The village had learned to sleep lightly.
Even after the heroes returned, even after the latest worms had been killed and the road from the dead city had fallen quiet, people kept weapons near their beds.
Axes rested beside doors.
Spears leaned against walls.
Children had learned which cellars were safest when the alarm bells rang.
The monsters had not taken the village.
But they had taught it fear.
Grazim understood the difference.
The Heroes of the New Beginning returned exhausted, carrying more wealth than they could comfortably move, a newly discovered Wand of Lightning Bolts, and an ancient book no one could read.
They had also brought back considerably less certainty than they had left with.
The village did give them one thing the ruined city could not.
Sleep.
Real sleep.
They ate first.
Then wounds were washed, armor removed, weapons set within reach.
Grazim closed his eyes expecting another brief, uneasy rest.
Instead he sank into darkness.
Something waited there.
Not a dream.
Not exactly.
A locked place within him opened another fraction.
He remembered standing in a field beneath banners he could no longer name.
He remembered the weight of thousands of lives behind him.
He remembered raising his hammer.
The memory vanished before he could see the enemy.
But the strength remained.
When Grazim opened his eyes, dawn had begun coloring the village roofs.
He sat up slowly.
Something had changed.
Across the room, Kaylor was already awake.
The dragonborn stood looking at his hands.
“You feel it too,” Grazim said.
Kaylor nodded.
“More.”
That was the only word either needed.
Each of them had awakened with the same sensation.
Not new power.
Returned power.
Another sealed portion of whatever they had once been had opened during the night.
Hexen could feel more shapes waiting within the vast wilderness behind his thoughts.
Nethnarel’s magic no longer seemed quite as close to escaping her grasp.
Fendor’s bow felt lighter.
Isamu’s movements had become even more precise, as if his body had remembered possibilities his mind had not.
Kaylor’s oath burned brighter.
Grazim’s distant divine presence seemed, for the first time, slightly less distant.
They were becoming stronger.
None of them knew whether that was good news.
Hexen, naturally, had another concern.
“The tree.”
Nethnarel looked at him.
“What tree?”
“The treehouse.”
Fendor stopped checking his arrows.
“We are under attack by creatures emerging from a ruined city.”
“Yes.”
“We possess an evil book written by a dead civilization.”
“Yes.”
“There is an unexplored magical crevasse approximately—”
“Also yes.”
Hexen stood.
“And I need a treehouse.”
Nethnarel considered this.
“I support it.”
Fendor looked from one to the other.
“Of course you do.”
The village was still rebuilding from the attacks, but rebuilding required people to work, and working people still needed to eat.
Hexen found a local woodworker willing to hear his proposal.
The man listened carefully.
Then looked at Hexen.
Then looked at the heroes behind him.
Then looked back at Hexen.
“You want me to build what?”
“A house.”
The woodworker nodded.
“In a tree.”
The nod stopped.
“A large tree.”
“That does not improve the explanation.”
Hexen pointed toward the village outskirts, where several surviving trees rose above the damaged roofs.
“Something sturdy. Platforms. Walls. Enough room for us.”
“For all of you?”
Hexen glanced toward Kaylor.
“Probably reinforce Kaylor’s side.”
Kaylor folded his arms.
The woodworker considered the tree.
Then the village.
Then the hundred other things that needed repairing.
“One hundred gold.”
“Done.”
Grazim turned.
“You agreed quickly.”
“People need work.”
“That is true.”
“And we need a treehouse.”
“That is less urgent.”
Hexen ignored him.
“When we return, I can awaken the tree.”
The woodworker stared.
“You can what?”
Hexen smiled.
“Build first.”
The man decided not to ask.
The payment created a different problem.
They had too much money.
For several seconds, no one believed this was possible.
Then Leonidas opened the Bag of Holding.
The bag contained the Shard of Everlasting Life.
The ancient evil book.
Various recovered objects.
Weapons.
Supplies.
Treasure.
And far more coin than any sensible person should attempt to carry through a hostile city.
Leonidas reached inside.
Then frowned.
“There is a limit.”
Nethnarel stared at the magical bag.
“It is called a Bag of Holding.”
“Yes.”
“Not a Bag of Holding a Reasonable Amount.”
“No.”
Hexen looked at the piles of coin they had accumulated.
“How much can it hold?”
“Less than we have.”
“That seems like poor design.”
Fendor shook his head.
“Magic has rules.”
Nethnarel looked at him.
“Since when?”
They spent part of the morning sorting the problem.
