(Cydra) Great Conflicts

A flurry of divinations

5 pm, 9/28/368 O.L.G., inside Angelfire Mountain

Our heroes, clustered around the illusion of the aag Analin’s petrified form, grow worried. If he was so tough before that they couldn’t even scratch him...

“I think it’s time for some divinations,” Orbius offers nervously. “We need to find out more about this garrison that will draw out the Bile Lords, and what we need to do to it or about it.”

“There’s a garrison?” Edmund chuckles as the group explains their confusion on the matter. He is still simply leaning against the wall and watching. “Maybe you need to establish a garrison here, not destroy one.”

Several of our heroes smack their heads. “Of course!” exclaims Orbius. “And we can probably verify that fairly easily!”

“And if that’s the case,” Lester adds cheerfully, “we may be able to borrow one from Malford!” The others look at him dubiously, but they tromp back down several levels to the entrance of Mount Angelfire.

Edmund takes his leave of the group, taking his whiny ally Baldric with him. “Let’s go back to Var!” Lester then exclaims. “So we can talk to Malford!”

Orbius nods, though he thinks it unlikely the god-king will help. “For now that seems to be the best course.” A walk through a trump later, they’ve returned to the castle of Var, and thence hurry to Horbin’s Halls of Healing.

Our heroes spend the evening chatting and discussing things. They talk about resurrecting Azekia, the solar who aided them in the Tomb of Horrors, but greed gets the better of Lester and he objects. Orbius frowns as the L says, “No way! We still owe her for her service, and if we bring her back we’ll have to pay up!”

“Well, I don’t know if Dexter would agree with your stance,” Horbin replies dryly.

“Aw, man, Azekia was a stuck up snob and a tight ass! Dexter wasn’t like that at all- he was more like you, Horbin. You know, he gave his life for all of us- the second time around, I mean. But he’s still alive, I think- or something.” He leans back, following the tangent artfully away from Azekia and rambling on, telling the story of how he and his allies, including Dexter, had needed to gather certain items and fulfill certain tasks in order to make Cydra real.* “One of those things was for one of us to assume the mantle of the Harvester of Water. And it was Dexter that did it.” He winks at the Eye. “That was the same adventure where we brought Boccob and his pals to Cydra.” By the time he’s done with his story, everyone’s forgotten all about bringing Azekia back, at least for the moment.

9 p.m., 9/28/368 O.L.G., the Halls of Healing, Var

Our heroes are chatting amicably over beer when Sybele first suggests making Thrush into the Emperor of Forinthia. “After all,” she says, “the old one’s gone, right? That’s a lot of what’s led to a lot of the big conflicts going on.”

“Emperor of Forinthia. Emperor Thrush.” Thrush tastes the words, leans back in the simple wooden chair he’s in, and slowly says, “I like that. I’ll have to mull that over.”

Horbin raises his eyebrows. “Well, you could get the blessings of Galador if you support the true vision of Galador and his blind Son Dexter.” He takes a speculative sip of his beverage. The furnishings here are relatively simple; though the chapel itself is decorated a bit more, the dining hall is very plain, and the dishes and cups are mostly simple fired clay, purchased from the gnome potters of Var.

Idle talk? Time will tell.

10 a.m., 9/29/368 O.L.G.

Lester communes with Malford.

Will you let us borrow a garrison? No.
Know anyone who would? No.
Would an illusion bring out the Bile Lords? Unlikely.
You think it would have to be a real garrison, huh? Yes.
You think anyone on Pesh would have an interest in getting rid of the Bile Lords? Yes.
Is this person in the Forinthian military? Yes.
Does their commander on Pesh have such an interest? Yes.
Any chance we could diplomacy it? Yes.
Would it have to involve surrendering or permanently allying ourselves to Forinthia? Maybe.
If Horbin approached the commander would we be more likely to succeed? Yes.
Does the commander know of my geas to never raise a hand against Galador? No.
If we can reach an accommodation with him, will it involve troops? Unknown.
Would a miracle get rid of the taint in Bile Mountain? Not completely.
Will gaining the help of the Forinthian leader make the job of defeating the Bile Lords significantly easier? No.
By using his help can we employ a stratagem to lure out the Bile Lords? Unknown.
Is Anvar mad at me? Uncertain.
Are any of the Bile Lords clerics? No.
Are all of the Bile Lords spellcasters? Unknown.
Do you think our chances are pretty good? Ask again later.
Have the Bile Lords brought back the aags we destroyed? Unknown.
Do we have anything to worry about regarding the poison from the bites of the aags? Yes.

“Uh oh,” he mutters. “We better see if there’s something we can do about the poison’s aftereffects- whatever they are.” He reports his findings and Orbius follows up with a contact other plane.

