The portal closed behind them.
For several heartbeats, nothing happened.
That was almost worse.
The frozen cavern was gone. The dueling harps were gone. The luminous pathways of the Astral Plane had vanished behind a curtain of darkness.
The five heroes stood upon a broad shelf of black stone drifting through the void.
It felt different from the other islands they had crossed.
Heavier.
More real.
Their boots struck the ground with weight instead of the dreamlike uncertainty that had governed movement elsewhere in the Astral Plane. A faint gray haze clung to the rocks, just bright enough to reveal broken ridges descending toward the center of the floating mass.
No crystal towers.
No guardian.
No music.
Fendor looked over the edge.
Distant fragments of stone drifted against the stars.
“Apparently the final trial is disappointment.”
Isamu crouched and put one palm against the ground.
Kaylor noticed.
“What?”
Isamu did not answer immediately.
He struck the stone lightly with two fingers.
The vibration ran farther than it should have.
His expression changed.
“The ground is moving.”
Nethnarel stopped.
Hexen looked down.
Another tremor passed beneath their boots.
Not an earthquake.
Something more precise.
A response.
Kaylor drew his weapons.
Ahead of them, a circular opening broke the otherwise uneven stone.
A well.
At least it resembled one.
Its walls descended into absolute blackness.
Fendor studied it.
“I dislike wells.”
“You dislike everything,” Nethnarel said.
“Experience has rewarded me for it.”
The ground moved again.
Harder.
Dust leapt between their boots.
Kaylor turned.
“Spread—”
The stone erupted.
The creature came out of the pit like a mountain being born.
Its mouth reached them first.
A vast circular maw ringed with teeth burst through fractured rock as the thing hauled itself upward. Segments of armored purple flesh followed, each wider than a wagon. The impact threw several of the heroes from their feet.
Fendor hit the stone hard.
Hexen rolled beside him.
Nethnarel caught herself against one knee.
Isamu remained standing.
He looked up.
And up.
The worm towered above him.
For perhaps the first time in his life, Isamu considered whether punching something might require excessive optimism.
Then he attacked it anyway.
His first strike landed against the creature’s lower jaw.
The second did not.
The worm recoiled, but only slightly.
Isamu moved with it.
Kaylor regained his footing and charged.
His Dancing Sword left his hand before he reached the beast, sweeping upward on its own while the frost-rimed greataxe came around in both hands.
The axe struck.
Cold burst across purple hide.
Kaylor hit again.
Then he drove darker power through the wound.
The worm screamed.
The sound vibrated through the entire floating island.
Fendor had reached one knee.
He drew his bow.
“Large target.”
“That generally helps,” Nethnarel said.
Fendor loosed.
The first arrow missed.
The next two did not.
They disappeared almost completely into the creature’s flesh.
The worm twisted.
Its body struck the ground with enough force to shake everyone again.
Then something crawled from the broken stone behind Fendor.
He heard it before he saw it.
A wet dragging sound.
Fendor turned.
The creature resembled something the heroes had encountered before—one of the enormous carrion-slug things that seemed designed by nature during a particularly malicious evening.
Its body dragged across the rock on thick folds of flesh.
Tendrils opened around its mouth.
Fendor sighed.
“Of course.”
The tendrils struck.
The final trial was not one monster.
It was an ecosystem.
Another of the sluglike things climbed from a fissure near Isamu.
A third emerged behind Kaylor.
The new creature facing Isamu convulsed.
Its mouth opened.
Black fluid sprayed across him.
The smell arrived before the pain.
Rot.
Not poison.
Something closer to death made liquid.
Isamu staggered.
Darkness spread briefly through the veins beneath his skin before he forced himself upright.
He wiped the foul substance from his face.
“That was unpleasant.”
Nethnarel moved toward the central worm.
Fire wrapped around her.
The Rings of Fire answered instantly.
But this was more than the rings.
Flame spread across her entire body in a controlled sheath, not consuming her clothing or flesh but surrounding her like living armor.
The heat bent the air.
Fendor glanced toward her.
“New?”
“No.”
That answer bothered her more than she expected.
