Eberron Adventure Journal: The Demons' Prophecy (6)

Eyre 6-Eyre 22

As the Cardinal got his bearings after several weeks in statue form, he explained to the Wolves the dangers of the Demon Wastes. Inside the Wastes, they would face deadly heat and a variety of fiendish beings who dwelled within. That assumed they could get past the Ghaash'kala, or "Ghost Guardians," the barbarian tribe sworn to prevent anyone from entering the Labyrinth, the natural formation of caverns and mesas that sealed the Demon Wastes away from the rest of Khorvaire.

In order to aid them, the Cardinal provided them with a few essentials. First he gave them his Decanter of Endless Water, which would ensure that they didn't go thirsty in the Wastes. Then he confirmed that the map they had found was probably a map to the compound of the Order of the Corrupting Flame, somewhere in the middle of the Wastes. Most importantly, he sent a message spell to Gorash Orno, a member of the Ghaash'kala. Gorash was a half-orc who had grown up in Thrane, and whose family still lived there, and the Cardinal was a family friend who had known the half-orc since his days as an infant. He called in favors owed by Gorash to guide the Wolves into the Labyrinth.

The Cardinal explained that though he could get Gorash to bend his oaths about letting someone enter the Wastes, even with the connection between the Silver Flame and the Binding Flame that the Ghaash'kala worshiped and the Cardinal's friendship, there was no way to get Gorash to bend on his oath to prevent anyone from leaving. The Ghaash'kala believed that anyone who entered the Wastes was potentially corrupted, and thus they would not let anyone out. In order to provide the Wolves with some sort of escape, the Cardinal told them he would arrange a vessel to sail around the other side of the coast with Verodin Atrelioth onboard. With any luck, a combination of Lysander's scrying and Brand's teleportation would allow them to board the boat. Brand asked about teleportation within the Wastes, and the Cardinal generally advised against it, saying that the magic of the Rakshasa Rajahs might interfere with it unpredictably.

Fearing that Whitehearth would not survive in the Wastes, Brand sent him back to his mother's village. The Wolves then set out along the Shadowcrags to get to the rendezvous point the Cardinal had arranged with Gorash.

After traveling for the better part of a day, the Wolves came to look up on the Labyrinth, a vast network of canyons and mesas that forms a natural maze of stone, some hundreds of miles across. Standing at a crack that made an entrance into the maze was a six and a half foot tall half orc dressed in burned and bloodied leather armor, a holy metal sword at his side. This was Gorash Orno. He warned the Wolves to turn back, warning them that even if they survived to reach their foes, they might be corrupted by the very nature of the Wastes. The Wolves insisted that they had to go in, Luggoth insisting more firmly than all the rest, and Gorash grimly agreed to take them in.

The heat was overwhelming, but Pel quickly set up a routine where he would cast a resistance to energy on everyone but Brand, who was wearing the Zakya's ring of heat resistance, at the beginning of each day. As a result, they were able to ignore the adverse effects of the heat, as well as avoiding dehydration with frequent use of the Cardinal's decanter.

Gorash told them that the journey would take them about twenty days at a standard pace, but he hoped to march longer each day and cut the time by as much as half. With the eternal rations that Brand had, as well as those they had acquired from the Zakya, they wouldn't have to hunt for the first eight days of the journey, which would help as well.

The Wolves generally managed to travel 12 hours each day instead of 8, although every day it tested the endurance of at least one of their number to do so.

In the middle of the first day of travel, the Wolves got their first taste of the dangers of the Wastes that did not involve the heat. As they walked through the caverns, at least one hundred feet tall on each side, an enormous ball of what seemed like lava began rolling toward them, pseudopods of flame and magma writhing in and out of its form. None of them could identify it, although Lysander guessed that it was some kind of ooze.

Pel aimed the Decanter of Endless Water, preparing to use its geyser effect on the massive ooze. As Brand and Luggoth began firing arrows to no noticeable effect, Gorash drew his longsword, Lysander began singing and Maechen entered Prophetic Favor. Then they had their next surprise about the nature of the ooze, as it moved its pseudopods in such a way to suggest spellcasting, and indeed tried to put Maechen and Lysander into a deep sleep, which they resisted.

Maechen blasted the ooze with an ice knife, which seemed to have an effect of slightly slowing and wounding it. Luggoth tried two more arrows, having some minor effect thanks to the magical nature of his bow, and Lysander began firing arrows from his magical bow as well. Seeing the minimal effect, Brand dropped his bow and pulled out his swords, moving up to draw the creature out, and Gorash moved up with him.

