The Heroes awake after eight hours of rest, switching up guard duty between Grog, Eltharion, and Balophan (they let the half-ogre Druelnarg sleep soundly, and snore loudly).
“Okay, we need to get back to the main room and get through that doorway,” Bink says, as they remove the barricade from the exit. The Heroes move out to the access room that leads back to the main room, and arrive. Bink hands everyone a relic, opens the ornately carved door in the main room.
Plates of mirror-bright metal tile the walls, floor, and ceiling. All of them are intricately engraved. A crystal eye shaped lantern hangs and illuminates the room slightly. The floor is littered with bodies; ogres, humans, orcs, ghouls, Vecna cultists, and a few centaurs. The stench is terrible.
“Ah, geez, that’s awful…” Eltharion looks around in disgust. Two passages lead off to the left and right, and a large, ornate door is straight ahead. He heads off to the right, the rest of the party following behind. As they turn the corner, there is another silvery door. However, standing in front of the door is a large, eight foot tall hand, made of iron. It instantly animates and begins to shuffle towards Eltharion. The Heroes fall back into the bigger room.
“Back up! Surround it!” Eltharion calls out, as Grog makes his way around the thing. Balophan does the same. Druelnarg cowers back out of the way, fearing the awkwardly moving hand.
Bink casts haste and lightning bolt. The bolt seems to be absorbed by the iron hand, but it starts to move much more slowly after it is hit. Bink shrugs.
Grog lets out a roar and charges in from behind the hand. His eyes go bloodshot and the spittle flies. His katana, Murasamé, slashes into the metal, denting it somewhat. Eltharion comes in from the other side. He pulls out his Moon-scimitar and his sylvan scimitar, and cuts into the hand a couple of times. Balophan gallops in with his longsword/shortsword combination, landing a couple of good hits.
The hand, moving very slowly, rears back, balancing on its thumb and pinky, and strikes out with its middle finger. Although slowed, the blow is still hard, and it knocks the wind out of Eltharion.
Bink casts another lightning bolt, hoping to slow the creature for longer. He then charges in with his brilliant energy falchion, and slashes hard. It passes right through the animate iron hand.
“Damn energy blade…” Bink curses.
Druelnarg gets up some confidence, and charges the hand, cutting into it with his greatsword. It glances off to no effect.
Eltharion, Grog and Balophan cut into the hand again, denting it all around. Bink goes around, casting haste on everybody, making sure to destroy the thing as quickly as possible.
The hand gets another couple of hits in, striking both Grog and Balophan. The final blow comes from Grog, who cuts completely through the pinky after a volley of hits, and the hand smashes into the metallic ground. Druelnarg runs off by himself, toward the door the hand was guarding.
“Must get da treasure, so I can find me brudder,” he mumbles as he shuffles off. Bink follows. The others examine the iron hand.
As Bink rounds the corner, Druelnarg is pushing open the silvery door. Just as he does so, his skin looks like it is melting off, transforming into a greenish ooze. Druelnarg spins around to Bink, his skin melting, and a look of horror in his eyes.
“You… you ugly monster!” Druelnarg yells, charging at Bink. Bink flies up to the ceiling to avoid the green-slime-dripping Druelnarg, slightly confused.
“Me, a monster? Look at you,” Bink replies, still puzzled.
Druelnarg runs away from Bink, screaming. He slams the silvery door behind him as he runs through.
“Dammit,” Bink flies back to the ground, and pushes open the silver door again. Inside, the scene is even worse. A bubbly pile of green ooze across the room in front of yet another door is draining into the floor, which has tons of small openings, like a grate.
“I guess he got his,” Bink flies quickly through the room, and into the partially-open door across the way. Another relic chamber; mosaic tiles, lamp-like reliquary, mummified hand. On the opposite wall, however, there is a huge sculpture of seemingly hundreds of humanoids carved directly into the wall.
Bink flies directly at the reliquary and removes the hand. All the stone heads on the wall turn toward him and gibber… “Join us!” Bink ignores them and flies back out to the main passageway.
“Find anything?” Grog’s question is answered as soon as Bink holds up the mummified hand.
