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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1406520" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 114The companions, knowing that more enemies could emerge from the giant fish at any moment, did not waste any time in idle contemplation of their victory.  Mole rushed over to where Hodge had fallen, and was able to bind his wounds.  Arun sent his mount up to retrieve Zenna and Dannel before moving to help the stricken dwarf, channeling enough healing power into him to restore him to consciousness.  The companions gathered at the base of the giant structure in the narrow band of uneven ground between the wall and the lake, a short distance from the gaping mouth of the structure.  Arun had managed to recover his warhammer, although he’d had to nearly destroy the kuo-toa’s shield to do so; even now bits of wood and sticky goop dangled from the head of the weapon.  Magical healing had restored them to nearly full health; Hodge still looked a bit unsteady, but at least part of that was due to the numerous draughts he’d taken from a flask he’d produced from an inner pocket upon being restored to consciousness.After helping Zenna and Dannel down from the roof of the building, Arun had dismissed his battered celestial companion.  The lizard nodded its head in an almost human-like gesture of respect, before turning and vanishing into the uneven rocks that lined the floor of the cavern.  “Bye Clinger!” Mole said in farewell.“Well... that could have gone better,” Dannel began. “Our resources are already heavily depleted,” Zenna added.  “My healing wand is now fully discharged, and I’d wager Dannel’s is not far behind.”  At the elf’s confirming nod, she went on, “And unless one of you is holding out, we’re completely out of healing potions.”“If we retreat and come back later, they’ll just have a chance to restore their defenses again,” Arun said.  “We must press on.”“In any case, unless yer plannin’ to swim, there be only one way t’go,” Hodge pointed out. “Um...” Mole said.Four sets of eyes turned to her.  “What is it?” Zenna asked. “Well... it’s the backpack, you see...” she drew the ruin of her magical haversack out from behind her back, so that all of them could clearly see the damage to the fabric.“Ah, it would seem our situation has grown yet more complex,” Dannel observed. “No more food?” Hodge asked. “Not only that,” Dannel said.  “Our extra bandages, blankets, and traveling gear, such as rope and lamp oil, were in there.  And the spare quivers for myself and the women.”  He looked meaningfully at his own quiver, where barely a half-dozen arrows remained. “Well, you got a sword,” Arun said plainly.  “If there’s nothing else to be said, let us be about our business.”“A moment,” Zenna said.  “Let us see what we can salvage from them before we press on.”Arun growled impatiently, but did not protest as they examined the bodies of the fallen kuo-toa.  In fact, he took an interest as Zenna examined the bodies of the clerics, and announced that their heavy armor produced a magical aura.  She also found a few clerical scrolls, but most of what the whips had possessed had been consumed in the battle.  Mole appropriated a hand crossbow and quiver of bolts from one of the slain warriors, the little weapon looking small even in her diminutive hands. “Come over here,” Arun said to Hodge, kneeling beside one of the slain clerics. “What?” the dwarf said, suspicion clear on his face, confirmed a moment later as Arun started peeling armor plates from the carcass of the slain fish-man.  “Yer not thinkin’ I be wearin’ that stinkin’ junk!”“It’s better than you getting hacked up in every single engagement,” the paladin said, his voice brooking no argument.  “And that shirt you currently call armor is barely more than tattered links; I’m surprised it even keeps together on your torso, given how you maintain it.”“Bah, I dinna ask yer advice!” the dwarf snorted, eying the banded mail dubiously.  Arun looked up and fixed the other dwarf with a hard stare.  “We may need you to hold the line with me, in there,” he said.  Hodge ran his bloody fingers through the nest of mud-caked hair that covered his head.  The fringe on the top was more mud than hair, it looked like.  “That’ll never fit me,” he finally said.“It’ll fit, with a few adjustments,” Arun insisted.  A few minutes later, the party set out again, prepared as best they could against the dangers that still lurked inside the kuo-toa stronghold.  At least no further guards had emerged from the place; none of the companions, however, took this to mean that their foes had been overcome.  Hodge had taken on a look of sufferance as he clanked alongside Arun toward the dark opening.  True to his word, Arun had fitted the armor to the dwarf well, given the lack of tools and time, but the magical suit accommodated Hodge poorly in contrast to a truly fitted covering.  But for now, it would have to do. “So, what do you think about ‘Clinger’?” Mole asked, trudging alongside Arun, her magical boots lifting her in neat little hops that brought her eye-to-eye with the dwarf for a flicker with each step.  “I think you’d better go on ahead and check for traps,” the paladin grumbled, suspecting that he’d somehow managed to lose another battle even before he’d been aware of the engagement. The gnome and elf slipped silently ahead of the column, with the dwarves forming a line ten paces ahead, and Zenna warily bringing up the rear.  There was no need for excess stealth now that their foes knew they were coming, so Dannel hummed the words of a minor cantrip, conjuring a magical light to brighten their way. Entering the structure, they reached the landing at the head of the stairs without incident.  