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Wing Three
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6226249" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 75: TRENCH WARFARE</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Akari, tiefling paladin</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 style="margin-left: 20px"> Feron Dru, half-elf druid</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Thunderwolf, human fighter</p><p></p><p>It was early morning in the Greyhawk City Adventurers Guild. Over in Wing Three, a few of the adventurers were up already and mucking about in the kitchen; Thunderwolf had declared it was his turn to make breakfast, and he was doing a credible job scrambling some eggs over the small cookfire. Chalkan had stumbled over to the sofa in the living room with a mug of tea, and Akari joined him there. Most of the others were still asleep in their rooms, but Feron had brought her clothes into the women's bathing room and stepped into the small pool of water, eager to have a good morning's soak before worrying about the events of the day to come.</p><p></p><p>As she settled down into the warm, relaxing water, she heard some sort of a commotion going on downstairs. With a thought of "<em>It never fails!</em>" she listened to hear if the guys down in the living area could handle whatever the fuss was all about.</p><p></p><p>Downstairs, the commotion was nothing any of the gathered heroes would have expected. There were shouts of surprise coming from the hallway below them, and the flapping of a great pair of wings. Akari and Chalkan looked over to the stairway leading up from the main hallway below, and Thunderwolf popped his head out of the kitchen in time to see a large, white sea bird flapping its way up the stairwell. Its massive wings slapped both opposite walls as it staggered its way up the stairwell, burst into the living area, and then flew up the shorter stairwell leading to the sleeping and bathing areas. Akari reflexively detected it for evil and relaxed when he saw it was not; only then did he realize that none of the adventurers were armed or wearing their armor, so he was a bit unsure of what he would have done had the albatross been a true threat. But he and Thunderwolf shared a puzzled look as the great seabird flapped its way to the closed door of the women's bathroom, turned the knob with a webbed foot, and staggered inside.</p><p></p><p>Feron let loose an involuntary shriek of surprise as the albatross flopped to the floor, tripped its way across the room, and plopped into the pool with her. It completely submerged, and the young druid saw a dark figure heading her way under the water. It crossed the small pool and a moment later a humanlike face popped up before Feron, long hair plastered to the side of the elderly woman's head and a look of absolute exhaustion evident on her features.</p><p></p><p>"Child of the Land," sputtered the Lady Dorca in the Druidic tongue, before collapsing unconscious into Feron's arms.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>"She's in here," Feron gestured, leading the others into the women's bathroom. She'd hastily thrown on her clothes after dragging the Lady Dorca over to the side of the bathing pool. The elderly mermaid lay on her back, in a sleep so deep it almost seemed like a coma.</p><p></p><p>Akari put a hand to the side of the mermaid's neck. "Her pulse is steady," he announced. "And I don't see any wounds."</p><p></p><p>"I think it's just exhaustion," replied Feron. "You should have seen her face when she popped up out of the water."</p><p></p><p>"Then let me try a <em>lesser restoration</em> spell," said the paladin, laying his hands upon either side of the Lady Dorca's temples and speaking the words to his prayer. A deep sigh escaped from the lips of the elderly mermaid, and her eyes flickered open - only to gape widely at the sight of the tiefling bending over her. She sat up abruptly, arm raised as if to deflect a blow. Akari raised both hands to show they were empty, and backed away. Behind him, Rale poked his head through the open door, having been awakened at the commotion and eager for a legitimate opportunity to check out the women's bathroom. Standing behind him was a young woman none of the other heroes had seen before - this was <strong>Desdemona "Dez" Honeytongue</strong>, a wizard whose spell repertoire had been specifically selected to support her acting career, and the highest-ranking of the cohorts Rale had recently attained. Besides Dez, he now had a handful of human and halfling rogues and actors working for him.</p><p></p><p>"We mean you no harm," replied Akari. "I'm Akari, and believe it or not we've met before; I just looked more elven back then, is all."</p><p></p><p>The Lady Dorca looked around in confusion at the group, but then spotted Feron and devoted her attention to her. "Child of the Land!" she cried, again speaking in the special language of the druids. "I come with a warning of great danger!"</p><p></p><p>She sat up and began her tale, pausing while Feron translated to the others. "My tribe has suffered terrible losses. They came suddenly, in the depths of the night, in great waves, like never before. Eel-men, anguillians, rising up from the depths of the great trench, to grab up our people and drag them, screaming, back down to the unknown deeps. We tried fighting back, but we were hopelessly outnumbered, and in the end all that we could do was to abandon our homes and flee far away to distant waters, knowing we’d likely never again see the waters of our births.</p><p></p><p>"And overseeing this attack from the trenches was a monster, a man of bones built much like you are, with two legs in place of a tail, who stood upon the broad shell of Dragon Turtle Goruka commanding his vile troops. Noble Goruka is no longer our tribal protector; he was apparently slain by this man of bones and reborn as a thing of death.</p><p></p><p>"I do not know what has become of those of our people who were taken back to the lightless depths of the trench, but I fear they have all been slain. But after seeing Princess Cerulea and the remains of our tribe to safety, I knew I must find you, for this man of bones is a danger to more than just the sea-peoples living near the trench. During his attack, he said that our captives were just the first step in his plan, that he would have his revenge upon his captor, even if he had escaped the man of bones in death many centuries before, and that if he could not slay the pal-a-din" - and here her tongue tripped over the unfamiliar word - "he would slay the pal-a-din's god by killing the very sun itself!"</p><p></p><p>"Pelor?" reasoned Thunderwolf, identifying the God of the Sun in the predominant pantheon of the region.</p><p></p><p>The pieces were coming together in Akari's mind, and he felt a shiver run down his spine. A man of bones, a paladin of Pelor who was his captor many centuries before.... "Tell me," he asked, "did this man of bones have a name?" Feron translated the question for the mermaid, and likewise repeated her answer in the Common tongue for the benefit of the others.</p><p></p><p>"Yes," confirmed the Lady Dorca. "He called himself 'Nakariah, the Lich-King.'"</p><p></p><p>Continuing her tale, the mermaid reported that Nakariah's attack upon the merfolk village had happened a full week ago. After fleeing with the remains of the tribe, the Lady Dorca knew of only one druid who might be able to counter this threat: Feron, with her group of fellow adventurers. Lacking the ability to teleport and not knowing where exactly to find Feron, the mermaid druid wildshaped into the form of an albatross and focused her attention on the <em>dolphin necklace</em> that Feron wore around her neck - that indeed, she was wearing now. For an entire week the Lady Dorca had flown, covering thousands of miles, catching only brief snatches of sleep while on the wing, until she had finally arrived here before an astonished Feron.</p><p></p><p>"We're responsible for this," Feron remarked to the others, speaking in the Common tongue. "We freed Nakariah from his prison; we've got to stop him."</p><p></p><p>"Um, yeah," agreed Thunderwolf. "I don't think that whole 'destroy the sun' thing is going to work out very well for us, otherwise."</p><p></p><p>"Have fun with that," replied Rale. "Undead liches, underwater combat...I'll go wake up Cal."</p><p></p><p>"Will we not assist the others?" asked Dez.</p><p></p><p>"I'm sorry," said Feron, clearly puzzled. "Just who are you again?"</p><p></p><p>"Dez Honeytongue," replied the actress, extending a hand. "I work for Rale." Feron noted that Dez was wearing a nightgown and Rale was still in his own sleepwear, and mentally assessed just what her duties for Rale consisted of.</p><p></p><p>"We're working on a play," called Rale over his shoulder as he approached the cleric of Kord's bedroom door. "Cal!" he cried, pounding on the door. "Wakey wakey!"