The magic had come naturally.
Another thing remembered rather than learned.
Nethnarel thrust one hand toward the purple worm.
A narrow line of flame crossed the distance between them.
The creature recoiled as fire tore across its hide.
Behind her, Hexen rose.
He had never fully surrendered the elemental shape he had used during the previous trial.
Flame replaced flesh.
The druid became a walking column of fire and moved toward the creatures emerging from the stone.
Two heroes burning.
For very different reasons.
Kaylor did not have time to consider the symbolism.
The purple worm had chosen him.
Its mouth opened.
Kaylor looked upward.
“Oh, come on.”
The jaws closed.
The Cloak of Displacement confused the first bite.
The worm snapped down upon a dragonborn who was not there.
Its second strike found the real one.
Teeth punched against Kaylor’s armor.
The creature lifted him.
Kaylor slammed the haft of the axe across its mouth and tore himself free before the jaws could close completely.
Acid ran across his armor.
Heat followed.
Not flame.
Something chemical and hungry.
He landed badly.
The worm attacked again.
Kaylor barely turned aside.
Its tail came next.
The end was not blunt.
A stinger large enough to serve as a spear drove toward his chest.
It punched through one layer of armor.
Something flooded into the wound.
Venom.
Enough to kill a lesser creature where it stood.
Kaylor felt it enter his blood.
Then felt his body reject it.
The poison had nowhere to go.
The worm pulled its stinger free.
Kaylor looked at the wound.
Then at the creature.
“That was your best one.”
The worm screamed at him.
Kaylor raised the axe.
“Mine next.”
Isamu reached the monster first.
He struck.
Not simply at flesh.
At the hidden pathways beneath it.
The places where impulse became movement.
Where will became muscle.
Everyone had dismissed the idea earlier.
The creature was too large.
Too alien.
Too massive to be stopped by a man’s hand.
Isamu did not care.
His fist landed.
The purple worm froze.
Its entire body seized.
The enormous head dropped several feet.
Kaylor stared.
“You stunned it.”
Isamu stepped aside.
“Yes.”
Fendor saw the opening.
The Oathbow came up.
“Good.”
Everyone converged.
Arrows.
A frost-rimed axe.
The Dancing Sword.
Elemental fire.
Nethnarel’s burning line.
Isamu’s hands.
For the first time in the battle, the heroes stopped fighting five separate problems.
They fought one.
The worm absorbed an impossible amount of punishment.
Then moved again.
The stunning blow released it.
Its body convulsed.
Fendor swore.
“It is still alive.”
Kaylor drove his axe into it.
“Working on that.”
One of the carrion creatures lashed at his back.
The cloak split Kaylor’s image.
One tendril passed through nothing.
Another found him.
Hexen reached the creature.
The fire elemental did not strike immediately.
He simply stood beside it.
The heat alone began cooking the thing alive.
Then he embraced it.
For several deeply unpleasant seconds, the slug burned while wrapped in living flame.
Nethnarel saw another of the creatures closing.
She swept her hand.
Fire crossed the stone.
Then two smaller bolts followed from the Rings of Fire.
One struck.
The second vanished wide into the Astral dark.
“Still learning,” she muttered.
“You said you remembered them,” Fendor called.
“Memory and competence are different things.”
“That explains Isamu.”
The monk looked toward him.
Fendor immediately found something else to shoot.
The worm nearly swallowed Kaylor.
That became obvious only afterward.
Its mouth came down.
The dragonborn disappeared to the shoulders.
For one heartbeat Fendor saw nothing but Kaylor’s legs beneath an enormous ring of teeth.
Then the worm jerked away.
Kaylor came free.
Barely.
Acid smoked from his armor.
The tail struck again.
The poison failed again.
Kaylor hit the ground breathing hard.
He looked exhausted.
He also looked furious.
That combination had historically been dangerous for everyone nearby.
He rose.
The greatsword came free this time.
Dark steel flashed beside the still-moving Dancing Sword.
Kaylor charged one of the remaining slug creatures and struck three times before it could turn.
The Dancing Sword followed.
The creature sagged.
Did not die.
