Wing Three

ADVENTURE 69 - STONE OF THE FLESHWARPERS, PART 2

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The triceratops snorted, lowered its head, and sent a pair of scorching rays flying over to the smaller of the earth elementals Feron had conjured up. From the top of the arena above, Rale, Thunderwolf, and Feron peppered the dinosaur with arrows. But then there was suddenly a new combatant on the scene, for seemingly popping up from the sands of the arena was a dire rhinoceros. It blinked in confusion, targeted Galrich, who stood between the two earth elementals, and charged. It caught him with its wicked horn, which not only gored the barbarian but also channeled a surge of electricity into him, causing him to twitch and spasm in a loss of dexterity, which enraged the half-orc even further.

Akari, staggering on his last legs over by a newly-healed Aerik, took the opportunity to activate his Guild ring. With a shamefaced expression of regret, he binked back to the safety of Guild Headquarters a continent away, and within moments was replaced in the arena by Telgrane, resplendent in his new robe of the archmagi and with his Small fire elemental familiar, Infernia, sitting on his shoulder. Telgrane took a moment to scan the environment with his arcane sight, noting that the creatures in the arena were manifesting magical auras. As he was standing near the spiked portcullis that led to a ramp descending deeper into the bowels of the arena, he quickly peeked down into the darkness there but saw nothing of interest. Then he turned his attention back to the arena, in time to see Aerik barreling down to the electrohorn rhino's back flank, dwarven waraxe at the ready.

The young archmage didn't get to do more than fire off a single sonic ray spell at the electrohorn rhino before he was effectively taken out of combat. Unseen, a small stone carving had been pitched to the sands behind him from the other side of the portcullis. When it landed, it instantly became a living constrictor snake, which sank its fangs in the back of Telgrane's neck and then wrapped its sinuous body around him. Infernia shrieked in surprise and jumped into the fray, confident that her fiery attacks would have no adverse effect on her beloved master. The three of them flailed around in a grappling frenzy, each involved in their own little struggle while much larger combats took place elsewhere in the circular arena.

The two Huge earth elementals, aided by Galrich and Aerik, finally managed to kill the electrohorn rhino, and it toppled over on its side, kicking up a small explosion of sand as it did so, before its massive body disappeared as quickly as it had originally manifested. In the meantime, the trio of archers had continued raining arrows down upon the fireblaster triceratops. It spun around angrily, searching for its tormentors, and sent a pair of scorching rays up to hit Feron and Thunderwolf, but it, too, was soon nothing but an unmoving carcass on the arena sands. Then, mere seconds later, it vanished from sight in the same manner as the other arena combatants who had just as mysteriously appeared, fought, died, and disappeared.

Feron, noticing Telgrane's predicament over by the portcullis, sent one of her earth elementals over to deal with it, and the massive creature did so in a most effective manner: it scooped the three of them up, gripped the serpent's body in its rock-hewn fists, and pulled the serpent in twain. Infernia and Telgrane plopped to the sands below, the latter gasping for breath. Upon the constrictor's demise, its body reverted back to a small stone figurine, which only narrowly avoided bopping Telgrane on his noggin as it fell to the ground.

It looked like the heroes were free of opponents for a moment, but that wasn't the case for long. Feron's eagle animal companion, Felix, had been flying above the Teardrop Serpent keeping a sharp eye on things, and warned his mistress over the empathic link they shared that there were two lizard-people waddling over to the arena. These were another pair of stoneswimmer ophidians, who walked through the stone walls of their watch-stations and through the solid white marble of the arena itself. As they phased through the walls, they absorbed the strength of the stone, increasing the hardness of their own bodies and weapons in the process. Fang, busily devouring the body of a lizardfolk fighter he had dispatched just outside the Teardrop Serpent, got a whiff of one of the newcomers and bounded around the side of the arena, arriving just in time to see the ophidian phase through the stone wall and out of its reach. Growling, he circled the arena until he was back to where he had started, over at the narrow point of the Teardrop where the arena's roof angled down to ground level.

As Galrich noticed the ophidians walking through the arena walls, he gripped his axe and veered off to meet the closest in combat. Thunderwolf shot a barrage of arrows at the other, and was surprised to see his arrows strike true yet bounce off the creature's body without any discernible effect.

Rale and Feron were about to join Thunderwolf's attack when once again another opponent sprang up as if from nowhere. This was an enormous dire elephant, dwarfing the size of any such creature the group had ever seen. It sprang into existence facing Aerik, so with a fierce trumpeting it stabbed at him with its curved tusks. The dwarf stepped back a few steps from its attack, and Feron and Rale sent their arrows flying in its direction, Thunderwolf following suit only after he had finally managed to successfully drop the ophidian he'd been targeting. The elephant wheeled around to face those who had been hitting it with arrows, and as Feron was the closest, it chose her as its next target. Despite the fact that she was easily 30 feet or more away from the elephant and standing upon the top of a 20-foot-tall roof, the beast stretched its trunk to an impossible length, wrapped the end of its ridiculously flexible trunk around Feron's waist, yanked her off of the roof and slammed her to the ground, then stamped upon her with its massive, tree-trunk legs for good measure. It was only the stoneskin spell that the druid had habitually cast before battle that kept her from being squashed into a bloody pulp. Pinned in the sand by the creature's massive foot, Feron wildshaped into something big enough to allow her to get out from underneath the monster; she rose up in the form of a Huge treant.

A couple more arrow attacks from Thunderwolf and Rale, accompanied by scorching rays from Telgrane and a few good swipes from Aerik's dwarven-crafted waraxe and Feron's massive wooden fists, and the stretch-trunk elephant was nearly toppling over, all but dead, bleeding from a dozen or more wounds. Aerik finished it off with a final, well-struck blow from his axe, its intestines spilling from the gaping rent in its side.

As the massive dire elephant toppled to the arena sands and its corpse disappeared as had the others before it, Rale noted that Galrich had easily dispatched the remaining ophidian on the far side of the arena. While waiting a moment to see if any new arena-beast would manifest, when none did he stowed his bow upon his back, swung over the side of the roof, and dropped into the arena itself. Thunderwolf followed suit with far less grace; while Rale effortlessly demonstrated a simple drop-and-roll maneuver that had him standing near where he had fallen as if nothing had happened, the young fighter found himself sprawled out face-first in the sand. He picked himself, dusted himself off, and looked over at the others to see what their next move would be.

Feron, seeing that there were no opponents to fight at the moment, and seeing the battered state of her companions that had done their fighting in the arena, called them over around her to receive a mass cure serious wounds spell. (This, naturally, gained a "tree of life" comment from Rale.) Feron sent her earth elementals over to destroy the metal portcullis. One grabbed it up in a massive fist and gave it a good yank, tossing it away in the center of the arena out of the way.

Telgrane and Infernia were the first to enter the room beyond, which sloped down a ramp to lead to a curving, boomerang-shaped cavern that sloped downhill at either end. On the walls on either side of the ramp were numerous small cubbyholes, some of which were filled with small, walnut-sized gems. To Telgrane's enhanced arcane sight, the gems radiated strong auras of conjuration (summoning), while the cubbyholes - even the empty ones - radiated auras of both transmutation and conjuration (healing) magic. There were wriggling lines carved under each cubbyhole, and Telgrane knew enough of the Draconic language to realize this was some sort of strange dialect or offshoot language. He wasn't able to decipher every glyph, but recognized what could be the symbols for "hydra," "elephant," and "rhino" underneath three of the empty cubbyholes, so assumed that the gems stored here held the bodies of the arena-monsters, stored away in stasis until needed. As an experiment, he picked up one of the gems from its cubbyhole - the not-quite-Draconic inscription beneath the hole looked like it said "dark blob" - and watched as the gem's aura grew steadily stronger, as if ready to activate after a certain amount of time. Not wanting a black pudding manifesting all around him, Telgrane dropped the gem back into its hole and watched as its magical emanations dimmed to their previous level.

Seeing nothing else of interest in the room and noting that both exits led deeper into the bowels of the earth on either side, Telgrane cast a cloudkill spell at the northern end of the room, watching the foul vapors slowly drift further around the descending corner out of view. He had intended to follow that up with another cloudkill spell at the southern end of the room, but didn't get a chance, for he noticed that the top of the first cloud of vapors suddenly jutted out, as if something hidden from view had flown out of the top of the cloud at great speed. He felt the swish of displaced air as something went whizzing past him, and called to his companions that there was something invisible in the room with them.

Rale, Thunderwolf, and Galrich stepped down the ramp with bows drawn, ready to let fly. Aerik had no ranged weapons, but stood by his liege in a protective stance. Feron, still up in the arena above in treant form, took the liberty to cast a call lightning storm spell to have it ready, although she didn't start flinging bolts of lightning around just yet as she had no one to target them at. Felix, seeing his mistress in her new form, took the opportunity to alight in one of the branches jutting from her head. While there at the top of the ramp, she noticed the constrictor snake-shaped figurine of wondrous power sitting discarded in the sand and picked it up in a hand made of small branches and twigs. She also took the liberty to have her earth elementals move through the stone and position themselves at the end of the corridor by the now-disappearing cloudkill spell, to ensure nothing else came out that way.

Telgrane, suddenly the leader in this encounter, cast a see invisibility spell and looked around, quickly spotting their antagonist. It was a serpentine creature, with the torso and arms of a man and the head and lower body of a snake; this was Vrasstaxta, a yuan-ti mystic theurge with training as both a druid and a wizard. It was coiled upon a carpet of flying, with a snake-headed rod in one hand and a slingshot in the other; Telgrane quickly surmised - quite rightly, as it turned out - that it had been invisibly lobbing stasis-gems into the arena with its slingshot to fight the heroes. He furthermore deduced that the creature was cloaked in a greater invisibility spell, as he'd have been able to sense it with his arcane sight had it used the lesser invisibility spell.

Vrasstaxta got the first attack in, casting an ice storm spell covering both Telgrane and Infernia. Fortunately, the spell fizzled against both the conjurer's spell resistance conferred by his robe of the archmagi and the innate resistance enjoyed by Infernia as a high-level familiar. Telgrane responded with a simple magic missile spell, sending five separate blasts of energy into the yuan-ti's body.

Vrasstaxta maneuvered his carpet of flying over to a new area, keeping it towards the top of the cavern, and attempting to remove Telgrane's ability to see his invisible form with a blindness spell. He was disappointed to see it have as much effect as his ice storm spell had achieved. Telgrane, for his part, decided against meeting that spell attack with one of his own, as he had no idea how powerful this serpentine spellcaster was and thought it best to use the strength in numbers he had against it. As such, he cast a simple dancing lights spell, surrounding the flying snake-man's invisible form in a series of lights allowing the others to target him.

The simple stratagem was amazingly effective, for Vrasstaxta immediately found himself in a veritable storm of flying arrows, and a bolt of electricity arced down from the ceiling to strike him; Feron, still in treant form, had poked her leafy head down the ramp enough to target the area surrounded by dancing lights. The yuan-ti spellcaster didn't even have time to heal himself with the once-per-day power of his rod of molting, for Telgrane caught him in a disintegrate spell that blasted his body to dust. The now-pilotless carpet of flying dropped silently to the floor, next to the rod and the slingshot. The only item the yuan-ti had worn was a bandoleer of sorts, which after close examination of its magical auras looked to be a way to store the stasis gems safely away from their normal cubbyholes.

After gathering up the yuan-ti's equipment, the group headed to the south, allowing the noxious vapors from Telgrane's cloudkill spell to do its work at the northern end. Descending further, the group - including Feron, who had by this time reverted back to her normal half-elven form, the better to fit in the underground complex - came to an intersection between two vaguely egg-shaped rooms. The one to the west had a series of evenly-spaced holes in the floor and identical holes on the ceiling above; a quick investigation revealed that there were metal bars in each hole in the floor, and apparently they could be raised up by command word to create a wide variety of cages of different sizes in this room. The room across the way had but a single feature, a large, smooth stone of bluish-purple hue, covered in etched runes. It was about five feet wide and eight feet long, buried along its equator into the floor. After Telgrane's arcane sight confirmed that it was radiating an extremely powerful aura of transmutation magic, the group was satisfied that they had finally found the stone of the fleshwarpers - although it was much bigger than they had anticipated.

As nobody wanted to touch something that powerful for fear of its effects, Feron summoned another Huge earth elemental - the duration of her previous pair having already expired - and commanded it to reach down into the stone floor beneath the enormous gem and pry it up from the floor. The earth elemental obeyed without question, popping the gem up out of its tight-fitting hole and sending it rolling across the floor, but doing so came at a price, for its right arm suddenly melted into a flopping tentacle, its left hand ripped apart and reformed as a series of crablike claws, and a pair of eyes sprouted from its torso. As horns started ripping out of the side of its head and its left leg started melting away into a semi-liquid pool, Feron quickly dismissed it back to the Elemental Plane of Earth before its full transformation into a chaos beast was complete.

"That'll be a bit of a shock to anyone in the vicinity of where it pops back home," Rale commented.

The problem at hand was now what to do with the stone of the fleshwarpers without touching it. Thunderwolf offered up his bag of holding, but its opening was much too small to allow the great gem passage. Telgrane had a sudden epiphany and removed the Door That Doesn't Belong from the large map case he kept it in, and attached it to a wall of the cavern.

"So how are we going to get it inside?" asked Galrich. "Anything touching it is likely to turn into a chaos beast, and that's no good."

"What if we get a chaos beast to do it?" asked Telgrane. "If I summon one it's going to obey me, and what's the worst the stone of the fleshwarpers can do, turn it into more of a chaos beast?" It was worth a shot, and the summoned chaos beast rolled the egg-shaped stone through the open Door That Doesn't Belong. Then Telgrane dismissed it, closed the Door, and rolled it back up into his map case. "Problem solved," he declared.

Having decided that the cloudkill spell had likely run its course, the group explored the northern side of the underground portion of the Teardrop Serpent. The ramp down led to a series of winding tunnels, each with writing carved on the walls in what Telgrane assumed must be the Yuan-ti language, clearly derived from the Draconic he knew. But this writing required a read magic spell to decipher; it was the yuan-ti spellcaster's spellbook, with each tunnel holding a separate spell level. All of the zero-level spells he knew were inscribed in the first tunnel, and all of the 1st-level spells he knew were inscribed on the walls of a tunnel that branched off from that one, and so on.

At the end of these tunnels was a larger cavern, a dead end, apparently. It, too, had inscriptions carved into the walls, but these were not of a magical nature. A squat, stone statue of a five-headed hydra with cobras for heads stood at the far side of this small chamber. Rale examined it closely without touching it and determined that it had a magical trap protecting it, likely triggered upon touch. His close examination also indicated that it looked like the leftmost head could be unscrewed.

Not wanting anyone to trigger the trap, Rale shooed the rest of the group back to give him room to work. While Telgrane examined the writing on the walls, Rale tied his rope into a lasso and caught the leftmost cobra's snout in it, then wrapped the rope around its head a few times in such a manner that a good tug would hopefully unscrew it from the base of the neck. Galrich stepped forward to help supply sufficient muscle to tug the head off, and together the two of them managed to separate the cobra head from the rest of the statue without incident. Inside a depression in the stump of neck thus revealed sat a large, thin gemstone the size of a small dinner plate. It looked like nothing so much as a giant serpent's eye.

"I'll bet that fits into the eye of the serpent carved into the roof of the arena," suggested Feron.

"Uh, guys," said Telgrane, a hint of worry in his voice. "This doesn't look good."

"What's up?" asked Rale.

The archmage indicated the writing carved in the small chamber all around them. "This looks to be a record of a civilization of snake-men called the sarrukh," Telgrane explained. According to this, the sarrukh are masters at reshaping flesh. They're responsible for the creation of the various scaled races: the yuan-ti, the nagas, lizardfolk, troglodytes - maybe even dragons, if I'm reading this right."

"These guys created the dragons?" asked Thunderwolf, astonished.

"Possibly, I'm not sure," admitted Telgrane. "But these sarrukh hibernate for 10,000 years at a time, then arise and destroy all the neighboring civilizations around them. It's a kind of worldwide cleansing."

"They're that powerful?" Feron wanted to know.

"Apparently. And look here - this part here tells of the signs heralding their next awakening. I think this symbol here means an eclipse. Wasn't there an eclipse supposed to happen here in the near future?"

"You think it's the same one?" asked Feron, her face blanching at the thought.

"I can't tell. But the time of the rise of the sarrukh slumbering above - 'in the hidden coils of the Infinity Serpent,' it says here - may be only a matter of weeks, or even days, away."

"We'd better check it out," said Aerik. "You said 'above?' Slumbering above?"

"That's what it says," replied Telgrane.

"Then let's go," said the dwarf. "Bring the eye gem."

The group trudged back up into the arena, and Telgrane ferried them back up to the roof using his new carpet of flying. They walked down the sloping section to reach the head of the serpent, still visible as a series of green mosaic stones embedded in the white marble of the Teardrop Serpent arena. Sure enough, there was a depression in the serpent's eye, the exact size and shape to accommodate the gemstone the group had discovered inside the cobra-headed hydra statue.

"Are we sure this is a good idea?" asked Feron, before placing the gem into the empty socket. "What if this is what awakens the sarrukh?"

"It seems like they've already got some sort of alarm system that wakes them up every 10,000 years," reasoned Rale. "Surely they don't just hibernate until somebody discovers their snake's-eye gem hidden inside their statue and plugs it in where it belongs. If this wakes them up, so be it, but I'd bet they were already going to wake up soon anyway, and this might be a way to stop them before they do wake up. Do it, Feron."

Feron nodded, said a quick prayer to Ehlonna that she was doing the right thing, and dropped the gem into place in the empty socket.

The effect was nearly instantaneous. The marble stone of the Teardrop Serpent began to shake as the sloped part rose up to stand level with the rest of the structure, while at the same time, a 10-foot-tall teardrop shape shimmered into view. This new addition was identical in shape to the Teardrop Serpent as viewed from the top, but the "point" of the new teardrop shape not only faced the "point" of the original teardrop, it actually overlapped the original structure a bit. Viewed from the side it extended from the existing structure's upper section, leaving a 10-foot-tall gap of empty air below it. It seemed to defy gravity as it stood hovering over the ground below, an architectural miracle all but impossible without the use of powerful magics.

The top of this new structure also contained a section of a serpent's body laid out in green mosaic tiles; this new addition merged into the existing serpent's body, transforming the Teardrop Serpent into a true Ouroboros, although one whose body was shaped into the sign of infinity.

"The Infinity Serpent," said Telgrane, amazed at the structure before him.

Feron was still touching the serpent's-eye gem, and as a result was the only one able to magically see - it was as if the gem were imparting knowledge into her mind - that two sections of the new roof could be lowered into ramps leading into the interior of the hidden coils of the Infinity Serpent. She activated the nearest, and the group cautiously entered.

"Hold up," commanded Telgrane from the front of the group. There were more carvings on the wall, and he read them as best he could in the light of his familiar's illumination. "There's a warning here," he said. "Any intelligent creature entering the coils will automatically awaken the hibernating sarrukh, and those not of the serpentine races should expect a quick death immediately after."

"So it should be safe to send in Galrich," quipped Rale, not wanting to forego the opportunity to get a jab in. The half-orc just glared at him, as did his loyal bodyguard.

"How far is it safe to go?" asked Feron.

"It says 'the coils,' so I imagine we're safe as long as we don't go into the curved part," reasoned Telgrane. They could see that there was a ring of rooms just ahead, and a curving corridor surrounding them. They could see what was apparently a sarrukh standing motionless on its serpentine tail in a small room, looking like an over-sized version of the yuan-ti they had slain in the chamber below. Judging from the size and shape of the wedge-shaped room it occupied, Telgrane guessed that there were 20 such rooms in the ring. That seemed to make sense, as there were 20 poles rising up from the rooftop surrounding the arena; these were apparently "stadium seating" for the snake-bodied sarrukh.

"Could 20 of these things really destroy entire civilizations?" asked Feron doubtfully. Nobody answered, but nobody wanted to take the chance that they weren't actually that powerful, and wake them up.

"So how do we kill them?" asked Galrich, cutting to the most important part. Telgrane thought he might be able to cast a wall of fire in a ring shape, judging the correct size of the spell's effects from the portion of the corridor he could see without actually entering the coils. He wasn't sure that the heat from the wall of fire would necessarily destroy the sarrukh fast enough, if at all, and feared waking them up prematurely. Likewise, he could try his last remaining cloudkill spell, but although the doorway to the room holding the sarrukh in stasis was open, Telgrane could detect some sort of invisible screen with his arcane sight. It was similar to a wall of force, but likely only kept out dust and gases.

"Wait a minute," said Feron. "You said, 'any intelligent creature,' right?" Telgrane reexamined the carvings and confirmed that it was so.

"Didn't you say there was a black pudding stored in one of those gems downstairs?"

It was as elegant a solution as they could have hoped for. Telgrane raced back down to the cubbyholes at the bottom of the ramp from the arena and found the gem in the cubbyhole marked "dark blob" - or possibly, he realized, "black pudding," for he was attempting to read the Yuan-ti language based only on his understanding of Draconic. Placing it into the bandoleer that Vrasstaxta had worn, he brought it back upstairs, then, with a pair of crossed fingers for luck, tossed it down the corridor.

The gem bounced a few times before coming to a halt and transforming into what the heroes could state without hesitation was definitely a black pudding. The monstrous blob oozed its way through the closest open doorway and engulfed its fluid body over the rigid form of the sarrukh standing within. The serpentine form didn't move a muscle as the amorphous creature started devouring it with its powerful acid.

"Let's get out of here," suggested Rale. The group headed back up to the rooftop of the Infinity Serpent, and Feron raised the ramp back into the rooftop, then walked over and pulled the gem out of the snake's eye socket. The "hidden coils" shimmered like a heat mirage and vanished, returning into whatever pocket dimension normally held it. At the same time, the Teardrop Serpent reconfigured back to its normal shape, the snake's head at the point of the teardrop lowering back to the ground as that section of rooftop sloped back down once again.

"Is that one black pudding going to be able to eat all of them?" Thunderwolf asked.

"Black puddings grow in size as they devour flesh," answered Telgrane. "Once they grow big enough, they split into two. And they're always hungry. If that one doesn't finish them all off on its own, it'll split off into two, and so on until the sarrukh have all been eaten. I'd say our sarrukh problem just got solved."

"Looks like ye just saved the whole blasted world again, m'lord," said Aerik with a smile, looking over at his liege. With any luck, Galrich's duties as a adventurer might soon be coming to an end, and he'd be able to assume the throne of Kordovia - and Aerik could return to his normal duties, not to mention his wife and daughter. Still, he was a dwarf - he took his responsibilities seriously. Queen Kathenta's ghost had said Galrich would know when the time had come, so there was nothing to be done but wait stoically until such time came to pass.

They decided to keep the serpent's-eye gem, not only to ensure that nobody was able to reopen the hidden coils until the black pudding had done its job, but also because - as Rale was quick to point out - a gem of that size was sure to be worth a small fortune. If they kept it secure for a sufficient time, it should eventually be safe to sell it.

Feron pulled the Daern's dollhouse out of her magical haversack and everybody piled in. Tamble "Sky-Captain" Paddiwack was sent out of the dollhouse to navigate for Telgrane as he piloted his new two-seater carpet of flying back to the Guild Headquarters at Fort Thunder. There, she would be dropped off and the heroes would return to the northern continent through the teleport circle to deliver the stone of the fleshwarpers to their own Guild mages.

- - -

In the days and months that followed, the Guild mages did indeed learn to work the stone of the fleshwarpers, with no small amount of assistance from Feron, Telgrane, and Delphyne, who at this point were among the Guild's most powerful spellcasters. Abercrombie, the human-faced rat that had been transformed into his repellent shape by the Far Realm cultist wizard Strangeway, was delighted to be permanently restored to human form; in the days to come, the only indication of his ordeal would be an inordinate fondness for all varieties of cheese.

It was a trickier procedure, but the size of the dire goat upon whose body had been grafted the heads of four human and half-elven wizards and druids provided enough living tissue to almost completely restore them to their normal forms. Of the four, only Girant Fisherking had the poor grace to complain that he was restored to a body identical to his own in all respects save an inch or two of height; the others thanked the Guild spellcasters profusely and went about their business, returning to the valley where Cal's brother Trip lived.

Quiffington the duckbunny was a different matter entirely. As the duckbunny's mind was a composite, consisting of the blended minds of four distinct wild mages, there was no real way to separate the creature into four different shapes. In the end, the four mind-segments argued amongst themselves until they reached a consensus, and had the Guild wizards restore the duckbunny into one of its original four human bodies. From that point on, the blended mind "Quiffington" used alter self spells to alternate between its own four original bodies, swapping between the wild mages Quince Patera, Ifflander, Ingebold, and Tontella.

INTERLUDE

We gamed today and finished off our next adventure; hopefully I'll have a write-up in the next couple of days or so. But in the meantime, Telgrane leveled up from the last adventure, and one of the new spells he learned as a result was polymorph any object. He got that one specifically because he wanted to cast it upon Infernia, his Small fire elemental familiar, to transform her into a Large fire elemental familiar. Logan only chose that particular spell for Telgrane after talking it over with me, because as written if Telgrane cast a polymorph any object on Infernia to turn her into a Large fire elemental, it looked like her Intelligence would "default" to that of a standard Large fire elemental. We decided that her increased Intelligence was an inherent part of her status as Telgrane's familiar, and that if he boosted her size to Large, not only would it be permanent (due to the close similarities between her "before" and "after" forms) but her Intelligence would remain unchanged.

I only mention this because our discussion was hypothetical at the time; Telgrane was in effect researching the spell to decide whether it was one he wanted to add to his spellbook, and he eventually decided that it was. He did not actually cast in on Infernia at the time, because he was still dithering on whether he wanted to make her Medium or Large. Logan eventually decided that he'd have Telgrane cast it on Infernia at the beginning of the next adventure, depending on the needs of that situation. (He'd also realized that he could always "resize" her at a later date with an additional casting of the polymorph any object spell.)

As it happened, I had a "twist" prepared for the next adventure that would make this somewhat of a factor.

But in the meantime, I made some preparations. I did up stats for Infernia as both a Medium and a Large fire elemental familiar, so Logan could add it to his Telgrane folder with her normal, Small-size stats. Logan had been using a Small fire elemental D&D Mini to represent Infernia all of this time; to represent her as a Medium and a Large fire elemental, I took the image we had selected to represent her on her initiative card and resized it to scale as both a Medium and a Large creature, and printed them on a sheet of white peel-off stickers. Then, using orange poster board, I cut out a 1" square and a 2" square and rounded off the corners to use as bases. Then I cut out two rectangular shapes with two narrow triangles on either long side, and put each sticker on the rectangle part so that there was some excess white sticker sticking off the bottom. (The triangles were positioned so their bottom edges were level with the bottom of the picture.) The excess sticker I adhered to the bases, so I could "hinge" the image upright and fold the triangles out to stand it up. Result: two stand-up tokens of Infernia, one Medium and one Large, that could be folded flat for storage.

ADVENTURE 70 - THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES

PC Roster:
I should mention up front that in this adventure I tried something I'd never done before, and probably couldn't get away with had I had a different group of players. (My oldest son, Stuart, for example, would have had an absolute fit that I had decided how his character would had reacted in a given situation and ran with it.) But I had what I thought was a cool concept for an adventure, which necessitated me deciding how some things would have happened earlier in the day that the adventure takes place, and part of that was how the PCs had reacted, what they had decided to do, and so on. Also, for this to work, I had to assign specific PCs to each player for this adventure, rather than allow them to select between their two PCs as to which they wanted to run.

