shilsen
Adventurer
Thanks. And here's the next update...I can only dream (*shudder*) about what those characters got up to. Alas indeed
Glad you're having fun mate!
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“What’s you-auntie?” asks Gareth.
“Yuan-ti,” corrects Nameless, realizing as he speaks that this is something he hasn’t encountered in his studies but simply knows due to his connections with Xoriat. “They are a species of humanoids with snake-like features. They are psionically strong and are from Sarlona.”
Prine looks up at him suspiciously. “You seem to know a lot about yuan-ti for a newcomer to Argonnessen. Did you know they were there?”
The alienist looks down and replies with an expression – and tone – as if he were speaking to someone mentally deficient. “I know a lot about everything for a newcomer to Argonnessen. And no, I didn’t know they were here.”
The Io’lokari nods, looking a little embarrassed, and says, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound suspicious. It’s just that this,” he gestures at the yuan-ti corpse he is kneeling beside, “Is really worrying for me. I don’t know if you know, but the reason Io’vakas was destroyed was due to the yuan-ti. Some of them dwelt in the city, and a secret cabal of them were trying to learn the secrets of dragon magic. When the dragons learned about it, they eradicated the city.”
Korm whistles. “I guess the dragons believe in permanent solutions. Maybe we should tell them that the daelkyr want to learn dragon magic.”
“I’m quite happy to never speak to them about dragon magic again, thank you,” says Nameless. “So, Prine, what do you want to do?”
Prine scratches his head worriedly and finally says, “We should find out about the yuan-ti here. I need to know what’s going on.”
“Fine by me,” says Luna, before grumbling, “The bastards attacked me when I was just talking. Let’s blow them the hell up.”
“Again, I am utterly surprised at that suggestion,” says Six dryly, as he looks up from examining another of the bodies. Then he pulls back the corpse’s cloak to reveal its gleaming mithral chain shirt. “Looks like they have a fair amount of minor magic on them.”
As the others fall to looting the corpses, Nameless says, “And a strong abjuration aura on each of them, though I can’t identify it. It’s definitely not a spell, but some kind of other magical effect.”
“Maybe we’ll find out after we kill them all,” says Luna brightly.
Once they have taken whatever valuables the four yuan-ti had, the Guardian Angels and Prine cast around the area, until Six finds some tracks leading away. They are well-concealed, but with Prine’s aid the warforged is able to follow them until they end a short distance away at a ruined and half-buried building, which has only part of the top floor remaining.
While the others wait, Six moves up along with Prine to confirm that the tracks lead to a broken window and over, with faint signs of old dried bloodstains on what remains of the lintel. Inside, the tracks seemingly end in the middle of the floor, but the two scouts quickly find a well-concealed trapdoor. When the others join them, Korm pulls up the trapdoor to reveal rough stairs leading down into darkness, seemingly carved out of the stone. The stairs appear to descend twenty feet and level out.
“Let me clear the way,” says Nameless, casting a spell. A thick greenish-yellow cloud of noxious vapor appears midway down the shaft and then quickly flows down and into the chamber below.
The adventurers settle down to wait, giving the cloudkill time to do its work. After a good fifteen minutes, they head below. Luna, after grumbling about the fact that her tendriculos form cannot make it through the stairway, changes into a huge bear and squeezes herself through the shaft after the others.
The stairs descend into a large, roughly circular stone chamber. The room contains a couple of low tables, which bear some tools, and has some clothing placed in crude stone shelves carved out of the walls. There are four hemispherical indentations in the floor on one side of the room, each with a large leather pallet within it, and behind them are two much larger indentations, with no pallet and a roughly cylindrical, worn rock some six feet tall in each, which has grooves worn into its sides. There is an open doorway directly across from the stairs, revealing a tunnel which goes ten feet and turns left, and a doorway blocked by a stone door to the right.
Korm points at the cylindrical rocks. “Look at those grooves. Doesn’t it remind you of the perches which the nagas in the ziggurat were using?”
“Maybe,” says Gareth uncertainly, looking around the area for any danger. “I don’t remember.”
“Don’t worry,” chuckles the Gatekeeper, “We can double-check when we go back there.” He grins as he moves towards the open tunnel, his meteoric sword in hand.
