Session 11

Brabara awoke in a foul mood.

Her anger at being brought here remained undiminished, and despite her agreeing to aid her companions – for now – she couldn’t bring herself to trust the three wizards. Something about this felt wrong, and she resolved to return home as soon as possible.

Everything annoyed her.

From the magnificent comfort of the bed and the cloying warmth of the blankets to the subtle scent of lavender that kept the air fresh. Everything here sucked. But worst of all was the spectacular view from the window. Providing an incredible vista of the city as it curved away to either side with the magnificent monolith, known as the Spire, dominating the sky at its centre.

She grumbled as the others slept, muttered as they awoke, and sighed loudly as she was forced to consume a delicious breakfast of excellent eggs, sausages, bacon, and pastries in the dining room on the lower floor.

Truly, she couldn’t imagine being in a more woeful place.

“I have configured the portal,” Alustriel said as she swept into the room, still showing signs of exhaustion but looking far more put together than yesterday. “And the last delivery of equipment came this morning.”

“Great,” Brabara said as she popped a third boiled egg into her mouth. “I guess we’d better gear up then.”

Xalen sighed. “Can you not?”

Brabara rounded on the elf rogue. “Can I not, what?”

Xalen waved a hand vaguely in her direction. “All of this,” he said. “You were huffing and puffing all night. It’s a miracle any of us got to sleep with all your heavy sighing. You’re angry. We get it.”

Brabara’s face reddened. “Oh, you get it do you? You might be fine with being ripped out of your life. Being forced to leave everything behind and go on some fool quest at the behest of a trio of crazy wizards, but I am not.”

Xalen was unmoved. “Nobody is forcing you to do anything, Brabara. Go. Stay. That’s up to you. I’m sure Lady Alustriel would be happy to send you back to Neverwinter if you ask her. Nobody wants you stomping around the place and putting everyone else on edge with your self-pity.”

Brabara’s jaw dropped, and she stood open mouthed.

“So, make up your mind,” Xalen continued. “Collect whatever gear you asked for and come with us to maybe do some good or go back to Neverwinter and live whatever small life you and Tiny can have together. Just make your decision quickly so we don’t have to put up with another second of this pathetic display.”

“Well. I, um, I see,” Brabara stammered. “Of course I want to help. You’re my friends and I care about you.”

Xalen nodded, and clapped Brabara warmly on the back. “Glad to hear it. Now go get your stuff and get ready. We’ve got a multiverse to save.”

The others all looked at Xalen in disbelief as Brabara walked away.

“What?” Xalen said with a shrug. “You were all thinking it.”

---

The Succulent Juices stood before the portal in Alustriel’s sanctum, outfitted with their new gear and equipped with a good supply of healing potions.

The portal itself was a tall oval, wide enough for three people to walk through and more than twenty feet tall. Intricate runes were cut into the oval frame and a curtain of what appeared to be glowing liquid swirled within.

“How close to Web’s Edge will we appear?” Seknafret asked.

“I have calibrated the portal for a natural cavern within an hour’s walk from the target,” Alustriel explained. “It will remain open for the duration but, I must warn you, a tremor or the nearby passage of a worm or umber hulk might cause the portal to become inaccessible to you upon your return. So, I recommend you do not tarry.”

“What do we do if that does happen?” Xalen asked.

“There are spells I can use to contact them,” Ebyn replied.

Alustriel nodded. “If we receive such a message, I will need to find another suitable location and recalibrate the portal which will take some time.”

“Are we ready then?” Brabara said, her words clipped.

The others nodded and the four of them stepped through. With one step they moved from opulence to darkness. From Sigil to the caverns of the Underdark.

Seknafret shuddered, finding it hard to catch her breath. She summoned a light at the tip of her staff and held it aloft. “My people live in the open spaces beneath the endless skies of the Anauroch. I can feel the weight of stone around me, and I do not like it.”

“Me neither,” Brabara said. “Is there any way you can make that light brighter?”

Seknafret smiled. “I can’t, sorry. But it feels better knowing I am not alone down here.”

“Which way do we go?” Xalen said, peering into the darkness. “Anyone got any idea which way is which?”

“Cardinal directions mean little down here,” Ebyn said.

