The Forbidden Doors

Welcome Home, Master

The party woke rested in Gond’s chamber, then found a barbarian torn in two not far from their refuge. Whatever had killed him had done so with overwhelming force.

An earth elemental rose from the floor, regarded them and spoke three impossible words:

“Welcome home, master.”

Before anyone could demand an explanation, it sank back into the stone.

The chamber held an intricate astrolabe, two bodies that appeared to have starved roughly ninety-five years earlier, and a door carved with an ancient symbol of fields, fertility and earth. The mark belonged to primordial worship from before the gods as the party knew them.

The Earth Barbarians

Three barbarians confronted the party deeper in the halls. Clay armour covered their bodies and ancient symbols marked them, though the surviving account offers no certain explanation of their allegiance or purpose.

The fight was brief. The three warriors were dispatched before they could reveal whether they served the elemental, guarded the old chambers or had simply become trapped within them.

The Self-loading Ballista

A metallic crack split the silence. A bolt as large as a spear screamed along the corridor and buried itself in stone. Ahead, half-concealed by rockfall, a great ballista began winding itself for another shot.

No operator stood behind it. Gears turned, the string drew and another iron shaft locked into place. Karl advanced behind his shield while Halen absorbed a glancing strike and laughed at the machine. Toby answered it with his bow.

Asuran vaulted the debris and reached the mechanism from behind. Ordinary blows had achieved little—and damaged metal had begun knitting itself back together—but his daggers found the strings and gears. The ballista shrieked to a halt. He recovered two unspent bolts from the wreckage.

Forbidden Entry

The next hall held three doors. Two were modest; the third was a vast set of double doors faced in blackened steel. Faint blue runes carried a warning clear enough to understand: forbidden entry.

Karl insisted they should remain shut. Halen observed that this was what Karl always said immediately before opening something dangerous.

While the argument continued, Asuran searched a side chamber dominated by a horned demon statue on a raised dais. Its red stone eyes seemed dull until he moved. Then they followed him.

The Wraiths Beyond

The forbidden doors opened. Pale light bled into the hall, cold enough to lift every hair. Four figures of mist and sorrow slipped through, half-formed and starving for the life they no longer possessed.

Karl raised his falcon shield and invoked Kord. Holy light drove the nearest spirit back, but the room began to flicker between worlds. Halen’s greatsword passed through mist, then struck when the wraiths became briefly solid. Their touch drained him, greying his hair and pulling him towards the negative realm.

Toby’s bowstring sounded from the corridor. His arrows crossed the rift and broke one spirit into fading frost. Karl and Halen fought their way back while the last wraith pursued them beyond the doors. One final blow ended it, and living air rushed into the hall.

Halen emerged pale, exhausted and visibly aged. The doors were closed again, but the stone continued to hum with the nearness of the dead world.

The Veiled Dwarf

A low side-door had a small round opening. Through it Halen saw a dwarf working with a hammer on the far side. Karl called out in Dwarven, but the sound warped as though travelling underwater. The figure neither heard nor looked up.

Hands and weapons met cold resistance around the threshold: not glass, but a veil between worlds. The dwarf continued his work in an adjacent place the party could see but could not enter.

The Portal Chamber

After resting, the party split briefly to explore two routes. Halen and Asuran found a large chamber containing four archways. Three were sealed with fused stone. The fourth shimmered like a waterfall made from glass. Empty gemstone sockets crowned the arches, except for one holding a deep amber stone.

Beyond the active portal, something vast moved through a place that was neither air nor water. A dwarf stood on a small island of rock, hopping and shouting soundlessly. Halen pushed his head through the surface and heard a man yelling somewhere below.

Asuran climbed towards the amber gem while Halen stood ready beneath him. Using a small jimmy, he eased the stone loose and prepared to replace it with a dull red gem from his pouch. Then his boot slipped.

He did not fall. The chamber turned amber. Sparks drifted around him like ash from a great fire, answering thought more readily than movement. Suspended between the mountain and the flame, Asuran realised he might hide within the light itself.

“Let’s try,” he whispered.

Then all the light went out.