Chapter #1209
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+ THE ADVENTURERS +
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+ Epic VI +
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+ Many of the locations, non-player characters, spells, and other +
+ terms used in these stories are the property of Wizards of the Coast +
+ which has in no way endorsed or authorized their use. Any such +
+ property contained within these stories are not representative of +
+ Wizards of the Coast in any fashion. +
+ The player characters depicted in these stories are copyright +
+ 1991-2026 by Thomas A. Miller. Any resemblance to any persons +
+ or characters either real or fictional is utterly coincidental. +
+ Copying and/or distribution of these stories is permissible under +
+ the sole condition that no money is made in the process. In that +
+ case, I hope you enjoy them! +
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+ Kronos 22nd level lich wizard +
+ 3 large, armored skeletons with shields and two-handed swords +
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+ Belphanior 18th/18th/18th level elven fighter/wizard/thief +
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+ Hope 16th level female human wizard +
+ Poulos 8th level human warrior +
+ Irina 14th/7th level female human priestess/warrior +
+ Otto 12th/14th level dwarven fighter/thief +
+ Paige 13th level human female warrior +
+ Razor Charlie 12th level human fighter +
+ Skektek 14th level human wizard +
+ Ys 14th level reptilian fighter +
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+ Date: 4/3/587 C.Y. (Common Year) +
+ Time: afternoon +
+ Place: the Pits of Azak-Kil, within the Abbor-Alz hills +
+ Climate: hot and dry +
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+ "It was an impossible challenge...so we did the impossible." +
+ - from _Ultimates_ #8, 2025 +
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MCCIX. Counter-Counterstrike
The adventurers' exploration of the mines within the Pits of Azak-Kil
was just interrupted in a most significant way, as the dwarven lich high
priest Gunguti summoned an earthquake which collapsed the portion of the
complex containing the foes.
Gunguti: So much for them. (he abruptly emits a series of hacking,
hollow coughs) Dead and buried.
The undead ruler, flanked by his personal guard of armored but decaying
dwarven warriors, stood on a wide ledge high on one side of the massive
mining-pit. From there he looked out upon the newly-sunken area on the
other side of his domain, from which a great plume of dust issued after
the collapse of the chambers below, just moments ago.
undead dwarven warrior-guard #13: What now, master?
Gunguti: Now, we recover the bodies. (he hefts his gnarled staff of
dark, rotted wood, the small metal ellipsoid on its end glowing with a
pale bluish light) It will be a...simple...(he pauses, staring at the
depression in the far side of the pit) What...?
undead dwarven warrior-guard #13: (looks at one of his fellows, confused)
undead dwarven warrior-guard #4: (shrugs)
Gunguti: Ready yourselves! The intruders yet live! (he begins chanting
as he invokes the power of his staff)
A moment later, there was an explosion of rock and dirt across the pit,
as the adventurers blasted their way free!
Belphanior: (jumps up onto a pathway and moves away, intent on keeping
the group from clustering together and presenting a single easy target)
Hope: (flies up into the air and away from the others)
Paige: (uses her boots' power to leap far to one side, her sword out and
burning with mystical flame)
Kronos: (sails forth, his book held in both hands and opened to a potent
incantation)
The group's survival had not been a trivial matter - it had only been
possible through the quick use of both a cube of force and time-pausing
magic, which were swiftly followed by spells to shift and disintegrate
earth, and finally another one to break free from the buried cavern. The
adventurers had not made it out unscathed, for Skektek had been knocked
unconscious by a falling rock, Ys had suffered a serious cut on one arm
thanks to a jagged shard of debris, and two of Kronos' five large armored
skeletal warriors had been crushed during the initial cave-in.
