Ambush in the Underdark (4th - 8th of Allhallowstide, Rose: 47)

My name is Jake Ross.

And I think I died today.

Ten years ago, I was a resident of Seattle, Washington. I worked as a paramedic.

It was also the last time that I saw water, well, like lakes, rivers, streams ... drinkable bodies of water.

Jenni - she was my girlfriend - she and I decided to go to Burning Man. We went looking for an escape, looking for art, love, sex, and excitement out there on the playa; we found it. It was dizzying, intoxicating - we found others and spent who knows how many days and nights totally high, whacked out of our minds, just enjoying each others company. We called it Shangri La. Others, they called it Tanelorn. Whatever it was called, we didn't care. We were happy, together, and in love.

But hours turned into days then days into weeks. The party just kept on going. Jenni was getting nervous and said we should leave but the playa had changed. It was no longer a desert but swamps, then snowy cliffs, mountains, green grassland, tundra. Every day it would change. So when the desert returned and it looked like we were back home, I took Jenni in hand and we left. It was a leap of faith.

Out in the desert, the beating sun scorched us. We weren't prepared. And in six hours, we were attacked by what could only be called dragon-men. Jenni was dead. I was left as fucking vulture food.

I was found by a black-skinned, emerald-eyed nomadic tribesman named Khal who nursed me back to health. He didn't speak English. And, oh, he's a dark elf. They call themselves Drow. He taught me just enough of his language to know basic commands and instructions; he fed me; kept me safe; and, over time, I learned he called me slave. I guess I knew my place.

Yeah, it's been ten years since then and I've learned that Tanelorn - whatever - didn't drop me back on the playa. Far from it. I went somewhere else. Like, I fell into a Harry Potter novel or Tolkien for fuck's sake. I just thank God it wasn't a George R. R. Martin thing. I'd be long dead by now.

Anyway, today. Today I think I died.

Khal was in the lead. We were approaching the mukdah - the hideout - where four of his soldiers would be in-waiting for supplies that we were delivering to them; food, water, basic supplies. We'd done this many times before and he suspected nothing. The Drow twins - Qazan and Abja - didn't have their bows out and were busy telling each other jokes; and as usual, Jeu took up the rear, looking fatigued, skeptical.

But we weren't alone. We had strangers with us that we found in the desert. Oh man, real storybook stuff. A seriously-devout teenage priestess in flashy metal armor; a spellcasting witch with a quirky sense of humor and a need to collect spare body parts; two freekin' Dwarves - yah, no kidding - Dwarves, sporting axes, shields, all that dwarf shit, but also pies, for Christ's sake, fresh pies, made from some magic pie box; a good looking guy whose lute-singing-songs either made people crazy or created glowing orbs of exploding death appear out of nowhere, I swear; a tall backwoods red-headed chic who was a better shot with a bow than even Khal was, and hey, he was the best that I'd ever seen in my life; and this tiny guy that would be like Bilbo Baggins if Bilbo Baggins was a killer ninja who occasionally made you a decent breakfast.

When we all approached the mukdah, we were surprised to find the four soldier's slain bodies had been laid out in a ritualistic fashion, and a bevy of locusts were crawling out of one's body. Immediately, those locusts swarmed and were attacking our skin! To make matters worse, the Dragonmen with red scales emerged from the darkness! They were breathing fire on my friends, cornering them, keeping them within the swarm!

And just as everyone was reacting to the Dragonmen and trying to get out of the swarm, a massive column of fire appeared, swirling out of the darkness of the Underdark, causing a massive maelstrom of flame to erupt all around us! The insects were singed and were tossed all around; trees went up in flames and incinerated; those Dwarves' shadows were crouched in the fire. I fell to the ground. I felt pain and it was overwhelming.

I think I died.

When I came to, I felt burns all over my body; I could barely breathe; smoke was everywhere. I was being drug out of the middle of the insect swarm by the teenage priestess. She was shouting orders to the others just as those dead bodies of the soldiers were animated and staggering towards Khal and the twins, while more of those Dragonmen were attacking the rest of the party.

