Pathfinders of the New World- Knights of the Cross(roads), the Next Generation: Book Two, Chapter Thirteen

The Temple of Nergal, Part Three:
The Tunnels

Dramatis Personae:
KlikKlick BoomBoom, the Kobold Platinum pint-sized Dragonborn Beastmaster,  Priestess of Apsu, and Artificer
TickTick, KlikKlik's Giant Bat animal companion
Klak, KlikKlik's Flying Snake construct
Taryn Al'Maera, the Drow Assassin and future Ralliakkan
Niss'RizDax Kenarn, the Drow Sword Dancer Priestess of Eilistraee, "the Moonlit Dancer"
Thea, Dax's red Faerie Dragon familiar
Xara, the Dorc Circus Eldritch Knight and Abjurationist Wizard
Baxter, Xara's red Faerie Dragon familiar

Comrades we have lost:
Sonitri, the Samsaran Arcane Prodigy Sorcerer- went home
Nyneve, the Water Genasi Druid of the Fountain- eaten by zombies

NOTE: Things will be mostly from Dax's perspective, anything in italics is from a third party view, since the priestess can't be everywhere at once.

***** Thrimidge 10, 480, Crossroads

       Since we were waiting for the military to get back to us about that temple, we spent the day shopping and screwing around in town. Xara wanted a familiar, and was interested in faerie dragons, and since she couldn't simply summon a fey spirit as I had and give it that form, Thea gave her the name of a faerie dragon she knew who might be amiable to being her familiar. His name is Baxter, and he seemed rather annoyed at being summoned, though Thea and I couldn't hear what was said. Xara convinced him to become her familiar, so now we each have a little faerie dragon companion. After that I left her to study with the wizards and I went shopping.

***** Thrimidge 11, Crossroads

       During her studies, Xara asked one of the mages in the tower about duckbears. This mage was an illusionist wizard who had heard about the ongoing prank Taryn and KlikKlik were spreading, and decided to join the fun. He told Xara the tower had one in a cage, and led her to a back room. The wizard used his illusion skills to make Xara believe he was leading her very far down a spiral staircase, to a secret room, and once she reached the illusionary room, Xara laid her eyes on a caged duckbear. The Dorc squealed in glee at finally laying her eyes on the beast she'd been yearning to see, and hurried back to her studies. 

       When Xara got back to the inn this morning, she told me that she'd seen a duckbear in the tower today. Apparently this elaborate prank has taken a turn, random wizards have joined in on the gag now. I probably shouldn't have let the prank get to this point, but I didn't realize that she would take it so seriously. She was flushed with excitement as she told me all about the duckbear in the secret room. I wouldn't be surprised if a few of those mages actually made duckbears a real thing. That seems to be where this damn joke is leading to, now that the mage tower is in on it.

       We returned to the Mage Tower shortly after breakfast and met with Major General Mavha Trak'len again. She asked us to return to the Temple and assess whatever threat may remain there, because they didn't have the manpower to look into it themselves. She said we shouldn't take more than a day to return because who knows what those ghosts are up to. We took a memory stone from her and said we'd leave around midday. 

       Most of the corpses that weren't locked inside the Temple had been drug away by animals when we got back, and it was back to that eerie silence. There didn't seem to be anything waiting to ambush us in the area, and aside from those bodies being drug off, the Temple was exactly how we'd left it. We looked at the two paths that the ghosts had gone down, and after a moment of debate we chose to take the path on the right. Taryn found a couple of traps in the path, but with her help we were able to avoid them.

       Eventually we entered a spacious room that had two tunnels going out of it, one directly ahead, and the other to our left- presumably the path we didn't take from the amphitheater. There were tables in the room with embalming tools and other things to protect corpses from decay- possibly mummy making tools. Great. There was another mural on the wall of this room, depicting the forces of Nergal destroying those of Gilgeam. Once we determined there was nothing lurking and waiting for us in this room, we continued on the path.

       After following the tunnel through a few forks, we found what appeared to be a storage room. It held more embalming tools, and lots of barrels and crates that had rotted through. The next room we came upon appeared to be a bedroom, and everything in it was crumbled and rotten with age.

       As we continued exploring the tunnels, they began looking a lot nicer, the stone was smoother and there were designs on the walls. The tunnel opened up into a corridor that had several alcoves on the walls. We waited at the mouth of the tunnel while Taryn snuck up to one of the alcoves, and something popped out at her- another fucking zombie.

