JollyDoc's Savage Tide-Updated 10/8!
Richard Rawen
First Post
Great Stuff!
I like the way you portray the group dynamics, there's edginess that is usually lacking from pnp that I've been in.
I think I may encourage my players to whip up some evil characters, just to see if they cut loose a bit from their tried-and-trues.
Of course there was inter-party conflict a couple years ago, it resulted in the young lady getting huffy and forcing her boyfriend to quit with her. Honestly I was sorry to see him go.
Do you get any real-life conflicts emerging from group disagreements or is it pretty laid back at your table?
I like the way you portray the group dynamics, there's edginess that is usually lacking from pnp that I've been in.
I think I may encourage my players to whip up some evil characters, just to see if they cut loose a bit from their tried-and-trues.
Of course there was inter-party conflict a couple years ago, it resulted in the young lady getting huffy and forcing her boyfriend to quit with her. Honestly I was sorry to see him go.
Do you get any real-life conflicts emerging from group disagreements or is it pretty laid back at your table?
Joachim
First Post
Richard Rawen said:
Nah...not really. We generally (note 'generally') don't do anything that specifically screw-jobs the other PC's. Remember, too, that we are starting to get pretty docile in our old age (I think being beaten into submission by our wives has made us accustomed to this brand of passivity...It's like, "I don't care what you do. Just don't make me go back home."
).Whenever you think about screwing over your fellow PC's, just remember the Golden Rule of D&D: "What goes around comes around."
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carborundum
Adventurer
Roll up, roll up!
I'm really looking forward to this - more than, say, Harry Potter
I'm really looking forward to this - more than, say, Harry Potter
JollyDoc
Explorer
GOLISMORGA
The tunnel down which Irgzid had been leading them for over five hours suddenly changed from rough natural stone to an intricately carved corridor bearing glyphs and mosaics of Maztican design, just before it opened into an immense flooded chamber. The walls of the square room rose up in steps, forming an inverted ziggurat with an apex forty feet above the dark waters that flooded the area to just below the edge of the entrance. The floor was a ruin of smashed pillars and small islands constructed in the same roughly pyramidal fashion. In the center, a line of destroyed columns and altars protruded a few feet above the surface, creating a makeshift bridge that dipped briefly into the water before reaching the continuing passage on the far side.
“We are here,” Irgzid said, opening his arms expansively. “The Temple of the Ancient Ones. This is where my people meet the Lords of Dread. They come through the far entrance, and then one of them swims across to this landing. When he emerges, he unfolds a black piece of cloth upon the ground, which then transforms into a deep hole. From this he takes the shadow pearls, still cradled in their bilestone shells. We exchange our slaves, which are placed into the hole in turn. It is then folded back into its cloth form, and the transaction is complete.”
“That’s it?” Sepoto asked. “Where do the Lords of Dread return to? Where is their sanctuary?”
“South, and down,” Irgzid replied as if this fact should have been obvious. “I have never been beyond this room.”
Sepoto looked incredulous. “Then you’re not much further use to us, are you?” he growled.
Irgzid’s eyes went wide but then he threw his arms open again, raised his head to the ceiling and began shouting, “I have brought the heroes you asked for, Father! What do you wish of them?”
As the last of his words were still echoing from the cavern walls, a ghostly figured appeared across the water, standing atop another platform. It seemed to be the apparition of a troglodyte, dressed in the fetishes of a shaman. Irgzid bowed before the shade, his eyes wild with religious fervor.
“We are the souls of the tormented,” the figure said in the Draconic tongue of the troglodytes, which only Mandi, Sepoto and Samson comprehended. “We seek release from our imprisonment, and thus we have summoned you here. Only in the destruction of the so-called Lords of Dread may we find peace. The evil ones have claimed the ancient city of Golismorga for their own. There they hatch their sinister plan to remake the surface in their own image. In order to end their threat, Golismorga must be reclaimed by the sea. The Cerulean Curtain must be destroyed.”
Mandi and Sepoto glanced at one another skeptically.
“Why must the curtain be destroyed?” Mandi asked. “Why can we not just slay the Lords of Dread, and thus end their plans.”
“That would only provide a temporary solution,” the apparition explained. “The source of their evil, the forge of the shadow pearls, would remain. In time, more of their brethren would return and resume their endeavor.”
“What of the aboleth?” Sepoto asked. “If Golismorga is flooded, won’t all of the petrified devil fish be restored?”
“Possibly,” the figure replied, “but they are not the creators of the shadow pearls. They are not the cause of your world’s problems.”
At that moment Mandi angrily spun on Irgzid, still speaking in the trog’s own language. “Why did you bring us here?” she demanded. “Why didn’t you tell us of this? I warned you what would happen if you betrayed us!”
Irgzid merely shrugged. “If I had told you, you might not have come,” he said simply.
Mandi snarled, gathering emerald energy around her hand. Irgzid calmly stepped backwards off the platform, and vanished into the dark water below.
“Does anyone care to explain just what in the Nine Hells is going on here?” Marius snapped. “Who is that, and where did Irgzid go?”
Mandi quickly explained the situation to her colleagues in Common. “I think we’re being duped,” she finished. “This was all a set-up of some sort.”
“Then what can we do to convince you of the truth in our words,” the shade interrupted, also speaking Common. Mandi’s eyes narrowed. Shifting to the language of the Celestials, she whispered in Daelric’s ear, “I want you to See our host and tell me the truth of his nature.”
The priest nodded in understanding and began his prayer. When he finished, his eyes glowed with golden light and he turned them upon the ghost. Instantly, his eyebrows lifted almost to his hairline.
“What is it?” Mandi asked. “What do you see?”
“Look for yourself,” Daelric replied, then reached out to touch the elf, imbuing her with his Sight.
When Mandi looked at the apparition, she no longer saw a troglodyte. Instead an aboleth lay where the trog shaman had stood, but due to the nature of the magic Daelric shared with her, she saw that even this was not entirely the truth. The aboleth was but a figment, a projected image generated from somewhere else in the room, likely below the water.
“We dislike being pawns,” she said to the image before her. “If you wanted something from us, you should have just asked.”
The image of the aboleth made a sound that could have been a sigh. “If you are at all familiar with the nature of my race,” it replied, “then you know that is not our way. Still, your point is taken. Very well then, here is the truth of it. I am N’glothnoru, and ages ago my people ruled this island, both above and below. Then the humans came, staking claim to the surface as if they had the right. We took steps to dissuade them of this notion, and thus war began. Ultimately, the humans prevailed, summoning the power of their rain god, Tlaloc to drain our demesne of water, thus stranding us and imprisoning us in the Long Dreaming. Long did our city, Golismorga, lay empty until the kopru, your Lords of Dread, discovered it. Worse, they discovered Holashner’s ziggurat, and what lay within.”
