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Wing Three
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6061133" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 37 - CRYPT OF THE AVENGER</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Akari, elven paladin of Hieroneous</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Feron Dru, half-elf druid</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Slayer, half-orc barbarian</p><p></p><p>I wrote this adventure specifically to take advantage of some cool D&D Miniatures we had accumulated over the years. (And when I say "we," I pretty much mean "Logan," who had been bitten by the collectible minis bug and enjoyed buying them by the box to see what he'd get. I was less willing to purchase minis sight-unseen, but I did buy them second-hand at my local comic book store, and I discovered Auggie's right here on EN World and made a few purchases of my own, where I knew ahead of time what I'd be getting.) Anyway, I had this concept of a powerful, good-aligned weapon being buried in a paladin's tomb, and a cavern nearby that was the lair of a pair of drider sorcerers, and then having a purple worm tunnel through both areas, connecting the two. So it would be part tomb delve, part drider lair fight, and there'd be a purple worm in there to fight as well. Alas, all of my planning was for naught, as I'll get to after the "story" part of this writeup.</p><p></p><p>To set the stage, I used Altamaic the Calm, an NPC cleric of the Temple of Boccob who had been used as a plot hook dropper in several previous adventures by now. Here's the setup: the Temple of Boccob is doing a survey of the Cairn Hills, where many crypts and tombs have been located throughout the years. The team recently discovered what looks to be a natural cavern entrance that’s been covered over with a magical stone wall. The wall bears engravings that mark it as a likely tomb or crypt, and a symbol at the top that looks to be an ancient emblem of Pelor. Altamaic did some research in the Archives and thinks it’s very possible this is the Crypt of <strong>Joniah the Avenger</strong>, a paladin of an older sect of Pelor. He was renowned several centuries back as a fierce battler against the forces of evil, and was said to wield a very powerful weapon which, to date, has never been unearthed. It’s Altamaic's belief that the weapon lies behind that wall in the Cairn Hills, and naturally, he thought of his friends at Wing Three, who have been so helpful to his order in the past. The legends say that Joniah never passed his weapon on at his death, believing it was better to allow it to pass on to someone truly worthy of wielding it. There are likely to be trials waiting in his crypt that must be overcome to prove one's worthiness to wield the weapon. Altamaic can provide the group with a map leading to the wall in the Cairn Hills believed to be the entrance to Joniah’s Crypt.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>The trek to the Cairn Hills was uneventful, and the group had no trouble following Altamaic’s map. After half a day’s travel by horseback, the group stood before a stone wall sealing up what looked to be a natural cavern. Before they could examine the carvings on the wall, however, an arrow came screaming from the scrub-brush higher up the side of the rocky hill.</p><p></p><p>"Take cover!" commanded Akari, leaping from his horse and whipping out <em>Hoardmaster</em> in one fluid movement. He pulled Old Clem from his mount and ushered him back as far as the wall would allow, trusting that the shallow depression in the side of the hill was the best cover currently available. Feron, meanwhile, had spotted their foe, a drow woman sniping at them from behind a thick scrub of wiry bushes growing from the opposite hillside ledge. The drow had the advantage of height over the adventurers, as her perch was about thirty feet above the ground. The two sides were fighting in a small-scale box canyon, with precarious stone ledges and near-vertical surfaces preventing them from rapid climbing. Feron cast a <em>call lightning </em> spell, which caused a blast of electricity to arc out of the sky and hit the drow. She retaliated with a summoning spell that dropped a pair of large spiders amongst the group. Fang immediately attacked one of the spiders, and was bitten for his efforts. Fortunately, he was the only one of the group that was bitten, and the spiders were slain without too much effort by Cal's mace and Slayer's greatsword.</p><p></p><p>Feron continued to call lightning strikes down upon the harried drow, then, when it looked like she was trying to scramble to a different position, she used an <em>entangle</em> spell on the scrub brushes to grapple her and keep her in place. Akari and Slayer tried climbing the rock face to get up to her, with little luck, until Slayer had Fang jump up against the rock on his back legs, and he used his dire wolf as an impromptu ladder to get up to the nearest ledge. When he got up to the drow, he was surprised to see that she was only a drow woman from the waist up; her lower body was that of a bloated spider. Unstrapping his bow, he put a couple of arrows into her head and she fell over, dead. Feron released her <em>entangle spell</em>, allowing Slayer to get close enough to loot her body, but she didn't have much on her beyond her short bow and a quiver of arrows. The bow was magical, at least, causing its arrows to deal cold damage to foes they struck (as Akari had learned the hard way during the brief combat).</p><p></p><p>Scrambling back down to ground level, Slayer joined the group in examining the wall, but they were looking at the words that were inscribed upon it, and words held no interest (or meaning) to the half-orc barbarian. He tussled around with his dire wolf while the rest of the group figured out what the words said.</p><p></p><p>There was a saying engraved in the stone wall, but many of the letters had been filled in over the long years with dirt and sand. Cleaning the dirt out of the way, the following message was revealed:Akari and Cal read the inscription, then turned to Feron to puzzle out its meaning. She looked at it long and hard, but it was finally Akari who grasped its meaning. "Stand back," he advised, pulling out his holy symbol of Hieroneous and presenting it toward the wall. He channeled a blast of positive energy at the wall, which suddenly shimmered like a mirage and became insubstantial. Akari put his hand entirely through the wall, then walked forward into the tomb. The others followed, leaving Old Clem behind with the horses and Fang to act as a guard-beast. "We'll be back soon, I hope," Feron called to Old Clem as she too passed through the wall. Seconds after she had done so, the wall coalesced into apparent solidity again. "So how did you figure out to do that?" asked Cal.