“I’ve come to take back my household, Sharrestren,” Torlinn said, brandishing the Staff of Aorth. “This party’s lasted long enough.”
Edgin winced. Not a great opening line, especially considering Torlinn had been in a cage for the last several years. He’d had plenty of time to come up with a killer piece of banter for this confrontation.
Edgin decided it was time to go. Much as he hated to admit it, he had to give up on the staff and whatever he’d been about to say to Torlinn to convince him not to make this battle so very public. Whispers of unease were moving through the crowd, and a few people were working their way subtly toward the exit.
Edgin had turned to join them when a hand wrapped around his arm, bony fingers holding him in place.
He turned and there was Lady Sofina, staring at him with her dark eyes. “How did I know you’d be involved in this somehow?” she asked.
Oh Gods. He’d forgotten he’d taken off his cat mask, so of course she’d recognized him at once. Here were a set of chickens he did not need coming home to roost right now.
He tugged her with him toward the front doors. “You were absolutely right,” he said in a rush. “We came here to rob the place, steal the legendary Staff of Aorth, and get away with enough loot to retire on comfortably, but things hit a snag when we got trapped in the death dungeon in the basement and found out about the beholder, and I’d be happy to explain every last detail of the story outside in the yard where it’s safe.”
Lady Sofina’s face had gone several shades whiter. “Beholder?” she said incredulously, tightening her grip until it was painful. “What are you talking about?”
The two Torlinns were slowly circling each other, and most of the crowd, though confused, were hanging around to watch the drama play out. They had no idea what was about to happen.
“Look, can we just talk about this outside?” Edgin was practically dragging her toward the door. He looked across the room and noticed that Holga and Kira were still inside. They’d gotten stuck in the small crowd bottlenecked at the exit. People were just standing around whispering, speculating about what was going on. Edgin’s heart lodged in his throat. He needed to do something. Now.
“Fire!” he shouted. “Fire in the kitchens. Gnome on fire! Everyone, please clear out, quickly!”
Lady Sofina looked at him as if he’d suddenly polymorphed into a monkey. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m trying to start a panic! The biggest panic on the Sword Coast if that’s what it takes to move this crowd,” Edgin snapped. “Fire! Did anyone hear me about the REALLY BIG FIRE in the kitchens?”
“Enough!” Sharrestren’s voice boomed unnaturally loud through the ballroom, drowning out Edgin’s shouts. Everyone in the room froze like startled deer. Lady Sofina’s hand slid off his arm as she turned to look at the two dragonborn.
“No one is going anywhere.” Sharrestren lifted his arms, and pale green light erupted from his hands. It struck the ceiling and began to spread outward and down the walls.
“Oh no,” Lady Sofina murmured, evidently recognizing the spell. “He’s sealing us in.”
At the same time, the real Torlinn raised the Staff of Aorth and fired a beam of radiant light from the diamond. It struck Sharrestren in the chest, driving him back several steps and leaving a large black singe mark on his robes. Otherwise, it looked like it had done no damage.
“That’s it?” Edgin shouted in frustration. “That’s all the legendary Staff of Aorth is good for?” He turned his attention to Holga at the door. “Get Kira out of here!”
Holga was already shoving her way through the crowd, knocking people aside to get to the foyer and the front doors, which started to close on their own as the green light reached them. Setting Kira on her feet, Holga grabbed the closest door with one hand, holding it open with all her strength. She grabbed Kira with the other and shoved her through the small gap just as the green light came down on their heads. There was a sharp crack, like lightning splitting the air.
The door slammed shut, the green light touched the floor, and there was now a glowing barrier covering every window and door out of the place.
They were trapped.
But Kira was safe. Edgin repeated that to himself. Or, at least, she was outside the mansion, which was safer than here.
The ballroom had turned into a stampede as the crowd surged toward the doors and windows, pounding against the barrier. Lady Sofina had disappeared into the chaos, no longer interested in Edgin. Above his head, the orchestra members abandoned their instruments and scurried down the walls like ants in formal wear. A few of the guests came forward to cluster in a group around the false Torlinn, ignoring the scorch mark on his chest, waving their hands for attention, their faces flushed with anger.
“This practical joke has gone far enough, Torlinn,” bellowed a dwarf whose graying mustache quivered with indignation. “Release us at once!”
“I’m never coming back to one of these vulgar events again!” screeched a human woman whose eyes were glassy from too much drink. She swayed on her feet in front of Sharrestren, shaking his arm like a child.
