The Enterprise summoned Green Arrow, Firiona, Lou, Arnold and Miae back to headquarters in Darksea. They were given a new mission: to return to the Demonweb!
"We need to know what’s behind the double doors," the Enterprise station master told them. "Find out, gather all the information you can, and don’t get killed!"
"Now those are instructions I can live with," joked Arnold. The others glared at his lame attempt at humor. They all agreed, however, to undertake the new mission. After making appropriate preparations, Firiona teleported the party to Greyhawk, where they accessed the door to Sigil. They stayed at one of the inns run by Enterprise agents. The next day, after stocking up with potions and a wand of dispel magic, Arnold guided the group to the door that led to Lolth’s Grove. He tried using the stolen key to open the door, but couldn’t open it–the lock had been re-keyed! Eventually, though, he was able to unlock the door. With Green Arrow leading the way, the party passed through.
After about two miles along the path leading from the door to the Grove, the adventurers encountered and drove away a red dragon. Another mile and the party reached the Grove, where they found the gate unguarded. Arnold and Lou both failed to open the gate, but Miae was able to activate it. The party quickly passed through.
Immediately the party found themselves on a strange pathway that extended to the left and right into the distance. Huge strands of spider silk crisscrossed overhead, and a billowing greyish fog obscured their vision. The pathway seemed on first glance to be formed from some kind of stone. Seemed, that is: on closer inspection the party were shocked to see distorted humanoid faces and bodies embedded in the strange material!
To the left, the pathway appeared to form a sharp corner. The party proceeded in that direction. At the corner they turned left, and saw the pair of huge bronze doors. Arnold went to the doors and checked for traps, finding at least one. He proceeded to attempt to disable the trap. Suddenly a gong rang! Arnold had failed.
The party didn’t have much time to think, for immediately four huge glabrezu demons appeared!
The fiends were so large they filled almost the entire pathway in the vicinity of the doors. Arnold immediately attacked the third of the demons, but failed to damage it. Green Arrow, hasted, also attacked the third demon, hitting it five times but failing to fell it. The demons responded by attacking Green Arrow and Firiona. The second demon grappled Green Arrow in its mighty claws. The fourth demon uttered strange syllables and pointed at Miae, who suddenly began babbling incoherently! Lou began a bardic tune, adding to the power of Firiona’s spellcasting. Firiona then cast her favorite spell, prismatic spray, at the fiends, sending the first of them to another plane!
Arnold, drawing a weapon with a flick of the wrist, heavily wounded the third demon, while Green Arrow, struggling with the second demon, broke free and escaped! His escape was short-lived, as the second demon re-established a hold on him. Meanwhile, the fourth demon uttered the dread words of the chaos hammer spell, and Firiona was stunned! Miae, fortunately, regained her senses long enough to cast slay living at the third demon, killing it! Lou then cast Otto’s irresistable dance on the second demon, who proceeded to dance maniacally.
Tumbling through the melee, Arnold next attacked the second demon, dealing heavy damage to it. Green Arrow nocked and fired an arrow of death at the fourth demon, but failed to kill it. Four more arrows still failed to destroy the fiend. In response, the fourth demon cast reverse gravity at Green Arrow, who suddenly soared upward and became entangled in the webs above the pathway! Miae relapsed into incoherence.
Arnold quaffed a potion of flying, but the fourth demon managed to grab and hold him! Green Arrow tried to escape the web which held him, without success. Suddenly, Miae stopped babbling and fled from the combat. Lou’s singing continued, and Green Arrow finally managed to free himself. But the fourth demon then dismissed his spell and Green Arrow fell with a thud to the pathway, suffering severe injuries. Arnold now struck with his weapon, finding a vital spot in the fourth demon’s head and killing it! The last demon was finally brought down by Green Arrow, and Miae, having regained her sensed, then healed the party of their wounds.
It was time to attempt to pass through the doors. Arnold was able to open the lock with surprising ease. The adventurers spelled up, then Green Arrow opened the doors. The sight that greeted the party was as disturbing as it was awesome.
A flat desert stretched out under a purple sky. The air seemed to radiate an evil heat, burning into the yellow sand of the desert. About a mile from the gate, the party could see a huge, strange structure. It appeared to be made of brass, about 100 feet tall and twice that wide. Long slim supports extended from two points on the sides of the building, arching upward and then settling back down some distance away into the sand. The structure itself appeared to have two distinct, roughly spherical sections, each barely resting on the sand. The nearer of the two sections had a wide staircase leading to a dark doorway, above which were two horizontal rows of circular windows.
The party, now all invisible and flying, sped rapidly toward the structure. On approaching the staircase, they saw two gargoyles, one on each side of the staircase. The party formed a flying chain, then flew as slowly and quietly as they could, hoping that the gargoyles would not notice them. They succeeded.