“More body parts, yuck,” Eltharion kicks around a couple of the cultist bodies littering the room. They all go to the left to investigate.
The room around the corner on this side has burned and blasted tapestries, smashed sculptures, and scorched stone. The silvery door on this side has been half-melted away, and lays off its hinges. In the corner is a huge iron orb, most likely an eye. However, half of it is melted and corroded away, and it sits motionless.
“Somebody had his way with this place…” Eltharion mutters as they move on.
Through the silvery door is gears, springs, and shiny metallic discs with razor edges. Many of the discs are jammed halfway in some of the hundres of slits in the walls. Many others lie crumpled and melted upon the stony floor. A five foot wide path is cleared through the jumble of machinery to the other side, and what was once a large obsidian door, that is now no more than a pile of rocky chunks.
Through this doorway is another relic chamber, but this one has been ransacked. Burnt and shattered tiles are everywhere. The reliquary is broken and on the ground, missing its body-part. The sculptures on the wall are all melted and drooping. A fallen cultist body is on the floor, and above him, written in blood on the wall, it says: Iuz was here.
“Yes, yes he was…” Eltharion responds, as if somebody had read the message. “Maybe we should let Iuz and Vecna deal with eachother…”
“Oh, what, are you afraid of a little demi-God action now?” Bink replies, chuckling slightly. They head back to the main room and look at the final door.
“Not me,” Grog looks at Bink as he kicks in the door.
Crumbled and shattered sapphire tiles cover the floor, and remanants of silk tapestries drape the walls. Thousands of small points of light dot the ceiling. Thirty feet of space separates two bone-pale altars that are in the left and right side of the room. Another large door lays on the other side of this room. However, someone stands inbetween.
She is hideously ugly. Patches of her skin and hair seemed to have been replaced by some mummified leather. She is wearing full plate armor and weilds an ornate mace. The eye-in-hand symbol is seen on her. She calmly and coolly casts a spell as the Heroes enter.
Bink replies in turn. He casts haste and launches a fireball at the priestess and a few ghouls that were rising around her. The fire incinerates the ghouls, but the priestess seems unaffected.
Grog flies into a rage and charges the woman. Eltharion and Balophan follow suit. All of them miss on their initial attacks; the woman is heavily armored and protected by magic.
She steps back and casts another spell. Grog is enveloped by a column of white-hot flames. He screams with rage as his skin and fur are scorched terribly. The priestess smiles evilly.
Grog doesn’t fall.
The priestess' smile fades.
Bink floats up and fires two lightning bolts at the priestess, both of them shocking her terribly. She staggers back, eyes wide in disbelief.
Grog, Eltharion and Balophan step up, this time unloading a vicious volley of attacks. Each of them connects with several hits, and the woman is on her knee, bleeding from the mouth.
She steps back again, casting yet another spell. Her wounds all close up, and she is grinning again.
But not for long.
Bink fires ten magic missiles at her, and Grog, Eltharion and Balophan slash into her again. This time, she doesn’t fare so well. Eltharion scores several nicks, and his final stab with his Moon-scimitar sinks deep into her gut. This proves enough distraction for her to lose her head; literally. Grog finishes her with an expert strike of his razor-sharp katana.
“Bitch…” Grog spits on her, as he sits down, gritting his teeth at the burns all over his body. Eltharion heals him a little, and he gets back up.
“Let’s go!” Bink wastes no time, and opens the door on the far side of the chamber. Eltharion finishes looting the body of the priestess and follows.
The next room holds a 20 foot wide chasm splitting the coal-black chamber. It seems a stone bridge used to cross it, but it has been destroyed. Tiny five-foot wide catwalks are on either side of the chamber, with a door on either side as well. Six ogres are attached to the wall on the other side, by chains wrapped around their torsos. They all bring large longbows to bear, and fire a volley into the Heroes. Everyone takes a grazing arrow hit, and they all think fast.
“Retreat, I’ll handle them,” Bink casts stoneskin and the rest of the party retreats out of the room. The arrows continue to rain in, but Bink is mostly unaffected. He then flies across the chasm to get in better position for a lightning bolt.
Bad move.
