To War Against Felenga (FINAL UPDATE POSTED!)

[the Jester]

The Crawlway

Both the L and Azekia can tough out the damage from the fall, and both of them quickly heal it away; but the pit’s too small for them both to fly up. Lester is small enough that he can fly up the shaft and Azekia is strong enough to climb it, but the experience leaves them testy and clinging to the walls.

“We can’t hold on here forever,” the L grumbles, jerking the levers about again. As a few moments go by, the pit closes below them, and they both step gingerly onto the floor, ready to grab the wall if anything seems to open up again, but nothing does. The thought of being trapped at the bottom of the pit for- well, potentially for days-

“I wish I could just pass through earth and stone,” the L mutters to himself, but he’s already experimented with that. The walls of the hill that the tomb is built in are full of lead spheres webbed together with some kind of wire- tons of them, so many that Lester can’t go more than about two feet in before they pile up too thick to get through. They look like a good defense against burrowers, too. Damn it, Lester thinks.

Fiddling with the levers eventually opens a small crawlway above the two. It’s too small for the solar to fit into, so Lester pulls himself into it and starts crawling along to explore it. It leads him along what seems like a long, wandering path before finally ending in a blank wall. Lester gives out a little cry of despair.

***

The trapped souls dance in agony within his great gem. He can’t help but stare at them from time to time, counting them all and recalling each and every name and story. Each of them was once a powerful adventurer of such epic proportions that his or her spirit would serve the demilich in his ultimate goal.

Almost every one of them came looking for him, the spirit of the demilich muses. Almost all of them thought they could challenge him. And a few of them did challenge him- but only the fewest of the few could stand up to him in direct confrontation for more than an instant or two. Even those who could had no idea of what it would take to truly defeat him. He had lured those who could riddle the clues to the inevitable conclusion, and now, those most worthy of individuals dance in his gem.

Until he has enough.

These heroes, the ones daring his tomb now- they aren’t after him. They may not even know about him! They’ve torn through the ethereal defenses, though they’ll be repaired in days, and dealt a humiliating blow to those simpletons in the Academy, though honestly, if they can’t fix the physical damage in a day or two themselves he’ll be surprised.

Either way, the way forward that the adventurers seek- to find and finish off the upstart- will test them to their limits. If they survive, especially if they triumph over their chosen opponent- if they aren’t destroyed by the vestige of the city- will they be able to resist their curiosity? Or will they follow the riddles to the phantom flyer?

The gemstone eyes watch the lights dancing in the huge gem. Apotheosis is near.

***

The wall’s an illusion, to the L’s relief. He pokes his head through for just an instant, then draws it back through the illusory wall in order to avoid being seen himself. He waits for a moment, then slowly pokes his head through again and takes a longer look.

The crawlway spills out into a pit full of spikes.

“Crap!” Lester exclaims. He maneuvers carefully and manages to turn himself around without falling into the narrow pit. Muttering a series of quiet curses, the elementalist starts crawling the long convoluted way back to the angel. Orbius, still maintaining trump contact, suggests the two of them carefully keep exploring the permutations of the levers, but after checking every possible configuration, they find that the pit and crawlway are the only things revealed.

Lester begins the slow, laborious process of searching the crawlway. We just need a safe place to rest and recover spells, he groans to himself. It’s difficult to search around in the crawlway- it’s so cramped that the L has to lay on his back to search the upper portions of the shaft. If he were claustrophobic he’d hate it, but Lester has been wrapped in the safe grip of the earth more than once and he loves it. Of course, the elements don’t care- but that’s alright. If he wanted powers that cared, he’d be a cleric of a god instead.

“Hey,” he cries, interrupting his own musings, “I found something!”

***

Orbius, his eyes growing tired from staring at the card he’s holding for so long, asks what he’s found and the L tells him there’s a secret door. “Go through it,” the Eye urges him. “We need to find a place to rest.” Then he relates Lester’s progress to the group.

“He’s going into a room... there are three big chests, he says. No, Lester! Don’t open them until more of us are there. Is there room to rest?” He pauses, listening to the other end of the contact, which no one else can hear. “Look around first... maybe we should send someone through to you?”

