The Hunter-Killer Team
“My feet hurt,” Lenara whines for what must be the tenth time. “Are we almost to the surface?”
Cerridwin eyes him provocatively. “I could carry you.” Every expression the satyr makes comes out as a leer.
Lenara coughs delicately and demurs. It is clear he preferred the bard’s old form. Cerridwin sulks.
Buttercup offers, “I hope we can find some flowers in bloom. They’re pretty.”
Andy sashays her way up the final incline. “We’re almost out.” Left unsaid is her uncertainty over the rectitude of this course of action. She covers it up with a series of inane questions to the cleric as to the possibility of procuring a plant-based dye capable of painting her nails crimson.
“The sun is out. That’s good for the flowers.” Buttercup beams generally at the surroundings, while a more practical side of his personality takes charge of his body and sets up camp. Both aspects blissfully ignore the disgustingly graphic analysis of their new genders that occupy the next half-hour of his comrades’ time.
The discussion comes to a halt when Khail pokes his head out of the double-doors leading to the crypt. Lenara swoons as he passes on news of the victory in the barracks and the imminent arrival of the hunter-killer team, ending with the strong caution to leave for Dagger Falls immediately.
“But…” Andy interjects.
“No buts, Andy. You have to trust me.”
“Yours is magnificent,” Lenara mutters.
“What?” Khail asks, surprised.
“Nothing. We’ll go.” Lenara blushes and shuffles off; Buttercup and the others follow after breaking down their campsite.
They get halfway to Dagger Falls before Andy stops dead in her tracks. “Would you guys be totally upset if I, uh, wanted to go back?”
Buttercup exclaims, "You want to go back? Me too!"
Andy nods. "I do. I…I don't feel right abandoning them like that. I don't like feeling like a coward. I'd rather die down there than live on the surface with a bunch of strangers. Besides, I doubt these drow will just let us walk away without a fight, and we have a better chance of survival with those really powerful people than we do alone."
Lenara looks down at the ground with divided loyalties. "If Cerridwin does not want to go back, I'll have to accompany him. I won't let him go it alone. That's not right either."
Buttercup looks torn. "Want to stay, want to make sure friends make it out okay. My head hurts!"
Andy looks at Cerridwin for an answer.
For an answer, Cerridwin looks Andy up and down lasciviously.
Andy gulps inwardly and takes one for the team. Her awkward come on is met with enthusiasm, and soon halfling and satyr are coupled in a manner that sends Lenara and Buttercup fleeing headlong into a nearby grove, emerging only when they are absolutely sure that the mismatched pair is finished with their exertions. They repeat these actions during the extended dinner break that Cerridwin’s urges necessitate, and are almost relieved when they find themselves again descending into the drow stronghold.
**************************
Dobi slips behind Danek and whistles a six-second tune. Ignored by all else present, it slides smoothly into the barbarian’s subconscious, spurring on all that could be great within her. Smiling slightly, she quaffs a potion in a single gulp, glancing at the preparations of her companions through the lens of the empty flask. Rage begins to overtake her as she spies the four drow accompanying the group, thinking upon their predations, and her grip on her blade’s pommel tightens.
Let them come. They will only meet their deaths.
**************************
“Break it down!” the stout priestess shrieks shrilly.
“Patience sister,” Velasta coos. “The quth-maren will be upon them soon enough.”
Velina spins on her twin, but stifles her reply as the door sunders, revealing a wooden barricade made from destroyed furniture. “Destroy them!” she cries.
A sphere of fire manifests atop the undead, and spikes arise below them, but they are unharmed. Zedarr takes this as a good sign, loosening his grip on the unholy dire flail he wields so expertly.
Perhaps I will get my choice of playthings before they are all dead. The elves look to be screamers….
His dark musings are broken by the shattering of the barricade. Quid is ready for this, and she brandishes her holy symbol boldly while calling for the quth-maren to flee to the land of the paupers and the pound-foolish. One is apparently frightened by this tirade and obeys, leaving five more in the now-open doorway.
Khail and the four Renaissance drow take arms to these with force and finesse, and two fall under their determined assault. Leonardo’s shout of success, however, vanishes under the veil of silence that suddenly descends.
