The Shadow of Winter - Chapter 2
OOC Notes:
Exp is 4100
The elven interior decorator was a practitioner of Shueng Fey.
This Week’s Adventure
The years during the Hateful Wars were a sad time to grow up in. The savagery of the orcish tribes was unmatched, and the air was filled with desperation. As the tide turned and the orcs were beaten back, the tone changed from desperation to fierceness – and then to vengeance. Orc and goblin warrens were razed, their occupants smoked out and put to the sword, even women and children. And I wondered if we had become as savage as those we fought against. Eventually I realized the difference between the elves and orcs was that we didn’t start the war. And the only way to quench their undying hatred of the elves and find peace was to end their lives.
But during the wars, there were stories. Stories of grand battles against hordes of the foul folk of the underdark. Stories of great heroes who held back armies of invaders single-handedly. Their deeds changed the tide of the war, and their stories gave hope and courage to everyone who heard them.
Tonight, I lived that story.
As for what Kargoth would do now that he had been repulsed, I didn’t have to wait long to find out.
After the battle, the panic subsided quickly. The fires were put out and everyone moved into the comparative safety of the city. Dravot and Thorkeld saw to the business of reinforcing the defenses of the town. Teams of scouts were sent out to look for another attack – a force like that doesn’t just appear suddenly.
Dravot and Scorch investigated the remains of the attackers. In the decaying flesh of the golem-like creatures, they found a bracelet in each. It was black and had an evil feel to it. Scorch attempted to remove them. The first time he had no troubles but on the second one, he mistakenly touched it with his finger, and it set off a burst of negative energy that ripped through everyone in the area. Valanthe joined them and disabled the devices – they seemed to be some kind of reservoir of negative energy that could be discharged to damage enemies and heal the undead.
A few hours later, many of the scouts sent out hadn’t returned. Scorch tried to scry them and determine their fate. Some of them he found, their bodies drained by stirges. Others were turned into zombies and marched on some unknown road. Others were missing, the crystal ball only showing an empty spot of road.
For my part, I stood on the parapets, scanning the countryside. Watching and waiting.
A beam of sunlight broke the clouds and cast its light on the Temple of Pelor. By the time Dravot got there, Zera was coming out of the door with Cresent helping her walk. She was in great pain, and said it was the transformation – sometimes it was easier than others.
Zera had been spending time in Brindinford of late, and had gone with Dravot to Ruun Khazai before the attack - Dravot wanted to work on un-doing the curse that she and her brother Zara suffered from. Now she had arrived back in Brindinford, and we were glad for the help.
Scorch had meant to investigate the curse more thoroughly but other things kept popping up. With her in front of him he was reminded, and got a sudden idea. He tried to scry Zara. If Zera was here, where was her brother now? The answer was more surprising than we could have imagined.
Scorch quickly focused in on a dark void of a plane. He saw Zara, held in bands of mithril. Nearby were some thirty other people, similarly held. Scorch believed this was a demi-plane that someone had created. As we scanned the scene through the ball, I suddenly hissed. One of the figures was the black archer that had almost killed Aran’gel. We now knew that it wasn’t actually Ravenna, but there was no doubt in my mind that this was the evil look-alike. Valanthe saw something even more surprising.
It was Rackhir.
He was bound as the others were, his bow clutched in his hand. We just stared at each other, not understanding what we were seeing. I had always thought, or perhaps hoped, that Rackhir was somewhere in the outer planes, free but unable to return. But this raised more questions. Who held these people here? Was it just a dumping ground, or someone’s private prison, and if so, who’s?
During our scrying, we were suddenly scried back. It seemed someone was unhappy with our snooping. Scorch tried to scry back to whomever was watching us, but the attempt failed. The scrier broke the contact, having seen what they needed I suppose. Scorch let his crystal go dark.
