(Cydra) Great Conflicts

[Greybar]

Nice interlude (new material right) form Hell, but I think this is a typo "His head lolled, upside-down, to face the line of petitioners come to swear to Asmodeus." switch Asmodeus/Lucifer.

Man, now I have to go back and reread the other ones for new tidbits...

(thanks!)

 

[the Jester]

“I’m just saying,” Thrush insists, “we should wipe out everything on the floor we’re on before we go any higher. No cutting corners!” He shakes a finger at everyone, but especially at Alcar and Lester. “No rushing up the stairs until we’ve secured what’s behind us. The last thing we want is to need to leave in a hurry and to have our retreat cut off behind us.”

“You’re right about that,” concedes Lester.* “We do need to be careful to make sure we can get out of here when we need to.”

Both Orbius and Lillamere are sending out magical divining eyes, with Lillamere’s prying eyes making Orbius slightly jealous. Soon enough the sensors will report back, and in the meantime our heroes set about searching some of the areas that they have been in but not thoroughly investigated, starting with the room that the stairs up from below leads into. To their gratification, Gerontius immediately turns up a secret door. Opening it reveals a hallway, and the party moves down it while the eyes search out some other areas. The party finds themselves at a door after only about 100’, and throwing it open they find themselves looking into a rubble-strewn room with four great statues of the mastodon loxo in the corners. Slithering noises come from within the rubble, and three foul snakes slide forth to attack. They are clearly not entirely natural, as each of them has a head at each end of its body; However, they are little challenge to our heroes, and in but a few short moments they are dispatched.

“Those snakes are called amphisbaena,” comments Sonja. “But they look... warped somehow. Diseased. Befouled...” He frowns.

“The Bile Lords have been busy,” comments Horbin dryly.

Our heroes warily search the room, expecting the statues to animate at any moment. They don’t, and no new dangers reveal themselves. After a thorough search, Gerontius once again turns up a secret door. “Ze Bile Lords must be fond of zecret doors,” the air halfling chortles. “But zey cannot hide zem from me!”

This secret door leads directly into another chamber, this one somewhat cruder than most of those in the mountain so far. As the party moves into the room, they slow and their conversation stops. Sonja’s breath catches in his throat.

They have found the elephants’ graveyard.

Crude images of mastodon loxo of unknown antiquity are on the walls. The art looks much more primitive than other pieces the party has seen on this level of Bile Mountain. Bones are everywhere, yellow and white and stained brown. Huge elephantine skulls, with odd bifurcated trunk bones, are laid in piles. Great ribcages as wide as a wagon lay on the floor, splayed open like some odd mandala. Thigh bones and fingers, pelvises and vertebrae- the entire 80’ diameter room is full of bones.

“Wow,” whispers Sonja.

“Hey, let’s search this place! There could be loot!” Lester grins and moves into the room. He begins to rifle through the bones looking for anything interesting or valuable.

And as he handles the bones, his intentions insolent and defiling, the bones start moving. There is a terrific rattling sound as they drag themselves together, into a single shape- that of a long serpent composed of bones grinding against one another, with a huge loxo skull for a head! Its skeletal trunk breaks off and is absorbed by the main body of the gargantuan creature, churning and clattering. “Uh oh,” Lester comments.

The great bone thing strikes, snapping down at Thrush, and it bites him. The burly warrior braces himself and takes the blow, but to his surprise, it does more than just tear into his flesh. Instead, the bones in his body begin jerking towards the monster, trying to free themselves of his body! Thrush gives out a terrified scream, staggering weakly, and it chomps down on him again. The bones in his body quiver eagerly, visible through the meat and skin of his form, and Thrush screams again, sagging on his feet. He activates his boots of teleportation and zips over to Horbin.**

“Horbin,” he gasps, “help!”

The monster turns its attentions to the party’s dwarven monk. Chakar sees the thing coming, clattering forward towards him. It’s a mass of bony death headed right at him. The monk takes up a defensive stance and braces himself to try to resist the monster’s ability to subsume bones, and then its massive ‘jaws’ clamp down on him. He yells in pain as the bones in his arms try to pull themselves out of him!

“This is not good,” Horbin worries, healing Thrush. Meanwhile, Alcar has cast divine power and waded into the monster, smashing at it with his mace. The monster lashes back at the angel, and Alcar screams too. The monster’s deadly bone subsumption attack weakens him. But he grits his teeth- this undead beast needs to learn the lesson of Galador’s mercy! He strikes at it again, smashing bones to splinters. While it is distracted, Chakar manages to tumble away from it after a failed attempt at going ethereal.

Then Thrush and Inoke both step back into the melee, backing Alcar up. A moment later Chakar is moving back in as well, having had a brief moment with Horbin that put him back into the shape he needs to be in to fight this thing.

The creature stops for a moment and rears up. Suddenly it spews forth four mastodon loxo skeletons, which immediately animate and lurch to the attack, but the monster is simultaneously suffering a punishing series of blows from Alcar and Thrush. Then Inoke explodes to huge size and activates his chain of overwhelming force and, in a single monstrous blow, he cleaves through all four skeletons, shattering them! His next two blows are more than the entire serpent of bones can handle, and he casts it down in thousands of bony pieces!

“Wow, what was that?” wonders Thrush. “That thing was nasty.”

