seasong's Light Against The Dark (FEB 06)

The Broken Temple

After resting for nearly a full day, and prepping the Earth spells on everyone, the young heroes were ready to go another round. Athan gripped a spear tightly, the other slung at his back (he'd refused to dig through the body of the large brown spider to get the third back). Merideth nodded - she was ready. They stepped into the next room, with sunlight on Greppa's lips (they figured they would get some additional surprise if they stepped in at the same moment as the sunlight).

Yes, they were ready for anything.

As they stepped through, Greppa never finished his spell. Webbing, coating in some paralytic fluid, dropped him the second he started casting, and he slumped down, his eyes still open but unable to move or speak to cast. And a pair of half-ton brown mountain spiders dropped on top of Athan and Merideth, biting painfully through their Earth's Skin protections and injecting their toxin... Athan seemed unaffected, but Merideth was pinned completely as much of her Greppa-enhanced strength fled her limbs.

That left Athan. Bellowing a roar at the top of his lungs, he physically lifted and slammed the offending, twelve foot spider into the cavern wall, severely injuring it, and began pulling out his spear.

Merideth's spider, meanwhile, had finished webbing her up, and bounded after Athan as well, just as a thin ray of spiralling flame just missed Athan and melted a section of cavern wall. Athan ignored the two giant spiders biting him, and hurled his spear at the source of the flames. A meaty thunk and angry hiss answered. Then, lacking any other plan, he charged into the darkness, pulling his other spear as he did so. The mountain spiders followed.

Merideth cursed, unable to get out of the webbing. She'd not lit a torch... "Well, we've got the sunlight now, right?" she'd said. Her cursing was not lady-like.

The fight in the darkness sounded brutal... for the spider. As the paralysis wore off Greppa, he brought sunlight into the room, to witness Athan hauling a 900 pound, deceased hell hunter by two of its legs towards the other two. When he got it back to them, his primal rage drained from him, along with any color his face might have had.

"I think.. I.. overextended.. my.." Athan collapsed.

Greppa freed Merideth, and she healed Athan, but he was still somewhat ashen faced. They rested for a few minutes at most, arguing whether to leave or stay. True to their adrenaline-charged youth, they decided to push on, despite Athan's weariness.

Athan tied one of their torches to the messy spear, and hurled it through the cavern darkness, until it thunked into the far side of the cavern, nearly 60 yards away, and Greppa cast sunlight at that point...

Revealing a monstrous, bloated, 20+ foot wide hell hunter and a veritable sea of spiders surrounding it, at the steps of the cavern shrine to Allas.

The three youths stared at a nightmare come to life. "Hhsethmah hahh soth" it hissed, and a pair of serpent-shaped shadows with eight legs branching from their heads formed from the shadows near it.

As a side note: I've changed the name of the Story Hour to "Light Against The Dark". Whether the party decides on that name or not, by the time we'd concluded the Broken Temple (which we have, but you still have to wait for the updates over this next week), it was too appropriate to leave behind.

Yay! I've got a good Story Hour name!

It sounds like rushing into danger is a common player trait.

For being prepared, they sure weren't. Another common player trait.

Sounds like Athan continues to completely beat down on the spiders. Almost feel sorry for the little crawly things. Almost.

Caliber said:

It sounds like rushing into danger is a common player trait.

For being prepared, they sure weren't. Another common player trait.

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To be fair, it's not so much that they weren't prepared, but that the spiders were prepared. The first fight went so easy because the players surprised the big hell hunter that happened to be hanging out in the cavern with the pool of water in it.

When Greppa was held and the two big browns dropped on them, I got this look, like, "You're gonna kill us now, aren't you?". And, indeed, had Athan not been earth-buffed to heck and back, and raging, the spiders would have had them, hook and sinker. Those preparations didn't make it a cakewalk... they made it survivable.

I like smart monsters.

Sounds like Athan continues to completely beat down on the spiders. Almost feel sorry for the little crawly things. Almost.

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Actually, he wasn't rolling too good. There were a lot of near-misses, and not a single crit the whole fight. I forgot to mention, but he was at 1 hp with the rage when he came dragging the big spider back. Hm.

I'm going to edit that back in. It's vaguely important.

I thought y'all might appreciate a cavern map, and the players have now seen all of it, so...

The "entrance hall" opens beneath the tree's roots, has crude steps carved down its length, and is about 50 feet long. The "second chamber" has a big pool of water in the center. The edge of the pool looks like a sink-hole, so it wasn't always like that. The "main chamber" has a pair of huge (30' tall huge) statues of a pair of servants of Allas, one male, one female. Both have spear in hand. There is then a path of placed stones leading between a line of pillars to the far end of the cavern, where the shrine lies.

The shrine itself is a raised dais with steps, pillars at each of four corners, and an "open air" (open to the cavern ceiling) space about 50 feet across. A facade covers it from the front, and a wide door allows passage into it. The back has a second wall, which blocks an otherwise unremarkable view of the back of the cavern.

