ADVENTURE 71: TRIPLE D
PC Roster:
NPC Roster:
Game Session Date: 4 June 2025
- - -
Weeks had passed since the events at Gladys Giltgoiter's perfume shop, and several members of the Trained Professional Adventurers had been busy, doing what they could to make amends to the gnome wizard they'd slain: having her reincarnated (that was Orchid's only real contribution, and she figured once that had been done that was all that was required in the form of reparations, although after having been asked nicely she deigned to cast a wood shape spell to repair the hole she'd made in the bottom of the grisgol's boat they'd sunk), finding replacements for all of the potions and oils Ageratum had confiscated as "loot from a slain enemy" and refused to return (Alistair had spent most of the money he had on hand to buy the exact quantities from a potion shop in Greyhawk City, teleporting to and fro to gather them up and return with them to Ghourmand Vale), and to see about atonement spells for those who felt bad about slaying Gladys without any real provocation (Chaevaris joined Harlan and Alistair in the ceremony). Alistair had even penned a song apologizing to Gladys and trying to explain their actions.
Gladys, however, had taken her recent death and subsequent reincarnation into a halfling in stride. She'd apparently had some sort of life insurance scheme in play with the Potionmakers Guild, and actually received a decent amount of cash for the indignity of having been slain. And while she used illusion spells to restore herself to her original gnomish appearance ("For the customers," she explained), she'd used the money to purchase an even larger potion shop a few blocks over from her old shop, which had taken some structural damage from the explosion that had brought the heroes to her original place of business in the first place.
Now, as they had agreed upon, the Trained Professional Adventurers were arriving at her new shop, specifically so they could perform their last act of reparations: delivering the potions and oils ordered and paid for in advance by an eldritch giant named El Brujo - it was these Ageratum had confiscated, after the heroes had chased off the giant's grisgol construct servant.
Entering the shop, they saw Gladys behind the counter - apparently standing on a raised platform so her little halfing body (gnomish in appearance, thanks to an illusion) could reach - and a familiar form standing in the shop. "My word!" exclaimed Blorkane Trotter, looking over at the new arrivals. "Look who it is! Doing a little potion shopping, eh?"
"Hello, Blorkane," sighed Alistair. The foolish wizard was frequently getting himself into trouble, and it often fell upon the TPA to deal with the consequences of his ill-thought-out actions. "No, we're good on potions - just doing a little delivery job for Gladys, is all."
"Come on in the back," said the shop proprietor. "I'll get those potions packaged up, and you can deliver them to El Brujo - he'll have a representative waiting for you a day's travel down the river, by the first set of falls."
"El Brujo?" erupted Blorkane. "You don't want to have any dealing with him, Alistair, my good man! He has a reputation - well-earned, or so I'm told - of being a crook of the highest order! I recommend you rethink this job, or at the very least, if you insist upon meeting with the man or his minions, leave behind anything of value you do not wish to have stolen out from underneath your very noses! I would, naturally, be more than happy to hold on to any items you deem unessential to your mission."
"No, thank you, Blorkane," replied Alistair. "I think we'll be fine." The sorcerer half-suspected this was just a simple ploy for the fat wizard to get his hands back on the cubic gate they'd recovered after he sold it to Kasselban Picksmart, who had been trafficking with demons and slaying his miners. The heavyset wizard pouted at having his offer turned down, wished the group a good journey, and headed back out the front door, sending the bell dangling above jingling.
"Strange little fellow," observed Harlan.
"Not quite so little," pointed out Ageratum, following Gladys to the back room. The others did likewise.
Around the corner was the actual laboratory, a wide, open chamber that took up the majority of the building's floor space. There was a raised platform at the north of the structure, where an elevated floor allowed the gnome to access the 10-foot-tall sealed cauldron in which potions could be produced in great numbers all at once. There was a circular tower to the southwest - nothing fancy, just one story tall, like the rest of the building, but with the same 20-foot-tall ceilings. However, the middle of the room was taken up by a large, wooden table, and it was here Gladys led her delivery team. She gathered up the potions and oils to be delivered to El Brujo's representative - vials Alistair had painstakingly gathered up and paid for with his own money - wrapped them in vellum, and placed them carefully in a small chest.
