As you have probably gathered, the party blew through the Glacial rift and went on to Descent into the Depths of the Earth, so here we go!
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The party was damaged after their encounter with the drow, some were still wounded, though Jaggenoth had dealt with the worst of it, and many had lost magic items to that damnable fireball…
Wend flew forward from the party, assuming the form of a bat he made good time and caught up with the Star Knight and his party again. He trailed them at a distance for about an hour until they stopped at a large side cave and decided to camp down. After he was sure they were in place, Wend turned around and flew back to his party.
“They have stopped, I assume for sleep and rest, if we are to continue past them this is the time.”
Lenides agreed, “There are numerous side passages and secondary paths here, we can go around them and double back to the main passage.”
Essern jumped in, “No, we will waste too much time doing that, we have no idea how long they will stop for, we should go the most direct way possible and try to pass them without being noticed. They are in a side cave, a distance back to avoid detection, we could sneak by if not for the Garudin, they fly around the caves and dip into the main cavern periodically.”
Morgul stepped in and commented, “We should get closer to them to decide what would work best, it depends on the environment, visibility, whether they have posted any sentries on foot, left wards to avoid, too many variables to decide here, but no matter what we do we need to move now.”
Everyone agreed that they should press on, even if that meant forgoing memorizing spells and such, and they headed out immediately. They would decide what to do when they reached the Star Knight.
Ahrn sent his two shadows ahead to scout, and Wend transformed into a bat again to do the same.
In about a half hour they reached the cave where the Star Knight had holed up, they stopped about 200 feet away.
Wend returned to the party and transformed back into his human form.
“The Star Knight’s forces have settled in, they have posted sentries just back from the cave entrance, and there is a pair of garudin flying about the main passage outside the cave, looking for anything hostile.”
“We need to get through the area unseen or unnoticed”, Lenides did not want to fight the Star Knight here and now, they were tired and had pushed themselves, they had cast many of their spells, he did not feel confident, particularly given the garudin in the air.
Essern spoke up, “I have a spell that conjures fog, Zintar has a spell that projects sound. It is already dark near the cave entrance where they have guards and garudin. I conjure the fog I should be able to make it go wall to wall, it is dark enough that it will appear like a mist came up on it’s own, if anyone shows up then Zintar projects a sound to throw them off.”
Morgul was generally happy with the idea, “Is there any way we could conceal people directly?
Zintar jumped in, “I have an invisibility spell that will cover some of the party, so does Essern, we could cover about eight of us mounted.”
Jaggenoth spoke up, “I may pray for your steps to be silent, I should be able to cover everyone if we stay in tight formation”.
“We are more vulnerable in tight formation”, Morgul had his shield out and was moving it around his body as he spoke.
Carver took out some coarse bhalap reeds from his pouch, tore off a bite, and chewed on it with relish. Morgul wouldn’t permit him to smoke his pipe, so he had the reeds as his compensation. They filled his mouth with saliva.
Carver spit, “We split up into three groups, four in the first, covered by invisibility and quiet, four in the second, same, and then the four, ahem, bruisers, we go quiet but visible, in the fog it shouldn’t matter anyway. And if we do meet anything, it’ll taste steel before we fall.”
Morgul laughed, “You have worked with warlocks before, yes?”
“Yeah”, Carver spit again, “many times.”
They agreed to this plan, Ahrn, Jaggenoth, Shoon and Essern were covered by one invisibility spell, Lenides, Zintar and Brother Naranjir and Wend another. Morgul, Gint, Folix and Carver had only the fog and the darkness to conceal them.
Essern cast the wall of fog spell and the already dark main passage became even more opaque to their vision. Jaggenoth prayed to Rudra to make their movements a whisper. Zintar and Essern then smeared a line of talc under one eye and a line of powdered silver under another, and could see ahead through the fog. Essern and Zintar then brought a dome of invisibility down on each of their groups. The four warriors however were no more able to see than anything else in this fog and darkness, so Gint and Folix followed the footprints left by the invisible mounts ahead of them, a trail of breadcrumbs pressed into the soft black loam of the tunnel.
Morgul gripped Helvete and hoped that anyone would take the fog to be natural, and not come investigating. The caves were prone to mists...
They moved forward extremely slowly, to pass a 250 foot cave entrance this way they took almost half an hour, the Star Knight’s camp was quite a distance in, however, to avoid getting the attention of anything coming down the main passage. Their desire for secrecy worked to the party’s advantage.
