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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 8482149" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 21: HELL TOUPEE</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: </p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 5</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 3/wizard 2</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 2/paladin 3</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 4/rogue 1</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 5</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 4 December 2021</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>"All rise! The Honorable Magistrate <strong>Jondir Duprayne</strong> presiding!"</p><p></p><p>Everyone in the courtroom immediately stood up as Magistrate Duprayne entered and took his seat behind the desk on the elevated platform at the back of the room. He banged the gavel three times in rapid succession on the desk before him. "This court is now in session," he intoned. "Who's first this morning?" he asked his bailiff.</p><p></p><p>"These five, Your Honor," replied his bailiff, a burly-looking man who looked like he could handle his own in a fight. He indicated the five adventurers who had been taken away from a hearty breakfast at the Merry Minstrel Inn that morning by a band of hobgoblin city guards. They'd been escorted into the courtroom, where a page had explained to them the courtroom had a permanent <em>zone of truth</em> spell effect cast upon it, preventing anyone within its confines from telling a lie. "They were observed casting spells within the city limits on several occasions."</p><p></p><p>Magistrate Duprayne glared down at the five. Then his attention was diverted to Wakuren. "Did you steal that armor?" he demanded.</p><p></p><p>"No, sir," Wakuren replied.</p><p></p><p>"You will address the Magistrate as 'Your Honor,'" chided the bailiff.</p><p></p><p>"No, Your Honor," amended Wakuren.</p><p></p><p>"Then you're really a cleric of Cal?" The symbol of the High-Father was prominently displayed on the half-orc's armor and shield.</p><p></p><p>"Yes, Your Honor."</p><p></p><p>"Hmm. You don't see that every day." Then he turned back to the group as a whole. "When you first entered the city, were you briefed on the prohibitions against spellcasting within the city walls unless under the direct supervision of one of the city's clerics?"</p><p></p><p>Thurloe took it upon himself to answer for the group. "We were, Your Honor."</p><p></p><p>Magistrate Duprayne looked down at a sheet of parchment before. "It says you were seen casting spells in the streets outside the Merry Minstrel Inn several days ago, and then again in the poorer section of town over by the dumps. Is this correct?"</p><p></p><p>Wakuren confessed to having cast a <em>spiritual weapon</em> spell against the druid who had unleashed dire apes upon the city and argued that it was done only in the interests of neutralizing a dangerous threat that could have harmed innocent townsfolk. Alewyth likewise explained she had merely cast a <em>bless</em> spell and Zander had cast a <em>mage armor</em> spell before entering combat with the corpse of a woman who had been animated by a trio of dregworms that had inhabited her body - again, with the best interests of the city at heart. The dwarven priestess felt she had made her case when a balding man in the back row stood up and addressed the Magistrate directly.</p><p></p><p>"If it please the court?" he asked, waiting for permission to continue.</p><p></p><p>"Yes?" asked Magistrate Duprayne.</p><p></p><p>"Your Honor, my name is <strong>Byram Herschfeld</strong> and I'm a structural engineer for the city. I've been put in charge of clearing out the rubble from the wizard's tower that exploded last week. I have a half-dozen laborers working for me and we've discovered there's a level below the keep. One of the rooms we found down there indicates the wizard may have been associating with devils and now none of my men will go down there anymore. City regulations require at least a two-man team exploring potentially dangerous areas. I could greatly use people with the adventuring experience of these five. Given the nature of the spells they cast - in the defense of the city's inhabitants, it bears repeating - I feel we can trust them into my care. With Your Honor's permission and agreement, I would like to recommend they be sentenced to aiding me in clearing out the underground level of any potential dangers to the city."</p><p></p><p>"How long do you think it would take?" asked the Magistrate.</p><p></p><p>"I have no idea how extensive the underground level might be, Your Honor, or if there are any other levels beneath the one we've discovered thus far. I would imagine probably a day or two - three at the very most - would be sufficient."</p><p></p><p>"Very well." He turned to the five adventurers before him. "You will each have a <em>lesser geas</em> spell placed upon you, the duration to last no longer than a full week's time or until Byram reports back that any dangers to the city in the tunnels below the wizard's tower have been dealt with, whichever comes first. Case dismissed."</p><p></p><p>"I hope you don't mind me butting in like that," Byram said to his new group of workers as they were escorted to a side room where a cleric would be casting the required <em>lesser geas</em> spells upon them. "Magistrate Duprayne has a reputation for coming down hard on spellcasting offenders - this job is likely a much better deal for you than whatever his original punishment was likely to be. And I get the help I need to check out the lower level beneath the tower."</p><p></p><p>"Win-win," Thurloe agreed, not without a trace of suspicion in his voice. This Byram fellow was certainly winning, but Thurloe wasn't entirely thrilled with any sort of magical compulsion - especially if it meant potentially being forced to fight devils. He viewed this whole setup as a form of robbery - robbing the dreamwalkers of their liberty - and the fact that the ones doing the robbing were the law of the city didn't make it feel like any less of a violation. Still, what was the option: take on an entire city, just the five of them? Thurloe knew where that particular trail led. Best to just get this whole thing over with and move on to the next town as soon as possible.</p><p></p><p>By the time they'd had their <em>lesser geas</em> spells cast upon them and Byram led them across town to the site of the collapsed tower, Thurloe was feeling a little better. The wizard's tower wasn't that big: a mere 30 feet to a side and all of two stories tall before the upper level collapsed down onto the ground level a week ago after some sort of explosion in the middle of the night. With a keep that small, maybe the dungeon level would be similarly small and this task would be completed quickly, so the group could be on their way.</p><p></p><p>The workers were already in place and hard at it, lugging chunks of stone from the site and tossing them onto various piles out on the yard. "How's it going, <strong>Toby</strong>?" asked Byram.</p><p></p><p>"We got a mostly clear path off to the room on the right," the worker replied. He looked over at the new recruits, all suited up in their adventuring gear. "You takin' them downstairs?" he asked Byram. Upon his boss's acknowledgement, Toby stared Thurloe right in the eye. "You be careful down there," he admonished. "I don't care what anybody says. I saw that devil move. <em>I saw it move!</em>" And with that, he turned back to his work, lugging a chunk of broken stone out of one of the gaps in what ground floor walls still stood after the collapse of the tower.</p><p></p><p>"Just exactly what happened here?" asked Alewyth, looking at the rubble and wreckage.</p><p></p><p>"Not sure exactly," replied Byram as he lit the end of a torch on fire. "Middle of the night a week or so ago, there was a big explosion and the top of the building collapsed down upon the floor below it. Owner was a wizard, an aloof sort name of <strong>Revellius Bonesaw</strong>, kept pretty much to himself. Nobody's seen him since, so it's possible he was killed in the explosion, not that we've come across his body yet. But if it's under there" - and here he pointed at the piles of collapsed stone still waiting to be removed from the area where the tower once stood - "we'll get to it eventually. It's not like it'll be going anywhere." He picked up a small cage, inside of which sat a canary. "You folks ready to go on down?"</p><p></p><p>"We'd like to cast a few spells first, if that's okay with you," Thurloe replied. Back at the Magistrate's courtroom, it was explained that Byram Herschfeld, as an employee of the city, was being made their official city representative and had the power to grant permission for the casting of spells as he saw fit in the accomplishment of the task to which he'd been appointed.</p><p></p><p>"By all means. In fact, consider this an open invitation to cast whatever spells you need while we're downstairs. We get ourselves into any kind of danger, I want you to be able to respond quickly without having to check with me first."</p><p></p><p>"Well, that's more like it!" Thurloe said and began casting a <em>protection from evil</em> spell upon himself, an eminently practical spell if there was any chance they'd end up fighting devils below the wizard's tower. Zander cast both a <em>mage armor</em> and a <em>bear's endurance</em> spell upon himself, then rifled through his scrolls until he found one containing an <em>expeditious retreat</em> spell and cast that upon himself as well. Wakuren cast a <em>virtue</em> spell on the elven sorcerer, then activated his <em>ring of invisibility</em> and faded from view. Alewyth cast a <em>magic circle against evil</em> spell upon herself and then a <em>bless</em> spell upon the whole group.</p><p></p><p>"Nothing for you?" Byram asked Xandro.</p><p></p><p>"I'm good," replied the bard.</p><p></p><p>"Well, let's head on down then," suggested the structural engineer, lifting the canary cage and holding the torch before him. "I'll lead us down to the room that caused all the fuss - we never did get to explore it very much." He led the group through a clear path in the rubble, heading over to a set of stairs in the back corner of the keep - what was likely once the kitchen. The stairs led down into an alchemist's lab, lit only by Byram's torch. Thurloe activated a sunrod from his pack so he'd have his own handy source of illumination. The lab contained a couple tables with various alchemical apparatus on it, none of it disturbed by the collapse of the tower above. There was another door on the far side of the room and Byram headed straight for it.