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Wing Three
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6514733" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 89: A POX UPON YOU ALL!</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <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)/arch-witch</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Rale Bodkin, human rogue</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Telgrane, half-fire elemental human conjurer/archmage</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Thunderwolf, human fighter</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Desdemona Honeytongue, human wizard</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Streetweasel, human rogue</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Roughknuckles, half-orc fighter</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> "Shifty-Eye" Marcus, human rogue</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> K'Klark, kenku rogue</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Skrawk, kenku rogue</p><p></p><p></p><p>"We got us some big-time problems, boss!" said <strong>"Shifty-Eye" Marcus</strong>, one of the many rogues currently in Rale's employ. "There's this plan afoot to set off this big ritual across the whole of the city – it's gonna be plague rats, and attacks in the street, and people turning into zombies, and all kinds of nastiness! And we don’t have a lotta time to stop it!"</p><p></p><p>As per Rale's instructions to his numerous rogue hirelings, "Shifty-Eye" Marcus had infiltrated one of the many oddball cults headquartered in Greyhawk City. The cult he'd "joined" revered Incabulos, the God of Plagues, Sickness, Famine, Nightmares, Drought, and Disasters, and he'd just found out the cult leaders were planning a ritual which would unleash all manners of horrors upon the city. The four cult leaders - plus a Death-Priest of Orcus, Demon Lord of the Undead, who had his own reasons for wanting the Incabulos Ritual to succeed - were splitting up and heading to five different points across Greyhawk City, said points forming a gigantic pentagram when viewed from above, defining the ritual's area of effect. The lower-level cult members were all assigned to one of these five ritual teams, to ensure nobody got through to stop the rituals from occurring. "Shifty-Eye" Marcus had managed to drop back from his assigned group and high-tailed it to the Adventurers Guild Headquarters to brief his boss. On the way he was able to snag another four of Rale's followers and the five of them were ready to follow Rale's lead on what to do about the whole deal.</p><p></p><p>After explaining what he knew to Rale and the handful of Wing Three adventures on hand about what he'd discovered, "Shifty-Eye" Marcus explained the cult leaders were going to start the Incabulos Ritual when the bells of the city struck twelve noon - in just less than a half-hour.</p><p></p><p>"We need to stop those bells from ringing!" declared Rale. "Can we send some of the rest of the Guild to go stop them while we split up and try to take out the cult members?"</p><p></p><p>"Possible, but unlikely," countered Telgrane. "If there were just the one bell tower, then maybe - but there are bell towers all throughout the city. We'll probably not be able to get them all."</p><p></p><p>"Then we need to concentrate on stopping the rituals from succeeding," reasoned Rale. He turned to his wild-eyed follower, still wearing the robes of a member of the cult of Incabulos. "Where are the rituals going to be performed?"</p><p></p><p>"Shifty-Eye" Marcus ticked them off on his fingers. "There's an abandoned warehouse; a back alley in the Styes; in one of Lord Henway's hedge mazes; in the storeroom under Brody's Tavern; and in the carriage house of one of the nobles of the city. I briefed the guys on the way here" - here he indicated the four other members of Rale's team he'd managed to gather on the way to Guild HQ - "and they can lead each group to where they need to go. I've got the warehouse."</p><p></p><p>"I got the back alley in the Styes, boss," piped up <strong>K'Klark</strong>, one of two kenku rogues in Rale's employ.</p><p></p><p>"And I have the hedge maze," added his counterpart, <strong>Skrawk</strong>.</p><p></p><p>"I can lead you to the carriage house," said Streetweasel, a greasy-looking human rogue in black leather armor.</p><p></p><p>"And I've got Brody's Tavern," replied <strong>Roughknuckles</strong>, a burly half-orc thug. "They all know me there."</p><p></p><p>"Okay, guys, who's going where?" asked Rale. Then, as an afterthought, he addressed "Shifty-Eye" Marcus again. "Do we know who we'll be up against?"</p><p></p><p>"I dunno who's going where. I don't know much about the cult leaders, either, though at least one of 'em's supposed to be undead. One guy's got a skeleton arm - no kidding, his left arm's got no flesh on it. My money's on him bein' the undead guy. The rest is all guys in hooded robes, so I got no idea if they're clerics, or wizards, or what. Oh, but one of them's a hot elf chick - I forgot about her."</p><p></p><p>"Oh?" asked Rale. "And you're sure you don't know where's she going?"</p><p></p><p>"No idea," admitted "Shifty-Eye" Marcus. "Sorry, boss." Both Delphyne and Dez silently shook their heads in disbelief at observing Rale trying to find out which ritual location was going to involve a "hot elf chick."</p><p></p><p>"Okay, don't worry about it," said Rale, looking over at his cohort Dez's scowl, and doing his best to convey an expression of total innocence. "Okay, who's going where?" he repeated to the group at large.</p><p></p><p>"I'll take the carriage house," said Delphyne, not eager to go traipsing through abandoned warehouses or dealing with the squalor of the Styes if she could help it.</p><p></p><p>"I guess I'll take the warehouse," said Thunderwolf, thinking that a large, open space like a warehouse interior would give him plenty of room with which to put his archery skills to good use.</p><p></p><p>"I've got the hedge maze," said Telgrane, taking the opportunity to cast a <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em> on the five Guild adventurers, Dez, and Infernia.</p><p></p><p>Chalkan volunteered to take the Styes alley. "Then I've got Brody's Tavern," said Rale. "Roughknuckles, Dez, you're with me."</p><p></p><p>What followed next was the standard flurry of prepping-for-combat spells. Telgrane cast a pair of <em>flame arrow</em> spells on the ammunition in both Thunderwolf's and Chalkan's quivers, converting the fire damage to sonic through the use of his archmage training. Delphyne, Chalkan, and Telgrane each cast a <em>stoneskin</em> spell upon themselves, and the two kenkus were given the benefits of the same spell as well. Delphyne cast a <em>protection from evil</em> spell upon herself, Rale passed out <em>potions of cure light wounds</em> to all five of his followers, and then the group was ready to go their separate ways.</p><p></p><p>"Let's go," said the arch-witch to Streetweasel, activating her <em>broom of flying</em> and motioning for him to get behind her. "Just watch the hands," she warned, giving the oily rogue a warning glare to ensure he remained on his best behavior during their flight across the city. He hurried to comply, and they were off.</p><p></p><p>Thunderwolf unsheathed Xanthros and held it above his head, mentally summoning the sky-horse bound to his blade. A burst of electricity erupted from the blade and took the form of a ghostly horse; Thunderwolf leapt upon its back, followed by a rather more hesitant "Shifty-Eye" Marcus. Once they were both on the steed, it galloped through the Guild HQ, out the door, and took to the skies, heading to the warehouse district.</p><p></p><p>Chalkan cast a pair of <em>longstrider</em> spells upon himself and K'Klark. "Let's go!" he called to the kenku, who started sprinting in the direction of the Styes with the half-elf right behind him.</p><p></p><p>Rale led Dez and Roughknuckles to the Guild stables, where they mounted a pair of horses (Dez riding behind Rale) and dashed off towards Brody's Tavern.</p><p></p><p>Telgrane unrolled the <em>carpet of flying</em> from his back and stepped onto the front position, while Infernia resumed her ember form in mid-leap to her tinder box while Skrawk took his position behind the young archmage. Telgrane piloted the carpet out the nearest door and raised it to several dozen feet above the rooftops, aiming it in the direction of Lord Henway's Menagerie, where all manners of exotic beasts were kept in cages and several hedge mazes could be found.</p><p></p><p>By this time, it was a mere handful of minutes before noon. Whether the various teams would each make it to their destinations in time was open to speculation.</p><p></p><p>Thunderwolf and "Shifty-Eyes" Marcus were the first to arrive at their intended destination. "It's that one, there," the rogue pointed down from his perch behind the young fighter's flying, electrical steed. The warehouse he pointed to was a rather small building, with a pair of thugs in robes guarding the large doors in front and another pair guarding the side entrance by the loading dock. Thunderwolf had his aerial steed hold position in mid-air and sent a volley of arrows down at the two cultists guarding the loading dock doors; the four arrows struck true, and the guards collapsed to the ground, dead. The young fighter had his aerial steed land on the loading dock, and "Shifty-Eye" Marcus gratefully slid off the back of the sky-horse to regain his footing on solid ground. Thunderwolf likewise leapt from his mount and dismissed it back into his enchanted blade.