IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE
SESSION 13B: THE TRAGEDY AT THE DOOR
December 16th, 2007
The 1st Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty
A sudden hush filled the long hall – the violence ending almost as quickly as it had began. But even in this unexpected lull, the threat of danger still hung thickly over them. The door may have been shut upon Ursaal, but the warcaster was still an eminent threat.
They rallied quickly, reviving the injured goblins and falling into a defensive formation that quickly moved down the hall. Agnarr, with his flaming sword, hacked through the webs that Ursaal had left behind him. Once a path had been cleared to the stairs, he and Tee climbed up to the double doors of iron.
Tee quickly inspected the doors and found that no traps had been laid upon them. She fell back into the middle of the defensive formation at the base of the stairs, leaving Agnarr alone to place his hand upon the latch and swing one of the doors open.
Beyond the doors lay a spacious hexagonal chamber illuminated by seven strangely illuminated braziers arranged in a ten-foot-diameter circle in the center of the room. The sickly green stone of the braziers was carved into the shape of writhing, amorphous tendrils reaching up to support corroded iron bowls in which sputtered foul-smelling flames.
These braziers surrounded a strange idol carved in amorphous, undulating waves. Thick sheets of dripping algae and slime coated the walls, and dark-green tentacles of the stuff dangled down from the ceiling like thick, half-congealed ropes. All of this stuff slithered and writhed – sliding about the place almost as if it were possessed of life.
Vision into the room was utterly obscured by the constantly wavering layers of gelatinous growths, but shadows could clearly be seen moving within.
As Tee and Agnarr had worked, Elestra had whispered to her python viper – instructing it to follow the scent of Ursaal. So, as Agnarr opened the door, the massive snake slid between his legs.
Agnarr moved to follow, but as his arms touched the dangling tendrils he felt waves of horrible nausea sweep through his skin and overwhelm his senses. The floor beneath him, too, seemed to reel at his tread. He lurched backwards, but the tendrils reached out as if to follow him. With a disgusted sweep of his greatsword he sliced them away.
Agnarr stepped forward again, this time planning to cut a path through the seething chaos of slime and fungus. But as he did so, the unmistakable chants of an arcanist echoed through the smoky chamber. Acting on sheer instinct, Agnarr leaped back and slammed the door shut.
A moment passed as all of them looked at each other. But then Elestra, realizing that her beloved pet was now trapped within the room, gave a sharp cry and leapt forward, shoving the door open again and crying out for the snake to return to her side.
This proved immediately disastrous. More shadowy shapes were now moving within the room, and the cadence of the spellcasting immediately shifted as the door opened. Only a moment later, a stinking, yellowish cloud of noxious fumes rushed out of the darkness and overwhelmed everyone beyond the door. It hung cloyingly in the air, leaving those trapped within it gagging and retching.
Simultaneously, more of the fleshy, befanged creatures rushed between the dangling tentacles of slime. Agnarr met them with his blade. Tor tried to move up to help him, but Elestra was blocking his way.
The goblins, along with Dominic and Ranthir, fell back from the noxious cloud. But Tee, taking careful and unerring aim with her dragon pistol, shot between her friends and caught one of the fleshy creatures in the center of its mass.
A voice came out of the darkness, cutting through Elestra’s shrill shrieks for her python viper and booming cacophonously through the stone chambers: “You have disturbed a holy place. I, Morbion, shall wreak the vengeance of Jubilex upon you!”
It was then that a tall figure strode into view, mounting the amorphous idol in the center of the room as if it were a platform or dais. Though goblinesque in feature, Morbion’s skin was sickly, sweat-slicked, and ashen grey. From his back four greenish tentacles of slime curled out with sinister intent.
Morbion lowered one hand and with voice imperial chanted a single arcane syllable. The sound of it seemed to grow and echo. At the mere touch of such a sound, the few remaining cindershards worn by the party shattered into useless crystal.
Nausea swept over them, but Agnarr kept enough sense about him to slash out with his greatsword and slay the last of the fleshy creatures hounding them at the doors. He reached out to swing the great doors shut and buy them a moment of respite from the dangerous spells of Morbion, but Elestra, still shouting for her snake, shoved them open again and stepped inside.
Morbion lowered a second hand and uttered a second syllable. The noise of it joined with the first, until the conjoined sound seemed to physically batter at their bodies. A terrible ache filled their bones. Blood burst from noses, ears, and even eyes.
Tor, staggering from the assault and already seeing the beginnings of a rout, called for a general retreat and began falling back toward the ropes leading up through the sinkhole. Dominic followed him.
Elestra, on the other hand, seemed oblivious to both her pain and the chaos unfolding behind her. She just kept screaming for her python viper to come back.
Agnarr, unwilling to simply leave Elestra behind, reached out to grab her and pull her back through the door. But she shrugged him off.
Tee, too, hesitated in following Tor’s command. She pulled the trigger on her dragon pistol, trying to distract Morbion and perhaps buy Agnarr a few more moments to get Elestra under control.
