Having escaped from the frying pan of Lolth's underworld into the fire of Calamus' London, our heroes meet BOWGENTLE, the blind sage and friend of Count Brass. Bowgentle says the Runestaff told him they would need his help, so here he is.
He is indeed helpful, as he knows of a sewer passage which avoids the monster-filled streets of London. JUNIUS decides to take some of the loud, violent types and create a big ol' diversion, while the sneaky sorts enter Calamus' tower and take him out. He takes BJERN, Gnorfank, Ringorix, and his last surviving officer with him.
(This plan may seem less suicidally brave if one remembers that Junius is carrying the plasma cannon of Shiro, one of the slain Knights of the Dawn. Or then again, it may not.)
The diversion does indeed attract all manner of attention. In battle with a beholder, Ringorix is frozen solid, Equitas (the officer) is killed by lightning, Gnorfank is set on fire, and Junius is slowed down. But he still manages to shoot the beholder (whose anti-magic ray does not affect the plasma cannon, which is not magical at all) long enough for Gnorfank to stab its eye out. Which, being a beholder, is pretty much everything.
POUNCEQUICK sneaks up the tower with the intention of dropping on Calamus from above and stabbing him in the head. Hey, it usually works.
Everyone else sneaks through an oddly clean sewer and ambushes Fabulus Calamus in his lair, next to his brooding balcony. Calamus calls in Andronicus, the rather unmanly governor of Britain. RETARIUS clobbers Andronicus with his shield. He goes down.
ROSA shoots Calamus with an arrow which knocks loose a vial on his vest and eats a hole in the floor. Calamus commands Retarius to slay his friends, and when he refuses, is puzzled. Anyone who talks to Calamus for ten minutes or so basically IS Calamus from that point on. Has Retarius, he asks, been killed and resurrected lately? Because that would explain it.
Indeed, way back in 532, Retarius and the leader of the wolfmen killed each other. Retarius was healed in time, but apparently he was dead for a moment or so, long enough for Calamus' snare on his mind to be broken. Darn it. He had been waiting six years to use that, too.
Calamus shrugs. No matter, the Runestaff predicted he would triumph over the Valerians. He selects another vial, but Retarius knocks it down, then finishes him with a shot in the heart. That wasn't so hard ...
... until Andronicus rises, speaking in Calamus' voice. Seems Calamus took him over long ago, so his consciousness resides in Andronicus as well! Andronicus summons a water warrior, a water crossbow, a water cataupult, and between himself and Retarius, a big water shield! Retarius fakes him out and cuts him, then cuts him again, and Andronicus backpedals out onto the balcony, where Pouncequick drops from above and stabs him in the head!
With Calamus now twice-dead, the monsters of London lose heart and flee, which is bad news for those monsters' caretakers. Count Brass is found in an elaborate water-operated death trap, then freed.
But the Runestaff predicted Calamus would win? Was it wrong? Well, no, says Count Brass. Elrond examines the Runestaff and finds one rune-tag which is brass, not gold. Count Brass added it, and of course anything including this extra rune would be gibberish.
Elrond is about to declare that the Romans have no further need of the Runestaff, so it is time to return it to Elfland. But the Romans aren't sure, and want to return to Rome to check, which Elrond agrees to. There is the little matter of Count Brass' claim to the Runestaff, but Elrond seems content to wait.
Saturday, August 12, 2017
Wednesday, August 2, 2017
To Fall Beyond the Night
Count Brass returns from the Air Dimension and cuts the white thread. Now only two threads, Water and Fire, hold the Demonweb up. They're opposite each other, as you would expect, but the Demonweb begins swinging wildly back and forth.
Lolth, who was about to summon six more bodies, rushes over to stabilize the Air thread. But Count Brass, Pouncequick, the Rebukers, and Bjern rush over to clobber her. Lolth is rescued by a Phase Spider, which transports her and Count Brass to another corner of her dimensional realm.
