Holy Opposites 58

	Vorthane let the torches lie and turned his mind to the next obstruction.  With a tap of the metal slats, a chunk of stone from the walls around the staircase emerged to block the path.

	Axio snarled when he saw the stone move.  “I think not, Baneite.”  He ran up next to the block and dug his fingers in.  To Vorthane’s surprise, however, he did not try to push the stone back in, but instead pulled it further out.  The Aasimar’s back muscles tightened as he wrenched the block further out of the trap and dragged it over the edge of the stairs to topple to the floor below.

	“Move!” he commanded.  The other five fighters scrambled up after him as Axio ducked into the first door on their new level.  Axio held the door shut, and the others listened carefully, but none of them heard more objects moving.

	“So Toller’s boss is a psion,” Cavria said dourly.  “Fantastic.  Anything else we need to know about him?”

	“Not that I ever knew,” Suivi said.  He ran a shaking hand back through his hair.  He didn’t allow his emotions to show most of the time, but fighting an actual psychic was new to him.

	Kyria patted him on the back.  He started, but relaxed once he saw where it was coming from.  “Relax.  We can beat this guy,” she said confidently.

	It wasn’t a gesture to which Suivi had had exposure in his life.  He stared at the perky dark elf for a moment before he nodded.  “Right.”

	Axio poured a bit of his healing magic into his own body before looking around their temporary shelter.  It looked like a small alchemic lab, but disassembled.  This was new work, not the dusty and abandoned realm of Halaster.  “Anybody else hurt?” Axio demanded.

	He heard a chorus of ‘no.’  “Fine.  The stairwell won’t work if the psychic has it trapped.  We have to find another way up.”  Axio pushed the door back open.  Nothing happened.  “All right.  Move out, my friends.”

	The marching order shifted with their backs now exposed.  Axio and Luanea took the point, with Suivi right behind them.  Doshellas and Kyria, the ranged players, took the middle, with Cavria and her glaive at the rear.  The hallway was long and straight, but there were doors at random intervals.  The sheer size of the temple was disconcerting to the Ryairans.  Axio especially found himself clenching his teeth.  How could the Baneites have made their temple so grand?  More importantly, where the hell were they?  The air pressure didn’t feel odd, nor was the air especially warm, but they had seen not one window or door out of the building.  Were they in a surface cave?  Was their building inside a larger structure?  And why, why, why did it have a portal to old Halaster Blackcloak’s Undermountain dungeons?

	“Does anybody else find it odd that they have no other people here?” Luanea asked uneasily.

	“We should have encountered more, if the psychic can’t attack us again,” Cavria agreed.

	“Maybe he can but isn’t,” Doshellas muttered.

	Suivi paused the others.  “There’s a door here… it’s hidden.”  Axio and Cavria flattened themselves against the walls and kept watch as the others inspected the wall panel.  Sure enough, the stone blocks concealed a clever hinge.

	“Should we?” the spy asked.  “It could be another trap.”

	“Or a hidden staircase that doesn’t have quite as many psychic torches in it,” Luanea pointed out.

	“Open it,” Doshellas voted.  The four of the set their hands against the hinge and pushed.

	Stone ground against stone, and the door swung back.  Suivi let out a whistle at the sight behind the false wall.  “Wow.  That’s… a trove.”

	Inside was a heap of tubes.  Each was around one and a half feet long, though they varied.  Some had metal inlays, others had decorative leather pieces on their outsides, and a few had jewels in the caps and lids.

	Kyria looked longingly at the prize.  “Scroll tubes.  Dancer, that’s a lot of magic.”

	“You can loot it barren the second we’re done,” Axio said.  “I promise.”

	She grinned.  “I love you, big guy,” the wizard said.  “Sorry, babies, mommy will have to come back for you.”

	The crew manhandled the door shut and moved forward.  The side rooms they passed were empty of people, though some contained treasure that made the more adventurous party members ache to leave it.  Eventually, though, Axio held up a fist for silence.

	He closed his eyes and listened carefully.  Sure enough, he heard the faint sound of metal clinking together from somewhere ahead of them.  “Ambush,” he said quietly.  “Blades out.”

	The rest of the party unsheathed their weapons and held them above their sides, so they didn’t clatter off their armor.  Axio advanced slowly, keeping his divine senses probing their surroundings.  As he drew nearer to the sound of metal, he thought he heard voices, but it was indistinct.  He could still hear the metallic noises, and they were getting louder.