“Who is Holashner?” Sepoto interrupted.
“The Hunger Below,” N’glothnoru answered, “one of the Elder Evils, beings that have existed since the beginning of the beginning, long before your so-called gods. When Holashner travels along his endless path below the earth, He leaves in his wake bilestone. We kept a repository of this substance in the ziggurat, and it is from this that the kopru have learned to make the objects you call shadow pearls.”
“What role does the Prince of Demons play in this?” Mandi asked. “For we have seen his image and heard his name whispered throughout our quest.”
“The kopru revere him,” N’glothnoru replied, “and I believe it is their Abyssal master that has provided them with the knowledge to create the pearls.”
“The question still stands,” Sepoto asked, “why must we destroy the Cerulean Curtain, especially if it means your people will return?”
“Merely slaying the kopru is not enough, as I explained,” the aboleth said patiently. “If Golismorga is flooded once again, their plans will be permanently thwarted. True, my people will return, but we are an extremely long-lived race. We might even be considered immortal to such as you, and thus we reckon time differently. To us, millennia are like years. Our plans unfold slowly, and while we may one day reclaim what was ours, that day will not come in your lifetime. So you must concern yourselves with the threat that stands against you now, and know that if the kopru do return to Golismorga, we will be waiting.”
Mandi listened to the aboleth’s tale rather impatiently. When it paused, she interjected, “Very well. Tell us how to destroy the Curtain so that we may be on our way.”
“A wise decision,” N’glothnoru said. “I can tell you only that the Curtain’s anchor lies within Golismorga, and it is tied directly to Tlaloc. You will know it when you see it, and when you see it, you must unmake it. Then the Curtain will fall.”
“Fine,” Mandi said dismissively. “Then we’ll take our leave. Tower Cleaver!” When the big minotaur stepped forward, she quickly cast a spell of flight over him and had him ferry the group across the chamber. N’glothnoru watched in silence as they departed his prison, harboring the beginnings of faint hope that he might soon be free.
_____________________________________________________
“Not blood likely!” Mandi said as they continued along the down-sloping tunnel. “The day I trust an aboleth is the day I take Cleaver for my apprentice!”
The minotaur furrowed his brow, trying to decide if he had just been complimented or insulted.
“We’ll go to Golismorga alright,” Mandi continued, “and once there, we’ll just see how capable the kopru will be to return there once we’re finished with them.”
_____________________________________________________
The passageway opened into a roughly circular cavern. A ten-foot wide ledge ran across the northern and southern faces of the room, with a passage leading away from each. Graceful arcs of natural stone bridged the two ledges in three places, although the westernmost one had collapsed in the center, leaving a five-foot gap. Above, the ceiling rose up to a height of nearly forty feet, while below, the ground dropped away an equal distance into a rubble-strewn gulf. What appeared to be six, immense, petrified fish lay on the floor of the crevice. The sound of whispering welled up from below, and the ground looked almost like it was moving.
“Bugs,” Mandi said in disgust. “I hate bugs. Especially when they come in swarms. Cleaver, you will do transport again.”
“Go on ahead,” Sepoto said. “I’ll catch up.”
“What do you mean?” Mandi asked.
“I’m going to make sure as few aboleth are able to return as possible, in the event the Curtain should ever fall,” the crusader said grimly. “I’m going to destroy the sleepers.”
Mandi shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
“And watch your back,” Samson added.
As the others shuttled over the crevice, Sepoto, calling upon one of the many enchantments of his armor, flew straight down towards the nearest aboleth. As he landed, he saw that the ‘moving ground’ was actually great swarms of chittering grubs, white spiders, whip scorpions, centipedes and other vermin. They crawled over his boots in a layer several inches deep, but did not seem otherwise threatening. He uncoiled his chain and was preparing to deliver the coup de grace to the first of the dreamers when he saw sudden movement from the corner of his eye. Three large shadows had detached themselves from the deeper gloom under the stone bridges and where quickly scuttling down the walls towards him. As they came into the circle of his light, he saw that they were spider-like creatures, but their front pair of legs bore flattened discs studded with dozens of hooked suckers. Their heads were horrifically oversized, dominated by immense mandibles that chattered and clacked with obvious hunger. Sepoto recognized them immediately. They were rhagodessas, the same creatures that had killed Ferox so long ago aboard the Blue Nixie, only these were much larger, and if possible, more aggressive.
As the terrible spiders scuttled towards him, the crusader whirled his chain in front of him like a scythe, slicing into each of them as they came within his reach. Despite the terrible wounds he inflicted, they still lunged for him. One of them buried its mandibles deep into his thigh, and then wrapped its palps about him, trying to draw him into its embrace. Sepoto felt a surge of power through the black tooth that jutted over his lip, and he threw the creature off effortlessly. As it crouched for another spring, the goliath sank the tip of his chain into its spine, pinning it to the ground where it curled into a dead husk. As he struggled to free his weapon, however, he saw another of the creatures preparing to attack. Just before it launched, however, it exploded into a cloud of ichor and legs as Tower Cleaver’s axe cleaved through it. The big minotaur grinned at Sepoto’s surprised expression, but then his smile quickly vanished as the last rhagodessa bowled into him from behind, seizing him in its palps and then chomping down on his shoulder with its fangs. The barbarian roared, baring his own fangs and hurled the spider from him, and then followed after it so that before it even struck the ground his axe had sliced it neatly in half. Sepoto nodded in gratitude to his friend, and the pair then set about the grisly task of dispatching the aboleths.
________________________________________________________________
The Legionnaires found themselves on a high ledge overlooking an immense cavern, within which brooded a realm of gigantic polyps and intricate fungi so large and elaborate that they seemed almost to compliment the twisted towers and temples, the myriad constructions of an insane city. Ruined citadels of cyclopean grandeur tangled amid spires that looked to have been grown rather than built…homes for beings with unspeakable forms. Senseless bridges reached to suicide heights, dropping away into squamous slums and melted ghettoes. Seemingly accidental avenues and inaccessible alleys formed an unfathomable maze, a labyrinth that stretched to the subterranean horizon. Across it all bulged images of gnarled, tentacled things and red domes that glistened like unblinking, demoniac eyes. The already stale air had grown foul and close in that place, as if the smell of rot was somehow trying to crowd out the final gasp of freshness reaching those forsaken depths.