“I think it’s called a boneyard,” Horbin answers. “The animate spirit of a huge group of bones.”

“Nasty is right,” agrees Chakar with a groan. Horbin and Alcar quickly tend the wounded, magically restoring their bones to their proper places and healing the bloody cuts and tears that their friends have suffered. Then the party, led by Lester, resumes their search of the chamber. Before long they uncover the remains of a party of adventurers. They debate raising them, but after a fairly unproductive speak with dead they decide against it. Nonetheless, the remains of their gear includes a few magic items of no great power (a couple of potions, a wand of detect magic, and some low-powered chain mail and a glaive) and a sack of 400 gp.

“No wonder these guys couldn’t hack it in Bile Mountain!” Lester exclaims. “They were probably just some over-ambitious adventurers without the wisdom to realize that they were in over their heads.”

Sonja wrily adds, “Well, maybe we are too.”

Orbius and Sybele, meanwhile, are gathering up the loot. “It’s better than nothing,” admits Sybele. “We can sell most of the crap. And we can always use potions.”

By this time, Orbius and Lillamere have surveyed the rest of the level with their mystical eyes (at least, barring secret areas) and they report that there doesn’t appear to be anything else worth exploring. After a brief discussion of the merits of thoroughness, they search every room anyway, just to ensure that they haven’t missed any secret doors. Then they head to the stairs in the room with the great pool of bile, in which lies the corpse of the great bile beast.

And, as they head up the stairs, they find the one thing they missed: another pair of bile oozes.

Caustic acid sprays out, blasting Chakar and Inoke. Inoke manages to resist most of the damage thanks to his energy adaptation, but Chakar finds himself burnt fairly badly. Worse yet, he is stunned by the pain of the acid!

Inoke immediately draws his mace from his glove of storing and sets to making an impression on the oozes, using his sweeping strike to attack both of them at the same time. Thanks to his energy adaptation his mace resists being dissolved by the caustic fluid of the oozes. Flame strikes and arrows begin whizzing forward. Alcar shouts, “Watch out, they’ll destroy your stuff!” But he is too slow in his declaration, for one of the oozes blasts Wankerman with its caustic spray and dissolves both his armor- and his epic spear! He cries out in dismay as the weapon smokes, hisses and melts down to virtually nothing.

But our heroes hammer at the oozes. Inoke’s position and ability to strike both oozes each time he attacks, coupled with his near-immunity to their acidic touch and backed up by the spells of the party’s casters, is enough to smash the oozes into puddles of goop in less than thirty seconds.

“Damn it!” Wankerman curses. “Now I don’t have any armor!”

“Weren’t you armorless a great deal of the time anyhow?” asks Chakar.

“Yeah, but having armor is a lot better than not having armor,” Wankerman sighs. “Worse yet, it got my spear. That was most of my worth right there.”

“Maybe we should go back outside and open up the store,” Horbin suggests. “You could get some new armor and weapons, we could see some stuff...”

“We do have time constraints,” warns Baron Lillamere. “We need to attack the Bastion with enough time to overthrow it before they install the new Arrow of Law.”

“We have plenty of time,” Lester replies blithely.

“The longer they have to prepare for us,” Baron Lillamere responds, “the worse. This is Law, after all. They’re probably good at planning, you know.”

“At least they can’t tell what we’re doing while we’re in Bile Mountain,” remarks Horbin.

“But we need to go outside to access the store,” Wankerman insists. “I need a weapon and armor.” The others can hardly argue with that.

“Of course,” Lillamere grumbles. “But let’s keep on track.”

Out and then back in they go. Horbin’s portable store provides items of reasonable worth for Wankerman, and soon the party has returned to the stairs leading up. They move cautiously, but no more bile oozes show themselves at this time. The stairs ascend for about 30’, and then Lester (who is in the lead) bumps into what appears to be a wall of force.

“Allow me,” Lillamere says. He uses his argent savant ability to unbind the wall, dissolving it and allowing passage. Unfortunately, this also allows the gas that had been blocked by the wall to flow down and over the party. Only the heroes’ feast that they consumed earlier protects them.

Coughing and wheezing, our heroes ascend another ten feet and into a chamber come our heroes. The broken rubble of a great elephant-headed juggernaut is scattered around the room. Those who were part of the original expedition to Bile Mountain recongnize their handiwork. “We’ve been here before,” Orbius says with a nod.

But there is only an instant to admire the broken juggernaut, for on the room’s ceiling are two more of the nasty energy-draining thorciasids. They begin spitting their cocooning goo almost immediatley as Thrush rushes forward, but it slides off him ineffectually (thanks to his freedom of movement)! For the most part, the party begins moving forward, trying to gain the room. Baron Lillamere simply stays where he is and fires a volley of seeker missiles. Inoke tries to attain a good position, but he is surprised when the rubble of the juggernaut suddenly starts to move, smashing into him and swarming around him!

This battle goes on a little longer, but the end result is the same. The rubble swarm proves fairly potent, but it cannot survive against these heroes for long. It flows over many of them, crushing them, but a combined volley of magic and weapon blows focused on it for a few moments takes it out of the fight. The bugs are tough and dangerous, but Inoke comes up with the idea of using iron body (via a magic item) to render himself immune to both their ability drain and their energy drain. Soon the bugs are squished and the rubble swarm is pulverized.

