Session #24 (part II)
Tirhas took the rope from Jeremy, “You go next. I have another way to get down.”
The young Neergaardian paused for a moment, and then made his way down as far he could.
“We have to hold them to the crack, so only one can attack us at a time,” Ratchis said, returning a club-blow with an even stronger one from his hammer. The quaggoth fell in place, blocking the crack.
Jeremy did not pause, when he got to the end of the rope he simply let go hoping for the best.
Jana pulled the lantern from her pack, but it had cracked in the rough descent. Martin crawled back to the edge of the stone slide to get away from the melee behind him. Kazrack brandished his halberd, and moved to hold Ratchis’ side. He could now see two more quaggoths waiting behind the fallen one waiting for an opportunity to get in the tiny cavern.
The quaggoth leapt to its feet and stumbled towards with his club at Ratchis. The half-orc side-stepped the blow and brought his hammer down on the hairy beast again.
Jeremy landed on Jana, and they both lie there scraped and with the wind knocked out of them. However, desperate to see what was happening, Jana was able to cast her light spell on a her dagger, breathing through the pain and keeping her concentration focused on the arcane gestures. Tall shadows moved against the wall. The hooting of the quaggoths echoed up and down the shaft.
Cowering in the corner, Martin cast shield on himself.
“We have to get out of here or we’ll be overwhelmed in here,” Kazrack said, as he buried his halberd blade into the quaggoth, and gave it a hard twist to the right. It collapsed in a pile of blood and fur, but another leapt over it and slammed his stone club into Ratchis, who almost fell from the blow.
Ratchis slammed his hammer into the creature’s face in order to give himself more breathing room. The quaggoth’s nose crunched loudly, and it spit out a tooth as its hoot went up three octaves, and it began to puff up. Kazrack thrust forward again, but the quaggoth twisted his body to avoid the blow and slammed his club into Ratchis again. The half-orc cursed loudly.
Jeremy stood and took the lit dagger from Jana.
Ratchis buried his war hammer into the quaggoth’s shoulder, and there was a large crunch and rip, and it collapsed. Ratchis stepped back from the crack to allow Jeremy to take his place, but just as he did, the last quaggoths bullrushed the Neergaardian. Jeremy had pulled his short sword, so as he was slammed against the opposite wall, clearing the crack of an opening, he shoved the blade into the thing. Kazrack was slow in reacting and his blow went wide.
Jana adopted her silent and grim fighting face and swung her own club at the creature that was now assaulting Jeremy, but missed. Martin stepped forward with dagger in hand as if he were going to join the melee, but then stepped back into the corner.
The quaggoth had his club in the air to bring it down on Jeremy, but Kazrack thrust his halberd into its lower arm and it dropped the club.
At that moment, beside Martin, Tirhas landed, floating down like a feather on the wind.
Ratchis crushed the quaggoth’s skull, but even as it fell it still kept trying to rip at Jeremy, so he thrust his blade into it, and it finally stopped moving.
Kazrack moved to the crack to see if more quaggoths were coming and what the landscape out there was like.
Ratchis turned to Jeremy and placed a hand on him, “Nephthys, please allow me to heal this young brave warrior so he may live to see the sun again.”
Jeremy felt the healing warmth fill his body. “Thank Nephthys,” he muttered.
Ratchis did not pause, and slipped his chain shirt on.
“We have to get out of here,” Tirhas said in her typical detached-sounding voice. “This is a terrible place to get stuck.”
Kazrack walked back in. “The riverbed is just out here, if we follow it out to the right we will get out of here, or so Silverback said.”
He poured some wine into his dwarven rune stein and spoke the rune “sonn” (90) and drank the contents.
Jana, Jeremy, Martin and Tirhas poured out of the crack. It opened onto a narrow ledge about five feet above the riverbed. The jumped down one by one, followed by Kazrack and Ratchis.
“We have to go that way,” Kazrack said pointing to the right. “Run!”
Jana, Jeremy and Tirhas began to run, but Martin paused and looked back to Ratchis and Kazrack. And then ran, falling out of the range of the light Jeremy carried. He tried to pour on the speed.
“Let’s go,” said Ratchis to Kazrack.
“I’ll only slow you guys down,” the dwarf said. “I’ll hold them off. Go!”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Ratchis. “Run. If we have to fight them, let’s make as much room between us and them first. We might find a place to hide or the exit might be close. They may not come outside.”
They were now facing the opposite direction from where the others were running, and before them the echo of hooting echoed. It sounded as if it were getting closer.
“Run. I run too slow. I will only endanger the others,” Kazrack said.
“There is no reason for you to do this,” Ratchis insisted. “I am not going to leave you here.”
Kazrack made some half-hearted progress down the riverbed, with Ratchis only about fifteen feet ahead.
“Look!” Tirhas cried out to the others. “There is a narrow crack. Maybe if we go this way we can hold them off, or lose them and find a place to hide.”
“I don’t see anything,” said Jeremy.
