Sounds like fun! Can't wait to read about it.
And here, finally, it is...
* * * * * * * * * *
The Guardian Angels reappear in the Gray House in Sharn to find Trillia waiting for them, with Fett in attendance. While their major-domo retains a calm appearance, Nameless’ erstwhile mentor is disheveled and clearly worried. Trillia spins around from the window she was looking out of and hurries to Nameless. “Thank the Host that you’re back!”
“I wouldn’t be that happy yet. We’re about to unleash Luna in Sharn,” chuckles Korm. “What’s going on?”
Trillia quickly explains that a large army of aberrations came up from multiple areas of the undercity at once. She has no idea what the situation in the Cogs is, since nobody has been able to investigate down there yet. While the higher levels of the city are mostly clear of aberrations, there continues to be fighting in the middle levels and some of the lower levels have been overrun. The attackers are mostly dolgrims, numbering in the thousands, led by dolgaunts and mindflayers. There are other aberrations in smaller numbers, such as runehounds, and there are definitely a few beholders out there too.
“Beholders,” rasps Nameless, mild concern evident even in his harsh tones. “And we are in a city of towers.” As if to underline his words, there is a faint crashing sound from the north, audible above the shouts and commotion that have been audible since the Angels returned.
“Okay, let’s go blow some sh*t up!” says Luna. Gareth, having finished layering himself with protective spells, nods.
“Yes,” says Six, “But first we need to learn more about the situation. Who’s in charge of the defense?”
“I’m not sure,” says Trillia, “But the Redcloaks will be the primary defense, I think. And I’m quite positive that Central Plateau is where the primary defense will be located.”
“All right,” says Nameless. “We’ll head there first. I think you should stay here, Trillia.”
“Good,” smiles the other alienist wanly. “I intend to. Best of luck.”
“We’re not the ones you should be wishing,” Korm says with an anticipatory grin. “Come on, people – let’s do some damage.”
…
Hailym Radou wipes the sweat off his brow before unleashing the last of his prepared spells, taking down the two nearest dolgrims with a volley of
magic missiles. “That’s it,” he calls to his allies, “I’m out of prepared spells. Down to wands and scrolls now.”
His compatriot Lethan frowns. “I’ve got just two left. I think we might be in trouble.” The sorcerer glances back at the building behind them around which shadows seem to wreathe, the appropriately named Guild of Starlight and Shadow. “Maybe we should retreat?”
Standing in front of them, Valeria of the Deathsgate Guild wipes a dolgaunt’s blood from her sword and growls, “You magelings better stand your ground. My companions and I didn’t come here to guard your Guild while you hide inside! Our bargain…”
“Look out!” shouts Hailym, indicating the new wave of aberrations, nearly a hundred of them, which appear at the end of the street and charge screaming at the thin line of defenders. The warriors and spellcasters of the two guilds ready themselves, murmuring prayers to the gods of the Sovereign Host (and not a few to the Dark Six), as they prepare for the onslaught.
As if in answer, a flaming bead streaks into the middle of the onrushing aberrations and explodes in a giant
fireball, much more powerful than any of the assembled mages can cast. Nearly half of the attackers are blasted apart, and those that remain halt in their tracks, looking around stupidly for the source of the attack.
Lethan looks around too, and then upwards. “There!” Five strange shapes fly some six hundred feet overhead. An unusually muscular orc is in the lead, propelled by the leathery wings sprouting from his back. Behind him flies a huge bat, bigger than many of Sharn’s skycoaches, and carrying three individuals. Atop the bat sits what seems to be a warforged, but it is difficult to be sure, since the shape is wreathed in shadows. The figure contrasts with the one immediately behind it, an armored human glowing brightly as if lit from within with silvery light. In the rear sits a much thinner figure, also human, a gnarled staff in one hand and the other engaged in the movements of spellcasting.
“Looks like the Guardian Angels are back,” says Valeria, before looking back at the stunned aberrations. “And just in time! Come on, boys – let’s get ’em!”