To set up the adventure, I did what I occasionally do to my players when readying a "twist" for an adventure: I lied to them. I told them that I was going to try something a little different this time around, and set them up in a scene at their Headquarters, telling them what each PC was doing at the moment, and that I would then be introducing a number of different plot hooks into the starting scenario to see which ones they responded to first. I left them with the impression that we'd be dealing with a number of these disparate plot hooks over the course of the adventure, but I was letting them decide in which order they'd be tackling them. And, of course, trusting players that they are, they bought it. But in my defense, I lied to them for a good cause, and I was reasonably sure that after the true course of events was revealed they'd all be perfectly okay with it. And I was right: they were. So I guess the moral of this introduction is that when a DM knows his players well, he can get away with things he normally wouldn't.

Anyway, let's get on with it. I pulled out my geomorph for the Wing Three living quarters and placed the PCs in various locations, explaining what their "starting status" was. It was about 10 in the morning on whatever the equivalent of Sunday is in the standard Greyhawk calendar; those PCs who prepare spells had already prepared them for the day (and I let them choose their spells as normal, although I had already made some private notes about some changes I'd be making to their spell choices). I put Feron and Telgrane on a sofa in the general living area; they were each having a glass of wine and discussing spellcraft. I put Chalkan and Thunderwolf in two chairs in the same room; they were attending to their weapons - Thunderwolf polishing Xanthros to a fine sheen and Chalkan coating the bowstring of Rilisivae Athelgala with beeswax. Cal I put at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the Wing Three living quarters; I explained that he wasn't initially in the scene but would be entering almost immediately, so he wouldn't miss much. And again I reinforced that I would be introducing some plot hooks in the form of a visitor or two, and that we'd just be role-playing those encounters, so they should just ad lib their reactions.

And we were off.

- - -

Cal's booming voice preceded him as he clomped up the stairs in his heavy boots; he had been to the Church of Kord early that morning, to give another demonstration of his strength and general prowess to the novices, who took any opportunity they could get to spend time with an experienced cleric of their faith who had their god's own blood coursing through his veins. Feron and Telgrane continued their spellcraft discussion without looking up at their adventuring companion. It wasn't until they heard the sound of feminine laughter accompanying Cal's voice - he was once again relating the story of how he had singlehandedly obtained the Gauntlet of Kord - that Feron looked over to see who else was with him. Cal was shirtless and glistening in body oil from his demonstration of strength at his church, and hanging onto his arm (and his every word) was a young woman, Sharilla, a serving girl from a local tavern. She stared up at him in obvious adoration. Feron only rolled her eyes and returned her attention to Telgrane and their talk of various spell strategies.

Cal had only just finished introducing Sharilla to everyone when two more people came up the stairs. The first was a Guild page, escorting a rather regal-looking elf in long robes with intricate designs along the sleeves and hem. "A visitor for Miss Feron," announced the page, then turned on his heels and left the way he had come.

The elf glanced at everyone in the room, then studiously ignored all but Feron. As he walked over to where she was sitting, his steel-grey eyes fixed her with an appraising stare from head to foot. Standing before her, he gave a quick half-smirk to himself and said, "Yes, you'll do quite nicely. My name is Kukisha Kusir. Please go upstairs and gather your belongings; I have arranged with your mother for your hand in marriage. Pack only what you need for a few days; I'll have the rest of your possessions forwarded to my forest villa."

"I beg your pardon?" asked Feron, astonished.

"Do not tarry," commanded Kukisha. "You have half an hour to pack. After that I expect us to be on our way, for I wish us to be wed this very afternoon."

"Oh you do, do you?" asked Feron. "And supposing I don't share your eagerness?"

The elven nobleman seemed shocked by the very notion that Feron might believe she had any say in the matter. He gave a heavy sigh. "I can see the first thing we shall have to work on is your obedience," he said. "I am not in the habit of repeating myself, but I will do so this once, and this once only: go upstairs and pack your things, or we shall leave without them."

Her eyes narrowed angrily into mere slits, Feron set her wine glass down on the low table in front of her and bent down to pick up something from the floor at her feet. It was her own longbow, which she brought up with a practiced flourish, drawing back an arrow and aiming it at the elven nobleman's chest. "I believe I have everything I need right here," she replied. "Now I suggest you turn around, go back down the way you came, and get out of here while you still can. The wedding's off."

Kukisha looked around him, as if rediscovering the existence of the adventurers in the room with him and his intended. Thunderwolf had stopped polishing Xanthros and was holding it at the ready. Chalkan, likewise, had an arrow nocked on his White-Wood Whisperbow and aimed at the elf. Cal was weaponless, but made a tight fist with his right hand (his left arm still was already in use, wrapped around Sharilla's waist as she rubbed her hands appreciatively on his left bicep and his chest). Telgrane made no threatening gestures, but just leaned back and smiled as if to enjoy the upcoming spectacle.

"This isn't finished," Kukisha vowed, then turned on his heel and stormed down the stairs in a foul mood. In his haste, he almost ran into the Guild page, who had returned with another visitor, this one a gruff-looking dwarf with reddish hair and beard.

"That's the one!" the dwarf called out, pointing a stubby finger at Thunderwolf. "That's the one what stole Xanthros from my collection!"

"Say what now?" asked Thunderwolf. "I didn't steal Xanthros! Just who do you think you are, barging in here making ridiculous accusations?"

"You know blasted well who I am," snarled the dwarf. "I'm Morros Rosnak, a weapons collector, and the rightful owner of that sword you've got in your hand, which you stole from me! Now hand it over, or there's gonna be trouble!"

"There must be some mistake," replied Telgrane, getting up from the sofa and setting his drink next to Feron's. "I was there when Thunderwolf found Xanthros, and it wasn't in some weapons collection - it was strapped to the hand of a troll, along with a bunch of other swords and daggers." There was a soft plop! behind him, as a spider fell from the ceiling and into his wine, but he didn't notice it.

"Lies!" replied Morros. "Xanthros was stolen from my collection, and I paid good coin to a diviner, who cast spells and saw this one" - again he pointed at Thunderwolf - "making off with it! Now I show up here and catch him red-handed! Give it back or I call for the constabulary!"

"Settle down," suggested Cal. "I can vouch for the fact that Thunderwolf didn't steal your sword."

"But the diviner--" spluttered Morros.

"Spells can be tricked, and even divinations can be led astray. Now who was this diviner who cast the spell for you? Is it possible he was just trying to swindle you?"

"That's Xanthros right there!" argued the dwarf. "I don't care how he got his hands on it, it's my sword! Now give it back!" His face was now redder than his beard.

"Maybe we should get my uncle," suggested Thunderwolf, referring to Guildmaster Farthingale.

"Thief!" called Morros, spittle flying from his mouth. "Gimme my sword back!"

"Now wait just a minute," began Chalkan.

"Fine!" snarled Morros. "I see how it is with you adventuring types! Think you can just take whatever you want, is it? Fine, I'll play your damned game - I'll give you a thousand gold pieces to buy my own sword back from you den of thieves!"

"Xanthros is not for sale!" stated Thunderwolf, shielding the weapon behind his own body.

While all of this commotion was going on, another version of Sharilla, this one dressed in a slinky black gown, walked up the stairs and smiled lasciviously at Cal. "I hope you don't mind," cooed the tavern worker at Cal's arm, "but I invited my twin sister Madrissa to join us here. She's...very interested in seeing those feats of strength I was telling her about. Perhaps you could give us a private session, say, up in your room?"

Madrissa ran her hand appreciatively over Cal's well-muscled chest, and the cleric of Kord could tell just from the icy coldness of her touch that Madrissa and Sharilla might be identical twins, but only one of them was still alive. Madrissa's skin tone was pale, and when she ran her tongue across her lips, Cal could see that her eyeteeth were just a bit pointed. Vampire! he realized at once, and began wondering how she had gotten here in the daylight, how he was going to fight her here in their living room without any of his weapons....

"Let's go upstairs, just the three of us," suggested Madrissa. "Away from these others, embroiled in their petty arguments."

"After you, ladies," replied Cal, pushing them forwards ahead of him towards the stairs. He wanted to keep them in front of him, where he could see them. Maybe lock them in his room, then alert the others?

"I'm not paying you more than a thousand for my own sword back, you thieving varmint!" yelled Morros.

"You're not paying me anything!" countered Thunderwolf. "Xanthros is not for sale!"

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?" thundered a new voice. Everyone in the now-crowded room turned to face a furious Guildmaster Farthingale, all voices silenced by his uncharacteristic outburst.

"That's much better," he replied in his normal voice. "Now then, let's try to discuss everything in a civilized manner, shall we?" As he spoke, he removed his outer jacket, draping it over the back of a chair and then slipping quickly out of his vest. He practically tore the buttons off of his starched white shirt in his haste to remove it, and then started slathering body oil over his own prodigious belly and chest. "Let's start with you two," he said, addressing Madrissa and Sharilla. "Did you know I taught Cal everything he knows about endurance?"

Cal didn't even get a chance to respond to this ridiculous assertion before the final visitor entered the room. Surprisingly, it was Chalkan's half-sister, Caeline Laniela, recently raised from the dead. However, she did not look like her normal self, for she wore a thick coating of black face paint, and was juggling what appeared to be a trio of small brains in her hands.

"I'm too sexy for my mind, just check out this behind!" she sang heartily, her concentration fixed on keeping the brains in the air without incident.

Feron had had enough. Surely this wasn't all really happening, was it? She said the words to the true seeing spell she had prepared that morning...

- - -

...and woke up in near darkness.

Feron's confusion was absolute. She was instantly aware of several things, although she had no idea how these things had come to be. First of all, she was lying down on her back, on what felt like a rigid hammock. She was bound tightly from neck to feet, wrapped up like a mummy. There was a strand of something attached to her forehead, which gave off the faint blue illumination which was the only light in this large, underground cavern. She could tell she wasn't wearing her dragonhide armor, but it felt like she still had on the padded undersuit she wore beneath it. She had no weapons, none of her adventuring gear, not even any jewelry - her Guild ring was not on her finger, nor was the dolphin necklace she normally wore around her neck.

Her last memory was of climbing into her bed the night before - whenever that was.

Feron stretched her head back, and saw that the others - Cal, Chalkan, Telgrane, and Thunderwolf - were in similar positions. The five of them were wrapped in silk bindings, laying in a circle in the middle of an enormous spiderweb. Each had a bluish strand of silk adhered to their foreheads; these strands all merged together and ran off to one side of the web, into a cavern carved into one side of the wall.

Attached to the other end of these blue web-strands, standing in the shadows of this side-cave, was the largest spider Feron had ever seen. Its eight hairy legs easily spanned some forty feet between them.

<A pity,> echoed a voice in Feron's head. <You have awakened before my feast is complete. Now I shall have to render you insensate yet again.>

Feron screamed aloud, and the combination of the scream and her panicked thoughts in the Rary's telepathic bond spell that she suddenly realized was apparently still active between them got the others awake as well. The half-elf druid sat up in her bonds, just as a chain lightning spell from the massive spider slammed into her body, arcing off to hit the others in turn.

Cal grimaced with the pain of the electrical burns, then readied himself for glory and used a feat of strength granted by Kord to shred the webbing keeping him bound. He leapt to his feet, bouncing slightly on the taut web, and stepped over to aid the companion nearest him, Chalkan. Telgrane and Thunderwolf struggled to escape their own bonds, with no luck.

Feron, in the meantime, chose to wildshape into a form that could easily slip from the bonds; after initially deciding to become a fire elemental, she quickly opted against that, since a quick look below her showed that the spiderweb was strung across an enormous vertical chasm of unknown depth. She figured a fire elemental's flames would burn through the binding webbing all right, but would likewise burn through the spiderweb she stood upon and she had no desire to plummet to her death. (Feron didn't realize it, but the depths below were a permanent illusion; the space beneath the web went all of ten feet or so.) With that in mind, she took on the form of an air elemental instead, tightening her body into a narrow whirlwind and sliding effortless from the web-bindings in which she had awoken.

<Your efforts do you justice, but they will not avail you in the end,> said the spider's raspy voice in the minds of the heroes, as it tossed another chain lightning spell at them, this time catching Cal as the focus and arcing off to the others from him. Cal, by this time, had ripped through Chalkan's bindings and was stepping over to where Telgrane was bound. The young archmage was no physical powerhouse like Cal, and had had little luck in even loosening his bonds. Not so Thunderwolf, who while not yet free on his own was loosening up the webbing that bound him; another half-minute or so and he'd have it.

Another voice echoed in Thunderwolf's head. "Young master!" it cried, and the fighter immediately recognized it as his sentient sword, Xanthros. "You must defeat the brain spider that has captured you, and then come to my rescue! I am in a room just beyond, along with all of your other equipment, but beware! There are four drow fighters in here with me, inventorying all of your goods, and another two guard the corridor leading from this room to the brain spider's web!" Xanthros provided details on where to find this corridor, and Thunderwolf passed the information on to the others over the telepathic bond.

Cal was ripping Telgrane's web-bonds apart and freeing the grateful archmage when the brain spider cast a third chain lightning spell at the heroes, this time catching all of them but Feron, who in her air elemental form had flown over to find the corridor that Thunderwolf had mentioned. It was about 10 feet above the web and about a third of the way around the circular chasm from the brain spider's lair. <I see I will have to deal with you on a personal level,> noted the arachnid as its final spell failed to drop any of the heroes. It started skittering out of the side cavern and joined the group on its web.

Telgrane took a quick mental spell inventory and noted that he was under the effects of not only the Rary's telepathic bond spell, which he habitually cast on the group before going into combat, but also a mage armor spell and a stoneskin spell as well. Odd, since he had no memories of casting them, but he wasn't going to argue. In the meantime, he shot a magic missile spell at the brain spider as it headed his way. Then he recalled that the scorching ray spell didn't require any material components, either - his spell component pouch was likely in the inventory room with Xanthros and the drow - and sent a few of them at the spider for good measure as well. Chalkan followed suit, as an archer could hardly rely upon those skills without his bow and arrows at hand, and while he wasn't able to manifest as many individual scorching rays as Telgrane could, at least those he did conjure up struck true. Still, the massive brain spider skittered over to Telgrane, its horrid mouthparts open wide to bite the young archmage.

Cal took note of the spider's position and maneuvered away from it, such that a mass version of one of his cure spells would heal up his comrades but not similarly heal the spider; the heroes by this time were well in need of some healing, and his timely spell likely saved the lives of more than one of his friends. Feron, meanwhile, cast a call lightning storm and started dropping bolts of electricity down upon the brain spider's body. The continued onslaught took its toll on the massive arachnid, and finally Telgrane, sensing the spider was on its last legs, reached out to the staggering monster and cast a low-level shocking grasp spell to finish it off. The spider collapsed at his touch, its legs twitching spasmodically in death. I can't wait to tell Akari about this! thought Telgrane, pleased at his having dealt the finishing blow to the gigantic spider with such a relatively weak spell.

As the spider died, however, the blue light from the memory webs that had been stuck upon each of the heroes' foreheads when they awoke started fading, and the illumination in the cavern went from "barely any" to "none at all." Chalkan responded by casting a light spell on his own chest, and the shirt he wore under his armor glowed enough to allow the others to find their way to the corridor that Feron had discovered. Cal boosted Chalkan up, and the archer grabbed onto the ledge and pulled himself the rest of the way up. Doing so exposed him to the two drow fighters guarding the corridor, however, and he received a pair of bolts from the drows' hand crossbows as a result. Feron dropped a bolt of electricity onto one of the drow, while Thunderwolf gave Cal a boost up onto the ledge and the cleric then cast a mislead spell, turning the cleric invisible but sending a fierce-looking copy of himself to swagger confidently down the corridor as if to break some drow heads. The drow took the bait, jumping out and slashing at the image of Cal with their blades with their large steel shields up for protection, but the unarmed Cal merely winced slightly at their blows and kept approaching, a manic grin forecasting all kinds of pain he'd be bringing to the drow in retaliation.

Telgrane decided to polymorph himself into a form that could fly; on the spur of the moment he chose a pseudodragon, thinking its venomous tail might come in handy. It wasn't until his body had already assumed its new form that he belatedly recalled that pseudodragon venom caused sleep, and the drow were likely to be immune. Oh well, he thought, at least I can still fly past them, and proceeded to do just that, hugging the 8-foot ceiling to try to stay out of the drow fighters' reach.

The drow were too busy to notice him, however, for Chalkan had cast a charm person on the drow fighter who had not yet been hit with Feron's lightning bolts and convinced him that they were here to root out the enemies of the spider-goddess Lolth, furthermore explaining that the drow's partner was disloyal. The confused drow fighter looked aghast at his treacherous partner, who managed to sputter an astonished "You've got to be kidding m--" before being run through by his partner's sword. A still-invisible Cal pulled Thunderwolf up from the web and onto the corridor's ledge, while Telgrane, in pseudodragon form, flapped over to the door at the end of the corridor and opened it with his feet.

A rectangular room was just beyond, with three drow fighters holding up various pieces of the adventurers' equipment and a fourth one writing down the contents on a sheet of parchment. As the door opened, the first three dropped the stolen goods and unsheathed their longswords, while the fourth dropped his quill and parchment and grabbed up his shield. However, he then proceeded to flip it over and leap upon its underside, riding it through the air towards the set of stairs leading further down into darkness.

Spotting a familiar-looking tinderbox in the corner of the room, Telgrane called out to Infernia through his empathic link, and the lid popped open as a line of cinders arced out of the box and onto the stone floor. Then Infernia resumed her normal fire elemental shape, and both archmage and familiar both got a shock, for Infernia stood about 9 feet tall - much taller than the 3 feet tall Telgrane was used to; he must have cast a polymorph any object spell on her at some point that morning - while Telgrane was a tiny little pseudodragon flapping furiously in the air. "Master!" cried an astonished Infernia. "You're so cute like that!"

"Not now," advised Telgrane, over the mind-link. As expected, Infernia was part of the group of minds connected by the Rary's telepathic bond spell, and while she had been mind-blasted into unconsciousness with the others by the brain spider, as fire elementals do not sleep they do not dream; thus, she had been spared the shared dream sequence fueled by five unconscious minds still linked together by magic. "Let's finish off these drow! But not that one," added Telgrane, pointing to the helpful drow that Chalkan had successfully charmed. The Large fire elemental got to work with relish, setting a few of the fighters ablaze as she batted at them with her fists. Chalkan pointed out to his newly charmed friend that these four drow were also traitors to Lolth, and the fighter attacked his own compatriots with gusto. Thunderwolf rushed into the room and found Xanthros, and helped finish off the last of the three drow still in the room.

Feron, in the meantime, had used her increased speed as an air elemental to follow the fourth drow down the stairs. He was calling a warning to others in the room at the bottom of the stairs, when Feron swatted him from behind. Amazingly, as the spry drow was thrown to the side from her blow he ran a few steps on the wall and jumped back onto his shield - actually a drow floatdisk - and carried on as if nothing had happened. However, Feron got another punch in before he reached the bottom of the stairs, and this time he was thrown forward off of the floatdisk to tumble the remaining way down the stairs, landing in a heap at the bottom with a broken neck. His floatdisk clattered down the stairs behind him, to finally fall in a tight circle like a spinning coin winding down.

The room at the bottom of the stairs held a dozen bunks, and four more drow who had just been awakened from their sleep shift. They grabbed up swords and shields, and while three of them ran to face the air elemental who had infiltrated their lair, the fourth ran through a door beneath the stairs, calling for Almathea Jhaundallavin, the drow priestess in charge of this outpost. While the group upstairs grabbed up their gear (and Chalkan posted their charmed drow ally back where he had been stationed, "to ensure no enemies of Lolth approach from that direction"), Feron took on a trio of drow fighters by herself. She was quickly joined by Infernia, who needed no equipment to fight, and thus had been sent on ahead while Telgrane pulled on his robe of the archmagi, grabbed up his spellbooks, and slipped his magic rings back onto his fingers.

Almathea summoned a Large monstrous spider to attack Feron, but it proved to be even less of a threat than the fighters had been, and was quickly slain. The drow cleric, seeing that she was soon to be on her own in the outpost, ran back into her own chambers and cast an invisibility spell on herself, then ran to hide behind the carved obsidian statue of Lolth (in drider form) that graced one end of her own lavish quarters. Infernia entered the room and found nobody there; Feron soon followed and a pair of smaller spiders manifested, but were quickly put down. By this time, Telgrane had joined the pair, and Almathea tried casting a bestow curse spell upon the archmage, only to have it fail to pierce the spell resistance granted by his robes. However, it did turn her back to visibility, and she didn't last much longer after that.

There was a second set of stairs from the soldiers' bunk room leading even further down to another level. Stationed there were two more drow fighters, guarding another massive, vertical shaft leading down into darkness. Chalkan took the opportunity to try one of his untried-in-combat arcane archer stunts, and shot a seeking arrow down the stairwell that made a sudden left turn at the bottom and pierced the side of a very surprised drow. By this time, the others had all gathered up their equipment - a still-invisible Cal even brought Feron hers, and she gratefully resumed her half-elven form to gear up, looking askance at the strange sight of an invisible Cal wearing his quite visible armor - and Cal sent his duplicate image stomping down the stairs to draw the drow's fire. He went clomping down the stairs behind his own duplicate image, and was quite surprised when Chalkan tried another stunt, this time sending a phase arrow harmlessly through Cal's own body to strike the drow at the bottom of the stairs. Before long, the last of the drow were slain, and everybody regrouped up in the soldiers' bunk room to catch up with what had happened.

Fortunately, neither Xanthros nor Infernia had had their recent memories drained by the brain spider, and thus were able to fill in the group on what had happened since this morning. At about seven bells, Farthingale had sent the five heroes - the only ones about in Wing Three, for the others were off at the market or doing who-knows-what - to the Cathedral of Corellon Larethian, to investigate a kidnapping. It seems the night before, a drow raiding party had entered the Cathedral and grabbed Maestro Elias Quespaterno, an elderly elven organist who was practicing a new musical piece of his own composition for a Festival of Corellon two days hence. During the kidnapping, the Maestro's assistant, a young elf maiden named Alaestrianna Rainsong, was hit on the head and left for dead. Although unconscious and barely alive, she survived the assault and was discovered the next morning by the Cathedral's High Priest; she was healed of her injuries, told what had happened, and a plea for assistance was sent to the Adventurers Guild. Cal performed a divination spell which led the heroes to a hidden passageway beneath the Minotaur Inn; they had to fight their way past a group of cultists, but found a secret door which led them to a spiraling passageway which corkscrewed its way along the inside of an enormous vertical shaft. However, that led to the brain spider, who had knocked everybody out with a powerful mind blast. They all plummeted to the web below, where the drow allied with the brain spider stripped them of their weapons, armor, and items, leaving the spider to bind them up and begin devouring their memories, after which time they'd be eaten alive.

However, that didn't quite work out as the brain spider had hoped.

So now, ready to continue their quest for the Maestro, it seemed the only way to go was through the vertical tunnel leading even deeper below the ground. Not wanting to leave any loose ends behind them, though, they returned to Chalkan's charmed drow soldier and interviewed him about the plans involving the Maestro. He hadn't been part of the raiding party and didn't know the big picture, but apparently kidnapping the Maestro had something to do with an attack to come in a few days. Having learned all they could from their unwitting ally, the group quickly killed him before he realized his new friends were in fact directly opposed to Almathea's plans.

Using the drow floatdisks seemed like the best way to travel, and since there were 13 of them to be had (Almathea had one as well as each of her dozen soldiers), the heroes practiced using these new devices in the relative safety of the bunk room. It was primarily a matter of balance; the feet slipped under the straps that one held when using it as a shield, and leaning in a given direction steered the device that way. After deciding that it might be best to appear to be drow themselves, Feron used her "thousand faces" druidic ability to take on the coloration of a drow, while Telgrane polymorphed directly into a dark elf. The other piled into the Daern's dollhouse, which Feron held in her hands rather than stow it in her Heward's handy haversack, since the extradimensional nature of the haversack's interior would prevent the Rary's telepathic bond spell from keeping everyone in mental contact. Infernia, weighing in at a mere 4 pounds even in her Large size, stood on the back of her master's floatdisk and held on to his shoulders, and he and Feron were off.

The vertical chasm was about 30 feet in diameter and dropped straight down for over 400 feet. When they dropped out of it, they found themselves in an immense cavern of a size previously undreamed of - it looked to be about a mile down before hitting the floor, and easily a mile or more in each direction. Telgrane, having gained the darkvision of a drow after assuming such a form, could see tiny mushroom forests below, with enormous stalactites hanging down from the ceiling above, and what looked to be an underground lake in the distance; Feron, still relying upon her half-elven low-light vision, couldn't see as far, and was grateful for Infernia's illumination to allow her to see what little she could. However, faint blobs of light indicated there were patches of phosphorescent fungus about.

That wasn't all there were about, though: in the lightless realms of the Underdark, Infernia's flames stood out like a beacon, and soon attracted a trio of hungry cloakers, who sent their sonic moans at the two heroes. The adventurers were able to shake off the effects, but they were surprised at being caught in a subsequent cone of cold that blasted down at them from above. Telgrane looked for the source with his arcane sight, but saw nothing; whatever it was was likely covered by a greater invisibility spell. A mental summons sent the other heroes spilling out of the dollhouse, each regaining normal size upon having done so and immediately activating their floatdisks. What followed was a mid-air battle between the heroes and the three cloakers; Telgrane, after the quick casting of a see invisibility spell, saw that it was a cloaker lord that had cast the cone of cold spell down at them. Feron cast a protection from energy spell on herself to prevent another such spell from harming her, but the three lesser cloakers were quickly slain and the cloaker lord decided soon thereafter to go find some easier prey elsewhere.

As Cal gathered everybody up into a close formation again for the application of some ranged mass healing, a jellyfishlike form floated up to Telgrane. "You...are...a.. drow," it said, each word expelled with some effort through air-holes along the four-foot-wide mushroomlike "cap" of its upper body, "but...your...allies...are...not...drow. Did...you...take...the...disks...from...slain...drow?"

Conversation with the floating creature was a bit tedious, but they managed to make do, for it spoke in fluent - if halting - Common. It introduced itself as Galaedia Whispertouch, and claimed to be an elf from the surface. "I...was...fighting...drow," she explained. "They...overtook...me. When...I...awoke...I...had...been...trans...formed...into...this...shape." Feron and Telgrane shared a troubled look. Their own studies had taught them about a fungal life form, the sapromneme, which laid spores on the bodies of the dead. As the spores grew into a sapromneme, it absorbed the memories of the slain form, eventually attaining its adult stage, which looked like a floating jellyfish with the full memories of the host organism that had given it birth. Galaedia Whispertouch, it seemed, was dead somewhere down here in the Underdark, and this being before them that thought it was her was actually nothing more than a living, fungal ghost. The group silently discussed it amongst themselves over their telepathic bond, and agreed not to break the sad news to the poor thing. They did, however, explain who they were and what they were doing in the Underdark.

That proved to be a very good move, for the sapromneme had seen a drow party on floatdisks go by many hours before (the term "last night" having no apparent meaning in a land without a sun), and was willing to show the group where they had gone. There was a small island upon the Underdark lake in the distance, and on that island was a small, one-story stone structure - that was where the drow and their elven captive had gone. The group thanked "Galaedia" and wished her well, and the fungal ghost in turn wished them luck with their endeavors. Infernia returned to her tinder box, everybody else piled back into the dollhouse, and Telgrane and Feron - still looking like drow - approached the building. Telgrane could see a pair of beetle-men guarding the only visible door to the building, so he and Feron went on a circuitous route along the lake to approach the building from behind. Not seeing any other visible entrances to the structure, they decided to alight onto the rooftop.

