DM Note: Uruk was unbubbled to NPC mode for this evening's game.| DM Note: Uruk was unbubbled to NPC mode for this evening's game. |
As they ran, Méabh and Gorfang discussed options. Should they go back down to the room with the stanchions, and try to collapse the upper chamber. Both were rather taken with the idea of collapsing the upper level, but couldn't think of a way to do it safely without bringing the whole lot down on their heads. Méabh added Cat's Grace and Improved Invisibility to her running spells, and the pair ran on.
Above, Lynien, propelled by the Sandals of Nebekheshut, was far ahead. She'd donned her ring and was invisible; she planned to get to the top as quickly as possible to see what was there. Eloy was on the stairs now as well, Uruk running beside him. Bog had remained in the stairs leading up to the cone-room, where it seemed safe.
This began to seem like a good decision, because at that moment, the crystal pyramid bgan to unleash bolts of bright green light, blasted out erratically in all directions. Several darted towards the various adventurers in their various locations. One came directly for Gorfang, but seemed to veer away at the last moment. Méabh's voice came from her invisible form: "Saved you then!".
At that moment, a flurry of dark, winged shapes tumbled off the top of the cone and into the air, swooping down to intercept the approaching adventurers. They split into groups as they flew, splitting their numbers between the seperated intruders.
Méabh slugged down a Haste potion, and accelerated to nearly the same speed as Lynien, pulling away from Gorfang, who drew his sword as he ran. Lynien herself ignored the oncoming creatures, concentrating like Méabh on speed. Eloy started yelling in Selasht at the monsters, calling on them to halt in the name of Sabath, but a deep, grinding chuckle was the only response he received.
Méabh eyed their foes, reaching inside herself for the Book's lore, and concluding that they were some kind of demon or fiend, similar to a creature called Varrangoin, though these seemed rather smaller. She noted the long bony spike on the end of each tail, and braced herself for poison attacks.
Then the airborne attackers reached their running targets. Eloy and Uruk, attacked by four between them, halted and wielded their swords. Bereloth's glass blade slashed across the chest of a flying demon, but the resulting wound was rather disappointing. Eloy caught a glimpse of the cut as the creature swirled around him; the edges looked thick; the monsters had supernaturally tough skins.
Gorfang also stopped, braced himself, and struck as the monsters came towards him. His blade tore into his chosen target, damaging it but far less than expected.
Méabh disdained mere combat and ran on. Two monsters swooped towards her, able to discern her location despite invisibility it seems, and slashed at her as she ran past, drawing blood in several places. They swooped past, then turned and flapped frantically as they worked to catch up with the sprinting sorceress.
Lynien was also struck by a sprint-by attack and lightly wounded, but was too fast for the demons to catch and ran on out of reach. Her foes flew after her, obviously hoping to catch her at the top.
Then the crystal pyramid cycled again, blasting another fusillade of green death bolts down around the cone. It appeared not to have any form of selective targetting, for it managed to strike four of the nine flying demons as they swung away from the stairs and the sides of the cone, making them easier targets. Each went instantly limp, curling up and plummeting towards the floor far below... killed instantly.
Bolts seared close to Gorfang and Eloy, but again seemed to be deflected at the last instant. Eloy, feeling his appeal to what he'd mistaken for servants of his Regalia's god, switched to taunts instead, and obviously distracted one enough to slow it for a moment; Bereloth drove into its' eye and it dropped, flopping and twitching, onto the stairs.
Gorfang struck again and again, infuriated by the resistance to damage the demons possessed, until he had slain one, but it was taking too long and his other opponent struck back. The orc felt the sharp tail drive into his shoulder, and an icy feeling spread into him; he'd been poisoned again. His fingers began to feel thick, and his movements slowed somewhat.
Lynien sprinted up the last of the stairs and onto the top of the cone. Rather to her surprise, there was no red-armoured figure there to meet her, just the circle of humming powerstones and the pyramid floating above. In the centre of the platform was a circular hole; this had steps in and was almost certainly a spiral stairwell going down through the stanchion room within the 10' pillar they'd seen in there.
