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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2893946" data-attributes="member: 1210">The Last Day in Bile MountainBeams of colored light scintillate and shoot through the room as the prismatic dinosaurs heave themselves to their feet and begin roaring angrily.  The negative energy washing through the room shocks our heroes with its chill energy.  “Look out!!” cries Gerontius, hurling himself out of the way of multiple colored bolts of energy.  The others aren’t quite as lucky.  Horrified, the halfling watches as Horbin stiffens, groans, and turns to stone!  Hyliss is struck square in the chest by a beam of yellow electricity.  For a few seconds he screams and dances as the lightning races through his nerves.  Then he falls to the ground dead.“HYLISS!!” cries Baron Lillamere.Chakar darts in, distracting one of the monsters for Thrush, who proceeds to deliver a series of pounding blows.  Gerontius spins in and stabs into it before he spins back into a defensive stance.  Then, right in front of him, there is a twist in the air as Sonja uses a reverse gravity to send the monsters crashing to the ceiling!  One of them struggles forward out of the area and falls with a heavy whump back to the ground.  Shaking its head to clear it, it roars and tears into the druid, its massive mouth ripping at his arm and its tail coming around club like to smash as his chest.  Gasping, Sonja stumbles away.  “It can hit hard,” he warns the others.  Blood soaks his tunic. Meanwhile, the abortive undead launches crazy beams of dark energy at Gerontius.  The halfling yelps, throwing himself from one side to the other, dodging madly.  The not-baby cackles with evil laughter.Unfortunately for the undead creature, however, one of the great prismatic reptiles collapses under the onslaught of Gerontius’ lingering damage.  Grinning, the halfling spins and strikes at the next one.  His blade dips deep into his enemy’s neck.  It gurgles and shakes as Thrush pounds it from the other side.  Then Inoke knocks it sprawling to the ground with a mighty blow.  A final blow of his great mace, and the monster is slain.Most of the party turns to the final reptile, Gerontius waggling his finger at the abortive undead with a grin.  They begin to turn the figurative heat up on it, while Lester turns to deal with the undead thing.  “Take this!” he shouts, pulling forth the wand of days that the party gained so long ago in the City That Waits, Moil.  There is a blaze of solar radiance and the fetal undead squeals, flinching back as chunks of its flesh catch flame and burst into ash.  It howls in pain, then glares at him- but Lester’s not done yet.  Thanks to Marius’ double actions, he can also cast a sunburst!  Brilliant white light explodes soundlessly throughout the chamber, and the undead shrieks in agony.  It howls like a baby, but the L knows no mercy for its kind.  Relentlessly, he advances, pulling out a metamagic rod and using it to fire a twinned polar ray. With a shudder, the unliving abortion collapses into a pile of burnt and frozen meat.Meanwhile, the others have finished the final dinosaur.  However, the fight isn’t over yet, for a trap door in the ceiling swings open and a quartet of flaming bony figures tumble down from above!  “Lavawights!” shouts Alcar.  “Watch out!”The blazing undead engage our heroes in a brief and utterly unsuccessful battle.  Orbius’ reverse gravity/prismatic sphere combination once again proves invaluable, and soon all that remains of the lavawights is broken stone.  “Our companions,” says Chakar, gesturing at the petrified Horbin and Hyliss’ corpse, “need some aid.”Reluctantly, the party decides that their best course of action may be to retreat long enough to fix their friends’ unfortunate... situations.  Inoke, Sybele and Thrush, all being quite strong (especially when large or bigger), pass the statue back and forth as the group begins the long retreat down out of Bile Mountain.  Finally, they reach the mountain’s base, and then leave the cavernous first level (which consists merely of a single huge chamber, mostly full of water, with a single visible inflow and outlet).  They troop back outside and then superior teleport away, back to Var and Horbin’s Halls of Healing.  Unfortunately, there is nobody there powerful enough to unpetrify Horbin.It’s around this time that the party realizes that Alcar has slipped off on his own. The party therefore begins searching for someone who can.  