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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JollyDoc" data-source="post: 6694984" data-attributes="member: 9546">The Mockery Pagoda5 Lamashan, 4715 "I have an idea," Piotr said. The companions stood before the stone keep which sat upon an outcrop of rock in the belly of the huge cavern. Several of its walls had seen better days...the structure sagged in places, and heaps of rubble lined its flanks. From the building's roof, which almost touched the ceiling of the cavern itself, a stone bridge arched across to a precarious rocky ledge high above the cavern floor. The only entrance to the keep seemed to be a pair of massive iron-bound wooden doors at its base, before which the Scions had gathered."I'm going to conjure a barrier of pure force to block off one of these doors," the sorcerer explained, "then, Mazael, you and Haroldo will open the other one. As soon as you do, I"m going to create a cloud of killing fog inside. The two of you keep anyone from escaping while the mist does its work. Any questions?""I'd just as soon kick in the door and mop the floor with them," the war-pries shrugged, "but whatever gets the job done is fine by me."He pulled a flask from a belt pouch and upended it. Within a matter of seconds, his body grew to twice its size and bulk."Now I'm ready," he grumbled.Piotr cast his first spell, and a transparent wall of shimmering force appeared in front of the left-hand door. He nodded, and Mazael pushed on the other door. Nothing happened. "Huh," Piotr raised an eyebrow. "I hadn't counted on it being locked."Haroldo shook his head, raised his sword and smashed through the door with one blow. "That works too," Piotr nodded.The room beyond the door was squalid and foul, little more than a sty. Three iron cages and a wooden stall filled most of the chamber, and the floor was covered in an unpleasant mix of filth and rolling pigs. A teetering spiral staircase climbed clumsily out of the muck in one corner. The three cages each held a snarling, hissing snow leopard, while a boar the size of a warhorse peered menacingly out of the stall. Standing in the center of the room where a trio of hill giants, looking at once enraged and confused. A moment later, the entire room was hidden from view by a cloud of sickly greenish yellow vapor. For several moments, the sounds of squealing, yowling, snorting and grunting came from within the cloud, and then...silence.Before the heroes could investigate the results of Piotr's experiment, shouts of alarm and anger sounded from above them. There, on a balcony some fifty feet overhead, five Withered Blossom warriors stood poised with their bows pointed down towards the companions. Upon a shouted command, they loosed their arrows, sending the volley straight into the exposed enemies below. Lucian returned covering fire while Boris and Haroldo began to walk into the air via the magic Zula had temporarily gifted them with. Boris reached the balcony first, and two of the hobgoblins immediately rushed him, swinging their morningstars at his twin wakizashis, attempting to disarm him. The wily goblin deftly deflected both of their clumsy attempts, causing them to drop their own weapons instead. "Who look stupid now?" Boris taunted. By that time Haroldo had also reached the landing, and he and the rogue worked as a practiced team, flanking the hobgoblins. The Withered Blossom warriors fought back viciously, leveling several powerful blows at Haroldo that would have killed a lesser man. Yet one by one, they still fell."We go downstairs now, right?" Boris asked, turning to Haroldo."I think we should rejoin the others," the big warrior shook his head.Boris shrugged, but when the blood-rager started descending back to the ground, the goblin twisted his ring, and then darted down the stairs from the balcony leading to the interior of the keep."Are you ready?" Piotr asked."Ready as I'm going to be," Mazael grumbled.Piotr nodded, then flicked the wand in his hand. A rush of wind blasted past the war-priest and into the lower level of the keep, rapidly dissipating the noxious cloud there. When the mists cleared, the sorcerer got a look at his handiwork. The three leopards lay dead and stiff in their cages, as did the dire boar. One of the giants also slumped unmoving on the floor, but standing in a corner, apparently unharmed, was one of the others. Of the third, there was no sign. With a roar, the sole survivor raised a massive club and charged forward. He didn't make three steps before Lucian put five arrows into his chest. As he stumbled, Mazael met his charge head-on, and