ADVENTURE 10: THREAT ON MOUNT MABUVIUS
PC Roster:
NPC Roster:
Game Session Date: 29 April 2017
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The heroes were back on their troll airship, heading toward Mount Mabuvius, which Xacho had saved from erupting centuries ago. On the plus side, this was somewhere Baabby and Sam were familiar with - it was the location of the Rift-Weaver's Trial, the puzzle-dungeon where they had earned the Magic Rune for Baabby's greatsword. On the negative side, though, the trip would take a full four days.
Still, that gave Sam plenty of time to devote to training his new animal companion. "Look at this!" he said excitedly to Baabby on the fourth day, and the baabarian stared expectantly at Shelldon the snail, perched - as usual - on the little crow's shoulder.
When Sam was sure he had Baabby's full attention, he commanded "Stay!" to Shelldon - and sure enough, the snail didn't move an inch. "Pretty good, huh?" Sam enthused.
"Aare you serious?" asked Baabby. "How long haave you been training him to do thaat?"
"Only three and a half days!" replied Sam. "But watch this, he knows ever more!" Looking down at the snail, he called out, "Shelldon: play dead!"
For a moment, the snail did nothing. Then, slowly (how else?), he pulled his head into his shell.
"Eh? Eh?" prompted Sam.
"I'm...speechless," said Baabby, not wanting to disappoint his diminutive friend.
"Guys," interrupted Sapphrina. "We're approaching Mount Mabuvius."
"Good," said Baabby, eager to be able to turn his attention from a motionless snail.
"Actually, not quite as good as I had hoped," admitted Sapphrina.
"Oh? Why?" asked Baabby.
"Because it's not supposed to be smoking!" As the airship approached closer to the floating island containing the once-dormant volcano, the heroes could see wisps of smoke curling up from the mount's top. Worse yet, as the ship got even closer they could see some of the smoke was coming from the Mabu village at the base of the volcano.
As the animated statue of Xacho's son brought the airship to a non-crash-landing for once at the base of the volcano, Baabby and Sam leaped over the rails and started sprinting toward the village, Sapphrina following close behind through the air, her translucent fairy-wings flapping earnestly. The village seemed deserted at first, but as they'd find out soon enough the Mabu were all hiding in the buildings made of stone. The reason for this was obvious: most of the wooden buildings were already at least partially on fire. And the reason they were on fire was also obvious: running around the village were six flame imps - small, animated balls of fire who liked nothing better than setting things ablaze.
"Hey! Stop that!" commanded Sam as he shot an explosive arrow at a flame imp setting a wooden hut on fire. His arrow struck true and the flame imp exploded in a little ball of fire which only aided in the hut's eventual destruction as even more of it went up in flames. Baabby raced past his friend, his Rift-Weaver's Blade out and ready for action. Noting he was in the middle of a patch of barren earth with nothing combustible around him, he decided to let the flame imps come to him. "Come and get me!" he called. "Nice, juicy mutton ready for searing!"
"Much, much tastier than poultry!" added Sam. In the meantime, Sapphrina took in the contents of the little village and spotted a stone well off to one side with a few buckets stashed nearby and made a bee-line for it. She wasn't particularly geared for combat but she could certainly help try to put the fires out. While she was loading her first bucket, a flame imp approached a wooden platform - it looked like a place for the Mabu leaders to make announcements to the rest of the village - and started a corner of it ablaze with its flaming body.
As three flame imps surrounded Baabby, another approached Sam, apparently ignoring his warnings about how poorly he would taste when compared to his hulking partner. They all snapped at the heroes with their flame-teeth, their teardrop-shaped bodies containing little more than a head and a pair of tiny feet to get them where they needed to go. Neither attack did much damage to the heroes, but enough to cause them to be concerned that a continued series of such bites could start to add up fairly quickly.
Taking a step back, Sam shot at the flame imp that had been gnawing at him. He hit it and it exploded, but the little crow had miscalculated when estimating how wide the radius of the previous flame imp's dying explosion had been. On the one hand, he easily slew his opponent; but on the other, he found himself still standing within the blast radius and managed to inflict more damage on himself by being engulfed in flames than the flame imp had managed to do with its snapping teeth. "Hey!" cried Sam, his black feathers starting to singe. "No fair!"
Seeing the two heroes having a bit more trouble with these flame imps than she'd have guessed, Sapphrina used her only attack spell - a ray of frost - to deal a piddling amount of cold-based damage to the flame imp setting the wooden stage on fire. Surprisingly, the meager damage was enough to kill the beast, but even more impressively, it didn't explode when it died! "Guys!" she called out. "Cold damage stops them from exploding!"
A wide grin broke out across Baabby's face, for he already had the Water Rune active on his Rift-Weaver's Blade and he knew from past experience that it enhanced the damage he dealt with the weapon with a bit of cold damage - certainly more than that present in a ray of frost spell. With a yell, he cut one of the three flame imps standing before him in half, then allowed his swing to carry over into the body of the second one in line, slaying it as well. Neither flame imp exploded - they just kind of "popped" like a bubble and were gone.
And then another kind of opponent entered the fray. It rose up from the flames on top of a burning hut, looking like an undersized gargoyle made of flames. With an evil grin splitting its face, it sent a scorching ray smack-dab into Sam, singeing his feathers even more. Sam yelped in surprise and pain, then looked down at his shoulder to see if Shelldon had weathered the attack okay. Fortunately, he was still playing dead, all snug inside his shell, so he was fine.
Baabby killed the last of the three flame imps that had been attacking him with relative ease, just as another fire mephit popped up from the flames on another roof. This one mirrored its partner's tactics, starting battle with a scorching ray - but unfortunately, it had targeted Sapphrina as its victim. She screamed in pain as the flames engulfed her, and she staggered where she stood, dropping the bucket of water. If Baabby and Sam hadn't known it before, this was ample evidence that their fairy friend was no combatant!
