part 2 (of 2)
Session #58 (part ii)
The undead dwarven warrior turned to finish Anarie now that Beorth and Kazrack were bleeding out on the rock-strewn ground. He smiled, and the elf leaned her weight on her back foot taking a defensive posture, and not even trying counter-attacks as the clang of flail against blade began to echo in the hall.
“Beorth and Kazrack are down!” she called in her lilting voice to the others. Despite her predicament, no fear made it waver.
“Never send a dwarf to do a gnome’s job,” Schlomo quipped, his face stern, and stepping in slammed his hammer into the small of the creature’s back. There was a resounding crack and it fell backward. The gnome side-stepped and spit. The dwarf jerked as if to get back up, but then shuddered and stopped moving.
The black-robed ghast, made as if to flee, and once again seemed to blur out of view.
“That is a peculiar phenomenon,” Martin commented, hurrying to his feet and putting his back to the wall, when yet another arrow came flying past him.
Ratchis roared as an arrow bit into his left rear thigh as he turned to aid the others. He did not even look back, but surveyed the scene and immediately fell to one knee to cast a spell of healing on the bleeding paladin.
“Keep watch,” the half-orc barked at Anarie, as Beorth sputtered awake, and he turned to Kazrack casting a second spell.
Downcast, Beorth called upon Anubis and healed himself of more of his wounds, and then applied his healing hands on Kazrack, who also awoke.
“Did anyone fall?” He coughed the words at Ratchis, concern swelling his eyes.
“You and Beorth, but you will be okay,’ Ratchis replied.
Kazrack looked at the fallen dwarf and shook his head. He picked up the golden flail and examined it. The golden light flail was banded with obsidian at the top and bottom of the handle. The head of the flail, affixed by a chain of black metal was shaped like a dwarf’s head with a beard of the same black metal as the chain and eyes were two shining rubies.
Kazrack gave it a few swings. “Feels good,” he looking to Beorth. “Do you think it might be tainted with evil?”
Beorth shrugged. “This place is so foul my ability to determine such things does not seem to be able to distinguish between things.”
Ratchis whispered a prayer to Nephthys. “It is magical,” he said.
“If not one objects I will keep this for my own,” Kazrack said.
There was a long pause, as everyone looked at each other and shrugged.
“As long as we get a cut later,” Schlomo finally said with a sneer.
After a brief discussion, it was decided they would go back up to the stone platform above and rest
“Food… Food… Give us something to eat,” the hissing whisper followed them back up.
“Ignore them,” Martin said.
“The dark brothers are ahead of you. They will get to it first,” the voice said. “What makes you think they won’t destroy it?”
“Who are the dark brothers?” Schlomo asked.
“Monks,” Kazrack replied.
There was a lot of time to kill, but the heroes had no problem getting some sleep, as the fatigue of their wounds drew them away.
“Who want to volunteer for the second watch?” Kazrack asked, after saying he‘d watch first, noticing everyone nodding off.
“I’ll take it,” The hissing voice whispered from below. “I’ll watch you very closely. The sweat flowing from your pores is like gravy.”
“They may attack during that time,” Beorth said, sitting up and shaking off his drowsiness. “Whoever takes it should be alert.”
“Ratchis… I want to thank you,” It was Derek’s voice again. “Come and let me thank you in person. Bring me Beorth. Oooh! He smells delicious. You can’t imagine.”
“Ignore them,” Marti nsaid again.
“Oh, or Martin? Why not send down Martin for a little snicky-snack?” Derek continued, his voice rising in pitch as he mocked. “He’s more of a liability than an asset. We all know it. It’s the unspoken truth in the group.”
Everyone was silent, and the silence grew awkward.
“We should just talk as we normally do. Ignore him,” Kazrack said, through clenched teeth.
There was more silence.