Telgrane wanted to call forth some extra muscle, so he spoke the words to a summon monster spell and caused a greater earth elemental to manifest on the rooftop next to him. That proved to be a bit more than the roof could handle, for Telgrane had forgotten that the average greater earth elemental weighs in at somewhere around 54,000 pounds. It appeared in the middle of the rooftop and then went instantly plummeting through it, destroying a retaining wall directly underneath it on the way down (although not, oddly enough, the door that linked the two rooms, which remained locked a mere few feet from the smashed wall beside it). The cacophony caused by the massive destruction instantly alerted everyone inside the entire building, as well as the two diopsid guards at the front door, along with a drider and a draegloth abomination that nested in a mass of webs along one side of the building.

The drider and draegloth reacted first, popping up the sides of the building to see what was causing the ruckus. Feron cast a whirlwind to pummel the drider, and when it scrambled onto the rooftop to avoid the magical effect Telgrane had his greater earth elemental stand back up through the hole in the roof and smash the drider to a wet pulp. In the meantime, the other heroes started spilling back out of the dollhouse, which Feron had set down on the rooftop so she could have her hands free for what looked to be some serious spellcraft.

Looking down into the rooms below through the gaping hole in the ceiling, Telgrane could see a partially-demolished bedroom of sorts to the east, where two narrow partitions divided the room into sleeping areas for three people; each had room for little more than a rough cot and a few hooks upon which to hang a cloak or robe. The western side of the hole was filled with impenetrable darkness, apparently a spell effect that only applied to that particular room.

Telgrane and Feron each took a moment to summon some further allies: the archmage called forth a greater fire elemental (and released Infernia back out of her tinder box), while the druid called forth three greater earth elementals of her own. Telgrane sent his fire elemental down into the breach to check the place out, while Feron, hearing some moaning coming from the darkened room below and assuming it was the Maestro, figured they'll already done enough damage not to have to worry about further alerting the residents and summoned all three of her earth elementals onto the northern side of the rooftop, to crash through as Telgrane's had done. They demolished three guest bedrooms and part of a hallway to smithereens, then Feron had them earth glide down into the floor to verify there wasn't another level below. They reported back in the negative; this looked to be a one-level structure.

While this was going on, the two diopsids had climbed up onto the rooftop from the front of the building and started moving towards the intruders. Chalkan cast an enlarge person spell upon Cal, who grew to twice his normal height. The arcane archer then teamed up with Thunderwolf to send barrages of arrows into the draegloth abomination - equal parts drider and four-armed demon - and the approaching diopsids. Inside the building, a furious Baella Xordaxi, the drow priestess in charge of this workshop and the mind behind the kidnapping of Maestro Elias Quespaterno, looked through the hole in her rooftop and saw only Cal, who at double his normal size was quite visible. She cast a slay living spell at him, but it failed to penetrate his spell resistance - for by that time, Cal had cast a holy aura spell that covered all of the heroes. However, for her trouble, she was attacked by Telgrane's greater fire elemental, who had to reach for her through a doorway while on hands and knees, but managed to set the drow cleric ablaze.

Inside the magically darkened room, there was panic abound. Three frantic male voices called out to Baella, asking for permission to use their higher-level spells against the intruders. "Of course, you fools!" she shrieked, while desperately trying to put out the flames that covered her. Telgrane jumped into the darkness and had Infernia follow suit, and the Large fire elemental shrieked in fear upon entering the room, for her flames did nothing to light the area, and for the first time in her existence the flames of her body seemed to be extinguished. Unseen in the lightless room, she patted herself down to ensure she was still actually there.

Feron tried a dispel magic against the darkness with no luck, and Cal tried the same with similar results. In the meantime, Telgrane heard the same low moaning from the western edge of the room and called to the others that he thought he might have pinpointed the Maestro. (It suddenly struck the others how reckless their "roof-smashing earth elemental bombs" had been - they might have easily crushed the very man they were trying to rescue!) He called to the Maestro to stay where he was, then cast a cone of cold spell north of the Maestro's position, slaying one of the unseen spellcasters in the room to judge by the cry of pain and the sudden thud! as his body struck the ground and remained still.

"We're on our own!" Telgrane heard one of the sorcerers call to the other. "Grab the crown - we'll have to advance the timeline and strike now, while we still can!"

That didn't sound good. The archmage commanded his greater earth elemental to cast about in the darkened room and try to grab anyone moving. It caught a figure in one hand, and then, hearing the figure swear a drow oath, the elemental crushed him to pulp in his hands. Using his ability to shape a spell's effects, Telgrane tried casting a fireball into the room, leaving the areas where he knew the earth elemental and the Maestro to be free of the fire's effects, thinking to fry the last enemy spellcaster in the room. But that didn't work, and the Maestro's cries became suddenly muffled; Telgrane learned why when he rushed forward and ran smack into a wall of stone that the final drow sorcerer had sprung into being just seconds before.

Passing the news on to the others via the telepathic bond, Telgrane cast a disintegrate spell on the wall of stone and had Feron command one of her nearest earth elementals to repeat the "grope and squash" maneuver that Telgrane's greater earth elemental had used to such great effect. A wet crunching sound and a drowish scream heralded the death of the last of the three sorcerers.

Topside, Cal, Chalkan, and Thunderwolf had taken care of the diopsids and the draegloth abomination, and the greater fire elemental had managed to grapple Baella into a fiery death. It wasn't perhaps the textbook way to handle an assault upon a structure - "Remind me why we didn't just go through the front door?" asked Cal - but it seemed to have gotten the job done. Now all that was left to do was to free the Maestro and go back to the surface world.

But Cal was in no hurry, for he had some unanswered questions he wanted to solve first. The summoned elementals dismissed, Cal back to his normal size, the group entered the darkened room and questioned the Maestro about what had happened.

"I was taken from the Cathedral of Corellon," the ancient elf answered, his breath a ragged wheeze. "They took me straight here, stripped me of my robes, and fastened me to this table. Then, for hours on end, three men used sharp instruments to carve deep into my flesh. They stopped for several hours, presumably to rest, and then started up again shortly before your arrival."

Several things bothered Cal. One, the fact that this room was covered in pitch-black darkness that even Telgrane, still wearing the form of a drow with full darkvision, couldn't see through, and that two dispel magic spells cast by high-level spellcasters had been unable to remove. Why would a trio of drow sorcerers do their work in absolute darkness? And for that matter, how could they? Cal got his answer when they dragged the remains of the drow sorcerers out of the darkened room and into the light of Infernia's flames the next room over - and saw that all three were blind. Not "eyes that don't work" blind, either: they had had their eyeballs removed, and some time ago, judging by the scar tissue that remained behind their eyelids. "This Baella wanted three blind sorcerers, so she made sure she got them," commented Cal.

The other thing bothering the cleric of Kord was the fact that these drow chose to do their work in a small building, on a small island, on an Underdark lake far away from any other structures. Drow were supposed to live in Underdark cities, but this was going on in a distinctly remote location. The logical assumption was that whatever the three blind drow sorcerers were doing to the Maestro was inherently dangerous, and there was a possibility that the whole thing could blow up in their faces.

And that brought everything together, once Cal had voiced his concerns. "They've made the Maestro into a bomb!" gasped Telgrane.

The spellcasters had a quick conference, trying to figure out how such a thing might be possible. The closest thing anybody could come up with was the explosive runes spell, but that only worked on inanimate objects, and went off when the runes were read. Still, if the drow had found a way to make something similar that worked on living flesh....

Cal directed everyone to explore the rest of the building, to see if there were any notes left around explaining the drow cleric's plan. The closest they got was in Baella's bedroom - quite lavish, Feron noted, compared to the stark quarters of the three male sorcerers. There they discovered the designs for a pair of magical items, each a crystal carved in the shape of a spider. One was placed on the head of the user - "The crown the blind sorcerer mentioned!" Chalkan pointed out excitedly - and when activated, it teleported the user to the location of the other crystal spider.

"So when the drow raiders showed up at the Cathedral to kidnap the Maestro," Telgrane reasoned, "they left behind the other crystal spider. Tomorrow at noon is the Festival of the Elf-Lord; the Cathedral will be packed with elves--"

"--And while everyone's there, Bam!" finished Feron, blanching at the thought. "In pops the Maestro, covered in these carved runes, exploding the moment somebody first sees one of them!"

"It would likely kill everyone present, and possibly destroy the Cathedral as well," agreed Cal. "I wonder how many runes have been carved on the Maestro already, and how can we get them off?"

They reconvened in the room of darkness, apologizing to the elderly elf for keeping him waiting. Thunderwolf gave him some water from his waterskin, while Cal explained the situation. The Maestro understood completely, and offered up that about half of his body was covered in the runes - there were about two dozen of them, by his estimation. Realizing that the normal explosive runes could be "deactivated" by an erase spell, the group reasoned that these drow runes, which had been painstakingly carved into the flesh of the elderly elven organist, might similarly be "erased" by the application of healing magic. Just to be sure of the group's safety, though, Cal insisted that the rest of them huddle together behind a wall of force while he tried healing the Maestro. As an extra precaution, he sliced a bit of his own fingernail off with a knife and gave to to Feron for safekeeping. "Something to resurrect me with if this doesn't work," he explained.

He needn't have worried, for one heal spell and the Maestro's wounds all closed up. Cal unstrapped the the elderly elf from the table to which he had been bound, and led him out of the darkness and into the next room, illuminated by Infernia's constant flames. Everyone eagerly entered the Daern's dollhouse, Infernia returned to her tinder box, and Feron and Telgrane flew their floatdisks back the way they had come without further incident.

- - -

The next day, at noon, the five heroes were present at the Cathedral of Corellon Larethian at the High Priest's insistence for the celebration of the Festival of the Elf-Lord. The High Priest began the ceremony by introducing the heroes to the congregation, explaining the role they had played in not only saving their beloved organist, the Maestro Elias Quespaternos, but also in saving the lives of everyone present and the beloved Cathedral itself. The grateful cheering could be heard several blocks away.

The ceremony itself went well, and the Maestro's reputation as a musician was well-earned, for he brought the house down with his music, if not quite in the fashion the drow had originally intended. At the end of the ceremony, the High Priest took the heroes to a room in the back and presented them with a chest full of coins, a small token, as he put it, of their appreciation for the hard work the group had done on the elves' behalf.

And from that day on, the names of Chalkan, Feron, Cal, Telgrane, and Thunderwolf carried a great amount of weight to any elf in Greyhawk City and its nearby environs.

- - -

We had a great time with this adventure, although I had warned the players ahead of time that this one held the possibility for a TPK. I also pointed out that since this was an "unplanned and sudden adventure" on the part of the PCs, they didn't have the normal backup they normally enjoyed; once they got their Guild rings back they could always "bink" back to Headquarters if they needed to, but there was no guarantee that their counterparts would be there to replace them. It had been intended to be a day off, after all. And while I knew that had they dragged the Maestro into the light and read the explosive runes themselves they'd have been instantly slain (each rune held 4d6 points of explosive energy, and the Maestro had 24 of them on his body, with room for another 24 that the three blind drow sorcerers had intended to craft during the rest of the day), but that wasn't my primary concern. After all, true resurrection was now well within the group's grasp, and they had companions who would look into their deaths. No, I knew it was the irretrievable loss of all of their equipment - Telgrane's robe of the archmagi, the Daern's dollhouse that Feron carried with her on all of her adventures, Chalkan's White-Wood Whisperbow, Cal's hammer of frost, and Thunderwolf's sentient sword, Xanthros - that would have the players howling for my head. So when the drow workshop had been cleared of all enemies, I did give a little prompting to get the players trying to figure out what the drow plan had been with regards to Maestro Elias Quespaterno, and they pretty much put the pieces together on their own.

Our next session is scheduled for the first Saturday in August, as our respective families both have family reunions to attend in the meantime. Next time, Telgrane will get his shot at becoming a half-elemental (or die trying).

ADVENTURE 71 - BAPTISM OF FIRE

PC Roster:
NPC Roster:

"This should do the trick," said Dr. Greymantle, handing over a small gem of the same style as the one that Ambrosia Black wore on her forehead when controlling the automatons in the Planar Scout. "Just place it on your forehead; it contains my memory of standing on the island where my colleague, the Archmage Pandulio, has set up his research lab. It will allow you to teleport there as if you've been there yourself. Now if you'll excuse me," he said with a smile, "I have other matters which require my attention." And with the utterance of an arcane syllable, he vanished from the room.

Telgrane held the small stone in his hand for a moment, then shrugged and placed it on his forehead. It immediately glowed with an inner light. "Whoa!" he exclaimed, his memories suddenly filling with experiences he had never dealt with firsthand before. He closed his eyes for a moment to steady the sudden dizzy sensation, then opened them again and grinned. "Got it!" he exclaimed. "Everybody ready to teleport over to Pandulio's island?"

The others gathered around him and he said the words to a teleport spell he had prepared for this very occasion. The familiar confines of the Wing Three common living area gave way to a white, sandy beach at the edge a steaming jungle, the caws of colorful parrots and the shrieks of monkeys competing with the ever-present crash of waves on the beach behind them. Ahead of the group, a curving path cut through the heavy jungle growths, leading to a cave opening in the side of a rocky cliffside. "This way," called Telgrane, leading the others up the path.

Just inside the cave's shadowy entrance stood a statue of an elegant sylph. A magic mouth spell activated upon the group's entry, causing the statue to appear to ask, "Is Pandulio expecting you?" Telgrane looked at the others, shrugged, and said "Yes," assuming that Greymantle would probably have mentioned that the group was coming to pay him a visit. The statue gave no response, and the group looked around in confusion, unsure of what they were supposed to do now.

"According to Dr. Greymantle's memories," Telgrane reported, "Pandulio would usually enter the cave from a secret passage in the back, there." He pointed to the back of the cave, while Galrich tried having a conversation with the statue. "Hey, is Pandulio even home?" he asked the carved image, but the sylph gave no reply.

"Got something!" said Cal, having examined the back of the cave in the illumination cast by Infernia, who was still in her 9-foot-tall form, the better to assist her master in combat. The cleric pointed out a crack in the wall, no doubt the seam where a door opened up. He followed the crack, marking off a section easily large enough to be a door, probably one of those that swiveled in the middle. He pushed tentatively on either edge, to no avail. "I can probably force it open," he suggested, ready to channel one of Kord's feats of strength through his willing limbs.

"Let's not break down the door of the guy we're here to visit," suggested Telgrane. "There should be a latch or something hidden around here that opens it up." The group spread out, seeking a hidden button, lever, or switch. Cal found it, hidden on the back of the neck of the sylph statue, underneath her flowing hair. Delphyne gave him a sidelong glance, as if to point out she had noticed that in a cave of fairly considerable size he had somehow managed to focus his search on the nearly-nude statue of a beautiful sylph, but the cleric of Kord refused to be embarrassed. He had, after all, been the one to look in the right place. Cal pushed in the button, there was a click from the back of the cave, and the secret door swiveled open.

Telgrane was the first to enter, followed by his large fire elemental familiar. The passageway beyond the door was narrow enough to force the group to move single file, and after a few twists it opened up into a hemispherical room with three other corridors leading in different directions. The one directly ahead gave off a soft, red illumination, but the archmage was more interested in the circular floor, for his arcane vision had picked up a series of delicately-carved glyphs radiating an aura of conjuration magic of the type associated with teleportation effects. They seemed to be centered on the middle of the room. "Stick close to the outer wall," suggested Telgrane, as he scooted around to the right, taking the corridor that first presented itself. It turned a corner, went up a few steps, and then ended in a small room shaped like a narrow "T." The far wall of the "T" was made of some transparent material, and overlooked a small, circular island rising up out of a pool of magma, with a short set of stairs leading down into the bubbling lava. Given the fact that the island's circumference seemed to be the same diameter as the room he had just left, he suspected he had just seen where those who stepped on the teleport trap were likely to end up, which made sense if you thought of this T-shaped room as an observation port to see who had just entered your lair surreptitiously.

The group doubled back to the first room and took the next passage. It opened out into a large magma pool, inside an irregularly-shaped cave. Rising up from the magma ahead was a six-sided island shaped like a large rectangle with its two closest corners cut off diagonally. The passageway continued on above the magma and aimed at one of the diagonal sections, but it was a good 20 feet away. Telgrane, in the lead, could see that the back of the island held an upright section centered around a disk, while off to the side was a series of glass lenses, like those that might be found in a telescope but on a much larger scale, suspended by metal poles connected to a central shaft. The narrowest section of the island held a tall, curved wall, like half of an upright cylinder. Capering around and doing somersaults on this island was a small, humanoid figure sheathed in flames; Telgrane recognized it at once as a magmin. To the right of the island was a much taller one, this one some 20 feet away and at least the same amount higher than the one upon which the magmin pranced around. To the left, Telgrane could see a bridge made of metal plates heading off to the side of the cavern into a room beyond.

The young archmage called out to the magmin. "Hello! Is the Archmage Pandulio here by any chance?"

The magmin whirled around in mid-somersault, a goofy grin plastered on its face, and turned to face Telgrane. "Who? Oh, you mean the Great Wizard? No, he isn't here."

"Where is he, and is he expected back soon?"

"He's out exploring the Elemental Plane of Fire," the magmin reported back. "He might not be back for a while. Maybe even a long time."

"Who are you?" asked Telgrane.

"I'm Pyro," said the magmin, pulling himself up to an unimpressive height. "I'm the Great Wizard's familiar. I'm looking after the place while he's gone."

"Do you mind if we come over there to talk to you?" asked Telgrane.

"Sure, sure, fine-fine-fine!" replied the magmin, jumping up and down in excitement, eager to have some company.

Cal wasn't sure about any of them leaping across the magma pools. "Is there a better way across?" he asked. Pyro pointed toward the metal bridge, and replied, "You can go that way, if you like." Cal started backtracking to the hemispherical room, eager to try the last way out of there, and the fact that the untraveled corridor pointed in roughly the correct direction to hook up to the bridge gave him confidence that that was the way to go. Delphyne, Thunderwolf, Galrich, and Aerik followed him, while Infernia stayed with her master. Telgrane shrugged off the drow floatdisk he'd had strapped to his back, activated it, and flew it over the magma pool, his 9-foot-tall familiar standing behind him and hanging onto his shoulders; despite her great size, she was made of living fire and weighed practically nothing. They landed on the platform where Pyro awaited and the archmage introduced himself and Infernia to the magmin.

The others, meanwhile, soon found themselves in a large room whose far exit was flanked by two metallic statues, one of a coiled serpent and one of a humanoid figure covered in glowing runes. Sensing that these were guards against intruders, Cal decided for the group that they'd go back the way they had come and follow Telgrane's example; they had taken 13 of the floatdisks from the drow they had slain in their last adventure, so each of the heroes had appropriated one and spent some time getting proficient at riding them. Cal was not thrilled with the thought of riding a floatdisk over a pool of bubbling magma, but the group made it over to the six-sided island without mishap.

Once there, however, Pyro scanned each of the others, visibly disheartened to see almost everyone wearing metal armor. Then his face brightened at the sight of Delphyne, and he dropped the hem of Telgrane's robes of the archmage, which he'd been fondling, to go grab the hem of Delphyne's traveling cloak, setting it ablaze. The young witch shrieked and stamped out the blaze, only to have the grinning magmin make a grab for her equally-flammable dress. Delphyne jumped back onto her floatdisk, sitting on it and pulling her legs and dress up, and hovered up out of reach.

Telgrane was making the introductions when a sudden shriek behind him warned of an imminent attack. Fortunately, the attacker was just a monkey up on the higher ledge above them, and his weapon of choice was a piece of fruit, which he hurled with deadly accuracy, smacking Pyro in the side of the head. The magmin spun and snarled up at the monkey, then focused his attention on the fruit, fondling it in his flaming hands until it began to burn. The monkey scampered back away from the edge of the higher ledge, out of view.

"Who was that?" Galrich asked.

"Oh, he's just a crazy monkey," replied the magmin with disgust, still concentrating on setting the fruit on fire. "Hey, you guys can kill him if you want!"

"No, that's okay," replied Telgrane. "So, I assume that Pandulio was successful in becoming a half-fire elemental?"

"Oh, yeah, it worked just fine," replied Pyro. "I helped him with the procedure. It was easy--hey!" The magmin's outburst was the result of another piece of fruit being hurled at him, this one narrowly missing his feet. The monkey shrieked in anger, and this time the group got a better look at him - he had flames erupting out of where his eyes would normally be. "He's been through the process as well!" exclaimed Telgrane.

"Yeah, the Great Wizard tested it on a stupid monkey first, to make sure it would work. He's just a stupid monkey, though. Hey, do you guys want me to do the procedure on you? I know how to do it!" At this, the monkey shrieked even louder, then scampered away again, no doubt to go get another piece of fruit.

I think we should go check that monkey out," suggested Delphyne, raising the floating disk she was sitting upon to reach the higher level. Telgrane agreed, and activated his floatdisk as well, but Pyro called back to him. "Hey! Take me up there, too! I want to see what's up there!"

"I thought you lived here," queried Telgrane. "Don't you already know what's up there?"

"Uh, yeah, but I just want to see if everything's okay," countered the magmin. "Pandukio left me in charge, after all."

"'Pandukio?' Don't you mean 'Pandulio?'" asked Telgrane.

"Yeah, Pandulio, that's what I said," replied Pyro, reaching up to be pulled onto Telgrane's floatdisk.

"I think you'd better stay here," suggested Cal, using his "I'm a large, musclebound guy and I'm not in the mood for any backtalk" voice. Pyro backed off and changed the subject. "Hey, do you guys have anything you need burned?" he called to the others as they floated up to the upper level, receiving no answer in response and sullenly refocusing his attention on the burning fruit.

Delphyne, on the upper level, had intercepted the flaming-eyed monkey on its way back to the edge of the upper level, this time brandishing what looked to be a species of thorn-covered pear. "Hello there," she said, crouching down to its level so as to pose less of a threat. "Can you understand me?"

The monkey nodded its head vigorously and chattered away excitedly in some monkey language. Delphyne looked to the other spellcasters. "Does anybody have a speak with animals spell prepared?" she asked. Nobody had, but she played a hunch and asked the monkey if he was Pandulio's familiar, to which he nodded emphatically while jumping up and down in excitement. It was evident that the monkey understood the Common tongue, and since the familiars of powerful wizards develop their own unique language with their masters - as indeed, Delphyne had done with Ignacious, her raven familiar, whom she had left safe back at Headquarters - she cast a comprehend languages spell. Instantly, the monkey-gibberish became understandable. At the same time, Telgrane cast a Rary's telepathic bond spell that mentally linked all of the adventurers together, so they could "talk" telepathically between themselves.

"I can understand you now," Delphyne told the monkey. "My name is Delphyne; what's yours?"

"Chee-Chee," responded the monkey.

"Doctor Greymantle sent us. Do you know him?" The monkey nodded in affirmation, mentioning that he liked Dr. Greymantle, who occasionally brought him peanuts as a treat when he visited. The monkey visibly relaxed a bit upon the mention of Dr. Greymantle's name; apparently if the heroes were Greymantle's friends, they were welcome here in Pandulio's lair.

"We're here to visit your master, Pandulio," the witch said. "Do you know where he is?"

"He's dead," replied Chee-Chee with a definite sadness in his voice. "At least, I'm pretty sure he has to be. Sometimes, it seems like the link I shared with him is still there, very faintly...but I think that's just wishful thinking on my part."

"What happened?"

"We were performing the ritual, and everything was going well, when that magmin" - and here the flames erupted even more fiercely through the monkey's eye-sockets - "came through the portal and dropped all of the remaining focusing lenses into place. Pandulio erupted into flames, screaming, and fell over the side of the platform and into the magma pool. There's no way he could have survived."

Delphyne had been mentally translating Chee-Chee's responses over the telepathic bond for the benefit of the others. Having heard enough, Telgrane flew back to the lower island and approached Pyro. "Hey, did you want to come up to the upper level with me?" he asked. "There's a bunch of stuff up there that looks like it should burn." The magmin's eyes lit up and he leapt into Telgrane's outstretched arms. However, Telgrane had prepared a shocking grasp spell and altered the energy from electrical to cold damage, using one of the powers he had learned in his development as an archmage. Pyro's flaming body took the full blast of the cold as soon as Telgrane touched him, and he convulsed once, his flames instantly going out. The archmage pitched his corpse contemptuously into the pool of magma, where he sunk like a stone. Then the archmage returned to the upper level with the others.

Chee-Chee informed the group that his master's notes on the transformation process were in the archmage's bedroom, and took them there. Pandulio lived without extravagance, his bedroom containing a simple cot, nightstand, and freestanding closet. On the nightstand, Telgrane found an empty glass and a simple parchment. He picked up the latter and read:

PANDULIO'S NOTES said:

After years of study and preparation, I believe I have finally figured out the transmutation sequence needed to hold within my mortal frame a piece of the Elemental Plane of Fire. After all, it has now been a full week and Chee-Chee seems to suffer no ill effects from the sudden transformation. I shall try it out the first thing upon the morrow, when my mind is sharpest and my body is at its most ready.

In preparation for my transformation, I prepare now this list to focus the exact sequence of events in my mind.

1. Open the gate to the Elemental Plane of Fire, letting its burning energies emanate into the mortal world.

2. Ensure the parabolic glass is at readiness, the best to reflect the energies to the designated focus point.

3. With Chee-Chee's assistance, deploy the first lens and allow the energies to focus upon my body.

4. Cast endure elements upon myself.

5. Have Chee-Chee deploy the second lens.

6. Cast resist energy upon myself, employing the version that shields against fire, of course.

7. Have Chee-Chee deploy the third lens.

8. Cast protection from energy upon myself, again choosing the version shielding me from fire damage.

9. Have Chee-Chee deploy the fourth and final lens.

10. Cast attune form upon myself. At this point, the awesome energies of the Elemental Plane of Fire, having been focused upon me in such an exacting measure, and having prepared my mortal frame for its new existence, should take up residence in my own form, and Chee-Chee and I will suddenly have even more in common.

I must remember that once the sequence has begun, I must not exit the area of focus, lest the ritual fail. And that would be a sad occurrence indeed, for Isprienza says that as a mortal, I have but one attempt at this. Failure cannot be an option!

I may have to take a sleeping draught tonight, for my mind whirls with excitement and I doubt I shall sleep otherwise. Now to bed, for tomorrow a whole new existence awaits!

Click to expand...

"Aw, poor guy," remarked Telgrane. "It looks like even if we resurrect him, Pandulio won't be able to become a half-elemental after all. This says the human frame only gets one shot at it. Say, who's Isprienza?" he asked Chee-Chee.

"Isprienza is the fire weird who lives in the magma pools," replied the monkey. "She's a sort of extraplanar oracle; it's the reason Pandulio set up shop in this volcanic cliff in the first place: the barriers between the mortal world and the Elemental Plane of Fire are weaker here, allowing him to set up his gate, and Isprienza's been lairing here for centuries. She was the one who told him of the sequence needed to infuse himself - and me - with the flames of the Elemental Plane of Fire in the first place."

The group decided to go see Isprienza the fire weird for themselves. Chee-Chee led the way, down a set of stairs and onto a ledge that jutted out over a section of the magma pool. One section seemed to glow hotter than the rest; upon their approach, it bubbled and boiled, and a column of lava gushed upwards, taking on the form of a woman's upper torso that merged into the magma pool below the waist. "My name is Isprienza," she said in a voice like that of a crackling blaze. "What question do you have for me?"

Telgrane noted the use of the singular "question," and suggested over the link that they should each ask a single question. He went first. "Will the transformation process work on me?" he asked.

"Future events cannot be guaranteed, merely glimpsed between the dancing flames of possibility," replied Isprienza. "But the kindling of success has been laid out; you have but to apply the spark to give birth to the fire."

"Do we have everything we need to perform the ritual successfully?" asked Delphyne.

"Follow the instructions as given to Pandulio, recorded by his hand, with exactness; stray not from the prescribed path," intoned the fire weird.

