Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2849376" data-attributes="member: 1210">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 MountainTamult 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?</blockquote>

Verification