Post by Dead Greyhawk on Jul 11, 2009 13:35:56 GMT -5
The discovery of the statuette casts a pall over the more experienced members of the Company. The battle beneath Castle Crag had been a near thing for the full Company, and they had been triumphant only through luck and the actions of many not with Otto, Hugh, and Pfiffwin. "We must use care in wreaking our vengeance on this vile snake," hisses Hugh. "She must not be allowed to slither to another hideaway deeper in the swamp."
"It does seem suspicious that another of these creatures appears so close to Castle Crag," agrees Otto. "Should we tell the others?" Hugh nods while Pfiffwin shakes his head. Mutual frowns are exchanged. "Alright, gather round," orders Otto. "Hugh and Pfiffwin watch the corridor." The rest of the band draws near to hear what Otto has to tell them, and it is a grisly tale.
"We fought a bunch of flying snake things back at Castle Diego. They are fell foes, and one fled from us. This statuette looks remarkably like one of them, and it is Hugh and my opinion that those townfolk we fought and locked in their rooms are under its sway," says Otto in a serious voice. "It's eyes are pits of doom, stealing your will. Don't look into them. If you see a big snake, its likely one of these creatures."
"Her. It's likely her," says Adler. "Look at the face; it's a female naga. Do you have any sense of the timeline? Did people start disappearing from Orlane soon after the naga escaped you?"
Otto frowns at the young priest. To his mind, the priest shows far too much knowledge about such an exotic creature. "How do you know of this beast?" he demands, concerned that the naga has planted a spy within his band.
"My lord Celestian is god of the skies and sees all. The spirit naga is a great foe of the burning sky, and we know much regarding our enemies," Adler explains. "Their control of your will is absolute and only is broken upon their death, though it weakens with distance. Or if a more powerful compulsion is already upon them." Otto briefly wonders how many compulsions lie upon Raven now after all of his misadventures.
"Claude, Wendelain and Lydonia were about a week into the swamp when we met them on our way back from Hochoch. The impression I got was that the children were recently missing at this time," echoes Pfiffwin from the doorway. "It must be the same naga. That month we spent training the naga spent charming more villagers."
"Well, let's go find this mistress then," says Otto ominously.
Otto leads the others back out into the passageway and consults Florin's map. According to the elf's drawing, the passage to the left is yet to be fully explored, as is a passage very near where the weasel allowed Otto's band to burrow through. Otto directs everyone to the left where the passage continues off into the gloom.
The passage quickly ends in a branching passage to the right and left. To the right, a swollen door can be seen blocking the passage a few dozen feet away. To the left, the passage leads further underground, the rare supporting beam slowly rotting under the wet marsh dirt. Otto points towards the near door, leaving Hugh and Florin to guard the intersection.
Under Otto's massive boot the door shivers and shakes. With a final snapping sound, it flies open, revealing a a room almost totally filled with murky brown pool of water. The air is full of the scent of rotting foliage, a fetid odor. A single massive slime-covered column rises from the center of the pool to support the sagging timbers that crisscross the ceiling. Scanning the room carefully, Otto can see that a thin rim of the room is only under a few inches of water and that a small muddy shelf extends into the pool on the far side of the room.
"Florin, Adler, Samantha. Come up here and scout out the shelf over there. Someone has tried to keep it dry for a reason and your elven eyes are more likely to spot it than mine. Pfiffwin, see how stable the ceiling is as well," barks Otto, thoroughly fed up with the dripping underground morass he finds himself in.
As the others reorder themselves and move to the fore, a ripple crosses the surface of the pond, and Otto's martial instincts immediately awaken. With a massive step, he springs forward into the pool as two huge frogs spring up from the mud and assault him, clawing and biting! The strange frogs, the get of some magician's nightmare, fail to puncture Otto's guard, and he, along with the quickly arriving Florin, make short work of the amphibians. Otto pokes about in the water, finding the pool itself to be shallow, but the floor to be thick, viscous mud.
"Ceiling's not too good," calls Pfiffwin, who casts a wary eye on the make-shift supports. "I wouldn't recommend fiddling with the pillar."
Otto turns an appraising eye on the elves and half-elf, who are quietly pointing and discussing the wall near the ledge. Samantha turns to meet his gaze. "This circle of dirt doesn't match that near it, but no door lies beyond. Perhaps a tunnel has been filled in," she says, disdaining to actually dig into the dirt.
Otto weighs the alternatives and consults with Hugh. Digging out the dirt tunnel may be a waste of time, but the naga could have used this as a bolthole. With some pleasure, Hugh suggests this as a perfect job for Clift and Frippi. The two of them slink forward and begin digging, using the discarded weapons from the previous battle as impromptu shovels. The digging is slow going but after several minutes of the two of them digging they hit a pocket of air. "Room beyond," hisses Frippi. Otto strides forward and with a sidearm throw tosses a glowing stone through the gap.
The squarish chamber beyond is short and squat, the ceiling being at most seven feet high and the room not much bigger square. Three large chests rest upon a square wooden platform filling most of the floor. The platform is thick enough that the chests stay dry, but the platform itself is clearly rotting underneath them. "Treasure!" cries Frippi in delight. Frippi and Clift quickly clear a hole big enough for Frippi to squeeze through. Frippi, closely followed by Pfiffwin, does so.
The three chests appear to have been firmly affixed to the platform, large spikes driven through the edges of the chests. Each of them are bound with brass and have large locks affixed to them. "Get Hugh nearby," calls Pfiffwin. "I'm going to check out the chests."
Pfiffwin pores over the locks and the chests themselves, and, oddly, Frippi does so as well. "Thought you were a holy halfling," says Pfiffwin.
"Brandobaris helps those who help themselves," replies Frippi with a knowing look. The chests seem odd to the two of them, and they are only confident that the third chest is safe to open and lacking traps. Otto and Hugh confer outside. While Hugh can delay the effects of any poison, it would be better to save such prayers for combat, when it might be the difference between life and death of them all.
"Leave all but the third chest then," calls Otto. "We can come back for the other two later."
The gnome opens the third chest easily. The chest is full of sacks that appear to have stones inside. Frippi and Pfiffwin haul them out and back to the narrow tunnel, passing them through. Pfiffwin is not sure why, but Frippi appears inordinately pleased when they finally get the last sacks transferred out. The contents of the third chest are interesting. Filled with azurite, lapis lazuli, obsidian, onyx, zircon, and jasper, the seventy stones are valuable. A paltry sum for Otto and Hugh, it is of much greater import to the others.
Otto gets the band moving back down the other branch of the passageway to find that it too ends in a swollen door. Halfway down the passage, on the left, another door exits the passage. A careful examination of its frame shows that it is much less swollen than the others and not bound as tightly due to it. A large padlock hangs from the latch of the door. Otto waves Pfiffwin forward, but the lock is too difficult for him to open. Otto grabs the lock, ready to try to rip it from the door, but Clift stops him. Pulling a bent wire from his belt, Clift tangles it into the lock, which suddenly pops open! With a grin, Clift hands Otto the lock and then swaggers back down the corridor.
