Queen of the Demonweb Pits

by

Dear Diary…a spanking that ripples through the Underdark

Alert: May contain spoilers for the adventures “Vault of the Drow”, “City of Spiders”, “Queen of the Demonweb Pits” and “Web of Souls”

Ez thinks he found the amulet…actually we found four, so he’s just clutching all of them. It sounds like a high-level gambit, so best to take no (unnecessary) chances.

Raven and I figured out how to exit the treasure room, so now all we have to do is find the portal to the Alserv estate (that they say only the Queen can close) and perform our ritual.

Ehlonna, St. Cuthbert, Pelor, Obed-Hai, Beori…and even their King have mercy on us.

****

When we stepped through the portal, we found ourselves in a cave dug by the elements, but sealed by hands with double brass doors. As Heiron, Agnar, Clatrial, and I guarded the door, Ezekiel went over the plan once more.

Someone had traced a circle on the floor of the cave, with four indentations evenly spaced. In the middle sat a pure white stone, I suppose about the size of a fist – when Ez picked it up it turned translucent…almost like quartz, or slime.
He placed the stone dedicated to Beori in the center of the circle, with such words as seemed fitting, and moved back to where Raven stood with Lydia and Aliana, holding the stones.

The Spider Queen warned us there would be “opposition.” As Raven set the first stone in place, a creature appeared in the center of the circle…something I doubt I could have imagined even in the depths of feverish nightmare. All teeth and tentacles and shreds of darkness, I’m just glad it was vulnerable to Aliana and Raven’s weapons…and when it died, it melted like smoke before a breeze, leaving only a feeling of uneasiness.

So it went with each of the next two gems, until finally the hard part came. We tried our best to pay attention to the outer door, to keep any drow from interfering, but I think it’s just as well no one came…we couldn’t stop stealing glances at the drama behind us…Heiron worried for Lydia, Clatrial for Aliana, me for everything everywhere.

Raven held the last stone, and Ezekiel pulled out a scroll. He read terrible, commanding words – and a portal opened. Two snake-lady-demons slithered through, demanding what he wanted with their queen – but he shook the amulets and ordered her to appear. The demons snarled and made to draw swords, but two huge, winged warriors that appeared out of no where held out empty hands and told them to sit back and watch.

Finally, a female drow came out of the portal. I suppose it was a form of hers…she obeyed the amulet, and berated us for our treachery. But she obeyed…snarling and grimacing, she obeyed…she took the stone from Raven, and set it in the niche on the floor.
There was a snap like thunder – like the lid of a chest falling closed – like lye dripped in water – and in the space of a blink, the figure of Lolth, the Spider Queen, was gone.

The demons returned through the portal without so much as glancing at any of us, and the winged men vanished as abruptly as they had appeared.

The four stones were also gone, and the whole cave was filled with a reek…worse than ogre latrines, worse than hill giants. As soon as Ez gave us an indication, we pulled open the brass doors and ventured into the tunnel on the other side.

We made our way down the rocky tunnel as quickly as caution allowed. As we went, a scream tore through the air…I’m not even sure where it came from. Maybe the tunnel was underneath the Alserv house.

The opening of the tunnel let out into a courtyard, with a huge, ornate house on one side, and a guarded gate on the other. The guards didn’t seem to notice us, though – they were busy staring back at the house, where many shrill voices were screaming as though they would wake the dead with it.

We only paused long enough for Mikael to summon his earth elemental from the stone of control, and then the elemental smashed open the gate for us. I think one of the guards did get off a crossbow bolt, so points for that…but only once we were already out of range. Who would expect anyone to smash out of your fortified estate?

We returned to the temple in the Fane without running across any patrols, and found the big barbarian man hanging out with the drow from the cage. They say the drow suffers from an unfortunate tendency to “goodness,” so of course Ez welcomed him with open arms. We had a bit of trouble figuring out how to get all of us back across the bridge, but Agnar volunteered to give his green cloak to Dame DonDragon, and hide in the portable hole with my necklace of adaptation. The drow said if the barbarian posed as our slave, we should have no trouble…and so far that seems to be the case. None of the guards took alarm from “surfacers” trying to leave their sacred ground, and we crossed the bridge and the Pitchy Flow without so much as being questioned.

