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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cafu" data-source="post: 6278388" data-attributes="member: 6692807">I wasn’t quite as sure about that. The first problem was the doors in front of us. They were huge, heavy and made of adamantite; there was no sign of a lock and they were firmly closed. John examined them and then gave the all clear. Victor tried pulling, pushing, up, down and sideways but made little impression. John then signed for everyone to turn back and cast a spell at them; thankfully, that worked and they cracked open very slightly. Carefully, we pulled them open, with Longhelim intensifying the light the Torch emitted to allowing us to see inside. There was quite a large, square room with what had been a carpet but which now was a partly burned, mouldy mess.  In a corner, there was a large pile of rubble, which had obviously been caused by the recent explosion. As shown on the map, there was also a door on the opposite wall, which led to another room which was actually a dead end; the portcullis was down but had not quite reached the floor. There was enough room to crawl under it but the person doing so would be extremely vulnerable. As we were looking around, we also saw a foot jutting out from under the rubble. There was very little point in stealth as the Torch was emitting enough light to announce our presence to all and sundry. So we entered cautiously but without any attempts at stealth. Longhelim then asked: “Faden, do you still have your spell which makes a doorway in a wall?” “Yes,” I replied. “It’s proved to be so useful that I usually carry it with me.” He was looking carefully at the map: “Well, by my calculations, if you cast it here, it should make a doorway which will take us straight into the balcony with the secret door.” He then pointed at a spot on the wall in the corner of the room. As per his instructions, I cast my spell at that wall only to see, with dismay, that a thin layer of stone disappeared, to leave a wall of metal. That spell did not go through metal unfortunately. As I was still looking at the gap in the wall, suddenly, I heard John whispering urgently: “Shhh! Listen!” I stopped still, trying to listen but didn’t hear anything; others did though, as Drudge was staring at the corridor beyond the portcullis and aiming his arrows there. Victor was also getting ready and Longhelim had already moved to the exit blocked by the portcullis; then around the corner, I saw several figures appear; they were obviously undead, animated corpses but quite different from the ones we had met previously since they were moving normally. They were also moaning so loudly that even I could hear them now. Seeing what they were, Longhelim waved his holy symbol at them and with concentration screwing on his face, he used the holy power supplied by Heironeous to repel them from his person; with a groan, three of them turned around, leaving the fourth standing behind the portcullis; moments later, another three came from around the corner and joined their compatriot. At this point, Felix waved his holy symbol at them almost negligently and all four crumpled into dust; it was quite spectacular. Victor then stepped forward and tried to lift the portcullis; however, it must have been stuck or damaged as he was unable to move it. He shrugged, looked at it momentarily as if debating something in his mind and then drew his adamantite sword and literally carved a passage through it. Just as he did so, a voice boomed out of the air, freezing everyone in place: “Savages! Barbarians! I’m sure you’re looking forward to looting this complex but the reality is that you’re trapped. My staff and I are safe, protected by the obelisk. That leviathan in the sky will be destroyed soon and my army will return. You may as well try to hide. There is nowhere to go and you won’t find me! Your doom is almost upon you!” Victor just muttered: “They do like their speeches,” as he stepped through the hole in the portcullis and stood next to a door in the corridor just beyond it; as it happened, this was a door through which we needed to go. He was quickly joined by Longhelim and John when the door swung open and one of the distorted humanoids stepped out, staring intently at Victor; for once, the warrior stood his ground and swung at the creature. Longhelim then joined in and Drudge began to shoot his arrows at the enemy; it was staggering at the multitude of blows that were raining on it; just as well really, as I suddenly caught a movement at the far end of the corridor. A formless mass of black began to ooze its way down the corridor towards us. “Ware enemy in corridor”, I shouted at the others. The others glanced up there but were still engaged with the humanoid. Seeing it, I cast one of my precious few spells; an invisible wall was conjured across the corridor, blocking the path of the black mass. At this stage, the humanoid finally fell, unable to take further pounding. The others saw the black mass slithering towards us but I said: “We have a few moments, I hope. I put a wall in front of it.” As it moved, I saw that it was leaving smoking marks behind it, as if it was burning the stone or material on it. This must be the mysterious source of the burn marks we had seen in the first room; and it was obviously not fire but acid that was causing the damage; that thing must have had powerful secretions to be doing that sort of reaction even with stone. John cast a little spell and a strong glow manifested itself from his hand; it was much stronger light than usual and it pierced the darkness into the distance; not quite as good as the Torch but still pretty powerful; I knew the spell. The undead did not like it at all. Rapidly, we moved into the room from which the humanoid had emerged; it was full of maps and papers and I began to move there almost involuntarily. Longhelim hissed: “Faden, come on! Now is not the time!” I moved back into the group but looked longingly at the papers; there could be priceless