</p><p></p><p>"Here you go, see for yourself," he said, opening the door and stepping back.</p><p></p><p>Wakuren and Alewyth were the first to stick their heads into the doorway, for their darkvision allowed them to see just fine without any illumination. One the floor before them, taking up most of the center of the room, was a silvery pentagram etched into the floor. There was no furniture in the room and only what looked to be a closet door at the south end of the room, but that just made for plenty of wall space to devote to murals. And of murals there were plenty: every available inch of wall-space had been painstakingly painted in exquisite detail, with scenes of leering devils torturing panicked humans and Hellscapes in the background: fire raining down from the skies, lakes of flame, horrible horned serpents and worse crawling in the background. And Wakuren couldn't help but believe he had seen one or more of the devils move in his peripheral vision, as if it had turned his head towards the half-orc and then moved back into place once Wakuren turned his gaze that way. "You see anything funny about these paintings?" he asked Alewyth.</p><p></p><p>"Funny? Certainly not." She saw nothing but depravity in the scenes depicted on the walls and didn't blame the workers above one bit for not wanting to enter the room.</p><p></p><p>But Thurloe followed them into the room and caught motion out of the corner of his eye, just as he'd been warned about by the worker upstairs. Zander activated his <em>scout's headband</em> and used up all of its daily power at once to grant himself <em>true seeing</em> for a full minute. "These paintings are all illusions!" he declared.</p><p></p><p>Thurlough pulled his bastard sword from its scabbard on his back and poked the blade into the middle of the head of a painted devil, one which the fighter-wizard could swear he'd seen move but a moment earlier. One of the properties of his blade was the destruction of illusions it touched, and sure enough when he touched the blade to the devil it not only stopped moving but disappeared altogether. Touching his blade to other parts of the walls caused the images to fade from view as well. "Sure enough: these scenes are all just illusions," he announced.</p><p></p><p>"To what end?" asked Xandro.</p><p></p><p>"Who knows? Just for fun? To scare intruders into not wanting to venture any further?" Thurloe hazarded.</p><p></p><p>"There's not much further to go, though," said Wakuren, still invisible but obviously the one who was opening the closet in the back. Unfortunately, it was filled with shelves containing spell components and a wide variety of small statuettes of various devils. Wakuren tried pulling on the statues, hoping to trigger a secret door release mechanism, but none of the figures were attached to the shelves upon which they were arranged. He picked up a statuette of what looked to be a shapely succubus with feathered wings instead of those of a bat, looking it over; to the others, they saw the statuette rising from the shelf seemingly of its own accord and hovering in the air. Only Zander could see through Wakuren's invisibility, but then he focused his attention on the magic pentagram on the floor, looking to see (as Thurloe suggested) if there might be some secret way to raise it up and find a secret set of stairs below it or something. That didn't pan out, but then Zander looked closer at the closet interior and noticed the thin slots along the floor at the closet's front and back: a sure sign that the whole closet had a way of moving to the side. Sure enough, by merely pushing on the eastern wall of the closet, the whole thing moved about three feet to the area directly beneath the stairs leading up to the ground level.</p><p></p><p>Scrambling through the opening, Zander saw a corridor heading east almost immediately upon exiting the back of the closet. But there were niches on either side of the narrow corridor about 15 feet down, and in each niche stood a suit of full plate armor holding a longsword pointed at its feet. Zander knew what that likely meant: a pair of guardian constructs that would animate and attack as soon as anyone tried passing between them unless they gave the proper command word or wore the correct ring or something like that. Not wanting to test his theory, he merely backtracked the way he had come and let the others know what he had found.</p><p></p><p>Thurloe pushed his way through the narrow passageway and advanced up to the suits of armor, examining them with his sunrod in one hand and his bastard sword in the other. Sure enough, there were runes on the helmets, chests, and shoulders of the armor and if the young wizard was recalling his lessons correctly they had something to do with transmutation magic. "These things are gonna attack anyone who tries passing by them," he said.</p><p></p><p>"Let's test that," suggested the still-invisible Wakuren, still carrying the statuette of the erinyes devil. He passed between the armor without incident, the "floating" statuette seeing to fly right past their heads with no response.</p><p></p><p>Zander took that as a possible good sign and ran past the suits of armor as well. However, while they hadn't detected Wakuren's invisible form and had dismissed the "flying" statuette as harmless, an elven stranger in the master's secret underground level was enough of a trigger to jolt them to a semblance of instant life. They brought their swords up and out to swing at the passing elf, one of the blades getting in a lucky strike against Zander's shin as he raced by. But then Thurloe was upon them with his own blade, allowing Zander to flee further down the tunnel and out of range of the dread guards.</p><p></p><p>Alewyth advanced down the corridor behind Thurloe and tried casting a <em>dispel magic</em> spell at the one not currently trading blows with Thurloe (as it was the only one she could see at the moment). Her spell didn't seem to have any effect. Behind her, Xandro sent a crossbow bolt flying over her head to strike the same dread guard in the helmet.</p><p></p><p>But then the first dread guard stepped out of its niche and blocked any further traffic through the corridor. It attacked Thurloe, standing directly in front of it, but the fighter dodged the thing's blow. Byram entered the tunnel from the narrow passageway in the back of the summoning room's closet, but as instructed earlier he held himself back out of danger, allowing the trained professionals to deal with the real threats.</p><p></p><p>Wakuren spun around and went flying back down the tunnel the way he had come, slamming his shield into the back of the dread guard facing Thurloe. His shield bash attack returned him to full visibility and it was enough - after Thurloe's successful blows - to reduce the guardian to a pile of loose pieces of armor which spilled apart and rolled around on the tunnel floor.</p><p></p><p>Despite the combat going on behind him, Zander decided his best course of action was to leave the combat to those better suited to it than the elven sorcerer; besides, he had a clock ticking on his <em>true seeing</em> abilities and he'd best get the most mileage from it as he could! With that in mind, he reached a cross-tunnel just ahead and turned north, poking his head into what could only be a sacrificial chamber - judging from the bloodstained altar in the middle of the room before a life-sized statue of some horned devil in the back of the room - and here he was immediately rewarded for the cleverness of his ploy for he could see the sacrificial dagger lying upon the altar was not just any old dagger but rather a bearded devil <em>polymorphed</em> into that form.</p><p></p><p>However, since the dagger was just sitting there lifelessly, Zander judged it to be harmless for the moment and retraced his way back to the intersection and this time went south, opening a door into a library. This had shelves of books and tomes, with a jumble of scroll tubes spilling out of a case and statues of devils carved into the very walls between the shelves. But of the more immediate notice was the robed figure slumped over onto a table in the middle of the room, as if he'd fallen asleep reading the tome open before him. However, on closer inspection, Zander could see the edges of the pages in the book the figure - who now that he paid closer attention wasn't breathing - had been reading were blackened and charred. But then all thoughts of the robed man and his possible fate were dashed aside when a glowing figure rose up out of the floor beside the corpse. It wore a robe remarkably similar to the one the dead wizard was wearing, and that told Zander this was probably the man's ghost or spirit or something - nothing he wanted to get involved with, in any case! Hoping the undead spirit would constrain itself to the arcane library, Zander closed the door behind him and ran back to the intersection. There was another door to the east but the elf opted to head back west, closer to his adventuring companions.</p><p></p><p>There was door there as well, just past the spot where the dread guards had stood their tireless watch and where one even now traded blows with Wakuren and Thurloe. Zander opened the door, saw it was a small room containing three small cells, and deduced this was where Revellius Bonesaw kept his victims before sacrificing them on the altar in the first room he'd unearthed. But as there didn't seem to be anything interesting in the cell room, he turned back without bothering to close the door.</p><p></p><p>That was a particularly bad idea, for there was an iron cobra behind the door and Zander had basically just set it free to attack him and his companions. It came slithering out of the open doorway and bit at the unsuspecting elf, who at least had the good fortune of hearing the sounds it made as its iron body slithered across the stone floor of the underground level and thus had enough forewarning to avoid its sudden strike.</p><p></p><p>A dwarven warhammer suddenly manifested in the air above Thurloe's head and came smashing down upon the sole remaining dread guard. While its attention was directed at the <em>spiritual weapon</em>, Thurloe got in another good strike with his bastard sword. Xandro sent another crossbow bolt flying over Alewyth's head into the armored helmet of the guardian construct. It lashed out again at Thurloe, its original target, as Wakuren slammed into its back with his shield.