When Craven Lived
The scream came again.
Kaylor opened the door.
He had expected another room full of bones.
Instead, he found Isamu.
The monk was locked inside an iron cage against the far wall.
For one heartbeat, neither man moved.
Isamu looked battered, disoriented, and furious. Whatever had separated him from the others had stripped away his weapons and most of his gear.
But he was alive.
“Kaylor?”
The dragonborn exhaled.
“Isamu.”
Then Kaylor saw the rest of the room.
A man stood between them.
Not undead.
Not yet.
Kaylor knew his face anyway.
The same armor.
The same build.
The same features they had seen twisted by undeath in the bone chamber.
The vampiric knight they had killed only hours ago stood before them as a living man.
He looked just as startled to see the heroes as they were to see him.
Clockwork soldiers surrounded him.
One stood near Isamu's cage, carrying a long polearm.
Another turned toward the open door.
A third began moving before anyone spoke.
The room itself told the rest of the story.
Racks.
Chains.
Hooks.
Iron restraints.
Tools built for cutting, burning, stretching, and breaking flesh.
A body lay near the center of the chamber.
Fresh blood stained the stone beneath it.
This was not the abandoned torture room Gygax had discovered earlier.
This was the torture room while it was being used.
Kaylor understood.
They had not simply moved somewhere else inside the Vault.
They had moved into its past.
The living torturer reached for his weapon.
Kaylor charged him.
Behind the iron bars, Isamu seized the cage with both hands.
He pulled.
The bars groaned.
They did not move.
One of the clockwork soldiers turned toward him.
Its mechanical voice rasped from somewhere behind its metal face.
“Remain.”
The polearm thrust through the bars.
Isamu twisted away.
The blade missed him by inches.
“That was my plan,” Isamu said.
The machine withdrew its weapon and prepared to try again.
Kaylor reached the torturer.
The Dancing Sword left his hand and came alive beside him.
His heavier weapon struck first.
Frost burst across the torturer's armor.
Kaylor struck again.
Divine power followed.
The man reeled backward under the assault.
Kaylor did not give him room to recover.
He remembered what this man would become.
The wings.
The fangs.
The necrotic sword.
The thing waiting atop a mountain of bones.
And somewhere between this moment and that one, Craven would turn this man into something that had nearly killed them.
Kaylor hit him again.
The torturer staggered.
Fendor entered the chamber behind him.
The Oathbow rose.
Two arrows crossed the room.
The first struck a clockwork soldier.
The second followed immediately.
Metal rang.
The construct stumbled but remained upright.
Grazim came through next.
One of the machines moved toward him.
The war-priest met it with his hammer.
Steel buckled.
Grazim followed with his shield.
The rim caught the construct squarely and threw it onto its back.
The machine immediately began trying to rise.
Grazim looked down at it.
“I have seen this trick.”
The construct stood anyway.
Hexen entered with the surviving wolves.
The animals spread through the chamber.
The clockwork soldiers hesitated.
Only for a moment.
Then they attacked.
The machine beside Isamu stabbed through the cage again.
Isamu shifted aside.
The weapon struck iron.
Somewhere near his feet, something small skittered across the floor.
A dagger.
One of his companions had thrown it through the bars during the chaos.
Isamu picked it up.
Not his preferred weapon.
Not even close.
It would do.
He tested the lock.
The mechanism was heavier than it looked.
Complicated.
Strong.
He began working the dagger into it anyway.
Outside the cage, the battle widened.
Nethnarel sent Witch Bolt into one of the machines threatening Isamu.
Lightning connected her to the construct in a continuous crackling line.
The machine shuddered.
Its metal body smoked.
It remained active.
Hexen sent his wolves toward another.
They surrounded the construct.
One snapped at its leg.
Another attacked from behind.
The machine turned toward the first wolf.
That gave the others their chance.
Grazim struck the construct he had knocked down.
His hammer crashed into its chest.
The shell split.
The mechanism inside sparked.
The machine collapsed.
Kaylor remained focused on the torturer.
The man defended himself far better than Kaylor expected.
He was no helpless scholar.
He knew armor.
He knew weapons.
He had killed before.
Perhaps many times.
But Kaylor had already fought the thing this man would become.
He knew where the openings would be.
The Dancing Sword attacked from one side.
Kaylor came from the other.
The torturer blocked the independent blade.
He could not block Kaylor.