Zedarr’s expression is indeterminate, but the quickening whirling of his dire flail signals his growing excitement at the prospect of imminent violence. Beside him what appears to be a rust-red displacer beast paws the ground with four of its six legs. Rhien tumbles past both, as well as the undead in front of them, on his way to the well-shielded Velina, hoping to duplicate his earlier success against her, but the monk is unable to make contact.
Before anyone else can move, Zedarr pounces like the tiger his companion superficially resembles. Ignoring both the spike stones and the flaming sphere as if they were orisons cast by a neophyte druid, the drow traverses the five feet to Khail's position with fearsome intent. The quth-maren shy away at his approach. His first blow is aimed unerringly at Khail's blade, with the clear motive of sundering the weapon whose holiness hurts him worse than any knife. As the flail passes right through the sword without effect, Zedarr pauses, nonplussed.
What manner of sorcery is this? Lacking some of his earlier confidence, the blackguard’s further swings manage only minimal damage to his opposite.
Kyree lifts off the ground, so as to be able to fire on Zedarr without giving him the benefit of Khail as cover. His first shot activates earlier cast magic, and the arrow finds a chink in the drow's heavy armor, driving deep into his chest. Two more arrows hit an instant later, though with substantially less effect. The blackguard swivels his gaze to face the flying ranger, thankful that the cursed elf cannot see the grimace he fails to stifle. The acid-laced dagger that exacerbates the grievous chest wound does not improve his mood.
The Abyss take these fools! snarls the drow internally as he watches Kai, Trella, and Quid extract themselves from the silence radius with merely a thought. Then, with less fervor:
Who are they?
The teleporting spellcasters are greeted by a lightning bolt from a now-visible drow arrayed as Raphael is; Snicker points out a plumper robed figure standing invisibly on the opposite side of Kai. Trella activates the most powerful ability of her potent staff, and floods the room with five large elementals of purest earth. On her command, they fan out and pummel drow with rocky fists. Khail and Danek tussle with Zedarr’s pet.
The rotund invisible drow speaks words backed by the power of the Shadow Weave: “It’s late and you’re all tired. Wouldn’t a long nap be nice?” All in the hallway save Snicker and the elementals collapse gently to the ground, the druid’s snores audible before her head comes to rest. The brave pseudodragon takes wing, hovering over Kai in defense.
The mage’s second trick is not aimed at her, however; he summons shades of maurezhi to devour Danek from the inside. Only her potent constitution protects the paralyzed barbarian from a sudden demise. She shakes off the effect, but cannot so easily dismiss her gnawing fear that the collapse of half the group signals her own imminent demise.
In contrast, Zedarr’s confidence grows with the gentle thumps he hears behind him. His subsequent words, though, are lost to magical silence, and it is doubtful that the stoic Khail would be impressed even if he had been able to hear them. As the blackguard readies his flail to strike, the paladin raises his own weapon, and then brings it sweeping down towards his foe’s neck. The few seconds Zedarr maintains his sentience while his head bounces along the stone floor are spent wondering if his mother would recall him despite his failure, and if his sister would gloat in that case.
I will have my vengeance on her as well, he thinks, and then he is dead.
The fiendish displacer beast unleashes a hideous scream at his master’s passing, and does not grow quieter while being scored by the blades of both paladin and drow subsequent to this. Spared from this but still furious over having her life imperiled, Danek opens new wounds across the beast’s blood-stained fur.
In disbelief at Zedarr’s sudden beheading, the twins resolve to deliver a retribution befitting such a crime. A storm of flames is invoked to envelop all enemies save Quid and Kai, and the nimble Kyree—who avoided all damage entirely from the fire with a smart tumble—barely avoids having his life snuffed out on the business end of a ray of destruction. For good measure, their servitor undead spit sticky globs of acid at Khail’s face.
Kyree wipes the blood from his mouth and coldly targets his would-be killer for his next volley. Four arrows thunk solidly into Velasta’s arms and chest despite her numerous protections. Slowly, so that she can read his lips, the elf mouths, “Can’t handle a little retribution?” in his native tongue. Velasta’s eyes go black. Calla, having no desire to get in the middle of this feud, tosses a dagger at the beast from her hiding place.
Snicker is a flurry of tooth and tail as he tries to wake up both Kai and Quid with minor violence, after seeing how the firestorm shocked Trella and Rhien out of their slumber. He manages to strike only the former, but she groans and begins to rise.
