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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7792742" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 64: <em>TITANSLAYER</em></strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Binkadink Dundernoggin, gnome fighter 17</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Darrien, half-elf ranger 17</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Finoula Cloudshadow, elf ranger 17</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Gilbert Fung, human wizard 17</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Hagan, half-orc sorcerer 17</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Malrin Ivenheart, elf druid 11</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> MARCI, humanoid construct</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 10 August 2019</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>"Arise and attend!" called out a deep voice from outside the lowered drawbridge of Battershield Keep. "I have a mission for the adventurers within!"</p><p></p><p>Finoula approached the lowered portcullis, her hand on the hilt of her enchanted longsword <em>Tahlmalaera</em> just in case. But then she smiled upon recognizing their visitor: the titan Leandros, who not long ago had gathered six of their group together to form a team with which to compete in a game of Titan Chess. It had been a lucrative mission for them; if this was a follow-on assignment of a similar nature, the elf was all for it!</p><p></p><p>The titan stood before the drawbridge, unarmed and wearing only a toga and leather sandals. Upon seeing Finoula, he pulled a small bag from his belt and tossed it expertly through the bars of the portcullis. It fell at the ranger's feet with the unmistakable clink of coins striking coins; looking down, she saw it couldn't hold but a paltry dozen or so, if even that. She frowned as she bent to pick it up.</p><p></p><p>Leandros saw the expression on her face. "Open it," he commanded. "It's a miniature <em>bag of holding</em>. Inside you will find 50,000 pieces of gold, a down-payment for the task I wish to assign to you. There will be another 50,000 upon the mission's completion, if you are interested."</p><p></p><p>Gilbert had ambled up during this last announcement. "What mission?" he asked, before sending his earth elemental Mudpie to go gather together the rest of the group. The titan explained as the others started assembling behind the portcullis and MARCI was directed to raise the barrier out of the way.</p><p></p><p>"I have gotten word that War Titan Takhios, furious at his loss at Titan Chess and failure to gain the <em>Frostreaver</em> for himself, has vowed to seek out and fetch the <em>Titanslayer</em> – a massive greatsword capable of bringing down a titan with ease. It's hidden away on one of the Lower Planes - Carceri - in a place no titan can enter upon pain of instant annihilation. I had my spies find out the War Titan’s plans: he's sending a team of proxies to go fetch the <em>Titanslayer</em> and return it to him. I wish to beat him at his own game by having you get to it first.</p><p></p><p>“If Takhios gets the <em>Titanslayer</em>, there's no doubt he'll use it to try to kill me," explained Leandros. "And then he'll be virtually unstoppable – no titan would be able to take him down with such a power at his command!" He looked down at the group. "The weapon was to be perfectly safe in Carceri, where no titan could enter and none was to have known of its exact location. How Takhios found out about it is a mystery, but one which we can solve later – for now, we need to fetch that sword before his team gets to it!"</p><p></p><p>"It's a shame Castillan isn't here," muttered Malrin. "I think he's out playing cards at one of the taverns in town. Do we have time to track him down?"</p><p></p><p>"Sound like time of essence," Gilbert replied. Looking up at Leandros, he asked, "What this <em>Titanslayer</em> look like?"</p><p></p><p>"It's a massive greatsword some 30 feet in length," Leandros replied. "None of you would be able to lift it, let alone wield it. But I have a modified <em>portable hole</em>" - and here he tossed a rolled-up piece of black cloth to the group after plucking it from his belt - "with an interior large enough to hold the <em>Titanslayer</em>. Slide this around the greatsword and it will weigh as nothing to you."</p><p></p><p>He reached inside his toga and pulled out a rolled-up piece of parchment in a scroll tube. He bent down and handed it to Finoula, who pulled it free of the tube and unrolled it. "As I cannot accompany you to Carceri, I will scry upon you and watch your progress," Leandros promised. "Once you return to Battershield Keep with the greatsword, I will meet you here and give you the rest of your payment. In the meantime, that is a copy of the notes Takhios gathered, which show the way to the <em>Titanslayer</em>. They were painstakingly copied while scrying upon the originals." Finoula read the notes aloud. They said:</p><p></p><p>"You will also need these," Leandros said, passing two more items to Finoula. One was a piece of leaf embedded inside a hunk of amber; the other, a short braid of hair. "The hair is mine," he explained. "You can use it to determine if the orb you stand upon is the one inimical to titan life, for it will dissolve to nothingness upon contact with the ground. When that happens, you will be assured you are on the correct orb. And the leaf in amber is the only one I was able to steal from Takhios, so I can send but the one team to Carceri. You will arrive in the jungle from which the leaf was taken."</p><p></p><p>"Go!" commanded Gilbert to the group. "Gather weapons, armor, other gear. Meet back here when ready!" As for the heavyset wizard, he already had everything he needed, for Mudpie had fetched his backpack while Leandros was explaining the mission. "MARCI!" he called to the humanoid construct they'd found imprisoned by a hag in the Vesve Forest many months ago. "You out of healing potions. What else you got, might help us in mission?"</p><p></p><p>"I have a pain reducer that will allow you to ignore physical trauma and carry on combat activities despite injuries," the female-shaped automaton replied in her steady voice.</p><p></p><p>"That work for me!" Gilbert agreed. "Everybody get dose!"</p><p></p><p>"Obvious too!" piped up Binkadink, approaching in full armor with his trained jackalope in tow. MARCI dutifully injected a dose of the fluid into each of the adventurers and Obvious as well. Then the spellcasting began in earnest: Gilbert cast a <em>magic circle against evil</em> spell on himself and a <em>stoneskin</em> spell upon Mudpie and himself; Hagan cast <em>stoneskin</em> and <em>mage armor</em> spells to cover himself and his weasel familiar Wezhley; the two rangers, Darrien and Finoula, each covered themselves with a <em>barkskin</em> spell; and Malrin cast <em>barkskin</em> spells on Binkadink, Obvious, and herself and a <em>stoneskin</em> spell upon Finoula. Gilbert completed their spell preparations with a <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em> spell that connected everyone in a mental communication channel.</p><p></p><p>"You got <em>attune form</em> spell ready?" Gilbert asked Malrin.</p><p></p><p>"I do," the druid replied.</p><p></p><p>"Cast it on us once we arrive," Gilbert commanded. "You cast it now, we attune bodies to this plane - that no good."</p><p></p><p>"I got it, Gilbert," assured Malrin.</p><p></p><p>"Then we ready!" called Gilbert and Leandros triggered a <em>gate</em> spell. Finoula led the way through the swirling, vertical vortex, the leaf in amber disappearing from her hand - consumed by the spell to attune the <em>gate</em> to the correct destination - as she stepped through the portal.</p><p></p><p>Sure enough, the group arrived in the middle of a steaming jungle reeking of death and decay. Malrin immediately began the words to the <em>attune form</em> spell, shielding the group from the acidic effects of the plane of Carceri upon which they had landed. This was Cathrys, the second layer of six such on the plane; each layer was a string of small orbs aligned like pearls on a necklace, although no two orbs made physical contact with each other. The orbs were small as far as planetoids went, each with a diameter of perhaps five miles, with a similar gap between each orb and its neighbors. But the atmosphere around each orb extended in a torus around the entire string of spheres, allowing for flight from one planetoid to the next.</p><p></p><p>"We make it this far," Gilbert observed. "Where we go from here again?"</p><p></p><p>Finoula consulted the parchment of copied directions Leandros had provided. "We need to find the highest mountain visible," she said. From their vantage point, however, all they could see were the trees looming all around them.</p><p></p><p>"I'm on it!" volunteered Malrin, always eager to be of assistance to the group of adventurers to which her brother Castillan belonged - and which, she thought proudly, she was now also a true member, having shown time and again she could pull her own weight. She wildshaped into her comfortable owl form, flapped her wings, and flew off above the tree-line to see where the tallest visible mountain might lie.</p><p></p><p>But as she did so there was a deep hiss from the other side of a clump of adjacent trees. Looking in that direction, the others saw a creature unlike anything they'd ever seen before. At first, it looked like a massive constrictor snake of some type - perhaps a boa, for its mottled coloration was similar. But this boa was bigger than any terrestrial serpent they'd ever seen before, with a much stockier body - and then they saw the creature's four powerful limbs. One might think this would give it the appearance of a lizard, but its thick body was still as sinuous as that of a snake. A forked tongue, black and shiny, darted from the creature's mouth as it started creeping forward around the trees and heading toward the adventurers, no doubt intent upon an easy meal.</p><p></p><p>Finoula, sure that any native creature they discovered on any of the levels of Carceri meant them no good, raised a hand to her <em>lightning amulet</em> and activated it. In an instant she became a living bolt of electricity which blasted through the nagasaur, only for her to resume her normal elven figure on its far side. She rematerialized with her longsword <em>Tahlmalaera</em> in her right hand and her <em>flaming burst whip of thorns</em> in her left, each ready to strike.</p><p></p><p>Hagan stepped forward towards the sinuous reptile and cast a <em>disintegrate</em> spell at it. The ray that sprang from his finger struck true, but the nagasaur managed to weather the attack and come out of it damaged but still alive. Wezhley hissed in irritation at the thing's continued survival after his master had hoped to strike it down with one spell.</p><p></p><p>But then Obvious raced forward, hippity-hopping between the jungle trees. Binkadink held his glaive out like a lance, hoping to skewer the strange reptile, but for once his aim was off and the blade struck the creature's scales at an angle, deflecting harmlessly away.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert followed Hagan's lead and cast a <em>disintegrate</em> spell of his own at the nagasaur but once again it toughed its way through the attack and survived, albeit with a chunk of flesh and scales missing from its side. Darrien stepped up beside the portly mage and tried his hand at taking the beast down, not with a spell but with a cluster of arrows all fired at one time. The quartet of deadly missiles went flying from the ranger's <em>Arachnibow</em>, three of them striking true. The creature hissed in evident pain - and then its head went darting out at the creature directly before it, plunging its piercing fangs into the jackalope's neck and pumping venom into the wounds.</p><p></p><p>Obvious shrieked in pain, leaping back and wrenching the nagasaur's jaws from his neck in the process. Binkadink leaped from the jackalope's back, allowing the wounded steed to retreat to safety while the gnome pressed the attack. His glaive stabbed out at the legged snake-thing, while Binkadink called for help from Malrin over the telepathic bond.</p><p></p><p>Still in owl form, Malrin dropped back down below the tree-line and flew directly at the nagasaur, touching its scaled body with a talon. During the brief contact, the owl-druid channeled a <em>neutralize poison</em> spell into the nagasaur's body. <I've neutralized its venom - it won't be able to poison anyone else!> she called to the others over the link, then flapped over to see to Obvious.</p><p></p><p>Finoula's blade and whip struck out at the nagasaur from behind, each weapon carving a line of pain across the reptile's body. Hagan cast another spell, this time a <em>polar ray</em>, which overcame the nagasaur's inherent spell resistance. Frost covered its scales as the spell took effect and the half-orc sorcerer could tell that even if the creature had the ability to ignore some level of cold damage - as was common with fiendish and half-fiend creatures - he had done enough damage to overload that particular resistance.