The ooze charged in, grabbing Brand with a powerful physical blow, and he could feel some kind of ooze in his system, but it was having no effect thanks to his ring of fire protection. Maechen tried a lightning bolt, but couldn't get past the ooze's magic resistance, and Luggoth decided to switch from his bow to his sword, as Pel unleashed a spray of water from the Decanter to minimal effect.

Gorash rushed in to help Brand, and was punched by the ooze in response, but he managed to attack in kind with his sword, sending jets of lava to the ground like spurting blood.

Maechen cast Haste to give the Wolves and their ally an advantage, and Brand tried to slip free of the ooze's grasp, finally deciding to dimension leap away from the creature's grasp. Luggoth charged in and joined Gorash in hacking at the ooze, but the creature responded by smashing and grabbing both of them, and they were held fast, struggling against its demonic strength. Pel gave up on the Decanter and threw a vial of holy water at the ooze, which sizzled on its surface, causing it some pain, but it was completely unclear how hurt (or not) the creature was.

Maechen used a spell to determine the creature's abilities and vulnerabilities, learning that they needed magical bludgeoning weapons to hurt it, and that it was vulnerable to ice, but somewhat resistant as well. As he shouted this information out, Brand grabbed Maechen's club, intending to give it to Luggoth when he broke free, but instead he had to rush over and dimension door Gorash away from the ooze before their guide was killed. Pel blasted away with magic missiles, but was unable to overcome the creature's spell resistance.

As Maechen cast a spell to give himself a bronze dragon's lightning breath and blasted the ooze, Luggoth managed to struggle free of the creature's grip and run back to join Brand and Gorash. Everyone was free, and someone suggested the idea of escape rather than battle. Even the dedicated Gorash had no trouble agreeing to this, but they hit a snag as the ooze moved with surprising speed and grabbed Pel, Maechen and Pel. Brand used one of his last dragonmark abilities for the day to teleport Maechen away, and Lysander used his dragonmark to summon a shadow ice storm while Pel fired his wand of magic missiles inside the ooze.

Exhausting his dragonmark completely, Brand teleported Lysander and Pel away as Maechen breathed lightning on the ooze once more. Before the ooze could close again, Luggoth grabbed Maechen and ran, with the rest of the Wolves close behind him.

Later that night, burned and beaten, the Wolves used Daern's Instant Tent to rest and recover. Worrying about how long they could keep up this pace, they exhausted healing spells and magic wands of healing to get everyone back up to full strength for the next day.

On the next day, again at about midday, they had their second encounter with the denizens of the Labyrinth. As they were walking, Brand caught a shadow on the ground, and looking up carefully and subtly, he spotted that they were being watched. There were some eight beasts following them, each about the size of a large cat, coming from different sides of the cavern.

Brand identified them as feral yowlers, the results of long-lost magical breeding experiments. They were pack hunters, evil and cruel, and they hunted by using a fearful yowl that shook their targets and made them easier prey. Even as he related this, the yowlers let loose with their piercing cry, and even the hardened Wolves found themselves a bit distracted by it.

Fortunately, Lysander was able to counter the effect as he began belting out a bawdy elven war song, and the Wolves leaped into action. Brand rushed forward into one of the groups, slashing at one of the yowlers, as Luggoth went to another cavern and attacked a different one, shifting as he did so. Maechen cast Haste once more, although Brand was outside its effect, and Gorash charged up to help the ranger as Pel fired his crossbow at one of the yowler's high up in the cliffs.

The yowlers pounced down into the canyons, moving in groups to attack. The battle soon split into threes, with Gorash and Brand defending against three of the yowlers on one side, Luggoth battling two others on the other side and Maechen, Lysander and Pel dealing with the remaining three in the center.

Lysander acquitted himself well, stabbing his rapier into the neck of one of the yowlers and then swinging his sword back around to stab it in the foreleg, putting it off-balance and allowing Pel to slash at its vital points twice with his scimitar. To their dismay, even three well-landed blows, though bloody and effective, didn't bring down one of the hideous catlike creatures. Brand discovered the same thing when he swung a salvo of three blows at one of his attackers, and Luggoth discovered a nasty property they had, a gift from their displacer beast traits, that gave them a minor displacement effect.

The yowlers struck back with claws and teeth, and they nipped at heels and legs, trying to trip their foes or distract them to help their pack-mates. Gorash was badly wounded, but all of the Wolves were feeling the results of multiple wounds, even as they continued to swing their attacks at the same beasts, none of which would seem to fall. Maechen flew into the air and breathed Silver Dragon breath, but the yowlers resisted its paralyzing effects.

