Wing Three

[Richards]

ADVENTURE 93: DISC O' INFERNO

PC Roster:

Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord
Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian/sorcerer/arcane archer
Feron Dru, half-elf druid
Telgrane, half-fire elemental human conjurer/archmage
Thunderwolf, human fighter​

"I have been examining this rock you found in the dragon's lair on the Elemental Plane of Earth," said Brother Altamaic, indicating the 8-inch-diameter gemstone sitting on the table in front of the Wing Three adventurers, who were seated in one of the conference rooms in the Church Library of Boccob. "I believe it’s the Elemental Earth Stone, one of four objects of great power, one from each of the four elements. Together, these are known as the Elemental Items.

"The clerics of my order have attempted to scry directly upon the other Elemental Items, to no avail. Simple divinations cannot be used to locate them; this in and of itself leads me to believe they are possibly of artifact level, in terms of power.

"I have been researching the properties of these Elemental Items, and while there's not much specific detail provided, it is hinted each item grows more powerful in the presence of the others. Furthermore, each of the Elemental Items can be used to assist in the location of the others. I believe I have discovered a way to use the Elemental Earth Stone to help find the other items, although in an indirect manner. I cannot see the locations of the other Elemental Items, but I think I can use the Elemental Earth Stone as a focus, so you can plane shift to the vicinity of each of the other Elemental Items.

"You have found the Elemental Earth Stone. The other items are the Elemental Fire Disc, the Elemental Water Halo, and the Elemental Air Torus. All mention of them in the tomes of our library refers to them in a specific order; thus, I believe it best if you attempt to gather them in that order. For that reason, you'll be going after the Elemental Fire Disc next.

"There's no guarantee that it will actually be located on the Elemental Plane of Fire, but that seems most likely. I recommend you make your preparations that will allow you to survive there, and I'll show you how to channel the plane shift spell through the Elemental Earth Stone. You'll end up on the Elemental Plane of Fire in any case; but if the Elemental Fire Disc is in fact somewhere on that plane, you should arrive relatively close to it. If not, you'll just show up at a random location, as always. All I can do is suggest you take a look around once you arrive."

The adventurers looked around at each other. "Well," said Telgrane, "I think Infernia's going to enjoy this expedition."

- - -

"Is everyone ready?" asked Telgrane, looking around at the assembled group.

"I am ready, Master!" exclaimed Infernia, the fire in her eyes seeming to burn even brighter in her eagerness to return to her home plane, if only for a little while.

"I think we're all set," agreed Cal, looking over at Feron, who nodded her readiness. Then Telgrane, holding the Elemental Earth Stone, cast the plane shift spell in the manner Brother Altamaic had instructed and the six figures vanished from view and arrived upon a burning field. The air was hot and smoky, with a reddish light suffusing the entire area. The adventurers found themselves sinking several inches into the ground, which seemed composed of layers of smoldering ashes.

Immediately, Feron cast the spell she had prepared, and the five adventurers' bodies instantly became attuned to the Elemental Plane of Fire. From that point on, they wouldn't take any damage from the ambient heat of the elemental plane, although concentrated blasts of fire would still affect them normally. The druidess then immediately wildshaped into a Huge fire elemental, all the better prepared for combat in this realm.

"Anybody see anything?" asked Cal, straining to see through the flames.

"Nothing but flames," replied Thunderwolf.

"Same here," agreed Chalkan.

"Master--there!" cried Infernia, pointing, her fiery eyes capable of seeing twice as far as the others on her home plane. "We have been spotted by a flock of firebats!" She pointed to an area of reddish sky behind Telgrane, but none of them could see anything approaching yet. Still, they had fought firebats before; the spellcasters started going through their mental inventories for cold-based spells.

Within moments, the flapping forms of the firebats could be seen, swooping down in a V formation. Chalkan and Thunderwolf both fired barrages of arrows from their bows as soon as the fiery shapes became visible in the smoky sky; as a result, two of the elementals never made it to their intended prey, crashing lifelessly to the ground and causing little puffs of ashes to rise up where they landed. Feron cast a call lightning storm spell, causing an arc of electricity to come crashing down out of the smoky sky and pierce another of the fire bats, who shrieked in protest at the concept of its prey fighting back.

Telgrane cast a fireball spell at over half of the formation, converting the fire energy to do cold damage instead. This caused most of the bats engulfed in his spell to plummet to the ash-covered ground, but two pressed on, seemingly undeterred by the archmage's spell. The reason for this became clear as they came within reaching distance of the heroes; dropping out of their firebat forms, they took on their true countenances.

One was a fire giant wielding an immense warhammer in his hands and a grinning expression on his soot-colored face, eager to commence battle with these interlopers from the Material Plane. The other figure was an efreet, who dropped to the ground beside the giant, fists ready to fight.

Feron wasted no time, dropping a bolt of electricity down upon the giant, channeling it through his upraised metal warhammer. The giant roared in pain and brought his weapon crashing down upon Cal, who shrugged the blow aside and smacked the giant back with his own hammer - one which dealt frost damage to those it struck. Once again, the giant roared in pain and frustration. Then, in its own guttural language, it called out to its efreet companion: "Restore me to full strength, you laggard!" The efreet scowled but complied, muttering a few words under his breath. Instantly, the giant's wounds closed up and the patches of skin scarred from either frost or electricity damage cleared up. Alas, it was the efreet's last act, for he was just as quickly peppered with arrows from the two archers and he fell to the smoldering ground, dead.

"No matter!" roared the giant, swinging his warhammer above his head and bringing it crashing down upon Cal once again. "Kraskus Headbasher has no need for lackeys! He will smite you himself with the strength of his arms and the might of his weapon!" But his boasts proved to be poor forecasts of the immediate future, for it was the fire giant who was soon brought down by a combination of weapon attacks and spell strikes. Ever practical, Cal insisted upon "looting the stiff" upon Kraskus's death, but all of his weapons and armor were too big to be of much use. Telgrane did note that the giant wore a magic cloak, and his examination of the cloak's aura led him to deduce it was the Elemental Plane's version of a cloak of the bat - but one that transformed its wearer into a firebat instead of a terrestrial bat. A closer examination of the magical aura also determined that it could only be used upon the Elemental Plane of Fire, limiting its usefulness tremendously. Still, Telgrane planned to explore the endless plane with Infernia one of these days, and it could no doubt be used as trade goods; he folded in carefully and placed it into an extradimensional storage location.

"So now what?" asked Thunderwolf, looking all around him and seeing nothing but flames and smoke.

"Infernia?" prompted Telgrane. "Do you see anything?"

The fire elemental dutifully scanned the horizon in all directions. "There, Master!" she said with pride in her voice. "A cave opening!"

The others looked to where she was pointing, but saw only the flames that seemed to cover most of the Elemental Plane, so they followed her as she led them to what only she could see at that range. Several hundred feet away was what looked to be a massive mound of ashes and embers, with a large hole at its bottom edge, partly hidden by the curves of the ground. As the group approached, it took on the appearance of a cave opening, some 20 feet in diameter. The occasional glowing ember along the cave floor showed a ramped passageway leading further down below the surface of the fiery plane, and there seemed to be a flickering light coming from deeper within.

The walls of the underground cavern were made of pressed ashes, while the floor consisted of the same with the occasional burning ember providing a shadowy illumination. The light within was feeble, but enough to see by without additional aid (although the flaming bodies of both Infernia and Feron gave off ample light to see by). Flickering light from deeper within the tunnel indicated a source of flames further down.

"Shall we?" asked Cal, waving a hand to allow Feron to enter first. The druidess took him up on his offer, and the rest of the group followed her into a lengthy tunnel. Further on ahead was the source of the flickering light, a pair of walls of fire flanking the side walls of the tunnel, just before it ramped upwards a bit and opened into a larger chamber, in the middle of which perched a dark-scaled draconic figure, scowling down at the intruders.

"Interesting," noted Telgrane. "We found the Elemental Earth Stone in the lair of a shadow dragon, and now it looks like the Elemental Fire Disc is in the lair of another dragon." Then, emboldened by the group's success thus far, the archmage called out in a strong voice, the syllables of the Draconic tongue coming easily to his lips, "Parley and live!"

The dragon didn't deign a response, nor did it move the slightest muscle. It just continued staring at them in contempt - which, the group found, was unnerving enough.

Still, they were adventurers on a quest, and nothing is more disheartening to adventurers on a quest than chickening out in front of your companions. "Come on," snarled Cal, holding his shield at the ready and advancing down the corridor. The others followed in his wake.

The dragon didn't bother moving at all as they approached. "Maybe it's just a statue?" offered Chalkan as they got closer and still it didn't move.

"...No," replied Telgrane. "I'm picking up auras of transmutation magic around it. If it's just a statue, it's at least a magical one, probably capable of moving and fighting."

"A construct?" asked Feron.

"Very likely," replied Telgrane. But then it didn't really matter that much any more, since the dragon finally moved and attacked. Stepping down from its elevated perch, it let loose with a cone of scorching flames of such heat that it left several of the heroes staggering on their last legs; if it weren't for Cal's sudden mass heal spell, it's likely that more than a couple of the adventurers wouldn't have made it back home in one piece.

Telgrane cast a fireball spell at the draconic shape, recognizable at this closer distance as an animated statue of some sort, counting on the fact that his ability to redirect the spell to channel cold energy instead would likely deal extra damage to any statue positioned as a guardian on the Elemental Plane of Fire. It was sound logic, even if it turned out not to be true; the ironwyrm golem shrugged off the spell without any effect, although the cold damage was enough to shut off the two walls of fire on either side of the tunnel. Doing so revealed an extra surprise: a wall of stone blocking the bottom 10 feet of the tunnel to the north, although light coming from above it showed a passageway beyond.

Feron opted to subcontract out the battle with the guardian statue, summoning a quintet of fire elementals to surround the ironwyrm golem. Having done so, she climbed over the wall to the north. Thunderwolf and Chalkan followed suit on their drow floatdisks, while Telgrane and Infernia flew upon the archmage's carpet of flying.

The passageway to the north led to a short drop into a massive pool of magma, from the center of which thrust up an oblong slab of rock, tilted such that its highest point was towards the south and its lowest dipped into the magma pool along its northern edge. Climbing up from out of the magma pool onto this perch was another draconic form, this one also possessing a dark form, but closer examination showed it to be much too sinuous to be a mere construct like the ironwyrm golem. "Who dares enter the lair of Klautharnaeros?" the dragon demanded in its own Draconic tongue. Telgrane, Cal, and Feron, who all spoke that ancient language, were able to mentally translate the dragon's name as "The Black Thunderstorm of Fire" to the others over the Rary's telepathic bond.

Thunderwolf and Chalkan, perched upon their drow floatdisks over the magma pool, chose to let their bows answer for them, and several shafts went deep into the dragon's scaly hide. (Sadly, more than a few bounced harmlessly off of its scales as well.) Klautharnaeros responded with a blast of its breath weapon, which was unlike any seen thus far by any of the assembled heroes, consisting of both burning flames and a sonic attack that caused the ears to practically bleed in pain. This was the first pyroclastic dragon the heroes had ever encountered, and it was already proving to be a tougher opponent than any other dragon they'd fought to date.

Behind them, the ironwyrm golem struggled against the five fire elementals Feron had summoned. Each side was whittling down the other, but the process was a slow one and in the meantime the escape route was blocked off, forcing the heroes to continue battling Klautharnaeros in his own element. But Feron decided what had worked once should likely work again, and cast another summon nature's ally spell that brought five more Huge fire elementals rising up from the magma pool and striking out at the dragon.

Telgrane, meanwhile, cast a sunburst spell at the pyroclastic dragon, hoping - in vain, as it turned out - to overcome Klautharnaeros's inherent resistance to spells. The dragon responded with another breath weapon, and the heroes all groaned under the assault, not only by the pain the attack brought but also that the creature had been able to follow up with another blast so quickly after the first one. As the two archers continued to shoot arrows at the dragon, Chalkan - hurt badly by the blast and needing to heal up - sidled off to the left and hugged the cavern wall, hoping to put enough distance between him and his allies to be out of range of its next such attack. Telgrane likewise backed his carpet of flying up against the wall of stone to the south, believing that would be enough distance to keep both him and his familiar out of range of the dragon's breath weapon. He also tried his hand at a second sunburst spell, and this one overcame Klautharnaeros's spell resistance, causing the noble beast to become blind.

Despite his other enhanced senses, this infuriated the pyroclastic dragon to no end. He roared in frustration, but was being rapidly hurt by the numerous attacks coming in at him from all sides. At last, buckling to the inevitability of his situation, he called out, again in Draconic, "Cease your attacks! I would speak to your leader!"

Telgrane, Feron, and Cal all looked at each other, for although they had no "official" leader it would likely be one of them, as they were among the most powerful of the assembled group - indeed, of the entire assembly of the Greyhawk Adventurers Guild. Telgrane spoke up, repeating the earlier offer he had mistakenly tried upon the ironwyrm golem before realizing its true status: "Parley for your life!"

"Who are you, and what do you want here?" demanded Klautharnaeros.

"We seek the Elemental Fire Disc," boomed Cal, towering twice his normal size due to a recently-cast righteous might spell.

"We'll take it and half of your treasure, and you may live," offered up Telgrane. They were really only after the Elemental Fire Disc, but what the heck? They were here, doing fairly well, and a dragon's hoard was nothing to sneeze at.

"The fire disc?" asked Klautharnaeros, puzzled. He had a disc of fire in his hoard, but as far as he knew it was a mere bauble - it didn't even register as magic under a detect magic spell.

"I want my eyesight restored," demanded the dragon. The others could see him sucking up air in readiness to spew forth yet another blast of his foul breath weapon, but he merely held it in readiness instead of immediately releasing it. Seeing this, Chalkan continued his excursion around the side of the cavern, maneuvering himself behind Klautharnaeros and healing himself up with several charges from his staff of healing. Infernia, likewise, was sent back into her tinderbox for her own protection, for she was dangerously weak from the dragon's last blast and Telgrane feared she wouldn't survive another such attack. And even though the dragon was blind, he didn't like the way he held his head aimed in the archmage's direction, as if knowing exactly who was responsible for having blinded him.

"Agreed," replied Telgrane. "You go fetch the disc and the treasure, and then I'll restore your sight."

"No deal," replied Klautharnaeros. "Heal my vision first, then I'll go fetch the treasures you seek."

"How about we'll go fetch the treasure ourselves first?" suggested Telgrane. "Where is it kept?"

"In a separate chamber," replied Klautharnaeros. "You wouldn't be able to get past the guardians I have there."

"We can send our fire elemental," replied Cal, indicating Feron. The druidess shot daggers at the cleric with her eyes at the suggestion that she should risk her life to go fetch the treasure on her own, against unknown dangers.

"I will go with it," responded the dragon, thinking he would like having a hostage of sorts with him.

"Okay, this is getting us nowhere," said Telgrane over the link. "Should we just kill him?" The general consensus was yes.

"Very well," replied Telgrane aloud in the Draconic tongue, his voice carrying a tone of exasperation. "I'll cure your vision, but then you fetch us the treasure we're after."

"Agreed," replied Klautharnaeros. "But no funny business." He cocked his head, listening intensely as Telgrane cast his spell. It wasn't a healing spell of any type - Telgrane was a wizard, and such magics were beyond him - but rather a polar ray. Upon recognizing the first few arcane syllables, Klautharnaeros got out a single word - "Betrayal!" and the full force of his breath weapon, which was centered on Cal, the only one who had yet to veer out of the area where the dragon had breathed its pyroclastic flames before. He bore the brunt of them with a mere grunt of pain before Telgrane's polar ray brought the pyroclastic dragon down upon his stone perch, where he was dragged down under the magma by the encircling fire elementals.

"We still need to find the dragon's treasure hoard," pointed out Cal.

"I'll send the troops," suggested Feron, giving the appropriate commands to the five fire elementals who had fought Klautharnaeros. They dropped down below the top level of the magma, scouring the pool for hidden passageways. They soon found a submerged tunnel which led off to the west to another, smaller pool of magma. This was indeed guarded, just as the dragon had said it was, but the guards were merely four magma brutes, rather easily defeated by Feron's elemental force. They returned with a description of the location of the air-filled cavern just beyond, and Telgrane gathered everyone up around him and they all dimension doored over.

This was certainly the dragon's treasure hoard, for the floor was scattered with rare gemstones known as "flame diamonds." There was also an unusual preponderance of cinders; these turned out to be another form of guardian: tiny little fire elementals, each the size of an individual cinder, which formed a gestalt intelligence and attacked intruders who made it into the chamber. Still, even though they formed two separate swarms, each was easily taken out by cold-based spells, to which they were particularly susceptible. And that left only the treasure in the room with the heroes.

Besides the flame diamonds, there were a pair of ioun stones, one of which - a dark blue rhomboid - Thunderwolf claimed as his own, a gem of brightness, and a stone horse. And half-buried under a pile of flame diamonds was a plate-sized disc of burning fire. Once unearthed, it rose up into the air and went soaring straight at Telgrane. But rather than strike the archmage, it instead dove directly at the Elemental Earth Stone he carried, striking it, seeming to shatter into a myriad of individual flames, and then resuming its normal shape, only now with the Elemental Earth Stone embedded in the middle of the disc. Telgrane gave it an experimental tug; it looked as if the two had merged. So much for his idea of four of them each eventually wielding one of the four Elemental Items; it looked instead as if one of them would likely end up wielding all four. Still, he looked forward to assembling all four pieces, since he had been outvoted and never did get to assemble the three pieces of the "rod of the gods" they had found years ago in the mountains to the north of Kordovia.

"Well, that's two down," he replied. "Let's get this back to Altamaic and see what he can do about helping us track down the next one."

 

[Richards]

ADVENTURE 94: BETRAYAL

PC Roster:

Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian/sorcerer/arcane archer
Delphyne Babelberi, human witch (wizard)/arch-witch
Rale Bodkin, human rogue
Telgrane, half-fire elemental human conjurer/archmage
Thunderwolf, human fighter​

NPC Roster:

Desdemona Honeytongue, human wizard​

"A visitor to see you," announced the Guild page as he escorted a scruffy-looking individual into the Wing Three common living area and then departed with a frown. The visitor, a low-life thug named Byrek, wore a three-day growth of beard, a sleeveless jacket, and had the hilt of a dagger prominently jutting from his belt.

"Which one of you's Rale?" he asked, looking among the assembled adventurers. "Ah, that must be you," he replied, answering his own question. "I got a message for you." Reaching into his grimy vest, he pulled out a folded piece of parchment, passing it over to Rale. The rogue took it without breaking eye contact, his expression showing his feelings towards this swaggering intruder. But, not willing to open the parchment in case it was trapped with a fire trap or some sort of magical glyph or symbol, he professed an inability to read, passing the folded sheet over to Telgrane. The archmage, going along with Rale's ploy, opened the sheet and read it aloud to the others.

Rale,

We have your whore Dez. If you want to see her alive again, accompany the fine gentleman bearing this missive. Harm him in any way and Dez dies a painful and quite permanent death.

I hope to see you very soon.

-A-

Rale returned eye contact with Byrek, who smirked back at him in an insolent fashion. Rale's clenched fists demonstrated his desire to cut this scruffy thug into ribbons. Seeming to enjoy Rale's helplessness immensely, Byrek said, "The boss says all of you are to accompany Rale to pick up his little tramp. I don’t think you want to go against his wishes. And don't be thinking of trying anything stupid, because he's watching us even now."

Delphyne and Telgrane immediately glanced at each other, their unspoken expressions declaring, "A scrying spell!" The archmage looked around and spotted a magic sensor, invisible to all but his own enhanced eyes, floating above them in the middle of the living room.

"Let's go!" commanded Byrek, enjoying the feeling of power he held over these adventurers. He led them out of the Headquarters building and down the street, having them walk ahead of him so he could keep an eye on them. He called out directions, leading the group into the less savory section of the city. "It figures," sneered Delphyne. "I would expect someone like you to come from the Styes."

"Keep walking, less talking," replied Byrek.

The young thug led the group down twisting alleys and through filth-laden puddles in the muddy streets, eventually arriving at their apparent destination: a decrepit-looking warehouse guarded by a similarly scruffy-looking thug, Scroat. Seeing their arrival, Scroat pulled a bar off the sole visible door into the building, ushering the group inside and then barring it shut again once they were through the doorway. Then, their primary duty finished, Byrek and Scroat stood watch on either side of the warehouse door, making sure nobody else entered and, more importantly, that nobody inside left before their business had been completed.

"Any troubles?" asked Scroat, maneuvering to find a knothole in the side of the wooden wall through which he'd be able to see the excitement within.

"Nah, piece of cake," replied Byrek. "Easiest 50 gold I ever earned." He, too, scrambled to find a place in the weather-worn warehouse wall through which he could watch the upcoming festivities.

Inside, the warehouse was all but empty, with only a few abandoned crates in the back of the room, stacked up against the far wall. The only light came from the occasional hole in the roof, keeping the entire area cloaked in shadows. A group of hooded figures stood in the shadows back by the crates. The one on the far right of the line held a glowing dagger to the throat of a kneeling Desdemona Honeytongue, his other hand keeping a tight hold on her hair to prevent her from escaping. She whimpered in fear. The heroes recognized the type of dagger the hooded figure wielded: it was a soulslayer weapon - anyone slain by it would have her soul absorbed into the weapon, and from that point on it would be impossible to restore her to life without first gaining hold of the dagger and finding a way to release her from within its confines.

The figure holding the dagger called out to the group from across the warehouse. "Let's get the preliminaries over with first. Don't worry; you'll get your fight to the death, and who knows? Maybe you'll even come out victorious. But first, I want to make the introductions, so you can see just who it is killing you, and why. Any spellcasting, attacks, or interruptions of any kind and Rale's little tramp here gets it. But before we begin, let's establish one thing: go ahead and try to activate your Guild rings. Their power's negated here in this building. Go ahead, try – I'll wait."

"No need," replied Telgrane, whose enhanced vision had already noticed the fact that the warehouse interior was covered in a series of dimension lock spells. Teleporting from inside the warehouse would be impossible while they were in place. However, he also noted that the entire back wall and the crates just before it was broadcasting an aura of illusion magic. He wondered the meaning behind that, but then the primary antagonist began speaking again.

"I guess I'll go first," the figure menacing Dez said. "Telgrane: you don't know me, but you've done me a great harm, by stealing my property, and for that you're going to die." Releasing Dez's hair for a moment but keeping the blade of the soulslayer dagger at her throat, he pulled back his hood. "It's me, Infernia – Arcturian, your first human master."

Standing at Telgrane's side, Infernia gave a gasp of surprise at this revelation.

Addressing the fire elemental, Arcturian continued. "I want you to know, Infernia, in the battle to come, if you turn on your new master and come begging to me when it's all over, I might – might – just let you live to serve me once again."

"I would never betray you, Master!" insisted Infernia, looking down at Telgrane. He just gave her a nod of understanding, realizing there was likely a lot to this story and there was no time to get into it just now. But he trusted his familiar implicitly and stared at Arcturian, sizing him up. It was obvious that he'd be focusing his attacks on this Arcturian when the battle started up.

The next figure stepped forward and removed her hood. It was an all-too-familiar face: Chalkan's half-sister, Caeline Laniela. "Sorry, Chalkan," she said sheepishly, "but you well know that killing someone doesn't always mean they stay dead. Elandimor's back alive, and he's willing to let me back into his good graces if I bring him the White-Wood Whisperbow – and your head. Listen, I'm sure your companions can find a way to resurrect you later on, right?" She looked embarrassed to be among the group of robed kidnappers, but she gripped her bow tightly and had an arrow notched and ready to pull back and let fly.

