Eccles
Ragged idiot in a trilby.
Having armed ourselves, we set out in towards the Cold Forge. As we walked, I passed my hat of disguise to Flynne, and pulled on a garish lozenge-patterned robe. We parted from the others, who agreed to wait for a while in a nearby inn, and after Flynne had disguised himself as well, we strode down the last street to the forge itself, aiming to somehow discover if there was an entrance to the sewer system within it.
Standing outside, we could see smoke billowing from the chimneys, and a considerable number of customers inside, bit no obvious large enough drains on the outside of the building. Inside, a single broad-shouldered and balding man stood working the forge, sweat and food stains matting the grubby vest which strained to encompass his pot belly.
Smoothing my hair back and checking the line of my false moustache, I strode into the inn and straight up to the smith, Flynne at my side. Ignoring the man who was waiting for service, I addressed the smith in a loud and pompous voice.
“Mr Patton?” I asked. “My name is Gruntfuttock; J. Peasemold Gruntfuttock, chairman and owner of ‘Gruntfuttock and Sons’ travel and shipping in the cities to the south. No doubt you will have heard of us?
“I am looking for a good smith,” I went on without giving him an opportunity to respond. “The man would have to be capable of maintaining and repairing wagons, carriages, coaches and carts of all descriptions, as well as basic horsecare and a considerable amount of shoeing. Needless to say, the income would be considerable for a truly skilled smith.”
With the prospect of future earnings gleaning in his piggy eyes, the smith leapt to explain his skills, talking at a considerable degree of length about his shoeing experience. Struggling not to yawn, I allowed him to talk about his skill, his many rich clientele and the intricate works which he had done in the past. Apparently, the sweaty smith had crafted a saddle pommel for the King of Moderovia, but the wayward monarch hadn’t sent any payment for it.
Trying not to breathe through my nose, I draped one arm over the man’s hairy shoulders and turned to gesture at his work. Although there was clearly no saddle pommel in this front room, I gestured at the ironmongery in his workroom.
“I would very much like to see such an intricate creation, master smith,” I announced, gently turning Patton towards his back room and allowing him to ‘lead’ me further into the inner recesses of the store, Flynne following quietly on behind us.
Once inside and alone, I asked the smith to explain in detail both the making of the pommel and to speak to me at considerable (and interminable) length about horseshoes and shoeing. As he went on, I gestured behind my back towards the stairs, and saw Flynne creeping away out of the corner of my eye.
A few minutes later, there was a cough from the corner of the room. Flynne had returned, and he nodded at me when I looked quizzically at him.
5 minutes later, we were back on the street; Patton the blacksmith confident with the promise of considerable business from Gruntfuttock and Sons. Flynne and I strolled back to the bar to rejoin the others, where my elven companion confirmed that in the basement of the forge there was a substantial steel manhole leading into the city sewers beneath.
Retrieving my hat, I concentrated briefly and changed my outwards appearance into that of a pubescent messenger boy. Turning, I dashed back to the forge clutching a scroll of paper and a small pouch of coins. As I reached the door of the smithy, I unrolled the scroll and spoke (rather than reading the glitterdust spell which was written upon it).
“Smith Patton, my master the lord Ignavius requires your urgent attention,” I announced, quoting one of the names which Patton had mentioned to me just a little while ago. “He is due to go upon a hunt with a group of close friends in celebration of the forthcoming games. Unfortunately, however, my lord’s horse has thrown a shoe and he insists that you come to deal with the situation forthwith. To that end, he sends his messenger and a silver coin as a gesture of goodwill and a downpayment for your swift assistance.”
Bowing, I rolled up the scroll and tucked it back into my belt. Handing the sweaty blacksmith the silver coin, I looked at him expectantly.
“Tell your master that I shall be with him as soon as is expedient,” he said irritably. “I’ll be there in about half an hour.”
At his gesture of dismissal, I turned and darted back into the street, losing my disguise in the morning crowd and rejoining my companions in the bar, where we watched the smithy from down the street. A little over half an hour later, the smith lumbered out of his shopfront and locked the door before carrying a bag of heavy-looking tools with him down the street.
Grinning, I passed the hat of disguise back to Flynne, and gestured down the street at the locked smithy. His face and clothes shimmered into an identical vision to that of Patton the smith. After a few moments work at the door, it sprang open and Flynne waved an all clear at us. As a group, we entered the empty forge and headed for the cellar, as Flynne locked the door behind us.