</p><p></p><p>But then, with everyone focusing on their current foe, the wraith flew out of the wall and sent a clawed hand into Zander Quilson's body, sending a wave of cold coursing through the elf. Zander dropped the <em>figurine of wondrous power</em> from his fingertips and said the activation word, allowing the elven dog to form into its full, living size. "Take care of the cobra for me!" he commanded as he spun to face the wraith. The cooshee leaped to the attack at once, snapping at the serpentine construct's iron body with his teeth.</p><p></p><p>Alewyth's <em>spiritual weapon</em> drove the final blow on the dread guard and it too fell to pieces on the stone floor of the corridor. The way now clear, she started heading towards the east, for Zander had said something about a sacrificial dagger that needed destroying and that certainly sounded like a job well suited to her dwarven warhammer, <em>Sjondra</em>. Thurloe, in the meantime, had lowered his sword and pointed a finger of his other hand at the wraith, calling out the words to a <em>magic missile</em> spell as he did so. The bolt of force energy hit true - as the fighter-wizard knew it would - sending a flurry of energy erupting through the incorporeal creature's body. </p><p></p><p>Stuck behind both Thurloe and Alewyth in the narrow corridor, Xandro put away his light crossbow and pulled out his Dardolian Lute, starting the tune of his inspirational courage; it was one way he could contribute to the fights against enemies he at the moment couldn't reach himself.</p><p></p><p>The iron cobra, metal hood flaring, darted in at the cooshee and caught him in the throat with its envenomed bite. The rank poison started coursing through the elven dog's body, affecting him as it would any other creature of living flesh. The cooshee felt his muscles weakening as a result but determinedly fought on.</p><p></p><p>Wakuren activated his other ring, channeling an extra burst of healing energy into his hand in addition to the <em>cure moderate wounds</em> spell he called into being. Then he rushed at the wraith, hoping to send a massive burst of positive energy at it all at once. In this he was unfortunately disappointed for his body passed right through the undead spirit without affecting it at the least; always a danger when fighting incorporeal foes. But the wraith darted a hand out and siphoned energy from the half-orc's body, causing an involuntary snarl of hatred to burst from Wakuren's fanged mouth. Fortunately, the soldier of Cal managed to connect with his second strike, sending the accumulated positive energy cascading across the wraith's incorporeal frame, eliciting a howling wail of pain that brought a smile to Wakuren's lips.</p><p></p><p>The wraith was clearly on its last legs. It dashed at Wakuren again, its face a rictus of hatred. The half-orc felt his body go cold against the undead creature's touch but he fought off the worst of the effects and sent his shield swishing through the wraith's incorporeal body; it didn't do any good but it made Wakuren feel better to do so. And then a second <em>magic missile</em> spell, this one from Zander, sent the wraith's body dissipating to nothingness. Off to the side of the elf, the iron cobra and the cooshee snapped at each other, mostly in vain.</p><p></p><p>Alewyth redirected her <em>spiritual weapon</em> spell to attack the iron cobra as she entered the sacrificial chamber and scowled at the statue of the leering devil along the far wall. Then she hefted <em>Sjondra</em>, lifted it behind her head for an overhead swing, and brought it crashing down onto the sacrificial altar, right where the dagger had lain...but was there no longer. It was now somehow hanging in the air on the other side of the altar, much like the erinyes statue had seemed to fly when an invisible Wakuren had carried it around. Alewyth scrambled up onto the altar and swung at the dagger again but it dodged in midair, darting around out of the way of the dwarf's warhammer. Wakuren entered the chamber behind Alewyth and saw her predicament; he climbed up onto the altar beside her and tried swatting the flying dagger with his shield.</p><p></p><p>In the meantime, the battle with the iron cobra was raging and it now not only involved the cooshee and the metal serpent snapping at each other but also Alewyth's <em>spiritual weapon</em> spell, Xandro shooting crossbow bolts at the iron cobra, and Zander casting a <em>shocking grasp</em> spell from a scroll and then trying to touch the rapidly-swaying automaton with no success. As this was all happening in a short side-corridor leading to the room of cells, Byram moved past the commotion to head over towards Alewyth and Wakuren, while Thurloe decided everyone else had their respective battles in hand so he might as well go check out that door at the eastern dead-end corridor.</p><p></p><p>As soon as he touched his hand to the doorknob Thurloe realized he'd made a mistake, for there was some sort of glyph inscribed above the handle and as soon as he even glanced at it it triggered. The <em>symbol of pain</em> sent a magical wave bursting throughout the underground complex, wracking all but Thurloe and Byram with agonizing pain. The fighter had managed to fight of the worst of the spell's effects and looked back at the others with a half-apologetic grin on his face, then decided he might as well see what was worth protecting with so powerful a ward. The corridor beyond the door continued for a dozen feet or so before spilling into a deep pit; looking over the lip, Thurloe saw half a dozen chests lined up along the pit's edge, in the center of which was a pile of human bones - no doubt the remains of those sacrificed in the chamber Alewyth and Wakuren were in - and a mass of goop that was likely all that was left of them besides the bones. As the pit was a good 40 feet deep, Thurloe decided to leave it for last, as there was no point in climbing down there to check out the chests until all of the other dangers had been dealt with. Therefore, he sauntered back out of the pit room (leaving the door wide open) and headed over to the sacrificial chamber to see if the two clerics needed any help in swatting down a flying dagger.</p><p></p><p>It turned out they had made almost no progress at all, for it was still doing aerial maneuvers around the room while the two clerics tried hitting it with their shield and with <em>Sjondra</em>, respectively. But then, as Thurloe entered (he had to push past Byram to do so, who had stood in the intersection of hallways as if transfixed), a voice called out from the direction of the pit room, "Infernicus!" This turned out to have been the command word which transformed the flying dagger back into its bearded devil form, and it had been uttered by the invisible imp Thurloe had just released from the treasure pit. <strong>Desecrus</strong> had been playing his favorite game - taunting the ochre jelly his late master Revellius had placed inside the treasure pit as a guardian - when a stranger had gazed down over the edge of the pit; investigating this intrusion, the imp had been delighted to see a half-dozen strangers engaged in combat with several of the dungeon's inhabitants. This, he thought, was going to be fun!</p><p></p><p>The iron cobra managed to get past the cooshee's defenses and gotten a firm grip onto Zander's thigh, pumping a dose of its venom into the elf's leg. Zander grimaced but the attack gave him an opportunity to discharge the <em>shocking grasp</em> spell he'd channeled into his right hand and arcs of electricity rippled down the construct's iron body. The cooshee scraped his front claws against the thing's head and Xandro hit it again with a crossbow bolt and eventually their combined efforts took their toll and the iron cobra collapsed to the stone floor to move no more.</p><p></p><p>But in the sacrificial chamber, things were just heating up. The bearded devil, a crafty smile upon his lips, said aloud the single word, "Agreed" as he swung his glaive at Wakuren, nearly toppling the half-orc from his altar-top perch. Alewyth, now attacking a much larger target than a flying dagger, connected with a swing of <em>Sjondra</em>, hitting the devil in his broad chest. Thurloe, now committed to helping the clerics fight an honest-to-goodness devil, ran around the side of the sacrificial altar and struck at the fiend with his bastard sword. "Alewyth!" he called as he attacked. "Apply the <em>silversheen</em> to your weapon - it's one of his vulnerabilities!"</p><p></p><p>Zander saw the invisible imp flying down the corridor and hit him with a <em>magic missile</em> spell, causing it to squawk in surprise that somebody had seen it at all. Then the cooshee ran down the corridor, turning to snap at the imp after it had clawed at him and made itself visible in doing so. Now it was trapped with a cooshee on one side and an elven spellcaster on the other. Xandro didn't dare try to shoot at the imp with Zander in the way so he went back to playing his inspirational song of courage - maybe it would help counteract the effects of the <em>symbol of pain</em> Thurloe had triggered.</p><p></p><p>As if suddenly cold, Byram flipped the hood of his cloak up over his head and retreated to the safety of the library containing the dead body of Revellius Bonesaw, closing the door behind him. Zander thought that was a bit odd but didn't have time to dwell on it as he was still fighting the imp. Its tail stinger hit the elf on the shoulder but it was fortunately a glancing blow and not a lot of the devil's venom made it into the wound, little enough that Zander hoped he could avoid the worst of whatever effects it might bring. But he retaliated with another <em>magic missile</em> spell, then ducked around the corner of the intersection, towards the arcane library, while his cooshee carried on the attack.</p><p></p><p>The bearded devil stabbed at Wakuren with his glaive, opening an infernal wound in the half-orc's side which hurt almost as much as the agony the <em>symbol of pain</em> had delivered. Alewyth stepped back from combat just long enough to pull out a vial of <em>silversheen</em> from her pack and apply it quickly to the striking surfaces of her dwarven warhammer. Thurloe hit the devil again with his bastard sword and then tried to retreat, forgetting the extra reach the fiend had with his glaive. It was all he could do to avoid the fiendish blade stabbing his way as he retreated to the doorway.</p><p></p><p>The cooshee suddenly yowled out in pain, for it was unaware of what the imp had seen coming: the ochre jelly had oozed its way up the side of the pit and had entered the passageway through the open door. Its acidic coating burned at the elven dog's feet as it slowly engulfed him like an approaching wave. But with Zander around the corner Xandro now had room to enter physical combat himself and he did so by charging at the imp, leading with the point of his magic longsword. The blade stabbed into the imp's back and skewered him right through the belly, killing him instantly. But unlike summoned creatures whose bodies vanished when they died, Desecrus remained skewered on the bard's sword and he had to take a boot to the little devil's body to pull his sword back out of his nasty little hide.