Nicki's Last Stand

The party galloped south from Kalsgard, headed at last for Ravenscraeg where they hoped to find the kidnapped Ameiko Kaijitsu, along with her family’s ancestral sword, Suishen, and the missing guide, Ulf. As they left the main road for the track that led to Ravenscraeg, they could see hoofprints in the soft ground – Ameiko’s kidnappers were somewhere ahead of them. By nightfall, they’d reached the edge of an area of broad marshes, and could see a row of craggy hills rising to the south.

The next morning dawned cold and gray, with ice rimming the edges of puddles, and a cold drizzle began to fall soon after they broke camp. The trail began to make its way through a succession of bogs, their green vegetation turning brown with the approaching winter. As they passed one of the many shallow pools, a slimy pseudopod suddenly shot out of the water and narrowly missed Sandoval. An ochre jelly dragged itself out of the pool, intent on making one of the party its next meal. Sandoval threw his net over the creature, but it immediately began oozing through the openings in the net. Bella fired an arrow which struck deep into the gelatinous body, but not only did the arrow not seem to damage the creature, it split it into two! Sawyer swung his longsword, which only succeeded in cleaving the new jelly and creating a third!

Afraid of creating still more enemies, Shinjiro adopted a defensive stance but made no attacks. Some of the party considered just leaving the jellies and riding on, but the thick undergrowth on one side and the pool on the other left no path forward that wasn’t within reach of their grasping appendages. As if to underscore the danger they presented, the two new jellies snapped out arms that enveloped Sawyer. In addition to the damage from the blows, he felt corrosive acid begin to eat away at his flesh. He managed to escape one’s grip, but the other began to constrict, squeezing the breath out of the fighter.

Sandoval began singing and Marie cast a Bless. Bella doused one with a flask of oil, and Nicki conjured one of his Flaming Spheres on it. The two combined in an impressive conflagration that set the ooze to bubbling and hissing, but it still lived (Sandoval’s net, unfortunately, did not survive the blaze). Zhustin smacked it with an Acid Arrow, and Marie, risking splitting it yet again, stepped forward and hit it with her mace. However the blunt weapon did the damage she expected, and the jelly melted away into the soil.

That still left two threatening Sawyer and Shinjiro. Sandoval blasted one with his Wand of Scorching Ray, and while it still burned, Bella threw on another flask of oil, and it too died. Sawyer managed to escape the last jelly’s grip, and another barrage of fire and acid attacks from the party did it in. Bella was keeping a watchful eye on the pool, in case more jellies might emerge, and she noticed something glittering among the weeds on the far bank. The lure of shiny objects overcame her fear of attack, and she went to investigate. Buried among the roots of the cattails she found a human skull and spinal column, the remains of some previous meal for the jelly. Around the hapless victim's neck was a beautiful mithril and black pearl necklace.

After Marie provided Sawyer some much-needed healing, the party continued on. After a few more hours, they stopped in the cover of a copse of trees to survey their destination. About a half-mile ahead, the hills rose sharply into a steep and craggy shale escarpment hundreds of feet high. Tucked into a narrow defile between two of these crags was a stone and timber longhall and tower, weathered and gray – Ravenscraeg! The hall stood nearly a hundred feet above the base of the cliff, with only a single wooden stair climbing in a series of switchbacks up the cliff face to its front gate. All was silent save for the raucous caws of the ravens that congregated atop the hall’s tower and ridgepole high above.

The party watched from hiding for some time, but saw no signs of life from the hall. With a half mile of open ground between them and the cliff, there would be no way to approach without being seen by anyone on watch inside, and climbing the winding stair would be difficult if under attack. They debated whether there might be a back entrance that might be safer, but the cliffs stretched as far as they could see to the east and west, and they didn’t know if they’d be able to find an alternate entrance even if they could somehow make their way around the hills.

