In a world-shattering new development, we are joined by Georgina (Gero), who refuses to admit that she spends 400 pounds per week on clothes, but does confess that she goes only to the best hairdressers. Tim (Anpago Yost) grimaces in agonized suffering every time Bruce (Longfellow Yost) starts making The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover references. Chris (Tonk Sangaree) points out that he saw Blazing Saddles at a drive-in. Not to be outdone, Billy (Andrinor) points out that he saw Jeff Goldblum vomit white sludge sixty feet. On a movie screen. Paul cannot bring himself to even look at the rest of the group. Chuck (Marcus Sangaree) suggests that he should just lie back and think of England. Or perhaps interview for a position on a Stargate team, as being shot off to an unknown planet and being abducted by the insane acolytes of the Snake-Fucker Cult is far preferable to his current life.
Gero is a halfling barbarian-fighter. She grew up in an orchard, but she spent her later years among the savage tribes of halfling barbarians who range across the tundra, taking down entire wildebeests with their bare teeth. But recently she was rejoined with her distant kin, the Sangaree family. With tranquilizer guns. It turns out that the Sangarees have special teams who go out into the wilds to collect new "cousins" to replace old ones who have been reincarnated into unrecognizability. After six months of "therapy", new candidates are typically welcomed into the "family." Given that the other characters have recently agreed to hunt down the rapacious Flame King, they are perfectly willing to overlook any strange irregularities in her resume.
The characters travel for a couple of hours, turn a corner, and look down upon a massacre. They see three soot-stained men fighting with several monstrous creatures with humanoid torsos upon snake-like bodies. They carry huge spears and the ground smokes around them. Tonk Sangaree checks for an audience and sees nothing. He concludes that this is probably not Shakespeare in the Park and that killing the monsters is probably the right thing to do.
One of the human defenders is pinned under his dead horse; flaming snaky things surround the other two. The characters watch as the snaky-things (which the characters eventually figure out are salamanders) stab and burn their way through the two humans without even raising a sweat. Tonk Sangaree yells, "Shoot the one with the egg sac!" Marcus Sangaree opens fire with his short bow and watches with some dismay as the arrow simply burns away harmlessly. Gero tries a javelin and sees the exact same phenomenon. Tonk readies his sword. His magic sword. Longfellow Yost tosses a Magic Fang on Watches-Birds-at-Dawn and sends him off to crush the lead salamander. He is just a bit dismayed to see that just attacking the salamander causes Watches-Birds to start smoking.
Anpago Yost chirps out, "Magic Missile! Magic Missile! That's the key! Those things can solve any problem!" And it seems that he is right: the salamander he targets appears to be damaged by the spell. Unwilling to be overshadowed, Andrinor trills, "Ray of Frost! Ray of Frost! That'll prove I'm the baddest, spell-shootingest pixie in Highthrone!" Anpago scoffs, "Oh, that's the weakest spell." Both of them watch as the targeted salamander only barely notices the Ray of Frost. Andrinor sulks in his highest-pitched voice, "Grump! Grump! Grumpgrumpgrumpgrumpgrumpgrumpgrump! Looks like Anpago is right. I'm just doing so much nothing around here." To compensate, Andrinor has his ice paraelemental Chilly throw some icicles through the salamander's face. Amazingly, this takes the creature out. Tonk is disappointed to see that when the creature's egg sac is ruptured it doesn't cause thousands of squirming salamanderlings to spill out. He mourns, "So much for breakfast..." Nobody else is particularly disappointed.
Salamander number two sucks up a couple of magic arrows thanks to Marcus, plus a volley of Magic Missiles from Anpago. Andrinor finishes it off with a second set of Rays of Frost. Watches-Birds gets a Protection from Elements from Longfellow, then steps up to the last salamander and leaves it gasping for breath. Then Marcus whacks it with a special magical Arrow of Knockback to the gizzard.
With the salamanders all dead, the characters move in to render aid to the poor bastards who died in the first round of the battle. The man trapped under the horse has a broken leg. Plus, he's had the wind knocked out of him. Anpago recommends, "Give him some sugar! That always makes me feel better!" Andrinor does what he can for the fellow until someone who knows something about healing shows up. Shockingly, that person proves to be Longfellow. Everyone else agrees that the sight of Longfellow performing first aid is quite a sight in itself. The other two humans are very dead, but they aren't alone: there are another dozen similarly equipped bodies lying around.
