Chapter Fifteen: A Crazy World Like This

Bodhi dropped us off the platform into the hall. She was considerate enough not to just throw us off, perhaps because her hunt wouldn't have been as much fun if we were handicapped by having injuries such as broken ankles, but jumped down carrying Minsc first, leapt back up, and then lowered the rest of us down to where Minsc could catch us and put us down safely. Her ability to do a standing jump upward, onto a platform fifteen feet above the ground and apparently without effort, was both impressive and worrying. Just how strong was she?

"I'll see you in a few hours," she said, "that is, assuming you survive the maze." With that, she led her retinue away.

I spat the Ring of Gaxx out into my hand and slipped it back onto my finger. With that, and the couple of weapons with which Bodhi had oh-so-thoughtfully provided us, maybe we could get through this. I had to hope so, anyway. My first priority after donning the Ring was Imoen. I went straight to her.

"Are you all right?" she asked me, just as I was about to ask her the same question. "I was so scared. You came all this way to get me, and we were almost… I'm sorry, T'rissae. I was just so worried."

"You seem better than you were when Irenicus brought us to you," I said. "I'm fine. How are you, really?"

"I was putting it on, a little," Imoen admitted. "Irenicus left me alone when he thought I wasn't aware of what was going on. I was a bit out of it when he came in with you, but not as much as I was pretending. I didn't want to say anything in case you had some plan and I ruined it. I didn't know he had… what had he done to you? Not a Charm, surely? I know they don't work on you."

"They do if I've been eating spell components for the past seven days without knowing, apparently," I told her. "It's a long story. Oh, Imoen, this is Nalia De'Arnise. She's a thief and a mage, just like you. Well, not exactly like you, no-one's quite like our Imoen."

"Pleased to meet you," Nalia said, "although I could have wished it to be in better circumstances."

"Imoen Winthrop. The same here," Imoen responded. "Heya, Minsc, Jaheira. I see Trissie got you back, Vicky."

"She rescued me, indeed, and put a sword through the face of the one who had been subjecting me to indignities," Viconia said. "I hope that soon, with our aid, she will be able to do the same to Irenicus and Bodhi. Although, as the only spells I have left are a single Armor of Faith, a Bless, a Command, two Cure Light Wounds, and a Remove Fear, I will not be able to contribute a great deal to our vengeance."

"I have even less," said Jaheira. "Armor of Faith, Bless, and two Cure Light Wounds. Nalia, do you have spells remaining?"

"I have three Identifies, a Charm Person, and a Magic Missile," Nalia said. "That's all, I'm afraid. Those horrible creatures sucked away everything else."

"I have a few spells," Imoen said. "I kept them ready, all this time, but I couldn't cast them in the cells, and then when Irenicus took over I knew there wasn't any point in trying to do anything to him. I've got Stoneskin, and Fireball, and Lightning Bolt, and a few others." That would make Imoen our most powerful offensive weapon, at least for a while.

"I have some spells," Minsc put in. "There were no spell-eating creatures in my cell. They are not mighty spells, though. But I have Flame Blade, so I can do a little butt-kicking for goodness."

"And I've been keeping Spiritual Hammer memorized for a while now," I said. "And I have as many Protection From Evil paladin spells as anyone could possibly want. We'd better get moving. If Bodhi's going to come in after us, we need to have found some proper weapons first."

"We need to get back to Irenicus," Imoen said. "Ever since he… took my soul and gave it to Bodhi… I've been feeling more… hollow inside. He says we're both going to wither away and die. We need to get our souls back."

"I have no idea how we could get Irenicus and Bodhi into that machine, even if we knew how it works," I said. "Of course, killing them might get our souls back. It's an experiment I'm willing to try."

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I picked a staircase at random. As I had no idea where any of them led, there was nothing on which to base an informed choice. I chose the one that was to our right as we faced away from the platform. Half-way up the staircase my vision blurred and I suddenly felt extremely dizzy. My step faltered and I only just avoided falling. It lasted only a moment and then cleared. The others expressed concern, and insisted on pausing for a short time to make sure that I was all right, but I felt fine almost at once and we pressed on.

The top of the staircase led to a corridor with branches going slightly to our left or sharply to our right. Directly ahead of us a crate stood against the wall. Imoen and Nalia were both sure that it was not trapped and I opened it. Inside I found a heavy crossbow, non-magical but powerful, and four score bolts, half of them enchanted. This was particularly welcome as, although Tanova had provided us with a sling, she had neglected to include any ammunition. Now we had at least some ranged weapon capability.

The right-hand branch of the corridor ended at a door only a few feet away. We opened it and found a room containing half a dozen gibberlings. In our usual gear they would have been a joke, rather than a threat, but as we had no armor, and almost no weaponry, they managed to hurt us quite badly before we killed them all. I recommended that we save our few healing spells for when they were needed most urgently, and for the time being to heal our hurts by passing the Ring of Gaxx around from one to another. Minsc was in most need and he was first to put on the ring.