Bursting from the demented cityscape, three titanic columns of unearthly violet flame churned silently like the pillars of some gigantic temple, bathing the entire cavern in a nauseating violet light…a light that seemed somehow more horrible than the darkness that lurked at the edges of the nightmare grotto.
Mandi looked out across the alien landscape, her sharp eyes searching. Within moments, she found what she was looking for.
“There,” she said. “South of the nearest pillar of fire.”
“What?” Sepoto asked. “I don’t see anything unusual…well, any more unusual I mean.”
“There’s a relatively normal looking structure about a half-mile from here. A pyramid, if I’m not mistaken. The aboleth mentioned a ziggurat. I think that qualifies. That should be our first destination.
The group made their way down to the city floor by way of various fly charms and then started their trek through the ruined, monstrous metropolis. As they traveled, they witnessed ever more evidence of Golismorga’s oppidian dementia. At one point a monstrous tongue, split into a triple fork, rolled from a structure’s fleshy abscess, licked the red domes upon its surface, and then recoiled. Further along, a two-story tall lung heaved on the side of another building, gasping irregularly. The walls of yet another gruesome edifice were alive with cilia that retracted at the company’s approach, eliciting a deep growl from the building itself. Before long, they reached an immense area cleared of debris and dwellings. In its center sprouted one of the violet pillars, its base fully one-hundred feet in diameter. The air became noticeably cooler within the boundaries of the clearing, and no sooner had the six companions entered it than they felt a wave of sickening nausea overwhelm them. Mandi, Sepoto and Tower Cleaver became violently ill, retching and heaving until the others pulled them back into the shadows of the surrounding ghetto.
The company decided to give the pillar a wide berth after that, sticking to the gloom of the cityscape itself. Soon, all of them could see the pyramid in the distance. Amid ruined towers of melted stone and malls of quivering ooze, another wide area lay clear of rubble and less wholesome debris. From these acres rose the stone ziggurat, looking decidedly out of place from the surrounding madness, its dimensions having the appearance of lucid design and bearing comforting right angles of masonry. The sides of the pyramid were festooned with detailed carvings of reptilian and simian monsters wrapped and cradled in endless coils of tentacles. Steep steps rose into the darkened, noxious cavern air to a simple platform at the ziggurat’s summit. Not all seemed right, however, as several cracks marred the structure’s masonry, revealing sections of diseased purple flesh within. In addition, two sides of the pyramid looked to be partially overgrown, covered in putrid swaths of pale green mold. In places, great slicks of tacky, dried blood stained the sides as well.
As the party paused to take in the horrifying sight, sudden movement erupted in the shadows on all sides of them. From alleys and side streets darted scores of troglodytes, all running away from them and towards the pyramid, shouting in alarm as they went. Moments later, horns sounded from the pyramid itself and multiple shadows could be seen detaching themselves from its base. These forms soon resolved into fully three dozen kopru, slithering purposefully towards them. Above these flew eight much larger versions of the same. They were huge, muscular behemoths, sprouting no wings, yet staying aloft under their own power. Mandi, who upon hearing the horns had used her magic to transform herself into the shape of a barbed-skin devil and had imbued herself with the ability to see the unseen, also beheld ten more creatures behind the front ranks of kopru. They had evil-looking, human heads perched atop black, serpentine bodies. Nagas…and they were all invisible.
“Perhaps we should have listened to the aboleth,” she muttered.
Yet it was far too late for recriminations. The horde was approaching fast, and there would be no escape. Mandi rose into the air, set her sights on one of the dark nagas, and hurled a spear of green energy at it, hoping to disintegrate it where it crawled. Incredibly, she missed. She would have sworn she had aimed directly at the creature, yet her blast had struck more than a foot to its left. Suddenly, she realized what had happened. The creatures were magically displaced as well as invisible. Angrily, she corrected her aim and fired again. This time her ray struck true, and the naga instantly dissolved into a pile of dust.
Sepoto never hesitated. Crying out to Savras, the crusader charged forward, twirling his chain before him. In moments, the first rank of kopru found him among them like a dervish. His weapon was like a thresher among wheat, and one of the aquatic monstrosities quickly fell before him.
The shock troops should not have been the Legion’s primary concern, however. Abruptly, the nine remaining nagas shimmered into view as their guttural voices rose up in vile incantations. Three forked bolts of electricity sizzled through the air, boring through Tower Cleaver and continuing on into Marius, who stood behind the minotaur. While the air still stank of ozone and burnt flesh, a tremendous barrage of arcane missiles pierced the darkness like fireflies. Two dozen or more streaked unerringly towards the already reeling barbarian and the warmage, battering them like hammers from a score of smiths. Before the fight had really begun, Marius found himself on the edge of consciousness, while the sturdier Cleaver still stood strong, though his body was wracked with searing pain.
“This is unwinable!” Daelric’s disembodied voice cried. From above him, Mandi hissed angrily, “Then you’d best do something to even the odds before they’re upon us!”
The young priest struggled to regain his composure, fumbling through his robes until his hand closed on the scroll tube he sought. Hastily drawing the parchment out and unfurling it, he began reading the incantation scribed there. The air before him began to waver and glow, slowly solidifying until, when the last word of the spell was spoken, a titanic creature, fully thirty-feet tall, stood before the oncoming horde. It looked to be a giant humanoid, carved out of the bedrock of the earth itself…an elemental, pulled from its home dimension by Daelric’s summoning. At a shouted command from the priest, the creature lurched into motion, batting at one of the approaching kopru behemoths as if it were a gnat buzzing about its head.
Sepoto realized something immediately as he fought the kopru. The creatures’ amphibious nature literally made them fish out of water upon land. Though they moved unerringly towards him, and his companions behind, their pace was sluggish, hindered by bodies not made for solid ground. Thus, as they passed and surrounded him, he struck almost at will, moving fluidly among them as they struggled to orient themselves before his onslaught. Three more fell before him within seconds. At that moment, the battlefield erupted in flames. Four sequential explosions lifted enemies into the air across the expanse of the entire line, dropping broken forms back to the ground like cordwood. Sepoto recognized Marius’ handiwork, and when the fire cleared, a dozen more kopru lay dead, and all of the nagas bore horrific burns. The warmage knew his business. About that there could be no doubt. The crusader saw his chance and darted through the shell-shocked warriors, straight towards the nearest naga. As he went, he summoned Savras’ power into his chain, and when he reached the serpent, he drove his holy weapon straight through its black heart, burning it to ash with the might of the All-Seeing.