Once in the city, we split into two groups: Ezekiel went to collect the hermit priest (but not the half-drow-half-elf thief, to his disappointment), while Raven paid in advance for some more nights at the Crowned Button. We don’t know if anyone will pursue us, but there’s no harm in muddying the water in our wake.

Now all that remains is to collect those Good-aligned slaves we paid half-down for, and we can leave this place forever. Travel is going pretty well, with Mikael’s magic statue that turns into an elephant. It can’t be too soon for my tastes.

**

I think Ez is also anxious. We pushed on for nearly an entire day of traveling (day and night both being the same here), taking no real rests before we reached the estate of House Gem. Ez says we’ll be moving on again as soon as he and Raven finish with the transaction, though hard to say how fast he’ll be able to push the prisoners.

We did check on Agnar in the hole, but Lydia is afraid they may count us at the black tower on our way out, so we gave him some rations and told him to stay put. He only complained perfunctorily…Ez gave him a book with pictures, and he says he had no idea they wrote books about ninjas fighting pirates.

**

Taking turns on the elephant, we made it to the entrance of the cavern. Lydia especially looks the worse for twenty-odd hours on her feet, but the rest of us are also feeling it.

Ez was asking his new drow (his name is Nilonim) if we had to sign out at the tower or anything like that, when a sound came echoing across the Vault…a wailing, or a shrieking, fit to raise the hair of the coldest stoic. From the faces of Nilonim and Father Telec, such a sound is not normal, even from the city of the drow. At that, we all agreed that if no one bothered us, we wouldn’t bother them – and kept straight on for the exit.
Stopped now to pass around food and water, and let Agnar out of the hole (Ez handed Aliana the amulets while he multiplied the food, but other than that he’s clutching them like death). Our bodies will need sleep soon, but I don’t know if our minds can.

**

Finally came to a point where Lydia thought she could blip through time and space. She cast teleport, and after a few uneasy minutes, she opened the mirror portal and ushered us all through. So everyone is finally safe.

The half-drow slipped through just as the last of us were coming through. Ez happy.

More to write when I have time.

by

Dear Diary…sending the loud party to do the quiet job

Alert: May contain spoilers for the adventures “Queen of the Demonweb Pits” and “Web of Souls”

Crazy morning.

First, we followed the wide strand past a three-footed pillar with veins of blue, then past a little winged demon at a desk of papers with another little monster handing him things (had to drag Ez away from chit-chat with him. The demon started asking about where we were from – out of “curiosity,” he said – and how many soldiers it could field, and Ez got all nerdy about military theory).

We passed an egg sack hanging onto one side of the web, and I think something was alive in there, but it didn’t notice us.

Then, finally, we found a pedestal made of plain grey stone, with the six stones on its engraved face all the same milky white. I suppose it’s the pedestal we want, though we haven’t gotten it to do anything. I suppose the whole point was that it “didn’t work.”

Mikael and Ezekiel have both tried pushing the different gems – even pushing all of them at once – but nothing has happened. Lydia is helping them go through different combinations, now. I think that’s about 720 different possibilities, but Lydia says it could be over 18,000. I really hope not.

**

I have been useful, even if no one thinks so. We decided to explore some more, I think, and see if we had perhaps missed the correct pillar. When we passed by the egg sack again, it gave a “clink,” like metal ringing, which is a strange noise even for extra-planar demon spiders. I mentioned it to Raven, and then he heard it, too…and then Ezekiel crawled right into the bundle of webbing like it was nothing.

After a moment, he came out with a young lady wearing the symbol of Pelor over damaged plate armor. She introduced herself as Mirnisha DonDragon, a knight of Neil Dra, and gave her story while Ezekiel healed her.

An “anomaly” appeared in the sky over Neil Dra – she wasn’t sure how long ago – and she went with a wizard and a team of other paladins to investigate. It sounds suspiciously like what happened to Istivin…especially given later information. She says when they touched the anomaly – that looked like a black bubble – it teleported them here: to the Abyss. It didn’t go so well…

However, in wandering around she’s found most of the pillars that are attached to portals: Gorna, Istivin, Loftwick, Neil Dra – most of the great capitals, in fact. Most of the portals seem high in the air, which could be why we haven’t heard more about them before…but it’s also true we’ve been out of conmunication for some time. Perhaps His Serenity Herozen tried to contact Ezekiel because of this?

