#106 - Domain of the Serpents

The Journal of Wynn Dennavar 

Zarantyr 24th, 999 YK

The naga on the balcony made idle threats I didn’t think were justified. We were told this was the Domain of the Serpents and that, if we groveled and cast our weapons into the pit, we would be granted an audience with our "betters." Although there was no chance of complying with its words, I remembered how the last nagas we faced escaped unharmed after wreaking havoc with their spells and acidic spit.

This time we were expecting them and didn’t heed its words.

We broke ranks. Magnus ran for the wall beneath the unoccupied balcony, I charged up the stairs toward the closed door. The clatter of approaching enemy reinforcements came from the side passages. I couldn’t see what creatures the others engaged, but they didn’t sound like mages. I needed to kill the naga before it could unleash any magic.

When the door gave way, I came face to face with a second naga. Before it could move I drove the Fang into its coils and unleashed the enchantment Talor had placed upon it. I don’t know whether that being would have approved this use of his blessing. While we were here to rescue the keep’s guardian naga, our motives for doing so were admittedly selfish, but in battle none of that mattered. I needed to make an impression on these arrogant serpentine spellcasters. And so I did. Nearly cut in half, its blood pooled on the ground and the creature screamed.

When the light and ringing from the blast faded, I heard an echo from below as someone–Simel – had the same idea about ending this fight quickly and decisively.

Magnus didn’t make the climb up to the balcony, but Clarion and Cypher did. Clarion tried to use the height to his advantage, engaging the first naga. Both snakes teleported away with cowardly magic, mine fumbling its spell in terror and hitting the ground thirty feet below with a distinctive splat. Clarion’s landed without further injury—until the warforged leapt down after it to continue the fight.

Descending the stairs, I finally saw—or at least became aware of—what the others were fighting. I felt strangely compelled to look at the monstrous creatures but that odd feeling made me wary about indulging it. One was larger than the largest dog, reptilian, many-legged, and many-toothed, and I later learned it was a basilisk—like the one in their Droaam stories. The other was an umber hulk, ogre-sized, insect-like and clad in the carapace of a colossal bug. Most of the others were averting their eyes from these two creatures, so I followed suit.

The battle ended a few short exchanges later. Throughout the fight I hadn’t seen Aleae, but the coat of acid covering some of the corpses look like the work of her spells. Magnus was in the worse shape; some of his dragon scales, which I think were intended to serve as some sort of armor, were dislodged and bent backwards from the gashes. It took most of our remaining resources to get him back up to any sort of fighting condition. Even so, it went better than I feared it would after how we had struggled against nagas previously. There would be more of them ahead, though.

While we patched up our wounds, Aleae had gone exploring while her invisibility lasted. She guided us beyond the balconies through narrow carved-stone corridors, past little crevice-like tunnels that only kobold-sized creatures could traverse. Maybe Simel in his distorted “king of the kobolds” guise could attempt it. (Why he was still wearing that guise after the kobolds we encountered were dead or fled, I don’t know. To be honest, it’s a little unsettling.)

We had to travel single-file. I was close to the rear, and at first could only listen to what the others said about where we emerged. The room was large, but we emerged into a narrow tunnel of bars approaching a cage (also entirely barred) taking up the center of the room. The cage had four doors, the one in front of us and across attached to barred tunnels, the side doors opening to the rest of the room. Dense fog blocked our vision beyond the bars. It smelled like incense. Familiar? Talor’s chamber had a similar smell, but this was more sinister and with a musky quality to it.

Not for one moment was actual treasure
suspected to occupy the chest.

A chest sat in the middle the cage, and none of us ventured to suggest opening it.

Magnus and I tried to bend the bars, but they were unyielding. Cypher unlocked the first door, checked for traps, and felt it safe to enter. A few of us did. Clarion sensed the presence of undead in one half of the room and took up a vigil, but they weren’t moving—had they not detected us? Unlikely.

From a certain point in the central cage a strange contraption could be seen against the wall opposite from the undead in a section of the chamber beyond the bars not obscured by the fog. It was akin to both a sculpture and a suit of armor: a series of plates and pipes welded to the wall, naga-sized, and very much occupied. We were certain that it was Arafin, whom we sought, for a female head with bronze skin and long hair was exposed. It was evident she was imprisoned within the serpentine armor. Aleae attempted to communicate with her, but she couldn’t speak and could only blink yes/no. Her answers weren’t particularly helpful.

It was right to suspect we were being watched. Once four of us (not counting Rungo perched on the wall of bars) were in the central cage, the enemy sprang the trap. A voice from the mist barked a spell, the chest flew open, and down became up.

We dropped toward the ceiling, which rose forty feet above us—suddenly below us! Aleae broke our fall with a quickly-enacted featherfall spell, so we floated up past Rungo, whose wall-clinging ability made her immune to gravity's reversal. Still in the barred tunnel, only Simel and Magnus remained fixed to the ground.

At Cypher’s command, the homunculus climbed down (up?) the wall and shut the chest, but the spell didn’t fade. Disoriented and unable to see our opponents, I had the feeling whatever happened next wasn’t going to end well.