Much of their wealth had already been converted into platinum, reducing the amount of physical coin they needed to carry.
Even so, the absurdity remained.
They had survived undead armies, a winter queen, Grom the Everlasting, the Labyrinth of Wicked Souls, corpse parasites, salt creatures, purple worms and an ancient magical laboratory.
They were now being defeated by accounting.
Grazim watched Leonidas rearrange the contents of the Bag of Holding.
“Do not put the book beside the shard.”
Leonidas looked at him.
“Why?”
Grazim paused.
“I do not have a specific reason.”
Nethnarel nodded.
“An excellent instinct.”
The book was the real reason they had returned.
Its dark cover had remained closed since the magical house.
None of them had forgotten the drawings inside.
Bodies cut open.
Living creatures altered.
Parts removed and replaced.
Humans.
Elves.
Dragonborn.
Other beings they could not identify.
And the ancient script Kaylor had recognized without being able to read.
They needed someone who could.
The damaged keep offered their best possibility.
The road there passed through sections of the village still scarred by the last attack.
Stone walls had been broken.
A section of one tower remained blackened where the great war construct had torn through it.
Workers moved among the ruins, raising scaffolds and carrying stone.
Kaylor stopped near the outer gate.
He remembered the thing that had attacked here.
The chaos.
The guards.
Nethnarel doing something to it that had caused a large portion of the problem to disappear in a way no one had entirely understood.
The guards at the entrance recognized the heroes.
They also carried news.
The keep’s commander and his assistant were gone.
“Gone where?” Kaylor asked.
One of the dragonborn guards pointed toward the horizon.
“The dead city.”
Hexen stared at him.
“He went there willingly?”
“Yes.”
Hexen looked at Grazim.
“That was our mistake.”
“Our job,” Grazim corrected.
“Both.”
Kaylor looked toward the distant ruins.
“Why?”
The guard did not know.
The commander had entered the city and had not yet returned.
There were, however, people remaining at the keep who might help with the book.
The heroes were taken through the damaged courtyard to a chamber that had partially survived the attack.
A strange scholar waited there.
Much of him appeared constructed rather than born.
Fine mechanical joints moved beneath pieces of metal and carved casing. Tiny gears shifted behind transparent plates. Arcane symbols had been etched into his hands.
Nethnarel immediately approved.
The clockwork wizard looked at the book.
His mechanical fingers stopped moving.
“Where did you find this?”
Leonidas set it upon the table.
“In a house.”
The wizard looked at him.
“A magical house.”
The wizard continued looking.
“With a monster in the chest.”
Silence.
“And skeletal guardians.”
The clockwork wizard turned toward Grazim.
“Is he always like this?”
“Yes.”
Leonidas smiled.
The wizard opened the cover.
He read the first line.
Or tried.
His head tilted slightly as internal mechanisms adjusted.
One eye changed color.
Then the other.
He turned several pages.
Kaylor moved closer.
“You recognize it?”
“Yes.”
The dragonborn felt his chest tighten.
“What language?”
“An ancient form of yours.”
Kaylor had expected the answer.
That did not make hearing it easier.
The wizard continued working.
“This dialect has been dead for a very long time.”
“How long?” Fendor asked.
“Long enough that most of what survives is ceremonial. Inscriptions. Fragments. Names.”
He traced one line with a metal fingertip.
“This is not ceremonial.”
The pages turned.
Several of the illustrations appeared.
Hexen looked away.
The clockwork wizard did not.
He examined the writing around the drawings.
“I cannot translate every word.”
“Enough?” Grazim asked.
“Yes.”
He stopped.
The gears inside his chest slowed.
“This is the Book of Craven.”
The name meant nothing to most of them.
Kaylor reacted.
A memory did not return.
Knowledge did.
Old knowledge.
The kind that had survived whatever had been done to his mind because it had become part of him long before death.
“Craven,” he said.
The clockwork wizard looked toward him.
“You know the name.”
Kaylor closed his eyes.
Fragments assembled themselves.
Not images.
History.
A city being founded.
Dragonborn banners beside human ones.
Libraries.
Towers.
A wizard whose brilliance had been praised before people understood what he was doing with it.
“An ancient wizard,” Kaylor said.
“Yes.”
“He lived here.”
“Near the beginning.”
The others watched Kaylor.
His voice had changed.
He was not guessing.
For the first time, he was remembering something about this dead city that did not come as a flash of battle.
Craven had lived during the city’s earliest age.
A powerful wizard.
Respected.
Then feared.
People disappeared.
