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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LordVyreth" data-source="post: 1555635" data-attributes="member: 9626">Drow City Urliz-Val“You did WHAT!”Quercus, as expected, was not pleased.  “How could you make a deal with a vampire?  They’re among the greatest evils of the undead empire!”Tal sighed.  He knew this would be difficult.  “What choice did we have?  She already saved our lives once by warning us not to sleep on the lake.”“And how do you know we can trust her!  She might be Bas’ enemy, too, but she might be eager to get both groups of us killed!”Tsine decided to be pragmatic about this.  “Look, we don’t have a choice about this now.  If we betray them, they’ll just turn us in.  We might as well see it through.”Quercus looked disgusted at the entire group, but sighed.  “Well, it’s too late for the rest of you, I guess.  But while I’ll help you guys survive this, don’t expect me to lift a finger to help the vampires.  You’re all lucky I want to make sure Shedell would be safe.”The conversation ended when the party saw lights in the distance.  They were near the docks, and the vampire and her servants were apparently seeing to it that the guards were distracted, judging by the jets of flame being fired into the air.  Slowly, the party’s boat drifted to a corner of the dock, and the party disembarked.  Carefully, the crept between the boats and the crates piled up behind them, until they spotted a cavern wall, with an opening that led to a staircase leading downward.  Unfortunately, the area was guarded by four drow, and a strange monster with a body like a gorilla but a head like an insect.  As soon as they saw the party, all of them made a beeline for the exit.Fortunately, the party was prepared for this.  Robin and Quercus moved to take down one of the unarmored drow, (who appeared to be a wizard,) while Tsine created a wall of ice around the entrance to the cavern.  Two of the surviving drow drew weapons, and began to help attack the wall, while the last wizard launched a ball of flames at the party.  They had managed to use the last of their healing wands and potions to recover their wounded before this fight, but everyone was still hurting, so the blast managed to almost stagger everyone!  Dane moved to attack the second wizard, and Tal helped him finish the enemy off.  Rudyard began attacking one of the two remaining drow, while the umberhulk finished brining the wall of ice down.However, it was too late for the enemy’s scouts.  Robin finished the wounded drow with his bow, and Quercus and Tsine finished the second one.  Before the umberhulk could even move to get down the stairs, Dane and Tal had finished him as well.  The unfortunate insect was so fixated on removing the wall that he couldn’t even get a good look on his attackers, and use its infamous confusing gaze on them.Quickly, the party descended the stairs, while slipping on the robes as they went.  With luck, they would be able to enter the city and find the inns, or wherever the cultists were staying, before they were noticed.  At the bottom of the stairs, they were greeted by little but darkness.  Of course, since this was a drow city, it made little sense for it to be lit.  Fortunately, there were a few lit areas.  One especially unusually building, which was a school or guild of magic as Tsine judged it, had a wall of fire around its entire perimeter, but there were also a few large buildings that were lit up and flooded with torch lights around it.  Tal whispered, “We should try to get there.  If there really are a large number of red-robed refugees from the temple, they probably are gathered where they can see.  And since we’re clearly of the same temple, at least as long as we have these robes, than it would make sense for us to use lights as well.”  The party agreed, and pulled out their lanterns and continual flame torches.  As they traveled the city, they noticed that very few red-robed beings were around.  In fact, there were few people at all that were dressed in the standard robes of the Bas worshippers.  It became apparent why that was as soon as they were stopped by a group of drow guards on the way.  While they were willing to let the party pass, they all had to give the familiar sign of the scimitars first.  The party members each winced as they felt the scimitars cut into their forearms; after the wounds of their many fights, this was the last thing they needed.  Considering most of the cultists probably aren’t as trained to deal with pain as the party is, it was no wonder they feared to travel the city!Finally, the party made it into the first lit building they could find, and the drow who was running the place didn’t even bat an eyelid when they requested.  They were halfway up the stairs before they finally noticed something: the girl was gone.Rudyard was furious.  “How could you let her go?” he shouted at Tal.  “You were supposed to look after her.  For all we know, she could be a spy for the enemy.  We could have the entire city at our throats within an hour!”Tal looked defensive.  “Oh, relax.  I was watching her for days.  There’s nothing suspicious about her.  She probably just tried to get back to her home, or to find someone she knew.  This is probably her home city, after all.”Quercus moved to stop the fight.  “Look, it’s too late to worry about it now.  We can’t track anyone in this city without drawing too much attention to ourselves, and none of us could survive a fight anyway.  We’ll post guards during the night and look for some other ways out of the inn, but we don’t really have a choice now except to rest here anyway.”Rudyard shrugged, and moved to one of the beds, but he did his best to indicate that he wasn’t taking a watch.  After all, it was Tal who let her go, and Quercus and Robin were the only other ones so eager to keep her around in the first place; let them do it.A short time later, during Quercus’ watch, he heard a rapping on the window.  Very carefully, he moved towards the window, and peeked out.  There was a bat there, and oddly enough, it looked like he was gesturing with a claw to open the window.  A puzzled Quercus obeyed, but even when the window was opened, the bat gave him a funny look.  Finally Quercus realized who this was.  “Fine, I invite you in,” he said, but he put one hand to his sword and the other two his holy symbol while he said it.The bat fluttered it, and suddenly transformed into a dwarf.  “About time you caught on,” he complained.  “Now, it’s time to finish your part of the deal.  If you help us free our ally, we tell you where the Lay of Blood lives, and how to deal with her.”Quercus shrugged.  “I never agreed to your help, but I will help my friends no matter how dubious some of their decisions are.  If you want to deal with them, speak with them directly.”The dwarf muttered in annoyance while Quercus woke Dane.  He copied down the location of the jail that the dwarf gave him, and they agreed to meet afterwards at an entirely different part of town.  The dwarf vampire then flew off, and Quercus slammed the window shut, and then went downstairs to see if the inn had a kitchen, and if it did, if they had any garlic he could borrow.The next day, the party finally finished healing their wounds, and after preparing their magic, they prepared to find and raid the prison.  The prison itself was found at the end of a long tunnel near the end of the city.  The first part of the tunnel was unguarded, but soon, a number of pungent smells filled the hallways.  At first, the party backed away after first smelling it, out of fear that it was some sort of poison gas, but Robin got a good whiff of it, and turned back to the party.  “Garlic,” he said with amusement.  “And a bit of belladonna, for some reason.  I guess they were just being thorough.”After a few minutes of traveling, they found a door, which had a note attached.  It was from Solamand, who is described as the mayor of this city.  The note insists that his authorization on property supercedes that of anyone else in the city, and that without his direct permission, no one is invited into this area of the city.  Quercus whispered, “Obviously, another way to keep any potential vampire rescuers at bay.  They can’t enter without being invited, and they can’t even mind-control a guard into inviting them in.The door itself was locked.  Since the now lacked a thief, Quercus and Dane decided to use their much larger and sharper lock picks to open the door.  However, by the time they were done, the guards on the other side of the door were prepared for them, and attacked immediately!The largest foe in the other room was a strange, hunched over figure with red-tinted gray skin.  He roared and slashed at Quercus, giving him not only a powerful cut to the chest, but also a dark, sickening feeling in his chest, and he knew that this monster was no ordinary creature.  It was tainted with evil, and could deaden the soul of a good being with its very presence!  Meanwhile, a drow wielding a bow fired repeatedly at Dane, giving him a pair of deep wounds to the chest.  While he was firing, a bear moved up to help guard the drow.Robin was the first to react after the sudden attack.  He dashed into the room, though this meant he would be an easy target for the hunched-over monster.  He received a slash to the shoulder as a reward for his bravery, but it appeared the creature was unable to infuse him with evil energy like it did with Quercus.  Ignoring his wound, Robin stabbed the bear, in an attempt to bring him down and reach his master.    Fnipper was dashing down the halls of his prison.  Just when he finally managed to escape, things went crazy.  There were sounds of battle reverberating down the halls.  