Siberys Seven: Heroes of Eberron

[megamania]

SIBERYS SEVEN
008 STRANGE HALLS
SEGMENT 077
“BEGINNING THE SCREAMING HALLS”

RHAAN 7,999 THE SCREAMING HALLS

The seven friends and would-be adventurers walk slowly down a hallway. As usual, the rogue- Mania, takes the lead watching the stone floor and some of the walls. Bora, the half-orc barbarian from northern Eldeen stays with him as a protector but also out of a crazed curiosity.

“Hallway branches twice- both to the left and continues forward into the darkness.” Calls out Mania becoming more cautious and mature than he ever has been before.

Hoping to avoid ambushes from behind- “Take the first one.” Comments Dura.

He walks up to it and waits for Bora to get behind him and illuminate the short hallway with the light spell that is placed on her studded leather armor. “Stairs---- going up.”

“Okay- lets go.” Adds Dura.

The stairs lead up a short way then about thirty feet to stairs leading down. Dura suggests Aura to guard the stairs and she agrees with her usual quiet and serious manner.

“Appears to be a storage room. Some crates and a big trunk.” Yells Mania to Dura whom is still in the hallway beyond the top of the stairs. Bora goes to the crates and Mania to the trunk. Vander guards at the bottom of the stairs.

Bora pries open one crate with a loud creak and a snap. “Clothe….Canvas….”

Mania is looking over the trunk. It is locked with a cheap lock. He picks it easily and as he opens it he can hear a scratching sound and a shrill squeak. “Don’t look now but….”

The truck bursts open and moves from the wall at the same time. A bunch of large boney rats the size of medium dogs burst from a shallow hole in the ground. Dire Rats!

Mania falls back into the group as the small community of Dire Rats empty from the hole.

Four rats reach Bora and Mania first. Bora keeps out of their reach. Mania avoids one but is bitten by another. The damage is little to none (Dam Reduct) but the disease does set in. Mania swats at them while Leeya, on the stairs sees them and castes web. A fine but strong light web falls over the mutant rats. Most of them jump and leap away from the web (21 E Art).

Both Bora and Vander kill a rat with their falchions.

It continues like this. Mania can’t quite hit them. Leeya can no longer get a safe line of view at the rats and Bora and Vander are killing one with each strike.

Mania is flanked and nipped once more. He kills one for it. Incarnum steps pass the wizard and as he reaches the bottom of the steps is attacked but his armored shell repels the bites. The fighters take down all but one. This remaining Dire Rat tries to escape up the stairs. Incarnum spikes it with one of his forearm implanted short sword.

They back track to Aura in disgust.

The next off-shot of a hallway ends at double doors. Again Mania goes first with Bora close on his heels. The air quality has changed. Changed for the better. Fresh and cooler. There is a new sound also. Dripping water.

Going in they find a well. Water is dripping in from high above where a small hole or crack is just visible. The walls pulse from the bats that rest here. It is evening now.

“Getting to be late. Hard to tell what time of day it is down here.” Says Leeya.

“We should make camp” Adds Vander.

“Here? Really?” comments Mania raising his arms and gesturing to the circular small room with the well inside it.

 

[megamania]

SIBERYS SEVEN
008 STRANGE HALLS
SEGMENT 078
“STRANGE HALLWAYS”

RHAAN 8,999 THE SCREAMING HALLS

The team sleep well enough even as several of them are beginning to realize this is not a fun adventure for young adventurers… someone could get hurt. Worse- are they going to get lost and die here. These thoughts are lost as others awaken and talk about things less serious.

Breakfast consists of water and jerky. After having food and repacking goods Mania begins to look over the door they camped by. “I assume this is next…..” Dura nods with a smile.

Mania inspects the door closer and spots a thin cord connecting the edge of the door to the wall. He has Vander and Aura place their shields facing the walls and he carefully opens the door and the cord pulls taunt and dozens of needles shoot out of the wall into both shields. “So…. I guess some doors are trapped.”

“Well… isn’t this a bit creepy.” This leads to a 20x50 foot room. In the center of the room is a pillar made of stone with a rough surface. Going inside the pillar’s surface isn’t so much as rough as it has symbols etched into it. Both Leeya and Dura wish to look it over more closely.

