Enthusiastically wielding his greatsword, Igmut noisily began to hack a narrow channel through the foliage towards the room we knew Flynne to be trapped in. Having slashed his way through over 20 feet of thick vines, Endo took over. He collected a large amount of rope and a couple of grappling hooks which we were carrying with us, and then tied the lot into the last part of the greenery.
We prepared ourselves for the assault as Endo tightened the ropes and tested his pulley arrangement. I cast a spell of invisibility on Igmut so that he could enter the room without fear of javelin assault, whilst Endo’s wand stash was further drained to prepare everyone with a protection spell. Igmut’s prayers for power were rewarded with his muscles bulging and a glowing nimbus of energy surrounding and protecting him.
When we were ready, Endo twisted and pulled on his ropes, and they worked well to pull the last of the hedge out of our way. As this happened, I started playing my lute, and could hear the enthused Igmut charging invisibly into the room. Within, there were perhaps 20 more lizardmen, although Igmut’s first blow slashed one to the floor and almost killed a second.
Following Malachite’s chanting, a single wolf appeared in the room beyond, but it neither scored a hit on the plentiful lizardmen within the room nor was it struck itself in combat. Then the remaining lizardmen to the back of the room started to fling javelins; over a dozen hurtled towards Igmut and the wolf, clipping Igmut slightly whilst pincushioning and slaying the wolf almost instantly. Worryingly, one of the lizards at the back of the room chanted, and a large ball of fire sprang up largely blocking the passage into the room.
Gritting my teeth, I dashed into the room, managing to backflip over the fireball as I went in. I drew my rapier, but missed the closest lizardman to me. Malachite followed me past the flaming sphere, clubbing one of the lizards before Igmut hacked down another foe and stepped towards another group. Endo also entered the room, yelling in pain and slapping at a burning spot on his robes. He reached into one concealed pocket and withdrew a parchment scroll. A few gestures and a string of eldritch syllables were read, and then he gestured. A torrent of flesh-searing acid poured into the room, gushing forth at his whim and covering a huge portion of the room.
Half of the foes died instantly in an appalling stench of burning flesh. Only two of those stood within the acidic onslaught survived it, and one horrified lizardman bystander immediately fled the room.
.oOo.
Dropping from his hiding place in the ceiling, Flynne fired a couple of arrows, slaying the acid-scarred survivors of Endo’s spell.
Malachite and I continued our stabbing and bashing, and the druid managed to kill the one lizard we had caught between us. The handful of remaining lizardmen pushed towards us, and Endo resorted to drawing a longsword from his belt, waving it ineptly – he missed by less of a distance than any of us expected.
During the melee, I was clipped slightly by one foe’s club, and stood back to see Malachite smashing at lizards, whilst Igmut’s heavy blade hacked through the enemy as though they were wheat. When only two of the lizards remained on their feet, they turned to flee. Endo and I managed to wound one of them as they turned to go, but then Igmut’s massive greatsword brought them both down in a single sweep.
.oOo.
Standing amidst the acid-pitted bodies of the lizardmen, we discussed our options. We were uncertain of what to do, but generally we were very low on spells and reluctant to proceed any further into the complex. Then our discussions were cut short by a human’s screaming form the next room.
Moving to the entrance to that chamber, I shouted through in draconic, “there’s no need for this bloodshed to continue”.
There was a brief pause, which I took to be a hopeful sign, but then the unseen man screamed once again in agony. A lizardman’s voice called back towards us.
“Puny soldier fun to hurt!”
Gripping our weapons, we dashed down the corridor, to be met with the tableau of one large lizardman standing with 4 others. They all had better weapons and armour than their compatriots, and the largest of the 5 held a large trident which he was digging gleefully into the flesh of a battered soldier at his feet. A second unconscious body lay at his feet.
Behind me, there was a snarling growling sound. I turned, and where Malachite had been standing there was now a cheetah. The shapechanged druid hurtled down the corridor growling a spell, and by the time I caught up with him the room beyond was filled with branches and twigs which waved and snatched, entangling the lizardmen and restraining them. Two of Flynne’s arrows were already protruding from the largest of the lizardmen.
“For that, your friend dies!”
The big lizard raised his trident and stabbed it downwards. The screaming human form jerked and gasped, and then was still.
An eagle swooped down, summoned once again by Malachite, then two more of Flynne’s arrows slammed into the biggest target. The lizard grunted, but wasn’t showing any signs of being seriously hurt.
Powering to the front, Igmut slashed wide, cutting through the air just above one of the two closest lizardmen. Both of them responded by screaming in frenzy; frothing at the mouth as they slashed with tooth and claw at Igmut, scoring deep scratches despite his heavy armour.