An alter is in the center of the dais, and the floor is unmarked... although that may have been because of age and wear.

The right side of the "main chamber" cavern has numerous small niches for individual worship.

The raised dais 'conceals' a set of rooms beneath the stone flooring; the door is on the side of the temple, and leads into the small treasury, armory and a barracks-like room.

As a side note: I've changed the name of the Story Hour to "Light Against The Dark".

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not "Torches against the Dark"? or "spears vs. spiders?"

Maybe you just need Chapter numbers, so I can come up with amusing anecdotes...

In other news, per your comments = two pics over in General Forum (I hate picutres).

I do like how Athan leads the spiders away from him. And I am properly horrfied at the 20+ foot spider, even if he does lisp...you cliff-hanging bastard...

And in other other news, I've updated the Rogue's Gallery thread to include Greppa.

Nice pics, btw!

Broken Temple

Athan, upon later reflection, was pretty sure he'd done the stupidest thing possible. When Greppa's daylight lit up the giant hell hunter, its twin shadow-serpent-spider-things, and the veritable sea of spiders... Athan hefted his second (now only) spear, and charged across the cavern at them all. Rather than be left alone at one end of the cavern, with the killing machine at the other, Merideth ran after him, but kept a careful distance.

Still, stupidest things possible or not, it mostly worked. While the giant spider was trying to work its rear end backwards through the shrine's door and out of the sunlight, Athan skidded between the two serpent things, neatly beheading one with a powerful swipe of his spear and finishing the swing by stabbing it deep into the mouth of the other one. Merideth finished the second one with a hasty inflict, and then the spiders were swarming the two.

Greppa held off for a hasty circle and sigil, and Uripedas burst into this realm from the great plains of Allas' realm. She was beautiful, a slender hawk with golden feathers and a faint rim of white fire at the edges. She took one look at Allas' broken temple and, screaming, flew at the giant hell hunter like a burning arrow.

Then Greppa ran after the other two.

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Unfortunately, as heroic as all of this was, the hell hunter was not even close to done. Yes, there was a burning mote of divine rage flying around its head; yes, the spear-wielding bringer of death was making his way through the spider horde towards its tender bits... but it was thus far uninjured, and it had a cunning plan.

When they all got close, it summoned pure, chill darkness from its black heart, to freeze them all where they stood. A cone of bleak shadow blasted the young heroes, stealing heat from their marrow...

Merideth nearly died of it. Athan and Greppa suffered dearly. The only good thing to come of it was that the spiders on their bodies were now more of a cloak of brown and grey ice.

And then the spider stepped out of the daylight and seemed to be swallowed up by the shadows inside the shrine. Athan, chilled, halfway to death's door, charged into the shrine after it, Uripedas flying over the wall to help.

Sorry the combat is taking so long. This is the last post of this combat.

Broken Temple

The plan was, in fact, pretty cunning. Hell hunters slide through shadows as naturally as breathing, and it fully intended to step beneath the dais and then sneak behind the heroes, while it called more of the large spiders to its aid. One or two more combat spells, and it was fairly certain of its victory.

But, as the young heroes had already learned, no plan survives contact with the enemy, and Greppa was sick and tired of spiders. And shadows. And non-burning webs. And everything else to do with the Hhsethmah and his bloated children.

He called sunlight down inside the temple, just as the hell hunter was attempting to escape. He called sunglight down outside the temple, just in case. Greppa called down Allas' presence, and it shone with divine intensity through most of the nearby cavern, as Uripedas' claws tore into the spider's topside, and Athan's spear pierced its underbelly.

The fight was fierce, silent, bloody. The kids weren't kids anymore, not really. They were seasoned warriors, working in unison. Between Merideth's vicious green lightning, Athan's spearwork, and Greppa's sunhawk and minor fire elementals, the spider did injury, but took more. In the end, it stopped twitching, and in deference, the heroes stopped stabbing the corpse.

And then, light began to fill the cavern. Glass globes began to heal faster, cracks in the walls began to seal. It happened before their eyes - the shrine became a shrine again, and the mountain spiders, a sea of them, began crawling over each other in a wave as they left the cavern for the natural world outside.

When the hell hunter began to burn on its own, igniting and turning into a charcoal husk, it just seemed natural.

Next: The heroes of Light Against The Dark search for the Stone, and do some things in Theralis, as orcs mass for war.

WAR! It's Fan-Tastic!

That spell casting Hell Hunter was a wussie. Where was it's earth armor

Athan is a juggernaught, eh? Good thing he ISN'T brighter or he'd realize his tendencies are suicidal. Gotta love him.

I'm still trying to draw a bead on Greppa's Personality. If the plyer want;s to shed light, your fans are wondering what makes Greppa tick (besides a mad lust for arcane might).