Many heartfelt thank yous to those of you who are following and have reviewed this story - your comments help to keep me inspired and on track. :D Let me know what you think of this installment! :)
The chapter title is a quote from John Milton's Paradise Lost, and the song herein is an adapted quote from Rise and Fall by the band Dargaard.
Chapter 17: His Dark Pavilion Spread Wide on the Wasteful Deep
The Planar Sphere was vast, a ball of bronze and platinum plates that towered over every building in the Slums and reached a height that many mages would happily settle for in a tower. It was, of course, may times wider than the average wizard tower, too. It shone dazzlingly in the midday sun, its incongruous wooden doorway suspended perhaps ten feet above the ground, as if the sphere had landed and rolled a little upon impact. A narrow scaffold had been built to support a makeshift stairway up to the portal, which possessed no windows – or a handle, for that matter. A moment of speculation gave Elatharia the conclusion that the Cowled Wizards had constructed this set of stairs during their first attempts to break through.
No doubt the Sphere's appearance in the city had been an unsanctioned use of magic to rival that of Irenicus on the day of her escape. Whatever had happened, its appearance had certainly been unlawful in some way – since it had shattered and splintered the houses and shops which had once stood in its current place, leaving jagged and gaping holes in the walls of the buildings surrounding its rotund bulk. The destruction it had created had undoubtedly been a scene of carnage originally; the whole area had been fenced off. Not to mention the rotten stink emanating from the area immediately beneath and around the Sphere.
As if sensing the death associated with the place, Bhaal's essence stirred at the back of Elatharia's mind, golden light flickering in hungry bursts behind her eyes. As they approached, her skin crawled and muscles tensed restlessly. A little ahead of the group, she paused a few feet away from the stairs up to the door. She felt as if something were writhing beneath her skin, some restless energy that longed to escape. Murder. Murder. Murder and death.
"I do not believe that we have ever fought a lich before (and no wonder, given the company we keep)."
Edwin's voice jolted Elatharia out of her trance and she tried to hide how much he had startled her, turning to look at him with a faint smile instead.
"Does that mean that I, as part of 'we', am not so incompetent, after all?" she asked. 'We' had made that pact with Bodhi the night before, after all. And here were all the others, yet utterly oblivious…
Still, all Elatharia earned for her comment was a slightly disbelieving sigh before Valygar caught up with them and moved straight for the stairway, Jaheira and Minsc in tow. The Rashemi ranger had to duck significantly to make his way up, his large size particularly evident as Mazzy and Jan followed him, two child-sized figures following a man who could have been an ogre in another life.
"And now I believe it would be wise to follow, my Raven, lest our Eagle's unbarring of the doorway be deemed an unsanctioned use of magical energy," Haer'Dalis noted jovially as he flitted in Jan's wake, placing a familiar hand upon Edwin's shoulder as he passed which almost earned him a fireball in the face.
"I…I don't like the looks of this," Aerie admitted, coming up to Elatharia's side as Edwin muttered something to himself and moved to follow Haer'Dalis, "No matter how big that place is, and h-how much bigger it is on the inside, there are a lot of us. We…we need to stick together."
"Wise words, my Dove!" Haer'Dalis called over his shoulder, winking at them through the bars of the scaffolding when Edwin almost ascending straight into him, "I for one am glad that the Cuckoo has not come with us!"
"And I for one am wishing that you had chosen to remain absent also, demon-thing," Edwin complained, "At least the bounty hunting snake would have been useful for finding and avoiding traps. What can you do? Compose a dirge for the funeral of whichever poor fool blunders into one? (Preferable yourself, though.)"
"I was about to add that we will need to avoid any foolish arguments if we are to succeed in a situation like this, but I think that the point is moot now," Viconia sighed as she moved past them to the stairs. That comment drew a somewhat dry laugh from Elatharia.
The Transmuter followed once Aerie and Korgan had gone ahead, and by the time she reached the top the entire party was gathered upon the platform – with barely enough room left for her to join them. She hoped that she was imagining it, but it seemed like the scaffolding had begun to sway a little under their combined weight.
Valygar was waiting at the door, a distracted look on his face as he surveyed the group. A magical glow swelled about him momentarily as he began to read the tiny inscription scrawled into the bronze panel by the door, squinting against the reflected sunlight. Seeing this phenomenon, the group hushed immediately, all stares fixed his way.