. . .
Khandan Dol, more famously known as Khandan the Hammer, leader of the Redcloak battalion in Sharn, smacks the table in front of him with a mailed fist, putting a crack into it. “I don’t have a choice, damn it! If we keep pulling our forces back and forth, we’ll never hold any ground. We need to push in one direction and clear these bastards out, district by district! My Redcloaks are already busy in lower Central. The Guard will have to enter Northedge on its own.”
“On its own?” echoes Toras Cant disbelievingly. Unlike Khandan’s functional but battered armor, currently stained with the blood of his foes, the Royal Guard commander’s armor and livery are spotless. “You’ve always claimed that your Redcloaks are more effective than the entire Royal Guard! And now you want us to walk across a bridge into hundreds of monsters without your support?”
Standing among the others in the makeshift command camp, Archierophant Ythana Morr frowns at the pair of arguing men. “Whatever you’re going to do, you two need to agree quickly. Even from here we can see Northedge is in a shambles. You know there’s no Watch presence there, so most of the residents must have been slaughtered. Coldflame Keep is a defensible structure, but there aren’t enough people there to hold out long enough. We need to find a way to get help to Northedge as soon as we can.”
A voice behind her says, “I think we just found a way.”
Surprised, Ythana turns to look at first Balan Cord of the Blackened Book, and then at the area between Central Plateau and Tavick’s Landing that he is looking at. Or, more precisely, the rapidly nearing shapes flying through that area towards them. After a couple of seconds, she nods. “The Flame be praised – I think we did.”
. . .
Throkk and Grokk turn simultaneously and grin at each other, their eight eyes gleaming. Then the two dolgrims turn back and look over the makeshift barricade of broken furniture and pieces of rubble from the nearby buildings and towers. On the other side of the barrier, a wide stone bridge stretches away, covering nearly a quarter of a mile before it meets the towers which rise to the south. The thoroughfare is littered with bodies and overturned or demolished carts, many of them still smoldering. On the far side behind a similar – if somewhat better built – barricade, stand scores of worried looking humans and other humanoids.
The pair of dolgrims grin at each other again and then look around at their allies. Over a hundred more dolgrims stand ready behind the barrier, each wielding a pair of loaded crossbows in its four hands, ready to unleash a deadly volley on their foes if they attempt to cross the span. Among them stand a dozen dolgaunts, tentacles writhing softly, relying on the nearby dolgrims to relay what they see since their own blindsight does not extend far enough. A pack of runehounds pace back and forth, communicating among themselves in their clicks and squeaks, sometimes stopping to take a bite or two from the nearby corpses. The two mindflayers commanding this area stand silently, communicating telepathically amongst themselves as they wait.
Then, finally, there is movement at the other end of the bridge. The dolgrims raise their crossbows and chatter amongst themselves in gleeful anticipation. This will be a wonderful massacre!
The crowd of humans parts in haste and some people rush through and onto the bridge. Behind them, the rest of their troops hurry forward. As the dolgrims take aim and their leaders call out commands, they squint at the enemy in surprise. In the lead and drawing steadily away from his allies is a large, apparently winged orc, bellowing a wordless war-cry as he flies through the air, a darkly gleaming sword held before him.
Grokk and Throkk exchange glances.
He must be crazy! Then they simultaneously draw a bead on the orc, prepare to shoot, and pause in surprise. Rising into the air above the ranks behind the orc is a monstrosity rivaling any that the dolgrims have seen.
What is that?! A gigantic bulbous vegetative mass the size of a small house, it somehow flies through the air, giant tentacles whipping back and forth. Its huge mouth lined with giant teeth gnashes back and forth, some viscuous green fluid dripping from the flabby lips. Perhaps strangest of all is the sound that emanates from it, a tinny – seemingly human – voice, carrying across the gap between the humans and the aberrations. Throkk and Grokk cannot understand the language, but the anger is evident in the tone as the monster roars, “WAIT FOR ME, YOU BASTARDS!”