drove Suishen through his throat. He fell, gurgling and gasping into the thick sludge on the floor, amidst the herd of dead pigs that had also succumbed to the mists. The floor of the open chamber that Boris found himself in at the bottom of the stairs ran with filth and refuse, and swam with scores of cockroaches and rats, as well as over a dozen pigs. A huge table rose crookedly from the waste, holding the putrid remains of a huge feast on a tarnished silver salver, including a half-devoured pig's head with a hand thrust into its mouth leering out from the center of the revolting meal. Numerous war trophies hung from the walls, while countless rusted weapons dangled on hooks from the ceiling above. Another stone stairwell descended in the opposite corner of the room. A giant stood in the middle of the room, facing the two stairwells expectantly. His skin was blistered and oozing in several places. Behind him stood a large hobgoblin with a great belly, wearing a cloak made from the sewn skins of piglets. A mighty great-axe was slung over his shoulder, and he held a struggling piglet under one arm. "Beware! Snort!" he squealed in a piggy voice to the giant. "Squeee! They're coming!"As if on cue, Mazael and Haroldo appeared at the top of the other stairwell. The giant swung his club at them as they ascended, clipping the blood-rager solidly on his right shoulder. The brute didn't get a second chance as Mazael ran him through with Suishen. Next came Lucian, already firing his bow as he cleared the stairs. His arrow struck the swine shogun just as the fat pig fired his own arrow into Haroldo, dropping his squirming piglet as he did so. Haroldo grunted from the impact of the shaft, but he charged forward. As he came, the hobgoblin dropped his bow and drew his great-axe in one smooth motion, bringing it up and catching Haroldo under the chin with the haft before reversing it and chopping down on the big man's thigh. Haroldo gritted his teeth against the pain, then drove the pommel of his sword into the hobgoblin's nose, shattering it. As the swine shogun stumbled back, the blood-rager drove the point of his blade towards his heart. The hobgoblin turned the blow aside at the last moment, preventing a fatal blow. It was then that Boris appeared behind the shogun, thrusting his blades into the fleshy back of the hobgoblin. He squealed and snorted, but managed to spin away from the goblin, hacking and slashing viciously at Haroldo to keep him at bay. His foot slipped in the effluvium on the floor, and he crashed down to one knee. Clutching the worst of his gushing wounds, he struggled to bring his axe up again, but Haroldo's sword came smashing down, cleaving through the haft of the weapon, the hobgoblin's helmet, and his skull.______________________________________________________"Boris smell bacon," the goblin said, sniffing at the air as his companions ransacked the keep. No one paid him any mind. He was always thinking with his stomach. Boris wouldn't deny that fact, but this was different. His hunger was...consuming. He looked at the pig's head on the table, considered it for all of a second, then leaped upon it, tearing at it and eating ravenously. After a few minutes, he sat back on his haunches and licked the remains of the disgusting meal from his fingers. He was still hungry..._________________________________________________________The bridge from the roof of the keep led precariously to a narrow ledge high above the cavern. Beyond this, a tunnel opened up until it ended at crude stone steps that descended some two-hundred feet further into the earth. At the bottom, it opened into a wide chamber filled with the thundering roar of another waterfall. The water came from a subterranean river ninety feet above, plunging into a cold, deep lake. On the far side of the lake stood a crooked pagoda, carved with the forms of twisted animals, as if in mockery of the pagoda in the daylight high above. A raised drawbridge hung from the front of the pagoda.No sooner had the heroes entered the cavern, than a flight of arrows sailed towards them from the rooftop balcony of the pagoda. "I'll put a stop to that!" Piotr shoutedHe raised his hand and spoke an incantation. A moment later, a wall of fire twenty-feet tall sprang up on the roof, engulfing the hobgoblin archers. "Clear," Piotr called to his companions."I wouldn't be so sure about that," Mazael muttered, his eyes widening.Piotr turned to look at what had grabbed the war-priest's attention. The water of the lake appeared to be boiling at three distinct locations. As he watched, the frothing continued to grow, spiraling