Escape from the Vault
The first door burst open.
Fendor had been waiting.
The Oathbow was already drawn when the thing entered Craven's laboratory.
It resembled one of the clockwork servants that had raised the alarm, but only in the way a sword resembled a kitchen knife.
This one had been built for war.
Metal plates overlapped around a vaguely humanoid frame. Its arms ended in weapons. Its movements were fast and brutally precise.
Fendor released.
The first arrow struck its chest.
The second entered almost beside it.
The construct staggered.
It did not stop.
Then the books attacked.
Nethnarel heard the flutter behind her.
She turned.
Three volumes had lifted from one of Craven's tables.
Then five.
Then a dozen.
Pages opened.
Spines cracked.
The books began circling.
“What—”
They came at her like a flock of knives.
Nethnarel threw herself aside.
Pages slashed through the air where her face had been.
One book struck the wall hard enough to burst open.
Another curved around for a second pass.
Fendor glanced over.
“Are the books attacking you?”
“Yes.”
He considered this.
“That seems unnecessary.”
Another stack rose from a table.
Then another.
Soon the laboratory was filled with whirling paper.
Books attacked Grazim.
Books attacked Fendor.
Books attacked Isamu.
The monk ducked beneath one and raised the whip he had taken from Craven's torture chamber.
A page sliced past his cheek.
Isamu looked at it.
“Paper.”
Another book came for him.
He stepped aside.
“I'm being attacked by paper.”
Nethnarel blasted one from the air.
“Try not to lose.”
The second door opened.
Kaylor had positioned himself directly in front of it.
He inhaled.
Cold gathered inside him.
The instant the door moved, he breathed.
Frost exploded down the corridor.
The creature entering the room was almost liquid.
Its form flowed through itself like water and lightning given human shape.
Kaylor's breath struck it.
Ice formed briefly across the thing.
Then vanished into its shifting body.
The creature kept coming.
Kaylor narrowed his eyes.
“Cold doesn't work.”
“Useful discovery,” Fendor called.
The third door opened.
Something in red armor charged through.
At first Hexen thought it was another construct.
Then he saw the light inside it.
Red.
Hot.
Almost molten.
The thing held a longsword in both hands.
It swung.
Hexen took the first blow.
Metal crashed against him hard enough to turn him sideways.
The second missed.
Hexen brought both spears up.
“So that one's mine.”
The fourth door opened.
A rainbow entered the room.
That was the only reasonable description.
A humanoid shape made of swirling color flew through the doorway, its body gaseous and constantly shifting—red becoming violet, violet becoming green, green becoming colors none of them had names for.
It crossed the laboratory at terrifying speed.
Isamu barely had time to turn before the creature slammed into him.
The monk absorbed the impact and struck back with the whip as the thing passed.
The weapon touched resistance.
For an instant the colorful body became solid.
Then it dissolved again and shot toward the ceiling.
Isamu watched it rise.
“I really need my swords.”
“No,” Hexen said, fighting the red-armored creature. “The whip looks good on you.”
“It is temporary.”
Another mass of books attacked Isamu.
The monk looked at them.
“So is this conversation.”
The alarm continued screaming through the Vault.
Then the white light reached them.
The western door opened.
Pure brilliance stood beyond it.
A humanoid creature stepped into view.
Its body resembled the rainbow beings, but every color had been burned away.
Only white remained.
Not pale.
Not silver.
White like the center of a star.
The creature opened its mouth.
The sound that emerged struck Kaylor like a physical blow.
His ears rang.
Hexen's wolves broke.
Every animal recoiled at once.
The pack turned and fled across the laboratory, desperate to put distance between themselves and the screaming thing.
“Hexen!”
“I know!”
The druid called after them.
The wolves did not stop.
They could not hear him.
The creature's scream had deafened them.
Fendor drew another arrow.
“There are too many.”
He was correct.
The war-servant was still advancing.
The books filled the air.
The red-armored swordsman fought Hexen.
The rainbow creature circled overhead.
The white thing stood in the doorway.
And something blue moved in another corridor.
Nethnarel climbed onto one of the laboratory tables.
Tiny motes of fire appeared around her.
One.
Two.
Four.
Six.
Then more as sorcerous power fed the spell.