Shouts from the dolgaunts and the mindflayers cause the dolgrims to focus again, but it’s already too late. As stubby fingers tighten on triggers, the last thing the dolgrims see is the giant flying monster gesturing and speaking the words of a spell.
A fiery globe of light*, over a hundred and fifty feet across, erupts among them. Almost every dolgrim caught within the blast is instantly incinerated, with barely a handful surviving, screaming in agony as they claw at the eyes seared out of their heads by the radiance. While most of the runehounds and dolgaunts remain on their feet, the fact that their vision is not based on sight allowing them to weather the blast a little better, they are all badly burned. Both of the mindflayers also scream in agony as they are blinded.
On the bright side, they never see their deaths coming, as Korm’akhan charges into their midst.
. . .
Nearly half an hour later, the Angels descend gradually towards Lower Northedge, having cleaned up the most dangerous enemies in the middle and upper levels and having left the members of the Royal Guard and others who followed them to complete the mopping up. Gareth leads the way, his face set in grim lines, blood streaking the surface of the Endless Blade in his hands.
Looking back at the others, the paladin says, “Hurry up! We need to get down there as soon as possible!”
“We
are hurrying!” mumbles Luna, carefully maneuvering through areas not designed for her giant bulk. “What’s eating you?”
Gareth opens his mouth to snap at her, but then controls himself and says more calmly, “There are beholders down there. We already saw one tower go down. I want them dead before they can cause any more deaths.”
More than they have already caused, he adds inwardly, seeing in his mind’s eye the hundreds of hacked and half-eaten corpses they found strewn within Coldflame Keep. Especially the violated bodies of the few armed defenders. And the pile of limbs surmounted by a fleshless skull which had once been Cedric’s old friend, the priest Mazin Tana, who had greeted Gareth every time he visited the temple.
Damn! I’m going to have to tell Cedric about that.
“Yes, beholders,” rasps Nameless calmly. “Whose anti-magic cones nullify most of our abilities. That’s why we have to be careful. If we can spot them at a distance, then…”
As the alienist is speaking, Luna turns to look at a shadowed alcove near them, lifting a threatening tentacle, and then pauses, as part of the darkness detaches itself to reveal Six’s form, still wreathed in gloom by his harness. “I found the beholders,” he says, pointing down and at an angle. “Two of them. Luckily, they had no aberrations with them, though there are many of them moving through lower Sharn in groups. There’s some cover, but getting near them unnoticed will be difficult,” Six looks pointedly at Gareth and Luna, “For some of us.”
“And their anti-magic has a range of a hundred and fifty feet or more,” points out Nameless. “We can’t cover that sort of ground fast enough to avoid them seeing us and catching us in the cones.” He turns and looks curiously at Korm, who is chuckling. “What?”
“Unless we’re falling,” grins the Gatekeeper from ear to ear. “And since we’re some distance above them…”
. . .
Less than five minutes later, Korm looks up with a similar grin from the burned and bloodied corpse of a beholder at Luna’s grumbling shape. “What are you complaining about?”
The giant tendriculos tilts backwards and forwards and then slowly rolls away from the spot it was in and Luna points at a jagged chunk of broken masonry in the area, now smeared with greenish fluid. “I landed on that! OW!”
“You’re complaining?” scoffs Korm, pointing at a roughly circular shape lying next to the stone Luna was complaining about. It looks like nothing so much as a beholder which has been flattened by a huge weight and has exploded in the process. Which is precisely what it is. Korm laughs, “Think how
it felt!”
“Look out!” interrupts Six, “Mindflayers!” As the warforged darts forward and to the side, seeking cover, the other Angels look up to see a small band of aberrations heading quickly for them. The mindflayers which Six mentioned are in the rear, two of them, one with the amputated and dragonshard-studded tentacles which indicate a spellcaster, while the other is a taller and sturdier specimen who seems to be in command. Ahead of them run a screen of four runehounds, and on either side is a huge spider, its orange-brown carapace studded with sharp spines. The spiders move with ease over the ground, their ten-foot long legs either lifting them over obstructing rubble or clambering partly up the walls of the towers as they advance.