Unlocked, the door opens easily to reveal a dry cavern packed full of crates, barrels, cases, and racks. Spears, daggers and a shortsword hang from the rack, while raw foodstuffs pack the crates full. The party rummages through the place, finding boxes of spikes similar to those holding the chests to the platform, several hammers, a pile of stout timbers and four shovels stacked in the back. Clift and Frippi let out groans of dismay at seeing the shovels, and Clift grabs a handful of spikes for himself.
Otto kicks down the swollen door a the end of the corridor for completeness, finding another water-logged room. A large pool of water laps almost to the door, and two mossy columns support a low ceiling. The pool has clearly been the final resting spot for many a skeleton. White bones covered in strange fungi protrude from the water. "Back to the pits!" shouts Hugh, sketching Trithereon's mark in the air, but the bones do not stir. Otto grabs the remains of the door and wedges them closed again.
Otto consults with Florin and Florin's map. The only passage still left unexplored lies back where they started, near the weasel's lair. With a sigh, Otto leads the others back. The dank chill of the underground tunnels remains the same as when they originally passed through, and, besides the odd chittering in the dark, no creature rise to attempt to bar their path. After many twists and turns, they find themselves back where they started.
Heading down the other, unexplored path, they find that after three turns the passage ends in a door. Preparing themselves, Otto kicks the door. It reverberates in place, wobbling but not opening. Otto is shocked! "Together with me Claude," he says. The two of them shoulder the door together, and an ear-splitting crack results. They stagger through the open door and find a thick beam snapped in two, one of the brackets holding it to the door frame hanging from a single long spike. The room beyond is small and has three wooden benches set in a triangle. Another wooden door is set in the far wall. The two warriors stare about, but nothing stirs.
The party moves carefully forward to the door. It, like the door just smashed open, appears to be not swollen. Otto looks at Claude and motions towards the door. The slow warrior seems to comprehend. The two of them slam into the door and another ear-splitting cracking occurs. Beyond this barred door is a large empty room with another door in the right wall. Otto and Claude, stumbling into the room, look warily around, but nothing stirs.
The quiet is a bit unnerving, but Otto and Claude, seeing a pattern, line up in front of the third door while the rest of the party files forward. With a quick charge, the two warriors smash into the door again shattering the bar that holds it tightly shut. Otto notices that fishbones are scattered around the floor and Claude stumbles over a low table in the center of the room. A stairwell descends out of the far wall. Most notable though are two things, the foul scent that permeates the room and the cries of pain and panic erupting from behind him.
Claude noisily vomits down the front of his armor and is sorely smote by a short, squat-tailed lizardman wielding a stone-headed axe who appears out of nowhere, as if the wall of the room gave birth to it. Otto spins and faces another lizardman similarly attacking. Keeping his gorge from rising, Otto eyes the lizardman's form and then guts him, batting the axe aside. Freeing Giantslayer, he goes to Claude's aid.
The rest of the party is in mixed straits. Six more lizardmen emerge from the walls exuding a nauseating scent and wielding stone axes. The party is certainly not prepared for their presence in the midst of their ranks, and the sudden nausea fells many of the party. The lizardmen strike viciously into the party, swining their axes with fell skill. Clift staggers backward with a deep wound, and Samantha barely stands after being caught by two axe blows. That said, Hugh and Florin make quick work of two of the lizardmen, while Adler, Wendelain, and Pfiffwin account for a third. Their numbers cut quickly in half, the lizardmen realize that not only are they outnumbered, but they are outclassed. They turn and sprint for the front of the party.
Claude, rallying from his nausea, regains his fighting stance in time to see Otto decapitate the lizardman that had smote him and three more lizardmen in full retreat charging for the stairwell behind him. Readying his bastardsword, he swings at first one and then another of the lizardmen, felling one and missing the others. For all of his slowness, Claude has clearly learned that if you hit something hard enough, it will fall down.
Otto chases after the two fleeing lizardmen, relying on his momentum to keep his balance. The lizardmen fly down the stairwell pellmell, and Otto scrambles to keep his feet on the wet, muddly, slime-covered stairs. One of the lizardmen indeed skids as he tries to navigate a turn in the staircase, and Otto slams into him, knocking him prone. With a quick swing of Giantslayer, Otto lops a leg off of the lizardman and moves on, not waiting for the corpse to finish kicking.
Otto skids out of the stairwell into a narrow cavern that exits into a muddy morass. Narrow stepping stones are placed along one wall, and the lizardman seems to be trying to navigate them and flee from the human chasing him. Otto looks at the distance and the stepping stones. Such balancing acts are not his strongest suit, but it is either try to catch the lizardman or let it warn any others of their presence. Grimacing, Otto runs nimbly across the stones and dives into the back of the lizardman, smashing him from the stones and into the waist-deep mud. The lizardman, having lost its axe, claws and bites at Otto's scalemail-clad form in vain, while Otto grabs the lizardman and smashes him into the nearest stepping stone. The lizardman collapses, unmoving in the mud. Otto recovers Giantslayer, makes certain the lizardman will not stir, and drags himself out of the mud to rejoin the others.
Florin and Claude keep watch at the top of the stairs and are pleased to hear of his success. Hugh and Adler have treated the few injuries the lizardmen were able to cause, and the others have searched through the fallen lizardmen's belongings. They have very little, only a small leather pouch with a few coins, all Geoffish, and their stone axes.
Otto relays what he saw below regarding the stepping stones. He also tells them that the stones appear to branch into two passageways and that a third passageway without stepping stones led out of the mud as well. Which is the best path, he can not say, and he was able to run down the lizardman before it had committed to one or the other of the passages. Pfiffwin suggests the right passageway, since it will be easy to backtrack if a wall is followed. No one argues with that. Since the lizardfolk have shown they can hide themselves and attack from surprise, Samantha announces she will do the same and draws a magical veil over herself.
Otto leads the party down the stairs and in the direction of the fleeing lizardman. The muddy chamber with stepping stones seems peaceful enough, and the stepping stones do lead to the right and middle passageways. After a careful transit, the stepping stones allow access to a dryer passageway leading to the right and the left. To the left the passageway quickly enters into mud again. To the right, the passageway eventually branches. "Right," says Pfiffwin.
The passageways here below are much more fetid, and the sound of trickling water is more pronounced in this lower level. Fewer timbers are used as supports and they are quite irregular. Samantha and Florin both look at the dripping ceiling with more than a small amount of trepidation.
When the branch in the passageway is reached, Pfiffwin again points to the right. Otto and Florin take the lead to scout ahead. They carefully go around the bend of the passage and see a figure that staggers slowly towards them, moaning and grasping for them. "Undead," hisses Otto. The two of them strike at the slow moving creature, and it falls in a heap. Florin appears very satisfied.