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert cast another spell at the nagasaur, similarly overcoming its spell resistance, and suddenly the reptile was completely blind! Its hissing took on a frantic tone as it realized just how much of a handicap this was going to be to it: now the option that had started to look pretty good - namely to flee from these powerful foes and live to feast again on some other day - was likely not even going to be possible. Sure enough, Darrien pumped five arrows into the nagasaur in rapid succession and it fell over, dead.</p><p></p><p>MARCI had stepped up beside Obvious and scanned the jackalope's wounds with the red beam from her eye. "This creature has sustained a venomous bite," she announced. She extended a finger-probe into the jackalope's wound. "I have analyzed the venom and can produce an antidote. Permission to administer the treatment to a non-human recipient?"</p><p></p><p>"Permission granted!" Gilbert cried in exasperation. "In fact, treat jackalope as if it human, from now on!"</p><p></p><p>"Altering designation of creature: Obvious," MARCI announced aloud as a thin needle extended from a metal finger, the probe having been retracted. She stabbed it expertly into Obvious' neck and shot a dose of antivenom into the area around the wounds. "Obvious is now classified as a human."</p><p></p><p>"I'm glad we've got that settled," said Binkadink, returning to his trusty jackalope steed to see how he was faring after the attack. "You okay, buddy?" he asked, stroking the fur between the creature's antlers.</p><p></p><p>"Better," admitted Obvious.</p><p></p><p>Malrin landed beside the jackalope, resumed her elven form, and pointed forward. <The mountain we seek is that way,> she told the others before adding some healing of her own to Obvious, courtesy of her magical staff.</p><p></p><p>It was a matter of a ten-minute trek through the jungle before the trees gave way to waving grasses, and while during their travels they heard the frequent screams and cries of exotic animals nearby, the group exited the acidic rain forest without any further encounters with native Carceri wildlife. Ahead, in the distance, they could see a mountain range, one peak in the middle jutting higher than the others.</p><p></p><p>"That's got to be our target," Hagan observed. "Where's the dragon's cave again - base, peak, or somewhere in between?"</p><p></p><p>Finoula checked the directions. "'Base of mountain'," she recited.</p><p></p><p>"Gather up, then," Hagan commanded, and once everyone was in place he <em>teleported</em> the group to the base of the mountain. </p><p></p><p>From there it was the matter of but a few minutes to find a cave opening at the mountain's base. After silent communication over their telepathic bond, Gilbert sent Mudpie in to investigate, instructing the elemental to provide constant status updates through the empathic link they shared as master and familiar. The earth elemental stepped up to the wide cave opening, noting there was a short step down into the cavern and then a set of flow-stone steps leading up along the left side and a pool of clear water to the right. He stepped down into the cave, opening a hole in the floor beneath him so he could earth glide through the unworked stone while leaving only the top of his head visible...and immediately, a raucous shrieking rang out from the cavern. </p><p></p><p><<em>Alarm</em> spell?> asked Hagan over the link.</p><p></p><p><Simpler than that -- shriekers!> replied Gilbert, stepping gingerly into the cavern behind his sunken familiar. Sure enough, the "step" was really a ledge, and sitting inside a long niche carved beneath it was a row of the subterranean fungi known colloquially as "shriekers," for they emitted loud noises when exposed to light or nearby movement. If this were the lair of a dragon, there was little doubt it was now aware of their intrusion.</p><p></p><p>As if to emphasize the point, an angry roar came from the top of the flow-stone steps. Mudpie earth glided up the incline, ambling to see what he could see knowing full well he could always "duck" beneath the surface of the rock as needed, leaving behind no evidence of his passing.</p><p></p><p>Hagan cast a <em>fly</em> spell upon himself and Wezhley and rose into the air. He entered the cavern and scooted over by the pool, his head nearly at the top of the cavern's ceiling, some 35 feet up. He faced the flow-stone steps, the source of the awful roar. Judging solely by the sound of the angry roar, the dragon was of considerable size - although the half-orc knew that sounds could echo oddly in some of these caves. Maybe they'd get lucky and the dragon wouldn't be as big as Hagan was imagining it to be.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink and Obvious weren't content to let the dragon make an appearance on its own terms; the jackalope scampered up the flow-stone steps, passing by Mudpie, reaching a level surface at the top that then flowed back down to an even larger cavern on the far side. But there was no dragon here, either, just a smaller side cave and another pool of water. The gnome's attention was diverted momentarily to the side cave, for scattered along the floor in this area was a carpet of loose coins and gems - apparently the unseen dragon's treasure hoard.</p><p></p><p>A buzzing sound alerted Binkadink to Darrien's arrival: he had activated his <em>ebony fly</em> and ridden it into the back cavern behind the jackalope. The half-elf ranger had his <em>Arachnibow</em> drawn and an arrow ready to loose, but there was no dragon at which to send it flying. "Invisible?" he asked the gnome, looking around and straining his ears to try to hear any noise the hypothetically invisible dragon might make.</p><p></p><p>Back at the main entrance, Finoula stepped into the front cavern with both main weapons in hand and cast a <em>darkvision</em> spell upon her eyes, for Binkadink's helmet held the group's only active light sources and he and Obvious had gone around to the back of the cave network. She stepped over to the pool, noticing absently that the water was sploshing around a bit. Brow furrowed - there shouldn't be waves, even little ones, in an underground cave, surely! - she thought she saw the level of the water rising, but then it seemed to stabilize at its new height. Behind her, Malrin held the carved tyrannosaurus tooth they'd discovered in the lunar ravager lodge and, activating its magic, wildshaped into a tyrannosaurus rex - a larger form than any she'd ever attained and one only possible through the magics of the totem she wore on a leather thong around her neck. But she thought a fight against a dragon was a perfect time to try out the combat capabilities of one of the world's most fearsome dinosaurs.</p><p></p><p>There was a sudden explosion of water from the pool just as Finoula realized what might have caused the water surface to rise and the rippling of small waves in a still pool: the displacement caused by a large form entering the connected pools in the cave network's front and back! But then <strong>Aradacevaeros</strong> sprang forward, water springing from his mottled hide, and he looked in surprise at Finoula standing before him and Hagan suspended in the air, whirling suddenly around in panic to face the dragon. "Mortals from the Material Plane, traveled all this way to meet their deaths? Why, I haven't dined on such fare in centuries! This will be a most welcome treat indeed!" exulted Aradacevaeros.</p><p></p><p>Finoula was frozen momentarily in place at the awesome spectacle before her and Aradacevaeros took advantage of her hesitation to snap forward, biting down at the elf. His teeth penetrated the magical shielding of the <em>stoneskin</em> spell protecting her, but the dose of pain reducer MARCI had injected her with earlier helped her focus on the task at hand, not the pain caused by the dragon teeth piercing her body. She wrenched free from the dragon's mouth before he could try to swallow her whole, dropping back to the stone floor of the cavern and just barely retaining her balance.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert, choking back the instinctive fear upon the sight of the Tarterian dragon, kept his wits about him long enough to cast a <em>wall of force</em> spell directly in front of the dragon, separating Aradacevaeros from Finoula, Hagan, and the others. The dragon roared in fury, apparently having recognized the spell from the hand movements Gilbert made while casting, for the magical wall itself was quite invisible. With a final snort of frustration, the great dragon submerged back into the pool, reversing course and returning back the way he had come, any thoughts of releasing a breath weapon saved for later.</p><p></p><p><Incoming!> Gilbert cried over the link. <Dragon heading back your way!> And then he ran away from the pool, leaping up the flow-stone steps at a speed faster than would be expected for one of his bulk. MARCI followed in his wake, her metal feet clanging loudly on the cavern's stone floor.</p><p></p><p>Mudpie, however, took an earth gliding shortcut by going straight through the intervening stone separating the front cave and the side cave filled with the dragon's loose treasure. There were two natural columns in the back of this side cave, where a pair of stalactites had merged into the twin stalagmites below them. This, the elemental realized, was likely the natural <em>gate</em> to the third level of Carceri the dragon guarded.</p><p></p><p>Hagan and Wezhley flew past the running Gilbert to land at the base of the treasure cave. Seeing he'd beaten the dragon here, Hagan bent down and started gathering up handfuls of coins and gems from the floor, scooping them into his backpack. Finoula stopped beside him and started to do the same. <This ought to distract his attention!> she said over the link. Binkadink, mounted on Obvious, faced the back pool and readied his glaive for when Aradacevaeros would appear. Behind and beside him, Darrien kept his magical bow at the ready as well, balancing upon the back of the pony-sized fly which had landed on the cavern floor. And then Malrin appeared in the back cavern as well, in her impressive tyrannosaurus rex form, ready for a taste of massive reptilian combat.</p><p></p><p>Aradacevaeros exploded out of the back pool just as Gilbert finally rounded the corner, dropping down from the dragon's higher-level sleeping platform and into the lower back cavern. He had a <em>quickened wall of force</em> readied and cast it at once, sealing off the dragon from the adventurers with another invisible screen that went from one side of the cavern to the other and from the floor to the ceiling. The Tarterian dragon screamed in fury - and his anger only increased as he saw the adventurers scooping up every last iota of his treasure, looking back at him and grinning in a quite infuriating manner as they did so. Aradacevaeros could only watch impotently as they cleaned him out and then walked, one by one, through the natural <em>gate</em> to the third level of Carceri.</p><p></p><p>"I hope that <em>wall of force</em> is going to hold up long enough!" Binkadink mentioned as the group materialized on a desert world. There was nothing but featureless dunes of red sand as far as the eye could see. Up above, the floating spheres of the nearest orbs in line could be seen; they stretched off to the edges of vision in both directions, curving slightly in a shallow arc.</p><p></p><p>"It hold just fine," Gilbert assured the gnome. "He no want to follow us, anyway - that a one-way gate. He follow us, no way back to lair."</p><p></p><p>"Are you sure?" Finoula asked. "He sure looked furious at us stealing his hoard."</p><p></p><p>"Look around!" Gilbert scoffed. "No structures around for <em>gate</em> to be tied to!" He demonstrated the truth of his words by backtracking the way they'd all come, following their footprints in the sand all the way to their origin point and then passing it. "See?" he said. "No way back that way."</p><p></p><p>Hagan was looking up at the orbs. "So, which way do we want to try first?" he asked.</p><p></p><p>"Don't matter. Pick one. Take titan hair with you - if it dissolve, you know you on right orb."</p><p></p><p>"Okay, then," replied the half-orc. "Either way, we'll be right back." He said a few arcane syllables and then he and Wezhley disappeared from view. Sure enough, they <em>teleported</em> back just a few moments later. "Nope," he said, showing the group the undamaged braid of Leandros' hair. "It's gotta be the other one." Everyone gathered around the half-orc sorcerer and he cast the <em>teleport</em> spell for the third time in as many minutes, this time transporting the entire group to the next orb in line in the opposite direction. He dropped the titan hair braid onto the red sands at his feet on this new orb and watched as it writhed and smoked, rapidly being consumed. In a moment it was gone.</p><p></p><p>"This is the place, all right," said Hagan. "Minethys, right?"</p><p></p><p>"Minethys, correct," replied Finoula, looking over the copied directions. "We need to find towers with cages on top of them."</p><p></p><p>"Does it say in which direction?" asked Darrien.</p><p></p><p>"Nope."