Xalen started walking out of the tunnel. “Stay close and try to keep the noise down. There are plenty of places for ambushers to hide and sound travels easily.”

“What about the light?” Seknafret asked.

Xalen glanced at the flicker of flame at the tip of her staff. “Can you change the colour?”

Seknafret nodded. “Sure, what do you want me to use.”

Xalen thought for a moment. “Red. And keep it low to the ground as we walk.”

He led the group through a series of tunnels, occasionally scouting up ahead, and even doubling back once as he selected their path. They emerged onto a well-worn track, wide enough for a cart to traverse, and decided to take the left path. They followed this for about thirty minutes when Xalen called the group to a halt.

“I think we went the wrong way,” he whispered.

“What makes you say that?” Ebyn asked.

“Alustriel told us we’d be no more than an hour from the target,” he said. “We have been going longer than that. I suggest we back track to where we joined this path and go the other way.”

“Any sign of recent passage?” Brabara said.

Xalen shook his head. “It’s hard to make out anything like that down here. We’re walking on solid rock. What I can say, based on the amount of fungal growth, is that this passage is not well used.”

“You seem to know your way around down here pretty well,” Ebyn said.

Xalen shrugged. “Remember that renegade Thayan wizard we were tracking last year?”

Brabara scoffed. “Hard to forget almost freezing my tits off in the North.”

“Yes. Well, my group spent a bit of time down here,” Xalen continued. “I picked up a thing or two from Halgred. Plus, it’s not too different from navigating the sewers back home.”

“Apart from the thousands of feet of dirt and stone above our heads.” Seknafret added.

Xalen chuckled. “Yes, apart from that.”

“We’ll follow your lead,” Brabara said and stepped to the side so Xalen could pass.

He led the group back the way they’d come, past the passage that would take them back to the portal, and further along the wider path. Fifteen or so minutes later the passage widened slightly then ended abruptly at a stone wall.

“Maybe we were going the right way?” Brabara said as they milled about the cul-de-sac.

Xalen shook his head. “No. This is the right place, look.”

The thief pointed at some parallel ruts that ran down the centre of the path and seemed to continue beyond the wall.

“There’s a door here,” he said. “It’s just hidden somehow.”

Ebyn stepped forward, hands raised. “Allow me.”

He spoke a series of arcane words while his fingers danced in complex patterns then pointed at the wall where the door should be. A moment later the concealing magic ended, and a tall iron door, decorated in swirling patterns, was revealed.

“Nice,” Brabara said.

Ebyn smiled. “My suppression of the magic is temporary. It may last an hour or just a few minutes depending on the power of the original effect. So, I suggest we find a way to open the door quickly.”

Xalen stepped up to the door and ran his hands along the cold metal surface, brow furrowed in concentration. His experienced fingers and trained eyes soon noted several symbols subtly carved into the door’s surface, hidden amid the patterns.

“These look like runes,” he said and activated the magic of his helm.

The symbols coalesced into letters, recognisable now from the magic and he saw there were six of them.

“Hey,” he said. “What did Mordenkainen call this place?”

“Web’s Edge,” Ebyn replied.

Xalen looked at the runes again and smiled. “Got it,” he whispered, and began spelling out the name. The door clicked as his fingers touched the E for the last time.

“Nice,” Brabara whistled, and moved over to the door.

“Wait,” Ebyn hissed. “Let me first do a ritual asking for guidance before we go blundering in.”

Brabara stopped, turned and waited for Ebyn to begin casting his divination spell. She’d seen him do this dozens of times before, and she always felt it was a waste of time. Seeing him do it now lit an impatient spark inside her.

Didn’t the wizards say that time was of the essence? Isn’t the threat to the multiverse imminent? The more she thought about it the more this irrelevant bullshit irked her. Before Ebyn was even halfway through his casting, Brabara turned back around, pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Seknafret’s eyes widened. “What are you doing?”

Xalen glanced across at Seknafret, shrugged and followed the big warrior inside.

Clumps of bioluminescent fungus clung to the walls of this large chamber bathing the area in a faint blue light. The remains of mould-covered broken wagons and barrels languished in this large natural chamber. Humanoid skeletal remains lay strewn about, their swords and armour bent and rusted, and something gleamed among the bodies propped along the wall to the left of the door.