       There were ten of the fuckers- five on each side of the corridor. Taryn ripped into the zombie, but she wasn't able to drop it- the zombies surrounded Taryn and Xara, and dropped Taryn. I enjoyed healing her to revive her, since she hates it so much, and as soon as she was up, TickTick grabbed her and got her out of that mess. Xara had to disengage herself from the horde. Klik shot at them to pus a bunch of them away from Xara, but they got back to her quickly and ripped into her viciously- I was surprised she didn't go down, but relieved she doesn't. Sometimes I really hate my lady's need to get right in the face of everything we fight. At that I set up a bottleneck with my Moon Path, winding the ribbon down the corridor so they couldn't get to us. I hoped Xara would be smart enough to stay on the safer side of the Path, but I knew her better than that.

       Xara broke off from the zombies and came back to me for healing. Taryn dropped a globe of darkness over the bulk of the group, taking Tick and Klak with her- since they didn't need to see in the dark. Of course Xara was pissed that Taryn dropped the darkness, and started making her way toward it, grumbling about drow and their obsession with darkness. Sometimes it's very clear that she was not raised in the Underdark. I tossed a couple of fireballs at the nicely clumped group of zombies, and I could hear sounds of fighting coming from Taryn's darkness. With them so nicely contained, we were able to finish the group off with ease. At least we've got a tactic now for dealing with these fuckers. We later learned from the mages that the designs that had been on the tunnels were about two dynasties, Azouf and Haron, who were Nergal's loyal servants, and that these zombies had been some of those kings.

       After that we headed back up a ways to take a breather, and to our surprise Fred popped in to check on us while we were resting. Apparently he had felt bad about leaving us up there alone, and wanted to make sure we were still alive.

       We retraced our steps and went down a new path, and spent forever trying to get Klik to make a decision about which path to take- she just couldn't make up her mind- and I could tell Taryn was about to strangle her. When we finally had reached a decision about which way to go, Klik slipped Taryn the duck call. A while later we heard a quack come from a long way up the tunnel- which Xara instantly thought was a fucking duckbear. Somehow that turned into the thought that it was a zombie duckbear, which just sounded absurd, but Xara seemed ready to believe anything about duckbears. I adore her, but sometimes she can be so dumb. I really shouldn't have let this joke continue for this long, but I had honestly thought she'd catch on that they were fucking with her, and now telling her would just be mean. Besides, I'm from the Underdark of the Old World, it would make sense that I might think they could be real. My lady was a bit disappointed when we never found out where the duckbear was hiding.

       These tunnels had the stories about one of the dynasties on them, showing great battles unfolding, telling the deeds of one of the families. We traveled for hours, watching the story of this ancient house unfold, and eventually the pictures stopped and there was just writing. We couldn't read it, but learned later that this was the entrance to the crypt of one of the dynasties. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of bodies in this room. They didn't seem to be active, but we had the sinking suspicion that they wouldn't stay down for much longer. We'd occasionally see a ghost pop out of a corpse and go into another one, but that was the only sign of movement. We headed back to take a rest before going through the rest of the tunnels.

***** Thrimidge 12, Demonsclaw Mountains, Temple of Nergal

       While we rested, Fred showed up again, and decided to hang out with us for a while.

       We spent hours going through the tunnels, and found thousands of peasants in two different caverns. Another cavern had heaps of bodies, likely in the thousands, just piled there, having been discarded with no care. We couldn't tell how big the room was, with all the piles of bodies, but the ghosts were bouncing around in this room too.

       Eventually we came into another corridor depicting the stories of the other house, and found more bodies in nice looking gear. We estimated there were about 25,000 troops in this Temple. Great.

       Once we had searched the entire Temple, we hightailed it back to Crossroads. We weren't stupid or suicidal enough to attempt to do anything on our own.

***** Thrimidge 13, Crossroads

       We got to Crossroads as the sun was rising, and spent the next eight hours in the tower going over everything. After that I checked in at the Temple of Eilistraee and told them about the Temple of Nergal. I think that the Temple of Nergal would be good for our cause, once we'd cleared out the undead of course, I wanted us to cleanse it and reclaim it in the name of Eilistraee. The head priestess of my temple agreed with me, but wouldn't give us any people to help cleanse the temple. We just didn't have the numbers.