Just then, the insects dropped clean out of the air and a figure emerged from the last of the flaming maelstrom: six-foot tall, black braided hair, red plate armor, a wicked set of deformed pointy teeth, and a nasty looking mace that erupted in fire as she approached, marching right for the young priestess who was helping me! The Cleric of Tahkesis' feet swarmed with ethereal misty dragons that dove in and out of the stone floor, and she headed towards us with a murderous glare!

The priestess dropped me to the ground and stood in front of me, then, raised her shield, causing these ghostly eels to rise out of the floor and surround her! As the red cleric approached, the eels and the dragons confronted each other, eating and picking at each other, and she raised her flaming mace high and brought it down with shattering blows against my young friend! I could hear the mace sickeningly slam into her body and the evil red cleric raised her mace and smashed the priestess again! I could do nothing! I watched her fall, just as the ethereal dragons were eating at my flesh, and I passed out once more.

Then I think I died again.

When I came to, I was drug out of the way by the older red-headed woman who fed me some red liquid from a vial. Things weren't good. Khal's body was surrounded by ghoulish zombies that were eating his flesh; the twins and Jeu were down; the Dragonmen and Dwarves were locked in to mortal combat; the singing fella was doing his thing, and Bilbo was slashing at the backside of the distracted Dragonmen. The young woman was still down. The red-haired crack-shot fired deadly arrows into the body of the red cleric, just as the red cleric was going to knock the snot out of ninja-Bilbo.

Suddenly, just as I was getting to my feet, a Dragon-man's sword cut into me and I fell unconscious again.

Yep, three times. Dead. Right there. Bleeding out on the cavern floor.

And when I woke, the young priestess - mussed up but no longer bleeding or bruised - hovered over me. Khal and the twins were alive and firing arrows at the remaining Dragonmen! Ninja-Bilbo and the crazy witch had seemingly cornered another Cleric of Tahkesis, apparently this one a young teen, too, platinum white hair. It wasn't long before she was subdued and the Dragonmen slaughtered. I was pained, sore, but no longer bleeding, no open wounds. It was a miracle!

What happened next was a blur. I helped Jeu with my healing packs and helped him to rejoin the others. Meanwhile, the man-dwarf named Chasmjumper smashed in the face of the red cleric until it was a bloody stump, and the young priestess cut it off and threw it into a small hole she dug. The white cleric was taken, bound, gagged, and drug up to her feet. Everyone else was getting ready to leave. Khal in particular. He knew what was going to happen next.

"We must leave this place. Now." Khal said, and everyone was rushing back into the Underdark after him; I was helping Jeu lean on me as we rushed to get as far away from this place as we could. Khal was right. If we stayed too long, the Risen would come for their tribute, and none of us were in any condition to fight them.

The Risen - as I was told by the Drow - were powerful aristocrats and sorcerers of a long dead civilization of people who believed, when they died, they entered a flowing river of desert sand far beneath us. Flowing in that river of sand are the bodies of the dead and damned. The Risen can smell death. Just like a shark can sense the writhing of their prey from miles away, or, smell blood in the water from nearly ten miles away, the Risen can sense death. The death of men, or Drow. When they do, the Risen emerge from the ground, and they demand a toll. A toll, like, a tax, for life, a tribute. But they don't want rich things, money, that kind of shit. They want important things, important to you. Something that's emotionally relevant to you. If they don't get their tax, the Risen command the dead from that sea of the damned to rise up and attack you, adding you to their armies. I'd met the Risen three times. Each time, we didn't pay their tribute; we just ran - fast, hard - in the opposite direction, as they chewed on one of Khal's men who had, unfortunately, fallen behind. You know, it's like they say: you just have to be faster than the slowest guy. Yah, it's totally true.

The Risen never came. After five hours of pushing, Khal brought us to a distant grove in the Underdark. We made camp. Healed up. Jeu even asked for help from the young priestess; I'd never seen him soften up like that, but he was in bad straights. The party talked about where to go next and decided to return to the home of the Drow, and to a place Khal called Elfhome, and a place near there that he wished to show the young priestess; they questioned the white cleric; Khal reminded everyone that the Dragonkind would send more patrols and track them in the Underdark, and they needed to keep pressing south; the Clerics of Tahkesis would be relentless to return one of their own.