Why did Malford tell Lester to worry about the aag poison? Spawn.
What spell does Horbin have that could annihilate the spawn? None.
Would a limited wish? No.
Give me the name of Lester’s spell that will annihilate the spawn? None.

He purses his lips, dissatisfied. Thinking of the garrison, he realizes, I’m thinking about this all wrong.

When will the spawning take place? Death.
Give me the name of someone who can prevent or get rid of the spawning. Horbin.
Will he be able to get rid of the spawning by casting a spell today? No.
What must he do to get rid of the spawning in infected party members? Bless.

That sounds like a spell to me, Orbius thinks, pondering.

Who am I talking to? Na’Rat.

Suddenly the ground begins to shake. There’s a roaring sound and several objects fall from nearby shelves, including a clay bowl that shatters. Orbius is nearly thrown from his feet.

So what’s got you so irritated that the ground shakes when people say your name? War.

“Well, well,” says the Eye of Boccob. Again, some discussion ensues, followed by a commune from Horbin.

Hey Dexter, what’s up? Say, is the War of Ethics going well for the creature Orbius just contacted? Yes.
Does the ring we found on one of the aags allow one to dimension door or teleport into inner sanctum of Bile Mountain? No.
Does teleportation magic work in any part of Bile Mountain? No.
Is there an undead spawn among the party members? No.
Is there currently any danger of an undead springing out of any of our party members when they die? Yes.
Is it Sybele? No.
Lester? Yes.
Thrush? Yes.
The monk Kagera? No.
To eliminate this danger, will I cast a spell normally? Yes.
Is Bile Mountain being supplied? No.
Do the Bile Lords eat or consume? Yes.
Will besieging their mountain worry them? Yes.
Can they withstand a siege for a year or more? Yes.
Ten years? Yes.
Is there a Bile Lord spawning ground? Unknown.
Do the Bile Lords have a bolt hole or secret exit? Likely.
Do they receive visitors? Unknown.
Can the faith of you, Dexter, the Blind Son of Galador, survive a change of government on Forinthia? Of course.
Is the leader of the fleet outside of Pesh a loyal Galadorian? Yes.
Is the Emperor of Forinthia alive? Yes- his time is nigh.

“Whoa,” says Horbin. That last answer floors him. He tells them what he’s learned, and they all exchange worried glances.

“No worries,” says Drelvin. “The Emperor is cool. We’re old friends. Well, sort of- he and I are friendly, at least.”

“Dude, that was years ago,” gripes Lester.

“We went to Hell together,” Drelvin explains to the others. “Literally. Prayzose is a nice guy.”

As they are chatting, Sybele suddenly stiffens in her chair as she receives a sending from Marius the Chronomancer. Sybele- I call upon you for the second time. Drop any protections you have against scrying and prepare yourself.** She stands quickly. “Um, I gotta go,” she says. “Marius is calling.”

“Screw Marius!” Horbin snarls.

“No, I made a deal- I don’t know, though...”

“Marius? Great!” Jezebel exclaims, grinning. “I miss him! I want to come!”

Lester and Horbin exchange an uneasy glance.


Next Time: What is Sybele’s second task? What does it mean that the Emperor’s “time is nigh”? And what other old enemies of our heroes are waiting to crawl out of the woodwork??


*There’s a long, complicated backstory here, involving Darkhold and Fuligin and stuff, but Lester told a fragmented bit only, so that’s what you get here. Some day, in the Early Years thread....

**To rescue her daughter, Sybele made a deal with Marius, a powerful chronomancer, that she would serve him thrice. She has done so once already; this is number two.

I was wondering when Marius was going to come up again. And right at the wrong time. I wonder if he planned it that way, hmm?

Knightfall1972 said:

I was wondering when Marius was going to come up again. And right at the wrong time. I wonder if he planned it that way, hmm?

Click to expand...

Oh, I'm afraid that there's a lot more to this than just Marius. He just wanted Sybele so he could show off.

The Appointment of the Arrows

11:30 a.m., 9/29/368 O.L.G., the Halls of Healing, Var

“First things first,” says Horbin, and he invokes Dexter’s blessing on the group. “Hopefully that will fix the spawning issue,” he comments. Orbius frowns to himself, momentarily concerned that Horbin’s commune didn’t seem to completely match his own contact other plane. Then he dismisses his concern; after all, the entities contacted via his own arcane spell are known for less than total veracity.

Then Horbin turns to Sybele. “I don’t want Marius here. Let’s go somewhere else for this.”

The party tromps outside and walks down the cobbled streets of Var until they reach an area that has not yet been reclaimed from Fuligin’s ravages. Much of the ruined sections of the town are still uninhabited, with many of the buildings merely shells that seem eager to fall in a stiff wind. Traces of fire, occasional bones, graffiti in Abyssal and Infernal- the mark of evil still lays grim and heavy on Var.