information there but it would useless to us if we were dead and we had no idea how long before Kreven was able to restore the multicoloured barrier around the fortress; once he was able to do that, then our mission was over and a failure. We moved through this room and another which was empty, before emerging into the corridor again. As we did, John was saying: “That black thing! I have read about it; some clown called it a black pudding and that’s a big one. They move over everything and just dissolve it with their acid; just roll over you. Their other big trick is that you can’t hit them with sharp weapons; that just splits them into more puddings. You can only hurt them with blunt weapons. Apart from that, they are dumb, slow and easy to hit. It’s just one big stomach really.” Longhelim and Victor nodded in thanks to what John was saying and Victor said: “Felix, can I borrow your mace?” The priest handed it over to the warrior, who swung it experimentally and stuck it in his belt. This time, we had to move to our right; as we did, another half a dozen of the undead appeared from around another corner. As they did, we also saw that, something, probably the black pudding, had created a huge hole in the wall. It was irregular but quite smooth, as if eaten by acid. The undead advanced but Felix again waved his holy symbol at them and again, four of them turned into dust. The other two advanced mindlessly to be met by Victor. The rest of us waited patiently while the warrior dealt with this menace; the last two zombies swung at the warrior who avoided their blows and then they burst into dust as Felix engaged the power of his god again. However, at that point, the other menace we had seen suddenly made an appearance, slithering and oozing out of the side corridor. As soon as that happened, John, who had been just behind Victor, tapped him with a spell on his back and then ran back; Longhelim stepped forward to deliver a devastating blow with the Torch; whatever power he was using, it was obviously acting as a blunt weapon as the creature rippled and moved, but did not split. Victor put almost no effort into accuracy and just swung his mace at the pudding; he didn’t need to really; it was a black amorphous mass, filling up most of the corridor. Again, the mace seemed to sink into it almost to the hilt but it was difficult to make out just how badly he had wounded it. Unfortunately, we had a disaster after that. It slithered forward, surprisingly fast for something like that, and caught Longhelim in its grasp, drawing the paladin into its mass. Longhelim struggled but he was held fast. We could see almost all of his possessions begin to smoke and melt. In desperation, Drudge shot it with an arrow only to see it split into two. Longhelim shouted: “That’s not going to work! Get back!” Moments later, a huge cylinder of fire came down on the creatures and Longhelim. It was one of the powers of the Torch and its intensity all but did for the puddings; poor Longhelim swayed and there was a moment when even the puddings seemed to be stunned. Victor took full advantage and swung, once, twice and they became inert, sloughing off the paladin. Unfortunately, when that happened, much of Longhelim’s gear also fell to the floor, its fastenings eaten through by the acid of the creature. We helped him gather it up and then everyone began to heal him. We managed to jury rig most of his things, such as shoulder straps for his back pack and a belt for his trousers and then we continued cautiously down the corridor. There was a corridor leading to the left which was not marked on our map. John took a quick look around the corner and then motioned us forward: “Seems deserted except for some bodies; it looks like a crypt.” Longhelim said: “Interesting but we have to ignore it.” Like the paladin, we all felt the pressure of time; Kreven was full of bravado but Master Pilus had also warned us that he had only suppressed the magical defences of the fortress. Sooner or later it would be back; we had to be done and finished before then. This was one of those situations where we would be finished….one way or another. Therefore, since there was no obvious danger from the crypt, we moved past it cautiously, turning right into the corridor. This corridor was lined with doors ending with one at the far end. According to our map, it was this last door that was most important to us. Beyond it were a set of stairs leading down, which in turn led into the room which Victor called a perfect killing ground. Normally we would investigate the other doors, concerned about leaving potential foes behind us but again, time was of such essence that we had to gamble; at this point we did not have enough resources for a protracted assault on the full complex; we could only hope that Kreven had been caught out to such a degree by our assault on the Eye and then Pilus’s assault on the fortress that his resources had also been unexpectedly stretched. So, we reached the door at the end of the corridor. There, we made a final check of our equipment and Victor opened the door. As usual, the corridor was dark but quickly illuminated by the Torch. The steps angled to our left for a short distance and then there was an opening down to the right which, if the map was right, led into the killing ground. “Well, there’s no help for it. Let’s go!” “Wait! Let me check for traps,” John said. Victor stopped and the rogue quickly checked the steps, coming out again, shaking his head: “It’s clear.” Victor started forward again. “Wait!” This time, it was a cry from Felix. “I have my spell, which can obscure you. If I put it on you, it may help your defence.” As the priest began to cast, he then had the grace to look abashed: “Sorry, I thought I had that spell; actually I don’t.” Victor started forward for a third time. Again, there was another cry: “Wait!” This time, it was from John again. Victor gave him a look and said slowly: “Now what?” The rogue looked slightly abashed but determined. “I’ve got an idea. Just give me a few moments.” John