</p><p></p><p>While his guide lugged the dead bodies out of the way, Thunderwolf opened the loading dock doors a crack and peered into the gloom of the warehouse. He saw a few scattered crates and a pile of wooden pallets stored in the corner, evidence of the building's original use. However, the floor of the wide open space now held a magical circle inscribed with dozens of arcane runes, around which stood twenty or more zombies. In the center of the circle stood a robed man wearing a horned helmet; once Thunderwolf got a look of the emblem on the front of his robes, he swore silently to himself, cursing his luck for having ended up with the Death-Priest of Orcus. The man, <strong>Chalmus Nighttide</strong>, looked to be in his late 50s, with a stern countenance that brooked no interference. He seemed to be performing warm-up exercises with his hands, as if getting himself ready for some serious spellcasting. Which made sense, because despite not having heard any bells yet, Thunderwolf supposed it was probably only minutes away from noon by now.</p><p></p><p><em>Well then, no point in waiting around</em>, thought Thunderwolf as he kicked the doors in, stepped into the warehouse, and shot at the Orcus priest. His arrow flew true, lodging into Chalmus's shoulder and eliciting a grunt of pain from the middle-aged spellcaster. With a motion, he sent two of his zombie servitors over to deal with the intrusion while he pulled the arrow out.</p><p></p><p>While this was occurring, across town Telgrane and Skrawk had reached the area above Lord Henway's Menagerie. There were several small hedge mazes in the park, but the archmage quickly focused on the one that was part of the Incabulos Ritual - it was, quite obviously, the one with the numerous rats crawling through the shrubbery to meet up in vast swarms at the maze's center, where stood the life-sized statue of Lord Henway himself. However, a magic circle of arcane runes entirely ringed the statue, and a wererat - currently in his hybrid form - stood there, focused on feeding a potion to one of the rats he had called to himself in preparation for the upcoming ritual. "Shifty-Eye" Marcus had mentioned something about plague rats; Telgrane supposed the ritual would infuse these rats into carriers of some vile disease to be spread throughout the city. (He was entirely correct, for the wererat - named <strong>Mange</strong> due to the numerous bald spots in his fur when in dire rat or hybrid forms - was the only nonspellcasting cult leader, and his job was to sacrifice a rat who had been fed a vial of the <em>virulence</em> disease upon the noontime signal, which would infuse the rats with the disease and allow it to be quickly spread throughout the city.) At the sole entrance and exit to the hedge maze stood two burly thugs in cult robes, wielding clubs to encourage others to stay away - as if the numerous rats still entering the maze from all sides weren't enough of an incentive.</p><p></p><p>Still, Telgrane had an easy way of dealing with this threat: not even bothering to alight from his <em>carpet of flying</em>, he cast a <em>meteor swarm</em> spell down upon the hedge maze, shaping the spell's energies to perfectly align with the spaces between the hedges, so as to burn the rats to a crisp without setting Lord Henway's shrubbery on fire. None of the rats survived this immediate onslaught; Mange staggered under the initial assault but remained on his feet - although only long enough for Infernia to leap down from her master's tinder box and finish him off. Unnoticed by the two on the <em>carpet of flying</em>, the two cultist thugs guarding the hedge maze looked over their shoulders at the sudden explosion of flame behind them, shared a frightened look at each other, and without a word each broke into a hard run, fleeing in opposite directions.</p><p></p><p>Telgrane reported his success to the other over the <em>telepathic bond</em>. "Great!" replied Rale. "I'm still on my way to the tavern!"</p><p></p><p>"I'm still in transit myself," added Delphyne. "Same here," chimed in Chalkan.</p><p></p><p>"I could use some help over here!" admitted Thunderwolf.</p><p></p><p>"Where are you, again?" asked Telgrane.</p><p></p><p>"Abandoned warehouse!" Thunderwolf reminded the archmage, while shaking off the effects of a spell that Chalmus had just cast on him, hoping to rob the fighter of his eyesight. He whipped out Xanthros and cut down the zombie standing in front of him, then slashed at the second one attempting to grab at "Shifty-Eye" Marcus, who stepped back out of range of the undead creature trying to kill him.</p><p></p><p>Telgrane lowered the carpet to allow Infernia to jump back into her tinder box, and then he cast a <em>teleport</em> spell, sending the carpet in the air above the warehouse district, figuring he could determine which warehouse Thunderwolf was at by the sounds of combat. Finding Thunderwolf was even easier than the archmage imagined; Chalmus Nighttide cast a <em>flame strike</em> spell at the loading bay door, capturing both intruders in its area of effect. Thunderwolf merely gritted through the pain, whereas "Shifty-Eye" Marcus staggered backwards in a daze, concentrating on not losing consciousness from the pain of the rain of fire. But the bright flash of flames drew Telgrane's flying carpet to land unerringly at the young fighter's side.</p><p></p><p>"Shifty-Eye" Marcus, singed almost to a crisp and feverishly concentrating on remaining conscious, did his best to swig down the <em>potion of cure light wounds</em> Rale had provided to all of his followers earlier. The potion likely saved his life; just to be safe, Skrawk pulled his fellow rogue out of harm's way, the pair of followers jointly deciding to let Rale's adventuring companions handle the threat.</p><p></p><p>Telgrane handled the threat in the warehouse with about the same level of ease as he did with the threat in Lord Henway's hedge maze. This time, instead of casting a spell, he called upon the energies from the Elemental Plane of Fire that burned within his own half-elemental body, manifesting another <em>firestorm</em> in the warehouse, which caught Chalmus and the zombies ringing the magic circle in its devastating area of effect. The zombies - all but the other one at the door, which Thunderwolf brought down with Xanthros - burst into flame and crumpled where they stood; Chalmus lasted but a few seconds longer, finally falling victim of Infernia's fiery embrace.</p><p></p><p>"Two down," Telgrane announced with satisfaction over the <em>telepathic bond</em>. "Any of you guys even make it to your designated targets yet?"</p><p></p><p>"Just pulling up now," replied Rale, as he and Dez jumped down from their horse in front of Brody's Tavern. Roughknuckles followed suit. Then, after a brief huddle, Dez cast an <em>invisibility</em> spell upon herself and Rale likewise vanished from view, using one of the powers of his <em>rod of thievery</em>. The two invisible adventurers followed the burly half-orc into the tavern.</p><p></p><p>Roughknuckles was well-known by the bar patrons, and by <strong>Brody</strong> himself, who kept bar with the help of his two nieces, <strong>Tabitha</strong> and <strong>Roxanne</strong>. Brody was a retired adventurer, his face and arms covered with numerous battle scars. "The usual?" he asked Roughknuckles, already filling a tankard with ale.</p><p></p><p>"Sounds about right," replied Roughknuckles, taking a place at the far end of the bar, away from the stairs leading down to the storeroom below. Rale and Dez, careful not to bump into anybody, climbed up onto and over the bar, sneaking down the stairs unseen and unheard.</p><p></p><p>"We're at the alley," suddenly announced Chalkan over the shared link, sounding a bit winded as he and K'Klark had run all the way at spell-enhanced speeds. "I see a couple of thugs guarding the alleyway." He and the kenku lined up their shots, let fly, and the two robed guards fell into the mud of the street. A quick peek around the corner revealed a dozen or more dire rats converged in the back of the alley between a half-dozen crumbling buildings. Standing among them was an overweight spellcaster in filthy robes, his most striking feature the enormous goiter growing from the side of his neck. K'Klark signaled to Chalkan that he was going to climb the nearest building and get a rooftop shot lined up; the half-elf nodded his agreement and gave a verbal description of his situation to the others over the <em>telepathic bond</em>.</p><p></p><p>"You want a hand?" offered Telgrane.</p><p></p><p>"Do you have a way to get here quickly?" countered Chalkan.</p><p></p><p>"I've got one more <em>teleport</em> spell readied," replied the archmage. "I can show up in your general vicinity, high up in the air, and then you can shoot me a <em>message</em> spell with that bow of yours. I'll see the trajectory and follow it back to where you are."</p><p></p><p>"Sounds good," replied Chalkan, readying the <em>message</em> power of his elven bow, <em>Rilisivae Athelgala</em>.