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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LordVyreth" data-source="post: 1549503" data-attributes="member: 9626">A Death and a Dastardly DealThe hours passed, as the boat slowly drifted across the lake.  The party tried to help row it, but while they sped things up a little, most of their efforts had to go to towards just keeping the boat upright and pointed in a straight line.  To make matters worse, every few seconds, the water around them bubbled and churned, and it was quite clear that something was down there, waiting for them.  Tsine, who was the official navigator of the group, also spent time examining the boat itself.  He noticed a strange red circle in the middle of the boat, which was very obvious and even glowed slightly, as if it was painted with a luminescent substance.  Tsine figured the circle meant something, but no one was willing to break it or stand in it, so experimentation has been pretty minimal.  For now, the party was happy just trying to get across the lake in one pieceAbove them, a strange, elven head looked up, and saw the boat approaching his upside-down perch.  There was no sacrifice in the circle, so the toll has no been met in the normal way.  No matter, the creature thought.  There are other ways to extract payment.The attack came swiftly and without warning.  Leading the enemies were a pair of giant bats with heads like pale elves.  These were apparently the same monsters that the Lady of Blood had with her during the raids underground six months ago.  There was also a pair of evil, giant bats with a feral look to them.  Before the party could even react, the bats flanked the boat on both sides, and then beat their wings so fast, it caused a pair of windstorms!  The boat began to rock back and forth, sending people flying from one side to the other, but fortunately everyone was able to hold on to something before the could be knocked off the boat, and into the waters, which were again churning and foaming, as whatever monsters within it were circling with anticipation.  Even worse, the wind was tainted with dark energy, which ripped through the party, but especially was painful to the good party members, who felt the evil of the magic burn their very essence.Seldszar began the attacks, by getting to the far side of the boat, and hopefully out of the way of further gales, and then firing at one of the elf-bats, wounding it slightly.  Tal fired a volley of magic orbs at the second bat, and Robin and Tsine helped strike the creature with arrow and magic.  Meanwhile, Rudyard charged the first of the three giant bats, which had closed in on the ship while the party was distracted by the elf hybrids.  He wounded the creature, but couldn’t give it a fatal blow.  The two hybrids then landed on the boat, with one attacking Tal and the other on Robin.  The one attacking Robin tried to bite it and beat on him with its wings, but couldn’t get a decent hit on the nimble archer.  Tal didn’t fair as well, and to the party’s horror, as one of its wings sent Tal sprawling to the ground, the creature started to heal his earlier wounds!  What they didn’t know, but Tal unfortunately found out, was that when its other wing hit him, it began to drain the magical power out of the endangered sorcerer as well.Dane and Quercus couldn’t stand to see their friend in danger, so they charged at the half-bat.  Quercus went low, stabbing the creature in the leg, while Dane leapt over Tal’s prone body, and plunged downward with his sword into the monster’s neck.  Not even the health that it stole from Tal was enough to save it, and it died and plunged into the water, which soon bubbled and started sending up pools of blood and ripped apart bits of the creature.However, while the party concentrated on Tal, Seldszar was put in danger.  Two of the giant bats surrounded him, and began to rip him apart.  While he was an agile rogue, Seldszar was lacking any real armor, and was soon bleeding from a number of very deep wounds.  Meanwhile, the bat that Rudyard attacked concentrated on him, and bit deeply into his shoulder.  The bite was especially grievous, for it was tainted with evil, which seemed to feed on the goodness remaining in Rudyard’s soul.  He screamed in pain, and looked at the creature in rage.  He was beginning to wonder if having such a pure soul was anything but a hindrance to his cause, if it just meant being destroyed by evil attacks and holding back when he should be focusing on the death of his enemies.Robin dropped his bow and switched to his blade, and began to attack the bat with it, while Tal and Tsine provided magical cover fire.  Dane moved to help Rudyard, and between the two of them they were able to kill Rudyard’s bat.  Quercus flew over to help Robin, but because Tal and Tsine were limited to their weakest of magics at this point, even his help wasn’t enough to defeat the second elf-bat.  The elf responded by further attacking Robin, but only was able to give him a fairly minor bite wound.  The same couldn’t be said of Seldszar, for one bat bite into his leg, and while he was forced to stumble back and sink to his knees, the other ripped into his stomach, giving him a giant, bloody wound.  He tried to fight back, but weakened by the blood loss, he could barely lift his sword.  Realizing their friend was in trouble, Tal and Tsine tried to defeat his enemies with magic, but Tsine’s blast was insufficient, and Tal’s couldn’t even penetrate the magical barrier the creature had.  Robin wasn’t really able to ignore his foe, and he concentrated all his efforts into finally killing the foul beast, and sending him to the black waters below.  Rudyard, Dane, and Quercus all charged the bats, but were only able to kill one of them.  The other ignored its new foes, and concentrated on finishing off his prey.  While others looked on in horror, it bent over the near-helpless drow, and in one quickly, almost effortless motion, it bit into and ripped through his neck.  Seldszar gave one last look to the group, and then collapsed onto the deck, never to rise again.  