ADVENTURE 43: A SUDDEN BRAINSTORM
PC Roster:
Game Session Date: 21 January 2023
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"Flamecleft, huh?" asked Thurloe. "That's...an interesting name for a town."
"It's a mining village," replied Alewyth, who grew up in an underground dwarven city very much like Flamecleft. "I'll bet you anything there's lava visible at the bottom of a big rent in the earth, and that's where the mine's located." Flamecleft was indeed primarily a dwarven village, and most of it seemed to be directly supporting the mining industry, but surprisingly the second most numerous race living in the city was stone giants. It seemed the miners were primarily made up of members of the two races.
And, being a relatively small village where everyone seemed to know everyone else, it was no trouble identifying the dreamer they'd come to rescue - upon asking, the dreamwalkers were not only told it was Dagda Ironforge they sought, but they were also given directions to her house. Knocking on the door, they saw another dwarven woman, Gemma Broadstone, answer. Gemma was Dagda's sister and was looking after her as she slept the weeks away.
Alewyth explained the reason for the dreamwalkers' visit and Gemma ushered them in, eager to see if these five could awaken her sister when all other attempts had failed. They lifted Dagda off of her stone bed (complete with stone pillow; these dwarves didn't really know a whole lot about comfort, Xandro decided) and set her on the floor in the middle of the room. Alewyth attached the leather headband around Dagda's brow and positioned the dreamstone so it was in place in the middle of the dwarven woman's forehead. Zander called forth his cooshee from its statue form, setting the elven dog in place as a protector while the dreamwalkers settled themselves to sleep in a circle around Dagda. And with that, their consciousnesses left their mortal bodies and traversed the planes into the dreamlands - no terribly difficult task, for everyone did the same thing each night when they went to bed.
Only usually, they woke up the next morning.
As always, the five moogle guides were there to meet the dreamwalkers and lead them to the Corridor of Dreams, a series of endless hallways filled with doors as far as the eye could see. Mogo was there, hovering before one particular door. "This is the dream, kupo!" he said, opening the door and allowing his five students to walk inside Dagda's dream.
However, this time they didn't just all show up next to each other in the dream. As each dreamwalker stepped through the door, he or she ended up in a separate part of the dwarf's dream, for Dagda was dreaming about a labyrinth, with stone walls reaching from floor to ceiling. The passageways twisted this way and that, and Dagda was doing her best trying to find her way out of the maze. One by one, each of the five dreamwalkers found themselves in the same predicament: alone in a section of maze without any idea about which way was which.
"DAGDA!" called Alewyth at the top of her lungs, hoping the other dwarven woman would be able to hear her. But the only answer was a brutish roar, which echoed up and down the twisting corridors. There was something in the maze with them.
Thurloe had been spending the last few days perusing several spells he'd collected in the spellbooks gathered from wizards he and his teammates had defeated over the months, and while he hadn't mastered any new spells in a few weeks, he was well aware there was a spell, locate person, that would be of incredible help in this dream. But although he knew he couldn't cast the spell in the Mortal World, he also knew this was just a dream and Mogo had been training them on how to manipulate dreams from the inside. Therefore, the spellsword decided, there was no reason why he couldn't cast a locate person spell inside this dream; going about the motions, he got a distinct sense that Dagda was currently located somewhere off to his front and right. Of course, even if the spell was correct, there was no way to know which particular passageway would lead him closer to her, so he arbitrarily chose one and decided to see where it would take him. As he moved, turning corners occasionally, he always had a sense of the direction Dagda was in with regards to his current location, so he could only assume the spell he had just dream-cast had worked.
Xandro likewise picked a direction and started exploring, but he soon found himself in a dead end. He cast a detect magic spell and wasn't particularly surprised to see the entire labyrinth giving off a magical aura. A sudden rumbling was felt throughout the maze, further indicating its magical nature: the minotaur prowling the maze was repositioning a slab of the maze, moving it sideways by a dozen or more feet so the tunnel he was currently traversing - which would normally have ended up in a dead end - instead now hooked up to a different passageway. Those lost in the maze had to wander the tunnels and hope for the best, but the minotaur could reconfigure the maze to his own advantage. Gripping his greataxe, he bellowed again and stomped forward, eager to catch up with these interlopers to his realm.
Because of the sudden shift of a full sixth of the labyrinth, Wakuren found himself in a section of passageway that dead-ended at each side. That was no good! But then, remembering Mogo's teachings, he decided this would be a good time to put what he had learned about altering dreamscapes to good practice. Lifting a hand and placing it on the stone wall before him, he imagined a doorway in the stone. While he couldn't make the stone vanish, he did see it wavering like a heat mirage and found he could no longer feel it under his hand; on a hunch, he stepped forward and passed completely through the wall. He found himself standing beside a rather surprised-looking Thurloe. "Oh, hey," the half-orc greeted the spellsword. Thurloe just nodded his greeting and concentrated on the direction in which Dagda lay.
Alewyth's explorations took her south, further away from the others - although she had no way of knowing that. She continued calling Dagda's name, hoping to hear an answer. Zander was off over to the west and found himself staring at a dead-end tunnel; taking advantage of the lack of immediate threat, he dream-cast a mage armor spell in place. Dagda, in the meantime, just continued her random wanderings, completely unaware of the five heroes now in her dream with her.
Thurloe cast a mage armor spell upon himself and felt his hand against a wall; he could sense Dagda was just on the other side of the wall, but had no way to get to her. He called her name, but there were no connections between the section of maze where he and Wakuren stood and the section containing Dagda - not under its current configuration, in any case. He tried using his lucid dreaming skills to open a hole in the wall like he'd seen Wakuren do, but his initial efforts were unsuccessful. Xandro, all alone by himself, had come up with the same idea but likewise failed to open a passageway. But then there was the rumbling sound again as the minotaur, having passed into the next section of maze, moved it to line up with the corridor he wanted to enter in the section north of it.
After Thurloe expressed his belief Dagda was just on the other side of the wall, Wakuren put his own mind to the task and was successful in passing through the mirage-like opening he'd conjured into being in this dreamscape. Sure enough, there was Dagda - he hadn't really paid attention before, but the entire maze was dimly lit by an unseen source - and she looked at the approaching half-orc with fear, imagining he might have been the creature stalking her through this maze. "It's all right," Wakuren reassured her. "I am a cleric of Cal, and I am here to help you escape this dream." Just to make himself appear even more harmless, he used his recent dream training to conjure up a copy of the headband he'd been forced to wear while traveling through the underground dwarven cities of Stonehold and Deepshaft, which bore the holy symbol of Aerik and designated the wearer as having been properly vetted by the dwarven leadership of the cities. Surprisingly, it did the trick; Dagda's worries about being alone in a tunnel with a half-orc vanished completely.
"This's just a dream?" Dagda asked, clearly pleased, no doubt thinking it would be a simple matter to wake herself up. Wakuren had to disabuse her of that notion, explaining that her sister Gemma had told Wakuren and his four companions that she'd been asleep now for three weeks. "Three weeks?" demanded the dwarf. "How c'n this be?"
"Time passes strangely in dreams," Wakuren told her. "As for how is your body still alive after three weeks without food or water, it's all part of the dream plague - the dreamer's body goes into a sort of stasis. We're not sure exactly how it works, but we've awakened people who have been asleep for much longer than you have."
"How do I wake up, then?"
"I imagine we need to kill the creature stalking you through this maze, or find the exit, or possibly even both." Wakuren took Dagda by the arm and started leading her down the twisting passageway to see if they could find the exit.
Alewyth, realizing rescuing Dagda was likely the way to free her from the dream, closed her eyes and imagined the woman traveling down a corridor. She willed herself by the dwarf's side, hoping her lucid dreaming training would allow her to teleport there. The effort failed, but she did get a better sense of the way of this maze: she could apparently walk through a wall if she concentrated hard enough, or even shift a section of the maze five feet in either direction. Zander Quilson walked through the solid wall before him, proving the concept to his own satisfaction. He still didn't know where he was, but at least he was no longer up against a dead end.
Dagda followed Wakuren's lead, while Thurloe hurried to catch up to the pair. He used his wand to cast a shield spell on himself, figuring if the bellowing monster ever caught up to them, he'd be glad he had done so. Xandro passed through another wall, figuring if he kept going in one direction he'd eventually find his way out of the maze. But the maze shifted once again, and what had once been a solid wall to the bard's right was now an open passageway, through which stepped a massive minotaur, greataxe held in one beefy hand. He hefted it up over his shoulder, bringing it crashing down at Xandro, who did his best to dodge the blow but ended up taking a hit in the leg, opening up a long gash that immediately filled his boot with his own blood.
Alewyth noticed this newest configuration change had undone a barrier that had been placed in her way earlier. She scrambled back north, unknowingly following part of a passageway the minotaur had taken earlier. Zander, in the meantime, ran forward because he could hear familiar voices up ahead; those of Thurloe and Wakuren, who were steadily making their way north with Dagda.
Xandro stabbed at the minotaur with his frost short sword, getting in a quick jab in the creature's belly before darting away, hoping to put a safe distance between them, for he wasn't sure he could fight off the bull-headed monstrosity by himself. But the minotaur allowed Xandro to flee from him, for with his perfect mastery of the maze, he knew by shifting the section he was in twenty feet to the right, he'd link up to the corridor currently being traversed by Thurloe Pulver, who certainly hadn't expected the minotaur's sudden arrival. Wakuren and Dagda were already around a corner and failed to notice the spellsword's predicament behind them.
Alewyth exited the corridor and found herself in a hallway facing the minotaur. She crept up on it as silently as she could, before sprinting the remaining distance and bringing Sjondra crashing down upon the bovine beast-man. Zander, however, found himself cut off from the others again by the maze's last shifting, but he found himself close to Alewyth and Thurloe, so he cast a haste spell upon the three of them. Thurloe's swing with his bastard sword was therefore much quicker than it would have been normally, and it got past the minotaur's defenses to cut a gash of pain across his furry chest. Xandro passed through another wall, getting himself farther away from the minotaur and inadvertently running into Wakuren and Dagda as they continued their meandering way northward.