</p><p></p><p>Back at Brody's Tavern, Rale and Dez had entered the storeroom below the bar and discovered a small magic circle inscribed on the floor and eight zombies crammed into the small room, among the various boxes and barrels. Inside the circle stood a robed figure, but the robe didn't cover the figure's most interesting trait: his left arm and hand were both completely skeletal. This was <strong>Villock</strong>, a necromancer with an undead graft in place of his left arm. Realizing time was counting down and the ritual would likely be starting soon, Dez cast the spell she and Rale had decided would be their best bet at shutting this node of the ritual down the quickest. The young spellcaster became visible as she cast the <em>charm monster</em> spell upon the necromancer. Fortunately, Villock was taken completely unawares and succumbed immediately to her verbal charms.</p><p></p><p>"I was sent to warn you," Dez said matter-of-factly. "There's been an interruption at one of the other ritual locations. We're being put on hold for now. Someone will send us word when we're ready to start up again."</p><p></p><p>"Oh? Okay," agreed Villock, not spending a moment wondering why he'd never seen Dez before or why she wasn't wearing a cult robe. "Should we just stay here, then?"</p><p></p><p>"Yes, that would be best," Dez replied. Then, wondering how the necromancer and his eight zombies had made it to the storeroom unseen, she asked her charmed victim, who happily explained about the secret door in the storeroom leading to the sewers, and how they had entered in that fashion without Brody being any the wiser. All it took was a bribe of 50 gold pieces - a considerable amount of money in this part of the city - from one of the cultist thugs to convince Brody not to let anybody into the storeroom from ten bells until two bells to ensure the privacy required to set up for and perform the Incabulos Ritual.</p><p></p><p>"We're not sure how long the delay will last," said Dez. "Maybe we'd better get the zombies back into the sewers, just in case."</p><p></p><p>"Good idea," Villock replied to his new best friend and trusted ally. He activated a secret door, opening up a section of the back wall and sending his eight undead shambling through. Rale, still invisible, silently reported their status to the others over the <em>telepathic bond</em>.</p><p></p><p>By then, Telgrane had teleported his <em>carpet of flying</em> to the Styes and found Chalkan by the method they had worked out. He landed in the street by the half-elf, and Skrawk followed his fellow kenku's strategy by immediately climbing the nearest building to get himself a rooftop perch from which to line up shots with his bow. Then Telgrane took matters into his own hands again and let fly with a spell.</p><p></p><p>This time it wasn't another <em>meteor swarm</em> spell, despite that having been put to such good use at the hedge maze. Instead, he let fly with a <em>prismatic spray</em>. All of the dire rats but one, who happened to be shielded from Telgrane's view by the jutting corner of a building, were affected. Some were immediately petrified; others were burned to a crisp or electrified, and the various stenches of the Styes now suddenly included the scent of burning rat. But the spellcaster in filthy robes with the enormous neck-goiter, a cancer mage named <strong>Scorbius Vlotch</strong>, felt his mental faculties cloud up by an <em>insanity</em> effect, and he blindly struck out at the sole remaining dire rat that he had intended to infuse with the <em>virulence</em> disease and set free to cause havoc in the city.</p><p></p><p>Chalkan and the two kenkus peppered the cancer mage with arrows, and at that stage it was quite literally like shooting a fish in a barrel, for the stupefied spellcaster could do little in the way of retaliation or even of defending himself. He fell to the muck of the alleyway, dead.</p><p></p><p>By this time, Rale and Dez had determined they had pretty much taken down this ritual node already and that it might be best to keep Villock alive for now, just in case. Dez convinced the necromancer to hide in the sewers with his eight zombies and remain there until she came back with further word from the other cult leaders. Villock took to these new instructions as readily as he had his previous ones. "I hope to see you soon!" he smiled to Dez as he closed the secret door to the sewers, leaving her and the still-invisible Rale in the storeroom.</p><p></p><p>"You think they'll stay there?" asked Dez.</p><p></p><p>"No reason they shouldn't," decided Rale. "Without any orders to the contrary they should just stand out there in the sewers until somebody gives 'em new instructions. In the meantime," he said over the link, "how are you doing, Delphyne?"</p><p></p><p>"Just arriving now," replied the arch-witch. "This broom was only built to hold one, you know." As she landed on the lawn behind the carriage house, Streetweasel leapt off the broom and stalked his way over to the building. There was a side door and the large double doors in front through which the carriage would likely enter and exit, all closed shut. Oddly, unlike the other ritual locations, there didn't seem to be anyone on guard duty. But then, this was a carriage house on a noble's estate, and the noble likely had no idea his property was being used to hold such a dangerous ritual.</p><p></p><p>Delphyne cast a spell and became invisible, making her way over to the side door. Streetweasel slowly twisted the knob, somewhat surprised to see it was unlocked. Cautiously opening the door but a crack, the two peeked inside.</p><p></p><p>As expected, there was an elegant carriage parked in the middle of the structure, of a size to require two horses to pull it. However, a circle of magical glyphs surrounded the vehicle, and standing inside the circle was a voluptuous elf maiden in a low-cut gown. There were four cultist thugs in the building as well, two at each door, but they seemed engrossed in watching the elf's every movement rather than paying attention to keeping the entrances secured. Delphyne just rolled her eyes at how easily men could be distracted by noticeable cleavage - and make no mistake about it, <strong>Mhorgaine</strong>'s cleavage was more than noticeable; it practically demanded attention, if only to make one try to figure out how to explain the apparent ability to defy gravity.</p><p></p><p>On Dez's whispered signal, Streetweasel kicked in the side door, sending one of the guards stationed there sprawling and sinking his short sword deep into the side of the other one. He then stepped back out of the doorway, allowing Delphyne to cast an <em>incendiary cloud</em> spell in the center of the building, returning to visibility as she did so. The spell's effects blanketed the entirety of the room, covering all five figures in burning embers. The thugs' robes caught fire almost immediately, and they were dead within seconds thereafter.</p><p></p><p>Mhorgaine, however, was made of tougher stuff. She dismissed Delphyne's spell with a <em>greater dispel magic</em> spell of her own, then glared at the witch standing in the doorway who would dare try to thwart her plans. Delphyne threw a <em>disintegrate</em> spell at the elf as she raced around the carriage to confront the arch-witch, but the spell missed its target and took out the back half of the carriage instead. Before Delphyne could react, Mhorgaine had closed the distance between the two. Then, despite having ten levels of cleric spells from which to draw, she did something for which Delphyne was totally unprepared.</p><p></p><p>She slapped her, hard, across the face.</p><p></p><p>Delphyne's cheek felt the slap instantly, but it took a moment for her to register the deep cold that emanated from that brief contact. Only as she started toppling to the floor, unable to move a muscle in her entire body, did the reality of her situation truly strike home.</p><p></p><p>"Guys!" she cried desperately over the <em>telepathic bond</em>. "I'm paralyzed! <em>I'm fighting a lich!</em>"</p><p></p><p>"We've got to help her!" said Rale over the link. "Telgrane, can you get there?"</p><p></p><p>"No!" admitted the archmage. "I've used up all of my <em>teleport</em> spells, and I--wait a minute! Hang on Delphyne!" And with that, for the second time in as many adventures, the archmage cast a <em>limited wish</em> to undo the effects of a paralytic attack on one of his companions; this time, he managed to do so from all the way across the city.</p><p></p><p>The spell worked; Delphyne rose to her feet and checked her mental inventory for the best spell with which to down her opponent. Mhorgaine, having turned away from her paralyzed foe to regain her position in the magic circle, heard the rustle of Delphyne's robes and spun around, astonished. "I'm not sure how you managed to escape my paralyzation," she snarled at her foe, "but it won't do you any good!" She cast an <em>eternity of torture</em> spell at Delphyne, overcoming the inherent spell resistance her <em>robes of the arch-witch</em> provided. Delphyne immediately felt a draining sensation encompass her body and her mind. "I think I need some help here, guys!" she called over the link.</p><p></p><p>"We can't get to you in time!" warned Telgrane, for once unable to see a way to come to her aid.