The three somewhat disorientated adventurers slowly turned, looking around them to discover where they were.
"Out of the frying pan and into the fire" muttered Keld beneath his breath, surveying the plain stone walls and the cold metal door that now enclosed them.
Deethan stepped forward to the door, noting that it looked rather suspiciously like the inside of a cell door, even including a tiny barred viewing window from the other side. Peering through, he saw nothing but darkness. Too impatient to wait for his drow inherited night vision to kick in, he gestured to Henrick behind him. "Give me your light!" he commanded, holding out his hand. Somewhat begrudingly, Henrick stepped up behind Deethan and handed over his light coin, which Deethan proceeded to shine through the door, peering out through the narrow hatch to observe the room beyond.
The door was thick, and the angle of viewing made seeing much of the room beyond difficult, however Deethan could make out an open area, with another stone wall on the far side some thirty feet away. The air beyond also stank somewhat, but of what, he wasn't exactly sure. No dwarf, but even he got the disitinct impression that wherever the teleport had brought them, they were still quite deep underground. Moving his attention to the door itself, Deethan starts to examine the door closely, looking for any traps - of any nature be it mechanical or magical. He found none. At his side, Hernrick also spent several minutes studying the door and it's frame, whist behind them, a nervous Keld stood to one side of the small cell, axe raised as if to strike at their persuer - in case the teleport brought him as well.
"So, what's with the sceptre?" asked Henrick, eyeing the ornate golden sceptre sticking out of Deethan's belt, his voice seeming to echoing loudly in the small cell. With the immediate threat behind them out of sight, Henrick seems to have recovered a little of the bluster he had back in the Fallen Tower.
Deethan didn't reply, keeping his focus on his study of the door.
"I mean why does that mage want with it?" persisted Henrick. "Did you steal it from him?" he asked.
Deethan turned his head to face Henrick, an exasperated expression on his face. "I don't know who the hell he is - but I do know the sceptre's not his!" he said, with the sound of finality in his voice as he turned back to the door...
Disastified with the answer, but recognising that Deethan wasn't prepared to answer more fully now, Henrick scowled and returned his concentration to his search as well. A few minutes later, Deethan sighed and Henrick shrugged, finding no traps.
"The door doesn't appear to be locked..." muttered Henrick.
"Maybe there is another exit..." murmured Deethan, stepping away from the door and starting to search the rear and side walls instead. Henrick watched,, holding the light coin, now returned to him, as the half-drow carefully examined the walls, looking for any of the teletale signs that might indicated a concealed or secret door. Delving into a pocket, Henrick pulled out a pouch and tipped it out onto his palm, making Deethan and Keld frown as the light source moved.
"Well, he wasn't a local" said Henrick after a moment. "Most of these coins are from Luskan." He looked worried. "He could be one of the Arcane Brotherhood!" he added, "and I pick-pocketed him!" Shaking his head, he tipped the coins back into the pouch, and slipped the pouch back into his pocket, lifting the light coin again so Deethan could see what he was doing..
Several minutes later, giving up on his fruitless search, Deethan returned to the door, and pushed slowly on it, opening it surprisingly easy. As the door opened wide, a waft of air from the room beyond washed over him, intensifying the stink he had smelt earlier. As the light spilled out into the room, Deethan could see that the room, some seventy feet long was dominated by the huge bulk of a disgusting geletinous mass, jammed up against a door in the far left hand corner with huge psudopods stretching out into the centre of the room. Broken spears were embedded in the bulk, sagging at wierd angles, and there were great gashes in it, where sword or axe blows may have struck it.
Pulling the assassin's black sabre, Deethan moved closer and prodded the jelly. It wobbled slightly, but otherwise remained motionless, appearing to be dead.
Turning, Deethan examined the rest of the room. A further seven other cells lay beside the one they had come out from, all of their doors closed, with metal plates closed over the viewing hatches. On the far right of the room, a passage appeared to lead off. The three of them, clustered closer together around the single light source than perhaps they would have done had they been in somewhere more familiar, moved towards this sole potential exit, only to find it blocked by a huge block of stone that had clearly fallen from above.
"Great" said Keld, breaking the silence after a few minutes of examing the large block. "No way out."
"Maybe if we tried opening some of the other cell doors?" suggested Henrick.
"No!" retorted Deethan. "Who knows what may be inside them." He turned to face the huge motionless jelly blocking the far door. "We'll have to move that."
"That'll take hours!" complained Henrick.
Deethan nodded in agreement with Henrick's assessment. "Well I'm not going to tackle it until I've had a rest... I need to relearn my spells, and I can't do that without resting first. Removing his pack, Deethan pulled out his bed roll and proceeded to make himself comfortable - and as far from the dead jelly like creature as possible.
Keld, having been through the painful cycle of being injured and then healed, was similarly drained. "Yeah, I could do with a rest too" he agreed.
With Henrick grumbling, the three settled down to rest, Deethan managing to fall asleep easily, used to the feeling of being deep underground. For Keld and Henrick, there was little chance for sleep, too much adrenaline still, and as the chambre became quiet, they could also hear occasional disturbing noises coming through the rock - distant vibrations, occasional crashes and other unexplainable noises - all faint as if coming from a long way away.
***
Several hours passed, and eventually, Deethan woke up, much refreshed. Pulling out his spellbook, he settled down to study, thinking hard about what spells he should learn, and wishing for the umpteenth time that he had practiced more to increase his mental capacity. Meanwhile, Keld, with distaste on his face, started the rather disgusting job of clearing a path through the giant dead jelly like creature to the blocked door. With Henrick only half-heartedly helping, the job was slow going, and even when Deethan - finally finished with his spellbook - joined in, it still took several hours of messy work to clear the mess.
