Fire & Ice (run of 10-14-03)
Our intrepid band of adventures finds themselves staring at four shrimp-like creatures climbing out of the magma. Two lunge at Lucre, and the well-kept dwarf finds his body covered in slashes from their spindly legs. Borin looks one of the creatures in the eye as he prepares to charge, but his body seizes up in terror. Never has Borin experienced this kind of fear. He’s unable to move. Captain Alik Sebastian is likewise paralyzed with fright. Borin catches a glimpse of his cousin out of the corner of his eye. He sees the blood dripping down his chest. He closes his eyes and howls, fighting against the terror, and swings his axe. He opens his eyes as he feels it sink into something. As the sound of shell cracking reaches his ears, he wonders what he was afraid of. Lucre wipes the blood from his eyes and moves across from Borin swinging the Citadel and taking off two of the creature’s legs. The shrimp-beast wavers, but doesn’t fall. Kell fires a crossbow bolt, sending the creature backwards off of the pier. It floats on the surface of the magma, steam rising up as its blood oozes out into the fiery sea.
Kira steps to the side to get a clear shot and fires her crossbow hitting one in the shoulder. Marja, feeling that the crowd is too close to risk an ice knife, sends magic missiles shooting through the air. Kalina waits for the flashes of light to clear before raising her long bow, one, two three. She begins to tighten her string, four. “Hey,” Kalina shouts, “Since when is it four! Alright!” She draws her bow again, and is about to release the string when Alik steps into her line of sight. “Drat! Watch it, Captain.” Terri steps back and begins to chant creating magic stones.
Another creature meets Borin eye-to-eye, but this time the dwarf/elf is nonplussed. He growls back at the beast and swings his axe cutting a slice across its front. Marja sends two magic missiles into the wound Borin created, and the creature falls at his feet. The creature to its right bites Lucre. It raps several of its spiny legs around him and draws him closer. Lucre feels a sucking sensation and sees the creature’s mouth turn red with his blood. He feels weak and his knees buckle, but he pushes the creature away from him. The third remaining shrimp-beast attacks Xel-She, the woman they had just intercepted as she was fleeing. It bites her shoulder holding her in its grip while it drinks. When it straightens up, she falls to the ground. Marja’s two remaining missiles hit it in the face as it rises followed by a crossbow bolt from Kira and a sword thrust from Alik.
Kel pushes his way in to the fray murmuring and holding his hands up in front of him. He reaches Lucre and grasps him by the shoulders as the warmth of his hands penetrates Lucre’s body. The dwarf’s knees find their bearings beneath him so that he does not fall, but he looks bad.
The two remaining shrimp-beasts attack Borin. One swings an arm cutting his cheek. It swings again, but slips in the blood of its fallen brother and sprawls on its stomach at Borin’s feet. The second creature can’t quite reach Borin over the prone body of the other, and swings wide. Borin’s swing, however, reaches across and slices the upright creature in two. He brings his axe down into the prone one chopping two of its legs off. He swings again, and again hears the reassuring cracking of shell as the last shrimp-beast dies.
In the post-battle silence the sounds of Borin and Lucre panting echo across the wobbly bridge on which they stand. Xel-She is dead. Terri pulls a ring off of her finger and hands it to Lucre. He looks like he needs the most relief from the heat. He’s sweating profusely, and his wounds are still oozing. She also finds two potions and a pocket full of quills.
Lucre’s eyes flash, and the air is filled with a sulfur smell. Lucre looks better, and his wounds stop oozing.
They continue down the corridor, come to a cross and turn left. They enter a large room with a round conference table that is covered with papers and maps of Stonefell. Kira gives them a quick scan and notices the locations of guard outposts marked with monetary amounts. The adjoining room to the left is lushly furnished with a four-poster bed and plush furniture. The room to the right has four simple cots and a utility closet containing chests of clothing.
While the rogues give the place a thorough search Borin leans back against a blank wall. Lucre goes over to chat and notices a few stay hairs from Borin’s braids flutter upward. “Step aside, cousin, and take a look at this wall.” With nimble darven fingers Lucre finds the spring release for a secret door.
The door reveals a mid-sized room with no furniture. Four chests line the back wall and a large figure stands in front of them. Lucre’s dwarven eyes can see clearly, but Borin’s elven eyes take a few moments to adjust to the gloom. Marja pushes in behind the two cousins as the three try to make sense of the figure before them. It’s larger than human and seems to be made of flesh and limbs that look like they’ve been soldered together.