The minotaur, bellowing loudly in rage and pain, brought his greataxe slicing into Thurloe, while Alewyth took advantage of his attention being focused upon the spellsword to bring Sjondra into play once again. Zander took the long way around and came up behind the minotaur, blasting at it with a lightning bolt spell that slew the beast, sending him crashing lifelessly to the stone floor of the maze. Any hopes that the dream would end with the minotaur's death were instantly crushed, but it was only a matter of everyone getting together (passing through the walls aided them greatly in this endeavor) and finding the doorway out of the labyrinth at the very northernmost wall before the dwarf's dream started dissolving around them, a sure sign she was waking up. As one, the five dreamwalkers snapped themselves awake, their consciousnesses returning to their bodies on the Mortal Plane in Dagda's bedroom.
"We thank ye fer wakin' Dagda," said Gemma. "But if we could ask ye fer another favor? Y'see, it's our husbands – they've not returned from th' mines in over a week. That's not normal, not at all. I've gone t' th' manager, Virgil Goldenglow, but 'e won't let none 'f us see 'em, nor will 'e let any o' 'em back up from th' mines. Got a special vein they unearthed, 'e says, an' the miners're supposed t' be all on overtime, but what good's th' money if'n ye're livin' down there in th' mine every hour 'f th' day? Plus, all we got's Goldenglow's promise o' overtime pay – none 'f us've seen a single coin yet. Will ye check it out for us? I dinnae trust that Goldenglow!"
"I take it staying down in the mines isn't a normal occurrence?" Wakuren asked.
"Nae, they normally go down fer a shift, 'n come on back up home fer th' night," Dagda replied. Wakuren promised the dwarven women they'd go check out the situation.
Heading over to the mines, they found Alewyth's guess about the reason for the mine's name to be entirely accurate: the openings to the mines were about thirty and sixty feet down a vertical chasm, at the bottom of which - another hundred or more so feet down - could be seen a pool of bubbling lava. Access to the mine openings was through a pair of metal elevators, each hanging by thick chains from a scaffolding that hung over the top of the near side of the chasm, and which were powered by the strength of ermalkankaris, or stone drakes: draconic creatures with thick, hard scales, stumpy wings, and a boulderlike club at the end of their tails. There was an ermalkankari chained to each of the elevators, and at the commands of their dwarven handlers they'd lower the cage to the appropriate level.
The dwarven handlers, however, wouldn't let the heroes talk to the mine manager. "Mr. Goldenglow, 'e said nobody's t' be let down t' th' mines an' nobody's t' be let up from th' mines until he says so," replied a sturdy-looking dwarf.
"And I suppose he's down there in the mines," guessed Thurloe. The dwarf nodded. "Then how are we supposed to get word to him that we wish to talk to him?"
"There'll be none 'f that, I'm afraid, 'til Mr. Goldenglow comes up from th' mines when he's good 'n ready," explained the dwarven drake handler.
"What if he's hurt or injured?" demanded Alewyth.
"Then one o' th' other miners'd send up word."
"But what if th' miners've all been attacked by some monster down there?" Alewyth pressed. Once again, when talking to her own people, her manner of speech started mirroring their own.
"Ye c'n hear them still at work," pointed out the handler. Sure enough, echoing back up from the chasm came the sounds of picks and hammers hitting stone. Wakuren, however, had stepped up to the edge of the cliffside and was looking down at the uppermost mine entrance, over on the far side of the chasm. A bald humanoid approached, who by his sheer size Wakuren assumed must be one of the stone giant miners. He started unloading a mine cart - which had been pulled by an ermalkankari - taking large crystals and laying them out onto one of the two iron "landing platforms" that jutted out from the cave opening; these were the stations where the elevator doors, which swung down from hinges at the bottom of the cage, would line up to form a sort of bridge when the elevator had been lowered to the appropriate depth.
"I thought this was a silver mine," Wakuren observed.
"Aye, it is."
"Then what's that miner down there doing with those crystals?" While the drake handlers came to the edge to see what the half-orc was talking about, Wakuren examined the aura of the stone giant miner. He was not of an evil bent. Wakuren then cast a detect magic spell and examined the stone giant's aura in further detail, sighing in satisfaction when he picked up the sign of enchantment magic at play. "He's under some sort of enchantment," he told the others. "Probably being dominated."
"What're those? demanded one of the handlers, as a crystalline scorpion skittered up the cliff wall and gathered up a pair of crystals in its claws, then scampered down the way if had come. Behind it, two more of the creatures did likewise. There was also a massive length of thick chain, of the type they used on the elevators, leading down from the lower level of the mines nearly to the top of the lava - that hadn't been there before, either! Then, looking at his partner in confusion, the drake handler came to a decision. "Okay, never mind. We'll lower ye t' th' upper mine level, so's ye c'n talk t' Mr. Goldenglow an' see what's what down there."
But by then, the heroes had come up with a different plan. "I'd rather not fight off a bunch of miners who are being mind-controlled against their will," Wakuren declared. "Odds are, they're not being harmed, just being forced to mine for those crystals instead of the veins of silver. That's not likely to cause them any harm, so let's go down to where those scorpion-things are headed. Maybe we can put a stop to the root cause of whatever's going on down there." As he spoke, the first of the crystalline arachnids made it to what was apparently a cave opening just above the lava pool, for it ducked into some sort of hole in the side of the cliff a mere dozen feet or so above the lava.
Thurloe and Zander cast mage armor and shield spells upon themselves and then entered the lamp. Xandro and Alewyth followed, leaving the lamp in the hands of Wakuren, who cast the spells air walk and gaseous form upon himself. His body now a loose gathering of fine mist, he floated over the edge of the chasm, sinking slowly down towards the bubbling lava. Inside the lamp, Alewyth kept watch on the misty half-orc's progress by scrying through the tiger's eye gem he wore on his forehead, using the items they had taken from Corbin Mallaxus's lab when they had rescued the gemcutter Iriadorrista some weeks back. She saw him enter a large cave, reassume solid form, and set the lamp down. "Let's go!" she called to the others, stepping onto the magical circle and calling out the command word that shunted them out of the extradimensional space and onto the stone floor of the cave. There was no illumination inside the cave save for the reddish light coming off the lava outside, which gave everything a hellish glow.
Thurloe, Zander, and the cooshee - still active since being put on guard duty back in Dagda's bedroom - wandered down a side tunnel heading diagonally deeper into the mountainside. There was a reddish light at the end of that tunnel, which turned out to be an open pit at the front of a side cavern, bit blocking it from side to side. Judging from the glow, the pit was filled with lava, and as a result none of the three wanted to get too close, for the heat it gave off was immense.
Wakuren bent down and picked up Hesperna's lamp, placing it back into his pack as Xandro and Alewyth looked around. The side passageway seemed to be the only exit from this central cavern, other than the front entrance leading out into the cliffside. But their error was made known to them almost immediately, when the crystal dragon came flying down from its ledge forty feet up the western wall, flew over to the exit, spun around in place, and spewed a cone of burning brilliance at the trio of trespassers.
All three cried out in pain as the light seemed to burn through their flesh and set their bones afire - that's certainly what it felt like, at least. Alewyth suffered even more, for she had been facing directly at the entrance when the dragon flew down, and as such the vision was temporarily burned from her eyes; she was completely blind, not in the sense that all she saw was blackness, but quite the opposite: the field of vision before her was nothing but an intensely-glowing white.
Wakuren staggered down the diagonal passageway and warned the others. Then he said the words to a summoning spell, calling forth an axiomatic giant wasp, which he sent into battle against the dragon on his behalf. The giant insect swung its stinger at the dragon's hardened hide, but the point slid off its crystalline scales, to no apparent effect.
Xandro pulled out his Dardolian lute and began the words to his song of inspirational courage, not wishing to rush into physical combat with the flying reptile, nearly twice the size of a horse. But even over his music he could hear the sounds of crystal striking rock coming from behind him, and rounding the corner of the tunnel just past the lava pit came the first of the three crystalline scorpions, creatures called crysmals from the Elemental Plane of Earth. They were each about the size of a small dog, but their pincers and the stinger at the ends of their tails seemed particularly sharp and could likely dish out quite a bit of damage.
Alewyth, blind and close to helpless, decided taking herself out of the combat was the best idea at the present moment, so she cast a sanctuary spell on herself and slowly backed up until she could feel the solid wall of the entry cavern at her back. Thurloe cautiously approached from the diagonal tunnel, casting a ray of enfeeblement at the crystal dragon. Big as it might be, the spellsword knew dragons could grow to be much, much larger as they aged, and he was glad to see this one was still apparently young enough not to have developed the natural resistance to spells that many older dragons possessed. His spell-ray struck true, leeching off some of the reptile's strength, diminishing its combat prowess by some unknown extent.
Zander ran back into the cave, placing himself protectively in front of Alewyth and casting a lightning bolt spell at the hovering dragon. The cooshee started to run up to the dragon but apparently thought better of trying to bite a creature whose scales looked to be the consistency of solid crystal. He just barked up at the dragon, voicing his displeasure.
With a mighty flap of its wings, the dragon soared forward and landed back on the cavern floor, snapping its teeth at Zander, then slashing at the elf with its claws as an afterthought. The claws both struck, sending the elf staggering first one way and then the other, the front of his robes now in tatters. Seeing that, Wakuren raced up and slammed his shield of Cal into the dragon's side, causing a chime as his metal shield struck the dragon's crystalline hide. Now behind the dragon, the giant wasp tried stinging it again, but once again its stinger just slid along the creature's hardened scales.
Back in the tunnel, Xandro spun around and faced the first approaching crysmal, blasting it with a sonic blast from his Dardolian lute. While the attack seemed to do some damage - fine cracks had appeared up and down the crystalline creature's body - it skittered forth and jabbed at the bard with the tip of its tail. Xandro felt the pain as the stinger pierced his thigh, but was surprised there was no follow-up poison, as one would expect from a terrestrial scorpion - and then he realized a creature made of living crystal would likely have no use for venom on its home plane, where most - if not all - of the denizens would be made of living stone and crystal.
Alewyth started scooting herself to her left, towards the diagonal tunnel she knew to be in that direction. Still unable to contribute much to the combat with the dragon in her blinded state, she cast a summoning spell of her own and brought forth an earth element giant praying mantis, a giant insect made from living stone. It sent its pincered forelimbs clawing at the dragon, to no definitive result.
