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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6087380" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 56 - REVENGE OF THE DARKLORD</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"> Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian/sorcerer/arcane archer</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Delphyne Babelberi, human witch (wizard)</p><p> </p><p>Toofles Pigwilligan had been busy since he remanifested several days after having been destroyed. He had created another pair of negabombs, for one thing. The first one he used almost immediately upon its completion, dropping it unerringly in the middle of a gnomish village, which shunted a chunk of their real estate to the Negative Energy Plane; the chunk of village he ignored, seeking only the bodies of the gnomes that had been shunted along with their homes. This gave Toofles - or, as he preferred to think of himself since he had attained lichdom, "Darklord Drago von Mordak" - nearly two dozen animated gnome skeletons as a new work force, and an effective form of camouflage if and when it was ever needed.</p><p></p><p>He also crafted a series of small constructs, each the size and shape of a scarab beetle. Into each of these he built the ability to hold a single, pre-chosen spell, which he stored into each device and then set aside until they were needed.</p><p></p><p>Rather than waste another negabomb for his next step, he traveled to the material plane himself and gathered hundreds of living scarab beetles, then carefully killed each one in a manner in which they could still be successfully animated as undead. He performed this ritual back in the safety and comfort of his lair on the Negative Energy Plane.</p><p></p><p>He crafted an extradimensional storage device quite similar in size and appearance to his negabombs, then filled it with the contents he had built it for.</p><p></p><p>He spent some time repairing the damage that the adventurers had done to his extraplanar craft, built upon the skeletal structure of a triceratops and enhanced with the fused bones of a variety of different creatures. Fortunately, the engine, powered by the destruction of magic items, had not been badly damaged.</p><p></p><p>He took the time to hunt down and round up the dragon turtle zombie that the living adventurers had successfully turned when they had first met and fought. The mindless thing had apparently been traveling in a straight line since it had been turned, and thus was some distance away, but the Darklord had scried it with the device in his scrying room, opened a portal directly in front of its path of movement, and steered it back into its hangar.</p><p></p><p>He cast a <em>contingency</em> spell that he hoped would never be necessary, but he knew it was always best to be prepared, especially for the worst.</p><p></p><p>He spent some time scrying on the adventurers who had slain him, here in his secret lair, in what should have been his place of power and safety, and learned their names, their abilities, and their general habits.</p><p></p><p>Finally, he contacted a gnome assassin he'd had dealings with in the past, and hired him for another job. The assassin didn't need to know that this would be his final job; he was expendable, after all, and his potential future usefulness was insignificant when balanced against the need to destroy anyone who knew of the Darklord's existence, and, more importantly, of the location of his secret lair. Bad enough that there were living beings aware of the Darklord's existence as a lich; the fact that these were <em>adventurers</em>, who routinely set themselves on the path of the destruction of undead, made it all the worse. Toofles hadn't lived a century as a gnome and another as a lich, with untold millennia ahead of him in which he could expect to continue his undead existence, by leaving alive those who could put a stop to him. He was just lucky that his phylactery hadn't been found and destroyed, or he'd have been finished for good!</p><p></p><p>Now, all was finally in readiness. The five who knew of him were named Akari, Cal Trop, Chalkan, Feron Dru, and Gwendolyn Fine. The first four worked together in an Adventurers Guild in Greyhawk City; they'd be the first targets. After studying their routines, the Darklord decided it would be difficult to get those four, and those four alone, all at once, as they didn't always work as a team together, but interchanged their party with another four from their Wing; better to strike when he could get most of them in one fell swoop, and pick off the stragglers later. He gave descriptions of his targets to the gnome assassin, and told him to strike when he could get at least three of them at once. And then he waited.</p><p></p><p>And if there was one thing a lich was good at, it was waiting.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>Cal strode proudly out of the Temple of Kord, his companions trailing behind him. It had been a glorious morning! At the Head Cleric's request, Cal had given the morning sermon, followed by leading a vigorous workout there in the arena that showed off his fabulous strength. The acolytes - and a few who had wandered into the church upon hearing that Cal would be there - were clearly in awe of this mere mortal who now had the blood of Kord Himself running through his veins.