A Fool
A Fool’s Errand – Chapter 3
OOC Notes:
Exp is 2850 for 24th, 2185 for 25th.
Changing the title of the adventure to "A Fool's Errand"
Loot:
We got some!
Periapt of wisdom +2
Minor cloak of displacement
Ring of electrical resistance – minor
Monk’s belt
This Week’s Adventure:
I’m not entirely sure if they just got lucky and we caught them in a ready-to-fight state, or if they somehow knew we were coming. (Or someone alerted them?) But our tracking suggested that the crabs were brought out by the sorcerers as needed, and I had hoped we’d be able to ambush the sorcerers before they were able to use their weapons.
A fine plan that died a quick death.
The crabs were easily visible from a distance and the wizards were climbing into a hatch in their undersides. I’m still not sure if it was us they were preparing for, or something else they were getting ready to attack. In any case we closed the distance quickly and wasted no time in discussion.
The crabs were massive beasts and appeared to be creatures rather than constructs. But whatever their natural form, it had been twisted and shaped into a weapon of war. As we approached, the mages were still madly scrambling to get inside the beasts. But one of them, whether for being slow or just curious, was hanging half upside-down looking out of the hatch at what was attacking (that being us).
So I looked at a mage who was over a hundred feet away, only his head and one shoulder visible on the underside of a thirty-foot diameter crab, half obscured by legs and claws.
I clicked my tongue. “Last dumb thing he’ll ever do,” I said to myself as I fired.
It was a good volley, and the mage clearly was not ready for it. I even managed to brush one of the arrows against the underbelly and bounce it right into his throat. I was used to fighting some strong foes, but it this was a perfect shot in an excellent volley and the target was only a Brotherhood mage. “That’ll do fine,” I thought, as the fiery arrows exploded in the hatch.
And then the most amazing thing happened.
He survived.
I’m not sure how. I didn’t see any warding spells particularly. And I’m sure his robe needed a good washing afterwards, and not just from the blood. But he didn’t drop dead out of the hatch, and for that I was quite put out.
[OOC Note: It was the night of criticals. I think I had seven or so total, and I rarely get crits. My fellow meepites were having similar luck. This mage took a full volley of six arrows including one crit for a total somewhere around 250 damage. And he lived. I was surprised, but probably not as much as he was.]
Dravot raised his hands, and the earth shook. The water in the marshy area quickly surged and footing became treacherous. This wasn’t an issue to us, what with so few of us actually running about any more. It also wasn’t much of an issue to the crabs, who were surprisingly nimble despite their size.
The battle swung into full fury. The shells on the crabs were harder than they had any business being, and I had to shift to adamantine arrows to penetrate more easily. (Shatterspike of course hardly seemed to notice.) There was also a strange magical force protecting the crabs. The wizards inside used their magic to either enhance the crabs or to throw some powerful (yet ineffectual) attacks at us. It was a respectable force and the three of them could easily do more than destroy villages. These beasts could safely destroy a small army.
Unfortunately for them, we destroy large armies.
Spells had no difficulty landing, nor did most of our weapons. It’s just the things were so large that it took some effort to bring them down. We suspected some of them had multiple occupants including some kind of healer inside. But luck was on our side, and stroke after stroke landed on the crabs.
They never recovered from trying to prepare. It wasn’t long before something odd happened, and we began to suspect that the pilots had abandoned their weapons. The crabs tried to retreat but never had a chance.
When it was clear the crabs were just fleeing and badly injured, Bolo's resolve wavered. (That's not meant as a bad thing - indeed I would expect it.) One of the crabs was twitching in a swampy puddle, bleeding to death. Bolo was about to show compassion and heal the poor creature, when several magic missiles from Scorch flew by and ended the poor thing.
Bolo shouted, a single tear on his face. But he wasn't really mad at Scorch as much as he was at the twisted fool who create these things.
I did my best to tell Bolo what he already knew. "Their creation never gave them a chance at a good life. They were shaped and warped by those that would use them. It may be unkind, but it is the smallest in a long life of unkindnesses, and it will be best for them."
Bolo agreed, or at least most of him did.
After inspecting the remains and verifying the occupants had retreated, Dravot and I grimaced.
[“And you all mocked me when I researched that “Power Word: Butter” spell…”]
“Well, I suppose it’s done,” he said.
“Hm,” I nodded. “But not entirely. I suppose the crabs are destroyed though, and the Hopping Prophet will probably be satisfied. The mages alone are not nearly the threat.”
“No doubt this is a costly defeat for the Brotherhood.” Dravot paced a moment. “They’re not going to be happy. And they’re going to figure out it was us easily enough.” No argument there. “I wonder if they’ll retaliate or just decide not to waste more resources.”
