Session 15 (Part Four)
Stop That Insane Laughter
Quintus heard the sounds of combat behind him recede. ‘Perhaps they have bested the Shadowblades’, he thought as he turned to glance into the study.
A look of shock slid across his face as he saw the mass of arcane cobwebs clogging the room. ‘A Web spell…damn!’
Cut off from his friends with an unknown number of enemies down the stairs, the sorcerer grimly began to pull flasks of oil from his backpack. A grim smile of resignation briefly touched his lips, ‘At least I will make my death an expensive one!’
‘Surely the Hand of Osirian surrounds me,’ Lew thought as he stood in a small space against the wall that was untouched by sticky strands. He noted the forms of Drusilla and, beyond her, Rowan through the opaque barrier – both were seemingly unaffected. Both Sextus and Rosë were cocooned somewhere under the webs, but he could do nothing for them. Unfortunately, he could also see the wispy outlines of several Shadowblades through the doorway, preparing some mischief. He hurriedly began to reload his crossbow while offering up a silent prayer.
Drusilla had been hot on the heels of the enemy warrior who had dropped Rosë and Sextus when the wizard’s spell struck. Somehow, she twisted away from the entrapping magic and tumbled free. She stood to find herself face to face with two gray cloaks; the enemy warrior stood just out of reach of her shorter blades, leveling his dual-tined spear at her. Behind the trio, the wizard cackled gleefully while pulling an oil flask from his belt, “Yes, yes, burn them we shall!”
She sidestepped the clumsy attack of one of the Shadowblades, put the other gladius glanced off her hip, drawing blood. Her riposte caught the first attacker just under the chin and snapped the man’s head back with an audible crack. His falling body opened a path for the warrior’s lightening thrust. The Cassuvius daughter watched the approaching spear tips with detached fascination…there was nowhere to go!
Rowan used his enhanced strength to tear through the webbing that separated him from Drusilla. He was only two paces away from her when the ransuer ripped through her flank. The force of the blow knocked Drusilla back into the strands and her bloody body bore some of the web to the floor. The ranger howled in frustration as he separated the last remnants of the spell before him and swept forward, weapon raised.
(DM’s Note: For those keeping score, the ransuer-wielding warrior has dropped three of our intrepid band.)
Drusilla’s fall tore a small hole in the barrier just in front of Lew, allowing him to see their opponents clearly. The heavily muscled warrior’s cry of triumph was cut short as Lew’s quarrel ripped through the unarmored juncture of neck and shoulder. The man sailed backwards, slammed into the wall and collapsed in a heap, blood running down his chest. He did not rise.
(DM’s Note: Nice “crit” by Lew!)
The last remaining Shadowblade took an involuntary step back as the furious Rowan stepped into the room. The ranger didn’t even pause before ramming his pace-long blade into the soft spot just under the man’s ribcage. Crimson fountained from the Shadowblade’s mouth as Rowan’s booted foot shoved him off the impaling gladius. Rowan shook his bloody weapon at the back-peddling wizard, “Now you die!”
Quintus crouched behind his table barrier, sweaty hands cradling his crossbow. He could hear nothing but muffled cries, punctuated by peals of insane laughter, through the webs. All manner of terrors flitted through is mind. He gripped his weapon tighter and continued to wait.
Rowan got his first good look at the enemy spellthrower. A gray cloak, richly brocaded, covered a thin, twisted frame. A vulture-like face, thin but with flaps of wrinkled skin, peered from under the voluminous hood. The man’s left foot was twisted to the side, swathed in heavy cloth and twice the size of the normal looking right. The ranger’s mind, hyper aware from the adrenaline of combat, absorbed it all during the two grains it took him to cut off the man’s escape route. His eyes locked with the old man’s for a moment and he saw nothing resembling fear or sanity reflected back at him.
The wizard dropped the partially prepared oil flask and stepped back into the corner of the room over the crumpled form of the enemy warrior, weaving his hands in an arcane pass. Rowan braced himself for whatever magical assault was coming while preparing to leap on the man. He cursed as the man’s outline shimmered and he disappeared from view, a horrid grin on his face.
Lew managed to break through the strands separating him from Drusilla and hastily checked the young woman for signs of life. He was relieved to find her still breathing and he summoned a healing orison to staunch her blood flow. He then struggled into the room beyond the doorway to find Rowan mumbling to himself and swinging at empty air. “Rowan…” he began.
The ranger cut him off, “The wizard just made himself invisible. We can’t let him out of the room!”
“Wait,” the priest replied, “Take this!”
