Agents of Chaos (Final Update!)

[the Jester]

Bile Battles

Even as the froghemoth is dragging Angelfire into its foul yellow pool, the rest of the party is moving to stop it. Polsoon's thunderous granite fist bashes down on it with mighty force, and the two struggle for an instant. The clerics, meanwhile, are trying to pass around a little healing for the worst of the injured- the horrid wilting inflicted grievous damage on almost everyone.

The froghemoth's struggles stop as Polsoon pounds it again, and Angelfire emerges from the bile, gasping and retching.

After a few moments of healing and recuperation, the group continues on. They all fly or air walk across a nasty area full of bile they'd prefer not to wade through- Zeebo is hanging from Sheva's back- and then into a large cave. And in the cave is another huge hideous creature- this one almost wormlike, with multiple tentacles coming from its face. Habiskis shrieks as he recognizes it: it's an illithid tadpole- but it has grown and grown until it's gargantuan in size! And it drips with stinking frothy bile...

The battle is joined with a pillar of fire and a volley of seeker missiles streaking in at the monstrous neothelid. Zeebo's somehow gotten turned around and is hanging upside down, gripping Sheva with his legs as he tries to slow the horrid monster. Angelfire rushes in, but it's already spitting bile, catching Sheva, Zeebo and Angelfire all. They gag and sicken as the monster starts shuffling towards them. There's another volley of seeker missiles streaking in, a storm of flames, a veritable rain of blows from Alcar and Angelfire, and finally, a trio of flame arrows that kills the thing. Once again, the party's overwhelming firepower overcomes their enemies... but the question remains: if it becomes necessary, will they so easily overcome the Bile Lords and their servants?

The group debates whether to continue. Alcar, naturally, is all for it. A few of the others waver, but Horbin puts his foot down. "No. Last time you got me killed this way!" With that, it's decided, and the party goes to rest- they've been offered rooms by Axon and Axel. As they pass the two constructs, Axel calls out, "Have you decided to serve the Bile Lords yet?"

"Not yet," Sybele says sweetly.

Their rooms are down the same hall as the human and giant. As they troop in, the human comes out of his room, looking at them warily. "I'm Thrush," he says, "and I'm the First Servant of the Bile Lords. When you give in to them- and you will, we did- you'll be under my command. Don't cause any trouble while you're here; you won't be able to handle it."

Sybele goes to talk to him up close and gives him the eye. It's clear that she's coming on to him.

That evening, Orbius leads a discussion group on Law and Chaos with Zeebo and the L. Sybele comes in in the middle of it, and towards the end, she says, "I'm sad about my daughter. She's been kidnapped and we're trapped here!"

Zeebo tries to find Jezeble using Orbius' crystal ball, but to no avail. Then, his loins bursting with need, he excuses himself and goes off to satisfy his needs, using the crystal ball for pornographic purposes.

Bored and dissatisfied, Alcar leaves to further explore. He does not return that night. The rest of the party rests and recovers spells.

The next morning they set off to further explore themselves, still with no sign of Alcar....




Next Time: The Final Fate of Alcar!!

 

[the Jester]

Alcar's Fate

The party moves warily further into the rougher areas of the mountain, Sheva looking for Alcar's tracks- but of course, he was probably flying, so she finds nothing. They're covered by Malford's group invisibility, a spell developed by Lester's friend- and God-King of Western Dorhaus- Malford the Magnificent. It makes them invisible and silent to everyone except each other as long as they make no noise louder than normal conversation.

Soon the party enters a medium-sized cave with a steeply-sloping floor, the lower end of which is full of a pool of bile. And on the bank is a foot.

"Oh, gross," says Sybele.

Upon inspection it's Alcar's foot.

"Well, maybe he's dead. It would save me some trouble," Angelfire says hopefully. He whoops.

Then something rises from the pool- a hideous monster about 15' long, like a weird lobster crossed with some sort of monstrous mandibled insect, roaring from a drooling maw surrounded by writhing tentacles. They can see part of a hand stuck in the corner of its mouth and it looks fairly wounded.

The party is invisible, but it heard them- and now it surges onto the dry part of the room and flails at the empty air, searching for them. As its great claws snap out unsuccessfully it makes a horrible chittering sound.

This is enough for our heroes. They unleash their powerful attacks on it- spells sizzle into it, arrows and blades bite it. It staggers backwards for a moment, and then Sybele fires a succession of four arrows at the beast and slays it.

