The Journal of Calamar Eldanil:

Chapter 13: Taking the Battle to the Foe (The Caverns Beneath Wardlow)

6th Sunflowers 591

We made our way to the edge of the water beyond the rock fall, prepared to meet whatever foe lay beyond the deep dark water. We prepared our gear and sealed much of it in the waterproof bags. Kiri drew forth her wand once again and boosted our reflexes with her enchantment of a cat’s grace. I prayed for the Seldarine to bind us all together so that I could keep watch on the welfare of my friends, and heal them if their wounds proved to grievous. Narion muttered the words to call forth some protection on himself to ward against evil.

To be safe, just as the others entered the water and dipped below the surface, I called for Corellon to grant me the wisdom of an owl, the wisest and one of the noblest of the birds of the air.

I then followed my friends below into the inky depths of the pool, feeling the cold water chill my bones and seeming to seep into my very soul. This was only to be a harbinger of what was to come.

I slipped and ducked under the water at one point, the cool liquid sweeping into me and causing me to issue a small sputter. Narion heard the quiet splash and heaved me forward with one strong arm, helping me regain my footing and allowing me to clear my sight.

As the floor began to rise once again and we emerged form the water, Rackhe and I heard a foul sounding chanting somewhere ahead. The chamber we now stood in was roughly oval in shape. Rackhe noticed a light down the tunnel exiting the chamber and, as he moved to guard this entrance, he indicated that the chanting could be heard much more clearly and louder now. We dried ourselves somewhat and made any preparations we thought necessary.

Undisturbed during these minutes, we then moved to progress down the corridor towards the chanting. As we edged around a bend in the tunnel, we found it split to the left and right around a rock formation shaped almost like the prow of a ship. The sheet of stone caused the two paths to diverge slightly, and we could now see a deeper red glow down both. As we made our way down the left passage towards the light, the chanting stopped.

A deep, growling baritone reached out from the depths of a large chamber up ahead, “Well, wizard. Is that you? We’ve been waiting for so long.”

As a precaution, Rackhe once again disguised himself as me and drank a warding potion to protect him from foul evil. Narion called forth his own protection spell once again. Thinking that whomever (or whatever) it was meant to refer to me as the “evil elf wizard” as the enemy had begun calling me, I called forth the gods to ward me with a protective barrier. Then I turned and gave my love the most deep and soulful kiss that I could muster at that point, wanting her to know that even though I was scared to death, that I would do my best to support her and our friends.

We made a small bend as the tunnel straightened out again and entered a large natural chamber, to one side of which stood a summoning circle and five large cast iron braziers, one set at each point of the pentagram. The ceiling of the chamber stretched nearly twenty to thirty feet high at most points. A large dais whose steps were carved from the living rock stood beside the summoning circle in front of a rune-inscribed archway against the wall, its centre a swirling mass of glowing red and gold colour, seeming to pulse with some unearthly heartbeat,

Directly in front of the archway, regarding us from his position on the dais stood a tall slender bat-winged male figure, with a longsword belted at his side and holding a stout longbow. He stretched out his empty hand and waved it as if to guide us into the hall, encompassing five more of the bearded devils as we had fought yesterday in the sweep of his magnificent arm. A devil stood before each brazier about the circle, and each bore wicked glaive as we had seen those of the day before wield with such dangerous and deadly effectiveness.

The great Erinyes devil turned to the portal and extended his hand in welcome. “Come my dear, guests have arrived and it does not appear to be the wizard we were expecting.” A graceful feminine arm extended from the flowing colours of the portal and grasped the devil’s hand. Slowly, as if he was extricating her from a deep pool of syrup or molasses, the male drew forth a beautiful and terrible female mate, her blackened wings flexing as she cleared the gate, her hair falling wildly about her smooth shoulders and surrounding the two horns emerging from her forehead. She stepped forward and embraced her consort, giving him a salacious kiss, and then turned to look at us with a regal and horrible smile.

“This,” she whispered in a voice as terrible as her male’s, as she drew forth her own bow, “looks like it will be fun.”

Both devils turned their gaze upon Rackhe and I and we both felt the smooth whisper of an oily grasp slither out and caress out minds, seeking to charm us into remaining out of the fight.

