Chapter 14:
(10/26/01)
That night, Christie, Jennifer, Kenley, Michael, Ra Lei, Ripple, and Saxon awoke to find themselves in a strange place. It resembled a large room with stone walls, an empty table and chairs in the middle, and doors to the west, east, and south. Confused, the cabal began poking around and looking for a way out. They went through the door to the east, found themselves in a long hallway, and began proceeding toward the other end with Christie in the lead. Suddenly, the cabal heard a loud whoosh as flame shot out of the walls and burnt Christie into a pile of ashes. Everyone was horrified until they heard her voice in the main room, shaken up but shouting that she was okay.
From this, the cabal deduced that they were in some sort of trap-filled labyrinth and would have to use their wits to find a way out relatively unscathed. Kenley had the next idea and tried to cast an invisibility spell, hoping it would trick the trap into remaining unsprung. However, she mistakenly thought her magic had worked when it hadn’t, and when she walked through the fire burned her as well. It appeared that in this labyrinth, magic was more difficult than usual to use.
The next few cabal members to attempt the trap fared no better. Jennifer and Michael both tried to open Correspondence gates to the other side, failed, and were pulled through their own gates and eaten by a grotesque monster. Ra Lei gave up on magic altogether and tried to dodge around the gouts of flame, but tripped and was also burnt to a crisp. That left Ripple and Saxon as the only two cabal members who hadn’t “died” in the attempt to get past the first trap. Nervous, they sat down to take some time to consider their options.
Meanwhile, the other cabal members tried to find alternate exits. Christie, the first to arrive in the main room, tried the south door and found herself in a room where the floor was covered in six feet of squirming, flesh-eating maggots. She tried to use Forces to part them and make a clear path for herself, but couldn’t work fast enough and was soon eaten alive. Kenley, Michael, and Ra Lei arrived together and decided to try to breach the north wall and escape from the labyrinth that way. However, when Michael turned the wall into cheese a huge monster came through, causing everyone to retreat into the maggot room. Ra Lei, unfortunately, was too slow and was eaten by the monster.
Arriving shortly thereafter, Christie and Jennifer tried the door to the west and came out in a room where two inept, Lovecraftian cultists were attempting to perform a dark ritual. However, one of them had forgotten the sacrifice and throught Christie and Jennifer would serve very well for that purpose. Slamming the door, they retreated to the south. Inside the maggot room, Kenley and Michael heard someone opening the door, assumed it was the monster, and sent Amy after it, who dispatched both Christie and Jennifer in short order.
Back at the fire trap, both Ripple and Saxon hit upon solutions. Saxon used Life to turn himself into a pinecone, and Mind to contact Ripple and ask her to put him in her pocket and carry him with her. Ripple, on the other hand, used a massive expenditure of Quintessence to create a Time effect that speeded her up enough to get past the fire trap at long last. Ripple and Saxon then came out in a room that resembled a huge lake. Saxon asked Ripple to put him in the lake, where he used Forces to move himself through the water in search of an exit. But a huge fish came along and ate him, and that was the end of Saxon the pinecone. Feeling exhausted by her last spell, Ripple took the next few hours to meditate, and consider her options.
After defeating Christie and Jennifer, Kenley and Michael continued through the labyrinth. After awhile, they came to a room which seemed to them to be an exit. But when they progressed forward, huge spinning blades came out of the walls and cut them to ribbons. They had learned why people called that room the Meat Grinder.
Saxon found himself in the main room and went to the west, where he ran into the cultists, who tried once again to make him their sacrifice. Proud that the pinecone trick had worked before, Saxon tried it again but found it not so easy to repeat. This time, he only thought he was a pinecone and laid on the altar contentedly as the cultists sacrificed him to Cthulhu.
After meditating, Ripple moved across the lake and went into another large room. There, she saw a man sitting on a throne who called himself the ruler of the labyrinth. She asked him how to escape from his home. He said he couldn’t tell her that, but that he would give her a hint on how to escape if she could answer one question: “What is the last square in Nephandi Land?” Ripple guessed “the Ice Cream Caul,” which was close but not right. Still, the man was impressed, gave her a ring that protected her and gave her advice, and directed her to some more rooms. One of them was a butcher shop in which the butcher tried to kill her, so she flew out and into another room.
Soon, Kenley, Michael, and Saxon found themselves in a room that resembled the Nephandi Land board. They all figured out that the way to get across the room was to play through the game, which included such squares as the Ice Cream Caul, the Skeleton Forest, and, on the last space, the Peanut Brittle Widderslainte. It was a pitched battle, especially when the squares came to life and began fighting the mages, but in the end they were victorious and made their way to the next rooms, where they met up with Ripple.
Meanwhile, Christie, Jennifer, and Ra Lei reconvened in the main room and began traveling together. The next room they reached had a strip of blades they would have to jump over to get to the other side. Everyone made it except Jennifer, who fell on the blades and lost her leg. Ra Lei picked her up, and they kept moving. After awhile they reached the Meat Grinder, but Jennifer had a bad feeling about it and encouraged everyone to pick another door.
The next door led into a room with 100 china dolls standing on shelves, looking perfectly innocent. Just to be safe, Ra Lei decided to scan for their minds and got the message, “I can’t wait to stab anything that comes through that door with the giant butcher knife I have hidden behind my back!” Ra Lei slammed the door, and the group took some time to plan. Christie came up with the idea of a sonic blast that would shatter the dolls, but when she cast it the dolls remained unscathed. The dolls began getting down from the shelves and approaching the mages. Ra Lei drew her katana and destroyed three of them, but there were too many for her to hold off for much longer. Suddenly, Jennifer had an idea: She threw down the portable hole she’d been carrying ever since leaving for Horizon in front of the door and watched the dolls walk into it as Christie knocked the last remaining ones in with Forces. They were safe for the time being, until another monster appeared and began chasing them down. They ran back into the main room, where Ra Lei tried to save Jennifer by throwing her through the wall of cheese. Unfortunately, the wall ended up eating her instead and the rest of the group had to find a different way out.
Further on in the labyrinth, Christie and Ra Lei met up with Jennifer again. They made their way through a number of rooms before finding one that appeared to be a garden, with a strange tree in the center that grew heads instead of fruit. They asked the heads for advice, which they gave in exchange for them taking one head back to plant and become another tree. The rest of the heads couldn’t tell them how to escape, but did give them this hint: “Four, then eight.” They thanked the tree and went on their way.
Finally, the entire cabal reassembled, found an exit (for real this time), and proceeded into a deserted village with many huts, each of which had a different number. Following the tree’s advice, they went to hut number 48 and found inside it an enormous hydra guarding a crystal and a door that said “EXIT.” A battle ensued. After Christie, Jennifer, Michael, and Saxon were all killed by it, the rest of the cabal decided to retreat and ran away from the hydra as fast as they could…
…Jennifer sat bolt upright in her bed in the Japanese hotel. Gasping, she tried to settle her racing heart as she remembered a trap-filled labyrinth, a people-headed tree, a battle with a hydra, and, strangest of all, losing a leg and being thrown through a wall of cheese by the Japanese woman she had just met the night before. “What a weird dream,” she said to herself.
“It wasn’t a dream, master,” whispered ninety-seven high, childlike voices from inside her portable hole.