Cal had a pretty good idea of the way the ritual was to be performed; Telgrane would stand in the apex of the parabolic mirror, while Chee-Chee deployed the lenses in sequence, and he and the others ensured that no denizens of the Elemental Plane of Fire entered through the planar gate to interrupt the ritual as Pyro had done to Pandulio. He had considered setting up a wall of force in front of the gate on the Elemental Plane of Fire side, to prevent entry through the gate, but was concerned that this might have disastrous effects on the ritual itself. "Would a wall of force, or similar spell, set up to prevent anyone from entering through the gate affect the ritual?" he asked.

"Water flows through a sieve at a slower rate," replied the fire weird, somewhat obliquely. Cal took it to mean that it wouldn't be a good idea.

Aerik cut to the chase with his question. "Is there anything we should do to give us the best chances of making sure the ritual works like it's supposed to?"

"Prevent the curious from investigating; stop the destructive from entering; have allies cross the boundary to prevent the boundary from being crossed." This settled one argument as to whether it was better to station the defenders on the Prime Material Plane side of the gate or on the Elemental Plane of Fire; although Telgrane had argued that cold spells - which would be more damaging to denizens of the fiery plane - were easier to cast on this plane, it looked like the better idea was to station the defenders on the far side of the gate.

"Any last questions?" Telgrane asked over the link.

"I have one," replied Delphyne. "Should we resurrect Pandulio before attempting the ritual?"

"That is not an option at this time," replied Isprienza. "You must press on without him." Then, sensing that there were no further questions from either Thunderwolf, Galrich, or Infernia, the fire weird sunk back into her pool of liquid magma, and the group retreated back to the six-sided island where the transformation ritual would take place.

Telgrane used a prestidigitation spell to clean the parabolic mirror, buffing it to a sparkling shine. There was a small circle inscribed on the floor just before it, apparently the bounds from which Telgrane could not move once the ritual began. The group cast their various buffing spells, with Galrich, Cal, and Delphyne receiving stoneskin spells, Galrich also receiving a resist energy spell that would protect him from fire, and Thunderwolf gaining a protection from energy that would do likewise. Telgrane cast a flame arrow spell on Thunderwolf's arrows, using his archmage abilities to grant the arrows cold damage instead of flames, the better to fight off whatever might await the defenders on the Elemental Plane of Fire. Finally, Cal cast enlarge person spells upon Galrich and Aerik, who had volunteered to be on the front lines, and Delphyne had an attune form spell ready to go as soon as they all entered the planar gate. It was decided that Infernia would stay on the six-sided island right by the gate, a final defense against anything that might make it through, while Chee-Chee manned the lens apparatus. The heroes were warned not to stand directly in front of the gate once they entered, so as not to block the energy flow being focused on Telgrane, and then, with a ready nod, Telgrane activated the planar gate, which had its command word, "Infiernus," inscribed on the floor just before it. Instantly, the center of the volcanic stone structure, which had been a pitch-black circle, roared into life as a sheet of yellowish flames, and the "defense team" jumped through, Delphyne already starting the words of her attune form spell as she did so.

One thing they had forgotten to take into account became immediately apparent - once the "defense team" was on the other side of the planar gate, Telgrane dropped from the Rary's telepathic bond spell, its magical energies unable to work across different planes of existence.

"I'm ready!" called Telgrane to the fire-eyed monkey. "Deploy the first screen!"

Chee-Chee did so, and the largest of four lenses dropped into place. Telgrane felt the heat of the fiery energies of the plane focusing upon his body, and cast the first of the four spells of the ritual, endure elements, upon himself. He could actually feel his body attuning itself to its new reality, and once he was sure all was well, he had Chee-Chee deploy the second screen.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the planar gate, the adventurers were in a world ablaze. Great sheets of flame rose up from the very ground, which itself seemed to consist of ashes and burning embers. Black, billowing clouds of smoke rose up from the flames to coalesce into a dark mass that passed for the sky in this strange plane. Thanks to Delphyne's attune form spell, the heroes were aware of the intense heat without being affected by it, but they had all been warned that the spell protected them only from the ambient heat of the Elemental Plane itself, not from the intense flames of the fire elementals and associated creatures they were liable to encounter here.

It didn't take long for such an encounter to take place. A small flock of fire bats were the first to spot the adventurers - or, more likely, the open hole to another plane behind them - and move in to investigate. Thunderwolf shot several out of the sky with his frost arrows before they had a chance to get close to him, and Delphyne, already having determined that her best bet on this plane was her wand of magic missiles, dropped a few more. A couple made it to Cal, though, and a couple more flitted around the double-sized Aerik and Galrich, who had positioned themselves as the vanguard of the defensive formation. Still, the fire bats turned out to be little more than mere nuisances compared to the following waves.

The next to appear was a noble salamander, whose first act upon encountering strangers from another world was to summon a Huge fire elemental. The massive beast immediately attacked Galrich, freeing up the salamander to lob some fireballs at the group, who were still clustered closely enough that he managed to get all but Cal within the spell's blast radius. The group hadn't finished with these two natives before another two creatures entered the scene, this time a pair of efreet, who started their attacks by causing walls of fire to rise up around both Cal and Galrich. The half-orc barbarian ignored the spell's effects, protected as he was by Delphyne's resist energy spell, and simply walked right through it to attack the fire elemental with his greataxe. Cal was not so protected, so he escaped by leaping upon his drow floatdisk and levitating up and over the magical wall, much to the surprise and consternation of the efreeti who had moved up to stab at him. That efreeti was even less thrilled when he was blinded and deafened by a retaliatory holy word spell cast by Cal, and he was cut down shortly thereafter.

Back on the Prime Material Plane, Chee-Chee was about to deploy the third lens at Telgrane's order when his erstwhile master made a sudden and unexpected return to the scene. A flaming skeleton rose up out of the magma pool, a ragged scream torn from a throat that no longer had functioning vocal cords. The burning remains of the Archmage Pandulio crawled up and stood once more upon the stone island where he had met his death - or, more properly, his undeath - and staggered over to Telgrane with claws outstretched. Infernia gave a gasp of surprise and made to move to intercept, but Telgrane told her to hold her ground and guard the portal. She only obeyed her master when she saw him summoning another means of protection: a lillend, equal parts woman, serpent, and brightly-winged bird, who manifested immediately between Telgrane and the undead monstrosity. Pandulio grabbed at the outsider, and his burning touch visibly drained life energy out of the startled lillend.

Chee-Chee was visibly disturbed by the sudden appearance of his horribly-changed master, but he held his ground at the third lens, ready to deploy it when commanded, understanding that Telgrane's attention had to remain on Pandulio before he progressed any further in the transformation ritual - and furthermore, Telgrane would have to deal with Pandulio without moving from his spot, or ruin his one shot at being successfully transformed. The burning undead was an all-too-real reminder of just how horribly wrong this ritual could go.

Amazingly, Pandulio took down the lillend in just a few brief moments, and Telgrane summoned another protector to keep the effigy away from him. This time it was a Huge fire elemental, which manifested in the magma pool at the very edge of the stone island and swiped at the burning effigy of Pandulio - but, miraculously, the stumbling form of the undead archmage evaded the elemental's outstretched arms as it tried grappling him. Pandulio stepped up to Telgrane and grabbed him by the shoulders, and the young archmage could feel the heat emanating from the constantly-burning monstrosity, could feel the very life-force being leeched from his body - and then Pandulio was grabbed around the arms and yanked back away from Telgrane, Infernia having abandoned her post to save her master from the effigy. She grappled it away from Telgrane, and practically threw Pandulio into the arms of the Huge fire elemental, who hugged the undead form to its chest and submerged back into the magma pool.

Telgrane wasted no time getting the ritual back on track - he had Chee-Chee deploy the third lens immediately, cast the protection from energy spell upon himself, ensured that all was well thus far, and then pressed on with the fourth lens and the final spell, attune form. At the end of the casting of this final spell, Telgrane's eyes exploded outwards, and vast sheets of flame gushed forth from his now-empty eye sockets. These flame-geysers soon diminished into smaller jets, and Telgrane gave Infernia his first smile as a half-fire elemental. His 9-foot-tall familiar bent down to look at him and declared, "You look very handsome this way, master!"

Even though the excitement of the ritual was winding down, the defensive team on the Elemental Plane of Fire was still in full combat mode. Galrich had managed to kill both the noble salamander and the Huge fire elemental (with some assistance in the form of spells and arrows by Delphyne and Thunderwolf), while Cal and Aerik had finished off the efreet and the remaining fire bats, when the final round of combatants reached the scene: a foursome of magma brutes. As they had approached in a rough line, side by side, Cal cast a blade barrier in their midst that cut three of them down to near-death immediately, leaving the fourth for Aerik to cut down with his axe. Then Infernia popped her head through the planar gate and called to the others that the ritual was complete, her master was fine, and the defensive team could return through the portal. The group hightailed it back through the gate before anything else showed up.

Once everyone was back in Pandulio's lair, Telgrane deactivated the gate and thanked Chee-Chee for his help. Now that Pandulio had been destroyed as an undead effigy, it was likely that he could be resurrected back to life; Telgrane informed the monkey that while they were currently unable to do so - Cal not having that spell prepared - they would pass news of Pandulio's passing to Dr. Greymantle and his associates, and they were sure that Pinwhistle would be able to return Pandulio to life if that was the archmage's wishes. Chee-Chee thanked the group in turn for having rescued his master from his undead state, so that he could either be returned to life or enjoy a richly-deserved afterlife. He also thanked Telgrane for having killed his master's killer, the hated Pyro, and both Chee-Chee's and Telgrane's eye-flames burned hotter and brighter at the thought of the evil magmin. Then the group said their goodbyes, and Telgrane teleported everyone back to Greyhawk City.

- - -

We had a good time with this one. Logan had been sweating bullets, especially once I had made it clear that this was a one-shot attempt for Telgrane that couldn't be duplicated if anything went wrong, and that could end up with him permanently dead. (Part of that was because I didn't want him failing the ritual - for whatever reason - and wanting to replay the same adventure over and over until he got it right.) I used sheets of orange construction paper for the sections of magma pool in this adventure, cardboard geomorphs for the "islands" in the magma pool, and desk-calendar-paper geomorphs for the other rooms. To represent the Elemental Plane of Fire, I used Google Images to find a decent full-shot screen of flames, put that into PowerPoint, stretched it to cover the slide, and then superimposed a 1" grid over the whole thing. I ended up with 8 squares across and 10-1/2 squares down centered on the sheet of paper, printed out four sheets, and configured them into a 16" by 21" sheet of flames for use as a battle mat. For the planar gate, I made a suitable structure out of cardboard, cut out a circle on the front side, and built a two-sided circle out of paper to slide into the top of it to fill the cardboard circle cutout: one side was all black (construction paper again) and the other was a sheet of flames. I started the gate on the black side and then flipped it over once the gate had been opened. And now I can always reuse the gate in other adventures by replacing the "flame" side with a different image - clouds for the Elemental Plane of Air, for instance, or a bunch of gears for Mechanus, or whatever.

I actually am glad the events of this campaign worked out this way, instead of Telgrane merging with Infernia back in "The Magma Mage." This way he gets to be a half-fire elemental and still have his (now Large) fire elemental familiar, who has turned into quite the combat weapon of late. We've also decided that Telgrane's ring of fire resistance - which he no longer needs, now that he's immune to fire - will be given to Infernia, since we've decided that such a ring being worn by a creature actually made of fire will allow her to cause sections of her flames to be nonflammable while she concentrates on the effect, which in turn will allow her to do such things as pick up a spellbook without having it burst immediately into flames. It's not anything that's written in the ring's DMG description, but it works for us.

Of course, now that Telgrane has all of his half-fire elemental powers, in the next adventure I'm going to have Logan run Akari, so he won't get to play with Telgrane's new abilities for a while. But that should be fine with him, as in the next adventure the PCs are going to get a shot at restoring their reflections currently captured in the magic mirrors in Grottlepox's Castle Shatterhope on the Muckmire Fens level of the Abyss.

ADVENTURE 72 - STRIKEFORCE: ABYSS

PC Roster:
NPC Roster:
For this adventure, I told Joey that he'd be running Aerik Battershield instead of Thunderwolf, but that any XP he earned for this adventure would be given to Thunderwolf, who would be off having an "off-screen adventure." He agreed, Jacob gave him the Aerik folder, and we were off.

- - -

A Guild page entered the common living area bearing a sealed envelope. The wax on the back bore the seal of Dr. Pythagoras Greymantle. Delphyne took it from the page with a smile, and he went back down the stairs and about his business. A few of the other adventurers in the area gathered around the young witch as she opened the envelope and read its contents. Inside was a brief message:

DR. GREYMANTLE'S NOTE said:

My Dear Friends,

I find myself with five extra tickets (enclosed) to tonight's performance by the Greyhawk Symphony Orchestra, and I recall each of you having mentioned your own similar love of music. Please do me the honor of meeting me at the Symphony Hall tonight at seven bells. I do hope to see the five of you there!

- Dr. Pythagoras Greymantle​

Click to expand...

Sure enough, the envelope contained five tickets, addressed to Delphyne, Akari, Cal, Galrich, and Aerik.

"How nice!" exclaimed Delphyne. "We're going to the symphony!"

"We're doing what now?" asked Galrich.

"It'll be fun!" enthused the witch. "Hobnobbing with the upper classes, dressing up nicely for a change - that means your best outfit, Galrich; you too, Aerik! They don't let you wear armor or bring weapons into the Symphony Hall!"

"I'll be sure to wear my nicest armor," muttered Galrich.

"No weapons?" gasped Aerik, aghast at the very thought.

"I'm not kidding!" chided Delphyne. "Dress up nice for once in your life! And no weapons larger than a dagger!" And then she ran upstairs to her room to go through her closet to decide what to wear.

- - -

"This is ridiculous!" grumbled Galrich, tugging at his stiff collar.

"I'm with you," mumbled Aerik, surreptitiously patting his unfamiliar dress garb to ensure the dagger in his sleeve was still in place - as well as the one in his other sleeve, the ones strapped to both shins, and the one tucked inside the back of his pants. Then, satisfied that all was well, he casually scratched his beard - and made sure the one sewn inside his shirt, hidden by his lengthy beard, was in place as well.

"You both look very nice," assured Delphyne, resplendent in her fanciest gown. She worried about how her hair looked, not being able to see it for herself as her reflection had been stolen in the Abyss months ago, but she had had Feron see to her hairstyle rather than leave it in the hands of any of the men in her group, and was reasonably sure she looked fine. She pretended not to notice Aerik's weapons check, and in fact felt under her own sleeve to ensure her bracer of wands was in place. She was planning on enjoying the evening's fun, but she was an adventurer, and she'd learned from long experience that it paid to be prepared.

"Ah, there you are!" said a familiar voice. "I'm so glad you could make it!" Dr. Greymantle smiled upon seeing the group of five adventurers. "I do believe we're to be treated to quite a concert this evening. The lead violinist is said to have a solo performance lined up that will bring tears to the eye!"

"Doubt that," muttered Galrich, and his dwarven bodyguard gave a knowing nod of agreement. Still, neither one complained as they were all ushered to their seats. The lights dimmed, the conductor took his place at the front of the orchestra, and the music began.

Aerik found himself somewhat surprised at the quality of the music; as a stoic dwarf, symphony orchestras were not something he had ever bothered with, and he begrudgingly admitted to himself that the musicians must have worked as hard at their craft as a dwarven metalworker at his forge. Granted, with a metalworker you'd at least have something to show for all of your efforts, something long-lasting, but he was willing to give himself up to this temporary pleasure, for awhile at least. And then a voice in his head interrupted his thoughts.

"I have just cast a silent version of Rary's telepathic bond," Greymantle's voice said over the mental link. "Now then, I imagine you're all wondering why I asked you here under this pretense."

Delphyne gave a quiet sigh to herself but said nothing, nor did she add any mental comments over the shared link. But she thought to herself, Of course; this couldn't simply be a nice night out in the upper class part of town. I wonder what adventure we're going to be dragged into now?

"My apprentice Rebecca has informed me of your unusual predicament, your reflections having been stolen by Grottlepox the Puppeteer," said the archmage over the mental link. His face was immobile as he said it; nothing betrayed the fact that he was doing anything but giving the orchestra his full attention. "I'm aware that the nalfeshnee could be observing you at any moment, hence the subterfuge with the orchestra. I want it to look as if we're just watching the performance silently, not having a conversation about what to do about Grottlepox.

"So, I've gotten the basics from Rebecca, but I'd like to hear it from each of you. Tell me everything you can about Grottlepox, his castle, the Muckmire Fens, and the circumstances in which your reflections were stolen."

Cal began the tale, with the others piping up with significant details along the way. They not only explained about the whole escapade in the Muckmire Fens, but Cal also provided details about the time Lord Stanwyck tried sacrificing him to Grottlepox, and the demon summoned Galrich through one of the mirrors, recapturing the half-orc's image afterwards to use again. Dr. Greymantle listened intensely, interrupting upon occasion to ask for specific details, or verifying in his mind that he had the layout of Castle Shatterhope correct in his head.

At the end of the evening's performances, the archmage asked the group aloud if they wouldn't mind visiting him at his manor house the next day. He said he would like to see each of them, one at a time, for about two hours each, to test a new magic item he was working on: a helmet that repeats sounds. It didn't matter in which order they came to visit him, but he said he'd consider it a great favor. Then, over the still-active Rary's telepathic bond spell, he instructed the spellcasters not to prepare any spells the following morning, so they'd have no spells ready when they arrived at his manor. And with that, he bid the group a pleasant evening, and went his separate way.

- - -

The following morning, Akari was the first one to knock upon the door to Greymantle Manor. The archmage answered the door himself, ushered in the tiefling, and led him into a comfortable chair in his living room. A small table nearby held an oversized helmet. "I took the liberty of taking a special gemstone into the concert with me last night," said Dr. Greymantle. "It made a copy of the sounds made in the concert hall; I would like you to listen to the sounds, which will be played back in this helmet" – and here he strapped the oddly-shaped helmet into place upon Akari's head – "and then let me know whether it sounds close enough as to how you remember the music to be. I'm still working out a few bugs, trying to get the gem to focus more on the music and less on the various coughs and twitches of the audience. But listen intently if you would, please, and then give me your impressions at the end. Sadly, I was unable to make a recording of the entire concert; that's another thing I'm working on, although I suspect I'll need a bigger gemstone. Are you ready?"

"Whenever you are," replied Akari. Dr. Greymantle activated a switch on the front of the helmet and directed the paladin to lay back and relax for the next hour and a half or so, while he puttered around at the kitchen table with some notes.

Shortly after sitting at the kitchen table, the archmage cast another silent Rary's telepathic bond spell. "Alright then," he said over the link. "You will not actually hear any music from the helmet; that's just the ruse I'm using in case Grottlepox is observing us right now. However, I need you to sit still for the next hour and a half, after which time I'll ask you questions about how the music sounded; you may answer however you see fit, but I'd like everybody to play along with the ruse. This is all part of my plan; your group should have all of your adventuring gear ready to go tomorrow morning at 8 bells exactly. Very well, then, if there are no questions, I'll let you lie back and sit quietly until I tell you to remove the helmet. You may even sleep if you like; I'll wake you when we're done here. Then you can head on back to Headquarters and send over the next one of your group."

- - -

Akari woke up suddenly. He was in a laboratory of some sort; his last memory was of lifting his arms to remove the helmet from his head in Greymantle Manor. He felt strange; he couldn't feel his right hand, his body felt heavy and awkward, and with a start he realized he wasn't breathing. He tried sucking in a breath of air - and nothing happened. Panicked, he sat up abruptly, and got the shock of his life.

Akari wasn't alone in the room - lying upon other tables were four other humanoid shapes, made up of what looked like heavy armor grafted into and around bodies partially carved of wood. They, too, sat up abruptly, their body movements projecting surprise, their expressionless faces looking around in panic. Akari saw that he was in a similar body himself - and the reason he couldn't feel his right hand was because he no longer had one. Instead, a large, thick blade extended from his right wrist.

Dr. Greymantle stood in the middle of the room. "I imagine you are full of questions," he said, "but we don't have a lot of time. You recall the helmet I had each of you wear yesterday? Yes, that was yesterday. That helmet was making a full copy of your memories and personalities, which I have stored in the warforged bodies you're currently inhabiting. Creating a permanent personality matrix - like the one I made for Pinwhistle, many years ago - is incredibly expensive and difficult to do; I'm afraid I had neither the time nor the resources at hand to make permanent copies of your true selves. As a result, your personalities will fade away within 24 hours, leaving your construct bodies mindless and uninhabited.

"However, I want to reassure you that your normal bodies are perfectly fine; they're in a guest room at the back of the vessel – in fact, we’ll visit them before you disembark. Each of 'you' – these copies, I mean – will be dead in the span of a day. There's nothing I can do about that. But your normal selves will be fine; better than fine, in fact, for during that day you're going to go to Castle Shatterhope and get their - your - reflections back!"

Cal, in a warforged body across the room from Akari, realized he'd seen this laboratory before - it was the construct repair lab aboard the Planar Scout. He got up off the table he'd been lying upon, his heavy feet clanging upon the floor. The others followed suit, and Dr. Greymantle led the group through the Planar Scout to a guest room in the back, where five beds had been pushed against the back wall. Upon the beds lay the sleeping forms of Akari, Delphyne, Cal, Galrich, and Aerik, fully armed and armored, as if ready to go on an adventure. Rebecca looked up and waved at the living constructs as they entered the room.

"They're doing fine," the young apprentice reassured them. "I'll watch over them as they sleep."

"Delphyne, I'd suggest you take your spellbooks and component pouches from your living counterpart and prepare your spells for the day. Akari, Cal, you'll want to prepare your spells as well - and Cal, I recommend you have a find the path spell ready; Pilot will position the Planar Scout within 2 to 5 miles of Castle Shatterhope, but we'll have no idea in which direction it will lie. That will be up to you.

"In the meantime, I have prepared this," and here he handed Delphyne a hand-drawn partial map of Castle Shatterhope. "Based upon your descriptions, this is what we know of the interior of Grottlepox's castle. The building is, unfortunately, shielded from scrying, so I was unable to ascertain the rest of the layout. But you can see the hallway where the mirrors were originally positioned; they might still be stored there, but apparently Grottlepox often carries them about with him, so if they're not hanging on the walls of the hallway they're likely with him.

"Another thing," he said. "I can cast a delayed plane shift upon eight items of your choosing. I suggest you decide among yourselves which items you'd like to take with you on your strikeforce mission. In 24 hours, those eight will teleport back to the Planar Scout, and will be returned to your original selves. Anything else you bring with you will not be returning."

"Couldn't we bring them back with us?" asked Warforged Delphyne.

Dr. Greymantle gave the female-shaped warforged - the slightest of the five of them - a sad smile. "Perhaps you don't understand," he said. "You will not be returning from this mission. We will drop you off, then Pilot will take us away from here, and we'll spend the next 24 hours hidden underneath the waters of the eternal swamplands of the Muckmire Fens, protected by the ship's shields. This room is currently shielded by a nondetection spell; once we reach the Muckmire Fens, I'll cast a dimensional anchor upon each of your living forms, to prevent Grottlepox from using the mirrors to summon them to him. It will be up to you to enter Castle Shatterhope, find the mirrors, and destroy them. We'll know you're successful when your living bodies start projecting images again." Rebecca and Delmond, Greymantle's two apprentices, each held up a hand mirror with which they had been examining the bodies of the sleeping adventurers.

"And in 24 hours, whether we're successful or not, we'll be dead," said Warforged Cal, tapping his metal chest with a three-fingered hand.

"That is correct," replied Dr. Greymantle. "After 24 hours, or when your reflections are returned to you, the Planar Scout will return to the Material Plane, and the eight items you have selected will be teleported back to this room shortly thereafter."

"Then let's get choosing," suggested Warforged Akari. "Hoardmaster is a holy fiend bane longsword - I won't be able to wield it myself very well with only my left hand, but you might want to use it, Aerik. I say that's one of the eight."

"And I'll want my hammer," added Warforged Cal.

"I'm bringing my greataxe," replied Warforged Galrich.

In the end, they decided to also bring Akari's boots of levitation and his shield, which granted spell resistance to its wielder; Delphyne's wand of magic missiles; and Cal's cloak of protection and ring of deflection. Dr. Greymantle cast his spell, and then the warforged distributed the items amongst themselves.

The archmage explained the basic traits about the warforged bodies, how they needed neither food, water, nor sleep; how they were immune to poisons, paralysis, disease, and the like; how they could be targeted by spells focusing not only on living objects but also by those dealing with objects; and so on. He also explained the differences between each of their new bodies: Warforged Delphyne could activate an overland flight spell; Warforged Galrich's was extra plated and offered even better protection than normal against certain types of attacks; Warforged Aerik's forearms housed four explosive charges that could be propelled against enemies from a distance. He also warned that Warforged Cal would not be able to draw upon the powers he had gained by having Kord's blood flowing through his veins, nor could Warforged Akari use any of the inherent tiefling abilities he had just started to master, as in both cases the warforged bodies had no blood from which to draw such power. For the same reason, Warforged Galrich would find it difficult to fuel his rage without the adrenaline which he had grown accustomed to relying upon.

The archmage further explained that these warforged bodies, unlike Pinwhistle's, had not been given any sense of pain. "It's for the best, given the circumstances," explained Greymantle. "If you're captured by Grottlepox and his minions, I don't want your last hours to be spent in torment. And likewise, while we're doing everything we can to assist you, neither myself, Pinwhistle, nor my apprentices will be accompanying your strikeforce on your mission into Castle Shatterhope. We want to get your reflections back, but I'm afraid I cannot risk an eternity of torment for us, or even for your own living selves - it's why we're sending you warforged copies in, instead of your real selves."

"There's no need to apologize," replied Warforged Cal. "We understand completely."

Finally, Dr. Greymantle explained that he had built in the illusion of a demon into each warforged body, which could be activated at will. Akari could take on the semblance of a babau; Cal a bar-lgura; Delphyne a succubus; Aerik a hezrou; and Galrich a vrock.

"Gate successfully opened to the Muckmire Fens," announced Pilot's voice from the air. "Transition successful."

"Is everyone ready?" asked Dr. Greymantle. "We're here."

- - -

The Planar Scout hung just over the surface of the slimy waters of the Muckmire Fens. Warforged Cal and Warforged Delphyne, between the two of them, had ensured that all five members of the strikeforce had been shielded with a stoneskin spell. The find the path spell, as well as a few protection from evil and magic circle vs. evil spells, rounded out the preparations, and then the five warforged leapt off the side of the vessel. Before they hit the swamp, their bodies turned to mist, courtesy of Warforged Cal's wind walk spell. They sped along the marshlands in the direction that Warforged Cal's spell told them lie Castle Shatterhope, while behind them, the Planar Scout wheeled around in midair and sped off in another direction, seeking a deep place in which to submerge.

Wind walking was a new experience for the group, this being the first time Cal - warforged or otherwise - had ever tried the spell. It proved to be quite exhilarating, and likely reduced the chance of having to waste valuable (and quite limited) time and energy combating any of a dozen various denizens in the swamplands eager to devour anything they encountered. In a manner of but a few minutes, the squat, bulky silhouette of Castle Shatterhope rose from the fetid swamp before them. The group did a quick circle around the castle, then headed back the way they came, to revert to their physical bodies once more and plan out their strategies.

"I only saw the drawbridge door in the front," said Warforged Cal. "Anybody see any other means of entry?" Nobody had.

"It looks like they're using Grottlepox's puppets fer the majority of their security force," pointed out Warforged Aerik. "Wielding only crossbows, from what I could tell." Indeed, the ramparts along the second-highest level of the castle had been manned by the nalfeshnee's petitioners, naked humans - and members of other intelligent races - pierced through the hands, feet, and neck with bones, from which sinews extended straight upright into an X-shaped pair of bound bones. Blood oozed from where the sinews were attached, making for a grisly living marionette indeed.