"Son of a bitch," snarled Chalkan. "You may be my half-sister, but I am going to kill you for this," he promised Caeline.

The next figure in line removed his hood, revealing a stout dwarven warrior wielding a greataxe. He looked Thunderwolf straight in the eye and said, "I just want yer sword, Xanthros, boy. No hard feelings, but it's cheaper to take it from yer corpse than try to buy it off ye."

The next figure in line was no taller than the dwarf, but kept her hood on as she spoke to Delphyne. "You stupid, insipid little child. The stories are all true, you know: a witch gains her magical abilities by selling her soul to a fiend. Or, in your case, my naive little Prattle" – at which point she removed her hood, revealing the wrinkled face of Esmerelda Blinx – "having your grandmother sell it for you." Delphyne felt a shiver of cold run down her spine at the sight of this betrayal, unwilling to believe the grandmother who had raised her since she was eight years was doing this. The elder witch continued, "I want you to meet your new master, the one who will be enjoying your everlasting torment in the Nine Hells." She waved a withered hand to the wall behind her, through which stepped a massive form, 12 feet tall with wings unfurling lazily from around its body. Even in the dim light, it was unmistakably a pit fiend.

"I am Astimius the Soul-Flenser," the devil stated with a wide grin, staring hungrily at Delphyne. "I look forward to an infinity of entirely delicious moments, just you and I." Delphyne merely squinted her hatred at the pit fiend and at this impostor, for surely her beloved grandmother - who had risked her own life trapped in the stuffed form of her rabbit doll, Babbit, just to help save her granddaughter from the enemy who had killed the old witch - was not here now, threatening Delphyne with an eternity of torment. Whoever this was, it was an illusion or something - it had to be!

Arcturian spoke again. "And that leaves you, Rale. Do you know who wants you dead?" In answer, he removed the blade from Dez's throat and took a step back. Dez climbed to her feet and addressed Rale. "I do, you disgusting reprobate. You may consider this my resignation from service as your consort."

Then, as if an afterthought, she added, "And by the way: yes, size does matter, and no, that doesn't happen to all guys at some time or another!"

Rale's jaw clenched at this sudden betrayal, half believing in his mind that this couldn't be happening. Was there someone controlling Dez - a dominate person spell, perhaps? Could pit fiends do that? Was this whole thing some elaborate illusion?

"Well, now that that's all in the open," smirked Arcturian, "I suppose there's nothing preventing us from getting it on. Now, Infernia!"

Infernia jumped at the sound of her name, realizing a moment too late that Arcturian was merely trying to implant the idea that she was in cahoots with her erstwhile master, somehow back alive again years after she had killed him in his sleep. But she needn't have worried: Telgrane wasn't the least bit worried that Infernia, standing at his side, might do him harm. Instead, he focused his attention directly on Arcturian and began the words to a spell.

But the other side was already prepared for Arcturian's signal, and they attacked en masse. Astimius spoke a few words in a Hellish tongue, and a mass hold monster effect went flying at the opposition, successfully catching both Rale and, surprisingly, Telgrane in its clutches before he could finish his spell. Both figures froze into sudden immobility.

"I will protect you, Master!" promised Infernia, stepping protectively between Telgrane and the pit fiend, even though the devil was all the way down at the far end of the warehouse.

Esmerelda Blinx cast a spell at her granddaughter, and managed to get past the inherent spell resistance that Delphyne's magical garb afforded her. She stood, dazed and confused, staring in wonder at the chaos all around her, her intellect bleeding away as the feeblemind spell took hold. Instinctively, she wandered over to stand behind Thunderwolf, a thumb in her mouth and her only thoughts - if they could even be credited as such - being a slight concern over where her stuffed bunny might be hiding. She missed her stuffed bunny. He was soft.

Caeline took a shot at her half-brother, Chalkan, who nearly dodged entirely out of the way while he grabbed for an arrow of his own; hers pierced the side of his arm as he returned fire. And the dwarf, in the meantime, went barreling towards Thunderwolf, a greataxe in one hand and a tanglefoot bag swinging over his head in the other.

Dez took the opportunity to blast Rale with a lightning bolt spell, and then, as if reading his very thoughts, yelled at him, "You don't know everything I'm capable of, Rale!" And it was true: the rogue had been thinking that the lightning bolt spell wasn't one that he had been aware that Dez knew, as Dez's spell selections had generally been made based on how they would help her on the stage. As such, she tended to focus on illusions, but this was definitely no illusion, for Rale felt the electricity surge through his paralyzed body. Screw this! thought the rogue. Despite being magically prevented from moving, he mentally activated the rod of thievery he held in his left hand and faded from view. Then, invisible, he mentally activated the winged boots he wore and lifted himself into the air above the rest of the combatants. He might not be able to fight back - yet - but he sure as hell wasn't going to allow himself to be an immobile target for Dez's spells!

Chalkan became a blaze of motion, firing off a hail of arrows that struck at each of the enemy combatants. A lucky hit snagged Esmerelda in the throat and she fell to the ground, drawing her last ragged gasps of breath. And then, incredibly, as she hit the ground her entire form seemed to become liquid, her features and even her clothing sinking into a sleek, gray-skinned body with an oversized head. Rale, still invisible and still flying through the air at the upper edge of the warehouse, saw the sudden transformation back into doppelganger form and everything clicked into place. He wished Telgrane had been able to cast a Rary's telepathic bond spell so he could inform the others, but there had been no opportunity before the battle began and Telgrane was as unable to move as was the airborne rogue.

But just because Telgrane couldn't move didn't mean he couldn't fight. Channeling the fiery energies he held within his half-elemental body, he summoned forth a firestorm that covered all of the enemies but Morros the dwarf, who had moved up to face Thunderwolf and was even now being peppered with arrows. As the dwarf's lifeless body fell to the ground and resumed its doppelganger form, the rest of the combatants blossomed into a wave of flames. Astimius was naturally unfazed by the attack, but the others took serious amounts of damage; Infernia was pleased to see Arcturian stagger under the onslaught of her beloved Master. She sent a blast of energy from her own major circlet of blasting screaming over at her former master, but Arcturian had a spell turning spell active and it rebounded directly back at the fire elemental. Infernia staggered from her own blast, and despite Telgrane's inability to speak - for he was still having a difficult time breaking free from the devil's magical immobilization, she could feel his concern for her through the link they shared as master and familiar. Begrudgingly, she reached over to her Master's belt, popped open the lid to the tinderbox he wore there, and resumed cinder form, leaping into the metal box. The lid closed above her, and she was safe for the moment.

The next to fall was Arcturian. He had a bevy of protective spells up, from the common mage armor and shield spells to the more esoteric ones like protection from energy (focused on sonic attacks, having heard of Telgrane's penchant for converting the energy from his various combat spells into sonic energy) and protection from spells. He had come to this fight expecting to outclass Infernia's new master in front of her, and he was spectacularly prepared for such a combat. It therefore came as a complete surprise for him to realize he had not done as much in the way of preparing against more standard attacks as he could have, and Chalkan's continued barrage of arrows from the White-Wood Whisperbow cut him down in the span of seconds. Pierced by nearly a dozen arrows in as many seconds, the sorcerer collapsed in a pool of his own blood. He did not transform upon his death, for this was no mere doppelganger but Infernia's true original master, who had hired the doppelganger group as backup with which to get his revenge upon Telgrane and a bunch of his companions as well.

Once Arcturian's lifeless body had hit the floor, however, a strange thing happened: a visible cloud arose from his body, nebulous and shifting in form but recognizable as the sorcerer's tortured face upon a gaseous body. This ghostly form raced backwards across the warehouse, to be absorbed into a ring that the pit fiend Astimius wore upon his thumb. The devil looked down at his left hand and smiled a wicked smile, anticipating the fun he would have with this new acquisition, for upon his summoning by the sorcerer Arcturian, he had been promised the souls of those slain here in the warehouse. Arcturian no doubt had intended for the souls of five of these adventurers to be the pit fiend's payment, but Astimius had no preferences: a mortal soul was a mortal soul, and he'd have centuries of enjoyment from whichever ones he could get his hands on. Flexing his left hand, the pit fiend smiled even broader at the sight of the other four such rings he wore on that hand, then decided to go collect some more. Spreading his wings, he flew across the warehouse to land in front of Thunderwolf, who unsheathed Xanthros in the light of this new threat.

The fighter got in a good thrust with his sentient longsword, but then Astimius was set to rend his flesh for the effrontery - up until a spell suddenly struck him in the head, overcoming his ability to resist the effects of such magics and sending him away. One moment he had been ready to gut Thunderwolf; the next he was in a misty labyrinth, with twisting passageways stretching off in all directions. Cursing as only a devil could, he turned to find his way out of the accursed maze spell.

Telgrane had snapped out of his magically-induced paralyzation just in time.

Rale was just seconds behind him; once he was back to being able to move his limbs at will he landed next to the archmage and resumed visible form. With the pit fiend trapped inside the maze spell, the group had a moment to catch their breaths and regroup. While Chalkan traded arrow-shots with Caeline, Telgrane used a limited wish to undo the effects of the feeblemind spell cast by the doppelganger sorcerer who had worn the form of Esmerelda Blinx. Delphyne snapped back to her own faculties, and then gladly blasted Dez to pieces with one of her most powerful spells. She was only a bit disheartened to see "Dez" revert to doppelganger form upon her death, but it still felt pretty good to have been able to do that, even if it wasn't the real Desdemona Honeytongue.

In the meantime, Caeline, the last of Arcturian's doppelganger minions, was brought down by none other than Chalkan, whose bow had been put to exceptional use during this entire ambush.

Rale pulled out a scroll from his pack and offered it to Telgrane. "Magic circle against evil," he explained. "Cast it on one of us, and then the pit fiend shouldn't be able to get to us, as long as we stick together."

"Better yet," replied Telgrane, "We know where the pit fiend is going to reappear once it finds it was back from the maze." He walked over to the spot where Astimius had disappeared. "If we cast it here, focused inwards, he won't be able to leave. And then we can just wait for the duration of Arcturian's summoning spell, or planar ally, or whatever he used to get that thing here, to expire." It was a good plan, so that's what they decided to do. However, the scroll had gotten creased inside Rale's pack, obscuring one of the symbols, and as a result the casting of the spell was ineffective, for Telgrane misread one of the verbal components to the spell.

There was a fair bit of anxiety among the heroes after that, since they had no other magic circle against evil spells prepared and Rale had had just the one scroll. They readied their weapons and spells, standing in a circle around the point in space where Astimius would reappear.

Inside the extradimensional maze, Astimius was getting frustrated; it shouldn't be this difficult to escape this magical construction. But try as he might, each time he thought he'd found the way out it turned out to be a dead end.

Back in the warehouse, Delphyne had a question. "Hey, I thought this place was covered in dimensional lock spells," she said. "How'd you get a maze spell to even work?"

"Dimensional lock spells can only cover so much of an area," the archmage replied. "Arcturian had to cast the spell multiple times to cover the entire warehouse. I merely dispelled the dimensional lock spell covering the area where the pit fiend was standing, before hitting him with the maze."

"So where is he?" asked Rale. "Are we going to stand here all day, waiting?"

"We don't know how long ago Arcturian summoned the pit fiend, or how long he'd be allowed to stay here on the Material Plane," explained Telgrane. "Maybe the original spell wore off, and he returned to the Nine Hells. Or maybe he's still in the maze, trying to get out."

"Shouldn't he have been able to have gotten out by now?" asked Delphyne.

"I'd have thought so," admitted Telgrane, puzzled.

Inside the extradimensional maze, Astimius the Soul-Flenser had taken a final turn and the exit stood open before him. "At last!" he grumbled, flapping his wings to exit the confounding structure. He left the arcane labyrinth, resumed his original position in the warehouse...

...and then immediately vanished again, this time returning to his own dwelling in the Nine Hells. He only had time to get out a "Bloody Hell!" as his mortal opponents faded from view from around him as quickly as they had come into focus.

In the warehouse, the heroes gave each other puzzled glances. "Is he gone?" Thunderwolf asked.

"I guess so," admitted Telgrane. "Come on, I want to see what's behind that back wall - it's really just an illusion."

"Oh yeah, so it is!" replied Rale, focusing his gaze hard upon the back wall, which shimmered under his focused concentration.

There was another ten feet of warehouse behind the illusory wall spell, which contained a wooden crate chained shut with a padlock. Telgrane cast two knock spells in quick sequence, unlocking first the padlock and then the crate's top. Rale pulled off the top, only to discover, curled up and still unconscious after having received a blow to the head, one Desdemona Honeytongue.

Chalkan cast a healing spell upon her, and she sat up, woozily, one hand holding the back of her head.

"She's alive!" cried Rale happily.

"Oh, yippee," grumbled Delphyne quietly to herself.

- - -

I think I had some worried players at first with this adventure. "Dez's" initial betrayal (and "I quit!" speech) got a laugh from everyone at the table, but I could see Dan trying to figure out how this had happened in the game world. Likewise, Vicki was surprised to see "Esmerelda Blinx" show up, alive and now apparently evil, but I don't think she believed for a moment that that was really Delphyne's grandmother, thinking it had to be an illusion or something. Jacob seemed to fully "buy in" to the idea that Chalkan's half-sister was trying to kill him, and he was just determined to get Chalkan to kill her before she could kill him. Besides the concept of "this is all an illusion," Dan threw out doppelgangers as a possibility, and I just put on my best poker face and pressed on.

This adventure came about as a result of Logan deciding, on the spur of the moment when running Telgrane and Infernia through "Eye of Vecna" that Infernia had had another master before Telgrane. That prompted me to want to do something with that information, which led to Arcturian's death, resurrection (one of his own colleagues had had him raised from the dead), and desire for revenge against Inferina and whoever was using her as his familiar in the meantime. The doppelganger group just gave me something fun to throw at the other players at the same time.

I was a bit concerned when the battle erupted and three of the PCs were almost immediately taken out of the fight, especially since Astimius was wearing those "soul capturing rings." I was afraid at least one of the PCs would end up dead with his or soul captured by Astimius, who would then toddle off back to Hell (even if slain), which would mean an immediate rescue attempt and me scripting up a new adventure post-haste. But things turned out okay on that front, although we had several characters (Delphyne and Infernia) in single-digit hit points during the course of the battle.

In any case, I'm sure Astimius is having a whole lot of fun with Arcturian's soul down there in the Nine Hells. Oh, which reminds me: I owe everyone a story about Arcturian and Infernia. Arcturian was originally a neutral-aligned sorcerer with the Improved Familiar feat, and summoned Infernia as his familiar. The fact that she took on the form of a Small female human (with curving horns) was originally at Arcturian's request; now it's just a form with which Infernia is used to. (And thus it was the form she arrived in when Telgrane summoned her to be his own improved familiar.) But over time, Arcturian became obsessed with increased personal power, and his alignment changed from neutral to neutral evil. Infernia fought the shift in alignment as she became first concerned and then repulsed by the means Arcturian was using to increase his own power. As a result, as Arcturian gradually shifted to evil, Infernia found her own beliefs shifting towards good. Eventually, she decided to take matters into her own hands (quite literally), and late one night she removed the ring of fire protection Arcturian wore, then burned him to death in his sleep.

I'm sure Telgrane will be sure to keep that in mind, should he ever decide to toy with the idea of shifting his alignment over towards the evil side of things....

 

[Richards]

ADVENTURE 95: FISHING EXPEDITION

PC Roster:

Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord
Feron Dru, half-elf druid
Galrich Slayer, half-orc barbarian
Telgrane, half-fire elemental human conjurer/archmage
Thunderwolf, human fighter​

NPC Roster:

Aerik Battershield, dwarven fighter/dwarven defender​

The six heroes sat across the conference table from Brother Altamaic in the Church Library of Boccob, eager to hear what he had to say. "In accordance with the hinted-at sequence with which the items should be collected," he began, "I believe we're ready to send you to seek the Elemental Water Halo. However, there is one concern: the plane shift spell will send you to the Elemental Plane of Water – and specifically in the vicinity of the Elemental Water Halo, if it is in fact on that plane – but I'm concerned about the effects being submerged will have upon the Elemental Fire Disc, which is already bonded to the Elemental Earth Stone. I would hate for the Elemental Fire Disc to be extinguished by complete submersion in water, so I've found what seems to be a possible solution. Tell me, are you familiar with the spell Otiluke’s telekinetic sphere?"

The Boccobian cleric explained his plan. He handed over a scroll containing the Otiluke's telekinetic sphere spell to Telgrane, who began studying it at once. The archmage would read, activate, and concentrate upon that spell while Cal would cast the plane shift spell, focused through the two Elemental Items already gathered, shunting the heroes to the Elemental Plane of Water. In theory, the sphere would keep the Elemental Earth Stone and Elemental Fire Disc dry, long enough for the adventurers to stash them into extradimensional storage. Feron would then cast an attune form upon them all, so they would be able to breathe the water when they exited the sphere or Telgrane dismissed his spell. As usual, Altamaic would not be accompanying the heroes on their mission.

"Seems like a plan," commented Cal, eager to go. "Is everybody ready?"

Everybody was. In sequence, the three spellcasters intoned the appropriate arcane or divine words and within moments the Church library of Boccob had disappeared, to be replaced by an endless expanse of water. The group, which had centered around Telgrane so they'd all be inside the telekinetic sphere when he activated it, looked in all directions.

"Anybody see anything?" asked Cal.

"Nothing but water. Lots of it," replied Galrich.

At nine feet tall, Infernia towered over the others. Nonetheless, she started whimpering in fear at the very thought of being surrounded by an infinite amount of water on all sides.

"I'm about to release the sphere," warned Telgrane, seeing that Feron had stashed the two Elemental Items into her handy haversack. "Infernia? Are you going to be okay?"

"I...I will do my best to be brave, Master," Infernia responded in a fearful voice. Anticipating that their next mission would take them to the Elemental Plane of Water, Telgrane had fitted out his familiar with a necklace of adaptation, much like the one Cal wore. It would provide the fire elemental with a constant bubble of air all around her flaming body, such that she need not fear even the slightest touch of actual water from the plane, which in her case would be likely to be instantly fatal. But knowing she was safe was much different than actually facing all of that water....

Telgrane dispelled the sphere, and water raced in to fill what had been a bubble of air. Infernia shrieked but stood her ground; Telgrane smiled up at his familiar to reassure her that everything was all right. Cautiously opening her eyes, she was pleased to see that once more, her Master had been absolutely correct. Surrounded by water in all directions, Infernia was still as dry as ever.

"So now what?" asked Aerik. "I don't see no Water Halo. I don't see much o' anything."

"No, wait -- look!" said Feron, pointing off in the distance. "There's something there."

Indeed there was, and it was getting closer. Starting off as little more than a speck, it increased in apparent size as it got closer and closer to the heroes, until it took on a somewhat familiar form. The coloration was wrong - although the ambient light of the plane seemed to make everything look like a shade of green or blue - but as the undulating form got closer, it looked very much like a purple worm. Only this one dwarfed the purple worms the group had met up with thus far, easily double the size of the standard such creature. It swam much in the manner of an eel, writhing back and forth in an undulating fashion. But its mouth was big enough to swallow any four of the adventurers in one gulp, and its enormous teeth looked capable of chomping a hero in twain with one bite.

Feron wildshaped in a Huge water elemental as it neared, thinking to take on the one form unarguably adept at combat in this watery realm. Aerik and Infernia maneuvered in front of Galrich and Telgrane, respectively, although it took a moment to master moving around in the aquatic realm, for it wasn't exactly like swimming - you didn't sink if you stopped moving, for one thing. But the worm had been far enough away upon being sighted that the group was able to experiment a bit and position themselves to best effect before it reached them.

Then, before it got within snapping range, Cal cast a blade barrier directly in front of the mottled worm. The ponderous beast didn't even try to evade the spell effect, plowing directly into it and having chunks of flesh strewn in all directions. But still it came on, and the group dove to either side to avoid its massive head.

Feron began the words of a call lightning storm spell, then remembered her location and thought better of it. Instead, she summoned a giant octopus to grab at the worm's head, and when that proved to be fairly ineffectual, followed it up with another summoning spell that brought forth an elder water elemental which proved to be capable of inflicting much more damage upon the vermiform beast. Feron then followed the water elemental's lead, and they pummeled both sides of the worm with fists of churning water.

Galrich and Thunderwolf had likewise moved to either side of the worm and each began peppering its head with arrows from a short distance, all the while the blade barrier spell continued chopping up worm flesh and flinging it aside. It was Aerik who first noticed that the worm wasn't the only thing that had approached the group upon their arrival on the plane.

Directly following the mottled worm's course was an unusual vehicle. Its was primary constructed from the shell of a truly enormous horseshoe crab - or some elemental equivalent - measuring well over 100 feet from front to back, not including the 75-foot tail trailing behind it. But the fact that this was no living thing was obvious from the twin bars jutting out to each side of its front, just ahead of and below each eye-hole, and the two gigantic eels tethered to these bars. The dire eels undulated through the water, pulling the crab-construct between them. Part of the crab's front shell had been removed and replaced with some sort of transparent material, forming a "window" of sorts through which could be seen a blue, bald, humanoid figure sitting on an elaborate throne within.

This was Sharndishal, the marid responsible for the construction of the unusual vessel. He snapped orders to his crew, two dozen or so anguillians; the two Eel-Masters up front with him barked instructions to their respective charges and the dire eels maintained position, bringing the vessel's movement to a halt. In the rear of the craft, the rest of the anguillian crew unbolted the hatch on the bottom of the vessel and started disembarking from the submersible. Wicked spears in hand, they began bridging the gap between their forces and their mottled worm prey.

On the other side of the worm, Aerik had informed the rest of the group - who up until now had been focused on the dying worm - and they brought their attention to the force of advancing eel-men. "Gather around me!" called out Telgrane, backing further away from the worm. The group did so, Galrich getting in a final blow with his vorpal greataxe, recently upgraded to include the elemental bane weapon property, as he backed away towards the rest of the group. While waiting for the others to approach, Telgrane dropped down underneath the dying worm (still stupidly getting chopped to pieces by Cal's blade barrier) so he could get a good look at the approaching anguillian force. Then he cast a sunburst spell that encompassed the entire group of eel-men. Such was the raw power of his spell that each and every member of the anguillian strike force - as well as the two dire eels attached to the submersible - were instantly blinded. Unable to see, several of the eel-men dropped their spears and clawed at their no-longer-working eyes. Others bravely attempted to continue their forward assault, but they frequently bumped into each other and tumbled into a tangle of limbs. Feron summoned an elder water elemental to their side, and instructed it to assume vortex form, sweeping the assembled eel-men into the swirling tides and away from the battle.

Inside the control cabin, Sharndishal swore and ordered the vessel to be swung around to bring the craft's tail into play. Then, as it started turning in place to the right, he used a dimension door to appear directly before these interlopers to his aquatic realm.

However, in the same moment he appeared before the heroes, Telgrane cast a spell of his own: coincidentally, a dimension door that took the assembled heroes directly into the control cabin that Sharndishal had just abandoned! The marid swore furiously at this turn of events.

Appearing inside the vessel's control room, the heroes saw only two anguillians there to confront them. These were the Eel-Masters, each assigned to command one of the two dire eels that gave the vessel its means of propulsion. Thunderwolf shot arrows at the one at the right, while Infernia unloosed the daily-replenished energy from her major circlet of blasting at the other. The anguillians raced to attack these interlopers with their claws and lamprey-like mouths. The one Thunderwolf had shot had his revenge, clamping its wicked mouth down upon the young fighter's neck just above his armor, but Feron managed to quickly pull it off of her friend, her massive, watery arms crushing it in tight against her liquid body and holding it helpless in her grasp. Galrich and Aerik raced over with their axes raised, and Feron flung the eel-man at them; he didn't long survive their chopping blades. The other was cut down by the power of Cal's enchanted hammer.