Kaylor stared at it.
“Why?”
From across the battlefield, Fendor shouted, “Perhaps it also dislikes you.”
Hexen’s fire washed over the thing.
That helped.
Isamu tore into another.
Nethnarel maintained the burning mantle around herself and drove another line of fire through the enemy.
The final creatures began dying.
One.
Then another.
The purple worm tried to rise one last time.
Nethnarel raised both wrists.
The Rings of Fire ignited.
Flame struck the worm.
Once.
Again.
The second blast entered through one of the wounds the others had already opened.
The great creature collapsed.
Its body struck the floating island like a falling tower.
The shock rolled outward.
Then stopped.
For several seconds, nothing moved except flame.
Hexen returned slowly toward human shape.
Fendor lowered the bow.
Isamu stood over one of the slain carrion things, covered in black filth.
Kaylor leaned on his sword.
Nethnarel let the investiture of flame burn a moment longer.
No one spoke.
At last Fendor looked at the enormous purple worm.
“I suppose we check its pockets.”
Kaylor laughed.
It hurt.
That made it better.
The ring they found did not come from the worm.
The mechanism of the trials had never been particularly interested in realism.
Once the last enemies fell, treasure simply made itself known among the stones.
Nethnarel examined the band.
“Magic.”
Hexen came over.
The druid had returned completely to human form.
Nethnarel turned the ring in her fingers.
Images moved faintly around its edge.
Animals.
Beasts.
Eyes in forests.
Wings.
Fangs.
“Influence over animals,” she said.
Everyone looked at Hexen.
He held up both hands.
“That seems prejudicial.”
“You summon wolves,” Isamu said.
“They die almost immediately,” Fendor added.
“That is not helping.”
Nethnarel tossed him the ring.
Hexen caught it.
“Perhaps now they will die happier.”
Fendor nodded.
“There. Problem solved.”
Hexen put the ring away with the expression of a man reconsidering his friendships.
Then the final page appeared.
It did not burst into being.
It formed slowly above the dead worm.
First a line.
Then parchment around it.
Then the shining notation that had marked the other stolen sheets.
The last page of the harp’s song drifted down.
Kaylor caught it.
He stared at it.
Three pages.
Three roads.
One bargain.
And after all of it—
Grazim was still waiting.
“Where is the return portal?” Nethnarel asked.
There was none.
That silenced them.
Fendor looked around.
“No circle.”
Isamu pointed toward a descending path.
Something waited in the darkness beyond it.
Not another monster.
A light.
Faint.
Purple.
Kaylor folded the page carefully.
“We walk.”
They used what healing remained as they went.
Not much.
Again, Grazim’s absence made itself felt most painfully after the fight.
There was no armored halfling complaining about their carelessness while knitting flesh back together.
No easy reservoir of divine strength.
Every wound required a choice.
Save the potion.
Use the magic.
Keep something for what came next.
Fendor finally broke the silence.
“When we find him, I am going to suggest he stop being captured.”
Kaylor glanced toward him.
“That is your first conversation?”
“Yes.”
“I was considering something warmer.”
“You may go first.”
The path curved.
Ahead, the light strengthened.
A familiar silhouette emerged.
The harp.
It waited beside a gate.
Its demonic face was smiling.
Nethnarel narrowed her eyes.
“That is not comforting.”
The harp began to play.
The music stand appeared.
The great book opened.
Kaylor removed the final page.
The parchment left his hand before he could offer it.
It crossed the space between them.
Slid into the empty place in the binding.
And the song became whole.
The first restored page had given the music melody.
The second had given it memory.
The third gave it purpose.
The harp played.
Not the teasing music from their first meeting.
Not the competitive phrases of the second trial.
Something immense.
Ancient.
Beautiful in the way storms were beautiful.
The music filled the floating island and reached beyond it into the Astral dark.
Fendor recognized the theme.
The uncertain title he had been unable to read seemed to move beneath it.
The tale of an ancient hero.
Or an Ancient One.
Perhaps the difference had never mattered.
The song knew what it meant.
That was enough.
Then the music changed.
Minor notes entered beneath the melody.
