#99 - Two-Headed and Serpentine Trouble

With the use of the Immovable Rod, rope, and Clarion's considerable weight, the group descended the shaft down and then out again into another passage (the shaft itself seemed to disappear into an abyss). Shortly down the next tunnel—which bore the same too-straight, too-smooth walls of the previous one—the party came across the pick-clean remains of umber hulk carapaces and a broken tunnel, likely burrowed by the same creatures, running almost perpendicular.

Sahlessh took off running down the burrow-tunnel when he heard the sound of a woman scream issue in that direction. "Saralith!" he exclaimed.

The group followed, slower than the Seren monk, while Clarion remained behind to stand guard. Aleae had briefly glimpsed a figure following the group; there was a need for watchful eyes.

Through a series of irregular tunnels the rest of the party ventured, coming at last into a goblin-carved chamber with a high balcony accessed by stairs across a pit. The design of the hall was becoming familiar, for Magnus and Cypher both passed through Dhakaani ruins even before Glyphstone Keep. A mound of gold and copper coins—easily several thousand—lay in the center of the chamber before the stairs up. As they began to examine the room, they were set upon by monsters!

The Journal of Wynn Dennavar

Zarantyr, 999 YK, part two

The day continued to get stranger from there.

As much as I wanted to fully investigate exactly where in Glyphstone Keep the teleportation rune had taken me, I had not come prepared for an extended stay underground. My options were limited. I had no desire to fight my way through the rock-worm nest, and had already taken wounds fending them off. Nor did I want to attempt to navigate the gaping pit, all the more so after glimpsing an unidentifiable quadruped and hearing its hooves against the stone. I chose to progress upward, towards the surface, and quickly before the rock worms reemerged.

The shaft continued up beyond the range of my light, but I reached a tunnel after fifteen feet of hard climbing. The walls, like the floor, had clearly been sculpted with magic. No rock I have seen has ever been so seamless and smooth.

I heard noise from deeper in the tunnel. Voices, loud but garbled beyond recognition. At the time it gave me hope that the surface might not be far away. This tunnel was shorter than the others, so I hooked my lantern to my belt and held the Fang parallel to the ground in order to advance.

Before I had gone more than a few steps, the voices heightened in pitch, and the sounds of battle began: running feet, weapons hitting flesh, and thunderous magic.

I had been moving too quickly. The floor abruptly dropped out from under my feet, becoming a steep chute. I fell, losing dozens of feet in elevation every second and heading directly for the source of the noises.

Somehow, I maintained my footing when I shot out into a wide corner. To my left, a short empty hall that turned out of sight. Ahead, pools of blood on the floor and walls, and the silhouette of a humanoid. Beyond him, something misshapen and monstrous. From what I later learned was happening around the corner, it was the most peaceful place I could have entered the battlefield. At the time, however, confusion and wariness kept me from venturing towards the noise, which came from every direction but back up the impossibly steep chute.

The humanoid—who I later knew as a Karrn named Simel—had to have heard my arrival, but was preoccupied. His attacker, a large purple snakelike creature, darted towards him and sank its fangs into his armor, tearing through the leather. Given the choice between targets, it was obvious I would throw in with the creature possessing legs and lacking long, poison-dripping fangs. I loosed a bolt from my crossbow, but missed.

The familiar sight of an exploding a fireball in the room beyond nearly blinded me, and scorched my bolt to cinders before it hit the ground. My caution in hanging back probably saved my life, for fireballs know neither friend nor foe, and I doubted my appearance would have convinced the caster to alter its placement.

At that point the serpent—whose face was disturbingly human-like in all the wrong ways—struck again, Simel collapsed, and the beast spat acidic venom at me. I ducked, and heard it sear the stone behind me. It fled around the corner and out of sight.