After the battle is done, our heroes look around the room, and though there is no treasure, there are two doors out. Picking one, they open it to reveal a long hallway that sinks halfway down. At the end is a half-ruined door. In the chamber are more of the cockroach-like thorciasids, but these ones are covered in yellow froth. Bile drips from their mouths.

“I’ve got them!” Inoke calls, and steps into the hall and closes the door behind him. “While I’m in iron body form they pretty much can’t hurt me.” And he begins advancing on the bugs. There are five of them, one of which is significantly larger than the others. With a grin, Inoke begins pummeling. Bug juice sprays as he starts killing them. The thorciasids spit their goo at him, but his freedom of movement prevents it from affecting him. Their attacks, which are so deadly in that they drain energy and mutliple abilities, are useless against his iron body.

But the big bug demonstrates a disturbing level of intelligence. Quickly, it scurries back along the ceiling until it reaches the back end of the chamber. Then it opens the door behind it, and the vomit hounds come forth.

Next Time: A big battle! The return of Axon and Axel (and introducing Axar)- but in a quantity you might not expect! And a Bile Lord!!

*Thanks to a new spell of Orbius’ creation, diplomat’s tongue, Lester can speak without rhyming. At least as long as the spell lasts.

**At least on the lower levels of Bile Mountain, our heroes determined that limited teleportation is possible within areas (though they know they cannot ‘port up or down levels).

 

[the Jester]

All right, one more post and I'm caught up to where I was... after that I have to put in some work to get caught up to the game itself again!

Edit: D'oh! Never mind, turns out it's two posts after all.

Well, I'll try to post the last one tomorrow morning, then.

Edit 2: Oh, and the last post is really short. Hmm, maybe I'll actually add a new update to the end of that one, in which case it's prolly going to be tomorrow night before I post it.

 

[the Jester]

The vomit hounds are terrible to behold, and the stink that roils from them could blister paint. Matted fur caked with dried blood, bile and (literal) vomit encrusts the beasts. They move with feline grace, but thick dull scales line to their bodies beneath the disgusting fur, giving that first impression the lie. Behind each of the strange creatures, a long, thin tail whips back and forth. Their massive clawed paws flex and scratch at the bile-eaten floor. Their heads are horned, scaled and covered in clumps of fur. The foul stench coming from them reminds Inoke of vomit.

Over the telepathic link, Inoke calls, Hey guys, there’s something else coming out-

The beasts spray him with foul streams of burning vomit. He cries out in surprise as half of the damage proves to be divine, bypassing his energy defenses. It is shockingly powerful. The sprays of vomit wash over the thorciasids that led Inoke into the chamber, as well, and the bugs writhe and squeal, obviously harmed by the smoking, stinking vomit. Inoke winces and grits his teeth; then he takes a mighty swing and smashes one of the thorciasids still attacking him square in the center of its body! He puts his back into it and, with a series of blows taking only seconds, crushes the nasty roach-like thing. Then, utilizing a greater contingency bestowed upon him by Orbius, he activates a maximized extended Marius’ double actions and continues to squish the bugs. They are in his way: in the way of his reaching the vomit hounds, who had completely ignored their presence when spraying their vomit at Inoke.

Behind him, the door bangs opens. Lester stands squarely in the frame, calling out invocations to the elements, and a lightning-substituted meteor swarm blasts the biggest of the bugs directly in the thorax! Spells begin detonating left and right as the party steps up their attack. One of the vomit hounds surprises the party by growling at the thorciasids, “Attack, you stupid bugs!” But with the party as a whole attacking, the battle quickly turns in their favor. Sonja uses a reverse gravity to force the vomit hounds out of melee, and Alcar pounds the thorciasid leader to death. The party turns to the vomit hounds, to finish the battle.

Then there is another shift in the battle, as two familiar forms tumble into view- Axon and Axel!* Though our heroes destroyed them before, the wickedly-skilled nimblewrights appear to have been rebuilt or replaced. They spring into position smoothly, rapier-hands at the ready. There’s something funny about their faces, Sonja realizes, but what-

“Ahh, we already killed those guys!” Lester complains.

Then, from behind Axon and Axel, more figures come tumbling forth. They, too, spring into fighting stances. And they, too, prove to be... Axon and Axel. More tumble in-

“They’re numbered!” exclaims Sonja.

“Uh-oh,” says Gerontius.

“It’s some kind of new model!” exclaims Sybele.

“You know what these things are?” Chakar is nonplussed as an even dozen enemy nimblewrights begin advancing on our heroes.

Twelve, gulps Horbin, four Axons, four Axels and four... others. This could be tough. He cannot help but recall how deadly the originals were. Twelve.

The Axons and Axels move smoothly forward to attack. Those of the new third model- oh, heck, let’s just call them Axars- more or less hang back. As they press forward, Sonja notes the numbers riveted to their foreheads. There is Axel-1, but over there is Axon-7. There is Axar-12. To the left is Axon-19...

No more time for thinking. The nimblewrights join the battle.

Next Time: Enter: a Bile Lord! And we’ll be in new territory by the end of the next update!

*Axon and Axel were a pair of advanced nimblewrights that the party found in Bile Mountain in service to the Bile Lords. Back in 3.0, they had a threat range in the neighborhood of 6-20.

 

[the Jester]

Lester is already chanting, throwing his head back as he invokes a miracle to cast Marius’ deconstruction. In a flash of rust-colored light, Axel-6 falls into useless pieces.