</p><p></p><p>"First letter of each line," replied Akari, smiling. "'Turn here.'" Feron rolled her eyes and mentally chided herself for not having figured that out before the others.</p><p></p><p>The group was in a low passageway that curved away to the left as it descended deeper into the earth. The group readied light sources (a sun rod for Akari and Cal, an <em>everburning candle</em> for Feron, nothing for Slayer who didn't need to bother with such things) and started down the passageway when their way was suddenly blocked by an angelic presence. Appearing in the blink of an eye was a winged figure, a slender humanoid with a decidedly eaglelike look about him. "Ah, you must be contenders to wield the weapon of Joniah the Avenger!" he beamed, obviously delighted at the prospect. "Very good, very good! Well, you’ll be pleased to know that you have come to the right place. However, before you are allowed to take the weapon as your own, you’ll have to prove your worthiness, by the simple act of killing me.</p><p></p><p>"Now, before you ask, yes, I am a celestial being, and yes, I am asking you to try to kill me. How better to test your battle prowess and readiness to take up Joniah’s mantle? Rest assured, I, in turn, will do my very level best to kill you all.</p><p></p><p>"'What?' you ask, 'A being of goodness and light trying to kill us for attempting to take a weapon that will aid us in the fight against evil?' Yes indeed, my good friends. First of all, I’m doing this as a personal favor of Joniah, and this is how he wished to test the worthiness of the candidates who would wield his weapon after his death. Second, I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but there’s a war on in the Outer Planes between the celestials and the fiends. Those of you I kill will be reborn into your respective afterlives, and if your souls are deemed worthy, you may very well become a member of the Celestial Army tasked, like myself, with fighting back the Hordes of Evil. So no, I’m not particularly troubled at the thought of killing you. However, I will only kill those of you willing to fight me for the chance to wield Joniah’s weapon; those of you who wish to turn back now may do so with no hard feelings.</p><p></p><p>"Finally, should you manage to kill me, I will merely discorporate and reform back in the Celestial Realms, so no real harm done. This is actually a bit of a vacation for me. So, what do you say?" He beamed at the group, head cocked slightly to one side in query.</p><p></p><p>"Sounds fine to me," replied Slayer, who didn't particularly care who he fought if there was a cool weapon at the end of it. Cal and Akari were a bit more hesitant, but in the end everyone agreed to the fight, and the avoral didn't even seem upset that the battle would be four against one in his enemies' favor.</p><p></p><p>"Are you all ready?" he asked. "Then we’ll attack on the count of three. One--" and with that, he sent a bolt of lightning hurling at the group, catching all four in its path.</p><p></p><p>"What, did you expect me to play fairly?" he asked in astonishment. "Do you think the demons and devils you’ll encounter will play by the rules? No, my friends, they’ll use every trick they can think of to gain an advantage, and you’d best be prepared for it!"</p><p></p><p>Celestial being or no celestial being, the avoral's tactics got Cal in a righteous fury, and he roared to the attack. Slayer and Akari were right behind him, while Feron, less eager to strike at an angel, held back. The fight was an infuriating one, for the avoral was unflinchingly polite during the course of the battle. "Ooh, almost!" he encouraged, after Slayer's greatsword whizzed by an inch away from the avoral's body. "Perhaps next time, try to steer your blade less with your fury and rage and more with your instincts and intellect!" Cal managed to slam his mace into the side of the avoral's head, and received verbal praise for a good job, which only infuriated the cleric all the more. The avoral skipped back a few steps and let fly with another <em>lightning bolt</em>, once again catching all four in its path in the close quarters of the narrow passageway, and this caused Feron to respond with some ranged spells of her own. "Oh, well done!" commented the avoral as the four adventurers eventually cut him down. "You may prove yourselves worthy yet!" And with a flash, his battered body disappeared from view in an explosion of sparkles.</p><p></p><p>"I hated that guy!" groused Cal, as he cast healing spells on the group.</p><p></p><p>Moving down the sloping passageway, the group entered a square chamber that had obviously been carved from the cavern network, most likely – given the smoothness of the walls, floor, and ceiling – using magic. In the center of the room stood a stone coffer with the carved image of a man in a suit of plate armor on its top. There was a 5-foot-diameter hole in the wall furthest from the entrance, near the ceiling, and below it stood a scattered tumbling of stones and earth. There was another hole, this one a 10-foot square, on the floor in the far corner to the right. Finally, a doorway opened on the left wall into another darkened chamber.</p><p></p><p>Examining the carving atop the coffer, Akari noted that, defying normal convention, the armored warrior was not depicted holding a weapon; rather, his outstretched right hand held a valuable-looking gem that glowed a soft red. The ceiling directly above the gem held another one seemingly identical in all ways. Experimentation showed that the two gemstones each projected a gravitational effect, such that anything placed directly above the gemstone in Joniah’s palm levitated at the midpoint between the two gems.</p><p></p><p>"It's likely that his weapon was here, floating above his coffer," observed Akari.</p><p></p><p>"So where is it now?" Slayer wanted to know.</p><p></p><p>"It looks like someone tunneled a way into the crypt through there," commented Feron, pointing to the hole in the wall. "Still, let's look around." She peered into the open doorway. This smaller side-room had the look of a former library, with bookshelves carved by magic into the very stone walls of the chamber. However, there were only stains showing where a pile of ashes once stood – apparently all of the books and scrolls from the shelves were burned in a pile many years ago.