And now, ladies and gentlemen, I present the one post I've most been looking forward to writing since this story hour began. It was a memorable fight, both for the good and the bad. -Rybaer
Session #12.4 – Battle in the stairwell
No one was pleased with the situation. An undead mind flayer (or Salien Hunter, as the minotaur kings had named it) and horde of undead rats were pounding at the stone door below them. Above, Zalman’s Wind Wall held a soupy green cloud of Acid Fog at bay. And all five of them were stuck on a three-foot wide spiral staircase. Oh yeah, and Nigel was a drooling idiot from the Salien Hunter’s mind blast.
“Okay, what are our options?” Rurik asked.
“Well, there’s a nasty trap above us,” Amblin said, still feeling the tingling in his skin and eyes from the acid even after Rurik had healed him. “I’m assuming there’s a secret door up there, but I sure didn’t find it.”
“And even if there is a secret door up there, we don’t have a clue what’s behind it,” Zalman said. “We might end up facing something worse or still find ourselves trapped.”
“How much longer will that door stay stuck?” Bommer asked.
“Couple minutes at best,” Zalman said. “And that’s if he can’t break through it. Sounds like he’s giving it a hell of a go.”
“How long will that Wind Wall last?” Rurik asked.
“Should be almost expired,” Zalman replied.
“Does that mean the fog’s still gonna get us?” Amblin asked.
“I’m not certain,” Zalman said. “I think it’s a pretty short duration spell as well. Hopefully it’ll dissipate before my wall does.”
“Uh, I’ll go check,” Amblin offered and jogged back up the stairs.
“Option number two,” Rurik said, “we go back down and face the Hunter.”
Zalman quietly preferred his third option – casting Dimension Door to slip himself back outside to where they’d left the horses. Too bad he couldn’t bring everyone else along with him.
Nigel started to come back to his senses. “Urglaugh…”
“How ya feeling?” Rurik asked.
“Like I spent the night in a drinking contest with a clan of dwarves,” he replied half-heartedly.
“Looks like you lost. You ready to move soon?”
“Yeah,” the elf said. “Especially if it’s in a direction away from that thing.”
Rurik and Zalman filled in their leader on the current state of affairs. Nigel’s mood failed to improve. Amblin trotted back down the stairs a moment later to report that both the Wind Wall and Acid Fog were gone.
“Bommer,” Nigel said. “Let’s go see if there is a secret door up there. Hopefully, there’ll be a way to open it without setting off the trap again.”
As the two of them trotted back up the stairs, Rurik, Zalman, and Amblin waited patiently about halfway up the twisting stairwell. “Zalman?” Rurik said. “Can you make another one of those Wind Walls if the trap gets set off again?”
“Nope,” Zalman replied. “Not without more time to study than we’ve got left.”
“So, if that trap gets set off again, we pretty much have to charge that thing downstairs or face certain death by acid,” Rurik said.
“Mmm,” Zalman replied. He was silently going through the words and incantations for Dimension Door.
At the top of the stairs, Bommer and Nigel were closely inspecting the dead end wall, careful not to touch anything.
“Well, there’s the crack marking the edge of the door we’re looking for,” Bommer pointed out. Nigel nodded in agreement. “And I’m fairly sure that’s the latch to open it. Thing I can’t tell, though, is how it’s trapped.”
“Magic, I’d assume,” the elf said.
“Right,” Bommer said, “and that’s not really my specialty.” Bommer was still under the influence of the mind flayer at this point. His instructions had been to insist that the door was trapped and that he couldn’t disarm it. It wasn’t a difficult act for Bommer as it was the truth on both accounts.
“Better get the spellcasters up here,” Nigel said and started back down the stairs. Bommer looked once more at the door and then followed after.
“Zalman. Rurik.” Nigel called out as they returned. “Looks like a magic thing. Bommer can’t disarm it, so you’ll have to take a look.”
Everyone followed back up the stairs with Zalman and Rurik in the lead. Bommer clung to the ceiling so he could see what they were up to. Zalman cast Detect Magic and studied the door.
“Yeah, it’s still enchanted,” he confirmed. “Very powerfully, too. Looks like it’s got Conjuration, Enchantment, and Abjuration spells on it. More than I’d expect from just a trap.”
“Can you Dispell it?” Nigel asked.
“I doubt it,” Zalman replied. “It’s a permanent enchantment, so the best I could hope for would be a momentary suppression. And even that would be a long shot as its creator was clearly more powerful than I am.”