Shaking off the enchantment, Rackhe lunged forth into the chamber and charged at the male devil, wounding him slightly with Foebane.

Narion cast a protective spell on Kiri as I called forth another hammer of my faith on the two, causing the dais to erupt in a flash of brilliantly hued holy light dancing about the figures gathered there. I managed to catch the male in the centre of the burst and wounded him badly, but the female and the three bearded devils closest to the two were only lightly harmed. Kiri launched a magical spear of arcane power at the female just as she began the motions of casting a spell upon us. The arcane spear struck the devil in the chest and, with a screech that grated across our bones, it sucked the gathering of magical energies from the creature, causing it to lose the power to finish her incantation.

The five bearded devils had begun a low chant and soon five glowing shapes appeared in front of Kiri, followed shortly after by five more around Narion and I. More of the wormlike lemure devils had been summoned into the melee and they attacked the three of us almost as one. They did not have the power however to overcome our magical protections and wards with which we had armed ourselves, and all their attacks failed.

With a growl of anger, the male Erinyes leapt into the air with a great swipe of his wings against the dais, and flew some fifty feet across the chamber, turning to loose an arrow at Rackhe as he withdrew. The ranger was struck for a small wound, and he moved to strike ineffectually at the female as she loosed three arrows at me.

As Narion laid about himself with his spear, causing one of the smaller devils to disappear back to its hellish domain, I stepped back slightly and cast forth a spray of magically enchanted silver dust in a wide circle about Kiri and myself to drive the things back from my love. At this the bearded devils stepped away from the circle and, with a great yell and a thrust of their pole arms into the air, they charged us, two of them making for our Northman friend upon the dais.

As our Ratiker friend was now engaged with a brace of their underlings, the female devil stepped away and let fly with three arrows at Rackhe, scoring a pair of hits on him as he wove in and out trying to avoid the glaives flashing about him. He twirled about and struck out at her, stabbing through her guard and lightly wounding her on her side. Her mate tried used his bow against my lady but failed to register a hit.

I tried to smash the flying male with the divine vengeance of the elven gods, but his evil power proved too strong this time and he caused the spell to fizzle out somewhat as it struck him. Kiri tried to support me by throwing a magical bolt of ice at him, figuring that his hellish origins would make him vulnerable to the cold arcane magic, but this also did not affect him as greatly as we had hoped it would.

The bearded devils and lemures flailed about at us, the larger devils having some small effect, as the woman leapt into the air to join her consort. The two began raining arrows down upon us, scoring minor hits, but making it increasingly difficult to deal with their vassals that were trying to lay about us with their nasty halberds. The melee swirled about, blows missing and hitting on both sides. The smaller devils proved ineffectual against the protections we had raised, and boiled about the periphery in a maddening dance of frustrated rage.

As Rackhe was badly hurt fighting off two of the larger brutes, I cast out a curative spell through the divine web that connected our party and saw some of his wounds close. As I did this, the female let fly a flurry of arrows at the three of us at the cavern mouth, as did the male, although his volley was cut short by the soft twang as his bowstring snapped in two, rendering his bow useless. He turned and fled the room, issuing instructions in the hiss and growling infernal tongue of devils to his mate as he winged his way down a side tunnel on the far side of the chamber.

I used my divine power to enchant myself with the breath of the dragon and launched myself into the air, my celestial armour winging me towards the female hovering above the dais. As I approached she called out for an unholy blight to strike me down, but my holy wards proved too much for her spell and I was only marginally bruised by the blast. She turned and retreated down another side tunnel to the right of the glowing portal, issuing a maddening screech as she went. I turned and flew off after the male, down the tunnel on the far side of the great hall. Round a bend and seeing him in the process of trying to restring his bow, I opened my mouth and a gout of silvery frost as that of a sliver dragon’s breath issued forth to engulf him in a swirling mass of frost and ice. When the cloud cleared, he lay motionless on the cavern floor.

My friends continued to lay about the devils surrounding them, achieving a greater number of strikes for not being hampered by the two Erinyes’ archery fire. Soon they had gained the edge and almost half their number had been driven back to hell or lay dead on the ground. The bearded devils proved to be fierce and dangerous opponents and it was a dire fight to the end before they had slain all the creatures, receiving many wounds of their own in the process.