</p><p></p><p>Akari, Chalkan, and Delphyne followed their friend out of the church, and were amused to see that Cal's time in the spotlight hadn't ended, for there was a small crowd forming around him. Some just wanted to touch his robe; others asked him to grant him a blessing; one shapely young woman, <strong>Joslyn</strong>, informed him that she finished her shift at the Merry Mermaid Tavern at ten bells, after which time she was available if he wanted to show her some of his "feats of strength" in private. Cal did his best to give everyone what they wanted - and made a mental note to swing by the Merry Mermaid Tavern that evening, say, around ten bells. His companions just smiled at each other.</p><p></p><p>"He's loving this!" commented Delphyne.</p><p></p><p>"Ah, let him enjoy it," remarked Akari. "He was singled out by his own deity - that's quite a distinction."</p><p></p><p>As the small crowd finally dispersed, one lone straggler approached the group. This was a cheery-looking gnome. "Would you be Cal Trop, the cleric Blessed by Kord Himself?" gushed the little fellow.</p><p></p><p>"I am indeed!" grinned Cal, smiling down at the gnome. "And what can I do for you, fellow?"</p><p></p><p>"My name is <strong>Gabble Grindymelon</strong>, and I was asked to give you something, a token of appreciation, as it were."</p><p></p><p>"What's this?" Cal asked, looking back and winking at his companions. "A secret admirer? And does she have a name?"</p><p></p><p>"It's a 'he,' actually," responded Gabble, reaching into a pouch at his side and pulling out two small spheres, one white and one black. Then, as he threw them to the ground at Cal's feet, he called out, "And his name is Darklord Drago von Mordak!"</p><p></p><p>The white sphere hit the ground first and shattered. From it flew hundreds - if not thousands - of beetles, which flew in all directions and covered the four adventurers in mere seconds. Unseen in this swarm were four mechanical constructs, each the same general size and shape of the undead scarabs which formed a cloud all around them; these each climbed onto an adventurer and tucked itself away - under a belt, inside a boot - before awaiting the shunting. This came mere seconds later, when the black sphere - the negabomb - struck the street, exploding into a familiar sphere that sent the four adventurers, the gnome, and a small hemisphere of the ground beneath them over to the Negative Energy Plane.</p><p></p><p>All but Delphyne had experienced this before - the instant plunging from daylight to pitch black, the rapid dissipation of the air around them, and the immediate leeching of the very life-energy that kept them alive and breathing.</p><p></p><p>Cal was the first to react, and said the words to a <em>plane shift</em> spell that would immediately return them to Oerth. Unfortunately, by that time the scarab construct had activated, and Cal was under the effects of a spell similar to <em>dimensional anchor</em>, which prevented travel from one plane to another. (He didn't know it, but it would have allowed transport to elsewhere on the same plane.) Fortunately, Delphyne had an <em>attune form</em> spell ready, and cast it with her last breath upon herself and her three adventuring companions. The four felt their bodies attuning themselves to exist in this lifeless realm, and no longer felt the draining of their life essences that made adventuring on the Negative Energy Plane such a deadly prospect.</p><p></p><p>Not so Gabble, however. Before their very eyes - once Akari brought out a sun rod, which gave off a weak illumination on the dark plane - they could see the cheery-looking gnome wither away and die, transforming almost immediately into a wraith. He wasn't much of a threat, though: Cal held up his holy symbol of Kord and blasted the gnomish wraith into nothingness. The blast also destroyed a wide swath of the undead scarabs as well, and the rest were easily avoidable, as the adventurers could opt to "fall" to one side in the gravityless plane, whereas the undead beetles lacked the intellect to do so; they just hung in a cloud, slowly drifting away.</p><p></p><p>"So, the Darklord's back," said Akari with a grim look on his face.</p><p></p><p>"Yes, the Darklord's back," said the gnome lich to himself, watching from his scrying room and opening an intraplanar rift from his lair to right beside the adventurers, before sending four more wraiths bounding after them into the void. Then he gathered up the members of the next wave to follow.</p><p></p><p>A swirling, purplish hole suddenly opened up in the nothingness of the Negative Energy Plane, and out of the twisting vortex flew four more gnome-sized wraiths. They didn't fare much better; Cal destroyed three of them in a single turning attempt, and Akari's <em>Hoardmaster</em> took care of the last.</p><p></p><p>"Well, this is fun," commented Chalkan. "So, are we going to hang around here all day and blast whatever comes out of that vortex?"</p><p></p><p>"Maybe we should enter it ourselves, and see where it leads to," said Delphyne, unpacking the broom from its holder on her back and sitting upon it. She knew she didn't <em>need</em> her broom to fly around in this weightless environment, but it just seemed weird doing so without it.