You find the tunnel between the cells. Fortunately, there's no more need to crawl down it.
You approach the accursed trapped portcullis. As you do, the head of Midori appears in midair in front of you. There is a keyhole in the skull's forehead. You insert the key you found and turn it, and the barrier disappears. You're free.
You approach the accursed trapped portcullis. As you do, the head of Midori appears in midair in front of you. There is a keyhole in the skull's forehead. Having no key, you try to move around it. The barrier still blocks your way - you're trapped.
You hear chuckling, coming from voices in the air around you. A naga says "So you have escaped. Good! We are watching you! We are waiting for you! Come to us, come and fight! Come, and let your futile struggling come to and end. We wait!" The voice fades.
The other voices, one after another, give their assent. Then, you find yourself in a cell. Abandoned. Abandoned to die.
The voice of the lich, Midori, cuts through the mess, stilling all the other voices. "They are strong, these Exiles! They have powerful magic! We will put them in a cell, and leave them until they starve, and strip their skills from their souls. Agreed?"
You step into the portal. Then you are floating in darkness. Then, you again hear the voices of the twelve, forming a cacophany of surprise, anger, hatred, and contempt.
The portcullis to the south slides open. It would appear your testing has come to an end.
Exhausted, you groan as more monsters appear. You groan again when you see what they are - golems, and lots of them. How much more of this can there be?
You see yet more monsters appear. Whoever is doing this to you is getting serious: it is a band of mutant giants, boulders in hand, hunger and hatred covering their faces.
A slavering horde of ghouls materializes from thin air. They move very quickly.
Vigilant now, you watch the walls of the room, and your attention is rewarded. Several gazers and eye beasts have teleported in.
Suddenly, a roar pierces the chamber! Startled, you look around, and see that several hydras have appeared out of nowhere! They charge.
You hear a voice that is darkness itself, slow, icy, careful and filled with endless hate: "Yes. Come to me now. Come and die. Come and die, and serve under me in undeath. I am waiting."
One of the runes glow red. A blast of force throws you back!
You don't know why there would be a book of holy rituals in such a dark place, but you know enough to give thanks for small blessings. You now know the spell Ravage Spirit.
You browse through the books for a while. Opening one of them, you turn to a page containing nothing but one large, red rune. You are highly surprised when the rune explodes.
You suddenly hear a female voice, human and yet inhuman, deep and sibilant: "Ah, yessss. The humanssss. Come to ussss. We will give you a merciful end, the bessst you can hope for. You cannot defeat ussss!"
This is the lair of the Empire wizards of the twelve. The decor shows the clear signs of a Vahnatai hand - yet more evidence of collusion between the Empire and factions of the alien humanoids below.
You come to an extremely locked and magically strengthened door. Fortunately, your key opens it quite nicely.
This door is locked. What's more, it's covered with protective glyphs and sigils of clear and threatening power. There is a keyhole, but you don't have a key which comes even remotely close to fitting.
The books contains instructions for unleashing deadly energies in an awe-inspiring variety of ways. Most of the spells are beyond even you, but one is not. You now know the spell Death Arrows.
The books contain magical writings. Unfortunately, they make no sense to you.
Human voices come out of the air around you, ancient voices: "We watch every step you take, Exiles. We see your every motion. And we are ready for you. Your actions are futility itself."
This is the sleeping chamber of one of the three wizards. They rested their frail bodies rested on one of the Vahnatai's delicate silken beds.
You look through the window, and see the dome. Now that you have the Crystal Soul, there's not much interesting left.
To the south, you see a huge, shining dome. In the middle are four pillars, with shining red barriers strung up between them. The barriers are unlike any magical barriers you've ever seen before.
You quickly run back to your party, still waiting there in their cell. Whatever is about to hit you, you don't want to face it alone.
You hear distant clicks and whirrs. All around you, doors are coming unlocked.
You pull the lever. Nothing happens.
You hear a voice, sounding somewhat human, somewhat feline, and totally confident. "We are hungry, intruders! Ever so hungry! Come and do battle with us, so we may bring your painful existence to an end."
A deep, rumbling, inhuman voice echoes in the hall around you: "Keep coming! Come to us! And prepare to die in our fire!"
You slide down the slick, spiraling chute, slowly at first, then faster. As you fall, the mocking laughter of the Twelve echoes around you. Then you fall through the ceiling of a large, low room, and land on a pile of garbage. Now what?
This cell has several beds in it, each perfectly made, each with clear, soft blankets on it. And, on some of the pristine beds are human skeletons, bare, white, and horribly contorted.
You press the button, and hear a click from the north wall.
Nothing happens.
With the deafening noise of stone grinding on stone, a bridge rises up into sight, bridging the chasm between Akhronath and the rest of the world.
As you move through the secret door, you hear a whispering voice from the darkness: "Don't all come! If you do, the golems will detect it, and we'll all end up dead! Only send one in!"
You can't be sure, but you believe you know what the last expression on the face of Midori the lich was: surprise. Then, in a cloud of dust and a flash of fire, she reaches her final rest.