Finally, the door was cleared. Examining it carefully, Henrick pronounced it clear of traps, and then flexed his fingers, pulled out a well worn set of lock picks, and, after a few minutes fiddling, finally clicked it unlocked. With a loud creak, Deethan shoved the stiff door open, the wood having warped a little from the moisture of the dead jelly. Outside, a dark corridor led left and right, disappearing off into the darkness beyond the extent of Henrick's light coin.
With a "wait here," Deethan stepped into the corridor, slinking off into the shadows to the left, allowing his infravision to adjust to the darkness. Some 25 to 30 feet further up the corridor, a darker square on the right hand wall indicated the presence of an opening, with what looked like another one a few paces further on, but on the left. Stepping quietly to the first corner, Deethan peered around the corner, into an area of pitch black. More than a lack of light, he recognised the presence of magical darkness. Somewhat reluctantly using one of his precious spells, he murmurs the arcane words of dispelation, and suddenly the room was revealed - a small cubical only 10 foot deep, and about 15 feet wide. Deethan mentally curses as he thinks of the wasted spell...
Light bloomed behind Deethan, and as his infravision slipped away back to the more normal wave length of visible light, he grimaced as Henrick, ignoring his instruction to wait, entered the corridor behind him with his light coin. As the human thief approached, his light causing the natural darkness to flee, Deethan could at least now see more of the room he'd exposed by dispelling the darkness. The floor was a dark pool of water, and for some reason, there was a mirror set into the ceiling as well, reflecting the pool.
"What's up?" Henrick asked, his eyes wide and staring, his expression nervous. "I heard you casting a spell, and wondered what you'd found..."
Deethan glanced at Keld, the hulking half-orc warrior lurking a few paces behind Henrick, his eyes constantly scanning the corridor. The warrior's face showed the same dislike of the weasily human thief who become attached to them. A sudden plopping noise dragged Deethan's eyes to the pool, and he saw the ripples widening out from where Henrick had just flipped a copper thumb into the dark waters. "Idiot!" hissed Keld, jabbing Henrick in the middle of his back with the butt of his battle axe.
"Whaaaa?" Henrick started to retort, before a swirling noise stopped him, and the three stared at the pool, as something seemed to be happening. But it wasn't the pool that drew their attention - but the ceiling. In the reflection, which suddenly seemed to be less of a reflection than a separate, upside down, pool, the water was swirling, and rising up, or sinking down more appropriately, into a vortex, almost like a reverse of water spout. The three rapidly backed off into the main corridor, away from the two disturbing pools, and watched from further away, as the swirling slowly subsided, back into the ceiling.
"Come on, let's try to find a way out of this hell-hole" muttered Deethan, only to aware from his own memories of the weeks he spent wandering the underdark alone, how easily is could be to die in such an unknown environment.
Turning away from the water room, the three, now close together, made their way towards the next opening, a few paces further down on the left hand wall. As the three moved towards it, Deethan suddenly held his hand up, commanding silence. In the distance, could be heard the faint noises of yelling - the noise of people! Deethan, his sharp half-drow ears straining, couldn't make out any words, but it definitely sounded like more than one person and they seemed to be moving, though has he was on the verge of understanding where, the sound died, and all went silent again.
Moving to the junction, the corridor here led off to the left, kinking once before straightening out into a long corridor which disappeared off into darkness. After only 20 feet or so however, was a wooden door inset into the right hand wall. Moving quickly to the wooden door, Deethan could see it was ajar, and cautiously, he pushed it open, the door barely creaking at all, to expose a small dog-leg of a room, more of a five foot wide corridor that simply led to another door. The burnt out stubb of a torch lay discarded in a corner, and numerous tracks through the dust showed that this was not an untravelled path. Approaching the door, Deethan asked Henrick to put his light coin down at floor level, to shine out under the door whilst he looked through it's ancient, somewhat rusty key-hole.
As his eye adjusted to the gloom of the room beyond, he could just make out a door opposite, some 15 feet away, lit by the faint light shining out from below his door. As he was about to move away from the keyhole, the door on the opposite side of the room suddenly opened, and several figures piled noisily through, bearing lanterns. There were several jumbled voices, some sounding worried, asking a a person named Babette which way they should go. Another voice, a woman's barked out orders instead, commanding someone named Cedric to lock the door behind them. Still peering through the keyhole, Deethan counts eight humans all in all come through the doorway, two of them leading pack ponies, and one, a woman, bearing a hooded falcon on her arm. All were dressed in different clothing and armour, though curiously enough, all in roughly the same gray hue.
"There's light beyond that door" grunts one of the male voices.
"Check it out for traps Jo" commands the voice that seems to belong to Babette.
Deethan immediately backs away from the door, gesturing for Keld and Henrick to back away. As Henrick moves his light coin, a new voice from the other side of the door is heard. "I think there's someone there" says a female voice - not that of Babette.
There is a moment's silence from beyond, broken only by what starts to sound like a hammering on the far door. A moment later the door slams open, crashing into the wall and nearly being ripped from it's hinges. Deethan hiding his shock from the sudden opening of the door, nods his head respectfully towards the group gathered beyond.
"Who the hell are you?" demanded a woman dressed in grey leathers, standing just behind two armoured men with shields and raised war hammers, both looking suspiciously at Deethan, Keld and Henrick. Another leather clad woman with a hooded falcon looks on anxiously from one side, with a third woman with long raven black hair and a silver long sword in hand standing next to her. On the other side stood two men leading pack ponies, one unarmoured and bearing a handful of darts, poised to throw, the other dressed in platemail, with one hand gripped around something small dangling on a chain around his neck. At the very back, more watching the far door than looking at Deethan, another man stood, wearing a fine coat of grey fur.
"Greetings" replied Deethan smoothly, smiling pleasently. He leaned slightly to one side to peer around one of the two armoured men, eyeing the door on the other side of the room, which appeared to be shaking under some heavy blows. "Perhaps more formal introductions should wait till later?" he suggested.
