Bryon_Soulweaver
First Post
What are there levels at this pont and currently?
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NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
(Cydra) Great Conflicts
- Thread starter the Jester
- Start date
the Jester
Legend
At this point in the story, the party's levels are:
Gerontius- male air halfling rogue 16/invisible blade 5/fighter 4/halfling paragon 1
Sybele- female human fighter 8/psion 15/warrior of chaos 4
Sonja- male human druid 18
Inoke- male human ex-barbarian 2/psychic warrior 2/fighter 8/warmind 14
Lester- male half-elf elementalist 14/warrior of chaos 4/divine oracle 2/contemplative 2/paraelementalist 1/heirophant 1/aestherite 1
Lillamere- male elf sorcerer 20/argent savant 5
Alcar- male half-celestial wood elf fighter 2/cleric 17
Chakar- male dwarf monk 21
Horbin- male human cleric 26
As for where they're at now- well, let's just say that the party has gained a few levels, collectively speaking, since then.
Gerontius- male air halfling rogue 16/invisible blade 5/fighter 4/halfling paragon 1
Sybele- female human fighter 8/psion 15/warrior of chaos 4
Sonja- male human druid 18
Inoke- male human ex-barbarian 2/psychic warrior 2/fighter 8/warmind 14
Lester- male half-elf elementalist 14/warrior of chaos 4/divine oracle 2/contemplative 2/paraelementalist 1/heirophant 1/aestherite 1
Lillamere- male elf sorcerer 20/argent savant 5
Alcar- male half-celestial wood elf fighter 2/cleric 17
Chakar- male dwarf monk 21
Horbin- male human cleric 26
As for where they're at now- well, let's just say that the party has gained a few levels, collectively speaking, since then.
the Jester
Legend
The entry chamber has two doors and a hallway that lead out of it. Inoke kicks a crushed thorciasid corpse out of the way and opens one of the doors. Behind it is another passage. Meanwhile, Orbius casts a mass bestowed mirror image that affects the entire party. Simultaneously, some of Baron Lillamere’s prying eyes return to him and he reports that the hallway turns after some distance. “There’s also a door. I’m going to send some eyes down under it and see what’s beyond it.”
“No reason to wait,” reasons Sybele. “Let’s keep exploring!”
“Yeah, but let’s make sure we don’t leave any enemies behind us,” Thrush cautions. “The last thing we need is to end up trapped in here again.” He shudders. “I already lost a decade to this damn place!”*
The party moves down the passage beyond the door that Inoke has opened. Even as they do so, another set of Lillamere’s prying eyes return to him. “Up ahead we’ve got some kind of fungus-filled chamber,” he warns. Indeed, on the right, an opening grants access to another room, one largely filled with a riot of fungal matter.
“Didn’t we see this when we were here before?” muses Alcar.
“Yes,” Orbius replies. “We burned much of it away, but... obviously new things have grown.”
“Burnt fungus is a good growth medium for more fungus,” nods Sonja.
The party discusses simply walking across the room, but they are wary of fungal material. It takes a pair of fire storms to eradicate the fungi, and then the party moves safely across to the other side of the chamber, where a stone arch allows egress to another room. “It’s full of fungus, too,” Inoke announces as he reaches it.
“Well,” Alcar says, “we could- WATCH OUT!!”
Among the fungi in the next room, a pair of particularly large, foul growths are starting to writhe and move. Before they can attack, Alcar blasts them with a pair of flame strikes, one of them quickened. The outer coating of the three apparent “fungi” are blasted and burned away- revealing strange stalagmite-like creatures with hungry maws and long flailing strands beneath a thick coat of now-burnt fungal growths! The monsters each have a single huge yellowed eye and a gaping, sharp-toothed maw. They shiver with rage. They are covered in burns, and they seep bile.
Bile ropers! cries Lester over the party’s telepathic link. Help, get up here! he urges the rest of the group. Then, using a metamagic rod of electrical substitution, Lester fires an electric strike at the monsters, and it hurts them; and, wary of the strands of the ropers, he follows it with a quickened freedom of movement.
Then two of the ropers attack, knocking out most of Lester’s mirror images in an instant. The third one breathes out a gob of bile that explode alls around the party. Disgusting yellowish fluid, thick with froth and unidentifiable chunks, splatters the front ranks.
After a stunned second, they erupt in cheers. “It worked!” cries Orbius. “My bile shield worked!!”
Indeed- for among his tactics in approaching Bile Mountain again, Orbius spent some time researching a spell specifically to guard against this very thing. He cast it on the party as they prepared their approach to Bile Mountain. But this- this is its first real test. And it worked!**
Surmising that the others have the situation firmly in hand, Orbius (slightly jealous over Lillamere’s prying eyes) casts an arcane eye and sends it out to scout ahead as fireballs burst in the background.
Meanwhile, Chakar uses his abundant step ability to move in on the two remaining ropers, hitting one of them with the Weakening Touch technique. It dies under an onslaught of Sybele’s large arrows. Then another fireball from Lester- and the final bile roper is dead.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Inoke blusters.
Thrush frowns at him. “Don’t worry, there will be worse.”
***
“Okay, further ahead we have some kind of golem and a big nasty pool of bile, in which there is no doubt a monster. There are stairs leading up out of there.”
“Closer to the Bile Lords,” Horbin murmurs.
“I’ll send some eyes up there. Back and continuing down the corridor we followed from the entry room with the thorciasids, there are a bunch of empty rooms. There is some kind of meeting hall or something, though.” Lillamere pauses. “If we go back to the original entryway, we can also go into a room with no obvious exits or down the hallway I mentioned earlier that ends in a door.” He frowns, looking somewhat disturbed. “The eyes saw- there was some kind of, of thing down there. I think it’s sending out extremely tiny eyes.” He shakes his head. “It’s like they dissolved out of its body. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Fascinating,” Orbius murmurs; his arcane eye is headed that way!
“Also, it seems to have some mithral golems with it.”
Gerontius exclaims in dismay. “I hate golems!”
“Let’s take care of the clay golem first,” suggests Chakar.
And so the party walks down the passage through a chamber full of what appears to be the rubble of several destroyed golems in elephantine shape. “Loxo,” Orbius declares. “Some kind of dire loxo once dwelled on the lower levels of this mountain. We found ample evidence for them when we were here before.”
They proceed on through the room and into another hallway, following Lillamere’s sure steps. Another 30’ and they enter a giant chamber lined with massive columns supporting a high ceiling 20’ overhead. A large clay statue carved in the likeness of a warrior stands in the chamber. The party expects it to be some terribly powerful thing, but it turns out to be just a regular old clay golem, and it is destroyed in but a moment.
“There’s also some kind of weird ooze,” Baron Lillamere reports, as more eyes return to share what they’ve seen. “It looks almost like it’s made of bile.”
“That can’t be good,” Sybele pipes up. “Oozes are bad news.”
Hey, are we adventurers or what? Lester calls over the link. Let’s adventure!
All right, replies Chakar telepathically, but where to?
The party discusses the question for a few short moments, and then they decide: to the big pool of bile. They march back to the room with the ruined golems, then follow one of the other passages. Along the way they open a side door and see a great hole smashed out from the ground, through the remains of a privy. Down below is the skeleton of Yungo, the otyugh barbarian our heroes fought here on their first foray into this accursed mountain.
Leaving Yungo’s body unmolested, the party continues towards the pool of bile. The passage soon enough opens into a room about 40’ on a side. It seems as though the stone of the mountain has somehow settled in one direction, for somewhat over half the chamber is slicked over by a great pool of bile.
“Watch out for chuuls,” warns Alcar. A chuul killed him when he was here before- albeit near the very top of the mountain, much higher into the dungeons of the Bile Lords.
As the party moves towards the pool, Orbius cries, “There is something in there! See, a form arises!” And a gigantic, hideous monster- combining the worst features of hound and lizard- draws itself up from its disgusting pool, rivulets of yellow and dark brown fluid pouring from it.
And it barfs out a cone of acid.***
Next Time: Our heroes fight a nasty bile beast! Plus: more on that ‘pillar of flesh’ thingie that’s sending out eyeballs! Oh, and who wants to see the ooze in action??
*The party originally met Thrush when he was serving the Bile Lords after being trapped in the uppermost level of Bile Mountain for years.
**Heh heh heh... no one suffered any con damage or acid damage from the breath weapon, anyway.
***106 points of acid damage.
“No reason to wait,” reasons Sybele. “Let’s keep exploring!”
“Yeah, but let’s make sure we don’t leave any enemies behind us,” Thrush cautions. “The last thing we need is to end up trapped in here again.” He shudders. “I already lost a decade to this damn place!”*
The party moves down the passage beyond the door that Inoke has opened. Even as they do so, another set of Lillamere’s prying eyes return to him. “Up ahead we’ve got some kind of fungus-filled chamber,” he warns. Indeed, on the right, an opening grants access to another room, one largely filled with a riot of fungal matter.
