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The Kordovian Adventurers Guild
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 8040795" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 80: AN AUDIENCE WITH THE MATRIARCH</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Binkadink Dundernoggin, gnome fighter 20</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Darrien, half-elf ranger 20</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Finoula Cloudshadow, elf ranger 20</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Gilbert Fung, human wizard 20</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Hagan, half-orc sorcerer 20</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Aerik Battershield, dwarf fighter 15/dwarven defender 5</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Aithanar Ivenheart, elf fighter 9</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Father Bendrick, human cleric 12 (Kord)</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Genevar, humanoid mutant</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Harriet Fung, orc sorcerer 6</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Malrin Ivenheart, elf druid 15</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> MARCI, humanoid construct</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 11 July 2020</p><p></p><p>- - -</p><p></p><p>"Thank you all for coming," said Father Bendrick. "Please, have a seat."</p><p></p><p>The heroes walked into the Temple of Kord and took their seats along the banquet table that had been spread with all manners of delicious-looking food. There were 11 seats around the table, exactly as many as needed, for Mudpie and MARCI did not eat and would not be partaking of the <em>heroes' feast</em> the head cleric of the Temple of Kord had prepared before their excursion into the Underdark to bring an end to the attacks that had been plaguing Kordovia for the last two decades.</p><p></p><p>"Let us give thanks," said Father Bendrick once everyone was seated. "Holy Kord, we thank You for the feast spread before us. We ask that it, through You, give us the strength needed to perform the task put before us. We pray for the strength to achieve our goals, and for the strength to die bravely in battle should it come to that." He looked around the table. "Let us eat," he said simply.</p><p></p><p>As everyone started filling their plates, Gilbert - usually never one to delay the consumption a fabulous meal - observed, "I notice you say 'we' awful lot during that prayer."</p><p></p><p>"Indeed," replied the cleric. "For I will be accompanying you. As the head cleric of the Temple of Kord, the church upon which this kingdom was founded, it is my duty to bring the fight to the enemies of our land." He smiled and added, "You may notice there are not often very many practicing members of the faithful in attendance on any given week of services. That is because our most fervent adherents are most often found on the front lines of combat during the attacks. Our turnover rate is quite high, due to the frequency with which our most earnest young clerics die on the battlefield fighting the orcs and goblins attacking our homeland. Now that we know the source of these attacks and are able to bring the fight to them, there is no way I will stay behind."</p><p></p><p>"Are you sure you're up for it?" asked Darrien. "I mean, no offense...."</p><p></p><p>"None taken," replied the cleric. "I may have some gray in my hair and beard but I have plenty of fight left within this old frame." He frowned over at Genevar, though, who was helping herself to a frosted pastry. "I must question the wisdom of bringing a child into battle, however. How old are you, little one?"</p><p></p><p><I'm ten,> Genevar replied telepathically. <But I'm old enough to come with! Plus, I can help - I can see things that are going to happen...well, sometimes I do.></p><p></p><p>"I'll be stickin' with th' wee lass," Aerik Battershield replied. "An' with Harriet as well," he added, indicating Gilbert Fung's mother, currently wearing the orcish form into which she'd been reincarnated after having been slain by assassins from her own distant homeland, far across the sea. "I'll not be lettin' anythin' 'appen to either o' 'em." Unnoticed at the far end of the table, Finoula was sitting quietly at the table, putting butter on a muffin, thinking wistfully that this was exactly the type of <em>heroes' feast</em> Ingebold used to prepare before the group would head out into adventure. A single tear threatened to spill from her eye at the thought of her fallen Battle-Sister.</p><p></p><p>"So, we know the way to the city?" asked Father Bendrick as Aithanar surreptitiously wiped at Finoula's eye with a cloth napkin. He patted her hand, realizing exactly where her thoughts were at the moment.</p><p></p><p>"I know way into city," Harriet Fung replied. "Underdark passageways, but <em>teleportation circles</em> cut travel time down. I remember command phrases used - no drow think simple orc woman pay attention, or be able to activate them herself. It take maybe two hours, tops, get to Arachnespinnacle. But we run into drow garrison along way; will have to take them out, no way around it." On her shoulder, her raven familiar <strong>Kurotori</strong> picked at the nut she offered him. Across the table, Hagan was doing likewise, offering a grape to his own familiar, Wezhley, as the little weasel sat perched on his shoulder.</p><p></p><p>"I'm just worried about the people who got taken back with the orcs who escaped," Hagan said. Unlike previous raids on Kordovia, where the orcs and goblins had seemed mostly interested in gaining armor and metal weapons from those they killed, this time some of them had abducted women from the kingdom. Hagan's own half-orc heritage had been the result of a loving marriage between his human mother and his orc father at the far side of the Vesve Forest, but he knew many half-orcs were the result of interactions of a far less willing nature. "Should we really have taken the time to pick up those scrolls and potions and get those last weapons upgrades? And eat this meal? Shouldn't we be heading out immediately? Those women...."</p><p></p><p>"Scrolls needed for better chance at success," Gilbert replied. Based on glimpses of possible futures Genevar had seen - where she saw the need for the heroes to be able to "turn into clouds" and "fall the wrong way" (unfamiliar with magic, the mutant girl had been unable to specify the spells involved) - the heavyset mage had determined they should all have <em>potions of gaseous form</em> at hand and he'd been sure to pick up a scroll of <em>reverse gravity</em>. While he was at it, he loaded up on a lot of other spell scrolls he felt might be useful, for once they entered the Underdark there would be no turning back to fetch anything left behind; teleportation magic was notoriously unreliable that far below the earth, making the permanent <em>teleportation circles</em> a necessity for such magical travel, even if they only allowed transportation from one fixed point to one other. Teleporting any distance beyond simple line of sight was asking for trouble in the Underdark; you could find yourself reappearing inside solid stone or in a random location with no way of knowing where you were.</p><p></p><p>"Women fine for awhile," interjected Harriet. "They not harmed by orcs yet - all new slaves turned over to drow women for inspection first. Some may serve drow inside hollow stalactite. Only those no good for such work given back to orcs. We get to them in plenty of time."</p><p></p><p>"And that will be our primary task," added Aithanar. "Once we get to the city proper, Aerik, Harriet, Genevar and I will break off from the rest of you and rescue the women taken from Kordovia. Harriet knows the barracks where they'll be kept - it's separate from the slave quarters the orcs and goblins and whatnot are housed in."</p><p></p><p>"I will join your group, then, I think," added Father Bendrick. "I feel my place is seeing to the safety of my people, even though my heart might cry out for combat."</p><p></p><p>"Then eat up," Gilbert replied, helping himself to a hearty slab of ham. "This spell make sure we immune to poison and fear for rest of day. It good way to start mission."</p><p></p><p>In accordance with the spell's requirements, the group spent an hour polishing off the meal, but the time was spent going over their plans and strategies. By the time they had finished they all knew their particular goals and Harriet had familiarized them all with the general layout of the drow city of Arachnespinnacle. The city itself was housed in a massive cavern and the drow resided in a gigantic, hollow stalactite hanging down from the ceiling. This stalactite was covered in balconies and windows, providing the various drow spellcasters housed in the city plenty of locations from which to fire down at any attackers. On the ground of the cavern were the standard types of buildings one might expect to see in any city, but these were reserved for the slaves and the members of the other races allowed into the city for trade purposes. Spiders of all sizes had free reign of the place and a permanent collection of webs ran from the stalactite to the ground and the sides of the cavern.</p><p></p><p>"We ready?" Gilbert asked the others as he pushed back his chair and stepped away from the table, as full as he could ever recall being. The group exited the temple and six of them put on their powered combat armor or climbed aboard the mechs they had brought back with them from Gamma Terra, another word entirely.</p><p></p><p>"Ready," replied Hagan, giving a thumbs up from his pilot's seat inside the Titan mech. Wezhley still sat on his shoulder, looking out through the forward viewscreen and seeming to enjoy himself.</p><p></p><p>"Ready," echoed Binkadink from inside the Spriggan mech. One mechanical hand held the gnome's <em>reverberating glaive</em>, the weapon which seemed so oversize in the little gnome's hands looking more properly scaled when held by the mech.</p><p></p><p>"Ready, Master," answered Mudpie from inside the Goliath mech. Gilbert had decided he'd had better things to do than learn how to pilot a humanoid construct from the inside and had farmed out the job to his earth elemental familiar.</p><p></p><p>Aithanar, Darrien, and Finoula all indicated their readiness as well once they were strapped into their technological armor and Harriet Fung led them out of the capital city of Kordovia, headed towards the Vesve Forest on its eastern border. She led them unerringly to a simple cave, looking like nothing more than an overhanging jut of rock sticking out from a hillside. Nothing grew within 100 feet or so from the spot and there were no markings on any kind on the solid stone underfoot to indicate this was anything but a natural rock formation out here in a forest clearing. But when Harriet barked out a short phrase in the drow language, an intricate circle made up of glowing lines appeared all around them; a <em>teleportation circle</em>, Gilbert surmised. But there had been no indication there was anything magical about the site and the heavyset wizard was willing to bet it had been obscured by <em>nondetection</em> or <em>Nystul's magic aura</em> spells hiding all traces of its magical nature. No wonder Chalkan and his arcane archers had never been able to track the retreating orcs and goblins back to their lair; any tracks would have stopped at the rock-covered ground and there were no indications that there was teleportation magic at play in the area.</p><p></p><p>"We ready?" Harriet asked everyone as they stepped inside the confines of the circle. Upon the affirmative response, she said another short phrase and they were all whisked away to the blackness of the Underdark.</p><p></p><p>The group reappeared in a similar <em>teleportation circle</em> some unknown distance away and an unknown depth below the planet's surface. All was not dark, though, for the Kordovians had brought some light sources with them: the three mechs, for instance, all leaked light from their control consoles out of their front windows and Binkadink's <em>everburning torches</em> strapped to the antlers on his helmet shone through just as brightly from inside the Spriggan mech. All together it was ample light for the topsiders to spot the two drow guards who had been set there to protect their all-important <em>teleportation circle</em> providing access to the surface world.</p><p></p><p>However, with their latest raid having occurred the day before, they were more concerned about other Underdark denizens trying to use the <em>teleportation circle</em> created by drow for use by the drow than they were of surface-worlders using it to penetrate the Underdark - such a thing hadn't even crossed their minds before now, so sure were the drow of the precautions they'd taken from allowing their handiwork to be discovered. But they spun about, startled at the sudden illumination coming from behind them, and their eyes widened in shock as their mouths gaped open at the sight of Binkadink, in the Spriggan armor, leaping forth on a pair of mechanical legs and bringing a <em>reverberating glaive</em> slicing laterally through the torso of the first drow and continuing his swing into the body of the second. Neither guard had the first notion of what they were up against before it no longer mattered, for they were dead on the ground.</p><p></p><p>"That plenty easy," Gilbert observed. "Where next, Mom?"</p><p></p><p>Harriet led them all out of the cavern in which the <em>teleportation circle</em> had been carved and into a tunnel that stretched off to the right and left. "This way," she said, taking them off to the right. "Next obstacle is drow garrison. Place has shrieker mushrooms along sides of tunnel, in front of iron gates - no way to go in quiet, they alert guards even if you invisible." That caused Aithanar to retract what he was about to suggest, for his Wraith armor had an invisibility field that wrapped light waves around him so he could walk around unseen. But he realized the shriekers would detect his movement via the air currents even if there was no light spilling from his armor, so there was no way for him to scout ahead and try to open the gates to let the others pass through.</p><p></p><p>It was over a half hour's trek to reach the garrison, during which time there were only a few times the tunnel branched off into other directions, but each time Harriet kept the group on target. When she indicated the garrison was just around the next bend, Gilbert called a halt. "Time for prep spells," he declared. He started with the traditional <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em> spell, linking himself with Binkadink, Darrien, Finoula, Hagan, Malrin, and his mother. Upon himself he cast the spells <em>magic circle against evil</em>, <em>stoneskin</em>, <em>darkvision</em>, <em>comprehend languages</em>, and <em>shapechange</em>, taking the opportunity that last spell afforded to transform himself into a lithe, drow woman - practically the exact opposite of his own normal appearance. He also drank down a <em>potion of resist acid</em>. Normally, Mudpie would have shared in those spells with his master, but Gilbert realized there was no real way to keep his familiar within arm's reach when the elemental would be piloting the Goliath mech.</p><p></p><p>"What's the deal with the hot drow chick getup?" asked Binkadink. "You planning on pretending we're your prisoners or something?"</p><p></p><p>"Not likely," Gilbert replied. "They just less likely attack me if I look like this."</p><p></p><p>"Best keep your mouth shut if you expect to pass yourself off as a drow," suggested Finoula, casting a <em>longstrider</em> spell upon herself and then following it up with the spells <em>bear's endurance</em>, <em>cat's grace</em>, <em>protection from fire</em>, and - recalling with a shudder the tales of drow and their fetish for giant spiders - <em>repel vermin</em>.