The Lictor’s Price

“Let’s just let Shadow do the talking,” Erin told Nat firmly as they hiked up the road leading to Citadel Vraid. They were still debating strategies for convincing the Hellknights to release their Shoanti prisoner, the shaman One-Life, to them, and some of Nat’s suggestions were, well, a bit out there.

“I still think all we have to do is convince them that we’re working to undermine the Queen, and they’ll jump at the opportunity,” Jax offered. He remained optimistic that the Knights of the Nail would be willing allies. “We all want the same thing.”

“We don’t know what they want,” Wren snapped. “These are Hellknights! We don’t know who’s side they’re on, or what their motives are. We don’t have any idea why they left Korvosa. All we do know is that they answer to Asmodeus, and that means they can’t really be trusted.”

That shut everyone up, and the rest of the hike passed in silence. The road leading up to Citadel Vraid was narrow and steep, with frequent switchbacks. As they rounded the final switchback, they found themselves staring up at the black stone walls of Bastion Dominus, the first of Citadel Vraid’s three castles. The massive steel front gate was flanked by slender towers, crowned with steel spikes. Beyond the front gate was a heavily guarded atrium, with over a dozen Hellknights and figures in black robes standing guard. They could see thick wooden doors leading into side chambers, while another enormous steel gate barred the entrance to the citadel proper.

One of the guards stepped forward to block their path. “Halt and state your business!” He didn’t sound threatening – just officious.

The group took a collective breath, and then Shadow stepped forward. “Hail, good knight!” he said with a smile. “We wish to request an audience with your leader, Lictor DiViri.” No sense wasting time with underlings – better to go straight for the top.

To no one’s surprise, the guards didn’t immediately welcome them in. “Uh huh. Right,” the guard replied wearily. “I’m sure you would. What exactly is this about?”

This is where things could get a little tricky. “It’s about the situation in Korvosa,” Shadow replied evasively. The guard stood his ground, expression unchanged. That obviously wasn’t going to cut it. “We have some information your leaders may be interested in,” Shadow offered after several long seconds of uncomfortable silence.

“Like?”

Shadow gulped. His normal charm wasn’t working on these guys, and they showed no interest in granting their request for a meeting with the top brass. “We have access to information that no one else knows, and the Lictor might find very interesting.”

The guard actually chuckled a little at this. “I doubt very much that anything goes on in Korvosa that Lictor DiViri doesn’t know about.”

Two of the figures in black robes had been whispering to each other as Shadow tried to talk his way past the guard, and now one stepped forward and whispered something to the guard. The man's eyebrows went up, but he said nothing, simply bowing slightly to the robed woman. He turned back to Shadow. “Very well – the Lictor will see you. You must leave all weapons here, however.”

Everyone was so shocked by this sudden turn of events that they didn’t even argue about the need to disarm. The Hellknights took all their weapons (and wands, and anything else that looked potentially dangerous) and stored them in a large iron chest, first carefully logging each item and tying a paper tag to it. Each person signed the log of their items, and were presented with a fistful of tags, to ensure that everything could be properly reclaimed upon exit. Erin was very impressed by how well organized they were.

Once that was complete, a half dozen of the Hellknights escorted them through a postern gate into the inner courtyard of Bastion Dominus. Stone barracks flanked the baily on its sides, and a two-story stone keep rose in the center. Their escort led them into the keep, then up a flight of stairs into a room furnished with simple wooden chairs. A pair of Hellknights stood guard at the only door out of the room. The leader of the escort knocked on the door, then opened it without waiting for a response and motioned for the party to enter.

Inside was an office. Large maps of southern Varisia, northern Nidal, and a detailed map of Korvosa hung on the walls, along with battle standards for the Knights of the Nail. A large mahogany desk dominated the room, massive but simple. Lictor Severs “Boneclaw” DiViri sat behind the desk, regarding the party with interest. He was dressed in black plate armor, the chest piece molded into the shape of a grinning skull. His head was shaved and his eyes were dark, but seemed to regard the group with an air of humor. He was drumming the fingers of his left hand on the surface of the desk – and those fingers were nothing but bleached white bone.

“Well, well, well – if it isn’t the heroes of Korvosa! Or is it the fiends who tried to destroy the city? I find it hard to keep up these days. I must say, I didn’t expect you to turn up here! Have you come seeking asylum from your mad queen? Or perhaps you’d like to enlist! Please tell me you’re not here to beg me to throw the Knights of the Nail into your hopeless rebellion? That’s not my decision to make, and I really don’t think you’d care to talk to those who do have that authority!”

