Strange Allies in the Dark

Heading back the way the Fae Mhor had come, the group was joined by the thirty warriors Silustriana had brought with her. These formed up around the party and formed an escort.

Trailing the group, Sack reflected that as well as shadowing, he was in a splendid position to do a little quiet alvicide if he managed to catch any of the warriors alone.

At the end of the cavern, they reached another of the strange docks marked on Mazahir's maps. At this one a long slender boat waited, and the Fae Mhor warband embarked. Sack was in a fix here, as wherever he sat on the boat he was likely to be discovered by touch; siezed by an inspiration, he clambered onto Hildraft's shoulders. The dwarf endured this in stoic silence, and Sack settled down to the task of noting the route through the flooded labyrinth taken by the dark elven boat.

Four rows of benches forward of them, Surya drew Tormentor so as to preserve his darkvision. Several of the warriors around him started at the sound and laid hands to hilts; but seeing him simply holding the grey sword rather than looking threatening, they relaxed. Seated nearby, Silustriana gazed at the weapon for a long moment, then looked the Tellaran in the eyes and looked away. Launcivos, however, was more talkative. "Very impressive," he said, his usual smug smile much in evidence. "I didn't know such things were made in the surface world," he added archly. "You been topside much?" asked Surya.

"A little," responded the slender Fae Mhor. "The Despana have been doing the most of that - as you know, I think, haven't you fought some?." He paused. "Tell me, what was it like to slay a Dragon?"

Hildraft leaned over and joined the conversation. "Wonderful!" he put in. "Two dragons," corrected Surya. "and it tasted good too," finished the dwarf.

"You drank dragon's blood?" asked Launcivos with sharp interest. "Yes," replied Hildraft. Launcivos then continued talking to Hildraft, but shifted rapidly from language to language as he did so, to the point that the others soon could not even distinguish words in the peculiar sounds he was making. Through it all, Hildraft kept up effortlessly. The Fae Mhor sat back. "Impressive," he commented, looking - if possible - even more pleased with himself.

"So what's your field?" asked Surya bluntly. Launcivos grinned; "I specialize in the arcane," he responded, "magic, you know." He leaned back for a moment; then, in a whisper only audible to Surya, added, "My compliments on your 'invisible friend'..."

After a couple of hours, the boat drew up at another dock, this one clearly the work of more sophisticated hands than the one they'd embarked from. The party debarked; Surya hung back, pretending to adjust his equipment, and Sack nudged him as he passed. The Tellaran passed on the fact that Launcivos had rumbled him in a whisper. Sack resolved to range a bit further out than before. He shadowed one of the scouts that Silustriana put out in front of the warband. A couple of hours of travel later, he got the chance to bushwhack the scout, and then had to find another to follow.

Travel now led the Fae Mhor and their guests through a series of large natural caverns, high-arching and dotted with stalactites and stalagmites. Hildraft twitched a few times; this sort of place had a tendency to make dwarves feel an urge to start stonecutting. As they moved through the weird subterranean world, the Fae Mhor seemed to become more alert; checking weapons and gazing about more. Something was up, and Surya moved up the line to accost Launcivos.

"What's happening?" he asked. "The scouts have picked up a trail; something's down here with us," answered the wizard. "Such as what?" demanded the Tellaran. Sensing trouble, Kobort swiftly cast a Greater Magic Weapon spell on the party's ammunition.

He was soon answered. Without warning, dark elven bows began to hum, and arrows flashed into the darkness beyond the group's range of sight. Into view came dozens of hurrying creatures, man-sized but only vaguely man-like. Resembling giant beetles armed with tridents, the creatures came on in a rush, disdaining the flickering darts of the Fae Mhor that felled them as they came. Sack and Surya joined in, their massive longbows driving shafts clear through the monsters and taking a terrible toll.

Sack, caught out away from the main group, went to ground as the wave of attackers passed him; invisible or not, he didn't want them bumping into him. Once they were past, he rose up again, and resumed fire. As the wave reached the warband, the Fae Mhor warriors downed their bows and drew blades, forming a circle around their leaders, the few specialized archers, and the surface-worlders. Kobort, Launcivos and Silustriana started launching magical attacks at the foes as they came, but many fizzled into nothing - the creatures were magic resistant to some extent.

A different group of creatures appeared now, standing behind the beetle-types and directing them. Silustriana glanced at them and muttered; "Ultraloths!". Hildraft unleashed a Searing Light - much to the discomfort of the Fae Mhor around him - at one, and was dismayed when it fizzled into nothing a foot from his target. He was even more put out when the creature riposted by levelling a finger at him and transfixing him with a ray of shimmering light which tore into his soul, draining a chunk of his vital force and leaving him weakened and shaken.

Ducking down, he readied his magic to restore himself, as Surya, Sack and Sigred rained missiles into the combat. As they did so, one of the other Ultraloths raised a hand and swiftly inscribed a glowing rune in the air. All who saw it felt claws of fear tearing at their minds. Most shook the effect off; but some of the Fae Mhor, and Kobort the sorcerer, crumpled to the ground, writhing in fætal balls of magically-inducded terror.

As the recovered Hildraft hefted his axe and charged into the fray with the Mezzoloths, two of the Ultraloths suddenly blinked out of existence and reappeared right in the midst of the embattled Fae Mhor warband! One was between Hildraft, Sigred and Launcivos, and the other right up close to Surya and Silustriana. At the same time, one of the remaining creatures cast a Wall of Fire, seperating the warband into two groups, just before one of Sack's dreadful bowelraker arrows hammered it over backwards.

Dropping his bow, Surya tore out his swords just in time to meet a furious attack from the Ultraloth he was now facing. They fought backwards and forwards for a few moments, and then he felled it with a strike to the head.

The Ultraloth on the other side of the wall of flames was now the only one remaining, and Sigred and Launcivos were only barely holding it at bay. Then the Fae Mhor wizard lunged forward and siezed the monster's forehead in his left hand. Green light flashed and flared, and the creature screamed in agony as it thrashed to be free. Then its' head vaporized in a burst of fluid and fragments, and it fell dead.

With the last of their leaders dead, the surviving Mezzoloths appeared to lose heart; one by one they began to vanish as they teleported away, and in seconds they were all gone.

With a touch, Silustriana dispelled Kobort's artificial terror, while Launcivos despatched scouts to check that the demons had really fled the field. Turning from sending them on their way, the wizard looked directly up at where Sack was and flipped him an ironic salute. Then the priestess moved through the soldiers of her force. Where wounds had been suffered by men who had fought well, she dispensed healing. Where warriors had faltered, or fought badly, or fallen prey to the Symbol of Fear, she took their lives in sacrifice to Lolth. Such was the harsh logic of life for the dark elves.