Standing at the footsteps to the great Tower of Lighting, a rage filled the fairy. In the last 24 hours she had been shot at, clawed by a small dragon, had her voice taken from her, been beaten into unconsciousness, tied up, gagged, held prisoner, fallen off of a rooftop and then been offered up as a prize to the very organization she had sworn to take down.

And now the little halfling had let her out to play.

Nikki’s hands were still bound, but with the gag sliced open her real weapon was unleashed. The small battalion of soldiers and reptilian knights before her clung to their heads as the deafening screech erupted from the fairy’s mouth and drove them to their knees. She walked towards them, the volume of her voice rising in a crescendo as she shifted pitch.

Flynver and the others scattered, circling around the small army that had been sent forth by the elderly elven wizard that had been here just a moment ago. The weaker ones in the group fell quickly to the combined might of the heroes, but the red-scaled knights armour protected them well, even while dazed by the fairy. The half-dragon soldiers were experienced and quickly spread themselves out, attempting to stalk their prey. One of them began to open their maw wide…

Drokh sprang into action. Hands still tied, unarmed, the large orc drummer charged forward and grabbed his friend by the waist, picking her up off her feet. Her voice still sang out, a blast of high screeching notes, as she was dragged away from the middle of the battle. He ran, hoping to be fast enough, looking for protection behind these warriors at their side.

The blast of fire engulfed him from behind, knocking him to the ground. The pain was excruciating. He looked down, at Nikki in his arms, wreathed in flame, before his vision went black.

A time to hide

Brylla knelt over the prone forms of the orc and the fairy, eyes closed in prayer. Her gloved hands stretched out over their bodies as she channeled her gift into their bodies. The battle had been swift, but not without challenge. Al had only barely avoided being cut into pieces and if it weren’t for some heroics from Tanthalas it may have been more of them that had fallen to the fires of these dragonkin.

Looking around, it seemed as if none of the passersby had noticed anything. There were no cries of alarm, no children running screaming. Everyone was simply going about their business as if nothing was happening. The dwarf knew they would have only a moment before more soldiers would be on their way, so as soon as her patients’ eyes opened she yanked them to their feet, leading them away from the tower.

Tanthalas was already leading the way with Al, searching for an alley to hide in. The elf was beckoning them over to a storage area behind a nearby shop. It was full daylight so there was no chance to hide in the shadows, but at least the shop blocked the view from the tower and it would take a moment for any pursuers to find them. Flynver dug through his pack, searching for that dwarven stone.

“Ah ha! Here it is!” he exclaimed, pulling out the stone they had found on the doppelganger. “Grab on, let’s hope for a smoother ride this time!”

Brylla extended her hand, gesturing to the fairy and orc to do the same. Once all hands were on the stone, Flynver recited the dwarven command word that Brylla had taught him and the city around them vanished. This trip felt different, not as jarring as their last attempt, but it was as if something was tugging at her. The world exploded in colour and then absolute darkness, before her vision adjusted to their new surroundings. Shining a light upon the hideaway, it appeared as if most of the contents of the storage area had been trashed and chewed upon. An empty apple basket lay upended on the floor, nothing left but a few crumbs and half-eaten cores. A crunching sound in the corner led them to the culprit.

Snappy.

The mimic pet had not been fed in several days and had grown restless awaiting a new shipment of foods. Without his masters to feed him and with the adventurers otherwise occupied, Snappy had been forced to fend for itself. It sensed the new arrivals, by smell first before seeing them, and hopped over cautiously. This group was bigger… tastier? It’s tongue hung out, tasting the air to get a sense of them, as it watched to see what would happen. Rows of razor-sharp teeth were at the ready should it become time to eat.

“Here you go, boy” said the skinny one who was holding forth a small parcel. It smelled like food. Snappy could remember this skinny one, it had been a friend in the before times. Its long tongue stretched out to grab the parcel from the floor, quickly pulling it into its maw. Mmmmm… delicious!

Brylla watched in wonder as the demeanor of the mimic changed so suddenly. The poor creature had become so domesticated it was eating rations and enjoying it! Perhaps they could bring it some more food on another visit, something a little better than dried jerky. But for now, it was time to rest, lick their wounds, and come up with a plan.

The campsite

While they rested, the fairy tried to fill them in on everything she had learned so far. She knew there was something beneath the tower, something big. She had found a door but even after months she had not been able to figure out how to get through it. Throughout this time she had been searching for connections, finding people involved in the network of the organization. They seemed to operate in cells, not knowing about each other, each with their independent goals. People kept disappearing, though, and the fairy seemed desperate to find a way to stop the organization from continuing their operation.

Though Tanthalas felt sympathetic to the fairy’s desire to uphold justice, it seemed the fey had not planned this venture through. Not even a little. The fairy and the orc drummer were unlikely going to be enough to take down an organization this powerful, no matter what powers the fairy felt were at her disposal. She was overconfident and that made her dangerous. Even with the rest of them at her side, taking on this Dru in its own stronghold would be difficult. They needed more reinforcements.