up into a trio of water spouts. A moment later, these resolved into massive humanoid forms composed entirely of water. Piotr stared in disbelief as one of them raised an arm towards the wall of fire and extinguished it with a great deluge. "That was an expensive spell!" he snarled.He could see the hobgoblins on the parapet scrambling around. They were singed, but still able. He spoke another spell, and hurled a ball of fire at them, only to see most of them leap and dodge out of the way of the detonation. His only satisfaction was that one of the elementals was caught in the blast, and steam began to boil off of it. "We're sitting ducks out here!" Lucian shouted. "Everyone who wants a ride, gather around me!"The others quickly moved towards him, each of them grabbling hold of a root or branch."Go ahead," Piotr waved them on. "I don't want to be caught in the middle of that."Lucian nodded his hoary head and then murmured a brief prayer. He and the others vanished in a flash of light, and then Piotr watched them reappear on the rooftop of the pagoda. Six Withered Blossom hobgoblins were waiting on them when they arrived, and before they had a chance to compose themselves, another half-dozen rushed up a flight of stairs from the lower level of the pagoda. A few random arrows still flew in Piotr's direction, but he could see that the bulk of the attack had been turned upon his friends. They were surrounded. He did what he could to assist, lobbing fireballs, one after another, into the fray. The problems was that most of the hobgoblins almost seemed to sense the explosions coming, and managed to evade them at the last possible second, while the elementals soaked up the explosions but didn't seem to be slowed at all. On the rooftop balcony the battle was chaotic and frenzied. Boris darted invisibly among the hobgoblins, striking from behind while Haroldo waded right into the middle of them, cleaving through four or five at a time with broad swings of his great-sword. Lucian pinned down their archers as best he could, while Mazael took it upon himself to deal with the elementals. The huge beings rained watery fists down upon the roof, smashing into Haroldo and flinging him clear of the battle. At one point, when Boris had momentarily reappeared, he was caught by a glancing blow that nearly snapped his neck. Panicked and bleeding internally, he vanished again and darted down the stairs for cover. Haroldo, when he'd regained his feet, was even forced to break one of his remaining snapleafs and momentarily hide himself from view, as he felt one more hit like that would put him down. Fighting like a dervish, Suishen a flaming blur, Mazael finally managed to bring down one of the water elementals. A moment later a second one fell to Lucian's bow. That turned the tide of battle. The hobgoblins began to scatter, no longer fighting as an organized force. The companions were able to start picking them off one-by-one. Haroldo reappeared behind the last elemental, his blade shattering its watery form into fragments. After that it was just a matter of mopping up. Even Boris felt brave enough to creep back to the battle and finish off the last of the hobgoblins with a sword in the back. ________________________________________________________The companions descended the stairs from the balcony and found themselves in a bare room that contained only a revolting statue of a repulsive, strangely goblinoid creature. It stood on a bed of nails and had four demonic heads...one smiling, one angry, one eating and one screaming. It was depicted as obscenely pregnant, with multiple teats sagging over its swollen belly, and was shown giving birth to monstrous creatures, some humanoid with demonic goblinoid faces, others wormlike with human faces. Piotr was able to identify the former as a type of oni related to hobgoblins known as a ja-noi. The latter creatures, Piotr stated, were spirit nagas...evil, snake-like sorcerers. Beyond the makeshift shrine was a chamber containing controls for the drawbridge, as well as a storeroom and a vile midden heap filled with repulsive fungi. Boris sampled several of them, and collected more in his pouch. The heroes then returned to the rooftop, where a pair of massive double doors blocked entrance deeper into the pagoda. Haroldo and Mazael took up point positions, and then the blood-rager threw open one of the doors, leaving the other closed as cover in case any nasty surprises waited on the other side. Beyond the doors, a steep staircase climbed upward. Bas-reliefs of faces distorted by pain covered the steps and walls. Standing at the base of the statue