</p><p></p><p>"Does anybody have a means of teleporting?" asked Rale.</p><p></p><p>"I do, for what it's worth!" replied Delphyne, doubled over in pain from the elf lich's most recent attack. "Should I fall back?" She saw Mhorgaine smiling wickedly as she closed the distance between them once again, no doubt ready to paralyze her once again with her undead touch.</p><p></p><p>"Bink!" suddenly cried Rale. "Everybody: bink back to HQ! We'll all meet up, and then Delphyne can <em>teleport</em> all of us back to fight the lich!"</p><p></p><p>It was an excellent idea. Of course, it meant leaving all of Rale's followers behind, wherever they happened to be, but at that point Streetweasel was the only one in any danger of combat and he had already wisely backed off from the carriage house, realizing he was far out of his league and his death wasn't going to help the situation any. Plus, his current mission had been merely to direct Delphyne to the proper carriage house; having done that, his next priority was to keep himself alive and in Rale's continued employ.</p><p></p><p>At the carriage house, Mhorgaine was momentarily puzzled to see her enemy suddenly disappear from view, but supposed she had merely fled via a <em>teleport</em> spell - and a silent one at that, for the lich had heard no verbal components being uttered. She then had only enough time to silently wonder how soon the noontime bell would ring and whether the other ritual locations were similarly under attack, before Delphyne returned as suddenly as she had left. Only this time, she wasn't alone.</p><p></p><p>The adventurers materialized just outside the carriage house, although Rale appeared <em>invisible</em> once again, having activated another daily charge from his <em>rod of thievery</em>. He was the first to enter, taking the long way around the interior of the carriage house to get behind Mhorgaine. It was a pity she had no internal organs to pierce and wouldn't be vulnerable to the extra damage he could inflict upon a foe when he attacked with surprise, but he had recently upgraded his <em>short sword of speed</em> to become an <em>undead bane</em>, and was eager to at least get that advantage over his undead foe.</p><p></p><p>Thunderwolf and Chalkan entered next, each sending an arrow flying at the voluptuous elf. Not surprisingly, they each struck and rebounded off, leaving no marks on the illusory "flesh" covering her skeleton. Telgrane entered, and his enhanced vision revealed Mhorgaine's true form: a completely skeletal being, no shred of actual skin remaining on her time-worn body. He cast a <em>disintegrate</em> spell at the lich, and while it rebounded off of her innate spell resistance, that wasn't all he had brought to the fight, for an arc of embers leapt from the open tinder box at his hip, and Infernia blazed forth in her full nine-foot-tall form.</p><p></p><p>Mhorgaine snarled her defiance at the intrusion, especially as among the sounds of battle she could hear the noontime bells starting to chime throughout the city. She was weakened considerably when a <em>meteor swarm</em>, its area of effect altered to avoid the adventurers (even the invisible Rale, whom Telgrane could see just fine with his magically enhanced vision through the twin gouts of flame from his eye sockets), slammed into her undead body and set it ablaze. Infernia knocked her about with a pair of slams, and the two archers continued a barrage of sonically-enhanced arrows. Rale finally got into position behind her and stabbed for all he was worth. The attack didn't do as much damage as it would have done against a living foe, but it was enough: with a final scream of fury, Mhorgaine dropped to the ground in a pile of bones, her illusion of being a living elf winking out at the moment of her destruction.</p><p></p><p>Delphyne snorted in disdain. "I knew they had to be fake," she replied to no one in particular.</p><p></p><p>Clean-up after stopping the Incabulos Ritual was fairly simple. Returning to the storeroom under Brody's Tavern, Rale and Dez opened the secret door and found Villock still standing there patiently with his eight zombie servitors. "I'm afraid the ritual has been rescheduled," Dez announced. "We're all to meet back at our secret headquarters and decide when our next best opportunity will be." Then she asked Villock where the secret headquarters was located, and the charmed necromancer happily explained its location. After a brief series of questions revealed that the adventurers had met up with all of the cult's current members, Rale decided they didn't need the necromancer any more and finally got to back-stab someone. Despite Villock's undead left arm, his internal organs were still quite living and subject to immediate failure when appropriately perforated with a <em>rapier of puncturing</em>. Villock died at once, and the eight zombies didn't survive for very much longer after that.</p><p></p><p>And, as the adventurers had hoped, a thorough search of the cult's headquarters revealed Mhorgaine's phylactery. Having fought their fair share of liches lately, they were well aware that a fight with a lich wasn't truly over until its phylactery was destroyed.</p><p></p><p>"That reminds me," piped up Telgrane. "We never did find any phylacteries in that Vecna Library, did we? I wonder if any of those undead spellcasters we fought in there are going to come back looking for us?"</p><p></p><p>"Well, if they do, we'll be ready for them," promised Thunderwolf, striking a tough-guy pose with his hand on the hilt of Xanthros. He was enjoying this adventurer's life!</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>We were originally scheduled to play this adventure on the first day of the new year, but a bout of holiday flu at the Richards household took care of those plans.</p><p></p><p>This adventure was an experiment on my part. They always warn that splitting the party is one of the worst things you can do; that naturally got me wondering if writing an adventure where the adventurers were more or less forced to split up and run concurrent solo adventures would be doable. The fact that the PCs are high enough in level to always have a <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em> spell active and that several of the spellcasters could <em>teleport</em> helped me decide that this was an idea worth trying. Plus, it gave me an opportunity to bring some of Rale's followers into the spotlight; he had taken the Leadership feat some time ago but had really only been able to benefit from Dez thus far.</p><p></p><p>When I built the five ritual leaders, I tried making them roughly the same CRs as the PCs, but as always, with the exception of Thunderwolf and Telgrane (whose players only have those PCs to run), I had no idea who would be going on this adventure. So I had enemies running from CR 12 (Villock) to CR 20 (Mhorgaine), and I threw in Mange as a non-spellcaster to ensure not everybody would be up against someone who could cast spells because while I knew Thunderwolf would be going through this adventure, there was also the possibility of Galrich and Aerik going through it. (I wasn't as worried about Rale, as he'd have Dez by his side.)</p><p></p><p>Of course, I also allowed the PCs to decide who was going to deploy to each location, so that was also left up to chance. I had already assigned each ritual leader and their minions to the five locations, so when the players each decided where their PC was going to go they also were deciding which enemy they'd be facing (although they were unaware of that part of the deal). Logan lucked out by having Telgrane initially face Mange, a 16th-level wererat rogue with no way of countering the spells the archmage could fling down at him. In fact, this adventure inadvertently turned out to be a bit of a "Telgrane in the limelight" adventure, as he ended up fighting the enemies at four of the five ritual locations. (The fact that Villock and Scorbius Vlotch both rolled a "1" on their very first saving throws, effectively neutering them at the very start of their respective battles, didn't help them to last for very long either.)</p><p></p><p>The one thing I would have changed in hindsight was the travel times to the ritual locations. I had done up a little chart showing the difference in rounds it would take the PCs to reach the ritual locations, depending on their mode of transportation. Once the PCs made their choices, Thunderwolf was the first to arrive at his ritual node, then Telgrane a round after that, but then there were another three rounds before Chalkan and Rale got to their respective locations, and it would have been another six rounds after that before Delphyne got to finally meet up with Mhorgaine. Once the other four PCs were in combat, several of them had already resolved their ritual nodes while Delphyne and Streetweasel were still traveling to the carriage house. I opted to shorten her trip by four rounds so that Vicki would have something to do before all the rest of the action was over with. In hindsight, I probably should either have had each PC arrive at their respective ritual location at the same time, or else maybe staggered them by a round each based on initiative order. But I had wanted their travel decisions to have some consequences, so that's why I had written it the way I did.