</p><p></p><p>Wakuren attacked the bearded devil with the bottom edge of his shield, where it came to a point. The blow opened a wound on the devil's frame but he merely seemed amused by the damage. He retaliated with another blow of his glaive, opening another infernal wound in the half-orc's battered body. Alewyth saw her fellow cleric's predicament and rushed in, not to rejoin the combat but to cast a <em>cure moderate wounds</em> spell on Wakuren, which healed all but the two infernal wounds the bearded devil had inflicted upon him. Thurloe took the opportunity to try to cast a <em>shield</em> spell on himself before re-entering the combat but he messed up the somatic component to the spell in his heavy armor and the <em>shield</em> spell dissipated before taking effect. He snarled in irritation but headed back into the chamber, bastard sword in hand.</p><p></p><p>Zander had popped his head back around the corner and saw the ochre jelly attacking his faithful (although as-yet-unnamed) elven hound. The sorcerer cast a <em>scorching ray</em> at the jelly, burning its acidic body as it had burned the cooshee. Instinctively, the elven dog whirled and bit and clawed at the ooze monster, learning only after the fact that attacking a pliant blob coated in acid burned even when <em>you</em> attacked <em>it</em>.</p><p></p><p>The ochre jelly repositioned its body mass, forming a pseudopod that lashed out at the beleaguered elven dog, finally killing it. Of course, the cooshee's death merely resulted in it reverting to its statuette form, which plopped into the jelly's mass. Before Xandro even gave it much thought, he darted his hand in and grabbed at the <em>figurine of wondrous power</em>, afraid of having the jade statuette get eaten away by the jelly's acid. He turned to hand it to Zander, but the elf was now following Byram into the arcane library, to see what he was up to. Xandro just gave a cursory wipe of the statue on the leg of his pants and dropped it into a pouch, hoping he'd gotten rid of most of the acid coating it.</p><p></p><p>Wakuren managed to finally land the killing blow on the bearded devil after a furious three-against-one fight. Then he and Alewyth took a moment to apply healing spells among the three as needed, the half-orc concentrating closely on his spellcasting and managing to seal up the two infernal wounds the bearded devil had inflicted upon him. Then, looking to see where everyone else had gotten off to, they crossed the intersecting corridors and saw the ochre jelly making its steady way in their direction. Alewyth now had a silvered weapon but didn't want to risk using it against an acidic creature so she cast a second <em>spiritual weapon</em> and allowed it to strike the ooze in her stead. Thurloe flung a <em>magic missile</em> at it in passing, then headed to the arcane library where everyone else seemed to have headed. The ooze moved slow enough they could take a moment's breather while it caught up to them.</p><p></p><p>Inside the library, there was a bit of confusion going on. Byram was frantically searching through the scroll tubes, while Zander was accusing him of something to do with his hair. That was weird; the structural engineer had his hood up but Thurloe could see there was a thick body of hair on the top of the formerly balding man's head, strands of it peeking out from underneath the hood. Zander lifted the corpse of Revellius Bonesaw to get a good look at his face, wondering if maybe the dead wizard had somehow taken over Byram, but while Revellius had a full head of hair and a neatly-trimmed beard, his hair looked nothing like that which Byram was suddenly sporting.</p><p></p><p>Alewyth stopped at the intersection long enough to see her <em>spiritual weapon</em> tearing into the ochre jelly; it was quivering enough to make her believe the thing was almost dead. Trusting in the temporary covering of the <em>silversheen</em> she'd applied to the weapon's head to keep it safe from acid, she brought <em>Sjondra</em> down in what turned out to be the killing blow. Then she joined the men in the library.</p><p></p><p>Thurloe had entered and dropped a hand on Byram's shoulder, channeling a <em>touch of fatigue</em> into the engineer's wiry frame. The two were standing next to an intricate carving of an erinyes devil and Thurloe noted there was a seam along one side of the carving that might indicate a hidden door. Byram tore his shoulder from the fighter's grasp and snarled a warning at him; after this uncharacteristic behavior, Xandro aimed his crossbow at the engineer as a warning but held off on actually attacking for now.</p><p></p><p>It was only when Wakuren entered the library and saw the commotion that he opted to do a quick <em>detect evil</em> check. Sure enough, there was now an aura of evil surrounding Byram Herschfeld - but oddly, the aura seemed confined only to the top of his head. "He's got evil hair!" the half-orc cried out and crossed the room to bring a vicious slap to the back of the engineer's head. Zander Quilson, knowing how precisely a <em>magic missile</em> spell could be targeted, fired a spell at Byram's hair, killing it instantly. It fell forward, dropping past the astonished engineer's face and falling to the stone floor of the library. Byram took a step away from it as if afraid it would try to climb back onto him, but the animated hairpiece was no longer mobile; whatever animating force had given it energy was now gone.</p><p></p><p>"Oh thank goodness!" Byram gushed, stepping even further away from the now-harmless toupee.</p><p></p><p>"What in the world happened here?" Wakuren demanded.</p><p></p><p>Byram only blushed in response. "It was back in the intersection, when you were still fighting the dagger," Byram explained. "There was a voice in my head, offering to give me anything I wanted. I..." He placed a hand on his bald head. "I immediately thought about how I'd had a nice head of hair in my younger days...and then, all of a sudden, there was hair on my head and a new voice in my thoughts, taking full control of my body. I was helpless to stop it!" He looked over at the pile of scrolls. "It was looking for a specific scroll, I think...and it had plans for me to trap you into the secret summoning chamber behind this wall."</p><p></p><p>"Where?" demanded Xandro.</p><p></p><p>"Here, I think," replied Thurloe, tugging at the carving of the erinyes in the wall. Sure enough, it hinged forwards, revealing a short passageway into a round room taken up entirely with a five-pointed pentagram inside a <em>magic circle</em> inscribed on the floor. At equal distances around the circle were five carved statues: a barbed devil, a bearded devil, an erinyes devil, a chain devil, and a red abishai, the latter looking rather like a draconic gargoyle. Each of the statues had gemstones in place of their eyes, but were otherwise carved out of black marble.</p><p></p><p>"So," Xandro said, "now what?"</p><p></p><p>At Thurloe's insistence, their next move was to go explore the treasure pit, where they discovered Revellius had apparently placed most of his stock in the ochre jelly and the difficulties in even getting down there safely (Wakuren's <em>rope of climbing</em> was put to good use, while Byram theorized Revellius likely used a <em>fly</em> spell) in keeping his treasure secure, for there weren't even any locks on the chests. Two chests contained gold coins; one a bunch of gemstones; a fourth trade bars of silver; and the last two were devoted to miscellaneous magical items and rows of various magical potions and elixirs. Byram made an inventory list of everything but insisted on leaving the items in place. "They'll want to bring the items out under guard, no doubt," Byram explained. "No sense in bringing these all out into the open, to tempt the workers doing all that back-breaking labor hefting away stones."</p><p></p><p>But upon having Alewyth and Zander give every room a thorough once-over and detecting no other hidden doors or secret passageways, Byram declared the underground level to be free of danger - except for the contents of the arcane library. "We'll have clerics from the Temple of Delphyne come take a look at the magical writings and such," Byram declared. "Some they'll probably want to keep; some will probably be burned. I'm sure Revellius had some rather nasty magics in that library, considering the things he got up to down there."</p><p></p><p>"So how did he die?" Alewyth asked. "And what caused the tower to explode? A rival wizard or something?"</p><p></p><p>"Probably <em>explosive runes</em> or some other kind of magic in that book he was reading," Thurloe explained. "And trusting guy that he was, I wouldn't be surprised if he hadn't figured a way of blowing up his tower in the event of his death to make sure nobody got to his stuff. There are <em>contingency</em> spells that can do stuff like that." It was as likely an explanation as any. </p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>And that ended up that adventure. The PCs were each awarded 1,000 gp by Magistrate Duprayne upon Byram's testimony on their behalf. Xandro opted to spend his reward money on a pair of magic gloves from the treasure pit; they allow their wearer to change the energy type of a magic weapon three times per day. (Xandro recently gained a <em>+1 frost short sword</em> which he can now use to change to deal fire damage, or acid damage, or so on for one round at a time.)</p><p></p><p>During our last gaming session in this campaign I had told the players the name of this adventure, but they of course had assumed I had said "Hell to Pay," which made sense given the opening sequence was them standing before a magistrate for having broken the city's laws about spellcasting. Then, when there was the whole "trafficking with devils" aspect to Revellius's past, the name seemed even more appropriate. It wasn't until they confronted Byram - now with an inexplicable full head of hair - that I asked them if they remembered what the adventure was called.</p><p></p><p>"Hell to Pay," they replied.