They made it across undetected, went to the edge of Essern’s spell, waited for a short time to ensure nothing was following. Sound travelled quite well in these caves, and with the party silenced they would hear anything approaching. Essern ended the spell, and they negated the invisibility spells and increased their pace. Ahrn sent one of his shadows ahead to scout for potential enemies, along with Wend in bat form (his final transformation for a while).
The warlock kept the other shadow at his side.
They travelled as fast as they could for several hours, at one point narrowly missing plunging to their deaths in a crevasse, speed in the underdark was deadly.
The party, with the exception of Morgul and Lenides, rode on giant snow spiders, despite the fact they were bred for living in freezing weather conditions they were handling the less intense cool and damp underdark conditions relatively well. They were made to climb ice so the slippery rocks were easily handled. The snow spiders also gave off a decent amount of heat, enough to keep even Zintar comfortable while riding.
The lizard man hated the cold.
When they were moving through the main passage, and they had just passed a small series of fjords filled with glowing green water, Zintar saw Morgul's upheld fist and pulled back on his reins, then held up his fist for those behind him to see. Morgul had insiste they don’t bunch up, to avoid being ambushed en masse. The visibility here was poor and varied from place to place. In some caves and parts of the main passage you would have hundreds of patches of phosphorescent lichens and mosses and swarms of glowing insects or various kinds. There he could see about 50' ahead of him, which meant seeing the next two steps in the marching order (they were traveling two abreast), in other areas you could see the people immediately in front of you in the marching order, but nothing more.
So they had to pass signals down the line.
Zintar called up to Morgul, "Why do we stop?"
The paladin pointed to the mossy ground and Zintar saw what he assumed were rodents scurrying along the path.
Feeding time.
The spiders needed to feed regularly or they became aggressive, so they had gotten into the habit of allowing them to eat wherever possible. Areas with more plant life often had more insect and animal life as well, and they had even hit an area that had wild boars running around, they had hunted with bow and spider in that section of the main passage and the spiders (and the party) ate well.
Zintar watched as his snow spider snatched up what looked to be some sort of flightless bird with grey and yellow plumage and a razor sharp beak, its mandibles virtually snapped the creature in half.
Zintar listened to the sounds in the cave as the spider ate. Coming off of a silence spell, all the sounds around him seemed enhanced. Since it was so consistently dark in the caverns the lizard man's hearing had been sharpened, he found himself listening carefully as they progressed as much as looking, if not more.
There were many sounds playing in Zintar's ears, dripping and running water could be heard, most of the caverns and the main passage were quite damp. There was a wind that would periodically push through the caves, it provided a brief accompaniment to the staccato sound of their movements, but it rose and faded like waves lapping on the ocean shore. There was the sudden whoosh and flutter as the cave bats swarmed over their heads as they rode, followed by the skitter and scratch of ... things that were invisible to the eyes but swarmed in large and small numbers over the now mossy ground. And there was the ever present drone of insects, Zintar had been surprised at the variety of bugs the underdark had to offer, colors, shapes and sounds he had never before heard flitted around his head.
This place of darkness under the world was alive and Zintar could hear its voice, seemingly indifferent to their entreaties, yet whispering its own.
Then Zintar heard something... else. It started just at the edge of his hearing, it was a single note that resonated across his ears and repeated, at first he could hardly hear it.
But it grew, and took on more complexity, now it wasn't just a single note or sound but a sustained series of repeated notes, like a song.
He looked around at his fellow adventurers and none appeared to notice the sound.
Odd.
The notes became clearer, and it was more obvious that his fellows heard nothing, they continued to talk and strategize while the notes became louder. Zintar had the strangest feeling about the music, he couldn't remember an event or occasion when he had heard it; he was equally sure that he had heard it before, but it was a deep, distant memory.
He started to speak to tell everyone what he saw, but then he found he did not want to speak. Instead, he decided to follow the song he could now hear as if it was playing right beside him.
Zintar was swallowed up by the grainy darkness as he rode away. Morgul was the closest to him and noticed as he began to ride off.
"Huss, have you seen something?"
Zintar rode away without comment.
Morgul’s intuition was sharp, he began to follow on Vacanga, his silent departure suggesting something was amiss. He turned to Essern and called, “Phantasmist, be my eyes!”