Sharrestren looked at the people clustered around him with a wicked light dancing in his eyes. In fact, something was suddenly very strange about his eyes. Edgin cursed as Holga made it through the crowd back to his side.
“Find cover!” He grabbed Holga’s arm, and together they sprinted across the ballroom, back toward the secret room, whose panel was still open. They’d just made it to the doorway when the screaming began.
Edgin turned in time to see Sharrestren…twisting. Or, at least, that’s what it looked like. The false dragonborn had one hand on the opal necklace he wore, and as he murmured some arcane phrases, his body began to bend and swell at the same time, clothes ripping and falling off of him in tatters as his scaled flesh darkened to a bluish black, his limbs drawing inward toward his body at the same time his head seemed to shrink. It was a horrifying transformation to watch.
But the worst of it was yet to come.
A huge central eye with an iris the color of dried blood slowly opened in Sharrestren’s newly bulbous form. A gaping mouth split its bottom half, lipless and full of blackened teeth, curving in a ghastly parody of a smile.
Then, as if that weren’t terrible enough, with a soft popping sound, ten smaller stalks sprouted from all over the beholder’s rotund surface, each one cracking open a singular eye, each iris a different color, all of them looking in different directions, the stalks waving like tentacles.
“Holga, can you shut us in here?” Edgin shouted to her.
Holga glared at him. “What do you think I’ve been doing?” Only then did Edgin notice she was feeling along the wall for the mechanism to close the panel back up and seal them in the secret room, but like the secret door upstairs, it refused to budge. “I hate these things! Why don’t they make normal doors!”
Edgin looked back at the ballroom. It was bedlam now, nothing but screams and shouts as people trampled one another to get away from the newly revealed beholder—except the dwarf and the woman who’d been shouting at Sharrestren, who were both frozen in terror on the spot, staring up at the monster.
The beholder had risen several feet in the air to hover above the ballroom, grinning with that tooth-filled maw at all the panic its appearance had caused. It turned a single eyestalk toward the dwarf, and a beam of energy burst from a yellow eye, spearing him like a fish.
The dwarf’s body disintegrated in a swirl of dust and necrotic energy.
Edgin gasped. He’d heard tales of the powers of a beholder’s eyestalks, but he’d never seen anything like this up close before. With the basilisk, you could avoid the power of its gaze by not looking at it. This was different. He’d never seen anything that had the power to just look at you and make you die.
“We have to get that barrier down,” he said to Holga, “or this is going to be a bloodbath.”
“We need Simon for that,” Holga said.
They exchanged a look, then took off across the ballroom toward the door to the servant’s area. They had to shove aside people running blindly for cover or trying to get to one of the other rooms to hide. Several of the doors off the ballroom were closed, and it looked like people had barricaded themselves on the other side. Guests stood at the doors, banging on them and shouting to be let in, but they received no answer. It was everyone for themselves.
In the middle of the ballroom, Torlinn and Sharrestren had engaged in a full-on magical battle, with Torlinn using the staff and Sharrestren his eyestalks. In their blind panic, party guests ran into the path of the eyestalks while trying to get away and were struck down. Some of them were killed instantly; others fell to their knees, screaming in terror as they tried to crawl away from the beholder. And still others fell into a kind of trance, staring up at the beholder with serene smiles on their faces.
Edgin reached the servant’s door just as Simon, Alyanna, and Forge were forcing their way through it from the other side. The door slammed at their backs, and it sounded like heavy furniture was being pushed against it on the other side.
“We heard screams,” Forge said, “then the green light appeared and blocked the exits, so we came back down and…” His voice trailed off as he surveyed the chaos and the duel between Torlinn and Sharrestren. “Oh,” he said faintly.
“Yeah, so we’re trapped in the mansion,” Edgin said, ticking the disasters off on his fingers as fast as he could. “Kira’s outside getting the wagon, but we have no way to get to her, so she’s all alone. Torlinn and that beholder are probably going to kill each other and everyone in the house, and they don’t seem to care. Also, we’re probably not getting the staff,” he added, although that part was surely obvious to everyone by now.
They moved together, taking cover behind the buffet table, but it was crowded. Other guests had had the same idea, and they didn’t look too keen on sharing. Holga glowered at them and they backed off.
“We just need to cut our losses and get out,” Forge said. “We don’t want any part of this fight.”
“How do we get through the barrier then?” Edgin asked, turning to Simon. “Can you bring it down?”
