Sometimes you come up with a great plan and it just doesn't do any good. Milque and I talked and talked, and finally figured out what to do about the creatures in the cave. Just as we were getting ready to put the plan into action, a gruff voice called out from the cave, saying "no kill, no kill. Go away."
Still, considering how banged up we all were, I was just as happy not to fight. The cave, it turned out, was inhabited by a group that hated the red-robed cult as much as we did. Sure, they were ogres, orcs, and half-breeds of various types, but the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Mostly.
With a bit of negotiation, we managed to talk our way in, and even got pretty friendly after a while. They really like Elo (who I suspect is half ogre himself), and they at least tolerated the rest of us. Except for Chicot, who they wanted to eat. I can't blame them too much, he did appear dead after all. And I was certainly tempted, but I didn't think that Blink and Tad would let me get away with it. We stayed with the ogre band for over a day as we recovered from Chicot leading us on suicide missions. It took several rounds of healing to get us all on our feet, and meanwhile we had an interesting lesson in ogre society. They were happy to eat some of the food we created, but they really wanted to hunt as well. We sent Blink along to help the first time. But he was pretty disgusted by the experience. I can't say as I blame him, I was pretty nauseated by the goblin parts they dragged back into the cave. Garth in particular was lacking in table manners. He looked to be a full ogre, with brains to match. Of course he wanted to eat Chicot, which seemed like a good idea to me.
Milque made friends with them during our stay by crafting especially fine clubs for them to use. He did some kind of a reverse warp-wood spell to create the clubs, and even managed to embed spikes in some of them.
Elo talked with the leader quite a bit, and Oli gave him some useful information. It seems the firemen (as the ogres referred to the cultists), had quite a few different kinds of underlings. Orcs, goblins, and bugbears were their more common servants, and we had run into one of their fire-lizard guards before. But this temple had several lizards, and something we'd never heard of before. A bat-winged, lion like creature with a spiked tail. It sounded pretty ferocious from Oli's description.
Oli, it turned out, had done a little reconnaissance earlier. He'd lost a couple members of his family and had gone looking for them. He described what he'd seen to us, and even agreed to lead us partway up the trail. We at least planned on being invisible, but I don't think Oli could deal with that himself. Getting him to accept that we were invisible was going to be hard enough.
At last we were feeling ready to go. Oli led us up the trail, and Milque slipped ahead to do some recon for himself. Using his slippers of spider climbing, he went up the side of the cliff to check out the entrances to the lizard caves. He peered over the edge of a large shelf in the side of the mountain, and saw a pretty large flat area with various exits. The shelf was over 100 feet wide, and at least that deep. On the right were three caves, two large ones with a smaller one between them. The cave nearest the edge of the cliff seemed to connect around to one that faced out. At the back was an amphitheater sort of area with a large pit of what looked to be lava, and two human sized doors behind it. And on the left was another door that led into the cliff, towards the human entrance we were hoping to avoid. This seemed like the best way in.
He came back and reported to the rest of us, and we decided to use the slippers, one by one, to go up the cliff. That part went pretty well. I went up first, and watched a low level acolyte doing a little cleaning and then vanish through the door to the left. Eventually we all made it up, and started our invasion. We decided to leave the lizards and the weird winged beast be, and hoped to take out the big guy first. We headed through the left door, and down the corridor beyond. It wound down some stairs and then came to a four-way intersection. Everything was well lit with flaming torches. I wasn’t terribly surprised. Ahead we could see an large room with lots of tables and cultists in it. Sneaking ahead to check it out, Milque and I found it was the dining hall. Six large tables were spread out in the room, and braziers burned brightly in the corners. The middle table on the left seemed to be the head table, but it wasn’t full yet. We went back, and then had to hide in a side corridor as a couple priests went by. They went straight ahead into the dining hall, and there was much scraping of chairs as everyone inside stood. A few minutes later, as we planned our attack, it happened again.