	Vorthane watched the party of troublemakers advance through the hall.  Relief surged through him when he saw them leave his cache of scrolls.  He had spent years carefully collecting them.

	A lieutenant, Drentil, jogged up and quickly bowed.  “Sir, the assault team is still following him, but the enemy is approaching the Grist chamber.  Apparently, it took so long to establish a portal because the enemy stuffed the gap with things.”

	“That may not be the worst outcome, actually,” Vorthane said calmly.  “How many guards are there in the dungeon?”

	“Nineteen.”

	“And pursuing them?”

	“Sixteen.”

	“Wait for them to enter the dungeon, then attack them from behind,” Vorthane said decisively.  “Let them die before the Grist they hoped to save.”


	Axio watched tensely as Doshellas checked the door at the end of the hall.  “Nothing,” Doshellas whispered.

	“Good.”  Axio tapped his hand against the flat of his blade and let his divine power enhance the weapon.  Cavria and Luanea began casting their own enhancement spells in preparation for battle.  Axio wasn’t sure what was on the other side of the door, except that it did not return a signal in his extraplanar senses.

	Doshellas stood beside the door with his hand on the knob.  “Ready?” he asked when they were all done casting their spells.

	The others all nodded and hefted their weapons.  Doshellas threw the door open and stepped back.

	Axio and Cavria charged in with their weapons and skidded to an immediate halt.  Axio doubled over, clutching his stomach.  He held back bile with a tremendous effort.

	The others crowded past him and stared in utter horror.  Luanea had to lean back against the doorframe to support herself.  “Who… could…”

	The room was a grid.  Each stone tile, ten feet wide and long, had an iron deadbolt driven through it.  Each draped chains over the back of a child.  The children all sat nearly still, save feeble twitches or helpless whimpers.  Axio took a few shaky steps forward when an arrow caught him in the side of the head.

	The Aasimar staggered.  The balcony above suddenly flooded with light and movement as the dungeon guards ambushed the party.  A hailstorm of arrows thudded into the group.

	Axio dropped to his knees as two more arrows took him in the flank.  Neither penetrated his new armor fully, but his vision swam from the head hit.  The arrow stuck in his helm, scratching him as he moved.  Embersson went down screaming as three arrows lodged in his leather armor.  Cavria avoided a hit by a minor miracle, but that just left her in a position to see the other cultists boiling out of the distant stairwell behind them.

	Luanea ripped the one arrow that had made it through her armor out of her flank and grabbed Suivi’s collar.  “Move!  Back into the hall!” she shouted.

	Kyria collapsed back through the stone door with a dazed look on her face.  She was leaking blood from two holes the bowmen had punched through her shoulder.  Cavria grabbed her partner and manhandled him back towards the door as the archers nocked more arrows.

	Doshellas limped through the door, trying to ignore the arrow in his ankle.  The cultists at the far end of the hall charged, crossing the space between themselves and the party at a dead sprint.

	Luanea grabbed Suivi and cast her mightiest Cure Wounds, and did so at the highest level she could.  Cavria did the same with Axio, who was still staring at the bound children in shock.  “Triera?” he whimpered.  Cavria risked a look, and sure enough, there was his sister, bolted to the floor with the others.  She wasn’t even looking up at them.

	“We’ll get her later, Axio, we need to fight now!” Cavria shouted in his ear.  He flinched from her sudden volume, and it seemed to wake him from his horrified shock.

	“R-right.  Right.”  He wobbled to his feet and looked around, as if just noticing that the group was injured.  He grabbed Doshellas and poured his divine magic into the other man’s leg.  Doshellas yelped in pain as the arrow ejected itself, then sighed as the wound shifted closed.

	“Thanks, Axio.”  He struggled to his feet and grabbed the stone door behind them, slamming it shut.  “That will hold them for a while,” he said.

	“It’s a dungeon, it’s meant to be hard to open from the inside.  Good thinking,” Luanea said.  She finished casting her healing magic and pulled Suivi to his feet.  The rogue drew a throwing knife as soon as he saw the enemies charging them.

	“Ready yourselves!” he shouted.  He threw the knife, taking one cultist in the chest.  Doshellas snapped up his bow and fired, finishing the cultist off.  Axio hurled his dart at one, pinning his foot to the floor.  Cavria joined in with her javelin, skewering another man, who managed to limp forward despite the impact.

	Luanea’s eyes blazed with Eilistraee’s fire, and she unleashed it over the nearest cultist.  The sacred flame washed over the man and left him reeling and singed.  Something heavy hit the door behind them, but it held, as Luanea predicted.