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1. THE DUNGEON MASTER: The Paladin Valhalla Geode falls in a heap of steel upon the dusty earth, saying to herself, "No! I'm not the Hardened One. I'm not.... Eonstar...."
As the words escape her full, hidden lips, you receive a deluge of memories, as though your entire existence has caught up with you and enveloped you completely.
Logan stands beneath an azure sky much like that of today on the distant isle of Agant. There time seems to stand still, always somewhere between the crystal dawn and the ebon dusk. An ancient wizard gives a magical potion to him and his chestnut-haired companion, Sonya. He feels a slight twinge of pain as he realizes these events are a half-decade past.
Since then, he has slain his corrupted friend, countless faceless foes, and himself thrice. He faltered once, dedicating his life to evil, but learned of the ultimate power known as Earthguard, and became a Paladin. Now, he relives his Hell-and-Heaven Armageddon.
Traveling in darkness under a different name, The White Wolf destroys a skeletal soldier in the distance with fire from Tiamat's domain. Suddenly he and his male and femail companions are attacked by a horde of such undead minions. He dies....and returns. Illusions toy with his mind and that of his new companion, Logan, making them see an amphibious creature slay a wizard in the Wyrmroost mountains. Together they and three dragon allies make a daring raid on the Industrial Age Talamar City, where the giant robots called 'Cyber Knights' are being designed, and encounter the massively-powerful XX-58. Finally, searching for faerys and a mermaid akin to those he encountered two minutes ago, The White Wolf arrives at and enters the Surreal Forest. A small opening in the living emerald canopy reveals an azure sky above as he encounters visions from an even more distant past.
Ice, Farian, Tim, Abadon, and Life Force spent some time traveling together, and thus a number of their memories are similar. Some remember riding a dragon through the azure sky and seeing a mermaid below in the azure waters of the Crystal Sea. Some remember the burning town of Katharos, and the X-15 Robo-Ogre, clanking like a steel demon in the night. Some remember the azure of the Prism Gate, and the song of a doomed love between Bard and Paladin sung by the Princess Zyriel, who now lies dead in the dust.
Other memories soar through your psyche, some feeling quite foreign to you. Farian is clad in a white robe and wields an icy Celestial dagger against a wraithlike dragon Goddess; the most powerful undead being ever, yet he stands his ground. Then he is a combat medic deep within a draconic labyrinth wielding an enchanted mace. After slaying a hatchling black dragon and being slain in turn by its mother, he becomes an otterkin who, taking up his fallen magic weapon, makes a desperate stand for his people against the remaining hatchling black dragon, but is defeated by it. Tim, a Wizard then as now, manages to escape the labyrinth before being slain by the small but zealous adult black dragon beneath an azure sky. Sailing through the azure above an open plain, Life Force lays siege to a great castle of white stone, his airborne manticore mount spewing fire from between its jaws. A young womyn of around 21 years of age wearing a long ornate and elegant full-skirted gown emerges from the flaming fortress at ground level, nearly losing her balance in her desperate yet vain attempt to escape the carnage with any speed. As she trips over the layers of fabric encasing her legs and falls, Princess Gretchin's long light fiery red hair is caught by the wind along with the flames around her. Suddenly an armored, mounted figure with long chestnut hair emerges from those flames and rushes to her side. As the Sorceress Princess mounts the androgynous Paladin's dark horse and the two ride off into the distance, Life Force finds himself hating the warrior. Firestar....
You are torn from your reverie by a cacophony of screams. Link, his faery-enchanted Master Sword still held in a manner making it apparent that he summoned the flames which now consume the unconscious trolls, now emits a piercing, distraught cry to the heavens as his skeleton now becomes visible through his clothing and flesh. Yuko and Rydia emit similar wails as identical fates befall them. You watch in horrific indifference as the three rot away into oblivion, leaving you to wonder if they ever existed at all.
Here remain you ten, out of an untold number. Were you chosen due to your wisdom, courage, power, and perseverance, or by mere dumb luck? So many lie dead, both at your side and by your hand. Had you truly any cause to fight so? Could the answer be as easy as telling dawn from dusk? And if you were placed in a directionless world of stagnant time, could you even tell the difference?
You have faced, fought, and finished monsters and machines; dragons and undead. It seems all that remains for you are Heaven and Hell. May you find some meaning there.
The tormented Paladin Valhalla Geode stands and staggers toward the wooden shack that stands before you as flurries of frost swirl around her armor and blade. Eno rushes to the corpse of his beloved Princess Zyriel and cradles her bloody head in his hands. "Nooo...." he cries, in a broken voice. His whole body shudders as he kisses the lips from which songs of joy once flowed forth; doubtless the ice storm has already made them cold. Then he raises his head and cries out to the heavens, hells, and any other worlds that may listen: "Kazok! I swear....you'll pay for this!" The Troll Matriarch turns and flees.