Despite Daelric’s impressive deterrent, Mandi saw that the flying behemoths were still coming. Landing, she quickly shifted her form again, this time into that of a towering glabrezu demon. She sought to interpose herself between her companions and the death from above. Yet as they began to descend, she saw that there were too many for her to occupy. While she attracted the attention of fully half of them, her enhanced demonic physiology shrugging off their blows, two still made it to Tower Cleave, and one to Marius. The minotaur whirled as they approached, but his wounds made him sluggish, and he could not avoid the whip-like barbed tales of the giants. They struck him savagely, ripping his flesh, and the tail of one of the behemoths quickly twined about him, pinning his arms to his side as it pulled him into the kopru’s embrace, squeezing the life out of him. When Marius was struck in turn, he fell as if pole-axed, collapsing to a boneless heap on the ground before the still invisible Daelric. Acting quickly, the priest knelt beside him and was relieved to feel a thready pulse still beating. Calling upon his most powerful healing charm, he laid his hands upon the mage, mending all his wounds and broken bones in one powerful surge of divine energy. As Marius inhaled deeply and opened his eyes, Daelric whispered, “Stay down!”
Sepoto immediately knew that he had miscalculated. By butchering the naga, he had revealed himself as the most immediate threat to its remaining brethren. As one they focused their magic upon him, raining arcane bolts down upon him like a fiery deluge. The goliath hissed at the pain, but did not cry out. Instead, as the kopru moved to surround him again, he channeled his agony into rage, his chain scything out and bisecting four more of the vile aberrations.
“Daelric!” Mandi cried. “We’re getting out of here! Call your elemental back to cover our escape!”
The priest nodded, and spoke a word of command. Instantly, the elemental responded and came lumbering back towards its master. As it approached, the behemoths struck at it, but their wicked tails did little more than scratch its rocky hide. Raising one massive hand high above its head, it brought it down with enough force to rock the ground, smashing one of the giant kopru beneath it and leaving only a bloody pulp in the impact crater. At that same moment, Mandi began her spell, reaching out to touch each of her companions, even Tower Cleaver, still trapped in the behemoth’s coils. In an eye blink, they vanished, only to reappear on the far side of the battlefield, beyond the kopru and the nagas. No sooner had they arrived than Marius leapt to his feet, calling his devastating magic to his hand once more. Again, the field of battle was bathed in fire, this time leaving two of the nagas as smoking corpses, along with three more of the kopru.
The behemoths were large and powerful, but they were still kopru, which meant they were still possessed of a cunning intellect. They saw Mandi’s ploy for what it was, and knew very well the source of their greatest threat. They had no intention of wasting their resources on the elemental, for mighty though it was, it was also slow and they knew they could outdistance it easily. The seven remaining rose into the air again and began moving back across the field, though one suffered another of the elementals crushing blows as it passed.
Though the kopru were not proving much of a challenge for Sepoto, they were effectively keeping him distracted from the far more dangerous nagas. Once more they loosed their arcane missiles upon him, and for the first time, Sepoto began to doubt whether or not he would survive this battle. Still, he had to clear a path between himself and the nagas, so on he fought, and three more of the kopru knew pain and death. Behind him, the crusader could hear the thundering footsteps of the elemental as it pursued the behemoths, barreling straight into the throng of kopru, stomping one of them flat beneath its feet.
As Daelric tended Tower Cleaver’s wounds, Marius set to work to make an opening for Sepoto to reach them. Cupping both hands before him, he loosed a cone of white hot fire into the horde. Another kopru immolated in agony, and two more of the nagas died as well. What was more, by this time the behemoths had closed over half the distance to the group, and the warmage’s blast engulfed four of them, not slowing them, but giving them a healthy respect for the gnome…or labeling him an even bigger target. Mandi, drawing on the same tactic as the mage, drew a staff from her back, held it like a spear and shouted a word of power. From its tip flew a second cone, this one of ice and sleet. To her amazement and relief, one of the behemoths succumbed to the blast. Six still remained.
That was the opening Sepoto needed. Calling on Savras to deliver him, his body dissolved into smoke and shadow, only to coalesce again beside his companions. Unfortunately, the behemoths were right behind. The giants reached the companions and broke over them like a tsunami. One slashed at Tower Cleaver, raking his face with its claws, while a second one whipped at the minotaur with its tail, seizing him in its grip once more. As it tightened its coils, a third brute joined it, constricting the barbarian with bone-crushing force. Sepoto had just gotten his bearings when a fourth behemoth struck him a terrible blow to the head. The crusader’s vision exploded into stars, followed by blackness as he slumped to the ground.
Daelric screamed at his enslaved elemental, calling it to him with all haste. The titan waded through the kopru, seizing one of the nagas in its fist as it came and squeezing until its head exploded. Another naga and three more kopru were crushed by its massive arms as they swung like tree trunks to clear the way before it. Meanwhile, Daelric turned his attention to Sepoto. The goliath still lived, and the priest summoned Shaundekal’s strength again, fully healing the crusader’s wounds. While he worked, Marius and Mandi struggled to keep the behemoths off him. A well-placed scorching ray of fire straight into the eye of one behemoth felled it in an instant, while Mandi blasted the four surrounding Cleaver, not caring that her icy bombardment struck the minotaur as well. He was as good as dead anyway if she didn’t intervene. One of the brutes holding the barbarian went down, as well as another of its nearby companions.
No sooner had Sepoto opened his eyes again, than he willed himself into the shadows once more, reappearing behind the behemoth that felled him. This time, it was the kopru that went down under the goliath’s blows, and there was no one around to bring it back from the brink of death.
“Cover me!” shouted the still unseen Daelric as he darted out into the midst of the fray. Marius stepped out from behind Mandi to do just that, but the final pair of dark nagas immediately targeted the gnome, burning him with jets of flame, just as he’d done to their brethren. Their attention was soon diverted, however, as Daelric’s elemental reached them, squelching one between its toes. When Daelric reached Tower Cleaver, the priest reached out and touched the minotaur, a prayer on his lips. Instantly, Cleaver was able to slip free of the squeezing coils of the behemoth, his movements completely unimpeded. Bellowing his battle cry, the barbarian swung his mighty axe in a wide arc, slashing the two behemoths nearest him. On the heels of his attack, another blast of ice from Mandi finished the brutes, as well as half a dozen more kopru. Tower Cleaver was then free to focus on the last of the naga’s, and he gave the creature his full attention. Soon, only one lone adversary remained in the bloody clearing. A single kopru. As it beheld its situation, it turned to flee back towards the ziggurat. Its lifeless body reached the structure in record time as a back-handed swat from the elemental sent it airborne.