Not paying to much attention to the Eye’s conversation, Drelvin is puzzling over the riddle. The face of the fiend does more than devour, he muses. With the least of my form ‘tis the gap to power. What does that mean? He stares at the great green face mournfully. I wish we had Thimbleton here*. He was always a smart one. We need smart people here now!

***

Ferranifer glares at the Dim Triad. "Never before have you failed me," she snarls, "but the lapse is understandable after the assault those... adventurers perpetrated." Her body is as still as a statue; only her cold face moves. "We're going to destroy them utterly. We will find out what they are after and then insure that they fail. And after we kill them..." She smiles.

Death, after all, is only the beginning.

Ferranifer knows the solar is the biggest problem, so she takes appropriate measures when selecting her spells. She also knows that the hunter of the dead is the one enemy they dare not give a chance to strike. "He is to be destroyed utterly," she snaps at her servitors, and they do not argue. Silently, Blaesing nods; the other two radiate simple obedience. The headmistress of the academy leads the Triad to the hall where the battle with the party happened; a significant chunk of it has been destroyed, but a wish undoes the damage easily. Then, with no fear of sun spilling in on them, the villains stealthily approach the entrance to the Tomb of Horrors. Crawling upon the walls and ceiling, the vampires head down the hall to the arch of mists and the Great Green Face- the sign of the Devourer.

They made it this far, at least, Harrow remarks over the telepathic link that all four share.

But not out, Absalom sends back. He's grinning at the only way out, which seems undisturbed.

Though she need not speak aloud, Ferranifer does. Her harsh voice adds a certain level of emphasis to her words. "Perfect. Then you three will wait here for them to emerge. If they do not emerge within a day or two, Blaesing will wait here while you two-" she doesn't even bother to gesture at Absalom and Harrow- "enter through the arch and seek to lure them out." Her eyes seems to burn into Blaesing. "This is the perfect place for you to ambush them. Do not fail me again."

The assassin bows reverently.

***

Azekia polymorphs into a deva to crawl through the cramped crawlspace and then into the room with three chests. The room is big enough to rest in, but the three gigantic chests somewhat worry our heroes and a debate erupts as to whether to open them up before resting or after. “What if something comes out while most of us are asleep?” Lester points out.

“Perhaps we should open it now,” the angel suggests.

“We could probably get there quickly if need be,” Orbius points out.

“All right,” Lester says. “I’ll open it up.” He stops and grins at Azekia. “Hey, this is kind of fun, you know? Us angels hanging out together? I mean, you’re an angel of Galador and I’m Malford’s angel of adventure.” The solar just shakes her head, clearly not fully approving of the L’s styling himself an angel.

Before he opens it up, he trumps Verzavi and Thrush in for some backup. Then the L throws the chest open.



*Thimbleton was a gnome illusionist who started as Malford’s apprentice and was a longtime adventuring companion of Lester, Malford, Alcar, Drelvin and others (Belmondo, Hobbes, Stone, Rindardo, Cyrax, Malador and a host of others about whom you have mostly not read, alas).

Lest you think Drelvin is discounting Malford’s intellect, his player wasn’t there for this session so he didn’t count for purposes such as solving the riddle.


Next Time: The three chests! Our heroes find an impressive ring and a not-so impressive ring!

 

[Felikeries]

why exactly don't they ever use a 'mass damage' on a wall or area of the
dungeon then just fly through if it's a chasm,to make a simple jump from one place to the next....

do those spells use too much power becuase of the effect that could make avoiding a problem or trap too easy....

there used to be a 3rd level Cleric spell Maleable Material that could pretty much melt away a wall etc... so you could just walk through

 

[the Jester]

why exactly don't they ever use a 'mass damage' on a wall or area of the
dungeon then just fly through if it's a chasm,to make a simple jump from one place to the next....

They often do. But in this case, they don't know exactly what they're looking for, and those sorts of mass damage spells might destroy it without them ever knowing exactly what it was.

there used to be a 3rd level Cleric spell Maleable Material that could pretty much melt away a wall etc... so you could just walk through

Interesting... I'm not familiar with that, where was it from?

