Clearwater Crusaders - City of the Spider Queen (Updated 17th June)

[Eccles]

Instantly back in the pich-black Underdark, the group adjusted their Goggles of Night, whilst Aeron and Yvgeny moaned softly at their re-insertion into the negative-energy strengthened area. Then, silence spells were cast.

The group had spent some time in Calimport bickering about what their best route was, and had decided that they would cast silence spells and fly to avoid the yrthaks and re-enter the tunnels.

Unfortunately, they had forgotten how short a distance they could see underground, and could not locate the walls.

Aeron's Find the Path spell was being refused him by an irritable Mystra, and they swiftly worked out that they didn't have enough fly spells available to them. So they took their best guess, and started walking.

It took a long time, but they eventually located a tunnel out of the cave, and headed along it, figuring that it must be the right one. (Thankfully, it was).

---

Days of uneventful travel passed, as the group trudged back along a darkened tunnel, before they eventually reached the junction, and turned right, following the instructions on their map which led to the mysterious place named "Lich's Mire".

On one night, Aeron felt a strange tingling at the back of his neck, and directed the attention of his fellows at a point in space near the ceiling. He was confident that something was wrong, and after squinting at it for a few moments, Halbrinn agreed.

"So what do we do about it?" Someone asked.

The group looked at one another.

"Does anyone have a dispel magic ready?"
"No"
"No"
"No"
"Yes. Lots, actually."
"Should we use one?"
"What for? It's only a scrying sensor. What's the worst that could happen?"
"So it's agreed then? We ignore it?"

So they ignored it.

Aeron and Halbrinn unpacked their tents, and everyone else climbed into bedrolls, apart from the first two on watch.

A couple of hours later, most of the group were fully rested, thanks to their many Rings of Sustenance, and so the watchgroups increased dramatically. Only Halbrinn and Yvgeny were left resting.

However attentive the watchmen were, however, they were not able to watch through the solid rock of the walls, which is where they were suddenly assaulted from. Two titanic, slate grey armoured behemoths smashed into the tunnel, one chomping up through the floor and straight into Halbrinn's leg (which thoroughly broke the poor halfling's concentration), and a second which leapt out through the wall at head height, and slammed into Rand in a spate of biting, clawing, bestial savagery.

Rand almost fell beneath the creature's onslaught, and many of the adventurers were too slow to react to the bites and gouges from the beasts.

Miles and Stedd rained blows on the first armoured creature, hurting it, but far from driving it off.

The Halbrinn tried to cast a spell, but in doing so failed to move out from under the collapsed ruins of his tent. Casting spells whilst still practically in the maw of a feral beast, he learned, was a bad idea. It bit him heavily for his troubles, completely breaking his concentration and disrupting his complex spell.

The others looked at the tent, and could see that something was amiss, but were reluctant to do anything about it.

"Shall I Flame Strike it?" Aeron asked his comrades.
"What's to strike? You might hit Halbrinn!"
"Noooooo!" came the faint wail from beneath the tent.

Bitten once again, Rand moved away from one creature, and flexed his will, causing Halbrinn's tent to be ripped up and thrown to the ceiling. Aeron and Yvgeny pounced in and bashed at the snout of the beast, whilst Stedd's powerful fists finally left a mark on the first land-shark, dazing it completely and leaving its hindquarters open for Miles' maddened sword-slashes. The creature, still stunned, slumped to the floor, dead.

The other beast began climbing back down its tunnel, pausing only to bite out at Halbrinn again as he tried to fling a death-spell at the creature. Halbrinn nearly fainted from the pain and surprise, but hung on just long enough to see the creature disappear behind falling rubble.

---

The group tidied up the remains of their campsite, and Aeron cast Make Whole on the shattered tent for probably the third time. Then he turned to trying to repair the damage to the two arcane spellcasters. He began with a mighty Heal spell which should have completely repaired all of Halbrinn's grievous injuries.

The prayer was deformed by the negative energies around them, and all Aeron's mystical understandings failed him, as he was unable to control the aether, and saw his spell fail completely.

He tried again with a lesser magic. This also failed. Again and again he poured healing magics into Halbrinn, exhausting himself in the process, but to hardly any avail. Some of his spells were successful, but many failed hopelessly, even some of the spells he had been casting since he first entered holy orders.