“Harpoon spiders,” warns Nameless, preparing a spell, “They can shoot spines which dig into your flesh and reel you in.”
“I’d like them to try,” chuckles Luna as she rolls forward, her huge size dwarfing the two aberrant arachnids. “Come on, little spiders!”
But as the Angels and their enemies near each other, another foe appears, deadlier than the rest. A beholder, larger than most, floats around a tower some hundred and fifty feet away, moving swiftly towards the Angels. Its central eye is open and its anti-magic gaze washes over them, stripping away their magical protections and abilities. Gareth’s glowing magical aura winks out and Luna shrinks down from a giant plant to a slim shifter, while Nameless’ habitual disguise fades away, leaving a thin young human with a tentacle where an arm should be, and the leathery wings protruding from Korm’s back fade away. Only Six, hidden behind a wall, remains unaffected.
The aberrations promptly seize the opportunity, the runehounds racing forward and unleashing streams of acid. Though they do so blindly, their supernatural blindsight disrupted by the beholder’s gaze, there are enough of them to bracket the area that the Angels are in. Acid splashes painfully against some of the Angels, especially harmful now that their protections against acid are suppressed. Only Nameless retains his now intrinsic resistance to the substance and even he is seriously hurt.
The spiders too move in on either side, myriad eyes glaring madly at their prey, vision unimpaired by the anti-magic field. One emits a hash spitting sound and an object resembling a bifurcated fang shoots out from an orifice below its fangs. Before Luna can dodge aside, it sinks painfully into her thigh, blood spurting from the wound. She cries out and grabs at the object, and then notices a thick, translucent thread of what looks like saliva extending from the fang back to the spider. There is a sucking sound and Luna screams in pain as the strand retracts, feeling the muscles of her leg tear as the embedded fang jerks her off her feet and to the ground. Despite her efforts, the elastic but apparently strong saliva pulls her along the ground towards the waiting spider.
The other spider attacks Gareth, but his armor protects him even though it is no longer magical. The paladin kicks away the fang and glares at his right gauntlet, which had held the Endless Blade moments ago and is now an empty and inflexible metal hand. “Someone do something about the beholder!” he shouts.
“Just a second,” says Nameless, retreating hastily behind a stone pillar and casting a spell as soon as he is protected from the beholder’s gaze. A second later, Kha’tvan’ga appears before him. “Destroy the beholder and then the other aberrations.” The Horror floats around the pillar and advances towards the enemy, tentacles flailing at the air ahead of it. One of the mindflayers shouts a command and the beholder promptly tilts to include the Horror within its cone, instantly causing it to disappear.
“What the hell?” shouts Gareth, backing away as the blind but tenacious runehounds gang up on him, “That did nothing, Nameless!”
Ignoring the paladin’s complaints, Nameless remains where he is and shouts, “Six – go left! Korm – go right!”
As the warforged and the Gatekeeper both head in different directions, Gareth belatedly realizes what Nameless had already calculated – that the beholder would be unable to maintain the anti-magic cone on the area where the Horror was and also catch Korm and Six in its gaze.
Six runs around the wall he was sheltering behind and heads for the leading mindflayer. His target responds with a blast of mental energy, but the warforged shrugs it off with an effort and leaps forward. His spiked chain wraps around the illithid’s leg and a deft tug brings it to the ground. As it groans at the impact and attempts to collect itself, Six strikes again, ripping open the side of its tentacled face.
The other illithid turns to help its leader, pale gray hands moving in the motions of spellcasting, and then is interrupted by the roar of a charging Korm. Swiftly forgetting its ally, the mindflayer redirects its spell, sending a fiery orb into the onrushing orc’s chest. Korm ignores the impact and slashes at it, only a desperate leap saving his foe, though his meteoric blade carves a deep gash across its chest. The illithid gasps a word and an arc of electricity leaps to strike Korm, but it fizzles against his protective spells. The Gatekeeper rushes in, his slashing sword keeping the mindflayer constantly on the defensive.
