Week 30 - Treachery and Potholing

The party decide to kill the Earl of Coalchester and take his stuff, presumably on the principle that he would do it to them. Frith, however, asks the party to give him the chance to Dismiss the earl, as he was rather a polite and helpful chap. The party more or less agree.

They head back to the Earl's room, Frith fitting up everyone with Resist Elements (fire) and Jericho checking for traps and finding yet another Word of Law trap that he missed first time around. He opens the door to the Earl’s chambers (easily identifiable by the waves of heat coming from it), and steps back to allow Flash to speak.

The Earl urbanely pretends surprise that this group, who were only here to rescue a friend, should be making demands - but he is no stranger to treachery and knows that this is a shakedown. After a polite exchange with Flash, he orders his huge fire elementals to attack.

The Earl’s plan to stand back behind his elementals and cast spells, however, is swiftly curtailed as Frith casts Dismissal. He fails (badly) to resist the abjuration, and is sent back to the plane from whence he came. Although the elementals are tough, without a spellcaster to back them up they fall, although not without meeting out some damage.

Ransacking the Earl’s chambers, however, yields little treasure. Certainly no weapons of ancient and arcane might, as Allustan suggested they ought to expect. So they decide to venture the fissure down which the red waterfall tumbles. Several options are discussed - shadow walking, wind walking, spider climbing. Eventually Frith, Flash and Jericho elect to descend via Frith’s Wind Walk spell, while Gauthakan decides to rely on his trusty Slippers of Spider Climbing.

The waterfall separates from the wall. With the aid of Frith’s Light spell, they see below them a small lake of red water, into which the waterfall tumbles. This lake empties out in another waterfall tumbling even deeper into the fissure, but before they can determine any more, the party is attacked!

Six wind warriors, ancient guardians of the tombs of the wind dukes, assail the party - clashing their swords together to send lances of sonic power into their gaseous forms. Unable to do anything to defend themselves, the three party members in gaseous form descend as fast as they can to a level spot with a wall behind them, and begin the time-consuming task of rematerialising. Gauthakan follows them down, scooting along the wall as swiftly as he is able.

Four of the warriors elect to continue to clash their weapons at the heroes still in gaseous form, slowly dissipating them. Two decide to attack Gauthakan with their swords. A mistake, as Gauthakan swiftly slays one and almost the second. The wind warriors - not entirely stupid - elect to retreat to a safe height and simply use their sonic attacks.

Eventually the spellcasters rematerialise and are able to bring heir arcane and divine might to bear. Flash uses a spell of silence to protect the party from the sonic attacks of the warriors, while Frith uses his Shield of Blinding to blind one of them. At one point, Gauthakan - in a cinematic display - spider-climbs the wall and leaps from it to strike at another one. I think there was also some sort of offensive spell - probably a Flame Strike. Jericho did not do a great deal, but fighting non-sneak-attackable air elementals is not his job, and fair enough.

The wind warriors, unable to use their sonic attack and daring not to get anywhere near Gauthakan, unlimber crossbows. Their job is to defend the tomb, not go out in a blaze of glory, and if that means taking piddling little potshots until the intruders are dead, that’s what they will do.

But Flash has a trick or two. Dismissing his Silence, he uses a Hypnotic Pattern to lure the remaining warriors down to the ground to within reach of Gauthakan, who quickly demolishes them.

And that was that. How far does this cavern go down? What lies at the bottom, and is there a bottom at all? And are there any more of these damn wind warriors with a ranged sonic attack, fly speed, and a +14 reflex save? What are they guarding, and where exactly is it? The party will surely find out next week!