko, if you would?” he said, floating the jade coffer forward.

Marko checked the coffer—very fine and worth at least 500gp—and opened it, and found six potions inside. He held one up then used his kit to test it. “Healing potions,” he said sculling one immediately.

Eli looked around the room, pointing to the forgotten mace. “Sifer that is for you. I don’t know why you haven’t put the crown on and picked that up.”

“It is his destiny,” Three grin-grimaced, “But perhaps Uthar can detect evil first?”

Uthar did as asked. The entire tomb throbbed with deep evil, assaulting his senses. He did his best to focus on the crown and mace. “They don’t seem any better or worse than this entire place—I would expect them to pulse with a sickening evil if they were. I checked for magic too—the crown isn’t, but the mace is.”

Hearing that, Sifer walked over to the mace and picked it up. It immediately began to glow with a bright golden light. He moved it around the room, illuminating the walls, disappointed when nothing was revealed.

“Well we found the false but we haven’t found the true,” Eli groaned, frustrated.

“It’s on the map!” Sifer reminded everyone.

“We can bag the rest and sort it when we get out,” Idris declared as he spread open his portable hole.

“Talking of getting out—Marko? We’re at another dead end. Can you use your rod to check for secrets?” Uthar asked. Sifer and Eli were checking the walls but finding nothing.

Marko used his last charge. “Nothing here,” he said glumly.

Uthar led the company from the room, still sensing magic. The gas wasn’t, but as he approached the turn in the corridor he suddenly sense a strong magic presence in the wall ahead. “There’s something here,” he called with relief just as his spell faded. “Abjuration magic.”

Marko stepped forward and easily found the door in the eastern wall. “Uthar’s spell must have revealed it?” he muttered, checking it. Finding it safe he pushed it open.

---

A corridor led thirty-feet east, then turned sharply south for another forty before being stopped by a door. Marko dutifully cleared the way, then opened the door.

Three recognised the room instantly: a burial preparation room, specifically for mummies. And not only preparation—experimentation. Workbenches, preparations, and three large vats stood within.

---

“Mister Marko I would very much like to take a look in there.”

“You want me to go in first to this creepy room?”

“It’s not creepy. It’s a place of work and worship,” Three scowled. “We’ve all removed someone’s brains and placed them in a canopic jar before.”

Idris caught Three’s eye and nodded quite seriously.

“Not creepy at all,” Marko grimaced, clearing the room slowly

Three set about exploring the treasures within once Marko gave the all clear. “Let me have a quick look first,” he warned everyone.

The walls were lined with shelves, and upon those were old jars filled with dust and impotent ingredients of all sorts. There was a large desk and stool, two workbenches, and two mummy preparation tables with rotted linen wrappings in rolls strewn about. Clay pots and urns littered the tables and floor, once containing unguents, ointments, oils, perfumes, and the like. Dried herbs of unidentifiable nature, bones, skulls and the like litter the workbenches. Nothing within had survived the ravages of time, impotent and lifeless now.

Three moved over to the vats as everyone entered the room. Each stood four-feet high and were a seven-foot diameter. He expected the regular sequence was in place: strip the body of all flesh, replace, and preserve. The first vat was full of a brown-greyish substance that he didn’t recognise—the best he could guess was it was the ancient remains of dissolved flesh. Strangely it did not smell. The second contained a greenish muck. “Some sort of acid or something to destroy flesh,” he announced.

“Brother Cooper,” Eli said glancing to Three’s hood at his ruined face, “You have encountered this before?”

Ignoring Eli, Three stood over the final vat. It looked like dirty water, but he sensed there was something he was missing. He was frustrated at his lack of insight, but put it down to the age of everything in the room, and the ways of a foreign world. “It’s not clear their purpose, they’ve been here too long, but none of them are good,” he sighed.

“We don’t know how old this tomb is, do we?” Eli asked.

“It’s also a different world,” Idris said.

“You think entropy acts faster in different universes?”

“The only thing that palpably changes on the Astral are God bodies. Nothing else changes unless manipulated by an external force. People don’t age—”

“How old are you?” Sifer interrupted.

“Older than I look.”

“So the answer should be I’m getting older all the time?”

“Now, and here? Yes.”

“Why don’t you go back there then?” Eli asked innocently.

“And you could go back to Eberron,” Idris said, taking Eli’s comment the wrong way.

“I will be,” Eli said defensively.

“Oh god,” Three muttered, trauma rapidly rising. The sharp pain it caused cleared the fug from his mind, and he suddenly noticed something unusual in the opaque liquid of the acidic vat. There was a shadow at the bottom of the urn, an object that changed how the acid was reacting under observation. It didn’t make sense but it was definitely there. He motioned Idris over and tilted his head toward the vat. “Something inside,” he said, “A shadow.”

Idris looked into the liquid, not seeing anything. “Stand back,” he said as Eli prepared his extendable pole. He summoned his hand and dropped it into the vat. He could sense the acid going to work but having no effect. He traced the fingers over the bottom of the container, sluicing it around until he felt it catch something. His real hand mimimced what was going on below, closing the fingers carefully and slowly withdrawing.

Everyone stood back as the hand emerged, dripping acid. Clutched in the ethereal fingers was half a golden barrel key. “How did you see that?” he asked Three with bemusement as he magicked the acid off the key.

“All grace to Kelemvor,” Three intoned, concealing how pleased he was.

“And there the throne that’s key and keyed,” Sifer recited.

“It’s probably worth investigating if the other half is in one of the other vats,” Idris suggested. “Maybe with a stick this time.”

Eli jumped forward, pole in hand. He tried the watery vat first, feeling a bit foolish as he could quite clearly see it was empty. “Nothing in here.” He moved to the brownish gloop and jammed in the pole. He stumbled back as an amorphous ochre ooze surged out of the vat.

As per tradition, Marko lunged first, his tiny blades sinking sickeningly into the jelly. As he slashed it felt like he was calving the thing in half, but instead of killing it the ooze split into two half-sized versions of the first.

“Switch to fire!” Marko cried, realising his mistake.

Eli responded in a panic. “Ahhhh!” he cried and flames burst from his hands and shot toward the creatures. They shrunk away and a steam of foul gas rose from them. Eli continued screaming as barely controlled fire streamed from his hands.

“Eli?” Three said with surprise. Then he noticed something: the scar on Eli’s face was burning red, pulsing angrily. The dragonmark!

Tendrils of ochre reached for Three sending shooting pains of acid up his arms. Three reacted by dropping a burning radiance on the ooze causing it to sizzle and pop. Idris joined the fun by shooting more fire into the original ooze, drawing all the moisture from it, leaving only a puddle on the floor.

Uthar pulled his sword and slashed the remaining ooze, empowering it too with radiance. The stench was foul, but worse as the fact that his blade caused the ooze to split again. He cursed under his breath and drew his light hammer, thumping it into the jelly instead. More radiance, and no splitting.

At the back of the room Sifer sheathed his bow. He pulled his new, glowing mace and joined the melee thumping it home thrice. Marko patted his pockets and bags, realising he had nothing not sharp. “Your turn!” he called to Eli instead.

Flames shot out again from Eli’s burning hands and both the remaining oozes were incinerated. “I can’t stop! I can’t stop it!” Eli cried until Three calmed him and the flames dissipated.

Idris leant over the now empty vat and grinned. He sent his hand in and emerged holding the second half of the key aloft. “Ta-da!” He tossed it to Three, who put the two halves together and they latched together with a satisfying click, binding into a perfect gold key.

---

Marko led the company from the room, finding a very long corridor—at least one-hundred feet. A large pit interrupted the corridor, presenting a twenty-foot gap to be crossed. Marko very carefully checked the ceiling and floor of the pit, flying all the way. He looked for holes that might conceal darts, latches, doors, traps, the works. When he reached the far end he found what he was looking for: an obvious (to him) pressure-plate. “There’s a trap here in the bottom of the pit, a plate that will trip it,” he warned.

He dropped into the pit and, with great care, disabled the mechanism by wedging it shut. In his mind he could see exactly what would have happened if it had triggered.

---

The company made their way over the pit, treading carefully despite Marko having made it perfectly safe. The corridor was once again a dead end, so everyone set about checking every wall. After some time Sifer, continuing his streak, found a door in the northern wall.