One set of double doors stood on the wall opposite, with two others set at the very edge of the cavern on either side. A passageway curved to the right continuing beyond their sight around a corner.

Brabara flicked two fingers to the right and Xalen padded off in that direction to peer down the open passage. The young rogue edged forward, keeping tight against the wall and moved around the corner while Brabara stood at the centre of the entrance chamber and waited.

The path opened into a semicircular cavern with several shelves carved into the stone around the whole space. The shelves were filled with small, repulsive items, including bloody baubles, shrivelled fingers, and spider shaped idols carved from bone.

Two figures knelt on the floor before an impressive statue of Lolth. One of them stiffened when Xalen scuffed a stone as he moved.

“We have guests, Torkner,” the taller of the two figures said.

The other, Torkner, collected a staff from the ground at his feet. “Then let’s give them a proper welcome, Makubli,” he said in a deep voice.

Xalen backed away as the first figure, Makubli, a tall, red-skinned hobgoblin, rose and tossed a javelin with impressive accuracy at the spot where Xalen had been standing. He sprinted back around the corner to Brabara.

“Trouble,” Xalen hissed and pressed himself against a wall.

The hobgoblin rounded the corner at a full run, wicked looking blades dripping foul venom in both hands. Using the walls of the chamber to get some height, he somersaulted over Xalen’s tilting head and landed neatly beside Brabara who couldn’t bring her glaive around fast enough to stop him.

In a flash, Makubli’s blades slid past Brabara’s defences, and opened deep cuts on her arm and left leg before he leapt back several feet and darted off into the distance.

Brabara winced at the pain and could feel her body fighting off the effects of whatever poison the man used. She staggered as sweat beaded on her brow, but her robust constitution kept her from being brought low.

Torkner, a duergar, darted out of the chapel toward the nearest of the iron doors set against the far wall. Xalen sent a couple of shafts toward the rapidly moving man, one arrow burying deep in the duergar’s thigh. He reached the doors despite the wound and banged loudly on the thick iron before disappearing.

“Shit,” Xalen said, eyes darting for any sign of Torkner’s passage.

Seknafret stood outside the chamber where Ebyn, entirely focussed on his magic, worked the ritual. She heard combat from within, and with a shake of her head, stepped into the doorway to see Brabara, bleeding from several cuts, and Xalen, head turning every which way, before her.

“What’s happened?” she hissed.

“Two of them, for now,” Brabara said, glaive moving in a wide arc toward the left of the entry doors. “Swordsman and spellcaster, I think.”

“Mage is invisible,” Xalen added, keeping his attention focussed on the space to the right.

Seknafret sighed as she took a step to the right and placed her back against the cavern wall.

The hobgoblin charged in from the shadows, but this time Brabara was ready. She brought her glaive up to strike the man in the chest, halting his advance. Makubli cursed in frustration. He let go of his swords, leather thongs around the hilts allowed them to dangle free as he took a pair of knives from his belt and tossed them. The tiny blades spun in a glittering line with each one finding gaps in Brabara’s armour.

Brabara grunted in pain and attacked the man with her glaive. He was quick, but not quick enough and she landed two solid strikes that staggered him briefly.

The duergar appeared a short distance away, hands held before him, palms together with fingers splayed toward them. A blast of freezing air erupted from his hands to strike all three of them.

The chilly air bit deep and left Xalen reeling, hands numb from the cold. His next two arrows flew well wide of their mark and the duergar was able to skip back around the corner and out of sight.

Shivering, Seknafret turned toward the hobgoblin engaged with Brabara and struck him with several eldritch blasts. The magical bolts of force staggered the man, but he gritted his teeth and fought on. Brabara used her superior reach and battlefield control to keep him from getting away which allowed Xalen to move into a position where he could strike at the hobgoblin’s most vulnerable spots.

Two arrows flew from Xalen’s bow, the first striking Makubli high in the shoulder which caused him to lift his arm in pain, and the second burying itself into the man’s armpit and down into his chest.