"I spotted a succubus at each of the four towers, among the puppets," reported Warforged Delphyne. "I assume they're the leaders of the puppet forces."

"An' those ape-demons up on the upper roof," remarked Warforged Aerik. "Four at least, by my count."

"Bar-lguras," pointed out Warforged Cal.

"Whatever."

"So do we barge in?" asked Warforged Galrich. "Or try to sneak in, somehow?"

"I don't know how we'd sneak in, unless we resumed our cloud forms from the wind walk spell," pointed out Warforged Cal. "We should be able to squeeze in through the drawbridge door that way, but we couldn't go at the faster speed; we'd have to go much slower, and we'd definitely be seen."

"What if we used our demon illusions?" suggested Delphyne. "We could say we're reporting back from a secret mission for Grottlepox himself."

"You and I are the only ones who speak Abyssal," pointed out Warforged Cal.

"Then you two use your demon illusions," suggested Warforged Akari. "The rest of us will look like normal. We can explain that we're warrior constructs, sent to work for Grottlepox. And that would explain why we don't talk."

The group talked it over amongst themselves; surprisingly, while Akari and Cal both wanted to give their warforged bodies a workout with a frontal assault, for once Galrich was being the voice of reason and suggesting trying to use subterfuge. Aerik, not surprisingly, sided with his liege; even though this was merely a copy of his liege in a fabricated body, and even though this was the perfect opportunity to do what he wanted for once instead of continually siding with his master, old habits died hard and he seemed just as unwilling to let his warforged master come to harm any more than his living counterpart would. In the end, Warforged Delphyne sided with the half-orc and the dwarf, and they jointly decided to give the "two demons bringing in three warforged constructs" ploy a chance.

"Do we all know what we're doing?" asked Warforged Cal. "Are we forgetting anything?" It didn't seem like it, so they started trudging through the swamplands back to the castle.

"Who goes there?" demanded one of the succubi from the upper ramparts. She spoke in Abyssal, and Warforged Delphyne answered her in kind.

"Battle constructs for Lord Grottlepox," replied Warforged Delphyne, her construct body wrapping her in the illusion of a succubus herself.

<Do you believe this?> thought one of the succubi on the rooftop to her neighbor, using her inherent powers of telepathy. <Just who do they take us for?>

<Those are the first demons I've ever seen in my life that radiate auras of goodness!> thought-replied the second succubus. Then, to the puppets stationed along the front ramparts above the closed drawbridge, she commanded, <Open fire!>

A volley of crossbow bolts came racing down at the group, and Warforged Cal immediately realized his mistake. "We're busted!" he called out to the rest of the strikeforce. "Attack!"

Warforged Akari raced straight for the closed drawbridge, then activated his magical boots and levitated up to the level of the ramparts, where he grabbed the crossbow from a puppet's bleeding hand and flung it away behind him. Warforged Delphyne, still wearing the illusory form of a succubus, took to the air and sent a fireball screaming into the rightmost tower, engulfing the succubus and about five puppet-guardsmen stationed there in a billowing ball of flames. At the spell's end, only the succubus staggered on her feet, still alive.

Two of the bar-lguras stationed on the upper roof teleported down to the ground level and tried grappling with Warforged Cal, who boxed them in their ears for the effrontery. The two succubi and one of the bar-lguras who had been stationed at the back of the castle came scrambling forward to see what the commotion was all about; one of the female demons summoned a vrock to the ground before the castle to deal with the odd intruders there. That suited Warforged Galrich just fine, as it gave him a target he could reach; together, he and Warforged Aerik cut the vrock up so badly the vulture-demon suddenly decided he didn't owe his succubus companion that much of a favor, and teleported away to safety.

Up in the air, Warforged Delphyne cleared out most of the leftmost tower's guards with another fireball spell, then was grappled from behind by a teleporting bar-lgura, whose hairy, simian limbs clenched around her waist tightly, pinning her arms to her sides. Certain that she didn't want to see what the ape-demon's next plans for her were, she cast a greater teleport with a quick vocalization and ended up on the upper rooftop of the castle, leaving her erstwhile opponent to plummet to the ground below, where he was cut to ribbons by Warforged Aerik and Warforged Galrich.

"I'm likin' this sword of yers!" Warforged Aerik called up to Warforged Akari, who was attacking the succubi who had survived the fireballs. He found, to his great delight, that the blade built into his right arm was also a fiend bane weapon, cutting through the demons' resistance as easily at it slid into their flesh. The succubi realized almost immediately that they wouldn't fare long against this blade-handed construct, and teleported away to warn their master about the assault upon the castle.

"Well, since it looks like we're finished with the sneakin' about..." said Warforged Aerik, raising his left arm to the drawbridge and firing a concussive blast at it. A hole exploded through the wood of the door, and Warforged Galrich didn't wait for the accompanying cloud of smoke to dissipate before dashing inside.

Just inside, there was a stairway leading down - which Galrich's memories told him led to the hallway where the mirrors had been hung when the group's reflections had been captured. Just beyond the stairway, a pair of hezrous guarded a set of double doors. Warforged Galrich ducked inside the castle and hopped down the stairs to the right before either demon could react, but the rightmost hezrou leapt immediately in pursuit.

By the time Warforged Aerik followed his master into the castle proper, the second hezrou was ready for him, and it activated a trap. A cube of crackling energy sprang up around Warforged Aerik, completely sealing off the drawbridge and sending bolts of energy into the dwarf's warforged body. It seemed apparent that this trap was apparently geared towards a more typical living being; immune to pain in this body, Warforged Aerik shrugged it off and concentrated on trying to cut his way through the field with Hoardmaster.

Up above, Warforged Akari noticed that he and Warforged Delphyne had taken care of all of the true demons, leaving only a handful of the puppets with their crossbows: a minimal threat. Warforged Cal called up to them that a passageway through the drawbridge had been blown open, so they flew - and levitated, as the case may be - down to the ground level. There they found the door had been sealed off by the cube trap imprisoning Warforged Aerik. Warforged Cal tried moving past it in gaseous form (reactivating the wind walk spell which was still potentially in effect for several hours yet), with no luck. Finally, a disintegrate spell from Warforged Delphyne brought the energy cube down, releasing Warforged Aerik to race down the stairs after his master.

Down the stairs, Warforged Galrich had been busy smashing mirrors, taking time away from this pursuit only to defend himself against the hezrou guard who had followed him. The hezrou soon found himself being attacked by Warforged Galrich on one side and Warforged Aerik on the other, while the other guard upstairs was in heated battle against the warforged copies of Akari and Delphyne. After Warforged Akari indicated to the cleric of Kord that he and Delphyne could handle their hezrou on their own, Warforged Cal, still in his wind walk form, sped down the stairs. Warforged Galrich had just discovered the collection of mirrors continued around the corner from the original stretch of wall, and that there were five conspicuous absences along the next set of walls. He set about smashing all of the ones along the right-hand wall, leaving his bodyguard to keep the hezrou busy. But the eager barbarian strayed too far, for while the corridor made another left-hand turn, he continued straight into a 15-foot cubicle, which the hezrou activated with a command word; it was another torment trap, one of three set side by side, each like the one in which Warforged Aerik had found himself upstairs.

While Warforged Galrich roared in frustration and attacked the energy wall with his greataxe, Warforged Aerik kept at the hezrou until he had slain it, and Cal slipped by in gaseous form to check out the rooms beyond. Coming to an end of the bending corridor, he confirmed what Greymantle's map - and the cleric's own memories - told him, that a door to the right led to the large chamber in which the group had first met Grottlepox, securely inside his magic circle vs. good, with marionettes hanging from the ceiling. Seeing the place as he had expected, and empty but for the miserable marionettes, he ducked back under the door and flowed into the door just beyond. This proved to be a workshop of a particularly cruel nature, where the nalfeshnee demon crafted his eternal puppets out of the poor souls who wound up in his evil realm. Warforged Cal seeped back under the door, returned to the corridor, and resumed solid form once again. By this time both hezrous had been slain, and the combined efforts of Galrich and Aerik had taken down the energy wall that had been keeping the barbarian imprisoned.

Upstairs, Warforged Akari pulled open the set of double doors, revealing a massive room beyond.

There were two figures fighting off to the right, an older, bearded, light-skinned man and a younger, dark-skinned elf, both of them naked, and both trailing bone-and-sinew marionette strings which hung above them. They jockeyed and wrestled for position, the older one snarling, "Dammit, get off me, Jhondauri!"

"What, and deprive Lord Grottlepox of his entertainment?" sneered the white-haired drow, pinning his former master's head to the floor. They both seemed oblivious to Akari's presence, and he likewise filed them away as insignificant.

At the far side of the room, though, was a figure of much more significance to the paladin of Hieroneous, for it was none other than Grottlepox the Puppeteer, crouched in a massive stone throne. Five mirrors hung suspended in the air to his right, and he snarled in irritation at the lot of them, which showed nothing but gray static. A pair of flustered succubi flanked him on either side, trying to get his attention.

"They're like nothing we've ever seen before!" said one of the female demons. "They're slaughtering our forces!"

"Then send more forces!" snarled Grottlepox. "Grab some of the puppets from downstairs and send them up to defend the ramparts! That's what they're there for!" Then he turned his attention back to his mirrors, bumping one on the top of its frame in irritation with a meaty fist.

The paladin charged into the room, his built-in sword held poised at the nalfeshnee demon. Grottlepox looked up and swatted the succubi out of his way, standing to meet this unexpected threat. At the last moment, he caught sight of the Hieronean emblem on Warforged Akari's shield, and a look of shock and surprise crossed the piggish features on the demon's face. The charging construct's blade sliced deep into Grottlepox's chest - piercing the same nipple from which he had made his mortal descendant Akari drink his blood, triggering his transformation into a tiefling. The Puppeteer roared in pain, but the wound was not fatal.

In the meantime, however, Warforged Cal had arrived in the room and cast a dimensional anchor spell at the nalfeshnee, preventing him from fleeing. The demon took his frustration out on the one-armed paladin construct before him, his claws tearing deep grooves into Warforged Akari's artificial body.

Warforged Delphyne, standing behind Warforged Cal, stepped to the side and cast a chain lightning spell centered on Grottlepox, targeting each of the five hanging mirrors, the two marionettes, and the two succubi as secondary targets. The mirrors shattered, although the three demons and the still-struggling puppets seemed unaffected.

Realizing that now was the time to strike for all he was worth, Warforged Akari channeled all of his remaining smite evil attacks through his hand-blade and into his demonic great-great-grandsire. Again, Grottlepox howled in outrage and pain, it having been decades since anyone had dared to take him on in battle in such a fashion.

Warforged Cal followed up with a holy word spell that instantly destroyed both succubi and the two marionette petitioners. The immortal soul of Lord Spencer Stanwyck, bound into puppet form and being overpowered from behind by the evilly-grinning puppet form of his former drow servant Jhondauri, had no idea that the massive, armored construct who cast the spell that destroyed him was powered by the personality and memories of his bastard son Cal. As his evil soul departed the puppet body, it was reabsorbed into the very fabric of the Abyssal plane, where it would, over time, manifest itself into any of a variety of native demons - manes, perhaps, or dretch.

The holy word spell simultaneously shut Grottlepox off temporarily from his senses of both sight and sound. Blind, deaf, and currently unable to teleport away, Grottlepox began speaking the words to a dispel magic spell which would strip all of the effects away from him, and his twisted mind immediately started forming strategies - he'd teleport to his magic circle downstairs, leading all of the puppets he had hanging there in a wave of disposable cannon fodder against these construct enemies; if needed, he could teleport over to his fiendish zaratan and lead the impossibly massive turtle against his foes, let's see how they fared against that! - when Warforged Akari's fiend bane blade stabbed up through the nalfeshnee's throat, washing the construct in a flow of demonic blood and ichor. Grottlepox staggered, let out a whimpering "No..." as his final word, and fell to the floor, dead, his body spontaneously bursting into flames and collapsing into ashes upon his death.

Warforged Galrich and Warforged Aerik smashed every remaining mirror they found on their way back down the hallway, rejoining the others only to find they had already dealt with the threat of the nalfeshnee and taken care of the magic mirrors that had imprisoned their reflections.

"We did it," said Warforged Akari, somewhat surprised that the strikeforce had been successful.

"They probably already know back on the Planar Scout," replied Warforged Cal. "Our bodies should be reflecting normally in mirrors again. Nice job with the chain lightning, Delphyne."

"Thanks," the young witch replied.

"We should let our true selves know that Grottlepox is dead," decided Akari. "Do we have a means of contacting the ship?" The spellcasters among them mentally searched their spell inventories, to no avail.

"I could summon Tsukitora," suggested Warforged Akari. "I'll tell him, and he can tell the real me when I summon him next time."

"No, let him be," suggested Warforged Cal. "No sense dragging a noble beast like your celestial griffon into an Abyssal layer like this." He stuck a stubby finger into the foul ashes where the nalfeshnee's body had fallen, just before his throne. Then he turned to Akari and wrote "We killed Grottlepox" in block letters upon Akari's shield with the demon's own ashes. "Once we're all...dead, and our gear goes teleporting back to the Planar Scout, we'll read this, and we'll know."

"So what do we do now?" asked Warforged Galrich. "In the time we have left?"

The cleric of Kord gave it some thought, and while his warforged face could not produce a smile, the others could certainly hear it in his voice. "I don't know about you," he said, "but I suddenly have an overwhelming urge to carve a big holy symbol of Kord right here on the back of Grottlepox's throne. You just know some demon's going to eventually take this place over as his own; I say we leave him a nice housewarming gift."

- - -

This was a blast to run. For Castle Shatterhope, I used the cardboard castle shell I had originally used for Vandergrotten Keep (and which Galrich had decided he'd bequeath to Aerik as "Battershield Keep" as soon as he became king). I removed the inner buildings and made a rectangular "top" that fit over the inner crenelations along the ramparts. This top was flat, and was where the bar-lguras held station; the succubi and puppets were on guard duty along the original ramparts. I had some problems fitting the geomorphs that I had designed as the only rooms encountered thus far in Castle Shatterhope (in the adventure "Bad Blood") into the dimensions of the original Vandergrotten Keep, but by creating a lower level and giving the "hall of mirrors" three left turns (wrapping it around the puppet workshop), I got everything to fit, even taking the size of a nalfeshnee demon (and his need for wider doors and hallways than the standard 5-foot models) into account.

We seemed to have been plagued by a series of natural "1s" on our respective dice in this adventure. At one point, a bar-lgura teleported behind Warforged Cal and tried grappling him from behind, intending to then teleport him into one of the torment cages like Warforged Galrich eventually found himself in. I rolled a "1" for my bar-lgura's grapple check, snorted in disgust, and said the ape-demon had failed miserably, unless Dan also rolled a "1" on Warforged Cal's grapple check - which he promptly preceded to do. To celebrate the fluke occurrence, we mimed giving each other high-fives, during which we then both purposefully missed the other's hand and acted all clumsy. (Dan and I have very similar comic sensibilities.) None of my bar-lguras ever did manage to teleport a grapple victim into a cage; come to think of it, they tried on numerous occasions and all failed miserably when I ran "Bad Blood" as well. I guess Grottlepox should have hired some stronger bar-lguras.

I made the same offer I had given Joey to the other players: they could apply the XP earned by the warforged PCs to either of their normal PCs (if they decided to apply it to a PC that had spent most of this adventure drugged and asleep on the Planar Scout, then their "off-screen adventure" would have taken place shortly after the events of this adventure, but before the next one).

INTERLUDE - PLAYER CHALLENGES

This is an idea I had come up with as a way to try to shorten the range of character levels we had going on in our campaign. At this point, we had one 19th-level PC (Cal), one 18th-level PC (Galrich), one 17th-level PC (Feron), three 16th-level PCs (Akari, Delphyne, and Telgrane), two 15th-level PCs (Chalkan and Rale), and a 12th-level PC (Thunderwolf). I thought I might be able to close the gap a bit by offering the players an opportunity for an "off-screen adventure" for their PCs to bump up some of the lower ones - basically, free XP. Rather than just arbitrarily giving out free XP, I thought I'd do it in a manner that would give the players a challenge. It would be part "Challenge of Champions" scenario and part "just how much do you want this free XP, and how much humiliation are you willing to undergo to get it?" test.

So before we ran our 73rd adventure, I gathered everyone around Dan and Vicki's kitchen table and read them the ground rules, as follows:

GROUND RULES said:

All of the players will begin in Joey's bedroom, where they will remain until called forth by the DM. Joey's room will have some sort of background noise going on (a radio playing, music from a CD player or smart phone/iPad, etc.) to prevent those in the bedroom from hearing what's going on in the kitchen, where the individual challenges will occur.

The players will be called forth once their challenge has been set up in the kitchen. The players will go through their respective challenges in descending order of age: Dan, Vicki, Logan, Jacob, Joey.

The player will be given a challenge to complete and the time limit in which the challenge must be completed. The player is not required to complete the challenge if he or she doesn't wish to; however, the challenge will not end until the complete available time has elapsed, to allow the player a chance to change his or her mind.

If a player successfully completes their challenge in the time allowed, the PC of their choice will be bumped up to the next level. This will be done immediately after all 5 players have gone through their respective challenges, if the PC being upgraded is one that will be going on the next adventure. (Otherwise, it can be done after this gaming session, and before the next one.)

All of the players will be given the same amount of time to perform their challenges, as counted down by an electronic timer which will be plainly in view during the challenge.

Not all players will go through the same exact challenge, although it is possible for a given challenge to be presented to more than one player.

Once a player has finished his or her challenge, they will be allowed to sit in the living room and watch the subsequent challenges, as long as they do not speak to the person undergoing his or her challenge, or attempt to give advice, encouragement, or any other type of assistance. Anyone attempting to aid the player undergoing the challenge will cause that player to fail their challenge, and furthermore the one who interfered will forfeit any "free bonus upgrade" he or she may have already earned for one of their PCs. Additionally, if there is any physical evidence that would give away whether they were successful in their challenge or not, they must cover that evidence up so the next players entering the room won’t know who was successful or not until after their challenge is over.

Click to expand...

After that, I set up the table for Dan's Player Challenge. For the five Player Challenges, I'll post the sheet I had prepared for myself, and then let you know how each challenge went. Everyone started off sitting in Joey's seat at the kitchen table, which was directly across from where I sat. I read over the player's XP status for their PC(s) (Joey has just the one, Thunderwolf), then read the briefing and activated the timer. Once the 30 seconds were up or they had completed the challenge, I read through the possible solutions.

Here's Dan's, who was up first.

DAN'S CHALLENGE said:

SETUP: Ensure the following are on the table in front of the chair where Joey normally sits:

• 6 Sharpies (2 each of three different colors)
• A hand mirror
• A pad of graph paper
• A pencil

Once everything is in place, fetch Dan from Joey's room and have him sit in the seat where Joey normally sits. Put 30 seconds on the electronic timer, but do not start the countdown until the end of the briefing.

CURRENT XP STATUS: Cal is currently 19th level and has 174,140 XP, requiring 15,860 XP to reach 20th level. Rale is currently at 15th level and has 111,994 XP, requiring 8,006 XP to reach 16th level.

BRIEFING: "On the table before you are a small mirror and a handful of colorful permanent markers. Bearing in mind that you have to go to work on Monday and the difficulty of erasing permanent marker from the skin, you can earn a free upgrade of one level to the PC of your choice, Cal or Rale, if, by the time the timer reaches 0, I see a large 'L' on your forehead, using permanent marker in the color of your choice." ACTIVATE TIMER.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: Any of the following are acceptable solutions:

• Writing a large "L" on your forehead with a Sharpie.
• Writing a large "L" on a piece of paper and holding it up to your forehead.
• Writing the words "a large L" on a piece of paper and holding it up to your forehead.
• Writing the words "a large L on your forehead, using permanent marker in the color of your choice" on a piece of paper.
• Writing a large "L" on the mirror and holding it next to your head in such a way as I see your reflection apparently wearing the "L" on its forehead.

RESULTS: Success? Y____ N____ Upgrade applied to Cal ____ Rale ____ N/A ____

PREP FOR NEXT CHALLENGE: Have Dan sit in the living room, and advise him not to give any hints to the other players as they go through their challenges. If Dan drew an "L" on his forehead, have him cover it up with his hands while the other players enter the room, so they don't get any hints as to what might be expected of them in their own challenges.

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Dan spent his first two seconds of the challenge looking at me in amazement, then immediately realized I wouldn't really expect him to draw an "L" on his forehead in permanent marker, knew there must therefore be some sort of a twist, and immediately pulled over the pad of graph paper that was conveniently within reach. He drew a big "L" with a Sharpie, but then wasted time rifling in a kitchen drawer for some Scotch tape, somehow thinking he had to attach it permenently to his head. As such, he ran out of time; the timer beeped while he still had the paper sitting on the table.

Dan went and sat in the living room, I set up for Vicki's challenge, and then went and got her from Joey's bedroom. Here's what she was faced with:

VICKI'S CHALLENGE said:

SETUP: Ensure the following are on the table in front of the chair where Joey normally sits:

• A black Sharpie
• A hand mirror
• A pad of graph paper
• A pencil

Once everything is in place, fetch Vicki from Joey's room and have her sit in the seat where Joey normally sits. Put 30 seconds on the electronic timer, but do not start the countdown until the end of the briefing.

CURRENT XP STATUS: Delphyne is currently 15th level and has 122,458XP, requiring 13,542 XP to reach 16th level. Feron is currently at 17th level and has 152,145XP, requiring 855 XP to reach 18th level.

BRIEFING: "On the table before you are a small mirror and a black permanent marker. Bearing in mind the difficulty of erasing permanent marker from the skin, you can earn a free upgrade of one level to the PC of your choice, Delphyne or Feron, if, by the time the timer reaches 0, I see a distinctive handlebar mustache on your face, using permanent marker." ACTIVATE TIMER.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: Any of the following are acceptable solutions:

• Drawing a distinctive handlebar mustache on your face with the Sharpie.
• Drawing a distinctive handlebar mustache on your finger and holding your finger over your upper lip.
• Writing the words "a distinctive handlebar mustache" on a piece of paper with the Sharpie and holding it up to your face.
• Drawing a distinctive handlebar mustache on the mirror and holding it in such a way that your reflection in the mirror lines up with the mustache.

RESULTS: Success? Y____ N____ Upgrade applied to Delphyne ____ Feron ____ N/A ____

PREP FOR NEXT CHALLENGE: Have Vicki sit in the living room, and advise her not to give any hints to the other players as they go through their challenges. If Vicki drew a mustache on her face or finger, ensure that it is covered up while the other players enter the room, so they don’t get any hints as to what might be expected of them in their own challenges.

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Vicki had the same initial reaction as Dan had: expressing incredulity that I would actually expect her to draw on her face. She even started to tell me she didn't think she wanted to accept the challenge, then the answer struck her in mid-sentence. Instead of grabbing for the pad of graph paper like Dan had done, though, she uncapped the Sharpie and started drawing a handlebar mustache on the mirror. However, instead of making a quick mustache with two curved lines, she made a top and a bottom to each side, then spent time coloring it in. In the end, when the timer beeped, she still had the mirror sitting on the table in front of her.

We quickly found out that the marker wasn't coming off the mirror with just a paper towel, but Vicki had some type of cleaning solution that took it right off. She went to go sit in the living room by Dan while I went to go get Logan.

Here's what I had cooked up for him:

LOGAN'S CHALLENGE said:

SETUP: Ensure the following are on the table in front of the chair where Joey normally sits:

• A black Sharpie
• A pad of graph paper
• A pencil

Once everything is in place, fetch Logan from Joey's room and have him sit in the seat where Joey normally sits. Put 30 seconds on the electronic timer, but do not start the countdown until the end of the briefing.

CURRENT XP STATUS: Akari is currently 16th level and has 129,775 XP, requiring 6,225 XP to reach 17th level. Telgrane is currently at 16th level and has 130,492 XP, requiring 5,508 XP to reach 17th level.

BRIEFING: "My hand will remain on the top of this table for the duration of your challenge. You can earn a free upgrade of one level to the PC of your choice, Akari or Telgrane, if, by the time the timer reaches 0, I have your pants, nicely folded, in my hand." ACTIVATE TIMER.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: Any of the following are acceptable solutions:

• Taking off your pants, folding them nicely, and placing them in my hand.
• Writing the words "your pants, nicely folded" on a piece of paper and placing it in my hand.
• Writing the words "your pants" on a piece of paper, folding it nicely, and placing it in my hand.

RESULTS: Success? Y____ N____ Upgrade applied to Akari ____ Telgrane ____ N/A ____

PREP FOR NEXT CHALLENGE: Have Logan sit in the living room, and advise him not to give any hints to the other players as they go through their challenges. If Logan took off his pants, have him put them back on before the other players enter the room, so they don’t get any hints as to what might be expected of them in their own challenges.

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Well, what can I say? Logan really wanted those free XP! I don't think he wasted a single second before standing up out of the chair, cursing "You suck!" at me as he began unbuckling his belt. Dan and Vicki were both stifling laughter from the living room, and they both turned their heads away as Logan proceeded to take off his pants, fold them nicely, and place them in my hand. So he won the challenge, I asked him to put his pants back on, and he went over to sit by Dan and Vicki (who, despite their laughter, were highly impressed by his gumption). I got another good-natured "You suck!" out of him when I read him the other possible solutions and he realized he hadn't really had to strip down to his undies, but he was nonetheless glad to have gotten the free XP. He gave it to Telgrane, who he had decided to run through the upcoming adventure, so after all of the challenges were done we did a quick upgrade to Telgrane's PC stats.

In the meantime, I went to go get Jacob. Here's what I had for him:

JACOB'S CHALLENGE said:

SETUP: Ensure the middle of the living room floor is clear (move the bean bag chairs out of the way).

Once everything is in place, fetch Jacob from Joey's room and have him sit in the seat where Joey normally sits. Put 30 seconds on the electronic timer, but do not start the countdown until the end of the briefing.

CURRENT XP STATUS: Chalkan is currently 15th level and has 105,761 XP, requiring 14,239 XP to reach 16th level. Galrich is currently at 18th level and has 163,092 XP, requiring 7,908 XP to reach 19th level.

BRIEFING: "You are being given a physical challenge. You can earn a free upgrade of one level to the PC of your choice, Chalkan or Galrich, if, by the time the timer reaches 0, you have kicked up your feet and stood on your hands for at least 10 consecutive seconds, without leaning against a wall or any other object." ACTIVATE TIMER.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: Any of the following are acceptable solutions:

• Doing a handstand for 10 seconds.
• Kicking up your feet (both at once or one at a time), then crouching down, putting both hands flat upon the floor, and then stepping on them for 10 seconds.

RESULTS: Success? Y____ N____ Upgrade applied to Chalkan ____ Galrich ____ N/A ____

PREP FOR NEXT CHALLENGE: Have Jacob sit in the living room, and advise him not to give any hints to Joey as he goes through his challenge.

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Jacob attempted the literal handstand, and ran out of time attempting to do one. By that time, Dan had figured out the second possible solution and demonstrated it to Jacob after the timer had run out. Jacob rolled his eyes, and went to join the others in the living room.

Finally, here was Joey's challenge:

JOEY'S CHALLENGE said:

SETUP: None.

Once everything is in place, fetch Joey from his room (he can turn off the radio or other background noise) and have him sit in the seat where he normally sits. Put 30 seconds on the electronic timer, but do not start the countdown until the end of the briefing.

CURRENT XP STATUS: Thunderwolf is currently 12th level and has 74,993 XP, requiring 3,007 XP to reach 13th level.