 

[Felikeries]

They often do. But in this case, they don't know exactly what they're looking for, and those sorts of mass damage spells might destroy it without them ever knowing exactly what it was.



Interesting... I'm not familiar with that, where was it from?

the original A D&D which relies on regents rather than learning and #of usages or cost thereof,which i remember Weaving Web(a defense thatch created makes -3 attacks on enemy thrown over) and Maleable Material(turns walls etc into liquid after 1 round real time,just a space or area)

-which could allow passing through from one hall to the next avoiding traps etc,as it is Clerical ability to locate item or detect good or evil could allow the destruction of an area and still not damage the item being looked for because of it's general vicinity being known

-though that's one of my questions....as a DM to avoid the use of 'dungeon maiming' spells,the spells themselves or warnings about what will happen if they cast 'major earthquake' ' crumbling wall' 'alchemy metal to liquid' may be the final way in this example

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Hurray, for I am caught up again with this!

More utterly awesome stuff, Jester. Fascinating!

 

[the Jester]

Glad to have ya back, Tallarn! Here's hoping you continue to enjoy the story as our heroes move into Epic levels...!

Update to come in a few minutes- it's almost finished.

 

[the Jester]

The Room of the Three Chests

You can always count on Lester to pull the lever you shouldn’t pull, break the seal that shouldn’t be broken, or let the thing out that should be kept caged away.

Which one of his friends said that first? Lester can’t remember, but it flashes through his mind as he opens the first chest, cringing away from it as he does so.

Nothing happens; no monster jumps out, no trap is triggered, no ward explodes. “Whew!” the L sighs in relief, then looks in the open chest. At the bottom of it is a box made, perhaps, from glass; certainly it’s transparent, whatever it is. Within the box can be seen a ring.

“Perhaps the box is trapped,” Verzavi says quietly. Nodding, Lester ponders for a moment and then determines to overturn the chest rather than pull the glass box out. First he closes the lid, then he struggles with the chest itself; it’s large and very heavy, and he wonders for a moment whether he’s bitten off more than he can chew. Then Angelfire trumps through and she and Thrush move to Lester’s side. Together the three burly warriors tumble the large chest forward, knocking it on its face. They hear, quite clearly, a set of thunks from within and a tinkling noise. Upon muscling the lid open- not easy with the chest face down- they find that the box has broken and three poisoned darts are imbedded in the lid of the chest. They snatch up the ring.

“Well,” Lester blusters, “that wasn’t so bad! Should we open the others?”

“Perhaps we should rest first,” Azekia suggests.

“What, are you afraid?” sneers Angelfire.

“I fear nothing!” the solar snorts disdainfully. “If you are so eager to face more danger without first resting, feel free to open the next one.”

“And you’ll open the final one?” challenges the Coilite.

“Certainly.”

All these angels, so prideful, thinks Angelfire. So predictably full of hubris. So easy to bait... She flexes her hands within the Deleter and throws the second chest open. While the first was of silver, this one is of wood. As the lid is thrown back, a hot wind issues from the chest and then, suddenly, there’s a huge skeleton standing there! It swings a massive morningstar at Verzavi, catching the poor githzerai across the chest and smashing her backwards! The thing seems to be moving with unnatural speed, striking rapidly until the arcanopath tumbles away. Lester dives for cover and screams at Orbius to start trumping the party in. The party moves in as quickly as they can while those in the room duel with the huge skeleton.

Now the skeleton is surrounded by Angelfire (making a point to step behind Patyn for cover during the battle), Patyn, Drelvin, Thrush and Sybele. Ulla’s there as well, but nobody really notices her in the form of a bumblebee. Even moving with twice the speed that it should the skeleton is not match for our heroes.* Soon it is a bunch of splintered bones scattered about the chamber.

“Your turn.” Angelfire stares at Azekia with a cold grin. With a curt nod, the solar strides to the third chest- this one made of gold- and opens it. And snakes spill out.

It’s a huge chest, about 20’x10’x5’; it’s full of vipers. Azekia gives a yell of surprise as the snakes swarm out of the chest like a living carpet, biting at everyone. Our heroes are ready for action and well-armed, however, and they slice and slash and shoot at the oncoming horde of snakes. It’s over in the blink of an eye, with a few of our heroes taking a bite or two but everyone still in reasonable shape. A quick look turns up another ring at the bottom.

