Bane the Barbarian – Session 16

DAY 80 (cont)

After the encounter with the troglodyte ghouls we continued on more cautiously. It was decided that, to avoid such incidents in the future, Sol would check side passages and rooms for signs of trouble as we went along.

The bug room and the place where the charred cadaver had been hanging were empty and we found no explanation as to where the Undead creatures had come from. It was evident that, though they lay dormant again for the moment, there were still dark forces at work there.

We went onward until we came to the altar room at the heart of the Earth temple, and I could not help recalling the last time we were there. It was reassuring to know that Tanyara was now safe in Verbobonc.

The ziggurat had been partially rebuilt from the broken blocks of stone that not so long ago had littered the floor, but the sense of evil power was no longer present. As a precaution Halgar asked Muratis to use the Wand of Summoning to call upon some giant ant-like creatures that busily set about dismantling the structure once more.

When the ants had finished, we went on again, investigating the tunnels where Sol had told us the body of the dead ape was. We found it much as he had described, a partially eaten corpse, strangely desiccated, the rock walls and floor stained with dried blood. It had obviously met a violent fate.

Halgar wandered over and gave the body a tap with his boot, at which point all but the bones crumbled to dust.

We exchanged glances.

“That’s not normal… is it?” I said, a little uncertainly.

I was rather hoping that someone would tell me that this kind of thing always happened with giant ape carcasses and that there was nothing to worry about, but instead Muratis muttered something about Wights and Vampires draining a creature’s life force and I decided that perhaps I shouldn’t have asked.

As we moved deeper into the surrounding caverns we discovered growing evidence that some kind of pitched battle had occurred in that area. There were many blood trails and spatters across the walls, broken and discarded weapons, and occasionally bodies.

By my reckoning, it had all happened a couple of weeks before and the signs suggested that a rather bloody melee had occurred between a force of some two dozen humanoid soldiers and around six or seven of the ape creatures. It was not clear who had come out on top, though my impression was that all the apes were dead.

There was little else of any interest there, so we moved on again.

A little while later, after negotiating a well constructed pit trap, we came to a locked door.

“I’ve been thinking” said Sol as he worked on the lock. “Perhaps, when I’m finished, somebody else ought to do the actual opening of the door. I mean I’m not the best equipped to deal with anything big and nasty that might be on the other side.”

I looked at him curiously and he paused from his tinkering.

“Just a thought” he said.

“Makes sense” I replied. “The only thing is I was wondering whether you had any particular reason for bringing that up outside this door?”

“No” he said “It’s been on my mind for a while.”

And so it was that Halgar and I opened the door. To our relief there wasn’t anything big and nasty behind it, though there was a long corridor and, in a guardroom at the far end of it, a half-dozen guards.

They spotted us straight away and three of them came to investigate. The only good thing was that they didn’t seem immediately hostile.

“Hello there” called Halgar “Can you help us? We’re lost”

“What are you doing here?” asked the leader of the group a little gruffly.

“We’re looking for the Fire temple” Halgar improvised.

“You’ve gone the wrong way then” the man said, frowning at us suspiciously. “Who are you?”

“We’ve been sent to bring a message from my master to the temple of … Oh sod it!”

I presume Halgar had found the conversation tiresome, because unexpectedly he muttered something under his breath and his hands suddenly erupted in flame. The fire leapt forward and hungrily enveloped the three guards. They began screaming and thrashing around. I’m not sure who was more surprised… them or us.

After a moment of hesitation I supposed that, as subtlety had well and truly been thrown out the window, someone had better get down the corridor and silence the remaining guards. One of whom had already begun shouting.

“Intruders… Intruders in the main corridor… Attack… Attack.”

I set off at a sprint, quickly covering the ground.

Just before the guardroom there was a second corridor running perpendicular to the one we were in. As I crossed it I was vaguely aware of a massive set of double doors to the right and a wide opening further down on the left. However the corridor itself was empty. Pressing on, I barrelled into the guardroom and lay about me until all three of the remaining guards were down.

For the briefest of moments everything was quiet, and then sounds of activity began from all around; banging doors, approaching footfalls. Halgar joined me just as the sounds of bolts being drawn echoed from the heavy double doors that were now off to our left.

We stood side-by-side in the entrance to the guardroom and readied ourselves for a fight.