“What do you think, Marja?” Lucre asks. “Should we come back later, or kill it now?”
“I’m fully loaded. I say now.” As Marja speaks she nimbly steps to the side, and before the word, now, is out of her mouth, or Lucre can move to attack, Caerwyn rushes past all three of them and brings his sword down across the creature’s chest. The air echos with a dull ringing as the sword bounces back like it hit a solid wall.
“Are you sure it’s not dead?” Caerwyn asks.
Lucre steps in with the Citadel and strikes, but is met with the same solid resistance. He briefly joins his mind with his sword, asking if the thing is dead or intelligent. The Grandfather answers, “It is not dead, but there is no life there.”
Kira scurries in and tries to pass it. Its arms swing shut like two large, heavy doors catching her and breaking her collarbone. She pulls away, clearly pissed, and stabs with her rapier through the back into it’s kidneys, if, of course, it had kidneys.
Captain Sebastian shoots a crossbow bolt from the hallway, but can’t get a clear shot and hits Caerwyn in the shoulder. “We’re surrounded,” shouts Caerwyn as he ducks for cover.
Borin chuckles at the mishap even as his axe tears a large rend in the creature’s side. Four magic missiles fly through the air, but as each one hits, it pops out of existence. The room is suddenly filled with light at Kalina enters with her flame blade. Kira sidles past her into the hallway to find Kel who heals her shoulder.
Kalina steps in to face the creature, buries her blade in its stomach and twists. As the blade enters the flame is extinguished in a smell of burning flesh, but the creature falls to the floor shattering into a pile of disparate limbs.
“Oh, that is just disgusting.” Marja pushes a stray body part with her toe. “I can’t believe people fear sorcerers because of possible Titan taint, but allow mages to walk among them who spend time thinking up crap like this.”
“Hum, what?” Asks Terri. She seems to have hardly noticed the pile now that she has access to the chests. All four are now open revealing a lead lining and a smaller wooden box within. Terri gingerly lifts each of the smaller boxed out and places them in a row on the ground. She approaches the first one, searches for traps, but finds nothing so she springs the lock. The flame that shoots up sends her falling backwards onto her bum. She looks up at the group with a look of chagrin made all the more ridiculous by the fact that her eyebrows have been singed off.
Kira steps in to look at the next box. She can’t find any trap on this one either. Terri looks and concurs so she carefully springs the lock and jumps back but not in time to avoid the second flame that shoots up. This time she is more seriously hurt.
The two look carefully at the remaining two chests. Still they see no traps, but are hesitant to pick another lock. “Oh, let me handle this,” Borin says as he strides between them. He brings his axe down hard on the lid of each remaining chest causing two more flames to shoot upward into the air. He manages to dodge both flames, singeing the tips of his braids. They find coins, gems and silks that the rogues value at over 4,000 gp.
Marja runs her fingers across the beautiful green silk. “I can sew, you know,” a soft voice whispers over her shoulder. She turns to look at Terri and murmurs back, “What would I need with something as fine as this. This is cloth for real ladies.” In her mind she finishes the sentence, “Not for freaks.”
A flaming crossbow bolt flies over their heads and buries itself in the far wall. Borin heads in the directed of the shooter and sees an overturned table in the room at the end of the corridor. Alik is close on his heals. Lucre delays with a better idea. He attempts to sunder a seven-foot table in half to use as cover.
Two magic missiles shoot from behind the table and hit Borin, but he brushes them of and keeps moving. A small red pellet comes zooming down the hall. Borin jumps back out of the hall for cover, but Alik is caught off guard by the fireball. As the flash dissipates he staggers, but manages to keep his feet.
Borin is about to rush back down the hall when Marja lightly touches his shoulder. He turns to see what she wants, but feels a surge through his body. His movements speed up, and with a nod he lunges down the hallway.
The air is smoky, and the ceiling has collapsed in the far corner of the room. The walls are black with fire markings, and most of the furniture is burning. Borin sees three heads peeking up from behind the barricade, a halfling, a half-orc and a half-elf. He attacks the half-elf and feels his great axe slide between her ribs.
