One of the low-ranking gnolls he had ignored before was still there, putting his clothes back on. What the...? Scott grabbed him in passing and threw him over the edge. Those giant stairs made for a nice long fall. Scott floated after him with far greater dignity.

    Koko was backing away unsteadily, breathing flame to cover his retreat. Stephanie stood on top of Thunderbolt as he lay bleeding, hissing defiantly in case anyone should try to offer him further injury.
    Naked Gnoll stepped in, feinted past me, grabbed my chin, wrenched me around in a fashion my neck found very uncomfortable, and whispered, "I don't have time for you," before considerately hurling me to one side.
    Those cloud walls are hard. I wondered dizzily what he did had have time for; apparently it was attacking Phoenix Talon, who didn't look like he was in very good condition for this and was distracted trying to finish off Koko. I did the job for him with another sling bullet. The dragon collapsed, writhing in its final throes.
    Naked Gnoll put his foot through Phoenix Talon's ribcage with a nasty sound of splintering bone and looked around, jaws gaping. I was the only one up. "Now I have time for you...."
    Scott slammed the door open.
    The head of Gretchen's statue on the floor began speaking. "Thank you, Blaise, that's one down. And for the rest of them, I think my loyal servant should be.... still moving."
    Koko's wounds knit themselves before my eyes. He blinked and lifted his massive head.
    I really hate her.
    I had one good spell left and if this didn't work.... I cast Plane Shift on the dragon. He was still inhaling, ready to flame us again when he disappeared, blink.

***

    Outside the wall, a man was announcing to the massed MEDUSA forces, "Okay, we're ready for another assault." They poured their combined energy against the barrier, which shimmered. "It looks like we're breaking through—"
    Blink.
    "Aaaaugh! Dragon!"

***

    I made a rude gesture toward the statue head, giddy with relief.
    "Wow that was cool, you almost actually hurt somebody, Gretchen," Scott remarked. "I've gotta go beat up your naked gnoll now."
    Now that we knew whom we were dealing with—Blaise, who possesses people lacking identification—and that something as simple as clothing could serve as sufficient identification to prevent him doing so—Scott took the opportunity to carve an identifying scar across the gnoll's chest.
     The gnoll blinked, looked around, and very shortly died. Gretchen's statue lost its animation.

***

    In distant Boston, a mirror clouded over.
    "Damn them!" Gretchen shrieked.