“A good question, but fortunately one that doesn’t worry me overly,” I smiled, and he agreed. “But consider this – could they divine our purpose here? I’m not sure it’d be that difficult to figure out.”
“And if they do, what then?” he replied. “Well perhaps we’ll just do what everyone expects and die within the tomb.”
“Somehow, that’s not very encouraging,” I glared.
While we were talking, it seemed Scorch, Aethramyr and Bolo were having a discussion about the shells of the crabs and how suitable it would be for druidic armor. They then proceeded to spend an hour cutting various pieces away for later use. Strange but at least they dug out my arrows as well. This may seem somewhat morbid given how Bolo felt about destroying them, but it made a certain kind of sense. He was like the hunter, using nature's gifts to survive.
We returned to Wastri’s temple, which now was abandoned. The statue gazed downward as we placed the coral circlets at its feet. The stone broke and the statue knelt, grasping the circlets. After a moment, it flexed and crushed them to powder in its fist.
Then it brought its hands together and rubbed them as if working dough. Soon it handed Dravot a small statue of a frog that appeared to be made of amber.
Take this totem. It will take you…. To the place where the entrance….will be…. Tomorrow. Mwarrrpbpbtpbt. If you seek…your doom… this is the place to find… it. The Scarlet Brothers sought it as well.
The statue then crumbled into small hunks of rock, and even the temple itself seemed to fade into the marshes.
The totem would feel warm or cold when facing various directions and it was a simple enough matter to travel through the swamp for two hours or so until we arrived at an unremarkable location that seemed to be our destination. We passed various denizens of the swamp on our route, but none of them were foolish enough to attack us.
In the morning, nothing happened. We were still in the same unremarkable area that we had been, and there was no new sight to greet us. Lacking any other ideas, and not having any reason to doubt Wastri, we waited. It was only a matter of an hour or two before we heard a rumbling. Valanthe and I made it out first, then the others – like an avalanche or an earth elemental. Soon I saw a bulge in the ground that was rolling towards us. It was as if a cat was playing under a blanket, moving the ground above it without breaking it. The bulge rolled under the ground to where we waited until, with a shake of the earth, it broke the surface.
Before us now was a cave entrance; a toothy maw of stalactites and stalagmites. Torches leaked oily smoke up to the arched ceiling. The walls had mosaics of Acererack’s atrocities. In the shadows, something vaguely human-ish lurched around. The floor was littered with dead bodies that had been picked clean.
I gave Dravot a final, pleading look. “Must we?”
He just nodded once and I sighed.
“Entrance is trapped,” Valanthe said, surprising no one. The stony teeth would shred whomever they could but the trap was magical in nature and our protections meant that some of us were already beyond its perception. Deadly, but dealt with easily enough. This was just a preliminary test certainly. Bolo took the form of a thoqqua and turned the toothy maw into something considerably less impressive and the trap gnashed in futility as we crossed it.
The figure was a broken human. He was writing on the walls in blood and wearing tattered, bloodstained robes.
“Acererack’s bane is TRUE DEATH.”
“My eyes are the windows to your souls.”
“Find and destroy the dragon’s heart, the only way for Acererack to depart.”
He had noticed us but kept looking away, hoping perhaps we wouldn’t notice him, or perhaps would simply die in the trap. When that failed, he spoke in a manic ramble.
“Why have you come here? You seek the power that lies within Acererack’s crypt for yourselves? Or would you seek to destroy it? You are fools either way. For the dangers are great. You must prove yourself to me – to the crypt of Acererack himself. Heroes dare to confront him…curse him…curse him…”
His head snapped back and fangs came out and his fingers grew into claws.
I’ll be honest here; I’m not sure what I was thinking. I fired five shots out of reflex before really thinking about it. I’m not sure why. I try to be more thoughtful than that. It’s not that it didn’t work – it did. The arrows bit deep and the creature shrieked in pain and delight. “More more more!” it cried.
But it was a vampire. So why did I shoot?
Dravot wasn’t really sure either. But he fulfilled his role, and brought up his holy symbol and with Pelor’s will, destroyed the poor creature.
After the dust blew away, Dravot looked at me. I just shrugged and we looked at the doors. They were large copper affairs flanked by braziers. The script around the door indicated one must channel divine energy to open the doors, but Dravot thought it was a lie. They were also trapped of course, but Valanthe disabled it, and opened the door.
To a wall.
The old “fake door” trick.
We spread out around the cave, and after some time searching found a hollow spot behind one of the mosaics. Bolo was still a thoqqua, and simply melted through the wall. Of course, that had the unintended side effect of setting off a scythe trap that nearly gutted him.
A passageway lead us to a round room. The walls glistened as if coated with a black oil and tiny globes of light created an eerie reflective effect. There were eight doors around the edge, and two ghostly figures silently moved from door to door trying each in turn then moving on.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
