How do I even-
To Hell and Back v. 2014
The Story Thus Far:
So, a rogue, a sorcerer and a wizard walk into a dwarven merchant hub smack in the middle of the city's Festival of the Mineral Harvest. As a drow, surface elf, and elven half-breed, respectively, the native dwarven revelers decide it would be hilarious to forcefully enter each of our hapless heroes into a small drinking contest. The rough wooden table set out in the square against a backdrop of barrels of ale stacked as high as the drunken dwarves dare climb was already a fairly intimidating sight, but the opposing contestants didn't help alleviate their fears.
A half-orc leaned confidently against the mountain of barrels, waiting for the contest to begin with a menacing grin. He barely gave our heroes more than an amused eyeroll and a dismissive chuckle. A sullen drow was already seated at the table, glowering into his mug, his foreign leather coat was embossed with brass studs and spikes with embroidery that depicted his foul goddess, Lolth. The final contestant had been hard to spot, initially, a portly gnome with beady, sparkling eyes. He seemed to have many friends among the mostly-dwarven audience, though it was clear from the shouts around the group that the favorite to win was the swarthy half-orc.
A group of dwarven hands pushed the first contestant into her seat: the half-elven wizard, who seemed to sense her impending doom. Her drow adversary barely raised his glow, red eyes, before sweeping his gaze to the organizer, a large boulder of a dwarf hefting a barrel on his shoulder as he made his way over to the table. He set his load down on the table and stuck a spigot into the side, gesturing for the empty mugs. The drow slid his over wordlessly, and realizing the wizard didn't have her own glass - a fact that caused many in the audience to snicker and murmur the usual things about tree-huggers and surface dwellers - the dwarf unhitched his own well-used mug and filled it for her.
She accepted it with even more apprehension, and a little distaste, but the drow was already sliding his back to the dwarf, one drink ahead of her. She steeled herself and took a long draught of the dubiously dark liquid - and promptly spit the entire sip into the drow's face. The dwarven audience roared with laughter and the drow lept up, wiping his face and wringing ale from his long white hair.
"Sit yer down, pretty boy," the dwarf at the head of the table laughed, "I imagine this'll be over afore too much longer..."
He graciously refilled the poor wizard's mug and set them both to drinking again. The half-elf slowly, deliberately drained this second glass before just as slowly, and perhaps not quite so deliberately sliding off her seat and onto the ground beneath the table, to another chorus of laughter from the spectators. To prove his point, the drow finished his own glass before getting up and sauntering away from the table, with a piercing look back at his fallen foe.
The wizard was gathered up and set on a barrel nearby to make way for the next contestants: the elvish sorcerer and the favorite to win, the half-orc. With another roll of his bulging eyes, he uncrossed his hairy arms and stalked over, slamming an impressively large tankard on the table before sitting himself down with a groan of protest from the bench. The sorcerer, not to be outdone, made a dainty show of arranging her robes around herself as she settled into her place and held out a hand to the dwarf, waiting for her glass.
The dwarf simply shook his head and handed the skywatcher her poison. In a show of perhaps malicious chivalry, the half-orc waited for her to go first, and with a surprising amount of fortitude, the elf finished her glass without the slightest grimace.
The half-orc's sneer turned sour as his fun was spoiled and he quickly drained his tankard and urged the dwarf for another. And another, and another. The elf was toe to toe with her foe, matching him glass for glass until the fifth round when she reached for her mug, missed, and slipped beneath the table and promptly fell asleep.
The half-orc stood up from his seat, hiding his relief with a show of flexing and posturing. The elf was picked up and leaned against her wizard companion as the gnome and shifty-looking drow were seated. The drow seemed a little ill-at-ease, seeing how popular the gnome was with the audience, and with the knowledge that he had just successfully pick-pocketed a large percentage of them. Two rounds of dwarven ale and he was out of the lime-light, however, and steadier on his feet than the two foreigners before him, he attempted to make his getaway.
He stole around the mountain of barrels near the two hapless elves and ran smack into the hairy chest of an orc. A real, full-blood orc.
"Oh, shi--" was all the drow had time for before the orc drew his rusty scimitar and gutted the thief. The two elves perched on a barrel nearby were caught in the blood splatter and roused from their delirium.
"What, who is responsible for this?!" the sorcerer shrieked as she felt the blood on her face, horrified.
The wizard, less concerned with her robes and more with the grisly scene unfolding a few feet away launched a magic missile and knocked the orc into the barrels, causing the tower to simultaneously collapse and crush him beneath them, and reveal a trail of other orcs making off with more barrels.
This finally drew the attention of the revelers who had just been congratulating the gnome on drinking the half-orc underneath the table and they shouted at their broken barrels of ale and the line of retreating orcs.