I asked the young priestess how I could come to know her goddess, Isthmeira, and Elan carved a holy symbol for me out of bone.

We traveled. Three days in, we encountered a Kenku named Ekom who traded information about the road ahead with us in exchange for water. The Kenku traded a bag of nuts. The Kenku said that water could be found at various points ahead, and that he saw hundreds of the Risen near a place called the Seaside Pyramids, some eight days away. The Kenku also said that he had passed nine men...

He passed nine human men. Ekom says that there are men here, humans. A band of nine, slaves to the Efretti Dajashakour, on a mission of mystical origin. They seemed lost. They were arguing amongst themselves. They seek something the Efretti wants from the Underdark; they seek a zalam shitana - a dark hag, a dark elf - but for what purposes, he does not know. They paid him well for information … Ekom knows of Faewalks and Landings...

Ekom also said that his good fortune came to a conclusion rather rapidly after that.

But my bounty and good fortune were seized by Minotaurs. Ekom says that there are Minotaurs on the path ahead. They extorted a traveler’s fee from me. They took half my water, and took my information. It was either that or be taken to their fighting pits in the Deep. I am no fighter. The Minotaurs left me and went after the nine men I told them about.

The Kenku noticed that there were so many of us and yet we didn't carry a lot of water or food or provisions, and was surprised by this. When we went on our way, Khal nodded to Jeu, who seemed to then disappear menacingly into the dark forest.

Yah, Khal's no idiot. You don't let the information-trading-bird-man go on. Practical.

The party pressed on. The next day, Khal took the party to a hidden place that was much closer to the surface. We encountered a large bowl-like cavern. In the middle of it, a 30' colossus made of sandstone: a thin human hermaphrodite whose face looked blankly to the cavernous ceiling, and whose arms bore a massive stone water basin. Desert sand cascaded from a hole in the ceiling and fell upon the figure's face, and its face - over time - had been scoured away, so it looked eerily faceless. All around the colossus were walking trails and small sitting areas for contemplation and prayer. Far above the cavern was a slit - some ledge that peered out to the outside world. Sand was all around the figure.

Khal had never taken me here before. He looked to the young priestess and suggested that she may wish to spend some time here to know more of this space; to explore it spiritually. "Fear," he said, "is a disease. Hope... is its only cure." He looked sternly at the young priestess as if she alone possessed something, some innate knowledge or understanding about this place that he did not.

And he looked at the colossus for a long while then asked the Dwarves a question. "In your culture, do you have a saying. 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend?'" And the Dwarves agreed. Khal explained. If the Kenku was right, there are at least nine slaves of an Efretti Lord out there who the Minotaurs most certainly would have hunted down and taken hostage as to submit them to their fighting pits. Should just one of those slaves be recovered and returned to the Efretti, then those who did the saving might earn a boon of a reward, something that could help Khal save his brother. So he asked, would the Dwarves help him ... to fight the Minotaurs and to retrieve the slaves? And he asked Elan, the red-haired ranger, if she would help track them?

We couldn't waste any time. We couldn't return here after saving the slaves because we were likely already being pursued by Dragonmen scouting parties, looking for their lost white-haired girl. Now would be the only time to do both things - to explore this cavern, and, to rescue the Efretti Lord's slaves.

Nearly all agreed, and they left, leaving myself, the twins, the bound white cleric, and the young priestess in the ancient cave, promising to return in three days.

There, the young priestess began to walk the narrow pathways that circled around the colossus. This was a prayer-walk, and I followed behind as instructed, concentrating, praying to the Goddess she called Isthmeira. She used winds conjured from her will to blow away sand and dust to find characteristics of water erosion, and that these places use to be small pools and wading spaces. When we walked, we prayed. We walked in a meditative state for hours. We walked up and down the sides of the bowl-like cavern, tracing and re-tracing our steps over and over again, until we finally - after maybe six hours -arrived at the ledge some 40' above, to look out upon the horizon. We squinted - our eyes not adjusted to normal daylight - and we saw miles of dunes, but, far away, she could see the ocean.