</p><p></p><p>Hagan cast a <em>protection from fire</em> spell upon himself as well, and then he and Malrin ensured the elven druid, Gilbert, and everyone inside Eradicator armor or a mech had a <em>freedom of movement</em> spell active. Malrin also cast a <em>darkvision</em> spell upon herself and then wildshaped into owl form.</p><p></p><p>Darrien cast <em>bear's endurance</em>, <em>cat's grace</em>, <em>darkvision</em>, <em>longstrider</em>, <em>protection from acid</em>, and <em>resist cold</em> spells upon himself, then declared himself ready.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink had no spellcasting power of his own but did have an uncle and a cousin in the potion-making business; he drank down potions of <em>resist acid</em> and <em>protection from cold</em> and had Hagan cast a <em>fly</em> spell on him and received a <em>comprehend languages</em> spell from a scroll from the back of Gilbert's <em>Omnibook</em>.</p><p></p><p><I think that about it,> Gilbert thought to the others over the mental link. <Let's go!> And, despite the shapely female drow form he currently wore as protective camouflage, he made sure he was towards the back of the group as they turned the corner, with Genevar, MARCI, Father Bendrick, and Aerik Battershield.</p><p></p><p>The group tromped down the stone corridor, their footsteps echoing fiercely through the Underdark tunnel. The shriekers began wailing as they got within sight of the barred iron gates closed before them; on a ledge directly above stood six drow crossbowmen, their weapons aimed at the approaching mechs (for it was Spriggan, Titan, and Goliath taking the lead) and their eyes boggling at the sight of these walking mechanical constructs, the likes of which had never been seen before on Oerth, above ground or below.</p><p></p><p>Glancing nervously at each other, the drow aimed their weapons and fired as one - to no discernible effect. But Gilbert, playing it safe as always, took the opportunity to upgrade his personal defenses with a <em>protection from arrows</em> spell.</p><p></p><p>However, he then switched gears and strode forward, altering his shape as he did so. His curvaceous female drow form ballooned out, quickly attaining his own corpulent proportions and then far exceeding them as his limbs faded back into his body and he rose up into the air, now wearing the form of a beholder. Ten eyestalks swiveled around, looking every which way, as his central eye stared up at the six drow on the overhanging balcony from what must be the second story of the garrison - but then he quickly shut it, so the <em>anti-magic</em> cone wouldn't interfere with his friends' ability to cast spells in the area directly ahead of him.</p><p></p><p>Mudpie trundled forward beside his master in the Goliath mech, ignoring the drow completely as he maneuvered the metal hands through the bars of the iron gate and tugged. There was a shriek of tortured metal (to go along with the screams of the shrieker fungus, which had yet to abate) but the gates held true - for the moment, in any case. Hagan cast a <em>wall of fire</em> along the balcony, burning all six of the drow crossbowmen to death at once, before Binkadink strode up in the Spriggan mech and brought his <em>reverberating glaive</em> crashing down upon the locking mechanism keeping the iron gates from opening. Mudpie had no trouble after that pulling the two doors open toward him, revealing another set of barred gates at the far end of a tunnel some 60 feet or so in length. There were two doors on either side of this short tunnel and a ceiling some 15 feet above the floor - just enough room for the mechs to fit without bending over.</p><p></p><p>Darrien moved up to the first door on the left, trying to open it to no avail - it was locked and he couldn't pull it open, even while wearing the Ogre armor. But he did notice a crack in the stone floor and followed it to the wall's edge, where it joined with a visible line across the length of the edge where floor met wall. <Looks like we got a trap door from wall to wall over here,> he warned the others. He looked up at the ceiling and saw a series of holes leading into the floor above, but it was too dark inside the unlit dwelling to see any details about the room directly above. Still, the holes worried him enough - they could easily be used to allow an archer to shoot directly down at those in the tunnel - that he warned the rest of the group over the <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em> about this feature as well.</p><p></p><p>Finoula walked up to the first door on the left and, finding it locked, used her <em>chime of opening</em> to unlock it. Then she stepped inside, with Malrin in owl form perched upon her shoulder. She was in a narrow hallway, but in the room just beyond she could see from the dim light coming in from behind her a pair of drow pushing a metal bar mounted on two upright poles across the room. Behind them she could hear the unmistakable sound of stone on stone and the elven ranger deduced they were removing the supports that would allow the pit trap in the tunnel to be triggered.</p><p></p><p>Malrin came to the same conclusion and, copying Hagan's tactic that had worked so well with the crossbowmen, cast a <em>wall of fire</em> directly across the bodies of the two drow struggling to push the bar. They died screaming and the metal bar remained only as far as they had gotten it moved thus far, less than a third of the way across the room. It looked like the pit trap wasn't going to be able to be primed after all. But then the hall was suddenly filled with figures, as drow fighters spilled out of two doors along either end of the hallway Finoula was traversing, rushing at her with rapiers flashing.</p><p></p><p>At the same time, the door immediately in front of Darrien opened up and the half-elven ranger was confronted with another fighter, who stabbed at him with his rapier, getting a full-on hit to the chest...which was easily deflected off the Ogre armor. Darrien grinned at the drow's shock, certain the dark elf could probably see his face through the armor's face plate even in the dim light.</p><p></p><p>But then the drow stood petrified before Darrien - quite literally, having been hit by a <em>flesh to stone</em> ray from one of Gilbert's beholder eyestalks. Another ray went flashing into the still-open door behind Finoula, slaying one of the drow advancing upon her with a <em>finger of death</em> ray. Mudpie piloted the Goliath armor into the tunnel as, behind him, Harriet and the others advanced now that it seemed to be safe.</p><p></p><p>Darrien heard orders being given in the room up above him and instinctively looked up, giving him just enough time to dodge out of the way as boiling oil came pouring down through the holes in the ceiling. Hagan warned Finoula and Malrin what he was about to do immediately before casting a <em>delayed blast fireball</em> through the open door behind Finoula. The elven ranger took heed at once, dodging back out the door and holding it closed behind her. There was a <em>whumph!</em> sound and a chorus of screams as the <em>fireball</em> exploded in the hallway filled with the tightly-packed bodies of drow fighters spilling out of the two barracks rooms.</p><p></p><p>The Spriggan armor stepped forward into the tunnel - now somewhat slippery as the stone floor was covered in boiling oil - and Binkadink brought his <em>reverberating glaive</em> smashing through the wall just past the door, the stone chunks crushing two drow soldiers heading towards the door from the feasting hall. Malrin flew from Finoula's shoulder to land on the top of the Spriggan armor, while Darrien raced through the hole in the wall Binkadink had just created. There was another fighter approaching from the back of the dining hall; Darrien peppered him with arrows from his <em>Arachnibow</em> - appropriately enough, originally a drow weapon - and the fighter fell to the floor, dead.</p><p></p><p>Another drow stepped out from the kitchen where he'd been getting a plate of food, raised his crossbow, and fired, but once again the Ogre armor deflected the incoming bolt and Darrien wasn't the least bit harmed. Gilbert flew into the room and shot a ray from an eyestalk, instantly slaying the offending drow.</p><p></p><p>Mudpie headed straight for the far set of gates, intending to smash them open as he realized they'd all need to exit in this direction if they were going to continue on to Arachnespinnacle. But then two drow clerics <em>levitated</em> down from the balcony above the gates, shooting spells through the iron bars of the gates, one sending a <em>flame strike</em> at Binkadink and Malrin while the other targeted Gilbert, still in beholder form, with an <em>unholy blight</em> spell. Hagan, seeing the drow women, responded with a <em>polar ray</em> at the cleric on his right, covering her body in a rime of frost that came close to slaying her outright. Binkadink strode forth and finished the job with his glaive, stabbing through the bars of the gate. Darrien stepped back through the hole in the wall and shot a cluster of arrows at the remaining cleric, several finding their marks but failing to bring her down.</p><p></p><p>Finoula activated her <em>lightning amulet</em> and went streaking across the tunnel, blasting between the bars of the still-closed gates and through the body of the second cleric, finally slaying her. She remanifested while still outside the back gates. Malrin flew just behind Finoula, fitting her body sideways between the bars and then heading up to where she could see over the balcony. There were two more clerics up there and the elven druid warned the others over the telepathic link.</p><p></p><p>In the large room over the middle of the tunnel, a pair of drow fighters tipped over the vats of oil the clerics had heated with their spells, causing the liquid to drip down onto the area just before the back gates. Mudpie was caught in the area but managed to dodge out of the way even while inside the Goliath armor - not needing to sleep, he'd been able to put in much more training than any of the other mech pilots and had mastered the art of running a mech until it performed almost as well as his own unliving body. Pushing open the gates, he stumbled outside, nearly - but not quite - slipping in the burning oil pooling by his feet. Hagan advanced just behind him.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert sent a <em>disintegrate</em> ray from an eyestalk aimed directly above him and flew up into the room containing a pair of drow fighters and the now-empty cauldrons that had held boiling oil. Two more eye rays shot out, one slaying one fighter while the second failed to petrify the other into nonliving stone.</p><p></p><p>On the back balcony, one of the two remaining clerics in charge of this garrison fort cast an <em>unholy blight</em> spell on the Goliath armor just now trudging into view below her, while the other raced through a side door and into the main room, where she cast a <em>blade barrier</em> spell, causing a wall of flying weapons to manifest in a line cutting through the area where Gilbert floated in beholder form. But Binkadink, piloting the Spriggan armor through the back gate, realized his mech was tall enough to allow him to use his glaive against the drow cleric on the balcony and did just that, killing her with one blow.</p><p></p><p>Darrien, seeing all of the action was now apparently happening upstairs now, dashed back inside the hole in the wall he'd just exited, running down a hallway past the feast hall and up a set of stairs he found back there. In the tunnel, Finoula and the others moved up, after Gilbert announced there was no more boiling oil available for anyone to pour down on them. As he was passing on this information, he sent his beholder body forward through the wall of bladed weapons, altering shape once again until he stood in the towering form of a pit fiend. He grinned widely at the drow fighter blanching at this powerful devil standing before him, partly at the dark elf's look of horror and partly because in changing shape he'd healed up most of the damage the <em>blade barrier</em> spell had managed to inflict upon him. Gilbert didn't even bother using any of his spells on the outclassed drow fighter, opting to simply rip him apart with the teeth and claws of the devilish form he'd adopted.</p><p></p><p>In a desperation move, the sole remaining drow cleric tried casting a <em>bestow curse</em> spell upon Gilbert but the pit fiend form had an innate resistance to spell energy and the spell fizzled against this unseen barrier. Gilbert grinned all the harder, realizing perfectly well just how unnerving the grin of a pit fiend could be. Then Darrien popped up from the hallway around the corner from the stairs, pumping arrows into the cleric's body from the side while she faced Gilbert. That was enough to cause her to drop her attention momentarily from Gilbert, and he took the opportunity to rush forth and rip her to shreds with his claws. She fell to the floor in a bloody mess.</p><p></p><p><Think that it for this place,> Gilbert announced, and a quick look around confirmed he was right. Everyone gathered up by the back gate and then Harriet Fung led them further into the darkness of the Underdark tunnels, on their way to Arachnespinnacle.</p><p></p><p>They approached two more sets of <em>teleportation circles</em> and Harriet put them both to good use - they encountered no resistance, the drow apparently having opted to fall back instead of have a token resistance try to prevent their use. <They probably muster their forces in city, try to fight us off there,> Harriet opined.</p><p></p><p>In less than an hour the group was there at the gate to the drow city. A truly massive set of metal doors stood closed and barred at the end of the tunnel. Above the door stood an enormous statue of a spider, the whole thing looking to have been carved straight from the wall above the door, which slanted inwards towards the city. On either side of the massive doors stood two pillars of smoke, rising lazily in the air.</p><p></p><p><Betcha anything that thing animates to attack us,> Binkadink hazarded, indicating the spider statue.</p><p></p><p><What about it, Mom? There a password into city so spider stay still?></p><p></p><p><No idea, Mudpie,> Harriet replied to her son, using the childhood name she's given him and which he'd repurposed once it came time for him to call a familiar into service. <I was at back of line of orc slaves when we come to city - if there password to enter, I not hear it.></p><p></p><p>Gilbert cast a <em>true seeing</em> spell, hoping to gain some clues as to the situation with trying to get past the spider; maybe there were some runes they could avoid or something. He didn't get what he expected from the spell, although it definitely was a good thing he'd cast it, for in doing so he saw the four columns of smoke for what they really were: yochlol demons, the fabled "handmaidens of Lolth," each looking something like a cross between a roper and a melted candle. He warned the others over the link, then <em>shapechanged</em> back into a female drow, hoping to either fool the demons or at least prey upon their natural inclination not to attack drow women, many of whom were clerics of Lolth the Spider-Goddess, patron deity of the dark elves. Then, stepping forward, he cast a <em>prismatic spray</em> spell at the four yochlol.</p><p></p><p>The first ray struck a yochlol and coated her with acid, a poor happenstance for the demon was immune to such attacks. Another immediately petrified the next yochlol in line, turning her to unliving stone in less than heartbeat. The third yochlol immediately disappeared, having been <em>plane shifted</em> to a random plane - somewhere remarkably unpleasant, Gilbert hoped. The last yochlol got hit with a beam of pure poison, to which she was also immune. <em>Oh well</em>, Gilbert thought to himself, <em>least I took out half of them.</em></p><p></p><p>Mudpie moved up past his master and brought a technology-enhanced punch to one of the remaining yochlol. Hagan cast a <em>polar ray</em> spell at the other one, Binkadink stepping up in the Spriggan armor and sending his <em>reverberating glaive</em> crashing into that one as well. He'd hoped the one-two punch of spell and blade would have taken out the demon, but such was not to be.