The miniature meteors began orbiting her.
“Oh,” Fendor said.
Nethnarel smiled.
“Now there are too many.”
She sent the first meteors into the flying books.
Explosions filled the laboratory.
Pages burned.
Covers shattered.
One entire swarm of animated volumes disappeared in a flash of fire.
A second meteor followed.
More books fell.
Another.
Paper rained from the ceiling.
Isamu punched one of the surviving books.
It dropped.
He looked at his fist.
“I am not telling anyone I did that.”
Fendor shot another out of the air.
“Too late.”
Hexen had his own problems.
The red swordsman struck again.
Hexen answered with both spears.
The Spear of Death entered first.
Then the Spear of Life.
This time the strange partnership between the weapons answered.
Power passed from one spear through the other.
Some of Hexen's wounds closed.
He smiled.
“Better.”
Kaylor saw the rainbow thing attack again.
The wolves had distracted it before fleeing, giving him an opening.
He reached for a different weapon.
The frost blade had done little against the elemental creatures.
So he sheathed it.
Then drew the Vicious Greatsword.
The heavier blade came free.
Kaylor stepped forward.
Divine power gathered.
The first strike hit.
Radiance exploded through the creature.
Kaylor struck again.
A second Divine Smite followed.
The rainbow form convulsed as holy light tore through the swirling colors.
It remained alive.
Barely.
Kaylor looked offended.
Nethnarel sent meteors into it.
The creature vanished in the explosion.
“Mine,” she said.
Kaylor looked at the empty air.
“I softened it.”
“Of course.”
The clockwork servants that had fled into the corners began moving.
Not away.
Toward one another.
One climbed onto another's back.
Metal shifted.
Gears opened.
Limbs locked together.
A third servant joined them.
Then a fourth.
Isamu stared.
“They are assembling.”
The mass rose.
Four small constructs had become one large one.
Too many arms.
Too many legs.
Parts spinning independently.
The thing unfolded toward the monk.
Isamu attacked before it could finish.
The whip snapped.
Then he stepped inside its reach.
One fist struck.
Then another.
He spent a breath of focused ki.
His hands became a blur.
Punch.
Elbow.
Palm.
A kick drove into the metal structure.
One of the servant bodies broke loose and collapsed.
Three remained connected.
The larger thing still moved.
Isamu stepped away before it could strike back.
The assembled construct reached after him.
Its attack missed.
Isamu smiled.
“Too slow.”
Fendor glanced toward him.
“You were in a cage an hour ago.”
“Yes.”
“I liked you better then.”
The white creature turned toward Kaylor.
Its face became brighter.
Kaylor knew something was coming.
He raised one arm.
A beam of white light crossed the laboratory.
The brightness passed through armor.
Through his closed eyelids.
Through everything.
For one terrible moment Kaylor saw nothing but white.
He twisted away before the full force could reach his eyes.
His sight returned in blurred shapes and burning afterimages.
“You all right?” Grazim asked.
“I can see.”
“Good.”
“Mostly.”
“Less good.”
Grazim moved toward the fighting.
The radiant guardian he had summoned followed beside him.
A construct tried to intercept the cleric.
Grazim swung the Warhammer of Disruption.
The blow missed.
He swung again.
Missed again.
Fendor saw it.
Grazim saw Fendor seeing it.
“Not one word.”
Fendor fired past him.
The arrow struck the construct.
“I said nothing.”
The battle became a contest of exhaustion.
Nethnarel hurled the last of her meteors.
Hexen drove his spears through the molten-red swordsman.
Isamu dismantled the combined clockwork creature one section at a time.
Fendor shot the gaseous creatures from the air.
Grazim called down Flame Strike.
Holy fire erupted through one of the remaining enemies.
Kaylor charged the white creature.
His vision had cleared.
His patience had not.
The Vicious Greatsword came down.
Branding Smite burst across the creature.
Radiant fire clung to its white form.
Kaylor struck again.
Then added another Divine Smite.
And another.
The thing nearly came apart under him.
Hexen reached it a moment later.
The Spear of Death entered the creature.
It collapsed.
For the first time since the alarm began, the laboratory became almost quiet.
One final mass of clockwork parts remained.
Isamu went to it.