Sam shot an arrow at the mephit that had scorched him, hitting him squarely in - and then through - the chest. As the crow started grumbling about enemies whose bodies were made of solid flame, the fire mephit leisurely flew over and swiped at the archer with its claws. Sam ducked the blow just in time and scrambled to scoot back out of range for another shot.
Baabby was too far away from the mephit that had shot Sapphrina, so he headed that way at a run while pulling the spare shortbow from his back, nocking an arrow, aiming, and letting it fly. That focused the winged critter's attention away from the fairy and onto the baabarian, just as Baabby had hoped. Sapphrina, in the meantime, shook her head to clear it, grabbed the bucket back up, and flew over to dump its contents on the nearest fire.
Sam's next shot was an explosive arrow that took out his fire mephit opponent and the crow was pleased to see that these creatures didn't explode when you killed them, the way flame imps did. He was getting tired of singed feathers and was glad that his feathers had started out black anyway so you couldn't see how badly they'd been burned. The other mephit made the mistake of closing in to claw at Baabby, and found out that getting within reach of the Rift-Weaver's Blade was never a good idea. On the plus side, that was a mistake he'd never make again...but that was only because one swing of the greatsword was all it took to snuff out the mephit's life.
Their opponents all slain, Baabby, Sam, and Sapphrina devoted their attentions to putting out the remaining flames, a task in which they were aided by the Mabu villagers, exiting the stone buildings now that it was safe to do so. They thanked the heroes profusely; Baabby shrugged of the praise and devoted himself to casting healing spells on himself and his friends.
"You arrival was timely indeed!" said the Mabu leader. "Today is the Wizard's Day celebration, when we commemorate the day Xacho saved our village from the eruption of Mount Mabuvius, many hundreds of years ago! Now, as you can see, it looks like the protections he put in place are wearing off - or, worse yet, somebody's doing something to undo them!" The head Mabu offered to pay the heroes handsomely if they could prevent the volcano from erupting. Sam was about to inquire as to exactly how much but Baabby cut him off with an immediate agreement to do all they could. Then, before Sam could wring any more hints about the exact nature of their financial compensation, he was forced to race after Baabby to prevent being left behind.
Mount Mabuvius was a fairly tall volcano but the climb wasn't all that difficult; fortunately, there was a winding ledge that spiraled around it that looked to lead all the way to the top. Struggling to keep up with Baabby - the crow's legs were much shorter than his hulking baabarian friend's - Sam managed to find the breath to cast a resist fire spell on himself, figuring this would be a very good time for some fire protection. After all, you just had to figure they'd be fighting enemies with fire-based attacks on a volcano of all places!
The first defender the heroes met up with on the winding path was a rock walker - a hunk of animated stone that looked rather like a stone golem with no arms and just a head atop a pair of strong legs. Sam was bummed at first, thinking he'd wasted his spell - but that was before the rock walker stepped forward and belched lava in Baabby's direction.
There was no way for Baabby to avoid the incoming lava barf: not only was it a wide-spraying attack, but Baabby was just in the middle of receiving an enlarge person spell from Sapphrina, making him an even easier target to hit. But at his larger size, Baabby was able to step back from the pile of smoldering lava-barf the rock walker had just spewed out and still slam his blade into the beast's rocky side. Sam shot an explosive arrow at the rock walker for good measure, but it seemed as if this thing could take quite a bit of damage before being taken down. Sapphrina cast a bull's strength spell on Baabby, then flew off the side of the path and out of harm's way.
Baabby struck at the rock walker again with his Rift-Weaver's Blade, this time causing chunks of stone to crumble off of the beast's hide. Sam shot another arrow at it and stepped forward, carefully avoiding the lava-barf puddle. The rock walker, still very much in the fight despite having a big chunk missing from his side, stepped forward and gave Baabby a mighty kick. But Baabby's retaliation was swift and deadly, and the rock walker collapsed into a pile of gravel at the sheep-man's last swing. The heroes moved on, turning a corner along the volcano's winding ledge.
The next two enemies the heroes met up with were a pair of fire mephits, but these were out in the open and unable to hide in pre-existing flames. They tried hiding anyway, hugging each other and hoping to be mistaken for a small campfire, but they weren't fooling anyone. Sam hit them both with an explosive arrow from his Dynabow 3.0. That got his spirits up, especially now that he'd been healed of his former damage and his feathers were back to being black and glossy, instead of black and singed. Sapphrina flew up behind the crow and cast a cat's grace on him, making him even more dexterous than normal, and the Son of Archery felt ready to take on anything the Skylands could toss their way. In the meantime, Baabby finished both fire mephits off with one cleaving swing of his greatsword, leaving the winged fire-gargoyles less than impressed with their impromptu strategy.
Around the next corner, though, was another rock walker. Sam only had a regular arrow in his Dynabow 3.0, so he sent it flying, knowing ahead of time it would do an inconsequential amount of damage. It was enough to alert the rock walker of the heroes' approach, though, and it spun to face this new threat. Extra-large Baabby hit it with his greatsword, just as Sam followed up with an explosive arrow that managed to get the rock walker on the side and not include the baabarian in its blast radius. But to do so, the crow had had to advance up closer, and this gave the rock walker an alternate target instead of the hulking sheep-man. One lava-barf later, and Sam was glad for his resist fire spell - but he was desperately wishing there was such a thing as a resist barf spell. Maybe he'd ask Sapphrina after they were done fighting.
Baabby, as expected, gave the final blow that slew the rock walker; neither Sam nor Sapphrina had guessed it would be otherwise. "Let's go!" said Baabby, racing further up the trail to see what their next challenge would be.
"Not so fast!" griped Sam. "I've still got barf on me!"
But Baabby wouldn't be slowed down from his next combat. This time it was a pair of elementals, one of fire and one of earth, each about Baabby's normal size when he wasn't under the effects of an enlarge person spell. The fire elemental was the first to react, stepping forward to slam Baabby with her fists - but she didn't even get within striking distance before she was cut in half by a single swing of Baabby's greatsword, snuffing out her flames and her life in one blow. Seeing this, the earth elemental fused into the side of the volcano, its rocky body gliding effortlessly into the solid stone.