Anyway, we asked about a pillar that “didn’t work” – and Dame DonDragon confirmed that the pillar where we were, with the white stones, is the only one without color.

So we returned there, and, since she’s been here longer I guess, Dame DonDragon thought to walk backward into the pillar with her eyes closed – which made her disappear.

Aliana followed her almost immediately, and Ezekiel was right after her. The rest of us kind of looked at each other, and sorted ourselves out until one by one, we stepped backward and found ourselves in a new place.

I’m not sure where the light comes from, but we can see. It’s a sort-of cylindrical room with grey walls, and a massive pile of coins at the center (next to two dead demons). Tressarian said he felt much better here, and so we checked around for magic – the pile of coins showed up nothing, but we found six spots along the walls that smelled of magic…in fact, right where Ezekiel’s cleric senses detected traps.

It seems there are six invisible chests placed around the walls of the room. Right now Raven and Ezekiel are trying to disarm the traps and unlock the chests, which is troublesome when they’re invisible…but that gives us all a chance to breathe, since this dimension is much more suited to our tastes.

So far Raven has found gems, potions, some magical gear…standard stuff. Now that we are in a new place, I can write that Ez really wants to find an amulet that belongs to the Spider Queen. They say that such an amulet can force the owner to obey one command. That sounds like a dangerous thing to own, but I suppose people like her are always gambling on obscure angles.

Aliana filled in Dame DonDragon with the basics of our mission, and despite all she’s been through, she’s still eager to kill demons. I suppose that willpower is what kept her alive for however long it’s been (oh, and Tressarian says she’s not a doppelganger).

It would be nice if I live long enough to see if the plan works. Unless it doesn’t, in which case, I suppose it doesn’t matter.

Find the previous entry here.

by

Dear Diary…come into my parlor

Alert: May contain spoilers for the adventures “Queen of the Demonweb Pits” and “Web of Souls”

Our “night” was pretty restless. Demons kept stomping by, telling us not to loiter, and though they never pressed the issue, it kept all of us on edge. Mikael and Lydia look especially disheveled and crabby.

The good news is, Ezekiel finally came to…so we can finally follow the strand that leads down, and hope none of us fall off.

**

The slope led to a level strand, and at the first junction after that, we found another three-footed pillar. This one was made of black stone with orange veins, and also had an engraved map of some kind on top…but Lydia said it’s a different design than the first one we found. There are also six gems arranged at intersections of the carving, but if the placement was significant, I didn’t know enough to recognize it.

[Brief sketch]

Shortly after that, we finally found a drow lady willing to give us directions. Well, first she called us loiterers, but Ezekiel said we were just lost, so she pointed out one of the strands radiating from her platform. We left her to babysit her undead monster things (they looked kinda like ghouls, but I’m not sure), and followed the path she indicated.

That led us to yet another pedestal with three legs and a web-pattern carved on top. But this one was different because a glowing arch stood to one side…and through it we saw what looked like a human city, seen from several hundred feet above. Master Oaklock said it looked like Loftwick, the capital of the Yeomanry… Three of the six gems set out on the “map” were glowing: a yellow, a blue, and a green-

[Sketch]

The other three gems were red, orange, and purple. When Lydia poked the red gem, the gems stopped glowing, and the archway disappeared entirely. She tried poking the green one to turn it back on, but she said the pedestal gave her a jolt that made her hand numb for a couple minutes.

Ezekiel tried poking the gems, and found that if he did them in order, the right colors would light, and the portal reappeared. We hadn’t heard of a black sphere over the Yeomanry…perhaps that’s what the message Ez received was about. We haven’t found an archway for Istivin, and we don’t know if messing with the pedestals actually affects what’s going on for the other side, so we still have some investigating to do.

**

[The following handwriting is a little messier than normal]

We finally found it. The nest.

A huge, white sphere sits on a strand, stretching so tall that our lights could barely make out the edge in the mists. It resembles the sphere in Istivin in some ways, but that one more resembled a ball of cords. This is more like the egg sack of a spider, where the threads are so tiny and interwoven they appear as a united fabric.