Yvgeny's efforts were no better.

"We're doomed," moaned Stedd, despondently.

---

{DM's note - in the negative energy area, positive spells must be accompanied by a Spellcraft roll. Neither Yvgeny (a priest/monk), or Aeron (a 12th level cleric of Mystra, the goddess of magic) have more than 4 ranks in spellcraft. Healing just became very, very precious…}

Next: The Crusaders reach Lich's Mire, and fail miserably to prepare for the lich they expect to encounter there!

 

[Eccles]

"How long have we been traveling now?"

Stedd was bored at crawling along at the pace of the rest of his party, and itched for some action. At least they were now traveling faster than they had been - these days Halbrinn changed his form into that of a pixie or an ogre so that his gnomish strides didn't slow the others down. Nonetheless, Stedd had been uncharacteristically ranging a little way ahead of the others, then moving back to rejoin them. It could be called scouting, but nobody was really paying much attention to what was going on around them.

"Four days" replied Halbrinn, glancing down at the map he held in one enormous ogrish hand.

"And how long until we reach the next caverns?"
"It's hardly a perfect map. Another day or two?"
"So would you mind explaining why there's a petrified dark elf up ahead where the tunnel narrows?"
"Petrified?" Miles and Rand suddenly butted in simultaneously.
"Yeah. Petrified. Turned to stone. What does that? Medusa? Basilisk? Cockatrice? Certain sorts of demons? Beholders? Whatever it is, we're in way over our heads. It could kill us straight out. No fair!"

{DM's Note - the player in question actually trotted out this almost-alphabetical list of petrifying monsters at the table without batting an eye. Scary.}

After grouping near the statue and discussing things in hushed voices for a few minutes, the group began to settle on a plan. Miles led the discussion.

"So what we need is someone to go ahead and scou… why are you all looking at me?"

And so he crept into the cavern alone, invisible, and stealthy. Unheard by the inhabitants of the cave, he climbed along a narrow ledge over a stream which had gouged the tiny entrance to the cave. As he crept forwards, he saw a patch of mushrooms, very extensive, by the side of a small stagnant lake. Moving around and tending the mushrooms were two well-built drow women, wearing armour and with swords and shields strapped to their packs.

Miles, still unheard, crept back to the rest of the group and told them what awaited them.

"Nothing else?"
"Nothing I saw."
"There must be something. 2 drow mushroom farmers never turned someone to stone."
"Yeah, and why put a mushroom farm on the main route to Maermydra?"
"I don't know. I just saw two women farming mushrooms."
"So we kill 'em?"
"I reckon so. Better do it quickly before they start turning us to stone somehow."

Miles crept back into the cavern and positioned himself by the wall, ready to activate his Boots of Speed and leap to the attack. Stedd crept along the narrow ledge above the stream, and also moved, stealthily, into the cavern.

Then Aeron moved forwards, onto the narrow ledge. Slipped, and fell loudly into the stream-bed.

Miles and Stedd leapt forwards almost simultaneously, stunning and slaying one of the two well-built drow women before her sword had even left its sheath. The second cried out a warning and tore a light rapier from its scabbard. She turned, just in time to hear Aeron scrabble madly trying to get out of the stream-bed, and to hear a second awkward thump as Rand also fell into it. She also saw Stedd's rock-hard fist whistle through the air and smash into the side of her head, dazing her and causing the unbloodied rapier to fall from nerveless fingers.

Back at the entrance, Yvgeny's well-worn Slippers of Spider Climbing meant that the stream was no obstacle, whilst Halbrinn's massive ogrish fist reached down to lift Rand and deposit him on the other side of the gap.

Miles, standing over the body of one slain drow happened to look up, and moaned with fear at the sight above him. A brownish mottled orb, nearly 4 feet across, had descended from the ceiling, almost a dozen eyes on stalks protruding from the top. Eyes waved in his direction, and beams of varying colours shot from the pupils.

Shaking off a variety of magical effects, Miles prepared to invoke Slayer's jumping ability, but then the huge frontal eye opened, and everything went dark for him as magic failed.

Stedd gaped at the huge floating eyeball, and dived for cover behind the nearest large item - which happened to be the drow he was fighting. He continued to hammer away at the elf's midriff, stunning her again and leaving her gasping for breath. Yvgeny was also blinded, as was Rand, who started moving through the darkness, arms outstretched trying to find a way out.