For a foolish moment I felt safe. Then my nose and ears caught up to my eyes. I was overwhelmed by a sickening stench, and heard massive stomping feet approaching my position. What I could only call an orcish giant lumbered into sight through the disappearing wisps of fire. It was unlike any other ogre I had encountered: it was far large, it had two malformed heads, was caked from head to toe in layers of cracked, blackened filth, the source of the stench. One head bled profusely, the other grinned madly. Both sets of eyes locked on us.

I advanced to meet it, moving around the fallen Simel. At that moment I first glimpsed the room beyond my corner.

*     *     *

The following description is reconstructed from my memories of the event and brief descriptions from the others involved. While I admit to the possibility of introducing errors in placement and timing, I assure the reader that the less-believable aspects of the following are in reality the most accurately portrayed.

The battlefield was an expansive chamber ringed by a balcony. I stood between the top of wide stairs and a stretch of narrow balcony positioned over a deep pit. A large man raining blood—mostly his own, and practically the only covering he wore—stood frozen on the balcony, mace clutched in a death-grip. Nearby and below, a canine-shaped homonculus crouched sideways, spider-like, on the wall. Beyond her—as I came to learn, the homonculus is referred to as female—a smaller-sized warforged of the trapsetting kind favored by the Brelish reloaded his arm crossbow. I had missed the shot he took, but he crouched close to the wall with the stance of a creature that’s—whose—desperation at the course of the battle prompted enough bravery to step out of the shadows.

There was also—and remember my caveat above, as I assure the reader that I took time after the battle to ascertain the truth of the words I write—a ten-foot high wall of densely-packed cheese cordoned off a section of the lower chamber.

There is little more to say about it, except that it was without a doubt real, and did nothing to improve the chamber’s stench.

In the rear of the chamber beyond the wall of cheese, the elf that had conjured it was dwarfed in the shadow of a massive, pearl-white unicorn.

*     *     *

From my new position I spotted the deer-like creature, trailing of blood down the stairs, and several more snakes. Despite the injuries on the ruminant beast—in truth, calling the oily, hideous thing a deer would be an insult to deerkind—the fight did not appear to be going well for my would-be allies. They fought utterly without discernible leadership or coordination, operating on raw firepower and determination. That alone would have made the following weeks a severe adjustment for me, but in the grand scheme it became the least of my worries.

Then, the unicorn burst into motion. This was no battlefield illusion. Its hoofbeats rang like bronze on the stone, the yellow torchlight somehow not marring the perfect whiteness of its coat. Its enraged snorts were the only mundane thing about it, yet the most convincing feature of its authenticity. It gored the deer-like creature, finishing it off, then charged up the stairs, and attacked the giant. The hooves beat ineffectually against the filth-caked hide, but the animal's spiral horn sank deep into its flesh.

I had miscalculated my positioning to the two-headed giant, not expecting its heads to grant it coordination enough to swing its arms independently. It barely missed me, but struck the unconscious Simel on the ground. The blow from the weapon jolted him awake despite the serpent's poison, and as he scrambled to his feet I noticed the Karrnathi emblem he wore—a welcome sight after the nearly three weeks since I had left my homeland.

I didn’t get a second chance to strike at the giant. There was another mercurial spell, and this time my ears caught the telltale crackling sound that warned me to shut my eyes against the flash. But it wasn't fire and light: When I opened my eyes again, an orb of thunderous force slammed into the creature and set it off balance.
Simel, in impressively close quarters, sank a peculiar black arrow into one of the giant's four eyes and it toppled at last into the abyss from which, I later learned, it had first climbed.

I pursued the serpent that had spat at me, gave and received in the scuffle, until it vanished into a swirl of mist. These serpents were spellcasters.

With the giant gone, the unicorn rounded the balcony corner directly towards me. Acting more on instinct than logic, I pressed myself against the wall, and it flew past me without a sideways glance. Even the homonculus that had moved up to defend the paralyzed barbarian yielded before it. The creature clattered to a halt in front of the man, lowered its radiant head, and touched its horn to the center of his chest with surprising gentleness. The barbarian remained frozen stiff, but blood ceased to leak from his wounds.

Then, for the briefest moment, the chamber was quiet.