We found much that was of use in the gibberlings' room. Two Identify scrolls, a bundle of throwing axes, numerous throwing daggers, a composite longbow and three score arrows, and seven pouches each containing two score of sling bullets, some of which were enchanted, and a spear sufficiently enchanted to require the use of a spell to determine its enchantment. It proved to be three-times enchanted, powerful enough to pierce almost any foe, and I took it. Jaheira knew the basics of spear-fighting, but was much better with a scimitar, whereas I had no training with a spear at all but its enchantment, and my strength, should make up for my lack of skill. I would follow the principle of 'the point goes into the enemy' and hope that would be enough. There was also an odd gemstone, of no type that we recognized, resembling an Ioun Stone but without apparent magic. We took it anyway.

The other branch of the corridor had two doors opening from it. One led onto another corridor, and the other to a fairly small room. We investigated the room first. It seemed to be a room of puzzles. Around the walls stood statues, each engraved with a riddle, and bearing a dish in its hands. In the center of the room was a chest, not trapped, in which were a odd assortment of trinkets and a letter.

The letter read: 'Heed this, inmate! The true test of madness is the simple measurement of the mind's precision. The cured shall be rewarded. The afflicted shall wander without recourse.'

My first thought was that this was nonsense, but Imoen's quick mind leapt to the right conclusion. This was a test in which we had to solve the riddles on each statue and place the trinket corresponding to the answer in the appropriate dish in the statue's hands. The riddles were almost childishly simple and we solved them without difficulty. When we placed the last item in its dish the lid of the chest, which we had left open, slammed shut and then opened again by itself. It now contained two stones. One was an Ioun Stone, conferring on its wearer a minor protective benefit, and the other was another stone like the odd gemstone we had found in the previous room. We took both, Imoen being given the Ioun Stone, and I took something else; an amulet, in the form of a sword, that had been one of the answers to a riddle. It would be a close match for a symbol of Eilistraee and I wore it around my neck.

The next room contained a dozen or so Mephits and a Rukh Rakshasa. Imoen used her Lightning Bolt to slay several of the Mephits, and injure the Rakshasa, but the Rakshasa was immune to most of our weapons other than my spear and we all took hurts before we could slay the last of our foes. An obvious portal took up most of the far wall of that room, and inscriptions around it seemed to imply that it was activated by the odd-looking gems we had found, and would disgorge either a mighty foe or a great treasure. In our current condition we were not in the best shape to face a dangerous enemy, except in the direst need, and I thought it best that we should leave it well alone for the time being. Perhaps we would return later.

We came next to another room of riddles, this time involving one of us placing her hand in the mouth of a statue and verbally answering the riddle that it asked. A voice warned that pain would be the price of failure. Success would no doubt be rewarded, and we needed all the rewards we could get, and so I risked the pain.

There was no pain, for the riddles were simple enough. The reward was a ring, identified by Imoen as a Ring of Regeneration, acting far slower than the Ring of Gaxx but, in our present situation, a great benefit. Minsc had been the most badly hurt in our previous encounter, but the Ring of Gaxx had almost healed him during the time I had been answering the riddles, and so he put on the new ring to finish his healing and the Ring of Gaxx was passed on to Viconia, who had taken the next worst hurts.

The corridor out of the riddle room turned sharply right, so that we could not see what lay beyond, and so we advanced cautiously. I saw a Yuan-Ti warrior and we retreated, with the snake-man in pursuit, to a point where we could outflank it and attack it several on one. Even so it managed to wound me quite severely before it went down. Without our armor, and our chosen weapons, every encounter was perilous.

We made another attempt at that corridor, only to see several more Yuan-Ti including a mage. We retreated, and fought a running battle, slaying all the warriors at the cost of several nasty wounds and Imoen being hit by a Confusion spell. Some of my wounds were caused by a confused Imoen throwing daggers at my back as I fought a Yuan-Ti spear to sword. The mage had not joined in the pursuit and we had to make another advance, risking its spells, and pelting it with missiles until it died. We had a narrow escape there, without realizing it until the danger was over; the mage used another Confusion spell, but this time targeting me, and my magic resistance, restored after the expiry of whatever Irenicus had done, caused the spell to fail. Had the mage selected a more vulnerable target the result might have been catastrophic, for a little further along we discovered that the corridor was rigged with a deadly trap that could not be disarmed. Had one of us been Confused in that corridor they could have walked, oblivious, into a mechanism that would have crushed them to a pulp.

It is possible that Yoshimo might have been able to disarm that trap but neither Imoen nor Nalia could match his skill. They admitted defeat and we abandoned hope of continuing in that direction. This section was cleared now, except for whatever perils might emerge from the portal, and I did not feel that we were yet sufficiently equipped to risk that. We returned to the hall in which we had started and tried the next staircase.