was a large terra-cotta statue of a Tien warrior. At the top of the stairs, six Withered Blossom warriors stood, their bows drawn. Something about them was different, however. Their skin was pale and pockmarked with oozing sores. It didn't seem to affect their aim, though. They opened fire as soon as the door was fully open. Haroldo ducked, using the statue as cover from the archers. To his shock and utter surprise, however, the statue suddenly began to move. It swung one massive fist at him, connecting solidly with the side of his head, and driving him back towards the doors, his vision blurring in and out of focus. Behind him, Piotr gestured and a wide pit opened beneath the feet of the statue, but the thing was too big, and straddled the hole. Mazael rushed towards it, but it hammered him before he could get within reach. It then moved to step away from the pit, but Mazael leaped forward again, battering at it with Suishen, while Boris rolled between its legs, and came up jabbing his sword at various cracks and seams in its hide. As it put its foot back down, it abruptly crumbled to pieces. Zula stepped into the breach and hurled her thundercall at the leprous hobgoblins at the top of the stairs. They lurched back from the blast, two of them reeling in a stupor. Haroldo charged up towards them before they could recover, cleaving with his great-sword into the whole pack. It was only when he raised his eyes that he saw what lay beyond the landing. A simple bare chamber with an arched doorway depicting tormented dragons opened into a much wider area. That chamber was filled with a large, open pit. Six thick iron bars crisscrossed it, and a greenish-gray bitter-smelling mist filled its depths. More arched openings sat in each of the walls around the pit. What immediately caught Haroldo's attention, however, were the individuals standing on the iron bars themselves: female hobgoblins, all heavily tattooed with scenes of greed, their flesh displaying numerous piercings set with minor gemstones. There had to be at least half a dozen of them. Haroldo's attention was drawn back to his immediate vicinity by a gurgle of pain. Turning, he saw Boris removing his blades from the belly of one of the lepers, while another one was keeling over with one of Lucian's arrows stuck through his eye. Haroldo swung his sword at the last one, almost as an after thought, separating his head from his shoulders. "Look!" Boris pointed towards the females balancing over the pit. "Pretty ladies! Wait for me, pretty ladies! Boris coming to meet you!""No! Wait!" Haroldo tried to grab for him, but the little goblin was already zipping over the pit.No sooner had he reached its center, than the women began leaping nimbly from rail to rail until they had Boris surrounded in a matter of seconds. Before he could react, two of them reached for his wakizashis, knocking the swords from his hands and sending them tumbling down into the mist-filled pit. "This not good," Boris frowned watching his weapons disappear. Then, with a shrug, he threw up his hands, and then sank down into the pit after them, courtesy of the charm of air walking Mazael had given him. Within moments, he was lost from view.By that time, Mazael had made it to the top of the stairs, and he just looked in disbelief at the spot where Boris had just been."What in the Hells has that little weasel gotten himself into this time?" he snarled.Haroldo didn't have a chance to reply as the female hobgoblins began swarming towards them. Suddenly, from an archway on the other side of the pit, another figure appeared. It looked like a heavily armored hobgoblin male, but he was flying! He bore a weapon that consisted of a long wooden haft topped by a 3-foot long, wickedly curved blade. His eyes blazed crimson, and his bottom canine teeth protruded from his mouth like tusks. It only took a moment for Haroldo to realize where he'd seen him before...or something like him: the obscene statue in the lower level. It had been shown giving birth to something just like this. What had Piotr called it? A ja-noi oni. Was this, then, some sort of demonic spawn of the oni witch that ruled this place? Again, a question that would have to wait. The females were upon them, and as they rushed in, they drew knives from their belts, attempting to slash at the weapon cords that both Haroldo and Mazael had attached to their swords. Their tactic was clear: they were trying to disarm the warriors and toss their weapons wherever they'd sent Boris's. They failed miserably as the pair hacked and slashed viciously at them before they could even get close. Lucian reached the