“Sifer,” Eli said earnestly, “Well done. Some in the party have doubted you, but no longer.” Sifer just shrugged, but he appreciated the compliment.

Marko cleared the way and opened the secret door, finding another plain door which he also checked and pushed open.

---

The room ahead was filled with funerary offerings and furniture, most badly damaged. There were four rotting sofas, a couple of throne-like chairs, and a jumble of stands, small tables, and vases and urns that were dented, chipped, and broken. Only the rather plain tapestries hanging on the east and west walls appeared to have been spared a rough looting. Scattered amid the general havoc were several trunks and a larger number of coffers.

“There’s a door in the back corner,” Eli pointed out as Marko declared the floor safe. “Just don’t stand on the middle square!” he warned.

“I’m worried about that chipmunk figurine,” Three said side-eyeing Marko.

“A cleansing fireball might be required,” Uthar agreed.

Sifer, on point and on poem, went straight to the nearest throne-like chair, searching it for a keyhole. “Clear,” he announced moving to the next, which also appeared unkeyed.

Eli reached for one of the tapestries and pulled it aside.

“Eli! Don’t touch that! Fugus, ochre, it could be anything!” Three cried too late.

“There’s a door,” Eli announced calmly. As he spoke the floor of the room started to heave and buck causing everyone to stagger. “Oops,” Eli gasped as he hauled the door open and stumbled through.

“We need to get out!” Idris cried. Everyone managed to stay on their feet, following Eli through the doorway to a corridor leading thirty-feet north before bending east. “Sorry everyone,” Eli mumbled.

Sifer stayed inside, finding it relatively easy to maintain his balance despite the violent moment. He closed the door, but the room kept moving. He pulled the curtain back and still it rocked and rolled. He joined the company. “That room hasn’t been looted—the damage was caused by the movement,” he announced. “I’m going to grab one of those coffers.” He did so and returned it to Marko.

Marko found it safe, no locks and no traps. He opened the clasp: “Empty.”

“What does the poem say? Anything interesting about here?” Uthar said.

“Into the columned hall you’ll come, and there the throne that’s key and keyed,” Sifer read. “Neither throne in there had any sign of a key or keyhole.”

“We’re not at the columned hall as far as I can see,” Uthar said thoughtfully.

“There’s also the other door,” Eli pointed to the opposite wall.

---

Roll for Intelligence

Ahead a short set of steps led down to a long, dark corridor. “We’re going this way,” Marko announced, ignoring Eli’s door and descending to begin his process of checking carefully for traps.

“Can I just say one thing,” Eli said as he observed Marko going to work. “I don’t want to make a big thing out of it, and it’s come up many times, but you are the smallest, least resilient, and most wounded person in the party.”

“Yes. But I am brave—I lead from the front,” Marko said with confidence, poking the stone floor with his extendable pole. “Trap here!” he called after some thirty-feet, “But I can’t trigger it so take care”. The company followed, Sifer helping those that could not run the walls. After another twenty-feet Marko reached a intersection with paths leading off on every cardinal. “Obviously trapped,” Marko grunted, springing the pit trap that covered the junction.

Every passage led to a closed door. “North first,” Marko announced, clearing the way with Eli following close. “No sound from behind here, and it’s not trapped or locked. Ready?”

“I’m ready,” Eli nodded and Uthar concurred. Down the corridor, Idris groaned flattened himself against the wall predicting another spear-trap. Three followed suit, determined to stay safe this time.

Marko carefully opened the door to reveal…a blank stone wall. “Oh.” He ran his hands over the rough surface looking for a hidden mechanism but there was nothing there. “What do you think, Uthar?”

“Looks pretty solid to me.”

“Eli?”

“It’s another of the stupid arrow doors but broken? Why else would they lure us down here?”

“It doesn’t go anywhere!” Three called from behind.

“We have seen before that some of these doors can only be detected by magic,” Uthar mused.

“Well we have two other doors to check before we start casting spells,” Eli suggested.

“I agree. We keep going until we’re blocked,” Three nodded.

“Three is correct. If we need to come back to this, that’s the time to use more resources.”

Marko worked his way down the east corridor to the door, finding it safe—unlike the door. “Trapped,” he muttered, doing his best to disarm it.

Observing Marko’s solo antics, Three sighed. “He’s crazy, but he was in Stormwatch so I guess he knows what he’s doing.” Not for the first time Eli wondered what exactly Markos’s role had been in that famed company.

As Marko worked on the door it suddenly sprung open but no trap was triggered. “Strange.” The corridor continued east before turning south. “Come on!” he called.

What about this other corridor?” Three called pointing south. “It would be good to know if that’s blocked too.”

Marko stomped back and made his way to the southern door. “It’s Quiet, like there’s dead air behind,” Marko observed. “Move forward all.” His companions dutifully arrayed themselves in the corridor behind, wanting to offer some semblance of support. “Everyone is here. Go, Mister Marko, please,” Eli said standing ready. Uthar raised his shield as Idris and Three shrank into the wall again. Sifer stepped around the corner out of sight.

Marko gave the nod and pulled the door open.

SPRANGGGGG

The spear shot up the corridor and buried inexorably into…Three.

“This is not fair!” Three grunted as he slumped to the floor. “That’s twice!”

Marko felt a little sheepish having walked everyone into the trap. “Unfortunately the wall behind the door is just a wall,” he confirmed to hide his embarrassment.

“So there’s nothing,” Eli shrugged.

“Not nothing!” Three grunted. Eli gasped and sprinted back, kneeling at Three’s spear-impaled side. “It’s ok, it went into the hole from the last time,” Three deadpanned.

“I shall bind your wounds, master,” Eli said, setting about tearing the spear free and staunching the blood with cloth bandages. He dabbed Three’s brow with a wet cloth for good measure.

---

Marko headed back east to the only door that had something other than a blank wall behind it. The passageway turned south. Marko rounded the corner to find a thick silver mist, shot through with delicate streamers of gold, dense enough to block his view of the area that lay beyond. “Come on,” he said encouraging everyone forward again.

Uthar obediently stepped through the doorway, immediately triggering a wall-to-wall pit trap into which he toppled, pierced on the brutal poisoned spikes that lay at the base. “Argh!” The poison surged through his bloodstream like needles.

Idris peered over the edge to see Uthar sorry and sore, but alive. “Get him out,” Three instructed. Sifer walked down the wall of the pit, gave his arm to Uthar, and pulled him free of the spikes and out of the trap. Seeing the damage, Three dropped to one knee and blessed everyone with Kelemvor’s light.

“Did you check this floor?” Sifer said accusingly to Marko.

“I did.” Marko was shocked for the second time in short succession. How had he missed both these traps?

“We believe you, Master Marko,” Eli said.

“It’s possible Marko wasn’t heavy enough to set this off,” Idris guessed.

“He was flying at the time,” Eli noted wisely.

“Well. That might be a flaw in the method.”

“Ha! Idris you’re a funny fellow!” Eli grinned.

“What? I said there might be a flaw—”

“A floor!” Eli beamed.

Idris groaned.

Ahead Marko jumped up on down on each foot of floor, crashing his pole as he went. There was nothing, and he was still confused. Maybe it was the trap in the door he failed to disarm? Somehow it was the floor instead? He frowned.

Everyone stood on the threshold of the misty chamber. Marko extended his pole into the mist and waved it around, watching closely as the vapours shaped themselves around the prodding, causing small but expected eddies in the clouds. He pulled it free. “Nothing unusual. It’s not wet, so the mist isn’t water based.”

“Would you like me to tie a rope around you?” Eli asked.

“Not yet.” Marko tied some string around a small stone and tossed it into the mist. It came back clean each time he tried, but always dry with no other residue. He next tried firing an arrow: it flew out of sight and cracked against something. “Thirty or forty feet, if I guessed. Right then—are we ready?”

“What? What do you mean ‘ready’?” Uthar said, slightly panicked. “What for?”

“Let me tie the rope,” Eli said, doing so as Marko raised his tiny arms. “Uthar, if you please?”

“I have a firm grip.”

Marko stepped into the mist and out of sight. After a few steps Marko slowed as he felt a slight confusion, a moment of questioning where he was and what he was doing. He blinked a few times and the feeling faded. The rope stayed taut in Uthar’s hands as Marko ventured further ahead.

“Let us know what’s happening, Master!” Eli called.