took out a horn and went down the stairs. Shortly, he came back up again. “This is not so good. I blew my horn into that room; as you know, it’s supposed to emit fog which obscures the owner. I was hoping it would obscure the opening. By the way, Victor, you’re right. The walls of the opening are full or arrow slits; there are also two doors on each of the corners the far end, just like the map shows; there’s also a pit with a winch at the far end; but…..when I blew my horn, the fog was repulsed by a barrier. I think that Kreven has somehow suppressed all magic in that room; none of our spells or magical items will work in there.” That did indeed change things; it was very likely that John was right and we began to make more preparations. Floating stones above our heads were snagged and put in pouches; floating shields were fastened onto our backs; magical potions were stowed away. Once this was dealt with, Victor looked at John, Felix and I for a few moments with a question on his face and then stepped down the stairs. We all followed. It took us but a short time to descend the stairs. We crowded the entrance, poised, tense and ready. We had to enter the room as there was not enough room for everyone on the stairs and we felt the magic on our bodies fail; with the exception of the light from the Torch which illuminated the room; even the magic suppression in here could not subdue the might of the Torch. The place just…..looked wrong; John mentioned the arrow slits on the walls on each side; as he described, there were also two doors, one on each corner; the one to our right was the one we needed to take to get to the room with the Obelisk. All of this took only moments as we formed up and led by Victor and Longhelim entered into the room. We did not have to wait long for a reaction; we were about half way into it, when volleys of arrows flew at us from both sides. Ragesian archers were expert anyway, but without our magical defences, for them, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Almost simultaneously, the doors at the far end opened and teams of Ragesian soldiers ran out; they were half orcs, lightly armoured, fast, lithe and deadly, wielding swords. One individual was slightly different from the others. Although he was also lightly armoured, he had a bandolier of daggers around his torso and with practiced ease, he drew one and threw it at Drudge. The knife stuck in the ranger’s arm but more worryingly, as I watched its progress, I saw that its blade was glistening with some sort of paste. Poison of some sort, no doubt. Drudge staggered a little and grimaced but continued to fire into the arrow slits; although I had two arrows stuck in me courtesy of their skills, I smiled grimly as I thought that the archers really had not counted on someone actually shooting at them through the slits. The half orcs ran forward, avoiding sword blows by summersaults and extraordinary swerves, feints and maneuvers of their bodies; they positioned themselves in such a way that they were able to strike at undefended parts of their targets; they managed to surround Drudge and as well as Victor. In the case of the former, they stabbed him, badly, especially the individual with the daggers who again stabbed with a glistening knife and this time Drudge was unable to resist the poison on the blade and collapsed, bursting into flame. However, it did not go so well for those facing Victor, who, instead of letting himself be surrounded, stepped forward and slashed at one of them so strongly that he dropped him in one blow. This allowed him to attack the other soldier, who had been trying to position himself on the other flank. This one took two slashes to finish off; then, with a flourish, Victor spun and slashed the last soldier badly across the stomach. I heard a shout from above and a storm of arrows all targeted the warrior; he went down and burst into flames but not before I counted a total of fourteen shafts protruding from his body. Victor’s sacrifice had dented the soldier’s confidence badly; they were hesitating, not nearly as sure of the attacks as they had been; whereas previously, they sprang and ran with a sure confidence, now they looked far more cautious and Longhelim took full advantage, stepping forward gracefully and almost tapping one of them with his flaming axe; except that this was the Torch of the Burning Sky and the soldier dropped immediately. This now only left two others, one of which had been badly wounded by Victor as well as the knife wielder. I moved forward, just keeping out of everyone’s way, but this did not deter the archers from targeting me. The knife man now selected John as his next target, mainly because one of the soldiers was in position of great advantage to him. The poor rogue did not stand a chance and moments later had joined Victor and Drudge on the floor in flames; however, this allowed Longhelim to step forward into the two soldiers and begin combat with them. In the meantime, I had managed get to John’s form and begin dragging him to the edge of the room but it was difficult; it was quite incredible how heavy even someone of John’s slight build was when they were inert; getting burned by his flames was not very pleasant either. Longhelim had finished the two healthy soldiers and was now facing the knife man. Although the latter managed to slash the paladin with his dagger, Longhelim was more resilient against poison than either Drudge or John and showed no reaction to wound apart from bleeding. Purely on a combat basis, the Ragesian stood no chance against someone like Longhelim and the fight did not take long, with the paladin dropping the knife man with a combination of two ax slashes; in the meantime, Felix had managed to deal with the wounded Ragesian soldier. The archers had been shooting all of the survivors of our group and Longhelim began jogging rapidly towards one of the doors at the far end. “Faden, leave him! We have to deal with the archers now!”</blockquote>

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