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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Delemental" data-source="post: 2229543" data-attributes="member: 5203">The party clambered downward through a narrow, pitch-black shaft, climbing down a sturdy iron ladder bolted into the wall.  They didn’t dare use any light, not knowing what might be below them waiting, so they descended in darkness, trusting to Osborn’s blindsense and Autumn and Lanara’s darkvision to warn them.            The shaft dropped down into a larger tunnel leading off underground.  The tunnel was obviously man-made, and after getting his bearings Osborn declared it led off toward the center of the city above them.  The group had a sudden sense of déjà vu, feeling just as they did traversing the underground city of Laeshir.            They followed the tunnel quietly, until after several hundred yards they saw the tunnel open up ahead, and light spilling out across the rock walls.  Cautiously, they came up through the tunnel to where it opened up into an enormous cavern.  The party stood at the edge for a moment, marveling at the sight.            The cavern was bowl-shaped, dropping down from where they stood at a gentle slope.  It was easily the size of a small city – this was easy to determine, as a small city had been built inside it.  Though nowhere near the size of Noxolt, the cave-city was no less busy; even from where they stood the group could see figures moving back and forth through the streets.  In the center of the cavern, a large plateau rose up above the rest of the city, until its flat upper surface was nearly level with the spot where the party stood in the tunnel.  Built upon this plateau was a large, stately mansion, with no other buildings sharing its prominent location.  Looking around, the party noticed several of the buildings, including the mansion, were decorated with a spider motif.            “Fiel,” Kyle muttered, looking at the spider carvings on a nearby building.  The others looked at him a moment, wondering why the name of the god of murder had come so easily to his lips.  Kyle noticed the looks, and shrugged.  “The subject’s come up in some of the research I was doing recently.  And Fiel gets mentioned once or twice in Sauroth’s old spellbook.”            Arrie pointed out toward the mansion.  “I think it’s pretty obvious that’s where we need to go.”            “Problem is, none of you look like thieves and assassins,” said Osborn.            “Maybe we could try disguises again,” offered Lanara.            “I’m not taking off my armor,” said Autumn.            “Nor I,” agreed Tolly.            “You wouldn’t have to take it off,” said Osborn.  “We just need to make you look like a thug instead of a holy warrior.”            “No.”            “But you’ll stick out like a sore thumb!” protested the hin.            Autumn gestured at her face, which displayed her obvious celestial qualities.  “I already stand out,” she said.  “I see no reason to soil my armor.”            “I never want to be dirty again,” said Xu quietly, shuddering as she recalled her fall into the pool of sewage.  She’d used an entire pound of soap and all the water that Tolly and Kavan could summon, and still didn’t feel clean.            “Look, we don’t have to ruin it,” Osborn argued.  “Just rub some dirt on the surface.”            “Do you have any idea,” Tolly interrupted, “how badly plate armor will rust if you leave it dirty?”            “Yeah, but if we get caught,” Kyle chimed in, “then we find out what the effects of large amounts of our blood have on plate armor.”            “If that much of my blood is on my armor, I’m probably beyond caring.”            “Hey, everyone!” said Lanara, nearly shouting.  “I have a disguise kit.  There’s some tar makeup in there we can smear on their armor that won’t damage it.  All we need is a couple of big cloaks and we’re good.”            “Fine,” said Arrie, clearly getting impatient.  “What about the rest of us?”            “Well, Kyle looks fine to me,” said Osborn, examining the wizard’s old, tattered robes.  “He just needs to not say anything.  Xu’s also looking pretty grungy right now.  Kavan’s an elf, so they won’t give him a second look.  Arrie can easily pass for a mercenary.  I think that if Lanara uses her disguise kit to tone down the hair a bit, we’ve got a shot at this.”            “So, should we split up?” asked Arrie.            “It would look better than a large group walking to the mansion,” agreed Osborn.            “I don’t know about that,” said Lanara.  “Sounds too risky.”            “I agree,” said Kyle.  “If there is trouble, we’ll need everyone’s help to get out of here.  I say we just spread out as we walk into the city, so that we’re within view of each other without looking like we’re together.”            “That sounds good to me,” said Arrie.  “Shall we go?”            “Let’s not just head straight there,” said Osborn.  “Let’s wander through the town first, get some information.  