.oOo.
Standing over the manhole, we waited for Igmut to cast a series of spells. He was joined by Endo’s sinister collection of empowering spirits and shrouds whilst Malachite produced a wand and cast a strengthening charm on Sheba. He followed this up with a spell from his own repertoire, which wreathed the tiger’s orange and black body in a woody protective cast.
Meanwhile, Flynne searched the room, and picked up a crowbar from a nearby stack of metal before using it to lever the manhole out of the floor. The stench of the sewer line flowing slowly beneath us assaulted our noses, and Sheba growled at the appalling smell. Shrugging, we leapt in, but not before Igmut grinned and cast one final spell. His armoured form crashed into the sewer line, sending a dreadful shower of filth raining around the rest of us. Rising from a crouch as we all wiped sewer-water from our faces and clothes, Igmut’s mithril armour was completely immaculate, untouched by any dirt, and protected by his last spell.
“
don’t stick to Igmut,” he grinned toothily as he reached up to pull the manhole closed behind him.
.oOo.
By the light of the heatless enchanted torch, Malachite and Flynne scrutinised the walls, and the druid was able to find a number of marks in the slime to suggest that the sewer pipe was surprisingly well travelled; almost all of the traffic going in one direction.
His elven eyes glimmering in the half-light, Flynne crept upstream, crouching behind a log as he did so. After 60 feet of nothing, Malachite indicated that the tracks had come to and end, and Flynne’s brief search indicated that there was something under the flow of liquid filth. Igmut reached in and grasped a short lever, pulling it to cause the tunnel wall to slide sideways.
Up a step and out of the sewage, there was a rough stony chamber lit by softly glowing fungi. The floor was covered with patches of a yellow mould and studded with tall purple toadstools which I guessed to be shrieking fungus, using the description given in Estrada’s epic Ode to the Fall of Vitruvius.
Whilst the others considered how best to get across without triggering the screaming toadstools or stepping near the possibly poisonous yellow mould, Flynne was swift in plotting a course which he could acrobatically leap and tumble across.
Watching his movements carefully, I imitated him, leaping and twisting as I dashed the length of the cavern to an exit on the other side. Malachite, meanwhile, used a powerful spell to give Sheba the ability to walk on air, and he, Endo and Igmut rode in turn on tiger-back over the tops of the deadly fungi to join us.
.oOo.
By the time they arrived, Flynne had already returned from an initial scouting sortie. With one finger across his lips, he mouthed the word “drow”, and pointed; indicating that three of the dark-elves were in a ledge to the right some distance down the passage.
Concerned that Igmut would give us away in his heavy armour, the orc cast a spell of silence on the fletchings of an arrow, which Flynne fired after we had moved as close as he deemed safe. A second of Flynne’s ice-covered arrows slammed into the chest of the closest drow, whose face contorted in agony as he clutched for his own weapons.
Sheba dashed forwards to cut off their escape, and was enveloped in a silent explosion of fire as she did so. Despite many burns, she continued past the drow in their raised ledge to block their safe passage further into the tunnel.
As I started to sing encouragement towards the others, Igmut dashed in, hacking at the closest elf. Although his greatsword crashed into the already injured elf, it weathered this blow as well. I began to reassess the frail-looking drow’s endurance.
For his part, Endo stepped to just at the edge of the silent area which encompassed the three drow and Igmut, and cast a familiar spell. The dozens of ripping and tearing spirits which rushed from his hands and flew towards the drow impacted as usual, but speared to be completely unable to gain purchase on the dark-elf. Their evil talons and fingers flailed and snatched, but somehow something innate about the creature thwarted them, and they simply evaporated, their mouths open in silent screams.
A second barrage of arrows stabbed into the chest of the wounded drow, and he finally collapsed from his many injuries. As he fell, the walls shook slightly as Malachite’s spell completed. A squat, 3 foot elemental of stone clambered out of the wall of the ledge and smashed its clublike hands into the back of one of the two remaining drow.
Both drow responded by pulling bags from their belts and hurling them. One spattered across Igmut’s chestplate, and then the glue-like substance simply slipped off his armour, unable to find purchase on him after the Freedom of Movement enchantment he had cast on himself before jumping into the sewer-slime.