It doesn’t take long for Marius the Chronomancer to arrive, resplendent in robes of silver and green. His hair is freshly cut, a light amber color from much time outdoors. His beard is trimmed neatly. An ostentatious show of wealth glitters on his fingers and around his neck.

“Marius!” cries Jezebel with joy, and rushes forward to embrace him. He smiles as he holds her close to him for a long moment- making Orbius rather uncomfortable- and then releases her.

“Jezebel,” he says with evident pleasure. “It’s good to see you.”

“I missed you!”

“And I, you.”

“All right, that’s enough,” Horbin snaps. “Let’s get this over with.”

Marius turns to look Horbin the MFKG Holy in the eye. He smiles slowly. “Your presence is neither requested nor required,” he says. “The only one I need is Sybele.”

“Can I come too?” Jezebel pleads.

“Very well,” he acquiesces easily. “Are you ready?” This is directed to Sybele.

She glances at Thrush, then nods.

“I want to go too!” Thrush blurts out. “If you’re going, honey, I’m coming with you!”

“I think not,” the chronomancer retorts. Thrush’s face goes red and he opens his mouth to argue, but Marius cuts him off. “Sybele will be in no real danger. If she was, I would not allow Jezebel to accompany us.”

“Then why not me too?”

Marius smiles slyly. “Sybele is enough to make my point.” And with that, he opens a gate.

Noon, 9/29/368 O.L.G., the Fields of Appointment, Elysium

Sybele, Marius and Jezebel step through the gate. Marius is well-prepared for the sight that greets them, but even so he cannot help it; his breath catches in his throat for a moment.

Completely taken aback, Sybele and her half-dragon daughter can only gape.

Before them are armies arrayed in precise ranks, extending as far as they can see. Thousands- maybe millions- of men, dwarves and many other things. Glowing like the sun, wheeling through the sky, several dozen angels keep watch above. And over there... devils?! And row after row after row of formians, and there are some giants, and...

Sybele shakes her head, dizzy at the sight of so much assembled might. What is this? she wonders, but she’s already answering her own question. Law. This is the force of Law! But- why did Marius bring me here?

“Stay behind me, as a bodyguard,” the wizard tells her, striding forward, and she and Jezebel follow him. Before the great host is a smaller assembly, centering on a half dozen individuals, all with small cadres of bodyguards. Sybele gasps as she recognizes one of them- Cluma, the guardian of order that the group killed long ago on Pesh, only to have his allies raise him from the dead and file a lawsuit against them. Cluma, with a seven part rod assembled in his hand- thanks to Marius’ trickery so many months before, when he had them trapped in a time loop.

Then her eyes go really wide as she spots a man she’s never seen, but recognizes as the face on most of her coins. Emperor Prayzose, she thinks in shock. What the hell is going on here?? He’s been missing for more than five years! And, she must remind herself, she is indirectly a part of the reason for it. She gulps, hoping he can’t read her thoughts at the moment.

What are they here for? The answer is only moments away. As Marius takes his place as the seventh individual in the inner circle, it becomes clear that they’ve been awaiting him. Sybele feels almost naked amongst so much incredible power of Law- and she can’t miss the fact that many glances are thrown her way. She can almost hear the whispers: Marius has a warrior of Chaos under his power! She’s bodyguarding him here, in the midst of the forces of Law! She has a feeling that the chronomancer’s prestige has just jumped up considerably.

The ceremony begins.

It is an investiture of sorts, Sybele quickly realizes; and soon enough the titles are announced. Some kind of inevitable bearing pins or badges in the shape of arrows goes from one to the next of the seven, asking each a question and receiving the same answer from each, and pinning the arrow to his breast.

“Emperor Prayzose of Forinthia, High Priest of the Light, do you accept your appointment as the First Arrow of Law?”

“I do.”

The metal creature solemnly fastens the Emperor’s badge to him.

“Cluma, Guardian of Order, wielder of the sacred Rod of Seven Parts, do you accept your appointment as the Second Arrow of Law?”

“I do.”

The investor moves around the circle, and none of them refuse their appointment.

“The Judge of Worlds, bringer of Law and ender of Chaos, do you accept your appointment as the Third Arrow of Law?

“Umoadess, by whatever name you choose, Lord of Many Worlds, do you accept your appointment as the Fourth Arrow of Law?

“Dekrasode, who brings the thunder and lightning, do you accept your appointment as the Fifth Arrow of Law?”

Dekrasode, thinks Sybele. That’s King Malford’s old enemy- the dragon that impersonated the Emperor of Wotan! Why does he keep looking at me like that? I hope he’s not still mad about the whole hatching of the dragon eggs... and I hope he doesn’t try to have me held here, the Court of Law is still looking for us!

