A/N: The world of Exile (Avernum) is still the property of Jeff Vogel and Spiderweb Software, not me. Therefore, I promise after this bit of fun to return unharmed to the game the following persons: Mahdavi, Erika, O'Rourke and Caitlin of the Scimitar; and places: Empire lands on the way to the teleporter, the three guardposts, and the teleporter fortress, the Tower of Magi, Erika's Tower, the Spiral Crypt, Fort Dranlon, and the Gremlin's Grove.

The checkpoints had been passed easily enough, although it was worrisome that one watchtower was wholly unguarded, suggesting that the troops had either moved to safety or, more likely, gone to warn that Jenneke's platoon was on the way.

Moving the boat to the poisonous ledge, they found it guarded by spawned fungi which fell quickly to magical fire, and then continued into the concealed passage. Almost immediately, they encountered a group of Empire soldiers, camped in this corridor with animated statues pacing around their camp.

As Jenneke's platoon approached, they stood, apparently unworried about any intruders until they saw the paleness of the skin of the platoon members, and the troops drew weapons. Then, apparently, they recognized them individually, and paused. And then they fled at full speed.

"Guess they weren't in the mood to die today," said Jenneke.

"I still feel like we're being watched," said Adrianna.

"Probably," said Jenneke. "But we got a job to do."

"This way," said Michael, leading away from the obvious path as he consulted his map. After passing through another concealed entrance, the crude path had been marked out with stones, with scattered bits of trash and gnawed lizard bones, suggesting that quite a few people had been this way before, no matter how isolated it appeared to be.

They continued until their passage was blocked by a wall, out in the middle of nowhere with a small fresco upon it. The fresco depicted the crown symbol of the Empire with a horizontal sword, but on touching it, they gave way.

"They're buttons," said Jenneke. "What's that pattern, Brother Michael?"

"Sword, crown, crown, crown," said Michael, "sword, sword, crown, crown, crown, crown."

Jenneke pressed the buttons and the wall shimmered briefly before a gap appeared in the middle.

"That wasn't so hard," he said. "Probably worse on the other side."

Indeed, there were a handful of guards on the other side, but they had not expected an Avernite invasion, and so the battle was quite brief, and they went through rifling for food and other useful items before continuing on their trek.

It was only a few hours later that they came to another tower blocking the way.

Inside, the floor was marked with a path leading to a closed portcullis, and two rune-filled circles.

"Ideas?" said Jenneke.

"Look for secret doors," said Adrianna. "There must be a lever that will raise the portcullis."

"Then all we mussst worry about isss what will appear there," said Thissa.

"True," said Adrianna. "I suppose, get ready for battle and search until we find something?"

"There are four," said Nigel. "There must be an order to it."

"No instructions," said Jenneke, "we'll have to guess."

Suddenly, there was a loud flash, and upon each rune appeared a doomguard—shambling magical armor.

"Don't attack!" said Michael. "I can shield us from their view."

After some trial and error, they pulled the levers and opened the portcullis, running through and pulled the other one, and the portcullis clanged shut, separating them from the doomguards.

"Whew!" said Jenneke. "Two of those things? That's a bit much."

"We'll worry about that on the way back," said Adrianna. "Running for it does seem a reasonable option."

"I suppose," said Jenneke. "Not that I like it, but ... what can you do?"

"Risk getting hacked to bits," said Nigel, "and never making it to the teleporter place we gotta destroy."

"Can't have that," said Jenneke. "All right, let's move on."

After passing the third guardpost, a puzzle made easy by past experiences with vahnatai puzzles, they reached a tiny, isolated lake, and the passage continued on the other side. A boat could be seen at the other end, but not at theirs.

"Guess we gotta fly," said Jenneke, carefully getting the Orb of Thralni out of his pack. "Everyone ready?"

Forming a ring around Jenneke, each person lightly holding on, Jenneke rubbed the orb, and the group rose into the air, flying across the lake until they landed safe on the other side. Continuing on their way past lava, they reached a small Empire guardpost. Here, there were no requests for passes or questions asked, just an immediate attack from the Empire forces.