Leaving the closed door alone for the moment, the adventurers move down this tunnel, which turns a corner and then ends at another stone door. There is a strong stench of meat from the inside, and once they open the unlocked door it reveals a room which is evidently a combination of an abattoir, a meat locker and a mess hall. Large pieces of poorly preserved meat, some of them recognizably humanoid, are stacked on shelves against the back wall. Near them is a large stone table with cutting and carving implements on it, with an unlit brazier on either side. The table has grooves on it and a combination of ropes and chains at either end. There are a couple of smaller stone tables closer to the door, with wooden plates stacked on them. The only other thing in the room is what looks like a low stone well, full of dirty water. The stench is overwhelming once the door is open, especially since the noxious cloudkill apparently seeped under the door and dissipated in the room only a minute or two earlier.
“Gah!” growls Luna, moving backwards and holding a huge paw over her ursine nose, “That’s disgusting. Now I really want to kill these bastards.”
“Yeah,” replies Korm only half-jokingly, looking up from some of the meat he has been examining, “They don’t even use any spices! That’s just ghastly.”
Prine doesn’t seem to be finding any humor in the situation, looking around with a grim expression. Once the room has been checked for hidden exits (and none found), he says, “Let’s go check the other door. I don’t want the yuan-ti here to escape before we find out what they were doing.”
The others proceed to follow him back to the original chamber, where they find that the closed stone door is looked. Listening at the door, Luna says, “I can hear some movement on the other side. Maybe thirty-forty feet away?”
“Oh, good,” says Korm. “So how do we open the door? Should I chop it down?”
“These guys are psionic,” says Luna. “So that’s all this mind-power stuff, right? Maybe one can will the door open?”
“Go ahead and try,” says Six, while the others snicker, and the bear furrows its brow and concentrates. After a couple of seconds, she growls, “Damn – not happening. Oh, and you guys shut up!”
“All right,” says Six calmly, looking at a scroll he has produced in the meanwhile. “Let me try.” He reads the arcane words of the knock spell, and everyone can hear the sound of something scraping on the other side. “It should be open,” Six says quickly. “Try opening it.”
Korm grabs the door and attempts to do so, and this time it rolls smoothly into the wall on one side. But as it does so, darkness spills out of it, a huge hemisphere of it enveloping the waiting adventurers. It is clearly magical, since their darkvision is useless within it, and Nameless snaps, “It’s a deeper darkness.”
The alienist follows by casting a greater dispel, but it surprisingly has no effect. Gareth, calling on the Silver Flame, begins to glow with argent flame, but it sheds only dim light in a small circle around him, not really helping his allies. Luckily, Luna quickly follows Nameless’ example, and the magical darkness disappears, revealing the chamber beyond. It is a huge square hall, sixty feet in length and breadth, with two rows of pillars running through it. There are open doors to the left and the right, and a larger open door in the far wall, revealing a tunnel leading away. The floor of the room has wavy serpentine patterns carved into it, and the pillars too have serpentine markings running up their sides.
Not spending time on the architecture, Nameless – having noticed multiple auras – calls a warning, “There are six invisible creatures hidden behind the pillars near the other end.”
The warning provides little aid, partly because the enemies react too quickly and partly because there are more enemies he hasn’t seen. More auras flash into view as enemies fly out of the doors on either side of the chamber, but before Nameless can call another warning the enemies attack.
Three creatures appear as they hurl bolts of darkness at Luna, while another three do the same for Gareth. These creatures are garbed and armed like the yuan-ti Luna killed above the ground, but their heads are those of snakes, complete with lidless eyes, fangs and forked tongues.
The enemies whose auras Nameless already spotted also appear as they attack, revealing themselves to be yuan-ti like the human-headed ones above. All six attack Luna, seriously wounding her and drawing an angry growl from Korm, who had just cast a blindsight so he could detect invisible enemies.
“Go!” snaps Six, triggering a wand stored inside the sheath built into his mechanical arm, and hasteing everyone except Luna. The warforged moves swiftly into the room, snapping his chain free and moving behind a pillar. Prine, turning invisible, follows quickly.
