Lazybones
Adventurer
Thanks for all the posts, everyone!
Needless to say, I've made a lot of changes from the module as written, but I've tried to remain faithful to the source material at least in terms of mood and overall substance of the Dungeon of Graves.
Time for today's update: reinforcements to the rescue of our heroes! Heh, right, and it's Friday...
* * * * *
Chapter 296
NELAN’S FLIGHT
The winds had been growing in intensity over the last half-hour, and Nelan struggled to maintain the focus on his wind walk spell. He glanced over his shoulder at the eleven others flying in a V-formation behind him. Below them stretched the uneven mounds of scrub hills that stretched for miles in every direction; to the west they could see the green expanse of the Forest of Hope, while to the east the vast expanse of the ocean could be seen beyond the farthest ranks of hills.
And ahead, their destination.
They had long since left behind the clear skies that had miraculously appeared above Camar. Above them stretched a great bank of gray, which had deepened in color and malevolence the further south they had traveled. And now, as he peered into the distance, he saw that there was a particularly dense gathering of black clouds ahead that hovered over a point in the midst of the hills. It was a good twenty or thirty miles ahead, he judged, but as he watched he could see flashes in the sky, reverberations of dark power that he could not clearly distinguish in the mist-form granted by his wind walk spell.
He could guess where that unnatural storm was centered.
He looked up again and tried to gauge the level of the sun through the clouds. He could not be sure of the time, but he suspected that Honoratius, Dar, and the rest of the first wave were getting ready to depart, if they hadn’t done so already. He was tempted to rise up above the clouds briefly to check the position of the sun, a trivial exercise with the wind walk, but despite the security of his faith, he was not accustomed to flying, and the thought of leaving the ground so far below was more than a bit unnerving.
He berated himself slightly for the thought. If he was unused to flying, he could only imagine what his companions were feeling. None of them had broken formation, and while there had been a few pale faces when they had paused briefly at Highbluff to rest and take a hasty breakfast, none of them had complained. At least the two priests and the two temple guards were familiar with the concept of wind walking. The six knights, however, had merely accepted their orders, their faces all hardened with the same grim look of men and women who had accepted death as a likely outcome of their oaths.
Talen had done something to these people, Nelan thought. There was something missing from them. Maybe if one of them had shown fear at the thought of being transformed into mist and whisked over landscapes faster than the fastest horse. Or even cracked a joke, or shed a tear. It could be that they were just better at hiding their feelings than most people. But Nelan had felt decidedly uncomfortable around them.
Another gust of wind buffeted him, and he gestured to the others to follow him down lower. Thus far the wind had not been sufficiently intense to cause physical injury, which was a real hazard to a wind walker. But just from the look of the skies ahead, it seemed likely that they would not be able to fully reach their destination via the spells he and Patriarch Jaduran had cast before dawn that morning.
He turned back just in time to see it.
It appeared out of nowhere, dropping down from the sky above, maybe a thousand feet ahead of them. It was big, and vaguely humanoid, but its features were difficult to make out due to the dark cascade of energy that surrounded it. Nelan recognized that nimbus as an unholy aura.
He gestured frantically, even as the driving wind carried them closer to the creature. The formation split, with half of the group following Nelan down to the left, while the other half veered right. The monster, which Nelan now saw to be some sort of demon, just hovered there on stubby wings that seemed incapable of supporting its hulking weight.
Nelan glanced back, and saw that the final member of his group had broken off, and was heading toward the demon on a direct course. As he watched, his wind walk dissolved, and the figure took on the solid form of a muscled, golden-haired youth clad in a simple white robe. Gravity asserted its hold as the spell ended, but the youth’s form began to shift and shimmer, and within seconds a pair of feathered white wings had appeared from his back, and a bright glow had erupted around him.
Nelan gestured for his cadres to keep going. He wanted to aid his planar ally against the demon, but he knew that he could not help short of landing and returning to solid form, which would put him in no position to be of any use.
A pair of vrock demons materialized in front of the demon, and immediately dove at the oncoming deva. The celestial lifted his mace, but before the two creatures could reach him he uttered a holy word. Both vrocks stiffened and fell, blasted insensate by the pure force of that syllable. The deva flew past them, its attentions focused upon the greater demon.
The nalfeshnee waited until the deva was almost within striking distance, and then it teleported away.
Nelan looked back and saw the deva falling farther behind them. He raised a hand and started to slow his rate of speed; the others started to shoot past him before they too began to slow to match him.
