Links to other sites on the Web2. THE DUNGEON MASTER: A cry of war.
{While it is issued by the rest of you, this next portion pertains only to newcomer Zephyr, Grey Elven Thief of Katharos. -The Dungeon Master (TDM).}
Faint, yet present. It dies away in an instant. You are uncertain whether it was made here, or whether it was part of the cacophony of your transition. A moment ago you were bathed in azure; now you are bathed in a light no less bright, yet infinitely more enclosed. Smooth, well-hewn white walls surround you. You hear nothing.
You now become aware that you arrived at this dungeon in a kneeling position. As you gaze downward, you notice a key on the stone floor the likes of which you have never seen. Light and darkness flow through it, and it scintillates with reds, yellows, and blues. Reaching out, you find that it is made not of dream-whisps but rather of a solid and material metal. You take it.
Your front, left, and rear are enclosed by walls, but there is a short passage going off five feet to your right. Taking it, you turn left to traverse a straight thirty-foot-long passageway, ignoring a five-foot passageway leading nowhere that you encounter halfway down the hall.
Infinity opens before you. As you approach the end of the hallway, you see an ebony orb filled with stars coming out of the nearing wall. The orb is hemispherical, and in its center lies a planet which looks much like your own. You stand staring silently at the starsea sphere, feeling for the first time in your hundred-and-eighteen years that you are far more than what you have been told you are.
You are rent from your reverie by the sharp stab of hunger pangs. Since your party's food rations were stolen by bandits, you have not eaten in quite some time. Instinctively, you reach out and touch the Infinity Orb.
No! The feathery clouds are fading. The azure sea is evaporating. The world is bleeding a scarlet blood of earth. The planet is rent; and its pieces fall away into the ebon void. You are alone in the cosmic labyrinth.
You fall to your knees, wracked by hunger and a pain you thought only angels and deities could feel.
You open your eyes to see a piece of shimmering black fabric on the floor before you. Examining it more closely, you realize that it is merely a choker of crushed velvet; yet it seems to contain the cosmos within its ebony area.
Truly it must be magical.
You lift the soft and delicate artifact and tie it in place around your throat. Instantly your hunger pangs vanish and you feel protected, as if a piece of the starsea has been wrapped around your body and soul. {You have just gained an Armor Point. -TDM.} Still, you have a feeling that the choker still possesses much unrealized power.
The Orb, now empty save for ebony and starlight, is part of a five-foot-wide square pillar connecting the floor and ceiling in the center of this 15' X 15' chamber. Feeling now like a celestial goddess, you gracefully follow the right path around the pillar past the sphere of desolation.
You are halted by the business end of an outstretched Katana sword. The handsome young man holding it in his black-leather-encased right hand wears black lacquer armor over a black robe upon which five-clawed white serpentine dragons of the light twist and snarl. He smiles as he recognizes you and as you recognize him as the Samurai in your Magic-User reinforcement party. {Link take note: this is you. Since you haven't a name yet, I will refer to you simply as 'the Samurai'. -TDM.}
The Samurai sheathes his sword and apologizes. "Sorry about being so jumpy, but the briefing said nothing about being teleported to a labyrinth which I'm not even sure is on the Prime Material Plane. Anyway, I think I heard a noise coming from somewhere. Come with me."
You both traverse a straight and long corridor for 25 feet until you reach another corridor extending off to your right. You ignore this corridor in favor of continuing onward for another ten feet, at which point you hear the clap of thunder, making you feel as if you will soon encounter the open entrance to this dungeon along with an indigo horizon and hairs of light, and encounter a second WorldOrb to your right. Not wanting to go through the experience of watching another world die, Zephyr warns the Samurai not to touch the Orb. He complies and you both instead take the corridor to your left for twenty feet before turning right for five feet and then left for five feet. You turn right again to find yourselves at the end of a long hallway. You follow it straight ahead for thirty feet until you come to an open doorway, on the other side of which you see....
Meanwhile, the Paladin Slayer pulls the trigger on his weapon of high technology before you have time to do anything at all. Time seemed to stand still in the moment before he did this, and fortunately for you, it is all that happens.
"You're a long way from home, yuppie boy." points out Tim, the Mana Mage. "I think you'd better crawl back under your rock. I guess your precious technology doesn't work now that you're no longer on the world from which it came. Besides, we're already in Hell.... so it'll be a short trip for your permanent stay."
Paladin Slayer drops his apparently useless gun. "It looks like I've little chance." he states, drawing his sword. "But at least I may avenge the death of Mataya's father!" He charges toward Logan.
"AAK!" commands Tim as he points at Paladin Slayer with his left index finger. From that finger bursts forth a storm of dazzling white lightning surrounded in an indigo aura. Each streak snakes around the Anti-Paladin as a peal of thunder echoes throughout the chamber. Then the streaks shoot upward and unite to form an eagle of pure blue light which swoops back into Tim's left arm. {This means that you haven't lost the spell. -TDM.}
Once he realizes that Tim's bolts are harmless, Paladin Slayer resumes his charge at Logan. The black blade of the Paladin's laser sword shoots into being with a metallic humming sound. However, Logan's first parrying stroke does not sever and melt the Anti-Paladin's steel weapon, but rather his blade of energy is kept at bay by it.
