Jax was invisibly flitting about the pillars
supporting the cave roof; he had his wand out and his eyes open for the sniper
who’d been harrying the party as they fought. The sniper was in one of the
small caves near the ceiling and would only poke his head out long enough to
fire his bow. Just then, he saw movement at the farthest end of the cave, and
heard the twang of a bowstring and the whistle of arrows. Jax started to raise
his wand, but before he could, three more arrows flew from Tomas’s bow. The two archers' arrows passed in mid-air, and there was a scream from the distant cave; two
seconds later there was a thud as the sniper’s lifeless body hit the ground.
There were no more enemies in sight, and
the fight with the Red Mantis assassins had been brutal. “Medic!” Shadow
called, and Wren channeled the holy power of Pharasma to heal them (since she
couldn’t see the invisible sorcerer to deliver healing in person), while Erin
was busy laying hands on herself to get Iomedae’s grace. But the fight wasn’t
over yet. Three giant mantis suddenly appeared in the cavern. One lunged at
Erin, gashing her with its claw. Another scuttled towards Wren, but collided
with the invisible Shadow. The third darted around one of the pillars, and
discovered Nat hiding behind it. The huge insect chittered angrily, and lashed
out with one of its claws, closing it around the wizard’s chest and lifting him
into the air. Nat decided not to waste any efforts trying to argue with the
insect – instead he simply Dimension Door’d
to the safety of one of the distant caves.
Wren saw two of the oversized insects
heading her way, and called down a Flame
Strike to try to stop them in their tracks. One died, but the invisible
Shadow was also caught in the holy firestorm and was badly scorched. Erin
stepped up to the surviving mantis and swung her sword in an arc that sliced
its head off its body. Jax, flying overhead, fired off a volley of Magic Missiles at the giant mantis that
had briefly captured Nat. Enraged that its prey had somehow slipped out of its
grasp, it charged at Wren, but she ducked under its blow. She reached out her
hands and cast Slay Living on the
creature, and it crumbled to the floor, legs twitching.
Tomas and Shadow had their Red Mantis
masks on, and could See Invisibility,
and now they spotted another assassin come around the corner and slink along
the wall of the cavern, attempting to catch the party by surprise. Tomas was
having none of that, and fired off a trio of arrows at the newcomer, but his
usual dead-eye aim was off, and all three clattered harmlessly off the wall
behind her. Shadow fired off an Empowered
Lightning Bolt at her; she seemed to flicker for an instant as he fired the
spell, and danced away with unbelievable grace, deftly evading any damage from
the spell. However, the attacks served to alert the assassin that her
invisibility was no protection. She charged at Tomas, slashing him deeply with
one of her sawtooth sabres. She wore the usual Red Mantis mask, but her armor was
gleaming mithril chain instead of the red leather armor the other assassins
they’d fought wore, and her moves were even more practiced and deadly than they’d
come to expect.
Faced with this deadly foe, Tomas
scrambled back a step and fired at her again from point-blank range, but his
arrows couldn’t find their target. Erin charged at her from behind, and her
rapier should have stabbed
into her kidney, but once again the assassin seemed to flicker out of existence
for a moment, and the blade found nothing there. Shadow moved to Erin’s side,
and cast Shadow Hands, but somehow
the assassin dodged away from the wave of icy darkness. Nat poked his head out
of the safety of his new hidey-hole, and hammered her with a round of Empowered Magic Missiles that even she couldn’t evade. Jax flew
forward until she was within range, and zapped her with his Wand of Enervation, hoping to do something to make her a little
less deadly.
Faced with enemies fore and rear, she
spun to take on Erin and Shadow. Her two swords flew in a blinding flurry, almost
too fast to see. But somehow Erin managed to parry every slash and thrust, and
even Shadow managed to dance away from all but one of her cuts. Before she
could take a breath to renew her attack, an arrowhead suddenly appeared
sticking out of her chest, directly over her heart. Tomas had finally found his
mark, and she fell face-forward onto the cavern floor.
This time, it seemed that the battle
finally was over, and Wren
once more started doling out healing. Shadow had become visible when he’d
attacked the assassin. “Why are your clothes smoking?” Wren asked innocently as
she began healing the sorcerer; he just smiled through gritted teeth. Nat was
checking out the dead assassin’s gear. When he pulled off her mask, he found a
beautiful woman with dark strawberry-red hair. “This one isn’t your
run-of-the-mill Red Mantis,” Nat reported as he searched. “She’s got some
really good stuff.”