Two drow ladies stood on the strand, controlling the approach, along with a snake demon with six arms and the head of a woman, like we saw before in the city. The snake-demon sat behind a small, cluttered desk, and asked for our names. After fussing around the desk for a minute, she slithered off across the surface of the sphere to get “the ledger”…a big wad of paper barely held together with a leather cover.

Ez took the chance while she was gone to give brief, quiet instructions to each of us…in the event that things fell apart. Heiron and I were responsible for the drow, since they don’t require magic arrows to hit.

At last, the ledger was found, Ezekiel signed us in, and we were let through the hole in the webbing…through the thickness of the sphere…into the heart of the nest.

To say all the darkness and malice of this place emenates from the nest is simplistic. The truth is more tangled and dangerous…but I will say the air seemed full of an oppression I have never felt before or since. We could see everything inside, but I’m not sure where the light came from. It showed drow – crowds of drow, milling together around the floor, and some of the sides, of the sphere. Indeed, we had to pick our way down the slope as we left the entrance.

Worse than drow are the demons…one tall, horned one with a whip, others in shapes I’ve never seen before, and over them all sat the giant spider…a look of such pride and hatred and scorn in her eyes that I dared not look at her face. Is it possible such tiny, unassuming garden creatures share her nature?

Aliana, of course, never lost her posture as she and Ezekiel crossed the floor, passed an old man dealing himself cards at a desk, and approached the center of the nest.

A snake-demon-lady slithered forward, two of her arms holding swords, and met us halfway. She introduced herself as Morag, and said she was here to “intimidate” us, we who dared seek an audience with Her Eight-Legged Excellence. She shook her swords, and spoke very low…those of us in the back of the group could barely hear her.

…Wisdom is known by her children. Means do not justify their ends, however when a God calls his servants to a task, he provides the means to accomplish it. And surely a master strategist arranges supplies from the most un-looked-for of places? If we ever leave this place, perhaps I can say more.

Finally, the snake-lady led us toward the center of the web, and the creature who sat enthroned on it and within it.

Ezekiel spoke. They agreed the EEG was an enemy to us both, and confirmed our previous information: he can be sealed through a ritual using the “surprise” we brought with us, by placing what was in the egg. She said that was a gift from her – four “stones of power”: an iron pyramid, a bronze star, a silver orb, and a blue crystal. With these, we could imprison the Elder…or House Alserv could release him on the world, into the world. And I think there would not be a world for very long after that.

However, the Alserv have a ritual site that we could use for our own purposes, within their estate. And this web contains a portal to that estate.

We asked for such directions as we could get. She told us the gate we sought was on this same level of the web. Ez seemed more inclined to chit-chat than I was eager for, but at last he directed us out of that dark, smothering place, and we returned to the dark but spacious place of the giant web.

From there we continued along the strand. We passed a platform with a gate-portal that had no three-footed pedestal to control it. Two demons guarded it, so I suppose they were in place of the pedestal.

We picked one of the threads that radiated from that platform, and continued until we came on an egg sack, taller than I am, with a great hole rent in its side and its vacant silks fluttering in the odd breezes of this place. Not far ahead, a dozen or so huge spiders swarmed a platform at the next junction of strands, hanging eery and nightmarish in the gloom. With the odd harp noises always whispering at the edges of our senses, one could imagine the spiders wailing like newborns just on the edge of human hearing.

Perhaps it was that, or perhaps it was some other logic, but we all turned around and started to retrace our steps. We passed the gate with demons, passed the snake-lady still fussing at her desk, and headed up the steep ramp to the level above us.

When we came to the woman with two chimera pets, she said she couldn’t let us past her twice for nothing. So she asked for Clatrial (or to bite Clatriel’s hand)…and it’s a good thing Ezekiel reacted first for once, and ordered her to leave with a wave of his holy symbol. The lady grimaced, and vanished in a puff of smoke that blew away. Otherwise, Aliana and I were about to body-slam her…which would get awkward quickly, because Clatrial would have landed on top of us, trying to bodyguard Aliana, and if we didn’t fall off the platform by that point, who knows what would happen next.

Anyway, we just had to kill the unnatural hybrid chimera monsters, and then we could continue retracing our steps.

Not too long after that, we met a small party of male drow and asked them about the three-footed pillars. Specifically, Ez asked for directions to one that supposedly “didn’t work” (we all know he’s a super-nerd, but it still sounds suspicious to me every time he asks).