The tunnel down which Irgzid had been leading them for over five hours suddenly changed from rough natural stone to an intricately carved corridor bearing glyphs and mosaics of Maztican design, just before it opened into an immense flooded chamber. The walls of the square room rose up in steps, forming an inverted ziggurat with an apex forty feet above the dark waters that flooded the area to just below the edge of the entrance. The floor was a ruin of smashed pillars and small islands constructed in the same roughly pyramidal fashion. In the center, a line of destroyed columns and altars protruded a few feet above the surface, creating a makeshift bridge that dipped briefly into the water before reaching the continuing passage on the far side.
“We are here,” Irgzid said, opening his arms expansively. “The Temple of the Ancient Ones. This is where my people meet the Lords of Dread. They come through the far entrance, and then one of them swims across to this landing. When he emerges, he unfolds a black piece of cloth upon the ground, which then transforms into a deep hole. From this he takes the shadow pearls, still cradled in their bilestone shells. We exchange our slaves, which are placed into the hole in turn. It is then folded back into its cloth form, and the transaction is complete.”
“That’s it?” Sepoto asked. “Where do the Lords of Dread return to? Where is their sanctuary?”
“South, and down,” Irgzid replied as if this fact should have been obvious. “I have never been beyond this room.”
Sepoto looked incredulous. “Then you’re not much further use to us, are you?” he growled.
Irgzid’s eyes went wide but then he threw his arms open again, raised his head to the ceiling and began shouting, “I have brought the heroes you asked for, Father! What do you wish of them?”
As the last of his words were still echoing from the cavern walls, a ghostly figured appeared across the water, standing atop another platform. It seemed to be the apparition of a troglodyte, dressed in the fetishes of a shaman. Irgzid bowed before the shade, his eyes wild with religious fervor.
“We are the souls of the tormented,” the figure said in the Draconic tongue of the troglodytes, which only Mandi, Sepoto and Samson comprehended. “We seek release from our imprisonment, and thus we have summoned you here. Only in the destruction of the so-called Lords of Dread may we find peace. The evil ones have claimed the ancient city of Golismorga for their own. There they hatch their sinister plan to remake the surface in their own image. In order to end their threat, Golismorga must be reclaimed by the sea. The Cerulean Curtain must be destroyed.”
Mandi and Sepoto glanced at one another skeptically.
“Why must the curtain be destroyed?” Mandi asked. “Why can we not just slay the Lords of Dread, and thus end their plans.”
“That would only provide a temporary solution,” the apparition explained. “The source of their evil, the forge of the shadow pearls, would remain. In time, more of their brethren would return and resume their endeavor.”
“What of the aboleth?” Sepoto asked. “If Golismorga is flooded, won’t all of the petrified devil fish be restored?”
“Possibly,” the figure replied, “but they are not the creators of the shadow pearls. They are not the cause of your world’s problems.”
At that moment Mandi angrily spun on Irgzid, still speaking in the trog’s own language. “Why did you bring us here?” she demanded. “Why didn’t you tell us of this? I warned you what would happen if you betrayed us!”
Irgzid merely shrugged. “If I had told you, you might not have come,” he said simply.
Mandi snarled, gathering emerald energy around her hand. Irgzid calmly stepped backwards off the platform, and vanished into the dark water below.
“Does anyone care to explain just what in the Nine Hells is going on here?” Marius snapped. “Who is that, and where did Irgzid go?”
Mandi quickly explained the situation to her colleagues in Common. “I think we’re being duped,” she finished. “This was all a set-up of some sort.”
“Then what can we do to convince you of the truth in our words,” the shade interrupted, also speaking Common. Mandi’s eyes narrowed. Shifting to the language of the Celestials, she whispered in Daelric’s ear, “I want you to See our host and tell me the truth of his nature.”
The priest nodded in understanding and began his prayer. When he finished, his eyes glowed with golden light and he turned them upon the ghost. Instantly, his eyebrows lifted almost to his hairline.
“What is it?” Mandi asked. “What do you see?”
“Look for yourself,” Daelric replied, then reached out to touch the elf, imbuing her with his Sight.
When Mandi looked at the apparition, she no longer saw a troglodyte. Instead an aboleth lay where the trog shaman had stood, but due to the nature of the magic Daelric shared with her, she saw that even this was not entirely the truth. The aboleth was but a figment, a projected image generated from somewhere else in the room, likely below the water.
“We dislike being pawns,” she said to the image before her. “If you wanted something from us, you should have just asked.”
The image of the aboleth made a sound that could have been a sigh. “If you are at all familiar with the nature of my race,” it replied, “then you know that is not our way. Still, your point is taken. Very well then, here is the truth of it. I am N’glothnoru, and ages ago my people ruled this island, both above and below. Then the humans came, staking claim to the surface as if they had the right. We took steps to dissuade them of this notion, and thus war began. Ultimately, the humans prevailed, summoning the power of their rain god, Tlaloc to drain our demesne of water, thus stranding us and imprisoning us in the Long Dreaming. Long did our city, Golismorga, lay empty until the kopru, your Lords of Dread, discovered it. Worse, they discovered Holashner’s ziggurat, and what lay within.”
“Who is Holashner?” Sepoto interrupted.
“The Hunger Below,” N’glothnoru answered, “one of the Elder Evils, beings that have existed since the beginning of the beginning, long before your so-called gods. When Holashner travels along his endless path below the earth, He leaves in his wake bilestone. We kept a repository of this substance in the ziggurat, and it is from this that the kopru have learned to make the objects you call shadow pearls.”
“What role does the Prince of Demons play in this?” Mandi asked. “For we have seen his image and heard his name whispered throughout our quest.”
“The kopru revere him,” N’glothnoru replied, “and I believe it is their Abyssal master that has provided them with the knowledge to create the pearls.”
“The question still stands,” Sepoto asked, “why must we destroy the Cerulean Curtain, especially if it means your people will return?”
“Merely slaying the kopru is not enough, as I explained,” the aboleth said patiently. “If Golismorga is flooded once again, their plans will be permanently thwarted. True, my people will return, but we are an extremely long-lived race. We might even be considered immortal to such as you, and thus we reckon time differently. To us, millennia are like years. Our plans unfold slowly, and while we may one day reclaim what was ours, that day will not come in your lifetime. So you must concern yourselves with the threat that stands against you now, and know that if the kopru do return to Golismorga, we will be waiting.”