"After them!"
"They've taken the ale!"
"Fifty gold-"
"ONE HUNDRED GOLD PIECES TO WHOEVER BRINGS BACK THAT ALE!"
While there may have been more than a little drink attributed to these statements, everyone began scrambling after the thieves, including a rather fancy-looking dwarf and his sullen companion bedecked with symbols of Moradin's Hammer. "Bring him, too," the fancy dwarf ordered, pointing to the drow kneeling in the dirt with his entrails in his arms. The surly cleric caught the drow by the collar and hoisted him back onto his feet, slamming a healing spell into his stomach without little ceremony.
The drow was too bewildered to complain as he was hastened along after the orcs. The two elves had been the first to respond to the call of the sizable cash reward against the orcs, but in their inebriated state, they were quickly overtaken by the fancy dwarf, his cleric, and the sobered drow. In a fit of revenge, the drow slide-tackled one of the trailing orcs, knocking his barrel out of his arms and into the orc in front of him, taking them both down. The drow finished off his quarry, bashing the thief in the skull with the butt of his dagger, as the two elves staggered ahead to the next foe.
Still clearly under the influence, the wizard threw herself at the scrambling orc and pinned him down, shrieking absurd questions at him, while the confused and now slightly terrified creature uttered broken responses. It was the sorcerer this time who acted, hurling her own magic missile at the orc before finishing him off with her sword.
With those two trailing orcs successfully dispatched, the fancy dwarf and his companion ran past, urging the three to follow. The other dwarves quickly trailed behind, the booze slowing their legs as well as their minds. Finally, watching the orcs disappear into the maze-like mines at the outskirts of the city was enough to make them give up and turn back.
The elves and the two dwarves, however, were too invested to give up now. Into the mines they ran after the trail of thieves, down the twisting, empty passages, lit all too infrequently for the surface elves by torches that burned low.
"Don't worry," the fancy dwarf called over his shoulder, "I know these shafts well. I am the head of the Mining Guild, after all." The party started as they realized just how important this well-dressed dwarf was, and the drow looked particularly impressed as he considered the contents of his pockets. The orcs had gained too much ground to be seen and were quickly lost by the group, and they began to slow as they tried to pick up the trail.
The two dwarves seemed less concerned with the orcs as they were with the passage itself, frequently glancing around at the walls and ceiling while the elves searched for signs of their quarry. Finally, the guild leader slowed to a halt as the others passed.
"This doesn't... this isn't dwarven construction," he murmured curiously as he examined a beam overhead. "This is orc design!" he finished with a curse as a section of the support came away in his hand. A rumbling began somewhere far above them, causing them all to stop and look up.
"... RUN!" the guild leader shouted as the passage began to collapse, burying him so quickly that he was crushed where he stood, his final word drowned in the deafening roar of tumbling stone. The group sprinted down the shaft as the ceiling caved in behind them, pelting them with rocks until the sorcerer was pinned beneath a boulder, crushing her legs.
The cave-in ceased, and the party immediately came to the elf's aid and rolled the boulder away. The cleric absently knelt to heal her, staring at the wall of loose stone blocking their way back, knowing his fellow dwarf was dead. What that really meant to him, the elves couldn't guess for he neither said anything or changed his expression as he turned away and began continuing slowly down the only way left to them: forward.
It wasn't long before they saw more signs that they were approaching the den of the orcs. There were totems, lanced skulls of unidentifiable underdark creatures placed menacingly, and rubbish heaps scattered about the shaft. Finally, they saw the tunnel end, and open up into a small natural cave. The drow held up his hand for the others to halt, and quietly made his way ahead, clearly practiced in this type of reconnaissance.
He found cover behind a stalagmite and peered around the cavern. It was obvious this area served as a sort of base camp for the orcs, filth rags stretched out on ropes like crude tents, cooking pits that lazily smoked, even the stolen ale barrels, hastily stacked up against one wall. But there were no orcs, not a soul to be seen. The drow waited another moment before waving the group on so they could all be just as wary and confused as he.
They picked their way around the camp, idly kicking through the rubbish and rummaging through the tents. It was near the back of this cave that gave them their first clue where the orcs might have gone: a large stone door stood slightly ajar, carved with a wicked depiction of a dragon. Above were mysterious runes, the alphabet of the foulest of the foul, "Abyssal...?" the wizard muttered to herself as she examined them curiously. "No, not quite... it's like some other dialect... I can see here it says something about a 'Pit'... and perhaps 'Fire', and this must be someone's name..."
The drow rolled his eyes. "Doesn't sound comforting," he quipped.
The wizard rolled her eyes back. "Does it LOOK comforting?" she gestured to the dragon carving.