</p><p></p><p>Darrien moved forward in his Ogre armor, pulling out his scimitar, recently enhanced with the <em>holy</em> property (as was Finoula's longsword <em>Tahlmalaera</em>), sure to be anathema to a demon from the Lower Planes. But the half-elf ranger paid for the effrontery of attacking a yochlol with a <em>holy</em> weapon; through the pain brought on by the blessed blade, the demon sent her will to grab Darrien's mind and sway him into unwilling service. <Slay your companions!> the yochlol demanded - and Darrien turned to comply.</p><p></p><p>The other yochlol did likewise to Binkadink, dominating the gnome into doing her bidding. The Spriggan mech pivoted in place, ready to go attack the other Kordovians. Worse yet, on the wall behind the yochlols and above the massive doors leading into the drow city proper, the spider statue ripped its legs from the surrounding stone and crawled down the wall, mandibles open wide to crush those before it. Its mouthparts closed around the Titan mech, as Hagan did his best to try to maneuver it out of the way to no avail.</p><p></p><p>Activating her <em>lightning amulet</em> once again, Finoula blasted her way through the spider-shaped elder eidolon, ricocheting back near where she'd begun her attack. One of the yochlols was striking at the Goliath mech with her tentacles as Malrin cast a <em>summon nature's ally</em> spell to bring in some reinforcements. Rising up from the ground almost immediately came a trio of huge earth elementals, two of which began pounding at the stone spider while the third brought a boulderlike fist crashing down upon one of the yochlols.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert flipped to the back of the <em>Omnibook</em> where he stored his spells scrolls and cast a <em>stone to flesh</em> spell upon the elder eidolon. For a short while, its rocky carapace softened to flesh. <Get it now, while it weakened!> the mage called over the link and the others scrambled to comply. Gilbert switched back to his pit fiend form, flapping his wings and flying over to land beside Darrien and Binkadink - and have his still-present <em>magic circle against evil</em> spell temporarily suppress the <em>domination</em> effect taking over their minds. <You two better stick close to me until we take out those demons!> he suggested.</p><p></p><p>Mudpie turned and brought his attention - and the technologically-enhanced strength of his Goliath mech - to the spider behind him, still biting the Titan mech. Hagan finally managed to wrench his mech from the arachnid's mouth, staggered back a step or two, and let fly with a <em>polar ray</em> right at the spider's head - while it was temporarily susceptible to such spells, as its normal, golemlike defenses were no longer in effect, although the half-orc knew it was only a matter of a short amount of time before it would resume its stony appearance and its full defenses would be back into play.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink, however, wanted to take the yochlols out before they could do any more damage; the spider was a powerful adversary but he doubted it could take over anyone's mind like these roper-demons could. His glaive cut completely through the body of one yochlol, killing it immediately, and cleaved over into the body of the other. He was pleased to see it too was dead when he pulled his blade out of its body.</p><p></p><p>That left the elder eidolon as the city's only defenses outside the city gates. Darrien brought his <em>Arachnibow</em> up and fired off a series of rapid-fire shots, burying the arrows up to their shafts in the spider's fleshy body. It's rocky coating re-emerged almost immediately thereafter, but by that time it was too late: with a reverberating crash, the eidolon fell to the stone floor, its rocky limbs breaking off and scattering across the entry cavern as the animating life-force left its slain body.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert called the three earth elementals over to him and, resuming his human form, used his <em>slingshot of rock shrinking</em> to reduce each of them to pebble size and scooped them up in his other hand. He then took the moment of non-combat to cast a <em>fox's cunning</em> spell upon himself.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink and Mudpie, putting the full power of their giant mechs to use, wasted no time pulling the city doors open. And there before them, stolen weapons taken from the bodies of the soldiers they'd slain in Kordovia, were the orcs, goblins, and orogs who had survived the latest assault upon the surface world and had been stationed here to attack anyone and anything who made it this far into the city of Arachnespinnacle. The slaves knew too well that to disobey their drow masters was a death sentence, but they had no illusions that they were anything but disposable cannon fodder whose lives were being used merely to waste some spellpower on the part of the attackers. And that's about all they were worth, for Gilbert, Hagan, Malrin, and Father Bendrick sent waves of area-attack spells into the slave forces, slaying them almost instantly.</p><p></p><p>The Kordovian forces lined up and entered the city of Arachnespinnacle. At a nod from Gilbert, Harriet, Aithanar, Father Bendrick, Genevar, and MARCI broke away, Gilbert's mother taking them along a side alley toward the building where the Kordovian women would be housed. Aithanar activated the <em>invisibility field</em> around his Wraith armor, fading from view as he powered up his pulse rifle. Anyone thinking about getting in their way would be learning very quickly just how bad an idea that was!</p><p></p><p>The others moved forward into Arachnespinnacle. As Harriet had described, the city was housed inside a truly massive cavern, whose most prominent feature was the enormous stalactite hanging down from the ceiling several thousand feet in the air. The stalactite was pocked and pitted with windows and small balconies, nearly every one sporting a dark face as the drow looked down to see if they could spot the attackers who dared to bring the fight to their own city. Strands of spider webs stretched from the stalactite to the ground, the walls of the cavern, and the ceiling, forming makeshift bridges for those capable of traversing them. And sure enough, there were spiders everywhere you looked, of a wide variety of sizes and colors, crawling upon the webs and on the cavern walls, along the walls and ceilings of the stone buildings scattered beneath the overhanging stalactite, and in the narrow, twisting alleyways between the haphazard buildings.</p><p></p><p>And on the ground before the heroes, ranged in a wide arc so as not to be taken out by a single area-effect spell, stood the next wave of the city's defenders: a trio of drow sorcerers, a similar number of armored drow fighters, a female drider cleric of Lolth, another normal-looking drider standing beside a draegloth abomination (a drider twice the size of the others, whose "drow" portion was that of a drow-demon hybrid), and an armor-ripping bebelith.</p><p></p><p>The drow sorcerers were the first to react, and they'd apparently just been waiting for the enemy to finally show its face for them to strike out with the attack they'd already coordinated among themselves. As one, a trio of <em>chain lightning</em> spells went flashing out, all three of them centered on the Goliath armor, as Mudpie happened to be standing in the middle of the formation of heroes and by targeting him as their primary they were able to branch out to all of the others.</p><p></p><p>Unfortunately for them, there was no way for them to know ahead of time that the mechanical humanoid figure they saw before them was a mech being piloted by an earth elemental, or that said elemental served as the familiar to a powerful mortal wizard - and whose status as a familiar granted him a measure of spell resistance. Two of the <em>chain lightning</em> spells fizzled out immediately upon striking the Goliath mech, only the third one getting past Mudpie's arcane defenses and activating normally. Almost all of the heroes ended up being harmed to some extent by the one spell that made it through, but the effect was nowhere near as devastating as the drow spellcasters had hoped.</p><p></p><p>But then, in a wavering field like a mirage, a colossal spider suddenly manifested before the heroes, the reddish color of its fur and the jagged spikes and protrusions running down its abdomen attesting to its fiendish nature. The drider cleric who had summoned it here gave it orders to slay all of the attackers before it and it scampered forward to comply. This time it was Binkadink, in the Spriggan armor, who was crushed in the grasping mouthparts of the spider-being they fought; the gnome felt a wave of evil energy being pumped through the thing's mandibles as it brought a <em>smite good</em> attack to bear.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert counterattacked, casting a <em>quickened Evard's black tentacles</em> spell that caught up the draegloth abomination, a pair of drow fighters, and one of the sorcerers in the embrace of the rubbery appendages growing up from the ground. Gilbert's proficiency with this particular spell, through frequent battlefield use, ensured none of the victims caught up in the tentacles' embrace would be escaping through any means but their own eventual deaths.</p><p></p><p>But Gilbert wasted no time enjoying his spellcasting success. Realizing every drow in a window or standing on a balcony overhead was a potential spellcaster, he used his slingshot to fire Malrin's earth elementals up at the stalactite; upon striking the outer edge, the elementals regained their normal size and used their inherent earth glide abilities to phase through the outer stone of the stalactite and enter the hollow dwelling of the drow. They lashed out at any drow they saw, pulping them beneath their pounding fists. Gilbert then resumed his pit fiend form, the <em>shapechange</em> spell still active and allowing him to alter his form at will.</p><p></p><p>Mudpie sent the Goliath mech lumbering forward and brought a metal fist pounding into the body of the fiendish monstrous spider biting Binkadink's mech. Hagan cast another <em>polar ray</em> spell but targeted the drider cleric, not wanting her to be able to replicate her summoning of additional allies; they already had enough enemies to fight! Binkadink managed to bring his glaive to bear against the spider's head, getting it to release him at last.</p><p></p><p>Darrien picked one of the drow sorcerers not being strangled by black tentacles and sent a flurry of arrows at him, likewise wanting to take out a spellcaster as quickly as possible. With the five mechs and combat armor systems in play, he figured they were more than a match for any physical enemies they might encounter; it was the spellcasters who could mess things up so fast for them.</p><p></p><p>But then, from her balcony at the highest level of Arachnespinnacle's stalactite, the Matriarch of the drow and leader of the city - and High Priestess of Lolth, the most powerful spellcaster to be found in the entire population center - picked as her target one of the metal constructs doing so much damage to her forces below: the one wielding a glaive, of all things - and cast her spell. Inside the Spriggan mech, Binkadink felt a strange tingle at the pit of his stomach, and got out the first few words of a warning over the telepathic link - <Guys, I think--> - before the <em>implosion</em> spell ran its course and his entire body (all three feet of it) was compressed into a mass no larger than a seed.</p><p></p><p>The others heard the little gnome's cry of shock and pain over the link and its abrupt ending and had no doubts that Binkadink had just been slain.</p><p></p><p>The bebelith scampered up, ready to try to rip open one of these metal constructs - it couldn't be sure, but it seemed as if there were people inside them! Finoula ignored the demon, using her amulet to go crashing through a drow sorcerer as a bolt of living lightning (killing him immediately), then rebounding through the normal drider (slaying it as well) and blasting through the fiendish monstrous spider before regaining her elven form, still wearing the Banshee armor.</p><p></p><p>The creatures bound in the <em>Evard's black tentacles</em> spell struggled to free themselves, to no avail. Already the sorcerer had succumbed to the crushing tentacles, the air squeezed out of his lungs and the life already having left his body; by the looks of things, the two fighters weren't too far behind him.</p><p></p><p>Malrin had been holding off on this maneuver as her magic dinosaur tooth only allowed her to do so once per day, but she judged now was the time if she was going to do it at all. With a simple mental command, she wildshaped into a tyrannosaurus and bit a chunk of foul-tasting flesh from the abdomen of the fiendish spider. That was too much for the arachnid, who had already taken plenty of punishment from the other foes it had been fighting; as a summoned creature, it vanished upon its death.</p><p></p><p>But then, on a signal from the Matriarch, the spellcasters on this side of the stalactite fired down at the intruders with everything they had. A massive attack of concentrated spellpower, incorporating <em>fireballs</em>, <em>flame strikes</em>, a <em>mass inflict light wounds</em> spell, an attempt to blind Malrin (which fortunately failed, as the elf-in-tyrannosaur-form was able to shrug off the effects), a pair of <em>chain lightnings</em>, a <em>flesh to stone</em> spell (also targeted at Malrin; apparently the drow were frightened by the sudden appearance of a fearsome dinosaur in their midst, but Malrin successfully avoided this spell effect as easily as she had fended off the blindness), and a series of <em>magic missiles</em>. None of the heroes came out of the spell-barrage unscathed, although some weathered the storm better than others.</p><p></p><p>Then, to add insult to injury, the sole remaining drow sorcerer on the ground with the heroes cast another <em>chain lightning</em> spell at almost the same time as the drider cleric cast another <em>fire storm</em> spell. That was too much for Malrin to handle; with a massive thud, the tyrannosaur form fell upon its side and then wildshaped back into the form of an attractive, if quite dead, elven woman.</p><p></p><p>The fiendish spider grabbed up the Goliath armor and bit it, crushing the metal sides in and knocking Mudpie out; Gilbert could feel the consciousness leaving his familiar over the empathic link they shared. He'd been thinking about how best to get Binkadink restored back to life, and now Malrin needed resurrected and his familiar needed healing as well. This attack was not going as smoothly as he had hoped it would; he fervently prayed that his mother was not meeting the same level of resistance as Gilbert's team was up against, for he knew Harriet's spell repertoire was not geared for combat.</p><p></p><p><Everybody gather up on me!> he cried over the link. <We can't take any more attacks from stalactite forces!> As the heroes moved to comply, Gilbert mentally explained his plans to Hagan. Once everyone was close enough together, Hagan shoved Malrin's body into the <em>portable hole</em>, rolled it back up, and cast a <em>teleport</em> spell that brought everyone - even the unconscious Mudpie in his crumpled Goliath mech and the Spriggan mech no longer containing a living Binkadink - directly beneath the stalactite hanging down over the city. That put them out of the view of those in the windows and on the balconies; hopefully it would take them a moment to realize they hadn't just fled but were still very much in the city.</p><p></p><p><Somebody open Mudpie's hatch!> Gilbert commanded, and Hagan tried to do so but the crumpled metal made it impossible for even the Titan's enhanced strength to open. Hagan kept working on it, feeling the metal start to bend back into shape, but with Mudpie unconscious they'd have to open it from the outside if they were going to get to him to revive him.