***

    I checked on Phoenix Talon without any real hope, but much to my shock, his heart was still beating—there was an incredible amount of blood on the floor—and the thing on his belt seemed to be pulsing. "We'll get you right out of there," I promised him, and did so. He later reported a feeling of warm shelter, and of being looked at.
    "Where'd the dragon go?" Thunderbolt wanted to know after receiving similar treatment.
    "That's actually a good question," I admitted. Not that I cared all that much. "Anybody needs any more magic today, they're going to have to ask him," I added, pointing at 'Bolt. I could maybe heal a hangnail after the past two hours. "So where is the control room?"
    "There's a big room up there with all sorts of locks on the door," Scott reported.
    "That might be it, then."
    "Other that or its where they're keeping the prisoners, or something."
    We started making our way back up the ramp.
    "We might want to move this place, since Gretchen knows we have it," I noted.
    "Good point," Thunderbolt agreed.
    "Gretchen does know where we are," the golem said. "On the other hand, her really nasty flying troops are kind of dead."
    "She could unlock the slaads downstairs," Talon suggested. Their role in this place was still something of a mystery.
    "I'm really sorry about that, guys, I didn't know there was a dragon down there," Scott added. "I didn't hear it until I got nearly back from killing off the high priest."
    "Well, your timing was good," Talon allowed.
    "Yes, yes it was," I agreed.
    "So was yours." He shook his head. "We got separated. And you know whose fault it was? That stupid barghest!"
    We reached the door and looked at it. It had four large locks and a couple bars, and signs in gnollish, common tongue, and several runic languages that said, "Do Not Open!!" The seal was airtight.
    "This could be where they keep something icky," I noted.
    The corridor went on past it and curved; Thunderbolt and I wandered up it. Up that way after two more doors we found the shrine, with another destroyed statue that had been replaced by one of Gretchen, and a large marble slab set at cloud giant height, but where a trellis had been built allowing a human to reach it. The ceiling and walls were clear; it was dawn out there.
    I climbed up; there were two enormous hand-prints in the slab. Between them was an altar to Gretchen, which was promptly shoved off the edge to create more rubble. It was impossible for me to get both my hands in the spaces, given how far apart they were. Thunderbolt could just barely get a finger into each. He almost felt something, took a moment to clear his mind and tried it again, and realized that it could be operated one-handed. It was much easier to drive it when he wasn't stretched out like that.
    "We're keeping this," I stated, enchanted by the view.
    We had a few days before the final assault began, and nothing that needed to be done; our allies had their orders. Thunderbolt headed the cloud toward Boston. It was possible to give it directions to keep moving even if a hand wasn't on it.
    We rested a lot, finished healing, did a little more exploring, and found a good place to set the grateful rescued cattle (all species thereof) down—the cloud could be landed on hills.
    "Do us a favor?" Scott said. "Take the sheep, have a cow or two, go up in the hills for about a week, week and a half. Don't talk to anybody, you didn't see anything. Within two weeks, this won't matter. No one will torture you to death by gnoll because you saw something. Take the long way home." They agreed, happy to have the livestock, though we kept one sheep for ourselves.
    We learned that the alcove transporter went to the due-west entry from the round room. People would normally go from the landing pad to the round room, pass through the appropriate door and be in the foyer. We removed the blue barriers on the non-slaad passageways to make it easier for us to get around, and learned that after twenty-four hours they came back. We found another teleport gate that was broken, sending anyone who stepped in on a dizzying round of several alcoves without actually going anywhere. We tested the black door with some dead gnolls, and then Scott, and then a sheep, and then Phoenix Talon. It turned out that black does nothing.
    And then, just when things were going so well, we made a massive mistake. Just how massive, we have yet to find out, and we're pretty sure that doing so is not going to be pleasant. Got tripped up by a sense of our own omnipotence, I suppose.
    Phoenix Talon had just checked on the slaads, which Scott theorized were the castle's power source. If the giant had drawn prismatic energy off of raw chaos... it made sense.
    Talon shrugged. "Let's just live and let slaad."
    "It's not right to leave them enslaved," I asserted.
    "We're not going to leave them enslaved, we're going to crash the entire thing into Gretchen's palace and they'll all die in the process." He looked puzzled by my appalled look.
    "It is not right to just kill them."
    "Guys, let's go take a look at the locked door before we get into extra-dimensional amphibian morality," Scott suggested. He'd been itching to do that since first seeing it.
    "See if we asked them, they'd say 'yes,' 'no,' and 'blue,'" Talon continued arguing with me.
    "Chaotic creatures should be free, that's the whole point," I retorted.
    "So throw 'em off the cloud fortress," Scott sighed. "Fly and be free."
    We stood before the door again, with all its locks and bars.
    Phoenix Talon held the Eye ready, just in case, while Scott went to work on the locks. This turned out to be a good idea on his part, because when the final lock was undone the door vanished, and a massive wave of violet chaos poured out, reaching for us with limbs that changed their shape constantly but were always ready to claw.
    As it happened, I was the only one who got seriously hit—not from the claws, from the other facet of its nature, a sort of contagious chaos. I can't say I enjoyed becoming a spongy amorphous mass; for one thing, it hurt like hell.
    Phoenix Talon whipped the Eye out from its covering; the chaos beast vanished, instantly destroyed by the power of a god of law.

***

    In Boston, Gretchen suddenly raised her head, eyes widening sharply.

***

    Talon put the Eye away. With a fierce mental effort I reestablished control over my shape and cast a hasty spell of restoration on myself while I could to purge the lingering effects of the creature's touch. Lightning struck through the cloud wall; when the others stopping blinking they saw me standing in a small, smoking crater, quite all right.
    "I'm really sorry about that," Scott said in a smaller voice than I've ever heard from him.
    "That was... interesting." I brushed myself off, shuddering a little. "Who the hell keeps that in the closet? You would think they would have just gotten rid of the stuff."
    Gretchen thinks in terms of weapons, of course.
    And now she probably knows we're coming.

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