Dark ones.
The harp’s burning eyes fixed upon Nethnarel.
Its mouth opened in a grin.
The meaning came through the music rather than speech.
A bargain is a bargain.
The portal beside it brightened.
Then another phrase.
Lower.
Sinister.
Almost amused.
We will meet again.
Nethnarel’s smile disappeared.
“I would rather not.”
The harp laughed musically.
Fendor looked at the portal.
“Does refusing affect the current bargain?”
The harp played a dismissive chord.
“No,” Nethnarel translated.
“Excellent.”
The great book closed.
The music stand vanished.
Then the harp itself began to fade.
Isamu stepped toward it.
The instrument’s eyes moved to him.
Isamu reached for one of the tuning pegs.
“Do not,” Kaylor said.
Too late.
The harp vanished before Isamu could touch it.
He looked at his empty hand.
Fendor shook his head.
“Even demons learn.”
The final Gate remained.
Purple light churned within it.
Beyond was somewhere they had spent days trying to reach.
Kaylor looked at the others.
Five.
Still five.
But not for much longer.
He stepped through.
Color returned.
Not one color.
Thousands.
Kaylor emerged onto a broad crystalline platform and forgot, briefly, why they had come.
The city floated in the Astral Plane like a jewel set among stars.
Towers rose from an immense island of stone and crystal, their walls translucent enough that light traveled through them. Bridges crossed open air between buildings. Domes and spires shone in violet, blue, green and gold.
Nothing was dark.
Nothing was still.
The Crystal City was alive.
Figures moved through its streets.
Some had horns.
Some had wings.
Some were skeletal.
Some wore forms Kaylor could not have named.
Fiends walked beside the dead.
Astral beings drifted through crowds without touching the ground.
Creatures that might have attacked them without hesitation in another place passed within sight of the newcomers and continued about their business.
No one drew a weapon.
Isamu came through next.
Then Hexen.
Fendor.
Nethnarel.
All of them stopped.
For once, Fendor had no immediate complaint.
At the center of the city rose a pyramid.
Not a ruin.
A monument.
Its sides climbed above the surrounding districts in immense crystalline steps.
And over its summit floated a crystal.
Golden-yellow.
Rotating slowly.
Light poured from it into the city.
Not reflected light.
Power.
The glow traveled through channels in the pyramid and disappeared beneath the streets. From there it spread outward through the entire floating metropolis.
Nethnarel knew what she was looking at.
They all did.
The Book of Knowledge had shown them.
The gold dragon.
Not her body.
Her soul.
The essence of Scourge Firebreath’s murdered sister.
Imprisoned inside a jewel.
Used to keep an entire city alive.
Hexen stared at it.
“So that is the problem.”
Kaylor did not answer.
The Crystal City was not an abandoned fortress.
It was not a dungeon.
It was not filled with mindless servants of some ancient evil.
People lived here.
Whatever those people were.
Thousands of them.
The heroes had come seeking a soul powerful enough to strip Scourge Firebreath of the protection that made him almost impossible to kill.
Taking it might extinguish the city beneath them.
Fendor looked out across the streets.
“Stealing it is no longer a simple option.”
Nethnarel turned toward him.
“It was never simple.”
“It was simpler when the city was an image in a book.”
Kaylor looked beyond the pyramid.
Somewhere in this place was another Gate.
The Book of Knowledge had been precise about that.
A road from the Crystal City to Avernus.
To the fortress of the Lord of Swarms.
To Grazim.
They had reached the place that connected everything.
The dragon.
The gold soul.
The Lord of Swarms.
Grazim.
Every road had brought them here.
Kaylor looked once more at the golden crystal burning above the pyramid.
Then toward the city waiting below.
“We rest.”
No one argued.
“Then we find the Gate.”
Hexen watched the crystal.
“And the soul?”
Kaylor’s expression hardened.
“We find out whose city this is before we decide whether we destroy it.”
The five heroes descended from the arrival platform.
Above them, the imprisoned soul of a gold dragon turned slowly in the Astral sky.
And somewhere beyond the Crystal City, in the first Hell, Grazim Von was still waiting.