Return to Bile Mountain II: Back In
Bile Mountain. Mount Angelfire. By whatever name, it is a place that has known great evil. Our heroes came once before and purged the curse of bile that exuded from it, destroyed the great Crux Crystal that seemingly powered it; but they did not finish what they started. They left the horrific Bile Lords alive.
Now they have come back to finish what they started.
Two of the Bile Lords have come for them, separately, and our heroes have thrown down both of them. Though many other things have required the attention of our stalwarts- including the Temple of Elemental Evil, the City That Waits, Acererak’s Fortress of Conclusion- now at last they can turn their attentions here.
The very stone of the mountain seems corrupted, eaten with small wormholes by exposure to the corrosive bile that ran so freely for so long. Our heroes enter the mountain through a wide passage that accommodates the flowing Angelfire River and yet still has room for a large band to walk on either bank. The river is no longer called the River of Bile; once it entered Bile Mountain as water and exited as bile. Now it leaves clean, unpolluted, pure (at least compared to its prior state)
It has been exactly one year and one month since last our heroes set foot within the mountain.
The passage follows the river; wet stone on either side, etched by eons of bile, would offer a certain tentative purchase to our heroes’ boots, were they not all flying. Soon the passage opens up into a great central cavern, one wall of which is carved with stairs.
“There we go,” nods Angel. The adventurers ascend, returning to Bile Mountain.
“This place would be perfect for a casino,” Sybele muses in a hushed voice. Horbin gives her a bemused look. “No, think about it,” she continues. “We could clean it up a little, make it a little nicer, you know, cleaner... maybe get rid of the smell somehow... it would be perfect! It’s already secure against divinations and teleportations, so a lot of the standard security issues are already taken care of... and it’s on Pesh! Where are we going to find a better place?”
Orbius shakes his head in amused disbelief, but Thrush nods as if it’s all perfectly logical.
“What about security?” Horbin asks.
“Oh, we can take care of that,” Thrush answers dismissively. “After all, I’m the foremost swordsman of my age!”
Angelfire quirks a half-smile at that.
The fighter continues, “If anyone tries anything, we can- hey, what are those?”
The group has been exploring as they talk, mostly going through rooms they had cleared out before on their first trip through the mountain, but this is in a high-ceilinged room they don’t recall seeing before. ‘Those’ are a series of large stone statues, depicting weird humanoids with elephantine features. Their trunks bifurcate about halfway down their length; the creatures have long tusks and are depicted as being covered in shaggy hair.
“They look almost like these creatures called loxo,” Orbius comments, “except that loxo are mostly hairless. Also,” he frowns, studying the statuary carefully, “their tusks are a little bigger in these statues... hmm... no, these are definitely not conventional loxo.”
“Well,” suggests Sybele, “let’s search them. Maybe there’s a secret compartment in one of them or something...”
But of course, as soon as they touch the first statue to examine it, things go entirely awry. In a burst of stale, sweaty-smelling air, a great figure mounted on a huge shaggy elephant with enormous tusks appears. He trumpets from his worn trunk as he appears, looking around wildly, and in an instant he’s aimed several telling blows at Sybele with his huge, primitive lance! Then the great elephantine thing he’s mounted on simply tramples all over her, and she gives out a shout of anger and pain.
“Get off my woman!” roars Thrush, and hews at the mastadon with the incredible skill and strength that led him, mere moments ago, to declare himself the foremost swordsman of his age. In an instant he’s killed the mount, and the rider (Barmy by name, though our heroes are not aware of it) is catapulted from his great saddle to land awkwardly next to the warrior.* Londo, seeing an opportunity, springs in to attack, but Barmy’s reflexes are amazingly fast for his bulk; and as he deals a telling blow to Londo, he knocks him back with his lance and muscles him out of the way!** Londo staggers and adopts a defensive posture, blinking the blood from his face.
Angelfire frowns. That’s her man the elephant-creature just hit, and- just as Thrush defended his woman- she steps up to defend her man. Barmy and she begin exchanging a series of punishing blows, but Angel is protected by Orbius’ mass mirror image spell.
Sybele, meanwhile, drags herself out from under the dead weight of Barmy’s mount. Gritting her teeth, she wonders momentarily who these elephant folk were- and what their relationship to the Bile Lords was. Suddenly, in a flash of epiphany, she realizes that this thing might be a potential ally.
So Sybele reaches out through her psicrystal, which can speak into the minds of others, and cries, Surrender and we can go kill the Bile Lords together!
She feels a moment of hesitation, a strong wariness- and then agreement. Barmy is bleeding from a dozen heavy wounds and his strength is starting to flag. He will not long survive this battle. I yield, he thinks back via the psicrystal.
Unfortunately, Thrush is not privy to this, and an instant later the large man cuts the party’s new would-be ally down, splitting him open from his sternum to his crotch.
“Oh well,” Sybele says to nobody in particular, and heaves a sigh.
*Thrush dealt enough damage to kill it in one full attack. At full, the mount had 172 hit points.
**Barmy had the Large and In Charge feat.
Next Time: Back to the village of Angelfire! Back into Bile Mountain! And a terrible thing happens to Thrush!
