Wow, I finally hit a thousand views! Thanks for everyone who has been following the story so far! Unfortunately, this has been a very busy week for me. Today's my birthday, so I've been visiting family and such, which has been taking up my nights. Expect a double-length update this Sunday, but for now, I'll just post the final three excerpts, from the goddess of art, love, and children respectively. Sadly, the last excerpt worked better with a different font, to represent that it was, well, written in crayon. Again, goddess of children!
edit: Well, the Book of Tepedin had to be altered, too. It originally was designed with a more visual style, but the formating wasn't working right, so I had to change it. Eh well, at least the story came across.
The Long Flight
(Excerpt from the Book of Tepedin)
So away we fled to new lands, to make a new home, where we could live in peace. But the road was long, and the journey took us over mountains and through twisting caverns.
As we journeyed, many of us fell to the elements, to disease or monsters, or to the fires of war. Once, we tried to reestablish Methosilang, but it was again discovered, forcing us to flee again after less than 100 years. Our hope was fading, and our people seemed lost….
The Final Home
(Excerpt from the Book of Jolia)
And so, it appeared that the seeds of immorality and sin which destroyed our world had almost completely destroyed us. Little hope remained for our careless minions, whose selfish desires so often overrode both genetic and environmental views of love and sacrifice. Even now, instead of turning to compassion and understanding of each other for strength, they relied on an ancient myth. According to the first rulers of the kingdom, their land was eternally guaranteed to exist. We realized that even if that was true, the prophecy only stated that the kingdom would have eternal peace, which could best be achieved if the kingdom was dead, but they still clung to the empty hope.
In the end, however, they were able to break their addictions to self-absorption and control issues. Apparently, having their kingdom destroyed twice and years of exile and wandering was just the kind of “tough love” that they needed. At last, they found a new place to live: a large mountain, that would make the perfect home if hollowed out. Decades of labor and cooperation was needed to make this dream a reality, but at last, they finished building their new home. And so it is, and so it shall remain, as long as they resist the temptation to slide back into sinful and hedonistic ways.
The End
(Excerpt from the Book of Tsykie. Despite the tense of the this script, it actually is intended to be a prophecy of things to come)
And we made the new home, and we all shared and were nice to each other, so when the bad guys tried to hurt us again, we all beat them up, and the bad guys all ran away crying, and we all cheered, and broke the dark balls, and fixed up the land. And we all lived in joy and peace forever and ever. The end.
The next area appeared to be a natural cavern, but one without any apparent exits or entrances. It looked a little unstable, but there were nearly a half-dozen stone pillars that were holding up the ceiling. However, after looking at them for half a second, it was obvious that the base of each pillar was composed of a statue of various beings. The statues were frighteningly realistic, which was especially unnerving considering the medusa the party had fought earlier!
But there were bigger concerns at the moment. A sixth pillar apparently stood near the middle of the cavern, but it was toppled over, and was being held up by an apparently living giant. Seeing a potential enemy, the party drew their weapons, but the giant only laughed at them.
Confused, Tal asked, “What are you doing?”
The giant replied, “Well, what does it look like? I’m trying to keep the ceiling from crushing me! Heh, not that it matters anymore.”
“What do you mean? How did you even get here?”
“Well, I’m one of TIE’s servants. When he first recruited us, he gave each of us a habitat of our choosing. However, when the test began, he tried to make the challenges less predictable by teleporting each of us to another habitat. I got stuck in the medusa’s room, and the ceiling was too low. I accidentally knocked the main pillar out of place, and I’ve been trying to hold it up ever since.”
Fnipper shrugged. “Well, it shouldn’t be too hard to kill you and pass this test, should it?”
However, after hearing this, she only laughed again. “Sure, if you all want to be crushed along with me. As TIE’s servant, I’ll be restored to life. But I doubt he’ll extend the same benefit to you.”
Realizing they had a dilemma, the party decided to explore the cavern a little more, and hope they could find a way of defeating their opponent and thus passing the test without being instantly killed in the process. Eventually, Robin found the medusa’s personal equipment, including a larger number of sashes in many different colors, and a few pages of her journal. Unfortunately, it was largely destroyed in the initial cave-in caused when the giantess toppled the pillar, and the few pages remaining were out of order. The journal pages read as follows:
…It appears that the central pillar in my room is weakening. My master has agreed to help me support it, by indicating where a stone column should go next to ease the stress on the main column whenever it looks a little weak. I decided that I could finally start a new collection of interesting figures this way, by using the subjects as part of the columns. However, he warned that if they were set up or brought down in the wrong order, it could shift the balance of the ceiling a lot, and it could bring the whole place down. I can only set them up in the right sequence to safely support the main pillar, and if I ever changed my mind about a subject, I’d have to first remove all the ones that I set up after that subject in reverse order to prevent a cave-in! I guess I just have to be really certain about each subject before incorporating it into a pillar…
…In retrospect, I’m glad the sashes got arranged the way they did. I prefer my male figures to have a little more color, and the gray one was too plain. Not that is matters anymore…
…I was a little worried when I added the Yak-man to the collection. After all, I had added the ogre mage to the other supports already, and two horned humanoids might clash. Still, I suppose beggars can’t be choosers…
…What a great birthday! I was able to add a third statue to my collection today. Even better, I was able to force a sash of my choosing on my subject first. I decided to celebrate by having the sash match my eyes…
…I always liked the color purple, so I’m glad I was able to get one on one of my subjects. None of the statues that I could have brought in from home had one, but at least one of the recent gifts from my master could have one…
…I think the red sash was a good choice. It suited his horns and brown fur well. Too bad no one but me will ever appreciate it, but such is the curse of the artist, I guess…
…This was an amazing way to finish my collection! This again proves that the aura of beauty, no matter how great, is no match for the aura of power I possess. I wasn’t able to force a sash on her before the fight, but luckily she picked up a sash in the only color I didn’t use yet before the fight started. I guess she chose it because it matched her eyes. They were a pretty color, I guess, if a little to close to a typical human’s for my taste. Of course, they’re forever brown now…
…My master was nice enough to summon the statue for my first support column from my old collection, though he warned that after this, I’ll have to take what I can get. I know exactly which one I’ll ask him to bring. After all, she was one of my finest pieces, and so hard-won as well…
Using this information, the party looked at the five statues, which consisted of a female warrior woman, a small dragon, a monstrous horned woman, a furry horned man, and a beautiful woman who looked very angry. Using the journal entries, and the party’s knowledge that the dragon was a male (based on Tal’s experience with dragons,) and that the medusa had gray eyes (a fact that Fnipper will never forget,) the party was able to defeat the giant by slowly forcing the weight of the entire ceiling on her already-taxed muscles. She soon was crushed by the strain, but her body was still able to hold up the ceiling long enough for the portal to the next area to open, which the party dove through at high speed.
(By the way, the details were sparse in this area so you could try to solve the puzzle yourself. The answer is in the OOC Notes at the end.)
The party ended up in a forest, but the trees were gigantic. The smallest were comparable to redwoods. “I’m guessing that this was where that giant came from,” Tsine commented.
Suddenly, Fnipper turned and said, “Shhh!” He sensed that there was someone else here, but it couldn’t be seen. His instincts were almost immediately rewarded.
“Greeting adventurers,” a voice out of nowhere said. “I am Mintran-Thrain, and I currently serve the being you call TIE in exchange for my life, which he rescued from certain death many years ago. I have no personal quarrel with you, but I must fight to test your strength. En guarde!”
Fortunately, the party was mostly able to react faster. Tal saw through his familiar’s eyes to see their foe, which looked at the moment like a brilliant and powerful elf. He pointed out the creature’s location to the rest of the party, and then fired at the creature with his magic. His effect vanished near the creature, but Robin, Grockith, Galeron, and Fnipper used his directions to charge at the creature. However, with the exception of Fnipper’s, who was protected by his own anti-magic resistance, all of them were stopped short when they came near him. Tsine noticed that this was similar to a spell he heard about, that creates a shell which prevented any living thing to come close. Fnipper got a decent hit off when he did get close, however. Realizing this small one might be a threat, Mintran flew about ten or fifteen feet away, and created a wall of force between him and his enemies, so he could pick them off at his leisure. This tactic easily blocked Tsine’s latest spell, but Thorrun had more luck with his spell, which stripped all invisibility effects in the area.
Now that they could see their enemy, the party could attack more effectively. Of course, they had to first deal with the wall, so everyone tried to climb, jump, or fly over the wall, or just try running around it. Robin, Grockith, and Fnipper managed to get to the other side, while Tebryn, Tsine, and Tal used magic to fly over it. Galeron and Thorrun were having more trouble, however. The party’s fighters soon were punished for their enthusiasm, however, for the now-visible Mintran fired a prismatic spray of colors at the three of them! No one suffered any permanent injuries, but Robin was almost killed by a massive bolt of electricity, and Grockith was injured almost as badly by acid. However, they were prepared for the fight now. Tal and Tebryn’s magic failed again, but Robin was able to hit him repeatedly with arrows, Grockith wounded him slightly with his breath weapon, and Fnipper got another hit in as well.
A panicked Mintran used magic to heal all of his injuries, but Tsine was able to dispel his anti-life shell, and Grockith was able to finally get close to his enemy. He and his rhino devastated their foe, and the rest of the party was able to finish him off easily. Mintran dissolved into sparkling dust, and one of the tree trunks opened up, revealing a path.