“Marius the Chronomancer, do you accept your appointment as the Sixth Arrow of Law?

“Lord Alyth of Fendobarz, conqueror of many planes, do you accept your appointment as the Seventh Arrow of Law?”

The last response- a quiet “I do”- and then the ceremony is over.

“I don’t expect you to keep this a secret from your friends,” Marius tells Sybele moments later. “All of this will become well-known soon enough.” He smiles. “And now we’re done- for the moment. But don’t forget- your final task will come.”

“Oh, Marius,” sighs Jezebel, “that’s wonderful! You’ve really reached some lofty heights!”

“Indeed,” he answers, smiling tenderly at her.

6 p.m., 9/29/368 O.L.G., the Three Rubies tavern, Var

Over dinner and drinks our heroes are discussing the ceremony that Sybele was just witness to. “It looked like a multiplanar force,” Sybele responds to a question.

“Marius! Man, we need to do something about that guy!” Horbin swears to himself. “I can’t wait to explain a few things to him.”

Jezebel glowers at him. “What do you mean? Marius is a great man. He’s no danger to us.”

“No, we’re a danger to him,” mutters Horbin.

“Obviously there’s some sort of a misunderstanding between you and him,” Jezebel replies easily. “You just need to work out your differences.”

“Work out...? He held Till for years in a lower-planar prison! He kidnapped a bunch of our friends...”

“There must be some mistake, Marius wouldn’t do that.”

“He kidnapped you!”

“Well, that’s not how I heard the story,” she says huffily. “And I think I’ve heard enough! Stop talking about him like he’s an enemy, he’s not!” There’s a tear in the half-dragon’s eye.

Our heroes go to Reina’s house- Lester’s girlfriend- and spend the night in what they have come to fondly refer to as ‘adventurer groupie land.’


Next Time: What do you do when you face thousands of breath weapons at once?

Edit: Whoops! Looks like the first time I posted this it got eaten, so let me insert this between that last update there and the one that was here, and then I'll stick that'n after it...

2 p.m., 9/30/368 O.L.G., inside Angelfire Mountain

Our heroes have returned to what was once known as Bile Mountain. They wait momentarily while Orbius sends his mobile scry ahead. Lester is intoning syllables of elemental power, summoning a veritable army of incredibly powerful elementals.

“What’s up there?” asks Rex.

“Corridors... wait...” Orbius lets out a low whistle. “Stirges. Lots of them. They’re... they’re roosting on the ceiling, and they literally cover it.* Boccob’s balls! There are tons of them!”

Lester strides over. “No problem!” he says cheerfully.

The elementals move up to the level in question and form into whirlwinds. The group can hear a terrible noise arise, thousands of wings, splashing, the roar of high winds. Elementals and stirges alike die, but in the end the stirges can’t kill the elementals fast enough. Our heroes wait a few moments, then advance after the elementals to a scene of appalling carnage. Bile and blood and stirge bits are everywhere. The remaining elementals are mopping up the remaining stirges, but Lester’s swarm of elementals has been reduced to a precious few. A few minutes later it’s all over.

“Well,” says Lester abruptly, “it’s been fun, guys, but I gotta go.”

Everyone turns to him. “What?” Thrush gapes.

“Yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately,” the L goes on. “I am the Angel of Adventure and all, but I also have a lot of responsibilities. Some conversations I’ve had with Anvar have made me realize that I’ve been shirking my duty to the Temple of Elemental Good. I have a lot of work to do with those guys.”

“But, but Lester-“ Sybele protests.

“Aw, c’mon, guys, it isn’t like we’ll never see each other again! And if you ever really need me, you know where to find me. Well, maybe you don’t, since the Temple is hidden, but I’m sure you could manage to do it. Horbin could send me a sending or something.” He turns to Orbius. “What do you say, pal?”

The Eye glances sadly at Jezebel. “I’ll be in touch,” he says softly. She beams at him. “But I think Lester needs someone like me to look out for him.”

“Seeya, guys,” the L says sadly, and he and Orbius leave the group.**

Next Time: Without Lester and Orbius, our heroes move on up to the fifth level of Bile Mountain- formerly the beholder level!

*As tiny creatures, four stirges will fit into a 5’ square. The area in question was a 15’ wide passage 100’ long (60 squares), plus a section 15’x25’ (another 15 squares), plus a section 15’x190’ long (another 114 squares), plus another 15’x70’ (another 52 squares), plus a room 30’x50’ (60 more squares), yielding a total of 1204 bile-templated stirges, all capable of unleashing breath weapons that do a wee bit of damage and a wee bit of constitution damage. Sure, the DC is low, but if you’re rolling thousands of saving throws, you’re bound to fail a few, right?