</p><p></p><p>The group quickly outlined a plan. After awakening the rest of the heroes and explaining the situation, they jointly decided who would be doing what. The primary team would consist of Akari, Cal, Chalkan, Feron, and Thunderwolf, with the others acting as a ready reserve. Delphyne would act as the means of transportation; with two readied <em>greater teleport</em> spells she could drop the primary team off at the trench (after having been given a very detailed description by Feron, the only one of the group of heroes who had actually been at the top of the trench with Princess Cerulea to summon Dragon Turtle Goruka) and then return back to Guild Headquarters. The spellcasters prepared their spells, ensuring they had a way to provide a means of breathing water for each of the primary team. (Cal had a <em>necklace of adaptation</em> that would see to his needs, Feron planned to wildshape into a mermaid using the power of her <em>dolphin necklace</em>, and Akari had a <em>potion of water breathing</em>; the Lady Dorca could bestow water breathing upon Chalkan with a kiss, so that left only Delphyne and Thunderwolf needing <em>water breathing</em> spells.)</p><p></p><p>But before the group teleported off, Cal took the opportunity to cast a high-level divination spell, <em>discern location</em>. Surprisingly, the answer he got back from his spell indicated that the lich was not at his lair in the underwater trench, but rather heading across the ocean towards the Wild Coast on the northern continent. There was a brief discussion about whether they wanted to teleport to try to meet up with the lich, but this notion was quickly discarded; much better, argued Akari, thinking back on their encounters with the gnome lich Drago Von Mordak, to visit the Lich-King's lair when he wasn't around so they could find and destroy his phylactery. That way, when they did encounter him - and hopefully destroyed him - he wouldn't be able to remanifest.</p><p></p><p>"I'm still not going," replied Rale. "Even if the lich isn't there, he's liable to have other undead types in his lair. That's more up your alley, Cal." While the cleric of Kord readily agreed, he wasn't aware that the primary reason for Rale's decision remained unspoken: mainly, Rale didn't want to take any chance at all that he might meet up with another kraken like the one that had killed him so long ago (and devoured his beloved sword, <em>Liverwurst</em>).</p><p></p><p>"Are we ready to go?" asked the cleric. Everyone was; the spellcasters ensured everyone would be able to breathe underwater once they got there, and then Delphyne voiced the words to her <em>greater teleport</em> spell and the primary team - and the Lady Dorca - popped out of view.</p><p></p><p>A moment later, the young witch popped back into the living room of the Wing Three quarters, dripping wet and coughing water out of her lungs. "They're there," she announced to the others. Galrich and Aerik nodded, their weapons at the ready in case they were called in for backup. Telgrane sat on the sofa, brooding, realizing that an underwater adventure was not the optimal environment for a half-fire elemental wizard - and especially not for a fire elemental familiar!</p><p></p><p>Unnoticed by the others, Rale and Dez snuck quietly back into the rogue's bedroom, closing the door quietly behind them.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>The group stood at the edge of the trench, looking down. The sun-dappled light that reached them from above didn't extend very much farther down the trench, which looked to be cloaked in absolute darkness not much deeper below where they stood. Akari shucked off his backpack and passed around sunrods to everyone. Now that Delphyne had teleported back to Headquarters and the Lady Dorca had said her farewells, eager to return to her people, there were just the five of them.</p><p></p><p>"Any thoughts as to how we're going to climb down there?" asked Thunderwolf.</p><p></p><p>"I plan on just swimming down," replied Feron, having already assumed the form of a mermaid via her wildshaping abilities. "I can probably help keep one of you from falling all the way down the trench."</p><p></p><p>"I've got my <em>boots of levitation</em>," remarked Akari, "so I should be able to rise and fall at will." He removed a ring from his finger and held it out. "One of you could wear my <em>ring of feather falling</em>, so if you fall off the edge of the cliff here you won't fall very fast."</p><p></p><p>"Dibs!" cried out Thunderwolf as he reached for the ring, having long ago adopted the custom of the group of adventurers his uncle had paired him up with. Cal wore a similar ring, so Chalkan was the only one without any special protection. Feron and Akari vowed to stick by the half-elven archer to keep him out of trouble during the descent. The spellcasters began casting their standard protective spells: Feron not only cast her customary <em>stoneskin</em> spell, but she and Cal cast a <em>death ward</em> on themselves and the two swordsmen (Akari cast one on himself as well), and the cleric also cast a <em>freedom of movement</em> that he figured would be useful. Finally, suspecting that there would be undead creatures protecting Nakariah's lair, Cal cast a <em>hide from undead</em> spell upon the whole group.</p><p></p><p>"This is a big trench," remarked Chalkan. "How do we know we're in the right area?"</p><p></p><p>"All we have to go on is the Lady Dorca's story that Nakariah led his eel-men up from the trench, from the general vicinity of Dragon Turtle Goruka's lair. This is where Princess Cerulea and I stood when we summoned him - I remember that coral formation over there, the one that kind of looks like a deer's head."</p><p></p><p>"Then let's go," announced Cal, stepping down over the ledge. The others followed suit, with Feron swimming back and forth between the group to ensure they didn't need any rescuing from a poorly-placed foot during the descent.</p><p></p><p>The light quickly diminished, until the only source of illumination was from the five sunrods. It was a surreal feeling, not being able to see anything beyond the collected radius of the artificial illumination, and knowing there could be literally miles of cliff below you. The fact that their sunrods were also a beacon directing the local inhabitants to their location was not a comforting thought.</p><p></p><p>After an unknown length of time descending to an equally unknown depth, Feron called out that she saw some openings in the cliff below. They were all roughly at the same depth, with a large cavern to the left, a smaller one to the right of that one, and three much smaller openings even further to the right. An eel-man popped its head out of the second cavern, a sharp-looking spear wielded in its pincers, and it squinted up painfully at the strangers bringing light into this lightless world. He called a warning back to others in the dwelling - in the Aquan tongue, Feron noted - and then ducked back into the comforting darkness of his cave.</p><p></p><p>"We've got eel-men below!" Feron called up to the rest of her group. "I think we're here!"</p><p></p><p>Akari willed his boots to allow him to plummet down to the level of the ledge before the cave opening and kicked his way over to landing on firm ground. Hoardmaster was put to good use slicing into the first of two eel-men who stood guarding the entrance, the evil in their souls quite evident to the paladin's senses. Akari could see there were two more anguillians behind the first two; they looked to have been crafting additional spears. All of the eel-men seemed discomforted by the unaccustomed illumination.</p><p></p><p>Chalkan dropped close enough to the cavern's opening to fire a seeking arrow at one of the anguillians facing Akari. The eel-man was quite shocked by the arrow which raced down from above and made a right angle turn to strike him directly in the chest.</p><p></p><p>Thunderwolf was the next to drop down, and he landed next to the paladin. The fighter swung a magical longsword, eschewing the use of <em>Xanthros</em> for fear of losing him down the trench. The sentient blade grumbled in his scabbard, but begrudgingly took it as an estimation of the value Thunderwolf placed upon him. It didn't look like Feron would be able to reach the enemies in her present form, so she wildshaped for a second time that morning, this time assuming the form of a Large water elemental. With her extended reach, she was able to punch at the anguillian Akari was currently facing.</p><p></p><p>But the eel-men were not without allies themselves. With a whistle, one of the anguillian rangers called forth two fiendish dire eels from their nook-holes off to the right. One swam to attack Akari, while the other made straight for Chalkan, who was still descending down to the level of the open caverns. Feron swung around and grappled the one who had been heading for Akari, tucking its head under a watery appendage and repeatedly pounding it in the face with her other fist. The remaining dire eel took a quick bite at Chalkan, but then its intended prey was suddenly snatched away.</p><p></p><p>Rale had been smart to have stayed on the reserve team for this outing, for a kraken swam out of the large cavern to the left and snagged at Chalkan, entangling him in a rubbery tentacle. The half-elf archer was aghast to see that this was no ordinary kraken, either, as evidenced by the patches of rubbery flesh missing from its form; he was suddenly very glad for the <em>death ward</em> spell Cal had cast upon him earlier, preventing the kraken's touch from draining him of life energy. The fact that the undead kraken could see the heroes at all merely indicated it was no mindless undead like a mere zombie, but a type retaining its own intelligence - and a formidable willpower as well, to break through Cal's <em>hide from undead</em> spell.