Entering the fortress, it was a massive structure, filled with skilled Empire soldiers, and well-equipped magical laboratories. It appeared to have been hastily built, with walls already cracked and mortar still wet in places. Despite the clumsy construction, a terrifying threat to all of Avernum lurked within the walls, and only Jenneke's platoon was equipped to eliminate that threat.

As they moved through, they found a tome in a room where a mage had been studying. Fortunately, Adrianna could decipher a good deal.

"It's directions for activating one of the functions of the portal here," said Adrianna. "To create something called a demi-portal. It appears that the portal doesn't go anywhere, as they're waiting for a portal on the other end to connect. To instruct the device to create a demi-portal, approach the activation panel and intone "Khali". Then approach the direction panel and intone"Bestas". Finally, approach the stability panel and intone "Vrain." The resulting portal will fade in a minute, if no philotes are extended to it." She flipped through a few more pages and said, "I don't understand the rest of this stuff."

"Hey, it's something," said Jenneke. "Of course, we gotta find the controls, but we'll manage."

They continued carefully moving through the fortress, finally ending up in a huge empty barracks, evidently never used, awaiting the first troops to arrive through the teleporter.

"Wow," said Jenneke, looking on in amazement. "We better get a move on."

They continued, carefully avoiding as many troops as they could, and found their way to the commander's office. Figuring there might be more instructions there, they entered. The commander was a woman who attacked upon sight of their pale skin, but fell with a single thrust of Thissa's spear.

Searching through the desk, most things were rather uninteresting—inventories of materials, work schedules, and such. One note mentioned that instructions for operation of the portal were being kept in the concealed library in the west wing. Just before they closed the drawer, Feodoric noticed a slender key made of clear glass.

"I bet that's important," said Feodoric, picking it up. "We'll find where it goes later."

They moved on, fighting the troops that stood in their way, and arrived at an amazingly large blue quartz crystal, seven feet wide and twenty feet high, a twin a short distance away. The two crystals leaned together, and it seemed likely the portal would appear between them with the crystals serving to focus the energies creating the portal.

"There's a hairline crack," said Michael. "That gives me an idea—they'd repair that if they saw it, but if we put energy into the crystal, it should have a solidly damaging effect."

"Great," said Jenneke. "That's what we're here to do. Smack the other one with your mace, that should do it."

"And that would be the control tower," said Feodoric, pointing. "Let's hurry!"

Michael said, "That's good—they haven't put magical protections on yet ... let's go start this thing up."

The control tower required the crystal key for entry, and they moved on up the stairs, fighting off haakai, a wizard and two more dervishes.

"That's the fourth dervish we've seen here," said Jenneke.

"It's important to them," said Adrianna. "Now here's the controls."

Out the window, they could see the portal's crystals gleaming and ready, a black pedestal with a flat surface before each of the chairs. Bits of the upper surface glowed, seemingly just below the surface of the stone.

Adrianna touched it, but nothing seemed to happen, and she started to stand.

A male voice said, "Issue a command."

"Khali," said Adrianna.

The glowing spots on the panel suddenly flashed a variety of shades of green, then returned to the way they had been, except perhaps a bit brighter.

Adrianna moved to another pedestal, and the male voice intoned, "Issue a command."

"Bestas," said Adrianna.

Again, the glowing spots flashed a variety of shades of green, then returned to the way they had been, though now definitely brighter than when she had started.

Moving to the last panel, she sat down, and the now familiar voice said, "Issue a command."

"Vrain," said Adrianna.

With the last command, the lights on all the pedestals began flashing in a coruscating rainbow of colors. With a rumble, the four corner crystals of the portal charged up, glowing green, then yellow, then a fiery, blinding white. And then, in an instant, the built up energy discharged from the corner crystals into the two center crystals. More and more power flowed into the center, to be focused, refined, and channeled.

Then, suddenly something began to go wrong. The portal was beginning to glow between the focusing crystals—but not the green hue of portals they had seen before, but rather a pure, hateful black which was growing. A pillar of burning energy appeared around the black portal, and the crystals putting off the energy were surrounded by a black nimbus as well.

"I'm cold," said Thissa.