Find out who’s in charge, what they’re doing down here.”            “I agree,” said Xu.  “We need to know our enemies.”            “We could grab a couple of people off the street, pump them for information,” suggested Arrie.            “Or we could watch the mansion for a while, see who comes and goes,” offered Autumn.            “Or you could get jumped by the guards,” said a voice behind them.            The group turned just as five figures jumped out of hidden crevices in the walls.  A pair of gnomes scrambled forward and jabbed sharp daggers into Xu’s liver, while an elf-touched with a longsword slashed at Arrie.  Kyle quickly spun around and shouted arcane words, pointing at a cluster of four of the guards.  There was a sudden pressure in the air as a blast of sonic energy ripped through the rogue guards, which broke up the stone floor beneath their feet into a gritty, gravelly pile.  One of the victims, an orcish woman with a spear, wiped blood from her nose and began to sing, the harsh rhythms of her chanting weaving through the battle.  Lanara began her own song in challenge to the orcish bard.            A human with a two-bladed sword looked at Osborn, who was leaping in to engage the gnomes, and spewed out a horrific string of curses that were laced with power.  Osborn nearly diverted his attention to the human, but he managed to shake off the supernatural effect and press his attack on the gnomes.            Kavan stepped up and healed Xu as Tolly threw his hammer at the elf-touched guard that had wounded Arrie, angling his throw so that the magical hammer struck him from behind and pushed him into close proximity of Arrie, Autumn, and Xu, where he was quickly eviscerated.            “Never touch my sister,” said Autumn, pulling her sword free.            Xu turned her attention to helping Osborn fight the gnomes, while Arrie waded through the pulverized cavern floor to deal with the orcish bard.  Autumn concentrated for a few moments, and suddenly a large wolverine with silvery-gold fur appeared out of thin air next to her, which accompanied Arrie to attack the bard.  Kyle gripped his staff in both hands and ran in to help Osborn and Xu, clubbing at the two gnomes.  Tolly and Kavan focused on the rogue with the two-bladed sword; he tried to flee, but was cut down by one of Kavan’s arrows.            The group dragged the bodies out of sight, stripping the corpses even as hey searched the area.  They found several of the hidden niches in the walls, where a sentry could easily hide and observe the tunnel.  The rogues had likely been listening to their plans for some time.            “I think that we’ve lost the element of surprise,” said Kavan.  "There are more niches here than there were guards, so someone could have slipped away to raise an alarm."            “Agreed,” said Osborne.  “So as much as I hate to say it, I think we only have one option left; head straight for the mansion and kick down the door.”*          *            *            The group marched up the pathway leading up the side of the plateau.  They had encountered no resistance on the way up; most of the residents of the underground city seemed to be common cutpurses and beggars, and fled rather than confront a heavily armed band of adventurers.  They walked into an empty courtyard, and proceeded straight through the open main doors of the mansion and down a long hallway of plain stone.  At the end of the hallway stood a pair of double doors, also open.            “Think we’re expected?” said Lanara, not expecting an answer.            They walked through the double doors into a large reception room, a high ceiling supported by four large pillars.  At the far end of the room, a dais rose twenty feet into the air.  Standing in front of the dais was a tiefling, his hands resting on the hilt of a rapier.  Atop the dais, the party saw a creature unlike any they had ever seen before.  It was humanoid, and at first they thought it was an elf or an elf-touched.  But his skin was a dark, chestnut brown, and his features were thin and elongated.  The figure had no hair except for a black topknot.  The being wore plain robes, and sat in a meditative posture.  The group looked at each other; none of them had ever seen or heard of a being such as this.  A tiny sliver of a long-forgotten memory twitched in the back of Lanara’s mind, but it refused to come out and show itself to her.  But even the vaguest speculations the cansin had about what this being might be caused the hairs to stand up on the back of her neck.            The figure opened his eyes as the party walked in.  Even from across the room, they could see his eyes glowing green with inner power.  The figure’s irises were oddly shaped, and combined with his flattened nose gave him an almost reptilian appearance.  The figure regarded the party without passion or concern.            Kyle swallowed nervously.  He’d been worried about this journey ever since they first went under the streets of Noxolt.  