"It doesn't SMELL comforting," the sorcerer added as she stuck her head inside, and coughed.
The cleric pushed them all out of the way and heaved the door open. He nodded his head for the others to enter, his chivalry stopping at opening the door for the ladies.
They huffed at him and entered, unimpressed, while the drow held back shaking his head. A plain room greeted them, the worked stone floor and walls a departure from the packed earth of the mine shaft and orc camp from before. A rusty metal door stood at the end of the featureless room. The sorcerer pushed it open without ceremony and entered, much to the drow's dismay. Such hastiness was surprising to him even from these pale surface elves.
The room beyond was darker than the first, being farther from the fires of the orc camp, and the two ladies squinted through the gloom. The room was longer and wider than the first, and it seemed to be edged by thick stone pillars that ran its length. There were tapestries, little more than dull red rags that hung from the walls, whatever symbols or figures they once depicted having long since faded away.
The door swung shut behind them with a screech and clang, and the sorcerer raced back to it with a yelp. Her protests were quickly silenced by the sound of coughing, or perhaps it was laughing, echoing about the room.
"Defilers!" came one dry, raspy voice.
"Trespassers!" hissed another.
"How dare you!"
"Heathens!"
Eventually the name calling died down, but a new chant was taken up:
"Those who dare trespass must head our words!"
"Be ye of higher mind than those who came before, we shall see!"
It was only then that what the party had thought to be piles of rubble strewn here and there around the room were perceived to be bodies, some old, and some not so old...
"Well, at least we know what happened to the orcs," the drow muttered as the cacophony continued.
"It wakes at night,"
"And sleeps by day."
"Thrice a month it turns away."
"It trods along a certain path,"
"Predictable, if you know the math."
"Long-standing partner of this realm,"
"Shining and rounded like a helm."
"Can you see me down in the Deep?"
"Do I watch you as you sleep?"
The party stood still for a moment, until the sorcerer turned from the door and addressed the riddlers.
"Could you repeat that?"
There was soft growling heard from several directions before the riddle was hastily repeated with less mystique and more irritation.
"The moon," the wizard scoffed barely a breath after the lyric was finished. Even the underdark-dwelling drow nodded his assent.
There was more silence and six pairs of glowing red eyes shone out of the gloom, surrounding them.
"Congratulations,"
"ye passed the test,"
"so much faster than all the rest,"
"but though you've proved your quickened wit,"
"WE'RE STILL GOING TO KILL YOU!"
"Hey, that doesn't rhyme-" the sorcerer began to protest before owners of the glowing eyes revealed themselves to be grotesque gargoyles and attacked the group.
The wizard out in front attracted the gargoyles first, though the cleric and the drow stepped up beside her quickly. Magic missiles burned through the darkness and the drow's dagger drew sparks off their stony skin. The gargoyles, already weakened from their tussle with the orcs from earlier, were quickly destroyed, causing the metal door behind the group to open.
Back out of the death trap they rushed to nurse themselves back to health, but an assessment of their situation made them realize there really was only one choice, to continue on. They cautiously reentered the pillared room and realized the gargoyles had each been hiding at the entrance of hallways that lead off from the chamber.
"Great," the drow spat, as the wizard was already poking her head through the threshold of one.
"This one's just a room... and there's something here!" She came back with a small wooden box that held and ornately carved stick.
"What's that supposed to be?"
"It's a sunrod!" the sorcerer answered, matter-of-factly, covering up a semantic wave of her hand and the incantation of her Identify spell with a haughty attitude.
The drow shrugged and turned back to another tunnel, his dark-vision rendering that surface item useless. He peered into the gloom suspiciously, unable to see the end, even with his sight. After checking the other tunnels and seeing that they curved off abruptly in one direction or another, or disappeared in a flight of steps, he decided that this straight tunnel was the way to go and, motioning that the others should wait at the threshold, slowly made his way inside.
He was about thirty feet in when he began to hear a light shuffling noise echoing ahead. He paused and pressed himself up against the wall to hide, but couldn't see what it might be. Just as quickly, the noise ceased and he relaxed. Summoning up his courage, he continued, but as soon as he moved, the shuffling noise resumed, louder this time. He paused once again, straining his senses to perceive the source of the noise.
From the entrance, the two surface elves could just barely make out the drow's long white hair and dim silhouette against the gloom. They were dying to know what was going on that was making the drow start and stop like that, but had to content themselves with nervous waiting.
The drow carefully stooped to pick up a loose bit of stone and toss it down the hall, hoping to triangulate whatever the source of the sounds was. As the stone tapped against the floor, there came a horrible booming noise from farther down the hall. Thoroughly spooked, the drow turned and ran back down the hall and the sound of thundering footfalls came after him.