A glyph in the ceiling flashes as he flies over, and he feels his fly spell unravel. He begins to fall. However, because of his momentum, he is carried the rest of the way across the chasm, and is able to grab onto the ledge. He climbs up, firing a lightning bolt down the line, killing all the ogres, who fall lifeless, but stay slightly upright, due to the chains holding them up.
Eltharion, peeking through a crack in the door, opens it, seeing the ogres incapacitated.
“Nice work, Bink,” Eltharion says, looking around. “How do we get over?”
“Run and jump…” Bink dusts himself off and catches his breath from the near-death experience.
Eltharion tosses over his grappling hook and rope, which Bink attaches to the chains. Grog and Eltharion are able to crawl across using that method, but it would be complicated for Balophan.
“I’ll just jump,” and so he does, clearing the 20 foot chasm with ease.
“Nice!” Eltharion comments.
“Let’s go…” Bink opens the large door.
A portal archway dominates this 40-foot-high chamber. The portal stands in a shallow niche along the opposite wall. Heavy mist fills the entire archway. Veins of oily fog have spread out from beneath the arch, and they run along the walls and ceiling. A layer of fallen plaster covers the floor in drifts and dunes. The room has a cache of barrels, and lots of creatures. About ten ogres, three half-ogres, three humans, and a purply-skinned ogre with small ivory horns. All of them have Iuz’s grinning skull symbol on their armor.
“It’s Korbadur…” Bink lowers his gaze toward him, evilly. Bink re-casts haste on himself, then casts black tentacles onto the main mass of ogres. The tentacles quickly wrap around and grasp most of them, holding them immobile. One half-ogre jumps back out of the way, only to brush up against one of the inky-black tendrils of darkness drifting from the portal. He vanishes with a scream.
Grog, Balophan and Eltharion charge at the three humans and two remaining half-ogres. They clash, trading blows.
Korbadur lowers his gaze to Bink as well, flying toward him. He unleashes as cone of cold, chilling Bink to the bone. Bink retaliates with a lightning bolt and a fireball. The lightning doesn’t seem to affect Korbadur too much, but the fire burns him terribly. Bink’s smile grows.
Eltharion, Grog and Balophan are kept busy by the five Iuz followers. Grog is able to finish off one, but the everyone is taking heavy damage. They are probably Iuz’s more powerful mercenaries.
Korbadur flies straight at Bink, slashing out with his greatsword. Bink feels the burn of the cut to his bicep. Bink flies back and fires off ten magic missiles. They all pound into Korbadur hard, and his eyes roll back as he falls unconscious. His head cracks against the ground unceremoniously.
Grog, Eltharion and Balophan finish off another mercenary. Bink flies over and strikes one with his falchion. After another minute, they are all dead.
The tentacles mostly hold the ogres, with only two breaking free. Grog meets them, slashing both of their knee-caps, and cutting them down. Bink fires an empowered fireball into the rest of the ogres, burning them to the bone. They all collapse.
Korbadur’s body begins to stir, and Eltharion stabs it again through the skull. The wound immediately starts to close up, albeit slowly.
“Burn it…” Bink says, using a cantrip to light his thumb afire. He blows the flame onto the ogre-mage, and the body burns, filling the room with thick, foul-smelling smoke.
“I say we rest here. Pretty defensible,” Eltharion says.
“What about that?” Balophan points to the tendrils of black energy seeping out of the portal, slowly progressing further and further.
“Let’s sleep on the other side of the chamber…” Grog offers.
They bunk down and rest near the doorway to the chasm-room. Eltharion and Grog push ogre bodies toward the portal, and as the black tendrils touch them, they vanish. They quickly clear the room of the rest of the bodies in this manner.
“Tomorrow, I guess we go in the portal,” Bink says.
After a day of rest in the eerie room, the Heroes gather around the portal.
“I guess we go in. Who’s first?” Bink looks around. Grog steps up.
“I’m not scared,” he bravely walks into the misty portal, and vanishes.
“Well… let’s go!” Bink shrugs, and jumps in himself. Balophan and Eltharion follow suit.
Where are they now? Is Vecna close? Are you still crying over the loss of Druelnarg? Wait until next time, for more adventure!