As the doors slowly swung open, a dozen or so guards entered the corridor from the other direction. It seemed to me that things were rapidly getting out of hand.

I took a deep breath and plunged into the attack. I thought I might be able to drive them back before we were overwhelmed, but almost immediately the corridor began filling up with guards behind me as well.

I only managed to kill a couple before a volley of crossbow bolts drove me back round the corner into the guardroom, where Halgar was casting a spell.

“Stay out of the corridor” he commanded through gritted teeth, as I made to go back out.

I halted.

Then suddenly, all along the passage, stone spikes sprang up from the rock beneath the guard’s feet. There were screams of pain and some of them fell. I had never seen such a thing before, but it was a mightily effective spell. Our adversaries were pretty much immobilised, the only downside being that it trapped us as well.

“What now?” I asked.

“Well”, said Halgar, “look at it this way, at least you can get out”

“Me?”

“Using your boots”

Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about them. Anyway, I had no intention of leaving everyone else. Though, come to think of it, I hadn’t seen anyone other than Halgar since the attack started.

Taking a peek out into the corridor, my attention was drawn to a massive grey brute of a dog that suddenly came bounding toward us from the passageway to our right. It was difficult to miss because there was something very disconcerting about it. Maybe it was its fearful glowing red eyes, or the way it seemed to exude a sense of terror, or even the fact that it was totally unperturbed by the stone spikes that projected from the floor. Either way I didn’t like the look of it. I ducked back as a crossbow bolt from one of the surviving guards clattered off the wall above my head.

“Err.. Halgar” I said, trying to suppress the quaver that threatened to break into my voice. “There’s something I think maybe you should know about…”

However at that moment, an explanation became superfluous because the fearsome beast arrived.

Instinctively I tried to fend it off and although I succeeded in holding it at bay it appeared that my blows were completely ineffectual.

Then suddenly lightning began arcing back and forth along the corridor outside, frying all the guards, and I heard Muratis yelling at us that the dog creature was an illusion.

Halgar stepped back and confirmed Muratis’s assertion.
“Bane, leave it alone, it’s an illusion”

I stopped. The wicked looking dog stayed there snarling at me viciously but did nothing else. I breathed a sigh of relief.

The moment of respite was short lived however, as a massive club came swinging through the guardroom entrance and walloped Halgar in the back, knocking him down. A huge three-armed giant had appeared. Presumably it had come through the double doors to our left.

Bloody Hell! What next? I wondered.

I ran forward… but only got as far as where the spikes started.

Hmm, this was going to be a problem.

Then I remembered the boots. Narrowly avoiding the next swipe of the giant’s club I took to the wall and headed for the ceiling. It left me feeling a little queasy but it was the only way I could reach our new adversary and help.

I pressed onward, dodging the swinging clubs as best I could. It wasn’t easy and I was bashed around without making much headway until Muratis appeared in the corridor opposite to release a barrage of magic missiles. By that time, a somewhat bruised and battered looking, Halgar had also managed to regain his feet and was wielding the divine fire of his god against the giant.

Once we were attacking on three fronts, we began to gain the initiative. I got inside the giant’s guard a few times and was able to dish out some weighty blows, though I took some heavy hits myself. In fact a couple came close to dislodging me from my foothold on the ceiling and I tried not to think about the spikes that waited below if I fell.

As usual it became a war of attrition, a test of stamina to see who would last out. I could see that we were wearing the giant down but by that time Halgar and I were severely injured and I wondered if Muratis would soon be running out of spells. It was time to end it, while we still had the upper hand.

Summoning all my strength I waited for Muratis’s next salvo and slipped in behind. For that instant the magic was my shield and I followed it to its target. I ducked under the giant’s flailing arm and put everything into a powerful combination to its chest and torso. Surely that would take it down.

The giant staggered. It was grievously wounded and blood bubbled from its mouth, but it was not finished…Which was a bit of a problem. I had taken a gamble and was over-committed. Now I was too close. The giant dropped its clubs and seized me in its powerful arms.

It clenched its fist around my head and bellowed in a guttural voice.

“Try anything and he dies”

Bugger!

I struggled against its hold but to no avail.

“Mmmpppf … Sodding kill it”, I yelled defiantly.