</p><p></p><p>"I don't know," argued Akari. "It could be a trap."</p><p></p><p>"How could we tell?" countered Cal. "And what's our other plan? We have an infinite plane of existence - or nonexistence, whatever - out here; how are we going to find the Darklord's lair if we don't try going through the vortex?"</p><p></p><p>Back at the Darklord's lair, he had been gathering up the members of the second wave, so he missed the adventurers discussing plans among themselves. Had he heard they were going to try going through the vortex, he'd have done nothing, for the vortex was calibrated to allow only non-living matter to pass; had they jumped through the vortex they'd have ended up in his lair, all right, but they'd have perished doing so. However, he had his second wave ready to go, so he sent them through the vortex and eagerly watched to see the results from his scrying room. "This should weaken them considerably," he smirked to himself, watching the second wave appear in the adventurers' vicinity. "Then I'll go through and finish them off myself!"</p><p></p><p>"Incoming!" shouted Chalkan, grabbing up a wand from his belt. The others, up until now engaged in a discussion on whether or not to go through the spinning vortex, watched as the Darklord's dragon turtle zombie passed through its purplish center. Mounted upon its back was the Darklord himself, nine feet of skeletal equiceph that the adventurers knew was a simple illusion cast upon the gnome lich's true form. Flanking him on all sides were five gnomish skeletons. Each of the skeletons raised a hand as if to throw something.</p><p></p><p>Chalkan beat them to it and sent off a blast from his <em>wand of fireball</em>. The bead-sized pellet of energy struck the dragon turtle zombie and exploded into a small <em>fireball</em>. And that's when the Darklord's meticulous plans all went awry.</p><p></p><p>Each of the skeletons - including "the Darklord," who was nothing but a sixth gnome skeleton wearing an illusion of Toofle's skeletal equiceph persona - had been holding a bead from a <em>necklace of fireballs</em> and was preparing to throw it at one of the adventurers. Toofles had anticipated that the multiple, near-simultaneous explosions of flame would have cut the adventurers down to size. Instead, each of the six beads was engulfed in the <em>fireball</em> from Chalkan's wand, and each was set off prematurely while still held in the hands of the gnome skeletons standing upon the dragon turtle zombie.</p><p></p><p>The resulting explosion not only ripped apart the six skeletons, but the dragon turtle zombie was instantly reduced to a fine mist, which expanded equally in all directions.</p><p></p><p>"Holy crap!" called out Chalkan, surprised at the efficacy of his simple wand. Back at his lair, Toofles Pigwilligan was equally surprised, and it was only the lich's inability to produce tears that kept him from bawling uncontrollably. Instead, he quietly opted not to confront the adventurers himself just quite yet after all, and raced upstairs to make preparations for what he knew would be coming next.</p><p></p><p>"Get ready for the next wave!" suggested Cal, maneuvering himself to face the spinning vortex. The other adventurers followed his lead, but no further wave came.</p><p></p><p>"Is that it?" asked Chalkan after awhile. "Did the Darklord grab us here just to throw an exploding turtle at us?"</p><p></p><p>"Let's go find out," suggested Cal, starting to float closer to the vortex, with every apparent indication of entering it himself.</p><p></p><p>"Hold on!" called Akari. "I still don't know if I want to trust traveling through that thing."</p><p></p><p>"Well, how else are we going to find his lair?" demanded Cal.</p><p></p><p>"I might have another way," replied Delphyne. "I have a <em>teleport</em> spell ready, but I've never been to his lair before. Can you describe it for me?"</p><p></p><p>"Well, it's carved out of a chunk of floating rock," began Cal.</p><p></p><p>"There's a kind of dock out front," added Akari.</p><p></p><p>"He's got a hangar where he kept his dragon turtle zombie, and another one above it for his triceratops-skeleton-extraplanar-vehicle-thingy," added Chalkan.</p><p></p><p>"There aren't any doors in the whole place," added Cal, "just doorways covered in <em>illusory walls</em> - very confusing."</p><p></p><p>"Tell you what," suggested Akari. "Just concentrate on a big hunk of rock, like a lumpy sphere, with a wooden dock sticking out of it. There can't be too many objects like that on this whole plane."</p><p></p><p>"There aren't too many objects of any kind on this whole plane," commented Cal.</p><p></p><p>"Here goes," said the young witch, casting her <em>teleport</em> spell. Instantly, the group found themselves facing a big hunk of rock, like a lumpy sphere, with a wooden dock sticking out of it. "Does this look right?" she asked the group.</p><p></p><p>"That's it, all right," replied Akari. "Let's go in through the hangar door." And by simply concentrating, he flew over to the side of the rock, the others following.</p><p></p><p>"Where's the door?" asked Delphyne.