Escape from the Lost City

 12th of Reaping, High Summer

Location: The Lost City of Herodia

The heroes of the RedWater Fellowship still breathe heavily recovering from the battle with the followers of Orcus. Graxxuzazz still lays in a coma, Tibaltuous talks to his newly acquired sentient sword. Deciding to look for treasure in the surrounding caves and rooms, the adventurers see a cavern to the Northeast that is filled with webs. 

Discussion on resting and Thogra mentioned calling on his god - SET - but that would take some type of payment - not monetary. The party - with that in mind - explore to find a safe place to rest. There is a cavern to the Northeast but it is filled with think webs. Various pieces of discarded gear, old boots, broken sword can be noted as Doc explores, torch held high. Glittering eyes.. many of them.. look down from the webs. Large spiders scuttle about on the webs that fill the cavern to ceiling height 30'-40' up. The party makes ready weapons and then with a blast of Doc's musket engage the spiders.

Burning webs and launching missile weapons, the Fellowship attack. 

Doc calls the power of the Raven Queen to bless the party, which helps all with their attacks and dodging the webs being slung down by the giant spiders.

Gothi fires her bow hitting multiple spiders and taking one out. 

Tibaltuous - with Sir Lawrence in hand - steps forward with Doc. As a spider spins a web down and engages. Tibaltuous swings high putting the blade deep in the bloated body of the hairy spider.

Doc flaming sword in one hand and pistol in the other, fires and swings.

The spiders scuttling about the webs put up a valiant fight but the conclusion is foregone. All the spiders dead and looting taking place. 

Various bodies bundled up in webs, mostly near husks, their fluids drained by the spiders. Gnolls, lizardfolk and human remains found so far. Golden goblet, a baby's cradle [fine wood], various coinage, silver edged longsword and scroll, as well as a finely crafted staff. Later on Graxxuzazz is able to identify it. Cugel's Staff of Spellstoring.

The cavern ends and waves of evil still emanate from the statue of ORCUS, not far away. The party decide to head back to the room they shared with the lizardfolk. As they head towards the long stairs, the drumming starts again, coming from passageways to the South.

The party, try to ignore the continual drumming and with torch held high, head up the stairs.

Kantif the rogue/monk in front carefully moving forward, Tibaltuous carrying the portly - but athletic - Graxxuzazz, then Doc and Thogra carrying the portable ballista [used by the gnolls in the last battle] and Gothi with Morsel [her cavebear] bringing up the rear. The ranger keeps a keen eye behind them to ensure no ones comes upon them unnoticed.

Kantif peers around the corner and hears and then sees two gnolls chatting and yipping softly [laughter it seems]. The rogue/monk watches for a while and then one gnoll moves off and there now is only one gnoll. The party prepares, 1st step will be to cast Silence 15. radius and then attack in the quiet. The gnolls are cut down after they lobbed flaming bottles of oil at the party.

It does not appear any more enemies are nearby. Gothi and Kantif explore the previous area the party rested in [DM #5], and it appears the area has not been entered into. Fortunately for the party, Graxxuzazz is able to recover from his coma and wakes up [DM: rolling % he rolls a 6 and it was 6 minutes later comes out of his coma]. The party inform the lizardfolk sorcerer of the past events.

Graxxuzazz feels it is like Deja-vu. 

Everyone is asleep, no one appears to be on guard. The sorcerer then remembers.. where he has been..

Graxxuzazz had dreamed deeply..

He is in a vast court, pillars of skulls hold up a giant rib-caged ceiling, blood drips from the giant ribs, a

presence fills the far end in darkness, then the glimmering light of Elyssius god of the lizardfolk.. but.. something is wrong. What appears lying before a large fat goat headed demon.. Orcus, the god looks to his prophet calling out, "Why did you fail me, my Prophet!" and gasps one last time as a giant blade swings down at his neck with a spray of blood..

Gothi dreams of the foretelling of Pyra..

A figure stalks her prey through the forest. The environment changes as the two are now in the vast colossus F.ERA. Gothi looks around and feels again at home, family and content. The figure stalking the foreclaimer reaches down and raises a crossbow, the bolt dripping blood. She cries out in anguish as she fires the bolt catching Gothi in the neck, blood sprays as Gothi turns to see Pyra there, crossbow in hand on knees unbelieving and crying..

Doc dreams.. 

Waking up to see the vast entrance to the lands of the dead, a wide river

on one side a road of skulls on the other, Doc in a small boat nears the vast gates.. He sees the masked porcelain face of the Raven Queen. His heart swells in pride devotion and more for his goddess. She reaches out to Her Paladin and then.. pauses and turns away, disappearing into the gate as the giant doors close with a thundering clang.  Doc cries out, falling to his knees, nearly tipping the boat over seeing his visage in the river, a bloody skull, armour and weapons all dripping rivulets of blood. He was an undead Anti-Paladin.

Tibaltuous dreams..

On stage about to do to be lifetime performance for the CUBE, all the crowd prostrate and worshipping the CUBE, they turn to hear the bard's speech  and all aghast and afraid as he gurgles and coughs and gags. Tibaltuous cannot speak, he has no jaw, only a bloody tongue hanging dripping blood..

Kantif dreams..

Is on a mission against elvish allies of the BlackRunes. With deft skill and speed he follows his target - an elf -  through the streets of the town of FAX,  finally the figure goes down an alley

and Kantif knows this is the last chance to strike. He pounces his blade driving deep in the back and through heart and out of chest. The assassin's grin of satisfaction turns as gasping in sudden pain he looks down to see the blade protruding from his own chest, a chuckle behind and he sees his father's elvish face with a leer and grin, then Kantif choking on blood..

