Defenders of Daybreak

There are the expected challenges: bottomless sink holes, stalagmite-choked tunnels, narrow ledges and sudden chasms. Then there are a few surprises: a vast cavern of blind bats and odiferous guano, an unexplained swarm of scuttling beetles in a low area of a tunnel, a jet of bath-warm water that shoots from the wall with bone-crushing force.

Even more disturbing is the experience of using Agar's mass darkvision spell. The spell provides them with almost normal vision in narrow and twisting tunnels, since their line of sight is never more than 30 or 40 feet anyways. In the occasional large chamber, though, the darkvision feels much less effective. The group experiences the sensation of being completely blinded beyond 60 feet, all the while knowing that many underdark predators can see for easily twice that distance. It's a disconcerting sensation. Splinder's dwarven troops know their duties, though, and without being prompted they fan out 40 feet from one another in large caverns to adequately scout the space. Velendo in particular is impressed with their tactics, and mutters more than once that the Defenders could learn a few lessons from the battle-hardened dwarves.

With Priggle Gembreath as their guide, progress is steady, and the group ends an exhausting twelve hour march by approaching a well-known cavern nexus through a hand-carved 15 ft. wide tunnel. "We'll camp just up ahead," says Priggle. "It's a large natural cavern that's often used as neutral ground, as a meeting place between races. We should be safe there. Anyways, tomorrow we have to face the narrows, and I'd just as soon have us rested in case there's any fighting."

"The narrows?" Velendo begins to ask, but he's interrupted by a horrible sound up ahead. It's a trumpeting noise that reverberates along the walls and shrieks into his ear drums like an icepick. Everyone except the dwarves in the far back of the marching order is affected by the sonic attack, and with a numbed part of his brain Velendo realizes that the noise has actually stripped away the outside of his skin, leaving his forearms and face raw and chapped.

"Crap!" snaps Nolin. "We're under attack!" While the group spends precious seconds waiting for him, Nolin focuses his mind and casts mass haste on as many people as he can. He then raises his voice in a high lilting song. The melody sounds discordant to everyone listening, but when the next flesh-rending scream bounces down the tunnel, his tune shields the group from the worst of the damage.

One by one, the Defenders spill out of the side tunnel into the cavern nexus. In front of them are several balls of tiny green flame, believed by the group to be some sort of scrying device. They orbit erratically around a horrible monster with a serpentine neck, a trumpet-like head and no visible eyes. Chunks of rotting flesh dangle from its flank, and it reeks of dried blood and decaying meat. Mounted on the monster's back is an undead knight armed with a bone lance, tongue lolling obscenely out of its mouth as it drools strands of bloody saliva down its front. "Meeeeeeat!" it burbles happily, and kicks its mount in preparation for a charge.

"There's more!" shouts Priggle from somewhere in the darkness, and the Defenders decide that enough is enough. Growling a prayer, Malachite slams his bracers together in front of his chest, and searing emerald light explodes out of him like a newly kindled star. It flashes out 100 feet and badly sears the ghoul and its rider. Out of the corner of his eye, Malachite also catches sight of a second mount and rider who manages to partially avoid his positive energy burst.

The ghoulish knight is still hanging on to his mount with one smoking bony arm as he hears something rumbling above him. He tilts his rotted head backwards just in time to see a pillar of fire appear above him like an opening to Hell. The holy flame slams downwards and recedes with a thunderclap, leaving nothing behind but smoking embers and sizzling flesh. The ghoulish mount is still standing, though, so Tao grins savagely and uses her hasted action to cast flame strike once again. The trumpet-headed beast staggers sideways, spasms, and silently collapses into a twitching heap.

"I love doing that!" says Tao to no one in particular, even as she feels the healing power of Velendo's prayer coursing through her.

Her delight is short lived. From out in the darkness, two more of the creatures scream their hideous cry, and the Defenders feel their bones splintering beneath their skin as they try to resist. If it wasn't for Nolin's continuing countersong at least one hero would have dropped, but his music manages to deflect the worst of the sonic attack.

"Here they come!" shouts Priggle from somewhere hidden, even as the two rotting monsters and their riders scuttle forward on unnaturally muscled legs. Mara shifts herself to meet them, and her new shield shatters the bone lance that is aimed at her. The paladin twists and swings, and her holy mace Lightbinder smashes through a ghoulish knight's shoulder like it was butter.

Malachite unleashes another positive energy burst even as his sword Karthos leaps into his hand. "Now! Now!" the sword cries impatiently, and Malachite swings it into the flank of one of the trumpet-beasts. Crusted mold vaporizes as the sword strikes home, and the creature screams. Magic missiles from Agar arc above it like a soaring bird striking home, and Tao's swords blur as they cut through sinew and rotting flesh. The second monster falls, and what's left of the ghoulish knight riding the third beast tumbles from its back like a dead weight.