Her preparations were interrupted when the bell above the front door tinkled and soon after Blorkane ran into the back of the lab, looking flustered. "Have you seen me?" he demanded. "Recently? Like in the last few days?"
"We saw you several minutes ago," answered Alistair with a hint of irritation in his voice. What nonsense had the foolish wizard gotten himself into this time? "What's this all about?"
"That wasn't me!" insisted Blorkane. Alistair's face scrunched up into a look of utter disbelief, but then Orchid pointed out that the first Blorkane they'd seen that day was wearing a set of bracers on his arms - and this one wasn't.
"We don't need this distraction," insisted Gladys, finishing up the packaging of the contents of the chest and closing it up.
"I--I may have done something foolish," admitted Blorkane. "I allowed Creelman to disguise himself as me...it seemed harmless, and he was willing to pay an ungodly amount of money for the privilege. All I had to do was lounge around in a well-furnished suite of rooms for a week."
"Who is this Creelman?" demanded Harlan. "And why did he want to take your place?"
"I think he wanted to spy around without attracting attention," surmised Blorkane, answering the paladin's second question first. "But I eventually got tired of hanging around in the room and decided to leave it - and found out I was on the Ethereal Plane. Now that I've come back here - prior to the agreed-upon arrangement - I think Creelman will be coming after me. And I'm pretty sure he can scry on my whereabouts, to find out where I am."
Alistair sighed heavily again and looked over at his fellow adventurers. "We're probably going to have to take him with us, to make sure he's okay," he suggested.
"Why?" asked Ageratum. "He's a big boy, maybe he should start learning to look after himself."
"If we leave him behind, we'll never know whether it's him or this Creelman when we see him in the future. Unless," he mused, "we come up with a pass-phrase so we'll know it's him - something Creelman wouldn't know about. How about: 'I'm a naughty, naughty piggy.'"
Now it was Ageratum's turn to sigh. "I have a scroll with the rope trick spell," she offered. "How about we let him use it, and he can stay safe in an extradimensional space until we get back?"
"That'll be two full days," countered Alistair. "The spell will run its course in half a day." Then he turned to Blorkane and asked, "I don't suppose you know the rope trick spell?"
"I do."
"And do you have one at the ready?"
"Certainly."
"Ah, good! Then cast it, climb up into the extradimensional space, and don't come out until the spell expires - and then cast it again, until we get back."
Then the group heard an enormous crack coming from the front room, sounding like nothing so much as stone being shattered. Blorkane squealed in fright, said, "It's Creelman!" and started frantically casting a rope trick spell. It was apparently a variant made for his own shortcomings; instead of a rope, it was a rope ladder that rose up into the air into a black nothingness above. Alistair had been wondering if the hefty spellcaster would have been able to climb a rope on his own.
"What in the world was that?" asked Chaevaris, nocking an arrow into her longbow. Ageratum didn't wait to find out; she clambered up the east wall with her cloak of arachnida providing her the ability to spider climb, while she activated her magical bracers and slipped into a greater invisibility spell effect. Orchid, anticipating trouble, cast a mass bear's endurance on the group (including Gladys and Blorkane before he scampered up into his extradimensional space and pulled up the rope ladder), while Alistair crossed the room and readied a chain lightning spell if this Creelman turned the corner and entered the laboratory from its only entry point. Harlan merely unsheathed his Starblade and took up a ready combat stance. Ambrose flew from his master's shoulder and landed up on the top of the cauldron, where he could watch the entryway without being readily noticed.
Gladys grabbed up the chest and ran over to the tower room, dropping it inside. "It's always something with you people," she grumbled, then cast a shield spell on herself.
All eyes were on the entryway, but that's not where the attackers made their entry into the alchemical laboratory. Instead, cracks appeared in the floor to the east of the table in the middle of the rom, and up popped an insectoid creature, some 16 feet in height despite its hunched-over posture. It had a pair of multifaceted eyes like those of a fly or a bee on the sides of its head, plus another set of beady, black eyes on the front of its face. It stared at Orchid, the closest hero to it, and the druid felt a mental funk that quickly washed over her, apparently some sort of magical attack that had failed.
