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.