“Didn’t we see this when we were here before?” muses Alcar.
“Yes,” Orbius replies. “We burned much of it away, but... obviously new things have grown.”
“Burnt fungus is a good growth medium for more fungus,” nods Sonja.
The party discusses simply walking across the room, but they are wary of fungal material. It takes a pair of fire storms to eradicate the fungi, and then the party moves safely across to the other side of the chamber, where a stone arch allows egress to another room. “It’s full of fungus, too,” Inoke announces as he reaches it.
“Well,” Alcar says, “we could- WATCH OUT!!”
Among the fungi in the next room, a pair of particularly large, foul growths are starting to writhe and move. Before they can attack, Alcar blasts them with a pair of flame strikes, one of them quickened. The outer coating of the three apparent “fungi” are blasted and burned away- revealing strange stalagmite-like creatures with hungry maws and long flailing strands beneath a thick coat of now-burnt fungal growths! The monsters each have a single huge yellowed eye and a gaping, sharp-toothed maw. They shiver with rage. They are covered in burns, and they seep bile.
Bile ropers! cries Lester over the party’s telepathic link. Help, get up here! he urges the rest of the group. Then, using a metamagic rod of electrical substitution, Lester fires an electric strike at the monsters, and it hurts them; and, wary of the strands of the ropers, he follows it with a quickened freedom of movement.
Then two of the ropers attack, knocking out most of Lester’s mirror images in an instant. The third one breathes out a gob of bile that explode alls around the party. Disgusting yellowish fluid, thick with froth and unidentifiable chunks, splatters the front ranks.
After a stunned second, they erupt in cheers. “It worked!” cries Orbius. “My bile shield worked!!”
Indeed- for among his tactics in approaching Bile Mountain again, Orbius spent some time researching a spell specifically to guard against this very thing. He cast it on the party as they prepared their approach to Bile Mountain. But this- this is its first real test. And it worked!**
Surmising that the others have the situation firmly in hand, Orbius (slightly jealous over Lillamere’s prying eyes) casts an arcane eye and sends it out to scout ahead as fireballs burst in the background.
Meanwhile, Chakar uses his abundant step ability to move in on the two remaining ropers, hitting one of them with the Weakening Touch technique. It dies under an onslaught of Sybele’s large arrows. Then another fireball from Lester- and the final bile roper is dead.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Inoke blusters.
Thrush frowns at him. “Don’t worry, there will be worse.”
***
“Okay, further ahead we have some kind of golem and a big nasty pool of bile, in which there is no doubt a monster. There are stairs leading up out of there.”
“Closer to the Bile Lords,” Horbin murmurs.
“I’ll send some eyes up there. Back and continuing down the corridor we followed from the entry room with the thorciasids, there are a bunch of empty rooms. There is some kind of meeting hall or something, though.” Lillamere pauses. “If we go back to the original entryway, we can also go into a room with no obvious exits or down the hallway I mentioned earlier that ends in a door.” He frowns, looking somewhat disturbed. “The eyes saw- there was some kind of, of thing down there. I think it’s sending out extremely tiny eyes.” He shakes his head. “It’s like they dissolved out of its body. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Fascinating,” Orbius murmurs; his arcane eye is headed that way!
“Also, it seems to have some mithral golems with it.”
Gerontius exclaims in dismay. “I hate golems!”
“Let’s take care of the clay golem first,” suggests Chakar.
And so the party walks down the passage through a chamber full of what appears to be the rubble of several destroyed golems in elephantine shape. “Loxo,” Orbius declares. “Some kind of dire loxo once dwelled on the lower levels of this mountain. We found ample evidence for them when we were here before.”
They proceed on through the room and into another hallway, following Lillamere’s sure steps. Another 30’ and they enter a giant chamber lined with massive columns supporting a high ceiling 20’ overhead. A large clay statue carved in the likeness of a warrior stands in the chamber. The party expects it to be some terribly powerful thing, but it turns out to be just a regular old clay golem, and it is destroyed in but a moment.
“There’s also some kind of weird ooze,” Baron Lillamere reports, as more eyes return to share what they’ve seen. “It looks almost like it’s made of bile.”
“That can’t be good,” Sybele pipes up. “Oozes are bad news.”
Hey, are we adventurers or what? Lester calls over the link. Let’s adventure!
All right, replies Chakar telepathically, but where to?
The party discusses the question for a few short moments, and then they decide: to the big pool of bile. They march back to the room with the ruined golems, then follow one of the other passages. Along the way they open a side door and see a great hole smashed out from the ground, through the remains of a privy. Down below is the skeleton of Yungo, the otyugh barbarian our heroes fought here on their first foray into this accursed mountain.
Leaving Yungo’s body unmolested, the party continues towards the pool of bile. The passage soon enough opens into a room about 40’ on a side. It seems as though the stone of the mountain has somehow settled in one direction, for somewhat over half the chamber is slicked over by a great pool of bile.
“Watch out for chuuls,” warns Alcar. A chuul killed him when he was here before- albeit near the very top of the mountain, much higher into the dungeons of the Bile Lords.
As the party moves towards the pool, Orbius cries, “There is something in there! See, a form arises!” And a gigantic, hideous monster- combining the worst features of hound and lizard- draws itself up from its disgusting pool, rivulets of yellow and dark brown fluid pouring from it.
And it barfs out a cone of acid.***
Next Time: Our heroes fight a nasty bile beast! Plus: more on that ‘pillar of flesh’ thingie that’s sending out eyeballs! Oh, and who wants to see the ooze in action??
*The party originally met Thrush when he was serving the Bile Lords after being trapped in the uppermost level of Bile Mountain for years.
**Heh heh heh... no one suffered any con damage or acid damage from the breath weapon, anyway.
***106 points of acid damage.
the Jester
Legend
Gerontius flips his slim body through the air wildly, whipping back and forth to avoid the gouts of vile yellow acid spewing from the bile beast. The disgusting fluid- mixed with foul chunks of unidentifiable matter- splashes all around him, but he avoids all of it! The halfling’s daggers slash and stab at the monster’s vitals as he misdirects it again and again, catching it off guard with feint after feint. Blood, steaming and stinking of filth, fountains all over the invisible blade. He darts one way and then another, the wounds pumping massive amounts of blood and dealing terrific lingering damage.* As Thrush lumbers in with a yell, hacking at the monster, Gerontius takes yet another opportunistic strike.
The monster doesn’t even slow down. Nor does it flinch when Lester’s flame strike roars down on it with scorching power. Clearly enraged, the monster screams and turns on Gerontius. Arrows and seeker missiles begins pelting the monster, but it is fast and tough enough to avoid the majority of the missiles. Only one of the seeker missiles hits its target. Zyltha’s voice starts to ring out over the battle, heartening our heroes and reminding Horbin of Ten Buck Tom, waiting in Var. And he’s got another elixir of true resurrection, just in case, the cleric- now Bishop Horbin of Western Dorhaus- thinks to himself, flashing momentarily back to the party’s last trip into Bile Mountain- the trip that killed them all. Then he casts destruction, which the horrid beast resists. Still, he can see that it is damaged by the spell, and he smiles grimly to himself. Surely it can’t take that much more of this, he thinks.
But again the bile beast rushes uncaringly towards Gerontius, clawing and biting at him. Both Thrush and Lester slice at it with their swords as it moves past them, but it doesn’t seem to care. Gerontius is still protected by mirror images, but three of them fall in a single flurry of attacks. The halfling squeaks as both of its claws come a hair’s breadth from the real him.
Our heroes pour it on. Gerontius keeps feinting, tricking it again and again and leaving it pricked in all its tender places.** Wankerman leaps in, using the Bullywug Breakdance technique, and sticks his spear deep into the creature’s neck. Blood fountains out and sprays steaming all over him. Thrush and Lester, flanking, hack and cut their way into the creature. More blood sprays all over the place as it shakes itself and roars in anger and rage. It still won’t die! Our heroes continue to pound it as it rips and tears at them, dealing wound after wound; and then, finally, Lester stabs his sword in through its eye and penetrates its brain, killing the monster at last! Our heroes draw back as the light in its eyes slowly dies. The monster gurgles and blood and bile vomit from it, and then then a terrible stink (worse than that pervading the room itself) wafts over the chamber as the beast fouls itself. It is over. The thing is finally dead.
“Dexter’s nadlies, but that took a lot of punishment,” Horbin swears, gasping for breath.
Alcar nods. “That was... impressive.” He turns and tells Lester, “You should think about joining my summer league team.”
