Nothing came through the floor.
That was the good news.
The bad news was that the heroes had reached the point where nothing came through the floor qualified as good news.
They waited until Hexen’s magic had finished repairing Nethnarel. Regenerate worked with patient inevitability, closing what remained of her wounds a little at a time while the others watched the dark organic floor for another tremor. Something had moved beneath them—something large enough to make the chamber complain—but whatever lived below apparently had no immediate interest in surfacing.
Nethnarel flexed one hand when the last of the healing settled into her.
“Better.”
Fendor looked toward the perfectly sealed door they had failed to open.
“Good. Now perhaps you can use your restored intellect to explain how five twentieth-level heroes have been defeated by architecture.”
Nethnarel glanced at the door.
“It is extremely good architecture.”
“Stop admiring it.”
They still had another way.
The previous passages contained a second locked door, less impressive than the seamless barrier and therefore, by Oslan standards, probably considerably more dangerous. They returned to it cautiously. Isamu had recovered some of his strength as well; a powerful healing potion from the party’s supplies gave him back enough color that Fendor stopped watching him as if he might fall over whenever no one was looking.
The door remained locked.
Hexen studied the edges.
Then smiled.
Fendor recognized the expression.
“No.”
Hexen became air.
His body loosened, collapsed and expanded into a whirling humanoid shape of vapor and wind. The elemental pressed against the door.
This time, instead of stopping against a seal so perfect that even air could not pass, Hexen flowed through the cracks.
Fendor stared at the empty place where the druid had been.
“That feels like cheating.”
Kaylor rested Final Word against one shoulder.
“It worked.”
“That is not the same thing.”
A moment later the lock clicked from the other side.
The door opened.
Hexen swirled there triumphantly.
Fendor walked past him.
“I withdraw the objection.”
The room beyond was shaped like a dome.
That was the first strange thing.
The second was everything inside it.
Kaylor entered and stopped.
Isamu came up beside him.
Then Nethnarel.
Then Fendor.
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
A rocking horse stood near one wall.
It was large enough for a grown man.
Nearby rested a stuffed bear nearly human in height, its crude face frozen into the kind of smile that was harmless only when attached to something small enough to carry under one arm. A carved fish lay farther away. There were toy swords, toy axes and other miniature weapons—miniature only by the standards of whoever had designed the room. To the heroes, many were ordinary weapon size.
A figure resembling a toy cowboy stood among them.
Other shapes littered the floor.
The walls curved inward thirty feet overhead like the inside of some enormous nursery.
Fendor slowly drew the Vorpal Longsword.
“No.”
Nethnarel looked at him.
“What?”
“I refuse.”
“To do what?”
“Whatever this room wants.”
Isamu walked toward the rocking horse.
Fendor pointed his sword at him.
“That includes you.”
Isamu stopped.
“I wasn't doing anything.”
“You were thinking about it.”
Kaylor surveyed the chamber. There was no obvious second exit. No stairs. No doorway. Just a playroom built for children large enough to regard a human-sized teddy bear as something worth hugging.
Hexen returned to human form.
“Maybe Oslan children were larger.”
“Excellent,” Fendor said. “Giant magical children. That makes this better.”
Nethnarel moved along the wall.
“They may just have built large toys.”
“Why?”
She looked at him.
“For children.”
Fendor closed his eyes briefly.
The room gave no answers.
Kaylor moved around the perimeter, searching for doors, seams, hidden mechanisms. Nothing presented itself. The domed walls seemed continuous.
Isamu wandered farther among the toys.
He stopped near one of the strange figures.
It was difficult to determine exactly what it represented. From one angle it resembled a fish. From another, antlers or the curved head of some stylized animal.
He crouched.
Nethnarel approached another toy.
She did not know why.
That realization came a fraction too late.
There was something sad about it.
Not objectively.
She understood that.
The thing had no expression capable of sadness. It had been sitting in a sealed underground room for thousands of years.
Yet suddenly it seemed abandoned.
Lonely.
Waiting.
Nethnarel knelt.
Her hands touched it.
The room changed.
Not for anyone else.
For her.
The ancient Oslan toy softened beneath her hands.
Its shape became smaller.
Warm.
Living.
Two little horns curled from a child’s brow.
Red skin.