The ranger's eyes took on a pearly look, and Elatharia had the distinctly uncomfortable impression that he had been temporarily Charmed by the Sphere. With his palms flat against the plain wooden door, he pushed…and the portal swung open easily. Darkness yawned before them, but Valygar stepped through with fearless (and rather absent-minded) purpose. As he did so, holding the door open for them to follow and shaking with the effort as if whatever force controlled him did not want anyone to go with him, the room beyond him lit up with a blink of light, showing a fair-size white-washed atrium with a peculiar circular door at its far end.
The crackle of magical energy on the ground below the group alerted Elatharia to the arrival of the Cowled Wizards in response to the Enchantment that had just been initiated by Valygar. Edwin's fluid cursing came next and a certain rippling panic overcame the group. Korgan barrelled in first, determined to see some battle without being caught by the authorities, swiftly followed by Viconia.
"Get the wizards inside!" Jaheira commanded.
The druid took a firm hold on Aerie's slender arm and fairly hauled the part-time wizard in after Edwin. With warning shouts erupting from the Cowled Wizards forming up below, the avariel pulled Jan in after her, and then Anomen and Mazzy moved out of the way for Elatharia to follow. As the group shifted and tried to make way for the Transmuter, Haer'Dalis took the initiative and pulled her in with him just seconds before Valygar slammed the door shut behind them, leaving the others standing rather conspicuously alone at the top of the scaffold.
With the door closed behind them, melding seamlessly with the white wall before vanishing entirely, silence rang in the room but for their still-panicked breathing. The pale light left Valygar's eyes and he shook his head as if dazed, blinking around at the circular, cross-vaulted chamber with a bleary, confused expression.
Jan was the first to recover, giving the area around the vanished door a cursory glance before beginning a close perusal of the bare room. As Aerie began to blink in horror at the direction they had just come, the Transmuter followed the gnome's path around the chamber. The walls were white and smooth, not painted as Elatharia had initially thought but of some unfamiliar milky stone. The floor was so smooth and polished that it was slippery, a shade or two greyer than the walls, while the ceiling was marked out by its distinctive cross-vaulted shape. The only change in the monotony of the place was the one remaining door in the far wall, round and framed with metal so dark that it looked black.
"No! The others! We have to get back to the others!" Aerie exclaimed, arms flailing and eyes wide, "We can't just leave them to the Cowled Wizards!"
Korgan looked at her blankly for a moment as if she were stupid before giving a grunt and hefting the end of his axe against the now uniform wall. The weapon bounced off with a resounding clang, a few sparks flew…and no mark was left behind.
"Looks as if the only way's forward ta me," he told her, "You any ideas, ranger?"
"No," Valygar took a moment to answer, frowning and rubbing at his head, "I have…no memory of opening the door…but I can feel this place in my thoughts," his expression darkened, and his hand went to his sword hilt, "I would guess that we will have to confront Lavok if we are to get out of this place."
"I am beginning to wonder if being caught by the Cowled Wizards would have been preferable," Viconia sighed, wincing at the words of both dwarf and ranger. By her side, Haer'Dalis shrugged amiably.
"From what I have heard, this sphere can take us around the Planes. Such a jaunt could be rather interesting," his expression flickered with something a little more serious when he met Elatharia's stony glare, "Although that would hardly be conducive to rescuing your sister from Spellhold."
"But…the others! Anomen…and Jaheira…and Mazzy and Minsc!" Aerie looked on the verge of panicking, though she stilled when Haer'Dalis approached her and placed his hands upon her shoulders, looking down into her eyes with a smile that appeared to be understanding.
"We can only move forward now, as the War Dog said, my Dove. We can only think of what is currently possible for us…"
"And none of them are wizards…or drow," Elatharia pointed out, sharing an impatient frown with Edwin, who had been shifting restlessly at Viconia's side, "Nor did they commit the act of magic. I'd wager that what's really going on out there is that they were hoping to barge their way in."
"As much as I hate to say it, khal'abbil, it may be necessary to be calm and placatory to them when we do get back out," Viconia warned, "You may have to behave in a manner that could seem deferential, distasteful as that may seem."
"(As if the incompetent Transmuter is capable of bowing to her betters. I should know)," Edwin muttered, sneering down at Elatharia when she made an indignant sound, his manner suggesting that he had fully intended for her to hear his inflammatory words, "Regardless, we are wasting time. We have the home of an ancient wizard to peruse and here we stand discussing the welfare of the baboons we left behind. I say we move on."