He’d prepared most of his spells to handle the planned ambush of the rogues who were meeting Princess Aralda, and much of his power had been spent hours ago setting up the plan.  What little offensive power he had left had been spent in their trip down into the undercity; the shatterfloor spell he’d used on the sentries was the last of it.  Looking up at the strange figure on the dais, it was easy to assume he was a spellcaster of some sort – and unlike Kyle was probably fully prepared.  Kyle knew he could contribute little if this came to a fight.As he contemplated simply stepping into a corner if things got ugly just so he wouldn't be in the way, he felt an itching in the hand he held his staff with.  As the itching became a throbbing, he glanced down, and was surprised to see the silvery-gray wood was beginning to glow softly.  Kyle wasn’t sure what to make of this.  He’d taken the staff as his reward from Prince Herion for killing Sauroth – even though the keepers of the Imperial Vaults had said that it held only a very minor enchantment and was notable only for the rarity of the wood it was made from, Kyle had felt drawn to it.  Now, as he watched the glow intensify, he began to feel something else… power.  Raw, unfettered power, more than he’d ever felt in his life.  He knew it was coming from the staff, and he felt it trying to work its way into him.  Somehow, the feeling was reassuring to him, as if he somehow knew it was safe.  Kyle let his mental barriers drop, and immediately the power surged through him, into the parts of his mind where he stored and shaped the magic under his control.  He felt the power run through his mind, restoring structure and substance to spell constructs he’d depleted long ago.  Not everything was replenished, but much of it was.  Kyle nearly stumbled off his feet from the sudden rush as the staff completed its work.The rest of the party didn’t notice Kyle’s strange reaction, as their attention was focused on the strange being before them.  If the creature had noticed anything odd, he showed no signs.  After looking the party over for a few moments, the being spoke.“My master said that I was to destroy you,” came the quiet, lilting voice.  “Yet I feel this would be a foolish move.  You clearly have no small amount of talent, unlike those you dispatch to reach me.  And so, I offer this instead; work with us, instead of against us.  Help us to bring freedom to this world.”“Speak your name, sir,” said Kavan.“I am called Xerxes.”Lanara decided to play along.  “What’s in it for us?”Xerxes had an expression on his face that might have been a smile. “I have access to knowledge ancient beyond the reckoning of even the gods.  Knowledge from before the Cataclysm.”“Excuse me,” asked Arrie.  “But would part of this ‘bringing freedom’ involve killing a lot of people?”Xerxes’ body moved under his robes in something that was almost a shrug. “There are those who desire the genocide of certain peoples, just as there are those who would find it… impractical.  Perhaps if you feel strongly one way, our goals would involve death.”Tolly sighed as he stepped forward.  “By Ardara, what was known before the Cataclysm should not be allowed!  The gods have forbidden it!  You will surrender now.”Xerxes shook his head, looking directly at Tolly.  “You are a god-slave.  You will need to be purged.”  He held up a hand, and ignoring the cries of Tolly’s companions, sent a beam of white-hot fire straight into the priest’s chest.  Tolly staggered back from the impact, his breastplate charred and smoking.The party jumped into action.  Kyle ran around behind the party, chanting arcane syllables as he moved.  He came up to Autumn, and laid his hand on her shoulder, casting a fly spell on her.  “Go get him,” he said.  The sentinel rose into the air and began heading for the dais, even as her celestial wolverine minion scrambled after the tiefling.Tolly recovered from Xerxes’ attack and ran forward, throwing his hammer in an attempt to knock Xerxes from his perch.  But the hammer rebounded off some sort of invisible barrier, and Xerxes remained in place.As the rest of the group began to move forward, a pair of figures jumped out of the shadows behind pillars and attacked.  A hin wearing a chain shirt embossed with several spider symbols slashed at Lanara with a dagger, cutting deep into her thigh.  Xu jumped to defend the bard even as she jabbed back at the hin with her own dagger.  On the other side of the room, a human jumped out and menaced Kavan with a dagger dripping with a greenish fluid.Xerxes glanced at Arrie, and suddenly the air was filled with a strange noise that reached a crescendo as a ring of green energy burst out from him.  Arrie staggered for a moment, and out of the corner of his eye Tolly saw her face go slack and her limbs jerk oddly.  He had little time to wonder at this, though, as the tiefling had run up to engage Tolly.Autumn flew up to Xerxes, and slashed at him with her longsword.  