And still Derek’s croaking voice did not stop. “How can you stand it Ratchis? Looking after them, keeping them penned in all the time? Ironic for a believer in freedom, eh? Don’t you just want to sometimes give into your orcish nature and just let the weak fall where they will, as nature intended it? You orcish brothers would gladly eat the flesh of your companions to survive, to gain strength…”
“We will put you to rest soon,” Beorth said.
Kazrack shushed the paladin. “Don’t egg him on, get your rest…”
“Beorth is fighting a losing battle,” Derek called up. “He stands against a rising tide, soon the dead will cover the earth…or he can choose the winning side like his brothers.”
“Whose side is that?” Ratchis asked.
Derek laughed. “My new master has told me all. It is either the fiends or the dead. As least we will accept you into our ranks. The fiends will torture you for eternity. I know the truth now. The concept of good is an illusion. I wish I’d known before. I would have tasted living flesh before now… Sleep tight.”
There was an echo of his sliding off and then it was silent.
Schlomo took the second watch.
Teflem, the 13th of Sek – 565 H.E.
“Are we going back down there today?” asked Martin as they all did their morning preparations, 18 hours later.
“Of course we are!” Kismet snapped at him, snapping her spellbook shut, from where she had been sitting and preparing spells.
Ratchis was able to restore Kazrack’s weakened constitution and Martin’s loss of strength, and then he and Kazrack cast many spells of curing to seal the wounds of their companions. Martin used prestidigitation to clean the bandages and rolling them up, stuff them back in his healer’s bag.
Soon, the Fearless Manticore Killers and their gnomish companions were creeping down the steps once again in search of the map room.
They came back to where the two halls flanked the lower chamber. Ratchis looked down where the dwarven faces were, and where he knew at least one murder hole was hidden, probably more.
“Maybe we can smash through those faces to the space behind,” Ratchis suggested, and Kazrack rolled his eyes. “What?”
“Dwarves made those,” was all he needed to say.
“Okay, forget it.” Now it was Ratchis’ turn to roll his eyes. He crept over to the wall, and hugging it slid a bit down the hall. He felt for the murder hole with his fingers and found it. A moment later, he was nosily hammering a spike into the hole to plug it.
Ratchis crept forward and found another murder hole. Again, he plugged it with a spike, as the party moved forward to catch up.
There was the sound of an arrow, and Martin cried out feeling the sharp pain of it slicing his shoulder. Ratchis turned to see what was happening, but suddenly the area around him was cloaked in darkness.
“You’re going to be so delicious,” Derek said, and he let another arrow loose as he approached. Martin cried out again. He came out of the rear hall.
“Sagitta Magicus!” Kismet said, and two arrows of light struck Derek. Anarie mimicked her, and Derek hissed in pain and anger.
“Nephthys, give me light to pierce this darkness,” Ratchis prayed to his goddess and suddenly the light conditions normalized.
“I’m on my way,” Kazrack called, coming back down the hall.
Beorth turned to aid Martin, but suddenly there was the pop of air rushing away, and there was the black-robed ghast. Beorth felt the thing’s filthy claws tear into him and pull him forward, as it sunk its teeth in. The paladin felt his muscles stiffen, and suddenly he could no longer move.
Scholmo let a bolt fly at Derek, but it simply lodged in his skull, seeming to do no effect.
Derek’s skin had begun to turn a bluish color, and his muscles seemed hardened, even though he did not move with any less speed. He dropped his bow and unslinging the battle axe he had been give n off one Mozek’s brothers (1) he chopped down at Ratchis, who came running up. The half-orc turned the blade aside with his hammer, but the haft still struck him with full force.
“Time to return the favor,” Derek smirked.
“I’m sorry,” Ratchis replied weakly, and then slammed his former companion in the head with his axe. Derek fell down, but spun away to avoid the follow up attack.
“Sagitta Magicus!” Anarie chanted and again, arrows of light came flying from her hand, and slammed into Derek’s chest, as he got up. He swung his axe at Ratchis, but the half-orc parried the blow, and brough his hammer around smashing the former woodsman in the head. Derek’s skull popped like an over-ripe melon and his dead body collapsed spilling rotting blood and gore on dusty floor.