Halbrinn, with a panolply of spells which could reduce the beholder to paste, stuck one arm into the edge of the anti-magic area which the beholder was projecting down the narrow cavern entrance. His ogrish forearm atrophied suddenly, leaving a tiny gnome limb sticking oddly out from an ogre's elbow. Aeron, bereft of his enchanted strength, his flying boots, his magically lightened armour, and half a dozen other items which could have helped him out of the trench he was in, tried once again to climb out of a 5 foot deep hole, and failed once more.

 

[Jeremy]

How humiliating. I can't wait for the barbarian to show up.

 

[Eccles]

Gliding to one side, the beholder blasted at Yvgeny with another rainbow of eye-rays, two of which missed, whilst a third ray which threatened to turn him to dust failed miserably to have any serious effect. Rand's fumbling push up one flank finally had some success as he came into an area where his Goggles of Night took effect, and he cast a terrific fire spell, swallowing much of the cavern (and all of the beholder) in sheets of flame. Sagging slightly, the huge eyeball began to turn its attention towards Rand, but had barely completed its revolution when Yvgeny scrambled across the ceiling to drop down upon it, and Stedd leapt up, bringing his arms down in another of his trademark Mantis Leaps.

The remaining drow fighting woman was despatched more as an afterthought than anything else.

---

The group scouted the cavern quickly, spotting where the beholder had come from as well as many mushrooms, and a second large cavern off to the South-West. They decided all to head up, and explore the beholder's nest.

The nest was small, and filled with strange stone sculptures of humanoids transfigured in pain, with peculiar holes drilled through them. The room was looted swiftly and efficiently, with the group taking particular interest in a tiger-skin rug which lay on the floor.

As the small chamber was defensible (accessible only by climbing or flying straight up 60 feet), they decided to stay there for a period, allowing Halbrinn to cast his identifying magic, and then deciding to keep all the loot for later sale anyway.

As it was now late, the group rested.

When the group awoke, and as the mages and priests prepared their spells again, Aeron and Halbrinn once again felt a familiar tingling. The group was being scried by an unseen foe.

---

{Next - Miles goes linkdead, a new cohort, and for the first time in ages, the group is taxed in combat! Oh, and the DM pulls a nasty and ambushes the group!}

 

[Eccles]

"We're being scried again." Halbrinn was aware of the sensor only moments after a slight pause in Aeron's prayers indicated something was up.

"Should we dispel it?" Rand was looking around, totally unaware of the sensor, which amused Halbrinn's gnomish sensibilities no end.

"Yeah. Get one of the priests to do it."
"Can't. They're still praying. No priestly backup for about another half hour."
"Oh. You want to do it?"
"Not really. I'll give it a shot though."

Rand's brow furrowed as he channelled the energies from within himself, and threw them in the direction indicated by Halbrinn.

"Still there?"
"Yep."
"Damn. What do we do about it then? I could cast another 20 or so dispels, but that would spoil me for the rest of the day."
"So we ignore it again?"
"Yeah. After all, what harm could it do? It's only a sensor."

So they left it.

---

Approximately 20 seconds later, a tiny red-orange pea hurtled up through the hole in the floor, exploding violently amongst the adventurers.

Only Rand and Aeron were actually hurt by this, as the other 4 in the group had such incredible reactions that they were able to hurl themselves behind cover and avoid the blast. Aeron's prayers never faltered, although Yvgeny broke off his supplications to his God as a safety precaution.

Halbrinn looked down over the lip of the small hole. A roaring wall of fire was springing up where the drop opened up into the cavern below.

"Uh, guys?"

An unarmoured form rocketed past him and plunged down the hole, arms and legs flailing as he skidded and bounced off the walls.

"Stedd?"

Halbrinn looked around, and was rather confused by what he saw. Miles, usually the first to be up and attacking the foe, was still wrapped tightly in his bedroll, fast asleep.

"Miles?"

Rand, meanwhile, was pulling a foot-tall stone statue out of his backpack, and sprinkling powder on it. Within moments, the statue took on colour and started to grow dramatically, finally starting to animate as the man it became drew its sword and looked around for the enemy.

