The Battle for the Vault
The dead kept coming.
One moment Fendor had cleared space around Nethnarel with two arrows.
The next, something hauled itself from another pile of bones.
The chamber had become a furnace.
Two walls of fire divided the room into burning corridors. Bones blackened inside the flames. Dead things walked through them anyway.
Kaylor remained on the raised platform with the winged creature.
Up close, there was no mistaking what it was.
A knight, once.
Perhaps even a noble one.
Now its armor enclosed something that should have remained dead. Batlike wings rose from its back. Fangs showed when it opened its mouth. Necrotic darkness leaked from wounds that should have ended it.
A vampiric knight.
It drove its weapon toward Kaylor.
The dragonborn twisted aside.
The point passed beneath his arm.
The knight attacked again.
Kaylor caught the blow against his weapon and forced it away.
Below them, another corpse-creature ripped at Hexen.
A claw opened the druid's side.
The second missed.
Hexen's Wall of Fire still burned behind it.
He held the spell.
Barely.
Nethnarel looked through the chaos for somewhere she could safely place magic.
There was almost nowhere.
Kaylor stood among enemies.
Grazim was surrounded.
Hexen's wolves moved between bone piles.
Fendor kept changing positions, searching for clean lines of fire.
Leonidas was somewhere behind them.
The room was too crowded for the kind of magic Nethnarel preferred.
She found a gap anyway.
Fire streaked through it.
An undead creature jerked as the flames struck.
“Found one.”
Leonidas sent eldritch force into another.
The blast hit hard enough to drive the corpse backward.
Kaylor took advantage of the opening.
He drank a healing potion without taking his eyes from the vampiric knight.
Then he attacked.
Steel struck dead flesh.
Radiance followed.
Divine power exploded through the knight.
It staggered.
Kaylor hit it again.
The creature's body smoked where the holy power had entered it.
Fendor fired into another target.
His first arrow struck.
The second went wide.
Fendor corrected.
The enchanted shaft changed course, finding another creature instead.
The dead were everywhere.
So were the fires.
Grazim looked around at the room and decided that subtlety had ceased to be useful.
Divine magic gathered around him.
A radiant presence formed in the air nearby, something holy and terrible moving with him as he advanced.
The undead recoiled from it.
One did not recoil quickly enough.
Grazim's hammer struck.
The thing stumbled backward into flame.
It emerged burning.
Then came at him anyway.
“Persistent,” Grazim muttered.
Hexen attacked with both spears.
Death first.
Life second.
The Spear of Life entered the corpse and came back without giving him anything.
No warmth.
No returning vitality.
Nothing.
Hexen grimaced.
“You are useless against dead things.”
The spear, being a spear, offered no defense.
Kaylor's Dancing Sword rose from his hand.
The blade swept around the platform on its own.
It struck the vampiric knight.
Kaylor followed with his heavier weapon.
One blow.
Another.
Then another.
Divine light erupted with them.
The knight answered.
Its weapon pierced Kaylor's guard.
Necrotic energy ran through the wound.
Kaylor remained on his feet.
The knight struck again.
Another black wound opened.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” Leonidas called from below.
“No.”
“You ran up there.”
“I know.”
“That is why I asked.”
Another corpse reached Grazim.
The war-priest drove his hammer into it.
Then his shield followed.
The creature went over backward.
Grazim pointed his hammer at it.
“Stay.”
It did not.
The thing immediately began climbing to its feet.
Fendor sent an arrow through its chest.
“That was worth trying.”
Grazim nodded.
“Thank you.”
Another of the jawed bone creatures came from behind Nethnarel.
She turned just in time to see it.
Leonidas saw it too.
“Move.”
Nethnarel moved.
The creature lunged into the space where she had been.
Leonidas blasted it sideways.
For once, Nethnarel decided that retreat was the intelligent option.
She disengaged and moved away from the thing before it could tear her apart.
Leonidas stared after her.
“You listened.”
“You were accidentally correct.”
“I'll treasure the moment.”
The fight ground onward.
