Session 31

Basil managed to get up on to the bridge by grabbing on to a fisherman's line as he floated past, relying on curiosity to get himself hauled in. He prepared a story about being an emmissary of the River King, but when he started to speak the hapless peasant (who thought he'd snagged a valuable toy of some kind) became terrified and tried to stomp on him. Abandoning his lovingly-crafted cover story, he scampered under cover and began to make his way slowly across the bridge, lurking undre the accumulated garbage and detritus that had been kicked to the sides of the roadway between the many shops and stalls built on it.

Karlof and Carnelian, meanwhile, were alarmed to see a troop of Sword Brethren cantering down the road toward them from the city. They ducked into a cornfield next to the road, stimulating howls of outrage from the farmer, who didn't want a pair of ragged vagabonds trampling all over his precious crop. Carnelian did a spot of redirection, turning a stick into an adder and tossing it towards the yokel to distract his attention while they hid deeper in the field.

The Sword Brethren rode straight past without taking any notice of them, but they decided that possibly walking down the main road wasn't such a fantastic idea, and decided to make for the river-side across the fields. They made it there in fairly short order, and found themselves on a well-travelled barge-path. They hailed a fisherman in a small boat, and offered him a silver penny to row them across the river; he accepted with pleasure, though his satisfaction was somewhat lessened as Carnelian's creepy mystic aura began to make itself felt.... he got them across just as quickly as he could, and then scarpered to tell the Sword Brethren that there was a nasty demon-worshipping goat-buggering wizard on the loose.

The handbill — click to see a full-sized version

The Sword Brethren already knew. When Basil finally made it to the other side of the bridge (he's only got very little legs after all, so it took him quite a while) he saw that there was a pair of white-cloaked guards there, examining the passers-by carefully and making frequent reference to a handbill. Alas, Basil can't read, so the significance was completely lost on him, except to let him know that the dastardly Sword Brethren were clearly on the look-out for somebody.

Carnelian and Karlof clambered up the low bluffs and lurked for a while, to see what they could see. They did see the Sword Brethren, and decided that perhaps staying out of sight might be a good idea. They crept stealthily through the bushes into the edge of the forest.

Meanwhile, Basil was pondering how to get past the guards without being nabbed. He found a mangy mongrel snuffling amongst the garbage by the road and mentally convinced it that it wanted a passenger, and then, clinging to its belly-hair among the fleas, lice and ticks, he steered it out past the guards — one of whom took a kick at it as it went by. It went flying, giving a great yelp, but Basil managed to keep his grip and quickly steered it out away from the small cluster of houses at the northern end of the bridge. He found Karlof's mind, and borne by his trusty (if stinky) steed, went to join them in the forest. Pandora found them shortly afterwards, and they began to make their way through the forest to the ruin on the bluffs.

Although difficult going, the passage through the forest was uneventful, though Karlof noted the strange lack of any kind of bird or animal life. There seemed to be plenty of bugs and beetles though...

Really, really big bugs. As it turned out.

As they mounted a low ridge overlooking the remains of the ancient ziggurat, they were suddenly attacked by swarms of spiders of all kinds, as well as two massive creatures like some kind of gigantic, spindly cockroaches. The party was rapidly forced into a defensive posture, surrounded by masses of hideous poisonous multi-legged critters.

Karlof put up the best fight of his life, ducking and diving and laying waste with his quarterstaff. Carnelian and Pandora let loose magic left and right, while Basil tried not to get accidentally stood on and squashed by either his friends or the rampaging arachnids. The fight was brutal, and though the Good Guys triumphed, it was at the cost of Carnelian who had been bitten by a gigantic wolf-spider and injected with a ghastly necrotic poison that started dissolving him from the inside-out. Fortunately, he didn't have to suffer long, because one of the cockroach creatures grabbed him in its huge mandibles and cut him in two.

The fight over, Karlof went through Carnelian's belongings and found a weird red stone that seemed to pulse unpleasantly. He had no idea what it was, so he stuffed it into a cavity in a tree trunk.

Karlof, Pandora and Basil decided to retreat, to rest and recuperate, and hopefully to come up with a plan to get them all past the swarms of poisonous bugs. Pandora thought that they could bypass them if they were all flying, and so (after resting long enough to regain some magical oomph) turned Karlof into what she thought of as an angel — a kind of slender bird-man with clawed feet and majestic white wings. While she recovered from the effort, Karlof practiced flying — something he'd never done before. A few hours taught him that as long as he didn't want to turn rapidly, he could generally fly to where he wanted to go (although landing remained problematic).

