Slain by Elf

Searching through the rooms in the drow cathedral, Gruknal finds some spare uniforms, causing him to hatch a plan. 'If I wear drow clothing, do you think I can fool the guards?'

'Only if the guards are blind, deaf and have their noses brutally mangled in an accident', replies Grimstorm, bluntly trying to point out that there are some clear differences between drow and dwarf.

The obvious solution occurs to me. 'In that case, we'll go ahead, gouge out their eyes, stab them in the ears, and repeatedly bludgen their noses. Gruknal can then follow with his excellent disguise.' It's a foolproof plan.

'Why aren't the temple guards moving to attack us? Surely they can see us, we're only at the end of a corridor.'

'The corridor must be trapped! It's obvious, the darts must come out of the decorative spiders on each side of the wall.'

'Bah, you're crazy. Who would trap the corridor of a temple? Worshippers must come here daily. No one wants to have to remember where not to tread, for fear of death, when coming to prayer.'

'It's trapped, I tell you. I'm not taking my chances, I'll take a diagonal path.'

Darts spit out of the spiders and stab in to Gruknal, as pressure plates activate in some of the squares where the dwarf treads.

'Huh, these drow are serious. You can't pretend to be a parishioner in the hopes of getting married here, you really need to attend regularly.'

Gruknal takes the lead in working out how to cross safely the foggy, smoky courtyard full of peril. The rest of us ought to follow, if only for the sake of the plot, we just need to work out how. Adran follows Gruknal, with his long ranger stride letting him catch and pass the dwarf within a few seconds. I have a utility spell that lets me assume the form of a raven and take flight, gliding above the action but remaining close enough to provide assistance if needed. Krafft is confident he can span the courtyard in a single round, but he doesn't want to leave our dwarf shaman behind and unprotected. He has an idea. 'I'll stuff Grimstorm in the bag of holding, run across, and dump him out the other side. It should be fine if he takes a deep breath to start with, it will only be ten seconds or so.'

'Will Grimstorm fit in the bag of holding? I know it has plenty of volume, but he is a dwarf and so has rather broad shoulders.' We aren't quite sure whether a bag of holding magically enlarges its opening to accommodate what is to be put inside or not, and if it can do that my nay-saying quickly gets us off-topic to consider whether one could pick up an entire castle that way.

'Okay', Krafft gets us back on track, 'I'll take off all my armour and weapons and put them in the bag of holding. Grimstorm will do the same, and I'll carry a naked dwarf across the courtyard'.

'Grease yourselves up first and I'll pay you to do that', but my piqued interest only causes the GM to allow Grimstorm to be shoved in to the bag of holding, keeping the dwarf and half-orc fully armoured. And with that, Krafft is off. He runs headlong in to the dense mist in the rough direction where Gruknal left swirling vortices, diverting to his left to avoid a building. Just as it looks like he runs out of manoeuvring room, Krafft shimmers and phases, passing directly through the fountain in the middle of the courtyard, avoiding a large construct and its controller at the same time, before returning to corporeal form and sprinting the remaining distance to the end of the courtyard.

'Made it! What sort of action is it to empty a dwarf out of a bag of holding?'

'It's a move action', replies the GM, with so little pause that it's like he's been asked the same question before. However, the co-operative effort to traverse the courtyard safely isn't over. Grimstorm may have had a helping hand getting across himself, but now that he is at the other side he can offer his own help.

'I summon my spirit, then cause it to switch places with an ally', he states as a matter of fact, like his magical abilities are commonplace.

'Actually', starts the GM, 'that will place your ally on to a burning flame. But as it's Adran, and he's immobile, I'm going to allow it.' Poor Gruknal ends up last to the finishing line, after starting first and so boldly, although being continually slowed by attacking drow isn't helping. I swoop down and return to my badger form, biting Gruknal's leg and dragging him the last few steps to where the rest of the party waits.

The pursuing drow are quickly defeated, the golem and controller lose interest almost as soon as they appear, not even giving chase, and the spider-lizard guarding the entrance to the temple proves little challenge. We are ready to storm the temple itself.

We have negotiated an informal alliance between the two opposing drow powers in the undead-infested city. Closing the portal is now a matter of putting whatever flimsy plan we have in to motion, a plan that is nominally 'enter the temple and kill anything that isn't us'. It has worked before. The leader of the drow military has agreed to handle the rank and file of our foe, effectively keeping us from being swamped by minions that would probably be quite fulfilling to mow down in their droves. Yeah, thanks for that. The drow mystic will close the portal itself, our reputation for accidentally opening gates to hell apparently preceding us. First, we must make our way to the temple, in the middle of the city.