Shadow stepped forward again. “You’re right, your lordship – we’re not here to ask you to interfere in what’s going on in Korvosa.”

“Then why are you here?” DiViri asked, with a slight smile. “I’m sure it’s not just to pay your respects.”

Shadow’s mind was racing, trying to decide just how much it was safe to reveal. “We’ve come across some information on what may be causing the Queen’s … ‘madness’. We need to talk to someone in your care who might be able to help us understand what we’ve learned.”

For the first time, DiViri seemed genuinely surprised. “Is that so? Is it one of my Signifiers?”

“No. It’s a Shoanti shaman named One-Life. We understand he was taken prisoner by some of your men. We’d like to request that you release him to us, so we can question him, see if he can tell us what we need to know.”

DiViri leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers, the fingers of bone pressing against those of flesh. “Hmmm … this is interesting. Yes, we do have your savage medicine man as one of our guests. I had thought to make an example of him to the other Shoanti slaves, but perhaps this could be a better use of him.” He paused for a moment, eyes narrowing in thought. “I’ll tell you what,” he finally said. “I would be willing to make a trade for him – I’ll give you what you want if you give me something I want.” The group exchanged short worried glances – this had seemed far too easy up until now. But they nodded to Shadow, who in turn nodded to the Lictor.

“What I want is quite simple – it’s just a piece of paper. Unfortunately, it’s rather well hidden – and protected. It is somewhere in the Hall of Wards, in the Acadamae. I don’t know where – obviously, that structure is very well protected against scrying or other means of divination. What I do know is this: the key is hidden somewhere in Headmaster Toff Ornelos’ rooms. It’s not a physical key – it’s a magical key, some sort of orb of light. You will need to get into his tower, find the key, and then get into the Hall of Wards and find what it fits. I’m not sure exactly what you’ll find after you unlock the entry, but I do know there will be many similar scrolls of paper. Do any of you read Infernal?” At the back of the room, Nat tentatively raised his hand. DiViri frowned. “Oh well – can’t be helped. I ask that you not try to read them – in fact, you can trust me when I tell you that you’ll be happier if you don’t read them. However, you’ll see my name near the top of the scroll I’m looking for, written in Common. Take that scroll, and no others. When you are done, return the key to Ornelos’ rooms, exactly as you found it. Take nothing, and leave no trace you were ever there. Trust me – Toff will notice if you steal anything from him, and he will track you down to get it back.

“Ornelos will be away from Korvosa for two days, starting tomorrow. Do you have means to travel quickly to Korvosa? If not, I can arrange for my Signifiers to teleport you there.”

“We could teleport ourselves,” Nat offered from the back of the room, “but maybe it would be better if your people got us there. That way we’d still have our spells in case we have to get out in a hurry.”

“If you have to get out in a hurry, it means you didn’t do it right,” DiViri warned. “But nevertheless, I’ll arrange for you to be magically transported back to Korvosa tomorrow night. But listen! You must tell no one of what you are doing, especially not any other members of the Order! I have enemies here, and the less they know, the better.

“If you obtain this for me, I will release your Shoanti into your custody – no tricks, no conditions. I might even throw in a little bonus for you – something far more valuable than money or baubles.”

Their audience ended, the party was escorted back to the fortress entrance and collected their gear (after signing several more forms to affirm it was all returned in good condition). They made the hike back down the road to Colmar and their inn mostly in silence. Once they were safely locked in their rooms, they sat staring at each other for a few more minutes. “OK,” Tomas said at last. “Just what have we gotten ourselves into?”

“Sounds like a relatively straightforward burglary,” Jax said, offering his professional opinion. “Break into one place, steal a key, break into another and use the key to open the desk or cabinet, or whatever these papers are stored in, find the right paper, and get out again. Easy peasey.”

“Except they key is stored in the tower of one of the most powerful wizards in Varisia,” Nat moaned. “And whatever it unlocks is kept in the building where they teach wizards how to protect things.”