Essern dipped his fingers into a belt pouch and drew a line under one eye with talc and under the other with powdered silver, then he spoke the words, “Skrytý nic víc”. Now Essern saw the cavern through the eyes of his spell, his fellow party members were outlined in a lavender mist that only Essern could see, picking them out of the darkness with precision.
He rode up and caught up to Morgul, who was staying close enough to Zintar to see him.
On the edge of his vision the phantasmist saw a cluster of creatures that collectively created a cloud of purple smoke in front of his eyes.
“A large group of creatures approaches Morgul, straight ahead, we would have crossed their path even if the lizard man hadn’t left.”
Morgul thumbed his javelins, “How many?”
Essern squinted, “I don’t know, but they are carrying something big.”
Zintar continued forward and Morgul called for Essern to stop once they were in his visual range of the approaching creatures.
“What do you see?”, Morgul was impatient to know.
Essern cleared his throat, “I see about, 50 or 60 large… fish men, what did Usleer the Crill call them, ‘Kua-toa?’, I guess that’s them. They are bearing some sort of litter with them, and it has a, I’m not sure, the spell only shows me hidden creatures, not things exactly, I guess the things from the outlines of the creatures.”
Morgul interjected, “Actually, whatever it is they are carrying is giving off a glow, if we ride a bit further I should be able to see it with my own eyes.”
The men did so, and they saw a fantastic sight, though they heard the sounds of united chanting, unearthly voices beforehand.
Zintar’s spider had stopped in front of the procession of fish-men, there were indeed a large number of them, Morgul estimated almost 75 of the tall creatures, each one towering over the height of a man. About 50 of them bore a litter on their shoulders, 25 on each side, the remaining 25 formed a circle around the main group carrying the litter.
The 25 kua-toa not carrying the litter were all carrying musical instruments, about 10 of them were pounding on skin drums, the other 15 were all playing an odd instrument, it consisted of a small round metal disc strapped to one hand, on the other hand was a glove that ended in small metal spheres for each finger, the kua-toa were strumming and tracing lines on the disc with the small spheres. Each time they did so a strange noise would snake out from the disc, and the combination of different sounds from each finger blended for each instrument into a unique sound that seemed to shimmer with a dozen notes at once. The combination from multiple kua-toa wove together into a hum that vibrated the air around them.
And Zintar seemed entirely ensorcelled by it.
But what Morgul did not at all expect was the contents of the litter. On top of the litter was a large glass sphere, around 10’ in diameter, the glass was slightly green tinged and sparkled when the light hit it. Water filled up the inside of the sphere and the water was filled with a horde of fish, perhaps a hundred or so. Each fish was about 3 feet long, bright yellow with green fringes, their tails large black triangles and two antennae shot up from either side of their heads. Their three eyes glowed red, and their fangs were impressive.
The whole sphere glowed a bright green, illuminating the ground all around it, and giving the air in the cave an ambergris glow.
“What is that?”, Essern was elated, as an illusionist he lived for unique visual images, and this was as unique as any he had ever seen.
Morgul shrugged, “I know not, but if we approach closer I can at least tell if it is evil in its base nature.”
Essern agreed and they approached until they were close enough for Morgul to scan for evil. They were also visible, and Morgul put his hand on his sword. He concentrated but detected nothing.
Zintar sat about 40 feet from the globe, entirely absorbed in it.
Morgul rode up beside the warlock, looking at his eyes he realized he was far gone. Essern rode behind him.
“What have you done to him?”, Morgul spoke with confidence.
One of the kua-toa walked forward, he was tracing out a somber set of notes on his metal disc, and he spoke to Morgul in a sibilant voice, but the words were meaningless. Morgul shook his head.
The creature’s eyes refocused on Morgul for a few moments, then it spoke with a low hiss and sigh, in common, as he played his music, now more silently.
“We are the keepers of the Sphere of the Hundred Svāmiyā, we play the sacred songs and they call out to all of the water, all who dwell in the sea, the rivers, the streams, all who hear the call must answer, to join the procession or to be consumed by the Hundred Svāmiyā, a tribute to their godhead.”
Essern understood, Zintar was a lizard man, so “of the water”, but he was polymorphed into that form from a curse, it wasn’t his natural form. So the call worked on him, but not completely correctly, and thus he sat staring at the whole thing rather than offering himself up for service or sacrifice.
He suddenly had an idea.
