Munasukaru's Sanctum

Bella crept down the hallway. She’d already checked it for traps, but her eyes kept scanning nervously anyway. Every instinct was screaming ambush, even though she saw nothing but empty hallway with closed doors at either end. Behind her, the recently freed prisoners were making a ruckus – some talking excitedly, others weeping with relief. She just wished they’d shut up – their noise was going to get everyone killed. A muffled rattle sounded closer by, and she glanced over her shoulder to see Sawyer following close behind, and she breathed a little easier. Behind Sawyer, Marie had taken up position watching the door at the far end of the room. Maybe they had this under control after all.

The door ahead of her suddenly slammed open, and a pair of figures rushed out. She recognized them instantly: more of the fanatical female hobgoblin monks, the Sisters of the Broken Path. Unlike the other hobgoblins they’d fought down here, who bellowed and snarled throughout combat, the Sisters fought in unnerving silence. They attacked her now, and she focused all her abilities on avoiding their fierce kicks and flying nunchucks. Behind her, she heard Marie cry out in pain, and knew that there were enemies at both ends of the narrow hallway. Taking her opponents by surprise, she feinted back then darted forward, slipping between them, putting herself at their backs and Sawyer at their front. She smiled grimly; in her mind, the fight was already over.

From her new vantage point, she could see that three more of the hobgoblin monks had come out from the far door. Two were battling Marie, while the third had slipped past her into the prisoners’ room, where it clipped Zhustin with a quick karate chop. Sandoval stepped out into the hallway, but instead of charging into the fight, he began to dance his hoka. Eyes bulging and tongue wagging, his face took on a demonic aspect, and all the Sisters were shaken by his Dazzling Display. Shinjiro charged into the fray, spin-kicking the monk threatening Zhustin and trying to draw her attention away from the wizard.

That was Sawyer’s cue to attack. He whirled Suishen in a blurring combination of sweeps that left one of the Sisters with her intestines bulging from an open wound. Bella took advantage of Sawyer’s attack to launch her own from behind, and the other hobgoblin began to bleed out. Marie slammed her warhammer into one of her attackers, landing two solid blows, but all of them were realizing that their attacks weren’t nearly as effective as they’d expect. The blows seemed to glance off their thick hides, and the flames on Suishen’s blade weren't affecting them at all.

Zhustin had three Sisters lined up directly in front of him, a perfect configuration, so he took a step back and fired off a quick Lightning Bolt. He was prepared to see his targets convulsing from the shock, but to his disappointment, they all deftly evaded the crackling bolt, taking no damage whatsoever. From the middle of the hallway, a volley of Magic Missiles suddenly appeared and blasted into the monk harrying Marie. Bella guessed she now knew where Nicki was; she’d seen him go Invisible just before she entered the hallway.

The Sisters weren’t cowed by the forces against them. One twirled, and planted a kick solidly alongside Bella’s head. The blow seemed to carry extra force, and the rogue was left seeing stars. Her mate missed Sawyer, but Shinjiro took a blow to the knee and Marie received a kick to the chest that cracked several ribs and left her struggling to breathe. Shinjiro responded with a Flurry of Blows of his own, but one of his punches went wide; for the first time, he noticed that all the hobgoblin monks seemed to be slightly Blurry. Sawyer hit his opponent again, and Bella launched a furious series of slashes and stabs the ended with her rapier buried in her opponent’s liver. But the resolute female monk just bared her teeth, pulled herself off the blade, and kept fighting. Marie slammed her hammer into her foe twice more, but the heavy weapon rebounded leaving barely a scratch.

Sandoval was still dancing, keeping the hobgoblins off balance. Zhustin decided to even the odds and Summoned a small Earth Elemental that slammed its rocky fist into the monk fighting Shinjiro. Nicki, still invisible, cast a Ray of Exhaustion that left Shinjiro’s opponent gasping for breath. However, it still managed to kick him once, and one of Marie’s enemies hit her again. Bella and Sawyer continued to parry the blows raining down on them.

Shinjiro unleashed another Flurry, but again the Blur limited his attacks’ effectiveness. Sawyer swung Suishen down in a strike that should have cleaved the Sister’s skull in two, but the Blur caused him to miss. Undismayed, he caught her on the backswing, and her lifeless form dropped to the ground. Bella, not wanting to be distracted by the magical Blur, simply closed her eyes and relied on her skill with Blindfighting. She opened her eyes again when she heard the thud of her opponent hitting the ground.