They go down the passage until they can go no further. The passage ends in a large room that appears to be filled with a pool of murky brown water. It extends off to the left around a sharp corner and out of sight. The water actually appears to become relatively deep quite quickly, and so they head back up to the intersection to take the other passage. At the intersection, Otto and Florin collect the rest of the party.
This passage quickly ends in a door swollen with moisture and clearly bound in its frame. Otto kicks the door open to reveal a large room fifty feet to a side. The middle of the room has a thick column that holds up the ceiling. The room smells of death and decay. From behind the column comes a moan, and a pale figure with horrible wounds and clad in tattered garb staggers forward. Florin says, "I can take care of this." Otto waves him on.
Florin, glad to have his skill recognized by Otto, carefully judges the distance to the creature and waits a moment to be sure it is alone and does not have the column protecting its flank. Once it is in clear sight, he darts forward and smites it with all his strength. Florin strikes a mighty blow, and the creature collapses to the ground.
A moment later, the creature rises up again, much to Florin and everyone else's horror! The sight of the undead clambering back from death again puts fear into the souls of all but Otto, Hugh and Wendelain. The party scatters, racing back down the corridor in a panic and splitting down multiple paths! Otto and Hugh are momentarily flummoxed. "Go! We'll take the undead," says Hugh, drawing but not igniting Flametongue.
Otto races to corral the frightened party. He first tackles Claude, who is lumbering slowly in plate mail and heading for the water-filled room. Once Claude has been flattened, Otto turns and sprints for the other passage. The tracks in the mud show most of the party has turned and head for the stepping stones, but two tracks, the halfling and probably Samantha, have run down the unexplored passageway. Clenching his jaw, he heads down the unexplored passage. Shining his glowing stone over the muddy room, he sees a broad and long cavern choked with mud. A Samantha-shaped outline is clearly visible struggling in the mud, but a more frightening sight accompanies it. Frippi, stuck in the mud up to his armpits, collapses before Otto's eyes. Giant centipedes cover the halfling and skate delicately over the muddy surface.
With a roar Otto charges across the room to Frippi's side, scattering the centipedes. They clack their mandibles at him and try to clamber over his body, but the ranger is no neophyte. With one seemingly continuous motion, Otto swings Giantslayer about, slaying one centipede after another. Otto grabs hold of the halfling, who is covered in centipede stings and no longer breathes. Even with his halfling constitution, he has ultimately succumbed to the venom of the centipedes. Otto hauls Frippy's body and the invisible Samantha back to Hugh.
Hugh and Wendelain have slain the foul undead, first putting the fear of Trithereon's might in it and then striking it down as it ran, and the unholy fear that struck the others has been broken. A mud-covered and abashed party regroups, most having attempted to wriggle out through the weasel lair, much to its displeasure. Hugh examines Frippi's body and sees that the halfling's wounds are grim, but not fatal; it is the poison that has slain Frippi. Hugh calls upon Trithereon to weaken the poison's grip Frippi, and Frippi begins to breathe again. Even so, Frippi remains on the verge of death.
The large column blocked from sight a door in the opposite wall of the room. Having no wish to travel back to where Frippi died, the party agrees that they should try to open the door instead. With an unsubtle kick, the door is opened and a passage, one much better supported with timbers, heading off into the gloom is revealed. On the left wall is a door, and a room can be seen at the furthest extent of Otto's light. With careful gestures, Otto directs Florin, Hugh, and Adler to follow him and the rest to watch the door. Carefully the four of them approach the room at the end of the corridor.
The room is large and square and has five wooden benches in it, each about three feet high. In the far wall is another door, closed. The room smells of decay and strange stains cover the benches. Hugh and Adler look over the benches while the two warriors guard the door. After a quite conversation, Hugh and Adler agree. The strange stains are dried blood, and the smell of decay comes from gobbets of flesh ground into the rough wood of the bench. "Undead," pronounces Hugh. With a frown, Otto waves them back down the corridor to the rejoin the others.
The hall door is unlocked and opens without much effort. The purpose of the space beyond is clear; it is a jail. Five cells face off of a small corridor. Three of the cells are occupied: one with an older man, one with a teenaged girl, and the third with a teenaged boy. "Mina? Darren?" asks Wendelain. The two teenagers look up as their names are spoken. The children have indeed been saved.
The third man, when released from his cell, explains that his name is Parsons, and that he is a merchant from Hookhill. His caravan of goods was taken while transiting the Dim Forest. His guardsmen and his business partner have all been taken by the cultists and become devotees of the Mistress. Unlike them, Parsons and the children have had stronger minds. They prisoners had met with the Mistress and stared deep into her eyes but apparently did not succumb to her charms. "As a reward," says Parsons, "we were going to be made into the walking dead."
The children tell their tale of meeting with her in a more disturbing way. They tell of how lizardmen came and blindfolded them. They were then taken to the Mistress and their blindfolds removed. She coiled around them staring and muttering at them then had them taken back to their cells. Darren also adds that others had been taken from the cells never to return.
Parsons is clearly ready to depart this underground nightmare and agitates for the party to immediately leave. Otto and Hugh, seeing a greater danger and a bigger snake to skin, refuse and instead ask for directions to where they met with the Mistress. Mina and Darren point down the passage to the left, saying a large temple lies beyond the room with the benches. Parsons turns a deep red color, clearly not used to being crossed. "One hundred gold eagles each to those people who immediately bring me to the nearest town," he announces, crossing his arms. Otto smirks at the man, knowing that the Company would never be swayed by such a small sum.
"Yes sir!," says Clift. "Pack your bags and we'll be heading out immediately!" Frippi also stirs himself, mumbling something about helping, as he slumps against the wall. Pfiffwin also steps forward to join with Clift for the easy money, but stops when an iron hand clamps down on his shoulder.
"Clift, guard the freed prisoners and Frippi," Otto growls. "We'll be back." He glares down at Pfiffwin. "You are coming with us, weasel-whisperer."
While Clift guards the prisoners and Frippi's body, the rest of the party presses onward. The door to the temple is quickly opened, and the temple beyond revealed. A long room with walls covered by wooden panels extends from the doorway. At the far end is a raised wooden dais with an altar on it. Looming over the altar is a statue of the Mistress, a huge snake with a human head. Next to the altar is a man wrapped in a large cloak while beyond him, near the base of the statue a robed figure skulks in its shadow. "Welcome to the Mistress's home," hisses the cloaked man. "Welcome to your final resting place." The cloaked man's voice sounds remarkably familiar to Hugh, Otto, and Pfiffwin. It is the missing priest from below Castle Crag.
With a cry of anger, Otto bounds forward and strikes at the priest as the priest summons his vile magics. Before an unholy word can be spoken, Otto lops off his head, which goes rolling into the base of the statue. Everyone stands for a moment in surprise, but Hugh quickly follows the great ranger's lead and charges the robed figure, shouting for the others to follow him. The party tumbles into the room in a chaotic mass, pushing forward towards the statue and the foe standing beneath it.