Apparently Muratis didn’t need a lot of convincing to pursue this course of action, because no sooner had the words left my lips than another blast of magic hit the giant and it finally fell. As it died, with it’s last vestiges of strength, it tried to tear my head from my shoulders but to my relief it failed.

I scrambled away as Halgar began to burn the giant’s body with fire, and sank to my haunches against the passage wall.

Ouch!

Once again I had taken a good deal of punishment and it hurt like Hell. Almost every inch of my body was injured in some fashion or another, my ribs and left arm particularly. To be honest I was on my last legs, I was in no fit state to do anything else.

As for my companions, Halgar looked at least as bad as I did and Sol was nowhere to be found. Only Muratis appeared relatively unscathed, although he was getting very edgy which normally meant he was almost out of magic.

“We should withdraw before anything else shows up” Muratis suggested nervously.

Halgar gestured with his hand and the stone spikes receded back into the floor.

“Where’s Sol?” he asked, ignoring Muratis’s proposal.

“I think he ran off when the illusion of the Barghest showed up” offered Muratis “but I don’t know where.”

“SOL… SOL” Halgar called.

I thought I heard something then… the clanking of chains perhaps. I quaffed a healing potion and struggled to my feet. I moved toward the right hand side of the crossroads and the sound grew more distinct. It seemed to be emanating from the opening further down the passageway. I didn’t like it.

“Hey did you guys hear that?” I asked.

“There’s something coming” responded Muratis, “I really think we should go now.”

“Not without Sol” Halgar stated determinedly.

“That’s very noble” the wizard observed “but where is he?”

“He’s coming” Halgar said nodding toward the double doors that the giant had come through.

A small shape was limping toward us from out of the darkness. It was Sol. He looked terrible. So bad in fact, that I think if Halgar hadn’t begun healing him right there and then he would have passed out.

Though I was greatly relieved to see that Sol was back with us, I was more than a little preoccupied with the approaching creature at that point. The sounds of the chains were now accompanied by a lion’s roar, and it was quite clear that we were rapidly running out of time. Whatever was coming would soon be upon us.

I edged a little further down the corridor, positioning myself between my comrades and whatever threatened us. My heart hammered in my chest as the sounds grew louder. Whatever it was I would not allow it to get past me without a fight, but in my current condition I wasn’t likely to last long.

“Are we leaving now?” Muratis urged, edging back the way we had come.

Halgar had finally got Sol back on his feet and they looked ready to go, so I started to back away from the opening toward them. It was then that three beast heads emerged; a Dragon, a Lion and a Goat, and when the Lion’s head roared the air turned to ice.

“It’s a Chimera” shouted Muratis “RUN!”

So we did.

We made it through the door at the end of the corridor just in time, and we managed to hold it closed long enough for Halgar to Stoneshape the doorway to seal it shut. In the end the door was stuck part way open, but it was enough. The Chimera couldn’t get through the gap.

It growled at us from the other side for a few moments and then headed off.

“I think there’s another way round” Halgar warned.

Oh Arse! Quickly I headed to the front to lead us out before the Chimera could cut us off.

“I think we should use a Rope-Trick” suggested Muratis.

I ignored him. Cornered in a Rope-Trick was about the last place I wanted to be right now. Unfortunately as we attempted to negotiate the pit trap Sol stumbled and fell in.

Damn it! Could anything else go wrong?

At that moment I heard the Chimera’s roar from up ahead.

Beautiful! Just beautiful! We’re screwed!

“Are we going to hide or what?” Muratis persisted.

“What if there’s a wizard with them and they can find it?” I said.

Muratis was already in the process of casting the spell.

“That’s most unlikely” he argued. “Besides do we have any other choice?”

I had to admit that I was struggling to come up with another option… but I didn’t like it. No I mean I really didn’t like it.

“Come on” Muratis encouraged jumping into the pit.

I looked over the side just in time to see him scrambling up the rope.

“You put it in the pit!?!” I said. “Do you really think that’s such a good idea?”

But Muratis had gone. “Oh never mind”

And so moments later, after recovering Sol’s unconscious body from the bottom of the pit, Halgar and I scrambled into the Rope-Trick and Muratis pulled the rope in behind.

I lay there gasping for breath for a couple of minutes until Muratis said.

“Oh… Everything’s gone dark outside”