A quick check revealed that the big guys were now present, so we made our plan of attack. We hoped to set things up so that Milque and I would be casting sleep spells while a phantasmal force of lots of Silks filled the room. Then I could blast the head table with lightning bolts, and Chicot and Elo could finish them off . Meanwhile Tad would stay invisible as long as possible to be able to heal us safely. Not a bad plan for the spur of the moment, and it worked pretty well as far as it went.
I cast Mirror Image and then drank a potion of fire resistance. Milque cast a Phantasm of 18 Silks in the other three corners of the room at the same time as I appeared in the fourth corner casting my Sleep spell. I got 6 the first round, and 8 the next. By this time though, the big guy has figured out what’s going on and disbelieves the phantasm. He points to my group and says that’s the real one, and someone casts a small firebomb around me. Fortunately the potion protects me, so I’m okay. I let loose with the wand and kill a peon, and hurt the big guy and his number two man. Elo and Chicot swing and hit, but the big guy still doesn’t go down. Ouch. This guy is tougher than I expected. Milque Sleeps a few more this round and then things really start to get busy. I’m just going to use numbers to keep track of them all. I zap again and kill the number 5 guy, and hurt 4 and 6. Milque Color Sprays and stuns a few of them. Most of the little guys are slept at this point, and Blink is taking care of those that aren’t.
Well almost all of them. The big guy was in the middle of casting a spell, and Elo missed him. Chicot was right there, and instead of swinging at the leader who’s about to cast some deadly spell, decides to turn around and swing at the peon who poked at him from behind and missed! Why is it anytime things are going well Chicot has to do something stupid? Next thing we know Elo is in the middle of a wall of fire. Ouch. I zap again and hit 1 & 2 another time, and they still don’t fall. By this time, I’m starting to get worried. Milque manages to cast hold person on 3 & 4, so they’re out of the battle. But number 2 collapses a chunk of wall into lava right next to me. And then number 1 Disintegrates my wand! Wow. I’m glad it wasn’t me, but that’s a really powerful spell. While I’m trying to figure out what to do next, number 1 turns around and casts a tunneling spell into the wall, breaking through into the corridor beyond.
Blink, at this point, teleports into the tunnel to try and block it, but gets blasted by 5 Firebolts from the lead guy for his trouble. And number 2 breaths some kind of a Stinking Cloud at us that has most of us retching. Milque tries to come to Blink’s rescue using his wand of wonder, and creates a large paper bag of the big guy. I try and make it through the lava and slip because I’m still gagging, but fortunately don’t take too much damage. Milque tries again and creates a shrieker. Just what we needed, something to summon more monsters.
I make it there finally and grapple the big guy to the ground. But this doesn’t help for long as I get Spook cast at me by number 2. Tad heals Chicot, who’s been damaged while fighting the remaining low level guys and by one of the walls of fire. Elo comes through the firewalls to try and help, and gets a Lightning Bolt in the chest as a reward. Unfortunately, it blows past him and hits Tad as well, who drops unconscious to the ground. So much for an invisible healer being safe! In the end, we defeated all but number 1 and 2, who fled down the corridor. I followed them at a distance after getting Milque to make me invisible again, and they headed to a sulfur spring behind the right hand door at the back of the amphitheater. As they passed the caves on the right, the big guy called out in a strange language, and soon there were firedrakes and that weird lion-bat thing wandering the shelf. I got into the room by lifting the bar with my sword, but I was pretty noisy about it. While they couldn’t see me, they knew I was there. Number 1 cast a Strength spell on number 2, who bulged and inflated before my eyes. In that situation, I wasn’t about to try and take them on myself. I beat a quiet retreat. I’d might get in one free swing, but then I’d be an open target for the big guys firebolts while number 2 kept me away. Besides, I’m lousy with a sword. Unfortunately, it really looked like they were healing in there, so they may be back to full strength while we have no cleric. The important thing is to keep them from sleeping. That, and to make sure we get to whatever magic items they have before they do. That’s the next step. Of course I also have to figure out a way to kill all the sleeping bad guys before they wake up. Blink and Tad won’t like it, but we’re in no shape to shepherd 15 or 20 evil priests on a 5 day journey through enemy territory.
On to Journal Sixteen