Next, Lolth summons her princes, Rhan-Tegoth and Abhoth, who burst up out of the ground and web a bunch of people in place. ROSA calls lightning on Rhan-Tegoth, which causes green lightning to burst out of the underside of Hell and smash a hole in his rocky armor. POUNCEQUICK jumps on that hole, stabs it, and rides Rhan-Tegoth up and into the Fire Dimension, pursued by Rosa and her flying horse.
The Fire Dimension turns out to be the interior of Mount Aetna, which Rosa has seen before while Lolth was sabotaging her woodswalk paths. Pouncequick dodges a huge thrown ball of molten metal hurled by the Balrog which lives in Aetna; it hits Rhan-Tegoth squarely, knocking him down into the base of the volcano. Rosa catches Pouncequick and calls lightning into the volcano, turning what was already going to be a Sicily-wrecking eruption into a hard lance of molten iron, straight up into the stratosphere. By the time the hot ash falls back down, it'll be way out in the ocean.
Pouncequick cuts the fire thread, but Lolth grabs the other end. So Pouncequick runs, telling everyone to run to the water thread, and drops the other end of the fire thread. The thread goes slack, and Lolth heaves on it, but she can't support the Demonweb herself, so she pulls in its edges, causing most of her monsters to fall off the suddenly retreating edge. Everyone runs for the water thread.
Meanwhile, BROTHER AQUILA travels up the Water thread and finds it leads to Londinium, capital of Fabulus Calamus the water wizard. He almost drowns in the polluted Thames but manages to avoid the fungus monster and rebuke the patchwork monster, and also some flying knights of the Order of the Bat. He sees the exit thread at the very top of Calamus' Panopticon, the crystal tower which sees all things, and concludes this is not an achievable one-man mission.
Nor need it be so! For just about everyone emerges from the water thread into Londinium. JUNIUS, the last to escape, sees the Demonweb tilt and submerge, falling on the support of the water thread until it snaps, and Lolth and her demons fall, farther and farther from God, glaring at Junius with her six red eyes until she is so far away she cannot see him. So far is she, in fact, that Sylvia cannot even see her with the Jewel in the Skull, and that's pretty darn far.
Next week, the Roman forces are in Londinium, capital of Calamus, the last villain left that they know of. They could just leave, recruit more forces, heal up, plan, and come back, but I somehow doubt that's going to happen ...
Lolth, who was about to summon six more bodies, rushes over to stabilize the Air thread. But Count Brass, Pouncequick, the Rebukers, and Bjern rush over to clobber her. Lolth is rescued by a Phase Spider, which transports her and Count Brass to another corner of her dimensional realm.
Next, Lolth summons her princes, Rhan-Tegoth and Abhoth, who burst up out of the ground and web a bunch of people in place. ROSA calls lightning on Rhan-Tegoth, which causes green lightning to burst out of the underside of Hell and smash a hole in his rocky armor. POUNCEQUICK jumps on that hole, stabs it, and rides Rhan-Tegoth up and into the Fire Dimension, pursued by Rosa and her flying horse.
The Fire Dimension turns out to be the interior of Mount Aetna, which Rosa has seen before while Lolth was sabotaging her woodswalk paths. Pouncequick dodges a huge thrown ball of molten metal hurled by the Balrog which lives in Aetna; it hits Rhan-Tegoth squarely, knocking him down into the base of the volcano. Rosa catches Pouncequick and calls lightning into the volcano, turning what was already going to be a Sicily-wrecking eruption into a hard lance of molten iron, straight up into the stratosphere. By the time the hot ash falls back down, it'll be way out in the ocean.
Pouncequick cuts the fire thread, but Lolth grabs the other end. So Pouncequick runs, telling everyone to run to the water thread, and drops the other end of the fire thread. The thread goes slack, and Lolth heaves on it, but she can't support the Demonweb herself, so she pulls in its edges, causing most of her monsters to fall off the suddenly retreating edge. Everyone runs for the water thread.