"Yeah," said Jenneke. "Fuck!"

"It'll be all right," said Feodoric. "We'll use the scepter and the ritual."

"That tear isn't fading, it's growing!" said Adrianna. "We have to hurry!"

Racing down from the control tower, a wind of magical energy buffeted them as they hurried to the black portal. As they neared, it seemed that the black portal would suck all the heat and life from the air, trying to pull them into eternal oblivion, when a piercing keen, audible over the roar of the portal was coming from Jenneke's pack. Opening it, Jenneke saw that the Onyx Scepter—formerly quiet and inert—was vibrating and shrieking.

Handing it off to Adrianna, he said, "You better do it."

Adrianna took the onyx scepter, moving it with the precise motions of the ritual learned in the Barrier Tower where Pyrn had been. Nothing happened. Adrianna looked frightened, but tried again, stilling the shaking of fear, and the scepter slowly turned from black to pure ivory white as light poured out from it, and the portal disappeared. Then just as they breathed relief that the hole had closed, the northern power crystals exploded, sending a wave of heat flying outward.

The ground shook, and fortress walls began to crumble, and terrified Empire troops began screaming as certain death approached.

"Get the fuck outta here," said Jenneke, drawing his sword just in case any of those troops were insane enough to stop them.

Racing for the exit, they managed to get out just ahead of the flames, and raced to a nearby hilltop. The massive magical portal reached full power The crystals surrounding the pillars filled with energy, pouring their power into the pillars, but the pillars were cracked. Power flew out of control, and fire and lightning began flying in all directions, smashing the fortress to dust. The fire hit the nearby water, and a huge cloud of steam was added to the tumult.

Jenneke held Adrianna tightly in his arms as they watched from a safe distance—undoubtedly everyone in the fortress had perished, and Empire's sure hope of crushing Avernum tore itself apart, in a blaze of fire, lightning, and steam.

"They'll have to do it the old-fashioned way," said Adrianna. "One at a time."

"Good," said Jenneke, giving her a kiss. "That should help out."

They quietly made their way back through the guardposts where they had left carnage in their wake, and got back to their boat. Rowing across the waters, Jenneke suggested it might be better to keep this boat and go down the rapids, rather than risk Empire checkpoints this soon after such a major bit of destruction, and after considerable rowing, they reached the caves to begin their journey east to the Tower of Magi.

Still a bit sore from the difficulties of the mission, they went directly to see Mahdavi, who looked pleased to see them.

"We have destroyed the Empire portal," said Jenneke.

Mahdavi stepped back, overcome with relief. "Wonderful! You may, and I am being careful not to overstate the case here, you may have saved Avernum. You have done a great thing for us all. I would like to give you a small reward for your efforts. I know that there are two tomes in the libraries, bound in gold leaf and green leather, they will be quite useful to you. And this," she handed a polished staff to Adrianna.

"Thank you," said Jenneke. "We're a bit tired, so we're going to go get a bit of rest.

After they had rested, eaten breakfast brought by a silent apprentice, they took advantage of baths, and then strapped on gear, ready to continue the good fight.

"Let's go see what Erika has to say about what Athron told us," said Jenneke, a spring in his step after his bath with Adrianna.

After traveling through the portal of the Tower of Magi and Erika's portal, they came into her chamber.

"Welcome back," said Erika. "You have something you wish to talk about?" Her air was that of one who disliked small talk.

"We have been to see Athron," said Jenneke, "and she said the Soul we seek is in Angierach."

"I see," said Erika. "To get the Crystal Soul from Angierach, you will need two things. You will need to be able to pass the fort's wards, and you will need a way to pass the magical barriers you find there."

"What can you tell us about what we'll find there?" said Adrianna.

"Angierach is an Empire fort, and a bizarre one. A variety of powerful magical creatures live and work there, preparing strange magics. I know, for example, that they were researching magical barriers there," said Erika. "I also know that the fort has strong wards."

"What are these wards?" said Feodoric.

Erika replied, "The fort is very hard to get into. There are powerful magical statues in front of it which block entry. However, there is a mage named Ostoth who knows how to reach it."