</p><p></p><p>Slayer, meanwhile, had wandered over to the pit in the corner and peered down. "It's deep," he called back, looking down the vertical shaft with his inherent darkvision. "I'd say a good sixty feet or so."</p><p></p><p>A new voice called out from the tunnel at nearly ceiling height, as another drow face appeared from the shadows in the hole. “Begone from here, topworlders! These caverns are not for the likes of you! Go frolic under your sun and suckle cows! Raise your radishes and turnips and steal the eggs of chickens for your sustenance! Do not stumble around like blind things in the lightless caverns of your betters!” And with that she cast a <em>cone of cold</em> spell that caught all but Slayer in its area of effect.</p><p></p><p>With that, the battle was on. The drow used the safety of the tunnel to her advantage, casting a spell and then scooting back into the shadows of the cramped passageway where she couldn't be seen and thus couldn't be targeted. Feron opted to find a solution to that; noticing the tunnel had been carved through stone, she summoned an earth elemental to enter the tunnel and pound the drow, knowing that the elemental could use its earth glide ability to fit in such cramped quarters. It reported back that this was a drider, not a drow, but cheerfully pounded it nonetheless. The drider tried scurrying back down the passageway, but the elemental, on Feron's orders, popped out of the passageway and reappeared further down, preventing the drider's escape. Then Feron used her <em>boots of spider climbing</em> to walk up the wall to the hole's entrance and blast the drider with a few flame-based spells of her own. The drider, trapped and under assault from two sides, was soon slain.</p><p></p><p>That left only the deep, square pit to check out. Slayer picked up a rock from the pile underneath the burrowed tunnel and dropped it down the shaft to see what it would do. It floated steadily for a moment, then gradually floated down the vertical tunnel; apparently there was a <em>feather fall</em> effect on the entire shaft. Slayer, pleased that he had figured it out on his own, jumped into the center of the pit and floated serenely down the shaft. The others, seeing that no harm had fallen to him, followed suit.</p><p></p><p>Slayer's darkvision allowed him to see the entire bottom level at once before the group brought down their light sources and muddied everything up. There was an upright sarcophagus against the far wall, with a chest next to it. In the corner at his right was a clump of what looked like wet mud, and coiled in the center of the room was an immense worm. It looked his way as he entered, then opened up a yawning chasm of a mouth and headed Slayer's way. By the time the others got down the shaft, they could just see Slayer's feet dropping down the gullet of the monster worm as he slid down its throat headfirst.</p><p></p><p>Akari was the next down, and he raced at the beast's side with <em>Hoardmaster</em> gripped in his hand. Cal called down a <em>flame strike</em> spell on the worm, hoping that the worm's outer form would prevent Slayer from taking any of its effects. Feron called down some more lightning bolts to strike at the worm, and it did its best to gobble up the others, but the one humanoid it had already swallowed was being a bit of a problem. Rather than just lying there and being digested like a proper meal, Slayer had been carving his way out of the worm's belly with his greatsword. He emerged from a sudden slit in the side of the purple worm, sliding down the creature's muscular body in a puddle of stomach acid. Then, roaring with rage, he gripped his trusty sword and made a bull rush at the vile worm.</p><p></p><p>The worm flipped its head over his way at the last moment and swallowed him up again. It was almost comical, hearing Slayer's roars of rage and frustration echoing from deep within the worm's throat.</p><p></p><p>In all of the maneuvering to fight the worm, Akari strayed a little too close to the sarcophagus and it activated, shambling forth on stubby legs while a preprogrammed message started running, courtesy of a long-cast <em>magic mouth</em> spell. Unfortunately, the centuries had not been kind to the spell, which came out garbled and inaudible at parts. "Beware...iah...Itch-King is impr...in. He is unable...ape, but...leased...sells destruction," it intoned incomprehensibly as it attacked. A black beam of energy darted out at Akari, striking him and weakening him as it drained his life energy.</p><p></p><p>Fortunately, by this time, the purple worm was not much of a threat. Slayer, turned all around in the creature's gullet once more and unable to find his original hole, was forced to cut his way out from scratch again, and this left him in as irritable mood as the others had ever seen him. But by the time he slid out a second time from the worm's side, it crashed to the floor of the room, having been slain by the combined spells of Feron and Cal. The group turned its attention to the ossuary golem that was even now attacking a grumpier-than-ever Slayer. Its garbled message repeated as it fought, but it was no match for four seasoned adventurers, and the stone construct was soon destroyed.</p><p></p><p>Unfortunately, that proved to be a really, really bad idea. As the sarcophagus fell apart in pieces, in its place was left standing a human skeleton wearing tattered rags that were once royal-looking robes. The thing's head swiveled around slowly, as if just now noticing its new environment, and it started laughing.</p><p></p><p>"Free...?" it croaked, head swiveling around to take in the sights. "I'm free? I'M FREE! After centuries of imprisonment, I am finally free of Joniah's accursed trap!" And the lich pulled its head back and laughed uproariously, as the adventurers cast worried glances at each other and tried to remember just which of them had cast the final blow that had destroyed the lich's ambulatory restraint.