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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2314615" data-attributes="member: 143">Thanks for the kudos, guys. Short update today, but a lot happens tomorrow, and we're moving toward the end of Book X, which should wrap this week with a double-post on Friday. * * * * * Chapter 409On their second visit, Shatterhorn did not put up much resistance, not at first. They teleported into the same chamber that they had left, just a little more than twenty-four hours previous.  They were alert for any ambush, trap, or even an all-out assault by the remaining forces of the Cagewrights.  But the chamber was empty, dark, silent.  Someone or something had cleared away the bodies of the medusae, leaving only ugly red splotches on the stone floor that stank of corruption. They continued onward down the pillared hall, deeper into the old yuan-ti stronghold.  Mole, back with Benzan in the van, detected a trap through virtue of her gnomish nose.  While nearing the bend in the tunnel that Benzan had reported on their last visit, she recognized the familiar stench of demodands.  She alerted Cal, who sensed for magic, detecting that a portion of the north wall was shrouded by an illusion.  The image covered a slot barely the size of an arrow slit, and behind it lay a farastu that was quite displeased at being detected.  It operated a pit that blocked the entire width of the tunnel, but Mole’s warning had given them sufficient alarm, and only Benzan was over the ten-foot gap when the trap doors fell open.  The trap was a nasty one, with the pit lined with ugly iron blades attached to revolving stone cylinders, but Benzan was able to leap away before gravity took its inevitable course. Dealing with the demodand was problematic, with it relatively secure behind the arrow slit, but Dannel found a secret door nearby that offered access to its sanctuary, and the fiend was swiftly dispatched. Bypassing the pit, the companions pressed on, watchful for another trap.  They entered a large chamber that was currently empty, and after a brief search continued further onward.  The long hall split at its end, opening onto a grim chamber with a décor that suggested it had served as the lair of one of the Cagewrights.  They did not linger long, scanning the chair covered in human hide, the jaws containing humanoid hearts soaked in brine, an iron chest with claws for feet, and other unpleasantries.  The chest revealed its secrets to Mole’s chime of opening, and they discovered a considerable cache of magical weapons that were promptly wrapped and carefully stored in their assorted extradimensional containers. They were not here to loot, however, so it was not long before they were continuing on, deeper into the stronghold.  The fact that the Cagewrights had left a considerable cache of magical items essentially unguarded suggested that perhaps they had indeed abandoned the complex.  But they would not stop until they had completed their search, so they returned to the hall and took the other passage into another pillared chamber.  “There is evil in this place,” Arun intoned, before they had covered five steps.  The companions readied weapons and spells, just as a creak of metal proved the paladin right, and a pair of heavily armored warriors stepped out of illusory pillars in the center of the chamber. It took only one good look to confirm that these weren’t ordinary adversaries.  They looked like half-orcs, but the iron plates that covered their bodies appeared to have been grated directly onto their frames, rather than attached to a suit of armor.  Their eyes, deep within the cavernous interior of full helms, were cold and empty, and they carried massive shields with one hand, and axes of familiar black adamantine in the other.  They immediately lifted their weapons and charged into battle.</blockquote>

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