Screaming with rage, Tal led the charge on their last foe, and together, they easily overpowered it.  Their enemy was dead, but at what cost?  They were exhausted, out of magic, and all alone in the middle of a lake in enemy territory, and one of their own was dead.  Robin in particular was taking it hard, since he was the only one who knew Seldszar for more than a few weeks.  As Tal consoled him, Quercus gave the last rites to Seldszar.  However, they soon came to the horrible conclusion that they couldn’t take a body with them, and they’d rather not abandon it, letting the cultists and drow do unspeakable things to it and possibly even raise it as an undead.  Realizing they had no other choice, they were forced to give him a “sailor’s funeral,” even though it meant he would certainly be eaten by whatever lurked underwater.The dreadful deed done, the party had another horrible decision to make.  They clearly didn’t have the strength to attack the city now.  Resting here would be dangerous, but it looked like they had no other choice.  The party chose watches, and began to bed down and try to somehow get to sleep, despite the horrors they faced that day and the dangers they were sure to see tomorrow.However, not an hour into their rest, Quercus, who was on watch at the time, noticed a strange fog rolling in towards them.  He sensed there was something strange about the fog, and fired a warning arrow at it.  His guessed appeared to be right, for it suddenly stopped approaching the boat, and began to retreat again.  He kept a sharp eye out for the rest of his watch, but it never returned, so he soon woke up Tal and Tsine, the next watch, and began his meditations, though he did warn them of what he saw.  They were nonetheless surprised, however, when less than an hour later, a voice suddenly and quietly said, “Please, like I couldn’t attack you unnoticed if I wanted to.”Tsine moved to wake the others, but the voice said, “Wait, we have much to discuss, and it would be better if that one wasn’t awake to hear it.”  They couldn’t see the speaker, but it sounded like she was indicating Quercus.Tsine hesitated for a moment, but was about to wake the others anyway when Tal spoke up.  “Very well.  Reveal yourself, and we will discuss whatever you have to say.”At his instruction, a strange, very pale woman appeared on the boat.  Tsine saw her for what she was instantly.  “A vampire…” he gasped.  “What could you possibly want to discuss with us?”“We have a mutual goal, actually, or at least a mutual enemy.  We have been trying to understand who these cultists are and what they think they’re doing in our territory for a while now.  However, we recently sent a spy in, and we haven’t heard from him in weeks.  He has been undoubtedly captured.  We want to get him back, but our…limitation regarding where we can enter might be a problem once we find the prison, and they certainly will have other anti-vampire protections ready.  However, they won’t be expecting you to rescue him.  That’s our proposal.  If we help you, you will help save our spy when the time comes.”Tal was under whelmed.  “What could you possibly do to help us?”“Well, for starters, we could warn you that resting here is a death warrant.  They know that you’re here, and can determine where you are fairly easily.  You were able to sneak in without alerting their most dangerous guards before, but now that they aren’t trying to repel our forces, they’ll be sending their best after you right here.  You need to at least get into the city to find a place to rest.”“How do you propose we do that?  Won’t they be waiting for us at the other dock?”“Not with our help, they won’t.  We’ll distract the main force, which should also provide you with enough light that you could reach the dock without having to create a light of your own.  Now, once you do dock, you have to get into the city, and you can probably rest by posing as cultists and sneaking into their inn.  We can find you from there.  Well, do we have a deal?”Tal and Tsine looked at each other cautiously.  “We really can’t make this decision by ourselves,” Tsine said nervously.  Tal considered this brief, then said, “Fine, but only wake Rudyard and Dane.  Quercus’ code prevents him from helping evil forces, but he that doesn’t mean we can’t help them without him being involved.  And Robin might have issues with helping the undead.  From what he’s said, he’s being trained to fight them at the level of their souls, so he might have developed a level of hatred towards them that’s even greater than is normal.”Tsine agreed, and in whispered conversations Tal, Tsine, Rudyard, Dane, and the little girl (who had gotten herself up as soon as Tal started to move towards the others,) agreed to the vampire woman’s plan.  Well, the little girl obviously contributed little, but she did listen to their discussion intently.  After hearing their answer, the vampire woman nodded and said, “Excellent.  Be sure to keep an eye out for one of my allies after you enter the inn.  Oh, and of course you won’t betray us, but just in case you or one of your friends entertains the notion, just remember that we would be happy to alert the proper authorities to your location.  You wouldn’t last a minute of the Lady of Blood, all of her servants, and the best the drow city had to offer descended on you at once.”With that, she flew off, leaving the party alone to contemplate what they have done.  Tsine quietly said, “Um, so who gets to tell Quercus the plan?”OOC Notes: The player of Quercus was actually out of the room when the party made an agreement with the vampire.  He was understandably upset when he heard the plan.We are now up to the first death for Chris’ characters.  This episode was the beginning of the week’s game, so he had a new character ready by the time the game ended.The bat-elf monsters are Swift Prides, another unique monster that I made up.  As always, I’d be happy to send the stats to anyone interested, though it seems doubtful after the last few times I made the offer.</blockquote>

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