When Sharndishal dimension doored back into his command chair, he saw an image of total carnage. By this point, the only anguillian remaining was the one at the very rear of the vessel, manning the whipping tail as a weapon. (The blind dire eels had by this point managed to turn the vessel around so the ship's tail could be brought to bear against where the heroes had been, but of course they were no longer there.) In the short span of time it took the marid to apprise himself of the hopelessness of his situation, he was shot three times with arrows by Thunderwolf and had been blasted by a spell cast by Cal. He raised his hands, starting to offer to grant the group a wish if they'd spare his life.

Unfortunately, Sharndishal chose to speak in his native tongue, Aquan. Aerik didn't speak Aquan. By the time those of the group who did had translated it for the dwarven bodyguard, his battleaxe had separated the marid's head from his shoulders.

"Oh. Bummer," was all he had to say after the fact.

What followed was a frantic search for the Elemental Water Halo. Exploring every nook and cranny of the vessel turned up the anguillian's treasure (mostly consisting of oversized pearls) and the sole remaining anguillian (who was quickly slain), but nothing else.

"You don't think it's inside the worm, do you?" asked Feron. The worm was dead by this point, but still hovering in place due to the weird gravity - or lack of it - on the plane. Not really relishing wading through the slain mottled worm's innards, Feron and Telgrane each summoned a small swarm of water elementals to do the job for them - with no luck.

"So it's not here after all?" griped Galrich.

"It would appear not," reasoned Telgrane. "The plane shift spell was to have sent us close to the Elemental Water Halo if it was present here on this plane. You saw where we popped in - there was absolutely nothing remotely near us but that worm, and the crab-ship directly behind it. I'd say this whole expedition was a bust."

"Can we go home now, then, Master?" begged Infernia. "I do not like it here."

That seemed like a good idea to all involved. Dripping wet (all but Infernia, at least), the group returned to the Material Plane, binked back to Guild Headquarters, then trudged off to their individual rooms. On the way, Galrich asked, "So now what? How are we going to find the Water Halo if it isn't on the plane where it's supposed to be?"

"I'm not sure," admitted Telgrane. "We'll have to ask Brother Altamaic in the morning if he has any ideas. Otherwise, there are an infinite number of planes out there -- it'll take us forever to try them all out, one by one."

- - -

I messed up with this adventure, big-time, in a way that irritated me to no end. Looking for a new creature for the high-powered group to fight, I came up with the idea for a ridiculously-advanced mottled worm. In the past, when the group has fought purple worms (and greater flame snakes) I had used a series of ovals of construction paper with small notches at the shorter ends, which enabled me to connect them into a "string" forming the worm's (or snake's) body. Then I added a similarly-sized head and tail section and I was all set with a "bendable" flat mini I could maneuver around the game map.

This time, I had done something similar but so much cooler. I had found a close-up black-and-white photo of a purple worm miniature on-line, which I saved, blew up to a full sheet of paper, and cut out. As the mini was just the creature's head and about twice that much length of body popping up out of the ground, I copied the image and, in Paint, "erased" its head, leaving a section of body with overlapping scales. I copied and pasted this "body section" image several times, scaling it down in size after awhile, and in this fashion made a lengthy vermiform body that tapered to be much thinner as it got to the tail. Like my "oval segments" bodies, this mottled worn was able to be repositioned around the game map depending upon which way its body was bent.

To go with it, I created two dire eels from green construction paper to go with the massive horseshoe crab "vessel" I had built on the back of a sheet of desk calendar paper. (It was so large I had to glue on its "tail" from a similarly-sized sheet of paper as well as the two dire eel rods that stuck out from the front.)

And then, because we had scheduled an extra-long gaming session in which we were going to finish up "Disc o' Inferno," run through "Betrayal," and then finish up with "Fishing Expedition" (the last two designed to be short adventures), I accidentally left the manila envelope in which my dire eels and mottled worm pieces were stored at home. So we had to use the 3" x 3" and 2" x 2" colored tiles we use as "tokens" to show the sizes of summoned creatures that we don't have appropriate minis for to represent where the mottled worm's body was. I also lined up dice to show where the dire eels were, but since they were attached to the sides of the vessel they were easier for the players to visualize.

But still, I was ticked with myself for having left my eels and worm behind! I brought them with me during our next gaming session, just to show the other players how they had turned out. The adventure session would have been so much cooler if I'd have had those with me.

Now I guess I'll just have to find a way to include an advanced mottled worm into our next campaign.

 

[Richards]

ADVENTURE 96: FREAK MOUNTAIN

PC Roster:

Feron Dru, half-elf druid
Galrich Slayer, half-orc barbarian
Rale Bodkin, human rogue
Telgrane, half-fire elemental human conjurer/archmage
Thunderwolf, human fighter​

NPC Roster:

Aerik Battershield, dwarven fighter/dwarven defender​

Gorgoldand had once again come to visit the Greyhawk City Adventurers Guild Headquarters, and in his human form – that of an elderly sage with a flowing, white beard. He sat at a conference table with the assembled members of Wing Three.

"I trust you were happy with the conditions upon which you were last employed by me, to fetch the Orb of White Dragonkind?" he asked. "Because if so, I would like to hire you for a similar mission, if you're up to it.

"The various Orbs are each said to be one of a kind, scattered across the planes. To find another one here on Oerth would be quite astounding; nonetheless, I have unearthed indications that such may very well be the case."

He passed over a map of a volcanic island. "The Orbs, as artifacts, cannot be directly scried upon," he continued. "However, a red dragon by the name of Balajharrithux lairs in the center of this volcano, far to the east in the midst of the Oljatt Sea, and he has recently added to his hoard a reddish, spherical gem that matches the description of the Orb of Red Dragonkind. I would like you to go to this volcano and fetch this gemstone for me. I have already spoken to your Guildmaster Farthingale, and he has authorized each of you who goes on this mission a payment of 20,000 gp from the amount I will pay the Guild for your services, should the gem in fact be the Orb of Red Dragonkind as I believe it likely to be.

"However, once again, the lair's interior is resistant to scrying attempts. I cannot provide you with any details on the volcano's interior, but I can provide you with enough of a look of its exterior to provide you sufficient readiness to teleport there yourselves." With that, he reached into his robes, pulled out a crystal ball, and cast a withered hand over it; immediately, the sphere clouded over to reveal an image of a volcanic island rising up from the sea, as seen from several hundred feet up and about half a mile away.

"Do you have any questions?" Gorgoldand asked, putting away his crystal ball. "If not, then I will wish you good luck; I will check back with Farthingale periodically to check on your progress."

As Gorgoldand excused himself and left the room, the heroes immediately began choosing who would be going on this expedition. Cal begged off, citing other things he needed to do involving the running of his new business, but reluctantly agreed to hang around as backup for Rale while he went to check out the volcano. Rale even talked him into wearing the scout goggles and observing their progress. But Cal suggested waiting until the next morning to head off; not only would that allow him to get done what he needed to get done today, but it would also free him up to start the group off with a heroes' feast spell. The rest of the group heartily agreed.

Cal staying behind usually meant Feron going in his place, as she was the group's second-most powerful healer. Thunderwolf and Telgrane were both givens, which left only Chalkan and Galrich to work out among themselves who'd be going along. "Dragon hoard?" asked Galrich. "I'm in!" Then he stared down the half-elf arcane archer, defying him to argue with nearly 300 pounds of solid muscle and bad attitude. And his equally stubborn dwarven bodyguard.

"Fine!" grumbled Chalkan, realizing there was no winning that argument. He stormed back to the Wing three living quarters, since it didn't look like he'd be adventuring any time soon.

- - -

The next day began with a heroes' feast spell, as Cal had promised. After realizing how many individuals Cal's spell could affect, Telgrane had come up with a way for Infernia to share in the benefits: he cast a polymorph spell on his fire elemental familiar, temporarily giving her a human form so that she could actually eat and drink for once - something no elemental actually needed to do. Upon finishing his spell, Infernia's flames went out, her nine-foot-tall frame shrunk down to slightly over five feet, and her long, curving horns receded into her head, which suddenly sprouted waves of cascading curly, red hair, reaching halfway down her back. And there she stood, clad only in her major circlet of blasting, her necklace of adaptation, and the ring of fire resistance which helped her not set ablaze everything she touched.

"Look, Master, I am like you!" she enthused, feeling the warm flesh of her arm with her human fingers as she sat down to the table, totally unaware of and completely unconcerned about her own nakedness. The others were most certainly aware of it, but a glare from Feron kept everyone from commenting and embarrassing the fire elemental. Still, the druid noticed Rale was sure to grab up a seat next to Infernia - where he had the best view.

"Won't Dez be joining us?" she asked Rale, having to ask a second time before he registered the question and snapped his attention back to the rest of the group.

"Huh? No, uh, she's had enough dragon hunting after that encounter with Antharvalos," he replied. "Plus, after being knocked out by those doppelgangers the other week, I think she's better off staying out of danger for a bit. I've got Streetweasel and Roughknuckles looking after her while we're gone."

"Ah," said Feron, and said no more, returning her attention to the meal.

After polishing off the last scraps of Cal's heroes' feast, the assembled group was ready to go. They got up from the table and stood in a group around Telgrane, waiting for him to cast the greater teleport spell. But first he returned Infernia to her normal form - much to Rale's chagrin. And then, at the last minute, Galrich told everyone to hold off and raced out of their living quarters, only to return several minutes later with Fang at his side. "I've decided to bring him along," the half-orc explained.

After deciding to show up in mid-air instead of on the island itself, everyone got out their appropriate gear: Galrich and Aerik mounted their drow floatdisks, Feron wildshaped into a Huge air elemental, and Telgrane and Infernia got upon his carpet of flying. Rale was already wearing his winged boots, so he waited impatiently for the others to get ready.

"What about you?" he asked Thunderwolf. The fighter merely held up Xanthros, his sentient longsword, and replied, "I'll be fine." Rale didn't push the issue.

"Hey, what about Fang?" asked Galrich.

"Are you really sure you want to bring him along?" asked Telgrane.

"Yes," glared Galrich, daring the archmage to argue otherwise - he'd really perfected his glare lately. And then he looked pointedly at Felix, Feron's eagle animal companion, who was perched upon his mistress's shoulder, as if there were really no difference between bringing along an eagle and a dire wolf to a mid-air location.

"Fine," sighed Telgrane, absently casting a fly spell onto the dire wolf. "Now can we go?" Receiving no argument, he closed his eyes, visualized the image of the volcanic island from Gorgoldand's crystal ball, and cast the greater teleport spell. In an instant, they were gone.

"Have fun!" said Cal, dropping the scout goggles into place over his eyes and plopping himself onto the sofa to watch the excitement from the safety of the Wing Three living quarters.

- - -

Despite having left early in the morning, the sun was now in position in the sky as if it were suddenly late afternoon. The group materialized into place about half a mile away from the island and about 500 feet above the surface of the ocean below.

Fang howled in sudden fear and dropped several dozen feet before the fly spell kicked in; Galrich, sharing an empathic link of a sort due to the paired gems (courtesy of one Piddilink Dundernoggin) both he and his dire wolf wore on their foreheads, managed to convey the means of flight to his lupine companion, and before long Fang was happily doing loop-de-loops in the sky with his tongue lolling out to the side.

Thunderwolf had likewise started to fall upon arrival, but he summoned forth Xanthros's aerial steed and a bolt of lightning exploded from the longsword, coalescing into the shape of a full-sized horse that strode effortlessly through the sky with the fighter on its back. But this was no physical being, rather a magical, horse-shaped force composed of lightning, sparking endlessly across what would be the skin of the equine creature. With a grin on his face, Thunderwolf rode his magical mount, whom he referred to as "Electrosteed", back up to the same aerial height as his companions.

"Hold back," cautioned Feron to the others over the Rary's telepathic bond spell Telgrane had just brought into being. "There's something in a large nest on the side of the volcano -- see it?"

After a quick conference, it was decided that Rale would go check it out. Using his rod of thievery, he faded from the visible spectrum, although Telgrane's magically enhanced eyes still saw him just fine. He cautiously approached the nest, which he saw as he got closer was comprised of large branches and entire small trees. "It's a griffon -- and a big one at that!" he mentally told the others.

"But hold on, that's not all!" he added a few moments later, after skirting the outer rim of the the volcano's crater. On the far side of the crater, a stone ledge jutted out to the side, forming the crude bed of a large, red-scaled, draconic form. The monster's eyes were closed, and its massive chest rose and fell in a slow rhythm; it was obviously just asleep, not dead. Rale updated the others over the link, not only about the sleeping dragon but also about what he saw when he peeked over the edge of the crater, for about 200 feet straight down was a pool of magma at the bottom of the volcano, and jutting forth over a section of that pool was a stone ledge -- and sitting at the edge of that stone ledge was a smooth, round, red gem, seemingly about the same size as the Orb of White Dragonkind had been.

After another silent conference, the group decided upon a plan of action. Rale was all for taking the dire griffon out of action before anything, not wanting it to be around to attack them from behind while their attention was focused elsewhere. While he was aware that any prolonged fighting would likely wake the sleeping dragon, he was hoping to be able to dispatch the dire griffon before the dragon could fully awaken, so they'd only be fighting one of them at a time. To that end, he had the rest of the group come in low, skimming over to the island mere feet above the ocean, then flying up the slope of the volcano until they were about 100 feet beneath the dire griffon's nest - a reasonable distance, Rale figured, where they'd be close enough to assist quickly yet not so close they'd likely alert the creature to the upcoming attack. And then, assured that everyone was in position, he struck.

The griffon gave a piercing shriek as Rale's blades slid into either side of its neck, the rogue returning to full visibility as he struck. As feared, the sound instantly woke the dragon sleeping above, who rolled over and stood upon its hind legs - its only legs, as it turned out, for upon rising it was apparent that this was no dragon but rather a wyvern, although one easily three times the size of the majority of its race. Oddly, instead of the normal scorpionlike tail sported by the smaller members of its race, this one had multiple tail spikes like a manticore.

Not waiting for the dire wyvern to enter the fray, the others rose up from their hiding places down the volcanic mountain and attacked. Feron flew over to give Rale a hand with finishing off the dire griffon, while Thunderwolf, Aerik, Galrich and Fang all flew up to the level of the crater rim and were met by the angry dire wyvern. It snapped at Galrich, who managed to duck back at the last moment and then retaliate with a powerful swipe of his vorpal greataxe.

The combat in the dire griffon's nest was mercifully short - the great beast was woefully outclassed and soon collapsed to the floor of its dwelling, life-blood pooling among the woven sticks and branches. Rale stuck around only long enough to scan the nest for any treasure that might be laying around; seeing none, he reactivated his winged boots and went flying up the side of the volcano, moving clockwise along the crater in an effort to sneak up behind the dire wyvern, who was managing to hover in place just above the crater's rim, while the quartet fighting it - three heroes and a dire wolf - hovered just outside of the rim. Aerik and Galrich attacked with their swords, while Thunderwolf led Electrosteed back just enough that he was out of range of the dire wyvern's snapping bite yet close enough for the fighter to continue shooting arrows its way. Fang bit at the reptile, but was severely slashed by the beast's sharp claws, so Galrich had to call him back from the front lines and sent him to the dire griffon's nest to lick his wounds. He did just that, activating the heal spell stored in his collar, and then helped himself to some delicious dire griffon flesh for his efforts thus far.

Rale found out the hard way that there was another wrinkle in the rules to this particular combat. He had just crossed the crater's rim in an attempt to swing up behind the hovering dire wyvern when all of a sudden, without any notice whatsoever, his winged boots shut off. It was only his catlike reflexes which allowed him to flip around in midair and make a desperate scramble for the side of the crater rim as he started his 200-foot plummet to the magma below. Fortunately, luck was with him, for he managed to get a purchase and pull himself up. As soon as he swung his right leg up over the rim of the crater, he could feel the power of his winged boot kick back in and threaten to pull him back off balance. Just to be safe, he mentally deactivated both boots while he climbed back up and backed away from the volcano's opening, then gave a warning to the others.

"Don't fly over the crater! There's some sort of antimagic field in place!"

Rale's warning came too late for Feron, who had already entered the airspace directly over the crater - but her air elemental form was not impeded in the least. Telgrane, confused by the warning, positioned his carpet of flying outside the edge of the crater and focused his arcane sight on the crater's interior, looking for the telltale aura that would indicate powerful magic at work. But he saw nothing to indicate there was an antimagic field in play, and told the others this via the telepathic bond.

"Well, tell that to my boots!" griped Rale, standing on the solid ground of the crater's rim once again.

Just then, Feron, hovering in place inside the crater's rim, cast a call lightning storm spell that dropped a bolt of lightning down upon the enraged dire wyvern. But at the last minute, the bolt split into two, with one fork hitting the reptilian beast but another slamming unerringly into the druidess's body.

"Wild magic of some type!" Telgrane informed the others over the telepathic bond.

"Whatever," groused Rale, still not trusting his winged boots over the crater's opening. Instead, he started running clockwise along the rim, trying to see if there were any other cave openings inside the shaft.

Telgrane, meanwhile, opted to test his wild magic theory by casting a spell of his own. Speaking the words of a dimension door spell, he sent himself and Infernia - still seated on his magical carpet - down to the bottom of the volcanic shaft, to hover directly above the red gemstone. There didn't seem to be any strange effects upon casting the spell, other than the expected fact that the carpet fell to the ground upon their reappearance. Odd, thought Telgrane, although he realized that one of the properties of wild magic was that its effects were completely random, and even in the midst of a wild magic zone spells occasionally worked normally. This might easily be the case.

But then he had no further time for contemplation, for a Gargantuan red dragon rushed out of the cave opening at the ground level of the volcano's interior and snapped at him with its wicked teeth.

This was Balajharrithux, not a mere dire wyvern who guarded the dragon's lair. However, he was no longer a standard specimen of his draconic race: Balajharrithux now sported an extra set of eyes, just behind his original pair, which allowed him to see magical auras and things normally invisible to standard vision. His tail also sported an impressive set of spikes at the end, of the type more normally found upon the stegosaurs of old. If Telgrane's theory about this being a wild magic zone were correct, then it looked as if Balajharrithux had likely been casting a few spells of his own in such a zone.

Infernia had but a moment to react to the dragon racing their way. Instinctively, she put a flaming arm around her master's shoulder and pulled him with her as she dove directly into the pool of magma. Telgrane had just enough time to get in a big breath of air before he was submerged under the liquid magma, protected from the heat by his half-fire elemental nature.

Balajharrithux plunged his head into the magma, seeking out his prey, but Infernia had managed to kick away from the edge and was doing a fairly credible job of swimming beneath the surface of the magma, pulling her master along for the ride. Neither the dragon, the elemental, nor the half-elemental archmage noticed when a massive body went plunging into the other side of the magma pool; up above, Thunderwolf, Aerik, and Galrich had finally slain the dire wyvern.

Deprived of its prey, Balajharrithux pulled his head out from the magma pool and looked up at the rim of the crater above. With a few flaps of its leathery wings, he rose up the shaft and popped up to take the place of the slain dire wyvern in attacking a very surprised trio of adventurers who thought they had cleared the way when they had slain the dire wyvern. But the red dragon struck out at Galrich, biting down hard upon the half-orc's shoulder. This only brought the rage bubbling to the surface of the barbarian's mind, and with a savage roar he fought back with his vorpal greataxe, his two companions following suit with their own weapons of choice.

Infernia and Telgrane surfaced up out of the pool of magma and started swimming back to the ledge where his carpet of flying lay upon the red gemstone. Pulling themselves back up onto the stone ledge, the archmage rolled his carpet back up while Infernia stood guard over him, looking up at the red dragon keeping himself in place with flaps of his leathery wings while he traded blows - and bites - with the three heroes directly opposing him.

A bit of motion caught Feron's eye: about 60 feet down the crater's interior, three figures had stepped into view from out of the darkness of a cave opening. The first of these was a goat-man of some sort, wielding a powerful-looking axe. Behind him stood what looked to be a wererat in hybrid form and the familiar shape of a black-feathered kenku.

With the melee fighting force concentrating on the mutated red dragon at the crater's edge, Feron didn't feel like having to deal with three new combatants - so she cast the words to a wall of stone spell that completely sealed up the cave entrance, imprisoning the three animal-men inside.

This time, Telgrane saw the whole thing: as Feron's spell took effect, an invisible beam of energy rose up from the red gemstone to strike the druidess's airborne body. The circling winds forming her body twisted and altered, with the end result being her head now took on the form not of her humanoid self, but that of an oversized hummingbird.

Now that he had determined the cause of the wild magic, Telgrane decided to get it out of the area - and the best way to do that, he reasoned, was to put it into an extradimensional space. He unrolled The Door That Doesn't Belong, adhering it to the side of the cavern wall. Then, opening The Door, he tossed the red orb inside. There was something inherently familiar with the gem, but for the life of him the archmage couldn't put his finger on it. However, he did notice that upon landing inside the first room on the other side of The Door, the interior configuration stretched and warped, until the room inside was twice its normal height, length, and depth. That can't be good! the archmage reasoned, not wanting the round gem to ruin his extradimensional space and the library he kept inside it. So he opened The Door back up and went to grab up the red stone -- all of a sudden realizing what had been eluding him. Despite this one being polished into a perfect sphere, Telgrane looked closely at the grain pattern of the reddish rock and recognized it for what it was: a large chunk of fluxstone, like the one that had warped the spells cast by the wizard Kraggoth, merging his intellect into the stone body of his own castle keep.

And then the final players entered the scene. Seeing the possible opportunity of spellcasting without adverse effects, Shibobhuta cast an eastern version of the dimension door spell, bringing his companion Kokuro with him from the cave network some 40 feet from the top of the crater to the stone floor below.

The two were quite a pair. Kokuro was a sea spirit folk, somewhat elflike in build and wielding a long, spearlike bladed weapon called a naginata. She spun around, pointing the weapon at Infernia and Telgrane as the latter returned from inside The Door That Doesn't Belong with the fluxstone sphere in hand. "What manner of being are you?" she asked Telgrane aloud in a singsong language neither Infernia nor her master had ever heard of. But they stared in shock back at the other two, especially at Shibobhuta. The rotund wu jen had been fat all of his life, but in recent days this had been brought to a ridiculous extreme. Shibobhuta now sported a centaurlike build, but instead of being part horse his lower body was that of an enormous pot-bellied pig. "The spell had no unwanted effects!" he chortled in glee in the same musical language his companion had used, then frowned upon seeing the stone in Telgrane's hand.

"Kill them!" squeaked Shibobhuta. Kokuro moved to attack Telgrane, but Infernia interposed her own body to protect her master. In a panic now that he had committed the two of them to battle against these strangers, Shibobhuta cast one of his most powerful spells at the robed westerner and his fiery companion, a cone of cold -- only to have the spell explode in his own face instead. Shibobhuta reeled under the damage he had inflicted upon himself, then fell over, slain by the wild magic effects of his own spellcasting.

Up above, the trio of Aerik, Galrich, and Thunderwolf had just about succeeded in killing off the red dragon. Feron dropped another bolt of lightning onto the red dragon's head, this time ensuring she was out of line of sight of the fluxstone sphere that had been warping her spells. It was the final straw for Balajharrithux, whose body followed the dire wyvern's in plummeting lifelessly to the engulfing heat of the magma pool below. Seeing this, Rale started hammering a piton to the side of the crater's rim, attaching it to several lengths of rope tied together. After throwing the rope down the interior shaft, he began climbing down, not trusting his winged boots.