More Yuan-Ti, this time three mages and several warriors. Again we engaged in a running battle of advances and retreats, trying to pit all of us against one or two of them, but the mages summoned Skeleton Warriors and frustrated our tactics. We used up all of our throwing daggers, and all of my non-magical crossbow bolts, all of us suffered wounds, and at one point Jaheira was forced to use up one of our precious healing spells as otherwise she might well have died.

When, at long last, the last of the Yuan-Ti fell we explored the room and found very little. Some throwing darts, which at least would serve in place of the throwing daggers, and spell scrolls of Delayed Blast Fireball and Project Image. And a statue, positioned to block a doorway, that declared 'Only builder may pass. His hand alone shall open the way once focus of power is restored'. None of us could work out what this meant; perhaps it would become clear once we had explored further.

We tried the staircase directly under the platform from which we had been dropped into this maze. It led to a corridor, in one direction leading to the crushing machine we had seen from the other side, and in the other to somewhere unknown. We tried a door straight ahead but shut it immediately. In that room was a Clay Golem, an enemy I dared not face yet, and luckily it did not seem to notice us and we were able to withdraw unmolested. We went in the direction yet untried.

This led to a room in which a book stood on a pedestal. Turning its first page caused a monster to be summoned. A kobold, armed with bow and short-sword, easily slain and increasing our store of weapons marginally. I decided it would be worth trying again. This time it produced a Sword Spider, not too hard to slay but wounding me before it fell. And, of course, it carried no weapons. I tried again nonetheless.

An Umber Hulk. Formidable, and it hurt me badly, and another foe that did not use weapons. I thought of what we had dealt with in the previous rooms and guessed that each turning would produce a more formidable opponent than the one before. At the end, however, would be some reward commensurate with the danger. I risked it again.

This time it came up with a Mind Flayer. Alone, at close quarters, it was not quite as dangerous as if we had encountered it in the open or in its lair, but it stunned Jaheira with its mental blast before we managed to slay it. Surely that had to be the last monster. There was no room for a dragon in this chamber, and what else could be more dangerous than a Mind Flayer? We waited for Jaheira to recover from being stunned, which gave the Ring of Gaxx time to heal most of the wounds I had suffered, and tried again.

What could be more dangerous than a Mind Flayer? The Beholder that appeared next. And yet we won. It concentrated on me, and yet again my magic resistance saved me, for the only one of its eye beams that affected me was Miscast Magic, and I had had no intention of casting anything. We killed it, and suffered little hurt in the doing, and I decided we could risk one more try.

This time, however, I was more cautious. I had all the others retreat beyond the room doorway and warned them to run if something even more deadly appeared. I would trust to my magic resistance but I, too, was ready to flee. It was not necessary. We had reached the end of the sequence at last. The book conjured up, not another monster, but a Ring of Free Action and spell scrolls of Simulacrum and Summon Fiend. Valuable prizes indeed.

Exploring further, we became involved in running fights with kobolds backed up by Imps and Quasits. Searching kobold bodies for shortbows, arrows, a few fire arrows, and a couple of enchanted short-swords brought back memories of doing the same in the lands around Baldur's Gate. We had improved our skills vastly since then, but with no armor and limited weapons we were almost as vulnerable. We picked up every arrow we could find, and were glad of them.

The kobolds seemed to worship a giant crystal, and their chatter indicated that they believed it housed an avatar of the kobold god Kurtulmak, but their attempts to summon the deity succeeded only in breaking off a shard from the crystal. A shaman hurt us with a lightning bolt, before dying, but we came away better off than we had been. The crystal shard looked… intriguing and I took it with us.

We fought our way onward. We battled several types of Undead, including a Skeleton Warrior archer, who pelted us with Arrows of Ice, and when we eventually brought it down it had only one arrow remaining. At least it had a two-handed sword, non-magical but better than nothing, giving Minsc a close-quarter weapon with which he was proficient, and a helm that went to Minsc also. There were Greater Mummies, immune to every weapon we had save for my spear, forcing me to fight them alone, one by one, and being brought to the brink of death. I survived the second one only by wearing both rings at once. Their combined healing powers, and a timely Cure Light Wounds spell cast on me by Minsc, was just enough to keep me alive.

A second Skeleton Warrior provided us with a once-enchanted two-handed sword and a second helm, which I took. And then there was a Lich.

In the event the Lich turned out to be one of the least challenging of our opponents. It fought exclusively with magic, and I took it on alone with the others back out of range, and my magic resistance saved me at crucial times. The treasure that it guarded included envenomed arrows and crossbow bolts, a spell scroll, and a thrice-enchanted quarterstaff. If we faced another Greater Mummy we would have a second weapon that could strike it. And it would be effective against the Clay Golem we had avoided earlier.

A nearby room held a plentiful supply of ammunition and, for a pleasant change, no monsters guarding it. And then we found a room in which the architect who had created the maze resided.

