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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3999404" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 338BACK THROUGH THE GATESThe intruders moved single-file through the complex, retracing the same steps they had taken the day before, returning along the path of their retreat through the quiet, sinister halls of the Gates of Hell. Their numbers had been augmented; Talen’s vampiric bandits had rejoined them a few hours before the spellcasters had woken from their sleep.  Drudge, Utar, Needles and Hedder looked none the worse for the pounding they’d taken from the Overmind’s astral constructs.  Dar had spent the entire rest period on watch, and by the time that the casters woke he looked truly grim, with puffy black circles under his eyes, which were shot through with red.  The fighter had refused to delay them any longer to let him catch up on his sleep, instead taking a restoration spell from Allera to dispel the effects of his exhaustion.  The spell had left him alert, but anything but fresh.  The same could be said of all of them, at least the five living members of their company.  They had washed the blood and dirt from their bodies and clothes, and had tended to their other gear as best they could, but the long hours they had spent in the Dungeon of Graves was wearing hard upon them.  Allera’s heroes’ feast had helped, at least somewhat, fortifying their bodies against the trials that no doubt awaited them below. Alderis had recovered enough to study his spellbook, and clad in his gray robe of the archmagi he looked almost mortal again.  But the elf’s eyes still hid dark shadows.  He only spoke when directly addressed, and then often had to be prodded several times before he realized that someone was in front of him.  Talen made a few comments about the elf’s effectiveness, and neither Varo nor Dar could response with an effective counter.  Alderis looked... broken, but his powers were still too great to turn away.  Letellia had waited in vain for Honoratius to make an effort to contact her.  At her urging Varo had attempted a sending to Velan Tiros, but he had received no acknowledgement or reply.  The sorceress walked alone in the middle of their column, a distant look on her face, the faint gleam of her multiple magical wards occasionally visible as a slight distortion in the air when the light of their torches caught her in a particular angle.   Allera and Varo walked alongside each other, engaged in quiet conversation.  The healer looked decidedly uncomfortable, but she did not pull away from the cleric as they made their way deeper into the complex.  Varo had taken her aside shortly after the casters had awoken from their rest, and spent several minutes talking to her in hushed tones that did not carry to the others nearby.  Talen had looked at them and smirked, and since then had made no effort to acknowledge that either of them even existed.  His slaves gave both the healer and the cleric a wide berth. The complex was deserted.  As they passed through the chambers where the mind flayers and their allies had ambushed them on their first visit, they saw that the bodies, detritus of battle... even the blood, had vanished.  The stale stink of the Abyssal hounds still permeated the place, but there was no sign that anything else had ever occupied these chambers, or that a battle had taken place here not two full days before.  They grew wary as they approached the cavern of the Overmind once more, but here again they arrived to find the place utterly deserted.  The blue flames in the giant metal braziers continued to burn, obviously reliant upon some sort of magic or other unconventional fuel.  But the carnage they’d left here was likewise nowhere to be seen, and the pool that had contained the Overmind now held only a slick of brackish, befouled liquid that clung to the ancient stones. “Too quiet,” Dar said, even that soft statement sounding uncannily loud in the quiet expanse of the vault.  Their footfalls echoed off the distant walls, giving the place the somber sepulchrave air of a cathedral, or a tomb.  “Don’t knock it,” Shay said, moving ahead to check out the far stair.  Varo looked at Allera once more, then walked after the scout.  The light of the torches the others carried created a long shadow that stretched out ahead of the cleric, until it merged with the one coming off of the far brazier.  The air was cold and stale; they could still smell the blood, even though the stone at their feet was bare.“Well, shall we?” Talen asked, smiling at Dar.  The fighter did not respond, following the scout and cleric toward the staircase. The air grew cooler as they descended, and they could detect moisture as well.  The stairs continued down for perhaps forty feet, depositing them in a tunnel that continued forward with a slight, almost unnoticeable slope downward.  Shay kept a brisk pace, forcing the others to hasten to keep up.  The only sound was the noise of their boots on the bare stone, and the faint clatter of armor from the warriors.  The passage ended with a low overhang that led into a large cavern beyond. “Impressive,” Letellia said.  The cavern was massive.  While it was perhaps not much larger than the chamber where they had battled the Overmind, its high, natural ceiling gave the place a sense of far greater scale.  