Borderland of Adventure #25: The Dead and the Devils

At the end of last session, we left the PCs standing over the slashed corpse of a female tiefling who through her magic had almost destroyed the party. They were victorious and after healing their many wounds and taking stock, our heroes decided to continue.

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Krorz, scouting ahead, heard soft babbling speech coming from around a corner and so the party went to investigate. Around the corner stood a small room in which a creature of shadow and bone knelt in front of a small statue. As the party’s lights filled the room, the creature turned and its babbling rose in volume!

As it surged toward the party, its babbling fascinated several of them. Identified quickly as an allip, the creature attacked the party, but the heroes’ steadfast determination and willpower enabled them to resist the worst of its attacks. Eventually, after enchanting their weapons, the party  slew the beast.

Now the party were perilously low on resources and so they decided to retreat from the dungeon to rest in the ruins above overnight. This they did, choosing an isolated sheltered spot to set up camp. Luckily, the night passed without incident but Maban (Klara’s henchman) woke feeling very ill – it transpired he was infected with ghoul fever. Luckily, the party had a scroll of remove disease and this Adoven duly cast on the young bard. They then returned to the dungeon.

Pushing south, they discovered a large corridor and a small interconnected group of chambers that seemed to be a workshop of sorts. Here Krorz was surprised by two tiny winged creatures – later identified as devilish imps. They both struck him with their poisoned stingers and the rogue staggered back, badly affected by their venom.

Immediately, the imps started a tactic of going invisible, moving and then attacking from an unexpected direction. This tactic was moderately effective, but sadly for them everyone else managed to resist their poison. Eventually, Klara managed to grab one of the creatures and shortly thereafter it was beaten unconscious and stuffed into a sack. Krorz then slew it with a mighty strike of his axe. Seeing this, the other one disappeared, but not before issuing a series of dire threats in a language no one could speak.

Searching the chambers, the party discovered almost two score collection boxes – seemingly stolen from a number of churches – and the two objects – a mirror and a statue stolen from the temple-shrine of Fharlanghn.

Yet keen to find the legendary fire opal rumoured to lie within the ruins, the party pressed on discovering a number of empty chambers, all decorated with lurid bas-reliefs of monks and devils.

In one corridor carpeted in a great mass of bones, they discovered what they took to be a series of monks’ cells. At the end stood another room at the very extent of the party’s light. Belivar, using his magic, detected several magical emanations coming from the chamber. Excited, the party were nevertheless cautious and checked each cell as they moved forward. In the fourth such cell, Krorz was attacked by a gigantic skeleton seemingly formed from the skeletal remains of a bone devil. As the rogue desperately dodged the initial attacks, two more such beasts emerged from other cells and attacked!

Hemgor shouted for the party to retreat and form a shield wall, but he was widely ignored as battle lust and desire to save Krorz burned bright in many of his companions’ hearts. Both Klara and Adoven repeatedly filled the corridor with positive energy and Belivar’s eidolon was particularly effective against the skeletons. With their enemies defeated, the party advanced and found a magic potion and a clerical scroll hidden in the end chamber…

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Published by

Creighton

Creighton is the publisher at Raging Swan Press and the designer of the award winning adventure Madness at Gardmore Abbey. He has designed many critically acclaimed modules such as Retribution and Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands and worked with Wizards of the Coast, Paizo, Expeditious Retreat Press, Rite Publishing and Kobold Press.

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