Bane the Barbarian – Session 3

DAY 4

The sobering reality of the next morning was that our plan was to return to the moat-house and finish what we had started. I have to confess that I was less than looking forward to the prospect of going back there. The events of the past few days had seriously dented my faith that I was cut out for this line of work.

The journey out of Hommlet seemed to go much quicker than before and all too soon we were back in the well room. With the assistance of some of Tangrel’s magic we were able to ignore the chill air and concentrate on lifting the plug. It did not take us long. Though it was heavy work, even with the aid of the huge pulley system that was in place. I listened as the water rapidly drained away into the darkness. Somewhere far below there was the hollow echo of it splashing onto rock. It sounded a very long way down.

There was a moment when amidst the rushing of the water I thought I heard an evil cackle. I looked around at my comrades but it was apparent that none of them had heard anything. I could not be certain that the sound had not been a figment of my imagination but still it made me even more apprehensive.

We descended into the darkness, balanced precariously on a rickety wooden platform. Down and down we went. Below, the shaft we were in opened out into a huge cavern. It was a long way down to the stone floor. I felt quite vulnerable up there. Tangrel continued to work the rope system that lowered us steadily and it was a relief when the platform finally touched down.

Normally I would have been glad to get solid rock beneath my feet once more, but there was something unnatural about this place. As our torchlight illuminated the obsidian floor, the flickering flames made it appear that streaks of purple discolouration within the rock were in some way animated. I took it for a trick of the light, my imagination working overtime, but then again maybe they were moving. I noted that none of my companions appeared all that keen to leave the platform.

After a few moments the light from Tangrel’s magic shield illuminated an indistinct construction at the edge of the cavern. It was difficult to make out, but it looked very much like the pulleys and supports at the top of a second platform.

The thought that we may have further to go down was not a comforting one.

My esteem for Tangrel increased when he declared that we should wait on the platform while he investigated. He was a brave man. I greatly respected him for that. I resolved to follow his example and conquer my own fears.

I watched with some concern as he set out across the floor.

When he was about halfway the things in the floor began to move. Purposefully they writhed toward him, gathering around his feet and glowing with unnatural energy. For a moment Tangrel appeared to stumble a little but he pressed on. His steady, determined progress to the other platform was reassuring but it was obvious that something was amiss. I had the impression that each step that he took required a great effort from him.

I was relieved when he made it to the other side.

“Are you alright Tangrel?” Muratis called. “What have you found?”

“I feel a little weak”, Tangrel admitted. “Do not attempt to cross. Whatever these things are, they are able to leech our strength somehow. Wait a moment”

Tangrel looked about him. The beam of light from his magic shield sweeping back and forth and then down. “It is indeed a second platform” he added. “We are not yet at the bottom of this hole. It would seem that we are atop a massive pillar that rises out of the darkness below. I cannot see the bottom.”

“So how are we going to get across?” Ichabard asked hesitantly.

I looked across at Tangrel standing alone on the other platform. The writhing creatures had dispersed. It was a fair distance but I knew I could cover the ground quickly. They hadn’t moved that fast. “I think I can make it” I said, more confidently than I felt. I wanted to show the others that it could be done and that like Tangrel I was not afraid.

For the moment there were no better ideas.

I grasped my courage tightly and leapt as far across the expanse between the two platforms as I could. My feet barely touched the floor as I ran faster than I have ever run before. It seemed further somehow when I was actually out there, but there was no turning back. At the last moment, just as the creatures began to swarm around me I dived for the platform and scrambled to Tangrel’s side. It had been close… Very close. I realised that it was unlikely that my companions would be swift enough to follow my example.

Carceron was the only member of the group fleet footed enough to try and he joined Tangrel and I a few minutes later, but that still left Ichabard, Rae and Muratis on the other platform.

While the others addressed the problem at hand, I glanced nervously over the edge and down into the darkness. I was wondering what was down there and whether I’d stay alive for very long after I found out.

Eventually, after someone had come up with the idea of stringing a rope between the two platforms and Ichabard had got himself stranded part way, Muratis and Rae used magic to climb to the vaulted ceiling and walk across. Some kind of spider magic I guess. To be honest, it gave me the creeps watching them hanging there above us. It’s not natural and all that. But I guess it worked.

Once we were all aboard we began the second part of our journey into the depths. Deeper and deeper we went. This time it was my turn to handle the rope and control our rate of descent. I gripped it tightly. Whatever happened I did not intend to end my days by plunging headlong into the foul darkness below.

Muratis and Rae remained on the wall and a spirit conjured by Muratis held a sun-rod a short distance beneath us to light the way.

For many minutes it seemed, we continued down into the darkness and then without warning there was movement from above. The tentacles of a huge bloated monstrosity that had silently descended toward us were only a few feet away. The fiend was nearly as large as the platform on which we stood.

I tried to lower us faster to take us out of its reach, but the creature was too close. I saw tentacles lash out and drag Ichabard off the platform and up toward its wicked looking beak. I would have leapt to his aid but the lives of everyone on the platform were dependant on me keeping my hold on the rope. I prayed that by some miracle my long-time companion would be saved.

To add to our problems, at that moment I spotted a second adversary, a robed priest hovering in the shadows. His eyes locked with mine and he smiled wickedly as he began some cursed incantation. “Bugger me!” I thought “Not again!”

Then, from out of nowhere, a huge serpent appeared right on top of me, rapidly engulfing me in reptilian coils. Although this was preferable to having my brains addled, at that moment I didn’t really have time to appreciate this change of fortune. Instead, I was focusing all my energies on fighting desperately to maintain a hold on the rope, while struggling one-handed to fend the creature off.