Makubli coughed once, a bloody string of drool dangling from his lips. He looked down at the arrow emerging from his leather armour then back up at Brabara in disbelief before dropping to the ground.

Brabara staggered, blood streaming from several wounds of her own. “Now, let’s get that fucking mage.”

The three of them, with Brabara in the lead, rounded the corner into the chapel where Xalen had first spotted the two of them. Torkner stood at the centre of the room, staff in hand, grown to more than ten feet high, his bald head almost touching the ceiling.

“Welcome to Web’s Edge,” he snarled. “Ker-arach will welcome your fresh meat.”

Brabara gripped her glaive in both hands and stepped into the room. “We’ve killed your friend, mage. You have this one chance to surrender, or you’ll go the same way.”

In response, Torkner brought his staff, now the size of a small tree, around in a wide arc. The blow crunched into Brabara’s chest and sent her flying to land in a clattering heap against the wall.

“Surrender, eh?” Torkner scoffed. “How about you lot surrender to me?”

Seknafret moved backward as she launched a volley of eldritch blasts at the enlarged duergar while Xalen peppered the man with arrows. Brabara clambered to her feet and moved up to attack. Before she could swing, the mage dissolved into a cloud of mist and appeared beside Seknafret an instant later. He slammed the staff down, hard.

Seknafret squealed as she was struck and barely managed to keep her feet.

Xalen swung around and sent another pair of arrows at the duergar, his increased size making it almost impossible to miss.

Brabara ran past and swung with her glaive, the polearm cut deep into Torkner’s leg and forced him onto one knee, pain evident in his face. Brabara’s second attack landed only a glancing blow but for all Torkner’s boasting the duergar was done.

Seknafret finished him off with another volley of eldritch blasts and his body shrunk back down to normal size as he died.

Breathing hard, the trio looked around the cavern, hoping against hope that their combat did not attract any attention from further inside the complex.

Nothing came, and after a tense minute or so they allowed themselves to relax a little.

“That hurt,” Brabara said holding an arm to her chest. “I was lucky the poison didn’t get me, or I’d have been in serious trouble.”

Xalen, still shivering from the blast of icy air, started moving back toward the entrance. “We should make sure Ebyn is okay.”

Brabara’s eyes widened. “Oh yeah, I forgot he was still out there.”

The trio moved back out through the doors where Ebyn remained deep in the process of his ritual.

Ebyn completed the spell a few minutes later and looked up. His eyes widened as he noticed Brabara, bloodied and nursing an injured arm, Xalen, shivering with lips and fingers blue, and Seknafret bruised with a graze on her head.

“What did I miss?” he said.

Brabara swallowed. “We got into a little scuffle in there. Don’t worry though, we handled it.”

Ebyn’s eyes narrowed. “You went inside? After I asked you not to?”

“Yep,” Xalen said, having the decency to at least look sheepish.

Ebyn rolled his eyes and sighed. “I swear, you’ll be the death of me.”

Brabara shrugged. “What’s done is done. What guidance did your spell provide?”

Ebyn stared at her for a long moment before answering. “That subterfuge will prove more likely to succeed than a direct assault.”

“Cool,” Brabara said with a nod. “Sounds like a plan.”

They dragged the two bodies out of the entrance cavern and searched them before tucking them away behind some rocks a short distance back along the path.

Makubli and Torkner each wore a matching silver locket with a spider motif on a chain around their necks but had nothing else of value on their person. Whatever poison Makubli coated on his blades seemed to come from the man himself rather than some stash of poison he carried.

They took the opportunity to have a short rest after the fight to plan. Ebyn’s divination magic indicated that subtlety was more likely to prove successful, so infiltration seemed like an obvious choice.

“Nobody will believe us,” Brabara said. “We couldn’t look less like Lolth worshippers.”

Ebyn shrugged. “I wouldn’t consider a hobgoblin or a duergar as typical either, yet here they were. Here, at least, it seems all kinds might be accepted if we play this right.”

“Fine. But we have just two of these necklaces, and there are four of us.” Brabara pointed out.

“I wouldn’t wear one anyway,” Seknafret said. “My pact forbids it.”