Halbrinn shook his head and got back to casting spells on himself. Aeron never even looked up from his prayers.

---

Down below, Stedd dropped through the sheets of flame, and felt claws rake him as he fell to the ground. Looking around, he saw a enormous winged form clutching a whip and raking at him with huge claws and a long tail which dripped venom.

"Uh, guys? A little help here?"

As Stedd began to exchange blows with the devil, others in the group began to fly (Halbrinn), float (Rand's Feather Fall power) or climb (Yvgeny) towards the wall of flame below them. Many of them were burned by the flames as they fell through, until Halbrinn, hovering in the tunnel, dispelled the Wall of Flame and moved down.

---

The devil lashed out with whip, claw, tail and tooth, and Stedd was hard pressed to match it. Falling back gradually, he was relieved when Rand's new cohort dropped out of the tunnel above him, and fell to the ground, leaping up and brandishing a rapier.

Stedd was grateful for the help, and for the reduction in blows that followed. However, he swiftly realised that his fists (and Rand's duellist cohort's rapier) could not effectively penetrate the creature's tough hide. Stedd swapped to his heavily enchanted nunchaku, and began to flail away with abandon.

The devil, meanwhile, stunned and then poisoned Rand's cohort, before being flanked and beaten into oblivion by Yvgeny, Stedd and Rand's magic.

When the group climbed back to the cave above, they saw that Miles was still asleep, and that Aeron was still praying.

There were many complaints.

---

Next - the group goes back down that vertical tunnel, and gets into even more trouble! And Miles still doesn't wake up!

 

[Eccles]

"So what do we do?" Only minutes after their battle with the cornugon devil, and Rand was itching to get out and confront the Underdark.

"We've got to wait for Aeron to finish praying. And what's up with Miles?" Yvgeny, the peace-maker, was looking out for the rest of his team.

"I'm not altogether sure," replied Halbrinn casting a quick spell to check Miles' magical auras. "If I had to take a guess, I'd say that his Ring of Sustenance had malfunctioned. He might not wake up for days."

"Oh. So what should we do, then?"

Nobody really felt like staying around, and so they left as soon as Aeron had finished praying.

Leaving Miles, fast asleep, on his own, in the Underdark.

---

"Ah!"

Flying down the vertical tunnel once again, Rand felt a sharp stabbing pain in his left eye.

Wrenching off his Goggles of Night, he was astonished to find that he could still see in the dark, if he screwed up his right eye and squinted through the left. Without the goggles on, his visual range was vastly reduced, but the headaches subsided.

Shrugging, Rand passed his Goggles over to his follower, who was struggling to see anything in the darkness. Then he carried on down the passage, not really paying this strange new development any attention.

---

The group climbed (or flew) back down to the cavern below, and looked around. The only route they had not explored was off to the West; the opening to a second large cavern. Forming up into a small knot, they moved out, seeing a second large patch of mushrooms in clusters and patches around a wide ox-bow lake.

Moving into the chamber to explore, the were taken completely by surprise when one large clump of mushrooms bulged, and then was thrown back, revealing an axe-wielding humanoid charging at them out of a pit.

The muscular form hurtled at them, foaming at the lips and screaming obscenities in a language none of them understood. His face was blank; flesh covered where eyes should be, but still the axe whistled accurately in at Stedd, slamming into his side and carving into him. Stedd leapt back, but the creature pressured on, swinging the axe again and again, smashing and slicing into him, and Stedd's guard was not sufficient to stop several blows getting past.

Before the rest of the group had really even noticed that they were under attack, the axe had carved a gaping wound across Stedd's abdomen, cracking ribs and slicing flesh so deeply and the bunched cords of his stomach (shrivelled away after so many months relying on his Ring of Sustenance for food) were visible.

Gasping from the agony of the blow, Stedd drew back further, only to be pressured still more by the axe-wielding cave-dweller.

Halbrinn threw one of his most lethally powerful spells at the barbarian, only to stand in amazement as the sightless creature simply ignored the terrifying abomination hurtling towards him.

When Rand's cohort leapt into the fight, he was almost immediately smashed down with a terrific blow from the axe, which crashed into his hastily-guarding rapier, knocking it to one side before driving on into the duellist's leg. With a scream, the man fell to the ground, blood pouring from the ruined limb to feed the mushrooms.