Congratulations! We've routed the Troll Combat Unit! Each character receives 1,680 Experience Points.
Eno reaches Level 4! His maximum Hit Points are now 40.
Marissa reaches Level 4! Her maximum Hit Points are now 22.
While they are the only characters to receive a Level Up, Farian Shadowstorm and Life Force may rest assured that they are painfully close to reaching Level 2. Farian requires less than 200 Experience Points whilst Life Force needs exactly 107.
With that battle won, you follow Valhalla through the corpse-filled dust toward the shack and enter through its crude wooden door.
You feel as though you have just entered another world. The room is electronically lit by a light bulb in the center of the ceiling which casts a powerful luminous aura upon an entranced Cockatrice and a long-haired womyn in a brown leather jerkin who kneel facing an inverted pentagram etched into the floor.
The room shakes violently as the pentagram ignites, knocking you all off your feet and enabling you to only helplessly watch the Hellish events unfold before you. The pale flames emitted by the pentacle turn midnight black and rise up into a vaguely humynoid shape. As they gradually dissipate into the still air above, the ebon flames reveal pale blue scales, cruel claws, a reptilian head with sharp teeth and pupilless eyes, curved horns, and bladelike fins.
{To answer your unspoken question, the bipedal being revealed does look a *little* like Diablo, but to see what it *really* looks like, turn to page 13 of the first issue of YOUR CHANCE TO ESCAPE. -The Dungeon Master (TDM).}
"A full-fledged Demon!" breathes the Paladin Dame Valhalla Geode. "I never thought I'd see a real one!"
"Nooo!" cries the womyn, in a tone more despairing than any you have ever heard, in *any* world. "It's all too horrible!" She draws her sword, the blade of which immediately bursts into flame, thrusts it into her breast, and crumples into death.
The Cockatrice quivers and leaps. The Demon lashes out lightly with the long claws on its left hand, inflicting 200 Hit Points of damage and decapitating the monster. Blood and entrails splatter against the east wall.
The Demon gazes at you. "So, it appears the Onestar is still watching over you." it states in a sound-rending rasp.
"So you're a Demon." states Eno, an almost insane glint in his eye. "I wonder if you can provide me with more suffering than I already feel."
"Ah yes, the one who sought to defile the purity of his race still further." replies the fiend. "Your precious Princess was a Valarkian Wanderer, and it is my right to exterminate the vermin of Valark. For you see, I once dwelt there.'
'They shouldn't have resisted me so. They should have let me purify the realm. As it is, the planet Earth is polluted, overpopulated, and damned! And so too are you. I now send you to the world for which we are all destined!"
The multiverse collapses. Countless eons of existences blaze in a scintillating prismatic cacophony in an instant, then all is silent, dark, and still. You are left with naught but the question: Why?
Silence in a clean, well-lighted place. Looking around you, you see that the walls around you are of white well-hewn stone bricks, and the floor and ceiling are also of white stone.
"The Onestar has slain me." comes the voice of Valhalla Geode. "We are in fact most fortunate."
You're all here - at least all of you who survived long enough to encounter the Demon - but you're trapped here. The wall behind you is of white stone bricks just like the others. "It's solid." states Farian Shadowstorm, tapping on it with Ogre Heartseeker, his magic dagger.
"Just out of curiosity," enquires Eno, "why are we 'most fortunate'?"
"We are in the first plane of Hell," replies Valhalla, her face still concealed by her sinister masking great helm, "but we are in Labyrinthus."
"Labyrinthus?" asks Marissa.
"Labyrinthus is a vast network of colossal cosmic catacombs descending throughout Hell." states the holy warrior. "It was originally constructed by Celestials to facilitate their raids on the lower planes. However, over the eons the angelic magic that even now keeps it lit has been torn at by the teeming masses of fiends who swarm the dark brimstone canyons all around us, and thus it is now considerably less safe than it once was. Parts of it have been destroyed, and those sections that remain have failed to stave off invading infernals. The demons could lurk anywhere within these deep corridors."
"Demons?" asks Ice. "Tanar'ri are found in the 666 layers of the Abyss, not the Nine Hells."
"All are one." replies the heavenly knight. "Seraphim stated that we create our own Hells, both for ourselves and for each other. And do not attempt to deny or disbelieve this world; everything is real, and it is real enough to kill you. Besides, there are *Ten* Hells: one for mortals, spirits, and undead, and one for each of the angelic classes."