Kazrack came to Beorth’s aid and swung the golden flail he had picked up off the undead dwarf. The black-robed thing cried out and then blurred away once more.
Schlomo loaded his crossbow and Anarie put an arrow to her short bow and they waited to see if the thing reappeared so they could shoot it.
Martin the Green readied a spell, and Ratchis scooped up Derek’s exanimate corpse.
“Set, bring the power of shadow,” they heard the now familiar hissing whisper say, as if from behind one of the walls.
“I’m moving down the hallway to see if I can find that thing and finish it,” said Kazrack picking up the Right Blade of Arofel from the ground where Derek had galled.
“We can’t separate,” Ratchis said. “That thing is up to something and is bound to come back when he thinks us weak or unaware.”
Anarie touched the brooch on her neck and it began to glow with light.
“Let us move forward together then,” Kazrack said.
“We cannot move forward with Beorth in this state,” Ratchis replied and then he enchanted some small stones he picked up after lying Derek’s body gently down out of the way. He was walking back to cover Beorth with suddenly he noticed two ghostly hands near the paladin. They tore at him, and even though they seemed insubstantial blood welled from the wound.
"Leave me thsi willing sacrifice to devour and I will lead you to what you seek," it hissed, eyeing Beorth hungrily.
With a word from Martin, an arrow of flame came flying from his hands at where the thing’s body should have been, but the arrow simply flew right through and burst again a far wall in the adjacent chamber. A real arrow from Anarie did much the same.
“In the name of Nephthys, go back to whatever hole you crawled out of!” Ratchis cried, swinging his chain belt in front of him and concentrating pure divine energy out from his body.
“I piss on Nephthys, that she-bitch,” the thing cackled, but then cried out as Martin cast Disrupt Undeadupon it. It angrily ripped at Beorth’s unmoving form once again and even more blood came pouring from the paladin.
“Kazrack! If you have healing left, use it on Beorth!” Ratchis cried desperately, and he dropped one of his stone as he made to throw it. He cursed.
“Someone pull Beorth away while I shield him,” Kazrack said, thrusting the magical short sword where the thing’s body should have been, as he stepped between it and Beorth.
“Lumen Lustrum,” Martin chanted and another flame arrow came bursting from his hand, and this time it seemed to disappear into where the undead thing was and it shrieked.
“You’ll die for that!” It said, and suddenly its head appeared bobbing there, translucent and ghostly as well. It turned to look at the watch-mage, its eyes glowing a cold red.
“Aargh!” Martin cried, when suddenly the thing was upon him and tore at his throat. So much blood started pouring down the front of his Academy robes that it threatened to permanently change their color.
Martin stumbled backward and put his hands up to fend off more attacks, but suddenly the thing was gone again.
“Martin, what has that thing done? Is it a spell?” Kazrack asked, looking around warily.
“It is in the shadow realm,’ Martin replied wearily. “It is a realm that touches our own, and yet is not quite our own, but they can effect each other. It may also mean that he may be able to attack us from inside solid objects, so we need to be extra careful.”
Kazrack sighed.
“We have to go back,” Ratchis said.
“Again?” Schlomo was annoyed. “We need to move forward. There are things we both need and if we fail to get them bad things are going to happen.”
“Beorth, if you can hear me, I’m sorry,” Kazrack said, and with that he pushed on the paladin, who toppled over. The dwarf grabbed him, and lowered him to the floor the rest of the way, before he could hit with too much force.
Anarie walked over to Beorth and place her small hand on his forehead and whispered a word or two, fortifying the paladin’s constitution so he might survive his wounds. Kazrack followed up with his last two healing spells, but there were the weakest ones. (2)
After a few minutes, Beorth began to move some. He sat up and looked around groggily. He was in bad shape.
“Can you call upon the blessings of Anubis to heal you?” Kazrack asked.
“Yes,” Beorth replied.
“Will you then be well enough to move forward?”