</p><p></p><p>"What was it?" I prompted, showing them the initial initiative card I had made for Byram Herschfeld and then the other one I had made and switched during gameplay without any of them noticing. When Joe had been surprised at Byram having hair I showed him the initiative card, pretending it was the same one I had started with. When Dan had the same suspicions, I did likewise, playing it off as if they just must not have noticed his hair when they first met him (and when I had showed them the initial card with his bald head featured prominently).</p><p></p><p>"Hell Toupee," they grumbled, nowhere near as pleased with my trickery as I was.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>T-shirt worn: My "Duck Dynasty" T-shirt with four bearded men - not only to represent the bearded devil, but because together the four beards have the US flag colors superimposed on them and this was a good representation of "strange hair on one's head - like the "Hell toupee."</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 8482149, member: 508"] [B]ADVENTURE 21: HELL TOUPEE[/B] PC Roster: [INDENT]Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 5[/INDENT] [INDENT] Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 3/wizard 2[/INDENT] [INDENT] Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 2/paladin 3[/INDENT] [INDENT] Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 4/rogue 1[/INDENT] [INDENT] Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 5[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 4 December 2021 - - - "All rise! The Honorable Magistrate [B]Jondir Duprayne[/B] presiding!" Everyone in the courtroom immediately stood up as Magistrate Duprayne entered and took his seat behind the desk on the elevated platform at the back of the room. He banged the gavel three times in rapid succession on the desk before him. "This court is now in session," he intoned. "Who's first this morning?" he asked his bailiff. "These five, Your Honor," replied his bailiff, a burly-looking man who looked like he could handle his own in a fight. He indicated the five adventurers who had been taken away from a hearty breakfast at the Merry Minstrel Inn that morning by a band of hobgoblin city guards. They'd been escorted into the courtroom, where a page had explained to them the courtroom had a permanent [I]zone of truth[/I] spell effect cast upon it, preventing anyone within its confines from telling a lie. "They were observed casting spells within the city limits on several occasions." Magistrate Duprayne glared down at the five. Then his attention was diverted to Wakuren. "Did you steal that armor?" he demanded. "No, sir," Wakuren replied. "You will address the Magistrate as 'Your Honor,'" chided the bailiff. "No, Your Honor," amended Wakuren. "Then you're really a cleric of Cal?" The symbol of the High-Father was prominently displayed on the half-orc's armor and shield. "Yes, Your Honor." "Hmm. You don't see that every day." Then he turned back to the group as a whole. "When you first entered the city, were you briefed on the prohibitions against spellcasting within the city walls unless under the direct supervision of one of the city's clerics?" Thurloe took it upon himself to answer for the group. "We were, Your Honor." Magistrate Duprayne looked down at a sheet of parchment before. "It says you were seen casting spells in the streets outside the Merry Minstrel Inn several days ago, and then again in the poorer section of town over by the dumps. Is this correct?" Wakuren confessed to having cast a [I]spiritual weapon[/I] spell against the druid who had unleashed dire apes upon the city and argued that it was done only in the interests of neutralizing a dangerous threat that could have harmed innocent townsfolk. Alewyth likewise explained she had merely cast a [I]bless[/I] spell and Zander had cast a [I]mage armor[/I] spell before entering combat with the corpse of a woman who had been animated by a trio of dregworms that had inhabited her body - again, with the best interests of the city at heart. The dwarven priestess felt she had made her case when a balding man in the back row stood up and addressed the Magistrate directly. "If it please the court?" he asked, waiting for permission to continue. "Yes?" asked Magistrate Duprayne. "Your Honor, my name is [B]Byram Herschfeld[/B] and I'm a structural engineer for the city. I've been put in charge of clearing out the rubble from the wizard's tower that exploded last week. I have a half-dozen laborers working for me and we've discovered there's a level below the keep. One of the rooms we found down there indicates the wizard may have been associating with devils and now none of my men will go down there anymore. City regulations require at least a two-man team exploring potentially dangerous areas. I could greatly use people with the adventuring experience of these five. Given the nature of the spells they cast - in the defense of the city's inhabitants, it bears repeating - I feel we can trust them into my care. With Your Honor's permission and agreement, I would like to recommend they be sentenced to aiding me in clearing out the underground level of any potential dangers to the city." "How long do you think it would take?" asked the Magistrate. "I have no idea how extensive the underground level might be, Your Honor, or if there are any other levels beneath the one we've discovered thus far. I would imagine probably a day or two - three at the very most - would be sufficient." "Very well." He turned to the five adventurers before him. "You will each have a [I]lesser geas[/I] spell placed upon you, the duration to last no longer than a full week's time or until Byram reports back that any dangers to the city in the tunnels below the wizard's tower have been dealt with, whichever comes first. Case dismissed." "I hope you don't mind me butting in like that," Byram said to his new group of workers as they were escorted to a side room where a cleric would be casting the required [I]lesser geas[/I] spells upon them. "Magistrate Duprayne has a reputation for coming down hard on spellcasting offenders - this job is likely a much better deal for you than whatever his original punishment was likely to be. And I get the help I need to check out the lower level beneath the tower." "Win-win," Thurloe agreed, not without a trace of suspicion in his voice. This Byram fellow was certainly winning, but Thurloe wasn't entirely thrilled with any sort of magical compulsion - especially if it meant potentially being forced to fight devils. He viewed this whole setup as a form of robbery - robbing the dreamwalkers of their liberty - and the fact that the ones doing the robbing were the law of the city didn't make it feel like any less of a violation. Still, what was the option: take on an entire city, just the five of them? Thurloe knew where that particular trail led. Best to just get this whole thing over with and move on to the next town as soon as possible. By the time they'd had their [I]lesser geas[/I] spells cast upon them and Byram led them across town to the site of the collapsed tower, Thurloe was feeling a little better. The wizard's tower wasn't that big: a mere 30 feet to a side and all of two stories tall before the upper level collapsed down onto the ground level a week ago after some sort of explosion in the middle of the night. With a keep that small, maybe the dungeon level would be similarly small and this task would be completed quickly, so the group could be on their way. The workers were already in place and hard at it, lugging chunks of stone from the site and tossing them onto various piles out on the yard. "How's it going, [B]Toby[/B]?" asked Byram. "We got a mostly clear path off to the room on the right," the worker replied. He looked over at the new recruits, all suited up in their adventuring gear. "You takin' them downstairs?" he asked Byram. Upon his boss's acknowledgement, Toby stared Thurloe right in the eye. "You be careful down there," he admonished. "I don't care what anybody says. I saw that devil move. [I]I saw it move![/I]" And with that, he turned back to his work, lugging a chunk of broken stone out of one of the gaps in what ground floor walls still stood after the collapse of the tower. "Just exactly what happened here?" asked Alewyth, looking at the rubble and wreckage. "Not sure exactly," replied Byram as he lit the end of a torch on fire. "Middle of the night a week or so ago, there was a big explosion and the top of the building collapsed down upon the floor below it. Owner was a wizard, an aloof sort name of [B]Revellius Bonesaw[/B], kept pretty much to himself. Nobody's seen him since, so it's possible he was killed in the explosion, not that we've come across his body yet. But if it's under there" - and here he pointed at the piles of collapsed stone still waiting to be removed from the area where the tower once stood - "we'll get to it eventually. It's not like it'll be going anywhere." He picked up a small cage, inside of which sat a canary. "You folks ready to go on down?" "We'd like to cast a few spells first, if that's okay with you," Thurloe replied. Back at the Magistrate's courtroom, it was explained that Byram Herschfeld, as an employee of the city, was being made their official city representative and had the power to grant permission for the casting of spells as he saw fit in the accomplishment of the task to which he'd been appointed. "By all means. In fact, consider this an open invitation to cast whatever spells you need while we're downstairs. We get ourselves into any kind of danger, I want you to be able to respond quickly without having to check with me first." "Well, that's more like it!" Thurloe said and began casting a [I]protection from evil[/I] spell upon himself, an eminently practical spell if there was any chance they'd end up fighting devils below the wizard's tower. Zander cast both a [I]mage armor[/I] and a [I]bear's endurance[/I] spell upon himself, then rifled through his scrolls until he found one containing an [I]expeditious retreat[/I] spell and cast that upon himself as well. Wakuren cast a [I]virtue[/I] spell on the elven sorcerer, then activated his [I]ring of invisibility[/I] and faded from view. Alewyth cast a [I]magic circle against evil[/I] spell upon herself and then a [I]bless[/I] spell upon the whole group. "Nothing for you?" Byram asked Xandro. "I'm good," replied the bard. "Well, let's head on down then," suggested the structural engineer, lifting the canary cage and holding the torch before him. "I'll lead us down to the room that caused all the fuss - we never did get to explore it very much." He led the group through a clear path in the rubble, heading over to a set of stairs in the back corner of the keep - what was likely once the kitchen. The stairs led down into an alchemist's lab, lit only by Byram's torch. Thurloe activated a sunrod from his pack so he'd have his own handy source