Xalen nodded. “As long as we make sure those two are visible, anyone we meet will assume the rest of us have them. Act like we belong, and they’ll fill in their own blanks, try and be sneaky and we’re screwed.”

Brabara eyed him flatly. “Speaking from experience, I assume.”

“You know it,” he said with a smile.

“And this time,” Ebyn said, voice grave. “If I ask for a little patience, I expect you to have it. That fight could have brought the whole place down on us.”

“But it didn’t,” Brabara said.

Ebyn stared at her. “That was luck, nothing else. Let’s not put that luck to the test again.”

---

Their rest over, the Juices re-entered the cavern.

“There’s gems on the floor here,” Ebyn said as they moved through the chamber to the double doors to the left.

Xalen glanced over to one of the gleaming fist sized stones. “An obvious trap. I’d steer clear of them.”

Ebyn’s path deviated slightly. “Right you are.”

Xalen approached the large iron doors and studied them carefully, using his tools to check for any more traps. He found none, but the doors were locked.

“Don’t suppose we found any keys on the bodies?” he asked.

Brabara shook her head. “No.”

Xalen shrugged and turned his attention to the lock. It was well made and took every ounce of his patience and experience to coax the mechanism open. The sound of that last faint click felt like music to his ears as he stepped back.

“After you,” he said, giving Brabara an elaborate bow.

The doors opened with very little sound. Brabara stepped through to a wide passage, about fifteen feet long, that opened into a natural cavern. Two more passages exited that chamber, one continuing straight ahead along their current path, and the other heading to the right. But between them and that second passage was a somewhat disturbing sight.

An enormous pentagram drawn in chalk, with stubby unlit candles placed at each of its five points, covered the floor of the chamber. A hooded figure hunched over a cluttered table on the opposite side of the room, mumbling a ritual of some kind.

“He’s summoning something,” Ebyn whispered in Brabara’s ear.

Xalen’s eyes narrowed. “He seems focussed on his task. We could sneak across to this nearest passage without him noticing.”

Brabara’s knuckles whitened on the haft of her weapon. “I don’t like the idea of a demon being down here with us.”

As if in response to her words, a large figure began to take shape within the pentagram. A fell looking creature with four limbs, two of which sported wicked looking claws.

“That tears it,” Brabara said and strode across the room.

The summoner, a deep gnome based on its size, barely looked up as Brabara’s glaive struck down. Once. Twice. Three times.

The gnome fell in a spurt of dark blood, ritual words cut off in a gurgle. The demon forming in the pentagram vanished leaving behind the faint scent of sulphur and the scroll the gnome was reading burned away.

Ebyn crossed the room to start rifling through the remaining papers on the desk, while Brabara wedged the spell caster’s diminutive corpse into a small fissure in the chamber’s wall.

“Good enough for a quick glance,” she said, admiring her handiwork. “Anything useful in the desk?”

Ebyn nodded. “A couple of scrolls and components. Nothing that would interest you though.”

As they searched, a grey-skinned humanoid shuffled into the chamber from the upper passageway. It looked around with its hideous face, obviously blind eyes still able to see them as they stood about.

"There's someone here," the thing said in a drooling form of undercommon. "The ritual has been stopped."

Brabara moved up beside the awful looking thing, not entirely sure if she should talk to it or kill it. But before she could decide, another figure entered the chamber. A beautiful human looking woman with large red feathered wings at her back, dressed in plate armour with a longsword at her side.

She smiled as she saw them. "Guests," she said, her voice sounding like honey. "What a wonderful distraction. Why are you here?"

"We are here to trade with you," Seknafret said, her voice calm and even as she recited the lies the group had agreed on. "My employer is seeking a magic item, and my guides," she indicated the rest of the group. "Assured me this was the place to come."

"I see," the winged woman's beautiful eyes narrowed, "and what has become of my summoner's ritual?"

"No idea!" Brabara blabbed, "It was like this when we got here. Pretty sure I saw something run down there." She pointed down the lower passageway.

"Of course." The beautiful devil smiled. "You must think me some kind of idiot. Claiming to have witnessed Grottonelle's attacker fleeing while having my summoner's blood on your weapon. I hope your battle skill exceeds your talent for deception."