       We decided to go carousing tonight to blow off some steam. Later in the evening, when I turned away to get a drink, Xara vanished, and didn't turn up again until the next morning. Apparently she woke up in a field outside of town, sore and bruised.

***** Thrimidge 14, Crossroads

       Just after breakfast, Mavha summoned us to the tower again. She thanked us again for our service to the Realm, and said she had an offer for us. We would be given the rank for 1st Lieutenants in the military, along with the wages that came with it, and would each have a force of mercenaries to control. Mavha said we'd be paid per mission, plus a $5,000 signing bonus; Taryn said if they gave us Pinkerton and doubled the money she'd do it. Mavha agreed to Taryn's terms, we collected our $10,000 each and were told that they'd have our teams soon. They had sent scouts to the Temple in the meantime to keep an eye on it.

Pathfinders of the New World- Knights of the Cross(roads), the Next Generation: Book Two, Chapter Twelve

The Temple of Nergal, Part Two:
The Statues

Dramatis Personae:
KlikKlick BoomBoom, the Kobold Platinum pint-sized Dragonborn Beastmaster,  Priestess of Apsu, and Artificer
TickTick, KlikKlik's Giant Bat animal companion
Taryn Al'Maera, the Drow Assassin and future Ralliakkan
Niss'RizDax Kenarn, the Drow Sword Dancer Priestess of Eilistraee, "the Moonlit Dancer"
Thea, Dax's red Faerie Dragon familiar
Xara, the Dorc Circus Eldritch Knight

Comrades we have lost:
Sonitri, the Samsaran Arcane Prodigy Sorcerer- went home
Nyneve, the Water Genasi Druid of the Fountain- eaten by zombies

NOTE: Things will be mostly from Dax's perspective, anything in italics is from a third party view, since the priestess can't be everywhere at once.

***** Thrimidge 8, 480, The Temple of Nergal

       When we finished our rest, we took stock of our supplies, and realized how tapped out we were. Taryn decided to fly back to Crossroads to get us more items, while the rest of us stayed behind. I brewed healing potions and KlikKlik worked on building some items, though I'm not sure what. Since I had the makings for several half potions, Xara volunteered to go look for the rest of the ingredients I needed, taking Tick and Thea with her.

       While Xara was gathering what Dax needed for potions, a pack of eight wolves attacked. Thea used her euphoria breath to make the alpha run away. Xara then killed five other wolves and knocked another unconscious, which made the final wolf run away in terror. 

       On the way back from shopping, Taryn was attacked by two giant owls, and she killed them easily. 

***** Thrimidge 9, The Temple of Nergal

       We opened the next set of doors at dawn, and were greeted to a large coliseum/amphitheater, with piles of bones in the stone chairs. There were stone statues like the ones we'd faced in the first room, with candelabra near them, and scattered throughout the rest of the room. On the other side of the room was an altar made of basalt, with a desiccated body laying on it, that was decked out in some pretty nice equipment.

       As we walked in, the candelabra began to light up, that wasn't fucking ominous or anything. At the very end of the room was a massive statue of Nergal, with a tapestry behind him and two paths that broke off in different directions. The tapestries depicted a fight between Nergal and Gilgeam, who was the head of the Unther pantheon. One path was next to the picture of Nergal, the other next to Gilgeam. Somehow, the tapestry was in perfect condition, untouched by the centuries this place had been abandoned for- it was probably preserved by magic.

       When we were about halfway across the room, ghosts began to appear in the seats. There had to have been at least 300 of the fuckers. We all felt ourselves age at the horror of seeing so many ghosts; though it only seemed to affect Xara since she wasn't a full drow. Then another ghost appeared before the altar and began preaching in a language we couldn't understand. It was so unnerving that we all froze in place. After what felt like eternity, but was really only like a minute or so, the ghost of the priest flew into the body on the altar, the other ghosts flew down each of the hallways, and the statues animated. A voice told us we were to be sacrificed to Nergal. Great.

       Taryn flew straight at the priest and shot him, but she didn't seem to penetrate his shield. Great. I attempted to banish him, but he shrugged it off and said some sort of Power Word that flung Taryn from her broom and slammed her into the ceiling. The statues picked up the candelabra and began throwing them at us like they were javelins. One of the candelabra slammed hard into my side, and I began bleeding profusely. Another hit Klik, but didn't seem to hurt her as much as the one that had struck me- the others were lucky, none of the candelabra managed to hit them.