</p><p></p><p>In any case, while there were some concerns about each PC's ability to take out their individual enemy, the players all liked it. (Dan loved the concept from the get-go, right after "Shifty-Eyes" Marcus had dropped the plot hook on the group. I think he liked the fact that this was something different than anything we'd done before, as he had also liked the "fight enemies in your HQ while in your pajamas" aspect of "Vandergrotten's Vengeance" and the whole concept of fighting while using figurine proxies in "Rescue from Afar.")</p><p></p><p>After this adventure, we also went through roughly the first half of the adventure that follows. We're trying to get this campaign over before Jacob goes away to college in the fall. The last adventure in this campaign will be #100, so we've decided to extend our adventure sessions from about 5 hours to about 6 (or possibly even a bit more). Part of that means me always bringing the adventure that follows whatever adventure we have scheduled for that session.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6514733, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 89: A POX UPON YOU ALL![/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian/sorcerer/arcane archer Delphyne Babelberi, human witch (wizard)/arch-witch Rale Bodkin, human rogue Telgrane, half-fire elemental human conjurer/archmage Thunderwolf, human fighter[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Desdemona Honeytongue, human wizard Streetweasel, human rogue Roughknuckles, half-orc fighter "Shifty-Eye" Marcus, human rogue K'Klark, kenku rogue Skrawk, kenku rogue[/INDENT] "We got us some big-time problems, boss!" said [b]"Shifty-Eye" Marcus[/b], one of the many rogues currently in Rale's employ. "There's this plan afoot to set off this big ritual across the whole of the city – it's gonna be plague rats, and attacks in the street, and people turning into zombies, and all kinds of nastiness! And we don’t have a lotta time to stop it!" As per Rale's instructions to his numerous rogue hirelings, "Shifty-Eye" Marcus had infiltrated one of the many oddball cults headquartered in Greyhawk City. The cult he'd "joined" revered Incabulos, the God of Plagues, Sickness, Famine, Nightmares, Drought, and Disasters, and he'd just found out the cult leaders were planning a ritual which would unleash all manners of horrors upon the city. The four cult leaders - plus a Death-Priest of Orcus, Demon Lord of the Undead, who had his own reasons for wanting the Incabulos Ritual to succeed - were splitting up and heading to five different points across Greyhawk City, said points forming a gigantic pentagram when viewed from above, defining the ritual's area of effect. The lower-level cult members were all assigned to one of these five ritual teams, to ensure nobody got through to stop the rituals from occurring. "Shifty-Eye" Marcus had managed to drop back from his assigned group and high-tailed it to the Adventurers Guild Headquarters to brief his boss. On the way he was able to snag another four of Rale's followers and the five of them were ready to follow Rale's lead on what to do about the whole deal. After explaining what he knew to Rale and the handful of Wing Three adventures on hand about what he'd discovered, "Shifty-Eye" Marcus explained the cult leaders were going to start the Incabulos Ritual when the bells of the city struck twelve noon - in just less than a half-hour. "We need to stop those bells from ringing!" declared Rale. "Can we send some of the rest of the Guild to go stop them while we split up and try to take out the cult members?" "Possible, but unlikely," countered Telgrane. "If there were just the one bell tower, then maybe - but there are bell towers all throughout the city. We'll probably not be able to get them all." "Then we need to concentrate on stopping the rituals from succeeding," reasoned Rale. He turned to his wild-eyed follower, still wearing the robes of a member of the cult of Incabulos. "Where are the rituals going to be performed?" "Shifty-Eye" Marcus ticked them off on his fingers. "There's an abandoned warehouse; a back alley in the Styes; in one of Lord Henway's hedge mazes; in the storeroom under Brody's Tavern; and in the carriage house of one of the nobles of the city. I briefed the guys on the way here" - here he indicated the four other members of Rale's team he'd managed to gather on the way to Guild HQ - "and they can lead each group to where they need to go. I've got the warehouse." "I got the back alley in the Styes, boss," piped up [b]K'Klark[/b], one of two kenku rogues in Rale's employ. "And I have the hedge maze," added his counterpart, [b]Skrawk[/b]. "I can lead you to the carriage house," said Streetweasel, a greasy-looking human rogue in black leather armor. "And I've got Brody's Tavern," replied [b]Roughknuckles[/b], a burly half-orc thug. "They all know me there." "Okay, guys, who's going where?" asked Rale. Then, as an afterthought, he addressed "Shifty-Eye" Marcus again. "Do we know who we'll be up against?" "I dunno who's going where. I don't know much about the cult leaders, either, though at least one of 'em's supposed to be undead. One guy's got a skeleton arm - no kidding, his left arm's got no flesh on it. My money's on him bein' the undead guy. The rest is all guys in hooded robes, so I got no idea if they're clerics, or wizards, or what. Oh, but one of them's a hot elf chick - I forgot about her." "Oh?" asked Rale. "And you're sure you don't know where's she going?" "No idea," admitted "Shifty-Eye" Marcus. "Sorry, boss." Both Delphyne and Dez silently shook their heads in disbelief at observing Rale trying to find out which ritual location was going to involve a "hot elf chick." "Okay, don't worry about it," said Rale, looking over at his cohort Dez's scowl, and doing his best to convey an expression of total innocence. "Okay, who's going where?" he repeated to the group at large. "I'll take the carriage house," said Delphyne, not eager to go traipsing through abandoned warehouses or dealing with the squalor of the Styes if she could help it. "I guess I'll take the warehouse," said Thunderwolf, thinking that a large, open space like a warehouse interior would give him plenty of room with which to put his archery skills to good use. "I've got the hedge maze," said Telgrane, taking the opportunity to cast a [i]Rary's telepathic bond[/i] on the five Guild adventurers, Dez, and Infernia. Chalkan volunteered to take the Styes alley. "Then I've got Brody's Tavern," said Rale. "Roughknuckles, Dez, you're with me." What followed next was the standard flurry of prepping-for-combat spells. Telgrane cast a pair of [i]flame arrow[/i] spells on the ammunition in both Thunderwolf's and Chalkan's quivers, converting the fire damage to sonic through the use of his archmage training. Delphyne, Chalkan, and Telgrane each cast a [i]stoneskin[/i] spell upon themselves, and the two kenkus were given the benefits of the same spell as well. Delphyne cast a [i]protection from evil[/i] spell upon herself, Rale passed out [i]potions of cure light wounds[/i] to all five of his followers, and then the group was ready to go their separate ways. "Let's go," said the arch-witch to Streetweasel, activating her [i]broom of flying[/i] and motioning for him to get behind her. "Just watch the hands," she warned, giving the oily rogue a warning glare to ensure he remained on his best behavior during their flight across the city. He hurried to comply, and they were off. Thunderwolf unsheathed Xanthros and held it above his head, mentally summoning the sky-horse bound to his blade. A burst of electricity erupted from the blade and took the form of a ghostly horse; Thunderwolf leapt upon its back, followed by a rather more hesitant "Shifty-Eye" Marcus. Once they were both on the steed, it galloped through the Guild HQ, out the door, and took to the skies, heading to the warehouse district. Chalkan cast a pair of [i]longstrider[/i] spells upon himself and K'Klark. "Let's go!" he called to the kenku, who started sprinting in the direction of the Styes with the half-elf right behind him. Rale led Dez and Roughknuckles to the Guild stables, where they mounted a pair of horses (Dez riding behind Rale) and dashed off towards Brody's Tavern. Telgrane unrolled the [i]carpet of flying[/i] from his back and stepped onto the front position, while Infernia resumed her ember form in mid-leap to her tinder box while Skrawk took his position behind the young archmage. Telgrane piloted the carpet out the nearest door and raised it to several dozen feet above the rooftops, aiming it in the direction of Lord Henway's Menagerie, where all manners of exotic beasts were kept in cages and several hedge mazes could be found. By this time, it was a mere handful of minutes before noon. Whether the various teams would each make it to their destinations in time was open to speculation. Thunderwolf and "Shifty-Eyes" Marcus were the first to arrive at their intended destination. "It's that one, there," the rogue pointed down from his perch behind the young fighter's flying, electrical steed. The warehouse he pointed to was a rather small building, with a pair of thugs in robes guarding the large doors in front and another pair guarding the side entrance by the loading dock. Thunderwolf had his aerial steed hold position in mid-air and sent a volley of arrows down at the two cultists guarding