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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JollyDoc" data-source="post: 6682134" data-attributes="member: 9546">A Tangled Web4 Lamashan, 4715 - 5 Lamashan, 4715 With no way to go but up, the companions all took flight thru various means and made for the web funnel near the roof of the large, open chamber. Haroldo and Mazael were the first to pass through the large hole at the top. The chamber that they found themselves in was filled with webs that appeared much older, more festooned with decay and withered husks. The floor again bristled with stone teeth, and while most of the ceiling had been destroyed, part of the level above remained in place where the dragon pillars rose. There, the sagging remnants of a floor hung over the rest of the web below, and a great ornamental palanquin stood upon that ledge next to a huge war drum. Above, another web funnel led upward, ancient skulls grinning down from it in their last, terrible resting places, with skeletal arms reaching out for succor. Immediately, the two warriors saw movement all about them in the webs. Crouched among the strands were a dozen wolf-sized spiders with blue-and-white bodies and iridescent blue legs. Perched upon the seat of the palanquin was a corpulent aranea swathed in filthy silk robes, which looked as though they hadn't been changed in decades. Insects and spiders scuttled in and out of the folds of both the robes and his skin, and he occasionally plucked one up to chew as a crunchy snack. Flanking him were a pair of women dressed in black silk kimonos. Black porcelain masks covered their faces. "Are you servants of that bitch Munasukaru?" the aranea bellowed down."Who's asking?" Mazael snarled back. "I am Akinosa!" the creature thundered. "This is my domain, and you are trespassing!""We don't know any Monkey-sucker," the war-priest shrugged."Munasukaru!" Akinosa snapped. "If you are not her servants, they why have you attacked my people?""They attacked us first," Mazael replied simply. "We just defended ourselves...efficiently.""Why are you here!?" roared the aranea."Looking for oni," Mazael said. "Seen any?""There are none in the pagoda!" Akinosa shouted. "This is my realm! Munasukaru and her oni filth are below, in the penance! If she is your enemy, then we share a common goal!""Why haven't you wiped her out already," Mazael asked. "Looks like you've been here awhile.""Her forces are many!" Akinosa barked. "We are at a stale-mate! Perhaps you can help us resolve this situation. If not, then begone, or you shall incur my wrath!"Mazael thought about it for a second."Nah," he shook his head. "We prefer to work alone. I think we'll just kill you all."Akinosa snarled in rage."Gossamer!" he shouted. "To me!"The two masked women fell into fighting crouches and from their hands came blue bolts of energy. Suddenly, from the hole near the ceiling, more energy bolts came pouring down on Mazael and Haroldo as another half-dozen of the women emerged from the thick webs there. Fortunately, both of the warriors had learned from their prior encounters with the aranea, and they had warded themselves against the magic missiles. The barrage deflected harmlessly away from both of them."That it?" Mazael quirked an eyebrow up at Akinosa. "'Cause we got something a little better."Zula rose up from behind the war-priest, her jaw set. She thrust her hands out, one towards the ceiling, and one towards Akinosa's perch. Twin thunderclaps sounded, and the six women above all came tumbling down to the spiked floor, stunned and twitching. The two flanking Akinosa also went sprawling, though the fat spider himself kept his feet, albeit a bit shakily. Piotr was next through the hole, and he followed up Zula's performance with one of his own. A fireball exploded among the webs, setting them ablaze and scorching Akinosa and his two bodyguards. It also crisped several of the spiders, their charred bodies dropping to the floor. "Fools!" Akinosa gasped, still shaking from Zula's assault, and his his robes still smoldering. "Do you think we have held off Munasukaru's forces so long by being unprepared!? Now you will see the folly of your misjudgment!"As he spoke, eight shadows separated themselves from the deeper gloom of  the webs, and began whirling around the companions. They appeared as dark, translucent figures clad in black robes, and when they reached out for the Scions, their bony fingers passed easily through both armor and clothing. Mazael felt the cold of the grave seize his muscles as a terrible weakness flooded through him. Reflexively, he grasped Desna's symbol around his neck and flung Her holy power all about him. The shadows recoiled in pain from the dazzling light. As they fell back, however, the hunting spiders swarmed in, their black mandibles clacking and dripping with poison. "And now it is my turn!" Akinosa screamed.Electricity crackled around his upraised hands, and he flung it towards the companions. It arced from one to another, chaining them together in a surge of lightning. Zula managed to calm her jangling nerves sooner than the others, and another thundercall put an end to one of the gossamer still trying to get to her feet, as well as a pair of the shadows and a hunting spider. Lucian followed this up with a mass cure spell simultaneously assuaged some of his companions' worst wounds, while at the same time destroying five more of the shadows with the overwhelming positive energy. Gnome-Brr Phive took out the last of them, channeling Nethys' holy power. After that, things happened very quickly. Another of Piotr's fireballs killed the remaining spiders, while Haroldo flew quickly to Akinosa's perch. Back on the ground, the gossamer who had fallen all managed to regain their composure enough to use vanishing spells, only to reappear a moment later, focusing their attacks on Piotr. Mazael rushed to the aid of the sorcerer, and Lucian turned his bow on the women. It was a near thing, the vicious, poison-coated blades of the assassins doing their job on Piotr, but ultimately, Mazael and Lucian slew them all. On high, Akinosa tried his deadliest spells against Haroldo, but the blood-rager resisted them all in his frenzy. He cut through the aranea's last bodyguards, then gutted the grotesque wizard himself. The remainder of the pagoda was hollowed out and contained very little, save from the loot accumulated by the aranea over the years. The companions gathered what they could, and then left to rejoin Miyaro. They were thoroughly spent from their exertions, and need the night to recuperate. The next day, they intended to journey into the bowels below the House of Withered Blossoms and see what new dangers awaited them there.