A cursory search turns up a few more fragments of hair, skin and bone... and feathers. Sheva smacks Habiskis around and kicks him into the pool of bile, telling the imp to swim down and search it out. The imp mournfully takes a deep breath and begins his search. He turns up a number of items: two maces the party recognizes as Alcar's, a ring, his metallic leg, and a breastplate. He spits and coughs, then vomits, when he emerges from the pool. They take the items, and Sybele takes the other foot of Alcar. Perhaps it will become a relic someday.

Beyond the pool is another passage, unsubmerged; they could walk through it if they can get across the pool of the monster that slew Alcar.* This is easy enough for our heroes, and they pass through the passageway and, at its end, they find themselves looking at a room full of bile except for a ledge that is cleverly concealed- only Sheva's sharp eyes pick it out.

Indicating it with a gesture, she starts moving towards the ledge....



*Actually, there were three of them, and he wounded one of them and blinded two of them before they took him down. Then the one that could see slew the other two since it could, being somewhat wounded in the process; so now the rest of the part only had to fight one of them, and it was already wounded.



edited to put in Habiskis' first swim in the bile.

Next Time: Unexpected allies!

 

[the Jester]

Unexpected Allies

Flying, air walking, spider climbing and otherwise arriving up at the ledge, the party finds a pair of young dragons holding very still and being very quiet.

"It's okay, we aren't going to hurt you," Zeebo sooths in Draconic. His pulse is racing. This is a very, very welcome surprise- he'd become afraid that the dragon he was looking for was dead, and here he's found two dragons. The party coaxes the frightened young dragons into telling their tale.

The two introduce themselves as Verzon, a 13' long red dragon, and Gaargagh, a 7' long black dragon. They've been hiding here for weeks, now... ever since they fled here from the terrible fight. All they really want is to get out of this terrible place. They've been feeding on things from the bile, but it's been giving them terrible heartburn, and they can feel that it's not good for them...

"Who brought you here?" Sheva wants to know.

"The time people," Verzon squeaks.

"Two of them?"

"Yeah," the red dragon replies.

As Zeebo continues to talk to them, Sheva ponders. I bet they've been exposed to the age dragon spell in the Book of Time, she muses. Great and powerful allies...

"We'll help you get out," Sybele tells the young dragons. "Wait here for us."

The party explores further, but there is only one place they've not yet been- a stairway that leads down into a pool of stinking bile. It doesn't look promising.

"For now, we can rest with the dragons," Horbin suggests. "That way we aren't right under the eyes of the Bile Lords." The rest of the group definitely agrees that that's a good idea, so they divide up some loot and get ready to rest.

"So how was it swimming in the bile?" Sheva asks Habiskis.

"Terrible!" the imp cries.

"You've been in worse places in Hell, right?"

"...I don't like where this is going, Master."




Next Time: Habiskis takes another swim and finds something important!

 

[the Jester]

Habiskis Finds Something Important

"Before we rest," Sheva suggests, "let's send the imp in to see what's in that bile-filled chamber. That way we know what to prepare for."

"Master, no," pleads Habiskis.

"Come on," she commands, and the reluctant imp follows her to the staircase that descends into the nasty pool. The rest of the party comes along and watches as she points to the pool and orders the imp in. Habiskis gives her a look of mindled fear, hate and lust, and then dives in.

A few moments later, the imp reappears, spluttering and retching. "Master, the crystal!" he cries, swimming out of the pool and staggering around in a small circle. He shakes himself off, and then Sheva grabs him and hugs him.

"Perfect!" she cries. "That's what we're looking for!"

"All right, then, we can plan," Zeebo says. "As soon as we attack it, we can probably count on them knowing about it. We need to be prepared. And we need a way to get rid of the bile."

"Perhaps we can neutralize it with essential oils and stuff?" offers Sybele.

"I can control water or similar substances," Horbin says. Sheva nods to indicate that she can too. "We should be able to take care of it that way."

"Just like the elder brain," Lester enthuses.

"I'll go see if I can ply Thrush for information," Sybele offers. "You rest here and I'll catch up with you in the morning."

"Slut," Sheva mutters. Horbin laughs.

Sybele departs while the rest of the party plans in the dragons' cave. They know they must be ready tomorrow. "And I want to be able to get out as soon as we can," Orbius says. When they've got a loose plan they sleep. In the morning, Sybele returns.

"Thrush doesn't know anything about the crystal," she says. "He's been in here for years with no way out, and he said that if we find the crystal we should let him know. He wants out. He's got it sweet here, except that he can never leave. He hasn't seen a woman in four years."