He didn’t know where they emanated from or how to get out of here, so he just began to run and hope for the best.    Meanwhile, Tsine launched an explosive ball of flames at the bear and ranger, destroying the wounded bear and causing serious damage to the ranger.  The ranger responded with another volley of arrows, right into the nearby Robin.  Robin was already looking wounded, but with the gray monster in the way, the rest of the party had another concern to deal with first.  Quercus began to strike at the monster with his blade, but the creature was so large that he couldn’t get more then a few minor flesh wounds past its thick armor and powerful muscles.  Tal helped Quercus out with a volley of magic, but only a couple of his missiles survived to reach the creature.  Dane also helped fight the giant monster, though he shouted a few choice curses at the ranger who fired at him earlier.  Rudyard couldn’t get up to help Dane and Quercus, so he followed Robin’s lead and dashed around the monster.  Fortunately, it was too big and slow to react to another sudden threat, and Rudyard reached the drow ranger safely, though by the time he reached his enemy, the ranger saw him coming and easily dodged his sword.    Suddenly, another enemy appeared out of the shadows.  He was another drow, and he suddenly tumbled in behind Robin to stab him in the back.  Robin groaned in pain, and collapsed to the floor, bleeding but still alive.  Meanwhile, the giant monster continued to rend into Quercus, who was now bleeding from a massive chest wound and many cuts and scrapes.      The fight suddenly was interrupted when a small, gray gnome appeared from the door on the far side of the wall.  He looked at the fight with surprise, and then turned and ran in the opposite direction.  The party gave him a funny look, but it was obvious that they had bigger concerns.    Tsine realized that Rudyard, and possibly even Robin, were doomed if they didn’t receive help, so he sent a volley of magical orbs that split and struck both of them twice.  The rogue was seriously wounded by the blast, and the ranger wasn’t looking much better.  The ranger howled with anger and struck at his nearest foe, Rudyard, with both of his swords.  The wounds were serious, but not fatal, and they just gave Rudyard even more anger to channel into his attacks Quercus, Tal, and Dane meanwhile finally finished off the giant beast, when Quercus charged his legs, causing him to buckle, and Dane leapt up and slashed the creature’s neck.  Rudyard was also ready to finish things.  He took a light step to get right in between the ranger and rogue, and his blades were a blur as he finished both of them of at once!    After binding and healing their wounds, the party examined their foes.  One of the drow, the rogue, still lived.  Rudyard was happy to put him to death, but Tal intervened, saying he could be helpful if they have trouble finding their way through the prison.  They decided to bind him and brink him along, and they continued deeper into the prison, where they eventually found the strange gnome again.  He looked at them fearfully.  “Goaway,” he said quickly.    “Easy, little one, we don’t want to hurt you,” Tal said.  He was looking at the creature carefully.  He looked like a normal gnome, but it was bald, and had rock-like skin.  He thought he heard stories of these gnomes, but they were supposed to be extinct.  Maybe some of their villages still were hidden deep under the domain of Methosilang?    “What are you doing here?” Tal continued.  “Don’t worry, if you’re a prisoner of these drow, we’re here to rescue you.”    The scared gnome paused for a moment, and then continued.  “Name’s Fnipper.  My village was attacked by the drow.  Most of my family was taken prisoner or killed, including me.  Now I don’t even know if they’re still alive!”  There were tears in the earnest gnome’s eyes, but they soon ceased.  “Now I’m going to kill every one of those evil drow!”    Rudyard was impressed, but also worried that he’d attract attention in this city.  Tal decided to handle this.  “Well, we’re in a drow city right now.  We can’t attack them all; we’ll be killed.  However, we are trying to go after one of their leaders.  If you want to help, we could use the assistance.”    The gnome nodded.  If these strange tall ones could help him get revenge and maybe find his family, it would be worth traveling with them.  Even if they were all really weird looking.    OOC Notes:  Chris’ second character has now been introduced.  This one was a lot more effective than poor Seldszar.  I mean, he was death.  A deep gnome’s AC is sick already, and he eventually got a Ring of Blinking!  Combine that with his sneak attacks and Expert Tactician feat, and he was almost unstoppable.  Note, however, that I did say almost.</blockquote>

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