The third creature seems smarter now that its rider is destroyed. It takes in the devastation by turning its eyeless head, and with a chilling scream it spins and flees into the depths of the cave. The clacking of claws reverberates in the echoing cavern, and within seconds it is out of sight, hidden in the enveloping darkness beyond the range of darkvision. "Damn!" someone swears. "I can't target what I can't see!" Mara swings herself up onto her war horse's back, but she's distracted before she can ride after it. Something black and icy cold has struck her, and she shivers as she feels strength draining out of her.

Meanwhile, Galthia moves. The githzerai monk had been staying back while the area effect spells were falling like rain, but now he dashes alone after the fleeing ghoulish abomination. "Be care--" starts Velendo, but Galthia is out of sight before he can finish the sentence. "Oh boy," he says to himself, and begins to review whether or not he had prepared true resurrection that day.

Galthia, however, feels his Purpose thrumming through his body as he chases the monster, and that gives him strength and speed. Moving at an angle to cut it off from its planned escape, he easily dodges its feeble claws. Galthia ducks and spins close to its body, close enough to smell the carrion reek. He hits it with his iron-shod staff several times, hard, and the monster shudders and collapses.

Mara leaps off her warhorse to attack the new threat, and she feels herself stagger as several shadows slide from the darkness and attack her all at once. Her strength flees from her, and she struggles to lift her mace even as Velendo turns undead and blasts the four shadows into nothingness.

Silence falls as Nolin ceases his song. "It's down," announces Galthia in a flat voice.

"Everyone okay?" calls Velendo into the darkness. Mara grunts in annoyance, barely keeping her feet. Priggle, the dwarves, and Galthia all call their assent, although many of the group are badly wounded by the sonic attacks. "Why didn't you turn them?" Velendo asks Mara in surprise, and the paladin gives him a dirty look.

"I got carried away," she explains sheepishly as she gestures with her mace, and Luminor nuzzles her in comfort.

At the far end of the cavern, Galthia leaves the beast collapsed behind him as he begins to walk towards the rest of the group. Thus, he's almost caught unawares as the monster -- playing possum and not actually dead after all -- unleashes one more wave of sonic energy at his back, even as it shambles back to its feet. At the last second some sixth sense warns the githzerai, and he spins out of the way as the hideous scream vaporizes the stone floor where he had been standing. "Down!" commands Galthia as he spins his heavy staff into the creature, and the monster explodes into a nimbus of silent light. Nothing but dust is left as Galthia finishes his swing and snaps his staff of disruption back into a fighting position.

"Wow," says Nolin in an impressed tone, and the rest of the Defenders watching from across the room agree with him.

The heroes huddle around the clerics and paladins for healing, and the dwarven troops fan out to serve as pickets. It's less than a minute, though, when the alarm comes from one of the dwarven watch teams. "Oi!" one of them calls. "A lone ghoul approaching. And it's . . . it's carrying a white flag!"

Jeremy:

"Er.. Or a yeller flag.. Er a gray 'un. Ferggin darkvision..."

Knight Otu:

I must admit that I totally forgot that Galthia even existed until he showed up again in this update. Did this happen to anyone else, or is it just me?

Piratecat:

He was fairly quiet for much of the game, staying in character. Then he proved to be the only person who could catch up to the monster, never mind kill it easily. What was really funny was when he ran up to it. "You'll incur an attack of opportunity if you run next to it like that," I said. "Okay," he shrugged, and proceeded to use his grotesque amount of movement to virtually circle the monster and cut off its escape. It was a thing of beauty.

In retrospect, I might have the story wrong, and he may have opened up a full attack on the thing. I just remember everyone looking at how much damage he was doing and being shocked.

I felt bad for the player, although he's more patient than I would have been. It was his third game. At his first game, he played Judge Daver in the council meeting, and then Galthia was locked inside his bedroom. At his second game, Mara & Malachite visited their temple and the group spent hours discussing communes and prophecies while - wait for it - Galthia was locked in his bedroom. It was nice to finally let everyone get involved with the story!

He doesn't have a character sheet online yet. I'll ask if he'd mail it to you. Galthia is an Acolyte of the Fist (from the recent PrC in Dragon); I cancelled out the unbalancing effect of the ECL differential (his innate githzerai bonuses) by giving him significantly less cash than normal to buy magical items. I think it worked well. That isn't a trick I'd use a low levels, but at high levels it seems to be decently balanced.

My apologies for not mentioning Luminor and Newt (Tao's giant lizard mount) in more detail. Luminor is equipped with horseshoes that allow him to turn gaseous - just the thing for wriggling through narrow caves! - and a harness that gives him pegasus wings once a day. We're still getting used to including him in combat, although both Mara and I am getting better at that.

As for Malachite's horse, it was killed by a spectre shortly before he met the party, and he hasn't had the heart to call another one. It might still be out there somewhere, cantering through the world, searching for its master....