Joraya Prison
The staircase climbed toward the most secure prison in Krinrith.
Kaylor stood at its base and counted the hours.
Sixteen remained before the execution they had been warned about.
Sixteen hours before the criminal called Mayhem was supposedly put to death.
Eight of those hours could restore the heroes’ strength.
Or consume half the time they had left.
Behind them lay the tomb of the ancient guardian they had defeated to reach this place. Grazim had been knocked unconscious. Hexen had spent much of his strongest magic. Nethnarel’s spells were diminished. Kaylor could feel exhaustion beneath every piece of his armor.
They needed rest.
They did not take it.
Kaylor placed one foot upon the staircase.
“We go now.”
No one argued.
The spiral rose through damp stone. The air gradually changed as they climbed, losing the stale cold of the catacombs and gaining the faint smells of oil, cooked food, and living people.
At the top, the stairs ended beneath a wooden hatch.
Thin light entered through cracks between the boards.
The heroes gathered beneath it.
Fendor listened.
Nothing moved directly above them.
No voices.
No footsteps.
Only the quiet creak of wood and the muffled activity of a building occupied elsewhere.
Isamu pressed one hand against the hatch.
It shifted slightly.
Not barred.
Kaylor nodded.
Isamu lifted it.
The hatch opened into the floor of a small stone chamber.
Isamu climbed through first.
The room had no windows. Thick walls enclosed a wooden table, two chairs, iron restraints, and a cabinet holding instruments designed to encourage truth without technically being called torture.
An interrogation room.
Isamu looked down through the opening.
“Empty.”
Kaylor climbed after him.
The others followed, closing the hatch behind them.
One wooden door led from the chamber.
Locked.
Isamu knelt before it and examined the mechanism.
Nethnarel lifted Gygax from her shoulder.
The mouse looked at the narrow space beneath the door.
Then at her.
“You know what to do.”
Gygax slipped through.
Nethnarel closed her eyes and concentrated on the impressions returning through their connection.
A larger chamber waited outside.
Tables.
A kitchen area.
Food.
Four guards.
Another door led farther into the prison.
Beyond it lay a long corridor and an enormous clockwork figure standing inside a shimmering blue field.
Nethnarel opened her eyes.
“Four guards in the next room. A second door beyond them. Something large in the corridor.”
“How large?” Grazim asked.
“Larger than Kaylor.”
“That is unhelpfully broad.”
“An armored construct. Possibly another guardian.”
Hexen crouched beside the door.
“I should look.”
“You are considerably larger than Gygax,” Isamu said.
Hexen’s body contracted.
His clothing and equipment vanished into the change. A second mouse stood where the druid had been.
Isamu looked down at him.
“That solved the problem.”
Mouse-Hexen slipped beneath the door.
He joined Gygax in the guard chamber.
The four guards were celestial-blooded people native to this age, their features close enough to human that the heroes would once have mistaken them for such. They sat around a table eating and talking quietly.
None looked cruel.
None looked corrupted.
They looked like tired soldiers partway through a long watch.
Beyond them, the second doorway stood open.
The construct waited in the corridor.
It resembled an empty suit of armor built to the proportions of a giant. Gears moved beneath its plates. Heavy arms hung at its sides.
A transparent blue aura surrounded it and extended across the width of the passage.
Hexen moved closer.
The instant he neared the blue boundary, his connection to nature weakened.
The sensation was immediate and profound.
The magic sustaining his borrowed shape began to fray.
Gygax experienced something similar.
Her telepathic presence in Nethnarel’s mind dimmed as she approached the field. Whatever waited beyond that blue light became unreachable to her senses.
The clockwork guardian looked down.
Directly at Gygax.
The mouse froze beneath a table.
The construct took no action.
It had seen her.
It simply did not consider a mouse a threat.
Gygax retreated.
Hexen followed.
When the druid resumed his natural shape inside the interrogation room, his expression was unusually serious.
“Antimagic.”
Nethnarel frowned.
“Certain?”
“I nearly changed back before reaching it.”
“Anything within the field is cut off,” Nethnarel said. “Gygax could not sense through it.”
