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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 738083" data-attributes="member: 1210">"That's the Thickest Door I've Ever Seen!"An examination of the door reveals that it's locked with a strange, large-looking keyhole, but neither Sheva nor Norman can get through it even with their best efforts.  None of the party's available magic seems to work either.This leads to a discussion about the merits of opening the door at all.  "What if there's something locked away there that shouldn't be let out?" Horbin points out.Lester has a lot of experience with these sorts of things; he once pulled a lever that released an entity called Fuligin from a cage that had held him for billions of years.  Fuligin, once released, virtually destroyed the continent of Dorhaus, summoning demons and devils and ravaging the landscape.  His order was simple: if it isn't evil- be it man, animal or plant- kill it.  Lester, along with Malford, Thimbleton, Hobbes and other great heroes- had to travel time itself back to the universe destroyed by Fuligin's master to overthrow him and free Dorhaus.  The whole adventure cost thousands of lives and left Dorhaus overcome by evil for about a hundred years.  Even now, with Fuligin overthrown about a decade ago and Malford now ruling as God-King of West Dorhaus from Var, the population is low, and many evil creatures and forces remain."Well, look," says the L, "if we let something out, we'll eventually kill it and take its treasure.  Look at my armor, for instance.  It came from Fuligin.  Yeah, he was a badass, and sure, it took a while, but we managed to take him.  And now I have his armor, which is pretty cool stuff.  So I think we should go on through."I guess that just goes to prove that some people never learn.  In any event, our heroes scrabble at the doors a little more, scratching their collective heads, until finally someone remembers the big key from the elder brain pool.  They pull it out- and sure enough, it fits in the lock just perfectly.  And as they turn it, a strange humming arises from the door.  Slowly the orichalcum plug sinks back away from them- revealing itself to be no less than 44' thick!  It filled a thick passage that seems to lead into another chamber.As the party warily advances, they are met by a pair of strange headless things.  They tumble in with surpriseing speed, attack and tumble away out of sight around the thick plug.  They're moving with blurring speed, seeming to shuffle from one limb to another freely, using all four limbs to move and attack!  Their movements are more than a little baffling.As our heroes move in and try to fight back, it rapidly becomes apparent that these things move faster than anything this side of a quickling, and with their monk-like abilities, they can heal themselves.  Fire blasts down on one, but it easily evades it, taking no damage.  Then they move in to press their attack, dodging and weaving with unreal alacrity.  Arrows zing at them but they bat them aside.  Orbius fires a volley of seeker missiles that streak around, missing, but circle in to try again.  The weird headless things are moving with unbelievable grace, leaping from place to place and slamming our heroes around like raquetballs.  Spells and weapons both have trouble landing on the monsters, but our heroes have managed to inflict a few serious wounds by now, and a couple of the seeker missiles have landed as well.   Alcar finally manages to get a full attack on one of the headless, and with a cry to Galador he drops it down with a final crushing blow to the chest.The other headless monk continues to dance from enemy to enemy, but it staggers as the L's blade conncects with it and there's a clap of chaotic thunder.  Then Orbius casts another seeker missiles spell, and they zip in.  For once the creature is off-balance from Lester's blow and suffers almost the full effect of the missiles.  It drops as well.Panting, our heroes look around at the chamber they're in.  They're all battered and bloodied from the assault, and they're also getting low on spells and psionic power points.  After a quick look around the room, they decide, they'll head back to Var for the night.The room has few features.  Only a set of huge stairs, about 2' high and wide, leads up and out; they seem to be vibrating, filling the room with a low hum.  And the walls are painted with ancient, faded imagery: A group of tall cloaked figures is shown, being guarded by headless and having the mastodon loxo as workers.  The group is shown coming to Bile Mountain when the river ran clean, bearing some sort of wagon of crystals.  They  enter the mountain (where they overthrow some sort of powerful angelic being) and then it runs with bile, to the delight of the cloaked figures.  The final scene shows a headless celebration around a large pool of bile with a large rock outcropping over it having a 30’ long pillar of crystal plunging down into the bile.  The cloaked figures are on the outcropping, near the crystal, and seem to be concentrating on it.  The crystal looks like it is glowing and it seems to be shooting out bile.The party takes note of the images, then trumps away.  They'll be back soon enough.Next Time: The party tries to  turn that petrified bad guy back to flesh and take his stuff!  And what's up with the vibrating stairs?  The party's about to hit epic challenges by sidestepping all the stuff on the lower levels of Bile Mountain- and they're from 12th-17th level!!</blockquote>

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