Marie and the Elemental were both still having trouble with the Blurry nature of their opponents, and both missed. Zhustin hit the center hobgoblin with a Ray of Enfeeblement, and it dropped its nunchuks, apparently finding them too heavy to hold. Nicki added another Ray of Exhaustion  against the third surviving Sister, and now all three were severely weakened.

But not so weak that they weren’t still dangerous, as Shinjiro learned when one smashed him in the mouth. He retaliated with another Flurry sending his foe's body sliding across the floor. Sandoval stopped dancing, and charged in with his echoblade, slicing deep into the central hobgoblin. Sawyer also charged north to join the fighting there, but he missed, again thrown off by his inability to focus clearly on his target.

Marie had taken a beating from the hobgoblins. She swung her warhammer and missed; whether it was from the Blur spell or from the blood spilling into her eyes was hard to say. Bella saw her bloodied form, and flew into a Rage. She charged north, rushing past Marie to throw her tiny body into the hobgoblin facing her. Such was the force of her charge that she actually knocked it back, away from Marie, leaving the little rogue, blades bristling, standing protectively in front of her.

The Sisters were hopelessly outnumbered and so weak they could barely stand, but their fanaticism kept them fighting. Their feeble blows went wide of the mark, but they stood shoulder to shoulder, blocking the hallway. Zhustin’s Elemental, unable to reach them from the far room, sank down into the floor, while Zhustin fired off an Acid Dart, but the magical acid seemed to have no effect whatsoever. Shinjiro delivered another Flurry of Blows, and Sandoval slashed with his echoblade, but they still stood.

Then Sawyer stepped up, gripped Suishen with both hands, and swung. Suishen’s flaming blade cut once, twice, three times, and finally one of the Sisters crumpled to the floor. Bella stabbed the last remaining Sister twice in quick succession, but it just gritted it teeth and fought on in silence. Zhustin’s elemental rose up out of the floor and slammed into it from behind, while Shinjiro delivered a jump-kick to her face. As she swayed, stunned, Sawyer whirled Suishen and removed her head.

Marie was almost out of healing spells, and was reduced to using scrolls of Cure Moderate Wounds on herself and other injured party members. As she doled out healing, Sandoval moved off to investigate the room to the south that Bella had been heading towards when the Sisters ambushed them. He found a dusty chamber, its walls lined with long shelves filled with books and scrolls. A score of carved figures scowled down on the room from the walls above the shelves. Each of the images had been defaced, but they were still clearly recognizable as oni. The library’s collection included carved stone tablets, calligraphic writings on bone and tortoise shell, rice paper journals with bamboo covers, silk scrolls scores of yards long, and countless other tomes, some of huge size. Most were in Tian, unintelligible to Sandoval.

On the far wall, one well-worn volume sat on a marble pedestal, as if in a place of honor. Sandoval opened it, and found it was written in a language he could read, although it was filled with obsessively neat handwritten notes in Tian. Quickly scanning it, he found that it seemed to describe a legendary magical demon gate, called a kimon, a way unbound by mortal magic through which spirits can pass and vanish like an echo. “This seems important,” he thought, slipping the book into his pack.

At the opposite end of the hallway, the others had checked out the other room from which the Sisters had emerged, and found a guardroom. Detailed carvings and paintings of a powerful female oni decorated the walls of this otherwise simple room. Twenty feet high, the images loomed over the chamber, a tribute to monstrous domination. A single door led north from this room. It was ornately carved, but firmly closed. Bella listened but heard nothing. After confirming that it was not trapped, she drew her bow and stepped back, nodding to Zhustin. The wizard ordered his Earth Elemental forward, and it threw the door open.

The repulsive chamber inside was a charnel house of death and decay, its glowering walls a vision of madness, sin, and unsated lusts. Countless figures were carved into the walls, glaring, pleading, and screaming in silence. But on closer inspection, the carved figures were revealed to be the rotting corpses of araneas, humans, hobgoblins, and more impaled on the walls, their anguished features frozen at the moment of death. To the east, a wide, open pit gaped in the floor. Its walls were lined with contorted humanoid faces and limbs, frozen in stone.

At the opposite end of the room, a ragged spur of stone supported a bloodstained iron frame above a bed of nails. The flayed body of an aranea was fastened to the iron frame. In front of it stood a wizened human woman, but she was already in the process of transforming as the door opened. Before their eyes, she became a hideous oni with rust-colored skin, pendulous breasts, and a mouth full of wicked fangs. It was a figure they’d become familiar with. They’d seen her image in statues, carvings, and paintings throughout this underworld. It was Munasukaru!