"Slut," Sheva mutters.

The party discusses it, and decides they'll risk trusting him. Sybele tells him to meet her at dinnertime. "Don't tell anyone," she hisses. He nods curtly.

The party makes ready as evening rolls in. Sheva begins executing her plan as Sybele goes to meet Thrush. They hope fervently that he's not going to betray them. The red-haired priestess of Coila casts lesser planar ally, but to her dismay she finds that she cannot summon anything. Crap, she thinks.

Sybele finds Thrush as he's heading for dinner. She's rendered herself psionically invisible, and Horbin is likewise hidden with her. As Thrush moves down the hall, she sofly alerts him and says, "Follow me."

"If this is a trick, I'll kill you," he states flatly.

"Likewise," Horbin says in a low voice from nearby.

They return with Thrush. There isn't a lot of trust between them, but it seems as though everyone's cards are on the table. Thrush is a little taken aback by the dragons, but Horbin tells them that he's a new friend. He spars a little with both Sybele and Angelfire, and is clearly significantly better than either of them.

"Are we ready?" asks Lester.

They head to lower the bile and assault the crux crystal.




Next Time: The Crux Crystal! The party's first Epic-Level foe!!

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

*waits in fevered expectation*

 

[Talix]

Woot! *waits expectantly*

And about time Alcar got himself killed.

And way to identify the weaknesses of a man stuck for 4 years in the same place without any companionship!

 

[the Jester]

Well, it's the work week for me, had my parents here overnight last night, and we're throwing a party on Saturday... but I'll try to post the battle for the Crux Crystal before the weekend anyway!

Given just a little time with my notes in front of me it should be a snap. The fight was actually fairly simple...

 

[the Jester]

Attack on the Crux Crystal

As our heroes come to the stair that leads down into the stinking frothy bile within which lays the Crux Crystal, Orbius warns them, "There's some sort of guardian- I saw it in a vision earlier. Unfortunately, it was shadowy- I couldn't see what it was."

"Well, we'll find out," Sheva says tersely. Horbin begins praying to Dexter, his hands making lowering motions at the bile, and slowly the holy powers he represents do as he asks, and the yellow liquid starts bubbling as it drains away, leaving little bits of pale foam dancing momentarily in the air. The bile drops significantly- and as it does, more of the stair becomes visible. Angelfire leads the party down to see more. Then the Crystal itself comes into view. It's huge, dropping into the bile pool and rising all the way to the chamber's ceiling. It must be 10' in diameter, and the whole thing is covered in a layer of bile. Worse yet, bile seems to be bleeding out of it from a multitude of places. The stairs our heroes are descending lead to a torus-shaped 20' wide walkway that goes all the way around the wall about 20' down from the ceiling; a platform leads to directly around the crystal.

And they can see the guardian. It's a golem of some kind, bile dribbling off it everywhere, and it seems to be made out of mithral. It isn't moving yet.

"Well, you weren't lying," Thrush says quietly to Sybele. She smiles nervously. Angelfire doesn't even hesitate; he rushes into the room, down the wall and at the golem, sending a ringing blow at it. And his blade fails to penetrate its tough plating. I hit it hard, he thinks grimly, and tries again, several times, without success. There's a sweet chiming sound to the ringing of the mithral plating.

Sheva steps in, too- but she's all about the Crux Crystal. She certainly doesn't like the look of the golem. She swings as hard as she can and her blow lands square on the crystalline surface, sending cracks into it. Bile starts flowing from them. But the crystal's huge! It's gonna take quite a bit of punishment to destroy it. She sets to it with a will, and Thrush, Horbin and Sybele follow her example. Orbius and Zeebo are trying to buff the party; Lester tries to turn part of the huge crystal to flesh, but fails, and Polsoon, his earth elemental ally, moves to block the walkway right above the mithral golem.

As the party starts assaulting the crystal, the golem awakens.

Ignoring Angelfire's agressive attacks completely, the mithral golem starts clambering up the wall. The comined breath weapons of both dragons doesn't even mark it- doesn't even slow it's climb. "Trouble!!" Angelfire screams.....



Next Time: Against the mithral golem! Angelfire has hit once but failed to penetrate it's DR- how will our heroes fare??