They look over murmuring to themselves. Leeya occasionally gets excited and shows Dura a symbol. Leeya finds a few symbols she has seen in both Arcane and Planar texts in Morgrave. One symbol is depicted several times. It is like a jagged swirl. One symbol, also shown several times, looks like the Sovereign Host and is chopped up.

Shortly there after they return to the main hallway. They pass a metal door (fear of electoral trap) and loop around to another set of double doors and a statue. The statue is of a woman in a silky robe holding a wand. Strangely, even as a human, the writing below is in goblin. Nothing more is found here.

After searching carefully for traps, Mania opens the door. They go down this hallway and find another set of doors.

 

[megamania]

and.....

 

[megamania]

SIBERYS SEVEN
008 STRANGE HALLS
SEGMENT 079
“GHOSTLY IMPRINTS”

RHAAN 8, 999 THE SCREAMING HALLS

“I thought Undersharn was tiresome with its tunnels and hidden rooms. Hallway to the left….door ahead.” Calls back Mania looking for direction.

“Try the door.” Replies Dura with less confidence than she intended.

The rogue searches the door for traps both mechanical and magical. Satisfied it was safe he touched the door and calls out. (nat 1) The door’s metal pieces are very cold- not damaging but startling just the same.

Inside Mania sees the size of the room (20x40). Within it are two chests, a crate, a table, then it gets weird….. even uncomfortable. A stockade, a table with cords, shackles, metal rollers and a crank. Then a strange tall mechanical item with glass tubes and rubber tubing.

The chests are empty. The crate has straw and more glass tubes. Leeya begins to check out the strange item. The rogue jokingly calls to Vander. “Your stiff back might be fixed with this. Get on.” As soon as Mania grabs the crank the air chills. He stops laughing.

A mist of white and light gray rises from the torture rack. Mania leaps away from the torture device to protect Leeya. The mist forms a face and two arms. It is a female with long hair that floats in the air as if she/it was under water.

Dura musters up her internal will and faith. “I feel your pain Spirit. But we are not the cause. Have peace. So declares Olladra- Goddess of Good Fortune.” The form pulls back as if something has placed an invisible wall before it and she moves back to the wall. Pinned against the wall and beginning to sink into the wall, the ghost is targeted by Bora with her magical Compound Longbow. She just misses. Aura pulls out her longbow (non-magical) and the arrow passes through the mists as she disappears into the wall.

“Time to move on.” Declares Mania staring at the wall. He doesn’t much like undead- something he is confused with often. They hurry out except for Aura. As a Paladin of the Sovereign Host, she wants to stop the ghost and its eternal pain.

Now they turn up the untaken hallway. Two hallways and a niche are here. The niche is first. It has a statue of a black disfigured humanoid with a strange yellowish metal embedded into it to detail the face and the vest it wore.Leeya looks it over discovers marks on the belt. She draws it in her journal with ideas of comparing it to the language found on the pillars.

They skip a hallway and continue on the hallway. As Mania comes across a second corner he is confronted by two very large snakes. Mania tries to hit a head with his short sword but misses. “Is that one or two snakes?!?” Questions loudly Leeya as she summons a Flaming Sphere. Vander and Incarnum strike next. Incarnum (2 nat 20 one confirmed) slices a two headed large snake in two. The two halves each attack. One half of the Amphisbaena bites Mania and the other half bits Incarnum. Mania’s unique body ignores the attack while the warforged ignores the poison.

Mania misses again (always 1 short) but Leeya rolls the sphere of fire over a snake half again. Vander hits and Incarnum strikes twice (including one crit). The magical serpent is dead.

Just past the now-dead body there is a statue of an orc in primitive armor. Leeya can read the plague on the base of the statue. It is etched in the language of the orcs. “Gorw the Determined Defender of the Gate Keepers”

“Hello Gorw. We are honored to meet you.”

Mania looks over the base and the area for secret hidden compartments. He finds none (search 14).

Bora keeps looking down the hall as it continues past this statue. Double doors are here but the doors are open. That’s how the strange snake got here.