Meanwhile, BROTHER AQUILA travels up the Water thread and finds it leads to Londinium, capital of Fabulus Calamus the water wizard. He almost drowns in the polluted Thames but manages to avoid the fungus monster and rebuke the patchwork monster, and also some flying knights of the Order of the Bat. He sees the exit thread at the very top of Calamus' Panopticon, the crystal tower which sees all things, and concludes this is not an achievable one-man mission.
Nor need it be so! For just about everyone emerges from the water thread into Londinium. JUNIUS, the last to escape, sees the Demonweb tilt and submerge, falling on the support of the water thread until it snaps, and Lolth and her demons fall, farther and farther from God, glaring at Junius with her six red eyes until she is so far away she cannot see him. So far is she, in fact, that Sylvia cannot even see her with the Jewel in the Skull, and that's pretty darn far.
Next week, the Roman forces are in Londinium, capital of Calamus, the last villain left that they know of. They could just leave, recruit more forces, heal up, plan, and come back, but I somehow doubt that's going to happen ...
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Against the Demon Queen
Lolth apparently has several identical bodies, or aspects, or something, several of which are fighting various Roman invaders. Others are lying in wait.
Gnorfank leaves off fighting a Lolth to go save the clerics, but Sir Adelphis saves them by leaping onto the spider while it's distracted by the Knights. Gnorfank then falls down, but Rosa heals him.
Bjern stabs Lolth to death at the same time as she stabs him to death. The difference is she doesn't have Rosa to Cure Critical Wounds on him, so he doesn't completely die. As he says "I'm going to live ... kind of."
The Knights and Clerics attack another Lolth, spreading out to give her too much to think about. The Captain-General growls, "Here's your diversion, 'Pouncequick.' Don't waste it."
He doesn't. He strikes at a crack in her armor inflicted earlier by Elrond. Casting Protection from Evil on himself, he stabs his hand deep into Lolth's interior and places a vial of holy water there. Recoiling in all directions from the holy water in her center, Lolth's body explodes.
Decinque hides in a canyon from Molasar, who wants his blood. Decinque cuts himself, spreads blood around, then moves somewhere else. Molasar, riding on a carpet of bats, is deceived and follows the blood lure. Decinque emerges from the crevasse, runs to the base of the black strand in teh sky, follows it back to the Demonweb, and now has both ends of the black thread in his hands. He cuts it, and the black thread is broken.
The Demonweb is now held up by only four strands. It tilts crazily, swinging Lolths and Romans around. Retarius goes around behind the Earth Tower and ascends it, but doesn't enter the Earth Dimension. Decinque, on the other hand, does enter the Earth Dimension, and Lolth, seeing the damage he did to the black thread, pursues him.
The Earth Dimension is green, vast, floaty and translucent, with roots and worms and chunks of minerals floating about. It's a bit like what the Earth would look like if soil were transparent and air were opaque.
Lolth pursues Decinque, but Sylvia, aiming along the green thread, shoots Lolth repeatedly. Lolth uses her control of space to tighten invisible cords around Sylvia's neck, strangling her. But Bjern attacks Lolth, cutting her so badly that she dies. Sylvia is therefore spared.
(Bjern has now killed TWO Lolths to Brother Aquila's one and Pouncequick's one.)
A huge orange rock monster follows the green thread down to the Demonweb and declares, "Calamus was stupid to let you all live!" Retarius thinks this is Binyamin, the Earth Wizard we have never seen. He plans to crush Retarius, Rosa and Elrond, but Rosa seizes the green thread and accesses the really quite bountiful nature power of the Earth Dimension. She uses this excess of druidical might to call lightning, pelting Binyamin painfully and not killing anyone else.
Elrond flourishes his silver sword in a circle and severs the green thread. The Demonweb tilts wildly, wobbling on its three remaining supports.
Bjern, meanwhile, slides along the green-to-blue thread to intercept two Lolths coming the other way, and he leads with the Axe of St. Michael. A thunderclap and flash of blue strikes one Lolth dead, but the other is unharmed. (That's THREE for Bjern.)
Lolth's six eyes are down to one ...