The halfling conjures a flaming sphere and attacks Alik who falls to one knee gasping for air. Lucre rushes over clutching the half-table. He overbears the flaming sphere which sets the table on fire, but he manages to push is back 10 feet and away from Alik. He quickly surveys the room and yells in dwarven that the ceiling might come down at any minute, especially after he hits it.
Kel moves in behind Lucre and heals Alik while Marja hastes Caerwyn.
The half-orc conjures another flaming sphere. Borin manages to dodge it, but it sets several barrels on fire. The heat in the room grows intense. The half-elf hollers, “shut your eyes,” as she makes the sphere explode. Her warning aids Lucre and Borin, but not Kira who is blinded by the blast. Borin smashes his axe against the half-elf pasting her against the wall. As he removes his weapon from the stone, flakes fall from the ceiling above. He moves back into the hallway.
Kalina puts a small stone into her avalanche sling and following Lucre’s direction aims for the ceiling. The pebble flies from the sling and grows, hitting the ceiling with a crash. The room starts to rumble.
The halfling swallows a potion even as Borin attacks hitting him in the stomach. A belch of flame comes out of his mouth as his body is sliced nearly in two. Sic transit Gloria halfling.
Lucre shoots his crossbow into the ceiling, and it collapses. Caerwyn and Borin jump back, but are pummeled by falling rocks. The half-orc is crushed under the weight of the ceiling.
Caerwyn finds himself in a side room that is a kitchen. He feels a cool breeze in an adjoining space and finds a food locker with a glyph on the floor. Kira deciphers the script which is a doorway to an ice plane, a magic refrigerator.
They search the room main room and ruble, and Borin finds a hidden door. He opens it and is confronted by two giant fire lizards. The room behind them appears to be a jail, and several of the cages are torn open. In a locked cage is a badly burned human slumped on the floor. The walls are lined with implements of torture.
Borin charges in swinging his axe two-handed, rending the belly of one beast. Lucre fallows by thrusting the Citadel into the gaping wound. Kira fires her crossbow and hits, but at a bad angle. The bolt bounces off the lizard. Alik also fires, and hits the creature dead in the eye (critical), but with a mundane crossbow. The bolt bounces harmlessly away. Marja hits the same eye with an ice knife. The beast howls in pain from the cold.
Terri sneaks past the uproar and picks the lock releasing the man. He staggers out and falls into her arms. “They’ve been burning me for fun,” he gasps into her ear. She pulls him away from the fray. She learns that his name is Thul Alex, and he’s been working with Thul Gula. They are trying to free Thulkas. A man with a spider tattoo on his face came to them saying that he could melt the ice that traps their master. Kel, who was reaching out his hands to heal, stops momentarily and glares.
The two lizards attack spearing Lucre and Borin. Kalina casts chill metal on the spears. As the metal gets colder and colder, the creatures have more trouble holding on to them.
Borin kills the wounded lizard, and Lucre attacks the other watching the flames reflect off of the crystal blade of the Citadel. Marja pierces it with an ice knife, but does little damage, although the creature bristles at the cold.
Caerwyn straddles the body of the dead lizard and swings his sword striking the living one. Borin hits it again. The lizard is on its last legs. Lucre swings, a kill in sight, but misses. No kill for Lucre.
A crossbow bolt whizzes past Caerwyn’s head and bounces off of the creature. “It’s not doing anything,” shouts Kira, “but it makes me feel useful.” An ice knife soon follows, but even as she throws it, Marja feels it slip from her fingers. She knows it won’t hit. She’s been too lucky with that spell today. The knife hits the bars of the cage behind the creature and splashes the area hitting Borin, Caerwyn and Lucre in addition to the lizard. Fortunately, the heat minimizes the damage. Caerwyn swings through the spattering ice and kills the creature.
Alik ties Thul Alix up as he finishes his tale. They were summoning the demons and bribing the guards to keep people away. He didn’t trust the newcomer and spoke out against him which is how he ended up imprisoned. He thinks their leader is dead and that the man with the spider tattoo will try to shatter the soul of ice on his own and take the body of their master away.
Borin, Marja and Kalina start at the words, “spider tattoo.” “Cossette!” sighs Marja. “Could this be one leg of the spider creature that killed us?” asks Kalina. “We have to stop it then,” speaks Caerwyn. He turns to the prisoner, “Where is this so-called soul of ice!”