The circle of powerstones were ablaze with light. Each was covered with deeply-incised runes which flared with bright green power. Linking them and the pyramid was an intricate tracery of pale blue tendrils of flickering energy. As she looked at this, a green deathbolt tore down and sizzled to nothingness on the stone inches from her. This galvanized her decision, and she dashed across the platform and down the stairs. As she ran, she could feel the static tingle of the energy as she ran through the flows; her hair lifted and moved but she took no harm.
Méabh stopped. One of her two assailants had been fried by the deathbolts, and she had an idea how to deal with the other. She cast a Web spell, aimed above and slightly behind the demon, and grinned as it dropped over it, tangling the mmonster in its' sticky folds. The helpless demon bounced away down the steep slope of the cone, paradoxically cushioned in the mass of web, but trapped, until it landed with a sticky splat on the floor below. Méabh turned and resumed running, above the fighting now, towards the top. A couple of moments later she reached it, concluded the same as Lynien, and dived down the stairs to join her. Both cancelled their invisibility and they began to descend.
 Bonus - a completely irrelevant picture, from earlier in the campaign - click it for larger image! |
Eloy continued his run of luck, and delivered another blow powerful enough to overcome the demons' damage reduction, killing his second foe. He turned his attention to the one attacking Uruk. The half-orc was in trouble, covered in blood and defending frantically, and his opponent turned to tackle this new, fresher attacker. This was a mistake, as Uruk gleefully cut it down from behind.
The last demon swirled around Gorfang and swiped at him, its' claws skating off his armour. The orc riposted, slashing the creature's right wing to shreds, and it spiralled away towards the ground, out of the fight.
Getting their breath back, Gorfang, Eloy and Uruk finished the climb, finding the top platform deserted. The green pyramid was still firing bolts of death in all directions, and the need to stop it was urgent. If it was anything like the last one, it was powered by the Powerstones, and the layout of those stones was critical to the correct flows.
Gorfang reached out and laid a hand on one of the powerstones. The others winced, but all he felt was a tingling thrum of power and the same static electrical raising of the hair as Lynien and Méabh had done. Placing both hands on the stone, he braced himself and heaved.
For a moment, he struggled. Then it seemed to him that someone placed invisible hands on the stone next to his and helped him to push. The extra was enough, and the powerstone toppled over and fell inwards, crashing to the stone floor, where it snapped in half. All the runes on the broken stone went out, and the web of energy changed quite significantly, the flows clearly disrupted. Above, the pyramid tilted off centre. It had worked!
The three set to work. Eloy and Gorfang combined their efforts to topple another one - this time outwards, so that it bounced and crashed down the side of the cone until it smashed to bits at the bottom. After that, the growing instability of the energy flows seemed to make it easier to topple the stones, as well as spoiling the pyramid's aim. Two more stones followed the first down the side of the pyramid, increasing both effects, and then the fifth fell.
The flow of energy oscillated wildly, rushing back and forth. Two powerstones exploded, sending red-hot fragments of shrapnel everywhere, and all the runes and energy lines went out. The pyramid fell from its hover to crash squarely into the top of the stairwell in the middle of the platform, smashing bits of stone out of the edges and blocking the entrance to the stairwell.
Méabh and Lynien paused on the stairs, and listened. Deep below, they could hear footfalls; hastening steps of metal-shod feet. Their quarry was still moving; and the stairs were quite long it seemed. They descended further, and further, and further. Reckoning it up, they were fairly sure that they'd come down as far as the level with the ground-level exit, and still the stairs showed no sign of ending. Pausing every now and then to listen for the armoured footsteps, they hurried on down the spiral, moving fast but quietly in their light armour.
With an enormous joint effort, Elog, Gorfang and Uruk managed to hardball the pyramid out of the top of the stairwell, and slide it over to the edge of the platform. All three were quite convinced that - like it's counterpart in the Trakar - this one needed to be destroyed. They knew they couldn't smash it, and there was nothing to build a fire with. So a heavy fall was the next best thing. With a heave, they shoved it off the top of the cone.