of illumination. The lab contained a couple tables with various alchemical apparatus on it, none of it disturbed by the collapse of the tower above. There was another door on the far side of the room and Byram headed straight for it. "Here you go, see for yourself," he said, opening the door and stepping back. Wakuren and Alewyth were the first to stick their heads into the doorway, for their darkvision allowed them to see just fine without any illumination. One the floor before them, taking up most of the center of the room, was a silvery pentagram etched into the floor. There was no furniture in the room and only what looked to be a closet door at the south end of the room, but that just made for plenty of wall space to devote to murals. And of murals there were plenty: every available inch of wall-space had been painstakingly painted in exquisite detail, with scenes of leering devils torturing panicked humans and Hellscapes in the background: fire raining down from the skies, lakes of flame, horrible horned serpents and worse crawling in the background. And Wakuren couldn't help but believe he had seen one or more of the devils move in his peripheral vision, as if it had turned his head towards the half-orc and then moved back into place once Wakuren turned his gaze that way. "You see anything funny about these paintings?" he asked Alewyth. "Funny? Certainly not." She saw nothing but depravity in the scenes depicted on the walls and didn't blame the workers above one bit for not wanting to enter the room. But Thurloe followed them into the room and caught motion out of the corner of his eye, just as he'd been warned about by the worker upstairs. Zander activated his [I]scout's headband[/I] and used up all of its daily power at once to grant himself [I]true seeing[/I] for a full minute. "These paintings are all illusions!" he declared. Thurlough pulled his bastard sword from its scabbard on his back and poked the blade into the middle of the head of a painted devil, one which the fighter-wizard could swear he'd seen move but a moment earlier. One of the properties of his blade was the destruction of illusions it touched, and sure enough when he touched the blade to the devil it not only stopped moving but disappeared altogether. Touching his blade to other parts of the walls caused the images to fade from view as well. "Sure enough: these scenes are all just illusions," he announced. "To what end?" asked Xandro. "Who knows? Just for fun? To scare intruders into not wanting to venture any further?" Thurloe hazarded. "There's not much further to go, though," said Wakuren, still invisible but obviously the one who was opening the closet in the back. Unfortunately, it was filled with shelves containing spell components and a wide variety of small statuettes of various devils. Wakuren tried pulling on the statues, hoping to trigger a secret door release mechanism, but none of the figures were attached to the shelves upon which they were arranged. He picked up a statuette of what looked to be a shapely succubus with feathered wings instead of those of a bat, looking it over; to the others, they saw the statuette rising from the shelf seemingly of its own accord and hovering in the air. Only Zander could see through Wakuren's invisibility, but then he focused his attention on the magic pentagram on the floor, looking to see (as Thurloe suggested) if there might be some secret way to raise it up and find a secret set of stairs below it or something. That didn't pan out, but then Zander looked closer at the closet interior and noticed the thin slots along the floor at the closet's front and back: a sure sign that the whole closet had a way of moving to the side. Sure enough, by merely pushing on the eastern wall of the closet, the whole thing moved about three feet to the area directly beneath the stairs leading up to the ground level. Scrambling through the opening, Zander saw a corridor heading east almost immediately upon exiting the back of the closet. But there were niches on either side of the narrow corridor about 15 feet down, and in each niche stood a suit of full plate armor holding a longsword pointed at its feet. Zander knew what that likely meant: a pair of guardian constructs that would animate and attack as soon as anyone tried passing between them unless they gave the proper command word or wore the correct ring or something like that. Not wanting to test his theory, he merely backtracked the way he had come and let the others know what he had found. Thurloe pushed his way through the narrow passageway and advanced up to the suits of armor, examining them with his sunrod in one hand and his bastard sword in the other. Sure enough, there were runes on the helmets, chests, and shoulders of the armor and if the young wizard was recalling his lessons correctly they had something to do with transmutation magic. "These things are gonna attack anyone who tries passing by them," he said. "Let's test that," suggested the still-invisible Wakuren, still carrying the statuette of the erinyes devil. He passed between the armor without incident, the "floating" statuette seeing to fly right past their heads with no response. Zander took that as a possible good sign and ran past the suits of armor as well. However, while they hadn't detected Wakuren's invisible form and had dismissed the "flying" statuette as harmless, an elven stranger in the master's secret underground level was enough of a trigger to jolt them to a semblance of instant life. They brought their swords up and out to swing at the passing elf, one of the blades getting in a lucky strike against Zander's shin as he raced by. But then Thurloe was upon them with his own blade, allowing Zander to flee further down the tunnel and out of range of the dread guards. Alewyth advanced down the corridor behind Thurloe and tried casting a [I]dispel magic[/I] spell at the one not currently trading blows with Thurloe (as it was the only one she could see at the moment). Her spell didn't seem to have any effect. Behind her, Xandro sent a crossbow bolt flying over her head to strike the same dread guard in the helmet. But then the first dread guard stepped out of its niche and blocked any further traffic through the corridor. It attacked Thurloe, standing directly in front of it, but the fighter dodged the thing's blow. Byram entered the tunnel from the narrow passageway in the back of the summoning room's closet, but as instructed earlier he held himself back out of danger, allowing the trained professionals to deal with the real threats. Wakuren spun around and went flying back down the tunnel the way he had come, slamming his shield into the back of the dread guard facing Thurloe. His shield bash attack returned him to full visibility and it was enough - after Thurloe's successful blows - to reduce the guardian to a pile of loose pieces of armor which spilled apart and rolled around on the tunnel floor. Despite the combat going on behind him, Zander decided his best course of action was to leave the combat to those better suited to it than the elven sorcerer; besides, he had a clock ticking on his [I]true seeing[/I] abilities and he'd best get the most mileage from it as he could! With that in mind, he reached a cross-tunnel just ahead and turned north, poking his head into what could only be a sacrificial chamber - judging from the bloodstained altar in the middle of the room before a life-sized statue of some horned devil in the back of the room - and here he was immediately rewarded for the cleverness of his ploy for he could see the sacrificial dagger lying upon the altar was not just any old dagger but rather a bearded devil [I]polymorphed[/I] into that form. However, since the dagger was just sitting there lifelessly, Zander judged it to be harmless for the moment and retraced his way back to the intersection and this time went south, opening a door into a library. This had shelves of books and tomes, with a jumble of scroll tubes spilling out of a case and statues of devils carved into the very walls between the shelves. But of the more immediate notice was the robed figure slumped over onto a table in the middle of the room, as if he'd fallen asleep reading the tome open before him. However, on closer inspection, Zander could see the edges of the pages in the book the figure - who now that he paid closer attention wasn't breathing - had been reading were blackened and charred. But then all thoughts of the robed man and his possible fate were dashed aside when a glowing figure rose up out of the floor beside the corpse. It wore a robe remarkably similar to the one the dead wizard was wearing, and that told Zander this was probably the man's ghost or spirit or something - nothing he wanted to get involved with, in any case! Hoping the undead spirit would constrain itself to the arcane library, Zander closed the door behind him and ran back to the intersection. There was another door to the east but the elf opted to head back west, closer to his adventuring companions. There was door there as well, just past the spot where the dread guards had stood their tireless watch and where one even now traded blows with Wakuren and Thurloe. Zander opened the door, saw it was a small room containing three small cells, and deduced this was where Revellius Bonesaw kept his victims before sacrificing them on the altar in the first room he'd unearthed. But as there didn't seem to be anything interesting in the cell room, he turned back without bothering to close the door. That was a particularly bad idea, for there was an iron cobra behind the door and Zander had basically just set it free to attack him and his companions. It came slithering out of the open doorway and bit at the unsuspecting elf, who at least had the good fortune of hearing the sounds it made as its iron body slithered across the stone floor of the underground level and thus had enough forewarning to avoid its sudden strike. A dwarven warhammer suddenly manifested in the air above Thurloe's head and came smashing down upon the sole remaining dread guard. While its attention was directed at the [I]spiritual weapon[/I], Thurloe got in another good strike with his bastard sword. Xandro sent another crossbow bolt flying over Alewyth's head into the armored helmet of the guardian construct. It lashed out again at Thurloe, its original target, as Wakuren slammed into its back with his shield. But then, with everyone focusing on their current foe, the wraith flew out of the wall and sent a clawed hand into Zander Quilson's body, sending a wave of cold coursing through the elf. Zander dropped the [I]figurine of wondrous power[/I] from his fingertips and said the activation word, allowing