Paul calls ahead to comment that he expects to show up early, right after he finishes figuring out how to shave with two rusty scimitars. Billy (Andrinor) speaks up to suggest that he will make sure to take Paul to the Emergency Room to get the slash wounds sealed up before he brings him by. Chuck (Marcus Sangaree) emphasizes that he's chaotic neutral so he can kill the entire party. Bruce (Tonk Sangaree) mourns that even though his proposed Eberron character is chaotic neutral, he suspects that he actually isn't capable of killing the party. Chuck reassures him by pointing out that the various noise-suppression spells are really easy for Bards to learn. For his own part, he regrets his terrible Reflex saves, and intends to have a weasel pet to mitigate the situation. Paul intones, "Beware the man, or possibly the woman, with the weasel. He may come in different guise, but you will know him by the weasel."
Billy suddenly announces, "I need caffeine! And there is no soda! Road trip!" Tim (Anpago Yost) points out, "Dude, there's plenty of soda - it's just all in the pantry!" Billy seems not to hear him as he heads for the door. Chris (Tonk Sangaree) just gets caught up in all the excitement. "Where we going? Where we going? Will there be balloons? I want a balloon!" They whirl out the door, leaving Paul, Bruce and Chuck confused and alone.
Partos Kincara, proprietor of the Missing Page, calls the characters together just because he's always wanted to say, "You all may be wondering why I called you together today." He also explains that Highthrone has agreed to send ships to bring supplies to Davra and the besieged city of Southport. The characters already know that the spider-demon Atseyet hates the thought that Highthrone might become involved in the Davra-Goblin War. Kincara suspects that Atseyet will send his most trusted lieutenant, Lord Rosh, to deal with the ships. Accordingly, he tells the characters that he will go with the ship to fight Lord Rosh. The characters possess Sir Melkin the Retribution Dagger, which Julia the Anchorite identified as the best hope to slay Atseyet, so they represent the best choice to attack the creature. And they should strike at a time when Rosh is not available to clean their clocks. As, for example, when he is off attacking skyships. Partos Kincara guesses that the best time to strike will be in about nine days.
He suggests that the characters find some way to fly to the Forbidden City. On the plus side, half of the group is able to fly anyway. On the minus side, the half of the group that can't includes a 2000 lb dire bear.
The characters go through several complicated strategies involving fancy magical objects that would need to be purchased at crippling cost. Then Longfellow Yost mentions that he can cast the Feathers spell to change the entire group into birds. Flying at a speed of 80 ft/round they could make 80 miles in the nine hours the spell lasts. The entire group could almost reach the Forbidden City in a single day's flight, though they'd be pretty tired by then ("My arms hurt so much!" "Does my breast look bigger?"). In an unaccustomed outburst of maturity, the characters modulate the plan to do the trip in two hops.
The characters enjoy a week of downtime. Longfellow Yost's eggs have hatched: he is now the proud father of three fluffy eaglets. Longfellow flutters down to the group's household to announce the good news, and to boast that now that she has been Awakened, his mate Feathers-Like-Sunshine has more hit dice than Anpago Yost's wife Marie (Com1).
Anpago replies, "Hah! But my mate has thumbs!"
The characters look over the pile of loot they took from the bounty hunters Zylenea and Trunko. The nominal value of the pile is 63,072 gold, including various items replaced by other items (like the +1 Mithril Chain Shirt Marcus Sangaree appropriates, and replaces with his +1 Silent Studded Leather armor). The characters take it all to Grynn's and accept the standard 65% store credit deal. In exchange, they purchase:
At the end of their shopping spree, the characters have only 743 gold in store credit left.
Longfellow and Anpago go looking for the huge dire snake that killed Darg Sangaree. They go to the valley where the characters dropped the thing and quickly find "signs": smashed trees, shed skins, and lots of traumatized animals that talk of "the giant death that slithers!"
After a brief search, Longfellow calls out to Anpago, "Okay, pixie! You see those two lanterns ahead of you? They're not lanterns, they're a snake. Do the Charm Monster thing now."