“This one”, Essern spoke clearly and loudly, “this one is not of the water, magic has made him look that way, but look deeper, he is not of the ocean, of the river, or of the stream. He would corrupt you, pervert your holiness to become one with you, to consume him would poison you. Let him go.”
There was silence, even the music stopped as all of the kua-toa stopped playing at once.
All of them began to chant at once, “ajaa amanṭa jalkaaya aprogiva husmina ogarravā”, over and over again.
Essern turned to Morgul, “We have to snap him out of this, I don’t know how to fight this thing.”
“I don’t know what to do, how do we break the hold?”
Essern reached into his component pouch, moved in front of Zintar and took out a handful of multi-colored sand, he spoke the words, “sechny barvy nyni” and color exploded from his outstretched hand directly into Zintar’s eyes.
The lizard man pulled back, stunned, and slumped over in his saddle.
The kua-toans began to wail, and the fish in the globe swam around madly.
Zintar slowly shook his head and came back to awareness, he was clear headed, though he still felt thick and slow.
Essern was directly in his line of sight, “Zintar, hit those things with a mind blast, you have to convince them you are more trouble than you are worth.”
Zintar processed the words and focused his concentration for a moment, he felt the flash from inside his mind that started the wave of psionic energy that he unleashed with a thought.
Essern moved aside, and a bolt of pure psionic force flew through the air and hit a number of the fish in the globe.
The kua-toans all moaned and wailed for a minute or so, twisting and writhing, and almost dropping the globe to the ground.
The fish all stopped swimming simultaneously and turned to look in Zintar’s direction, all aligned as if with one shared mind.
The first kua-toan who spoke started to speak again, “The Keepers of the Hundred Svāmiyā acknowledge that the lizard man would not fit well into our collective. He is tainted, corrupt, and incomplete.”
Essern chuckled.
The kua-toans began to play again, while the bearers lifted the litter and began to sing.
“ajaa amanṭa jalkaaya aprogiva husmina ogarravā”, over and over again.
The procession passed within about 40 feet of the party as it continued on its pilgrimage through the main passage.
Morgul, Zintar and Essern came back to the party and conveyed the story of what happened.
Ahrn looked disappointed.
“What bothers you warlock?”, Morgul asked.
“Those creatures, to speak with them, what we could learn, it is a missed opportunity.”
Morgul was ready to argue the point, but he realized the warlock was right, as he often was.
“One that could not be avoided though, we need to move.”
Ahrn agreed, and the party continued down the main passageway into the darkness.
The party continued forward, Morgul had kept an eye on Zintar for an hour or so, and so far he had done nothing untoward to suggest his mind was still corrupted.
He and Lenides were talking about Zintar’s ensorcellment.
“We don’t know what that did to his mind, he seems fine, but we now know he is susceptible to ensorcellment by these creatures.” Lenides was concerned.
Mogul chuckled, “We have all been taken by enchantment more than once friend Lenides, need I remind you how you became what you are today?”
Lenides pulled back for a moment, and then smiled widely, “Well, I suppose, but that was a bit different, something ate my brain out of my skull, that’s a bit more… aggressive than what we saw here.”
“And more painful I would assume”, Morgul raised an eyebrow in reply.
The paladin looked at Zintar and looked ahead, even in regular conversation he was always checking the perimeter, looking ahead in the route to see if they were being put into a vulnerable place.
Morgul was ever the tactician.
Lenides’ paws sank into mossy ground, his favorite surface to walk on, barefoot, through the underdark. Wet rocks forced him to extend his claws to gain purchase, slowing his walking speed, and any sort of dirt became embedded in his paws as it was so damp, and necessitated time cleaning them later.
The moss, however, felt wonderful.
“You must hate the darkness, eh?” Lenides asked.
Morgul spit and grunted, “Aye, it limits my ability to react with some thought as to what to do first.”
Morgul patted Vacanga and the beast snorted in reply.
“On the other hand, sometimes hesitation is bad.”
Lenides could not object to that.
“I concentrate as we ride, checking for the presence of evil, but many of the beasts that call this place home are not evil, merely beasts.”
“How does it feel when something is evil?”
Lenides was a warlock, he asked these interesting questions, it was one of the things that he and Morgul shared.
“If a creature wants to kill me to survive, to protect others, then I don’t sense anything, but those who seek to destroy me out of pleasure, because they get a perverse satisfaction exerting the ultimate power over a mortal, those burn like the midday sun in my mind. Lit brilliant by Athena’s godhead.”