       Klik sent acid at one of the statues, and seemed to hurt it. Xara decided to fly up to the priest and slashed at him with her blades; Taryn followed up by shooting him. His sword lit up and he slashed at Taryn, hitting her pretty hard- I wish she'd let me heal her- and a sadistic, gleeful chuckle came from our undead foe. At that, I cast out a blessing of Eilistraee at my friends- and Taryn actually accepted it! She really doesn't make sense to me, she'll accept a blessing of Eilistraee, but she won't accept healing magic that can save her life. A globe of darkness appeared on Taryn, Xara, and the priest. Great.

       Klik, Tick, and I concentrated our fire on a single statue right before we heard Taryn scream in darkness, and a blast of fire bloomed out of the dark. Great. I could tell what strategy Taryn was going for- it was a typical one taught in the Underdark- so I didn't dispel the darkness to investigate, all I could do was pray that Taryn and Xara were okay, and trust that Eilistraee would protect them. The statues had run out of candelabra to throw at us, and began picking each other up and wielding their comrades as weapons. Honestly, it was kind of comical to watch these massive statues swinging each other around as if they were swords. Since Tick has echolocation, Klik sent him to help with the priest while we kept working on the statues, who had put themselves into a nice cluster, so I dropped a fireball on them. Then one of them hit me and I felt myself slip into unconsciousness.

       At the sight of Dax falling, KlikKlik called for everyone to fall back. She had TickTick revive Dax and fly her toward the doors, while she shot the statues with acid.

       Within the globe of darkness, Taryn told Xara she was about to do something crazy and Xara needed to get the hell away. The Dorc listened. Taryn had stuffed her bag of holding with 35 pounds of gunpowder, all of her extra bullets, alchemical fire, and oil... then set a fuse going into the bag. She lit the fuse and managed to slip into a room that was concealed by the tapestries. Taryn managed to turn a table on end to shield herself just before the massive explosion rocked the room. Neither Taryn or the priest went down from the explosion. 

       I saw a massive explosion from the area I'd last seen Taryn, and smoke obscured all vision of the area. I had a feeling she was still alive though, that bitch is hard to kill. Tick brought me to the doorway, and Xara followed. I used a wonderful spell Eilistraee had just opened to me, and dropped a large path made of moonlight in front of the doorway, creating a barricade big enough for us to hide behind, but still shoot at them over. Taryn emerged from the smoke, yelling at us that he was right behind her, and she ran for my path- Klik was also heading to us.

       The priest shouted out another Power Word at Taryn as she worked to retreat. Once we were all safely behind my barricade, Klik shot the priest with a silence bullet, preventing him from casting any spells. We were all shooting at the priest and his statues from over the wall, with me working to keep everyone healed- except Taryn, of course. The priest began trying to dig the bullet out of his arm, and once he got it out, he dispelled my path. Klik shot him with another silence bullet and I got my path back up, keeping us sheltered.

       As the others kept shooting at our enemies from behind my path, I attempted to beseech Eilistraee for help, but she was unable to grant me assistance. It seemed she wanted me to do this on my own, so I kept shooting our foes from the safety of my wall. After taking a couple of nasty shots from Taryn, the priest finally seemed injured. We kept working at it, and after what felt like an eternity, Taryn blew the priest up! It took another five minutes to mop up the mooks, but we had succeeded! I just had to have faith in myself and my friends that we'd succeed, I think I understood the message Eilistraee was sending by not helping me.

       Klik decided the altar had to be destroyed right away, and once we finished destroying it, we all took a rest. We were exhausted from that fight, and drenched in blood. While Xara and Klik slept, Taryn and I decided we needed to go back to Crossroads. We didn't think we could get through the rest of this place without help. As soon as the others were up, we went right back to Crossroads, locking the temple behind us.

       We got back to town at nightfall, and reported to our respective groups. Unfortunately the Temple of Eilistraee wouldn't be able to give us much assistance, there really weren't many of us here yet.

       After everyone had reported in, we took this odd book we'd found in the temple to the Mage Tower, and had them record our memories of the temple.