By the time Longfellow has finished with the survivor, the other characters have recognized that he is wearing the uniform of a Captain of the Guard. He tells them, "Thank you for your help, kind carnie folk!", then mourns, "This is such a disgrace!" Tonk asks, "What, being rescued by carnie folk is something to be ashamed of?" The Captain corrects him, "No, I'm ashamed of not being able to take on that bastard's minions! My men were on a mission to find the Flame King when we were ambushed. We were following a note delivered by a flying mouse." Gero queries, "You mean a bat?" The Captain points out, "No, that would have made sense." He tells the characters that the message read, "Expect more devastation from the flame mages! - The Flame King"
Longfellow whispers to the others that Watches-Birds is hungry. Tonk notices the way the bear is eyeing the dead horse. The Captain does as well, and pleads, "Don't eat the horse, but there are plenty of men." Marcus mocks the man, "It was a very fine horse, you can eat some of the levies though. Gad, you're real officer material." The Captain snarls, "I meant there's food in my men's packs, you miserable carnival savages."
Tonk ignores this little disagreement, as he is busy thinking, "Those spears were really cool. I want one." Then he notices that they are actually made of metal and were heated up by the salamanders' bodies. He sighs in disappointment.
It is a no-brainer for the characters to volunteer to track the Flame King down. The Captain, who by now has forgotten his "carnival savages" crack, reassures them that they will be well-rewarded. Andrinor chirps back, "We'd better be. We're building a house!"
The characters manage to scare up a surviving peaks ram from the patrol, put the Captain atop it, and send him back to town.
As soon as the Captain is out of sight, Tonk gets down to business. He tells the others, "Let's loot these guys!" Once again, he is disappointed: everything is either burned beyond use or stamped "Property of the Highthrone Militia." One of the guardsmen has a Dear John letter in his pocket, written on asbestos. Gero takes along the salamanders' spears, reasoning that even if they're not useful as weapons they might be good as tent poles. Or lightning rods. Or both, in someone else's tent.
Longfellow recommends that rather than following the characters' badly drawn map, the characters should just follow the scorched-earth path left by the salamanders. Marcus looks at him askance and asks, "Did you just totally stroke out? Of course we'll follow the salamanders' trail! Did you seriously think there was some chance that we'd just ignore it? It's twenty feet wide! It's burned down to the rocks! A syphilitic infant could follow it! You think maybe we should rely upon a map we traced off someone's coffee table instead?" Longfellow hops off to the side to eat some bugs and sulk.
The salamanders' trail ends at an altar made of two eight-foot stone pillars. Flames lazily curl around them. The air between them is hazy; the characters can see flickering images of some kind of room, and conclude that they are looking at a gate.
The characters approach the pillars. Then a massive blazing inferno explodes out towards the characters. It is already badly damaged ("How can you tell?") - portions of it are covered with ice, while others are simply smoking. It has two bluish flaming eyes, and reaches up about forty feet.
Anpago asks the others, "Should we talk to it?" Tonk comments, "Tell you what, you talk to it. I'll just stand back and watch." Longfellow quickly zaps Tonk with Protection from Elements just in time to watch the inferno spring forward and set the fighter on fire, then spring back. Tonk sucks up damage, most of it (oddly enough) from the impact. Watches-Birds moves forward and scratches the thing, still under the effect of the earlier Protection from Elements. Watches-Birds also ends up on fire.
Tonk decides that this is the time for dramatic action. He steps in to the attack. The inferno pays attention to him only long enough to set him on fire some more. Gero moves forward and attempts to put Tonk out with a blanket. It doesn't work. Marcus suggests, "I've heard that brandy puts out fires! Try that next!"
Anpago yells, "Everyone get out of the way! I'm going to cast spells at it!" Marcus points out, "That thing is forty feet tall! You're shooting at a four-story building! Just don't shoot at its feet!" Anpago opens up with a volley of Orbs of Ice. He manages to blind the thing, though he barely inflicts enough damage to annoy Longfellow, let alone a forty-foot fall of flame.