“I can see heat in the dark, it is helpful, but even that has a limited range, outside, in the open, I would feel better about our chances. But you have human eyes, how do you cope, you see ahead 20, 30’ in some places?”
Morgul nodded, “I rely mostly on my hearing, anything that will attack us from the ground will make noise. As we travel I focus on the sounds around me as much as I can, until the regular, repeating sounds, you know, the dripping water, the flowing stream, the clicking insects, they become familiar to my ears”
Lenides remembered that each time they broke camp Morgul made them mount up and sit perfectly still for a minute, Lenides had assumed the paladin was praying, he now guessed that he was listening.
Morgul took a swig of water, “Any sound that is not part of that background, that gets my attention. And once I light up Helvete, well, I generally see what I need to.”
The paladin tapped a metal boss on his saddle twice with a dagger blade, he heard replying taps on down the line from each pair of the marching order.
“Have you ever thought to get yourself changed back?” Morgul asked.
Lenides had spoken with Ahrn about this a few months ago, he was irritated by the question the first time, this time he was melancholy.
“No, I’m not changing back. I’m more than human now, I’m an amalgam of beast and man”, Lenides walked slightly closer to the paladin, leaned in and spoke in a whisper, “I don’t even remember what it was like to walk without paws.”
Morgul looked on in reverence. His god had a holy animal, an owl, to merge with it in this way would be a sacred thing. Lenides was created when he was brought back to life by a priest of a strange god not his own, the form he was in must have been selected by that god as a message. Lenides chose to honor that message by retaining the form, indeed he seemed to have embraced it completely.
He forgets himself to bear the will of the gods, Morgul thought, he was holy for this, the paladin felt good with the wemic by his side.
They continued for a time, listening.
After 3 more hours of travel the main passage began to have large mushrooms in it, some were a few feet tall, many were smaller, but they rapidly became a carpet on the ground and even growing up on to the walls. The spiders no longer had access to ground that was not covered by mushrooms, anywhere from regular sized to as large as a small dog. As they moved forward the mushrooms became larger and larger, to the point that they were as large as trees along the side of their path, bush sized or smaller below them, and there were quite literally thousands of them all around. There were a few paths forward through the mushrooms.
This cavern was better lit than others, a strange, reddish glow permeated the entire place, but there were no phosphorescent lichens or obvious sources of illumination around.
It was like the very air itself was bleeding.
It did afford the party, for the first time since they had been below the ground, a view of the entire cavern. It stretched across their vision, around a half mile across and perhaps 500 feet up. On the far side it appeared to narrow and continued beyond their vision.
And the entirety of the ground in front of them was smothered in a forest of mushrooms.
It gave them vertigo for a moment, they had been travelling with no view of a sky for so long that seeing this much space overwhelmed them.
There was a main path that led through the mushrooms, winding but wide enough for the party on their giant spiders, and they proceeded at a moderate speed. Everyone’s ears were wide open, and they scanned the mushroom forest constantly for signs of aggression.
But all they encountered was silence.
The mushroom forest was visible but impenetrable to the eye, it presented an amorphous shape with no obvious places to look for attackers.
Then, there was a shimmer to the air similar to what they would see when Zintar fired off a psionic blast, and Carver and Folix were directly in its path. Further up ahead in the marching order there was another distortion, this one from the other side of the party, and it passed through Shoon and Brother Naranjir.
Shoon, Brother Naranjir and Folix all shook their heads and felt dizzy for a few seconds, whatever it was that hit them was clearly directed at their heads, but the feeling passed quickly.
Carver, on the other hand, was hit hard by the attack and was stunned, his head lolling about on his shoulders, his eye rolled back into his head, then he slumped forward on his giant snow spider.
Only Folix, however, saw what happened to Carver, the rest of the party was facing forward and missed it.
Folix shouted, “We are under attack, Carver is…”
And with this shadowy figures burst from the mushroom forest, springing on to each of the various party members. There were 12 party members and 12 attackers, and they snarled from the darkness as they attacked, claws and fangs bared.
Wend immediately recognized them for what they were and shouted, “Rat-men!”
The first wererat landed on Shoon’s giant spider and tried to bite the warlock, however he had a stoneskin spell in place, and his bite could not penetrate it. Shoon took out a dagger and tried for a stab, but missed.