Pathfinders of the New World- Knights of the Cross(roads), the Next Generation: Book Two, Chapter Eleven

The Temple of Nergal, Part One:
Undead Everywhere

Dramatis Personae:
KlikKlick BoomBoom, the Kobold Platinum pint-sized Dragonborn Beastmaster,  Priestess of Apsu, and Artificer
TickTick, KlikKlik's Giant Bat animal companion
Taryn Al'Maera, the Drow Assassin and future Ralliakkan
Niss'RizDax Kenarn, the Drow Sword Dancer Priestess of Eilistraee, "the Moonlit Dancer"
Thea, Dax's red Faerie Dragon familiar
Xara, the Dorc Circus Eldritch Knight

Comrades we have lost:
Sonitri, the Samsaran Arcane Prodigy Sorcerer- went home
Nyneve, the Water Genasi Druid of the Fountain- eaten by zombies

NOTE: Things will be mostly from Dax's perspective, anything in italics is from a third party view, since the priestess can't be everywhere at once.

***** Thrimidge 3, 480, Gnoll Hills

       We spent about five hours in the morning sorting through the gnoll camp, looking for anything useful. Taryn randomly flew off while we were sorting and KlikKlik followed. Xara and I shrugged and kept working, I knew if they needed us, we'd know.

       Taryn had spotted a figure on one of the hills a few hundred feet away and went to investigate. It was a kid who had been traveling with a merchant caravan, and came to investigate the noises they'd heard- Taryn and KlikKlik's gunshots during the battle. They brought the kid back to camp, with the plan that the party would bring the kid with them to Lakeview, where he could catch up with his caravan. 

       The kid that Taryn and Klik brought back to camp was very helpful, and shaved some time off of our search of the gnoll's belongings. When we finished up, we took the kid to Lakeview as promised, and met up with his merchant, who was pretty dang awesome.

       We departed for Crossroads after meeting with the merchant, taking five hyenas with us- the ones Klik had managed to tame. She dropped them off at Kelani's barn for training when we arrived.

       That evening Taryn emerged in her "Madame" guise for the stupid circus, Paerus Al'Kai.

***** Thrimidge 4, Crossroads

       We were summoned to the Mage Guild in the morning to discuss what transpired in the Gnoll Hills. Major General Mavha Trak'len, the leader of the Special Forces, met us in the memory room where we'd had our trials so they could review our memories of the battle. She thanked us for our service to the country, and said that even though we're not part of the military we're still doing good things for the realm. Trak'len said the military was impressed by us and they paid us a decent reward for our service.

       After our meeting, we discussed our plan for what to do next, and decided we'd check out the ruins in the Demonsclaw Mountains next. We'd head out in the morning.

***** Thrimidge 5, Bandit Woods

       We traveled through the Bandit Woods on our way to Silverton, so that KlikKlik could look for the herbs I need to make healing potions. It took a little extra time, but she found a decent amount of ingredients for me. Along the way we were attacked by a group of wolves, which we had to kill; Klik couldn't dominate them.

       When we arrived in Silverton, KlikKlik headed straight for the Temple of Apsu, while the rest of us went to the tavern to get more info. In the tavern we learned the general location of these ruins from a group of rangers, who said one of their hunters was already out in that vicinity. Finding him would be our best bet to find these ruins.

       After flying through the mountains for a couple of hours we found the hunter we'd heard about in the tavern; Fred was his name. He said he could lead us to the ruins, and Klik loaned him her broom so we wouldn't be stuck walking. As we flew, we saw a large form in the distance- a giant eagle. Klik went to talk to it, and it was looking at Tick as if he was food; I hoped we wouldn't have to kill this eagle for going after TickTick. KlikKlik asked it about the ruins, offering it Apsu's blessing in exchange for information... it cocked its head at her and gave her a blank look. We flew for a few more hours before setting up camp.

       During KlikKlik and Taryn's watch, they caught a lone wolf trying to sneak into camp, it looked starving. They scared the beast off. 

***** Thrimidge 6, Demonsclaw Mountains

       Fred told us he could probably get us to the ruins by the end of the day, but his estimate was way off. A couple of hours into our travel, he realized we were on the wrong side of the fucking mountain, and by the time he got us to the right area, it was nearly dark and we had to set up camp.

       While sitting at our campfire that night, Xara asked Fred if he'd ever seen any duckbears before. He seemed confused at first, until Klik elaborated on the duckbear search of Xara's... then he seemed to understand the joke and joined in. Xara is now completely convinced that duckbears are real, and I just don't have the heart to tell her they're probably not. I'm curious to see how long Klik can keep this gag running.