</p><p></p><p>"Okay, fliers - Darrien, Hagan, me - we each pick direction, do sweeps back and forth, expand outward," Gilbert suggested. "Others stay here. Anybody find towers, let everyone know over link. Questions? No? Then go!" Hagan and Wezhley flew off in one direction, Darrien and his <em>ebony fly</em> in another, and Gilbert and Mudpie in still another. Her master gone, MARCI stood motionless with the other adventurers left behind. After about half an hour - an interminable time for Binkadink, who wasn't thrilled with the desert heat while wearing his full dragonhide armor - Darrien's voice came over the link. <Found 'em! They're not much as far as towers go - most of 'em are buried under the sand. But there are six towers around a seventh in the middle. And there are cages on each tower.></p><p></p><p><That sounds like them, all right!> Finoula answered. <We'll start heading in your direction on foot. Gilbert and Hagan, you can fly back the way you came and then follow our tracks. Darrien, keep an eye out for us so we don't veer off course!> On a small globe with nothing but red sand dunes - and only the string of floating orbs overhead, no sun or stars by which to navigate - even maintaining a straight line of travel was difficult! But less than an hour's travel and the group had all gathered back up at the seven towers.</p><p></p><p>Their arrival was a cause of excitement for the poor petitioners locked in the cages above the towers. Each of the six towers on the outer edges of the formation held a dozen iron cages along their roof-lines, built like bird cages but just barely big enough to hold a human in a hunched-over position, while the central tower held a full 20 such structures along its edges. Each cage held a tormented soul, wearing nothing but tattered rags and with skin pockmarked and scoured by the frequent sandstorms plaguing the desert orb. These petitioners called out to the adventurers, offering anything and everything if they'd just free them. "I can lead you to untold riches!" promised one gaunt man with clumps of stringy, matted, hair the color of fresh urine hanging down from his balding, patchy scalp. "Only free me," promised a woman thin to the point of appearing to be undead (although Gilbert's magically-enhanced eyes verified that she was in fact still alive) "and I can grant you three wishes! Anything you like--anything at all!" A ragged man with a mangy beard put a supplicating arm through the iron bars of his cage and implored, "I know the secret way to Mount Celestia, where the river waters taste of amber ale! Free me, and I will take you there!"</p><p></p><p>Finoula looked at these wretched souls with a look of horror on her elven features. "Just ignore them," Gilbert advised. "They damned - they earn these fates by their actions while alive."</p><p></p><p>"They're not alive?" Finoula gasped.</p><p></p><p>"Well, 'afterlife alive', I guess," admitted the heavyset wizard. "But just ignore them. Pretend they not even here." He flew up to the top of the central tower and started poking around. "Supposed to be hollow tower," he mused. "Mudpie! Go under sand, see if there door into tower buried somewhere down there!"</p><p></p><p>While the earth elemental carried out his orders, the others climbed onto the roof of the central tower - it wasn't difficult, as there was only about a foot of it still standing above the current configuration of the ever-shifting sands - and joined Gilbert in his rooftop search. "Here!" called out Finoula, finding a few depressions at the center of the roof, which her elven senses had determined were the hand-holds for a massive slab of rock which could be lifted up and moved aside. While Malrin maneuvered her tyrannosaur foot-claw into the slot and slowly lifted the heavy slab (Binkadink dismounted from Obvious and helped slide it off to the side, revealing a winding set of steps leading down), Gilbert was receiving a report from Mudpie. "He say no doors in tower but there living quarters down there. A giant, sleeping - and <em>Titanslayer</em> in back cave with two chests! This the place, all right!"</p><p></p><p>By then, the slab had been lifted and Malrin had pushed it aside far enough that even she could get her saurian bulk through. The 15-foot-wide stairwell wound down into the ground in a clockwise direction and the steps were scaled for a giant, each step a full three feet below the one above it. There was some discussion about whether to leave the slab open or close it back up before descending into the giant's lair, but eventually two factors helped them to decide: first, they weren't planning on coming back this way (Gilbert would <em>plane shift</em> them back home after they successfully gained the <em>Titanslayer</em> for Leandros); and second, there was no reason to make things any easier for Takhios' team, who were undoubtedly at some point behind them. Malrin lifted the slab with her head from beneath it and slid it back into place.</p><p></p><p>"How do we know the War Titan's forces aren't ahead of us?" Darrien asked.</p><p></p><p>"If they already downstairs, Mudpie see them!" Gilbert scoffed. "And dragon say we first mortals it see in long time - they definitely somewhere behind us!"</p><p></p><p>"And best of all," pointed out Binkadink, "when they do show up at the dragon's lair, the <em>walls of force</em> will have run their course - he's going to tear into them!" He started chuckling at the thought of the furious dragon suddenly provided with a fresh set of mortals upon which to vent his anger.</p><p></p><p>The steps made eight full circuits around and down before leveling off into the giant's lair. There were two exits from the room at the bottom of the circular stairs: a thick, wooden door and an open passageway. Finoula headed to the door while Binkadink and Obvious checked out the corridor, which like the rest of this place seemed to have been carved directly into the stone far beneath the red sands above. The corridor bent at an angle and then dropped, by a series of three natural steps, into an open cavern that appeared not to have been carved out of the stone; rather, it must have been an underground pocket that had been extended into the rest of the giant's living space. The far end of the massive cavern was filled with nasty-looking fungus, mostly mushrooms of the "thick cap" variety, each glistening wet with corruption. The cavern was thick with the odors of death and decay. Along the back wall was another set of natural steps leading down into a smaller cave, and inside this the gnome could see an enormous, glowing greatsword: <em>Titanslayer</em>, without a doubt.</p><p></p><p>But instead of heading straight for the object of their quest, Binkadink steered Obvious over towards the fungal garden, for he could see another set of steps rising up to another carved passageway like the one they had just traversed. Gilbert had said something about a sleeping giant; better to make sure he was taken out of the picture before they went for the massive sword, so he wouldn't have an opportunity to sneak up behind them when they weren't paying attention.</p><p></p><p>As the gnome and the jackalope traveled down this second corridor, the wailing and moaning of voices could be heard, the noises getting louder as they approached the end of the corridor. By the time they got to its end and could see it opened into a massive room where a giant slept upon a slab of stone that served for his bed, the moaning was quite horrific - and it actually caused Obvious to shudder with fear. Trembling terribly, the jackalope stopped all forward movement and spun about, leaving Binkadink just enough time to leap from the saddle before his riding mount was high-tailing it back the way he had come. The wailing must be some sort of magical effect, the gnome mused to himself; Obvious wasn't usually that easy to scare.</p><p></p><p>Finoula, in the meantime, had discovered the massive, wooden door to be stuck solid - but that wasn't anything her <em>chime of opening</em> couldn't handle. However, upon opening the stuck door, she too could hear the doleful wailing coming from the giant's bedchambers and that was enough for the normally fearless ranger to break ranks and flee back the way she'd come.</p><p></p><p>And she wasn't the only one. Darrien, still astride his <em>ebony fly</em>, panicked at the sound and spun his aerial mount around in midair, the two of them fleeing back up the oversize stairwell leading back to the surface. Hagan ran in his wake, a look of absolute terror on his half-orcish face; upon the sorcerer's shoulder, Wezhley the weasel held an almost human expression of fear on his fuzzy muzzle. Even the steadfast Gilbert Fung turned and ran up the stairs, followed by his earth elemental familiar Mudpie and his humanoid automaton MARCI - although the latter had not been affected by the wailing and moaning - rather, she generally followed Gilbert wherever he might go, and right now he was running at full speed back to the overly-large steps spiraling up in the middle of the tower buried to its top in reddish sand. Even Malrin, still in the impressive form of a tyrannosaurus rex, scampered up the steps as if the very forces of Hell were chasing her.</p><p></p><p>The death giant sat up from his stone slab of a bed and reached for the greataxe leaning against the opposite wall. Grabbing it up in both hands, he spun to face the intruder in his lair...and was quite surprised to see his foe was a three-foot-tall gnome balancing upon some sort of stilts sticking out from the sides of his boots. <em>This</em> was the danger that had invaded his realm?</p><p></p><p>But then Binkadink gave the death giant ample reason for concern as, stepping forward on his <em>gnomish stilt-boots</em>, he extended his collapsible glaive to its full length and brought it swinging into the giant's side. The blade cut through the giant's thick, black hide, bringing a flow of red blood coursing down his torso.</p><p></p><p>By that time those who had fled from the horrid sound of the giant's wailing (although it hadn't actually been the giant making the sound but rather a cascade of disembodied, nebulous ghost-skulls which flew all around him in a wide halo) suddenly came to their senses; they had moved far enough away from the magic effect for it to no longer bother them. Obvious skittered to a halt, changed course, and hippity-hopped back the way he had fled, eager to join up with his gnomish rider and make the death giant pay for the jackalope's seeming act of cowardice. Up on the steps, the other heroes likewise regained their normal faculties. "It magical effect!" barked Gilbert to the others, reversing course and racing back down the stairs, Mudpie and MARCI following suit behind him. "No shame in falling under spell, but now it not likely have any more effect on us!"</p><p></p><p>Gilbert was correct; having already been exposed once to the fear effect, the heroes were better able to ignore it upon their second exposure. As one, they scrambled back to aid Binkadink in his fight against the ebony-skinned death giant. And the gnome was grateful for any assistance he could get at that point, for the giant's greataxe had already sent him slamming up against a stone wall from the power of the blow; only the stabilizing effect of his <em>gnomish stilt-boots</em> helped him to keep his balance. But Binkadink gave back as good as he had taken, carving another line of pain across the death giant's thick hide. Behind him, he could hear - just barely, over the still-present screaming coming from the ethereal skulls floating around the death giant in an erratic circle - his trusty jackalope approaching, eager to rejoin the battle.</p><p></p><p>Finoula raced through the now-open doorway and into what was apparently the giant's dining hall, given the half-devoured fiendish dire rat corpse on the slab of stone that served him as a table. An open doorway led into the giant's bedchamber, from which she could hear the sounds of clashing blades and the scraping of metal weapons striking stone walls - and, of course, the ever-present screaming and wailing of the death giant's floating skulls. But then Darrien buzzed by her on his <em>ebony fly</em>, his <em>Arachnibow</em> ready to let loose an arrow already in place. Flying through the doorway to the death giant's bedroom, he sent a volley of rapid-fire arrows into the giant's back.</p><p></p><p>Hagan followed the half-elf into the bedchamber, casting a <em>polar ray</em> spell at the giant's back. The spell struck true, although Hagan could tell by its limited effects that the giant not only had some sort of inherent resistance against spellcraft but also at least a partial resistance to cold damage, for the <em>polar ray</em> didn't seem to affect the giant as much as the sorcerer had hoped. Indeed, the death giant all but ignored this attack, his concentration focused upon the gnome fighter before him. Again his greataxe swung down upon Binkadink, drawing blood and a stifled grunt of pain.</p><p></p><p>But then Malrin entered the sparse bedchamber, still in her tyrannosaurus form. Her rows of sharp teeth bit down at the death giant, encompassing his left shoulder and pulling him away from the gnome. While he was thus held immobile, Gilbert stepped up and cast a <em>disintegrate</em> spell at the bald, ebony-skinned giant. Once again his natural resistance against spellcraft prevented him from taking the full force of the spell, but Gilbert could tell he had at least suffered a bit from the spell's effects.