Still deciding ranged spells was the way to go against a creature as powerful as a dragon, Thurloe cast a vampiric touch spell at the dragon and siphoned off some of its life energy, filling his own body with stolen vigor. Using similar logic, Zander cast his own ray of enfeeblement at the crystal dragon, weakening it even further, and then backed up against the wall to Alewyth's right. The cooshee tried clawing at the dragon and had no luck penetrating its thick, crystalline hide, so he backed over by his master, still barking loudly.
The dragon lurched over to its right and sent its head snaking out to Thurloe, biting the spellsword as punishment for that last spell he'd cast, which the dragon, Charirkethend, had apparently not appreciated at all. At that close-up range, Thurloe couldn't help but notice that the dragon had some sort of a red gemstone embedded in its forehead and idly wondered if that was a normal part of its body, an adornment of some sort, or perhaps some type of magic item. He was tempted to ask Wakuren to cast a detect magic spell on it, but the half-orc was busy slamming the side of his shield into the dragon's hide, cracking a few scales as he did so. Behind the dragon, the giant wasp continued its ineffectual attacks, and Wakuren wondered if a different animal might not have been a better choice for him to have summoned.
Xandro stabbed out with his frost short sword and pierced the head of the crysmal that had stabbed him, killing it. But now the other two came skittering up, rounding the corner and coming into view. One of them was upon the bard before he could put up much a defense, stabbing at him with its wickedly sharp tail-spike.
Not knowing what else to do while still blind, Alewyth cast a bless spell upon whatever members of her group were within range, which included the mantis she'd summoned from the Elemental Plane of Earth. It clawed at the dragon again, with little effect. However, now that the dragon had closed the distance with Thurloe, the spellsword decided a little hand-to-hand combat was in order, so he brought his bastard sword Spellslicer crashing across the front of the dragon's neck, activating a charge of his torc of the titans to put as much strength behind his blow as he could. The maneuver worked, and the dragon seemed genuinely surprised to be actively bleeding through his damaged scales. The astonishment didn't last long, however, for Zander finished the dragon off with another lightning bolt spell that went crashing through its crystalline body, causing it to crash to the floor in the middle of the entry cavern, quite dead. The cooshee continued barking at it.
Wakuren wasted no time rushing back into the diagonal tunnel to come to Xandro's aid. He brought his shield down upon one of the two crysmals lined up against the bard, cracking the top of its carapace. The giant wasp flew down the tunnel and tried stinging the crysmal as well, having just as much luck against it as it had with the dragon. Xandro managed to kill the one he had been fighting as the other one stabbed up at Wakuren, hitting the half-orc's hand with the tip of its stinger.
But back in the entry cavern, strange things were going on. There was a wavering of air above the dead crystal dragon's head, and then hovering in the air there was a floating brain, little crackles of electricity sparking off from it and flailing out in all directions. It focused its attention on Zander, and then an arc of electricity sprang between it and the startled sorcerer, sending the elf's hair sticking up as the blast of lightning burned his skin.
Alewyth still couldn't see what was going on, but she knew combat of a sort was continuing even though she was pretty sure the dragon had been slain. Unsure of what else to do, she cast a healing spell upon herself, restoring some of the damage she'd taken from the dragon's breath weapon. And she wasn't sure yet if she was just imagining it, but it seemed like her vision was starting to clear a bit along the periphery; while most of her field of vision was a brilliant white, she was starting to pick up other colors along the outer edges. She blinked rapidly to try to speed up the process.
The giant mantis lashed out at the floating brain with its claws, scoring a hit and drawing a few gashes along the side of the spongy material making up its body. At the same time, Thurloe was situated so he could see the massive chain dangling down from the lower mine level start to jostle and move; looking up, he could see one of the stone giants start to climb down. But then he brought Spellslicer crashing down from an overhead swing, cutting the brainstorm in two. It fell to the side of the dragon in two separate pieces.
"What the hell was that?" demanded Alewyth, whose vision had cleared enough to see Thurloe cut down some sort fo floating brain that certainly hadn't been there when the dwarven priestess had first lost her sight.
"Beats me," replied Thurloe, as Zander pried the red gemstone from the dragon's forehead with his dagger. To his surprise, it floated out of his hand and started orbiting his head. "It's an ioun stone!" he declared. "I've heard of these!"
Back in the side tunnel, Xandro and Wakuren finally killed the remaining crysmal and went back to check on the others. "We're about to have company," Thurloe informed them, looking up at the steadily-climbing stone giant making his way down the chain.
"No we aren't!" replied Alewyth, casting a wall of stone spell that sealed off the cave opening. It suddenly got a lot darker in the entry cave, as the illumination from the lava outside the cave was blocked, but there was still a reddish glow coming from the far end of the diagonal tunnel. She then gave her mantis a command and it earthglided through the solid rock to perch itself by the dangling chain, its arms spread out in an attack stance to hopefully ward off the approaching stone giant.
Via the light of an activated sunrod, Thurloe unpacked his coil of rope and his grappling hook, looking up at the top of the dragon's perch, forty feet above him. He made his windup and tossed the grappling hook up onto the ledge with his first try, then softly tugged on the rope until the hook caught on something sturdy up there. Giving the rope a few experimental tugs, Thurloe declared it safe to support his weight and started his ascent.
Zander and Alewyth, accompanied by a tail-wagging cooshee, went down the side tunnel instead. It got appreciably hotter the closer they got to the lava pit, but once they got close enough Alewyth was able to make out what she'd expected to be the case: the smaller cavern on the other side of the pit was the dragon's treasure hoard, filled with loose coins and gems and the occasional carved statuette. "We'll have to come back for it," she lamented. "Best we keep on exploring the place for now."
Rounding the corner, Alewyth led the trio into a much larger cavern, in the back of which the crysmals had apparently been crafting a humanoid body out of the crystals they'd been bringing down from the mines above. The statue seemed fully complete: it had a head, two arms and two legs extending from a thick, squat torso, and while it didn't seem to have much in the way of fancy facial features it looked to be perfectly serviceable if this was supposed to be some sort of golem or animated statue or something. But the crystal figure remained inert, lying on its back, face looking up to the cavern's ceiling some 50 or 60 feet above it.
Alewyth didn't like it. As Wakuren and Zander entered the cave behind her, she cast a prayer spell on the group, just in case. Zander followed with a stoneskin spell on himself, not trusting that the thing wouldn't activate all of a sudden and try to smash him into paste.
Outside the sealed cave, the mantis had noticed its offensive stance wasn't having any effect on the stone giant, who continued his cautious approach down the chain. So the mantis skittered over, grabbed the loose end of the chain in one of its pincers, and pulled it further away from the side of the cave. But that didn't seem to faze the stone giant any; by the time he noticed the shift in direction, he simply hung on the chain with his left hand supporting his weight, while he planted his feet against the cliff side for support, gathered up a section of chain in his right hand, and tugged. The chain was forced out of the mantis's claws, and the stone giant continued his descent. But when he was close enough, he could see the cave entrance had been sealed up and there was no longer any way for him to enter the dragon's lair by that method.
Thurloe hauled himself up to the crystal dragon's perch and was disappointed to see it was just an empty cavern, with no treasure. But there was a set of natural stone steps in the back, leading down to the large chamber with the inert crystal golem lying on its back. Thurloe stepped up to the edge and lowered himself down to the first "step." But as he did so, there were shimmerings along the ceiling of the golem cave as six brainstorms lowered themselves into the room, shifting in from the Ethereal Plane (from which they'd been able to glide through the solid stone separating the cavern from the mines above). A seventh floated in seemingly from the stone steps before Thurloe; this one had just exited the area on the Ethereal Plane linking it to the stone giant on the chain outside. The stone giant, now free of the brainstorm's domination, shook his head in surprise and started the long climb back up to the mines, ever aware of the lava below him if he lost his grasp.
Wakuren and Xandro fully entered the cave behind Alewyth, the bard starting his song of inspirational courage back up. Alewyth struck at a brainstorm with Sjondra, causing it to veer sideways in the air, fluid dripping from the side of its physical structure. Thurloe leaped down another natural stone step and cast a fireball spell in the back of the cavern below him, engulfing half a dozen of the gathered brainstorms and slaying three of them outright. Seeing that success, Zander did likewise with a fireball spell of his own, killing another three of the floating menaces. This left but a single brainstorm left alive from the original eight in the hivemind; it shifted to the Ethereal Plane and entered the inert crystal golem awaiting its presence.
Originally, the eight brainstorms were going to merge into one vast intellect and pilot the crystal golem together, giving the psionic entities a permanent physical body that would allow them to manipulate the world around them without depending upon dominated slaves. With just the one brainstorm remaining, the crystal golem wouldn't be as powerful as originally intended, but the brainstorm was much safer inside the crystalline humanoid than dealing with the five attackers in its own rather soft body.
With a silent lurch, the golem rose to its feet, towering above its enemies. Wakuren wasted no time in rushing the giant foe, slamming his shield into its knee, hoping to shatter it and render it incapable of further movement. Xandro aimed another sonic blast from his Dardolian lute at the crystal golem, hoping its crystalline structure would prove to be particularly vulnerable to the harmonics. But the golem swung out a massive fist much faster than the bard had anticipated, and even the glancing blow sent him reeling to the side, holding his lute protectively to his body so it wouldn't get damaged in the fall.
Alewyth cast a spiritual weapon spell and rushed at the crystal golem, striking it in the leg with Sjondra. Overhead, another dwarven warhammer took shape, this one made of solid force energy, and rushed over to strike the golem in its nearly featureless head.
Thurloe cast a magic missile spell at the crystal golem and the beams of energy from his fingers were reflected in random directions, the golem's crystal body acting like a prism. Fortunately, none of the missiles struck any of the other heroes; it was bad enough the spellsword's spell didn't have any effect upon its target, but it would be far worse if it hurt Thurloe's fighting companions.
Zander attempted a lightning bolt spell at the crystal golem and was glad to see it worked just fine. His cooshee stayed back, instinctive knowing his teeth, sharp as they might be, were useless against a creature made of solid crystal. Wakuren's summoned axiomatic giant wasp flew at the golem's head, ineffectually hitting it in a crystal eye with its stinger before the insect blinked back out of existence, returning to the Outer Plane from which it had been summoned in the first place.