       Wolves approached their camp again tonight, and Taryn attempted to scare them off on her own, but she fucked up her intimidation attempt and they attacked her instead. KlikKlik helped her scare them off. 

***** Thrimidge 7, Demonsclaw Mountains

       Fred found the correct path for us this time, and got us almost to the ruins, showing us the landmark that would get us the rest of the way. He didn't want to come with us to the ruins, so he left to resume his hunt; Klik was nice enough to let him borrow her broom.

       We reached the ruins just before dark, and camped down the hill from them. We set up traps along the path to make sure we'd have warning if anything came out of them during the night. There were no animals here, and I didn't hear a single noise that would indicate wildlife. It was quite unsettling and downright spooky.

***** Thrimidge 8, Demonsclaw Mountains

     There was an eerie fog blanketing the area when everyone was got up in the morning, made even spookier by the dead silence of the forest around us. Not a single bird could be heard, nor could we hear animals rustling in the brush beyond our camp. This was also the first night we hadn't had wolves approach in the night. I had a bad feeling about this place.

       We followed what remained of a path until our way was barred by berry bushes. Taryn started hacking at the bushes to no avail, then shot them in frustration. KlikKlik stepped in at that and had them cleared in about half an hour. On the opposite side of the bramble was a large stone door with some odd markings on it. To my surprise, Xara recognized the symbols as having to do with the dead gods of Unther, and told us the head of the pantheon was Gilgeam. I have no idea how she knew this, but I was impressed she did.

       Taryn found a trap on the door, but couldn't tell what it would do, so she gently pushed on the door. A few projectiles flew out, but they all hit KlikKlik's shield, leaving us all untouched. We walked into the ruins with caution, going down a gentle slope that eventually opened up into a room with four stone statues of men in armor with weapons, and a large set of double doors. We figured the statues were probably a trap, and prepared for a battle Taryn pushed a button on the door.

       The moment Taryn pressed the button, the walls to our left and right began to lower, revealing zombies; then the statues animated. Great. Xara moved to square off with one of the statues, while three of the zombies came at me. Taryn and Klik began shooting the zombies, and splorted a few right away, and I destroyed about half of them with the ability granted to me by Eilistraee that turns zombies to dust. Then the statues lunged for Taryn, TickTick, KlikKlik, and Xara. Everyone but Xara went for the zombies, but we couldn't get rekill them quickly enough. Four of the undead ripped into me, hurting me badly- Taryn killed two of them, and Klik killed the other two, though she also hit me in the process. There was only one zombie left and all four of the statues.

       We continued exchanging blows with them, while I frantically tried to keep my party alive, having Thea ready to deliver potions as needed. Klik went down twice and Tick once in the battle, but I revived them as soon as they fell. Taryn killed two of the statues, KlikKlik killed one, and Xara dusted the final one.

       As the final statue crumbled, the gears on the doors began to spin, and they sprung open, revealing a long, dark, creepy hallway that had another set of double doors at the end. We barricaded ourselves in the room we were in to take a brief rest before proceeding into whatever waited in that hallway.

       There were a bunch of side passages down the hallway, so we decided to check them as we went; we didn't want anything to get the drop on us. Since Xara and I aren't great at being stealthy, Klik and Taryn went down the hallway first, we waited at the mouth of it to assist if need be.

       Zombies greeted them in the first room, and as Xara and I got there to help them more zombies poured out of the other rooms in that passage. I heard a crackle of lightning as Klik tossed her javelin at a group of them, but then I felt the pain of zombies hitting me, and blacked out. I came to to Thea pulling a potion vial from my lips, and Tick was standing over me, protecting me from the zombies. Since I could shoot at them from under Tick, I stayed where I was and blasted at the zombies. These zombies were different than others we've fought, they seemed to have retained some of the abilities they had when they died. I've never seen anything like it. We beat them, of course, but it certainly wasn't easy by any means.

       After that battle, we decided that Klik and Taryn would check the hallways on their own, with silence cast on themselves, so they could just kill the zombies quickly. I had Thea go with them, since she can communicate with me telepathically, so that Xara and I would know if they needed help. For some reason, Taryn and KlikKlik decided to instead of zigzag the passage, they would just go down the right side, then the left. It turns out that was a big mistake.