They found themselves back on the mountain where this mess started, but they were much farther up it now. They were on a ledge, and a giant gate carved out of the mountain itself stood in front of them. It opened automatically moments after the party arrived, and with some apprehension, the party went through it. They found themselves in a long corridor filled with luxurious items and artwork. At the end, there was another opening, which led to a gigantic bedroom. Inside, there was large dragon with dark gray scales sleeping on a large bed. It was apparently oblivious to the party, when they entered the room, it suddenly spoke. “Well, it’s about time.”
Tal nodded. “TIE, I presume.”
“Yup! You finally passed all the tests needed to speak to me. Congrats!”
Galeron, however, looked troubled. “What about the creatures we killed to get here. You forced us to fight a creature of good for your own amusement?”
TIE laughed. “Oh, them. Don’t worry, they’re fine. I rescued them each from otherwise certain death, and they agreed to serve me for a while in exchange. It was only fair. And I already brought them back to life, with no ill effects. Though, it was all for my own amusement, to be honest.”
“But why?”
“You try living for five million years, and see how bored you get sometimes. Besides, heroes are supposed to fight challenges like this. It’s character building, so stop whining about it already. Now, you may be wondering why you’re even here, right?”
“The loot, I’m hoping,” Fnipper replied.
Tal quickly stepped in front of him. “Well, actually, we have been having these mental compulsions every time we’ve been hearing your name. And they have been very painful actually. We thought you could explain why?”
TIE smiled. “Yes, actually I can. I have a message from The Lady Memory for you.”
“Well, what is it?”
TIE shook one of its massive, claw-fingers. “Tut tut. I’m afraid you’re not ready for that just yet. There is one more test to complete first.”
The entire party groaned, and Tal asked, “What’s that?”
“You must fight me.” As it said this, it suddenly got up out of its bed. As it did so, it uncurled its tail, which was previously under its body. This alone was very unnerving, as the tail appeared to be made entirely out of energy, glowed, and didn’t so much end as fade into infinity. “Don’t worry. I won’t use anything near my full power, of course. Gods would fall easily to it, so expecting a much of mortals to go against it would be pointless. Plus, fighting at full power takes effort, and you guys aren’t that amusing. So, are you ready?”
Without waiting for a reply, it curled the end of its tail into a circle on the ground, and then somehow leapt into the hole, causing it to disappear. Apprehensively, the party followed, and ended up in a strange new landscape. The sky was a strange purple color, and except for various ruined stones, the landscape was completely featureless. TIE leapt into the air, and took flight. Robin opened fire with his arrows, while Tal, Tsine, and Tebryn fired with magic. Fortunately, unlike many of their earlier foes, TIE didn’t seem to have any spell resistance. Strangely, their attacks merely struck a force field a few feet from its head. “Hey, what’s with this thing?” Tebryn yelled. “How are we supposed to fight you with that thing?”
“Don’t worry. It takes energy and effort on my part to keep it maintained. If you do enough damage to me, I’ll concede defeat” TIE replied. It then dove behind a stone column, and as it flew, it released a dozen energy spheres. These appeared to be arranged at random, and initially didn’t seem to do anything. However, when Grockith and Fnipper followed its path, the orbs suddenly turned and flew at them whenever they got close. Fnipper was able to easily evade them, but a few struck Grockith and his mount hard.
Robin, fearing the future effects of these orbs, began to direct his fire on them, while Galeron moved to follow Grockith and heal him, and Tebryn caught up to Grockith to catch a spell on his mount, that would let him fly to face their foe. Meanwhile, TIE flew from one column to another, while firing an energy ball from its tail at Tsine, whose magic was doing the most damage to it. The energy orb struck Tsine hard, and almost knocked him off his feat, but he kept his focus.
Grockith charged at his foe, while much of the party was forced to watch impotently from the ground. Galeron and Thorrun were able to heave a few ranged spells and crossbow bolts, but poor Fnipper couldn’t even get close to their enemy. At one point, he tried to taunt it, in an attempt to lure it to within fighting range. “If it were up to me, you wouldn’t even be allowed to exist!” he yelled.
At the time, he didn’t realize the foolishness of this tactic, since if he actually said something that did make TIE mad, it might forget about holding back and turn the poor gnome into a smear. Fortunately, TIE retained its light mood, and replied, “Well, it isn’t really up to you, now is it?” However, it was sufficiently annoyed enough to attack him with its tail. Instead of striking him with it, however, TIE wrapped its tail around his legs, and then lifted him into the air! It then flung him at Robin, giving them both a very painful injury when they collided.
However, this didn’t affect Grockith, who was now right next to TIE and was beginning to tear into its shield with his weapon, or Tsine and Tal’s continued magical assault. TIE flew out of the way of Grockith, evading his party shot as it flew, and then ducked behind another column. Suddenly, its tail flew into the sky and seemed to split and grow until it filled the sky, and then created multiple portals in the air. Tons of seemingly random junk rained out of it, striking the entire party multiple times, though some of them were able to partially or totally evade the dimensional debris. Angrily, Grockith, Robin, Tsine, Tebryn, and Tal converged on TIE, and even Galeron and Thorrun were able to fire bolts of searing light at it. Under the torrent of blows, TIE finally rose up and shouted “Enough! The test is over, and you have passed!”
It created the portal with its tail again, and flew through it, and the party again followed. They were again in TIE’s bedroom. “Okay, now that you have proven yourself, I will give the message. The goddesses, the Twelve Sisters that you worship, are not the original versions of themselves. In my journeys across other dimensions, I met the original Twelve Sisters, and was admittedly interested in them. I mean, you’d be surprised how female-exclusive pantheons there are in the multiverse. Now, much later, I ended up on your dimension again…”
“Again?” a suspicious Tal asked, but TIE just continued its story like it didn’t hear the question.
“…and I noticed that things were not going well as of late. This was shortly after the two empires first started to come to power. Now, I decided to take some time to relax and see what was going on, and I began to occasionally visit the old gods. At one point, I was speaking with Wee Jas, and I mentioned these Twelve Sisters. Wee Jas was fascinated, and the two of us came up with a plan. To counteract Nerull’s power, we needed to create gods that drew power from him. Eventually, shortly before she had to flee the plain, Wee Jas set actions in motion that would create Bha-Ael, who would then create the other goddesses. In other words, not only are your goddesses completely made up, they’re tied intrinsically to Nerull, the god of death!”
“But why would Lady Memory use you to give this message? Why does she care at all?” a shocked Galeron asked.
“Well, I’m nigh-omnipotent. I have no good reason to lie. And like I said, I was pretty instrumental to creating your gods, so it makes sense to her that I’m the one to tell you. As for why she’d want you to learn this, well, I guess she just has reasons for you to know the truth about your gods.”
Suddenly, Tsine had an idea. “Wait, does this mean you know who she is? Can you tell us?”
TIE shrugged. “Can I? Sure. Will I? Nah.” Seeing their hostile looks, it quickly continued, “Oh, save your outrage. I’ve done more than enough to help your stupid plane already, and your struggle to learn the truth should be far more amusing to me. And it’s really for your benefit anyway. These heroic struggles for the truth don’t work unless you actually work to earn it. If some random pretty-much-all-knowing being gives you all the answers, it cheapens them. You have to learn to solve your problems by yourself.
“However, that doesn’t mean I won’t help you at all. You lot have been far more interesting than most of the things I’ve had to deal with. I’ll be happy to answer a few questions for you before you leave, and if you really need help later, you could come in later to ask. Or maybe I’ll get bored again, and I’ll come asking for you. I’ll make it worth your while.”
Robin had the first question. “I have a good question for you. Who exactly is it that has been trying to kill us with those stupid ‘nothing personal’ guys?”
TIE nodded. “Ah, that would be the Nightmare Prince. He’s recently discovered a new spell that lets him bind others to his will, and has apparently been having a lot of fun with it lately. If you want to put a stop to it, I’d suggest you talk to Quercus’ sister.”
Tal then asked, “About Bas. What should we do about her next?”
TIE pointed at Robin. “Pretty much the same thing I told him. Seek out her Strife Masters, and try to learn more about Bas’ organization from them. If you can prove Bas’ existence to your kingdom, that would be helpful as well. Oh, and Fnipper, you have another reason to go after the Nightmare Prince. He has a few of your family members in his home, as slaves or prisoners”
Tebryn then asked, “What should I do? I don’t know anything about this Lady Memory thing, and I have no idea who Bas is. Why am I here? How can I find my place here?” Grockith nodded. It was clear he had the same question.
“Well, in your case, I’m guessing you were sent her by the goddess you call Lolth.”
“Why?”
“I think she’s trying to taunt you somehow. If you could figure out what Lolth has to do with this plane, maybe you could use this knowledge against her. As for you Grockith, it’s pretty much impossible that you could save your kingdom at this point. Even if you could go back in time and somehow stop the empires from forming, the temporal paradoxes and destiny re-writings it would cause would be cataclysmic. However, you can find a life here, and after discovering much about the events that destroyed your kingdom, you could work to rebuild your land, and possibly even revive some of the people you remember from you past from the dead.”
Only Fnipper remained, since Galeron and Tsine were happy with Tal’s question. “I don’t suppose you could tell me more about what is happening to my family, can you?”
TIE responded, “Not without penetrating Bas’ divine barrier. And I could do that easily enough, but not without getting involved in the politics of this world to a degree that I’d rather not be.”
“Well, then, my question is: where’s our loot?”
TIE smiled a big, toothy grin, which is easy for a dragon to make. “Yes, some reward for passing all my tests would be appropriate. I think that, say, one copper piece would suffice. Now, where would you like it?”
