Session 34: The Heist Pt 2
General Summary
Ignoring the fact that he's shedding fake skin and eyestalks like a leper in a Spring's Night dancing competition, Lord Calyops fires ray after devastating ray against the malformed creatures loping toward him up the broad stairs of his underground lair. Some turn against the others, some explode into their component atoms, some are turned to stone.
Back in the shaft leading up to the treasure room and the Watchtower, Right Eye and Kelpip hang off of ladder rungs, yelling insults at one another and firing magic into the melee out in the hall. All of this activity draws unwanted attention from below, however. Very unwanted attention. Rising up through the darkness, legs filling the shaft, head a mass of eyes reflecting blasts of spellfire, comes a spider of immense proportions. Eyes going wide and wild, Right Eye and Kelpip are forced to defend themselves against this threat. Right Eye is soon bound up in webs, poison coursing through his veins, but he's still able to fire a magic missile or two before being forced to draw his dagger and swipe at the arachnid with fading strength. Kelpip turns his own sharp-edged magic against the spider, and soon it falls away into the darkness, making no sound, but thrashing in its death spasms all the way. Kelpip checks Right Eye, but there's nothing that can be done to save him. Kelpip says a few words. Right Eye says a few more--nearly all unprintable. And then Kelpip heads off to rejoin the battle as Right Eye curses his way into that long goodnight.
At the top of the stairs and in the adjacent rooms, what the Death Tyrant doesn't slay, the rest of the party makes bloody work of: in the room to the north, Percy and Traginous use blades and spells to cut down the Low Growlers to make a hole for Ruhst, who goes sprinting through, planning to work his way down another set of stairs and, based on what he remembers of the old maps of this place they'd found, to chambers and corridors that will bring him up around behind the combat. He is soon overtaken by Kelpip, who is once more using his ever-so-speedy boots.
It turns out, though, that the Low Growlers weren't the 'Trilogy' that Calyops had been warned of. No, those invaders are lower, in a high chamber whispering with winds originating from places altogether different than these. The shadowed ceiling of this Hall is supported by four tall columns of crafted stone. Stretched between these columns flutter four tapestries--the sails of Little Sister's hammership, brought back by the Temple Thieves to Etherian Elps from the Ghost Temple in the Chrysanthemum Mountains.
On the rune-marked floor of this chamber stand three terrible visages. Humanoid figures with long-taloned fingers the same color as octopi or squid, these beings wear cloaks with high, hooped hoods. White light shines from narrow, oval eyes within the depths of these hoods, and red-veined gray tentacles writhe outward like earthworms trying to escape a nest.
Popping and hissing fills the air as the beings ("Windram" / "Starswallow" / "Gloomhouse" come the images in our adventurers' minds. "Three by three / Minds to twist and bleed" say the unspoken words) raise their arms and siphon energy from the sails--sails that even now are catching the planar winds. Blue lightning crackles, arcing between the tapestries and the talons of the Flayers.
One of the creatures ("Starswallow") levitates into the air, 20 ft up. The other two--"Windram" / "Gloomhouse"-- break off their magic to turn their attention to the Death Tyrant sailing down the stairs into their midst. The Death Tyrant's eye stalks raise, but the Flayers are faster, Gloomhouse raises a finger and Calyops turns his eyestalks on the rest of adventurers.
Deadly blasts of energy lance outward. One beam disintegrates part of a column, partially catching Percy in its devastating frequencies. Another begins to turn Dolan to stone, and another nearly blinds Traginous. The other Flayer ("Windram" / "Windram"/ "Windram") uses this opportunity and leans forward, claws and tentacles extended, and an inaudible scream erupts from its mind, tearing at the minds of all those in front of him. Traginous is stunned, Kelpip, having entered from behind just in time to be caught in the blast, barely keeps it together, and no one is feeling good about what the outcome of this fight is likely to look like.
It's about this time that Ruhst comes also comes around from the far side of things, entering the Hall of Sails by means of a corridor to the east. His arrows start picking away at the Flayers' concentration and gives a boost of bravado to Kelpip and Percy, the latter forced to dive just in time to miss being vaporized by ANOTHER disintegration beam from the Death Tyrant (probably loaded ten-siders are to blame).