       At the first passage on the left side we checked- which was the one closest to the double doors we hadn't touched yet- we found some zombies that were even more supercharged. These zombies  had some sort of holy power, like clerical or possibly paladin. Taryn and Klik took out the first one, with some difficulty, but they did it, but before it went down, the others in its hallway were alerted. Xara and I saw other zombies coming out, and thankfully I'd had the foresight to send Thea with Taryn, she was able to telepathically alter her to the danger.

       We surrounded the next paladin zombie to come at us, while their cleric had to back out of the silence before he could touch us. I think this may have been the first time I was grateful that there were no clerical spells that didn't require some sort of prayer. The paladin hit Taryn hard before going down, but we did manage to drop him before the cleric got up to us. He had set up a huge Spirit Guardian circle, and had summoned a spectral Shield- Nergal's favorite weapon. Great. Once the paladin was down, we all backed away from the cleric as quickly as possible, but doing so kept me in the silence, and therefore pretty much useless.

       Taryn dropped his Spirit Guardians quickly, and Xara rushed into melee with him, managed to strike him, and then bolted. Glad she had the foresight to stay out of melee with the fucker, I really don't want her to die. Tick and I were hit with a pillar of radiant fire- a Flamestrike- and it burned. Taryn shot him with a silence bullet, the idea was to keep the silence pinned to him, and it was pretty fucking genius. Xara and I both zapped the cleric and backed off- I stayed on Tick's back, since he could move a little faster than me. Then the priest set his sights on the drow who'd shot him with silence, and Taryn went down.

       To make matters even worse, another cluster of paladin zombies came pouring out of the next hallway we passed. Great. This was just fan-fucking-tastic. I saw KlikKlik revive Taryn, and we all began a strategic retreat to get behind the barricade we'd made earlier- glad we'd made that thing. Taryn shot at them as she ran, and as soon as we were all behind the barricade, Klik breathed ice breath at them, fucking up a bunch of them. Taryn kept shooting the cleric, while KlikKlik breathed acid next; I followed up by dropping a fireball on the cluster, but I only managed to drop one of them. I heard Xara grumbling about being stuck behind a barricade instead of being up in their faces, but I was glad she was being sensible and staying behind the damned barricade. I really don't want to lose her.

       KlikKlik and TickTick coordinated attacks and dropped that fucking cleric, and if that wasn't enough, Klik then dropped one of the paladins. That kobold is fucking formidable, I'd hate to get on her bad side. One of the paladins struck Taryn over the barricade, and she went down again; I took a little pleasure in reviving her, since I know she hates accepting the healing magics of Eilistraee. Klik, Taryn, and I dropped one more paladin each, and we collectively took out the final zombie. Whew, that was a trying battle.

       We decided to make a second barricade about halfway down the long hallway, using the bodies of the zombies we'd just killed as the material for the barrier. It was short enough for us to get over quickly, but not so short that the zombies could follow. Taryn found a secret door in one of the small corridors that contained an altar and a shield amulet, which appeared to be the key to the next set of large double doors.

       After that fight we were tired, so we settled down to take a rest. During the night, wolves showed up, and we had to scare them away again.

Pathfinders of the New World- Knights of the Cross(roads), the Next Generation: Book Two, Chapter Ten

The Gnoll Hills

Dramatis Personae:
KlikKlick BoomBoom, the Kobold Platinum pint-sized Dragonborn Beastmaster and Priestess of Apsu
TickTick, KlikKlik's Giant Bat animal companion
Taryn Al'Maera, the Drow Assassin and future Ralliakkan
Niss'RizDax Kenarn, the Drow Sword Dancer Priestess of Eilistraee, "the Moonlit Dancer"
Thea, Dax's red Faerie Dragon familiar
Xara, the Dorc Circus Eldritch Knight

Comrades we have lost:
Sonitri, the Samsaran Arcane Prodigy Sorcerer- went home
Nyneve, the Water Genasi Druid of the Fountain- eaten by zombies

NOTE: Things will be mostly from Dax's perspective, anything in italics is from a third party view, since the priestess can't be everywhere at once.

***** Thrimidge 1, 480, Crossroads

       During my prayers in the dead of night, Eilistraee granted me the power to summon a fey spirit in the form of a red Faerie Dragon. I named her Thea, which means gift of the moon goddess, and she is very sweet. I think she'll be helpful in my attempts to keep people alive.