</p><p></p><p><You guys okay?> asked a new voice over the link. It took everyone a moment to realize this wasn't anybody who'd had the <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em> spell cast upon them but rather Genevar, the Gamma Terra mutant who communicated telepathically because that was her only way of talking - she, like the other members of her race, was mute.</p><p></p><p><We've taken a bit of a beating,> Finoula responded, <but we're mostly okay. Binkadink and Malrin are dead--></p><p></p><p><What? Oh, no!> came Genevar's anguished cry.</p><p></p><p><--but we can bring them back to life, given time,> Finoula added. That had been something the little mutant had forgotten; she was still getting used to how "normal" magic was on this world, but she'd seen Gilbert cast <em>limited wish</em> spells to return jackalopes back to the world of the living.</p><p></p><p><How are you doing?> Darrien asked. <Were you able to find the women?></p><p></p><p><Yeah, Father Bendrick's getting them all out now,> Genevar replied. <Where exactly are you guys?> Darrien explained they were directy beneath the stalactite and Genevar said their team wasn't that far away.</p><p></p><p><Well, get them all to safety,> Gilbert commanded. <We'll probably have to count that as as much a win as we going to get - too many spellcasters in that damn stalactite.></p><p></p><p><You need to take out the stalactite?> Genevar asked. <I saw a way you can do that!> She quickly explained the fleeting vision she'd had, of a possible future that looked like it might just be coming true.</p><p></p><p><We can do that?> Gilbert demanded querulously, wishing he'd paid more attention to the proper operation of the mechs rather than handing it off to Mudpie to figure out. But then there was a series of cries coming from the area where the heroes had just <em>teleported</em> away from; they'd been discovered by the remaining forces they'd been fighting, and who were now rushing over to them, the bebelith in the lead.</p><p></p><p>"Crap!" snarled Gilbert. He needed more time!</p><p></p><p>And then things got even worse, for another form materialized in the space between the heroes beneath the stalactite and the drow forces heading their way. This was a spider, about the size of the bebelith demon but sporting the ebony-skinned head of a drow woman with white hair. Gilbert gave an involuntary gasp as he realized this was none other than Lolth herself - or, more likely, as aspect of her: a mere fraction of her godly power given manifest form upon the Material Plane, no doubt summoned by the Matriarch herself.</p><p></p><p>Lolth skittered to face the heroes and her face crinkled into a hateful scowl. "Interlopers!" she snarled in the drow language, for the Demon Queen of Spiders would not stoop to speaking any other, lower language.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert was about to respond in the way he knew best - an attack spell - when he felt a form pass by him, pushing him out of the way (no small feat, given he was still wearing the form of a 12-foot-tall pit fiend). It was Father Bendrick, holding up his holy symbol and calling out, "Use me, Mighty Kord - allow me to be your vessel upon this Oerth!"</p><p></p><p>Father Bendrick continued his path straight towards the aspect of Lolth, only each step was longer than the one before it for the elderly cleric was growing in size by the second. Not only that, but his face was de-aging, his beard shrinking in length and darkening in color. Finally, as he stepped directly before Lolth, he was Father Bendrick no longer, but an aspect of Kord - and one known to Aerik Battershield, at least, for this particular aspect of Kord, God of Strength, wore the face of Cal Trop, one of the Wing Three adventurers who had been a companion to Galrich Slayer and Aerik Battershield.</p><p></p><p>The godly aspects went at it with every ounce of strength and power at their disposal, while the Kordovians scrambled to put their plans into action before the drow armies got to them. Finoula explained to Harriet what they were about to do and cautioned her to make sure she, Aerik, Aithanar, Genevar, and MARCI took the kidnapped Kordovian women out of Arachnespinnacle by any means they could, in any direction. <We can meet up later,> Finoula promised, <but for right now, you've got to get them all out of the city!></p><p></p><p><Can do!> Harriet promised the elf over the link.</p><p></p><p>By now, the <em>Evard's black tentacles</em> spell had slain all who had been caught up in its embrace. Gilbert looked worriedly at the drow forces advancing upon them and cast a <em>time stop</em> spell. That gave him a breather, however short, to get some of the things he needed done attended to.</p><p></p><p>The first thing he did was cast a <em>limited wish</em>. Surmising that Binkadink had been taken out by an <em>implosion</em> spell and knowing what he did of the limitations of that spell, he carefully worded his wish: "I wish Binkadink had consumed his <em>potion of gaseous form</em> immediately before the <em>implosion</em> spell had been cast upon him." And then, realizing he had just enough time to cast one more spell, opted to go with a <em>wall of force</em> spell to create an invisible barrier between them and the drow forces almost within range.</p><p></p><p>Time started up again all of a sudden, the bebelith running headfirst into the invisible barrier Gilbert had just erected as Hagan finally ripped the hatch off of the Goliath mech - it wasn't like they were going to need it for much longer, anyway. He sent one of Titan's mechanical hands to pull the unmoving earth elemental out of the pilot seat of the mech and laid him carefully down upon the ground. Darrien approached and cast a <em>cure light wounds</em> spell on the downed elemental, giving him just enough of a boost to raise him back to consciousness. "What happened?" rumbled the earth elemental, looking ready to leap into battle with whoever had been responsible for his current predicament, even if he was currently only at human size, a requirement for him to fit inside the Goliath mech. But then, at his master's direction, he climbed back into the Goliath mech, now in "open air" form for there was no way to reinstall the damaged hatch.</p><p></p><p>"What about Binkadink?" asked Hagan.</p><p></p><p>"I got him," answered Finoula, using her <em>chime of opening</em> to cause the Spriggan's hatch to open. Binkadink rolled out of the mech's cockpit, still in gaseous form, as Finoula climbed up into the seat to replace him. "It's cramped in here!" she complained. "How do I get this thing to move?"</p><p></p><p>Binkadink, back alive (or, more accurately, now never having been slain in the first place) after having had, for some unknowable reason, unstoppered his uncle's <em>potion of gaseous form</em> while in the midst of a fierce battle, was still linked telepathically with the others despite his current nebulous nature. He briefly explained to Finoula how the main controls worked; at her insistence, her first lesson was how to scoot the seat back to give her more leg room.</p><p></p><p>The Matriarch, up on her high perch, was aware the aspect of Lolth she had summoned was fighting somebody below the stalactite but couldn't see what was going on. She grabbed up a <em>crystal ball</em> and focused her concentration on trying to <em>scry</em> on what was going on directly below her; without any visible enemies or directions from the Matriarch, the other spellcasters held off on further spellcasting for now (with one or two exceptions, naturally, like those who were being attacked by the earth elementals Gilbert had flung up at them with his slingshot). Down below, the drider cleric and the sorcerer had reached the <em>wall of force</em> and were feeling their way along it, trying to find the edge so they could continue their attacks on these interlopers.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert flipped through the <em>Omnibook</em> and found the spell scroll he'd stashed there for this very reason: <em>reverse gravity</em>. Casting it, he and the other heroes rose up into the air, sliding up the sides of the stalactite hanging down from the center of the cavern. They landed on the ceiling of the cavern, upside down, and immediately Mudpie and Hagan began running in opposite directions around the base of the hanging rock formation, the Titan mech heading clockwise and Goliath going counterclockwise. Finoula, due to her inexperience with piloting a mech, stayed right where she was.</p><p></p><p><I'm in place!> Hagan called, once he'd traversed what he figured to be about a third of the way around the base of the stalactite. Mudpie indicated his own status to Gilbert once he'd also run about a third of the way around the other side of the stalactite.</p><p></p><p><Now!> Gilbert commanded, and Mudpie climbed out of Goliath's cockpit, to earth glide into the ceiling while Hagan popped open the hatch to the Titan mech before he and Wezhley each drank a <em>potion of gaseous form</em> tailored to their own size and body mass. Then, as clouds of vapor, they flew down from the mech, headed back to the front gates of Arachnespinnacle. Gilbert, Darrien, and Finoula all drank down potions of their own; Binkadink was already in a gaseous state and had headed down upon Gilbert's command.</p><p></p><p><We ready, Genevar!> Gilbert called once the heroes had all made it to the open gates. In passing, they'd seen the aspects of Lolth and Kord were still having it out, while the drow and drider forces, as well as the bebelith, had found their way around the <em>wall of force</em> and were falling up the stalactite, doing their best to follow their prey up the <em>reverse gravity</em> spell effect; they hadn't seen the heroes drink down their potions and had no idea they were even now fleeing as fast as sentient clouds of gas could flee.</p><p></p><p>Harriet Fung had led the group out of Arachnespinnacle by a different route than the one they'd used to enter it; this was a trade route she'd heard would eventually lead to a svirfneblin city. But the important thing was it was a means of escape away from the drow city, and one with twisting passageways that put the city out of sight almost at once.</p><p></p><p>"Ye comin', little one?" Aerik asked.</p><p></p><p><In a minute,> Genevar replied, closing her eyes and concentrating on the task she'd told Gilbert she could do. And she was pretty sure she could do it, too, although she'd never really tried it before. But just as the young mutant was able to communicate telepathically with the Kordovians despite not knowing how to speak their language, she knew speaking any language was likewise within her grasp...even the electronic language of machines.</p><p></p><p><Initiating contact,> Genevar thought at the control computer of the Goliath mech.</p><p></p><p><Contact established,> the Goliath AI replied. Genevar repeated the telepathic contact with the artificial intelligences responsible for the Spriggan and Titan mechs, establishing a link between the three of them.</p><p></p><p><Synchronize countdown timer,> Genevar commanded.</p><p></p><p><Countdown timer synchronized,> reported back the three machine intelligences in unison.</p><p></p><p><Initiate self-destruct sequence,> commanded Genevar.</p><p></p><p>"Are ye comin', lass?" demanded Aerik. "We've best be goin', an' soon!"</p><p></p><p><Coming!> replied Genevar, her task done. She scampered after the overprotective dwarf and the two hurried to catch up to the others.</p><p></p><p>The bebelith reached the Titan mech and found the hatch wide open - odd. Sure enough, it looked as if there was a little chair inside for a person to sit on - weird. The demon had never before seen a hollow construct built so somebody could ride inside it; it couldn't for the life of it imagine why somebody would go to all the trouble. But still, this was a type of armor, of sorts, and there was nothing a bebelith liked better than to rip open metal armor - it was just a pity there was nobody wearing it at the moment, because that was the really fun bit: rending open the armor to get at the screaming mortal inside and then rending through the meat and the blood and the viscera....</p><p></p><p>The drider cleric approached the Titan armor currently being ripped to shreds by the overeager bebelith. "Wait, what's that--?" she began but never got to finish.</p><p></p><p>The central stalactite of Arachnespinnacle housed all of the drow nobles of the city; those not of drow blood - the slaves, the tradespeople - were forced to live in the simple stone buildings on the floor of the cavern. Knowing the stalactite would be a favorite target of the enemies of the drow, the Matricarch had seen to it that the stone structure hanging from the cavern ceiling was protected from a wide variety of spells: <em>stone shape</em>, <em>earthquake</em>, and <em>transmute rock to mud</em> spells would have no effect upon the stone of the drow's dwelling, for example. It was sealed off from extradimensional travel, from <em>teleport</em> and <em>dimension door</em> spells passing from one side of the outer walls to the other, and from all types of scrying and other divination spells. The Matriarch felt she had truly done everything she could to protect her people in their hanging dwelling, miles deep below the surface of the Oerth.</p><p></p><p>She had not, however, had the foresight to shield it from thermonuclear explosions, not even from those of nuclear engines small enough to be used as power sources for mechs.</p><p></p><p>With a joint explosion caused by all three mech power sources going critical at the same time, the stalactite was severed from its perch at the top of the ceiling and it hung there for a brief moment before it began its plummet to the stone floor below. Spider webs snapped, their tensile strength nowhere near that needed to support a structure the size, weight, and mass of the drow habitation stalactite. The tip crashed into the stone buildings below the stalactite and the rest of it followed suit, crushing to paste everyone inside the hollow dwelling as the cavern filled with stone dust.</p><p></p><p>Fortunately, by the time the drow city of Arachnespinnacle came to a crashing death, Harriet Fung and the others were well down the tunnel they'd been traversing. They were close enough to hear the death-knell of the city - sound traveled for great distances in the echoing tunnels of the Underdark - but far enough away not to feel any of the aftereffects of the explosion. The gaseous heroes were likewise far enough away not to have their cloudlike bodies blown apart from the blast; they remanifested back into their solid bodies.</p><p></p><p>"Everybody okay?" Gilbert asked. Everyone was; Gilbert cast a <em>message</em> spell to make sure his mother and her group were all okay as well. Once he got a reply from her ("We all fine, Mudpie!") he cast another <em>message</em> spell instructing her to stay where she was; they'd be coming to get them and bring them back home to Kordovia. Mudpie earth glided out of a wall soon thereafter and together, the members of the Kordovian Adventurers Guild headed back through the ruins of Arachnespinnacle to go retrieve the Kordovian women they'd come to rescue.</p><p></p><p>- - -</p><p></p><p>And that's how we wrapped up the Kordovian Adventurers Guild campaign after five years of play. After the adventure was over, I went around the table and asked each of the players what they thought their PCs would do post-campaign. Here's the general consensus:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">In the days to follow, Gilbert became the court wizard to Queen Kaelanna, acting as her primary adviser.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Binkadink married Voopie Meadowclover and together they had a large family of happy gnomish children.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Finoula had thoughts of joining the Sisters of Ehlonna, following in the footsteps of her younger sister Feron Dru. However, when asked how she'd respond to a proposal of marriage from Aithanar Ivenheart, she realized she didn't necessarily have to go join the Sisters right away; after all, elves lived for centuries and there was no immediate rush....