At first, one at a time.
Travelers.
Those without families.
Those whose absence could be explained.
Then others vanished.
Citizens.
Soldiers.
People important enough that someone eventually began asking questions.
Craven had been caught.
Not in his laboratory.
Not in some hidden lair.
During an abduction.
The investigation uncovered enough to condemn him.
Kidnapping.
Mutilation.
Experiments performed upon living subjects.
Craven had been tried.
Convicted.
Executed.
Nethnarel looked at the book.
“And this is his diary.”
“Not exactly,” said the clockwork wizard.
He turned another page.
“Records.”
“That is worse.”
“Yes.”
The wizard continued reading.
Kaylor stared at one of the illustrations.
A dragonborn lay strapped to a stone table.
Lines had been drawn from the creature’s chest toward several arcane symbols.
He recognized none of the words.
But he knew Craven.
He knew the story.
And suddenly he remembered the part that mattered.
“They never found it.”
The clockwork wizard looked up.
Grazim frowned.
“Found what?”
Kaylor opened his eyes.
“The vault.”
The name settled across the chamber.
The Vault of Craven.
The wizard nodded.
“Correct.”
Kaylor moved closer to the table.
“They searched for it after his execution.”
“Yes.”
“They found victims?”
“Some.”
“But not the place where he performed the experiments.”
“No.”
Kaylor looked at the drawings again.
Craven had been condemned for horrors everyone knew he had committed.
But the full evidence had never been recovered.
No great laboratory.
No collection of experimental chambers.
No hidden store of magical work.
No bodies corresponding to many of those known to have vanished.
Craven had taken them somewhere.
The city had never found where.
Fendor looked at the book.
“Until now.”
The clockwork wizard placed one finger against a passage near the back.
“This describes an entrance.”
Silence.
Leonidas leaned forward.
“Where?”
The wizard studied the text.
Then looked at them.
“The house where you found the book.”
Nethnarel closed her eyes.
“Of course.”
Hexen looked at Grazim.
“We broke through the wall.”
“Yes.”
“We fought the plant.”
“Yes.”
“The invisible chest.”
“Yes.”
“The wolf thing.”
“Yes.”
“The skeletons.”
“Yes.”
“And there was a hidden death-vault underneath us?”
“Apparently.”
Hexen nodded.
“That house continues to disappoint me.”
The clockwork wizard moved to a map.
The dead city had once been vast.
Even in ruin, entire districts remained.
The wizard found the house from their description and marked a location inside it.
“The entrance should be here.”
Kaylor studied the position.
They had passed near it.
Possibly over it.
The book contained something else.
A word.
The wizard wrote it separately.
The characters were ancient dragonborn.
Kaylor recognized their shapes but still could not read them.
“This,” said the wizard, “appears to be the command required to open the entrance.”
Leonidas looked at the written word.
“So we say that.”
“No,” Grazim said.
Leonidas turned.
Grazim looked at the evil book.
“Someone says that.”
Nethnarel nodded.
“Preferably from a safe distance.”
The wizard watched them carefully.
“There is something else you should know.”
Hexen sighed.
“There always is.”
“The Vault of Craven was searched for by people far more knowledgeable about this city than anyone alive now.”
“And they failed,” Fendor said.
“Yes.”
“Meaning either they were incompetent or the vault was hidden extremely well.”
“Yes.”
Fendor looked at Kaylor.
“I prefer the first possibility.”
“You should not.”
The clockwork wizard tapped the book.
“Stories survived.”
“What stories?” Grazim asked.
“That those who found Craven’s secrets did not return.”
Leonidas laughed once.
No one else did.
He looked around.
“What?”
Hexen shook his head.
“We have heard that warning before.”
Nethnarel counted on her fingers.
“Several times.”
“The labyrinth,” Kaylor said.
“The frozen road,” Grazim added.
“Various caves,” said Hexen.
Fendor looked at the map.
“We are developing a reputation for ignoring sensible advice.”
Nethnarel smiled.
“We are still alive.”
“That is not proof of wisdom.”
The clockwork wizard showed them everything he could decipher.
The location.
The command word.
Fragments concerning Craven’s experiments.
Warnings that could be translated only partially.
The book promised answers.
Perhaps treasure.
Perhaps knowledge.
Perhaps more of the history the heroes had lost.
And perhaps one of the most dangerous places left beneath a city already overflowing with dangerous places.
Grazim looked at Kaylor.
Kaylor was still staring at the map.
The choice was obvious.
That did not make it easy.