We could spare no more time to puzzle it out however and returned to our tasks. Valanthe scouted the area around the town, and found some very odd landmines that would burst acid on whoever set them off. Bolo conjured up some earth elementals to disable them easily enough, but it was strange they were there at all. This only further strengthened my idea that Kargoth was trying to take the town. I was unsure if he had been attacking in order to overwhelm the town, or to draw us out. It seems more and more that he had not anticipated our presence here.
Some hours passed, and we each got what rest and sleep we could. Times like this make me cherish being an elf. Eight hours after the first attack, it began. We were in various areas of the town when it started. I heard a rustling in the trees, like the wind going through them, but there was no wind, nor movement in the leaves. Valanthe made out the sound of lots of little splishes in the water, coming up the river. We moved to the north gate to look closer.
Coming up the river was a squad of troglodytes. They were running on the surface of the river, barely touching it. They were running in two ranks of twenty like a well disciplined force, and each had a spear. From the same area, a gulthite broke through the forest coming towards the town. I hadn’t seen one of the massive tree golems before but the party had fought one in this area once – their foliage formed a protective screen making it harder to damage them, and you had to break through it before you could start brining down the tree itself. Where a treant was a strong, gentle spirit of nature, this was a misshapen horror of twisted roots and crooked branches.
Then we heard screaming to the east - the east gate was being assaulted as well.
Scorch began heading this way – I would need his help to deal with these things. If the gulthite was as sturdy as they said, it would take quite a bit of firepower to get through to it. Even worse, a second one came crashing through the treeline. Not to mention the troglodytes. I didn’t waste time waiting for the troglodytes, and fired a hail of arrows at them. Seven trogs fell dead, and two more were barely standing. The flame on the arrows was extinguished as it hit each target though, and I began to wonder if these weren’t part water-elemental.
Scorch quickly arrived and so I decided to focus on the gulthites, knowing the troglodytes were as good as dead. I took aim and started launching arrows at the massive tree. It was over three hundred feet away but closing fast on the town walls. I was hoping to soften him up and destroy his protection so we could destroy him, but I was in for a pleasant surprise.
Over the months since I became a Champion, I’ve learned how to put more and more arcane energy into every shaft, and now my arrows were infused with as much spellcraft as the most potent weapons. As the arrows arced towards the gulthite, the heads glowed like golden stars and the flaming shafts made it look like comets streaking across the dark sky towards the twisted tree. They tore through the twigs and leaves that surrounded the tree, and landed solidly in the trunk, and it screeched in pain.
Scorch didn’t even waste time smirking but moved to the troglodytes who had moved up the river near the wall. He floated overhead and struck them with a swirling mass of ice and frost. The cone of cold brought the squad to a halt, and for a split second, they stood on the now frozen river, like a sculpture of ice before falling over and shattering into thousands of pieces. Their spears squealed and shattered with them, and Scorch concluded that they must be more twig blights disguised as spears.
We were now under attack at the east and south gates as well as the north. Over the scale I called to Scorch “My arrows are going right through their leaf shields.”
“Interesting” he replied. “Are you ok here?”
“I can handle these two. I think they’re going to need your help with the other fronts.” Scorch nodded and moved off to aid the rest of the group while I held this line, after lobbing a fireball at the damaged tree for good measure.
I shot arrow after arrow into the advancing tree. Each time it screeched and ran harder to get to me, but it was hopeless. My worry wasn’t this tree – I was sure it would fall long before reaching the wall. My worry was the second one. It would be closer before I could start firing on it (as I was busy destroying the first one) and so I’d have to work fast. The first gulthite finally collapsed into a mass of branches and vines and began decomposing almost instantly. I wasted no time firing on the second monster and soon it was limping and howling as I fired on its knees and hips.
As it closed, I’m sure it thought “If I can just get to the wall, I’ll destroy you.” Personally I was thinking “If you get close, you’re really going to feel some pain.”
The gulthite slugged across the river and just reached the wall. It was limping badly and bleeding sap from many wounds. The archers on the wall from the town guard had also opened fire and just as the gulthite reached the wall, it could go no further, and collapsed at the base of the wall, vainly clutching at me as it fell. And none too soon, as there was no shortage of trouble at the other gates.