Then the golem took a step forward and slammed Wakuren not once but twice, pinning him between its massive fists. The air from the half-orc's lungs exploded out of his mouth as his ribs were crushed, piercing the organs that were imprisoned within. With a final, gasping breath, the cleric-paladin of Cal, God of Healing and the Air, died and let his broken body collapse upon the stone floor of the cavern in which the golem had been brought into an unholy semblance of life.
Xandro's eyes grew wide as he saw Wakuren's body fall, and he fell back, well out of range of the golem's fists. Wakuren had worn much heavier armor than Xandro did, and if it could do that to him.... He continued his song of inspirational courage, hoping it would provide the boost to one of the others willing to take it on in hand-to-hand combat.
Alewyth was one of those perfectly willing to do so. She, too, had seen Wakuren fall, but she realized there was nothing to be done about it at the moment and the best thing she could do for Wakuren right now was to slay his killer, to ensure it never had the opportunity to kill anyone else. Later, when this threat was over, she would allow herself to grieve her fallen friend; for now, she channeled her anger into casting a shatter spell at the construct, while her spiritual warhammer continued to strike the golem in the head.
Thurloe dropped down another step and cast a lightning bolt spell up at the golem, who still towered above him although he was still several steps higher than the stone floor upon which the golem stood. Zander did likewise, striking up at the construct with a lightning bolt spell of his own. But the golem ignored both of these attacks to strike Alewyth; the second blow from its massive fists dropped her to the ground as well, although luckily she was just unconscious, not dead.
But that was enough for Xandro to find his courage - a courage inspired by outrage more than anything else. Setting down his Dardolian lute safely behind him, he charged the crystal golem and swung his frost short sword at the same knee Alewyth had been attacking, hoping she'd weakened it enough for him to be able to finish the job - and hopefully before its crystalline fists finished him! But as Alewyth lay bleeding on the stone floor, her spiritual weapon spell continued on with its last orders: striking the crystal golem in the head. This it continued to do, and would continue to do until either the golem was destroyed or the duration of the spell ran out.
Out of his really powerful spells, Thurloe activated his magic torc for the second time that day and charged at the golem, swinging his bastard sword for all he was worth, well aware that it had single-handedly dropped two of the five of them, one of them quite permanently. He hoped Alewyth wasn't about to join Wakuren in death.
Zander cast another lightning bolt at the golem, wisely sticking to a spell he knew worked (he'd seen how ineffectual magic missiles were against the thing). The golem was staggering a bit now, but it still managed to hit Xandro a glancing blow with one fist. But the bard managed to roll with the attack, staying on his feet and swinging his blade for all he was worth. The sword-strike hit the knee, causing the creature's entire leg to slough off at the damage point, whereupon it fell face forward onto the hard ground and shattered, psionic crystals flying in all directions.
"Thank the gods!" cried Thurloe, glad that they'd finally taken down the psionic construct. Of course, there was still the piloting brainstorm to deal with, but the spellsword had anticipated its return upon the golem's destruction and when it manifested in the Material Plane, Thurloe's bastard sword was there waiting for it. Burned as it was from the previous fireballs, one strike from Spellslicer was all it took to bring down this final threat.
Zander had run over to Alewyth's prone form, pulled her head up onto his lap, and forced a potion of cure light wounds down her throat. That at least stabilized her and dealt with the more serious of her wounds, but it took another such potion to rise her back to wakefulness. "Wakuren!" she cried upon waking up, recalling the damage that had been done to her half-orc friend.
"Um, guys," called Xandro. He had his sword drawn and its blade pointed at Wakuren, which the others found strange until they saw what was crawling out from the back of his neck. Phasing out of his body in a manner not entirely dissimilar from the way the brainstorms shifted between the Material Plane and the Ethereal Plane, the powerslug detached itself from the base of Wakuren's spinal cord and crawled out, seeking new prey. Its anesthetizing slime would make it such that its new potential host wouldn't even feel it crawl first upon his or her skin and then into their body, but the entire process hinged upon it not being noticed beforehand. Thurloe applied Spellslicer to the problem at hand, cutting the powerslug in half before it could get too far from Wakuren's body.
"What in the world was that?" demanded Zander.
"Not sure, don't care," replied Thurloe. "It's dead, whatever it was."
Now came the decision of what to do next. Alewyth insisted they bring Wakuren's body into Hesperna's lamp, and specifically into the chest the night hag had used to store her larvae, which shrunk them down so they could all fit inside. "Tomorrow, I'll pray for a gentle repose spell to cast upon ye," she promised her dead friend. Then, exiting the lamp, she handed it over to Thurloe, who used his anklet of translocation to dimension door over to the far side of the lava pit, where he could scoop up the dragon's accumulated treasure and transport it, bit by bit, inside the lamp for safekeeping. Once that was done - and it took a fair amount of time - he used his anklet to dimension door to the diagonal corridor again; the pit's edges were right up to the sides of the opening to the treasure cave, and trying to climb past it could easily become lethal with one wrong misstep.
When the four remaining heroes had made it back to the entry cavern, Alewyth used a stone shape spell to open a doorway in the wall of stone she'd erected earlier. "But now what?" asked Zander. "Wakuren had cast an air walk spell on himself so he'd be able to get the rest of us back to the surface while we were in the lamp!"
"Hold your horses," chided Thurloe, digging in his pack for one of the spellbooks he'd recovered from the wizards they had defeated in combat. Flipping through the pages, he found what he had been looking for. "Here we go: the fly spell. I don't know the spell well enough to cast it myself, but I have two copies of it in two different spellbooks. I'll use this copy like a scroll. The rest of you, into the lamp!"
Alewyth, Xandro, and Zander complied, while Thurloe concentrated on getting the words right for the fly spell; as he intoned each arcane syllable, it disappeared from the page of the spellbook upon which it had been transcribed. But once he had finished, he was under the full effects of the spell; picking up the lamp, he flew up to the lower level of the mine to check on everyone up there. Once there, the other heroes emerged from the lamp and they got the full story, about how they had unearthed a vein of psionic crystals, the coming of the first brainstorm (they were a little unsure of how it had come to be, none of them realizing this first brainstorm had been created from the psionic emanations of Charirkethend, whose psionic abilities were resonated in and amplified by the crystals), and how it not only could take over a person's will but also "download" a copy of itself into a living brain, which then exploded out of the victim's head as an identical clone of the first brainstorm, and how they had all been forced to continue to mine the vein of psionic crystals above all else. It had only been when the heroes slew the crystal dragon that the brainstorm that had been dominating the dragon alerted its brethren of the attack, causing them to abandon their hosts in the mines and fly to the rescue. Nobody knew where the "crystal scorpions" had come from; Charirkethend, under the brainstorm's sway, had brought them from the Elemental Plane of Earth, crystal dragons - even juvenile ones - having the ability to plane shift to the Elemental Planes at will. The crysmals had assembled the crystal golem using methods known only among themselves.
The miners were currently in the midst of shutting down the mine for the day, so they could bury the seven miners (all dwarves) who had been slain in the past week to create the seven follow-on brainstorms. Fortunately, a roll call determined that Dagda's and Gemma's husbands, Grigori Ironforge and Vlagdir Broadstone, respectively, were not among the miners who had been slain.
The fly spell still in effect, Thurloe flew his companions back up in Hesperna's lamp to the surface so they could deliver the news to the two dwarven sisters.
- - -
Well, this adventure turned out quite differently than I had anticipated, but I think for the most part it was for the best. I had been worried that this adventure was going to go a lot longer than my previous ones, but then the players had their PCs bypass both levels of the mines themselves and go right to the dragon's lair, avoiding a lot of unnecessary combat with the dominated miners (and their stone drake beasts of burden). I hadn't counted on Wakuren getting killed, either, but it brought to an end the powerslug infestation he'd picked up 16 adventures prior, when the powerslug infesting the slain orc leader in "Raiders of the Lost Orcs" found a new unwitting host when Wakuren was checking the body for loot. From that point on, every time the PCs leveled up I had Wakuren gain a +2 to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. Those bonuses were all at +6 when he was slain, and had been the cause of his irritability and lust for combat (including slapping Thurloe in the face a couple of adventures ago when the spellsword had been nagging him about detecting evil on everyone, and his recent penchant for smashing wizards' faces into unyielding stone walls until they were little more than mush). I mentioned to Dan at work the Monday after playing through this adventure that that had been why Wakuren had slapped his PC, and Dan understands completely - but he'd already devised his eventual payback and didn't see why he shouldn't go through with it anyway when the time comes.
Finally, I had put in over 23,000 gp worth of treasure in this adventure, thinking it would be a big payday for the PCs, but they opted to bring Wakuren back to life via a true resurrection spell (as the other options, raise dead and resurrection, would bring him back one level lower than the rest of them), so they decided to split the difference five ways and pay for the higher-level spell that way. So despite my intentions, this adventure actually had a negative amount of treasure. And I informed them they'll need to backtrack four days to get to Centraldale (where they went through the "Hog Wild" adventure) as it has a shrine of Delphyne, which will allow them to teleport to either Baron's Haven or Port Duralia, where there will be a cleric of Akari high enough to cast true resurrection on Wakuren; in either case it will be the Father Bones of that temple who'll do the ceremony. They at least have the advantage of having dealt with those cities' Father Bones before; the one from Baron's Haven even owes them a favor.
We also hit one other snag in this adventure - it became quite apparent that my 16-year-old nephew Harry, who runs Xandro, has come to a conclusion shared by many players: namely, that bards suck. So we talked about it over dinner, and decided Xandro will be adding rogue levels only from now on; at the end of the campaign, he should be a 6th-level bard/14th-level rogue. I also decided we'd be adding in a female NPC bard who could handle the "inspire courage" front for the PCs while Xandro was free to do something cool, preferably with a cool new weapon. I've decided that the weapon (a rapier, by Harry's choice) will add the +3d6 sneak attack damage he's missed out on by taking those six bard levels; he'll be behind on the other rogue stuff but I think that will help him feel more like he's pulling his own weight while still getting to do fun stuff. ("I continue to inspire courage" is not a particularly fun way to spend round after round, he's decided. We tried warning him at the beginning of the campaign that the bard is inherently a support character, but he wanted to try it out for himself.)
- - -
T-shirt worn: My Einstein T-shirt, a good representation of someone associated with a "brainstorm."