The sea! She seemed to stand up straight, could smell the salt in the wind. She could feel the tempest raging, out there, deep within her as much as it was so far away. She felt the tragedy, the irony, of this holy place, this figure meant to capture water from the sky, so bone dry, dusted, buried. She felt an intense... anger.

"Phedarge," she whispered, and looked at the colossus again in an attempt to recall this aspect of the 16-Pointed Star, an aspect of the Tempest Goddess, one that is particularly vengeful and full of fury and rage. She clinched her fists, feeling that sense of rage building within her ...

... and I felt angry, too. Angry ... at being trapped here for ten years, for losing Jenni, for not believing that the Clerics of Tahkesis could be stopped! For all of the running - ten years of running - angry for never being able to fight back! For running away when the Risen or the Dragonmen came...

... And Siegride's eyes narrowed as she began to feel the effect of this place, realizing ... that centuries of loss, neglect, anger, rage... built around this Goddess was swelling within her soul ...

R

Trials in the Underdark (13th of Hunts - 3rd of Allhallowtide, Rose: 47)

Okay, a lot has happened since the last time we caught up with our intrepid adventurers!

Here's a recap.

• The party endured an attack by Displacer Beasts! It was a pretty good battle as the Displacer Beasts got in some good rolls. The party learned that Jud'e'fae couldn't be trusted (as it seemed that Jud'e'fae allowed a Displacer Beast to attack Gorbash intentionally!); that Jake Ross isn't so good with a spear; that the twins Abja'fae and Qazan'fae are just learning how to use their bows; that Khal'd'fae is a Ranger with great ability but few hit dice. And they learned that the dark elves will eat anything with meat on its bones, even displacer beasts, as they were skinned and their meat harvested and added to the tortoise meat they were hauling around.

• Jud'e'fae slandered the party, explaining to Khal that the only reason why they were attacked is because of the party's "smell" and "need for light"; that the party was a liability. Khal told Jud'e'fae to shut up. Over time, the party learned that Jud'e'fae was a Sorcerer as he was capable of casting spells, and was fairly competent with a spear, although his mean, cantankerous disposition in concert with Jud'e'fae's own actions which seemed to put the party at risk, kept from him being fully trusted. 

• The party would come to learn that there are no clerics in the Underdark. There are no miracles. No magical means of healing; no fantastical ways to generate food nor water; no miraculous storms of lightning called from the sky to smite their adversaries; no mystical ways to dispel the horrors of the undead, or, heal the sick. The only form of clerical magic anyone is used to seeing is manifested by the worshipers of Tahkesis, which explains why they mistakenly called Siegride a cleric of Tahkesis when they first met and why Jud'e'fae has such a hard time accepting anything else. In general, this clan of dark elves abandoned ancient traditions of "spider-worship" generations ago when they found no help would come from their Goddess when under attack by the Dragonkind. 

• The party saw small bats flying around in the trees and little rodents on the ground; from time to time, they'd hear larger cries and wails and growls of much larger critters somewhere in the darkness. The cave to the Underdark would vanish into the darkness and all they could see were dense trees in every direction. At times, it even seemed moist, foggy, but the source of water was unclear. There was certainly a lot of life in this underground forest. There were plenty of dangers. Siegride and Ma'yah nearly died during a steep 125' climb of an ancient dried-up waterfall, and there were spots in the Underdark that seemed to attract more animal and monster activity because it was near water sources.
  
• In their adventures, the party learned that the Underdark was a forested place that lay close to the surface, whereas the Underdeep was a place much deeper, much lower, that lay beneath, and that there are enormous monsters in the Underdeep (as they learned first-hand as they were attacked by a pair of Behir).
  
