In battle, an instant could seem like an hour. The fight against the Machine Men went on for what seemed like an eternity. Moments turned into minutes. Before long, I did not have to worry about the enemy slipping past me, because there was no room, with all the bodies blocking the way.

But, in the end, the last one fell, thanks primarily to Fartooth and myself. The twins were limited in their options by their daily spells, and the fact that not all spells they had access to were much good for fighting so large a mob. Vestele tried charming a few, but in the desperate chaos I wasn’t really paying attention, and ruined the charm by continuing to blast away at our erstwhile allies.

Yes, finally, the last defender fell. It took over ten minutes of constant fighting, but they fell all the same. Fifty machine-men bodies lay strewn about our feet, choking the hall with their mass, and the Voice of the World told us that it was done.

Your party has defeated 50 Warforged Guardians!

Melinda earns 16218 xp.

Ebonheart earns 15016 xp.

Siora earns 16875 xp.

Vestele earns 16875 xp.

Fartooth earns 16875 xp.

Loot

Guardian’s Blade x50

Guardian’s Shield x50

Ring of Deflection +5 x50

Amulet of Natural Armor +5 x50

Cloak of Resistance +5 x50

Crystal of the Stalwart Blade x50

Crystal of the True Defender x50

Crystal of the Mighty Guardian x50

Bracers of Relentless Might x50

I staggered back, and slumped against a pile of broken bodies as the information came through, and I came crashing down off the rush of combat. Such a long battle was not something I was used to. Hell, even in the larger conflicts I’d been part of, the fights were more a series of smaller battles, instead of facing off against a horde.

All of a sudden, there was a thrum of magic through the air. Not a single spell, but more like an enchantment coming unraveled. As though some ritual finally reached completion, and the entire building was affected.

“What in Garagos’s bloody fist is going on here?”

I turned, and saw Ebonheart standing at the other side of the room, looking upset. “What do you mean, Ebonheart?”

“I mean why did the sewer outside suddenly turn into some kind of shadowy void? AND WHY IS THE BUILDING FLOATING IN THAT NOTHINGNESS!”

Melinda’s Knowledge (The Planes) check: 1d20+17 = 28 (Success)

“Well, shit,” I sighed. “Sounds like the building had a failsafe on it after all. The if the guards failed to rout whoever was trying to raid the vaults, then it goes and sends the whole building to someplace in the Plane of Shadow.”

“We should hurry, and loot what we can, then,” Siora said, “The stories of the creatures that call this fell plane home are enough to make anyone wish for bright-lit rooms and where all darkness has been purged from existence. The Plane of Shadow is hostile to all life, as far as I know.”

Vestele nodded. “Then let us start with this lot. How much do we want to take with us from these guardians?”

Fartooth yipped as he stepped back from one of the fallen guardians’ weapons. “These things do not like to be touched. At least, not by someone like me.”

I quickly looked them over with my magical sight, and identified their properties, starting with the blades and shields. “Hmm. The Shields are enchanted, but nothing special. The blades are designed to hurt chaotic beings more, and can change to bypass any resistances that the target might have. Oh, there’s also a Statue spell woven into the enchantment, allowing someone to stand watch eternally without growing tired.”

Next, I looked at the other items. “The rings, amulets, and cloaks are all simple items we’ve seen before. The crystals that were attached to their weapons, shields, and armor plating all have simple effects, but they add to a greater whole. Mostly just giving the bearer extra defenses against attacks.

“The bracers, though? They’re huge. Each pair gives a massive boost to the wearer’s Strength and Constitution, far more than anything we currently have with us. I am confident that the value of entire nations was spent in guarding this vault.”

Siora nodded. “And against any other group, they would have been more than enough. Constructs do not feel pain, or sadness, or impatience. They do not fear death. They are the perfect guards, especially when you can get ones that can think, like these ones could.”

She took a breath. “It is only because you’re here, Mel, that we were able to survive all that, without running. You are strong enough to keep their blades off you, for the most part, and your magic does not run out. Against a normal party of adventurers, even ones of our caliber, they would have either been forced out, or killed, before they got halfway through such a fight!”

I sighed, but did not deny it. In close quarters like this? Fartooth might have been able to play ‘keep away’ for a bit, but he was the only one out of our group that could keep up with me in that department.

“Right, so out of all of this, what do you think?”

Siora looked everything over, and said, “Lets leave most of it. We each take two pairs of bracers. One to meld with the ritual, and another to sell, if we get the chance. I wouldn’t take more than that, since we’ll still need to find someplace capable of making exchanges that are that… rich, in order to get anything close to the true value.”

Bracers of Relentless Might

Type

Arms

Weight

1 lb.

These well-wrought bracers are made from the hide of some nameless creature. When worn, they provide the wearer with a +12 Enhancement bonus to both STR and CON.

“Right,” I said, as I slid ten pairs of the bracers into Ebonheart’s saddlebag of holding. “We’ll move through the rest of the vault, and see what we can see, then get out of here, hopefully before the building’s sudden appearance gets noticed and something comes to investigate.”

That said, we moved to the door I had opened to start the horde fight off. The items I’d seen before were still sitting there, on their shelves, in their orbs of magic. Quickly, I began studying them, reading their names, and the list of their abilities. Most were powerful items, no doubt, but they were ill suited to our use, even if we stripped the powers through this melding ritual. They were too connected to gods and demons that did not match our own, or enhanced things we had no need of, like a Truesilver Necklace of Infernal Discipline, or the Tempest Gorget of Undead Mastery.