Mandi listened to the aboleth’s tale rather impatiently. When it paused, she interjected, “Very well. Tell us how to destroy the Curtain so that we may be on our way.”
“A wise decision,” N’glothnoru said. “I can tell you only that the Curtain’s anchor lies within Golismorga, and it is tied directly to Tlaloc. You will know it when you see it, and when you see it, you must unmake it. Then the Curtain will fall.”
“Fine,” Mandi said dismissively. “Then we’ll take our leave. Tower Cleaver!” When the big minotaur stepped forward, she quickly cast a spell of flight over him and had him ferry the group across the chamber. N’glothnoru watched in silence as they departed his prison, harboring the beginnings of faint hope that he might soon be free.
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“Not blood likely!” Mandi said as they continued along the down-sloping tunnel. “The day I trust an aboleth is the day I take Cleaver for my apprentice!”
The minotaur furrowed his brow, trying to decide if he had just been complimented or insulted.
“We’ll go to Golismorga alright,” Mandi continued, “and once there, we’ll just see how capable the kopru will be to return there once we’re finished with them.”
_____________________________________________________
The passageway opened into a roughly circular cavern. A ten-foot wide ledge ran across the northern and southern faces of the room, with a passage leading away from each. Graceful arcs of natural stone bridged the two ledges in three places, although the westernmost one had collapsed in the center, leaving a five-foot gap. Above, the ceiling rose up to a height of nearly forty feet, while below, the ground dropped away an equal distance into a rubble-strewn gulf. What appeared to be six, immense, petrified fish lay on the floor of the crevice. The sound of whispering welled up from below, and the ground looked almost like it was moving.
“Bugs,” Mandi said in disgust. “I hate bugs. Especially when they come in swarms. Cleaver, you will do transport again.”
“Go on ahead,” Sepoto said. “I’ll catch up.”
“What do you mean?” Mandi asked.
“I’m going to make sure as few aboleth are able to return as possible, in the event the Curtain should ever fall,” the crusader said grimly. “I’m going to destroy the sleepers.”
Mandi shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
“And watch your back,” Samson added.
As the others shuttled over the crevice, Sepoto, calling upon one of the many enchantments of his armor, flew straight down towards the nearest aboleth. As he landed, he saw that the ‘moving ground’ was actually great swarms of chittering grubs, white spiders, whip scorpions, centipedes and other vermin. They crawled over his boots in a layer several inches deep, but did not seem otherwise threatening. He uncoiled his chain and was preparing to deliver the coup de grace to the first of the dreamers when he saw sudden movement from the corner of his eye. Three large shadows had detached themselves from the deeper gloom under the stone bridges and where quickly scuttling down the walls towards him. As they came into the circle of his light, he saw that they were spider-like creatures, but their front pair of legs bore flattened discs studded with dozens of hooked suckers. Their heads were horrifically oversized, dominated by immense mandibles that chattered and clacked with obvious hunger. Sepoto recognized them immediately. They were rhagodessas, the same creatures that had killed Ferox so long ago aboard the Blue Nixie, only these were much larger, and if possible, more aggressive.
As the terrible spiders scuttled towards him, the crusader whirled his chain in front of him like a scythe, slicing into each of them as they came within his reach. Despite the terrible wounds he inflicted, they still lunged for him. One of them buried its mandibles deep into his thigh, and then wrapped its palps about him, trying to draw him into its embrace. Sepoto felt a surge of power through the black tooth that jutted over his lip, and he threw the creature off effortlessly. As it crouched for another spring, the goliath sank the tip of his chain into its spine, pinning it to the ground where it curled into a dead husk. As he struggled to free his weapon, however, he saw another of the creatures preparing to attack. Just before it launched, however, it exploded into a cloud of ichor and legs as Tower Cleaver’s axe cleaved through it. The big minotaur grinned at Sepoto’s surprised expression, but then his smile quickly vanished as the last rhagodessa bowled into him from behind, seizing him in its palps and then chomping down on his shoulder with its fangs. The barbarian roared, baring his own fangs and hurled the spider from him, and then followed after it so that before it even struck the ground his axe had sliced it neatly in half. Sepoto nodded in gratitude to his friend, and the pair then set about the grisly task of dispatching the aboleths.
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The Legionnaires found themselves on a high ledge overlooking an immense cavern, within which brooded a realm of gigantic polyps and intricate fungi so large and elaborate that they seemed almost to compliment the twisted towers and temples, the myriad constructions of an insane city. Ruined citadels of cyclopean grandeur tangled amid spires that looked to have been grown rather than built…homes for beings with unspeakable forms. Senseless bridges reached to suicide heights, dropping away into squamous slums and melted ghettoes. Seemingly accidental avenues and inaccessible alleys formed an unfathomable maze, a labyrinth that stretched to the subterranean horizon. Across it all bulged images of gnarled, tentacled things and red domes that glistened like unblinking, demoniac eyes. The already stale air had grown foul and close in that place, as if the smell of rot was somehow trying to crowd out the final gasp of freshness reaching those forsaken depths.
Bursting from the demented cityscape, three titanic columns of unearthly violet flame churned silently like the pillars of some gigantic temple, bathing the entire cavern in a nauseating violet light…a light that seemed somehow more horrible than the darkness that lurked at the edges of the nightmare grotto.
Mandi looked out across the alien landscape, her sharp eyes searching. Within moments, she found what she was looking for.
“There,” she said. “South of the nearest pillar of fire.”
“What?” Sepoto asked. “I don’t see anything unusual…well, any more unusual I mean.”
“There’s a relatively normal looking structure about a half-mile from here. A pyramid, if I’m not mistaken. The aboleth mentioned a ziggurat. I think that qualifies. That should be our first destination.
The group made their way down to the city floor by way of various fly charms and then started their trek through the ruined, monstrous metropolis. As they traveled, they witnessed ever more evidence of Golismorga’s oppidian dementia. At one point a monstrous tongue, split into a triple fork, rolled from a structure’s fleshy abscess, licked the red domes upon its surface, and then recoiled. Further along, a two-story tall lung heaved on the side of another building, gasping irregularly. The walls of yet another gruesome edifice were alive with cilia that retracted at the company’s approach, eliciting a deep growl from the building itself. Before long, they reached an immense area cleared of debris and dwellings. In its center sprouted one of the violet pillars, its base fully one-hundred feet in diameter. The air became noticeably cooler within the boundaries of the clearing, and no sooner had the six companions entered it than they felt a wave of sickening nausea overwhelm them. Mandi, Sepoto and Tower Cleaver became violently ill, retching and heaving until the others pulled them back into the shadows of the surrounding ghetto.