The other bag crashed into Sheba’s side, gluing up her fur considerably despite the wood-like protective magic Malachite had cast on her. Having thrown the bag at her, this second drow leapt off the ledge and dashed past Sheba, ducking and diving under her sweeping claws as they swung at him.
Seeing this, Igmut leapt down the corridor after the escaping drow, whilst Flynne jumped up onto the ledge to combat the drow still caught in the zone of silence. Sheba stepped up, standing on the air through the powers of Malachite’s magic to swing out with her claws at him and tearing past his chainmail armour as she did so. Another summoned elemental swam out of the earth at the far end of the passageway, further impeding the third drow’s escape, who cried out “Intruders! Man the defences!” in the undercommon tongue as I dashed through the silences area to see if I could help Igmut in some way.
.oOo.
Behind me, the already glue-covered and burn-scarred Sheba was heavily slashed by the implacable sword-wielding drow, whilst Igmut’s heavy sword smashed down twice, cleaving a pair of deep wounds through his enemy’s torso and then just as the dark-elf turned to try to run me through with its last gasp, Igmut’s sword came down once again, bringing the drow to the floor in a crash of chainmail.
Casting swiftly, I stepped into the silent area of magical null-sound and touched Sheba, curing her from some of her more serious wounds, but she was then slashed once again by the evil elf.
Flynne’s sword-stroke went wild, but Sheba and the small elemental between them brought the surviving drow to his knees.
.oOo.
We ransacked the fallen elves, and then I cast a spell of invisibility on Flynne to allow him to creep forwards. He improved his situation even more by pulling the arrow with the silence spell on it out of the chest of one of the dead drow before creeping away down the tunnel away from us.
A few minutes later, Igmut stiffened as Flynne tapped him on the shoulder in the suddenly returning silence. Sound was restored as Flynne put the silenced arrow away somewhere and then informed us that the next chamber was empty save for a pool which glowed greenly from its depths.
We moved forwards, Flynne preceding us still invisible and clutching the arrow of silence.
.oOo.
Entering the next dimply lit passage, which did indeed contain a glowing pool fed by a stream, Igmut stiffened again as he heard a hissing voice from dangerously near him.
“I think you owe me an apology,” the voice whispered to him. “You have disssturbed my slumber. My name is Fassash, and I shall dessstroy you for your dissscourtesssy unlessss you make an appropriate apology.”
“Breakfast good,” replied Igmut to the open cavern. “Igmut always like breakfast when woken early?”
Sibilant spellcasting syllables echoed around the room, and Sheba abruptly dropped out of the air as Malachite’s spell of air walking on the tiger was severed. She landed lightly on her paws and sniffed the air around her cautiously, as a long sinuous creature materialised on a rock within the cavern. The limbless, snakelike body of the creature was banded in purple and black, and it was topped with a human-like head with two massive canine teeth and lank dark hair.
“Naga,” muttered Endo in a warning from behind me. “Watch the teeth, the eyes… oh, and the spellcasting”.
.oOo.
Still communicating with Igmut, the creature demanded a payment to allow us to pass safely without killing us, and Igmut (to my very great surprise) obediently held up and tossed an enchanted morningstar into the glowing pool.
“Acceptable,” hissed the naga. “In fact, your offer is ssso acceptable that I ssshall anssswer one quessstion you might asssk”.
“Easy,” replied Igmut. “What’s down there?” He gestured forwards down the corridor.
“Zaragog the dirty illithid,” came the hissed answer. “And hisss drow compatriotsss. Now, you may passs.”
Igmut, Endo, Flynne, Sheba and I moved past the naga, but dimly behind us there was a soft sound of a foot stepping on gravel. Flynne.
“Betrayersss!” The naga shouted at the realisation that there was another one of us in the room invisibly. “Falssse traitorsss!”
The creature began to cast a spell.
Leaping into action, Sheba pounced at the snake-creature, and slashed at it with her claws, but her blow slashed though a displaced image of the creature, which was within a couple of feet of the image. Casting a spell, Malachite aided his pet by summoning a lightning storm into the room, and electricity crashed down from the ceiling and playing around the naga’s body.