"Murderer!" cries Paladin Slayer through clenched teeth. "You call yourself 'good', but you have taken countless lives in cold blood! Not least of which was that of the noble knight whose cape your vile accomplice wears still!"
"Those pathetic knights?" enquires the White Wolf. "If you want to have any chance of defeating us, you'd better send something more formidable."
"Please.... White Wolf.... you're not.... helping!" states Logan as he attempts to fend off Paladin Slayer. The Anti-Paladin is clearly stronger than the Paladin, and he wastes no time sending the latter to the floor. Logan is more skilled, however, and he swiftly rolls out of the way of Paladin Slayer's follow-up attack. Life Force rushes to his aid while the Paladin Slayer's firearm leaps into the hands of the young womyn in the leather catsuit. {Kim, I swear I did not design this character's outfit. She is the product of one of my fellow Life Guards. -TDM.}
"D-don't worry, valiant lone warrior; w-we'll help you!"
The speaker is a tall and beautiful elven womyn who has just passed through the doorway into the chamber. She has short dark hair and light grey eyes and wears boots, leather pants, a jacket, a short-sleeved top, and a choker of crushed velvet. She is accompanied by a handsome young man who wears the garb of a Pang Chungese warrior and wields a Katana. "It is unwise to act dishonourably before a Samurai." he adds.
"By the eternal and infinite Nightscape!" exclaims Eno as he strides forth into the center of the chaos. "We have traversed and transcended the infinite StarSea for *this*?!? Fie and forsooth!" The Paladin pauses, breathing heavily. "Mayhaps our world is lost to us. Mayhaps we shall never again look upon an azure sky. But if we were the ones chosen to go to Labyrinthus, it would do us ill to die here, fighting amongst ourselves! Besides, it does not appear that we can even harm each other."
"Eno...." says Marissa in a troubled tone, "I've never heard you sound so morbid...."
"So...." remarks the Paladin Slayer toward him. "you're a Paladin too. How delightful."
Life Force turns to Paladin Slayer. "You're in Hell.... You know, in all my years of training, I have yearned with apprehension and fury for the day when I may have had the chance to avenge my order by smiting you. You stand for everything I loathe, everything I hate, and I would have given anything to have had the chance to kill you."
The Anti-Paladin snorts contemptuously. Clearly he does not consider snuffing out Life Force to be a challenge.
"But now," Life Force continues, "I see not heroes and villains, not adventure and tragedy, not even love and hate. I see only lost souls needing guidance. It's kind of hard for me to understand, but I know now what I have to do. Paladin Slayer, your dark robes and your venomous title mean nothing here. Demons control these reaches, and they could not care one spec about you anymore. Your companions" Life Force indicates one of the WorldOrbs "are dead here. Your title is meaningless. You have become a lost soul, even as I. Because we share this, I am giving you this choice; come with us so that we may prevent hell's power from soiling another world, or face me now so that we may duel forever in memory and shadow of our mortal hates."
Life Force then stands with his hands resting upon his sword, awaiting the Paladin Slayer's reply.
A hint of a smile crosses the Paladin Slayer's face. "Very well." he replies. "Like it or not, we are allies now; against a common foe." The Anti-Paladin snatches his firearm back from the leather-clad womyn. "Who might *you* be?" he enquires with passing interest. Paladin Slayer is so strong.... it's as if there is a Demon raging within him to whom he has surrendered complete control.
"M-my name's Savanna...."
After you've been introduced to one another, many of you nigh simultaneously begin touching WorldOrbs to see what you might reap from them. This transforms the Hall into a cosmic apocalypse as multiple worlds die in unison. Piercing screams of stellar magnitude echo across infinity, and you can only dimly assume that they originate from you. A gurgling laughter is heard from beyond. As the death finally dies, you discover that somehow you are on your knees, tears streaming down your faces.
"I am uncertain what this labyrinth will transform us into," states the Paladin Valhalla Geode, "but I am certain that it will not be humyn."
Your rewards:
Ice receives an ornate key of solid gold from the alien world he touches.
Tim's touch yields an ancient urn from a dead world. It could well be the only proof that the world ever existed; it is that planet's truth. The urn is too large and unwieldy for the Mana Mage to take with him, so he leaves it in its final resting place: the Hall of Worlds.
The burly man with black hair and brown skin acquires a key carved from emerald from the Orb he touched.
Life Force looks below the Orb touched by him to find a Long Sword. It seems somewhat lighter and sharper than the one which he currently wields, and the fact that it is made of steel indicates that the civilization from whence it came was comparatively advanced. The young Paladin takes it and lends his old sword to Eno for safekeeping.
