Poes Adventure Journal
Thirteenth entry (after the 10/09 session)

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Time seems to be playing tricks on me these days. Perhaps, Alia, because all I can do is count the hours that pass before I am with you again. That hour cannot come soon enough for me. The Queen however, has plans for me though. Me and these heroes she’s charged me with shepherding to their fate. Like it or not. There’s no fate but what She makes…

So, mama spider had been dispatched and we were left recovering from the battle on the spiral staircase in the old dwarven fortress. The heroes took a minute to catch their collective breaths. Before they could start arguing though a guttural voice called out from above us in__ the gloom.

“Who’s coming?”

I spat. Giant. Must be orcs. It’d been at least a couple of days since I’d had a chance to kill any orcs. Too long, really. Heh. I yelled back.

“Death.”

“What’s the password?”, came the immediate reply.

Ok. I admit it. At this point I was a little surprised. But hey – I can go along with that. Maybe they were expecting Death. Maybe we all should be. But really, I had no idea what the password was. So, I simply replied, “Cold, cold death.”

The rest of the heroes looked at me like I was crazy. I suppose maybe I was. Or am. Anyhow, I shrugged. That’s when we all heard a door slam up above and the scraping sound of a heavy metal bar being dropped into place. Just as quickly, the darkness all around us came alive. Spiders suddenly moved through their webs, and even jumped towards the central pillar of the room. Uh oh. A glow appeared above us. It quickly resolved into the form of a skeletal figure, floating down the stairway towards us. Undead. I charged, muttering a prayer to the Queen under my breath. Sprinting up the steep staircase, I stumbled…

And stood on a featureless plain of snow. An icy wind whipped my face. In front of me stood a beautiful, black haired woman. Huge black raven wings sprouted from her back.

“Poe,” she said, meeting my wide eyed gaze directly.

The single word shook me to my core. I fell to my knees, snow crunching beneath me.

“Now that’s better,” she continued. “Proper respect.”

Her voice echoed in my head but I resisted the urge to clap my hands over my ears. She was suddenly next to me, black feather wings folding around behind me as she bent down to take my face in her hands. I closed my eyes, trembling, hardly able to bear being this close to her.

“Now that you’ve finally accepted your fate I have a gift for you. Something you’ll need for the tasks ahead. Try not to squander it…if only for your lover’s sake.”

The smell of rotting flesh made me gag. I opened my eyes just as the hag brought her cane down. Its gnarled bone handle smashed into my head. Light flashed before my eyes…

...and I caught myself against the inside of the spiral staircase. I continued my charge without breaking stride. My head ached, my left arm, wrapped in black prayer beads and tightly gripping my frozen blade was nearly numb with cold, and my head rang with an old woman’s cackling laughter. Despite that I tingled – like a limb that has been too cold and is just now regaining some warmth.

Great timing, I thought as I leapt forward and closed the final distance to the glowing skeleton. That’s about when I found myself enveloped in a clear, stinging goo. Too late, I learned that the glowing skeleton wasn’t undead. It was merely a skeleton, holding a glowing sword held suspended in some kind of viscous clear goo. Goo that burned. Thank the Queen for full body armor. Heh. I swung the frost blade vigorously hoping to pull free of the gelatinous junk. Bits of frozen goo scattered from the blade’s edge, but I remained lodged inside. In fact, it seemed to engulf me further as if it had a mind of its own. That’s when what little light there was went out. Grasping shadows pulled at me and struck at the goo. I thanked Ron through gritted teeth, hoping this amorphous jelly thing was hurting as much as I was.