</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Hagan and Darrien decided they'd help rebuild Kordovia after these latest - and final - attacks by the orc and goblin slaves of Arachnespinnacle. Beyond that, who knew?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Castillan and Galrich opted not to return to the living; they'd earned their final rests and looked forward to an eternity with their loved ones who had passed away before them.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Malrin Ivenheart, however, was more than happy to be restored to life - how else was she going to be able to be the Maid of Honor at her little brother's wedding?</li> </ul><p>For the aspect of Lolth, I printed a female drow's face on cardstock, cut it out, and plopped it over the head of a Huge fiendish spider D&D Miniature. For the aspect of Kord, I used a plastic Burger King toy of Thor, but fashioned a cardstock image to wrap around his helmet and give him a new face: specifically, Cal Trop's, which was Dan's face with a goatee draw on with marker. (Cal Trop had been imbued with Kord's own blood during the Wing Three campaign; I thought it was an appropriate afterlife for him to, upon his death, be used as an aspect of Kord whenever the God of Strength needed to send an avatar to the Material Plane.)</p><p></p><p>- - -</p><p></p><p>T-Shirt Worn: My black "Chaotic evil means never having to say you're sorry" shirt - perfect for the drow.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 8040795, member: 508"] [B]ADVENTURE 80: AN AUDIENCE WITH THE MATRIARCH[/B] PC Roster: [INDENT]Binkadink Dundernoggin, gnome fighter 20[/INDENT] [INDENT] Darrien, half-elf ranger 20[/INDENT] [INDENT] Finoula Cloudshadow, elf ranger 20[/INDENT] [INDENT] Gilbert Fung, human wizard 20[/INDENT] [INDENT] Hagan, half-orc sorcerer 20[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Aerik Battershield, dwarf fighter 15/dwarven defender 5[/INDENT] [INDENT] Aithanar Ivenheart, elf fighter 9[/INDENT] [INDENT] Father Bendrick, human cleric 12 (Kord)[/INDENT] [INDENT] Genevar, humanoid mutant[/INDENT] [INDENT] Harriet Fung, orc sorcerer 6[/INDENT] [INDENT] Malrin Ivenheart, elf druid 15[/INDENT] [INDENT] MARCI, humanoid construct[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 11 July 2020 - - - "Thank you all for coming," said Father Bendrick. "Please, have a seat." The heroes walked into the Temple of Kord and took their seats along the banquet table that had been spread with all manners of delicious-looking food. There were 11 seats around the table, exactly as many as needed, for Mudpie and MARCI did not eat and would not be partaking of the [I]heroes' feast[/I] the head cleric of the Temple of Kord had prepared before their excursion into the Underdark to bring an end to the attacks that had been plaguing Kordovia for the last two decades. "Let us give thanks," said Father Bendrick once everyone was seated. "Holy Kord, we thank You for the feast spread before us. We ask that it, through You, give us the strength needed to perform the task put before us. We pray for the strength to achieve our goals, and for the strength to die bravely in battle should it come to that." He looked around the table. "Let us eat," he said simply. As everyone started filling their plates, Gilbert - usually never one to delay the consumption a fabulous meal - observed, "I notice you say 'we' awful lot during that prayer." "Indeed," replied the cleric. "For I will be accompanying you. As the head cleric of the Temple of Kord, the church upon which this kingdom was founded, it is my duty to bring the fight to the enemies of our land." He smiled and added, "You may notice there are not often very many practicing members of the faithful in attendance on any given week of services. That is because our most fervent adherents are most often found on the front lines of combat during the attacks. Our turnover rate is quite high, due to the frequency with which our most earnest young clerics die on the battlefield fighting the orcs and goblins attacking our homeland. Now that we know the source of these attacks and are able to bring the fight to them, there is no way I will stay behind." "Are you sure you're up for it?" asked Darrien. "I mean, no offense...." "None taken," replied the cleric. "I may have some gray in my hair and beard but I have plenty of fight left within this old frame." He frowned over at Genevar, though, who was helping herself to a frosted pastry. "I must question the wisdom of bringing a child into battle, however. How old are you, little one?" <I'm ten,> Genevar replied telepathically. <But I'm old enough to come with! Plus, I can help - I can see things that are going to happen...well, sometimes I do.> "I'll be stickin' with th' wee lass," Aerik Battershield replied. "An' with Harriet as well," he added, indicating Gilbert Fung's mother, currently wearing the orcish form into which she'd been reincarnated after having been slain by assassins from her own distant homeland, far across the sea. "I'll not be lettin' anythin' 'appen to either o' 'em." Unnoticed at the far end of the table, Finoula was sitting quietly at the table, putting butter on a muffin, thinking wistfully that this was exactly the type of [I]heroes' feast[/I] Ingebold used to prepare before the group would head out into adventure. A single tear threatened to spill from her eye at the thought of her fallen Battle-Sister. "So, we know the way to the city?" asked Father Bendrick as Aithanar surreptitiously wiped at Finoula's eye with a cloth napkin. He patted her hand, realizing exactly where her thoughts were at the moment. "I know way into city," Harriet Fung replied. "Underdark passageways, but [I]teleportation circles[/I] cut travel time down. I remember command phrases used - no drow think simple orc woman pay attention, or be able to activate them herself. It take maybe two hours, tops, get to Arachnespinnacle. But we run into drow garrison along way; will have to take them out, no way around it." On her shoulder, her raven familiar [B]Kurotori[/B] picked at the nut she offered him. Across the table, Hagan was doing likewise, offering a grape to his own familiar, Wezhley, as the little weasel sat perched on his shoulder. "I'm just worried about the people who got taken back with the orcs who escaped," Hagan said. Unlike previous raids on Kordovia, where the orcs and goblins had seemed mostly interested in gaining armor and metal weapons from those they killed, this time some of them had abducted women from the kingdom. Hagan's own half-orc heritage had been the result of a loving marriage between his human mother and his orc father at the far side of the Vesve Forest, but he knew many half-orcs were the result of interactions of a far less willing nature. "Should we really have taken the time to pick up those scrolls and potions and get those last weapons upgrades? And eat this meal? Shouldn't we be heading out immediately? Those women...." "Scrolls needed for better chance at success," Gilbert replied. Based on glimpses of possible futures Genevar had seen - where she saw the need for the heroes to be able to "turn into clouds" and "fall the wrong way" (unfamiliar with magic, the mutant girl had been unable to specify the spells involved) - the heavyset mage had determined they should all have [I]potions of gaseous form[/I] at hand and he'd been sure to pick up a scroll of [I]reverse gravity[/I]. While he was at it, he loaded up on a lot of other spell scrolls he felt might be useful, for once they entered the Underdark there would be no turning back to fetch anything left behind; teleportation magic was notoriously unreliable that far below the earth, making the permanent [I]teleportation circles[/I] a necessity for such magical travel, even if they only allowed transportation from one fixed point to one other. Teleporting any distance beyond simple line of sight was asking for trouble in the Underdark; you could find yourself reappearing inside solid stone or in a random location with no way of knowing where you were. "Women fine for awhile," interjected Harriet. "They not harmed by orcs yet - all new slaves turned over to drow women for inspection first. Some may serve drow inside hollow stalactite. Only those no good for such work given back to orcs. We get to them in plenty of time." "And that will be our primary task," added Aithanar. "Once we get to the city proper, Aerik, Harriet, Genevar and I will break off from the rest of you and rescue the women taken from Kordovia. Harriet knows the barracks where they'll be kept - it's separate from the slave quarters the orcs and goblins and whatnot are housed in." "I will join your group, then, I think," added Father Bendrick. "I feel my place is seeing to the safety of my people, even though my heart might cry out for combat." "Then eat up," Gilbert replied, helping himself to a hearty slab of ham. "This spell make sure we immune to poison and fear for rest of day. It good way to start mission." In accordance with the spell's requirements, the group spent an hour polishing off the meal, but the time was spent going over their plans and strategies. By the time they had finished they all knew their particular goals and Harriet had familiarized them all with the general layout of the drow city of Arachnespinnacle. The city itself was housed in a massive cavern and the drow resided in a gigantic, hollow stalactite hanging down from the ceiling. This stalactite was covered in balconies and windows, providing the various drow spellcasters housed in the city plenty of locations from which to fire down at any attackers. On the ground of the cavern were the standard types of buildings one might expect to see in any city, but these were reserved for the slaves and the members of the other races allowed into the city for trade purposes. Spiders of all sizes had free reign of the place and a permanent collection of webs ran from the stalactite to the ground and the sides of the cavern. "We ready?" Gilbert asked the others as he pushed back his chair and stepped away from the table, as full as he could ever recall being. The group exited the temple and six of them put on their powered combat armor or climbed aboard the mechs they had brought back with them from Gamma Terra, another word entirely. "Ready," replied Hagan, giving a thumbs up from his pilot's seat inside the Titan mech. Wezhley still sat on his shoulder, looking out through the forward viewscreen and seeming to enjoy himself. "Ready," echoed Binkadink from inside the Spriggan mech. One mechanical hand held the gnome's [I]reverberating glaive[/I], the weapon which seemed so oversize in the little gnome's hands looking more properly scaled when held by the mech. "Ready, Master," answered Mudpie from inside the Goliath mech. Gilbert had decided he'd had better things to do than learn how to pilot a humanoid construct from the inside and had farmed out the job to his earth elemental familiar. Aithanar, Darrien, and Finoula all indicated their readiness as well once they were strapped into their technological armor and Harriet Fung led them out of the capital city of Kordovia, headed towards the Vesve Forest on its eastern border. She led them unerringly to a simple cave, looking like nothing more than an overhanging jut of rock sticking out from a hillside. Nothing grew within 100 feet or so from the spot and there were no markings on any kind on the solid stone underfoot to indicate this was anything but a natural rock formation out here in a forest clearing. But when Harriet barked out a short phrase in the drow language, an intricate circle made up of glowing lines appeared all around them; a [I]teleportation circle[/I], Gilbert surmised. But there had been no indication there was anything magical about the site and the heavyset wizard was willing to bet it had been obscured by [I]nondetection[/I] or [I]Nystul's magic aura[/I] spells hiding all traces of its magical nature. No wonder Chalkan and his arcane archers had never been able to track the retreating orcs and goblins back to their lair; any tracks would have stopped at the rock-covered ground and there were no indications that there was teleportation magic at play in the area. "We ready?" Harriet asked everyone as they stepped inside the confines of the circle. Upon the affirmative response, she said another short phrase and they were all whisked away to the blackness of the Underdark. The group reappeared in a similar [I]teleportation circle[/I] some unknown distance away and an unknown depth below the planet's surface. All was not dark, though, for the Kordovians had brought some light sources with them: the three mechs, for instance, all leaked light from their control consoles out of their front windows and Binkadink's [I]everburning torches[/I] strapped to the antlers on his helmet shone through just as brightly from inside the Spriggan mech. All together it was ample light for the topsiders to spot the two drow guards who had been set there to protect their all-important [I]teleportation circle[/I] providing access to the surface world. However, with their latest raid having occurred the day before, they were more concerned about other Underdark denizens trying to use the [I]teleportation circle[/I] created by drow for use by the drow than they were of surface-worlders using it to penetrate the Underdark - such a thing hadn't even crossed their minds before now, so sure were the drow of the precautions they'd taken from allowing their handiwork to be discovered. But they spun about, startled at the sudden illumination coming from behind them, and their eyes widened in shock as their mouths gaped open at the sight of Binkadink, in the Spriggan armor, leaping forth on a pair of mechanical legs and bringing a [I]reverberating glaive[/I] slicing laterally through the torso of the first drow and continuing his swing into the body of the second. Neither guard had the first notion of what they were up against before it no longer mattered, for they were dead on the ground. "That plenty easy," Gilbert observed. "Where next, Mom?" Harriet led them all out of the cavern in which the [I]teleportation circle[/I] had been carved and into a tunnel that stretched off to the right and left. "This way," she said, taking them off to the right. "Next obstacle is drow garrison. Place has shrieker mushrooms along sides of tunnel, in front of iron gates - no way to go in quiet, they alert guards even if you invisible." That caused Aithanar to retract what he was about to suggest, for his Wraith armor had an invisibility field that wrapped light waves around him so he could walk around unseen. But he realized the shriekers would detect his movement via the air currents even if there was no light spilling from his armor, so there was no way for him to scout ahead and try to open the gates to let the others pass through. It was over a half hour's trek to reach the garrison, during which time there were only a few times the tunnel branched off into other directions, but each time Harriet kept the group on target. When she indicated the garrison was just around the next bend, Gilbert called a halt. "Time for prep spells," he declared. He started with the traditional [I]Rary's telepathic bond[/I] spell, linking himself with Binkadink, Darrien, Finoula, Hagan, Malrin, and his mother. Upon himself he cast the spells [I]magic circle against evil[/I], [I]stoneskin[/I], [I]darkvision[/I], [I]comprehend languages[/I], and [I]shapechange[/I], taking the opportunity that last spell afforded to transform himself into a lithe, drow woman - practically the exact opposite of his own normal appearance. He also drank down a [I]potion of resist acid[/I]. Normally, Mudpie would have shared in those spells with his master, but Gilbert realized there was no real way to keep his familiar within arm's reach when the elemental would be piloting the Goliath mech. "What's the deal with the hot drow chick getup?" asked Binkadink. "You planning on pretending we're your prisoners or something?" "Not likely," Gilbert replied. "They just less likely attack me if I look like this." "Best keep your mouth shut if you expect to pass yourself off as a drow," suggested Finoula, casting a [I]longstrider[/I] spell upon herself and then following it up with the spells [I]bear's endurance[/I], [I]cat's grace[/I], [I]protection from fire[/I], and - recalling with a shudder the tales of drow and their fetish for giant spiders - [I]repel vermin[/I]. Hagan cast a [I]protection from fire[/I] spell upon himself as well, and then he and Malrin ensured the elven druid, Gilbert, and everyone inside Eradicator armor or a mech had a [I]freedom of movement[/I] spell active. Malrin also cast a [I]darkvision[/I] spell upon herself and then wildshaped into owl form. Darrien cast [I]bear's endurance[/I], [I]cat's grace[/I], [I]darkvision[/I], [I]longstrider[/I], [I]protection from acid[/I], and [I]resist cold[/I] spells upon himself, then declared himself ready. Binkadink had no spellcasting power of his own but did have an uncle and a cousin in the potion-making business; he drank down potions of [I]resist acid[/I] and [I]protection from cold[/I] and had Hagan cast a [I]fly[/I] spell on him and received a [I]comprehend languages[/I] spell from a scroll from the back of Gilbert's [I]Omnibook[/I]. <I think that about it,> Gilbert thought to the others over the mental link. <Let's go!