As he climbed his way down the vertical shaft, he heard the pounding sounds of metal upon rock echoing throughout the volcano's interior. Looking around, he saw a crack appear in the middle of the wall of stone Feron had created to seal off the three animal men; apparently the goat-man was managing to cut his way through the rock of the wall with his powerful greataxe.

Inside the sealed-off cave, that's exactly what Yagihito was doing. He had been a fully human kensai, a grand master of the greataxe, when he had accompanied the others on this ill-advised trek to steal the treasures of a mighty red dragon. But the protective spells Shibobhuta had cast upon the powerful kensai had warped his body, covering him in thick fur and transforming his head into that of a goat. Yagihito was not going to die as a goat-man, sealed off in the lightless caverns of the dragon's volcano lair - not while he still had enough strength to wield his axe! Continuing to chop his way out, the hole gradually widened, bringing with it fresh air and a sliver of sunlight.

Behind him, the kenku Hatori Kuroi and the nezumi Kagehige stood back and gave him room. Neither the avian blade dancer nor the ratlike rogue were able to do much in the way of help at the moment; this was Yagihito's task to perform. And with grunts of exertion, the goat-man was slowly, steadily widening the opening in the magical wall that had sprung up out of nothing.

Below, Telgrane had realized he'd been fairly fortunate in his dealings with the wild magic thus far, having avoided gaining a hummingbird head like Feron's or having his spells rebound on him in the way Shibobhuta had just experienced. Trusting in his luck to continue, he cast a sunburst spell, shaping it to affect the naginata-wielding sohei before him but also the animal-men behind the cracked wall of stone above. As the spell left his fingers, the archmage could actually feel its arcane power build in intensity, until it struck its intended targets at its highest possible strength. Kokuro and Yagihito were blinded immediately, and Kokuro's sea spirit folk body was burned to death under the brutal intensity of the spell.

The immediate threat down by him ended, Telgrane carried the fluxstone around the corner of the lower cavern, allowing Feron - still in her hummingbird-headed air elemental form - to fly directly to the ever-widening gap in her wall of stone spell and cast a spell or two through the opening. Several flame strikes later, there was neither sound nor movement from within the cavern, the three animal-men having been slain. Feron flew down to the bottom level of the volcano and into the dragon's cavern, resuming her half-elf form as she did so. She was relieved to find herself once again wearing her normal face, the hummingbird head having been dismissed when she wildshaped out of her air elemental form.

Turning the corner, she joined the others, including Rale, who had just finished climbing down from above, and the three melee combatants, who flew down on their floatdisks (and Electrosteed) once the fluxstone had been taken away from the volcano's central shaft.

Around the corner from Balajharrithux's lair was his treasure chamber. Most of the dragon's hoard consisted of strange, golden coins with square holes in their centers and various chunks of green jade, but there were a few odd things as well, like a porcelain mask, a magical greatclub and dagger, and a carving of a serpentine owl. Feron gathered up all of the treasure, placing them - and the fluxstone - into her extradimensional haversack.

"Well, I guess that's it, then," said Telgrane. "It doesn't look like we'll be getting the reward money for fetching the Orb of Red Dragonkind after all."

"Them's the breaks," commiserated Rale. "I'm just glad I can trust my boots again."

"Shall we?" asked Thunderwolf, holding his finger over his Guild ring.

"Wait, I gotta go get Fang!" replied Galrich, flying back up to the crater's top. He returned a few moments later with his still-flying dire wolf. Feron took out the Daern's dollhouse and led Fang inside, returning shortly thereafter and stashing the dollhouse away.

"Okay, ready," she said.

"Shall we?" repeated Thunderwolf.

"Let's," agreed Feron. Then, with the touch of six fingers upon six Guild rings, the adventurers binked away, crossing a third of the planet instantaneously, to pop back into existence in the Wing Three living area.

"Pretty wild, huh?" asked Cal, still sitting on the sofa, the scout goggles over his eyes. "Took you guys long enough to figure out the wild magic bit, though."

Rale just narrowed his eyes at the cleric of Kord and stalked back up to his room, saying nothing.

- - -

This adventure came about as a result of some poking around on the Internet and discovering a carving of the obese pig-centaur, which I immediately saved, realizing I definitely wanted to use him as a villain some day. Since his facial features were Asian, I decided this would be a golden opportunity to use some of the character classes from Oriental Adventures, and proceeded to do just that. I made Gorgoldand the plot hook, since it would make sense for him to send the group off in search of another Orb of Dragonkind, even though I knew ahead of time that this would just be a chunk of fluxstone. I used the fluxstone as a way of explaining Shibobhuta's form, as well as that of Balajharrithux, since I used a dragon model from a Michael's store that deviated greatly from the D&D red dragon norm. (The dire wyvern came from the same store, and the wild magic also handily explained away his massive size increase and the fact that he had multiple tail spikes instead of the standard scorpion tail.)

I thought a battle over the crater of an active volcano could only be enhanced by a specialized form of antimagic that only took out magical means of flight and prepared myself for the eventuality of one or more of the PCs taking a 200-foot drop into a pool of magma, destroying not only them but all of their equipment. (About half of them are 20th level by now; I figured they could handle it.) But fortunately it didn't come to that.

Logan did some absolutely horrendous die-rolling when trying to have Telgrane determine some of the fluxstone's properties. He had previously wished himself into a 30 Intelligence during the gap between adventures several months ago, and yet I think he rolled a "2" and a "1" on his Knowledge (arcane) checks.

Finally, I used Logan's Japanese-English dictionary again to come up with the eastern adventurers' names. "Shibobhuta," for example, contains the Japanese words for both "fat" and "pig." Likewise, "Yagihito" contains the words for "goat" and "man." I figured it gave them appropriately-sounding names that way.

 

[Richards]

ADVENTURE 97: FUR, FEATHERS, AND A FISHERMAN


NPC Roster:

Fang, pet dire wolf
Felix, eagle animal companion
Iggy, raven familiar
Old Clem, human commoner/expert (fisherman)
Toronaus, timber wolf animal companion​

The relative quiet of the stables was broken only by the occasional nickering of the horses, until Old Clem started snoring in earnest. He was sprawled out on a haystack - one of his favorite places of late, having seen nearly eighty summers by this time and sleep having risen higher and higher in priority as the years crawled by - and his snores nearly woke the animals sleeping near him. Toronaus and Fang, two very different sizes of the lupine form, were both curled up at the elderly fisherman's feet; their ears twitched in irritation at Old Clem's raucous snoring, but it was only about ten bells on a lazy, summer morning and they were both deep in their own slumber. Above them, perched on the wall of the first of the dozens of horse stalls in the Guild stable-house, Felix slept as well, his head tucked behind a wing to block out the light.

Just down the wall from Felix, Iggy suddenly squawked in surprise, waking himself up in alarm. He cocked his head and looked about but saw no danger there in the stable-house. He spotted Old Clem sound asleep, but was certain that it hadn't been the old hireling's snoring that had awakened the raven. Something was wrong, something was different...but what?

With a start, Iggy realized what was wrong. The constant buzz in the back of his head, the mental link he shared with his witch mistress, Delphyne, was gone. Much in the way someone sound asleep might awaken at the sudden cessation of the background noise to which he'd fallen asleep, Iggy had been shaken out of his daytime slumber by the abrupt severing of the mental link he shared with Delphyne.

Tentatively, he cast out with his mind, probing for any distant echo of the link, but there was nothing to detect. Not wanting to admit it to himself, in his tiny little avian heart he feared Delphyne had just been slain.

In a panic, he flew down to Old Clem and landed upon his shoulder. "Old Clem!" he called. "Wake up!"

"Huh? What?" The fisherman sat up, staring around in panic but seeing no immediate danger.

"Wake up!" repeated Iggy. "Something's wrong!"

"Something's wrong, all right," groused Old Clem. "I was having a nice nap, and you woke me up!"

"Something's wrong with Delphyne!" insisted Iggy. "We have to go check on her!" With desperate insistence, he landed on both Fang's and Toronaus's head in turn, waking them up and then flying out of reach of their jaws should they have been having carnivorous dreams. He landed back up on the wall of the closest horse stall, waking up Felix with a slap of his wing.

<Hmm?> asked Felix in the simple avian language shared by all birds.

<Danger! We look for Delphyne. We look for Feron,> replied Iggy in kind. The eagle stretched his wings and shook himself awake. As an animal companion, he didn't have a mental link with his mistress Feron in the same manner as Iggy and Delphyne, but he was interested in his mistress's welfare.

"Old Clem!" demanded Iggy. "Get up and open the door to the Headquarters building!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming," groused Old Clem, brushing loose bits of hay from his pants and walking over to the door. Then, just in case there was actually some danger at hand, he returned back to his pile of hay and grabbed up his favorite weapon of choice: a wooden fishing rod. "C'mon, you two!" he called to the wolves. "It looks like the only way we're going to get any peace around here is to go check and make sure the witch is okay." Fang and Toronaus, each having spent many adventures with Old Clem in the field, were both accustomed to his orders and they followed him as obediently as trained dogs, their tails wagging at the possibility of some excitement.

Old Clem slowly opened the door leading into the Adventurers Guild building. "Where to now?" he asked the raven perched upon his shoulder. He knew the corridor to the left would take them to the combat arena, where the adventurers often performed various types of weapons training, while going to the right would take them to the Great Hall, right by the museum room.

"Left, to the Wing Three living quarters!" commanded Iggy. "And hurry!"

"I'm going, I'm going," groused Old Clem. "If you're in such a big hurry, you go on ahead and we'll catch up--oh, wait, I'm the only one with thumbs, aren't I?" he cackled, as if suddenly realizing the situation. "I guess you'll need me to open the doors, huh, bird?"

"Just hurry!" demanded Iggy, ready to soil Old Clem's shoulder if he didn't get going. But the fisherman ambled along, and as he got closer to the combat arena, he realized there were no sounds of fighting coming from up ahead. It was late morning; there was almost always somebody or other training in there, either sparring with a partner or practicing target practice. But Old Clem realized the Guild was absolutely quiet; the sounds of the wolves' claws clicking on the marble floor and the fisherman's own footsteps were the only things to be heard. Weird, he thought to himself, instinctively grabbing a tighter hold on his fishing pole.

Entering the combat arena only confirmed there was nobody there. For a moment Old Clem considered grabbing up one of the practice weapons, but then thought better of it -- after all, he was no fighter and wasn't trained in their use, and would probably do himself more harm with any sword or axe he tried swinging around than to any hypothetical enemy stalking these empty halls. Plus, he had two wolves to protect him. Having thus mentally fortified himself, Old Clem took a deep breath and turned the handle on the door from the combat arena to the Great Hall, swinging it quietly open just enough to poke his head through. Still perched on the old man's shoulder, Iggy turned his head to look down the hallway, and Toronaus poked his head through Old Clem's legs to get a peek in for himself.

At the far end of the Great Hall was some sort of motion. Old Clem's tired old eyes couldn't make out much more than what looked like some kids playing with a wagon or something; Iggy quietly corrected him: it was a handful of gnomes, stacking what looked like weapons on the floor by a wheeled food cart. The gnomes had each come down a different stairway at the south end of the building, which the raven well knew were the stairs to the separate living quarters of Wings Five through Eight up on the second level. After dropping their individual burdens, each gnome turned around and went back up the stairway from which he had just came.

A sudden happy whistling alerted them to an approaching figure. Rounding the corner from the short hallway leading to the Guild's front doors was another gnome, this one wearing a baker's hat. He was in a jolly mood and not particularly paying attention to the doors at the far end of the Great Hall, ducking into the door by the museum room that Old Clem and the animals had opted not to use upon exiting the stables.

"He's headed for the stables," said Old Clem.

"Who cares?" replied Iggy. "Now's our chance!" he leapt from Old Clem's shoulders and flew up the stairwell that led to Wing Three. Old Clem held the door open to allow Felix, Toronaus, and Fang to pass through, then signaled for them to follow him as he in turn followed up the way Iggy had gone. Straight up the first set of stairs led to the Wing Three living area; a shorter set of stairs that doubled back on the first set led up to the upper level, where the bathrooms and extradimensional bedrooms were located. Iggy had flown upstairs to Delphyne's bedroom door and called to Old Clem to open it. In the meantime, Felix flew over to the closed door that led to the dining room, having smelled the unmistakable scent of meat, even if it had been heated in fire the way the humans seemed to prefer. Toronaus and Fang paced back and forth in the living room, each following the scent of his own master, which led them from one piece of furniture to another.

<Slayer was here,> Fang announced to the much smaller timber wolf in their own lupine language, smelling the sofa.

<And Chalkan here,> responded Toronaus, sniffing a chair.

<Food here?> asked Felix, irritated that of his little group only the raven could understand him, and he was more interested in having Old Clem open one of the doors upstairs, which definitely did not smell like cooked food, even though there was a door down here that did.

"It's locked," Old Clem said, turning Delphyne's doorknob with no luck. "Miss?" he asked, knocking on the door. There was no answer. He tried the others, but they were locked, with the exceptions of Thunderwolf's and Cal's rooms, the former because he was habitually honest and saw no reason to lock his room in his Uncle Farthingale's Guild Headquarters, and the latter because he'd been steadily moving his belongings from his Guild bedroom to the small mansion on the other side of town he had inherited from his birth-father's father-in-law, Lord Partridge. Neither room looked to have been disturbed, and while neither was occupied, Thunderwolf's armor was safely on its rack and his various weapons proudly mounted on the walls.

"If those gnomes are looting the Guild, they haven't gotten this far," said Iggy.

"Maybe we'd better go pay those gnomes a visit," suggested Old Clem. But first, to be sure, he checked both bathrooms (empty), the dining room (empty), and the kitchen (empty, although Felix found the piece of sausage he had smelled through the dining room door and devoured it).

Leading the animals back down the stairs to the Great Hall, Old Clem peeked around the corner to look at the south end. The whistling gnome with the chef's hat was walking back down the hall to the empty food cart, only he stopped to pick up a handful of weapons first. Then, balancing them against his chest, he placed his hand on the cart and disappeared from view.

"What the--?" Old Clem said, puzzled. Every now and again, one of the gnome luggers would come back down the stairs with a handful of goods - sometimes a weapon or a bunch of potion vials, sometimes a pouch of gems or coins - and dropped it on the floor by the cart, then returned back up the stairs. After about a minute had passed, the baker gnome popped back into view, bent over to scoop up some more loot, placed his hand on the cart, and then vanished as quickly as he had appeared.

"Okay," decided Old Clem. "Let's go! Get the gnomes! Eat gnomes!" he called to the wolves, who were only too happy to bound down the Great Hall, quickly outdistancing the elderly fisherman. Likewise, Felix and even Iggy could fly faster than Old Clem could "run" (it was actually more of a fast shuffle), but the fisherman prepared his fishing rod as he raced down the Great Hall at his best speed.

The next gnome lugger got quite a surprise when he came down the stairs. Hearing what sounded like a series of clicks coming from the north end of the hall, he turned and saw Fang and Toronaus sprinting at him, looking ready to tear his throat out. He bleated in terror and dropped his current load of loot, not seeing the eagle diving down from the ceiling height until Felix was upon him, ripping his throat open with his razor-sharp talons. The gnome fell prone to the ground and didn't get up, blood from his shredded throat pooling onto the marble floor. Fang was the next to reach the dead gnome, and he took a big chunk out his midsection just to be sure he wasn't faking. (He wasn't. But he was pretty good tasting, and Fang hadn't eaten yet this morning.)

Across the Great Hall from the stairwell the dead gnome had come down was an identical stairwell, and from this one ambled down another gnome lugger under a heavy burden of loot. Hardly able to see where he was going, he dropped it on the floor...and saw Toronaus staring at him from five feet away, his fangs bared and a growl building in his throat. The gnome screamed in terror and tried to turn to run back up the stairs, but the timber wolf was on him in a heartbeat, dropping the frightened gnome and chewing his way through his arm.

At that moment, over by the cart, Pogo Snuffmuffin popped back into view. Still whistling a merry tune, his melody choked to nothingness in the back of his throat as took in the scene that greeted him. A wolf was chewing through one of his henchmen's arms, while a much, much larger one - a dire wolf, to be sure - was gobbling up the remains of another one of the gnomes he had hired for this mission. There was some old human hobbling towards him from down the Great Hall, nearly keeping pace with a raven or crow flying his way, and - worst of all - an eagle had just dropped down into his face and was clawing away at him! The arcane trickster took a startled step backwards, casting a summoning spell as he did so.

A vaguely lupine shape took form in the Great Hall, one equal in size to Fang but covered not in fur but rather in lengthy, fine-pointed quills. It attacked the first thing in front of it, which happened to be Felix, but the nimble eagle avoided the howler's snatching jaws.

As Iggy flew into the melee, he was able to see a small, brown card with a drawing of a door sitting on the metal food cart - in fact, that was all that the cart held. But as Felix turned his attention from the gnome baker to the howler that was trying to get a bite in, Iggy opted to take his place. He may only be a little raven, but he was a witch's familiar, and he was going to do whatever he could to avenge his fallen mistress! (For by now Iggy had come to the inevitable conclusion that Delphyne would have to be dead for their mental link to have been severed in such a fashion.)

Iggy wasn't much of a physical combatant - in fact, the very few times he had entered melee in the past, it was to release a spell Delphyne had imbued upon him for just that purpose - but he did his best, scratching a small wound down the evil gnome's face. But then, in the midst of this all-too-infrequent combat, the raven saw something out of the corner of his eye that caught his attention.

Two of the doors at the southern end of the Great Hall, where the administrative offices were located, were open. Through these open doorways, Iggy spotted the familiar conference rooms beyond, each containing a bunch of chairs around the table in the middle and more against the walls. Standing and sitting throughout the room were a great number of people, many of them known by sight to the raven familiar, including Delphyne. However, they were all petrified, all having been turned to stone seemingly at once, for each face held an expression of surprise. Some held glasses of wine or plates of half-eaten cake, the food and drinks having petrified along with the people. And then, Iggy remembered what day this was: Delphyne had mentioned a few days ago that today was Guildmaster Farthingale's fiftieth birthday, and that a surprise party was to be held in his honor. Judging from the results, somehow the devious gnome in the baker's hat had managed to turn the entire congregation of celebrants to stone, and was now busily stealing the magic weapons and other items of value from the Guild's members.

Unable to resist, Iggy flew from the combat - in which he was a rather ineffectual participant, in any case - and flapped into the nearest conference room. He dropped to Delphyne's petrified shoulder and his feathers dropped involuntarily. "Oh, mistress," he said sadly. But then he brightened up, for he knew that petrification like this was reversible; Iggy could already think of several ways to get his mistress back.

Out in the Great Hall, Fang was chasing another screaming gnome lugger up the stairway from which he had emerged, while Toronaus and Felix snapped and scratched at the summoned howler, who in turn was doing his best to attack the eagle flapping his wings directly in front of him. But try as he might, the eagle was a nimble combatant and always seemed to be inches away from the howler's snapping jaws.

By this time, Old Clem had gotten as close to the combat as he wanted to, and let fly with his fishing line. The hook went exactly where it had been directed by the expert fisherman's deft wrist-snap, and Old Clem started reeling in his prize: the food cart. That baker gnome kept putting his hand on the cart right before he vanished, and the curious fisherman wanted to know what that was all about. (He was also rather winded from his fast shuffle down the length of the Great Hall and didn't mind the cart making the rest of the trip for him.)

However, by this same time, Pogo had realized enough was enough. The whole point of his daring scheme - for who else would be daring enough to take on an entire Guild of professional adventurers? - was to avoid combat with his targets; he wasn't sure who the old man and his four pet animals were, or how they had gotten in here after he had just arcane locked the front doors and the back door leading to the stables, but they obviously meant trouble. Snatching up the brown card with the door drawn on it as the cart was dragged past him on a fishing line, he cast another summoning spell, this time causing a trio of fiendish monstrous scorpions to manifest amid the combatants. Then he cast a dimension door spell on himself and was gone.

The first of the scorpions was by Old Clem; it wasted no time in snapping a set of pincers at the old man, who in turn wasted no time in hopping into the nearest conference room and slamming the door shut behind him.

The second scorpion appeared by Toronaus and snapped at him, this one having much more success than the first. The timber wolf was forced to divert his attention from the howler to this new menace, but that turned out okay since Felix managed to fly in and finish off the bloodied howler, whose body discorporated as it returned to whatever fiendish plane it called home.

The third scorpion had appeared near the spot from where Pogo had departed with a pop of displaced air. Fang had finished killing the third of the gnome luggers on the stairwell by this time and trotted back downstairs to see what other forms of entertainment might be at hand. Seeing the readied scorpion, it chuffed in eagerness as it bounded to the attack.

Holding the door closed behind him, Old Clem studied the statues he found cluttering the conference room. Directly in front of him was the petrified form of Telgrane. Unlike the others, he had dropped his plate of cake before becoming petrified; it lay broken on the floor in front of him. And his right hand was extended, as if he had just tossed a fish back into the water. And there was something funny about the way Telgrane looked. Something was missing....

With a sudden realization, Old Clem identified what was nagging him about Telgrane's appearance: that metal box he always wore on his belt was missing. Looking around, he discovered it on the floor underneath the conference room table. Grumbling about having to get down on his knees (a process which took him nearly half a minute), Old Clem grabbed up the metal box and popped it open. A stream of cinders arced out of the box, hit the floor, and exploded into the form of a nine-foot-tall woman of flames with curving, black horns.

"My Master!" Infernia cried. "Something has happened to my Master!" Like Iggy, she had immediately sensed the severing of the mental link with her Master, Telgrane, but had been inside her tinderbox in ember form and couldn't exit by herself. Telgrane must have realized what was happening in the last few seconds of his life and tried to free her, but he had dropped the tinderbox instead of opening it.

"There's a scorpion on the other side of the door," said Old Clem without further explanation. "And kill any gnomes you see -- they're the ones who turned everybody to statues!" Infernia needed no further prompting. Pulling the door open, she bashed the scorpion in front of her with her flaming fists, pounding it into a pulp in her rage. Two other dead scorpions littered the Great Hall, having been slain by the animals they'd been fighting.

"Where are the gnomes who did this?" demanded Infernia. Iggy flew out of the other conference room and filled her in as best he could, but had no idea where the gnome had gone to. "I saw him cast the spell, though," the raven said. "I recognized it: it was a dimension door, so he couldn't have gotten too far from here."

The squeaking voice of a frightened gnome gave away their likely location. "What the hell's going on down there?" it demanded. "I thought you said this was going to be a piece of cake!" Then, realizing what he had said, he took time from his panic to laugh at his own inadvertent pun. "Heh: 'piece of cake.'"

The voice had come from the stairwell across the way from the one on which Fang had chewed up his second gnome of the day. Leading the charge, Infernia raced up the stairs, which led to the Wing Seven living quarters. Turning the corner, she saw a trio of gnomes at the upper level: a frightened one in a leather vest and two others wearing chef's hats, one of which was using a lockpick to get his way through the lock on one of the extradimensional bedrooms. The other baker gnome held a brown card in his hand. He started to say something, but Infernia blasted him with the magical circlet her Master had given her. A powerful blast of force energy hit the gnome, tearing his little frame to shreds. He fell to the floor, the last words spilling from his lips: "Knock...Kn--"

Felix had flown up the stairs and was attacking the gnome rogue who had been picking the lock; the other gnome, the lugger, had bleated in terror at the eagle's approach and dashed into the ladies' restroom, hiding in a stall while trying to suppress a whimper.

