JollyDoc's Savage Tide-Updated 10/8!

[JollyDoc]

Mandi emerged from the lower branches of the trees some twenty-feet above the bottom of the well. Above her, she could hear concussive blasts and the sound of metal striking meat as her companions went about their wet work. A crashing sound directly above caused her to look up just as the severed head of one of the girallons tumbled past her. She had to admire Octurus. He was a surgeon with his blades when he wanted to be. Then, however, her gaze was drawn below once more. Another black pool lay at the bottom of the shaft, identical to the one they had seen in Ahazu’s well, save for the gargantuan spider that crouched atop it like a water-walker. It was a retriever, but larger than any Mandi had ever seen before. It was completely motionless, seemingly oblivious to her presence.
“I’m not sure what you’re up to,” she muttered, “but I know a guardian when I see one.”
With a flick of her wrist, she sent green fire at the demonic construct, and where it struck, large pieces of the spider’s carapace simply evaporated. In a flash, the retriever was in motion, blasts of fire, ice and electricity pulsing from its multi-colored eyes. Simultaneously, it reached out with its cleaver-like forelegs, ripping at Mandi’s robes. The sorceress ignored the energy beams as if they were mere raindrops. The wards she had woven about her made her impervious to such trivial nuisances, and the wounds the retriever inflicted were superficial thanks to the diamond-hard toughness of her magically dense skin. As the creature raged and flailed about her, she gestured again, this time sending a barrage of force-bolts at its eyes. With an almost mechanical squeal, it rolled onto its back, its legs curling inward in its death throes.

Several minutes later, Mandi, Sepoto and Tower Cleaver stood around the pool in silence. Octurus, Marius and Daelric waited above in case any more guardians should appear. Mandi flipped open the spell book Ahazu had provided and began reading the spell from the last page. When she was done, the page turned automatically and the surface of the pool began to ripple. Slowly, a stunning, statuesque woman with flawless pale skin and long golden tresses began rising from the depths. Her angelic form was marred by the wanton, lustful pout of her smile, the all-consuming hunger that lurked within her eyes, the large bat wings that unfurled from her back, and the writhing tail that coiled around one leg. She stretched languidly and then looked around as if establishing her bearings. When she noticed the trio watching her, her expression transformed into joy, but then just as suddenly went slack. It was only then that the three companions noticed something else: a writhing snake protruded from Shami-Amourae’s neck. It had wrapped itself twice around like a necklace, and its hissing face reared up from behind the succubus’s head.
“You shall not have this prize!” it shrieked in a high-pitched voice. “I shall use her to destroy your bodies, and I shall send your souls back to Shattered Night forever!”
Mandi drew in a sharp breath as recognition dawned on her. The serpent was a chokesnake, a fiendish symbiote created in Demogorgon’s Abyssal laboratories, crafted from a snake’s head severed from a molydeus demon. They were designed to guard their hosts, preventing them from acting contrary to Demogorgon’s will. Worse, they could draw upon the all the abilities of the host, including their defenses and their supernatural powers. This was not good. As she took in the situation, Sepoto began whirling his chain.
“No!” Mandi shouted. “Don’t hit Shami-Amourae!”
“Who do you think you’re talking to here?” the crusader snapped. “Tower Cleaver? I know what I’m doing!”
With that, he snapped his chain out, the spiked tip deftly slicing into the choksnake’s flesh, but not even scratching Shami-Amourae. The serpent shrieked again, but it was the succubus who raised her arms, gesturing absently at the goliath. A wave of dark power swept across the bottom of the shaft. Mandi barely felt it, but knew the blasphemous invocation for what it was. Tower Cleaver was bowled head-over-heels and lay stunned against the well wall, while Sepoto…simply vanished. Mandi knew instantly what had happened. The spell had banished the goliath back to the Prime. He could literally be anywhere on Toril, but she didn’t have time to worry about that. Shami-Amourae was preparing to strike again. Following Sepoto’s lead, Mandi loosed a fusillade of force bolts, each one striking the chokesnake unerringly. As the last one struck home, the serpent collapsed, lolling lifeless across Shami-Amourae’s shoulders. The succubus dropped to her knees in a daze, and then, with a scream of anguish, she tore the snake from her neck, threw it to the ground and crushed its head with her heel as she rose.

