51—The Adventurer’s Trinity: Preparation, Surprise, and Overwhelming Force.
Kyreel is able to cure herself, and the group retraces their steps until they are back at the sinkhole near where they encountered the crying drow. Thelbar advocates attacking again in the morning, this time trying to approach unseen. Taran agrees, but is concerned that the drow will make some sort of immediate reprisal, and attempt to harry the party and keep them from taking the initiative. Taran proposes that the party place the portable hole on the cave wall in an area of deep shadow where the opening can face the sinkhole. Then, the group will climb inside it and wait in ambush for the drow strike force.
Taran’s strategy and knowledge of drow tactics is sound. Only a few short hours after the group settles in, a large fighting band of drow emerge from the sinkhole. Paradoxically, they are dressed in the uniforms of the White Death, Kiransalee’s army, but have certainly come hunting for the Champions of the Risen Goddess, as they are garbed for a surface-world assault.
A double-score of drow warriors, along with four horrific ghoul-like skinless undead are led by both a cleric and a wizard from the Szith Morcane mage’s guild. None of the drow recognize the pitch-black hole at floor-level for what it is, and the party is able to slip out of the portable hole, and creep up behind the drow column.
Thelbar proves at once that he can quicken haste and chain lightning as well as any other wizard, and adds a feeblemind for the wizard to boot. Kyreel’s holy smite and flame strike make quick work of the cleric, and other spellcasters. Taran, as is his custom, waits until his companions have unleashed their spells before charging forward to mop up any survivors. Predictably enough, the drow column is nearly wiped out before they can marshal a response, and the rest of the fight is an anticlimax.
Not wishing to take any chances, the party returns to the portable hole to rest and make plans for the monring.
“There is some wicked force in that place,” Thelbar says. “An entity of some sort. I heard its voice in my head, when we spoke to Solom Ned’razak. It said “Kill him and free me, and I will give you great rewards.”
“Yes, I heard it also,” Kyreel says.
“If Solom Ned’razak is binding demons, this plays to our advantage. I suspect we will be likely to have more success scrying the thrall than scrying the wizard.”
-----
And so, the next morning, Thelbar scrys the possessor of the voice heard in his head, and as he suspected, he sees a large fiend, trapped within a summoning circle. The fiend stands some 9 feet tall, judging by the other furnishings in the room, and is a jackal-headed creature, covered in fur, and possessed of an extra set of arms ending in wicked-looking pincers.
After watching the room for a few moments, Thelbar teleports the group to the location, and despite their invisibility, they are immediately spotted by the fiend.
“Ah, I thought you would be back,” it intones, its foul voice buzzing about in the party’s heads like a swarm of carrion flies. “Have you considered my offer? Ned’razak is too much for you, but not with my help. Free me, and I will take his mewling soul with me to the Abyss once we have rended him limb from limb.”
“We doubt your trustworthiness,” Kyreel states, “and are not in the habit of making deals with fiends.”
“You wound me,” the creature says.
“Tell us what you know of Ned’razak, and we will determine for ourselves if freeing you is a desirable option,” Thelbar says.
“Ah, yes, bargaining for information.” The fiend says this last word with dripping contempt. “I should have suspected no better from one who has sat a throne in Baator. Do I surprise you? Do I unman you?"” The fiend pauses, but there is no response. “Ned’razak is a diabolist, the worst sort of summoner. He has licked the boots of his baatezu masters and begged them for a vision.” the fiend continues, “They told him that you are deeply hated by the nine princes. Congratulations on that, by the way. They told him that you are the one who displaced Belial.” The name of the arch-fiend is itself an unholy word, and even despite the summoning circle’s protective hedge, sends tremors through the bodies of the party. The fiend laughs slowly, a rolling and oddly seductive chuckle.
“Devils are so pathetic,” he finishes.
“No deal,” Thelbar says. “We kill Ned’razak, and then we see about you.”
Taran creeps through the door of the summoning room, using all his stealth, and leads the party back to the chamber where they were so ingloriously defeated mere hours before. Ned’razak’s bodyguard stands on watch just outside of an open door, her swords in hand. The drow have been put on their guard, no doubt by the summoned fiend. Taran creeps past her, and notes the slight shimmering outline of an invisible figure lurking in a corner of the room beyond. He leaps forward and seizes the mage, shouting “Thel! Over here!”
Thelbar’s customary feeblemind takes sudden effect, and Taran finds himself holding on to a nearly defenseless old drow man. The bodyguard does not fare near as well with her master gone, and after another brief exchange, she lies dead on the floor.
The party quickly loots both the bodies and the mage’s room with a practiced ease, stuffing everything that looks valuable or radiates magic into their portable hole. Finishing that, they sneak out of the mage’s school, and head toward the highest point of Szith Morcane, the spider-shaped temple that was once a home for the worship of Lolth, and now houses Irae T’ssarion’s White Death.
They move through the complex with an efficiency born of long practice, and put to the sword and spell all drow within. The place is crawling with undead, and more than its share of vampires. During the temple’s final resistance, a drowish high-priestess standing behind a fearsome-looking death knight and a large contingent of vampires taunts the party.
“The goddess you serve is dead!” she says, making a reference to the spider-queen pins the party wears.
“The goddess we serve is Palatin Eremath, and she’s already been dead,” Kyreel retorts.
Taran whirls his sun blade above his head, and the enchanted blade produces a sunlight radiance that confuses and scatters their vampiric foes. The death knight, even without his vampiric allies, proves to be a vital and fearsome combatant. There is something disturbingly familiar about his carriage and fighting style, although none of the characters can put their finger on exactly what it is.
The remaining priestess drops a blade barrier on the party, but cannot pin any of the heroes down with the spell. Taran scuttles underneath the whirling fan of blades, and says “Nice blade barrier. Y’wanna see mine?” There is no save for half.
After Taran finishes with the priestess, he assists Kyreel with the death knight, and soon the servants of Kiransalee in Szith Morcane number only a handful of undead, scattered to whatever strange winds blow through the lightless world of the Underdark.
The group makes a search of the temple, and discovers several pieces of communication to the priestess from none other that Irae T’ssarion herself. In the letters, T’ssarion refers to the woman as “daughter”, and entreats her to stand fast against “whatever surface-dwellers may come”. The followers of Kiransalee expect an attack from adventurers, but there is no mention of any specifics.
In the heart of the place is a lost temple to Lolth, sacked and desecrated. The entire place gives off an exceptionally unwholesome chill. No doubt the massacres and sacrifices that accompanied the recent overthrow of Lolth’s faithful had this place as their epicenter. Now, the sanctum is so foul that according to the tracks, not even the perpetrators of the crimes can stomach the place long enough to make any use out of it.
Truth be told, with their military objective achieved, it was only greed that drew the Champions of the Risen Goddess into such a horrible place.