Gnorfank leaves off fighting a Lolth to go save the clerics, but Sir Adelphis saves them by leaping onto the spider while it's distracted by the Knights. Gnorfank then falls down, but Rosa heals him.
Bjern stabs Lolth to death at the same time as she stabs him to death. The difference is she doesn't have Rosa to Cure Critical Wounds on him, so he doesn't completely die. As he says "I'm going to live ... kind of."
The Knights and Clerics attack another Lolth, spreading out to give her too much to think about. The Captain-General growls, "Here's your diversion, 'Pouncequick.' Don't waste it."
He doesn't. He strikes at a crack in her armor inflicted earlier by Elrond. Casting Protection from Evil on himself, he stabs his hand deep into Lolth's interior and places a vial of holy water there. Recoiling in all directions from the holy water in her center, Lolth's body explodes.
Decinque hides in a canyon from Molasar, who wants his blood. Decinque cuts himself, spreads blood around, then moves somewhere else. Molasar, riding on a carpet of bats, is deceived and follows the blood lure. Decinque emerges from the crevasse, runs to the base of the black strand in teh sky, follows it back to the Demonweb, and now has both ends of the black thread in his hands. He cuts it, and the black thread is broken.
The Demonweb is now held up by only four strands. It tilts crazily, swinging Lolths and Romans around. Retarius goes around behind the Earth Tower and ascends it, but doesn't enter the Earth Dimension. Decinque, on the other hand, does enter the Earth Dimension, and Lolth, seeing the damage he did to the black thread, pursues him.
The Earth Dimension is green, vast, floaty and translucent, with roots and worms and chunks of minerals floating about. It's a bit like what the Earth would look like if soil were transparent and air were opaque.
Lolth pursues Decinque, but Sylvia, aiming along the green thread, shoots Lolth repeatedly. Lolth uses her control of space to tighten invisible cords around Sylvia's neck, strangling her. But Bjern attacks Lolth, cutting her so badly that she dies. Sylvia is therefore spared.
(Bjern has now killed TWO Lolths to Brother Aquila's one and Pouncequick's one.)
A huge orange rock monster follows the green thread down to the Demonweb and declares, "Calamus was stupid to let you all live!" Retarius thinks this is Binyamin, the Earth Wizard we have never seen. He plans to crush Retarius, Rosa and Elrond, but Rosa seizes the green thread and accesses the really quite bountiful nature power of the Earth Dimension. She uses this excess of druidical might to call lightning, pelting Binyamin painfully and not killing anyone else.
Elrond flourishes his silver sword in a circle and severs the green thread. The Demonweb tilts wildly, wobbling on its three remaining supports.
Bjern, meanwhile, slides along the green-to-blue thread to intercept two Lolths coming the other way, and he leads with the Axe of St. Michael. A thunderclap and flash of blue strikes one Lolth dead, but the other is unharmed. (That's THREE for Bjern.)
Lolth's six eyes are down to one ...
Sunday, July 23, 2017
Snapshot of the Demonweb
Unless I'm wrong, this is where everyone is:
BROTHER AQUILA, with the Rebukers and the Knights, has just crushed one of Lolth's manifestations near the Death Tower.
DECINQUE has climbed the Death Tower and ascended, if that's really the word, to the Death Dimension.
JUNIUS, badly wounded in the torso, has summoned the Legion of the Dawn, which is fighting it out with Lolth. She has already used invisibly fine spiderwebs to choke one of the Legion to death, and is using spells to poison others, but they're shooting her to pieces. Junius' Romans are lying around in various stages of severe injury. They are near the Fire Tower.
GNORFANK and BJERN are fighting Lolth hand to hand, to hand to hand to hand to hand. Plus she has two more. Gnorfank is wounded unto death, almost, and Bjern is somewhat cut up. They are under the thread connecting the Fire tower to the Earth tower.
ROSA, PETER and ELROND are near Stranthor the pegasus, facing a version of Lolth across a lake of fire neither can cross. Also near Lolth is a rock monster, which has no legs and cannot move, but clearly wants them to come within arm's reach to receive a hug, or something. Rocks are your friends.
