| 5th Kanos (CONTINUED...) STONEHEART
MAIN PAGE FULL STORY (Word Doc)Meeting Into
the Crypt Umber
Hulks Stone
Heart Vampire
Beryn Keep Sand
Giant With warriors in front, above Balin's sharp intake of breath beind the party, the unnerving clacking sound of the first of eight enormous legs touching down onto stone is heard. A ferocious battle is swiftly entered, Darius showing tactical skill and leadership, Jarek outstanding with his bow whilst Kin slows a foe with magic and Rhadogan calls on St Cuthbert for aid. It's all needed. Soon, three foes are separately engaged - the monstrous spider's mandibles dart out at its attackers, its body swinging dextrously on its grim ebon legs. Twice Rhadogan fends off the fearsome teeth with his shield and then smites his foe with his mace. Jiriki takes a leaf from his brother's book raining wounds upon his enemy, but his defense is weak and he takes two major and vicious blows. Balin is fortunately almost too short to be hit but his sword strikes as well any other. 30 feet from the doorway, Morin can almost be heard to curse as, having got behind his foe, he fails to make a dent - these statues, it seems, have no obvious weakspot! Dalrylshana and Karnak are fending better but receiving wounds, nonetheless and the same is true for Darius and Kin. Darius, as ever battles well but it's difficult to tell how damaged such mystical opponents are becoming. They neither cry out nor slow but battle inexorably on. But the tide of battle moves to the party's side and the spider soon falls, leaving Rhadogan with a vicious shoulder wound and showering Jiriki, Jarek, Balin and he with poison from a sac beneath its head. Darius needs a valorous move to save Dalrlyshana but, although the stone warriors are finally defeated, crumbling to rubble and dust, divine healing is needed to pull her back from the brink of death. A rest is needed. The party refil waterskins from the pool and a search within it by Jarek - to find the source of the light within - reveals a skeletal corpse. It has an amulet that Jiriki recognises as being that of a near-legendary warrior "Stoneheart", although whether the body is actually his is impossible to tell. After a morality discussion over what to do with the items, the chainmail goes to Darius, Kin takes the amulet, Rhadogan the orb, Balin the longsword, Dalrylshana the ring and Jiriki the greatsword. And then finally some untroubled rest is had for six hours. 6th Kanos Having eaten, rested and healed as best they could, the party move on, traversing the huge room to the double doors opposite. A search reveals no traps but the party is not ready to be ambushed by stone warriors a second time: the feet of the statues are tied and as Morin opens the doors and steps in the room, both statues animate and stumble to be swiftly dealt with by a well-prepared enemy. Dust and rubble are all that remain in seconds. The room is identical to that opposite and also contains a giant spider - Jarek, Balin and Jiriki flee at the sight of it (an effect of the previous beast's poison, Kin surmises) and even a spell to sooth from Rhadogan has no effect on their terror. The party is undaunted, however, and Kin unleashes magics to harm and weaken the terrible beast. Rhadogan increases the odds of victory fruther by blinding the arachnid and then steel finishes the job, particularly that administered by Morin who had crept behind the creature and clambered onto its back to deal his fearsome blows. After some discussions (where Dalrylshana reveals that the ring she has can fire lightning bolts!) whilst Rhadogan prays, the party are eager to press on, the room is left unsearched and the last double door opened: a huge room awaits. It's at least as wide as the previous room but the walls stretch southwards and away from each other at a gentle angle. You would imagine that this was once a vast natural cavern that has had some structure hewn into it. The room is quite well lit by a combination of the eerie blue light you are now quite used to (reflecting pleasantly in quartz elements in the rock walls) and a red glow: it's source is a large crack in the disorientingly high roof from which flames lick down. The light allows you to see to the other end of the room quite easily, where wide, doorless corridoors extend at east and west, southwards into gloom. Between the party and these corridoors is a wide expanse of blue water around 40ft across, beginning a scant few feet from the doorway and extending the length of the room and beyond. Tiny razorfish flit about in their hundreds in the mild current, but fortunately there are a number of pillars extending out of the water to form large stepping stones, each over a couple of feet square and the distance between each safely jumpable. A blue "X" is discovered on one of the stones, only visible in the orb's (now held by Dalrylshana) light from 15feet. The stone directly north of the cross is the one radiating least magic and, as the party try to solve how to get a cross, Balin leaps out before anybody can stop him but chooses safely, thankfully, in his hurry to get out of the room, concerned about the heat from above that his dwarvish sense of direction has allowed him to realise is the room where a fiery beast was unleashed as you escaped it! After more magical attempts at divination, Rhadogan suddenly recalls a pattern on one of the columns in the room where the umberhulks were battled and realises that it was a map of the route across. Wasting no more time, the party advance to the other side of the river safely where the path goes left and right, both directions towards passages north.. Choosing to go left, the party moves on to see where they will be led. The corridoor opens into a huge room. The cavernous roof is so far above that the pale mist hanging in the air almost has the appearance of a dark sky. The effect is compounded by the fact that there seems to be no end to the room; it's quite disconcerting but the room seems to run off south as far as can see be seen. The dominating feature in the room is a large building: its walls look like they are composed of a dark blue marble and at the front there is a large archway, which is filled with swirling golden shapes; you can still just about see within to what looks like an empty, dusty room. Above the arch are the four alchemical symbols of earth, fire, water and air and just above these a gleaming blue orb casts blue light down onto the area in front of the building. The whole structure is stood upon a huge copper square, slightly proud of the stone floor, coloured now with verdigris and on this, before the archway is a steel block that appears to have writing on it. It reads: "I connect earth and air and bring the other
two It is suddenly apparent just how many times lightning has featured in these catacombs and, standing at the edge of the large copper plate, Morin cries out "Lightning!" and then steps back. The blue orb fades to clear then abruptly becomes blinding brilliant white - the mist above fizzes with motion and then jagged forks of energy leap between clouds to orb then copper. Lightning forks wildly about the place, momentarily surrounding the entire buildng, and you can feel heat emanating from the pummelled copper plate. Then with a crack! the dazzling light-tapestry is dissipated and silence and stillness returns. The orb has stayed white, but has returned to it's original brightness now and a couple of plumes of smoke rise where dust has been burnt at the edge of the copper plate. The golden swirling shapes in the archway, however, are gone and the way through is clear. The party advance into the building............ Meeting Into
the Crypt Umber
Hulks Stone
Heart Vampire
Beryn Keep Sand
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