Escape from the Labyrinth

The party was still trapped in the Arkona’s Vivified Labyrinth. They had come seeking to rescue Vencarlo Orsini and Neolandus Kalepopolis, Castle Korvosa’s Seneschal, but at this point they’d have been happy just to find a way back out. The maze held a number of levers, and each time they pulled one, the layout of the labyrinth seemed to change. They couldn’t discover any rhyme or reason to the arrangement of rooms, and were now just pulling levers repeatedly, hoping to find someplace new. And they did. The floor shook, the wall in front of them moved, and when it opened, they were looking into a throne room of sorts. They caught a glimpse of an unconscious Vencarlo hanging from manacles in one corner, but their attention was focused on the creature in front of them, a thing with the torso and face of a woman, but the body of a lion and the wings of a vulture.

It was smiling evilly at them as the doorway opened, in the final motions of casting a spell. The room had barely stopped moving when they found themselves surrounded by a cloying miasma of greasy darkness that seemed to eat away at their moral convictions. Acting quickly, Jax cast Haste, while Shadow hammered the thing with a volley of Scorching Rays, twisted into electricity. The bolts slammed into the beast, but much of their energy seemed to slide off of her. This didn’t surprise Nat; he recognized the thing as a Darksphinx, and he knew they were resistant to many forms of energy attacks. He thumbed through his mental catalog of spells as quickly as he could, searching for one that might hurt her. He settled on Lesser Orb of Light, and Empowered it with his metamagic skills. The pure light energy blazed out, bathing her in furious photons, and she staggered back, fur and feathers blackened.

Tomas shifted to his left to get a better shot, and fired off series of arrows. Two hit, one of them sinking deep into her chest, but she didn’t seem to suffer as much from them as he’d have expected. Erin stepped forward; she’d called upon Iomedae to forge a Divine Bond with her sword, bathing it with holy light, and now she vowed to Smite Evil in her goddess's name. The holy sword slashed the darksphinx repeatedly, drawing howls of pain and adding to the blood that already splattered the room’s walls and floor.

But the sphinx wasn’t down. It held a kukri in each hand, and it lashed out at Erin; it slashed her twice with her right hand, then stabbed viciously with her left. Blood was gushing from Erin’s wounds, and she was already almost down. Wren grabbed a wand off her belt, and cast Cure Serious Wounds to try to keep Erin in the fight. But Jax had a trick up his sleeve; he stepped forward, miming the motions of beginning a spell, but it was all misdirection, to draw the sphinx’s attention away from the sword in his other hand. He lunged, and his Impromptu Sneak Attack caught the creature completely unawares. His blade pierced her thick hide and sliced her evil heart in two.

Wren started to rush to the unconscious Vencarlo, but Nat grabbed her arm. “Not so fast,” he cautioned. “How do we know that’s really him?” Vimanda’s masquerade as Vencarlo had left Nat with some trust issues. The swordmaster dangled from a set of manacles attached to a statue of a tiger-headed man – a rakshasa, Nat realized. An identical statue stood on the opposite side of the room. Between them, a green throne sat on a low dais. Jax, searching the room, found a small key beneath the threadbare cushion on the throne’s seat. He tried it on the manacles holding Vencarlo, and it unlocked them readily. Nat had been scanning the room, and especially Vencarlo, for magic, and beyond what was on the body of the darksphinx, saw nothing, so he at last gave Wren the nod to proceed.

She cast a Cure Light Wounds on Vencarlo, and he drew a gasping breath as his eyes fluttered open. His body was bloodied and bruised, one eye swollen shut, and it took him a moment to get his bearings. He looked a Wren for a moment before the light of recognition went on, then gave a slow smile through bruised lips. “It certainly took you long enough to get here – I was beginning to think you’d gotten lost!” He looked over to Jax, who was wearing Blackjack’s black cloak, which they’d found hidden in Vencarlo’s home. His smile took on a sheepish cast. “I see you’ve discovered my little secret. No matter – that cloak looks good on you. Perhaps when this is over, you and I can have a little talk. But more important things first – have you found Neolandus?”

Everyone relaxed their guard, confident that this was the true Vencarlo Orsini. Wren continued healing until he was back to full strength, his bruises fading. Erin approached him shyly, holding out Blackjack’s rapier to him, hilt first. “I think you might want this back.” The swordmaster took the weapon, and made a couple of tentative swings, then flipped the blade into the air, catching it with his left hand as he dropped into a lunge. “Ahhh,” he sighed, “I can’t tell you how good it feels to have this back in my hand. Now … how do we get out of here?”