the loading dock doors; the four arrows struck true, and the guards collapsed to the ground, dead. The young fighter had his aerial steed land on the loading dock, and "Shifty-Eye" Marcus gratefully slid off the back of the sky-horse to regain his footing on solid ground. Thunderwolf likewise leapt from his mount and dismissed it back into his enchanted blade. While his guide lugged the dead bodies out of the way, Thunderwolf opened the loading dock doors a crack and peered into the gloom of the warehouse. He saw a few scattered crates and a pile of wooden pallets stored in the corner, evidence of the building's original use. However, the floor of the wide open space now held a magical circle inscribed with dozens of arcane runes, around which stood twenty or more zombies. In the center of the circle stood a robed man wearing a horned helmet; once Thunderwolf got a look of the emblem on the front of his robes, he swore silently to himself, cursing his luck for having ended up with the Death-Priest of Orcus. The man, [b]Chalmus Nighttide[/b], looked to be in his late 50s, with a stern countenance that brooked no interference. He seemed to be performing warm-up exercises with his hands, as if getting himself ready for some serious spellcasting. Which made sense, because despite not having heard any bells yet, Thunderwolf supposed it was probably only minutes away from noon by now. [i]Well then, no point in waiting around[/i], thought Thunderwolf as he kicked the doors in, stepped into the warehouse, and shot at the Orcus priest. His arrow flew true, lodging into Chalmus's shoulder and eliciting a grunt of pain from the middle-aged spellcaster. With a motion, he sent two of his zombie servitors over to deal with the intrusion while he pulled the arrow out. While this was occurring, across town Telgrane and Skrawk had reached the area above Lord Henway's Menagerie. There were several small hedge mazes in the park, but the archmage quickly focused on the one that was part of the Incabulos Ritual - it was, quite obviously, the one with the numerous rats crawling through the shrubbery to meet up in vast swarms at the maze's center, where stood the life-sized statue of Lord Henway himself. However, a magic circle of arcane runes entirely ringed the statue, and a wererat - currently in his hybrid form - stood there, focused on feeding a potion to one of the rats he had called to himself in preparation for the upcoming ritual. "Shifty-Eye" Marcus had mentioned something about plague rats; Telgrane supposed the ritual would infuse these rats into carriers of some vile disease to be spread throughout the city. (He was entirely correct, for the wererat - named [b]Mange[/b] due to the numerous bald spots in his fur when in dire rat or hybrid forms - was the only nonspellcasting cult leader, and his job was to sacrifice a rat who had been fed a vial of the [i]virulence[/i] disease upon the noontime signal, which would infuse the rats with the disease and allow it to be quickly spread throughout the city.) At the sole entrance and exit to the hedge maze stood two burly thugs in cult robes, wielding clubs to encourage others to stay away - as if the numerous rats still entering the maze from all sides weren't enough of an incentive. Still, Telgrane had an easy way of dealing with this threat: not even bothering to alight from his [i]carpet of flying[/i], he cast a [i]meteor swarm[/i] spell down upon the hedge maze, shaping the spell's energies to perfectly align with the spaces between the hedges, so as to burn the rats to a crisp without setting Lord Henway's shrubbery on fire. None of the rats survived this immediate onslaught; Mange staggered under the initial assault but remained on his feet - although only long enough for Infernia to leap down from her master's tinder box and finish him off. Unnoticed by the two on the [i]carpet of flying[/i], the two cultist thugs guarding the hedge maze looked over their shoulders at the sudden explosion of flame behind them, shared a frightened look at each other, and without a word each broke into a hard run, fleeing in opposite directions. Telgrane reported his success to the other over the [i]telepathic bond[/i]. "Great!" replied Rale. "I'm still on my way to the tavern!" "I'm still in transit myself," added Delphyne. "Same here," chimed in Chalkan. "I could use some help over here!" admitted Thunderwolf. "Where are you, again?" asked Telgrane. "Abandoned warehouse!" Thunderwolf reminded the archmage, while shaking off the effects of a spell that Chalmus had just cast on him, hoping to rob the fighter of his eyesight. He whipped out Xanthros and cut down the zombie standing in front of him, then slashed at the second one attempting to grab at "Shifty-Eye" Marcus, who stepped back out of range of the undead creature trying to kill him. Telgrane lowered the carpet to allow Infernia to jump back into her tinder box, and then he cast a [i]teleport[/i] spell, sending the carpet in the air above the warehouse district, figuring he could determine which warehouse Thunderwolf was at by the sounds of combat. Finding Thunderwolf was even easier than the archmage imagined; Chalmus Nighttide cast a [i]flame strike[/i] spell at the loading bay door, capturing both intruders in its area of effect. Thunderwolf merely gritted through the pain, whereas "Shifty-Eye" Marcus staggered backwards in a daze, concentrating on not losing consciousness from the pain of the rain of fire. But the bright flash of flames drew Telgrane's flying carpet to land unerringly at the young fighter's side. "Shifty-Eye" Marcus, singed almost to a crisp and feverishly concentrating on remaining conscious, did his best to swig down the [i]potion of cure light wounds[/i] Rale had provided to all of his followers earlier. The potion likely saved his life; just to be safe, Skrawk pulled his fellow rogue out of harm's way, the pair of followers jointly deciding to let Rale's adventuring companions handle the threat. Telgrane handled the threat in the warehouse with about the same level of ease as he did with the threat in Lord Henway's hedge maze. This time, instead of casting a spell, he called upon the energies from the Elemental Plane of Fire that burned within his own half-elemental body, manifesting another [i]firestorm[/i] in the warehouse, which caught Chalmus and the zombies ringing the magic circle in its devastating area of effect. The zombies - all but the other one at the door, which Thunderwolf brought down with Xanthros - burst into flame and crumpled where they stood; Chalmus lasted but a few seconds longer, finally falling victim of Infernia's fiery embrace. "Two down," Telgrane announced with satisfaction over the [i]telepathic bond[/i]. "Any of you guys even make it to your designated targets yet?" "Just pulling up now," replied Rale, as he and Dez jumped down from their horse in front of Brody's Tavern. Roughknuckles followed suit. Then, after a brief huddle, Dez cast an [i]invisibility[/i] spell upon herself and Rale likewise vanished from view, using one of the powers of his [i]rod of thievery[/i]. The two invisible adventurers followed the burly half-orc into the tavern. Roughknuckles was well-known by the bar patrons, and by [b]Brody[/b] himself, who kept bar with the help of his two nieces, [b]Tabitha[/b] and [b]Roxanne[/b]. Brody was a retired adventurer, his face and arms covered with numerous battle scars. "The usual?" he asked Roughknuckles, already filling a tankard with ale. "Sounds about right," replied Roughknuckles, taking a place at the far end of the bar, away from the stairs leading down to the storeroom below. Rale and Dez, careful not to bump into anybody, climbed up onto and over the bar, sneaking down the stairs unseen and unheard. "We're at the alley," suddenly announced Chalkan over the shared link, sounding a bit winded as he and K'Klark had run all the way at spell-enhanced speeds. "I see a couple of thugs guarding the alleyway." He and the kenku lined up their shots, let fly, and the two robed guards fell into the mud of the street. A quick peek around the corner revealed a dozen or more dire rats converged in the back of the alley between a half-dozen crumbling buildings. Standing among them was an overweight spellcaster in filthy robes, his most striking feature the enormous goiter growing from the side of his neck. K'Klark signaled to Chalkan that he was going to climb the nearest building and get a rooftop shot lined up; the half-elf nodded his agreement and gave a verbal description of his situation to the others over the [i]telepathic bond[/i]. "You want a hand?" offered Telgrane. "Do you have a way to get here quickly?" countered Chalkan. "I've got one more [i]teleport[/i] spell readied," replied the archmage. "I can show up in your general vicinity, high up in the air, and then you can shoot me a [i]message[/i] spell with that bow of yours. I'll see the trajectory and follow it back to where you are." "Sounds good," replied Chalkan, readying the [i]message[/i] power of his elven bow, [i]Rilisivae Athelgala[/i]. Back at Brody's Tavern, Rale and Dez had entered the storeroom below the bar and discovered a small magic circle inscribed on the floor and eight zombies crammed into the small room, among the various boxes and barrels. Inside the circle stood a robed figure, but the robe didn't cover the figure's most