"I don't like this!" cried Sam. "It can pop out at us at any time! Quick: LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!" And this time, instead of the cowardly suggestion it usually was, it was a solid bit of tactical advice. All three heroes raced as fast as they could up the curving slope, hoping to put so much distance between them and where the earth elemental slid into the stone that when it popped out to attack them, they'd be long gone.
It was a pretty good plan, too - it would have been an even better one if Sam had recalled that earth elementals could rely upon their innate tremorsense to know exactly where their nearby foes were running, even if they couldn't be seen. A massive arm ending in a rock-solid fist whizzed by Sam's head as he raced up the slope, missing by only the narrowest of margins.
And then Sam's plan got retroactively even worse, for blocking their path just ahead was yet another rock walker. Now the heroes were pinned between an earth elemental behind them and a rock walker blocking their way forward!
Sapphrina reacted by making a swipe at Baabby - but only to pull off the spare shortbow and the quiver of arrows from his broad back. Once they left his possession they reverted back to their normal size and that made them perfect for the fairy. She flew perpendicular away from the volcano, flying above empty space so the earthbound enemies couldn't hit her, and let fly with an arrow.
Sam, in the back, knew he had no chance of taking down either the earth elemental or the rock walker on his own any time soon. He also knew the rock walker could survive several attacks by the Rift-Weaver's Blade, judging by the duration of the fights with the two previous rock walkers. But he guessed that Baabby could probably take out the earth elemental fairly quickly, based on how the fire elemental went down after one blow.
"Baabby!" called out the little crow. "You take care of the elemental - we'll hold off Mr. Barfy!" And he shot past Baabby's arm, hitting the rock walker. Sapphrina followed suit, and although both arrows hit, it was obvious that neither caused the rock walker much more than a mild irritation. But it gave Baabby enough time to swing his Rift-Weaver's Blade down at the earth elemental, chopping it in half like a cord of wood up against an axe. The earth elemental shattered into a pile of rocks as its two halves hit the ground, a look of total surprise still present on its stony face.
The rock walker belched forth a blob of lava onto Baabby's broad back, but then realized it had just cut itself off from its foes once the lava puddle sizzled on the ground between them. So it turned tail and ran further up the trail, the heroes in hot pursuit behind it.
"My ploy worked!" muttered the rock walker with a smile, suddenly spinning around to face the heroes now that they had sportingly followed within reach. It kicked out a leg at Baabby, stubbing its rocky toes on the baabarian's knee. But then Baabby cut it down with his greatsword. As it fell to the ground to shatter into a pile of small stones its last thought was, I take it back - my ploy failed!
There was one more corner up ahead before the path led them to the top of the volcano's caldera. Guarding it was yet another rock walker. Sam softened it up with an explosive arrow, causing it to advance on the heroes, smoke drifting off its charred body. Sapphrina passed by a cave carved into the side of the volcano and was momentarily distracted by the glint of gold. Sure enough, there were sacks of gold coins spilling out onto the floor in the shallow cave - little more than an overhang, really. She flew sideways into the cave, readying an arrow in case she was attacked but more concerned about rescuing the gold once the two heroes had taken care of the rock walker.
Baabby stepped forward, using his extra-large body to block the rock walker from getting access to his friends, for the path was narrower in this section of ledge. Sam scooted over by Sapphrina to give himself room to shoot an arrow at the rock walker without hitting his baabarian friend. Sapphrina loosed her arrow at the rock walker at the same time; once again, both arrows struck true but once again, they seemed to do little damage to a creature made of solid stone.
Baabby channeled all of his strength into a massive swipe with his greatsword - and missed. That gave the rock walker the opportunity to lava barf all over the baabarian. This did absolutely nothing to improve Baabby's mood - quite the opposite, in fact: Baabby let the rage build in his body until he exploded outward with his greatsword in a blur of motion. It took several such swings, but within half a minute the rock walker was dead. That was enough time for the crow and the fairy to finish stuffing the sacks of gold coins into Sam's extradimensional backpack; they had tired of combat against a foe they had a hard time reaching with Baabby in their way, and besides - gold coins! Who could concentrate on battle when there were gold coins to be swept up?
"Ready?" asked Baabby, looking down at his friends and then up at the caldera. Then, without waiting for an answer, he called, "Let's go!" Sam and Sapphrina, once again, took pains to try to keep up with their battle-eager friend.
The volcano's interior presented quite a sight: down at the far end stood a magical gateway, flanked on either side by a robed body floating above the ground - a fire spell punk and an earth spell punk. Before them stood a fire elemental, this one even taller than Baabby in his enlarged state. Most of the ground was still solid rock, but there were "puddles" where magma seeped up out of the earth.
Baabby, still caught up in his battle-lust, raced down into the caldera's interior, charging towards the fire elemental. Sam jumped down into the volcano's interior as well, trying to remember the respective powers of earth and fire spell punks. He was pretty sure the fire spell punks could shoot off little fireballs, but he now recalled that the earth spell punks could cast a protective covering around their allies that made it harder for them to be seriously hurt. And since a spell punk's spells snuffed out when he was slain, Sam targeted the earth spell punk first, with an explosive arrow.
Sapphrina, finding herself once again in the midst of a pitched battle, opted to buff up her friends in lieu of actual combat herself. Flying up behind Baabby and then Sam in turn, she cast a bear's endurance spell on each of them.
The earth spell punk did its best to ignore the pain from Sam's arrow and continued fiddling with the gateway - if he could open the gateway fully, he could cause the volcano to erupt instantly! In the meantime, his fire spell punk partner shot a blast of fiery energy at Sam but the little crow instinctively dodged at the last moment. At the same time, the large fire elemental slammed Baabby with a flaming arm, sending a wave of pain - and singed wool - down the baabarian's side.