As the Lady of Debased Eros gathered her wits about her, Octurus and Marius joined Mandi at the bottom of the well, the former moving to help Cleaver to his feet. Once Shami-Amourae had composed herself, she lifted her chin in disdain.
“Who are you?” she asked haughtily. “I suppose you deserve some gratitude for freeing me from my prison, but I’m certain you did not do so out of the kindness of your hearts.”
“You are correct, my lady,” Mandi replied courteously. “Though perhaps you will think better of us when you’ve heard our tale. We learned of your predicament while visiting Divided’s Ire.”
Shami-Amourae tensed at this, but said nothing, instead nodding for Mandi to continue.
“Your former paramour has put into motion a fiendish plan meant to strip our world clean of life as we know it. We’re not sure about his reasons, except that the so-called Savage Tide that he intends to unleash will provide him with great power of some sort. We were told that you might have reason to wish Demogorgon ill will, and that you might be inclined to assist us in our quest to destroy him.”
Shami-Amourae began to smile coldly, but before she could speak, a great and thunderous boom tore through the air above. Though his companions in the well could not see it, Daelric looked up to behold a swiftly spreading rift of darkness opening in the sky. A moment later, a torrent of dark water began to cascade from the rift, raining down into the well as if a great waterfall had suddenly appeared in the heavens. The spray from the deluge washed over Daelric, and far below the full force of the flood struck Marius, Cleaver and Shami-Amourae, knocking them prone in the quickly deepening pool that was filling up the well. Only Mandi and Octurus managed to leap free of the waterfall, plastering themselves against the well wall. As the sorceress stared in shock at the water, she noticed a faint, green haze surrounding and emanating from it…a dimensional lock. They were trapped once more. Quickly she leaped into the air above Shami-Amourae, extending her hand to the succubus.
“Come with me if you want to live!” she shouted, then telepathically to the others, “The rest of you, get out of here as quickly as you can!”
She heard Daelric’s confused voice reply: ‘What…what’s going on?’
‘Sepoto’s been banished!’ Mandi replied. ‘We have Shami-Amourae and we’re coming up! Get ready to get out of here as fast as possible!’

 

[JollyDoc]

What Mandi could not know at that moment was that the water was far from ordinary. It was in fact a spring from the river Styx, the River of Death whose very touch could cause insanity. As it was, when Daelric, Marius, Cleaver and Shami-Amourae had been struck by it, they had only suffered mild amnesia, forgetting everything that had happened in the previous eight hours. As Daelric pondered Mandi’s reply, his mind could not grasp their meaning. The last thing he remembered was being aboard the Sea Wyvern. They had been discussing the logistics of traveling to Pazunia to speak with someone named Red Shroud. Now he was standing at the edge of a pit, alone, with water pouring from the sky and Mandi was babbling something about having the former Queen of Succubi in tow. To make matters worse, four more retrievers clambered out of the rift in the sky and dropped slowly to the ground. Each of them carried a hooded howdah on its back, and within these rode bar-lgura demons, each of them clutching a longbow.

Shami-Amourae was far from clear on the events around her as well. She remembered the eternity of Shattered Night, tortured by the silent whispers in her head, and then she was free, lying on the ground beside her former prison, water from the sky pouring down around her, a flying elf woman hovering above her babbling something about salvation. Hesitantly, the succubus held out her hand, and the elf seized it and began rising rapidly into the air.

Marius sat up in the rising pool of water, totally confused. Was that Mandi hovering above him, not to mention Octurus and Tower Cleaver standing nearby? He’d been in Broken Reach just a few moments ago, preparing to attend Red Shroud’s court where he knew his former adventuring companions would soon be arriving. Now he was at the bottom of a well with three of those same companions, and he was being told to flee for his life before he drowned. What kind of sorcery was this? Still, self-preservation was indeed an instinct the gnome mage possessed, and he pushed all other concerns aside, instead weaving a flight spell about himself and rising aloft with Mandi.