“No.”
“I guess we gotta go on our own then,” Schlomo said to Kismet, licking the tips of his fingers and smoothing down his gray mustache. He said it loud enough for all to hear.
“Why?” Kazrack asked.
“We just gotta,” Schlomo said with annoyance born of fatigue.
“What if I give Beorth one of my potions of healing to drink?” Kismet offered, her little squeaky voice barely audible.
“If you are willing to give me your gift of magic, we will move forward,” Beorth said weakly.
“No! We need those for ourselves,” Schlomo insisted.
“We hafta do this!” Kismet was louder. It was her turn to be annoyed. “If we don’t we’ll hafta go alone, and you know we won’t survive in this place long.”
Schlomo hung his head and did not respond. Kismet reached into her pack and withdrew a small metal vial, which she uncorked and handed to Beorth.
“Thank you,” the paladin said, bowing his head to the gnome woman. Sitting on the floor, their heads were nearly at the same height. He drank the whole thing down. It tasted something akin to sickly sweet black licorice, and then he felt the warmth and temporary discomfort of its healing.
“Thank you,” he said again, standing.
Everyone stood and checked their gear and wounds. Ratchis attended to Martin with another minor cure, and then they continued down the hallway with the dwarven faces, past the small alcove rooms that appeared to once have been for prepping warriors who went to fight on the battlements and use the siege weaponry above.
Kazrack noticed an area of wall that seemed like it should be hollow, as the alcove room behind it did not extend into that area. He insisted the party backtrack a bit and allow him to search it carefully for a secret door.
Anarie glanced at it and smirked. “I don’ think there’s anything there. I think it is just a stone pillar that helps support the floor above it.”
“Really?” Kazrack’s voice was full of disdain. “Well, if you don’t mind I’m going to check anyway.”
“Suit yourself,” Anarie replied.
Kazrack spent the next hour combing every inch of the 240 square foot area. (3) Checking for seams, cracks, hollows and any other sign that there might be door there. Finally, after getting up from his hands and knees where he was checking one last time for a seam on the floor, he announced, “I think it is solid strut holding up the upper level.”
Schlomo chuckled and Kazrack glared at him. Anarie clucked her tongue.
“Enough, let’s go,” Ratchis insisted.
“What about those double doors in the other hall?” Kazrack asked. “Should we not check them and not leave them for something to sneak up behind us.”
“Something could sneak up on us from the other side while we do that. It doesn’t matter, I plan to have us check the entire place anyway.”
“But we might as well while we are here,” Kazrack insisted.
Ratchis huffed and stomped past the dwarf and the rest of the party. Kazrack and Beorth followed, while the rest spread out to watch the open area where the two halls and the open chamber met.
Ratchis walked right up to the door and grabbed the large metal ring on one of the stone. As he pulled, he felt a great weight press against it from the other side. He suddenly realized what was happening and let go, but it was too late. There was the rumble of stone and dirt pushing open the door violently, and suddenly he felt the nearly crushing weight of the rubble driving him from his feet. He could see Beorth get dragged down as well, but Kazrack leapt free. (4)
Kazrack and Schlomo hurried over and helped Beorth and Ratchis dig themselves out.
“You should let me check doors before you open them,” Schlomo said.
“Or I could check them,” Anarie said.
Ratchis grunted.
They noticed another set of double doors at the top of that rear hall, but they agreed to leave it alone for now and check it later, and they all continued down the lower hall.
Further down the hall they found a small office on the left. It was more dusty than the other rooms and the hall, and Martin could recognize the telltale fibers from old papers than crumbled apart. There was a desk cut from a single piece of granite, but molding green in one spot. Hanging on the wall was the torn tatters of what was one a canvas map.
They spent some time trying to figure out what the map was, and Martin noticed some fragments of runes that had been on the map. Unfortunately, he was unable to reconstruct it, and the map was too far gone to allow mending to work on it.
“If I spend a few hours, I might be able to piece together some of this,” Martin offered.