“I’m still alive!” Marko had his hands in front and after twenty or so feet he felt a curved, rough rock wall ahead. He followed the wall around to his left, finding it bending in a circle around the chamber. Behind him he felt empty space, making him suspect this was some structure in the centre of the room. “More rope!” he called as it caught slightly on the jagged wall.

“No more, but I have another rope,” Uthar’s disembodied voice called.

“Tie it on!” Once that was done Marko continued. “I’m heading back toward you I think. The wall curves inwards, like a horseshoe. I’m not going in there—-coming back.” He stepped away from the centre and found a wall, following it back to the company.

“Did you find any exit to the fog?” Eli asked.

“No, just the horseshoe. It’s a round cave or something, with rock walls.”

“What about if you hold the rope, Uthar, and I’ll follow behind Marko,” Eli said as Marko emerged.

“We’ll need more rope,” Idris said. “Give me a minute.” He threw his six-foot cloth onto the ground and climbed down the ladder into the hole it presented. “How much do we need?” he called.

“Another hundred foot?” Eli suggested.

“Two hundred if you’ve got it,” Marko corrected.

“If it’s two hundred feet we’ll have trouble pulling him back,” Sifer frowned as Idris tossed up four coils of rope.

“I’ll be running back, don’t worry.”

“And that’s why I’m going with him,” Eli said. “Trust me—little people are my speciality.”

“Give me a moment,” Three said. He stepped to the threshold of the room and closed his eyes. In his mind he sent his spiritual vision searching for undead ahead. “Mister Marko, there is no undead to worry about,” he declared, opening his eyes.

Eli placed his hands on the rope and nodded to Marko.

“Stay close,” Uthar said, “Maybe a hand on his belt so you’re really close.”

“Wait on. Standard mountaineering: we take a small piece of rope and we connect you to the other rope with a loop,” Sifer said as he attached Eli accordingly.

Eli’s eyes went wide. “And then I can run up and down the rope! This is amazing!”

“It’s called a knot,” Sifer smirked knowingly.

“Tell me more!”

Marko set off, Eli five-feet behind. He too felt the same disorientation the moment he entered the mist, and moments later his mind ground to a halt. He didn’t know where he was. Or who he was. Or, really, anything. He heard a noise ahead so he followed it mindlessly.

Watching the duo vanish, Three had a sudden idea. “Wait, come back, I will dispel the fog!”

Marko and Eli didn’t respond and the rope continued to reel out.

“Do it anyway,” Sifer said, looking at the gold threads hanging in the mist and not liking it.

“My fear is I’m not quite sure what might happen if I dispel it when they’re in it.”

“Right,” Uthar nodded.

“That fog looks bad. From a tactical perspective we have a tool and we should use it. Do it,” Sifer urged.

Three shrugged and did so. But the mists stayed in place.

Inside, Marko led Eli on a full round of the chamber, confirming his theory that it was a sealed cave with a smaller central circle which had a single opening. He stood on the threshold of that opening, feeling the stonework. It wasn’t carved, just natural rough stone. Behind him, Eli stumbled along helplessly, no better thought entering his blank mind.

“Ready Eli?” Marko said softly, then stepped into the horseshow when he heard a gargled grunt from Eli.

A pale-skinned woman in a flowing satin dress sat within an enclosed alcove which was mercifully clear of the fog—a cave within a cave. At her feet were two sacks.

---

“Hello! Please, come sit with—” she started with a warm and welcoming voice.

Marko immediately stuffed his fingers into his ears to block her voice.

The woman tilted her head with a smile and held her hands over her ears, following Marko’s lead. “Are we playing a game?”

Marko didn’t hear her words, and Eli didn’t understand them. Marko glanced at Eli, his ears uncovered, and saw he wasn’t running away or horrified—just Eli’s regular gormless expression. If anything it was slightly more gormless, if that were possible. Marko carefully lifted his fingers free from his ears. “There’s a lady in here, in a illuminated area in the middle of the dark,” he said loudly.

“Are you ok?” Uthar called.

“So far?”

“Are you finding it hard going?” the woman asked.

“A little bit…may I enquire as to your name, madam?”

“My name is Siren. What is yours?”

“Mister Revile.”

“I am so happy to see you—to see anyone. I am sorry to hear it is hard for you, please come and rest your weary legs with me. I have been resting here for some time.”

“How long have you been here?” Marko asked, glancing at the sacks. They were plain hessian bags, one large, one small.

“Too long for me to remember,” Siren sighed.

“Centuries,” Marko said under his breath.

“It feels that long.”

“Why do you stay?”

“It is a good question. I am happy here…I think? I see no reason to leave.”

Hearing snatches of this conversation, Uthar and Sifer tightened their grip on the rope.

Marko felt the slight tug. “May my companions join us?”

“Please invite them forward.”

“Maybe we should go to them—but tell me, why are you here?”

“I was put here.”

“Why so?”

“I am not sure.”

Sifer turned to Idris. “I don’t think this is going well,” he warned.

“Marko! Ask about the mists,” Three called.

“My lady, may I enquire as to why there is this this strange silver mist? Are you trapped by it?”

“I cannot say. I do not know—but it is a pretty mist with the gold and, as you say, silver. I do not know why it’s there, and I did not make it.”

“It is pretty,” Marko said warily. “Could you exit the mist with us?”

Siren looked curiously at Marko. “I could try?”

“Please my lady, come with me,” Marko said backing away and bumping into a motionless Eli. “Step back, step back,” Marko hissed. Eli didn’t move, just grunted dumbly.

Siren took a tentative step toward the entrance of her grotto. “What about your two bags?” Marko said nodding.

She looked surprised as she glanced back at the sacks. “Oh! They are not mine. I do not need them.”

“May I have a look?” Marko said, unable to resist.

“By all means.”

Marko bowed, stepped around Siren and crouched by the bags, resisting the pull of the rope. He sniffed the air, and not smelling anything foul he gently, carefully opened the small bag. The moment he touched it the larger bag vanished. “Ah,” he paused, hands frozen. But there was nothing for it. Holding his breath he lifted the sack and shook it. Something chinked from within. He felt it, feeling a collection of small somethings within.

Siren watched on with interest as Marko held it out from him and opened the sack. Nothing untoward emerged. He peered inside: five pieces of simple jewellery, rings, a necklace, nothing of any value. Maybe ten gold each? He toed the spot where the other sack was but there was nothing there. Marko grunted, disappointed, as he sleight-of-handed the sack out of sight

“What was inside?” Siren asked.

“Nothing valuable. Why did the other one vanish?”

“I do not know.”

“I see the smaller one has also vanished now…” Marko grinned.

“Huh! Magic!” Siren beamed.

“Magic,” Marko agreed

“Mister Marko, are you still ok?” Uthar called from without.

“Yes! Quite ok, I have met a lovely lady called Siren, would you believe. An unusual name, don’t you think?” Marko said, hoping his friends knew the reputation of such named.

“Only in the sense there is a lady here at all,” Eli called back.

“My friends I wonder if the wax in my ears is getting a bit thick, because I am having trouble hearing you!” Marko hinted heavily.

Outside everyone dutifully stuffed their ears with the candles wax supplied earlier.

“Follow me, my lady,” he encouraged as he felt the rope pulling him back. He turned to find Eli still hadn’t moved. “Back Eli” Eli didn’t move, the blank expression frozen on his face. “My ears are full of wax,” Marko said knowingly. A drop of drool dribbled from Eli’s open mouth. Marko frowned, suddenly realising that Eli wasn’t responding to anything he was saying.

“Eli? Are you alright?” Marko said, lunging forward and tweaking Eli’s nipples in an attempt to get a reaction.

“Awwwaaawwrrrr!” Eli groaned.

Hearing that muffled cry through the wax both Sifer and Uthar jerked on the roped, hauling their companions back toward them whether they liked it or not. Marko wrapped his arms around Eli and shunted him forward out of the grotto.

“Goodbye!” Siren called, unwilling to step forward on her own.

“Bye!” Marko cried. Moments later both he and Eli staggered out from the mist.

“What happened in there?” Three asked quickly.

“There’s a woman in there named Siren,” Marko explained.

“What’s wrong with Eli?” Sifer said, noting the ragged expression on the young Monk’s face.

“Nothing’s wrong with Eli…” Three scoffed for a moment, before seeing what Sifer saw. Eli was standing as if stunned, swaying slightly.