But both Chaevaris and Alistair caught the truly horrid umber hulk in their peripheral vision, and let loose with their readied attacks. A chain lightning spell came shooting from the sorcerer's fingertips to strike the insectoid beast in its broad chest, while the elf archer sent her arrow streaking unerringly into its rightmost beady, black eye. The sonics from her magic arrow rolled over and through the massive beast, blasting out its hearing and leaving it permanently deafened. It cried out in pain but continued making strange noises; Ageratum, wearing the helmet that automatically translated languages for her, allowed her to recognize it as a short sentence, called out in Terran: "Come help me, they're all here!" Startled, she called out the translation in the Common tongue, adding, "There's more of them, and they're after us for some reason!"
Chaevaris was pretty sure she knew the reason: Blorkane's cubic gate, which was currently in the extradimensional dwelling keyed to the amulet she wore around her neck. That stupid thing seemed to attract an awful lot of attention; more so than it was worth, in her mind, considering they'd never even used it once since they ended up with it in their custody.
Harlan charged the truly horrid umber hulk, dodging a swipe with a massive set of claws that slashed out at him as he approached. He managed to deflect the majority of the attack on his shield, but still took a bit of damage as they scored a gash across his torso during their travels. Fortunately, his Starblade gave as much damage, or more, than he took.
But then reinforcements showed up. Two more holes appeared in the floor, one on either side of the first, and out sprang two more umber hulks, these a more respectable eight feet in height. Orchid once again felt herself under that magical attack of theirs, and this time so did Chaevaris, but both elves' minds were strong enough to avoid the confusion effects. And unbeknownst to any in the room, an additional foe entered the laboratory: a second Blorkane, wrapped in an invisibility spell - the enigmatic Creelman, no doubt. He climbed the steps leading to the upper floor overlooking the vat, but did so quietly enough that Ambrose failed to detect him.
Ageratum ran across the wall until she was right behind the truly horrid umber hulk, with Orchid directly across from it. She stabbed out with her magic short sword, catching it in the (still very large) small of its back, sending the blade all the way in to the end of its hilt and then pulling it back out again before the pain hit the massive beast. She even managed to drain a bit of the creature's strength from the precision of her blow. And her helmet translated the newly-arrived umber hulks' queries: "Where's the wizard? Where's the wizard?" They were after Blorkane, apparently. Well, better him than them!
Orchid ran past the truly horrid umber hulk and the one at its left, ducking the claws that came her way as she moved, and lined herself up for a sunbeam spell that went through all three of the insectoid trespassers. The spell didn't do either of the umber hulks a whole lot of physical damage, but each one was permanently blinded by the spell.
Alistair whipped out his metamagic rod - the more powerful of the two he owned - from an inner vest pocket and channeled another chain lightning spell through it, maximizing it in the process. He targeted the larger of the three as his primary and sent arcs lashing out at the other two. The truly horrid umber hulk fell over dead with a crash that sent all of Gladys' glass beakers and potion vials shaking and ringing. The other two were obviously hurt by the spell as well, but they were still up and fighting - although, blinded, they couldn't see what exactly they were fighting any more.
Blorkane popped his head out of the extradimensional space in which he'd been hiding, just to call out, "Well done, chaps!" The invisible Creelman took immediate notice and smiled an unseen smile.
"Get back inside!" yelled Alistair. "And stay there - it's for your own protection!" Blorkane, chastened, complied at once. The sorcerer was amazed the idiot hadn't managed to get himself killed long before this.
Chaevaris took a quick aim and sent another arrow flying into the umber hulk standing to the left of the massive insectoid corpse beside Gladys' table. She caught it in the eye as well, and it fell over, joining its larger partner in death. Harlan charged the last remaining umber hulk, the Starblade nearly severing it along its midsection. It collapsed where it stood, never having seen the half-elf who killed it.