Yvgeny dived in to drag the cohort out of the fight, before muttering in irritation as his lesser prayer of healing (one of the few remaining to him from the previous day) failed in the terrible negative magic aura.

Aeron, to the rear of the party, began to cast his regimen of spells. Already carrying many layers of protective enchantments from his wands, he began by hasting himself, then invoking the favour of Mystra to allow him to wade into combat with his mace. He would not, however, be ready to enter combat for some time, as he still had several spells to cast before he was properly 'powered up'.

Rand's magic caused the mushroom patch to erupt in flame, doing terrible damage to the barbarian, who simply ignored his burns.

Stedd's hasted fists failed to stun the barbarian, who barely even grunted each time they connected. His return blows, however, were titanic in proportion, each of them with the potential to kill Stedd entirely. Stedd pulled back once more, and was again pressured by the raging humanoid.

Before things got truly out of hand, the group rallied. Halbrinn and Rand cast magic missiles and lightning orbs into the barbarian, whilst Stedd and Aeron (deigning to enter the combat 'early') attacked him with fist and mace.

Despite inflicting further horrendous injuries, this barrage of blows and spells was too much, and his broken body fell to the ground, covered in gore and mushrooms.

"Loot him!" bellowed someone from the group.

It took some moments to decide who was going to be the one to approach the body, in case it was just faking…

 

[Eccles]

Whilst Yvgeny and Rand stripped the shattered and blasted body of the barbarian, Stedd leaned heavily against the wall and concentrated hard. He forced himself to ignore his bruised and battered body, willing his muscles back into their shape. Only by dint of exteme concentration and knowing his own physique perfectly could he do this, but eventually the gaping wound in Stedd's torso was held closed by the tension in his own muscles, and healing was sped dramatically.

For Aeron, however, things were not so easy.

He had prayed that morning for a special enchantment which would dramatically increase his ability to concentrate on the spell he wanted, and to twist it in the manner he desired.

Casting this first, he was confident in his ability to heal the remainder of the group, yet still something evaded him.

His first brash attempt to wipe away all of Rand's cohort's wounds in a single healing gesture went far adrift, and failed miserably. His second and third attempt, both using powerful spells of healing also failed.

As the rest of the group fretted about whether they would be able to recover from the fight, Aeron finally managed to adjust to the negative energies, and healed the cohort and Stedd somewhat. Recovered, the group decided to proceed with their exploration.

---

To the south lay an enormous body, turned entirely to stone. It nearly blocked the whole passage out. Looking more closely at it, Halbrinn realised that this was the body of a giant, turned entirely to stone!

Looping around to check the last of the cavern before leaving Lich's Mire, the group changed their order of march. The fighting Crusaders were still too badly wounded to continue at the front, and so the group swapped to a peculiar order of clerics, followed by spellcasters, followed in turn by the warriors.

This was something of a relief as, bickering amongst themselves, the group rounded a corner only to be blasted by the intense mental energies of the creature which had been hiding there half-expecting them to go away without discovering its ill-hidden lair.

The first mental blast was followed immediately by a second, which together put Rand's cohort and (ironically) both mages on the floor. The cleric, monk and cleric/monk were made of sterner stuff, and leapt to the attack. The unfortunate mind flayer (which had caused Stedd severe palpitations as they rounded the corner to come into view of it) was almost immediately stunned, and was never given a chance to Plane Shift away from the adventurers before the butchered it resoundingly.

---

Various items were taken from the illithid's rubbery body, and several gems and items of jewellery were levitated out of a slimy, salty pool using Rand's telekinesis spell.

Halbrinn, meanwhile, became fascinated by a collection of sticks, stones and bones, all of which had been carved to form an intricate structure, and which was mildly enchanted in some way he could not fathom. Taking out a quill and some parchment, he drew several sketches of how the thing was put together, and then knocked it down, sweeping it into a bag for later study.

Then, the group tried to decide what to do next.

"We're pretty badly hurt. Should we go and rest for a while?" Stedd, as usual was the party pessimist, keen to ensure that they were not hurt.

"Nah." Halbrinn and Rand were both keen to move on and get closer to Maermydra, and so it was left to the clerics.