Hexen used Healing Word on Kaylor without abandoning his Wall of Fire.
Strength returned to the paladin.
Not enough.
But enough to keep him standing.
Then Hexen drove both spears into the creature before him.
The thing collapsed.
Another massive skeletal warrior ran straight through the fire.
Flames wrapped around it.
It did not slow.
It swung a great axe at Grazim.
The war-priest avoided the first blow.
The second struck.
The impact nearly broke his concentration on the divine magic surrounding him.
Nearly.
The holy presence remained.
“Stop walking through fire,” Nethnarel said.
The creature turned toward her.
Nethnarel reconsidered.
“Actually, continue.”
It did.
The flames hurt it more.
Kaylor was taking too much punishment.
Leonidas knew it.
They all knew it.
The paladin had planted himself against the strongest creature in the room and had no intention of leaving until one of them stopped moving.
Leonidas reached for the Bag of Holding.
“I have something.”
Grazim looked over.
That sentence had rarely produced anything good.
Leonidas opened the bag.
His hand disappeared inside.
When it emerged, a pale shard rested in his palm.
Everyone recognized it.
The Shard of Everlasting Life.
The artifact they had fought across the frozen kingdom to recover.
The thing the Herald of Fire had protected.
The thing whose power they understood only in fragments.
Leonidas held it toward Kaylor.
Magic flowed.
Speed entered the dragonborn.
Kaylor's movements changed instantly.
He became faster.
His balance sharpened.
His weapon seemed lighter in his hands.
The knight barely had time to react before Kaylor struck again.
Then Leonidas heard a voice.
Cold.
Immense.
Not inside the chamber.
Inside him.
He tried to release the Shard.
His fingers would not open.
The presence pushed against his thoughts.
Something ancient lived within the artifact.
Something that knew cold.
Something that remembered power.
And Leonidas had just invited it into his mind.
His eyes changed.
Hexen saw it first.
“Leonidas?”
Leonidas turned toward him.
There was no humor in his face.
No mischief.
No reckless curiosity.
Only obedience to something else.
The Shard gave him a command.
Leonidas raised one hand.
Ice fell upon Fendor.
The elf barely understood what was happening before freezing stones hammered around him.
“What the hell?”
Leonidas turned.
Eldritch Blast struck Hexen.
The first bolt hit.
The second struck with devastating force.
Hexen flew backward.
His concentration broke.
The Wall of Fire vanished.
For a moment everyone simply stared.
Leonidas held the Shard.
Kaylor understood.
“The Shard has him.”
Nethnarel reacted immediately.
She pointed at Leonidas.
“Fine.”
Magic formed around him.
“Be a slug.”
Leonidas shimmered.
The Shard resisted.
Whatever protection it had wrapped around him turned the spell aside.
Leonidas remained Leonidas.
Nethnarel looked genuinely disappointed.
“That usually would have been funny.”
Leonidas raised his hand again.
Grazim stepped toward him.
“Put it down.”
Leonidas smiled.
It was not his smile.
“No.”
Fendor saw the problem.
Not Leonidas.
The artifact.
The Shard had to leave his hand.
Fendor drew the Oathbow.
First, the weapon released restorative magic through the party.
Wounds closed.
Kaylor straightened.
Grazim's breathing eased.
Hexen recovered enough strength to continue.
Leonidas received none of it.
At that moment, Leonidas was an enemy.
Then Fendor aimed.
“At the Shard,” he said.
Kaylor looked down from the platform.
“What?”
“I'm shooting it out of his hand.”
“That is a very small target.”
“I know.”
Fendor released.
The arrow crossed the chamber.
It did not strike the Shard.
It struck Leonidas.
Hard.
Fendor fired again.
The second arrow hit too.
Leonidas dropped.
The Shard fell with him.
Silence lasted perhaps half a heartbeat.
Hexen moved.
He reached the artifact first.
But he did not touch it.
He wrapped it in cloth and secured it away from bare skin.
Leonidas lay unconscious.
Fendor lowered the Oathbow.