Endo cast a spell of his own, sending a pale stream at the naga’s eyes – the spell coalesced into a cluster of maggots, and the creature itself flailed around unable to see through its suddenly milky-white eyes.
Dashing across the cavern, I spoke a couple of words of power which greatly improved my chant of courage and empowered all of my companions a great deal, before the naga shouted out.
“I am blind! I wasss merely going to cassst a ssspell to purge the invisssibility!”
By this time, however, it was too late, and combat was joined. Even blind, the creature knew its lair well, and wormed away towards the edge of the chamber, turning invisible as it moved so that we had no idea where it might have gone and what might happen next.
Igmut was equal to the task, however. He chanted a prayer to Kord, asking his god to remove any invisibility near him. It became clear that Flynne wasn’t close enough to Igmut to be affected, but the naga was – it was within inches of me with venom dripping from its long fangs!
Sheba pounced again, and was bitten for her troubles, whilst I dived backwards firing with my wand as I leapt through the air. A couple of small enchanted missiles slapped into the creature, but the damage was fairly minimal. Still blinded, the creature backed away a little further and then opened its fanged mouth to cast a spell. However, no sound came from its maw, and it stared blankly around itself in utter confusion. Flynne had clearly flung the arrow towards it to stop it having any chance of casting a spell at all.
Instead, the creature changed its mind, bit Sheba once again and then moved away towards the tunnel we had entered through. Behind it, Flynne appeared and swung his sword to deadly effect, and he was soon assisted by Igmut who plunged his longspear into the creature’s scaly body, and then Sheba dashed in and tore the naga apart with her claws, shaking the snakelike body in her massive teeth.
Retrieving Igmut’s magical morningstar out of the pool was the work of moments, and we managed to pick up a couple of other items (including a rather attractive bottle filled with an infinite amount of smoke) from the water whilst we were at it. A few moments later, we strode towards the tunnel from the room (pausing only to see Flynne stuffing the naga’s tail into a bag of holding.
As we passed through the entrance to another cavern, there was a click. Looking up, we could all see a pair of drow in a ledge towards the ceiling pointing small crossbows at us. Beneath them were three more armed and armoured male drow with swords readied to receive us, and behind those three stood a lithe and confident-looking female drow who clutched a writhing holy symbol made of dark metal in her hands.
“Oh dear,” muttered Igmut, his clattering of his armour falling silent as he came to an abrupt halt.
Standing outside, we could see smoke billowing from the chimneys, and a considerable number of customers inside, bit no obvious large enough drains on the outside of the building. Inside, a single broad-shouldered and balding man stood working the forge, sweat and food stains matting the grubby vest which strained to encompass his pot belly.
Smoothing my hair back and checking the line of my false moustache, I strode into the inn and straight up to the smith, Flynne at my side. Ignoring the man who was waiting for service, I addressed the smith in a loud and pompous voice.
“Mr Patton?” I asked. “My name is Gruntfuttock; J. Peasemold Gruntfuttock, chairman and owner of ‘Gruntfuttock and Sons’ travel and shipping in the cities to the south. No doubt you will have heard of us?
“I am looking for a good smith,” I went on without giving him an opportunity to respond. “The man would have to be capable of maintaining and repairing wagons, carriages, coaches and carts of all descriptions, as well as basic horsecare and a considerable amount of shoeing. Needless to say, the income would be considerable for a truly skilled smith.”
With the prospect of future earnings gleaning in his piggy eyes, the smith leapt to explain his skills, talking at a considerable degree of length about his shoeing experience. Struggling not to yawn, I allowed him to talk about his skill, his many rich clientele and the intricate works which he had done in the past. Apparently, the sweaty smith had crafted a saddle pommel for the King of Moderovia, but the wayward monarch hadn’t sent any payment for it.
Trying not to breathe through my nose, I draped one arm over the man’s hairy shoulders and turned to gesture at his work. Although there was clearly no saddle pommel in this front room, I gestured at the ironmongery in his workroom.
“I would very much like to see such an intricate creation, master smith,” I announced, gently turning Patton towards his back room and allowing him to ‘lead’ me further into the inner recesses of the store, Flynne following quietly on behind us.
Once inside and alone, I asked the smith to explain in detail both the making of the pommel and to speak to me at considerable (and interminable) length about horseshoes and shoeing. As he went on, I gestured behind my back towards the stairs, and saw Flynne creeping away out of the corner of my eye.