"We could go back and have a rest, you know." Yvgeny was trying to ensure that things didn't get out of hand.

"Nope." Rand suddenly sounded certain. "That cave's only got one way out."
"Which makes it defensible."
"And non-escapable. It's incredibly dangerous there."
"Dangerous? What about Miles?"
"Oh, he'll catch up. After he's woken up, anyway."

The group squeezed past the statue of the crawling giant, and headed down a fissure in the rock, continuing towards Maermydra.

{Next: Nearly caught up now! One more titanic struggle, and we'll let the heroes rest until Friday!}

 

[Eccles]

Wounded, but still buoyant in victory, the Clearwater Crusaders pushed on down the tunnels, leaving Miles behind in the 'too dangerous' cavern. Although several of their number were quite badly hurt, they were relatively confident, as they had never encountered more than one or two sources of evil in a day.

So they marched on at a slightly slower pace so that their wounded could keep up, but still made good time through the miles of dry tunnel.

A couple of members of the group began to become thirsty, but that was swiftly rectified with a create food and water spell, with several other spells serving to add flavour and texture to the mush which was produced by Yvgeny's initial prayer.

After an hour or more of walking, the group began to hear a strange rumbling noise, which seemed to come from the very rock around them. Looking around nervously, the adventurers began to consider making camp, and started looking for a convenient spot to stop marching. The grinding noise continued, however.

Suddenly, an enormous toothy maw burst through the tunnel wall, showering the party with rock. Fully 20 feet across, the circular mouth was lined in huge teeth which had been chewing through the rock of the Underdark. The enormous thing stretched out, revealing a massive purple body behind it, and the teeth closed around Aeron, biting him savagely.

The group was slow to react, but the enormous lumbering creature was slower still. Therefore, whilst Aeron tried unsuccessfully to free himself from the colossal mouth, Stedd tumbled in beside him to smack at the creature, and Rand and Halbrinn both cast devastating offensive spells at it.

Unfortunately, as Halbrinn began casting, an enormous tail whipped out of a side wall, throwing crushed rock all over the group before stabbing a long pointed barb into him. Halbrinn's spell was lost in the agony, but thanks to the ogrish skin he was wearing, he managed to shake off the ill-effects of the venom which had been injected into him.

Aeron's struggles were for naught, as the creature appeared to pause, then its mouth closed over the cleric's head, and with a shuddering muscular contraction, he disappeared from view.

"Don't worry!" came the muffled cry from inside the purple worm. "I'm protected from acid, remember? I can probably last a minute or two in here!"

There was another muscular contraction as the swallowing action simultaneously crushed Aeron and forced him further down the enormous gullet.

"Aaargh! Better make that 20 or 30 seconds!" came the even fainter shout.

Rand considered an enormous spell which would shear the creature's flesh off in a massive blast of lightning, but thought better of it.

{House Rule - lightning damage gets transferred as half damage to anything inside a swallowed creature which is blasted, with no save}

Instead, he concentrated, and a 20 foot long glowing spear formed in his hands, carving a groove along the tunnel roof before being lowered to stab at the titanic worm, which lashed its huge tail out at Rand's cohort, who succumbed to the venom and fell to the ground.

Blows, both from within and without began to show their mark on the creature, but it continued to lash out at the party, narrowly missing Stedd with a bite from that enormous toothy maw, whilst the long barbed tail again lashed out, striking Halbrinn once again, this time weakening him considerably due to the venom.

More spells lashed out, and Yvgeny and Stedd both punched at the giant worm for all that they were worth, before the monstrosity finally slumped, lifeless, to the floor.

Aeron, screaming in pain as the weight of the creature slumped down upon him, continued to hack with a tiny dagger until he finally fell free with a wet slurping sound, acid draining onto the floor around him.

Pulling their comrade free, the group set to the monster with sharp blades, tearing open its stomach to find if there was any treasure within.

They were disgusted to find that, apart from digested meat and a terrible acidic stench, there were only a small handful of gems.

They pulled back to a nearby cavern, and prepared to rest.


{DM Note - 4 nasty combats in succession, and the group actually didn't notice a 5th walking almost directly past them. The toughest day they've had to day, and I can't help feeling that it's going to get tougher... Still, we're playing tonight, and I expect the party to reach Maermydra this session.}

 

[Eccles]

Miles awoke in the pitch-dark cavern, and rubbed his eyes before putting on his Goggles of Night. His body ached after sleeping once again in his enchanted chain armour, but he stretched his muscles and looked around.

