Episode
54
"Inferno"
(c) 2005 Matt Grossman and
J. Sage Schreiner
Tron,
a desperately lucky elf, Matt Grossman
Norel,
a battle-scarred ranger, Tom Morin
Nigil, a mysterious noble
from a distant land, Kevin Osborn
Soren, a priest of the
war-god Hextor, This week by Tom Morin
Hawkwind, a spell-caster
from the great city of
Bliz, a blue skinned elf
from icy North, Michael Goff
The party rests for the
night, and then heads to explore the area they have not yet investigated.
Norel: There's
lots of spider tracks and troll tracks. I see some dwarf tracks too; they must
be from the Holy Axe. It looks like they just materialized here and didn't walk
down that mud slope.
The passage widens out into
another large cave. They follow the wall to the left, and find another passage.
These are all natural caverns. They go down that passage, and find that it too
opens out into a large cavern. There are giant spider webs everywhere.
Norel:
Stay frosty, people.
They move along the wall to
the left. Suddenly, they hear chanting from the darkness that surrounds them.
Tron: (moves forward and
attempts to hide)
Norel: (at the rear of the
party, he hears chanting from behind him) Nature, protect me! (casts Barkskin and draws his guisarme)
Nigil: When did you start
carrying that?
Norel: I think it's better
than a spear.
Suddenly a blade barrier
appears behind the party, blocking the exit from the cavern. Tron resists a
blindness spell, but Norel is blinded. Magic missiles fly from the darkness and
hit Hawkwind and Bliz.
Tron: (peers into the
darkness, readying his longbow)
Bliz: Time to make myself
scarce... (becomes invisible)
Nigil: I don't want to be
standing next to the wizards. (moves)
Hawkwind: (casts Dancing
Lights, illuminating a drider clinging to the
ceiling)
Tron: Gotcha! [twang]
Drider: Aargh!
Hawkwind: Time to take
cover. (hides behind Nigil)
Nigil: Dammit! Can't you
hide somewhere else?
Gurgi: (moves to put his
back to the wall and draws his shortsword)
Laurallie: Obad-Hai, clear
this ranger's sight! (cures Norel's blindness)
Soren: Eat flaming death! (casts Flame Strike on the drider, killing it instantly and
setting the webs that cover the ceiling of the cavern on fire) Yes! First blood
to Hextor!
Norel: (casts Darkvision on
himself and moves forward)
The ranger sees another
drider, also clinging to the ceiling, and several cave trolls emerging from a
crevasse.
Suddenly a flame strike hits
Hawkwind, wounding him and killing one of Soren's ghoul minions. Nigil is also
wounded.
Nigil:
Frickin' wizards...
Eight cave trolls charge the
party. Four attack Norel. The ranger attempts to trip one with his guisarme,
but the monster is too strong and Norel has to drop his weapon.
Norel:
Well, it was worth a try. (draws his axe and shortsword)
Troll#1: (charging towards
Laurallie, it runs into the invisible Bliz) Urk? (tries
to figure out what it ran into)
Bliz: ...
Troll#2: (claws Gurgi)
Troll#3: (attacks Laurallie)
Troll#4: (attacks Laurallie)
Laurallie is badly wounded. Tron
is hit by magic missiles from the darkness in front of him. The fire in the
webs on the ceiling spreads, revealing three more driders. The webs on the wall
were set on fire by the flame strike and the party is now uncomfortably warm.
Bliz:
What would Hextor do? I know. Norel, duck!
Norel: (ducks)
Bliz: (casts Cone of Flame,
hitting Trolls#5-8)
Hawkwind: Hey, I thought
your spells were all ice spells.
Bliz: I can change it if I
want.
Tron:
Oathbow, I swear to kill that drider!
Oathbow: A swift death to my
enemies!
Drider#2: (in drow) Crap.
Tron: [twang twang twang
thunk thunk thunk]
Drider#2: Aieeeeee! [crunch]
Tron: Sweet.
Hawkwind: I have not yet
begun to fight! (casts Haste, affecting the entire
party)
Nigil: Oh yeah! (attacks Troll#4, covering Laurallie)
Laurallie: (backs away,
badly wounded)
Soren: Hextor, heal this
wizard! (heals Hawkwind)
Norel: (attacks Troll#6)
A
drider zaps Nigil with a scorching ray.
Soren:
Now, my undead minions, kill those trolls!
Ghouls: Raar. (shamble towards Troll#7)
Troll#7: Huh? [splat] (crushes the ghouls easily)
Soren: Do not mock Hextor!
The four trolls facing Norel
attack him, wounding the ranger badly.
Gurgi is also wounded badly,
and Nigil is wounded by another troll.
Bliz is hit by magic
missiles. Gurgi is blinded.
Hawkwind:
They really like that spell.
Bliz:
(runs around behind Nigil) Hey, Norel, duck!
Norel: (ducks)
Bliz: (casts Fireball,
hitting all eight trolls) Suck it down!
The trolls are wounded but
still on their feet. They are unaffected by the blazing fire and roiling smoke.