Marko scratched his head. “Are you alright, Eli?”

“Errgghhhhhhh,” Eli intoned.

“I think something happened in the mist,” Three diagnosed guiltily. “That’s not Eli.”

From his bag, Marko pulled out a jar of smelling salts and waved it under Eli’s nose. He jerked his head back and squinted away the sting in his eyes. “Gwssrrrrrrrgh,” he groaned.

“It looks like he’s been cursed or ensorcelled,” Idris said peering closely.

Uthar nodded slowly. “This reminds me of something I saw up river. In the darkest places there were people who had lost their minds. They could not talk, could not understand, as if they were only shells. If they were led they would follow. This reminds me of that—we never found the cause. The natives said it was the gods, a punishment…or reward.”

“Can you remove a curse, Three?” Idris nodded.

“I can,” Uthar said.

“This will be a reductive process to work out what’s happened. But Red, if you can try that might be a good start. Three has other restorative magic that might also help if not.”

“I recall there were stories about people recovering,” Uthar said slowly as he cautiously opened some of the rooms he had locked away in his memory for his own sanity. “Every story seemed to revolve around the sun gods, the morning light.”

Idris immediately cast a light cantrip on Eli’s face. Eli flinched away, like an animal hiding from the brightness.

“Maybe it needs to be radiant light,” Uthar shrugged.

“And who might have that,” Sifer said with a raised eyebrow.

“In those stories is the person burnt?” Three asked. “Because I can utter a divine word of radiance but normally it hurts.”

“There was never any detail, just tales and mysticism.”

Sifer stepped suddenly to Eli and slapped him across the face. Eli winced and grunted but soon returned to his catatonic state. He spun to Three. “Just do it. It’s for his greater good, don’t worry about the hurt.”

Three frowned, but placed his hands on Eli’s chest. “In the name of Kelemvor, please, please forgive me!” He cast the word, begging for the power to be reduced to spare Eli.

A beam of brilliant light ensconced Eli, causing him to stagger back under the assault. “AWWWWWRHHGNNNRRRRR!” he yowled as his flesh burned. As it faded he lifted his seared face…which remained blank, dead, unresponsive.

Three shook his head. “Someone else try something.”

“This is an ensorcellment,” Sifer said looking at the swirling silver and gold mist.

“Then it’s my turn,” Uthar said stepping forward. He tried to draw the magical sickness out of Eli, but he could find nothing to remove. “Not magic, or not magic that I can repair. I will try the curse instead.”

Uthar put all his spirit behind the prayer to remove the curse, all his faith and trust. But again, nothing.

“Fuck,” Three grunted. This was serious, and serious problems required deadly solutions. “I could kill him?” he said softly, “And then resurrect him.”

A stunned silence greeted this suggestion. If he could have, Eli would have looked surprised. Even Sifer was shocked. “Just make sure you don’t turn him in between,” he said into the quiet. No-one laughed.

“I…have something that can bring him back if I’m quick about it after you…” Uthar said slowly. “But this is bat shit crazy.”

Idris shook his head. “I think anything is worth a try before we physically kill him.”

“I politely disagree,” Three said, “Death is not to be feared. But I will respect your philosophy. We are down to brass tacks but there is one more thing I can try. Get him down on his knees.”

Idris raised an eyebrow, but chose to trust that Three wasn’t about to cut Eli’s throat. He stood behind Eli and lowered him gently. Three in turn knelt in front of his erstwhile apprentice. He put his forehead to Eli’s and prayed to Kelemvor: “Restore this man back to who he was!”

Three clung tight as a surge of Kelemvor’s light pulsed through Eli, who jolted back in Three’s arms. Three stared into Eli’s eyes, seeing a spark where before there was darkness. “*In the name of Kelemvor, you are returned Eli!”

“Oohhhoooohhhh, uh huh huh huh,” Eli beamed.

“Eli?! I thought we had you back??”

Idris stepped around to face Eli. “Eli? Are you well now?”

“If you want me to be,” Eli grinned in a childish voice. It was the first words he had spoken for some time.

“Do you remember us Eli? Because you were gone for a moment,” Three pressed.

“I knowwww…all of you?”

“Do you remember what we just did?” Sifer asked.

“Don’t! Don’t hurt me…”

“I’m saying ‘no he’s not well’,” Idris sighed. “Eli do you feel as you did before walking into the mist?”

“I…” Eli grimaced. “I don’t…”

“There’s something wrong with him.”

“Hard to tell with Eli,” Three muttered. Frustration welled up in him; frustration that Eli was gone and frustration that he couldn’t bring him back—the prayer had worked, and yet. He grabbed Eli roughly. “Eli! Are you there??” he cried, face to face.

“Ah! What! Sorry! I didn’t…don’t hurt me!” Eli howled.

“No-one’s hurting you! You went away mentally—I just bought you back with the power of Kelemvor! Are you here? Do you remember where we are?”

“I’ll be down here, if you, down…” Eli tried to slink away.

“This is something I recognise,” Sifer interjected. “Post traumatic stress. He’ll be fine—let’s go.”

Three waved Sifer off. “Eli. Where are we?”

“Underground, deep underground, it is dangerous and I am sorry,” Eli said blinking back tears.

“What is the name of this place?”

Eli turned his head away.

“Oh my god, he’s lost his sense of self,” Sifer groaned.

Idris raised an eyebrow at this. “Okay?”

“Did he ever have any?” Uthar said cruelly.

“Gentlemen. He can talk, he’s just not very nice to talk to. Let’s move,” Sifer said hefting his weapon.

“Maybe there was more than one thing affecting him,” Idris speculated.

“Silver and gold,” Sifer hinted.

Idris stepped up and grabbed Eli’s chin, trying to force some eye contact. But Eli turned his head away with some strength. “I’m not sensing Eli. There’s a person here, but it’s not Eli.”

“And Eli always sought truth,” Marko added, “Truth of his gods, of his people. He’s not doing that now.”

Three paled, a look of horror etched on his face. “Oh shit. I know what’s happened. I think his soul is gone.”

Eli, squatting, looked up at Three like a chastised child.

“He’s not there,” Idris agreed, “But I think it’s something less final.”

“I think it’s beyond that, I think it’s his actual soul.”

“Yes,” Marko nodded, “His purpose is lost. Do you think he might have swapped souls with her?”

“I’ve never heard of that,” Three frowned, a glimmer of hope returning none the less.

“Don’t worry about me, just go on,” Eli said quietly.

“No,” Marko said firmly. “I’m going to get her,” he added tying the rope around his waist. As he did Sifer grabbed it and pulled it taut, casting a warning eye at Idris.

“Marko you got through last time, you might not get through again,” Idris said sternly. “We can’t afford for this to happen to more than one person.”

“Mister Marko, is there anything in there apart from the woman?”

“Not as far as I could find.”

“So there’s no reason to go back in there.”

“Not until we’ve explored everywhere else,” Uthar agreed.

Idris sighed. “Three, can you pray a second time?”

Three nodded slowly. “But I think Marko might be right, that this is the work of Siren.”

“But the worst that happens is you lose your prayer,” Idris urged.

“And if it leaves you with nothing we can rest and recover,” Uthar said seeing Three’s hesitation.

“We got an effect—he can speak, something worked. So let’s do it again,” Sifer agreed.

Three considered this. He strongly believed Eli’s soul was compromised…but he also realised that if Eli’s soul truly had been wrenched from him, it would be far worse than this. Worse than just a confused, befuddled version of Eli. He looked down at Eli—who looked back with some warmth. A kernel of Eli was still there.

Three dropped to his knees again. His confidence was low, a seed of doubt still present. He embraced Eli in a bear hug, holding him with all his strength. “I don’t know if this will work,” he whispered, kissing in Eli on the cheek, “But in the name of Kelemvor.”

He tried to pull back from the embrace but found he couldn’t.

Eli was holding him.

“He’s back,” Three gasped.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Idris sheathed his half drawn dagger and clapped Eli on the back. He’d been ready to neck him and hope Three or Uthar could do their work, and was pleased to have avoided that sordid task.

“Where’s Marko…?” Sifer exclaimed, realising suddenly that he was holding a limp rope.

---

Marko had backed his way into the mist, having slipped the noose. “Hello again, lady.”

Siren was sitting back on her bench. “You are still finding it difficult out there?”