Dark hair.
A tail.
A tiefling child looked up at Nethnarel with eyes that seemed somehow familiar.
Her breath caught.
Every rational part of her mind screamed that this was impossible.
There had been no pregnancy.
No birth.
No missing years.
No child.
The knowledge remained intact.
It simply ceased to matter.
The little tiefling reached toward her.
Nethnarel gathered the child into her arms.
Something broke open inside her.
Love arrived without history.
Complete.
Absolute.
Maternal certainty flooded places where memory should have existed. She knew the weight of the child against her chest. Knew the smell of its hair. Knew the terror of imagining something happening to it.
None of those memories were real.
She loved it anyway.
Across the room, Kaylor saw something very different.
The toy beside Nethnarel distorted.
Its harmless form lengthened.
Bone pushed through false softness. A malformed horse-like head stretched upward from an undead body, teeth emerging beneath dead lips. Limbs unfolded around Nethnarel while she remained kneeling, holding empty air and looking at the monstrosity with tenderness.
Kaylor drew Final Word.
“Neth.”
She looked at him.
The child in her arms turned as well.
Kaylor saw the undead thing wrap itself around her.
Nethnarel saw her frightened child.
“Move away from it.”
“No.”
Kaylor stopped.
Fendor stared at her.
“Neth?”
She pulled the child closer.
The monster’s head turned toward Kaylor.
There was intelligence in its dead eyes.
Worse than intelligence.
Expectation.
It knew what he was about to do.
Kaylor attacked anyway.
Final Word struck.
The creature moved before the swing fully began, almost as though it had seen the attack before Kaylor made it.
Almost.
Kaylor changed the cut halfway through.
The blade landed.
The creature shrieked.
Inside Nethnarel’s mind, her child screamed.
Her head snapped toward Kaylor.
“What are you doing?”
Kaylor struck again.
“Let go of my friend.”
The second blow cut deeply.
Nethnarel felt the child convulse against her.
“No!”
She rose.
Her wings unfurled instinctively, magical flame rolling behind her.
Kaylor stepped toward her.
“Neth, listen to me.”
“You're hurting her.”
There had never been a her.
Nethnarel knew that.
Somewhere.
The knowledge was trapped behind grief so immediate that logic could not reach it.
Kaylor extended his supernatural senses toward the creature.
Death answered him.
Undead.
Evil.
Not a child.
“Nethnarel. It is undead.”
She looked down.
A frightened little tiefling clung to her.
“Not to me.”
Kaylor’s expression tightened.
That was answer enough.
He drove divine power into Final Word.
Radiance burst through the undead creature.
Nethnarel screamed with it.
The room erupted.
A second toy changed.
It happened near Isamu.
The harmless shape snapped upward and became another horse-faced undead monstrosity, this one armed with claws, teeth and a vicious flail whose metal head dripped something pale and corrosive.
Isamu moved.
The creature moved faster.
Its jaws closed across him.
Pain tore through his shoulder.
Poison followed.
Isamu twisted away before the venom could fully take hold, but a claw caught him immediately afterward.
Then the flail came around.
It hit like a siege weapon.
Acid splashed from the weapon as the impact drove Isamu backward.
He barely remained standing.
The thing came after him again.
Isamu had survived dragon breath, gods, giants, demons and a Mithril Dragon that had technically killed him.
He had rarely been assaulted so effectively by a children’s toy.
Hunter’s Mark settled over it.
He attacked.
The monster seemed to know.
Every shift of Isamu’s weight was answered before he completed it. His first attack found empty space. So did the second.
On the third, Isamu changed rhythm.
Speed overcame prediction.
His weapon struck.
The undead thing recoiled.
“Good,” Isamu said.
Then moved away.
Fendor joined him.
The elf crossed the playroom and engaged the monster before it could chase Isamu down.
One sword stroke missed.
The creature seemed to lean away before Fendor committed.
The next connected.
Then another.
Fendor’s eyes narrowed.
“It knows.”
“Knows what?” Isamu asked.
“What we're about to do.”
“Then do something else.”
Fendor looked at him.
“That is surprisingly useful advice.”
Across the chamber, Kaylor’s fight had become worse.
The creature facing him attacked with the same assortment of impossible violence.
Teeth.
