Paul Kidd - Queen of the Demonweb Pits

Wide-eyed, Escalla looked around. "Hey! My treasure!"

"Do vultures keep treasure?" Enid blew vulture fluff from her nose. "I thought they mostly liked decaying bits of bone?"

"Maybe they had gold fillings or something! This is an adventure, damn it! I demand financial rewards for acts of homicide!"

The Justicar sheathed his sword and knelt to examine their map. He pointed at two bends in the corridor and tapped the markings penciled down in red.

"We're here on the map. This corridor junction is a match. We just climbed up one level of the maze." The big man flipped the map into a strip and put it through his belt. "We were given an accurate tool."

He moved away to stare down the paths. Behind him, Polk looked up from his notebooks with a quill pen quivering in his paw.

"Wait, son! How do you spell 'lissome'?"

"E-S-C-A-L–L-A." Dressing, the faerie leaned helpfully over Polk's notebook. "And those things in my bottom are called dimples, not divets."

"Oh!" Polk crossed out a few words. "That's all right. That's fine! As long as the gist of it's there! I can get the prose really purple when I edit it after the adventure!"

The badger kept writing. Enid picked him up with her teeth and carried him down the corridor. They were deep into the Demonweb, and Polk still had half an empty notebook to go.

They walked onward through half an hour of silent footfalls and sobbing ghosts. The only food they had was a few preserved fish, which they washed down with canteens of lukewarm river water. Time was of the essence. Lolth had to be caught before she could return to the Flanaess.

And so the party ambled on, eating as they went.

The food was not to Escalla's liking. Dressed in her skin tight, silky smooth, and strangely see-through clothes of black elven chain mail, she glittered like a fish as she lolled on Enid's furry back. The occasional sparkle of pixie dust drifted from her as she flicked her wings.

Escalla had decided to bolster the party's morale with a riddle game-a game at which Enid always did well. The sphinx had an endless memory for facts and figures, rhyme and poem, as well as a huge library of scrolls sealed in a watertight box inside the portable hole. Wagging her foot in thought, her slim arms behind her back, Escalla chewed her bottom lip and tried to concoct a rhyme.

"All right, um… here!" The faerie composed on the fly.

"Restless snake, ever stirring

Never hissing-too much purring

Proud e'en though it always bows.

Sweeping paths where e'er it goes."

With an arch look over her shoulder, Enid smiled. "Simple. It's my tail."

"Drat! One guess gets you three questions." Escalla lounged happily upon her friends warm fur. "Fire away!"

Velvet soft, golden brown, and girlishly sly, Enid cast a blushing glance at the Justicar and Henry up ahead. She motioned to Escalla, who came over and hung down so that Enid could whisper in her ear. Escalla stayed hanging over her friends shoulder, then scratched her chin when the sphinx had finished.

"Hmm. That would be 'ten,' 'I doubt it'… and bipeds don't bite necks, dear. Not unless you ask them nicely."

"Oh!" Enid again shot a furtive glance at Henry. "Not even a little?"

"Well, there have been cases."

"Oh, good." Enid nestled closer. "And does he really have dimples in his bottom?"

The faerie shot up in glee. "Yeah! And it's all furry right down where-"

"Escalla!" Enid turned red.

"Well it is!" The faerie sprawled over Enid's back "Is Henry's?"

"No! It's really perfectly…" The sphinx blushed a most remarkable pink and caught herself mid-sentence. "Um, no, not that I'm aware."

"Uh-huh."

Escalla was enjoying herself. Henry cast wan looks in Enid's direction as they marched, and Enid remained protectively close to Henry.

Escalla lounged back on the sphinx's furry back and continued the riddle game. "Two little birdies in a birdie tree…"

K-I-S-S-I-N-G!

"Thank you, Cinders!" Lying on her back, Escalla raised one finger to the sky. "You're getting better at this spelling stuff!"

Cinders clever!

"So fetch a stick!"

Cinders not that clever.

"Wuss!" Escalla levered herself up on one elbow and saw that they were passing by another door. The Justicar glanced at the map and moved on.

Escalla jumped from Enid's back and pointed eagerly at the door. "Hey! What about in here? We didn't look in here!"

"It's not part of the mission." His hand always ready with his sword, his eyes always searching for danger, the Justicar kept the door in one corner of his eye. "We're only interested in doors marked with teleport symbols on the map."

The faerie's face fell, and she instantly turned petulant. "But Ju-us! What if there's monsters in here? Ambushers? Evil? What if there's something that's going to follow after us once we've gone?"

"You mean-what if there's something valuable in there you can get your hands on?"

"Sure! That, too!" The faerie lived a life free from guilt. "Hey! Taking from a demon queen isn't stealing! If Lolth's evil, then all her riches will be used for evil! And gold corrupts! This stuff is her tool. So by removing her gold, we're diminishing evil." Escalla rubbed her fist, keen to get cracking. "See? We have an honor-bound duty to rob this bitch blind! It's the only socially responsible course of action!"

The Justicar glowered at her. "Cute."

Persuaded by Escalla's moral argument, Enid regarded the door. "We do have a wedding to pay for."

Polk immediately put his pen down. He had been doodling a picture for his chronicles, showing himself beheading a tanar'ri with one bite.

"Come on, son! Where's your sense of right? A hero shows superiority over evil by sappin' it on the head and emptying evil's pockets!"

"Polk, shut up! Leave the door alone." The Justicar waved to his companions, signaling them to move on. "We're running out of time."

Escalla had already bustled over to the door. Polk stretched high, and Escalla used him as a ladder as she peered in through a perfectly ordinary key hole.

"It's empty. Just a big black room."

"So leave it alone." The Justicar sighed in annoyance, turning back to deal with the delay. "Come on!"

"Cool room, though!" Escalla turned the handle, opening the door. She jumped down from Polk and stood in the doorway. "See. There's nothing in here. Just a big flat shiny wall made out of iron."

A loud hum came from the room. Escalla took on a funny look for one brief second, and then she shot into the room and slammed spread-eagled onto the middle of the iron wall. Suspended three feet off the ground, Escalla's eyes bugged out. She tried to move, but her chainmail clothing was stuck fast to the wall.

"Ow! Jus! Jus, get me offa this!"

A roar erupted from the chamber as hidden doors slammed open all around the walls. Dozens of huge bugbears-stinking goblins, eight feet tall-raged into the room. All bore branches and wooden clubs.

Jus and Henry ran into the room. Henry wailed and flew through the air, plastering himself to the iron wall inches from Escalla-his own elven mail stuck tight. Jus's helmet broke its straps and flew through the air. Benelux screeched as she tumbled end over end to crash into the iron wall right beside Escalla's head. The bugbears looked at their trapped victims and gave a scream of joy as they scrambled toward Escalla and Henry with clubs ready to smash and pound.

Jerking like a fly on flypaper, Escalla squealed, "Jus! A little help here!"

The ranger was already on the move. "Enid!"

With Enid beside him, the Justicar flung himself into the room, and ten bugbears rampaged toward them. Jus caught a club bare-handed and spun into the blow, slamming the bugbear to the ground. A savage strike from his elbow broke the teeth of another bugbear behind. Jus caught another blow, then kicked a bugbear with enough force to break the monster's knee. A club crashed against Jus's shoulder, and Escalla's stoneskin spell fended off the blow in a shower of little bees.