Octurus, meanwhile quaffed another potion which would carry him to safety, watching a bewildered looking Tower Cleaver do the same. The demon hunter had avoided the touch of the Styx, just as Mandi had, but as he began to rise, the perilous waters lapped around his legs and his mind grew foggy. High above now, Mandi also felt the spray of the fall against her skin, and in that instant, she thought she’d gone mad. She found herself floating in mid-air, above a tree canopy that grew out of deep shaft below her. A succubus clung to her left hand, while above she could see monstrous spiders with demonic riders scuttling around the lip of the well.
‘What in the Hell’s is going on here?’ she called telepathically, assuming her companions would be linked to her, as they usually were.
‘What happened to the Sea Wyvern?’
For a moment there was no reply, then she heard Octurus’s voice first:
‘I was just about to ask the same thing.’
Then Cleaver’s:
‘Moo?’
Then Marius…Marius? What was that coward doing here?
‘I wish someone would explain it all to me too!’
Last, Daelric:
‘Umm…I’ll tell you what you just told me,’ the cleric replied. ‘You said Sepoto’d been banished and you had Shami-Amourae. You should we should get out of her fast.’
‘Sepoto banished?’ Mandi wondered. What did that mean? Shami-Amourae? She looked down at the succubus again, whose own eyes looked as bewildered as her own.
‘Never mind’ she barked back through the link. ‘We’ll figure this out later! For now, kill anything that gets in your way and get the Hell out of here!’

Mandi and Shami-Amourae cleared the lip of the well first, a spell on the sorceress’s lips and fire in her hand as she blasted one of the retrievers out of existence, sending its rider tumbling to the ground.
“I’m certain you’re acquainted with these constructs,” she said to the succubus as they landed several dozen yards away from the nearest retriever. “So if you’re wondering whether or not you can trust me, and whether you might just be better off on your own, remember that they can track you down anywhere in the universe. They’re here for you, not us, so it would be in your own best interest to stick around for awhile.”
With that, Mandi spoke the words to another dweomer, transforming her body into that of a massive pit fiend, and stepped between Shami-Amourae and the bar-lgura, who were already drawing their bows.
“Nice look, sweetie,” the succubus smirked, “but I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself.”
She turned towards the unmounted demon, still climbing to his feet, puckered her lips and blew a sultry kiss in his direction. The bar-lgura went rigid for a moment, and then, when Shami-Amourae crooked a finger at him with a come-hither smile, he came, like a well-heeled hound.

Octurus and Marius were the next pair out of the pit, just in time to witness Mandi avasculate a bar-lgura, trapping its mount in the disgusting web of blood vessels.
“I hate it when she does that,” Octurus grumbled.
At that moment, a brilliant flare of light illuminated the courtyard as Daelric appeared, wreathed in holy fire, and hurled it at one of rider/mount pairs. He was rewarded for his bravery by a sizzling bolt of electricity in his back as another retriever unleashed the deadly power of its eyes. Its rider relied on more mundane weapons, but the pair of arrows that sprouted from the priest’s thigh seemed just as effective.

The battle raged on, with spells flying as well as arrows and energy bolts. Shami-Amourae thinned the field further by luring a second bar-lgura to her side, while a one-two combo of disintegration rays and scimitars, courtesy of Octurus and Marius, neutralized its mount. The demon hunter then triggered one of his many tattoos, pouncing on a second retriever and reducing it to pieces in a matter of seconds. Mandi took down the last retriever with her bare hands, the pit fiend’s claws ripping through the spider demon’s thick carapace as if it were rice paper. The last two bar-lgura refused to flee and continued to pepper the Legionnaires with arrows, knowing full well what reward failure would bring them. In the end, their fate was only slightly improved as they died quickly at the swords and claws of Mandi and Octurus.