In response, he finally stood up, and his hand snapped out, and a blade of greenish energy sprang into existence in his palm, narrowly missing Autumn as it flashed by.  He almost seemed as if he was barely paying attention to the sentinel.  Autumn’s gaze fell onto Xerxes’ belt, and she spotted a familiar gold-hilted dagger tucked there.  Her vision went red as she recognized the ceremonial oathbond dagger of Bail that Kavan’s bastard son Marrek had stolen from her in Laeshir.Below them, at the base of the dais, Arrie suddenly turned and wrapped her spiked chain around Tolly’s ankles, pulling him from his feet.  Then she turned and lashed out at Autumn’s summoned wolverine, scoring its hide with deep red gashes.  Scrambling to his feet, Tolly saw what was happening, and stepped back away from the tiefling long enough to cast as spell.  Arrie suddenly stopped moving.Kyle, who had just finished putting a mage armor spell on Xu, ran up next to Tolly.  “Rod!” he shouted, as he approached.  Tolly handed Kyle a golden rod from his belt as Kyle went past.  “What’s with Arrie?” he said quickly as he took the rod.  Kyle had seen Tolly cast the hold person spell.“She’s not in her own mind,” he replied just as quickly, returning his attention back to the tiefling.  Before he did, though, Tolly noticed that Kyle’s new staff was glowing almost white, pulsing with energy.  Odd, he thought, but had no time to contemplate it further.Kavan struggled with the human with the envenomed dagger.  He used divine power to wound the assassin, but he kept coming, and managed to slide the blade in between two of Kavan’s ribs.  The Eritan priest felt the sting of the poison, but stayed on his feet, trading blows.  Finally the assassin leapt away from Kavan and drank a potion, before coming back into the fray and trying to pull the elf to the floor.  Osborn, who had been throwing daggers into the assassin, held back as the two became a tangle of limbs.  On the other side of the room, the hin was holding off Xu and Lanara, though the monk was landing a few good blows.Kyle ran up to the base of the dais.  He dug into a pocket, and pulled out a tiny wooden crate.  He’d shrunk the crate down hours ago, intending to use it to block off the alley where Aralda was supposed to have met her guild contacts, but they’d never had to use it.  Now, he set it down next to the dais, and spoke the words to end the shrinking spell.  The crate immediately grew to a ten-foot wooden box.  Though climbing it would still be difficult, it would be a lot easier than scaling the smooth stone of the twenty foot high dais.  He then moved around the back of the dais and cast a rope trick, setting the opening well above the top of the dais so that he could climb the rope and help Autumn.Initially, though, it seemed as though the sentinel needed little help.  Her sword blazing with holy power, Autumn cut through Xerxes’ protective powers and into his flesh.  Xerxes looked annoyed and sent a blast of power at her.  She managed to ward off the mental barrage, and prepared to renew her attack, but it had given Xerxes the opening he’d wanted.  Reaching out, he touched Autumn on the arm, and the wounds that Xerxes had suffered seemed to flow off his body and onto hers.  Autumn screamed in pain and wobbled in her flight.  Xerxes then walked across the dais, and straight down the side of it, coming down to ground level.Below them, the tiefling dispatched the wolverine, sending it back to its home in the celestial forests of Orcor*.  Tolly, hearing Autumn’s scream, tried to press forward to come to her aid, but was blocked by the rapier-wielding fiendling.  Arrie, who had been released from Xerxes’ control but was still held by Tolly’s spell, could only listen helplessly, unable even to turn her head to see where her sister was.  Lanara, who had managed to get away from the dagger-wielding hin, used her wand to summon a giant spider, but lacked the range to get to Xerxes and had to settle for helping Tolly against the tiefling.  Kyle, cursing that all his efforts to get up to the dais had been wasted, ran around the edge of it and hurled a trio of magic missiles at Xerxes, using the magical rod he’d borrowed from Tolly to add extra power to them.Xerxes was obviously hurt by the spell, but did not pause in his stride.  He walked up to the immobilized Arrie, and held his glowing energy blade to her throat.  “You’d best let me leave,” he hissed, leaving the consequences of failure unspoken.The situation looked hopeless for Arrie.  Most of the party was heavily wounded; Kavan’s head swam from the poison in his veins, and Tolly was barely standing trying to defend himself from the tiefling.  Lanara and Xu were pursuing the hin, who was trying to escape and likely bring in reinforcements. Kyle hesitated, a spell on the tip of his tongue, but he knew he couldn’t cast fast enough to prevent Xerxes from cutting Arrie’s throat.  A smile began to curl the corners of Xerxes’ mouth.That was when Autumn hit him, her sword blazing with power.  