“So tell us everything you know about the Acadamae,” Jax ordered, and Nat and Shadow began to sketch out the layout of the grounds. Both had studied at the Acadamae (although neither had completed a full term), and they told the group what they remembered. “The Headmaster lives in this tower,” Nat said, pointing to one of the towers near the front gates. “But I’m not sure where the entrance is. I was never invited in. The Hall of Wards is back here.” He marked another building on their hand-drawn map, on the opposite side of campus.

“Have either of you ever been inside the Hall of Wards?” Jax asked, but both men shook their heads – neither had taken any classes on Abjuration before their tenures at the Acadamae were prematurely terminated.

“What about guards? Any magical protections we need to worry about?”

“I never saw any guards,” Shadow said, and Nat nodded in agreement. “I guess they assumed no one would be stupid enough to start any trouble surrounded by a hundred wizards. And I don’t know of any wards on the grounds themselves. I certainly saw students practicing Teleport or Dimension Door within the grounds or back and forth outside the walls. And lots of people would turn invisible, so there’s no area-wide Invisibility Purge or anything like that. Now on specific buildings or rooms – I have no idea.”

“The Hall of Wards is certainly going to have lots of, well, wards,” Nat added. “I mean – that’s what it’s there for. What I’m worried about is scrying.”

“You think the Acadamae might have some intrusion detection system?” Jax asked, worried.

“Not the Acadamae – those assassins!” Nat responded. “How did they find us, out in the wilderness? Somebody must have scried on us. Once we get back in the city, we’ll be sitting ducks if someone scrys on us again!”

“Can you protect us against that?” Jax asked, but Nat shook his head. “Not all of us. And not for very long.”

“Well then that’s just a chance we’ll have to take until we can figure out how to neutralize those assassins. Let’s stay focused on the mission at hand.”

They spent the rest of the day debating strategies for getting into the Acadamae, and most of the next day rehashing those same arguments. It was well after dark by the time they returned to Citadel Vraid, and Wren still hadn’t settled on which spells she’d need. They found a pair of black-robed Signifiers waiting for them, part of the spell-casting arm of the Knights of the Nail. “We have orders to get you into Korvosa,” one said. “Where do you want to go?”

That, at least, they’d agreed on. “About a block from the Acadamae – anywhere out of sight,” Shadow offered. The two conferred for a minute, then linked arms with the party. There was a lurch as they crossed planes, and then they found themselves in a dark alleyway. “You’re on your own,” the Signifier said, and then the pair vanished.

They waited until midnight, giving Wren a little extra time to pray for spells and making sure that the Acadamae’s students and faculty would be sound asleep (they hoped). They’d initially discussed using Dimension Door to jump to the top of the Headmaster’s tower, but then decided that if there wasn’t an entrance from the roof, they’d be no better off there than on the street. So they’d settled on jumping onto the wall at the side of the tower. The only question was – which side? After flipping a coin, they chose the side nearest the front gates. Nat and Shadow linked arms with their friends, cast the spell, and they vanished.

They reappeared right where they’d intended, and breathed a sigh of relief as they saw they’d guessed right – in the tower wall in front of them was a large,  heavy door, ornately carved with arcane runes and symbols. They could see narrow windows in the upper floors of the tower, but none on this level, and no light shone from any of them. There was a glowing magic circle on the parapet in front of them, and looking down they could see another on the ground some forty feet below. “Must be a teleportation circle,” Nat speculated. “Gets you from the ground level up here to the door.” Everyone was careful not to step on the circle as the moved towards the door.

The door had an ornate and complex-looking lock set into its face, with an oversized keyhole. All eyes turned to Jax. He examined the door carefully from a distance for some time, but didn’t spot any obvious signs of traps. “Let’s see if we can figure out how this works,” he whispered as he took out his lockpicks and knelt before the door. He reached out to insert his picks into the keyhole, but the instant he touched the door, he vanished.

He found himself in a maze of burning stone walls, stretching off in an impossible number of different directions. All around him, high pitched screams of terror and pain echoed in the air. He recognized those screams – they were the screams of every child that Gaedren Lamm had ever fed to Gobblegut, and he found himself unable to move as he was overcome by childhood horror. He heard a sound behind him – the scraping of clawed feet, the dragging of a scaly belly and tail. It was Gobblegut! He was coming for him! Jax wanted to run, screaming, but his legs wouldn’t move as the scraping grew closer. But no – Gobblegut was dead! He’d seen him die! He’d killed him himself! But not here – not in this place. Gobblegut lived, and was coming for his revenge. Jax tried to will himself to move, to run, but he was frozen in place, paralyzed by fear. He felt hot breath on the back of his neck (why would Gobblegut’s breath be so hot?). Then a blast of flame, like a pair of toothy jaws, engulfed his head and neck. The pain was intense, but he somehow survived, and the sudden burning pain shocked him out of his paralysis. He began to run, not looking back at what might be chasing him. But which way? There were a dozen different passages to choose from, and he somehow knew that only one would lead back to safety. “Help me, Jit!” he sobbed, then chose a passage at random and ran towards it.