"Where will we find Ostoth?" said Jenneke.

"I cannot remember. I spoke with him some time ago. He said he knew of some sort of "teleportation code" to reach the fort. If you meet him, you should ask him about Angierach. He knows how to get to that fortress," said Erika, and she mused for a moment before adding, "Now that I think of it, he did express an interest in studying dragons. For what it is worth."

"I don't suppose you know more about these magical barriers they are researching?" said Adrianna.

"I know that some rakshasi there are working on a new sort of magical barrier that is immune to normal dispelling. It was originally created by Garzahd. There is a woman named Enla who knows more about it than me," said Erika. "If you meet her, ask her about Garzahd. She may help you. Then again, maybe not."

"Any leads on where Enla might be found?" asked Jenneke.

"I know a lot, but I can hardly be expected to track the presence of every person in Avernum!" said Erika. "I think somewhere in the east. Somewhere around Formello, last I heard."

"Thank you," said Jenneke. "That's a good lead. We'd probably best be on our way, then."

"Very well," said Erika. "Good luck."

With a bow, they left and went through the portal back to the Tower of Magi.

"You know, dragons—what if that Ostoth guy is in Motrax's place?" said Jenneke. "And if Enla was in the Formello area, that's all kind of in the same area."

"True," said Michael. "So that's where we're going next?"

"I don't want to return to vahnatai lands without something more solid," said Jenneke. "It's definitely worth a shot."

As they reached the area of Mertis, they found themselves under attack by undead, and fended off that onslaught, and continued only a short way before there was another undead attack, and they helped the Mertis area farmers beat off the undead.

"That's it!" said Jenneke. "We're going into that fucking crypt and deal with those monsters once and for all."

"You think that will work?" said Nigel. "There's been undead here ... well as long as anyone can remember."

"It will work," said Jenneke firmly.

He led the way in, and the tunnel began sloping sharply downward, spiraling deeper into the earth. The air grew markedly colder, the muggy sulfurous atmosphere of most of Avernum forgotten. The cold was far too sharp and sudden to be natural, and even without the snarls and hisses of foul creatures within, there was undoubtedly evil magic at work here.

Smelling decay and drawing their cloaks closer, they continued, and Adrianna said, "We aren't the first here."

"No," said Jenneke, seeing the discarded equipment and old bloodstains. "Adventurers have been coming here for years, I hear."

"Yes," said Feodoric. "Everyone wants to be the ones who took the Grim out of the Grim Cavern."

They continued onward, and saw shambling, undead creatures created by the curse in the caverns, walking amongst the debris of a group of adventurers who had met an untimely end here.

At long last, they reached a long cavern which appeared to be the lowest point in the dizzying spiral. It was freezing, their breath visible as ice crystals coated the walls, floors, and bodies scattered on the floor. The bodies were all fairly well preserved, and all clearly died of extreme violence. Amongst them were some slithzerikai, faces frozen in fierce, bestial expressions.

The cavern smelled of death and decay, and shadows seemed to assault and envelop the group. This was a horrible place, haunted and cursed. It seemed likely that this chamber was the source of the foul blight on the area.

"Someone was in here, searching for something," said Adrianna.

"Yeah, and I guess they found whatever they were looking for," said Jenneke. "Didn't stick around."

Michael said, "I guess I'll try the ritual here. Feodoric?"

"Right," said Feodoric, and he started to help Michael with the ritual.

Time seemed to stop, and they all saw a ghostly vision. The huge caverns of Avernum, devoid of the cities and farms, and through those caverns ran a group of humans in archaic armor, clearly panicked. A moment later, the cause for their flight became apparent, as a horde of slithzerikai were chasing, weapons drawn, and howling for blood. The humans fled into these winding tunnels and fought a desperate running battle until they reached this chamber—the end of the line. Seeing their cause to be hopeless, they magically sealed themselves inside the cavern, and there starved, slowly consumed with hatred for their killers and anyone else who dared to be alive.

The ritual, however, severed the connection between the ghosts of the Empire soldiers of old and this cave. Finally freed, the dark shades immediately started to fade away, gaining the long-denied peace. Cold and darkness began to fade.

