Cavern Company: The Fire Serpent
The small band of four women and one man finally decide to move on out of the tomb complex after Ebri's attempt to see what is within the sarcophagi through meditation brings no results. Moving out of the tombs they enter what seems to be more natural tunnel...
...after hours of walking, the band finds itself in a huge cavern filled with massive stalagtites and stalagmites, and riddled with exits out. The problem is that only Melisande and Sandslipper have darkvision, and for everyone else the place is pitch black. They're also operating with no sense of direction, being thoroughly lost. Somewhat dispirited, they try and decide on a course of action.
Then they feel it. A faint tremoring, vibrations running through the ground as a low growling sound begins to become audible. More than a little worried, they hurry into the cavern, and into the kobold ambush.
When the human members of the party see the first firebomb arcing through the air towards them, touchpaper lit, they overjoyedly think it might be light coming in from a way to the surface. Of course they're pretty quickly disillusioned, and more vials come flying through the air, accompanied by a fusillade of little smokesticks that belch out clouds of stinging smoke. Melisande can see the kobolds have swarmed out from behind the rock formations they were using as cover, and are still a fair way away; at this distance they only manage to spatter a few party members with alchemists fire and achieve no direct hits. Nonetheless, the bombardment makes it difficult going, with patches of blazing fluid on the ground and vision clogged by smoke. Amidst the oncoming rush of kobold warriors Melisande can make out their leader, the cleric Asak, capering around and waving a short rod - this must be the Fire Serpent rod...
... and as the cleric waves it and mutters an incantation, something stirs in the patch of alchemists fire burning by Sebastion. Within in it, a shape is forming...
They retreat back to the mouth of the tunnel entrance they'd entered by, still suffering from continued alchemist fire vials and taking fair damage. As they back away, from within the fire, a large serpent seemingly made of red-hot ash and blazing with flame slides sinuously after them. Rallying to hold their ground at the tunnel entrance, the party strikes out at the fiery thing pursuing them, and in one swift round of accurate attacks dispatch it; the snake crumbles into fine ash.
They prepare to meet the kobold charge as Asak casts spells over his warriors. The vibrations have increased greatly now, and suddenly, with a roar, what looks like a toothed cone of metal turning at insane speed pushes into the tunnel behind them from through the wall...
In an attempt to stave off the oncoming kobolds, Melisande tries to play on their fears, since she knows - from the mimir - that Asak regularly leads parties to appease the spirits of the tombs through prayer. Using <i>change self</i> to turn her skin completely black she starts speaking in both draconic and drakkath about how the shadow warriors are angry and the kobolds must give offerings to appease them; some of the kobolds falter at the draconic, but more noticeably Asak reacts to her words in drakkath. The cleric is surprised, then fearful, then angry, and urges his warriors on.
Behind them the massive drill pushes all the way into the tunnel, and reveals that behind it is some sort of machine, all struts and engine driven by a goggled kobodl engineer and with a 'gunner' on top - a kobold pivoting round a heavy crossbow on a pintel mount to fire at the party. Things look bad, with the band being caught on bothsides by foes, and as the first wave of kobolds crash against them Ebri asks the mimir if it can tell them how to defeat the machine. Sadly the floating skull has nno such information recorded on it, and her attention is brought back to the brutal melee that has erupted.
Blows are traded on both sides, party members injured and kobolds cut down as Melisande continues to try and terrorise the foe through her magic. Behind them, Meg'anna splits off to attack the drilling machine, convinced it is some sort of iron elemental that the kobolds have taken control of. Scrambling up onto it as the driver turns it to run down the party, the druidess attacks the gunner, quickly killing him when he misses her with the crossbow. Panicking, the driver turns the machine back round to drill into the other tunnel wall, hoping to force the druidess off as she tries to reach him with her spear.
In the midst of the melee, Asak pushes towards Melisande, apparently intent on slaying her. For Sebastion, all that he can see in front of him in the ruddy light of the alchemical fires is a mass of kobolds, and a chance strike cuts the cleric down in mid stride. Having lost their leader, the diminuitive gremlins flee in terror, while behind the party Meg'anna rolls off the machine as it tears into the cavern wall, forging a new tunnel - this one as an escape, for the driver has seen the defeat of Asak's tribe.
A quick check over the bodies shows up remaining alchemical items, the strange 'Fire Serpent Rod' that Asak was wielding - engraved with serpent and flame designs - and a small amount of silver coins. Then, using a breeze of fresh air coming from one of the multitude of tunnels leading out of the cavern as a guide, they exit, after several hours breaking out into the cool dark of night.
Now they realise a new problem. Exhausted, wet and cold, they cannot afford to light a camp fire nor stay at the surface entrance, for fear of both kobolds and dreadspawn. The tired band trudges on into the night...