At least I was able to keep the thing from continuing to roll towards the rest of the heroes. I stood my ground, armor smoking where the goo touched it, holding the tide of gunk at bay while they scrambled to put up some ropes and get off of the steps below me. I heard footsteps behind me and Guss engaged the tide as well, slicing chunks of it off with his weapon. The goo wasn’t working alone however. Large flying mats of darkness appeared, appropriately, out of the darkness, launching thundering attacks at the remaining heroes. As the booming sounds shook the cobwebs, Ron sprayed two of them with fire. I continued fighting within the goo, hoping to kill it from within. It reached out and smacked Guss, slamming him against the wall of the cavern and stunning him. I heard muffled yells as the heroes fought off the dark creatures. Then suddenly, one of black things fell on Guss. With Guss down, covered by a black, writhing cloak of a creature, the gelatinous creature I was trapped in began to move. I was pulled with it, still hacking away from the inside. Our dwarf’s voice boomed over the din, ordering the goo to move away from me. Miraculously, it obeyed and I was free of its nasty embrace. I looked around quickly to take stock of the situation. Ron was pinned beneath a moving carpet of darkness. Beros was rapidly firing arrows at the other dark creatures. Our dwarf and Kleister were busy fighting them off as well. At least one was down. Magic flashed – Sunny was flinging her spells about, too. OK, things look pretty normal.

Guss yelled at me, shoved me to the side and then was engulfed by one of the creatures again. I turned to help him, but was suddenly picked up off my feet. And surrounded again by the burning goo. Again. Frack. Fire lanced from Sunny’s outstretched hands. It struck the gelatinous creature surrounding me, burning me a bit in the process. She’s been hanging around Ron way too much. Heh. A glowing hand floated into the goo, grabbed the sword from the skeleton’s hand and whisked it away. Nice. Kobe would have approved of that move. Arrows plunked into the goo next to me, sparking with lightning. I swung my sword again as the goo slid past me. It reached out a gelatinous pseudopod and pummeled our dwarf. Kliester yelled across the stairs to me, pointing out an opening. I didn’t hesitate – and slammed the frost blade deep into the goo’s center. It collapsed suddenly into an inert pool of goop. Acidic spray splashed across several of the heroes.

And that was that. The other heroes had taken care of the black things – some kind of flying predator it seemed – so the threat was past. Guss hefted the sword we’d retrieved from the goo, wiped it off and claimed it for his own. That’s when I realized that Kobe was missing. Frack. My little buddy was gone. Apparently carried off by one of the black things. Double frack. No one seemed particularly worried about him – probably because he’s run off on his own before. Sunny however, thought she’d last seen him further up the stairs fighting off one of the black things. That sealed it for me.

We pressed forward and advanced up the stairs. I kept an eye out for any sign of the halfling hero. With Kobe gone, scouting ahead fell to the taciturn elf. Beros silently whisked ahead of us stopping to motion us towards him when he encountered a room. Inside, a man lay slumped over a table. A gem next to his stilled hand gleamed in our light. He didn’t move. Apparently already dead. Beros and I started to walk in, but the elf grabbed me after we’d taken no more than two steps.

“The floor…” he said calmly. “Looks unsafe.” We backed out carefully to discuss options with the heroes.

The heroes were intrigued by the room – or more likely by the gem and the lockers along the far wall with the promise of more loot – so we did more investigating. Sunny volunteered to be anchored to a rope so that she could scout the room on her own safely. As we secured Sunny to a rope, Ron sent his floating mage hand into the room to check out the man at the table. Turned out it was all an illusion. This of course, further excited the heroes – surely only a great treasure would be hidden by such powerful magic. Sunny, safely roped up, moved into the room to investigate further. As she reached the center of the room the floor suddenly gave way. I grunted, taking up the slack on the rope. Thanks to help from Guss and our Dwarf, we were able to keep her from plunging into the darkness below. Quickly, we pulled her back to the doorway and solid ground. Our light illuminated the bottom of the pit she’d have fallen into just long enough for us to catch glimpses of many large centipede-like insects skittering over a grated floor. A bleached white skeleton laying on the grates testified mutely to the insects’ appetites. Ron stayed busy while we worked with Sunny. First he had his bird friend check out the lockers across the room. He wasn’t able to find much out. But, once we’d unhooked Sunny from the rope, he used his mage hand to take it with a grapple across the room, anchoring it so one of us could go across to get at the lockers and their treasure. Only our dwarf was brave – or maybe greedy? – enough to want to risk the fall into the pit of insects to make the trip across the rope. He reached the lockers safely and managed to get them open. Turned out that that all they contained were chunks of iron ore. Clearly everything valuable had already been taken. Kobe must have gotten here already, bypassed the trapped floor and looted all of the good stuff from the lockers. Heh. The little fracker must be OK after all. Probably just waiting for us up ahead somewhere, grinning like a fool and pretending not to have his pockets stuffed with gold. I kept this to myself, not wanting the rest of the heroes – especially our Dwarf – to get upset with him again.