Our heroes examine the chamber quickly. The main features of the area are the pool that the bile beast lived in- a stinking deep depression filled with bile- and a staircase leading up higher into the mountain, closer to its blighted heart. The group debates, both aloud and over their telepathic bond, whether to ascend immediately or finish searching the lowest level of the mountain. Lester, naturally enough, is a proponent of rushing straight to the top. Thrush and Horbin disagree, Thrush especially arguing that the party should clear out everything on a level before moving on. “We don’t want to get trapped in here,” he reiterates again and again. “If we leave something behind us, it might well try to cut off our retreat.”
“We can take care of anything that tries,” Lester insists.
“What if we’re already wounded, and it’s the Bile King and Queen of Guts? We don’t want to get trapped in here. I’ve been through that before. I won’t go through it again.”
“Enemies behind you are worse than enemies before you,” nods Chakar.
“What about our old friend, the priestess- or priest, depending on the week- of the goddess of time and stuff?” wonders Sybele. “He got left behind in there!”
“She’s probably been turned undead or something by the Bile Lords,” Lester opines.
“I hope so,” Alcar says, “because I want to kick her ass. She is not on my summer league team.”
“Who are you talking about?” Sonja asks.
Sybele (who is unable to remember names thanks to the touch of Chaos) is referring to Angelfire. Angelfire was a member of the party for years, journeying with Sybele since way back at Firestorm Peak. Angel (her original name) changed gender about 3 times during her career (spending most of that time female). “She was a priestess of Coila, and a psychic warrior, and a templar of her goddess,” Lester explains. “She was pretty powerful...”
“But pretty evil,” Bishop Horbin adds. “If she is undead, she’ll be tough.”
The discussion moves on, and eventually everyone agrees to clear out the mountain right- to take care of each level entirely before moving to the next. That decided, they turn to the question of what to do next.
I say we go take down the mithral golems, Lester proposes. They’ve got to be worth a ton of money if we can sell the metal in Sigil or something.
Good point, Inoke agrees.
“Argh!” Horbin exclaims. “I just realized that, among the many items I lost in here was a golembane scarab that I bought after the first time we encountered golems in this damned mountain!”
“Maybe we’ll find it again,” Chakar replies, clapping the cleric on the shoulder.
“I hope so,” Horbin grumbles.
“So should we go after the golems then?” Sybele pipes up. “And didn’t you say there’s something else in there too, some kind of eyeball thing?”
“I’m looking at it right now, through my arcane eye,” Orbius affirms. “It’s a weird pillar of flesh. It’s almost like the eyes are melting out of it and floating off. And there are more that are returning.” He frowns. “I wonder what it is. Obviously some kind of watcher, but...” He trails off, frowning to himself.
Sounds good! Lester enthuses. The party heads back to the entry room and then down a hall. After about 40’ or so, it turns sharply to the right. To the left is the door that, according to their divinations, leads to the weird pillar of flesh. Before the party opens the door, the L casts pass through earth and stone and slips under the ground, into the contaminated rock of the mountain. Even the bile shield doesn’t stop a sick, greasy feeling from settling on his body. He moves forward through the stone for a ways, and then moves up to emerge in a room beyond- the chamber with the fleshy pillar in it!
Immediately he casts a flesh to stone on it, and to his amazement, it turns into craggy rock! Then the three great mithral golems fall on him, their great fists pummeling. “Yelp! A little help!” Lester calls out. The others, meanwhile, throw open the door, and the combat is joined from the other side. It is brief and vicious, and when it is done the golems lie strewn in pieces on the ground.
“Let’s take some now,” urges Gerontius. “It might not be here when we return for it!” The party opens up their bags of holding, but unfortunately they discover that they cannot reach into them. The opening is an opaque, seemingly impenetrable grey field. They still manage to haul some of the mithral, but they are all too aware that they will need a better way to carry most of it out.
“What about the creature?” asks Horbin.
“I can destroy it,” offers Chakar.
No! I should put it in the abandoned water temple dungeon at the Temple of Elemental Good, Lester declares over the permanent telepathic link the party shares. I’ll put it with the gibbering garden.
The party agrees amusedly to Lester’s suggestion, then decides to go hunting the ooze Lillamere’s prying eyes saw earlier. “We should be careful,” warns Thrush, “in case its touch can destroy our weapons.” There is a general grumble of agreement. If only they knew just how bad it could be for their weapons...
When they arrive at the door to the chamber the ooze is alleged to be in, the party pauses for a moment to prepare. Or at least, most of them do. Alcar boldly opens the door and moves through, and Chakar grunts a curse and follows the impetuous angel. They find that about two-thirds of the walls have great areas dissolved away. Not too far away is a disgusting sac of bile- a bile ooze.
Immediately it sprays out a huge cone of caustic acid, catching Alcar in a foul spew as he moves towards it. The Angel of Food’s eyes widen and he cries out in dismay as the caustic fluid begins smoking. His eyes widen in shock.
His armor is dissolving and falling to pieces.
Next Time: The bile ooze!
*Which is to say, one of Gerontius’ epic feats is Lingering Damage.
**Gerontius did about 350 hp of damage this round, according to the game notes. When the creature was still standing afterwards, the players were a little surprised. They had already inflicted a lot of damage on it the round before- prolly about 300-400 hp as well. I’m not certain, but I believe this monster was the first 1000+ hp enemy the party has faced.![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
The monster doesn’t even slow down. Nor does it flinch when Lester’s flame strike roars down on it with scorching power. Clearly enraged, the monster screams and turns on Gerontius. Arrows and seeker missiles begins pelting the monster, but it is fast and tough enough to avoid the majority of the missiles. Only one of the seeker missiles hits its target. Zyltha’s voice starts to ring out over the battle, heartening our heroes and reminding Horbin of Ten Buck Tom, waiting in Var. And he’s got another elixir of true resurrection, just in case, the cleric- now Bishop Horbin of Western Dorhaus- thinks to himself, flashing momentarily back to the party’s last trip into Bile Mountain- the trip that killed them all. Then he casts destruction, which the horrid beast resists. Still, he can see that it is damaged by the spell, and he smiles grimly to himself. Surely it can’t take that much more of this, he thinks.
But again the bile beast rushes uncaringly towards Gerontius, clawing and biting at him. Both Thrush and Lester slice at it with their swords as it moves past them, but it doesn’t seem to care. Gerontius is still protected by mirror images, but three of them fall in a single flurry of attacks. The halfling squeaks as both of its claws come a hair’s breadth from the real him.
Our heroes pour it on. Gerontius keeps feinting, tricking it again and again and leaving it pricked in all its tender places.** Wankerman leaps in, using the Bullywug Breakdance technique, and sticks his spear deep into the creature’s neck. Blood fountains out and sprays steaming all over him. Thrush and Lester, flanking, hack and cut their way into the creature. More blood sprays all over the place as it shakes itself and roars in anger and rage. It still won’t die! Our heroes continue to pound it as it rips and tears at them, dealing wound after wound; and then, finally, Lester stabs his sword in through its eye and penetrates its brain, killing the monster at last! Our heroes draw back as the light in its eyes slowly dies. The monster gurgles and blood and bile vomit from it, and then then a terrible stink (worse than that pervading the room itself) wafts over the chamber as the beast fouls itself. It is over. The thing is finally dead.
“Dexter’s nadlies, but that took a lot of punishment,” Horbin swears, gasping for breath.
Alcar nods. “That was... impressive.” He turns and tells Lester, “You should think about joining my summer league team.”
Our heroes examine the chamber quickly. The main features of the area are the pool that the bile beast lived in- a stinking deep depression filled with bile- and a staircase leading up higher into the mountain, closer to its blighted heart. The group debates, both aloud and over their telepathic bond, whether to ascend immediately or finish searching the lowest level of the mountain. Lester, naturally enough, is a proponent of rushing straight to the top. Thrush and Horbin disagree, Thrush especially arguing that the party should clear out everything on a level before moving on. “We don’t want to get trapped in here,” he reiterates again and again. “If we leave something behind us, it might well try to cut off our retreat.”
“We can take care of anything that tries,” Lester insists.
“What if we’re already wounded, and it’s the Bile King and Queen of Guts? We don’t want to get trapped in here. I’ve been through that before. I won’t go through it again.”
“Enemies behind you are worse than enemies before you,” nods Chakar.
“What about our old friend, the priestess- or priest, depending on the week- of the goddess of time and stuff?” wonders Sybele. “He got left behind in there!”
“She’s probably been turned undead or something by the Bile Lords,” Lester opines.
“I hope so,” Alcar says, “because I want to kick her ass. She is not on my summer league team.”
“Who are you talking about?” Sonja asks.