They are closest to the Earth tower, which Lolth and rock guy are defending.
SYLVIA is cutting the webbing restricting Gnorfank and Bjern. She's sort of in the middle of the battlefield.
RETARIUS and RINGORIX have slain their spiders, plus some other spiders, and now might be planning to resume their charge toward the Water tower, but have not actually done so. They're also not fighting a version of Lolth, which is nice.
SIR ADELPHIS is near the Air Tower, no longer defended by the Living Hurricane. Actually, if I remember right, he's out of enemies for the moment. He's also Lolthless.
COUNT BRASS has ascended the Air tower and is in the Air Dimension. Oh, and he has the Runestaff.
I confess I do not remember who has the Mad God's Amulet, or the Sanity Grenade, as we've taken to calling it around here.
Any corrections before we kick off?
BROTHER AQUILA, with the Rebukers and the Knights, has just crushed one of Lolth's manifestations near the Death Tower.
DECINQUE has climbed the Death Tower and ascended, if that's really the word, to the Death Dimension.
JUNIUS, badly wounded in the torso, has summoned the Legion of the Dawn, which is fighting it out with Lolth. She has already used invisibly fine spiderwebs to choke one of the Legion to death, and is using spells to poison others, but they're shooting her to pieces. Junius' Romans are lying around in various stages of severe injury. They are near the Fire Tower.
GNORFANK and BJERN are fighting Lolth hand to hand, to hand to hand to hand to hand. Plus she has two more. Gnorfank is wounded unto death, almost, and Bjern is somewhat cut up. They are under the thread connecting the Fire tower to the Earth tower.
ROSA, PETER and ELROND are near Stranthor the pegasus, facing a version of Lolth across a lake of fire neither can cross. Also near Lolth is a rock monster, which has no legs and cannot move, but clearly wants them to come within arm's reach to receive a hug, or something. Rocks are your friends.
They are closest to the Earth tower, which Lolth and rock guy are defending.
SYLVIA is cutting the webbing restricting Gnorfank and Bjern. She's sort of in the middle of the battlefield.
RETARIUS and RINGORIX have slain their spiders, plus some other spiders, and now might be planning to resume their charge toward the Water tower, but have not actually done so. They're also not fighting a version of Lolth, which is nice.
SIR ADELPHIS is near the Air Tower, no longer defended by the Living Hurricane. Actually, if I remember right, he's out of enemies for the moment. He's also Lolthless.
COUNT BRASS has ascended the Air tower and is in the Air Dimension. Oh, and he has the Runestaff.
I confess I do not remember who has the Mad God's Amulet, or the Sanity Grenade, as we've taken to calling it around here.
Any corrections before we kick off?
Decinque in the Death World
Decinque arrives from the mouth of a giant skull into a world so dim it's almost black. But he can still make out heaps of skulls, ridges of black sand, towers of bizarre glossy black stone carved into the shape of snakelike tentacles wrapped around each other ...
... and Molasar. He's over by the base of a tomb, half sunken into the soil like a sinking ship. From the tomb, another black thread pierces skyward, connected to a tiny object in the sky which looks like the Demonweb seen from above.
"You," Molasar declares, "I do not know. But you are among those who sent me to this place, further from the living than I should like. I have been here for some time, grave robber. Everyone here is dead. And there is no warm, living blood to drink ..."
Molasar throws back his cloak, which forms into huge batlike wings on his back.
"... except YOURS."
Molasar hunches over strangely, flexing his back muscles so that he can hurl himself into the air and come down on Decinque from above.
(Sylvia can actually see this, as though far away, through the Jewel in the Skull. So everyone could at least have a chance to be told what's going on with Decinque.)
... and Molasar. He's over by the base of a tomb, half sunken into the soil like a sinking ship. From the tomb, another black thread pierces skyward, connected to a tiny object in the sky which looks like the Demonweb seen from above.
