The party deliberated over their next move for some time.
Descending the gaping pit seemed a possibility, but after sending Haryk on a rope to investigate they worried the slick surface of the tunnel wouldn’t allow an ascent if trouble awaited them at the bottom. They returned the way they had come, illuminating the tunnels with their lantern of revealing (really, really handy device, that).
As they made their way through the tunnels, Haryk trailed the group. When the others went around a corner, the elf felt a strange warmth against the back of his neck, and then a sharp pain as fangs sunk themselves into his exposed nape. Haryk cried out in alarm, and Talion came back to see the elf bleeding profusely and pale, and a strange mist exiting the room through a small crack in a far wall.
“So we are now its prey,” Professor Skant observed.
The abomination’s laughter pealed through the caverns.
A heightened sense of dread hit the party, and they attempted to control the growing paranoia that they were constantly under watch. They then came across another unusual Netherese relic – what appeared to be a disembodied metal head with glowing eyes. After some investigation, they realized it was a iron golem’s head that could communicate by blinking. Its limited ability to communicate did not help the party much, and they left it behind, wondering what might have become of its body.
In a cavern further to the east, the party was ambushed by a large number of undead shadows. Several members took vicious strength-sapping hits before Hawlkrin presented his holy symbol and turned every one of them, destroying them.
But while distracted by the shadows and the cleric’s awesome display, the party did not notice the large hyena stalking Vellynne until it was too late. Vellynne fell to the talons and fangs of the canine, which then escaped in what was obviously a deliberate attack on a preoccupied group.
Not having the necessary spells (okay, maybe it was not having the inclination) to stave off the vampirism that was sure to take Vellynne, Hawlkrin beheaded the necromancer while Talion assumed the role of Professor Skant’s transport. Ferus took her bracers and her spellbook.
Soon after they encountered yet another undead creature, a wraith known in its life as Drakareth. The group made quick work of the raging spirit and, not willing to invest any real effort in searching for the treasure it had alluded to, moved on to another area.
They then came to another cavern with another wide hole. This time the group descended into the tunnel and at its end were immediately set upon by two young rhemorazes. Huge purple snake-like creatures, their immunity to cold and fire made the battle a difficult one, which became even more deadly when the gnoll vampire appeared once again! Talion, however, thought quickly and cast Daylight, perhaps avoiding Vellynne’s fate by doing so. The vampire, having lost several advantages, fled once again while Thoradaen finished off both young rhemorazes.
Haryk, having seen several large snowballs in another area of the chamber, decided to use them for target practice. Destroying one and realizing they were actually rhemoraz eggs, they collected two in their bag of holding and destroyed the remaining eggs.
And then their mother showed up.
Here’s Thoradaen running away from the mom like a little bitch.
The monstrosity proved a great challenge for the group, and was about to swallow Talion whole when the druid wild shaped himself into a giant mammoth, breaking the rhemoraz’s grapple on him. This shape held out only for a moment, and the rhemoraz once again had the upper…maxilliped until Talion pulled polymorph out of his ass and changed the monstrosity into a guinea pig, scaring Thoradaen. Knowing the spell would only last an hour, the group high-tailed it away from the den.
Their flight led them to an area that surely surprised them: a grove of frost-covered trees adorned with strange purple pears. A dryad appeared from the trees, begging them to stay with her, though Talion resisted her feminine wiles.
While discussing the nature of the fruit, the vampire, desperately thirsting for more blood, attacked once more. This proved to be a fatal mistake, as the party knew its tactics and its weaknesses. Ferus dropped the monster with an acidic chromatic orb, and they then destroyed the vampire for good. Haryk, charmed by the dryad, attempted to convince the party to stay a while, but they dragged him away down the tunnel that would take them to the lost city of Ythryn:
The tunnel opens into a vast grotto enclosed by gleaming ice. Consigned to this frozen sepulcher is a fantastic city sculpted by ancient magic and illuminated in a haunting way by green and purple lights that shed no warmth. The city is slightly tilted, its spires leaning away from you as though recoiling from your presence.
You stand atop a causeway of frost-covered ice that stretches toward the city like the dead, frozen tongue of some hideous behemoth out of whose mouth you’ve just stepped.
“Perhaps this group should rest before venturing forth,” Professor Skant said. “I do believe you’ll be needing every advantage going forward.”