“That?” Simon pointed to the net of green energy covering the walls and shook his head. “It’s not a normal spell,” he said. “I’m guessing this is like the hag’s cave, only on a bigger scale. She’d made the island her lair, and she could control things on it like the vines.”
“You’re saying Sharrestren can manipulate this house the same way,” Edgin said, “control who gets in and out?”
“I think so,” Simon said. “To get the barrier to come down, Sharrestren has to either die or decide to take it down himself.”
“Lovely,” Alyanna said, rolling her eyes. “We just have to ask really nicely, then.”
Edgin glanced toward the dance floor as Torlinn’s magic shattered some large potted plants arranged by the window, sending shards of pottery flying like tiny missiles everywhere. He ducked as several pieces flew over his head, embedding themselves in the wall. It was only a matter of time before the fight migrated in this direction and everyone took an eye beam to the face. They needed to do something to tip the scales in their favor before that happened.
“We need a new plan,” he said slowly, reluctant to even speak the idea aloud. “We have to get on team Torlinn and make sure he wins the duel this time.”
There was a brief silence.
“You serious?” Holga asked. She was looking at the beholder doubtfully. Edgin didn’t blame her. Hovering at least ten feet in the air, the eye tyrant was well out of reach of her axe unless she threw it at the thing.
“I’m extremely serious, and I’m really feeling good about this plan,” Edgin said, trying to sound reassuring. “I think we can do this.”
“I think Edgin’s also suggesting we don’t have any other choice,” Forge said, “and I’m inclined to agree. What should our roles be in this?”
They were going to absolutely hate this part, Edgin thought, but he plowed on. “I think our best bet is distraction,” he said. “Get Sharrestren to waste some of his powers on us to give Torlinn an advantage with the Staff of Aorth.”
“It’s not just the eyestalks,” Simon put in. He’d been watching the spell duel closely as they spoke, studying the combatants. “Beholders have this thing they can do where they render an area dead to magic, just like with Torlinn’s cage. They make it so wizards can’t cast spells in a certain area, and magic items like the staff won’t work either. Look.” He pointed to Torlinn, who was running as fast as he could to reposition himself near the south windows before he fired another beam of energy from his staff. “Torlinn has to get out of the anti-magic field before he can attack, so he has to keep moving. I think Sharrestren will wear him down that way before he can get anywhere with his attacks.”
“You’re right,” Edgin said. He could already tell Torlinn was fatigued. The dragonborn’s chest heaved with each breath, and his hands trembled on the staff. “All right, everyone, we have a mission. Operation: distract the beholder and don’t get in front of the eyestalks.”
They all stared at him. Edgin shrugged. “I’ll come up with a better title later. Let’s go!”
Taking a deep breath, Edgin sprang up and ran out onto the dance floor, grabbing a shard of broken pottery as he went. “Hey, Sharrestren! Beady-eyes! Over here! How about you play with us too!”
He threw the pottery shard at the beholder. It bounced harmlessly off its tough skin, but Edgin was undeterred. He picked up shard after shard, throwing them at the beholder until Sharrestren swiveled one of his eyestalks to face him.
He was taunting a beholder. He was taunting a beholder with pottery shards. Edgin vowed he would seriously reexamine his life choices if he survived this night.
“Watch out!” Holga cried.
There was a flash in the smaller eye as it narrowed on Edgin, then a beam of energy speared in his direction. Alyanna shoved Edgin out of the way, the beam narrowly missing him.
But Alyanna didn’t manage to dodge.
The beam clipped her in the shoulder, the force of it spinning her around. She swayed on her feet like a rag doll about to tip over. Edgin’s heart lodged in his throat.
No.
Alyanna dropped to the floor, her body going rigid, eyes open and staring straight ahead. To Edgin’s relief, her body didn’t turn to dust, so she hadn’t been hit by the disintegration ray, but she wasn’t moving either. Was she breathing?
The beholder swung away from them, focusing its attention on Forge and Holga. Forge had thrown his dagger, and Holga was shouting at Sharrestren to come down to face her.
Edgin ran to Alyanna’s side, reaching her just as Simon did. Her body was stiff and unmoving, but her chest rose and fell steadily. Her eyes focused on them, and Edgin could see her lips trying to move, jaw muscles clenching and unclenching, but she couldn’t speak other than to make an incoherent groaning noise.
“It’s some kind of paralysis,” Simon said. He squeezed Alyanna’s stiff hand. “I think you’ll be okay,” he said. “You just have to wait until it wears off.” He looked at Edgin. “We have to get her somewhere safe. She can’t defend herself like this.”