The water from the rift had filled the Well of Debased Eros by that time, and was overflowing into the courtyard and the surrounding ground, quickly forming a small lake. Mandi quickly turned to Shami-Amourae and told her tale a second time, though for both of them, it was the only time they remembered. When she’d finished, Shami-Amourae placed one hand on her shapely hip and quirked her mouth in an evil smile.
“There is nothing I desire more than to see my former lover and my sister, his whore, suffer for their betrayal of me.”
Mandi held her tongue from stating that the succubus had brought their wrath upon herself by betraying Demogorgon in the first place.
“So I will tell you something that might be of importance to you,” Shami-Amourae continued, “but then I’m leaving, and you are on your own.”
Mandi nodded her understanding, and the succubus began to speak at length.
“Demogorgon is his own worst enemy. He is, in many ways, two creatures that share the same body. Aameul, his left head, is the more charismatic and calculating, while Hethradiah, his right head, is more impulsive and feral. Each views the other as inferior, and each believes the other incapable of outfoxing itself. It’s really rather cute, after a fashion. It certainly makes it easy to manipulate him, by playing Aameul off of Hethradiah, and vice versa.
Both of his heads have long sought ways to achieve dominance over the other. Even before they betrayed me, Aameul and Hethradiah had hatched independent plans to take control. Aameul’s was to murder Hethradiah and use the life energy of the Bastion of Unborn Souls to cauterize the wound. I always had my doubts as to whether that would work, and ultimately, Aameul’s plans were foiled by a band of meddlesome adventurers. Hethradiah’s plan is much more insidious. He intended to seed dozens of Material Plane cities with madness…he called it a savage tide. The resulting eruption of insanity could then be siphoned into Gaping Maw, where he could use the energy to absorb Aameul. In effect, Aameul wanted to shed his unwanted half, while Hethradiah wants to absorb it. A much stronger plan. I always did like him better.
If you seek to oppose him, take warning: Demogorgon is not one to be trifled with…even I wasn’t able to deceive him for long. What hope do you think you have? No…if you want to even have a chance at stopping him, you need to distract him. That is Demogorgon’s weakness. Each situation he faces brings two reactions, not one. And when faced with multiple dangers across multiple fronts, these reactions can paralyze him. I’ve seen it before, on a small scale as he’s been forced to deal with uprisings and invasions. I quiver to think how he’d react to something on a larger scale…say, perhaps, an invasion of Gaping Maw by the armies of multiple enemies at once?
In any event, I need to be away from this place, to go into hiding before he tries for me again. I have much to rebuild. I’ve no interest in tangling with Demogorgon again soon. Perhaps ever. But if you feel suicidal, I’d suggest consulting someone who knows more than I do about the Abyss. Someone like that tart, Iggwilv, perhaps?”

Shami-Amourae then turned on her heel, walking towards the edge of the courtyard, her bar-lgura slaves in tow. When she reached the marble path, she turned back, her eyes on Marius.
“Perhaps you want to accompany me, aid me in rebuilding my empire? Ah, but I see you already bear the mark of another. Some other time, perhaps?”
Then they simply vanished. No sooner had this happened, than another, more sinister form appeared in the growing lake of the redirected River Styx. Emerging from the mist and vapor churned up from the turbid, dark waters, was a long skiff, propelled along by a gaunt figure. As the skiff and its occupant approached, an almost palpable aura of menace preceded him…
______________________________________________________________

Sepoto sat in a tavern in one of the small hamlets of Ten Towns, located in far northern region of Faerun called Icewind Dale. Across from him sat a heavily muscled, blonde-haired barbarian. An impressive looking warhammer leaned against the table.
“So,” the goliath said, lifting his tankard, “you were telling me about this drow and his scimitars…”

 

[JollyDoc]

This one's for you G!!





EPILOGUE

Shami-Amourae sighed in relief as she took in the surroundings of her safe house. It was good to be home. She paused in front of one of the numerous mirrors that adorned the walls, preening her hair in its reflection. Suddenly, her eyes narrowed as she stared at the odd scar in the center of her forehead. Then, before her disbelieving gaze, the scar split in two, revealing a third eye staring back at her. A moment later, Shami-Amourae’s mind was shattered forever.

Entropy took in her new form admiringly. ‘Not half bad,’ she thought, though truly, she no longer cared much about external appearances. Indeed, she had vastly more important things on her mind. Her plan, which had begun so long ago, was about to come to fruition. For a moment, she allowed her memories to carry her back to the Bastion of Unborn Souls…the Bastion of Broken Souls, as it had been known at that time, when she had learned of Aaemeul’s plan to rid himself of his other, perhaps better half. This had led her in later days to research the Prince of Demons further and, with the near-limitless resources provided to her as the Chosen of the White Banshee, she had uncovered a second plan…Hethradiah’s plan.