PC Roster:
Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 9
Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 3/wizard 3/spellsword 3
Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 5/paladin 4
Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 6/rogue 3
Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 9
Game Session Date: 21 January 2023
- - -
"Flamecleft, huh?" asked Thurloe. "That's...an interesting name for a town."
"It's a mining village," replied Alewyth, who grew up in an underground dwarven city very much like Flamecleft. "I'll bet you anything there's lava visible at the bottom of a big rent in the earth, and that's where the mine's located." Flamecleft was indeed primarily a dwarven village, and most of it seemed to be directly supporting the mining industry, but surprisingly the second most numerous race living in the city was stone giants. It seemed the miners were primarily made up of members of the two races.
And, being a relatively small village where everyone seemed to know everyone else, it was no trouble identifying the dreamer they'd come to rescue - upon asking, the dreamwalkers were not only told it was Dagda Ironforge they sought, but they were also given directions to her house. Knocking on the door, they saw another dwarven woman, Gemma Broadstone, answer. Gemma was Dagda's sister and was looking after her as she slept the weeks away.
Alewyth explained the reason for the dreamwalkers' visit and Gemma ushered them in, eager to see if these five could awaken her sister when all other attempts had failed. They lifted Dagda off of her stone bed (complete with stone pillow; these dwarves didn't really know a whole lot about comfort, Xandro decided) and set her on the floor in the middle of the room. Alewyth attached the leather headband around Dagda's brow and positioned the dreamstone so it was in place in the middle of the dwarven woman's forehead. Zander called forth his cooshee from its statue form, setting the elven dog in place as a protector while the dreamwalkers settled themselves to sleep in a circle around Dagda. And with that, their consciousnesses left their mortal bodies and traversed the planes into the dreamlands - no terribly difficult task, for everyone did the same thing each night when they went to bed.
Only usually, they woke up the next morning.
As always, the five moogle guides were there to meet the dreamwalkers and lead them to the Corridor of Dreams, a series of endless hallways filled with doors as far as the eye could see. Mogo was there, hovering before one particular door. "This is the dream, kupo!" he said, opening the door and allowing his five students to walk inside Dagda's dream.
However, this time they didn't just all show up next to each other in the dream. As each dreamwalker stepped through the door, he or she ended up in a separate part of the dwarf's dream, for Dagda was dreaming about a labyrinth, with stone walls reaching from floor to ceiling. The passageways twisted this way and that, and Dagda was doing her best trying to find her way out of the maze. One by one, each of the five dreamwalkers found themselves in the same predicament: alone in a section of maze without any idea about which way was which.
"DAGDA!" called Alewyth at the top of her lungs, hoping the other dwarven woman would be able to hear her. But the only answer was a brutish roar, which echoed up and down the twisting corridors. There was something in the maze with them.
Thurloe had been spending the last few days perusing several spells he'd collected in the spellbooks gathered from wizards he and his teammates had defeated over the months, and while he hadn't mastered any new spells in a few weeks, he was well aware there was a spell, locate person, that would be of incredible help in this dream. But although he knew he couldn't cast the spell in the Mortal World, he also knew this was just a dream and Mogo had been training them on how to manipulate dreams from the inside. Therefore, the spellsword decided, there was no reason why he couldn't cast a locate person spell inside this dream; going about the motions, he got a distinct sense that Dagda was currently located somewhere off to his front and right. Of course, even if the spell was correct, there was no way to know which particular passageway would lead him closer to her, so he arbitrarily chose one and decided to see where it would take him. As he moved, turning corners occasionally, he always had a sense of the direction Dagda was in with regards to his current location, so he could only assume the spell he had just dream-cast had worked.
Xandro likewise picked a direction and started exploring, but he soon found himself in a dead end. He cast a detect magic spell and wasn't particularly surprised to see the entire labyrinth giving off a magical aura. A sudden rumbling was felt throughout the maze, further indicating its magical nature: the minotaur prowling the maze was repositioning a slab of the maze, moving it sideways by a dozen or more feet so the tunnel he was currently traversing - which would normally have ended up in a dead end - instead now hooked up to a different passageway. Those lost in the maze had to wander the tunnels and hope for the best, but the minotaur could reconfigure the maze to his own advantage. Gripping his greataxe, he bellowed again and stomped forward, eager to catch up with these interlopers to his realm.
Because of the sudden shift of a full sixth of the labyrinth, Wakuren found himself in a section of passageway that dead-ended at each side. That was no good! But then, remembering Mogo's teachings, he decided this would be a good time to put what he had learned about altering dreamscapes to good practice. Lifting a hand and placing it on the stone wall before him, he imagined a doorway in the stone. While he couldn't make the stone vanish, he did see it wavering like a heat mirage and found he could no longer feel it under his hand; on a hunch, he stepped forward and passed completely through the wall. He found himself standing beside a rather surprised-looking Thurloe. "Oh, hey," the half-orc greeted the spellsword. Thurloe just nodded his greeting and concentrated on the direction in which Dagda lay.
Alewyth's explorations took her south, further away from the others - although she had no way of knowing that. She continued calling Dagda's name, hoping to hear an answer. Zander was off over to the west and found himself staring at a dead-end tunnel; taking advantage of the lack of immediate threat, he dream-cast a mage armor spell in place. Dagda, in the meantime, just continued her random wanderings, completely unaware of the five heroes now in her dream with her.
Thurloe cast a mage armor spell upon himself and felt his hand against a wall; he could sense Dagda was just on the other side of the wall, but had no way to get to her. He called her name, but there were no connections between the section of maze where he and Wakuren stood and the section containing Dagda - not under its current configuration, in any case. He tried using his lucid dreaming skills to open a hole in the wall like he'd seen Wakuren do, but his initial efforts were unsuccessful. Xandro, all alone by himself, had come up with the same idea but likewise failed to open a passageway. But then there was the rumbling sound again as the minotaur, having passed into the next section of maze, moved it to line up with the corridor he wanted to enter in the section north of it.
After Thurloe expressed his belief Dagda was just on the other side of the wall, Wakuren put his own mind to the task and was successful in passing through the mirage-like opening he'd conjured into being in this dreamscape. Sure enough, there was Dagda - he hadn't really paid attention before, but the entire maze was dimly lit by an unseen source - and she looked at the approaching half-orc with fear, imagining he might have been the creature stalking her through this maze. "It's all right," Wakuren reassured her. "I am a cleric of Cal, and I am here to help you escape this dream." Just to make himself appear even more harmless, he used his recent dream training to conjure up a copy of the headband he'd been forced to wear while traveling through the underground dwarven cities of Stonehold and Deepshaft, which bore the holy symbol of Aerik and designated the wearer as having been properly vetted by the dwarven leadership of the cities. Surprisingly, it did the trick; Dagda's worries about being alone in a tunnel with a half-orc vanished completely.
"This's just a dream?" Dagda asked, clearly pleased, no doubt thinking it would be a simple matter to wake herself up. Wakuren had to disabuse her of that notion, explaining that her sister Gemma had told Wakuren and his four companions that she'd been asleep now for three weeks. "Three weeks?" demanded the dwarf. "How c'n this be?"
"Time passes strangely in dreams," Wakuren told her. "As for how is your body still alive after three weeks without food or water, it's all part of the dream plague - the dreamer's body goes into a sort of stasis. We're not sure exactly how it works, but we've awakened people who have been asleep for much longer than you have."
"How do I wake up, then?"
"I imagine we need to kill the creature stalking you through this maze, or find the exit, or possibly even both." Wakuren took Dagda by the arm and started leading her down the twisting passageway to see if they could find the exit.
Alewyth, realizing rescuing Dagda was likely the way to free her from the dream, closed her eyes and imagined the woman traveling down a corridor. She willed herself by the dwarf's side, hoping her lucid dreaming training would allow her to teleport there. The effort failed, but she did get a better sense of the way of this maze: she could apparently walk through a wall if she concentrated hard enough, or even shift a section of the maze five feet in either direction. Zander Quilson walked through the solid wall before him, proving the concept to his own satisfaction. He still didn't know where he was, but at least he was no longer up against a dead end.
Dagda followed Wakuren's lead, while Thurloe hurried to catch up to the pair. He used his wand to cast a shield spell on himself, figuring if the bellowing monster ever caught up to them, he'd be glad he had done so. Xandro passed through another wall, figuring if he kept going in one direction he'd eventually find his way out of the maze. But the maze shifted once again, and what had once been a solid wall to the bard's right was now an open passageway, through which stepped a massive minotaur, greataxe held in one beefy hand. He hefted it up over his shoulder, bringing it crashing down at Xandro, who did his best to dodge the blow but ended up taking a hit in the leg, opening up a long gash that immediately filled his boot with his own blood.
Alewyth noticed this newest configuration change had undone a barrier that had been placed in her way earlier. She scrambled back north, unknowingly following part of a passageway the minotaur had taken earlier. Zander, in the meantime, ran forward because he could hear familiar voices up ahead; those of Thurloe and Wakuren, who were steadily making their way north with Dagda.
Xandro stabbed at the minotaur with his frost short sword, getting in a quick jab in the creature's belly before darting away, hoping to put a safe distance between them, for he wasn't sure he could fight off the bull-headed monstrosity by himself. But the minotaur allowed Xandro to flee from him, for with his perfect mastery of the maze, he knew by shifting the section he was in twenty feet to the right, he'd link up to the corridor currently being traversed by Thurloe Pulver, who certainly hadn't expected the minotaur's sudden arrival. Wakuren and Dagda were already around a corner and failed to notice the spellsword's predicament behind them.
Alewyth exited the corridor and found herself in a hallway facing the minotaur. She crept up on it as silently as she could, before sprinting the remaining distance and bringing Sjondra crashing down upon the bovine beast-man. Zander, however, found himself cut off from the others again by the maze's last shifting, but he found himself close to Alewyth and Thurloe, so he cast a haste spell upon the three of them. Thurloe's swing with his bastard sword was therefore much quicker than it would have been normally, and it got past the minotaur's defenses to cut a gash of pain across his furry chest. Xandro passed through another wall, getting himself farther away from the minotaur and inadvertently running into Wakuren and Dagda as they continued their meandering way northward.