Frost tore through him.
Then divine light.
The man fell.
Kaylor stood over the body.
For an instant, he expected it to rise again with wings and fangs.
It did not.
Not in this age.
Not yet.
A clockwork soldier spun toward the cage.
Something inside it changed.
Its movements became faster.
Violent.
The polearm became a blur.
Isamu saw the first strike coming.
He shifted inside the confined space.
The blade missed.
The second came immediately.
Isamu snapped the dagger into position and turned with the attack, using the small weapon as though it were part of his body.
Metal screamed against metal.
The strike deflected.
The third attack came too quickly.
There was no room left to evade.
The weapon struck him.
Pain flared across his side.
Isamu grunted.
“I'm beginning to dislike this cage.”
Hexen heard him.
The druid crossed the room.
He drew back one of his spears.
Isamu saw what he was doing.
“Hexen.”
The druid threw.
“Hexen.”
The spear crossed the chamber.
It passed close enough to the cage for Isamu to hear the air split beside his head.
Then the weapon punched through the clockwork soldier's body.
Gears shattered.
The machine seized.
Smoke escaped through the joints.
It collapsed.
Isamu stared at Hexen.
The druid held out one hand.
“Missed you.”
“That was not reassuring.”
Isamu returned to the lock.
The dagger dug deeper into the mechanism.
Something clicked.
He twisted.
The cage door opened.
Isamu stepped out.
Free.
He looked around for his weapons.
None were there.
Only torture instruments.
Chains.
Hooks.
Brands.
Whips.
Sickles.
He took a whip from the nearest rack.
It was ugly.
Ordinary.
Better than nothing.
Across the room, another construct lunged toward Hexen.
The druid had recovered his thrown spear.
The machine spun into a rapid series of attacks.
Hexen raised his defenses.
One strike landed.
The others did not.
Fendor fired.
One arrow missed its intended target and cut across the space toward Isamu.
The monk turned.
The arrow passed him.
Isamu watched it go.
Then looked at Fendor.
Fendor lowered the Oathbow slightly.
“I meant to do that.”
“No, you didn't.”
“No.”
The wolves brought down another machine.
Nethnarel released her Witch Bolt and sent an Ice Knife through the chamber.
The blade struck.
Cold exploded.
Grazim raised one hand toward a damaged construct.
The bell sounded.
Toll the Dead.
The machine convulsed as magic tore through whatever force animated it.
Another Eldritch Blast crossed the room.
The final construct staggered.
Hexen reached it.
His spear entered the mechanism.
He twisted.
The machine came apart.
Silence descended.
Isamu stood in the middle of the torture chamber holding a whip.
His clothes were damaged.
His weapons were gone.
His friends stared at him.
He stared back.
Kaylor was the first to move.
He crossed the room and gripped Isamu's shoulder.
“You're alive.”
Isamu looked at him.
“I had noticed.”
“What happened?”
Isamu's humor faded.
“The light.”
“The vortex?”
Isamu nodded slowly.
“I remember it pulling at us.”
He looked around the room.
“Then nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“I woke up in there.”
He pointed toward the cage.
“How long?”
“I don't know.”
Nethnarel looked toward the pristine walls.
“That is becoming the answer to too many questions.”
Isamu glanced around.
“Where is Leonidas?”
No one answered immediately.
That was answer enough.
Isamu looked from face to face.
“What happened?”
Fendor looked toward the abandoned parasol they had carried with them.
“Demon Dice.”
Isamu waited.
Fendor shrugged.
“It is a longer explanation.”
“Is he dead?”
“We don't know.”
Isamu frowned.
“Good explanation.”
He handed the dagger back toward the person who had thrown it to him.
Then he looked at the whip in his other hand.
“This is temporary.”
Hexen looked at it.
“Of course.”
“It is.”
“No one said otherwise.”
Isamu narrowed his eyes.
Then Grazim noticed the body.
Not the torturer.
The other one.
The figure lying near the center of the chamber.
A dragonborn.
Male.
Recently dead.
Grazim crossed the room and knelt.
The body had been brutalized.
Restraint marks covered the limbs.
The wounds were fresh.
This person had not been dead long.
Kaylor joined him.
“Can you do anything?”
Grazim examined the corpse.
“Yes.”
Nethnarel looked at him.
“You're sure?”
“No.”
Grazim placed his hands against the dead dragonborn's chest.
