SESSION 34B: WEBS OF AMBUSH AND BETRAYAL

January 5th, 2009
The 18th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

A hideous, spider-like creature with a human-like head and face dropped onto the floor next to Agnarr. It landed softly on its skittering legs, then raised its front claws and sent a bolt of lightning lancing across the cavern – scorching Tor and Dominic, who had just begun to charge across the cavern.

The creature turned back towards Agnarr, but it had underestimated the barbarian’s speed. Agnarr’s greatsword opened a gash along one side of the creature.

Tee, recovering from the enchantment that had been laid on her, stood up—

And the door behind her was swung open. Before she had a chance to turn, a sword sliced painfully into her side and sent her spinning to the floor in pain. Turning she saw Gavele – the cultist she had seen breaking up the fracas over Reggaloch’s corpse – pulling back her blade with a grim smile.

Tor, scarcely slowed by the lightning that had seared him, reached the spider-like creature. He cut a gash along its other side, causing it to cry out. “Gavele! Help me!”

Gavele shook her head. “You’re on your own Ibulli!” She slammed the door shut – thwarting Tee, who had just bounded back to her feet once again.

“Damn you, bell bitch!” The spider-thing skittered up the wall of the tower.

Tee activated her magical boots and began floating up in pursuit, but Ibulli – seeing her – shot a gob of web at her, pinning her to the wall. A few moments later, Ibulli slipped away through a hole near the ceiling of the cavern and disappeared into the tower.

THROUGH THE TOWER

Meanwhile, below, Tor threw himself against the tower door and burst it open. The inside of the tower was bereft of interior walls with a floor of sandy, hard-packed dirt. A broken staircase wound its way around the inner wall of the tower, up to a trapdoor in the ceiling above.

By the time Tor burst in, Gavele had already crossed the entire tower (with seemingly preternatural speed). Tor and Agnarr raced to catch her, but she managed to wrench open the far door, slip through it, and slam it shut behind her.

But only a moment after the door was shut, Angarr was at it. Seizing the heavy metal ring, Agnarr ripped it open. Gavele – who had been trying to hold it shut while slipping a key into the lock – was wrenched off her feet. Tor, who was only half a stride behind Agnarr, cut her down where she stood.

Tor positioned himself in the open door, keeping a watchful eye on the large chamber beyond. This chamber had seemingly been formed by excavating the space between the tower and another ancient building. The excavation was incomplete, however, with only part of the lower building exposed from the wall. Several passages led away from the chamber – two to the north and one to the south. Flanking one of the northern passages were two statues carved to look like humans in robes but with translucent, smoky grey glass spheres in place of heads.

Everything within seemed still and quiet.

While Tor kept watch, Agnarr went back to help Tee. Stuck as she was, she had managed to get a rope out of her pouch, tie it around her waist, and drop it down to the floor below. Agnarr was able to climb up this and used his flaming sword to burn her free (giving her a little pain here and there as he did).

THRALLS & QUASITS

Once the web was burned away, it was an easy matter for Tee to safely levitate both of them back to the cavern floor below. They joined the rest of the group in the tower.

Before they had a chance to plan their next move, however, two venom-shaped thralls leapt from the roof of the partially excavated building and landed on the ground about twenty feet away. These were large, more muscular, and less recognizably human than their brethren above – clearly suffering from a more advanced form of the askara-induced mutations, which seemed to continue apace even after the victims had emerged from their cocoons.

Tor rapidly backpedaled through the door and slammed it shut.

“Agnarr!”

Agnarr quickly crossed the tower to Tor’s side.

And at that moment, Agnarr and Tor were suddenly filled with a supernatural terror. Agnarr managed to shake it off, but Tor – with a horrible scream – ripped open the door again and ran through it.

The thralls, perhaps surprised at the sudden going-and-coming, swung wildly at Tor ran past them and missed as he fled down an excavated tunnel to the northeast.

A high-pitched, cackling laugh filled the tower. Whirling to see its source, the others spotted two small, winged demons sitting on the staircase.