“I wonder if these are keys of some kind, or important in some way,” muses Drelvin.

“I can check them out,” Sybele offers, extracting a length of orangish crystal from her pack. Using two charges from her dorje of identify, she ascertains that the first ring is a ring of wizardry while the second one is a cheaply-made, unreliable ring of protection +1. The contrast between the two rings is striking. Drelvin frowns and wishes again for Thimbleton’s presence.

“Now can we rest?” Sybele asks plaintively.

And they do, setting heavy watches.

***

Bit to come once an encounter happens. Related to the above bit to come- you could say that the above bit will introduce something, and this one will show us a little about its technique.

***
An unmolested nine hours after settling down to sleep, our heroes are a little less weary. Refreshed, most with a new complement of spells, our heroes set to finding their way. There are no obvious exits from the chamber of the chests, but a search by Drelvin- proclaiming, “I’m an elf, I’m good at finding secret doors”- turns one up, set 10’ aboeve the floor. A little teamwork soon sees the party moving through another crawlway, this one leading to another passage. Angelfire, in the lead, pokes her head out the exit and is surprised to see that the wall behind her looks solid- it looks like her head is sticking out of a red circle painted on the wall of the hall. Cautiously, the party pops out of the hidden passage and examines the great hall of spheres.

The floor beneath their feet is tiled with some sort of ceramic tile. The walls all painted with a variety of animals, signs and glyphs, demons and monsters, and everywhere spheres- although, really, they are mere circles, being painted on a two-dimensional surface. The weird symbols are easily recognizable to those in the group of greater arcane learning as symbols of magical power, necromancy and conjurings, death magic and unholiness. There’s an almost visible glow of magic everywhere in this place, an almost audible hum of arcane powers. Clearly, this is not a place to be trifled with. “Remember the green face!” warns Patyn harshly. “Be careful about sticking anything in any of those circles!” At the far end of the hallway is another mist-filled archway, which Sybele frowns at suspiciously.

There are a couple of doors, as well. However, both turn out to be traps; when opened, they reveal only spring-loaded traps. Rex takes a blow from a great blade and shakes his head in disgust, but is heartened when a search of the trap’s recess turns up a key. “Well, that’s something,” he mutters to himself.

The group starts systematically and carefully examining the spheres to see if any of them are illusory. Immediately they find one, a gold one held high above the head of the strange, fey-looking image below it. Ulla flies through and changes into a cat, following on Rex’s heels as the dragon disciple crawls through into a room with-

“Uh oh,” Rex mutters, retreating quickly. “There’s some kind of statue back there,” he reports. “It looks kind of mean. Like some kind of three armed gargoyle.”

“Let’s check it out,” says Angelfire cheerily. Most of the group heads into the statue room while the larger Sybele and Azekia stay out in the hall of spheres.

After the last of the others vanishes behind the gold circle, Azekia and Sybele wander to the arch of mists. This time, instead of blue, yellow and orange, the stones on the arch glow olive, russet and citron when it is approached. The two of them retreat from the arch, not really feeling like getting into quite that much trouble on their own, and Azekia remarks, “I shall perform an augury on the arch.” She spends a few moments in intense contemplation of a set of stones that she casts before her before looking up at Sybele with a tight mouth and proclaiming, ”Woe.”

***

Meanwhile, our heroes examine the statue in the small room beyond the gold circle very carefully. It’s a three-armed gargoyle, with it’s fourth arm broken off and nearby. The hands of the statue are outstretches and open, and each palm is set with a carved concavity, sized for... something.

But what?

Scratching their heads, our heroes decide to mull this one over for a moment before doing anything rash, but knowing our heroes, something rash is doubtless in the works.....


*It was under the effect of a double actions spell, which has been developed independently by several wizards over the aeons, including Marius and, apparently, someone involved in the godsforsaken tomb that our heroes are presently in.


Next Time: Our heroes mess with the statue, and we’ll have us a good ol’ time with the Dark Shadow and a nasty, nasty trap! Those of you familiar with the original S1 may remember the instant death, no save, over the top trap, and some of you may have caught a reference about my getting to roll 30d6 points of damage...