The drow said they just knew that every pillar was a different color, and worked to a different sequence, but that we might be able to get directions from the gate that leads to and from the Fane.

So we back-tracked some more, and found the portal we entered by. The party of drow followed us, as they said they got lost. The guards by the portal asked why they weren’t relieved, and the male drow said they escorted us here on their way to relieve them. That was a lie to start with, since we showed them the way…but the gate drow shouldn’t know that. So I’m not sure what made them suspicious, since presumably they asked the others about their replacements because they thought they knew. Anyway, the two groups started arguing, but since we had no dog in that fight, we left them to it. Specifically, this junction of threads contained a strand wider than most – probably thirty feet wide – so plenty big to support the instant fortress. Lydia especially had no pep in her movements, but I think the rest of us could feel it was past midnight in the time that ruled our bodies. After pushing along on a minimum of rest and straining our nerves to breaking point, by common consent we set up the fortress just beyond hearing of the portal guards, and assigned watches.

The fortress gives a tremendous psychological support. Everyone is resting much more easily, though we can still hear the whining and scraping of the winds outside.

I wonder what it will come to…?

by

Dear Diary…into the blackness

Alert: May contain spoilers for the adventures “Vault of the Drow”, “City of Spiders”, “Queen of the Demonweb Pits” and “Web of Souls”

Before two watches passed, Lydia rejoined us from her bookish seclusion, and Ezekiel roused us to take the fight to our enemy. When we approached the amber pillar, it rose up as before (the illusory spider atop it still leering and gesturing at us), but we could walk through it, and when we emerged, with none of the stuff seeming to have stuck to us, Ezekiel and Aliana led the way through the wall.

The first thing that really hit me was the smell. It’s almost like a spice – like cinnamon, Lydia thought – but it’s also almost like…burned hair. I’ve never sniffed a spider after squashing it, so I’m not sure what else it’s like. Maybe it’s incense, a long way off…but intense enough that it fills the whole place.

It’s dark, of course…except for our shields. The light reveals giant “tubes” – some ten feet across, some thirty, some everything in between – that stretch off into the vast blackness in every direction. Their surface is basically white, with a gently yielding texture. They’re the only thing to walk on here, aside from circular platforms that they connect, and while they don’t bounce exactly, so I’m not afraid of being flung off the edge by accident, it is tiring to walk on them – like deep sand on a beach. And they’re definitely not sticky enough to allow even Raven to climb along the edge or underside of the beam. At least they give enough purchase to let us climb up or down onto another strand when two or more of them cross each other.

The other thing that’s striking is the noise. Not a clamorous noise, but a…a hissing, or a howling if that could be musical, like the sound of the wind playing fitfully over 1000 harps, all tuned slightly differently. It gives the feeling that something unnatural is always breathing just behind you, and to watch Heiron and Clatrial, that’s how it feels to them, too.

Almost the first moment we stepped through the portal, something went “snap” inside Ezekiel’s backpack, but we couldn’t investigate right away because two female drow were standing guard on the platform with us. They seemed a little surprised that we were “surfacers,” but not alarmed…which is good so far.

Ez told them he had a message for Lolth. They told him the “nest” is at the base of the web, and pointed us down one of the four strands that radiate from that place.

I know the way back, but I’m not sure I could figure out how to make the portal reverse us back to reality, if I had to. The platform where we appeared has a circle of eight pillars surrounding it, but nothing that looks like the muraled wall in the temple.

As we moved away from the platform along the strand, mists hove out of the darkness, blocking our vision after a certain distance. Once we felt we were out of range of the guards, we stopped – both to examine Ezekiel’s backpack, and because the paladins were looking a little pale. Even Mikael looked a little green and fidgety, and he kept touching the cluster of mistletoe he wears around his neck.

Aliana and Clatrial insist they’re fine (of course they would), and besides there’s no way out of this place except through. Tressarian mumbled something about hating this place and wanted to puke even though he doesn’t have a stomach.

I think I understand. I never thought I would reach a place beyond the hand of Ehlonna…Even on the slave ship, I knew her goodness could not be undone completely. But this place is not like the Underdark. The very air (are we breathing air?) tastes like…like it hates being air. The darkness doesn’t just feel like it hates light, but like it hates everything else, too. Hates and also wants to eat it. I asked Heiron if my imagination was running away with me, and he said I was sitting right there beside him, so that made me feel better.