Marcus steps forward and starts firing arrows. He is disappointed to realize that the creature has no anatomy, so he can't perform a sneak attack on it. Tonk is elated that someone else is being disappointed. Marcus' disappointment gets worse when he finds that his arrows have no effect against the creature. Andrinor comments, "Hmm... Time to try bringing out some big attacks." Anpago comments, "That's what I thought I was doing..." Tonk howls, "Since when did you think it wasn't a good idea to go all-out against this thing?"
Then the creature starts raining blows down on Tonk.
Watches-Birds attacks all-out. And does nothing useful except take more damage.
Tonk decides that things are not going well. He runs for the hills at full speed.
Anpago flings another collection of Orbs of Cold. He blinds the creature again. Andrinor does one better, or tries, by throwing a Fireball with an energy substitution to cold. Except that the inferno is the fastest fire in the west, and makes its save. Anpago encourages Andrinor, "You've got it almost to single digit hit points!" Andrinor wonders, "What's a hit point? And how can Anpago know how many this thing has?"
Longfellow and Watches-Birds run for it. As a result, they aren't watching when Anpago takes the thing out with Magic Missiles.
With the inferno dead, the local temperature resumes its rapid descent. The characters spend a few minutes resting. They watch as Longfellow completely discharges one of his wands of Cure Light Wounds in an effort to heal Tonk and Watches-Birds. Tonk watches Longfellow heal Watches-Birds and comments, "It's a good thing that thing is covered with hair. Otherwise we'd all have been hungry from the smell of cooked meat." Anpago offers, "Would you like a sugar cube? I have lots!" Tonk asks the pixie, "Do you soak all your sugar cubes in absinthe?"
The characters step between the fire pillars and find themselves in a broken room, standing on a 20-foot plain stone altar, in between two pillars. There is a guy sitting on a nearby pile of rubble, apparently resting and drinking a potion. Tonk says, "Hi!" The fellow looks up, swears like a sailor, and runs for it. Tonk realizes that the fleeing man is actually former Chancellor Cavanaugh. Anpago very desperately tries to hit him with Hold Person, but Cavanaugh is faster and vanishes. Longfellow realizes that Cavanaugh actually did some kind of quickened Teleport.
For some reason, Andrinor starts passing around Bull's Strength and Cat's Grace spells on his fellow party members. Not to be outdone, Anpago throws Keen Edge on Tonk's sword.
With the ex-Chancellor gone for the moment, the characters take a look at their surroundings. The room appears to be some kind of storeroom. There are doorways to the north, west, and the northeast corner. The length of the room is scattered with piles of broken crates, some of them charred and smoking. Andrinor searches the area. He comes up with a box of poorly made shirts. This inspires everyone else to search too. Anpago finds a package of silver holy symbols. Of Obad-Hai. Gero finds a box of traveling pants. Tonk finds a kit of thieves' tools. He gives them to Marcus, who explains that he has a better set. Tonk looks through the kit. He asks Marcus, "What's this spoon for?" Marcus explains, "That's for your heroin." Tonk asks, "That's standard thief issue?" Marcus elaborates, "What do you think we use when we check for traps?" Then Marcus finds some hooded lanterns. He explains that he can use those to melt the heroin. Longfellow finds a box of bits and bridles for peaks rams.
The characters look to the north and northeast. They find more storerooms.
The passage to the west is decidedly warmer than the other two. Even better, the characters can hear a roaring inferno in that direction. They head west. Very quickly they come upon a burnt door with a blackened corpse hanging from the doorjamb. Everyone becomes very interested. The characters venture into the doorway and find themselves in a ruined dormitory. It contains six simply furnished cubicles.
Andrinor comments in a dreamy voice, "This reminds me of my quarters back at school." Four of the cubicles contain burned bodies. Marcus points at one of the bodies and asks the pixie, "Does that also remind you of your days at school?"
Beyond the cubicles, the characters find three more burned bodies in the kitchen. They also find a classroom; a quick search of it turns up some papers scribbled with rudimentary magical exercises. Longfellow comments, "Bet Cavanaugh set up his own school after being fired." Andrinor mourns, "Too bad he's dead." Longfellow points out, "But we just saw him teleport away. Unless he misjudged and ended up in a wall he should still be very much okay."