But with Kelpip and Ruhst back in the fight, things begin to turn around for the Temple Thieves. ("Gloomhouse") falls, and with it, so falls the control the Flayer had over Calyops. The Beholder, freed now to turn its powers against ("Windram"), does so, and the leader of the Flayers dies, inverted. On the stairs, Little Sister puts her hands on Dolan's rigid body and the power of the goddess flows through him. Stone flakes off of his skin and he is restored. Barely taking time to thank her, he leaps down the stairs and begins firing arrows at the last Flayer ("Starswallow" "Eater of Worlds" / "Bringer of Eternal Night"). Traginous sends a cloud of insects to distract the being, and Ruhst adds his own arrows to the mix.
But it isn't to be. Using the power he's already siphoned from the planes-ship's sail, ("Starswallow") steps from this existence into another. ("I shall flay your souls for this that you have done" come the last images and unspoken words from the deep dwelling thing).
For a moment, there is silence, then Kelpip turns to the battered (and tattered) Death Tyrant and says, "So, whatcha say that since we saved your life here, you give us all this ship bric-a-brac and we call it even?"
Given his current condition, Calyops realizes he has little chance of victory here, even if he might manage to take out one or two of the adventurers. Even so, he is too proud to capitulate wholesale. "Take them. I shall give you a very generous head start."
"Well, that's not going to be good enough," says Ruhst. And an arrow flies.
Calyops lets off a blast of eldritch radiation that is avoided by everyone, and then he makes for an escape: a deep shaft descending into utter darkness.
Dolan fires down after him, getting a good hit, but not taking out the beholder. Ruhst, though, will have none of this escape-to-hunt-us-another-day crap. He draws his daggers and leaps into the shaft after the Death Tyrant. Landing on the beholder's bared skull, Ruhst jams his daggers over and over into Calyops, cracking the bone pan and piercing the rotted, undead brain beneath. The lights in the Tyrant's eyes go out and Ruhst rides the corpse down into the darkness, surviving the fall only because of the latent levitation magic still infusing the Death Tyrant's un-lifeless body.
EPILOGUE:
The Temple Thieves return to the surface, Little Sister using her goddess magic to bring all the pieces of the planar ship with her. Within moments, the workers on the roof of the Watchtower scramble for cover as she rises into the air on glowing, white wings. The hammership reshapes itself in midair, mutating and reforming, sails and helm and figurehead and keel warping reality itself as it is remade.
When the task is done, Little Sister returns to the roof, landing lightly on one foot. She smiles at her team. "My friends. My companions. Thank you. Thank you so very much. You have given me what I need to return home and I cannot ask more of you. But, if you will, you are welcome to join me on my journey. Or stay here and be the soon-to-be-renowned heroes that you are. But you must decide soon. Now that my powers near full, my existence will come draw the attention of those who can make life here on the Material Planes difficult. And as I am not, yet, at the fullness of my power, well, y'know, I'd rather my life wasn't difficult."
Looking at one another, the Temple Thieves see that there really isn't a decision to be made.
"Of course we'll go with you," says Ruhst. The rest nod in agreement.
Though time is tight, there IS time before the new hammership must depart. Time for supplies to be laid in, time to carouse a bit, time to make a few new friends and a few new enemies. Time, even, for Ruhst to get that which he has longed for since that first day encountering Little Sister.
"Come with me," she says, "if you will. If you would become my priest." And she takes him by the hand and leads him below decks. There, what happens shall be left unsaid. But when the others next see Ruhst, there is something different in his eyes. He seems to be looking at something beyond the horizon. And ... well ... he can't keep a stupid grin off his face.
...AND BEYOND:
The ship rises. Sunlight gleams off of shining copper, from polished chrome and steel. Morning dew runs in rivulets from the gleaming wood of the hull. There are shouts from aboard. The sails unfurl. A natural wind fills them and the hammerhead prow of the planes-ship moves slowly and elegantly above the rooftops, spires, and innumerable domes of Etherian Elps. Flying ships are rare enough in the Interior these days that people on the streets turn their gaze briefly to the sky, shade their eyes, and remember a time their great-grandparents knew--when the Twilight Empire of the Neher was in its Noontime and magic sparkled in the air.
Then the hammership's sails find a different breeze--one that breathes from a distant-and-close-and-separate reality. The sails pop, fill, billow ... and the ship leaps forward, the figurehead opening a door into the planescape beyond the Material.