Iggy landed on the ravaged corpse of Pogo Snuffmuffin. "Did anyone catch what he was trying to say?" he asked. Felix didn't respond; he was too busy clawing away at the gnome rogue, who fell crashing over the railing to the living room below in an attempt to escape the bird's wicked claws. Toronaus bounded up to him and finished the job.

"Sounded like 'knocking' or something," Old Clem replied.

"I did not pay attention," admitted Infernia.

"'Knocking?'" echoed Iggy. "Some kind of a command word, maybe? Knocking around? Knocking on the door? Knock-knock?"

Inadvertently, the raven had stumbled upon the command word for the card Pogo held in his dead hand. And, since the raven's claw had been standing on the card when he had made his final guess, Iggy immediately disappeared from view.

The raven gave a squawk of surprise at his new surroundings. He was now in a luxurious manor house by the looks of it, complete with plush carpeting and elaborate wall hangings. And there, piled haphazardly on the floor, was an odd assortment of potion vials, wands, boots, swords, axes, books, bags of coins and gems, and daggers. "Well, I'll be darned!" he said to himself, then repeated the last thing he'd said before finding himself here. "Knock-Knock!"

Iggy reappeared in the Wing Seven upper hallway about a half minute after he'd vanished, showing up on top of the dead gnome baker. "It's a Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion!" the raven crowed to the others; only Infernia and Old Clem bothered to listen. "All of the loot the gnomes have taken is inside it! I'll need you two to lug it all back out for me."

"...'Cause we have thumbs," sighed Old Clem, looking in disdain at his weathered hands as if they had conspired to make more work for him.

"First I will kill the other gnome," vowed Infernia, storming into the bathroom where the last of the four luggers still cowered.

- - -

Cleanup after that took some time, but there wasn't much more in the way of any danger. Wings Five, Six, and Eight each also had a gnome rogue dressed as a baker picking the locks of the bedrooms, some of whom noticed their lugger counterparts hadn't been back up to fetch the loot they'd unearthed in the bedrooms they'd managed to breach thus far, but whether the gnomes went looking for their partners or the wolves went looking for the gnomes, the result was inevitably the same. Old Clem and Infernia managed to grab all of the purloined loot back out of the extradimensional space tied to the magic "door" card, and while old Clem's nearly eight decades of life had made reading small, printed letters a bit of a feat, Iggy had fine eyesight and was able to find, among the various stolen potions and unguents, a small vial labeled stone salve. Old Clem applied it to Telgrane, whose stone body then reverted to flesh - much to the joy of Infernia. Telgrane then used several break enchantment and limited wish spells to return a handful of the other Guild members back to life from their recent petrification. The first of these was Delphyne, whose own spellcasting was put to good use freeing a bunch of the others. All in all, it took over a week, for the spellcasters could only prepare so many of the higher-level spells needed each day, but in time the full complement of Guild members had been restored.

Subsequent investigation, through divination spells, revealed how Pogo Snuffmuffin had nearly pulled off what would have been the heist of the century. Hired to bake a cake for Farthingale's upcoming birthday, the scheming arcane trickster had seen an opportunity and gone for it. In his baker's kitchen (which doubled as his alchemical lab), he had created a vast pot of elixir of petrification, then, the morning of Farthingale's birthday, used a little-known variant of the polymorph any object spell (one that could affect magic potions and elixirs) to transform the elixir into frosting and used it to frost the elaborate cake. Exactly three hours later the frosting turned back into elixir of petrification, but by that time the damage had been done: the entire Guild had eaten a piece of cake (Galrich had eaten four!), and everyone found themselves having retroactively consumed something that turned them to stone.

It had been a daring plan. And Pogo Snuffmuffin would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for that meddling old fisherman and his four pets....

- - -

This was admittedly a change of pace from our normal adventures, and it used a concept I'd been wanting to try for some time. Knowing that the adventure after this one was the one where they'd be trying to find the Elemental Air Torus, I told everyone to decide which PCs they'd be running to go to the Elemental Plane of Air, had the spellcasters prepare all of their spells, and then once everyone was ready I told them to put their folders away because they wouldn't be needing them for this next adventure after all. Then I passed out the one-page NPC sheets I'd prepared. Dan was given Old Clem to run; Vicki ran Delphyne's raven familiar, Iggy; I had Logan run Felix, Feron Dru's eagle animal companion; Jacob got to run Galrich's pet dire wolf, Fang; and Joey ran Toronaus, Chalkan's timber wolf animal companion. (Once Infernia had been freed, Logan ran her as well, but she was so much more powerful than the others I didn't want him starting off with her, so I had her "imprisoned" inside her tinderbox at the start of the adventure.)

This went over really well, no doubt because it was so unlike anything we'd done before. And I had my wife Mary bake us a cake the night before: chocolate cake with vanilla marshmallow frosting - yum! It represented Farthingale's birthday cake in-game, and would have represented Dan's 50th birthday out-of-game if we had played it the day we had originally scheduled this session (which would have been less than a week before he turned 50), but it worked out okay anyway because when we played it yesterday, it was two days before Joey's 11th birthday. (And to think he was 2 when we started this campaign!)

 

[Richards]

ADVENTURE 98: FLIGHT RISK

PC Roster:

Feron Dru, half-elf druid
Galrich Slayer, half-orc barbarian
Rale Bodkin, human rogue
Telgrane, half-fire elemental human conjurer/archmage
Thunderwolf, human fighter​

NPC Roster:

Aerik Battershield, dwarven fighter/dwarven defender
Roughknuckles, half-orc fighter​

We started this adventure after having just finished up "Fur, Feathers, and a Fisherman" earlier in the same session. The players had already selected which PCs would be going through this adventure, but then Dan surprised me by having Desdemona Honeytongue (one of Rale's NPC cohorts) stay behind and having Roughknuckles come along in her place. Roughknuckles is significantly lower in level than the rest of the party, but I figured Dan might as well get the most out of Rale's Leadership feat in the last three adventures in this campaign, so I jotted down the half-orc's AC values and hp total on my PC tracking sheet and we were off. (Fortunately, I had already made up initiative cards of all of his major cohorts, Roughknuckles included.)

- - -

Brother Altamaic the Calm had once again invited a group of Wing Three adventurers over to one of the conference rooms in the vast Church Library of Boccob. "Well," he said, "You've managed to procure the Elemental Earth Stone and the Elemental Fire Disc. The Elemental Water Halo has proven to be a bit more difficult to locate. I believe our best bet for the moment is to leave that one aside for now and concentrate on finding the Elemental Air Torus. With any luck, once we've gathered up three of the Elemental Items, the fourth will be easier to locate."

By now, the group had this system down to a science. The morning had started with a heroes' feast spell courtesy of Cal, on the presumption that Brother Altamaic was ready to send them to the Elemental Plane of Air; now, after casting their standard bevy of "prepare for imminent battle" spells, Telgrane cast a plane shift spell focused through the two Elemental Items they'd collected thus far. Fortunately, the Elemental Plane of Air was perfectly habitable for creatures from the Material Plane, so no attune form spells would be required. Telgrane had a gate spell prepared as their way back home once their mission was successful.

They arrived in a featureless plane of blue skies, white clouds, and pleasant illumination which didn't seem to emanate from any celestial body but rather permeated the realm from all directions. They floated serenely in mid-air, although it took a bit of concentration to keep from falling in a random direction; Roughknuckles in particular took a bit of time to get used to the practice, for he had grown up in the streets and back alleys of Greyhawk City and this was a bit out of his comfort zone. Each time he started "falling," Rale took after him and got him situated, then showed him how to "fall" in the right direction to get back to the group.

"You guys do this kind of thing often?" Roughknuckles asked, his normal half-orc coloration several shades paler than usual.

"Pretty much, yeah," replied Rale as nonchalantly as he could.

Looking in all directions, Telgrane found a large chunk of solid ground directly above him – it seemed to be the bottom of a floating island, of the type favored by reclusive wizards and clerics seeking solitude to build their fortresses. And sure enough, as the group traversed the span to the side of the chunk of earth, a small stone keep came into view, erected upon the edge of the floating island. Oddly enough, the rooftop was covered in ice, although the ambient air was not particularly cold.

The stone tower seemed to be a small, two-story affair. For whatever reason, despite the size of the chunk of floating rock upon which it sat, it had been built within 15 feet of the edge, with a small pathway leading to an out-thrust chunk of rock some 75 feet or so off to the right of the keep. The only obvious guess as to the projection’s purpose was a landing platform of some type, but that seemed odd given the general openness of the floating rock in general.

Telgrane's magically-enhanced eyesight saw more than the ice-covered tower, however. Just to the side of the small tower keep stood a lozenge-shaped stone building, about 15 feet tall, over 100 feet long, and some 70 feet wide. A pair of double doors centered on the "landing platform" at the end of the platform led to the tower's front door. On the top of the roof was an enormous bird, somehow looking mostly reptilian despite the colorful feathers on its short wings, head, and body. It raised its head and looked in Telgrane's direction. Both the bird and the structure radiated auras that told the archmage that they were invisible to normal sight.

Telgrane informed the others about the invisible building over the Rary's telepathic bond he'd cast on the whole group back on the Material Plane. There was a brief discussion over which structure to check out first, the obvious stone keep or the hidden oval structure. While the others argued the merits of their opinions, Feron wildshaped into an air elemental, thinking the increased airspeed would be particularly useful. She was the first to notice the pair of antennae popping up over the roof of the stone structure, followed shortly by an insectoid head looking rather like that of an enormous terrestrial honeybee. Once Thunderwolf was apprised of the threat, he flew straight up, notching an arrow into his bow as he did so. "Don't hurt it!" commanded Feron over the telepathic bond. "Let's wait and see what it does first -- it may be friendly!"

"What about the other thing -- the invisible bird?" asked Galrich, his vorpal greataxe gripped in his hands.

Telgrane looked over at it. It had wandered over to the edge of the invisible roof and glowered at the archmage, its body tensed in a defensive posture. Telgrane wracked his brain, trying to identify the creature and recall some of its salient details. It fit the description of the illusive jub-jub bird, which was said to inhabit a great many different planes, making each its own. Jub-jub birds were said to be particularly resistant to pretty much all types of spell energy, so he'd need to use a wide variety of different types of spells....

While the others held their distance, Telgrane cast a glitterdust spell upon the jub-jub bird, covering it and a section of the invisible structure upon which it stood in sparkling motes which gave away their location. "It's a big sucker," Galrich said, flying over closer to the jub-jub bird, which had apparently managed to avoid being blinded by the glitterdust spell. Aerik, charged to keep his future king safe from harm, followed suit.

As soon as the duo got within range, the jub-jub bird let loose with a shriek that startled Galrich so much he instantly dropped his weapon; fortunately, in the strange gravity of the Elemental Plane of Air, it just hung there, well within reach once the half-orc shrugged off the stunning effect he'd just been hit with.

"Let me try something," suggested Telgrane, and suddenly there were overlapping explosions of fire, electricity, and acid between the two structures, with an overall sonic shriek that pierced the ears painfully even at range, catching both the jub-jub bird and the gigantic bee in their respective areas of effect.

"WHAT JUST HAPPENED?" Feron demanded, looking over at the archmage who had ignored her suggestion to leave the bee alone until it showed dangerous inclinations.

"I've been wanting to try that," Telgrane admitted with a sheepish grin. "I recently learned the time stop spell, so I just cast it and four delayed blast fireballs, timed to all go off simultaneously, and converted three of them to other forms of energy to try to take out the jub-jub bird. And, since I could get both of the monsters at the same time, I just figured...."

"Well, it's too late to change our minds about that," the druid grumbled. Looking over, Thunderwolf was peppering the giant cold element bee, which had crawled onto the roof of the stone structure, with a series of arrows, magically enhanced earlier by Telgrane to deal sonic and electricity damage as well as the normal flames provided by the fighter's magic longbow. The fire seemed particularly potent to the enormous insect, whose body seemed to be the source of the ice covering the roof and back wall of the stone tower. Telgrane cast a sunburst spell which blinded the jub-jub bird, rendering it less able to find its enemies. And then Aerik, Galrich, Rale, and Roughknuckles moved in, hacking away at the nearly-helpless avian, while Infernia joined her master in attacking the giant bee with Thunderwolf. Before too long, both creatures had been slain.

"Probably guard beasts," commented Rale. "I imagine our whoozy-whatsis is inside the invisible building -- let's go check it out!"

But the invisible building was particularly unnerving. To everyone but Telgrane, and with the exception of the chunk of rooftop (and the dead jub-jub bird) covered in the effects of the glitterdust spell, it seemed to be a 15-foot-deep pit dug into the solid stone of the floating chunk of island. Furthermore, as some simple experimentation demonstrated, anything - and anyone - touching the rooftop was also immediately turned invisible to normal sight. What's more, once a person was invisible on the structure, he was granted with no further enhancement to his sight: he could still see himself just fine (except the others now couldn't see him at all), but the invisible structure was just as invisible as it ever was to the now-invisible viewer.

"This is making my head hurt," Roughknuckles complained.

"Agreed," replied Rale. "Let's go check out the stone tower; at least that seems to make some normal sense."

Feron tried opening the only door to the tower, finding it locked. Rale tried taking care of that, but fiddling around with his lockpicks only revealed it had been arcane locked as well as locked in the normal, mechanical fashion. "Screw this," Rale finally said, reaching for his belt and grabbing up his rod of thievery. One knock spell later and they were in.

The keep's interior proved to be just what the group had guessed it would be: the residence of a spellcasting hermit. They discovered a kitchen and den on the ground floor and a bedroom and small arcane library upstairs, all coated with a layer of dust that implied nobody had been here for some time. (Telgrane grabbed the contents of the arcane library and added them to his own mobile library, stored inside the Door That Doesn't Belong; Rhunic began sorting through the books at once and placing them where they belonged on his own shelves.) But a set of stairs leading down to a basement level carved into the very stone of the floating island proved to be of much more interest.

The stairs led straight down before opening into a larger room. However, the floor at the bottom of the stairs contained an opening with a 10-foot wide diameter; judging from the stones flanking it in all directions, it was apparent that something had burrowed its way into the basement room from below, but a quick examination of the tunnel led to many puzzled looks, for the walls of the tunnels were incredibly smooth, covered with a red metallic substance as hard as steel. Nobody had any idea what could have made such a tunnel, but given its size and circular cross-section the best guess was some sort of planar purple worm.

The room beyond was taken up almost exclusively by a magic circle etched into the stone floor. Furthermore, the circle was not empty - laying face down in its center was a dark, humanoid form with an elongated skull and no visible hair. "Don't break the circle!" advised Telgrane over the telepathic bond from his position upstairs - the stairwell was narrow enough that there was only enough room for a single-file line of heroes heading down it at any one time. But that didn't turn out to be a concern, anyway, for the bodak, upon hearing the intruders, rose up from the magic circle and glared a gaze attack at Feron, who had flown over the others in the line down the stairs to arrive in the basement, still in her air elemental form. She managed to shrug of the attack, then responded with a spell of her own, causing a bolt of lightning to strike down from the ceiling and catch the undead creature in its arcing forks. Telgrane finally made his way past the others and cast a maze spell on the creature, whisking it away to try to find its way out of an extradimensional labyrinth. "That should hopefully give us plenty of time to get out of here," the archmage explained. "If he does make it back out, he won't know which way we went."

As the rest of the group settled into the summoning chamber, each stepping carefully past the large hole at the bottom of the stairs, Rale examined a section of wall jutting out from the summoning room. It was only about five feet deep, and the far wall was not only diagonal but also slightly curved. Sure enough, some diligent searching revealed a hidden lever which, when pulled, slid the curved wall into a pocket recess, revealing an apparently lozenge-shaped depression in the stone that could only be the lower level of the invisible maze.

"Ugh, this thing again," complained Rale. "Before we check it out, I want to look at that hole by the stairs." He scrambled back to the hole, threw down an everburning candle which showed the tunnel to only drop about 20 feet before turning to the north, and then unceremoniously jumped into the hole. His winged boots activated instantly, and he lowered himself carefully down the vertical shaft, careful not to touch the metallic walls with his hands - the color was disturbingly similar to that of blood and he didn't want to take the chance of there being any necromantic effects if he touched it directly. But when he got to the bottom, he could see the tunnel leveled off and became just another vertical tunnel, although it retained into circular cross-section which meant walking down its length would be easier in the direct middle. Picking up his everburning candle, he held it before him and saw the tunnel branched off about 10 feet ahead, with another portion of tunnel leading off to the right.

And then he heard the sounds of footsteps approaching from down that cross-shaft. They were weighty footsteps; Rale imagined them being made by a stone golem or similar automated construct. Listening closer, he updated his mental image to possibly two stone golems, because his ears picked up what could be two pairs of stone feet walking at the same time. Rather than wait for them to reach the intersection, Rale peeked around the corner with his light source. It was only one stone golem after all, but one that had been carved in the shape of a stylized tiger. It continued walking in Rale's direction, its unmoving stone expression nonetheless giving Rale the idea that it was somehow hungry. "Coming back up!" he yelled to his companions as he flew hurriedly back up the shaft from which he'd come.

"What's down there?" Feron asked.

"A bunch of round tunnels and a stone golem tiger," replied Rale. "Let's go check out that damned invisible maze."

Entering through the secret door Rale had unearthed, the group hesitantly stepped into the invisible maze, each one but the archmage immediately losing sight of the others in the maze as they did so. Telgrane scooted up to the front of the group so he could describe what he saw. "There's a curving wall just in front of you," he advised Rale.

"Where?" Rale asked, putting out his hand and feeling nothing.

"Take a step forward," advised the archmage.

Rale's fingers brushed what felt like solid stone. "Yeah, okay, I got it," he said. "So which way?"

"This is ridiculous," Feron said. "Surely there's got to be a way for us all to see where we're going. Can't we dispel the magic effect?"

"Not all of it," Telgrane reasoned. "Remember when we fought the doppelgangers in the warehouse? Oh, wait, you weren't there -- that was Delphyne. But in any case, the whole warehouse had been covered in multiple castings of the dimensional lock spell. To undo the effects, we would have had to remove each and every individual dimensional lock spell cast. I imagine the same would be true here, and we don't have nearly enough dispel magic spells at hand."

"Then why don't we try a physical solution?" Feron asked. She tried squirting water from Thunderwolf's waterskin at the wall, to no avail. She even flew back upstairs to the unknown wizard's wardrobe and came back with an old cloak. Infernia was only too happy to burn it up (since becoming a familiar, she very seldom got to burn things for fun anymore!), and then Feron tried smearing a handful of ashes on the invisible wall. Unfortunately, as soon as the ashes touched the invisible wall, they too became invisible. "Rats!" exclaimed Feron, before wildshaping into a bat, thinking its echolocation might come in handy while navigating a maze whose walls couldn't be seen.

But the wait while Feron tried her experiment had been put to good use. With a slap of his hand on his head, Telgrane announced to the others, "I'm an idiot!" Then he cast a limited wish spell, gaining the sudden knowledge of the invisibility purge spell, a spell normally only capable of being cast by clerics. "There," he announced, as a radius of normal vision expanded from his body. Suddenly, the walls and ceiling became visible, as did each of the adventurers. "We'll all have to stick fairly closely together, but I centered the spell on me, so the effects will move along with me. Let's go!"

As one, the group entered the no-longer-invisible maze. Turning a few corners, they met up with their first guardian: a rather large, horned humanoid figure wielding an oversized sword. It grinned at the sight of the heroes and advanced. The sepid had been brought to the invisible maze years ago by the unnamed wizard who had lived in the small keep - the one whose botched summoning spell had transformed him into a bodak with no memories of his former life, merely an all-consuming hatred for the living - and the outsider had faithfully fulfilled his duties, hunting down any living beings who might breach the invisible structure. However, even the sepid was aware that these particular interlopers were more powerful than the others who had made into the unseen labyrinth, for one of them had actually made the entire structure completely visible. That was a pity, for the sepid rather enjoyed testing his mettle against other opponents who could not see, for he had no inherent ability to see invisible enemies and had enjoyed his combats in this invisible structure thus far. But before he could cross the distance to his foes, Feron called forth another bolt of lightning from the ceiling to strike the horned foe. He seemed more irritated by it than anything else, so Telgrane modified a scorching ray spell to deal cold damage instead of its normal fire damage.

To the archmage's surprise, the sepid swatted away one of the rays right out of the air, before it could strike him. The others struck true, though -- not that it mattered much, for by that time Feron had summoned a greater air elemental which attacked the creature from behind, and then Galrich and Aerik had stepped up and cut the outsider to ribbons.

Further exploration of the once-invisible maze revealed a minotaur - not particularly surprising, given the labyrinthine corridors the heroes were traipsing through - and another pair of the stone tigers identical to the one Rale had seen in the blood-red tunnels below. The minotaur was dispatched fairly easily, given the odds against it, especially once the heroes were able to flank it from two directions. However, the stone tiger constructs - the taotiehs - were much tougher opponents, for the opposite was true: the adventurers had encountered one of the taotiehs in a dead-end corridor when its counterpart crept up behind them from a different passageway. They also learned an unpleasant ability the constructs had been granted: their mouths practically sucked in any prey they bit, forcing them into what Galrich (once he had been swallowed whole by the original taotieh they'd been fighting) described as a "stuffy little room." It turned out to be an extradimensional storage space, and the creatures had more than one of them, for at one time both Roughknuckles and Galrich had both been swallowed by the same beast and neither encountered the other while trying to cut themselves free before suffocating.

Realizing that these taotiehs were likely some type of golem, which were historically immune to most spells, Feron opted to return to her normal half-elf form so she could access her construct bane longbow. Between the attacks against the taotieh's outer forms and the attacks from inside by those who had been swallowed, the stone tigers were soon destroyed. And it turned out the unnamed wizard apparently used them as mobile treasure storage devices, for one of each creature's four extradimensional stomachs had been used to store valuables: coins in the one, gems in the other. Rale made it his duty to gather the valuables up and get an exact count later.

The only other thing of note in the maze was another breach in the floor, of the same type as seen in the stone keep, right down to the blood-red, metallic walls. "There has to be a way to get upstairs, though," reasoned Feron. "There's another whole floor up there!"

Once again, it was Telgrane's magically-enhanced eyes that found the way to the upper level of the maze. One dead-end section radiated an aura of conjuration magic of the type the archmage recognized as that associated with teleportation effects. Sure enough, by merely touching the section of wall, he was able to walk "through" it and pop out of another wall, this one presumably on the upper level. The others followed.

"Great," grumbled Rale. "Now we gotta slog our way through another whole level of maze guardians."

He was right: there were four guardians on the upper level of the once-invisible maze. Three of them had been constructed for that very purpose by the reclusive wizard who had designed and built this entire structure - one brass golem and two bone golems, each having been given a position in the maze to guard against living intruders. The fourth was a nightwalker, gated by the wizard into his tower's basement as the last act of his life; the nightwalker had turned the wizard into a bodak and then went exploring, deciding the invisible maze was an interesting place in which to fight the living.

The first of these upper guardians encountered by the heroes was one of the bone golems, and in fighting it they made enough noise to attract the attention of the other bone golem as well as the nightwalker. Galrich got to experience the bone golems' "bone cage" attack firsthand, in that shortly after smashing the first construct to pieces, the other one sent a mass of bones flying in his direction, pinning him into position in such a manner as to make it almost impossible to move. Fortunately, Thunderwolf and Aerik were on hand to help him shatter his way to freedom and then dispatch the second bone golem shortly thereafter.