“Get ‘em!” shouts Thrush, brandishing his sword and stepping menacingly towards the enemy.

Gerontius tumbles away from them. They’re constructs, he reasons, I can’t hurt them very much with my weapons. Then he grins. But I can use my ring of radiance to hit them with sunrays! And he proceeds to do so. While it is less effective than his customary skill with daggers, Diplomacy and Gerontius, it is certainly better than nothing.

Meanwhile, Orbius casts a spell, and it seems as though a prismatic sphere appears instantly above the nimblewrights, and they tumble upwards in the area of a reverse gravity. The truth, of course, is that he magically halted time for a moment in order to effect these spells; and now, as four of the nimblewrights- all of the Axars, in fact- impact the deadly sphere and turn to stone, the Eye hits another one of them with a Marius’ deconstruction and Axel-8 explodes into tangled wire and metal plates!

The Axons and Axels that remain hurry forward, dancing and tumbling adroitly. They mob Thrush and Lester, stabbing and pricking them multiple times. The two heroes groan with pain, but they are among the toughest mortals on Cydra. A few flesh wounds won’t even slow them down! Even less so, once Horbin casts a mass heal to restore them both to health.

With burgeoning confidence, our heroes continue to tear into the nimblewrights. Baron Lillamere disintegrates one, while Lester invokes his wrath of the elements against the constructs. More of them fall, and the party pours it on. The constructs are mostly defeated, but then more foes issue forth suddenly! Another of the bile thorciasids scuttles in across the ceiling, followed quickly by a scowling dwarf in full plate and a shield, with a wicked-looking axe. Behind him, a sick-looking man steps into the chamber, and both Horbin and Alcar gasp, for the man bears the trappings of a cleric of Bleak, the arch-enemy of the Light!

And then, a horrid reek presages the coming of Tamult the Bile Lord. He enters the room, ten feet tal, withered with age. His skin is yellow and drips disgusting yellow bile like sweat. Only small patches of hair remain on his head, and he looks almost skeletally thin. The hideous creature is surrounded by a cloud of noxious yellow gas.

“Kill them, my minions!” he rasps, and with a snarl on his withered lips, he casts the epic spell Tamult’s assault.

Nobody even sees the halfling.

***

Darkhold

In a place beyond time and space- a place outside of Nature itself- three or five (depending on how you count them) beings of extraordinary power meet. They are all quite concerned. Once, all three (or five) of them were mortals. Now, they are gods. It has been eons since things changed, but they still all have poignant memories of a time before. They remember things even the very god of knowledge himself cannot recall. As mortals, they dwelt in a time so long past that there are no records remaining (save perhaps within Darkhold itself), a time before the very multiverse that Cydra is but a part of.

“I’m telling you,” the first one says, “something is terribly wrong. The Master is concerned.” He appears to be an elf, with eyes o’ gold and hair o’ silver. He smiles, or rather smirks, constantly. He is accompanied by a pair of red-eyed, depressed-looking brownies. His name is Froth, and he is a god of things most foul: necrophilia, rape, cowardice. Redeeming features? What are those? Well, he is a god nonetheless, empowered by Darkhold as are the other two (or four).

The Master he speaks of is not his master, of course. Froth admits to no master. No, he speaks of the very architect of Cydra itself- the Master of Darkhold.

“Have you seen him lately?” asks the second. “I haven’t been able to find him for quite a while.” Zelman is his name, and he is lord of illusions, called the Emerald Mage. He looks like a man with emerald skin and blue hair. He in thin of build and wears a black cloak behind rich clothing of blue and green. The jewels decorating him are mostly emeralds. He is circled by nearly a dozen ioun stones. His staff, he has let out to Thimbleton, an adventurer to whom all three (or five) of these deities owe their freedom. He glances at the third member- or, perhaps, members- of their group. “Have even you seen him lately?”

“No,” the first of the triplet Garnet sisters answers. “But I have a feeling I know what he’s up to.” Her face wears a tragic look. She has golden hair and violet eyes. A silver rose clasps her cloak closed at her breast. She is dressed in fine silver armor and is well-armed. Her two sisters bear less armor and weaponry; one of them, in fact, wears only simple robes clasped with a silver rose and carries nothing else.

“This has everything to do with that damned Scytale, doesn’t it?” Froth groans. “He did something that let one of them through.”

“Not exactly,” the second Garnet- the one lightly armored- answers. Her name is Sabine. Like her sister Amethyst, she wears a cloak clasped with a silver rose. “Scytale didn’t do it directly.”

“What did he do?” asks Zelman.

“He taught one of the Cydrans a little bit more than was... wise. This human, naturally enough, used what he had learned. He tried to go back in time. I don’t know whether Scytale tricked him or he just got ambitious, but...”

“Didn’t the Master set it up so that time travel was impossible on Cydra?”

Froth interjects, “Yeah, but we are talking about Scytale here.”

“We are also,” the armored Garnet- named Amethyst- points out, “talking about the Master of Darkhold.”

“Well, we know that something came through from the very end of the old universe,” sighs Froth. “So it looks like Scytale managed to win that round.”

“There is really only one thing that could have come through,” Zelman says grimly. “We all know that. At the end- just before Tharizdun ate Nature- there were only a few surviving things. And we know what they were.”