the elven dog to form into its full, living size. "Take care of the cobra for me!" he commanded as he spun to face the wraith. The cooshee leaped to the attack at once, snapping at the serpentine construct's iron body with his teeth. Alewyth's [I]spiritual weapon[/I] drove the final blow on the dread guard and it too fell to pieces on the stone floor of the corridor. The way now clear, she started heading towards the east, for Zander had said something about a sacrificial dagger that needed destroying and that certainly sounded like a job well suited to her dwarven warhammer, [I]Sjondra[/I]. Thurloe, in the meantime, had lowered his sword and pointed a finger of his other hand at the wraith, calling out the words to a [I]magic missile[/I] spell as he did so. The bolt of force energy hit true - as the fighter-wizard knew it would - sending a flurry of energy erupting through the incorporeal creature's body. Stuck behind both Thurloe and Alewyth in the narrow corridor, Xandro put away his light crossbow and pulled out his Dardolian Lute, starting the tune of his inspirational courage; it was one way he could contribute to the fights against enemies he at the moment couldn't reach himself. The iron cobra, metal hood flaring, darted in at the cooshee and caught him in the throat with its envenomed bite. The rank poison started coursing through the elven dog's body, affecting him as it would any other creature of living flesh. The cooshee felt his muscles weakening as a result but determinedly fought on. Wakuren activated his other ring, channeling an extra burst of healing energy into his hand in addition to the [I]cure moderate wounds[/I] spell he called into being. Then he rushed at the wraith, hoping to send a massive burst of positive energy at it all at once. In this he was unfortunately disappointed for his body passed right through the undead spirit without affecting it at the least; always a danger when fighting incorporeal foes. But the wraith darted a hand out and siphoned energy from the half-orc's body, causing an involuntary snarl of hatred to burst from Wakuren's fanged mouth. Fortunately, the soldier of Cal managed to connect with his second strike, sending the accumulated positive energy cascading across the wraith's incorporeal frame, eliciting a howling wail of pain that brought a smile to Wakuren's lips. The wraith was clearly on its last legs. It dashed at Wakuren again, its face a rictus of hatred. The half-orc felt his body go cold against the undead creature's touch but he fought off the worst of the effects and sent his shield swishing through the wraith's incorporeal body; it didn't do any good but it made Wakuren feel better to do so. And then a second [I]magic missile[/I] spell, this one from Zander, sent the wraith's body dissipating to nothingness. Off to the side of the elf, the iron cobra and the cooshee snapped at each other, mostly in vain. Alewyth redirected her [I]spiritual weapon[/I] spell to attack the iron cobra as she entered the sacrificial chamber and scowled at the statue of the leering devil along the far wall. Then she hefted [I]Sjondra[/I], lifted it behind her head for an overhead swing, and brought it crashing down onto the sacrificial altar, right where the dagger had lain...but was there no longer. It was now somehow hanging in the air on the other side of the altar, much like the erinyes statue had seemed to fly when an invisible Wakuren had carried it around. Alewyth scrambled up onto the altar and swung at the dagger again but it dodged in midair, darting around out of the way of the dwarf's warhammer. Wakuren entered the chamber behind Alewyth and saw her predicament; he climbed up onto the altar beside her and tried swatting the flying dagger with his shield. In the meantime, the battle with the iron cobra was raging and it now not only involved the cooshee and the metal serpent snapping at each other but also Alewyth's [I]spiritual weapon[/I] spell, Xandro shooting crossbow bolts at the iron cobra, and Zander casting a [I]shocking grasp[/I] spell from a scroll and then trying to touch the rapidly-swaying automaton with no success. As this was all happening in a short side-corridor leading to the room of cells, Byram moved past the commotion to head over towards Alewyth and Wakuren, while Thurloe decided everyone else had their respective battles in hand so he might as well go check out that door at the eastern dead-end corridor. As soon as he touched his hand to the doorknob Thurloe realized he'd made a mistake, for there was some sort of glyph inscribed above the handle and as soon as he even glanced at it it triggered. The [I]symbol of pain[/I] sent a magical wave bursting throughout the underground complex, wracking all but Thurloe and Byram with agonizing pain. The fighter had managed to fight of the worst of the spell's effects and looked back at the others with a half-apologetic grin on his face, then decided he might as well see what was worth protecting with so powerful a ward. The corridor beyond the door continued for a dozen feet or so before spilling into a deep pit; looking over the lip, Thurloe saw half a dozen chests lined up along the pit's edge, in the center of which was a pile of human bones - no doubt the remains of those sacrificed in the chamber Alewyth and Wakuren were in - and a mass of goop that was likely all that was left of them besides the bones. As the pit was a good 40 feet deep, Thurloe decided to leave it for last, as there was no point in climbing down there to check out the chests until all of the other dangers had been dealt with. Therefore, he sauntered back out of the pit room (leaving the door wide open) and headed over to the sacrificial chamber to see if the two clerics needed any help in swatting down a flying dagger. It turned out they had made almost no progress at all, for it was still doing aerial maneuvers around the room while the two clerics tried hitting it with their shield and with [I]Sjondra[/I], respectively. But then, as Thurloe entered (he had to push past Byram to do so, who had stood in the intersection of hallways as if transfixed), a voice called out from the direction of the pit room, "Infernicus!" This turned out to have been the command word which transformed the flying dagger back into its bearded devil form, and it had been uttered by the invisible imp Thurloe had just released from the treasure pit. [B]Desecrus[/B] had been playing his favorite game - taunting the ochre jelly his late master Revellius had placed inside the treasure pit as a guardian - when a stranger had gazed down over the edge of the pit; investigating this intrusion, the imp had been delighted to see a half-dozen strangers engaged in combat with several of the dungeon's inhabitants. This, he thought, was going to be fun! The iron cobra managed to get past the cooshee's defenses and gotten a firm grip onto Zander's thigh, pumping a dose of its venom into the elf's leg. Zander grimaced but the attack gave him an opportunity to discharge the [I]shocking grasp[/I] spell he'd channeled into his right hand and arcs of electricity rippled down the construct's iron body. The cooshee scraped his front claws against the thing's head and Xandro hit it again with a crossbow bolt and eventually their combined efforts took their toll and the iron cobra collapsed to the stone floor to move no more. But in the sacrificial chamber, things were just heating up. The bearded devil, a crafty smile upon his lips, said aloud the single word, "Agreed" as he swung his glaive at Wakuren, nearly toppling the half-orc from his altar-top perch. Alewyth, now attacking a much larger target than a flying dagger, connected with a swing of [I]Sjondra[/I], hitting the devil in his broad chest. Thurloe, now committed to helping the clerics fight an honest-to-goodness devil, ran around the side of the sacrificial altar and struck at the fiend with his bastard sword. "Alewyth!" he called as he attacked. "Apply the [I]silversheen[/I] to your weapon - it's one of his vulnerabilities!" Zander saw the invisible imp flying down the corridor and hit him with a [I]magic missile[/I] spell, causing it to squawk in surprise that somebody had seen it at all. Then the cooshee ran down the corridor, turning to snap at the imp after it had clawed at him and made itself visible in doing so. Now it was trapped with a cooshee on one side and an elven spellcaster on the other. Xandro didn't dare try to shoot at the imp with Zander in the way so he went back to playing his inspirational song of courage - maybe it would help counteract the effects of the [I]symbol of pain[/I] Thurloe had triggered. As if suddenly cold, Byram flipped the hood of his cloak up over his head and retreated to the safety of the library containing the dead body of Revellius Bonesaw, closing the door behind him. Zander thought that was a bit odd but didn't have time to dwell on it as he was still fighting the imp. Its tail stinger hit the elf on the shoulder but it was fortunately a glancing blow and not a lot of the devil's venom made it into the wound, little enough that Zander hoped he could avoid the worst of whatever effects it might bring. But he retaliated with another [I]magic missile[/I] spell, then ducked around the corner of the intersection, towards the arcane library, while his cooshee carried on the attack. The bearded devil stabbed at Wakuren with his glaive, opening an infernal wound in the half-orc's side which hurt almost as much as the agony the [I]symbol of pain[/I] had delivered. Alewyth stepped back from combat just long enough to pull out a vial of [I]silversheen[/I] from her pack and apply it quickly to the striking surfaces of her dwarven warhammer. Thurloe hit the devil again with his bastard sword and then tried to retreat, forgetting the extra reach the fiend had with his glaive. It was all he could do to avoid the fiendish blade stabbing his way as he retreated to the doorway. The cooshee suddenly yowled out in pain, for it was unaware of what the imp had seen coming: the ochre jelly had oozed its way up the side of the pit and had entered the passageway through the open door. Its acidic coating burned at the elven dog's feet as it slowly engulfed him like an approaching wave. But with Zander around the corner Xandro now had room to enter physical combat himself and he did so by charging at the imp, leading with the point of his magic longsword. The blade stabbed into the imp's back and skewered him right through the belly, killing him instantly. But unlike summoned creatures whose bodies vanished when they died, Desecrus remained skewered on the bard's sword and he had to take a boot to the little devil's body to pull his sword back out of