Session #22 (part III)
Martin pulled the wool from his pocket and spoke his arcane words, a second Richard the Red appeared, on one side of the great pedestal.
“Elves! Guardians! He has deceived you,” the false Richard pointed to the true Richard. “He is nova lustana! You must stop him.” (62)
One elf paused, looking back and forth between the real Richard and the illusory one, but the other fired his bow at Martin, who barely ducked. His concentration was broken, and now the false Richard would merely yammer for a few seconds before disappearing.
However, he would have lost control regardless as Jeremy ran over to him and shook him, saying, “What are you doing? Stop!”
“Get off of me!” Martin commanded, as Jana cast her spell of blindness upon Richard, but he shook off the effects.
Richard began to sing an elvish song in a lovely tenor that echoed in the large tenor, the beauty of the song only slightly marred by his accented elvish.
Ratchis slammed his hammer into a wolf for a second time and it disappeared in a puff of acrid smoke, but the other moved into its place, allowing the third to set up a charge at Kazrack. The wolf bullrushed the dwarf, slamming him with his head to try to knock him off the stone ramp they struggled on. Kazrack side-stepped the blow, and the wolf pulled to a halt biting and dodging the dwarf’s return blow.
Jeremy, satisfied that the illusory Richard one elf was still staring dumbly at posed no harm leapt over to Ratchis’ side and with a thrust of each of his swords, yet another wolf had disappeared.
Again, Jana cast her spell upon Richard, and this time he yelled out, “Damn!” Stopping his song; the watch-mage’s head darting around wildly without seeing a thing.
The other two elves were not fooled however, and another arrow clipped Martin in the shoulder and cried out in pain, pinioning his arms to keep his balance.
“Droleniel! You look vaguely orcish under this enchantment. How do I look to you?” Kazrack was inexplicably calling one of the elves. (63) Ratchis took up a place across from the dwarf flanking the wolf and with another mighty blow it was gone. He did not have a moment to rest, knocking away an incoming arrow, and looking up to where Richard crept forward towards the edge of the stone platform.
“Jeremy!” Richard called. “It is Jana! She’s causing it! Stop her!” And with that he suddenly picked up his pace and leapt into the open space and down soundlessly into the darkness below.
“Richard!” Jeremy cried with an agony that could not have been surpassed if Jeremy’s own brother (64) had leapt into that gap. “Jana! He’d better not be hurt!”
Martin cursed, and slurred his words into an arcane incantation running forward and casting a handful of colored sand at two of the elves. In a second they were both unconscious on the cold stone.
Jana tossed off another blindness spell, and the remaining elf, the one Kazrack had been babbling at, was blind as well. The elf began to back away cautiously, but was moving to the edge behind him.
Ratchis rushed forward and grabbed the elf in his huge arms. The elf had swung his blade reflexively when he sensed the half-orc close, but the blow was easily avoided.
The elf barely struggled, and then said weakly, “I surrender. Kill me if you must, but please bury me in elven soil.”
“No one is going to kill you,” Kazrack said, trying to be comforting. “You are in a foul dream. You were near a precipice and almost fell. We are trying to save you from yourself.”
“I would never have expected a dwarf of your kind working with the drow. Drow, orcs and drow, working together, this must be a foul dream.”
As Martin moved to bind the two unconscious elves, and Jana rushed up to the maiden lying on the stone platform, Jeremy grabbed a torch off the wall and began to descend a narrow stone staircase he discovered disappearing deep into the darkness below.
“This is all your fault!” he cried to the others over his shoulder as he descended, at a quick pace, but cautious of the crumbly steps.
“Someone needs to talk to Jeremy,” Ratchis said, holding the elf off his feet awkwardly, as Kazrack tried to reason with him.
“Kazrack, I am putting him down. Watch him,” Ratchis said, seeing that no one was acting to follow the ensorcelled Neergaardian.
The huge half-orc dropped the elf and hurried down the platform toward the narrow stair Jeremy had taken. The elf sat up, and began to edge away again, and was heading towards the edge.
“Where are you going?” Kazrack asked. “Be careful. You could fall over the side.”
“I must go on the ship to reach the other side,” the elf said mysteriously, trying to stand.
Kazrack ran up to him and pulled him away from the edge, and then shook him violently.
“What? What’s happening? Who are you?” the elf asked, his voice only slightly changing from the usual emotionless tone to one with the slightest bit of fear.
“I am Kazrack Delver. There was a mage. You’ve been ensorcelled,” the dwarf explained.
The elf shuddered, “Are we in the Chamber of the Three?”
“I don’t know. There are three rough statues in here, with gems in them,” Kazrack replied.
“Are there any elven women in here?” the elf asked, his tone becoming a bit more worried.
Kazrack looked up at Jana who was conversing with the half-elven girl laying on the pedestal.
----
“You must be Rahasia, aren’t you?” Jana asked the groggy girl, who blinked her eyes with difficulty.