Right out of the tunnel the drow fled, straight past his companions and down another tunnel that turned into a flight of stairs. The sorcerer sprinted for the metal door at the entrance and slammed it shut behind herself, leaving the poor wizard and cleric with no other choice but to follow the drow down the stairs. They quickly realized that this tunnel was blocked not ten paces from the landing of the staircase and they were trapped.
The drow readied his daggers as the wizard pushed up her sleeves, but their mysterious foe never appeared. After another moment of waiting, the drow climbed back up the stairs and peeked into the pillared chamber. Nothing. His courage gathering, he strayed farther into the room until he realized there really was nothing there. The wizard poked into the room after him, as he went to the door to yell at the selfish sorcerer.
While the other two elves exchanged heated words, the wizard peeked down the straight tunnel once again and thought for a moment. "I think... I think it's enchanted," she called back, and then repeated herself with more volume until she had her companion's attention. "It's just an echoing enchantment, see?" she stomped around on the floor just inside the tunnel and flinched as her sound was echoed back at her with increased violence.
Embarrassed, the drow pushed past her and forged on ahead, leading the group as quietly as they could manage under the effects of the enchantment. At the far end of the hallway was another metal door and the drow examined it suspiciously, before edging it open to peek inside.
He was immediately greeted by the sight of two skeletons poised to attack. He ducked reflexively as he heard that now-familiar incantation for a magic missile and looked up just in time to see it hit an invisible barrier and leave the skeletons unscathed.
Confused, but still on guard, the drow rolled into the room and around the assailants, flanking them. When he came up, he struck with his daggers, immediately embedding his hands inside that invisible barrier up to his wrists. With a cry, he retrieved his hands and stepped back warily. The two surface elves pushed the door open fully, seeing that the skeletons had yet to move, still positioned as if they were about to strike.
"It's an ooze!" the wizard exclaimed, as each of the other members had been reaching the same conclusion. The drow shook the gunk from his hands and attacked anew as his companions fired off more missiles. After nearly being crushed by the gelatinous beast, they destroyed it, its body liquifying and the two suspended skeletons dropped to the floor with a clatter. It was only after the fight that they finally got a good look at the room, triangular in shape, with two doors opposite theirs.
A careful push into the room beyond the first door revealed a large fountain filled with a peculiar blue, viscous liquid that dripped from the mouth of a stone dragon perched on the edge. After testing its qualities, it was determined that this liquid had healing properties and the party quickly emptied the contents of their waterskins in favor of this potion.
With much less care and concern, the wizard kicked in the second door and swaggered into the next room. The metal door swung in on a large room with an ornate, stone sarcophagus at one and and another orc corpse heaped on the floor beside it. At the group's entrance, the heap began to shudder and raise off the ground in jerky, halting movements until it had righted itself on feet. Without any further introduction, it opened it's gaping jaw and raised a crude staff in it's hands, sending a freezing gust of wind the elves' way.
The wizard fell to her knees and shivered, overcome, and the drow and the sorcerer stepped up beside her, crossbows raised. They fired a volley, striking the creature squarely, but suddenly it vanished! The cleric took this opportunity to get the wizard back on her feet while the other elves waited for their target to reveal himself.
And he did. He appeared a small distance away from his original location and struck them with another freezing blast of wind. Steeled against it this time, the group quickly launched a counter attack and the creature was forced to hide itself again. Not waiting for the beast to reveal himself again, they fired off shots haphazardly, sending bolts ricocheting off the walls, though at every chanced hit, the creature's cover was broken and he was forced to attack.
In a last act of desperation, he ran at the group, staff raised high and caught the drow on the side of the head, knocking him out immediately. The sorcerer was ready with a last bolt, however, and the beast crumpled to the floor, vanquished.
As the cleric got the drow back on his feet, they noticed the sarcophagus sliding along the floor, revealing the landing of a flight of stairs, that seemed to open up to what could only be seen as "daylight". The drow shielded his eyes with a hiss, but the two surface elves eagerly trotted down the short flight and into the open.
What they saw filled them with both awe and dread: it must have been a large, natural cavern, but it was so incredibly massive, that they could neither see the ceiling, nor any other walls except the one they had just emerged from, and even that stretched off into either distance seemingly without end. The ground was sandy - as if with the ancient silt of a vast underground aquifer, the cleric was quick to guess - and rose and fell in shallow dunes as far as the eye could see. When the drow had finally regained his vision, he followed the group down the steps and paused at the exit, but where else could they go?
They could only go forward.
Play Time: approx. 4 hours
Party Level: 1
Treasure: 1x sunrod, 1x staff of unknown properties, 20+ coins of unknown make and value, 12x gp
MVP: Everyone had their shining moments
Most LOLs: Maddy
Ding.