The Temple Thieves on the deck suddenly find themselves in a black eternity filled with dark clouds belching silent lightning. Everything is silent here, save the sound of the ship itself. And here is ... nowhere. There are the clouds ... and more clouds, up and down and to all sides forever and ever, amen. But, far below, something senses them. Something shifts claws the size of cathedrals. Something flexes wings with the span of a city. Something wakens to their presence.
From the stern of the ship, a familiar voice (well, as familiar as a patchwork cacophony of voices can be) says, with understated calm, "'Bout time you got here, pardners. Been avoiding Void Dragons, noooo! for quite a, Squaaawk! time."
...and Fallenbridge the Kenku bard, cassock now a slightly-dirtied-and-mud-and-blood-splattered white, comes forward to be welcomed back into the fold.
THE END: TEMPLE THIEVES--THE LOST GODDESS
NEXT ON TEMPLE THIEVES: TEMPLE THIEVES--PLANESCAPES
The Battle Beneath the Watchtower
(as related to Fallenbridge the Bard by Dolan Stonefist)
"No shit, there I was.
We were building up to poke this thing in the eyes - all of them. Then he got a weird distract and started talking about some folks (like a gang?) attacking his subterranean pad. He peaced out down a shaft. We were like, "Don't worry, bro! We'll help you!" And followed him down. Right Eye came with us, too.
We got down to a landing and Right Eye grabbed a wand or something. Some weird monsters attacked from two directions. We laid the smack down, including a fun game of "why are you hitting your buddy?" orchestrated by, I think, Percy. Then a spider started trying to eat Kelpip and Right Eye, while Right Eye tried to alternate blasting us (and by us I mean Kelpip) and the spider. I think Right Eye got axed at that point, but memory fails.
Then we ran into three spell throwers down a staircase. They were kind of eating our lunch while also trying to get away with the sails. Kelpip ran all the way around the engagement and came in behind. With everyone engaged, we got the upper hand and finished the terrible trio.
We had a fateful moment of decision whether to kill Calyops or not. We offered him a bargain ("Yo! Give us the ship pieces and we'll call it even for saving your bacon"), but he said, "Sure, if you want me to pursue you for the rest of your lives." So we attacked. Like a pack of jackals on a Lion, we wore him down. He tried to escape down another shaft. I forget who did it, but I think the finishing move was someone just dropping onto his ... head with something sharp - maybe after Kelpip blasted him.
I think I got the coup de grace on something, but I don't think I got the last hit on the big bad.
Then we took the ship pieces, and the whole thing magically assembled. I think we went directly into interplanar mode, but not sure. There was booze, you see."
(as related to Fallenbridge the Bard by Dolan Stonefist)
"No shit, there I was.
We were building up to poke this thing in the eyes - all of them. Then he got a weird distract and started talking about some folks (like a gang?) attacking his subterranean pad. He peaced out down a shaft. We were like, "Don't worry, bro! We'll help you!" And followed him down. Right Eye came with us, too.
We got down to a landing and Right Eye grabbed a wand or something. Some weird monsters attacked from two directions. We laid the smack down, including a fun game of "why are you hitting your buddy?" orchestrated by, I think, Percy. Then a spider started trying to eat Kelpip and Right Eye, while Right Eye tried to alternate blasting us (and by us I mean Kelpip) and the spider. I think Right Eye got axed at that point, but memory fails.
Then we ran into three spell throwers down a staircase. They were kind of eating our lunch while also trying to get away with the sails. Kelpip ran all the way around the engagement and came in behind. With everyone engaged, we got the upper hand and finished the terrible trio.
We had a fateful moment of decision whether to kill Calyops or not. We offered him a bargain ("Yo! Give us the ship pieces and we'll call it even for saving your bacon"), but he said, "Sure, if you want me to pursue you for the rest of your lives." So we attacked. Like a pack of jackals on a Lion, we wore him down. He tried to escape down another shaft. I forget who did it, but I think the finishing move was someone just dropping onto his ... head with something sharp - maybe after Kelpip blasted him.
I think I got the coup de grace on something, but I don't think I got the last hit on the big bad.
Then we took the ship pieces, and the whole thing magically assembled. I think we went directly into interplanar mode, but not sure. There was booze, you see."
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