In the meantime, Feron and Telgrane were dealing with the nightwalker in a rather unique fashion, in the form of overlapping wall of fire spells that ate away at the creature's undead flesh. The only way for the beast to survive was for it to cast its sole cone of cold spell-like ability, which unfortunately caught Infernia in its area of effect and hurt her significantly as well as snuffing out the portions of the flame-walls in front of the nightwalker, allowing it to move forward towards its enemies. But it had been badly damaged by the twin walls of fire, to the point where it didn't survive long after having escaped their effects. That left only the brass golem over on the other side of the maze, and it was quickly dispatched at a distance by spells and arrows while Feron sent another greater air elemental forward to batter it into scrap.

A quick perusal of every passageway on the top of the maze revealed no further exits, nor the Elemental Air Torus, which in turn caused further grumbling from Rale.

"Never mind, I'll bet I know where it is," remarked Telgrane.

"Where?" demanded Rale.

"That stone tiger you saw in the tunnels below," the archmage replied. "I'll bet it fell through the hole in the floor of the bottom of the maze when it was invisible, and hasn't been able to climb its way back up, given the smoothness of the tunnel walls. And we already know they have extradimensional stomachs, which the wizard who built this place used as places to store his valuables...."

"So if we'd have fought that damned tiger when I first saw it, we could have avoided the whole maze altogether!" groaned Rale. "Okay, let's go back down there."

"We need to keep a look out for whatever made those tunnels," Feron reminded the group. "We have no idea what might have done so."

The group opted to enter the tunnels via the hole in the maze floor, presumably the one the stone tiger had fallen through. Using drow floatdisks, Rale's winged boots, and Telgrane's carpet of flying, they each lowered themselves cautiously down the vertical shaft. The landscape at the bottom was very similar to the area Rale had scouted out before, although there was no sign of the stone tiger. Looking around, they did spot a small pile of discarded treasure: a leather belt with a pouch still attached to it and a dagger, as well as a pair of torn boots that had seen better days.

Rale took a moment to get his bearings, trying to envision which way the other vertical shaft - the one at the bottom of the wizard's basement stairs - lay. "Let's go this way," he suggested, leading the way down a tunnel. The others followed suit. As he had expected, he found the other shaft he had used earlier, but there was still no sign of the stone tiger. Continuing down the tunnel, he came upon another vertical shaft, this one apparently far enough away from the invisible maze to have avoided its accidental piercing.

But this one was occupied. Dropping slowly down the shaft was a spherical form with waving appendages, that immediately brought to mind a beholder to those in the front rows of the formation. But as the creature turned to face the heroes, it became apparent that this was no beholder - or at least not one of a type that any of the adventurers had seen. This one had multiple eyes, all right - it looked like a row of five of them, arcing above the creature's maw - but the waving appendages were more in the form of tentacles, with the front-most pair also sporting an impressive pair of claws.

As might be expected, Galrich charged the beast, summoning forth the depths of his rage as he did so. Aerik raced just behind, struggling to keep up with his headstrong liege. Axes swinging, the two attacked the strange creature. Galrich's first blow was deflected off the ghorazagh's thick carapace, and then the beast swung with surprising maneuverability and clamped its teeth down on the half-orc's neck and shoulder. The barbarian roared in pain, but the ghorazagh held on, sucking up Galrich's blood and storing it in internal sacs in its body. Aerik raced up and swung his axe at the beast, cutting through its carapace but unable to force it to release its toothy grip on his liege.

Behind them, Thunderwolf pulled an arrow from his quiver and effortlessly shot it at the ghorazagh, then followed up with arrow after arrow like a well-oiled automaton. The magical enhancements Telgrane had cast upon the fighter's arrows seemed to be dealing a great deal of pain to the beast, but whether the sonics or the electricity did the most damage was difficult to determine.

And then, while everyone was focused on the battle with the ghorazagh, the third of the stone tigers crept up from behind.

Roughknuckles was the first to notice its approach, his childhood in the back alleyways of Greyhawk City coming to good use in this similar maze of twisting passages. He cried a warning and spun around, bringing his sword up in a defensive posture. But his warning was enough to allow Feron and Telgrane to target with the archmage's remaining combat spells and the druid's construct bane longbow. Together, they brought it down and turned to see that the others had similarly dispatched the ghorazagh. Feron rushed over and attended to Galrich's wounds, closing up the sizable hole in the side of his neck with a heal spell.

Telgrane, however, was more interested in the defeated taotieh. Sure enough, once it had collapsed, the contents of its extradimensional stomachs had been shunted next to it. Stepping over the carved tiger's form, he approached the cloudy discus-shaped object on its other side.

"Be careful, Master," advised Infernia, not trusting the stone tiger not to return to life somehow. While she focused her attention on the defeated taotieh, Telgrane pulled out the Elemental Items they had gathered thus far. The Elemental Earth Stone was a rough, spherical lump of stone, with a ring of flames, the Elemental Fire Disc, completely encircling it. As he approached the disgorged treasure, the Elemental Air Torus seemed to sense the presence of its counterparts; rising up of its own accord, it flashed over to the archmage and merged with the two Elemental Items he held in his hand. Now there was a second ring of cloudy air around the stony core, perpendicular to the ring of flames. Telgrane could sense that simply by holding this powerful combined item, he was immune to the attacks of elementals of air, earth, or fire. And he had a hint of even further power buried deep into the three merged artifacts, power which might be made known once all four were together....

Turning back to the rest of the assembled group, he held up the merged Elemental Items and smiled. "Three down," he said, "and only one more to go!"

- - -

Logan had given me the Pathfinder Pawns: Bestiary 3 boxed set for Christmas last year, so when writing this adventure I purposefully found ways to incorporate creatures from that set: specifically, the jub-jub bird, sepid, bone and brass golems, taotiehs, and ghorazagh. The giant cold element bee was another "giant plastic bug" I had picked up from Target for a dollar some years ago and was determined to find some good use for before this campaign ended.

I had anticipated the invisible maze to be a bit tricky, with Telgrane being the only one who'd be able to see the enemies (and even the walls!) within. But once again, I discounted Logan's mastery of figuring out a way to get just the right spell he needed. Since we played this adventure over two sessions, and the first session ended just after the fight with the sepid (the first fight inside the invisible maze), for the second session I made two outlines of the maze on the backs of desk calendar pages, with 1-inch gridlines drawn in pencil, and then drew in the walls with a Sharpie marker during the second session as the PCs moved around the no-longer-invisible maze.

For the ghorazagh tunnels, I tried something different: I made an 8-by-10 table in Word with 1-inch squares for each row and column, then printed a bunch of them off. I then drew the ghorazagh tunnels onto these paper "geomorphs," trimming the inner borders of each page to they can all be lined up to form a much larger whole. Every time the PCs moved onto another of these geomorphs, I just plunked that whole sheet down. It allowed them to see what would be around corners, but it certainly sped the game up. (And a bunch of same-sized sheets are easier to use than individual sections of branching tunnels.)

After the session ended, Logan gave me his predictions for the last two adventures: the next one would obviously be the search for the Elemental Water Halo so that adventure #100 could be devoted to Galrich's ascension to the throne of Kordovia. I just smiled mysteriously and told him that was certainly one way it could occur.

 

[Richards]

ADVENTURE 99: AN EYE FOR AN EYE, PART ONE

PC Roster:

Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord
Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian/sorcerer/arcane archer
Delphyne Babelberi, human witch (wizard)/arch-witch
Feron Dru, half-elf druid
Galrich Slayer, half-orc barbarian
Rale Bodkin, human rogue
Telgrane, half-fire elemental human conjurer/archmage
Thunderwolf, human fighter​

NPC Roster:

Aerik Battershield, dwarven fighter/dwarven defender
Desdemona Honeytongue, human wizard
Old Clem, human commoner/expert (fisherman)
Vic, human commoner/expert (fisherman)​

It was the extradimensional nature of their bedrooms which killed them.

The Greyhawk City Adventurers Guild Headquarters was built in the shape of a giant rectangle. The ground floor held the administrative wing: Guildmaster Farthingale's office and living quarters, as well as the front office where records were kept and the bunkrooms where the Guild pages lived when not on duty. The ground floor also held the various conference rooms, the kitchen, the small library, and the combat training grounds. In addition, there were eight wide sets of stairs, each leading up to the individual living areas of the eight Wings whose members comprised the actual adventuring part of the Guild.

The stairs leading up from the ground floor each connected to that Wing's common living area, which consisted of a separate kitchen and dining area besides the standard living room. A shorter set of stairs from the living room led to the upper level, each housing the bathrooms and the individual adventurers' bedrooms. This upper hallway looked rather unusual, for it consisted of a series of ten doors along the wall, set side by side. As such, someone seeing them for the first time would be excused for assuming they were merely narrow closets or something similar. But despite the closeness of the doors to each other, the eight central doors each led into an adventurer's bedroom, a square room with walls 25 feet to a side and 15 feet tall. (The two doors on the ends of each hall were the bathrooms and were not extradimensional at all.)

Each adventurer was allowed complete autonomy over the contents of his or her bedroom. They were furnished with the basics, a bed and dresser; anything beyond that was up to the individual. Some, like Thunderwolf, took advantage of the extra room to set up archery targets so they could hone their combat skills; some, like Cal, built their own interior walls inside their extradimensional bedroom and thus furnished themselves with a small suite, complete with hidden areas for treasure storage. But each had outfitted their bedroom to their own tastes and they were comfortable areas, safe harbors against the dangerous world outside.

On the night in question, it appeared to be no different than any other night for the members of Wing Three; they had not been actively involved in any adventures and in fact were more or less waiting (some more patiently than others) for Brother Altamaic to complete his studies on how best to alter the plane shift spell to seek out the elusive Elemental Water Halo without even knowing upon which particular plane it currently resided. (All the Wing Three adventurers had been able to determine thus far was that it was not, as might have been expected, on the Elemental Plane of Water.) Cal had spent the day moving much of his non-adventuring gear over to his manor house across town, but had decided to crash for the night in his Guild bedroom.

As the night progressed, each of the Guild members eventually toddled off to their respective bedrooms and went to sleep. The Guild Headquarters became a quiet place, securely locked up for the night. The loudest sound in the general area was Old Clem's snoring, but he was in his favorite haystack out in the stables off to the side of the Guild Headquarters building, so his raucous snores didn't bother anybody but the animals housed there - and they had long been accustomed to the sound, to the extent that it was actually soothing to some.

It was about two in the morning when tragedy struck.

Thunderwolf was the first one awakened, but merely by seconds and only because his room was the easternmost and as such the doorway connecting his own extradimensional space to the rest of the Guild Headquarters was the first to be sundered. With a loud CRACK! that shook the young fighter from his slumber, his bedroom was suddenly plunged into normal space. As it was now larger than allocated by the space around it, Thunderwolf's sleep-befuddled senses tried to make sense of the wall to the women's bathroom now occupying the middle of his bedroom.

He didn't have long to try to figure out the dilemma, however. Mere seconds after his bedroom stopped being extradimensional, Rale's - the next bedroom to the left - followed suit. As this meant a 25-foot-by-25-foot room was now occupying the same space as the similarly-sized room next door, the two rooms only skewed 5 feet from each other, much of the contents of the two rooms were suddenly juxtaposed and merged into each other. Thunderwolf's dresser was partially pinned inside the steps leading up to Rale and Dez's sleeping platform, which they had built over the extensive closets they had designed to hold the many pieces of wardrobe needed for Dez's acting pursuits. Fortunately for the two of them, the fact that the upper half of Thunderwolf's bedroom was most empty meant they were able to live for a brief scant seconds longer than the fighter, who found his body suddenly and inexplicably split in twain by a rather comfortable-looking chair from Rale's bedroom.

Rale and Dez weren't able to put their few extra seconds to any practical use, however. The next bedroom in line suddenly manifested into normal space along with the first two, and both the rogue and his live-in wizard cohort were merged with one of the exterior walls of Feron's room as it materialized into place around - and through - them.

Down the line it went, with each bedroom suddenly manifesting into place on the material plane and merging with the overlapping contents of the rooms preceding them in the process. Delphyne's broom of flying, leaning innocuously against the wall in the witch's bedroom, was not so innocuous when it was suddenly piercing Feron's skull. Seconds later, the fact that Cal's bed in his bedroom and Delphyne's bed in hers were in roughly the same location once the extradimensional nature of the rooms was overcome meant the two merged into a mass of writhing flesh, a tangled body of twisting limbs that struggled briefly then lay still in death. Chalkan, Galrich, and Aerik awoke, screaming, to find their bodies suddenly pierced by walls.

Only Telgrane survived the assault, and that was only by the purest luck. His bedroom was the westernmost in the line, and as luck would have it his bed was situated against the western wall. Thus, when the door frame was sundered and his bedroom was shunted back into the material plane, the twenty easternmost feet of his bedroom merged with the rooms to the east of him; the five-foot-wide section in which he had lain sleeping now jutted out the west side of the Headquarters building. Sitting upright in bed, Telgrane turned his head and saw a solid wall - the outer wall of what was Galrich and Aerik's bedroom - mere inches from his head.

But it was the scream of his familiar that brought him fully to his senses. A fire elemental, Infernia needed no sleep, but she was well aware that her half-human master still required hours of unconsciousness in order to be sufficiently rested to be able to prepare any spells in the morning to replenish those he had cast the day before. Infernia chose to spend those hours in vigilance over her master's form; Telgrane had built a fire pit of sorts for her to sit in, so she need not concentrate on keeping her blazing body from setting the rest of the room on fire.

Awakening from the sound of the room shifting and merging with the solid objects in the other rooms nearby, Telgrane sat up in his bed in time to see half of his beloved familiar fall over into a formless pile of flames, her humanoid body split in two by the wall that had manifested straight down her middle mere seconds before.

And now, the eight bedrooms of the Wing Three living areas having merged and warped together, Telgrane could hear the groaning of the roof above as it collapsed, its support structures having been sundered. His chunk of room started collapsing as well, the combined weight of eight overlapping bedrooms more than the floor had been built to withstand. A chunk of ceiling fell down upon the bed by him, crushing his right foot and shattering the bones of several toes in the process. Roaring in pain and confusion, Telgrane struggled to pull himself from his bedsheets and to whatever safety he could find.

But now there was a hissing sound approaching, as if a vast quantity of liquid were being poured over the crumbling remains of the shattered Adventurers Guild Headquarters. The archmage picked up an acrid smell over the smoke and flames of the now-burning wall separating his chunk of bedroom from the rest of the building and realized two things at once: first, he had no idea what was going on; second, he had a wish spell currently prepared in his spell inventory.

Ignoring the pain in his right foot and his concerns for his slain familiar, Telgrane spoke the words to the wish spell. Realizing that rewinding time was a dangerous business and the farther back one went the greater the possible repercussions, he opted to keep it simple: "I wish I had waken up five minutes ago with full knowledge of what was about to happen."

The archmage - and he alone - was able to actually see time stop and then reverse direction at an enhanced speed. The chunk of ceiling leapt off his bed and righted itself above him, as the flames dripped down the wall and formed a pool on the floor, which then righted itself and took on the form of Infernia's left half - which then merged back into her right half as the wall that had pierced her vanished. The archmage lay back down, head on pillow, and fell back asleep, as to the east, one by one, the extradimensional bedrooms of the other members of Wing Three vanished from the material plane, and the Guild Headquarters building stitched itself back together.

- - -

Telgrane awoke with a start, sitting upright in his bed, his face a mask of fright. At the foot of his bed, in her fire pit, Infernia noticed it right away. "Master! What is wrong?" she asked.

"Get everyone up!" Telgrane ordered her, as he leapt out of bed and grabbed up his spellbooks. "Quickly! Have them grab up their gear and meet me in the living room!" Her master's tone brooked no arguments; Infernia ran to the door and started pounding on the next door in line. A cautious-looking Aerik answered, axe in hand; he had been fast asleep moments before but still had the presence of mind to recall that the last time he'd been awakened in the middle of the night by a pounding on the door it had been an assassination attempt by Vandergrotten's viper familiar and its allies.

Telgrane passed by Infernia and pounded on each of the doors in turn as he made his way to the stairs. "We've only got minutes!" he bellowed. "Grab up your gear and get out here -- pronto!"

"What's going on?" grumbled Rale, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. "Have a bad dream?"

"We've got minutes before this whole place gets torn apart!" Telgrane replied, racing down the stairs.

The group assembled behind him. "What's the danger?" asked Feron. She had no idea what had gotten the archmage so worried, but she was taking him at his word. Telgrane quickly explained what had happened, and how he had rewound time to give them a chance to escape.

"So, is it an attack? An earthquake? What?" Thunderwolf wanted to know.

"I'm not sure," admitted Telgrane.

"So what's our plan of attack?" asked Galrich, gripping his vorpal greataxe.

"We ride it out inside the Door That Doesn't Belong," responded Telgrane, unrolling the Door and slapping it up on the southern, outside wall of the Wing Three living room, directly across from the bedrooms to the north.

"That's the plan?" demanded Cal. "We escape the collapse of our extradimensional bedrooms by climbing into another extradimensional space?"

We'll be on the outer edge of the building," Telgrane reasoned. "The damage seemed to all come from the center of the building. We should be safe." With that, he opened the Door and stepped inside. "You coming?"

"I am," replied Delphyne, stepping inside behind Infernia. The others all followed suit - all but Cal, who started casting a spell upon himself.

"What are you doing?" asked Telgrane. "We've probably only got seconds left!"

"I'll be fine," replied Cal, becoming insubstantial, his ethereal jaunt spell having allowed him to step across into the Ethereal Plane while still keeping an eye on the events of the material plane. Without a further word, Telgrane closed the Door That Doesn't Belong from the inside.

Cal got quite a show. There was a mighty crashing noise, as if half of a mountain had suddenly collapsed upon the Headquarters building. This was followed, almost immediately, by the sounds of wooden beams snapping, starting at the eastern side of the Headquarters building and making its way westward. Within seconds, a metallic-looking wing shaped like that of a bat came slicing through the wall. It cut through the doorways of the bedrooms, causing each of the dimensional spaces to collapse back into the material plane as it made its way west. Then, having smashed through the exterior wall of the building, the ceiling started collapsing inwards. Cal could see a tangled mess of overlapping walls breaking through a floor that could no longer support all of the extra weight. He mouthed a silent prayer of thanks to Kord that he and his companions hadn't been caught up in that mess.

The area became better lit once the ceiling had collapsed completely into the remains of the building. In the moonlight of the now-open space, Cal saw a distinctive, draconic shape execute a full turn and race back the way it had come. It followed a similar path to its original one, only this time it flew above the remains of the shattered building instead of flying through it. It released a spray of acid as it flew, covering the length of the Guild Headquarters building on its final pass. And then it flew off, apparently not wanting to deal with anyone who could have survived such a sudden attack.

Once Cal was certain the dragon wasn't going to return, he remanifested fully into the material plane and knocked upon the Door That Doesn't Belong. Telgrane had been correct; the Door was unharmed in its present position. The archmage opened the door and stepped outside.

"By the Goddess!" exclaimed Delphyne behind him, upon seeing the remains of their living area.

"Careful," suggested Cal as he helped the others out and into the remains of their living room. "I don't trust this floor to support our weight. I recommend we fly out of here as carefully as possible. Let's reconvene over by the stables."

"Fang!" yelled Galrich, suddenly remembering his dire wolf. He jumped upon his drow floatdisk and flew over to the stables, Aerik right behind him. Several of the others followed suit.

Delphyne remained, looking aghast at the destruction. She had grabbed up her robes of the arch-witch and her spellbooks upon being awakened, and strapped on her bracer of wands which held her combat wands, but in her haste she had left behind her broom of flying, her crystal ball...it was all too much to take in at once. Rale picked her up in his arms and activated his winged boots, flying her down to the stables, earning himself a jealous look from Dez as he did so.

Down at the stables, the group was pleased to see that Old Clem had survived the attack unharmed, as had their various animal companions. A crowd of neighbors had come over to check out the commotion, including a group of the city guard. Telgrane and Infernia had flown around the building on his carpet of flying to assess the damage; it looked as if the dragon had dropped a good-sized boulder onto the eastern end of the building, then flown through it from that entrance point and smashed its way down the center of the building, just above the Great Hall that ran from the administrative area at the east to the combat arena at the west. None of the eight Wings had made it through unscathed, and as for those on the ground level...it didn't look good, for most of the upper levels had collapsed onto the ground floor, crushing everything below it. Guildmaster Farthingale, all of the Guild pages - it was unlikely any had survived the initial devastation, let alone the spray of acid that followed it up.

"Uncle Clem! Is my Uncle Clem alive?" asked a frantic voice. It belonged to a young man with brown, shoulder-length hair. Alighting from his carpet, Telgrane looked over at the young man and recognized him at once as Vic, the fisherman who had married Old Clem's grandniece, Janella. Old Clem staggered out from the stables and recognized the man from his old fishing village. "Vic?" he said. "What are you doing here?"

"I have a message for you," Vic replied. His eyes then seemed to glaze over, and he said, in a voice several octaves lower than normal, "Old Clem, slayer of Zarzabond, you have taken from me a valued family member. I trust I have managed to do the same to you, by destroying the nest of your extended family members, after having already razed the village of your birth and those who lived there. But one member of your true family line still yet lives: your grandniece, Janella. I have her in my lair. And while it's too late to save your village and the lives of all those within it, perhaps you can still manage to save Janella, the last living member of your line."

With that, Vic's eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed to the ground in a faint. As he fell, Telgrane's magically-enhanced eyes saw the aura emanating from the amulet the fisherman wore around his neck, one that spoke of mind domination effects.

The heroes gathered around Vic and shook him awake. "Janella!" he cried. "We've got to save Janella!"

"Tell us what you know," demanded Cal. "Quickly, for time is of the essence!"

Vic swallowed his panic and began his story. "It started about a week ago," he said. "This black dragon flew into our village and demanded to know who had slain his grandson, Zarzabond. A few of us recognized the name and somebody admitted it was Old Clem who had slain the dragon, along with his adventuring assistants. The dragon - he said his name was Xherxabundix - next demanded to know whether any of Old Clem's kin was about, and the villagers, well, they gave up Janella and me. The dragon grabbed us both up and then destroyed the village and everybody in it. Then it flew us away to his hidden lair in the cliffs to the north of the village.

"He put this amulet on me, and through it he could not only see what I saw and hear what I heard, but also make me do whatever he wanted. While he kept Janella as a hostage, he sent me to go find out Old Clem's whereabouts. We knew from Old Clem's letters that he worked out of Greyhawk City, so that's where I went. Once here, I found the Adventurers Guild and spotted Old Clem and his minions entering the building, so I knew that was where he lived. Xherxabundix had me pretend to apply to the Guild, just so I - and he - could get a good look at the layout. And then, well, I guess you know the rest."

Old Clem had paled during Vic's account. Telgrane reached over and pulled the amulet from around Vic's neck; it seemed to have been drained of its power, but then the dragon no longer really had any use for it, for it had done its job.

"We gotta go back and save Janella!" Old Clem exclaimed, in his eagerness sounding as if he were indeed the great adventurer he had bragged to his fishing villager that he had become.

Chalkan laid a hand on the elderly fisherman's shoulder. "We will," he promised. "We'll get her back."

"I'm coming with you," announced Vic. "She's my wife."