These quasits were laughing almost helplessly at the sight of Tor’s flight, and Agnarr – with a single bounding leap across the tower – cut one of them down before it had a chance to react. Tee took a shot at the other, blasting a large hole in its wing.

Whirling hate-filled eyes towards her, the quasit gave a sibilant hiss of pain and rage… and vanished.

Tor, meanwhile, had disappeared from sight. It was impossible to follow him, because the venom-shaped thralls were closing rapidly on the open door.

Agnarr stepped into the breach… and things turned frenetic. Blows of fang and claw came quicker than the eyes of the others could follow, but Agnarr turned each of them – deflecting some, absorbing others with cunning angling of his body and armor.

And then the seemingly impossible began to happen: Agnarr was driving them back, using their long reach against them by repeatedly stepping in close to their bodies.

Once there was enough of a gap, Seeaeti slipped around the thralls and, with the dog nipping at their heels, Agnarr was able to start landing some blows of his own. The others prepared to follow his lead through the door and engage.

THE RETURN OF IBULLI

But just as the tide was turning, a beam of purplish-black energy struck Agnarr in the back and the strength drained from his limbs. Ibulli had returned – slipping through the trapdoor at the top of the tower.

While Agnarr continued to hold the line against the thralls, the others – still within the tower – fell into a confused response. Tee fired, sending the spider-thing skittering across the ceiling. Ranthir backed away, but prepared to counter any more spells it might attempt. Dominic shouted out a warning to Agnarr.

Elestra raised her dragon rifle… and got a face full of web. Tee moved to assist her and found herself, once again, webbed in place.

The thralls, meanwhile, had become weary of Seeaeti hounding them and one of them turned towards the dog. Agnarr was out of position to defend him and he could only shout in outrage and concern as Seeaeti’s back was ripped to shreds. With a whimpering whine, Seeaeti twisted away from the thrall.

Dominic, hearing the hound’s howl, darted through the door. At the touch of his wand, the wounds on Seeaeti’s back slowly knit themselves back together. Seeaeti happily bounded back to his feet, turned towards Dominic, and licked him happily on the face.

THE RETURN OF THE QUASITS

Elestra started cutting her way out of the web. She’d only managed to free one arm, however, when the surviving quasit reappeared behind her. It clawed its way up her legs and back, leaving a trail of bloody puncture wounds that burned with a painful venom, before burying its fang-like teeth in the back of her neck.

Elestra cut at it futilely with her rapier, but it leapt away and – chittering with malevolent laughter – vanished again.

Dominic was still wiping Seeaeti’s slobber from his face when he heard Elestra cry out. He ran back into the tower. But, as he passed through the door, he, too, found himself stuck fast – another victim of Ibulli’s web.

Elestra was trying to finish cutting herself free, but the pain spreading from the quasit-inflicted wounds was growing more intense. The wounds themselves were rapidly inflaming with an intense, searing heat, but there was also a chilling shake spreading through her muscles. It was poison.

TOR TURNS AROUND

In his flight, Tor had emerged from the first passage into a roughly circular chamber. Into this chamber an underground stream flowed, pouring down into a large circular pit in the center of the chamber. He passed through this chamber and down another passage, finally coming to a stop – as his mind cleared – a short distance from an iron door.

Cursing loudly he turned and ran back towards the fight.

Running the Campaign: Faction v. Faction – Campaign Journal: Session 34C
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 33D: THE HELL HOUND AT THE DOOR

December 28th, 2008
The 18th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

They headed out the opposite door and found themselves in another hall with doors to both their left and right. Arbitrarily choosing the door to the left, Tee picked the lock. Agnarr kicked it open.

The room beyond was extremely untidy, with a fetid smell that seemed to peremeate everything. The simple furnishings were crude and ill-kept. A weasel-faced man lying on the far bed jerked awake as the door crashed open.

Agnarr hesitated for a moment, uncertain whether the man might be a prisoner or not (the door, after all, had been locked and the room stank). But then he noticed that there was a sword laying on the bed and the man had a dragon pistol strapped to his side.

