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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2844056" data-attributes="member: 1210">When they appear near the base of the mountain, those of our heroes who have been here before- and (except Lester and Orbius) died here before- shudder.  They cannot help it.  The memory of abject defeat burns within them.  They are here to take revenge for their defeat.  They have picked up Thrush to go with them; the self-proclaimed preeminent swordsman of his age is eager to regain his father’s sword.  Sybele bites her lip, thinking of the sword that Fandral the dwarven mage-smith crafted for her.  He has demanded that she regain it before seeking his aid again.  The others ponder various bits of lost gear, wounded pride.  Well, with any luck, this will begin the process of salving those wounds, recovering those losses.The mountain is large and ominous.  When last they forayed here, they faced a worm-like crystalline creature that had a prismatic aura.  Now there are no visible external guardians.  A river runs into the gut of the mountain.  Once, it somehow turned to bile within the bowels of the place, and the River of Bile flowed from the hole out the other side of the mountain.  But in their first series of adventures here, our heroes destroyed the Crux Crystal that had powered much of the epic magic surrounding the mountain.  Now the river exits the mountain in the same form as it enters, as water. Silently, our heroes regard the mountain for a few moments, steeling themselves for the trials to come.“Angelfire is probably in there somewhere,” Horbin mentions.  Alcar is transfixed with anger for a moment at the mention of Angelfire- once a member of the party, missing since their death in Bile Mountain.  Now... now, who can say what piece of him they might find within?  Who can say what state he shall prove to be in?  Will he be a festering corpse, or some terrible undead form?Alongside the river there is a solid path.  The party follows it into the great central cave beneath the mountain’s heart.  The cave is huge, hundreds of feet across.  Most of it is filled with a pool of water.  Once, the place had been full of bile instead.  It still brings a certain pride to those of our heroes who were here before to see it clear and clean instead.  A stairway hewn from the side of the cave leads up to the ceiling, where a hole leads up into the dungeons of the mountain.  Our heroes begin flying up parallel to the stair.  A tremor of fear runs through several of them.  When they were here before, on their first foray into the mountain, when they destroyed the Crux Crystal they also freed the Bile Lords from a long sequestering in the mountain.  And the Bile Lords burned for vengeance on our heroes, sending minions and even one of themselves to destroy them.  Our heroes returned to Bile Mountain to finish what they had begun and destroy the Bile Lords. But things had been more complicated than our heroes could have imagined.  When they had destroyed the Crux Crystal, they had uncovered a portal that the Crystal had grown around, much as a pearl will grow around a grain of sand.  This portal led to a terrible realm that was the dominion of the horrific Bile King, whom the Bile Lords were ruled by.  But the Bile King was uninterested in our heroes; he only cared about finding a suitable wife.  In a murderous courtship he and the Queen of Guts came together in unholy union.  Our heroes, meanwhile, fought their way up through the remaining minions that they had not decimated before.  When they found the chamber the Crux Crystal had been in, they discovered the portal.  And then, in the crucial moment, Angelfire went through the portal.  Horbin followed him in the desperate hope of stopping him from doing anything stupid, and they found themselves in a terrible combat.  Meanwhile, the others rushed to a nearby bile pool (the portal key was apparently bile) and aroused a hideous, multiheaded corrupted bile chuul.  The monstrosity belched an explosion of bile that slew most of the party in a single agonizing moment.  By the time Horbin and Angelfire returned through the portal, all of their companions were dead.  They managed to defeat the chuul, but then an assault came from the portal- in the form of Bile Lords and the Queen’s gutling giant servants- and despite their power, they could not fend the assault off.  It overwhelmed them.  Horbin was killed; Angelfire was charmed, taken alive and slain by the Queen of Guts- and thus the entire party had been destroyed.  That would have been the end, had it not been for Ten Buck Tom’s possession of an elixir of true resurrection that permitted Horbin to return from the dead, and he then made a deal with the Delphinate to get the necessary amount of diamond dust to bring the others back to life.  The entire group had been thoroughly humbled.  Angelfire, notably, had not returned; Horbin grimly suspected that he had been turned undead. The party had turned away from thoughts of Bile Mountain for a time, humbled by their defeat.  They had turned to other things- things even bigger, really.  But for a time, they had not felt ready to face Bile Mountain again.Now- now, at last, they are ready.At the top of the stairway is a chamber with several exits.  When the party enters, they find themselves immediately attacked by a quartet of strange, cockroach-like creatures.  These monsters spit goo, hoping to entangle our heroes, but almost everyone wears a ring of freedom of movement or is otherwise affected by the spell.  The goo fails to have much effect on the group, though Horbin does have a few dodgy moments for a while.  But that is not the only attack that the bugs have.  Their mere touch drains life energy and strength.  Our heroes begin to flag, while Alcar and Horbin make the occasional counter with restoration magic.    Our heroes reply to the foul roach-like things with a terrific array of flame strikes, horrid wiltings, disintegrates (including one that Lillamere maximizes) and old-fashioned ass-kicking.  Gerontius tumbles past the bugs into a hallway, looking for a good flanking position- and to his surprise he is almost immediately beset by a hideous gorgon sweating bile out of its pores!  The beast bellows and breathes out a billowing mass of foul-colored vapors.  The halfling throws himself flat, dodging the effect, but Sybele turns, saying, “What’s that...?”  She gasps, inhaling a massive dose of the petrifying gas, and says no more as she turns to stone.“Sybele!” Thrush cries. Horbin turns to the gorgon.  He utters a prayer to Dexter and pronounces a destruction upon the monster.  It dies in a burst of golden-red flame, crumbling to the ground as ashes!The tide of battle has turned for our heroes.  The roach-things, though tough, are withering under the party’s collective attacks.  A few moments later and they are done for.  Our heroes, however, are somewhat shaken.  “Those things were tough!” declares Horbin.  “And they’re just the door guards,” points out Sybele.“I believe they are called thorciasids,” Orbius says sagely.  “They are energy scavengers.”Well, folks, we’re in the foyer, Lester things over the telepathic link.  Shall we go on in?If Alcar and Horbin can restore everyone to their normal state, Chakar qualifies.*No problem, Alcar assures him.  He and Horbin begin tending to the needs of their companions, their prayers channeling holy power that floods into the weakened and slowed muscles of the rest of the party.  In a few moments, everyone is at least mostly restored.  Meanwhile, Baron Lillamere has already sent out prying eyes to explore the surrounding area.  He informs the others telepathically, over the link, as the eyes begin to spread out through the passages of the mountain.“Then let’s get to it,” Thrush says with grim pleasure.  And he draws his sword.  Next Time: Our heroes begin to move deeper into Bile Mountain!  Lillamere’s eyes see eyes floating around!  And our heroes discover a new type of ooze!*Thorciasids do ability drain to three attributes, up to 2/round!  Ouch!</blockquote>

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