Anpago Charms the thing to keep it from killing anybody. Then Longfellow Charms it so it will pay attention to him, casts Speak With Animals so he can tell it what he wants, and then talks it into letting him transform it into a bird and take it back home to Highthrone. Longfellow offers it a cow if it will help kill a big bad spider for the characters. The snake proves to be a surprisingly hard sell, but eventually agrees to go along with this plan. It tells him that its name is Eyes-That-Paralyze.
Longfellow buys two cows for Eyes-That-Paralyze. The snake eats one of them right away.
The characters fly eighty miles south, then stop and camp. They rise early in the morning, wait patiently while Longfellow casts Feathers again, and then fly into the Forbidden City. Tonk Sangaree looks for women with exposed ankles. Marcus reminds him, "There are lots of more interesting things to look for."
Tonk responds, "You mean like food? I like food too. Or balloons!"
Thanks to their unorthodox mode of approach, the characters get a really remarkable view of the Forbidden City. This is the first time most of them have seen it from the air. Anpago Yost sees that the characters' last route in was through some caverns and right past the Temple of the Spider. He nearly has a heart attack when he realizes just how close the characters had been to Atseyet. Tonk offers, "Don't you remember? I was disguised as Lord Rosh, and actually waved to the guards! That was really great! We should do it again!"
The characters land, change back into their natural, death-dealing forms, then head down the path to the Temple of the Spider. Longfellow and Long-Claws are perched on Tonk's shoulders, still both bird-shaped. Eyes-That-Paralyze is also still in bird form; he perches on Marcus' shoulder. Eyes-That-Paralyze keeps on trying to curl around Marcus' neck in a way that doesn't make him feel better.
The Temple is an imposing pile of stone, gated by large double doors covered with bronze plates. The doors are huge, easily large enough for the spider Mebble talked about to go through. The characters briefly regret that only Mebble ever actually saw the spider, and he is long gone.
The outer walls of the Temple are carved with bas-reliefs of spiders fighting men. Figures that might be the Ancient Gods look on approvingly. Marcus examines the carvings, and asks the others, "There are gods on this thing?"
Andrinor points to one shape and offers, "I think that one is yours, dude."
The characters examine the bas-reliefs for a moment. They see that all of the scenes are watched over by a huge presence, a fell creature half-human and half-spider. It watches over everything.
Tonk notices that many of the spiders on the Temple wall have human-like hands in addition to their eight spidery limbs. He muses, "Hmmm... That's not a good sign."
Everyone drinks antitoxin. Andrinor casts Stoneskin on Tonk and Long-Claws.
Marcus searches the great doors for traps. He announces, "Ripley, the area is secure!" The characters back up sixty-five feet while Anpago casts Knock on the doors.
Inside is a big damp space cluttered with tumbled columns and beams. Across the chamber, a young man is strapped spread-eagle to the wall. Everyone gets really nervous. Tonk puts his boots in his pack. Andrinor asks, "Why are you doing that, Tonk?"
"So I can Spider Climb. And I like acting like a hobbit."
Andrinor flutters up to check out the young man. He appears to have been cut, beaten and hung up. Tonk cuts him down. As he approaches, he can see a large passageway at the rear of the room leading down into the earth. Longfellow can see clear signs that a spider the size of a city bus has been trekking through here. Also, some other things: goblins, smaller spider things, and something with paws like those of a lion (within last few days). Tonk, "Maybe there's another party of adventurers who decided to go in with giant lions!"
The characters bring the young man around. He speaks a language the characters don't know. Andrinor deduces that the fellow is very afraid to stay, but also afraid to leave. He fears that there is something really large here that will eat them all. He wants to go home, but he knows the characters can't help him because they don't speak his language. Marcus comments, "And, if we never do, then we have a houseboy! His name will be Toby!"
Tonk speaks loudly and slowly, "We... are... here... to... kill... the... giant... spider..."
Marcus tells him to shut up and search the room. Tonk finds 500 silver pieces. Three large golden disks carved with ancient patterns. And a rope.
Andrinor examines the disks and comments, "These will look great next to my Star Wars collector's plates." Anpago tosses the rope to Tonk. The characters leave the silver for the way out.
Andrinor tells the erstwhile captive, "You... stay... here... and... hide..."
Tonk adds, "Have... some... silver..."
The tunnel goes down 200 feet, then ends in a three-way split. Longfellow reports that the big spider normally goes forward, so the characters do as well. They enter into a huge cavern. Most of it drops far down into the abyss; it is impossible to know how far. The characters are standing upon a narrow ledge. A bridge leads out over the chasm, but ends halfway across.