Across the room, the big lizardman slashed out negligently, impaling the eagle with his trident. As the weapon drove home, a red glow and a hissing gas seeped out, enveloping the eagle in vapours. A second blow from the trident stabbed at the figure on the floor, but didn’t kill the remaining human captive.
Two more arrows slammed home, but the big lizard stayed on his feet, growling his annoyance at the entangling vines which separated us.
.oOo.
Igmut and Malachite were both fully ensconced in the fight by this stage, and the rest of us gazed in horror as the lizardman leader raised and plunged his trident deeply into the body of the unconscious man on the floor. In a gout of blood, the man died. This was in turn followed by another brace of meaty thwacks, as Flynne drove two more arrows home. Snarling, the massive lizardman clawed the air in our direction before gently toppling to the floor, dead.
Malachite and Igmut hacked and snarled at the two raging lizardmen; Malachite managing to trip one of them to the floor. The lizardman climbed back up from the floor, but a swing of Igmut’s greatsword simply swept the draconic head from its shoulders.
With only 3 lizardmen remaining in the room, I stepped in and drew my rapier again, however my lunge went wild in the entangling undergrowth. Also caught in the roots, Igmut was just slightly out of reach of his next opponent. He drew his sling and whirled it around his head whilst the rest of us shouted at him to use his longspear. Nonetheless, the heavy slingshot smashed into the chest of the lizardman and inflicting a terrible wound.
The injured creature responded by mauling Malachite with claws and bite, whilst just to one side I continued to wield my rapier; the blade skittering across the creature’s tough hide. As I recovered from my lunge, and noticed with dismay that it was raising its club in both hands with an evil glint in a snake-like eye; Igmut’s spear tore into its chest, and Malachite raked it with its claws. The creature chose to strike back at Malachite, savaging my druid friend, and his cheetah form sagged close to the ground, bleeding from many deep claw wounds.
Dashing across the snatching vegetation, Flynne appeared as if from nowhere; enchanted longsword clutched in his hands. With a couple of pinpoint blows, Flynne’s sword stabbed the creature viciously through the liver. And the kidney. To my side, Igmut bent and cast a spell of healing on Malachite, closing many of his terrible wounds.
I struggled vainly against the trapping branches, whilst the remaining single lizardman tore free of the vegetation restraining him, and waded through the twitching branches towards me. He closed to within 10 feet of me, and I still had one foot soundly wrapped by a thick root. I pulled hard, but couldn’t escape.
The lizardman grinned toothily, and drew a spear, then tried to take the last couple of steps to bring me within his reach. He stopped abruptly and looked down, having been snared once more himself. He turned back to me, and an instant later his spear slammed into my side, tearing through the links of my chain shirt. My return shot with my crossbow clipped the top off his ear.
Abruptly, the lashing vegetation stopped moving. I was free once more! However, so was my opponent. However, before he could close on me, Malachite’s cheetah form hurtled past me, closely pursued by the greatsword-wielding Igmut. His sword flashed in the torchlight, and the lizard fell to the floor.
.oOo.
Despite our being pitifully low on resources, Flynne and Malachite continued down the next passageway, this one sloping back upwards through the hillside. Flynne returned shortly afterwards to tell us that Malachite was having a conversation with a single lizard-woman. We crept up to join them at the end of their conversation. The two were in a small wood-decorated chamber, with a firepit and pool of water. The female lizard had the remaining two prisoners with her, including the warmage who we had come to rescue.
Malachite debriefed us when he had finished. We learned that the leader of these lizardmen was in a pact with ‘Ilthane’, the dragon which claimed these swamps as a hunting ground. The king of the lizardmen himself was engaged in the process of uniting the local clans, and had some 200 or more followers with the intention of taking arms against the local humans.
The lizard priestess suggested to us that if we could kill the lizard king, she would stop the assaults and ensure that the lizards weren’t aggressive for as long as possible.
.oOo.
After a brief discussion, we asked if there was somewhere we could rest to prepare for a battle. The reply was disconcerting.
“The king comes every few hours,” she hissed, gesturing at the two bound and injured prisoners. “He comes to strike the prisoners, ensuring that her arms and jaw are broken that she might not cast spells upon the tribes. I know not when he might come again, but certainly in less than 6 hours.”
The priestess explained the layout of the nearby tunnels to us, and confirmed that some of the lizardmen had been infected with the evil green worms. A final note of concern was that the priestess herself was no longer allowed into the egg chambers, by order of the king.
We sank to our haunches to make a plan…