But the slimy tendrils hanging within the room seemed to sway deliberately into the path of the energy bolt, deflecting it harmlessly away. Almost simultaneously, Morbion’s arcane chant again rose to a crescendo – this time unleashing from his hands a coruscating wave of chaotic, ricocheting energy that smashed into the area around the doors with a polychromatic fury.
Tee was battered about as if caught in a hurricane – the energy seemed to slice into her like razors, shredding her shirt and raising swelling lines of blood across her face and hands and arms.
Elestra staggered under the onslaught, and Agnarr – although coughing up blood himself – seized the opportunity to grab her and haul her back through the doors. He tried, once again, to close them, but Elestra summoned up her last dregs of strength and threw herself against them.
If he had been given the chance, Agnarr might have been able to force the doors shut. But the momentary gap left open by Elestra’s efforts proved catastrophic: Through it Morbion unleashed a fireball. Agnarr and Elestra were both caught in the heart of its fury – they fell without a sound. Tee, near the edge of the inferno, managed to throw herself to safety… but the goblins who had been clustered around her did not fare so well. They, like Agnarr and Elestra, fell where they stood.
THE BLOODY ROUT
Morbion descended from atop the amorphous idol. The four tentacles of slime upon his back gently pushed back the draping tendrils as he strode imperiously toward the door.
Fortunately for them all, Tee’s reactions were quick: Leaping away from the fireball, she rolled sinuously to her feet and bounded forward to where the door stood half ajar. Reaching over Agnarr’s charcoaled flesh, she slammed the door shut. Simultaneously she reached into her bag of holding and pulled out a length of rope. This she rapidly looped around the handles of the door, binding it shut.
Even as the last loop of rope was drawn taut, Tee could hear more chanting coming from behind the door. There was no time. She reached down, grabbed Agnarr’s body by the arm, and awkwardly dragged it into her bag of holding. Then she did the same with Elestra.
As Elestra’s body disappeared into the sub-dimensional space of the bag, the doors reverberated with an echoing crash. The hastily bound ropes held, but it was clear they would not hold for long.
Tee fell back with a distressed glance at the bodies of the goblins – including Itarek – that she didn’t have time to save.
At the far end of the hall, Tor was standing sentry at the bottom of the ropes leading up through the sinkhole. Above him, Dominic and Ranthir were slowly climbing their way up to the ruined fungal garden. But whether it was their injuries or their panic or their physical frailty, their progress was slow at best.
As Tee, stumbling down the length of the hallway, reached Tor’s side the iron doors behind her were suddenly burst asunder. Morbion stood there, and at his side another of the fleshy, fanged creatures crouched.
The sight or the sound of this shocked Dominic. The priest lost his grip on the rope and fell, knocking Ranthir – who was climbing close behind him – off as well. Ranthir fell awkwardly and was knocked unconscious. Dominic’s fall was cushioned by Ranthir’s body, but the priest felt his leg twist and with a horrible burning pain his right knee was wrenched and torn.
Tee and Tor had barely gotten out of the way of their falling comrades, and now they looked uncertainly between Dominic, Morbion, and the ropes above.
“Go!” Dominic shouted from the floor. “Get out! Someone has to get out!”
Tee and Tor grabbed the ropes and began to climb. But they were too late: Morbion crossed the hall with a frightening speed and, before they could get out of their reach, Tee and Tor were ripped from the ropes by Morbion’s tentacles.
Both of them managed to land on their feet, but only awkwardly so. And before either of them could do much, Morbion and his demonic servant had battered them to the edge of death. As black oblivion claimed them, they knew all hope was lost: Only the crippled Dominic, among all their company, remained.
DOMINIC’S LAST HOPE
While Tee and Tor had struggled their last, Dominic had pushed the pain from his mind, hauled himself to his feet, and fought to escape the hopeless melee. He avoided the horrible, crushing blows of Morbion’s tentacles – but only by putting himself within the reach of Morbion’s fleshy monstrosity. The creature’s black-crusted claws raked his arm while its incised fangs tore gaping wounds in his back.
The force of the creature’s assault nearly sent Dominic tumbling into the nearby trough. In response, then ooze within the trough reared up and slammed into him, sending him spinning nauseously back down the length of the hall.
Retching and limping – the pain in his knee flaring with every step – Dominic stumbled his way back towards the iron doors. He had not gone far when Morbion – finished, at least for the moment, with Tee and Tor – turned and began to pursue him.
Morbion’s pace was slow, deliberate… almost mocking. It was clear that he thought of Dominic as nothing more than a final plaything – one last victim to be toyed with and then disposed of with the rest. He knew that there was no escape to be found beyond the doors.
But Dominic’s thought was not bent upon escape. Dominic’s heart was turned to hope.
And so, as Morbion drew ever closer, Dominic came to the bodies of the goblins who had served at their side. He fell to his knees beside the body of Itarek… a body that still rose and fell with shallow, dying breaths. And he closed his eyes in prayer. And from his hands flowed the power of his faith.
Itarek opened his eyes.