A few minutes later, there was a cough from the corner of the room. Flynne had returned, and he nodded at me when I looked quizzically at him.
5 minutes later, we were back on the street; Patton the blacksmith confident with the promise of considerable business from Gruntfuttock and Sons. Flynne and I strolled back to the bar to rejoin the others, where my elven companion confirmed that in the basement of the forge there was a substantial steel manhole leading into the city sewers beneath.
Retrieving my hat, I concentrated briefly and changed my outwards appearance into that of a pubescent messenger boy. Turning, I dashed back to the forge clutching a scroll of paper and a small pouch of coins. As I reached the door of the smithy, I unrolled the scroll and spoke (rather than reading the glitterdust spell which was written upon it).
“Smith Patton, my master the lord Ignavius requires your urgent attention,” I announced, quoting one of the names which Patton had mentioned to me just a little while ago. “He is due to go upon a hunt with a group of close friends in celebration of the forthcoming games. Unfortunately, however, my lord’s horse has thrown a shoe and he insists that you come to deal with the situation forthwith. To that end, he sends his messenger and a silver coin as a gesture of goodwill and a downpayment for your swift assistance.”
Bowing, I rolled up the scroll and tucked it back into my belt. Handing the sweaty blacksmith the silver coin, I looked at him expectantly.
“Tell your master that I shall be with him as soon as is expedient,” he said irritably. “I’ll be there in about half an hour.”
At his gesture of dismissal, I turned and darted back into the street, losing my disguise in the morning crowd and rejoining my companions in the bar, where we watched the smithy from down the street. A little over half an hour later, the smith lumbered out of his shopfront and locked the door before carrying a bag of heavy-looking tools with him down the street.
Grinning, I passed the hat of disguise back to Flynne, and gestured down the street at the locked smithy. His face and clothes shimmered into an identical vision to that of Patton the smith. After a few moments work at the door, it sprang open and Flynne waved an all clear at us. As a group, we entered the empty forge and headed for the cellar, as Flynne locked the door behind us.
.oOo.
Standing over the manhole, we waited for Igmut to cast a series of spells. He was joined by Endo’s sinister collection of empowering spirits and shrouds whilst Malachite produced a wand and cast a strengthening charm on Sheba. He followed this up with a spell from his own repertoire, which wreathed the tiger’s orange and black body in a woody protective cast.
Meanwhile, Flynne searched the room, and picked up a crowbar from a nearby stack of metal before using it to lever the manhole out of the floor. The stench of the sewer line flowing slowly beneath us assaulted our noses, and Sheba growled at the appalling smell. Shrugging, we leapt in, but not before Igmut grinned and cast one final spell. His armoured form crashed into the sewer line, sending a dreadful shower of filth raining around the rest of us. Rising from a crouch as we all wiped sewer-water from our faces and clothes, Igmut’s mithril armour was completely immaculate, untouched by any dirt, and protected by his last spell.
“
don’t stick to Igmut,” he grinned toothily as he reached up to pull the manhole closed behind him..oOo.
By the light of the heatless enchanted torch, Malachite and Flynne scrutinised the walls, and the druid was able to find a number of marks in the slime to suggest that the sewer pipe was surprisingly well travelled; almost all of the traffic going in one direction.
His elven eyes glimmering in the half-light, Flynne crept upstream, crouching behind a log as he did so. After 60 feet of nothing, Malachite indicated that the tracks had come to and end, and Flynne’s brief search indicated that there was something under the flow of liquid filth. Igmut reached in and grasped a short lever, pulling it to cause the tunnel wall to slide sideways.
Up a step and out of the sewage, there was a rough stony chamber lit by softly glowing fungi. The floor was covered with patches of a yellow mould and studded with tall purple toadstools which I guessed to be shrieking fungus, using the description given in Estrada’s epic Ode to the Fall of Vitruvius.
Whilst the others considered how best to get across without triggering the screaming toadstools or stepping near the possibly poisonous yellow mould, Flynne was swift in plotting a course which he could acrobatically leap and tumble across.
Watching his movements carefully, I imitated him, leaping and twisting as I dashed the length of the cavern to an exit on the other side. Malachite, meanwhile, used a powerful spell to give Sheba the ability to walk on air, and he, Endo and Igmut rode in turn on tiger-back over the tops of the deadly fungi to join us.