Aerie gave a whimpered complaint or two but in the end there was no other decision to be made. They had one door before them in a room that seemed utterly devoid of anything else. There was no hint of their entry point. So once Jan had checked the only available doorway for wards and traps, finding none, Valygar and Korgan moved forward, the ranger bracing his palm against the spherical portal and pushing. The wizards formed up behind Haer'Dalis and Viconia and the door slid open, pushing inwards with a jolt before rolling sideways under its own power.
"All clear ahead!" Jan called, and as one the party moved forward through the opened doorway.
"Well by Clangeddin's twin axes and Moradin's hammer to boot," Korgan breathed as they stepped out onto the walkway beyond.
Elatharia could only agree. The walkway upon which they stood was narrow, paved in an elaborate and colourful but apparently abstract mosaic and roofed by barrel-vaulted glass. And through that glass could be seen the Planes.
It was an Illusion, since it arced above them within the confines of a sphere, but it was impressive and dizzying and beautiful all the same, giving the sense that they stood amongst an impenetrable grey-blue fog that twisted and parted at certain intervals to reveal little globes of colour and infinite variation, worlds without compare spiralling outwards in concentric, rising circles. Directly above their heads hovered a globe larger than all the rest, detailing a mountainous landscape and crowned by a huge grey circular tube.
"Aha! There spins Sigil at the centre of the Planes!" Haer'Dalis cried, pointing at that particular sphere and drawing an awed gasp from Aerie, "And closer to us the dark Plane of Shadow! And further out, so far I can hardly see them…the mysteries of the other Material planes; you can just glimpse their forests and shores and trees. And there are the Celestial realms in their lofty ring, with the sombre grey of the Fugue Plane," he pointed outwards to the left, at the glittering collection of spheres and stars that twisted scenically around each other, "I can just make out the spire of Kelemvor's noble city," he added, squinting, before sweeping an arm left, "And there, opposite them, are the Fiendish Planes. Long have I lingered there in the mists and horrors of the Abyss – you can make out the crimson of the Blood Rift, just there, and all the way down there twist the flames and deserts and barren lands of the Hells."
A glance that way set Elatharia's heart racing, something in her calling out to those strange and half-seen lands. She found herself searching each globe that she could see of those Fiendish Planes, as if looking for something…
"And down there are the Elemental Planes; the rippling flames and endless ice, the pools of acid hissing in the gloom," Haer'Dalis was definitely enjoying himself, pointing at the globes that drifted beneath them, past the edge of the walkway, "The gusting wildlands of the realms of Elemental Air, as well. And of course, beyond it all, the endless variation of the Outer Planes speckling the distance into infinity."
"It's so…beautiful," Aerie sighed, her smile a little sad, no doubt thanks to the plight she feared the others outside the Sphere had found, "Have you been to all of these places?"
"No, my Dove," Haer'Dalis laughed, turning to wink over her shoulder at Viconia's disapproving visage, "But I intend to ere I die."
The glory of the place had shocked even Edwin into silence, but Jan and Valygar had moved ahead. The gnome had espied the collection of cogs and wheels grinding endlessly around a series of handles and strange symbols at the far end of the walkway. The ranger seemed to move forward simply because that way lay the next door, and he was determined not to be distracted. He pushed at its circular metal expanse just seconds before Jan could reach out and press one of the symbols on the control panel, and as the door unlocked something else happened.
A mighty grinding sound rang all about them and the door through which they had come slammed shut with a shower of sparks and a great gust of air. Edwin and Viconia both swore colourfully in their native languages and all of them staggered as the spherical room, its boundaries barely visible past the Illusion of the Planes, shifted a hundred and eighty degrees around them. As it did so the three dimensional map twisted and reeled, bringing some of the globes closer at a dizzying speed and sending some out so far that they were visible as no more than dots in the distance. Aerie gave a high shriek (which was probably justified from all of them) when the globes which Haer'Dalis had identified as the Hells loomed closer, so close that the whole room swelled with the red radiance of the fiery ground shown to them, the screams and roars of monsters and their slaves ringing in their ears.
"Valygar!" Elatharia called, her voice more than a little desperate as she stumbled backwards away from the growing sight of the Hells and its multitudinous layers of horror; not all were fiery but all were dreaded, "Valygar! Can't you take us somewhere else?"
