The walk back to Jenerra gave them all some chance to relax from the harrowing day and night. The most disturbing part of the walk, though, was definitely the skeletal undead goat that Duanne had decided to add to his collection. It kept trying to eat everything, even though it had no belly left to fill. Thora wasn’t sure what to think about this decision by the wizard. It was unsettling, disturbing even, but this type of magic could also prove useful. The soldier was having a hard time balancing the allegiance to Duanne and then this decision to reanimate the dead. Now was maybe not the time to think about such philosophical questions, though. It was hard to believe they hadn’t even slept since leaving Embassy! Thora was exhausted and feeling the strain of the long day and high tensions. A bed was just what they needed while they waited for the cleanup crew to arrive. And maybe a drink at the Flibberty Gibbet?

Unfortunately, the dwarf’s dreams that night were haunted by the vision of claws ripping through flesh, escaping from their incubation shells, dripping in a thick yellowy goo. Thora was always needing to run, needing to fight towards freedom and escape, but then the dwarf felt a tightness from somewhere inside. Pain, excruciating pain, followed by a tearing as a claw burst out of the soldier’s belly. Thora woke with a start, dripping sweat, to find that the morning sun had already started to cast a soft glow upon the town.

After dressing and grabbing a quick meal, Thora joined the others outside the town walls to greet the visitors from Embassy. A veritable army of mages, wizards, and clerics had arrived to investigate, record, and report on what had happened here. The priests seemed intent on doing whatever was in their power to cleanse the space and prevent such a cross-over from happening again. Curious about their experiences the day before, Thora approached a small trio, who were having an animated discussion amongst each other, to ask for their help.

“Excuse me, sorry for interrupting” said the dwarf, politely, though Thora made it clear from the tone that this was important. “Thank you for coming, but we aren’t exactly certain what we saw back there. Perhaps you could fill in the details?”

The others listened as Thora, and then the dwarf’s companions, relayed the description of the creature they had followed, the dead goats, the living cave and the birthing imps. After a few minutes a few others came over to listen in as it became clear this was something a little different from what they were used to.

“Sounds like a demi-plane” offered a young woman, leaning on her staff. “Maybe the Abyss, or one of those other chaos planes?”

“They were probably trying to link their dimension to here, maybe on a weak point in the planes?” offered an older man, dressed head-to-toe in flowing black clothing. “You said you stopped something else?”

Alandal replayed their encounter with the giant for the assembled crowd, doing his best to recount his vision of the red sandy plane of desolation that the dragonborn had seen when he had touched the metal device from the giant’s head.

“Nope, doesn’t sound familiar. Jerry?”

“Can’t rightly say that I’ve done heard o’ it, but don’t sound too pleasant, though.”

The cleanup crew seemed to devolve into chatter amongst themselves, leaving Thora and the others to fend for themselves and find a way back to Embassy. Seeing them wandering away from the main crowd, an old man approached, introducing himself as Vermillion.

“Pleased to meet you, young ones” the elderly wizard said in a halting command of the language. “I am here to bring you back to Embassy, if you are ready to go.”

The old man looked so ancient it seemed he might crumble at the slightest touch, yet he held himself together and led them to a clearing where they could prepare for the leap.

“Now, remember, keep yourselves still and close by… we don’t want any accidents!”

Everyone grasped hands with Vermillion and prepared for the jarring movement of the teleportation. Thora wasn’t certain if it would ever become a comfortable way to travel. The dwarf was certain there had to be some serious side effects to that much teleportation.

It was over in a flash, but wherever it was they arrived at, it was NOT Embassy. The quartet immediately went into a defensive position, scanning the room. When it became apparent that no creatures were about to leap upon them, the anger set in. They had been betrayed!

Thora was livid. The dwarf spun around, facing the wizard that had brought them to wherever ‘here’ was. It certainly wasn’t Embassy, nor anywhere else in Rhime from what he could gather. Their surroundings looked like something out of a failed artists concept painting, the walls seeming to close in while also somehow stretching away into infiniteness. Things hung at impossible angles and the chaos of the room was overwhelming to the senses. It was a trap! The soldier wanted to run a blade through the wizard’s chest but was interrupted by the creaking voice of Vermillion.

“I am sorry, he made me” came the quiet apology from the wizard. A single tear drop ran down the ancient wizard’s face, before his skin began to bubble up and explode upward. A dashing demon in formal attire popped out of the old man’s body, whose husk limply crumpled to the ground. Somehow, the demon managed to keep himself clean and unspoiled from the gruesome display, albeit somewhat asymmetrical.

“Sorry about that, the boss said I had to get you here quick, so I had to pull in some favours!”