Jax reappeared on the parapet at the spot where he’d vanished. He’d been gone less than half a minute, but he was sobbing, his clothing scorched and his hair on fire. Tomas beat out the flames with his cloak, and they dragged Jax back away from the door. It took him several minutes to regain his composure. When he finally did, he looked up at them with a soot-stained face. “I don’t think I want to do that again.”

They helped Jax to his feet, and he looked back at the tower door. “I never even got to try to pick the lock,” he said. “As soon as I touched it – wham!” He stared at it a moment longer, then snapped his fingers. “Damn! Why didn’t I think of this before?” He got out his lockpicks again, but didn’t move any closer to the engraved door. Instead, his picks floated forward on their own, courtesy of Jax’s skill at Ranged Legerdemain. Jax held his breath as they slid into the keyhole, but this time he didn’t vanish into the hellish maze. Unfortunately, it was trickier to work his picks at a distance, and try as he might, he couldn’t get the lock to open.

“Shit!” he groused after yet another failed attempt. “This isn’t working. Why couldn’t DiViri have just given us a passkey, like we had for Deathhead Vault?”

“Yeah, it was nice having a maid’s key, that opened all the locks,” Nat agreed. There was a moment of silence, then Nat’s and Jax’s heads both shot up at once. “The maid’s key!” Jax cried, and Nat nodded eagerly in agreement. “There’s no way old Toff here sweeps his own floor, or cooks his own food. Somebody has to do that for him, and that means one of the servants must have a key!”

Fortunately, the servants’ quarters weren’t far away. The group approached in silence, then Jax quaffed an Invisibility potion and crept to the door. It wasn’t locked, and he pushed it open silently. The large open room inside was full of beds and the sounds of snoring. Each bed had a footlocker at its foot, presumably for the owner’s clothing and possessions. There were a dozen servants sleeping inside, but Jax saw at a glance that most of them were young. Three however were much older, and he guessed that the responsibility of caring for the Headmaster would go to someone with the most seniority. Moving as silently as possible, he began going through their footlockers. On the second one, he hit pay dirt – wrapped in a silk cloth at the top was an oversized, shiny brass key, its head a complex shape of interlocking arcane symbols and a dull red gem set into its handle.

Key in hand, the party made their way back up to entrance to the Headmaster’s Tower. Not fully trusting that the key would circumvent the magical trap, Jax used his Ranged Legerdemain again to insert the key into the lock and give it a turn. There was an audible thunk, and the doors came slightly open. Jax approached the doors, carefully removed the key, and pulled them open.

The room inside appeared to be a combination reception area and storage room. It was well-lit by Everburning Torches on the walls and a fire burned merrily in the fireplace. There was a well-crafted table and four chairs and some shelves containing mundane items. A pair of worn boots lay just inside the door, beside a low bureau, and a robe was tossed carelessly over a table. A set of stairs curved upwards along the Tower wall.

Nat was already casting Detect Magic as the others filed into the room. The torches and fire were magical (no surprise) as were the boots and robe. He could also sense a magical aura coming from somewhere up the stairs. He reported this all to the others as Tomas searched the room for any secret or hidden compartments or passages (being careful not to disturb any of the room’s contents in the process.

Confident that the others had this room covered, Jax headed up the stairs, Shadow close on his heels. About halfway up the stairs, Jax suddenly vanished (again). Shadow was not entirely surprised – there was a reason he’d let the rogue go ahead of him. Shadow waited a minute for Jax to reappear, but when he didn’t, he shrugged and kept climbing. “I wonder what will be on fire when he comes back this time,” he thought as he climbed.

At the top of the stairs he found a cozy drawing room. It looked like where the Headmaster might receive less formal guests, as well as where he conducted his own study. The walls were lined with several shelves of books, and there were tables covered with maps, charts, and ancient papers, most in languages Shadow didn’t recognize. He cast a quick Detect Magic, and the results almost made him dizzy; besides the torches and fire there were at least a dozen scrolls and tomes, some things in desk drawers, and a magical aura coming from somewhere down the stairs. For the moment, he stood with his hands in his pockets, not sure where to start.

