Session 14: Temple of the Serpent

Fully immersed in a collective dream, the ragtag band of adventurers made their way down into the swamp and toward the ziggurat, moving quietly through the thick undergrowth. The insects were thick as molasses, but Thrari used her control of the air to create a mild breeze that kept the worst of the bugs at bay and provided some relief.

Broodmother, experienced in the ways of the swamp, deftfully led the party through the worst of it. Although everyone was muddy up to their knees before long, Broodmother was able to keep them on mostly dry ground. At one point she stopped the party for no apparent reason near a bog. Then the rest of the party saw ripples in the water created by the passage of some large underwater creature. After it passed, Broodmother signaled them to continue on.

As the party approached within half a mile of the ziggurat, they could make out some kind of humanoid forms at the top, guarding what appeared to be the only entrance. They saw four creatures. Occassionally, one of the creatures would take off into the air and fly around the ziggurat in some kind of perimeter patrol. Broodmother said a prayer to the earth mother and suddenly the noise of the party was silenced and their shadows shortened. Thrari also rolled in the mud to help better camoflage herself, but could not convince any other party members to join her.

As the adventurers drew stealthily closer, one of the creatures flew close enough overhead to make it out. It was one of the Mi-Go, the half-fungi, half-crab creatures from Yuggoth. They made up the bulk of the forces in Kali’s invasion. The creature failed to notice the party, perhaps because of Broodmother’s divine incantation.

As they approached the ziggurat, the party began to circumnavigate it, looking for other possible entrances. The only visible one was at the top, guarded by the Mi-Go. A long flight of stairs ascended from the swampy jungle to the door, but was in full sight of the Mi-Go. Aside from the stairs, the blocks of the ziggurat were nearly fifteen feet high and the party would have to scale eight of them to reach the top. Climbing could be facilitated by the many jungle vines that had began to cover parts of the ziggurat, but it would be hard-going nonetheless.

As the party reached the opposite side of the ziggurat, they noticed that it was less surveilled by the Mi-Go than the side with the entrance. At irregular intervals, a Mi-Go would come over to look down, but they did not keep eyes on at all times. The party decided that they would attempt to rapidly scale the backside of the ziggurat and attack the Mi-Go from behind.

As the most recent Mi-Go sentry turned his back and headed to the other side, the party leapt into action. Broodmother transformed herself into a giant wolf spider and bounded up the ziggurat ahead of everyone. Laughter of the Moon shot up the ziggurat just behind her, using her natural claws to support her climb. Kegbe, a natural athlete, also made great pace up the ziggurat. Zerthon was able to use his natural dexterity and monk training to practically parkour up the steep steps. Newswunax had also been trained in athletic pursuits at the Academy of Devastation and was able to keep up with the others. Only Marcus and Thrari trailed behind. Thrari’s shorter legs slowed her down while Marcus wasn’t as strong as his sculpted breastplate made him appear.

Coming over the rise in spider form, Broodmother caught two of the Mi-Go by surprise as they move to investigate the sounds they heard from the other side. They immediately moved to attack, but one received a bolt in the side as Laughter of the Moon arrived and let loose with her crossbow.

Meanwhile, Kegbe had reached the other side of this level of the ziggurat where he found another Mi-Go. As this Mi-Go moved to close with Kegbe, he slashed at it with his glaive. He did fearsome damage to it, but it was still able to close and land a powerful blow on him with one of its pincers. Then suddenly, Kegbe grew to almost double his original size. Neswunax, coming up behind had seen him engage the Mi-Go and cast an enlargement spell upon him. Kegbe in his new fearsome form, made short work of the damaged Mi-Go. There he found that Laughter and Broodmother (still in spider form) engaged in a fierce battle with the remaining two Mi-Go. Kegbe rushed forward and slashed viciously at the Mi-Go. It let a strange tittering noise and fungus spores burst from its body and blinded Kegbe. The Mi-Go was then promptly shot in the face and dispatched by a crossbow bolt from Laughter of the Moon.