The first warning he had was a twisting sensation that shot through him like a crossbow bolt. Four of the five others accompanying him suddenly materialized as the wind walk was dispelled. The temple guardsman, priest, and two knights screamed as they fell, their momentum continuing to carry them forward as they plummeted toward the ground over one hundred feet below. Nelan could do nothing but watch in horror as all four smashed hard into the barren, rocky hillsides.
The nalfeshnee descended upon them from above. Even slowed as they were, the wind walk spell still carried them forward faster than the demon could follow, and soon he and his last companion—a temple guardsman named Valerian—were out of its range.
Nelan was at a loss what to do. The four that had fallen had dropped a distance that should have killed them, but it was possible that one or more might have survived the fall. He looked around for the other group that had split off when they’d first spotted the demon, but he couldn’t see them; wind walkers were hard to spot any any distance beyond a few hundred feet. He looked at Valerian, and could see the terror on the man’s face even with the distortion to his features caused by the spell. He caught the man’s attention, and pointed toward the ground. They descended toward a hilltop that jutted up from the rolling terrain like a bent thumb.
They had nearly reached it when the demon appeared in a sudden rush of blackness and sound above them.
Valerian panicked and veered sharply to the right. Nelan headed downward, under its reach. The insubstantial form granted by his spell provided some protection against physical attacks, but he did not doubt that the demon’s power was sufficient to overcome that obstacle.
But the demon did not attempt to seize him in its massive claws. Instead it focused its dark stare upon the cleric, and hit him with another greater dispel. This time, Nelan’s magic dissolved under its attack, and the cleric dropped like a stone, plummeting forty feet onto the side of the hill. He was lucky to land in a mound of dead scrub, which cushioned his fall slightly, but his momentum and weight dragged him down, and he tumbled hard down a rocky, uneven slope, his breastplate protecting him some against blows that would have otherwise crushed the bones of his torso. He finally came to an abrupt stop at the base of the hill, slamming into a boulder the size of a wagon. There was a flash of pain as his right arm was snapped by the impact, and then for a moment everything swum out of focus, and darkness enfolded him.
Yeah, I've seen a number of published adventures (even high-level ones) that seem to assume that the Big Bad will just huddle in his/her/its room and wait for destruction. I know that the DM can always take the initiative and make changes, but few mods seem to even offer suggestions on how to make a dungeon experience more dynamic.SonofaKyuss said:
Needless to say, I've made a lot of changes from the module as written, but I've tried to remain faithful to the source material at least in terms of mood and overall substance of the Dungeon of Graves.
Time for today's update: reinforcements to the rescue of our heroes! Heh, right, and it's Friday...
* * * * *
Chapter 296
NELAN’S FLIGHT
The winds had been growing in intensity over the last half-hour, and Nelan struggled to maintain the focus on his wind walk spell. He glanced over his shoulder at the eleven others flying in a V-formation behind him. Below them stretched the uneven mounds of scrub hills that stretched for miles in every direction; to the west they could see the green expanse of the Forest of Hope, while to the east the vast expanse of the ocean could be seen beyond the farthest ranks of hills.
And ahead, their destination.
They had long since left behind the clear skies that had miraculously appeared above Camar. Above them stretched a great bank of gray, which had deepened in color and malevolence the further south they had traveled. And now, as he peered into the distance, he saw that there was a particularly dense gathering of black clouds ahead that hovered over a point in the midst of the hills. It was a good twenty or thirty miles ahead, he judged, but as he watched he could see flashes in the sky, reverberations of dark power that he could not clearly distinguish in the mist-form granted by his wind walk spell.
He could guess where that unnatural storm was centered.
He looked up again and tried to gauge the level of the sun through the clouds. He could not be sure of the time, but he suspected that Honoratius, Dar, and the rest of the first wave were getting ready to depart, if they hadn’t done so already. He was tempted to rise up above the clouds briefly to check the position of the sun, a trivial exercise with the wind walk, but despite the security of his faith, he was not accustomed to flying, and the thought of leaving the ground so far below was more than a bit unnerving.
He berated himself slightly for the thought. If he was unused to flying, he could only imagine what his companions were feeling. None of them had broken formation, and while there had been a few pale faces when they had paused briefly at Highbluff to rest and take a hasty breakfast, none of them had complained. At least the two priests and the two temple guards were familiar with the concept of wind walking. The six knights, however, had merely accepted their orders, their faces all hardened with the same grim look of men and women who had accepted death as a likely outcome of their oaths.