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink took advantage of the giant's relative immobility to send his glaive crashing into his foe again and again, dealing an enormous amount of damage with three quick strikes in a row. And then Finoula entered the room; it was getting a bit crowded, even in a chamber built to a giant's scale, for Malrin's tyrannosaur form took up most of the open space not already taken up by the bed-slab of rock and those already in combat. But the elven ranger stepped between the dinosaur's powerful back legs and sent her <em>flaming burst whip of thorns</em> lashing out at the death giant's legs while he struggled to free himself from Malrin's jaws. Darrien had his fly mount soar up to the room's ceiling and from this vantage point he shot arrows down at the pinned giant with little fear of accidentally hitting any of his friends. Hagan cast another <em>polar ray</em> spell, but this time it fizzled out entirely upon touching the giant's black skin, doing nothing.</p><p></p><p>With a final wrench that left furrows of blood along his shoulder, the death giant finally managed to extricate himself from Malrin's powerful jaws. He staggered forward and then, since Binkadink was still standing there before him, decided to turn his half-stumble into an attack with his greataxe, once again targeting the gnome. It was looking as if there was no way to overcome all of these damned intruders, but at least he could take out the first one to have had the temerity to attack him in his own home!</p><p></p><p>However, the massive strength behind the giant's attack actually worked against him, for he dealt the little gnome so much damage that it triggered Binkadink's <em>ring of retaliation</em> - and a similar gash opened on the giant's flesh to mirror the cut he had just dealt the gnome. That was enough to put the death giant on his last legs and the screaming, insubstantial skulls still flying all around him - perhaps recognizing this sad fact - wailed all the harder.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert, having made a note of the giant's ability to occasionally shrug off completely the effects of even the most powerful spells, opted to cast a spell that wouldn't target the death giant at all: he cast <em>haste</em> on himself, Mudpie, Darrien, and Binkadink. "Let's see you shrug off those effects!" the heavyset wizard chuckled to himself.</p><p></p><p>That was all it took. Moving even faster than normal - certainly faster than the death giant could block - Binkadink's glaive struck forward at lightning speed, tearing a gash across the giant's chest, another across his massive bicep, another nearly severing the fingers of his left hand, and a fourth stabbing straight into his belly. With a roar of surprise and pain that sent his life's blood spraying across the room, the death giant fell forward like a felled tree and would have crushed the little gnome had Obvious not dashed forward and grabbed his rider by the belt and pulled him back into the corridor leading to the treasure cavern.</p><p></p><p>"Nice one, Bink!" congratulated Darrien as he landed his fly and started retrieving those arrows that could still be reused. The others converged into the lower cavern, before the stone steps leading down into what was obviously the "treasure cave." There, upon the stone floor in the back, lay <em>Titanslayer</em>. It was surrounded by six stone pillars arranged in a hexagon, each pillar containing runes etched into every surface.</p><p></p><p>"Don't touch anything yet," Hagan warned, casting a <em>detect magic</em> spell and looking around the cave. "Okay, the sword's definitely magic an so are the columns." He looked off to either side, allowing his magical vision to encompass each of the large chests in turn. "Not the chests, though," he added.</p><p></p><p>"Everybody out!" shooed Binkadink, heading for the nearest chest.</p><p></p><p><We'd normally let Castillan check out the chests before opening them,> pointed out Malrin, not being able to speak aloud as a dinosaur but perfectly capable of sending her thoughts to the others over the <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em> spell.</p><p></p><p>"True, but he's not here," countered Binkadink, "and whatever traps might be hidden on these chests, I'm the one most likely to survive them." It was true; the little gnome had proven time and again he was made of sturdy stuff. Once everyone had stepped back, he lifted the top of the first chest with the tip of his blade, having shrunk the shaft of his magic glaive to its shortest length. When no explosions belched forth, the gnome cautiously approached the chest and peered over the top. "Coins!" he called. "Lots of 'em!"</p><p></p><p>"We grab them up later!" Gilbert suggested. "Go check other chest!"</p><p></p><p>Binkadink moved over to the other side of the treasure cave and repeated his actions. This time, though, the "treasure" was of a much more grisly nature: a bald, scarred, limbless humanoid who snarled in wordless hatred at the gnome. It took Binkadink a moment to recognize this creature as a kyton without any of the chains it normally wore as combination armor, weapons, and additional limbs. Apparently the death giant had captured a kyton at one point and had been using it as an additional food source to supplement the disgusting fungus growing in the back cavern and the occasional fiendish dire rat it caught on the surface of this strange little orb. With a look of disgust, Binkadink dropped the lid of the chest back into place. "I think we'll leave this one here," he suggested.</p><p></p><p>Then he turned to examine <em>Titanslayer</em>, but Hagan stepped forward by his side, examining the runes on the stone pillars. "I'm willing to bet there are invisible <em>walls of force</em> between each of these columns," he ventured.</p><p></p><p>"One way to find out," the gnome replied, trying to reach between two of the pillars with his glaive. But Hagan had been right; the blade scratched against an unseen and unyielding barrier. Worse yet, the touch of Binkadink's glaive also triggered another effect: barely audible at first, a low humming began increasing in volume, sending an ever-louder sonic blast from sub-harmonics through the audible spectrum until the heroes were forced to race from the treasure cave for fear of their heads splitting open from the noise. As a group, the adventurers stepped well back from the entrance to the treasure cave and let the sonic bombardment run its course.</p><p></p><p>After about a full minute, the sound switched off all at once, leaving ears ringing in its absence. Once it was apparent that it was no longer making any noise, the heroes once again cautiously approached the massive greatsword protected behind the six pillars and the <em>walls of force</em> connecting them and forming a sonic cage in which to protect the titanic weapon.</p><p></p><p><I think I can take down one of these <em>walls of force</em>,> said Hagan, using the mental link because everyone was still reeling from the sonics and mental communication was easier than speaking aloud. He cast another <em>disintegrate</em> spell, this time aiming it at the space between two pillars.</p><p></p><p><Did it work?> asked Binkadink. After all, the <em>walls of force</em> were totally invisible - there was no way to see if that one was still in place short of trying to touch it again. Hagan sent everyone else back out of the cave again and did just that - but his hand passed between the two pillars without striking any barrier - or triggering any sub-harmonics. After that, it was a simple matter for Malrin to step into the hexagon and kick <em>Titanslayer</em> back with her dinosaur foot, while Finoula and Darrien held open the oddly-shaped <em>portable hole</em> Leandros had provided them: unlike normal such devices, which had a 10-foot diameter, this one was built in a long oval, just big enough for the blade to be sent into the <em>hole</em>'s center and the crosspieces to fit within its length. Once the entire weapon was safely stored inside - the <em>hole</em> had to have been much longer inside its extradimensional space, for the 30-foot-long titan weapon would not have fit inside the 10-foot depth of the standard model - Finoula rolled it back up and put it in her belt. As Leandros had promised, now that <em>Titanslayer</em> was inside an extradimensional space the massive weight of the greatsword couldn't be felt at all.</p><p></p><p>The group's other <em>portable hole</em> was put to good use, holding the coins from the death giant's first chest. But since Malrin carried it with her, she had to resume her elven form in order to fetch it. "Pity I didn't get to do that much fighting as a tyrannosaur," she said.</p><p></p><p>"Maybe next time," offered Darrien with a smile as he started shoveling coins from the chest into the <em>hole</em>.</p><p></p><p>"We ready get out of here?" asked Gilbert, and upon getting a universal reply in the affirmative, he cast a <em>plane shift</em> spell that returned them to Oerth. Hagan then cast a <em>teleport</em> spell that returned them to just outside the drawbridge of Battershield Keep - where they were met by a worried-looking Leandros.</p><p></p><p>"Did you get my message in time?" he asked.</p><p></p><p>"Message? What message?" demanded Gilbert. "We didn't get no message."</p><p></p><p>"I sent my most trusted invisible stalker with a message for you, written by my hand upon a scroll of parchment bearing my seal," Leandros explained. "I found out that Takhios had impersonated me to get you to fetch the <em>Titanslayer</em> for him - did you? Do you have it?"</p><p></p><p>A gasp escaped from Finoula's open mouth as she dropped her hand to the rolled-up <em>portable hole</em> at her belt. "The invisible stalker," she said as realization struck. "It wouldn't have been able to get past the slab we closed at the top of the tower leading down to the giant's lair!"</p><p></p><p>Realization had also hit Gilbert Fung. "How we know this really you, not Takhios?" he demanded of the titan towering before him.</p><p></p><p>"A <em>true seeing</em> spell would have been useful," the titan replied. "I said as much in my message. Still, let this speak of my true identity." And, holding out his open hand before him, there was a sudden shimmering and <em>Frostreaver</em>, the greataxe won by the group in the game of Titan Chest, manifested in his hand. "So: have you removed the <em>Titanslayer</em> from its place of safety in Carceri?"</p><p></p><p>Finoula held out the rolled-up <em>portable hole</em> from her belt. "It's right here," she sighed.</p><p></p><p>"Then we must destroy it," replied Leandros. "Takhios somehow learned of its original location so we cannot simply replace it from whence it was taken, and I have no desire to take on its guardianship forevermore. It would be a constant temptation for the War Titan; I would need to spend every waking moment keeping it from his ever-reaching grasp."</p><p></p><p>"I know how we can destroy it," suggested Binkadink. "Hang on: I'll go get the carpet."</p><p></p><p>Moments later, the gnome returned from his room inside the keep with a familiar-looking carpet rolled up under one arm. Unrolling it flat onto the ground, he said the command word and <em>teleported</em> up to the dragonfly vessel, then went to find his cousin Jinkadoodle lounging in his cabin. "C'mon, Jink!" he called. "We got a mission we need you to fly!"</p><p></p><p>Once everyone was aboard - including Leandros - Jinkadoodle sat in the command seat and sent the spelljamming vessel up into the sky, heading straight for the sun. Binkadink was disappointed at the thought of having to destroy such a fine weapon, especially once he learned the blade's main power stripped off a great many protections normally enjoyed by powerful beings like titans. "Hey!" he said, a sudden thought striking him. "Hagan, do you think you could <em>teleport</em> to Pentaclus and bring him back here? If he could study the blade, maybe he could make something similar for me - on a much smaller scale, of course."</p><p></p><p>The flight deep enough into wildspace took several hours, during most of which Pentaclus the Weaponcrafter was on hand to examine the magics of the <em>Titanslayer</em>. "It's intriguing," he admitted. "I might just be able to replicate it, or something very much like it." Binkadink rubbed his hands in glee; that was just what he'd been hoping to hear!</p><p></p><p>But eventually Leandros, standing upon the upper deck of the dragonfly vessel - for his titan's frame was much too large to allow him to enter the ship's interior cabins - called down that they had reached a sufficient distance from the Oerth that its gravity plane would no longer have any impact on the upcoming event. Hefting the <em>Titanslayer</em> in his right hand, holding the hilt's edge like the end of a spear, he curled back his arm and snapped it forward with all of his considerable strength. <em>Titanslayer</em> shot forward like a fired missile, heading on a bee-line straight for the burning sun. Jinkadoodle kept the craft steady and the assembled heroes watched its path until it could no longer be seen, but they knew it would continue on its present course until the sun's gravity plane brought it into its all-consuming furnace.</p><p></p><p>Leandros nodded in satisfaction. War Titan Takhios would be hard pressed to fetch the weapon now! He said his farewell to the group and vanished from sight, while Jinkadoodle turned the spelljamming vessel about and returned back the way they had come.