A silence descends upon them for a few moments. A sense of dread grows. They all hesitate to name it, but finally, reluctantly, Froth whispers, “The Angels of the Apocalypse.”

***

Bile Mountain

Alcar reels back from Tamult’s assault. He feels many of the spells and wards on him dissipate in an instant, and then the spell blasts him with furious energy! Fortunately, his innate spell resistance protects him from the damage, and then he feels a swift ego whip slap off of the mind blank that Orbius cast upon him earlier in the day.

Thrush cuts down another Axel, shouting, “Come on, take them!” There is just a hint of fear in his voice at the sight of one of his former masters. Still, he does not hesitate; he just moves in as quickly as he can towards the Bile Lord.

Orbius, meanwhile, is using time stop and Marius’ double actions to try to maximize his efficiency. He uses both some new spells that he developed with Bile Mountain specifically in mind (such as anti-bile cloud) as well as some old favorites (such as meteor swarm).

Alcar moves to intercept the priest of Bleak, filled with righteous rage at the very sight of him. A quickened flame strike on him reveals that he is protected from fire (although the divine half of the damage gets through). The evil cleric grins wickedly and brandishes his mace. “I’m going to take you apart!” he barks. Suddenly Lester passes up out of the earth behind him and blasts him with a polar ray modified by his rod of energy substitution to fire lightning instead. The beam catches Melgin Lostway squarely in the back, and the Bleakist looks surprised for a moment as brilliant blue arcs of electricity sizzle through him- and then, without a word, he dies.

“Oh yeah!” exclaims Lester. “I got him!” He grins and gives Alcar a thumbs-up.

Suddenly the halfling becomes visible, with her knife stuck in Lester. But because of his fortification, it barely hurts him! His would-be assassin gives a cry of dismay. Our heroes gape for a split second.

She has two heads.

Sybele, meanwhile, uses control sound to try to prevent Tamult the Bile Lord from casting spells. Sonja casts a reverse gravity, sending him to the ceiling. Simultaneously, Lillamere begins pitting his spells against the dwarven warrior coming to slay him. Then the thorciasid bursts forth from the anti-bile cloud and touches Gerontius, siphoning his life force. The invisible blade cries out in pain and anger and then begins a whirling array of cuts and stabs.

Horbin glares at Tamult. “We’re going to kill you again, in the name of Dexter!” he cries. Tamult only sneers. But then Horbin casts a quickened lower resistance and Tamult’s sneer falters.

Alcar and Lester, meanwhile, are dueling with the two-headed halfling. Their dance ends abruptly, however, when Alcar swings his mace into her chest hard enough that he bursts her heart. She collapses, dead.

“I think things are going against you, Bile Lord!” Thrush calls from where he has moved to engage the dwarf.

“Traitor,” Tamult growls from the ceiling. “You’ll get yours, never fear.”

“I think not,” retorts Orbius, and he unloads on Tamult. A quickened puncture, and empowered bile ray, and another anti-bile cloud blast out (thanks to Marius’ double actions). It is more than the Bile Lord can take. He falls!

Then it is just a matter of mopping up. Thrush finishes the dwarf in short order- he is the foremost swordsman of his age, after all- and a combined magical and physical array finally slays the bile thorciasid as well.

Our heroes remain tense for a few minutes, expecting more attackers at any moment, but none come. While several party members keep watch, the others begins stripping the valuables from the battle site. Almost immediately, Horbin exclaims, “That’s my helmet!” He grabs the helm in question and stares at it in shock. “I’m keeping it.”

“You lost it when you all died in here?” asks Chakar. He nods.

“Hmm. Well, we’ll count that as your first treasure pick,” suggests Lester.

“Well, we’re pretty wounded. Let’s gather the loot and go away- maybe back to Sigil- and rest, identify and split up loot.” Baron Lillamere glances at the others. None of them naysay him. Therefore they gather their treasure and any other sundry objects they choose and head downstairs to exit the mountain for a time.

But they will be back fairly shortly.

Next Time: A week in Sigil!

 

[the Jester]

9 p.m., Sigil, the City of Doors

Upon reaching Sigil, the adventurers quickly identify- via analyze dweomer and the portable store- the items that they have acquired from their most recent series of battles. When all is said and done, our heroes are impressed with the number and variety of magic items that they looted from the Bile Lord Tamult and his followers. There are potions and oils, rings and weapons, belts and cloaks. The real prize- taken, of course, from Tamult himself- is a ring of epic wizardry that doubles spells of the sixth valence.

“That is a potent item,” Lillamere says. Orbius nods.

The party traditionally divides treasure by rolling dice to see what order people choose items in; thus it is that the ring goes to neither Orbius nor Lillamere- but to Gerontius! Grinning, he tells them, “Perhaps we can arrange a trade, eh?”

There are several other items of interesting nature, including a cloak of halflingkind (which apparently increases the wearer’s skill in climbing, jumping, sneaking and swimming. There are also two unusual ioun stones (which Thrush ends up with) that give airy water and feather fall effects to him. The evil cleric that the party slew also had a +5 unholy mace, which Lester ends up with although Alcar and Horbin urge him to destroy it.

The party next discusses the idea of filing an injunction against Law. I don’t know if that would stop them, Horbin muses telepathically, but it might at least slow them down.