Within two hours, the flames are gone and the fort is a ruin. Not one Empire soldier got out alive.
You find a dead dragon, chained to the floor.
You flee the flames, hearing them consume everything behind you. Desperate, agonized screams follow you. You watch the destruction for some time, eventually hearing the roars of a dragon joining the din.
Your pathetic efforts fail to even scratch the steel. Sulfras laughs bitterly. "Puny creatures. If I can't break the chain, what makes you think you could?"
The dragon's dome was the only building left standing, although the beast's magic has rearranged it. It is higher now, and darker, and the white hot coals to either side make the place even warmer than before.
You return to the lair of Sulfras, and find that the fury of the dragon within has been fully and gruesomely unleashed. The buildings have been blasted to the ground, and everything within seared to cinders. Charred bodies are everywhere.
From the fort's entry, you see that quickfire and dragon's claws have devastated this place. Only a few small sections of wall remain standing. The rest is blackened rubble.
You find a huge steel shackle, bolted to the floor.
The bookshelf contains an account of the interrogation of Sulfras - the tactics used to get him to talk, and the information gained from him in return. They haven't been having much luck.
The huge mutants lived in this basalt dome, barely high enough for their heads. There are several foul, ooze-covered pallets by the walls.
This outer wall rings a shattered, blasted stretch of caves, filled with magma pools and massive shards of basalt and pumice. Dust and smoke hang heavy in the air, and your mouth and nose are soon filled with acrid grit.
The records of the experiments of Kothtar are still there. However, all the notes you haven't taken detail experiments that didn't work out and have been abandoned.
One of the scrolls on the shelf contains a note from one mage to another: "Gibbrik - Prepare for next set of experiments with orb. You will be flying this time. Remember - orb MUST be returned to the lowest level, not to the lab. - Varnob."
There is a dead giant strapped to this slab. It had been magically and hideously altered, by runes and noxious substances covering its body. However, the transformation was too much for it. You have no love for giants, but this was simply too cruel.
You put the beast out of its misery. The giant doesn't seem pleased about it, but it's soon past caring. You wipe the repulsive goo off your blade.
You throw mighty energies of good at the altar. Unfortunately, this spell only does much when there are powerful evil magics infusing the stone. There aren't, so nothing happens.
The altar is a rather simple affair - pentagram, simple knife, a few candles. You don't pick up the sinister feeling you usually get around altars of this sort. However, that doesn't keep a minion of darkness from appearing when you get too close.
Water bubbles from a small, natural fountain here into a wide pool. From there, it flows down to drainholes arranged around the room.
You find two huge, clean stone slabs. They have thick, broad leather straps attached to them, apparently for holding some huge creature down. Nearby is a large cart, padded and with more of the straps, presumably for wheeling a giant from place to place.
The portculli close again.
The nearby portculli clatter open.
A trapdoor opens up under you! You plummet down a chute, and hit the floor below rather hard...
You slice open the straps holding the poor creature down. Unfortunately, the transformation has fully taken place. The beast, warped in body and mind, leaps up and charges you!
This is a huge stone slab, featuring huge leather straps for holding creatures down. The stone is covered with smears and stains of an all too disturbing likely origin.
The tome is, unsurprisingly for this magic-filled place, a spell book. The magical dialect is a strange one, but you do understand it. Most of the spells are actually very basic, but one is very intriguing. You now know the spell Revive All.
The tome is, unsurprisingly for this magic-filled place, a spell book. Unfortunately, the rites are written in a magical dialect you just aren't familiar with.
The water is fresh and cool flowing down your throat. Unfortunately, it contained something that doesn't agree with you...
The water tastes rather brackish and nasty. You spit it out.
The water is filled with strange and pleasant magic! You are healed.
In one of the shelves of the dresser, you find a bag of gold. You pocket it.
The fence for the lizard pen has a gate in it. You step through it.
The air of this room suddenly grows icy cold. Frostbite starts setting in immediately...
Suddenly, the air is filled with whirling blades!
You start feeling very sluggish.
Suddenly nervous, you look around. You aren't alone in here - you see several creatures have joined you. They float silently through the air, faces creased in a vicious grin, eye stalks writhing in the air above them.
You catch the movement of something green out of the corner of your eye...
The ground vibrates beneath your feet. You look around to see why, and see several huge statues have appeared, and are lumbering towards you!
You hear a long, luxurious hiss. Startled, you look around for snakes, and indeed you see them. Two of them, but with human heads!
You try to move between these two pillars, but there's a strange force in the way. It won't let you by.
You hear a popping noise to the north. This is followed by the sound of roaring flames, getting closer quickly.
This chamber is some sort of strange, magical foundry. You are circled by molten metal of some sort. Floating on that metal are bits of another metal, which is unaffected by the amazing heat. The heat is barely tolerable - you're very near passing out.
The passage slopes sharply to the south, and the air is growing rapidly darker, colder, and more foul. The floor is scattered with bone fragments and shreds of rotting vestments.