Tomas had moved forward to the
altar/pulpit and the foot of the stairs leading up to the double doors with the
imposing carved mantis above them. He glanced to his left, to where the last
assassin had come sneaking in from, and saw another set of stairs leading to
another set of double doors, and these were slightly ajar. Motioning for the
others to follow, he cautiously approached. When everyone was in position, he
nudged the doors open with his foot, bowstring drawn.
The room inside held three large stone
vats nestled in alcoves in three of the walls. Each was large enough for a man
to sit in, but aside from a strange blue residue caking the inside of each,
they were empty. A simple cot, wardrobe, and writing desk were squeezed in between
the vats. The bed was neatly made, the wardrobe held clothing that looked like
it belonged to the red-haired assassin, and the desk was cluttered with papers.
Jax beat Nat to the requisite Detect Magic: “There something magical on
the desk,” he reported. Nat used one of his wands to carefully sort through the
papers. Most were mundane reports of training exercises, written prayers to
some god named ‘Achaekek’, and
detailed diagrams of human anatomy, along with annotations on how and where to
deliver killing blows. The magic was coming from a crimson sheet of parchment;
Nat carefully lifted one corner with his wand, and could see writing – perhaps a
letter? – on the other side, but was reluctant to look closer. “Maybe you’d
better check this out,” he generously suggested to Jax.
Jax sighed, and knelt before the desk.
After close examination, he nodded. “Yep – looks like Explosive Runes. I should be able to disable it.” He worked some
more, then stood. “OK, it’s safe now – take a look.” Nat looked at him, then
down at the crimson paper. “Hey Shadow! Come take a look at this.” Nat backed
quickly towards to door as Shadow picked up the paper and began to read.
“Hoo boy! I wouldn’t want to be this ‘Cinnabar’
person!” Jax said as Shadow finished reading the letter out loud. “I’m guessing
that was the red-head we killed outside, huh?”
“’Cinnabar’ – we’ve heard that name
before,” Tomas said, and Jax raised his eyebrows questioningly. “Remember?
After we killed those Red Mantis back at Vencarlo’s? We took one of the bodies,
and Wren did a Speak With Dead. We
asked him who’d ordered them to kill Vencarlo, expecting that he’d say it was the
Queen, but instead his answer was ‘Cinnabar’.
It didn’t mean anything to us then, but it sounds like this Cinnabar is the
leader of the Red Mantis here in Korvosa.”
“Or she was,” Jax said. “I wonder who this ‘K’ is, and what they’ll
do now? And who is this ‘Agent Koriantu’?”
“Do you think we’re the ‘meddlesome citizens’ they’re talking about in the
letter?” Nat asked. “It sounds like they know about us quite a ways up in the
Red Mantis chain of command.” His voice was tinged with a combination of pride
and fear.
“Let’s just finish cleaning this place
out, so whoever they are they don’t have anything left to throw at us,” Tomas
growled. They filed out of Cinnabar’s quarters, and returned to the other
staircase. It led up to a pair of iron doors set in an elaborately worked stone
façade, carved into the shape of a giant mantis, its arms arrayed downward like
an archway over the doors.
“That’s the god, Achaekek,” Wren whispered, pointing at the mantis carving.
“Figures that these guys would worship a
giant bug,” Jax snorted, but Wren shook her head. “Achaekek was the first
entity created by the gods. He was to be an implement of divine justice, but at
some point, he consumed his own impartiality, and descended into savagery.” She
shuddered to be confronted by the image of such an ancient and dark deity.
Tomas was uncowed. He ascended the
stairs, and listened at the doors. Hearing nothing, he waited as his friends
cast protective spells, then threw open the doors. He found himself looking
into a T-shaped chamber, with six stone pillars supporting its roof. The walls
were decorated with incredibly detailed paintings of immense mantis-like
monsters destroying towns with various forms of architecture. Strangely, the
scenes constantly evolved, playing out an eternal scene of slaughter. At the
back of the chamber was a towering stone statue of a four-armed mantis.
There were two inhabitants in the room.
The first was a dark-skinned, flame-haired woman of unearthly beauty. Nat gave
a quiet gasp as he saw her, instantly recognizing her as an Aasimar, a
descendent of some celestial being. But there was something sinister in her
bearing and he had little hope that she would greet them with kindness. The
other occupant of the room was an old friend of theirs – the cheerful goblin
bartender who had steered them into their near-deadly encounter with the
catoblepas.
 |
| Greater Barghest |
Nat was guessing that the aasimar might
be the ‘Agent Koriantu’ they’d read about, and knew she could be a deadly foe,
so he rushed to the front of the party and leveled his Staff of Charming at her, but she resisted his charms. Tomas cast Instant Enemy on her, to give himself an
extra edge in battle, while Jax simply charged at her, but she easily evaded
his blow. Shadow ignored her altogether, and blasted the goblin with a volley
of Empowered Magic Missles; he wanted
some payback.
