for an assignment.”
Vlishgnath shook his head, and they continued along the hallway, quietly opening each door. Each room appeared to be the same, until they got to the second to last door along the north-facing wall to their left. Inside, chained to the canopy bed, the near-skeletal figure of a castrated male lay neglected and left to rot.
Vlishgnath turned his head away in disgust, Thunderclese averting his gaze as well as he spoke. “This place is an affront to humanity in general.”
Vlishgnath turned to look upon the iron door, drawing his sword back in a ready position. “Let us cleanse this house of the evils its master has brought upon it.”
As they reached the iron door, muffled voices were heard from within. The door was slightly cracked open and, with the point of Retribution, Vlishgnath gently swung open the door.
Standing inside, three figures turned around to look upon them in surprise. First was Bartholomew on the right, his vibrant eyes narrowing as he recognized them as the previously unconscious men they had left upstairs. Sheathed at his sides, a pair of masterfully crafted scimitars hung from his belt. His blond hair hung down loose by his shoulders, his gloved hands tucking under his arms as he folded them across his broad chest. To the left, first glancing over his shoulder then turning around to fully view the three men at the door, Alexander stood dressed in a loose fitting combination of wizard robes and aristocratic clothing, a large spell tome tucked under his left arm and a satchel hanging under his right. Then, in the center, Baron Jonathan LeFay was the last to turn about, wearing a long-sleeved shirt with a brown vest, laughing silently at Mithos’ paladins in a condescending manner. They stood before a massive stone archway, the center of which housed a shimmering red surface that rippled and reflected images like that of a lake.
After a moment of staring down Vlishgnath, Maximus, and Thunderclese, Jonathan spoke, his voice dripping with disdain. “So, the church’s dogs have managed to catch up with us. You shouldn’t have followed us here.”
Episode 10
Jonathan had barely finished saying that it was a mistake to have followed him, when Maximus stepped between Vlishgnath and Thunderclese, gripping Judgment tightly in his right hand and advancing on the LeFay’s dangerously.
“That’s far enough,” Jonathan said pointedly.
Alexander swiftly raised his hand, gesturing and issuing a soft whisper in the arcane tongue.
Immediately, Maximus’s march was halted, as he walked full force into an unseen wall. Upon realizing what had happened, Maximus roared in anger, drawing back his left fist and slamming it forcefully into the invisible barrier. Upon witnessing this, Alexander closed his eyes in derision, shaking his head and laughing silently.
Jonathan, however, remained wholly unamused, turning his attention to Vlishgnath. “If you’ve any sense about you, you’ll take your bull by the harness and be gone from this place.”
In response, Maximus slammed his fist against the transparent divider.
Vlishgnath, however, still spoke with the same deathly chill of a harnessed rage. “You’ve murdered countless innocent people. Your house itself has become a perversion of nature. You drove your own children from your home with your sick self-indulgences, and slaughtered the ones that were too afraid to run but had the decency not to join you. I have seen many wicked men in my time, Baron LeFay, but you are by far the most vile, heartless human being I have ever encountered. Tell me, good Baron…did you carve up your wife the same way you did your son?”
Jonathan snarled, practically spitting his words. “DON’T preach to ME, BOY! You cannot possibly hope to grasp the gravity of the situation at hand!”
Bartholomew, the larger of the sons, remained statuesque, his rippling muscular arms folded across his broad chest, engaged in an intense stare-down with Maximus. The fear typically associated with looking upon the brutal, giant paladin was noticeably lacking in Bartholomew’s almost eager expression. Maximus responded in turn, lunging Judgment point first into the stone ground directly in front of him, both arms grasping the handle as he stood with his feet shoulder-width apart, his expressionless helmet visor directed ominously toward the blonde LeFay son.
It was Thunderclese who responded to the Baron in an outraged tone. “You willingly consorted with demons! For that alone, we would hunt you to the ends of the earth, if only to—”
“Demons?!” Jonathan interrupted, laughing in genuine albeit twisted amusement, then turning to look upon them with a sinister smile. “No mere demon could grant me what I am about to receive! I am the herald of the elder god Belphegor’s return! Soon the Devourer will consume this world, and I shall be at his side, the power of a god bestowed upon me for my service in delivering this world unto him. So do not mistake me for some simple-minded tinkerer in the dark arts, boy. You are pitting yourself against forces the likes of which even that feeble old man, Vogoth, could never imagine!”
At that, Thunderclese launched himself against the invisible wall as well, beating on it with the pommel of his sword. “Cowards! Keep the high priest’s name from your mouth, for a tongue as wicked as yours deserves not to speak his name! Quit hiding behind your sorcerous wall and face us!” That said, he slammed the pommel of his sword against it one last time, his visor pointed at Alexander as he did so.
In turn, Alexander merely smirked and shook his head again, his voice smooth and calm, the way one would expect a serpent’s to be. “Pathetic.”
Vlishgnath stepped forward. His voice was very plain, spoken in the way one does when speaking a universal truth. “You cannot escape us, Baron LeFay. I have come to cleanse this land of the vile taint you have brought upon it, and your false messiah will not stand between us when your final judgment is at hand.”
With a final condescending scoff, Jonathan turned his back on them. “Do not follow us. Your god has no presence in the Devourer’s realm.”
That being said, he stepped through the portal. Bartholomew turned his head, continuing to glare back at Maximus, until he too disappeared through the shimmering red surface, followed lastly by Alexander, who didn’t even deign to look at Thunderclese as he moved to join his brother and father.
As soon as Alexander disappeared, Thunderclese’s hand that had been resting on the invisible wall passed through where it had been stopped. Almost immediately, Maximus hefted Judgment up from the ground, and the three paladins descended upon the portal. Vlishgnath stepped through first—unafraid—followed by Maximus and Thunderclese. Paladins of Mithos did not fear encounters with demons nor the threat of unknown realms.
On the other side of the portal, they found themselves confronted by a vast, seemingly infinite space, all of creation stretching out around them with an infinite number of stars and spiraling galaxies dotting the blackness of infinity. Standing on a large, free-floating stone walkway, another portal stood directly to their right, the surface of it yellow in color and of a wispy, smoke-like quality. The walkway in front of them was roughly five feet wide, the sides hazardously unguarded by any sort of railing, simply dropping off into the expanse below.
A ways out, the walkway split off into a four-way intersection, making a large circle and eventually rejoining to form a continuous loop. Extending out into the center of the large circle, a small dais was erected to draw attention to an altar. Awestruck by the magnificence of what they saw, at first Vlishgnath and Thunderclese simply stood and gawked. Even Maximus took a moment to look around and nod at how impressive the scenery was. Then, spotting the altar, Thunderclese tapped Vlishgnath, and the two sheathed their weapons before making their way out along the treacherous path.
At the center, the erected altar stood roughly four feet high, and the area was wide enough for two people to stand before it and read the placard on the front. On either side, torch sconces held lit torches, as the dim quality of light would have made it difficult to read. At first, a mass of what the two presumed to be an unknown alphabet swirled around in a cluster, until gradually they shifted