“I was aiming for the Shard.”
Nethnarel looked at Leonidas.
“You solved the problem.”
“I was aiming for the Shard.”
“We heard you.”
The battle had not stopped to appreciate their internal difficulties.
A bone creature struck from behind.
One of the heroes went down.
Fendor invoked the Oathbow again.
Healing spread outward.
Someone rose.
Then another.
The undead continued pressing.
Kaylor remained dangerously close to the vampiric knight.
Hexen looked at the platform.
Then at Kaylor.
“Get down.”
Kaylor attacked again.
“Now.”
The Dancing Sword cut the knight.
Kaylor disengaged.
He jumped from the raised platform.
The drop was high enough to break an ankle.
He landed properly and kept moving.
Hexen waited until he was clear.
Then the druid called insects.
The air above the platform darkened.
A swarm appeared.
Thousands upon thousands of biting creatures filled the space around the vampiric knight and everything near it.
The dead could ignore pain.
They could not ignore being eaten.
Nethnarel began forming small meteors of fire around herself.
One.
Then another.
Then more.
They orbited her like tiny suns.
Whenever she saw an opening, she sent one into the undead.
A flash.
An explosion.
Another target staggered.
Grazim smashed a creature with his hammer.
His shield hit next.
The corpse went down.
Fendor's arrows crossed the room in steady rhythm.
Kaylor redirected his Dancing Sword from enemy to enemy.
The insect swarm devoured whatever remained on the platform.
Leonidas regained consciousness.
He sat up.
For several seconds, he did not understand why he was on the floor.
Then he saw Hexen holding the wrapped Shard.
Memory returned.
“Oh.”
Fendor looked at him.
“I was aiming for the Shard.”
Leonidas touched the wound.
“You have said that?”
“Several times.”
“Good.”
Leonidas stood.
The battle had thinned.
Not ended.
One of the largest corpse creatures remained.
Another bone-jawed horror still moved between the piles.
Nethnarel sent more meteors.
Hexen struck with his spears.
Grazim drove another undead body apart beneath his hammer.
Kaylor's sword moved independently, searching for the next target.
Fendor released another wave of healing from the Oathbow.
This time Leonidas received it.
Strength returned.
The warlock looked down at himself.
Then toward the remaining dead.
He should have attacked.
Instead, he reached into his gear.
Grazim saw the motion.
“Leonidas.”
The Demon Dice appeared in his hand.
“No.”
Leonidas looked at him.
“I need to know.”
“We are currently fighting.”
“Yes.”
“That has never stopped you, has it?”
“No.”
Leonidas rolled.
The dice struck the stone.
Once.
Twice.
They stopped.
Then began to glow.
Leonidas's expression changed.
The light grew brighter.
Not the ordinary strange magic the dice sometimes produced.
This was different.
Green fire rose from them.
The chamber darkened around the glow.
Something enormous began forming.
A head appeared first.
Horned.
Then shoulders.
Then a body so large it had to stoop beneath the ceiling.
Green flame burned around its head.
The creature towered over Leonidas.
Over everyone.
Even the undead stopped.
For a heartbeat, the entire battle seemed to forget itself.
The giant demon looked down.
Its voice filled the chamber.
“You can have the dice back.”
Leonidas stared upward.
The creature pointed toward the glowing bones on the ground.
“I have spent eons bound within them.”
The Demon Dice continued burning.
“Free me.”
No one moved.
The demon smiled.
“Destroy the dice, and I shall grant you one wish.”
Nethnarel stared.
“Absolutely not.”
Leonidas ignored her.
“What happens after I free you?”
“That is none of your concern.”
“That sounds bad,” Fendor said.
Leonidas tilted his head.
“Will you kill them?”
The demon looked across the party.
“Free me. I shall grant your wish.”
Grazim stepped closer.
“Leonidas.”
Leonidas looked at his friends.
At the bone room.
At the dying undead.
At the Shard that had seized his mind.
At the blood running across the stones.
At the strange road that had brought him here.