I say 'resided' rather than 'lived' because he was a vampire. Bodhi had turned him and now he was her prisoner. He babbled insanely, telling how he had taken the crystal that focused power for the exit and hidden it where the kobolds had found it, and how only his hand could open the door. I tried to get him to speak sensibly, and to let us through that door, but he only attacked. I slew his vampire form and, when he returned to his coffin as a mist, I staked his corpse. As I did so, his hand came off, and remained intact as the rest of the body crumbled. And his spirit appeared, and thanked me for releasing him, before dispersing.

There was no direct route back to the room where the statue blocking the exit door could be found. There was still another room in this section unexplored, but first we went back to the Clay Golem room. This time Jaheira wore both rings, and fought with the enchanted quarterstaff, and I tried to back her up using my Spiritual Hammer spell. It seemed to have no effect, other than to attract the golem's attention and cause me to be injured, but Jaheira battered it apart. My intuition that a room guarded by a Clay Golem would have worthwhile contents was correct. As well as copious quantities of all types of ammunition, and another of the odd gems that were linked to the mysterious portal, it held a truly great treasure; a Bag of Holding.

The remaining room, or rather rooms for it turned out to be divided in two by a wall and a gate, held no such treasure. Only deadly peril, and we came closer to death than at any time before. The first part of the room seemed empty but, as I approached the gate, the door behind us slammed shut, cutting Imoen off from the rest of the group, and three Umber Hulks arose from the ground and attacked. It was a desperate fight but we prevailed, if barely, and all of us were wounded. Then, as the last monster fell and we breathed sighs of relief, the central gate opened and three more Umber Hulks rushed upon us.

We survived by the narrowest of margins. We used every one of our few healing spells but still ended up with all of us barely clinging to life. Only Imoen was unscathed, separated from us as she had been, able to see what was happening but unable to do anything to help us. Perhaps the only thing that saved us from utter disaster was that none of us fell victim to their Confusion powers until the second group attacked, and Minsc and Jaheira, the ones affected, did not attack the rest of us but either continued to attack the monsters or else merely wandered aimlessly. And, after all that, there was nothing of value in the rooms at all and we need not have even entered them.

I hoped that the same would not apply to the only other part of this floor of the maze that we had not yet investigated; the portal in the room where we had fought the Rakshasa and Mephits. We made our way there at a slow pace; a compromise between two conflicting priorities. On the one hand, we wanted to give the two rings, our only remaining source of healing, time to work; on the other, we needed to move on quickly before Bodhi decided to enter the maze herself and hunt us down. Complicating things still further, we could not afford to overlook anything that might be found in the areas we passed through, for with our existing equipment we stood little if any chance against Bodhi. If we saw her approaching, and had time, I would cast Protection From Evil upon each of us and then Imoen or Nalia could use the scroll of Summon Fiend to bring us an ally even Bodhi might struggle against. Without time to cast the Protection spells it would be us that the fiend tore apart.

And speaking of fiends… one was the second monster to emerge from the portal. The first was a Greater Wolfwere, savage and immune to weapons not at least twice enchanted, but at least by now almost all of us had something that could hurt it. It went down after inflicting only minor wounds on me. The next to emerge was a Pit Fiend. Only the spear, and Jaheira's staff, could harm it and the battle was hard. It cast Symbol of Fear and Jaheira and Imoen fled in blind panic. I slew the beast, at last, but then realized that they were fleeing towards the corridor in which lay the deadly crushing trap. I raced after them, my heart pounding, and only just managed to catch up with them and cast Remove Fear before they blundered into certain death.

It was with great trepidation that I went to the portal with the final gem. Again it opened and something stepped forth. I readied my weapon… but the creature that stepped out did not attack. It was a genie, and it spoke.

"The stone commands, and I must obey," it said. "This armor is the gift to those of sound mind. A puzzle. A riddle. A reward. Thus was my home built, and I have fulfilled my duties. You are doing well, T'rissae." It departed, in a swirl of magic energy, leaving behind a suit of plate-mail armor.

Nalia used an Identify spell and declared the armor to be the Doomplate, thrice-enchanted, but with an ill reputation. Every adventurer who had worn it had died shortly after donning it for the first time. Of course, such is the lot of adventurers, and it could well be that it was simply chance, or that they felt over-confident in its protection and ventured too far. Regardless, I was not deterred. I put it on, gladly, and felt that at last I could fulfill my proper role of standing at the front and trading blows with the foe. We headed for the statue marking the exit from this level feeling just a little more confident that we might survive.

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Presenting the crystal shard and the vampire's hand to the statue gained us access to stairs going down. The staircase led us to a chamber with two doors leading off. We took the left-hand one and emerged into a large room full of Yuan-Ti, including a mage, but by now we were sufficiently well-equipped for this not to be too difficult a fight. We examined the room, once they were all dead, finding nothing of use, but there were four doors at the far side each decorated with a large picture of a monster. A Mind Flayer, a Troll, an Umber Hulk, and a Djinn. I guessed that the monsters were to be found inside those rooms. Hopefully, they would be guarding treasure commensurate with their status. I tried the Troll door, but it would not open, and so we retraced our steps to the entrance area and went through its other door.

