Session #63 (part iii)
Anarie’s reverie was very odd. Instead of reliving the memories of her own life, the broken images, while still from her perspective seemed to be of someone else’s life. She was marching through a dark place, all color washed out of it, except for the occasional gleam of mail from ahead of her. She seemed to be marching with other elves.
Soon she found herself pool of clear water, kneeling to fill a black leathery skin. As the bright moonlight glimmered on the surface and saw her reflection; hair white like silver; eyes, a steel shining gray, and skin like charred ebony.
“Be on the alert,” Anarié said, her unblinking eyes suddenly moving as she leapt to her feet. “Wake up! There are
novilustani around. There are drow around!”
In a moment, all were awake. Ratchis prayed to Nephthys to increase his strength, while Martin cast
mage armor on Beorth, as there was no time to put on his splint mail. Gunthar, a sword in one hand and a javelin in the other, jogged off into the darkness of the trees, as moonlight streamed into the clearing.
“Martin, if you could cast that
armor upon me as well, I would appreciate it,” Ratchis barked.
“There are three sh*t-bears coming around from the north,” Gunthar hissed.
“Remember, there are drow here as well,” Anarié said. “They are crafty opponents.”
“Everybody stay together. Let them come to us,” Ratchis rousing his companions, as they all felt a fear creep over them. There were no sounds of night birds or insects, and the breeze had fallen out of the trees, leaving only the sound of deep snarling ragged breaths syncopated by padded feet scrambling up over the rock, grunting as they pulled themselves from tree to tree.
Those coming from the left hooted and this time the hoot was echoed by the sound of more far below on the right, at the bottom of the steep side of the hill.
“There!” Gunthar pointed to a dirty white shaggy form breaking through the trees with a javelin, as he prepared for an opportunity for a clear shot.
With an arcane word, Ratchis was also the recipient of a protective spell as Beorth was, and a prayer from the Friar of Nephthys and the paladin, too did receive the strength of the bull.
Beorth moved to fill in the ring of heroes, as Martin ducked behind Kazrack.
“Huh-Hra!” Gunthar flung his javelin with all his might even as the shaggy first came into the dwarf’s view. The javelin shattered one of the quaggoth’s ribs and there was an explosion of flesh and blood. The bear-man tumbled to the ground. (1)
The next quaggoth to leap up to the top of the hill felt the bite of two of Anarie’s magic arrows of light. It stumbled, but did not fall.
Beorth stepped to his left to block the path of another quaggoth who came leaping from the shadows. It slammed into him with great force, and Ratchis stepped forward to meet the first one and cleaved its head open with his great axe.
The quaggoth Beorth fought felt the bite of the paladin’s sword, and it progress was stopped as it crouched back to snarl and circle him.
Anarié spoke a word and soon her cloak was shining with the smoky light of a torch, and she hurried over towards the tree where Gunthar waited to spot any more that might be coming up.
The fight had moved away from the center of the camp, as Ratchis, Kazrack, Anarie and Gunthar formed a line that reached from the trees out to where the quaggoths might approach from.
Beorth, however, was slowly drawn away in the other direction by his foe as they continued to trade blows.
“Are you okay back there, Beorth?” Ratchis called to his compainion. “Can you hear me back there?”
Three more came over the top of the hill and one ignored Ratchis to go for Kazrack to its error. Noting the thing’s left flank was open, Ratchis swung his axe up under its arm pit, nearly cleaving the thing’s head and shoulder off. It collapsed into a quivering pile of matted hair and meat.
“Ut un uz i-een!” Kazrack cursed incomprehensibly.
Another of the bear-men came out of the shadow of the wood; perhaps it had snuck around the very edge of the top of the hill. Gunthar was hard-pressed to get his guard up as his attention was on the where they thought was the place all the quaggoths emerged from. He grunted as links of his mail were caught in the jagged claws of the beast.
Anarié moved past the Neergaardian to listen for more coming around to flank from the darkness, and Beorth finally dropping his foe with a sword thrust, stopped to listen as well.
Martin cowered unsure of what to do, as yet another quaggoth came over the crest of the hill and charged at Kazrack.
Ratchis swung around striking deep into the shoulder of the quaggoth attacking Kazrack, but it refused to drop. Its squeal of pain turned into a roar of anger.
“Friggin’ sh*t-bears!” Gunthar swore. “You decided to climb up the wrong friggin’ hill!”
Gunthar fought off his attacker at the base of a tree, and several of his blows did not hit their mark, for it kept withdrawing into the branches. Suddenly, it roared and pushed through the branches to sink its teeth into Gunthar’s arm.
