The fight at the Conflagration raged on. The blue slaad drove savagely into Aulus and Marcus, who held the line to the Company's north. The red slaad let loose with a deafening, thunderous croak, but no harm was done. To the west, the two-headed demon lay into the rest of the Company, tripping Nereida and Elida. Demetrios cast haste on the Company and Bonzimir maneuvered to flank the demon. As Elida rose and distracted the demon, Bonzimir leapt in and with great accuracy, skewered the monstrous thing repeatedly with his flashing rapier. In moments, it was dead. The Company was somewhat worse for wear, but the three monsters were all soon defeated and beheaded. "The only way to be sure," said Bonzimir.

From there, the Company examined the wild, crackling energies of the Conflagration. Demetrios guessed that any sort of active spell energy here would attract the wild surges of chaos, and might possibly further weaken the walls between the worlds. To test this theory, they cast into the room a stone with the continual flame spell cast on it. In moments, the stone shattered and the magic was unravelled. Fearing that the veil of meteors spell worn by Demetrios and Nereida would cause great damage in the Conflagration, the Company decided that only those without active spells would cross the energy field. Demetrios would take himself and the others across with a dimension door spell. They crossed to a wide passageway to the south where strange gears and machinery could be seen.

Bonzimir analyzed the machines and determined that they had once been part of an ancient and complex trap, but were utterly destroyed by whatever had wrecked so much of the Inner Vaults when it created the Conflagration. Beyond, they found a room with a high altar, on which were inset five depressions in the shape of swords. No swords possessed by the Company fit any of these depressions. Behind the altar was an ancient and desiccated corpse. Nearby were a pitted short sword and a tattered book, preserved despite its great age. The book was written a tongue so old that Nereida was barely able to recognize it as a very early precursor to High Conorrian, the language of the courts of Conorria. With a comprehend languages spell, she was able to determine that it was a compilation of early tales about Danar, his wife Parnaith and their companions. One passage in particular caught her eye. It read:

"And thus Danar said to the knight, Gerant, "Go forth and find the guardian seraph who holds the sword of flame." To do so, Gerant had to travel through strange lands where he met the Lillend. She sang a beautiful song and introduced her companion, Thrune, the peaceful one. But the song delayed him, and Regarax the half-dragon attacked Parnaith as she collected her lovely jewels. It was Bastion, the four-winged angel of the morning, who saved them all in the end."

Near the words "four-winged angel of the morning" was scrawled the word "Tarteros". No one in the Company missed the implication, for all knew that they now stood within the artificial mountain named Mons Tarteros, where Aumerides, companion to Danar and later the first Conorrian Emperor, had defeated and imprisoned the foul titan Tarteros. This long-dead explorer had somehow come to believe that Danar's great savior, the angel Bastion, was one and the same as the dread Tarteros.

Leaving the Chamber of Swords, the Company returned to the Conflagration, where they extinguished all active spells and runes and ran quickly across the Conflagration towards the northwest. Despite these precautions, both Nereida and Elida were blinded by eldritch blasts of pure power. Nereida was able to cure both of them of the affliction once they were across.

In a chamber to the west, they found part of Eslathagos Malkith's cruel prison. Twelve skeletons were chained to a wall by bolts driven through what had once been a lovely pastoral fresco. One of the effects of the Dread One's turn to evil was apparently a total disregard for the art he had once loved. As the Company entered this room, a door from an interior chamber flew open, revealing the ancient jailor, now risen as a skeletal warrior. This fearsome apparition charged Marcus and drove him back with terrible wounds. Simultaneously, the chained skeletons rose up and begin spitting teeth and shards of bone. This hail of bone did little damage, however, to the heavily-armored Company. What did hurt was the howling sword of the jail warden, which screamed with the agony of the souls apparently trapped within it.

While Elida and Nereida destroyed the skeletons by channeling the holy might of their god, Marcus, Laelia and Aulus drove the skeletal warrior back and slowly wore him down. At last Marcus felled the warden, and the Company scavenged its armor and sword, and found in its belt a large iron key. Debating what to do with the howling sword, they placed it in the bag of holding, giving the magical helm to Marcus and the magical plate armor to Aulus.