"It is done," said Michael.

"Great," said Jenneke. "Another problem Empire left us to deal with, solved."

Leaving the cavern behind, they started north again, and met a merchant caravan which was greatly impressed by their elimination of the undead in the vicinity, although they had nothing very interesting to offer in trade.

They continued north, entering a dark, heavily overgrown glade, when their path was blocked by a huge crowd of gremlins. Two things became apparent almost immediately. First of all, the gremlins were all extremely glum, and secondly, they were all male. They seemed sedate and harmless for the moment, but gremlins, as they all knew could never be trusted.

Nevertheless, Jenneke decided to ask about the situation, and as Jenneke stepped forward, one of the more elderly purple creatures approached.

"What's wrong?" said Jenneke.

"It's so awful. You see, recently all our women decided to go out for a walk! Or a wine run, we aren't sure. Anyway, they never came back. It's scandalous! I mean, it's usually trees that act like that!" said the gremlin. "Oh, if only someone could tell us where they went! Their absence is causing us great ... ah ... discomfort. And we would greatly reward anyone who could tell us where they were!"

The gremlin turned to leave, and seemed to remember something, and said, "By the way, they were all wearing pink ribbons when they left. This may help." He then turned to go back to moping.

"That was interesting," said Jenneke. "What do you all think?"

"We can look," said Nigel. "Wouldn't hurt anything."

"Except there's a great deal of work to be done," said Jenneke.

"What if we looked for those statues that O'Rourke wanted?" said Feodoric. "We could do with an easier job for a change."

"OK," said Jenneke, "why not?"

They continued trekking, and in the middle of a bare, open expanse of stone, they saw the partially eaten body of an Empire soldier. Most of the goods had been dragged away, but a courier's satchel had been left nearby.

"Seems he was a messenger when he was alive," said Adrianna. "They didn't eat the satchel—odd."

Reaching inside, they found four scrolls which seemed to move about, and taking one, they read it—a dispatch from one garrison to another, though the locations weren't clear. "The new access word for the auxiliary caches is "skulls"," read Adrianna, and she put the scroll back.

"Why'd you do that?" said Jenneke.

"I don't know," said Adrianna. "I just ... felt like ... I should."

Continuing on their journey, they were cornered by a band of giants on patrol. The giants did not seem angry or frightened, more amused with a bit of contempt.

One giant said, "Oh look! Little people! In our lands. How funny. Will you play for us, little people? Will you be like little toys? Or will you beg?"

"Yes, that's it, beg!" said another giant. "Say that you are puny humans and giants are mighty, and we will let you live. Go ahead! Say it!"

The other giants laughed.

"Actually," said Jenneke, "we'd much rather just kill you."

As Jenneke's group drew weapons, the giants looked like they might for one brief moment have thought that they had made a mistake before pulling out clubs and howling mindlessly.

Continuing through giant territory, they entered a cave, and upon closer examination the cave floor was not quite natural—it had been made into a pressure plate, but seeing no alternative if they wanted to deal with the giants, they moved forward. There was a click, and then a rain of boulders, and his group jumped inside just in time, but they were now trapped inside with the giants.

"You all right, Dree?" asked Jenneke.

"I'm fine ... except ... the giants know we're here," said Adrianna as a boulder came flying by.

After defeating these giants, they began exploring for treasure, and within one box found a small statue of a giant, only about a foot high. Surprisingly, it was delicately crafted, but the material was of some sort of material like a gray metal like steel, except much lighter. The whole thing was slightly translucent, and seemed to glow with an inner light.

"Suppose this is one of the ones O'Rourke meant?" said Jenneke.

"Likely," said Michael, wrapping it to stow in his pack.

After careful searching, they found another exit, and continued explorations. Nestled in a cavern corner were the ruins of what was once a small, elegant white stone settlement. Once there had been small farms around with crops of tasty mushrooms and pens filled with succulent lizards. Everything was now a ruin—walls and roofs were smashed in by large, thrown boulders. Human skulls were mounted on poles. Clearly, this once peaceful Avernite settlement had been savaged by the giants.