Then he looked back at the demon.
“One wish?”
“One.”
Leonidas smiled.
This one was his.
“I wish for sweet release from this life.”
The green fire exploded.
Everyone flinched.
When they looked again, the demon was gone.
So was Leonidas.
So were the Demon Dice.
Pete vanished with him.
The Bag of Holding was gone as well.
Only Leonidas's parasol remained upon the stone.
The chamber fell silent.
Almost.
One remaining bone creature dragged itself forward.
Hexen stared at the empty space where Leonidas had stood.
Then at the monster.
“You have terrible timing.”
He attacked.
The creature clawed him.
Once.
Again.
The second blow nearly dropped him.
Kaylor's Dancing Sword swept across the chamber.
The blade struck.
The final undead collapsed.
And this time—
nothing else rose.
No bones moved.
No jaws opened.
No dead thing crawled from beneath another pile.
The battle for the chamber was finished.
No one celebrated.
Grazim walked to Leonidas's parasol.
He picked it up.
There was no body.
No blood.
Nothing to resurrect.
Nothing to heal.
No corpse upon which divine magic could act.
Just an umbrella.
Fendor lowered the Oathbow.
“He actually did it.”
Nethnarel stared at the place where the demon had appeared.
“He wished himself dead?”
Grazim looked at the parasol.
“No.”
Kaylor frowned.
“What?”
“He wished for release.”
Grazim looked toward the ceiling.
“We don't know what that means.”
No one found that comforting.
They recovered what they could.
The vampiric knight had carried more than a weapon.
Among its possessions were heavy enchanted gauntlets.
Hexen tested them.
Strength flowed through his arms.
The change was immediate.
He tightened his grip around the Spear of Death.
Then the Spear of Life.
“That helps.”
Fendor nodded.
“Keep them.”
They found a cloak as well.
Protective magic had been woven deeply into it—stronger than the ordinary enchantment such a garment usually carried.
Kaylor accepted it.
When he drew it around his shoulders, the protection settled over him immediately.
There was also an unusual longsword.
The blade carried magic of its own and a trace of necrotic power, but no one claimed it immediately.
It joined the growing collection of things they would decide what to do with later.
Then came the valuables.
Gems.
Gold.
Objects that could be converted into coin.
Roughly five thousand gold pieces' worth.
Fendor looked at the pile.
Then at the place where Leonidas had vanished.
“The Bag of Holding went with him.”
Everyone stared at the treasure.
Hexen sighed.
“So now we have to carry things.”
For some reason, that almost made Nethnarel laugh.
Almost.
Grazim spent what healing remained to him.
Kaylor received some.
Hexen received some.
The others did what they could.
No one was truly whole.
They needed rest.
The bone chamber was horrible.
But horrible had become relative.
They knew what was inside it now.
The dead were dead.
The unexplored doors were another question.
They chose one and secured it with the Immovable Rod.
Other entrances were blocked as well as possible.
Then they settled among the aftermath.
Not close to the piles.
No one wanted to sleep close to the piles.
The first hour passed.
Some bound wounds.
Others meditated or prayed.
Fendor remained awake longer than necessary, listening for music that was not there.
Hexen kept the Shard of Everlasting Life wrapped and away from everyone.
No one suggested using it.
Kaylor sat with the new cloak around his shoulders and stared at Leonidas's parasol.
Nethnarel finally spoke.
“Do you think he's dead?”
Kaylor did not answer.
Grazim did.
“I don't know.”
“He asked for release from life.”
“He asked a demon.”
“That is my concern.”
Grazim looked at her.
“It is mine too.”
Silence returned.
Then the floor began to glow.
Kaylor stood.
“No.”
A circle of blue light formed near the center of the chamber.
The radiance strengthened.
Everyone reached for weapons.
Nothing attacked.
The light spread.
The ceiling above them began to brighten.
Blue became white-blue.
The circle began to turn.
Not physically.
The light itself rotated.
A vortex.
Nethnarel stared.
“Move away from it.”
They did.
The Immovable Rod remained locked against the door.