The cavern was empty, apart from the statues of frozen humanoids left by the beholder. His companions had all disappeared, and the walls and statues were covered in a fine layer of soot.

However, the loot had also disappeared along with his companions, and so Miles incanted a swift spell of climbing, and scrambled down the tube-like entrance.

At the foot of the tube, he washed the soot off himself, and headed out into the neighbouring cavern, trying to find some trace of where his companions had gone.

The cavern was spattered with blood, and a single stripped corpse lay face-down in the ox-bow lake surrounded by mushrooms. Miles looked closely at the body, but left it largely untouched before moving on to find the body of the Mind Flayer near its pool.

Squeezing past the enormous statue of a petrified fire giant, Miles headed out in the most likely direction for his comrades to have gone; towards Maermydra.

Several hours later, he marched straight through the first group's campsite he came to, and then walked on into the propert camp itself. {The group has a habit of casting illusory campsites to deflect attackers}.

He sat down heavily in front of the others, and glared at them.

"You ba***rds".

Miles had rejoined the group.

---

3 days of travelling later, and the environment had changed once again. The narrow tunnel had begun to open out into a wide network of caverns, most of which had signs of cultivation in them. Mushrooms of varying sizes had been torn up and removed, leaving only a few roots and dishevelled ground to indicate that they were ever there. Miles' best guess indicted that many of the mushrooms had been taken or devoured by a group of goblins and giants that they had met several days ago. The goblins and ogres had been almost negligently annihilated by Halbrinn and Rand, before others had leapt in to finish off the fire giant travelling with the creatures.

Suddenly, a tiny blossom of light shone in the darkness. Growing suddenly, the tiny dot of light hurtled towards the group, blossoming outwards in an enormous ball of fire, scorching a couple in the group, (although many in the group had some form of fire-proofing magics cast upon themselves which reduced the damage) but failing to touch the majority, whose reactions were near-superhuman in speed.

{DM's note - how boring is it when 5 out of the 7 members of the group have evasion?}

Then, almost immediately, dark and greasy clouds began to materialise around the group. Twisting and dodging to their very best, many of them were nonetheless unable to avoid damage from the draining magics. Miles, strangely, was left completely untouched, whilst Rand and Aeron once again took the worst of the effects.

The group looked around for the source of these sorceries, but saw nothing. Drawing inwards, they prepared to repel an invisible assault, but almost immediately, an enormous ring of fire leapt up around them, almost touching the ceiling as it locked them into place.

Casting a daylight spell on an old coin, Halbrinn began to fly for the top of the Wall of Fire, whilst Yvgeny sprouted wings from his new cloak and flew straight through the top of the Wall (taking some terrible burns in the process), and Miles simply leapt, wincing, through before turning invisible. Stedd turned and ran towards Rand, swirling his cloak over them both. Rand, not understanding what Stedd was trying to do, resisted, and then stood there in confusion when Stedd simply disappeared.

Rand, his cohort, and Aeron were left inside the blazing wall. Aeron began to cast his preparatory 'suite' of combat spells, prompting Rand to shout at him to do something else.

Rand, hasted already, threw several dispelling sorceries at the Wall, but all were totally ineffectual. Halbrinn also failed, before shooting over the top of the Wall and gazing about him into the darkness; his keen gnomish eyes picking up sight of a pair of devils in the distance. He began to prepare one of his favourite spells, the Phantasmal Killer.

A second fireball streaked across the cavern, exploding within the circle of fire and adding further insult to injury for Aeron and Rand. Then, a stretch of the wall flexed, and a large elemental creature stepped forth, swinging flaming arms at Rand's cohort.

Rand and cohort tried unsuccessfully to tackle the elemental, but finally the heavily enspelled Aeron strode forwards and swung his mace through the creature. He frowned at it, squinting. "Illusion", he sniffed.

Outside the blazing circle, Halbrinn's spell leapt towards the Cornugon devil, which bellowed in fear and surprise, before dropping dead to the stone floor.