She tried to bring her blade down on his weapon arm in hopes of severing it before he struck, but Xerxes’ reflexes seemed unnaturally quick, and he shoved the energy blade into Arrie’s neck.  But at that very moment Tolly released his spell on Arrie, assuming that Xerxes would not try to kill Arrie if she was still under his control. She jerked back trying to prevent her head from being severed, but Xerxes’ blade still left a deep gash in the side of her neck, and she tumbled to the floor, blood flowing freely onto the stone floor.Autumn pressed her attack while Kyle rushed up and pulled Arrie’s limp form away.  He ripped a strip of cloth off the hem of his robe to try and staunch the blood.  But as he pressed the wad of fabric to Arrie’s neck, her eyes opened and she winked at him.  Kyle paused, then nodded slightly, continuing to bend over the warrior and hold the bandage to her neck in order to keep up the ruse.Xu managed to fell the hin, easily catching up to him with her superior speed and breaking his neck.  Turning, she saw Kavan pinned to the floor by the human, and the elf’s struggles were weakening.  Osborn was darting in and out of the combat, jabbing his dagger into the human when he could get an opening.  Xu ran in to help pull the man off Kavan.  But before she could reach him, the assassin drove his dagger under Kavan’s sternum, and the elf went limp under him.  The assassin stood and tried to flee, but was surrounded by Osborn and Xu, who pummeled him into a bloody mess.  Xu then knelt down and poured one of her healing potions down Kavan’s throat, sighing in relief as the priest started breathing again.Xerxes parried Autumn’s attacks, and then spun out of the way in a blur of motion. Once out of the sentinel’s range, Xerxes turned and ran out of the room, moving with freakishly unnatural speed.  In the space of a few moments, he was past the door and several dozen yards down the hall.  Autumn watched his retreat, rage flashing in her eyes, then she flew over to the tiefling.  “Tolly!  Heal Arrie!” she shouted, as she engaged the tiefling.  At that moment, Lanara ran up and cast a spell at the tiefling, who suddenly collapsed in gales of magically induced laughter.  Tolly stepped back, and moved to heal Arrie’s apparently mortal wound, when the exotic fighter suddenly stood up and dropped an orcish shotput on the tiefling.  Seeing that Arrie was fine, Tolly moved to pursue Xerxes, but saw that he was well out of their reach.  Kyle launched another volley of magic missiles at the strange man, striking him but not felling him.The only enemy remaining in the room was the tiefling.  “Get a prisoner!” Osborn shouted, still tending to Kavan.  Autumn, however, was still in a blood rage, and brought her sword down on the tiefling as hard as she could.  Dark blood sprayed across her armor.  Before she could strike again, Lanara’s whip wrapped around Autumn’s legs, pulling her down toward the floor to allow Arrie to grab hold of her and pull her sister back.  Tolly ran in and interposed himself between Autumn and the tiefling.  “This won’t help Aralda!” he shouted at her.The reminder of their purpose in coming down into the undercity seemed to get through, and Autumn relaxed, letting the sword drop from her hands.  Tolly turned and applied healing magic to the tiefling to keep him alive, while the rest of the party tended to their own wounds.  Arrie pulled Autumn aside, and spoke to her quietly, trying to calm her down.  A minute or so later, Tolly walked over to talk to her as well.“Grabâkh’s burning balls!” Kavan swore, “what in the world was that thing?”“I don’t know,” said Kyle.  “I’ve never even heard of magic like that.”  He seemed to be watching the conversation between Arrie, Autumn, and Tolly, although he couldn’t hear anything.“I’m not sure it was magic,” Lanara said quietly.  She was staring down the hallway where Xerxes had fled, as if expecting him to return any moment.“What else could it be?” said Kavan.“I can’t say for sure,” the bard answered.  “I’ve had this tickle in the back of my head since we first saw Xerxes.  Something I maybe heard once a long time ago, or read somewhere, or saw in a dream.  It’s not coming back to me.  But when he talked about ‘knowledge from before the Cataclysm’, it struck a chord with me.  I think that whatever kind of creature Xerxes is, his kind hasn’t been seen on Aelfenn since that time.”Osborn walked up, having finished checking the room.  “Nothing much here, and from what I could tell, Xerxes’ boss isn’t going to be around here.”“I wonder who his master is,” asked Kavan, to no one in particular.  “Who could command a creature with such powers?”Before anyone had a chance to respond, Kyle collapsed onto the floor.---------------------------------------------* Orcor is the name of the moon which is the home plane of Autumn's patron deity, Bail (demigod of trade, privilege, and the honest accumulation of wealth)</blockquote>

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