</p><p></p><p>Weary from their battle and low on spells, the group readied for a battle with a lich of unknown power. Fortunately, they didn't have to worry, for the lich, laughing all the while, said he bore the group no ill will, and in fact owed them a debt of gratitude for his release. He stated that he'd been captured after a furious battle with Joniah, who, having destroyed him many times before in the past but never able to unearth his phylactery, had taken to imprisoning the lich instead. The lich, <strong>Nakariah the Lich-King</strong>, was too depleted of spells from his centuries-old battle with Joniah the Avenger to want to waste its new-found freedom battling a group of folks he didn't even know, and with a quick word, <em>teleported</em> away to parts unknown.</p><p></p><p>"This is not good," commented Cal sheepishly. "I'll bet you anything this is going to bite us big time on the butt."</p><p></p><p>Akari, meanwhile, had focused on the muddy pile in the corner of the room. Acting on a hunch, he thrust his hands deep into the glop and felt around. With a cry of delight his fingers touched the haft of a weapon, and he pulled it out. It was an ornately-carved hammer, whose inherent power could be felt by touch. Akari swung the hammer around his head a couple of times, then sent it hurtling at the purple worm's carcass. It crashed deep into the vermiform corpse, then reversed course and returned to Akari's outstretched hand.</p><p></p><p>Feron had been examining the pile from which Akari had pulled the weapon, and shook her head in affirmation. "Worm castings," she explained. "It must have tunneled through the wall upstairs, swallowed the levitating weapon, crawled down the shaft, and then remained down here until we disturbed it."</p><p></p><p>Akari was cleaning the side of the hammer's head with his hand, trying to make out the word that was carved into its side. "What's it called?" asked Cal, certain that the inscription would be the weapon's name.</p><p></p><p>"<em>Deathstriker</em>," replied Akari in awe, reading the ancient letters.</p><p></p><p>"Poohammer," corrected Slayer, once he'd realized that the muddy pile in the corner had been the purple worm's castings.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>We cut the adventure short there. I had created a drider lair on the other side of the purple worm tunnel, some several hundred feet away, but I just handwaved the tunnel as having collapsed behind the second drider, <strong>Naelandi</strong>, after she had crawled over to Joniah's tomb. The reason? The PCs had already dispatched the two driders, who were the main antagonists of that area (although they did have some guardian beasts and a bunch of treasure that the PCs could easily have made use of), but more importantly I was just frustrated and ready to call it a session. This adventure had gone fine up until the lower level of the crypt, when Slayer got swallowed by the purple worm. I had made what I thought ws a pretty cool purple worm out of purple construction paper: I had a head section, a tail section, and a whole slew of ovals with a slit at each end, so the whole thing could be assembled in a string and take the worm's form. This allowed me to use the worm logically, having its head strike those within reach and its tail strike those over at that end, rather than just using the default 20-foot square that the <em>Monster Manual</em> entry called for.</p><p></p><p>When Slayer got swallowed the first time, Jacob had an absolute fit, and was literally screaming at the other players to save him before he was dissolved by stomach acid. After I explained that Slayer could still attack while inside the worm's gullet (I relaxed the normal rule about using only small weapons, allowing Slayer to use his greatsword to cut his way out) he wasn't quite as frantic, but he still was demanding that everybody free him NOW! He breathed a sigh of relief when Slayer emerged from the hole he had managed to cut through the worm, but then collapsed into a crying fit when Slayer attacked the worm's head end immediately after getting free and made himself the obvious choice for the worm's subsequent bite (and swallow whole) attack. He stormed out of the kitchen and slammed into his room. I let Dan and Vicki handle it, and just continued on with the game. When Slayer's turn came around again, I just sat there with the Slayer initiative card on top of the deck, and sat patiently staring off into space. Vicki got Jacob and forced him back into the room, he took his turn, and settled down after it was obvious that Slayer wasn't going to die and his magical greatsword wasn't going to dissolve into a puddle of acid. But by then I was sick of the whole drama - Jacob was about 12 by this point, and well beyond the age where such histrionics were appropriate, I thought - and we called it a game session.</p><p></p><p>That night, though, when I sent out my email to all of the players detailing the XP everyone had gained, I also mentioned that there had been a whole second adventure site that I excised from our game session due specifically to Jacob's outbursts. I pointed out the hours of effort that had gone into creating the drider lair, hinted that there were treasures there that the party would now never see, and suggested that if these outbursts were going to be a normal part of the sessions from now on I could probably save myself a lot of effort and frustration and devote my free time elsewhere. I got an official email apology from Jacob the next day, and we haven't had any similar problems since then. He said he was just worried that he was going to lose Slayer's greatsword, which by that time he had upgraded to a <em>+2 flaming burst silver greatsword</em>. I pointed out that when Rale lost his magical shortsword due to being eaten by a fiendish kraken, I specifically created an adventure that would get him a replacement, and assured Jacob that had Slayer lost his sword I'd have done something similar.</p><p></p><p>Oh, and the chest that had been next to the ossuary golem in the lower level of the crypt? That held a blood pudding, an undead wizard in ooze form that could enter a living body and take it over. Joniah had found it equally difficult to destroy, and thus had imprisoned it with Nakariah. The whole two-story crypt had originally been one of Nakariah's lairs; the burned library upstairs was due to Joniah ensuring that the lich's evil notes could never be used by others to sow discord and terror. (Nakariah had created the "invisible elevator" between the two levels; it granted a <em>feather fall</em> spell on those entering from the top and a <em>levitate</em> spell on those entering from the bottom.)