The whip struck.
His fist followed.
Then another.
The construct collapsed into loose metal.
Nothing moved.
The heroes stood amid burning books, smashed tables, broken machines, and scattered pages.
Fendor lowered the Oathbow.
“Is that all of them?”
Hexen's head snapped toward the northwestern door.
“No.”
The temperature had changed.
Not hotter.
Colder.
But the cold was strange.
Wet.
Hexen drew a breath.
Humidity filled the air.
Then he heard it.
Water.
A trickle appeared beneath the door.
It became a stream.
Then a surge.
“Out.”
Kaylor looked at him.
“What?”
“Out!”
The door burst inward.
Water rushed into the laboratory.
At first it covered their boots.
Then their ankles.
The level rose almost visibly.
Nethnarel looked toward the destroyed clockwork servants.
“The alarm.”
Fendor understood.
“The Vault is destroying itself.”
“Or Craven is.”
Water poured through the doorway.
The heroes ran.
Kaylor took the lead.
He entered the first corridor and immediately heard Nethnarel shout behind him.
“Not that way!”
He stopped.
“Why?”
“Maze.”
Gygax had already explored it.
The corridor went nowhere useful.
Kaylor reversed direction.
The water had reached their shins.
Hexen's wolves finally returned, shaken and wet, rejoining the druid as the heroes pushed through the corridors.
No Pete flew ahead of them now.
That absence felt larger than it should have.
Leonidas was gone.
Pete was gone.
The Bag of Holding was gone.
And the Vault was filling with water.
They reached the chamber where the temporal vortex had first thrown them into Craven's age.
The room had changed again.
The small statues of Craven still surrounded the central mechanism.
The blue gate still turned.
The doors slammed shut behind them.
Water leaked beneath the stone.
Then a voice spoke.
“You are not my master.”
The heroes turned.
Something unfolded near the central gate.
It was enormous.
A dragon built from clockwork.
Metal wings opened.
Mace-like structures formed its forelimbs. Gears turned beneath armored plates. Its head swung from Kaylor to Grazim to Nethnarel.
“You are not my master.”
The construct moved toward the blue vortex.
Protectors appeared around it.
Smaller mechanical figures rose and positioned themselves between the heroes and the dragon.
Kaylor lifted the Vicious Greatsword.
“It's leaving.”
“Let it,” Isamu said.
Everyone looked at him.
The monk pointed at the rising water.
“We have other problems.”
The dragon reached the vortex.
The gate brightened.
Fendor drew the Oathbow.
“Or we can shoot it.”
“That also works.”
Fendor invoked the bow's restorative magic first.
Healing spread through the party.
Then he named the clockwork dragon his enemy.
He fired.
One arrow.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Three struck the dragon.
The fourth curved away and buried itself in one of the defenders.
Kaylor's Dancing Sword attacked another.
Grazim charged with his hammer.
The wolves surrounded one of the smaller constructs.
Nethnarel looked at the gate.
Then the dragon.
Then the space around both.
“I have an idea.”
Kaylor did not look at her.
“Is it going to explode?”
“No.”
“That worries me more.”
Nethnarel raised both hands.
Fire rose around the vortex.
Not a line.
A cylinder.
A circular Wall of Fire surrounded the clockwork dragon and the gate.
Flames climbed toward the ceiling.
The construct stood inside the inferno.
For a heartbeat, Nethnarel thought she had trapped it.
Then the vortex pulled.
The clockwork dragon sank.
Not fell.
It was drawn downward into the swirling blue light as though the gate had become a drain in reality.
The mechanical creature disappeared piece by piece.
Head.
Wings.
Body.
Tail.
Gone.
The vortex remained open behind it.
For only a moment.
Isamu stared at the portal.
He could jump.
Probably reach it.
Possibly follow the construct.
He looked at the water.
Then the disappearing gate.
Then at the others.
“No.”
Fendor looked at him.
“No?”
“I have developed impulse control.”
The gate collapsed.
Blue light disappeared.
The escape route the dragon had used vanished with it.
The water continued rising.
“Excellent timing,” Hexen said.
Two remaining constructs attacked.
The heroes killed them quickly.
They had no patience left for another battle.
Then they ran.