The ranger looked as horrified as she felt, and the Transmuter did not need an answer from him to realise that he was not controlling their current path. Aerie shrieked again and caught hold of Elatharia's arm even as Korgan roared and held up his axe reflexively. Edwin was staggering back against the far wall of the walkway now too, gaping, while Viconia had pressed herself back against the newly locked door. Only Haer'Dalis stood unshaken, watching the Hells spiralling past with his back to Elatharia.
First they saw a barren landscape of cracked red rock, canyons so vast that their scale could not be comprehended, huge monsters just dots in the distance. Next came the icy hell which Elatharia knew must have been Cania; it flashed past and left behind a gentle frosting upon the glass – but not before she had heard the hopeless wails of those souls caught amongst its icebergs and frozen wastelands. More archetypal hells, of fire and lava and distant, amassed armies of horror, all flickered past…and then the visions stopped at a cramped and worryingly silent marshland, full of twisted and blackened trees covered in dripping spikes. The ground was flat, oozing slowly with black and greenish slime. The stink was evident even through the protective glass and several of the group doubled up gagging.
"Of all the places to send this sphere, why did you have to choose Minauros, idiot?" Edwin exclaimed between coughs.
"This was not my choice, Red Wizard," Valygar denied fiercely, just as something started to move in the gloom and Elatharia froze, her pulse pounding in her ears, "We had to move forward, and any change in our situation came when Lavok sensed our presence attempting to get through the only available door," he gestured at the portal that he had only half pushed open.
"Will the glass protect us, my Eagle?" Haer'Dalis inquired, carefully calm but keeping his eyes fixed on the marshy scene laid out around them even as he inched towards the door, his hands tight around his sword hilts.
"I would imagine so, Haerry," Jan responded cheerfully, momentarily baffling the tiefling – who had not been talking to him, anyway – with his strangely timed nickname, "But I don't think any of us can answer that without it being tested…"
Elatharia was not listening. She had seen the shapes, hunched and gnarled, silhouetted against the slime's green luminescence, loping unevenly half-seen in the thick mist. Her hands began to shake when she saw something shift closer to where they were standing on the walkway. The words for a spell came pouring automatically from her lips when she saw what she had dreaded, the spines around one of the nearest trees uncoiling and revealing the creature which had hidden itself against the broken trunk. When it stood straight it revealed itself to be a humanoid, long-armed and greyish, some seven feet tall and covered in steaming and oozing spines each several inches long.
A devil.
A barbed devil.
It rushed them, and with a shriek Elatharia raised her hands, about to shout out the last words of her spell.
Hands closed tightly around her wrists, arms forcing hers down at her sides and locking them there. She could not see anything other than the creature as it shouldered the glass…and bounced off with a spray of painfully bright magical energy. She was dimly aware of Valygar pushing open the far door and the others rushing past her to get there, Aerie and Viconia both casting glances her way. When the barbed devil failed for a second time to get through the glass, its taloned hands scraping ear-splittingly against the smooth, clear surface, Elatharia could not stop shaking, or fighting against the arms that held her. She was vaguely aware that she was still shouting, her skin writhing. Behind the devil many more of those spined trees were uncoiling, its fellows awakening to join its murderous cause.
Murder.
"Stop fighting, or I will leave you here to destroy yourself in this glass coffin, fool," Edwin hissed in her ear.
At the sound of his voice, and the sight of the monster, Elatharia's mind reeled, visions of a dark room full of knives, a bed in the Friendly Arm Inn, and the memories of spines tearing her, moving inside, outside and at the last…through her. This is to teach you humility, Child of Bhaal.
"I won't," she gasped, her eyes fixed on the monsters who gathered outside, "You won't teach me humility!"
And to her shame, she fainted.
Lord Soth, once an honoured knight
Of the order of Solamnia…
He built a stronghold, tall and proud,
In the shape of his order's sign.
A long time ago, he was disgraced
For failing his duty to the realm.
He found love with an elvish maid -
He let his minions kill his wife.
The gods threw a fiery mountain
Upon his home…
Elatharia awoke slowly, and as she rolled on to her side with a groan, feeling the cold, smooth floor of this new room in the Planar Sphere against her hip and shoulder acutely, she wondered if she was imagining this high, soaring song. And she might have been, but for the words. She had never heard of any 'Lord Soth' or any 'order of Solamnia'.
