Finally, gnolls. Thirty of them, with short bows and battleaxes, arrayed in an arc with their weapons ready. Also a dozen hellhounds, arranged before them. Behind the gnolls was a thirty-foot stone statue of Gretchen on a pedestal, some rubble from the pedestal's previous occupant, and two more doors. This giant really liked his rooms firmly separated; so many doors in this place.
    Phoenix Talon lunged at a hellhound with his katana; flaming blood fountained as the thing's head bounced away and burned to ash. "Next!"
    Scott took out another one. I threw a Flame Strike at the gnolls, killing nine of them as a column of flame descended from above.
    "We are your doom!" Talon shouted. "Lay down your arms and we'll kill you rather painlessly!"
    The remaining hellhounds charged, breathing fire. Scott and Phoenix Talon avoided the flames entirely, and I still had some of my magical protection left, so the attack was considerably less effective than they might have hoped.
    Thunderbolt raised his hands and created a ring of lightning around the gnolls and most of the hellhounds. Burning gnoll fur does not smell good. Two singed hellhounds were left outside the circle; everything else was dead or soon to be so. We dispatched the hellhounds.
    "Thus ever to gnolls," Talon pronounced.
    We knocked over the statue on general principles and moved toward the doors. Scott took the left, Talon the right. Both opened onto short passages, one ending in a door, the other disappearing around a turn. Beyond the door was the gnoll barracks, now empty of course. Beyond the turn was another door, beyond which lay an empty room that was probably the hellhound kennel.
    Another dead end, then, and still no sign of a way to get to this shrine place. Unless it was the teleport chamber after all.
    Stephanie began rubbing against Thunderbolt's leg, then went over to the wall, where there was another of the smallish discolored spots.
    "Hey guys?!" Thunderbolt called to the others, who returned from their investigations.
    "Thank you, Stephanie." I scratched her ears.
    We opened the door. More hallway, and then stairs, this one with a wooden ramp built over it for easier ascent by legs for which a four-foot riser is less than comfortable. We moved on, aware of the fact that we hadn't exactly been quiet about our infiltration. The stair's ceiling was open, with a banister running along the edge of whatever room it led up into. Anyone waiting would have an excellent field of fire. Scott went to gas form to provide us some cover, which didn't do much good when the Flame Strike descended on us.
    It did just as much damage as the hellhound attack had. At the top of the stairs were four large wolf-men carrying two-handed swords—those were something of a giveaway by now—putting on an impressive display of menacing swordplay.
    Phoenix Talon leaped from his fly and charged. "Fools! You are mine!" The barghest avoided his attacks.
    I threw a Searing Light at one of the others. It singed the thing a bit.
    Scott adhered to his usual plan of attack, which was to catch hold of something and then hit it really hard. The barghest remained standing.
    Those who were up top found themselves in another enormous room, this one furnished. Lots of hiding places for the spellcaster. I am surprised that Traveler hadn't done more to redecorate the place.
    An unwounded barghest bared his teeth and growled, "Run!" Thunderbolt and Phoenix Talon were affected by the creature's aura of fear; the latter sprinted down the ramp in unnatural terror, and
    Thunderbolt was on the carpet, Stephanie on his shoulder with her fur fluffed to maximum.
    "You keep them busy for a minute!" I told Scott. "I'm going to get them back." I flew after them, readying my counterspell. They stopped at the bottom of the stair—the fear only has effect when the cause is in sight. Someone tried to cast Hold Person on me as I followed them; since I had immunized myself against that one earlier, it had no effect.
    Above, Scott was left with rather a lot of barghests to deal with. He dodged around madly, hitting one occasionally, keeping them occupied. Two of them disappeared. The other two attacked, leading to more dodging. He spotted the high priest making a break for it and continued dodging and attacking whenever a chance opened up. Eventually chance permitted him to put a pseudopod through a barghest's chest, upon which the other one disappeared. He looked to where the priest had disappeared; a couple of gnolls peeked around the corner, saw him, and ran.
    I caught up with Talon and Thunderbolt at the base of the stairs.
    "I have to go back and kill them!" Talon raged.
    A barghest appeared behind Phoenix Talon and said, "Boo!" in his ear, then attacked with his greatsword. Again, they had no choice but to flee, this time all the way back down to the secret door.
    I swore. If I couldn't take the spell off them, I'd have to remove its causeŠ a massive wound opened on the barghest's back; he howled in pain and focused his eyes on me. I could feel him attempting to manipulate my mind, but really now....
    Thunderbolt opened the door, saw the barghest, fell under the spell again, and started the carpet back to full speed again, toward the door behind which lay a lot of dead gnolls and hellhounds. Phoenix Talon closed his eyes and put his fingers in his ears, so he didn't immediately notice when a very, very angry Koko stormed into the room and breathed fire at the two of them. Thank goodness for that fire resistance Thunderbolt put on us.
    A dragon. I can fight a dragon! Phoenix Talon thought, and Dimension Doored onto its neck. He drove his katana through the scales and said, "You don't know how glad I am to see you!"
    I could hear the noise of this of course, but wasn't sure I would be able to get through the damn door. I also didn't want this barghest running around behind us. I gave him another vicious spell-induced injury; he ran for the ramp. I found myself mildly surprised that he hadn't had a healing potion, and pulled out my sling. A rock to the head finished him off.
    Thunderbolt tried a Cone of Cold, which didn't work nearly as well this time as it had before. The dragon swung his wings up, buffeting Talon but failing to scrape the monk off while its head snaked toward Thunderbolt, fangs snapping shut on him. The katana struck again, to less effect.
    "Why don't you do it right?" Stephanie suggested sarcastically to her sorcerer. His second attempt fared no better, however. The entire room was coated in frost, and steam rose off the dragon, but it was unhurt.
    "Go get Needle!" Talon yelled to him.
    Koko flailed with his wings and forelimbs again, twisting as he scratched. A massive claw grabbed Talon and pinned him to the floor. Phoenix Talon unlimbered his gem, giving the dragon a hotfoot, and sprang out of the way.
    I flung myself against the door with an effect much like a sparrow hitting a window. On the other side, Thunderbolt threw a lightning bolt at the dragon, this time damaging the creature more substantially, but it continued to concentrate on Talon, rending him with claws and fangs while slapping the sorcerer with its tail, flinging him against to door hard enough that he lost consciousness.
    The impact did open the door, though. Startled, I jumped through it. It didn't look as if things were going very well.
    They got worse when a naked gnoll dropped down from above, landed in front of me and launched a spinning back kick that almost broke my jaw and knocked me back far enough that his follow-up missed entirely. Phoenix Talon's katana whistled and glanced harmlessly from Koko's scales. The dragon whipped his head up high and then lanced down toward the monk. I staggered back a bit from this insane gnoll and put my attention on the dragon. This seemed like a good time for Harm. Koko kind ofŠ unraveled, barely alive, blood fountaining from his mouth. It's a messy spell.

    Meanwhile, Scott was still busy chasing the gnolls, having heard none of this. There were a couple of lower-ranking gnolls—he ignored them—and the high priest farther away, rounding a corner. They passed a barred and locked door. The gnoll was clearly getting tired; Scott didn't suffer that problem. Evidently realizing this, the high priest turned and barked something in emphatic gnollish at the other two, then readied a battleax. Scott hit him a few times; the gnoll staggered but stayed up. His ax, unlike most, was actually able to cut the golem's magical substance, though he didn't do much damage with it. Scott did quite a bit with his return blow. The priest started running again. Scott hit him one last time and finally finished him off, headed back the way he had come to join the rest of the group.

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