The Story Thus Far:
So, a rogue, a sorcerer and a wizard walk into a dwarven merchant hub smack in the middle of the city's Festival of the Mineral Harvest. As a drow, surface elf, and elven half-breed, respectively, the native dwarven revelers decide it would be hilarious to forcefully enter each of our hapless heroes into a small drinking contest. The rough wooden table set out in the square against a backdrop of barrels of ale stacked as high as the drunken dwarves dare climb was already a fairly intimidating sight, but the opposing contestants didn't help alleviate their fears.
A half-orc leaned confidently against the mountain of barrels, waiting for the contest to begin with a menacing grin. He barely gave our heroes more than an amused eyeroll and a dismissive chuckle. A sullen drow was already seated at the table, glowering into his mug, his foreign leather coat was embossed with brass studs and spikes with embroidery that depicted his foul goddess, Lolth. The final contestant had been hard to spot, initially, a portly gnome with beady, sparkling eyes. He seemed to have many friends among the mostly-dwarven audience, though it was clear from the shouts around the group that the favorite to win was the swarthy half-orc.
A group of dwarven hands pushed the first contestant into her seat: the half-elven wizard, who seemed to sense her impending doom. Her drow adversary barely raised his glow, red eyes, before sweeping his gaze to the organizer, a large boulder of a dwarf hefting a barrel on his shoulder as he made his way over to the table. He set his load down on the table and stuck a spigot into the side, gesturing for the empty mugs. The drow slid his over wordlessly, and realizing the wizard didn't have her own glass - a fact that caused many in the audience to snicker and murmur the usual things about tree-huggers and surface dwellers - the dwarf unhitched his own well-used mug and filled it for her.
She accepted it with even more apprehension, and a little distaste, but the drow was already sliding his back to the dwarf, one drink ahead of her. She steeled herself and took a long draught of the dubiously dark liquid - and promptly spit the entire sip into the drow's face. The dwarven audience roared with laughter and the drow lept up, wiping his face and wringing ale from his long white hair.
"Sit yer down, pretty boy," the dwarf at the head of the table laughed, "I imagine this'll be over afore too much longer..."
He graciously refilled the poor wizard's mug and set them both to drinking again. The half-elf slowly, deliberately drained this second glass before just as slowly, and perhaps not quite so deliberately sliding off her seat and onto the ground beneath the table, to another chorus of laughter from the spectators. To prove his point, the drow finished his own glass before getting up and sauntering away from the table, with a piercing look back at his fallen foe.
The wizard was gathered up and set on a barrel nearby to make way for the next contestants: the elvish sorcerer and the favorite to win, the half-orc. With another roll of his bulging eyes, he uncrossed his hairy arms and stalked over, slamming an impressively large tankard on the table before sitting himself down with a groan of protest from the bench. The sorcerer, not to be outdone, made a dainty show of arranging her robes around herself as she settled into her place and held out a hand to the dwarf, waiting for her glass.
The dwarf simply shook his head and handed the skywatcher her poison. In a show of perhaps malicious chivalry, the half-orc waited for her to go first, and with a surprising amount of fortitude, the elf finished her glass without the slightest grimace.
The half-orc's sneer turned sour as his fun was spoiled and he quickly drained his tankard and urged the dwarf for another. And another, and another. The elf was toe to toe with her foe, matching him glass for glass until the fifth round when she reached for her mug, missed, and slipped beneath the table and promptly fell asleep.
The half-orc stood up from his seat, hiding his relief with a show of flexing and posturing. The elf was picked up and leaned against her wizard companion as the gnome and shifty-looking drow were seated. The drow seemed a little ill-at-ease, seeing how popular the gnome was with the audience, and with the knowledge that he had just successfully pick-pocketed a large percentage of them. Two rounds of dwarven ale and he was out of the lime-light, however, and steadier on his feet than the two foreigners before him, he attempted to make his getaway.
He stole around the mountain of barrels near the two hapless elves and ran smack into the hairy chest of an orc. A real, full-blood orc.
"Oh, shi--" was all the drow had time for before the orc drew his rusty scimitar and gutted the thief. The two elves perched on a barrel nearby were caught in the blood splatter and roused from their delirium.
"What, who is responsible for this?!" the sorcerer shrieked as she felt the blood on her face, horrified.
The wizard, less concerned with her robes and more with the grisly scene unfolding a few feet away launched a magic missile and knocked the orc into the barrels, causing the tower to simultaneously collapse and crush him beneath them, and reveal a trail of other orcs making off with more barrels.
This finally drew the attention of the revelers who had just been congratulating the gnome on drinking the half-orc underneath the table and they shouted at their broken barrels of ale and the line of retreating orcs.