“Perhaps we should find Bleg and the others” he suggested to the group, after everyone had bandaged up and had a moment to catch their breath. “A bit of extra muscle could help if we have to go up against more of those dragon soldiers.”

“Weren’t they staying outside the city?” asked Al, hesitant about this plan. “How are we going to get from Uppertown to the edge of the forest without being noticed?”

“Simple. We won’t” stated the elf with a slight smile. “We make a big show of leaving town, making it very obvious to anyone watching that we are leaving, and leaving quickly.”

Tanthalas couldn’t be certain the plan wouldn’t backfire, but it was their best option right now. For whatever reason, that old elven sorceress seemed to want to take them alive. That meant they had leverage!

Stepping up onto the teleportation platform, the ranger gestured to the others and everyone crowded around, ready to return to the city. Weapons at the ready, they prepared for the worst, each of them with one hand free on the stone held by Flynver. The world disappeared from them, the elf’s final sight of the room being a somewhat confused mimic hopping from one side to the other.

After the jarring experience of being transported across space and time, they re-appeared in Uppertown in the same storage area where they had left. It took them only a moment to slip in with the crowd and start making their way down the streets towards the Midtown gate. As they walked, Tanthalas scanned about, trying to find any lurkers or moving shadows, but he noticed none. If someone was tailing them, they were extremely good.

By the time they reached Lowertown and the docks, the ranger had relaxed a little and allowed himself to enjoy the Haust air by the sea. It was rare for him to be so close to the eastern shore and the smell of the salt in the air brought back memories of years before. They were jumbled and, after what happened with the fairy, the elf couldn’t even be certain they were his own. Walking down here, the crowds heading about their daily chores, sailors prepping their ships for sea… you could hardly tell that there was a manipulative force sitting up in that great tower, looking down at all of them like they were insects.

Near the transport stop where they had arrived, the elf found the distinctive hoofmarks of the minotaur and began trailing them out of the city. Looking up, Tanthalas saw a trail of smoke rising into the air, the size of the grey plume indicating it was likely a campfire. It seemed that Bleg and his crew had not gone far from the city entrance before setting up camp in a small copse by the side of the road. The elf waved the others forward, pointing towards the campfire smoke, as he took the lead again. When they arrived, however, they all came to a sudden and shocked stop.

The campfire was getting low and a boiled pot of beans now burned up above it. Signs of a struggle surrounded the main tent that had been set up and all of their belongings seemed to have been left on the ground. A large pool of blood spilled out from the tent, staining the ground. They all stopped, listening for the signs of someone still being there, but they only heard the trill of songbirds and rustle of the local wildlife. Whomever had come here, they were long gone now.

Al and Flynver cautiously spread out, looking for clues. The halfling lifted up a tent flap, attempting to look for lurkers hiding in the tent but found nothing. The dragonborn found the signs of a bloody trail leading away from the camp. After a thorough search and a close examination of the tracks in the dirt, Tanthalas was fairly certain that a small group had infiltrated the camp, murdering at least two of Bleg’s men before taking off with the minotaur and possibly one other. There were signs of other casualties as well, possibly on the attackers side, but in the end Bleg’s crew had been overwhelmed by the surprise attack. The marks in the dirt seemed to get deeper as they moved away into the woods, indicating that they were probably carrying something or someone extremely heavy. A trail of sporadic blood stains confirmed that something had gone this way and had not had time to bandage wounds. With luck, it would lead the elf and the others straight to them!

Back to the tower

Al followed behind Tanthalas, watching the elf expertly slide along the forest floor while tracking their quarry through the woods. With the elf focused on the trail, the dragonborn decided to turn most of his attention to their surroundings, looking for signs of an ambush. It had been quiet, but that unsettled the enforcer. They must have been seen leaving town. Why had no one tried to stop them? Why would this attack on the campsite have been made? Al had a bad feeling about this.

When the trail exited the forest, it unsurprisingly led them straight back into Lowertown. It was more difficult to follow the trail across the cobblestones, but whomever it had been was in a hurry and wasn’t trying to cover their tracks. They made their way past the docks once more, into the alleys, across the thieves’ highway and finally found themselves back where it began: at the great Tower of Lighting. It seemed all roads led them to here.

“Do you know of another way in?” Tanthalas asked the fairy, hoping for an option that didn’t involve barging in through the front door.

“I found a passageway that goes under the tower, but I’ve never seen any other way in other than the main doors.”

Al didn’t like the idea of them rummaging around in the streets, trying to sneak into an underground passageway in the middle of the day. From their rooftop vantage point they could easily see families and tourists walking through the streets and going about their Magnisdag activities. Based on the level of activity, this was clearly a very busy day for shopkeeps as families prepared themselves for the ten-day ahead.

“If we wait until dark, we can more easily pass unnoticed” suggested the dragonborn, scanning about his companions to ensure they agreed.

“I should warn you” interrupted the fairy. “The door I found in these tunnels seems impossible to bust open. It’s locked somehow and I couldn’t even come close to solving it, but maybe you lot will have a better chance than me?”

