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Ashton Entry 4
Without the interference of the drow-spiders it was easy enough to carry on into the next room. Karamus approached the next set of doors and noted them as free and safe to pass. The doors quickly swung wide and we made our entrance to the room.
Kort took up the lead and before any could react, was descended upon by a demon woman. I will admit that her charms were alluring, but she made it easy to ignore as she tried to grab hold of our dwarven companion. He fought her off but not before a wall of burning flame cut him off from the rest of us, trapping us behind him.
Well, I would not stand for this. Thinking quickly I drew forth one of my wands and concentrated. Drawing the words up from my mind I whisked the flaming barrier off into the aether. The succubus (as I recognized her now) was not fast enough though. Karamus, sneaky as he is rolled forward and around the creature and planted one of his weapons through her with a blinding flash. This seemed to cause the demon much distress as she began to take flight away. But she was irrational in this maneuver and was struck again by Karamus who near severed her entire leg in another blinding flash. The demonic woman slumped and fell heavy to the ground, her life forfeit.
It was time to head in further, much more cautious now. A good thing too, because before too long we were caught up with another burning denizen. A flame elemental emerged from behind a pillar as we were heading to investigate Elias’ claim of a wyrm-man with a fire spear. The elemental caught Kort in it’s wrath and was immediately engaged. Kaurophon, thinking quickly, banished the elemental back to whence it came and we swiftly fell upon the wyrm-man who had summoned the thing.
It was crafty as it took Karamus into it’s crushing grip and held him there in hopes (I would assume) to keep us at bay. This foolhardy tactic was a failure though as Elias did something rather unexpected… He bashed the reptilian man with a bottle of booze! I was surprised at the effectiveness of this attack as it seemed to actually cause the thing a deal of pain. Quickly, Kort swung with Alakast, the holy staff we had come across in our travels, and felled the beast.
We took stock of the room and noted two doors, as we did this something odd and helpful happened. The world shifted. We were in Celestia! The air was clean, the Cathedral of Feathers was whole and the world outside was at peace. I swore I could hear chimes. This is a place I would like to visit some day in my travels. But the effect was short lived as the world seemed to shudder once more and we found ourselves once again within Occipitus. I must say, I was rather disappointed. I even toyed with the idea of waiting for it to happen again in order to escape to Celestia. A short conversation with Kaurophon negated this idea as he said that they were like ripples and the land always regressed to Occipitus.
As we milled about I noticed a door to the side that had been left unopened. Karamus listened at it after coming back from some vanishing act he is prone to do. He said that he could hear the sound of “paper wings”. Interested I opened the door to a great Celestial library. The books hovered in the air above me and I decided it was time to attempt to catch one to peruse it’s contents. No sooner than I attempted this though than many of the tomes flew at me and exploded in blinding bursts. I had thrown my arms up in defense waiting for the pain but noticed I was unharmed. The books however were not so lucky. So I used my wand to try to dispel any effect in the room. It did not work, the magics of Celestia are definitely more potent than my own at the moment.
I attempted to gather more only to have the same result of being painlessly attacked by books. The light bursts however, left all but about ten of them in tatters. I gathered up the ones that were still salvageable and placed them in my bag. Unsatisfied with this result, but I had fumbled through this and would have to make do.
The now empty library seemed an ideal place to rest for the night, I wanted to memorize my spells and rest for tomorrow and Bransen insisted that he was low on power as well. We relaxed as much as we could and Jarvyk and I discussed with Kaurophon the coming battle. Apparently the first test involved fighting a mighty bebilith, and we racked our brains for any information. My teachings finally paid off as I recalled their weakness to weapons aligned with goodness and their ability to rend armor with their mighty claws. This in mind, we prepared for the next day’s affairs.
We awoke and began our strategy. Bransen sacrificed some components to gain holy (although he won’t admit it) insight to our next trial. Apparently the bebilith carried a strong poison and it was determined that Sir Jarvyk would be the best candidate to approach the thing. Kort lent him his armor and after some poison neutralization from our “Holy Sorcerer”... I swear, sorcery is arcane, he seems to be able to cause more divine effects. I know not of a health spell for arcane practitioners and he uses this more than any other! Necromancy covers many effects of controlling life, but there are few spells that grant it to the living without taking a strong toll from the caster.
But I digress, Bransen’s oddities are for another time and I have enough distractions in my head. I hope the books I gathered have some useful information, then again, if not then I haven’t really lost anything, only gained additions to my personal library.
After some further preparations we decided to continue on down the stairs and farther into the ruins. The stairs descended far into the bowels of this hellish plane. We emerged out into a granite room where a mummified corpse set at a desk, it’s body withered and wrapped, it’s armor bore gold filigree. Upon our entrance it arose and spoke to us of Adimarchus, former ruler of Occipitus. It welcomed us to the Test of the Smoking Eye and told us that we are to step forth to the Test of Judgment.
It gestured to two iron doors and spoke again. Behind one was the bebilith, the other housed a celestial avoral guardian. I felt sad for the Celestial, trapped here within this test for eternity. I then wondered if it were killed how would they gather a new Celestial. Does this mummy know some form of resurrection ritual, does he force that celestial and the demon to fight and revive and fight and revive for eternity? What a horrible fate.
Luckily for us Kaurophon knew we had to enter the room with the bebilith and we had already prepared for it, so it was time to fight. The door opened and we entered. As soon as we got through we noted that Kaurophon could not enter, so from the other side he sped our reactions with his powers and left us to our fate. The room was a maze of catwalks and ledges, above was a ceiling of spikes, below, the same thing. Before we could react Jarvyk was in the beblith’s jaws and I allowed Kort flight to fight the beast from afar.
It was as I had pictured it in my head the night before, only larger and far uglier. The size of a horse and with legs that spanned twice it’s heigt. It continued its assault on Jarvyk and we spread out, I granted myself flight and approached invisibly to unleash withering energy upon the demon. Elias struck out at the monster with Alakast and Kort fired into it’s tough hide. We fought and I weakened it magically, hindering it’s ability to attack.
The fought was swiftly won. The demon stood no chance against our proper preparations. We searched the room in hopes of finding some items or artifacts but were disappointed in our search, so we continued onward and out. Upon our egress we found ourselves in a new room upon whose walls frescoes were painted depicting who I could only assume was Adimarchus himself heading into battle. The walls were carved with the line “Know who made you” in Abyssal and Celestial.
In the room a dais stood with a lantern upon it. As we approached the lantern the mummy appeared once again and began to speak. The test of judgment was over and we were advised to “deal with our rivals first” and that the lantern would lead us to our next trial. These were the words of Adimarchus. Upon this utterance the mummy vanished back to who knows where.
We took note that the lantern, now in Kort’s hands, cast a beam into the distance and out of the room. We followed the beam up and back to the Cathedral of Feathers where Kaurophon waited, relieved that we had made it. We continued to follow the beam up and out. The beam pointed northeast and we swiftly realized that we could very well be walking targets now that we had passed the first test. I have confidence in my companions though, we will persevere. I will be home again, I will leave this miserable place and continue my task after this is done with. I feel I have dallied overlong with this. I grow impatient with this test, it draws me away from my journey. I have the scroll… We could leave, I could leave.
No, once again, I find myself viewing my thoughts as if they were those of my fathers. Cruel and selfish, I will not fall to these urges. This is but another part of my quest, another part of my journey to gather what I need.