After clearing Level 1 our heroes have descended to Level 2. Here they were stumped at first. It was so very dark and our torches did not reach all the way down the halls we saw. Darion inspected some smaller four-armed Nazgorian statues that were fixed to a toned-down pedestal here. Alas, Turning them any which way didn’t do anything and he was not prepared to damage them. He found an old boot and tipped it over, and a spider crawled out. He instinctively stomped on it, but luckily the Druids were conferring with each other and missed that.

The clerics started to discuss how exactly to hurt or kill the shadow devil, though, and that tore the Druids out of their bubble. “What? We are not here to hurt the creature! We are here to learn its wisdom of the far planes!”

Culture Shock

Apoqulis tried to convince them that they had misheard, but they stayed a bit on edge after that, and muttered something something about violent followers of the new religions. When Darion asked how they were so sure they could talk to the creature, Aislinn revealed their plan: One of her sisters was to sacrifice Aislinn, and through that blood ritual a channel would open. Darion kind of picked it up as, Aislinn’s dead body would then be possessed by the devil and it would talk through her. But he was not quite sure if that was right.

Anyway, as shocked as the Druids were about the dead otter, the reaction of the clerics was on about that level when they heard about human sacrifice.

Darion took it more nonchalantly: it was totally in character as the druids were portrayed by many clerics, including Father Thelbain. But it turned out our clerics had always taken these sermons for overblown or symbolic and had never dreamed that the druids would actually do it.

A Rock and a Hard Place

The only visible exit from this room was one huge double door, but another wall looked highly suspicious, so Darion convinced the others to tap on the walls and try stuff, and indeed, Heidel (who else?) found a secret door.

The Druids muttered darkly that we would surely do unneccessary violence in that corridor, so Darion and Apoqulis invited them to go in front in order to communicate: “What if we meet that shadow devil? If you wait back here there will long be combat long before you get the chance to sacrifice anything.”
That convinced them, and Aislinn took point. She dodged a trap, which we would totally have blundered into, then met with another giant spider. Bravely she started clicking and humming to talk to it, alas, it stormed at her, mandibles wide, ready to tear off her head, so she quickly retreated and queeked: “close it, close it, close it”, until Darion shut the secret door into the giant spider’s face.

Opening the huge double door instead, we met with aggressive giant bats who dropped off the ceiling and came for us. Slam! Door shut.

That was all the ways, and both were blocked by animals. Catch-22.

Cultural Flexibility

Barred from reaching their “teacher”, the Druids showed some quick thinking and re-defined these creatures as “monsters”. That way, they could allow us to kill them. Between murder and self defense there is simply a question of the right definition.

Heidel did not let them re-think. He slammed open the door and engaged the mega-bats, each of them larger than a barbarian warrior! The rest of us followed, and we were soon tied up in close quarters hand-to-hand.

While we were chopping and stabbing, even more bats came gliding from farther back in this huge room, and the druidesses had to step up and guard our flanks so we would not be outmaneuvered.

Blood on the Floor

Then it happened! Aislinn went down under the onslaught of a particularly large mega-bat. A harsh blow: she was annoying as hell, but that was not the way it should end! Moments later, one of her “sisters” also went down, and the third one got her arm bitten deeply.

Darion hit Aislinn’s killer with a maximum damage axe-swing, and yet the beast survived. We were truly on Level 2 here. Lalu even had to do a loyalty roll, but he managed it and stayed by our side.

Soon only one bat remained, and it turned to flee. Darion sprinted after it, but was too slow, so he simply shot it with a sling stone, hitting it… but not hard enough. It disappeared in the darkness.

We tried to stabilize and safe the fallen druidesses, but to no avail: They were dead, and only one (wounded) druid – Magunia – remained with us. Too few to do a proper blood sacrifice amongst themselves.

Into Weirdness

We left her at the stairs out and pressed on after the fleeing bat. We investigated huge black marble furniture and found there 8 skulls, a rusty old sword which broke on a test, and a small flask with golden, oily-smelling liquid.

After that we discovered the bat, wheezing on the floor. Apparently I had hit it hard enough after all. We put it down.

Then we found a room with a still water basin and passive bat-eels clinging to the walls, zoned out. We killed them quickly, like shooting fish in a barrel, then left. Darion wondered if that weird pool might be the reason why the bat-eels were so passive. What might it be? We did not linger to find out.

Nazgorian culture

We discovered a room that looked like a prize-fighting arena… ish. With huge, oversized weapons fit for Nazgorians. And a chest full of silver coins, and with one silver key, which Darion took.

From the next room came weird sounds, and when we got the door open we found a dead lizardman, struck by two deadly bolts, and smearing blood all over. There was also a set of Nazgorian plate mail, green, and a huge Nazgorian spear, also green.

Going closer we triggered a trap, but one that had already been sprung: The lizardman had taken the fall for us, unwittingly sacrificed his life for us. Lalu took up the spear, which resized to fit his bearish fists. Magical!

Darion put on the plate armor, even though it was meant for four-armed fighters. His gambit worked out: The armor re-sized and re-formed to fit Darion. Magical plate! Thank you, lizardman, old boy!

The Song of my People

Going west we almost completed a full turn through the level, closing in on the area where the angry spider must be lurking at that secret door. But before that we found a broken statue on a pedestal, and a skeleton. It had an iron ring, which Darion put on, but did not notice any effect.

(The GM had a bit of fun with that one — when I put it on he said:
“Darion dies.
—
—
—
…no, he doesn’t.”)

We also found a map with a big red X. It showed our continent, and the X pretty far to the west. And we also heard some weird singing voice from somewhere southwest, westerly.

And boom! Ambush.

Lizardmen attacked!

It was a pretty evenly matched fight, and good, strong Apoqulis went down under the lizardmen’s blows. Heidel quickly stabilized him while Darion struck down his attacker. Lalu also took some hits and did not look too healthy in the end. It could have gone either way, but by the grace of the gods and the favour of the dice we somehow came out on top. And thanks to one mighty important saving throw Apoqulis narrowly survived and, with a rasping breath, came back to us.

It was Apoqulis’ third narrow brush with death in this campaign, and his player said darkly, “one of these days his luck must run out.”

There was a larger body of water, which must be where the lizardmen had come in – probably directly from the lake, diving in through flooded caverns.

From the west, the female voice continued to sing her song … so far without perceptible negative effects.

After some rest and magical healing, it would be time to face the singer — and at some point, the spider(s). And down the road: The Shadow Devil.

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