Squinting against the bright lights of this new chamber, the Transmuter refused to spare any real thoughts for what had passed before, quelling a wave of nausea before it could truly begin, and instead focused upon the scene that stood before her. Sitting up, still to the strains of this unfamiliar song, she saw that her companions – and some unfamiliar men and women – were gathered in an octagonal chamber beneath a huge conjured globe of light. It was held permanently in a crystal sphere set into the domed ceiling, upon which spiralled a detailed fresco of a dramatic spellbattle. Here, unlike elsewhere, a number of arched doorways stood – one for each side of the octagon – framed with decorated marble pilasters.
A tall, ornately armoured woman stood behind the largest chair at a circular table, around which were seated four others dressed in the same manner, along with Aerie, Haer'Dalis, Viconia and Korgan. This woman was responsible for the song, and it was her lovely voice that Elatharia had heard upon awakening. She was a non-descript woman given her evident occupation; she was obviously a soldier of some sort, and thus tall, fairly broad and undoubtedly strong. Her dark hair was quite short and had been pulled back with a few pins; there was a thin white scar that cut through the left side of her mouth and though her face bore a clear frown line her current expression was serene. A bastard sword hung at her hip, its ruby pommel glinting beneath her wrist, and the plumed helmet she held under one arm displayed a symbol which was unknown to Elatharia.
Jan was standing in front of an opening between two of the doors which Elatharia had initially taken to be a cabinet of some sort; on further inspection as she hauled herself back against the nearest wall she realised that it was another control panel, veiled behind glass. The gnome was crouched before it, furiously scribbling in a notebook and drawing detailed diagrams of the cogs grinding slowly in front of him. Valygar was pacing behind him, hands clenching and unclenching. He seemed understandably tense, trapped here in the home of a distant relative who had been the orchestrator of the downfall of everyone in his family.
"Ah, she awakens," Edwin's voice cut through the song mercilessly, and Elatharia twisted about to see him regarding her from where he had been leaning against one of the nearby pilasters. He was just folding his arms, disdainful eyes glinting their typical curious reddish-brown in the bright light. She looked away from him quickly when a wave of nausea threatened to overtake her.
"Oh, Elatharia! How are you feeling?" Aerie leapt to her feet and hurried to the Transmuter's side, helping her up before she could protest and beginning to lead her to the table. Haer'Dalis looked on with his usual amusement, taking in the bemused but carefully non-judgemental stares of the unknown knights. Elatharia knew better than to meet Viconia's too-knowing eyes after what had just happened.
"I'll be fine," the Transmuter managed, her smile more of a grimace as she sank into the chair next to Aerie's. The avariel was looking at her with a concerned and would-be empathic frown.
"After you fainted you did wake up…but you weren't yourself. So I had to use a Sleep spell. You were so distracted that you didn't fight it," Aerie explained softly, in spite of the multiple onlookers. Only Jan remained oblivious, muttering to himself about the contraption he faced.
"I see."
Elatharia did see. If she allowed that to happen again, she could be overcome by a novice mage spell. A glance towards Edwin proved that he agreed, thanks to his rather disapproving grimace.
"But we have at least got here," Aerie continued, gesturing with a fairly calm smile at their new surroundings, "And we have met these Knights…"
"…Of the Order of Solamnia," the woman who had been singing finished for the avariel, nodding stiffly towards Elatharia; a gesture which the four other knights replicated with murmured greetings of their own, "We greet you, my lady. And share with you our woe, for we have been trapped here some time now since this Sphere sojourned near our homeland. When we came to investigate, a dark foe came out to greet us with malicious intent – when we pursued him in his retreat we became trapped…and came to learn that he had not truly sought to escape us. He had in fact ensnared us for his own entertainment."
"What kind of entertainment?" Elatharia demanded suspiciously, and the leader of the knights sighed.
"The owner of this Sphere – the man your group has named 'Lavok' – has clearly gone mad. He has gathered a collection of small, flesh eating manlings whose spells and cunning have driven us back to this room. They killed…killed one of our comrades. We dare not face them again."
"The 'flesh eating manlings' that she has so inelegantly described are, as far as I can ascertain, in fact some kind of mad halfling band," Edwin explained, gesturing to Jan with the hint of a smirk, "A group that should welcome the gnome with open arms then."
"Sounds more like your type, wizard," Korgan grunted, and Viconia snorted at his side.
The Knights of Solamnia looked puzzled.
"You seem altogether unbothered by your predicament," their leader noted with some concern, "We know of no way to escape this place, and we are beginning to run out of food supplies."
"With four wizards amongst us – one of whom is a Red Wizard – I am sure we can succeed where your feeble minds have failed," Edwin sneered, drawing little more than a faint frown from the woman.