As they floated up the staircase toward the door, Firiona and Arnold noticed something strange about the material making up the structure. It appeared to be made of metal plates bolted together at first glance, but Firiona seemed to see some kind of movement within the walls. Arnold saw more clearly what was moving: tormented faces, apparently imprisoned within the metal plates! The rest of the party observed that the entire structure was not fixed to the ground, but was supported above the sand by the arches.
At the top of the staircase, the doorway was carved with many convoluted knobs and protrusions, giving it the appearance of lips and teeth. The party entered the doorway, and found themselves in a large reception room, with a desk, strewn with papers, quills, ink bottles and books, and a waiting area that appeared to be missing all of its chairs. Behind the desk was a large marilith demon, looking at a pile of documents on her desk and apparently oblivious to her surroundings.
As the adventurers entered the office, Lou bumped into the doorway! The marilith immediately looked up and saw the party (being, of course, able to see invisible). "Welcome!" she exclaimed, as if visitors such as the party were nothing unusual and, indeed, expected. "Please, sign in!" The party hesitated. "Oh, don’t mind me. I’m just a harmless little bureaucrat!" the marilith assured the party. When the adventurers approached the desk, however, the marilith found that she had misplaced the ledger. She asked the party to have a seat while she went to look for it in a room through a door to her right.
"A scatterbrained marilith," thought Firiona to herself. Green Arrow immediately seized the opportunity to examine the marilith’s desk. The papers strewn about the desktop proved to be mostly day orders, maintenance reports and the like. The elven archen then decided to investigate further. There was a second door on the opposite side of the reception area where the marilith’s desk was located. He opened the door and went in. To his left was another door, and directly ahead of him was yet another door. Quietly, Green Arrow opened the door to his left, entered cautiously, and found himself in the presence of a very large roper! His efforts to move silently were insufficient–the roper heard him. However, he reacted more quickly than the roper, and immediately withdrew out of the room.
The other door remained to be investigated. Again Green Arrow tried to enter silently, and again, the room’s occupants noticed him. This time he found himself facing three unusually large bugbears, heavily armed and well-equipped. The first bugbear swung its morningstar at the elven archer, but missed. The miss proved fatal, as Green Arrow quickly dispatched the fighter with a barrage of arrows. The remaining bugbears barely scratched the elf before they, too, fell to feathered shafts. Having become visible during the battle, Green Arrow quickly quaffed another potion of invisibility, then stuffed the bugbear bodies into the portable hole.
Meanwhile, the marilith had returned to the reception room with the visitors’ ledger. "Where did your companion go?" she asked, noticing Green Arrow’s absence. As Firiona signed the book, she answered, "Oh, he went to look for a chair!" Her answer seemed to satisfy the marilith, who replied, "Oh, it’s those darn quasits again! They’re always swiping the chairs!" Lou next signed the book, as did Miae and Arnold, pseudonymously. Miae asked why they needed to sign in. "I don’t know," replied the marilith. "Just the way we do things here. By the way, if your friend doesn’t show up soon, we’ll have to consider him an intruder."
A few minutes went by, without Green Arrow’s return. "Wait here, I’ll be back," said the marilith as she left the reception room again. Just after she left, Green Arrow came back. "I told her you were looking for chairs," Firiona informed the elven archer. Green Arrow quickly described what he had seen and done, then quaffed two potions of cure light wounds to return himself to his previous condition, lest the marilith become even more suspicious.
After another few minutes, the marilith returned. She spotted Green Arrow, without any retrieved furniture, and remarked, "You didn’t find any? Not surprising. Oh well, come along and I’ll introduce you!"
The multi-armed, snakey demon led the party through the door to her right, into a hallway, a guard room staffed by red-eyed hill giants, another hallway, and a larger guard room occupied by two huge frost giants, before arriving at a huge, court-like chamber. "The honorable Black Arrow and his companions!" announced the marilth. Having completed her introduction, she vanished from the court.
The floor of the room had a twenty-foot-wide outer border of swirled marble stone, surrounding a huge inner square of grey lead flooring. Two rows of smooth marble pillars stood along the inner and outer edges of the inner square. The walls of the court were adorned with mosaics of a colorful jungle swamp inhabited by an unfamiliar race of spider-like humanoids. The far wall was lined with doors, one every ten feet, fourteen in all.
Arnold told the party, "You go on in, I’ll snoop around on my own. See what I can find." He turned back and snuck through the guard posts and hallways to investigate the various doors they had passed on the way in. Miae detected abjuration magic at the entrance to the court, but couldn’t further identify it. "Firiona, can you identify what’s in this area?" she asked. Firiona’s spellcraft was up to the task: the area bore a permanent greater dispel magic spell.