"After them!"
"They've taken the ale!"
"Fifty gold-"
"ONE HUNDRED GOLD PIECES TO WHOEVER BRINGS BACK THAT ALE!"
While there may have been more than a little drink attributed to these statements, everyone began scrambling after the thieves, including a rather fancy-looking dwarf and his sullen companion bedecked with symbols of Moradin's Hammer. "Bring him, too," the fancy dwarf ordered, pointing to the drow kneeling in the dirt with his entrails in his arms. The surly cleric caught the drow by the collar and hoisted him back onto his feet, slamming a healing spell into his stomach without little ceremony.
The drow was too bewildered to complain as he was hastened along after the orcs. The two elves had been the first to respond to the call of the sizable cash reward against the orcs, but in their inebriated state, they were quickly overtaken by the fancy dwarf, his cleric, and the sobered drow. In a fit of revenge, the drow slide-tackled one of the trailing orcs, knocking his barrel out of his arms and into the orc in front of him, taking them both down. The drow finished off his quarry, bashing the thief in the skull with the butt of his dagger, as the two elves staggered ahead to the next foe.
Still clearly under the influence, the wizard threw herself at the scrambling orc and pinned him down, shrieking absurd questions at him, while the confused and now slightly terrified creature uttered broken responses. It was the sorcerer this time who acted, hurling her own magic missile at the orc before finishing him off with her sword.
With those two trailing orcs successfully dispatched, the fancy dwarf and his companion ran past, urging the three to follow. The other dwarves quickly trailed behind, the booze slowing their legs as well as their minds. Finally, watching the orcs disappear into the maze-like mines at the outskirts of the city was enough to make them give up and turn back.
The elves and the two dwarves, however, were too invested to give up now. Into the mines they ran after the trail of thieves, down the twisting, empty passages, lit all too infrequently for the surface elves by torches that burned low.
"Don't worry," the fancy dwarf called over his shoulder, "I know these shafts well. I am the head of the Mining Guild, after all." The party started as they realized just how important this well-dressed dwarf was, and the drow looked particularly impressed as he considered the contents of his pockets. The orcs had gained too much ground to be seen and were quickly lost by the group, and they began to slow as they tried to pick up the trail.
The two dwarves seemed less concerned with the orcs as they were with the passage itself, frequently glancing around at the walls and ceiling while the elves searched for signs of their quarry. Finally, the guild leader slowed to a halt as the others passed.
"This doesn't... this isn't dwarven construction," he murmured curiously as he examined a beam overhead. "This is orc design!" he finished with a curse as a section of the support came away in his hand. A rumbling began somewhere far above them, causing them all to stop and look up.
"... RUN!" the guild leader shouted as the passage began to collapse, burying him so quickly that he was crushed where he stood, his final word drowned in the deafening roar of tumbling stone. The group sprinted down the shaft as the ceiling caved in behind them, pelting them with rocks until the sorcerer was pinned beneath a boulder, crushing her legs.
The cave-in ceased, and the party immediately came to the elf's aid and rolled the boulder away. The cleric absently knelt to heal her, staring at the wall of loose stone blocking their way back, knowing his fellow dwarf was dead. What that really meant to him, the elves couldn't guess for he neither said anything or changed his expression as he turned away and began continuing slowly down the only way left to them: forward.
It wasn't long before they saw more signs that they were approaching the den of the orcs. There were totems, lanced skulls of unidentifiable underdark creatures placed menacingly, and rubbish heaps scattered about the shaft. Finally, they saw the tunnel end, and open up into a small natural cave. The drow held up his hand for the others to halt, and quietly made his way ahead, clearly practiced in this type of reconnaissance.
He found cover behind a stalagmite and peered around the cavern. It was obvious this area served as a sort of base camp for the orcs, filth rags stretched out on ropes like crude tents, cooking pits that lazily smoked, even the stolen ale barrels, hastily stacked up against one wall. But there were no orcs, not a soul to be seen. The drow waited another moment before waving the group on so they could all be just as wary and confused as he.
They picked their way around the camp, idly kicking through the rubbish and rummaging through the tents. It was near the back of this cave that gave them their first clue where the orcs might have gone: a large stone door stood slightly ajar, carved with a wicked depiction of a dragon. Above were mysterious runes, the alphabet of the foulest of the foul, "Abyssal...?" the wizard muttered to herself as she examined them curiously. "No, not quite... it's like some other dialect... I can see here it says something about a 'Pit'... and perhaps 'Fire', and this must be someone's name..."
The drow rolled his eyes. "Doesn't sound comforting," he quipped.
The wizard rolled her eyes back. "Does it LOOK comforting?" she gestured to the dragon carving.