The minotaur, bellowing loudly in rage and pain, brought his greataxe slicing into Thurloe, while Alewyth took advantage of his attention being focused upon the spellsword to bring Sjondra into play once again. Zander took the long way around and came up behind the minotaur, blasting at it with a lightning bolt spell that slew the beast, sending him crashing lifelessly to the stone floor of the maze. Any hopes that the dream would end with the minotaur's death were instantly crushed, but it was only a matter of everyone getting together (passing through the walls aided them greatly in this endeavor) and finding the doorway out of the labyrinth at the very northernmost wall before the dwarf's dream started dissolving around them, a sure sign she was waking up. As one, the five dreamwalkers snapped themselves awake, their consciousnesses returning to their bodies on the Mortal Plane in Dagda's bedroom.
"We thank ye fer wakin' Dagda," said Gemma. "But if we could ask ye fer another favor? Y'see, it's our husbands – they've not returned from th' mines in over a week. That's not normal, not at all. I've gone t' th' manager, Virgil Goldenglow, but 'e won't let none 'f us see 'em, nor will 'e let any o' 'em back up from th' mines. Got a special vein they unearthed, 'e says, an' the miners're supposed t' be all on overtime, but what good's th' money if'n ye're livin' down there in th' mine every hour 'f th' day? Plus, all we got's Goldenglow's promise o' overtime pay – none 'f us've seen a single coin yet. Will ye check it out for us? I dinnae trust that Goldenglow!"
"I take it staying down in the mines isn't a normal occurrence?" Wakuren asked.
"Nae, they normally go down fer a shift, 'n come on back up home fer th' night," Dagda replied. Wakuren promised the dwarven women they'd go check out the situation.
Heading over to the mines, they found Alewyth's guess about the reason for the mine's name to be entirely accurate: the openings to the mines were about thirty and sixty feet down a vertical chasm, at the bottom of which - another hundred or more so feet down - could be seen a pool of bubbling lava. Access to the mine openings was through a pair of metal elevators, each hanging by thick chains from a scaffolding that hung over the top of the near side of the chasm, and which were powered by the strength of ermalkankaris, or stone drakes: draconic creatures with thick, hard scales, stumpy wings, and a boulderlike club at the end of their tails. There was an ermalkankari chained to each of the elevators, and at the commands of their dwarven handlers they'd lower the cage to the appropriate level.
The dwarven handlers, however, wouldn't let the heroes talk to the mine manager. "Mr. Goldenglow, 'e said nobody's t' be let down t' th' mines an' nobody's t' be let up from th' mines until he says so," replied a sturdy-looking dwarf.
"And I suppose he's down there in the mines," guessed Thurloe. The dwarf nodded. "Then how are we supposed to get word to him that we wish to talk to him?"
"There'll be none 'f that, I'm afraid, 'til Mr. Goldenglow comes up from th' mines when he's good 'n ready," explained the dwarven drake handler.
"What if he's hurt or injured?" demanded Alewyth.
"Then one o' th' other miners'd send up word."
"But what if th' miners've all been attacked by some monster down there?" Alewyth pressed. Once again, when talking to her own people, her manner of speech started mirroring their own.
"Ye c'n hear them still at work," pointed out the handler. Sure enough, echoing back up from the chasm came the sounds of picks and hammers hitting stone. Wakuren, however, had stepped up to the edge of the cliffside and was looking down at the uppermost mine entrance, over on the far side of the chasm. A bald humanoid approached, who by his sheer size Wakuren assumed must be one of the stone giant miners. He started unloading a mine cart - which had been pulled by an ermalkankari - taking large crystals and laying them out onto one of the two iron "landing platforms" that jutted out from the cave opening; these were the stations where the elevator doors, which swung down from hinges at the bottom of the cage, would line up to form a sort of bridge when the elevator had been lowered to the appropriate depth.
"I thought this was a silver mine," Wakuren observed.
"Aye, it is."
"Then what's that miner down there doing with those crystals?" While the drake handlers came to the edge to see what the half-orc was talking about, Wakuren examined the aura of the stone giant miner. He was not of an evil bent. Wakuren then cast a detect magic spell and examined the stone giant's aura in further detail, sighing in satisfaction when he picked up the sign of enchantment magic at play. "He's under some sort of enchantment," he told the others. "Probably being dominated."
"What're those? demanded one of the handlers, as a crystalline scorpion skittered up the cliff wall and gathered up a pair of crystals in its claws, then scampered down the way if had come. Behind it, two more of the creatures did likewise. There was also a massive length of thick chain, of the type they used on the elevators, leading down from the lower level of the mines nearly to the top of the lava - that hadn't been there before, either! Then, looking at his partner in confusion, the drake handler came to a decision. "Okay, never mind. We'll lower ye t' th' upper mine level, so's ye c'n talk t' Mr. Goldenglow an' see what's what down there."
But by then, the heroes had come up with a different plan. "I'd rather not fight off a bunch of miners who are being mind-controlled against their will," Wakuren declared. "Odds are, they're not being harmed, just being forced to mine for those crystals instead of the veins of silver. That's not likely to cause them any harm, so let's go down to where those scorpion-things are headed. Maybe we can put a stop to the root cause of whatever's going on down there." As he spoke, the first of the crystalline arachnids made it to what was apparently a cave opening just above the lava pool, for it ducked into some sort of hole in the side of the cliff a mere dozen feet or so above the lava.
Thurloe and Zander cast mage armor and shield spells upon themselves and then entered the lamp. Xandro and Alewyth followed, leaving the lamp in the hands of Wakuren, who cast the spells air walk and gaseous form upon himself. His body now a loose gathering of fine mist, he floated over the edge of the chasm, sinking slowly down towards the bubbling lava. Inside the lamp, Alewyth kept watch on the misty half-orc's progress by scrying through the tiger's eye gem he wore on his forehead, using the items they had taken from Corbin Mallaxus's lab when they had rescued the gemcutter Iriadorrista some weeks back. She saw him enter a large cave, reassume solid form, and set the lamp down. "Let's go!" she called to the others, stepping onto the magical circle and calling out the command word that shunted them out of the extradimensional space and onto the stone floor of the cave. There was no illumination inside the cave save for the reddish light coming off the lava outside, which gave everything a hellish glow.
Thurloe, Zander, and the cooshee - still active since being put on guard duty back in Dagda's bedroom - wandered down a side tunnel heading diagonally deeper into the mountainside. There was a reddish light at the end of that tunnel, which turned out to be an open pit at the front of a side cavern, bit blocking it from side to side. Judging from the glow, the pit was filled with lava, and as a result none of the three wanted to get too close, for the heat it gave off was immense.
Wakuren bent down and picked up Hesperna's lamp, placing it back into his pack as Xandro and Alewyth looked around. The side passageway seemed to be the only exit from this central cavern, other than the front entrance leading out into the cliffside. But their error was made known to them almost immediately, when the crystal dragon came flying down from its ledge forty feet up the western wall, flew over to the exit, spun around in place, and spewed a cone of burning brilliance at the trio of trespassers.
All three cried out in pain as the light seemed to burn through their flesh and set their bones afire - that's certainly what it felt like, at least. Alewyth suffered even more, for she had been facing directly at the entrance when the dragon flew down, and as such the vision was temporarily burned from her eyes; she was completely blind, not in the sense that all she saw was blackness, but quite the opposite: the field of vision before her was nothing but an intensely-glowing white.
Wakuren staggered down the diagonal passageway and warned the others. Then he said the words to a summoning spell, calling forth an axiomatic giant wasp, which he sent into battle against the dragon on his behalf. The giant insect swung its stinger at the dragon's hardened hide, but the point slid off its crystalline scales, to no apparent effect.
Xandro pulled out his Dardolian lute and began the words to his song of inspirational courage, not wishing to rush into physical combat with the flying reptile, nearly twice the size of a horse. But even over his music he could hear the sounds of crystal striking rock coming from behind him, and rounding the corner of the tunnel just past the lava pit came the first of the three crystalline scorpions, creatures called crysmals from the Elemental Plane of Earth. They were each about the size of a small dog, but their pincers and the stinger at the ends of their tails seemed particularly sharp and could likely dish out quite a bit of damage.
Alewyth, blind and close to helpless, decided taking herself out of the combat was the best idea at the present moment, so she cast a sanctuary spell on herself and slowly backed up until she could feel the solid wall of the entry cavern at her back. Thurloe cautiously approached from the diagonal tunnel, casting a ray of enfeeblement at the crystal dragon. Big as it might be, the spellsword knew dragons could grow to be much, much larger as they aged, and he was glad to see this one was still apparently young enough not to have developed the natural resistance to spells that many older dragons possessed. His spell-ray struck true, leeching off some of the reptile's strength, diminishing its combat prowess by some unknown extent.
Zander ran back into the cave, placing himself protectively in front of Alewyth and casting a lightning bolt spell at the hovering dragon. The cooshee started to run up to the dragon but apparently thought better of trying to bite a creature whose scales looked to be the consistency of solid crystal. He just barked up at the dragon, voicing his displeasure.
With a mighty flap of its wings, the dragon soared forward and landed back on the cavern floor, snapping its teeth at Zander, then slashing at the elf with its claws as an afterthought. The claws both struck, sending the elf staggering first one way and then the other, the front of his robes now in tatters. Seeing that, Wakuren raced up and slammed his shield of Cal into the dragon's side, causing a chime as his metal shield struck the dragon's crystalline hide. Now behind the dragon, the giant wasp tried stinging it again, but once again its stinger just slid along the creature's hardened scales.
Back in the tunnel, Xandro spun around and faced the first approaching crysmal, blasting it with a sonic blast from his Dardolian lute. While the attack seemed to do some damage - fine cracks had appeared up and down the crystalline creature's body - it skittered forth and jabbed at the bard with the tip of its tail. Xandro felt the pain as the stinger pierced his thigh, but was surprised there was no follow-up poison, as one would expect from a terrestrial scorpion - and then he realized a creature made of living crystal would likely have no use for venom on its home plane, where most - if not all - of the denizens would be made of living stone and crystal.
Alewyth started scooting herself to her left, towards the diagonal tunnel she knew to be in that direction. Still unable to contribute much to the combat with the dragon in her blinded state, she cast a summoning spell of her own and brought forth an earth element giant praying mantis, a giant insect made from living stone. It sent its pincered forelimbs clawing at the dragon, to no definitive result.