“Son of a bitch!” Gunthar swore. The thing huffed and puffed and its matted hair became bristled and its chest expanded.
Ratchis, distracted, felt the club of the one before him. Three more quaggoths were pulling themselves over the edge.
“Ow!” Beorth felt something like a sharp pinch at his neck, as something clanged against the bottom edge of his helmet. Reflexively, he reached up and brushed at it and tiny crossbow bolt fell away. The wound burned. He looked around frantically for it source.
“I’m checking on Beorth,” Ratchis announced, still holding his ground as more quaggoths approached, hooting and swinging their wood and stone clubs over their heads.
“Unteh-oo tuh uld uh lun,” Kazrack called, as he thrust his halberd into the gut of the man-bear before him and with a twist of the broad blade ripped its insides out. It tumbled over into the blood-soaked grass.
Anarié fired two more of her magic arrows at one of the quaggoths, not noticing that Beorth had spotted the source of the bolt.
There, barely visible in the shadow of a tall fir tree, stood a lithe dark figure, only a few loose strands of silver-white hair falling out from under a black leather helmet, and in muted gray mail that looked so finely woven that individual links could not be discerned. The dark elf held a tiny crossbow in one hand, and held a short sword in the other.
“Anubis, help me strike down these evil foes of light,” Beorth prayed to his god as he rushed over, inwardly thanking his keen eye-sight, but it was too late that he realized that the elf had allowed himself to be seen, and withdrew; Beorth was drawn into a trap. He felt a sharp blow to his side from behind and swung around, a second dark elf, this one wielding to two long swords had been hiding there, too.
From the darkness below the hill there came the sound of even more quaggoths hooting to each other.
One ran past Kazrack, and Martin only barely turned away to only get a painful glancing blow off his hip. As it was, it nearly knocked him off his feet.
Suddenly, the watch-mage cried out as he saw green and black flames begin to lick up his robes and surround him in an aura of arcane fire. It moved with him, shedding dim green light in the clearing.
“What the…?”
Not thinking anything of what seemed like a new spell of Martin’s, Kazrack stepped over and drove his halberd blade into the quaggoth’s back. It howled and turned to face the dwarf, suspicious of the green fire.
Gunthar and his foe traded blows, but it was too wild now and leaving itself open. The Neergaardian feinted a thrust and the thing dove for him, missing. It slammed its face against the hard ground.
The dark elf opened his mouth in a smile of brilliant white teeth. He dropped his crossbow and pulled a longsword in a blur of movement, and Beorth’s was only barely able to turn away blows that would have killed, into ones that merely drew blood.
“Dark skinned betrayers from under the hill, you will die tonight!” Anarié cried with rare passion, and she ran parallel to where she finally had seen the ancient foe of her people, and two bolts of white light flew from her finger, slamming into the elf.
“Are you not happy to see us, cousin?” the dark elf sneered.
Martin had managed to draw and load his crossbow, but his bolt went flying high over the quaggoth’s head.
The drow that remained invisible to all but Beorth struck out with one of his blades, whipping at Beorth’s weapon hand, slicing open gauntlet and hand alike. The sword flew from the paladin’s grasp and he turned to withdraw, feeling the bite of the drow blade twice more despite the enchantment on him. In less than a moment, he was bleeding on the ground, growing colder by the moment.
“The drow are here!” Ratchis announced rushing back to help Beorth, a quaggoth on his tail.
“There’s no such thing as dark fairies, unless you count the ones down by the docks in Earthsea City,” Gunthar quipped. He made short work of another quaggoth, ignoring the one on the ground momentarily.
Kazrack swung around and finished the one on the ground and swung out his blade to trip up the one chasing Ratchis, but it deftly leapt over the blow.
“
Askula!” sang a voice above them, and they looked to see a tall female drow dressed in a long black coat covered in gray and purple spiders. Her hair was cut in four stripes of shocking silver that wound down her back, kept in place by silver spiked barrettes, tied in intricate knots of hair. Her skin was like ash, and about her neck was black metal spider pendant.
A globe of magical darkness covered part of the clearing, engulfing the two drow, Beorth’s dying form and the charging half-orc. Two sharp blows greeted him to the deep darkness, and he frantically tried to keep up some guard, listening out for a footfall, but the sounds of battle were a cacophony.
“
Sagitta Magicus,” Anarié canted again, aiming at the drow sorceress, but this time the two arrows of white light seemed to fizzle out of existence just before striking her.
“Weak surface magic,” the drow said in thickly accented elven.
Martin tried for a shot at the drow sorceress, but it arced low.