"Explictica dominus!" echoes out from behind the altar, and a man clad in chain and shield and carrying a wicked hammer with a head like that of a snake appears from his hiding place. Otto's joints stiffen and freeze, his muscles inanimate, as the priest holds Otto in the embrace of his dark goddess. Worse, the statue behind the priest moves, two arms branching from its trunk, each with dark stone claws, one arm holding a wickedly curved sword. The statue creaks and dust and dirt flows off of it as it flows towards Pfiffwin. But worst, the shadowy creature garbed in robes, Hugh realizes, is a wight. It's blackened nails reach out towards the priest, ready to drain his life energy from him!
With Otto held, the battle is difficult. None of the party have anywhere near the martial prowess of Otto, and the party must choose between many targets. Hugh, Florin and Claude attempt to engage the wight, while the remainder of the party engages the priest. Only the invisible Samantha avoids combat, biding her time for when her spells will be most needed.
The animated statue seems to have an odd hatred for the gnome, and it chases straight for Pfiffwin. Pfiffwin smiles and readies his magics, fingering quartz gems in the sleeve of his shirt. Pfiffwin throws a glowing quartz stone at the charging statue, knocking a great chunk from it. The statue staggers as its scimitar suddenly twists in mid-air and adheres to the side of the statue. Hugh, relying on his armor to protect him from the attack of the wight, turns towards the priest and attempts to hold him in Trithereon's might, but the evil priest shrugs off his binding prayer and summons a dark greenish blackness around his hands.
The statue wobbles and writhes trying to rid itself of the oddly adhering scimitar. Pfiffwin chuckles to himself and draws forth two thin wands, aiming them at the statue. Waving them menacingly, he summons his most convincing phantasm of a bolt of lightning, sending it forth with a convincing flourish of the wands. Florin's eyes bulge as the bolt of lightning arcs from Pfiffwin through the statue and towards him. He shrieks in fear and falls to the ground, catatonic, as the lightning washes over him. "Moron," curses the gnome. "Didn't we spend all that time in the swamp talking about my illusions?"
With Florin unconscious, the wight focuses his attention on the other, softer target, Claude. Even though Claude wears heavier mail, the priest of Trithereon in his blue scale armor is incredibly difficult to strike, and Claude feels the wight's touch. Vital spirit leaves him and his memories grow dim and blurry. Claude clutches at his heart as the wight grows stronger, its black eyes throbbing with unholiness. Hugh chants holy prayers to Trithereon, sketching the pursuit rune before him, but the wight's power is not so easily banished in this unholy place, especially after it has fed upon Claude's soul.
From behind Hugh comes a cry of pain and then the clattering of armor upon stone. Hugh turns, expecting to see the priest on the ground, and sees a priest on the ground: Adler. The naga-worshipper's hands are no longer limned with blackness and Adler has a large snake-shaped welt on the side of his face. Wendelain is faced with a difficult decision, attempt to fight the armored naga-worshipper herself or call on Kord to heal Florin and return him to battle. Turning her back on the naga-worshipper, she strides to Florin's side and revives him.
Hugh calls upon Trithereon's powers to bless the blows of his fellow combatants and shouts out a series of commands, seeing that someone needs to take command with Otto incapacitated. "Wendelain, Florin and Claude, take the priest. Pfiffwin, keep delaying the statue. I'll take the wight," he shouts, expecting everyone to move in a coordinated fashion.
Wendelain, having just left the priest, spins about to head back, while Florin drags himself up off the ground, finding himself uninjured. Claude also stirs himself in that direction, backing out of combat with the wight. None of them reach their target though, as the priest hisses sibilantly at them and each freeze in place, teetering in mid-step. Only Pfiffwin comes close to achieving his goal, pointing his other wand, crying "Dozer!" and creating a ten-foot deep pit in front of the on-rushing statue. The statue slithers to one side and rakes the poor gnome with its sharp claws, drawing long streaks of blood.
The naga-worshipper visibly weighs the duration of the battle and turns to face the frozen Otto, whose eyes betray the inner turmoil he feels watching the rest of the party be butchered. Hissing unholy sounds in the air, the priest casts evil prayers over the paralyzed warrior while crying orders to the wight. "Attack the paralyzed prisoners and ignore the priest!" he cries. The wight obeys and hesitates. The environment is target-rich and after deliberation, the wight clasps hold of Wendelain, who turns a grey color and collapses to the ground. Inside his trapped body, Otto seethes and froths, unable to aid his faithful followers.
Meanwhile, Pfiffwin is having a hard time with the statue. The snake-like creature ignores a second lightning bolt summoned to appear as if from the other wand in Pfiffwin's hands. Suddenly, five Samanthas appear in the room, launching darts at the statue. Some darts strike home, but the statue, undeterred, continues its relentless assault on Pfiffwin. The statue's blows are strong and Pfiffwin realizes he has not paid sufficient attention to his own defense. Hoping for a momentary respite in the battle, he follows Samantha's lead and attempts to summon phantasmal images of his own. Gritting his teeth in the face of the statue, he contorts himself and succeeds in completing his spell! Pfiffwin turns to face the statue with more confidence, but a lucky strike by the snake statue finds the true Pfiffwin. He and his two images fall unconscious. The statue turns to face the Samanthas.
The wight and Hugh continue to exchange blows. The wight is clearly weakened by Hugh's earlier strikes, but the priest of Trithereon seems unable to land the killing blow. Fortunately, the combination of Hugh's agility and his enchanted blue scale armor protect him from the worst of the wight's blows. Still, Hugh fears for the rest of the party and does what he has not done so far in this putrid place; he lights Flametongue. The swamp gas-laden air around him does not explode in a fiery ball, much to his relief.
The naga-worshipper continues to wrap Otto in unholy enchantments, but Otto's rage boils through, breaking the unholy bonds that seek to keep him bound. "You die now!" he shouts as he leaps at the priest. The naga-worshipper sneers at him and raises his shield emblazoned with the Mistress's form. Otto simply ignores the presence of the shield, hewing directly through it, the arm under it, and the chest of the priest in one massive blow. Shocked, the naga-worshipper falls to the ground, blood fountaining from his ruined chest.
Samantha has continued to stand her ground against the statue while its claws have rent her illusory forms and destroyed them. Throwing dart after dart at the statue, chunks and bits of the statue have been worn away until finally it ceases to be able to move. With a shuddering halt, the statue stops slithering forward and then falls over on its side, unmoving. With a sudden cracking sounds, it collapses into a pile of shattered stone.
With Flametongue on fire, the wight shows its first sign of disquiet, if not fear. The fiery weapon cuts great chunks from the undead, and the flames sear it. The unholy energy taken from Claude and Wendelain is first destroyed by Hugh's blows, and then the wight itself begins to flag. With a final thrust through the chest, Hugh pins the wight on Flametongue, whose flames quickly begin to consume it.
