Assault on the Floating Island

Island Heppetah-B, Heppetah, 6th August 1655, 2 am

Lynien drew her companions slightly aside. "Before we throw in our lot with these rebels," she said, "how about we check the odds? We have no loyalties or alliances here..." Gorfang nodded, and looked to the githwarrior he'd first met. "You...." "Bainlin." "Yes, Bainlin, how many fighters have you got, how many has matri-whatever got?" Bainlin didn't have to consider his answer. "I have a hundred and eight warriors, around half that in noncombatants. My former second in command under Matrioshka, Pwin, has ten warriors and the thief. Then there is Matrioshka herself, and her jars of course."
Jar and encysted creature

"'Jars?' queried Eloy. "Yes," replied Bainlin. "Like this Skufruss we've heard of, Matrioshka specializes in knowledge. Where he collects books, she uses brains. Her jars - you saw some - are prisons, each capable of holding a creature in eternal stasis, to be released at her will. Dead creatures simply provide undead fighting muscle, but a living being encysted in a jar is used to store knowledge, according to the measure of its' brain. Her almost limitless knowledge comes from her jars."

"Forty years ago, she came to Heppetah secretly, planning to step in once the Masters had summoned the Elder Brain from the past and encyst it and them. The destruction of their plans balked her of its' almost limitless intellect, and the sealing of the plane trapped her - and our parents - here. With no other options, we took service with her, and so things went until the Master," he gestured to Heartmaster, and the adventurers realized that they believed him to be a full Mind Flayer - "arrived with the Opener of the Way and the hope of escape. We rebelled against her and rescued him from death. Now, with your arrival, we have the added force to assault her and take that hope back."


Matrioshka

"What of this fiend, this Matrioshka?" asked Lynien, "what are we facing?" Bainlin grimaced. "Fiends have no gender, properly speaking," he said, "yet Matrioshka is a hideous caricature of everything female. Her hideous toothy mouth is reddened with lipstick, and her evil face painted and powdered. Her scent can destroy your mind and deliver you to her as a helpless slave, while her terrible claws can strike you wherever she can see you. Her magical powers are varied as well; yet her greatest power is the many creatures enslaved in her jars."

"Can you beat them?" Gorfang asked. "Probably," answered Bainlin. Without an instant's warning, Gorfang lashed out with the khopesh still in his hand, catching Bainlin along the side of his narrow skull with the flat. A flash of psionic energy erupted as some kind of energy shield absorbed most of the blow, which would have killed most warriors, but the simple impact was enough to reduce the githmorein warrior to unconsciousness.

Seeing him sprawl, his warriors leaped to his side. Fifteen vanished from where they were standing and appeared instantaneously around Gorfang, their silvery blades poised at his eye-level; forty more blinked across the chamber to surround him, some reaching for bows. Bainlin stirred and groaned, and at this sign of life one of his warriors knelt and laid a hand on his chest, infusing him with some kind of energy and rousing him. As he sat up, Gorfang stared calmly down at him. "You're not so tough," he said, "how do you expect to win this fight?" Bainlin rubbed his head. "We don't expect to be fighting you," he commented drily. "Only Pwin has my powers."

The three adventurers walked a little off to one side and discussed options, while Bainlin had a plan of Matrioshka's island drawn for them. They could leave these charlies to it, or help them; assuming success, they could return the Sceptre to Skufruss, or withold it. While all three had done well from working with Skufruss, none were overly bothered whether he remained in power, and the prospect of the freed dragons of Tarlanor wreaking their vengeance on him didn't break any hearts. Lynien suggested that once the dragons had finished with Vorsand, there might be rich pickings for those with the right timing. The only flaw in that plan was the armour and tomes Skufruss was having made for them and which were currently partly-finished on some wizard's workbench in the Tower itself.
Map of Island A - click it for larger image!

Rejoining the githmorein, they studied the sketch that had been produced. "So what's the plan?" asked Eloy. Bainlin looked at Heartmaster, who nodded. Bainlin bent over the map. "Battle Teleportation does not work within the main fortress," he began, "Our original plan was to attack along two fronts; the bulk of our warriors landing at the entrances to the cave level where we found you, and our best fighters dropping in through the open roof of the Portal Hall. With you added to the force, my tactics would be to send all the Githwarriors in through the caves, through the Slave Pits here - where we might pick up some pike fodder - and up into the Hall of Agony. With us as a distraction, you could drop into the Portal Hall, descend to the Summoning Pool and slay Matrioshka." Gorfang considered this, and couldn't see much wrong with it. Charge in and kill everyone, he thought, these people think my way. "Where will we find her?" he asked.