Tron: (shoots Drider#3,
wounding it)
Hawkwind: Now, let me show
you how it's done.
The wizard casts an enhanced
Fireball that envelops all eight trolls and Norel in a tremendous blast of
fire. When the flames clear, two trolls and Norel lie on the
ground.
Hawkwind: Oooops...
Bliz: You should have told
him to duck first.
Soren: The needs of the many
outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.
Nigil: Gyaargh! (slays Troll#4) Soren, you better get over there and heal him
right now, or...
Soren: Ok, ok! (runs over and heals Norel, who is almost dead)
Norel: (remains prone)
Although
Gurgi is blind, he is still able to fight effectively.
Gurgi: Gotcha! [stab]
Troll#2: Urrgh! [thud]
One of the trolls fighting
that had been fighting Norel suddenly falls over. The other trolls flee. The
driders cast two Fireballs into the party, targeted at Hawkwind and Bliz. Hawkwind,
Laurallie, Bliz, Nigil, and Gurgi are wounded, but none of them fall. The
flames spread rapidly, and the cavern begins to fill with smoke. The air is
filled with a choking black smoke.
Tron: (moves towards the
entrance of the cavern)
Hawkwind: No more area
effect spells. (casts Disintegrate at Drider#4)
Drider#4: Urk. (disintegrates)
Hawkwind: Yes!
Laurallie: (heals Bliz)
Bliz: (casts Magic Missile
at Drider#3, but the drider's Shield spell blocks the missiles)
Soren: (heals Norel)
Norel stands up and moves to
cover the party spellcasters, in case the trolls turn back. He drops his
shortsword and readies his shield.
Gurgi:
Hello? Where is everybody? It's getting hot. Hello?
Troll#7: (suddenly stands up
and runs away)
Norel: What's with that guy?
Drider#3: (flees)
The
flames spread, illuminating the entire cavern.
Tron:
(shoots at Drider#3 and misses) Dammit!
Hawkwind: Dispelling this
blade barrier should be easy for a wizard of my power. [fizzle]
Dammit!
Laurallie: Obad-Hai, heal
this ranger! (heals Norel)
Nigil: (moves to cover the
party spellcasters)
Bliz: (casts Fireball at
Drider#3) [fwaboom]
Drider#3: Aieeeee! [spuck]
Soren: Hextor, heal the
party! (casts Mass Cure Light Wounds, healing the
entire party)
Norel: (picks up his short
sword)
Gurgi: I'm blind! Help me!
The remaining drider flees,
but is still illuminated by the red flames.
Tron shoots at it but
misses.
Tron: Hey... that drider has
a beard... and it looks kind of... stumpy.
Hawkwind: (dispells the
blade barrier) If at first you don't succeed...
Laurallie: (hits Drider#1
with Searing Light) Obad-Hai blast you, foul thing!
Norel: (picks up his
guisarme) Ok, I think that's everything.
Bliz: How can you move?
The
smoke chokes the air thickly.
Tron: [cough cough] Time to
leave! (runs out of the cave)
Hawkwind: There's just one
thing... [fwoooshboom]
Drider#1: (burned to crisp
and falls)
Hawkwind: Hmm, it did look
kind of funny. [cough]
The party leaves. Bliz seals
off the cavern with a wall of ice to delay the spread of the black, greasy smoke.
The party retreats to the cave where they have been resting and wait for the
fire to burn out.
They
end up resting two days. Laurallie removes Gurgi's blindness.
Hawkwind: His dancing was so
much more amusing when he was blind.
Nigil: He's going to be so
mad...
They return to the drider
cavern and explore it. The corpses are still there, somewhat charred. The one
drider does indeed appear to have originally been a female dwarf. It appears
that her skin was oddly dark.
Tron: This melted glob of
gold might have been a holy symbol.
Nigil: Put it in the bag. And
this mace is pretty nice.
They find some other melted
gold worth 200gp total, an opal ruined by the fire, and a scroll.
Hawkwind: It's a scroll of
resurrection. It smells funny. Where did you find it?
Tron: In that troll's ass
crack.
Hawkwind: How did you know
to look there?
Tron: That's where I...
never mind.
There
is an ossuary opening off of the drider cavern.
Norel:
That's a good sign. It means that we're still in the crypts.
They explore the ossuary. It
is the same shape as the others. At the back, however, there is a door. There
is writing carved around the door, and on the door itself.
Hawkwind: Hmmm... the writing around the door is in Drow. It says something
about Alantria, something about a rod, and something about not letting it fall
into the wrong hands. The writing on the door is the same poem that the Lord of
the Halls told us. You know, that poem is pretty ambiguous. Is it "danger
threatens, drow seal our plight"
or "danger threatens
drow, seal our plight"?
Soren: Oh, enough of this
literary criticism. Let's get the thing.
Tron: Clear! (opens the door)
The party sees a small room.