"Help me take out the earth spell punk!" called Sam to Sapphrina, and the two each shot a normal arrow at the floating mage. As they struck true, Baabby sent his blade swinging into the fire elemental's flaming body, but she was encased in a sort of hardened stone, so his sword didn't cut anywhere near as deeply as it should have. The earth spell punk fiddled desperately with the controls of the magic gateway, determined to overcome Xacho's protections before these blasted heroes cut him down.
But it wasn't to be; Sam's next arrow was an explosive one and it cut down the earth spell punk before he could open the gateway. As the mage's body fell to the ground, the damage reduction on the fire elemental winked out of existence.
The grin on Baabby's raging face was terrible to behold, once he realized what his friends had just done. With a powerful swing, he cut the fire elemental in half, just as he'd done to the smaller one further down the volcano's winding path.
Sapphrina, seeing only one enemy still before them, shot an arrow at the fire spell punk, just as he fired a blast at Baabby. Baabby grinned through the pain of the fiery explosion, then stepped forward and cut down the fire spell punk with one blow of his greatsword.
"Yeah!" enthused Sam. "Way to go, Baabby!" They waited until the baabarian's battle-rage had subsided, then convinced him to cast some more of those lovely, lovely healing spells of his.
"Now whaat?" asked Baabby, looking around for a way to stop the volcano from erupting.
"I think we need to go through the gateway," suggested Sapphrina.
"Won't that cause the volcano to erupt?" asked Baabby.
"It shouldn't - not at once, in any case. But I'm willing to bet the key to preventing Mount Mabuvius from erupting is inside there - as is the Fire Rune for your sword."
"So how do we get in?" asked Baabby.
"How soon you forget," chided Sapphrina. "Remember the Magic Rune's power?"
"Oh yeah," said Baabby sheepishly. Then he made a cutting motion with his greatsword through the middle of the gateway and the Rift-Weaver's Blade wove a rift through space and time and opened up the extradimensional space on the other side of the gateway.
Remembering the last time they'd done something similar they'd ended up fighting a goliath drow, Sam and Baabby went in with weapons at the ready. And sure enough, standing in the extradimensional space was another large fire elemental. Not "another" one, actually - the same one they'd just slain in the caldera!
"Hold!" commanded the fire elemental in a regal voice, raising a flaming hand. "There is no need for further combat; I was under the domination of the spell punks and unable to control my own actions; now that they are slain, I once again enjoy my own free will."
"Yeah," argued Sam Crow, "but speaking of being slain...weren't you, too?"
"I cannot be truly slain," explained the fire elemental. "I am the eternal spirit of the volcano. My name is Incinceria."
"Okay, that certainly sounds like a trustworthy name," said Sam, giving Sapphrina a look that said, "No way should we trust her!"
"I know why you have come," replied Incinceria, "and your actions are noble. I will help you gain the Fire Rune for your sword, but I give you this warning: the last wielder, Xacho, found that the Rift-Weaver's Blade at full power was still insufficient to slay the terrible monster it had been built to destroy. You will need even greater power than that of the Rift-Weaver's Blade, even with all eight runes intact." But she reached forward and touched the blade of Baabby's greatsword, causing the flames of her arm to dissolve as they were absorbed into the blade. Looking at his weapon, Baabby could see the Fire Rune was now filled in with what looked like crackling flames.
"So how do we prevent the volcano from erupting?" asked Sapphrina.
"You have my word," answered Incinceria. "Besides: who wants to go back out there? It's cold out there!"
Baabby looked at Sam. Sam looked back at Baabby. "I guess that makes sense," they agreed.
"Hey, and that means we can return to the Mabu village and claim the reward!" exclaimed Sam, rubbing his hands together in glee. "Did you hear that, Shelldon? We're going to be even richer!"
Shelldon didn't respond; he was still curled up in his shell, hidden from view.
"Don't mind him," scoffed Sam. "He's still playing dead. He's a method actor - very much into character."
"So whaat's next?" asked Baabby.
"Now we return to the Rift-Weaver's Trial, remember?" replied Sapphrina.
"How far away is that?" asked Sam. "Will I have time to teach Shelldon any tricks?"
"I doubt it," answered Sapphrina. "It's just on the other side of the volcano, on a ledge about halfway up the back."
"Oh, yeah," replied Sam. "I remember that ledge. And all those lousy puzzles in that dungeon."
"I'm sure there will be more puzzles once we go back," replied Baabby.
"Oh, yippee," grumbled Sam.
"You don't like puzzles?" asked Sapphrina.
"They give him a headache," replied Baabby. Then, in a rare show of wordplay, he added, "It's because Sam here is a bird-brain."
"Hey!" squawked Sam at the unexpected teasing as he followed Baabby and Sapphrina back to the caldera and then down the winding trail. "It's not my fault if I'm not so great at puzzles!"
Then, after what he considered a sufficiently lengthy pause, he added "...I'm part dodo, on my mother's side."
- - -
Harry pointed out at the beginning of this adventure that we were fighting bad guys and having to worry about putting out fires at the same time. He's pretty quick to catch on when things are different than in previous adventures.
Logan used a village map from one of the Paizo "Flip-Mat" series for the Mabu village, and then for the volcano he did something I thought was rather clever: he used a Wasteland Flip-Map that had streams of magma as the base of the volcano, and then overlapped that with a series of cards from the Paizo GameMastery "Perilous Paths" set. Our "winding pathway" ended up with some right-turn angles as a result, but I thought that was a very cool way to design a volcano map.
And for the Medium and Large fire elementals, he used two of the Infernia stand-up tokens I had originally made for our Wing Three campaign! In that campaign, Logan had run a human conjurer who had summoned a Small fire elemental as a familiar, and later used polymorph spells to change her size as needed. I was certainly surprised to see Infernia making an appearance in our Skylands campaign, even if it wasn't really her.
