[From the Journal of Rollo Lavius]
Hello again dear reader! Yes, it's me, fresh from being a garden ornament. I can't say I remember all that much from being petrified. One moment we were fighting the gorgon and the next I had a crowd around me asking if I was ok.
I felt tired and sick, but other than that I was fine and felt as right as nine pence after getting some clean fresh water.
Well, time was still of the essence, we still had the Vast Swamp to save and a dragon to deal with. All rather inconvenient, dragons can be a real pest sometimes, or so I've been lead to believe by my brother Corum, and he should know.
Sylvia, being very clever and resourceful had rescued us, bringing with her some other denizens of the Swamp who did not want it turned into a realm of darkness. They were Irritator the Kobold wizard who was quiet but seemed a decent enough fellow and Yli, a handsome young fellow, some sort of ranger or hunter. The other two I was less sure about, Basil, a grumpy old druid of the mushrooms-in-the-beard variety and his consort Sybil the medusa. Yes a medusa! Can you credit it? Not only that, but the same one that had just about done me in when I was beaver hunting back around Wisphaven.
Basil and Sybil are horrible, by every definition of the word. Basil stinks of the swamp, most likely survives by murdering travellers and is despicable in every word and dead. Sybil, who appears to be the more dominant one in their relationship is evil to the core and has been praying on the peoples of the swamp for generations. Incredibly though, they are now allies, and not only that, but very good ones if Sylvia is to be believed. They travelled all the way from Wisphaven together with hardly even a harsh word. Basil and Sybil seem to have been able to subdue their evil natures and adventure on the side of 'good' for as long as it takes to ensure the Vast Swamp remains out of the clutches of those that would make it into part of the realm of Shadow.
So, once I was revived we made our way deeper into the Black Rift and were now taking on towers full of evil minions and tentacle things. The stuff of nightmares and to be frank I was rather beginning to miss my days as a statue. We had already cleared two areas and were now onto our third since leaving the relative safety of 'The Fortress' where Lavinia and the others waited on guard.
This next fight ended rather abruptly as myself and Basil had now perfected the 'Wave of Wolves' tactic. The first of the 'Tentacle Horrors' was pulled down and finished off by them and the second vanished. Sylvia healed up Drashnag and he poked about for the missing enemy but it appeared that it had gone.
During the battle Sylvia had been thrown over the side and Basil was utterly beside himself with grief at her loss. I think he had been her consort since he had been a young man. I need to research how long medusa live for. A rash sort of fellow who seemed to act impulsively he turned into a dire bat and swooped down to the floor of the rift to try and retrieve her corpse. As he flew down I cast 'Avoid Planar Effects' and then 'Light' on a pebble to aid him in his search.
What he found down there in the murk though was a trail of blood leading to where a large group of zombies of various sizes were feasting on her remains.
In the gloom and half light we watched the macabre spectacle of Basil the dire bat fighting the zombies to try and retrieve his lost love. He cast 'Animal Growth' on himself and the dire bat increased to twice its already large size. In the struggle that followed one of his wings was pulled down by a zombie ogre and he was very nearly ripped to bits himself, but he pulled himself free and flapped off to safety although badly mauled.
On his return, it hardly needed stating that he was in a black mood, but in his sullen silence he accepted the plan of going back to the fortress and resting before trying again.
It was noon by the time we returned and Sylvia conjured up enough food for us to live on that day.
The only thing of note I did in the afternoon was scrye Despayr the dragon again and I saw him in conversation with the Tentacle Horror thing. The horror seemed to be giving the dragon a report and after it had done so it disappeared. Despayr seemed neither pleased or angry, but I am not an expert in sensing the motivations of dragons.
In the evening I wrote up my journal and updated my logbooks with information on the Plane of Shadow with Badger snoozing at my feet. Sylvia prayed and repaired her armour. Lavinia, Mirabella, Falo-Han, Rolanda and Yli kept the fire going and chatted in low voices.
Shump kept his own council, as did Drashnag. Irritator spent most of the evening going through the loot and cataloging it. Basil looked out of the Fortress door and brooded, his hand gently resting on the head of his snake.
Morale seemed to be low, we all knew we would have to fight this dragon at some point, and the question was; who would survive and who would die?
DAY 246 (12 Uktar)(November)
I had the morning shift, so woke at dawn, or what passed for dawn in the Plane. I felt something strange and Basil, who was also awake, grumped and muttered that he sensed that all Conjuration spells would now be much harder to cast.
He summoned a bat to test this theory and although he managed to cast the spell he said it was much harder.
Now I could feel it too, and it could only be the work of that dragon, trying to prevent us from summoning all our wolves and crocodiles. Bugger!
I had prepared some spells which I hoped would prove useful today and started with 'Lay of the Land'. It let me see the whole of the Black Rift in rough sort of outline, but it was useful in that I could tell we still had a few more towers to get past before getting to an area which I assumed was the lair of the dragon. It was only an assumption though, the big building I could see may have been anything.
Next I cast Skrye again and this time I saw the dragon, in his usual place, his claws in the dark swirly thing, playing with the weave. I think this was him trying to counter our Conjuration spells.
Once we had breakfasted I used three Stone Shape spells to cut enough steps in the side of the cliff to bring us down to the floor of the Rift and after discussing a vague sort of plan we headed down. Everyone agreed that getting Sybil's remains was the right thing to do.
The first ones down were Shump and Drashnag and they were met by a horde of undead, many zombies of various sizes and ferocity piled into them. The half-orcs started laying about them and from further up the steps the spell casters began their own assault.
Sylvia cast Spiritual Weapon and Basil cast a Chain Lightening into the seething mass of undead, but most of them still stood, not all were human sized, some were tall ghastly things, ogres and wyverns among them.
I cast another 'APE' so Basil could cast Flame Strike. Irritator hit them with several Magic Missiles.
We were cutting through them, but more shambled up to take their place. It seemed like the floor of the Rift was a virtual sea of undead. I really hated this place.
No comments:
Post a Comment