The party claims victory, but at great cost: Wendelain has been slain, Claude has been drained by the wight, Pfiffwin is gravely injured, and the party is low on magics.
"It does seem suspicious that another of these creatures appears so close to Castle Crag," agrees Otto. "Should we tell the others?" Hugh nods while Pfiffwin shakes his head. Mutual frowns are exchanged. "Alright, gather round," orders Otto. "Hugh and Pfiffwin watch the corridor." The rest of the band draws near to hear what Otto has to tell them, and it is a grisly tale.
"We fought a bunch of flying snake things back at Castle Diego. They are fell foes, and one fled from us. This statuette looks remarkably like one of them, and it is Hugh and my opinion that those townfolk we fought and locked in their rooms are under its sway," says Otto in a serious voice. "It's eyes are pits of doom, stealing your will. Don't look into them. If you see a big snake, its likely one of these creatures."
"Her. It's likely her," says Adler. "Look at the face; it's a female naga. Do you have any sense of the timeline? Did people start disappearing from Orlane soon after the naga escaped you?"
Otto frowns at the young priest. To his mind, the priest shows far too much knowledge about such an exotic creature. "How do you know of this beast?" he demands, concerned that the naga has planted a spy within his band.
"My lord Celestian is god of the skies and sees all. The spirit naga is a great foe of the burning sky, and we know much regarding our enemies," Adler explains. "Their control of your will is absolute and only is broken upon their death, though it weakens with distance. Or if a more powerful compulsion is already upon them." Otto briefly wonders how many compulsions lie upon Raven now after all of his misadventures.
"Claude, Wendelain and Lydonia were about a week into the swamp when we met them on our way back from Hochoch. The impression I got was that the children were recently missing at this time," echoes Pfiffwin from the doorway. "It must be the same naga. That month we spent training the naga spent charming more villagers."
"Well, let's go find this mistress then," says Otto ominously.
Otto leads the others back out into the passageway and consults Florin's map. According to the elf's drawing, the passage to the left is yet to be fully explored, as is a passage very near where the weasel allowed Otto's band to burrow through. Otto directs everyone to the left where the passage continues off into the gloom.
The passage quickly ends in a branching passage to the right and left. To the right, a swollen door can be seen blocking the passage a few dozen feet away. To the left, the passage leads further underground, the rare supporting beam slowly rotting under the wet marsh dirt. Otto points towards the near door, leaving Hugh and Florin to guard the intersection.
Under Otto's massive boot the door shivers and shakes. With a final snapping sound, it flies open, revealing a a room almost totally filled with murky brown pool of water. The air is full of the scent of rotting foliage, a fetid odor. A single massive slime-covered column rises from the center of the pool to support the sagging timbers that crisscross the ceiling. Scanning the room carefully, Otto can see that a thin rim of the room is only under a few inches of water and that a small muddy shelf extends into the pool on the far side of the room.
"Florin, Adler, Samantha. Come up here and scout out the shelf over there. Someone has tried to keep it dry for a reason and your elven eyes are more likely to spot it than mine. Pfiffwin, see how stable the ceiling is as well," barks Otto, thoroughly fed up with the dripping underground morass he finds himself in.
As the others reorder themselves and move to the fore, a ripple crosses the surface of the pond, and Otto's martial instincts immediately awaken. With a massive step, he springs forward into the pool as two huge frogs spring up from the mud and assault him, clawing and biting! The strange frogs, the get of some magician's nightmare, fail to puncture Otto's guard, and he, along with the quickly arriving Florin, make short work of the amphibians. Otto pokes about in the water, finding the pool itself to be shallow, but the floor to be thick, viscous mud.
"Ceiling's not too good," calls Pfiffwin, who casts a wary eye on the make-shift supports. "I wouldn't recommend fiddling with the pillar."
Otto turns an appraising eye on the elves and half-elf, who are quietly pointing and discussing the wall near the ledge. Samantha turns to meet his gaze. "This circle of dirt doesn't match that near it, but no door lies beyond. Perhaps a tunnel has been filled in," she says, disdaining to actually dig into the dirt.
Otto weighs the alternatives and consults with Hugh. Digging out the dirt tunnel may be a waste of time, but the naga could have used this as a bolthole. With some pleasure, Hugh suggests this as a perfect job for Clift and Frippi. The two of them slink forward and begin digging, using the discarded weapons from the previous battle as impromptu shovels. The digging is slow going but after several minutes of the two of them digging they hit a pocket of air. "Room beyond," hisses Frippi. Otto strides forward and with a sidearm throw tosses a glowing stone through the gap.
The squarish chamber beyond is short and squat, the ceiling being at most seven feet high and the room not much bigger square. Three large chests rest upon a square wooden platform filling most of the floor. The platform is thick enough that the chests stay dry, but the platform itself is clearly rotting underneath them. "Treasure!" cries Frippi in delight. Frippi and Clift quickly clear a hole big enough for Frippi to squeeze through. Frippi, closely followed by Pfiffwin, does so.
The three chests appear to have been firmly affixed to the platform, large spikes driven through the edges of the chests. Each of them are bound with brass and have large locks affixed to them. "Get Hugh nearby," calls Pfiffwin. "I'm going to check out the chests."
Pfiffwin pores over the locks and the chests themselves, and, oddly, Frippi does so as well. "Thought you were a holy halfling," says Pfiffwin.
"Brandobaris helps those who help themselves," replies Frippi with a knowing look. The chests seem odd to the two of them, and they are only confident that the third chest is safe to open and lacking traps. Otto and Hugh confer outside. While Hugh can delay the effects of any poison, it would be better to save such prayers for combat, when it might be the difference between life and death of them all.
"Leave all but the third chest then," calls Otto. "We can come back for the other two later."
The gnome opens the third chest easily. The chest is full of sacks that appear to have stones inside. Frippi and Pfiffwin haul them out and back to the narrow tunnel, passing them through. Pfiffwin is not sure why, but Frippi appears inordinately pleased when they finally get the last sacks transferred out. The contents of the third chest are interesting. Filled with azurite, lapis lazuli, obsidian, onyx, zircon, and jasper, the seventy stones are valuable. A paltry sum for Otto and Hugh, it is of much greater import to the others.
Otto gets the band moving back down the other branch of the passageway to find that it too ends in a swollen door. Halfway down the passage, on the left, another door exits the passage. A careful examination of its frame shows that it is much less swollen than the others and not bound as tightly due to it. A large padlock hangs from the latch of the door. Otto waves Pfiffwin forward, but the lock is too difficult for him to open. Otto grabs the lock, ready to try to rip it from the door, but Clift stops him. Pulling a bent wire from his belt, Clift tangles it into the lock, which suddenly pops open! With a grin, Clift hands Otto the lock and then swaggers back down the corridor.
