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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(contact)" data-source="post: 1146" data-attributes="member: 41">24-- A Slight Change of PlansThe party manages to close the gates behind them, and limp back to the fortress stronghold.  Rex's body is left behind, and the group's mood is dark.Taran and Thelbar both believe that any further attempt to get into the Great Delve is beyond their means, with two dragons guarding the entrance, and make plans to vacate their base in the lake fortress.  The decision is made to seek further adventure in the nearby valley, but no one is confident that without the party's presence that the goblins can be trusted not to reclaim the structure, as that was obviously the Goblin Prince's goal.  The men at arms are briefed, and told to return to the refugee camp.  They will remain in the party's pay, and possibly called up for service at a later date.  Until then, they are to be put into duty watching over the elves there.The band spends their last night in the fortress drinking and telling stories about Rex-- his affection for his horse, his uncanny accuracy with a crossbow, and the numerous times he saved the lives of the group with his bravery.The next morning, the group locks up the main gates, and sails across the lake, their hearts heavy with grief.  After returning to the elven refugee camp, and briefing the cleric of Corellon Larethian that rules there, they set out for the mysterious abandoned city originally mentioned by the wild elves of the valley.And a wondrous city it is.  The architecture predates any other civilized settlement in the region, by Thelbar and Indy's best estimates, and is probably older than even the mysterious Star Cairns around Greyhawk City.  Low, domed buildings supported by columns and plinths predominate, and the entire place has a mystical feel that sets the party's small hairs on edge.  The surrounding forest has made significant inroads into the place in the centuries since it was abandoned, and the foliage is just thick enough to obscure sight.The group notices a structure near the edge of town significantly larger than its neighbors, and begins to advance toward it when arrows whistle out from hidden positions behind trees, striking Gorquen and Thelbar.  The party scrambles, taking cover where they can, and charging in two main groups around to the front of the edifice.Their foes are bizarre creatures-man-like, but without faces altogether, and possessed of preternaturally rapid rates of fire with their longbows.  The creatures fire and move to cover, separating the group and targeting the arcane casters.  Thelbar is struck several times, and is forced to spend his energy seeking cover and healing himself.  Taran and Kyreel, creeping around the opposite side from the others notice a giant-sized automaton made from the body parts of several creatures guarding the front entrance to the building.  Taran gleefully charges at it, and begins to methodically reduce the thing to its component parts.  Kyreel ascends the stairs leading to the building's entrance behind Taran and prepares herself for melee by drawing the power of Ishlok into herself.Gorquen starts to fly at one of the faceless archers, but realizes with a twinge of sadness that she no longer possesses wings.  She manages to close the distance between her and her foes, but cannot reach melee range and attacks with her bow.  Thelbar decides to buy some time by separating his enemies with a wall of fire, a dubious tactic in the woodlands, but necessary to preserve his life!Taran strikes the fleshy monstrosity once and again, and Kyreel steps up into melee just in time to find herself on the business end of a lightning bolt that comes screaming out of the building, blasting all three combatants.  The bolt wounds the heroes, but worse yet seems to heal the construct!  Indy takes this as his cue, and sneaks into the building, looking to present the hidden mage with a little present-six inches of good Great Kingdom steel between the ribs.The archer-creatures are dogged and persistent in their single-minded assault, but Thelbar shrouds one of them in a sphere of darkness, and begins peppering the other with magic missiles of his own.  Gorquen provides support for him, and focuses on the wounded creature with her own attacks.Taran attempts to draw the golem away from the opening, where its master's lightning bolts cannot reach it, but has little success.  His sword-blows, combined with Kyreel's attacks do seem to weaken the thing, despite a second electrical blast.  Cursing, Taran renews his attack and calls for his brother.Indy, meanwhile, has made it into the room, and has crept dangerously near their foe.  The individual in question is a wizard, dressed head-to-toe in red, flanked by another pair of faceless archers.  Indy puts himself in a position to disrupt the mage's next spell with a well-placed sneak-attack.Thelbar and Gorquen have begun a deadly game of hide-and-go-seek, using the sphere of darkness to hide in, stepping out of it only long enough to strike at their foes with spells and arrows.  The archer automatons prove deadly accurate even firing blind, and the duo find themselves drinking healing potions like water, just to stay on their feet.As the red wizard raises his hands for another spell, Indy pounces forward and drives his spear into the man's side, cutting him deeply and eliciting a surprised yelp of pain.  At the same moment, Taran and Gorquen tear into the fleshy giant, evicting its animating force and rendering it inert.  The red mage orders his archers to kill Indy, and flees into a back chamber, where he begins chanting a spell that the halfling does not recognize.  Shortly thereafter, the rest of the party dashes into the building and at Indy's prompting, ignore the two archers and pursue the mage.  The archers follow, and the entire group arrives just in time to see that the red wizard has opened some sort of portal in the far wall, and is stepping into a mistily seen forest scene strikingly different from the forest outside.A few seconds later, and the mage is joined by both his bodyguards and his foes, as the entire melee charges through the portal after him.  But the wizard is not finished, nor is he out of spells.  He mutters a curse in an unrecognizable foreign tongue, and points his wrinkled hands at Indy.  A burst of power arcs through the air between them and suddenly Indy has disappeared, replaced by a vaguely revolutionary-looking toad!"You lucky bastard!" Vognu exclaims in Indy's mind as the former halfling flees in panic back through the portal.  Kyreel chases after Indy, attempting to dispel the polymorph, but without success.As Thelbar stings the mage with magic missiles, and Taran stalks forward, Black Lisa in hand, the wizard raises his hands, hoping to parley.  His words are unintelligible, but their intent is clear.  Taran pauses, just long enough for the wizard to raise a wand and send a treacherous lightning bolt arcing into the group.  If the red wizard had hoped that his desperate attack would preserve his life, he underestimated Taran and Gorquen, who leap forward to cut him down.  As the three heroes standing over the red-garbed wizard and catch their breath, on the other side of a portal and a world away, Vognu has dumped out Indy's satchel and flown outside, filling it with foliage and damp mud.  After all, it takes a former toad to know what a newly polymorphed toad might find comfortable.Taran says, "Search the meat for magic, and we're out of here."  The bull-necked warrior turns back to the direction of the portal.  He finds himself squinting at a ramshackle stone cottage, long abandoned and mostly collapsed.  The plant life is unfamiliar, and even the light quality in this glade seems wrong.  The air has a particular musky smell that seems comfortable somehow, but is definitely not familiar.  It takes the sweat-covered warrior a minute or two to notice what is subtly disturbing him, however."Hey, Thel," he asks.  "Where'd the portal go?"</blockquote>

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