Encouraged, Stedd and Miles leapt on the Hamatula devil, smashing sword and fist into it until it fell to the ground seconds later.

Halbrinn's next spell caused the Wall of Fire to disappear, and a second Hamatula could be seen beyond it. The devil squinted at the adventurers, muttered something in its own foul language, and then disappeared.

{Next! The Clearwater Crusaders finally reach Maermydra, and a furious fight with the creatures on the gate leaves 2 adventurers dead!}

 

[Eccles]

After healing many of their wounds, the Clearwater Crusaders decided to carry on for a few miles more before finding somewhere to make camp.

To pass the time, they mocked Stedd's suggestion that they camp in the centre of a large open area so that they could not be crept up on. Mocked him, that is, until the monk pointed out that many creatures could simply tunnel out of the cavern walls to attack them!

After walking for a few minutes, the group rounded a corner, and saw that the cavern narrowed rapidly to a point. Four large giants stood at the narrowest point, already turning to look at the heroes rounding the corner.

Backlit by a number of large fires, the giants stood beside the mangled ruins of a pair of enormous gates, which had been torn from their hinges and thrown to one side. Since that point, the gateway had been blocked up with a massive pile of boulders, carefully stacked to let the giants see through to the other side, and leaving big enough gaps for the enormous longspears which stood nearby to be poked through at something on the other side.

Barely even pausing for breath, Stedd and Miles leapt forwards, Stedd immediately connecting with the closest giant in another signature Mantis Leap. The giant grunted, but largely ignored the blow.

Yvgeny scrambled along the group's right flank, hoping to distract the giants. Rand and Halbrinn glared at the running backs of the rest of their group, muttering something about 'impetuous bloody psychopaths spoiling our aim', before moving into a better position for their spells.

The giants began to counter-attack. Two flung huge boulders from the fires at Aeron, then grunted in amazement as the heavy rocks simply bounced off his lightly armoured form.

The other two giants hefted massive iron greatswords, which they swung heavily at Stedd and Rand's cohort, who had also dashed up one flank, wounding each of them heavily. Halbrinn's illusory spell which usually caused the death of his opponents was fought off by one terrified giant, whilst Rand leapt to his right to fling lightning into the midst of his enemies, causing one of them intense pain.

Yvgeny leapt in to deliver a terrific nerve punch to one foe, whose tremendous sword dropped from his stunned fingers. Miles dashed in to slash at the stunned giant, but was unable to bring him down. Moments later, the remaining giants slashed around them with their heavy swords, causing Stedd severe palpitations of the heart, but only actually striking him once.

Rand's cohort, however, was smashed several times, and fell to the floor bleeding heavily from a number of terrible wounds.

Aeron, the party's cleric (and wannabe Divine Oracle, although he certainly hadn't seen this one coming) caste Haste and then, to the others' disgust, moved 20 feet into the cavern despite their exhortations that he should ignore his usual panoply of spells and just "get stuck in".

Rand moved forwards, again manoevering for a better place to cast his spells. Unfortunately, he got too close, and nearly lost his arm to a huge sword-swipe. Halbrinn's illusionary lightning bolts caused the giants considerable panic, as they could not distinguish between these and the real thing. Yvgeny's giant, however, recovered, and stepped back to fling a red-hot boulder scooped from one of the fire-pits at the hero, whilst a second giant flailed at him with an enormous sword.

Before Yvgeny could attack his giant any further, Rand cast a tremendously empowered bolt of lightning at Yvgeny's foe, trusting in the monk's reflexes to dodge the blast.

He didn't, and screamed as the electricity poured through his body. The giant fell dead, but it was no help to the unfortunate monk/cleric.

Grievously wounded, Yvgeny staggered back and started using his wand of Searing Light instead.

Miles and Stedd continued their battle against the giants, but not before their counter attacks slashed straight through Rand's already battered body, dropping him to the floor in two separate pieces.

Aeron continued casting spells on himself, although by this time the surviving group members was screaming at him to step into the combat, or to heal the poor duellist, who was at that very moment spilling the last of his life's blood onto the cavern floor. He choked, coughed, and was still.

Seven or eight seconds later, Aeron nimbly ran up to his side, and tried to pour healing energy into him, but he had no luck. Once again, the so-called "Oracle of Mystra" hadn't seen it coming.

To be continued…