his nasty little hide. Wakuren attacked the bearded devil with the bottom edge of his shield, where it came to a point. The blow opened a wound on the devil's frame but he merely seemed amused by the damage. He retaliated with another blow of his glaive, opening another infernal wound in the half-orc's battered body. Alewyth saw her fellow cleric's predicament and rushed in, not to rejoin the combat but to cast a [I]cure moderate wounds[/I] spell on Wakuren, which healed all but the two infernal wounds the bearded devil had inflicted upon him. Thurloe took the opportunity to try to cast a [I]shield[/I] spell on himself before re-entering the combat but he messed up the somatic component to the spell in his heavy armor and the [I]shield[/I] spell dissipated before taking effect. He snarled in irritation but headed back into the chamber, bastard sword in hand. Zander had popped his head back around the corner and saw the ochre jelly attacking his faithful (although as-yet-unnamed) elven hound. The sorcerer cast a [I]scorching ray[/I] at the jelly, burning its acidic body as it had burned the cooshee. Instinctively, the elven dog whirled and bit and clawed at the ooze monster, learning only after the fact that attacking a pliant blob coated in acid burned even when [I]you[/I] attacked [I]it[/I]. The ochre jelly repositioned its body mass, forming a pseudopod that lashed out at the beleaguered elven dog, finally killing it. Of course, the cooshee's death merely resulted in it reverting to its statuette form, which plopped into the jelly's mass. Before Xandro even gave it much thought, he darted his hand in and grabbed at the [I]figurine of wondrous power[/I], afraid of having the jade statuette get eaten away by the jelly's acid. He turned to hand it to Zander, but the elf was now following Byram into the arcane library, to see what he was up to. Xandro just gave a cursory wipe of the statue on the leg of his pants and dropped it into a pouch, hoping he'd gotten rid of most of the acid coating it. Wakuren managed to finally land the killing blow on the bearded devil after a furious three-against-one fight. Then he and Alewyth took a moment to apply healing spells among the three as needed, the half-orc concentrating closely on his spellcasting and managing to seal up the two infernal wounds the bearded devil had inflicted upon him. Then, looking to see where everyone else had gotten off to, they crossed the intersecting corridors and saw the ochre jelly making its steady way in their direction. Alewyth now had a silvered weapon but didn't want to risk using it against an acidic creature so she cast a second [I]spiritual weapon[/I] and allowed it to strike the ooze in her stead. Thurloe flung a [I]magic missile[/I] at it in passing, then headed to the arcane library where everyone else seemed to have headed. The ooze moved slow enough they could take a moment's breather while it caught up to them. Inside the library, there was a bit of confusion going on. Byram was frantically searching through the scroll tubes, while Zander was accusing him of something to do with his hair. That was weird; the structural engineer had his hood up but Thurloe could see there was a thick body of hair on the top of the formerly balding man's head, strands of it peeking out from underneath the hood. Zander lifted the corpse of Revellius Bonesaw to get a good look at his face, wondering if maybe the dead wizard had somehow taken over Byram, but while Revellius had a full head of hair and a neatly-trimmed beard, his hair looked nothing like that which Byram was suddenly sporting. Alewyth stopped at the intersection long enough to see her [I]spiritual weapon[/I] tearing into the ochre jelly; it was quivering enough to make her believe the thing was almost dead. Trusting in the temporary covering of the [I]silversheen[/I] she'd applied to the weapon's head to keep it safe from acid, she brought [I]Sjondra[/I] down in what turned out to be the killing blow. Then she joined the men in the library. Thurloe had entered and dropped a hand on Byram's shoulder, channeling a [I]touch of fatigue[/I] into the engineer's wiry frame. The two were standing next to an intricate carving of an erinyes devil and Thurloe noted there was a seam along one side of the carving that might indicate a hidden door. Byram tore his shoulder from the fighter's grasp and snarled a warning at him; after this uncharacteristic behavior, Xandro aimed his crossbow at the engineer as a warning but held off on actually attacking for now. It was only when Wakuren entered the library and saw the commotion that he opted to do a quick [I]detect evil[/I] check. Sure enough, there was now an aura of evil surrounding Byram Herschfeld - but oddly, the aura seemed confined only to the top of his head. "He's got evil hair!" the half-orc cried out and crossed the room to bring a vicious slap to the back of the engineer's head. Zander Quilson, knowing how precisely a [I]magic missile[/I] spell could be targeted, fired a spell at Byram's hair, killing it instantly. It fell forward, dropping past the astonished engineer's face and falling to the stone floor of the library. Byram took a step away from it as if afraid it would try to climb back onto him, but the animated hairpiece was no longer mobile; whatever animating force had given it energy was now gone. "Oh thank goodness!" Byram gushed, stepping even further away from the now-harmless toupee. "What in the world happened here?" Wakuren demanded. Byram only blushed in response. "It was back in the intersection, when you were still fighting the dagger," Byram explained. "There was a voice in my head, offering to give me anything I wanted. I..." He placed a hand on his bald head. "I immediately thought about how I'd had a nice head of hair in my younger days...and then, all of a sudden, there was hair on my head and a new voice in my thoughts, taking full control of my body. I was helpless to stop it!" He looked over at the pile of scrolls. "It was looking for a specific scroll, I think...and it had plans for me to trap you into the secret summoning chamber behind this wall." "Where?" demanded Xandro. "Here, I think," replied Thurloe, tugging at the carving of the erinyes in the wall. Sure enough, it hinged forwards, revealing a short passageway into a round room taken up entirely with a five-pointed pentagram inside a [I]magic circle[/I] inscribed on the floor. At equal distances around the circle were five carved statues: a barbed devil, a bearded devil, an erinyes devil, a chain devil, and a red abishai, the latter looking rather like a draconic gargoyle. Each of the statues had gemstones in place of their eyes, but were otherwise carved out of black marble. "So," Xandro said, "now what?" At Thurloe's insistence, their next move was to go explore the treasure pit, where they discovered Revellius had apparently placed most of his stock in the ochre jelly and the difficulties in even getting down there safely (Wakuren's [I]rope of climbing[/I] was put to good use, while Byram theorized Revellius likely used a [I]fly[/I] spell) in keeping his treasure secure, for there weren't even any locks on the chests. Two chests contained gold coins; one a bunch of gemstones; a fourth trade bars of silver; and the last two were devoted to miscellaneous magical items and rows of various magical potions and elixirs. Byram made an inventory list of everything but insisted on leaving the items in place. "They'll want to bring the items out under guard, no doubt," Byram explained. "No sense in bringing these all out into the open, to tempt the workers doing all that back-breaking labor hefting away stones." But upon having Alewyth and Zander give every room a thorough once-over and detecting no other hidden doors or secret passageways, Byram declared the underground level to be free of danger - except for the contents of the arcane library. "We'll have clerics from the Temple of Delphyne come take a look at the magical writings and such," Byram declared. "Some they'll probably want to keep; some will probably be burned. I'm sure Revellius had some rather nasty magics in that library, considering the things he got up to down there." "So how did he die?" Alewyth asked. "And what caused the tower to explode? A rival wizard or something?" "Probably [I]explosive runes[/I] or some other kind of magic in that book he was reading," Thurloe explained. "And trusting guy that he was, I wouldn't be surprised if he hadn't figured a way of blowing up his tower in the event of his death to make sure nobody got to his stuff. There are [I]contingency[/I] spells that can do stuff like that." It was as likely an explanation as any. - - - And that ended up that adventure. The PCs were each awarded 1,000 gp by Magistrate Duprayne upon Byram's testimony on their behalf. Xandro opted to spend his reward money on a pair of magic gloves from the treasure pit; they allow their wearer to change the energy type of a magic weapon three times per day. (Xandro recently gained a [I]+1 frost short sword[/I] which he can now use to change to deal fire damage, or acid damage, or so on for one round at a time.) During our last gaming session in this campaign I had told the players the name of this adventure, but they of course had assumed I had said "Hell to Pay," which made sense given the opening sequence was them standing before a magistrate for having broken the city's laws about spellcasting. Then, when there was the whole "trafficking with devils" aspect to Revellius's past, the name seemed even more appropriate. It wasn't until they confronted Byram - now with an inexplicable full head of hair - that I asked them if they remembered what the adventure was called. "Hell to Pay," they replied. "What was it?" I prompted, showing them the initial initiative card I had made for Byram Herschfeld and then the other one I had made and switched during gameplay without any of them noticing. When Joe had been surprised at Byram having hair I showed him the initiative card, pretending it was the same one I had started with. When Dan had the same suspicions, I did likewise, playing it off as if they just must not have noticed his hair when they first met him (and when I had showed them the initial card with his bald head featured prominently). "Hell Toupee," they grumbled, nowhere near as pleased with my trickery as I was. - - - T-shirt worn: My "Duck Dynasty" T-shirt with four bearded men - not only to represent the bearded devil, but because together the four beards have the US flag colors superimposed on them and this was a good representation of "strange hair on one's head - like the "Hell toupee." [/QUOTE]
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