"Four of you? What is a 'Red Wizard'? I have never heard of such a thing. Wherefrom did you say you come?"
"From many places, good Hound," Haer'Dalis interrupted, the sparkle in his eyes suggesting that he understood something here that the others did not, "I am not a native of the Prime Material; I herald from Sigil, the Cage, the centre of the Planes and City of Doors. The rest are from many places around Faerûn, the primary continent of Toril."
"Toril? Faerûn?" the woman frowned more deeply, and Elatharia's heart gave a jolt of surprise. Who had not heard of the Prime Material Plane? "Such unknown places cannot be of the Prime Material…we are."
A confused silence rang in the chamber for a moment before Haer'Dalis nodded in understanding.
"Tis as I had suspected. You come from another of the Prime Materials, far from the spirals of the Planes known to our flock."
Elatharia could not consider this piece of information a good omen. If Lavok was powerful enough to create a haven with which he could travel to other Planes then he was worryingly powerful; if he could make his Sphere take him to the other Prime Material Planes, then he was even more capable than they had feared. A nervous glance to Edwin showed that he was thinking the same, frowning darkly at the revelation.
"I'm going to guess that what we thought was an Illusion of the Planes was in fact a real view?" Elatharia inquired, and Haer'Dalis nodded. She swallowed tightly, ignoring the sharp memories scratching at the back of her mind.
"There must be a way out!" Aerie insisted when a thoughtful silence descended, "Is there no way to reach Lavok? Surely one of these doors…"
"It is not so simple, I am afraid," the leader of the Knights said, with some genuine sadness, "For none of these doors are viable in this room, save for two – the one which you arrived through from the Viewing Point, and that door," she pointed to the opening closest to Jan; a few large scratches had been scored into its metal, "Beyond which lie the…halflings of which the wizard spoke. They have proven too ferocious for us, and we will not face them again. When we fought them last, they crept in here and stole one of the cogs from the control mechanism for the doors. Without it, it is impossible to proceed. Without facing those monsters." She gestured, frustrated, towards the series of wheels which Jan was perusing.
"Then it seems quite clear," Valygar noted, finally stopping his pacing behind Elatharia, "We have no choice but to fight these maddened halflings and repair the mechanism."
"I can do that!" Jan piped up, "Fix the mechanism, I mean. Might need a bit of help fighting the halflings."
Elatharia looked to her companions, her own mind made up. Viconia and Haer'Dalis shrugged, Korgan nodded a fierce agreement with Valygar's words. Edwin sighed and spread his palms out, as if to suggest that they had no other choice. Aerie was more uncertain, but her response much the same.
"It looks like we have no choice but to fight them and recover what they stole, then," Elatharia sighed, rubbing at her eyes behind her mask and determined not to look back at what had passed before.
The strange, sharp-toothed halflings, mad with rage and far stronger than expected, had not gone down easily. They had been scattered, foul-smelling and half-starved – yet still impressively aggressive and persistent – across an abandoned section of the Sphere which sported several once-elaborate and now ruined bedrooms, each with a window overlooking a scenic view of a different Plane and all of them arranged around a verdant garden complex complete with a clear pool. Its glass roof allowed in the light of a sun which Elatharia could not recognise with certainty. As well as this, the halflings had colonised a lower level of the building, within which stood a number of stone archways decorated with the appropriate runes for portals to be created within them, as verified by Edwin.
None of the halflings surrendered, and after they showed signs of a willingness to eat human flesh, Elatharia was not inclined to offer them any mercy. Though it took some time, and some carefully applied Invisibility spells, they inched their way through the halflings' appropriated stronghold and killed them all. The mess they left in their wake, thanks to Valygar and Haer'Dalis's swords, Viconia's flail and Korgan's axe...was hardly scenic.
At the end of it, Aerie was clinging to the Transmuter's arm, looking a little grey and faintly asking if anyone needed healing. Fortunately, the wounds which Elatharia's group had sustained had not been unfixable in the small time they had available to them, an especially fortunate turn of events since the wizards had been unable to contribute much, knowing they must soon face Lavok…or whatever force currently held the Sphere. With no evidence of the controlling force of the place, Elatharia was beginning to gain suspicions.