Anpago, who Sees Invisible all the time, reports to the others that the bridge leads to an invisible floating island in the chasm. The whole thing is invisible.
Tonk (after Anpago casts See Invisible on him) enthuses, "Wow. We should make this our new home. After we kill all the monsters."
There is a building upon the floating island, but the place is more of a temple than a castle. Parts of it have crumbled and been repaired with spider web. Longfellow muses, "Looks like Atseyet managed to get itself blacklisted at the local Home Depot. Once we take over, all that webbing is just going to have to go."
Tonk and Anpago can see the vague outline of a cloud on the bridge, moving towards the temple. Anpago optimistically speculates, "Maybe it's the spirit of the spider...?"
Longfellow gives his See Invisible Glasses to Andrinor, so he can see what it is and apply his schoolin'. Andrinor reports, "Please stay away from that. It's an Invisible Stalker. It will eat our bacon." It is moving towards the temple with haste, as if it's trying to warn someone.
Andrinor and Anpago zoom out to intercept it with Magic Missiles. Andrinor snakes it with his volley. Marcus' arrow goes right through it as the stalker makes it to the invisible part of the bridge. Andrinor's second Magic Missile shot takes the creature out.
By this time the more magically-ept members of the group have concluded that the invisible part of the bridge is actually on the ethereal plane, along with the whole temple is also on the ethereal plane. Once the characters cross the middle of the bridge, the temple appears solid as anything, but the rest of the cavern looks translucent.
Tonk groans, "So much for moving in. Do you people know what sort of neighbors we'd have? Intestinal exhumers, finger-slakers, abyssal abysstulators, and each one worse than the last."
Andrinor corrects the big fighter, "Seriously guy, you should listen to me on this sort of thing. I actually went to school on this stuff. Those abyssal abysstulators are actually only in the abyss. Around here, you really need to keep an eye out for ethereal eye-biters."
Tonk shudders faintly, "And those are better than abysstulators how?"
The characters pass through yet another set of big double doors into a room dominated by a very stylishly-arranged acid pit. Two big goblin-sized creatures emerge from a side room. They look like they combine all the worst features of goblins, spiders and pit bulls, and they're superhumanly fast as well. Marcus skewers one with an arrow, then they dodge past Longfellow's Flaming Sphere. The bigger one demonstrates that he's also extremely strong as he claws a chunk out of Tonk. Tonk demonstrates that he's inhumanly tough thanks to Stoneskin and stays undamaged.
Tonk responds to the spider-goblin twins with his shockingly-fast Iron-Hand Sword. After a chop-chop here and a chop-chop there, his opponent is still standing, but only just barely. And then Tonk hits him again. The creature goes down. Tonk steps up to menace the surviving spider-goblin. The spider-goblin acts appropriately menaced.
Anpago flutters in behind the survivor, finds that his Invisibility negates their otherwise very impressive DEX bonus to defense, then delivers a lusty stabbing with Sir Melkin the R. D. Andrinor proves that Ray of Frost also works pretty well as long as you're invisible, though he doesn't do too much damage in the process.
Marcus ignores his relatives' caterwauling in favor of Zen-like aim. He lets loose an arrow, sending it right through the spider-goblin's thorax. He crows, "Thirty-six points of damage! Suck on that, Mothra! Yeet! Yeetyeetyeet!"
The spider-goblin seems terribly confused at being called "Mothra", but is also terribly, terribly hurt. Longfellow attempts to capitalize upon this situation by flying in to deliver a vicious scratching. Sadly, he was also distracted by Marcus' inappropriate insult. He flies into a wall. Bonk! "Awk!"
Tonk holds his head.
The spider-goblin calls out in the goblin-tongue, "I will avenge my brother!" He lashes into Tonk with two claws and a bite. Stoneskin takes it all. Tonk's clothes and armor are looking pretty torn up, but Tonk has never looked better. Then Tonk ends the spider-goblin.
The characters search the spider-goblin bodies. Longfellow helps out by casting Detect Magic. The results of the search are two sets of small-sized magic chainmail and two pairs of magic bracers.