Lew extended one end of his staff to Rowan. The ranger nodded and grasped the proffered end. Holding the staff parallel to the floor, about chest high, the pair began to work their way down the 20 pace length of the room. Rowan used his gladius and Lew used his mace to probe the area along the walls as they went. They stopped from time to time to listen for their suddenly silent quarry.
Several additional bookshelves lined the walls of the room, along with comfortable looking sofas and sitting chairs. Two doors stood opposite one another at the far end of the chamber, a single to the left and a double to the right. The pair agreed that one most likely led back down to the dining hall. Rowan opened his mouth to speak, then his sharp ears picked up a soft whisper at the far end of the room. “He’s down there!”
Priest and ranger charged back down to the bloody doorway, swinging their weapons wildly. Once there, they halted and began probing again, to no avail. Rowan motioned for silence as he strained again to hear something…anything. He caught a faint noise – one that sounded like the footfall of a bare foot on stone near the center of the chamber. ‘That’s odd,’ he thought to himself, ‘that sounded like it came from…the ceiling!’
He dropped his end of Lew’s quarterstaff and began sprinting back towards the doors. He was still five paces away when he heard a soft chuckle and the left hand door open several handbreadths, then slammed shut! The incredibly annoying laughter rose from the far side of the as Rowan slammed into the now-locked portal. The ranger, epithets streaming from his mouth, crashed into the door again and again; each impact elicited a bout of tittering mirth. He assaulted the door a dozen times before Lew stopped him with a gentle hand and a shake of his head, “It’s no use…it is probably magically barred.”
(DM’s Note: You just gotta love Invisibility and Spider Climb!)
Quintus was worried…very worried. He hadn’t heard any sounds from the web-enshrouded room for several minutes and no attack was forthcoming from below. Every thirty grains or so, he stood and moved to the entrance to the portal to listen for a moment before resuming his vigil at the top of the stairs. On his fourth such trip, he heard a muffled, “Quintus!”
“Yes?”
It was Rowan, “Can you unlock a magically sealed door?”
“No,” the sorcerer replied, “Where is Sextus? He has a scroll that should be of help.”
Quintus’ blood ran cold with Rowan’s reply, “Under the webs!”
“Is he alright?”
“I don’t know. Can you get through to us?”
Fear for his brother sped Quintus’ actions. He retrieved the discarded spatha from the fighter he had faced earlier and attacked the webs with the blade. After 20 grains of fruitless hacking, his shoulders slumped in defeat. “I cannot get through!”
“We will try to get to you,” came the reply.
Quintus’ mind whirled. He knew he should be afraid for his brother, but the intensity of the combat since they had entered the Shadowblade hideout had nearly drained the capacity for emotion from him. Angry and frustrated, he spurned the body of the fallen guard with his boot tip, causing the man to flop onto his back and stare at the ceiling with unseeing eyes, mouth agape. Looking down at the face of his erstwhile enemy, inspiration struck him.
A few grains later, Quintus strode down the steps, magically altered to appear as the fallen warrior. When he reached the bottom, he quietly slit the throats of the men he had dropped earlier with his Sleep spell. Then he inhaled deeply and poked his head around the corner. Half a dozen tables had been upended and arranged as a barricade to guard against a breakout from the stair well. Three gray cloaks crouched behind the improvised fortifications, crossbows leveled at their “companion”. Trying to control the quaver in his voice to the greatest extent possible, the disguised Quintus summoned his most authoritative tone, “We have them cornered…maintain your position!”
He turned and retreated up the stairs, expecting a flurry of bolts in the back, but no missiles came. He regained his former position, but was at a loss for what to do. There were only three visible enemies below, but he was badly wounded and lacked any offensive spells. If the three below came for him…he was done!
Determined to sell his life as dearly as possible, he poured two flasks of oil down the stairs and prepared two more to throw. ‘If they come up those stairs,’ he thought grimly, ‘they will find a fiery reception!’
Lew implored Rowan again. “That door must lead back to the dining area…we should try to find a way to Quintus!”
The priest’s reasoning made sense, but Rowan didn’t want to leave the wizard, whose periodic outbursts of mad laughter echoed through the room, behind them. At a loss for anything else to do, the ranger finally relented and they tried one of the double doors before them. It opened towards them easily enough, but they recoiled as the opposite side revealed the stacked carved faces that had torched Rosë.
They waited for several grains, but no fire belched forth. “It must only work one way,” Lew reasoned.
Rowan nodded and stepped into the room, a mirror of the sitting room they had passed through before, only with different tapestries. The ranger moved forward, looking for and finding a pit trap. ‘Just like the other side!’