The Demon’s Challenge

“It sounded to me like you might be the ones the boss was looking for” continued the demon, speaking rapidly as the others looked on, agape, staring at the puddle of goo that was left of the wizard’s corpse. Noting the group’s distraction, the demon tried to assure them.

“Don’t worry about that guy, these stupid wizards will do anything for a little bit of extra life. I’ve been riding him for a year!”

Duanne pointed a clawed finger at the demon, sending his undead goat charging forward, but the demon simply held it back with a free hand.

“Look, folks, I don’t got the time” the demon continued, in an exasperated voice. “If you’re the chosen ones, you’ll be able to get through the labyrinth. And if not, I guess you’ll like, die, or whatever. So either you’re the chosen ones or you’re dead, I suppose is the long and the short of it. Now, I gotta skedaddle, no rest for a demon these days, that’s for sure!”

With that, the demon disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving them in the room of chaotically designed furnishings.

“This must be the Abyss, or at least, one of the layers of the Abyss” suggested Alandal, looking about as he tried to remember his studies. “That demon’s master must be the lord of this realm. It could be some sort of afterlife or maybe just an elemental plane of chaos?”

“We need to get out of here” stated Zearach, immediately beginning to examine the room for possible exits. “Nothing here makes sense, but if it’s a maze, we need to try to find some doorways and start moving.”

“No matter what doorways we find, we won’t be able to map this place out” added Alandal, examining a strange part of the wall that had a door painted onto it. “A chaos realm will be constantly shifting and changing. The physical laws of Rhime won’t apply here, this will be more like a dream. Everything we see here has been created by a powerful demon and they will be able to be reshaped at will.”

“Can’t we just wake ourselves up, then?” suggested Thora.

Zearach was ignoring the question, though, and searching the room for the options they had. The most obvious ways were two sets of archways: one ahead and one behind them. The very obvious nature of them made the elf question their likelihood as the exit. There also seemed to be a trapdoor hidden amongst the black and white marble tiles of the floor. Perhaps down was the answer? In the end, though, the elf found a large clock on the wall and tugged on it, revealing a secret entrance into the wall.

“Shall we?”

Riddle me this

Thora stepped through the clock, following Alandal and Zearach, and felt immediately unbalanced. There seemed to be no ceiling above them, or walls. The floor looked like a giant painting broken up into large square tiles, each one big enough that Thora could not quite reach across with both arms stretched out. A tiny glow emanated from the space between tiles, setting off warning bells in the soldier’s mind. Zearach reached down, checking the floor, and noticed that it seemed like the floors were floating above nothingness. The dwarf immediately drew weapons, looking around for something that was going to attack them. Everything here felt like a trap!

“There is something red painted on the tiles” noted Alandal. “Perhaps it’s the path to follow?”

“That seems too easy” Thora threw in, still scanning the room. “But I might be able to jump to the other side of the room, with a rope, and then it would be safer to cross?”

Alandal, using his height, reached above him with his blade. Though it could not be seen, he struck against some sort of barrier atop them, perhaps a little higher than two dwarfs.

“I don’t think you’ll be able to make it that far with that there.”

Duanne was ignoring them, examining the room in detail, staring at the red paint on the tiles. As Duanne tilted his head, the wizard realized they looked a little like arrows. Gesturing forward at one of the arrows, Duanne pointed to the nearest tile and the little goat dutifully ambled forward and stood on it.

“Welcome to the room, riddle or run, fight or fun?” came a scratchy voice which was immediately followed by the appearance of a small imp with a large grin. It faced the goat directly, continuing its challenge. “Answer the question or you I will bite!”

The little goat answered by attempting to chew on the imps leg, only managing to make the imp smile even wider with glee as it happily shoved it away onto another tile. As the goat’s hooves stepped on the adjacent tile, the floor below it began to shatter, sending the undead animal into a dark abyss below. It had been a good test by the wizard to try this out before any of them did! Now they knew that the painted squares were safe, except for the irritating imps with riddles.

“Why is a teddy bear never hungry?” came another riddle from a deeper part of the room. Thora suddenly realized that Zearach had leapt forward while attention had been on the goat, challenging another imp. The elf easily solved the riddle but Thora noticed something peculiar. The new imp that had faced the elf looked IDENTICAL to the first, down to the gleeful grin. The dwarf turned to look for the other imp and it was still there, though it seemed to be staring off into space and oblivious to its surroundings. Thora decided to test a theory…

Pulling back for a mighty swing, Thora swung with full force, bringing the blade horizontally at the imp’s neck line. As the soldier’s arm crossed the glowing edges between tiles, the imp seemed to become focused again and started to turn to face Thora. As it opened its mouth to speak its riddle, the blade struck it just below the jawline, severing the head and causing the imp to suddenly disappear. So they could be killed! That suited the soldier just fine.

