3.1 A Narrow Escape

[St.Drewcifer]

It is but a heartbeat, but to those watching an eon seems to pass before Dancing Bear utters the words “ I wish my comrades were restored to how they were before this combat started ”. Those living souls nearby let out a huge sigh and Matrix and Brin look relieved to escape from their stony torment, whilst Ditch, Brock and Caerlith spring to their feet and resume the combat. Whack conjures forth some heavily armored companions, whilst Caerlith summons a fire elemental. Brock spins around and dispatches three of the creatures we were locked in combat with moments before. Two more earth elementals are pitted against us but weight of numbers on our side soon tell, Brock is knocked to his knees before Dancing Bear gets over to him and cures him. The two large creatures who have done most of the damage and seemed to have orchestrated this ambush are incredibly hard to injure, it takes multiple attacks from Crow, Brin and Brock before wounding and finally killing them off.

As quietness settles around the party take stock and decide to camp there for the night which is drawing in, watches are set. Brin hears noise in the distance and sets off on his Griffon to determine the location and cause, he is unable to pinpoint where it originates from, upon returning a man on horseback approaches the party and knows all our names. He has been asked by the Seer Truant to guide us through the rest of the journey by a safe route. The next morning we set off and start heading South East away from the main trail and through some low lying hills and broken ground.

Without warning eight large spider like creatures appear around us and start shooting rays from their eyes, many of the party are wounded grievously by these attacks, the guide falls down to the ground dead whilst his horse seems to have been skewered by an arrow from behind, both Brin and Crow are holding bows and it is only Crow who looks abashed. Ditch lies twitching on the ground. Straight away the party engage their magics and fly or run away from the range of these creatures. Missile fire comes into play and the fight is shortlived, Ditch is healed whilst the guide is bought back to life by Matrix and his horse minus its jaw is somehow back on it’s feet thanks to Dr Whack, Caerliths sword glows blue but can’t work out why – strange there are no undead nearby.

We continue onwards to a small town which has seen better days. Party members take their horses to the stables and go to the Drag-on inn or the better class Tavern but Brin goes to the Inn with a welcoming red light on its porch glowing softly in the winters eve. The ladies inside seem really pleased to see him. Talking to various townsfolk we find that their town has been accosted by flying creatures at night which shoot lightning down on them, hence the structural disrepair of many of their buildings. The party makes plans to defend the town and protect themselves with various spells. It is not long before noise is heard and lightning bolts can be seen nearby, suddenly four huge winged creatures start to swoop down towards the town, just as winter wolves and frost giants are seen approaching the town from both ends. Dancing bear starts conjuring walls of thorns into the air in front of the flying creatures, these act as giant thorny nets and the first dragonlike creature plummets to the ground destroying a general store, a volley of arrows from Brin stops its squawking. Fire elementals are summoned to deal with the cold using foes, Whack seems to have summoned a vivid red blob of an elemental and people reassure Matrix and Caerlith that it’s a wine elemental. The heavily armored sidekicks of Dr Whack again are to the fore, one of them lunges at a giant and neatly decapitates it, whilst Crow gleefully attacks his sworn enemy, the giant and in a flurry of blows hacks it to pieces, the fire elementals are pitted against the winter wolves and deal with them in short order with assistance from Ditch and the others. Brin stays inside his lovely Inn and fires at another winged creature whilst it is simultaneously hit by flame strikes from Matrix and another. Dancing Bear snares another creature in a thorny net and sends it crashing to the ground destroying another building killing the occupants inside. Brock is seen striding to the other end of town to confront the other creatures and is nearly picked up by a flying beast, he responds by hurling his magic hammer at the beast and scores a bullseye, the ensuing thunderclap stuns it and it spirals out of the sky into another building, ensuring more destruction and death for those occupants. The main melee at the North most part of town is nearly over and the combatants rush to the other end to help Brock out, he seems to need little help as his hammer strikes the giant dead upon hitting it. Once the dust has settled four large buildings are destroyed and 25 occupants dead, a small price for this town to pay for the caliber of protection they just received. The summoned creatures are released and in the early morning Ditch starts digging holes to help bury the dead, the party use their might to help rebuild the town for the rest of the day, spells are relearned and Dancing Bear finds a large oak tree to use as a movable guardian, Whack isn’t seen for most of the day and when its time to move out lags behind the party insisting everything is fine, unbeknownst to the good members of the group two huge frost giant skeletons wearing rings of invisibility tag along with Whack.

We find out that we need to communicate with one that is not alive in the demon city Artruan. Through Whacks knowledge of the Necromantic Arts we communicate with a spirit there and are told to seek a big old tree where we will find the information that we seek. Sure enough Brin manages to translate some ancient text to one versed in the language and upon uttering the words at dusk the tree seems to open and reveals a space beyond it. In this space lies Demon Gate.

We approach the Gate to Hades. And before we get too close large spiders appear in front of us together with a being remarkably similar to Lolth (how many jet black spider chicks can there be?), again elementals are summoned by the party to help even up the combat and we battle on through. As soon as the last creature is killed a devilishly handsome man appears in the gateway and addresses the party, it’s Crows old nemesis Graz‘tz, he offers us a deal where he will not hinder us if we can off Anshar. There seems to be issue with Anshar (a god) taking up space in the realm of Hades. He also offers us teleport crystals to haul our butts out of there when we deal with this naughty god. Crow jumps so fast at the offer that he almost looks a little afraid of meeting any more of Graz’tz’s friends. Now the party stands poised at the gateway to Hades, nearly ready to step into the demon world where they will be but visitors in a very foreign place.