Then Gladys gave a "harrumph" of disgust, and while the heroes assumed it was her upset at the mess in her new potion workshop, it was actually aimed at the failed charm person spell Creelman had cast her way; he failed to gain a combat ally out of the deal and, worse yet, revealed himself in the process. Ambrose squawked out a warning, and the heroes all spun to face this new foe.
Ageratum was the first to act. Racing along the east wall near the ceiling, when she ran out of wall she leaped forward, her momentum bringing her across the railing along the raised floor and right in front of the Blorkane lookalike. The fact that she appeared to be bringing her human bane short sword across the belly of the troublesome, fat wizard brought a smile to her face even though she knew the spellcaster to be an imposter.
Orchid was the next to react, casting a baleful polymorph spell at the false Blorkane. There was a moment of resistance as she had to overpower an innate protection from spell energy, and then the surprised look upon Blorkane's face faded as he rapidly shrunk into the form of a harmless bunny. But while Creelman realized it would be simplicity itself to revert back to his normal form, he didn't get the chance, for Alistair's second maximized chain lightning spell came arcing over to him, slaying him instantly. In death, however, he was able to revert to his natural form: an ethereal doppelganger. The heroes had never met up with any of these creatures before, but they'd seen normal doppelgangers, and this one was similar enough for them to realize they had to be related.
Ageratum wasted no time "looting the stiff," pulling off a magic ring and the pair of bracers Orchid had noticed earlier. "I'm glad all of that's over with," voiced the halfling.
But all of that was not quite yet over with. Crawling up out one of the umber hulks' holes was an odd-looking creature, with the body and legs of a spider, from which sprang an elongated neck and head very much like an eel. "I have a contract," it asserted in a language only Ageratum could make sense of, and even then only because of the translating properties of her magical helm. "I want the fat one!"
Without understanding a word of what it was saying, the other heroes all deduced it was allied with the umber hulks they'd slain. "It evil?" asked Chaevaris.
"It is," replied Harlan, glancing at its aura. The archer then sent a quickly-aimed arrow flying through the thing's eye - they made quite handy targets, the archer mused to herself - sending it flying backwards, where it collapsed in a heap of thrashing limbs. But these were the post-death twitches common with the terrestrial spiders with which the elf was familiar; one well-placed shot was all it had taken to slay the neogi.
Ageratum was pleased to see her "looting of the stiffs" was not in fact quite finished, as she extricated an amulet of the planes from the neogi's rubbery neck.
Alistair waited a moment to ensure there weren't any other hidden enemies about to spring out at them, then called out, "You can come out now, Blorkane!"
The heavyset wizard scrambled down the rope ladder after extending it from the extradimensional hidey-hole. "Much obliged, fellows!" he said, then looked over at the dead ethereal doppelganger. "Oh, bother - he's ruined the robes he was in - he took those from my closet, the bounder!" After recognizing Creelman for what he was, all of the pieces of the past week or so fell into place in the wizard's mind: ethereal doppelgangers often wrote up contracts with the people they wished to impersonate, and the standard contract turned the signer over to a neogi as a slave if he reneged his part of the deal.
"Did you sign a contract with this Creelman?" demanded Alistair.
"Well, yes," admitted Blorkane.
"And did it have the neogi slavery bit in it?"
"I imagine it must have. I didn't really read it all the way through."
Ageratum slapped her head in disbelief at the admission. "I hope the money he paid you worth all this hassle," she said.
"Er, well," hemmed Blorkane. "You see, he hasn't actually paid me just yet...."
"You really are an idiot," remarked Harlan, dropping his normal politeness. This time, he reasoned, it was well-earned.
- - -
This was the first adventure in this campaign since the end of January. And it ended on a high note, with the PCs all leveling up to 17th - likely the last upgrade they'll ever see, as there are now only two more adventures scheduled in this campaign as Dan wraps it up to a close.