“What room do ghosts avoid?” came the imp’s challenge from another part of the room where Alandal had crossed over to a new tile. Yet another riddle for them to face and, while Thora appreciated the intelligent answers of the others, the dwarf had no patience for this.

And so it went for the dwarf: the others moving slowly forward, trying to solve the riddles as Thora hacked at the imps.

“What has holes but still holds water?”
“What can you catch, but not throw?”

The slow progress and the irritating sound of the imp’s voice was getting to Thora. The dwarf wasn’t exactly sure why it was aggravating, but the constant smiling and giggling of the little creature triggered something. No matter how many riddles they solved or limbs Thora hacked off, it just kept smiling and riddling.

At long last, Duanne reached the opposite end of the strange room of riddle tiles and this time was challenged by two imps, determined to stump him. Before they’d even got the first words out of the challenge the tortle shouted “RIVER!” at them, causing both of the imps to pause, look at each other with a confused look, shrug and give each other a high five.

“OKAY! YOU PASS!”

Thora was dumbfounded for a moment. How had the wizard known what the riddle was going to be? Or was it all just a random guess? Thora was going to need to ask Duanne about that later, but right now being able to move out of this room was exactly what Thora was going to do. The soldier gave a sarcastic salute to the imps on the way out the door, glad to be rid of this challenge.

A Dangerous Library

As they exited the strange room, the doorway behind them suddenly disappeared, revealing a short corridor behind them. Before them was another short corridor leading to a room with a straw-covered floor and a circular set of shelves, covered with books. The bookshelves were rotating slowly around the main chamber, showing off the entire collection to the new arrivals. Before Thora had a chance to step forward and reach for a tome, a large tentacle rose from behind the bookcase, grabbing onto the top of the stack. The first feeler was followed by another and then multiple tentacles from different parts of the room rose up, which then pulled up large oozing blobs of slimy yellowish goo. The aberrations slid their way over the shelving, grasping for the newly arrived snacks. Thora smiled. Now this was a challenge up the dwarf’s alley!

“I’ll get their attention!” Thora quietly said to the others before running forward. Thora raised a blade, slicing at one of them as the soldier ran for another corner of the room, hoping to anger it and pull it away from the others. Another oozing creature slid into the dwarf’s way, effectively surrounding the soldier. Up close, Thora could tell that these weren’t natural things. They seemed like a huge blob, just spreading out to fill the space, big enough to swallow up at least half a dozen dwarves. Their four tentacles were constantly seeking out a grasp on the soldier and it took most of the dwarf’s concentration just to keep dodging them. The soldier slashed out, left and right, moving constantly in an attempt to keep the creatures from cornering Alandal and the others.

A shout of surprise from the corridor alerted Thora that the plan had failed. While Thora was now up on top of a bookcase, swinging at yet another ooze that had appeared, it seemed that the others had still been targeted. The dwarf risked a look back, noting that both Duanne and Alandal seemed to be coughing within a yellowish cloud, unable to focus or move. Zearach was trying to battle his way out and create room for the others, but it was slow-going. These creatures seemed to take their blows in stride and not even slow down!

The momentary lapse of concentration nearly cost Thora dearly as a cloud descended upon him from a nearby blob. Thora covered up with one arm, trying to fan away the effects of the yellowish mist with the other. While the soldier managed to keep from the worst of the effects, the distraction had done its purpose. A tentacle slammed into Thora’s side, almost knocking the dwarf over. The towering blobs were right upon Thora, blocking out view of the rest of the room.

“Now would be good!” the dwarf called out, hoping either Alandal or Duanne had recovered. A blast rocked the shelves around Thora, collapsing the wooden frames and sending books flying into the air, shattering some into pieces. Had Thora not expected it, it might have shattered the dwarf as well. Leaping from one shelf to another, Thora tried to stay moving, hoping it would keep the creatures busy. They seemed too strong and resilient to the soldier’s blades, cutting them up was going to take too long.

“The chests!” shouted Duanne from across the room. Thora wasn’t sure what the wizard was talking about, the creatures didn’t have any torso of any kind, let alone a chest to target, but as the others started rushing to the corners of the room, the dwarf finally noticed them. Four massive wooden chests sat in each corner emitting a soft glow from under the lid. As each one was opened in turn they released an almost blinding magical aura from within, and the oozing creatures would suddenly begin to slow, then focus on the chest, and then stop.

It had become a race. As the others moved about the room, trying to get to the chests, Thora was losing ground. Another cloud blasted directly in the dwarf’s face, causing Thora to sputter and cough like the others had. It was almost impossible to focus, to see, or to even move properly. A tentacle suddenly wrapped itself around the soldier, squeezing hard as another slammed into the side of the dwarf’s head. The creatures were taking turns pummeling Thora into submission, the dwarf barely able to stay standing, both swords help up in a defensive position as the soldier tried to stay alive.