“We were hoping you could tell us,” Erin said. “How did you get here?”

“I came looking for Neolandus. The Arknonas told me they had given him sanctuary, and brought me down here to see him. They took me through an illusionary wall, just outside the entrance to this maze, but the room they led me into was a torture chamber, and Neolandus was in a cell. I tried to fight to free him, but they did something to me that left me unable to move, then summoned Sivit,” he motioned to the dead darksphinx, “to bring me here. I’ve been her prisoner since.”

“How did she get you here?” Tomas asked hopefully.

Vencarlo shrugged. “I’m afraid it’s all a blur. She would pull levers, and new rooms or passages would appear. I couldn’t begin to describe the route we took, and it all seems to be different now, anyway. That room,” he pointed to the ‘junk room’ that the party had emerged from, “isn’t normally there – it’s usually a hallway. I do remember that at one point she opened a secret door in one room that revealed a small closet containing one of the levers.”

Everyone’s eyebrows went up – they hadn’t come across anything like that. “Do you remember where that secret room was?” Tomas asked eagerly.

Vencarlo furrowed his brow. “Let’s see. I think it was in a room with lots of bones, and mold on the floor. Had quite a scent as I recall.”

“I remember that room!” Jax said excitedly. Then his face fell. “But how the hell do we get back there?”

From here, there seemed to be only one option, so they piled back into the room with the lever, and pulled. When the world stopped moving, they were looking back into the jungle murals, and could see the room with the strange floating spheres beyond it. The arrows Wren had drawn on the walls were still intact, and pointing in the direction she remembered. “This is how we first found this room,” she stated confidently. “I think we need to go back and use the levers in the room with the orbs.”

Wren’s suggestion seemed like the best course available, so they all piled in, being careful not to touch any of the misty spheres. They pulled the lever, the labyrinth shook, but they were left staring at a blank stone wall. They waited for the lever to reset and pulled it again, with the same results. “I’m getting really tired of this,” Jax grumbled as they waited for the lever to reset again, but they had no other choices. After the third pull, they found the hall with the murals ahead of them – and at the end of it, the door that Jax recalled leading into the room with the bones.

They hustled down and into the room; several of them had searched this room the first time they’d encountered it, but found nothing unusual. “Where was that secret door?” Jax asked Vencarlo.

“Over here, somewhere?” he answered uncertainly, moving to one of the corners of the semi-circular room. With Vencarlo’s hint of where to look, Tomas eventually spotted a very well-concealed door. Opening it, he found little more than a closet – but one that contained one of the ebony-handled levers. “Here goes nothing,” he said, and gave it a pull.

The wall opposite them opened up, revealing the wasp-trap room. “Well this is different,” Nat said. “We haven’t seen this configuration before. Should we go down that hall?” He pointed to the room with the long hall filled with wailing maidens.

“No!” Jax and Tomas said together. “We already went down there, and didn’t see any sign of either levers or those gaps in the floor. Let’s stay here and pull again.” They did, and now they found the mural hall again. At one end, they could see the Symbol of Stunning they’d disabled, and at the other the Symbol of Sleep. “This is how it was when we first found this area!” Wren exclaimed.

They hurried down the halls, retracing their steps and excited to be back in somewhat familiar territory. As they’d hoped, at the end they found the room with a pair of alcoves, one containing the very first lever they’d pulled upon entering the labyrinth. Certain they were on the right track, they pulled that lever again. The first pull left them looking back down the crooked hallway containing the two Symbols, but from the opposite direction. “This was a dead-end when I saw it before,” Tomas asserted. Staying with the alcoves, they pulled again, but were left looking at nothing but blank stone. They gave one last pull; the room shook, the wall moved, and then it opened back onto the pair of rakshasa statues and the bronze double doors leading into the Vivified Labyrinth!

“It’s this way!” Vencarlo said, pointing through the entrance doors. “When they took me to Neolandus, they just walked right through the solid wall.”

Nat had a Detect Magic up, and he was skeptical. “Well I don’t see anyth…” Just then, Jax stuck his arm right through what looked like the cavern wall. “Hmmph!” Nat snorted defensively. “They must have used Magic Aura to hide the spell. Can’t expect me to see that.”