> And, despite the shapely female drow form he currently wore as protective camouflage, he made sure he was towards the back of the group as they turned the corner, with Genevar, MARCI, Father Bendrick, and Aerik Battershield. The group tromped down the stone corridor, their footsteps echoing fiercely through the Underdark tunnel. The shriekers began wailing as they got within sight of the barred iron gates closed before them; on a ledge directly above stood six drow crossbowmen, their weapons aimed at the approaching mechs (for it was Spriggan, Titan, and Goliath taking the lead) and their eyes boggling at the sight of these walking mechanical constructs, the likes of which had never been seen before on Oerth, above ground or below. Glancing nervously at each other, the drow aimed their weapons and fired as one - to no discernible effect. But Gilbert, playing it safe as always, took the opportunity to upgrade his personal defenses with a [I]protection from arrows[/I] spell. However, he then switched gears and strode forward, altering his shape as he did so. His curvaceous female drow form ballooned out, quickly attaining his own corpulent proportions and then far exceeding them as his limbs faded back into his body and he rose up into the air, now wearing the form of a beholder. Ten eyestalks swiveled around, looking every which way, as his central eye stared up at the six drow on the overhanging balcony from what must be the second story of the garrison - but then he quickly shut it, so the [I]anti-magic[/I] cone wouldn't interfere with his friends' ability to cast spells in the area directly ahead of him. Mudpie trundled forward beside his master in the Goliath mech, ignoring the drow completely as he maneuvered the metal hands through the bars of the iron gate and tugged. There was a shriek of tortured metal (to go along with the screams of the shrieker fungus, which had yet to abate) but the gates held true - for the moment, in any case. Hagan cast a [I]wall of fire[/I] along the balcony, burning all six of the drow crossbowmen to death at once, before Binkadink strode up in the Spriggan mech and brought his [I]reverberating glaive[/I] crashing down upon the locking mechanism keeping the iron gates from opening. Mudpie had no trouble after that pulling the two doors open toward him, revealing another set of barred gates at the far end of a tunnel some 60 feet or so in length. There were two doors on either side of this short tunnel and a ceiling some 15 feet above the floor - just enough room for the mechs to fit without bending over. Darrien moved up to the first door on the left, trying to open it to no avail - it was locked and he couldn't pull it open, even while wearing the Ogre armor. But he did notice a crack in the stone floor and followed it to the wall's edge, where it joined with a visible line across the length of the edge where floor met wall. <Looks like we got a trap door from wall to wall over here,> he warned the others. He looked up at the ceiling and saw a series of holes leading into the floor above, but it was too dark inside the unlit dwelling to see any details about the room directly above. Still, the holes worried him enough - they could easily be used to allow an archer to shoot directly down at those in the tunnel - that he warned the rest of the group over the [I]Rary's telepathic bond[/I] about this feature as well. Finoula walked up to the first door on the left and, finding it locked, used her [I]chime of opening[/I] to unlock it. Then she stepped inside, with Malrin in owl form perched upon her shoulder. She was in a narrow hallway, but in the room just beyond she could see from the dim light coming in from behind her a pair of drow pushing a metal bar mounted on two upright poles across the room. Behind them she could hear the unmistakable sound of stone on stone and the elven ranger deduced they were removing the supports that would allow the pit trap in the tunnel to be triggered. Malrin came to the same conclusion and, copying Hagan's tactic that had worked so well with the crossbowmen, cast a [I]wall of fire[/I] directly across the bodies of the two drow struggling to push the bar. They died screaming and the metal bar remained only as far as they had gotten it moved thus far, less than a third of the way across the room. It looked like the pit trap wasn't going to be able to be primed after all. But then the hall was suddenly filled with figures, as drow fighters spilled out of two doors along either end of the hallway Finoula was traversing, rushing at her with rapiers flashing. At the same time, the door immediately in front of Darrien opened up and the half-elven ranger was confronted with another fighter, who stabbed at him with his rapier, getting a full-on hit to the chest...which was easily deflected off the Ogre armor. Darrien grinned at the drow's shock, certain the dark elf could probably see his face through the armor's face plate even in the dim light. But then the drow stood petrified before Darrien - quite literally, having been hit by a [I]flesh to stone[/I] ray from one of Gilbert's beholder eyestalks. Another ray went flashing into the still-open door behind Finoula, slaying one of the drow advancing upon her with a [I]finger of death[/I] ray. Mudpie piloted the Goliath armor into the tunnel as, behind him, Harriet and the others advanced now that it seemed to be safe. Darrien heard orders being given in the room up above him and instinctively looked up, giving him just enough time to dodge out of the way as boiling oil came pouring down through the holes in the ceiling. Hagan warned Finoula and Malrin what he was about to do immediately before casting a [I]delayed blast fireball[/I] through the open door behind Finoula. The elven ranger took heed at once, dodging back out the door and holding it closed behind her. There was a [I]whumph![/I] sound and a chorus of screams as the [I]fireball[/I] exploded in the hallway filled with the tightly-packed bodies of drow fighters spilling out of the two barracks rooms. The Spriggan armor stepped forward into the tunnel - now somewhat slippery as the stone floor was covered in boiling oil - and Binkadink brought his [I]reverberating glaive[/I] smashing through the wall just past the door, the stone chunks crushing two drow soldiers heading towards the door from the feasting hall. Malrin flew from Finoula's shoulder to land on the top of the Spriggan armor, while Darrien raced through the hole in the wall Binkadink had just created. There was another fighter approaching from the back of the dining hall; Darrien peppered him with arrows from his [I]Arachnibow[/I] - appropriately enough, originally a drow weapon - and the fighter fell to the floor, dead. Another drow stepped out from the kitchen where he'd been getting a plate of food, raised his crossbow, and fired, but once again the Ogre armor deflected the incoming bolt and Darrien wasn't the least bit harmed. Gilbert flew into the room and shot a ray from an eyestalk, instantly slaying the offending drow. Mudpie headed straight for the far set of gates, intending to smash them open as he realized they'd all need to exit in this direction if they were going to continue on to Arachnespinnacle. But then two drow clerics [I]levitated[/I] down from the balcony above the gates, shooting spells through the iron bars of the gates, one sending a [I]flame strike[/I] at Binkadink and Malrin while the other targeted Gilbert, still in beholder form, with an [I]unholy blight[/I] spell. Hagan, seeing the drow women, responded with a [I]polar ray[/I] at the cleric on his right, covering her body in a rime of frost that came close to slaying her outright. Binkadink strode forth and finished the job with his glaive, stabbing through the bars of the gate. Darrien stepped back through the hole in the wall and shot a cluster of arrows at the remaining cleric, several finding their marks but failing to bring her down. Finoula activated her [I]lightning amulet[/I] and went streaking across the tunnel, blasting between the bars of the still-closed gates and through the body of the second cleric, finally slaying her. She remanifested while still outside the back gates. Malrin flew just behind Finoula, fitting her body sideways between the bars and then heading up to where she could see over the balcony. There were two more clerics up there and the elven druid warned the others over the telepathic link. In the large room over the middle of the tunnel, a pair of drow fighters tipped over the vats of oil the clerics had heated with their spells, causing the liquid to drip down onto the area just before the back gates. Mudpie was caught in the area but managed to dodge out of the way even while inside the Goliath armor - not needing to sleep, he'd been able to put in much more training than any of the other mech pilots and had mastered the art of running a mech until it performed almost as well as his own unliving body. Pushing open the gates, he stumbled outside, nearly - but not quite - slipping in the burning oil pooling by his feet. Hagan advanced just behind him. Gilbert sent a [I]disintegrate[/I] ray from an eyestalk aimed directly above him and flew up into the room containing a pair of drow fighters and the now-empty cauldrons that had held boiling oil. Two more eye rays shot out, one slaying one fighter while the second failed to petrify the other into nonliving stone. On the back balcony, one of the two remaining clerics in charge of this garrison fort cast an [I]unholy blight[/I] spell on the Goliath armor just now trudging into view below her, while the other raced through a side door and into the main room, where she cast a [I]blade barrier[/I] spell, causing a wall of flying weapons to manifest in a line cutting through the area where Gilbert floated in beholder form. But Binkadink, piloting the Spriggan armor through the back gate, realized his mech was tall enough to allow him to use his glaive against the drow cleric on the balcony and did just that, killing her with one blow. Darrien, seeing all of the action was now apparently happening upstairs now, dashed back inside the hole in the wall he'd just exited, running down a hallway past the feast hall and up a set of stairs he found back there. In the tunnel, Finoula and the others moved up, after Gilbert announced there was no more boiling oil available for anyone to pour down on them. As he was passing on this information, he sent his beholder body forward through the wall of bladed weapons, altering shape once again until he stood in the towering form of a pit fiend. He grinned widely at the drow fighter blanching at this powerful devil standing before him, partly at the dark elf's look of horror and partly because in changing shape he'd healed up most of the damage the [I]blade barrier[/I] spell had managed to inflict upon him. Gilbert didn't even bother using any of his spells on the outclassed drow fighter, opting to simply rip him apart with the teeth and claws of the devilish form he'd adopted. In a desperation move, the sole remaining drow cleric tried casting a [I]bestow curse[/I] spell upon Gilbert but the pit fiend form had an innate resistance to spell energy and the spell fizzled against this unseen barrier. Gilbert grinned all the harder, realizing perfectly well just how unnerving the grin of a pit fiend could be. Then Darrien popped up from the hallway around the corner from the stairs, pumping arrows into the cleric's body from the side while she faced Gilbert. That was enough to cause her to drop her attention momentarily from Gilbert, and he took the opportunity to rush forth and rip her to shreds with his claws. She fell to the floor in a bloody mess. <Think that it for this place,> Gilbert announced, and a quick look around confirmed he was right. Everyone gathered up by the back gate and then Harriet Fung led them further into the darkness of the Underdark tunnels, on their way to Arachnespinnacle. They approached two more sets of [I]teleportation circles[/I] and Harriet put them both to good use - they encountered no resistance, the drow apparently having opted to fall back instead of have a token resistance try to prevent their use. <They probably muster their forces in city, try to fight us off there,> Harriet opined. In less than an hour the group was there at the gate to the drow city. A truly massive set of metal doors stood closed and barred at the end of the tunnel. Above the door stood an enormous statue of a spider, the whole thing looking to have been carved straight from the wall above the door, which slanted inwards towards the city. On either side of the massive doors stood two pillars of smoke, rising lazily in the air. <Betcha anything that thing animates to attack us,> Binkadink hazarded, indicating the spider statue. <What about it, Mom? There a password into city so spider stay still?> <No idea, Mudpie,> Harriet replied to her son, using the childhood name she's given him and which he'd repurposed once it came time for him to call a familiar into service. <I was at back of line of orc slaves when we come to city - if there password to enter, I not hear it.> Gilbert cast a [I]true seeing[/I] spell, hoping to gain some clues as to the situation with trying to get past the spider; maybe there were some runes they could avoid or something. He didn't get what he expected from the spell, although it definitely was a good thing he'd cast it, for in doing so he saw the four columns of smoke for what they really were: yochlol demons, the fabled "handmaidens of Lolth," each looking something like a cross between a roper and a melted candle. He warned the others over the link, then [I]shapechanged[/I] back into a female drow, hoping to either fool the demons or at least prey upon their natural inclination not to attack drow women, many of whom were clerics of Lolth the Spider-Goddess, patron deity of the dark elves. Then, stepping forward, he cast a [I]prismatic spray[/I] spell at the four yochlol. The first ray struck a yochlol and coated her with acid, a poor happenstance for the demon was immune to such attacks. Another immediately petrified the next yochlol in line, turning her to unliving stone in less than heartbeat. The third yochlol immediately disappeared, having been [I]plane shifted[/I] to a random plane - somewhere remarkably unpleasant, Gilbert hoped. The last yochlol got hit with a beam of pure poison, to which she was also immune. [I]Oh well[/I], Gilbert thought to himself, [I]least I took out half of them.