In the center is a massive black sarcophagus. The walls are painted with scenes
that are faded with age. Tron carefully searches for traps, but finds none. They
approach the sarcophagus, and find that it is carved with stone carvings. The
carvings show a drow woman wielding a rod. Sometimes she is smiting drow with
it, other times using some sort of magic. In what appears to be the last panel,
she is killed and buried with the rod in the sarcophagus.
Hawkwind: If the rod is so powerful,
why did they bury it with her?
Norel: Maybe it's cursed?
Nigil: Well, let's get what
we came for.
Tron: The sarcophagus is
clear.
Bliz: How are we going to
get the lid off? It must weigh a ton.
Norel: [flex flex] Stand
aside.
Norel, Nigil, Tron, and
Soren heave the lid off and push it onto the floor. Inside there is the
skeleton of a drow, with the rotted remains of what were once rich funerary
wrappings. There is also a black metal rod about three feet long and one and a
half inches thick. It is unmarked.
Tron: Well, there's the rod.
(picks it up) Whoa.
Nigil: Not again!
Norel: Tron, are you ok?
Tron
hears a voice speaking to him in his head.
Voice: Hi, I'm The Rod. It's
good to be out of there! Who are you?
Are there any drow nearby?
Tron: I'm...
The Rod: Hi Tron. I can tell
we're going to be friends. I think we're going to get along fine.
Tron: It's
ok guys, it's friendly.
Nigil: Tron,
put the rod down.
Tron: No, it's not like that
cup thing! I can put the rod down any time I want! I just don't want to, that's
all. It's all good.
Norel: Hmph.
Tron and The Rod speak in
Tron's head, while the rest of the party searches the sarcophagus. They find a
platinum necklace worth 10000 silver, and a collection of other gems worth a total 1000 silver.
Meanwhile, Tron discovers
little from The Rod. It seems that it really hates Drow and would like to smite
them. It seems indifferent towards other races, and positively likes Driders. It
is curious about why the dwarves want to recover it, and wants to find out.
The party decides to return
to their cave and rest for the night so Hawkwind can prepare four teleport
spells. Tron sleeps with The Rod in his hand.
Hawkwind: Maybe Gurgi could
steal it... but do we really want Gurgi to have it?
Norel: It doesn't seem to be
overtly malicious.
The next morning Hawkwind
teleports the party back to the dwarf caves. They go to the throne room of the
Lord of the Halls. The guard's admit them. Only the Lord of the Halls and his
son, Knut, await them.
Lord: So you dare to return.
Do you have the rod of Alantria?
Tron: Yup. (pulls The Rod out of his pack) It wants to know what you
want to do with it.
Lord: Hmmm. We plan to
"lose" the rod to the Drow
Bliz: What's the Holy Axe?
Tron: Oh, they're these guys
we killed and pushed into a crevasse.
Nigil: Shush!
Tron: What, you're the one
who... oh.
Lord: [sigh] We suspected as much. But that leaves us in a quandary.
The Holy Axe fulfilled a
particular purpose in our army. As you probably know, dwarves fight in close
order. This makes us unbeatable in melee, but vulnerable to magic. The Holy
Axe's purpose in battle was to seek out and engage enemy spellcasters. Without
them providing counterspell cover, our army cannot engage in battle.
Norel: We could do that.
Lord: Do I hear you all
volunteering? If you all volunteer, I will commute your death penalties to a
sentence of exile.
Laurallie: Like I'd ever
come back here on my own...
Nigil: Sounds good to me!
Tron: Count me in.
Soren: This was pretty
barren soil for Hextor's gospel, anyway.
Bliz: Hold on, I didn't have
anything to do with this.
Lord: An innocent elf? Can
there be such a thing?
Bliz: But, um, I guess I'll
go with my friends too.
Hawkwind: It sounds like we
don't have much choice.
Lord: You don't.
Tron gives The Rod to the
Lord of the Halls.
Tron: I'll miss you, Rod. [snif]
Nigil: Oh, and speaking of
the Holy Axe, we found out what happened to that priestess who they couldn't
raise. She got turned into a drider. We killed her, so they could try to raise
her now.
Lord: Did you bring back her
body?
Nigil: Err...
Lord: Or any part of her?
Nigil roots around in the
bag of holding and produces the melted holy symbol.
Nigil: There's
some bits of her stuck to this.
Lord: I don't think charcoal
counts. It's just as well. I cannot believe that such a transformation could
have been entirely involuntary.
Soren: Knowing the priests
of Hieronious, I'd say that...
Bliz: Oh, one more thing. There
are these gnomes...
She tells about the gnomes,
and their desire to open trade with the dwarves. The Lord of the Halls is
highly interested.
Lord: We could certainly
trade profitably with them. I am sure they would like our ale, and we could
supply them with foodstuffs too.
Now, you must prepare. Our
army marches immediately.
The
party leaves the throne room and heads back to their chambers.
Norel: I hope that the
gnomes don't show those axes we gave them to the dwarves.
Soren: Hee hee.
Nigil: Are you going to
release Gurgi now?
Hawkwind: I could.
TO
BE CONTINUED...