They followed Jax cautiously through the Illusory Wall, and found themselves at the top of a broad stairway, leading steeply down to another pair of bronze doors. “The torture chamber was right through there,” Vencarlo whispered, and everyone began drawing weapons and casting protective spells. When everyone was set, Jax threw open the doors.

The large room beyond was lit by a brightly burning brazier, with a number of branding irons glowing cherry red around its edge. Iron cages hung from the ceiling, while racks, strappados, gibbets, and other implements of torture filled the floor space. The wall to their right was lined with cramped cells. A sobbing man had just been strapped to one of the racks by a creature in colorful robes. She had six arms and three faces, and the instant the door opened she spun and cast a spell. The stairway leading into the torture chamber was filled with swirling patterns of colored lights. Most of the group ignored them, but Tomas and Erin stood slack-jawed, fascinated by the beautiful Rainbow Pattern.

Nat was standing beside Tomas, and immediately realized what was wrong. He knew if he could get him out of the area of the spell, he would lose interest, so he grabbed the ranger and began dragging him towards the room. But the man was solid muscle, and Nat had his hands full trying to slowly drag him towards safety. Wren cast Bless, figuring they would need all the help they could get.

Jax had cast Greater Invisibility on himself on their way down the stairs, and he now crept stealthily into the room, planning to get close enough to use his deadly sneak attacks on the unsuspecting foe. But the six-armed thing glared directly at him, and charged, stabbing him in the chest with her spear before darting back out of his reach. So much for the element of surprise. Even though he knew he couldn’t get the jump on her, Jax gritted his teeth and closed, stabbing with his rapier; the blade seemed to strike home, but did no damage. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

Shadow saw the thing lunge, and heard an unseen Jax cry out; he put two and two together and figured that his own invisibility wouldn’t be much help. But to see them, she’d need to see them, so he cast Blindness on the creature. From her lack of reaction, he had to assume it hadn’t worked.

Tomas wasn’t yet out of the Rainbow Pattern, but Nat’s clumsy dragging had been enough to rouse him from his fascination. Shaking free of the wizard, he fired off three arrows in quick succession. The thing batted the first one away with one of her free hands, but the other two struck, although they seemed to do little damage. Wren realized that Erin wasn’t reacting the way she should, so she gave her a couple of quick slaps across the face; “Get with it!” she shouted, then raced into the room, hoping to get close enough to support Jax with the healing that she was sure would be necessary. Since Nat no longer had to worry about the ranger, he cast Haste on the party’s vanguard, giving Shadow, Jax, and Vencarlo a little boost.

For his part, Vencarlo had dashed into the room, skirting the wall to avoid the creature, and headed for the man strapped to the rack. “Don’t worry, Neolandus! I’m coming to rescue you!” As he spoke, he gave Jax a wink, and Jax immediately understood he was trying to deceive the creature so he could get into flanking position behind her.

But Vencarlo’s strategy didn’t matter. The thing took a step forward to stand between Jax and Wren and gave a wicked smile. She had six arms, and knew how to use all of them. The first hand held a longsword, and it flashed like lighting. It slashed Jax once across the belly, then again across the throat. Blood sprayed Wren’s horrified face as Jax tumbled to the floor. But Wren didn’t have time to be scared long. The creature continued its slashing motion and struck Wren with the same longsword. It then stabbed her with a spear held two-handed, and slashed with a kukri held in a fourth hand. The last two hands were weaponless, but their fists struck at Wren furiously. One hit her in the gut, but the other whizzed just over her head. “Ha! You missed me!” Wren gasped with false bravado, but she knew she was at death’s door.

The group knew that if Wren died, there would be no recovering her or Jax, so they redoubled their attacks. Shadow blasted the thing with Empowered Scorching Rays; he’d debated changing their energy to something other than fire but at the last moment let them fly as-is, and was gratified to see her skin blister under the fiery onslaught. Vencarlo leapt onto the foot of the rack, and stabbed at her with his rapier, but she had no difficulty avoiding his attack (with three faces, she literally had eyes in the back of her head). Tomas fired off a trio of arrows. She batted the first away, but the other two sank deep into her chest, and a spray of blood flew from her lips as she gasped in pain. Nat leveled his finger at the creature; he’d seen how badly Shadow’s spell had hurt her, so he followed suit. His own Empowered Scorching Rays blasted her one after another, literally boring through her body to leave gaping, smoking wounds as she was thrown backwards and slid across the stone floor, staring sightlessly with all six eyes.