Craven’s vault might explain the creatures they had been fighting.
The experiments.
The parasites.
Perhaps even the things emerging from beneath the city.
Or it might have nothing to do with any of them.
Outside the keep, people were rebuilding homes attacked by monsters coming from the ruins.
The central crevasse remained open.
The strange temple or structure that had appeared near it remained unexplained.
Creatures continued crossing into their world.
The Vault of Craven had waited for centuries.
The village could not.
Leonidas folded his arms.
“So.”
He looked toward the map.
“Evil vault of death?”
Then toward the distant center of the city.
“Or swirling pit of doom?”
Nethnarel considered both choices seriously.
“The names are equally persuasive.”
Kaylor answered.
“The vault waits.”
Grazim looked at him.
Kaylor tapped the central part of the map.
“This is attacking people now.”
Hexen nodded.
“That was my thought.”
Fendor looked toward Craven’s marked house.
“We may pass near it anyway.”
“We do not open it,” Kaylor said.
Leonidas looked disappointed.
“Not yet.”
That helped.
Slightly.
They left the Book of Craven secured again.
The written command remained with them.
So did the knowledge of what waited beneath the magical house.
A door had existed there all along.
They simply had not known to look.
The heroes returned to the dead city.
This time, they did not wander.
They had crossed enough of its northwestern district to recognize safe routes.
Or what passed for safe.
The haboob still churned over one section of the ruins.
Dust rotated beneath the purple storm, hiding the batlike creatures and hounds they had encountered earlier.
They gave it distance.
Broken roads appeared and vanished beneath rubble.
Great fissures had split old avenues into uneven shelves.
Some required climbing.
Others had to be crossed on fallen beams or slabs of collapsed masonry.
Kaylor took the front.
He had been doing that almost from the beginning.
Not because anyone had appointed him.
Because whenever there was a road into danger, Kaylor somehow ended up standing at the front of it.
Grazim remained close.
Fendor watched the distant rooftops.
Hexen studied every patch of surviving vegetation.
Nethnarel watched the magic.
Isamu watched everything else.
Leonidas rolled something in one hand.
Kaylor heard the faint clatter.
He stopped.
“No.”
Leonidas looked at him.
“No what?”
Kaylor turned.
The small objects in Leonidas’s hand were dice.
Not ordinary dice.
Even from several paces away, Grazim could feel something deeply wrong with them.
Nethnarel leaned sideways to see.
“The demon dice.”
Leonidas smiled.
Hexen looked at Grazim.
“Why does he have demon dice?”
“I have stopped asking why he has things.”
Leonidas threw them.
The dice struck the ruined street.
For one heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then red lines raced outward from them.
A five-pointed figure burned itself into the stone.
Symbols appeared around the shape.
Fire rose.
The heroes drew weapons.
A summoning circle formed.
Something enormous appeared inside it.
The creature had the shape of a serpent, but no serpent born in the natural world had ever looked like that.
Its body was enormous.
Flames moved beneath its scales.
Its head rose above Kaylor.
Fire escaped between its teeth each time it breathed.
The air around the circle became painfully hot.
The serpent opened burning eyes.
Then bowed its head toward Leonidas.
“How may I be of service, master?”
No one moved.
Nethnarel slowly turned toward Leonidas.
Leonidas looked pleased.
“Helpful demon.”
Kaylor stared at the creature.
His divine senses did not require effort.
Evil rolled from the thing in waves.
Not ambiguity.
Not corruption hidden beneath an innocent form.
Evil.
Immense and immediate.
Kaylor drew his sword.
The serpent remained inside the circle.
Isamu looked down at the glowing lines.
“It is contained.”
Leonidas looked at the creature.
“We need an escort.”
The demon’s head turned.
Fire ran along its tongue.
“I shall be your escort.”
Hexen looked surprised.
“That was easier than expected.”
The serpent continued.
“Break the circle so I may follow.”
Hexen’s expression changed.
“There it is.”
Leonidas stepped toward the summoning mark.
Kaylor moved between them.
“No.”
Leonidas looked at him.
“It cannot escort us from inside the circle.”
“That is the point of the circle.”
The demon watched them.
Its voice remained obedient.
“Set me free, master. I shall serve.”
Fendor lowered his bow slightly.
“Can we ask it questions without releasing it?”
“Yes,” Isamu said.
Leonidas looked at the glowing circle.
Then at the demon.
Then at the others.
Nethnarel saw the decision forming.
“Leonidas.”
He wiped away part of the line.
The circle broke.
Every weapon came up.