Anpago announces, "I'm gonna put on some of the bracers. What's the worst that could happen?"
Andrinor offers, "You turn into a goblin-spider thingy?"
Tonk watches with great interest as Anpago puts on the bracers. Sadly, nothing exciting happens. Andrinor speculates that they might be Bracers of Bondage. Longfellow persuades Long-Claws to put on the other pair of bracers. Then the characters dump the bodies into the acid. Foosh!
The characters head into the room the spider-goblins came from. It turns out to be big, but empty except for an old threadbare scorched rug. It also has a very nice 25-foot ceiling.
Marcus gets the job of checking under the rug because he's one of only two characters capable of lifting a rug. He finds a secret compartment underneath. He quickly assures the others, "Nothing here, guys!" Nobody buys it.
The compartment is easy to open: the cover just slides to one side. Marcus opens it and finds a golden amulet, a flask of orange liquid, and a dagger. Longfellow comments, "Gee, that liquid looks like tang!" The amulet looks like a curled-up spider. The dagger has a hilt shaped like a spider, with two legs forming the crossguard. The blade has a jagged edge and a webbed pattern etched on it. The characters pack the items and move on.
The characters head through the door on the left and into a long, dark hallway some eighty feet long and forty feet wide. There is one door at the end of the hall, and another to one side. The floor is made of black, reflective marble and is carved with dark green runes. The walls have spider-themed carvings showing more human-handed spiders engaged in all manner of activity: fighting, sleeping, sacrificing, and so on. Longfellow and Marcus both agree that they don't understand what the runes mean.
Tonk pulls out his bag of animal friends and throws a black bear into the room. It doesn't appear to suffer any by standing on the runes. It explores the room. Nothing explodes. The characters conclude that it is safe to advance, so they do so.
The door to the right opens onto a shadowed room. Tonk leads the advance, but pulls up short when he sees the huge spider-thing inside, a crouching half-humanoid shape that consumes the dark half of the chamber. Before it is a bowl-shaped altar of dark stone with stone spider heads at four points around the circumference. The curved back wall is covered with carved stone reliefs.
Tonk takes a breath and realizes that the creature is just a statue. He exclaims, "Holy fuck! The eyes follow you! All nine of them!"
Marcus pats him on the shoulder, "It's just a statue, guy. Take a valium."
Andrinor, always one to let greed overwhelm caution, offers, "Let's see what's in the bowl!"
Tonk, still mindful of whose house he's in, replies, "I don't want to. We might have to drink it."
Then the characters hear something chanting quietly. Marcus sneaks his way in, See Invisible Glasses turned on. He sees a creature that might once have been goblinoid but which now has hairless dark blue skin and lambent yellow eyes. It is clad in a robe made of spider web. It seems to have just finished casting some divine spells. Marcus deduces that one of them was Bull's Strength. He doesn't wait to figure out what the others might have been: he delivers an arrow to the back of the creature's head. His shot is sure and true, leaving the spider-thing with 28 points of damage to remember him by. His second arrow is more hasty, but still quite painful. But even with two arrows piercing its vitals, the spider-priest remains standing.
Marcus howls out, "Tonk! I've met somebody, and I don't want to play anymore!"
Tonk comes running into the room, deadly blade at the ready, just in time to see the spider priest transform into mist and flow up into the mouth of the statue of Atseyet. Tonk curses imaginatively. Marcus just breathes a sigh of shuddering relief.
Well aware that the spider-priest might have drifted practically anywhere and warned practically anyone, the characters swiftly depart the shrine.
On the way out, Anpago remembers that Sir Melkin the R. D. knows the trick of reading all languages. He points him at the runes in the floor and on the walls and orders him to read. Sir Melkin tells the characters that the carvings are a genealogy of the descendents of Atseyet and the cities they ruled. Except that all the information is thousands of years old: he recognizes none of the place names, let alone any of the principals.
The characters head back to the big double doors in the acid room and head on through. They find themselves in a large rectangular room, 240 feet long by 120 feet wide. The entire floor is a pool of acidic goo save for a single stone island in the center, piled with coins and goods. A terrible beast stands upon the treasure. It looks half manticore, and half spider.
Longfellow rather lamely offers, "Ooh! A spider-core! That's not natural!"