PC Roster:
Baabby, humanoid sheep barbarian/cleric (Life) 5
Sam Crow, humanoid crow ranger/rogue 5
Sam Crow, humanoid crow ranger/rogue 5
NPC Roster:
Sapphrina, fairy sorcerer 5
Game Session Date: 29 April 2017
- - -
The heroes were back on their troll airship, heading toward Mount Mabuvius, which Xacho had saved from erupting centuries ago. On the plus side, this was somewhere Baabby and Sam were familiar with - it was the location of the Rift-Weaver's Trial, the puzzle-dungeon where they had earned the Magic Rune for Baabby's greatsword. On the negative side, though, the trip would take a full four days.
Still, that gave Sam plenty of time to devote to training his new animal companion. "Look at this!" he said excitedly to Baabby on the fourth day, and the baabarian stared expectantly at Shelldon the snail, perched - as usual - on the little crow's shoulder.
When Sam was sure he had Baabby's full attention, he commanded "Stay!" to Shelldon - and sure enough, the snail didn't move an inch. "Pretty good, huh?" Sam enthused.
"Aare you serious?" asked Baabby. "How long haave you been training him to do thaat?"
"Only three and a half days!" replied Sam. "But watch this, he knows ever more!" Looking down at the snail, he called out, "Shelldon: play dead!"
For a moment, the snail did nothing. Then, slowly (how else?), he pulled his head into his shell.
"Eh? Eh?" prompted Sam.
"I'm...speechless," said Baabby, not wanting to disappoint his diminutive friend.
"Guys," interrupted Sapphrina. "We're approaching Mount Mabuvius."
"Good," said Baabby, eager to be able to turn his attention from a motionless snail.
"Actually, not quite as good as I had hoped," admitted Sapphrina.
"Oh? Why?" asked Baabby.
"Because it's not supposed to be smoking!" As the airship approached closer to the floating island containing the once-dormant volcano, the heroes could see wisps of smoke curling up from the mount's top. Worse yet, as the ship got even closer they could see some of the smoke was coming from the Mabu village at the base of the volcano.
As the animated statue of Xacho's son brought the airship to a non-crash-landing for once at the base of the volcano, Baabby and Sam leaped over the rails and started sprinting toward the village, Sapphrina following close behind through the air, her translucent fairy-wings flapping earnestly. The village seemed deserted at first, but as they'd find out soon enough the Mabu were all hiding in the buildings made of stone. The reason for this was obvious: most of the wooden buildings were already at least partially on fire. And the reason they were on fire was also obvious: running around the village were six flame imps - small, animated balls of fire who liked nothing better than setting things ablaze.
"Hey! Stop that!" commanded Sam as he shot an explosive arrow at a flame imp setting a wooden hut on fire. His arrow struck true and the flame imp exploded in a little ball of fire which only aided in the hut's eventual destruction as even more of it went up in flames. Baabby raced past his friend, his Rift-Weaver's Blade out and ready for action. Noting he was in the middle of a patch of barren earth with nothing combustible around him, he decided to let the flame imps come to him. "Come and get me!" he called. "Nice, juicy mutton ready for searing!"
"Much, much tastier than poultry!" added Sam. In the meantime, Sapphrina took in the contents of the little village and spotted a stone well off to one side with a few buckets stashed nearby and made a bee-line for it. She wasn't particularly geared for combat but she could certainly help try to put the fires out. While she was loading her first bucket, a flame imp approached a wooden platform - it looked like a place for the Mabu leaders to make announcements to the rest of the village - and started a corner of it ablaze with its flaming body.
As three flame imps surrounded Baabby, another approached Sam, apparently ignoring his warnings about how poorly he would taste when compared to his hulking partner. They all snapped at the heroes with their flame-teeth, their teardrop-shaped bodies containing little more than a head and a pair of tiny feet to get them where they needed to go. Neither attack did much damage to the heroes, but enough to cause them to be concerned that a continued series of such bites could start to add up fairly quickly.
Taking a step back, Sam shot at the flame imp that had been gnawing at him. He hit it and it exploded, but the little crow had miscalculated when estimating how wide the radius of the previous flame imp's dying explosion had been. On the one hand, he easily slew his opponent; but on the other, he found himself still standing within the blast radius and managed to inflict more damage on himself by being engulfed in flames than the flame imp had managed to do with its snapping teeth. "Hey!" cried Sam, his black feathers starting to singe. "No fair!"
Seeing the two heroes having a bit more trouble with these flame imps than she'd have guessed, Sapphrina used her only attack spell - a ray of frost - to deal a piddling amount of cold-based damage to the flame imp setting the wooden stage on fire. Surprisingly, the meager damage was enough to kill the beast, but even more impressively, it didn't explode when it died! "Guys!" she called out. "Cold damage stops them from exploding!"
A wide grin broke out across Baabby's face, for he already had the Water Rune active on his Rift-Weaver's Blade and he knew from past experience that it enhanced the damage he dealt with the weapon with a bit of cold damage - certainly more than that present in a ray of frost spell. With a yell, he cut one of the three flame imps standing before him in half, then allowed his swing to carry over into the body of the second one in line, slaying it as well. Neither flame imp exploded - they just kind of "popped" like a bubble and were gone.
And then another kind of opponent entered the fray. It rose up from the flames on top of a burning hut, looking like an undersized gargoyle made of flames. With an evil grin splitting its face, it sent a scorching ray smack-dab into Sam, singeing his feathers even more. Sam yelped in surprise and pain, then looked down at his shoulder to see if Shelldon had weathered the attack okay. Fortunately, he was still playing dead, all snug inside his shell, so he was fine.
Baabby killed the last of the three flame imps that had been attacking him with relative ease, just as another fire mephit popped up from the flames on another roof. This one mirrored its partner's tactics, starting battle with a scorching ray - but unfortunately, it had targeted Sapphrina as its victim. She screamed in pain as the flames engulfed her, and she staggered where she stood, dropping the bucket of water. If Baabby and Sam hadn't known it before, this was ample evidence that their fairy friend was no combatant!