“Yes,” Marko nodded. “My friend, he was harmed by coming in here—is that normal?”

“I don’t know. No-one comes in here…until you I don’t recall a single visitor. Will he be ok?”

“He will, he is. Why don’t you come out with me?” Marko said kindly.

“Would you like me to?”

“I think so. Are you ok?” Marko peered closely at the woman as she nodded, trying to feel if she posed any threat. As far as he could see she was a fey, and he was fairly sure not evil, but it was always hard to tell with creatures from that realm; they didn’t have to be evil to create chaos. “Why are you here?” he probed.

“I do not know so cannot tell you. All I am sure if is it has been a long time.”

“If you left here would you…die?”

Siren shrugged. “I know that you have found it challenging in here. Will I be ok?”

“I hope so.” Marko made his decision. He fashioned a small rope from a cloth and held it toward her. “I would like to release you—you seemed trapped, or at least stuck, here. Hold onto this and walk with me, I will lead you out. And please, please, please—do not harm anyone here.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I…don’t know,” Marko conceded. “Make sure you hold on tight.” Marko turned and walked into the mist, encouraged to feel her close behind.

Marko emerged to find the company arrayed just outside the cave, hands on weapons and sharp eyes on Siren. She looked around passively, smiling.

“Evil?” Eli glanced at Uthar.

Uthar was surprised to find a sense of wholesome peace washed over him at Siren’s arrival. “No, she’s not.”

“Are you sure?” Marko said, seeing the look on Uthar’s face.

“I am. This is not an evil woman.”

“You are adventuring in the tomb?” Siren asked.

“How do you know it’s a tomb?” Marko said, quick as a flash.

A look passed over her face as her mind started to process, and Marko saw her eyes had lost their muddled, vague sheen. “My memories are slow, but I know I was brought here.”

Marko looked again to Uthar, and again seeing confirmation he reached a hand toward Siren. She looked down at her pale hand long fingernails, then took Marko’s gently in hers. “Will you lead me from here? I have a memory of being taken…”

“I am Marko, and these are my friends,” Marko said, relishing the warmth of her hand—he had expected cold. He lifted her hand and kissed it softly. “What do you know of this place?”

“Of the tomb itself I have no knowledge. I…I was led here by a creature.”

“What sort of creature?”

“An undead being…with a crown.” A look of panic grew on her face. “It placed me there in the grotto.”

“A lich,” Three said quietly.

“I could not leave…I could never leave.”

“Why?” Marko asked softly.

Siren looked forlorn. “Some foul scheme or joke, I think.”

Idris sidled over to Uthar. “Are we going to take a rest, as you suggested?”

“I think we should.”

“Good lady,” Idris turned, “Would you allow us to escort you from this place?”

“Please, I beg that you do.”

“You know she’s no woman?” Three whispered to Sifer.

“Yes but Uthar says she’s fine.”

“I know, I’m just saying…” Three turned to Siren. “My lady, do you know how to get out of here?”

“I have no idea. It was that long ago, and I paid little attention…or was not allowed to.”

“He’s brought her down here and left her here for the pleasure of knowing he can,” Uthar said with disgust.

“He stocked his dungeon,” Three agreed.

“Nothing is in here just to imprison the occupant,” Eli said, back to his philosophical self. “Everything here is to annoy or confound the intruder.”

“It kind of did,” Uthar smirked.

“I rest my case,” Eli shrugged.

“We should exit, with some haste, and rest outside,” Idris urged.

---

Marko unerringly led the way out, politely talking with Siren the entire way. She reminded him strongly of dear Newmy, the ghost from Evernight whose soul Three had so gracefully returned to the afterlife. He went out of his way to be as charming as possible, which unfortunately manifested as a rather halting, stilted and overly formal patter. Despite being sure he was a ladies man and having carefully studied the Tarquin Roses lurid stories of Bili the Hag-Lover, he always seemed to fall back to manners in an effort to overcome his nerves.

Siren, for her part, didn’t seem to notice his apprehension, and responded pleasantly if distractedly. Finally she stood on the threshold of the tomb, wonder in her eyes as daylight beckoned. “Thank you, Marko,” she whispered, releasing her still held grip.

“My lady,” Marko bowed. He slipped her a small leaf of paper. “This is a writ of safe passage from the Wee Folk. If you ever need any help, you need but show this in any place.”

“Again, thank you. I did not know until now how much I had missed life.” With a warm smile she stepped into the light and instantly vanished.

“She didn’t disintegrate did she?” Marko said with concern, remembering the vanishing sack.

“She’s either teleported away, as the fey do, or the curse that held her here has put her back in the cave,” Idris guessed. “Which…oh gods—I hope this place doesn’t reset.”

“I bet it does,” Three groaned.

Eli stepped into the sunlight and let out a huge sigh as he felt the residual fog from his recent trauma burning away. Uthar, noticing, wryly realised that the cure had been that easy: the sun gods had been right. “Sorry about radianting you in the face,” he smiled to a fully restored Eli.

“I only have thanks for my colleagues,” Eli said gratefully.

“This does mean we have a cure to that which ailed you. So we could send someone back into those mists to fully explore that room,” Uthar mused.

“I’ll do it!” Eli declared firmly.

“There’s nothing there,” Marko assured everyone. He tipped the contents of her small sack, finding it still contained only a half dozen items of cheap metal jewellery.

“Part of the joke,” Uthar said as Marko slipped on some of the iron-forced rings. The more he learnt of this tomb the less he liked it.

---

Having rested, the company was delighted to find the tomb hadn’t reset on stepping back inside, and soon were back at the unstable room with the still closed door.

“We need to make good use of Marko’s secret-finding device,” Uthar suggested to general agreement. “And I can detect magic if need be.”

“I’ll just check this door first,” Marko pointed. Eli stood close behind as he opened the untrapped door.

SPRANGGGGG

Eli was ready this time. “Ha!” he cried, shooting his hand out to intercept the by-now-expected spear…but caught only dead air. “Uh!” he cried. Instead the spear sheared the side of Marko’s head. “Ow!” he cried as he stared at the blank wall behind the door.

“Haha!” Three laughed with relief at finally missing a spear, kicking the chipmunk statue to the ground.

After some debate Marko positioned himself at a point that covered the most possible routes ahead. “There’s a secret door behind the north door wall! Must be magic,” he announced covering his confusion. “I was sure there was nothing,” he muttered to himself. Whoever made this place had some good trap hiding techniques and he vowed to study them closer when time permitted.

With everyone ready, he pushed the now obvious door open to reveal a long corridor ahead…

---

Strength Save

Almost instantly Marko found something in the floor ahead: a concealed trapdoor running along the ground at the western wall. “Trapdoor here!” he warned, checking the wall for arrow holes or similar. “It’s clear,” he announced, pushing gently on the hinged mechanism. It swung down to reveal a steep flight of rough narrow stairs that spiralled down into darkness. “Before we go down there we should check the rest of the corridor ahead.” He proceeded to do so, clearing the way to a door in the eastern wall. “Come forward.”

Idris carefully rehung the trapdoor, then everyone but Sifer, who stayed to guard the rear, traipsed to the door. “Ready?” Marko said before pulling it open. A short corridor ended in a pair of doors on the north wall. “The middle section is trapped,” he warned, and the company carefully avoided it by jumping, wall-running, or being swung over once Sifer arrived.

Marko once again checked both doors. “Clea—” he started before suddenly realising one of the doors was trapped! But it was too late, Uthar having shoved one of the pair open. In his confusion Marko pushed his door free too. As the sprung open a cloud of fetid yellow gas billowed forth. The company to a one wobbled on their feet, feeling a sudden soporific wave wash over them, but all were able to resist the sleepy temptation. Idris came close, but his mental acuity allowed him to shake it off.

“What was that?” Uthar muttered, “And what is waiting to kill us if we had fallen asleep?” He peered into the empty corridor ahead, seeing another pair of double doors on the west wall. It was curious: there was nothing dangerous waiting.

Idris scratched his head. “Maybe someone else should be checking for these traps,” he mumbled to Three.

“But he has some special touch?”

“True. But by my count four traps have been set off in the last two corridors,” Idris frowned.

Ahead Marko was still doing his best work. “All safe, Uthar—the doors please.” The company arrived at his side.

Sifer again stayed behind and quietly closed the double southern doors, sealing him away but also sealing any danger that was loosed.