As for the rest, though, they knew they had to strike fast now, using
the strongest means at their disposal. The next moments were a chaotic
flurry of magical activity from both sides.....Gunguti completed his first
incantation, the rock near the bulk of the adventurers trembling slightly
as _something_ was summoned into existence.....Hope launched a fireball
that arced over the center of the wide mining-pit, covering an impressive
distance before exploding directly atop the lich high priest, who along
with his dozen personal guards remained unscathed within some unseen but
powerful protective barrier.....dozens of undead dwarven miners began to
emerge from passages on multiple levels of the pit, those dozens quickly
becoming hundreds as they converged on the adventurers from all directions
with surprising speed and ferocity.....Kronos turned his attention to the
nearest of these, the dark tome in his hands causing a score of them to
abruptly cease their advance and remain where they were.....Irina invoked
her goddess' power, channeled through her holy symbol, to obliterate a
dozen other undead foes although that took significantly more effort than
it should have, suggesting that these undead were buoyed by some greater
force.....the party's warriors quickly realized that they had zero chance
of engaging the high priest or his guards with blade or bolt or knife,
which meant their role in this battle was simply to defend the unconscious
Skektek as well as those of their companions who were casting spells.....
Belphanior shifted his intentions from the distant Gunguti to the much-
closer swarm of dwarven ghouls and ghasts that presented a more immediate
danger, and dropped a great cloud of smoke atop three-score of those foes,
that smoke already heating up as it billowed and expanded.....the ground
behind the bulk of the party finally cracked, splitting open to emit a
massive misshapen form of disjointed rock fragments, loose earth falling
from its grinding joints as it charged toward the group with unexpected
speed for a being of its size and composition.....Kronos' three remaining
giant skeletal warriors needed no command to turn and advance toward that
creature, swords raised.....unseen by anyone as of yet, another nearby
section of rocky ground began to quiver as another of Gunguti's summoning
efforts commenced.....a new undead foe made a swift aerial approach from
a new direction, this flying undead dwarven shaman casting a spell which
suddenly covered Irina in a sprawling mass of dry, dusty webs that both
blinded and choked her.....
Irina: <ghak>
Razor Charlie: (stops worrying about who to throw a knife at and instead
begins pulling strands of webbing away from the priestess)
Otto: (turns and fires his crossbow, making a hell of a shot which sinks
a bolt into the airborne shaman's skull)
The deadly poison on that bolt had no effect on the foe, but the impact
of the iron bolt into its head gave it pause...and then Paige jumped up
into the air, the undead shaman realizing too late that his altitude was
not proof against someone with the ability to make great magical leaps.
Paige: Gotcha! (her flaming sword cleaves the other's head from its
body, both pieces falling to the hard ground below)
Speaking of flames, Belphanior's smoke-cloud had erupted into searing
flames now, causing great harm to the more than fifty undead dwarves who
staggered about within.
Kronos: (having stopped a sizable number of the undead troops, he turns
his attention to the distant Gunguti, preparing a spell with the range
to reach that faraway foe)
The lich-priest beat him to the punch, the stone atop his staff glowing
brightly as a gigantic, withered claw of black flesh appeared before the
pale wizard, then swiped at the foe with skeletal talons. Kronos backed
away and almost avoided those sharp fingernails...almost. His instinct
was to keep from being slashed, but the crux of the attack wasn't physical
at all; one of those giant mummified digits barely scraped Kronos' robes,
but in doing so it delivered a powerful spell as if Gunguti himself had
stood there and touched him.
Kronos: (actually stunned despite the numerous protections conveyed by
his robes and other items) Ungh.
giant magical claw: (pivots and moves toward Belphanior)
Belphanior: Whoa.
Nearby, the odd stone golem bore down on Kronos' skeletal warriors. At
ten feet high, the former was larger and stronger; it was also, as some
of those close to it now saw, actually composed of tombstones or pieces
of them. The thing reeked of the grave, and even as Ys moved to engage
it, one of the big skeletons fell to a single blow from the weird foe, a
tombstone-sized fist smashing its head down into its torso.
large armored skeleton #3: (crumples to the ground)
large armored skeleton #4: (hits the tombstone golem with its sword, the
powerful blow glancing off a large piece of stone with no noticeable
effect)
tombstone golem: (sweeps out with another massive, stony fist, bashing
the skeleton hard enough to shatter half its bones and send it flying
away)
large armored skeleton #5: (lands a mighty blow, which like the one from
its fellow has little or no effect)
Ys: (steps in from one side, his massive sword swinging in a great arc)
Have at you!