.oOo.
By the time they arrived, Flynne had already returned from an initial scouting sortie. With one finger across his lips, he mouthed the word “drow”, and pointed; indicating that three of the dark-elves were in a ledge to the right some distance down the passage.
Concerned that Igmut would give us away in his heavy armour, the orc cast a spell of silence on the fletchings of an arrow, which Flynne fired after we had moved as close as he deemed safe. A second of Flynne’s ice-covered arrows slammed into the chest of the closest drow, whose face contorted in agony as he clutched for his own weapons.
Sheba dashed forwards to cut off their escape, and was enveloped in a silent explosion of fire as she did so. Despite many burns, she continued past the drow in their raised ledge to block their safe passage further into the tunnel.
As I started to sing encouragement towards the others, Igmut dashed in, hacking at the closest elf. Although his greatsword crashed into the already injured elf, it weathered this blow as well. I began to reassess the frail-looking drow’s endurance.
For his part, Endo stepped to just at the edge of the silent area which encompassed the three drow and Igmut, and cast a familiar spell. The dozens of ripping and tearing spirits which rushed from his hands and flew towards the drow impacted as usual, but speared to be completely unable to gain purchase on the dark-elf. Their evil talons and fingers flailed and snatched, but somehow something innate about the creature thwarted them, and they simply evaporated, their mouths open in silent screams.
A second barrage of arrows stabbed into the chest of the wounded drow, and he finally collapsed from his many injuries. As he fell, the walls shook slightly as Malachite’s spell completed. A squat, 3 foot elemental of stone clambered out of the wall of the ledge and smashed its clublike hands into the back of one of the two remaining drow.
Both drow responded by pulling bags from their belts and hurling them. One spattered across Igmut’s chestplate, and then the glue-like substance simply slipped off his armour, unable to find purchase on him after the Freedom of Movement enchantment he had cast on himself before jumping into the sewer-slime.
The other bag crashed into Sheba’s side, gluing up her fur considerably despite the wood-like protective magic Malachite had cast on her. Having thrown the bag at her, this second drow leapt off the ledge and dashed past Sheba, ducking and diving under her sweeping claws as they swung at him.
Seeing this, Igmut leapt down the corridor after the escaping drow, whilst Flynne jumped up onto the ledge to combat the drow still caught in the zone of silence. Sheba stepped up, standing on the air through the powers of Malachite’s magic to swing out with her claws at him and tearing past his chainmail armour as she did so. Another summoned elemental swam out of the earth at the far end of the passageway, further impeding the third drow’s escape, who cried out “Intruders! Man the defences!” in the undercommon tongue as I dashed through the silences area to see if I could help Igmut in some way.
.oOo.
Behind me, the already glue-covered and burn-scarred Sheba was heavily slashed by the implacable sword-wielding drow, whilst Igmut’s heavy sword smashed down twice, cleaving a pair of deep wounds through his enemy’s torso and then just as the dark-elf turned to try to run me through with its last gasp, Igmut’s sword came down once again, bringing the drow to the floor in a crash of chainmail.
Casting swiftly, I stepped into the silent area of magical null-sound and touched Sheba, curing her from some of her more serious wounds, but she was then slashed once again by the evil elf.
Flynne’s sword-stroke went wild, but Sheba and the small elemental between them brought the surviving drow to his knees.
.oOo.
We ransacked the fallen elves, and then I cast a spell of invisibility on Flynne to allow him to creep forwards. He improved his situation even more by pulling the arrow with the silence spell on it out of the chest of one of the dead drow before creeping away down the tunnel away from us.
A few minutes later, Igmut stiffened as Flynne tapped him on the shoulder in the suddenly returning silence. Sound was restored as Flynne put the silenced arrow away somewhere and then informed us that the next chamber was empty save for a pool which glowed greenly from its depths.
We moved forwards, Flynne preceding us still invisible and clutching the arrow of silence.
.oOo.
Entering the next dimply lit passage, which did indeed contain a glowing pool fed by a stream, Igmut stiffened again as he heard a hissing voice from dangerously near him.