</p><p></p><p>"Right below us," replied the elf. "It's an <em>illusory wall</em>. Now would be a good time to buff up, then we'll go in together." Cal and Delphyne each cast a <em>stoneskin</em> spell upon themselves, Akari cast a <em>protection from evil</em> spell, and Chalkan cast a <em>resist energy</em> spell on himself in case there was any more of this exploding turtle nonsense. Then, upon Akari's command, they flew through the solid-seeming door and into a wide hangar.</p><p></p><p>It was the dragon turtle zombie's hangar, and it was thus empty.</p><p></p><p>"Nobody home," said Cal, heading to where he remembered there being a stairs. "Let's try upstairs."</p><p></p><p>Sure enough, up in the extraplanar vehicle hangar, they found Toofles Pigwilligan. Actually, they found 17 of him - each carrying his staff made of curved bone. And they weren't alone, either, for the lich had had a replacement clay golem completed, as well as repaired his extraplanar craft.</p><p></p><p>"Attack!" cried one of the gnome skeletons, and they each made as if casting a spell. A bead came flying in from somewhere in the back ranks, and a <em>fireball</em> engulfed the group. Chalkan smirked knowingly, pleased with his own preparations.</p><p></p><p>"Two can play at that game!" called Delphyne, and lobbed a <em>fireball</em> spell back at the group of gnome skeletons, destroying all within its explosive radius. In the meantime, the clay golem had lurched over to Cal, who battled it with his mace, and Akari busied himself avoiding getting gored by the triceratops-craft's horns. Chalkan decided <em>fireballs</em> had been lucky for him this day, and stuck to his wand rather than using his bow. Each <em>fireball</em> destroyed the gnome skeletons in its radius, quickly eliminating all but one - who had to be Toofles.</p><p></p><p>Toofles countered with an <em>invisibility</em> spell to hide his location, and raced over to enter his extraplanar craft. Delphyne and Chalkan blanketed the area with more <em>fireballs</em>, sure that one of them would get the crafty little gnome lich. And they did, without knowing for sure which one had brought him down.</p><p></p><p>But Toofles had one more surprise in store for the group. As his body became visible once more in death - he had almost made it to the extraplanar craft, which would have offered him an escape route - his disembodied voice rang out in the open area of the hangar, "Destroy those who have slain me, lest they prevent my return!" A dark blast of energy exploded around his fallen bones, and in his place stood the shadowy form of a 20-foot-tall humanoid. The nightwalker looked around at the living foes standing beneath him, and went to work.</p><p></p><p>Delphyne, out of <em>fireballs</em> by this time, cast a <em>lightning bolt</em> at the giant humanoid form. Cal, just about finished with the clay golem but recognizing the nightwalker to be a more serious threat, cast a <em>holy word</em> at it. Chalkan, wand still in hand and with plenty of charges, lobbed a <em>fireball</em> its way. The nightwalker seemed unfazed by the spells, and stalked over towards Cal.</p><p></p><p>"Uh oh," said Cal. "Guys? We might want to retreat from this thing!"</p><p></p><p>Retreat sounded pretty good by that time. Cal led the retreat right through the <em>illusory wall</em> of the extraplanar craft hangar, leaving the craft and the golem behind. The nightwalker followed, but the adventurers all linked hands to keep themselves from getting separated, stashed their light sources away, and sped straight ahead for the count of ten, then made a right-angle turn for another count of ten, then switched to "down" (or what seemed like "down" to them at the time) for another ten-count, and so on. Eventually, the nightwalker lost track of them, and they retraced their path back to the Darklord's lair.</p><p></p><p>Figuring that the extraplanar craft and the clay golem would stay where they were for the moment instead of go looking for them, the four heroes started making a sweep of the rest of the Darklord's lair. Since accidentally releasing the lich Nakariah from Joniah the Avenger's crypt, the group had learned all about liches and their phylacteries, and vowed not to leave the Darklord's lair before his own phylactery had been discovered and destroyed. It took them a good while to find it, as it was hidden behind a secret door that was only accessible from 10 feet up, behind a stairwell, and another good while to catch it, for Toofles had grafted on skeletal fingers to the box that allowed it to scurry around like a bone spider, but eventually the troublesome thing had been caught. Cal had the honor of smashing it to pieces with his mace.</p><p></p><p>"I guess that's about it," he said, once the phylactery was as dead as the Darklord. "I don't see any reason to hang out here any longer" - before belatedly recalling that he had already tried, and failed, to cast his one <em>plane shift</em> spell he'd prepared for the day. Fortunately, he had a backup with him on a scroll, but he wanted to figure out what had prevented the spell from working before giving it a shot with his scroll. It was Delphyne who figured out the problem, when she scratched her shoulder underneath her long hair and bumped into the scarab construct that had been hiding there, on the strap to her broom harness. A quick examination of each other turned up three more such beetles, each promptly ground under the heel of Cal's boot.