Paul Kidd - Queen of the Demonweb Pits

Yummy troll! Cinders keep!

"We'll get you something better in a minute."

Escalla leaned close to whisper in Jus's ear. "Don't worry. You hold his M-O-U-T-H, and I'll make the G-R-A-B."

Cinders thrashed his tail. G-R-A-B spells grab! The hell hound chewed and swallowed as fast as he could. No flakes! Troll all gone, see?

"You and your damned spelling lessons." The Justicar settled on a piece of scorched fish from their rations to serve him as a pencil. "Right. So the room has a path, like this-fire trenches. No other doors?"

"Nah. None I could see." Back in faerie form again, Escalla hitched her horrible makeshift dress about herself. "Mice are over in this corner. They're probably some kind of tanar'ri, shapeshifted to try to fool us."

"Not the smartest disguise." Looking at the map, Jus rubbed his tired face. "Right So we need to eliminate the tanar'ri. That seems to activate the teleport."

The company leaned over the crude map in thought. Her nose wrinkling prettily, Enid tapped at the map with one long claw and said, "We could have Escalla attack them with a spell. Even if they're resistant, one or two of them might drop dead."

"I'm out, hon. You wanna know what spells I've got left?" The faerie always became didactic when tired and bothered. "I can do you a grease, vampire touch, a fire shield, a cloud kill, my invulnerability globe, and a web spell. Real tanar'ri-shattering stuff."

"I was only asking!"

Holding up a hand, the Justicar imposed peace. He looked up at the mists overhead and stared at the half-seen shapes of a pathway overhead. Lolth's maze was doing its job, paring away their spells and magic, weakening them steadily before they could confront the Spider Queen herself.

Always take the unexpected path. Always attack with surprise. The Justicar looked up at the pathways overhead then rose up to his feet.

"We avoid this room."

The others all looked inquiringly at him, but the Justicar never spoke until his facts were all in place. He turned from the map to the mists then folded the chart away.

"If we skip one guard room, Lolth and Recca will have no way of knowing which level of the maze we are on. We will jump up one level, then find a place to rest. We need Escalla with her spells. We need Henry healed."

Enid switched her scorched tail from side to side.

"The other paths are forty feet above us. How do we reach that high?"

"Giant growth potions. Enid, Henry, and I take the potions, Enid and I make a ladder up to the next level. Henry carries Escalla and Polk up, then gives Enid and I a hand up after him."

The mere mention of drinking giant growth potions instantly threw Escalla into a fit of panic. She fluttered about like a mad moth in a bottle.

"No! No! Look-we can get past the mice! You know-talk our way out of it or something!" Everyone was looking at the map, trying to find the best overpass to climb. "Hey! Is anyone looking at me? Hello? Hey! I can get us past mice! Mice are my speciality, I swear! I could turn into a cat or something!"

Trying to be patient, the Justicar inclined his head toward her and said, "Escalla, tanar'ri are not going to be scared of a cat."

"Jus! Those potions are for our honeymoon!" Escalla tried to whisper, painfully aware that Cinders, Enid, and Benelux were all listening. "I've got about a hundred years of theory I wanna put into practice!"

"Escalla, we need the potions."

The faerie waved her hands. "Can't we just throw a rope or something? Why hasn't Polk got rope and grappling hooks and ten-foot poles anymore?"

"Because we used to give him so much grief about it."

"Well, when did he start listening to us?" Escalla gave in with poor grace. "All right! All right! Drink the damned potions!" She kicked the potion bag over to her friends. "You know, if I didn't have Lolth to blame for all of this, you people would get me in such a huff!"

It was a brief walk to the needed overpass. Paths crossed over and under each other like a puzzle knot, but the map showed every twist and turn with total accuracy. Potions were drunk, and the giant adventurers formed an awkward human ladder through the mists.

The fog tugged and shoved at them like a living force as they climbed. Faces screamed in the mists-horrific skeletal figures were blown apart in the currents, only to reform into horrible weeping shapes. The Justicar grimly ignored it all, getting on with the job at hand.

Enid proved to be the major obstacle. They managed to boost her up onto the overhead path with some very indelicate shoving and tugging that left Henry blushing and speechless. The giants collapsed in a heap, panting and exhausted. Clambering out of the portable hole, Escalla and Polk walked over Jus's heaving chest. Polk looked about the empty pathways and gave an irritated scowl.

"Son! Are we there yet?"

"Not yet." Big as a titan, the Justicar raised his head to look at Polk. "Soon."

"Well, come on, son! We have to move. Keep the opposition off balance! Haven't you absorbed any of my tactical training?" Polk leaped to the ground. "The boy procrastinates. Hard thing to say, but the boy just lacks any get-up-and-go."

Surveying the panting wreck of her friends, Escalla frowned as she dragged Cinders from the portable hole and unrolled him on the floor.

"What's wrong with you guys?"

The Justicar sat up, towering vast and grim above the path, and replied, "Enid is bigger than we thought."

"Enid, lay off the stirges for a while, hon." Escalla hopped over to the blushing sphinx. "We have to keep you sleek."

There was a warning flash, the giants all looked up as the potions wore off, and suddenly everyone was back to their own natural sizes.

They unfolded the map, looking carefully up and down the new paths. According to the diagrams, this was the final, topmost level of the maze. Unfortunately, the area seemed identical to a dozen others. The Justicar carefully checked the floors for the slightest sign of use, then waved the others forward as he led the way.

As they walked down the screaming pathway, they drew nearer and nearer to an incongruous marble doorway. This time the door was ornately inscribed, jet black, and gleaming new. A wide, clear window at shoulder height gave a view of the room beyond.

The party ducked down out of sight of the window. In a drill honed carefully over their adventures, Jus and Cinders crept close and examined the area for traps. Cinders sniffed the door, and Escalla listened carefully against the wood with one pointed ear. Hearing nothing, Escalla threw off her clothes, lay on her belly and began to shimmer, changing into a slug so that she could peek beneath the door.

The shimmer of magic went jarringly off-color. Escalla changed shape into a bizarre multicolored slug with something shaped like a flower planted on her behind. Her eyestalks wrenched around to stare at herself in shock.

"I'm a nudibrach!"

Benelux cleared her throat. A what?

"A type of sea slug with exposed gills and a brightly colored venomous integument." Escalla waggled her floral backside, making her anemone-like gills wave. "I didn't plan this! Why am I a nudibrach?"

Henry slithered closer, trying to keep his voice to a whisper. "It isn't what you were trying to be?"

"No!" Escalla tried to move. "Damn it! I look ridiculous. Hang on and I'll change back."

There was a glow of light, a jangling note of discord, and Escalla changed shape. Where once there had been a slug, there was now a short, gnomish creature with a huge pickle-shaped nose. The creature reached for its clothes, then cast a patient glance at the rest of the party.

"What? What are you all gaping at? If you don't like the view, then quit steaming up the window!" The creature muttered as it wrapped itself in Escalla's little dress. "Faerie butt. Does it every time."