“But I can try.”
The prayer required more than ordinary healing.
Healing repaired life.
This demanded that life return.
Grazim closed his eyes.
His voice lowered.
The others fell silent.
Even Isamu stopped examining the torture devices.
Divine power entered the corpse.
At first, nothing happened.
Then the dead dragonborn inhaled.
A terrible, ragged breath.
His entire body jerked.
His eyes opened.
He screamed.
Kaylor caught him before he could fall from the table.
“Easy.”
The dragonborn stared wildly around the room.
His eyes found the dead torturer.
He recoiled.
“No.”
“He's dead,” Kaylor said.
The man stared.
“You killed him?”
“Yes.”
The dragonborn began shaking.
Grazim helped him sit upright.
“You were dead.”
The man looked at him.
“What?”
“You died.”
The dragonborn's face went pale.
Grazim decided not to elaborate.
“What is your name?”
The man swallowed.
“Krill.”
His voice was weak.
“Kril,” Kaylor repeated.
The dragonborn nodded.
“Where are you from?”
“The city.”
“What city?”
Krill named it.
The heroes exchanged glances.
The same city whose ruins stood outside the Vault in their own age.
Grazim continued.
“What happened to you?”
Krill looked at the restraints.
“I was working.”
“Where?”
“A tavern.”
His breathing remained shallow.
“I finished late.”
He closed his eyes, trying to remember.
“There were figures in robes.”
The heroes became very still.
“They came from an alley. I thought they wanted coin.”
Krill shook his head.
“They grabbed me.”
“What did they look like?”
“I don't know.”
“How many?”
“I don't know.”
His voice began rising.
“I woke up here.”
He pointed toward the dead torturer.
“That thing—”
“He was a man,” Nethnarel said.
Krill stared at her.
“He was a monster.”
No one corrected him.
“They put me on that rack.”
He pointed.
“They stretched me. Asked questions. I don't even know what they wanted.”
His hands began shaking again.
“Then I remember pain.”
Krill looked at Grazim.
“Then you.”
Grazim nodded.
Kaylor had one question left.
“What year is it?”
Krill told them.
No one spoke.
Kaylor knew the date.
Not because he had lived it.
Because he had studied history.
Because the order had taught its paladins the histories of kingdoms, wars, rulers, temples, and catastrophes.
The number belonged to another age.
Roughly a thousand years before the world from which they had entered the Vault.
Nethnarel spoke first.
“A thousand.”
Grazim looked at her.
“Approximately.”
Hexen looked toward the door.
“So we really are in the past.”
Kaylor looked at the torturer's body.
The living version of the vampiric knight.
“Yes.”
Fendor understood the next part.
“And Craven?”
No one wanted to say it.
Kaylor did.
“Alive.”
The word changed the room.
Craven was not a dead wizard whose traps had survived him.
Not here.
Not now.
Somewhere beyond these walls, Craven existed.
Working.
Experimenting.
Taking people from the streets.
Hiding beneath a city that would search for him and fail.
Kaylor remembered what they knew of the old stories.
People had disappeared.
Rumors had spread.
Someone had been conducting grotesque experiments.
No one had ever found the person responsible.
No one had brought Craven to justice.
They had entered the age in which those crimes were still happening.
And now they knew where he was.
Hexen looked around the torture chamber.
“So we find him.”
Nethnarel glanced at him.
“We don't know what changing something here does to where we came from.”
Hexen pointed at the racks.
“I know what leaving him alone does.”
That ended the argument.
For now.
Krill could barely stand.
Whatever Grazim's magic had restored, it had not erased what death had done to him.
The dragonborn clung to the edge of the table.
“How do I get out?”
The heroes looked at one another.
They did not know.
Krill saw the answer.
His face fell.
“You don't know where you are.”
“We know where,” Fendor said.
Isamu looked at the pristine stone.
“It's the when that's complicated.”
Krill stared at him.
That did not help.
They armed him with one of the smaller torture-room implements simply so he would not be entirely helpless.
Isamu kept the whip.
No one pretended either weapon would matter against what the Vault had already shown them.
They returned to the corridors.
The geometry was familiar.
Everything else felt wrong.
The same doors.
The same turns.
The same chambers.
But clean.
Maintained.
Alive.
Behind one door, they heard mechanical movement.
Regular.
Patrolling.
More constructs.
Behind another, silence.
Kaylor studied the direction.