BRIEFING: "You are being given a physical challenge. You can earn a free upgrade for Thunderwolf, if, by the time the timer reaches 0, you have managed to stick out your tongue and touch the tip of your nose." ACTIVATE TIMER.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: Any of the following are acceptable solutions:

• Stick out your tongue far enough for it to reach the tip of your nose.
• Stick out your tongue, and simultaneously touch the tip of your nose with your finger.

RESULTS: Success? Y____ N____ Upgrade applied to Thunderwolf ____ N/A ____

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Alas, Joey took it literally, and tried sticking his tongue up high enough to touch the tip of his nose with it. I thought for sure of all five players he would be one to win for sure, because I envisioned him trying to pull his nose down lower with his fingers to try to get it in reach of his tongue, which technically would have satisfied the requirements of the challenge - but he sat on his hands while trying to maneuver his tongue into place! Jacob demonstrated the solution after the timer had beeped, and it still took Joey a while to "get" the trick, as he was so hung up on the literal solution.

So, the only end result was that Telgrane bumped up to 17th level. We went immediately into the adventure that I had prepared for that day's session. However, at the end of the session as I was packing up my D&D gear to head back home, I decided to give both Dan and Vicki 1,000 free XP to the character of their choice, as they had both figured out the solution to their respective challenges, even if they didn't have enough time to fully implement them. Dan gave his XP to Rale, and Vicki gave hers to Delphyne - in both cases, the lower-level of their two PCs.

This was a fun little diversion, and all in all it didn't eat up too much of our gaming time for the day. However, I explained that I'd never be able to do anything like this again, since now they all knew that there would be a "trick" involved in the solution of whatever I threw at them. And we also realized that this campaign was winding down; we'd already decided that once everybody - or nearly everybody - was 20th level, we'd quit this campaign and start up a new one, set in the same universe but clock-advanced 20 years, and everyone would start out as new 1st-level PCs in the Kingdom of Kordovia, ruled for the past 20 years by King Galrich. With everybody running a single PC, I likely won't have such a level discrepancy between the PCs (unless we run into multiple deaths, where the PCs come back a level lower than where they had started), so the need for such a set of Player Challenges won't likely be necessary.

But you never know. I might find a way to do something similar in the future, if I change it up enough.

ADVENTURE 73: NATURAL DISASTER, PART 1

PC Roster:
NPC Roster:
Feron awoke with a start in the pre-dawn silence of her room. She felt a sudden compulsion to go outside to the small grove she maintained behind the Greyhawk City Adventurers Guild. She was not troubled; rather, she seemed immersed in a complete feeling of peace and tranquility. As such, she didn't don her armor or grab up her weapons, opting to simply slip on a robe over her sleepwear and head out back.

At the grove, just as the sun's rays first touched the city, a wind picked up and blew the branches of the small trees into a different configuration. Feron felt no surprise to see that they had formed a face, that of her patron Goddess, Ehlonna of the Forests.

"It is time," intoned Ehlonna directly into Feron's mind. "Gather up a group of your adventuring companions, and ensure Delphyne is among their number. Travel with her to the Stick Palace of her childhood. Have your friends prepare for combat as normal, but prepare no spells of your own, for I will provide them when the time is at hand.

"Make your best time to the Stick Palace, Feron, for speed is of the essence. Coventry has slept for too long; it is time he was awakened."

Feron bowed her head before the image of her Goddess and returned to the Wing of her Guild, rousing the others.

- - -

"Ready?" asked Delphyne, seeing that the rest of the group that had opted to go on this quest of Ehlonna had gathered up their gear and were ready to depart. Ehlonna had said that time was of the essence, and short of actual time travel, nothing could get them to where they needed to be faster than a greater teleport spell. She vocalized the arcane syllables, and the group popped out of existence from their living room and back into existence in a shady woods.

"Greeting, Miss Delphyne!" welcomed Percival, the animated skull embedded in the old oak tree which supported the Stick Palace of Delphyne's childhood, just to the left of the door. "And you have brought visitors!"

"Hello, Percival," the young witch responded, then turned to her companions. "Go on in and make yourselves at home. Is there anything I can do to help, Feron?"

"No, thank you," answered the half-elf druid. "I'll just get everything ready, and then I can begin." She took a few items out of her Heward's handy haversack and then passed it over to Thunderwolf, who took it inside the Stick Palace. The young fighter had never seen such a dwelling before and stared up at it in awe. In the meantime, Feron, clad in her druid robes and sandals, stared off into the distance, her eyes glazed and unfocused; she was receiving a spell unbidden directly from her Goddess. Once it had established a firm residence in her mind, she snapped out of her semi-trance and began painting glyphs and symbols on the rough, worn bark of the oak upon which the Stick Palace rested.

"How long is this going to take?" asked Delphyne.

"A full 24 hours," replied Feron, dipping her fingers into a bowl of paint and inscribing mystical figures onto the tree's bark.

Ever mindful of danger, Cal insisted on a rotating guard to protect Feron during the time she spent preparing her spell. Chalkan and his timber wolf, Toronaus, did an exploratory excursion in the forest all around the Stick Palace, looking for traces of any dangerous creatures. They found nothing, but that didn't dissuade Cal from wanting a guard up at all times. Infernia was actually glad of the guard duty when Telgrane's turn came up, as her master had insisted she stay inside her tinderbox rather than roam freely throughout a treehouse dwelling made of wood. She had been practicing not setting things ablaze when she touched them, but Delphyne still didn't want to take any chances and Telgrane couldn't really argue against her logic.

Feron continued her spell preparations all through the afternoon and evening, and then all through the night. Besides the glyph-painting, she burned incenses around the tree and chanted in a hauntingly beautiful tongue, a language that predated many entire civilizations. The next morning, as the rest of the adventuring group exited the Stick Palace after a good night's sleep to watch the end of the festivities, Feron's song of awakening came to a final, determined shout, and then the last vestige of strength seemed to drain out of her body. She crumpled to the ground in a dead faint.

Cal was the first to her side, feeling a strong pulse in her neck and determining that she didn't seem to be in any immediate danger. "She looks to be in a healing sleep," he told the others. "Let's get her inside, and let her recuperate." The cleric of Kord lifted the unconscious half-elf and carried her up to Delphyne's bedroom, to place her delicately upon the witch's bed.

"What about the spell?" asked Thunderwolf. "Did Feron finish it? Did it work?"

As if in response, the tree opened a pair of eyes from deep inside twin knotholes, a mouth cracked open through a sudden seam in its rough bark, and it spoke for the first time in its lengthy life.

"I am Coventry," he boomed, "Witch-Friend, Shelter-Giver to Esmerelda Blinx and Delphyne Babelberi. I have been given sentience and new purpose by Ehlonna of the Forests, through her mortal vessel Feron Dru. Enter at once into the Stick Place, for we must go." And with that, the door to the Stick Palace opened on its own.

The heroes piled through the door and up the stairs. Delphyne was the last to enter, rubbing her hands lovingly on the rough bark of the awakened tree. She noted that the awaken spell, now complete, had erased all of the magical glyphs Feron had painted upon the tree's surface.

"Mistress," Coventry acknowledged to the young witch in greeting as she walked through the doorway to her home. The door closed of its own accord upon her entrance. And then, once the heroes had all made it up the stairs, Coventry pulled his roots from the ground, his lower section splitting into two massive legs. "Prepare yourselves for travel," he boomed in a thunderous voice, and took the first steps of his life.

Inside the Stick Palace, Delphyne shrieked in surprise as her childhood home swayed back and forth to the rhythm of Coventry's lumbering gait. She quickly deployed the heroes around the kitchen and library areas, catching glasses, cups, dishes, pots, books, and bric-a-brac before they could fall off of shelves. The heroes spent a good deal of time hurriedly stowing breakables into lower cabinets. Cal ensured that Feron was still doing okay, but she slumbered on in Delphyne's bed, oblivious to the tumult.

After a dozen steps or so, Coventry's path twisted in some non-linear way, and the light from the sun above diminished to almost nothingness. Chalkan cast a light spell on his holy symbol, and the crescent moon illuminated the suddenly-dim interior of the Stick Palace.

"What happened?" asked Thunderwolf, his hand on the hilt of Xanthros in case this was some form of attack.

"It looks like we've entered the Plane of Shadows," said Telgrane.

"Indeed," boomed Coventry's voice, seemingly coming from the very floorboards of the Stick Palace, for the main level of Delphyne's dwelling was perched over the animated tree's "head." "Ehlonna has granted me the spells of one of her powerful druids, as well as a few other abilities, for the mission upon which we're being sent. We travel now through the Shadows, that we can make better time."

"Where are we going?" asked Delphyne, still getting used to the idea that she could now have a conversation with her house.

"We will drop Feron off at Ehlonna's Grove, in the care of the Sisters. Then we must journey toward the Plane of Fairie, to head off a contingent of those who would do our world harm."

As they traveled through the Plane of Shadows, Coventry explained their mission, all of which had come directly from Ehlonna herself upon his awakening into sentience. Many of the Gods were in constant combat with each other, although the rules by which they engaged such battles forbade direct confrontation; rather, they strove against each other through the use of mortal proxies. Incabulos, the God of Plagues, Sickness, Famine, Nightmares, Drought, and Disasters, had gathered a team of such proxies and was sending them from the Plane of Faerie directly to Ehlonna’s place of power on Oerth, a grove in the heart of the Vesve Forest. In the very center of Ehlonna's Grove stood an enormous tree, the Great Oak - this functioned as a beacon through which Ehlonna sent spells to her faithful. Were it to be destroyed, it would have everlasting repercussions among not only the druids who worshiped the Lady of the Forests, but also to many sylvan races: nymphs, dryads, centaurs, satyrs, and to some extent even elves.

"So we're going to the Land of Fairie?" asked Telgrane.

"We probably won't make it there in time," replied Coventry. "But if we hurry, we can meet the enemy in the Untamed Wildlands, a demiplane connecting Oerth to the Land of Fairie, rather than combating them here on Oerth, where they can do great harm to our world." As he spoke, the ambient light brightened around the Stick Palace. "We are here," intoned Coventry. "Bring Feron downstairs, if you will." Cal hurried to comply.

Exiting the Stick Palace, the heroes found themselves in a sun-dappled realm, under an enormous grove of trees so old that their branches hung over them like a cathedral. A trio of unicorns grazed over to the left, and a staggeringly beautiful woman with elven features approached from behind a tree. The soothing tones of a brook and rustle of the breeze-blown trees were the only sounds, until the nymph spoke in a voice as dazzling as sun on water.

"I am Callionda," she said. "I will tend to Ehlonna's Handmaiden. Leave Feron here with me to recuperate, in the Grove of the Lady, while the rest of you go forth and strike down those who would raze this place of beauty. And know this: should you fail in your duty, should you fall in battle, Feron will be here to lead the Sisters in the last line of defense against the Despoilers."

Cal passed Feron's unconscious form over to the supple nymph, who lowered her gently to the soft grass of the grove. Thunderwolf passed over Feron's magical haversack, in which her dragonscale armor and her weapons were stored. Then he and Cal nodded their greetings to the nymph and returned to the Stick Palace. Coventry lumbered over to the far side of the grove, stepping into a large ring of toadstoods - a fairy ring, which gated the tree and those within its care into another plane of existence.

"We have arrived in time," announced Coventry, looking about their new surroundings. The ancient tree stood in a wild expanse of untamed wilderness, with tall grasses everywhere and several gnarled, twisted trees growing in the distance. A thick, distant fog masked the horizon. Coventry headed directly toward it, guided no doubt by the Goddess Ehlonna. The heroes scampered up through the trap door in the library roof of the Stick Palace, taking positions on the highest platform - the very platform where the greenhag possessing Esmerelda Blinx's body had attempted taking over Delphyne's own form. The structure had been badly burned in the subsequent fire, but months ago Delphyne's adventuring companions had helped her to restore it to its original design. There they cast their preparatory spells: stoneskins upon Delphyne, Cal, and Telgrane, a Rary's telepathic bond spell linking the heroes mentally with Coventry, and a flame arrow spell - modified on the fly to cause sonic damage, thanks to Telgrane's experience as an archmage - cast upon the arrows of the group's two primary archers, Chalkan and Thunderwolf. Delphyne also cast a resist fire spell upon Coventry, worried that the mobile tree would still be as vulnerable to fire as any other.

As Coventry approached the bank of fog in the near distance, an ambulatory, treelike form of about the same general build stepped out of the clinging mists, its blackened branches devoid of any vegetation. As it approached, waves of grasses withered and died in a 100-foot radius all around it. Upon sighting the dark treant, the heroes felt a distinct fear clutching at their hearts - all but Telgrane, perhaps because he had been concentrating on releasing his fire elemental familiar from her tinderbox, and hadn't got a good initial look at what was apparently Incabulos's mortal proxy.

The treant, now completely out of the mist behind it, stopped and glared at Coventry with flaming eyes. "I am Blackrot, Plague-Bringer, Pestilent Scourge of Incabulos," thundered the blackened tree-shape. "Stand aside, that I may perform my unholy duties."

"I am Coventry, Forest-Guardian, Vigilant Warrior of Ehlonna," responded the great tree holding the Stick Palace in its upper branches. "I will not stand aside, nor will I allow you to enter my birth-world to do your mischief."

"A duel of proxies, then, between the two of us?" asked Blackrot, his reddish eyes glowing from within the darkened hollows of his twisted face.

"A duel," agreed Coventry. "I will fight you with all of my resources: with the ants that crawl upon my bark, with the squirrels that nest within my branches. I will fight you with every living thing I carry upon my wooden frame. And you will not reach the Oerth without first defeating me and my living army." At his words, the heroes ducked low on their platform, hiding under the cover of Coventry's highest branches, hoping not to be spotted, correctly reasoning that Coventry's words had been carefully chosen to allow the heroes into this "battle by proxies."

"Then I will begin with your defeat!" snarled Blackrot, advancing to attack. Behind him, several shambling shapes stumbled along, emerging from the fog to stand at his side.

Blackrot's initial act was to summon reinforcements. With the power of his will, he caused two of the twisted, withered trees in the vicinity to pull up their roots and join him in battle against the heroes. At the same time, he cast an insect plague spell at the top of the platform, having apparently spotted the heroes perched there. A massive swarm of locusts appeared, flitting about and clambering all over the adventurers.

Chalkan was the first of the group to respond, targeting as best he could through the swarm of flitting insects, sending a fireball from his wand hurling at Blackrot. The already blackened treant was engulfed in flame, but emerged from the inferno apparently none the worse for wear. The two shambling corpses at his sides were visibly singed from the attack, but continued their stumbling gait undeterred.

Cal unleashed a spell he had never before tried to cast. A great rumbling shook the ground at Blackrot's feet, and massive cracks split the earth all around him. Two of the shambling undead at Blackrot's side - for two more had emerged from the fog behind him - fell to the ground, as did one of the animated trees. Then both trees, half of the plague blights (for the shambling zombies were filled with a vile pestilence just waiting to be unleashed upon the Oerth), and even Blackrot himself plunged into the ever-widening chasms caused by Cal's earthquake spell. The treant gave a wail of fury as he was engulfed.

Cal yelled to the others - spitting out locusts that tried crawling into his mouth as he spoke - that the chasms would soon close back up, crushing anything still within them. Telgrane channeled the natural energy of his half-elemental form and sent a firestorm blanketing the area of combat, engulfing the plague blights in blistering flames. They said not a word as they collapsed to the ground, their feeble movements halted in the cleansing fire.

Not wanting to chance Blackrot climbing out of the chasm before it sealed back up, Delphyne cast a chain lightning spell focused primarily on the treant (for she could just make out the withered branches at the top of his head poking out from the ground) and arcing out to two misty forms that had just drifted forward from the fog. Blackrot again screamed in pain as the spell struck; whether the electricity had an effect on the two cloudlike masses of greenish vapors was debatable, for they continued on in their beelines for Coventry.

Coventry cast a spell of his own, for Ehlonna had temporarily filled his mind with the knowledge of druidic spellcraft, and an enormous earth elemental appeared by Blackrot's chasm, sinking down into the ground and slamming a massive fist into the fire-hardened treant's side as it did so. But the treant, unable to climb out of the chasm in time and unable to teleport to safety, did the one thing he could do to save himself: he summoned an earth elemental of his own, who grabbed up Blackrot by a twisted branch and hurled him out of the rift mere seconds before it closed up. Cal's earthquake sealed off the two animated trees and two of the plague blights, but Blackrot had escaped his doom.

Climbing up from the ground, unharmed by the earthquake spell's aftereffects, the two opposing earth elementals started battering each other. The one summoned by Coventry tried to get to Blackrot, while its opposite number kept the first one at bay.

Up on the platform, Infernia's flames kept the swarming locusts at bay long enough for Telgrane to cast a Mordenkainen's sword spell at Blackrot. The energy sword manifested directly before the evil treant and gouged a rent deep into the blackened bark of his deformed body. While the two earth elementals pounded away at each other, the pair of phiuhls, sentient clouds of poison gas, continued in their unerring aerial path toward Coventry.

Eager to get away from the swarming locusts, several of the heroes scattered, but not before a spell from Cal released both himself and Delphyne from the fear effect that was keeping them both from functioning at their best. Thunderwolf climbed back down into the Stick Palace and headed for the balcony just off what had been Esmerelda Blinx's bedroom; as he passed the kitchen, he saw Chalkan's timber wolf shaking in fear beneath the dining room table. Cal had jumped upon his drow floatdisk and rode it to another, lower platform: the bathroom, alighting through the open part of the half-wall above the tub. Delphyne had mounted her broom and risen above the main roof of the Stick Palace, while her raven familiar circled the area looking for new threats - and occasionally diving into the cloud of locusts for a quick snack.

One of the phiuhls had made a beeline for the balcony where Thunderwolf had been shooting arrows, but the plucky fighter found no need to retreat, for Telgrane summoned a greater air elemental in the vicinity and its whirlwind form sucked the cloud-monster into a vortex from which it couldn't escape. The archmage directed the elemental over to do the same to the other phiuhl, harmlessly ending the threat from both.

In the midst of the chaos of all of this combat, there was yet another enemy unseen by any of the heroes. It was Iggy, Delphyne's raven familiar, who first spotted the threat: in addition to the roughly circular area of dead grass in the Untamed Wildlands centered around Blackrot, a thin tendril of dead grass made a wriggling way away from the fight, heading back the way Coventry had come. The raven reported this sighting to his mistress, and the Rary's telepathic bond spell still in effect alerted the entire group of heroes.

However, by this time Blackrot had decided to concentrate on ridding himself of one enemy at a time. High above the others, perched on a flying broom, Delphyne made an excellent first target. The twisted treant cast a finger of death at the young witch, stopping her heart in an instant. No noise passed Delphyne's lips as she plummeted to the roof of the Stick Palace, but the assembled group of heroes could hear her silent death scream over the mental link they shared. Coventry grabbed up the limp form of the witch, gently placing her inside the bathtub on the raised platform where Cal had moved to, where her body would likely come to no further harm, then devoted his attention back to the battle. Cal took a moment to close Delphyne's eyes and cross her hands over her chest, before he too focused on the battle they dared not lose.

Delphyne's death at Blackrot's spell was avenged by the earth elemental that Coventry had summoned; the treant, having been gashed in several places by Telgrane's sword-shaped field of energy, was punched to splinters by a pair of fists the size of boulders. The fire-hardened treant crashed to the ground in a blast of splintering limbs. As the fiery glow in his eyes started to diminish for good, Blackrot let out a final, deep cackle of glee. "Congratulations," he croaked. "You have defeated me – but in doing so, you have won the battle, only to have lost the war!"

Coventry spun around behind him, tracking the waving tendril of blackened grass leading back the way he had come - just in time to see an enormous, serpentine body pop up from below the ground, where it had been burrowing. Its head arced into the center of the fairy ring that had transported the heroes to the Untamed Wildlands, its lengthy, sinuous body following until its tail vanished into the ground at the center of the ring of toadstools. As Coventry raced at best speed back to the fairy ring, the heroes frantically talked amongst themselves over the mental link they shared.

"It's gotten to Oerth!" cried Telgrane. "We've got to follow it!"

"There's no telling how much damage it can do to Ehlonna's Grove before we get there!" responded Chalkan.

"It's worse than that," replied Cal sternly. "Did you see the blackened grasses it left it its wake above it as it burrowed? It's got the same sort of rotting effect as Blackrot himself. And what do you think its first action will be when it arrives through the fairy ring by the Grove of Ehlonna?"

"It...will rot the toadstools there," reasoned Telgrane. "Shutting down the gate between Oerth and the Untamed Wildlands!"

"How could it get through?" asked Thunderwolf. "Why wouldn't the fairy ring mushrooms on this side of the gate not shrivel up?"

"It could be a delayed effect," reasoned Cal. "Or the creature may be able to activate and deactivate its aura of rot at will."

"We have arrived," intoned Coventry's booming voice. "The gate no longer works. We are stranded here."

"Cal, can you plane shift us back home?" demanded Chalkan. "Or gate us, Telgrane?" Both spellcasters sadly shook their heads; neither had prepared the appropriate spell that morning.

"We're stuck here for the better part of a day, until we can prepare the spells we need in the morning," replied the cleric of Kord.

"Then Feron's on her own back there," Thunderwolf sighed, worry in his voice.

"We have failed," replied Coventry, already regretting his sudden sentience, which had thus far led only to the death of his mistress and perhaps the death of druidic magic upon his homeworld.

- - -

This was Delphyne's first death experience, and it was fortunate that I had already had Vicki playing Coventry as well as her witch PC, so she had a character to run after Delphyne died. (She was also running Iggy the raven familiar, but that wouldn't have been a whole lot of fun for her had that been her only character.)

There were a couple of funny comments during this adventure. After Feron completed the awaken spell and collapsed into unconsciousness, Dan piped up with a wry observation: "It's a good thing Rale isn't here!" - hinting that Rale shouldn't be trusted in the vicinity of an unconscious woman he'd been hitting on for the majority of his adventuring career. Then, when Delphyne fell victim to Blackrot's finger of death spell and crashed onto the roof of the Stick Palace, Logan got even more laughter out of the group by repeating Dan's earlier observation, this time implying that Rale shouldn't even be trusted with the dead body of a woman in his group. Even Dan, who plays Rale, couldn't help but laugh at that.

Also, since this adventure took place on the same day as the Player Challenges, I got a good laugh from the group by telling Logan to "keep his pants on" when he was rushing me for an answer to something or other.

I printed out a character sheet for Coventry for this adventure (he had Feron's spellcasting ability, so Vicki could just reference her Feron folder when deciding on his spells). I didn't bother with a "miniature" of Coventry, instead moving around the full-page (of the back of a sheet from a desk calendar) map of the Stick Palace to denote his location compared with the other combatants (the battle area was a blank sheet of desk calendar paper, filled with 1-inch squares marked off with a yardstick). However, for Blackrot, I tried again to create a treant figure out of a cardboard tube from a paper towel roll. This time I kept it simple; I cut small notches along the bottom and folded them out as "roots," and did the same along the top (with much longer, and more gnarled notches) for "tree limbs." I drew on a pair of eyes and a mouth on the front, drew on his "arm-branches" on the sides, and drew (and colored in with a black Sharpie) the space between his legs on the front and back. The end result was a fairly stable treant mini, much better than the utterly craptastic version I had tried back in adventure 7.

The animated trees were represented by two pairs of "tree trunk and branches" Duplo blocks, stacked two high. (Stuart and Logan had a bunch of these when they were little, and Joey and Harry still play with them from time to time when Joey's over at our house.)

And the reason this is only "Part 1" of the adventure isn't because we ran out of time in this session, but because I had anticipated the possibility that at least some of Blackrot's forces might make it to the fairy ring and end up right there by Ehlonna's Grove. In Part 2, we'll see how Feron and the Sisters fare against the plague serpent, and whether or not the druids of the Lady of the Forests are going to have to all switch over to venerating Obad-Hai to get any druid spells in the future.

ADVENTURE 73: NATURAL DISASTER, PART 2

PC Roster:
NPC Roster:
Having planned for the contingency without knowing whether or not it would actually be needed, I was somewhat pleased to see that my preparations weren't going to have been in vain. The PCs who had run through the first part of "Natural Disaster" were stranded in the Untamed Wildlands and a plague serpent had made it to Ehlonna's Grove. It looked like I was going to have a battle between the plague serpent and the Sisters after all.

Once the plague serpent made it through the fairy ring and the players exhausted all avenues of getting themselves back to Oerth, I passed out the simplified one-page character sheets I had devised for the Sisters. Dan ran Callionda and Logan ran Sapphirelle, both 16th-level nymph druids, while Jacob ran Andalarinda and Joey ran Bellarosa, dryad rangers of 16th and 12th level, respectively. Andalarinda had a dire wolf animal companion and Bellarosa had an owl animal companion, and there were three unicorns in the grove that I had Logan, Jacob, and Joey each run as well. Vicki, naturally, ran Feron Dru, her other PC, who had been recuperating in Ehlonna's Grove after having cast an awaken spell to bring Coventry to sentience.

- - -

A serpentine head popped up out of the ground in the center of the fairy ring. The creature's sinuous body arced up out of the ring like a crashing wave, and the plague serpent took a moment to completely encircle the ring of toadstools before moving on to its true goal. Once its entire body - some 100 feet or more in length - had exited from the fairy ring gate, it manifested its innate powers of corruption and the toadstools began withering and sinking into themselves, turning black as they were instantaneously overcome by infection. Mere seconds after the plague serpent had exited the fairy ring gate, its aura of corruption had shut it down completely. Ehlonna's proxies were now stranded on the Untamed Wildlands, with no way to pursue the serpentine monster back to Oerth.

Turning toward its true goal, the Great Oak of Ehlonna's Grove, the means by which the Goddess distributed spells to her faithful on this material plane, the serpent gave a hiss of satisfaction and began crawling intently once more. As it moved, the grass underneath its body turned brown, shriveled up, and then became a black mass of sickly-looking vegetation.

Fortunately, Callionda's tender ministrations towards the unconscious Feron Dru had already been completed, and the half-elf druid had recovered her strength and had time to gear up for battle, donning her dragonhide armor, praying to Ehlonna for her daily allotment of spells, and gripping her scimitar. As the plague serpent spent time ensuring the fairy ring could not be used as a gate by those who were pursuing it, Feron deployed the Sisters and their companions against the scaled threat.

Feron began by casting a baleful polymorph at the snake-beast, hoping to turn it into an inoffensive bunny, but the vile serpent shook off the spell with little effort. The dryad rangers Andalarinda and Bellarosa let loose with a barrage of arrows from their finely-crafted bows, while the trio of unicorns charged from another direction. The first of these opted not to stab at the invading beast with its spiral alicorn, but rather to tap it in an almost gentle fashion, channeling a neutralize poison spell through its magical horn. As the other two unicorn horns pierced the serpent's side, it felt the power of its poisonous venom and the equally poisonous clouds of gas it could breathe out of its mouth dry up and become inert. In one fell blow, the lead unicorn had deprived the beast of two of its most powerful weapons. It hissed in frustration and almost wasted time biting at the magnificent unicorn in retaliation, but then recalled its primary mission and turned its attention back to the Great Oak. The beast needed neither its venom nor its poisonous breath to destroy the massive tree.

The Great Oak's stout trunk was easily 40 feet in diameter. From Ehlonna's Grove, it rose up to the very heavens, but this was a magical place holy to the Lady of the Forests - from outside the grove, one could fly above the entire Vesve Forest and never encounter it or even know of its existence. The plague serpent initially ignored Feron and the Sisters, who hurled spells at it as it approached, and wound itself several times around the Great Oak, damaging the armorlike bark by mere contact with its corrosive touch. Once it had a tight grip around the Great Oak, it knew it would remain in place and drain the tree of its life energy, or die in the attempt.