</p><p></p><p>Anything else I'm missing? Oh yeah, the corrupted <em>magic mouth</em> spell on the ossuary golem. (I should also point out that I found the ossuary golem as the "monster" entry of one of the entries of Paizo's annual "RPG Superstar" contest, thought it was a cool concept, and decided to incorporate it into my adventure.) The full message is as follows, with the parts that still survived over the years being underlined:Heh heh heh - I said "ape butt."</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6061133, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 37 - CRYPT OF THE AVENGER[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Akari, elven paladin of Hieroneous Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord Feron Dru, half-elf druid Slayer, half-orc barbarian[/INDENT] I wrote this adventure specifically to take advantage of some cool D&D Miniatures we had accumulated over the years. (And when I say "we," I pretty much mean "Logan," who had been bitten by the collectible minis bug and enjoyed buying them by the box to see what he'd get. I was less willing to purchase minis sight-unseen, but I did buy them second-hand at my local comic book store, and I discovered Auggie's right here on EN World and made a few purchases of my own, where I knew ahead of time what I'd be getting.) Anyway, I had this concept of a powerful, good-aligned weapon being buried in a paladin's tomb, and a cavern nearby that was the lair of a pair of drider sorcerers, and then having a purple worm tunnel through both areas, connecting the two. So it would be part tomb delve, part drider lair fight, and there'd be a purple worm in there to fight as well. Alas, all of my planning was for naught, as I'll get to after the "story" part of this writeup. To set the stage, I used Altamaic the Calm, an NPC cleric of the Temple of Boccob who had been used as a plot hook dropper in several previous adventures by now. Here's the setup: the Temple of Boccob is doing a survey of the Cairn Hills, where many crypts and tombs have been located throughout the years. The team recently discovered what looks to be a natural cavern entrance that’s been covered over with a magical stone wall. The wall bears engravings that mark it as a likely tomb or crypt, and a symbol at the top that looks to be an ancient emblem of Pelor. Altamaic did some research in the Archives and thinks it’s very possible this is the Crypt of [b]Joniah the Avenger[/b], a paladin of an older sect of Pelor. He was renowned several centuries back as a fierce battler against the forces of evil, and was said to wield a very powerful weapon which, to date, has never been unearthed. It’s Altamaic's belief that the weapon lies behind that wall in the Cairn Hills, and naturally, he thought of his friends at Wing Three, who have been so helpful to his order in the past. The legends say that Joniah never passed his weapon on at his death, believing it was better to allow it to pass on to someone truly worthy of wielding it. There are likely to be trials waiting in his crypt that must be overcome to prove one's worthiness to wield the weapon. Altamaic can provide the group with a map leading to the wall in the Cairn Hills believed to be the entrance to Joniah’s Crypt. - - - The trek to the Cairn Hills was uneventful, and the group had no trouble following Altamaic’s map. After half a day’s travel by horseback, the group stood before a stone wall sealing up what looked to be a natural cavern. Before they could examine the carvings on the wall, however, an arrow came screaming from the scrub-brush higher up the side of the rocky hill. "Take cover!" commanded Akari, leaping from his horse and whipping out [i]Hoardmaster[/i] in one fluid movement. He pulled Old Clem from his mount and ushered him back as far as the wall would allow, trusting that the shallow depression in the side of the hill was the best cover currently available. Feron, meanwhile, had spotted their foe, a drow woman sniping at them from behind a thick scrub of wiry bushes growing from the opposite hillside ledge. The drow had the advantage of height over the adventurers, as her perch was about thirty feet above the ground. The two sides were fighting in a small-scale box canyon, with precarious stone ledges and near-vertical surfaces preventing them from rapid climbing. Feron cast a [i]call lightning [/i] spell, which caused a blast of electricity to arc out of the sky and hit the drow. She retaliated with a summoning spell that dropped a pair of large spiders amongst the group. Fang immediately attacked one of the spiders, and was bitten for his efforts. Fortunately, he was the only one of the group that was bitten, and the spiders were slain without too much effort by Cal's mace and Slayer's greatsword. Feron continued to call lightning strikes down upon the harried drow, then, when it looked like she was trying to scramble to a different position, she used an [i]entangle[/i] spell on the scrub brushes to grapple her and keep her in place. Akari and Slayer tried climbing the rock face to get up to her, with little luck, until Slayer had Fang jump up against the rock on his back legs, and he used his dire wolf as an impromptu ladder to get up to the nearest ledge. When he got up to the drow, he was surprised to see that she was only a drow woman from the waist up; her lower body was that of a bloated spider. Unstrapping his bow, he put a couple of arrows into her head and she fell over, dead. Feron released her [i]entangle spell[/i], allowing Slayer to get close enough to loot her body, but she didn't have much on her beyond her short bow and a quiver of arrows. The bow was magical, at least, causing its arrows to deal cold damage to foes they struck (as Akari had learned the hard way during the brief combat). Scrambling back down to ground level, Slayer joined the group in examining the wall, but they were looking at the words that were inscribed upon it, and words held no interest (or meaning) to the half-orc barbarian. He tussled around with his dire wolf while the rest of the group figured out what the words said. There was a saying engraved in the stone wall, but many of the letters had been filled in over the long years with dirt and sand. Cleaning the dirt out of the way, the following message was revealed:Akari and Cal read the inscription, then turned to Feron to puzzle out its meaning. She looked at it long and hard, but it was finally Akari who grasped its meaning. "Stand back," he advised, pulling out his holy symbol of Hieroneous and presenting it toward the wall. He channeled