PC Roster:
Ageratum Purslane, halfling rogue 16
Alistair Mandelberen Pastlethwaite, human sorcerer 16
Chaevaris Noarunal, elf archer 16
Harlan Starblade, half-elf paladin 16
Alistair Mandelberen Pastlethwaite, human sorcerer 16
Chaevaris Noarunal, elf archer 16
Harlan Starblade, half-elf paladin 16
NPC Roster:
Orchid, elf druid 16
Game Session Date: 4 June 2025
- - -
Weeks had passed since the events at Gladys Giltgoiter's perfume shop, and several members of the Trained Professional Adventurers had been busy, doing what they could to make amends to the gnome wizard they'd slain: having her reincarnated (that was Orchid's only real contribution, and she figured once that had been done that was all that was required in the form of reparations, although after having been asked nicely she deigned to cast a wood shape spell to repair the hole she'd made in the bottom of the grisgol's boat they'd sunk), finding replacements for all of the potions and oils Ageratum had confiscated as "loot from a slain enemy" and refused to return (Alistair had spent most of the money he had on hand to buy the exact quantities from a potion shop in Greyhawk City, teleporting to and fro to gather them up and return with them to Ghourmand Vale), and to see about atonement spells for those who felt bad about slaying Gladys without any real provocation (Chaevaris joined Harlan and Alistair in the ceremony). Alistair had even penned a song apologizing to Gladys and trying to explain their actions.
Gladys, however, had taken her recent death and subsequent reincarnation into a halfling in stride. She'd apparently had some sort of life insurance scheme in play with the Potionmakers Guild, and actually received a decent amount of cash for the indignity of having been slain. And while she used illusion spells to restore herself to her original gnomish appearance ("For the customers," she explained), she'd used the money to purchase an even larger potion shop a few blocks over from her old shop, which had taken some structural damage from the explosion that had brought the heroes to her original place of business in the first place.
Now, as they had agreed upon, the Trained Professional Adventurers were arriving at her new shop, specifically so they could perform their last act of reparations: delivering the potions and oils ordered and paid for in advance by an eldritch giant named El Brujo - it was these Ageratum had confiscated, after the heroes had chased off the giant's grisgol construct servant.
Entering the shop, they saw Gladys behind the counter - apparently standing on a raised platform so her little halfing body (gnomish in appearance, thanks to an illusion) could reach - and a familiar form standing in the shop. "My word!" exclaimed Blorkane Trotter, looking over at the new arrivals. "Look who it is! Doing a little potion shopping, eh?"
"Hello, Blorkane," sighed Alistair. The foolish wizard was frequently getting himself into trouble, and it often fell upon the TPA to deal with the consequences of his ill-thought-out actions. "No, we're good on potions - just doing a little delivery job for Gladys, is all."
"Come on in the back," said the shop proprietor. "I'll get those potions packaged up, and you can deliver them to El Brujo - he'll have a representative waiting for you a day's travel down the river, by the first set of falls."
"El Brujo?" erupted Blorkane. "You don't want to have any dealing with him, Alistair, my good man! He has a reputation - well-earned, or so I'm told - of being a crook of the highest order! I recommend you rethink this job, or at the very least, if you insist upon meeting with the man or his minions, leave behind anything of value you do not wish to have stolen out from underneath your very noses! I would, naturally, be more than happy to hold on to any items you deem unessential to your mission."
"No, thank you, Blorkane," replied Alistair. "I think we'll be fine." The sorcerer half-suspected this was just a simple ploy for the fat wizard to get his hands back on the cubic gate they'd recovered after he sold it to Kasselban Picksmart, who had been trafficking with demons and slaying his miners. The heavyset wizard pouted at having his offer turned down, wished the group a good journey, and headed back out the front door, sending the bell dangling above jingling.
"Strange little fellow," observed Harlan.
"Not quite so little," pointed out Ageratum, following Gladys to the back room. The others did likewise.
