### 100

You pull yourself onto the platform and run at Vandyan with your weapon held poised to strike. Wild-eyed with manic excitement, he stares intently at the crystal saucer and seems not to notice that you are about to cut him down. But as you make your attack, he snatches up an iron staff that protrudes from a hole in the platform, and expertly he fends off your blow. The blade of your weapon trails a line of sparks as it scrapes along the length of his staff and clatters against the rail which encircles the platform. He stabs at you with its clawed tip and you dodge this vicious blow, but then you strike again and send the staff spinning from his hands. He emits a strangled cry of fear and frustration and backs away to the edge of the platform. Glancing to the crystal saucer, and then to the glinting weapon that you hold in your hands, suddenly his nerve breaks. He kicks a lever at the edge of the platform and a trapdoor springs open to reveal a dangling rope. Cursing you and vowing eternal revenge, he scrambles through the trapdoor and slides rapidly down the rope to the hall below. As he runs towards the door your first instinct is to pursue him, to prevent him from getting away. But your Kai senses warn you that the storm is peaking. Unless you smash the last remaining rune, the Vaag will materialize and Vandyan will have won.

You draw back your weapon and take aim at the rune which lies in its crystal saucer, surrounded by a glowing halo of dark energies. Crackling arcs of power leap across the storm-swept aperture, and in the hollow of the whirling clouds above, you glimpse a legion of bat-winged horrors spiralling down towards the hall. It is the Vaag: they have been summoned.

Turn to 44.