Everyone wakes up at the same time gasping and calling out covering in sweat. [DM: all have one level of exhaustion] The brazier of blood sits there, the blood in the device swirling slightly. The trail of blood entering and exiting the room from previously as the bard had been carrying on his back. The party hear a faint laughter as the dreams fade..

The party decide it must be destroyed and discuss ways to do this. Graxxuzazz recalls it was near artifact level so it will be very difficult to destroy. Coming upon a final option, the party decide to toss the artifact into the crevice to the South.

Looking about, Kantif hears the chittering and squeaks of the bats in the area.

He takes it there, blood sloshing around and looks into the dark. The rogue/monk as he hurls the artifact into the gloom. With a clatter, banging and more, it falls from sight the echoing clangs of the brazier banging into walls continuing for some time.. until.. silence.

The drumming echoes up from below and from the light across to the southwest. A number of bats flutter around at the disturbance.

IUZ's Brazier of Blood is thrown away. The party feel better.. seems the artifact had definite effects on the party. All are still exhausted though. The party decide to take a short rest.

Kantif and Tibaltuous stand watch as the party rests after Kantif reactivates the pit trap by the door.

The Fellowship are able to finish a short rest, only the slowly dwindling sounds of the bats in the Southern hall and room could be heard. The drumming throb had not started back up again, which was.. troubling.

Gathering their gear and the small ballista, the party exited the room and headed South carefully and quietly so as not to disturb the bats. A few fluttered around, but not many.

The party come up the stairs out of the dark and into a strange view. There is a red haze to the North all along the horizon from the sun. Then the party smells smoke. The party realize they started two fires previously and these have become a raging forest fire, smoke clouding the sky as far as the eyes can see.

Gothi, ranger, thinks the fireball that hit the gnoll camp potentially started a raging forest fire to the North with the amount of time that has passed.

The adventurers decide to move North towards the forest fires, to rejoin up with their wagon and Lars.

Moving as quickly as their exhausted bodies could move, they travelled the old ruined road North.

The Fellowship struggled under the weight of the small ballista, but persevered and moved on, knowing they left Lars and the CUBE possibly in a dangerous situation now with the forest fires.

Early evening, and the party are sweating under the gear and load of loot taken from the Lost city. Coughing every once in a while as billows of smoke drift past, they trek up the old ruined road. Passing the gnoll outpost, all the trees in the area are burned and black. Then Gothi hears it, even as Morsel's ears raise and the bear growls. gnollish yips and barks, then a whump of what the party knows is a fireball going off. The adventurers, drop their loot and equipment and race ahead. Coming over a bluff they look down into a burning battle.

At a crossroads, the Fellowship's wagon is stopped at a tree fell over the road. Lars - the vampire boy - is crouched holding on to the reigns of the rearing horses attached. One horse is already dead, multiple arrows protruding from the body. The other three are neighing and trying to break free from harness. At various vantage points gnolls with great bows can be seen, shooting at Lars now. A burning tree and screaming gnoll falling from it show where Lars assumedly cast a fireball to detonate.

The whole area is covered in drifting smoke from the forest fire. A dead bugbear lies at one side of the wagon, a casualty of the vampire boy's defense no doubt.

The party make ready and leap into the fray!

Graxxuzazz goes first, [DM: a rare thing]. Casting scorching ray and pumping hos natural sorcerer ability into it to increase the rays and range. The smoke makes it difficult, but the rays of fire cut into the gnolls. 

A massive 20' long red and black centipede bursts out of the ground and moves forward towards the horses. A number of gnollish archers duck out of sight at the surprise
attacks by the sorcerer. Lars is hit by an arrow and it looks to hurt the boy. Kantif leaps forward off the bluff, using his monkish abilities to parkour down and race forward. Yelling up how to assist, Lars, calls back "kill that giant monster centipede!" The monk/rogue fires his hand crossbow but the bolt. But with the smoke the bolt hits a tree near the giant inset. Doc teleports down and races forward to also support Lars and the wagon. Firing his pistol but the bullet bounces off the exoskeleton of the scuttling insect. Firing again, this time the crack of the shot echoes around the area and the bullet hits.

Tibaltuous peers into he smoke and dawns his mantle of inspiration - to give some of the party a reactive move and temporary hit points.

Using the extra move, the bard casts heat metal on one of the gnolls and it starts to screech in pain as the metal smokes.

Gothi draws her bow and looses an arrow after marking the centipede. Slipping slightly she drops the bow and then is able to retrieve it.

With a curse, Gothi sends Morsel forward. The cavebear grows and roars in glee leaping into battle.

The battle continues, with gnolls going down and the centipede killing a horse. One gnoll throws a flaming oil flask at the wagon and catches that and some of the party on fire.

A lizardfolk leader appeasing to be a spellcaster of some type invokes

and billowing yellow cloud of caustic smoke on Lars, Tibaltuous and Kantif. All three are affected by the acidic vapours and cough and gag.

The centipede goes down and the gnolls are vanquished. The lizard humanoid seeing his companions dead or dying, decides to retreat into the smoke.

The party more tired and injured release the dead horse and with two horses now, discuss quickly the best route. Lars advises going back north to the main road, is nigh impossible. 

The wagon fortunately being made mostly of metal the Fellowship is able to get the fire put out quickly. Gothi ponders a way to come up with a magical spell to create water seeing all the forest on fire around.

With some of the party on the wagon and some walking, the Fellowship decide to head south skirting the Lost city of Herodia and are on their way towards their next goal, to reclaim their flying tower!

Map of area: