To Meet With Evil

A Runewardens Diary by Sister Mara von Witten

Warning! Contains spoilers for Ptolus Chapter 25: Jabel Shammar!

Session #9

Up the stairs we march to the next level, which holds many, many tall bookshelves filled with books. A 9-foot-tall winged humanoid figure approaches us, clanging as though made of metal. Its fiery sword causes awful harm to Sercian before the elf's twin brother manages to wall it off with a wall of force; then the monks take it down. But it seems we are not out of the woods yet -- two metallic creatures who exude lightning approach from the other direction. Another wall of force from Serai separates them from the group for a time, but they get around to attack from another direction. We finally manage to crush them and take a moment to look around the library a little. The books here are all tomes most foul; the flaming sword that the metal angel wielded was fouler still to the touch.

Moving on, we find a staircase and venture up to challenge the next hazards of this malefic tower. At the top of the stairs, four gouts of color spray hit our group. We weather the blasts fairly well (at least, no one dies) but a blue beam turns Canabulum to stone, and Zophas is transported away in the light of a violet beam.

Before we can even get our bearings, an altar of blasphemy in the room utters a foul word of power and lashes out at Aliya. Gaerioth steps in to help and gets hooked by a tentacle. Around us we see rooms of roiling black smoke and wicked-looking blades. "I have what you need to know," murmurs a voice from the smoky room. Then a fiery whip wraps around Tellian and drags him into the room -- it's a balor!

As Aliya cries out a warning about what we face, I pray for a miracle: to get Zophas back in fighting form. The effort of the spell takes a good deal out of me, but our paladin companion rejoins the group and launches himself at the unholy demon he was born to fight. (When he reappears, curiously, he's covered in maggots. But that's a story for another time...)

Before they know it, we find ourselves over our heads in foes -- not only the balor and blasphemous shrine, but also a succubus, an erinyes, and two mariliths from Eslathagos Malkith's harem. One of them splits us up with a blade barrier; Gaeioth and Sercian are left dazed on the side of the room with the shrine. A marilith cuts down Serai, who manages to stand up to all of her wicked blades but falls to the tail slap.

A fire storm from me and a shower of perfectly aimed arrows from Tellian slay half the harem. One marilith throws Serai's unconscious form through the blade barrier separating us from Gaerioth and the stony Canabulum. She then proceeds to tear into Sercian in the same way. In a feat of great heroism, Gaerioth leaps nimbly through the blade barrier with poor Serai's body so Mara can revive him before it's too late. He lands practically on top of the surprised marilith, who then suffers a great blow from Zophas' ankh of justice. Aliya, Gaerioth, and Tellian gang up on her and she falls, dropping Sercian safely to the ground. Then Tellian single-handedly takes down the erinynes with his amazing bowmanship.

Just as Sercian comes to, we find ourselves at the receiving end of a fire storm. The balor chuckles evilly from behind the protection of his blade barrier. This creature, which must be the onetime bodyguard of Eslathagos Malkith, rids the room of smoke and finally we can all see his fearsome fiery form. Gaerioth makes a remarkable leap into the room, swinging on a chain that holds a corpse suspended from the ceiling and launches a big-hearted though ineffectual attack. We have never seen a balor so taken aback as by that crazy monk's latest stunt!

Then it's a free-for-all as our forces array against the resurgence of evil in Jabel Shammar. Serai manages to drop some of the balor's protective magic while several of the others fly in to meet it. Gaerioth sunders the evil creature's sword but sadly the balor dominates him. In a surprising move, Sercian damages the monk with a disintegrate spell, leaving the Harrow elf vulnerable to a power word stun from Serai. Moments later the balor dies, his explosive death throes washing over us.

Pain never felt so good.

Session #10

After another eight hours of rest back in the Alabaster Sanctuary (where our statuelike minotaur friend returns to his old self), we arm ourselves with all of our magical might and head back up. We use a combination of the cube of force and teleportation to evade the prismatic spray that so crippled us before and arrive at a door trapped with antimagic.

Searching our fallen foes from last night, we recover a wealth of jewelry from the demons and their victims, plus curative potions, malefic masks, four grey immovable rods, and a robe of eyes. Best of all, we find the key to the Dread One's bedchamber.

Using the key, we enter the bedchamber and feel a worse sense of evil than we have anywhere else in the tower. Canabulum finds the Dread One's staff, that most powerful artifact, but Serai can tell that it is not related to the Malignancy or this tower. Using his new robe of eyes, Canabulum can see the bloating tendrils of what we now know to be the Malignancy growing out of the walls. Sercian reaches out and opens a book on a table book, but the words make no sense -- it's all meaningless gibberish. We try various combinations of reading it backward, in a mirror, and so on, but nothing works.