Sybele (who is unable to remember names thanks to the touch of Chaos) is referring to Angelfire. Angelfire was a member of the party for years, journeying with Sybele since way back at Firestorm Peak. Angel (her original name) changed gender about 3 times during her career (spending most of that time female). “She was a priestess of Coila, and a psychic warrior, and a templar of her goddess,” Lester explains. “She was pretty powerful...”
“But pretty evil,” Bishop Horbin adds. “If she is undead, she’ll be tough.”
The discussion moves on, and eventually everyone agrees to clear out the mountain right- to take care of each level entirely before moving to the next. That decided, they turn to the question of what to do next.
I say we go take down the mithral golems, Lester proposes. They’ve got to be worth a ton of money if we can sell the metal in Sigil or something.
Good point, Inoke agrees.
“Argh!” Horbin exclaims. “I just realized that, among the many items I lost in here was a golembane scarab that I bought after the first time we encountered golems in this damned mountain!”
“Maybe we’ll find it again,” Chakar replies, clapping the cleric on the shoulder.
“I hope so,” Horbin grumbles.
“So should we go after the golems then?” Sybele pipes up. “And didn’t you say there’s something else in there too, some kind of eyeball thing?”
“I’m looking at it right now, through my arcane eye,” Orbius affirms. “It’s a weird pillar of flesh. It’s almost like the eyes are melting out of it and floating off. And there are more that are returning.” He frowns. “I wonder what it is. Obviously some kind of watcher, but...” He trails off, frowning to himself.
Sounds good! Lester enthuses. The party heads back to the entry room and then down a hall. After about 40’ or so, it turns sharply to the right. To the left is the door that, according to their divinations, leads to the weird pillar of flesh. Before the party opens the door, the L casts pass through earth and stone and slips under the ground, into the contaminated rock of the mountain. Even the bile shield doesn’t stop a sick, greasy feeling from settling on his body. He moves forward through the stone for a ways, and then moves up to emerge in a room beyond- the chamber with the fleshy pillar in it!
Immediately he casts a flesh to stone on it, and to his amazement, it turns into craggy rock! Then the three great mithral golems fall on him, their great fists pummeling. “Yelp! A little help!” Lester calls out. The others, meanwhile, throw open the door, and the combat is joined from the other side. It is brief and vicious, and when it is done the golems lie strewn in pieces on the ground.
“Let’s take some now,” urges Gerontius. “It might not be here when we return for it!” The party opens up their bags of holding, but unfortunately they discover that they cannot reach into them. The opening is an opaque, seemingly impenetrable grey field. They still manage to haul some of the mithral, but they are all too aware that they will need a better way to carry most of it out.
“What about the creature?” asks Horbin.
“I can destroy it,” offers Chakar.
No! I should put it in the abandoned water temple dungeon at the Temple of Elemental Good, Lester declares over the permanent telepathic link the party shares. I’ll put it with the gibbering garden.
The party agrees amusedly to Lester’s suggestion, then decides to go hunting the ooze Lillamere’s prying eyes saw earlier. “We should be careful,” warns Thrush, “in case its touch can destroy our weapons.” There is a general grumble of agreement. If only they knew just how bad it could be for their weapons...
When they arrive at the door to the chamber the ooze is alleged to be in, the party pauses for a moment to prepare. Or at least, most of them do. Alcar boldly opens the door and moves through, and Chakar grunts a curse and follows the impetuous angel. They find that about two-thirds of the walls have great areas dissolved away. Not too far away is a disgusting sac of bile- a bile ooze.
Immediately it sprays out a huge cone of caustic acid, catching Alcar in a foul spew as he moves towards it. The Angel of Food’s eyes widen and he cries out in dismay as the caustic fluid begins smoking. His eyes widen in shock.
His armor is dissolving and falling to pieces.
Next Time: The bile ooze!
*Which is to say, one of Gerontius’ epic feats is Lingering Damage.
**Gerontius did about 350 hp of damage this round, according to the game notes. When the creature was still standing afterwards, the players were a little surprised. They had already inflicted a lot of damage on it the round before- prolly about 300-400 hp as well. I’m not certain, but I believe this monster was the first 1000+ hp enemy the party has faced.
the Jester
Legend
...just thought that I would point out that I am substantially editing some of these posts, mostly to clean them up, but in some cases I am adding a significant amount of new material (such as the Bishops Electors' debate over confirming Horbin).
Bryon_Soulweaver
First Post
So~, when do they start fighting deities?
the Jester
Legend
Bryon_Soulweaver said:
Depends- did Asmodeus count?
Bryon_Soulweaver
First Post
Kinda.
the Jester
Legend
Alcar shouts in anger. “My armor!” he cries. With a growl of rage, he calls out a blast of holy flames that strike down in a great column, striking the bile ooze with blistering force. The stench of burning bile wafts out over the party, making their gorges threaten to rise.
In response, yellow-brown pseudopoda lash out with startling swiftness, pummeling Alcar with great force. Acidic fluid sizzles and dribbles from it where it strikes his flesh, but the bile shield that Orbius created seems to protect Alcar from its secretions. The Angel of Food lashes out angrily with another flame strike, and chunks of ooze blast away, sizzling like rancid bits of fat cooking in the sacred fire.
Meanwhile, as Sybele realizes what has happened to Alcar’s armor, she shouts a warning to her friends. “Watch out, it’ll eat your armor!” She begins unbuckling straps and opening laces, trying to take her own armor off. Gerontius, scowling fiercely- after all, he can’t sneak attack an ooze (though he once almost chose to read a book that would allow him to do so)- leaps to aid her, trying to help her shed her metal so that she can join the fight against the ooze. A classic momentary mix-up happens, too, as Orbius casts far strike on one of Inoke’s weapons- only to have him attack the ooze with a different one, to everyone’s disgruntlement! Realizing what Orbius did for him, he utters a curse and changes weapons. Unfortunately, while he does so, the ooze is landing blow after sizzling blow on Alcar! The angel winces and cries out, but he does not back off. Instead, he stands his ground and pulls forth his adamantine mace. If he has anything that will survive striking the ooze, this is it! And indeed, as he begins pounding away on it, he starts to grin. The mace is nearly unaffected by the ooze’s caustic fluids, and he begins to press it. Then Inoke’s blows are landing on it from afar, and the ooze begins to quiver as it is pressed to the breaking point. A fire storm from Lester and a sphere of ultimate destruction from Orbius leave it badly weakened, and a final series of blows from Inoke finishes the thing off.
Alcar groans and steps back, wounded worse than he has been in a long time. Horbin and he quickly spend a few powerful healing prayers on him, and then he is as good as new. “Whew!” he declares. “That thing was tough!”
“That’s what you get for going through doors before the rest of us are really ready,” Horbin snaps. “And now you don’t even have any armor!”
“Pull out the portable store,” suggests Chakar. “Perhaps he could purchase something.”
“That’s a good idea!” exclaims Alcar.
“Except that it probably won’t work inside the mountain,” Wankerman points out.
“Good point,” says Horbin. “But we can at least try.” He pulls the portable store out of his backpack and attempts to open it, but to his chagrin it will not expand to its full size. It remains simply a small frame.
After a short debate, the party determines that it is time to exit the mountain, at least long enough for Alcar to get new armor. He has a spare suit, for that matter; but it is in an extradimensional space (his portable hole), and cannot be accessed within the mountain. While they’re at it, they decide to haul all the mithral they can outside and take it to Sigil for sale. After this haul- they should be rich!
And things, for once, seem to go mostly according to plan. They are not ambushed or assailed as they leave the mountain. They bring a great amount of mithral with them. They reach Sigil without a single sign of trouble. It’s almost enough to let them relax. They spend a few days in the City of Doors, selling and buying. Orbius bestows contingencies on the party members who have the requisite focus (an expensive statuette), which is most of them. He goes further and also bestows both greater contingencies and chain contingencies on them as well.
The party briefly debates whether or not to sell the gear from the Warlord of Valonia and his guards. But once they get an offer on it, the discussion is thrown out the window. The amount is staggering. With only the tiniest of dissenting voices they sell all the stuff and soon they are rolling in the money.
“Yeah, man, this is what it’s all about!” Lester enthuses.
“But we are not done with zem, I bet you,” Gerontius laments. “We must still deal with zee threat to my people in the Glen Lands.”
“We can take them,” Inoke nods. “But we shouldn’t just kill them. A lot of them are Galadorian.” He looks pointedly at Alcar.
“They are not Galadorian; it is a false front!” the angel declares.
“What about the dwarves?” Horbin interjects. Alcar has no answer.
Then it’s time to go back.
***
Somewhere in Bile Mountain
Tamult the Bile Lord gazes fondly at his artwork. Tormented and mutated by his foul powers, a dwarf, a human and a halfling gaze back at him from the confines of their cage of force. The Bile Lord rubs his hands together with glee. “You will do nicely,” he cackles. The stench around him is visible as a dirty yellow cloud. His foul visage is marked with a permanent angry look. The wrinkles of eons of age carve great valleys through the plains of his face. His eyes are like dark red craters with hateful orange craters in the center.