</p><p></p><p>Attempting to free himself from the kraken's embrace with the strength of his own muscles and seeing how useless a game that was likely to be, Chalkan put his sorcerer skills to good use. Casting a <em>blink</em> spell upon himself, he snuck away from the beast through the Ethereal Plane. While he was at it, he walked his way through the solid rock and into the cave of the eel-men, then realized that any arrows he might shoot while the <em>blink</em> spell remained in effect would likely spend a good deal of time traveling through the Ethereal Plane (and thus not be significantly slowed by the water), and made ready to put his White-Wood Whisperbow to good use.</p><p></p><p>Cal dropped down to the eel-men's ledge and joined Thunderwolf in attacking the anguillians, as Akari turned to face the undead kraken. He leapt out at it with sword in hand, but was intercepted by a tentacle and soon found himself wrapped up in the same fashion as that Chalkan had just escaped. But although his legs were bound tightly, his hands - and, more importantly, his enchanted sword Hoardmaster - were free. Calling out to his god Hieroneous, Akari channeled a full day's worth of his ability to smite evil in a quartet of strikes with his sword, each hit stripping rotting flesh from the kraken wight, until its lifeless body fell down the side of the trench wall. Its tentacles released their grip upon Akari as it died, and he cut the tip of one off before it fell away from him. Grinning, the paladin stuffed the rotting tentacle into the extradimensional space in his magical haversack, with the mischievous thought of showing it to Rale when they got back.</p><p></p><p>However, the second fiendish dire eel had by this time targeted the paladin as his next meal, and Akari found himself fighting for his life against what seemed to be a near-infinite set of sharp, curved teeth. The eel instinctively activated its smite good ability, sensing in the paladin an opportunity it had had such few instances to use in its life. Akari felt himself blacking out, his unconscious body held in position by the power of his <em>boots of levitation</em>. Feron spotted that the paladin was in trouble, and called for one of the other divine spellcasters to go help him. Chalkan made it to Akari first and revived him with a charge from his <em>staff of healing</em>, fighting off the dire eel while he did so. The charge of healing energy was just enough to prevent the paladin from slipping into death, barely waking him to bleary consciousness.</p><p></p><p>During this time, another half dozen anguillians had swum up from a hole in the cavern's floor and spread out to attack Thunderwolf and Cal. The cleric and fighter were holding their own, and the eel-men weren't quite sure what to make of the arcane archer when Chalkan returned to the cavern by walking through the solid stone wall, and who then kept blinking in and out of existence at various spots all around them. But before too long, the original anguillian rangers lay dead upon the cavern floor, with most of the reinforcements joining them. The last eel-man turned to flee, but Chalkan tracked the curve of the passageway in the floor the anguillian had sped through, lined up his shot with a phase arrow, and sent it whizzing through the solid stone. Thunderwolf, no longer facing any enemies, hurried down the hole and confirmed the eel-man was dead, Chalkan's phase arrow having speared him in the back.</p><p></p><p>Cal cast a <em>mass heal</em> spell which gave Akari the strength and fortitude he needed to finish off the fiendish dire eel that had been attacking him. About the same time, Feron finally killed the one whose head she had pinned under her arm, having smashed its face in with her watery fist so many times it was spitting needlelike teeth out at an alarming rate. She finally snapped its neck and dropped it to fall in silence to the unseen bottom of the pitch-black trench.</p><p></p><p>The heroes gathered together in the anguillian cavern to regroup and have their wounds attended to. They realized that underwater, any open wound was sure to eventually attract sharks - or worse! - and they had already spilled quite a lot of blood, as well as having plenty of their own spilled as well. As soon as they had been healed up, they opted to move on. The first place they checked was the large cavern from which the undead kraken had appeared, figuring that he had made a more impressive guard beast than all of the anguillians combined. Examining the cave, Akari spotted a discarded <em>ring of water walking</em> and grabbed it up as communal loot, to be passed out later. (After all, it was of no use to any of the group right then, as they all needed to stay far under the surface of the ocean.) The only other items of any note were the five large pearls, each covered in etched runes and each slightly smaller than a clenched fist, embedded along the back half of the cavern, each one no closer than 10 feet from its nearest neighbor. Feron, still in her water elemental form but able to cast her spells while wildshaped, examined each pearl carefully with a <em>detect magic</em> spell and determined that the middle one held a necromantic effect, while the others dealt with teleportation magic. Akari tentatively touched one of the four teleport pearls, but nothing happened. The group quickly deduced that this was likely a way into Nakariah's true lair, for it made sense that an undead kraken would have no difficulty touching all four similar pearls at once. Still, they decided to check out the rest of the anguillian caverns before pressing on and testing their theory.</p><p></p><p>Continuing on through the tunnel the last eel-man had tried traversing before being cut down by Chalkan's phase arrow, the group exited into a large cavern. There was but a single anguillian there, this one significantly larger than the others they had encountered before, and he was at the far side of the cavern, over by an enormous clam. The group closed for combat, at which point Thunderwolf learned the hard way that these eel-men could attach themselves to a victim like a lamprey. The anguillian chieftain had chewed its way through Thunderwolf's flesh and was drinking in vast amounts of the fighter's blood before Feron grabbed him up in a watery hand, held Thunderwolf in the other, and vigorously pulled them apart. Thunderwolf screamed in pain and nearly passed out, but a quickly-cast healing spell soon had him feeling better.</p><p></p><p>The clam was heavy, but Cal helped heave it to one side, and as he had suspected, there was another tunnel directly below where it had sat - where the anguillian chieftain had shoved it into place before the heroes arrived. The short tunnel below led to a lower cavern, this one occupied by a small group of what the heroes assumed were the females of the tribe, considering their smaller size, their lack of weapons, and the numerous clutches of leathery eggs scattered along the cavern floor. Despite Akari determining that the females radiated evil as much as the males had, none of the group had the heart to cut them down. There were no further exits from the hatchery; the group backed away and returned to the undead kraken's lair.</p><p></p><p>"Is everybody ready?" asked Cal to the others, each stationed by one of the four teleport pearls. On his signal, the other four each touched the pearl in front of him or her, and the entire group found themselves instantly transported away.</p><p></p><p>They were now on the inside of a hollow sphere, the lower half of which was filled with water, and the upper half of which was filled with stale air. There was a stone walkway along the equator, and a stone throne jutting out over the surface of the pool. Behind the throne was a closed stone door.</p><p></p><p>The men pulled themselves up out of the water; Feron did the same and resumed her half-elven form while doing so. There was nothing of note by the throne, and the door proved to be locked - and likely <em>arcane locked</em> as well, judging by the difficulties it gave them in trying to smash their way in until Cal cast a <em>dispel magic</em> spell on the door. Soon thereafter, the group found themselves climbing a short flight of stairs leading to the intersection of two long rooms. To the left was a library; to the right, a magical laboratory.</p><p></p><p>Both rooms were filled with layers of dust. They went left and checked out the library first. Most of the books, tomes, and scrolls there dealt with the necromantic arts, although there were quite a few on celestial mechanics and astronomy. Two works were of note, as they lay open upon the sole table in the room: the first was a treatise on the <em>sphere of annihilation</em> and the <em>talisman of the sphere</em>; the other, an aged atlas of the northern continent. Looking closely, Feron saw a handwritten annotation along a section of the Wild Coast, which read "Pelor temp."</p><p></p><p>"It looks like whatever he's up to, it involves a temple of Pelor somewhere along the Wild Coast," she remarked to the others.