The attack would have cut a large ox in two, or collapsed the side of
a hut...but it merely chipped the body of the weird construct...and the
force of striking solid rock with his blade actually pained Ys.
Ys: Damn. (he takes a step back to reconsider his tactics)
large armored skeleton #5: (advances, sword raised)
tombstone golem: (belches forth a great gout of gray vapor which smells
of grave-dirt)
Ys: (unable to avoid this attack, he staggers back, coughing painfully)
The noxious gas would have slain lesser warriors, but Ys was both hardy
and lucky; he merely staggered back, retching as his great lungs burned.
As for the remaining skeletal warrior summoned by Kronos...being undead,
it was completely unaffected by the ghastly gas. However, it had little
defense against the golem's heavy fists, which smashed it into bits just
a moment later.
large armored skeleton #5: (falls to the ground in a hundred pieces)
tombstone golem: (heads for the still-weakened Ys)
Hope: Oh, no you don't. (she turns the rock beneath the construct to
mud)
tombstone golem: (quickly sinks out of sight into the ooze)
A short distance away, the hard ground split open as a massive form
appeared, summoned by the magic of Gunguti; fully twenty feet tall and
almost as wide, it was like a big, squat giant...except that it was very
dead, flesh missing from numerous parts of its body, white bone visible
beneath. This thing was much larger and stronger-looking than the other
golem of tombstones; there was little doubt that a single blow from this
brute would prove fatal to anyone of flesh and blood.
hulking corpse: (roars, a loud but hollow sound that defies description
but suggests quite hostile intentions) OOOUURNK. (it lumbers in the
direction of Poulos and Otto, who have both moved to protect Ys as he
recovers from the grave-gas)
Poulos: (glances at Otto) Any ideas?
Otto: None come to mind.
Paige: (lands next to them, her flaming sword ready) Don't worry, we'll
think of something.
Nearby...
giant magical claw: (pivots and moves toward Belphanior)
Belphanior: Whoa. (he leaps back, but the claw follows, proving itself
to be much faster and more agile than it appears)
The floating, rotted hand failed to close around the elf, but one of
its fingers did briefly make contact with him, the cracked fingernail
scraping across his torso...and despite his protective stoneskin spell,
the elf immediately felt like he'd been poleaxed. Virtually all of his
strength and stamina seemed to leave his body at once...and worse, he
now had a raging fever that made his head pound and caused his body to
sweat profusely.
Belphanior: (falls to the ground, unable to focus enough in this state
to cast a spell, or even defend himself) agh...
However, his nearest ally had recovered from the previous attack, and
quickly made up for lost time...
Kronos: Enough. (he works a mighty spell, causing the huge floating
hand to ignite and quickly burn away into black dust)
Belphanior: (weakly) Nice...one.
Kronos: (turns to the elf) What did it do to you?
Belphanior: Not sure...feels like all my life force...got sapped. (he
looks across the pit, at the undead high priest on the other side) We
have to...destroy that staff.
Kronos: No, we only need to separate him from that staff.
Belphanior: (tries to stand, but staggers and falls to one knee) Ugh.
Kronos: You are in no condition to rejoin this fray. (he quickly finds
and hands the elf a small translucent potion bottle full of something
orange and bubbling) This will help.
Belphanior: What...?
Kronos: Trust me. (he takes to the air, sailing across the pit toward
Gunguti and his personal guards, a translucent protective barrier now
surrounding him as he flies)
Elsewhere, the gigantic hulking corpse bore down on Otto, Ys, Poulos,
and Paige. The ground shook with every heavy step the behemoth took, and
it roared again as it neared the adventurers.
hulking corpse: OOOOOOUUUURRRRNK.
Paige: That is one big motherfucker. (to the now-recovered Ys) Even
your blade won't cut too deeply into it.
Hope: It won't have to. (she completes a spell, and the gigantic undead
beast suddenly rises off the ground, along with hundreds of small rocks
and bits of rubble all around it)
hulking corpse: (looks around, its primitive mind confused) RRRRRRRNK?
Otto: What's this?
Hope: (flatly) I've reversed the pull of gravity on this thing and the
area around it.
Razor Charlie: I'd say it's working.
The massive foe was now twenty feet above the ground, and continued to
move higher with every passing moment.
Otto: There it goes.
hulking corpse: (now forty feet above the ground and still rising, it
looks around with no understanding of what's happening) OOOOOOUUURNN?
Paige: So will it ever stop?
Hope: Eventually...probably long after this battle is over.
Ys: And then?
Hope: (shrugs) And then it will suddenly fall.
Paige: Yeah. (she considers this) We probably ought to be somewhere
else when that happens.
Otto: (nods to Hope) Good work.
Razor Charlie: (watching the giant undead hulk flail as it rises higher
into the sky, he just grimaces)
Across the great outdoor pit, Kronos continued to advance. A massive
floating mace of dark energy, its head covered with spikes, slammed into
the barrier that protected the lich-wizard. Gunguti directed his animated
spiritual weapon to strike again, but the result was the same; the foe's
protective field was too strong, and the conjured mace rebounded from it
without inflicting harm.
Gunguti: (raises his staff, preparing to open a gateway to another plane
of existence and draw forth a powerful fiend to aid his cause here)
The dwarven lich-priest had fully realized his problem: the majority
of his unholy necromantic spells and powers were effective against living
foes of flesh and blood...but not against this pale undead mage. It was
that challenge that now led him to begin creating a portal to the Nine
Hells - for whatever otherworldly denizen of that place came through the
gate, it would certainly be capable of dealing with the other lich (and
any of the other foes as well).
Kronos: (hits the foe and his entourage with a bright multi-colored
beam that spans seven different colors)
While Gunguti's robes and armor protected him from the worst of these
beams' effects, his guards were not so lucky; all of them were felled by
one or more of the prismatic rays. The high priest's gate spell was not
interrupted, as it was coming from the gnarled black staff in his hands.
Gunguti: (cackles to himself) Just a moment longer...
Kronos: (realizes that the other is opening a gate, and that he likely
won't be able to stop it in time)
Whatever Kronos' planned next move was, he never got to follow through
with it. Hope was approaching from another direction, and completed her
own spell - which seized hold not of the high priest's staff but of the
blue stone at its tip. This tactic was both unexpected and effective, as
the powerful magical ellipsoid was forcibly torn from the dark wood into
which it had been imbedded...and now sailed through the air toward Hope.
Gunguti: (watches in shock as the stone quickly moves away from him and
the portal he was opening with its power abruptly closes) Nooooo!
Hope: (concentrates as her telekinesis spell pulls the odd stone closer)
The wizard had been shrewd enough to discern during the battle that the
stone - not the staff - was the undead priest's key weapon. She was also
smart enough to realize that touching or taking it would be a bad idea,
so she had other plans...but first she would have to survive Gunguti's
wrath.
Gunguti: (brings down a whirling mass of hard bony shards, an undead
twist on the better-known blade barrier spell)
Hope: Whoa-
Suddenly, a massive wall of iron appeared around her, deflecting the
hundreds of sharp fragments of bone that would otherwise have torn and
cut her flesh.
Hope: Huh?
Belphanior: (hovering in the air nearby, he smiles thinly)
Gunguti: (cursing to himself, he begins coughing)
The next instant, the undead dwarven priest was bombarded by a series
of small fiery spheres, the meteorites exploding all around him in an
overlapping pattern that exposed him to multiple blasts simultaneously.