Having defeated several pockets of hostile activity already, there is an eerie calmness around the city, broken only by the occasional tortured wail in the distance. The quiet is made more unsettling by the very walls of the city now emanating a pulsating shadow energy, faces and limbs pushing from inside the brick and stone as if it were rubber. We must press on. Only the courtyard stands between us and the temple.

A hush descends as we ascend the stairs to the courtyard. A dense fog engulfs the area, pops and cracks of random fires penetrating the smoky atmosphere even if the light does not. We can barely see our hands in front of our faces, let alone buildings and other structures that stand in our way. And any threats lurking in the fog will surely have the advantage, listening intently for any fools willing to plunge themselves blindly in to danger.

Our drow companions let us know that there is another set of stairs at the far end of the courtyard, at the top of which the temple can be found. That is our destination, we just don't know our path. We stand, as silent as we can manage, at the foot of the courtyard, eyes trying to pierce the thick fog, ears straining to hear any hints of movement, but we can discern nothing. Our progress will require caution and coordination, careful plotting of a path through the maze of buildings and avoiding lurking peril.

'Let's go!' Gruknal bursts from the top of the stairs in to the fog, vortices of smoke trailing behind him as his heavy armour clanks absurdly in the disturbed stillness. In the style of Sir Digby Chicken Caesar, he veers to his right then, as one crossbow bolt ricochets off his armour and a second pierces it, changes to head towards the direction of the shots. 'I'm sneaking!' he calls as he races past two drow busily reloading crossbows.

Meanwhile, the GM is calling for Gruknal to pause every couple of steps, as the large map, filling the entire table, is purposely blank and needs to have sections of buildings and walls drawn on as new information is gathered by our 'scout'. By the time Gruknal has sprinted his way past the first two drow, almost half-way across the courtyard in a single round and trailblazing the way to bypass the encounter within two, the GM has his head in his hands, muttering to himself. 'You can't see more than 5 squares in any direction, I thought you'd be sneaky, take your time, be slow. I really should have spent all that planning time preparing instead for a more direct approach'. Who could have forseen a dwarf leading a blind charge?

Gruknal gets pulled through a wall by a giant, flaming hand, but it's okay. He soon appears again, dragging the immolith and a giant spider behind him in to the corridor, for easier party access. However, it also means that the two monsters also have greater access to us, as the GM announces that the spider 'then takes a deep breath and attacks you again.'

'A giant spider 'takes a deep breath'?' I ask, getting a bit pedantic.

'It's not just a giant spider', points out Krafft, 'it's a giant undead spider. I don't think they even need oxygen.' But they do need killing, particularly when they want to kill us. To help with the fight, our curiously quiet shaman lends me a hand, as I am being treated like a pin-cushion by a demon in a side corridor. I am granted a keener strike for a round, being able to score a critical hit on a roll of 18-20, instead of only a 20. Being a belt-and-braces kind of druid, I roll a 20 anyway, just to be sure, and it gets me out of trouble nicely.

In related shenanigans, Gruknal tries to 'split the sky' whilst we are indoors and, more to the point, deep underground, whilst Krafft wants to use his inexorable pursuit ability to run away, perhaps not following the spirit of the power. Never the less, the immolith and spider are defeated, leaving us only with a pulsating red statue of Orcus to shatter.

'Where is everyone whilst Gruknal is attacking the statue?' asks the GM, keeping everyone on their toes.

'I'm in the corridor, resting', I say.

'I'm in the corridor picking my nose', says Krafft, showing his sensitive side.

'I'm in the room with Gruknal, keeping an eye on the dwarf', replies Adran.

'Oh', says Gruknal, not that he isn't appreciative of the support, 'aren't you going to actually roleplay your character and be as far away as possible?' Adran must be hoping for a secret cache of treasure to be revealed when the statue is finally toppled, one that outweighs whatever trap or curse will hit him. We have seen this treasure/trap duality before.

In a time when we are having to make deals with evil races, and portals to other hellish dimensions exist, we find we are really struggling without a paladin. He always knew how to commit genocide on behalf of dragons or make deals with demons without losing his powers. Instead, we're having trouble coming up with a plan to raid a glowing red building to prove our worth, for some reason, to the leader of the drow armies.

We head out of the barracks to reconnoitre the glowing building, supposedly housing a bunch of demons. It seems we may have a choice of route in to the building, either through the guarded front door or sneak around in the hopes of finding a large enough crack in the broken structure to squeeze through. 'I prefer my enemies not to be behind me', says Krafft, pointing out his tactical preference and proficiency with a pointy stick.

'That's okay', Grimstorm replies, 'there's no facing. You will always be looking your enemies in the face, even when flanked.' We are no closer to deciding which way to storm the building. 'Let's have a show of hands', says Grimstorm, after which four pairs of hands fly in to the air. 'Wait until I've given each option, you low-int freaks.'