</p><p></p><p>"That's where we'll need to go next, then," reasoned Cal, as Chalkan made himself useful dumping the arcane library's contents into an extradimensional space in their <em>Heward's handy haversack</em>. "But before we leave here, we need to find Nakariah's phylactery and destroy it."</p><p></p><p>"It's likely hidden from scrying," remarked Akari. "Remember, Joniah the Avenger destroyed Nakariah several times, but could never find his phylactery to prevent him from returning." After searching the room for possible phylactery hiding places and finding none, the group moved on to the laboratory. It was stocked with the standard equipment for brewing potions and magical oils, but all of the magical paraphernalia was covered in dust. An open closet in the back held shelves of what were likely spell components, most of it having rotted away centuries ago.</p><p></p><p>There was only one other exit from the laboratory; this led to a shrine. The prominent feature in the room was a bigger-than-life statue of a robed skeleton holding a staff in one hand with its other hand tucked into the folds of its robe. Feron cast another <em>detect magic</em> spell and learned that the large ruby that took the place of the only eye visible beneath the robe's hood radiated magic, as did the upper portion of the staff carried by what Cal belatedly realized was Vecna, the God of Secrets. Feron, after closer examination, discovered the ruby radiated powerful necromantic magic; they decided not to touch it. However, the staff's top radiated a magical aura associated with that of conjuration magic of the type focused on creation. Cal determined that the staff could likely be twisted to either the right or the left; picking the left at random, he caused toxic, yellowish fumes to rise up out of the floor - a <em>cloudkill</em> spell effect. The others rushed out of the room to avoid the spell's effects, while the cleric, immune to the vapors due to his <em>necklace of adaptation</em>, tried twisting the staff's tip in the opposite direction. After he did so, the entire statue of Vecna, plus the small plinth upon which it stood and the wall immediately behind it, slid to the left a good five feet, revealing a hidden passage leading further into darkness.</p><p></p><p>By this time, the others had noticed that the <em>cloudkill</em> spell effect was a variant, for it did not dissipate as the spell normally did, nor did it leave the vicinity of the room. Not wanting to waste the time to wait the spell effect out, Cal entered the hidden passageway, removed his magical necklace - for the poisonous vapors did not extend into the hallway with him - and slid it across the shrine room to the magical laboratory, where the others had fled. One at a time, the other heroes used the necklace to pass through the poisonous fumes in the Vecna shrine room.</p><p></p><p>There were two closed doors in the short hallway: one to the left and one directly ahead. Akari opened the closest, and was pleased to see the room was a treasure hoard, with chests of coins and gems, and, somewhat out of place, the massive skull of some carnivorous dinosaur. Feron, having entered behind the paladin, determined the skull had a magical aura and everyone quickly surmised that touching it was likely a bad idea.</p><p></p><p>Then, before the other three adventurers could enter the room, a net of chains fell from the ceiling upon the surprised paladin and druid. Immediately upon hitting them, it started rolling itself up and assuming a humanoid form - with Akari and Feron trapped inside it, pinned tightly and being slowly crushed to death. Feron managed to get off a <em>rusting grasp</em> spell, which disintegrated the chains in her immediate grasp, providing her a bit of breathing room. Akari struggled but could do little; fortunately, having assumed its humanoid form the chain golem was unable to entangle anyone else, so the combined forces of Chalkan, Cal, and Thunderwolf were enough to destroy the massive construct. Freeing Akari and Feron, they did a quick peek through the assorted items of treasure - spying a couple of <em>ioun stones</em>, a <em>crystal ball</em>, a <em>periapt of proof against poison</em>, and a magical helmet in amongst the coins, gems, and jewelry - but waited to claim anything for fear of setting off any additional traps.</p><p></p><p>Akari volunteered to open the final door, after he had determined it did not detect evil. However, while the door was nonmagical, the doorknob was not, and immediately after touching it Akari's world went dark. He gave a startled gasp of surprise, but was surprised to see that he made no sound at all. Experimenting, he quickly determined that he was not only blind, but mute as well. He turned to his companions, who immediately saw that the entirety of both of Akari's eyes were now pitch black. Cal cast a <em>break enchantment</em> spell upon Akari, and the paladin was relieved to find himself back to normal. One <em>dispel magic</em> spell later, the cleric reported the door was safe to open; unfortunately, it was locked beyond their ability to open it, so brute strength was their last resort. Infuriatingly, after having hacked the wooden door down to splinters, there was nothing on the other side but a stone wall - the whole thing was a trap, nothing more. And worse yet, this was the only door they hadn't been through yet.</p><p></p><p>That could only mean one thing, the group reasoned, and they spread out looking for secret doors. Feron was the first to discover it, right there in the hidden hallway, on the other side away from the treasury. By pushing an indentation in the stonework, a hidden door pivoted open.</p><p></p><p>"Good work!" commended Cal, stepping into the room. This was a larger room, some 25 feet to a side, with only one feature: a robed skeleton sitting in a throne carved from the very stone of the back wall. It held a metal staff etched with various runes across its lap, and stared unmoving at the intruders.</p><p></p><p>Akari burst into the room with Hoardmaster in hand, instinctively using his paladin's sight to determine if the skeleton was evil, and coming to a sudden halt upon learning it was not.</p><p></p><p>"What's wrong?" asked Chalkan, coming in behind Akari and poking the skeleton with his sword. It slid off of the throne, the staff making a clanging noise upon the stone floor. Akari spun all around, detecting to see if there was any evil to be found in the room, but there was nothing. The skeleton was just that, the remains of some poor human, not the animated kind. It appeared to be a decoy of some sort, which usually meant a trap....</p><p></p><p>Just as the paladin had finished reasoning that out, the first of the wraiths rose up silently from the floor. It struck out at Akari, its hand passing through the tiefling's body and robbing him of some of his vitality. Another flew into the room through a side wall, attempting to do the same to Cal, but he backed up a step and raised his holy symbol of Kord, blasting the undead into oblivion. Akari followed suit, and another handful of wraiths rose up through the floor, led by a truly enormous wraith which popped down out of the ceiling to attack Feron. But with Akari and Cal channeling the powers of their respective gods, the undead monstrosities were soon obliterated.</p><p></p><p>The throne proved to be unremarkable; the skeleton and staff nonmagical. However, after a few minutes of determined searching by the five adventurers, Thunderwolf finally discovered a chunk of stone in the wall by the corner that could be pulled out, and behind it was a silver chalice etched in runes. Close examination convinced both Akari and Cal - who had the most religious training - that the runes indicated they were a form of protection for a life-force; in short, a likely phylactery. Akari used <em>Deathstriker</em> - it seemed thematically appropriate - to smash the phylactery to pieces, then gathered them together and placed them into a belt pocket. He was now eager to meet up with Nakariah, for he longed to pull the smashed phylactery pieces out to display to the Lich-King just at the moment of his destruction.</p><p></p><p>"Now what?" asked Thunderwolf. "Do we head out to that temple of Pelor on the Wild Coast, or do we have time to go back to Headquarters first?"</p><p></p><p>Talking it over, Cal decided that the <em>discern location</em> spell he had cast that morning, the one which had determined the Lich-King was headed towards the Wild Coast, indicated that it would still likely take him the better part of a day to reach his destination. Deciding they'd have a better shot at the lich if they were all rested up and at full spellcasting power, they gathered up the treasure from Nakariah's hoard and used their Guild rings to bink back to Headquarters. Cal used their new <em>crystal ball</em> to scry upon the temple of Pelor, ensuring they'd have a good chance of teleporting there directly in the morning. They sent a Guild runner to the local temple of Pelor to explain the circumstances of their adventure, so the head cleric there could send word to the Wild Coast temple's head priest, giving him advance notice of the group's impending arrival the next day.</p><p></p><p>"We'd better get a good night's sleep," advised Cal. "Tomorrow's going to be a busy day."</p><p></p><p>"And an important one, too," added Thunderwolf. "It's not every day you have to fight to prevent the sun from being destroyed."</p><p></p><p>"This may well be the most serious threat we've ever faced," Feron predicted. The group apparently agreed, for there was nothing but somber faces in the Wing Three living quarters.</p><p></p><p>And then Akari remembered what he had stuffed away in his extradimensional haversack, and a broad grin spread across his fiendish features as he pulled a length of undead kraken tentacle out from his haversack and went to go find Rale.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6226249, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 75: TRENCH WARFARE[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Akari, tiefling paladin Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian/sorcerer/arcane archer Delphyne Babelberi, human witch (wizard) Feron Dru, half-elf druid Thunderwolf, human fighter[/INDENT] It was early morning in the Greyhawk City Adventurers Guild. Over in Wing Three, a few of the adventurers were up already and mucking about in the kitchen; Thunderwolf had declared it was his turn to make breakfast, and he was doing a credible job scrambling some eggs over the small cookfire. Chalkan had stumbled over to the sofa in the living room with a mug of tea, and Akari joined him there. Most of the others were still asleep in their rooms, but Feron had brought her clothes into the women's bathing room and stepped into the small pool of water, eager to have a good morning's soak before worrying about the events of the day to come. As she settled down into the warm, relaxing water, she heard some sort of a commotion going on downstairs. With a thought of "[i]It never fails![/i]" she listened to hear if the guys down in the living area could handle whatever the fuss was all about. Downstairs, the commotion was nothing any of the gathered heroes would have expected. There were shouts of surprise coming from the hallway below them, and the flapping of a great pair of wings. Akari and Chalkan looked over to the stairway leading up from the main hallway below, and Thunderwolf popped his head out of the kitchen in time to see a large, white sea bird flapping its way up the stairwell. Its massive wings slapped both opposite walls as it staggered its way up the stairwell, burst into the living area, and then flew up the shorter stairwell leading to the sleeping and bathing areas. Akari reflexively detected it for evil and relaxed when he saw it was not; only then did he realize that none of the adventurers were armed or wearing their armor, so he was a bit unsure of what he would have done had the albatross been a true threat. But he and Thunderwolf shared a puzzled look as the great seabird flapped its way to the closed door of the women's bathroom, turned the knob with a webbed foot, and staggered inside. Feron let loose an involuntary shriek of surprise as the albatross flopped to the floor, tripped its way across the room, and plopped into the pool with her. It completely submerged, and the young druid saw a dark figure heading her way under the water. It crossed the small pool and a moment later a humanlike face popped up before Feron, long hair plastered to the side of the elderly woman's head and a look of absolute exhaustion evident on her features. "Child of the Land," sputtered the Lady Dorca in the Druidic tongue, before collapsing unconscious into Feron's arms. - - - "She's in here," Feron gestured, leading the others into the women's bathroom. She'd hastily thrown on her clothes after dragging the Lady Dorca over to the side of the bathing pool. The elderly mermaid lay on her back, in a sleep so deep it almost seemed like a coma. Akari put a hand to the side of the mermaid's neck. "Her pulse is steady," he announced. "And I don't see any wounds." "I think it's just exhaustion," replied Feron. "You should have seen her face when she popped up out of the water." "Then let me try a [i]lesser restoration[/i] spell," said the paladin, laying his hands upon either side of the Lady Dorca's temples and speaking the words to his prayer. A deep sigh escaped from the lips of the elderly mermaid, and her eyes flickered open - only to gape widely at the sight of the tiefling bending over her. She sat up abruptly, arm raised as if to deflect a blow. Akari raised both hands to show they were empty, and backed away. Behind him, Rale poked his head through the open door, having been awakened at the commotion and eager for a legitimate opportunity to check out the women's bathroom. Standing behind him was a young woman none of the other heroes had seen before - this was [b]Desdemona "Dez" Honeytongue[/b], a wizard whose spell repertoire had been specifically selected to support her acting career, and the highest-ranking of the cohorts Rale had recently attained. Besides Dez, he now had a handful of human and halfling rogues and actors working for him. "We mean you no harm," replied Akari. "I'm Akari, and believe it or not we've met before; I just looked more elven back then, is all." The Lady Dorca looked around in confusion at the group, but then spotted Feron and devoted her attention to her. "Child of the Land!" she cried, again speaking in the special language of the druids. "I come with a warning of great danger!" She sat up and began her tale, pausing while Feron translated to the others. "My tribe has suffered terrible losses. They came suddenly, in the depths of the night, in great waves, like never before. Eel-men, anguillians, rising up from the depths of the great trench, to grab up our people and drag them, screaming, back down to the unknown deeps. We tried fighting back, but we were hopelessly outnumbered, and in the end all that we could do was to abandon our homes and flee far away to distant waters, knowing we’d likely never again see the waters of our births. "And overseeing this attack from the trenches was a monster, a man of bones built much like you are, with two legs in place of a tail, who stood upon the broad shell of Dragon Turtle Goruka commanding his vile troops. Noble Goruka is no longer our tribal protector; he was apparently slain by this man of bones and reborn as a thing of death. "I do not know what has become of those of our people who were taken back to the lightless depths of the trench, but I fear they have all been slain. But after seeing Princess Cerulea and the remains of our tribe to safety, I knew I must find you, for this man of bones is a danger to more than just the sea-peoples living near the trench. During his attack, he said that our captives were just the first step in his plan, that he would have his revenge upon his captor, even if he had escaped the man of bones in death many centuries before, and that if he could not slay the pal-a-din" - and here her tongue tripped over the unfamiliar word - "he would slay the pal-a-din's god by killing the very sun itself!" "Pelor?" reasoned Thunderwolf, identifying the God of the Sun in the predominant pantheon of the region. The pieces were coming together in Akari's mind, and he felt a shiver run down his spine. A man of bones, a paladin of Pelor who was his captor many centuries before.... "Tell me," he asked, "did this man of bones have a name?" Feron translated the question for the mermaid, and likewise repeated her answer in the Common tongue for the benefit of the others. "Yes," confirmed the Lady Dorca. "He called himself 'Nakariah, the Lich-King.'" Continuing her tale, the mermaid reported that Nakariah's attack upon the merfolk village had happened a full week ago. After fleeing with the remains of the tribe, the Lady Dorca knew of only one druid who might be able to counter this threat: Feron, with her group of fellow adventurers. Lacking the ability to teleport and not knowing where exactly to find Feron, the mermaid druid wildshaped into the form of an albatross and focused her attention on the [i]dolphin necklace[/i] that Feron wore around her neck - that indeed, she was wearing now. For an entire week the Lady Dorca had flown, covering thousands of miles, catching only brief snatches of sleep while on the wing, until she had finally arrived here before an astonished Feron. "We're responsible for this," Feron remarked to the others, speaking in the Common tongue. "We freed Nakariah from his prison; we've got to stop him." "Um, yeah," agreed Thunderwolf. "I don't think that whole 'destroy the sun' thing is going to work out very well for us, otherwise." "Have fun with that," replied Rale. "Undead liches, underwater combat...I'll go wake up Cal." "Will we not assist the others?" asked Dez. "I'm sorry," said Feron, clearly puzzled. "Just who are you again?" "Dez Honeytongue," replied the actress, extending a hand. "I work for Rale." Feron noted that Dez was wearing a nightgown and Rale was still in his own sleepwear, and mentally assessed just what her duties for Rale consisted of. "We're working on a play," called Rale over his shoulder as he approached the cleric of Kord's bedroom door. "Cal!" he cried, pounding on the door. "Wakey wakey!" The group quickly outlined a plan. After awakening the rest of the heroes and explaining the situation, they jointly decided who would be doing what. The primary team would consist of Akari, Cal, Chalkan, Feron, and Thunderwolf, with the others acting as a ready reserve. Delphyne would act as the means of transportation; with two readied [i]greater teleport[/i] spells she could drop the primary team off at the trench (after having been given a very detailed description by Feron, the only one of the group of heroes who had actually been at the top of the trench with Princess Cerulea to summon Dragon Turtle Goruka) and then return back to Guild Headquarters. The spellcasters prepared their spells, ensuring they had a way to provide a means of breathing water for each of the primary team. (Cal had a [i]necklace of adaptation[/i] that would see to his needs, Feron planned to wildshape into a mermaid using the power of her [i]dolphin necklace[/i], and Akari had a [i]potion of water breathing[/i]; the Lady Dorca could bestow water breathing upon Chalkan with a kiss, so that left only Delphyne and Thunderwolf needing [i]water breathing[/i] spells.) But before the group teleported off, Cal took the opportunity to cast a high-level divination spell, [i]discern location[/i]. Surprisingly, the answer he got back from his spell indicated that the lich was not at his lair in the underwater trench, but rather heading across the ocean towards the Wild Coast on the northern continent. There was a brief discussion about whether they wanted to teleport to try to meet up with the lich, but this notion was quickly discarded; much better, argued Akari, thinking back on their encounters with the gnome lich Drago Von Mordak, to visit the Lich-King's lair when he wasn't around so they could find and destroy his phylactery. That way, when they did encounter him - and hopefully destroyed him - he wouldn't be able to remanifest. "I'm still not going," replied Rale. "Even if the lich isn't there, he's liable to have other undead types in his lair. That's more up your alley, Cal." While the cleric of Kord readily agreed, he wasn't aware that the primary reason for Rale's decision remained unspoken: mainly, Rale didn't want to take any chance at all that he might meet up with another kraken like the one that had killed him so long ago (and devoured his beloved sword, [i]Liverwurst[/i]). "Are we ready to go?" asked the cleric. Everyone was; the spellcasters ensured everyone would be able to breathe underwater once they got there, and then Delphyne voiced the words to her [i]greater teleport[/i] spell and the primary team - and the Lady Dorca - popped out of view. A moment later, the young witch popped back into the living room of the Wing Three quarters, dripping wet and coughing water out of her lungs. "They're there," she announced to the others. Galrich and Aerik nodded, their weapons at the ready in case they were called in for backup. Telgrane sat on the sofa, brooding, realizing that an underwater adventure was not the optimal environment for a half-fire elemental wizard - and especially not for a fire elemental familiar! Unnoticed by the others, Rale and Dez snuck quietly back into the rogue's bedroom, closing the door quietly behind them. - - - The group stood at the edge of the trench, looking down. The sun-dappled light that reached them from above didn't extend very much farther down the trench, which looked to be cloaked in absolute darkness not much deeper below where they stood. Akari shucked off his backpack and passed around sunrods to everyone. Now that Delphyne had teleported back to Headquarters and the Lady Dorca had said her farewells, eager to return to her people, there were just the five of them. "Any thoughts as to how we're going to climb down there?" asked Thunderwolf. "I plan on just swimming down," replied Feron, having already assumed the form of a mermaid via her wildshaping abilities. "I can probably help keep one of you from falling all the way down the trench." "I've got my [i]boots of levitation[/i]," remarked Akari, "so I should be able to rise and fall at will." He removed a ring from his finger and held it out. "One of you could wear my [i]ring of feather falling[/i], so if you fall off the edge of the cliff here you won't fall very fast." "Dibs!" cried out Thunderwolf as he reached for the ring, having long ago adopted the custom of the group of adventurers his uncle had paired him up with. Cal wore a similar ring, so Chalkan was the only one without any special protection. Feron and Akari vowed to stick by the half-elven archer to keep him out of trouble during the descent. The spellcasters began casting their standard protective spells: Feron not only cast her customary [i]stoneskin[/i] spell, but she and Cal cast a [i]death ward[/i] on themselves and the two swordsmen (Akari cast one on himself as well), and the cleric also cast a [i]freedom of movement[/i] that he figured would be useful. Finally, suspecting that there would be undead creatures protecting Nakariah's lair, Cal cast a [i]hide from undead[/i] spell upon the whole group. "This is a big trench," remarked Chalkan. "How do we know we're in the right area?" "All we have to go on is the Lady Dorca's story that Nakariah led his eel-men up from the trench, from the general vicinity of Dragon Turtle Goruka's lair. This is where Princess Cerulea and I stood when we summoned him - I remember that coral formation over there, the one that kind of looks like a deer's head." "Then let's go," announced Cal, stepping down over the ledge. The others followed suit, with Feron swimming back and forth between the group to ensure they didn't need any rescuing from a poorly-placed foot during the descent. The light quickly diminished, until the only source of illumination was from the five sunrods. It was a surreal feeling, not being able to see anything beyond the collected radius of the artificial illumination, and knowing there could be literally miles of cliff below you. The fact that their sunrods were also a beacon directing the local inhabitants to their location was not a comforting thought. After an unknown length of time descending to an equally unknown depth, Feron called out that she saw some openings in the cliff below. They were all roughly at the same depth, with a large cavern to the left, a smaller one to the right of that one, and three much smaller openings even further to the right. An eel-man popped its head out of the second cavern, a sharp-looking spear wielded in its pincers, and it squinted up painfully at the strangers bringing light into this lightless world. He called a warning back to others in the dwelling - in the Aquan tongue, Feron noted - and then ducked back into the comforting darkness of his cave. "We've got eel-men below!" Feron called up to the rest of her group. "I think we're here!" Akari willed his boots to allow him to plummet down to the level of the ledge before the cave opening and kicked his way over to landing on firm ground. Hoardmaster was put to good use slicing into the first of two eel-men who stood guarding the entrance, the evil in their souls quite evident to the paladin's senses. Akari could see there were two more anguillians behind the first two; they looked to have been crafting additional spears. All of the eel-men seemed discomforted by the unaccustomed illumination. Chalkan dropped close enough to the cavern's opening to fire a seeking arrow at one of the anguillians facing Akari. The eel-man was quite shocked by the arrow which raced down from above and made a right angle turn to strike him directly in the chest. Thunderwolf was the next to drop down, and he landed next to the paladin. The fighter swung a magical longsword, eschewing the use of [i]Xanthros[/i] for fear of losing him down the trench. The sentient blade grumbled in his scabbard, but begrudgingly took it as an estimation of the value Thunderwolf placed upon him. It didn't look like Feron would be able to reach the enemies in her present form, so she wildshaped for a second time that morning, this time assuming the form of a Large water elemental. With her extended reach, she was able to punch at the anguillian Akari was currently facing. But the eel-men were not without allies themselves. With a whistle, one of the anguillian rangers called forth two fiendish dire eels from their nook-holes off to the right. One swam to attack Akari, while the other made straight for Chalkan, who was still descending down to the level of the open caverns. Feron swung around and grappled the one who had been heading for Akari, tucking its head under a watery appendage and repeatedly pounding it in the face with her other fist. The remaining dire eel took a quick bite at Chalkan, but then its intended prey was suddenly snatched away. Rale had been smart to have stayed on the reserve team for this outing, for a kraken swam out of the large cavern to the left and snagged at Chalkan, entangling him in a rubbery tentacle. The half-elf archer was aghast to see that this was no ordinary kraken, either, as evidenced by the patches of rubbery flesh missing from its form; he was suddenly very glad for the [i]death ward[/i] spell Cal had cast upon him earlier, preventing the kraken's touch from draining him of life energy. The fact that the undead kraken could see the heroes at all merely indicated it was no mindless undead like a mere zombie, but a type retaining its own intelligence - and a formidable willpower as well, to break through Cal's [i]hide from undead[/i] spell. Attempting to free himself from the kraken's embrace with the strength of his own muscles and seeing how useless a game that was likely to be, Chalkan put his sorcerer skills to good use. Casting a [i]blink[/i] spell upon himself, he snuck away from the beast through the Ethereal Plane. While he was at it, he walked his way through the solid rock and into the cave of the eel-men, then realized that any arrows he might shoot while the [i]blink[/i] spell remained in effect would likely spend a good deal of time traveling through the Ethereal Plane (and thus not be significantly slowed by the water), and made ready to put his White-Wood Whisperbow to good use. Cal dropped down to the eel-men's ledge and joined Thunderwolf in attacking the anguillians, as Akari turned to face the undead kraken. He leapt out at it with sword in hand, but was intercepted by a tentacle and soon found himself wrapped up in the same fashion as that Chalkan had just escaped. But although his legs were bound tightly, his hands - and, more importantly, his enchanted sword Hoardmaster - were free. Calling out to his god Hieroneous, Akari channeled a full day's worth of his ability to smite evil in a quartet of strikes with his sword, each hit stripping rotting flesh from the kraken wight, until its lifeless body fell down the side of the trench wall. Its tentacles released their grip upon Akari as it died, and he cut the tip of one off before it fell away from him. Grinning, the paladin stuffed the rotting tentacle into the extradimensional space in his magical haversack, with the mischievous thought of showing it to Rale when they got back. However, the second fiendish dire eel had by this time targeted the paladin as his next meal, and Akari found himself fighting for his life against what seemed to be a near-infinite set of sharp, curved teeth. The eel instinctively activated its smite good ability, sensing in the paladin an opportunity it had had such few instances to use in its life. Akari felt himself blacking out, his unconscious body held in position by the power of his [i]boots of levitation[/i]. Feron spotted that the paladin was in trouble, and called for one of the other divine spellcasters to go help him. Chalkan made it to Akari first and revived him with a charge from his [i]staff of healing[/i], fighting off the dire eel while he did so. The charge of healing energy was just enough to prevent the paladin from slipping into death, barely waking him to bleary consciousness. During this time, another half dozen anguillians had swum up from a hole in the cavern's floor and spread out to attack Thunderwolf and Cal. The cleric and fighter were holding their own, and the eel-men weren't quite sure what to make of the arcane archer when Chalkan returned to the cavern by walking through the solid stone wall, and who then kept blinking in and out of existence at various spots all around them. But before too long, the original anguillian rangers lay dead upon the cavern floor, with most of the reinforcements joining them. The last eel-man turned to flee, but Chalkan tracked the curve of the passageway in the floor the anguillian had sped through, lined up his shot with a phase arrow, and sent it whizzing through the solid stone. Thunderwolf, no longer facing any enemies, hurried down the hole and confirmed the eel-man was dead, Chalkan's phase arrow having speared him in the back. Cal cast a [i]mass heal[/i] spell which gave Akari the strength and fortitude he needed to finish off the fiendish dire eel that had been attacking him. About the same time, Feron finally killed the one whose head she had pinned under her arm, having smashed its face in with her watery fist so many times it was spitting needlelike teeth out at an alarming rate. She finally snapped its neck and dropped it to fall in silence to the unseen bottom of the pitch-black trench. The heroes gathered together in the anguillian cavern to regroup and have their wounds attended to. They realized that underwater, any open wound was sure to eventually attract sharks - or worse! - and they had already spilled quite a lot of blood, as well as having plenty of their own spilled as well. As soon as they had been healed up, they opted to move on. The first place they checked was the large cavern from which the undead kraken had appeared, figuring that he had made a more impressive guard beast than all of the anguillians combined. Examining the cave, Akari spotted a discarded [i]ring of water walking[/i] and grabbed it up as communal loot, to be passed out later. (After all, it was of no use to any of the group right then, as they all needed to stay far under the surface of the ocean.) The only other items of any note were the five large pearls, each covered in etched runes and each slightly smaller than a clenched fist, embedded along the back half of the cavern, each one no closer than 10 feet from its nearest neighbor. Feron, still in her water elemental form but able to cast her spells while wildshaped, examined each pearl carefully with a [i]detect magic[/i] spell and determined that the middle one held a necromantic effect, while the others dealt with teleportation magic. Akari tentatively touched one of the four teleport pearls, but nothing happened. The group quickly deduced that this was likely a way into Nakariah's true lair, for it made sense that an undead kraken would have no difficulty touching all four similar pearls at once. Still, they decided to check out the rest of the anguillian caverns before pressing on and testing their theory. Continuing on through the tunnel the last eel-man had tried traversing before being cut down by Chalkan's phase arrow, the group exited into a large cavern. There was but a single anguillian there, this one significantly larger than the others they had encountered before, and he was at the far side of the cavern, over by an enormous clam. The group closed for combat, at which point Thunderwolf learned the hard way that these eel-men could attach themselves to a victim like a lamprey. The anguillian chieftain had chewed its way through Thunderwolf's flesh and was drinking in vast amounts of the fighter's blood before Feron grabbed him up in a watery hand, held Thunderwolf in the other, and vigorously pulled them apart. Thunderwolf screamed in pain and nearly passed out, but a quickly-cast healing spell soon had him feeling better. The clam was heavy, but Cal helped heave it to one side, and as he had suspected, there was another tunnel directly below where it had sat - where the anguillian chieftain had shoved it into place before the heroes arrived. The short tunnel below led to a lower cavern, this one occupied by a small group of what the heroes assumed were the females of the tribe, considering their smaller size, their lack of weapons, and the numerous clutches of leathery eggs scattered along the cavern floor. Despite Akari determining that the females radiated evil as much as the males had, none of the group had the heart to cut them down. There were no further exits from the hatchery; the group backed away and returned to the undead kraken's lair. "Is everybody ready?" asked Cal to the others, each stationed by one of the four teleport pearls. On his signal, the other four each touched the pearl in front of him or her, and the entire group found themselves instantly transported away. They were now on the inside of a hollow sphere, the lower half of which was filled with water, and the upper half of which was filled with stale air. There was a stone walkway along the equator, and a stone throne jutting out over the surface of the pool. Behind the throne was a closed stone door. The men pulled themselves up out of the water; Feron did the same and resumed her half-elven form while doing so. There was nothing of note by the throne, and the door proved to be locked - and likely [i]arcane locked[/i] as well, judging by the difficulties it gave them in trying to smash their way in until Cal cast a [i]dispel magic[/i] spell on the door. Soon thereafter, the group found themselves climbing a short flight of stairs leading to the intersection of two long rooms. To the left was a library; to the right, a magical laboratory. Both rooms were filled with layers of dust. They went left and checked out the library first. Most of the books, tomes, and scrolls there dealt with the necromantic arts, although there were quite a few on celestial mechanics and astronomy. Two works were of note, as they lay open upon the sole table in the room: the first was a treatise on the [i]sphere of annihilation[/i] and the [i]talisman of the sphere[/i]; the other, an aged atlas of the northern continent. Looking closely, Feron saw a handwritten annotation along a section of the Wild Coast, which read "Pelor temp." "It looks like whatever he's up to, it involves a temple of Pelor somewhere along the Wild Coast," she remarked to the others. "That's where we'll need to go next, then," reasoned Cal, as Chalkan made himself useful dumping the arcane library's contents into an extradimensional space in their [i]Heward's handy haversack[/i]. "But before we leave here, we need to find Nakariah's phylactery and destroy it." "It's likely hidden from scrying," remarked Akari. "Remember, Joniah the Avenger destroyed Nakariah several