"It doesn't SMELL comforting," the sorcerer added as she stuck her head inside, and coughed.
The cleric pushed them all out of the way and heaved the door open. He nodded his head for the others to enter, his chivalry stopping at opening the door for the ladies.
They huffed at him and entered, unimpressed, while the drow held back shaking his head. A plain room greeted them, the worked stone floor and walls a departure from the packed earth of the mine shaft and orc camp from before. A rusty metal door stood at the end of the featureless room. The sorcerer pushed it open without ceremony and entered, much to the drow's dismay. Such hastiness was surprising to him even from these pale surface elves.
The room beyond was darker than the first, being farther from the fires of the orc camp, and the two ladies squinted through the gloom. The room was longer and wider than the first, and it seemed to be edged by thick stone pillars that ran its length. There were tapestries, little more than dull red rags that hung from the walls, whatever symbols or figures they once depicted having long since faded away.
The door swung shut behind them with a screech and clang, and the sorcerer raced back to it with a yelp. Her protests were quickly silenced by the sound of coughing, or perhaps it was laughing, echoing about the room.
"Defilers!" came one dry, raspy voice.
"Trespassers!" hissed another.
"How dare you!"
"Heathens!"
Eventually the name calling died down, but a new chant was taken up:
"Those who dare trespass must head our words!"
"Be ye of higher mind than those who came before, we shall see!"
It was only then that what the party had thought to be piles of rubble strewn here and there around the room were perceived to be bodies, some old, and some not so old...
"Well, at least we know what happened to the orcs," the drow muttered as the cacophony continued.
"It wakes at night,"
"And sleeps by day."
"Thrice a month it turns away."
"It trods along a certain path,"
"Predictable, if you know the math."
"Long-standing partner of this realm,"
"Shining and rounded like a helm."
"Can you see me down in the Deep?"
"Do I watch you as you sleep?"
The party stood still for a moment, until the sorcerer turned from the door and addressed the riddlers.
"Could you repeat that?"
There was soft growling heard from several directions before the riddle was hastily repeated with less mystique and more irritation.
"The moon," the wizard scoffed barely a breath after the lyric was finished. Even the underdark-dwelling drow nodded his assent.
There was more silence and six pairs of glowing red eyes shone out of the gloom, surrounding them.
"Congratulations,"
"ye passed the test,"
"so much faster than all the rest,"
"but though you've proved your quickened wit,"
"WE'RE STILL GOING TO KILL YOU!"
"Hey, that doesn't rhyme-" the sorcerer began to protest before owners of the glowing eyes revealed themselves to be grotesque gargoyles and attacked the group.
The wizard out in front attracted the gargoyles first, though the cleric and the drow stepped up beside her quickly. Magic missiles burned through the darkness and the drow's dagger drew sparks off their stony skin. The gargoyles, already weakened from their tussle with the orcs from earlier, were quickly destroyed, causing the metal door behind the group to open.
Back out of the death trap they rushed to nurse themselves back to health, but an assessment of their situation made them realize there really was only one choice, to continue on. They cautiously reentered the pillared room and realized the gargoyles had each been hiding at the entrance of hallways that lead off from the chamber.
"Great," the drow spat, as the wizard was already poking her head through the threshold of one.
"This one's just a room... and there's something here!" She came back with a small wooden box that held and ornately carved stick.
"What's that supposed to be?"
"It's a sunrod!" the sorcerer answered, matter-of-factly, covering up a semantic wave of her hand and the incantation of her Identify spell with a haughty attitude.
The drow shrugged and turned back to another tunnel, his dark-vision rendering that surface item useless. He peered into the gloom suspiciously, unable to see the end, even with his sight. After checking the other tunnels and seeing that they curved off abruptly in one direction or another, or disappeared in a flight of steps, he decided that this straight tunnel was the way to go and, motioning that the others should wait at the threshold, slowly made his way inside.
He was about thirty feet in when he began to hear a light shuffling noise echoing ahead. He paused and pressed himself up against the wall to hide, but couldn't see what it might be. Just as quickly, the noise ceased and he relaxed. Summoning up his courage, he continued, but as soon as he moved, the shuffling noise resumed, louder this time. He paused once again, straining his senses to perceive the source of the noise.
From the entrance, the two surface elves could just barely make out the drow's long white hair and dim silhouette against the gloom. They were dying to know what was going on that was making the drow start and stop like that, but had to content themselves with nervous waiting.
The drow carefully stooped to pick up a loose bit of stone and toss it down the hall, hoping to triangulate whatever the source of the sounds was. As the stone tapped against the floor, there came a horrible booming noise from farther down the hall. Thoroughly spooked, the drow turned and ran back down the hall and the sound of thundering footfalls came after him.