Finding a door that let them around the Conflagration, they came to a corridor in which an ancient trap had gone astray after coming in contact with the energies of the Conflagration. Lightning periodically worked its way up the corridor towards the north, only to disappear and recur again at the southern end a few seconds later. Bonzimir managed to follow the lightning up the corridor, unlock the door at the far end and dodge the following bolt of lightning.

As the Company watched from the far end of the lightning corridor, Bonzimir entered another corridor beyond. In this, a second trap sifted a fine green dust down on the halfling rogue, which made him cough and retch violently. He was able to return to the Company, where Nereida healed him of the wracking pain. When Aulus and Marcus tried to enter the lightning corridor, following the same pattern as Bonzimir, they were savagely jolted with electricity, as it grounded to their heavy metal armor. Badly burned, they retreated out of the corridor.

After this, the Company rested in another room, under the beatific smile of Danar, depicted in a fresco showing the great cleric sealing the Banewarens (and which incidentally depicted the sealing rod, which the Company had never seen before.) The next day, the Company set out again, refreshed and re-armed with spells. They wondered where the paladins were, whether they were somewhere ahead or had fallen afoul of some dangerous bane.

Returning to the lightning corridor, Demetrios cast protection from energy (electricity) on Marcus, Aulus, Nereida and Elida. Bonzimir ran up the corridor, dodging the lightning and toughing out the blur of green dust. The corridor beyond held four doors, and he opened the first one on the right, which led to another corridor. The entire Company followed on his heels, the warriors insulated from the lightning by the spell. Gathered in this corridor, they approached the door at the end and threw it open...

Where they found a host of undead ready and waiting for them. This room had once been the torture chamber of the Dread One, and Vallacor was his chief torturer. Long dead and risen as a lich, Vallacor had been observing the progress of the Company ever since he heard the noise of their conflict with the Betrayed days earlier. Having seen their tactics and many of their spells, he was well-prepared. Flanked by his wight lieutents and many skeleton and wight slaves, Vallacor laughed at the pitiful mortals who sought to challenge him. He waved a pallid hand at Aulus saying "That armor looks so...uncomfortable," whereupon the eldritch warrior's armor simply disappeared.

Bonzimir leapt in to slash at one of the lieutenants, while Nereida boldly presented the holy eye of Borlamnos. "Begone!" she commanded. "Back to the depths with you!" One of the lieutenants and many of the lesser skeletons ran wailing in terror. Sneering, Vallacor unleashed a lightning bolt into the tightly-packed ranks of the Company. The warriors were still protected by Demtrios's spell, while Bonzimir and Laelia were both able to take shelter, but Demetrios was critically wounded.

From that point on, the battle raged. Demetrios countered several of Vallacor's spells, even though the lich was using spells unseen in Theeurth for millennia. Vallacor likewise countered some of Demetrios's spells and manged to escape Laelia's attempt at grappling with a combined true strike and shocking grasp that nearly killed the monk. The fight was desperate, with Nereida madly trying to dispel the layers of magical protection on the lich, and nearly the entire Company injured almost to death. But in the end, Nereida's dispels and furious attacks of Marcus, Aulus and Bonzimir drove the lich back into a corner where they ended his long reign of terror and beheaded him. Tragically, one of Vallacor's last acts was to unleash the horrid spell Slimeball, which filled the corridor with molten acid, injuring nearly everyone and killing Nereida's loyal guardian, Elida.

Demetrios warned that a true lich's soul was protected by a phylactery. Unless that was found and destroyed, the lich would reform, and definitely seek revenge on those who has slain it. Although some minor treasure was found, no phylactery was in evidence. A well-timed detect secret doors spell, however, found both a secret door and a secret vault. The former was opened by the key from the skeletal jail warden and led to a stairway going up, and the latter possessed a heavy leather tome. As Demetrios greedily reached for the tome, a face appeared on its surface. "Hey!" it protested in an irascible tone, "Get your damned hands off!"

And here the story paused...

1) Where is Vallacor's phylactery?

2) Where are the paladins?

3) Does the secret door lead to the Vault of the Sleeping King and the Sword of Truth?

4) Does the jailor's shrieking sword really contain the souls of his victims? If so, what should be done with it?

5) Is Vallacor's spellbook...alive?

6) What ancient spells are contained in the lich's book?

7) Where are Li and Saarchk?

8) Can Elida be raised?

9) Where do all those unexplored doors lead?

Tune in next time!