"You," Molasar declares, "I do not know. But you are among those who sent me to this place, further from the living than I should like. I have been here for some time, grave robber. Everyone here is dead. And there is no warm, living blood to drink ..."
Molasar throws back his cloak, which forms into huge batlike wings on his back.
"... except YOURS."
Molasar hunches over strangely, flexing his back muscles so that he can hurl himself into the air and come down on Decinque from above.
(Sylvia can actually see this, as though far away, through the Jewel in the Skull. So everyone could at least have a chance to be told what's going on with Decinque.)
A Fact
Everyone except Brother Aquila (well, and Decinque and Count Brass, I guess) notices that the Lolth they are fighting now only has five glowing red eyes, not six. When Brother Aquila hammer-smashed the Lolth he was fighting, one of her eyes went out everywhere.
Just a note.
Just a note.
Thursday, July 20, 2017
Chaos in the Demonweb!
Well.
Surrounded by spider demons, JUNIUS looks at Lolth through the Coin of Truth. He sees odd shimmerings he can't identify, but also perceives that the five odd towers of fire near the base of the five dimensional strands stretching into the sky are each manifestations of Lolth herself. Kill them, or even one of them, and she might die!
So the formation of Romans explodes outwards like a pool break, with:
JUNIUS and his staff attacking the FIRE tower. Aristocles the Magus gathers the fire into his hands, allowing Junius to cut the ring of runes containing the flames. Whoosh! Junius and his staff get singed. Also, Lolth emerges from the flames and attacks. Junius gets cut by Lolth's foremost spider-claws; the Sword of the Dawn just clangs off Lolth's exoskeleton. When he throws the Eagle of the Twentieth at Lolth, she catches it and hurls it back, stabbing Junius quite badly. He, however, does not lose consciousness, and summons the Legion of the Dawn, which engages her in battle.
Lolth: Do you really think your Sword of the Dawn can save you, here, in my own private Hell?
(Legion of the Dawn arrives)
Oh.
RETARIUS and his Belgae, heading for the WATER tower, are sidetracked by a pair of giant spiders, but they manage to kill them. Only Retarius and Ringorix, last king of the Belgae, are still on their feet when the spider runs away. Ringorix chases and kills it just a few feet from the outstretched fingertips of a massive stone monster which cannot move out of its pit.
COUNT BRASS and SIR ADELPHIS attack the AIR tower. Sir Adelphis climbs up a giant spider's back and stabs it in the head, while Count Brass is sacked and webbed up by another spider. Sir Adelphis manages to free Count Brass, who cooks the spider with his flame-lance. Then a Living Hurricane attacks, becoming disoriented by Sir Adelphis' prayers and winding up on the other side of the Demonweb, knocking aside a few spiders on the way. ROSA dispels it, as it is unnatural.
Beset by other spidery fiends, Count Brass seizes the white thread and whoosh! He is bodily transported away from the Demonweb and up to a world of Air.
ROSA and her friends, including Elrond, attack the EARTH tower. While Rosa fires arrows at a transparent Phase Spider which exists only partially in this dimension, Peter and Elrond destroy the tower of flame, revealing yet another Lolth.
BROTHER AQUILA, the Three Rebukers, the Knights of St. Michael, and DECINQUE attack the DEATH tower. The giant skull guarding it locks its gaze on two knights, who rot away to liquid in an instant, their souls being trapped in the skulls' ruby eyes. Decinque pries one eye out and smashes it, then runs around the skull, evading its lethal gaze. He then climbs up the Death Tower, follows the Black Thread, and is whisked away to a world of Death.
Voluntarily.
Brother Aquila rebukes a zombie dragon so firmly that it flees, and hides as he comes closer. The Three Rebukers are attacked by the Phase Spider, which bites Petrus and carries him off to another dimension.
Putting out the flame pillar reveals, yes, another Lolth, who prepares to attack. Brother Aquila uses the Hammer of Witches to smash Lolth, breaking her back and destroying her body. Her disembodied eyes float away, but hey, we got one of her!