Lester brings up the Eyebrarian’s time dilation demiplane. “We could use some subjective time,” he states with a smile. But when the party sends to the Eyebrarian asking whether they might use it, they are disheartened by the response.

It is not safe. Marius has raided it and laid many traps. He will be alerted if you go.

“Damn!” swears Horbin. “I want to take some time to make some magic items.”

“We don’t have a whole lot of time,” Gerontius points out. He adds telepathically, We have to go raid the Bastion soon, too.

We should finish Bile Mountain first, Lester declares.

We have already agreed on a time frame, Lillamere projects insistently.

I’m with the Baron, Sybele sends. I’m going when we agreed to go.

Lester shrugs. “All right,” he says doubtfully.

Meanwhile, Horbin takes Inoke off to the side for a moment for a private conversation. “Inoke,” he says, “I’d like to offer you the position of Defender of the Faith of Western Dorhaus.”

“Well, it sounds good in theory. But- uh- what does this position entail?”

“Well, you just kind of have to be available to defend the faith. Frankly, you’re mostly a symbol. But a symbol can be very powerful.”

***

Over the next week, Lester gets corporate sponsorship (being paid to wear the patch of a company in Sigil for a year). Inoke acquires and reads a tome of understanding +4. And, of course, Orbius does some divining. Unfortunately, he doesn’t discern much immediately useful information. He does learn the name of a powerful enemy of the the Arrows of Law- Jibber Jr. Hmm, he muses, Jibber was a singing slaad... I wonder if this could be his offspring?[/i]

Gerontius, Orbius and Lester take a trip to the Glen Lands, home of the halflings on Valonia. They are being persecuted by orcs wielding terrifying sunpowder-based weaponry. Gerontius and the rest of the party have previously made attempts to persuade them to abandon Valonia and come to Dorhaus, which is still very sparsely settled since the Fuligin Years (when Fuligin and his fiendish armies destroyed everything they could that was not evil for slightly over a century). However, on this trip they find that Zenvo Delais, a charismatic halfling that they met briefly on one previous occasion, has been rallying the halflings to stay and fight!

Lester shrugs. “You can’t blame them for wanting to defend their homes.”

“Ahh, but I was hoping... well, perhaps some of them will come, now or later, before the orcs attack them again.” Gerontius sighs philosophically. “There are so many orcs, and even if we kill a thousand there are millions more.”

“I’m sure we’ll come up with something,” Lester smiles.

***

Then there was the issue of the salesman. It came to Inoke’s attention that a salesman who had dealt with him had been murdered. With Orbius’ divinatory assistance, he found that the murderers were devils, but could not discern who had sent them.

Then it’s time to go back into the mountain.

Next Time: Back into Bile Mountain!

 

[the Jester]

9/5/371 O.L.G., 10 a.m., near Bile Mountain, Pesh

Half a mile from the base of Bile Mountain, our heroes arrive in a burst of teleportative magic. They spend a few moments casting a thick layer of buffing and protective magic on themselves. To anyone able to see magical auras, they would glimmer and gleam and glow. Cloaked by abjurations, enhanced by spells and psionics, wrapped in magical enhancements, they begin moving towards the entrance to the mountain. Following the river to it, they enter the great passage that runs to the heart of the mountain. As they pass out of daylight and into darkness, the stink of Bile Mountain begins to slowly build around them.

“What’s our next move?” wonders Thrush.

As they walk, the party begins discussing that very question (mostly telepathically). Thrush insists that they should clean out each level before moving on; Lester proposes heading straight for the top. On the whole, the group agrees with Thrush, and so the party continues its methodical approach, flying and climbing stairs up towards the area in which they fought Tamult.

“I wonder if they’ve brought him back already,” muses Orbius.

“Probably,” Lester says grumpily. “And if not, they sure will have by the time we’re done with this level.”

“We killed him once,” Chakar replies, “we can kill him again. And the next time we meet him, he won’t have his wonderful equipment.”

“Speaking of wonderful equipment,” Orbius says to Gerontius, “what are you planning on doing with that ring of wizardry? I would like to offer to buy it off of you.”

“Perhaps,” the halfling responds, “you could make me a suitable magic item in trade, eh?”

Orbius strokes his chin. As the two of them begin negotiating, Lillamere sends out another group of prying eyes out ahead of the party to make sure that nothing has moved to block their advance in the ten days since last they came to Bile Mountain. Indeed- nothing has. Not yet. They’ve had a week, though, he muses. We waited too long. We gave them too much time to prepare for us.

The party takes a moment to debate where to go. “There are some crawling heads up that way,” says Lillamere, gesturing to indicate the direction he means.

“Crawling heads!” exclaims Alcar. “Let’s destroy them! They are undead abominations.”

The party agrees that, since they will have to destroy them sooner or later, it might as well be sooner, and so they advance down the hall that Baron Lillamere has indicated. A gaping opening on their right leads to a chamber that does, indeed house a quartet of undead, giant heads, crawling along a base of ribbons of raw muscle and tendrils of viscera. They are destroyed in an instant by an empowered, maximized holy blast from Alcar. The explosion of holy energy is sufficient to annihilate them all before they even have a chance to act!

“That’s right, have some Galador!” snaps Alcar.

The party bemusedly searches the chamber. They find two gold teeth in the crawling heads’ collective mouths, a single silver hoop earring carved into an oriental-style dragon of some kind (apparently of cloud giant make) dangling from a half-rotten ear and a huge tiger eye gem that replaced a lost eye for one of the heads. None of it is magical.