Andrinor continues searching. He finds a memo on the content of the school's upcoming exams. Apparently the final test is to grab a badge of rank from the base of the demonic statue, after crossing forty feet of flame. Tonk notes, "I bet they don't have to hold many makeup examinations for the slow learners."
The characters leave the ruined schoolrooms behind and continue west. They end up on a balcony looking out over a cavern of flame. It is very hot: the characters must make regular Fortitude saves or suffer subdual damage. The balcony has a seventy-foot long bridge leading to the south. The bridge seems to end at a platform in the middle of the cavern. There are more features beyond the platform, but the characters cannot make them out due to the smoke. And above the edge of the balcony, a winged reptilian with white scales, its flanks burned raw, fights a robed human. The human's robes are burned and scorched. The reptilian creature's claws are red with blood. The two of them are fighting against a nifty backdrop of flames. The characters enjoy a great debate as to which one of them might be evil.
Marcus sneaks out onto the balcony and hides, hoping that he will be able to observe which of the combatants is the more evil from their behaviour. Tonk simply shoves everyone in his path aside and shoots an arrow into the winged guy. He boasts, "I'm liquored up and I know I'm right."
Andrinor sulks briefly because Tonk has already decided which side to back, then flies out and hits the human mage in the back with his shotgun of Magic Missiles. This takes the human mage from 4 hit points to -8. Marcus comments, "Well, I guess we shoot at the flying thing now." Tonk comments, "It's been our experience that good loses unless we're here. So the human must have been good." Longfellow flaps out and heals the human. The guy is still out, but at least he is no longer bleeding to death.
Anpago finally senses that there is evil present. Tonk rolls his eyes.
And then the winged reptilian thing breathes out a cone of cold that hits most of the group. When the ice clears, the unconscious dead guy is very, very dead. Gero mourns, "Should have picked his pocket!" Andrinor reassures her, "You still can, you just have to chip off the ice first. Say, did my body look like that after the frost worm?"
Marcus proceeds to get a critical hit on the reptile. His arrow lodges deep in its chest. It doesn't look happy. Marcus howls, "Tonk!" Tonk reassuringly moans, "I'll draw its fire, no problem." Tonk watches Longfellow hit it with a Flame Strike, then shoots it with two arrows from his mighty mighty composite bow. He takes it out.
The reptilian thing falls onto the bridge. Tonk drags it back onto the balcony, then back to the corridor when he notices that the creature seems to be dying just from the heat. Longfellow burns several wand charges to bring it around while Marcus and Gero cooperate in tying the creature up with old pants and shirts. Marcus tells the others, "By the way, it's a she!" Tonk muses, "She flies and spits out cones of cold. I say we send her to the six-month Yost-Sangaree Re-Education Programme. Six months later she wakes up a 'cousin'."
Eventually Anpago manages to figure out that the creature has a faint evil aura. He isn't too sure if this is because she is only a little bit evil, or if she's unconscious. Then the aura suddenly becomes strong. Strong and evil, that is. Also, there is a faint but fading evil aura from the wizard. Andrinor finally pins down that the reptile lady is actually chaotic evil.
Against their better judgment, the characters wake her up and learn that she speaks common.
Andrinor tells the others, "I don't really feel comfortable killing tied up and helpless creatures." Anpago offers, "How about mind-wiping them and using them as cannon fodder?" The characters finally decide to be merciful: they take her to the flame gate and reassure her that it might not make much sense but it will be cold on the other side. Marcus urges her to remember that the characters were the ones who helped her, because if she doesn't they'll hunt her down and kill her. She flaps off through the gate.
While everyone else is off dealing with Marrique, Marcus searches the dead wizard and comes up with a wand and a short spear. The wand is carved with little flame designs. Andrinor points it off into the chamber and sets it off. He learns that it is a wand of Burning Hands.
Then Andrinor looks down into the chamber. He sees a huge demonic statue bearing a blade amid the fire. Andrinor casts Resist Elements on himself, flies down and finds two rings. They have a badge and something about "flame mages" carved on them. He flaps back to the party and crows, "I graduated!" He tries one on and immediately feels a lot more comfortable. The characters decide that the rings provide protection against heat and flame. After brief debate, Tonk and Gero get the rings on the grounds that they're the ones most likely to get flame-throwered by something nasty.