Blinded but hearing the sound of the remaining Mi-Go, Kegbe rushed forward and skewered it on his glaive. As the battle came to an end, Marcus and Thrari appeared over the lip of the stone, huffing and puffing, and ready for action. The party could see the remaining Mi-Go, which had been out on an aerial patrol. Having seen the fighting it was retreating away from the ziggurat, presumably to go get help. The party now had a deadline on completing their mission.

With some surprise, the party heard the shouts of Zerthon through the entrance. Instead of joining the battle, he had apparently scouted ahead and found that the entrance led to a tunnel that descended steeply and began spiraling down. Gathering themselves, the party advanced through the tunnel. Broodmother went protectively ahead of the others in spider form, not allowing anyone to come within thirty feet of her.

After going some ways the tunnel opened into a wide ledge overlooking a chasm. The chasm was about forty feet wide, with no obvious means of passage. Looking down, Broodmother saw that the chasm was about sixty feet deep. In spider form, she descended into the chasm, crossed it, and came up on the other side, where the tunnel continued on into the dark.

As Broodmother was crossing to the other side, the rest of the party came to the chasm. Seeing the problem, Kegbe immediately began tying ropes together to allow passage. As he prepared to shout across to Broodmother to catch the rope, four arrows shot out from the darkness behind Broodmother. Two arrows caught the spider form and in a flash it reverted back to broodmother, now standing hunched in pain with an arrow protuding from her back. The party moved into action. Kegbe threw the rope to Broodmother, who managed to catch it. Neswunax pulled out a piece of licorice and began chewing it before muttering some arcane words and casting haste on Marcus. Marcus, feeling energized, grabbed the rope that was being held by Kegbe and Broodmother and shimmied across at an amazing speed. Because of powers granted to him by his patron, Marcus could see far into the darkness to see the four humanoid forms crouched forty feet down the corridor holding shortbows. As he reached the other side, his spear appeared in his hand instantly and he charged toward these figures as they launched another round of arrows at Broodmother that bounced harmlessly off her thick scales.

Laughter and Zerthon both cross the chasm more slowly on the rope. Kegbe then handed the rope to Thrari and began to cross it himself, but found it more difficult going than he expected. Newsunax followed him, but was a bit quicker, passing Kegbe about two-thirds of the way across the chasm.

Marcus reached the humanoids and launched an attack. They looked human, although something seemed odd about them. They each wore loose fitting clothes and a scimitar, in addition to their bows. With a flash, Marcus assaulted the closest one. As he stabbed his spear into it, black tendrils of necrotic energy spilled out from the wounds along with a greenish-black ichor like blood. The thing hissed like a snake in fury and pain and then its gurgles faded away as it slumped to the ground. Two of the creatures retreated further down the corridor and tried to feather Marcus with arrows, but his shield protected him well. The remaining creature pulled its scimitar and leapt to the attack.

Soon Zerthon joined the fight as well as Laughter. The second creature went down between their blows, and the two remaining creatures turned and ran in full flight. In the distance Marcus could make out the entrance to a large chamber.

Seeing the creatures flee, Broodmother transformed herself into a camel and began galloping toward them, still holding the rope in her grasp. Thrari, still on the other side of the chasm, held on for dear life as she was first swung into the fire chasm wall and then up and over the lip and along the ground.

The party caught up one of the creatures and brought it down, but the other one narrowly escaped Broodmother’s hooves and ran into the chamber. Not wanting to let the creature get away, the party pursued her into the chamber.

The chamber they entered appeared to be some sort of large temple. A set of large pillars ran through the middle of the chamber up to the halfway point, where there was a large pool. On the other side of the pool was an altar upon which a large headless statue sat cross-legged. The pool was filled with some kind of green viscous liquid.