Unlocked, the door opens easily to reveal a dry cavern packed full of crates, barrels, cases, and racks. Spears, daggers and a shortsword hang from the rack, while raw foodstuffs pack the crates full. The party rummages through the place, finding boxes of spikes similar to those holding the chests to the platform, several hammers, a pile of stout timbers and four shovels stacked in the back. Clift and Frippi let out groans of dismay at seeing the shovels, and Clift grabs a handful of spikes for himself.
Otto kicks down the swollen door a the end of the corridor for completeness, finding another water-logged room. A large pool of water laps almost to the door, and two mossy columns support a low ceiling. The pool has clearly been the final resting spot for many a skeleton. White bones covered in strange fungi protrude from the water. "Back to the pits!" shouts Hugh, sketching Trithereon's mark in the air, but the bones do not stir. Otto grabs the remains of the door and wedges them closed again.
Otto consults with Florin and Florin's map. The only passage still left unexplored lies back where they started, near the weasel's lair. With a sigh, Otto leads the others back. The dank chill of the underground tunnels remains the same as when they originally passed through, and, besides the odd chittering in the dark, no creature rise to attempt to bar their path. After many twists and turns, they find themselves back where they started.
Heading down the other, unexplored path, they find that after three turns the passage ends in a door. Preparing themselves, Otto kicks the door. It reverberates in place, wobbling but not opening. Otto is shocked! "Together with me Claude," he says. The two of them shoulder the door together, and an ear-splitting crack results. They stagger through the open door and find a thick beam snapped in two, one of the brackets holding it to the door frame hanging from a single long spike. The room beyond is small and has three wooden benches set in a triangle. Another wooden door is set in the far wall. The two warriors stare about, but nothing stirs.
The party moves carefully forward to the door. It, like the door just smashed open, appears to be not swollen. Otto looks at Claude and motions towards the door. The slow warrior seems to comprehend. The two of them slam into the door and another ear-splitting cracking occurs. Beyond this barred door is a large empty room with another door in the right wall. Otto and Claude, stumbling into the room, look warily around, but nothing stirs.
The quiet is a bit unnerving, but Otto and Claude, seeing a pattern, line up in front of the third door while the rest of the party files forward. With a quick charge, the two warriors smash into the door again shattering the bar that holds it tightly shut. Otto notices that fishbones are scattered around the floor and Claude stumbles over a low table in the center of the room. A stairwell descends out of the far wall. Most notable though are two things, the foul scent that permeates the room and the cries of pain and panic erupting from behind him.
Claude noisily vomits down the front of his armor and is sorely smote by a short, squat-tailed lizardman wielding a stone-headed axe who appears out of nowhere, as if the wall of the room gave birth to it. Otto spins and faces another lizardman similarly attacking. Keeping his gorge from rising, Otto eyes the lizardman's form and then guts him, batting the axe aside. Freeing Giantslayer, he goes to Claude's aid.
The rest of the party is in mixed straits. Six more lizardmen emerge from the walls exuding a nauseating scent and wielding stone axes. The party is certainly not prepared for their presence in the midst of their ranks, and the sudden nausea fells many of the party. The lizardmen strike viciously into the party, swining their axes with fell skill. Clift staggers backward with a deep wound, and Samantha barely stands after being caught by two axe blows. That said, Hugh and Florin make quick work of two of the lizardmen, while Adler, Wendelain, and Pfiffwin account for a third. Their numbers cut quickly in half, the lizardmen realize that not only are they outnumbered, but they are outclassed. They turn and sprint for the front of the party.
Claude, rallying from his nausea, regains his fighting stance in time to see Otto decapitate the lizardman that had smote him and three more lizardmen in full retreat charging for the stairwell behind him. Readying his bastardsword, he swings at first one and then another of the lizardmen, felling one and missing the others. For all of his slowness, Claude has clearly learned that if you hit something hard enough, it will fall down.
Otto chases after the two fleeing lizardmen, relying on his momentum to keep his balance. The lizardmen fly down the stairwell pellmell, and Otto scrambles to keep his feet on the wet, muddly, slime-covered stairs. One of the lizardmen indeed skids as he tries to navigate a turn in the staircase, and Otto slams into him, knocking him prone. With a quick swing of Giantslayer, Otto lops a leg off of the lizardman and moves on, not waiting for the corpse to finish kicking.
Otto skids out of the stairwell into a narrow cavern that exits into a muddy morass. Narrow stepping stones are placed along one wall, and the lizardman seems to be trying to navigate them and flee from the human chasing him. Otto looks at the distance and the stepping stones. Such balancing acts are not his strongest suit, but it is either try to catch the lizardman or let it warn any others of their presence. Grimacing, Otto runs nimbly across the stones and dives into the back of the lizardman, smashing him from the stones and into the waist-deep mud. The lizardman, having lost its axe, claws and bites at Otto's scalemail-clad form in vain, while Otto grabs the lizardman and smashes him into the nearest stepping stone. The lizardman collapses, unmoving in the mud. Otto recovers Giantslayer, makes certain the lizardman will not stir, and drags himself out of the mud to rejoin the others.
Florin and Claude keep watch at the top of the stairs and are pleased to hear of his success. Hugh and Adler have treated the few injuries the lizardmen were able to cause, and the others have searched through the fallen lizardmen's belongings. They have very little, only a small leather pouch with a few coins, all Geoffish, and their stone axes.
Otto relays what he saw below regarding the stepping stones. He also tells them that the stones appear to branch into two passageways and that a third passageway without stepping stones led out of the mud as well. Which is the best path, he can not say, and he was able to run down the lizardman before it had committed to one or the other of the passages. Pfiffwin suggests the right passageway, since it will be easy to backtrack if a wall is followed. No one argues with that. Since the lizardfolk have shown they can hide themselves and attack from surprise, Samantha announces she will do the same and draws a magical veil over herself.
Otto leads the party down the stairs and in the direction of the fleeing lizardman. The muddy chamber with stepping stones seems peaceful enough, and the stepping stones do lead to the right and middle passageways. After a careful transit, the stepping stones allow access to a dryer passageway leading to the right and the left. To the left the passageway quickly enters into mud again. To the right, the passageway eventually branches. "Right," says Pfiffwin.
The passageways here below are much more fetid, and the sound of trickling water is more pronounced in this lower level. Fewer timbers are used as supports and they are quite irregular. Samantha and Florin both look at the dripping ceiling with more than a small amount of trepidation.
When the branch in the passageway is reached, Pfiffwin again points to the right. Otto and Florin take the lead to scout ahead. They carefully go around the bend of the passage and see a figure that staggers slowly towards them, moaning and grasping for them. "Undead," hisses Otto. The two of them strike at the slow moving creature, and it falls in a heap. Florin appears very satisfied.
They go down the passage until they can go no further. The passage ends in a large room that appears to be filled with a pool of murky brown water. It extends off to the left around a sharp corner and out of sight. The water actually appears to become relatively deep quite quickly, and so they head back up to the intersection to take the other passage. At the intersection, Otto and Florin collect the rest of the party.