Finally, after a barrage of rapier blows from Lysander, Pel was able to flank a badly wounded yowler and finish it off with his scimitar. Lysander tumbled over to flank the other yowler attacking the changeling, and he stabbed another well-struck blow from his rapier, stabbing into the creature's spine and causing electricity to run all through it and down its tail. To his dismay, this didn't kill the yowler. On the other side of the canyon, Brand felled his first yowler with a deadly strike through the chestbone, and it fell in a bloody heap.

The yowlers regrouped and attacked again, knocking down Pel and Luggoth and tearing Gorash's chest so badly that he fell unconscious, bleeding into the sandy floor of the Labyrinth. Brand wasted no time teleporting him across the cavern, but one of the yowlers they had been fighting followed, even as the other one moved to help its pack.

Luggoth didn't get up, instead slashing with his greatsword from the ground, killing one of the yowlers he had been attacking and starting in on the other one. Lysander continued to move and attack, stabbing with his rapier and trying to stay out of the way of the yowlers' teeth and claws, wounding one badly enough that Maechen was able to kill it with a well-aimed magic missile.

As Pel cast a healing spell on himself and Brand used a wand to help Gorash get up, the yowlers attacked once more. One of them bit Lysander in the arm, the other began stalking towards Brand, who was unable to get his sword out in time because of the use of the wand. However, the badly wounded Gorash, his sword drawn, stepped in front of his savior and slashed at the incoming yowler, wounding it badly and dodging its return attack. Maechen, meanwhile, used his dragon breath to paralyze one of the yowlers who had moved in to attack Pel and Lysander.

As Luggoth continued to chop from the ground, Pel and Lysander teamed up on another one, and the yowlers' numbers were diminishing. Lysander stabbed his foe in the chest, leaving a bloody, sucking chest wound, as, on the other side of the canyon, Brand finished off the yowler that had come after him and Gorash. Luggoth slashed at the hamstring of the last yowler attacking him, and it began to run pitifully away, as did its deeply wounded friend, but Luggoth killed it with a throwing axe, and Maechen touched down on the ground to smash the skull of the paralyzed yowler with his club. The last yowler, its chest wound leaving gouts of blood behind, wasn't fast enough to escape, and the Wolves fell upon it and killed it.

Badly wounded after the battle, the Wolves and Gorash nevertheless managed to travel a full day and a half again, and used a number of healing spells and abilities while resting in their tent. Fortunately, the next two days were uneventful, save for the brutal endurance tests that 12 hours of daily marching were causing.

On the fourth night, Brand heard a loud sound outside their tent, and when he looked out, he saw a massive, fiendish tyrannosaurus rex charging toward them. The Wolves and Gorash scrambled out, and as Lysander cast Allegro to increase their speed, Brand popped the tent closed and they fled from the frustrated beast, which watched its dinner speed magically away.

After an hour or so, they found another campsite and rested uneventfully until morning.

The next day, as they traveled, the screaming winds that echoed through the caverns were replaced by a loud whooshing sound, and a flash flood swept through the Labyrinth. Luggoth, Lysander and Maechen managed to scramble to higher ground, but Gorash, Pel and Brand were swept away in the flood. They managed to keep their heads above water and avoid the boulders and trees caught up in the maelstrom, and Maechen, using his flight spell, was able to fly ahead and catch them and get them out of the water. The Wolves waited for the rushing water to die down and then were on their way again.

This was the general tone for their march, a couple of days of uneventful travel interrupted by the occasional rockslide or flood or deadly creature. They ran afoul of a bluespawn godslayer that found Maechen's draconic alliances offensive, but they were able to flee from the beast with the help of Allegro, and they battled and killed a pair of greathorn minotaurs that thought the Wolves would make a tasty snack.

After eight days had passed and their eternal rations were expended, they found themselves traveling slower, even at forced march speeds, because they had to keep an eye out for food. The hunting was sparse, but with Gorash's knowledge and Luggoth and Brand's skills, they were able to hunt enough game to keep the group fed.

Finally, just over two weeks later, they emerged at last from the Labyrinth. Gorash pointed out across the expanse of volcanic wasteland, telling them that they should be careful, because being out in the open on the Wastes would be more dangerous than the Labyrinth. He guessed that at the speed they had maintained through the Labyrinth, it would probably take them about six days to get to the Order's fortress. He also told them that whichever of them survived should come to find him, and perhaps they could join his tribe. He had found them brave warriors, and he owed Brand in particular a debt of gratitude for saving his life.

Flattered but not entirely pleased by the notion of staying the Wastes as members of the Ghaash'kala, the Wolves turned to face the next leg of their journey: A week long trek across the Wastes in search of a deadly group of former Silver Flame warriors who had lived in this vast expanse for over twenty years.

XP
900 XP (Brand/Pel/Maechen)
667 XP (Lysander/Luggoth)
1600 XP (Gorash)