 

[the Jester]

I edited in the missing piece of backstory in the first post above, for anyone interested in going back to check it out.

The other one prolly won't get inserted til after next game. Last night's session didn't go so well for the pcs, as Blaesing got to spring his ambush.

Divide and conquer, baby, and the most painful sneak attack I've yet seen: an arrow up the anus.

 

[the Jester]

Let’s just have a quick recap before the next update as to who the party is, what they’re doing, and who their enemies are.

The party consists of (some or all of) the following (depending on who shows up to the session):

God-King Malford the Magnificent, gnomish rogue 7/illusionist 13/ascendant 1.
Lester, called the L or the Elementalist; elementalist 14/warrior of chaos 4/paraelementalist 1/divine oracle 1.
Angelfire, psychic warrior 14/cleric 4/templar [modified] 2.
Sybele, fighter 8/egoist 8/warrior of chaos 2.
Rex, monk 5/sorcerer 1/dragon disciple 10.
Ulla, druid 6/shifter 10.
Horbin the Holy, cleric 18.
Drelvin the Archer, fighter 6/order of the bow initiate 9

Plus our npc buddies:

Thrush, an extraordinarily skilled greatsword wielder and Sybele’s fiancé (fighter 20);
Patyn, a hunter of the dead of formidable powers (paladin 7/hunter of the dead 10);
Orbius, the Eye of Boccob, who is Lester’s cohort (diviner 7/divine oracle 10);
Azekia, a solar gated in by the party.
Verzavi, Angelfire’s cohort, a githzerai monk 5/psychic warrior 1/arcanopath 8

A fairly formidable group, but they are, after all, invading the Tomb of Horrors.

Among the many enemies our heroes have made over the course of their adventures is a devastatingly powerful arch-lich named Felenga with some outstanding features (like rush monster tentacles and a beholder’s antimagic eye on his chest). He once cast a quickened meteor swarm at the party- definitely not someone to trifle with. Way, way, way out of our heroes’ league.

But there was a way they could get him- the Deleter, a strange pair of gloves the party retrieved from the Far Realms. They’re fleshy-looking and don’t come off once attached to the wearer (though a powerful entity did manage to get them off of Drelvin). When the party went to confront Felenga, Drelvin wore the Deleter. It seemed to cause Felenga horrendous pain, and better yet, the second blast stripped him of his bizarre extra body parts! The party destroyed the staggered Felenga, but they know that, as a lich, they must find and destroy his phylactery. A string of clues has led them to the a mysterious green face with a mouth of infinite blackness. This face lies in the Tomb of Horrors, which they’ve invaded via ethereal assault, bypassing the strange city of necromancers that surrounds it. Our heroes only managed to enter the Tomb after an arduous battle against a horrendous force of demons and undead, including Ferranifer, the headmistress of the Black Academy that seems to directly surround the Tomb, and her vampiric Dim Triad.

Now they wander the halls of a deadly, trap-filled Tomb, trying to figure out how to pass through the mouth and into the strange, darkling plane that Orbius saw in a vision. Azekia, too, has cast a vision- showing the party passing through the mouth as if it were a door, but dying in shrieking agony. A legend lore has given the party a cryptic riddle, delivered in a hollow, sepulcheral voice: ”The face of the fiend does more than devour/With the least of my form ‘tis the gap to power.”

I have very good players, who were pretty darn good about separating their player knowledge from their character knowledge. The players recognized the Tomb of Horrors with the first illustration I handed out. The characters had never even heard of the demilich (with the exception of Patyn).

And now, on to the update!

 

[the Jester]

The Three-Armed Statue

A four-armed statue squats grotesquely before our heroes. Well, it was four-armed once; now one arm lies nearby, broken off.

“What do you think? Coins?” Lester is speculating on what they should put in the statue’s hands.

Dubious, Drelvin says, “We don’t want to make it animate or anything...”

“No, look, there’s a place to put stuff- it probably opens a secret door or something!” the L insists.

Drelvin slips a coin into each hand of the statue. Nothing happens. He tries again with gold instead of silver. Still nothing. She takes a closer look at the concavity.