Sam shot an arrow at the mephit that had scorched him, hitting him squarely in - and then through - the chest. As the crow started grumbling about enemies whose bodies were made of solid flame, the fire mephit leisurely flew over and swiped at the archer with its claws. Sam ducked the blow just in time and scrambled to scoot back out of range for another shot.
Baabby was too far away from the mephit that had shot Sapphrina, so he headed that way at a run while pulling the spare shortbow from his back, nocking an arrow, aiming, and letting it fly. That focused the winged critter's attention away from the fairy and onto the baabarian, just as Baabby had hoped. Sapphrina, in the meantime, shook her head to clear it, grabbed the bucket back up, and flew over to dump its contents on the nearest fire.
Sam's next shot was an explosive arrow that took out his fire mephit opponent and the crow was pleased to see that these creatures didn't explode when you killed them, the way flame imps did. He was getting tired of singed feathers and was glad that his feathers had started out black anyway so you couldn't see how badly they'd been burned. The other mephit made the mistake of closing in to claw at Baabby, and found out that getting within reach of the Rift-Weaver's Blade was never a good idea. On the plus side, that was a mistake he'd never make again...but that was only because one swing of the greatsword was all it took to snuff out the mephit's life.
Their opponents all slain, Baabby, Sam, and Sapphrina devoted their attentions to putting out the remaining flames, a task in which they were aided by the Mabu villagers, exiting the stone buildings now that it was safe to do so. They thanked the heroes profusely; Baabby shrugged of the praise and devoted himself to casting healing spells on himself and his friends.
"You arrival was timely indeed!" said the Mabu leader. "Today is the Wizard's Day celebration, when we commemorate the day Xacho saved our village from the eruption of Mount Mabuvius, many hundreds of years ago! Now, as you can see, it looks like the protections he put in place are wearing off - or, worse yet, somebody's doing something to undo them!" The head Mabu offered to pay the heroes handsomely if they could prevent the volcano from erupting. Sam was about to inquire as to exactly how much but Baabby cut him off with an immediate agreement to do all they could. Then, before Sam could wring any more hints about the exact nature of their financial compensation, he was forced to race after Baabby to prevent being left behind.
Mount Mabuvius was a fairly tall volcano but the climb wasn't all that difficult; fortunately, there was a winding ledge that spiraled around it that looked to lead all the way to the top. Struggling to keep up with Baabby - the crow's legs were much shorter than his hulking baabarian friend's - Sam managed to find the breath to cast a resist fire spell on himself, figuring this would be a very good time for some fire protection. After all, you just had to figure they'd be fighting enemies with fire-based attacks on a volcano of all places!
The first defender the heroes met up with on the winding path was a rock walker - a hunk of animated stone that looked rather like a stone golem with no arms and just a head atop a pair of strong legs. Sam was bummed at first, thinking he'd wasted his spell - but that was before the rock walker stepped forward and belched lava in Baabby's direction.
There was no way for Baabby to avoid the incoming lava barf: not only was it a wide-spraying attack, but Baabby was just in the middle of receiving an enlarge person spell from Sapphrina, making him an even easier target to hit. But at his larger size, Baabby was able to step back from the pile of smoldering lava-barf the rock walker had just spewed out and still slam his blade into the beast's rocky side. Sam shot an explosive arrow at the rock walker for good measure, but it seemed as if this thing could take quite a bit of damage before being taken down. Sapphrina cast a bull's strength spell on Baabby, then flew off the side of the path and out of harm's way.
Baabby struck at the rock walker again with his Rift-Weaver's Blade, this time causing chunks of stone to crumble off of the beast's hide. Sam shot another arrow at it and stepped forward, carefully avoiding the lava-barf puddle. The rock walker, still very much in the fight despite having a big chunk missing from his side, stepped forward and gave Baabby a mighty kick. But Baabby's retaliation was swift and deadly, and the rock walker collapsed into a pile of gravel at the sheep-man's last swing. The heroes moved on, turning a corner along the volcano's winding ledge.
The next two enemies the heroes met up with were a pair of fire mephits, but these were out in the open and unable to hide in pre-existing flames. They tried hiding anyway, hugging each other and hoping to be mistaken for a small campfire, but they weren't fooling anyone. Sam hit them both with an explosive arrow from his Dynabow 3.0. That got his spirits up, especially now that he'd been healed of his former damage and his feathers were back to being black and glossy, instead of black and singed. Sapphrina flew up behind the crow and cast a cat's grace on him, making him even more dexterous than normal, and the Son of Archery felt ready to take on anything the Skylands could toss their way. In the meantime, Baabby finished both fire mephits off with one cleaving swing of his greatsword, leaving the winged fire-gargoyles less than impressed with their impromptu strategy.
Around the next corner, though, was another rock walker. Sam only had a regular arrow in his Dynabow 3.0, so he sent it flying, knowing ahead of time it would do an inconsequential amount of damage. It was enough to alert the rock walker of the heroes' approach, though, and it spun to face this new threat. Extra-large Baabby hit it with his greatsword, just as Sam followed up with an explosive arrow that managed to get the rock walker on the side and not include the baabarian in its blast radius. But to do so, the crow had had to advance up closer, and this gave the rock walker an alternate target instead of the hulking sheep-man. One lava-barf later, and Sam was glad for his resist fire spell - but he was desperately wishing there was such a thing as a resist barf spell. Maybe he'd ask Sapphrina after they were done fighting.
Baabby, as expected, gave the final blow that slew the rock walker; neither Sam nor Sapphrina had guessed it would be otherwise. "Let's go!" said Baabby, racing further up the trail to see what their next challenge would be.
"Not so fast!" griped Sam. "I've still got barf on me!"