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>Malrin leveled up as a result of this adventure; the others are close enough that they should all level up after the adventure following this one.</p><p></p><p>At the last minute, Jacob found out he had to work the day we had scheduled this session. Dan offered to run Castillan, but the game runs quicker with fewer PCs so we decided the elven bounder was elsewhere when the adventure started. He still got the same amount of XP - we just assumed he was having "off screen" adventures on his own.</p><p></p><p>And I did something I hadn't done before with this adventure: the day before we played, I sent the players an email with the details of the "plot hook" so Dan in particular (who runs Gilbert) could decide ahead of time which spells the portly mage had prepared. (Likewise with Logan, who was running Malrin this time around.) It's getting to the point where it takes a bit of time for him to decide on which spells Gilbert has ready at hand, so this was an attempt to shorten that process so we can spend more of the gaming session in actual play. It seemed to work, so I think that's a tweak I'm going to keep from now on.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>T-shirt worn: My "Chaotic evil means never having to say you're sorry" shirt.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 7792742, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 64: [i]TITANSLAYER[/i][/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Binkadink Dundernoggin, gnome fighter 17 Darrien, half-elf ranger 17 Finoula Cloudshadow, elf ranger 17 Gilbert Fung, human wizard 17 Hagan, half-orc sorcerer 17[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Malrin Ivenheart, elf druid 11 MARCI, humanoid construct[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 10 August 2019 - - - "Arise and attend!" called out a deep voice from outside the lowered drawbridge of Battershield Keep. "I have a mission for the adventurers within!" Finoula approached the lowered portcullis, her hand on the hilt of her enchanted longsword [i]Tahlmalaera[/i] just in case. But then she smiled upon recognizing their visitor: the titan Leandros, who not long ago had gathered six of their group together to form a team with which to compete in a game of Titan Chess. It had been a lucrative mission for them; if this was a follow-on assignment of a similar nature, the elf was all for it! The titan stood before the drawbridge, unarmed and wearing only a toga and leather sandals. Upon seeing Finoula, he pulled a small bag from his belt and tossed it expertly through the bars of the portcullis. It fell at the ranger's feet with the unmistakable clink of coins striking coins; looking down, she saw it couldn't hold but a paltry dozen or so, if even that. She frowned as she bent to pick it up. Leandros saw the expression on her face. "Open it," he commanded. "It's a miniature [i]bag of holding[/i]. Inside you will find 50,000 pieces of gold, a down-payment for the task I wish to assign to you. There will be another 50,000 upon the mission's completion, if you are interested." Gilbert had ambled up during this last announcement. "What mission?" he asked, before sending his earth elemental Mudpie to go gather together the rest of the group. The titan explained as the others started assembling behind the portcullis and MARCI was directed to raise the barrier out of the way. "I have gotten word that War Titan Takhios, furious at his loss at Titan Chess and failure to gain the [i]Frostreaver[/i] for himself, has vowed to seek out and fetch the [i]Titanslayer[/i] – a massive greatsword capable of bringing down a titan with ease. It's hidden away on one of the Lower Planes - Carceri - in a place no titan can enter upon pain of instant annihilation. I had my spies find out the War Titan’s plans: he's sending a team of proxies to go fetch the [i]Titanslayer[/i] and return it to him. I wish to beat him at his own game by having you get to it first. “If Takhios gets the [i]Titanslayer[/i], there's no doubt he'll use it to try to kill me," explained Leandros. "And then he'll be virtually unstoppable – no titan would be able to take him down with such a power at his command!" He looked down at the group. "The weapon was to be perfectly safe in Carceri, where no titan could enter and none was to have known of its exact location. How Takhios found out about it is a mystery, but one which we can solve later – for now, we need to fetch that sword before his team gets to it!" "It's a shame Castillan isn't here," muttered Malrin. "I think he's out playing cards at one of the taverns in town. Do we have time to track him down?" "Sound like time of essence," Gilbert replied. Looking up at Leandros, he asked, "What this [i]Titanslayer[/i] look like?" "It's a massive greatsword some 30 feet in length," Leandros replied. "None of you would be able to lift it, let alone wield it. But I have a modified [i]portable hole[/i]" - and here he tossed a rolled-up piece of black cloth to the group after plucking it from his belt - "with an interior large enough to hold the [i]Titanslayer[/i]. Slide this around the greatsword and it will weigh as nothing to you." He reached inside his toga and pulled out a rolled-up piece of parchment in a scroll tube. He bent down and handed it to Finoula, who pulled it free of the tube and unrolled it. "As I cannot accompany you to Carceri, I will scry upon you and watch your progress," Leandros promised. "Once you return to Battershield Keep with the greatsword, I will meet you here and give you the rest of your payment. In the meantime, that is a copy of the notes Takhios gathered, which show the way to the [i]Titanslayer[/i]. They were painstakingly copied while scrying upon the originals." Finoula read the notes aloud. They said: "You will also need these," Leandros said, passing two more items to Finoula. One was a piece of leaf embedded inside a hunk of amber; the other, a short braid of hair. "The hair is mine," he explained. "You can use it to determine if the orb you stand upon is the one inimical to titan life, for it will dissolve to nothingness upon contact with the ground. When that happens, you will be assured you are on the correct orb. And the leaf in amber is the only one I was able to steal from Takhios, so I can send but the one team to Carceri. You will arrive in the jungle from which the leaf was taken." "Go!" commanded Gilbert to the group. "Gather weapons, armor, other gear. Meet back here when ready!" As for the heavyset wizard, he already had everything he needed, for Mudpie had fetched his backpack while Leandros was explaining the mission. "MARCI!" he called to the humanoid construct they'd found imprisoned by a hag in the Vesve Forest many months ago. "You out of healing potions. What else you got, might help us in mission?" "I have a pain reducer that will allow you to ignore physical trauma and carry on combat activities despite injuries," the female-shaped automaton replied in her steady voice. "That work for me!" Gilbert agreed. "Everybody get dose!" "Obvious too!" piped up Binkadink, approaching in full armor with his trained jackalope in tow. MARCI dutifully injected a dose of the fluid into each of the adventurers and Obvious as well. Then the spellcasting began in earnest: Gilbert cast a [i]magic circle against evil[/i] spell on himself and a [i]stoneskin[/i] spell upon Mudpie and himself; Hagan cast [i]stoneskin[/i] and [i]mage armor[/i] spells to cover himself and his weasel familiar Wezhley; the two rangers, Darrien and Finoula, each covered themselves with a [i]barkskin[/i] spell; and Malrin cast [i]barkskin[/i] spells on Binkadink, Obvious, and herself and a [i]stoneskin[/i] spell upon Finoula. Gilbert completed their spell preparations with a [i]Rary's telepathic bond[/i] spell that connected everyone in a mental communication channel. "You got [i]attune form[/i] spell ready?" Gilbert asked Malrin. "I do," the druid replied. "Cast it on us once we arrive," Gilbert commanded. "You cast it now, we attune bodies to this plane - that no good." "I got it, Gilbert," assured Malrin. "Then we ready!" called Gilbert and Leandros triggered a [i]gate[/i] spell. Finoula led the way through the swirling, vertical vortex, the leaf in amber disappearing from her hand - consumed by the spell to attune the [i]gate[/i] to the correct destination - as she stepped through the portal. Sure enough, the group arrived in the middle of a steaming jungle reeking of death and decay. Malrin immediately began the words to the [i]attune form[/i] spell, shielding the group from the acidic effects of the plane of Carceri upon which they had landed. This was Cathrys, the second layer of six such on the plane; each layer was a string of small orbs aligned like pearls on a necklace, although no two orbs made physical contact with each other. The orbs were small as far as planetoids went, each with a diameter of perhaps five miles, with a similar gap between each orb and its neighbors. But the atmosphere around each orb extended in a torus around the entire string of spheres, allowing for flight from one planetoid to the next. "We make it this far," Gilbert observed. "Where we go from here again?" Finoula consulted the parchment of copied directions Leandros had provided. "We need to find the highest mountain visible," she said. From their vantage point, however, all they could see were the trees looming all around them. "I'm on it!" volunteered Malrin, always eager to be of assistance to the group of adventurers to which her brother Castillan belonged - and which, she thought proudly, she was now also a true member, having shown time and again she could pull her own weight. She wildshaped into her comfortable owl form, flapped her wings, and flew off above the tree-line to see where the tallest visible mountain might lie. But as she did so there was a deep hiss from the other side of a clump of adjacent trees. Looking in that direction, the others saw a creature unlike anything they'd ever seen before. At first, it looked like a massive constrictor snake of some type - perhaps a boa, for its mottled coloration was similar. But this boa was bigger than any terrestrial serpent they'd ever seen before, with a much stockier body - and then they saw the creature's four powerful limbs. One might think this would give it the appearance of a lizard, but its thick body was still as sinuous as that of a snake. A forked tongue, black and shiny, darted from the creature's mouth as it started creeping forward around the trees and heading toward the adventurers, no doubt intent upon an easy meal. Finoula, sure that any native creature they discovered on any of the levels of Carceri meant them no good, raised a hand to her [i]lightning amulet[/i] and activated it. In an instant she became a living bolt of electricity which blasted through the nagasaur, only for her to resume her normal elven figure on its far side. She rematerialized with her longsword [i]Tahlmalaera[/i] in her right hand and her [i]flaming burst whip of thorns[/i] in her left, each ready to strike. Hagan stepped forward towards the sinuous reptile and cast a [i]disintegrate[/i] spell at it. The ray that sprang from his finger struck true, but the nagasaur managed to weather the attack and come out of it damaged but still alive. Wezhley hissed in irritation at the thing's continued survival after his master had hoped to strike it down with one spell. But then Obvious raced forward, hippity-hopping between the jungle trees. Binkadink held his glaive out like a lance, hoping to skewer the strange reptile, but for once his aim was off and the blade struck the creature's scales at an angle, deflecting harmlessly away. Gilbert followed Hagan's lead and cast a [i]disintegrate[/i] spell of his own at the nagasaur but once again it toughed its way through the attack and survived, albeit with a chunk of flesh and scales missing from its side. Darrien stepped up beside the portly mage and tried his hand at taking the beast down, not with a spell but with a cluster of arrows all fired at one time. The quartet of deadly missiles went flying from the ranger's [i]Arachnibow[/i], three of them striking true. The creature hissed in evident pain - and then its head went darting out at the creature directly before it, plunging its piercing fangs into the jackalope's neck and pumping venom into the wounds. Obvious shrieked in pain, leaping back and wrenching the nagasaur's jaws from his neck in the process. Binkadink leaped from the jackalope's back, allowing the wounded steed to retreat to safety while the gnome pressed the attack. His glaive stabbed out at the legged snake-thing, while Binkadink called for help from Malrin over the telepathic bond. Still in owl form, Malrin dropped back down below the tree-line and flew directly at the nagasaur, touching its scaled body with a talon. During the brief contact, the owl-druid channeled a [i]neutralize poison[/i] spell into the nagasaur's body. <I've neutralized its venom - it won't be able to poison anyone else!