They are coming, he thinks to himself, coming back to try to finish us off. The attacks on the lower levels have not gone unnoticed. Tamult himself would be unlikely to be here had the King of Bile not foreseen the return of the adventurers. They think that they can take us again. They have not learned that we will be returned from the sea of death to serve our King further.
The two heads of the halfling girl start singing in unison, trying to anger him, but Tamult smiles and speaks to them. “You will do as I command,” he sneers. “When the adventurers come, I will release you from your cages and you will kill them!”
Balkord the Bold belches up a mouthful of bile and spits it out. Much spills in his matted, filthy beard.
“If you succeed, I shall reward you. Fail me, and death will be your reward!”
Melgin Lostway glares at Tamult. “Let us go!” he wails.
“Do as I command, or I will punish you,” Tamult snarls, and Melgin quails and clutches his unholy symbol. “You will fight, by your most effective means, to destroy my enemies. And looking at you, they will fight to destroy you, so do not think to betray me to them. They would kill you all without a second thought, especially as you are evildoers.
The halfling snarls angrily, almost like an animal. The sound of both heads doing so at once would be unsettling to most creatures. Tamult only smiles. “Fight well for me, and die for me, and it is quite possible that you will be returned from the grave to fight for me again.”
Melgin sighs. “We have no choice,” he states heavily. “What you say is true. If we try to turn on you, the adventurers will destroy us all.”
“We cannot defeat the Bile Lord alone,” the dwarf grunts suddenly.
“And, since we cannot turn on him...”
The two-headed halfling’s growls turn to a sudden symphony of whines.
“...we must obey him,” finishes Melgin.
“We will be ready,” the dwarf tells Tamult. “I only want to kill you the most. I want to kill anything else too.” He laughs harshly, a sound like a barking dog.
***
8/25/371 O.L.G., 11 a.m., ascending the stairs into Bile Mountain
...so you see, if we are in here, the forces of Law will think that this is where we’re focused, and they won’t expect an imminent attack on the big fortress place, Sybele concludes telepathically. Even as she jabbers at the others, they are heading up into the mountain. Alcar’s new full plate clanks as he flies up the stairs.
“I think you’ve got a good point,” mutters Gerontius. “We do not want zem to be prepared for us, eh?”
“All right, what’s next?” Baron Lillamere asks as the party enters the entry room. He switches to telepathy as well. I saw a chamber with some kind of old cobwebby stuff hanging from the ceiling down past the elbow where we found the hall to the ooze and the fleshy pillar...
Which, Lester interjects, is now in the Water Temple.
Baron Lillamere sighs and goes on. “There are also,” switching back to the telepathic bond, a few other rooms we haven’t searched yet. There’s one with the carcasses of some big beetles in it, for instance.
“I remember those!” Thrush says fiercely. “They cut my limbs off last time!”
“Ooh, that’s right,” Sybele nods.
Sonjia shrugs. “Let’s start with the first thing. The webs.”
Horbin nods. “One bad place is as good as the next, I suppose.”
***
The chamber has scraps of dark, dirty-looking webs dangling limply from the roof. The walls have the etched, uneven look of the chamber the ooze was in. As Inoke begins poking around cautiously and the others follow him in, great figures spring out of the shadows. They are hard to see; the shadows seem to dance and flicker all over their massive forms. But they resemble nothing so much as huge spiders!
Immediately, however, they demonstrate a disturbing level of intelligence and purpose.
Inoke reacts quickly, growing in size and turning his very body to iron. But the shadowy spiders move to flank him and immediately demonstrate an unnerving knowledge of anatomy. Only his metal form prevents him from suffering grievous wounds!
The rest of the party rushes to Inoke’s aid. Thrush, moving quick as always, leaps forward and deals a series of mighty blows to one of the spiders. Gerontius tumbles forward and begins thrusting and cutting with his daggers. Wankerman runs the spider that Thrush is fighting through, killing it, and the two of them exchange a quick grin before turning on the remaining monsters. One of the spiders shoots a slick of silk at Inoke’s feet, and he almost falls on his ass. That spider quickly fades into the shadows, hiding in plain view! The others keep attacking him from the flanks, but though they can bite him- and he feels the injuries- their skill does them little good. Nor does he feel poison in this form. His iron lips curl in a smile.
Then his body erupts in changes as he assumes a form of doom. Inoke grows fearsome as multiple tentacles rip from his back, flailing at the spider before him, and his face deforms hideously. Frightful laughter growls forth from his throat.
“There it is!” Sybele cries, and begins shooting her arrows into the darkness in one corner of the room. Our heroes can hear the squealing of the hiding spider and the fleshy thunk of arrows striking home one after another. In another moment the spider springs forth, but its attack is met by a tremendous swing from Thrush. He skewers it, and it collapses onto the ground, slain. It lies on its back, its legs curling inward, pale grey venom dripping from its fangs.
Sonja, hanging back, wild shapes into a bird and begins shooting out flaming spells. The druid briefly debates whether to hit the spiders with a reverse gravity, but shakes his head. Better not to risk catching his allies in the area of effect. Besides, they seem to have it well in hand. Indeed, Dorn Wankerman and Gerontius soon strike the final blows, and it’s all over. Shadowy ichor coats hands and weapons; gore has spilled all over the chamber. But the spiders have been defeated.
“Shadow spiders,” Orbius remarks, cocking an eyebrow. “From the shadow plane.”
“What are they doing here?” wonders Wankerman with a frown.
“We encountered shadow creatures here before,” muses Horbin. “Both the beetles and a shadow cloaker.”
I guess it’s a mystery for another day, Lester tells them telepathically. For now, let’s search!
A mystery for another day? Not really, as it turns out.
Next Time: More creatures of shadow! Where are they coming from, and what does the answer mean?
In response, yellow-brown pseudopoda lash out with startling swiftness, pummeling Alcar with great force. Acidic fluid sizzles and dribbles from it where it strikes his flesh, but the bile shield that Orbius created seems to protect Alcar from its secretions. The Angel of Food lashes out angrily with another flame strike, and chunks of ooze blast away, sizzling like rancid bits of fat cooking in the sacred fire.
Meanwhile, as Sybele realizes what has happened to Alcar’s armor, she shouts a warning to her friends. “Watch out, it’ll eat your armor!” She begins unbuckling straps and opening laces, trying to take her own armor off. Gerontius, scowling fiercely- after all, he can’t sneak attack an ooze (though he once almost chose to read a book that would allow him to do so)- leaps to aid her, trying to help her shed her metal so that she can join the fight against the ooze. A classic momentary mix-up happens, too, as Orbius casts far strike on one of Inoke’s weapons- only to have him attack the ooze with a different one, to everyone’s disgruntlement! Realizing what Orbius did for him, he utters a curse and changes weapons. Unfortunately, while he does so, the ooze is landing blow after sizzling blow on Alcar! The angel winces and cries out, but he does not back off. Instead, he stands his ground and pulls forth his adamantine mace. If he has anything that will survive striking the ooze, this is it! And indeed, as he begins pounding away on it, he starts to grin. The mace is nearly unaffected by the ooze’s caustic fluids, and he begins to press it. Then Inoke’s blows are landing on it from afar, and the ooze begins to quiver as it is pressed to the breaking point. A fire storm from Lester and a sphere of ultimate destruction from Orbius leave it badly weakened, and a final series of blows from Inoke finishes the thing off.
Alcar groans and steps back, wounded worse than he has been in a long time. Horbin and he quickly spend a few powerful healing prayers on him, and then he is as good as new. “Whew!” he declares. “That thing was tough!”
“That’s what you get for going through doors before the rest of us are really ready,” Horbin snaps. “And now you don’t even have any armor!”
“Pull out the portable store,” suggests Chakar. “Perhaps he could purchase something.”
“That’s a good idea!” exclaims Alcar.
“Except that it probably won’t work inside the mountain,” Wankerman points out.
“Good point,” says Horbin. “But we can at least try.” He pulls the portable store out of his backpack and attempts to open it, but to his chagrin it will not expand to its full size. It remains simply a small frame.
After a short debate, the party determines that it is time to exit the mountain, at least long enough for Alcar to get new armor. He has a spare suit, for that matter; but it is in an extradimensional space (his portable hole), and cannot be accessed within the mountain. While they’re at it, they decide to haul all the mithral they can outside and take it to Sigil for sale. After this haul- they should be rich!
And things, for once, seem to go mostly according to plan. They are not ambushed or assailed as they leave the mountain. They bring a great amount of mithral with them. They reach Sigil without a single sign of trouble. It’s almost enough to let them relax. They spend a few days in the City of Doors, selling and buying. Orbius bestows contingencies on the party members who have the requisite focus (an expensive statuette), which is most of them. He goes further and also bestows both greater contingencies and chain contingencies on them as well.
The party briefly debates whether or not to sell the gear from the Warlord of Valonia and his guards. But once they get an offer on it, the discussion is thrown out the window. The amount is staggering. With only the tiniest of dissenting voices they sell all the stuff and soon they are rolling in the money.
“Yeah, man, this is what it’s all about!” Lester enthuses.
“But we are not done with zem, I bet you,” Gerontius laments. “We must still deal with zee threat to my people in the Glen Lands.”
“We can take them,” Inoke nods. “But we shouldn’t just kill them. A lot of them are Galadorian.” He looks pointedly at Alcar.
“They are not Galadorian; it is a false front!” the angel declares.
“What about the dwarves?” Horbin interjects. Alcar has no answer.
Then it’s time to go back.
***
Somewhere in Bile Mountain
Tamult the Bile Lord gazes fondly at his artwork. Tormented and mutated by his foul powers, a dwarf, a human and a halfling gaze back at him from the confines of their cage of force. The Bile Lord rubs his hands together with glee. “You will do nicely,” he cackles. The stench around him is visible as a dirty yellow cloud. His foul visage is marked with a permanent angry look. The wrinkles of eons of age carve great valleys through the plains of his face. His eyes are like dark red craters with hateful orange craters in the center.
They are coming, he thinks to himself, coming back to try to finish us off. The attacks on the lower levels have not gone unnoticed. Tamult himself would be unlikely to be here had the King of Bile not foreseen the return of the adventurers. They think that they can take us again. They have not learned that we will be returned from the sea of death to serve our King further.
The two heads of the halfling girl start singing in unison, trying to anger him, but Tamult smiles and speaks to them. “You will do as I command,” he sneers. “When the adventurers come, I will release you from your cages and you will kill them!”
Balkord the Bold belches up a mouthful of bile and spits it out. Much spills in his matted, filthy beard.
“If you succeed, I shall reward you. Fail me, and death will be your reward!”
Melgin Lostway glares at Tamult. “Let us go!” he wails.
“Do as I command, or I will punish you,” Tamult snarls, and Melgin quails and clutches his unholy symbol. “You will fight, by your most effective means, to destroy my enemies. And looking at you, they will fight to destroy you, so do not think to betray me to them. They would kill you all without a second thought, especially as you are evildoers.
The halfling snarls angrily, almost like an animal. The sound of both heads doing so at once would be unsettling to most creatures. Tamult only smiles. “Fight well for me, and die for me, and it is quite possible that you will be returned from the grave to fight for me again.”
Melgin sighs. “We have no choice,” he states heavily. “What you say is true. If we try to turn on you, the adventurers will destroy us all.”
“We cannot defeat the Bile Lord alone,” the dwarf grunts suddenly.
“And, since we cannot turn on him...”
The two-headed halfling’s growls turn to a sudden symphony of whines.
“...we must obey him,” finishes Melgin.
“We will be ready,” the dwarf tells Tamult. “I only want to kill you the most. I want to kill anything else too.” He laughs harshly, a sound like a barking dog.
***
8/25/371 O.L.G., 11 a.m., ascending the stairs into Bile Mountain
...so you see, if we are in here, the forces of Law will think that this is where we’re focused, and they won’t expect an imminent attack on the big fortress place, Sybele concludes telepathically. Even as she jabbers at the others, they are heading up into the mountain. Alcar’s new full plate clanks as he flies up the stairs.
“I think you’ve got a good point,” mutters Gerontius. “We do not want zem to be prepared for us, eh?”
“All right, what’s next?” Baron Lillamere asks as the party enters the entry room. He switches to telepathy as well. I saw a chamber with some kind of old cobwebby stuff hanging from the ceiling down past the elbow where we found the hall to the ooze and the fleshy pillar...
Which, Lester interjects, is now in the Water Temple.
Baron Lillamere sighs and goes on. “There are also,” switching back to the telepathic bond, a few other rooms we haven’t searched yet. There’s one with the carcasses of some big beetles in it, for instance.
“I remember those!” Thrush says fiercely. “They cut my limbs off last time!”
“Ooh, that’s right,” Sybele nods.
Sonjia shrugs. “Let’s start with the first thing. The webs.”
Horbin nods. “One bad place is as good as the next, I suppose.”
***
The chamber has scraps of dark, dirty-looking webs dangling limply from the roof. The walls have the etched, uneven look of the chamber the ooze was in. As Inoke begins poking around cautiously and the others follow him in, great figures spring out of the shadows. They are hard to see; the shadows seem to dance and flicker all over their massive forms. But they resemble nothing so much as huge spiders!
Immediately, however, they demonstrate a disturbing level of intelligence and purpose.
Inoke reacts quickly, growing in size and turning his very body to iron. But the shadowy spiders move to flank him and immediately demonstrate an unnerving knowledge of anatomy. Only his metal form prevents him from suffering grievous wounds!
The rest of the party rushes to Inoke’s aid. Thrush, moving quick as always, leaps forward and deals a series of mighty blows to one of the spiders. Gerontius tumbles forward and begins thrusting and cutting with his daggers. Wankerman runs the spider that Thrush is fighting through, killing it, and the two of them exchange a quick grin before turning on the remaining monsters. One of the spiders shoots a slick of silk at Inoke’s feet, and he almost falls on his ass. That spider quickly fades into the shadows, hiding in plain view! The others keep attacking him from the flanks, but though they can bite him- and he feels the injuries- their skill does them little good. Nor does he feel poison in this form. His iron lips curl in a smile.
Then his body erupts in changes as he assumes a form of doom. Inoke grows fearsome as multiple tentacles rip from his back, flailing at the spider before him, and his face deforms hideously. Frightful laughter growls forth from his throat.
“There it is!” Sybele cries, and begins shooting her arrows into the darkness in one corner of the room. Our heroes can hear the squealing of the hiding spider and the fleshy thunk of arrows striking home one after another. In another moment the spider springs forth, but its attack is met by a tremendous swing from Thrush. He skewers it, and it collapses onto the ground, slain. It lies on its back, its legs curling inward, pale grey venom dripping from its fangs.
Sonja, hanging back, wild shapes into a bird and begins shooting out flaming spells. The druid briefly debates whether to hit the spiders with a reverse gravity, but shakes his head. Better not to risk catching his allies in the area of effect. Besides, they seem to have it well in hand. Indeed, Dorn Wankerman and Gerontius soon strike the final blows, and it’s all over. Shadowy ichor coats hands and weapons; gore has spilled all over the chamber. But the spiders have been defeated.
“Shadow spiders,” Orbius remarks, cocking an eyebrow. “From the shadow plane.”
“What are they doing here?” wonders Wankerman with a frown.
“We encountered shadow creatures here before,” muses Horbin. “Both the beetles and a shadow cloaker.”
I guess it’s a mystery for another day, Lester tells them telepathically. For now, let’s search!
A mystery for another day? Not really, as it turns out.
Next Time: More creatures of shadow! Where are they coming from, and what does the answer mean?
the Jester
Legend
There is a lot of area that our heroes have not yet searched through on this level of the dungeon. Thus, they begin a methodical check of the entire area, looking for treasure, secret doors or lost opportunities. Before too long, they have uncovered a sloping pit full of debris, tattered webs and old bodies sucked dry of their fluids. There are a number of intact magical items to be found there, including what appears to be a bag of holding (which our heroes cannot access within the confines of Bile Mountain), a magic shield and sword and a few potions.
It is as they search the chamber that still holds the carcasses of the shadow beetles that they defeated here long ago that they are attack from out of thin air.
There is nothing there one moment; the next, four mighty-looking, breastplate-wearing, sword-wielding trolls with dark grey-green skin and blurred, shadowy outlines rush in amongst our heroes! They lay about them violently, and one of the trolls knocks Alcar from his feet. With a grunt, the angel shakes his head to regain his wits.
Thrush cries out, “Trolls!” His sword seems almost to appear in his hand from nowhere. He hacks violently out and hews one of the trolls across the arm. His blade slices deep into the creature’s flesh. It growls and snarls, moving with the fluid grace of experienced fighters. It’s hard for our heroes to make out exactly where the trolls are, with their blurring, shifting outlines. The trolls, on the other hand, have no problem hacking into our heroes. Moreover, the trolls have formidable regenerative abilities, and their wounds start to close almost as soon as they open.
This does not deter our heroes. Sonja assumes fire elemental form and rushes forward like an out-of-control blaze driven by a gale wind. Her flaming limbs scorch her target’s face and chest and it roars in anger and pain. This damage does not seem to regenerate.