“I think you owe me an apology,” the voice whispered to him. “You have disssturbed my slumber. My name is Fassash, and I shall dessstroy you for your dissscourtesssy unlessss you make an appropriate apology.”
“Breakfast good,” replied Igmut to the open cavern. “Igmut always like breakfast when woken early?”
Sibilant spellcasting syllables echoed around the room, and Sheba abruptly dropped out of the air as Malachite’s spell of air walking on the tiger was severed. She landed lightly on her paws and sniffed the air around her cautiously, as a long sinuous creature materialised on a rock within the cavern. The limbless, snakelike body of the creature was banded in purple and black, and it was topped with a human-like head with two massive canine teeth and lank dark hair.
“Naga,” muttered Endo in a warning from behind me. “Watch the teeth, the eyes… oh, and the spellcasting”.
.oOo.
Still communicating with Igmut, the creature demanded a payment to allow us to pass safely without killing us, and Igmut (to my very great surprise) obediently held up and tossed an enchanted morningstar into the glowing pool.
“Acceptable,” hissed the naga. “In fact, your offer is ssso acceptable that I ssshall anssswer one quessstion you might asssk”.
“Easy,” replied Igmut. “What’s down there?” He gestured forwards down the corridor.
“Zaragog the dirty illithid,” came the hissed answer. “And hisss drow compatriotsss. Now, you may passs.”
Igmut, Endo, Flynne, Sheba and I moved past the naga, but dimly behind us there was a soft sound of a foot stepping on gravel. Flynne.
“Betrayersss!” The naga shouted at the realisation that there was another one of us in the room invisibly. “Falssse traitorsss!”
The creature began to cast a spell.
Leaping into action, Sheba pounced at the snake-creature, and slashed at it with her claws, but her blow slashed though a displaced image of the creature, which was within a couple of feet of the image. Casting a spell, Malachite aided his pet by summoning a lightning storm into the room, and electricity crashed down from the ceiling and playing around the naga’s body.
Endo cast a spell of his own, sending a pale stream at the naga’s eyes – the spell coalesced into a cluster of maggots, and the creature itself flailed around unable to see through its suddenly milky-white eyes.
Dashing across the cavern, I spoke a couple of words of power which greatly improved my chant of courage and empowered all of my companions a great deal, before the naga shouted out.
“I am blind! I wasss merely going to cassst a ssspell to purge the invisssibility!”
By this time, however, it was too late, and combat was joined. Even blind, the creature knew its lair well, and wormed away towards the edge of the chamber, turning invisible as it moved so that we had no idea where it might have gone and what might happen next.
Igmut was equal to the task, however. He chanted a prayer to Kord, asking his god to remove any invisibility near him. It became clear that Flynne wasn’t close enough to Igmut to be affected, but the naga was – it was within inches of me with venom dripping from its long fangs!
Sheba pounced again, and was bitten for her troubles, whilst I dived backwards firing with my wand as I leapt through the air. A couple of small enchanted missiles slapped into the creature, but the damage was fairly minimal. Still blinded, the creature backed away a little further and then opened its fanged mouth to cast a spell. However, no sound came from its maw, and it stared blankly around itself in utter confusion. Flynne had clearly flung the arrow towards it to stop it having any chance of casting a spell at all.
Instead, the creature changed its mind, bit Sheba once again and then moved away towards the tunnel we had entered through. Behind it, Flynne appeared and swung his sword to deadly effect, and he was soon assisted by Igmut who plunged his longspear into the creature’s scaly body, and then Sheba dashed in and tore the naga apart with her claws, shaking the snakelike body in her massive teeth.
Retrieving Igmut’s magical morningstar out of the pool was the work of moments, and we managed to pick up a couple of other items (including a rather attractive bottle filled with an infinite amount of smoke) from the water whilst we were at it. A few moments later, we strode towards the tunnel from the room (pausing only to see Flynne stuffing the naga’s tail into a bag of holding.
As we passed through the entrance to another cavern, there was a click. Looking up, we could all see a pair of drow in a ledge towards the ceiling pointing small crossbows at us. Beneath them were three more armed and armoured male drow with swords readied to receive us, and behind those three stood a lithe and confident-looking female drow who clutched a writhing holy symbol made of dark metal in her hands.
“Oh dear,” muttered Igmut, his clattering of his armour falling silent as he came to an abrupt halt.
) late read from me.
