Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Delemental" data-source="post: 1357511" data-attributes="member: 5203">Shadows in the Mountains, Part TwoIt took the party almost seven days to locate the dragon’s lair.  They managed to gain entrance to the tiny crevasse through a series of tunnels formed in the glacial ice by natural hot springs.  They found a wide assortment of coins, gems, and other treasures, including a khopesh sword much like the one Ehput-Ki already carried.  The newly returned paladin took the blade, nodding in grim satisfaction at the feel of it in his grasp.“It’s got a powerful enchantment,” said Niles.  “Stronger than your current sword.  I don’t know exactly what it does, though.  I don’t have the components necessary to analyze the enchantments further.”With the dragon’s hoard secured, the party moved back to the surface through the tunnels, emerging at a point where the mountains became rugged and steep.  They headed for the pass they’d seen from the foot of the mountain, and after a few hours’ travel came upon a small trail.  The trail led straight into the pass, which was a narrow canyon surrounded by rocky cliffs.“Might as well put a sign up here; ‘Ambush This Way’,” said Alia.“There are two trails branching off to the left and right,” said Tantu, studying the ground.  “The left trail seems to have had some recent activity, but I can’t tell what it is.”“So, it could be what we’re looking for, or it could be squirrels,” sighed Niles.“Can’t your god tell you which way to go, Tantu?” smirked Myoo.Tantu glared for only a moment.  “I have prepared only one such spell today, which would reveal a safe path to me.  But I’d have to know exactly where we were going for it to work.”“So, then we’ll have to find out what’s up this trail,” said Myoo.  “Perhaps we could send someone up ahead to scout it out.  Perhaps someone who is good at remaining unseen.” He glanced in Alia’s direction.  “Or someone who knows the wilderness well.” His eyes flickered over to Kiy.Alia sighed and looked at the wild elf.  “Looks like we’re volunteering.”The rest of the party made camp a short distance off the trail while Kiy and Alia went up the left fork.  As the sun was nearing the horizon, they spotted a small cave in the side of the mountain.  Approaching as closely as they could, they surveyed the scene.  Standing a short distance inside the cave was a single figure, a human male wearing leather armor.  A horn was at his hip, and a sword rested at his side against the cave wall.Kiy leaned in and whispered into Alia’s ear, so close she could feel his lips brush her earlobe.  “What do you think?”“I only see the one, but likely there’s more further inside the cave,” she whispered back into Kiy’s ear.Kiy nodded.  “I can’t make out any markings on him, but he carries himself as a seasoned fighter – he’ll know what he’s doing.”“There’s a kill zone of at least fifty feet around that cave,” observed Alia.  “Stands to reason he’s got a crossbow stashed in there somewhere.”They watched for a few minutes more, then moved down the mountainside and rejoined their companions.  It was dark by the time they gave their report to the others; no fire had been made, as the light would have been easily seen from the mountain.“It seems our best option would be to incapacitate the sentry before he can raise an alarm,” said Myoo.  “Our only obstacle is getting close enough to do it.”“I can attempt to feeblemind him,” offered Niles.“And Tyr has recently revealed to me a powerful incantation,” said Tantu, “that will stun him with only a single word.”Alia, who had lapsed back into her strange silence as soon as the planning had begun, suddenly piped up.  “No, no, no.”Everyone looked at her, surprised at her sudden comment.  “Look, the spells you guys are talking about are really potent.  I’m sure they’ll work, but let’s remember that we’re up here looking for some undefined evil that has so far managed to foil all attempts by the priests and mages of Waterdeep to scry on it.  Maybe we should be saving the big stuff for whatever that is?  And why are we putting all our eggs in one basket?  Let’s throw two or three moderately-powered things at him instead of one big spell.”The party sat in silence as they absorbed Alia’s words.  “I have a spell that would let me command him to go to sleep,” offered Tantu.“And I can use my power to beguile him, to make him friendly toward us,” Myoo offered.“Okay then,” said Alia, standing up as she spoke.  “Here’s the plan.  Tantu, you try and knock him out first.  The instant you know if the spell fails, Myoo will be ready with his.  And if Myoo’s powers fail, then Kiy’s ready to put an arrow in his throat.  Everyone else stays out of sight and ready to get up the hill as fast as possible.  Agreed?”*    *    *The plan worked well.  Though Tantu’s spell failed to take hold, Myoo’s broad smile a second later told them that he’d succeeded.  The sentry came walking down the mountain a moment later.“What’s your name, friend, and what are you doing out here?” asked Myoo.“Name’s Rhorlif,” said the sentry, “I was hired to pull guard duty out here at this cave.  Good pay, too; a hundred gold every six month, paid in advance.”“Who hired you?” asked Tantu.Rhorlif looked over at Myoo, then back to Tantu once Myoo nodded to indicate it was okay to talk to him.  “A guy named Vyech Eslev.  He met me in a bar back in Waterdeep and hired me.  I think he’s a priest of Tempus.”“Tempus?” asked Tantu, “how do you know?”“Well, I haven’t seen any holy symbols or anything, but he’s always talking about war.”“Who else is in the cave with you?” asked Alia.“Just me.  Further back there’s a big hole that leads down into the mountain.  I’ve never been down there, but that’s where Vyech and the others go.”“Others?” inquired Myoo.“Yeah, there’s Eystein and Hakon, I think they’re mercenaries or professional bodyguards or something.”“Are they any good?” asked Alia.“They could hand me my ass,” he replied.  “There’s also a guy named Haroon.  He’s a quiet guy, doesn’t wear any armor or carry weapons like the other two.”“Is that all you’ve seen come through here?” asked Myoo.“Well, every once in a while a few wagon loads of supplies come through.  And about a month ago, Hakon brought in about five women – I don’t know if they were willing or not, but Hakon commented that he’d ‘bought them outright’.”“Supplies for how many people, do you think?” Alia asked.“Hmm, I’d say maybe ten units of a hundred.  Mostly large crates, about the height of a man.”Myoo smiled.  “Well, thank you, Rhorlif.  You’ve been very helpful.  But we should let you get back to your duties.  We’ll just head inside and leave you to it.”“Thanks,” said Rhorlif.  “Hey, we’ll have to meet up sometime.”Myoo’s thin smile broadened.  “That we will.”The party moved inside the cave, cautious despite Rhorlif’s assertion that he was alone on the upper levels.  Kiy and Ehput-Ki moved ahead of the others.  Suddenly, Kiy grabbed the paladin’s shoulder.“Don’t move,” he hissed.Ehput-Ki looked down to see that the tip of his steel boot was against the edge of a magical symbol inscribed in the floor, glowing faintly.“A glyph,” Kiy said softly.Niles came up to the two figures, his smaller frame allowing him to squeeze in to examine the symbol.  “It’s some sort of transport trap,” he said.  “I should be able to suppress it…” he muttered a few arcane words, and the glow faded.  With a sigh of relief, Ehput-Ki moved forward again.  Kiy made sure to mark the glyph’s location so that it wouldn’t be missed on the trip back.The tunnel opened into a larger room.  At the back of the room a hole yawned in the rock floor, perhaps ten feet across.  Three iron rings were set into the stone around the hole.  As the rest of the party paused to assess the situation, Alia moved forward, searching along the walls for any hidden surprises.  She stopped at a tiny crack a few feet from the hole.“There’s some sort of button hidden in here,” she said.  “It’s not connected to any sort of mechanical device.  I think it’s a magical trigger of some sort.”Myoo and Niles went over to investigate.  While they worked, Tantu began uttering a long incantation near the edge of the hole.  After a few moments of mystical mumbling and squinting, they looked up at the party.“We can’t quite make out its exact function,” Niles said, “but it’s somehow linked with the Ethereal Plane, and radiates divination-style magic.”“Well, let’s not disturb it if we’re not sure what it does,” said Ehput-Ki.  “Rhorlif said that the others went down this hole.  However, I can feel the taint of evil about his aura, thus I don’t know if we should trust him.”“Perhaps I can help,” said Niles.  He cast a spell, and a small cloud of eyeballs appeared around his head*.  A few radiated outward into the surrounding crevices of the cave, while a handful began to travel down the hole.  After several minutes, Niles blinked in surprise.“They’re gone,” he said.  “The eyes I sent down the hole – they’ve ceased to exist.”“How?” asked Ehput-Ki.“I’m not certain.  They could have been destroyed physically, or dispelled.  Or run into an anti-magic field.”“What did they see before they disappeared?” asked Myoo.Niles shook his head.  “It doesn’t work like that.  The eyes have to return to me for me to know what they’ve seen.”Alia peered down the edge of the hole.  “It wouldn’t be surprising if there was anti-magic down there.  Just the thing to stop a group of flying or levitating invaders.”As they stood there thinking about their predicament, Tantu finished his spell.  A symbol much like the one on the cave floor appeared on the edge of the hole.“A glyph of our own,” he said, “to protect us in case anything should come up.  We can get past it by saying the word ‘Alorma’.”Ehput-Ki nodded appreciatively.  “Very clever.” “So, what now?” asked Tantu.“Now, we do it the hard way.” Alia took her pack off and pulled out a coil of rope.  “How much rope have we got?”After a quick tally gave them a little over two hundred and fifty feet, Alia began tying one end to an iron ring.  “I’ll carry the rest with me as I go,” she said.  If there’s someone at the bottom, no sense alerting them by having the end of a long coil of rope drop in front of them.”“Be careful,” Tantu said, a concerned look on his face.“Relax.  I’m the best natural climber here.  I’ll see how far down this thing goes.”Myoo reached out and touched Alia on the shoulder.  “I’ve used the same spider climb spell on you as in the illithid cave,” he said.  “It will aid your descent, and if you do run into anti-magic, you’ll be able to tell immediately when it affects you.”Alia began her slow climb down into the hole.  