Lenides turned enough to receive his wererat head on, the beast sailed through the air with fangs and claws bared, but met with Lenides’ staff directly in its gut, the beast’s arms and legs shot forward, then it fell back to the ground.
The wererat lunging at Essern shot past him entirely due to the magic of Essern’s cloak, on the way by the phantasmist pulled out his gladius and slashed the beast across the side.
Another wererat sprung on to Brother Naranjir, grabbing him and slashing him twice with his filthy claws, bringing the two of them down to the ground together. They broke apart upon hitting the ground and Brother Naranjir landed close enough to his mount to grab his lucerne hammer, which had been holstered on its side.
The wererat had its sword in hand and shot forward to stab the monk, he stepped to the side and brought around his lucerne hammer, smashing the wererat on the side of the head, and punching a hole in its skull.
Another of the foul creatures grappled with Gint, the thick thewed barbarian scored a hit with his scimitar, drawing a red line across the beast’s belly, but it slashed its claws across his face, and drew blood that stung his eyes.
Zintar’s wererat had slid under his giant spider, and he now appeared, climbing up the saddle straps to slash at the lizard man, Zintar pulled back to avoid the attack and took out his sword, by that time the wererat was up beside him and was slashing down towards the warlock. Zintar pulled to the side and as the wererat’s claws narrowly missed him, then the warlock brought down his sword and slashed the wererat on the arm, arcing blood through the scarlet tinged air.
Wend’s wererat leapt from a tall mushroom and plunged downwards almost perpendicular to the ground. He landed on Wend feet first, driving the druid’s body down to the giant snow spider’s back. He then slashed with both of his hands.
Wend bent back up and threw off the wererat, it was smaller than the druid and much lighter. Wend then grabbed his Lucerne hammer and swung but the wererat had recovered and easily dodged.
As soon as the shimmer had passed through the air a wererat had scrambled from the underbrush near Ahrn to leap and grab on to one of the giant snow spider’s legs, the beast almost shook off the wererat, once, then twice, but it managed to hang on and climb up.
While the wererat was on the leg Ahrn took out a small bag and turned it upside down, pulling it around his body leaving a circle of powdered iron around him while chanting the words “Védelmi kör”.
When the wererat leapt and attacked the conjuror he had to push past the resistance of the protective circle, and this threw off both of his attacks.
Morgul’s wererat was also frustrated in his attack, splaying on Morgul’s shield, he fell to the ground and Vacanga grabbed the wererat in his maw, biting down and spraying blood on the ground.
Jaggenoth had both hands on his bardiche by the time his wererat was on him, the beast slashed twice but its blows were countered by Jaggenoth’s armor. The priest kicked the wererat off of him and followed with a powerful blow from his bardiche, slashing open the creature’s chest.
Folix was set upon by a wererat from a pit in the ground, he crawled up the back of Folix’s snow spider but the ranger heard his slavering low growl and turned, as soon as the wererat crested the top of the spider he found a sword plunging down on to his shoulder, shearing it from his body.
The wererat squealed and hissed, collapsing to the ground to bleed out dead.
Folix now needed to defend Carver, who was unprotected and stunned on the back of his giant snow spider.
He turned in time to see a wererat tear out Carver’s throat with his fangs, he was too late.
The fighter collapsed to the ground dead.
Shoon saw Carver go down, the fighter was powerful, and Shoon saw him slain in seconds. The House Ynris warlock reached behind and grabbed one of his poisoned darts and took aim at one of the wererats. He hurled it with precision… and the dart almost bounced off of the rat man. Shoon followed up with two more at close range, both were completely ineffective.
Gilak then set upon the wererat, his huge beak tearing a jagged hole in his chest.
Wend’s wererat took out his short sword and lunged at the druid, this time he was ready and his hammer smashed the creature in the side, knocking him down.
Vacanga bit the wererat in his maw in half, and the creature fell to the ground in pieces.
Morgul threw a javelin at the wererat that had killed Carver, but it bounced off of him harmlessly.
The wererat that Folix wounded clawed at him but did not manage to get past his armor, the ranger however moved in for the kill with a thrust from his longsword.
He heard a sound from behind him and turned just in time to see the wererat who killed Carver loping towards him, the beast scored a hit with his sword on Folix’s arm.
A few feet away Morgul felt a pressure in his head, it was strong, as if his head was in a vice, and his ears began to ring. The paladin focused all of his willpower to fight through whatever was happening, and the sensation slowly faded.