At the northern doors Uthar gave a silent count before pulling them open. “Ahhh!”

---

An enormous stone structure shaped like an elephant on logs burst toward the doors, a ten-by-ten juggernaut filling every space ahead as it rumbled forward.

“Mister Marko!” Eli yelled, hauling his leader into his arms and fleeing southward. He sprung through the doors, surprising Sifer and sprinted around the corner. He dropped Marko, sprung back, grabbed a bemused Idris—“What?!” he cried—and dragged him too through the doors to relative safety. “Uthar! Three! I love you!” Eli cried, his voice catching, distraught at having to leave them behind.

Sifer, confused, heard the fear and sorrow in Eli’s voice. He’s saying he’s sorry…that he can only save two…and both Marko and Idris didn’t resist…. His mind raced—then training took over. Better to save four than lose six: he slammed the doors closed again, leaving Uthar and Three to their fate. He spun and followed Eli’s retreat, offering a hand to yank Idris over the unsprung pit—but Idris shook his head no. Sifer frowned but continued on his way.

Idris spun back toward the closed doors and popped them open again. Uthar and Three stood frozen with fear etched on their faces staring into the unseen room, from which a threatening, shuddering rumble boomed. Three was throwing his hand up as if to protect himself. Idris made a snap decision: “Three—Uthar—go with it!” he cried, and a moment later two pinpricks of light appeared in front of each. Both felt the pull and, heeding Idris’s cry, didn’t resist.

Three and Uthar blinked into sudden existence in front of Eli. “You saved them Sifer!” Eli cried with joy.

Sifer didn’t bother correcting Eli. “What’s happened?” he said grabbing Uthar.

“Run!”

“Red—what is going on?!” Idris cried.

“Juggernaut!” Uthar called as he fled toward the trapdoor, “To the stairs!”

From behind the rumbling stone noise crescendoed as the elephant rounded the corner. It filled the entire corridor, floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall, promising oblivion to any it rolled over.

Uthar was first down the trapdoor, the rest of the company bundling in behind in a hurried panic—Eli again carrying Marko. Idris couldn’t resist popping his head up. “Gods!” he cried upon seeing the incoming destruction for the first time—and ducking his head down. Overhead the logs rolled angrily forth, momentarily blocking the view as it passed the trapdoor.

There was an enormous crashing sound of stone on stone, and a moment later the noise stopped as the tomb settled. Uthar waited a beat, then stuck his head cautiously up to look down the corridor. “Ha!” he grinned. At the four way junction there was no longer a pit; instead a pair of elephant ears and a rigid stone back poked up from the floor. “It fell into the pit!” he announced gleefully.

---

Idris was chuffed, having saved Three and Uthar. Eli should have been, but he felt such guilt at abandoning Three that he refused to accept the boost he was due. Three’s disturbing eyebrow raise only made it worse; he knew.

“We’re under the corridor above,” Marko said quietly. It was a five-foot dirt and rock passage leading due north. Marko led the way, trap-free, until the path led sharply uphill into a finished corridor that bent east.

At the end of the next corridor was door—and not just any door. A great block of solid metal covered the entire wall. “Reminds me of a safe,” Marko said tapping it. “Two feet thick.”

“It’s adamantine,” Uthar said, impressed, and recognising the similarity to his armour. “What are those?” he said pointing to three blade-sized vertical slots at waist height. He crouched down to see if there was blade-marks before realising the adamantine wouldn’t mark, and indeed they were pristine.

“Three people put a longsword in?” Three said, “And then for sure we get killed?”

“Or three swords come out?” Sifer mused. “I could hang from the ceiling and try it out?”

“And we retreat behind the corner,” Uthar nodded. “To avoid the spears.”

“I’ll put one in, see what happens, then another…” Sifer explained.

“We need the trisword,” Three said solemnly.

“A secondary quest is at hand,” Eli agreed.

“Yea forsooth,” Sifer nodded as he hung from the ceiling. Once everyone was clear, he slid his shortblade into the first slot. Nothing happened. He pulled a second blade and next dabbed both into the right and left slots. Nothing. He jammed a quick blade into the middle slit. Still nothing.

“All three at once,” Three called from the corner.

“That’s…a good idea,” Idris conceded. He walked up the corridor to stand with the upside-down Sifer, pulling his short sword free. “If it all fucks up…misty step,” he winked. “On three? Three…two…”

Three blades slid into the waiting slits. With a groaning shudder the door slowly swung open. Marko was right: it was almost two-feet thick. Idris and Sifer rapidly withdrew their blades as a breath of stale air emerged from the sealed room beyond.

Ahead was an enormous chamber coloured, nonsensically, in pastels. A forest of massive, many-hued columns supported the thirty-foot ceiling.

---

“And into the columned hall you’ll come, and there the throne that’s key and keyed,” Idris recited, somewhat awed. “The iron men of visage grim do more than meets the viewer’s eye. So let’s watch out for statues and large iron men.”

As the company stood on the threshold the door begun to slowly swing closed. “Do we go in?!” Three said quickly.

Idris stepped back as Three made the opposite decision and sprung ahead into the room. Eli had just enough time to follow before the door split the company. Both stood stock still, trying to pierce the darkness of the room. The columns made it difficult to make anything out clearly, but there appeared to be something glowing softly in the northern reaches, and what looked like a dais of some sort on the southern wall. The room itself was at least one-hundred-foot square. “Get out of the way of the door,” Three warned Eli.

“Quickly Marko!” Sifer said on the other side. Marko pulled his weapon free and slotted it into the first slit as Sifer filled the other two, causing the door to once again swing open. “Thank goodness.”

Everyone stepped through to join Eli and Three. Marko spun to watch the door close soon after; it was sealed completely, not a hinge or keyhole to be found. Nor were there matching sword slots. “It’s a one way door,” he warned.

Sifer glanced up at the pastel pillars, seeing painted gargoyles on the upper reaches. “Visage grim,” he suggested.

“But they’re not iron,” Idris said.

“If we get trapped we can get out of here the same way we got out of the Colossus head,” Idris advised.

“That’s good, yes,” Uthar said with some relief.

“There’ll be a way out,” Three said looking around. There was always a way out. “Uthar—can you pinpoint evil here?”

Uthar closed his eyes and felt. “A faint odour of foulness, but it’s no stronger here than it has been. The place is awful, but nothing obvious waits for us here.”

Sifer, wandering slightly north, noticed something in the northwest corner of the room. About twenty-feet above the floor was a mosaic relief sculpture of a green devil’s face which appeared to be exactly the same as that first encountered in the entrance hall to the tomb. “Warning,” he said, pointing it out. “And there are two closed doors on this wall too, one central and the other to the west.”

“At this end there’s a dais,” Uthar said from the southern end. “Stark black, unlike the pillars.”

Three stepped to Uthar’s side and shivered. “That’s a throne on the dais,” he said quietly. “I’m not going anywhere near it.”

The room felt very spooky; the pillars blocked line of sight, the far reaches of the room were out of sight, and a pervasive atmosphere of stillness and disquiet hung in the air. And why were the columns pastel?

“Should we do a perimeter check?” Three said turning to Sifer. “But be careful as the whole place has been trapped and now we’re on a chessboard or something. But it would be good to know what we’re dealing with.”

“Twenty-feet apart down parallel paths please gentlemen,” Sifer pointed. Eli took the far path, Uthar the middle, and Sifer the near. Idris, Three, and Marko took the other direction allowing the full room to be covered.

Three’s positioning took him closer to the throne, much to his discomfort. He couldn’t help but study it: the obsidian black seemed to absorb what little light there was, and it was inlaid with silver and ivory skulls. Upon the throne rested a crown of gold and a sceptre made of dull yellow electrum. “There’s a crown and sceptre on the throne,” he called gloomily.

---

Mentioning the scepter gave Idris an idea. He reached into his belt-pouch and grasped the partially complete Rod, hoping to find it sensing the next piece. Instead it was utterly inert; no feeling of power, no soft thrum of direction. “The Rod is being muted,” he said, worried.

“Is your sword still glowing, Idris?” Eli asked, thinking that perhaps all magic was suppressed.

“It is, thankfully,” Idris said.

“Eli what do you see?” Sifer asked, trying to get the room mapped.