Into a corridor, in which we saw a door that would not open, and then Imoen noticed a secret door in the opposite wall. That led to a chamber containing a control wheel, which I turned, and it opened the door we had just passed. I almost wished it hadn't. The room was full of trolls, and I did not have either of the rings at that time, and only my new armor saved me from being severely wounded before we downed the trolls, and Nalia could finish them off with the fire arrows we had taken from the kobolds. Then, when I thought it safe, a Spirit Troll, invisible, took me by surprise. Again my armor saved me.

A jar in the room held some coin, two score of arrows, and two strange tokens that were shaped like human ears and seemed to be made of mithral. I had learned that everything in this place was there for a reason and so, although I saw no obvious use for the tokens, I took them.

Following the corridor further along brought us to a room in which were four minotaurs. Perhaps our easiest fight yet, for although strong they wore no armor, and we slew them quickly without injury to ourselves. In this room a jar held two more of the strange mithral tokens, two score of twice-enchanted crossbow bolts, and a scroll of Sunfire.

A small chamber opening off from the minotaurs' room contained three statues overlooking a pool of water. In the water I found more crossbow bolts, two more mithral tokens, a stone replica of a minotaur horn, and an oil painting of a Mind Flayer. I guessed that the painting would grant access to the door bearing that picture and took everything. The statues had recesses and I investigated them. The first contained a picture of a troll; when I took it a spell was cast on me but my magic resistance cancelled it and I could not even tell what it had been supposed to do. The next statue held a picture of an Umber Hulk and a Cloudkill spell was cast on me, again without ill effect. The final statue gave me a picture of a Djinn and unleashed a Fireball at me. This time my magic resistance failed me, but I took no serious harm and the Ring of Gaxx healed me in a short time.

With the pictures in my possession, we returned to the room in which similar pictures had adorned the doors. I decided there was no point in trying to second-guess the creators of the maze, and assume that the apparently weakest creature was the best one with which to start, and instead I began at the left-hand door on which the picture was that of a Mind Flayer. It did not prove too difficult an opponent, being trapped in a small room and unable to maneuver, and it went down under a hail of missiles and my spear thrusts. It dropped a weapon that, from my point of view, was the best find yet. A two-handed sword, Identified by Nalia as the Flame of the North, twice-enchanted but with an extra enchantment against opponents aligned both to Evil and to Chaos, and giving me an increase to my magic resistance. Wielding that sword, in addition to my native resistance and that bestowed by the Ring of Gaxx, I would be almost impervious to hostile magic; better in that respect than if I held Carsomyr, for that mighty weapon did not add to my magic resistance but replaced it with a slightly lesser version. I would still rather have had my own sword, of course, but this one would do.

I wielded the Flame of the North as I opened the next door along. This one was that with a picture of a troll. The room behind seemed empty at first but I suspected that an invisible Spirit Troll lurked within. My suspicion was justified, and it struck at me, but forewarned is forearmed and we slew it almost at once. It dropped a katana; another named blade, Malakar the Dueling Steel, twice-enchanted and designed to make parrying especially effective. Imoen claimed it for herself, somewhat to my surprise as she had never tried to wield one before, but then she was no great shakes with any close-combat weapon and its enchantment would make up for her lack of skill. Or perhaps she had been listening to the tales of our adventures we had been relating, as we moved slowly between encounters in the maze above, and wanted to practice with a katana so that she could claim the mighty Celestial Fury when we came across Yoshimo again. I hoped we would be able to find some alternative to killing our former friend, who had been trapped in a horrible situation and who in slipping me the Ring of Gaxx might have saved us all, but I feared any future confrontation would, inevitably, end in his death.

Next, the Umber Hulk door. We slew the monster, but it dropped no treasure, and behind it was a corridor rather than a room. I decided to leave the corridor unexplored, for the moment, and open the final door instead. The genie inside attacked, found itself outmatched, and fled, slipping past us and fleeing along the corridor beyond the Umber Hulk room. We caught up with it and brought it down just past a right-angle bend. It dropped only a non-magical amulet of little value, disappointingly, but a jar nearby held enchanted ammunition of all types and a useful spell scroll.

The door at the end of this corridor stood open and inside it we could see three golems. Clay Golems, the only type that always gave me trouble. They were inactive but no doubt would spring into action if we entered the room. I decided that, for now, we would refrain.

Another nearby door was closed and I opened it. There was a golem in this room, too, and this one attacked immediately. It was a Stone Golem, however, and fell to my new sword in only a few strokes. On a table in the room lay throwing axes, throwing daggers, and three mithral tokens.