Logan recalls another name for Labyrinthus from an ancient book he once read. "So this is the Dungeon of Forever." he muses.
You all agree that you must stay together and that you must find a way out of here. You have no idea how much time has passed since you left the Forgotten World, or what has transpired there since your departure. You all scramble over one another to your feet and head down the short hallway before you that is your only path.
After progressing for fifteen feet, you are forced to make a ninety-degree left turn. After progressing for another fifteen feet, you are forced to make a ninety-degree right turn. After another fifteen feet, you are forced to make another ninety-degree right turn, yet this time you turn into a twenty-five-foot-long hallway. After traversing it, you are forced to make another ninety-degree right turn into another fifteen-foot hallway.
Upon reaching its end, you make a ninety-degree left turn and encounter a grey stone plaque in the left wall just ahead of you. Examining it more closely, you find that it is engraved with capital letters stating:
Turning to your right, you see a long hallway fifteen feet wide, the walls on either side of which are lined with midnight hemispherical orbs. The Paladin Valhalla works her way over to the first one and you gaze into it deeply. It seems to gaze back into you. It is like the eye of a great insect, a sphere three feet in diameter, and yet its full of stars. In the center of the orb is a celestially beauteous jewel of azure, emerald, and swan. Oceans, continents, and clouds: the jewel looks so like the Forgotten World, or Earth. Valhalla reaches out and touches it....
The emerald becomes brown. Not a rich chestnut, but rather a dull brown of death. The swan-colored clouds fade, and the azure oceans dry up and perish. Glaciers extend from the north and south poles, but even they recede in time. Soon the planet is naught but a crimson sphere of rust. Finally, it disintegrates, perhaps struck by a great comet or other cosmic object. You could swear that you hear a piercing, echoing, haunting scream, yet in fact all is eternally silent. This all transpired within ten seconds after the Paladin first touched the orb.
So this is how a world dies.
Valhalla notices that there is now at her feet a black leather article of garb. Examining it reveals that it is in fact a hobble skirt with a back zipper.
"What a statement it is," states Marissa, "that all that remains of an entire world is something designed to appeal to a sexual fetish."
Right on cue, the pine door at the far end of the hall slides up into the ceiling with a clanking sound to reveal an attractive young womyn clad in a skintight leather catsuit. "Hi!" her voice tinkles in the stark silence. "I was sent to help reinforce the Magic-Users in Dasdar, and I wound up here. Where am I?"
"Oh no!" chimes in Tim. "Valhalla's not going through her 'We're in Hell's Dungeon and Demons are Everywhere' speech again. I'm depressed enough as it is. Rest assured that we're in Hell's dungeon and demons are everywhere."
Farian idly wonders why Valhalla is so certain of where you are and what its current condition is as he touches another orb. Its world also looks much like yours, and it perishes in much the same manner as the previous one. Yet in its final moment, it is consumed by its own swelling sun. Looking down, the Ranger finds that this world gives not a garment, but rather a weapon: a double-bladed light saber.
{You may have made your request back in the spring of 1998, Tasos, but I haven't forgotten it. I hope you still desire such a weapon. -TDM.}
"That world must have been rather advanced to make a light saber." he remarks. Now ten worlds remain in the Hall.
Entering the doorway through which the leather-clad womyn came comes a large man with black hair and a sturdy build.
"I'm a Magic-User reinforcement." he states. "What seems to be the problem?"
"Well...." answers Marissa, "we're in Hell's Dungeon and demons are everywhere."
"This labyrinth seems to provide one with the answers one seeks." comments Eno. "I considered the possibility that by touching an orb we ourselves were responsible for the destruction of the world shown therein, yet now I am sure that these worlds died long ago." He touches a nearby ebon orb. This time, the azure jewel within does not darken or decay, but simply shatters in an instant, rent apart by silent earthquakes brought by silent wars wrought by silent words. A single bone appears at the Paladin's feet. Now nine worlds remain.
"A bone." states the Holy warrior. "We have no idea how far that world got; all we know is that it died."
A dark figure appears in the doorway. He wears black plated leather armor and has a two-handed bastard sword sheathed at his waist. He is six feet and one inch tall with long green and neon red hair that makes him seem as much beast as man. In his hands he holds a fully-automatic machine gun.
"Everywhere the light has failed." whispers the Paladin Valhalla Geode.
"I am Paladin Slayer!" states the dark warrior. "Yet you already knew that. I know not how you managed to separate me from my skeleton forces and my master Deirdre, but rest assured that I will destroy as many of you as possible before you can finish me!"
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