They moved to a black, oaken door at the base of the dark turret. 'Can you pick this lock, Crest?' Dalquist asked in a low mutter.
Crest replied with a disdainful sniff and bent to the task. Drawing a bag of lock-picks from his robes, he turned his attention to a formidable-looking iron keyhole.
After three long minutes of scratching and scraping, Crest gingerly tried the door, which opened with just the faintest of squeaks.
'Good work, thief,' Dalquist muttered as they stepped inside.
In front of them, Grimm saw a winding staircase of the most hideous design imaginable. The steps appeared formed of half-melted bones, whilst the walls bore images of human faces twisted in unimaginable torment. At first, the Questor thought they were carvings formed by some perverted mason's skill, but as he looked deeper, he saw the faces move and twist in the most ghastly contortions.
As he swung the door closed behind the party, the young wizard heard a quiet but unnerving keening, which he guessed might be Starmor's sick idea of pleasant music. Grimm shivered and swallowed as Crest put a determined foot on the cadaverous staircase and begin to ascend. Dalquist followed the elf, with Harvel behind him and Grimm bringing up the rear.
After a short period of soundless ascent, they came to a landing, and Grimm saw a large, ornate, golden padlock fastening a brass-studded door. Catching Dalquist's eye, he raised his eyebrows in question, and the older mage nodded, motioning the thief towards the door.
Crest took out his lock-picks and started to work on the padlock. Within mere seconds, he had it open, removing it from the hasp with no more than a slight scraping noise.
Dalquist nodded and stepped forward, turning the iron ring handle with silent stealth. The door opened with a faint whisper, revealing a dark room, lit only by fugitive, guttering flames from a log fire casting brief flickers of orange light around the chamber.
The room was lined with row upon row of books and scrolls. Stepping forward to inspect some of the spines, Grimm recognised a few by their titles, others by their authors. Many were great magical classics thought lost centuries before, and each worth a king's ransom.
On a long workbench he saw various gems, all flawless and of the highest quality: immaculate diamonds, rubies and sapphires, tourmalines and garnets. Crest reached a covetous hand toward the wealth of jewels, but Dalquist waved an admonitory finger at him.
'We have a job to do first, thief,' the older Questor hissed. 'You can fill your pockets once we have the Eye.'
Harvel moved to the far end of the room, and Grimm heard him gasp, pointing at a large, spherical, opalescent gem in the clasp of a clawed silver hand, mounted atop a marble pedestal. The whole item was perhaps twelve inches in height and easily portable.
Summoning his Sight, Grimm saw golden threads weaving like the fronds of some metallic mimosa, a sure sign that the gem contained powerful magic. Dalquist nodded, and made to grasp the object.
'Yes, that is the Eye, witless one,' a sibilant voice behind the group hissed, and the adventurers whirled as one man to see a tall, hooded figure standing in the doorway, shrouded in shadow. 'Do try to take it, by all means. It may amuse me to see your pathetic, futile efforts.'
Chapter 6: The Demon and the Pillar
Grimm felt as if his heart had leapt into his mouth, but he retained enough presence of mind to gather his powers, ready to cast a destructive spell. As if in the distance, he heard the metallic clang of Harvel's rapier emerging from its scabbard, and he saw Crest uncoiling the deadly whip from his waist.
'Dear me, shall I quail?' the shadow-sheathed figure said in a mocking voice. 'Shall I tremble at your armed might? Do feel free to try your feeble skills against a master sorcerer, for let it not be said that Starmor is unsporting.'
Snarling, Harvel sprung at Starmor, sword in hand. Starmor raised a clenched fist and the rapier skittered with a screech from an invisible wall.
Dalquist loosed a flurry of razor-sharp ice shards against the invisible wall. Grimm joined in with destructive spells of his own, but Starmor fended off the magical attacks with seeming ease. Crest's throwing-knives fared no better against the magical shield, and his biting whip stopped inches from Starmor's head, as the elf screamed vile imprecations at the Baron.
The cowled sorcerer made no assault against the group, uttering instead an infuriating, condescending laugh that moved Grimm to fury. He battered Starmor with bolts of naked energy, joined by his companions in a concerted attack.
Crest launched his whip against the magical ward again and again in a series of loud cracks. Dalquist screamed and attacked the unseen wall with his staff, raising a shower of blue sparks. Harvel slashed at the shadowy shape with his sword, snarling in rage. The assaults continued, blending into a cacophony of anger until Grimm felt his knees trembling with exhaustion.
The panting mage shook his head in a futile attempt to summon greater energy, but he knew he was spent. Looking around himself, he saw Harvel's shirt hanging open and sweat running down the swordsman's face. A red-faced Dalquist swayed on unsteady feet, and Crest, his face contorted in anger, looked in no better shape than his human allies.
'What a pitiful group of misfits you are,' Starmor said and giggled, stepping from the shadows to reveal a bone-white, cadaverous face. 'You have amused me a little, so I will spare your worthless lives for a while longer, if only to give me further pleasure.'
He smiled at the exhausted group. 'Still, you need your beauty sleep-especially the long-eared freak and the puny child. You must not be lacking in strength for the trials ahead. When you awake, you will wish I had killed you here and now, so may your dreams be sweet.'
Starmor raised a bony, clawed hand and shouted, 'Sleep, my children!'
Grimm knew no more.
The young mage awoke, aware of a bright light shining in his face. Opening his eyes, he saw a bright globe hanging overhead, burning in a black sky. He was lying on a stone floor beside a shallow circular indentation. Jagged scraps of shattered bones and torn, russet-soaked rags lay all around him, and he gave an involuntary shudder.
He seemed to be on a raised circular dais about fifty feet in diameter, but he could see no details beyond its perimeter. Rising to his feet, he walked to the edge and looked over. With a frisson of vertiginous horror, Grimm realised he was standing on a huge stone cylinder, its sides fading into an inky black. No bottom to the pillar was visible, and he shivered again. Why had Starmor sent him to this place? To starve him to death? To imprison him?
Mastering his giddiness, he looked again over the edge of the cylinder, this time using his Mage Sight. Even to his magically-enhanced senses, the bottom of the pillar vanished into darkness, and he perceived no end to the stark, black void surrounding it. Grimm could envision a clumsy flight-spell, but there seemed little point in venturing into that endless blackness. He saw no walls, no ceiling and no floor, and he realised he must be in some dimension removed from the normal world.
He could conceive of no Questor spell to allow him to escape. This, of course, was the main limitation of a Mage Questor, although it was usually of little import; if he could not visualise the forces needed to execute his desires, then he was lost.
Grimm sat down, disconsolate, and he racked his brain, but only one possibility came to mind; one he had learned by rote in his Neophyte days. He knew he could visualise his home world well enough to return home from any location by using the standard Minor Magic spell of Relocation, but, without knowing where he was, he knew the expenditure of energy was well beyond him. The energy requirements of the spell increased in proportion to