As I settled to the ground astride the devil, I drank down a curative potion to regain some measure of health and seal my wounds to that point. Suddenly a loud wail rent the air and I turned to see the female coming out of a side tunnel directly at me. I called forth on my power to subvert the essence of her planar abilities but she just charged through anyway, aiming to attack me with a large whip she detached form her belt, hurling it at me and narrowly missing me as I dodged under the flying menace.

I breathed on her once again, not to such great effect as had felled her mate, so I called forth my divine vengeance on her and flew up to engage her. She backed away and let fly a trio of arrows at me, barely skinning my shoulder with one. Kiri appeared to her flank and threw out a missile of magical force at her, striking her soundly and opening a wound in a wing.

I could hear Rackhe’s pounding feet and his war cry approaching from across the chamber and, as she heard it as well, she turned and fled past Kiri towards the gate, Kiri managing to stab at her with her rapier and opening a slight gash in her thigh as she flew past.

I gave chase and Narion, having dropped the final foe around him, stepped out and positioned himself between her and the portal. Just as we were about to catch her and bring her down, she flew over Narion’s head, narrowly dodging his spear, and through the glowing ring of the magic gate. None of us wanted to follow, although we were so frustrated at her making her escape.

Panting after the effort of the fight, we settled down and tried to calm our nerves. As Kiri and Narion bent their minds to try and figure out the arcane power contained within the gate, I flew back to the male devil and lopped of his head with my sword. I figured it would be a fine addition to Narion’s other trophies on display outside the gate.

My two magical friends had managed to figure out that disrupting the summoning circle should close the portal to hell, so we set about knowing over the braziers and messing the inscriptions laid about on the cavern floor. I also used some of my power to dispel the magic of the portal. The swirling mass of red and gold dissolved, leaving only the bare face of the rack wall of the cavern.

*~*~*~*~*

We explored the remainder of the tunnel complex, finding no way out other than the magical conjured wall of stone in the side chamber we discovered the previous day. Knowing we didn’t have the mystical energies remaining after our tough fight with the devils, we resolved to return to the inn and rest. We could then tackle the problem of that wall and whatever lay beyond it on the morrow, well rested and re-energized.

Upon leaving the tunnels into the storeroom near the harbour, we passed word to a sentry post of dwarves that had been set up on what we had found. They would double the guard on the tunnels to make sure that no other devils or other enemy would make an uncontested sortie into the town.

As we moved through the streets towards the White Swan, we gathered the news of the day. There had been many battles throughout the day and the enemy had come close to breaching the walls. Rackhe went off to the wall to spend some time exercising his sniping skills against the enemy camp. He took the devil’s head with him to place with the others displayed by the west gate so that our actions would be known to the enemy.

The enemy camp was busy, displaying much activity. It looked as if tomorrow may be the day of a grand assault on the town. The people of Wardlow still maintained a high spirit though, and it seemed that my friends were hailed as heroes from all directions as they made their way to the inn.

I made my way to Alphdis’s temple to help tend the wounded. On my way there I ran into Corran, who proudly told me he had been promoted to leading a file. I congratulated him and slapped him on the shoulder, as I had seen Narion do with some of his militia friends about town. The incongruity of my doing this struck us both as odd, and we shared a small laugh. I did wish him well though and then continued on to the temple.

I rejoined my friends later in the evening after an exhausting day of tending the hurt and comforting the dying.

As I joined them at dinner and slipped my hand into Kiri’s, and sadly calmed by my work in the temple that day, I sensed that the mood of the town was one of hesitant anticipation. It was almost as if we were experiencing the calm before a terrible and evil storm.

Narion suggested that it was time to take action. He posited that the magical wall of stone led to tunnels on the map that reached beyond the walls of the town. If so, we could use those tunnels to come up in the enemy camp and cause havoc, hopefully releasing some pressure on the walls.

I squeezed my love’s hand as I pondered what our fates would be the next days.

On the morrow, we would take the fight to them.

*~*~*~*~*

TO BE CONTINUED...