Claws.
The acidic flail.
Then hooves.
It struck Kaylor again and again in a burst so vicious that even the dragonborn’s armor could not turn everything aside. Poison entered one wound. The flail hammered him from the side. A hoof caught his chest and drove him backward.
Final Word scraped across the floor.
Kaylor remained upright.
The monster prepared another rush.
Hexen had waited.
That patience ended.
He returned fully to human form and raised the Staff of the Woodlands.
Sunlight appeared underground.
Not torchlight.
Not magical flame.
Sunlight.
It exploded through the domed chamber in a brilliant sphere.
Every toy cast a hard shadow.
The undead creature attacking Kaylor turned.
Too late.
Radiance engulfed it.
Its body blackened.
Cracked.
Then collapsed.
Nethnarel felt her child die.
She was still in the air.
Still clutching something that nobody else could see.
For one unbearable instant she saw Hexen’s spell strike the little tiefling in her arms.
Saw light pass through the child.
Saw the tiny face twist in pain.
Felt the body become weightless.
Then the illusion broke.
There was nothing in her arms.
Nethnarel hovered beneath the domed ceiling with both hands curled around emptiness.
Below, the dead horse-headed monster smoldered on the floor.
She knew.
Instantly.
Completely.
There had been no child.
Kaylor had not attacked her daughter.
Hexen had not killed her.
She had never been a mother.
The understanding changed nothing about the memory.
Nethnarel could still feel the small body against her.
Could still hear the scream.
Could still remember loving someone who had never existed.
Hexen looked up.
“Neth?”
She stared at him.
For one heartbeat something dangerous crossed her face.
Then reason won.
Barely.
“It wasn't real.”
“No.”
“I know.”
Hexen said nothing else.
That was wise.
The second creature struck Fendor.
Its bite found him.
A claw followed.
Then the flail slammed into his armor and sprayed acid across him. A heavy hoof struck before he could recover.
Fendor staggered.
Nethnarel looked down.
Grief had nowhere to go.
The remaining monster was convenient.
She raised one hand.
“Move.”
Fendor moved.
Nethnarel cast Disintegrate.
Green destructive energy crossed the playroom.
The creature anticipated the spell.
Almost.
It twisted aside at the last possible moment, reducing the impact but not escaping it. Energy tore across its body. Dead flesh vanished in smoking strips.
The monster remained alive.
Nethnarel stared at it.
“Unfortunate.”
Kaylor arrived.
The creature turned.
It anticipated him too.
Final Word did not care.
Kaylor struck once.
Then again.
The second blow ended it.
The horse-like head separated enough from the ruined body that the distinction between killing stroke and simple catastrophic damage became academic.
The creature collapsed beside one of the giant toys.
Silence returned.
Nobody trusted it.
Isamu remained ready.
Fendor held the Vorpal Longsword before him.
Kaylor scanned the other toys.
Hexen kept one hand on his staff.
Nethnarel descended slowly.
Nothing else moved.
A full minute passed.
Then another.
Fendor finally looked toward the teddy bear.
“If that thing blinks, I am burning the entire room.”
Hexen looked at him.
“Apparently fire has been unreliable lately.”
“Then freeze it.”
Nethnarel landed.
Her gaze kept drifting toward the place where the imaginary child had disappeared.
She hated that.
Kaylor approached carefully.
“Neth.”
“I know.”
He stopped.
“You know what?”
“That you weren't attacking a child.”
“Yes.”
“That there was no child.”
“Yes.”
“That Hexen didn't kill her.”
Kaylor hesitated.
“Yes.”
Nethnarel looked at her empty hands.
“I remember all of it anyway.”
Kaylor had no useful answer.
He had lived with memories that refused to obey reason.
So he did not offer one.
He simply remained there for a moment.
Then Fendor found the flail.
The weapon belonging to the second creature had survived its death.
He lifted it by the handle.
The metal head continued dripping acid.
“Interesting.”
Isamu came over.
Fendor looked at him.
“No.”
“I didn't ask.”
“You looked.”
Isamu held out a hand.
Fendor surrendered the weapon.
The flail was enchanted. Even without a formal name or history, the craftsmanship was obvious. The head carried its own corrosive reservoir or supernatural acid, adding a second kind of injury to every successful strike.