At that moment, the far door splintered and crashed to the floor. Immediately. the fur clad man started to cast a spell, certainly one that Deethan wasn't familiar with. Jammed in the doorway, struggling to get through the narrow opening were several well armoured and muscled humanoids, with lizard like faces and scaly skin - lizardmen. Completing his spell, a semi translucent shimmering wall appeared across the room. The front lizard men, piling into the room stumbled to a halt, and Deethan could see that the wall appeared to be made of some form of sticky gel, for as the lizardmen tried to cut at it, their weapons seemed to stick in it.
The woman leading the group seemed to come to some form of decision. "Quick, through!" she commands, gesturing for her companions to move through the open door towards Deethan.
"Is the way out this way?" she asked Deethan as she steps into the dog-leg corridor next to him.
Deethan's face fell slightly, and he shrugged sadly, moving with the woman and the rest of the large group out into the other corridor. "Why are you fleeing from them?" he asked, remembering Lizardmen slaves from Haundrauth as weak and easily cowed. "They're only lizardmen!" he added.
Babette threw him a glare. "There are a LOT of them and they are well armed!" she retorted, moving past him and into the corridor. "Lock the doors" she commanded, and one of the women immediately bent to with lock picks, locking the door behind them. "How long will the spell hold them Cedric?" asked Babette to the fur clad mage.
"Not long I'm afraid Babette" he answered.
In the corridor the two parties eyed each other suspsiously for a few seconds. "Which way?" asked Babette again, clearly the new group's leader.
Deethan shrugged, then gestured to his left - back the way he and his companions had originally come. "We came from that direction" he started, but that was enough for Babette, and she immediately started to move in the indicated direction, followed by the rest of her group. Deethan, Keld and Henrick glanced at each other, then tagged along, moving in the middle of the group, silently agreeing that they didn't really wish to travel alone in this strange place for the moment. As the group reached the next junction, Babette glanced towards a short man leading one of the pack mules, who pulled out a tatty piece of paper with one hand, trying hard to keep hold of the pack mule in his other. He peered at the paper awkwardly for a moment, twisting his head and his hand to orientate the paper, before looking up at Babette.
"Still don't recognise where we are" he said at last, shoving the rough drawn map back into his pocket. "But my sense of direction tells me we should be going in that direction" he added.
Babette nodded. "Mine too" she says sourly, obviously not pleased at the first part of the man's answer. Not waiting any longer, she moves up the corridor, her party trailing behind her. Watching from a few paces back, Deethan could see that despite her confident stride up the corridor, her gaze was constantly moving over the surface of the rock floor, walls and ceiling. One of the other women close behind her was also somewhat nervously keeping a close eye on their surroundings, and Deethan recalled the large block of stone that had been blocking the other exit of the room where the dead jelly had been. It seemed that traps were not something to be taken lightly in this place - wherever it was.
Only a short distance down the corridor, Babette slowed, peering around the corner to the left, the light from the lanterns reflecting off the dark pool and it's mirror in the ceiling. Shaking her head almost in disbelief, she moved on, pausing next at the entrance to the room from which Deethan, Keld and Henrick had originally emerged.
"Dead end - a bunch of cells and the one-way portal through which we arrived here by" commented Deethan, and the female leader of the group in grey nodded, striding onwards.
A further fifty feet down the corridor revealed another turning off to the right but Babette ignored it. "We should try to keep heading in this direction" interjected the short man leading the pack mule, and Babette nodded in agreement. From somewhere far behind them, there was a splintering noise of a door being broken open. "Shit" exclaimed Babette, pushing on as quickly as possible. A short distance further on, the corridor came to a corner, turning to the left. Hurrying around it, the group were faced by a short corridor and a closed ironwood door.
"Everyone quiet" hissed Babette, and for a moment, there was only the breathing noise of the pack mules and the distant splintering of wood and strange siblent yells. "Get that door open!" she commanded, and one of the other women pushed forward to the door. There was a clicking and suddenly the door opened, revealing another fourty feet of corridor, with a single door on the left hand wall close to the entrance. The group hurried through the first door, shutting it behind them and quickly filing into the dead end of the corridor, moving the two ponies further to the back. Deethan, holding back slightly tried the door on the left, opening it with Babette at his side. The scene that greeted them was a little startling - a large twenty by thirty foot room dominated by a large table, around which about 20 or so well armed hobgoblins were already sat.
The hobgoblins all stopped talking and looked around at the entrance. "Who da hells is you?" demanded one of the larger hobgoblins, standing.
At Deethan's side, the grey fur clad magic user stepped forward and spoke quickly. "Lizard men are coming, quick prepare yourselves!" he ordered the hobgoblins.
The hobgoblin leader looked at him strangely for a moment, and then guffawed loudly. "You fight you own battles!" he retorted, gesturing to the hobgoblin nearest the door to close the door.
As the door slamed, shutting out the sound of laughing hobgoblins, the sound of slapping feet approaching at a run could be heard instead. The two armoured priests pushed their way towards the front, glancing at Keld. "Hope you know how to use that axe!" muttered one of them to him. Opening the door again, the two priests stepped through, followed by Keld.
As a veritable hoard of armed lizard men piled around the corner, one of the priests clutched his holy symbol, murmuring a prayer to his god. Over Keld's shoulder, a pottery flask flew through the air, smashing onto the floor just in front of the lead lizard man, bursting into flame and making the lizardmen shy back, his legs burning. There was a sharp twang and a crossbow bolt shot through the air, barely missing the same lead lizardman and scoring across the shoulder of the lizardman behind before shattering on the far wall. Several of the lizard men hurled javalins at the group clustered in the doorway. One of the priests deflected one with his shield, the other took one in the leg and a third javelin jarred into the door frame next to Keld to stick there, quiverring.