</p><p></p><p>"Let's go," boomed Cal, gathering his companions up around him as he read the words of the <em>plane shift</em> scroll that would return them to Oerth, where their Guild rings would then allow them to "bink" back to headquarters.</p><p></p><p>As he did so, he mentally wondered what time it was, and if he had already missed the end of Joslyn's shift at the Merry Mermaid Tavern.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6087380, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 56 - REVENGE OF THE DARKLORD[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Akari, elven paladin of Hieroneous Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian/sorcerer/arcane archer Delphyne Babelberi, human witch (wizard)[/INDENT] Toofles Pigwilligan had been busy since he remanifested several days after having been destroyed. He had created another pair of negabombs, for one thing. The first one he used almost immediately upon its completion, dropping it unerringly in the middle of a gnomish village, which shunted a chunk of their real estate to the Negative Energy Plane; the chunk of village he ignored, seeking only the bodies of the gnomes that had been shunted along with their homes. This gave Toofles - or, as he preferred to think of himself since he had attained lichdom, "Darklord Drago von Mordak" - nearly two dozen animated gnome skeletons as a new work force, and an effective form of camouflage if and when it was ever needed. He also crafted a series of small constructs, each the size and shape of a scarab beetle. Into each of these he built the ability to hold a single, pre-chosen spell, which he stored into each device and then set aside until they were needed. Rather than waste another negabomb for his next step, he traveled to the material plane himself and gathered hundreds of living scarab beetles, then carefully killed each one in a manner in which they could still be successfully animated as undead. He performed this ritual back in the safety and comfort of his lair on the Negative Energy Plane. He crafted an extradimensional storage device quite similar in size and appearance to his negabombs, then filled it with the contents he had built it for. He spent some time repairing the damage that the adventurers had done to his extraplanar craft, built upon the skeletal structure of a triceratops and enhanced with the fused bones of a variety of different creatures. Fortunately, the engine, powered by the destruction of magic items, had not been badly damaged. He took the time to hunt down and round up the dragon turtle zombie that the living adventurers had successfully turned when they had first met and fought. The mindless thing had apparently been traveling in a straight line since it had been turned, and thus was some distance away, but the Darklord had scried it with the device in his scrying room, opened a portal directly in front of its path of movement, and steered it back into its hangar. He cast a [i]contingency[/i] spell that he hoped would never be necessary, but he knew it was always best to be prepared, especially for the worst. He spent some time scrying on the adventurers who had slain him, here in his secret lair, in what should have been his place of power and safety, and learned their names, their abilities, and their general habits. Finally, he contacted a gnome assassin he'd had dealings with in the past, and hired him for another job. The assassin didn't need to know that this would be his final job; he was expendable, after all, and his potential future usefulness was insignificant when balanced against the need to destroy anyone who knew of the Darklord's existence, and, more importantly, of the location of his secret lair. Bad enough that there were living beings aware of the Darklord's existence as a lich; the fact that these were [i]adventurers[/i], who routinely set themselves on the path of the destruction of undead, made it all the worse. Toofles hadn't lived a century as a gnome and another as a lich, with untold millennia ahead of him in which he could expect to continue his undead existence, by leaving alive those who could put a stop to him. He was just lucky that his phylactery hadn't been found and destroyed, or he'd have been finished for good! Now, all was finally in readiness. The five who knew of him were named Akari, Cal Trop, Chalkan, Feron Dru, and Gwendolyn Fine. The first four worked together in an Adventurers Guild in Greyhawk City; they'd be the first targets. After studying their routines, the Darklord decided it would be difficult to get those four, and those four alone, all at once, as they didn't always work as a team together, but interchanged their party with another four from their Wing; better to strike when he could get most of them in one fell swoop, and pick off the stragglers later. He gave descriptions of his targets to the gnome assassin, and told him to strike when he could get at least three of them at once. And then he waited. And if there was one thing a lich was good at, it was waiting. - - - Cal strode proudly out of the Temple of Kord, his companions trailing behind him. It had been a glorious morning! At the Head Cleric's