Meanwhile, Jax had climbed the staircase into what was clearly Toff Ornelos’ private chambers. He’d thought that Shadow was right behind him, but when he turned to speak with him, he wasn’t there. “Must’ve decided to let me take all the risk – again,” Jax thought. The room was dominated by a large summoning circle embedded into the floor. A large, comfortable-looking bed sat against one wall, and there was a desk, several worktables, a pair of bedside tables, and two chests. Jax stood at the top of the stairs, unwilling to venture farther into the room for the moment, as he scanned for any likely hiding spots for a magical key. Luckily the room was brightly lit, making it easy to see.

A bell went off in the back of Jax’s mind, and he slowly raised his head to look at the room’s lights. On the ground floor, they had just been Everburning Torches. This room, however, was lit by four globes of bright light that rested in delicately filigreed silver sconces. He recalled that DiViri had told them the magical key they were seeking was ‘some sort of orb of light’ – and here he had four to choose from.

Ah, but choosing was the trick, wasn’t it? Jax was pretty confident that choosing incorrectly would not be good. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see any discernable difference between the four globes. Jax cast Mage Hand and spent a moment using the tried-and-true decision-making strategy of Eenie Meenie Miney Moe. Then he sent his Mage Hand floating towards the globe on the northwest wall of the room.

Everyone still on the ground floor heard a crackle of electricity and Jax’s yelp of surprise coming from upstairs, as Chain Lighting ricocheted around the room. Shadow heard the same thing – but coming from downstairs. “I’m OK!” Jax called from above (below). Fortunately, he’d been able to evade the sizzling bolts, and was pleased that his odds had just gotten better. His Mage Hand was still operational, and he shifted it to the globe on the northeast side, tensing to jump out of the way of danger. But this time, the globe of light floated up out of its sconce, and into his hand. “Got it!” he called in triumph. He headed back down the stairs. Shadow, who’d also started down the stairs when he heard Jax’s call, saw Jax suddenly pop into view halfway down the stairway.

Stage One of their mission was complete – now on to Stage Two. They hustled quietly across the deserted grounds of the Acadamae, to the entrance to the Hall of Wards. It was a simple-looking single-story building, with no windows and only a single door. The door was locked, but Jax had no trouble picking this one. He cautiously pulled the door open and peered inside. He could see a narrow hallway, with a pair of double doors on the other side of the hall, almost opposite the entrance. There was a ruddy glow of light coming from some source at the left-hand end of the hall, but he couldn’t see what it might be. He turned to the others for confirmation, and they nodded, so he took a deep breath and stepped across the threshold.

And came walking right back out. One instant he’d been stepping into the doorway, and the next he was facing the opposite direction, stepping out. Everyone looked at Nat and Shadow, but they just shrugged. “I never saw this happen before,” Nat said defensively. “Students came in and out of this building all the time, and never had a problem that I could see.”

Jax was still trying to get through the door, each time with the same results. “Maybe you have to jump across,” Tomas suggested. He took a short run, leaped just before he reached the entrance, and came flying back out. “I think I know!” Wren said confidently. She turned her back on the doorway and backed into it. An instant later, she was backing out of the building.

“Are you sure there wasn’t something special they have to do to get in?” Tomas asked as he searched the door, doorframe, and lintel for any signs of hidden buttons or switches. Nat and Shadow shook their heads. “Is there anything special they wear? A medallion or symbol or something?”

Nat shook his head. “Not as far as I ever saw. They just wore their …” he snapped his fingers. “I’ll bet that’s it!” He reached into his Handy Haversack and came out with his old Acadamae robes. They were wrinkled and a little stained, but he pulled them on over his other clothing, then confidently strode forward. He passed through the doorway with ease, and stood grinning at them from the other side.

Unfortunately, Shadow had pawned his own robes long ago, so Nat’s were the only ones they had. Nat stripped them off, tossed them back through the doorway, and they took turns dressing, entering and undressing until everyone was inside. There were two sets of double doors on the right side of the hall, and one smaller door on the left. At the end of the hall was a T-intersection, and it looked like something was burning down there, casting flickering red light down the hallway.