Lenides felt the same pressure, but perhaps as he was still engaged with his enemy he was less able to resist it… he felt his willpower draining from his body like blood from a mortal wound.
Lenides gathered up his strength and sprung through the air, wemics could jump up to 30 feet with their powerful legs, and Lendies targeted Zintar. He plunged from the air with his claws bared.
Zintar saw the wemic flying through the air at him and he dove to the side at the last second, Lenides spraying dirt and Zintar narrowly missing being slashed by his claws.
This was getting out of hand quickly, Zintar was hesitant using his psionic powers, he was worried about drawing the attention of psi beasts of various kinds…
But he did not want to die here in the dark either.
Zintar cleared his mind and fired off a bolt of pure psychic force towards the source of the first blast that hit Carver, just in the distance he could see an outline of a figure in the reddish dark.
The psionic blast was numbed to harmlessness by a thought shield.
The illithid hissed loudly, there was something here with psionic power!
Morgul charged over on Vacanga and hit Gint’s wererat on the side of the head with his mace, killing it.
Folix took out a hand axe and approached the wererat that had killed Carver. He didn’t say anything to the beast, he charged forward and slashed with his sword, the wererat attempted to parry but was too slow, getting a slash across its chest. The beast stumbled back and was unable to defend against the axe chop the ranger brought around for a second strike.
The beast lunged at him and savagely bit at the ranger, but instead he ate Folix’s sword.
Essern’s wererat shook its head and snarled, launching itself at the phantasmist, this time Essern held his ground and fired off a blast of color at the creature, it was dazzled and collapsed to the ground, Essern dismounted and hacked at its neck twice, killing it.
One of the illithids attempted to dominate Morgul again, and again the paladin fought off the domination of his mind.
Brother Naranjir had dismounted to kill his wererat, and he continued forward towards one of the illithids, the one attempting to dominate Morgul. The beast was too focused on the paladin to notice the monk, and Brother Naranjir sprang upon him, a flying kick to the beast’s stomach caused it to double over forward.
[Grasshopper Kick]
He then followed up with a punch to the creature’s tentacled head, the punch snapped it back and left the illithid temporarily stunned.
[Hammer Blow]
Brother Naranjir took advantage of the creature’s temporary helplessness and drove the spike from his Lucerne hammer deep into its skull, killing it instantly.
The other illithid squealed and bolted into the bloody darkness, the wererats followed him with half their number slain.
Lenides felt his mind calm, and checked to ensure that he did not harm Zintar.
Jaggenoth walked over to Carver, shaking his head that the damage was too much for him to heal.
“I cannot help him, he is too far gone for my abilities to heal.”
Morgul was more concerned that the wererats and illithid would return, looking for easy marks, they needed to leave, and soon.
Essern was quickly rifling through the wererat’s gear, Brother Naranjir checked over the illithid. Then the phantasmist and Shoon spent a few moments looking around the area and found a cache of goods further back in the mushroom forest. Along with some bedding they found gems and gold, a scarab and two potion bottles. Shoon used detect magic on the latter to determine that they were indeed magical. All of the mind flayer’s loot was placed in Shoon’s portable hole
After the cache was found Morgul secured Carver’s body to the back of vacanga, wrapped in sheets, they couldn’t leave it behind to be found.
They travelled for about half an hour until Folix noticed a trail disappearing to the side of the main path, after following it for a short time they found it led to a large cave. They held in position and searched the cave for 20 minutes, looking for anything alive.
Once they were confident that the cave was secure (Jaggenoth laid down a glyph of warding near the entrance, just to be sure) they sat and discussed what to do about Carver.
“We have the ring, we could wish him back to life”, Lenides stated plainly.
Zintar nodded, “He was a fine warrior, and I agree it is worthwhile bringing him back.”
Ahrn cleared his throat, “We have another option, if we want to save those wishes for… contingencies.”
All eyes turned to the conjuror.
“I picked up a scroll with a spell that would help here, similar to the one which brought back Lenides when he died.”
“But Sebtonn cast that spell, he was a priest”, Morgul commented.
“Aye”, Ahrn replied, “but warlocks can also harness necromantic magic, the form of the magic is the same, even if the source is different.”
Ahrn took out a scroll from his belongings.
“There is a chance of failure, the spell is powerful, but it will return him to health and life, I just can’t guarantee what form he will take.”
Lenides laughed, “Can you make him a wemic, I could use the company.”