This passage quickly ends in a door swollen with moisture and clearly bound in its frame. Otto kicks the door open to reveal a large room fifty feet to a side. The middle of the room has a thick column that holds up the ceiling. The room smells of death and decay. From behind the column comes a moan, and a pale figure with horrible wounds and clad in tattered garb staggers forward. Florin says, "I can take care of this." Otto waves him on.
Florin, glad to have his skill recognized by Otto, carefully judges the distance to the creature and waits a moment to be sure it is alone and does not have the column protecting its flank. Once it is in clear sight, he darts forward and smites it with all his strength. Florin strikes a mighty blow, and the creature collapses to the ground.
A moment later, the creature rises up again, much to Florin and everyone else's horror! The sight of the undead clambering back from death again puts fear into the souls of all but Otto, Hugh and Wendelain. The party scatters, racing back down the corridor in a panic and splitting down multiple paths! Otto and Hugh are momentarily flummoxed. "Go! We'll take the undead," says Hugh, drawing but not igniting Flametongue.
Otto races to corral the frightened party. He first tackles Claude, who is lumbering slowly in plate mail and heading for the water-filled room. Once Claude has been flattened, Otto turns and sprints for the other passage. The tracks in the mud show most of the party has turned and head for the stepping stones, but two tracks, the halfling and probably Samantha, have run down the unexplored passageway. Clenching his jaw, he heads down the unexplored passage. Shining his glowing stone over the muddy room, he sees a broad and long cavern choked with mud. A Samantha-shaped outline is clearly visible struggling in the mud, but a more frightening sight accompanies it. Frippi, stuck in the mud up to his armpits, collapses before Otto's eyes. Giant centipedes cover the halfling and skate delicately over the muddy surface.
With a roar Otto charges across the room to Frippi's side, scattering the centipedes. They clack their mandibles at him and try to clamber over his body, but the ranger is no neophyte. With one seemingly continuous motion, Otto swings Giantslayer about, slaying one centipede after another. Otto grabs hold of the halfling, who is covered in centipede stings and no longer breathes. Even with his halfling constitution, he has ultimately succumbed to the venom of the centipedes. Otto hauls Frippy's body and the invisible Samantha back to Hugh.
Hugh and Wendelain have slain the foul undead, first putting the fear of Trithereon's might in it and then striking it down as it ran, and the unholy fear that struck the others has been broken. A mud-covered and abashed party regroups, most having attempted to wriggle out through the weasel lair, much to its displeasure. Hugh examines Frippi's body and sees that the halfling's wounds are grim, but not fatal; it is the poison that has slain Frippi. Hugh calls upon Trithereon to weaken the poison's grip Frippi, and Frippi begins to breathe again. Even so, Frippi remains on the verge of death.
The large column blocked from sight a door in the opposite wall of the room. Having no wish to travel back to where Frippi died, the party agrees that they should try to open the door instead. With an unsubtle kick, the door is opened and a passage, one much better supported with timbers, heading off into the gloom is revealed. On the left wall is a door, and a room can be seen at the furthest extent of Otto's light. With careful gestures, Otto directs Florin, Hugh, and Adler to follow him and the rest to watch the door. Carefully the four of them approach the room at the end of the corridor.
The room is large and square and has five wooden benches in it, each about three feet high. In the far wall is another door, closed. The room smells of decay and strange stains cover the benches. Hugh and Adler look over the benches while the two warriors guard the door. After a quite conversation, Hugh and Adler agree. The strange stains are dried blood, and the smell of decay comes from gobbets of flesh ground into the rough wood of the bench. "Undead," pronounces Hugh. With a frown, Otto waves them back down the corridor to the rejoin the others.
The hall door is unlocked and opens without much effort. The purpose of the space beyond is clear; it is a jail. Five cells face off of a small corridor. Three of the cells are occupied: one with an older man, one with a teenaged girl, and the third with a teenaged boy. "Mina? Darren?" asks Wendelain. The two teenagers look up as their names are spoken. The children have indeed been saved.
The third man, when released from his cell, explains that his name is Parsons, and that he is a merchant from Hookhill. His caravan of goods was taken while transiting the Dim Forest. His guardsmen and his business partner have all been taken by the cultists and become devotees of the Mistress. Unlike them, Parsons and the children have had stronger minds. They prisoners had met with the Mistress and stared deep into her eyes but apparently did not succumb to her charms. "As a reward," says Parsons, "we were going to be made into the walking dead."
The children tell their tale of meeting with her in a more disturbing way. They tell of how lizardmen came and blindfolded them. They were then taken to the Mistress and their blindfolds removed. She coiled around them staring and muttering at them then had them taken back to their cells. Darren also adds that others had been taken from the cells never to return.
Parsons is clearly ready to depart this underground nightmare and agitates for the party to immediately leave. Otto and Hugh, seeing a greater danger and a bigger snake to skin, refuse and instead ask for directions to where they met with the Mistress. Mina and Darren point down the passage to the left, saying a large temple lies beyond the room with the benches. Parsons turns a deep red color, clearly not used to being crossed. "One hundred gold eagles each to those people who immediately bring me to the nearest town," he announces, crossing his arms. Otto smirks at the man, knowing that the Company would never be swayed by such a small sum.
"Yes sir!," says Clift. "Pack your bags and we'll be heading out immediately!" Frippi also stirs himself, mumbling something about helping, as he slumps against the wall. Pfiffwin also steps forward to join with Clift for the easy money, but stops when an iron hand clamps down on his shoulder.
"Clift, guard the freed prisoners and Frippi," Otto growls. "We'll be back." He glares down at Pfiffwin. "You are coming with us, weasel-whisperer."
While Clift guards the prisoners and Frippi's body, the rest of the party presses onward. The door to the temple is quickly opened, and the temple beyond revealed. A long room with walls covered by wooden panels extends from the doorway. At the far end is a raised wooden dais with an altar on it. Looming over the altar is a statue of the Mistress, a huge snake with a human head. Next to the altar is a man wrapped in a large cloak while beyond him, near the base of the statue a robed figure skulks in its shadow. "Welcome to the Mistress's home," hisses the cloaked man. "Welcome to your final resting place." The cloaked man's voice sounds remarkably familiar to Hugh, Otto, and Pfiffwin. It is the missing priest from below Castle Crag.
With a cry of anger, Otto bounds forward and strikes at the priest as the priest summons his vile magics. Before an unholy word can be spoken, Otto lops off his head, which goes rolling into the base of the statue. Everyone stands for a moment in surprise, but Hugh quickly follows the great ranger's lead and charges the robed figure, shouting for the others to follow him. The party tumbles into the room in a chaotic mass, pushing forward towards the statue and the foe standing beneath it.