GNORFANK and BJERN attacking Lolth herself, get webbed up by a spider. Rosa shoots it dead, while Sylvia cuts its thread and releases Gnorfank and Bjern. They attack Lolth, who stabs Gnorfank very badly and cuts Bjern semi-fatally. But Rosa's arrows distract Lolth from administering the killing blow.
Many heroes are down, some may be dead, and three are in completely different dimensions? Will they be referred to in the chronicles as the Three Lucky Ones? Stay tuned ...
Surrounded by spider demons, JUNIUS looks at Lolth through the Coin of Truth. He sees odd shimmerings he can't identify, but also perceives that the five odd towers of fire near the base of the five dimensional strands stretching into the sky are each manifestations of Lolth herself. Kill them, or even one of them, and she might die!
So the formation of Romans explodes outwards like a pool break, with:
JUNIUS and his staff attacking the FIRE tower. Aristocles the Magus gathers the fire into his hands, allowing Junius to cut the ring of runes containing the flames. Whoosh! Junius and his staff get singed. Also, Lolth emerges from the flames and attacks. Junius gets cut by Lolth's foremost spider-claws; the Sword of the Dawn just clangs off Lolth's exoskeleton. When he throws the Eagle of the Twentieth at Lolth, she catches it and hurls it back, stabbing Junius quite badly. He, however, does not lose consciousness, and summons the Legion of the Dawn, which engages her in battle.
Lolth: Do you really think your Sword of the Dawn can save you, here, in my own private Hell?
(Legion of the Dawn arrives)
Oh.
RETARIUS and his Belgae, heading for the WATER tower, are sidetracked by a pair of giant spiders, but they manage to kill them. Only Retarius and Ringorix, last king of the Belgae, are still on their feet when the spider runs away. Ringorix chases and kills it just a few feet from the outstretched fingertips of a massive stone monster which cannot move out of its pit.
COUNT BRASS and SIR ADELPHIS attack the AIR tower. Sir Adelphis climbs up a giant spider's back and stabs it in the head, while Count Brass is sacked and webbed up by another spider. Sir Adelphis manages to free Count Brass, who cooks the spider with his flame-lance. Then a Living Hurricane attacks, becoming disoriented by Sir Adelphis' prayers and winding up on the other side of the Demonweb, knocking aside a few spiders on the way. ROSA dispels it, as it is unnatural.
Beset by other spidery fiends, Count Brass seizes the white thread and whoosh! He is bodily transported away from the Demonweb and up to a world of Air.
ROSA and her friends, including Elrond, attack the EARTH tower. While Rosa fires arrows at a transparent Phase Spider which exists only partially in this dimension, Peter and Elrond destroy the tower of flame, revealing yet another Lolth.
BROTHER AQUILA, the Three Rebukers, the Knights of St. Michael, and DECINQUE attack the DEATH tower. The giant skull guarding it locks its gaze on two knights, who rot away to liquid in an instant, their souls being trapped in the skulls' ruby eyes. Decinque pries one eye out and smashes it, then runs around the skull, evading its lethal gaze. He then climbs up the Death Tower, follows the Black Thread, and is whisked away to a world of Death.
Voluntarily.
Brother Aquila rebukes a zombie dragon so firmly that it flees, and hides as he comes closer. The Three Rebukers are attacked by the Phase Spider, which bites Petrus and carries him off to another dimension.
Putting out the flame pillar reveals, yes, another Lolth, who prepares to attack. Brother Aquila uses the Hammer of Witches to smash Lolth, breaking her back and destroying her body. Her disembodied eyes float away, but hey, we got one of her!
GNORFANK and BJERN attacking Lolth herself, get webbed up by a spider. Rosa shoots it dead, while Sylvia cuts its thread and releases Gnorfank and Bjern. They attack Lolth, who stabs Gnorfank very badly and cuts Bjern semi-fatally. But Rosa's arrows distract Lolth from administering the killing blow.
Many heroes are down, some may be dead, and three are in completely different dimensions? Will they be referred to in the chronicles as the Three Lucky Ones? Stay tuned ...
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