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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1420329" data-attributes="member: 143">Sweet, just hit 10k views!  Thanks readers!It's been a madhouse this week; I wasn't sure I'd get this update in today, but here you go:* * * * *Chapter 116For a moment, a cold silence hung over the five adventurers gathered in the dank underground chamber.“Well, how do we cure her?” Mole said.  “I thought you paladins could cure disease?”“The power of the curse overlays the sickness, and resists my efforts to purge the disease from her,” Arun said.  “Until we remove the curse, I cannot heal her.”“Well, how do we remove the curse, then?” the gnome persisted.“A powerful cleric could do it, or a wizard of yet greater talent,” Dannel explained. “In other words, none of us here,” Zenna said.  “Help me up.”“You need to save your strength,” Dannel began, but the tiefling cut him off. “Why?  Don’t think I don’t understand what you’ve told me, Dannel... I know enough to know that what you’ve pronounced is in all likelihood a likely death sentence.”“No!” Mole exclaimed.  “No, we’ll find a way!  We should go back to Cauldron... Jenya can treat you!”Dannel and Arun both nodded.  “Yes, the high priestess most likely could purge you of the infection,” Dannel said.  “We should head back immediately,” the dwarf added.  But Zenna shook her head.  “No.  Don’t get me wrong,” she added, holding up a hand to forestall their replies.  “I have no wish to die.  But we’re nearly a tenday from Cauldron, and I know enough about sickness to know that my chances of surviving that march are slender.  No, we should finish what we came here to do...  These kuo-toa are led by a powerful priest, if you’ll remember; perhaps they may have something, a potion, a scroll, that can help us.”“Zenna,” Dannel began. “We finish our search, find Zenith Splintershield, and then we’ll head back,” she said firmly.  “Another hour isn’t going to make a difference, either way.”“I am not without skill in healing, and I can pray for spells that can mitigate the worst effects of the disease, give us time,” Arun said.  “Do not abandon hope, never abandon hope.”Zenna nodded, her face already marked with splotches around the ugly wound, her expression grim. “Let’s get this done then,” Hodge said, boldly trudging forward through the pool to the far side.  The others followed, Mole making the trip astride Arun’s back.  There was no levity, even from Mole; once they had gathered safely on the far side of the pool, they set out again in single file down the far corridor, Dannel again in the lead. After a few dozen paces the corridor turned left, progressing only a short distance before turning left and heading back parallel to their original course.  The passageway ended a few paces later in a flat stone wall fronted by a small puddle of water and greenish mulch.  It only took Dannel a few moments to determine that the apparent barrier was in fact a portal, a stone door cleverly recessed and built to look like a normal wall. “I expect it’s less obvious on the far side,” he told the others.  “Not much sense in building a corridor that goes nowhere.”“Nor do builders create secret doors, unless there’s a reason,” Zenna pointed out. Dannel nodded, and turned back to the door.  He and Mole quickly scanned the door for traps or triggers, the elf looking high, the gnome low.  He then handed the small stone that contained his light spell back to Zenna, who closed her fingers around it until only a faint sliver of light shone to illuminate the door.  Dannel nodded at Mole, and carefully pressed against the edge of the portal.  For a moment the heavy stone resisted, and then with a slight sucking sound it slid outward.  Light and noise spilled into the corridor; the former a soft, greenish glow that seemed almost unreal in its composition, and the latter an uneven, rhythmic chanting that the companions now clearly recognized as kuo-toan. “Shhh,” Mole whispered to them, then she darted through the crack before any of them could move to stop her. Zenna caught herself before she exclaimed a warning, throwing up her hands in frustration.  Dannel edged forward to the opening, so that he could peer into the room beyond.  The space, even from his limited field of vision, had a feeling of great size about it.  Huge pillars at least five paces thick supported a platform directly above them, that appeared to occupy a good portion of this side of the chamber.  The center of the room was filled with a wide pool of green water of indeterminate depth, out of which rose stone steps that ascended to the top of the platform.  The chanting seemed to be coming from above, atop the platform.Mole had closed to the edge of the platform, moving slowly to avoid splashing in the many puddles that dotted the floor.  She left Dannel’s line of sight for a moment that stretched into a long minute.  The elf was about to head out after her when she reappeared, gesturing up toward the platform with two fingers held up.  The elf nodded, and drew back. “Looks like a pair of clerics,” he told the others.  “We’d best be careful, though; this room is huge and looks like it could be some sort of temple or gathering place.”“Let’s be about it, then,” Arun said. The elf looked at the heavily-armored dwarves dubiously.  “You wouldn’t get ten paces before alerting them,” he said.  “The floor of the chamber is half-flooded, in any case.  Let Mole and I get into position; we can ambush them, and you can rush in once we’ve engaged them.”