 

[megamania]

Experimenting still with new dungeon sets

 

[megamania]

SIBERYS SEVEN
008 STRANGE HALLS
SEGMENT 080
“STATUE ROOM AND TELEPORT”

RHAAN 8, 999 THE SCREAMING HALLS

The team of seven enter the new hallway. To the right is a door and further down is a glowing area. To the left is a corner. Dura says to go around the corner- to begin to work back to the north. Mania begins but discovers another corner. Mania stops after going around the corner. Incarnum hears something but can not place it. Vander says marching boots. Mania (nat 20 with +9 to add yet) Ten plus marching at us. And with that twelve marching skeletons come around a second corner. As soon as they see Mania and Vander they charge with spears in the lead.

Vander crashes through a few ribs but that is all. Bora snarls and suggests (demands) Mania to switch places with her as she goes into a Rage. He misses a swing as steps back for her to attack. Leeya tries to disrupt a skeleton but misses. Dura castes Bless. The skeletons jab at the enraged barbarian but miss as they do trying to hit Vander. Incarnum gets a few glancing blows in.

Bora with a mixed facial feature of joy and utter rage cleaves a skeleton from left to right clavicle in one blow. Vander finishes off his opponent and each step forward before other skeletons can fill the space of fallen fellow undead. Mania holds back feeling useless. Leeya misses with another disrupt spell. The skeletons do their best to attack but can not hit.

The ten foot wide hallway is bottle necking the skeletons just enough that the wall of Bora and Vander is holding them back but also holds Incarnum and Aura back. Vander finishes off a damaged skeleton and Bora utterly destroys another and each steps up. Bora takes a minor hit and as if inspired, the skeletons trying to hit Vander get near misses (18+19 need a nat 20).

Bora and Vander miss. Mania looks to Leeya- “Well?” She shrugs her shoulders and gets a pinch of webbing she collected just this mourning and casts a spell. 6 of the remaining 8 skeletons become trapped in thick magical webs. The two that escaped the webs were in the very back. They hold up their spears to throw. They both miss (nat 1+2). Vander and Bora stomp and step on the trapped skeletons to destroy the others. Aura and Incarnum begin to work on these.

“We need to work on our team work if we’re going to survive in here.” Declares the dwarven cleric.

Though aimed at Mania and Aura, Leeya is the one whom feels bad. “I was trying to save up my magic in case we face something really bad and dangerous down here.”

There is a door that they skip as the hallway seems to end just ahead. Not exactly. Going to it the area does come to a dead end but there is another menacing dark grey statue here is tarnished gold trim.

“Uglier than the last one” Comments Mania.

This one looks more like a feral orc. The canine teeth are longer and eyes are sunken and heavy with menace. The left nipple is pierced with a sharpen finger bone (elven?). Leeya copies down the plague once more hoping to translate it later.

Mania looks it over and discovers a secret compartment in the back. It has a Red Rod within it.

They return to the door and discover it has a hidden sliding panel to look in. Sliding it over they discover it has iron bars within the window. Looking then to the door, Mania looks it over and they open it and go in.

It is a large oddly shaped room. It is square except for one rounded end. There are six human (like) statues seemly praying to a stone slab in the curved section of the room. Going there, Leeya and Aura are taken back. The stone is very rough and has ridges going from the floor to about 8 feet up. On the face of the stone pillar is a figure of a nude human woman. Only her face, some hair, fingers of one hand and the forearm + hand of the other can be seen along with one naked breast.

There is no plague or hint to whom this is. Mania finds no secret compartments.

“Creepy” comments Leeya as she looks at it still.

“I feel a trapped sad soul inside. I want to release her somehow.”

They exit through a door similar to the door used to enter the room. “Appears to be a dead end comments Mania as he look at a door they found opened before.

“We can at least check out that glowing thing.” Says Dura. And so they go to it.

“I don’t know…..” suggests Mania whom then shuts up thinking about how useful he was fighting the skeletons.

Everyone stands before it. “Looks like a portal.” Comments Aura.

“Maybe. Not much like the Orien portals…..” Begins Dura.

“Lets go back and see if we can get out now.” Suggests Mania.

They begin and suddenly the floor tips like a ramp- slippery ramp. All except for Mania slip hollering towards the portal. Looks of horror cross everyone’s face except for Aura (wears a faceplate). Mania comes to a terrible realization as watch them slide into the portal….. he needs them. He lets go of the wall and runs into the portal screaming “Wait for me!!!”

 

[megamania]

into the portal