'Fouler,' Twilight corrected matter-of-factly. She turned to Gargan. 'What land have you come from? Where do these caverns lie?'
Gargan looked away, something like sadness falling across his stony face.
With a shiver, Twilight understood somehow. 'What awaits us above?'
'Death,' said Gargan.
Taslin let out a hiss, her eyes narrowing. Her voice sounded upset, eager, and her face gleamed in frustration. 'Death?' she asked. 'Can you not be more specif-?'
Then a long cord slithered down from the ceiling, curled about Taslin's throat, and drew the priestess into the air with a quick jerk.
Twilight was too shocked to do anything more than stare at the ceiling, from which hung the struggling Taslin and her attacker. The creature was vaguely humanoid, if twice the height of a man, fashioned out of slithering, whipping ropes of black silk. Two white orbs blazed where its face should be.
She ignored the sinking in her chest and yanked Betrayal free of its scabbard. As she did, she felt the choking herself, though nothing clutched her and fought it down. She knew Taslin was dead, and if she did not act, the others would soon be as well.
' 'Light, what is that?' Liet stammered.
The tendril from which the priestess twitched and kicked recoiled and the other appendage extended toward them, sending a dozen ropes to claim their next victim.
'Down!' Twilight shouted, pushing Liet to send him staggering.
The quick motion saved him from being caught up by the rope tendrils, which went for her instead. Flicking like silent snakes, they lunged for her arms, and Twilight almost screamed despite herself.
She settled for a startled hiss and invoked her powers. Dancing into the shadows, she vanished before the ropes could catch her and reappeared across the chamber near Slip. Liet, running toward that spot, gasped when he saw her appear.
'A simple matter,' Davoren said calmly, preparing a blast of fiery energy to throw at the creature as it looked about for a new target.
'Wait!' Twilight shouted, but it was too late.
The warlock's burning power stabbed into the creature's chest but boiled away, fizzling to no effect. 'What?' the warlock shouted furiously.
'As I thought,' said Twilight, dropping one hand to her belt. 'A golem.'
'A rope golem?' asked Liet at her side. 'What-?'
The creature, moving in absolute silence, snapped its tendrils, and Taslin jerked spasmodically. Her arms fell to her sides. It flung the sun elf to crunch against the wall, where she collapsed limply to the floor. Cowering behind Twilight, Slip screamed. Liet caught her and shielded her eyes in his chest.
With both limbs free, the hangman golem lunged at Davoren, who fled, and Gargan, who met its grasp with sword swinging. The ensorcelled steel, streaming its acid, caused only minor damage to the creature, scratching and nicking the rope limbs.
Davoren dashed to the wall and began searching it with his hands, as though he had detected something nearby. Twilight could not have sensed any magical emanations, not with such a huge magical creature attacking them.
'Get back here!' Twilight called to him, but the warlock did nothing of the sort. Soon enough, the wall opened and the warlock slipped through a hidden passage.
'What do we do?' shrieked Slip, tugging at Twilight's belt.
'Anything,' she said, slapping the little hands away. She rummaged through the vials stuck through the laces of her belt. She retrieved one, which held a silvery liquid within. 'You have power, aye?'
'B-but…' Slip said.
'Any spells of aid, cast them on Gargan,' said Twilight. With that, she dashed toward the combat. As she stalked, she picked out a rope tendril and followed it with her eyes, focused, making it the center of her world.
The halfling sent a twinkling star of white trailing toward the golem, where it burst into a discordant roar. The sound jarred Twilight and Gargan alike, sending them reeling, but it did little to the hangman golem.
'Magic does nothing!' Liet cried.
'Sorry! Sorry!' yipped Slip. 'I'll try harder!' She sprinted toward Gargan, tearing free of Liet's grasp.
Stunned by the sonic blast, Twilight almost caught a rope in the face, but the goliath stepped in the way. He caught the rope in one hand and yanked, pulling the creature with him. It slithered along the ceiling, diverted from the others.
'My thanks,' shouted Twilight, but Gargan did not respond.
The goliath held the hangman golem in a toe-to-toe duel-a strange sight with the creature fighting upside down from the ceiling. His sword left dozens of rope pieces flopping like worms on the floor in its wake. This hardly slowed the golem, but the acid leaked by the black blade ate at the strands of its body hungrily. The creature sensed this damage and focused its attention on Gargan.
Mistake, Twilight thought. She saw her chance and jumped, rapier extended, and ran a single tendril through. The golem hardly noticed. What was one strand to a creature composed entirely of ropes? The rapier did not even sever the strand.
Holding tight to her blade with both hands, Twilight swung across the room on the rope and tossed a vial to the goliath in the same motion, praying that he understood. 'Gargan!' she snapped.
As Twilight swung, her single rope slapped across dozens of seeking tendrils, tangling them all. The creature twisted and shook, thrown off balance and distracted.
Gargan spun and flung out a massive hand to catch the vial. In one smooth motion, he leaped away from the golem's tendrils and shattered the vial against his black blade, which suddenly gleamed with silvery-white radiance. At almost the same instant, Slip arrived at Gargan's side and touched his hip, completing her spell. The goliath's body showed no change, but his aura of strength grew.
Twilight dodged back and forth, twisting this way and that, avoiding the slapping ropes at all cost. She blocked ineffectually-the ropes simply whipped around her parries, regardless of how wide she held the blade. Here and there, her billowy blouse became stained with red, or open gashes appeared along her leather breeches.
Only reflex kept Twilight from being pummeled into a crimson stain on the stone. Even so, she screamed as the golem whipped her, desperate dodges or no.
'Strike it, Gargan!' Twilight shouted. 'Stri-'
At that instant, a rope whipped under her high parry and struck her across the cheek. Twilight's head snapped back and she spun to the ground. She heard her head strike the stone with a loud crack, and darkness took her.
Liet almost cried out when Twilight went down, but he was too busy panting, trying to drag his sword back and forth. He ran to her side, slashing at the tendrils again and again, but to no avail. The ropes were too hard. Then they knocked him flailing.
Unhindered, the rope golem flowed along the ceiling, soundless. It drew itself along the ropes that held it aloft and loomed over Twilight. If it had been a living thing, the golem would have hissed hungrily.
Liet knew Gargan could not have understood Twilight's words, but from his actions, he understood her plan intuitively and acted accordingly.
With a pulse of powerful legs and arms, the goliath hurled his huge sword, slathered with the alchemical concoction, into the air, where it spitted the hangman golem's chest. The creature reeled, though it made no sound.
Gargan wasn't done. He followed the sword with a mighty leap, his legs strengthened by Slip's divine magic, and caught the hilt in both hands at the apex of his jump. The goliath's momentum carried him past the golem and his firm grasp on the sword ripped the weapon through its innards.