> she called to the others over the link, then flapped over to see to Obvious. Finoula's blade and whip struck out at the nagasaur from behind, each weapon carving a line of pain across the reptile's body. Hagan cast another spell, this time a [i]polar ray[/i], which overcame the nagasaur's inherent spell resistance. Frost covered its scales as the spell took effect and the half-orc sorcerer could tell that even if the creature had the ability to ignore some level of cold damage - as was common with fiendish and half-fiend creatures - he had done enough damage to overload that particular resistance. Gilbert cast another spell at the nagasaur, similarly overcoming its spell resistance, and suddenly the reptile was completely blind! Its hissing took on a frantic tone as it realized just how much of a handicap this was going to be to it: now the option that had started to look pretty good - namely to flee from these powerful foes and live to feast again on some other day - was likely not even going to be possible. Sure enough, Darrien pumped five arrows into the nagasaur in rapid succession and it fell over, dead. MARCI had stepped up beside Obvious and scanned the jackalope's wounds with the red beam from her eye. "This creature has sustained a venomous bite," she announced. She extended a finger-probe into the jackalope's wound. "I have analyzed the venom and can produce an antidote. Permission to administer the treatment to a non-human recipient?" "Permission granted!" Gilbert cried in exasperation. "In fact, treat jackalope as if it human, from now on!" "Altering designation of creature: Obvious," MARCI announced aloud as a thin needle extended from a metal finger, the probe having been retracted. She stabbed it expertly into Obvious' neck and shot a dose of antivenom into the area around the wounds. "Obvious is now classified as a human." "I'm glad we've got that settled," said Binkadink, returning to his trusty jackalope steed to see how he was faring after the attack. "You okay, buddy?" he asked, stroking the fur between the creature's antlers. "Better," admitted Obvious. Malrin landed beside the jackalope, resumed her elven form, and pointed forward. <The mountain we seek is that way,> she told the others before adding some healing of her own to Obvious, courtesy of her magical staff. It was a matter of a ten-minute trek through the jungle before the trees gave way to waving grasses, and while during their travels they heard the frequent screams and cries of exotic animals nearby, the group exited the acidic rain forest without any further encounters with native Carceri wildlife. Ahead, in the distance, they could see a mountain range, one peak in the middle jutting higher than the others. "That's got to be our target," Hagan observed. "Where's the dragon's cave again - base, peak, or somewhere in between?" Finoula checked the directions. "'Base of mountain'," she recited. "Gather up, then," Hagan commanded, and once everyone was in place he [i]teleported[/i] the group to the base of the mountain. From there it was the matter of but a few minutes to find a cave opening at the mountain's base. After silent communication over their telepathic bond, Gilbert sent Mudpie in to investigate, instructing the elemental to provide constant status updates through the empathic link they shared as master and familiar. The earth elemental stepped up to the wide cave opening, noting there was a short step down into the cavern and then a set of flow-stone steps leading up along the left side and a pool of clear water to the right. He stepped down into the cave, opening a hole in the floor beneath him so he could earth glide through the unworked stone while leaving only the top of his head visible...and immediately, a raucous shrieking rang out from the cavern. <[i]Alarm[/i] spell?> asked Hagan over the link. <Simpler than that -- shriekers!> replied Gilbert, stepping gingerly into the cavern behind his sunken familiar. Sure enough, the "step" was really a ledge, and sitting inside a long niche carved beneath it was a row of the subterranean fungi known colloquially as "shriekers," for they emitted loud noises when exposed to light or nearby movement. If this were the lair of a dragon, there was little doubt it was now aware of their intrusion. As if to emphasize the point, an angry roar came from the top of the flow-stone steps. Mudpie earth glided up the incline, ambling to see what he could see knowing full well he could always "duck" beneath the surface of the rock as needed, leaving behind no evidence of his passing. Hagan cast a [i]fly[/i] spell upon himself and Wezhley and rose into the air. He entered the cavern and scooted over by the pool, his head nearly at the top of the cavern's ceiling, some 35 feet up. He faced the flow-stone steps, the source of the awful roar. Judging solely by the sound of the angry roar, the dragon was of considerable size - although the half-orc knew that sounds could echo oddly in some of these caves. Maybe they'd get lucky and the dragon wouldn't be as big as Hagan was imagining it to be. Binkadink and Obvious weren't content to let the dragon make an appearance on its own terms; the jackalope scampered up the flow-stone steps, passing by Mudpie, reaching a level surface at the top that then flowed back down to an even larger cavern on the far side. But there was no dragon here, either, just a smaller side cave and another pool of water. The gnome's attention was diverted momentarily to the side cave, for scattered along the floor in this area was a carpet of loose coins and gems - apparently the unseen dragon's treasure hoard. A buzzing sound alerted Binkadink to Darrien's arrival: he had activated his [i]ebony fly[/i] and ridden it into the back cavern behind the jackalope. The half-elf ranger had his [i]Arachnibow[/i] drawn and an arrow ready to loose, but there was no dragon at which to send it flying. "Invisible?" he asked the gnome, looking around and straining his ears to try to hear any noise the hypothetically invisible dragon might make. Back at the main entrance, Finoula stepped into the front cavern with both main weapons in hand and cast a [i]darkvision[/i] spell upon her eyes, for Binkadink's helmet held the group's only active light sources and he and Obvious had gone around to the back of the cave network. She stepped over to the pool, noticing absently that the water was sploshing around a bit. Brow furrowed - there shouldn't be waves, even little ones, in an underground cave, surely! - she thought she saw the level of the water rising, but then it seemed to stabilize at its new height. Behind her, Malrin held the carved tyrannosaurus tooth they'd discovered in the lunar ravager lodge and, activating its magic, wildshaped into a tyrannosaurus rex - a larger form than any she'd ever attained and one only possible through the magics of the totem she wore on a leather thong around her neck. But she thought a fight against a dragon was a perfect time to try out the combat capabilities of one of the world's most fearsome dinosaurs. There was a sudden explosion of water from the pool just as Finoula realized what might have caused the water surface to rise and the rippling of small waves in a still pool: the displacement caused by a large form entering the connected pools in the cave network's front and back! But then [b]Aradacevaeros[/b] sprang forward, water springing from his mottled hide, and he looked in surprise at Finoula standing before him and Hagan suspended in the air, whirling suddenly around in panic to face the dragon. "Mortals from the Material Plane, traveled all this way to meet their deaths? Why, I haven't dined on such fare in centuries! This will be a most welcome treat indeed!" exulted Aradacevaeros. Finoula was frozen momentarily in place at the awesome spectacle before her and Aradacevaeros took advantage of her hesitation to snap forward, biting down at the elf. His teeth penetrated the magical shielding of the [i]stoneskin[/i] spell protecting her, but the dose of pain reducer MARCI had injected her with earlier helped her focus on the task at hand, not the pain caused by the dragon teeth piercing her body. She wrenched free from the dragon's mouth before he could try to swallow her whole, dropping back to the stone floor of the cavern and just barely retaining her balance. Gilbert, choking back the instinctive fear upon the sight of the Tarterian dragon, kept his wits about him long enough to cast a [i]wall of force[/i] spell directly in front of the dragon, separating Aradacevaeros from Finoula, Hagan, and the others. The dragon roared in fury, apparently having recognized the spell from the hand movements Gilbert made while casting, for the magical wall itself was quite invisible. With a final snort of frustration, the great dragon submerged back into the pool, reversing course and returning back the way he had come, any thoughts of releasing a breath weapon saved for later. <Incoming!> Gilbert cried over the link. <Dragon heading back your way!> And then he ran away from the pool, leaping up the flow-stone steps at a speed faster than would be expected for one of his bulk. MARCI followed in his wake, her metal feet clanging loudly on the cavern's stone floor. Mudpie, however, took an earth gliding shortcut by going straight through the intervening stone separating the front cave and the side cave filled with the dragon's loose treasure. There were two natural columns in the back of this side cave, where a pair of stalactites had merged into the twin stalagmites below them. This, the elemental realized, was likely the natural [i]gate[/i] to the third level of Carceri the dragon guarded. Hagan and Wezhley flew past the running Gilbert to land at the base of the treasure cave. Seeing he'd beaten the dragon here, Hagan bent down and started gathering up handfuls of coins and gems from the floor, scooping them into his backpack. Finoula stopped beside him and started to do the same. <This ought to distract his attention!> she said over the link. Binkadink, mounted on Obvious, faced the back pool and readied his glaive for when Aradacevaeros would appear. Behind and beside him, Darrien kept his magical bow at the ready as well, balancing upon the back of the pony-sized fly which had landed on the cavern floor. And then Malrin appeared in the back cavern as well, in her impressive tyrannosaurus rex form, ready for a taste of massive reptilian combat. Aradacevaeros exploded out of the back pool just as Gilbert finally rounded the corner, dropping down from the dragon's higher-level sleeping platform and into the lower back cavern. He had a [i]quickened wall of force[/i] readied and cast it at once, sealing off the dragon from the adventurers with another invisible screen that went from one side of the cavern to the other and from the floor to the ceiling. The Tarterian dragon screamed in fury - and his anger only increased as he saw the adventurers scooping up every last iota of his treasure, looking back at him and grinning in a quite infuriating manner as they did so. Aradacevaeros could only watch impotently as they cleaned him out and then walked, one by one, through the natural [i]gate[/i] to the third level of Carceri. "I hope that [i]wall of force[/i] is going to hold up long enough!" Binkadink mentioned as the group materialized on a desert world. There was nothing but featureless dunes of red sand as far as the eye could see. Up above, the floating spheres of the nearest orbs in line could be seen; they stretched off to the edges of vision in both directions, curving slightly in a shallow arc. "It hold just fine," Gilbert assured the gnome. "He no want to follow us, anyway - that a one-way gate. He follow us, no way back to lair." "Are you sure?" Finoula asked. "He sure looked furious at us stealing his hoard." "Look around!" Gilbert scoffed. "No structures around for [i]gate[/i] to be tied to!" He demonstrated the truth of his words by backtracking the way they'd all come, following their footprints in the sand all the way to their origin point and then passing it. "See?" he said. "No way back that way." Hagan was looking up at the orbs. "So, which way do we want to try first?" he asked. "Don't matter. Pick one. Take titan hair with you - if it dissolve, you know you on right orb." "Okay, then," replied the half-orc. "Either way, we'll be right back." He said a few arcane syllables and then he and Wezhley disappeared from view. Sure enough, they [i]teleported[/i] back just a few moments later. "Nope," he said, showing the group the undamaged braid of Leandros' hair. "It's gotta be the other one." Everyone gathered around the half-orc sorcerer and he cast the [i]teleport[/i] spell for the third time in as many minutes, this time transporting the entire group to the next orb in line in the opposite direction. He dropped the titan hair braid onto the red sands at his feet on this new orb and watched as it writhed and smoked, rapidly being consumed. In a moment it was gone. "This is the place, all right," said Hagan. "Minethys, right?" "Minethys, correct," replied Finoula, looking over the copied directions. "We need to find towers with cages on top of them." "Does it say in which direction?" asked Darrien. "Nope." "Okay, fliers - Darrien, Hagan, me - we each pick direction, do sweeps back and forth, expand outward," Gilbert suggested. "Others stay here. Anybody find towers, let everyone know over link. Questions? No? Then go!" Hagan and Wezhley flew off in one direction, Darrien and his [i]ebony fly[/i] in another, and Gilbert and Mudpie in still another. Her master gone, MARCI stood motionless with the other adventurers left behind. After about half an hour - an interminable time for Binkadink, who wasn't thrilled with the desert heat while wearing his full dragonhide armor - Darrien's voice came over the link. <Found 'em! They're not much as far as towers go - most of 'em are buried under the sand. But there are six towers around a seventh in the middle. And there are cages on each tower.