Around the corner was the actual laboratory, a wide, open chamber that took up the majority of the building's floor space. There was a raised platform at the north of the structure, where an elevated floor allowed the gnome to access the 10-foot-tall sealed cauldron in which potions could be produced in great numbers all at once. There was a circular tower to the southwest - nothing fancy, just one story tall, like the rest of the building, but with the same 20-foot-tall ceilings. However, the middle of the room was taken up by a large, wooden table, and it was here Gladys led her delivery team. She gathered up the potions and oils to be delivered to El Brujo's representative - vials Alistair had painstakingly gathered up and paid for with his own money - wrapped them in vellum, and placed them carefully in a small chest.
Her preparations were interrupted when the bell above the front door tinkled and soon after Blorkane ran into the back of the lab, looking flustered. "Have you seen me?" he demanded. "Recently? Like in the last few days?"
"We saw you several minutes ago," answered Alistair with a hint of irritation in his voice. What nonsense had the foolish wizard gotten himself into this time? "What's this all about?"
"That wasn't me!" insisted Blorkane. Alistair's face scrunched up into a look of utter disbelief, but then Orchid pointed out that the first Blorkane they'd seen that day was wearing a set of bracers on his arms - and this one wasn't.
"We don't need this distraction," insisted Gladys, finishing up the packaging of the contents of the chest and closing it up.
"I--I may have done something foolish," admitted Blorkane. "I allowed Creelman to disguise himself as me...it seemed harmless, and he was willing to pay an ungodly amount of money for the privilege. All I had to do was lounge around in a well-furnished suite of rooms for a week."
"Who is this Creelman?" demanded Harlan. "And why did he want to take your place?"
"I think he wanted to spy around without attracting attention," surmised Blorkane, answering the paladin's second question first. "But I eventually got tired of hanging around in the room and decided to leave it - and found out I was on the Ethereal Plane. Now that I've come back here - prior to the agreed-upon arrangement - I think Creelman will be coming after me. And I'm pretty sure he can scry on my whereabouts, to find out where I am."
Alistair sighed heavily again and looked over at his fellow adventurers. "We're probably going to have to take him with us, to make sure he's okay," he suggested.
"Why?" asked Ageratum. "He's a big boy, maybe he should start learning to look after himself."
"If we leave him behind, we'll never know whether it's him or this Creelman when we see him in the future. Unless," he mused, "we come up with a pass-phrase so we'll know it's him - something Creelman wouldn't know about. How about: 'I'm a naughty, naughty piggy.'"
Now it was Ageratum's turn to sigh. "I have a scroll with the rope trick spell," she offered. "How about we let him use it, and he can stay safe in an extradimensional space until we get back?"
"That'll be two full days," countered Alistair. "The spell will run its course in half a day." Then he turned to Blorkane and asked, "I don't suppose you know the rope trick spell?"
"I do."
"And do you have one at the ready?"
"Certainly."
"Ah, good! Then cast it, climb up into the extradimensional space, and don't come out until the spell expires - and then cast it again, until we get back."
Then the group heard an enormous crack coming from the front room, sounding like nothing so much as stone being shattered. Blorkane squealed in fright, said, "It's Creelman!" and started frantically casting a rope trick spell. It was apparently a variant made for his own shortcomings; instead of a rope, it was a rope ladder that rose up into the air into a black nothingness above. Alistair had been wondering if the hefty spellcaster would have been able to climb a rope on his own.
"What in the world was that?" asked Chaevaris, nocking an arrow into her longbow. Ageratum didn't wait to find out; she clambered up the east wall with her cloak of arachnida providing her the ability to spider climb, while she activated her magical bracers and slipped into a greater invisibility spell effect. Orchid, anticipating trouble, cast a mass bear's endurance on the group (including Gladys and Blorkane before he scampered up into his extradimensional space and pulled up the rope ladder), while Alistair crossed the room and readied a chain lightning spell if this Creelman turned the corner and entered the laboratory from its only entry point. Harlan merely unsheathed his Starblade and took up a ready combat stance. Ambrose flew from his master's shoulder and landed up on the top of the cauldron, where he could watch the entryway without being readily noticed.
Gladys grabbed up the chest and ran over to the tower room, dropping it inside. "It's always something with you people," she grumbled, then cast a shield spell on herself.