“I can see further with less light,” said Tirhas. Jana stopped running, as did Martin, both looking back to see where the others were.
But it was too dark and they could not see five quaggoths charging at Ratchis and Kazrack, and not hat far away from them. All they could hear was the maddening hooting, and then the sound of combat.
Martin scrambled to light the remaining lantern, while Jeremy passed the dagger to Jana and pulling both his swords ran to the edge of the light, getting ready to attack any quaggoth that emerged from the darkness. Tirhas leapt up to where ledge where the crack she had discovered was.
In the darkness, a quaggoth ran with all its might at Kazrack and swung his club, but the dwarf ducked deftly, and sliced the beast right across the crotch. Blood splattered the moist ground, as its inner bits and pieces started to tumble out of its body. It tried for him even as it collapsed, and in that moment a spear appeared in the air, but it was translucent and mildly luminescent. It thrust itself deep into the quaggoth’s exposed neck and the creature stopped moving.
Jeremy and Jana moved back a bit more followed by Martin, throwing their light onto the scene of the battle. Tirhas pulled her bow and leapt back down from the ledge.
“Finish these things quick and make for the crack!” she called.
“Run! Everyone run!” Kazrack said, shaving a bit chunk of hair and flesh from the side of the beasts. “Save yourselves. I will hold them back.”
“Have you gone crazy?” Jeremy asked. He readied himself for the three quaggoths following that first one. One cam right for him, and he thrust his long sword into it, but he still felt the weight of the club on his shoulder. He shuddered as his chain shirt did not protect well against blunt weapons.
Another of the quaggoths was a blur of movement as it charged Ratchis. There was a moment of limbs and groans, and the thing stood above Ratchis’ unconscious form, hooting and swinging his club above his head.
The last quaggoth joined its brother attacking the dwarf, and brought his club down with all his might. Kazrack moved his halberd to parry the blow with the shaft, but he was too slow and swung too high. The stone club slammed into his shoulder and there was sickening crack and the sound of tearing flesh, as a shard of bone now poked through the side of his now useless right arm. Kazrack’s halberd and defenses were now down.
The dwarf screamed in agony.
Jana spoke her arcane words to blind one of the quaggoths attacking Kazrack, but it shook off the spell’s effect.
Martin moved to one side and cast a spray of colors at two of the quaggoths, the one over Ratchis fell unconscious, but the other acted as if nothing had happened.
Tirhas carefully fired an arrow into the fray, but it went over the head of the quaggoth she aimed for and disappeared into the darkness.
Kazrack struggled with his two quaggoth opponents, barely staying at out of harm’s way, while failing to connect using his light flail in his off-hand. Finally, the quaggoth that had broken his arm struck again, in the shoulder of the same arm. Again, the dwarf cried out, blood pouring down his twisted arm in torrents.
Jeremy struck a deep blow with his elven short sword, but the angered quaggoth returned the favor and the Neergaardian fell.
Jana fired his ray of sickly green light at one of the quaggoths attacking the dwarf, but being careful to not strike the dwarf, the ray went wide missing completely.
Martin took his crossbow off his back and began to frantically load it.
In the distance there was more echoed hooting.
Tirhas dropped her bow and casting forward a handful of sand spoke the word, “dormu”. The quaggoth over Jeremy and one of the ones one Kazrack fell into a sudden slumber.
Tired of her failing spells, Jana pulled out her club and rushed the remaining quaggoths, shoving the end into its ribs. She grunted with satisfaction. Martin stepped over to one side and taking careful aim sent a crossbow bolt to skim it and get tangled in its bloody fur.
Tirhas tried and other gesture and another word, but the quaggoth did not react, continuing to struggle with Kazrack as if all else were a minor annoyance in comparison to the dwarf.
Jana swung again, but held back her blow as the quaggoth and dwarf spun about each other suddenly and she would have struck her companion.
Martin hurriedly loaded and calmly fired again. This time the quaggoth shrieked, as the bolt went deep into its calf.
Tirhas drew her sword and slit the throat of one of the sleeping quaggoths.
Kazrack took the moment’s distraction and slammed the head of his flail agianst the thing’s chest and knocked it backward and down on the ground. The dwarf hurried backed away from the thing, and Jana followed suit dropping her club and fumbling for her crossbow. The quaggoth leapt up and looked at Kazrack. It made ready to leap at the dwarf, but it stood bolt upright as a crossbow quarrel pierced its neck. Its hands clawing at the shaft as it collapsed in order to bleed to death.
Everyone let out a sigh of relief, and then the quaggoth that had been color sprayed leapt up at Kazrack.
Everyone was startled but the dwarf channeled his sudden rush of adrenalin into a fierce swing of his flail, slamming the thing in the face.
“Check on the fallen,” Tirhas said, drawing her sword and joining Kazrack.
Jana hurried over to Jeremy to check and make sure he was still alive, while Martin ran over to Ratchis.
The quaggoth was hooting and leaping and swinging its club wildly. Jana looked up from binding Jeremy’s wounds to see Tirhas take a nearly crushing blow. The elf cried out, and sliced the things thigh with her short sword.