a blast of positive energy at the wall, which suddenly shimmered like a mirage and became insubstantial. Akari put his hand entirely through the wall, then walked forward into the tomb. The others followed, leaving Old Clem behind with the horses and Fang to act as a guard-beast. "We'll be back soon, I hope," Feron called to Old Clem as she too passed through the wall. Seconds after she had done so, the wall coalesced into apparent solidity again. "So how did you figure out to do that?" asked Cal. "First letter of each line," replied Akari, smiling. "'Turn here.'" Feron rolled her eyes and mentally chided herself for not having figured that out before the others. The group was in a low passageway that curved away to the left as it descended deeper into the earth. The group readied light sources (a sun rod for Akari and Cal, an [i]everburning candle[/i] for Feron, nothing for Slayer who didn't need to bother with such things) and started down the passageway when their way was suddenly blocked by an angelic presence. Appearing in the blink of an eye was a winged figure, a slender humanoid with a decidedly eaglelike look about him. "Ah, you must be contenders to wield the weapon of Joniah the Avenger!" he beamed, obviously delighted at the prospect. "Very good, very good! Well, you’ll be pleased to know that you have come to the right place. However, before you are allowed to take the weapon as your own, you’ll have to prove your worthiness, by the simple act of killing me. "Now, before you ask, yes, I am a celestial being, and yes, I am asking you to try to kill me. How better to test your battle prowess and readiness to take up Joniah’s mantle? Rest assured, I, in turn, will do my very level best to kill you all. "'What?' you ask, 'A being of goodness and light trying to kill us for attempting to take a weapon that will aid us in the fight against evil?' Yes indeed, my good friends. First of all, I’m doing this as a personal favor of Joniah, and this is how he wished to test the worthiness of the candidates who would wield his weapon after his death. Second, I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but there’s a war on in the Outer Planes between the celestials and the fiends. Those of you I kill will be reborn into your respective afterlives, and if your souls are deemed worthy, you may very well become a member of the Celestial Army tasked, like myself, with fighting back the Hordes of Evil. So no, I’m not particularly troubled at the thought of killing you. However, I will only kill those of you willing to fight me for the chance to wield Joniah’s weapon; those of you who wish to turn back now may do so with no hard feelings. "Finally, should you manage to kill me, I will merely discorporate and reform back in the Celestial Realms, so no real harm done. This is actually a bit of a vacation for me. So, what do you say?" He beamed at the group, head cocked slightly to one side in query. "Sounds fine to me," replied Slayer, who didn't particularly care who he fought if there was a cool weapon at the end of it. Cal and Akari were a bit more hesitant, but in the end everyone agreed to the fight, and the avoral didn't even seem upset that the battle would be four against one in his enemies' favor. "Are you all ready?" he asked. "Then we’ll attack on the count of three. One--" and with that, he sent a bolt of lightning hurling at the group, catching all four in its path. "What, did you expect me to play fairly?" he asked in astonishment. "Do you think the demons and devils you’ll encounter will play by the rules? No, my friends, they’ll use every trick they can think of to gain an advantage, and you’d best be prepared for it!" Celestial being or no celestial being, the avoral's tactics got Cal in a righteous fury, and he roared to the attack. Slayer and Akari were right behind him, while Feron, less eager to strike at an angel, held back. The fight was an infuriating one, for the avoral was unflinchingly polite during the course of the battle. "Ooh, almost!" he encouraged, after Slayer's greatsword whizzed by an inch away from the avoral's body. "Perhaps next time, try to steer your blade less with your fury and rage and more with your instincts and intellect!" Cal managed to slam his mace into the side of the avoral's head, and received verbal praise for a good job, which only infuriated the cleric all the more. The avoral skipped back a few steps and let fly with another [i]lightning bolt[/i], once again catching all four in its path in the close quarters of the narrow passageway, and this caused Feron to respond with some ranged spells of her own. "Oh, well done!" commented the avoral as the four adventurers eventually cut him down. "You may prove yourselves worthy yet!" And with a flash, his battered body disappeared from view in an explosion of sparkles. "I hated that guy!" groused Cal, as he cast healing spells on the group. Moving down the sloping passageway, the group entered a square chamber that had obviously been carved from the cavern network, most likely – given the smoothness of the walls, floor, and ceiling – using magic. In the center of the room stood a stone coffer with the carved image of a man in a suit of plate armor on its top. There was a 5-foot-diameter hole in the wall furthest from the entrance, near the ceiling, and below it stood a scattered tumbling of stones and earth. There was another hole, this one a 10-foot square, on the floor in the far corner to the right. Finally, a doorway opened on the left wall into another darkened chamber. Examining the carving atop the coffer, Akari noted that, defying normal convention, the armored warrior was not depicted holding a weapon; rather, his outstretched right hand held a valuable-looking gem that glowed a soft red. The ceiling directly above the gem held another one seemingly identical in all ways. Experimentation showed that the two gemstones each projected a gravitational effect, such that anything placed directly above the gemstone in Joniah’s palm levitated at the midpoint between the two gems. "It's likely that his weapon was here, floating above his coffer," observed Akari. "So where is it now?" Slayer wanted to know. "It looks like someone tunneled a way into the crypt through there," commented Feron, pointing to the hole in the wall. "Still, let's look around." She peered into the open doorway. This smaller side-room had the look of a former library, with bookshelves carved by magic into the very stone walls of the