At least Jan found the cog that he needed, lying upon a table of alchemical tools amongst a host of diagrams. It appeared that the leaders of the halfling group had been attempting to incorporate it into the control mechanism of the portal room in a hope to find their way home. In a stroke of genius the gnome also thought to look through the collection of books standing untouched upon a shelf nearby; in one, he found a map detailing the entire Sphere complex as part of a series of journal-like explanations intended to help the owner of the building keep the place in working order. A quick perusal of this map with Edwin, Jan and Aerie, and Elatharia had determined where Lavok would likely be.
Since the Sphere was arranged as a series of connected globes, it seemed clear that he would be in the highest globe, the second largest, above the central sphere in which fanned out all of the other connecting doorways and passageways, along with the first atrium, the Knights' room and the Viewing Room wherein they had witnessed the barbed devils. Thus with new purpose the group picked their way back through the carnage they had created, ascending the rattling spiral staircase back through the bedroom complex and returning to the doorway which would reunite them with the Knights.
They returned to see that the Order had left the door open and had been taking turns looking out for the group's return. They seemed surprisingly pleased to see them coming back unharmed, and offered to share their food and water rations. Though Elatharia would have had no problem accepting, given that she fully intended to be free soon, Aerie and Valygar had quickly declined. Instead they had headed off together to collect water and possibly some food from the garden which connected the living areas which the halflings had been keeping as their own.
Grunting with weariness, Korgan slumped into a chair, still covered in blood as was his norm, and waited for the avariel and the others to return with something ere he move again. Meanwhile, Haer'Dalis and Viconia seated themselves nearby and she was just whispering something in his ear, her expression surprisingly concerned, when the Transmuter looked over at them.
For her part, Elatharia stood a moment and watched the others organising themselves, taking each other away to gather their thoughts or think of something else before their next inevitable battle came. The Knights watched them with a passive, rather useless air, unwilling to join in with events that they could not comprehend, likely even with the aid of Valygar's life story (which the ranger had refused to give, regardless).
When she turned to see Edwin moving to her side after a quick perusal of the newly fixed control panel, thanks to Jan, Elatharia sighed and held her palms out in a weary gesture of surrender.
"You really don't need to tell me, Edwin," she pre-empted him, backing away as if that might stop what he had been about to say, "I already know."
"Do you?" his lip curled and his eyebrow raised; folding his arms he looked at her expectantly, "Go ahead, incompetent Transmuter, enlighten me. What am I about to tell you?"
"You are not my tutor," she told him instead, suddenly angry in the face of his superiority, "You are not my superior."
"Oh, really," he looked calm, for a second or too, but his tone never suggested anything except fiery incredulity as he advanced on her, drawing a few alarmed looks from the Knights of Solamnia and an uninterested eye-narrowing from Korgan, "Because it certainly felt that way when you were attempting to send a Cone of Cold through the glass wall that was our only protection from a host of barbed devils!"
The truth left her shaking, flushed with embarrassment and shame, looking up into his furious visage with a sudden lack of anger, her back against the cold stone of the wall and her hands twisting in the fabric of Gorion's cloak. This was beyond Edwin's usual superior annoyance. This was genuine. His fingers curled towards her but never really sought to touch her as he snarled at her a moment more before turning away and running both hands through his thick hair, seeking to calm himself. In a moment of strange detachment she noted that she ought to be jealous of the lack of knots he found.
"I know," she admitted at last, glancing at the Knights and seeing them all look away from the scene quickly, leaning together where they sat clustered at half of the table and at least pretending to discuss something else after that.
"Do you?" Edwin repeated his earlier question, sounding as tired as Korgan looked, his low voice uncommonly quiet. He looked at her sidelong, his arms falling to his sides. When he continued, his voice was just a whisper, his head bowed towards hers to keep the conversation private, "I have said before that Irenicus's behaviour was that of a madman, or a fool. But you are just as much of a fool, in your own way. Dwelling on what has passed. But if you do something like that again…"
"You will leave me to die, like you said – I know," Elatharia sighed, looking at the wall past his arm, the floor beneath their feet…anywhere but up at him, "I would do the same."
"Yes," his voice sounded rough, less convincing than she might have expected – and certainly than he had intended. When his hand closed around her wrist she froze, swallowing hard and still refusing to meet his gaze. His skin was hot against hers, "(Irenicus had a certain theme, I suppose)," he muttered, turning her arm over, and she felt his gaze moving over the scars left behind by the spiked manacles, "(Though no less artless for it)."
Elatharia pulled away then, her skin crawling at his words. Filled with rage at his trivial tone, she was momentarily overcome with the urge to slap him – or, better yet, test just how good his fire protection tattoos really were. The only thing that saved him – and probably her, too – was the emotion in his dark eyes when she finally looked up. It was not something she had words for, or a will to linger over. But it was not mocking, and that was what mattered.