While I was on the wall, there was even more frenzied fighting elsewhere. Throughout the town, some of the townsfolk suddenly looked ill as if they were a corpse that had been left in the water. Spikes projected suddenly out of their throats and hands, and they started seeping a pus-like fluid. They began lashing out at other townsfolk. One man was fleeing and a spike shot out of one of the afflicted people and through the fleeing man’s neck. Dravot struck at a nearby one and fluid gushed out of the wound.
Dravot, Thorkeld, and Aethramyr, all near the middle of town, could feel a tremor as something underground tunneled beneath them. It hadn’t surfaced yet, but it surely would soon. Nearby at the east gate, Valanthe could sense something in the area. It was the size of a cart and while it was invisible, Valanthe could tell it was near. Large burned areas appeared on the ground and buildings suddenly developed holes as they were eaten through by acid. Aethramyr threw a dispel magic and Sehanine’s champion got just the right spell, revealing for a moment a glowing reddish cube of some fluid. But the cube was soon consumed in an inky darkness which expanded outward making it still hard to find. Thorkeld fired an arrow into the blackness but it seemed ineffective. Dravot made sure to have a daylight spell running to combat the darkness. The living saint shone in the night like a beacon, rallying the town guard to his aid.
The bloated bodies moved towards Dravot, who invoked a flame strike upon some of them. He was saddened to do that to his own people but he did not think they could be saved. As the flesh was burned away, a small pink colored thing the size of a heart sprung from the chest of one of the victims. It used stringy tentacles to try to spring to another corpse, but the flames struck it down before it could reach it. When the refugees were brought into town, they were checked for the taint of evil or undead, but not everyone could be checked, and some of them must have been infected before the first attack.
The burrowing grew louder and three bulettes burst up onto the streets. They were larger and more vicious than the usual variety, and they oozed acid from the joints of their armor plates. Aethramyr, Thorkeld and Dravot were now caught between the bulettes towards the center of town and the acidic cube near the gate. Dravot, who had been scanning for undead, suddenly sensed the taint strongly. Thorkeld kept firing at the cube as he pulled back toward the others, trying to rally the defending guardsmen and prevent a rout.
The holy men regrouped and refocused their efforts. The guardsmen were told to hold off the afflicted townsfolk while the other threats were dealt with. Dravot brought a flame strike down on a bulette and burned it badly. Some of the flames gushed into the tunnel it just emerged from, and there were hideous screams from within. Something more was down there. Creatures began skittering out like insects, but they were humanoid with pale white-green skin. Dravot believed they were wights that had been tainted by acid.
The cube continued to burn through anything in its path. Bolo had been flying first towards the north gate but then to the east where more help was needed, and had just arrived at the battle. He moved to engage the cube while the forces on the ground held off the bulettes, and let loose a sunbeam at the center of the darkness where the cube was. Scorch flew in having come from the south gate, and attempted to dominate a bulette. It failed but he was determined to get one out of the fight, and a hold monster did the job well.
The town guard and Thorkeld fought a fierce battle with the townsfolk and the beasts controlling them. At least they were not as overmatched as they would have been against the bulette, and they were making progress. Dravot brought Pelor’s Destruction on the third bulette and it was blasted to dust. Then he turned the wights, most of the ones that had emerged from the hole were destroyed in Pelor’s light. However more quickly scrambled out to replace them, and from the other two tunnels as well, until a small army of wights stood in town.
Aethramyr had moved to engage one of the bulettes and the blows they traded rang out against each other’s armored shells. Aethramyr moved deftly and the bulette had a time even laying a claw on the paladin, whereas Shatterspike bit hungrily through the shell of the bulette. Aethramyr had dealt several fierce blows and the bulette was near death. Thorkeld brought his hammer down and the last bulette collapsed into a heap.
And none too soon, since the acidic cube had closed on them. It swung a long pod at Dravot but fortunately Dravot was able to avoid it.