“Three doors—there’s another matching in the northeast corner,” Eli said stepping forward. “Oh—and there’s another gargoyle head in this corner. But not green—this is blue and also mounted near the ceiling.”

Marko had swayed from his assigned path to approach the throne, unable to resist the temptation.

“Mister Marko, be careful!” Three urged. He turned to Uthar. “If Marko steps forward…you’ll need to take him,” he whispered.

Uthar raised an eyebrow, but nodded. “Yes Marko, very careful.”

“Yes, yes, I’m not going to touch it,” Marko agreed, squatting on the lower step of the dais still twenty-five-feet from the throne. “Those snakes look a bit nasty—I’m worried it’s trapped heavily or something is going to jump out and kill us.”

“I’m not worried about traps,” Three said. “I’m worried about the owner of that crown.”

Eli was working his way to the southern end of the room when he spotted a faint glow in the southeast corner. “There’s something here,” he called drawing closer, “A lot of dead bodies.”

Strewn near the southeast corner was a heap of charred bones and skulls, plus the crisped and blackened remains of clothing and gear, arms and armour—a thoroughly awful and frightening sight. Eli froze, his mind flashing back to that terrible event from his past: slaughter, death, and a giant man—a man…who…who was…no, no!—but a man who had left him with the scar that now burned his cheek.

---

“I’m going to check that,” Idris said. He stepped to stand on the threshold of the charred remains. Sitting in the centre of the destruction was a glowing orange gem—he was surprised Eli hadn’t mentioned it, but Eli seemed to be in some kind of trance. Throwing caution to the wind he summoned his hand and directed it to retrieve the gem, standing behind a pillar for safety. The gem didn’t explode, so he flipped it around in the air to study the surfaces. There were no markings, just the soft orange glow.

Three, watching closely, shifted his complete focus to throne in case there was some kind of link, but nothing seemed to have changed.

“Marko,” Idris called, “Can you see a space or socket on the throne where a gem might fit?”

Marko sidled a little closer and studied the throne. Despite the distance he could clearly see something that fit the bill: a small replica of the crown inlaid in silver was set into the lower front panel of the seat. “There’s a depression in this replica,” he announced. “Unlike the crown itself which has no such cavity.”

“Could it fit a two-inch gem?”

Marko took a deep breath and floated into the air. He hovered as close as he dared, five-feet or less, feeling a deep discomfort despite his many years of experience. This throne did not look good. The crown and sceptre, each worth at least tens-of-thousands and of exceptional craft, were too tempting to be healthy. He lowered his eyes to the replica crown and studied the depression. “It might—the size is about right.”

Idris walked over to the throne, feeling the same unsettling darkness. He floated the gem to hover just above the cavity.

Marko squinted his eyes. “Not a perfect fit, but it might work. I don’t think it was made for that exact gem, but it’s hard to say.” His eyes kept darting up to the two serpent heads that finished each arm of the throne; did that one just move?

“Orient it to match, then move off the dais,” Idris directed.

“Sharp point down,” Mark muttered, then backed away to ‘safety’.

“Before we do this,” Three said, “Sifer—is it good we’ve got those three door behind us?”

“I fear there’s something about to happen here,” Uthar said, “So I can’t cover the doors.”

“Three, just make sure you can see them,” Sifer commanded.

“And get behind the columns,” Idris warned. “This could amount to nothing but…is everyone ready?” He floated the gem to within an inch of the socket.

“Stop!” Three cried. He felt so unsure about this course of action, so certain something was about to go terribly wrong. He closed his eyes. “Should we put the gem within throne?” he prayed.

I care not

Three’s eyes opened and he shook his head. How was he supposed to interpret that?? He lifted his face. “Idris. My god says…it is not something that they…think will effect them.”

“That’s very reassuring,” Idris smirked, then turned back to the throne and pushed the gem in.

Nothing happened.

Idris adjusted it slightly, tried different positions in the cavity. There was no click, no satisfied settling. “As predicted,” he sighed. He floated the gem away and dropped it back in the centre of the charred remains.

“Are we now going to deal with these doors?” Sifer said rather pointedly.

---

Marko approached the northwest door, stepping carefully from behind the nearest pillar. As he drew within ten-feet the dim blue light door flared bright. “Back!” Marko said jumping again into the cover of the pillar. As he withdrew the light softened again to a faint glow.

“Do more than meets the viewer’s eye,” Sifer recited thoughtfully glancing to the green gargoyle that looked down mockingly from overhead. “The ‘iron men of visage grim’ sounds like the two gargoyles. Let’s just clear these doors and get back to the throne.”

“But if these doors are just traps to enter then maybe we should ignore them,” Eli suggested. “The throne is ‘key and keyed’, or something like that, wasn’t that the line?”

“Oh and we have that key!” Uthar blurted, recalling the golden key pieced together in the mortuary chamber.

Sifer shook his head. “The key’s redundant. We needed the key for the casket that we—”

“But the throne is both ‘key and keyed’ it says,” Eli interrupted. “Is there a key hidden in the throne?”

“There’s also the last line: You’ve left and left and found my tomb,” Sifer added.

“So Sifer you’re thinking…?” Uthar probed.

“If I walk through this door and go left, then left again, I would be in front of the green gargoyle visage,” he pointed.

Eli scratched his head. “That would be left and then right, I hate to tell you.”

Sifer flushed. “Oh. Sorry. You’re right. So that doesn’t work. I’m at a loss—open the door.”

“No-one wants to go near it,” Eli protested.

“Marko? Are you going to open the door?” Sifer hinted.

“Ohhhkay?”

“Why don’t we see if all the doors glow when we get closer?” Idris suggested.

“Yes, why don’t you?” Eli encouraged.

“No. We’re opening this one,” Uthar declared.

“What could go wrong?” Sifer smirked.

Marko jerked the door open. Inside was a ten-foot square room with walls reaching the ceiling. There was nothing but a thick layer of dust. Marko probed with his pole, finding nothing, then stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

After a beat, Uthar stepped forward. “Mister Marko are you ok?”

There was no reply. “Gah.” Uthar shoved the door open.

“Surprise!” Marko beamed.

Uthar stared.

“There’s nothing in here, this is rubbish.”

Uthar tilted his head.

“They give me shit all day,” Marko muttered.

“I love to play practical jokes inside a tomb of horrors,” Uthar deadpanned. “It’s the ideal place.”

“Which door next?” Idris sighed.

“The middle, it’s next,” Eli decided.

Marko sighed. The shimmering lilac light changed rapidly to a bright and coruscating purple with tinges of sickly green.

“That looks like a healthy door,” Idris groaned.

“What about the third?” Uthar pointed.

Three moved close enough to get it to change; like the first it shifted from a soft blue to brilliant and pulsing. “We should do this one first because maybe it’s just another cubical.”

“Blue, purple and green, and blue,” Sifer mused.

“Sickly green,” Uthar corrected.

“From earlier one we had the message that green is bad,” Sifer reminded everyone.

Marko opened the blue door. This ten-foot square room wasn’t empty; inside was a low stone table upon which rested a wooden sarcophagus. Various broken and looted urns and coffers were scattered about. “I’m hoping it’s a beautiful woman,” Marko said, Siren still on his mind, “But I don’t think it’s going to be.”

“We absolutely will be punished for looking that’s for sure,” Uthar said.

“Looted urns,” Sifer pointed, “So someone has gone through and found that gem and run into the far corner because they couldn’t get out. Where they died a fiery death.”

“It’s not like that. It’s all fake,” Eli said quietly.

“Those scorched bodies and the blast radius around the gem aren’t fake,” Idris countered.

“Those aren’t people who came here in the past. It’s a setup.”

“Well then Eli can you check the sarcophagus?” Sifer laughed.

Eli did just that. Inside the sarcophagus were the parts of a mummy with wrappings partially undone and tattered. “It’s a desiccated body,” he reported jerking back.

Three made a beeline to Eli’s side. “Leave Eli. There’s no need for two of us to be at risk.”

“Desecrated, not desiccated, sorry,” Eli corrected as he withdrew.

Three went to work. “It’s the embalmed remains of a human. Ancient, mostly rotting away. But there are the remains of a skull. And…”

“And?” Idris said.

“A gem. Under the wrappings in the eyesocket.” Three turned to face the company. “I haven’t touched it but I’m pretty sure it’s the sister gem to the orange one.” He lent in close to study the gem as best he could. “The colour is black…”

“Night’s good color is for those of great valor,” Sifer recalled.