Still deciding ranged spells was the way to go against a creature as powerful as a dragon, Thurloe cast a vampiric touch spell at the dragon and siphoned off some of its life energy, filling his own body with stolen vigor. Using similar logic, Zander cast his own ray of enfeeblement at the crystal dragon, weakening it even further, and then backed up against the wall to Alewyth's right. The cooshee tried clawing at the dragon and had no luck penetrating its thick, crystalline hide, so he backed over by his master, still barking loudly.
The dragon lurched over to its right and sent its head snaking out to Thurloe, biting the spellsword as punishment for that last spell he'd cast, which the dragon, Charirkethend, had apparently not appreciated at all. At that close-up range, Thurloe couldn't help but notice that the dragon had some sort of a red gemstone embedded in its forehead and idly wondered if that was a normal part of its body, an adornment of some sort, or perhaps some type of magic item. He was tempted to ask Wakuren to cast a detect magic spell on it, but the half-orc was busy slamming the side of his shield into the dragon's hide, cracking a few scales as he did so. Behind the dragon, the giant wasp continued its ineffectual attacks, and Wakuren wondered if a different animal might not have been a better choice for him to have summoned.
Xandro stabbed out with his frost short sword and pierced the head of the crysmal that had stabbed him, killing it. But now the other two came skittering up, rounding the corner and coming into view. One of them was upon the bard before he could put up much a defense, stabbing at him with its wickedly sharp tail-spike.
Not knowing what else to do while still blind, Alewyth cast a bless spell upon whatever members of her group were within range, which included the mantis she'd summoned from the Elemental Plane of Earth. It clawed at the dragon again, with little effect. However, now that the dragon had closed the distance with Thurloe, the spellsword decided a little hand-to-hand combat was in order, so he brought his bastard sword Spellslicer crashing across the front of the dragon's neck, activating a charge of his torc of the titans to put as much strength behind his blow as he could. The maneuver worked, and the dragon seemed genuinely surprised to be actively bleeding through his damaged scales. The astonishment didn't last long, however, for Zander finished the dragon off with another lightning bolt spell that went crashing through its crystalline body, causing it to crash to the floor in the middle of the entry cavern, quite dead. The cooshee continued barking at it.
Wakuren wasted no time rushing back into the diagonal tunnel to come to Xandro's aid. He brought his shield down upon one of the two crysmals lined up against the bard, cracking the top of its carapace. The giant wasp flew down the tunnel and tried stinging the crysmal as well, having just as much luck against it as it had with the dragon. Xandro managed to kill the one he had been fighting as the other one stabbed up at Wakuren, hitting the half-orc's hand with the tip of its stinger.
But back in the entry cavern, strange things were going on. There was a wavering of air above the dead crystal dragon's head, and then hovering in the air there was a floating brain, little crackles of electricity sparking off from it and flailing out in all directions. It focused its attention on Zander, and then an arc of electricity sprang between it and the startled sorcerer, sending the elf's hair sticking up as the blast of lightning burned his skin.
Alewyth still couldn't see what was going on, but she knew combat of a sort was continuing even though she was pretty sure the dragon had been slain. Unsure of what else to do, she cast a healing spell upon herself, restoring some of the damage she'd taken from the dragon's breath weapon. And she wasn't sure yet if she was just imagining it, but it seemed like her vision was starting to clear a bit along the periphery; while most of her field of vision was a brilliant white, she was starting to pick up other colors along the outer edges. She blinked rapidly to try to speed up the process.
The giant mantis lashed out at the floating brain with its claws, scoring a hit and drawing a few gashes along the side of the spongy material making up its body. At the same time, Thurloe was situated so he could see the massive chain dangling down from the lower mine level start to jostle and move; looking up, he could see one of the stone giants start to climb down. But then he brought Spellslicer crashing down from an overhead swing, cutting the brainstorm in two. It fell to the side of the dragon in two separate pieces.
"What the hell was that?" demanded Alewyth, whose vision had cleared enough to see Thurloe cut down some sort fo floating brain that certainly hadn't been there when the dwarven priestess had first lost her sight.
"Beats me," replied Thurloe, as Zander pried the red gemstone from the dragon's forehead with his dagger. To his surprise, it floated out of his hand and started orbiting his head. "It's an ioun stone!" he declared. "I've heard of these!"
Back in the side tunnel, Xandro and Wakuren finally killed the remaining crysmal and went back to check on the others. "We're about to have company," Thurloe informed them, looking up at the steadily-climbing stone giant making his way down the chain.
"No we aren't!" replied Alewyth, casting a wall of stone spell that sealed off the cave opening. It suddenly got a lot darker in the entry cave, as the illumination from the lava outside the cave was blocked, but there was still a reddish glow coming from the far end of the diagonal tunnel. She then gave her mantis a command and it earthglided through the solid rock to perch itself by the dangling chain, its arms spread out in an attack stance to hopefully ward off the approaching stone giant.
Via the light of an activated sunrod, Thurloe unpacked his coil of rope and his grappling hook, looking up at the top of the dragon's perch, forty feet above him. He made his windup and tossed the grappling hook up onto the ledge with his first try, then softly tugged on the rope until the hook caught on something sturdy up there. Giving the rope a few experimental tugs, Thurloe declared it safe to support his weight and started his ascent.
Zander and Alewyth, accompanied by a tail-wagging cooshee, went down the side tunnel instead. It got appreciably hotter the closer they got to the lava pit, but once they got close enough Alewyth was able to make out what she'd expected to be the case: the smaller cavern on the other side of the pit was the dragon's treasure hoard, filled with loose coins and gems and the occasional carved statuette. "We'll have to come back for it," she lamented. "Best we keep on exploring the place for now."
Rounding the corner, Alewyth led the trio into a much larger cavern, in the back of which the crysmals had apparently been crafting a humanoid body out of the crystals they'd been bringing down from the mines above. The statue seemed fully complete: it had a head, two arms and two legs extending from a thick, squat torso, and while it didn't seem to have much in the way of fancy facial features it looked to be perfectly serviceable if this was supposed to be some sort of golem or animated statue or something. But the crystal figure remained inert, lying on its back, face looking up to the cavern's ceiling some 50 or 60 feet above it.
Alewyth didn't like it. As Wakuren and Zander entered the cave behind her, she cast a prayer spell on the group, just in case. Zander followed with a stoneskin spell on himself, not trusting that the thing wouldn't activate all of a sudden and try to smash him into paste.
Outside the sealed cave, the mantis had noticed its offensive stance wasn't having any effect on the stone giant, who continued his cautious approach down the chain. So the mantis skittered over, grabbed the loose end of the chain in one of its pincers, and pulled it further away from the side of the cave. But that didn't seem to faze the stone giant any; by the time he noticed the shift in direction, he simply hung on the chain with his left hand supporting his weight, while he planted his feet against the cliff side for support, gathered up a section of chain in his right hand, and tugged. The chain was forced out of the mantis's claws, and the stone giant continued his descent. But when he was close enough, he could see the cave entrance had been sealed up and there was no longer any way for him to enter the dragon's lair by that method.
Thurloe hauled himself up to the crystal dragon's perch and was disappointed to see it was just an empty cavern, with no treasure. But there was a set of natural stone steps in the back, leading down to the large chamber with the inert crystal golem lying on its back. Thurloe stepped up to the edge and lowered himself down to the first "step." But as he did so, there were shimmerings along the ceiling of the golem cave as six brainstorms lowered themselves into the room, shifting in from the Ethereal Plane (from which they'd been able to glide through the solid stone separating the cavern from the mines above). A seventh floated in seemingly from the stone steps before Thurloe; this one had just exited the area on the Ethereal Plane linking it to the stone giant on the chain outside. The stone giant, now free of the brainstorm's domination, shook his head in surprise and started the long climb back up to the mines, ever aware of the lava below him if he lost his grasp.
Wakuren and Xandro fully entered the cave behind Alewyth, the bard starting his song of inspirational courage back up. Alewyth struck at a brainstorm with Sjondra, causing it to veer sideways in the air, fluid dripping from the side of its physical structure. Thurloe leaped down another natural stone step and cast a fireball spell in the back of the cavern below him, engulfing half a dozen of the gathered brainstorms and slaying three of them outright. Seeing that success, Zander did likewise with a fireball spell of his own, killing another three of the floating menaces. This left but a single brainstorm left alive from the original eight in the hivemind; it shifted to the Ethereal Plane and entered the inert crystal golem awaiting its presence.
Originally, the eight brainstorms were going to merge into one vast intellect and pilot the crystal golem together, giving the psionic entities a permanent physical body that would allow them to manipulate the world around them without depending upon dominated slaves. With just the one brainstorm remaining, the crystal golem wouldn't be as powerful as originally intended, but the brainstorm was much safer inside the crystalline humanoid than dealing with the five attackers in its own rather soft body.
With a silent lurch, the golem rose to its feet, towering above its enemies. Wakuren wasted no time in rushing the giant foe, slamming his shield into its knee, hoping to shatter it and render it incapable of further movement. Xandro aimed another sonic blast from his Dardolian lute at the crystal golem, hoping its crystalline structure would prove to be particularly vulnerable to the harmonics. But the golem swung out a massive fist much faster than the bard had anticipated, and even the glancing blow sent him reeling to the side, holding his lute protectively to his body so it wouldn't get damaged in the fall.
Alewyth cast a spiritual weapon spell and rushed at the crystal golem, striking it in the leg with Sjondra. Overhead, another dwarven warhammer took shape, this one made of solid force energy, and rushed over to strike the golem in its nearly featureless head.
Thurloe cast a magic missile spell at the crystal golem and the beams of energy from his fingers were reflected in random directions, the golem's crystal body acting like a prism. Fortunately, none of the missiles struck any of the other heroes; it was bad enough the spellsword's spell didn't have any effect upon its target, but it would be far worse if it hurt Thurloe's fighting companions.
Zander attempted a lightning bolt spell at the crystal golem and was glad to see it worked just fine. His cooshee stayed back, instinctive knowing his teeth, sharp as they might be, were useless against a creature made of solid crystal. Wakuren's summoned axiomatic giant wasp flew at the golem's head, ineffectually hitting it in a crystal eye with its stinger before the insect blinked back out of existence, returning to the Outer Plane from which it had been summoned in the first place.
