A/N: And here's the next chapter! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own Dungeons and Dragons. I only own my original ideas.
Chapter 96: The Tunnels Below
The passage opened up to another chamber, this one containing the bodies of three cultists. Lydratir stepped over and examined the bodies.
"These two were slain my magical force," said Lydratir, "and this one was stabbed by a dagger".
"We must be getting close," said Charles.
We continued down the next hall and arrive in a new room. Blood streaked to floor here, including the smeared trail leading back to the previous room and a second trail of bloody boot prints heading up the corridor to the north. Standing amid the gore were three humanoid figures— two that looked like misshapen statures of clay and stone and one appearing as a humanoid made of flame. As we fully entered the room, the trio of elementals attacked.
The fire elemental moved up to Krisyra, and struck her with its fiery fingers. Lydratir took aim at one of the earth elementals, putting two arrows into it. Uxarix moved to assist Krisyra, jabbing the fire elemental with his rapier and dealing heavy damage. Narcrath channeled his magic, and blasted our foes with a powerful bolt of lightning. The fire elemental was destroyed, but the earth elementals remained standing. I attacked the more damaged looking earth elemental, wounding it further, though it remained standing. the other earth elemental approached Lydratir, intent on chrushing him with its rocky fists, but he evaded its blows. Krisyra summoned a small flame, and launched it at the elemental near me, casuing it the crumble into a pile of rocks. Charles ran up to the last of the elementals, knocking it off its feet and leaving it in bad shape. Lydratir drew his rapier, and with one deft strike slew the earth elemental.
With the area clear, we examined our options. There were two paths we could take: one heading northwest and the other due north. We decided to check out the northwest path first. We emerged into what seemed to be some sort of wizard's workroom. Tables were covered with notes, alchemical flasks, beakers, braziers, and other arcane apparatuses. Much more intriguing was the whirlwind occupying the center of the room. It was ten feet across and stretched from floor to ceiling. It swirled endlessly, revealing a number of sparking gems within. Even from a distance, I could feel the raw elemental magic swirling within, and I wasn't the only one.
"We shouldn't touch that," said Narcrath, "That whirlwind is very delicately balanced, and the slightest disturbance would knock one of those gems out, and likely cause some unwanted effect".
We backtracked to the previous area, and took the hallway to the north. After a short set of stairs, we came to something bizarre. Before us was a walkway that appeared to stretch across infinite space. Thousands of stars twinkled in unfamliliar constellations, and meteors streaked through the vastness above and below the path. Just past the base of the stairs, a door framed by nothingness rose from the path. Fifty feet beyond that, the path met an intersection, with another door straight ahead.
I experimentally put a foot onto the path ahead, and it seemed solid enough. I carefully moved onto the bridge, and it remained stable. We moved onto the bridge over this strange area. The air here seemed cold and a bit thin, but not unbearably so. We checked the door to the right first. We emerged into a circular room that seemed to be a library or study, its walls lined with bookshelves that extended from the floor to the gently domed ceiling twenty feet overhead. A wheeled ladder is connected to a rail that ran around the curved wall, allowing access to the upper shelves. A delicate, ornate desk stood at the center of the room, surrounded by piles of blank paper. A large map sat on the desk, its corners held down by stones.
My allies examined the shelves, looking over what books were kept here. I took a look at the map. It was an old map depicting Faerûn, with various locations marked with symbols in a language I was unfamiliar with. I collected the map, thinking it might be useful. We returned to the bridge, and continued along towards the far end. As we did, a swarm of meteor passed low over the path, nearly colliding with us. we reached the far end of the bridge, and could see there were three other paths we could take: to the east, to the west, and the door straight ahead. Checking the door revealed it to be little more than a supply closet. We next decided to check the path to the left. The door opened up to reveal a new chamber.
Two massive hourglasses occupied this irregularly shaped chamber. Their glass globes were nearly fifteen feet across, with each hourglass rising almost to the ceiling thirty feet overhead. Each was suspended by chains, pulleys, znd gears in such a way that it could be turned over to set the sad running. Crouched against the wall at the far side of the chamber was a man in mage's robes. He was looking at us cautiously, arcane energies dancing across his fingers.
"Who are you? What are you doing here?" demanded the mage.
"Verrax sent us," I said, "are you Eric Samshire?"
"Verrax? So my letter made it through!" said the mage, "did he send you to rescue me?"
"That he did," said Narcrath, "come, let's get you out of here".
"Thank the gods," said Eric, "yes, let's get going… you, by chance didn't enter the room opposite this one, right?"
"No, we haven't," said Charles, "why? What's in there?"
"There's an Efreet stuck in there," said Eric, "I believe it was tricked into that area by this tower's original owner. It seems he was experimenting with planar, spacial, and temporal magics, based off his various experiments down here. The efreet tries to trick anyone who enters the chamber into freeing it".
"Do you have everything you need?" asked Uxarix, "we've got to get going before we end up having to fight our way out through more cultists".
"I've got everything," said Eric, "Let's get out of here".
With that, we started heading back towards the entrance, hoping to make good time on our return journey.
A/N: And there we go! Next time, our heroes begin their journey back to the academy. See you then!