We end up sneaking to the front of the building to surprise the guards, although how they were still surprised after a petulant discussion on how rubbish the surprise round is, and why we can't delay during the surprise round so that we could move and use an encounter power, is beyond me.

After a couple of rounds of combat we are all wondering if it is worth expending many powers on the minions and apparently weak guards, even a few reinforcements not causing too many problems. The main cause for concern is that no one is terribly frightened by the prospect of my druid using the howl of terror power in wild-shaped badger form. 'Fine', I snuffle in badger-speak, 'then what do you think of the honk of terror?', as I change instead in to the form of a goose.

My honking, whilst effective against the targets, may have been a bit loud, awakening a new enemy. The last we see of Gruknal is when a huge, fiery hand smashes through a wall to grab and pull him back in to a room.

The undead ambassadors are defeated! We scoff down their chocolates and champagne before turning our attention to the locked door in the ambassador's office. There appears to be the occasional muffled sound coming from the other side of the door, which we assume to be the actual ambassador we're looking for, instead of the imposter undead who are now rampant in the city. 'I'll try to break down the door with my axe!'

'You smash the door and it holds firm.' The GM decides to confuse the more impetuous members of the party with a paradox, giving me time to try a more diplomatic method of opening the door. I call to whoever is on the other side of the door, assuring them that the undead in the embassy have been slain and that we are adventurers from the surface looking to meet a mage from the Seven Pillared Hall, who we believe is housed here.

After a short while the door's lock clicks and the door opens to reveal a human mage, although he insists he's a minotaur. 'Have you been in there all the time the undead have been out here?' asks Krafft, wondering why a powerful mage would fear a few undead.

'I am a mage of Saruun! I have not just been hiding under the bed like a child', the mage scolds back.

'Have you also been crying like a girl?' Krafft's best attempts at diplomacy are luckily ignored by Minotaur, who informs us of the current situation in the city. Rifts have been opened, undead are coming through the rifts and wreaking havoc, and some plot information about the drow and dwarves is revealed.

It seems we need to strike an alliance with one or more of the more important drow leaders who remain in the city, in order to close the undead-spewing rift and prevent the continued assault on the dwarves. 'Minotaur, what can you tell us about the drow leaders?'

'For the last time, I am not a minotaur, I am Onatour!'

'Ah, that explains why you are in the drow city. Let me know if you head to Winterhaven at any point in your tour, as I know the mayor there and could probably blag some tickets. Now, as for the drow...' For some reason it takes the mage a few minutes of quiet introspection to answer, but we find out about the military and religious leaders in Phaervhul.

'I can help you initiate any negotiations with the drow', Minotaur prompts after our own pause for thought.

Grimstorm catches on, and as an aside thinks aloud that 'we are supposed to ask Minotaur if he would help initiate any negotiations with the drow.'

'Mmm, good plan. It's probably not too late to try asking him now.'

'Minotaur, can you help us negotiate... initialisings... and stuff?' Let's hope Minotaur still agrees to help, because evidently we will have trouble otherwise.

Finding out that there is an ambassador from the Seven Pillared Hall in the undercity we consider it prudent to contact him as soon as possible, rather than deal directly with the drow. The building of the troll and minotaurs is obviously a wrong turn, so we tread deeper in to the city.

Clearing a likely looking building of ghouls and a spider, Krafft announces that 'I think we've found the embassy'.

'Oh? Have you found a pile of Ferrero Rocher on a silver platter?'

'No, but there is a notation on the map that reads 'Ambassador's Desk'.' It's a good clue! Let's hope we didn't just kill his reanimated corpse in the fight.

'As you get closer to the watery bit, you see there's water.'

It is not just a trickster troll and his minotaur friends that are in need of more than drow for party food. The fake, grammatically poor voices we have been hearing are explained by the appearance of a mind flayer. At least, some of us see it.

The mind flayer pops his head around the corner to mind-blast everyone, those affected failing to register the presence of the monster. One of the weak-minded individuals is Adran, the mind flayer showing its lack of insight by targeting our ranger for a brain-sucking feast. When Gruknal is deciding what action to take, Adran is quick to ask him to 'come and kill the mind flayer!'

'What mind flayer? You can't see it, or its tentacles trying to chew on your brain.' It's a good point, although it is unclear whether the mind blast also acts as an anaesthetic. 'Besides, there are minotaurs killing the rest of the party.'

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one, and Gruknal is better suited to protecting the frailer members of the party from large, hard-hitting monsters. 'How injured are the minotaurs?' I ask, trying to gauge the relative importance of our defence.

'Both are badly bloodied.'

If we can defeat two minotaurs quickly then everyone can concentrate on the threat of the mind flayer without also getting hurt by the large beasts each round. 'It's a no-brainer', I point out. 'Oops, sorry, Adran', I quickly add, remembering the tentacles drilling in to his skull, 'that was insensitive.'