Fnipper thought quickly and responded, “Since I’m guessing this is a trick somehow, place it right in front of me.”
TIE chuckled. “Clever little gnome. Right, here’s your reward.” It curled its tail into a portal again, and a solid block of copper five feet high, wide, and deep landed on the ground with a deafening thump.
“I don’t suppose you’d mind moving it to our home back in Methosilang, would you?” Tal asked.
“Certainly” TIE replied, and created another portal under the block. “Now then, you can rest here for longer if you like, but I’m guessing you’re currently in a hurry, so I won’t insist.”
“We agree,” Tsine replied, and prepared to teleport the party away from here. Even now, however, he was feeling dizzy and feverish, as the magical aspects of the disease he caught in the technological dungeon began to take effect on him. However, he wasn’t the only one who was getting sicker. Unsatisfied by TIE’s answer, Tebryn began to harbor thoughts of destruction, and getting revenge on this whole stupid plane. Grockith wasn’t much better. His mind began to get disturbed, as the code he swore to follow began to fade as much as every old symbol of the home he lost was.
OOC Notes: Told you this would be a long one! Of course, much of the puzzle was just copy/pasted from my original notes, but still. Anyway, as mentioned before, TIE is a character I’ve been working with for a very long time by this point, so I could handle its personality very well by now. Hopefully, that came through a bit in the writing.
I was just a bit disappointed with the fight with TIE, however. Mostly because it had a few moves I didn’t get around to using in time (including a breath weapon!) There will, however, be another fight with it later in the campaign, which was handled a bit better. I was also a little disappointed with how they handled the coin question. Not that I’m sorry they got the money or anything, but it would have been amusing if they either were annoyed by the amount and gave it to the poor or something, or if one of them asked to put it in his hand!
Oh, and the puzzle solution was (spoiler tags ahead) :
1. Female paladin woman, black sash.
2. Male wyrmling crystal dragon, purple sash.
3. Female ogre mage, gray sash.
4. Male yak folk, red sash.
5. Nymph, blue sash.
So the party had to remove the statues in reverse order from that.
If you have some questions about the puzzle, I can help you figure it out, though you may have to give me a few minutes, since I haven’t had to actually figure it out myself for a while!
The party returned home, stopping only briefly to pick up Fenthrip, who was running low on food and was getting fairly desperate at this point. Tsine teleported them just outside of the city, since Tebryn and Grockith weren’t officially citizens of the city, and thus couldn’t be teleported straight into it. Once there, the party spent almost a month identifying and selling the treasures they earned during their long journey, and then buying or making new supplies. They also had to wait for Shekuldellstra to receive their message and respond. During this time, they rarely even left the city, since they knew the Nightmare Prince and his servants will be looking for them, and they preferred to wait inside the protective barrier that their goddesses (regardless of their origin) provided. However, the town itself wasn’t much better. People were far more suspicious of the party and of each other compared to last time, the interview process needed to get Tebryn and Grockith into the city took almost as long as Fnipper’s did (which was impressive considering that neither of them threatened to kill a large percentage of the city,) and Lerissa was never apparently available to see them.
After about a month, the party received a note from Quercus’ sister. In the letter, she admitted she was worried about Quercus, who was growing increasingly distant since he started living with her. He was becoming obsessed with their father, and she was worried he might soon leave to find him. However, she also had some help for them. Her sources were starting to dry up now that she has been reformed for an extended period of time, but she does know of a Bas temple that is still active as of a few days ago. However, it was two weeks away and far to the northwest, near the center of the Undead Empire’s area of control. It was even inside a swamp fed by a putrid river known as The Corpsewash, which was filled with undead monstrosities. Nonetheless, she believes that they might be able to capture a cultist there and force it to reveal the location of the Nightmare Prince’s manor, which he almost never leaves. Once there, they have to look for black-robed cultists, as they are in the same sect of the Bas worshippers as The Nightmare Prince is. However, Shekuldellstra warns the party to be very careful when dealing with him. Even when she was evil, she was afraid of his sadism and the twisted genius behind his plans. He might even be the most evil of all of Bas’ Strife Masters!
Despite this fact, the party had many personal reasons to deal with him, and after making a last few purchases and plans, they left for this next journey. The first week could be spent underground, safe in the tunnels, but they soon had to return to the surface right in the middle of the Long Waste, where again anything could be waiting for them.
However, the first hints of the danger the party was up against began long before that point. While still in the tunnels, and even when resting in the various village inns that dotted the path, the party began to have nightmares. It began the same way for each of them, suggesting that these nightmares might not be totally coincidental. Each party member, in his dream, was wandering through a dark forest, and was being pursued by something. The “something” was vague and unknown, but in their dream-state, each of them knew it was hostile and would certainly be their death. Finally, each one came to a forest clearing, which a strange box was set in the center of. Each of them felt compelled to open it, and was immediately set upon by the darkness within, which coalesced into his greatest fear!
Robin thought of the Zhovvut, the strange three-eyed monster that it had fought back at the mountain. The way it was able to look into his mind and steal his very soul terrified him. Tsine feared losing control of his magic, which was an ominous portent indeed since the magical disease was growing ever stronger within him. Grockith thought about his mother, a gold dragon, and was terrified of the thought of her death. Fnipper took longer to get the dream than most, but when he did have it, he thought of the drow that destroyed his village. Tal feared the possibility of the world becoming further unbalanced. Thorrun had the fairly simple fear of vampires, apparently since he had a nearly deadly encounter with them shortly before meeting Galeron. Galeron himself simply was afraid of letting down his church, and failing them in the quest against evil. Finally, Tebryn feared Lolth, the evil goddess that terrorized his race back on his home plane.
Besides the nightmares, there was little danger in the trip, at least at first. On the second day of their journey above ground, they fought a few of the fairly weak undead generally called wights, but it was a quick fight that posed no threat to the party. However, a second battle on the fourth day was far more dangerous. As they were traveling, a massive rumbling was suddenly getting closer behind them, as if a group of larger creatures were running at them at high speed. The party quickly set up a defensive position, and sure enough, a small army of ogres and hill giants rose up behind them! They appeared to be led by an unusually strong-looking hill giant with black scales for skin and a vaguely reptilian appearance, and a troll with metallic skin in places and metal needles for teeth and claws. Their giant leader merely bellowed, “Nothing personal, but I have to kill you,” before he and his entourage charged the party!
Leading the attack was the mechanical troll, who began to yell in a furious, but metallic and hollow, voice as he ran up to the party. Robin and his latest animal companion, a wolverine, moved to the front of the party and began to fire at the throng of giants, though he focused on their giant leader instead of the troll. Tsine also began to fire into the horde, though he used a storm of magical ice instead of arrows. Grockith, meanwhile, moved to intercept the troll, and struck him with one powerful attack before the troll could respond. However, the injury began to heal almost instantly, as wounds usually do on trolls, and it appeared that the creature’s mechanical parts partially absorbed the blow, making it a fairly minor injury overall. Thorrun also moved to the front of the group, and prepared to attack the lesser hill giants, ogres, and dire wolves, that made up most of the enemy team.
Almost immediately, the ogres and giants swarmed over Thorrun and the rest of the party, though Galeron’s unfortunate cohort received the worst of it. Galeron quickly moved up to help his struggling friend, but it didn’t look good. Tebryn, who knew Galeron far better than he did the rest of the party, also moved to help his friend, but he preferred to stay a few steps back, and attack the giants with magic whenever possible.
Meanwhile, Fnipper tried to sneak behind enemy lines, to help Robin fight the half-dragon giant. However, when he got near, he was suddenly cut by something, but he couldn’t tell where the attack came from. He warily moved away from the giant, to engage his invisible opponent. However, while his training gave him the uncanny ability to evade attacks without even seeing his attacker, he didn’t expect the sheer volley of attacks that came at him. Massive, invisible clubs were trying to slam into him, and succeeded once, more of the strange blades flew at him, and just when he thought it was over, he was almost knocked off his feet by a giant tail that struck him just across the chest. Fnipper was terrified by this point. Was he surrounded by an army of invisible warriors? Unknown to him, all his attacks came from one enemy, a half-mechanical ettin who had four tentacle blades and a giant metal tail grafted to him, vastly increasing his already impressive number of attacks.
The fight soon broke down to these miniature battles. Robin fought the giant leader, Grockith did battle with the troll, Tebryn, Galeron and Thorrun tried their best to keep the rest of the horde at bay, and Fnipper attacked his invisible foe, all while Tsine and Tal tried to weaken their foes with an almost endless number of lightning bolts, magical volleys of missiles, fireballs, and any other bit of magic they could find. Very slowly, the tide was turning against the horde or lesser servants, but at a heavy cost. Fnipper’s luck finally ran out, and one of the tentacle blades went straight through his chest, leaving him alive but with little time remaining. Robin’s companion was crushed by the giant’s mighty club, and even Grockith’s unusually strong rhino was killed when the enraged troll leapt on top of it, grabbed onto its head with both of its claws, and literally sliced it off with one mighty rend! Curiously, this happened after Grockith leapt off the rhino, and left it to fight the troll alone to help Robin finish the giant. This struck Galeron as strange. It was noble to help a comrade in arms, but leaving a beloved and loyal companion to face certain death alone was not normal paladin behavior at all.
