#25 - The Serpentine Damsel

Here the narrative is again written by Xoma of the M’jai family, drow wizard of Xen'drik.

* * *

The column of flame came from nowhere.

I was nowhere near its point of impact, having chosen wiser ground, but the dwarf and half-orc were not so lucky. The damage from the flames appeared severe, but we had enough magical healing resources to keep the fight going. Rendar went down, but Doongul stood firm and we knew if anyone could save the half-orc, it would be him. The Tharashk was back on his feet again soon after.

Magical fire does not often descent from the sky of its own volition, though there was that time in the jungles when… Well, I digress.

It soon became evident that there was some sort of female shaman hiding in a carved tunnel at the bottom of the ankheg hole. The gnoll may have been savage—and who could knock her for that?—but she lacked nothing in potency. Even Doongul was stricken briefly by a spelling of holding, though he shrugged it off in short order.

I decided that Rendar would make a good elevating conveyance, so I placed my newly mastered levitate spell on him, much to his confusion, and ordered him to go down and up the hole, ferrying people into the tunnel. 

It was a fine plan. Really. It was. We had no way of knowing that the shaman would bathe the tunnel in magical silence. After Rendar and Cyzicus went down into the tunnel, it became impossible to speak or be heard. This made it much harder for us to continue using Rendar as a magical transportation system. No one could communicate what was happening down there, so my plan started to unravel.

But there was an upside to the situation, such as it was. Another harpy started to sing her seductive tune up above the gnoll battlefield. Because Rendar and Cyzicus were down below, they could no longer be affected by the she-creature’s song. Such could not be said of Magnus, who, for the second time in two battles, lost control of his mental faculties. 

They really do need to teach self-control among the barbarians of the Seren tribes. Perhaps Magnus took ill during such lessons. But then he’s not the only one to have fallen to such powers in our party. Perhaps it’s just that they’re so…mortal.

So Magnus started to follow the flying, flirting harpy like a massive barbarian puppy. That was something that I could not allow to continue. I hurled a ray of devastating necromantic energy at the harpy, causing her to screech in pain and fear. The spell also disrupted her song, allowing Magnus to regain his faculties. He hurried into the pit to assist the others in fighting the shaman and her two hench-gnolls.

That left me to battle the harpy. She did not seem pleased. I hurled blast after blast of magical energy at her, alternating with devastating strikes with my boomerang. The harpy screeched in pain and fear, exclaiming, “What are you doing here, drow?” Apparently, she didn’t know.

“I’m here to kill you,” I said. 

I dogged her, continuing my onslaught of ranged devastation. She flew off, but it wasn’t pretty. I made an enemy of the harpy that day. Bring it on, bird-brain!

By that point, my companions had managed to defeat the she-gnoll and her goons—which is to say, the shaman fled into the maze of tunnels but her defenders were slain. I heard that Cyzicus made good use of his keen shifter senses to see past the gnolls to their leader. He may have fleas, but no one can deny his skill with a bow. Doongul lent a hand with blasts of holy fire, while Magnus and Rendar pulverized and eviscerated gnoll bodies, respectively.

I suspect that Cypher may have thrown some magic missiles or conjured some cute little magical lights…

After the battle, we discovered that the gnolls had left some of their provisions behind. Most of what we found was useless, but I spied a number of components that I could use in the familiar-summoning ritual I’ve been hoping to perform this entire week. There was some coinage and three curious black eggs that seemed to be of alchemical alteration.

Along with the provisions, we discovered the gnolls' captive—the very woman who helped us climb out of the caves at that tower in exchange for the "goblin's key." We were somewhat startled to find the girl to be a young medusa—not yet shed of her adolescence. Quite attractive, in a greenish, scaly, and disturbing sort of way. She struck me as too young to petrify with her gaze, though more than old enough to cause trouble. The gnolls had wrapped her head and torso with a sack, binding her hair of serpents to her. Now they were free to writhe and hiss, but the girl herself was still in shock from her injuries.

The girl, whose name was Sa-Jira, took an immediate liking to Rendar. I honestly don’t understand it, but maybe humanoids who are part animal find an attraction in one another. But then why didn’t she like Cyzicus? Maybe snake-women are more partial to pig-men than fox-men. I guess it could have been his affiliation with the dragonmarked House Tharashk. 

From what I now understand, Tharashk has a major presence in Droaam. Possibly the only agency affiliated with the Five Nations that this nation of monsters respects.  Sa-Jira’s mother is the medusa ambassador in Graywall, so the young girl would have been exposed to the House of Finding. Her mother represents the warlord Sheshka, Queen of Stone, who rules over Cazhaak Draal, a medusa stronghold to the west. 