Kaylor looked at the locked door.
“And the guards?”
“Ordinary guards,” Hexen said. “As far as I could tell.”
Kaylor’s answer came immediately.
“We do not kill them.”
Isamu leaned against the wall.
“Then how do we cross a guarded room?”
“We persuade them.”
“You are entering through a hidden tunnel beneath their interrogation chamber.”
“Yes.”
“You are wearing armor from their religious order, but from a future rank that may not exist yet.”
“Yes.”
“You are accompanied by people whose races do not exist on this plane.”
Kaylor looked at him.
“Do you have a better plan?”
“Several. You rejected the ones involving violence.”
Nethnarel examined the door.
“We can frighten them.”
“Without killing them,” Kaylor said.
“I heard you the first several times.”
Grazim considered the spells remaining to him.
“I can hold several in place if necessary.”
Nethnarel touched the Wand of Fear at her belt.
“And I can encourage the others to leave.”
Kaylor remembered the vestments they had taken from the undead guardians below. The cloth had survived better than it should have, preserved by the tomb’s magic.
He drew one over his armor.
The markings belonged to the tradition from which the Sanctum of Serenity would eventually grow. Ancient, but recognizable.
Combined with the lieutenant’s insignia already carried upon his armor, it might buy them several heartbeats.
That would have to be enough.
Isamu finished opening the lock.
Kaylor placed one hand upon the door.
“Let me speak first.”
He entered the guard chamber.
The four guards reacted immediately.
Chairs scraped against stone.
Hands reached for weapons.
Then they saw the uniform.
They saw the rank.
Confusion replaced alarm.
The senior guard stood and saluted.
The others followed.
Kaylor returned the salute with the instinctive precision of someone who had performed it thousands of times in a life he barely remembered.
The commander looked at the strange vestment over Kaylor’s armor.
“Lieutenant?”
Kaylor moved farther into the room.
“My companions and I were tracking a criminal through the catacombs beneath the island.”
The guard’s salute slowly lowered.
“The catacombs?”
“We discovered an unauthorized passage leading into this interrogation chamber.”
The guards exchanged glances.
Kaylor continued.
“We need access to the prison.”
The commander studied him more carefully.
His eyes moved over Kaylor’s insignia.
Then to the impossible strangers appearing behind him.
A tiefling.
An elf.
Two humans.
The suspicion in his expression deepened.
“Lieutenant, I do not recognize your unit.”
“You would not.”
“That is not an explanation.”
Nethnarel entered.
She held a scroll recovered from the catacombs.
The guard looked at her.
That was enough.
Nethnarel read the spell.
The scroll dissolved into light.
Magic settled around the commander’s thoughts.
His suspicion softened.
He looked at Nethnarel as though she had become the only person in the chamber worth seeing.
She smiled.
“Hello.”
The commander smiled back.
Kaylor glanced at her.
“Subtle.”
“I am being extremely subtle.”
Nethnarel stepped closer to the guard.
“We are searching for someone.”
“Anyone,” the commander said.
The three guards behind him stared.
Nethnarel ignored them.
“A prisoner called Mayhem.”
The commander looked confused.
“Mayhem?”
“The leader of the criminal network near Hunter’s Landing.”
“There is no one here by that name.”
The certainty in his answer disturbed Kaylor more than a lie would have.
Nethnarel maintained her smile.
“Perhaps he uses another name. A very important prisoner scheduled to be executed.”
The commander shook his head.
“All prisoners were removed.”
Kaylor stepped closer.
“When?”
“Two or three days ago. Orders came to clear the facility.”
“Why?”
“I was not told.”
“What are you guarding?”
The commander looked around the room as though he had not considered the question.
“We remain assigned to Joraya.”
“But there are no prisoners.”
“No.”
“Then why are the protections still active?”
“The shield guardians always remain active.”
Kaylor looked toward the blue field.
The commander continued speaking to Nethnarel.
“We report for our shifts. We maintain the prison. We wait for further orders.”
Every prisoner had been removed shortly before strangers approached the heroes with an offer to rescue one.