Between Grockith and Robin, the leader of the giants was killed, and the Ettin was revealed for what it was shortly after this point, thanks to Tsine’s magic. Suddenly surrounded by a half dozen angry foes who were eager to avenge their lost companions and rescue the dying Fnipper, the creature was quickly blasted and ripped apart. That left only the troll barbarian, who was barely scratched at this point. However, just as he was about to do to the same thing to Grockith that he did to his companion, he was stopped by an invisible wall. Tsine smiled. His spell worked perfectly.
Now trapped by a wall of force, the troll could do little but howl in anger, while the party healed itself. Finally, when they were ready and the troll had tired itself, Tsine removed the wall and the party charged at it as one. It too was soon torn apart, but the party, having heard about the regenerative properties of trolls, wasted no time in trying to destroy the remains. Frustratingly, it seemed to resist fire, possibly as a result of defenses built into its mechanical armor, but Tsine was able to finish him with magical fire, finally ending the threat.
However, this deadly badly temporarily delayed their journey. Tsine took some time to memorize the terrain around them, then teleported the party to Necropolis. There, Grockith hoped to have his mount restored to life, while the party divided up the treasure that they earned from their attackers. Grockith was able to find someone capable of restoring his mount to life, but the process didn’t go precisely as expected. When it was restored to life, his rhinoceros mount was suddenly covered mechanical parts, much like the troll that killed it was! The rest of the party was understandably suspicious, but Grockith liked the changes to his mount, especially the now much larger steel horn! The party decided to rest here for the night, and then have Tsine teleport them back to the site of the battle tomorrow, where they can finish their journey. As they went to their rooms, a tired and still wary Fnipper told the others, “If I get another one of those nightmare dreams, I think I want to change my answer!”
The next day, the party prepared to continue their journey. Despite Fnipper’s comments, none of them received another one of the strange nightmares, though after his latest attempt to kill them, the Nightmare Prince wasn’t far from anyone’s mind. The next two days of travel were uneventful, except for one thing. Right in the middle of the first day of their renewed journey, Tsine suddenly started to look extremely sick. Galeron and Grockith both tried to use their powers to cure this disease, but neither of them seemed to have any effect. After repeated attempts to stand up failed, Tsine groaned, “I don’t think I can travel any more with you until I can recover from this. I want to help you, but I think all I can do now is slow you down.”
Tal calmed his friend down. “Don’t worry, Tsine. Take all the time you need to recover. We can at least find this temple without you. Will you be all right by yourself, though?”
Tsine tried to nod, but gave up. “Don’t worry. I still have enough strength to teleport me back home. And I have a friend in town that can take care of me, and if worse comes to worse see if the temples have any stronger magic that can heal me if time isn’t enough.”
And so, for now, Tsine left the party. Tal, however, had a horrible feeling, like this would be the last time he would see his friend like this again.
In the third day of their travels, the Long Waste finally started to end, as the swamp began. Though the party as a whole, and Robin in particular, were relieved to see wilderness again, the swamp was so foul that it wasn’t much improvement, and the entire place reeked of death. This also reminded them that they were still in a very hostile realm, which was proven later that day, when the weather turned foggy and they passed a series of shallow pools. The faces of the dead appeared in the water around them, but unlike a similar scene in a different story (heh heh,) these faces were attached to still active, and very hostile, undead! As the monsters rose up around them, the fog itself coalesced before them, turning into a humanoid figure made entirely out of fog.
Robin was the first to react, and he led his new companions, a bear and a wolf, into battle against the first of the undead. Tal, however, realized that these were just larger versions of the drowned, breath-stealing monsters he had fought back at the river battle long before, and since he was now the last person from that group to still be in the party, he shouted a warning to the others about what to watch out for. He then fired at the fog monster, only for his magical ball of sonic energy to fly right through it, without any noticeable effect. However, his warning was hardly needed. Thorrun, Grockith, and Fnipper attacked the swarm of giant sunken, while Tebryn helped with magical artillery, and almost half of them were already dead when Galeron finally was able to finish his prayers to his goddess, which destroyed most of the surviving sunken in a blast of holy energy. Only the fog creature posed a threat at this point, when it managed to grab Tal in a fog tendril, and began to suck the blood out of him, turning the creature a deep crimson color. However, by now, it was surrounded, and it was soon reduced to a bloody pool by the combined forces of the party. The party spent some time to search the area for treasure, and then continued on. They knew that at this pace, they’ll find the temple in a matter of hours, and that was where the true danger began.
OOC Notes: Yes, I know, another missed update. Fortunately, I don’t have much to do to actually update the current adventures for a few weeks, so I won’t get nearly as burned out with the campaign for a while, I think.
However, to speed things up a bit, I’ll probably be removing these OOC Notes from now on, at least as a regular feature. I thought that it would help encourage discussion, but I fear it might have done just the opposite. I’ll probably do at few of them as needed, but not as a regular feature.
Oh, as you might have noticed, this will be Tsine’s last game for a while. The player had to quit for time reasons. However, I found a new player very quickly this time, so the party will get back to full strength very soon.
Finally, later that day, the party reached the temple. However, the door was guarded both by yellow-robed clerics, and by strange black orbs. Though he lacked the experience in arcane matters that Tsine had, Tal had heard of floating black orbs that meant instant death if touched, and while it was doubtful these were the same things, he wasn’t going to take that chance! Instead, he suggested that a few of the party members try to sneak in while posed as fellow cultists. Robin and Tebryn were “volunteered” into the position, since few other party members looked as, well, normal at the moment, and Galeron wasn’t really built for stealth or deception. The two donned some of the yellow robes that the players have been accumulating, and then walked up to the guards. Following Tal’s instructions, they carefully emulated the painful self-mutilation ritual that Tal was taught back at the first temple they had raided, well over a year ago. It seemed like it worked, at least at first, but they were led into a small sleeping chamber, and instructed to wait here until their superiors are ready to speak to them. When the guards left them, Robin tried the door, and wasn’t too surprised to learn that it was locked.
Meanwhile, Fnipper was watching the doorway for any activity, while the rest of the party waited a distance away. After waiting over an hour, there was no response from Robin or Tebryn, but at the same time, there weren’t any sounds of battle. However, Fnipper soon returned and quickly had everyone get even farther back into the swamp. “More cultists are coming to the door!” he urgently whispered!
The rest of the party fled deeper into the swamp, except for Tal, who wanted to see the new arrivals’ exchange with the guards. The two carefully crept up to watch the exchange, with Violet scanning the emotions of the guards as they watched. The new arrivals did the same forearm cut that Robin and Tebryn did, but they then cut their faces as well! Even worse, they also gave the guards passwords, even though the guards didn’t explicitly ask for them! It was clear that Tebryn and Robin have walked into a trap.
Meanwhile, this same fact was dawning on Robin and Tebryn. Finally, Robin asked, “Can you pick this lock? I didn’t want to raise suspicion before, but this is taking too long for everything to be normal.”
Tebryn looked at the look, but frowned. “I might be able to pick it with time, but it will be difficult, and I can’t make any guarantees. I never said this before, but I wish Fnipper was here.”
Robin pondered this for a while, and then said, “Maybe we should wait a bit longer, then.” This plan ended, however, about the time they started hearing the screams and smelled the fire. It was clear to them that the rest of the party was tired of waiting, and tried to take the temple by force.
Meanwhile, Tal and Fnipper were waiting by the temple, when they saw flames rising out of it and sounds of battle. It was clear to them that Tebryn and Robin were tired of waiting and tried to escape, or they were attacked. Obviously, they were all wrong, but that’s an issue to be dealt with later.
Fnipper quickly withdrew to get the rest of the party to help, and soon Grockith was leading a charge at the front gate, with Tal, Fnipper, and Galeron close behind. Thorrun was coming as well, but a dwarf in heavy armor with no mount can’t exactly keep up with such a fast attack [remember, it was still 3.0 at this point.] In addition, Robin’s animal companions suddenly froze as they neared the entrance, and refused to go further. The party decided to leave them, and have them attack any fleeing cultists.
The group easily overpowered the guards, and even destroyed a pair of the strange dark creatures, which to Tal’s relief only fired beams of black light and tried to attack with claws and teeth that were hidden within their dark bodies until they actually used them. The party soon made it into the temple, only to find that most of the cultists were eager to ignore the party completely and run away in stark terror.
Meanwhile again, after repeated failed attempts by Tebryn to unlock the door, Robin simple riddled it with arrows, and then kicked out the remaining frame. They found themselves near the entrance, and witnessing the same chaos that the rest of the party just stepped into. They were about to join in when they saw a strange, dog-like humanoid preparing to attack them from the other direction. In an attempt to control the chaos and try and capture a few cultists alive, Tebryn webbed the hallway connecting them and the entrance, and the two of them attacked the dog. However, as they got close, a number of the dark orbs flew around a corner to attack them as well, but they were able to handle both groups with relative ease.
The rest of the party continued their own rampage down the corridor. They killed a few cultists as they went, since they were looking specifically for black-robed cultists, and the rest were expendable. However, they mostly focused on maintaining a forward momentum, and let Robin’s animals and Thorrun finish the rest. They were soon confronted by the rest of the temple’s guardians, including a few more black orbs, another dog humanoid, and a strange bird-like humanoid with ugly, fleshy wing-arms that looked like they were plucked of their feathers. The latter was able to get a few good hits in using lightning bolts, but it too soon fell, as did the rest of the attackers.
Both sides of the party’s attack force quickly investigated the temple, looking for either black-robed cultists or evidence of Bas’ existence. However, it was soon obvious that they were almost completely too late. Most of the cultists were killed already, and while asleep by the looks of it. In addition, most of their belongings were gathered in piles and set on fire. Tal looked on the fires with regret. A few pages might be salvaged, he thought, but there was just no time. They had to find the black-robed cultists, if any of them have survived, and fast!