Hexen noticed.
He ran back.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting the rod.”
The glow became brighter.
Wind began pulling toward the center.
Hexen seized the Immovable Rod, released it, and ran.
The pull increased.
Dust flew first.
Then small bones.
Then larger ones.
The piles shifted.
Fendor grabbed one of the stone supports.
Kaylor caught Nethnarel's arm.
Grazim planted his boots.
The vortex did not care.
The chamber disappeared into blue-white light.
For an instant there was no floor.
No ceiling.
No bone room.
No Vault.
Only motion.
Then everything stopped.
Fendor hit marble.
Clean marble.
He pushed himself upright.
Kaylor was nearby.
Nethnarel.
Hexen.
Grazim.
Fendor looked around again.
Once.
Then twice.
His expression changed.
“Where is Isamu?”
No one answered.
Grazim forced himself upright and counted.
Kaylor.
Nethnarel.
Hexen.
Fendor.
Himself.
Leonidas was gone.
Pete was gone.
And now Isamu was gone too.
“Isamu!” Kaylor shouted.
His voice crossed the chamber and returned as an echo.
No answer.
Nethnarel turned slowly, searching for another body.
Nothing.
“He was with us before the vortex.”
“Yes,” Grazim said.
“You saw him?”
Grazim hesitated.
Everything during the transition had been light and wind and falling bones.
“I saw all of us.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
“No.”
Kaylor started toward the nearest door.
Grazim caught his arm.
“Wait.”
Kaylor looked at him.
“Isamu is missing.”
“I know.”
“Then why are we waiting?”
“Because we don't know where we are.”
That stopped him.
Only then did they really look at the chamber.
It was the same room.
The proportions matched.
The doors stood in the same places.
The central circular structure remained.
But the decay was gone.
The marble floor had no cracks.
The walls had not darkened with age.
The columns looked newly cut.
No bone piles filled the room.
No centuries of dust lay across the stone.
Around the central pool stood small statues.
Many of them.
Each showed the same dragonborn wizard.
Craven.
Craven holding a staff.
Craven casting a spell.
Craven with one hand raised.
Craven in different poses, each carved with the confidence of a man who believed his image belonged everywhere.
At the center, blue magic continued to swirl.
Fendor walked slowly toward one statue.
“It looks new.”
“It is new,” Nethnarel said.
Kaylor turned toward the door they had entered through hours earlier.
Same door.
Same location.
Different age.
Hexen looked around.
“Did the Vault rebuild itself?”
Grazim stared at the unweathered image of Craven.
“No.”
Nethnarel understood first.
Her expression changed.
“Oh.”
Kaylor looked at her.
“What?”
She pointed at the fresh marble.
The new statues.
The untouched walls.
“The Vault didn't rebuild.”
No one spoke.
Nethnarel looked toward the still-turning blue vortex.
“We moved.”
Not through space.
They had done enough of that to recognize the difference.
Something else had happened.
Something far worse.
Kaylor looked toward the doors again.
“And Isamu?”
Nethnarel stared at the vortex.
“I don't know.”
That answer followed them into the rest.
They needed their strength too badly to refuse it.
For several hours, the new Vault remained quiet.
No undead came.
No clockwork hounds attacked.
No traps activated.
Kaylor slept little.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the vortex.
Every time he opened them, he counted five.
When they were finally restored enough to move again, Grazim approached one of the doors.
He stopped.
Hexen noticed.
“What?”
Grazim raised one hand.
“Listen.”
They did.
At first there was nothing.
Then—
a sound from beyond the stone.
Muffled.
Human.
A scream.
Kaylor was moving before the second scream came.
Another followed.
Not old.
Not imagined.
Someone was screaming now.
Kaylor reached the door.
His hand closed around the handle.
“Isamu.”
No one told him it might not be.
No one told him to wait.
Behind them, the pristine statues of Craven watched from around the blue pool.
Leonidas was gone.
The Vault had somehow thrown them into another age.
And somewhere beyond the door, someone was screaming.