All eyes were on the entryway, but that's not where the attackers made their entry into the alchemical laboratory. Instead, cracks appeared in the floor to the east of the table in the middle of the rom, and up popped an insectoid creature, some 16 feet in height despite its hunched-over posture. It had a pair of multifaceted eyes like those of a fly or a bee on the sides of its head, plus another set of beady, black eyes on the front of its face. It stared at Orchid, the closest hero to it, and the druid felt a mental funk that quickly washed over her, apparently some sort of magical attack that had failed.
But both Chaevaris and Alistair caught the truly horrid umber hulk in their peripheral vision, and let loose with their readied attacks. A chain lightning spell came shooting from the sorcerer's fingertips to strike the insectoid beast in its broad chest, while the elf archer sent her arrow streaking unerringly into its rightmost beady, black eye. The sonics from her magic arrow rolled over and through the massive beast, blasting out its hearing and leaving it permanently deafened. It cried out in pain but continued making strange noises; Ageratum, wearing the helmet that automatically translated languages for her, allowed her to recognize it as a short sentence, called out in Terran: "Come help me, they're all here!" Startled, she called out the translation in the Common tongue, adding, "There's more of them, and they're after us for some reason!"
Chaevaris was pretty sure she knew the reason: Blorkane's cubic gate, which was currently in the extradimensional dwelling keyed to the amulet she wore around her neck. That stupid thing seemed to attract an awful lot of attention; more so than it was worth, in her mind, considering they'd never even used it once since they ended up with it in their custody.
Harlan charged the truly horrid umber hulk, dodging a swipe with a massive set of claws that slashed out at him as he approached. He managed to deflect the majority of the attack on his shield, but still took a bit of damage as they scored a gash across his torso during their travels. Fortunately, his Starblade gave as much damage, or more, than he took.
But then reinforcements showed up. Two more holes appeared in the floor, one on either side of the first, and out sprang two more umber hulks, these a more respectable eight feet in height. Orchid once again felt herself under that magical attack of theirs, and this time so did Chaevaris, but both elves' minds were strong enough to avoid the confusion effects. And unbeknownst to any in the room, an additional foe entered the laboratory: a second Blorkane, wrapped in an invisibility spell - the enigmatic Creelman, no doubt. He climbed the steps leading to the upper floor overlooking the vat, but did so quietly enough that Ambrose failed to detect him.
Ageratum ran across the wall until she was right behind the truly horrid umber hulk, with Orchid directly across from it. She stabbed out with her magic short sword, catching it in the (still very large) small of its back, sending the blade all the way in to the end of its hilt and then pulling it back out again before the pain hit the massive beast. She even managed to drain a bit of the creature's strength from the precision of her blow. And her helmet translated the newly-arrived umber hulks' queries: "Where's the wizard? Where's the wizard?" They were after Blorkane, apparently. Well, better him than them!
Orchid ran past the truly horrid umber hulk and the one at its left, ducking the claws that came her way as she moved, and lined herself up for a sunbeam spell that went through all three of the insectoid trespassers. The spell didn't do either of the umber hulks a whole lot of physical damage, but each one was permanently blinded by the spell.
Alistair whipped out his metamagic rod - the more powerful of the two he owned - from an inner vest pocket and channeled another chain lightning spell through it, maximizing it in the process. He targeted the larger of the three as his primary and sent arcs lashing out at the other two. The truly horrid umber hulk fell over dead with a crash that sent all of Gladys' glass beakers and potion vials shaking and ringing. The other two were obviously hurt by the spell as well, but they were still up and fighting - although, blinded, they couldn't see what exactly they were fighting any more.
Blorkane popped his head out of the extradimensional space in which he'd been hiding, just to call out, "Well done, chaps!" The invisible Creelman took immediate notice and smiled an unseen smile.
"Get back inside!" yelled Alistair. "And stay there - it's for your own protection!" Blorkane, chastened, complied at once. The sorcerer was amazed the idiot hadn't managed to get himself killed long before this.
