A long, winding tunnel, half of which consists of a steep flight of stairs leading ever deeper into the ground below Hollow Mountain, eventually comes to an end at an open shaft that rises upward into a 15-foot-wide hall, a full 30 feet up. This shaft features no traditional method of ascent—no stairs, ropes, or ladders—but the shaft’s walls are studded with rough cones of red, yellow, or green glass, protruding here and there from the walls in shapes that could be used as hand- and foot-holds for a climb.
Rudrik stomps ahead in his heavy armor, rustling and clanking as he goes.
Looking up the shaft, he squints a bit at the strange glass cones.
"I could probably climb this," he says finally, "especially embiggened like this, but I'm uh... suspicious."
"You probably could," Nime says with a smile. "But why why climb when you can ..." She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. As she seems to relax, misty shapes appear behind the tall woman in the shapes of wings.
The oracle opens her eyes and turns to Shenuska. "Put your arms around my neck." She looks upwards and then back to the psychic. "And no funny business," she adds with a smirk.
With a sound like a sigh, Nime begins rising into the air, the translucent wings almost an afterthought. She deposits the woman at the top of the shaft and returns down.
"So who's next?" she asks. Her eyebrow raises at Rudrik. "You'll have to go back to your regular size before I can carry you."
Nime and Shenuska reach the top of the shaft without incident. The rest of you can ascend in a similar fashion.
The hall up here heads northwest, then ends abruptly at a precipice, descending twenty feet into a circular room decorated with a vibrant green fresco. The northeastern side of the pit opens into a second chamber whose floor is at the same level as the southern hallway. This second room is filled with pillars set five feet apart. One of those pillars straddles the pit’s edge, extending down to the floor below. What appears to be a second circular pit is located on the far side of the pillar- filled room.
"All right, now I'm extra suspicious," says Rudrik. He peers about and slowly advances toward one of the pillars, trying to get a read on whether it has some kind of hidden trap or magic.
Rudrik is right to be wary, but the danger here isn't from a trap. Two horrid creatures lurk among the pillars. These blood-red tumorous masses have shifting clusters of waving tentacles sprouting from their amorphous forms, their bodies pulsating with a horrid vitality. They are compressed against the pillars, making them difficult to spot. They seem to be waiting for you to descend...
"Those are disgusting," is Nime's reaction to the creatures. "They're vexenions. They swallow people whole and digest them." She turns to Shenuska. "They have minds, though, like anyone else."
Calendula gags and spits. "No thank you."
She paces at the top, not wanting to approach further.
"Szuul, Shen, Theo, think y'all can hit them from here?"
Shenuska makes a point of wrapping her arms around Nime from the front and breathing gently down her neck as they ascend, but generally keeps things remarkably mischief free in deference to their situation.
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"If they have minds I can hit them." Shenuska replies. She waits for Theo and Szul to show their readiness then takes a deep breath. Nothing obvious happens but one of the qlippoth's writhes as though struck.
"Almost feel sorry for the things," Theo remarked as he levelled his metamagic rod.
The vexenions prove quite resilient against your spells. Only one of the qlippoth is burned by Theo's fireball, though it resists some of the blast. Maga Szuul curses as his bomb sails past his target, detonating harmlessly among the pillars!
The vexenions surge forward, using three of its tentacles to speed its locomotion. They clamber up the wall below you, lashing out with their tentacles at Rudrik, who stands defensively in front of the rest of the party! The half-orc fends off their grasping appendages.
Since the vexenions have come to him, Rudrik slashes his sword with heavy blows!
Shenuska recasts Haste and steps back to give the fighters room to work with.
Nime frowns at the tentacled horrors and intones a prayer to the Enternal Rose.
Calendula closes in and mutters something about 'only tolerating the presence of one betentacled fellow.'
Rudrik scores three solid hits, though the resilient qlippoth resists some of the damage each time. Calendula chops into the same fiend thrice as well.
Theodric creates a burning arc between the two, but only one vexenion is scorched.
The monsters attack, lashing out with four tentacles each! Calendula is hit three times, one in a critical spot, while Rudrik takes one hit. Calendula is also grabbed by the tentacles!
Maga Szuul hurls a bomb at the monster grappling Calendula, badly burning it and singeing the other one!
Shenuska taps Rudrik on the back, imbuing him with heroism!
Ignoring the tentacled creatures for the moment, Nime determinedly steps forward and touches Calendula with a healing hand.
Rudrik lets out a growl that rises into a roar as he smashes his sword down again and again, trying to end this damnable thing!
Rudrik's first slash slays the qlippoth grappling Calendula, freeing her from its grasp. He then tears into the second one, splattering sizzling blood all around!
Frustrated at how resilient these creatures seemed to be, he unleashed a twin beam of flame into it in the hopes of doing something.
One of Theo's scorching rays strikes the vexenion. Calendula slices into it twice, dealing just enough damage to finish off the qlippoth! It collapse into a stinking mass of quivering flesh and protoplasm.
"Well those were unpleasant!" Shenuska comments lightly, checking the bodies just in case they possess magical items. "Shall we push on while the magic lasts?"
With the qlippoths defeated, you navigate the forest of pillars and climb up to a chamber on the far side. The ceiling of this large domed chamber rises thirty-five feet, while a wall of iron bars blocks a broad hall heading off to the west. A fresco of a six-headed serpent covers the floor, though parts of it have been worn away by the passage of time, and it appears as if someone has smashed the serpent’s six heads with some form of heavy bludgeon, leaving those parts of the fresco cracked and damaged.
Nime lowers enough to touch one of the broken frescoes as she ponders. "She must really have hated him," she says quietly. She rises back up. "Alaznist. She must have really hated Thybidos. To have taken such efforts to deface even his symbols. Where would such hatred originate I wonder?"