       We decided over breakfast- Xara was still asleep- that we would head to another inn in town to find out if there were any rumors that we could attempt to deal with. The inn keeper told us that people who enter the Fairie Forest never return; the gnolls in the hills are getting restless; there's been some disappearances in Riverside; there's some odd ruins in the Demonsclaw Mountains- we could probably get more info from Silverton about those ruins. We decided that we would head to the Gnoll Hills in the morning.

***** Thrimidge 2, Lakeview

       We went to Lakeview first since it's near the Gnoll Hills, hoping to get a little more info on the gnolls before going in. We learned from an inn there that gnolls had stolen their grain all winter, killing their livestock, and their people. That was enough to prove to Klik that the gnolls were evil.

       We decided to fly about 500 or so feet above the hills while we looked for the gnolls, to keep us out of the range of most spells the gnolls might be able to throw our way. Eventually we spotted a group of four gnolls riding giant hyenas; they vanished into a gorge, and we assumed they had seen us and were going to ambush us. As we reached the gorge we saw the hyenas, but no sign of the gnolls, so Klik flew down to try to talk to them, while we set ourselves up in range to assist as needed.

       KlikKlik started calling out to the gnolls, who popped out and started shooting at her. She told them to lay down their arms and take us to their war chief so we could speak to him- they responded by shooting at her more. At that, Taryn shot the gnoll who seemed to be in charge, and blew his head off- she really loves that gun. Xara lit up the bushes the gnolls were partially concealed in with faerie fire, outlining two of the gnolls. I shot at them with bolts of force energy.

       The gnolls shot at Klik again, and she yelled at them that if they didn't stop shooting and surrender, she'd kill them all. They ignored her. We killed the remaining three with ease. Klik decided that we should take the hyenas with us, so she dominated them- but it only worked on three of them, the third started to run away, so Taryn killed it. Klik convinced me to heal the hyenas to get rid of their fleas and ticks, I totally bonded with one of them as a result.

       To keep the hyenas with us, Xara and I each rode one, while Klik and Taryn flew above us. After about an hour we saw smoke up ahead- it seemed we were getting close to the gnolls camp. The gnolls noticed Xara and I right away, we weren't skilled at sneaking around on hyenas. Our stubborn kobold told them to take us to their leader so we could speak to them; the gnoll told her the leader would speak to her corpse. We killed them quickly enough, but then Xara decided to attack one of the hyenas- even though Klik said not to- and they swarmed her. I had to heal her so she could get out of that mess.

       KlikKlik could see more gnolls coming, with demons in their midst- she said there were about things with them. Great. This was going to be fan-fucking-tastic. Taryn was trying to get a gauge on how many there were, but it allowed their archers to see her, and she got pin cushioned by them- stubborn bitch refused to let me heal her, again. Klik opened fire on the gnolls, and their archers turned their bows at her, though they seemed to do more damage to themselves than to her. Xara flew down to go for the hyenas again, and I killed a gnoll with my moonbeam, then summoned my spiritual longsword to go for them.

       We began exchanging blows with the gnolls and the manes that were with them, slinging spells and bullets, with Xara hacking at the manes as they swarmed her. Things seemed to be going well, until the manes began summoning something. Great. Just what we need, more demons. We kept laying into our enemies, until the gnoll they'd used as a sacrifice began to glow, and the ground beneath him began to cave in. The fight continued on, until a figure emerged from the ground, wreathed in flames; a fucking balor. Great.

       We exchanged blows with the balor, while still fighting his minions, and took heavy damage. It was all I could do to keep Xara alive as she got in the demon's face and taunted it, keeping the balor busy so Taryn could shoot it. I had Thea perched on Xara's shoulder so I could send healing magic through her, and having her dump potions down Xara's throat. We managed to kill the balor fairly quickly, even though Taryn and I both went down once in the process, and Xara almost went down. Taryn got the killing blow on the balor, by shooting it in the face and dropping a bomb on it- a bomb she said was "magically enhanced with magics." The balor exploded in a spray of ichor, and the concussive force almost killed Xara.

       Once we finished off the balor, we mopped up the rest of the lesser demons and the gnolls. It wasn't too difficult, though Taryn did go down two more times in the process. We decided to camp here to rest before going through everything, that had been an exhausting fight.

***** Thrimidge 3, Gnoll Hills

       We found another group of four gnolls this morning, and took care of them quickly.