Agnarr charged with Tee on his heels. They hoped to silence the man before he could say anything, but he dove adroitly off the bed and rolled to his feet, firing his dragon pistol. He started shouting for help.

Tor and Dominic, still in the hall, turned and headed for the door at the far end of the hall, throwing their weight against it.

Tee, meanwhile, circled to the side of the weasel-faced man. Her blade darted here and there, keeping the man’s blade completely engaged while Agnarr came up from the other side and delivered the killing blow.

Someone threw themselves against the door Dominic and Tor were propping themselves against. It barely budged. They glanced at each and made a quick, unspoken decision. Dominic stepped away and Tor, timing things perfectly, yanked the door open at precisely the right moment.

A young elf woman – ebon-skinned like Shilukar – came stumbling through, thrown off-balance by the sudden disappearance of the door she had been planning to throw herself against.

Dominic and Tor were quick to take advantage – the former’s mace crushing her upper arm and Tor’s sword cutting deep into her thigh. She stumbled further down the hall, shouting over her shoulder. “Theral! There are six of them! Grealdan’s dead!”

Dominic looked through the open door and spotted Theral – the Brother of Venom that Tee had seen discovering Reggaloch’s body – beginning to cast a spell. He promptly slammed the door shut.

Almost simultaneously, with a powerful sweep of his sword, Tor caught the dark elf woman in the side of the face – his sword cut through one cheek, passed through her mouth, and out the other side. Her severed jaw fell to the floor and her body followed after it.

They took a moment to collect themselves and then threw open the door again.

HELL HOUND AT THE DOOR

A hell hound was at the door!

Like the ones that had attacked them at Pythoness House, the hound’s skin was cooled lava and its gaping mouth was a lake of fire that gouted a cone of flame down the length of the hall.

Beyond the hound was a massive chamber, its walls painted in horrific combinations of kaleidoscopic color. On the far side of the hall they could see a set of wide stairs leading down. To one side of the room stood Theral. At first there appeared to be six others on the other side of the room, but then they realized that there was only one man there – Vocaetun, the cultist with an ebon hand tattooed on the front of his neck – his form blurred and duplicated a half dozen times.

Tor and Agnarr squared off against the hell hound, rapidly reducing it to a pile of slag-like magma.

Theral, seeing the body of the dark elf woman and watching the fighters demolishing his hound, cursed and then shouted to Vocaetun. “Hold them here while I fetch the damn rats!”

Theral ran off down a side corridor. Vocaetun glared at his retreating back.

As the hell hound finally collapsed, Vocaetun waved a wand in Tor’s direction and then disappeared. Tor felt his eyes burning as they filled with acid.

Elestra leaped over the magma pile and headed towards the hall that Theral had dashed down. Rounding the corner she skidded to a stop.

“There’s a wall!”

“Don’t believe it!” Tee shouted, remembering the illusionary wall that Uranik had spoken of.

But Elestra hesitated. She didn’t want to throw herself into the unknown without the others to back her up.

Then Tee screamed.

Vocaetun had reappeared and hit her with an acidic curse that turned her own tears to caustic acid, having somehow circled around in the meditative chamber behind them. But none of them could see that – not even Tee, who was now clawing at her burning eyes.

Ranthir, seeing Tee’s reaction, knew that it must have come from behind them. “Over here! Tee’s being attacked!”

The others closed in on Vocaetun, but between the mirrored images dancing around his figure, the blurring displacement that seemed to cheat their vision, the blinding attacks from his wand, and the tight quarters, things quickly got confused and cramped.

Vocaetun mounted a fighting retreat back across the meditative chambers into the hall on the far side and then through a secret door into the kaleidoscopic hall. He had been hurt and was clearly beginning to panic. Once he was through the secret door, he broke into a pell-mell run across the hall – heading towards the stairs on the far side.