The characters head out into the chamber, moving across bridges from platform to platform. Out on the second platform the characters see a disheveled woman heading towards them from the far balcony. She sees the characters and stops. Then something really bad rises up from the flames and attacks. In this case, "something really bad" is a cluster of six floating bulbous creatures with mouths full of sharp teeth and lots of spindly multi-jointed limbs. Two of them are bigger than their friends. Andrinor reports that they are rasts, eating machines from distant parts of the elemental plane of fire. He reports that their heads are almost all mouth and teeth, they paralyze with their gaze, and they suck blood. He commences screaming.
The rasts move in. Longfellow summons up an eagle to attack one (and maybe flank it). Tonk disfigures one horribly, but gets paralyzed in return. Gero demonstrates the sort of strength of character that got her through barbarian school by not being paralyzed. And then one rast floats in and demonstrates its "eating machine" credentials by almost consuming Vipit the riding boar whole.
Anpago volleys a big rast with Magic Missiles. It hisses back at him. Gero launches herself into a furious berserker rage and gives the rast facing her such a stabbing. Andrinor fires off an element-changed Lightning Bolt clean through two rasts. The little one gets turned into an ice cube and falls to the floor. The big one gets covered with frost and follows its smaller brethren to icy shattered doom.
Longfellow finds himself right next to a particularly nasty-looking specimen. Out of desperation, he actually attacks the creature directly, inflicting three points of damage. Watches-Birds ambles up and inflicts about ten times that.
The rast facing Tonk (who is paralyzed) opens wide and bites him on the head to try and suck his blood. It loses some teeth to Tonk's helmet, but still manages to slurp down a point of Tonk's CON.
A rast lands on Watches-Birds and commences tearing him apart. Longfellow howls, "Watches-Birds! Speak to me!"
Another rast rips the riding boar to shreds. Amazingly, the animal is still alive. Gero rather curiously notices that she can see its internal organs. The only reason it doesn't squeal is because it's paralyzed. Gero vaults over the paralyzed pig and chops the big rast to death. She pulls out loops of intestines and plays with them as if they were feather boas. Marcus notices her martial competence and vows to match it. He somersaults his way across the platform to inflict a really nasty scratch upon the rast currently bleeding out Tonk. He protests, "Sure it's a shallow hit, but it's going to be a bleeder!"
Longfellow, inspired by his earlier success, flaps in and goes for eyes on the rast slurping down Tonk's circulatory fluids. He tears chunks out of its flanks but notices that it is getting rather plump. Andrinor crows out, "Make it pop! Make it pop!" Anpago flies around and stabs it.
Gero does a crazy-go-nuts attack on one of the two surviving smaller rast and slashes it into rast-bits.
Marcus notices that the disheveled woman is still standing on the balcony, some seventy feet away. He runs at her. She screams in terror and runs away.
Andrinor peppers the last rast with Magic Missiles. It pops. Tonk's blood rains down into the abyss. Tonk shucks the creature's severed head off and sags back against the railing. He moans, "The world feels all shivery... Why do I still feel so hot?"
The woman runs twenty-five feet down the hallway, then turns left. Marcus and Anpago follow in hot pursuit. They run into a big round room. Sitting in the middle of the room is a large round conference table surrounded by eight chairs. A large map of the countryside decorates the wall. The woman huddles in the corner. Anpago hits her with Charm Person. She protests, "Don't hurt me! I just want to get out of here! The cold... You know, I love my invisible friend Anpago." The characters quickly interrogate her. Apparently, in half an hour this place will apparently be so cold it will turn blood to ice. She assures them that the only way to prevent this is to destroy the Frozen Soul!
Anpago reassures her, "The rest of our bloodthirsty friends are coming, you'll be safer with them. We're blenderiffic!" He notes she has a Ring of Coolness on. She gives the characters potions of Heroism and Cure Moderate Wounds. Tonk sucks down the healing potion right away. And then Longfellow burns through even more Cure Light Wounds wand charges in his continuing effort to keep Tonk and Gero intact.