> <That sounds like them, all right!> Finoula answered. <We'll start heading in your direction on foot. Gilbert and Hagan, you can fly back the way you came and then follow our tracks. Darrien, keep an eye out for us so we don't veer off course!> On a small globe with nothing but red sand dunes - and only the string of floating orbs overhead, no sun or stars by which to navigate - even maintaining a straight line of travel was difficult! But less than an hour's travel and the group had all gathered back up at the seven towers. Their arrival was a cause of excitement for the poor petitioners locked in the cages above the towers. Each of the six towers on the outer edges of the formation held a dozen iron cages along their roof-lines, built like bird cages but just barely big enough to hold a human in a hunched-over position, while the central tower held a full 20 such structures along its edges. Each cage held a tormented soul, wearing nothing but tattered rags and with skin pockmarked and scoured by the frequent sandstorms plaguing the desert orb. These petitioners called out to the adventurers, offering anything and everything if they'd just free them. "I can lead you to untold riches!" promised one gaunt man with clumps of stringy, matted, hair the color of fresh urine hanging down from his balding, patchy scalp. "Only free me," promised a woman thin to the point of appearing to be undead (although Gilbert's magically-enhanced eyes verified that she was in fact still alive) "and I can grant you three wishes! Anything you like--anything at all!" A ragged man with a mangy beard put a supplicating arm through the iron bars of his cage and implored, "I know the secret way to Mount Celestia, where the river waters taste of amber ale! Free me, and I will take you there!" Finoula looked at these wretched souls with a look of horror on her elven features. "Just ignore them," Gilbert advised. "They damned - they earn these fates by their actions while alive." "They're not alive?" Finoula gasped. "Well, 'afterlife alive', I guess," admitted the heavyset wizard. "But just ignore them. Pretend they not even here." He flew up to the top of the central tower and started poking around. "Supposed to be hollow tower," he mused. "Mudpie! Go under sand, see if there door into tower buried somewhere down there!" While the earth elemental carried out his orders, the others climbed onto the roof of the central tower - it wasn't difficult, as there was only about a foot of it still standing above the current configuration of the ever-shifting sands - and joined Gilbert in his rooftop search. "Here!" called out Finoula, finding a few depressions at the center of the roof, which her elven senses had determined were the hand-holds for a massive slab of rock which could be lifted up and moved aside. While Malrin maneuvered her tyrannosaur foot-claw into the slot and slowly lifted the heavy slab (Binkadink dismounted from Obvious and helped slide it off to the side, revealing a winding set of steps leading down), Gilbert was receiving a report from Mudpie. "He say no doors in tower but there living quarters down there. A giant, sleeping - and [i]Titanslayer[/i] in back cave with two chests! This the place, all right!" By then, the slab had been lifted and Malrin had pushed it aside far enough that even she could get her saurian bulk through. The 15-foot-wide stairwell wound down into the ground in a clockwise direction and the steps were scaled for a giant, each step a full three feet below the one above it. There was some discussion about whether to leave the slab open or close it back up before descending into the giant's lair, but eventually two factors helped them to decide: first, they weren't planning on coming back this way (Gilbert would [i]plane shift[/i] them back home after they successfully gained the [i]Titanslayer[/i] for Leandros); and second, there was no reason to make things any easier for Takhios' team, who were undoubtedly at some point behind them. Malrin lifted the slab with her head from beneath it and slid it back into place. "How do we know the War Titan's forces aren't ahead of us?" Darrien asked. "If they already downstairs, Mudpie see them!" Gilbert scoffed. "And dragon say we first mortals it see in long time - they definitely somewhere behind us!" "And best of all," pointed out Binkadink, "when they do show up at the dragon's lair, the [i]walls of force[/i] will have run their course - he's going to tear into them!" He started chuckling at the thought of the furious dragon suddenly provided with a fresh set of mortals upon which to vent his anger. The steps made eight full circuits around and down before leveling off into the giant's lair. There were two exits from the room at the bottom of the circular stairs: a thick, wooden door and an open passageway. Finoula headed to the door while Binkadink and Obvious checked out the corridor, which like the rest of this place seemed to have been carved directly into the stone far beneath the red sands above. The corridor bent at an angle and then dropped, by a series of three natural steps, into an open cavern that appeared not to have been carved out of the stone; rather, it must have been an underground pocket that had been extended into the rest of the giant's living space. The far end of the massive cavern was filled with nasty-looking fungus, mostly mushrooms of the "thick cap" variety, each glistening wet with corruption. The cavern was thick with the odors of death and decay. Along the back wall was another set of natural steps leading down into a smaller cave, and inside this the gnome could see an enormous, glowing greatsword: [i]Titanslayer[/i], without a doubt. But instead of heading straight for the object of their quest, Binkadink steered Obvious over towards the fungal garden, for he could see another set of steps rising up to another carved passageway like the one they had just traversed. Gilbert had said something about a sleeping giant; better to make sure he was taken out of the picture before they went for the massive sword, so he wouldn't have an opportunity to sneak up behind them when they weren't paying attention. As the gnome and the jackalope traveled down this second corridor, the wailing and moaning of voices could be heard, the noises getting louder as they approached the end of the corridor. By the time they got to its end and could see it opened into a massive room where a giant slept upon a slab of stone that served for his bed, the moaning was quite horrific - and it actually caused Obvious to shudder with fear. Trembling terribly, the jackalope stopped all forward movement and spun about, leaving Binkadink just enough time to leap from the saddle before his riding mount was high-tailing it back the way he had come. The wailing must be some sort of magical effect, the gnome mused to himself; Obvious wasn't usually that easy to scare. Finoula, in the meantime, had discovered the massive, wooden door to be stuck solid - but that wasn't anything her [i]chime of opening[/i] couldn't handle. However, upon opening the stuck door, she too could hear the doleful wailing coming from the giant's bedchambers and that was enough for the normally fearless ranger to break ranks and flee back the way she'd come. And she wasn't the only one. Darrien, still astride his [i]ebony fly[/i], panicked at the sound and spun his aerial mount around in midair, the two of them fleeing back up the oversize stairwell leading back to the surface. Hagan ran in his wake, a look of absolute terror on his half-orcish face; upon the sorcerer's shoulder, Wezhley the weasel held an almost human expression of fear on his fuzzy muzzle. Even the steadfast Gilbert Fung turned and ran up the stairs, followed by his earth elemental familiar Mudpie and his humanoid automaton MARCI - although the latter had not been affected by the wailing and moaning - rather, she generally followed Gilbert wherever he might go, and right now he was running at full speed back to the overly-large steps spiraling up in the middle of the tower buried to its top in reddish sand. Even Malrin, still in the impressive form of a tyrannosaurus rex, scampered up the steps as if the very forces of Hell were chasing her. The death giant sat up from his stone slab of a bed and reached for the greataxe leaning against the opposite wall. Grabbing it up in both hands, he spun to face the intruder in his lair...and was quite surprised to see his foe was a three-foot-tall gnome balancing upon some sort of stilts sticking out from the sides of his boots. [i]This[/i] was the danger that had invaded his realm? But then Binkadink gave the death giant ample reason for concern as, stepping forward on his [i]gnomish stilt-boots[/i], he extended his collapsible glaive to its full length and brought it swinging into the giant's side. The blade cut through the giant's thick, black hide, bringing a flow of red blood coursing down his torso. By that time those who had fled from the horrid sound of the giant's wailing (although it hadn't actually been the giant making the sound but rather a cascade of disembodied, nebulous ghost-skulls which flew all around him in a wide halo) suddenly came to their senses; they had moved far enough away from the magic effect for it to no longer bother them. Obvious skittered to a halt, changed course, and hippity-hopped back the way he had fled, eager to join up with his gnomish rider and make the death giant pay for the jackalope's seeming act of cowardice. Up on the steps, the other heroes likewise regained their normal faculties. "It magical effect!" barked Gilbert to the others, reversing course and racing back down the stairs, Mudpie and MARCI following suit behind him. "No shame in falling under spell, but now it not likely have any more effect on us!" Gilbert was correct; having already been exposed once to the fear effect, the heroes were better able to ignore it upon their second exposure. As one, they scrambled back to aid Binkadink in his fight against the ebony-skinned death giant. And the gnome was grateful for any assistance he could get at that point, for the giant's greataxe had already sent him slamming up against a stone wall from the power of the blow; only the stabilizing effect of his [i]gnomish stilt-boots[/i] helped him to keep his balance. But Binkadink gave back as good as he had taken, carving another line of pain across the death giant's thick hide. Behind him, he could hear - just barely, over the still-present screaming coming from the ethereal skulls floating around the death giant in an erratic circle - his trusty jackalope approaching, eager to rejoin the battle. Finoula raced through the now-open doorway and into what was apparently the giant's dining hall, given the half-devoured fiendish dire rat corpse on the slab of stone that served him as a table. An open doorway led into the giant's bedchamber, from which she could hear the sounds of clashing blades and the scraping of metal weapons striking stone walls - and, of course, the ever-present screaming and wailing of the death giant's floating skulls. But then Darrien buzzed by her on his [i]ebony fly[/i], his [i]Arachnibow[/i] ready to let loose an arrow already in place. Flying through the doorway to the death giant's bedroom, he sent a volley of rapid-fire arrows into the giant's back. Hagan followed the half-elf into the bedchamber, casting a [i]polar ray[/i] spell at the giant's back. The spell struck true, although Hagan could tell by its limited effects that the giant not only had some sort of inherent resistance against spellcraft but also at least a partial resistance to cold damage, for the [i]polar ray[/i] didn't seem to affect the giant as much as the sorcerer had hoped. Indeed, the death giant all but ignored this attack, his concentration focused upon the gnome fighter before him. Again his greataxe swung down upon Binkadink, drawing blood and a stifled grunt of pain. But then Malrin entered the sparse bedchamber, still in her tyrannosaurus form. Her rows of sharp teeth bit down at the death giant, encompassing his left shoulder and pulling him away from the gnome. While he was thus held immobile, Gilbert stepped up and cast a [i]disintegrate[/i] spell at the bald, ebony-skinned giant. Once again his natural resistance against spellcraft prevented him from taking the full force of the spell, but Gilbert could tell he had at least suffered a bit from the spell's effects. Binkadink took advantage of the giant's relative immobility to send his glaive crashing into his foe again and again, dealing an enormous amount of damage with three quick strikes in a row. And then Finoula entered the room; it was getting a bit crowded, even in a chamber built to a giant's scale, for Malrin's tyrannosaur form took up most of the open space not already taken up by the bed-slab of rock and those already in combat. But the elven ranger stepped between the dinosaur's powerful back legs and sent her [i]flaming burst whip of thorns[/i] lashing out at the death giant's legs while he struggled to free himself from Malrin's jaws. Darrien had his fly mount soar up to the room's ceiling and from this vantage point he shot arrows down at the pinned giant with little fear of accidentally hitting any of his