interesting trait: his left arm and hand were both completely skeletal. This was [b]Villock[/b], a necromancer with an undead graft in place of his left arm. Realizing time was counting down and the ritual would likely be starting soon, Dez cast the spell she and Rale had decided would be their best bet at shutting this node of the ritual down the quickest. The young spellcaster became visible as she cast the [i]charm monster[/i] spell upon the necromancer. Fortunately, Villock was taken completely unawares and succumbed immediately to her verbal charms. "I was sent to warn you," Dez said matter-of-factly. "There's been an interruption at one of the other ritual locations. We're being put on hold for now. Someone will send us word when we're ready to start up again." "Oh? Okay," agreed Villock, not spending a moment wondering why he'd never seen Dez before or why she wasn't wearing a cult robe. "Should we just stay here, then?" "Yes, that would be best," Dez replied. Then, wondering how the necromancer and his eight zombies had made it to the storeroom unseen, she asked her charmed victim, who happily explained about the secret door in the storeroom leading to the sewers, and how they had entered in that fashion without Brody being any the wiser. All it took was a bribe of 50 gold pieces - a considerable amount of money in this part of the city - from one of the cultist thugs to convince Brody not to let anybody into the storeroom from ten bells until two bells to ensure the privacy required to set up for and perform the Incabulos Ritual. "We're not sure how long the delay will last," said Dez. "Maybe we'd better get the zombies back into the sewers, just in case." "Good idea," Villock replied to his new best friend and trusted ally. He activated a secret door, opening up a section of the back wall and sending his eight undead shambling through. Rale, still invisible, silently reported their status to the others over the [i]telepathic bond[/i]. By then, Telgrane had teleported his [i]carpet of flying[/i] to the Styes and found Chalkan by the method they had worked out. He landed in the street by the half-elf, and Skrawk followed his fellow kenku's strategy by immediately climbing the nearest building to get himself a rooftop perch from which to line up shots with his bow. Then Telgrane took matters into his own hands again and let fly with a spell. This time it wasn't another [i]meteor swarm[/i] spell, despite that having been put to such good use at the hedge maze. Instead, he let fly with a [i]prismatic spray[/i]. All of the dire rats but one, who happened to be shielded from Telgrane's view by the jutting corner of a building, were affected. Some were immediately petrified; others were burned to a crisp or electrified, and the various stenches of the Styes now suddenly included the scent of burning rat. But the spellcaster in filthy robes with the enormous neck-goiter, a cancer mage named [b]Scorbius Vlotch[/b], felt his mental faculties cloud up by an [i]insanity[/i] effect, and he blindly struck out at the sole remaining dire rat that he had intended to infuse with the [i]virulence[/i] disease and set free to cause havoc in the city. Chalkan and the two kenkus peppered the cancer mage with arrows, and at that stage it was quite literally like shooting a fish in a barrel, for the stupefied spellcaster could do little in the way of retaliation or even of defending himself. He fell to the muck of the alleyway, dead. By this time, Rale and Dez had determined they had pretty much taken down this ritual node already and that it might be best to keep Villock alive for now, just in case. Dez convinced the necromancer to hide in the sewers with his eight zombies and remain there until she came back with further word from the other cult leaders. Villock took to these new instructions as readily as he had his previous ones. "I hope to see you soon!" he smiled to Dez as he closed the secret door to the sewers, leaving her and the still-invisible Rale in the storeroom. "You think they'll stay there?" asked Dez. "No reason they shouldn't," decided Rale. "Without any orders to the contrary they should just stand out there in the sewers until somebody gives 'em new instructions. In the meantime," he said over the link, "how are you doing, Delphyne?" "Just arriving now," replied the arch-witch. "This broom was only built to hold one, you know." As she landed on the lawn behind the carriage house, Streetweasel leapt off the broom and stalked his way over to the building. There was a side door and the large double doors in front through which the carriage would likely enter and exit, all closed shut. Oddly, unlike the other ritual locations, there didn't seem to be anyone on guard duty. But then, this was a carriage house on a noble's estate, and the noble likely had no idea his property was being used to hold such a dangerous ritual. Delphyne cast a spell and became invisible, making her way over to the side door. Streetweasel slowly twisted the knob, somewhat surprised to see it was unlocked. Cautiously opening the door but a crack, the two peeked inside. As expected, there was an elegant carriage parked in the middle of the structure, of a size to require two horses to pull it. However, a circle of magical glyphs surrounded the vehicle, and standing inside the circle was a voluptuous elf maiden in a low-cut gown. There were four cultist thugs in the building as well, two at each door, but they seemed engrossed in watching the elf's every movement rather than paying attention to keeping the entrances secured. Delphyne just rolled her eyes at how easily men could be distracted by noticeable cleavage - and make no mistake about it, [b]Mhorgaine[/b]'s cleavage was more than noticeable; it practically demanded attention, if only to make one try to figure out how to explain the apparent ability to defy gravity. On Dez's whispered signal, Streetweasel kicked in the side door, sending one of the guards stationed there sprawling and sinking his short sword deep into the side of the other one. He then stepped back out of the doorway, allowing Delphyne to cast an [i]incendiary cloud[/i] spell in the center of the building, returning to visibility as she did so. The spell's effects blanketed the entirety of the room, covering all five figures in burning embers. The thugs' robes caught fire almost immediately, and they were dead within seconds thereafter. Mhorgaine, however, was made of tougher stuff. She dismissed Delphyne's spell with a [i]greater dispel magic[/i] spell of her own, then glared at the witch standing in the doorway who would dare try to thwart her plans. Delphyne threw a [i]disintegrate[/i] spell at the elf as she raced around the carriage to confront the arch-witch, but the spell missed its target and took out the back half of the carriage instead. Before Delphyne could react, Mhorgaine had closed the distance between the two. Then, despite having ten levels of cleric spells from which to draw, she did something for which Delphyne was totally unprepared. She slapped her, hard, across the face. Delphyne's cheek felt the slap instantly, but it took a moment for her to register the deep cold that emanated from that brief contact. Only as she started toppling to the floor, unable to move a muscle in her entire body, did the reality of her situation truly strike home. "Guys!" she cried desperately over the [i]telepathic bond[/i]. "I'm paralyzed! [i]I'm fighting a lich![/i]" "We've got to help her!" said Rale over the link. "Telgrane, can you get there?" "No!" admitted the archmage. "I've used up all of my [i]teleport[/i] spells, and I--wait a minute! Hang on Delphyne!" And with that, for the second time in as many adventures, the archmage cast a [i]limited wish[/i] to undo the effects of a paralytic attack on one of his companions; this time, he managed to do so from all the way across the city. The spell worked; Delphyne rose to her feet and checked her mental inventory for the best spell with which to down her opponent. Mhorgaine, having turned away from her paralyzed foe to regain her position in the magic circle, heard the rustle of Delphyne's robes and spun around, astonished. "I'm not sure how you managed to escape my paralyzation," she snarled at her foe, "but it won't do you any good!" She cast an [i]eternity of torture[/i] spell at Delphyne, overcoming the inherent spell resistance her [i]robes of the arch-witch[/i] provided. Delphyne immediately felt a draining sensation encompass her body and her mind. "I think I need some help here, guys!" she called over the link. "We can't get to you in time!" warned Telgrane, for once unable to see a way to come to her aid. "Does anybody have a means of teleporting?" asked Rale. "I do, for what it's worth!" replied Delphyne, doubled over in pain from the elf lich's most recent attack. "Should I fall back?" She saw Mhorgaine smiling wickedly as she closed the distance between them once again, no doubt ready to paralyze her once again with her undead touch. "Bink!" suddenly cried Rale. "Everybody: bink back to HQ! We'll all meet up, and then Delphyne can [i]teleport[/i] all of us back to fight the lich!" It was an excellent idea. Of course, it meant leaving all of Rale's followers behind, wherever they happened to be, but at that point Streetweasel was the only one in any danger of combat and he had already wisely