Finally, when both groups were about to connect in the rear hall of the temple, a door burst open, and a few cultists (including two black-robed ones,) fled through the hidden back exit of the temple. The party quickly regrouped, and pursued.
However, when they left the temple, they realized that the difficult part was only beginning. The undead had apparently sent a combat unit out to find and destroy whoever eliminated their swamp guardians earlier that day, and then were attracted to the temple after seeing the smoke from the fire. At least that was the best explanation the party could come up with after seeing the massive army of undead that greeted them at the exit, including a strange, smoky monster, an armored and mounted skeleton, and a giant bat that seemed to be made of pure darkness!
As the party and the undead horde prepare to swarm each other, a third party watched from a nearby hilltop. She is called Danae, and she has come from Methosilang, seeking the heroes. It was she who Tsine sought for help when he could no longer travel, and she did what she could to care for him. Unfortunately, things recently took a turn for the worse. Instead of being merely weak to the point of uselessness, he developed a kind of strange hysteria, and while laughing, he teleported away! Danae tried to find him, but by the time she could find someone with the right magic prepared, he was impossible to find. However, before he lost his mind, Tsine told her about his friends, and asked her to find them if anything should happen to him. Danae agreed, and has been trying to track them ever since. She finally succeeded in finding them, just as it looks like they needed her help. She smiled. Well, she may not have much experience with the gritty and dirty parts of adventuring, but she has been studying the Arts for a long time.
As for the party, they regarded this new figure with curiosity, but she at least appeared alive, and they had far bigger concerns to worry about. Their major concerns were the smoky monster, armored skeleton, and bat. The bat slowly moved towards them, and cast a spell on Fnipper. It seemed to confuse him, and in his mentally-addled state, he saw everything as an enemy, and fled in terror. Robin began to fire at the bat, and Tebryn and Tal used magic on the same creature, but all of their attacks seemed to do nothing. While they party was distracted by them, they were surprised when a trio of strange-looking ghasts attacked. They each touched runes that were carved all over their bodies, and used them to cast spells! One became incredibly fast, as if it was hasted, and the others respectively fired arrows of flame and a lightning bolt at Grockith and Galeron, wounding them both slightly.
Just as things were looking bleak, the mysterious figure at the top of the hill entered the fight. She cast one simple spell, and suddenly two of the ghasts and essentially the entirety of the army’s lesser minions were destroyed! This let the party focus on the heavy hitters of the enemy team. Grockith took the initiative here, and charge the remaining ghast, killing it instantly. However, this left him wide open for the armored skeleton, which rode his horse towards the paladin, and attacked him repeatedly with his sword. Most of the attacks couldn’t penetrate Grockith’s heavy armor, but a few lucky strikes found openings, leaving painful cuts in the half-dragon's skin. Meanwhile, the smoky monster suddenly vanished, and then re-appeared near the party’s rear, where it could pose as a potential threat to Tal and the party’s other spell casters. Finally, Thorrun used magic to enhance Robin’s arrows, in the hope that this will let him hit the bat, and Galeron tried to drive off the remaining undead using his holy power, but since only the most powerful undead remained in the battle, it did nothing.
The bat, meanwhile decided to focus on what seamed like the greatest threat on the field, the strange wizard. It flew up next to the creature, and managed to bite her. The bite was extremely painful, but even a cloistered mage like Danae had some training on how to minimize attacks, and she was able to easily survive an attack that would have felled a lesser wizard instantly. However, unknown to her, a hideous transformation was beginning inside her.
The party began to split up to deal with their threats. Grockith and Galeron began to attack the Death Knight, though when Tebryn closed to help, he was suddenly overcome by fear, and fled into the temple just like Fnipper did earlier. Robin and Tal focused on the smoky creature for now, while Danae tried to stop it using magic. However, though her training taught her that these creatures easily ignored all but the strongest magic, even the best spells she could muster did nothing. Even worse, after a couple of tries, she suddenly realized the horrible effects of the transformation she was undergoing, and transformed into a giant bat herself! She immediately went to look for a reasonable meal, and her now animalistic mind picked up a small but appetizing purple lizard with wings.
The smoky monster proved to be a fairly minor target. He managed to emit one cone of mind-numbing psychic force, but the trained heroes easily resisted its effects, and then ripped it apart with arrows and a blast of sonic force. However, no sooner did it die than they were faced with both the bat of darkness, and a new bat that was attacking Tal’s familiar. Robin focused on the new bat, but Tal had a new moral dilemma. He saw this strange figure helping them earlier, so he didn’t want to simply kill her, but she had to be stopped. Fortunately, he was able to hold her in place with a spell, and then tried to help fight the bat, though his spells did nothing to it.
However, Robin’s arrows were another story, and Grockith used magic to fly up and engage the creature directly. In desperation, the bat pointed at Grockith with one wing, and fired a beam of pure negative energy that could kill with a touch. But Grockith withstood the power of the magic, and ended the creature’s life with one blow.
The fight was over, but a far more disturbing one was continuing in the temple. While the rest of the party worked to capture the surviving, fleeing cultists and then restored Danae to her true form and heard her story, Fnipper and Tebryn ended up deep in the temple. In his confused state, Fnipper recognized Tebryn as an enemy, and made one clumsy attack at Tebryn. While it was obviously caused by a mind addled by magic, and posed no real threat to the drow, Tebryn had finally had enough. The chaos of these past few months, the growing uselessness he felt, the sudden onslaught of enemies far stronger than anything he’d ever seen before, and his increasing and mostly irrational hatred for this strange gnome had finally drove him mad. He entered a state of pure violence, and simply began to wail into the gnome. Though Fnipper normally could resist such an attack, he was confused and totally unprepared, and barely reacted as Tebryn repeatedly attacked the near-helpless gnome. The rest of the party returned just as Tebryn was about to drive his sword straight into Fnipper’s heart. Tebryn ignored their cries of protest, and finished the shocked gnome! In his rage, he then turned to the party, and seemed to regard them as more possible victims for his madness. However, this would be the last thing he would see, for Grockith was already riding up to this clearly evil force in their midst, and decapitated him with one strike!
The rest of the party members were beside themselves with shock and grief. To think that they would survive the threat of the undead, only to lose two of their own to fellow party members! Galeron in particular was upset, since he knew Tebryn the longest, and never could have imagined him doing such a thing. And everyone was further shocked when they turned again to the body, only to see Grockith neatly cutting them into parts and shocking them and their equipment into a bag!
“Grockith, what are you doing?” a shocked Galeron asked.
“Well, I couldn’t fit their bodies into by Bag of Holding, so I had to cut them into pieces to fit them in,” Grockith said, in a strangely hollow voice.
“That’s awful! What paladin could do desecrate the body of a comrade like that, so soon after they died?”
Grockith shrugged, as if he didn’t really care about them one way or the other, and continued. Only Tal had the clarity to speak up and point out another flaw in Grockith’s plan. “You know, that’s really not such a good idea. Fnipper also has a Ba…nowaitstop!”
BOOM!
It was too late. Fnipper, who also had a Bag of Holding, just had his equipment tossed into Grockith’s Bag of Holding, with predictable effects. Soon, all the remains of Fnipper, Tebryn, Fnipper’s bag, and Grockith’s bag were scattered across the Astral Plane, lost forever.
The party could do nothing but sit in stunned silence after the madness and loss that they witnessed. Some mourned friends that died and/or revealed deeply disturbing sides of themselves, some regretted the loss of so much treasure, and Tal in particular came to the horrible realization that Raz himself was in Fnipper’s bag, and thus all the answers they intended to get from him have been lost. And Danae watched these friends of her own friend turn on each other, die, and make terrible mistakes with magic items, and wondered what she got herself into. Ironically, she had also already lived out her own worst nightmare before she even heard of the Nightmare Prince, for she had always feared losing her amazing intellect, and she had already been reduced, albeit briefly, to the intellect of an animal.
OOC Notes: Okay, I won’t regularly do this feature any more, but this game needed some explanation. Basically, we have one new player (Danae being her character,) who will essentially replace Tsine. We had two players who wanted to play new characters, and thus killed their characters off (hence the deaths of Fnipper and Tebryn.) This bothered me quite a bit at the time, especially since Fnipper played a big part in the plot of the next adventure and the player didn’t tell me he wanted to switch, but this is water under the bridge from over a year ago, and things have long since been resolved. And we had a paladin who acted really strangely, and we still don’t know why. This isn’t exactly the last or worst of his odd behavior, either. At any rate, I was worried that all the other strangeness would drive away the new player, but she would later tell me that the whole thing was just part of the strangeness that she expected from a gaming group!
The party had just lost two of its own. Two members had been killed, two have possibly gone mad, and one had been exposed to her worst nightmares. Not surprisingly, when they decided to interrogate the captured cultist (since only one ended up surviving the undead fight,) they were eager to find someone to take it all out on. The cultist, seeing all this, talked instantly.
“I don’t know where the Nightmare Prince’s manor is exactly, but I can tell you how to find it,” he hastily added, after seeing how quickly the party was about to respond to the first part. “There’s this tunnel a few days from here, which we used all the time to get there. It’s northwest of here. I can give you a map, if you want.”
The party members quickly looked at each, and then Tal said in a quiet but menacing voice, “Why don’t you just show us?” The cultist readily agreed to this plan as well.