Tonk shushes him, "I don't care if it is natural or not. I just want to know if it can bleed. Because if it bleeds, it can die."
Marcus shoots an arrow at the spider-core. It returns the favor and sprays him with spikes. Longfellow tries to up the ante by Flame Striking it. He is disappointed to learn that it makes its save. He is even more shattered too find that it is also resistant to flame. He whines, "At least it took some divine power damage..." Andrinor looks over at him as if to suggest that he should learn some real spells one of these days.
And then Atseyet comes up out of the acid, casts See Invisible on the spider-core and announces "The pixie on the left has the dagger. Kill it first." As if on command, a huge fiendish acid snake surges up out of the acid pool.
Tonk puts up the High Marshal's Shield and tries Banishment. Atseyet sputters out, "Hold it, is that the Lord Marshal's Shield? I knew I sent at least sixty goblins to get that thing. Why does he have it?" Against all expectations, Atseyet fails to save and gets banished.
Tonk crows out, "I rule!"
Marcus chuckles, "Gee, this fight just got a whole lot more survivable."
And then Sir Melkin the R. D. just turns to dust. Poof! Anpago deals with the situation very adroitly by casting Hold Creature on the spider-core. It crashes down to the island, completely helpless.
Longfellow quickly puts Regenerate Serious Wounds on Tonk, just in time to watch the huge fiendish acid snake constrict him and try to pull him into the acid. Tonk struggles mightily as he burns, oh how he burns.
Andrinor decides that his best choice is to summon up a large, heavy-hit-die elemental to try and rescue Tonk. He is Hasted, so he quickly reads a scroll to bring up a water elemental and commands it, "Go save Tonk!" Then he lobs an Ice Bolt at the paralyzed spider-core. The elemental burns as it touches the acid, but still crushes part of the acid snake's side. The spider-core takes 36 points of damage, as it lacks a Reflex save at the moment. It looks pretty wounded.
Marcus howls, "I'll save you, Tonk!"
Anpago looks at the acid and asks rather dubiously, "Are you just going to dive in?"
Marcus looks at Anpago as if he were brain-damaged, then responds, "No, I'm just going to shoot the snake. And yes, I do have Precise Shot." He lands three arrows in the creature, delivering enough damage to cause it to expire messily. Tonk struggles from its over-affectionate grasp.
Longfellow tosses Protection from Elements on Tonk now that the danger is passed. Tonk takes advantage of his new immunity to acid to swim over to the spider-core so he can kill it while it is still held. While he does his murderous deeds, the Regenerate takes care of all the rest of the damage he took.
Anpago Levitates Marcus over to the island so he can check out the treasure, but Marcus refuses to use it: he wants to borrow Tonk's Gloves of Swimming and Climbing instead, to scale his way across the ceiling.
Marcus checks the chest for traps. He reports that it is definitely trapped with a magical Fire Trap. He brings in the pixies. Andrinor blows his Dispel Magic check. Anpago does better, but still not good enough. Marcus tries to Dispel as well, and fails. Then he tries to pick the lock, and fails. So Anpago gets tapped to Knock the thing. Some debate on whether that's a good idea or not, but the final decision is to try it anyway. The chest opens with a tremendous fiery boom! But then Marcus examines it to find that it is quite empty.
The treasure thus amounts to a pile of copper coins. And a gold-plated harp. And an empty chest.
Tonk comments, "That monster was a complete idiot. 'Your room is full of acid, and you get to sleep on a pile of treasure with a gold harp and a chest of jewels!' 'But the chest looks empty, and the harp is only plated!'"
The characters continue across to the other side of the acid room to check out the other door. They find that the room on the other side looks identical. The characters figure out that the whole temple is symmetrical.
Tonk tells the others, "Let's push on and slaughter the rest of the priests. That way, they won't be available to trouble us later on." The characters agree and commence searching the rest of the rooms. They find an armory. A very uninteresting armory. And then a gathering hall with strange brown-and-yellow pods on the walls and ceiling. Six of the pods remain unopened. All of them are of a hard organic matter covered in sticky mucous. They smell like rotted fruit. Longfellow comments, "These things are definitely not natural." Nobody disagrees.
Four of the pods break open. Creatures slurp their way out and attack.
Marcus, frantic alarm in his voice, asks, "What are those things?"