Kaylor felt the first edge of unease.
Nethnarel took the commander’s arm.
“I would enjoy seeing the prison.”
He hesitated.
She leaned closer.
“Very much.”
The hesitation disappeared.
“I could show you.”
The other guards stood.
“Commander?”
He looked back at them.
“They have discovered a breach beneath the interrogation room. I am going to inspect it and show our guests the facility.”
None of the other three accepted that explanation.
One reached toward his weapon.
Grazim spoke a word.
Divine magic crossed the room.
All three guards froze.
Their bodies locked in place.
Their eyes remained aware.
Isamu closed the door behind the heroes.
“We have approximately one minute.”
They moved quickly.
The guards were disarmed, bound, blindfolded, and gagged. The heroes carried them into the sleeping quarters adjoining the kitchen.
The charmed commander followed Nethnarel willingly.
He seemed only mildly concerned that his soldiers had been restrained.
They placed him with the others once he had answered their remaining questions.
The next shift change would not occur for roughly four hours. The prison was mostly below ground, with only a small guardhouse and docks visible upon the island’s surface. More guards might be scattered elsewhere, but these four had only recently begun their rotation.
The main cells lay beyond the blue corridor.
Kaylor shut the door to the quarters.
They pushed a heavy table against it.
Isamu considered the Immovable Rod.
“We may need that later.”
Kaylor nodded.
“Keep it.”
From behind the barricaded door came an angry muffled sound.
Nethnarel looked toward it.
“The commander will be very disappointed when the spell ends.”
“He will be alive,” Kaylor said.
“That is generally preferable.”
They approached the corridor.
The shield guardian moved before they crossed the threshold.
It planted itself directly in the center of the passage.
The blue field moved with it.
Kaylor felt the magic in his armor diminish as the aura approached.
Fendor drew the Oathbow.
“I can strike it from here.”
“Do it.”
Fendor released.
Two arrows crossed the guard chamber.
As they entered the blue field, the enchantment surrounding them vanished. The shafts continued as ordinary arrows and struck the guardian’s armored body.
The damage was small.
The response was immediate.
The construct came fully awake.
Gears accelerated beneath its armor.
It turned toward the heroes.
Isamu threw his boomerang.
The weapon crossed the field, lost its enchantment, struck metal, and returned.
Kaylor drew the frost-rimed axe.
“I will let it come to me.”
The guardian did not.
A section of its arm opened.
A heavy piece of metal launched across the corridor and struck Kaylor hard enough to stagger him.
Isamu looked at the fallen fragment.
“It is disassembling itself.”
“Helpful,” Kaylor growled.
Hexen became a mouse again.
He ran toward the corridor, intending to slip past the guardian.
The moment he crossed the blue boundary, the transformation ended.
Hexen Brew appeared at the construct’s feet.
The guardian looked down.
“Oh,” Hexen said.
Its fist struck him.
The blow threw the druid backward.
A second construct entered the corridor behind the first.
The blue field expanded with it, flowing into the guard chamber and washing over the heroes.
Magic vanished.
The Dancing Sword dropped from the air and became an ordinary blade.
The cold faded from Kaylor’s axe.
Nethnarel felt every connection to sorcery disappear.
Grazim’s divine power went silent.
Fendor’s Oathbow became wood and string.
Hexen’s matched spears remained sharp but lost the forces bound within them.
For several heartbeats, the heroes were only what remained without magic.
The shield guardians advanced.
Isamu smiled.
“This is less of a problem for me.”
He charged.
His rapier had lost its enchantment, but his body had not forgotten how to move. He struck at the joints between armored plates, followed with a fist, and drove a kick into one construct’s knee.
Grazim came beside him.
The war-priest slammed his shield into the guardian’s leg.
The construct failed to resist.
It dropped to one knee.
Grazim brought his hammer down against its exposed shoulder.
Kaylor joined him.
His axe struck once.
Then again.
No frost.
No divine radiance.
Only steel, strength, and fury.
Fendor remained near the edge of the moving field and fired through whatever openings he could find.
One arrow struck a joint.