The first day of travel felt longer than normal. Tebryn was not that well known to the party yet, but his death, and especially the mad way that he died, was felt by everyone. But Fnipper’s sudden death was even worse. The slightly-crazy but lovable gnome had found a place in everyone’s heart, and he had saved the entire party more than once. And now they had nothing to even remember them by, and with Tsine gone as well, it didn’t even feel like the same party any more. Tal looked sadly at his journal, which at least had some memories of his days with the others, and remembered that Fnipper only wanted to fight the Nightmare Prince because he heard that some of his family was enslaved by him. Looking up to the sky, he said, “I don’t know where you are now, Fnipper, but I swear I’ll find them, and save as many of them as I can from that lunatic.”
Things were so melancholy in the party that when there were signs of movement up ahead, suggesting another undead patrol had found them, everyone was eager to fight, and work out some of their loss and hatred in a more constructive way. Their eagerness changed, however, when their captive pointed at the cloud that was growing closer, and screamed, “That’s a Propagator Swarm! The Nightmare Prince uses these to create his half-mechanical servants! If you get caught inside it, they’ll start to transform you as well!”
Sure enough, when the cloud loomed closer, it was clearly made of thousands of tiny metal insects. Even worse, it was accompanied by what looked like a giant reptile with tiny forelegs but a gigantic mouth, and it looked like it had already been altered into a half-machine by this or another cloud. Grockith was the first to react to this threat, and prepared to charge. This wasn’t regarded as good news, however, to Danae and Robin, who were riding his out at the time. Danae in particular was upset about this. “Wait for me to get off before you charge in!” she yelled. “You might be sufficiently armored to fight them, but I wouldn’t stand a chance!”
However, Grockith ignored their pleas and charged right at the cloud. Despite his eagerness, his weapons were almost useless against so many foes at once. Tal tried to help using a magical blast, and while it targeted an area and was actually fairly effective on the insects, it wasn’t enough to disperse the swarm. It easily engulfed the rhino and all of its riders, who were all attacked by the swarm. All of them had nasty insect bites, but the insects were also able to burrow into Danae, Robin, and Danae’s mephit, potentially dooming them all. The giant lizard also stomped up to the group, but didn’t get a chance to get near the party yet.
Danae and Robin got out of the cloud as quickly as possible, and responded with a fireball and an arrow respectively. The fireball was very effective on the cloud, but Robin’s arrows passed through the cloud with little appreciable effect. The only exception was the acid that his bow added to each of his arrows, which left streaks of disintegrated insects as they flew through the cloud. Galeron and Thorrun moved to heal the wounded wizard and ranger, while the cultist wisely stayed out of the way.
Grockith realized that he was useless against this threat, and moved to engage the dinosaur instead. However, he barely got close to it when it breathed a strange gas on him. Grockith suddenly felt incredibly sleepy, and collapsed in the saddle, while his mount looked up at him with irritation. The creature hungrily moved up to his now helpless meal, but before it could take a massive bite out of him, Tal responded with a flurry of magic missiles that hit both Grockith and the monster. It was barely wounded, but Grockith was shaken awake by the attack, and began to slice into the beast while his mechanical mount impaled it with its horn. The creature was caught by the surprise by this renewed attack, and while it tried to bite its foe a few times, its attacks were clumsy, and couldn’t get past his strong armor. Grockith finally silenced his foe with one last attack.
Meanwhile, the cloud moved again to engulf Thorrun, who ran screaming out of it while more robotic insects began to burrow into him. However, before it could attack again after this, a combination of Robin’s arrows (or more appropriately, his arrow’s elemental properties,) Tal’s spells, and attacks from Galeron blade (despite their near-uselessness,) were able to disperse the swarm, destroying it.
But was it too late? Galeron looked at the wounds on Danae, her familiar, Robin, and Thorrun, and tried using everything he could to cure them. Cure spells removed the initial wounds, but they still felt the insects moving inside them. Even Cure Disease did nothing, nor did a desperate lightning bolt by Tal to electrocute the creatures, even though it would also hurt his friends. Finally, the next day, Galeron was able to cure his friend with a Heal spell, but he shook his head when looking at the others’ wounds. “I only prepared one spell of this power for today. I can’t do anything about these other wounds until I had a chance to speak with Bha-Ael again.”
The party decided to continue on for now, and recover the wounds as they traveled. Galeron was able to Heal Robin the next day, but that was also the day they reached the tunnel their guide told them about. He revealed its hidden entrance, and the party marveled at how well-hidden the entrance was. However, with Fnipper and Tebryn gone, they had to admit they didn’t really have anyone who could find even the simplest of hidden passageways, rendering the point moot. As they traveled down a long into the ground, the cultist explained the path they will take further. “We don’t really walk to the manor from here,” he explained. “The Nightmare Prince helped discover a strange hollow, metal snake that he has been calling a ‘subway.’ It travels along a path all over this area, and at the end, it will take you to the Servant’s Tunnel that leads to the manor. Now, once you get there, I don’t know how prepared he will be for you, so you might have to fight your way in, but you should try to follow all security measures as well, just in case. I don’t know exactly what these tests will be, though. He changes them all the time. Now, at the end of the Servants tunnel, there will be other paths called the Slaves’ Tunnel and the Warriors’ Tunnel. If you want to live, don’t go those ways, or you will definitely alert the Prince that you’re here, and he’ll have his most powerful forces waiting for you. Instead, there is a strange metal platform called an elevator that will take you out of the tunnel and into the Manor itself. Specifically, you’ll end up in the Mundane Sector, where low-level worshippers like me will stay. Try to hide there. Now, I haven’t seen much else of the manor, so you’ll have to find your way to him from there yourself.”
Shortly after he finished, a giant metal tube arrived from a side tunnel. The players had already put on the appropriate robes, but they still tried to look as inconspicuous as possible as they entered the subway. The doors closed behind them, and they disappeared into the darkness, ever-closer to their deadliest enemy yet.
For hours, the metal serpent weaved its way through the underground tunnels. Periodically, it would stop, and some black-robed figures would get on or off. At one point, the party’s guide up to this point left with the crowd. Everyone saw him, but couldn’t do anything to stop him, since it would attract too much attention to themselves. They just let him go, and hoped that he feared the Nightmare Prince and was as repulsed by him as he had seemed up to this point.
A few stops later, a few more unusual cultists entered their “car.” Oddly enough, they appeared to be dwarves, which were nearly non-existent among the cultists from their experiences so far. They couldn’t see any more about them, however, since the cultists’ hoods were designed to hide the face (a fact the party has used to their advantage on more than one occasion.)
What the party didn’t know at this point was that these were not ordinary dwarves, either. They were Viett and Roryn Holderhek, dwarf brothers whose paths had crossed with Bas before. Viett, in fact, is an ex-cultist of Bas, albeit in the non-evil sect that advocates neutrality and trains all of Bas’ psionicists. Viett actually first joined the cult because of this, when they offered to help him when he first discovered his powers, and was exiled because of this. However, while he still respected the Neutral sect, he became disillusioned with Bas worship when he learned of the other sects. In fact, the sect led by The Nightmare Prince so horrified him that before he left, he obtained information relating to how to find him, and then found his brother Roryn, a wild warrior who’s chaotic and vengeful fighting style has made him a village outcast as well, to help him stage an assault on The Nightmare Prince. The two brothers are united by one other thing: they had a strange collective dream. Surprisingly, though, it had nothing to do with Lady Memory. Instead, it was a gruff, dwarf man, who complained that this (whatever this was,) didn’t feel right, and technically broke a lot of rules, but they had to do something to counter her (whoever she was.) They lost their memories for a while after that point, just like the various Lady Memory dreamers, but gained them back all the same.
Before the groups could formally introduce each other, however, they saw something that distracted both groups. The subway passed a cavern, and a horrifying scene could be witnessed through the windows. What looked like a giant gold dragon was being attacked and horribly killed by dozens of creatures that appeared to be vampires. Thorrun quickly moved to the other side of the subway and turn his head in fear, but the normal cultists who were in the subway with them looked on the seen casually, and with some enjoyment. One even commented that it was a particularly good show today!
All of this was making Grockith not scared, but enraged. He was about ready to burst out of the subway already, and hearing the way the cultists spoke about this scene, which reminded him profoundly of his own mother, drove him mad. He stood up and was just about to breathe his fiery breath on the three cultists, when Tal, Galeron, Thorrun, and Robin all grabbed onto him from behind, holding him back. The two dwarves saw this and thought they might be some of the Nightmare Prince’s men, who discovered their presence, so they drew weapons and prepared to fight the party. This caused Danae to respond by webbing them, which fortunately gave everyone time to calm down. The three confused cultists caught in the middle of all this looked around, terrified. Tal, trying to think of a quick excuse, said, “Sorry about that. My friend here just thought he heard somebody insult his mother.”
The cultists nodded understandingly, but one of them said, “Hmm. He should know better by now anyway. He won’t last long if he’s still concerned with that useless creature.” The cultist then turned to watch the “show” outside, while Grockith’s internal rage further grew, and as she noticed there had only been male black-robed cultists so far, Danae just grew very thankful for the bulky robes the cultists all wore!
Finally, the subway reached the party’s stop. They all departed, and noticed the two dwarves were leaving as well. Since they were the only two groups to get off here, they decided to finally get some answers. “Okay, I can tell you’re not really Nightmare Prince cultists,” Viett said, having noticed the half-gold dragon Grockith and Thorrun, not to mention Danae. “Who are you?”