[/I] Mudpie moved up past his master and brought a technology-enhanced punch to one of the remaining yochlol. Hagan cast a [I]polar ray[/I] spell at the other one, Binkadink stepping up in the Spriggan armor and sending his [I]reverberating glaive[/I] crashing into that one as well. He'd hoped the one-two punch of spell and blade would have taken out the demon, but such was not to be. Darrien moved forward in his Ogre armor, pulling out his scimitar, recently enhanced with the [I]holy[/I] property (as was Finoula's longsword [I]Tahlmalaera[/I]), sure to be anathema to a demon from the Lower Planes. But the half-elf ranger paid for the effrontery of attacking a yochlol with a [I]holy[/I] weapon; through the pain brought on by the blessed blade, the demon sent her will to grab Darrien's mind and sway him into unwilling service. <Slay your companions!> the yochlol demanded - and Darrien turned to comply. The other yochlol did likewise to Binkadink, dominating the gnome into doing her bidding. The Spriggan mech pivoted in place, ready to go attack the other Kordovians. Worse yet, on the wall behind the yochlols and above the massive doors leading into the drow city proper, the spider statue ripped its legs from the surrounding stone and crawled down the wall, mandibles open wide to crush those before it. Its mouthparts closed around the Titan mech, as Hagan did his best to try to maneuver it out of the way to no avail. Activating her [I]lightning amulet[/I] once again, Finoula blasted her way through the spider-shaped elder eidolon, ricocheting back near where she'd begun her attack. One of the yochlols was striking at the Goliath mech with her tentacles as Malrin cast a [I]summon nature's ally[/I] spell to bring in some reinforcements. Rising up from the ground almost immediately came a trio of huge earth elementals, two of which began pounding at the stone spider while the third brought a boulderlike fist crashing down upon one of the yochlols. Gilbert flipped to the back of the [I]Omnibook[/I] where he stored his spells scrolls and cast a [I]stone to flesh[/I] spell upon the elder eidolon. For a short while, its rocky carapace softened to flesh. <Get it now, while it weakened!> the mage called over the link and the others scrambled to comply. Gilbert switched back to his pit fiend form, flapping his wings and flying over to land beside Darrien and Binkadink - and have his still-present [I]magic circle against evil[/I] spell temporarily suppress the [I]domination[/I] effect taking over their minds. <You two better stick close to me until we take out those demons!> he suggested. Mudpie turned and brought his attention - and the technologically-enhanced strength of his Goliath mech - to the spider behind him, still biting the Titan mech. Hagan finally managed to wrench his mech from the arachnid's mouth, staggered back a step or two, and let fly with a [I]polar ray[/I] right at the spider's head - while it was temporarily susceptible to such spells, as its normal, golemlike defenses were no longer in effect, although the half-orc knew it was only a matter of a short amount of time before it would resume its stony appearance and its full defenses would be back into play. Binkadink, however, wanted to take the yochlols out before they could do any more damage; the spider was a powerful adversary but he doubted it could take over anyone's mind like these roper-demons could. His glaive cut completely through the body of one yochlol, killing it immediately, and cleaved over into the body of the other. He was pleased to see it too was dead when he pulled his blade out of its body. That left the elder eidolon as the city's only defenses outside the city gates. Darrien brought his [I]Arachnibow[/I] up and fired off a series of rapid-fire shots, burying the arrows up to their shafts in the spider's fleshy body. It's rocky coating re-emerged almost immediately thereafter, but by that time it was too late: with a reverberating crash, the eidolon fell to the stone floor, its rocky limbs breaking off and scattering across the entry cavern as the animating life-force left its slain body. Gilbert called the three earth elementals over to him and, resuming his human form, used his [I]slingshot of rock shrinking[/I] to reduce each of them to pebble size and scooped them up in his other hand. He then took the moment of non-combat to cast a [I]fox's cunning[/I] spell upon himself. Binkadink and Mudpie, putting the full power of their giant mechs to use, wasted no time pulling the city doors open. And there before them, stolen weapons taken from the bodies of the soldiers they'd slain in Kordovia, were the orcs, goblins, and orogs who had survived the latest assault upon the surface world and had been stationed here to attack anyone and anything who made it this far into the city of Arachnespinnacle. The slaves knew too well that to disobey their drow masters was a death sentence, but they had no illusions that they were anything but disposable cannon fodder whose lives were being used merely to waste some spellpower on the part of the attackers. And that's about all they were worth, for Gilbert, Hagan, Malrin, and Father Bendrick sent waves of area-attack spells into the slave forces, slaying them almost instantly. The Kordovian forces lined up and entered the city of Arachnespinnacle. At a nod from Gilbert, Harriet, Aithanar, Father Bendrick, Genevar, and MARCI broke away, Gilbert's mother taking them along a side alley toward the building where the Kordovian women would be housed. Aithanar activated the [I]invisibility field[/I] around his Wraith armor, fading from view as he powered up his pulse rifle. Anyone thinking about getting in their way would be learning very quickly just how bad an idea that was! The others moved forward into Arachnespinnacle. As Harriet had described, the city was housed inside a truly massive cavern, whose most prominent feature was the enormous stalactite hanging down from the ceiling several thousand feet in the air. The stalactite was pocked and pitted with windows and small balconies, nearly every one sporting a dark face as the drow looked down to see if they could spot the attackers who dared to bring the fight to their own city. Strands of spider webs stretched from the stalactite to the ground, the walls of the cavern, and the ceiling, forming makeshift bridges for those capable of traversing them. And sure enough, there were spiders everywhere you looked, of a wide variety of sizes and colors, crawling upon the webs and on the cavern walls, along the walls and ceilings of the stone buildings scattered beneath the overhanging stalactite, and in the narrow, twisting alleyways between the haphazard buildings. And on the ground before the heroes, ranged in a wide arc so as not to be taken out by a single area-effect spell, stood the next wave of the city's defenders: a trio of drow sorcerers, a similar number of armored drow fighters, a female drider cleric of Lolth, another normal-looking drider standing beside a draegloth abomination (a drider twice the size of the others, whose "drow" portion was that of a drow-demon hybrid), and an armor-ripping bebelith. The drow sorcerers were the first to react, and they'd apparently just been waiting for the enemy to finally show its face for them to strike out with the attack they'd already coordinated among themselves. As one, a trio of [I]chain lightning[/I] spells went flashing out, all three of them centered on the Goliath armor, as Mudpie happened to be standing in the middle of the formation of heroes and by targeting him as their primary they were able to branch out to all of the others. Unfortunately for them, there was no way for them to know ahead of time that the mechanical humanoid figure they saw before them was a mech being piloted by an earth elemental, or that said elemental served as the familiar to a powerful mortal wizard - and whose status as a familiar granted him a measure of spell resistance. Two of the [I]chain lightning[/I] spells fizzled out immediately upon striking the Goliath mech, only the third one getting past Mudpie's arcane defenses and activating normally. Almost all of the heroes ended up being harmed to some extent by the one spell that made it through, but the effect was nowhere near as devastating as the drow spellcasters had hoped. But then, in a wavering field like a mirage, a colossal spider suddenly manifested before the heroes, the reddish color of its fur and the jagged spikes and protrusions running down its abdomen attesting to its fiendish nature. The drider cleric who had summoned it here gave it orders to slay all of the attackers before it and it scampered forward to comply. This time it was Binkadink, in the Spriggan armor, who was crushed in the grasping mouthparts of the spider-being they fought; the gnome felt a wave of evil energy being pumped through the thing's mandibles as it brought a [I]smite good[/I] attack to bear. Gilbert counterattacked, casting a [I]quickened Evard's black tentacles[/I] spell that caught up the draegloth abomination, a pair of drow fighters, and one of the sorcerers in the embrace of the rubbery appendages growing up from the ground. Gilbert's proficiency with this particular spell, through frequent battlefield use, ensured none of the victims caught up in the tentacles' embrace would be escaping through any means but their own eventual deaths. But Gilbert wasted no time enjoying his spellcasting success. Realizing every drow in a window or standing on a balcony overhead was a potential spellcaster, he used his slingshot to fire Malrin's earth elementals up at the stalactite; upon striking the outer edge, the elementals regained their normal size and used their inherent earth glide abilities to phase through the outer stone of the stalactite and enter the hollow dwelling of the drow. They lashed out at any drow they saw, pulping them beneath their pounding fists. Gilbert then resumed his pit fiend form, the [I]shapechange[/I] spell still active and allowing him to alter his form at will. Mudpie sent the Goliath mech lumbering forward and brought a metal fist pounding into the body of the fiendish monstrous spider biting Binkadink's mech. Hagan cast another [I]polar ray[/I] spell but targeted the drider cleric, not wanting her to be able to replicate her summoning of additional allies; they already had enough enemies to fight! Binkadink managed to bring his glaive to bear against the spider's head, getting it to release him at last. Darrien picked one of the drow sorcerers not being strangled by black tentacles and sent a flurry of arrows at him, likewise wanting to take out a spellcaster as quickly as possible. With the five mechs and combat armor systems in play, he figured they were more than a match for any physical enemies they might encounter; it was the spellcasters who could mess things up so fast for them. But then, from her balcony at the highest level of Arachnespinnacle's stalactite, the Matriarch of the drow and leader of the city - and High Priestess of Lolth, the most powerful spellcaster to be found in the entire population center - picked as her target one of the metal constructs doing so much damage to her forces below: the one wielding a glaive, of all things - and cast her spell. Inside the Spriggan mech, Binkadink felt a strange tingle at the pit of his stomach, and got out the first few words of a warning over the telepathic link - <Guys, I think--> - before the [I]implosion[/I] spell ran its course and his entire body (all three feet of it) was compressed into a mass no larger than a seed. The others heard the little gnome's cry of shock and pain over the link and its abrupt ending and had no doubts that Binkadink had just been slain. The bebelith scampered up, ready to try to rip open one of these metal constructs - it couldn't be sure, but it seemed as if there were people inside them! Finoula ignored the demon, using her amulet to go crashing through a drow sorcerer as a bolt of living lightning (killing him immediately), then rebounding through the normal drider (slaying it as well) and blasting through the fiendish monstrous spider before regaining her elven form, still wearing the Banshee armor. The creatures bound in the [I]Evard's black tentacles[/I] spell struggled to free themselves, to no avail. Already the sorcerer had succumbed to the crushing tentacles, the air squeezed out of his lungs and the life already having left his body; by the looks of things, the two fighters weren't too far behind him. Malrin had been holding off on this maneuver as her magic dinosaur tooth only allowed her to do so once per day, but she judged now was the time if she was going to do it at all. With a simple mental command, she wildshaped into a tyrannosaurus and bit a chunk of foul-tasting flesh from the abdomen of the fiendish spider. That was too much for the arachnid, who had already taken plenty of punishment from the other foes it had been fighting; as a summoned creature, it vanished upon its death. But then, on a signal from the Matriarch, the spellcasters on this side of the stalactite fired down at the intruders with everything they had. A massive attack of concentrated spellpower, incorporating [I]fireballs[/I], [I]flame strikes[/I], a [I]mass inflict light wounds[/I] spell, an attempt to blind Malrin (which fortunately failed, as the elf-in-tyrannosaur-form was able to shrug off the effects), a pair of [I]chain lightnings[/I], a [I]flesh to stone[/I] spell (also targeted at Malrin; apparently the drow were frightened by the sudden appearance of a fearsome dinosaur in their midst, but Malrin successfully avoided this spell effect as easily as she had fended off the blindness), and a series of [I]magic missiles[/I]. None of the heroes came out of the spell-barrage unscathed, although some weathered the storm better than others. Then, to add insult to injury, the sole remaining drow sorcerer on the ground with the heroes cast another [I]chain lightning[/I] spell at almost the same time as the drider cleric cast another [I]fire storm[/I] spell. That was too much for Malrin to handle; with a massive thud, the tyrannosaur form fell upon its side and then wildshaped back into the form of an attractive, if quite dead, elven woman. The fiendish spider grabbed up the Goliath armor and bit it, crushing the metal sides in and knocking Mudpie out; Gilbert could feel the consciousness leaving his familiar over the empathic link they shared. He'd been thinking about how best to get Binkadink restored back to life, and now Malrin needed resurrected and his familiar needed healing as well. This attack was not going as smoothly as he had hoped it would; he fervently prayed that his mother was not meeting the same level of resistance as Gilbert's team was up against, for he knew Harriet's spell repertoire was not geared for combat. <Everybody gather up on me!> he cried over the link. <We can't take any more attacks from stalactite forces!> As the heroes moved to comply, Gilbert mentally explained his plans to Hagan. Once everyone was close enough together, Hagan shoved Malrin's body into the [I]portable hole[/I], rolled it back up, and cast a [I]teleport[/I] spell that brought everyone - even the unconscious Mudpie in his crumpled Goliath mech and the Spriggan mech no longer containing a living Binkadink - directly beneath the stalactite hanging down over the city. That put them out of the view of those in the windows and on the balconies; hopefully it would take them a moment to realize they hadn't just fled but were still very much in the city. <Somebody open Mudpie's hatch!> Gilbert commanded, and Hagan tried to do so but the crumpled metal made it impossible for even the Titan's enhanced strength to open. Hagan kept working on it, feeling the metal start to bend back into shape, but with Mudpie unconscious they'd have to open it from the outside if they were going to get to him to revive him. <You guys okay?> asked a new voice over the link. It took everyone a moment to realize this wasn't anybody who'd had the [I]Rary's telepathic bond[/I] spell cast upon them but rather Genevar, the Gamma Terra mutant who communicated telepathically because that was her only way of talking - she, like the other members of her race, was mute. <We've taken a bit of a beating,> Finoula responded, <but we're mostly okay. Binkadink and Malrin are dead--> <What? Oh, no!