Interestingly, by the book an encounter like this is worth NO XP to the party (because they’re so damn high level), but I ad hoc’ed it. It was a tactical challenge that, if mishandled, could have easily led to a tpk.

**Why did this happen, you ask? Well, it’s because James (Lester’s player) had a baby. This really limits his gaming time, so he asked me to start an online/pbp/email game for the L. This was his last regular game with us, sadly, though he has made it to one halfling session subsequently and he may be able to make it this weekend for another halfling session. *crosses fingers*

To the Inner Sanctum

2:30 p.m., 9/30/368 O.L.G., inside Angelfire Mountain

Our heroes creep up the stairs and make their way through a stinking mass of dead stirges and bile froth. The devastated area smells terrible.

“This place is gross!” Jezebel snaps. “I don’t like it here.” Sybele pats her on the shoulder.

The party moves through several chambers containing the moldering corpses of illithids, which only add to the smell, and they even spot the wall of temporal energy behind which they long ago found the body of Reth Fire-Scarred. Then they find a chamber with a strange creature levitating asleep in the air. Although it is more or less humanoid, its head is distinctly teardrop-shaped. Its skin is a bright bluish-silver, and long shaggy hair the color of a lime spills down its back. Its large eyes are closed and the lids twitch and spasm as if it is in the midst of an incredibly vivid dream. All around it on the ground are strange creatures ranging from demons to archons to noble salamanders. They, too, seem to be asleep.

Suddenly the creature gives out a strained, high scream. A momentary sense of fear washes over our heroes, but all of them throw it off.

“What is that?” wonders Rex.

Nobody has an answer. On the ground, one of the outsiders lets out a strange coughing scream, but all the creatures seem to remain asleep. The demon scream doesn’t seem to have the same effect as that of the weird levitating creature, so our heroes cautiously move in and start searching. Almost immediately, Rex’s draconic senses find a secret door and our heroes slip through it to a staircase leading upwards.

“I don’t think we ever fully explored this level,” comments Sybele thoughtfully. “We did a lot of teleporting around in Bile Mountain when we came in before.”

Thrush shakes his head. “I don’t want to explore this place. I want to find and kill the Bile Lords and be done with it.”

The group ascends, the dragon disciple eagerly taking the point. He’s itching for a fight, and as the stairs open into a chamber, he sees an icy humanoid standing guard there, with a beard like an icefall, covered in runes. Rex leaps forward and smashes it down in an instant; it never even has a chance to respond. Grinning, he moves on.

“Well, that was easy,” Thrush comments.

This level of the dungeon is riddled with small holes that its previous residents, the beholders and their leader Red-Eye, had disintegrated to make the entire thing a shooting gallery for their eye rays. Sybele shivers remembering how many beholders there were.

The party enters a beholder dueling chamber, set with various small walls and pieces of cover. Many vertical tunnels in the ceiling and floor are there as well, and it is by flying up one of these that the group moves forward. Even without Orbius’ presence, the magicks he had employed to aid the group do their job. Jezebel sighs.

Soon the group arrives at a four-way intersection. To each side except behind a door awaits only 20’ away.

“One of these was the door that led to the stairs up to the final level,” Sybele says. “But I can’t remember which.” Thrush swallows, increasingly looking nervous about the prospect of returning to face his former masters.

“How did you get through there before?” asked Ulla.

“We got the key,” Horbin remembers. “In fact, if I remember right, we actually made a deal with the leader of the ice giant guys.

“Wait,” interjects Rex. “Like the guy I killed at the top of the stairs?”

Horbin nods. “Yeah.” Rex looks perturbed- if he’d known about that, he wouldn’t have killed the rune-covered creature. But Horbin continues speaking before he has a chance to talk. “I think one of these doors leads to his chamber, and I think one of them leads to the upper level, like Sybele said.”

The group fans out enough to look over each door, and one of them is made of a strange coppery metal. “Orichalcum,” comments Sybele.

“That’s probably part of why the place is so hard to teleport or scry into,” Rex comments.

“You have no idea. That’s actually more of a plug than a door. It’s forty feet thick.” Horbin shakes his head balefully. “Let’s go talk to the ice king guy. His door was opposite the plug, I think.”

Indeed it is. The immoth ruler greets our heroes’ return to Bile Mountain with a grim look, but when they tell him that they’re attempting to overthrow the Bile Lords, he loses much of his air of threat. Then he seems persuaded to a helpful stance after a long negotiating session in which Sybele reveals her plan to open a casino in Bile Mountain. Soon the two are partners.

“We need the key again,” Sybele pleads.

”I do not have it,” the immoth ruler replies. “Since I gave it to you, it vanished.”

“It sank into the door,” remembers Horbin.