Three lizardmen, armed with short swords raced past their leader and leapt over the flames, bearing down on Keld and the two priests slashing at the three of them. Keld stepped to his right, bringing his axe in a low vicious swipe and ducking under the sword of the lizardman and slamming the heavy axe blade into the lizardman's leg. The lizardman staggered to one side, bumping into his companion as he let out a inhuman screech.
Next to Keld, the two priests swung their maces at their lizardmen opponents, using their shields to defend themselves. One of the priests swung rather wildly, clipping his companion's shoulder.
"OW! Watch it Cedric!" the injured priest cried, staggering slightly from the blow, desperately trying to fend off sword blows, his shield arm numb from the blow. Taking advantage of the distraction, the man's lizardman opponent lunged forward however, slamming his short sword past the lowered guard and slicing into the priest's side. A fresh cry of pain errupted from the priest.
"Retun sat wisssh yoo hasssss sssstolen!" hissed the leader of the lizardmen, still hanging back on the other side of the fire, his scaly legs blackened and scorched, but no longer burning. Hatred burned in his eyes. There was another twang, and the lizardman ducked, another crossbow bolt shooting out from the doorway behind Keld and slamming into the lizardman behind the one who had spoken.
Deethan, wanting to help, cast a quick spell, making his right hand turned grey. Clenching it into a fist, he leaped forward and punched another lizardman who had moved up past the other combatants, the lizardman staggering back several steps, spitting teeth, blood running freely from his injured jaw.
The priest named Cedric, cursing his bad luck swung again at his opponent, trying to push back the well armed and armoured lizardman in front of him. The lizardman took the blow well, merely letting out a grunt and chopping back, his short sword clanging off the priest's shield.
On the far right of the corridor, Keld traded blows with his opponent again, proving himself the better warrior as his axe dug deep into the lizardman at the cost of only a minor cut to the half-orc's upper arm. Kicking the lizardman's corpse off his axe, Keld ducked as another javelin clattered into the wall behind him. Seeing a challenge from the lead lizardman, Keld stepped forward as the lizardman leaped over the dying flames to the attack.
Slightly behind him, Deethan heard the sounds of an arcane spell being cast and greenish vapours suddenly sprung up around the group of lizardmen still clustered around the corner, clustered close together as they tried to avoid the last of the flames. Simultaneously, another flask flew through the air over his head, this time smacking into the main group of lizardmen, bursting into flame and setting fire to several of them. The smell of burnt meat filled the air, and the group at the corner, in pain and nausea from the stinking cloud spell, broke apart, several fleeing, several remaining, javlins at the ready as they wait for opportunities to throw.
Closer to the doorway, the two priests were struggling with their own combats. Cedric, cut by a jab from a lizardman swung his mace too wildly again, and caught his companion, this time on his head. There was a sickening thud and the priest dropped like a sack of potatoes, his head rather caved in.
"Bert!!" exclaimed Cedric, aghast at what he had just done. Hard pressed by two opponents now, he could do little for his companion, forced to defend himself instead. Screaming in rage, he raised a blistering attack on his original opponent, smashing the lizardman's skull in a lethal blow. To his side, Keld, in an impressive set of moves took out the lizardman leader. The remaining lizardman, about to hit the surviving priest merely slumped to the ground, struck by a dart thrown by one of the men who had been leading a pack mule. "Die you scaly piece of ox dung you!" he curses, running forward to finish off the lizardman he had downed with the poisoned dart. Cedric started to chant and one of the collapsed lizard men stirred, before lurching awkwardly back to it's feet, obviously now undead.
There is a volley of javlins, hurled by the remaining lizardmen, one hitting Keld in the gut, making him stagger. The other lizardmen back off around the corridor, and Keld, ripping it free, charged after them, Deethan and a couple of the others with him. There was a running fight for a few moments, the undead lizardman staggering up the corridor after the fleeing lizardmen, a couple fighting a rear guard action with Keld. In this last few exchanges of blows, Keld is injured again, and collapses in the corridor.
No longer accompanied by the fearless half-orc warrior, the others hold back from chasing the remaining lizardmen as they ran back off the corridor into the darkness, chased slowly, although tirelessl by the undead one.
The priest named Cedric ran back to see if there is anything he could do for his companion Bert as Deethan ran forward to his friend Keld. It was clear that although the warrior was still alive, he needed help urgently. Within moments, as the zombie continued to chase the lizardmen down the corridor into the darkness, Deethan was joined at Keld's side by one of the other grey clad men, who grasped something small in his hand and murmured what sounded like a prayer. A glow surrounded Keld for a moment, and the warrior gasped in pain, his eyes opening wide as several of his more serious injuries closed over.
"We need to find a room where we can rest up" stated Babette. "I don't want any more pitched battles!" she said. She glowered at Cedric. "You stupid tosser! Get Bert's body loaded onto one of the ponies and let's find a place." She turns to Deethan, her eyes narrowed. "You said the room you came from was a dead end - lead us to it, we can hole up there and rest up."
Deethan bristled at Babette's commanding tone, but said nothing, moving back down the corridor to the entrance to the room where he and the others had first entered this strange place.
Entering the room, several of the grey party complained about the mess - the remains of the jelly that Deethan and Keld had had to chop up to open the door lay scattered all around. Moving to the far side of the room, the large group settled themselves down, stabling the two ponies close to the stone block. Keld, although concious, sat down next to a wall and closed his eyes, exhausted from the fight and the sudden accelarated healing he had gone through. To Deethan's eyes he didn't look in good condition, and he worried about his friend still.
"I'm going to scout that other junction" Deethan stated, not waiting for Babette or anyone else to give him permission before stepping out of the door.
"Don't get yourself killed" was all he heard before he closed the door behind him, secretly glad that Henrick hadn't decided to come with him.