"Her throne is atop a floating disc of stone in what was once the Summoning Pool," answered Bainlin, "she squats there atop the heaps of her treasure." Lynien's head went up at this point. "So while we attack her, you'll smash all the jars - there's about as many of you as there are jars - that'll break her power." Bainlin looked doubtful. "That would release all her creatures, and they'd all attack us at once." "But it'll shear Matrioshka of her power, and once we kill her, they should stop or die or something." Eloy leaned in. "I suggest we do exactly what Gorfang says," he said firmly, "he knows all about this sort of thing." Bainlin looked to Heartmaster, who shrugged. "Sounds good to me," he said.

It was decided to make the assault the next morning, and the three were given rooms in the endless rows of monastic cells that filled most of the githmorein's island. In the dead of night, each prayed to their Khabran patron for guidance.

Nebekheshut was least interested; the Executor of Fate had little advice for Lynien beyond recommending her to accept what would be, would be. He seemed pleased she had thought of him at such a pivotal moment, though. She muttered sourly to herself and slipped off to sleep.

Eloy was worried, for though he could handle himself in a fight, he was aware that even Gorfang regarded this as a tough one. He besought advice from Sabath, and it came, rising through his own feelings until he was unsure whether the answer had come from within or without. Remember your nature; seek to divide and disrupt - and where there are others better suited to tackle the deadliest foes - let them do it. Eloy nodded to himself. Let the Orc go first. Good advice.

Gorfang had no fear of physical defeat, but he was privately uneasy about the mental domination that had been mentioned. For the first time, then, he prayed directly to his god, and he felt Hektis' warrior comradeship flow around him. Trust in the wristband, but better, trust in yourself, came the thoughts that bubbled into his mind. Rely on the wristband My regalia. The power you need lives within you; your people's battle fury will insulate you from the worst of the fiend's temptations.

Island Heppetah-B, Heppetah, 7th August 1655, 9 am
Heppetah - click for bigger image!

Having slept and eaten, the companions prepared themselves, casting spells and drinking potions, and preparing other spells for the last moment. They paid especial attention to Protection from Evil and Protection from Law spells, as these would defeat any attempts to mentally control them. As they did this, the githmorein prepared themselves for battle, gathered in inward-facing groups and communing mentally. Finally, the warriors of each group lifted their huge silvered blades so that they touched in the centre, which completed their ritual.

Eloy blended his trained skills of disguise and an Alter Self spell to make himself look as much like a (rather short) githmorein as possible. Githwarriors walking passed appeared to approve of this, and comments such as "... like a proper warrior" were heard. Finally, two came up to him and offered him a set of the eldritch and baroque armour the gith wore. Although he wasn't prepared to replace his own armour, he added bits of it to the outside, and the end result was someone who, while obviously not a gith on close examination, would probably blur into a crowd of them in a turbulent situation.

The githwarriors loosened their swords and spread out, taking roughly the positions relative to each other in which they wanted to arrive on Matrioshka's island. Heartmaster came to join the adventurers and one githmorein stood next to each, a hand on their shoulders, ready to teleport them to their target. Bainlin lifted his sword and gave a low cry, and every being in the hall vanished at the same instant.

Above Island Heppetah-A, Heppetah, 7th August 1655, 9 am
Portal Hall Level

With no perceptible transition, the three found themselves in 'mid-air' about thirty feet above the open-topped dome of Matrioshka's fortress. Bracing themselves for a plunge, they discovered that they were in fact floating gently down - a fact which changed once they passed through the aperture into the Portal Hall below. The last ten feet was a straight drop, despite which all eight invaders managed to land silently and unharmed on the sloped plinth which bore the shattered remains of the stone that had once been the portal into Heppetah.

Four githmorein warriors were present in the hall, near the inner walls of the curved rooms where they lived. Despite the relatively quiet landing, these had noticed the intruders. Instantly, the companions exploded into action.

Gorfang charged directly at where two were standing together, his swords leaping into his hands. Before they could react, his blades scythed out, each severing a githwarrior's head, and the two bodies slumped to the ground. To his left, Lynien jumped high into the air, executed a perfect first spring attack to drop feather-light to the ground next to the astounded githwarrior, drove her rapier through his eye and into his brain, and sprang out of his reach before he could have reacted. As it was, his only reaction was to crumple into a leaky heap.

On the far side, Eloy bounded towards the githmorein who was drawing his sword. The allied gith standing next to him reacted equally fast, and Eloy glanced at him. Why not let him take care of it? he thought, and slowed his pace fractionally. His 'moving buddy' sprinted past him and launched himself at the enemy warrior. A furious exchange of blows in which both were wounded followed before Eloy arrived, and together they finally brought the foeman down, while Gorfang and Lynien watched rather critically.

The three paused and listened carefully. The short, vicious fight had made very little noise, and it did not seem that they had been detected. They could, though, hear the sound of furious battle faintly rising from below, which reassured them that Bainlin and his men were raising the required havoc.