"And I'm comin' too," said Old Clem. When Chalkan looked as if to argue, Old Clem replied, "That damned dragon's gonna be expectin' me to show! And Janella's, she's, she's the only living kin I got left in this world!" Despite his nearly seventy summers, the elderly fisherman had tears dripping down his face as if he were a small child demanding his parents allow him to stay up late.

"We'll all go," promised Chalkan. "And we'll rescue Janella. I swear we will."

Old Clem just nodded his head in gratitude and looked around at the devastation of the Guild Headquarters. They were going to go up against a creature who could do all of that in a matter of mere minutes....

- - -

That's as far as we got in this adventure, but boy, did it get my players' attention!

Knowing that my players all knew that this was adventure #99 in a campaign that was scheduled to end with adventure #100, I allowed them to all believe that this adventure would be the search for the Elemental Water Halo. The spellcasters thus made all of their choices accordingly, and then I mentioned that the adventure would start by them all going to bed. I passed out "bedrooms" to each player: a five-square-by-five-square grid with a doorway in the center of one wall, labeled with the adventurer's name at the top, and I asked each player to quickly sketch out the contents of their bedroom. That was sufficiently different than anything else I'd ever done to get them all wondering what was going on.

Once everyone was finished, I laid them all out side by side and had them put their PC miniatures in their appropriate beds. And then, one by one, I materialized them back onto the material plane, explaining how each died a horrible death when walls and furniture suddenly manifested into their bodies.

As for Telgrane getting lucky and surviving, thus preventing a TPK in their sleep and finishing the campaign on a sour note? That was easy: I cheated. All it took was for me to mention in the car on the way to the game that I'd be having the players draw up the PCs' bedrooms, and for reasons which would become obvious later it was essential that Telgrane's bed be along the western wall. (I knew that Telgrane's was the westernmost room and also that he'd likely have a wish spell readied, so really, this was all just a way for me to kill off just about the entire party knowing full well that they'd be fine in a moment. And, as is always the case when I "force" someone to cast an XP-draining spell for plot purposes, I promised Logan that Telgrane's casting of the wish spell would not drop him below the XP needed to remain a 20th-level PC.)

Once the Headquarters building had been destroyed (ironically, I had to first design the whole place just so I could destroy it, but the layout allowed me to come up with "Fur, Feathers and a Fisherman" as well), I made each player go through his or her PC folder, specifically their lists of equipment, and we jointly decided which items were easily reachable and likely to have been grabbed up - and which would have been left behind in the bedroom. As Logan sits to my left, we started with him, then moved on to Dan. As we were going through Dan's PCs' gear, Vicki started gasping in shock, looking ahead as to what was coming up when it got to be her turn. Feron was fine, as she has an extradimensional haversack which carries just about all of her gear. But Delphyne lost her crystal ball and her broom of flying, two items she heavily identifies with her arch-witch PC. Galrich lost the vast majority of his backup weapons, but as long as he still had his vorpal greataxe he was fine. Thunderwolf was pleased that he keeps all of his spare gold coins in an extradimensional haversack of his own, and that he had grabbed it up as part of his standard combat gear; he's about the only one (besides Cal) who has any amount of money at hand.

So now the players have been put on notice: they'll be up against a CR 22 great wyrm black dragon (I have the appropriate D&D Miniature) the next time we play. Dan thought this whole setup was fantastic, realizing that losing their headquarters one adventure before we folded up the campaign was no big loss. Vicki's less pleased with the situation, and is seriously wondering if they have time to purchase a replacement broom of flying before they go assaulting Xherxabundix's lair.

We're scheduled to finish this adventure on 25 Jul 15. We'll see how everything goes!

 

[Richards]

ADVENTURE 99: AN EYE FOR AN EYE, PART TWO

PC Roster:

Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord
Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian/sorcerer/arcane archer
Delphyne Babelberi, human witch (wizard)/arch-witch
Feron Dru, half-elf druid
Galrich Slayer, half-orc barbarian
Rale Bodkin, human rogue
Telgrane, half-fire elemental human conjurer/archmage
Thunderwolf, human fighter​

NPC Roster:

Aerik Battershield, dwarven fighter/dwarven defender
Old Clem, human commoner/expert (fisherman)
Vic, human commoner/expert (fisherman)​

Rebecca Starfall answered the urgent knocking at the door after first verifying who it was. It wasn't yet dawn, and she was still wearing her nightclothes underneath a comfortable robe. "Dr. Greymantle's not in," she said, rubbing sleep from her eyes. "He and Pinwhistle are out in the Planar Scout and aren't due back for another week or so."

"No matter," replied Telgrane brusquely. "Would it be possible for us to gain access to the realm on the other side of your hangar door?" The archmage knew from past experience that time passed at a much faster rate over there - they could spend three days in what Greymantle referred to as "The Workshop" and return to find mere minutes had passed here in "normal space." If the Wing Three adventurers were going to go up against a great wyrm black dragon at the peak of its power, Telgrane wanted to ensure they would likewise be at the peak of theirs, for he and Cal had both cast several of their most powerful spells and he wanted those spell slots filled back up before they took on Xherxabundix.

"Um, sure, I'm certain Dr. Greymantle wouldn't mind," Rebecca said, standing aside and letting the assembled group enter the mansion. Then, securing the front door, she led them to the hangar door and said the pass-phrase that unlocked it. "See you all in a few minutes," she said to the group as they passed through the doors and into The Workshop, realizing that for them, it would be days before they once again laid eyes on her.

- - -

"Is everyone ready?" asked Telgrane as they stepped back through the hangar door. The past three - subjective - days had been busy ones for the heroes. They had worked out their plan of attack, decided upon the best set of spells for their various spellcasters to prepare, and Delphyne had even taken the time to whip together a replacement broom of flying for herself; after so many years using such a device, she felt strange without one.

"Ready," replied Cal, stepping through the door behind the archmage.

"Just about!" replied Galrich, gathering up his weapons and the last of the biscuits from Cal's heroes' feast, which the cleric had cast as his last act inside The Workshop. Galrich and Aerik were the last to re-enter the Planar Scout's outdoor hangar area. The dwarf dutifully closed the hangar door behind him, ensuring it was locked.

"Ah, there you are," said Rebecca, stepping outside the mansion to meet them. She was still in her nightgown and robe, but now held a cup of steaming tea in her hand. "Was everything successful?"

"Yes, thank you," replied Cal. "Now please forgive us, but we must dash. Please thank Dr. Greymantle for us. Telgrane?"

At the urging of the cleric of Kord, Telgrane cast a plane shift spell and the assembled group was whisked away to the Elemental Plane of Air, leaving Rebecca to finish her tea and ponder the helter-skelter life of an adventurer.

"Someday, that'll be me rushing off to the rescue, Mr. Scruffles," she said to her black cat familiar, who had walked over to rub up against her ankle.

- - -

On the Elemental Plane of Air, the spellcasters got straight to work. Telgrane and Feron each began the lengthy spellcasting process to call up an elemental swarm - fire elementals in his case, air elementals in hers. While they were doing so, Chalkan and Cal began casting resist energy and protection from energy spells on everyone. Each hero gained some level of protection from acid (since they'd be fighting a black dragon), but also from some other form of energy as well, since Xherxabundix would be a spellcaster in his own right and there was no telling what combat spells he might have ready. Aerik, Chalkan, Galrich, Telgrane, and Infernia gained cold protection, while Cal, Delphyne, Feron, and Thunderwolf were shielded from electrical attacks. Stoneskin and magic circle against evil spells were likewise liberally applied, and Telgrane finished the preparations off with the standard Rary's telepathic bond that linked the heroes together mentally. Galrich put on the hat of disguise the archmage had loaned him, and concentrated until his features became those of Old Clem. If Xherxabundix was going to focus on killing the elderly fisherman he believed had been responsible for slaying his grandson Zarzabond, the group preferred he divert his attacks on the half-orc barbarian, who was the most likely member of the group to be able to weather through the concentrated assault.

Old Clem and Vic were safely inside the Daern's dollhouse by this time. Vic had argued vehemently against being left out of the fight, but Old Clem had finally convinced him to see reason. "These friends of mine, they do this sort of stuff for a living," he told the impulsive youngster who had married his grandniece. "We'd only be in the way, and any spell they'd cast on us to try to keep us alive against the dragon's assault is a spell they could put to better use. I promise you, they'll save Janella. You'll see." Old Clem firmly believed what he had told Vic, but the elderly fisherman's heart was racing with worry for Janella nonetheless - as well as a large dose of guilt, for it was his bragging about being a powerful adventurer that had gotten the other members of the Greyhawk City Adventurers Guild and the fisherfolk of his village killed by the angry great wyrm in the first place.

"Here we go, then," announced Telgrane as he cast the words to a gate spell. As part of the spell's verbal components, he specified the seaside cavern lair of Xherxabundix the black dragon. An opening formed in the air before them and the heroes all went through, sending their dual elemental swarms in ahead of them to soften up the dragon (and hopefully soak up some damage).

They needn't have bothered, for the cavern system they stepped into was devoid of life. It was a large cavern, as befitting a dragon of Xherxabundix's age, with a ceiling height of about 40 feet and a sloping passageway that turned into a vertical tunnel off to the right, and what looked to be a canvas sail stretched across the cave opening directly ahead. There was no light present but that given off by the flaming bodies of the fire elementals. Nonetheless, Feron began casting a call lightning storm spell, wanting to have it at hand when the battle with the dragon began. To that end, she had one of her Large air elementals take on its whirlwind form, the better to increase the damage potential of her spell.

"Oh, crap!" cursed Telgrane as he stepped through the gate and closed it behind him. His arcane sight had detected the telltale glyphs of an alarm spell on the cavern's wall, which had doubtlessly been triggered as soon as they entered the dragon's lair.

His concern was almost immediately justified, for a booming voice came from the other side of the sailcloth. "OLD CLEM, I ASSUME THAT'S YOU INVADING MY HOME? COME TO SAVE YOUR SOLE REMAINING KIN, ARE YOU? WELL, LET'S SEE IF YOU'RE UP TO THE TASK!" This was followed by the sound of a woman's scream and a splash as something heavy struck the sea.

Feron immediately deployed two of her Large air elementals, while wildshaping into a Huge air elemental herself. The duo slipped out the sides of the canvas - the bottom of the sail was weighted down on the cavern's floor with several stones - and called back in Auran that there was a human woman tied to a metal anchor rapidly submerging beneath the waves. The twin elementals raced below the water's surface, positioning themselves on either side of the anchor, each getting a good grip and preparing to raise it back above the surface. One of them ensured its airy body overlapped the young woman's head, allowing her to breathe normally despite being underwater.

While Aerik, Galrich, Thunderwolf and Chalkan took up defensive stances with their bows, readying for the dragon to appear, Rale activated his rod of thievery and turned invisible, flying up towards the ceiling with his winged boots as he did so. Delphyne got out her new broom of flying and flew directly over the vertical shaft, noting it went straight down for about 40 feet before hitting water - it was possible there was another, submerged level directly below them. Telgrane looked all over the cavern with his enhanced eyesight, looking for any other magical traps that they might inadvertently set off. He sent his fire elementals along the walls of the cavern, searching for any hidden entrances.

Feron's greater air elemental ripped the canvas down from the cavern entrance, noting it had been attached to the rock face above with metal pitons and that the outside edge had been covered with vines to help camouflage the entrance to the dragon's lair from the outside.

"Where is he?" Thunderwolf want to know, having been prepared to storm the dragon's lair and irritated that he wasn't here to confront. The anticipation of a sudden attack from an unexpected quarter was getting to the young fighter.

And then a horrible idea crossed Telgrane's mind. He cast a dimension door spell taking him and Infernia to the front of the cave entrance to check it out. Knowing Xherxabundix's advanced age and presumed cunning, what if he had shapechanged himself into the likeness of Janella and flung himself off the cliff, so that the heroes themselves would fetch him into their midst? He stepped to the edge of the opening and looked down; the two Large air elementals had managed to pull the anchor up to the level of the sea, and Janella's terrified face looked all around her. She was a member of a small fishing village; everything that had happened to her this past week had been unlike anything she could ever have imagined experiencing. But looking down at her, Telgrane saw no auras of illusion or transmutation magic, as he would expect to see if that were actually a black dragon great wyrm in disguise.

Feron saw that the two air elementals would be unable to untie Janella and hold the weight of the anchor at the same time, so she directed them to fly up to the top of the cliff and release the hapless villager there. Telgrane, meanwhile, brooded; where was Xherxabundix?

He got his answer from the screams in the back of the cavern. The great wyrm, after having thrown the bound Janella off the top of the cliff, had cast a dimension door spell, transporting himself into the lower level of his lair, and just then sprung up the vertical shaft, eliciting a scream of surprise from the witch astride her broom of flying directly above him. But oddly, she was the safest of the heroes in the immediate vicinity, for Xherxabundix popped his head up to the level of the upper cavern floor, saw the vast amount of enemies trespassing in his lair, and rather than deploy a line of acid against them, he opted instead to cast a spell with a cone-shaped area of effect. The four archers got off their readied arrows - all of which bounced harmlessly off the dragon's thick scales, causing Chalkan to curse in Elven for his had been a specially-prepared arrow of death he had hoped might bring down the great wyrm in one strike - before reflexively wincing at the expected stream of acid to flow freely from the dragon's wide-open mouth.

But no acid spewed forth; instead, the vibrant colors of an ever-shifting rainbow erupted from Xherxabundix's gaping maw.

Rale was above the area of effect, and flew invisibly around the dragon's head to find an opportune position behind his wide neck. But he saw beams of bright color streaming this way and that below him. Some struck two of the elementals and they were instantly gone, shunted off to a random plane. One hit Aerik and immediately turned the dwarven fighter to stone. Thunderwolf and Chalkan were each hit with different-colored rays which caused fire and electrical damage, respectively. A green ray struck Cal but did no damage at all; the cleric believed it was intended to poison him, but he was apparently made of sterner stuff. One of Telgrane's fire elementals was struck by a ray and its flaming eyes glazed over in confusion, then it immediately began striking out at the nearest of its own flame-bodied companions. Only Feron, Telgrane, Infernia, and a few of the elementals were out of range of the dragon's prismatic spray, huddled as they were in the front of the dragon's lair.

Retaliation was immediate. Feron, still in the form of a Huge air elemental, flew over and dropped a bolt of electricity from her call lightning storm spell down upon Xherxabundix's head, dealing him the first damage in the battle. Galrich, Chalkan, and Thunderwolf peppered it with arrows, each enhanced to deal additional damage from sonic, fire, or electricity, courtesy of Telgrane's element-shifted flame arrows spells and the inherent power of Rilisivae Athelgala, the White-Wood Whisperbow. Some of these made it through the thickness of the dragon's scales, a testament to the strength of the archers. From directly above, Delphyne cast a Bigby's crushing hand spell, having the hand of solid force clamp around the dragon's head and try to push him back down the vertical shaft from which he had sprung. But while the dragon was strong enough to avoid being pushed away, it did wince under the crushing power of the ghostly appendage. Rale likewise winced when explosions started erupting all around him, but he needn't have worried; Telgrane had cast a time stop spell in order to send off a pair of delayed blast fireballs at the dragon, but his archmage training and his enhanced vision allowed him to not only see the still-invisible, flying rogue but also shape the overlapping area of effect of his spells to avoid hitting both him and Delphyne. Finally, a few of the larger elementals - those big enough to be able to reach across the sloping ledge leading to the shaft Xherxabundix was currently occupying - pummeled it with fists of flame and cyclonic air.

The dragon lashed out again, once more seeing prismatic spray as the best way to affect the maximum number of enemies. The multicolored beams sent more of the elementals shunting off to random planes, but due to the random nature of the spell one of the remaining fire elementals was struck by a beam of sizzling fire, doing it no harm whatsoever. Chalkan, Cal, Galrich, and Thunderwolf each took damage from various forms of energy, but in most cases they were at least partially protected from their full effects. Rale took the opportunity to position himself to best advantage, and Delphyne likewise rocketed away from above the dragon's head, not liking to be so close to the target of so many ranged spells. She took the opportunity to fly her broom over behind Aerik and applied a dose of stone salve upon the dwarf. As it took effect, Aerik ran over to protect Galrich if at all possible.

But Rale, now in position, did a world of hurt to Xherxabundix all at once. Striking out at the base of the dragon's neck with his two magic swords, he managed to thrust deeply into the flesh between the great wyrm's scales. The power of his magic rapier drained the very life-essence from the dragon, weakening his constitution while his other blade managed to siphon off a bit of Xherxabundix's strength. The dragon roared in frustration; he knew exactly where the rogue had struck him from, but was unable to reach him in the confines of the vertical shaft and Delphyne's still-active Bigby's crushing hand spell prevented him from fully entering the larger cavern beyond.

Telgrane sent a trio of meteor swarms screaming at the dragon, having discerned that the great beast had no particular protection against fire and thus it was unnecessary to divert the power of the spell to a different type of energy. Xherxabundix, now significantly weakened and starting to realize that these minions of Old Clem might be even more powerful than the aged dragonslayer himself, was beginning to come to the realization that for the first time in many centuries he might need to actually perform a tactical retreat against a more powerful foe, distasteful as the thought might be.

But Xherxabundix was spared such an indignity, for he was slain shortly thereafter, a combination of barrages of arrows, a blast of lightning from Feron's still-active spell, Rale's flashing blades, and Delphyne going with her ever-dependable wand of magic missiles.

As the dragon's lifeless body plunged back down the shaft to land with a splash of water, Feron flew up to the cliff-top and gathered up a now-freed Janella in her arms. She then flew back down to the cavern - where she found Rale organizing an exploration to the lower level, in search of the the dragon's hoard - and resumed her normal, half-elven form. As her body shrunk and its cyclonic winds coalesced into the more natural flesh and bone, her dragonscale armor became visible, and, strapped to it, her backpack. This she removed and pulled from it the Daern's dollhouse, setting it gently to the stone floor. "Come on out," she called to those within, then stood back to give them room.

Vic was the first to revert to his normal size. He saw Janella and rushed to her arms. Old Clem soon followed on unsteady legs, tears leaking from his tired old eyes at the sight of his beloved grandniece. "I told you--they'd--do it--" he said in halting breaths, before dropping to one knee, his gnarled hands clutching his heart. One hand reached down to steady himself as his legs gave way and he collapsed to the stone floor of the cave.

"Clem!" cried Feron, dropping to his side and readying the words to a heal spell.

"No," countered Old Clem, raising a hand to ward off the concerned druid. "It's--my time." He winced in sudden pain, then looked up at Janella. "I'm--I'm going to--see your grand--your grandmother," he choked out. Old Clem's little sister, Janella's grandmother, had been dead for nearly a decade; it would be good to see her again. "Thank--you..." whispered Old Clem, turning his final attention back to Feron, as a representative of the adventuring group that had made him a part of their lives for these last few years. And then he closed his eyes, sighed one last time, and passed quietly from the mortal coil.

Rale's enthusiastic return from the lower level of the dragon's lair, where he had unearthed a vast mountain of coins and gems, was cut short as he saw the trio surrounding Old Clem's body. Janella cried quietly into Vic's shoulder, as Feron softly sang the words to an elven lament.

"Hey, I call dibs on the armor!" cried Thunderwolf, bounding up behind Rale before being frantically shushed by the rogue's hand gestures. Following behind Thunderwolf, the others quickly took in the scene and a hush fell upon the cavern, the final words of Feron's song echoing around the lair.

- - -

Old Clem was respectfully laid to rest in a patch of dry land near the remains of his demolished fishing village.

Vic and Janella moved up the coast a ways and made a new home for themselves in another fishing village, where their respective talents were put to good use. In time, they learned to block out the memories of Xherxabundix and the revenge he took upon the village of their birth.

Desdemona Honeytongue, who had stayed behind to help organize the search party through the rubble of the destroyed Greyhawk City Adventurers Guild Headquarters building, was happy to report that an elven mage from Wing Six had been pulled from the rubble, limbs broken but still alive. Rale took the news without saying a word. Dez knew him well enough not to inquire what was troubling him; he'd let her know once he was ready to talk.

Chalkan, who had considered himself to be Old Clem's primary employer, still had the bag of coins he would have paid the elderly fisherman for his previous week of work. He never did spend the coins in that bag, but set it aside in the bottom of his backpack.

Xherxabundix's bones still molder in the lower level of his lair, the flesh of his corpse eventually having been nibbled away bit by bit by the sea-dwelling denizens of the deep. The adventurers of Wing Three found it to be a fitting end to the great wyrm.

 

[Richards]

ADVENTURE 100: ENDS AND NEW BEGINNINGS

PC Roster:

Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord
Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian/sorcerer/arcane archer
Delphyne Babelberi, human witch (wizard)/arch-witch
Feron Dru, half-elf druid
Galrich Slayer, half-orc barbarian
Rale Bodkin, human rogue
Telgrane, half-fire elemental human conjurer/archmage
Thunderwolf, human fighter​

NPC Roster:

Aerik Battershield, dwarven fighter/dwarven defender​

"Thank you all for meeting with me," said Brother Altamaic the Calm, as the Wing Three adventurers filed into a conference room in the Church Library of Boccob. However, as they took their seats, they noticed his expression was more animated than normal, belying his name. His face seemed flushed with excitement, and he played nervously with his fingers.

"I believe this last endeavor will complete the collection of Elemental Items," he said. "Now that you have gathered three of them, we can focus the plane shift spell through them and it should take you to wherever the last item, the Elemental Water Halo, happens to be, no matter on which plane it might be found."

Brother Altamaic's voice cracked as he continued: "I-- I had a vision last night, possibly a sending from the god Boccob Himself. This mission is of the utmost importance – nothing can be allowed to prevent you from gathering the Elemental Water Halo and adding it to the others. I cannot stress that enough. If you fail, you fail not only yourselves but Boccob as well. That cannot be allowed to happen!

"But I'm sure you will all do fine," he finally added, gathering in his nervousness with visible difficulty.

"Let's cast our normal prep spells," suggested Cal. "Who's got an attune form ready? We don't know where we'll be showing up - it could be the Negative Energy Plane of the Elemental Plane of Fire, for all we know."

"I would not mind going to the Elemental Plane of Fire," piped up Infernia.

"Yeah, well, you're a little more suited for it than the rest of us," countered Cal.

"I've got one ready," replied Delphyne to the cleric's original question.

"Me too, if it comes to it," offered Telgrane.

The normal bevy of ready-for-combat spells having been applied, Telgrane cast the plane shift spell as directed by Altamaic through the three assembled Elemental Items, and the group of heroes vanished from the Material Plane.

"Best of luck to you all," muttered Altamaic, wiping the sweat from his face. "Wherever you end up."

- - -

Telgrane had absolutely no idea what was going on. His last memory was of turning in for the night, in one of the bedrooms of the Daern's dollhouse - since the destruction of the Adventurers Guild Headquarters, some of the heroes had been staying over at Cal's new villa across town, while others stayed in the dollhouse in the Church Library of Boccob. Now, for whatever reason, he was sinking in a body of dark water, his robes of the archmage dragging him down. He felt seaweed brush by his arms as he flailed around; he must have instinctively closed his eyes upon entering the water, for fear of the damage it might do to the jets of flame that had replaced his own eyes, many months back. But since he seemed to be in an aquatic environment, whatever the reason, he polymorphed his lower half into that of a merman, the better to swim around.

He had a brief moment of panic then, wondering if Infernia was inside the tinderbox on his belt or if she, too, was sinking to her death, for he well knew just how briefly a fire elemental might survive full immersion in a body of water. But then he relaxed, recalling he had purchased her a necklace of adaptation for that very reason some months back. If she were indeed submerged, the flames of her fiery body would be safely encased in a sheath of air.