Sawyer seemed unfazed by the apparent difficulties. He had purchased a Hat of Disguise back in Kalsgard (as a precaution in case any more pesky Inquisitors showed up wanting to arrest him) and now he put it on and made himself look like a standard, run-of-the-mill Ulfen, presumably one of Snorri or Asvig’s men. “You all stay here under cover. I’ll go up to the cliffs and climb the stairs, and they’ll think I’m one of them. Don’t come out until I’m there.” Just what he expected to do once he got there alone wasn’t clear, but he set off confidently. Not to be outdone, Nicki quickly stripped down to the shinobi shozoku (the black ninja outfit they’d managed to scavenge off one of their attackers on the funeral ship) that he was wearing underneath his clothes. Making sure he had one of the ninjas’ jade raven statuettes in his pocket, he gave the group a grin and a wave, and set off at a trot to join the fighter. Together, the two strode towards the base of the cliffs, hoping that whoever was on watch would assume they were part of the Frozen Shadows, coming in on some official business.

The rest of the group watched nervously from their hiding place among the trees. They weren’t exactly sure what their role in this “plan” was, but Sawyer had seemed so sure of himself, and they hadn’t had any ideas of their own. Finally, when the pair had almost reached the base of the cliffs, Marie had had enough of waiting. “I’m going after them,” she announced, and strode out of the trees. The rest hesitated for a moment, and then, whether out of support for the cleric or reluctance to be left behind, set off after her. However, almost half a mile still separated the two groups of the party.

Sawyer and Nicki reached the base of the cliffs. The rickety wooden stair climbed the cliff face in a series of switchbacks to the fortified hall ninety feet above. The stairs and rails were built of timber planks, silver with age, and climbed haphazardly through a series of railed landings on their winding ascent. In some places the stairs and landings were secured directly to the rock face, and in others they hung free upon wooden supports and buttresses driven into the rock. Lichens and moss covered the stairs and rocks, with pale vines, roots, and blooms of nightshade, willowherb, and bog tea sprouting from occasional crevices in the stone. The morning’s drizzle had turned to pellets of stinging ice, and the narrow stairs were slippery.

Sawyer began to climb carefully. As he climbed, the stairs and landings groaned when trod upon, and swayed alarmingly in the wind, but seemed to be secure. Nicki ducked underneath the bottom landing, out of sight of anyone watching from above, and cast Invisibility on himself, then followed the fighter up. Sawyer paused on the first landing to see if their approach would draw any reaction from the top, and Nicki passed him by. “I’ll check things out first,” he hissed as he passed, and Sawyer nodded silently.

They continued the steep climb, Sawyer a flight or two behind Nicki. As he reached the fourth landing, some 50-60’ up, Nicki noticed a hollow in the rockface nearby, plastered over with dried mud in what appeared to be a gigantic wasp’s nest. Pausing in his ascent, he decided to backtrack and warn Sawyer of the possible threat. Sawyer nodded grimly, but continued climbing, and Nicki followed invisibly. As Sawyer neared the spot, a loud, deep buzzing began, and a huge creature emerged from the nest. It was a Spider-Eater, a monstrous insect the size of a horse. It had the head of a spider, a giant stinger, and two long arms tipped with wickedly sharp pincers. It launched itself into the air and flew in to attack Sawyer. He managed to dodge its bite and pincer attacks, but its sting sunk deep into his chest, and it injected its poison. Sawyer felt his muscles lock up as the paralysis swept through his body, and he fell immobile on the landing.

Nicki watched all this invisibly, unnoticed by the spider-eater. When Sawyer fell, he hoped the beast would assume he was dead and fly away, but instead it landed above the fallen fighter. It began to lower its abdomen over his unmoving form, and a glistening tube emerged from beneath its stinger. With a wave of revulsion, Nicki realized that the creature was going to lay its eggs inside Sawyer, where his paralyzed body would provide a living incubator until the larvae hatched and consumed him from the inside out! While the sorcerer could think of any number of people who he would be happy to see suffer that fate, Sawyer was not one of them. With a cry, he pulled his Metamagic Rod out of his belt and cast an Empowered Scorching Ray at the spider-eater. The flames swept over the creature as if from a blast furnace, and it launched itself back into the air. As it circled to attack, Nicki, now visible, pulled the jade raven statuette out of his pocket and waved it over his head. The giant wasp buzzed angrily toward him, but Nicki withheld any attack, holding his breath that his gamble would work. At the last second, the flying monstrosity veered off. It made several more feints, angry but seemingly confused as well. At last it retreated to its nest and disappeared inside. Apparently it had been trained not to attack anyone with the ninja’s talisman, as Nicki had hoped.