At the far end of this room a door led to a chamber in which the secret of the mithral tokens was revealed. A strange machine stood in the room, a prominent slot on the machine looking to be exactly the right size to fit the mithral tokens, and a board on its side displayed a message indicating that the machine would dispense footwear on the insertion of the correct number of tokens. They had to be inserted in multiples of five, and we had nine, and I guessed that the greater the number inserted, the better the footwear dispensed. Magical footwear, I suspected, and rather than insert five and get some minor item, I thought it more advantageous to delay until we had more tokens. If we could collect enough, the machine might give us something truly worthwhile, such as – dare I hope – Boots of Speed?

I decided to risk the Clay Golems now. We had only one weapon that would harm them, Jaheira's quarterstaff, but she would never be able to withstand their pounding and so I took over the weapon from her. I donned both rings, told the others to stay back, and went in. I did not wait for the golems to activate but struck first, bringing them all to life but severely damaging my target before any had moved. The next minute was painful in the extreme, but successful. I was still alive when the last of them fell, although severely hurt, and we were able to search the room without further interference.

A safe in the room was locked but Imoen opened it without difficulty. Inside was a Star Sapphire gem, very valuable but of no importance in our present situation, and an enchanted bowstring that would fit the Gesen Bow we had left with Cromwell in Athkatla. And more mithral tokens, four this time, bringing our total to thirteen. I was sure that there would be more to be found and held back from operating the machine.

Back we went to the room where we had discovered the paintings. Proceeding onward from there we fought, and slew, two trolls and then came to a room in which four globes were mounted along the walls. Cautious investigation revealed that touching a globe triggered a spell being cast on whoever stood in the center of the room; Slow, Healing, Haste, or Lightning Bolt. The Lightning Bolt spell required several uses of the Healing globe before everyone was fully recovered.

And, in the next room, Bodhi was waiting.

"Here, mousey mousey," she greeted us. "The hunt draws to a close here and now."

"Clever girl," I said. "I was expecting you to chase us, not take the smart option and wait for us to come to you."

"I'm not just a pretty face," said Bodhi. "I'd be a fool to traipse through all those rooms when I could take a short cut. You were amusing, but the game is over now. One last time, let our paths cross in blood."

I charged with my sword, intending to leave my unprotected companions to use missiles from beyond her reach, and found that she had two lesser vampires with her. I did not recognize them, and felt relief that neither was the formidable and accomplished mage Tanova or our former comrade Safana, but my attention was primarily on Bodhi. She seemed to be enjoying our fight, even grinning when I managed to connect with one of the unconventional moves Aunt Cierre had taught me, and she held back from taking advantage of an opening I gave her when I overcommitted to a Z'ress A'thalak blow; as if she was deliberately prolonging the fight. I have to admit that I might have enjoyed it too had it not been in such deadly earnest. She tested me to my limits, and beyond; lightning-fast and agile, as well as incredibly strong, and greatly skilled too. She would have destroyed Sarevok, or Ashatiel, in seconds, and even outmatched Aunt Cierre; perhaps even Caelar Argent. And she was outmatching me.

She was toying with me, and I began to get angry. Then I felt a rage building up in me, overwhelming my senses, taking over from the precision with which I tried to fight. I slashed wildly, in sheer berserk fury, and then my body began to transform. I lost control of my mind altogether and was only vaguely aware of my surroundings as I clawed at the vampires like a savage beast. Bodhi transformed into a bat, her companions into gaseous forms, and all three fled. I felt cheated of prey, and sought something else to rend with my talons – talons? – and headed for my own companions to attack them in Bodhi's stead.

They ran, keeping out of my reach, and I pursued. I gained on them… but then my rage abated, I slowed, and transformed back into myself. My mind was my own again. They ceased their flight, and turned back, and approached me with some apparent caution.

"Are you… all right?" Imoen asked. "I've never seen anything like that. You were all… horned and fanged and your arms were really long… T'rissae, that was… that was the Slayer! It's one of the avatar forms of Bhaal. You… you became the Slayer!"

"I've read of it," I said. "It stalked the land during the Time of Troubles. And I became it? Vith!"

"T'rissae, we have to get our souls back from Bodhi and Irenicus," Imoen said. "You've been left empty, and it's affecting you differently from me."

"I don't feel empty at all," I said. "In fact, other than just now, I've felt perfectly normal. Battered, bloody, and in pain, yes, but that's normal for me. I agree with you that we have to get our souls back, though. I don't want to turn into a monster again. We'd better move on. Bodhi might come back and, even if she doesn't, we still need to get out of here."

The room in which I had fought Bodhi was dominated by a huge statue of a minotaur that lacked both its horns. The stone horn we had found earlier looked as if it might be one of the missing horns. There was a door on the far side of the statue, closed and locked securely enough to be beyond the ability of our thieves to open, and I guessed that replacing the horns would open the door.

Two other doors opened from it and the first we tried held three minotaurs, easily killed, and a jar in which we found a Limited Wish scroll, a second stone minotaur horn, and two more mithral tokens, bringing our total up to fifteen. The second room was occupied by four more minotaurs and a Gauth. By no means the worst of the enemies we had faced… but they killed Jaheira.