All of these details about the chamber faded into the background in comparison to the occupants of the room. In front of the altar on the far side of the pool was a large snakelike creature with arms, wearing armor and holding a giant longbow. Around the pool area, four half-snake, half-human creatures sat guard, also holding longbows. Two of these creatures had the upper body of a human but a giant snake’s lower half, while the other two had the bodies of humans but a snake head. Three other creatures similar to the ones the party had already met were hiding under cover behind the pillars with shortbows nocked. It appeared that the party had found the headquarters of the commander they sought and in so doing had stumbled upon a temple of the Yuan-Ti - hideous snake-people.

Marcus was the first into the chamber, in hot pursuit of the fleeing yuan-ti pureblood. With his magically hasted movement, he caught up to it quickly and ended it with a spear thrust to its back. He then rushed forward to attempt to force a melee with the remaining yaun-ti. His progress was halted, however, when a giant constrictor snake dropped from the ceiling, right on top of him. At the last second, he was able to raise an arcane shield that caused the snake to deflect from its path and land next to him rather than upon him. He lashed out at the snake with his spear. Several arrows came flying toward him but were easily deflected by the still-functioning arcane shield.

Suddenly, Kegbe burst into the chamber on top of a camel. The camel was of course Broodmother, shapechanged. Charging forward, Kegbe lashed out at the snake, striking it a grievious wound. However, as Broodmother charged forward, the large yuan-ti abomination raised its longbow and fired two arrows directly into the camel’s sternum. It went down with a loud grunt and transformed back into a wounded Broodmother. Kegbe tumbled off behind.

Zerthon charged into the room and struck a blow to one of the yuan-ti malisons, stunning it brutally. Then, seemingly oblivious to the plight of his party members, he moved to investigate the far altar at the other end of the temple.

Meanwhile, the battle resolved into some identifiable patterns. Kegbe held up the right flank, holding back two of the malisons with his glaive, while Broodmother held up the right flank, striking out with primal savagery at her foes. Marcus was a blur of motion in the center. After dispatching the giant constrictor snake, he rushed forward and decimated the remaining yuan-ti purebloods before rushing to Broodmother’s aid.

Laughter of the Moon darted between pillars, staying behind cover and taking devastating potshots at the exposed parts of otherwise engaged yuan-ti. Thrari also moved about firing lightning and icey blasts from her fingers at enemies. Nesunax meanwhile fired his crossbow in support. He also was able to counteract suggestive mind control magic cast by the yuan-ti several times with quick use of counterspell measures.

The battle almost turned when the yuan-ti abomination strode into the fray across the poison-filled pool. He uttered a string of sibilant serpentine words and suddenly Thrari was filled with panic. She ran as fast as she could from the battlefield. The yuan-ti then slithered over to where Kegbe had just dispatched the last of the malisons on his flank. It wrapped him in its coils and bit him. He went limp as the poison coursed through him. Unwrapping its coils from his body, the abomination prepared to slither forward and cause more mayhem. It was brought short, however, by Laughter of the Moon. Stepping from behind a pillar, she fired a crossbow bolt directly into its mouth and out the back of its skull. The abomination fell dead on the floor. Meanwhile, Marcus laid out the remaining malison with a devastating blow, then he himself fell motionless, exhausted and spent as the haste spell wore off.

The party stopped to catch their breath, as they realized the fierce battle was complete. They took stock of the chamber. Although Kali’s symbols had been placed in numerous spots, they realized that the temple was not originally dedicated to her nor to the serpent gods of the yuan-ti. It was a temple to the protector god, Heimdall, and had been defaced. It was his headless statue that sat at the front of the temple. In front of this statue was a plaque with strange alien writing on it. As the party gathered in front of this plaque, it began to glow brighter and brighter. There was a flash and … suddenly each of the party members woke up in their beds aboard the captured drow spidership. In each of their minds, the strange script on the plaque was emblazoned:

As the ship gently moved its way through the dark void, each party member was left to wonder on the meaning of these strange symbols…