“All right,” Chakar says, “what now?”

“We should perform a thorough search,” says Gerontius. “We have only taken the obvious. Zere may be secret doors or hidden things that we have missed in the rooms we have so far examined.”

They all agree that this seems like a good idea, and soon they have turned up not one, but two secret doors. The first- in the room in which the party fought the rubble swarm- leads to a room that Horbin blushes to remember. It is full of old-looking but comfortable cushions. The tingle of an enchantment slides off of the mind blanks that everyone is wearing.

“Oh yeah,” mutters Horbin. “Uh, there’s nothing in there.”

“There’s magic,” Orbius says.

“Yeah,” Horbin nods. “It’s an effect of the room. It promotes, um, lasciviousness. We’ve searched it before.”

Sybele pipes up, “Isn’t that when you and, um, the fiery priestess of the time goddess, you know-”

“Yeah, yeah,” Horbin interrupts, “whatever.” He looks embarrassed. “Besides, that is nothing compared to the whale incident.”*

The second secret door, which is in the hallway outside, leads to a 25’ square chamber. A single massive stone table with two braziers holding unburnt incense is faced by a huge stone chair. In the center of the table is a crystal orb seated in a cushion of velvet. Orbius glances at it with his permanent detect magic and there is a pop and crackle. Suddenly Orbius staggers back as magical feedback surges into his brain.

“I think it’s a trap,” he winces. “That thing has a feedback spell laid into it.”

“Let’s just leave it alone, then,” Inoke suggests, and the party agrees. They take a moment- once again- to decide what path they will take next. After a moment’s quick discussion, they realize that they seem to have explored the entire place except for one door. “Well,” Inoke says wryly, “that makes our decision easy.”

So the party throws open the final door. Beyond it is a hallway that runs about 20’ before coming to a four-way intersection. The party advances to the intersection and looks each direction. Directly ahead, five feet past the intersection, is a door. To the right, the hallway stretches off into the darkness. Chakar’s darkvision can just make out some rubble towards the limits of his range. Left, the hall is broken and descends into a pool of bile and a large mound of rubble that blocks passage.

“What do you guys think?” asks Inoke.

“Left...” Sybele frowns. “We usually go left first, but left is blocked in this case.”

“We could probably blast or dig through it pretty easily,” Lester opines.

“It might take a lot of our resources, though,” Baron Lillamere replies. “Let’s get back to this area.”

“Yeah, if we can’t get through it, it stands to reason that anything on the other side can’t come through to us either. Let’s take out the stuff that will be behind us.” Thrush smiles. “You know, more and more I’m looking forward to killing the Bile Lords again.”

The party opens the door first. It leads to a room holding a broad pool of bile in it. “Ick,” says Sonja bleakly. There are no exits, no obvious treasure, and no monsters. Our heroes close the door and decide to search it thoroughly later.

To the right, down the long passage, our heroes find the rubble that Chakar saw. It is the broken remains of a think door. “I think we were here before,” mutters Horbin. Beyond the broken door is a cell block.

“Watch out!” says Orbius suddenly.

All of the cell doors are flung open from within, and terrible creatures begin springing forth. Clearly undead, their skin is cloaked in the pallor of death. Long, snake-like necks extend above powerful, bat-winged bodies.

“Aags!” cries Inoke.

One of the cells issues forth more than one aag, until there are a total of ten in the room! The undead rush forward, screeching and laughing horrifically. But then Lester pulls out the wand of days, taken way back in the City That Waits, Moil. With a grin, he shouts, “How do you like this, aags??” A blaze of brilliant solar radiance emits from the wand, and four of the aags shriek and die in an instant.

Thrush, Gerontius and Inoke begin pounding the aags, while Alcar unloads a quickened empowered flame strike. He shouts a quick thanks to Lester and Orbius; they have loaned him a couple of metamagic rods, with which his powers are even greater than before. He grins in satisfaction as three of the aags burn to ash.

***

Heaven

“It is done,” breathes the artisan angel Ainon.

“Well done, my brother,” nods the Archangel Gabriel. “His features are perfect.”

“I am honored to be of service,” Ainon answers, “though I am very sorry that it had to be for such a reason.”

“The aleax must have its features chiseled to match the offender. It is a part of how things are done.”

“Of course, of course. I only feel sorrow that there is an offender at all.”

“Ahh,” Gabriel replies, “I take your meaning now.” He sighs. “Yes, I do too. He showed such potential, for a mortal. Given time and patience, he could have been a great angel. But he has fallen very low in my eyes now. He has killed agents of the Light, paladins even! And worse...”

“Worse?” prods Ainon.

Gabriel sighs. “He is casting spells, but Galador has not been granting him them.”

Next Time: The Headless Guardians!

*Horbin once had an adventure involving a whale’s marital aids, in which he had to help the whale, er “prepare” itself for donning the marital aid. The full story is here.

 

[Knightfall]

I'm glad you're caught up, J. And that last bit, in Heaven, was an excellent touch. - KF72

 

[the Jester]

Well, I'm actually about seven games behind, depending on how you look at it. In terms of this particular party, however, I am about 4.25 games behind.

 

[the Jester]

Revenge on Bile Mountain (pt. 4)!