Sa-Jira is now guiding us to Graywall, probably the only city in Droaam most "friendly" to outsiders. She also said she was "sent" to the Tower of the Shrouds—that is where we surfaced from our underland journeys—to find "the goblins' key." The Tower was situated north of both Grimstone Keep (a gnoll fortress) and Turakbar's Fist (a minotaur citadel).

We assume the goblins' key is Emperor’s Key, though she believes the gnolls have taken it and is distressed by this fact. It was not among the provisions we took. We also do not know who sent Sa-Jira to find it in the first place. We acquired both the real and the fake in Zilargo.

Fortunately, we had given her the false medallion back in this Tower of the Shrouds. The decoy is now in the hands of the gnolls. Sa-Jira remains unaware that we possess the true key, though it is unclear how long we’ll be able to maintain that deception.

As for the gnolls, she says they are renegades. Most gnolls in Droamm serve one of the warlords who on turn serve the Daughter of Sora Kell. They are a trio of hags that once filled the faerie tales—of the not-so-pleasant variety—of the people of Khorvaire. Hags are not unknown in Xen'drek, and I have heard a tale or two of my own.

Evidently these gnolls were allied with a group of harpies who defy the Daughters, a tribe or pack known as the Howling Wind. Sa-Jira fears that the harpy who escaped me—Ocyrra, by name—will entreat the minotaurs of Turakbar's Fist to track us down. However, Turakbar is a minotaur warlord who does pay fealty to the hag rules of Droaam.

In any case, we are marching on through the night until we reach Graywall.

#24 - Reemergence

Wounded, the PCs regrouped on the open plains under the sky. It was a dry, brown-and-gray landscape with scrub brush the only flora, but after all this time underground and possibly in the upper reaches of Khyber, it was good to breath fresh air—particularly for Magnus and Cyzicus, whose wilder upbringings demanded open space.

It was still dark, and harder to discern their location in this new land. By now they assumed—given the presence of gnolls and harpies—that they were in Droaam, the "monster" nation in western Khorvaire across the border from Breland. A dangerous realm, to be sure. But they still didn't know where precisely in Droaam. To the north were mountains; to the west, east, and south, open plains.

Where to go next? They had recovered the strange, serpentine longbow that the woman had carried—the woman who helped them escape from the pit in the watchtower but was herself now gone, possibly captured.

The only landmark at this point was the firelight of a nearby camp just beyond the first of the foothills. Upon seeking it out, even cautiously, they encountered a lone gnoll who rode upon a warg—an intelligent, evil wolf as large as the dire variety. The two immediately attacked. The lone "patrol" was defeated, but not before dealing a few more wounds to the PCs.

Too wounded to investigate the camp, they set out instead to find a safe place to rest for the night. Giving the firelight a wide berth, they went north into the foothills of the mountains, searching for water and shelter. They found a thin mountain stream and cleaned up as best they could in the dark—particularly to mask their scent—then continued to wander on, and up, until they found a place far enough away that they felt safe from being tracked.

They spent the night uneventfully, needing the rest badly. In the morning, with daylight and an overcast sky, they surveyed the land. The gray mountains rose tall above them. Vague winged shapes that were not birds haunted these peaks, seen from only a great distance. On the eastern horizon was the glimmer of water—the sea or perhaps a large lake? To the south, the plains stretched on. They could discern two separate structures, fortresses or citadels: one southwest, one southeast. The PCs decided their course while Cyzicus went off to forge, though the shifter didn't have much luck.

At last, they decided to head to the southeastern castle, whatever it was. As they neared the bottom of the hills, they spied the gnolls again. They were a large group, but they were splitting into two. The PCs decided to follow the small caravan of gnolls that headed eastward, but they waited several hours so as not to be seen (even from the air, in case there were harpies). It also appeared that this group had some sort of captive. The gnolls were also traveling by day, which is unusual as they can see quite well in the dark.

When a safe enough distance was placed between them, the PCs set out after them, easily following their tracks—until it got dark and they had to use Doongul's forgelight spell to look more closely. After marching for hours, halfway through the night, they caught up the gnolls. Who had awaited in ambush. At least some of them.

The husk of a ankheg lay across the ground, and beneath it, an unconscious gnoll who looked to be dead. There were several holes in the ground from where the large insect-beasts had burrowed up from the ground. But if the holes were fakes, they sure looked real...yet it was from these narrow ditches that the gnolls launched their attack. Two archers rose up from three holes and looses their arrows upon the PCs, while a second warg and another gnoll captain charged out of the darkness.

Once again, the PCs prevailed, after taking more wounds and burning through some of their spells. Just when things quieted down, they went to search the ankheg holes, to see if there were any more enemies, or perhaps some loot.

There were more gnolls—at least in one of them. Just as Doongul and Rendar peered down the furthest hole, forgelight held out, they heard a guttural chanting coming from below.

Then a column of fire blazed down from above and engulfed them.