***
Moving quickly and quietly down the corridor, relying on his night vision to let him see his path, Deethan quickly reached the turning they had passed earlier. Slowing, he stepped into the side corridor, and went around the next corner. It seemed that another room opened up to his right, and he approached it cautiously, trying to understand what he was seeing.
A large column of stone stood in the centre of the room, cold iron manacles showed dark against the grey of the stone in Deethan's night vision. On the floor, a jumbled tangle of what looked like bones lay scattered around, here and there piled up in mounds. The dark half-elf moved slowly, peering at what looked like a giant lizard like skull on the far wall. A few steps into the room, Deethan paused, a slight sound catching his attention. A sound he didn't like the sound of. From around the room, he could hear the sound of bones rattling and clacking on stone. Movement in the darkness, shades of grey flickering against the cold stone made him realise that this room suddenly wasn't as empty as he had thought - cold undead skeletons were rising, their bones the same temperature as the rocks they were laying on, and quickly, he retraced his steps, hurrying back to rejoin the others.
"Undead out there, skeletons" he explained to one of the Cedrics who opened the door.
"Great!" replied the man glumly.
Babette, looking around from where she had been talking to the other Cedric, frowned as she saw Deethan. "Glad you're back" she said. "We wanted to know what was behind these various doors. Your handsome friend over there..." she gestured towards Keld, the warrior asleep having been had his most critical injuries healed by one of the Grey Party's priests, "... is not being very communicative" she continued, "and your other friend, well, to be honest, I just don't believe anything he says" she concluded sourly.
Henrick glowered at Babette's back, but Deethan ignored him.
Deethan shook his head. "We didn't open any other of the cells" he stated.
"Told you!" protested Henrick, which Babette ignored.
"Ah!" exclaimed one of the other grey clad men. "Then we should do so."
The grey group seemed somewhat galvanised into motion by this prospect, and immediately set to opening the various doors, one by one.
The first door was swiftly unlocked to expose a small 10 foot by 10 foot cell - entirely dominated by a huge giant metallic scorpion virtually filling the small cell.
"WHOA!" exclaimed just about everyone, and that door was just as rapidly slammed shut. Several bodies quickly crashed against the door to keep it closed so that it could be relocked as the giant scorpian burst into motion and tried to push it's way out. With the door firmly locked again, the noise from the animated metallic scorpion fell quiet, and the door stopped rattling.
"Bloody Hallister!" exlaimed one of the women - named Jo Deethan thought.
"Yeah, but he leaves good stuff as well!" replied the woman with the long black hair with a wink.
The group moved on to the second door. This too opened easily under the pick-locks of Jo. As the door swung open, Deethan glimpsed a white translucent bubble - similar to the stasis fields that had contained trolls earlier - before it disappeared, revealing a group of eight orcs. For a single heartbeat the two groups looked at each other before medlam broke out. The poorly armed and armoured orcs charged out of the cell, only to be cut down by the two well armoured priests and a veritable swarm of flying daggers. Within minutes, the brief battle was dead. Babette stalked into the small cell as her companions briefly searched the orc bodies - neither finding anything.
"Let's see what door number three has to offer shall we?"
Following what was begining to look like a well rehersed routien, the group moved onto the next room. This room was less traumatic, revealing a pair of stone hands sticking up through the floor. One was open, the other was clenched in a fist. A glint of light from the fist showed that it was wearing a ring.
"Hmmmm.... I wonder what this is" mused the good looking Raye, tossing her head and making her hair sweep over her shoulder.
"Check for traps" ordered Babette, somewhat unnecessarily, Raye already examining the room carefully, initially peering closely at the floor and doorway, before moving slowly into the room and checking the hands.
Meanwhile, the others were opening the next door. Again, a stasis field collapsed, and a swarm of stirge burst into the room, flapping around the room and for the second time causing chaos. A magic missile spell took out three of the stirge, the spell issuing from the finger tips of the grey clad mage who had opened the door for Deethan - one of the Cedric brothers.
The fifth door was already open - the empty cell that Deethan and Keld had arrived into this nightmare.
The sixth door opened to reveal an empty cell, dominated by it's back wall - which glowed purple and swirled.
"A portal - the Gods know where that leads" stated Babette bitterly. "Maybe the last couple of doors will reveal something more profitable..."
The seventh door opened to an empty cell, not even locked, and the eighth revealed a black, unadorned wooden staff, floating horizontally in a luminous, flickering green sphere of light. Ghostly human faces spun slowly around in the light, their eyes watching the staff.
"That doesn't look good" mutters Babette.
The group, having opened all the doors, relaxed and made their way to the side of the room furthest from the smell of the rotting jelly that had been blocking the entrance to the room. Settling down to rest, they conversed for a short while, during which time, Deethan discovered that they were now in the almost legendary halls of Undermountain. A long way south from Neverwinter! He also discovered more about the group in which he, Keld and Henrick had found themselves.
The grey clad group - who named themselves the Polishers - were led by Babette, the striking looking blonde woman with cold grey no-nonsense eyes. Her hair was cut short, but not so short that it detracted from her feminity, and she looked lithe and flexible, but not overly strong - it was apparant that brawn certainly wasn't the way she gained the leadership of her group.
Of the two other women in the group, Raye Ravenhair was definitely the better looking - her nick-name obvious by her long dark black hair - tied up into a neat pony tail. The third, named Jo Deadwarden was less appealing to the eye, a scar on her face made her face look sinister, if anything, hawklike, somewhat appropriate since she was the one who looked after a hooded falcon. She spoke little, eyeing Deethan and Dorn with undisguised suspicion.
There were at least three male spell casters in the group - the first two Deethan suspected were priests - the pair who had fought in the corridor against the lizardmen, Bert of Shar and Cedric Lightfingers, the former no longer in the realms of the living following Cedric's disasterous fumble. The third, a twin to Cedric Lightfingers named Cedric the Magus and dressed in gray furs, was definitely a mage - Deethan had recognised his type of magic as arcane rather than divine. Deethan wasn't exactly sure what god they worshipped however, since the men wore no obvious holy symbols, and little of the trappings of most clerics.
