Heading west, the party quickly left the scorched regions and entered some plains. After two more hours of riding, the party went up a rise and saw a forest in the distance -- probably Lifeblood, since the party doesn't know of any other forests in the area. The forest was too far away to reach by nightfall but could be reached either by riding through the night (if Stealth's summoned mounts can hold out that long) or riding hard the following day.
Unfortunately, there was a defense perimeter between the party and the forest, composed of skeletons (facing west) stationed at 50 yard intervals along a N/S line as far as the eye could see (and there could always be more lying in the tall grass). And since the rise the party was on gave such a great view of the surrounding terrain and had lots of caves on the western face, it seemed a likely spot for an Eastern command post.
The party withdrew slightly and deliberated, and Thorongil came up with the idea of tunneling under the enemy line rather than trying to break through it. So the party waited until dusk (when evil priests and necromancers often memorize spells), Thor hulked out, and digging began; the summoned mounts were left to block the tunnel entrance. Thor spiraled down through the rise (hosing any attempts to fire lightning bolts down the tunnel), broke through into the soft soil of the plains, and started heading for the forest, guided by Cambra's direction sense.
- DM:
- "Thor now speeds up to his cruising speed and people eagerly await XP. Unfortunately, wandering monsters are scarce in this particular dungeon, and you travel uneventfully for a while."
- Roger:
- "Is this something to do with the fact that this dungeon wasn't here a few minutes ago?"
[Note: In Scott Berger's absence, Roger Christman began guest-playing Cambra on the 6/1 run.]
After about fifteen minutes, the party's path intersected a huge tunnel made by something roughly purple-worm sized heading down and southwards -- looks like the Earth Worm Temple has been putting some pets in the area.
Thorongil's hulk charge expired and the party surfaced; Cambra figured they were heading in roughly the right direction. Instead of choosing between the evils of blundering around in the dark running into undead and exposing light sources that would be visible for miles, Ganeth polymorphed into an umber hulk and went back to tunneling. After about half an hour, the party came across an old brittle dead root; it appeared to be from a Lifeblood tree (it had the right deep red hue) but was east of whatever forest was visible from the surface -- possibly the remains of a completely razed strectch of Lifeblood.
A few minutes later, Cambra started sensing some sort of heartbeat; she tried detecting evil, but if there was anything, it was more than sixty feet away. A small twelve-legged matte grey lizard with a long green forked tongue (with a round cross-section) and six dull green eyes then burrowed into the passageway and approached Cambra, sending her phrases telepathically as it went. It eventually touched her shield with its tongue, climbed up her armor, and sat around her shoulders with its head on top of her helmet (where it turned out to be heavy enough that it probably has a metallic or stone skeleton). The phrases it sent were
- danger
- warning
- beetles
- protect investment
- guardian beast
- watching
- patience (in response to Cambra trying to shake it off her arm)
- onward (after it was settled in)
- help (in response to Cambra asking what it should be called)
Silvana's reading of all this was that the party was about to stumble into something really dangerous (perhaps courtesy of the Earth Worm Temple, which would be in the whilgs' area of expertise), and since the whilgs still have big plans for Cambra (they did bring her back from being a statue in the Vlurshollow crypt, after all), they sent this creature to protect her from whatever was coming up (like hordes of burrowing death watch beetles).
- Cambra:
- "A cockatrice once taught me patience. I didn't like it."
Since the whilgs' warnings are generally no more than five minutes in advance of combat, Ganeth dug up to the surface, and the party made the overland dash to Lifeblood (with Cambra riding Frankel and a bat sense on Beeel to avoid the blind human problem). When they arrived, they were rather strangely not shot at by hostile wood elves, and the trees appeared to have been chewed on up to four or five feet above the ground and were oozing sap. As if a lot of really big beetles had come through.
On entering the forest, Cambra began sensing the heartbeat again. She scanned for evil and saw something on a branch, but it leaped away before anyone could get a good look at it. The party walked into the forest for another half hour, through more chewed-on trees (though only some trees appeared to have been damaged -- perhaps trees that were part of Lifeblood's defenses?) until they reached a clearing with a pile of dead bodies. The heartbeat sensation started growing stronger, so the party moved beyond the clearing, set up camp in a LTH, and tried to get some rest before dealing with the heartbeat's source.
About an hour and a half into the first guard shift, Pepper awoke with a scream as dozens of eight-legged monkeys dropped into the camp (six on each humanoid and eight on each equine...in other words, as many as could attack at once); Ganeth slept through the ruckus, but the rest of the non-guarding party awoke. Given the range on Pepper's danger sense, the creatures had to have come in extradimensionally to avoid triggering it sooner, and given the locale, there's a good chance they gated in through the trees.Silvana:
- "This is insulting. The Elemental Plane of Plant just spewed on us."