Ratchis leapt back out of the darkness and called to Nephthys to close his wounds. Luckily, the quaggoth that was following him, had turned off to chase Martin, but Gunthar skipped out of the shadows with kick to the groin, and he slid his longsword into its chest through the shoulder when it doubled over. (2) It did not get back up.
By now the clearing was a mess of dirty white and red. More quaggoths had come over the side in the confusion, and Kazrack charged at one to keep two from ganging up on Anarié who was keeping them at bay gracefully, taking openings when she saw them.
Ratchis was caught unaware by one of the new-comers, and grunted in agony as he felt a stone club against his kidneys.
The darkness lifted and suddenly it dropped again, this time covering the main area of the battle.
“You want magic?” Martin cried out to the floating drow sorceress from beneath his mantle of green and black flame and sounding a little crazed. “Here is some magic for you.”
And suddenly the spell he had been chanting was completed. There was a flash of blinding light, and there stood, roaring on its hind legs, a golden bear that gleamed in the gloom. The bear clawed angrily at one of the quaggoths, but the thing leapt back, and hooted in fear.
The drowess ascended out of sight.
Martin hurried around the darkness, ready to cast a spell at the first foe he saw, but instead he felt the bite of a tiny crossbow bolt. The world became a dark blur and he felt himself slowly falling to the ground, and then all was black for him.
Kazrack instinctively leapt out of the darkness, and with two chopping blows, finished the one harassing Anarié.
“Oh Spider-Goddess! Bring me your servant so that we may slay the surface-dweller and her weak companions,” the sorceress hissed (3)
There was a pop and Anarie started as a fat black spider, nearly three feet in diameter appeared on the tree behind her. She ducked and twisted to avoid its bite, but it scurried after her. Ducking a quaggoth’s blow, she moved to flank the quaggoth still near her, putting it between her and Kazrack, and shoved her long sword through its lower back. It howled, but did not fall, spinning around and whipping it blood in great arcs.
The bear went after the spider instead, smashing its soft body easily, while turning to find the next closest foe.
Ratchis rushed his way through the darkness towards where he had last seen Beorth, but his joy at coming out into the moonlight was short lived. He saw movement to his left and turning to look, heard a twang, and suddenly his right eye was burning. One of the tiny crossbow bolts of the drow had pierced his eyeball. (4)
Roaring, he fell backwards, dropping his axe and clutching at his eye, and he wheeled around frantically. In all the commotion, he did not even feel the venom on the dart that put him in a questionably merciful sleep.
Gunthar whipped around to barely miss the furiously quick blows of the drow elf with two long swords.
“Bast’s Flabby Kitty Teats!” Gunthar cursed. He gritted his teeth as he tried a riposte that was easily parried. This elf also wore the gray finely woven mail, but had a burgundy cloak that seemed to flow in and out the darkness beneath the trees.
“There is a such thing as drow elves!” the Neergaardian cried out, and he yelled to Martin, who had just managed to stumble out of the darkness close by. “Fat ass! Get behind me!”
Gunthar and the drow fell to fencing, trading blows, and parrying. Again and again their blades met and turned. Gunthar put his strength into it, but the drow’s forms were practiced, and soon he had cuts in his wrist and forearm.
The Neergaardian cursed.
In the darkness, the summoned celestial bear squeezed the last life out of a quaggoth and bit deep into its shoulder to make sure.
Clear of quaggoth for a moment, Kazrack ran to Ratchis’ large pack and pulling the long bow from atop it, began to try to string it.
“Ruchus! Ur buh! Uh jrow ‘itch en ee uhr!” he said, and looking up he saw the drow sorceress point a finger at him and hiss an arcane word. A sickly green ray enveloped in a mist shot out at him, but Kazrack ducked out of the way of the spell, but right into the club of a quaggoth.
And now it was Anarié’s turn to come to Kazrack’s aid as she drove her blade into the back of a quaggoth moving to flank him.
Glad to have some support, Kazrack fit an arrow to Ratchis’ bow and fired up at the drow witch, but the arrow flew awkwardly and dropped short into the dirt.
The sorceress disappeared once more.
Dropping the bow, Kazrack drew his flail and leapt at the other quaggoth, smashing it full on in the face with a satisfying crunch. It fell, unmoving, to the earth.
The celestial bear grabbed another quaggoth in the darkness, and tore into it, killing it easily. It was the last one.
Anarié instinctively ducked a tiny bolt fired from the trees over her left shoulder, and spinning to knock the quaggoth she fought off balance, moved to support Gunthar, hoping to draw the other drow into a fight.
The bear bounded out of the darkness and charged at the drow wielding the hand crossbow, but the dark elf deftly spun out of the way. However, he was startled by his comrade’s cry, as Gunthar found the opening he was looking for and cut deeply into his foe’s thigh, nearly cutting the whole leg free of the crumpling body. (5) With one fluid movement, coming out of that blow, Gunthar spun into place to flank the other drow warrior against the glowing bear.
