February 2015 Game
"Deep in the Dark"
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This game summary is immediately preceeded by the interlude called "The Well and the Key." The party was deep beneath the City of Order, in ancient tunnels occupied by all manner of foul creatures. As they explored, they came to a choke point with an 8' wide gap in the floor. Looking down into the gap, they saw that it was a near bottomless pit. |
The goblin chieftain asked what the party would give for safe passage. What price would they pay? Without conferring with his fellow adventurers, Venkat called out that they would pay nothing...and that if the goblins did not let them pass, the party would kill them all.
War drums could be heard echoing in the goblin halls, and hundreds of goblins could be heard chanting. A wave of goblins rushed the party's position, carrying wooden platforms to cross the 8' gap in the floor. The party fled from this overwhelming attack, and barely escaped from the tunnels with their lives. When they emerged from the tunnels inside the City of Order, the guards collapsed this entrance to the goblin territory beneath them, preventing the goblins from surfacing.
The party found the City of Order burning in a half a dozen places, and people running everywhere trying to put out the fires and assist the injured. The demi-human attack on the city had come from underground, rather than over the walls. And the townspeople quickly realized that 50 of their own were missing. Hostages had been taken! For what nefarious purpose, no one was sure.
The party was told that patrols had noticed goblin, kobold, and other demi-human tracks around the Black Temple, a ruined stone building about a half-hour to the North of the City of Order. This old ruin may be the best place to enter the demi-human territories beneath the ground, in order to attempt to free the hostages. The party outfitted themselves with equipment, and headed to the Black Temple with a unit of City Guards.
Arriving at the Black Temple, they found that is was an old ruined complex of buildings...perhaps a monatary of sorts. Little was known of the origins or history of the temple complex. The stone that had been used to build it was black, and thus it was named by the people of the City of Order.
Entering large crumbled doorway of the main building, the party observed a huge hall. The room was over a hundred feet long, eighty feet wide, and the ceiling was at least 30 feet high. Huge pillars held the roof aloft. Large portions of the floor had fallen away, leaving large pits and holes in the floor that gave a view into levels beneath the main room. And that's when they saw it...
A large creature was moving in the levels beneath the floor...a gigantic black wyrm. The writhing creature moved in a snakelike fashion, and the ground shook as it passed beneath. Anyone sane would have headed back to the City of Order, and given up the mission. But, not these adventurers. They were drawn to something they saw on the opposite side of the huge hall. A doorway, with the stone statues of women on either side of it.
The party attempted to cross the room, but the huge wyrm kept surfacing through the holes in the floor, attacking them, and then descending back through the holes into the levels beneath. Many City Guards died in the attempt to cross the room, swallowed whole by the wyrm. The party made it to the other side of the room, through grit and determination, while the City Guards continued to hold off the wyrm.
The party approached the doorway, but the stone statues came to life and began attacking them. The statues were very hard to damage, and their attacks were deadly. Every member of the party was injured, and many more City Guards were lost. The party did not waver. They fought and struggled, and first one of the statues was defeated and bloke to pieces, and then the next. And yet, the wyrm was still active and attacking viciously.
A City Guard told the party to go through the doorway, and save the hostages. The party was torn. Clearly they were leaving the City Guards to die in the maw of the wyrm, but their were hostages to save, and this may be their only chance. Respecting the sacrifice of the guards, the party ran into the doorway.
Everything was fog...or a dense mist. They could see nothing. Where were they? What was this place of infinite mist? And then the mists began to clear.
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This summary was written by Mark Stinson on 11/29/2017 (and may be missing some details due to the time passed between the game and this summary's writing.) The story continues in the interlude that immediately follows this game, "The Swirling Mists."
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