Munasukaru

She held a repeating crossbow already aimed at the doorway, and she loosed three bolts in rapid succession. Two slammed into the Elemental while the third narrowly missed and hit the wall of the guardroom. All three bolts emitted a deafening screech as they flew, and Sawyer found himself shaken by the piercing sound. Sandoval began singing, and cast Good Hope on the party, while Bella, deciding that being the first to attract Munasukaru’s attention might not be a good thing, backed into a corner and quaffed a Potion of Protection From Evil.

Before anyone else could act, Munasukaru dropped her crossbow and flew across the room. As she flew, she unlimbered a naginata from her back, a pole arm ending in a wickedly sharp sword blade. It was finely wrought and etched with gold and enamel Tian characters. As she reached the doorway, she slammed the butt of the weapon against the floor. A deafening thunderclap blasted the party, catching Sawyer, Bella, Nicki, and Marie in a wall of sonic energy.

Nicki knew there was no sense holding back now, so he used the last of the charges in his metamagic rod to cast a Maximized, Empowered Fireball into the room behind Munasukaru. The searing flames would have incinerated almost anything they’d faced so far, but the oni barely seemed to notice them. Zhustin cast Haste on everyone, and Marie sent out a Prayer for Desna’s aid. She thought they would need all the help they could get.

Sawyer stepped forward and attacked with Suishen, but the oni moved with uncanny speed and actually caught one of the attacks with the haft of her own weapon and turned it aside. Between the big fighter and Zhustin’s Elemental, the doorway was blocked (precisely why Munasukaru had rushed to the open door). Unable to close with her, Shinjiro pulled out his Gem of Brightness and tried to blind her with it, but she simply laughed at his futile effort. Sandoval was also unable to attack directly, but he could still help the cause; he cast Greater Invisibility on Bella.

Emboldened by the fact (or hope) that the oni couldn’t see her, Bella now stepped out of hiding and drew her bow. She took careful aim, and sent her shafts flying towards Munasukaru. One arrow should have hit her in the heart, but somehow it deflected at the last instant, piercing her side instead. The other took her in the eye, but the critical hit only enraged her, and she funneled her fury into an attack of opportunity on Sawyer.

Munasukaru now turned her full focus on the big fighter, snarling in rage as she recognized the sword in his hands. Her naginata slashed and stabbed with inhuman speed and strength, penetrating his armor as if it were paper. Thunder pealed again as the blade slashed through Sawyer’s vital organs. As she swept it though his body, she gave the blade a flick, sending a stream of blood and gore into the eyes of the nearby Elemental, blinding and sickening it.

Sawyer was reeling; he could not survive another round of attacks like that. Marie rushed forward to help, but the best she could offer was a Cure Moderate Wounds. Nicki’s Greater Invisibility expired, and the newly visible sorcerer found himself uncomfortably exposed. Nonetheless, he stood his ground, and fired a trio of Maximized Scorching Rays that scorched the oni badly. Zhustin’s blinded Elemental sank down into the stone floor. In its place, three large Earth Elementals appeared, surrounding Munasukaru, but she easily evaded their clumsy blows.

Sawyer was gutted and bleeding out, but he was not about to surrender. Ignoring the pain, he kept attacking, and although she again turned one of his attacks, Suishen drank oni blood twice more. Sandoval cast Cure Light Wounds on the fighter, but he also changed his song to Inspire Greatness on both Sawyer and Bella, giving the fighter some badly-needed extra strength. Bella sank another arrow into Munasukaru, rocking her back, but she still pressed her attack on Sawyer. Her naginata struck home again, but Sawyer stoically absorbed the blow. Before she could strike again, Nicki fired off one last round of Maximized Scorching Rays. The bolts of flame sent her flying backwards, leaving her smoking corpse lying in the middle of the room.

As Marie struggled to close Sawyer’s gaping wounds, Suishen was concerned with other things. “Her weapon!” he cried, pulling Sawyer back from the brink of unconsciousness. “It is the Thundering Blade of House Sugimatu! It is the ancestral weapon of one of the other Imperial Houses of Minkai!” Everyone stared at the royal weapon, still in the grasp of the dead oni. If there had been any doubt that the oni of the Five Storms were behind the demise of the Imperial families of Minkai, this dispelled it.

This concludes book four, The Forest of Spirits. The PCs earned 15,543 XP for the night, putting them at 260,005 XP, with 315,000 required for level 13. We’ll be back at Rich & Joette’s next week, and Roger will be on call again.