The last two men making up the group were very different from each other. The first was John Hillwrangler, a tall lanky man who had been near the back most of the time, leading one of the pack mules. He wore grey leathers, as did most of the party of course, but had the shifty look of someone who spent a lot of time hanging around on street corners keeping an eye out for the law.
The other was a particularly silent fellow named Jake Fasthands - also one of those who had been leading the one of the pack mules - and was a man which Deethan couldn't categorise. As short as his companion was tall, he also looked pretty shifty, had no immediately visible weapon, though there were possible tell-tale bulges at his sleeves, and the hint of a dagger hilt in his tall boots.
It didn't seem to take long for the conversation to die out - most of the Polishers seemed less than talkative or sociable, and Babette, having determined that Deethan and his two companions had been in this dungeon for only a short time, had dismissed them as less than useful in her quest to exit the place, though had shown some interest in the unusual and bejeweled sceptre that she had glimpsed sticking out of Deethan's belt. She was also very interested to hear about the place where they had come to - and although Deethan had initially been particularly reticent in giving any information away, Henrick on the other hand, had seemed to have verbal diarrhoea, and was eager to tell that they had not only come from the famous cellars under the Fallen Tower inn in Neverwinter, but also that they had been chased there by an angry mage. Despite the daggers flying from Deethan's eyes, Henrick seemed eager to tell how the mage had been demanding the sceptre, and all eyes slowly turned to view Deethan.
"I guess we're not that different after all" says Babette slowly after a moment's awkward silence. Aware of how pointless it would be to tell the full story of how he had got the sceptre, Deethan simply shrugged and remained silent.
He too had gained useful information from the conversation - in particular that the place that they were in was known as Undermountain - a vast labyrinth of tunnels and rooms cut into the rock beneath Waterdeep. The place, part abandoned dwarf hold and part natural cave system, was also linked, deeper down, to the Underdark and dark place refered to just as Skullport, and further up, linked to both the sewer systems of Waterdeep and the crypts beneath the extensive graveyards of the city. More than that however, he discovered that the entire complex had been "customised" by some ancient mad archmage named Hallister. Apparently, he had extended and populated this nightmare of a dungeon with traps, both mundane as well as highly magical, together with rare monsters and treasure to tempt adventurers, just purely for his entertainment. Some groups - the Lizardmen for example - had made certain areas of Undermountain their home, and others, who had learnt some of its secrets, used the place as a hide-out for various nefarious activities. The Polishers it appears had entered the place via a large shaft that led down from an infamous inn in Waterdeep named the Yawning Portal, but despite having a partial map of the place, had become lost whilst fleeing from the Lizardmen. One of the quirks about Hallister's Undermountain was that the entire place was protected against teleport - a fact that Cedric the mage seemed particularly miffed at. Apparently, the only way in or out was via a physical entrance/exit, or one of the numerous gates that littered the place.
Once silence had finally fallen, the two groups rested - with Deethan and Keld each taking a watch, even as the larger group of the Polishers took their own watches. Henrick seemed the only one happy to sleep all the way through. Well, Henrick and the unfortunate Bert, though his sleep seemed rather more permanent.
***
Some 10 hours later or so, Babette finally kicked her group awake, and stated that they were now going to make a move. Deethan, having taken the opportunity to rest and memorise as many spells as he could, got ready to depart as well, having decided that staying with the larger group would probably be a good idea - safety in numbers and all that. It was with quiet satisfaction that he closed his spellbook, one more intricate pattern of spell than he'd ever managed to learn before nestled in his quadradant of his brain allocated for such things. Although still pretty much a novice magic user, Deethan felt that he was at last progressing in the arcane art.
"Let's go deal with those skeletons you mentioned" suggests Babette brightly, as if she were describing something as simple as dealing with an annoying garden pest rather than an abomination of nature and life. Several members of her band groaned at the prospect, but the Cedric twins seemed nonplussed and simply shrugged - a simultaneouse and identical movement that was almost comical given their identical look.
The fur lined brother glanced at his priestly sibling and grinned. "Perhaps you'll have better luck with your holy symbol than with your mace" he jokes, his eyes flicking in the direction of poor Bert's body, the other priest now wrapped in canvas and lying across one of the pack mules.
Ten minutes later, Deethan watched on as the group entered the room he had entered the "night" before. Of course, deep underground as he was, it was difficult for him to judge whether or not it was day or night anymore - he and his companions had now slept twice since they had arrived in this place, and it reminded him, disturbingly, of his childhood in Haundrauth. There, the city kept its own time - the passing of the hours marked by a customised fairy-fire spell that was used extensively, often on tall stalagmites - rings of cold fire marking the hour of the day or night.
The rattling noise of bones animating brought his attention back to the present, and he watched from a safe distance as Cedric Lightfingers - together with Jake Fasthands who finally also revealed himself to be a priest - used the power of their god to control the undead and get them to fight each other, before finally going in and smashing the last standing one to pieces. Despite standing further back, Deethan was only a little disturbed to realise that the power upon which they were calling was none other than Mask - the Lord of Shadows. With the skeletons safely dispatched, the group moved quickly through the room, with only Deethan and Keld lagging behind somewhat. For some reason, Deethan felt that one of the walls held a secret door, and he decided for several minutes to attempt to open it - despite the main party disappearing off down a long corridor, taking their light sources with them. Keld, loyal to Deethan, but also a little nervous due to the presense of a huge skeleton of some sort of winged reptillian beast - that had not animated earlier luckily - stood watch as Deethan worked the wall, trying to find the secret switch that might open it.
