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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(contact)" data-source="post: 418012" data-attributes="member: 41">Every dog has his day, but most of them sleep through it.Twelve:  Strange and Sinister Stirrings in Supernatural Subterranean Settings(or, “I think Lassie’s trying to tell us something.  What’s that girl?  The yarn is on fire?”)Over the still-warm bodies of the drake, displacer beasts and trolls, the party  explores further, only to find that they have gone a level deeper underground without ever realizing it!  Thanks to their careful mapping, they are able to return to Egil’s plan:  stay on the first level, kill everything, then move on.They sneak into an area they know to be occupied by the tough-looking orcs spotted by Gnomishic and Lucius after the gnoll fight.  Egil uses his elven cloak and boots to scout ahead, and finds four of the beefy orcs guarding a nexus chamber with several exits.  The party attacks, and this time, the PCs are the ones charming their foes, and causing mayhem in the enemy’s ranks.  The orcs are tough, however, and heavily reinforced.  They overwhelm Egil in the nexus chamber, and several of their blows tell true.  A slow spell, along with Heydricus’ fighting skill put an end to the struggle, and the party loots the orog’s quarters.A careful search reveals a secret door, and the map seems to indicate that the door would lead into the quarters of the ogres who killed Tisha and Suhi.  Seizing their chance for revenge (and with two charmed orogs for club-fodder), the PCs burst in upon the stupid pair, and thanks to a devastating critical hit from Heydricus, cut them both down before they can say “revivification is unlikely at this point, as the subject’s head has gone missing”.  Not that ogres could pronounce ‘revivification’ in any case.Marching across the way, and pushing their wounded, spell-less luck, the party attacks the ogre’s leader.  A truly intimidating brute, this ogre has a certain, shall we say, Barbaric quality about him, and upon sighting the cheeky PCs, flies into a Rage.Fortunately, Heydricus, as a sorcerer, has enough mirror images for a whole tribe of barbarian ogres.  The hulking reprobate howls his frustration as he is killed without managing an answering blow.Hearing shouts coming from behind a closed door, the party decides to exercise the better part of valor, and show the dungeon their heels.   Not having enough time to search the ogre’s chest, Heydricus and Egil carry it between them as the party runs for the surface.  Upon exiting the Temple, the group is set upon by the now ubiquitous mixed group of ghasts and ghouls.  Egil is paralyzed, and so the chest is dropped, the fighter picked up instead, and the PCs flee the Temple, some 140 gp richer.As the PCs rest for the night back in town, they hear that ghoul bands have been terrorizing the countryside, including two attacks on Hommlet over the last few days.  Their numbers are inestimable, but surely beyond the capacity of a few priests to raise.  What darker magic is at work is anyone’s guess, but something unusually Evil is going on beneath the Temple.The party is overjoyed by the return of Sweet Pea.  Greetings are exchanged, and introductions made. Fräs and Sasha both take a shine to Sweet Pea, and Fräs compares Jespo Crim rather unfavorably with the charismatic Elf.The party determines that with all the undead roaming about, the best entrance strategy to the 1st level is the secret passage leading to the 3rd level.  (Although all PCs can now read and write, it seems the subtleties of irony are still lost on them.)  The decision is made to enter the back door, travel to the verbeeg’s room, and take the stairs to the 2nd level, looking for a means to reach level one.They discover that something has partially devoured the bodies of the giants, including the poisoned stew, cast iron container and all.  The only remains are half of the giant leader (the waist down), and part of the stew-pot.  They appear to have been dissolved by acid.  A careful search of the giant’s lair turns up nothing.  Literally.  The room is free of bloodstains, dust or giants.  What monstrosity is at work here, the party can only guess.Near the top of the stairs, Ren Qi and Egil discover a small, winged fiend, frantically searching through a stack of papers in a bed chamber. Surprising the barb-tailed anti-cherub, Ren Qi stuns it, and Egil separates head from body.  Heydricus recognizes the thing as Romag’s quasit familiar, from the Well Fiasco (chapter 4).  While leafing through the books and papers on the desk, Jespo Crim discovers a folded sheet of parchment.  It is the contract binding the quasit to Romag and, by extension, to Iuz, for one hundred and one days.  It seems the little bastard was looking for a way to weasel out of its terms of service.  Glad to oblige ya, little guy.The PCs discover the Air temple nearby.  It is familiar to only Heydricus, as he is the last surviving member of the party that originally fell down the well.  Proceeding north through the second level, the group soon arrives in the room where they battled with the displacer beasts and the fire drake.  The orogs, and their cruel leader Thag, are just around the corner.The party finds their way to a corridor with doors at either end.  Opening door #1 does not reveal the “Brand!  New!  Car!”, just a group of pissed-off and ready orogs.  They have been waiting for the PCs arrival, and greet Egil at the door with a surly attitude, and a round of crossbow fire.  Ren Qi delivers a really spectacular beat-down, using his stun ability in conjunction with his sneak attack to render an orog helpless, and make him eat 9d6 over the course of three rounds.The door opposite crashes open, and four human fighters emerge, weapons at the ready.  From behind the party, further down the corridor, another group of well-drilled orogs emerge, and take up ranks firing crossbows.  Jespo Crim is summoning monsters like there’s no tomorrow, and it seems that one of the gnolls he summons is very familiar, in a hateful way, with the orogs. Both of the mages are left exposed in the hallway, with the fighting-arm of the party (in the persons of Heydricus, Egil and Ren Qi) in a room.  The mages drop monster summonings and scare spells on the orog elites, neutralizing them, while Heydricus casts sleep on the humans threatening him.  The four human fighters are reduced to three by the [sleep spell, and Heydricus teaches the remainder a thing or two about a thing or two, in a really unfriendly way.  Things are looking up for the group.That’s when a sepulchral voice from behind the human fighters intones, “Wretched mortals.  Must I do every little thing myself?”  A fiend (a rutterkin demon) emerges, and his fear cone sends Heydricus, Sweet Pea and Egil running away as fast as their respective movement rates will allow them to.  Hello, losers, my name is Eeevil.Ren Qi, unnoticed by the fiend, sips an invisibility potion, and hides.  Jespo Crim and Prisantha make like a dog and flea.  Flee.  Make like a rat and . . . well, they run like hell.  Pris is blind-sided by a orog, and lapses into unconsciousness.Jespo conjures a phalanx of summoned associates, and binds Pris’ wounds.  The unseen Ren Qi follows the mages as they backtrack to the exit.  Halfway there, pursued by the orogs and humans shaking off any spell effects disabling them, the fleeing group runs into the feared group, who are by now, back to their right minds and spoiling for an excuse to kill.  The group engages the fiend that feared them, as well as the infamous Thag, a black-skinned, white-haired, fang-mouthed rogue and fighter.  A rousing melee ensues, with summoned monsters, orogs, PCs and fiends battling for supremacy in the Depths of the Temple of Elemental Evil.The PCs win handily, using their summoned allies to distract the orogs and then gang-banging the fiends.  The rutterkin is slain, but Thag escapes in the confusion.</blockquote>

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