• The party learned of the Minutur (the minotaur) - a race of bull-headed men that lived near the top of the Underdark like the elves. They were strong, crafty, and smart; they knew all the ways around the Underdark. They lived separately from the elves and in peace until the Dragonborn came, and in lost skirmishes with them, they fled to the Underdeep, laying traps in dark labyrinths of rocks and trees. The party encountered an old, over-grown mausoleum crafted by the minutur's and long abandoned; they party also thought it fit to explore the graves of two sentries but found nothing of interest, and couldn't lift the entrance to the mausoleum because it was too heavy. These days, Jake explained, the Minitur stay in their layers in the Underdeep, waiting for those foolish enough to attack them. 

• Tolman received good news in his Diary of Correspondence. Twyst wrote to give him some good news after Tolman informed him of the party's recent excursion to the Sagean Coast: 

“Good sir, you are an intrepid adventurer and I salute you. Merry travels in the world abroad and do try to stay safe. I, my good friend, am in McFerrel’s Parish, revealing your most important findings to my dear friend Mr. Gregory Wanderfoot, a specialist in these matters pertaining to our mutual friend. He’s quite astounded at the volume of detail. He’s considering approaching the Parish Council to prepare both a memorial and announcement of the lost journal (and that they will be subsequently released for years coming in small drips and drabs to compensate for the publishing of such matters, and, to perpetuate the novelty of the story, to which he cares to offer you and your estate a smidge of perpetual royalties from said proceeds). Oh Mr. Greenholm, you’ve struck it, sir! You’ve padded your feet this time!”

• The dark elf twins were young and playful. At one point, they challenged the dwarves to climb trees and swing from vines; they also tried to learn the dwarves' names and speak them aloud. They were enthralled by Tolman's talk of cities and places back in Floreth. But they're also naive ... climbing steep places without ropes or reinforcements, or, wandering into the dark woods all on their own. Once, a dryad emerged from the wood near a bubbling spring, and the twins chased after the beautiful, nude fae, enchanted, likely to become her slave forever as payment for taking her scarce water. They were under the dryad's spell! Craftily, Gorbash offered freshly-minted pies from his Wonderous Piebox in exchange for the brothers-fae and the dryad accepted the terms and mightly munched the pies, while the rest of the party subdued the twins and took them away from the area. Silly Elves. Dryads will make Keeblers out of you.

• The party met other elves who were stationed on the periphery of the blue hills in a makhba - a hideout; they kept watch over the dessert. They reported that squads of Dragonkind (the tanin mawlud) were on the march, searching for something or someone in the dessert south of Juaina (the "Little Garden" citadel that the party arrived through). Their scouting parties had picked up and it wouldn't be long before they encroached the hills. Their search patterns were unusual. Khal became suspicious of the party briefly.

• Over time it became clear that Khal'd'fae was a Ranger and knew these creepy woods better than anyone. On several occasions, he climbed a tree to retrieve pre-stored food and water, and, to replenish those stores; he also helped the party navigate obvious traps set by the elves for would-be intruders to their domain. He also was training the young twins on how to use their bows. Over the course of their time together, the party came to understand a few things about Khal. One, he saw the world as a larger place than what his race was exposed to and having the party hang around was more than curiosity - he wants to learn from them and expand his own perspective, which is a similar reason as to why he maintained Jake in his circle of adventurers; two, Khal realizes the power of the party and their clerical abilities which would make potentially enormous allies; three, Khal wants to help - he can bring the party to elders in his clan that can explain more of the Theocracy; four, Khal seems to have an older brother named Locien'fae - a Prince of Fae - who is held captive by the Dragonborn, both as a prisoner and as a tortured soul. Khal believes that the party presence here just isn't chance but providence ... he even suggests at one point that he wants to show Siegride a sacred place somewhere along the road home.
  
• Meanwhile, a deal was struck: Jake would teach Siegride the dark elf language in exchange for teaching Jake how to become a cleric. Jake was very interested; Khal, who now saw Jake as something larger than just a slave (thanks to the party's influence), encouraged the exchange.

Finally, the party had spent days in the woods and were closing in on the next mukbha to drop off provisions and water to Khal's men there, but what they found was horrific. Four dead eviscerated rotting elvish corpses arranged in a ceremonial cross on the earthen floor of their camp, while a mass of insects suddenly emerged from their bodies and from the adjacent Underdark forest to swarm around the party...

And that's where we left off!

R