"Come on Deeth" Keld hissed after five minutes. "If we want to get out of this dungeon, we ought to stick with the others!" Somewhat reluctantly, Deethan left the unopened door behind, and hurried with Keld after the others. They hadn't gone far, the light from their lanterns still visible from under the door some sixty feet ahead. As Deethan and Keld opened the door, the larger group on the other side all glanced around sharply. Babette frowned, almost as if to ask why they were still there. "We're not going to be waiting for you" she said shortly. "Either keep up with us, or don't!"
The reason the group had paused though quickly became apparent to Deethan. Three other doors led from the room - two in the north wall - or at least the wall he'd nominally allocated in his mind as "north" - and one in the west - the group having entered through a fourth door in the east wall. To the south however - and the direction that Jake Fasthands had been suggesting was the direction they should head in the previous day when they were being chased by the Lizardmen - was an open archway, that led, after a short distance, to a room laid out with what looked suspiciously like a Lanceboard - a series of alternate black and white squares were laid out on the floor - different coloured marble slabs, each 10' square - five across and seven down the length of the room.
It was not the unusual checkerboard that was holding the attention of the Polishers however. In the middle of the room they were already in, was a stone table, a single block of stone, 10. long by 6. across and 4. high. On the table was a black iron coffer, locked. This is what the group were focused on.
Jo Deadwarden was speaking. "Well I can't find any traps on the thing either!"
"Ok, clear the room" ordered Babette after a moment. "Jo, if you're so sure, you get to open it" she added after a moment.
Jo's mouth quirked into a sort of smile, her scarred face making the smile look more like a grimace, and her hooded bird shifted uneasily on its perch on her shoulder. A few minutes later, with the group now watching from the safety of the corridor, Jo brandished her lockpicks, working studiously on the chest's lock for a few moments. There is a satisfying click, audible from the corridor, and just as Jo looked around, there was a puff of greenish looking smoke from the chest, making the scarred woman almost disappear from view for a moment before it cleared, revealing her coughing and choking.
"Are you OK?" asked Raye, the good looking woman watching Jo in concern.
A somewhat strangled affirmative reply came back in between coughing.
A short while later, the group re-assembled in the room, where a somewhat red-eyed Jo was looking into a chest with a disgruntled look on her face. "I hope that bloody gas was harmless!" she growled, staring at the group of finger bones that seemed to be the sole contents of the chest.
"Bloody Halister!" muttered Babette, not for the first or last time no doubt.
"Should we go this way?" asked Deethan, jerking a thumb towards the Lanceboard room, "as your man Jake seemed to think that was the right direction."
"No" replied Babette without hesitation. "I've heard of this room before, and it's not good news. No, we will try some of these other doors and see if we can find another way around." She glances towards the short priest. "If we can get to the other side, we'll be back on that map of yours that we got from Durnan."
"If" muttered one of the Cedric twins.
"Right, let's go" said Babette briskly, ignoring the comment.
***
The group moved on, Deethan and Keld exchanges glances before slowly following. "I wonder what sort of traps might be in that Lanceboard room?" Keld asked Deethan after a moment as they followed the bobbing lantern lights ahead. His half-drow friend didn't reply, merely shrugging. The pair trailed after the larger group as they followed a corridor heading west, having ignored the two doors in the northern wall and the open archway to the Lanceboard room to the south. Within only a short distance however, it became clear that this route wasn't heading in the right direction either, as it turned, first north, then west, then north again. After about 100 feet, another door was reached, and the Polishers paused to examine it, looking for traps and other possible problems.
Near the back, Deethan decided to search the left hand wall - wondering if their might be some side route. Spotting a possible telltale crack in the wall, he focuses his attention, ignoring for a moment the sound of the group opening the door up ahead. As the group shuffle into the room, Keld moves up, following them and watches as they explore the twenty by thirty room. The door had opened through the sothern wall in the south western corner of the room, and 3 other doors were visible in the light of the lantern - one in the same wall but on the eastern side of the room, and two in the northern wall - opposite the other two doors. The only other feature of the room includes a hole in the wall and ceiling in the middle of the northern wall, revealing a narrow gap with a pile of rubble below.
Muted conversation about the room filters back to Deethan, as he continues his search, now convinced that some form of secret door was concealed beneath his fingers - if only he could figure out the right way to release it. As the group in the room come to a decision, and open the north-western door, Keld looks back to his friend, still searching the wall. Sighing somewhat resignedly, he turns away from the light, and moves back to join Deethan, the sound and light of the Polishers and Henrick disappearing as the doors to the room slowly swing shut.
Frowning in the darkness, Deethan re-examines the wall with his infravision, finally spotting the clues he was looking for, and moments later, a satisfying click caused the secret door he'd detected to swing inwards, revealing a short corridor heading west.
Deethan grinned at Keld, the half-orc's own infravision allowing him to see his friend's face virtually glowing with heat, easily visible despite the complete darkness. "So, lets go have a look to see if we can find a better route" he says, stepping into the corridor. Keld grins back, hiding his nervousness and nods, following his friend.
Within fourty feet, the corridor again twisted north, then back on itself, then north again. Finally, after following it for nearly 200 feet, it finally turned left, then left again, finally heading in the desired southern direction. An archway opened on the western wall, exposing a small stone cell.
"Why the hell would there be an empty room here?" asked Keld.
Deethan shrugged, and continues onwards, till the passage twists to the east, then back west again a few tens of feet later. "Like a bloody maze!" mutters Keld, walking at Deethan's shoulder. Finally, after a further 100 feet or so, the passage again turned north, and then ended in a small dusty room.
"I bet there are some more secret passages here somewhere" said Deethan, retracing his steps back to the empty room they had first encountered. Lighting a candle, he started to examine the back wall more closely.