Savanna, who actually touched two adjacent WorldOrbs at once, collects her spoils, which consist of a Dagger and a Short Sword. Both are also made of steel and are relatively similar to those found on your home planet: the Forgotten World.
The Orb touched by the White Wolf gives him what appears to be a Tech-User Rifle. Intrigued, the black-leather-clad Wizard picks it up, examines it, and takes it into his possession.
Abadon the Despoiler touched a world that yields a sword unlike any any of you have ever seen. Its blade is midnight tinged with crimson and possesses a wicked curve with a razor edge on one side and jagged points on the other. It appears to have been crafted from something once alive.
One world remains in the Hall. It is in the far right-hand corner. Paladin Slayer touches it.
It bestows a book.
With no words.
"This book.... it smells strange." comments the Anti-Paladin. "Different areas of each page smell like different things."
"Perhaps it came from a world whose inhabitants used smell as their main sense," offers Valhalla, "like dogs or ants."
"Well, it's useless to us if there's noone left alive who can read it." states the Paladin Slayer.
Before leaving the worldless chamber, the White Wolf notices something about the discarded urn. Turning it slowly and carefully so that the serpent pictured on it faces him, the Wizard whispers, "Truth is beauty. Beauty: truth." Then a smile crosses his lips.
The dragon depicted is Tiamat.
Anxious to depart this Hall of voids, Farian Shadowstorm is the first to pass through the open doorway into the long, narrow corridor beyond. The rest of the party soon follows the Ranger down the 35' X 5' passageway from whence came Zephyr and the Samurai. The latter is the last to leave the Hall, and before he does so, he turns back to gaze at the tomb of darkmatter casques, for he now feels strangely like he is also another warrior.... one called....
Mantis....
Once you reach the end of the passageway, you turn left for five feet, right for five feet, left for ten feet, and finally left again for five feet, at which point you encounter a WorldOrb to your left. Despite all the suffering he encountered earlier, Logan touches it and watches his effect upon the pristine planet within.
Time seems to slow to an infinitesimal fraction of its rate for previous worlds. As the clouds slowly drift across the azure orb, what appears to be a gigantic velvet comet sails close to it. Almost instantly, the planet-sized 'comet' opens to reveal its true form: a cosmic femail Black Widow hourglass spider with great black bat wings of crushing velvet. Its slender ebon legs embrace the world, which shrivels and blackens at its touch. Soon the orb is reduced to celestial ashes, and the Spider moves on.
"By the Eternal!" exclaims the Paladin in shocked, stark awe. "What's out there?"
"Darana...." whispers Valhalla Geode. She is barely acknowledged.
"So, there are WorldOrbs outside the Hall." states Marissa.
"Yes." confirms Zephyr. "Who knows how many there are in this labyrinth?"
The tormented Paladin Logan stoops to accept the gift of this dead world. He finds a pair of shoes which appear to be constructed of coral-colored seashells of alien origin. They are of an intriguing design, and while the Paladin believes that he could squeeze into the foot encasements, he is unsure whether he could walk while wearing them.
You turn right and walk onward for five feet. Then you turn left and walk onward for five feet. Then you turn right and walk onward for ten feet. Then you turn right once more and find yourself at the end of a twenty-foot corridor in the center of which rest two WorldOrbs on the left wall. Both are untouched. Paladin Slayer approaches the closest one.
How like your own world is this shimmering tribute to infinity! Even the shape of the continents appears identical. You wish that it could retain its dazzling beauty for all eternity. With a smile and great zeal, the Anti-Paladin closes over it with his calloused hand.
Even the great winged Spider is little compared to the Hellish majesty which unfurls before you. It is a dragon; or the shadowy essence of all you have ever feared in a draconic shape. You cannot tell; for sections of it only become visible when they blot out the stars behind them. One star, larger and brighter than the others and pale blue in color, emits an ethereally eerie glow as it flickers into a shade of deep blood red. As the star shines brightly amidst the absolute velvet, it casts a web of light and shadow upon the area immediately surrounding it, and you realize that it is truly the Dragon's eye. From the Eye pour forth a few curved beams of red light which twist and spiral down onto the planet below. The clouds part for them in a radius of thousands of miles. Upon impact with the northern continent -the continent that you believe *you* came from- a cosmic mushroom cloud of dazzling light billows forth, shrouding the entire planet in darkness.
"Whoa!" exclaims the Mana Mage called Tim. "Game over!"
"No." states the Paladin called Valhalla. "The game has only just begun."
You look down below the lifeless Orb. There you see the torso attached to the upper arms and head of an elven maiden.
And not just any elven maiden.
"I know her...." gasps Zephyr. "She's the Princess of Katharos!"
For it is the corpse of the fair and radiant maiden whom the angels named....
As the soul-shattering cry of the suffering Paladin Eno echoes through the catacombs, you are all reminded that the adventures of the past are naught save dreamlike memories of lost azure-heavened ruins; and that you are now in Hell. In response comes the very real gurgling laughter of the Fiend you heard earlier; in the distance; rending the heart of experience and disintegrating every worldes' blysse.
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