The company decided to give the pillar a wide berth after that, sticking to the gloom of the cityscape itself. Soon, all of them could see the pyramid in the distance. Amid ruined towers of melted stone and malls of quivering ooze, another wide area lay clear of rubble and less wholesome debris. From these acres rose the stone ziggurat, looking decidedly out of place from the surrounding madness, its dimensions having the appearance of lucid design and bearing comforting right angles of masonry. The sides of the pyramid were festooned with detailed carvings of reptilian and simian monsters wrapped and cradled in endless coils of tentacles. Steep steps rose into the darkened, noxious cavern air to a simple platform at the ziggurat’s summit. Not all seemed right, however, as several cracks marred the structure’s masonry, revealing sections of diseased purple flesh within. In addition, two sides of the pyramid looked to be partially overgrown, covered in putrid swaths of pale green mold. In places, great slicks of tacky, dried blood stained the sides as well.
As the party paused to take in the horrifying sight, sudden movement erupted in the shadows on all sides of them. From alleys and side streets darted scores of troglodytes, all running away from them and towards the pyramid, shouting in alarm as they went. Moments later, horns sounded from the pyramid itself and multiple shadows could be seen detaching themselves from its base. These forms soon resolved into fully three dozen kopru, slithering purposefully towards them. Above these flew eight much larger versions of the same. They were huge, muscular behemoths, sprouting no wings, yet staying aloft under their own power. Mandi, who upon hearing the horns had used her magic to transform herself into the shape of a barbed-skin devil and had imbued herself with the ability to see the unseen, also beheld ten more creatures behind the front ranks of kopru. They had evil-looking, human heads perched atop black, serpentine bodies. Nagas…and they were all invisible.
“Perhaps we should have listened to the aboleth,” she muttered.
Yet it was far too late for recriminations. The horde was approaching fast, and there would be no escape. Mandi rose into the air, set her sights on one of the dark nagas, and hurled a spear of green energy at it, hoping to disintegrate it where it crawled. Incredibly, she missed. She would have sworn she had aimed directly at the creature, yet her blast had struck more than a foot to its left. Suddenly, she realized what had happened. The creatures were magically displaced as well as invisible. Angrily, she corrected her aim and fired again. This time her ray struck true, and the naga instantly dissolved into a pile of dust.
Sepoto never hesitated. Crying out to Savras, the crusader charged forward, twirling his chain before him. In moments, the first rank of kopru found him among them like a dervish. His weapon was like a thresher among wheat, and one of the aquatic monstrosities quickly fell before him.
The shock troops should not have been the Legion’s primary concern, however. Abruptly, the nine remaining nagas shimmered into view as their guttural voices rose up in vile incantations. Three forked bolts of electricity sizzled through the air, boring through Tower Cleaver and continuing on into Marius, who stood behind the minotaur. While the air still stank of ozone and burnt flesh, a tremendous barrage of arcane missiles pierced the darkness like fireflies. Two dozen or more streaked unerringly towards the already reeling barbarian and the warmage, battering them like hammers from a score of smiths. Before the fight had really begun, Marius found himself on the edge of consciousness, while the sturdier Cleaver still stood strong, though his body was wracked with searing pain.
“This is unwinable!” Daelric’s disembodied voice cried. From above him, Mandi hissed angrily, “Then you’d best do something to even the odds before they’re upon us!”
The young priest struggled to regain his composure, fumbling through his robes until his hand closed on the scroll tube he sought. Hastily drawing the parchment out and unfurling it, he began reading the incantation scribed there. The air before him began to waver and glow, slowly solidifying until, when the last word of the spell was spoken, a titanic creature, fully thirty-feet tall, stood before the oncoming horde. It looked to be a giant humanoid, carved out of the bedrock of the earth itself…an elemental, pulled from its home dimension by Daelric’s summoning. At a shouted command from the priest, the creature lurched into motion, batting at one of the approaching kopru behemoths as if it were a gnat buzzing about its head.
Sepoto realized something immediately as he fought the kopru. The creatures’ amphibious nature literally made them fish out of water upon land. Though they moved unerringly towards him, and his companions behind, their pace was sluggish, hindered by bodies not made for solid ground. Thus, as they passed and surrounded him, he struck almost at will, moving fluidly among them as they struggled to orient themselves before his onslaught. Three more fell before him within seconds. At that moment, the battlefield erupted in flames. Four sequential explosions lifted enemies into the air across the expanse of the entire line, dropping broken forms back to the ground like cordwood. Sepoto recognized Marius’ handiwork, and when the fire cleared, a dozen more kopru lay dead, and all of the nagas bore horrific burns. The warmage knew his business. About that there could be no doubt. The crusader saw his chance and darted through the shell-shocked warriors, straight towards the nearest naga. As he went, he summoned Savras’ power into his chain, and when he reached the serpent, he drove his holy weapon straight through its black heart, burning it to ash with the might of the All-Seeing.
Despite Daelric’s impressive deterrent, Mandi saw that the flying behemoths were still coming. Landing, she quickly shifted her form again, this time into that of a towering glabrezu demon. She sought to interpose herself between her companions and the death from above. Yet as they began to descend, she saw that there were too many for her to occupy. While she attracted the attention of fully half of them, her enhanced demonic physiology shrugging off their blows, two still made it to Tower Cleave, and one to Marius. The minotaur whirled as they approached, but his wounds made him sluggish, and he could not avoid the whip-like barbed tales of the giants. They struck him savagely, ripping his flesh, and the tail of one of the behemoths quickly twined about him, pinning his arms to his side as it pulled him into the kopru’s embrace, squeezing the life out of him. When Marius was struck in turn, he fell as if pole-axed, collapsing to a boneless heap on the ground before the still invisible Daelric. Acting quickly, the priest knelt beside him and was relieved to feel a thready pulse still beating. Calling upon his most powerful healing charm, he laid his hands upon the mage, mending all his wounds and broken bones in one powerful surge of divine energy. As Marius inhaled deeply and opened his eyes, Daelric whispered, “Stay down!”