Running the Campaign: NPC Spellbooks – Campaign Journal: Session 33E
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 33C: SECRET DOORS & SENTRIES

December 28th, 2008
The 18th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

“We should kill them,” Elestra said.

“What?” Tee said. “We said we’d let them go.”

“You saw what they were doing to those people,” Elestra said. “They’re evil.”

“And we’re not,” Tee said.

But it was clear that Elestra didn’t want to let them go – Uranik because of what he was responsible for and Arveth because she could so easily identify Tee.

“She doesn’t know my real name,” Tee said.

“But she’s seen all of us,” Elestra argued. “It won’t be hard to track down six people matching our descriptions… not with Dominic being the Chosen of Vehthyl.”

“We could just cut out her tongue,” Tor suggested.

Tee was shocked. She thought of Tor as the moral center of the group, and now she was taken aback by the bloodthirstiness of them both.

Tee prevailed and they left the two cultists unconscious where they lay. (“Cutting out their tongue never works anyway,” Dominic said.) They also decided to head through the secret door.

But as soon as they headed down the sewer tunnel, Elestra tried to double back and kill the prisoners. But she wasn’t sly enough for Tee – in fact, the effort was so clumsy that none of them took it seriously. Tee called her back and kept an eye on her until they were through the door.

Finding the door was easy enough now that they knew where to look. Beyond it they could see where the original line of the sewer had run, although it had clearly been diverted into new construction long ago. The reason for the diversion, perhaps, was the large sinkhole-like collapse that lay just beyond the new construction. A ladder leaning against the side of the sinkhole led down to an older passage of some sort beneath the sewer line.

Tee climbed down this ladder and scouted ahead, coming quickly to an intersection. She peeked around the corner, careful not to make a sound.

Unfortunately, the ratmen sentries had been warned by the light of the sunrod that Elestra was carrying. They took two quick shots at Tee’s head with a pair of dragon rifles as she ducked back around the corner.

Tee paused for only a moment and then rounded the corner again, running down the hall and firing with her dragon pistol as she went. She caught one of the ratmen in the shoulder in a blast of scorched fur.

The others, hearing the shots of both ratmen and Tee, started jumping down from the top of the sinkhole. Unfortunately, the broken floor of the passage below proved treacherous. Most of them fell haphazardly in the attempt.

The two ratmen where standing in a T-intersection at the far end of the hall. They were firing back at Tee now, but as she came closer they suddenly ducked behind opposite corners. Tee cursed, certain that they were going to reach the other defenders of the temple and raise the alarm before she could stop them.

But Agnarr was already scrambling back to his feet and racing down the hallways. He passed Tee easily, despite her considerable head start, and then slid down the last ten feet of the passage – right past the ratman who had scarcely finished turning to run. Before the  ratman could scamper down the hall, draw a weapon, or even turn back to face him, Agnarr had decapitated him.

The other ratman squeaked and retreated back towards a dead end. Tee rounded the corner and put an arrow through his eye.

As the others caught up with them, Tee knelt down to search the corpses. The ratmen had been carrying little of interest, except for the dragon rifles they had been firing. These were worn and badly damaged, marked with the clear patina of age.

“They’re not chaositech, are they?” Elestra asked worriedly.

“No,” Tee said. “They’re just very old.”

They continued into the complex. Several side passages had collapsed or partially collapsed, but they eventually came to a door of thick, sturdy oak. Tee picked a lock on this and they passed into a room that seemed equal parts meditative study and bedchamber. It was mostly empty, with only a straw mat in the middle of the floor. On the walls hung various tapestries (which Ranthir identified as each depicting great wizards of the past). There was a door directly opposite the one through which they’d entered. At the far end of the room there was a small wooden bookshelf containing a dozen assorted volumes. These, of course, caught the particular attention of Ranthir, who was also delighted to discover that one of them was a thick tome of spells.

Ranthir was not able to study the spellbook completely, but the illustrations of eyes being burnt away with acid were enough to leave him concerned.

Running the Campaign: Action Schticks – Campaign Journal: Session 33D
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index