Right out of the tunnel the drow fled, straight past his companions and down another tunnel that turned into a flight of stairs. The sorcerer sprinted for the metal door at the entrance and slammed it shut behind herself, leaving the poor wizard and cleric with no other choice but to follow the drow down the stairs. They quickly realized that this tunnel was blocked not ten paces from the landing of the staircase and they were trapped.
The drow readied his daggers as the wizard pushed up her sleeves, but their mysterious foe never appeared. After another moment of waiting, the drow climbed back up the stairs and peeked into the pillared chamber. Nothing. His courage gathering, he strayed farther into the room until he realized there really was nothing there. The wizard poked into the room after him, as he went to the door to yell at the selfish sorcerer.
While the other two elves exchanged heated words, the wizard peeked down the straight tunnel once again and thought for a moment. "I think... I think it's enchanted," she called back, and then repeated herself with more volume until she had her companion's attention. "It's just an echoing enchantment, see?" she stomped around on the floor just inside the tunnel and flinched as her sound was echoed back at her with increased violence.
Embarrassed, the drow pushed past her and forged on ahead, leading the group as quietly as they could manage under the effects of the enchantment. At the far end of the hallway was another metal door and the drow examined it suspiciously, before edging it open to peek inside.
He was immediately greeted by the sight of two skeletons poised to attack. He ducked reflexively as he heard that now-familiar incantation for a magic missile and looked up just in time to see it hit an invisible barrier and leave the skeletons unscathed.
Confused, but still on guard, the drow rolled into the room and around the assailants, flanking them. When he came up, he struck with his daggers, immediately embedding his hands inside that invisible barrier up to his wrists. With a cry, he retrieved his hands and stepped back warily. The two surface elves pushed the door open fully, seeing that the skeletons had yet to move, still positioned as if they were about to strike.
"It's an ooze!" the wizard exclaimed, as each of the other members had been reaching the same conclusion. The drow shook the gunk from his hands and attacked anew as his companions fired off more missiles. After nearly being crushed by the gelatinous beast, they destroyed it, its body liquifying and the two suspended skeletons dropped to the floor with a clatter. It was only after the fight that they finally got a good look at the room, triangular in shape, with two doors opposite theirs.
A careful push into the room beyond the first door revealed a large fountain filled with a peculiar blue, viscous liquid that dripped from the mouth of a stone dragon perched on the edge. After testing its qualities, it was determined that this liquid had healing properties and the party quickly emptied the contents of their waterskins in favor of this potion.
With much less care and concern, the wizard kicked in the second door and swaggered into the next room. The metal door swung in on a large room with an ornate, stone sarcophagus at one and and another orc corpse heaped on the floor beside it. At the group's entrance, the heap began to shudder and raise off the ground in jerky, halting movements until it had righted itself on feet. Without any further introduction, it opened it's gaping jaw and raised a crude staff in it's hands, sending a freezing gust of wind the elves' way.
The wizard fell to her knees and shivered, overcome, and the drow and the sorcerer stepped up beside her, crossbows raised. They fired a volley, striking the creature squarely, but suddenly it vanished! The cleric took this opportunity to get the wizard back on her feet while the other elves waited for their target to reveal himself.
And he did. He appeared a small distance away from his original location and struck them with another freezing blast of wind. Steeled against it this time, the group quickly launched a counter attack and the creature was forced to hide itself again. Not waiting for the beast to reveal himself again, they fired off shots haphazardly, sending bolts ricocheting off the walls, though at every chanced hit, the creature's cover was broken and he was forced to attack.
In a last act of desperation, he ran at the group, staff raised high and caught the drow on the side of the head, knocking him out immediately. The sorcerer was ready with a last bolt, however, and the beast crumpled to the floor, vanquished.
As the cleric got the drow back on his feet, they noticed the sarcophagus sliding along the floor, revealing the landing of a flight of stairs, that seemed to open up to what could only be seen as "daylight". The drow shielded his eyes with a hiss, but the two surface elves eagerly trotted down the short flight and into the open.
What they saw filled them with both awe and dread: it must have been a large, natural cavern, but it was so incredibly massive, that they could neither see the ceiling, nor any other walls except the one they had just emerged from, and even that stretched off into either distance seemingly without end. The ground was sandy - as if with the ancient silt of a vast underground aquifer, the cleric was quick to guess - and rose and fell in shallow dunes as far as the eye could see. When the drow had finally regained his vision, he followed the group down the steps and paused at the exit, but where else could they go?
They could only go forward.
Play Time: approx. 4 hours
Party Level: 1
Treasure: 1x sunrod, 1x staff of unknown properties, 20+ coins of unknown make and value, 12x gp
MVP: Everyone had their shining moments
Most LOLs: Maddy
Ding.