“But I can help you nonetheless.” The immoth grins, a frozen grimace. “I can fabricate one.”

5 p.m., 9/30/368 O.L.G.

The key sinks into the orichalcum plug, and slowly the plug recedes, revealing a hallway leading to a room. The plug is indeed 40’ thick, and it rides back on some sort of treads to a resting place in the midst of a room. Beyond the room, and faintly humming, is a massive, wide stairway up.

“That’s it,” Horbin and Thrush say in unison, then grin wanly at each other.

“That’s the stairway to the final level,” Thrush finishes.

“The resonating fields,” Horbin says. “Remember them?”

When they had ascended previously, the party had found a series of weird energy fields leading upward, each needing to be opened in a different way. As the group now begins to walk onto the stairway, they feel an increasingly strong resistance. Rex pushes through by sheer strength alone, and for a moment the field collapses, but not everyone can fit on the next set of steps at once, so the group’s forces are forced to split between different fields. Worse, as Kagera discovers, a failed attempt to push through results in a stiff electrical shock that affects everyone still behind that field.

The next field won’t give to strength, but everyone can feel a strange slightly painful tingling. Horbin recognizes it as negative energy, and snaps his finger. “Of course!” he exclaims, and channels energy at the field, boring open a hole. “This will only remain pierced for a moment,” he cries. “Hurry!” And he hustles through, followed by several others. Meanwhile, Rex forces his way through the field of strength again, collapsing it for a moment and allowing those still trapped below to advance to the second field.

The third field falls to neither strength nor a turning attempt. Sybele rubs her chin, unable to recall what the did here previously. Horbin shrugs when she looks at him.

The resonating fields literally smell like magic. Jezebel casts detect magic to examine the fields more closely and says, “Wow.” There are a lot of criss-crossing energy fields here, resonating and moving in a beautiful eldritch dance. Under her detection, the entire stairway is possessed of spiky energy; but the resonating fields themselves are entirely obvious, almost opaque with their radiance. The one before her now seems to be made of complexly interwoven strands of energy, like a wall of tangled string. She thinks about trying to dispel it, only half-heartedly since she’s pretty sure such a simple tactic will fail, and then studies it further. The string analogy is a good one... she reaches forward and touches it. It almost feels like... she starts using her knowledge of spellcraft and her detection to unravel the field, tentatively at first and then more boldly. She can do it! And she does. The field falls momentarily, and Horbin channels to bring down the second field, and everyone moves up.

The next field is barely visible to the naked eye, looking like warped paper pushed together in a large mass, with small gaps visible here and there. The group soon ascertains that they might be able to wriggle through, but their first several attempts result in splattering acid damaging over everyone on the upper level. “This isn’t working,” Rex complains.

“I can do it,” Kagera says from below.

The party rotates positions, with Jezebel dropping the arcane field again so that Kagera can move up. Then the monk studies the wall for a moment, selects a spot to try to squirm through, and starts working her way through the field like an eel. In a moment, it has collapsed temporarily.

The final field fills everyone with a sense of being observed. “This is where Zeebo persuaded it!” Sybele remembers. “Please, Mr. Field, we want to get past you. You remember some of us, right? We’re old friends! Let us through, please.” And the field does.

The group moves off the stairs, the field behind being squirmed through again by Kagera to drop it, and the entire party find themselves in a 20’ square landing. In the midst of it is an arcane diagram that fills most of the floor. Runes and glyphs of power are all around it.

“That’s the teleporter,” Horbin tells the party members who haven’t been here.

“I thought you couldn’t teleport here,” Ulla says.

“Right. This is the only exception we found, and it’s of incredible complexity. One might even say epic.”

“Well,” says Thrush nervously. His sword is out. Sweat is on his brow. “Man, they’re gonna be after me. I betrayed them.” He takes a deep breath. “Let’s get this over with.”

As one, the party moves onto the teleporter, and for the second time (for a few of them, anyway) they enter the Inner Sanctum of Bile Mountain.



Next Time: What awaits our heroes on the uppermost level of Bile Mountain?!?

Note the new post inserted two posts ago. Sorry the last one got posted out of sequence- the stirge post must have been eaten by the server, but I thought it got posted. My bad.

Excellent stuff as usual. Look out Bile Lords, here come the Heroes of Chaos!

Within the Inner Sactum

There’s a moment of dizzying disorientation, so bad that our heroes’ stomachs twist and momentarily threaten to empty themselves as the group appears in a chamber with four exits and-

Two large quadrupeds, tufted with ruined patches of fur, spit bile instantly at our heroes. Before the adventurers have even a moment to respond, they’ve been hit by a tremendous amount of damage.* Screams of pain echo as the group tries to shield themselves from the assault.