“Me as well,” Zenna said.  “I’m not wearing armor; I can be at least relatively quiet, and you may need my spells.”The elf nodded, and turned back to the narrow opening.  Mole had vanished again, but Dannel knew that she’d be in position.  Aware of Zenna’s presence behind him, he crept along the edge of the room until he was out from under the looming presence of the platform above.  He continued in the shadows along the perimeter of the chamber until he could get a clear look at what they faced. The platform was dominated by a huge stone statue, rising some thirty feet above its surface into the shadows that gathered in the chamber’s vaulted ceiling.  The statue was of a female humanoid form, with claws for hands and a crustacean abomination for a head.  The room had to fill the entire interior of the great stone fish, Dannel realized.  He could sense the power in this place, a faintly malevolent aura that clung to him like the water soaking his skin.  High above, several balconies ran around the edges of the room, but they appeared to be unoccupied as far as he could determine.  Standing on that platform was the source of the chanting, a pair of kuo-toa priests.  They wore ceremonial robes in a sickly olive draped over their bodies, but even the bulky garments were not enough to fully conceal the obvious metal armor that they wore beneath.  High above the ground level, a balcony ran around the edges of the room.   Dannel gestured for Zenna to take up a position where he’d concealed himself, then he moved ahead to a spot near a narrow stone staircase that led up to the lowest of the circling balconies.  There was still no sign of Mole, but Dannel knew she was out there, somewhere, likely in a position where she’d get into the maximum amount of trouble.  A loud clank drew his attention around.  Arun had appeared in the doorway, waiting.  Dannel glanced up at the kuo-toa clerics, but apparently they hadn’t heard the sound; at least their chanting and abasement before the fell statue continued unimpeded.  Enough stalling, he thought.  He drew out one of his few remaining arrows, fitted it to his bow, carefully sighted down its length, and released. The shaft flew true and impacted with a metallic thud, the steel head punching through armor and into the clammy flesh of the fish-man.  The kuo-toa staggered forward against the statue.  Its companion let out an angry croak and spun, only to cry out as a tiny dart embedded itself deeply in the gap where the plates of its armor overlapped at its hip.  Dannel stifled a groan as Mole popped up from her place of concealment—a shadowy spot on the flight of stairs that led up to the platform, perhaps three steps from the summit.  Zenna, too distant for her remaining spells to be of assistance, fired her crossbow at the cleric that Dannel had wounded.  Her aim was off, however, and the bolt caromed off of one stone foot of the statue.  The injured whip shrieked in rage at the desecration, and both of them turned toward Mole, reaching for the morningstars hanging at their belts.  The grinding of stone, the creak of metal, and loud splashing announced the arrival of the dwarves.  Arun and Hodge rushed forward from the secret door toward the base of the stairs, the gathered water slowing them some as they charged toward the battle.  Mole held her ground, awaiting the rush of the priests—at least she had that much sense in her, Dannel thought as he reached for another arrow.  But instead of charging, the one that Mole had shot stepped over to where its companion stood, lifting a soggy limb to touch its companion.  Mole recognized what they were about at the same instant that Dannel did, and the gnome leapt aside as a forked lightning bolt sliced out at her.  The arc of energy narrowly missed her as she tucked into a roll and came back up to her feet, narrowly missing tumbling off of the platform entirely.  Dannel’s second shot caught the cleric squarely in the chest a moment later, and the creature crumpled, now seriously hurt.  The second whip dug into the leather pouch dangling from its side, unrolling a scroll.  It began croaking out the words of a spell, but whether the magic was designed to aid itself or its crippled ally, or to strike out at the adventurers, would remain unknown as a gleaming steel knife punched through the parchment, jabbing several inches into the kuo-toa’s throat.  The gathering magic from the sundered scroll fragmented as the cleric reached out and pulled Mole’s blade free, slick with its fetid blood.  The kuo-toa croaked something and turned toward the rear of the platform, were a pair of doors exited the chamber behind the statue, but it only managed a few steps before a heavy bolt from Hodge’s crossbow caught it squarely in the back of the skull, and it fell to the ground, its limbs flopping as its body came gradually to learn that it was dead.  Arun clambered up the stairs in a noisy progression, Hodge a short distance behind him after he’d swapped out his heavy crossbow for his trusty Betsy.  Mole, seeing that neither cleric was getting back up, turned to await them at the top of the stairs, after flashing a “thumbs up” to Dannel and Zenna. The elf started toward the stairs himself, but hesitated as he saw a tall shadow move in the darkness behind the statue...“Look out!” he cried in warning, but was too late as a cloud of terrible, roiling blackness erupted at the edge of the platform, engulfing both Arun and Mole and obscuring them from sight.  Mole screamed.</blockquote>

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