Feron and the Sisters, of course, did what they could to prevent the Great Oak's demise. Callionda ran to the opposite side of the mighty tree and placed her hands upon the rough bark, channeling a death ward spell into it in an attempt to fend off whatever effect the serpent's foul body might produce. The unicorn trio stabbed their ivory horns at the beast's body where it was still low enough to reach, and Andalarinda's dire wolf did its best to chew through the serpent's scaly armor, not realizing that it would have likely died immediately from the attempt had the serpent's poisonous blood not been neutralized by the first unicorn's primary attack. Knowing the importance of this battle, Feron even sent her eagle companion Felix to do what he could; the brave bird of prey raked at the serpentine beast with its talons and beak, to little effect. Bellarosa's tiny owl companion was nowhere as fierce as Felix, but it too did what it could to stop this travesty from occurring.

Safely nestled in the Great Oak, the plague serpent was now confident enough of its tight perch to strike out at its enemies. It struck at Feron with blinding speed, catching her in its open jaws, and if its fangs were currently unable to pump venom into the druid's body they at least pierced her armor and her flesh and brought about an unwanted grunt of pain from the half-elf.

Seeing the thick bark of the Great Oak start to blacken beneath the plague serpent's coils, Sapphirelle began casting healing spells at the massive tree while Callionda cast a mass bear's endurance at her Sisters and their companions to help keep them in the fight. Still pinned inside the serpent's mouth, Feron managed to cast a finger of death spell at the serpent, but while it did some visible (and audible, judging by the fierce hissing on the part of the serpent after the spell had been cast) damage, it failed to kill the beast outright. The dryad rangers continued pumping the serpent's sides full of arrows and their animal companions and the unicorns did what they could. Together, they were visibly weakening the serpent; thick, viscous blood dripped from its foul body in a dozen different places.

Callionda and Sapphirelle continued casting healing spells onto the Great Oak, doing what they could to keep it as healthy as they could under the plague serpent's continual vile touch. From what they could see of the blackness staining the tree's bark, they were keeping it at a fairly even level, and at least preventing it from becoming more damaged than it already was.

Up in the serpent's mouth, Feron was giving serious thought to wildshaping into a fire elemental, certain that that would be enough to convince the serpent to release her, when the point suddenly became moot. The iron grip of the beast's jaws started to slacken as the last of its life blood oozed out of its vile body, and its muscles relaxed as death came to it swiftly. Feron leaped out of its mouth and rolled to the ground, continuing rolling as the plague serpent's unliving body fell with a mighty crash to the ground.

The Sisters had done it: the plague serpent was dead, and the Great Oak was still living. Bands of evil-looking black rot ran around its trunk where the plague serpent had gripped its bark, but healing spells from the three druids soon took care of that.

The battle between proxies now being over, Ehlonna was free to interact directly with the Sisters and their allies. With a mere thought, Coventry and the adventurers in the Stick Palace disappeared from the Untamed Wildlands and appeared in the Grove of Ehlonna, where they marveled at the death of the plague serpent who had gotten past their guard. Ehlonna didn't manifest into physical form, but her presence was felt by all there; not only did Delphyne's dead form begin glowing with a healing energy, culminating with her sitting back up, puzzled as to what she was doing in the bathtub in the Stick Palace, but all of the adventurers began glowing with a green verdant aura, as the Lady of the Forests boosted their bodies, each in a specific way, tailored to their individual needs.

Feron rejoined her companions, and the heroes said their grateful goodbyes to the Sisters of Ehlonna. With the last of his Goddess-given power, Coventry stepped back into the shadows, transporting the group through the Plane of Shadows back to the outskirts of Greyhawk City.

- - -

This half of the adventure didn't take nearly as long to play as the first half, especially once Logan's unicorn completely nerfed my plague serpent's poison breath and poison bite. (What can I say? I rolled a natural "1" on its saving throw - them's the breaks.) I was left with one monster with a rotting touch and a bite/improved grab/constrict attack against three druids, two rangers, three unicorns, an eagle, a dire wolf, and an owl. I did some damage to the Great Oak (it had 999 hit points, and for every 111 hit points of damage it took, the highest level of druid spells from Ehlonna were lost, so had it dropped to 888 hp no druids of Ehlonna would have been able to prepare 9th-level spells; had the plague serpent killed it entirely, Ehlonna's clerics wouldn't have been able to prepare any spells at all), but not enough to have any sort of an impact, even temporarily. But again, as is usually the case, I didn't know which PCs would be going through this adventure (other than both Feron and Delphyne) when I wrote it, and I had no idea how many of the Despoilers (Incabulos's proxies) would make it to Ehlonna's Grove to wreak mischief.

Joey (8 years old) wasn't particularly thrilled with having to play a girl, even for about a third of a session, but he liked the fact that the only miniature I had to represent Bellarosa's tiny owl animal companion was a giant owl D&D Mini, which he thought was cool-looking. (And he's right: it is.)

Vicki was a little worried that Ehlonna would return Delphyne to life as an elf, as had happened earlier in the campaign with Akari (the last time a PC had been brought back to life by the direct will of a deity), but I pointed out to her that Corellon Larethian, the Elf-God, had been responsible for Akari's "upgrade" to elven status, whereas Ehlonna was a Goddess of Nature, not tied to any particular race. In any case, Delphyne returned to life at her normal level, still quite human, and I hand-waved the XP cost of the awaken spell for Feron since I had pretty much forced her to cast it as a plot device.

Oh, and while this adventure had no real treasure, the effect of the glowing, green auras at the end of the adventure was Ehlonna's gift to her proxies: each of the PCs' lowest ability score was raised by two points. That turned out to be Cal and Thunderwolf's Intelligence, Chalkan and Feron's Constitution, Delphyne's Charisma, and Telgrane's Strength.

ADVENTURE 74: AMBROSIA RED

PC Roster:
NPC Roster:
Before I get into the story this time, I should point out one irregularity: when I told the group that they'd be starting out in the Pit-Fight, with Cal taking on an obnoxious challenger in the Pit, everyone decided which PC they'd be running through the adventure (like normal), but Dan not only set down Cal on the map entering the Pit-Fight tavern but also placed Rale in among the crowd watching the action, figuring (quite rightly) that there'd be a pretty high likelihood that the rogue would also be there. So, unlike our normal sessions, Dan ran both of his PCs through the majority of this adventure.

In Dan's defense, I had told everyone that we'd start the session's action with Cal fighting in the Pit-Fight, and that the tavern was where they'd pick up their plot hook for this adventure, so Dan had no idea that once again I had blatantly lied to my group, and that the adventure itself would be taking place there in the tavern. Serves me right for trying to lure the group into complacency; I ended up with an extra PC in the adventure for my efforts.

Oh, and Joey had asked me during an earlier session why everyone else had gotten a prophecy but not his PC, Thunderwolf. I reminded him that Pinwhistle had given everyone their prophecies in an adventure shortly before Thunderwolf joined the group, but that if he wanted I'd whip him up a prophecy of his own in a future adventure. This is where I made good on that promise.

- - -

It didn't take long for the patrons of the Pit-Fight to recognize the cleric of Kord as he and a small group of his adventuring partners entered the tavern. "Cal!" they cried, and "Cal's here!" they called to their friends in the back of the tavern. The muscular cleric was a frequent competitor in the various pit-fights that gave the tavern its name, and Cal was a favorite of the group: not only because he was a famous adventurer who nonetheless opted to spend his time (and gold!) in a ramshackle bar on the edge of the poorest section of the city, but also because, as an adventurer, he was often away for days or weeks at a time, allowing the title to pass on to others in his absence.

"You gotta take care of that Firefists clown for us," grumbled Belligrose, the owner, bartender, and head bouncer of the tavern as he passed a free mug of ale to the tavern's most famous patron. "He's been beating everybody who climbs into the Pit with him, and he's been pretty damn obnoxious about it, too. Thinks he's better than us what live here, too, the bum! The pot's up to 100 gold for anyone who can take him down, and I know you can take the wind out of his sails, Cal." That statement started up a round of fans cheering Cal's name over and over again, and they practically dragged him over to the Pit. Galrich, meanwhile, sidled up to the bar and bought his first mug of ale for the night; Aerik stood next to his liege but opted not to drink, himself - not that he couldn't use a drink, but the vintages available in the tavern weren't up to his dwarven standards, and he wanted to keep an eye out to ensure nobody tried anything against the half-orc who would one day ascend to the throne of Kordovia.

Akari was scanning the crowd as well, but he was using his finely-honed senses to scan for auras of evil. This being the seedy part of Greyhawk City, he did pick up on a handful of patrons of a somewhat evil bent, but he wasn't worried about the low-level evil in the hearts of a scattered group of bar-dwellers; he was looking out for the higher levels of evil that emanated in full force from fiends like his own ancestor, Grottlepox. Seeing nothing even remotely near that strength of evil, he wandered behind Cal's wake, positioning himself so he could get a good view of the upcoming bout. Delphyne followed suit.

Thunderwolf was in the midst of doing the same, until an old crone grabbed him by the arm and swung him around to face her. She was easily 70 years of age if not older, and wore filthy rags in multiple layers. "She comes," the old woman intoned. "Soon she comes, following the beckoning finger, responding to the voiced call, seeking to balance the damaged scales, arriving to take Xanthros, and to take the blood of Xanthros!" Then, her dire predictions voiced, she released Thunderwolf's sleeve and wandered over to the bar, where Belligrose passed her over a hunk of day-old bread.

The young fighter was unsure of what to make of the old woman, and asked the nearest patron about her, a young man who was busy cheering on Cal's arrival. "Her? That's Old Abby," the reveler said above the chanting of the crowd. "She's harmless. Lives in the streets, as far as anybody knows. She's a bit of a wise-woman, though there are those who say she's just a nutter." Thunderwolf gave the old lady a final look, but she was busy biting into her hardened bread and paid him no attention.

Cal peeked down into the Pit as he stripped off his traveling cloak, his shirt, and removed his rings and other jewelry, as was required of those entering the combat arena. This was to be a standard bare-knuckles fight, to a knockout or a submission. His opponent, Prescott Flamefists, was busy studiously jabbing the area directly in front of him, oblivious to all but his own practiced punches, not even bothering to look up as Cal climbed down the rope ladder and into the Pit. The cleric could see a series of flame tattoos gracing Prescott's hands and lower arms, no doubt the reason for his odd nomenclature.

"Let's make this interesting," Cal suggested. "The loser of this match has to buy drinks for the winner for a month." Prescott didn't bother stopping his air-sparring, but one side of his mouth curled up in a self-satisfied sneer and he replied, "Deal." Then a whistle was blown from above, the signal for the match to begin, and the crowd's cheers became even louder, as nearly everyone spurred their local cleric to victory.

Cal approached warily, his fists at the ready, and Prescott danced back and forth as he took a few steps forward, but it seemed clear that he was waiting for Cal to make the first move. The two circled each other, looking for an opening.

Up above, the screams of the crowd took a slightly different pitch - at least, over by the tavern's door they did, where a cloaked figure of Death itself had suddenly manifested. The skeletal being carried a scythe and pointed a bony finger straight ahead, slowly moving his arm and his gaze across the crowd. Those in the immediate vicinity scrambled away from the Grim Reaper, but down in the Pit Cal noticed nothing different. As he and Prescott circled each other, Cal suddenly recognized a sort of mental buzzing inside his head - the kind he associated with a spellcasting attempt that had failed. His eyes had been on Prescott the whole time, and he was fairly sure that his opponent wouldn't have been able to pull off any spellcasting without Cal's notice.

Meanwhile, mist had suddenly started spilling down from the tavern's ceiling in thin columns, rather like nebulous stalactites. As they hit the floor they altered shape, solidifying into humanoid figures. Each was dressed in the clothing of the upper classes, and invariably each wore a high-collared cape, black on the outside with red lining. They looked like nothing so much as people dressed up in comically stereotypical vampire garb - and their speech even accentuated the look, for the vampire spawn did their best to give the appearance of world-weary nightwalkers. "Now we must slake our eternal thirst," one said to himself as he bore his hypnotic gaze onto a nearby waitress. "We, who forever walk in darkness," brooded one of his nearby companions.

Akari's inherent sense of evil detection suddenly lit up, for the undead who had suddenly dropped at various points throughout the tavern were definitely evil, their auras burning much brighter in his sight than those of a few of the patrons. As he approached the nearest foe, Hoardmaster ready in his hand, he heard his target's best attempt at a long-suffering tone - "Feed we now on the human chattel before us, to quench the undying thirst tormenting us throughout the ages" - and realized with disgust he wasn't just up against vampires, he was up against pretentious vampires!

Hoardmaster cut through the vampire's neck in a single blow, and he exploded back into a fine mist.

Thunderwolf shot several arrows into another of these vampire spawn, while over at the bar Galrich swung his greataxe into the back of another (but not before swigging down the rest of his tankard of ale). Aerik scuttled over to follow his liege, dwarven waraxe swinging to take out any vampire within range. Delphyne stepped back against the wall, took a good look at the possible targets, and then let fly with a chain lightning spell that hit a vampire directly across the top of the Pit and then arced out to hit another four of the undead. They cried out in surprise and pain, their voices turning immediately from world-weary immortals to those of frightened teenagers.

However, of the nine vampire spawn in the tavern, some of them had been doing fairly well for themselves. One, over in the corner, had captured Rale in a gaze of domination and made him into his obedient slave. Another did the same to Galrich almost immediately after locking eyes with the burly barbarian; the half-orc had a long history of being unable to fend off attacks against his mind. Fortunately, Delphyne saw what was transpiring over by Galrich and Aerik and cast a magic circle against evil spell upon herself, then maneuvered through the panicked crowd to encompass Galrich within her radius of protection. The vampire who had dominated the half-orc barbarian got a sudden surprise when his willing victim, who had been standing obediently with his neck at the ready, suddenly snapped out of it and sent a powerful fist crashing into the pompous undead's face.

Down in the Pit, Prescott had tired of the preliminaries - actually, he had tired of his invisible associate, Gothika, trying and failing multiple times to successfully cast mind fog and feeblemind spells upon the cleric of Kord to weaken him up - and decided for a more direct approach. He closed the distance between them and lashed out with a fist now covered in the illusion of flames, striking Cal and draining a small portion of his life energy. Cal had experienced this type of draining before, and suddenly realized he was bare-knuckle fighting an undead monstrosity of some sort, in a pit some 20 feet below the tavern's floor above him, without his holy symbol, his pouch of spell components, or even his Guild ring as a means of escape. By this point, the screams above were no longer those of enthusiasts cheering on their favorite in the Pit, but rather the frightened cries of bar patrons suddeny plunged into a world of chaos.

Cal cast a holy word spell, one which required naught but a voiced prayer from the cleric's lips, and the spell rose up from the Pit and blasted through a good section of the tavern. All but one of the vampire spawn disintegrated into mist at once, the sole survivor being the one who had dominated Galrich but was now doing his level best to escape from the rage-fueled barbarian; his frantic attempts at flight had carried him out of the range of Cal's spell. Prescott Flamefists found himself not only deaf and blind but paralyzed as well; Cal couldn't see it, but Gothika, the vampire sorceress perched invisibly on the side of one of the Pit's wall about halfway up, was also deafened and blinded by the spell. However, Cal was an adventurer, used to fighting his battles far from innocent bystanders; he had failed to account for the inherent moral natures of the bar taverns above, and some of them, having been judged by the spell Cal had unleashed, felt their hearts stopping in their chests. They died, unwitting victims to their own evil natures, no matter how much less brightly their auras emanated evil than the undead who had been Cal's only intended targets.

Cal called up to those above, specifically Aerik, who had been holding the cleric's discarded clothing and other possessions, to toss him down his gear. The dwarf obliged, Cal's gear falling with a plop onto the Pit floor, over in the corner.

But by that time, the second wave of vampire spawn entered the scene. Mist slid under the door behind the bar that led to a storage area and spilled into the tavern, coalescing into vampire spawn dressed in the same manner as those of the first wave. Still more mist flowed in from outside, sliding soundlessly past the illusion of the Grim Reaper that barred the doorway, still pointing a bony finger back and forth across the crowd as if seeking the target it would slay, its only true purpose keeping the panicked tavern-goers from using the sole exit from the Pit-Fight. All in all, eleven new vampire spawn entered the Pit-Fight and headed for the mortals nearest them, eager to sample their blood.

Down in the Pit there were new arrivals as well. Seeing that Prescott had been paralyzed by his holy word spell, Cal reached down to gather up his holy symbol and pouch of spell components when a wave of rats came swarming from under one of the two doors along the bottom of the Pit. Almost immediately, Cal's gear - not to mention the lower half of his own body - was covered in biting, squeaking, disease-laden rodents. Akari looked down into the Pit and decided to send some help Cal's way. With a mental call, the paladin reached out across the planes and summoned forth his white-feathered griffon, Tsukitora, from the Beastlands. The creature manifested at the bottom of the Pit, where it immediately began clawing and biting at the numerous rodents.

In an effort to escape the rats, Cal opened the door and found even more rats gathered there, rushing to follow their counterparts into the Pit. Standing among them were two figures: an elderly man leaning upon a cane, and a younger man in dark-colored plate mail, with an evil-looking greatsword in his hand. Cal had never met the second individual, but his description matched that of Jathrig Blakesnake, the Dark Reaver, who had not too long ago ambushed a group of Cal's teammates in a dark alley as an attempt to get to the Kord-blooded cleric. The other fellow was a stranger to Cal; he was Lord Pendrake, who fancied himself the Lord of Vampires in Greyhawk City - and who was directly responsible for the foppish vampire spawn bothering the tavern patrons up above.

Just as quickly as he had opened it, Cal slammed the door shut and scrambled back to fetch his holy symbol, currently buried under several layers of rats, who were scrambling over each other to bite at the celestial griffon. The double door didn't stay closed for long, for the two vampires pulled them open and the Dark Reaver rushed into the room; Lord Pendrake opted out of hand-to-hand combat and attempted - fruitlessly - to bend Cal to his will through the force of his dominating stare.

Akari, seeing the new combatants in the Pit, first called forth the power of Hieroneous through his holy symbol, and slew a large number of the remaining vampire spawn in a turning attempt that blasted them into nothingness. Then he leapt over the railing and allowed his boots of levitation to slow his descent; he landed near the Dark Reaver and started hacking away with Hoardmaster. Galrich and Aerik, having between them slain a few of the newly-arrived vampire spawn and watched as Delphyne cut down a handful of them with another chain lightning spell, opted to follow Akari to where the real action was and leapt the full 20 feet into the Pit. They landed among a swarm of rats. Then the doors behind them - a twin to the pair from which the Dark Reaver had entered - opened, revealing yet even more rats and an awakened vampiric dire wolf, Bloodmuzzle. Galrich turned to face this new attacker, and Aerik followed suit.

It had become ridiculously crowded in the 20-foot square of the Pit, with four Wing Three adventurers and a celestial griffon having it out with the Dark Reaver and swarms upon swarms of living rats, while Bloodmuzzle and Lord Pendrake attacked through the open doorways at either end of the combat arena and Prescott Flamefists stood motionless and paralyzed in the midst of the melee. In the tavern above, Rale, Delphyne, and Thunderwolf had pretty much taken care of the last of the second wave of vampire spawn, and Delphyne put her wand of magic missiles to good use against Lord Pendrake, whose figure she could see from the Pit's railing across the way.

The first of the vampires in the Pit to be cut down was the Dark Reaver, after Akari channeled his full complement of smite evil attacks against his undead foe. Jathrig's body turned to mist, and immediately started floating back to his nearest coffin, hidden away under the sewers of the Styes. However, Delphyne had observed his demise, and rushed around the upper edge of the Pit to intercept his gaseous form, her amulet of the mists held in one hand. Once in position, she activated the power of the amulet, and the Dark Reaver's gaseous remains were absorbed into the magic item, to be held there until released by the young witch.

Cal called forth the words to a mass healing spell that cured his companions while simultaneously damaging the undead in the vicinity. Akari took the opportunity to leap upon the drow floatdisk he used as a shield; having spotted an unusual anomaly on the Pit's wall - a strong aura of evil in a spot where nobody seemed to be - he hovered up to the area and attacked Gothika, whose blindness and deafness was just starting to wear off while her greater invisibility spell still cloaked her form from view. While he missed with his attack, the vampire sorceress realized her cover was blown, and she voluntarily turned to mist to return to her hidden coffin, the better to rest up and attack the Kord-blooded cleric another day.

It didn't take long for Lord Pendrake to reach the same conclusion. The plan had been a simple one, and should have worked: lure Cal into the Pit with Prescott Flamefists, where, without his weapons, armor, holy symbol of Kord, or spell components, he should have been easy prey. He'd have been feebleminded while Lord Pendrake's ridiculous retinue of vampire spawn drew everyone's attention elsewhere, then whisked away to the Pendrake estate, where the five vampires - the most powerful such undead in the entire city of Greyhawk - would take turns drinking the blood of a god. They'd be careful not to drink Cal dry, ensuring many years of such sustenance.

But now, the plan seemed untenable. Cal had regained his holy symbol and spell components, knew exactly what he was facing, and had half a dozen powerful allies with him. Lord Pendrake called to Bloodmuzzle to return to their lair, then discorporated into a cloud of nearly invisible mist. The vampiric dire wolf soon followed suit, leaving only the paralyzed Prescott Flamefists behind.

Cal almost immediately hatched a plan. He dumped Flamefists over his shoulder and climbed the rope ladder back out of the Pit, the others following suit one way or the other. Then, explaining he could cast a wind walk spell on six others, he had Galrich cut the immobilized Flamefists down with his greatsword. As the vampire exploded into mist, which then drifted away in the same direction as the other vampires, Cal cast his spell upon himself, Akari, Delphyne, Galrich, Aerik, and Thunderwolf. (Rale opted to stay behind and help the remaining tavern patrons injured in the fight, and Akari dismissed Tsukitora back to his celestial realms before Cal cast his spell.) Then the group simply followed the gaseous form of Prescott Flamefists while in cloudy, misty forms themselves. Unable to do anything but head directly to his coffin, the vampire led the heroes to the sewer lair of Jathrig Blacksnake, where the other four vampires had readied spare coffins as well. (Actually, Bloodmuzzle had no coffin, but had a pile of grave dirt spread out in a heap where he lay during the daytime.) Cal dropped the heroes out of the wind walk spell just before the final door to the vampire lair, so they could prepare their buffing spells in readiness for this final fight.

Once all of the death wards, stoneskins, and the like had been cast, Galrich kicked open the door and immediately spotted the coffins off to the right, with Bloodmuzzle curled in a heap to the left and one final coffin sitting in the middle of a small "island" in the midst of a pool of acidic-looking liquid at the back of the room. However, of immediate concern were the twin constructs Lord Pendrake had installed to look after the vampires as they rested; these were rune guardians, whose metallic bodies were etched with glowing glyphs of power.

Galrich and Aerik rushed forward, blades hacking at the unliving constructs blocking access to the vampires' coffins. Thunderwolf settled himself into a corner and started peppering them with arrows, but the constructs seemed to shrug off the majority of any damage from the heroes' weapons. Then they retaliated, blasting the heroes with a lightning bolt and a cone of cold that together caught everyone in at least one area of effect. Delphyne tried casting dispel magic upon the nearest construct, and managed to temporarily cause its glyphs to darken, but the effect wore off far too soon for her liking.

In the meantime, Prescott Flamefists had settled into his coffin and lay there helplessly, but the other vampires had returned voluntarily and were able to revert to solid form. Gothika actually did much better here, fighting for her very existence than trying to surreptitiously cast mind-weakening spells on Cal, and she did a great deal of damage with a well-placed chain lightning spell that caught nearly all of the adventurers in arcs of electricity. Still, it soon became apparent that the vampires were less powerful than their living adversaries, and this was made all the more clear once Cal's mass heal spell cured all of his allies of their previous wounds while slaying Bloodmuzzle outright and dropping Lord Prescott and Gothika down to the bare minimum stamina to even move. The female vampire took to gaseous form and remanifested back at the Dark Reaver's coffin on the island, beating Lord Pendrake to the punch by a mere moment. He too had thoughts of retreat, but he was cut down by Akari's laying on of hands, which flooded his system with healing energy that reduced him to mist. Gothika was reduced to mist by a blast from Delphyne's wand of magic missiles, and she too was forced to return to her coffin. Faced with three helpless vampires in their coffins, Galich took great pleasure in chopping off their heads with his greatsword, permanently destroying them, while the other heroes kept the rune guardians busy. Lord Pendrake had chosen his guardians well, for the mechanical constructs proved to be a pair of very powerful foes, but in the end they too were dealt with permanently.

Akari floated over to the Dark Reaver's coffin on his floatdisk to check it out, but no sooner did he fly over the pool of acid than a blobby, greenish creature floated to the top of the liquid and start forming pseudopods with which to strike the paladin. Seeing the enormous size of the arcane ooze protecting Jethrig's coffin, the group unanimously decided that discretion was the better part of valor in this instance, and Akari hightailed it back over to the others, allowing Cal to seal the whole pool section off with a permanent wall of stone spell. With any luck, the arcane ooze would remain trapped behind the wall and cause no trouble to anyone.

There wasn't much in the way of treasure among the coffins, merely Lord Pendrake's masterwork cane. The only vampire not yet permanently dealt with was the Dark Reaver, currently trapped in Delphyne's amulet, and the group planned to release him into an open field at noon the next day, allowing the sun to take care of him for good. In the meantime, Cal insisted on returning to the Pit-Fight, to gather up the bodies of the bar patrons he had inadvertently killed with his holy word spell. He'd learned a valuable - and expensive, since he was determined to use raise dead spells to return them to life in the days to come - lesson about fighting amongst bystanders, innocent or otherwise. Even Akari, who knew for a fact that those slain had had the stain of evil on their souls, agreed that this was the right thing to do, for the patrons could always be swayed to renounce their evil ways and walk the path of righteousness in time, but only if they lived to see the errors of their ways.

While they were there, Delphyne took the opportunity to cast a dispel magic spell on the permanent image of the Grim Reaper, who still stood his ground pointing a bony finger at potential victims who were no longer even there. Belligrose was glad to see the last of it.

Galrich took the opportunity, while Cal and the others were seeing to the proper retrieval of the corpses of those slain by his holy word spell, to order his second mug of ale of the night. It tasted all the better by dint of being free, Belligrose commenting that it was the least he could do. Not cognizant of the inner workings of magic, he had no idea that the patrons Cal was working so diligently to prepare for a return to life via raise dead spells had been slain by Cal himself; he had just assumed the vampires had caused their deaths, and Cal's efforts only made him that much more heroic in the bartender's eyes.

"A pretty good evening after all," the half-orc muttered to himself, swigging his free ale. Aerik couldn't disagree.

ADVENTURE 75: TRENCH WARFARE

PC Roster:
It was early morning in the Greyhawk City Adventurers Guild. Over in Wing Three, a few of the adventurers were up already and mucking about in the kitchen; Thunderwolf had declared it was his turn to make breakfast, and he was doing a credible job scrambling some eggs over the small cookfire. Chalkan had stumbled over to the sofa in the living room with a mug of tea, and Akari joined him there. Most of the others were still asleep in their rooms, but Feron had brought her clothes into the women's bathing room and stepped into the small pool of water, eager to have a good morning's soak before worrying about the events of the day to come.

As she settled down into the warm, relaxing water, she heard some sort of a commotion going on downstairs. With a thought of "It never fails!" she listened to hear if the guys down in the living area could handle whatever the fuss was all about.