Screams were coming from the southeast, and Valanthe thought there was another cube in the southeast section of town but was busy with problems where she was. The cubes were a serious threat but more force was coming to bear against them. Bolo fired another sunbeam, and Scorch fired a blast to finish it off.
The wights were something Dravot knew how to deal with. He took to the air over the tunnels, and glowing with Pelor’s own light, blasted the wights. They hissed and screamed as their undead flesh burned away. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to kill them, but they were all badly hurt. The wights swarmed Aethramyr riding Crescent, and he tore apart several of them in clean strokes. Then Dravot descended amidst the slavering wights, and let off another burst that blasted them all to dust.
And while all this took place, the battle raged on yet another front. Valanthe moved to check the south gate, and found more problems there. A second wave of troglodytes was approaching, and something more sinister. Two beasts, born of shadow, with writhing tentacles coming from an amorphous mass of blackness. They floated off the ground lifted by two tiny wings. One of them belched out a cone of black gas at a group of soldiers who collapsed instantly. The other one grew diffuse and suddenly other shadowy forms sprouted from it. It was surely just a mirror image spell, but it was terrifying to the guardsmen watching.
The troglodytes seemed to be giving the shadow beasts a wide berth, not wishing to be killed by the indiscriminate monsters. One lashed out a tentacle at a guardsman and ripped him in two but also killed the troglodyte who was in the way. Valanthe was ready for something like this however and pulled a scroll from an ebony case, and read the words that were scrawled in gold on the blackened parchment. The shadow creatures suddenly stopped, stunned and cut off from the shadow plane and many of their powers. Valanthe said the shadowblast would leave them stunned for some minutes while we dealt with the other fights. The perfect move at the perfect time. Scorch arrived from the north gate, and dealt with the second wave of troglodytes in much the same manner as he had the first. Unfortunately the cone of cold washed over the shadow beasts without effect. Scorch moved off to help Aethramyr and Dravot, but Valanthe heard screaming coming from the east. She moved to find the threat and saw more burned holes in buildings and half dissolved people and sensed another invisible thing in the area. Somehow the thing sensed her, and it swiped at her with a pseudopod, burning her with acid, but also enveloping her and sucking her into the cube. She quickly decided that she had no wish to be eaten by this creature, and shadow jumped out. I had finished with the gulthites by this time and had flown across town and came over a building to see the invisible cube. I had one more reason to be glad I could see invisible things, and fired at the cube once. I was hoping to glitterdust it next shot so everyone could see it. Bolo was closing on the cube also but couldn’t see it. Scorch came in and with luck and a guess, managed to dispel the invisibility. The cube was not pleased and tried to envelop Scorch but found nothing more than one of his mirror images. Bolo, Scorch, and I all let loose into the cube, and it lost cohesion and dissolved away.
We quickly moved back to the disabled shadow creatures but they were gone. There was no way they could have left on their own power, and Scorch believes they were gated out by someone.
The second battle of the day was over, and we were victorious.
[OOC: Wow. What a battle. Took almost the entire night. We were attacked almost simultaneously on three fronts – north, east, and south. We came out of it with very little damage also, mostly due to some luck and some solid tactics. The single biggest tide-turner was surely Valanthe’s use of the shadowblast scrolls he had – neutralizing that threat let us cope with the battles we already had running. For the sake of clarity I’ll detail the attacking forces:
North Gate
Two Gulthites (big ol tree golem thingies with a stoneskin-like ablative armor)
40 half-water-elemental troglodytes with twig blight spears
East Gate
Two improved-invisible, displaced, spell immunity-d, flying, unholy aura-d, fifteen-foot-reaching, acidic gelatinous cube thingies that envenlop people. One with a darkness on contingency through some unknown means
South Gate
Two amorphic beasts from the plane of shadow
40 half-water-elemental troglodytes with twig blight spears
Tunneled into town
Three acidic bigger-than-usual bulettes
About 30 acidic wights
Around town
Some number of townsfolk, taken over by these icky things. Apparently they’re called Gut puppets. (Sounds like a grunge band.)
This will make most of the party 18th level.]