Flynver seemed up for the challenge, but Al was wary of anything that resembled carefully locked doors that couldn’t be opened. He considered it his specialty to know when to break into a place, and this felt like all kinds of wrong. Waiting for the setting sun to get a little lower in the sky before they climbed down from the rooftops, Al took the time to get his gear ready.

Potions? Check.
Piton and Rope? Check.
Light source? Check.
Glasses to see in the dark? Check.
Pointy blade? Check.
Little pointy blades? Check and check.
Big pointy blade? BIG CHECK.

Everything seemed to be in order as he secured his daggers again to his belt and rearranged his various weapons. You never knew what type of pointy object you were going to need in a given scenario, so Al always made sure to have as many as possible. They couldn’t be sure what was under the tower but, by the gods, they would be ready!

Flynver’s Knock

The darkness started to set in as the group slipped through the alleys to the entrance that Nikki had found. It looked like an old storage cellar which opened onto the street using two very heavy doors inset into the mostly horizontal entranceway. They worked quietly, Flynver using his illusions to prevent anyone from seeing what they were doing, and slipped into the dark storage area below. As they set a light for those who couldn’t see in the dark, it illuminated an aging and decrepit stone cellar. Wooden boxes, long since collapsed or rotten, lay in piles in various areas of the room. Against one wall, however, was an opening in the brick that led into a dark tunnel. Al was not trained to recognize different types of masonry, but it was obvious enough that this tunnel seemed better kept and of finer workmanship. Whomever had built it had built the tunnel to last.

As they reached the end of the hallway they came upon a massive portal, designed to appear wooden, blocking their path. There were no hinges that any could find but it was covered in a large collection of glyphs, runes, and mechanical components. The fairy had been right, it was a very well-locked door.

Flynver stepped his small frame up to the door, stroking his white beard as he gazed at the door before him. Some of the locking mechanisms seemed to be arcane in nature, familiar to the wizard in genre even if Flynver didn’t quite know the key to them yet. Some others seemed to be linguistic puzzles, or perhaps references to historical figures? The halfling wizard could barely make sense of half of it. One lock was definitely using advanced mathematical formulas that he had only heard of being studied at the highest levels of the Hexen Tower.

The others tried to help as well, looking for any clues they could find. Spells did nothing to the frame, and Flynver’s attempts to unlock the door by solving the puzzles only yielded one success before it exploded and knocked himself and some of the other companions to the floor, unconscious. This was a dangerous door and the halfling had no idea what to do.

By now, most of the others had decided to retreat further down the tunnel, out of the way of any sudden blasts. The small halfling stood alone before the door, dwarfed by the easily three times his height and double-wide across, poring over each rune and mechanism, looking for any clue that he could find. Flynver knew that he was smart. He had tested highly in wizard school and, without needing any bragging, knew that most intellectual puzzles would be beneath him. The designer of this particular challenge was operating at a different level, though. Flynver’s hand traced across a symbol on the door, following its lines as he tried to figure out how it tied to the rest of the door, until his eyes fell across what appeared to be a small door knocker.

He hadn’t noticed it before, so focused had he been on the locking mechanisms, but there was a small sign written in a language he didn’t understand attached to the knocker. The script type seemed familiar, possibly draconic, so the halfling called forth his dragonborn friend to decipher the meaning.

“Please knock to gain entry”

It couldn’t be so simple… could it? Al quickly retreated to the other end of the tunnel, putting a wall between himself and the potential blast, while Flynver reached for the knocker and gently tapped it against the door.

Nothing happened.

The mechanisms all remained locked, but there was no explosion and the halfling still stood there, alive. Though his ineptitude was most distressing, he held the feeling that perhaps if he could facilitate a more onerous strike upon the surface that perhaps he…

Flynver paused. His thoughts were racing more quickly and with more complexity. He found himself feeling able to understand the door more easily. Certain pieces fell into place, though not enough to solve it all. The halfling reached forward and knocked again, then again, then again. Each time he felt his mind advancing slightly more until it felt as if all the secrets of the universe could be known to him, if only he had the time! The algorithms upon the door seemed like child’s play and his feelings of inadequacy of only a moment ago seemed so irrelevant. He was like unto a god… and what would these petty problems of the simple-minded folk matter to one such as he.

He began to regret the situation that led him to his transformation, realizing that perhaps it had not been the wisest course of action.

But behind the dizzying intellect was the compassion and whimsy of the old Flynver, who thought of the plight of his friends and their need. He unlocked all four mechanisms easily, waving the others forward as the door dissolved into nothing. He felt the disappointment and the feeling of inadequacy as his mind slowed to a crawl, back to its normal Flynver-esque limitations. During that brief moment he had understood so much more about existence, the world, and everything… likely more than any other being who had walked Lani before.

The door was gone and before them was their reward: a long, dark, and spooky tunnel. It was time to start walking!

Credits

• Cover image: “A puzzle door”, generated by Jason St-Cyr using NightCafe