request, Cal had given the morning sermon, followed by leading a vigorous workout there in the arena that showed off his fabulous strength. The acolytes - and a few who had wandered into the church upon hearing that Cal would be there - were clearly in awe of this mere mortal who now had the blood of Kord Himself running through his veins. Akari, Chalkan, and Delphyne followed their friend out of the church, and were amused to see that Cal's time in the spotlight hadn't ended, for there was a small crowd forming around him. Some just wanted to touch his robe; others asked him to grant him a blessing; one shapely young woman, [b]Joslyn[/b], informed him that she finished her shift at the Merry Mermaid Tavern at ten bells, after which time she was available if he wanted to show her some of his "feats of strength" in private. Cal did his best to give everyone what they wanted - and made a mental note to swing by the Merry Mermaid Tavern that evening, say, around ten bells. His companions just smiled at each other. "He's loving this!" commented Delphyne. "Ah, let him enjoy it," remarked Akari. "He was singled out by his own deity - that's quite a distinction." As the small crowd finally dispersed, one lone straggler approached the group. This was a cheery-looking gnome. "Would you be Cal Trop, the cleric Blessed by Kord Himself?" gushed the little fellow. "I am indeed!" grinned Cal, smiling down at the gnome. "And what can I do for you, fellow?" "My name is [b]Gabble Grindymelon[/b], and I was asked to give you something, a token of appreciation, as it were." "What's this?" Cal asked, looking back and winking at his companions. "A secret admirer? And does she have a name?" "It's a 'he,' actually," responded Gabble, reaching into a pouch at his side and pulling out two small spheres, one white and one black. Then, as he threw them to the ground at Cal's feet, he called out, "And his name is Darklord Drago von Mordak!" The white sphere hit the ground first and shattered. From it flew hundreds - if not thousands - of beetles, which flew in all directions and covered the four adventurers in mere seconds. Unseen in this swarm were four mechanical constructs, each the same general size and shape of the undead scarabs which formed a cloud all around them; these each climbed onto an adventurer and tucked itself away - under a belt, inside a boot - before awaiting the shunting. This came mere seconds later, when the black sphere - the negabomb - struck the street, exploding into a familiar sphere that sent the four adventurers, the gnome, and a small hemisphere of the ground beneath them over to the Negative Energy Plane. All but Delphyne had experienced this before - the instant plunging from daylight to pitch black, the rapid dissipation of the air around them, and the immediate leeching of the very life-energy that kept them alive and breathing. Cal was the first to react, and said the words to a [i]plane shift[/i] spell that would immediately return them to Oerth. Unfortunately, by that time the scarab construct had activated, and Cal was under the effects of a spell similar to [i]dimensional anchor[/i], which prevented travel from one plane to another. (He didn't know it, but it would have allowed transport to elsewhere on the same plane.) Fortunately, Delphyne had an [i]attune form[/i] spell ready, and cast it with her last breath upon herself and her three adventuring companions. The four felt their bodies attuning themselves to exist in this lifeless realm, and no longer felt the draining of their life essences that made adventuring on the Negative Energy Plane such a deadly prospect. Not so Gabble, however. Before their very eyes - once Akari brought out a sun rod, which gave off a weak illumination on the dark plane - they could see the cheery-looking gnome wither away and die, transforming almost immediately into a wraith. He wasn't much of a threat, though: Cal held up his holy symbol of Kord and blasted the gnomish wraith into nothingness. The blast also destroyed a wide swath of the undead scarabs as well, and the rest were easily avoidable, as the adventurers could opt to "fall" to one side in the gravityless plane, whereas the undead beetles lacked the intellect to do so; they just hung in a cloud, slowly drifting away. "So, the Darklord's back," said Akari with a grim look on his face. "Yes, the Darklord's back," said the gnome lich to himself, watching from his scrying room and opening an intraplanar rift from his lair to right beside the adventurers, before sending four more wraiths bounding after them into the void. Then he gathered up the members of the next wave to follow. A swirling, purplish hole suddenly opened up in the nothingness of the Negative Energy Plane, and out of the twisting vortex flew four more gnome-sized wraiths. They didn't fare much better; Cal destroyed three of them in a single turning attempt, and Akari's [i]Hoardmaster[/i] took care of the last. "Well, this is fun," commented Chalkan. "So, are we going to hang around here all day and blast whatever comes out of that vortex?" "Maybe we should enter it ourselves, and see where it leads to," said Delphyne, unpacking the broom from its holder on her back and sitting upon it. She knew she didn't [i]need[/i] her broom to fly around in this