Another glanced from the chest.
The first guardian staggered.
Then part of its damaged armor shifted back into place.
Broken gears reconnected.
The construct repaired itself.
Isamu stared.
“That is inconvenient.”
The guardian stood.
Its fist struck Grazim.
The second blow followed before the cleric could recover.
Grazim hit the floor.
He did not rise.
“Grazim!”
Kaylor attacked the construct in front of him, forcing it away from the fallen cleric.
Isamu reached Grazim and pressed one hand against the worst of the wounds.
No healing magic answered.
He worked with pressure, cloth, and whatever knowledge of mortal bodies his training provided.
Grazim’s breathing steadied.
Barely.
The second guardian struck Hexen twice.
The first blow turned him.
The second nearly dropped him.
Fendor drew faster.
He emptied arrow after arrow into the damaged construct, using every reserve of speed his training allowed.
The guardian fell.
The blue field disappeared.
Magic returned in a rush.
The Oathbow awakened in Fendor’s hands.
The enchantment upon the arrow already in flight reappeared before it struck the fallen construct.
Power entered the machine.
Its body convulsed.
Metal plates burst apart.
The mechanism ceased repairing itself.
“Magic stops the restoration,” Fendor said.
The remaining guardian rose again.
With it came the blue field.
Magic vanished once more.
Isamu attacked the construct until it fell.
The aura disappeared.
Fendor fired.
Enchanted force shattered more of its internal workings.
The guardian struggled to reassemble itself.
Kaylor lifted the axe.
The frost returned along its edge.
He struck the fallen machine with both hands.
The construct broke apart.
This time, it remained broken.
Silence filled the corridor.
Kaylor waited.
Nothing repaired itself.
Hexen kicked one separated piece farther from the others.
“Spread them out.”
They tore the machines apart until no two major sections remained close enough to reconnect.
Inside the chest of the construct that had projected the antimagic field, they found a strange opalescent stone.
Its light had faded.
Nethnarel approached cautiously.
“Whatever powered the field may have come from this.”
“Can it be used again?” Isamu asked.
“Possibly.”
“Can you determine how?”
“Possibly.”
“Can you do so before more guards arrive?”
“No.”
Isamu pocketed the stone.
Behind them, Grazim remained unconscious.
Hexen uncorked one of the superior healing potions and poured it between the cleric’s lips.
The magic worked.
Grazim inhaled sharply and sat upright.
He looked at the wreckage.
“Did we win?”
Kaylor offered him a hand.
“Eventually.”
A door farther down the prison opened.
Two guards entered the corridor.
They saw the destroyed shield guardians.
They saw the bloodied strangers standing over the remains.
Both drew weapons.
Kaylor stepped forward.
“Stand down.”
One guard faltered.
The other held his ground.
Kaylor’s voice filled the corridor.
“Stand down or join them.”
The first guard fled.
The second raised his weapon.
Nethnarel lifted the Wand of Fear.
Terror struck him.
He turned and ran after the first.
More movement came from a side passage.
Another pair of guards appeared.
Kaylor faced them.
His armor was covered in blood.
The shattered guardians lay behind him.
Neither guard required additional persuasion.
They retreated.
“Move,” Kaylor said. “Before someone braver arrives.”
Hexen called restorative magic through the group.
Wounds closed enough to allow them to continue.
The corridor reached a barred intersection.
Cells extended in both directions.
Two more guards waited on the far side.
They had seen enough.
When Kaylor approached the bars, both backed away.
“Where are the prisoners?” he demanded.
The guards pointed north.
“Open the gate.”
They did not.
Instead, they withdrew into a small holding chamber and locked themselves inside.
Isamu looked at Kaylor.
“You remain very persuasive.”
Hexen’s body dissolved into wind.
The druid became an air elemental and flowed between the bars.
He opened the gate from the opposite side.
Then he saw what waited farther ahead.
Something crouched over a guard.
At first, Hexen thought it was a dog.
Then it raised its head.
Its jaws were too large.
A barbed tail curved above its body.
Demonic light burned beneath its hide.
Blood covered its muzzle.