Wren began to Channel Pharasma’s power, bringing Jax back to consciousness. Vencarlo was fumbling with the ropes binding Neolandus to the rack. “Not so fast,” Nat warned again. Vencarlo turned on him with a snarl, rapier at the ready. “We just need to be careful,” Nat said meekly holding his hands up and backing away. “We had someone earlier who looked like you and wasn’t – how do we know this is really Neolandus?”

The figure on the rack turned to Nat. “Neolandus? Who’s this Neolandus? My name is Velak.”

Vencarlo turned back to him, and finished removing his bindings. Vencarlo placed his arm gently over his shoulders as he sat up. “Not to worry, old friend,” he said reassuringly. “These people have risked their lives to rescue you, and me. Like you, they are enemies of Ileosa, and can be trusted.”

Neolandus’s defensive posture eased, but Nat wasn’t convinced. “You need to make him prove he’s really Neolandus,” he told Vencarlo. “Make him tell you something only Neolandus would know.”

Vencarlo thought for a moment, then a smile crossed his lips. “Tell me who you danced with at King Eodred’s Founders’ Ball that caused such a scandal.”

Neolandus smiled back through swollen lips. “I didn’t dance with anyone. I refused to dance with Lady Carowyn when she was drunk and coming on to every man in the place.” Vencarlo laughed and clapped him on the back, evoking a grimace of pain. “This is Neolandus, all right,” Vencarlo said. “I would swear to it.”

That taken care of, Wren continued healing and Jax and Tomas moved to explore the room. There were a pair of immense wooden doors in the north wall, and after listening, they pulled them open. The door opened into a vast cavern stretching off into the shadows. It fell away in a steep ledge 10 feet in, and both men approached to stand on its lip. They had trouble taking in what they were seeing. A thick maze of wooden timbers all but obscured the roof above them, with a network of wooden braces radiating out from immense stone columns supporting the roof. On the floor, some 30’ below them, they could see four huge, skeletal elephants, harnessed to the pillars and beams with a complicated harness of chains. The undead beasts did not react to their presence at all, standing motionless.

Tomas pointed to several long chains dangling loose from the ceiling, each decorated with rows and rows of tiny bells. “I think we know how the labyrinth moves,” he said. “When you pull a lever, I’ll bet it rings those bells, and that’s a signal for the elephants to move forward, making their section of the room turn.” They could see that some elephants faced one way, so that they would move clockwise around their column, while the others faced the opposite direction. Not wanting to risk any disaster that might come from disturbing the elephants, they closed the door behind them.

They returned to find Nat grilling Neolandus about the Arkonas. “So you’re saying that Glorio and Vimanda Arkona brought you down here and imprisoned you?” Neolandus nodded. “And Glorio Arkona doesn’t use a wheelchair?” Neolandus shook his head, looking confused. Nat slammed his hand down on one of the torture implements, then yelped as he realized it was a bed of nails. “I don’t get it!” he fumed as he shook his hand. “Glorio told us his sister came back from Vudra ‘different’, and that this Labyrinth was all her idea. Then Vimanda told us Glorio was evil and had to be killed. Now you’re telling us they were working together! I don’t know who was lying and who was telling the truth - we need to get to the bottom of this! I’m betting that there will be more guards when we get back upstairs, and probably more traps, too, so we need to be ready. We probably should …”

“Are you mad?,” Neolandus interrupted. “Why would you even think about going back up there to face him? When they brought me down here, I saw a boat docked down at the bottom of the grotto – let’s just take that and escape this place while we can!”

“I have to agree with Neolandus,” Vencarlo chimed in. “Our enemy is Queen Ileosa. What lies Glorio has told, what he’s done, what he is – those are all questions that can be addressed when and if we defeat Ileosa.”

And so the party decided to get while the getting was good. They retreated up the passage leading to the grotto. There was still one door they hadn’t investigated up here; Jax would have really liked to have known what was behind it, but they crept past as silently as they could and headed down the last rope bridge. At the bottom, a large boat was tied to the dock; it had oars, but also a mast and sail that could be raised when there was wind. They quietly cast off and made for the exit. Another Illusory Wall masked the entrance, and they slid through it quietly. It was the dead of night (they’d lost track of night and day when they were in the Labyrinth), and they were able to row across the Jeggare River to the northern bank without being detected by the Gray Maidens.