The winged woman attacked with blistering speed. She closed on Brabara and delivered three precise strikes with her sword and parried a solid strike from Brabara.

Xalen circled the fight to send arrows at the woman, but the shafts went wide, and she laughed at his inaccuracy, angelic voice entirely at odds with her fury in battle.

The grey humanoid lumbered to the desk and swung a nasty looking spiked club at Ebyn, striking the mage firmly in the chest. Ebyn staggered back and vanished, appearing a heartbeat later at the opposite end of the chamber. The grey humanoid let out a wail of despair and turned about looking for something else to strike.

A third figure entered the chamber from the upper passage; an orc dressed in a long black robe. The orc raised a hand, pointing with its index finger. A bright streak flashed from the tip of that finger to the centre of the chamber where it exploded in a ball of fire.

Xalen dodged his way clear of the flames taking only minor burns, but Seknafret copped the full brunt, and she staggered back out of the room patting flames from her clothing as she fled. Brabara, who fought at the edge of the blast, managed to avoid serious injury but still her exposed flesh blistered.

The winged woman smiled. “Oh. It’s getting hot in here.”

Brabara, ignoring the stinging pain of her burns, concentrated on the woman. Her glaive lashed about, but each time she thought she had landed a hit, the woman either blocked it with her sword or danced away. She was proving very difficult.

Ebyn could see the orc wizard in the passage behind the swirling combat and sent a firebolt its way. The mote of flame struck the orc in the chest and forced him to seek cover around the corner.

The grey humanoid raised its spiked club and moved toward the badly injured Seknafret, breathing heavily against a wall a short distance away. She saw the beast coming and struck it with an eldritch blast that dropped it lifeless to the floor.

Bow raised and arrow knocked, Xalen waited. He’d spied another attacker lurking in the shadows in that upper passage but lost them when the fireball exploded. His patience was rewarded when a female drow, dressed in leather armour, stepped out from behind a curve in the wall. He loosed the arrow striking the would-be ambusher solidly. The drow scowled and hissed at Xalen, returning fire with an arrow of her own before ducking back behind cover.

The drow’s arrow struck Xalen in the shoulder. The wound itself was minor, but the poison on the tip burned through Xalen’s body. The young rogue doubled over in pain and staggered against the charred remains of the summoner’s desk.

Seknafret could see the others responding to threats from that upper passage, so she called upon the power of her pact to create a glowing wall of radiant light behind Brabara and the winged woman, blocking access to that passage.

Brabara saw the woman recoil when the wall of light appeared and decided to change her tactics. She tossed her glaive aside and reached for the nimble warrior instead. The woman slipped free of her first grab, but Brabara was able to get a good grip on her second and she held the winged woman against her.

The woman’s wings flailed as she struggled to get free, but Brabara’s arms only tightened as she squeezed.

“I got you,” Brabara said with a cruel smile. “Time to step into the light.”

Holding the woman, Brabara stepped into the wall.

Radiant energy burned them both, but the devil woman was hurt far worse. She flailed wildly in Brabara’s arms, finally able to wrench free and fly out of the wall to land, with smoke rising from her charred wings, in the centre of the pentagram.

“I’ll kill you, bitch,” she spat.

Brabara turned to face her, eyes darting to where she’d tossed her glaive. The devil woman saw what she was looking at and smiled.

“An honourable warrior would let you claim your weapon,” she said. “But then, I’ve never had much time for honour.”

The two of them moved at once. Brabara ran to her glaive while the woman landed three heavy blows with her sword. Brabara staggered at the last and almost fell face first onto the floor.

Xalen and Ebyn attacked the woman. Xalen finally managed to land a hit with his arrows, and Ebyn caused a loud bell to clang in the air beside her. The beautiful devil gripped her head in obvious pain, screaming as her flesh blackened.

The distraction was enough to let Brabara collect her glaive and swing it around. The long blade cut into the woman’s side, and she fell screaming to the ground. Brabara stepped up and struck her again.

The scream choked off and silence fell.

Seknafret cried out before anyone could catch a breath, an arrow sticking from her arm. She turned to point down the passage behind her when she doubled over with a loud groan.

“Behind us,” she managed, staggering back into the room with the others. The wall of light she’d created collapsed as the pain from the poison wracked her body.

