The Tower
Evermoon 19, 815 I. E.
1 Year before Albert's Exile
Tower of Magi, Avernum
Having ascended at last to the highest floor of the Tower of Magi, Nathan, Derek, Warren, and Ribaldi stepped quietly along the cavewood floor. Ahead was a stone wall, but they could still sense the wrongness that had lain over the entire campus.
Passing through the door, they found the menace which had provoked one of the students here to break his vow of silence. It was staring at them as they entered, aloofly amused and slavering with hunger. An enormous pentagram etched into the floor was apparently preventing it from roaming, for the moment. The creature stood head and shoulders taller than Derek, tallest of their number, and its curled horns nearly brushed against the ceiling. Its body was solidly muscled, and its fingers ended in long spikes.
Nathan and Derek stood abreast, before Ribaldi, while Warren tried to edge around the pentagram to get behind the thing. Their weapons had been at the ready since before entering the room. The Adze-Haakai turned his head to toss a toothy grin at Warren's attempt at encirclement, but as it turned back, it noticed and frowned down at Demonslayer, clutched in Nathan's sweating hand.
When Warren was in position, Nathan shouted, and they charged into the pentagram, and the Adze-Haakai brandished its claws with ferocious enjoyment.
After the Adze-Haakai was defeated, Warren gasped with relief as Ribaldi healed a nasty gash on his arm. "Nearly lost the whole thing, my son!" Ribaldi said with paternal concern.
"No kidding," Warren agreed, still looking a bit pale.
Nathan braced himself against a wall with his arm while Derek leaned his back on the same wall. Nathan said between pants, "And that's why we needed Demonslayer!"
"It helped, yeah," Warren agreed, then took a long swig from a water skin.
Derek grimaced. "It still smells like sulphur in here." He eyed the trails of soot along the wall from the flames that had been cast during the battle. "Mages are crazy. Both Linda calling that thing here, and the folks in charge here just hushing it up and locking it up here. I hope those idiot master mages do something about her now. What would've happened if Linda got to have it all her way, huh?"
16 Years after Albert's Exile
Tower of Magi, Avernum
Albert coughed on the smoke that was billowing through the halls of the Tower of Magi. He heard a deep voice telling him to use cloth to cover his nose and mouth. Sschass had bellowed to be heard over humans' screams of terror, and demons' screams of frenzied delight. The cloth helped, but it wasn't able to keep everything out.
Some apprentices who were still on this level, garments singed and torn, were running down a corridor toward them, and stopped in surprise.
Frruh gestured behind himself, shouting, "Get to the portal!" They nodded silently - they were still in that part of their apprenticeship requiring a vow of silence. One at least had recognized Frruh, and calmed slightly. The party had fought their way to this point after coming through the portal from Upper Avernum, so the route should be fairly clear.
Helen called, "Imps ahead!" then lashed out at them with a bolt of ice. The imps snarled, turning from toying with horrifyingly mutilated corpses (at least Helen hoped the poor souls had died before the imps began their cruelty), and began to fling fire in her direction. Albert and Sschass charged at them, Frruh sending lances of ice at the monsters.
Just before they slew the third imp, there was a great shaking in the tower. Just after the last fell, there was another shaking, spilling chalky dust from the floors above.
"No," Frruh said, so quietly that Albert was amazed he could hear it. He wasn't sure how he could so clearly see on a feline face the thoughts of the soul inside, but he could.
"I'm sorry," Albert said, clapping Frruh on the shoulder, "but if there's any hope of saving this place, it's on the higher levels."
They hurried.
They found Solberg, mighty wizard of the Triad, in an office. At first Frruh thought he was dead, but he had swooned while trying to bandage a bad wound on his leg. Frruh retied the bandage, trying not to jostle Solberg's burned body, while Helen tried to heal the mage.
Solberg recovered consciousness, and said in a quiet, urgent voice, "Frruh, you and friends go. Now. The Triad - what's left of us - Mahdavi's dead - we'll fight. I got some infernals already, but I was surprised and isolated - barely made it back here - but I'll manage it."
Frruh protested, "Sir, we've come to help. Please let us defend what we can!"
Helen frowned, taking Solberg's pulse. He flashed frustrated eyes at her, then at Frruh, as he insisted, "It's too late for the Tower. We have to save Avernum. Linda thought she could use her own soul to summon and take control of Grah-Hoth. Fool."
"But Grah-Hoth is-" Frruh protested, and Solberg interrupted, "Banished from our world, not dead."
"You're not asking us to kill Linda, are you?" Albert asked, horrified.
"No, you flee, the Triad will set this right!" Solberg insisted.
Helen pointed out, "Sir, you've fought well already. You've lost too much blood, though, and I can't heal you enough right now. Linda made her choice, and if we don't kill her, demons will continue to enter Avernum, streaming in from her. With such an easy means of access, it may even be worse than Grah-Hoth's time. And with the portal here, they can get to the surface."
Albert swallowed and said, "So we have to strike now, before too many enter our world."
They charged into the center of the top floor. A large number of tall, muscular demons stood protectively around a glassy-eyed woman in mage's robes, who was standing in front of a horrid head. The head was enormous, and ghostly, but getting more substantial by the moment.
The face on that head swung towards the party. "Huh," it said to them, voice booming off the stone floor and ceiling. "Again, adventurers are called in to stop the grand armies of Grah-Hoth. Humans have underestimated me all day." Directing its attention to the demons, Grah-Hoth ordered, "Take them alive. Savor torturing them, but I shall deal the deathblows when I am fully there."
The demons charged, and Albert and his companions rushed to meet them. The room filled with fierce howls, battle cries, clanging metal, roaring flames, crashing ice, and the laughter of Grah-Hoth. Linda stood still, staring vacantly, her mage's robes unmoving except for slight breathing.