The great stone doors ahead of them had been closed once more, although there was no way of telling by casual observation whether the defensive ward that had nearly killed Mole and Arun the last time had been reset. “Maybe we should avoid the front door this time,” Mole suggested.  The companions took one of the side passages, and quickly found themselves in a long hallway whose function was immediately clear.  Heavy iron grates set deep into the surrounding stone fronted a series of cells that ran along the length of the hall.  Their arrival had been instantly detected, and a pair of figures in two separate cells appeared immediately at the bars, begging for release.  One was a short, thin-faced human clad in tattered rags, while the second was a halfling, dressed in the remnants of what might have once been expensive and fashionable robes, but were now little better than the shreds worn by the other.   “Set me free, for the love of mercy!” “Hurry, please... the kuo-toa may come at any instant!”“Who are you?” Mole asked, stepping forward. “I am White-Eye,” the human said, at the same time that the halfling replied, “I am Cherrit.  I was taken by the kuo-toa...”“Liar!” White-Eye exclaimed.  “Don’t listen to him, he was working with them, working with the gogglers!”“Don’t believe him!” Cherrit said.  “That two-faced orcspawn, he sold out another prisoner from my caravan to the kuo-toa, we were planning an escape, and he betrayed us!”“Liar, liar!” the human snarled, extending a hairy fist through the bars as if he could reach the halfling’s cell through force of will alone. “Shut up, both of you,” Arun said, quietly but with an iron force behind the words that subdued both captives.  “Your noise will bring more of those sea-spawn down on us, and I’ll give either or both of you a rap on the noggin if you don’t control yourselves.”“Obviously one of them... or perhaps both... are lying,” Zenna observed.  “Although it’s clear that neither of them are Zenith Splintershield.”“We don’t have time for this,” the paladin said.  “For the moment, the safest place for both of you is in these cells.  We’ll come back for you, once we’ve dealt with the kuo-toa.”Both prisoners started to protest.  “No, please!” the human said, while the halfling responded, “And what if they kill you?”“Then you’re no worse off than you are now,” Dannel said.  Another narrow tunnel led off from the prison area, and the companions headed in that direction.  Continued protests and denunciations followed them from both of the prisoners, their hostility for each other and desire to be freed apparently overriding their worry about alerting their jailers.  “Should’ve shut them both up,” Hodge muttered, as they started down the cramped corridor, forced to shift their marching order to single file.  “Whatever their crimes, we cannot leave them to the kuo-toa,” Arun said.  “But they would have likely killed each other, without restraint, and we cannot spare someone to watch over them.  We will come back once we have time to deal with them.”The tunnel twisted and gave way to a narrow set of steep stairs, slick with condensed moisture.  Dannel, in the lead, led them slowly forward, his bow loaded and ready to draw at the first sign of a threat.At the foot of the stairs the corridor continued straight for a short distance before opening onto a small chamber.  The air was heavy with damp, and the chamber had an oppressive air to it even before Dannel’s light revealed to them its contents.  “Torture chamber,” Mole said, wrinkling her nose in distaste. Indeed, the gnome’s assessment seemed borne out by the grim décor, and the various implements of torment set along the walls.  The ground slanted downward slightly toward the center of the room, where a wide pool of collected water partitioned the room into two halves.  Another corridor similar to the one by which they had entered was apparent on the far side of the chamber. “Empty,” Mole proclaimed, walking to the edge of the pool.  She tested the water by prodding it with the blade of her sword.  “Hmm... this looks like it might get pretty deep in the middle.  I may have to beg a ride from one of you tall folk...”Arun continued to regard the apparently empty chamber with suspicion.  “There is a great evil in this place,” he said.  “Even I ken see that,” Hodge said with a shudder.  “No,” Arun said.  “Something darker...”Even as he spoke, the water stirred on the far side of the pool, and Mole leapt back in alarm.  The companions readied their weapons as a humanoid form rose up out of the water.  It was impossible to tell what it was, or had been; strands of tattered cloth streaked with mud and mildew trailed from its body, and most of its flesh had rotted away, leaving only ugly decay and stark bone that jutted incongruously from beneath the ragged coverings that seemed to be the only thing holding it together.  Twin pinpoints of red light burned within the cavernous interior of its head, fixing each of them as it rose up out of the water.  Zenna felt a cold terror sweep over her as that unholy stare sent a spike of bottomless fear into the very depths of her soul.  The foul appearance of the mummy threatened to unhinge her self-control, but even as she felt her muscles turning to jelly she fought back, her body shaking as she enforced the iron discipline she’d learned over the years upon herself.  With a sudden sigh she tore herself free from the terrible despair spawned by the mummy’s appearance. But as she glanced at her friends, she felt the cold tingle of fear return.  Mole, Dannel, and Hodge all seemed frozen, their bodies captive to the mummy’s fear, and while Arun stepped forward to face the creature, he seemed to Zenna’s eyes to be a lonely stalwart in the face of the unholy terror of the undead monstrosity. The mummy came toward them.</blockquote>

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