It was only now that Thora noticed two Zearachs. The soldier could see the ranger, near an exit corridor firing an arrow. But down that corridor behind Zearach there was also another figure, that looked exactly like Thora, looking at yet another Zearach firing arrows. The dwarf spun around to look behind and sure enough could now see another exit corridor, this time with Zearach’s backside showing toward the soldier. They were trapped in some sort of infinite corridor!

Realizing the desperation of the situation, and coughing up a little blood, Thora faced down the creatures that were grabbing him.

“Do your worst.”

Spitting blood on the ground before them, Thora readied for the onslaught. The club-like tentacles battered down, driving the soldier to a knee, but then suddenly stopped. Looking around in confusion, one eye swollen, Thora found the others had opened all the chests, freezing the creatures in place. Zearach was casually firing from across the room, taking his time to eliminate their foes.

Looking down at the pile of books around him and the now immobile piles of goo, Thora noticed something strange. All of the books had writing on the spines, but appeared as scribbles, completely indecipherable as a language. Opening one, each page within was either blank or some sort of series of unknown symbols and lines. It felt like the nightmares that Thora had dreamt as a child, going through Beka’s library but not being able to read any of them. What would a dream book do if it ever left this place? Curious, Thora stuffed the volume into their pack, hoping nothing too terrible would happen.

Walking through the aftermath, searching for an escape, Thora found that in the center of the shattered set of shelves was a massive cutout in the floor. Stairs descended downwards into the darkness. The way out? The dwarf gestured towards the others, beckoning them over. Stretching out and trying to brace for their next challenge, Thora began slowly moving downward into the dark. What would be next in this place?

The Frogurt is Also Cursed

Whatever Thora could have guessed or imagined could not have prepared the soldier for what lay for them at the bottom of the stairwell. As they reached the last stair the staircase disappeared and unveiled an overwhelming visual display. It was like some sort of warped carnival, or a house of mirrors. It was a complete overload of sounds and colours, constantly shifting, their vision divided as they tried to focus on the way out. Every single direction held a sign that read “EXIT”, but how could they all be the way out?

Deciding to move mostly as a group, they followed Duanne’s lead as he pinged around the room in his shell like a roulette ball. Duanne’s naturally chaotic behaviour seemed to favour him in this place, his instincts seemingly aligned with the environment. Each time they tried to move forward, carnival games would appear and force them through a challenge before continuing. The first was a shop with fruit, which led to slimy ichor trying to attach itself to Duanne somehow, crawling up his claw and arm and causing him to start shedding layers of scales and skin.

Thora slipped past the rapidly drying-out Duanne, finding that the next layer of the mirror maze featured a booth run by a thief who challenged the soldier to a game of stealth. No matter what the dwarf tried, though, everything went wrong. It felt to Thora as if the game may have been intended for failure, or perhaps that the realm of chaos was twisting fate against the soldier. The game-runner pointed to a box, indicating to the failed thief to insert their hand into the goo inside. Thora braced for what was about to happen, driving a fist in for the consequence and felt the ichor grab on, trying to curse the dwarf, but the dwarves of the Sakhar mountain are not so easily weakened!

As the others moved on through the layers of the strangely warped carnival, each one of them faced a fate worse than the last. Zearach’s body twisted and coiled, deforming his feature into a tightly bound spring that seemed about to launch out at any moment. Alandal’s brain swelled to such an extent that his draconic skull stretched and bulged, the disgusting view of gray matter spilling out of his ears as his body tried to accommodate the sudden cursed growth in his head.

When Duanne finally found the way out, the group was weakened, cursed, and disoriented. Whomever was running this labyrinth was probably laughing at their progress. Thora imagined an enormous demon, relaxed on a throne, cackling at the entertainment in a scrying pool. Looking about, the dwarf made an obscene dwarven gesture towards the air, not accomplishing anything, but feeling a little bit better.

Remembering the strange wizard in Embassy that almost killed them all with his teleportation failure, then the most recent encounter with the ancient traitor Vermillion, Thora tried to make a mental note: never trust wizards. Looking over at Duanne, who seemed to be eagerly moving on to the next challenge, the soldier wondered if present company was an exception. The tortle had saved Thora’s life multiple times and was certainly a useful ally.

Duanne then decided to grab at some random thing on a wall without even trying to inspect what it might do and Thora also remembered the decision to reanimate a dead goat the night before.

Nope, never trust wizards!

Credits

• Cover image: “Chaos Room”, generated by John Richardson using NightCafe