Isamu tested the weight.
Unusual.
Not elegant.
He smiled slightly.
Fendor saw it.
“You're keeping it.”
“Yes.”
“You spent years learning beautiful martial weapons.”
“Yes.”
“And now you want the acid flail from the demonic nursery.”
“Yes.”
Fendor considered.
“Fair.”
They searched the room.
This time nobody touched a toy unnecessarily.
Kaylor checked the walls.
Hexen inspected the strange figures from a distance.
Fendor used the point of his sword whenever possible.
Nethnarel found herself unable to look directly at the toy she had embraced.
Eventually they discovered a concealed door.
Its outline was barely visible in the curved wall, worked into the stone with the same maddening precision as the other hidden mechanisms throughout Oslan.
There was no conventional lock.
Instead, a shallow indentation sat beside it.
A specific shape.
Kaylor looked back at the room.
“Key.”
“Of course,” Fendor said.
Isamu began searching the toys.
Fendor stared at him.
“What happened to not touching them?”
“We need the key.”
“That is annoyingly reasonable.”
They went through the playroom carefully.
Not opening toys so much as shifting and examining them, looking beneath carved figures, behind the rocking horse, among the giant child-sized objects scattered across the floor.
Eventually Isamu found something.
A small token.
Its shape matched the indentation.
Nethnarel examined it.
“That's it.”
Kaylor held out his hand.
“Not yet.”
Fendor understood immediately.
“Rest.”
They needed one badly.
Isamu had nearly been killed again.
Fendor and Kaylor had been battered.
Nethnarel had survived the physical fighting well enough, but the false memory inside her had left another kind of wound.
Hexen still possessed enough magic to make resting here preferable to stumbling blindly farther downward.
They secured the room.
Nethnarel unfolded the Oslan shield near the entrance.
The three sections locked into place.
Immovable.
Anything attempting to come through the door would have to solve an obstacle that had recently stopped an enormous eight-legged monster from moving its own body.
Fendor looked at the barricade.
“I love that thing.”
Nethnarel sat nearby.
“You told me not to take it.”
“I've apologized through repeated praise.”
“That isn't an apology.”
“It is from me.”
Hexen prepared food.
Not ordinary food.
Heroes’ Feast filled the grotesque playroom with smells so warm and familiar that the room briefly became something other than a graveyard of corrupted childhood. The heroes ate among giant toys and dead monsters while an immovable magical shield blocked the entrance.
It was, Fendor decided, not the strangest dinner they had ever had.
Probably.
The feast strengthened them.
Then they rested.
Four hours passed.
Nothing attacked.
Another four.
Still nothing.
Whatever had moved beneath the ground stayed beneath it.
The remaining toys did not animate.
No imaginary children appeared.
No skeletal fingers crawled from anyone’s ears.
For once, Oslan allowed them eight uninterrupted hours.
They woke restored.
Magic returned.
Wounds closed.
The Feast left them stronger than before.
Nethnarel woke last.
For several seconds she did not move.
In the thin place between sleep and consciousness, she had dreamed of a little tiefling girl.
The child had no name.
That made it worse.
Then Nethnarel remembered.
There had never been a child.
She sat up.
Gygax stirred nearby.
Nethnarel reached down and let the little mouse climb into her hand.
“I'm fine.”
Gygax offered no opinion.
Across the room Fendor was already standing.
“You said that out loud.”
“I know.”
“Usually a bad sign.”
“Fendor.”
“Yes?”
“Be quiet.”
“Excellent. Recovery complete.”
They dismantled the barricade.
Kaylor carried the token to the hidden door.
The piece fit perfectly into the indentation.
For a moment nothing happened.
Then ancient machinery moved inside the wall.
A sound came from beyond the stone.
Deep.
Mechanical.
Old enough that dust fell from the curved ceiling.
The double doors separated.
Darkness waited beyond.
Stairs descended.
Fendor leaned around Kaylor.
“Down.”
Isamu joined them.
“Of course.”
Nethnarel stood behind the others, Staff of Power in one hand.
The ruined playroom remained behind her.
The false child remained somewhere else.
Not real.
Not forgotten.
Kaylor stepped onto the first stair.
The Heroes of the New Beginning followed him deeper beneath Oslan.