Another similar creature stood nearby.
The first guard was already dead.
The fiends had torn him apart with the casual hunger of animals feeding upon carrion.
Kaylor entered the passage.
His divine senses reached them.
“Fiends.”
The creatures turned.
Hexen surged forward as living air.
One beast bit into the elemental form. Its teeth somehow found resistance in the wind and tore part of it away.
The barbed tail struck next.
Poison entered nothing it could affect.
Hexen continued moving.
Isamu threw his boomerang.
The enchanted weapon struck one creature and returned.
Fendor fired from behind the bars.
Nethnarel sent an Ice Knife into the passage.
It struck one beast and exploded, scattering frozen fragments through both.
The fiends charged.
One reached Kaylor.
Its jaws snapped past his arm.
The tail did not miss.
The barb entered through a seam in his armor.
Poison flooded his body.
Kaylor froze.
His muscles refused every command.
The creature opened its mouth again.
Nethnarel raised both hands.
A Wall of Stone erupted through the corridor.
The growing barrier separated the fiends.
One sprang to the heroes’ side before the stone sealed the passage.
The other found itself trapped beyond it.
Isamu ran at the remaining beast.
He planted one foot against the wall, climbed several steps along the stone as though the surface were level ground, and vaulted over the creature.
His rapier struck as he passed.
He landed beyond it and attacked again.
The fiend turned toward him.
Hexen flowed through the narrow spaces around the newly formed wall.
Fendor invoked the Oathbow.
A pulse of healing passed through the heroes.
Kaylor felt strength return, though the poison still held his limbs.
Grazim entered the fight with the Warhammer of Disruption.
The first strike staggered the fiend.
The weapon recognized what it was.
Divine force tore through the demon’s body.
Grazim struck again.
The hammer landed with a sound like a temple bell cracking.
The fiend collapsed.
Behind the Wall of Stone, the second creature tore at the barrier.
Cracks appeared.
Kaylor fought the poison.
Sensation returned to his hands.
Then his arms.
He lifted the axe.
The stone broke.
The second beast came through.
Kaylor met it.
The axe struck.
Divine power followed.
The creature staggered but remained standing.
Nethnarel released three Scorching Rays.
Two struck the fiend.
Fire rolled across its body.
Isamu ran past it.
Not away from the battle.
Deeper into the prison.
He had seen movement beyond the creature.
People.
Three figures stood near one of the cells.
A dragonborn woman was held between them.
She looked exhausted and terrified. Her clothing was plain and travel-stained, entirely unlike the armor and uniforms surrounding her.
Behind her stood a familiar aasimar.
Gavasani.
The thief they had watched die beneath the water elemental.
The man whose body they had left in the catacombs.
Alive.
His arm was locked around the dragonborn woman’s throat.
A blade rested against her back.
Beside them stood the celestial-blooded woman who had surrounded the heroes at Hunter’s Landing.
The woman who had offered them Mayhem.
The woman who had sent them to Joraya.
She saw Isamu.
And smiled.
Isamu stopped.
“Gavasani?”
The thief looked at him.
There was no drunken humor in his face.
No fear.
No gratitude.
Only purpose.
The dragonborn woman tried to speak.
Gavasani drove the knife into her back.
She gasped.
He pulled her against him and drew the blade across her throat.
Blood poured down her clothing.
Isamu moved.
Too late.
The woman who had hired them laughed.
She placed one hand upon Gavasani.
The other touched the dying dragonborn.
Magic gathered around all three.
“No!”
Isamu lunged.
The world folded.
The woman vanished.
Gavasani vanished with her.
The murdered dragonborn disappeared between them.
Isamu’s hand closed on empty air.
Behind him, the battle still raged.
The fiend screamed.
Weapons struck stone.
Kaylor called his god’s name.
But in the space beyond the broken wall, only blood remained.
The prison had never held Mayhem.
Gavasani had never been their guide.
The woman had never needed them to rescue anyone.
She had needed the protections of Joraya destroyed.
She had needed the guards distracted.
She had needed a path opened to the one person hidden inside.
And the heroes had opened it for her.