"Well, there’s more than one way in," said Firiona. She promptly dimension door’d into the court. But as soon as she appeared in the room, so did another figure: a huge, black spider-shape with the head of a woman!
The party was shocked. Green Arrow thought, "Oh no, we can’t fight her!"
The figure began to speak. "Welcome to my home. You’ve done well so far. Now you have only one more challenge–to survive!" Firiona hid behind a column, as did Lou. Green Arrow, desperate now, shot an arrow at the monstrous creature, but it easily evaded the arrow. But something didn’t seem right to Miae. She looked closely, and knew.
"It’s not real!" she shouted to the rest of the party. The three others looked again, more carefully this time. Suddenly the apparition that had seemed to be Lolth, Queen of the Spiders, disappeared!
Quickly, the party made for the far wall with its many doors, and entered one of them. The door led into a small room which in turn opened into what looked like a narrow hallway, with a single door in the opposite wall. But when the party opened and entered the "door", the door and wall both disappeared, and they found themselves face to face with a white dragon in its lair!
Fortunately, the white dragon was rather small and not very capable, and the party easily dispatched it and seized its treasure. After further exploration, the party eventually found a stairway leading upward, and took it. The staircase proved to be trapped with various glyphs, which the party blundered into and set off, but none of the adventurers were critically injured.
The stairway opened onto a broad hall on the next level of the spidership. The party looked the hall over, when suddenly a part of the floor shimmered and wavered, and on it there appeared . . . a basket of dirty socks! The party were puzzled by this occurrence until Firiona and Miae both remembered the highly chaotic nature of both Lolth and her domains. But they didn’t have much time to wonder about magically-appearing laundry, for a secret door suddenly opened and out ran a party of ten angry ogre guards, each looking amazingly strong even for ogres!
Green Arrow got off the first shots, quickly killing the first ogre and wounding another. The ogres struck back but did little damage. Firiona cast chain lighting, shocking two of the ogres. Lou attempted to slow them, but without success. Miae’s crossbow shot missed its target.
Now Green Arrow shot again, but missed so badly that he hit another ogre by mistake instead! One of the ogres hit Green Arrow, injuring him slightly. Then Lou’s bardic song ability boosted Firiona, and she proceeded to cast her favorite spell, prismatic spray. Two ogres immediately disappeared, sent who knows where. Two more were turned to stone, while two others began babbling insanely. Another two were blasted with fire, suffering serious burns. The last ogre, unhurt but aware that he was hopelessly outclassed, ran off.
They soon killed the remaining ogres who were still fighting, looted the corpses, and found a store room in the ogres’ quarters containing a variety of magical weapons. Miae and Lou both asked, "What about the one that got away?" The party knew that soon the alarm would be raised. Miae also asked, "And what about Arnold?" Firiona quickly cast locate creature to find where Arnold was. She reported that he was below and to the southeast of them. The party decided to retrieve Arnold and leave the spidership as quickly as possible.
The adventurers turned invisible and returned to the first level, dimension door’d around the dispel-magic zone and entered the large room where the frost giants still stood guard. The giants, however, were now on alert, having been warned by the fleeing ogre that a powerful party was at large. The giants quickly understood which party it was.
Firiona was out of dimension door spells at this point, and the adventurers knew they would have to manually open the door which Arnold had taken. This would of course alert the giants to their presence. So, they decided to fight it out. Which they did. The giants proved formidable opponents, but in the end were brought low by Green Arrow’s firepower, Firiona’s magic, and the might of a summoned air elemental. Green Arrow was fortunate in that the frost giant jarl had attempted to sunder his bow, almost succeeding in destroying it.
Quickly looting the giants’ corpses, the party then spelled up and headed back to the corridor out of the guard room. "What happened to Arnold?" Miae asked. "We should look for him before we get out of here!" The rest of the party agreed. They took the first door to their left as they headed back down the corridor. It opened into a large, roughly wedge-shaped storage room, with another door to their left at the far end of the room. The adventurers moved quietly to the door, listened for noises beyond, then opened the door.
Not quietly enough. The room proved to be another guard station, and the four ogres on watch inside took violent exception to their presence! Battle ensued, and although the ogres fought desperately, they proved no match for the might of Green Arrow’s bow and Firiona’s spells. The bodies of the ogres yielded a rich haul of gold and booty.
Exploring the guard room, the party soon found a stairway that led downward to an unknown lower room. Miae’s sharp ears suddenly heard footsteps coming up the stairs! The party took cover, and Green Arrow cast shield on himself, anticipating another battle. Up from below came . . . Arnold!
"Well, who’d’ have expected it?" exclaimed Arnold. "But great minds think alike!" He quickly told the party what he’d found. "The engine room’s down below," he said. "Staffed by salamanders. Pretty big ones at that."
