DAY 273 (8th Nightal)(December) cont ...
At the entrance of the Barrow of the Forgotten King Cavu bid the brave adventurers farewell, explaining that he would stay behind and tidy up all the loose ends. Primarily he would attempt to fool the Vanguard that nothing had happened and make sure that Kingsholm remained unmolested by the 'big players'.
He also said, 'Just to refresh your memories, agents of the Vanguard of Sertrous raided this tomb two years ago and took the bones of the Forgotten King. They were led by a yuan-ti called Xeron. A band of adventurers tried and failed to stop this, but at least they did stop them from stealing some of (not all) of the magic items in the barrow.
There is an ancient prophecy associated with the bones and the Vanguard seek to either prevent it or pervert it to their own wicked ends! Follow the trail, old as it is, find the bones and put a stop to them.'
And with that, into the Barrow they went. Billi lead the way, once they had worked out their light sources. After the initial empty barrow chambers they found a tunnel that lead them down further into the earth.
Finally the roughly hewn tunnel widened into a terrace, about 20 feet wide and long, with a ceiling that rose to 8 or 10 feet. The porch had no far wall, instead opening into a great, echoing hollow.
This close to the cavernous rift, the air seemed charged as if a great storm was imminent. The walls of the opening ascended and descended, moving closer together as they rose into darkness, forming a wider space as they went downward. Three humanoid figures lay unmoving near where the terrace dropped off into the hollow.
Two of the figures were statues, on a wide eyed female goblin and the other a young man dressed in leather armour. The corpse was of hafling who had once worn robes and who still clutched a message in his hands. Durz took it and showed it to the others but it was in a language that none of them could read.
They descended into the depths of the cave by Fenrir carrying them down one by one.
The hollow's smooth floor was roughly circular. The air was alive with energy and thick with the smell of developing lightning. Small holes punctured the walls near the floor, opening into a dozen small tunnels that ran off into lightlessness. Dull dust was thickly heaped around the edges, thickest near the holes.
Billi was just about big enough to walk down one of the small tunnels at a crouch and he went to take a look. He disturbed a huge swarm of cockroaches though that heaved out into the chamber and quickly covered the floor. Larger ones arrived, then some truly giant ones. Arahel turned into a Will-o-the-wisp and began zapping at them. Fenrir took to the air and went up to the ledge to start making some bombs out of oil and jars. The others fought them off as best they could.
Despite the amount of cockroaches and the unpleasantness of it all, the large ones were easy for such veteran warriors to dispatch. The swarms of smaller ones were much harder to get rid of.
Durz's axe did nothing, as did Billi's arrows and Arahel's zaps.
Fenrir arrived though, with his bombs, and incinerated enough of them to discourage the rest and the last of the cockroaches skuttled back down their burrows.
Once the fighting was all over Billi had another rummage around in the tunnels and found the old corpse of a drow. As well as some gold, he also found a jade statue of a spider in its possession.
Arahel had noticed something about this place, this Earth Node, it spoke to her on a magical, primal level. Billi felt it too, but since he always floated an inch from the ground it was less intense.
She felt her magic power strengthening, but not only that, somehow she knew that if she waited to attune to the place she could activate the nodes power and transport them magically to another node linked to this one.
They discussed the matter and all agreed that even if they were teleported hundreds of miles away this was only way forward for the quest.
They rested for a while and as it approached noon outside Arahel announced she was ready, gathered her power and activated the node.
The next thing they knew they were in a large rock crater with a rim that obscured everything from view. It was dark too, the only light source was their own.
Fenrir flew up, and the others followed, beyond the crater opened a wide Underdark vista lit by pale light shining through enormous columns that marched into the misted distance.
The benighted waters of a sunless sea meet a pebble-strewn shore a half mile or so away.
Across that dark water, a city glimmered around the base of the nearest column.
A cobbled road, which emerged from an opening in the dimly glowing cavern wall about a quarter mile to the left, passed within 10 feet of the crater and continued on to the right.
It finally connected to a narrow but elongated stone formation that spanned the shadowy sea, reaching more than a mile to the city.
Just across the road from the crater, a strange covered wagon sat. A broad and dusky dwarf, bald but with a while beard, stood in front of it, smiling. He wore a thick, leather coat and gloves that have gold piping. Two large grey lizards stood idly nearby.
The grinning dwarf called out in a deep baritone in perfect Common, "Node travellers, and unless I miss my mark, surfacers too! I am Bruthwol Coalhauler, a humble merchant! Perhaps you would like to see my wares?"
They approached the dwarf in a friendly fashion and stocked up on supplies. He then told them a little about the area, that they were in a giant cavern known as the Great Grotto and that yonder was an underground lake known as the Sunless Sea. The city they saw in the distance was called Pedestal and was a den of scum and villainy.
Thanking Bruthwol, they headed towards the city, crossing the sea on a span of rough hewn stones that hugged the southern wall of the cavern.
On a section of bridge that was half fallen into the water they were attacked by four aquatic humanoids. None of the party knew it, but these creatures were skum, powerful aquatic humanoids, the favourite slaves of aboleths.
And indeed, as Durz engaged the first of the skum on the bridge a large tentacled creature immerged out of the ink black water and started to try and dominate them with its sinister mental powers.
Arahel turned into a beholder and moved to attack. Fenrir started blasting at the aboleth and Billi peppered it with psychically enhanced arrows. The creature did not seem all that concerned.
Durz took on the skum and chopped them down one by one. The aboleth reached out with its mind and after attempting Durz and Arahel managed to snare Fenrir.
The warlock then lifted off and flew across the water to join his new master. By now Billi and Arahel had worked out they had just been attacking a projected image but it was too late, the creature was leaving, having never broken the surface of the water.
Luckily for Fenrir, Arahel quickly opened her middle eye and he was hit by the anti-magic effect.
He plopped into the water. He was now drowning, not being a strong swimmer, but at least he was free of the effects of the aboleth's domination.
Coughing and spluttering he eventually managed to swim to shore and haul himself out of the water.
'I can't just keep my big eye on you all the time,' said Arahel.
'Maybe the domination is now broken...' mused Bill.
'There is only one way to find out,' rumbled Durz.
'No, wait a minute!' interrupted Fenrir but it was too late, Arahel closed her eye and he
took off once again. Arahel opened her eye and Fenrir took his second dip of the day.
'Right,' he groaned dejectedly as pulled himself out of the sea again, 'Just tie me
up and take me to the city and find a magic user. Better gag me as well ...'
There followed some banter about using Durz's loincloth as the gag. It was base manly talk that Arahel didn't understand.
'It's just the right size, we have no better bits of material!' laughed Billi.
'No thank you,' replied the warlock firmly.
'Do you want front or back of the cloth in your mouth?' chortled Durz.
Fenrir tried not to vomit in his mouth at the last remark and then with resignation said, 'Oh, just knock me out then!'
'Okey dokey mate,' grunted Durz and smacked him in the head with the pommel of his axe.
Fenrir went down like a felled tree.
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