"I've heard of this place," said Michael, his tone angry. "It was a monastery, filled with monks dedicated to the healing arts—they were a calm, peaceful people."

"I smell smoke," said Adrianna.

Several stone huts could be seen behind the monastery. Large, hulking shapes milled about cooking pots in front of the huts.

"We'll investigate," said Jenneke, "but that's probably giants. Be ready."

Indeed the huts were home to a small clan of giants, and they spotted the smaller people almost immediately, and clearly thought that they were as easy a target as the monks of the former monastery. Fury enabled Jenneke and his platoon to make short work of the giants, and they entered another place, finding a second statue like to the first.

Continuing their efforts, they discovered a crude castle, but also on the path, there was a crumpled ribbon, and then another one tied around one of the poles with a severed head trophy atop it.

"Wouldn't that be something, if the gremlin wives are here?" said Nigel.

"If they're still alive," said Jenneke. "I don't think I'd want to go back and tell them that the giants killed all their wives."

They moved through the rough castle, slaying giants and demons, finding the last of the trio of statues in another shrine, and then as they were investigating, they saw another bit of pink ribbon. Following this trail, they came to the entrance of a long cave with a low ceiling. On the other side of a fence were a mass of female gremlins, seeming unconcerned about their situation, looking at Jenneke's platoon with disinterest.

The gremlins eyed them with contempt, and a few muttered something about killing the group.

Then one gremlin said, "Wait! They can tell the men to rescue us."

This suggestion was met with both enthusiasm and amusement.

The gremlin said, "We're all the women in a gremlin tribe to the south. We all went for a walk, and those nasty giants captured us. We'd have escaped by now, but we're waiting for those worthless mates of ours to get off their scrawny asses and show us they care."

Ominous and irritated grunting noises could be heard from the others.

"If you see them, tell them that they'd better come rescue us, or else!" said their spokeswoman.

With that, the gremlins turned and prepared to be rescued by getting gifts together or crafting stone clubs.

"Let's get outta here before they change their minds," said Jenneke.

With that, they made their way back to the boat to row south to O'Rourke.

Entering the office, O'Rourke watched them silently, and Jenneke said, "So what sort of special powers do the giants' icons have?"

"Well, I can't tell you. You wouldn't be authorized to be told even if I did know, which I don't," said O'Rourke. "I can, however, tell you my unsubstantiated guesses. I think it has something to do with the material they're made of. Some sort of unusual metal."

"We've had some luck dealing with the giants," said Jenneke."

"Excellent! Yes, this is a very strange material. It may have valuable properties and, in fair trade," he said, removing a shiny helmet from a box, "here you are."

Then, heading across, they went to meet with the Scimitar group. Caitlin greeted them, and listened to the account of cache hunting.

"Well done!" she said, getting a pouch with several small jewels in it to give to Jenneke, beaming. "Five caches! That's one more than we had thought there were. Our work here is done!"

Her troops began packing up, and she handed over her own longsword, icy cold to the touch.

"We were given this for our own defense, but I feel you should have it now," said Caitlin. "It is a powerful weapon. Thanks again!"

"It was nothing," said Jenneke.

Each of the group shook hands with each member of Jenneke's platoon, almost maniacally happy. Wait a minute—they've been searching enemy territory, just like us ... and there are only ten of them now. None of them expected to get out of this job alive, thought Jenneke as the group gave a final wave before moving on to safety.

"Now, we'll just go back to those gremlins, and then up to Motrax," said Jenneke. "Not too bad of a side trip."

It took a few days of travel, but they re-entered the glade and explained triumphantly where the gremlin women had been found. The gremlins whooped for joy. Probably not just because they know where their women are, reflected Jenneke, but they also get to go make someone's life a living hell. Not that I feel a bit sorry for the giants.

The gremlins set about preparing for their women's return—combing hair, straightening beanies, and shoving piles of dirty gremlin laundry under big mushrooms. While they were so occupied, Michael slipped in, as he had been quite intrigued by the sight of alchemical agents growing in the back of the grove.

As soon as Michael had returned from his herb-gathering, Jenneke led his platoon back to the north.