The drow woman stepped into the room after Seknafret, venom tipped blades dripping, her eyes fixed on the stricken warlock. Before anyone could react, the orc mage stepped out from behind cover to cause a hail of ice to fall upon them. The rock-hard shards pummelled the entire area and made the floor of the summoning chamber slippery.

Seknafret fell under the barrage of ice.

Brabara, barely conscious, crawled away out of the room, dragging an unconscious Seknafret with her. She snagged one of the healing potions from her pouch and poured the magical draught into Seknafret’s slack mouth.

Seknafret stirred briefly, coughing up blood and bile, and pushed herself upright. “What happened?”

“Ice storm,” Brabara managed weakly, taking a second healing potion out and downing it. “It hit us when your wall came down.”

Back in the room, Xalen and the drow assassin exchanged blows. Fighting with blades was not Xalen’s strong suit, but he somehow managed to hold his own against the skilled opponent. He knew that a cut from those weapons would hurt him badly and he hoped he could hold out long enough for Brabara to get back into the fight.

Ebyn and the orc mage traded missiles, each one emerging from cover just long enough to shoot before ducking back again. Interspersing firebolts with magic missiles, the pair pinged at one another. It was not an effective strategy, the bolts struck stone more than they did flesh, and each hit from the missiles proved debilitating to both. It was only a matter of time before one or the other would succumb to the damage, and Ebyn wasn’t entirely sure which one of them would fall first.

Brabara sucked a second healing potion and peered around the corner to see Xalen and the drow engaged.

Things were not going well.

The drow hit Xalen twice, the first just a shallow cut on his arm, but the second saw its blade buried deep in Xalen’s side.

“Oh, shit,” Brabara muttered and used her glaive to haul her aching body back onto her feet. “Back into the fray I go.”

Xalen fell back as the assassin’s second blade struck him. Despite being ready, the pain from the poison felt like fire and he lurched away in agony. The drow smiled at Xalen’s obvious discomfort, but he spotted Brabara closing in behind her and managed a smile of his own.

Brabara’s glaive sliced into the drow’s back with staggering force. Brabara didn’t quite catch the canny elf by surprise, but she was wrong footed enough that she stumbled as the polearm hit. Brabara’s second strike was less effective. The drow spun away at the last moment, and she landed only a glancing blow. Her third attack was blocked by the drow’s weapon and turned aside.

Xalen tried to move in close to bury a dagger into the woman’s thigh. She turned away before he could really twist the blade, but dark blood flowed freely from the wound.

Seknafret propped herself up and waited for the orc mage to show himself. As soon as she caught a glimpse of that dark robe, she launched a volley of eldritch blasts toward him. The first struck him solidly, and the second sent him spiralling back to land ten feet away.

As the orc struggled to his feet without the benefit of cover, Ebyn stood up and channelled a significant chunk of his remaining power into another magic missile. Seven glowing darts flew from Ebyn’s outstretched hand to hit the flailing orc.

The mage’s body jerked with each hit, and as the final missile struck, he dropped to the ground and stayed there.

Brabara managed another couple of hits against the drow, and she could tell the assassin was in trouble. The drow was moving slower now and her eyes darted from side to side. It seemed to Brabara like she was preparing to flee.

Brabara circled around to block the exit before the next exchange. “Make sure she doesn’t get away.”

Xalen nodded and moved up behind her.

The drow’s eyes narrowed. She knew there would be no escape, so she put everything she had left into her attacks. Her blades pierced Brabara’s flesh, but the big warrior’s strong constitution protected her from the poison.

Xalen darted in again. This time his blade hit something important, and the drow’s eyes widened in pain. A leg buckled and she lost her balance long enough for Brabara’s glaive to open her throat, dropping her in a gout of blood.

The last opponent was down. The fight was over, but all of them had suffered greatly.

Brabara’s eyes moved across the five bodies that now littered the floor around them. “A more subtle approach is advised, is it?”

Ebyn coughed, a strand of blood hanging from his lip. “I can’t control everything that happens. I am nearly spent; we need to fall back and rest.”