- Frankel:
- "We may be in trouble soon."
- Ganeth:
- "What about now?"
Round 1: Beeel used his headband of minor fear to scare off a good chunk of the spider monkeys, which turned out to be roughly 2 HD creatures. The monkeys tried to bite party members; the damage was minimal, but Ganeth and Silvana were poisoned. (This finally woke Ganeth up.) Cambra discovered that her sword blinds opponents on a natural 20, as the fighters beat on various monkeys. And a strangely shimmering spider appeared on a web in the trees thirty feet above and fired a black bolt (probably enervation) at Stealth (ignoring his mirror images and the outside of the hut)...so the overall plan appeared to be to poison as much of the party as possible, using enervation to hose people's saves.
- Frankel:
- "If Silvana dies the Champion of Good has died, and that can't be allowed."
- Silvana:
- "It's already happened."
Round 2: Silvana slowed poison on herself, but Ganeth became paralyzed a round after being bitten. The fighters took out some more monkeys. The spider tried to gaze at Cambra with another black bolt, but the lizard absorbed the bolt and momentarily glowed green; it then fired six black beams out its eyes, each killing a monkey. Stealth tried activating his Kizaz necklace by throwing it on the ground, but it started burrowing away when it landed.
- Beeel: [regarding G's poisoning]
- "Any other visible effects? Foam at the mouth? Shuddering?"
- DM:
- "He looks more peaceful than usual."
- Erich:
- "That's not saying much."
Round 3: The spider proved immune to nonmagical weapons, though it took damage from fire and ice. It sent a fat black bolt at Silvana, who MRed it (which was good, since this one looked likely to hurt even on a successful save) and used a scroll of neutralize poison on Ganeth, preventing the chaos storm that would likely follow his death. More monkeys killed, of course. And a large yet compact four-legged leafy thorny monster emerged from the ground where Stealth dropped the necklace.
- Frankel: [to Beeel]
- "Going around the field slaying the wounded?"
- Beeel:
- "No, Frankel, I haven't killed you yet."
Round 4: Yet more killing of monkeys as the spider dropped an area effect (fireball-sized) enervation globe (with a +2 bonus on the save) into the party instead of gazing; Beeel and Thorongil lost four levels and some more monkeys went down. Cambra discovered that her octagon shield gives a +4 on saves against evil death-magic. And the Kizaz ran up the tree and yanked the spider out of the web; both came crashing to the ground.
- Cambra:
- "They should put some of their paws over their eyes, ears, and mouths so we can tell them apart."
Round 5: The party collapsed onto the spider but didn't quite manage to kill it; it made some casting gestures (ignoring the damage it was taking) and went ethereal at the end of the round.
Round 6: The Kizaz and most of the party swept up the remaining monkeys. Silvana dropped her shortsword (which can attack creatures on the ethereal) and wraithformed, preparing to activate her electric scimitar and engage the spider on the ethereal. Ganeth cast det invis, preparing to attack the spider from the Prime with Silvana's short sword. He got the spell off just in time to see the spider send a crackling black bolt Silvana's way; it was a finger of death, and Silvana went down.
Rounds 7 and 8: Tylerion arrived, and he and Ganeth chased down the spider and killed it. (This dispelled the hut, but G was a bit too preoccupied to notice.)
Round 9: Ganeth, still completely unarmored, quickly returned to the party before something else came along.
Round 11: The spider's corpse exploded on the ethereal in a black burst of necromantic nastiness.
- Rahul: [to Gita and Erich]
- "I would never imagine some of the chances you two take."
- Gita:
- "There's a method to the madness."
In retrospect, it appeared that Rakni had taken a new approach for her latest retaliation: Instead of sending her minions out to track the party down, she set up an ambush somewhere she knew they'd eventually show up. And some good is likely to result from the furor surrounding the Champion of Good's death: Whitemoon will be more inclined to view Rakni as a real threat and will probably put more pressure on Plant Dude to start cleaning up Lifeblood (which he promised to do following the demonic tree incident but clearly hasn't gotten started on -- and he certainly won't be pleased to learn that Rakni has a presence in Lifeblood and was able to use the Elemental Plane of Plant for her attack), and the extraplanar sponsors overall might also realize the party is going to need some help to pull off everything these beings want from them. On the down side, Plant Dude and Whitemoon are going to have to cough up some energy to bring Silvana back, though with the party in a forest it should be easy enough for PD to recover the body (which is in very good condition). And unless Whitemoon, Plant Dude, or some associated extraplanars decide they're feeling especially helpful (or guilty), the party may have to muddle through Lifeblood (or at least survive in it) relying on Cambra's laying on of hands for healing.