Paul Kidd - Queen of the Demonweb Pits

Enid limped back, shook her head clear, then lumbered back into the fray. Polk was thrown clear and smashed to the ground-dazed, injured, and coughing blood.

Arriving at the melee, Escalla hesitated, looked for her chance to attack, then saw Morag emerging from the steam. The tanar'ri was about to slaughter Henry from behind. Escalla gave a piercing whistle and waved Lolth's gems over her head.

"Morag! It was written on her jewels! Your name was on her jewels!" The faerie threw a stone to the six-armed tanar'ri. "Here, you're free! Now come and help!"

Morag caught the jewel, took on a look of dawning joy-and simply teleported away. Escalla stared at the empty space in absolute outrage.

"Bitch!"

Henry spared a despairing glance over his shoulder. "She's evil! What did you expect?"

Escalla waved another pair of gems in the air and bellowed at the roof. "Yeah-but Lolth kept all her records in triplicate!"

Jus went for his fallen sword.

Lolth saw the man dive, threw up her hand, and Benelux sped off into the steam with a telekinetic shove. As the demon queen watched the sword, Enid leaped. The sphinx was caught mid-jump by a telekinetic punch on her wounded leg. She landed in a tumbling heap, crashing to the ground in an agonized daze.

Escalla fired a spell at Lolth, but the magic simply died away. The distraction let Henry swipe at Lolth with his sword. The demon queen caught his blade with her buckler, smashed it from his grip, and felled the boy with a punch from her silver shield.

Lolth laughed. Wiping her eye in malicious joy, she spread her arms wide. Her form flashed and changed, swelling as she changed shape. Legs erupted from her sides, her black body bulged obscenely, her remaining gems changing shape to cling to her new form. Lolth turned into a vast, vile spider ten feet high. Huge poisoned fangs arched above the floor. Escalla ran at her with her staff and slammed it against Lolth's foot, only to discover that the staff had run out of magic. Swatting Escalla aside, the spider reared and turned its attentions to the Justicar.

Still radiating a spell of silence, Jus stood without a weapon in his hands, already measuring his next attack. Escalla sprinted behind Lolth, heading for her blind side. Polk coughed weakly, Henry lay unconscious, and Enid dazedly tried to stand.

The Justicar moved to drag Lolth's attention away from the fallen. He ran at the giant spider. With a cunning squint behind her, Lolth surged backward and squirted a cloud of web out of her spinnerets just as Escalla charged into the attack. Escalla was hit dead center by the webbing and flung ten yards away, slamming hard against a steam pipe that scalded and burned. The faerie girl wrenched at the webs helplessly.

The Justicar grabbed Lolth's monstrous fangs and heaved, his huge strength enough to start tearing the spider apart. The goddess threw herself from side to side in a rage, and Cinders flew free to slither over the floor. An instant later, Jus staggered as Lolth teleported away, leaving him holding empty air.

The titanic spider appeared on the ceiling ten feet overhead. Jus's silence spell was shattered as Lolth dispelled it from afar, her voice finally free to cast magic of her own. Shrieking with laughter, Lolth cast another spell, and instantly a dozen spiders the size of wolves blinked into existence all about the room.

Steam slowly cleared as the pipes ran dry of water and the furnaces burned down. Lolth clung to the ceiling, rocking with mirth. Her spiders closed in from all sides.

As Escalla changed shape and escaped the webs, Recca limped forward, his severed limbs oozing green blood and regrowing right before their eyes. Only his borrowed hand and foot did not regrow. They stayed as always-pale flesh torn from another creature. Escalla returned to faerie form, her eyes flicking from Lolth to Jus to Recca as a dozen huge spiders tightened their cordon.

Lolth was clearly having the time of her life.

"Little playmates! I so love having little playmates!" The spider rubbed her forelegs together, looking at the adventurers through all eight gleeful eyes. "What's next?"

Recca stood beside Benelux, looking down at the blade. Enid crawled away from him, dazed and shaking her head. The Justicar rose beneath Lolth and cast a proud, grim look toward his old master.

"Recca! You crave the honor that you lost? You want glory? Then fight! If you want to be remembered as a hero, kill the demon queen!" The big ranger held out one hand to the undead monster. "Stand with me! The way it should have been."

Recca looked down at Benelux, then at the Justicar. He took a pace forward, thoughtfully tapped his chin… then Recca ran Enid through.

He did it slowly, with precision, jamming his blood red blade through her hide behind her foreleg and straight into her heart. Enid wailed. Escalla gave a despairing cry and fired a spell that smashed Recca from his feet, but his blade stayed buried in the sphinx, glowing horribly as it filled with Enid's lifeblood.

Roaring, the Justicar flung himself at Enid, launching into a desperate attempt to rip out the deadly sword. It was the move Lolth was waiting for. She dropped from the ceiling, turning like a cat. She slammed to the ground behind the Justicar, and both her fangs blasted through his back, the points jutting through the front of his chest. Poison squirted out onto the floor, and Jus coughed, holding the fang points in his hands.

Escalla shrieked, her whole body chill. Lolth reared over the Justicar. Henry and Polk lay bleeding as a pack of spiders sprang at them in a wave of death. Enid coughed a shower of blood, and Escalla saw the life leave her eyes. Lolth pulled her fangs free of the Justicar and laughed as he fell to the ground. She whirled to face the little faerie, who stood alone, naked but for the slowglass gem hanging at her neck.

Escalla ripped the gem free. She hurled it at the goddess and fired off a spell. It was a tiny spell-one of the first she ever learned. A stream of magic missiles shaped like little golden bees. Lolth laughed to be attacked by such pathetic magic-but the bees struck, smashed, splintered-

And atomized the slowglass gem into a thousand shards.

There was a pulse of magic. A sphere of force shot outward from the gem. The sphere caught Lolth and the Justicar, flashing out fast, then expanding with a dream-like slowness. Inside the globe, all time stopped. Gem shards hung in midair-poison hovered where it dripped from spider fangs.

The sphere continued to expand. Escalla raced forward, grabbed Polk, and tore the portable hole from his belt. She worked feverishly fast. The globe enfolded Recca, Henry-Polk's head, then his body. The spiders pouncing at Henry and Polk all simply hung frozen in midair.

Escalla wept as she ran, shaking, numb, and blank.

She backed away as the sphere slowed its rate of expansion. It ground to a halt and shimmered-freezing the death and destruction of everything the faerie loved. She cried lost, hopeless tears. The girl bit one hand, trying to make the pain focus her. She had thirty minutes-no more. The time sphere would fade, Lolth would be free, and everyone would die. Escalla backed away, her mind racing in mad panic as she tried to form a plan.

Ouch.

The hell hound's voice rang in Escalla's head. She whirled, and there lay Cinders, upside down and crumpled. Escalla sped over to him, her hands shaking as she untangled her friend.

"Cinders!"

Cinders fall down. Spider lady tough. Cinders seemed a little dazed. Cinders want faerie make plan now - kick spider butt! No cry.

"Yeah. Yeah, that's right." Escalla wiped her face. She ran a thousand thoughts through her mind at once. "I'm the faerie. The faerie always has a plan!"