"Aha!" he exclaimed after but a moment, a section of the rear wall swinging away, revealing a musty tomb like room. Holding the candle up, he could see that the catch was broken, and only the skill of the original builder had allowed the secret door to remain unspotted till he pressed against it. The room revealed is 30’ deep by 20’ wide with numerous dead humans scattered around the room, obviously the remains of some ancient battle. Keld and Deethan moved slowly into the room, peering at the various corpses and trying to determine how they had died and how long ago. All the bodies were old, desicated by the dry air of the dungeon and somewhat surprisingly not decomposed, making their age difficult to judge. Most appeared to have died from obvious combat related injuries, however they also were all covered with horrible scars.
"I'm not sure these guys were human..." mutters Deethan, holding his candle close to the skin of one of them. Keld peered close, uneasy at being surrounded by all these dead bodies, and could see the faint small scales that were visible on the wrist of the body Deethan was examining.
Stepping further into the room, the pair continued through the archway at the rear of the room, following the corridor as it twisted over the next 30 feet, ending at what would have been a dead end. Scorch marks on the walls however clearly outline another secret door, which, tentatively, Deethan moved forward and pushed. It swung open, revealing strange arcane writing decorating both door jams, which glowed with an inner red light.
Peering through the now open and slightly glowing doorway, the pair could see further dead bodies lying haphazardly around in front of a shattered altar. Sitting behind the altar was a cracked and abused idol of a grotesque figure with large distended belly, small bat-like wings, a gaping maw full of fangs and a mighty club in the right fist. It nearly reached the 12 foot high ceiling, and truely dominated the small room.
"I think we should go back" suggested Keld nervously. "I don't like this place."
Deethan nodded, his candle flame causing a massive shadow on the wall behind him to waver and jerk horribly in response. Quickly the pair retraced their steps, being careful to not touch any of the dead bodies. Exiting back into the original corridors, the pair looked around for the Polishers, but couldn't even hear them any more.
"They said the exit of this place was in that direction" Keld muttered, pointing to the south. "Why don't we return to that lanceboard room and see if we can't figure a way past it?"
Hesitantly, Deethan nodded again, and the pair of them retraced their steps further. Arriving back at the entrance of the Lanceboard room, Keld grabbed hold of the small chest that the Polishers had spent so much time trying to open. Bunching his muscles, he slid the chest across the floor of the lanceboard room.
As the casket slid across the flagstones, a couple of lightning bolts thundered down from the ceiling, blasting into the casket and scorching it. A bunch of stirge burst into being above one square, and swooping down towards the casket, then turned, and flew towards the nearest living things - Keld and Deethan. A brief but painful battle later, and the stirge lay dead on the floor, though not before managing to puncture several holes in both Deethan and Keld.
Worried that the sound might have attracted danger they didn't want, the pair decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and headed back to the "safe" room where they had rested with the Polishers only recently. Upon getting there, curiocity overcame fear, and Keld moved towards the slowly rotating staff in the green glow that had been behind the last cell door. Miraculously, it turned out to be a staff of healing, and as he reached out and touched it, all of his injuries were healed! Deethan repeated the exercise, and refreshed the pair decided to return to the Lanceboard room and see if they could get across it.
Once there, Deethan cast a spell of spider climb, and walked across the ceiling, avoiding all of the traps. Having reached the other side, he picked up the scorched chest and threw it back towards Keld, the casket bouncing off several of the flagstones again. Again, some traps were triggered, but not those on the squares that had been triggered previously. With a bit of experimentation, Keld managed to cross the room too.
The pair moved on, passing a corridor filled with magical darkness, and moving on to a T-junction. As the pair tried to decide on whether or not left or right was their best choice, the sound of a door opening disturbed the quiet corridor from far to their left. A dull light blossmed, and they shrunk back, realising that a large group of beings were coming through the far door, and were starting to march silently down the corridor towards them. Deethan watched for a few moments, before gesturing to Keld, the pair of them moving back from the T-junction to hide in the magical darkness of the side corridor they'd passed a few moments earlier. Peeking out, they watched the procession as it passed the T-junction - first a group of heavily armoured looking orcs, all armed with halbards, then a group of clanking manacled human slaves, the poor men and women shuffling along with dull dead looking eyes of those with no hope, then another group of armed orcs. As the last of the orcs disappeared, Keld and Deethan were about to emerge, when a ticking noise could be heard over the noise of the retreating orcs and their slaves, and a giant spider with a drow rider passed - at least till Deethan did a double-take. That was no spider, it was a Drider - one of those strange magical beings created by the Llolth worshipers from their most faithful warriors - half drow, half giant spider.
Ducking back into the darkness in fear, the pair hid for a while, listening to the sounds of the slave caravan passing, of a door closing, and then finally, the corridors descending into silence again. For several more minutes the pair waited, before daring to emerge from their hiding place and retracing their footsteps back to the T-junction.
With Deethan scounting quietly ahead, the pair made their way through a number of corridors, searching for a route that would take them in the direction towards where Jake Fasthands of the Polishers had indicated the exit to this cursed mase of traps and monsters might be. Finding one that seemed to turn back on itself, Deethan searched the walls on a whim, and found a locked secret door into the area enclosed by the passages. Pulling out his lock-picks, Deethan stuck them in the lock and started to try to turn the tumblers. After only a few moments of trying, a pair of ghostly looking lips appeared around the lock-picks, and whispered a rhyme.
"Never be loud
Always be still
For whispering cloud
Obeys wizards will."
Keld and Deethan looked at each other in surprise, then back at the door, as it clicked open. Deethan gently nudged it further open, and cautiously stepped into the room.
***
finding the secret door, opening it, the cloud, Keld struck dumb, looking for books, finding spellbooks, the falling stair, the portal
The clearing in the wood, the black tentacles from the pool, the flying halflings, using the sceptre again, dispelling the charm, one of the halflings escaping back into the tree trying to escape the clearing, resting and learning spells.
On to Chapter Five - once it's written!