Inside Ezekiel’s backpack, the platinum egg had cracked to reveal four things I dare not even describe here. Like the Astral Plane, we have entered a space where laws we took for granted no longer function as expected. Who knows who or what might be spying on us at any time.

We left the first platform, and soon passed a squad of male drow led by a demon of some kind. They let us by when Ezekiel said we were just delivering a message, though Aliana might have made a different call.

We passed a platform with huge spiders – bigger than Nori – hanging above our heads in vast webs that also clung to their backs. I can only imagine they were chittering down at us with evil, spidery thoughts, but they too let us pass.

Things got serious when we came to a wall of darkness. It was like light literally stopped at a certain point, and not even Ezekiel’s mace could get any light into that bubble. We thought about using the ebony flies to move around it, but when Mikael tried to scout for us, he barely made it fifteen feet from the strand before a powerful wind hit him, and he had to struggle back to us. That at least explains some of the whistling and hissing noises around here…like it’s a place so vast the winds buffet it like a mountainside, and yet it’s enclosed so the air has no place to go to…so it just keeps circling and piling over itself. That’s not how real air works, of course, but the point is it kept Mikael from even telling us how far ahead the darkness might lie.

Ez tried one more trick with his prayer beads, but it didn’t seem to do anything…which left us with essentially one option. We tied ourselves together like climbing a mountain, and headed into the unknown – paladins first, of course.

The end of the line hadn’t even followed the front of the line into the blackness when we heard snarls and chomping. Aliana’s grumpy that whatever it was ignored her and Ezekiel, but it gave Mikael some bad teeth marks before he and Raven beat it back. We’re still not sure exactly what it was, except that it hates paladins – and Mikael.

We emerged from the darkness without falling off the strand or encountering anything else deadly. Ez patched Mikael up while we untied ourselves, and not too far a distance beyond that, our strand crossed another that seemed to lead down at an angle. Down being our direction, we followed it.

The downward strand ended at another level one. Here, we ran into more serious trouble. It started with a great bundle of webbing, twenty or thirty feet high, that blocked the path forward. We could climb over it, of course – with some difficulty. Or we could try cutting through it. But the mass was shifting and pulsing in disturbing ways, and none of us were eager to face down a swarm of huge spiders (Mikael said he didn’t have that much poison neutralization).

We did a little looking for a way around it, but Ezekiel soon pulled out a scroll he said would help determine if whatever was inside was dangerous. At first, he seemed to take a long time reading the scroll…then it dropped out of his hands, and we realized he was just slumped there, staring at nothing. Fortunately, he’s not dead, but it means Heiron and Mikael have been carrying him ever since.

Turns out the other direction along the strand brought us more progress. We killed some stone creatures that I believe were called “ropers” when we fought them under the Slaver city. More importantly, we came on a platform with a strange little stand on it: a stone pedestal if some kind, with three feet supporting it, and some kind of pattern etched on top, with three gems set at particular points. It looks dangerously significant.

We also met a female warrior who looks human, guarding a platform alongside two monsters that look like horrible goat/lion hybrids with dragon heads and wings. Ez was still unconscious, so I asked Aliana to use her winning ways to ask could we pretty please pass by…and wouldn’t you know, it worked, and we didn’t have to fight the lady and her pets.

At last, however, we came on another strand leading down – but it’s at such a sharp incline, I definitely don’t want to carry Ezekiel down it. Master Oaklock suggested waiting until he revives, and Heiron pointed out we’re all pretty tired (especially Lydia, who stayed up late cramming spell knowledge, and then came on this long walk in this oppressive darkness). I hate spending any more time in this place than necessary, but I agree to proceed at full strength we need Ezekiel to wake up.

This strand we’re sitting on isn’t wide enough to fit the fortress, so we simply keep watch over our sleeping companions, and watch dark shapes flit in and out of the mist…close? or far? It’s impossible to tell exactly. There’s something just so comforting about paladins…even Aliana, who’s so perfect as to be untouchable, and Clatrial, who’s chasing perfection so intently you think she might frighten it.

Find the previous entry here.