With a series of deafening crashes, the pyramid bounced down the side of the cone, tearing big lumps of stone out of the sides. The three craned out to watch it go, and to see if it did break when it hit the bottom. They never got to find out the answer.
With a crash, the green crystal pyramid struck the stone floor of the cone room - and smashed straight through, leaving a large, dark, ragged-edged hole. There was a moment's pause, and then a deep and ominous rumbling started from below. The ground shook, and the cone seemed to tilt slightly...
Méabh and Lynien stepped cautiously down the last few stairs. They'd been able to see light for some time now, and as the area beyond came into view they paused to get a look at it.
 The Guardians - click it for larger image! |
Below them was a vast open cavern. The spiral stairs they were on descended to a square stone platform 40' square, attached to the ceiling by four stone columns.
From each side of this platform, stairs led down to a smaller platform. These had a squat pillar covered in heiroglyphs mounted in the centre, and short walkways leading away in all four directions. The one opposite the stairs led to the wall of the cave and through an arch into the rock. Below the four walkways was a sunken area, filled with plain sarcophagai.
The whole space was lit with a pale light which seemed to come from nowhere. There seemed to be no-one around.
Descending one at random, the pair had a look around. Méabh was able to read off the Selasht on the pillars and coffins, and the writing over the arch into the rock. The pillar announced the name of Nakhsataat, and the style of the glyphs and their presentation indicated that he had been a pharaoh, or king. The other pillars showed different names; Anshenkehra, Luxtenath, Amonenhet - all rulers.
Great rulers, judging by the summaries of their lives carved on the pillars.
On an impulse, they looked over the side and down; how high up are we, wondered Lynien? They looked over, and gulped; the chasm disappeared beyond the limits of their darkvision. Méabh dropped a gold piece down, and they listened for the impact... in vain.
"Maybe if we dropped a bigger object?" suggested Lynien. They eyed the coffins speculatively, wondering if opening one would trigger another onslaught. The glyphs on the coffins described 'Guardianship beyond death' so it did seem like a bad bet. In the end they left it.
 Méabh detects magic - click it for larger image! |
Méabh now cast Detect Magic, and directed it around. The ranks of coffins showed a fairly strong aura of necromantic magic - supporting their earlier caution - but there was also a faint trail of residual magic, possibly caused by someone casting a spell as they walked, leading off down one of the other stairs and through the corresponding arch.
The pair made a mark on the floor to show their companions which way to go, and set off to follow the trail.
At that moment, with a sound as much like the end of the world as to make no difference, the four massive rotating panels whirling around the top of the pyramid came away from the pinnacle, and dropped, striking various areas of the top level as they went past. Bits of falling rock announced the imminent collapse of the arches that had supported them. The hole where the pyramid had smashed through grew as the edges crumbled, and the rumbling increased as the cone began to collapse into the cavity beneath.
Gorfang, Uruk and Eloy looked at each other, a bit startled at the results of their actions. "Time to leave?" said somebody.
"Bog!" called Eloy. "Let's go!". He looked over the side to beckon the little gangrel towards them, and realized that the iron stairs leading up the cone had been smashed away in several places. Bog was trapped at the base of the cone! Quickly, the three warriors gathered the rope they had and linked it, then descended to the first break and lowered the resulting line. It was just long enough, and Bog, shaking with fear, scuttled from his now no longer safe hidey hole and grabbed it. As he was hauled up, bigger and bigger chunks of rock were falling around them. A piece glanced off Gorfang's helmet, and he shook his head to clear it. Large amounts of rubble were now falling off the sides of the pyramid and down to the desert below, and unless they were quick, the adventurers were likely to follow it.
With Bog at the top, the four sprinted for the stairs - half carrying Uruk, who was nearly unconscious from his wounds and the demons' poison - and half-ran, half-fell down the spiral, pursued by dust and bouncing stones. A few minutes into their headlong descent, the whole pyramid was shaken by a mighty rumbling concussion, which went on for some seconds and then dwindled to the occasional crash.
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