Longfellow rather calmly responds, "I dunno. Lemme check my Knowledge (nature)... Yep, they're unnatural! Kill them!"
Andrinor joins in the game, "Hmm... I'll try Knowledge (planes)... they're weird and ugly. Kill them!"
Marcus, reassured by such learned advice, speculates, "I wonder what Knowledge (religion) will tell me... Gee, they look plenty natural to me."
The dragon-crawlers slither up to the party. Anpago responds by lighting off a Fireball to catch three of them. He finds out that they're immune to fire. Anpago looks like he wants to cry.
Tonk chops one in half. Chop! Tonk tells Anpago, "Gee, I guess they're not immune to blades... Heh heh heh..."
Andrinor flutters over and zaps three with a Cone of Cold. He kills them all, then does a little dance. He tells Anpago, "They're not immune to cold either! Hah
The snake misses the last survivor, giving Marcus a chance to miss as well.
The dragon-crawler breathes a cone of flame. Marcus, Anpago and Eyes-That-Paralyze all get caught, but all easily avoid serious damage. And then the crawler Tonk killed with a sword turns back into a pod. Tonk kills the last one, then chops one of the pods into pieces. Turns out that cold kills the things for real. Andrinor has his familiar freeze them all to death.
The characters can see two doors out and a staircase of rusty black iron leading upwards. Long-Claws gets put on guard duty so the characters can clear the rest of the first floor.
Through the double doors and down the hallway the characters find a room decorated in the same style as Lord Rosh's house, with a sleeping pallet, low wooden table and a brass lamp shaped like a bird with upturned wings, pillows, large chest, and a faded tapestry of a beautiful mountain scene at dusk. Tonk takes the lamp.
Marcus determines that there is a trap on the chest that will trigger if the lock is picked. A spike trap. Probably with poisoned spikes. Marcus takes a shot at Disable Device. He manages to disable the spikes, but then he fails to open the lock. He yells, "Tonk! Time to smash!" Tonk busts the lock. The chest turns out to contain an assortment of human-sized clothing, the sort of finery you'd find a barrister wearing. Also some very fine wigs, a large, sharp knife, two flasks of liquid, a large empty sack, an iron pot and dishes, and a small statuette of a black dragon. Everything goes into a bag. The characters move on across the hall.
Both the kitchen and the larder leave the characters with the impression that Atseyet and his cronies order out for pizza a lot. Both look pretty heavily unused. The larder includes some rotted crates and barrels that are now spilling their spoiled contents onto the floor. Searching around pushes a cloud of poisonous yellow mold spores into the room. Nobody really succumbs to the spores, but Marcus claims that he found the key to the chest the characters just broke open.
Further down the hall, a long room has been converted into an alchemical lab. Many strange mixtures stand scattered on three tables. Alchemical tools, beakers of odd liquid, and questionable ingredients are everywhere. Anpago suggests that he could spend six or seven hours cataloguing this stuff, or everyone could go upstairs and kill things. The others respond, "Kill things! Kill things! Yaay!"
Anpago does spend a moment searching around, long enough to find nine tindertwigs, a thunderstone, some alchemist's fire, and a few potential potions. Also three mysterious bottled liquids that aren't magical. Anpago decides to come back later to see what it is. Marcus burns a Detect Magic on the candidates and the things that came from Lord Rosh's room. There are two magical potions, but nothing from the chest was magical except the statue.
The room at the top of the stairs includes lots more dragon pods. There are ten of them in the room. One hatches as the characters show up. Tonk cuts it up as Chilly works the room until everything is dead. Then three more emerge. Tonk thinks about charging until Andrinor mentions, "Hold tight until I can freeze them all with a Cone of Cold!" Tonk holds his ground and watches as the dragon-crawlers all freeze to death.
The session ends with the characters deciding to save the rest of mop up for next time. Each character gains 4530 experience points. Andrinor exults because he finally made it to 10th level. Anpago also 10th. Longfellow also exults: he's 11th level. Tonk jumps to 12th thanks to 500 bonus experience points for being Tonk. Chris remarks on what a great guy Paul is. Finally, understanding that next session will be the end of the Highthrone game, Longfellow burns 750 experience points to Awaken his three chicks and forever transform the relationship of the people of Highthrone to the local crag eagle population.