Nicki’s relief was short-lived. He felt two sharp stings, one in the back of his neck and another in his shoulder. Fearing the giant wasp had friends, he slapped at the area, but found a pair of small darts embedded in his skin. He could feel the ache of poison seeping away from the wounds, but his natural resistance protected him. Looking up, he saw a pair of black-feathered, birdlike humanoids dressed in ninja robes crouched on the landing above him, blowguns in their hands. They were Tengu, the same kind of creature that Kikonu had transformed into back at Brinewall. Since his rod was still in his hand, Nicki blasted one with another Empowered Scorching Ray, and while its clothing and feathers burst into flame, it ignored the injury and charged down the stairs, followed by his companion, throwing daggers as they ran.

Nicki looked out across the plain for his friends. They’d begun to run as soon as the spider-eater had appeared, but they were still hundreds of yards away. Nicki was on his own. Another dart hit him, and as he looked back up, a third Tengu ninja separated himself from his hiding place in the shadows along the cliff face. It threw itself off the stairs and fell 35 feet to land, unharmed, on the stairs below Nicki, blocking his retreat. The first two ninjas were charging to attack, and Nicki threw out a Color Spray, stunning and blinding them both, but still another pair of ninjas appeared on the top landing and dropped down 25 feet onto the landing ahead of Nicki. One rushed forward and, with no apparent remorse, shoved one of his stunned brethren off the stairs, sending him tumbling over 60 feet to the ground below. This freed up a space for his companion to charge, slashing Nicki with his wakizashi.

Nicki stepped back, almost stumbling over Sawyer’s still-paralyzed form. He was pinned between the two Tengu ninja attacking from above, and a third charging up the stairs from below. He knew from how they had treated their companion that they would show him no mercy. He thrust out his hand, and cast a final Color Spray. Its cone of scintillating colors covered all three, both above and below, and all three were suddenly swaying sightlessly. Somehow, miraculously, Nicki had incapacitated all of his attackers!

He didn’t pause to congratulate himself; the Tengu were only stunned, and would regain their senses soon enough. Taking his cue from the ninja themselves, he began wrestling their bodies over the railing to fall to the ground below. The rest of the party arrived at the foot of the stairs just in time to dodge the first falling foe. Looking up the steep cliff, they could see Nicki wrestling with the next Tengu and Zhustin, assuming the poor sorcerer was in hand-to-hand combat, summoned an eagle to fly up to attack the stunned and blinded ninjas. Somehow, the ones who had fallen were still barely alive, but that didn’t last long. Shinjiro stayed on the ground to finish off falling ninjas, while the rest of the party began to race up the stairs.

Sawyer finally managed to shake off his paralysis. His first act after he regained use of his limbs was to shoot off a fire arrow at the spider-eater’s nest. The arrow did little damage to the nest (being made mostly of dried mud), but it did serve to enrage the giant wasp and bring it back out to attack, statuettes or no statuettes. It stung Sawyer once again, but this time the fighter was able to resist its poison, and his and the rest of the party’s attacks soon sent the spider-eater tumbling to the ground to join his ninja masters.

The party finally reunited on the stairs, marveling at Nicki’s stand against all odds while Marie cast healing on both Nicki and Sawyer. The stairs were littered with large black feathers; apparently the Tengu were molting in the cold climate. Above them, the walls of Ravenscraeg loomed dark and silent. What further dangers awaited within?

The PCs gained 1,143 XP for the evening (although I should probably give most of it just to Nicki!). That puts them at 22,148 XP, with 23,000 required for level 6. You’ll probably reach level 6 by the end of next week’s session, so start looking at upgrading your characters. We’ll be at Rich & Joette’s next week.