Paul Kidd - Queen of the Demonweb Pits

Henry's victim blinked out of existence, reappearing behind, him and raking him with its claws. Henry staggered, then whipped about with a swordblow learned hour after painful hour from the Justicar. Driven by gigantic strength, the blow cut the tanar'ri in two, scattering the demon into the pond.

Jus reared from the water, twenty-five feet high, one hand holding a tanar'ri's head. He pulped the creature against the wall, crushing it like an ant. Enid worried her own monster to death, shaking her head to fling bits of it about the room.

The sounds of combat died out-all except for the screams of a single tanar'ri. The toad monster bucked and heaved, smashing its back against the walk-each blow being accompanied by a muffled squawk. A vile spray of fluids jetted from the tanar'ri's back, where a lamprey's tail could be seen slowly disappearing into the tanar'ri's guts. The monster was blind with rage and agony, trying to reach behind itself and blinking out of existence to reappear a few feet to one side. The lamprey was always with it, burrowing into its flesh in a frenzy and cursing all the while.

Henry slipped, surfaced, then ploughed to Escalla's aid.

"It's going to teleport!" Henry blundered forward, a behemoth in the water. "Justicar! Your silence spell."

Magic silence might stop the demon from speaking the syllables to cast its spell.

Instead, the scarred titan that was the Justicar rose, poised, and threw Benelux like a javelin. Twenty feet long, the huge blade whooped with glee as she flew and pierced the tanar'ri's shoulders. Heart and spine were severed, and Benelux thudded point first into the wall. The toad demon hung stone dead, its body twitching like a broken puppet. The gigantic Justicar waded through the chest-deep water, wrenched the bottom of the demon from its top, and retrieved his sword.

A lamprey head emerged from the guts of the demon, grew Escalla's face, and retched in agony.

"You almost killed me! That only missed me by an inch!"

"It missed you." The Justicar's bass rumble sounded larger than mountains, deeper than the Abyss. "You're fine."

"Oh, eeeew! That was the most disgusting, stupid thing I've ever done!" Escalla was violently sick, disgorging the bits of tanar'ri she'd packed into her lamprey gut.

"Are you all right?"

"Oh, ick! That thing did not taste like chicken! Well, except for some spiced chicken I once left lying in the sun all afternoon and ate for dinner. But this is not funny!" Escalla emerged from stinking demon guts and turned to her normal form. Jus obligingly held her in his palm and shook her rapidly back and forth in the water to clean her. Rattled like a dice in a cup, Escalla lost her temper.

"Enough! You guys are even worse gigantic than when you're all just huge!" The faerie fought her way out of Jus's palm and retrieved her staff and wand. "Cinders? Cinders, where are you?"

Here!

Left lying on the bridge when the Justicar dived into the water, the hell hound watched with his big grin. Polk was using the hell hound as a seat, intently writing down a blow-by-blow account of the fight, clucking his tongue and shaking his head.

A high-pitched whine came from the portable hole on Jus's belt. A little silver sphere-another one of Lolth's keys-rose up out of the hole and began to glow in the air over their heads. Escalla, still naked, looked at it and instantly leaped to her feet.

"No! My clothes! That mail was specially crafted!" Her black chain mail now lay somewhere on the bottom of the pool. "Those are my last clean clothes! Wait! Wait!"

Escalla shot into the water and turned into an angler fish, a light dangling from a rod atop her head. She had no sooner disappeared than a hum came from the little sphere. There was a blinding flash, and suddenly the giant sphinx, two titanic humans, a badger, a sentient hell hound pelt, and an enraged angler fish were all in a new, dry section of corridor. Escalla cursed and raved, while huge streams of water cascaded from her gigantic friends.

"How the hell is a girl supposed to adventure if she doesn't even own clean leather?" The faerie was drenched and furious. "Jus! Open the damned portable hole!"

Snarling and cursing, she disappeared within the hole. There was the sound of tearing cloth. Escalla reappeared wearing a strip of white fabric printed with big red dots.

"My clothes are wet and my wardrobe is full of demon guts and water!" She realized she was the center of a ring of derisive glances, and she straightened her new dress. "Oh, you can laugh! This was ripped out of a pair of Jus's shorts!"

Funny funny!

"Laugh it up, pooch. Next bath you have, I'm gonna tizz you up like a duchess's pet!"

There was nothing to wash out the taste of tanar'ri from her mouth-only a flask of river water. As she fussed and bothered, Henry rose, so high that his head stuck into the howling mists. His voice boomed into the air like a god.

"Um, how long do these potions keep us this way?"

Escalla was sorely put out. "Not long enough to do it twice."

"Huh?"

"Nothing." The girl kicked at a puddle of water on the ground.

"All right, big guys, which way down the path-left or right?"

"Left." The gigantic Justicar opened the wet map-now sadly smudged. "It's only a little way away."

"Great. Well, if we run, maybe we can save on potions." There was a flash, and everyone suddenly returned to normal size. "O-o-of course not!" With a sigh, the faerie led the way. "Come on, you bold spirits. Get moving!"

Back in place over Jus's back, Cinders sniggered at Escalla from behind. Hee hee. Love funny faerie!

Escalla looked sideways at the hell hound, managing to look lofty despite her attire, and said, "Keep laughing, pooch. Just keep laughing."

Converted once again into a slug, Escalla moved her tail slowly back and forth. Her eyestalks were peeking under a door-the next teleport room marked upon the map. Her mouth whispered back to her friends as she carefully surveyed the room beyond the door.

"Eh. Looks like more of the same-long path, big fires beside the path, then the rest of the room seems normal. Guess they want to do the same ol' plan. Hide, then use their power to try and tug us into the flames." The worm thrashed in contempt. "Real smart boys. They get one good idea in their entire lives and just have to keep using it again and again."

The Justicar squatted beside her, ready to intervene at the first hint of trouble.

"Where are they hiding?"

"Don't know. In the fires? If they're flame proof, I guess that's their best bet." Escalla's slug body stiffened in sudden suspicion. "Ah, now there's something. Anyone here know about tanar'ri?"

The Justicar raised one brow. "I thought you knew all about tanar'ri?"

"Hey, so some days I paid less than total attention!" Escalla pulled her head out from under the door.

Stiff and hurt by a demon's claws, Henry rubbed his eyes and looked at the closed door. "Um, Escalla? Why did you ask about tanar'ri?"

"Just wondering if they can change shape." The faerie sniffed at the edge of the portable hole, smelling the stink of fish. "Has anyone noticed any vermin around here? I mean, in this whole place-apart from giant spiders-has there been a fly, a rat, a cockroach… anything?"

There was a general moment of thinking and murmuring. No, no one had seen anything. The paths and rooms were so clean as to be sterile. The Justicar pondered it and shook his head.

"Empty. Why do you ask?"

"Because there's a bunch of mice sitting over in the far corner of that room."

Everyone gathered around. Cinders was eating the last of their supply of charcoaled troll, making noises of total rapture as he did so. The Justicar tried to borrow a piece of it to draw a map and Cinders petulantly closed his snout over the treat.