“We don’t have time,” Ratchis said.
“Well, we are looking for a map, this is a map,” Martin said.
“We are looking for a map room,’ Beorth said. “This is more like a room with a map in it.”
“I don’t know from maps and rooms,” Schlomo said. “But we don’t have time.”
Leaving the room they came to the end of the hall, where there was another of the huge dwarven faces on the wall there. The hall opened up to two larger rooms to the left and right. The room to the left, was close off by a long iron portcullis.
"You're getting colder," they heard the voice of the ghast-priest whisper from somewhere behind them, but he was nowhere to be seen.
The right room, had some more small metal doors, but Anarie checked one and Schlomo the other and both agreed that rubble was pushing at them from the other side.
There was a metal wheel on the wall next to the portcullis.
“Do you think the wheel opens the gate?” Kazrack asked.
“Well, we can turn the wheel and find out,” Ratchis said.
“I’d rather we didn’t,” Anarie said. “We can see in the room from here, and there seems to be nothing there. It is just another half-collapsed room that looked on out of the wall when this was once above ground.”
“But look at that curved back wall upper supports and the angled stone struts,” Kazrack said. “It is worth examining for the excellent craftsmanship alone, not to mention it would be ripe for hiding a secret room or passage.”
“Then turn it,” Anaris said, and then quickly leapt away, light and graceful on her tiny feet. Kazrack sneered, but did not touch the wheel.
“If Jeremy were here, he’d have already have turned it,” Martin said wistfully.
Kazrack smiled with the memory of his fallen companion.
“Yeah, if you wanna see what the wheel does the best thing to do is turn it,” Schlomo said. “Why would they trap a wheel out in the open like that?”
Beorth sighed and walked over to turn the wheel, but Ratchis put his hand on the paladin’s arm and stopped him. “We don’t know what it does,” he said.
“It probably controls the gate,” Martin said.
“Yeah, it might do that,” Ratchis replied.
“Why are you all so paranoid?” Schlomo asked.
“We’ve experimented with things in the past and the consequences have made us cautious,” said replied Kazrack.
Schlomo nodded.
Finally, Beorth turned the wheel. It was corroded and made an echoing screech. And then they heard the sound of chains and weights in the wall catching and pulling, but reluctantly, protesting the entire time. The portcullis raised four feet and then stopped. Beorth gritted his teeth and tried turning the wheel more, but it was stuck.
Kazrack tapped his head as an idea came into it and he ran back to the office. A moment later they all heard the sound of stone on stone and the dwarf huffing and puffing.
”Will someone come help me?” he called out.
“What are you doing?” Ratchis walked over and saw the dwarf pushing at the huge stone desk.
“I want to slide the desk under the gate, so if it slams shut while we are in there we will not be trapped.”
“What if it just smashes the stone?” Beorth asked.
“This is good dwarven stone!” Kazrack replied.
“And the gate is good dwarven metal, what’s your point?” Beorth retorted.
“We are not all going in there anyway it doesn’t matter,” Ratchis said, and walked out of the room.
Beorth shrugged and followed. Grumbling, Kazrack left the stone desk behind.
He ended up guarding as Ratchis, Anarie and Schlomo went into the gated room and looked around.
There was nothing there.
The Fearless Manticore Killers and their gnomish companions agreed that it was time to check out the next lower level, and headed back to the central chamber with the broken statues.
End of Session #58
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Notes
(1) See Session #39
(2) DM’s Note: Anarie cast Endurance (nowadays called ‘Bear’s Endurance’), and Kazrack used two Cure Minor Wounds spells.
(3) DM’s Note: Kazrack took 20 for the search, while Anarie simply used her elven ability to walk past and simply notice.
(4) DM’s Note: Those within 10’ of an opened door where the room beyond had collapsed had to make a DC 20 reflex save. Those between 10 and 20 feet had to make a DC 10 reflex save. Failure meant taking 3d6 hit points of damage.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
) I will give a friendly reminder if asked.