The water reached their knees.
Then higher.
They pushed through the torture chamber where Isamu had been imprisoned.
The racks stood empty now.
Krill was gone from the room with them, kept as close and protected as possible as the party fled.
They passed the laboratory again.
Nethnarel slowed at one of the tables.
Kaylor noticed.
“No.”
“Scrolls.”
“No.”
“Three scrolls.”
“Neth.”
She grabbed them.
“Now.”
They ran.
The water climbed.
They reached the route Gygax had identified earlier—the passage that led toward the original entrance.
A staircase waited ahead.
Up.
Kaylor hit the first step.
Everyone followed.
The rushing water filled the passage behind them.
They climbed.
Stone shook.
Somewhere below, part of the Vault collapsed.
Then another.
The sound followed them upward.
The heroes reached the hidden entrance beneath Craven's house.
They forced their way through.
Daylight struck them.
Real daylight.
For several seconds, no one moved.
Kaylor stepped outside.
The city was alive.
Not the dead city they had crossed.
Not broken walls.
Not empty streets.
Alive.
People moved everywhere.
Markets filled the roads.
Smoke rose from chimneys.
Merchants shouted.
Carts moved.
Dragonborn walked openly beneath banners that had been dust for a thousand years in the world the heroes knew.
Other peoples moved among them too—races native to this plane, strange but ordinary here.
The house behind the heroes groaned.
They moved away from it.
A section of the floor collapsed inward.
Water erupted through the lower rooms.
The entrance to Craven's Vault disappeared beneath stone and flood.
Fendor stared.
“There goes the evidence.”
“Not all of it,” Nethnarel said.
She held up the three scrolls.
Kaylor barely noticed.
He knew this street.
The realization hit him without warning.
He turned.
A tower rose beyond the rooftops.
He knew that too.
Another street.
A bridge.
A distant wall.
Not because he had seen them since awakening on the mountain.
Because he had seen them before dying.
Memory came like pain.
Kaylor staggered.
Grazim caught him.
“What?”
Kaylor looked around.
“I know this place.”
The others became still.
“This is my city.”
Not the ruins.
Not some reconstruction.
The city.
Before the war.
Before the fiends came.
Before his death.
Before a thousand years passed and six heroes awakened beneath their own monument with nothing but names.
Something inside Grazim shifted.
A memory not quite his current life.
A battlefield.
Fire.
Hexen saw another.
Trees bending under impossible winds.
Fendor remembered drawing a bow against an enemy he could not yet name.
Nethnarel heard screaming from another world.
Fragments.
Not enough to explain.
Enough to hurt.
They had not learned their powers.
They had remembered them.
Now the world itself was reminding them.
Kaylor looked down at his armor.
The guards passing in the distance wore something similar.
Not identical.
Older.
The design belonged to this age.
His age.
He looked at the others.
Then at Isamu.
Humans did not belong here.
Neither did elves.
Neither did tieflings.
Not yet.
The planes had not joined.
The war that would change both worlds had not begun.
They had escaped Craven's Vault.
But they had not escaped Craven's time.
They were standing inside the lives they had forgotten.
Kaylor pulled his cloak around himself.
“Cover yourselves.”
Nethnarel raised an eyebrow.
“Why?”
“Because most of you shouldn't exist here.”
Isamu looked at his hands.
“That is rude.”
“It's accurate.”
Fendor drew up his hood.
“Where do we go?”
Kaylor looked across the living city.
One place came to him more clearly than the others.
A name.
A duty.
A memory of gates.
Guards.
Prayer.
The place he had once served.
“The Sanctum of Serenity.”
Grazim watched him.
“You trust them?”
Kaylor almost answered immediately.
Then stopped.
They had just escaped a hidden laboratory belonging to Craven.
A wizard whose servants abducted people from these streets.
A wizard whose crimes history said had never been uncovered.
Someone in this city had protected him.
Someone had failed to stop him.
Kaylor looked toward the distant towers of his old order.
“I used to.”
The others waited.
Kaylor began walking.
“Let's find out if I still should.”
Behind them, Craven's house continued collapsing into itself.
Ahead, the Sanctum of Serenity stood exactly where Kaylor remembered it.
And somewhere in the city—
Craven was alive.