"Good to know," said Green Arrow. "Now let’s get out of here!" advised Miae. They all joined hands, and Firiona cast mass teleport. Suddenly, the party found themselves back at the portal to the Demonweb. They turned around to see if they were being followed. No pursuers were visible. They couldn’t see that the gargoyles on the front staircase of the spider ship had spotted their sudden appearance, then flown up the stairs and into the ship.
Back in the Demonweb, the party ran back the way they’d come. They reached the portal to Lolth’s Grove with no opposition. From there, they fled speedily toward the portal back to Sigil. They made it about a mile from the Grove before they encountered anyone. But it wasn’t just anyone. This was a female drow. A cleric of Lolth! And she wasn’t alone.
The drow gestured at Lou, and suddenly the bard’s lute shattered! Behind her, a troop of drow archers loosed a barrage of arrows at the party. Arnold and Firiona ran to take cover in the nearby woods, while Miae loaded her crossbow. Green Arrow activated his boots of speed, then shot a death arrow, which unfortunately missed its target: an old red dragon that had joined the battle against the party!
Lou began singing, using a spare instrument to replace his shattered lute, inspiring heroics in the party. More arrows from the drow archers flew, but did little damage. The drow cleric also headed into the woods. Chain lightning flew from Firiona’s outstretched hands, blasting the drow archers. She then shapechanged to pit fiend form! Miae’s insect plague attacked several of the archers, biting fiercely.
One of the drow archers fell to Green Arrow’s next attack. Firiona and Arnold both attacked another archer, wounding him severely. The remaining archers loosed their arrows again, hitting Arnold for slight damage. Green Arrow then went invisible, while Firiona’s furious attack drove off another of the archers. Miae cast doom on another drow archer, leaving the archer shaken, and Arnold backstabbed still another, killing the dark elf.
But now the cleric, having previously turned ethereal and advanced on the party, touched Green Arrow’s cloak. A damning darkness suddenly surrounded the elven archer, damaging him. More arrows flew from the remaining drow archers, to little effect. But Green Arrow wisely removed and dropped his cloak, and was able to run out of the darkness! Miae charged the cleric and grappled her, which didn’t prevent the minion of Lolth from casting thousand needles on Arnold, but did set her up for Green Arrow’s critical hit on the cleric. The priestess fell, mortally wounded.
The remaining drow archers now put aside their bows, drew swords, and attempted to melee the adventurers, but with little more success than they had realized with their bows. But now, having previously been summoned by Firiona, a creature arrived with a vast quaking of the battlefield and surrounding area: an elder earth elemental! The elemental and the dragon battled each other, each wounding the other. The elemental was left shaking from the encounter!
The battle raged. All the surviving drow archers, having seen how ineffective their attacks were against the adventurers, wisely decided to flee the hopeless battle. It was now a battle between the party and their elemental ally against the red dragon, and the dragon made its presence felt, breathing at the party for huge damage! Lou, still crawling and trying to maintain his bardic music, was picked up by the elemental and carried away from the dragon. Arnold, now invisible, attempted to backstab the dragon, but was unable to pierce the monster’s scaly armor.
"Time to get out of here!" cried Green Arrow. The rest of the party agreed, and began to run toward the waiting portal back to Sigil. But the dragon had other plans. And this dragon was also a spell-caster! Suddenly, a wall of fire appeared, blocking the retreat of the adventurers. Green Arrow shot ineffectively at the dragon, then dropped his bow, preparing to draw his sword. The dragon breathed again, blasting Green Arrow with fire. The elven archer flew down to recover his bow, while Firiona, after failing to hit the dragon with a quickened acid ball, struck the creature with a cone of cold, wounding it. Enraged, the monster fired a magic missile at Green Arrow, but the elf’s defenses withstood the magical projectile.
Another barrage of arrows from Green Arrow struck the dragon, drawing more blood from the now-weakened creature. Arnold’s next attempt to backstab the dragon failed again, and the dragon responded by dispelling the rogue’s stoneskin spell. But the monster was rapidly weakening, and a final joint assault by the party and its summoned elemental did sufficient additional damage to force the monster to flee the battle. The party had prevailed!
With the way now clear, the adventurers took the portal back to Sigil, dispatching the two drow guards who had been assigned to secure the portal. After recuperation and rest in Sigil, the party made their report to the Enterprise. Three days later, they met with the Blue Dahlia to report directly to her.
Green Arrow asked, "What’s going on with Edward?"
"Oh, he’s still occupied elsewhere," replied the Dahlia. "I’m sure he’ll let you know when he gets back."
The party now took the opportunity to rest, improve their skills, replenish their supplies of magic items and other goods, and attend to their own personal business. Miae was found worthy to advance to Third Level within the Enterprise as a result of her accomplishments during the recent adventure. After her promotion, she returned to her brewery in Darksea.
No comments:
Post a Comment