But behind the retreating illithid Korm sees the beholder rising in the air and swiveling, attempting to angle itself so that he too will fall within its anti-magic cone. The Gatekeeper casts a quick look around but the others are in no position to help, with Luna and Gareth in especial danger. And the presence of the mindflayer spellcaster in front of him makes his options very limited.
In desperation, Korm momentarily looks away from his immediate foe and fixes the beholder with a baleful stare, calling on the power of the evil eye. For a second, the beholder’s giant orb meets the Gatekeeper’s stare and then – to Korm’s amazement, followed swiftly by relief and then amusement – slowly shuts. As the central eye closes, the beholder tilts gradually, its eyestalks drooping, until it hangs motionless in mid-air. A strange rumbling emanates from it, which can only be snoring**. “Yes!” shouts an exultant Korm, before leaping at the shocked illithid before him.
As the beholder’s central eye closes, Luna’s form shifts and expands back into the tendriculos that she had been only moments ago. The spider which had loomed over her moments ago looks up in surprise, and then there is a squishing sound as her bulk just rolls over it. The other spider lasts only a few seconds longer, as Kha’tvan’ga reappears and unleashes a whirlwind of tentacles against it. With Nameless and Gareth also now able to safely rejoin in the battle, it is over momentarily, only a single runehound surviving to flee the scene.
“Well, that ended a lot better than it seemed it was going…,” begins the alienist, before being interrupted by a call of “Nameless, Luna – blast it!” from Korm, whose strange wings have carried him up above the still slumbering beholder. The unfortunate creature wakes screaming, as spells from Nameless and Luna strike it, just in time to see one last sight – the Gatekeeper descending on it, sword-first.
With the enemies disposed of, while the others heal their wounds Six does a swift circuit of the area. He returns to say, “They are retreating, or at least pulling back from this area. It’s hard to say from this distance, but I think they’re leaving the Central Plateau area too. The Redcloaks and other forces seem to be taking over the ground there. Can’t say about Dura, Menthis or Tavick’s.”
“Should we head back to Central then?” asks Gareth.
Nameless, who has been looking around with a faraway expression in his eyes, smiles thinly. “Yes, the rest of you should,” he rasps, “But I think I have a way to speed up their retreat.” He begins to cast a summoning spell, and as he completes it, three creatures appear before him. They look like a mix of humanoids and giant vultures, with long, sinewy limbs covered in small gray feathers, a long neck topped with a cruel beaked head, and large wings. They consider the alienist balefully, but Nameless gazes back calmly, till they bow grudgingly.
Gareth scowls as he recognizes the creatures. “Vrocks?” The disapproval is clear in his tone.
The alienist ignores him for a few seconds, addressing the creatures in their own language. The vrocks bow again, this time with apparently much more pleasure, and then take to the air together, racing away at great speed in the direction their summoner indicates. Nameless stares after them, ignoring the fuming paladin, and then after a second he smiles again, this time more grimly.
Turning back to Gareth, the alienist says, “Is there a problem?”
“Yes!” frowns Gareth. “They’re demons!”
“I’m quite aware of their nature,” says the alienist calmly. “What’s your point?”
“They’re evil! And summoning them is evil. You have much better ways of dealing with the aberrations. Give me one good reason why you’re summoning demons!”
“Certainly,” says Nameless dryly, glancing in the direction that the demons disappeared in, a direction from which faint screeching sounds carry back to the group. “Dance. Of. Ruin.” As he finishes the words, there is the faint sound of an explosion. “See?”
* Luna was bored and had a
sunburst prepared. ’Nuff said.
** Yes, Korm put a beholder to sleep with a gaze attack, one which never works for him (at least not against any foe of significance). We assume that it only worked since I was NPCing him and Mike wasn’t actually running Korm.