Nameless, able to see where Prine is via his arcane sight, casts as they move in, targeting it so that he avoids his allies. A burst of light explodes only a few feet ahead of Six and Prine, the radiant assault blasting two of the yuan-ti, though it flows harmlessly off a third. A split second later the alienist follows with a fireball in exactly the same spot, this time affecting all three and slaying the two previously hurt ones.
A moment later, Gareth zooms forward, propelled by the Endless Blade. The last wounded yuan-ti barely has time to raise its sword before the paladin chops down, sundering sword, arm and head all at once.
Korm unleashes a horrid wilting an instant later, painfully draining a quantity of water from the bodies of a number of the yuan-ti. But none of them fall, and when he gives one of those near Gareth the evil eye, the yuan-ti shakes it off.
The remaining nine yuan-ti leap to the attack, some tumbling within the range of Six’s chain to stab him, while others attack the already wounded Luna. Critically wounded, the druid has to heal herself and even call on her beast spirit to keep herself on her feet.
The other yuan-ti go after Gareth. Two of them fly forward just as he did, swords bursting into flame as they flank him and stab deeply with their shortswords. As the paladin reels one of his attackers cries out and grabs at its eyes, Gareth’s aura of protecting flame blinding it as it struck him. But it still leaves Gareth badly wounded, and when another yuan-ti levels its sword and shoots a bolt of fire from it into his back, the paladin falls.
One last yuan-ti remains, and as Gareth falls, it races forward, drawing a saw-toothed dagger. Dropping to a knee, the creature throws back its serpentine head, calling a prayer in its sibilant tongue to whatever gods it worships … and then slashes across the paladin’s defenseless throat, sending blood spraying across the floor.*
“You bloody motherf*cker!” shouts the Endless Blade as Gareth’s body convulses and goes limp, and then shouts to the group, “Someone save Gareth’s ass, damn you! He’s dying!”
As the startled yuan-ti nearby stare at the talking sword, Nameless says calmly, “We’re slightly busy, you know, but here goes.” Another combination of radiant assault and a swift fireball follows, placed with pinpoint precision so that they explode high enough above Gareth’s body to strike the enemies nearby without even singing his body.
As two yuan-ti fall, their heads and upper torsos charred to a crisp, Six’s chain licks out to trip a third. An instant later, Prine appears above it, his shortswords a blur which cuts the yuan-ti to ribbons before it can scream.
Korm flies in on his cloaker-wings, the Gatekeeper using his gaze against the yuan-ti which had attempted to sacrifice Gareth. The creature, having avoided Nameless’ spells because it was kneeling low, stumbles to its feet, lidless eyes going wide as supernatural fear overcomes its mind. It turns and flees, and Korm drops down into the spot where it had knelt.
But other yuan-ti remain and a couple move forward, flames dancing along their blades, while the remainder prepare to hurl more bolts of energy. “Luna!” shouts Korm, “Keep them off me for a second while I help Gareth!”
The dire bear growls and makes the gestures for a spell with a paw. A moment later, a thicket of spiky branches appears around a number of the yuan-ti, including the one fleeing in panic, the wall of thorns holding them in place. A couple of them still hurl bolts of dark energy at the Gatekeeper, but the cover provided by the branches affects their aim and the spines dig into their arms and bodies as they move.
Only one streak of energy strikes Korm and the strange pulse of darkness flows up and around his face, almost disorienting him for a second before he throws it off. As the effect dissipates, Korm fends of an attacking yuan-ti and then casts a heal. The spell should be useless on someone wounded as Gareth has been, but the strength of Mordain’s modifications has kept the paladin barely alive for a few extra seconds. As his wounds close completely he gasps and sits up, and an amulet on Korm’s chest flares to life, causing his own wounds to be similarly healed by his spell.
The yuan-ti fall back for a moment, calling out to each other in surprise, before they again move forward to attack. But the element of surprise is now lost and with some of their number held tightly by Luna’s spell, they have no chance. The only reason they last nearly a dozen seconds is because a couple of the Angels, with a combination of bad luck and perhaps over-confidence, suddenly seem unable to affect them. Nameless drops an empowered fireball from his staff on two serpent-headed yuan-ti stuck in the wall and completely fails to affect both**. Six, magically unaffected by the wall, walks into it, swings at one of the yuan-ti and misses the target even though it is held in place***.