One of the minotaurs caught Jaheira with his axe and inflicted a deep wound. She was bleeding heavily but kept fighting. I was busy with the Gauth, and it realized that its eye-blasts were having no effect upon me, and switched its attention to the others. It targeted Jaheira, hit her with two rays, and she went down and lay still. The minotaur raised its great axe and was about to bring it down in a decapitating blow.

Viconia screamed out "Nau!" and went berserk. She dropped her sling, snatched up Jaheira's fallen quarterstaff, and laid into the minotaur with sheer fury making up for her lack of strength. The minotaur redirected its axe blow at Viconia, she dodged, and her next staff strike made sure that it didn't get another chance. I finished off the Gauth, the others slew the remaining minotaurs, and that fight was over.

"We must get her to the Rod of Resurrection," Viconia said, looking down at Jaheira's body. She gave a bitter laugh. "I had made sure to have Raise Dead memorized, in case we lost the Rod, but the calussai d'faer took that spell with the rest."

"We will get her there," I said. "I'll carry her. Or Minsc will. I'm strong enough to bear her weight, no problem, but she's nearly as big as me and carrying her would be awkward, to say the least. You seem… more upset than I would have expected. Are you starting to regard Jaheira as a friend?"

"Perhaps," Viconia admitted. "She has proven herself worthy of trust, for she went against her own people for us, and her rejoinders to my insults have a certain wit to them. I would not want her to stay dead."

"She might have done, if you hadn't stopped that minotaur hitting her after she went down," I said. "If his blow had landed, I don't think we could have resurrected her even with the Rod. You saved her."

"I am glad," she said. "Now let us get her to the Rod as quickly as possible."

"Not before we search this room," I said. "We paid a heavy price to clear it of foes and I do not want it to have been for nothing." A quick search of the room revealed no great treasure, but there were four of those mithral tokens, some enchanted sling bullets, and a spell scroll. Not worth a death, even a temporary one.

We had nineteen tokens now and, as far as I could tell, we had looked everywhere. I had been certain we would find a multiple of five, and that meant we must have missed one somewhere, but it wasn't worth going back and searching every nook and cranny. We went with what we had. I left the others in the minotaur statue room, guarding Jaheira's body, and ran back to the room that held the mysterious footwear machine. I inserted fifteen tokens and it had exactly the effect I most desired; the boots that came out of its chute in return for the tokens were, indeed, Boots of Speed! I donned them at once and ran back to the others at great speed.

We attached the minotaur horns to the statue and, as I expected, the door behind it opened. Would it lead out of this maze… or would we just find ourselves on another level of the same labyrinth?

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The answer to my unvoiced question was 'Neither of the two options.' We came out onto a platform and were attacked by kobold and goblin archers. We killed them, and snatched up some fire arrows, and then a ghostly apparition appeared.

"Here begins the tests of madness, of sanity and clarity," the apparition said. "Presented with nonsense, how will you proceed?"

"You wish to test me?" I queried. "But this place is derelict. The directors are dead."

"The procedures laid down proceed regardless of time or circumstance," said the apparition. "Such is the nature of this place. Protests are futile. This area works on its own, allowing the directors to watch in safety. You are here, and there is no other way out. Comply or die. You are sane enough to understand that. Now, when madness beckoned, how did you answer? Now comes the judgement, when we decide your fitness for life outside."

I had a feeling that no-one had ever made it this far before. The dangers we had faced would have destroyed any lone inmate, unless she had been of a power level approaching that of Irenicus himself or Elminster, and some seemed far more suited to fighters than to mages. We didn't seem to have any alternative but to proceed through this part, and so I assented. "Then ask away, and I shall pass," I said. "I shall not resist if it speeds the process."

"Very good," said the spirit. "Restraint is a good sign. Perhaps you are closer to release than I thought. We shall see."

And suddenly we were teleported away, into another area, in which we found ourselves facing a spore colony. We killed it before it could summon other myconids, or release its spores to cause Confusion, and the apparition appeared again. It asked a simple riddle, to which the answer was 'a splinter', and we were teleported away again as soon as I spoke. I wondered, briefly, what would happen if my magic resistance prevented the teleportation from working.

This time we found ourselves in a peaceful room, in which a large table stood, with apparitions sitting in chairs all around it. I passed the Ring of Gaxx over to Viconia, to prevent the boost it gave to my magic resistance from interfering with any new teleportations, and saw an interesting-looking cloak on the table. None of the apparitions seemed to notice when I took it and passed it to Imoen for identification. It was a Cloak of Reflection, acting as a mirror to electrical energy such as Lightning Bolt, reflecting it back to its source. That might be handy. The apparitions continued to ignore us and I could see no way out of the room. I spoke to one to get their attention.