As they began to break through the lines of demons, Helen looked at Linda. That mage's foolishness had caused all this. Caused all the deaths, and a demonic invasion. But someone at least needed to try looking for the lost sheep. She looked at Grah-Hoth and demanded, "Let her go!"
He laughed, while Helen had to mind her shield and immediate foes, then explained, "Linda invited me! I can't help it if her motives were insincere. She wanted to use me and my army. Isn't she getting her wish? She wanted to possess me. Isn't that evil, little acolyte? I'm possessing her instead. It's justice."
The last of the demons fully in the room fell. Grah-Hoth grumbled at their corpses, "Pathetic." Helen healed her friends, but she was nearly exhausted. The others were clearly at their limits as well.
Albert motioned to Helen, who took out the Blessed Athame, the dagger that Solberg had told them to retrieve from storage in the tower.
Grah-Hoth laughed louder than before. "I love it! I love it! The brave knights must murder a defenseless woman with a holy dagger in order to stop the demon!"
Helen said urgently, "Linda, there is still time for repentance."
"Maybe," laughed Grah-Hoth, "but her contract with me can't be undone by you mortals. Adventurers shall not best me."
Linda hadn't moved her feet or her eyes. All around her were the symbols she had intricately drawn on the floor to summon Grah-Hoth. Sschass hissed and alerted his companions - behind Grah-Hoth were smaller shapes, but they were walking towards them, and growing rapidly more substantial. Albert and the others stood at the ready.
Helen set her face like flint. "Linda, the first judgment is that you deserve to die. May God have mercy on you in the second."
She plunged the Blessed Athame into Linda.
When Linda's body fell to the floor, the horrid, solidifying visage of Grah-Hoth hovering in midair snarled, "This is not victory! Avernum will be mine again one day!" But his face faded until it was finally gone.
There was a great groaning from the tower supports, and dust from the ceiling fell on their heads and circled in the Avernites' nostrils.
Frruh coughed and said in a hoarse voice, "Tell me we can save something here."
Albert sneezed, looked down at Linda, and said, "We saved Avernum, at least. But it isn't safe to stay. Let's get back to Upper Avernum." Sschass gestured, and Albert added, "We'll grab Solberg and anyone we can."
"Let's hurry," Helen said.
Frruh looked at Linda and hurried out, shaking his head all the way.
Portal Fortress, Some Hours Later
Helen had been drained some time earlier, but at least she still could set a splint on a wounded apprentice's arm. The apprentice was one among the dozens of people sitting on the street, in various degrees of shock, receiving various amounts of emergency care. Helen's patient was trying not to cry from the pain, but the splint had to cover a bad burn on his arm, and everyone in the fort was out of even basic poultices. Albert walked up as she finished praying with the patient and stood. He gave a sympathetic glance down at the man, but the patient was focused on enduring the pain, and hadn't quite realized anyone else was there.
"How're you holding up?" Albert asked Helen quietly.
"Better than Bigail," she told him, with a brief rueful smile. "And doing it this way means I can help more people."
"You're a treasure," he said fondly, "but I'm still going to keep checking up on you."
"And you call me a mother hen." Her voice grumped, but there was a small, tired, grudging, smile on her face.
"Someone's got to mother the mother hen," Albert pointed out.
Helen shook her head and chuckled.
Frruh approached with a confused expression.
"It's just a joke, Frruh," Helen explained. Albert turned to face him and said, "Neither of you have seen a mother hen, have you?"
Frruh noted in a rough voice, "There were plenty near the farmhouses around Sharimik." He coughed harshly several times.
"You really should have that looked at-" Helen began, but Frruh quickly held up a hand. "Others breathed more smoke than me, I shall wait," he insisted.
Albert inquired, "What are the plans?"
Frruh said quietly, in a husky voice, "For now? Rest. Recover. Mourn." He was still a moment, then continued, "The survivors will stay in the fort; tomorrow we'll see wherever else we can find room for them in Upper Avernum. At some point they'll see whether the Tower can be made structurally safe again."
"We can talk to the commander, ask him for a few days to spend here." Albert suggested. "You can help -" he corrected, "we can help here."
Frruh shook his head. "What Helen and the others are doing is what is most needed, and is nearly done. The need is unexpected, but the personnel here can handle the logistics and lodging given time. I still have a mission."
Albert shook Frruh's hand, and before releasing it, said, "But tonight, at least, we rest here."
Frruh nodded. They shuffled off to their quarters. Some old acquaintances of Frruh's from the Tower had been waiting outside, and so they were reunited. Albert and Helen soon excused themselves and stepped into the room, where they found Sschass regarding the bandages on his leg. In response to Helen's query, he told her that the wounds were healing well.
He then said more quietly, "Have you heard? It's not surprising, but the portal back to Avernum has been shut down."
Albert, careful to keep his voice low, agreed, "The Tower could collapse at any moment. You could die as soon as you set foot outside the portal."
Sschass nodded and added, "Someone needs to find a way to secure that area soon, though. Until then, Upper Avernum is entirely cut off. No retreat, and no lines of supply or communication. We could be forced onto the surface sooner than we ever expected, just to try to gather some food."
"Our mission is more important than ever," Helen agreed grimly.
Author's Note: I think the Adze-Haakai was on the highest floor of the tower.
Solberg and Grah-Hoth may be slightly out of character here - for various reasons, I usually don't actually experience this side story! That is also why the course of the fight and what happens to Linda may be incorrect. She at least is struck down - she may survive, catatonic, or she may die, I'm not sure. Also, I assume the portal is shut down, for all but the most urgent travel, but I may be wrong.
I don't recall where the chickens are in the game, but I figured there were probably some around Sharimik, if there are any at all.