> came Genevar's anguished cry. <--but we can bring them back to life, given time,> Finoula added. That had been something the little mutant had forgotten; she was still getting used to how "normal" magic was on this world, but she'd seen Gilbert cast [I]limited wish[/I] spells to return jackalopes back to the world of the living. <How are you doing?> Darrien asked. <Were you able to find the women?> <Yeah, Father Bendrick's getting them all out now,> Genevar replied. <Where exactly are you guys?> Darrien explained they were directy beneath the stalactite and Genevar said their team wasn't that far away. <Well, get them all to safety,> Gilbert commanded. <We'll probably have to count that as as much a win as we going to get - too many spellcasters in that damn stalactite.> <You need to take out the stalactite?> Genevar asked. <I saw a way you can do that!> She quickly explained the fleeting vision she'd had, of a possible future that looked like it might just be coming true. <We can do that?> Gilbert demanded querulously, wishing he'd paid more attention to the proper operation of the mechs rather than handing it off to Mudpie to figure out. But then there was a series of cries coming from the area where the heroes had just [I]teleported[/I] away from; they'd been discovered by the remaining forces they'd been fighting, and who were now rushing over to them, the bebelith in the lead. "Crap!" snarled Gilbert. He needed more time! And then things got even worse, for another form materialized in the space between the heroes beneath the stalactite and the drow forces heading their way. This was a spider, about the size of the bebelith demon but sporting the ebony-skinned head of a drow woman with white hair. Gilbert gave an involuntary gasp as he realized this was none other than Lolth herself - or, more likely, as aspect of her: a mere fraction of her godly power given manifest form upon the Material Plane, no doubt summoned by the Matriarch herself. Lolth skittered to face the heroes and her face crinkled into a hateful scowl. "Interlopers!" she snarled in the drow language, for the Demon Queen of Spiders would not stoop to speaking any other, lower language. Gilbert was about to respond in the way he knew best - an attack spell - when he felt a form pass by him, pushing him out of the way (no small feat, given he was still wearing the form of a 12-foot-tall pit fiend). It was Father Bendrick, holding up his holy symbol and calling out, "Use me, Mighty Kord - allow me to be your vessel upon this Oerth!" Father Bendrick continued his path straight towards the aspect of Lolth, only each step was longer than the one before it for the elderly cleric was growing in size by the second. Not only that, but his face was de-aging, his beard shrinking in length and darkening in color. Finally, as he stepped directly before Lolth, he was Father Bendrick no longer, but an aspect of Kord - and one known to Aerik Battershield, at least, for this particular aspect of Kord, God of Strength, wore the face of Cal Trop, one of the Wing Three adventurers who had been a companion to Galrich Slayer and Aerik Battershield. The godly aspects went at it with every ounce of strength and power at their disposal, while the Kordovians scrambled to put their plans into action before the drow armies got to them. Finoula explained to Harriet what they were about to do and cautioned her to make sure she, Aerik, Aithanar, Genevar, and MARCI took the kidnapped Kordovian women out of Arachnespinnacle by any means they could, in any direction. <We can meet up later,> Finoula promised, <but for right now, you've got to get them all out of the city!> <Can do!> Harriet promised the elf over the link. By now, the [I]Evard's black tentacles[/I] spell had slain all who had been caught up in its embrace. Gilbert looked worriedly at the drow forces advancing upon them and cast a [I]time stop[/I] spell. That gave him a breather, however short, to get some of the things he needed done attended to. The first thing he did was cast a [I]limited wish[/I]. Surmising that Binkadink had been taken out by an [I]implosion[/I] spell and knowing what he did of the limitations of that spell, he carefully worded his wish: "I wish Binkadink had consumed his [I]potion of gaseous form[/I] immediately before the [I]implosion[/I] spell had been cast upon him." And then, realizing he had just enough time to cast one more spell, opted to go with a [I]wall of force[/I] spell to create an invisible barrier between them and the drow forces almost within range. Time started up again all of a sudden, the bebelith running headfirst into the invisible barrier Gilbert had just erected as Hagan finally ripped the hatch off of the Goliath mech - it wasn't like they were going to need it for much longer, anyway. He sent one of Titan's mechanical hands to pull the unmoving earth elemental out of the pilot seat of the mech and laid him carefully down upon the ground. Darrien approached and cast a [I]cure light wounds[/I] spell on the downed elemental, giving him just enough of a boost to raise him back to consciousness. "What happened?" rumbled the earth elemental, looking ready to leap into battle with whoever had been responsible for his current predicament, even if he was currently only at human size, a requirement for him to fit inside the Goliath mech. But then, at his master's direction, he climbed back into the Goliath mech, now in "open air" form for there was no way to reinstall the damaged hatch. "What about Binkadink?" asked Hagan. "I got him," answered Finoula, using her [I]chime of opening[/I] to cause the Spriggan's hatch to open. Binkadink rolled out of the mech's cockpit, still in gaseous form, as Finoula climbed up into the seat to replace him. "It's cramped in here!" she complained. "How do I get this thing to move?" Binkadink, back alive (or, more accurately, now never having been slain in the first place) after having had, for some unknowable reason, unstoppered his uncle's [I]potion of gaseous form[/I] while in the midst of a fierce battle, was still linked telepathically with the others despite his current nebulous nature. He briefly explained to Finoula how the main controls worked; at her insistence, her first lesson was how to scoot the seat back to give her more leg room. The Matriarch, up on her high perch, was aware the aspect of Lolth she had summoned was fighting somebody below the stalactite but couldn't see what was going on. She grabbed up a [I]crystal ball[/I] and focused her concentration on trying to [I]scry[/I] on what was going on directly below her; without any visible enemies or directions from the Matriarch, the other spellcasters held off on further spellcasting for now (with one or two exceptions, naturally, like those who were being attacked by the earth elementals Gilbert had flung up at them with his slingshot). Down below, the drider cleric and the sorcerer had reached the [I]wall of force[/I] and were feeling their way along it, trying to find the edge so they could continue their attacks on these interlopers. Gilbert flipped through the [I]Omnibook[/I] and found the spell scroll he'd stashed there for this very reason: [I]reverse gravity[/I]. Casting it, he and the other heroes rose up into the air, sliding up the sides of the stalactite hanging down from the center of the cavern. They landed on the ceiling of the cavern, upside down, and immediately Mudpie and Hagan began running in opposite directions around the base of the hanging rock formation, the Titan mech heading clockwise and Goliath going counterclockwise. Finoula, due to her inexperience with piloting a mech, stayed right where she was. <I'm in place!> Hagan called, once he'd traversed what he figured to be about a third of the way around the base of the stalactite. Mudpie indicated his own status to Gilbert once he'd also run about a third of the way around the other side of the stalactite. <Now!> Gilbert commanded, and Mudpie climbed out of Goliath's cockpit, to earth glide into the ceiling while Hagan popped open the hatch to the Titan mech before he and Wezhley each drank a [I]potion of gaseous form[/I] tailored to their own size and body mass. Then, as clouds of vapor, they flew down from the mech, headed back to the front gates of Arachnespinnacle. Gilbert, Darrien, and Finoula all drank down potions of their own; Binkadink was already in a gaseous state and had headed down upon Gilbert's command. <We ready, Genevar!> Gilbert called once the heroes had all made it to the open gates. In passing, they'd seen the aspects of Lolth and Kord were still having it out, while the drow and drider forces, as well as the bebelith, had found their way around the [I]wall of force[/I] and were falling up the stalactite, doing their best to follow their prey up the [I]reverse gravity[/I] spell effect; they hadn't seen the heroes drink down their potions and had no idea they were even now fleeing as fast as sentient clouds of gas could flee. Harriet Fung had led the group out of Arachnespinnacle by a different route than the one they'd used to enter it; this was a trade route she'd heard would eventually lead to a svirfneblin city. But the important thing was it was a means of escape away from the drow city, and one with twisting passageways that put the city out of sight almost at once. "Ye comin', little one?" Aerik asked. <In a minute,> Genevar replied, closing her eyes and concentrating on the task she'd told Gilbert she could do. And she was pretty sure she could do it, too, although she'd never really tried it before. But just as the young mutant was able to communicate telepathically with the Kordovians despite not knowing how to speak their language, she knew speaking any language was likewise within her grasp...even the electronic language of machines. <Initiating contact,> Genevar thought at the control computer of the Goliath mech. <Contact established,> the Goliath AI replied. Genevar repeated the telepathic contact with the artificial intelligences responsible for the Spriggan and Titan mechs, establishing a link between the three of them. <Synchronize countdown timer,> Genevar commanded. <Countdown timer synchronized,> reported back the three machine intelligences in unison. <Initiate self-destruct sequence,> commanded Genevar. "Are ye comin', lass?" demanded Aerik. "We've best be goin', an' soon!" <Coming!> replied Genevar, her task done. She scampered after the overprotective dwarf and the two hurried to catch up to the others. The bebelith reached the Titan mech and found the hatch wide open - odd. Sure enough, it looked as if there was a little chair inside for a person to sit on - weird. The demon had never before seen a hollow construct built so somebody could ride inside it; it couldn't for the life of it imagine why somebody would go to all the trouble. But still, this was a type of armor, of sorts, and there was nothing a bebelith liked better than to rip open metal armor - it was just a pity there was nobody wearing it at the moment, because that was the really fun bit: rending open the armor to get at the screaming mortal inside and then rending through the meat and the blood and the viscera.... The drider cleric approached the Titan armor currently being ripped to shreds by the overeager bebelith. "Wait, what's that--?" she began but never got to finish. The central stalactite of Arachnespinnacle housed all of the drow nobles of the city; those not of drow blood - the slaves, the tradespeople - were forced to live in the simple stone buildings on the floor of the cavern. Knowing the stalactite would be a favorite target of the enemies of the drow, the Matricarch had seen to it that the stone structure hanging from the cavern ceiling was protected from a wide variety of spells: [I]stone shape[/I], [I]earthquake[/I], and [I]transmute rock to mud[/I] spells would have no effect upon the stone of the drow's dwelling, for example. It was sealed off from extradimensional travel, from [I]teleport[/I] and [I]dimension door[/I] spells passing from one side of the outer walls to the other, and from all types of scrying and other divination spells. The Matriarch felt she had truly done everything she could to protect her people in their hanging dwelling, miles deep below the surface of the Oerth. She had not, however, had the foresight to shield it from thermonuclear explosions, not even from those of nuclear engines small enough to be used as power sources for mechs. With a joint explosion caused by all three mech power sources going critical at the same time, the stalactite was severed from its perch at the top of the ceiling and it hung there for a brief moment before it began its plummet to the stone floor below. Spider webs snapped, their tensile strength nowhere near that needed to support a structure the size, weight, and mass of the drow habitation stalactite. The tip crashed into the stone buildings below the stalactite and the rest of it followed suit, crushing to paste everyone inside the hollow dwelling as the cavern filled with stone dust. Fortunately, by the time the drow city of Arachnespinnacle came to a crashing death, Harriet Fung and the others were well down the tunnel they'd been traversing. They were close enough to hear the death-knell of the city - sound traveled for great distances in the echoing tunnels of the Underdark - but far enough away not to feel any of the aftereffects of the explosion. The gaseous heroes were likewise far enough away not to have their cloudlike bodies blown apart from the blast; they remanifested back into their solid bodies. "Everybody okay?" Gilbert asked. Everyone was; Gilbert cast a [I]message[/I] spell to make sure his mother and her group were all okay as well. Once he got a reply from her ("We all fine, Mudpie!") he cast another [I]message[/I] spell instructing her to stay where she was; they'd be coming to get them and bring them back home to Kordovia. Mudpie earth glided out of a wall soon thereafter and together, the members of the Kordovian Adventurers Guild headed back through the ruins of Arachnespinnacle to go retrieve the Kordovian women they'd come to rescue. - - - And that's how we wrapped up the Kordovian Adventurers Guild campaign after five years of play. After the adventure was over, I went around the table and asked each of the players what they thought their PCs would do post-campaign. Here's the general consensus: [LIST] [*]In the days to follow, Gilbert became the court wizard to Queen Kaelanna, acting as her primary adviser. [*]Binkadink married Voopie Meadowclover and together they had a large family of happy gnomish children. [*]Finoula had thoughts of joining the Sisters of Ehlonna, following in the footsteps of her younger sister Feron Dru. However, when asked how she'd respond to a proposal of marriage from Aithanar Ivenheart, she realized she didn't necessarily have to go join the Sisters right away; after all, elves lived for centuries and there was no immediate rush.... [*]Hagan and Darrien decided they'd help rebuild Kordovia after these latest - and final - attacks by the orc and goblin slaves of Arachnespinnacle. Beyond that, who knew? [*]Castillan and Galrich opted not to return to the living; they'd earned their final rests and looked forward to an eternity with their loved ones who had passed away before them. [*]Malrin Ivenheart, however, was more than happy to be restored to life - how else was she going to be able to be the Maid of Honor at her little brother's wedding? [/LIST] For the aspect of Lolth, I printed a female drow's face on cardstock, cut it out, and plopped it over the head of a Huge fiendish spider D&D Miniature. For the aspect of Kord, I used a plastic Burger King toy of Thor, but fashioned a cardstock image to wrap around his helmet and give him a new face: specifically, Cal Trop's, which was Dan's face with a goatee draw on with marker. (Cal Trop had been imbued with Kord's own blood during the Wing Three campaign; I thought it was an appropriate afterlife for him to, upon his death, be used as an aspect of Kord whenever the God of Strength needed to send an avatar to the Material Plane.) - - - T-Shirt Worn: My black "Chaotic evil means never having to say you're sorry" shirt - perfect for the drow. [/QUOTE]
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