Talen had done something to these people, Nelan thought. There was something missing from them. Maybe if one of them had shown fear at the thought of being transformed into mist and whisked over landscapes faster than the fastest horse. Or even cracked a joke, or shed a tear. It could be that they were just better at hiding their feelings than most people. But Nelan had felt decidedly uncomfortable around them.
Another gust of wind buffeted him, and he gestured to the others to follow him down lower. Thus far the wind had not been sufficiently intense to cause physical injury, which was a real hazard to a wind walker. But just from the look of the skies ahead, it seemed likely that they would not be able to fully reach their destination via the spells he and Patriarch Jaduran had cast before dawn that morning.
He turned back just in time to see it.
It appeared out of nowhere, dropping down from the sky above, maybe a thousand feet ahead of them. It was big, and vaguely humanoid, but its features were difficult to make out due to the dark cascade of energy that surrounded it. Nelan recognized that nimbus as an unholy aura.
He gestured frantically, even as the driving wind carried them closer to the creature. The formation split, with half of the group following Nelan down to the left, while the other half veered right. The monster, which Nelan now saw to be some sort of demon, just hovered there on stubby wings that seemed incapable of supporting its hulking weight.
Nelan glanced back, and saw that the final member of his group had broken off, and was heading toward the demon on a direct course. As he watched, his wind walk dissolved, and the figure took on the solid form of a muscled, golden-haired youth clad in a simple white robe. Gravity asserted its hold as the spell ended, but the youth’s form began to shift and shimmer, and within seconds a pair of feathered white wings had appeared from his back, and a bright glow had erupted around him.
Nelan gestured for his cadres to keep going. He wanted to aid his planar ally against the demon, but he knew that he could not help short of landing and returning to solid form, which would put him in no position to be of any use.
A pair of vrock demons materialized in front of the demon, and immediately dove at the oncoming deva. The celestial lifted his mace, but before the two creatures could reach him he uttered a holy word. Both vrocks stiffened and fell, blasted insensate by the pure force of that syllable. The deva flew past them, its attentions focused upon the greater demon.
The nalfeshnee waited until the deva was almost within striking distance, and then it teleported away.
Nelan looked back and saw the deva falling farther behind them. He raised a hand and started to slow his rate of speed; the others started to shoot past him before they too began to slow to match him.
The first warning he had was a twisting sensation that shot through him like a crossbow bolt. Four of the five others accompanying him suddenly materialized as the wind walk was dispelled. The temple guardsman, priest, and two knights screamed as they fell, their momentum continuing to carry them forward as they plummeted toward the ground over one hundred feet below. Nelan could do nothing but watch in horror as all four smashed hard into the barren, rocky hillsides.
The nalfeshnee descended upon them from above. Even slowed as they were, the wind walk spell still carried them forward faster than the demon could follow, and soon he and his last companion—a temple guardsman named Valerian—were out of its range.
Nelan was at a loss what to do. The four that had fallen had dropped a distance that should have killed them, but it was possible that one or more might have survived the fall. He looked around for the other group that had split off when they’d first spotted the demon, but he couldn’t see them; wind walkers were hard to spot any any distance beyond a few hundred feet. He looked at Valerian, and could see the terror on the man’s face even with the distortion to his features caused by the spell. He caught the man’s attention, and pointed toward the ground. They descended toward a hilltop that jutted up from the rolling terrain like a bent thumb.
They had nearly reached it when the demon appeared in a sudden rush of blackness and sound above them.
Valerian panicked and veered sharply to the right. Nelan headed downward, under its reach. The insubstantial form granted by his spell provided some protection against physical attacks, but he did not doubt that the demon’s power was sufficient to overcome that obstacle.
But the demon did not attempt to seize him in its massive claws. Instead it focused its dark stare upon the cleric, and hit him with another greater dispel. This time, Nelan’s magic dissolved under its attack, and the cleric dropped like a stone, plummeting forty feet onto the side of the hill. He was lucky to land in a mound of dead scrub, which cushioned his fall slightly, but his momentum and weight dragged him down, and he tumbled hard down a rocky, uneven slope, his breastplate protecting him some against blows that would have otherwise crushed the bones of his torso. He finally came to an abrupt stop at the base of the hill, slamming into a boulder the size of a wagon. There was a flash of pain as his right arm was snapped by the impact, and then for a moment everything swum out of focus, and darkness enfolded him.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
I thought they might have tried to access RA through one of the other entrances...