“Sadly no”, Ahrn responded, “I can cast the spell but I have no say in the final results.”
With that Ahrn nodded towards Morgul, and sat cross legged in the middle of the cave. The paladin and the ranger positioned themselves on either side of the conjuror, ready to protect him while casting the spell (and after it was cast if it went away).
The conjuror unfurled the scroll and took a breath, then began to read out the scroll’s contents aloud.
“A szellem eltunt, de nem feledkezik meg ujra egy uj otthonba…” Ahrn spoke each word with a crystal precision, a mistake could lead to the spell being wasted, or even being harmful. He did not want to think of how a botched necromantic spell would impact him, or even the others.
Carver’s body had been laid out and covered with a sheet. After about 5 minutes of reading the spell Carver’s body began to… dissolve into the soil, like the process of natural decay had been sped up a thousandfold. When Ahrn spoke the last word and the final shimmering letter faded off the scroll Carver’s body was gone.
Within minutes the group heard a rustling from deep within the cave they had entered, and a looming figure appeared in the half-light.
It was at least 9 feet tall and extremely muscular, Folix recognized it instantly as an ogre! The lumbering creature, naked top to bottom, walked forward and spoke, in a ragged, deep voice.
“Where am I, what happened?”
Jaggenoth pulled the ogre aside and informed him of what happened, the creature looked confused but very quickly his face looked like comprehension was growing.
“You are in a new body, Ahrn brought you back, one of the wererats tore out you throat… you died.”
Carver stared at his new hands, and looked down at his new body. He touched his throat...
“I feel… such power, like I could crush skulls in my hands.”
Jaggenoth smiled, “You could, you have come back much more powerful, an ogre.”
Carver’s face flushed for a moment, then he turned to Jaggenoth, “Am I in this form forever?”
The priest of Rudra nodded, “You may try to have yourself transformed, or perhaps we could use one of our wishes to change you, but until that, you are going to be an ogre.”
Carver sat and looked at his hands and feet for a short time, marveling that THIS was his body, and he felt so strong.
Morgul brought over some skins from his supply bag, they had been used to cover Vacanga when they were in the cold, they could be used here to cover up the ogre a bit. With some rope they fashioned a kilt so he wouldn’t be completely naked. He picked up his old broadsword, it was more of a shortsword to him in this current form, but he could still use it. He could also use his battle axe and crossbow, so he wasn’t without options.
His magic belt, however, was no longer an option, so after some discussion it was agreed to give it to Morgul. His armor, which was similar to Jaggenoth’s and had a greater enchantment, no longer fit him. He gave that to Jaggenoth to use.
Shoon then sat with the scarab they had found and prepared to identify it, he prepared the infusion and drank it, then he put on the broach to test it. He asked eight questions, and only the second one gave him any sort of response, he knew then that the broach protected its user.
That was all he could determine. He informed everyone of the broach’s ability, but he offered a caveat, “I only learned one ability of the broach, there could be more, I found it hard to identify.”
Jaggenoth spoke up, “I could cast the bones to see if taking and using the broach is a good idea.”
Everyone agreed this was sensible. Jaggenoth cleared a space and prayed for a time, then took out a set of bone fragments that had been cleaned and engraved with symbols, ancient symbols of the Cult of Rudra that were no longer used anywhere but amongst cult members.
The priest prayed, then cast the bones and read them. After a few minutes of silence he replied, “No, the only response I received was a “no”, don’t use the broach.”
Everyone was disappointed in this, but none felt the courage to challenge the response given by the gods.
Except Gint. Gint was a northerner and had his deep suspicions about the gods these southerners worshipped. Jaggenoth was a good friend and an excellent adventurer, but the barbarian drew the line at the declarations of false gods.
If Rudra said “no”, Gint’s answer was “yes”.
“I will wear the broach, if we need it we will have it, if we don’t I can sell it later, and if it is harmful I’m the strongest person here.”
No one felt compelled to argue, so Gint took the broach and put it in a belt pouch for now.
Watches were set, and the group attempted to get some sleep.
As Gint settled down for the night he clipped the broach on to his chest, he would wear this and tomorrow everyone would see that they had put too much stock in the prophecies of an alien god…
End of entry.
My guys are pretty careful, they know how dangerous the game is, and these sessions were after playing with me for 5 years. But one of the players, the barbarian PC, he’s just the kind of player that likes to do crazy stuff.
We’ll cover that next entry.