chamber. However, there were only stains showing where a pile of ashes once stood – apparently all of the books and scrolls from the shelves were burned in a pile many years ago. Slayer, meanwhile, had wandered over to the pit in the corner and peered down. "It's deep," he called back, looking down the vertical shaft with his inherent darkvision. "I'd say a good sixty feet or so." A new voice called out from the tunnel at nearly ceiling height, as another drow face appeared from the shadows in the hole. “Begone from here, topworlders! These caverns are not for the likes of you! Go frolic under your sun and suckle cows! Raise your radishes and turnips and steal the eggs of chickens for your sustenance! Do not stumble around like blind things in the lightless caverns of your betters!” And with that she cast a [i]cone of cold[/i] spell that caught all but Slayer in its area of effect. With that, the battle was on. The drow used the safety of the tunnel to her advantage, casting a spell and then scooting back into the shadows of the cramped passageway where she couldn't be seen and thus couldn't be targeted. Feron opted to find a solution to that; noticing the tunnel had been carved through stone, she summoned an earth elemental to enter the tunnel and pound the drow, knowing that the elemental could use its earth glide ability to fit in such cramped quarters. It reported back that this was a drider, not a drow, but cheerfully pounded it nonetheless. The drider tried scurrying back down the passageway, but the elemental, on Feron's orders, popped out of the passageway and reappeared further down, preventing the drider's escape. Then Feron used her [i]boots of spider climbing[/i] to walk up the wall to the hole's entrance and blast the drider with a few flame-based spells of her own. The drider, trapped and under assault from two sides, was soon slain. That left only the deep, square pit to check out. Slayer picked up a rock from the pile underneath the burrowed tunnel and dropped it down the shaft to see what it would do. It floated steadily for a moment, then gradually floated down the vertical tunnel; apparently there was a [i]feather fall[/i] effect on the entire shaft. Slayer, pleased that he had figured it out on his own, jumped into the center of the pit and floated serenely down the shaft. The others, seeing that no harm had fallen to him, followed suit. Slayer's darkvision allowed him to see the entire bottom level at once before the group brought down their light sources and muddied everything up. There was an upright sarcophagus against the far wall, with a chest next to it. In the corner at his right was a clump of what looked like wet mud, and coiled in the center of the room was an immense worm. It looked his way as he entered, then opened up a yawning chasm of a mouth and headed Slayer's way. By the time the others got down the shaft, they could just see Slayer's feet dropping down the gullet of the monster worm as he slid down its throat headfirst. Akari was the next down, and he raced at the beast's side with [i]Hoardmaster[/i] gripped in his hand. Cal called down a [i]flame strike[/i] spell on the worm, hoping that the worm's outer form would prevent Slayer from taking any of its effects. Feron called down some more lightning bolts to strike at the worm, and it did its best to gobble up the others, but the one humanoid it had already swallowed was being a bit of a problem. Rather than just lying there and being digested like a proper meal, Slayer had been carving his way out of the worm's belly with his greatsword. He emerged from a sudden slit in the side of the purple worm, sliding down the creature's muscular body in a puddle of stomach acid. Then, roaring with rage, he gripped his trusty sword and made a bull rush at the vile worm. The worm flipped its head over his way at the last moment and swallowed him up again. It was almost comical, hearing Slayer's roars of rage and frustration echoing from deep within the worm's throat. In all of the maneuvering to fight the worm, Akari strayed a little too close to the sarcophagus and it activated, shambling forth on stubby legs while a preprogrammed message started running, courtesy of a long-cast [i]magic mouth[/i] spell. Unfortunately, the centuries had not been kind to the spell, which came out garbled and inaudible at parts. "Beware...iah...Itch-King is impr...in. He is unable...ape, but...leased...sells destruction," it intoned incomprehensibly as it attacked. A black beam of energy darted out at Akari, striking him and weakening him as it drained his life energy. Fortunately, by this time, the purple worm was not much of a threat. Slayer, turned all around in the creature's gullet once more and unable to find his original hole, was forced to cut his way out from scratch again, and this left him in as irritable mood as the others had ever seen him. But by the time he slid out a second time from the worm's side, it crashed to the floor of the room, having been slain by the combined spells of Feron and Cal. The group turned its attention to the ossuary golem that was even now attacking a grumpier-than-ever Slayer. Its garbled message repeated as it fought, but it was no match for four seasoned adventurers, and the stone construct was soon destroyed. Unfortunately, that proved to be a really, really bad idea. As the sarcophagus fell apart in pieces, in its place was left standing a human skeleton wearing tattered rags that were once royal-looking robes. The thing's head swiveled around slowly, as if just now noticing its new environment, and it started laughing. "Free...?" it croaked, head swiveling around to take in the sights. "I'm free? I'M FREE! After centuries of imprisonment, I am finally free of Joniah's accursed trap!" And the lich pulled its head back and laughed uproariously, as the adventurers cast worried glances at each other and tried to remember just which of them had cast the final blow that had destroyed the lich's ambulatory restraint. Weary from their battle and low on spells, the group readied for a battle with a lich of unknown power. Fortunately, they didn't have to worry, for the lich, laughing all the while, said he bore the group no ill will, and in fact owed them a debt of gratitude for his release. He stated that he'd been captured after a furious battle with Joniah, who, having destroyed him many times before in the past but never able to unearth his phylactery, had taken to imprisoning the lich instead. The lich, [b]Nakariah the