But Baabby wouldn't be slowed down from his next combat. This time it was a pair of elementals, one of fire and one of earth, each about Baabby's normal size when he wasn't under the effects of an enlarge person spell. The fire elemental was the first to react, stepping forward to slam Baabby with her fists - but she didn't even get within striking distance before she was cut in half by a single swing of Baabby's greatsword, snuffing out her flames and her life in one blow. Seeing this, the earth elemental fused into the side of the volcano, its rocky body gliding effortlessly into the solid stone.
"I don't like this!" cried Sam. "It can pop out at us at any time! Quick: LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!" And this time, instead of the cowardly suggestion it usually was, it was a solid bit of tactical advice. All three heroes raced as fast as they could up the curving slope, hoping to put so much distance between them and where the earth elemental slid into the stone that when it popped out to attack them, they'd be long gone.
It was a pretty good plan, too - it would have been an even better one if Sam had recalled that earth elementals could rely upon their innate tremorsense to know exactly where their nearby foes were running, even if they couldn't be seen. A massive arm ending in a rock-solid fist whizzed by Sam's head as he raced up the slope, missing by only the narrowest of margins.
And then Sam's plan got retroactively even worse, for blocking their path just ahead was yet another rock walker. Now the heroes were pinned between an earth elemental behind them and a rock walker blocking their way forward!
Sapphrina reacted by making a swipe at Baabby - but only to pull off the spare shortbow and the quiver of arrows from his broad back. Once they left his possession they reverted back to their normal size and that made them perfect for the fairy. She flew perpendicular away from the volcano, flying above empty space so the earthbound enemies couldn't hit her, and let fly with an arrow.
Sam, in the back, knew he had no chance of taking down either the earth elemental or the rock walker on his own any time soon. He also knew the rock walker could survive several attacks by the Rift-Weaver's Blade, judging by the duration of the fights with the two previous rock walkers. But he guessed that Baabby could probably take out the earth elemental fairly quickly, based on how the fire elemental went down after one blow.
"Baabby!" called out the little crow. "You take care of the elemental - we'll hold off Mr. Barfy!" And he shot past Baabby's arm, hitting the rock walker. Sapphrina followed suit, and although both arrows hit, it was obvious that neither caused the rock walker much more than a mild irritation. But it gave Baabby enough time to swing his Rift-Weaver's Blade down at the earth elemental, chopping it in half like a cord of wood up against an axe. The earth elemental shattered into a pile of rocks as its two halves hit the ground, a look of total surprise still present on its stony face.
The rock walker belched forth a blob of lava onto Baabby's broad back, but then realized it had just cut itself off from its foes once the lava puddle sizzled on the ground between them. So it turned tail and ran further up the trail, the heroes in hot pursuit behind it.
"My ploy worked!" muttered the rock walker with a smile, suddenly spinning around to face the heroes now that they had sportingly followed within reach. It kicked out a leg at Baabby, stubbing its rocky toes on the baabarian's knee. But then Baabby cut it down with his greatsword. As it fell to the ground to shatter into a pile of small stones its last thought was, I take it back - my ploy failed!
There was one more corner up ahead before the path led them to the top of the volcano's caldera. Guarding it was yet another rock walker. Sam softened it up with an explosive arrow, causing it to advance on the heroes, smoke drifting off its charred body. Sapphrina passed by a cave carved into the side of the volcano and was momentarily distracted by the glint of gold. Sure enough, there were sacks of gold coins spilling out onto the floor in the shallow cave - little more than an overhang, really. She flew sideways into the cave, readying an arrow in case she was attacked but more concerned about rescuing the gold once the two heroes had taken care of the rock walker.
Baabby stepped forward, using his extra-large body to block the rock walker from getting access to his friends, for the path was narrower in this section of ledge. Sam scooted over by Sapphrina to give himself room to shoot an arrow at the rock walker without hitting his baabarian friend. Sapphrina loosed her arrow at the rock walker at the same time; once again, both arrows struck true but once again, they seemed to do little damage to a creature made of solid stone.
Baabby channeled all of his strength into a massive swipe with his greatsword - and missed. That gave the rock walker the opportunity to lava barf all over the baabarian. This did absolutely nothing to improve Baabby's mood - quite the opposite, in fact: Baabby let the rage build in his body until he exploded outward with his greatsword in a blur of motion. It took several such swings, but within half a minute the rock walker was dead. That was enough time for the crow and the fairy to finish stuffing the sacks of gold coins into Sam's extradimensional backpack; they had tired of combat against a foe they had a hard time reaching with Baabby in their way, and besides - gold coins! Who could concentrate on battle when there were gold coins to be swept up?
"Ready?" asked Baabby, looking down at his friends and then up at the caldera. Then, without waiting for an answer, he called, "Let's go!" Sam and Sapphrina, once again, took pains to try to keep up with their battle-eager friend.
The volcano's interior presented quite a sight: down at the far end stood a magical gateway, flanked on either side by a robed body floating above the ground - a fire spell punk and an earth spell punk. Before them stood a fire elemental, this one even taller than Baabby in his enlarged state. Most of the ground was still solid rock, but there were "puddles" where magma seeped up out of the earth.
Baabby, still caught up in his battle-lust, raced down into the caldera's interior, charging towards the fire elemental. Sam jumped down into the volcano's interior as well, trying to remember the respective powers of earth and fire spell punks. He was pretty sure the fire spell punks could shoot off little fireballs, but he now recalled that the earth spell punks could cast a protective covering around their allies that made it harder for them to be seriously hurt. And since a spell punk's spells snuffed out when he was slain, Sam targeted the earth spell punk first, with an explosive arrow.
Sapphrina, finding herself once again in the midst of a pitched battle, opted to buff up her friends in lieu of actual combat herself. Flying up behind Baabby and then Sam in turn, she cast a bear's endurance spell on each of them.
The earth spell punk did its best to ignore the pain from Sam's arrow and continued fiddling with the gateway - if he could open the gateway fully, he could cause the volcano to erupt instantly! In the meantime, his fire spell punk partner shot a blast of fiery energy at Sam but the little crow instinctively dodged at the last moment. At the same time, the large fire elemental slammed Baabby with a flaming arm, sending a wave of pain - and singed wool - down the baabarian's side.
