Paul Kidd - Queen of the Demonweb Pits

"All righty! We've got water. Big room, about a hundred feet square. Flooded. Looks like a raised path leads from the door over to some kind of island. And"-the slug snorted-"there are some really bad illusions of two tanar'ri standing on the island. Eww! Those are awful! Is that someone's idea of a decoy? Get real!" Coming from a home where illusion was often preferred over the real, Escalla had high standards for fake reality. "There's nothing on the ceiling. Might be something hiding in the water. No way to tell. Uch, it stinks! Something in here reeks like a lycanthrope's laundry!"

The slug withdrew, slid backward, and changed back into faerie form.

"Sorry. That's all I can see. I don't know what sort of guards it has."

"No. No, that's good." The Justicar squatted on his haunches, drawing a map of the sealed room with a piece of charred bugbear. "The last teleport room was guarded by tanar'ri. If the rooms marked on the map all get you closer to the palace, then they probably all have tanar'ri guards. Tougher and tougher guards as we get closer to Lolth."

Cloaked by her long blonde hair, Escalla sighed in frustration. "Frot! The last ones almost killed us, and I'm out of decent spells! I need to restock on heavy stuff!"

Trying to reason out the problem, Henry scratched his brow. "What spells have you got?"

"Lessee. Well, I loaded up with combat stuff. Missiles, webs, fireballs… got me a vampire touch spell that's a doozy!" The faerie counted off the spells on her fingers. "I had my black tentacles, plus I've got a lesser sphere of invulnerability. Oh! And I've got my grease spell ready!"

"Grease?" Henry blinked. "Why grease?"

"It's a comedy natural. Trust me, I'm a faerie!"

"O-o-oh!" Enid crowded close, suitably impressed. "What's 'vampire touch'?"

"It's totally hoopy! Sucks your enemy's life energy and gives it to you! I found it in an old book."

"That big black one that warned us not to open it?"

"Yeah! That's the one!"

Ignoring the girls, Polk worked at copying the Justicar's map into his notebooks, showing the route they traveled by the means of badly drawn stick figures boldly led by badger. "Son, why water? What sort of guard wants to stand knee deep in water all day?"

Scowling, the Justicar regarded the door. "Aquatic ones, Polk. Tanar'ri."

The Justicar looked meaningfully at Henry, who frowned, trying to see a deeper point, then suddenly got the idea. The boy turned to Polk and tried to explain.

"Yes! You see? It's another telekinesis trap! You charge the island along the path, then hidden tanar'ri use their power to drag you off the path and drown you in the water."

Standing, the Justicar stood facing the door and said, "Simple. Well done."

And hard to counter. He breathed slowly, thinking, when suddenly Henry gave a sound of joy and opened up the portable hole.

"Oh, yes! Escalla has something to fix it!"

He dived into the hole.

Instantly curious, Escalla raced over to the rim. "What? The frost wand? We freeze the water to ice?"

"No!"

"Spare underwear? We leave a trail of it to tempt them out here into the open!"

"No-no! Wait! I've got it!" Henry erupted over the lip of the hole, dragging a bag of clinking bottles. "Look! Potions of giant growth!"

Escalla gave a possessive yelp and clutched the bag. "No! Not the giant growth potions! No! No! No-no-no-no-no! No!"

"Why not?" Henry shrugged. "Don't we have tons of them?"

Using fingers and toes to clutch the bag shut, Escalla flapped her wings in panic. "No! We only have one left! And that's… for emergencies!"

"But I counted them! Only one's gone! We still have seven potions." Henry pointed at the the bag. "Right. We all grow to giant size-me, the Justicar, and Enid. Then no tanar'ri can telekinesify us! We'll be too heavy! And at giant size-swords, armor, everything-we can kill the tanar'ri just like that!"

Wringing her hands, Escalla whined, "But that's three whole potions gone!"

"That leaves four! We can do the same trick again at the other rooms marked on the map!"

Turning pale, Escalla gripped her precious potions in her arms and screamed, "No-no-no-no! That's all the potions gone!"

Henry was confused. "So why do we need so many growth potions?"

"Be-be-because it's… it's… medicine! Yeah! Medicine!" The faerie hid a potion behind her back. "My medicine! Yes! I need it for a, uh, female complaint. You know! A girl thing!"

"Do you get it often?"

"Well, I'm sure planning to!" Escalla shoved the potion bag behind her back. "Go on! Scram! You can have three! Three, and that's all!"

The party portioned out bottles, ignoring Escalla entirely. She danced about trying to get attention.

"Hey! Giant size doesn't solve the problem! We still need tactics and stuff. Hello? Is anyone listening to me?"

"We're listening." The Justicar held up a potion bottle, peering through the glass thoughtfully. "We need to stop them from teleporting out. That means killing them by surprise or enraging them so they want to fight."

Irritated, Escalla said, "All right! The faerie has it under control! I'll get Jus and me in there first, then you two guys come in a minute later. We'll do a tanar'ri sandwich."

Henry looked surprised. "How?"

"Mist spell. Jus and I slip into the water and make like sharks, then you two guys charge. J-man and I hit them from behind after you two guys engage." The faerie shrugged. "Best I can do."

"Oh?" Henry looked suspicious. "No fireballs?"

"Oh, for the love of…! You blow a bunch of people up just once, and do they let you forget it?" The faerie lost her temper and headed for the door. "Just keep hold of the potions and let me worry about the magic!"

The faerie waited by the door, clicked her fingers imperiously, and the handle was turned by the Justicar. As the door opened just a teeny crack, Escalla leaked her mist spell into the room. She waved to Jus, crept silently forward, and the whole plan went straight to hell.

Thick fog spread over the water. The Justicar edged into the room behind Escalla. In one blinding moment, he whirled and hammered his brilliant white blade into the water. In the murk, the sword struck something that screamed and roared. Jus dived, his sword cleaving the water before him and crashing into a huge toadlike tanar'ri. The monster screamed and slashed at the Justicar with its claws.

On the surface, mist covered the front half of the room. Escalla coughed and waved the mist aside with her hands as splashes and roars filled the air.

"Jus? Jus!"

Enid and Henry chugged down their potions and charged into the room. They thundered along the bridge, shimmering as the magic took hold and enlarged them to four times their normal size. Twency-three feet high and waving a twenty-foot-long sword, Henry plunged into the water and grappled with a toad demon. He took a grip on the monster's head and wrenched, using the huge strength of a giant to tear the tanar'ri to bits. Behind him a titanic sphinx smashed her paws into the water, bucking and plunging until she ran another tanar'ri down.

Above them, Escalla waved her hands and tried to shout order into the chaos. "Guys? Guys!" The faerie fired a stream of her magic bees at a tanar'ri and watched the magic ricochet away. "Guys! A little discipline here!"

A demon sped through the water like a hungry crocodile-a bloated, fang-slathered demon angling straight for Henry's back. With a curse, Escalla unshipped her lich staff and sped into a maddened run along the bridge. She leaped into the air, landing on the tanar'ri's back and smacking it across the skull. Power flashed and detonated, blowing chunks of toad-monster across the water. The demon screamed, reared, then plunged deep into the water while Escalla clung like grim death. The faerie turned into a lamprey, attached her sucker jaws, and began burrowing madly into the demons stinking flesh.