Seknafret came around the corner, using the wall for support. “I agree. But first let me use what magic I have left to heal us as best I can. We all look like death is close at hand.”

Seknafret closed her eyes and mouthed a series of arcane words. Her entire body glowed briefly, and the worst of their wounds closed.

Brabara flexed her arms as she tested her range of movement. “We should get out of here before someone else arrives.”

Ebyn raised a hand. “Let me just do this first.”

“Do what?” Xalen asked.

“An arcane eye,” said Ebyn. “I can use it to explore the rest of the complex while we rest.”

The wizard took a bit of bat fur from his component pouch and spoke a few words while forming the fur into a tiny ball which he dropped once he finished speaking. As the ball fell, the magic transformed it into what looked like an eye for a moment before it vanished entirely.

Brabara nodded. “Nice. How long will it last.”

“An hour, no more,” said Ebyn. “So, let’s find somewhere to hole up quickly.”

The group retreated out the front door and had to travel a short distance along the underground passage before they found somewhere suitable to make camp.

Ebyn used the time remaining in his spell to send the invisible eye around the complex while the others set up their camp. He guided the eye from the summoning chamber into a meeting room, likely the one where their attackers had been before the fight. From there it floated down a passage ending in an open secret door leading to a massive web-filled chamber. Inside he spied a strange hybrid of dragon and spider in the process of eating some kind of massive lizard.

From there the eye floated through an open door into a large chamber with several more of these large lizards, and finally it returned to the room where they’d fought. He sent it back into the large web-filled chamber and found a closed door deeper in that prevented any further progress. But he did notice the first Rod Piece, glowing faintly, suspended amid a thick series of webs at the centre of the spider dragon’s lair.

“Well, that isn’t great,” Ebyn said, blinking as he ended the connection with the eye.

He explained what he’d found to the others.

“I wonder if the spider thing is Ker-arach?” Xalen said. “The name the duergar used to threaten us with in that first combat.”

Ebyn shrugged. “Perhaps, or it could have been the devil woman we just fought, or maybe something or someone else. It doesn’t matter. We know where the Rod piece is now, so we should focus on that.”

Brabara rubbed at the back of her neck. “Right now, I’m going to focus on rest. If we might end up in battle with a dragon, I reckon we all should.”

“A spider dragon,” Xalen said, emphasising the word spider.

Brabara rolled her eyes. “Even better.”

---

Xalen, hidden behind a large stalagmite, kept watch on the underground path while Seknafret, Brabara, and Ebyn rested a short distance away. The constant drip, drip, drip of water was the only sound, save for the occasional snort, whimper, or burble when one of the sleepers shifted position.

So, it set his heart racing when another sound forced its way to his awareness. Xalen hunkered down and waited for the source of the sound to get closer.

He peered between the limestone pillars to see a trio of cloaked and hooded figures walking along the path toward the outpost. Xalen shifted to keep the figures in sight as they passed, and one of them stopped, head cocked, then turned around to peer back the way they’d come.

“Lyria,” one of the others hissed. “Come. We’re almost there.”

Lyria continued to stare into the darkness. “I thought I heard something.”

The third figure, a male, symbol of Lolth hanging openly from the chain around his neck, walked back to stand beside his companion.

Xalen held his breath, praying to all the gods that Brabara’s body wouldn’t choose that moment to emit a sound.

The pair peered back, eyes scanning the area for several tense moments before turning around to resume their journey.

The remainder of Xalen’s shift was uneventful, and he was thoroughly bored by the time Ebyn rose to relieve him.

“Anything interesting to report?” Ebyn asked as he crouched beside Xalen.

“Mostly quiet,” he said. “We had a small group of drow come past a couple of hours ago. But nothing else.”

Ebyn’s eyes widened. “And the drow were going toward the place?”

Xalen nodded. “Yes, three of them. Two females and a male, I think.”

Ebyn frowned. “Why didn’t you wake us?”

“None of us were in any shape to fight them,” Xalen pointed out. “It wasn’t worth risking it.”

Ebyn sighed. “You’re right, I suppose. But this changes things. We will need to be careful upon our return.”

Xalen slapped Ebyn playfully on the back. “Come on, Ebyn. You know us. Careful is our middle name.”