 

[the Jester]

Just for the sake of reference, the party during this fight was:

-Horbin (cleric 14)
-Sheva (ranger 1/rogue 2/cleric 7/contemplative 3/assassin 2/monk 1)
-Sybele (fighter 8/psion 5/warrior of chaos 1)
-Zeebo (sorcerer 6/wizard 6)
-Angelfire (psychic warrior 11/cleric 3)
-Lester (elementalist 12/warrior of chaos 4)

They were fighting a CR 21 mithral golem (from the Epic-Level HB). In case you aren't familiar with it, its AC 42 and has DR 50/+5. Oh yeah, and it's constantly hasted.

edit: Oh yeah, and the cohorts:
Orbius (Lester's cohort)- Diviner 7/Divine Oracle 7
Habiskis (Sheva's cohort)- imp rogue 6

 

[the Jester]

The Crux Crystal (Finale)

Polsoon aims a tremendous blow at the golem as it pulls its way up the wall, but even the elemental's mighty strike doesn't seem to hurt the thing. And it's moving fast. It reaches the walkway and immediately strikes Polsoon with a devestatingly powerful series of blows. Polsson retreats, drawing another shockingly powerful blow as he does, and uses his great reach to attack from about 15' away. Still, his blows can't seem to break through the mithral plating on the golem. The chiming sounds of the blows connecting echo weirdly through the cavern as the golem advances relentlessly towards the party members hacking at the crystal. As it goes past him, Angelfire takes an attack of opportunity- and hits again! But even so, his blow doesn't deal any damage to it. Habiskis flits in and out of invisibility as he attacks and flies by. Zeebo "the Mayor" keeps throwing haste spells at his buddies; Orbius, meanwhile, disappears.

As Angelfire stands in its way, the golem's great metal fists rise and fall like hammers on him. A solid blow to the side of the head leaves Angelfire wondering whether his ears are ringing or its the sound of the golem's chiming metal. They trade blows for another moment and then Angelfire dimension doors away.

The crystal's starting to show a network of cracks all around it now, seeping bile. One section is cracked partway through, but it's not destroyed yet. Desperately, the party strikes hard and fast. Lester shouts, "I've got an idea!" as he flies to the base of it and casts soften earth and stone. The dragons, meanwhile, fly by the golem and attack it, but they are small and young and ineffective, and when it lands a crushing blow on each of them, almost knocking the black dragon senseless, they retreat to a safe distance.

"We've got to take this thing out!" Lester shouts. "We're in it for the duration!" And with that, he seals the stairs off with a wall of stone. "Polsoon, attack the crystal!" he shouts. Zeebo is cursing softly as his spells fail to affect the Crux Crystal.

Orbius, invisible, casts mass haste, then lower resistance on the crystal. Maybe I can shatter it or something, he thinks grimly. And hopefully we'll be able to teleport away if we can destroy it. A quick glance at the golem shows that it still hasn't been damaged. Turning his attention back to the crystal, Orbius casts shatter- and is amazed as it slides right past all the crystal's defenses and creates a mass of spiderwebbed cracks in the surface of the crystal. It's got a weakness! the Eye exults. But I don't have another one prepared! Instead his fires an arrow of acid at it, but that fails to penetrate even the lowered spell resistance of the crystal.

Angelfire steps up to the crystal and strikes right where the shatter spell and the section cracked halfway through meet. It's the right spot to strike, and his blow is tremendously powerful, cracking the rest of the pillar of crystal free of the top- and with the stone at the bottom softened by Lester's spell, the entire great pillar falls, crashing to the ground, catching Angelfire, Thrush, Zeebo and Polsoon on its way and battering them all severely. The crystal shatters as it hits the stone floor, and when it does, the golem shudders and stops moving, smoke rising from within it.

"How long can that last? And how long until the Bile Lords get here?" Orbius wonders aloud, then shouts, "Let's get out of here! Everyone gather around Lester, we can trump out!"

The party swiftly gathers together. Zeebo tosses a slow spell at the incapacitated golem for good measure, and Sheva takes a shot at it in passing- but even though she gets through its armor, she can't seem to deal it any damage. "Forget about it, let's go!" Lester yells, squinting hard at the trump card in his hand.

The party clusters around Lester and escapes through the card. In an instant, Bile Mountain is left behind- and they are in Malford's castle in Var, on Dorhaus. And though they do not know it, they've done more than just escape; they've overthrown the vile magic sustaining the River of Bile and Mount Bile. Within one day the river will no longer harmful. Within a week it will run almost clear, and within a month, the bile will be gone completely. The party has had a great triumph.

And they have made great enemies.




Next Time: The party figures out what their next move should be, as well as who's going to attack them next!