Thoughts of fleeing pass across the arcane guard's face, but one look at the dual priestesses banishes them with a shudder. Turning back to Trella, he unleashes a volley of three mystic missiles at the druid. She ignores him, shouts “Bite my staff!” and speaks brief words of magic while pointing in the general direction in which she expects the plump mage to be.
Suddenly limned in pale green, the mage likes his chances far less well. Rhien—who stands mere feet from him—becomes the target of a suggestion to “Go check on your friends up above.” When the monk fails to obey, the drow decides he’ll take his chances with the local powers-that-be and teleports away from the battle.
Khail presses his attack on the displacer beast, looking to clear a path to the priests. His first swings fell the fiendish creature despite its light-warping aura, allowing the paladin to cleave through its dying body and land additional blows on the nearest undead. The latter endeavor is aided by the continued assault of the Renaissance drow, who manage to poke numerous holes in the quth-maren with their rapiers.
Furious at both the party’s temerity and the desertion of their comrade, the twin priests react with blind fury. Velasta chugs a potion, and then unleashes another firestorm to match her sister's, this time including even the sleepers in its area of effect. Donatello and Raphael die instantly from the blaze. Kyree, Dobi, Rhien, and Calla avoid injury, but the others all are seriously burned by the conflagration. Poor Snicker crumples to the ground, his bright scales scorched into dullness.
Not to be outdone, Velina calls down unholy fire upon those in the room, looking to end their threat before it reaches her. Leonardo joins his comrades in instant death, while Michelangelo collapses with his life force ebbing away. Kyree and Calla again spin away, but Dobi finds his leg caught on a piece of broken chair and cannot escape. His final scream of anguish doesn’t register within the eerily quiet charnel house of a room, but the blackened husk of his body as it collapses upon striking the earth conveys the emotion well enough to the shocked onlookers.
Danek starts at the scene, nursing her own burns, but has little time to contemplate its emotional impact. Fists weeping acid rain down on her head, and she feels her mortality urgently just before consciousness leaves her. Steve whinnies and takes her place; the mighty warhorse’s hooves shatter a quth-maren’s ribcage and send it back to death.
*******************
The anguished sounds of combat reach the smaller band even as far as the main chasm, and its members pick up their pace. Moving slowly across a grisly carpet of drow corpses and spilt blood, the four ready their weapons for whatever lies ahead. Cerridwin spots its leading edge a moment later: a lone quth-maren, fleeing from whatever ghosts could scare the unliving. He gulps and begins speaking words of magic.
I really hope I don’t turn into a cow. I’m so sick of cows.
**********************
Something in Calla snaps at Dobi’s death, and she rolls into the center of the scorched room, dagger flying toward Velasta. Unfortunately, this proves no more effective than Rhien’s fists, and only Kyree’s arrows connect with the stout drow priestess. Her answering glare makes it obvious who the next target of her magic will be.
Or rather, would have been, had she survived long enough to cast it. Trella’s elementals, which thus far have not had much of an impact, surround Velasta and pummel her with their club-like arms. Only one penetrates her defenses, but it is enough to crush her skull like a walnut.
Velina fights off two disintegration rays from Kai, as well as the other two elementals, while watching her sister’s now-headless body fall. If she feels any sorrow, it is well hidden. She begins yet another prayer, this one designed to slay its target.
Trella barely sees the blood dripping from Khail’s numerous wounds through a haze of fire. Realizing that the paladin is the best chance to stop Velina from casting another spell, and that the party—her party—cannot afford to risk another casting, Trella moves toward Khail, intent upon healing enough of his wounds so that he could survive contact with the priest’s fire shield. She dismisses spike stones and a flaming sphere as she moves, but realizes almost too late that not all such impediments to her movement are of her own making. Unwilling to risk losing her limited healing magic to the arcane guard’s spiked chain, the druid stops short, barks “Quid, heal Khail,” and smacks the guard repeatedly about the head with her staff. She can only hope the priestess can reach him in time.
*************************
Cerridwin’s song completes, conjuring a puddle of grease that sends the quth-maren sprawling. Though this only buys the foursome a few seconds, it is enough, and a concerted attack ends the undead’s existence.