Sepoto immediately knew that he had miscalculated. By butchering the naga, he had revealed himself as the most immediate threat to its remaining brethren. As one they focused their magic upon him, raining arcane bolts down upon him like a fiery deluge. The goliath hissed at the pain, but did not cry out. Instead, as the kopru moved to surround him again, he channeled his agony into rage, his chain scything out and bisecting four more of the vile aberrations.
“Daelric!” Mandi cried. “We’re getting out of here! Call your elemental back to cover our escape!”
The priest nodded, and spoke a word of command. Instantly, the elemental responded and came lumbering back towards its master. As it approached, the behemoths struck at it, but their wicked tails did little more than scratch its rocky hide. Raising one massive hand high above its head, it brought it down with enough force to rock the ground, smashing one of the giant kopru beneath it and leaving only a bloody pulp in the impact crater. At that same moment, Mandi began her spell, reaching out to touch each of her companions, even Tower Cleaver, still trapped in the behemoth’s coils. In an eye blink, they vanished, only to reappear on the far side of the battlefield, beyond the kopru and the nagas. No sooner had they arrived than Marius leapt to his feet, calling his devastating magic to his hand once more. Again, the field of battle was bathed in fire, this time leaving two of the nagas as smoking corpses, along with three more of the kopru.
The behemoths were large and powerful, but they were still kopru, which meant they were still possessed of a cunning intellect. They saw Mandi’s ploy for what it was, and knew very well the source of their greatest threat. They had no intention of wasting their resources on the elemental, for mighty though it was, it was also slow and they knew they could outdistance it easily. The seven remaining rose into the air again and began moving back across the field, though one suffered another of the elementals crushing blows as it passed.
Though the kopru were not proving much of a challenge for Sepoto, they were effectively keeping him distracted from the far more dangerous nagas. Once more they loosed their arcane missiles upon him, and for the first time, Sepoto began to doubt whether or not he would survive this battle. Still, he had to clear a path between himself and the nagas, so on he fought, and three more of the kopru knew pain and death. Behind him, the crusader could hear the thundering footsteps of the elemental as it pursued the behemoths, barreling straight into the throng of kopru, stomping one of them flat beneath its feet.
As Daelric tended Tower Cleaver’s wounds, Marius set to work to make an opening for Sepoto to reach them. Cupping both hands before him, he loosed a cone of white hot fire into the horde. Another kopru immolated in agony, and two more of the nagas died as well. What was more, by this time the behemoths had closed over half the distance to the group, and the warmage’s blast engulfed four of them, not slowing them, but giving them a healthy respect for the gnome…or labeling him an even bigger target. Mandi, drawing on the same tactic as the mage, drew a staff from her back, held it like a spear and shouted a word of power. From its tip flew a second cone, this one of ice and sleet. To her amazement and relief, one of the behemoths succumbed to the blast. Six still remained.
That was the opening Sepoto needed. Calling on Savras to deliver him, his body dissolved into smoke and shadow, only to coalesce again beside his companions. Unfortunately, the behemoths were right behind. The giants reached the companions and broke over them like a tsunami. One slashed at Tower Cleaver, raking his face with its claws, while a second one whipped at the minotaur with its tail, seizing him in its grip once more. As it tightened its coils, a third brute joined it, constricting the barbarian with bone-crushing force. Sepoto had just gotten his bearings when a fourth behemoth struck him a terrible blow to the head. The crusader’s vision exploded into stars, followed by blackness as he slumped to the ground.
Daelric screamed at his enslaved elemental, calling it to him with all haste. The titan waded through the kopru, seizing one of the nagas in its fist as it came and squeezing until its head exploded. Another naga and three more kopru were crushed by its massive arms as they swung like tree trunks to clear the way before it. Meanwhile, Daelric turned his attention to Sepoto. The goliath still lived, and the priest summoned Shaundekal’s strength again, fully healing the crusader’s wounds. While he worked, Marius and Mandi struggled to keep the behemoths off him. A well-placed scorching ray of fire straight into the eye of one behemoth felled it in an instant, while Mandi blasted the four surrounding Cleaver, not caring that her icy bombardment struck the minotaur as well. He was as good as dead anyway if she didn’t intervene. One of the brutes holding the barbarian went down, as well as another of its nearby companions.
No sooner had Sepoto opened his eyes again, than he willed himself into the shadows once more, reappearing behind the behemoth that felled him. This time, it was the kopru that went down under the goliath’s blows, and there was no one around to bring it back from the brink of death.
“Cover me!” shouted the still unseen Daelric as he darted out into the midst of the fray. Marius stepped out from behind Mandi to do just that, but the final pair of dark nagas immediately targeted the gnome, burning him with jets of flame, just as he’d done to their brethren. Their attention was soon diverted, however, as Daelric’s elemental reached them, squelching one between its toes. When Daelric reached Tower Cleaver, the priest reached out and touched the minotaur, a prayer on his lips. Instantly, Cleaver was able to slip free of the squeezing coils of the behemoth, his movements completely unimpeded. Bellowing his battle cry, the barbarian swung his mighty axe in a wide arc, slashing the two behemoths nearest him. On the heels of his attack, another blast of ice from Mandi finished the brutes, as well as half a dozen more kopru. Tower Cleaver was then free to focus on the last of the naga’s, and he gave the creature his full attention. Soon, only one lone adversary remained in the bloody clearing. A single kopru. As it beheld its situation, it turned to flee back towards the ziggurat. Its lifeless body reached the structure in record time as a back-handed swat from the elemental sent it airborne.
Hammerhead
Explorer
Nice. The Legion sure knows it's business.
What level were you guys at this fight?
What level were you guys at this fight?
JollyDoc
Explorer
Sunday Teaser
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1) The Legion invades Holashner's ziggurat, and find it infested with more kopru behemoths.
2) They fight their way through to the high priest of the temple, only to find he's more than prepared for them. It turns into a two on three showdown as Mandi and Sepoto are separated from their companions.
3) Unfortunately, the high priest turns out to be the cohort for the really big nasty waiting for them in the depths of the pyramid, and Marius, Daelric, Samson and Mandi literally get "flushed away!"
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1) The Legion invades Holashner's ziggurat, and find it infested with more kopru behemoths.
2) They fight their way through to the high priest of the temple, only to find he's more than prepared for them. It turns into a two on three showdown as Mandi and Sepoto are separated from their companions.
3) Unfortunately, the high priest turns out to be the cohort for the really big nasty waiting for them in the depths of the pyramid, and Marius, Daelric, Samson and Mandi literally get "flushed away!"
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