Game summary for March 11, 2008; present characters included Eolas Windmaster (moon elf duskblade), Grim Firestorm (shield dwarf barbarian/battlerager/frenzied berserker/warmain), Lyrin Sinbal (simian incantatrix/ring sage/warmage), Mael Gabrian (human cleric), Morak Beardfist (shield dwarf fighter/rage cleric), Ranulph Wathbater (human berserker/fighter/hellreaver/paladin of freedom/rogue), Syvarius Strongbow (moon elf archer-ranger/peerless archer), and Taravin Truesilver (human gray guard/paladin of honor/pious templar).
After the brutal battle with Prendergast’s assault team, the party gathered their dead and regrouped. Grim was successfully recalled from the dead, but Iapetus, Chuck, and Aridarye were stripped of their possessions and left on the cold hard ground to rot. Before long, the group encountered a cleric and hellreaver also intent on stopping the Age of Worms and joined forces. After some debate, the new Mercenaries set out to follow Lyrin’s tugging sensation along the canyon wall. After a few hours of travel, they came upon a series of waterfalls and a broad, shallow lake deep within the chasm. Their attempt of crossing with a folding boat failed due to the shallowness of the water.
The team skirted the lake and eventually found a crossable river they could use their limited flying magic to hop across. They again veered in the direction of Lyrin’s vision tug. After a long hike down, down, down into the dark bleak domain, they came upon a cave. Mael recoginized the floor as an illusion covering a deep dark chasm. Morak unleashed a wind walk, and the group advanced into the caves. The Mercenaries disrupted a writhing mass of centipedes ranged from 30 to 40 feet in length, which skittered after the cloudy party. Meanwhile, a flaming sigil appeared and flashed, unleashing deadly magic at Mael, but he shrugged off the effects. The party back-pedaled into a side chamber, and Morak dismissed the wind walk while the centipedes scurried toward them. Lyrin, using his own flying abilities, backtracked down the cave-chasm to unleash spells from a different angle.
In moments, scuttling legs and gnashing mandibles met stinging steel and scorching magic. The fighting became hurried and brutal. From the side cavern the Mercenaries retreated into, another scuttling arose. A massive black-carapace scorpion dripping green worms scurried into sight, its three stingers whipping about furiously. Syvarius felt an intrusion into his mind as the thing appeared but shook it off. Grim rushed to meet the new threat head-on and found his mind shredded by some fell power around the scorpion. The frenzied dwarf stood his ground and hacked away at the beast, but in short order, his mental faculties ruptured, sending him into a catatonic vegetative state. He hit the ground with a “thump!”, and the scorpion snatched him up in a claw and fled.
While this was going on in the back, the fight was brought to the centipedes with a vengeance. Syvarius’ arrows whistled out, stinging with their anti-undead magic. Spells of sunlight, cold, and lightning illuminated the caves with the first light to ever grace the walls. Centipedes writhed, squirmed, burned, and died. The priests channeled positive energy into twitching bodies, and the paladins rushed to Grim’s aid. The fierce fighting finally resulted in the slaughter of the centipedes, but the scorpion hurtled up a vertical shaft, leaving the Mercenaries in its wake. The team could do nothing but watch in horror as a limply-flopping Grim disappeared into the darkness in the clutches of the insanity-causing monster. With no time to spare, the Mercenaries rushed to the shaft and prepared to ascend. Will they reach Grim and save him? What will happen to the dwarf if they are not in time? Is the scorpion retreating or leading the party into the midst of a hive swarming with the creatures?
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