Longfellow comments, "Leave the Soul alone, city freezes. Kill it, city turns to slag." Anpago agrees, "Yep, sounds pretty lose-lose to me. Maybe we should figure out how to loot the city as quickly as possible."
The characters quickly develop a plan. They will move in through the living quarters to find the library, learn about the Frozen Soul there, then head into the pyramid chamber to deal with the Soul. They'll go through the living quarters under an Invisibility Sphere centered on Lop-Lop to avoid unnecessary problems. And they will take along Anpago's new friend to provide local color.
Anpago heads ahead. He finds a large vaulted room. The place looks like it recently played host to a war. Black stains and soot are everywhere. There is a big hole in the ceiling, and lots of rubble around. Flaming braziers flank the door. It looks like the place was originally used for living quarters. It looks like the place needs serious redecoration.
Anpago notices two people hiding. He sees a half-orc and a halfling. He casts Confusion. The half-orc moves out of the room. Then the halfling runs up and casts some sort of color spray at the half-orc, who ends up stunned. Anpago yells, "Bogies!" and opens up with his wand of Magic Missiles. The halfling sucks it up like a half-woman. Longfellow flies in and lands a Flaming Sphere on the halfling, who proves to be quite a good target. Finally, Andrinor adds insult to injury by frying her with his newfound wand of Burning Hands.
Then a human woman pops up from some debris and blasts the room with Shout, injuring most of the characters and deafening Marcus and Longfellow for twelve rounds. Anpago's Tasha's Hideous Laughter takes her down. Tonk shows up on the scene in time to watch Anpago hit her with some more Magic Missiles. And bounce off a Shield spell. He dryly notes, "Prisoners would be nice..."
Gero knocks down the half-orc, having gone for the vital artery in the knee with her kukri. Then goes on to hit the woman. She notices that sparks fly when her blade hits the woman's skin. Everyone chimes in (in chorus), "Stone Skin!"
Tonk relents and goes to work. Then the woman leaps up past him and Gero, eating up two attacks of opportunity in the process, and flings a Fireball to cover Tonk, Gero, Marcus and Anpago. Tonk barely notices. Marcus laughs at such a weak spell. Anpago and Gero stagger back from the force of the blast.
Longfellow brings his Flaming Sphere and Watches-Birds into the fray. The sphere can't quite reach her, and Watches-Birds hits a patch of ice and careens into her anti-bear shell.
Tonk walks over and trips her. Then the other characters commence chipping away at the Stone Skin. Andrinor tries to speed up the pace by casting Dispel Magic at her, peeling away a couple of defensive spells. This lasts until she stands up and throws a Wall of Fire around herself, frying about half of the characters in the process. They back off from the violet flames.
Longfellow comments, "Well, she's surrounded by flame, but I bet she's not immune to it." He sends his Flaming Sphere in through the Wall of Fire.
The characters back off and look at the situation. Then Tonk pulls out his Bag of Tricks and throws a wolverine in with her. He comments, "We call this the badger-in-your-pants trick." The wolverine gets mighty crisped by the trip through the Wall of Fire, but makes it through and inflicts damage. Andrinor adds insult to injury by spraying through the Wall of Fire with his new Burning Hands wand.
A Lightning Bolt comes sailing out of the Wall of Fire. Tonk barely dodges, but still ends up with jangly teeth. And the Ring of Chill does nothing to help him.
Eventually the magician succumbs to the Flaming Sphere. The characters clear out of the room to avoid taking damage while they wait for her spell to end.
Once the coast is clear, Anpago looks for loot. He comes up with a number of nice-looking items:
Everyone gets a Ring of Chill except for Anpago, who is still in pretty good shape. And invisible. He does claim the other magic ring, hoping very much that it isn't a Ring of Dummering. It turns out it is a +1 Ring of Protection.
The characters ask the bookkeeper what the potions are. She says that Tolucol (the dead woman) brewed all the potions. She doesn't know what they might be. Anpago agrees to carry them until the characters have a chance to identify them. He quickly applies his alchemical skills to identifying them, and decides that one of them might be Blur, one might be Gaseous Form, and one might be Fire Breathing.
The session ends with the characters preparing to assault the library. Everyone expects to get a big lump of experience points, but agrees to wait until next time for Paul to calculate how big.