First they check at the castle, but King Malford is not present.  A little work turns up Arion the Archmage at a new bar in town (called the Fresh Fish).  As usual, he is more than a little drunk, but he happily offers to help them on the morrow.  “I just don’t have it prepared,” he explains.  “Umm... well, we’re kind of limited on time,” Baron Lillamere replies.  “I don’t suppose you know of anyone else that might be able to help?”Arion ponders for a moment, then suggests Thimbleton, one of Malford and Lester’s old traveling companions and adventuring buddies.  He issues a sending to Thimbleton, and tells the party, “He can help.  He says he’ll meet us in the castle shortly.”So they go back to the castle, and not long after, Thimbleton hurries up to them.  “Glad to help,” he says.  “Take me to Horbin.”  ***9 p.m., the Halls of Healing“...thanks again,” says Horbin.  He grins at Thimbleton as they shake hands.“Sure,” replies the gnome modestly.  “I’m glad to be able to help.”“Listen, we’re going to have a few drinks, you know, celebrate things, that sort of deal.  Care to join us?”  Thrush grins.  “A friend of Malford’s is a friend of mine.”Thimbleton hesitates for a moment.  “Maybe for a bit, but I have things I need to be getting back to.”The group rents a tavern for the night.  Some good, fun drinking ensues, with Arion and Thimbleton joining the party briefly.  Lillamere braces Arion about joining them when they assault the Bastion of Law.  “When?” the archmage asks.Lillamere frowns and digs out a notebook.  He looks at it, checks the date, and whistles.  “The day after tomorrow.”“Hmm,” says Arion thoughtfully.  He makes promising noises, but he is drunk, so who knows?Later that evening, Ten Buck Tom approaches Horbin.  “Say,” he asks, “did Alcar every catch up with you?”“No, we’ve been wondering where he is,” Horbin replies.“Oh, he was looking for you earlier today, early this afternoon.”“But we were in Bile Mountain then.”“Well, he came around looking for you...”“No, Tom, you don’t understand,” Horbin responds, puzzled.  “He was with us in Bile Mountain this afternoon.”They look at each other.***Midnight“Hey Horbin,” calls Sybele.“Yeah?” “I was wondering if you could cast a sending for me,” she asks.“Uh, sure.  To whom?”“To the leshay that is hunting me.”Horbin cocks his head.  “What do you want to say to him?”“I want to offer to let him hunt me.  I mean, I’ll put up a good chase.  I’ll totally cooperate, but all I want is for him to leave us alone until we’re done with the Bastion.”Horbin looks at her dubiously.  “Well, it can’t hurt to try,” he admits.  He murmurs prayers to Dexter and clutches at his holy symbol.  A message issues forth from him: Lady Sybele agrees to the hunt in a forest of your choosing after her current quest, agrees to her outcome.  Action before then considered murder.The response is arrow-swift: I scoff at your rules.  I hunt my prey.  When the arrow comes she will run.“Oh well,” Sybele sighs.“We have a lot of stuff on our list, don’t we?” sighs Sybele.Well, the Bastion of Law isn’t on my list, states Inoke firmly over the permanent Rary’s interplanar telepathic bond that the party shares.I don’t think I can go, either, Horbin announces.  Especially now that I’m a Bishop.Lillamere shakes his head in woe.  Well, at least we will still have Alcar as a healer, he thinks over the link.“Where is he, anyway?” wonders Chakar.***9/6/371 O.L.G., 10 a.m., at the foot of Bile Mountain“One last day,” Lillamere remarks, gazing up at the yellow-brown soil of the mountain.  “And then...”  He trails off, but finishes telepathically.  The Bastion.You sound eager, thinks Orbius.  The longer we wait, the more time we give them to prepare, the worse off we are, Baron Lillamere insists.We’ll be fine, Lester assures him.  I’m sure we can handle whatever they can dish out.Well, I’m glad you’re so confident, the Baron replies sardonically.  The party walks in to the first level of Bile Mountain: the vast, wet, empty cavern.  Only the stairs twisting up one wall show any sign that there might be something intelligent within the mountain’s innards.  Our heroes begin ascending back into the mountain, heading towards its festering heart.  Inoke is in the lead, and abruptly he stops.  “Hey,” he exclaims, “there’s a wall of force or something in the way here.”“Wait,” says Chakar, “that wasn’t there before-”The trap springs.Next Time: Ambush in Bile Mountain!</blockquote>

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