Anthology - Untold Adventures - A Dungeons and Dragons Anthology

He swallowed. “Kill only demons, in the name of Vecna!” he ordered.

It sighed in disappointment. “Very well. Only demons… if you insist!”

The demons chose that moment to rush-but Gnarl threw the glass ball at their feet. It burst, and they scattered before the bleak effulgence that blossomed out of it. Porphyros, the gaunt, skull-faced spirit warrior, expanded from the shards and leaped at them with extended claws, ripping into the demons, gibbering happily as it tore them to pieces.

“Come on!” Rorik shouted. “Let’s get out of here before it turns on us!”

Head still swimming from the departing effects of the spores, Gnarl followed Rorik and Miriam through a narrow passage, onto a descending ramp of rusted iron. The warlock’s words drifted in Gnarl’s mind. Once inside, if you win so far-descend!

They descended the ramp between pitted metal walls, traipsing down a gentle slope that clanged softly with their tread. On they went, the passageway lit by the same unnatural light as the surface. Gnarl found himself imagining how he would build his castle in Glorysade-seven spires, perhaps, each a different color, inlaid with semiprecious metals. A fountain-no, seven fountains! Would he have a seraglio? But stealing a glance at Miriam, he thought perhaps he wouldn’t want one.

“I like this less with each step we take,” Rorik grumbled. “And that vrock, the evistro, so closely placed, waiting almost.”

“I had the same thought,” Gnarl admitted. “Someone arrayed them to protect this device-and Sernos gave me no real warning.”

“You were a fool to blunder into this!” Rorik declared.

Gnarl shrugged. “My uncle said my destiny was connected with Glorysade. I always thought he meant a good destiny. So here I am. But now… I’m not so sure.”

“We’re committed,” Miriam said, shrugging. “Looks like a doorway ahead.”

They stepped through a door frame into a low-ceilinged chamber cut into the naked gray stone that underpinned the Plains of Rust. The walls were granite, but the ceiling was rusted iron.

In the middle of the chamber was a glinting dome about seven feet high, sixty in diameter, not quite a perfect circle, made of unblemished silvery metal. In its curving side was an open doorway. Excited by its shiny metallic promise, Rorik scurried eagerly through the low door-he didn’t have to stoop, as Gnarl and Miriam did.

Inside, rising up from a silvery floor, they found a large, glistening artifact shaped outwardly like a polyhedron, some of its panels transparent; it was almost big enough to fill the roughly circular chamber, leaving just a little space to move around its edges. On one facet, partway up, was an opening, within which several curious knobs and studs crackled with miniature bursts of lightning.

“Marvelous!” Rorik exclaimed. “These shapes seem formed to match the many-tool.” He had the magical utensil in his hand, and he tinkered within the device, muttering to himself in a grumbling voice. “Yes, the hexagonal knob asks to be turned this way; the next one requires that I reverse the tool, turning it the opposite way… I seem to hear a whispering suggestion that I press the cool-energy glim”-here he activated one of the magical jewels in the tool, pressing the blue crystal with his thumb, making it shine with a mystical emerald light-“and that would seem to call out for… Yes! And now if I turn this…”

Gnarl felt an odd mix of elation and anxiety at the possibility of Glorysade. Why indeed had the vrock and the evistro been set to guard the interior of the rusty tower? What did he know of Sernos, really?

“Wait, Rorik,” Miriam said worriedly. “Aren’t you being a bit hasty? Who is telling you how to use the tool? Don’t you wonder? Perhaps…”

But it was done: Rorik stepped back as the artifact was fully activated. Clockworks and magical energies intersected, revolving within it, linking and shifting, armatures rotating.

And suddenly the floor beneath their feet shook. They were knocked flat by the shuddering, Rorik clutching the many-tool, all three of them sprawling on the floor of the little dome-shaped chamber, their teeth clattering with the vibrations as the entire structure lifted itself from the floor, rising up and up, the silvery dome smashing through the rusted iron ceiling. Instinctively, Gnarl looked for the door-but it had sealed shut, quite seamlessly. Two windows opened, opposite, shaped like gigantic eyes-eyes looking outward. The floor continued to rollick and vibrate so he had to crawl to look out one of the windows of translucent blue glass-and he saw that the dome was no longer underground.

They had risen up, out of the underground, smashed up through the crust of the Plains of Rust, lifted high, towering above the scarlet desert. The chamber swayed and Gnarl heard gigantic footsteps-thump, thump, boom, thump. Through the windows he glimpsed giant metal hands and arms, swinging. He realized that he was looking out through the eyes of a gargantuan head. He looked down-saw a nose, cheekbones, the lineaments of a diabolic metal face. The enormous creation was stalking toward the rusted old fort. It reached the towers, paused, squatted, and thrust its jointed metal fingers into the desert of oxidation. The fingers fished around, and then the construct straightened up. As the giant stood, it pulled out the tower that they’d entered to arrive at their current place. It was actually a gigantic sword-its hilt had been buried in the red sands, its semi-rusted blade angling toward the sky.

“A colossus!” Rorik shouted over the rumbling, crawling to look out the eye-window beside Gnarl. “We’re in its skull! It was buried under the plains! You’ve activated the biggest colossus ever made!”

“I activated it? You’re the one who-”

He broke off, thrown onto his back by the acceleration as the colossus leaped into the sky. It flew straight up, rocketing with magical force, piercing the gray overcast. Lifting his head to look through its eyes, Gnarl saw that the metal giant, as it flew, was emanating rays of dark purple from its outstretched arms-the rays seemed to pierce space itself, so that a whirlpool formed, a circular gate, big enough for the giant.

“It’s opening a portal!” Rorik exclaimed.

They felt themselves compressed, transmuted, transformed-as, carried inside the giant, they passed through the portal. They traveled through the churning uncertainties of the Elemental Chaos, and through another portal-leaving the Abyss, coming out into the natural world, flying through the sky. Clouds flashed past. A glimpse of a river appeared below.

A great thundering, bone-jarring, double thump-and they were left dazed. After a moment Gnarl forced himself achily to his feet beside Rorik and Miriam, the three of them staring with astonishment out the window-eyes. The colossus stood upon the soil of their own world, awaiting a command.

Five hundred feet below them was Fallcrest.

“Ah, you’ve done it!” It was the voice of the warlock Sernos-whom Gnarl now understood was also known as Revenge. It emanated from the magical device behind them. “You’ve animated Glorysade, the greatest colossus, built by the Demon Chark himself-all have failed till you! You will be rewarded with the orderly world you find… locked forever inside the head of the colossus!” He chuckled dryly. “That is your Glorysade!”

Miriam shook her head. “Sernos must have made up the legend-he must’ve been trying to get at this colossus for years! It’s no surprise he lied to you, Gnarl!”

“I’m a fool!” Gnarl muttered sourly. “But what is Sernos’s intention here?” He turned to the device within the metal skull. “Sernos-can you hear me? Will you grant an answer or two?”

“I hear! Speak quickly-I am about to exact revenge on my enemy and cement my name as one of the greatest warlocks the world has known! Glorysade is nearly drained from its journey-it gathers full power from the dark energies. When that is done, I strike!”