"Does it give you pleasure to linger on the weaknesses of those around you, Edwin?" she hissed all the same.
He looked back to her face, his face registering surprise, and she realised that he had not meant it in the way she had assumed. Seeing her anger, however much it was beginning to dissipate, he sneered and turned away from her.
With the Knights of Solamnia looking on in polite silence, the group made their plans for an assault on Lavok's chambers. Valygar and Aerie had returned bearing a jug of water from the pool near the bedrooms and a collection of fruits, also gathered from that garden. The avariel had been unwilling to pass through the destruction they had caused, but had also been pleased upon returning successful. Elatharia knew that was a good thing – it meant their group was unified by its purpose and not divided by the fear which had also engulfed her in the place the Knights had dubbed the 'Viewing Room'. The Transmuter had no wish to go back that way until Jan had worked out how to change the location – the only way she quelled her shaking after her argument with Edwin had been by forcing herself to believe that it was an Illusion after all, and not the reality Haer'Dalis had suggested.
"As unorthodox as this place is, I would expect the way we must take to be heavily trapped and warded, but with few living guardians (a foolish but common technique)," Edwin was saying as he, Elatharia and Aerie leaned over a veritable hoard of spell scrolls which the Red Wizard and Transmuter had rather unwillingly relinquished.
"Then we will need all of these," Elatharia pushed a pile of Abjuration spells towards the Conjurer, who all but ignored her, before looking up to where the others were watching the wizards, "And I'd expect to face one or two golems. Magic won't necessarily work all that well on them, so be ready."
"You sound very sure of yourselves," Valygar, for one, sounded doubtful, looking from Elatharia to Edwin and back again with a deep frown.
"Even someone of your limited intellect should be able to deduce that a group of wizards – one of whom has learned from the greatest academy on Faerûn (and of course this place has nothing like the beauty and elegance of Thaymount) – should be able to succeed at this where you would certainly fail," Edwin told him with all of his typical disdain…and more.
"We won't be betraying you in this, at least," Elatharia promised Valygar, annoyed by his distrust, "Unless, of course, you deny us our part of the bargain in this."
"Oh, you can have everything in this place," the ranger agreed, though his tone sounded anything but friendly. The Transmuter gave him her best mocking smile.
"Ah! And it goes in this way!" Jan interrupted the rising tension; all eyes turned to where he was slotting in the missing cog to the control mechanism in the room, "Not only can we get through those doors, but I think I can get us back to the Prime Material now…"
"P-perhaps it w-would be wiser to wait until we have…defeated Lavok, Jan?" Aerie suggested a little tremulously. Perhaps the thought of being so far away from home unsettled her just as much as it did Elatharia.
"I would agree with that," Haer'Dalis said, nodding his head sagely but still managing to smile, "As entertaining as it would be to find ourselves potentially lost among the Planes, I suspect there are some amongst us who would not share this humble Sparrow's sentiment."
"Oh, by Shar," Viconia complained, gesturing impatiently at their intended door, "I suggest that we decide quickly upon what spells you should save and which you should cast and that we make our assault upon our unseen captor before he mobilises himself against us."
Valygar gave the drow a long, thoughtful look before nodded minutely.
Edwin sneered at both of them and gathered up the Abjuration scrolls Elatharia had passed to him. After a moment of flicking through them, he handed a few to Aerie and a few more to Jan. He made a show of considering Elatharia before rolling his eyes and turning away. The Transmuter made a mental note to do something similar to him the next time someone was required to cast a Divination spell. For the moment she had stay focused lest she look back and feel the real embarrassment that she knew would haunt her soon for what passed in the Viewing Room. At least there did not seem to be any further evidence that the Sphere currently rested in Minauros and not on Faerûn.
"Alright. We need to get through these – hypothetical – wards and traps quickly," Elatharia said, watching the map of the Sphere before her rather than her companions…but sensing Edwin's indignation at her suggestion of doubt all the same, "Then you other wizards need to throw every Abjuration at Lavok that you have left. Haer'Dalis, Valygar and Korgan, I'm sure you know what to do. Viconia…"
"You and I will weaken him with our spells, I understand, khal'abbil," Viconia sounded strained. Perhaps she was also feeling the stress of this place, then.
There was only one thing left to do, if they wanted to escape the Sphere. And that was face Lavok.