Having dealt the killing blow with a siangham to its face, Andy recovers a bit more self-confidence. “Follow me, ‘aight, and don’t get killed.”
Cerridwin snorts. “I better get something for all of this.” The monk does not immediately answer.
**************************
Quid sees the wisdom in Trella’s order and moves to follow it. The end of a spiked chain digs into her lower back as she passes, but she grits her teeth and blocks out the distraction long enough to heal Khail of all wounds. Finally giving in to the pain with a groan, she points toward the priest. “Would you please kill her already?” the sorely injured Waukeenar says in an uncharacteristically plaintive manner.
Khail nods and strides forward boldly, raising his sword again to strike. Watching her cousin’s killer in the same pose in which he was just before taking Zedarr’s life gives her pause, but her faith in Kiaransalee is too strong for prolonged worry. Despite the threat she attempts to finish her spell while, inevitably, Khail’s blade falls. Though the paladin is burned for his efforts, the wound he deals is grievous, and few exist who could keep concentrating in the face of such an attack. Velina is not one of them, and her voice stutters and then stops.
The priestess coughs up blood and glares. At her silent order, the last of her commanded undead ignores Quid completely and pummels the dying Michelangelo instead. The final Renaissance drow expires with a silent sigh.
Though Rhien continues to exhibit an inability to strike Velina, Kyree has far less of a problem in that regard. Four precisely placed arrows leave her on the brink of death. Seeing this, Calla tumbles over to her swaying form and stabs her through the eyes. As acid eats into the priestess’ brain, the rogue snarls, “That was for the polite kid, drow scum.” Velina’s body crumples like so much stale bread.
Kai, however, is worried about another party member. “Someone help Snicker!” she cries, as ten missiles of force fly from her fingertips to slay the arcane guard. Trella obliges with a wand, while Quid works to save Danek before the barbarian calms down and expires.
Khail storms away from Velina’s corpse, leveling a blow that eliminates the final undead monstrosity as soon as the paladin reaches it. Finding no enemies, Steve wearily lowers his head and rests his body against a wall. Trella slumps, waving a hand vaguely at the elementals. “Guard us,” she orders.
***********************
“Whoa, it looks like a war zone in here,” Andy exclaims upon entering the area around the kitchen.
Khail, emerging from the room after dispelling the silence radii within, scowls at them. “I thought I told you to go to Dagger Falls,” he says.
Andy puffs out her chest, which has the unexpected effect of showcasing it to a suddenly embarrassed Khail. “You did, ‘aight, but we weren’t going to just leave you.” Cerridwin eyes Andy provocatively for the nth time that day.
Trella groans at the new development. She wisely chooses to change the subject. “Fine. Whatever. Do we stay or do we go?”
Kai looks up from petting her familiar. “Raphael was pretty sure that this was their big roaming force, and that if this didn’t succeed, they’d just fall back to their regular positions. So, I’d say here is as safe as anyplace else, if we can mind the smell. Anyway, I’m nearly tapped as far as spells go, and couldn’t get everyone out of here if I wanted to.”
Trella nods. “That’s it then; we stay. Everyone in the room.” Quid looks uncomfortable, but does not argue. She concentrates instead on healing Danek, and tries to avoid looking at Dobi’s corpse. For her part, the barbarian groans and coughs, regaining consciousness. She tries hard to maintain her rage long enough for Quid to do her work.
Trella gathers the elementals again and orders them to roam in a loose perimeter around the party, making sure to return in nine and nineteen minutes to instruct newcomers to do the same. She makes it clear that drow who give them trouble should be smashed, no questions asked, and that the party is not to be disturbed as all heal and sleep. Nodding, the mighty outsiders go off to do her bidding.
Inside the room the mood is somber, as Dobi’s death hangs over all like a cloud of soot. Quid finally gets up the resolve to bless the body, breaks down into tears for a moment, and then borrows the halfling’s boots, so as not to let good capital equipment go underutilized. Her odd combination of emotion and practicality does not go unnoticed, but her suggestion of carrying the bard until the group next visits Amn seems a good one nevertheless.
Once a small watch is set up and healing is completed, the exhausted party settles down to sleep. Sounds of battle drift up for the first few hours, but these do not trouble the repose of the physically drained group. Trella, however, has a slight smile on her face as she softly snores.
