Erijay, Kern and Vorn decided to press on further into the mountain,
since the alternative was to go back and sit in the pool of water for gods
knows how long. As they donned their packs and prepared to leave, Darnorth
arrived in a flurry of curses on Kern for leaving the basilisk head on the path,
nearly turning the dwarf to stone. . Using
hand signals through the gate, Rikar told the dwarf there was no sign yet of
Riley, Gurruk or Turrick, so Darnorth decided to catch up with his companions
to help them on their way. And on the
way they were, pressing down another long 20’ wide corridor that headed on for
hundreds and hundreds of feet. Erijay and Vorn were nervously eyeing their oil
supply when Kern suddenly raised a hand to signal a halt. The merchant had
heard faint noise ahead. Covering their light sources, Erijay and Darnorth
peered into the dark with their infravision, seeing a band of short humanoids
(and one tall one) blocking the narrowing passage ahead. To the left another narrow, natural passage
branched off into the darkness. Assuming the creatures had already seen their
light, the four moved forward to engage. As they got closer, they saw a phalanx
of the chimpanzee/man creatures (tasoli) backed by another one of the snake men
(yg-ti). The part opened fire on the yg-ti and ignored the tasoli, figuring it
was the greater threat. And it was, for in short order, it had charmed Kern and forced the other three
to run away in fear. The fear
eventually wore off, but not before Vorn and Darnorth had run back to the gate
and Erijay pretty much back to the pool. The three turned around and headed
back to help Kern. Who in the meantime had agreed with his new scaly friend that
his companions had abandoned him and the merchant would be best served by
accompanying the yg-ti.
Once Darnorth, Erijay and Vorn got back to the branch, Kern and the
yg-ti were gone, but the tasoli still blocked the way. Determined to bull
through them to rescue their friend, weapons were drawn to attack. And the
three were quickly surprised by a second band of tasoli coming out of the left
hand tunnel. Erijay frantically ripped a page out of Bjorn’s spellbook and cast
sleep to take out a great many of the
creatures. The rest of the tasoli stood their ground, and it took much swinging
of swords and hammer to clear the way. Stopping briefly to finish off their
sleeping foes, the trio raced on. Ahead they could see daylight at the end of
the tunnel. Erijay cast locate object,
focused on Kern’s alien jumpsuit, but the merchant (or at least his clothes) were out of range.
Running towards the light in order to close the distance, they burst out into the
light of the evening sun. Behind them and to the right rose sheer cliffs 400’
high; more cliffs could be seen far in the distance. And in this rift spread
the remains of a ruined city. Tumbled columns, collapsed buildings, all
overgrown with vines and other foliage, spread as far as the eye could
see. Except straight ahead, where they
could see a swampy area. But there was
no time to admire the view, as Vorn caught movement out of the corner of his
eye, and they all turned to face two more yg-ti. One was a scaly skinned
humanoid like the others they had seen, except snakes grew from its shoulders
in place of arms. The other was a snake headed humanoid wielding a wickedly
huge halberd. Weapons were drawn, but combat was short as Erijay was able to charm the human headed/snake armed
yg-ti. She asked her new friend to call off his companion. The second yg-ti was
hesitant. But when Darnorth flashed the black tablet he’d recovered from the
breeding pits of Yg, the snake headed creature obeyed, convinced now there had
been a mistake and the party were servants of the snake god.
 |
| http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20070211211559/forgottenrealms/images/f/f1/Yuan-ti_-_Sam_Wood.jpg |
Questioning their new friend, they learned that Kern had been led off
to meet the leader of the cult of Yg, someone (something?) by the name of
Horen. Erijay’s snake sword was a relic of the cult lost when the cult of Yg
was shattered in the north, but spies had discovered its location and one of
their own had passed through the gate to recover it. It was now held somewhere
in the temple of Yg. The yg-ti themselves were being breed or created in the
temple so the cult could rise again. Horen had brought many of the jungle
creatures into the service of the cult, and had the surrounding human tribes frightened
enough to do whatever he bid as well. In the city itself were the yg-ti,
tasoli, bullywug and bugbears. There was also a band of mongrelmen, degenerate
descendants of the original inhabitants of the city, who were shunned by the
cult. And finally, the swamp and lake
were home to the ‘god of the lake’, a dragon of some sort based on the
description. It was pretty much indifferent to all in the city, but was
worshipped by the bullywugs. Erijay also asked if they could do something about
that little skin problem, their oil supply now having reached a critical point.
The yg-ti could not help, but offered to take them to Horen as he wilded great magic
and could probably help them. Instead, Erijay asked that they lead them to a
water source in case she and Vorn needed to go for a dip. This the yg-ti did,
showing them a still full well in the courtyard of a ruined building.
Stepping aside from the yg-ti for a few moments, Darnorth, Erijay and
Vorn discussed what to do next. The snake headed yg-ti was insistently trying
to guide them to Horen, and they probably couldn’t delay too much longer. They
decided to turn on the two yg-ti in surprise and cut them down. This
unfortunately didn’t go too well. Blows were landed on the two snake men, but
did not slay them. Instead, Erijay found herself charmed and Vorn and Darnorth were once more sent running back
towards the tunnel in fear. And in a
repeat of Kern’s experience, Erijay was led away by the yg-ti to meet Horen,
and by the time Vorn and Darnorth returned, they were long gone.
Now deep in trouble, the dwarf decided to use his remaining precious wish to try rectifying the situation. Darnorth called upon the powerful magic to
heal all his companions of all hurts and harms and enchantments, and to
teleport them all to a specific location next to the well. Alas even this mighty magic couldn’t do
everything he asked; both he and Vorn (and presumably everyone else) were
healed and Vorn got his normal skin back. But no one appeared to join them by
the well. It now being night, the dwarf and cleric headed off into the ruins to
find a place to hunker down and rest before deciding what to do next. In the
morning, the two were joined by a human magic user by the name of Aratheas, who
stumbled out of the ruins. She had been with another adventuring band and her
companions had been wiped out trying to enter the city. Having spent some time
sheltering with the mongrelmen, she had decided to try making it out of the
city on her own rather than remain trapped there forever. The lady mage agreed
to join the pair in return for assistance getting out of the city once their
mission was complete.
 |
| http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lXB5Dj3Su0E/T3fxh0oTlbI/AAAAAAAAD94/lZAEOK1i0-E/s400/MJ+2012+Dragon+2.jpg |
[While all of this was going on,
Kern and Erijay were brought separately before Horen. He proved to be a man, a
wizard in red silk robes who questioned them about their purpose in the city.
He assumed they were still charmed, but Darnorth’s wish had broken that spell,
so the two told only a tale of looking for the snake sword that had been stolen
from them. Satisfied with that answer, Horen ordered them taken to the temple
where they could be ‘converted to the service of the snake god’. Stripped of
their gear, the two were led off through the ruined city and imprisoned in the
temple of Yg.]
No comments:
Post a Comment