“It’s about the right size for a gem,” Rex suggests.

The party loads a gem into each of the three hands, and to their surprise- well, a little, anyhow- the hands clamp closed, crushing the gems to powder. “Anyone see anything open or anything?” Thrush asks, glancing about. There’s a moment of silence; plainly, no one sees anything obvious. The group searches around for a few moments, and when Rex examines the broken arm on the floor, he finds something small and transparent- some kind of lens! He exclaims in surprise and the party moves to examine the piece of treasure.

“It’s magic,” confirms Ulla after a moment. Rex holds it to his eye and peers through it, and blinks back in surprise. There’s a certain clarity through the lens...it’s indescribable, but somehow looking through the gem there’s a sense that he sees more correctly through it. He reports his finding to the group, who all share his wonder. Someone suggests that they might need it to find something, and the group resolves to use it when searching for secret doors in the future when possible.

A thorough search turns up nothing else, so the party crawls back out to where the larger Sybele and Azekia wait, in the hall of spheres (well, circles, really). The two of them have been talking in the meantime, with the solar trying circuitously to talk Sybele over to the side of Good while Sybele inquires about the status of the warrants on herself and several other party members from the Court of Law. That adventure seems an age ago, but it was only about six years, Sybele realizes.

Sadly, Sybele doesn’t seem too interested in changing her neutral ways. On the other hand, Azekia isn’t entirely clear of the status of the legal problems the party has found it in, so it comes out even. Nevertheless, it’s friendly discourse, and the two find each other to be respectable company until the other members of the party pop back out of the crawlway. “What’d you find?” Sybele calls out excitedly, and the others tell the two that waited behind about the statue.

“Why are we here again?” Thrush asks, half-sarcastically.

“Felenga’s phylactery,” Angelfire reminds him. “The riddle.” Thrush just grins. He briefly considers taking one of his remaining doses of luhix (a drug he took off a defeated enemy’s corpse some time back) but wisely decides against it.

“So what’s next?” asks Patyn.

“Well, let’s finish checking for secret doors here,” Sybele suggests. “Maybe some more of these circles have crawlways behind them.” So the party resumes their search, triggering another spring-loaded hammer trap that strikes Rex a stinging blow, and soon the party finds another crawlway.

“I’m not gonna be able to go anywhere,” Sybele groans.

“We can find a way,” Angelfire says confidently. “For now, why don’t you two stay here and we’ll go check it out.” Sybele nods and the rest of the group other than herself and Azekia move, one by one, into the small crawlspace.

After they’re gone, Sybele looks at Azekia and smiles. “I guess we’re gonna have more time to get to know each other better,” she says brightly.

The rest of the group worms its way forward slowly- twenty feet, forty feet, eighty feet of twisting tunnel. “This is ridiculous!” moans Drelvin, not too happy to be an elf bellycrawling underground in an evil tomb. The tunnel keeps going- forever, it seems like. Finally, Angelfire, in the lead, comes to a blank wall She gives out a choked cry of despair, but then uses the cusp. A secret door is plainly visible!

Excited, she starts feeling the edges of it, trying to find a mechanism. Soon she detects a small stud; depressing it causes the secret door to slide aside! Angel scrambles out of the tunnel and looks around wildly, not wanting to be taken by surprise; but there’s no sign of an enemy to fight. Instead, there are three rows of pews facing an opalescent blue altar. A tiled mosaic path leads between the pews and a dais upon which sits the altar; and the skeleton of some hapless human lies blasted on the floor, pointing an accusing finger at an archway of roiling orange mists of an exciting hue.

“Another arch,” comments Thrush dryly.

“Yep,” says Rex.

The walls are painted with bizarre scenes of normal life- except the figures depicted, such as farmers, craftsmen, etc. are shown with skeletal hands, rotting flesh, worms eating them, and other weird imagery. Even stranger, there are several images of holy symbols of good alignment. Patyn sneers; clearly, it’s some sort of attempt at sowing doubt and confusion in attackers. He won’t fall for such an obvious ploy.

Rex moves to search the altar. As soon as he touches it, however, the altar reacts rather harshly....


Next Time: The Chapel of Evil!