They flew off, Pandora carrying Basil, keeping quite low over the forest canopy so as not to be spotted by anybody nasty such as Sword Brethren, and came quickly to the ziggurat. Pandora had scouted it out previously and noted a collapse which should allow access to the interior, and they flew directly towards it. At the last second, Pandora spied a great web laid across the entrance and tried desperately to backpeddle — alas, Karlof's flying skills were not up to the task and he caromed straight into her, bursting through the web which stuck Pandora and Basil firmly to his chest. The constricted surroundings did nothing for his flying either, and he soon lost control and began to tumble down into the pitch-black interior of the ziggurat. At the last possible second, he regained his composure and managed to use his wings well enough to break his fall so that it didn't break him. Everybody crashed into the tumble of moss-covered boulders littering the floor below the collapse.

Apart from the area lit by a shaft of light from the hole far above, the interior was impenetrably dark, and nobody could see a thing. They could hear something though; something big. And nasty.

A nightmare creature of vast size charged out at them from the blackness; a hideous spider-like octopoid abomination, with a huge, mottled, pulpy body and a humanoid head covered in eyes. It pounced on Karlof, who dodged for all he was worth. Pandora managed to blind it with a summoned swarm of butterflies and it retreated; she then tried to make a light....

Oh dear. It went terribly wrong. She made a light all right; she turned a rock into a lamp that burst with the light of a thousand suns, blinding everyone... except the spider-squid-thing, which was already blinded and thus unaffected. Pandora's butterflies dissipated, and it immediately went for the helpless Karlof, smashing him against the massive rocks and knocking him unconscious.

Basil had located Tallis's mind and scuttled over to find her wrapped tightly in a dense coccoon. She was thrashing about and making muffled noises, but couldn't free herself, being unable to get any leverage with her arms pinned to her sides. Basil soon managed to cut her free with his razor-sharp little stilleto, and she made a grab for a spear held by an ancient skeletal figure in a wall-niche.

Pandora regained her sight before the squid-spider-demon-creature could crush Karlof to death, and hit it with another fairy spell, stunning it. She did it again, knocking it out completely, and Tallis jumped on it, stabbing wildly with the spear. She stabbed and stabbed, and it split apart in a disgusting red light, dissipating in a cloud of stinking dust.

Basil found two other coccoons with living people in them, and cut them both free — a pair of Wild Elves, twin brothers, as it turned out. Reef and Chase.

Tallis went scavenging to find some clothes, and also swiped the jewellery from the mummified guardians. She struck the jackpot with one of the coccooned corpses who must have been a man of considerable prosperity before being wrapped up and killed by a demon; she found a money-pouch full of gold and silver on his belt and immediately took it into her charge (for the deserving poor, you understand).

Pandora turned Karlof back into himself again, and everyone began looking for a way out. No problem for Pandora, who can fly, but for everyone else the situation was a bit more tricky. The hole they came in through is well out of reach, and though there's spider-demon silk a-plenty, getting it up there would be problematic. Or at least, getting it up there without Pandora being eaten by a huge spider. Tallis spotted a doorway with steps leading upwards, but the steps ended after twenty feet or so in a blank stone wall; she noted that the slab it was resting on was cracked as if by having a dirty great big stone dropped on it.

Pandora to the rescue once more. She began tunneling magically through the rock, burning rapidly through all her remaining endurance and started taking STUN... eventually she just couldn't go on any more, and everyone settled themselves to rest. Reef and Chase found their equipment undamaged and retrieved some food from their packs, which they shared (grudgingly) with their rescuers, and Tallis explained about the quest. Amazingly, the two paranoid psychotic strangers decided it would be a good idea to go along and help. Who'd have thought.

Pandora slept, and the next day made a final effort to get through the massive walls of the ziggurat. The spiders outside were remarkably quiescent, compared with their nature of the previous days, and didn't bother them on the way out at all. The party made their way back towards the edge of the forest, deciding to make their way east towards the Barrowbog and circle around south to the Anforaois, hopefully to avoid entanglement with the Sword Brethren. Karlof decided he'd had a gutsful of being beaten up, and departed for the north.