The quaggoth leapt high up and began to shake, tossing its club away. Its chest and arms and shoulders began to puff up with incredible swollen strength.
“Hey ugly,” Kazrack said, swinging wildly at it, and it grabbed him on either side of the head with its long dirty claws and lifted him up, pulling bloody pieces of scalp off. The dwarf slid to the ground, bleeding to death.
Tirhas was breathing hard, trying to find an opening to the wild things vitals, but its brute strength and seeming ability to ignore painful wounds made it difficult. She could barely keep up with it, and as she dodged each blow she knew she was tiring.
“I could use some help over here,” she called to Martin and Jana, and she thrust her sword forward, but the thing twisted away with a hoot, and brought its claw backhand across her chest and neck.
Jana and Martin went back to their dropped crossbows.
Tirhas cried out again, as she took a bite to the same shoulder the spider had gotten her in. She cut into it, but barely enough to make a patch of hair fall off of it.
She pulled away from the beast, and quarrels from the two spell-casters dropped the thing.
“Jeremy is stabilized,” Jana said calmly. The hooting seemed more distant, but still around them. “Their sounds seem to probably echo in the tunnel. They might not know where we are yet.”
“What are we going to do?” Martin asked nervously, looking down at the bloody bodies of their warriors breathing shallowly laid out on the riverbed.
Jana looked up from where she was binding Kazrack. “On Ratchis you will find a ceramic vial,” she said. “Pinch his nose and pour it down his throat, while Tirhas and I move Jeremy and Kazrack up to the crack.”
“A potion? Where’d you get it?” Martin asked, searching the half-orc’s pack for the ceramic vial.
“Well, I am hoping it is a potion of healing,” Jana said. “We found it on a Menovian captain who we saw drink a potion and become healed.”
“So, wait, for all we know this thing I am about to give him might turn him into a rabbit or something?” Martin asked, holding the vial in his hand.
“At least a rabbit is easier to carry than he is,” Tirhas said, grabbing Jeremy under the shoulders as Jana grabbed his feet.
They hefted him up to the ledge, as Martin poured the contents of the vial (a clear blue liquid) into the half-orc’s throat. Ratchis coughed and spasmed for a moment, and then opened his eyes.
“Where am I?” he said groggily.
“It worked,” Martin said, amazed. He looked up at Jana and called, “It worked!”
Ratchis sat up. Martin explained to him what had happened.
“I am severely weakened, but I think I can drag Jeremy along if the three of you carry Kazrack.
The hooting got louder.
“We’d better hurry,” said Tirhas.
“They are coming this way. They are not far. I can hear them,” Ratchis said groggily.
“What are we going to do?” asked Jana. “They will see us in the passageway.”
“No,” said Martin the Green with sudden confidence. “I have an idea Everyone up into the passageway!”
They scrambled up the ledge and down the narrow crack in the stone wall in the tunnel created by a long dry underground river. Martin took up the rear, as the other laid Jeremy and Kazrack on the cold stone floor of the narrow way.
“Now everyone keep quiet,” Martin hissed and then with an arcane word and pulling a fluff of wool from his cloak. A wall of stone now covered the opening of the passage way between them and the riverbed.
“This will only last as long as I concentrate,” he whispered. “So, let’s be patient.”
A moment later they heard the sound of many quaggoths passing the opening on the other side along the dried river. They hooted and hollered, and the party could hear the their padded feet sloshing in the mud,
Jana, Martin, Tirhas and Ratchis sat there in the dark, trying to not even breathe. Everything ached.
When they had heard no other sound for over twenty minutes, Ratchis finally spoke, “ We need to find a place to hide. I’ll scramble ahead and see what I can see.”
“Isn’t that what got us in this mess to begin with?” said Tirhas caustically.
“I’ll be right back,” was Ratchis’ only reply.
He shuffled off in the dark and was back ten minutes later. To those sitting in the dark waiting for him it seemed an eternity.
“There is a huge chamber up ahead with plateaus of various heights that kind of recess into the walls,” Ratchis said. “I think we may be able to hide up on top of one of the lower ones without too much trouble, but we’re going to have to be very quiet.”
“I can use that scroll the gnomes gave us,” Martin whispered. “It will create an opaque shelter. I’ll make it gray-colored to bled with the background as best as possible.”
Ratchis hefted Jeremy over his shoulder, and led the others down the narrow passage. Martin let his illusion spell drop. Jana and Tirhas struggled to carry Kazrack between them.
Ratchis and Tirhas climbed up to a plateau on the right side of the chamber first and then dropped a rope to pull up the two unconscious companions.
Martin and Jana followed.
Martin read the spell from the scroll and a black hemisphere appeared around them; opaque from the outside, but transparent to those on the inside.
“I need to rest,’ said Ratchis.
“We all do,” replied Tirhas.
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Notes:
(90) The dwarven rune pronounced “sonn” can be translated as “endurance”.