times, but could never find his phylactery to prevent him from returning." After searching the room for possible phylactery hiding places and finding none, the group moved on to the laboratory. It was stocked with the standard equipment for brewing potions and magical oils, but all of the magical paraphernalia was covered in dust. An open closet in the back held shelves of what were likely spell components, most of it having rotted away centuries ago. There was only one other exit from the laboratory; this led to a shrine. The prominent feature in the room was a bigger-than-life statue of a robed skeleton holding a staff in one hand with its other hand tucked into the folds of its robe. Feron cast another [i]detect magic[/i] spell and learned that the large ruby that took the place of the only eye visible beneath the robe's hood radiated magic, as did the upper portion of the staff carried by what Cal belatedly realized was Vecna, the God of Secrets. Feron, after closer examination, discovered the ruby radiated powerful necromantic magic; they decided not to touch it. However, the staff's top radiated a magical aura associated with that of conjuration magic of the type focused on creation. Cal determined that the staff could likely be twisted to either the right or the left; picking the left at random, he caused toxic, yellowish fumes to rise up out of the floor - a [i]cloudkill[/i] spell effect. The others rushed out of the room to avoid the spell's effects, while the cleric, immune to the vapors due to his [i]necklace of adaptation[/i], tried twisting the staff's tip in the opposite direction. After he did so, the entire statue of Vecna, plus the small plinth upon which it stood and the wall immediately behind it, slid to the left a good five feet, revealing a hidden passage leading further into darkness. By this time, the others had noticed that the [i]cloudkill[/i] spell effect was a variant, for it did not dissipate as the spell normally did, nor did it leave the vicinity of the room. Not wanting to waste the time to wait the spell effect out, Cal entered the hidden passageway, removed his magical necklace - for the poisonous vapors did not extend into the hallway with him - and slid it across the shrine room to the magical laboratory, where the others had fled. One at a time, the other heroes used the necklace to pass through the poisonous fumes in the Vecna shrine room. There were two closed doors in the short hallway: one to the left and one directly ahead. Akari opened the closest, and was pleased to see the room was a treasure hoard, with chests of coins and gems, and, somewhat out of place, the massive skull of some carnivorous dinosaur. Feron, having entered behind the paladin, determined the skull had a magical aura and everyone quickly surmised that touching it was likely a bad idea. Then, before the other three adventurers could enter the room, a net of chains fell from the ceiling upon the surprised paladin and druid. Immediately upon hitting them, it started rolling itself up and assuming a humanoid form - with Akari and Feron trapped inside it, pinned tightly and being slowly crushed to death. Feron managed to get off a [i]rusting grasp[/i] spell, which disintegrated the chains in her immediate grasp, providing her a bit of breathing room. Akari struggled but could do little; fortunately, having assumed its humanoid form the chain golem was unable to entangle anyone else, so the combined forces of Chalkan, Cal, and Thunderwolf were enough to destroy the massive construct. Freeing Akari and Feron, they did a quick peek through the assorted items of treasure - spying a couple of [i]ioun stones[/i], a [i]crystal ball[/i], a [i]periapt of proof against poison[/i], and a magical helmet in amongst the coins, gems, and jewelry - but waited to claim anything for fear of setting off any additional traps. Akari volunteered to open the final door, after he had determined it did not detect evil. However, while the door was nonmagical, the doorknob was not, and immediately after touching it Akari's world went dark. He gave a startled gasp of surprise, but was surprised to see that he made no sound at all. Experimenting, he quickly determined that he was not only blind, but mute as well. He turned to his companions, who immediately saw that the entirety of both of Akari's eyes were now pitch black. Cal cast a [i]break enchantment[/i] spell upon Akari, and the paladin was relieved to find himself back to normal. One [i]dispel magic[/i] spell later, the cleric reported the door was safe to open; unfortunately, it was locked beyond their ability to open it, so brute strength was their last resort. Infuriatingly, after having hacked the wooden door down to splinters, there was nothing on the other side but a stone wall - the whole thing was a trap, nothing more. And worse yet, this was the only door they hadn't been through yet. That could only mean one thing, the group reasoned, and they spread out looking for secret doors. Feron was the first to discover it, right there in the hidden hallway, on the other side away from the treasury. By pushing an indentation in the stonework, a hidden door pivoted open. "Good work!" commended Cal, stepping into the room. This was a larger room, some 25 feet to a side, with only one feature: a robed skeleton sitting in a throne carved from the very stone of the back wall. It held a metal staff etched with various runes across its lap, and stared unmoving at the intruders. Akari burst into the room with Hoardmaster in hand, instinctively using his paladin's sight to determine if the skeleton was evil, and coming to a sudden halt upon learning it was not. "What's wrong?" asked Chalkan, coming in behind Akari and poking the skeleton with his sword. It slid off of the throne, the staff making a clanging noise upon the stone floor. Akari spun all around, detecting to see if there was any evil to be found in the room, but there was nothing. The skeleton was just that, the remains of some poor human, not the animated kind. It appeared to be a decoy of some sort, which usually meant a trap.... Just as the paladin had finished reasoning that out, the first of the wraiths rose up silently from the floor. It struck out at Akari, its hand passing through the tiefling's body and robbing him of some of his vitality. Another flew into the room through a side wall, attempting to do the same to Cal, but he backed up a step and raised his holy symbol of Kord, blasting the undead into oblivion. Akari followed suit, and another handful of wraiths rose up through the floor, led by a truly enormous wraith which popped down out of the ceiling to attack Feron. But with Akari and Cal channeling the powers of their respective gods, the undead monstrosities were soon obliterated. The throne proved to be unremarkable; the skeleton and staff nonmagical. However, after a few minutes of determined searching by the five adventurers, Thunderwolf finally discovered a chunk of stone in the wall by the corner that could be pulled out, and behind it was a silver chalice etched in runes. Close examination convinced both Akari and Cal - who had the most religious training - that the runes indicated they were a form of protection for a life-force; in short, a likely phylactery. Akari used [i]Deathstriker[/i] - it seemed thematically appropriate - to smash the phylactery to pieces, then gathered them together and placed them into a belt pocket. He was now eager to meet up with Nakariah, for he longed to pull the smashed phylactery pieces out to display to the Lich-King just at the moment of his destruction. "Now what?" asked Thunderwolf. "Do we head out to that temple of Pelor on the Wild Coast, or do we have time to go back to Headquarters first?" Talking it over, Cal decided that the [i]discern location[/i] spell he had cast that morning, the one which had determined the Lich-King was headed towards the Wild Coast, indicated that it would still likely take him the better part of a day to reach his destination. Deciding they'd have a better shot at the lich if they were all rested up and at full spellcasting power, they gathered up the treasure from Nakariah's hoard and used their Guild rings to bink back to Headquarters. Cal used their new [i]crystal ball[/i] to scry upon the temple of Pelor, ensuring they'd have a good chance of teleporting there directly in the morning. They sent a Guild runner to the local temple of Pelor to explain the circumstances of their adventure, so the head cleric there could send word to the Wild Coast temple's head priest, giving him advance notice of the group's impending arrival the next day. "We'd better get a good night's sleep," advised Cal. "Tomorrow's going to be a busy day." "And an important one, too," added Thunderwolf. "It's not every day you have to fight to prevent the sun from being destroyed." "This may well be the most serious threat we've ever faced," Feron predicted. The group apparently agreed, for there was nothing but somber faces in the Wing Three living quarters. And then Akari remembered what he had stuffed away in his extradimensional haversack, and a broad grin spread across his fiendish features as he pulled a length of undead kraken tentacle out from his haversack and went to go find Rale. [/QUOTE]
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