The demon smiled.
Kaylor looked at Leonidas.
The expression required no words.
Leonidas shrugged.
“You wanted an escort.”
The serpent lunged.
Fendor fired first.
Two arrows crossed the space between them and struck the demon before its immense body fully cleared the failing summoning circle.
The creature reared.
Kaylor sent his dancing sword forward.
The blade flew from his side and struck the demon.
For once, it hit immediately.
Kaylor followed.
The Sword of Viciousness flashed twice.
Steel cut through burning scales.
The demon roared.
Nethnarel raised both hands.
Fire gathered around her fingers.
Grazim saw what she intended.
“Wait.”
Too late.
Nethnarel split the spell.
Two Fire Bolts streaked toward the enormous flaming serpent.
The first missed.
The second struck.
The demon seemed almost pleased.
Nethnarel lowered her hands.
“Oh.”
Hexen looked at her.
“You attacked the fire demon with fire.”
“I was testing something.”
“You tested whether fire enjoys fire.”
“And now we know.”
Hexen called the wolves.
The pack appeared among the broken streets.
They spread instinctively around the demon.
Then the first wolf came close enough to attack.
The heat around the creature struck it.
Not flame from its mouth.
Not a spell.
Its mere presence burned.
The wolf yelped.
Hexen felt the entire pack recoil through the bond between them.
“Do not stay close!”
The warning came too late.
The demon’s flames intensified.
Its body seemed to draw inward.
Kaylor saw it.
“Down!”
The serpent erupted.
Fire and force exploded across the ruins.
The blast swallowed everyone.
Kaylor planted himself against it.
The armor protecting him from flame saved him from the worst of the heat, and some old resistance within him absorbed part of the concussive force.
Still, the explosion drove him backward.
Fendor was thrown from his feet.
Hexen struck the ground.
Grazim disappeared inside fire.
Nethnarel raised both arms before her face as flame rolled around her.
Isamu slid across broken stone and remained barely upright.
The wolves were simply gone.
Silence followed the explosion.
Then debris began falling.
Hexen pushed himself up.
He stared at the place where his wolves had stood.
“Leonidas.”
Leonidas was already moving.
“Technically the demon did that.”
“You released the demon.”
“That is a separate issue.”
“It is not.”
Grazim rose.
His armor smoked.
He raised his warhammer.
The weapon responded to the demon.
The head of the hammer ignited with divine light.
Within that light appeared the familiar form of the goddess who sometimes answered Grazim’s call.
She had appeared before as a warrior.
A guardian.
A divine presence upon the battlefield.
This time she manifested with considerably less concern for armor than Grazim would have preferred.
Nethnarel noticed.
“Your goddess appears prepared.”
Grazim looked at the radiant figure.
“Not for battle.”
He charged.
The warhammer descended.
Missed.
Grazim swung again.
Missed again.
The goddess vanished.
Leonidas laughed.
Grazim turned toward him.
“Not one word.”
Leonidas cast Hex.
Dark power settled across the demon.
Then came Eldritch Blast.
One bolt.
Another.
Force hammered the serpent and physically drove its enormous body backward.
The demon hissed.
Fendor regained his feet.
He had been using the frost bow frequently in the ruined city.
Not now.
He reached for the Oathbow.
The weapon settled naturally into his hand.
He released a pulse of restorative magic first.
Healing spread across the wounded heroes.
Then Fendor looked at the demon.
His expression changed.
“Mine.”
He declared the creature his sworn foe.
The world narrowed.
The burning serpent.
The distance.
The angle.
The movement of its head.
Four arrows left the Oathbow in astonishing succession.
Every one struck.
The first entered beneath the jaw.
The second struck the shoulder.
The third found the gap opened by Kaylor’s sword.
The fourth drove beside it.
The demon reeled backward.
Fendor lowered the bow.
Hexen looked at him.
“You have been neglecting that one.”
Fendor stroked one hand along the Oathbow.
“It was waiting.”
Nethnarel smiled.
“Careful. It may become emotional.”
Fendor ignored her.
Hexen tried something less direct.
Light gathered around the demon.
Faerie Fire.
The magic reached for the serpent.
The creature moved with impossible speed.
Its massive body twisted aside.
The spell struck empty ground.
Hexen stared.
“That thing is a snake the size of a house.”
“Yes,” said Isamu.
“It dodged.”
“Yes.”
“That is irritating.”
The demon attacked Kaylor.
Its burning jaws snapped.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
Kaylor turned the first aside.
Avoided the second.