As they jogged to the stairwells, Lynien scooped up one of the githwarriors' swords, thinking to add a weapon capable of more damage. When she picked it up, though, she nearly dropped it again in shock; the strange, shimmery appearance was carried over into the weapon's physical properties. As it tilted from the horizontal, the weight shifted towards the blade tip. With practice, it could make for a combination of a sword's edge with a flail's kinetic energy; but in the hands of a novice it was more likely to sweep a girl off her feet. She dropped it again and ran on.
The Elder Brain Hall

Choosing different stairwells, the intruders descended to the Elder Brain Hall. Dotted with the ominously glowing green cylinders of Matrioshka's prisons, the cylindrical room was dominated by the empty bowl-shape of the pool into which the ithilids had hoped to summon an ancient Elder Brain. Here, the sounds of battle from below were far louder, mixed with bestial snarls and roars, cries in many languages, the crash of glass and the sound of stone tearing.

As soon as they entered, all eight became aware of a thick, cloying scent, somehow blasphemously female in nature, permeating the whole area. It filled the senses and whispered non-verbal messages of dark distractions down their nerves. Although their bodies responded to some extent, the magic they'd prepared kept their minds free, but the movements of their unprotected gith allies became slower and less precise as time went on.

Gorfang and Lynien emerged facing the throne, whereas Eloy and Heartmaster came out behind the fiend, though unsure if they had evaded her detection. Eloy immediately began studying Matrioshka's horrible form for a weakness through which he could assassinate her. Gorfang snapped a quick phrase at the githmorein warrior next to him, and a second later he and Lynien were teleported across the empty, scorched pool to the hovering disc of stone where the hideous form of Matrioshka crouched, spilling over the sides of an oversized throne surrounded with scattered treasure. Lynien had asked her ally to place her behind the fiend, but Gorfang went for a frontal attack.

As the invaders appeared, the fiend began to scream imprecations at them, mocking and belittling their every feature. It was astonishing how these picked at each character's insecurities and weaknesses, and both Gorfang and Lynien had to make an effort not to be distracted by them. They struck from two angles at once. Gorfang delivered a blizzard of blows and gasped as most of them were deflected by some kind of magical protection; the fiend was wounded, but not nearly as much as she should have been. Lynien struck from behind, but her light rapier struggled to overcome the monster's resistance to damage; only one of her blows went home - a good deep strike into the blubbery scaled flesh.

Matrioshka howled in fury and pain, and lifted her clawed hands towards Gorfang and his githmorein comrade. The fingernails of her hands suddenly elongated and lengthened towards them like thrusting spears. Five razor-sharp red-lacquered claws tore through Gorfang's armour and into his chest, driving right through and out of his back, though by the grace of Hektis missing any critical organs. Next to him, the luckless githwarrior cried out as the tearing nails sheared his arm away and collapsed in a heap with his blood pouring across the stone and the gold. As the nails withdrew from his wounds, Gorfang experienced a strange sensation, almost as if the flesh around the injuries was moving of its' own accord - not moving, he realized, but deforming; some power of the devil was seeking to warp his living flesh. He gritted his teeth and the feeling passed.

Ignoring the pain, the continued diatribe which described how inferior he would always be to the humans and elves who ruled his world and the wizards whose magic he could not resist, and the cloying scent that threatened to dull his brain, Gorfang attacked again, his twin khopeshoi slashing with all the violence of his orcish heritage. Matrioshka was clearly preparing some other power or attack as he struck, but the sheer speed with which he counter-attacked gave her no chance to react. Before she could teleport away, he cut her down in a welter of black blood and she died on the spot.

Gorfang glanced at his githwarrior companion, but he was dead, his body twisted into hideous arabesques by the warping power of the fiend's fingernails. Looking away with a shudder, he spotted a carved golden object lying on its' arm - the Sceptre of the Dragonlords. He scooped it into his Bag of Holding before anyone else noticed, then began glancing around at the rest of the treasure.

Heartmaster was also looking around for something, and he spotted it at the same time that Lynien did; the Opener of the Way the fiend had stolen from him, stuck impudently into the backrest of the throne. He turned and reached for it, but both Gorfang and Eloy had spotted it too and moved to intercept. Gorfang, sword still drawn, struck out, seeing a chance to tick off another desired outcome by killing the half-ithilid, but Heartmaster had some kind of protection in place. The massive blow crashed onto his head, but instead of cutting into his skull, his whole body seemed to squash; compressing like rubber to absorb the impact. Equally suddenly, it recoiled back into shape, flinging the kin backwards away from Gorfang and out of his reach. Unfortunately, it also tumbled him off the disc of stone bearing Matrioshka's throne, and he dropped into the dry bottom of the Elder Brain pool with a sharp cry.

Lynien reached for the dagger and tucked it away as Gorfang turned to pursue Heartmaster and finish the job. As he did so, however, the companions became aware of several things.

Session date: 8/7/2010