Lich-King[/b], was too depleted of spells from his centuries-old battle with Joniah the Avenger to want to waste its new-found freedom battling a group of folks he didn't even know, and with a quick word, [i]teleported[/i] away to parts unknown. "This is not good," commented Cal sheepishly. "I'll bet you anything this is going to bite us big time on the butt." Akari, meanwhile, had focused on the muddy pile in the corner of the room. Acting on a hunch, he thrust his hands deep into the glop and felt around. With a cry of delight his fingers touched the haft of a weapon, and he pulled it out. It was an ornately-carved hammer, whose inherent power could be felt by touch. Akari swung the hammer around his head a couple of times, then sent it hurtling at the purple worm's carcass. It crashed deep into the vermiform corpse, then reversed course and returned to Akari's outstretched hand. Feron had been examining the pile from which Akari had pulled the weapon, and shook her head in affirmation. "Worm castings," she explained. "It must have tunneled through the wall upstairs, swallowed the levitating weapon, crawled down the shaft, and then remained down here until we disturbed it." Akari was cleaning the side of the hammer's head with his hand, trying to make out the word that was carved into its side. "What's it called?" asked Cal, certain that the inscription would be the weapon's name. "[i]Deathstriker[/i]," replied Akari in awe, reading the ancient letters. "Poohammer," corrected Slayer, once he'd realized that the muddy pile in the corner had been the purple worm's castings. - - - We cut the adventure short there. I had created a drider lair on the other side of the purple worm tunnel, some several hundred feet away, but I just handwaved the tunnel as having collapsed behind the second drider, [b]Naelandi[/b], after she had crawled over to Joniah's tomb. The reason? The PCs had already dispatched the two driders, who were the main antagonists of that area (although they did have some guardian beasts and a bunch of treasure that the PCs could easily have made use of), but more importantly I was just frustrated and ready to call it a session. This adventure had gone fine up until the lower level of the crypt, when Slayer got swallowed by the purple worm. I had made what I thought ws a pretty cool purple worm out of purple construction paper: I had a head section, a tail section, and a whole slew of ovals with a slit at each end, so the whole thing could be assembled in a string and take the worm's form. This allowed me to use the worm logically, having its head strike those within reach and its tail strike those over at that end, rather than just using the default 20-foot square that the [i]Monster Manual[/i] entry called for. When Slayer got swallowed the first time, Jacob had an absolute fit, and was literally screaming at the other players to save him before he was dissolved by stomach acid. After I explained that Slayer could still attack while inside the worm's gullet (I relaxed the normal rule about using only small weapons, allowing Slayer to use his greatsword to cut his way out) he wasn't quite as frantic, but he still was demanding that everybody free him NOW! He breathed a sigh of relief when Slayer emerged from the hole he had managed to cut through the worm, but then collapsed into a crying fit when Slayer attacked the worm's head end immediately after getting free and made himself the obvious choice for the worm's subsequent bite (and swallow whole) attack. He stormed out of the kitchen and slammed into his room. I let Dan and Vicki handle it, and just continued on with the game. When Slayer's turn came around again, I just sat there with the Slayer initiative card on top of the deck, and sat patiently staring off into space. Vicki got Jacob and forced him back into the room, he took his turn, and settled down after it was obvious that Slayer wasn't going to die and his magical greatsword wasn't going to dissolve into a puddle of acid. But by then I was sick of the whole drama - Jacob was about 12 by this point, and well beyond the age where such histrionics were appropriate, I thought - and we called it a game session. That night, though, when I sent out my email to all of the players detailing the XP everyone had gained, I also mentioned that there had been a whole second adventure site that I excised from our game session due specifically to Jacob's outbursts. I pointed out the hours of effort that had gone into creating the drider lair, hinted that there were treasures there that the party would now never see, and suggested that if these outbursts were going to be a normal part of the sessions from now on I could probably save myself a lot of effort and frustration and devote my free time elsewhere. I got an official email apology from Jacob the next day, and we haven't had any similar problems since then. He said he was just worried that he was going to lose Slayer's greatsword, which by that time he had upgraded to a [i]+2 flaming burst silver greatsword[/i]. I pointed out that when Rale lost his magical shortsword due to being eaten by a fiendish kraken, I specifically created an adventure that would get him a replacement, and assured Jacob that had Slayer lost his sword I'd have done something similar. Oh, and the chest that had been next to the ossuary golem in the lower level of the crypt? That held a blood pudding, an undead wizard in ooze form that could enter a living body and take it over. Joniah had found it equally difficult to destroy, and thus had imprisoned it with Nakariah. The whole two-story crypt had originally been one of Nakariah's lairs; the burned library upstairs was due to Joniah ensuring that the lich's evil notes could never be used by others to sow discord and terror. (Nakariah had created the "invisible elevator" between the two levels; it granted a [i]feather fall[/i] spell on those entering from the top and a [i]levitate[/i] spell on those entering from the bottom.) Anything else I'm missing? Oh yeah, the corrupted [i]magic mouth[/i] spell on the ossuary golem. (I should also point out that I found the ossuary golem as the "monster" entry of one of the entries of Paizo's annual "RPG Superstar" contest, thought it was a cool concept, and decided to incorporate it into my adventure.) The full message is as follows, with the parts that still survived over the years being underlined:Heh heh heh - I said "ape butt." [/QUOTE]
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