"Help me take out the earth spell punk!" called Sam to Sapphrina, and the two each shot a normal arrow at the floating mage. As they struck true, Baabby sent his blade swinging into the fire elemental's flaming body, but she was encased in a sort of hardened stone, so his sword didn't cut anywhere near as deeply as it should have. The earth spell punk fiddled desperately with the controls of the magic gateway, determined to overcome Xacho's protections before these blasted heroes cut him down.
But it wasn't to be; Sam's next arrow was an explosive one and it cut down the earth spell punk before he could open the gateway. As the mage's body fell to the ground, the damage reduction on the fire elemental winked out of existence.
The grin on Baabby's raging face was terrible to behold, once he realized what his friends had just done. With a powerful swing, he cut the fire elemental in half, just as he'd done to the smaller one further down the volcano's winding path.
Sapphrina, seeing only one enemy still before them, shot an arrow at the fire spell punk, just as he fired a blast at Baabby. Baabby grinned through the pain of the fiery explosion, then stepped forward and cut down the fire spell punk with one blow of his greatsword.
"Yeah!" enthused Sam. "Way to go, Baabby!" They waited until the baabarian's battle-rage had subsided, then convinced him to cast some more of those lovely, lovely healing spells of his.
"Now whaat?" asked Baabby, looking around for a way to stop the volcano from erupting.
"I think we need to go through the gateway," suggested Sapphrina.
"Won't that cause the volcano to erupt?" asked Baabby.
"It shouldn't - not at once, in any case. But I'm willing to bet the key to preventing Mount Mabuvius from erupting is inside there - as is the Fire Rune for your sword."
"So how do we get in?" asked Baabby.
"How soon you forget," chided Sapphrina. "Remember the Magic Rune's power?"
"Oh yeah," said Baabby sheepishly. Then he made a cutting motion with his greatsword through the middle of the gateway and the Rift-Weaver's Blade wove a rift through space and time and opened up the extradimensional space on the other side of the gateway.
Remembering the last time they'd done something similar they'd ended up fighting a goliath drow, Sam and Baabby went in with weapons at the ready. And sure enough, standing in the extradimensional space was another large fire elemental. Not "another" one, actually - the same one they'd just slain in the caldera!
"Hold!" commanded the fire elemental in a regal voice, raising a flaming hand. "There is no need for further combat; I was under the domination of the spell punks and unable to control my own actions; now that they are slain, I once again enjoy my own free will."
"Yeah," argued Sam Crow, "but speaking of being slain...weren't you, too?"
"I cannot be truly slain," explained the fire elemental. "I am the eternal spirit of the volcano. My name is Incinceria."
"Okay, that certainly sounds like a trustworthy name," said Sam, giving Sapphrina a look that said, "No way should we trust her!"
"I know why you have come," replied Incinceria, "and your actions are noble. I will help you gain the Fire Rune for your sword, but I give you this warning: the last wielder, Xacho, found that the Rift-Weaver's Blade at full power was still insufficient to slay the terrible monster it had been built to destroy. You will need even greater power than that of the Rift-Weaver's Blade, even with all eight runes intact." But she reached forward and touched the blade of Baabby's greatsword, causing the flames of her arm to dissolve as they were absorbed into the blade. Looking at his weapon, Baabby could see the Fire Rune was now filled in with what looked like crackling flames.
"So how do we prevent the volcano from erupting?" asked Sapphrina.
"You have my word," answered Incinceria. "Besides: who wants to go back out there? It's cold out there!"
Baabby looked at Sam. Sam looked back at Baabby. "I guess that makes sense," they agreed.
"Hey, and that means we can return to the Mabu village and claim the reward!" exclaimed Sam, rubbing his hands together in glee. "Did you hear that, Shelldon? We're going to be even richer!"
Shelldon didn't respond; he was still curled up in his shell, hidden from view.
"Don't mind him," scoffed Sam. "He's still playing dead. He's a method actor - very much into character."
"So whaat's next?" asked Baabby.
"Now we return to the Rift-Weaver's Trial, remember?" replied Sapphrina.
"How far away is that?" asked Sam. "Will I have time to teach Shelldon any tricks?"
"I doubt it," answered Sapphrina. "It's just on the other side of the volcano, on a ledge about halfway up the back."
"Oh, yeah," replied Sam. "I remember that ledge. And all those lousy puzzles in that dungeon."
"I'm sure there will be more puzzles once we go back," replied Baabby.
"Oh, yippee," grumbled Sam.
"You don't like puzzles?" asked Sapphrina.
"They give him a headache," replied Baabby. Then, in a rare show of wordplay, he added, "It's because Sam here is a bird-brain."
"Hey!" squawked Sam at the unexpected teasing as he followed Baabby and Sapphrina back to the caldera and then down the winding trail. "It's not my fault if I'm not so great at puzzles!"
Then, after what he considered a sufficiently lengthy pause, he added "...I'm part dodo, on my mother's side."
- - -
Harry pointed out at the beginning of this adventure that we were fighting bad guys and having to worry about putting out fires at the same time. He's pretty quick to catch on when things are different than in previous adventures.
Logan used a village map from one of the Paizo "Flip-Mat" series for the Mabu village, and then for the volcano he did something I thought was rather clever: he used a Wasteland Flip-Map that had streams of magma as the base of the volcano, and then overlapped that with a series of cards from the Paizo GameMastery "Perilous Paths" set. Our "winding pathway" ended up with some right-turn angles as a result, but I thought that was a very cool way to design a volcano map.
And for the Medium and Large fire elementals, he used two of the Infernia stand-up tokens I had originally made for our Wing Three campaign! In that campaign, Logan had run a human conjurer who had summoned a Small fire elemental as a familiar, and later used polymorph spells to change her size as needed. I was certainly surprised to see Infernia making an appearance in our Skylands campaign, even if it wasn't really her.