The group exchanged glances, and had Thorrun step forward to speak for them, due to the racial bonds he had with these dwarves. “We’re enemies of him, seeking to stop him. Are you the same?”
Viett nodded, and replied, “Yes. I’m a…bard, who learned of a way to access these tunnels. My brother and I decided to try and defeat the Nightmare Prince as well.” After what happened in his home village, he decided that very few people could be trusted with the truth of his power.
The party quickly discussed these newcomers. “I think they’re telling the truth, but there’s something this Viett is hiding from us,” Galeron said. “We should let them come along with us, but watch them very closely.”
The dwarves agreed that there was strength in numbers, especially in a place like this, but they were equally suspicious of the party. Eventually, the now merged party continued down the tunnel from the subway, only to find the first test of the tunnel. The next cavern was extremely long and had a river of lava flowing through it. Only a few narrow bridges and ledges provided a safe path through the area. To make matters worse, as soon as they neared the river, it started to churn, and the lava periodically would form into a wave. It was like the river was being partially dammed and then released. Of course, the bridges weren’t safe whenever a wave formed, forcing the party to hide in small alcoves on the sides of the cavern periodically. To make matters worse, when they neared the middle of the tunnel, they were suddenly attacked by three statues with strange runes where their faces should be, and a tentacled monster that lived in the lava itself. The statues weren’t too bad, though they proved dangerous simply because they blocked essential parts of the paths, exposing people to repeated waves of lava. In addition, they could fire blood out of their runic “faces,” which tried to warp the minds of those hid by it, confusing them. Fortunately, the party members struck were able to resist this effect, and destroy the statues.
The tentacled monster was a greater threat. For one thing, it had a weapon in each of its many arms, and could attack one target almost a dozen times! In addition, it seemed to be tied to the elemental of fire, and even put up a wall of fire down the middle of one of the bridges, making it impossible to continue until it was brought down. It also could grapple party members in its tentacles. It managed to grab Tal, and was slowly dragging him towards the edge of the ledge he was on, and into the lava! Tal was almost forced off, and into the almost certain doom of the river, when the monster was finally brought down through a combination of Danae’s magic, Robin’s arrows, and Viett’s “bardic lore.”
After the monsters were defeated, the party was able to cross the lava room slightly more easily, though Robin’s animal companions and Grockith’s rhino gave them some trouble. From there, the party had to cross another tunnel, and encountered even more dangers. As they went down the corridor, they found a pair of stone statues, which were carved to resemble cultists. When the party neared them, they suddenly moved, shouting words of praise to the Nightmare Prince, and then kneeling while instructing the party to do the same. Since they were still attempting to reach the manor without alerting it, they follow these instructions. A little farther down the corridor, they saw a second pair of statues, who instructed the party to praise Khaspar. Everyone followed this one except Galeron, Thorrun, and Grockith, though the latter was growing increasingly disturbed at this point. He was beginning to mutter to himself, and seemed to sometimes draw his weapon and stare at unseen enemies, but he never explained these actions to the others. Regardless, the others’ actions seemed to satisfy these statues, for they didn’t respond to the party after this. The third set told the party to cut themselves with the holy symbols of Bas, which most of the party had grown used to by now. However, the final test was stranger, and more disturbing. The two cultist statues attacked a third statue of a seemingly innocent person, and they instructed the party to attack an unwilling target in the same way! This was too far for the entire party, and they decided to take their chances at this point. Surprisingly, the statues didn’t respond to this refusal, but Danae knew that there were many ways magical traps could be devised, and was afraid that they still alerted the guards to their presence of caused something even worse to happen.
OOC Notes: Viett and Roryn are the new characters for Fnipper and Tebryn’s players, respectively. This makes the third character to date for Chris, for those still keep track.
Beyond the statue tests, the party finally reached the central hub that their mostly involuntary guide told them about. They were leaving from a tunnel that was labeled the Servants’ Tunnel, and two other tunnels labeled the Slaves’ Tunnel and the Warriors’ Tunnel also branched off here. There was also an opening in the ceiling here, but it was totally obscured by a strange metal machine. Tal nodded. “This must be the ‘elevator’ that we were told about.”
The strange machine was too small for more than one person to fit through at a time, and they had no idea how long it would take for one person to reach the top. Whoever went in first would be taking a huge risk, and with a group that largely didn’t trust each other any more (especially with the two additional near-strangers,) few were willing to take that risk. However, after only a moment’s hesitation, Galeron stepped forward, and boldly said, “I’ll do it!”
Tal looked worried, and responded, “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea. We need someone who would make a better scout, and is capable both of determining what danger might be up there quickly, and keep hidden until then.”
But Galeron shook his head. “With Fnipper and Tebryn…gone, we don’t really have anyone capable of that anyway. Well, Robin maybe, but at least if things get ugly, I can keep myself alive until help arrives.”
Upon hearing this, Tal let him go first if he still wanted to, with reluctance, and except for the worried Thorrun, and an eager-to-please Robin, everyone was happy to let him go.
However, that proved to be a mistake, for Khaspar, the Nightmare Prince, was better prepared for the party’s arrival than they thought. The elevator slowly rose for a few minutes, before its door opened to a very dark room. Galeron cautiously stepped into the room, only to for the room to be enveloped in even greater darkness, suggesting an obviously magical source. Suddenly, a strange, unfamiliar voice echoed across the room. “Welcome, ‘heroes’ of Methosilang. Or, more likely, hero, since your friends are likely waiting below, ignorant of the horrible death you will soon experience. But at least you’ll have the enjoyment of being defeated by the best.” The voice began to laugh, but it echoed away. Meanwhile, a terrified Galeron heard the elevator door slam shut, and felt water rush into the room at high speed!
Galeron tried a spell, but his voice didn’t seem to work. He also realized he no longer heard the sound of water rushing into the room, and realized he was trapped in a zone of silence! It soon ceased to be an issue, however, for the water filled the room with almost supernatural speed, preventing him from casting most spells anyway. He did have one spell that let him enhance his muscles, however, and it didn’t require a saying anything. He found the elevator door, cast the spell, and began to attack it with all of his might. However, being underwater slowed his movements and limited the impact on the door. He was able to put some good dents in the door, but he nonetheless lost consciousness, and he cursed the name of Khaspar as he prepared to embrace his goddess…
Meanwhile, the rest of the party was still waiting at the bottom of the elevator. A few minutes passed, and still the elevator didn’t come down, nor did they hear anything from Galeron. Finally, the gears of the elevator began to move, and they moved into position around, hoping to send Tal up if it was empty, but prepared to fight if there was something hostile in the elevator. Just then, they noticed that a pair of figures was coming from the Warrior and Slaves’ Tunnels. The one from the warrior’s tunnel was a drow man wearing light armor and carrying a lute or similar instrument. Tal, Robin and Danae actually recognized him as Alkurvas, a bard that lived in Methosilang, and Tal even remembered that Alkurvas once sung a strange song to the party, though he couldn’t remember the exact words at the moment. The other figure was much smaller, similar in size to a gnome or halfling, but it was wearing a black robe like the other cultists wear.
The party prepared to fight them, but Alkurvas held up a hand in friendship. “Be at peace, my friends. I can’t speak for this other figure, but I’m here to help you, not fight you.”
Upon hearing this, the other figure spoke. “Nor am I your enemy. In fact, I was a slave here, but I managed find a way to escape. Even so, I didn’t dare to take it until I heard the rumors that you would come, and I heard that my son was among you.” The figure removed her hood, to reveal the face of an aged deep gnome. “Now, where is Fnipper?”
Tal tried to respond to this woman to this, but his mouth was numbed from the shock of meeting Fnipper’s mother and the horror of what he had to tell her. Grockith looked even paler, and from here on, he was unable to express any emotion at all. It was as if he was a construct, going through the motions of life while his mind was locked in a battle for his very sanity.
Tal tried to respond as best he could. “Um, I’m afraid I have bad news for you. Fnipper was killed in…an earlier battle while we were searching for The Nightmare Prince’s home. He was hoping he could find and free you and the rest of his family.”
Fortunately for Tal, she didn’t have time to respond nor could he elaborate, for Alkurvas spoke up, “I’m afraid we don’t have time for conversation. Khaspar knows you are here.” He waited for the initial shock and fear to die down, and then continued, “As we speak, he is gathering the most powerful forces he has, and they will come down the Warriors’ Tunnel in a matter of minutes to finish you.”
“How long did he know,” a worried Robin asked.
“Since you arrived, though he expected you would attack from before that. He wanted you to come so he could capture at least one of you alive for information, but now that he has what you want, the rest of you are expendable.”
Viett and Roryn, however, were getting suspicious. “How do we know you’re not working with him to trick us? How do you even know all of this?”
Alkurvas shrugged and replied, “I’m a wanderer and spy of sorts. I go almost everywhere to seek a new audience. If I can help spy on Methosilang’s enemies as I go, I have no problem with that. And if I really am a spy for Khaspar, what would be the point? He clearly knows you’re here if that was true as well, he still has an army that can kill you far more easily than I could, and he could just let you go up the elevator one at a time until he has you all captured or killed.”
The party thought this out for a while, and Danae asked, “So what do you propose we do about it?”
“I know another way in, and it’s actually very close. Not even Khaspar would suspect you’ll use it, since he personally made it and told no one else of its existence. I can take you there if you like. However,” and he looked to Robin and Grockith for this part, “the path is too narrow for your animals. I can take care of them for you, though, and make sure they are safe.”