Chaevaris took a quick aim and sent another arrow flying into the umber hulk standing to the left of the massive insectoid corpse beside Gladys' table. She caught it in the eye as well, and it fell over, joining its larger partner in death. Harlan charged the last remaining umber hulk, the Starblade nearly severing it along its midsection. It collapsed where it stood, never having seen the half-elf who killed it.
Then Gladys gave a "harrumph" of disgust, and while the heroes assumed it was her upset at the mess in her new potion workshop, it was actually aimed at the failed charm person spell Creelman had cast her way; he failed to gain a combat ally out of the deal and, worse yet, revealed himself in the process. Ambrose squawked out a warning, and the heroes all spun to face this new foe.
Ageratum was the first to act. Racing along the east wall near the ceiling, when she ran out of wall she leaped forward, her momentum bringing her across the railing along the raised floor and right in front of the Blorkane lookalike. The fact that she appeared to be bringing her human bane short sword across the belly of the troublesome, fat wizard brought a smile to her face even though she knew the spellcaster to be an imposter.
Orchid was the next to react, casting a baleful polymorph spell at the false Blorkane. There was a moment of resistance as she had to overpower an innate protection from spell energy, and then the surprised look upon Blorkane's face faded as he rapidly shrunk into the form of a harmless bunny. But while Creelman realized it would be simplicity itself to revert back to his normal form, he didn't get the chance, for Alistair's second maximized chain lightning spell came arcing over to him, slaying him instantly. In death, however, he was able to revert to his natural form: an ethereal doppelganger. The heroes had never met up with any of these creatures before, but they'd seen normal doppelgangers, and this one was similar enough for them to realize they had to be related.
Ageratum wasted no time "looting the stiff," pulling off a magic ring and the pair of bracers Orchid had noticed earlier. "I'm glad all of that's over with," voiced the halfling.
But all of that was not quite yet over with. Crawling up out one of the umber hulks' holes was an odd-looking creature, with the body and legs of a spider, from which sprang an elongated neck and head very much like an eel. "I have a contract," it asserted in a language only Ageratum could make sense of, and even then only because of the translating properties of her magical helm. "I want the fat one!"
Without understanding a word of what it was saying, the other heroes all deduced it was allied with the umber hulks they'd slain. "It evil?" asked Chaevaris.
"It is," replied Harlan, glancing at its aura. The archer then sent a quickly-aimed arrow flying through the thing's eye - they made quite handy targets, the archer mused to herself - sending it flying backwards, where it collapsed in a heap of thrashing limbs. But these were the post-death twitches common with the terrestrial spiders with which the elf was familiar; one well-placed shot was all it had taken to slay the neogi.
Ageratum was pleased to see her "looting of the stiffs" was not in fact quite finished, as she extricated an amulet of the planes from the neogi's rubbery neck.
Alistair waited a moment to ensure there weren't any other hidden enemies about to spring out at them, then called out, "You can come out now, Blorkane!"
The heavyset wizard scrambled down the rope ladder after extending it from the extradimensional hidey-hole. "Much obliged, fellows!" he said, then looked over at the dead ethereal doppelganger. "Oh, bother - he's ruined the robes he was in - he took those from my closet, the bounder!" After recognizing Creelman for what he was, all of the pieces of the past week or so fell into place in the wizard's mind: ethereal doppelgangers often wrote up contracts with the people they wished to impersonate, and the standard contract turned the signer over to a neogi as a slave if he reneged his part of the deal.
"Did you sign a contract with this Creelman?" demanded Alistair.
"Well, yes," admitted Blorkane.
"And did it have the neogi slavery bit in it?"
"I imagine it must have. I didn't really read it all the way through."
Ageratum slapped her head in disbelief at the admission. "I hope the money he paid you worth all this hassle," she said.
"Er, well," hemmed Blorkane. "You see, he hasn't actually paid me just yet...."
"You really are an idiot," remarked Harlan, dropping his normal politeness. This time, he reasoned, it was well-earned.
- - -
This was the first adventure in this campaign since the end of January. And it ended on a high note, with the PCs all leveling up to 17th - likely the last upgrade they'll ever see, as there are now only two more adventures scheduled in this campaign as Dan wraps it up to a close.