“Where did they come from?” cries Orbius. “They weren’t here a moment ago- I can see the invisible! And one cannot teleport within Bile Mountain!”
The question must be put aside for the moment, for the warrior trolls are pressing their attack. But this lasts for a few brief seconds only. No matter how skilled they are, the trolls are no match for our heroes; and, between the skill of Thrush, Horbin and Wankerman, Gerontius’ lingering damage, a final fire storm from Sonja , harm from Bishop Horbin and holy smite from Alcar, the trolls fall in mere moments. After taking a minute to catch their breath and tend to their wounds, the group decides to find the answer to Orbius’ question. Where did the trolls come from? Soon, investigating with their combined skills, magic and psionics, they discern a natural planar portal in the room.
“So,” Orbius muses, “you can’t teleport around in here, but there are loopholes.”
“At least this one,” nods Baron Lillamere.
“There’s also the one up above, at the top of the mountain,” Horbin points out. “The one Angelfire went through.” The others nod.
“Do you think we can teleport within one of the levels of the mountain?” Inoke wonders. “For instance, just within the room?”
“Let’s try it,” suggests Orbius, and dimension doors a few feet successfully. He nods thoughtfully. “That seems to suggest that we can,” he says.
“Where do you think the portal goes?” asks Sybele.
“It doesn’t matter,” Inoke states firmly. He pulls on his gloves of seal portal. “Wherever it goes, it can’t be good to leave it open. Either the Bile Lords are getting aid from beyond it, or they’re causing harm.” His gloves begin to glow a brilliant blue color as he touches the portal. There is a momentary flash of sapphire brilliance. Grimly, Inoke steps away. “I’ve sealed it,” he announces.
For good measure, the group seals it off with a wall of stone, making the area of the portal very difficult to reach. As they leave the chamber, Horbin mutters, “We should all carry a vial of bile, too. Just in case.”
“Oh yeah,” mutters Sybele, and shudders. She remembers, from the party’s second foray into the mountain- the portal at the top. The cleric guy and the fire time templar* went in, and the rest of us got killed, she thinks grimly. And then they did too.
***
Hell
Slowly the line moves forward. More and more devils are queuing up to swear fealty to Lucifer. By now only a heroic effort from a combination of the major powers could stop him from his victory, though there are few- if any- that realize just how inevitable it is, as yet. At the head of the line is the Throne of Hell, a ruddy red in color and glowing red-hot. Sulphuric smoke pours off of it, congealing on the ceiling and dripping down in sizzling blobs. A choir of wailing souls, their sounds directed by their torturers’ skill in eliciting different screams and cries, is to the throne’s right; to the left are those who worked secretly for Lucifer all these last epochs of time, when Asmodeus reigned and to be known as an agent of the One Who Came Before was to risk far worse than simple death. There are even some of those- some who were to be tormented for all time, on the very edge of death, but never to die- who are free now. Terribly scarred both physically and mentally, these courageous devils live to serve Lucifer- and now that he is in charge, they are able to do so again. Though broken in body or mind or both, they all have their uses- and he will honor them all for their sacrifice to him.
Seated on the smoking throne, Lucifer takes the obeisances of those approaching him as his due. There are few who he will not accept, and forgive any transgressions; but he never forgets. Though they might be forgiven, the transgressions of the past affect the devils’ hopes for advancement in the future. One that is known as a traitor will never be trusted. One that simply chose the wrong side, on the other hand, might be able to rise higher if they behave appropriately once on the correct side.
But some, thought Lucifer, can never be trusted.
Before him came an ancient pit fiend named Velzhethgaunt, shifty-eyed and with tail twitching. Velzhethgaunt, millennia ago, helped Asmodeus’ revolution against Lucifer, opening a key gate in the palace of the Tenth Hell and allowing ingress to a major element of the cunning feint that undid Lucifer.
“My ancient and powerful lord,” Velzhethgaunt whined, “I come before you to pledge myself to you. I offer you my allegiance, and will swear to uphold you and destroy your enemies.”
There was a brief silence. It stretched for a moment, then to thirty seconds, then a minute. Velzhethgaunt coughed and shifted; his tail lashed nervously behind him.
Just as the pit fiend opened his mouth to speak, Lucifer said, “That is all, Velzhethgaunt? No apology for the crimes of the past? No begging for mercy after your betrayal?”
“My lord, I... that is, it has been so long... I...”
“I think not. Even if you begged. Even if you swore to me on your true name.” Lucifer’s eyes flashed cold.
Two of his favored guards seized the pit fiend by his arms. Velzhethgaunt did not even struggle. He quailed.
“No...”
“You,” the Lord of Hell spat, “shall be annihilated.”
There was a blinding flash of crimson. A roar of static, and hidden in it something like a scream. For an instant, Velzhethgaunt writhed in agony. Lucifer proclaimed, “I am not the fool of my pupil, Asmodeus. I shall not leave a single enemy alive. I destroy you now; I snuff the flame of your existence for all time.
“But though you will die now, your mind shall feel the fires of your torment for a thousand years in this short time. And you shall know it, and know helpless agony for a thousand years; and then you will be snuffed out, with no hope of revival or reprieve.”
The guards dropped the screaming pit fiend to the ground. By the time he hit, he was already dead. His head lolled, upside-down, to face the line of petitioners come to swear to Asmodeus.
“The next vassal may step forth,” it croaked.
***
4 p.m., Bile Mountain
Our heroes leave the mountain again. They are almost done with the level of the dungeons within the mountain. (Technically it is the second level, but the first level is simply that open cavern with the great pool within it.) However, they want to go outside while Horbin prays and regains his spells. Again he pulls out the portable store, and our heroes buy and sell a few things. While he is in the store, Inoke pulls out a massive ruby almost as big as his hand and asks, “What is this ruby worth?” The others stare at it in shock.
The store keeper takes one look and snaps, “Get that thing out of here! That’s no ruby!”
Inoke immediately puts it back into his backpack and walks out of the store. Peering into the store from without, he calls back in, “What is it?”
“Where did that thing come from?” asks Sonja, amazed. “That’s the biggest ruby I’ve ever seen!”
“Get it away from here!” the storekeeper exclaims. Horbin sighs and, after it becomes clear that the storekeeper is not going to divulge anything useful, he closes the store for the time being.
Meanwhile, Inoke answers the druid. “I got it from- um, a wizard.”
“Who?” demands Horbin.
“Churr.”
“Who?” the cleric asks again, then snaps his fingers. “The gnoll!”
“From the conference of spellcasters,” nods Inoke. “He gave it to me.”
Our heroes discuss the implications of this for a few moments. Churr was the gnoll who had been a Delphin in the past, and Horbin had true resurrected him for the Delphinate as part of a deal he made by which he also brought back the party after their deaths in Bile Mountain. They had only truly met at the spellcasters’ conference roughly a month before, though. Inoke explains that he had talked to Churr when the gnoll tried to buy his helmet (which he naturally refused to sell, especially since it hadn’t trusted the gnoll). Churr had given him the ruby anyhow.
An examination by the various knowledgeable folk in the party soon leads them to the conclusion that it might be a stone called the Bloody Eye of Krull. Krull had been a demon prince, but he had been slain eons ago. Certain body parts of his, including an eye, were said to possess certain powerful magic properties involving divination. “So you’ve got the eye of a demon prince in your backpack,” Orbius concludes.
“I bet Churr’s using it to watch us somehow,” opines Lillamere.
“We should destroy it!” Alcar declares.
“I don’t think so,” Inoke retorts. “First of all, we’re not even sure that this is the eye that you think it is. It’s not evil, right?”
“It’s the eye of a demon prince,” Alcar says insistently.
“So what? What next, are we going to destroy Veil’s shield of Graz’zt?” (Although, in truth, Inoke thinks, Which we should do one of these days...) But Alcar only scowls. The argument continues, but in the end everyone agrees to Inoke’s proposal that he stuff it in his Heward’s handy haversack and take it into the mountain with them. That way it won’t really ‘be with’ the party any more, at least while they are within the mountain.
And they go back in.
Next Time: Back inside!
*Horbin and Angelfire, to those of us that recall names. Sybele, thanks to Chaos, does not.
It is as they search the chamber that still holds the carcasses of the shadow beetles that they defeated here long ago that they are attack from out of thin air.
There is nothing there one moment; the next, four mighty-looking, breastplate-wearing, sword-wielding trolls with dark grey-green skin and blurred, shadowy outlines rush in amongst our heroes! They lay about them violently, and one of the trolls knocks Alcar from his feet. With a grunt, the angel shakes his head to regain his wits.