Furious, Thrush springs forward, his full plate sounding like a kitchen’s worth of pots and pans as he launches into a series of deadly sword moves that leaves the first bile beast twitching on the ground and the second wounded in barely a second and a half. Then, snarling, he draws back into a guard position. Just in time for Kagera to leap in and spring away again after missing with a kick.

But then the one that Thrush assumed he killed roars and struggles back to its feet, and he grits his teeth and hammers his greatsword down again. “Stay down, dammit!” he snarls, cracking the bone of its skull, and the creature collapses again. The other beast, meanwhile, tears into him, dragging its viciously sharp claws across his left side and tearing a slab of his arm away with its massive bite. Thrush snarls again, but glances meaningfully in Horbin’s direction.

Horbin’s busy. He fires off a sunray, damaging one of the bile beasts and blinding it for good measure. Then he unleashes the fury of Dexter in the form of a flame strike, which sears the monster badly. He glances over at Thrush- another round of attacks from the monster leaves him barely standing- and prepares a mass heal.

If anyone needs that, it’s Jezebel. The twin breath weapons almost killed her. But her head is cocked; she heard something squeaking down one of the passages, and retreats that way, hoping to avoid any more large area attacks. Sybele manages to transfer some health to her psionically as she hurries back towards the center of things after a glance in the direction of the noise.

“More bile stirges!” she cries out, her voice panicky. Orbius! Where are you when I need you? she moans inwardly. Kagera turns to the new threat, looking composed, as Jezebel shoots a fireball from a wand pulled from her belt.

“What the hell are those?” cries Kagera.

“Sh*t!” shouts Sybele. “Headless!”

Four weird creatures have emerged from one of the other halls leading away. They look at first glance like headless humans, but as they come forward they do weird little jumps and twists, shifting from one set of two limbs to the other. It seems that all four of its limbs work well as hands or feet.

Then they’re moving with unbelievable quickness, moving in gracefully to attack with their bare hands (or is it feet?). They shuffle back and forth, baffling to watch, hard to anticipate and difficult to defend against.

It’s just the sort of challenge that Kagera is looking for.

The monk leaps forward, and soon there is an almost blindingly-fast exchange of punches, chops, kicks and grabs between her and the headless. Sybele belches psionic acid at a pair of the headless, who dodge it completely and move to her, but they are interrupted as Thrush finishes off the bile beast and whirls to chop at them, baffling attack or no. There’s another flare of light and a whump! as Jezebel continues launching fireballs from her wand. “They’re coming!” she screams.

Kagera spins through a tremendous kick, striking one of the headless in the midsection, and is gratified as it drops to the ground. An especially strong blow drives the wind from another, leaving it stunned for a few precious instants- instants it cannot afford. “KIIIAII!!!” the monk screams, and flips the headless over and snaps its spine over her knee.

“The bile beasts are regenerating!” cries Horbin, trying to finish one of them off. Her curses. “Fire, or acid!”

“Stirges!” Jezebel screams again, and this time her fireball is just outside the room the group is in. She’s almost running backwards into the chamber, and she heads towards the exit opposite the stirges. She knows she can’t handle another volley of bile breath weapons at this point. She glances around the room- the bile beasts are regenerating quickly, the stirges are coming, and the headless are just about down. One is fleeing from Kagera, headed the way Jezebel herself is going, but a headless is probably a better bet than a ton of bile stirges. She tosses another fireball on the way, and then runs without looking back.

The headless turns out to be a much less safe enemy to pursue than she had calculated; as Kagera bursts through the door the headless springs through at the end of the hall, a terrible figure becomes visible- yellowed and old-looking, with bile dripping like sweat from it. A horrendous stench emits from it. Kagera tumbles away from it, gagging on the stink.

“The Bile Lords!” Sybele howls, seeing the figure from her position for an instant. Then there’s a crack of lightning, and she can’t see what’s happening...

Jezebel, reappraising her strategy, twists and runs into the corner of the chamber the group arrived in, blasting more of the bile stirges- and one of the unconscious bile beasts- with another fireball. The stirges are just about cleared out; she notes that the bile beast doesn’t seem to regenerate the fire damage and smiles to herself. I can finish them off with my scorching rays, she thinks.

The rest of the party is moving towards the Bile Lord. “We’ve already gotten two of you!” Horbin shouts. “Now we’ve come to finish-“ He chokes off as he recognizes the face of their adversary as Amnor.

Who they’ve already killed.

“Hey, no fair!” Horbin protests, but Amnor has already waved a hand at Thrush and made him vanish into a maze.

“Aw, man,” Sybele groans.

Seconds later Amnor the Bile Lord, grinning ferociously, conjures an acid storm. Fat droplets of greasy liquid begin raining down, and they don’t really seem to bother him. Our heroes, however, find the liquid painful and hiss and yelp as their skin burns at its touch.