He’d expected the little goblin to be
turned into green puree by his spell, but instead the creature transformed.
Instead of a puny goblin, a hulking jackal-like humanoid stood in its place. Shadow
recognized it as a Barghest, creatures that liked to rule over goblin tribes
like gods. In this case, it was a Greater Barghest, one who had consumed enough
humans corpses to shed its skin and grow immensely in power. It gave a roar of
glee at the prospect of battle, and slashed at Jax with one of its huge claws.
Koriantu took a step back and unleashed
a torrent of Blasphemy that left
everyone horribly weakened. Nat collapsed unconscious, and Tomas was dazed.
Erin realized that everyone needed her help, so she once again called upon her Power of Faith. As her sword erupted in
brilliant light, its healing power swept over them, restoring some of their
lost strength. Nat struggled back into consciousness, but was so weak he couldn’t
stand or lift his staff. Wren, not wanting to endure any more spells like that,
cast Silence on one of the columns in
the room, hoping to cut off Koriantu’s ability to cast spells.
Nat was in the area of Silence, but he rolled down the stairs
until he could hear again, then conjured an Elemental
Wall of acid that sliced diagonally across the room, catching both Koriantu
and her barghest companion. Tomas was too weak to draw his shock bow, so he
dropped it and drew his normal bow instead. Nat’s Wall blocked his view of Koriantu, so he took aim at the barghest,
feathering him with an arrow. Shadow added a set of Empowered Scorching Rays, their energy twisted into electricity,
and the barghest fairly exploded in a cloud of blood and fur.
Jax couldn’t see Koriantu through the
wall either, but he blasted a Cone of
Cold through it, catching her in its wake. The debased aasimar struggled
backwards, out of the acid, and stumbled backwards along the back wall until
she was out of the range of the Silence,
then she conjured a Blade Barrier that
extended out of the room and down the stairs. She couldn’t see her targets, but
the wall of magical blades went straight through Shadow and Erin. Shadow
managed to roll off the staircase, avoiding some of the spell’s damage, but
Erin suffered its full osterizing effects. She suffered still more damage as
she struggled out of it, slipping in her own blood as she struggled to stay
upright on the stairs.
Nat fired a Fireball blind into the room, managing to catch Koriantu and miss
Jax. Shadow did the same, twisting his spell’s energy into electricity. Tomas
moved into the room, slipping between pillars until he could see her, but his
arrow missed. Koriantu was badly hurt, but she had plenty of magical healing at
her disposal. She began to cast a Heal spell,
to restore herself to full strength so she could continue to punish these upstarts
who had vexed that incompetent Cinnabar for so long. But Jax stepped from
behind a column at the opposite end of the room. The Blade Barrier prevented him from reaching her, but it was no
obstacle to his Magic Missiles. The
blue bolts of force flashed through the magical blades, slamming into Koriantu
one after another. A look of surprise crossed her face as her spell died on her
lips.
Nat dismissed his Elemental Wall, but they had to wait a full two minutes for the Blade Barrier to vanish. Wren did as
much healing as she could, and the strength everyone had lost to Koriantu’s Blasphemy returned. When Koriantu died,
the appearance of the room changed: the elaborate paintings and the statue of
Achaekek vanished. The room was now a bare stone chamber. Where the statue had
been was a cot and a small altar, with a silver bowl of pure water sitting on
it. “Well, here’s how those assassins found us,” Nat declared as he examined
it. “This is the perfect implement for Scrying.”
There was one more pair of double doors,
leading north out of the room. Once everyone had been healed, they gathered in
front of the doors, and recast protective spells. This time, everyone put on Red Mantis masks
and activated their ability to See
Invisibility. On the count of three, Jax and Tomas pulled open the doors.
Unlike the natural cavern that most of
the Mantis headquarters had been, they found a long hallway of worked stone,
the stonework very like the room they were now in. This looked like it had once
been part of a burial chamber, with both walls lined with alcoves containing
stone sarcophagi, their lids missing. Blocking their way forward were a pair of
abominations. The first was a huge creature that looked like it had been
constructed from half a dozen or more bodies sewn together and reanimated. The
second was a similar thing, created from the bones of a dozen or more mismatched
skeletons. At the back of the hall was a short stairway leading up to another
room, and in that room stood a familiar figure, glaring at them with
undisguised hatred. It was Rolth Lamm.
The PCs earned 10,934 XP, putting you at
191,902 XP, with 210,000 required for Level 13.
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