Downstairs, the commotion was nothing any of the gathered heroes would have expected. There were shouts of surprise coming from the hallway below them, and the flapping of a great pair of wings. Akari and Chalkan looked over to the stairway leading up from the main hallway below, and Thunderwolf popped his head out of the kitchen in time to see a large, white sea bird flapping its way up the stairwell. Its massive wings slapped both opposite walls as it staggered its way up the stairwell, burst into the living area, and then flew up the shorter stairwell leading to the sleeping and bathing areas. Akari reflexively detected it for evil and relaxed when he saw it was not; only then did he realize that none of the adventurers were armed or wearing their armor, so he was a bit unsure of what he would have done had the albatross been a true threat. But he and Thunderwolf shared a puzzled look as the great seabird flapped its way to the closed door of the women's bathroom, turned the knob with a webbed foot, and staggered inside.

Feron let loose an involuntary shriek of surprise as the albatross flopped to the floor, tripped its way across the room, and plopped into the pool with her. It completely submerged, and the young druid saw a dark figure heading her way under the water. It crossed the small pool and a moment later a humanlike face popped up before Feron, long hair plastered to the side of the elderly woman's head and a look of absolute exhaustion evident on her features.

"Child of the Land," sputtered the Lady Dorca in the Druidic tongue, before collapsing unconscious into Feron's arms.

- - -

"She's in here," Feron gestured, leading the others into the women's bathroom. She'd hastily thrown on her clothes after dragging the Lady Dorca over to the side of the bathing pool. The elderly mermaid lay on her back, in a sleep so deep it almost seemed like a coma.

Akari put a hand to the side of the mermaid's neck. "Her pulse is steady," he announced. "And I don't see any wounds."

"I think it's just exhaustion," replied Feron. "You should have seen her face when she popped up out of the water."

"Then let me try a lesser restoration spell," said the paladin, laying his hands upon either side of the Lady Dorca's temples and speaking the words to his prayer. A deep sigh escaped from the lips of the elderly mermaid, and her eyes flickered open - only to gape widely at the sight of the tiefling bending over her. She sat up abruptly, arm raised as if to deflect a blow. Akari raised both hands to show they were empty, and backed away. Behind him, Rale poked his head through the open door, having been awakened at the commotion and eager for a legitimate opportunity to check out the women's bathroom. Standing behind him was a young woman none of the other heroes had seen before - this was Desdemona "Dez" Honeytongue, a wizard whose spell repertoire had been specifically selected to support her acting career, and the highest-ranking of the cohorts Rale had recently attained. Besides Dez, he now had a handful of human and halfling rogues and actors working for him.

"We mean you no harm," replied Akari. "I'm Akari, and believe it or not we've met before; I just looked more elven back then, is all."

The Lady Dorca looked around in confusion at the group, but then spotted Feron and devoted her attention to her. "Child of the Land!" she cried, again speaking in the special language of the druids. "I come with a warning of great danger!"

She sat up and began her tale, pausing while Feron translated to the others. "My tribe has suffered terrible losses. They came suddenly, in the depths of the night, in great waves, like never before. Eel-men, anguillians, rising up from the depths of the great trench, to grab up our people and drag them, screaming, back down to the unknown deeps. We tried fighting back, but we were hopelessly outnumbered, and in the end all that we could do was to abandon our homes and flee far away to distant waters, knowing we’d likely never again see the waters of our births.

"And overseeing this attack from the trenches was a monster, a man of bones built much like you are, with two legs in place of a tail, who stood upon the broad shell of Dragon Turtle Goruka commanding his vile troops. Noble Goruka is no longer our tribal protector; he was apparently slain by this man of bones and reborn as a thing of death.

"I do not know what has become of those of our people who were taken back to the lightless depths of the trench, but I fear they have all been slain. But after seeing Princess Cerulea and the remains of our tribe to safety, I knew I must find you, for this man of bones is a danger to more than just the sea-peoples living near the trench. During his attack, he said that our captives were just the first step in his plan, that he would have his revenge upon his captor, even if he had escaped the man of bones in death many centuries before, and that if he could not slay the pal-a-din" - and here her tongue tripped over the unfamiliar word - "he would slay the pal-a-din's god by killing the very sun itself!"

"Pelor?" reasoned Thunderwolf, identifying the God of the Sun in the predominant pantheon of the region.

The pieces were coming together in Akari's mind, and he felt a shiver run down his spine. A man of bones, a paladin of Pelor who was his captor many centuries before.... "Tell me," he asked, "did this man of bones have a name?" Feron translated the question for the mermaid, and likewise repeated her answer in the Common tongue for the benefit of the others.

"Yes," confirmed the Lady Dorca. "He called himself 'Nakariah, the Lich-King.'"

Continuing her tale, the mermaid reported that Nakariah's attack upon the merfolk village had happened a full week ago. After fleeing with the remains of the tribe, the Lady Dorca knew of only one druid who might be able to counter this threat: Feron, with her group of fellow adventurers. Lacking the ability to teleport and not knowing where exactly to find Feron, the mermaid druid wildshaped into the form of an albatross and focused her attention on the dolphin necklace that Feron wore around her neck - that indeed, she was wearing now. For an entire week the Lady Dorca had flown, covering thousands of miles, catching only brief snatches of sleep while on the wing, until she had finally arrived here before an astonished Feron.

"We're responsible for this," Feron remarked to the others, speaking in the Common tongue. "We freed Nakariah from his prison; we've got to stop him."

"Um, yeah," agreed Thunderwolf. "I don't think that whole 'destroy the sun' thing is going to work out very well for us, otherwise."

"Have fun with that," replied Rale. "Undead liches, underwater combat...I'll go wake up Cal."

"Will we not assist the others?" asked Dez.

"I'm sorry," said Feron, clearly puzzled. "Just who are you again?"

"Dez Honeytongue," replied the actress, extending a hand. "I work for Rale." Feron noted that Dez was wearing a nightgown and Rale was still in his own sleepwear, and mentally assessed just what her duties for Rale consisted of.

"We're working on a play," called Rale over his shoulder as he approached the cleric of Kord's bedroom door. "Cal!" he cried, pounding on the door. "Wakey wakey!"

The group quickly outlined a plan. After awakening the rest of the heroes and explaining the situation, they jointly decided who would be doing what. The primary team would consist of Akari, Cal, Chalkan, Feron, and Thunderwolf, with the others acting as a ready reserve. Delphyne would act as the means of transportation; with two readied greater teleport spells she could drop the primary team off at the trench (after having been given a very detailed description by Feron, the only one of the group of heroes who had actually been at the top of the trench with Princess Cerulea to summon Dragon Turtle Goruka) and then return back to Guild Headquarters. The spellcasters prepared their spells, ensuring they had a way to provide a means of breathing water for each of the primary team. (Cal had a necklace of adaptation that would see to his needs, Feron planned to wildshape into a mermaid using the power of her dolphin necklace, and Akari had a potion of water breathing; the Lady Dorca could bestow water breathing upon Chalkan with a kiss, so that left only Delphyne and Thunderwolf needing water breathing spells.)

But before the group teleported off, Cal took the opportunity to cast a high-level divination spell, discern location. Surprisingly, the answer he got back from his spell indicated that the lich was not at his lair in the underwater trench, but rather heading across the ocean towards the Wild Coast on the northern continent. There was a brief discussion about whether they wanted to teleport to try to meet up with the lich, but this notion was quickly discarded; much better, argued Akari, thinking back on their encounters with the gnome lich Drago Von Mordak, to visit the Lich-King's lair when he wasn't around so they could find and destroy his phylactery. That way, when they did encounter him - and hopefully destroyed him - he wouldn't be able to remanifest.

"I'm still not going," replied Rale. "Even if the lich isn't there, he's liable to have other undead types in his lair. That's more up your alley, Cal." While the cleric of Kord readily agreed, he wasn't aware that the primary reason for Rale's decision remained unspoken: mainly, Rale didn't want to take any chance at all that he might meet up with another kraken like the one that had killed him so long ago (and devoured his beloved sword, Liverwurst).

"Are we ready to go?" asked the cleric. Everyone was; the spellcasters ensured everyone would be able to breathe underwater once they got there, and then Delphyne voiced the words to her greater teleport spell and the primary team - and the Lady Dorca - popped out of view.

A moment later, the young witch popped back into the living room of the Wing Three quarters, dripping wet and coughing water out of her lungs. "They're there," she announced to the others. Galrich and Aerik nodded, their weapons at the ready in case they were called in for backup. Telgrane sat on the sofa, brooding, realizing that an underwater adventure was not the optimal environment for a half-fire elemental wizard - and especially not for a fire elemental familiar!

Unnoticed by the others, Rale and Dez snuck quietly back into the rogue's bedroom, closing the door quietly behind them.

- - -

The group stood at the edge of the trench, looking down. The sun-dappled light that reached them from above didn't extend very much farther down the trench, which looked to be cloaked in absolute darkness not much deeper below where they stood. Akari shucked off his backpack and passed around sunrods to everyone. Now that Delphyne had teleported back to Headquarters and the Lady Dorca had said her farewells, eager to return to her people, there were just the five of them.

"Any thoughts as to how we're going to climb down there?" asked Thunderwolf.

"I plan on just swimming down," replied Feron, having already assumed the form of a mermaid via her wildshaping abilities. "I can probably help keep one of you from falling all the way down the trench."

"I've got my boots of levitation," remarked Akari, "so I should be able to rise and fall at will." He removed a ring from his finger and held it out. "One of you could wear my ring of feather falling, so if you fall off the edge of the cliff here you won't fall very fast."

"Dibs!" cried out Thunderwolf as he reached for the ring, having long ago adopted the custom of the group of adventurers his uncle had paired him up with. Cal wore a similar ring, so Chalkan was the only one without any special protection. Feron and Akari vowed to stick by the half-elven archer to keep him out of trouble during the descent. The spellcasters began casting their standard protective spells: Feron not only cast her customary stoneskin spell, but she and Cal cast a death ward on themselves and the two swordsmen (Akari cast one on himself as well), and the cleric also cast a freedom of movement that he figured would be useful. Finally, suspecting that there would be undead creatures protecting Nakariah's lair, Cal cast a hide from undead spell upon the whole group.

"This is a big trench," remarked Chalkan. "How do we know we're in the right area?"

"All we have to go on is the Lady Dorca's story that Nakariah led his eel-men up from the trench, from the general vicinity of Dragon Turtle Goruka's lair. This is where Princess Cerulea and I stood when we summoned him - I remember that coral formation over there, the one that kind of looks like a deer's head."

"Then let's go," announced Cal, stepping down over the ledge. The others followed suit, with Feron swimming back and forth between the group to ensure they didn't need any rescuing from a poorly-placed foot during the descent.

The light quickly diminished, until the only source of illumination was from the five sunrods. It was a surreal feeling, not being able to see anything beyond the collected radius of the artificial illumination, and knowing there could be literally miles of cliff below you. The fact that their sunrods were also a beacon directing the local inhabitants to their location was not a comforting thought.

After an unknown length of time descending to an equally unknown depth, Feron called out that she saw some openings in the cliff below. They were all roughly at the same depth, with a large cavern to the left, a smaller one to the right of that one, and three much smaller openings even further to the right. An eel-man popped its head out of the second cavern, a sharp-looking spear wielded in its pincers, and it squinted up painfully at the strangers bringing light into this lightless world. He called a warning back to others in the dwelling - in the Aquan tongue, Feron noted - and then ducked back into the comforting darkness of his cave.

"We've got eel-men below!" Feron called up to the rest of her group. "I think we're here!"

Akari willed his boots to allow him to plummet down to the level of the ledge before the cave opening and kicked his way over to landing on firm ground. Hoardmaster was put to good use slicing into the first of two eel-men who stood guarding the entrance, the evil in their souls quite evident to the paladin's senses. Akari could see there were two more anguillians behind the first two; they looked to have been crafting additional spears. All of the eel-men seemed discomforted by the unaccustomed illumination.

Chalkan dropped close enough to the cavern's opening to fire a seeking arrow at one of the anguillians facing Akari. The eel-man was quite shocked by the arrow which raced down from above and made a right angle turn to strike him directly in the chest.

Thunderwolf was the next to drop down, and he landed next to the paladin. The fighter swung a magical longsword, eschewing the use of Xanthros for fear of losing him down the trench. The sentient blade grumbled in his scabbard, but begrudgingly took it as an estimation of the value Thunderwolf placed upon him. It didn't look like Feron would be able to reach the enemies in her present form, so she wildshaped for a second time that morning, this time assuming the form of a Large water elemental. With her extended reach, she was able to punch at the anguillian Akari was currently facing.

But the eel-men were not without allies themselves. With a whistle, one of the anguillian rangers called forth two fiendish dire eels from their nook-holes off to the right. One swam to attack Akari, while the other made straight for Chalkan, who was still descending down to the level of the open caverns. Feron swung around and grappled the one who had been heading for Akari, tucking its head under a watery appendage and repeatedly pounding it in the face with her other fist. The remaining dire eel took a quick bite at Chalkan, but then its intended prey was suddenly snatched away.

Rale had been smart to have stayed on the reserve team for this outing, for a kraken swam out of the large cavern to the left and snagged at Chalkan, entangling him in a rubbery tentacle. The half-elf archer was aghast to see that this was no ordinary kraken, either, as evidenced by the patches of rubbery flesh missing from its form; he was suddenly very glad for the death ward spell Cal had cast upon him earlier, preventing the kraken's touch from draining him of life energy. The fact that the undead kraken could see the heroes at all merely indicated it was no mindless undead like a mere zombie, but a type retaining its own intelligence - and a formidable willpower as well, to break through Cal's hide from undead spell.

Attempting to free himself from the kraken's embrace with the strength of his own muscles and seeing how useless a game that was likely to be, Chalkan put his sorcerer skills to good use. Casting a blink spell upon himself, he snuck away from the beast through the Ethereal Plane. While he was at it, he walked his way through the solid rock and into the cave of the eel-men, then realized that any arrows he might shoot while the blink spell remained in effect would likely spend a good deal of time traveling through the Ethereal Plane (and thus not be significantly slowed by the water), and made ready to put his White-Wood Whisperbow to good use.

Cal dropped down to the eel-men's ledge and joined Thunderwolf in attacking the anguillians, as Akari turned to face the undead kraken. He leapt out at it with sword in hand, but was intercepted by a tentacle and soon found himself wrapped up in the same fashion as that Chalkan had just escaped. But although his legs were bound tightly, his hands - and, more importantly, his enchanted sword Hoardmaster - were free. Calling out to his god Hieroneous, Akari channeled a full day's worth of his ability to smite evil in a quartet of strikes with his sword, each hit stripping rotting flesh from the kraken wight, until its lifeless body fell down the side of the trench wall. Its tentacles released their grip upon Akari as it died, and he cut the tip of one off before it fell away from him. Grinning, the paladin stuffed the rotting tentacle into the extradimensional space in his magical haversack, with the mischievous thought of showing it to Rale when they got back.

However, the second fiendish dire eel had by this time targeted the paladin as his next meal, and Akari found himself fighting for his life against what seemed to be a near-infinite set of sharp, curved teeth. The eel instinctively activated its smite good ability, sensing in the paladin an opportunity it had had such few instances to use in its life. Akari felt himself blacking out, his unconscious body held in position by the power of his boots of levitation. Feron spotted that the paladin was in trouble, and called for one of the other divine spellcasters to go help him. Chalkan made it to Akari first and revived him with a charge from his staff of healing, fighting off the dire eel while he did so. The charge of healing energy was just enough to prevent the paladin from slipping into death, barely waking him to bleary consciousness.

During this time, another half dozen anguillians had swum up from a hole in the cavern's floor and spread out to attack Thunderwolf and Cal. The cleric and fighter were holding their own, and the eel-men weren't quite sure what to make of the arcane archer when Chalkan returned to the cavern by walking through the solid stone wall, and who then kept blinking in and out of existence at various spots all around them. But before too long, the original anguillian rangers lay dead upon the cavern floor, with most of the reinforcements joining them. The last eel-man turned to flee, but Chalkan tracked the curve of the passageway in the floor the anguillian had sped through, lined up his shot with a phase arrow, and sent it whizzing through the solid stone. Thunderwolf, no longer facing any enemies, hurried down the hole and confirmed the eel-man was dead, Chalkan's phase arrow having speared him in the back.

Cal cast a mass heal spell which gave Akari the strength and fortitude he needed to finish off the fiendish dire eel that had been attacking him. About the same time, Feron finally killed the one whose head she had pinned under her arm, having smashed its face in with her watery fist so many times it was spitting needlelike teeth out at an alarming rate. She finally snapped its neck and dropped it to fall in silence to the unseen bottom of the pitch-black trench.

The heroes gathered together in the anguillian cavern to regroup and have their wounds attended to. They realized that underwater, any open wound was sure to eventually attract sharks - or worse! - and they had already spilled quite a lot of blood, as well as having plenty of their own spilled as well. As soon as they had been healed up, they opted to move on. The first place they checked was the large cavern from which the undead kraken had appeared, figuring that he had made a more impressive guard beast than all of the anguillians combined. Examining the cave, Akari spotted a discarded ring of water walking and grabbed it up as communal loot, to be passed out later. (After all, it was of no use to any of the group right then, as they all needed to stay far under the surface of the ocean.) The only other items of any note were the five large pearls, each covered in etched runes and each slightly smaller than a clenched fist, embedded along the back half of the cavern, each one no closer than 10 feet from its nearest neighbor. Feron, still in her water elemental form but able to cast her spells while wildshaped, examined each pearl carefully with a detect magic spell and determined that the middle one held a necromantic effect, while the others dealt with teleportation magic. Akari tentatively touched one of the four teleport pearls, but nothing happened. The group quickly deduced that this was likely a way into Nakariah's true lair, for it made sense that an undead kraken would have no difficulty touching all four similar pearls at once. Still, they decided to check out the rest of the anguillian caverns before pressing on and testing their theory.

Continuing on through the tunnel the last eel-man had tried traversing before being cut down by Chalkan's phase arrow, the group exited into a large cavern. There was but a single anguillian there, this one significantly larger than the others they had encountered before, and he was at the far side of the cavern, over by an enormous clam. The group closed for combat, at which point Thunderwolf learned the hard way that these eel-men could attach themselves to a victim like a lamprey. The anguillian chieftain had chewed its way through Thunderwolf's flesh and was drinking in vast amounts of the fighter's blood before Feron grabbed him up in a watery hand, held Thunderwolf in the other, and vigorously pulled them apart. Thunderwolf screamed in pain and nearly passed out, but a quickly-cast healing spell soon had him feeling better.

The clam was heavy, but Cal helped heave it to one side, and as he had suspected, there was another tunnel directly below where it had sat - where the anguillian chieftain had shoved it into place before the heroes arrived. The short tunnel below led to a lower cavern, this one occupied by a small group of what the heroes assumed were the females of the tribe, considering their smaller size, their lack of weapons, and the numerous clutches of leathery eggs scattered along the cavern floor. Despite Akari determining that the females radiated evil as much as the males had, none of the group had the heart to cut them down. There were no further exits from the hatchery; the group backed away and returned to the undead kraken's lair.

"Is everybody ready?" asked Cal to the others, each stationed by one of the four teleport pearls. On his signal, the other four each touched the pearl in front of him or her, and the entire group found themselves instantly transported away.

They were now on the inside of a hollow sphere, the lower half of which was filled with water, and the upper half of which was filled with stale air. There was a stone walkway along the equator, and a stone throne jutting out over the surface of the pool. Behind the throne was a closed stone door.

The men pulled themselves up out of the water; Feron did the same and resumed her half-elven form while doing so. There was nothing of note by the throne, and the door proved to be locked - and likely arcane locked as well, judging by the difficulties it gave them in trying to smash their way in until Cal cast a dispel magic spell on the door. Soon thereafter, the group found themselves climbing a short flight of stairs leading to the intersection of two long rooms. To the left was a library; to the right, a magical laboratory.

Both rooms were filled with layers of dust. They went left and checked out the library first. Most of the books, tomes, and scrolls there dealt with the necromantic arts, although there were quite a few on celestial mechanics and astronomy. Two works were of note, as they lay open upon the sole table in the room: the first was a treatise on the sphere of annihilation and the talisman of the sphere; the other, an aged atlas of the northern continent. Looking closely, Feron saw a handwritten annotation along a section of the Wild Coast, which read "Pelor temp."

"It looks like whatever he's up to, it involves a temple of Pelor somewhere along the Wild Coast," she remarked to the others.

"That's where we'll need to go next, then," reasoned Cal, as Chalkan made himself useful dumping the arcane library's contents into an extradimensional space in their Heward's handy haversack. "But before we leave here, we need to find Nakariah's phylactery and destroy it."

"It's likely hidden from scrying," remarked Akari. "Remember, Joniah the Avenger destroyed Nakariah several times, but could never find his phylactery to prevent him from returning." After searching the room for possible phylactery hiding places and finding none, the group moved on to the laboratory. It was stocked with the standard equipment for brewing potions and magical oils, but all of the magical paraphernalia was covered in dust. An open closet in the back held shelves of what were likely spell components, most of it having rotted away centuries ago.

There was only one other exit from the laboratory; this led to a shrine. The prominent feature in the room was a bigger-than-life statue of a robed skeleton holding a staff in one hand with its other hand tucked into the folds of its robe. Feron cast another detect magic spell and learned that the large ruby that took the place of the only eye visible beneath the robe's hood radiated magic, as did the upper portion of the staff carried by what Cal belatedly realized was Vecna, the God of Secrets. Feron, after closer examination, discovered the ruby radiated powerful necromantic magic; they decided not to touch it. However, the staff's top radiated a magical aura associated with that of conjuration magic of the type focused on creation. Cal determined that the staff could likely be twisted to either the right or the left; picking the left at random, he caused toxic, yellowish fumes to rise up out of the floor - a cloudkill spell effect. The others rushed out of the room to avoid the spell's effects, while the cleric, immune to the vapors due to his necklace of adaptation, tried twisting the staff's tip in the opposite direction. After he did so, the entire statue of Vecna, plus the small plinth upon which it stood and the wall immediately behind it, slid to the left a good five feet, revealing a hidden passage leading further into darkness.

By this time, the others had noticed that the cloudkill spell effect was a variant, for it did not dissipate as the spell normally did, nor did it leave the vicinity of the room. Not wanting to waste the time to wait the spell effect out, Cal entered the hidden passageway, removed his magical necklace - for the poisonous vapors did not extend into the hallway with him - and slid it across the shrine room to the magical laboratory, where the others had fled. One at a time, the other heroes used the necklace to pass through the poisonous fumes in the Vecna shrine room.

There were two closed doors in the short hallway: one to the left and one directly ahead. Akari opened the closest, and was pleased to see the room was a treasure hoard, with chests of coins and gems, and, somewhat out of place, the massive skull of some carnivorous dinosaur. Feron, having entered behind the paladin, determined the skull had a magical aura and everyone quickly surmised that touching it was likely a bad idea.

Then, before the other three adventurers could enter the room, a net of chains fell from the ceiling upon the surprised paladin and druid. Immediately upon hitting them, it started rolling itself up and assuming a humanoid form - with Akari and Feron trapped inside it, pinned tightly and being slowly crushed to death. Feron managed to get off a rusting grasp spell, which disintegrated the chains in her immediate grasp, providing her a bit of breathing room. Akari struggled but could do little; fortunately, having assumed its humanoid form the chain golem was unable to entangle anyone else, so the combined forces of Chalkan, Cal, and Thunderwolf were enough to destroy the massive construct. Freeing Akari and Feron, they did a quick peek through the assorted items of treasure - spying a couple of ioun stones, a crystal ball, a periapt of proof against poison, and a magical helmet in amongst the coins, gems, and jewelry - but waited to claim anything for fear of setting off any additional traps.

Akari volunteered to open the final door, after he had determined it did not detect evil. However, while the door was nonmagical, the doorknob was not, and immediately after touching it Akari's world went dark. He gave a startled gasp of surprise, but was surprised to see that he made no sound at all. Experimenting, he quickly determined that he was not only blind, but mute as well. He turned to his companions, who immediately saw that the entirety of both of Akari's eyes were now pitch black. Cal cast a break enchantment spell upon Akari, and the paladin was relieved to find himself back to normal. One dispel magic spell later, the cleric reported the door was safe to open; unfortunately, it was locked beyond their ability to open it, so brute strength was their last resort. Infuriatingly, after having hacked the wooden door down to splinters, there was nothing on the other side but a stone wall - the whole thing was a trap, nothing more. And worse yet, this was the only door they hadn't been through yet.

That could only mean one thing, the group reasoned, and they spread out looking for secret doors. Feron was the first to discover it, right there in the hidden hallway, on the other side away from the treasury. By pushing an indentation in the stonework, a hidden door pivoted open.

"Good work!" commended Cal, stepping into the room. This was a larger room, some 25 feet to a side, with only one feature: a robed skeleton sitting in a throne carved from the very stone of the back wall. It held a metal staff etched with various runes across its lap, and stared unmoving at the intruders.

Akari burst into the room with Hoardmaster in hand, instinctively using his paladin's sight to determine if the skeleton was evil, and coming to a sudden halt upon learning it was not.

"What's wrong?" asked Chalkan, coming in behind Akari and poking the skeleton with his sword. It slid off of the throne, the staff making a clanging noise upon the stone floor. Akari spun all around, detecting to see if there was any evil to be found in the room, but there was nothing. The skeleton was just that, the remains of some poor human, not the animated kind. It appeared to be a decoy of some sort, which usually meant a trap....

Just as the paladin had finished reasoning that out, the first of the wraiths rose up silently from the floor. It struck out at Akari, its hand passing through the tiefling's body and robbing him of some of his vitality. Another flew into the room through a side wall, attempting to do the same to Cal, but he backed up a step and raised his holy symbol of Kord, blasting the undead into oblivion. Akari followed suit, and another handful of wraiths rose up through the floor, led by a truly enormous wraith which popped down out of the ceiling to attack Feron. But with Akari and Cal channeling the powers of their respective gods, the undead monstrosities were soon obliterated.

The throne proved to be unremarkable; the skeleton and staff nonmagical. However, after a few minutes of determined searching by the five adventurers, Thunderwolf finally discovered a chunk of stone in the wall by the corner that could be pulled out, and behind it was a silver chalice etched in runes. Close examination convinced both Akari and Cal - who had the most religious training - that the runes indicated they were a form of protection for a life-force; in short, a likely phylactery. Akari used Deathstriker - it seemed thematically appropriate - to smash the phylactery to pieces, then gathered them together and placed them into a belt pocket. He was now eager to meet up with Nakariah, for he longed to pull the smashed phylactery pieces out to display to the Lich-King just at the moment of his destruction.

"Now what?" asked Thunderwolf. "Do we head out to that temple of Pelor on the Wild Coast, or do we have time to go back to Headquarters first?"

Talking it over, Cal decided that the discern location spell he had cast that morning, the one which had determined the Lich-King was headed towards the Wild Coast, indicated that it would still likely take him the better part of a day to reach his destination. Deciding they'd have a better shot at the lich if they were all rested up and at full spellcasting power, they gathered up the treasure from Nakariah's hoard and used their Guild rings to bink back to Headquarters. Cal used their new crystal ball to scry upon the temple of Pelor, ensuring they'd have a good chance of teleporting there directly in the morning. They sent a Guild runner to the local temple of Pelor to explain the circumstances of their adventure, so the head cleric there could send word to the Wild Coast temple's head priest, giving him advance notice of the group's impending arrival the next day.

"We'd better get a good night's sleep," advised Cal. "Tomorrow's going to be a busy day."

"And an important one, too," added Thunderwolf. "It's not every day you have to fight to prevent the sun from being destroyed."

"This may well be the most serious threat we've ever faced," Feron predicted. The group apparently agreed, for there was nothing but somber faces in the Wing Three living quarters.

And then Akari remembered what he had stuffed away in his extradimensional haversack, and a broad grin spread across his fiendish features as he pulled a length of undead kraken tentacle out from his haversack and went to go find Rale.