When the smoke (and flames) cleared, the foe was the only thing still
standing within the small, blackened crater burned into the ground. His
enchanted robes had been burned away while shielding him from the worst
of the detonations, and his chain mail was thoroughly singed (and even
melted in a couple of places).
Gunguti: (raises his black staff, which appears none the worse for wear)
It will take more than that to-
Belphanior's subsequent spell, coming as it did from behind the foe,
was impossible to dodge. The thin greenish beam struck the high priest
square in the back - and an instant later he simply disintegrated, along
with all of his items.
Kronos: (flies over toward the elf) Excellent work...although we could
have possibly made use of his staff and armor.
Belphanior: Destroying him seemed the best move. He was tougher than
he looked at first.
Kronos: Likely due in part to the power of that odd blue stone.
They both turned their attention toward Hope, who was now standing over
a crude rock cube that was roughly a foot on each side. She looked up as
they approached, then gestured to the dense chunk of fused stone.
Hope: I encased the ellipsoid in a shell of stone, to keep it safe. Or
perhaps to keep us safe from it.
Kronos: That will not hold it in check forever. We will need to take
further measures.
Belphanior: (looking around) It was certainly tied to the high priest
in some way. (he glances at the stony cube, recalling the fate of Aja
in Helgate all those years ago) Let's make sure it doesn't link itself
with anyone else.
Toward that end, Kronos used a necromantic spell to cloak the trapped
ellipsoid's dark powers, encasing the stone cube within a solid black
bubble that floated along behind him. The next order of business was to
deal with any remaining undead nearby, which was quickly - and relatively
easily - accomplished with magic.
Skektek: (wakes up to the smell of frying undead) Huh? (he sniffs the
air) Is that lightning? What did I miss?
Next, Irina was finally completely freed from the webs, at which point
she employed curative magic on Ys and Belphanior.
Belphanior: I'm actually feeling pretty good. (to Kronos) Was that the
same magical drink you shared with me years ago, before the assault on
Skava-Ra?
Kronos: (nods) I recently distilled some more of that draught. And you
needed it even more this time, for that priest drained nearly all your
strength and vitality.
Belphanior: I appreciate it. And it allowed me to return to the fight.
Kronos: And make a key contribution.
Hope: Or two. That was a powerful opponent, and things could have gone
so wrong here today. (she frowns) I daresay it actually took three of
us to defeat him in the end.
Belphanior: But we won the day. (he surveys the vast outdoor pit-mines
of Azak-Kil) And now we have some things to figure out.
next: the future disposition of Azak-Kil
map: http://www.peldor.com/world/atlas/Bright-Desert_1203.jpg
www: http://www.peldor.com/download.html
homepage: http://www.peldor.com/
email: tmiller@peldor.com
released: 5/15/2026
notes: Going by (AD&D 2nd Edition) stats alone, there are certain
spells that have surprising impact, whether from damage rolls, ranges,
areas of effect, or whatever. Some examples:
- fireballs have a range of (n+1)*30' where n is the caster's level
- this means that Skektek's fireball range is 450' which is exceeded
by Hope (510') and Belphanior (570') and Kronos (a whopping 690')
- also of note: fireballs cover a 20' radius sphere (33 10' cubes)
- prismatic spray reaches out to 70' from the caster
- incendiary cloud has a 360' range (!) and lasts 1 round per level
- reverse gravity affects a 30' x 30' area, which is a lot of enemies
For this battle, I had to (finally) go seek some new undead and some
new evil necromantic spells, although the idea of the "extender" hand
that Gunguti used came from me, not a book. Anyhow, the book I used
was the 2004 "Libris Mortis" accessory for D&D 3.5 edition. It burped
forth the tombstone golem and the hulking corpse.
Now I know that I still use AD&D 2.0 edition (insomuch as I use any
rules) and many have asked me why...why not use newer editions? Two
reasons: first, I don't want to learn them, and second, a new set of
rules seems to come along every few years and because of that I REALLY
don't want to learn them. I don't know if any of this makes sense or
not, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
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