weightless environment, but it just seemed weird doing so without it. "I don't know," argued Akari. "It could be a trap." "How could we tell?" countered Cal. "And what's our other plan? We have an infinite plane of existence - or nonexistence, whatever - out here; how are we going to find the Darklord's lair if we don't try going through the vortex?" Back at the Darklord's lair, he had been gathering up the members of the second wave, so he missed the adventurers discussing plans among themselves. Had he heard they were going to try going through the vortex, he'd have done nothing, for the vortex was calibrated to allow only non-living matter to pass; had they jumped through the vortex they'd have ended up in his lair, all right, but they'd have perished doing so. However, he had his second wave ready to go, so he sent them through the vortex and eagerly watched to see the results from his scrying room. "This should weaken them considerably," he smirked to himself, watching the second wave appear in the adventurers' vicinity. "Then I'll go through and finish them off myself!" "Incoming!" shouted Chalkan, grabbing up a wand from his belt. The others, up until now engaged in a discussion on whether or not to go through the spinning vortex, watched as the Darklord's dragon turtle zombie passed through its purplish center. Mounted upon its back was the Darklord himself, nine feet of skeletal equiceph that the adventurers knew was a simple illusion cast upon the gnome lich's true form. Flanking him on all sides were five gnomish skeletons. Each of the skeletons raised a hand as if to throw something. Chalkan beat them to it and sent off a blast from his [i]wand of fireball[/i]. The bead-sized pellet of energy struck the dragon turtle zombie and exploded into a small [i]fireball[/i]. And that's when the Darklord's meticulous plans all went awry. Each of the skeletons - including "the Darklord," who was nothing but a sixth gnome skeleton wearing an illusion of Toofle's skeletal equiceph persona - had been holding a bead from a [i]necklace of fireballs[/i] and was preparing to throw it at one of the adventurers. Toofles had anticipated that the multiple, near-simultaneous explosions of flame would have cut the adventurers down to size. Instead, each of the six beads was engulfed in the [i]fireball[/i] from Chalkan's wand, and each was set off prematurely while still held in the hands of the gnome skeletons standing upon the dragon turtle zombie. The resulting explosion not only ripped apart the six skeletons, but the dragon turtle zombie was instantly reduced to a fine mist, which expanded equally in all directions. "Holy crap!" called out Chalkan, surprised at the efficacy of his simple wand. Back at his lair, Toofles Pigwilligan was equally surprised, and it was only the lich's inability to produce tears that kept him from bawling uncontrollably. Instead, he quietly opted not to confront the adventurers himself just quite yet after all, and raced upstairs to make preparations for what he knew would be coming next. "Get ready for the next wave!" suggested Cal, maneuvering himself to face the spinning vortex. The other adventurers followed his lead, but no further wave came. "Is that it?" asked Chalkan after awhile. "Did the Darklord grab us here just to throw an exploding turtle at us?" "Let's go find out," suggested Cal, starting to float closer to the vortex, with every apparent indication of entering it himself. "Hold on!" called Akari. "I still don't know if I want to trust traveling through that thing." "Well, how else are we going to find his lair?" demanded Cal. "I might have another way," replied Delphyne. "I have a [i]teleport[/i] spell ready, but I've never been to his lair before. Can you describe it for me?" "Well, it's carved out of a chunk of floating rock," began Cal. "There's a kind of dock out front," added Akari. "He's got a hangar where he kept his dragon turtle zombie, and another one above it for his triceratops-skeleton-extraplanar-vehicle-thingy," added Chalkan. "There aren't any doors in the whole place," added Cal, "just doorways covered in [i]illusory walls[/i] - very confusing." "Tell you what," suggested Akari. "Just concentrate on a big hunk of rock, like a lumpy sphere, with a wooden dock sticking out of it. There can't be too many objects like that on this whole plane." "There aren't too many objects of any kind on this whole plane," commented Cal. "Here goes," said the young witch, casting her [i]teleport[/i] spell. Instantly, the group found themselves facing a big hunk of rock, like a lumpy sphere, with a wooden dock sticking out of it. "Does this look right?" she asked the group. "That's it, all right," replied Akari. "Let's go in through the hangar door." And by simply concentrating, he flew over to the side of the rock, the others following. "Where's the door?" asked Delphyne. "Right below us," replied the elf. "It's an [i]illusory wall[/i]. Now would be a good time to buff up, then we'll go in together." Cal and Delphyne each cast a [i]stoneskin[/i] spell upon themselves, Akari cast a [i]protection from evil[/i] spell, and Chalkan cast a [i]resist energy[/i] spell on himself in case there was any more of this exploding turtle nonsense. Then, upon Akari's command, they flew through the