____________________________________________________The following day the companions returned to the House of Withered Blossoms, and the ground floor chamber which contained the dark throat boring down into the center of the earth. A warm breeze carrying the unpleasant smell of decay wafted upward from the web-filled shaft. Piotr tossed a fireball into the center of it, burning the webs away and revealing narrow, short stone steps carved into the wall and descending into the blackness. They followed the shaft for at least one-hundred feet before the steps broadened into large stone-flagged stairs that dropped sharply into a wide, smooth-walled chamber. The room broadened as it sloped upward, ending at a vast wall of huge stone blocks. Rusting double iron doors, bristling with bloody spikes, offered the only passage through the wall, and a pair of figures hung limply from them. The air was hot, and smelled of sweat and toil. No sooner had the companions emerged from the shaft, than a hail of arrows flew at them from slits high up on the wall. They scattered, but not before Zula took a grazing blow across her ribs from one of the shafts. She grunted, but still had breath to cast a spell, rendering herself invisible to their attackers. Piotr and Gnome-Brr Phive followed her lead and vanished from sight as well. Haroldo and Mazael rushed for the wall, directly beneath the arrow slits and out of the line of fire. This left only Lucian out in the open, and the oracle drew his bowstring to his cheek, sighted carefully, and released. His arrow never wavered. It went straight through one of the slits, and he heard a satisfying grunt of pain from the other side. "That fool is going to get himself killed," Zula growled to herself. "But not on my watch."She spoke the words of another spell, and a thick mist began to rise out of the ground between Lucian and the wall. In a matter of seconds, a billowing fog roiled across the chamber, shielding him from the archers. In the mean time, Haroldo and Mazael had reached the wall, and began hacking at it, the tactic having worked well in the pagoda above. Unfortunately, this wall seemed made of sterner stuff, and after several strong blows, only a few stone chips were to show for their efforts. Suddenly, a grinding sound came from above them, and the two warriors looked up just in time to spot the murder holes opening. Then, a deluge of boiling, scalding liquid came cascading down upon them, sending them diving and rolling for cover. "Hold on boys," the disembodied voice of Piotr came from behind them. "This location is decidedly unsafe."Each of them felt one of the sorcerer's hands grab their shoulder, followed by a litany of arcane words. There was a brief flash of bright light, and when it cleared, they found themselves standing on the opposite side of the wall. They were in a broad stone-floored courtyard, and above them, a stone parapet ran behind the arrow slits on this side, connected by a wooden bridge that crossed above the door. Upon the parapet were a half-dozen humanoids dressed in strange, lacquered armor. Their features were bestial, with an orange cast to their skin...hobgoblins. They all held bows in their hands, but wickedly spiked morningstars hung from their belts. At that moment, they were all staring down in confusion at the new arrivals. Lucian had heard Piotr casting in the mists, a spell he knew himself. Picturing the arrow slit he'd fired through in his mind, he spoke the same words and disappeared, reappearing a moment later atop the parapet....right between a pair of hobgoblins. This time they did not hesitate, dropping their bows and drawing their morningstars as they moved to flank him, and then the closest one swung low, catching the oracle in the groin, doubling him over. Chaos broke loose. The hobgoblins who still held their bows began shooting at Haroldo and Mazael, surprising in their accuracy, and before long both warriors were bleeding profusely from multiple wounds. Haroldo's eyes blazed with rage as he flew to the parapet, his sword a whirling cyclone of death and mayhem. Lucian managed to dart away from his attackers, gaining himself enough distance to bring his own bow to bear again. Meanwhile, Mazael ran for the gates, where a stout iron bar held them shut. He lifted it free and shoved open the portals to admit Zula and Phive. As he did so, he heard groans of pain above him, and when he looked up, he saw that the two men impaled on the doors were still alive...though just barely. The hobgoblins fought with a discipline and ferocity that the companions would not have expected from such creatures, but ultimately Haroldo's barely-caged fury, and Lucian's skill with a bow proved to be too much. ________________________________________________________Mazael and Haroldo lifted the two men off of the spikes and Phive tended to the worst of their wounds. The men were Tian, and they were grateful, though completely exhausted and terrified. They told a similar story to that of the prisoners the companions had rescued upstairs: they had been taken in the forest and enslaved. They had lost track of the time they had been held, but it had seemed like an eternity. The hobgoblins were cruel masters, serving an evil crueler mistress, Munasukaru. The slaves had never seen her, but the hobgoblins spoke of her like she was divine, even though she was supposedly the weakest of the Five Storms oni. The hobgoblins were loose-lipped around their chattel, and the men had overheard stories about how Munasukaru was left behind by the other oni when they fled the House of Withered Blossoms, to fool the kami of the Forest of Spirits into thinking they were still captive. The isolation had possibly driven her mad. When asked what they knew of what lay beyond the courtyard, the slaves described chambers and halls guarded by more of the Withered Blossom Warriors, as the hobgoblins were known, as well as giants. Then, beyond this, there was a vast natural cavern where the bulk of the hobgoblins dwelt, watched over by their shogun, Buto the Swine Lord, a foul creature who lived in a small keep within the cavern. The companions thanked the men for their information, then escorted them back to the surface and Miyaro before returning below ground the continue the hunt for Munasukaru.</blockquote>

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