Three was terrified of the skull, so did his best to ignore it and work around the rest of the remains. It was wrapped at is should be and he recognised the signs of preservation. He looked for signs of royalty or power, something to indicate a lich’s riches—frankincense, myrrh, balming oils—but it was very plain, more the tomb of a commoner. But commoners weren’t given to mummification. “My guess is someone has to put the orange gem into the skull, which will raise Acererak, and then we kill it?” Three said, though he knew he was grasping,

“Did you check the chest cavity?” Idris asked, “For a piece of the Rod?”

Three raised an eyebrow but did as asked. He suspected a canopic jar was far more likely. As he carefully unwrapped the bandages the skull shifted slightly and Three froze. Was that me…or it…. He took a calming breath and continued, then shook his head. “Nothing. It’s empty. Apart from the skull and gem, I can’t see anything else. Let’s check the last door.”

“We could lift the skull out?” Idris suggested.

“Do not touch that skull until it’s our last move,” Three said sternly. “Then we have all the information.”

Uthar moved to the middle door. “The sickly green thing is going to be bad,” he grunted, feeling uncomfortable.

“Everyone who doesn’t have to be there—get back,” Three warned, shrinking behind a column and resting his hands on it. As he pressed against it he suddenly felt light on his feet. Glancing down he saw he was slowly rising into the air, his feet no longer touching the stone floor. “What??” he breathed. Three looked up to the ceiling, expecting spikes or poison or worse, but surprisingly it was clear.

Sifer, watching from another pillar rushed toward Three, grabbing his foot as he rose higher. It was difficult to stop the ascent. “Idris! Little help!” Idris saw what was happening and rushed over to help. Very quickly they found their grip slipping, the magical pull too strong to fight. “Uthar!”

“Don’t touch the columns!” Uthar called. He whipped out a rope from his pack and spoke a few words to it. It shot across the room and wrapped around Three’s waist. It took all Uthar’s strength to still Three’s ascent and pulling him down was near impossible. Three was now being pulled toward the northwest corner, but with Eli’s help they managed to stabilise the rise and pull him away from the pillars.

Uthar closed his eyes and prayed to his gods, asking for the magic that was holding him to be released. He felt a current rise from his hands to Three, and a moment later Three dropped to the ground with a thud. “Thank you,” he breathed.

“What made it happen?” Sifer urged.

“I crouched next to the column and touched it, hugged it, so if a trap was set I was out of the line of fire.”

“Could you see any of us?”

“I was too close to see anything much.”

“Use the columns as cover but don’t touch or lean on them,” Idris instructed.

“And stay in line of sight,” Sifer added.

“Are we going to try and open the final door?” Idris said.

“We were, before we got interrupted.”

“We haven’t really had a close look at the throne…”

“The door before the throne, surely,” Eli said.

“I feel that’s right,” Uthar nodded.

“It’s probably just a trap, but…” Three shrugged.

Marko cleared the door then pushed it open.

---

Inside was a bare chamber with a small door on the north wall. Pairs of swords crossed behind shields hung upon the walls. There were three sets on each of the walls to either hand, and two sets on the north wall, one flanking each side of the door.

“Uthar can you hold the door open please?”

“Yes I can—and what’s your plan?”

“I’m worried it will close and trap me in there with those swords,” Marko said.

Uthar pitoned the door open as best he could, then Marko stepped inside. The second he did one set of weapons and the shield flew from the wall and attacked. “Floating swords!” Marko cried, leaping out of the room.

Sifer fired instinctively at the swords, shocked when the shield intercepted the incoming arrow. The second shot caused it to shatter, allowing Sifer to pin one of the swords. The swords struck down at Uthar but he blocked them away with ease.

Three jumped into action, radiating one sword into molten metal. Eli struck down at the other, missing his right hand but paffing the hilt against the wall with the left. The sword struggled to get free from his grip until Eli snapped it in two with a sharp kick.

“One down, seven to go,” Marko sighed. He was getting tired of the constant checking, pressure, tricks, unpredictability.

“Are these the ‘iron men of visage grim’ then?” Sifer said. “How about we use Idris’s magic hand to open the door before going back in there?”

“The other thing I could do is cast a spell into the room where the force would blow the door closed.”

“An area of effect getting rid of all of the swords,” Uthar nodded.

“You’d want to stand out of the way—the spell could be enough to blow at least this door off,” Idris warned. “But it would destroy everything in there.”

“If they’re not animated until someone steps in it might not work?” Eli said.

“Yes but if they’re slagged to oblivion…” Idris shrugged.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Three nodded.

“But how dangerous were they,” Eli said, “We could just pummel them.”

Idris looked at Eli. “Yes but that’s boring.”

“Do it,” Uthar said, sheathing his weapon.

After some preparation—everyone in cover, the door wedged only a crack open, safe spots marked—Idris stepped forward. “The spell is definitely too big for the room so be ready. One…two…”

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

The door crashed closed and the entire tomb shuddered as the contained force of a thunderball erupted inside the room. The reverberations rocked the floor of the pillared chamber as dust fell from the ceiling, a wave of shuddering quake threatening to knock the company from their feet.

Three and Eli couldn’t help but grab their nearest pillar, and as he jumped away Idris was knocked into a pillar despite his best efforts.

“Uthar! Cleanse them again!” Sifer yelled as he grabbed Three. Eli and Idris, closest to the north wall, found they were slowly being pulled toward their respective gargoyle corners—which explained why the gaping maws were up near the ceiling. Uthar hurled his rope to catch Eli’s waist, hauling him back from his presumably deadly drift.

Sifer was struggling with Three, but Idris was in the most danger. “Uthar! Use the spell on Eli and get to Idris!” Uthar decided Eli was safe enough for a moment, so he released the rope and hurled it instead to Idris. Eli did his best to stall his drift on a pillar but it was too wide to get a good grip.

“You’re going to have to do two spells Uthar!” Sifer cried, seeing the impending chaos. Marko flew to Eli and wrapped a rope around him, tossing it to Sifer who did his best to grab it and not lose Three, but it was too much to handle.

Uthar hauled Idris near to the ground using a surge of strength to resist the pull. He prayed fervently and blessed Idris with his touch, and thankfully Idris flopped to the floor.

Eli had a flash of inspiration: he extended his collapsing pole and jammed it between the final pillar and the wall created by the eastern sarcophagus chamber. It wedged between the two, allowing Eli to wrap himself around it and hang on for dear life, his feet being pulled temptingly close to the leering gargoyle.

“Brilliant!” Sifer grinned. “We need someone to bring Eli down—Uthar, get on it. Idris come and hold Three with me!”

Uthar sprinted over to grab Eli’s trailing rope and yanked him close. But instead of praying he called out: “I only have one more! Is this the time?”

“Three—can you dispel from up there?” Idris called up to the ceiling.

“I can but I have to empower it to make sure it works.”

“Do it.”

Three cast it on himself and immediately fell to the ground.

“Uthar use it—we have no choice,” Sifer ordered.

Eli clattered to the ground leaving the entire company once again earthbound.

“Gentlemen,” Sifer said looking around with a grin, “Don’t touch the columns!”

“Do we want to go see what happened in there?” Idris smiled.

“There’s going to be seven angry shields isn’t there?” Sifer groaned.

Uthar carefully pushed the door open. Inside was a chaotic mess: shattered shields and warped swords, the walls pocked and scarred, reminiscent of the remains around the gem.

Marko stepped over to the inner door. “Spear trap,” he groaned.

“We know how to deal with that,” Sifer said calmly, clambering up the wall as everyone took cover, Three especially so. On a three count he opened it.

No spear shot out. Idris glanced at Marko but held his tongue.

Inside the far room was a collection of skeletal bodies and rotting equipment, and coins were scattered about. A pool of water leaked half way across the floor and the sound of slowly running water could be heard.

Written on the north wall facing the company was a clearly visible magically glowing script:

You who dared to violate my tomb now pay the price. Stay here and die slowly of starvation, or open and enter the door to the south, where certain but quick death awaits.

Whichever you choose, know that I, Acererak the Eternal, watch and scoff at your puny efforts and enjoy your death throes.

Sifer pulled the door closed. “Nothing to see here!”

---

Session played September 15, 29, October 13, November 17, December 1 2025