We continued up the stairs. Beros continued to scout ahead into the gloom. We hadn’t gone too far before we encountered more spiders. Nasty things – they’re bad enough when they’re little, but when they’re the size of small ponies they’re downright dangerous. But, being heroes and all, my companions dispatched them pretty handily. I was a little concerned during this battle though. For the second time in as many fights, Ron targeted himself with a spell. I’m beginning to think I may be a bad influence on him. It all ended OK though with the spiders dead and the heroes ready to push on.

Up we continued along the endless stairway. We rounded a turn and found a corridor leading up to a solid looking door. Arrow slits were cut high into either side of the corridor. The heroes paused to consider their options. Ron sent some magical force forward hoping to use it to open the door. It failed. Some things you just have to do yourself. I shrugged, nodded at Guss and charged the door. Arrows flew at me from both sides, three of them hitting me I think. A magical bolt of energy blasted past me, reflected back off the door and just missed me on its way back. I heard Ron curse in pain. Hmmm. Either payback or I really, really need to stop hanging around with him. I pushed against the doors with no effect other than to crack them back against the bar holding them shut. Then Guss arrived. He slammed into the doors next to em. The bar cracked loudly and splintered. The doors burst open. A row of orcs stood waiting for us. Good times. Heh.

Kleister shouted some instructions to Guss, who stepped up to one of the orcs and stabbed it with his sword. Orc axes fell on him in retaliation. Sunny’s voice cut through the din of battle, calling down darkness to block the sightlines of the orcs manning the arrow slits. Our dwarf boldly walked through the corridor to join the fray, chanting a prayer as he advanced. I quickly moved to stand with Guss, swinging wildly at another orc.

The next few minutes…or seconds maybe, were a bit of a frenzy. Let’s just say that the heroes know their business. And killing orcs is a good business to be in. Heh. Guss’ flashing blade accounted for several of the beasts and his shield work kept the battlefield under control. Beros’ singing bowstring took out several more, saving me at one point from a potentially devastating axe blow with a critically timed shot to the orc’s shoulder and later standing toe to toe with an orc to plug it in the chest while nimbly avoiding two clumsy swings of its axe. Ron, was, well, Ron. Stinking clouds, freezing darkness and various magical fiery blasts rained down on the creatures. My favorite move was when he blasted several of the orcs as they surrounded Kleister, blowing them through some magical portal so that they ended up right in front of me and our Dwarf. Speaking of our Dwarf, he acquitted himself well, calling down divine power several times to heal me and more than once illuminating the best place to strike a blow against an opponent. Kleister was everywhere, striking orcs with his spear and pushing by me to bravely take out the archers before they could empty their quivers into Sunny and Ron. And Sunny? Well, her darkness saved the day. It kept most of the archers from being much of a factor. And she continually flung magical blasts around the corridor, striking orcs with pinpoint accuracy. Ron could learn a thing or two about that – though I think I’m starting to get used to the smell of his stinking clouds. Heh.

Anyway, by the time Guss cut down the last fleeing orc, we’d all done our share of orc killing. The sudden silence of the end of the combat was punctuated by our harsh breathing. Something told me that this was just the start though – we had a way to go until we reached the dragon and this was but the entry way to the orcs’ area. My Mistress would certainly be getting her fill of orc souls on this day.

Poe

Sometime after meeting the dwarves