top of the stairs, closely followed by Zula. The tree-like oracle quickly began loosing arrows at the pack of hobgoblins, but for every arrow that hit, another was knocked aside by the nimble creatures. Then Zula unleashed a blistering array of invectives in their direction that literally set several of them of fire! Lucian was duly impressed. The hobgoblin sisters were losing ground. Haroldo cut one down, and Mazael another. Yet they still had the two big warriors surrounded, and when the ja-noi darted past them, though Mazael slashed at him and Suishen opened a vicious wound across his flank, the war-priest and Haroldo could not stop him. The oni-spawn went straight for Piotr, smashing his strange weapon down upon the sorcerer. Piotr blanched and fell back, bleeding profusely. He fumbled a snapleaf out of his pouch and crushed it, vanishing. Laughing, the ja-noi turned towards Lucian, only to find the oracle's bow aimed at him from less than a foot away. Lucian let loose, sending a pair of arrows through the oni's throat. He fell, choking on his own blood. _______________________________________________________________Boris couldn't see anything. The mists enveloped him on all sides, and he felt like he'd been traveling downwards for hours. He could still hear the din of battle distantly from above, but nothing from below...until... He thought he heard a shuffling sound, and the air became thick with an animal musk. He heard snuffling, snorting, and then a deep inhalation, as if some massive thing just drew in a great breath. A moment later the mist around him roiled as a great wind blasted him. He felt his joints stiffen and tighten, and then his eyes and his mind went black...______________________________________________________________Mazael and Haroldo each took out another of the hobgoblins, but the the remaining two darted past them. One of them reached Lucian and grabbed his bow. Though the oracle was twice her size, she still managed to pivot and use her body weight and momentum to wrench the weapon from his hands. She held it aloft triumphantly, an evil grin on her face as she turned back toward the pit."Not so fast, bitch!" Zula hissed.The thunder-caller threw out both hands, and her sonic boom struck the sisters, leaving them stunned and disoriented. The one who'd taken Lucian's bow dropped it to the floor from her numb fingers. Then Mazael and Haroldo were there to finish the job._______________________________________________________________Boris regained consciousness abruptly. His extremities still felt stiff, but sensation was returning quickly. He was lying on his back at the bottom of the pit. The mist was still thick around him, but he could see his swords nearby, just out of reach. Something else was nearby as well....some things! Their bulky forms loomed over him, each one easily the size of a warhorse. There were three of them, and they looked like bulls, except their hides seemed to be made of stone. They dropped their heads, hooves pawing the ground. One of them rushed towards Boris, one of its horns opening a long gash across his back, but not impaling him solely due to the quickness of his reflexes as he rolled to the side. The other two charged. Boris twisted the ring on his finger, disappearing, and the rolled again, narrowly avoiding being trampled to death. His hand closed on the hilt of one of his swords, and he leaped to his feet. Searching furiously, he saw his other blade, grabbed it, and then jumped into the air, walking as fast as his short legs would carry him back towards the top of the pit.____________________________________________________________"...and that why Boris think we no go back down into pit," the goblin explained several minutes later once he'd rejoined his friends and told his harrowing tale. "Herd of rock bulls just waiting down there to eat us!""I'm inclined to agree," Zula nodded. "That just sounds like a death trap, and if the hobgoblins wanted us down there, then that's the last place we need to be. I say we press on."They made their way across the pit and through the archway on the far side, where they found themselves in a storage room crammed with objects related to combat. On the other side, a short flight of stairs led to a long corridor decorated with scenes of anger, illustrating humanoid figures suffering in scenes of shockingly brutal violence. After several hundred feet, the hallway ended at a solitary door. The companions arranged themselves before it, certain there would be more enemies beyond. They were not disappointed...</blockquote>

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