After several minutes, Myoo lost contact with her through his telepathic link.  About ten minutes later, Alia came up out of the hole.“I ran out of rope, and the hole keeps going,” she said.  “I’ve marked my stopping point.”  She pointed at her pack.  “I’ve got a few pitons in there.  I’m going to try to anchor off where I ended, and keep going.”  As Ehput-Ki handed her the metal pitons, she looked up at Tantu.  “Tie my portion of the rope to the iron ring.  It’s a magical rope that obeys my commands.  When I’m ready, I’ll pull once, and you can untie the rope and drop it into the hole.  I’ll be able to command it to drop slowly so I can coil the rope as it comes down.  If I pull twice, it means I’m in trouble and you need to start hauling me up.”Alia went down again as the others waited.  The single tug on the rope came, and the party watched as the rope floated slowly down the hole.  After nearly half an hour, the saw the end of the rope levitate up to the edge of the hole.  Tantu grabbed it and tied it off, and a few minutes later Alia emerged again, her arms and legs shaking from exertion.  She collapsed on the floor, supported by Tantu.“It’s… a little over five hundred feet,” she panted.  “There’d be about a thirty-foot drop.  I couldn’t see much in the chamber below, but I think there’s another hole.”“This is impossible,” said Myoo sourly.  “We have only half the rope we need to make it down.  And even if we had it, some of us aren’t good climbers.  And it leaves us vulnerable.”“I can’t imagine,” piped in Alia, beginning to recover from her climb a bit, “that the people living here would really go through all this to get in and out all the time.  Didn’t Rhorlif say they were bringing a lot of large crates in here?  Hauling that size and number of crates down that narrow hole seems ridiculous, especially if it’s just the four of them.  There’s got to be another way.”Slowly, they all turned their heads to look at the crack where the button was hidden.“What do you think?” Ehput-Ki asked.“Well,” said Niles, “it is linked to the Ethereal.  And ethereal beings can move through solid matter.”They regarded the button for another moment, before Alia stood up, brushing dust off her clothes.  “Oh, for hells’ sake, everybody stand back.”  She moved toward the button.“I don’t like this,” said Tantu, looking intently at Alia as he moved up next to her.“Then you should make sure you’re ready to deal with any problems,” Alia replied.  The others had backed away to the far edges of the room; Tantu continued to stand next to her.“Look,” Alia said to Tantu, in a voice low enough that the others couldn’t hear her, “you remember I told you there were things I had to sort out before you and I were intimate?  This is one of those things.  I told you when I first met this party that I’d work with you as long as no one interfered with me when I was doing my job.  If you’re going to be like this now, what happens after we’ve actually slept together?”Tantu looked down at her for a few moments.  Then, reluctantly, he took a few steps backward.“Be ready,” Alia said out loud, as she pressed the button.There was a bright flash of light, and the world was suddenly filled with swirling gray mist.  The party was shocked out of their sudden transition to the Ethereal Plane by two large, looming shapes in the mist that had not been there before.  Alia recognized them from a picture she’d seen in a book.  “Phase spiders!” she shouted.  She pulled out her baton and began to move forward to the closest spider.  But she paused, an odd look in her eyes, and instead stepped backward away from the beast.  “Ehput-Ki!” she shouted, “take the one on the left!  Myoo, get behind Ehput-Ki and me!  Tantu, you take the one on the right!  Kiy, help out whoever needs it!  Niles, behind Kiy!”Momentarily stunned by the unexpected barrage of orders, the party nonetheless moved into action.  Kiy acted first, sending three arrows into the first spider.  The steel tips sliced through the thin connection between the spider’s head and thorax, sending it to a quick death.  Myoo stepped back as ordered, and unleashed a spell at the second spider.  It suddenly stopped advancing, sitting quietly in the center of the room.“No one attack!” Myoo shouted.  “He’s a friend now.”Myoo concentrated for a moment, and the spider suddenly scuttled off, moving through the cavern wall.“What did you do?” asked Ehput-Ki.“I told it there was food to the north, and it should go find it.”“How long will he travel north?” asked the paladin.Myoo smiled.  “About eleven hours or so.”Tantu looked slightly disappointed as he put his sword away unused.  Then he walked over to Alia, who was experimenting with sticking her arm inside the wall.“I’ve never heard you act like that before,” he said.  “You usually just jump into battle.  What’s going on?”“I’m just doing what I should have been doing for a while now,” she said, sliding her baton into its concealed sheath at her thigh.  “My job.”* This spell was an oversight on our part.  Niles is an illusionist, and his barred schools are Divination and Necromancy.  We'd found the prying eyes spell earlier in a spellbook, and Niles' player copied it down and memorized it without thinking about it.  It wasn't until the end of the session that we realized the mistake.</blockquote>

Verification