Jax pushed open the double doors beside them. They opened into a large lecture hall. Nat nodded. “Looks like the sort of room they teach introductory level courses in,” he announced.

“I don’t see any papers,” Wren observed. “This can’t be the place.”

“No,” Erin corrected. “We won’t see the papers until we open whatever it is this key fits.”

“Oh yeah, right,” Wren nodded. “So we’re looking for an office, with a desk, or file cabinet or something.” Jax listened to this, shaking his head. He wasn’t convinced these ‘papers’ DiViri was looking for would be hidden anywhere as mundane as an office.

They opened the door on the opposite wall. It revealed a large, open room. The near part of the room had a stone floor with several low bookshelves; there were a number of scorch marks on the stone floor, and a large blue tarp covered some object. A raised wooden stage with a table and some chairs were on the far side of the room. A quick Detect Magic showed that several books in the shelves were magical, as was the tarp and something on the table. “This looks like a practice room,” Nat said, “a place for students to practice casting or countering spells.” They still weren’t sure what they were looking for, but they didn’t think that this was it.

They continued down the hall, but pulled up short before they reached the intersection; waves of heat rolled off a Wall of Fire that blocked the way to the left. “What the hell is that for?” Tomas asked incredulously.

“I’m guessing there’s an advanced classroom down there,” Nat replied. “The students probably have to figure out how to get past the Wall to get to class.”

“So there’s got to be a way to shut it off, right?” Tomas asked, beginning to search the walls and floor for hidden mechanisms. “I mean, students wouldn’t have to get burned just to get to class, right?”

Shadow and Nat exchanged a knowing look. “You don’t understand how this place works,” Nat said. “This is part of your training. They put up these obstacles to force you to use what you’ve learned, and they probably change them frequently. If you get burned, that’s the price of knowledge, and the incentive to figure out a different way to get to class next time. And if you don’t survive … well, you probably didn’t belong in that class in the first place.”

Everyone gulped – this wasn’t like any school they’d ever imagined. Shadow, however, just began casting a spell. “No sense in everyone getting scorched, and Jax has already lost a lot of hair – I’ll check it out.” He cast Protection from Energy (Fire) on himself, and strode through the Wall. Despite his magical protections, it hurt like hell. As he crossed, he glanced down the other arm of the hallway, and saw a cloud of churning, yellow-green vapors. “Shit! That looks like a Cloudkill!” he thought. “Hope we don’t have to go down there!”

Once through the Wall he found there wasn’t much corridor left, just a pair of double doors on one wall and a small, scuffed door at the end of the hall. He opened the double doors and saw another classroom, much smaller than the lecture hall they’d first found. It had a handful of tables and chairs, and the center of the floor was inscribed with a circle of arcane symbols. Squinting, he could make out that each symbol represented a different school of magic. “Don’t think I want to mess with those,” he thought. He didn’t see anything in the room that looked like it would work with the magical key Jax had found, so he pulled the door shut and turned to the door at the end of the hall. It opened into a dark janitor’s closet, with mops, buckets, and other cleaning supplies. “I pity the poor schmuck who has this job,” he thought, and started to pull the door closed. But then he stopped. On the back wall of the closet was a simple wrought-iron sconce, something you might put a light in so you could find what you were looking for in the cluttered closet. Or perhaps, something to place a magical orb of light into. “I think I might have found something!” he called back to the others. “Jax – bring the key!”

Nat took Jax and Wren by the arm and used Dimension Door to carry them safely past the Wall of Fire. Shadow showed them what he’d found, and Jax took the bright globe of light out of his backpack, and set it gently into the sconce.

They’d expected a secret door to open, or perhaps a hidden stair to appear in the floor. Instead, the back wall of the closet vanished, to be replaced by a swirling portal. The border of the portal was a fiery circle that gave off no heat, and the center was a churning cloud of black fog, shot through with sparks. “Well shit!” Jax muttered as he stared into the void. “Are we supposed to go through that?”

Nat called back to Erin and Tomas, telling them what they’d found. “I think we’ve got to go through,” he finished. “Are you coming?”

The paladin and ranger conferred for a minute, then Erin called back to Nat. “No – we’ll stay here and guard the rear. You guys just go in and grab the paper, and we’ll wait for you out here.”

“You sure?” Nat asked hesitantly. He didn’t like the idea of going anywhere without their heavy firepower. But Erin was unmoved. “Just go in and grab what you’re looking for, and we’ll make sure no one bothers you.”