The pounding of the mind flayer at the door below had begun to change tone slightly. It sounded distressingly like it was now making some progress at breaking down the door.
“Well, leader, what do we do?” Zalman asked Nigel.
“Do you think this might be another of those doors that can only be opened by a cleric?” Nigel asked Rurik.
“Maybe,” the dwarf said. “The others were made of crystal, but I suppose this could be similar. I know I didn’t inspect the other doors’ magical properties and I don’t think Zalman did either.” Zalman shook his head.
“Okay, I vote for Rurik trying to open this door so we have a chance at getting away from that thing down below,” Nigel said. “All opposed?” Rurik was the only one to look at little bit displeased, but he didn’t speak up. Bommer, however, did.
“Guys,” the halfling said. “I really don’t like the way this door looks. I don’t think it’s at all like the others and I’m almost certain the trap will get set off again.”
Nigel looked at him squarely and decided there was something about the halfling’s tone that bothered him. Maybe it was the stress of the situation. This was, after all, the first time Bommer had been in a life-threatening situation with them. “Thanks for your opinion,” he said, “but the rest of us think it’s the best plan. Now, let’s all go down the stairs a bit just in case the trap is sprung. Maybe we won’t all die immediately.”
Rurik waited a few moments for his friends to get out of the way and then reached for the secret door’s latch. He felt a tingle identical to the one that had opened the two sets of crystal doors. No trap went off as he cracked the door a fraction of an inch.
“It worked!” he yelled down to the others. He could hear them tromping back up the stairs. Still unsure of what was beyond the door, he opened it slowly. It swung easily until the crack was about five inches wide and then it stopped abruptly. Something was blocking it.
Amblin was the first to reach Rurik and immediately recognized the frustrated look on his friend’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“Something’s blocking the door,” the dwarf replied, starting to put all of his weight behind it. Still, it didn’t budge.
The others arrived and learned of their new dilemma. “What can you see through the door?” Nigel asked.
Rurik peeked through. “It’s dark and it looks like the wall is rounded. I see something just at the edge of my view…it looks like…a statue. Wait! I think this is the room with all those warped statues where we found the entrance to this temple!”
“Great,” Zalman said. “That means this secret door is blocked by a stone statue that probably weighs a couple tons.”
Nigel and Amblin both lent their strength to Rurik, but still the door refused to budge. “Any brilliant ideas, guys? Any useful spells?”
“Oh, I have one!” Rurik said. “I can use Shape Stone to alter the statue. Maybe I can get it to tip over out of our way.”
“Couldn’t you just reshape the door out of the way?” Nigel asked.
“Hmm,” Rurik said. “I don’t think that’d be wise with all the enchantments upon it. No telling how it’ll react.”
“Yeah,” Amblin agreed. “Probably just set the trap off again.”
“Okay, do the statue.” Rurik pulled a small bit of clay from a pouch and started to shape it to crudely match one of the warped statues they’d seen near the temple entrance. While doing so, a loud crash echoed up the stairwell.
“Make it quick, there, Rurik,” Nigel said as he strung an arrow. “Sounds like our last barrier just fell.”
Zalman summoned a celestial lion and sent it down the stairs while Rurik reshaped his clay model to give it a slanted bottom. The roar of the lion was met with the skittering of the horde of undead rats. Only moments went by before the lion went silent.
“Got it,” Rurik said as he pulled his arm back through the door. A massive crash boomed from behind the door. The dwarf put his shoulder into it and found that he could now open it just enough to fit through.
“Go, go, go!” Nigel shouted and Amblin and Bommer both followed the dwarf out of the stairwell. Zalman, the furthest down the stairwell, cast Glue on a segment of stairs in hopes of catching most of the rats. Then he, too, turned and followed Nigel out the door.
As they all made it out the stairwell, Zalman paused. Another idea had just come to him. This situation had peeved him off and he wanted to cast one more spell out of spite. He turned to the others and said, “Just hang on a second.” Before anyone could stop him, the wizard ran back down around the first turn of the stairs. He could hear the horde rapidly approaching and as he got within view of the Glue he could see the first ranks of the vermin get stuck in it. It was too tight in the stairwell for a Fireball, so he opted for a simple alchemical tinder twig. He struck it on the wall and casually tossed it onto the Glue, causing the entire patch to ignite. He had but a fleeting moment of satisfaction, however. The mind flayer abruptly came into view and easily levitated over the flaming stairs.