As Nime kneels over the fresco, Shenuska hears the sound of six serpents hissing and smells the stink of burning flesh. Before she can call out a warning, though, a ghostly hydra rises up from beneath the fresco! The heads roar before spewing beams of fire at all of you! Calendula, Nime, and Maga Szuul are hit!
"Nime!" Shenuska scolds, although its clear that she's worried. "Don't go touching things before Rudrik and I have checked them! You should know better by now!"
"Positive energy should stop this!" She adds almost as an after-thought. "Or maybe cold effects!"
"Hatred will not win," Nime says calmly, ignoring the ghostly flames as she holds out a hand toward the spectral image.
As the rest of you fall back, Nime boldly stands her ground, channeling more healing energy into the ghostly hydra even as it continues to burn her with fiery exhalations. At last, the haunt dissipates, leaving the undine badly scorched but still standing!
The iron bars blocking the western hall fade away.
Nime turns to face the others, her normally blue skin a blotchy purple and her simple shorts a burned tatter. "Hatred will not win," she repeats. There's a serene smile on her face in contrast with the trail of tears trickling down her cheeks.
She turns to begin walking slowly towards the western hall.
"I normally prefer my food raw," she comments. "But I have the strangest craving for blackened salmon."
"I'd expect you have a craving for healing potions," quips Rudrik.
Nime turns towards the half-orc. "Is that what they taste like?" she asks, her nose wrinkling up. "You'd think they'd taste a bit more like... I don't know... " She seems to think for a moment. "Something wholesome?" The oracle shrugs and then continues on.
"Eh, depends on who made 'em," says Rudrik. "Some are all right. Some, not so much."
"Rudrik's right, Blue, you should take a moment an heal yerself." The scarred woman squeezes Nime's hand. "It was very brave what you did, and I thank you."
Nime looks down at Calendula's hand on hers and smiles. "Whenever I do that it feels like I'm taking something that Shelyn has gifted me with to share with others and keeping it for myself." Her eyes move around the room. "It's like I'm pleasuring myself." Those same gray eyes snap back to the scarred woman. "Which there is absolutely nothing wrong with," she adds in a firm voice. Her voice then softens. "But there is a time and place for everything. And now is not the time to ... " She takes a deep sigh. "Oh very well."
The oracle centers herself and then smiles at her friend. She draws the woman's hand in and places in the center of her chest against the burned skin. She speaks a quiet prayer to her goddess and warmth spreads out from her hand enveloping Calendula's as well.
She releases the hand from her healed skin and leans forward to lightly touch the woman's forehead with a kiss. "Thank you for your concern," she whispers.
Turning back towards the beckoning hallway, she says, "I still have a yearning for something to eat, though."
The hallway ends at an iron door, which rises silently into the ceiling as you approach within 10 feet of it.
The walls of this grand chamber are lined with sheets of deep green marble. An intricate mosaic of a coiling, six-headed serpent decorates the floor, beyond which a short flight of stairs leads up to a raised platform. Atop this ten-foot-high overlook, an ancient throne is flanked by two white marble statues of tall, muscular women holding ranseurs. Each statue has a leering skull for a face, and both aim their ranseurs down toward the throne itself. The throne is made of rusted and pitted iron, and the arms and back are covered in spikes and wrapped in chains.
The undead remains of who can only be Runelord Thybidos are lashed by chains to the spiked throne his arms, legs, and head severed from his torso, but all held in place on the throne itself by lengths of chain. body looks leathery and ancient, the dry bones of a mummy clad in filthy rags stained dark at the joints by ancient blood where his body was cut apart. Thassilonian runes glow on his leathery skin, and his hair and beard flicker as if made of black fire.
As you step into the room, the two statues to either side lurch in an automated fashion, jabbing their ranseurs forward to stab into Thybidos’s torso. The runelord's head emits a supernatural and chilling howl of pain. The heads of both statues turn to face you, then grind and twist as they detach. Six segmented legs of whitened bones unfurl beneath the ivory heads as they take to the air!
Nime cringes in response to Thybidos' pain. "No more," she mutters to herself, shaking her head.
"That was bloody impressive, Nime. Sorry I couldn't be more help."
Not sure what sort of creatures these were, he figured that, for now at least, his magic was better put towards aiding his allies. Eyes glowing, he reached out and felt the flow of time around him and his friends and gave it a slight twist.
As Theo's spell speeds the party, one of the flying skulls swoops in at Rudrik. Its poisoned claws rake through a gap in his armor, drawing blood. The other one flies closer and lets out a disorienting screech!
Nime shakes her head trying to shake off the befuddlement threatening to confound her senses. While she can still thing straight, she steps forward and places a steadying hand on Rudrik's shoulder. "Hold fast," she says as her reassurance settles in to him.
Calendula points back and forth between the heads, the statues and Thybidios, unable to move as she makes small sounds of protest, as if she had been interrupted.
Amazingly, Rudrik completely shrugs off the attacks of the skull-things, grips his sword, and waits for it to come swooping back in for another attack.
Shrugging off the creatures' effect, Theo reached out to Rudrik.
"This should level the playing field a bit," he said as magic flowed into the half-orc, releasing him from gravity's pull. "Don't worry; it's guided by will and intent, just think which way you want to go and you'll go."
"Poison claws and immune most magic!" Shenuska calls before stepping back from the sheer volume of the creatures scream.
She then taps Calendula on the back, not bothering with the pep talk this time.
Rudrik hacks at the ivory construct, scoring three good hits. The construct retaliates with its claws and wings, but can't get past the half-orc's armor. The other one swoops down and slashes at him as it passes, but it fails to hit.