Still, we did find a few boons, powerful magical items that weren’t tied to any power in particular, but were still too powerful to be left out in mortal hands, like the pearl necklace that Vestele picked up which greatly enhanced your Wisdom, and allowed the user to sacrifice a living being once per week to cast a Miracle spell without paying the normal costs, or even using up one of their spell slots. Obviously, something like this was not a trinket that good powers wanted out in the world, but it was too useful to just be destroyed out of hand. After all, a willing sacrifice, doing what must be done, could swing the tide of a battle, or even a war, with that spell.

The next room we tried to get into was marked ‘Rings’. However, when I pushed open the door, I found a surprise, in the fact that there was something solid, and heavy, braced against it, trying to keep us out. I wasn’t going to try and overpower one of those Guardians, strength to strength. Instead, I melted the door, as I did the Sentinel’s shield.

What we discovered on the other side was another of the ‘statues’, but this one had durned from dull stone to one of solid adamantine. A quick check revealed that this wasn’t simply a guardian in statue form. Or, rather, it wasn’t now.

I could see the magic on the former guardian, and I could guess what had happened. When all the guardians came for us, this one decided to brace the door, holding us at bay as long as he could. But the failsafe hadn’t spared him. Actually, it used whatever magic animated the living construct to help fuel the transference. What was left behind was just a solid slab of adamantine, braced against the door, wedged firmly enough that, when I destroyed the door, I had to jump back to avoid it crushing my toes as it fell.

“By the Lady!” Vestele exclaimed. “Using the guards as a power source to transport the building into the aether? That has to be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard of! All it would take was for one guard to find out the truth, and be unwilling to sacrifice themselves, and they could undermine the entire security system!”

Fartooth nodded. “That’s why they used those metal men. Constructs don’t think of things like that, even when they can think. They’re more logical, especially when they’ve been designed to be. If we go by the assumption that they were literally designed to carry out this function? Well, there have been cults less brainwashed by their masters.”

“In that case, the deaths of the Guardians and Sentinel we killed may have helped ‘charge’ the spell, even as we fought.” I shook my head at that thought. Designing something like that was a work of genius, or madness. But it wasn’t our problem. “We should continue on. Do a quick search of each room, and pick out what trinkets we want. We don’t know how many ‘volunteers’ that our friends will gather, so we can’t go overboard. Grab no more than one item per ‘slot’, and we’ll just sell anything we can’t use.”

That in mind, we worked our way through ‘Rings’, left the doors marked ‘Sealed’ and ‘Cursed’ the hell alone, and skipped Bracers. ‘Boots’ and ‘Eyewear’ didn’t have much for us, unfortunately, but we did stop in the room marked ‘Artifacts’. There was no way we would pass up a chance to see artifacts in the flesh.

That room had six steel chests bound in cold iron and layered with enough spells and traps that it took almost half an hour for Siora to work through them all. However, when it was all clear, we opened the chests one by one to see the wonders inside. And what wonders they were.

In the first chest was what looked like a clotted red clump of flesh, or perhaps a mummified, desiccated eye. It was supposedly the eye of a powerful mage who had ascended to godhood through wholly evil means. The list of powers it possessed were impressive, but they made several notes about ‘mental corruption’, and how the user might begin to believe that they were that long-ascended spellcaster made flesh once more. Not something we wanted to deal with.

The second chest contained a crystal rod and a set of notebooks detailing an Alchemist’s plans for some great Apparatus. The rod was the key to the Apparatus’s function, apparently. The apparatus allowed one to do mind boggling things, such as switching beings’ souls from one vessel to the other, like a permanent version of possession, or splitting a soul into two halves, good and evil, or fusing that soul (or two different souls) back together again. There was a note that, when used, the Apparatus may attract the ‘Dark Powers’ of the ‘Dread Realms’ and cause them to draw the Apparatus, the building, and all around it, into those ‘Dread Realms’, never to return. Again, not something we wanted to mess with.

Then, there was a tome with covers of flawless obsidian, too heavy for any of us to lift on our own. This was supposedly the Codex of Infinite Planes, which would allow you to open portals to different planes, summoning demons to do your will. Of course, doing so risked madness, death, or worse with each page read. The tome was here because the archons believed that the only way to destroy it was to destroy the infinite planes of the Abyss themselves, an impossible task.

The fourth chest held an iron flask, richly decorated and engraved with runes of power, and a turnip-shaped plug in the top. It was supposed to be the original ‘Iron Flask’, the one that the more ‘common’ items were just a pale imitation of. And the list of things that the demons trapped inside would do to the wielder if they ever broke free was enough to make even the most depraved sadist blanche at the thought of it.

The fifth chest was empty, but the sixth held a single deck of cards. This, actually, was an artifact that I had heard of before, the Deck of Many Things! It was something of a legend amongst adventurers, but mainly for all the ways that attempting to use the deck would backfire, especially if you tempted fate too often.

“I don’t think we should take any of these things. Do you? It may be best to just let them be, and focus on the rest of the vault.”

The others agreed. Having an artifact sounded like a feather in the cap, but these all had too many nasty downsides that would make them more a liability than a boon. And we were already needing all the help we could get.