“Now we gotta little something goin’,” Gunthar said, licking his lips of his opponent’s blood.
The drow holding the crossbow moved away cautiously, ducking and weaving to avoid Gunthar’s blows, and getting dangerously close to the bear to cause the Neergaardian to pull his swords back, allowing for temporary escape. Gunthar, however, was not to be deterred when he moved to follow and noted the elf’s greater speed. He slid both swords away with a flick of his wrists, and pulled a javelin from the quiver on his back.
But the bear was quicker in its reaction and ripped at the elf with a claw. Crying out, the drow threw himself over the side of the hill, tumbled down its steep rocky surface into inky shadow. The bear, still following Martin’s last command to chase down and slay their foes, dove off the side after him.
Kazrack spun and threw a hand axe at the floating drowess, but she stayed just out of close range, surveying the melee as if she were not a part of it.
Anarié quickly cast a spell and moved with great speed away from the battle.
“Flee! Flee!” the drowess mocked from above in her accented elvish, but she seemed to be doing the same. Reaching out to grab a treetop to pull her levitating form around.
“Flee! Flee!” Anarié returned, and with a word she ran towards the tree leaping fifteen feet in the air and into the tree the drowess clung to. Unfortunately, the elf maid failed to get a good footing and slammed through the branches and needles to land heavily on the ground.
The drow sorceress laughed.
Gunthar cursed and ran back to the campfire, sticking his javelin into the flame until it caught.
Meanwhile Kazrack began to climb the tree, Anarié had just fallen out of, while she drew her bow and looked for a shot on the sorceress.
“
Teneraél Undol, grant me spider’s grace,” the sorceress chanted, and then leapt from the tree, clinging to a narrow branch at the top of one a handful of yards away like an insect. (6)
Gunthar threw his smoking javelin at the sorceress, but it just landed awkwardly in the tree, slowly making its way back down through the branches.
Anarié let an arrow fly, but it arced over the tree.
Looking down and then back up. Kazrack leapt back out of the tree, and ran over to check on Beorth and Ratchis.
Gunthar ran over to Martin’s slumbering form, and took up the mage’s crossbow and loaded it, taking a shot.
The sorceress leapt again and Anarié fired, but the arrow flew past the target. However, in ducking to miss the shaft, the arc of her leap was ruined and she slammed on the ground at the base of the tree she was leaping for.
Kazrack looked up from where he was using a
cure minor wounds spell to stabilize Beorth, when he heard Anarié call, “She’s on the ground!” The dwarf leapt to his feet and jogged in that direction, flail in hand.
A flurry of arrows of followed the sorceress back into the tree. She climbed with great speed and deftness, barely seeming to need to touch the branches.
“I hate these things,” Gunthar swore loading and firing again. Again, he missed.
The drowess leapt again, and this time Anarié’s arrow struck home! Or seemed to, only to bounce away as if it had struck some invisible barrier.
They chased her this way across the top of the hill, until bleeding from arrow that nicked her, she leapt into the top of a huge tree that was actually planted on one of the lower levels of the stepped hill. She began to climb down with great speed, and Kazrack leapt right off the hill at her when she was nearly level with him, but the dwarf fell short, slamming into the tree and sliding down.
Gunthar did not even bother to try for the tree and did a running jump down to the next step. His feet slipped out from under him and he landed painfully on his tailbone.
The drow sorceress leapt again, followed by one last arrow from Anarié, but it was too late. She was gone. (7)
End of Session #63
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Notes:
(1)
DM’s Note: Ken (who was still playing Gunthar at this point) has the greatest luck with crits. As Jeremy, he scored more than anyone else (seeming to have an affinity for “Hand Removed at Wrist”), but the streak seemed to pass on to the playing of Gunthar.
(2)
DM’s Note: This cinematic piece brought to you by the “Dirty-Fighting” Feat.
(3) Translated from the drow dialect.
(4)
DM’s Note: Ratchis suffered the “EyeBall Pierced” Critical effect.
(5)
DM’s Note: Ken (as Gunthar) scored a “+1 Total Damage Multiplier” (which causes damaged a number of additional times equal to the weapons critical damage multiplier plus one; so in this case x3).
(6) Translated from the drow dialect.
Teneraél Undol is the drow spider-goddess.
(7)
DM’s Note: This was the last session that Helene (Jana, Derek, Anarié) was able to play in the group as she had to return to France because her visa had expired. Coincidentally, it was also the last session Ken ever played in as well. We miss them both.