And she’d saved Edgin’s neck. If not for Alyanna, he’d be the one lying there paralyzed.
Simon scooped Alyanna awkwardly into his arms, and together he and Edgin ran across the ballroom to the door to the bar. It was closed, of course, but Edgin kicked it with all his strength. It splintered and swung open on creaking hinges. Luckily, there hadn’t been any furniture barricading it.
Inside the room, a bunch of people were hiding behind the bar or huddling in groups pressed against the walls. Spilled cocktails and broken glass lay everywhere. The room reeked of alcohol and blood. Some of the guests were tending to the wounded.
“Little help over here!” he called out.
A half-orc man with a curling beard turned, and his eyes widened when he saw Alyanna’s condition. He handed some strips of cloth he’d torn from his shirt to an elf crouching beside him and indicated that he should finish bandaging a dwarf with a bleeding arm. He made his way through the crowd to Edgin and Simon.
“She’s paralyzed,” he confirmed after he’d done a quick examination. Around his neck, he wore the holy symbol of Helm. “It’ll wear off soon enough.” He and another guest took Alyanna gently from Simon’s arms. “I can make sure she’s comfortable in the meantime.”
Edgin nodded his thanks, and he and Simon hurried back to the ballroom to rejoin the battle. People who hadn’t managed to find cover or hiding places were still clustered in groups along the walls, screaming and running whenever the fighting came near them.
Suddenly, another of the beholder’s eye rays struck Holga, lifting her off her feet and hurling her into the air. Edgin gave an incoherent shout of fury, but there was nothing he could do. He could only watch helplessly as Holga twisted and managed to land on her feet, keeping a grip on her axe. She stumbled, though, as if the fall had hurt her leg. Her face was creased with pain, but at least she wasn’t dead.
If nothing else, Torlinn was using the distractions well. Every time Sharrestren attacked Edgin’s friends, the wizard was able to get a spell off or a shot from the Staff of Aorth. These, more than anything else, were taking a toll on the beholder, leaving scorch marks and gaping wounds on his body.
But it wouldn’t be enough. Edgin could see that his friends were tiring, and Torlinn wasn’t strong enough to keep up his attacks forever. Someone was going to die if they didn’t do something fast.
“Simon,” Edgin said, putting his hands on the half-elf’s shoulders, “new plan. We have to kill the beholder. What can you do to make that happen?”
Simon stared at him incredulously. “Um, nothing? I told you my magic is no match for theirs! What do you expect me to do?”
“Use your head!” Edgin poked him hard in the forehead with his finger. “You may not have the power, but you have more knowledge about magic than all of us. Think! What would be strong enough to kill the beholder?”
Simon bit his lip. “At this point, the Staff of Aorth, but only if you could release its power all at once somehow,” he said finally. “That’s all I can think of.”
“All right, good thinking,” Edgin said. He scrunched his forehead. “Why isn’t Torlinn doing that then?”
“Probably he’s too weak,” Simon said. “He’s been imprisoned too long. To release all of an artifact’s power at once like that would either take an extremely powerful wizard or…” He sucked in a breath, his eyes widening.
“What?” Edgin demanded. “What is it?”
“It’s…no, we can’t possibly do that,” Simon said, shaking his head. “Forget I said anything.”
“Are you serious?” Edgin shook him. “We don’t have time for well-thought-out plans, Simon, we’re at the desperate gamble stage. What. Can. We. Do?”
“We can destroy the staff!” Simon choked out.
Edgin released his grip on the sorcerer in surprise. “Destroy it? I didn’t think that was something you could do with an artifact?”
“You can’t, not easily,” Simon explained. “But the Staff of Aorth is still damaged. I think that means that with enough physical force we could shatter it. Except…we don’t want to be anywhere in the vicinity of the explosion it’ll create.”
“But we have to make sure Sharrestren is,” Edgin said. He could see why Simon thought it wasn’t a plan worth mentioning. The timing it would require meant it was almost impossible to pull off.
“All right, I’ll do it,” Edgin said.
“Just like that?” Simon spluttered.
“Just like that,” Edgin said, with a smile of bravado that, judging by Simon’s expression, was not very convincing. “We need to gather up the others. I want everyone for this. You still have any spells that can get rid of magic?”
“Yes,” Simon said, confused. “But I told you I can’t dispel the barrier.”
“We’re going to do something different,” Edgin said. “I can’t even believe I’m saying this, but it’s time for a hero moment, Simon, and you’re going to help me.”