"Explictica dominus!" echoes out from behind the altar, and a man clad in chain and shield and carrying a wicked hammer with a head like that of a snake appears from his hiding place. Otto's joints stiffen and freeze, his muscles inanimate, as the priest holds Otto in the embrace of his dark goddess. Worse, the statue behind the priest moves, two arms branching from its trunk, each with dark stone claws, one arm holding a wickedly curved sword. The statue creaks and dust and dirt flows off of it as it flows towards Pfiffwin. But worst, the shadowy creature garbed in robes, Hugh realizes, is a wight. It's blackened nails reach out towards the priest, ready to drain his life energy from him!
With Otto held, the battle is difficult. None of the party have anywhere near the martial prowess of Otto, and the party must choose between many targets. Hugh, Florin and Claude attempt to engage the wight, while the remainder of the party engages the priest. Only the invisible Samantha avoids combat, biding her time for when her spells will be most needed.
The animated statue seems to have an odd hatred for the gnome, and it chases straight for Pfiffwin. Pfiffwin smiles and readies his magics, fingering quartz gems in the sleeve of his shirt. Pfiffwin throws a glowing quartz stone at the charging statue, knocking a great chunk from it. The statue staggers as its scimitar suddenly twists in mid-air and adheres to the side of the statue. Hugh, relying on his armor to protect him from the attack of the wight, turns towards the priest and attempts to hold him in Trithereon's might, but the evil priest shrugs off his binding prayer and summons a dark greenish blackness around his hands.
The statue wobbles and writhes trying to rid itself of the oddly adhering scimitar. Pfiffwin chuckles to himself and draws forth two thin wands, aiming them at the statue. Waving them menacingly, he summons his most convincing phantasm of a bolt of lightning, sending it forth with a convincing flourish of the wands. Florin's eyes bulge as the bolt of lightning arcs from Pfiffwin through the statue and towards him. He shrieks in fear and falls to the ground, catatonic, as the lightning washes over him. "Moron," curses the gnome. "Didn't we spend all that time in the swamp talking about my illusions?"
With Florin unconscious, the wight focuses his attention on the other, softer target, Claude. Even though Claude wears heavier mail, the priest of Trithereon in his blue scale armor is incredibly difficult to strike, and Claude feels the wight's touch. Vital spirit leaves him and his memories grow dim and blurry. Claude clutches at his heart as the wight grows stronger, its black eyes throbbing with unholiness. Hugh chants holy prayers to Trithereon, sketching the pursuit rune before him, but the wight's power is not so easily banished in this unholy place, especially after it has fed upon Claude's soul.
From behind Hugh comes a cry of pain and then the clattering of armor upon stone. Hugh turns, expecting to see the priest on the ground, and sees a priest on the ground: Adler. The naga-worshipper's hands are no longer limned with blackness and Adler has a large snake-shaped welt on the side of his face. Wendelain is faced with a difficult decision, attempt to fight the armored naga-worshipper herself or call on Kord to heal Florin and return him to battle. Turning her back on the naga-worshipper, she strides to Florin's side and revives him.
Hugh calls upon Trithereon's powers to bless the blows of his fellow combatants and shouts out a series of commands, seeing that someone needs to take command with Otto incapacitated. "Wendelain, Florin and Claude, take the priest. Pfiffwin, keep delaying the statue. I'll take the wight," he shouts, expecting everyone to move in a coordinated fashion.
Wendelain, having just left the priest, spins about to head back, while Florin drags himself up off the ground, finding himself uninjured. Claude also stirs himself in that direction, backing out of combat with the wight. None of them reach their target though, as the priest hisses sibilantly at them and each freeze in place, teetering in mid-step. Only Pfiffwin comes close to achieving his goal, pointing his other wand, crying "Dozer!" and creating a ten-foot deep pit in front of the on-rushing statue. The statue slithers to one side and rakes the poor gnome with its sharp claws, drawing long streaks of blood.
The naga-worshipper visibly weighs the duration of the battle and turns to face the frozen Otto, whose eyes betray the inner turmoil he feels watching the rest of the party be butchered. Hissing unholy sounds in the air, the priest casts evil prayers over the paralyzed warrior while crying orders to the wight. "Attack the paralyzed prisoners and ignore the priest!" he cries. The wight obeys and hesitates. The environment is target-rich and after deliberation, the wight clasps hold of Wendelain, who turns a grey color and collapses to the ground. Inside his trapped body, Otto seethes and froths, unable to aid his faithful followers.
Meanwhile, Pfiffwin is having a hard time with the statue. The snake-like creature ignores a second lightning bolt summoned to appear as if from the other wand in Pfiffwin's hands. Suddenly, five Samanthas appear in the room, launching darts at the statue. Some darts strike home, but the statue, undeterred, continues its relentless assault on Pfiffwin. The statue's blows are strong and Pfiffwin realizes he has not paid sufficient attention to his own defense. Hoping for a momentary respite in the battle, he follows Samantha's lead and attempts to summon phantasmal images of his own. Gritting his teeth in the face of the statue, he contorts himself and succeeds in completing his spell! Pfiffwin turns to face the statue with more confidence, but a lucky strike by the snake statue finds the true Pfiffwin. He and his two images fall unconscious. The statue turns to face the Samanthas.
The wight and Hugh continue to exchange blows. The wight is clearly weakened by Hugh's earlier strikes, but the priest of Trithereon seems unable to land the killing blow. Fortunately, the combination of Hugh's agility and his enchanted blue scale armor protect him from the worst of the wight's blows. Still, Hugh fears for the rest of the party and does what he has not done so far in this putrid place; he lights Flametongue. The swamp gas-laden air around him does not explode in a fiery ball, much to his relief.
The naga-worshipper continues to wrap Otto in unholy enchantments, but Otto's rage boils through, breaking the unholy bonds that seek to keep him bound. "You die now!" he shouts as he leaps at the priest. The naga-worshipper sneers at him and raises his shield emblazoned with the Mistress's form. Otto simply ignores the presence of the shield, hewing directly through it, the arm under it, and the chest of the priest in one massive blow. Shocked, the naga-worshipper falls to the ground, blood fountaining from his ruined chest.
Samantha has continued to stand her ground against the statue while its claws have rent her illusory forms and destroyed them. Throwing dart after dart at the statue, chunks and bits of the statue have been worn away until finally it ceases to be able to move. With a shuddering halt, the statue stops slithering forward and then falls over on its side, unmoving. With a sudden cracking sounds, it collapses into a pile of shattered stone.
With Flametongue on fire, the wight shows its first sign of disquiet, if not fear. The fiery weapon cuts great chunks from the undead, and the flames sear it. The unholy energy taken from Claude and Wendelain is first destroyed by Hugh's blows, and then the wight itself begins to flag. With a final thrust through the chest, Hugh pins the wight on Flametongue, whose flames quickly begin to consume it.
The party claims victory, but at great cost: Wendelain has been slain, Claude has been drained by the wight, Pfiffwin is gravely injured, and the party is low on magics.