Thrush cries out, “Trolls!” His sword seems almost to appear in his hand from nowhere. He hacks violently out and hews one of the trolls across the arm. His blade slices deep into the creature’s flesh. It growls and snarls, moving with the fluid grace of experienced fighters. It’s hard for our heroes to make out exactly where the trolls are, with their blurring, shifting outlines. The trolls, on the other hand, have no problem hacking into our heroes. Moreover, the trolls have formidable regenerative abilities, and their wounds start to close almost as soon as they open.
This does not deter our heroes. Sonja assumes fire elemental form and rushes forward like an out-of-control blaze driven by a gale wind. Her flaming limbs scorch her target’s face and chest and it roars in anger and pain. This damage does not seem to regenerate.
“Where did they come from?” cries Orbius. “They weren’t here a moment ago- I can see the invisible! And one cannot teleport within Bile Mountain!”
The question must be put aside for the moment, for the warrior trolls are pressing their attack. But this lasts for a few brief seconds only. No matter how skilled they are, the trolls are no match for our heroes; and, between the skill of Thrush, Horbin and Wankerman, Gerontius’ lingering damage, a final fire storm from Sonja , harm from Bishop Horbin and holy smite from Alcar, the trolls fall in mere moments. After taking a minute to catch their breath and tend to their wounds, the group decides to find the answer to Orbius’ question. Where did the trolls come from? Soon, investigating with their combined skills, magic and psionics, they discern a natural planar portal in the room.
“So,” Orbius muses, “you can’t teleport around in here, but there are loopholes.”
“At least this one,” nods Baron Lillamere.
“There’s also the one up above, at the top of the mountain,” Horbin points out. “The one Angelfire went through.” The others nod.
“Do you think we can teleport within one of the levels of the mountain?” Inoke wonders. “For instance, just within the room?”
“Let’s try it,” suggests Orbius, and dimension doors a few feet successfully. He nods thoughtfully. “That seems to suggest that we can,” he says.
“Where do you think the portal goes?” asks Sybele.
“It doesn’t matter,” Inoke states firmly. He pulls on his gloves of seal portal. “Wherever it goes, it can’t be good to leave it open. Either the Bile Lords are getting aid from beyond it, or they’re causing harm.” His gloves begin to glow a brilliant blue color as he touches the portal. There is a momentary flash of sapphire brilliance. Grimly, Inoke steps away. “I’ve sealed it,” he announces.
For good measure, the group seals it off with a wall of stone, making the area of the portal very difficult to reach. As they leave the chamber, Horbin mutters, “We should all carry a vial of bile, too. Just in case.”
“Oh yeah,” mutters Sybele, and shudders. She remembers, from the party’s second foray into the mountain- the portal at the top. The cleric guy and the fire time templar* went in, and the rest of us got killed, she thinks grimly. And then they did too.
***
Hell
Slowly the line moves forward. More and more devils are queuing up to swear fealty to Lucifer. By now only a heroic effort from a combination of the major powers could stop him from his victory, though there are few- if any- that realize just how inevitable it is, as yet. At the head of the line is the Throne of Hell, a ruddy red in color and glowing red-hot. Sulphuric smoke pours off of it, congealing on the ceiling and dripping down in sizzling blobs. A choir of wailing souls, their sounds directed by their torturers’ skill in eliciting different screams and cries, is to the throne’s right; to the left are those who worked secretly for Lucifer all these last epochs of time, when Asmodeus reigned and to be known as an agent of the One Who Came Before was to risk far worse than simple death. There are even some of those- some who were to be tormented for all time, on the very edge of death, but never to die- who are free now. Terribly scarred both physically and mentally, these courageous devils live to serve Lucifer- and now that he is in charge, they are able to do so again. Though broken in body or mind or both, they all have their uses- and he will honor them all for their sacrifice to him.
Seated on the smoking throne, Lucifer takes the obeisances of those approaching him as his due. There are few who he will not accept, and forgive any transgressions; but he never forgets. Though they might be forgiven, the transgressions of the past affect the devils’ hopes for advancement in the future. One that is known as a traitor will never be trusted. One that simply chose the wrong side, on the other hand, might be able to rise higher if they behave appropriately once on the correct side.
But some, thought Lucifer, can never be trusted.
Before him came an ancient pit fiend named Velzhethgaunt, shifty-eyed and with tail twitching. Velzhethgaunt, millennia ago, helped Asmodeus’ revolution against Lucifer, opening a key gate in the palace of the Tenth Hell and allowing ingress to a major element of the cunning feint that undid Lucifer.
“My ancient and powerful lord,” Velzhethgaunt whined, “I come before you to pledge myself to you. I offer you my allegiance, and will swear to uphold you and destroy your enemies.”
There was a brief silence. It stretched for a moment, then to thirty seconds, then a minute. Velzhethgaunt coughed and shifted; his tail lashed nervously behind him.
Just as the pit fiend opened his mouth to speak, Lucifer said, “That is all, Velzhethgaunt? No apology for the crimes of the past? No begging for mercy after your betrayal?”
“My lord, I... that is, it has been so long... I...”
“I think not. Even if you begged. Even if you swore to me on your true name.” Lucifer’s eyes flashed cold.
Two of his favored guards seized the pit fiend by his arms. Velzhethgaunt did not even struggle. He quailed.
“No...”
“You,” the Lord of Hell spat, “shall be annihilated.”
There was a blinding flash of crimson. A roar of static, and hidden in it something like a scream. For an instant, Velzhethgaunt writhed in agony. Lucifer proclaimed, “I am not the fool of my pupil, Asmodeus. I shall not leave a single enemy alive. I destroy you now; I snuff the flame of your existence for all time.
“But though you will die now, your mind shall feel the fires of your torment for a thousand years in this short time. And you shall know it, and know helpless agony for a thousand years; and then you will be snuffed out, with no hope of revival or reprieve.”
The guards dropped the screaming pit fiend to the ground. By the time he hit, he was already dead. His head lolled, upside-down, to face the line of petitioners come to swear to Asmodeus.
“The next vassal may step forth,” it croaked.
***
4 p.m., Bile Mountain
Our heroes leave the mountain again. They are almost done with the level of the dungeons within the mountain. (Technically it is the second level, but the first level is simply that open cavern with the great pool within it.) However, they want to go outside while Horbin prays and regains his spells. Again he pulls out the portable store, and our heroes buy and sell a few things. While he is in the store, Inoke pulls out a massive ruby almost as big as his hand and asks, “What is this ruby worth?” The others stare at it in shock.
The store keeper takes one look and snaps, “Get that thing out of here! That’s no ruby!”
Inoke immediately puts it back into his backpack and walks out of the store. Peering into the store from without, he calls back in, “What is it?”
“Where did that thing come from?” asks Sonja, amazed. “That’s the biggest ruby I’ve ever seen!”
“Get it away from here!” the storekeeper exclaims. Horbin sighs and, after it becomes clear that the storekeeper is not going to divulge anything useful, he closes the store for the time being.
Meanwhile, Inoke answers the druid. “I got it from- um, a wizard.”
“Who?” demands Horbin.
“Churr.”
“Who?” the cleric asks again, then snaps his fingers. “The gnoll!”
“From the conference of spellcasters,” nods Inoke. “He gave it to me.”
Our heroes discuss the implications of this for a few moments. Churr was the gnoll who had been a Delphin in the past, and Horbin had true resurrected him for the Delphinate as part of a deal he made by which he also brought back the party after their deaths in Bile Mountain. They had only truly met at the spellcasters’ conference roughly a month before, though. Inoke explains that he had talked to Churr when the gnoll tried to buy his helmet (which he naturally refused to sell, especially since it hadn’t trusted the gnoll). Churr had given him the ruby anyhow.
An examination by the various knowledgeable folk in the party soon leads them to the conclusion that it might be a stone called the Bloody Eye of Krull. Krull had been a demon prince, but he had been slain eons ago. Certain body parts of his, including an eye, were said to possess certain powerful magic properties involving divination. “So you’ve got the eye of a demon prince in your backpack,” Orbius concludes.
“I bet Churr’s using it to watch us somehow,” opines Lillamere.
“We should destroy it!” Alcar declares.
“I don’t think so,” Inoke retorts. “First of all, we’re not even sure that this is the eye that you think it is. It’s not evil, right?”
“It’s the eye of a demon prince,” Alcar says insistently.
“So what? What next, are we going to destroy Veil’s shield of Graz’zt?” (Although, in truth, Inoke thinks, Which we should do one of these days...) But Alcar only scowls. The argument continues, but in the end everyone agrees to Inoke’s proposal that he stuff it in his Heward’s handy haversack and take it into the mountain with them. That way it won’t really ‘be with’ the party any more, at least while they are within the mountain.
And they go back in.
Next Time: Back inside!
*Horbin and Angelfire, to those of us that recall names. Sybele, thanks to Chaos, does not.