Time had passed as she had observed passively the events in the outside world. She had witnessed the so-called Age of Worms with anticipation, hoping it signaled the beginning of Hethradiah’s Savage Tide, but it was not to be, and so she waited patiently. Finally, when she saw that the time had truly come, she had set about putting the final stages of her plan into motion. It had been nothing for her to learn of Shami-Amourae’s imprisonment in the Wells of Darkness, and less effort still for her to secure an audience with Ahazu the Seizer. At first the demon lord had believed she was offering a prisoner exchange, her soul for that of the Lady of Delights. Not so, she had told him. Instead, she freely offered herself to the Seizer, asking only two things in return: first, that she be imprisoned with Shami-Amourae, and second, that if it ever came to pass that she should be freed, then Ahazu would reward her with the one gift she knew he had in his power to grant, but had never given…the divine spark…the power of a god! Ahazu had readily agreed, thinking her a fool, and that she would never have any hope of being freed, especially since no one would ever know of her imprisonment. There was his crucial error. Once she had sacrificed her life and her soul had joined Shami-Amourae’s in Shattered Night, it had been only the slightest of tasks for her to completely dominate the succubus queen, and merge her own consciousness with Shami-Amourae’s subconscious.

Now she was free, and it was time to collect on her debt from Ahazu. Then, she would laugh as she told the paltry demon lord what she had learned…what he had spent his entire miserable existence seeking…the secret of Shattered Night’s true nature. It was a Portal…and not just any portal, oh no! It was the one Portal she had been searching for ever since she had learned of the existence of the Far Realms. Shattered Night was a direct conduit to the plane of madness, and with the power granted to her by Ahazu, Entropy would be able to open it. Oh, it might well take years, decades even to accomplish the task, but she was nothing if not patient. She chuckled to herself as she thought of the mortals that had inadvertently freed her scurrying about trying to stop Demogorgon’s dastardly scheme. Perhaps they would live to see just how insignificant the Savage Tide truly was, when the new Goddess of Madness became ascendant…

 

[Gli'jar]

Great writing. I enjoyed reading both the Age of Worms and Savage Tide. I noticed reference to Entropy in both story hours, is there a third story hour I missed?

 

[Hammerhead]

Actually, there are four story hours: Gfunk's City of the Spider Queen + Bastion of Broken Souls story hour (where he played Entropy), then Jollydoc's Shackled City, Age of Worms, and Savage Tide. I should still have the PDFs of them, if you can't find them online.

 

[Neverwinter Knight]

Great update, JollyDoc. I'm glad Entropy's back and that you still keep her involved. I wonder what happened to Havok, though. Please keep it up - whichever way this story hour is going!

As for Sepoto's pledge to hand over Demogorgon, they are really playing "all or nothing", aren't they...

Just one thing:

Try as they might, the other varrangoin could not free themselves, nor could they speak the words to their own powerful spells as the crushing hands would not allow them to draw breath.

The part about the breath drawing does not really apply to the liches.

 

[killjoy68116]

Excuse my ignorance, but in order to intone the somantic elements of their spells the Liches would still have to draw air into the lungs in order to then exhale the air past their rotting vocal cords right? Drawing breath in order to speak... or maybe it was, you know, creative license or somethin'

oh and the PDFs of ANY of the previous story hours would be awesome.


I'll sink back into the shadows now...

 

[JollyDoc]

The whole breath drawing things was artistic license for: Bigby's Crushing Hand squeezed the crap out of them, preventing them from doing pretty much anything.

However, Killjoy does have a point. A spellcasting liche must still be able to speak, and does not the power of speech impy the neccessity to draw breath? Unless of course some supernatural component of undeath allows speech without breathing, in which case all undead should be capable of REALLY long run-on sentences....like this one

 

[gfunk]

This one's for you G!!

SWEET!!! Evil gets an upgrade!

Links:
1. City of the Spider Queen + Bastion of Broken Souls + Lich Queen's Beloved
http://www.enworld.org/archive/index.php/t-33249.html

2. Shackled City
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=85618

 

[Joachim]

1. City of the Spider Queen + Bastion of Broken Souls + Lich Queen's Beloved
http://www.enworld.org/archive/index.php/t-33249.html

Ahhh...Entropy v. Joachim. The nostalgia comes back in a flood. I have said it before, I will say it again...that campaign was pure EPIC (and not just in the +20th level sense). I remember it with fondness.