The creatures ahead retreated into double-doors out of our sight, as we mopped up the remaining ghouls. Our rush bordered on panic as a great thumping set upon the door from the outside.
Soon as we got everyone limbered back up and moving, we went forward cautiously. Caution turned out to be somewhat pointless, as the J’Tiel echo and Rhogar charged up forward and through the door. Several ghouls were waiting for us in what appeared to be a former priestly torture-room. Dunkels must love their torture sessions if an outpost this size actually had a complete room drawn out for the purpose. Makes me wonder what sort of jealousy might exist between Lolth and Torog. Probably a good bit of rivalry there.
We dished out the remaining ghouls, one of whom attempted to climb a set of stairs in the back, leading up to a second double-door. Bingo and I shot him dead – again – on the stairs, but not before he managed to open the doors a crack, revealing figures and a flood of mist beyond. The thumping outside had died down, and we heard some other sounds back that way, reminding us that our time was limited.
Rhogar and the strange J’Tiel began arguing about something at the doors – they weren’t opening them. As Rhogar pushed J’Tiel towards one of the pits, I had my fill with it. I pulled Sybarron and charged forward, screaming at the top of my lungs “MOVE! GET THROUGH THOSE DOORS NOW!”
Rhogar looked up at me and I am pretty sure I saw horror on his face at me standing over him. I reminded myself to apologize later. They rose fast, shot up to the door, flung it open and sprang inside.
And into the biggest pack of ghouls I’d ever seen. There must have been fifty or sixty of the things curled up on the floor ahead, all laying in the mist that lay before us and our prize.
Except the prize wasn’t there. Casava wasn’t there.
There was a great pillar with a spiral stair around it, and on top of the pillar was the bound and suspended form of Jhaelent, the necromancer whom I’d almost frozen in our fight by the bridge. He was covered in a white powder, shivering and otherwise naked. Next to him was a pale woman, elegant really, and quite lovely. She held a bucket in her hands, and wore a smile on her face. Beside her, spinning slowly in the air, a crystal of white hovered, mist pouring from it.
She looked down on us, and I think the same thought occurred to us all. This was an elaborate trap. We were dead-ended in here – the dragon thing outside, the ghouls in here. As that thought crossed my mind, the lady there, she grinned wider and upended the bucket over Jhaelent. Water coursed over him, washing the dust away in great rivulets down his body. At the smell of blood and flesh, the ghouls around the base began stirring and rising, setting out a moaning whine of hunger.
Without a word, I fired the last of my arrows into the huge accumulation of ghouls on the floor before us while Zenith set to with a strange set of blasts. Rhogar, the bloody J’Tiel, and the rest ploughed forward, chewing through the ranks of the wakening ghouls.
Many of them began climbing up over the stairs to reach the top of the pillar and set upon Jhaelent, while the woman strode nonchalantly down through them. Jhaelent began screaming as the ghouls bit into him, shrieking like a sheep set upon by a wolf.
“He might know something we need,” Zenith intoned quickly. Dex began flinging things at the ones on Jhaelent, I couldn’t make out what, but they seemed to exude some kind of shadow. Ghouls dropped whenever he threw something, and as they proceeded I began punching out with arcane force laced with as much of the Black Queen’s scorn and ridicule I could muster.
After I took down the second of the ghouls in front of me I saw the lady step out from around the column, and she charged straight through Arn, a misty form that solidified and walked straight towards us. He shook his head with disorientation and got back to moving while the lady stepped up to J’Tiel and unleashed a flurry of ghostlike teeth that swarmed around him and seemed to bite every exposed piece of him.
They traded blows for a few moments before I could move up on her. I pushed a deep curse at her to soften her up and whipped a slick fishhook of energy at her. I saw her hair frost up as my attack took hold, but she just glanced over at me, winked and seemed to fade out – then walked away, ignoring J’Tiel and walking straight out the door.
The last of the ghouls were dropping, and J’Tiel looked up at the pillar. “Get moving.” Rhogar charged up the pillar, taking several ghouls down as he raced up the stairs and cut Jhaelent down. Small sparks of white arced between him and the hovering crystal, and he winced with obvious discomfort when they did. He grabbed the necromancer by the waist and leaped off.
For the first time, I realized that Rhogar had small, stubby wings on his back beneath his cloak. I never realized he was capable of gliding! He fell to the floor, rather ungracefully, and moved to join us.
In the sudden quiet, we all stopped. The noise outside had ceased, which unnerved me. Arn quickly moved back to the door, and said “I’ll check to make sure we’re not about to get burned. You all get to thinking.” He misted into his beast-form, and the dark cat-like thing vanished back the way we’d come.
“What now?” I was genuinely at a loss for ideas.
J’Tiel looked up at the crystal. “We must destroy that. It is the crevice between here and the Shadowfell, the focus that brings the undead here from all around. I think it is what made me echo from me.”
Zenith looked at it. “We can’t take it with us? Move it?”
Rhogar replied, “No, it hurts to be near. We cannot be close. Well, perhaps you can,” he pointed at J’Tiel.
J’Tiel shook his head. “No, it would pull me through, shred me while doing it.”
“Okay, then,” I said. “Bingo and I and Dex, we can hammer it from range while you all watch our backs and start thinking of a way out of here.” I sheathedSybarron and began to siphon a connection with the enchantments in my bow, to enhance my arcane casting.
Arn returned at about that time, slipping back into the room. “Can’t go that way. Looks like an Eye out there.”
“What do you mean, an Eye?” I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.
“Beholder. Probably undead, the lady walked right past it and drew her hands upon it – I couldn’t see very clearly, but it looked like the skin was rotted.”
“Alright, we need out, and we need out now. That thing is the plug in this bottle, they’re holding us here while they gather up forces to come in and finish us.” I cast my first burst at the crystal, while Bingo arced arrows at it. Small chips and a strange ringing came from the crystal as we did.
Zenith looked around. “I have a portal set up back in Al’Veydra, if we can buy ten minutes I can open it up and have us back there.”
That sounded great to me, and I can’t overstate how much I loved that idea. But that just would put us right back where we started.
“Wait, what if we just make it look like we ported?” Arn asked.
“What are you on about?” Zenith asked him.
“If we make it look like we used a portal to get out, they can finish off the crystal,” he waved at us attacking it, “and when Casava gets here with his troops, they’ll think we left. Plus, no more link to the Shadowfell, he loses face and might lose some of his allies here. At the very least this place will stop being such a magnet for the dead.”
I paused in my incantations. “One problem with that, Fluffy. We’re still here if he just pretends to port.”
He looked over at me and grinned. “This is a former Drow enclave, isn’t it?”
I nodded, gesturing another flick of energy at the crystal.
“They have to have an escape hatch around here, then. They aren’t the kind to do last stands.” He started roaming around, looking at the walls and floor.
“Good idea,” Rhogar croaked as he tied off a wound with a bandage. “I’ll watch the entrance and make sure we don’t get caught while we’re making the effort.” He looked to J’Tiel’s bloody echo. “Coming?” The revenant nodded and followed, hefting its spear.
Zenith had a moment of epiphany, from the look on his face. “I have an even better plan – I can throw a different ritual and get us past this back wall. We already know what’s over there – empty space. We then hide out for a day and watch what happens here, then track down Casava’s hiding place after he’s suffered whatever fall-out occurs from this.”
I nodded. “Good plan, get started. We don’t want to get caught here with our pants down.”
He began sprinkling a circle of powder on the floor by the back wall as we continued to chew on the crystal.
It was now down to a race – could we hold off and get through long enough to escape, before the enemy came at us full strength?