“What are you guys doing?” growls Luna and breaks into a charge. Unaffected by the wall as well, she bursts through as if it did not even exist, seizing a yuan-ti in her jaws. Dragging it through the thorns, which lacerates the unfortunate creature, she emerges on the opposite side and simply bites its head off.
Gareth, Korm and Prine dispatch the others outside the wall and Nameless, irritated at his previous spell’s ineffectiveness, blasts one of the two left in the wall apart with an orb of cold aimed with a swift true strike.
There is only one last yuan-ti left, a human-headed one, and Luna re-enters the wall to get it. Before she can kill it, Korm says hurriedly, “Don’t kill it! I want to interrogate it.”
“Watch this,” says Six, turning to Prine. “It’ll be educational.”
Luna, grumbling under her breath, drags the yuan-ti out of the thorns and then pins it to the ground. Before it can do anything, Korm fixes it with his gaze, attempting to charm it. The yuan-ti tenses and then ceases to struggle. “Quick,” says Korm, “Let it up but keep a hold on it.”
Luna does so and the yuan-ti sits up with a confused look on its face. It says a few words and Korm says, “Crap – I don’t understand!” The yuan-ti looks even more uncertain, clearly not understanding what he said either.
“See?” Six says to Prine. “Very educational.”
Korm gives him a dirty look and then tries a few words of different languages. When he uses the draconic tongue, the yuan-ti responds in an accented and archaic version of the language. “Friend,” it says, sounding as confused as it looks, “Why are you with these creatures? You must let me go. You know we must protect the Mask.”
“Yes, yes,” says Korm, “Of course we must. What Mask?”
As Prine almost says something in his surprise at the choice of words, Six reassures him. “Don’t worry – this is how we … they do it.”
The yuan-ti looks even more confused. “What do you mean? You know we protect the Serpent’s Mask.”
“Right,” says Korm unconvincingly, “And that’s something we’re all here to help you with. You should lead us to it.”
The yuan-ti holds the Gatekeeper’s gaze for a long moment as the latter attempts to compel him to obey, but this sort of subtle manipulation is not Korm’s forte at all****. The yuan-ti cries out, “No – this is a trick! You cannot fool me!” It looks around wildly for a moment, seeing that it has no chance of escape. Then it reaches for its own throat, dark energy coursing over its nails.
Before it can kill itself, Korm grabs its wrist, pinning its arm to the ground. The yuan-ti curses in its own tongue and tries to claw and bite at him, but against the Gatekeeper’s giant strength it is helpless. “Any ideas?” asks Korm, holding it down and looking at the others.
Luna reaches out with her giant paws and, to the surprise of the others, begins to rub it up and down the yuan-ti’s sides, causing it to squirm uncomfortably.
“What are you doing, Luna?” asks Nameless.
“Tickling it. I heard that’s hard to resist.”
“Oh, come on!” says Gareth, even as Korm, Six and Prine start laughing. “Korm, ask it about the Mask again and where it is,” he instructs, eyes glowing silver as he begins to detect thoughts on the captive.
Korm does so, but the yuan-ti, struggling in his grasp and Luna’s, doesn’t respond. Nevertheless, Gareth nods and says, “I got a visual of it. And it’s down that corridor. Guarded, but I couldn’t make out by whom.”
“Think you can get any more from it?” asks Korm.
“Not likely. You can dispose of him.”
“Gla…,” begins Korm, but before he can do anything Luna simply leans over and bites the yuan-ti’s head off. Then she spits it out and says happily, “There, all done.”
“And that,” Six says to the fascinated Prine, “Is how we do these things. I’m never completely sure why.”
* Going to -21 will do that to you.
** He failed to get the 4 or higher to get through SR both times.
*** Rolled a natural 1, then used a reroll ability and rolled another natural 1.
**** Especially considering that he has a 10 Charisma including the permanent +4 enhancement boost to all stats from Mordain, and then happened to roll a 1 for his opposed Cha check and the yuan-ti rolled a 20.