It responded by asking four simple riddles. I answered each one correctly, as far as I could tell, and the apparitions appeared satisfied. They teleported us out and into a cavern where we had to fight three trolls, one of them a shaman spellcaster, and another a Spectral Troll. We slew them and gained a shamanistic amulet that none of us could use, and a bone club that was obviously enchanted, but which neither of our mages could identify. They had used up all of their spells and scrolls of Identify and we would have to wait until we recovered the Glasses of Identification.

An apparition appeared and asked if we were ready to proceed to judgement. I assented and we were teleported again; this time to a rooftop in the open air, where an apparition awaited us, and it announced that we had passed the tests and were free. Of course, as the only way off the rooftop was by way of a flight of stairs leading down into the asylum, 'free' was an overstatement. We took the stairs down anyway.

The stairs led to the corridor that ran around the outside of the large room in which Irenicus had shut me into a glass chamber and stolen my soul. And someone was standing there to meet us, someone I had not expected to see again. Captain Saemon Havarian.

"Tell me why I shouldn't just kill you out of hand," I said, aiming the point of my sword directly at his throat.

"Such hostility, and I wager it is well earned," he said. "It is, however, misdirected. I do not wish to be your enemy here."

"Sensible," I said. "My enemies tend not to live long."

He looked at Jaheira's body, slung over Minsc's shoulders, and raised his eyebrows. "It would seem that your friends don't always live long either."

I felt a flare of anger but managed to suppress it. "Making such a callous quip when there is a sword at your throat is far from sensible," I said. "Don't make me angry. You would not like me when I am angry."

"You really, really, wouldn't," Imoen confirmed.

"And you are lucky that I do not have my spells," Viconia added, "or you would have felt a Flame Strike at the very least. Speak, rivvil, and choose your words more wisely."

"I can help you," Havarian said. "Irenicus pushes ever forward and I cannot see how I will profit. The blade that he gave me is hardly adequate compensation. I offer advice, to foster a trust, and you may determine the value as you wish. It is simple enough and it may save your lives."

"If it truly is valuable, it may save yours," I said. "I suspect you are only alive now because Bodhi finds you amusing. The moment she gets bored with you… you're her next dinner."

"You may well be right," Havarian agreed. "My usefulness to them is diminishing, thanks to that vampire former friend of yours, but as yet they have had no reason to kill me. It will come, though, which is why I am casting my lot in with you. Bodhi is a terror and Irenicus… a power, indeed. I have seen no chinks in his armor of spells. You would need an army to face them… and I suggest that there is one to be had."

"You refer to the inmates," I guessed.

"Indeed so," he confirmed. "They are a resource to be tapped. Release them and their anger and frustrations will strike at Irenicus. That is my suggestion, though I leave the workings of it to you. Upstairs your army awaits. Use it, or you will perish."

"As much as I should not trust his advice, he may have a point, Jabbress," Viconia said. "The mages upstairs may have only a tenuous grip on sanity but they are powerful. They may be the difference between life and death."

I was reluctant to drag inmates, who may not have been capable of giving informed consent, into our fight but had to admit that we would need every advantage we could get against Irenicus and Bodhi. After a moment's consideration, I agreed to the plan. "Where is Irenicus now?" I asked Havarian.

"He's in the room behind me, the one with all those glass jars," he replied. "I think myself lucky not to have ended up in one myself. I don't know what he's doing, or how long he'll stay there, so you'd better hurry."

"We will," I said. "My advice to you is to get out of the way, and stay well clear. We might not actively try to kill you, if you get mixed up in the fight, but I can't speak for the inmates."

"I'll do that," Havarian agreed. "If you make it through alive, I'll have another proposition to put to you. I'll see you later… if you live."

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We made it past the laboratory, and to the stairs up to the main asylum, without attracting the attention of Irenicus. Once up the stairs we hastened to the room where we had been forced to deposit our equipment and weaponry. It was still there, seemingly untouched, much to my relief. We grabbed weapons and donned armor as fast as we could. Viconia's first action was to snatch up the Rod of Resurrection and use it on Jaheira.

"If we come across Yoshimo, try not to kill him unless absolutely necessary," I told the others, once Viconia had brought Jaheira up to date on what had happened whilst she was dead.

"He betrayed us and deserves death," Viconia said. "It is his fault that we were captured, and forced to struggle through the maze unarmed, and his fault that Jaheira died."

"He didn't have any choice," I said, "and we have Jaheira back. Anyway, if not for him we might not have made it through the maze alive at all. He slipped me the Ring of Gaxx when he gave me that kiss." A thought struck me and I almost giggled. "I shudder to think how he'd have got the ring to me if, instead of me lamenting that I'd never been kissed, I'd said that I didn't want to die a virgin."

Glossary of Drow Phrases

Vith! = Fuck!

Nau! = No!

calussai d'faer = eaters of magic

Z'ress A'thalak = Drow combat technique based on sheer power

rivvil = human

Jabbress = female commander – or, colloquially 'Boss Lady'.