backed off from the carriage house, realizing he was far out of his league and his death wasn't going to help the situation any. Plus, his current mission had been merely to direct Delphyne to the proper carriage house; having done that, his next priority was to keep himself alive and in Rale's continued employ. At the carriage house, Mhorgaine was momentarily puzzled to see her enemy suddenly disappear from view, but supposed she had merely fled via a [i]teleport[/i] spell - and a silent one at that, for the lich had heard no verbal components being uttered. She then had only enough time to silently wonder how soon the noontime bell would ring and whether the other ritual locations were similarly under attack, before Delphyne returned as suddenly as she had left. Only this time, she wasn't alone. The adventurers materialized just outside the carriage house, although Rale appeared [i]invisible[/i] once again, having activated another daily charge from his [i]rod of thievery[/i]. He was the first to enter, taking the long way around the interior of the carriage house to get behind Mhorgaine. It was a pity she had no internal organs to pierce and wouldn't be vulnerable to the extra damage he could inflict upon a foe when he attacked with surprise, but he had recently upgraded his [i]short sword of speed[/i] to become an [i]undead bane[/i], and was eager to at least get that advantage over his undead foe. Thunderwolf and Chalkan entered next, each sending an arrow flying at the voluptuous elf. Not surprisingly, they each struck and rebounded off, leaving no marks on the illusory "flesh" covering her skeleton. Telgrane entered, and his enhanced vision revealed Mhorgaine's true form: a completely skeletal being, no shred of actual skin remaining on her time-worn body. He cast a [i]disintegrate[/i] spell at the lich, and while it rebounded off of her innate spell resistance, that wasn't all he had brought to the fight, for an arc of embers leapt from the open tinder box at his hip, and Infernia blazed forth in her full nine-foot-tall form. Mhorgaine snarled her defiance at the intrusion, especially as among the sounds of battle she could hear the noontime bells starting to chime throughout the city. She was weakened considerably when a [i]meteor swarm[/i], its area of effect altered to avoid the adventurers (even the invisible Rale, whom Telgrane could see just fine with his magically enhanced vision through the twin gouts of flame from his eye sockets), slammed into her undead body and set it ablaze. Infernia knocked her about with a pair of slams, and the two archers continued a barrage of sonically-enhanced arrows. Rale finally got into position behind her and stabbed for all he was worth. The attack didn't do as much damage as it would have done against a living foe, but it was enough: with a final scream of fury, Mhorgaine dropped to the ground in a pile of bones, her illusion of being a living elf winking out at the moment of her destruction. Delphyne snorted in disdain. "I knew they had to be fake," she replied to no one in particular. Clean-up after stopping the Incabulos Ritual was fairly simple. Returning to the storeroom under Brody's Tavern, Rale and Dez opened the secret door and found Villock still standing there patiently with his eight zombie servitors. "I'm afraid the ritual has been rescheduled," Dez announced. "We're all to meet back at our secret headquarters and decide when our next best opportunity will be." Then she asked Villock where the secret headquarters was located, and the charmed necromancer happily explained its location. After a brief series of questions revealed that the adventurers had met up with all of the cult's current members, Rale decided they didn't need the necromancer any more and finally got to back-stab someone. Despite Villock's undead left arm, his internal organs were still quite living and subject to immediate failure when appropriately perforated with a [i]rapier of puncturing[/i]. Villock died at once, and the eight zombies didn't survive for very much longer after that. And, as the adventurers had hoped, a thorough search of the cult's headquarters revealed Mhorgaine's phylactery. Having fought their fair share of liches lately, they were well aware that a fight with a lich wasn't truly over until its phylactery was destroyed. "That reminds me," piped up Telgrane. "We never did find any phylacteries in that Vecna Library, did we? I wonder if any of those undead spellcasters we fought in there are going to come back looking for us?" "Well, if they do, we'll be ready for them," promised Thunderwolf, striking a tough-guy pose with his hand on the hilt of Xanthros. He was enjoying this adventurer's life! - - - We were originally scheduled to play this adventure on the first day of the new year, but a bout of holiday flu at the Richards household took care of those plans. This adventure was an experiment on my part. They always warn that splitting the party is one of the worst things you can do; that naturally got me wondering if writing an adventure where the adventurers were more or less forced to split up and run concurrent solo adventures would be doable. The fact that the PCs are high enough in level to always have a [i]Rary's telepathic bond[/i] spell active and that several of the spellcasters could [i]teleport[/i] helped me decide that this was an idea worth trying. Plus, it gave me an opportunity to bring some of Rale's followers into the spotlight; he had taken the Leadership feat some time ago but had really only been able to benefit from Dez thus far. When I built the five ritual leaders, I tried making them roughly the same CRs as the PCs, but as always, with the exception of Thunderwolf and Telgrane (whose players only have those PCs to run), I had no idea who would be going on this adventure. So I had enemies running from CR 12 (Villock) to CR 20 (Mhorgaine), and I threw in Mange as a non-spellcaster to ensure not everybody would be up against someone who could cast spells because while I knew Thunderwolf would be going through this adventure, there was also the possibility of Galrich and Aerik going through it. (I wasn't as worried about Rale, as he'd have Dez by his side.) Of course, I also allowed the PCs to decide who was going to deploy to each location, so that was also left up to chance. I had already assigned each ritual leader and their minions to the five locations, so when the players each decided where their PC was going to go they also were deciding which enemy they'd be facing (although they were unaware of that part of the deal). Logan lucked out by having Telgrane initially face Mange, a 16th-level wererat rogue with no way of countering the spells the archmage could fling down at him. In fact, this adventure inadvertently turned out to be a bit of a "Telgrane in the limelight" adventure, as he ended up fighting the enemies at four of the five ritual locations. (The fact that Villock and Scorbius Vlotch both rolled a "1" on their very first saving throws, effectively neutering them at the very start of their respective battles, didn't help them to last for very long either.) The one thing I would have changed in hindsight was the travel times to the ritual locations. I had done up a little chart showing the difference in rounds it would take the PCs to reach the ritual locations, depending on their mode of transportation. Once the PCs made their choices, Thunderwolf was the first to arrive at his ritual node, then Telgrane a round after that, but then there were another three rounds before Chalkan and Rale got to their respective locations, and it would have been another six rounds after that before Delphyne got to finally meet up with Mhorgaine. Once the other four PCs were in combat, several of them had already resolved their ritual nodes while Delphyne and Streetweasel were still traveling to the carriage house. I opted to shorten her trip by four rounds so that Vicki would have something to do before all the rest of the action was over with. In hindsight, I probably should either have had each PC arrive at their respective ritual location at the same time, or else maybe staggered them by a round each based on initiative order. But I had wanted their travel decisions to have some consequences, so that's why I had written it the way I did. In any case, while there were some concerns about each PC's ability to take out their individual enemy, the players all liked it. (Dan loved the concept from the get-go, right after "Shifty-Eyes" Marcus had dropped the plot hook on the group. I think he liked the fact that this was something different than anything we'd done before, as he had also liked the "fight enemies in your HQ while in your pajamas" aspect of "Vandergrotten's Vengeance" and the whole concept of fighting while using figurine proxies in "Rescue from Afar.") After this adventure, we also went through roughly the first half of the adventure that follows. We're trying to get this campaign over before Jacob goes away to college in the fall. The last adventure in this campaign will be #100, so we've decided to extend our adventure sessions from about 5 hours to about 6 (or possibly even a bit more). Part of that means me always bringing the adventure that follows whatever adventure we have scheduled for that session. [/QUOTE]
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