friends. Hagan cast another [i]polar ray[/i] spell, but this time it fizzled out entirely upon touching the giant's black skin, doing nothing. With a final wrench that left furrows of blood along his shoulder, the death giant finally managed to extricate himself from Malrin's powerful jaws. He staggered forward and then, since Binkadink was still standing there before him, decided to turn his half-stumble into an attack with his greataxe, once again targeting the gnome. It was looking as if there was no way to overcome all of these damned intruders, but at least he could take out the first one to have had the temerity to attack him in his own home! However, the massive strength behind the giant's attack actually worked against him, for he dealt the little gnome so much damage that it triggered Binkadink's [i]ring of retaliation[/i] - and a similar gash opened on the giant's flesh to mirror the cut he had just dealt the gnome. That was enough to put the death giant on his last legs and the screaming, insubstantial skulls still flying all around him - perhaps recognizing this sad fact - wailed all the harder. Gilbert, having made a note of the giant's ability to occasionally shrug off completely the effects of even the most powerful spells, opted to cast a spell that wouldn't target the death giant at all: he cast [i]haste[/i] on himself, Mudpie, Darrien, and Binkadink. "Let's see you shrug off those effects!" the heavyset wizard chuckled to himself. That was all it took. Moving even faster than normal - certainly faster than the death giant could block - Binkadink's glaive struck forward at lightning speed, tearing a gash across the giant's chest, another across his massive bicep, another nearly severing the fingers of his left hand, and a fourth stabbing straight into his belly. With a roar of surprise and pain that sent his life's blood spraying across the room, the death giant fell forward like a felled tree and would have crushed the little gnome had Obvious not dashed forward and grabbed his rider by the belt and pulled him back into the corridor leading to the treasure cavern. "Nice one, Bink!" congratulated Darrien as he landed his fly and started retrieving those arrows that could still be reused. The others converged into the lower cavern, before the stone steps leading down into what was obviously the "treasure cave." There, upon the stone floor in the back, lay [i]Titanslayer[/i]. It was surrounded by six stone pillars arranged in a hexagon, each pillar containing runes etched into every surface. "Don't touch anything yet," Hagan warned, casting a [i]detect magic[/i] spell and looking around the cave. "Okay, the sword's definitely magic an so are the columns." He looked off to either side, allowing his magical vision to encompass each of the large chests in turn. "Not the chests, though," he added. "Everybody out!" shooed Binkadink, heading for the nearest chest. <We'd normally let Castillan check out the chests before opening them,> pointed out Malrin, not being able to speak aloud as a dinosaur but perfectly capable of sending her thoughts to the others over the [i]Rary's telepathic bond[/i] spell. "True, but he's not here," countered Binkadink, "and whatever traps might be hidden on these chests, I'm the one most likely to survive them." It was true; the little gnome had proven time and again he was made of sturdy stuff. Once everyone had stepped back, he lifted the top of the first chest with the tip of his blade, having shrunk the shaft of his magic glaive to its shortest length. When no explosions belched forth, the gnome cautiously approached the chest and peered over the top. "Coins!" he called. "Lots of 'em!" "We grab them up later!" Gilbert suggested. "Go check other chest!" Binkadink moved over to the other side of the treasure cave and repeated his actions. This time, though, the "treasure" was of a much more grisly nature: a bald, scarred, limbless humanoid who snarled in wordless hatred at the gnome. It took Binkadink a moment to recognize this creature as a kyton without any of the chains it normally wore as combination armor, weapons, and additional limbs. Apparently the death giant had captured a kyton at one point and had been using it as an additional food source to supplement the disgusting fungus growing in the back cavern and the occasional fiendish dire rat it caught on the surface of this strange little orb. With a look of disgust, Binkadink dropped the lid of the chest back into place. "I think we'll leave this one here," he suggested. Then he turned to examine [i]Titanslayer[/i], but Hagan stepped forward by his side, examining the runes on the stone pillars. "I'm willing to bet there are invisible [i]walls of force[/i] between each of these columns," he ventured. "One way to find out," the gnome replied, trying to reach between two of the pillars with his glaive. But Hagan had been right; the blade scratched against an unseen and unyielding barrier. Worse yet, the touch of Binkadink's glaive also triggered another effect: barely audible at first, a low humming began increasing in volume, sending an ever-louder sonic blast from sub-harmonics through the audible spectrum until the heroes were forced to race from the treasure cave for fear of their heads splitting open from the noise. As a group, the adventurers stepped well back from the entrance to the treasure cave and let the sonic bombardment run its course. After about a full minute, the sound switched off all at once, leaving ears ringing in its absence. Once it was apparent that it was no longer making any noise, the heroes once again cautiously approached the massive greatsword protected behind the six pillars and the [i]walls of force[/i] connecting them and forming a sonic cage in which to protect the titanic weapon. <I think I can take down one of these [i]walls of force[/i],> said Hagan, using the mental link because everyone was still reeling from the sonics and mental communication was easier than speaking aloud. He cast another [i]disintegrate[/i] spell, this time aiming it at the space between two pillars. <Did it work?> asked Binkadink. After all, the [i]walls of force[/i] were totally invisible - there was no way to see if that one was still in place short of trying to touch it again. Hagan sent everyone else back out of the cave again and did just that - but his hand passed between the two pillars without striking any barrier - or triggering any sub-harmonics. After that, it was a simple matter for Malrin to step into the hexagon and kick [i]Titanslayer[/i] back with her dinosaur foot, while Finoula and Darrien held open the oddly-shaped [i]portable hole[/i] Leandros had provided them: unlike normal such devices, which had a 10-foot diameter, this one was built in a long oval, just big enough for the blade to be sent into the [i]hole[/i]'s center and the crosspieces to fit within its length. Once the entire weapon was safely stored inside - the [i]hole[/i] had to have been much longer inside its extradimensional space, for the 30-foot-long titan weapon would not have fit inside the 10-foot depth of the standard model - Finoula rolled it back up and put it in her belt. As Leandros had promised, now that [i]Titanslayer[/i] was inside an extradimensional space the massive weight of the greatsword couldn't be felt at all. The group's other [i]portable hole[/i] was put to good use, holding the coins from the death giant's first chest. But since Malrin carried it with her, she had to resume her elven form in order to fetch it. "Pity I didn't get to do that much fighting as a tyrannosaur," she said. "Maybe next time," offered Darrien with a smile as he started shoveling coins from the chest into the [i]hole[/i]. "We ready get out of here?" asked Gilbert, and upon getting a universal reply in the affirmative, he cast a [i]plane shift[/i] spell that returned them to Oerth. Hagan then cast a [i]teleport[/i] spell that returned them to just outside the drawbridge of Battershield Keep - where they were met by a worried-looking Leandros. "Did you get my message in time?" he asked. "Message? What message?" demanded Gilbert. "We didn't get no message." "I sent my most trusted invisible stalker with a message for you, written by my hand upon a scroll of parchment bearing my seal," Leandros explained. "I found out that Takhios had impersonated me to get you to fetch the [i]Titanslayer[/i] for him - did you? Do you have it?" A gasp escaped from Finoula's open mouth as she dropped her hand to the rolled-up [i]portable hole[/i] at her belt. "The invisible stalker," she said as realization struck. "It wouldn't have been able to get past the slab we closed at the top of the tower leading down to the giant's lair!" Realization had also hit Gilbert Fung. "How we know this really you, not Takhios?" he demanded of the titan towering before him. "A [i]true seeing[/i] spell would have been useful," the titan replied. "I said as much in my message. Still, let this speak of my true identity." And, holding out his open hand before him, there was a sudden shimmering and [i]Frostreaver[/i], the greataxe won by the group in the game of Titan Chest, manifested in his hand. "So: have you removed the [i]Titanslayer[/i] from its place of safety in Carceri?" Finoula held out the rolled-up [i]portable hole[/i] from her belt. "It's right here," she sighed. "Then we must destroy it," replied Leandros. "Takhios somehow learned of its original location so we cannot simply replace it from whence it was taken, and I have no desire to take on its guardianship forevermore. It would be a constant temptation for the War Titan; I would need to spend every waking moment keeping it from his ever-reaching grasp." "I know how we can destroy it," suggested Binkadink. "Hang on: I'll go get the carpet." Moments later, the gnome returned from his room inside the keep with a familiar-looking carpet rolled up under one arm. Unrolling it flat onto the ground, he said the command word and [i]teleported[/i] up to the dragonfly vessel, then went to find his cousin Jinkadoodle lounging in his cabin. "C'mon, Jink!" he called. "We got a mission we need you to fly!" Once everyone was aboard - including Leandros - Jinkadoodle sat in the command seat and sent the spelljamming vessel up into the sky, heading straight for the sun. Binkadink was disappointed at the thought of having to destroy such a fine weapon, especially once he learned the blade's main power stripped off a great many protections normally enjoyed by powerful beings like titans. "Hey!" he said, a sudden thought striking him. "Hagan, do you think you could [i]teleport[/i] to Pentaclus and bring him back here? If he could study the blade, maybe he could make something similar for me - on a much smaller scale, of course." The flight deep enough into wildspace took several hours, during most of which Pentaclus the Weaponcrafter was on hand to examine the magics of the [i]Titanslayer[/i]. "It's intriguing," he admitted. "I might just be able to replicate it, or something very much like it." Binkadink rubbed his hands in glee; that was just what he'd been hoping to hear! But eventually Leandros, standing upon the upper deck of the dragonfly vessel - for his titan's frame was much too large to allow him to enter the ship's interior cabins - called down that they had reached a sufficient distance from the Oerth that its gravity plane would no longer have any impact on the upcoming event. Hefting the [i]Titanslayer[/i] in his right hand, holding the hilt's edge like the end of a spear, he curled back his arm and snapped it forward with all of his considerable strength. [i]Titanslayer[/i] shot forward like a fired missile, heading on a bee-line straight for the burning sun. Jinkadoodle kept the craft steady and the assembled heroes watched its path until it could no longer be seen, but they knew it would continue on its present course until the sun's gravity plane brought it into its all-consuming furnace. Leandros nodded in satisfaction. War Titan Takhios would be hard pressed to fetch the weapon now! He said his farewell to the group and vanished from sight, while Jinkadoodle turned the spelljamming vessel about and returned back the way they had come. - - - Malrin leveled up as a result of this adventure; the others are close enough that they should all level up after the adventure following this one. At the last minute, Jacob found out he had to work the day we had scheduled this session. Dan offered to run Castillan, but the game runs quicker with fewer PCs so we decided the elven bounder was elsewhere when the adventure started. He still got the same amount of XP - we just assumed he was having "off screen" adventures on his own. And I did something I hadn't done before with this adventure: the day before we played, I sent the players an email with the details of the "plot hook" so Dan in particular (who runs Gilbert) could decide ahead of time which spells the portly mage had prepared. (Likewise with Logan, who was running Malrin this time around.) It's getting to the point where it takes a bit of time for him to decide on which spells Gilbert has ready at hand, so this was an attempt to shorten that process so we can spend more of the gaming session in actual play. It seemed to work, so I think that's a tweak I'm going to keep from now on. - - - T-shirt worn: My "Chaotic evil means never having to say you're sorry" shirt. [/QUOTE]
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