Lew loaded his crossbow and Rowan hefted his gladius while opening one of the double doors to reveal a short landing and stairs leading down. Rowan’s feet hadn’t passed over two steps before the hiss of crossbow bolts filled the air from below. Both the ranger and Lew took minor wounds before skipping back up the stairs.
“There’s two of them! Get ‘em!”
Quintus heard the shouts echoing up from below and reacted instantly. First, he fired off a quick cantrip to simulate the sound of a fireball exploding, then crossbow in hand, he raced down the stairs. He remembered the previously placed oil as his feet slipped from under him, but he managed to retain his balance (if only just)! He skidded he skidded to a halt just through the doorway at the bottom of the stairs.
Several gray cloaks were disappearing through the doorway at the end of the wall, one stood by the door with a loaded crossbow and one stood in the portal they had originally entered from. “Fly, you fools!” Quintus shouted, “The sorcerer has fireball scrolls!”
The crossbowman looked at Quintus hard, but the man in the entry portal began edging away. “Fly, if you value your life! They are all dead up there and Maythrax is up there giggling like a madman!”
That was enough for the man on the far end of dining hall, he turned and sprinted from view. The crossbowman’s eyes narrowed on the similar weapon in the disguised Quintus’ hands and he dropped to one knee, bringing his own weapon to bear. Quintus fired first, but his ensorcelled bolt passed over the man’s head and exploded in crackling electrical energy against the wall.
The gray cloak loosed, but his quarrel sank into the table that separated the two. They both stared at each other for a moment and began to reload by touch, eyes locked. Quintus let his assumed form melt away as he slapped his second to last Lathan bolt into the arming groove and discharged the weapon.
His opponent was just leveling his crossbow when Quintus’ bolt struck him in the chest and the arcane discharge ravaged his body. The Shadowblade slumped to the floor, popping and crackling. Quintus dropped his weapon and raced back up the stairs to retrieve one of his oil bombs.
Rowan and Lew re-entered the study, but noted – to their horror – that the door they had entered through was closed and the eight carved faces were leering at them. They grabbed a table and shoved it against the double doors by the stairs just as a quartet of Shadowblades burst into the room. Blade and crossbow soon reduced those numbers to two and the remaining gray cloaks backed off down the stairs, raising crossbows. Rowan slammed the doors shut again.
Quintus returned to the bottom of the stairs and ran toward the right side door, arriving just as the two remaining Shadowblades backed cautiously out of the other stairwell. He hefted his lit oil flask, “Right boys, we can do this one of two ways. You can leave now…or you can burn in hell!”
The pair eyed the sorcerer’s bloody form and burning wick nervously and one of the crossbows started to come up. “Don’t!”
A tense standoff began as the Shadowblades started edging towards the far exit from the dining hall. “Don’t you throw that thing!”
“Just keep those weapons down and keep moving. I have no problem doing this,” Quintus replied as he followed within easy throwing distance.
They reached the doorway leading out and halted, whispering. Quintus, feeling that they were reconsidering, stepped closer. “Your choice, boys! We can all sleep in our own beds tonight or you can roast.”
Quintus’ voice was flat and deadly. The men looked at each other again, nodded and then spun on their heels, disappearing at a rapid clip. Quintus lowered his improvised weapon, hand shaking. He moved to the door and called up in a quavering voice. He was greatly relieved to see the battered faces of Rowan and Lew peer down at him from above!
The trio carefully made their way past Quintus’ oil slicked stairs and into the study. From there, they battered their way through the drying webs retrieving first Sextus and then Rosë from their bloody cocoons. They gingerly placed the bodies in longer library room and Lew checked them for signs of life.
To Quintus’ immense relief, Sextus still lived, although he was within a handsbreadth of death. He cradled his brother’s head as Lew finished applying bandages to the worst of his wounds. ‘At least I won’t have to tell mother any sad news!’
(DM’s Note: Sextus was bleeding out when the room was hit by the Web spell. Reasoning that the sticky webs would actually help in clotting, I gave Sextus’ player a 10% bonus on his stabilization rolls. He rolled a 19% with two hit points to spare!)
He glanced over to see Rowan kneeling beside Rosë’s battered body. Tears ran silently down the ranger’s face and splashed onto the blood-soaked stone like the first drops of a warm, spring rain. Lew slowly peeled the stained webs from the Brigante’s massive form while slowly shaking his head. The barbarian’s face bore no color and Lew confirmed Quintus’ rising fears as he said softly - to no one in particular - “He’s gone.”
To Be Continued…
Next: Interlude – Aftermath
~ Old One
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