Finally I remember the code word that the mind flayer had inscribed in a pool where we fought him and won his cube of force. When I utter this code, "Ssenkrad99," I disappear to others' eyes. One by one, the rest of the Runewardens do the same.

From my point of view, I reappear in a great round room with no exits. A horrifying 9-foot-tall skull-faced figure looms before me. "I am Eslathagos Malkith, the Dread One," it says. "You are unworthy to be here. Be gone!" I challenge this villain in the name of Goodness and Lothian. What I don't realize is that all my companions have followed me into the room, but the magic of the place prevents us from seeing each other. All any of us sees is the giant figure commanding us to be gone. Each of us in our own way defies him: Aliya retorts that he does not belong there and attempts to will him away. Serai and Sercian, with true seeing active, can tell that the figure is only an illusion, and they speak defiantly at him. As the rest of Runewarden members defy him either physically or verbally, we disappear into the illusion one by one.

Our band reforms in an enormous place, unlike any we have ever seen before. It seems like being inside a bodily organ, and all around us are the polyplike tendrils of the Malignancy. With us is a huge, nasty-looking Book, floating in midair and flapping its pages like wings. This entire chamber somehow seems to emanate from the book. Also in the room, darting in and amongst the tendrils, is a shadow. As the angel told us in the Alabaster Sanctuary, this must be what remains of the Dread One. It has the form of a man wearing robes with a crown upon his head.

As soon as we get our bearings, we see that tendrils are reaching out for us. The touch of the tendrils is pure corruption. Tellian shoots a powerful arrow at the Book, only to see the arrow run up against a shield of some kind surrounding the target. Canabulum's spell takes down the shield, but a moment later, a terrifying foe emerges from among the polyps: a horrid corrupted angel shod in blue metal with razorwings and sharp claws.

Holy Lothian! I recognize it as a former solar named Averon, one of the boon companions of Danar. The creature deals grievous damage to the group, and some evil force also manages to dispel my holy aura. Zophas rings his ankh of justice against the ultrahard surface of the Book. Serai, meanwhile, lobs a void grenade at Dark Averon and the Book. (Zophas, Aliya, and Gaerioth almost get sucked into the void from the grenade.) Zophas and Gaerioth find a black cloud encroaching around them from their attacks on the Book -- they can keep this cloud at bay only with protection spells. But, Dark Averon dispels Aliya's protection spell, and suddenly Zophas and Gaerioth are swamped in the blackness. Their eyes sparkle with black light, and we know that they are lost.

The longer we stay in the Malignancy, the more corrupted we become. Slowly, Sercian begins to look drawn and depraved. Evil Zophas and Gaerioth turn on Aliya and disintegrate her. Trying desperately not to lose heart and calling on the faith of his new conversion to Lothian, Canabulum grabs the Heart of Parnaith and sends positive energy shooting out of it in a burst of golden light that heals everyone, reduces their corruption levels, and frees Zophas and Gaerioth from their possession. The Book flares with golden energy and disappears. We believe it has been ejected from this place, just as the angel said it would.

Almost immediately, a green doorway of light appears in the Malignancy, and Dark Averon burrows back down into the carpet of polyps. I manage to spot the wispy spirit of Eslathagos Makith cowering in a corner. Zophas sees it too. "There is still good in him!" he cries. "He must be redeemed!"

We use all the divine magic left to us to dispel the evil from Danar's soul. The creature shivers, and for a moment we see a glimmer of his old self. Then he vanishes, and the green doorway of light envelops us.

When we emerge, we are no longer in Jabel Shammar. Looking around, we recognize the green of the Vallis moon, a place where we have stood once before. Here in this immense hall suffused with green light we see seven massive figures seated before us. A voice says, "You have done exceedingly well and once again performed a huge favor on behalf of the world. Truly you are the equals of the runechild heroes of the earliest days. Do you wish to be returned to the place of evil you have just left or to go elsewhere?"

A hush commands us in the presence of these divine personages. Then one of us speaks.

"I do not know who you are," says Gaerioth quietly. "But I have been searching the world over for the word that began all of creation."

A voice he has never heard before says, "Why?"

Gaerioth agrees to ponder this wisdom. The Elder Gods then free us of all remaining corruption and do as we ask: return us to Jabel Shammar, where we can begin our search for the long-imprisoned Earthsinger dwarf.

"Go with our blessing," they say, and we watch each other fade away....

...back into the bedchamber of Eslathagos Malkith, now free of Malignancy polyps and, we believe, free of the Dread One.

To read the earlier adventures of the Runewardens, check out the first Ptolus Campaign Journal.

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