Then the golem took a step forward and slammed Wakuren not once but twice, pinning him between its massive fists. The air from the half-orc's lungs exploded out of his mouth as his ribs were crushed, piercing the organs that were imprisoned within. With a final, gasping breath, the cleric-paladin of Cal, God of Healing and the Air, died and let his broken body collapse upon the stone floor of the cavern in which the golem had been brought into an unholy semblance of life.
Xandro's eyes grew wide as he saw Wakuren's body fall, and he fell back, well out of range of the golem's fists. Wakuren had worn much heavier armor than Xandro did, and if it could do that to him.... He continued his song of inspirational courage, hoping it would provide the boost to one of the others willing to take it on in hand-to-hand combat.
Alewyth was one of those perfectly willing to do so. She, too, had seen Wakuren fall, but she realized there was nothing to be done about it at the moment and the best thing she could do for Wakuren right now was to slay his killer, to ensure it never had the opportunity to kill anyone else. Later, when this threat was over, she would allow herself to grieve her fallen friend; for now, she channeled her anger into casting a shatter spell at the construct, while her spiritual warhammer continued to strike the golem in the head.
Thurloe dropped down another step and cast a lightning bolt spell up at the golem, who still towered above him although he was still several steps higher than the stone floor upon which the golem stood. Zander did likewise, striking up at the construct with a lightning bolt spell of his own. But the golem ignored both of these attacks to strike Alewyth; the second blow from its massive fists dropped her to the ground as well, although luckily she was just unconscious, not dead.
But that was enough for Xandro to find his courage - a courage inspired by outrage more than anything else. Setting down his Dardolian lute safely behind him, he charged the crystal golem and swung his frost short sword at the same knee Alewyth had been attacking, hoping she'd weakened it enough for him to be able to finish the job - and hopefully before its crystalline fists finished him! But as Alewyth lay bleeding on the stone floor, her spiritual weapon spell continued on with its last orders: striking the crystal golem in the head. This it continued to do, and would continue to do until either the golem was destroyed or the duration of the spell ran out.
Out of his really powerful spells, Thurloe activated his magic torc for the second time that day and charged at the golem, swinging his bastard sword for all he was worth, well aware that it had single-handedly dropped two of the five of them, one of them quite permanently. He hoped Alewyth wasn't about to join Wakuren in death.
Zander cast another lightning bolt at the golem, wisely sticking to a spell he knew worked (he'd seen how ineffectual magic missiles were against the thing). The golem was staggering a bit now, but it still managed to hit Xandro a glancing blow with one fist. But the bard managed to roll with the attack, staying on his feet and swinging his blade for all he was worth. The sword-strike hit the knee, causing the creature's entire leg to slough off at the damage point, whereupon it fell face forward onto the hard ground and shattered, psionic crystals flying in all directions.
"Thank the gods!" cried Thurloe, glad that they'd finally taken down the psionic construct. Of course, there was still the piloting brainstorm to deal with, but the spellsword had anticipated its return upon the golem's destruction and when it manifested in the Material Plane, Thurloe's bastard sword was there waiting for it. Burned as it was from the previous fireballs, one strike from Spellslicer was all it took to bring down this final threat.
Zander had run over to Alewyth's prone form, pulled her head up onto his lap, and forced a potion of cure light wounds down her throat. That at least stabilized her and dealt with the more serious of her wounds, but it took another such potion to rise her back to wakefulness. "Wakuren!" she cried upon waking up, recalling the damage that had been done to her half-orc friend.
"Um, guys," called Xandro. He had his sword drawn and its blade pointed at Wakuren, which the others found strange until they saw what was crawling out from the back of his neck. Phasing out of his body in a manner not entirely dissimilar from the way the brainstorms shifted between the Material Plane and the Ethereal Plane, the powerslug detached itself from the base of Wakuren's spinal cord and crawled out, seeking new prey. Its anesthetizing slime would make it such that its new potential host wouldn't even feel it crawl first upon his or her skin and then into their body, but the entire process hinged upon it not being noticed beforehand. Thurloe applied Spellslicer to the problem at hand, cutting the powerslug in half before it could get too far from Wakuren's body.
"What in the world was that?" demanded Zander.
"Not sure, don't care," replied Thurloe. "It's dead, whatever it was."
Now came the decision of what to do next. Alewyth insisted they bring Wakuren's body into Hesperna's lamp, and specifically into the chest the night hag had used to store her larvae, which shrunk them down so they could all fit inside. "Tomorrow, I'll pray for a gentle repose spell to cast upon ye," she promised her dead friend. Then, exiting the lamp, she handed it over to Thurloe, who used his anklet of translocation to dimension door over to the far side of the lava pit, where he could scoop up the dragon's accumulated treasure and transport it, bit by bit, inside the lamp for safekeeping. Once that was done - and it took a fair amount of time - he used his anklet to dimension door to the diagonal corridor again; the pit's edges were right up to the sides of the opening to the treasure cave, and trying to climb past it could easily become lethal with one wrong misstep.
When the four remaining heroes had made it back to the entry cavern, Alewyth used a stone shape spell to open a doorway in the wall of stone she'd erected earlier. "But now what?" asked Zander. "Wakuren had cast an air walk spell on himself so he'd be able to get the rest of us back to the surface while we were in the lamp!"
"Hold your horses," chided Thurloe, digging in his pack for one of the spellbooks he'd recovered from the wizards they had defeated in combat. Flipping through the pages, he found what he had been looking for. "Here we go: the fly spell. I don't know the spell well enough to cast it myself, but I have two copies of it in two different spellbooks. I'll use this copy like a scroll. The rest of you, into the lamp!"
Alewyth, Xandro, and Zander complied, while Thurloe concentrated on getting the words right for the fly spell; as he intoned each arcane syllable, it disappeared from the page of the spellbook upon which it had been transcribed. But once he had finished, he was under the full effects of the spell; picking up the lamp, he flew up to the lower level of the mine to check on everyone up there. Once there, the other heroes emerged from the lamp and they got the full story, about how they had unearthed a vein of psionic crystals, the coming of the first brainstorm (they were a little unsure of how it had come to be, none of them realizing this first brainstorm had been created from the psionic emanations of Charirkethend, whose psionic abilities were resonated in and amplified by the crystals), and how it not only could take over a person's will but also "download" a copy of itself into a living brain, which then exploded out of the victim's head as an identical clone of the first brainstorm, and how they had all been forced to continue to mine the vein of psionic crystals above all else. It had only been when the heroes slew the crystal dragon that the brainstorm that had been dominating the dragon alerted its brethren of the attack, causing them to abandon their hosts in the mines and fly to the rescue. Nobody knew where the "crystal scorpions" had come from; Charirkethend, under the brainstorm's sway, had brought them from the Elemental Plane of Earth, crystal dragons - even juvenile ones - having the ability to plane shift to the Elemental Planes at will. The crysmals had assembled the crystal golem using methods known only among themselves.
The miners were currently in the midst of shutting down the mine for the day, so they could bury the seven miners (all dwarves) who had been slain in the past week to create the seven follow-on brainstorms. Fortunately, a roll call determined that Dagda's and Gemma's husbands, Grigori Ironforge and Vlagdir Broadstone, respectively, were not among the miners who had been slain.
The fly spell still in effect, Thurloe flew his companions back up in Hesperna's lamp to the surface so they could deliver the news to the two dwarven sisters.
- - -
Well, this adventure turned out quite differently than I had anticipated, but I think for the most part it was for the best. I had been worried that this adventure was going to go a lot longer than my previous ones, but then the players had their PCs bypass both levels of the mines themselves and go right to the dragon's lair, avoiding a lot of unnecessary combat with the dominated miners (and their stone drake beasts of burden). I hadn't counted on Wakuren getting killed, either, but it brought to an end the powerslug infestation he'd picked up 16 adventures prior, when the powerslug infesting the slain orc leader in "Raiders of the Lost Orcs" found a new unwitting host when Wakuren was checking the body for loot. From that point on, every time the PCs leveled up I had Wakuren gain a +2 to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. Those bonuses were all at +6 when he was slain, and had been the cause of his irritability and lust for combat (including slapping Thurloe in the face a couple of adventures ago when the spellsword had been nagging him about detecting evil on everyone, and his recent penchant for smashing wizards' faces into unyielding stone walls until they were little more than mush). I mentioned to Dan at work the Monday after playing through this adventure that that had been why Wakuren had slapped his PC, and Dan understands completely - but he'd already devised his eventual payback and didn't see why he shouldn't go through with it anyway when the time comes.
Finally, I had put in over 23,000 gp worth of treasure in this adventure, thinking it would be a big payday for the PCs, but they opted to bring Wakuren back to life via a true resurrection spell (as the other options, raise dead and resurrection, would bring him back one level lower than the rest of them), so they decided to split the difference five ways and pay for the higher-level spell that way. So despite my intentions, this adventure actually had a negative amount of treasure. And I informed them they'll need to backtrack four days to get to Centraldale (where they went through the "Hog Wild" adventure) as it has a shrine of Delphyne, which will allow them to teleport to either Baron's Haven or Port Duralia, where there will be a cleric of Akari high enough to cast true resurrection on Wakuren; in either case it will be the Father Bones of that temple who'll do the ceremony. They at least have the advantage of having dealt with those cities' Father Bones before; the one from Baron's Haven even owes them a favor.
We also hit one other snag in this adventure - it became quite apparent that my 16-year-old nephew Harry, who runs Xandro, has come to a conclusion shared by many players: namely, that bards suck. So we talked about it over dinner, and decided Xandro will be adding rogue levels only from now on; at the end of the campaign, he should be a 6th-level bard/14th-level rogue. I also decided we'd be adding in a female NPC bard who could handle the "inspire courage" front for the PCs while Xandro was free to do something cool, preferably with a cool new weapon. I've decided that the weapon (a rapier, by Harry's choice) will add the +3d6 sneak attack damage he's missed out on by taking those six bard levels; he'll be behind on the other rogue stuff but I think that will help him feel more like he's pulling his own weight while still getting to do fun stuff. ("I continue to inspire courage" is not a particularly fun way to spend round after round, he's decided. We tried warning him at the beginning of the campaign that the bard is inherently a support character, but he wanted to try it out for himself.)
- - -
T-shirt worn: My Einstein T-shirt, a good representation of someone associated with a "brainstorm."
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