“Yes. Yes, that is who I am,” the girl’s voice was raspy. “Who are you?”
“Don’t worry, we’re here to help you,” Jana replied. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I just feel very fatigued,” the girl replied.
-----
“Get down here!” Ratchis’ voice echoed from below.
Jana hustled over to the edge of the stone platform and looked over the edge and could see nothing.
Kazrack was still trying to make sense of what the elf was saying, as it seemed to go back and forth between wakefulness and its ensorcelled state of reverie.
“Kazrack! Get down there!” Martin commanded the dwarf. He stood from binding the two elves who were already stirring. “I’ll take care of the elves.”
Kazrack left the elf where he sat, and walked over to the edge of the central platform and looked down. Even his darkvision could not reach the bottom, though he squinted and tried to see what was happening.
“Oh Isis!” Martin exclaimed, and hustled past Kazrack towards the stairs Jeremy and Ratchis had taken. “Stupid dwarf!”
Kazrack then hustled past Martin, picking up speed with his strong legs. “Hold your tongue mage!”
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The torch crackled and spat, as Jeremy made his way down the stairs. He cringed as the smell of rotting garbage wafted up to him, as he was two-thirds of the way down. The circulating cold air above kept the upper chamber fresh, but down here the air was close and foul.
“Richard!” Jeremy called into the darkness beyond his torchlight. The floor of the huge chamber below was a pile of rotting garbage of various depths. The walls were stained white marble, and Jeremy could see tall arched passageways leading out of the garbage chamber around the perimeter of the room, and a huge central column holding up the stone platforms above.
“Richard?” Jeremy called again, frantically running atop the mucky garbage that threatened to suck his boots off. He looked around trying to get a view of the Watch-Mage.
Ratchis was halfway down the stairs, when he spotted Jeremy’s torchlight bobbing up and down in his black and white field of vision. The half-orc did not pause, “Jeremy! Get over here!”
Jeremy turned, “Ratchis? Is that you? You have to help me find Richard, he might be hurt!”
“Nephthys, protect us! Jeremy, behind you!”
The Neergaardian could hear the sound of bubbling and shifting garbage behind him and turned to see perhaps the most horrific thing he had ever seen.
It was ten feet in diameter, but its body seemed to be made of the very garbage in the chamber. It stood upon three legs that were as thick and mottled as rotting tree trunk, and had three tentacles. Two were flayed open on the end and covered in thick spines three inches long, but the third stood straight up, off-center of the body, with a leaf-shaped appendage that held two yellow and green eyes, that absorbed Jeremy’s visage with alien hunger. It had a huge maw riddled with teeth of random sizes. It made sound like a constant heavy breath as it whipped one appendage forward and lifted Jeremy in the air, the painful spines piercing the Neergaardian’s chain-shirt.
It began to squeeze the life out of him.
Jeremy screamed in horror, “Help! Richard! Somebody! Help!” He managed to get one arm free and sliced awkwardly into the creature’s tentacle with his short sword. A bit of green malodorous ichor spurted from it, but the creature would not let go. Instead he squeezed even harder and pulling Jeremy closer to him as if he were only a rag doll, the monster shoved one leg into his mouth and bit down.
Jeremy screamed again.
Ratchis was a blur of motion. “Kazrack! Get down here!” he yelled, as he leapt over an incoming tentacle and slammed his warhammer into the creature’s side, sending a wave of nasty ichor over him like vomit spurting through pores.
Jeremy worked his other arm free, but the creature only squeezed even tighter. He drew more of what passed for the monster’s blood with his short sword, but he could hardly feel his other arm, and the blow was too weak to do any damage.
Jeremy coughed, and even above the creature’s incessant breath, Ratchis could hear ribs began to snap, and awareness flee from his eyes. Giving no thought to himself, he slammed the hammer down on the creature again, wincing as the ichor splashed into his roaring mouth.
The creature raised Jeremy way up above its body, and still squeezing brought the Neergaardian down to smash Ratchis with his own companion. Ratchis ducked, but the other tentacle raked him and wrapped around his thighs. The half-orc was lifted into the air, and brought closer to the monster’s mouth.
By this time Martin was passing Kazrack on the stairs and Jana had made it to the top of the following down behind.
Ratchis raised his hammer above his head in both hands, feeling the life being squeezed from his own body, knowing that his time was running out.
“Nephthys!” he cried, filled with the ecstasy of coming death. “Let my last blow be in your name!”
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Notes:
(62) Martin the Green was having the illusory Richard the Red say the word for dark elves in elvish incorrectly.
(63) DM’s Note: Kazrack was trying to confuse the elves into thinking that he was an elf as well and that some spell had made them all appear different to one another. The rest of us had no idea what he was trying to do until after the session when Kazrack’s player explained.
(64) Jeremy Northrop does not have a brother.
