Untold Adventures: A Dungeons and Dragons Anthology

7.

They did not expect to awaken. But they did. It must have been several hours later. Their noses were bloodied; they were battered and worn. But they were intact.

They got to their feet-and found that the back of the metal skull had cracked open, and they tottered through it, Gnarl leading the way.

They emerged onto a dawn-lit beach in an unknown land. The body of the colossus was gone. Glorysade’s head was there, skewed, stuck in the sand-a devilish face, glaring lifelessly up at the gray-blue sky, the fading stars.

Gnarl and Miriam and Rorik walked up to the edge of the sea. It hissed its mysterious mantra. “What sea is this?” Rorik asked, tugging his beard.

Miriam shook her head. “I don’t know. I am not sure if we are in our own world-or another.”

Rorik turned angrily to Gnarl. “I should take you apart for what you’ve put us through!”

“We are alive,” Gnarl pointed out. “And we averted the worst. Also-by now, Sernos is dead, crushed by Ermlock’s Grip! When we saved Fallcrest we saved Kraik-and saving Kraik destroys Sernos.”

“That’s something, anyway,” Miriam said, combing her hair in place with her fingers.

Gnarl nodded. “I would suggest that if we are to find out where we are-and how to get home-we’d better set off up the beach. I see a crystalline tower in the distance. We might go that way. And I would further like to point out, if I might, before you rashly dismember me with your bare hands, Rorik, that our chances of surviving and returning home are better…” he turned to look at Miriam, catching her gaze, “if we put aside our quarrel. If we…”

She smiled wryly and nodded. “If we stay together.”

Rorik groaned and shook his shaggy head in exasperation. “Oh, come on. Let’s get started.”

And they headed for the crystalline tower, far away along the unknown shore.