The third found him.
Teeth struck armor.
Fire burst across his chest.
He remained standing.
The serpent recoiled for another attack.
Grazim came in from the side.
This time, his hammer connected.
The blow rang through the street.
Divine fire spread across the demon’s scales.
Grazim struck again.
Another hit.
The radiant goddess appeared within the hammer’s flame.
Still wearing remarkably little.
Grazim refused to look directly at her.
The demon screamed.
Nethnarel reached into her equipment.
She withdrew a wand.
Fendor saw it.
“The magic missiles?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“All of them.”
Grazim turned.
“All?”
Nethnarel pointed the wand at the serpent.
The stored magic surged.
One missile appeared.
Then another.
Another.
More.
Eight glowing bolts of force formed around Nethnarel.
The demon looked toward her.
For the first time, its expression changed.
Nethnarel smiled.
“This is not fire.”
She released them.
The missiles struck almost simultaneously.
Force hammered the demon’s head, chest and burning coils.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
The creature staggered.
Five.
Six.
Its flames collapsed inward.
Seven.
Eight.
The final missile struck the center of its chest.
The demon broke apart.
Not into flesh.
Into flame.
Its body collapsed into a spiraling column of red and black fire.
The remains of the summoning circle blazed beneath it.
The creature was pulled downward.
Back toward whatever plane the Demon Dice had dragged it from.
Its burning eyes remained fixed upon Leonidas until the last instant.
“I shall return.”
Then it vanished.
The summoning marks disappeared.
The dice remained.
Everyone turned toward Leonidas.
He picked them up.
Grazim stared at him.
Leonidas put them away.
Kaylor continued staring.
“Do not.”
“I was not going to do anything.”
Nethnarel looked at the pouch containing the Demon Dice.
“That statement has a dangerously short life expectancy.”
Hexen surveyed the scorched street.
His wolves were gone.
Several heroes were wounded.
Nethnarel’s wand had been nearly emptied.
Grazim had expended divine strength.
Fendor had committed the Oathbow against a creature they had summoned themselves.
The actual portal still waited ahead.
Hexen looked at Leonidas.
“That was extremely helpful.”
Leonidas nodded.
“The demon said it would be.”
They continued south.
The ruined city changed as they approached its center.
The destruction became stranger.
Buildings had not merely collapsed.
Some had sunk.
Others had been split by great fissures cutting through streets and foundations alike.
Sections of road stood several feet above others, as if the city had broken into enormous uneven steps.
The old routes could still be traced beneath the rubble.
Barely.
Isamu stopped.
Wind moved past him.
Not across the city.
Upward.
From below.
He turned toward the southeast.
“Do you smell that?”
Everyone did.
The odor reached them a moment later.
Rot.
Wet stone.
Decay.
Something like meat left too long in a sealed place.
Nethnarel covered her nose.
Hexen looked at Leonidas.
“This one is not your demon?”
“No.”
“Good.”
The breeze strengthened.
It came from the direction they had chosen.
From the center.
The closer they moved, the more the air changed.
Grazim felt it first through the holy symbol against his chest.
A pressure.
Not evil in the simple way the demon had been evil.
Energy.
Something pushing against the world.
Kaylor stopped at the edge of a broken avenue.
Ahead, beyond the ruined buildings, light pulsed.
Purple at first.
Then red.
Green.
Blue.
The colors folded through one another.
The heroes moved closer.
The portal became visible.
It was not a door.
Not exactly.
Space itself appeared to have split.
Vivid colors rotated inside the wound.
Red became violet.
Violet became blue.
Green flashed across the surface and disappeared.
Threads of electricity snapped outward and crawled across nearby stone.
Mist poured from the opening.
Not drifting toward it.
Coming through.
The portal pulsed.
With every pulse, a wave of invisible pressure crossed the ruins.
Fendor felt it against his skin.
Hexen felt the surviving plants around them recoil.
Nethnarel felt her magic answer.
Kaylor tightened his grip on his sword.
Grazim stared at the wound hanging in the broken city.
They had spent days killing what came from beneath the streets.
The corpse-things.
The parasites.
The worms.
The creatures in the storm.
The horrors feeding upon the dead.
All of it had led them toward this place.
Behind them waited the newly discovered entrance to the Vault of Craven.
Ahead waited the threat killing people now.
The portal pulsed again.
Electricity crackled across its surface.
Something moved within the mist.
The Heroes of the New Beginning drew their weapons.
The Vault of Craven had waited for centuries.
It could wait one more day.