It took some discussion, but Robin reluctantly parted with his current animal companions. Grockith, surprisingly, let him take his unusual rhino without any protesting or emotion at all. Alkurvas then prepared to lead them to the portal, when Fnipper’s mom spoke up.
“Just a minute. If my son is truly dead, I would like to go with you. He died trying to fight Khaspar, after all, so I blame him for Fnipper’s death. And if killing him will save more of my family, I would be happy to help you save them as well. Oh, and we haven’t been formally introduced, I believe. My name is Nathee.”
The party members introduced themselves, and they were on their way. Alkurvas led them partially down the Warriors’ Tunnel, and then to a tiny secret door in the wall. Behind the door, there was nothing but a ladder and a shaft leading upwards. Each of the heroes climbed the ladder, and found a second secret door at the top. They found themselves exiting a painting (appropriately titled “The Void,” which is apparently just a black canvas that easily hides the secret door when opened,) and entering the most twisted art gallery they had ever seen. The entire floor is an elaborate fresco depicting a pit to the Abyss or a similar hellish land, creating an unnerving illusion of walking on nothing. The room was filled with various other odd and macabre artworks, from twisted machines of war to elaborate sculptures and paintings of tortured creatures. The room’s most notable sculpture was a giant statue made of what looked like the corpses of dozens of women stitched together into one massive human form, with arms raised in sorrow. Above the room, there were dozens of hanging sculptures, along with a small maze of catwalks. The room also had a pair of doors, on the east and west walls. Roryn and Viett, using their dwarfish direct senses, determined that the Mundane Sector they were told about by the party (who had of course learned it from their cultist prisoner,) was to the east, but since Khaspar already expected them, Viett suggested that they go west instead, in an attempt to trick him. However, they couldn’t even go near the door before they were attacked.
Arrows and magic rained down on the party from the catwalks, as a number of figures emerged from hiding to attack. Even worse, Lamentation itself suddenly began to move, and charged Tal! Grockith, with some encouragement, moved up to the hideous monster and begin to attack it, while being the only one in the party to show no signs of repulsion at the hideous creature. Roryn roared his enraged battle cry, and moved up to help Grockith, while Viett stood behind them and started to psionically disintegrate parts of the monster, which was extremely confusing to Tal and Danae, who had learned that this was just a massive flesh golem, and should be immune to magic. However, the two of them were far more concerned with the cultists firing at them from above, and they teamed up with Robin to fire up at them. Meanwhile, Nathee moved behind the golem to attack it, only to learn that her sneak attacks were useless on the creature, and Thorrun worked to heal everyone as best as he could. It was a difficult fight, especially since all of their attackers were using the catwalks as cover and were so nimble that they could avoid all of Danae and Tal’s fireballs and other area magic without even being harmed by them. However, when the party was able to actually hit, each hit connected easily enough, and the villains all died with only a few strikes. Meanwhile, Lamentation was mercifully brought to rest by Grockith’s blade. However, the room still had one surprise left for the unfortunate heroes, when one last black-robed figure suddenly dropped to the floor using some sort of machine similar to the elevator they saw earlier, and stabbed straight at Roryn’s heart with the speed of a trained assassin. Roryn was able to keep his heart away from the assassin’s blade, but the attack was still a deep and painful one. Viett, seeing his brother’s near-death, angrily fired one last ray at the assassin, and in one moment, he was turned into nothing but dust. The party quickly gathered the equipment
of the enemy while Roryn destroyed the west wall, and continued onward.
“Wakey Wakey!”
Galeron groaned as he regained consciousness. He was stripped of all of his equipment and clothing, save for a simple prisoner rags, and some strange metal bracelets around each of his arms and legs. He was attached, apparently by magnetic force from the bracelets, to a metal rack of some sort. Three creatures were looking at him. One was an elf, who was playing some sort of instrument. The other was a hideous demonic creature, which was covered with spikes and strange scars. As it realized it was noticed, it opened its mouth in an unnaturally large and toothy grin, and a massive bladed tongue that was almost as long as the creature’s body rolled out. Finally, there was a half-mechanical man. He seemed to be far more elaborate than other half-machines that Galeron had seen so far, however. He had wings, a tail, and even horns, to give the impression of a strange mechanical half-demon, rather than the mechanical mess most half-machines were.
“The Nightmare Prince, I’m guessing?”
The half-machine man smiled. “Correct! Now, I’m willing to start this process easily enough. As you already guessed, you still exist for a reason. You still have information that will make me very popular with Bas, and I intend to get it, one way or the other. But we have plenty of time, especially since your friends will be killed soon enough, and no one else will come to save you. Let’s start with the basics. You know, name, brief family history, and so on, and we’ll see where we go from there.
Galeron, however, was defiant. “You won’t get anything out of me.”
The Nightmare Prince sighed, but suddenly smiled. “It’s just as well. This is a far more entertaining way to do it, anyway.”
Suddenly, Galeron’s rack lifted off the ground, and was taken over the room’s far wall through a window-like opening. On the other side was a pool of a bubbling green fluid, which Galeron guessed was acid.
“Now then, would you like to try it again? Let’s try your name at least.”
Galeron looked down, and knew that if he was dropped in the acid, his death would be certain. Still, he persevered. “Taunt me all you want, Khaspar. I know that my friends still live. And whatever happens to me, they will kill you.”
Khaspar shrugged. “So you say. But that’s enough for now. I need you rested for the fun we’re going to have over the next few days. But here’s a little something for you to remember me by.” He then instructed the demon to lower Galeron into the acid briefly, and then pull him out again. He then left to rest for the night, seeming oblivious to Galeron’s screams.
Meanwhile, the rest of the party had another setback. Grockith’s internal battle with his own madness had ended, with him the loser. He was now trapped in a comatose state, with his soul gone to who knows where. For now, Tal shrugged. “We might as well take him with us, in case he comes to.”
Viett and Roryn looked extremely uncomfortable about this, but eventually conceded defeat. “Just don’t expect us to be so friendly if he comes to and almost gets us all killed,” Roryn warned. “I’ll make his little nap permanent that time.”
Roryn then worked on the door, which fell after only a few good swings of his axe. The door opened into a hallway, which turned to the right after only about fifteen feet before turning to the right again. The path continued in that direction for about seventy feet before turning right again, but there were a pair of doors on the right wall, and curiosity got the better of the party. Roryn moved to open the first door, with Robin taking point. He kicked it open, and found a grisly torture chamber on the other side. There was a terrified and agonized man bound to a table, and a vulture-headed humanoid looming over him. The room was filled with other horrid creatures, from more of the flame-wreathed demons like the one they fought at TIE’s mountain, to strange demonic hyena-like creatures, to a creature with the upper body of a man and the lower body of a scorpion.
Roryn wasted no time in charging into the room, with Robin cautiously following behind. The two of them easily destroyed the hyenas, while Viett, Tal, and Danae hurled magic (or at least what they think is magic, in Viett’s case,) at the other demons, and Nether crept into the room from behind. The demon often called a Vrock responded by seeding Roryn with some painful spores, but he laughed off the pain, while the party easily surrounded and slaughtered the scorpion demon and the fire demons. However, the Vrock was wearing some sort of black chain mail, which when combined with his naturally hard skin and agility made him much harder to hit. In addition, he had used his magical powers to create a small army of illusionary clones, which the party often accidentally hit instead of the demon itself. Roryn and the others surrounded the Vrock to begin the slow process of destroying the strange demon. Thorrun, meanwhile, waited out in the hallway to guard and heal injured allies as they retreat, which turned out to be a mistake, as there was still the other doorway’s inhabitants to deal with.
Speaking of which, the door suddenly burst open, and a pair of giant apes emerged. They had strange blood-red fur, and enough strange artificial attachments to clearly label them as more of the half-machines. The two of them were also moving so fast that they were blurs. The two of them charged poor Thorrun, and in a matter of seconds, ripped him limb from limb!
While Nathee, Roryn and Robin finished off the Vrock, Tal led the others out to deal with the apes. They were fierce opponents, but they nonetheless fell quickly to the magical and psionic power of the party. However, none of them expected that this was the limit of the enemies in the other room, and they ran up to the other door to prevent another ambush. Inside, there was what appeared to be a chapel. There also was black-robed cultist, wielding a Morningstar and the miniature holy symbol scimitars, suggesting that he was an actual divine cleric of Bas, and possibly a powerful one. He was being guarded by another black-robed cultist, but he was more bulky, and had the build of a fighter. He also appeared to be a trained bodyguard, for he was constantly moving to get in front of the cleric. The cleric was the first to respond, and with a few simple gestures and an exhortation to his goddess, a wall of incredibly powerful flames rained down on the party’s most fragile warriors! None of them were killed by it, but they could barely stand up after the attack.
Fortunately, Robin and the other more combative members of the party had finished the Vrock, and were coming to help. However, even their attacks couldn’t come close to the cleric, for the guard was willingly throwing himself in front of all of their attacks, and the cleric responded to this attack by healing his bodyguard. Fortunately, Viett had an easy solution to this problem, when he simply concentrated, causing a green ray to strike the bodyguard, reducing him to dust! With him dead, the party easily killed the vile chosen of Bas, but the damage was already done. Most of the party was too wounded to survive another fight like this, and now their only cleric was dead. Danae was especially terrified, for Galeron didn’t get a chance to remove the mechanical parasites from her or her familiar yet! And to make matters even worse, it was about this time that a loud siren began to blare throughout the building. It was clear that Khaspar knew the party was in the manor, and it was only a matter of time before they were discovered.
