Bad Santa

The invisible Yeti arrived back to us after conversing with Light Touch, and reported on his state. Much discussion ensued, but we all feared those silver staves, so we sat back and observed.

Yeti told us that he had made it very clear to Light Touch to wait for us to make the first move, and to not try anything stupid. Well, we assume Light Touch neglected to follow these instructions, because he was soon brought outside, from the long-house, and strung up on a whipping cross. Already he was limping from a beating.

Even from our spying-distance, at the tree line, we could hear Light Touch's shouted taunts and invective aimed at the drow.

"Is that all you've got, you lilly-livered black honkeys?!"

The drow started to whip him with a large stock whip. Light Touch would scream hysterically from the obvious agony after each lash, but would then continue with his insane tirade: "Call that a lash?! I've been beaten by baby elves harder than that! And they had broken arms. You bunch of black pussies!"

Eventually the beating was so severe that he passed out.

"Zees is not the Light Touch I know," I muttered disconsolately. "Something 'as come over 'eem."

"It's almost as if he 'as a new soul. A temporary one mayhaps, " mused Peg Groups dryly.

The drow dragged the bleeding broken body inside the main mansion.

"Pick the drow off one at a time," was the plan.

So we set up an ambush. Sure enough, we targetted a solitary drow who had ventured out. He was no match for our combined force, and in a hail of crossbow bolts, and sword strikes he went down.

And now we had a silver staff. John Wayne played with it a bit. There was a trigger, an on-off switch, a power setting and a charge left meter. On maximum, the damage was phenomenal, but at that setting, there was only one of two shots.

Two drow were sent out to search for their missing comrade. With the staff and conventional weapons, they were soon dropped. This did cost us the entire energy from the first staff, but now we had two more.

And any damage we received, I could cure. I did not have my link to Illana, nor my "Illana gift" spells, but my "normal" priesty spells worked. And I could recharge.

An hour or so later, floating over the mansion, was the large red sleigh. In it were two drow with staves, and bad Santa himself. It was totally silent and eerily floated towards us.

Yeti cast an illusion of snow and woods and we hid under it. So they hovered over the entire area, saw nothing, and presumably got bored and returned to base.

An hour later, John Wayne went in to town, invisible (a la Yeti), and shot the sleigh with the staff on full-power. He punched a hole in the side of it and it started to burn. That staff was now empty, so he returned to us.

Soon followed a mighty bellow of rage, which echoed like a clarion call in the frosty night air.

The drow then all withdrew to central mansion, to hunker down.

Yeti rested and recharged, then made Peg Groups and Wizz invisible and they snuck up to the building.

Yeti, John Wayne and me hid by the tree line, 30 metres (Medium range) from the mansion.

There was one elf in the top of the mansion, staff at the ready, all the time.

Peg Groups and Wizz then tried to get inside, but just as they made a move, the main door flew open and out rushed four drow plus Santa himself.

They all had staves and Santa had an enormous bladed-whip. We fired. Two drow engaged Peg and Wizz. while, while the other two and Santa engaged us. Despite being 30 metres away, Santa's whip was long enough to reach us. Luckily, he missed. But we didn't and he, and the final four when down in a hail of cross-bow bolts, sword strikes, and staff bolts.

Peg and Wizz were massively damaged, so I had to use up all my cures on them.

The Black Dome

We trained to level two.

After this, Dogbert, the Keep's priest of Grism (also my trainer), sought us out.

"I need you lot of investigate some strange and evil goings on. Downstream the Aldure river, at the village of Pind, there is a branch of the river that heads to the south. The source of this evil is down there. Go and investigate it."

An hour later we were on our way. The trip back to Pind, across the Aldure ford, and past the ruins of the Elric temple took two days. We made camp.

The next day, about three hours' away, we found an eerie valley with at least eight leering cave mouths. Using evil sense, we found the most foul and entered it.

Inside was a large passage, interesting marble floor and walls, and eight zombies.

These were soon dispatched, and deeper on in was a large room with twelve skeletons and some skeletal creature seated upon a throne. The skeletons were sent against us, and after a short sharp battle, we destroyed a handful of them, and had to retreat, out of power and heals.

Mention in dispatches goes to Light Touch [Jeff] for throwing a Molotov oil flask over the heads of me, Peg Groups [Ian] and Whizz, striking the ceiling, and showering us in flaming oil.

We retreated to our camp, rested, and then returned to the caves. Peg Groups and Light Touch spotted two gnolls and an ogre encamped in a copse, presumably as guards.

Yeti [ Darryl] made Peg Groups and Whizz invisible (this is Somebody-Else's-Problem (SEP). invisibility, not true invisibility) and they skulked down to the copse. With the surprise afforded by the invisibility, the ogre and the gnoll were easily dispatched. The final gnoll died too, but not before he shrieked and screamed raising alarm. And alarm bells started to sound, so we fled back to camp.

It was an uneventful night, but next morning we could see an enormous black dome was over the entire valley and caves. This was huge; probably a thousand paces in diameter.

We approached it tentatively and had a good look. It was like the inky blackness of a Darkness spell. But this was no Darkness spell I had ever met before - it was so huge. Light Touch decided to sneak into it. As he entered his body appeared to elongate as he progressed, then vanished into the gloom.

I took a stick and slid it in - it was impossible to withdraw. Oh dear. Similar tricks were tried with stones, rope, and a beetle on a string. Inward progression was easy, but nothing could move back out.

We sat down and contemplated. Pros and cons were discussed, and eventually it was decided, if we do nothing, we will never see Light Touch again. In for a penny, in for a pound. We held our breath and entered as a whole...

... into an eerie twilight world. There was some light from who knows where, and you could see the inside of the dome. There was deep snow on the ground, and the forest was evergreen unlike the temperate deciduous we had left. Disturbingly, my link to Illana and Whizz's link to Vull had stopped. I still had my priestess spells but no Illana's gift spells.

There was no sign of Light Touch, but we could see his footprints in the snow, and see his heroic, but futile, attempts to go back out through the dome. Then his prints headed off towards the centre, so we followed them.

Further on in was a village and next to it was four enormous long-houses. There was a tall mansion next to this, and beside it a large red sleigh. There were some people, humans, living in the village, but what caught our interest were a handful of strange pale elves. They were akin to drow, dressed in shimmering silver robes and they carried silver staves - each with a barrel. We saw one shoot a person. It seemed the drow were slave masters over the wretched people who lived here.

Just then, the door to the tall mansion opened and an obese guy, with a long white beard dressed all in red with white trim, stomped out. He was in a foul temper, bellowing, cussing and swearing, and even the drow were scared of him. He stomped around a bit, went into one of the long-houses, then returned to the mansion.

Yeti went invisible and sneaked into one of the long-houses. It was a large workshop with hundreds of people making toys. Light Touch was there, building toys with the rest; he was inserting the manes and tails into plastic My Little Ponies. Yeti caught Light Touch's attention and this meant he could see Yeti through the SEP invisibility field. Light Touch was manacled to the workers on either side of him, so Yeti surrepticiously passed him some wire lock-picks for later, and told Light Touch to stay put until we do something. Yeti only had ten minutes before the spell ran out, so quickly left back to us.