All at once, a cacophony of voices came over the Rary's telepathic bond that Telgrane suddenly realized was active.

"Master! Are you all right?"

"What the hell--?

"Where are we?"

"There's something--"

"Where's Galrich? I'm supposed to be--"

"How'd we--?"

"Is anyone--?"

"--thought I saw--"

"Aerik? Is that you?"

"SHUT IT, YOU LUNKS!"

This last was definitely Rale's voice, and it had the desired effect: everyone stopped "talking" over the telepathic bond to listen to him. "It sounds like you've got some memory problems, so I'll fill you in as best I can. First order of business: swim back up to the surface, pronto, and head for the barge! Those who need help, call out; those nearby, give 'em a hand. But I need a hand up here, 'cause I'm fighting a giant drow chick and a big, blue dude all by my lonesome!"

Those in the heaviest armor - Aerik, Galrich, and Cal, as Thunderwolf's new armor of the deep was custom-built for underwater maneuvering - were the slowest to make it to the surface. That actually worked in their favor, for they were not alone in the oily, black water. Four piscoloths swam between the black weeds and did their best to pull back under those who made it to the surface. Delphyne and Feron each fought off one of these aquatic terrors; Thunderwolf was fortunately within visual range of Delphyne's foe and tried diverting its attention away from the witch by slashing it with Xanthros. One tried pulling Galrich back below the surface after he suddenly shot up like a cork; what the piscoloth failed to realize was that Galrich had activated a ring of water walking and his attempt to pull the barbarian back down by his ankles was never going to work. While bobbing up and down in the water like a crazed buoy, the half-orc chopped away with his vorpal axe onto the piscoloth's head, splitting it asunder like a ripe watermelon. Feron's opponent grappled her from behind, pinning her arms to the side and pulling her back down below the waves; he was taken completely by surprise when his seemingly helpless prey suddenly wildshaped into a giant constrictor and not only escaped from his grasp but immediately turned the tables on him by squeezing the piscoloth in a constricting embrace.

Telgrane made it to the surface, opened his flame-jet eyes, and took a quick look around. The sky above was a sickly orange-red, punctuated by occasional fiery explosions. The body of water in which he floated was wide enough to be a river, its oily black waters being fed by the occasional rivulets of blood seeping in from tributaries. Everything clicked into place at once for the archmage: they were in Hell, specifically Avernus, the first layer of the Nine Hells; the river was the River Styx, which drained those who touched its foul waters of their recent memories; the black barge bearing down on him was undoubtedly the one Rale had mentioned. Speaking of which, Rale was flying in the air off to the side of the shore, courtesy of his winged boots; he had his bow out and was shooting at a twice-normal-sized drow woman wielding twin swords who stood on the deck of the barge.

And if they had all shown up near a barge on the River Styx as it flowed through Avernus, then it followed that the Elemental Water Halo was likely somewhere on the vessel....

Seeing some of his companions fighting creatures in the water, Telgrane called out over the telepathic bond, "Anybody have any problems with all of us getting out of the water at once?" Hearing no objections - and several desperate votes for the archmage to do whatever he was about to do, fast! - Telgrane cast a wish spell: "I wish that I, and all of my present companions, were instantly teleported to the rooftop at the back of the barge directly before me."

The piscoloths grappling with the submerged heroes got quite a surprise when their foes were suddenly no longer present. Popping up to the surface, they spotted them upon the rooftop of the back of the barge and started swimming towards it.

Infernia was standing right at the edge of the rooftop; directly below her was the "big, blue dude" Rale had mentioned. This was Ventifex Rosch, a mercane merchant who traded with the denizens along the Lower Planes from his black paddleboat barge, the Low Planes Drifter. He stood alert, looking about him for where the mortals who had appeared on his boat might have gotten off to. A swipe with a flaming fist from above gave him the answer he sought.

On the boat before him, his current paramour and bodyguard, the succubus Sumi - currently wearing the form of a 12-foot-tall drow woman, in order to be more compatible in size to the mercane she served - heard Ventifex's gasp of pain and swung around, her twin swords at the ready. Seeing her foes all grouped together on the rooftop, she quickly tried summoning a vrock into their midst, but her mental call was left unanswered. Snarling in fury, she resolved to have a few words with the vrock demon she usually dealt with the next time she saw him, while part of her wondered if he had somehow known she was attempting to summon a demon into Hell, the land of their arch-enemies, the devils.

"Watch out for those swords!" cautioned Rale over the link. "We first landed on the front of the barge, and she went slashing sideways with both blades - that's what sent you all into the drink!" Rale had only survived such a fate himself because his winged boots kicked in as he went flying from the concussive blast of her swords.

Aerik went leaping down the giant-sized stairs along the right side - the starboard side? - whatever - of the living quarters. He readied his axe for combat. In the meantime, Infernia continued swiping at the mercane with her fists from above, while Rale, Thunderwolf, and Chalkan took the opportunity to keep the drow active dodging their arrows. With no room along the front edge of the roof among Infernia and the archers, Delphyne cast a magic circle against evil spell upon herself, and Feron, still in giant constrictor form but still able to cast spells due to her specialized training, tried casting a finger of death at Sumi; unfortunately, the drow succubus managed to shrug it off.

Telgrane, meanwhile, reverted back to his normal form (as a merman's tail wasn't much use for maneuvering along a rooftop) and brought out the big guns: specifically, a meteor swarm that went flying into Sumi as she was far enough forward on the deck that he could see her to target his spell. Weakened by the dozen or so arrow shafts sticking out of her body, the spell easily finished the job and she fell to the deck, dead.

Galrich opted not to wait any longer. Pushing Infernia to the side, he jumped past her and onto Ventifex Rosch's head, then from there leapt to the deck. The mercane was staggered by the impact, but managed not to fall over. As Aerik was still running around the deck from the stairs, the mercane focused his attention on the nearer threat: the bloodthirsty half-orc barbarian standing before him with axe raised to strike. Ventifex made a fist and pointed it at Galrich; a ram-shaped burst of force energy came exploding out of the ring and struck Galrich in the chest. Ventifex ran forward, his momentum pushing Galrich across the deck and over the side of the paddleboat, where the mercane no doubt expected that to be the end of him. However, Galrich's ring of water walking was still active, and he merely bobbed on the waves from the boat's propulsion through the dark waters of the River Styx.

By then, Aerik had come up to the mercane and gotten in a couple of good whacks with his own axe. Infernia leapt down to the deck and bull rushed the mercane off the side of the deck and into the River Styx. The archers above changed their target to the mercane as he struggled to climb back up onto his vessel, and the poor merchant, now peppered with a myriad of arrows, soon followed Sumi in death. He sunk like a rock into the dark waters, never to be seen again.

The nearby piscoloths, the closest of which had reached the Low Planes Drifter by this time, took a good look at the carnage that had happened on the deck and decided to go seek elsewhere for their fiendish entertainment.

Together, the group descended the steps. While Rale looted Sumi's body (finding nothing but her oversized swords, which were too big to use), Telgrane opened the door to what he assumed were the living quarters. He was correct; plush pillows and bedding were piled in the back of the room, while a variety of exotic drinks and smoking supplies – including an elaborate water pipe – stood along one side.

"Search everywhere!" commanded the archmage. "The Elemental Water Halo has got to be here somewhere!"

Sure enough, it was. Behind an oversized pillow, Rale discovered a small wooden chest. It was neither trapped nor locked, and when opened, a disk went flying out of the chest in a beeline for Telgrane. It hit the three previously assembled Elemental Items and merged with them, forming a roughly spherical chunk of rock surrounded by three rings, each perpendicular to the two others.

But that wasn't all that happened. As soon as the four Elemental Items had been joined, Telgrane's body started breaking apart and scattering away into nothingness. Infernia barely got out a strangled cry of "Master!" before it started happening to her as well, then Rale, then the rest of the group all at once. In a matter of seconds, the assembled group of Wing Three adventurers were no more, and the Low Planes Drifter continued its meandering trip along the River Styx unguided.

- - -

Telgrane suddenly found himself standing in the middle of a Y-shaped platform, floating in a vast, empty field of shimmering white. Surrounding him were his fellow adventurers, all hale and hearty - plus their familiars and animal companions, even those who had been left behind in Greyhawk City rather than be subjected to a visit to an unknown plane. Even Dez was at Rale's side, looking surprised at her sudden change of location.

Infernia stood at Telgrane's side. "Where are we, Master?" she asked.

"The Astral Plane, it looks like," Telgrane answered, looking around.

At each end of the "Y" stood a humanoid figure some 15 feet tall. The first of these was an elderly, white-haired man in the flowing robes of a wizard. To his right stood a grizzled-looking human sporting well-worn travel gear. To his right stood a humanoid figure looking to be carved of living wood, with green leaves sprouting from his face to take the place of hair and beard.

With a communal gasp, the heroes recognized them as Boccob, Fharlanghn, and Obad-Hai, three of the neutral gods. Boccob was the god Telgrane revered above all others, for he was the God of Magic and Knowledge. Fharlanghn was the God of Travelers, and Obad-Hai was a God of Nature.

"You have done extremely well," said Boccob to the assembled group, smiling. "You have found and assembled all four of the Elemental Items."

"But not in the correct order," grumbled Obad-Hai, holding out his hand to summon the Elemental Items from Telgrane's hand. The archmage's first impulse was to try to hold on to them, but then quickly realized thwarting a god was probably not a good idea. Reluctantly - and with thoughts that here was another "assembled-from-different-parts" artifact he probably wasn't going to get to keep - he released the three-ringed sphere and watched as it floated over to Obad-Hai's outstretched hand.

Fussing over the fused artifact, the Nature God said, "The Elemental Fire Disc should be at the center of the Elemental Earth Stone, for one thing." Passing his hand over it, the continuous ring of fire seeped into the rough sphere of solid stone, sliding through fissures that suddenly broke out upon its surface, until it could no longer be seen.

"Then the Elemental Water Halo, which should be spread out evenly across its surface," he continued. With another wave of his hand, the ring of water seemed to lose coherence, spreading out evenly over the sphere, yet somehow still remaining in contact with the rock's surface instead of spilling out upon the floor. The heroes could see chunks of the uneven stone popping up out of the water otherwise covering its surface.

"And then finally, the Elemental Air Torus," said Obad-Hai, passing his hand a final time over the sphere. The remaining ring of air immediately discorporated, covering the entire sphere in a series of what looked rather like tiny clouds.

Satisfied with his work, Obad-Hai looked up and pierced Feron Dru with his green gaze. "Step forward, Feron," he commanded. "I'd have preferred one of my own druids, but I suppose you'll have to do."

Nervously, Feron stepped forward down the path of the floating "Y" that led to the Nature God. Obad-Hai took her hand and held it, palm down, over the modified sphere. With a thorn that suddenly sprung forth from the tip of one of his fingers, he sliced across Feron's palm and drops of her blood spilled down onto the sphere, quickly absorbed into the water areas. He then plucked a leaf from his beard, rubbed it over the druid's sliced palm, and the cut healed up instantly. Feron bowed and returned to the rest of her group.

"You must think of the entirety of this Universe as a gigantic, living organism," explained Boccob in a regal voice, looking down at the group. "Like any other living thing, it has a means of creating its own offspring, so that upon its death the next generation will remain, to live, to grow." He then looked at his other two companion deities. "What do you think?" he asked them. "'Planet Wing Three,' in their honor?"

"That sounds ridiculous," replied Fharlanghn, speaking for the first time.

"'Planet Three,' then?" asked Boccob.

"Hrrm. That sounds more like a scientific classification."

"How about spelling it backwards, then?" asked Boccob. "After all, there has been plenty of precedent."

"'Planet Eerht'?" asked Fharlanghn, wrinkling his nose. "That sounds just as stupid, and it's hard to pronounce."

"We'll just scramble the letters, then," announced Boccob, having reached a decision. "'Planet Erthe'."

"Won't that be confusing?" asked Fharlanghn.

"E-R-T-H-E," explained Boccob. "I'm sure the inhabitants will get used to it."

Fharlanghn reached out a hand towards Obad-Hai, and the fledgling planet hovered over to him. "Planet Erthe it is, then," he said. "We'll release it into the Astral void, to find its way into a pocket dimension of its own. Over the span of millennia it will grow in size, and the drops of your blood, Feron, will be the spark of life that some day – when this tired old Universe has outlived its usefulness – will become the dominant species. The old Universe will break apart and fade away, leaving little Planet Erthe behind it to start anew. The heavens will erupt from it in all directions, and a new Universe will be born.

"And in that new Universe," Fharlanghn continued, "a bright new pantheon of gods will arise, patterned after you, its collective founders." And with a smile and a wink at the heroes, the God of Travelers blew on the newly-fashioned planet, causing it to float away into the vastness of the Astral Plane like a soap bubble. They all watched it until it could no longer be seen.

Then, with a harrumph, Boccob spoke again. "And now, onto other matters," he said, turning to look directly at Galrich. "Galrich Slayer, the spirit of your slain mother once said you will know when the time has come to return to the kingdom of your mother's birth, to take the crown of Kordovia as its next ruler. You probably didn't expect that the God of Knowledge Himself would be the one to inform you when the time had come, but such is the case. Thank you all once again for your service, but you now have other matters that require your attention." And with a dismissive wave of his hand, the group was gone from the Convocation of the Neutral Gods in the boundless Astral Plane, and suddenly found themselves standing in the grand hall of Castle Kordovia.

An aged Lord Hammershard looked relieved to see them. "It's time," he said simply in a tired voice, leading the group to the throne room.

- - -

Galrich was whisked away almost immediately upon the group's sudden appearance in Kordovia, and Aerik soon excused himself as well, eager to get back to his normal duties now that his service as an adventurer's bodyguard was over. The rest of the heroes spent the next several hours being treated like honored guests. Finally, a castle page came to escort them to the throne room.

The throne room was packed with the nobility of Kordovia. Aerik once again wore the ornamental armor of a castle guard and stood at attention to the right of the throne, holding a crown upon a padded tray. Sitting in the throne was Lord Hammershard, holding the scepter of succession, the magic item the Wing Three adventurers had unearthed for the kingdom and found out shortly thereafter that Galrich would be the next king of the small country.

The doors at the far side of the room swung open and a page announced to the assembled crowd, "His Majesty, Galrich Slayer, son of Queen Kathenta of Kordovia." In walked Galrich Slayer, sporting no longer his combat armor and a veritable armory of weapons; he now wore a purple robe tied with a golden sash. Perhaps most striking of all, he appeared to have been recently bathed and his shaggy mane of hair cut to a moderate length and – wonder of wonders – actually combed.

Galrich strode purposefully to the throne and came to a halt before Lord Hammershard.

"Kneel before the symbol of Kordovian royalty," commanded the elderly regent, holding aloft the scepter of succession. Galrich lowered himself to one knee. Lord Hammershard then passed over the scepter of succession to Galrich, who cradled it under one arm. Lord Hammershard then took the crown from Aerik and placed it upon Galrich's head. "You may rise," he said to the half-orc kneeling before him. Then, turning to the assembled crowd, he said, "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Court, I present to you King Galrich the First, Ruler of the Kingdom of Kordovia, by the blessings of the Gods Above. Long may he live!"

"Long may he live!" repeated the crowd with enthusiasm.

"May he rule wisely," intoned Lord Hammershard, then turned to the newly-crowned king. "Your Majesty, the floor is yours." He then stepped aside so that King Galrich might make his coronation speech to those assembled.

King Galrich stepped up to the throne, turned around, and looked out at the veritable sea of faces staring at him. His voice froze up, followed almost immediately by his mind. What was he going to say?

"He's gonna blow it," whispered Rale to Thunderwolf, standing at his side.

"Nah, he'll be okay," whispered back the fighter. "Just watch."

King Galrich took a deep, calming breath and slowly let it out. "Thank you all for coming," he began. "I never really expected to become a king, given the circumstances of my birth. But as my life as an adventurer has shown me, there is an amazing world out there, and I've seen many stranger things than a half-orc bastard like myself becoming the ruler of a great nation like Kordovia...."

"Told you," smirked Thunderwolf. "He's doing fine."

- - -

The next morning was a morning of farewells. "I can't believe I won't be seeing you guys anymore," remarked King Galrich.

"Well, you've got a kingdom to run here, but I've got to get back to Greyhawk City," explained Cal. "Now that the Adventurers Guild is no more, I guess I'll spend most of my time getting my merchant empire running smoothly."

"Well, now, wait a minute," argued Thunderwolf. "The Guild Headquarters might have been destroyed, but I fully intend to rebuild. It might take me years, but there will be another Greyhawk City Adventurers Guild."

"Guildmaster Thunderwolf," remarked King Galrich. "Good for you, kid. And hey, thanks again for the mace, Cal."

"No problem," replied the cleric of Kord. At the coronation, after Galrich's speech, Cal had presented him with a mace he had personally crafted for the occasion: a silver goblinbane heavy mace carved in the shape of a screaming goblin, which provided its wielder the benefit of a magic circle against evil spell when held. "I'm sure you'll put it to good use."

"I'm heading back to Greyhawk City, too," replied Rale. "I've got my own Guild to run, so to speak." He fully intended to shape his band of followers - Dez and the acting troupe, plus the various rogues and kenku he had working for him - into the premiere source of information in the city. He'd give those kenku Collectors a run for their money!

"Well, I won't be returning," said Feron. "I think my days of an adventurer are over. I'm going to go seek out Ehlonna's Grove and join the Sisterhood there."

"I won't be returning, either," added Telgrane. "Infernia and I plan on exploring the Elemental Planes."

"Can we start with the Elemental Plane of Fire, Master?" asked Infernia eagerly. "I wish to take you home and introduce you to my parents!"

"Your-- your parents?" sputtered the archmage, causing his familiar to laugh out loud. "I am making the joke, Master!" she giggled. "Elementals do not have parents! We spring up from the Plane itself!" Telgrane merely shook his head in amazement.

"I'm going back to Greyhawk City," said Delphyne, "but only to return for Coventry. I believe we'll do some exploring ourselves, only we'll stick to the Material Plane for now, I think."

"What about you, Chalkan?" asked King Galrich.

"I'm not sure," admitted the half-elf. "I thought maybe I'd start up a school for arcane archers, make sure that Vlaegoroth's knowledge gets passed on to the next generation."

"Well, I'm staying right here," added Aerik. "I'm just glad t'be home with me wife and daughter again."

"You have a wife?" asked Chalkan, dumbfounded.

"And a daughter?" added Rale. "Is she hot?" This last comment earned him an elbow in the ribs from Dez and a dark scowl from the dwarven castle guard.

"She's...underage," Aerik snarled at Rale. The rogue opted not to press his luck any further with any additional comments.

"Well, that's it, then," replied King Galrich. "I guess this is officially the end of Wing Three."

"And the beginning of the next chapter of our lives," replied Cal. "But who knows? Our paths may yet cross in the future." He shook the hands of his erstwhile companions, which started a frenzy of handshaking and hugs as everybody made their goodbyes.

And then Telgrane plane shifted away with Infernia, and Delphyne cast a greater teleport spell on those headed back to Greyhawk City. Feron wildshaped into an eagle and flew off towards the Vesve Forest, her eagle companion Felix flying at her side.

"Well," sighed King Galrich, "I guess we'd better head back inside and start the day's appointments."

"Yes, me king," replied Aerik, following his liege back into the castle.

- - -

And that was the end of our campaign, save for one final epilogue I read to the players to finalize the campaign. (I'll include it as a separate entry to this Story Hour, just to close things out.)

I built the Low Planes Drifter out of black poster board, back at the same time I had built the planeshifting tower from "Expedition to Earth" (which is where the PCs first discovered the Elemental Earth Stone, which ended up being a handy way to wrap up the campaign - although at the time I first designed the Elemental Items, I had no idea they would join to become a proto-planet and "seed" for a new universe).

And, of course, the end of this campaign isn't the end of our D&D group. We'd already decided - more than a year ago - that when this campaign finished up we'd "fast forward" 20 years and start up a new campaign in the Kingdom of Kordovia, with a bunch of 1st-level characters being assembled by King Galrich to become his first batch of professional adventurers. Our next session is 8 Aug 15, which will be a combination PC creation workshop and short, introductory adventure session combined.

 

[Richards]

EPILOGUE - THE PANTHEON OF PLANET ERTHE

In time, as the millennia passed, a new Universe was indeed born, and a new pantheon arose to rule over it. These gods and goddesses might bear some similarities to a specific group of mortal beings from the parent Universe, as they were patterned from their likenesses.

• The primary god was Cal, All-Father and Ruler of the Skies overlooking the entirety of Erthe. He was also the God of Medicine, and those seeking healing would often find their way to one of his temples.
  
  
• Aerik was the God of Earth and Stone, and he was built as if carved from solid rock himself. Aerik's domains included Protection – for what could protect better than a fortification built of solid stone? – as well as Loyalty, for his dedication to any task he performed was a strong as a rock.
  
  
• The God of Fire was a gaunt deity named Telgrane with flames burning from his eye sockets. His domains included the Sun, the ever-burning orb of flames that crossed the sky each day, as well as Knowledge, for it was said the desire for knowledge also burned within him.
  
  
• Galrich, the God of the Sea, had two different aspects: at times he was as calm as a lake on a windless day; at others, he roared and raged like a tsunami against a cliff. Galrich was also the God of Combat Prowess; it was said he could slip past his enemies' guard, as unstoppable as a wave. He often manifested in a form said to be half human, half orca.
  
  
• Often found in Galrich's wake, Clem was the Demigod of both Bravery and Fishing. As it tied in with both of his primary domains, he was also the Demigod of Bluffing; many a card player whispered a silent prayer to Clem at the gaming table.
  
  
• The Goddess of Nature was Feron, Forest-Maiden, Queen of the Harvest. It was she who had first formed life upon the Erthe, and it was she who looked over her creations with a mother's love.
  
  
• Delphyne was the Goddess of the Mysteries, the Rune-Queen, who set forth the ways of magic. It was she who patterned the ley lines across the world, she who read the future in the shapes of clouds and the patterns of the stars, she who first brought the magic of the written word to the inhabitants of Erthe.
  
  
• Rale was the God of Night, the black-clad Master of Shadows and Secrets. The Moon was his domain, as was Stealth; when the fiery orb of the sun sank below the horizon, Rale's power encompassed all those beneath the midnight sky.
  
  
• Desdemona was a lesser deity, the Demigoddess of Fertility. Farmers prayed to her for a good growing season; would-be mothers prayed to her for healthy babies to spring up from their bellies.
  
  
• Infernia was the Demigoddess of Love and Burning Desire. She was often depicted as a beautiful woman whose entire body was sheathed in the flames of her passion.
  
  
• But Erthe was no primal paradise. Thunderwolf was the fierce God of War, the Master of Weapons, and soldiers poured libations of blood to him before heading off into battle against their enemies.
  
  
• Another god tied to a specific aspect of weapons mastery was Chalkan, the Bow-Lord, the God of Archery and Hunting. He was also the God of Innovation, always striving to seek new ways of doing things and combining multiple skills together.
  
  
• The fierce God of Death and Undeath was a skull-faced deity named Akari. It was said he was once a benevolent god of weapons, but fell from grace and turned to evil. As such he had minor sway over both Illusions and Transformation.
  
  
• The evil Kazmira was the Goddess of Theft and Seduction, said to be as capable of stealing a man’s heart as his purse of gold.
  
  
• At Kazmira’s side was often found Gareth, the God of Betrayal. He was the craven personification of Envy, the Maker of Excuses, the Fault-Finder. He was worshiped primary by assassins and those who dared not face their opponents in fair battle.