solid-seeming door and into a wide hangar. It was the dragon turtle zombie's hangar, and it was thus empty. "Nobody home," said Cal, heading to where he remembered there being a stairs. "Let's try upstairs." Sure enough, up in the extraplanar vehicle hangar, they found Toofles Pigwilligan. Actually, they found 17 of him - each carrying his staff made of curved bone. And they weren't alone, either, for the lich had had a replacement clay golem completed, as well as repaired his extraplanar craft. "Attack!" cried one of the gnome skeletons, and they each made as if casting a spell. A bead came flying in from somewhere in the back ranks, and a [i]fireball[/i] engulfed the group. Chalkan smirked knowingly, pleased with his own preparations. "Two can play at that game!" called Delphyne, and lobbed a [i]fireball[/i] spell back at the group of gnome skeletons, destroying all within its explosive radius. In the meantime, the clay golem had lurched over to Cal, who battled it with his mace, and Akari busied himself avoiding getting gored by the triceratops-craft's horns. Chalkan decided [i]fireballs[/i] had been lucky for him this day, and stuck to his wand rather than using his bow. Each [i]fireball[/i] destroyed the gnome skeletons in its radius, quickly eliminating all but one - who had to be Toofles. Toofles countered with an [i]invisibility[/i] spell to hide his location, and raced over to enter his extraplanar craft. Delphyne and Chalkan blanketed the area with more [i]fireballs[/i], sure that one of them would get the crafty little gnome lich. And they did, without knowing for sure which one had brought him down. But Toofles had one more surprise in store for the group. As his body became visible once more in death - he had almost made it to the extraplanar craft, which would have offered him an escape route - his disembodied voice rang out in the open area of the hangar, "Destroy those who have slain me, lest they prevent my return!" A dark blast of energy exploded around his fallen bones, and in his place stood the shadowy form of a 20-foot-tall humanoid. The nightwalker looked around at the living foes standing beneath him, and went to work. Delphyne, out of [i]fireballs[/i] by this time, cast a [i]lightning bolt[/i] at the giant humanoid form. Cal, just about finished with the clay golem but recognizing the nightwalker to be a more serious threat, cast a [i]holy word[/i] at it. Chalkan, wand still in hand and with plenty of charges, lobbed a [i]fireball[/i] its way. The nightwalker seemed unfazed by the spells, and stalked over towards Cal. "Uh oh," said Cal. "Guys? We might want to retreat from this thing!" Retreat sounded pretty good by that time. Cal led the retreat right through the [i]illusory wall[/i] of the extraplanar craft hangar, leaving the craft and the golem behind. The nightwalker followed, but the adventurers all linked hands to keep themselves from getting separated, stashed their light sources away, and sped straight ahead for the count of ten, then made a right-angle turn for another count of ten, then switched to "down" (or what seemed like "down" to them at the time) for another ten-count, and so on. Eventually, the nightwalker lost track of them, and they retraced their path back to the Darklord's lair. Figuring that the extraplanar craft and the clay golem would stay where they were for the moment instead of go looking for them, the four heroes started making a sweep of the rest of the Darklord's lair. Since accidentally releasing the lich Nakariah from Joniah the Avenger's crypt, the group had learned all about liches and their phylacteries, and vowed not to leave the Darklord's lair before his own phylactery had been discovered and destroyed. It took them a good while to find it, as it was hidden behind a secret door that was only accessible from 10 feet up, behind a stairwell, and another good while to catch it, for Toofles had grafted on skeletal fingers to the box that allowed it to scurry around like a bone spider, but eventually the troublesome thing had been caught. Cal had the honor of smashing it to pieces with his mace. "I guess that's about it," he said, once the phylactery was as dead as the Darklord. "I don't see any reason to hang out here any longer" - before belatedly recalling that he had already tried, and failed, to cast his one [i]plane shift[/i] spell he'd prepared for the day. Fortunately, he had a backup with him on a scroll, but he wanted to figure out what had prevented the spell from working before giving it a shot with his scroll. It was Delphyne who figured out the problem, when she scratched her shoulder underneath her long hair and bumped into the scarab construct that had been hiding there, on the strap to her broom harness. A quick examination of each other turned up three more such beetles, each promptly ground under the heel of Cal's boot. "Let's go," boomed Cal, gathering his companions up around him as he read the words of the [i]plane shift[/i] scroll that would return them to Oerth, where their Guild rings would then allow them to "bink" back to headquarters. As he did so, he mentally wondered what time it was, and if he had already missed the end of Joslyn's shift at the Merry Mermaid Tavern. [/QUOTE]
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