The ashen remains of the aags lay at our heroes’ feet. Alcar smiles in satisfaction. It only took a few moments to defeat the undead. Our heroes are beginning to feel somewhat more confident in Bile Mountain as they overcome challenge after challenge.

“We can take them!” proclaims Lester. “We should just go right to the top and hit the Bile Lords now!”

“No way!” Thrush protests. “We don’t want to leave all kinds of enemies behind us that we might have to fight our way through if we’re trying to retreat. I’ve been trapped in that mountain before, and it’s not happening again!”

“Regardless of our plan of attack,” Gerontius intercedes, “we should search zis area first, and see if ze aags had any treasure.”

Within the cell that spewed forth a half dozen aags, the party finds a secret door behind a loose stone. The reek of the undead aags permeates the passage revealed beyond. Following this ragged passage, our heroes come to a small hidden area. Within it is the shriveled husk of some form of large humanoid creature.

“I remember that guy!” exclaims Lester. “We met him here before.”

“Yes, he was despondent,” Orbius replies. “I believe he was a devourer- a type of undead that imprisons and consumes souls in order to feed their powers. He had no ‘fuel’ to burn, and had been starving for a soul for a long time when we found him.”

No further interesting items are in the chamber, so the party turns back and returns to the cell block. “I guess it’s time to search the rest of the areas we haven’t searched,” Sybele sighs.

“And there is that passage that is blocked by rubble,” points out Chakar.

“It would take hours or days to get through that!” Thrush exclaims, shaking his head.

“Nah,” Lester says.

***

11:30 a.m.

As the party begins moving towards the areas they have not yet searched, Thrush pulls Orbius aside.

“Hey, I was wondering if you could do me a favor,” Thrush says nervously.

“Maybe. What do you need?”

“Could you enlarge me again? Permanently, I mean?”

Orbius frowns. “I could, but...”

“Oh, come on, man!” Thrush glances over at Sybele, who towers over most of the group. “I need to be bigger to, uh, take care of her,” he mumbles.

Orbius sighs. “Not today, but later.”

“Thank you!” Thrush claps him on the shoulder. “I appreciate it!”

“No problem,” Orbius answers, embarrassed.

The party reaches the room with the pool of bile in it. The chamber is full of the acrid, biting stink of the bile. The pool lies placid and undisturbed; our heroes glance at it nervously, wondering if some terrible creature will lurk within it. But nothing comes out of it as they begin searching, so- although they keep an eye on it- their fears prove unfounded.

They do, however, find yet another secret door. The place seems to be riddled with them. “Be careful!” warns Baron Lillamere as Lester moves up to open the door.

“I hope it’s another Bile Lord!” declares Lester, and pushes on the edge of the secret door. It swings open- and a group of bizarre headless creatures tumble into view! They cartwheel end over end and it is very difficult to tell the difference between their hands and their feet.

Perhaps there is no difference; for as the headless creatures tumble in, they seem able to attack with all their limbs, hopping from one to another as they launch punches or kicks. They are tricky fighters, too, attempting trips and disarms. A few attempt stunning fist attacks with blows to the temple or the nose. When they start using the quivering palm technique, Chakar warns the party over the telepathic link: These creatures are skilled monks! They move with incredible speed, and it is unclear exactly how many of them there are at first; when the party finally pins down the number, it is eight.

But as skilled as they are, the headless monks cannot equal the might of our heroes. Gerontius’ daggers are like flickering from place to place, leaving red marks behind them. Inoke, Alcar and Thrush smash their foes before them. Lester and Horbin expend spells that damage all of the headless. Finally, Gerontius defeats the last one. Taking stock of themselves, our heroes find that, though wounded, they are not badly wounded. A few moments of the ministrations of Alcar and Horbin, and they are as good as new. Then a search of the Spartan chamber beyond the secret door- the lair of the headless- turns up nothing of interest. The monks themselves, on the other hand, are well-outfitted. Each has a magical robe, belt, ring and amulet.

“This could be a pretty nice haul, depending on what these are,” Lester opines.

“Now what?” asks Horbin.

“All that’s left,” says Thrush, “is that obstructed passage.”

“All right, let’s do it,” says Lester.

“Do you have a way to get us past it?” asks Chakar. “I have seen you pass through earth and stone; can you allow us to do so as well, or something?”

“No, but I can move earth,” the L explains. “Hey, I’m the god of adventure! I have to be able to get to adventure.”*

Inoke snorts.

Nonetheless, the party moves back to the rubble-filled passageway. “This may take a while to get through,” Lester tells them, and begins casting move earth. Slowly the rubble is pushed aside and behind them, taking out of the way, and the passage is cleared. It takes about ten minutes. Then, before the party heads down, Orbius sends an arcane eye to scout out the situation. “There are some sort of creatures in there,” he says. “They sort of remind of a reptile, but also kind of a cat. I am not sure what they are.” After a brief pause, he adds, “There are two of them, plus a third- with three heads.”

“Are they bile creatures?” groans Horbin.

“They don’t appear to be,” answers Orbius. “Besides, we have a bile shield on anyway.”

“Well, then let’s go get them!” exclaims Lester.

The party advances.

Next Time: The party against a group of sirrushes!

*Lester is taking levels in the divine ascendant epic prestige class. He hopes to become a god someday. It will be interesting to see where this leads.