“That way.”
“Why?” Grazim asked.
“The laboratory.”
They followed.
The corridor led where memory said it should.
The secret architecture they had uncovered in the dead Vault still existed.
Only now it had not had centuries to decay.
The laboratory beyond was active.
Tables stood covered with books, glassware, potions, and written notes.
Braziers burned.
Nothing was coated in dust.
Nothing had dried into mystery.
For Nethnarel, the room might have been more dangerous than the torture chamber.
Her eyes went immediately to the books.
“Don't.”
She looked at Kaylor.
“Don't what?”
“Touch everything.”
“I wasn't going to.”
“You were.”
“I was going to read everything.”
“That is touching with your eyes.”
Nethnarel ignored him.
Movement came from between the tables.
Four clockwork figures appeared.
These were different from the soldiers.
Slender.
Lightly built.
Servants rather than warriors.
Their metal hands were made to carry instruments, bottles, trays, perhaps books.
For several seconds, neither side moved.
Then the servants saw the heroes.
They retreated.
Not attacked.
Retreated.
Their mechanisms began producing a rapid whirring sound.
An alarm.
“Stop them,” Kaylor said.
Nethnarel raised both hands.
Telekinetic force wrapped around the constructs.
All four rose from the floor.
Their legs continued moving uselessly in the air.
The alarm grew louder.
Nethnarel lifted them higher.
“They aren't fighting.”
“No,” Kaylor said.
“They're warning someone.”
“Ah.”
Nethnarel dropped them.
Metal crashed against stone.
One survived.
It tried to crawl toward the far side of the room.
Nethnarel lifted it again.
Dropped it.
The alarm stopped.
For several heartbeats, the laboratory was quiet.
Then Hexen looked toward the doors.
“That was probably too late.”
No one disagreed.
They moved quickly.
Books disappeared from tables.
So did potions.
Notes.
Loose papers.
Anything that looked as though it might tell them what Craven had been doing, what he was building, or how the Vault worked.
They did not have Leonidas's Bag of Holding anymore.
That problem became apparent almost immediately.
Fendor held up three books.
“Who has room?”
Kaylor already had two.
“No.”
Nethnarel had somehow acquired a stack.
“Give them to Grazim.”
Grazim looked at the books.
“I am wearing plate armor.”
“That leaves less space?”
“Yes.”
Hexen took one.
Then another.
Isamu watched them.
“We break into the past and your first instinct is theft.”
Nethnarel looked at him.
“Knowledge.”
“Knowledge theft.”
“Yes.”
“Good. Just checking.”
They heard something outside.
A mechanical sound.
Distant.
Then another.
Not the small alarm of the servants.
Something heavier.
Moving.
Kaylor went to the nearest door.
“Lock it.”
They began securing the laboratory.
Some doors had ordinary mechanical locks.
Those were engaged.
Others were positioned so they could use furniture or other obstacles.
The Immovable Rod remained ready if they needed something stronger.
Fendor moved from entrance to entrance.
“Nothing yet.”
Grazim listened at another.
“Something.”
“Where?”
He pointed.
“Coming this way.”
The corridor beyond the door was already illuminated.
Now the light changed.
It brightened.
Not torchlight.
Not fire.
White.
Pure white.
It moved.
The illumination swept along the corridor as though carried by something approaching around the bend.
Kaylor watched the thin line beneath the door grow brighter.
“Something is coming.”
Nethnarel moved toward another entrance.
Light appeared beneath that one too.
Fendor checked a third.
Another glow.
Three directions.
At least.
Hexen called his wolves closer.
Isamu tightened the ordinary whip around his hand.
He looked down at it.
Then toward Kaylor.
“I would like my weapons back.”
Kaylor drew his own.
“I'll put it on the list.”
The white glow beneath the first door flickered.
Not like flame.
Like something powerful moving through the corridor and turning as it came.
The second door brightened.
Then the third.
Krill backed toward the center of the laboratory.
“What is that?”
No one knew.
The heroes positioned themselves between him and the doors.
Fendor raised the Oathbow.
Hexen took both spears.
Grazim lifted his shield and warhammer.
Nethnarel let magic gather around her hands.
Kaylor's Dancing Sword rose beside him.
Isamu had a whip taken from a torture chamber.
It would have to be enough.
The alarm had gone out.
Craven's Vault was awake.
And from three different corridors, the light was coming for them.