“Well I guess it’s just us, then,” Jax muttered. “You guys ready?” Nat, Wren, and Shadow all nodded, and Jax took a deep breath and stepped through the portal. To those outside, he appeared to fall rapidly away, then vanished into the fog. One by one, the others followed.

They fell through blackness for what seemed like only a moment, then found themselves in a stone room, lit by a sourceless orange ambient light. There was a heavy iron door on the wall in front of them. Behind them, there was a faint rectangular outline as if a sudden scorch of heat had discolored the stone around a doorway. There was no sign of the portal they had passed through.

The room was empty save for two things. One was a small table, covered with dozens of tiny crystal vials with peeling, faded labels. The other was a dead body, horribly mutilated, lying in a patch of dried blood. Wren rushed to the body, but it was obvious he was long past her aid. “What killed him?” Shadow asked as Wren examined the body, but she looked up at him with a puzzled expression. “I have no idea. It looks like most of these wounds were made after he died. And it’s strange – I can’t tell how long he’s been dead. Some parts of him look like he was freshly killed, and others like he’s been dead for months. But with how hot it is in here, I’d expect more decomposition.”

It was hot, uncomfortably hot. And it had been a chilly autumn night when they’d entered the Hall of Wards. And there was a faint, acrid odor in the air that they hadn’t noticed before.

“He’s got some magic on him, though,” Shadow declared, as his Detect Magic kicked in. He began going through the man’s robes, then held up his bloodstained hands. “What the hell? That blood on the floor is old and dry, but this is fresh!” Wiping his hands on an unstained portion of the victim’s robe, he resumed his search. The man appeared to have been stripped of most possessions, but Shadow found a hidden pocket in his sleeve. He withdrew a pair of scrolls. One glowed magical, and some Spellcraft revealed it to be a Scroll of Break Enchantment. Shadow unfurled the other, but shook his head in frustration. “I can’t make heads or tails of this,” he said. “Nat? Can you figure this out?”

Nat took the scroll, looked at it for a moment, then almost dropped it in shock. “This is written in Infernal!” he whispered. The others gathered around him. “Is it the one we’re looking for?” Jax asked eagerly.

Nat was struggling to read the document, but his knowledge of the language of Hell was rudimentary at best, and this document was incredibly difficult to decipher. “I don’t think so,” he said as he studied the document. “There’s a name – at least I think it’s a name – but it’s ‘Maganrad’. Yes, here’s the same name on the signature. Oh geez – it’s signed in blood! This is really hard to make out. Let’s see … I can read ‘soul’ … ‘servant’ … ‘Acadamae’ (that one’s in Common) … ‘eternity’ … ‘contract’ … ‘blood’ … ‘willingly’ … Here’s another name, I think: ‘Nagxiv’, whoever that is.” He looked up, face pale. “And here’s a word I definitely recognize: ‘Asmodeus’.”

Nat’s hands were shaking as he re-rolled the document. “Guys – I think this is a contract with the devil! Or at least a devil. And I don’t think we’re in Varisia anymore. Don’t you feel it? It feels different here. The light, the air, everything. Guys … I think we’re in Hell!”

Erin and Tomas waited for their friends to return. And waited. And waited. An hour passed, then two. “This isn’t right,” Tomas said. “They should have been back a long time ago.” Erin was worried, too, but she didn’t want to admit she might have made the wrong choice in staying behind. “We need to go see what’s happening,” Tomas insisted. Neither of them had any means to protect themselves from the Wall of Fire, so they just gritted their teeth and ran through. In the janitor’s closet, the strange portal was still open. “I’m going after them,” Tomas said grimly. “Are you coming or not?”

“Someone’s got to stay here and make sure the portal stays open!” Erin insisted. She was trying to convince herself as much as Tomas.

“Whatever,” Tomas said disgustedly. “I just hope I’m not too late.” Bow in hand, he stepped into the portal and vanished.

Erin waited. Another hour passed, and she was starting to panic. The sun would be coming up soon – the Acadamae would start rousing. If the portal was still open when students started coming to class … She was quickly running out of choices. She pushed the closet door shut behind her, gripped the hilt of her sword tightly, and stepped through the portal.

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The PCs earned 5,866 XP, putting them at 132,043, with 145,000 required for Level 12.