“Dexter’s nadlies, you’re going to get it!” shouts Horbin, and invokes a holy aura around himself and Jezebel.

Amnor, meanwhile, has put our heroes completely on the defensive and now casts another spell, which, unfortunately, turns out to be a wall of force separating the party. He follows this up with an attempt to disintegrate Kagera, which leaves the monk very badly wounded. She springs away and gulps down a potion even while Horbin uses a miracle to disintegrate the Bile Lord’s wall of force, just in time to get caught in a freezing cone of frigid air. Ice crystals form on the wall, floor and ceiling as cold slashes out.

Sybele whips out her great big bow, fires at the Bile Lord, and manages to wound him while Horbin puffs up with righteous might. Then another wall of force cuts our heroes off again, but it lasts an even shorter time than the first one as Sybele uses her psionics to disintegrate it. Then she launches more arrows at Amnor.

As Amnor tries to cast another deadly spell, Horbin strikes. He was waiting for just such a thing, and his blow interrupts the Bile Lord. And then, suddenly, Thrush reappears, having finally found his way out of the maze that Amnor had consigned him to.

Suddenly things aren’t looking so good for the Bile Lord Amnor. He sneers, but there’s a combination of fury and fear on his face. Oh yeah, baby, we gonna kill you again, that’s what the look on his face is telling our heroes.

Horbin and Thrush press Amnor together. He pulls out and quaffs a potion, and his wounds are healing with tremendous speed, but he just can’t keep up with the damage our heroes are dealing to him.**

“Die, you bastard!” Thrush shouts, hacking brutally into the Bile Lord’s arm and leg. “Die and stay dead!!” Amnor staggers under the assault, and then Kagera leaps in with a kick and his neck snaps. The Bile Lord sags to the ground. As quickly as they can, our heroes burn his body (minus loot, of course), along with the regenerating creatures.

“Well,” says Horbin afterward, “now we know for sure that they can bring each other back.”

“I thought Orbius said they didn’t have a cleric?” inquires Jezebel.

Horbin shrugs. “Maybe he was wrong, or maybe they have another way...” He trails off. “Let’s just find them and finish this.”

A quick look at Amnor’s loot reveals bracers, a belt, a mask and a vial. Everything except the vial is magic. The vial turns out to be full of bile. With a shrug, Angelfire puts it into her belt pouch, just in case.

But a search of the level reveals no sign of any other inhabitants. Thrush knows the level well from his time as First Servant of the Bile Lords; he leads the group, from the initial chamber the teleporter led them to, down each hallway in turn. The first- leading west- leads to the chambers of the various servants of the Bile Lords. “But I think we’ve killed them all,” Thrush comments.

“As we’ve just seen, that may or may not matter,” Sybele points out.

“Crap, you’re right,” Thrush grumbles.

But none of the servants’ quarters show any sign of having been used recently.

North is the chamber the stirges came from, along with the forms of various creatures imprisoned in cages, mostly outsiders. But this direction leads nowhere else, and there are no enemies to strike down there.

South is the direction of the Bile Lords’ chambers, which are empty and do not appear in recent use with a single exception. That, they presume, was Amnor’s room- though even Thrush isn’t sure. The only thing they find in there is a flask, which, when uncorked, proves to hold bile.

“These guys are disgusting,” complains Jezebel.

East leads to a rougher area of natural caves. A year or so ago, when the party came here before, these were full of bile-infected creatures that they cleared out. Now it seems as though there’s nothing left here either, although there are still deep pools of bile in some places. Also in the eastern section of the level is the large chamber that had previously held the Crux Crystal that kept the bile running from the mountain and, seemingly, had maintained the anti-teleportation and divination aspects of the mountain. Sybele half expects to see the Crystal restored; but it is as shattered as ever, thousands of tiny pieces everywhere.

“Where the hell are they?” muses Horbin.

“I guess it’s time to search the whole place for secret doors,” Drelvin suggests with a wry grin. “We elves are good at that, you know.”

“Maybe not,” says Jezebel, peering intently into space in the middle of the chamber.

”What is it?” Sybele asks.

“Well, I’ve got a detect magic going- I thought maybe there’d be a residue from the crystal or something...” Even as she speaks, Horbin is casting a detect magic of his own. “But it’s not a residue, there’s an effect hanging there in space.” She pauses and looks around at everyone significantly. “I think it’s a portal.”


Next Time: The most shocking events of the entire campaign to date!

*Two breath weapons, each dealing 10d12 hp of acid damage. Pretty much everyone was caught in both of them. Ouch!

**Fast healing 20, folks.

Huzzah! Glad to hear it! Most shocking event so far?

Just how bad was the player reaction?