Adrenalin coursed through me, every sinew straining against the serpent’s powerful constriction. I dug my fingers into the scales and flesh at the base of its head and squeezed as hard as I could, but my tactics were largely ineffectual. I was helpless while I retained my hold on the rope, and to release it would doom us all.

I would surely have been crushed but for my own resilience and the timely intervention of Carceron, who after a few moments called to me that he had tied off the rope. Suddenly I was free to grapple the serpent with both hands and I attacked it furiously, gouging out lumps of its flesh with my bare hands and twisting it’s head around in an attempt to crush it’s skull. I could feel my own ribs close to cracking as it constricted ever more tightly.

Amidst the turmoil I was barely aware that Tangrel had quaffed a potion and leapt upwards, climbing the rope at great speed. Glancing in that direction I saw that he was attempting to intercept the priest who had almost succeeded in hacking his way through the rope that wound it’s way back and forth between the pulleys. As I continued my attempt to throttle the serpent, everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. My gaze followed the rope downward. The priest was nearly through it. The rope was badly frayed. The rope that was attached to the platform. The platform that precariously hung here above the seemingly bottomless darkness. The platform that I was standing on … “Oh arse!!!”

And then with a final swing of the priest’s blade the rope was cut.

Rapidly the rope began to unravel. The platform lurched and tilted as it started to fall. With a last ditch effort, fuelled by desperation, I summoned all my strength and leapt for one of the loops of rope that were suddenly in the process of unwinding from the pulleys. I was still partly held within the serpent’s coils but as the platform fell the creature dropped away and I was pulled free.

As the platform and the serpent plummeted into darkness I was relieved to be heading rapidly in the other direction but it occurred to me that this was probably only a temporary reprieve. I felt certain that one of the loops of rope must be anchored at the top somewhere, and that it was only a case of working out which one. The fact that I was rapidly ascending meant that it probably wasn’t this one.

After attempting a death-defying mid-air switch to another loop of rope, only to end up heading downward once again, I decided to take a moment to offer up a plea for assistance to any gods who might be listening. I am not usually one for prayers, but under circumstances such as these I can be persuaded to make an exception.

I’m still uncertain which deity it was who answered, but all of a sudden the rope snapped taught, jerking me to a halt. I am not sure how I held on but I have to say that I found the prospect of plummeting to my doom a powerful motivational factor in maintaining my grip.

For a long while I hung there. The darkness had closed in around me once more, but at least I was alive. And it wasn’t totally dark for above and below there were flickers of torchlight, though quite some distance away. I wasn’t sure what to do next. “Up or down?” was really the question at hand.

The torchlight from above gradually came closer and I was reassured when I recognised Muratis moving down the wall towards me.

“Bane, are you alright?” he called.

“Err… yeah” I responded “… pretty good considering.” Given the alternatives I couldn’t really complain about how things had turned out.

“Can you hold on?”

“Uh-huh.” Again, given the alternatives, “holding on” was something I thought I could be persuaded to do for a pretty long time.

“Well I’ve cast a web across the gap some distance below you” Muratis offered. “So you can climb down if you like. It will support you for at least a while.”

I looked at Muratis a little strangely for a moment. Webs? Walking on walls? He was acting awfully spidery all of a sudden. Was there something he wasn’t telling us?

“Thanks” I said uncertainly.

Muratis nodded and headed off down the wall. I watched as the light that he carried grew more distant.

I wondered how many of the others had also made it through the encounter.

After a few more minutes I started on down.

To my great relief, when I eventually reached the web, I discovered Ichabard alive and… well, not so well. But it was a distinct improvement from being dead. Apparently the monstrous tentacled creature had been killed before it had finished him and when this happened, rather fortuitously, it had not plummeted but floated gently downward. Ichabard, despite his injuries, had clung on until the descent had been halted by Muratis’s web. A joyous reunion followed. It was a marvel that we were both still alive.

We rested for a little while and then continued on down.

When we finally arrived at the bottom, we found the others investigating a fist-sized gem, fused into the rock at the base of the pillar. The carcasses of two more tentacled creatures lay on the ground before an archway in one corner of the room. Disconcertingly no light appeared to pass beyond the threshold. As I peered within Muratis sternly warned us to keep away from it, as apparently the arch was a portal to another dimension and whenever anyone touched it one of the monstrous creatures came through.

I did as I was told and instead kept my eyes peeled. Ichabard went off to investigate the strange runes and sigils that appeared at various points around the room. To my untrained eye there didn’t appear to be all that much here.

Then Tangrel came around the pillar toward me, said something I did not fully understand, and collapsed on the floor. I called to the others and hurried to his side.

When he regained consciousness a few moments later it was apparent that something was very wrong. His wounds had been miraculously healed and he seemed deeply troubled by something he would not speak of. He paced around in agitation. The distress on his face was plain to see.

“I have made a terrible mistake” he said, “The Enemy has taken my soul”

Rae and Muratis demanded an explanation but Tangrel became angry with them. He turned away and began to climb the rope with the same speed I had seen before. We called for him to come back but he paid no heed. He was not the Tangrel that I knew and after hearing the chilling words that he had uttered, I feared what he might do.

Almost immediately Rae and Muratis set off up the wall in pursuit, leaving Ichabard and I alone. There was no hope that I could match their speed and I was not confident that if Tangrel was indeed possessed by the Enemy that he would not cut the rope if I pursued. I had experienced quite enough close calls with death for one day.

After a while however, my nervousness about loitering in such an evil place overcame my concerns and I decided that if the rope was going to be cut it would have fallen by now. So with Ichabard in tow I began the long climb to the surface.