In addition, while the light from the braziers in the former place had died before it reached the walls, here they could see the entire expanse of the cavern, illuminated by phosphorescent growths that clung with determination to small cracks and crevices in a thousand places along the walls.  Those decorations, and the deep crimson hue of the pale light they shed, combined with the uneven shape of the place, gave the illusion of being within the gullet of some huge monster.     The center of the place was dominated by a small mountain.  That feature rose almost to the ceiling, its truncated summit rising over sixty feet above them.  The top of it had been sheared off, as if it had been trimmed to fit in this place.  Its flanks were almost sheer, promising a difficult ascent. Difficult for most of them, perhaps.  As Shay walked forward, she began to dissolve into a plume of mist, which rose effortlessly into the air above them, rising toward the ascent.  Talen sent his bandits around the edges of the room to scout, but their eyes kept returning to that high peak, which waited for them with seeming inevitability.“I suppose that’s the way?” Dar asked, turning to Varo.  But the cleric didn’t respond; his eyes were focused upon the summit, but his stare seemed to be focused on some distant place, a point beyond any of their perceptions.  The fighter did not press him, instead joining the others as they walked forward toward the base of the great mound.  As they approached they could see that their initial sense of scale was not far off; the mound was easily over a hundred feet wide across its base, and possibly half again as much.  “Shay’s coming back,” Talen said.  The living companions peered into the vague light but could not clearly discern the scout’s vaporous form until it began to take on definition, solidifying until she took on substance, dropping the last fifteen feet to land in an easy crouch before them.  “Report,” Talen said. “It’s a caldera, a big open bowl.  Full of water up to about twenty feet or so below the inside rim.  There’s something in there; couldn’t make it out clearly, but it’s big.  Tried to tease it out, but it wasn’t having any.”“There weren’t any other exits?” Allera asked. Shay shook her head.  “If there are, they’re underwater.”Dar looked at Varo.  “You are certain?”  At the cleric’s nod, Dar looked back up the almost vertical slope.  “Then we’ll have to climb.”“I can transport all of you up there with me through a dimension door,” Letellia said.  “But be aware, my reservoir of magic was diminished with all of the stoneskins I cast earlier; I only have a limited reserve of fourth-order spells remaining.”  One of the results of their discussions that morning in camp was to share the sorceress’s magical protections with more of them; currently Alderis, Allera, and Varo were all protected with both resist energy and stoneskin spells, although Letellia’s supply of the diamond dust needed for the latter spell was nearly depleted. “If you feel you can make the climb, then it may be best to conserve your magic,” Varo suggested.   Letellia nodded.  “How do you intend to get through the water?  Some of us, at least, have to breathe.” “Leave that to me,” Varo said.  The ascent proved easier for the fact that they had the vampires to lead the way.  Transforming again into gaseous form, the seven undead drifted up to the summit, where Shay secured several ropes.  The lines, tossed down, didn’t quite reach to the cavern floor, but the base of the mound had a slightly gentler slope and plenty of hand and footholds, so none of them had any difficulty reaching the ropes.  Alderis avoided any effort at all by muttering the words of a spell, and then rose into the air, drifting up toward the top while the others started their climb. Varo took one rope and started climbing, grunting with the effort of lifting himself and all his gear up the cliff.  Dar motioned for Allera to follow Letellia up the second line.  He waited below, unwilling to strain the ropes by adding his own considerable weight to either.  But Varo made it to the top with surprising speed, while Letellia was still a good twenty feet below the summit.  Dar started up the line that the cleric vacated.  Allera had almost caught up to Letellia, who was having some difficulty.  The ropes were knotted to ease climbing, but the sorceress, while young and healthy, lacked the upper-body strength of the others.  The healer encouraged her, while Dar slid over horizontally to move nearer to them.  With his strength, he was almost to Allera as Letellia approached the top of the cliff.  “If you cannot manage, use your magic!” Dar urged her. “No, I can do it!” the sorceress said.  Her face trailing sweat from exertion, she grimaced and reapplied herself to the rope, pulling herself hand-over-hand up the last stretch of cliff.  The vampires had offered no assistance thus far; Dar looked up to see Talen standing on the cliff edge to the right, watching their progress. Letellia’s revitalized effort carried her up the last ten feet of cliff almost as fast as Varo had done before her.  Behind her, Allera kept pace.  The sorceress was about to reach the top when a head suddenly appeared right above her: the ugly visage of the bandit Hedder. Startled, the sorceress lost her grip on the rope.  She screamed as she fell backwards and down.  Her shoulder clipped Allera hard as she fell, knocking the healer off the rope as well, and sending both women plummeting down toward the jagged rocks some sixty feet below.</blockquote>

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