Up close, the Salien Hunter was far more disturbing than the young wizard could have imagined. The skin of its face was gray and dried, in some places flaked completely away to reveal bone and tendon underneath. Its eyes were little more than dark pits that were cold, alien, and pure evil. Worst of all were the writhing tentacles surrounding its mouth that reached hungrily toward Zalman.
Zalman’s fight or flight instincts kicked in. The debate between which to act upon was won by the fight side. He believed that if he turned his back to flee the creature would hit him with everything it had. If he could hit the thing hard enough with a spell and just keep hammering it, then maybe he’d live long enough for his friends to come save him. He conjured up a bolt of lightning that blasted through the Hunter, causing his and everyone else’s ears to ring. The creature flinched at the blast and then lunged at the wizard, lashing tentacles swiping across his forehead. One of the four secured a firm grip around his throat. Buried within the mass of tentacles, Zalman could now plainly see, was a gaping maw full of teeth.
From the boom of the thunder and the sounds of struggle, everyone knew instantly that Zalman was in trouble. Bommer was back on the wall and then the ceiling, climbing back down the stairwell in a manner that would keep the path clear for everyone else. Nigel was next down the hole and he was able to get a view of the mind flayer literally holding Zalman in the air with a tentacle wrapped around his head. Amblin and Rurik followed as best they could in the tight quarters.
Zalman was in dire straights, but he wasn’t completely out of it. He drew out his Wand of Lightning Bolts, jabbed it into the Hunter’s stomach, and unleashed a mighty blast. Again the stairwell shook and again the mind flayer staggered under the assault. It refused to relent, though, and it locked the remainder of its tentacles around Zalman’s head. Zalman could feel something tongue-like but far sharper snake out from the thing’s mouth and probe his nostrils.
Bommer climbed down as quickly as he could, but it was slow going on the ceiling and he was just now getting close to Zalman, who the mind flayer seemed to be holding before itself like a shield. Nigel, trusting his incredible marksmanship, let fly with two arrows. Both buried themselves into the mind flayer’s shoulder, but it seemed to largely shrug them off. Amblin could just see Zalman around the corner but had no room to maneuver in the tight quarters and with Nigel in the way. Rurik was similarly frustrated at his inability to get closer.
Zalman knew the end was at hand and he was determined to do his best to take the mind flayer with him. It was all he could do to activate the Wand of Lightning Bolts one more time. Though he had weakened the creature, it was not enough to drop it.
The Salien Hunter could have taken that moment to end Zalman’s life instantly, but sensing a growing threat from the arrivals of the others it instead chose to unleash one of its powerful mind blasts. Zalman, at ground zero, felt his brain scramble. His wand cluttered on the steps and he went completely limp in its vice-like grip. Nigel once again failed to shrug off the assault and resumed his impersonation of a drooling idiot. Bommer was completely unprepared for the mental hammering and he too fell limp. However, due to his activated Spider Climb, his upper body swung free while his legs remained firmly affixed to the ceiling above Nigel.
Amblin and Rurik, fortunately, had better luck resisting the mental shockwave. Realizing it would be difficult to get a clean shot at the mind flayer with it holding Zalman in the way, Amblin came up with an idea. He leapt down the stairs, grabbed onto Bommer’s hands, and swung himself up and over Zalman and the mind flayer like a trapeze artist. Landing in the cooling embers of what was a Glue patch, he spun around and pounded the mind flayer in the back. Rurik came down a couple more steps and called upon Moradin for a spell that he’d prepared especially for this fight – Searing Light. While he wasn’t the best of shots, Moradin was with the dwarf this day and the brilliant beam of white light tore into the mind flayer.
The undead abomination was in rough shape and raged with incoherent fury. With targets in front and behind it, its mind blast was much less useful. In an act of blind savagery, it ended Zalman’s life by tearing a hold through his nose and sucking his brain out.
Amblin hammered the Hunter with a flurry of blows and finally the creature dropped Zalman, itself slumping up against the wall. At a glance, Rurik knew there was no way the wizard could be saved, so instead he unleashed another Searing Light at the prone mind flayer just for good measure. Little was left aside from dust and rags after that.
Next session: The kings and their gifts; the group presses on.
Then the masses can see just what a well oiled fighting machine we are... in case they hadn't already figured out we'd find some way to screw this up. 
I will point out ahead of my actual coming out, that Zalman has not been in any danger, (let me clarify, any serious danger) of dying yet. But, these guys are devious, I am sure they might find some way anyhow...
