Part Eight: Dead man's Party

Once again the heroes came back to the horrific common room where the drow guards fell, and faced the large iron double doors. They knew this was where the dwarven adventurers had come through weeks before and took a moment to catch their breath before pressing on.

After Riardon once again used his opening ritual, the tumblers fell, and the path was now set. The party entered a small  abandoned hallway with marble pillars on each side. A shift in the ground produced a noticeable crack running across the dirty floor. There were also half a dozen drow elf bodies scattered about the far end of the room. The stench of decay and ruin filled the air as the party dreaded remembering what the dwarves told them about the battle between the drow and the wrackspawn. At the opposite wall was another unlocked, yet closed, door.

Inside the next entrance, a smaller room appeared with an larger, more obvious crack in the floor and a fallen pillar amongst another row. Two large black puddings were trying to dissolve the fallen bodies that lie on the floor. The party fell back a few paces so as to draw the puddings out one by one, however the mercurial bodies twisted and shaped themselves allowing them to easily engulf Japeth and Quinn instantly.

Very, very slowly the paladin and the healer found themselves being dissolved and remained dependant on their comrades to free them. Meanwhile, the rest of the party made the discovery that with each hit, a smaller pudding detached itself from the original. Soon the room was populated by lesser pudding spawns.


Quinn managed to break free, only to discover himself surrounded by several of the smaller oozes. Even though they were easy to kill, there were simply too many of them.

Ki-Amar teleported in a flash of lightning getting behind the lines and, while conjuring the genasi powers of the storms, dissipated the smaller oozes with little effort. Ki-Amar was a great 'area of effect' tank and the smaller minions proved very easy for him to defeat. He didn't even use a shield.

Soon Japeth broke free only to unfortunately be engulfed once again. After some freezing clouds and deftly fired arrows, the large black puddings and their spawn were defeated. The party needed a rest before continuing on through another set of doors.

After washing the muck off from the puddings as best they could and regaining their strength, they pressed on in search of the torture den. The next door was also unlocked, although a slight chilled wind escaped through the cracks. Quinn peered inside slowly.

A drow captain with a regiment of guards stood at attention readily facing the door. Behind them the paladin noticed two fallen dark elf bodies that were being savagely eaten by a pair of blue colored zombies.

"Hello!" the captain pronounced loudly as he ushered the party towards him. "Please, come in!"

The party hesitated and cautiously stepped into the room. The cracks in the floor were more like small  earthquake crevices now, and the pillars of this decrepit banquet hall now lie on the uneven floor.

"What brings you to our great dining hall?" asked the drow captain with a wry smile. Rairdon noticed one of the guards developing a slight facial twitch, as if he was trying to contain something.

Quinn answered his question with a question asking what happened here and where were they?

The captain told them to relax and explained he was one of the leaders of the drow house of Vae, and the surroundings were simply the result of the spellplague. Things were being repaired, but it might take a while. He then determinedly asked them again make themselves at home and to perhaps come closer.

The party stood where they were as they witnessed the captain and his henchmen transform into incorporeal nightmarish fragments of themselves. The former dark elves' arms grew exceedingly longer and blood stained claws pierced out through their armor.

The captain immediately changed form and vanished through the floor and materialized right in front of Quinn.  The guards surrounded the party on both sides near the entrance. In the back of the room the two zombies who were now surrounded by a chilling mist that followed them, started to shuffle slowly towards the fray.*

The ghostly visage let out a tremendous shriek in front of Quinn that also enveloped the entire party. Ki-Amar was suddenly quivering in fear, unable to move. The captain's cohorts lashed out at the side flanks with claws pulsing with necrotic magic, but the party defended themselves and found the lackeys easy enough to dispose of.

As the zombies finally reached the front lines, the party found themselves moving slower whenever  they were caught within their vicinity. After a few quick cuts and brutal strikes, the pale reaver lord that was once the drow captain and the ice chill zombies were no more. The party nimbly jumped over the large crack in the room and exited the ruined banquet hall through yet another door.

A low howling wind moved through the cavern. After coming through the next door, the party was greeted by a large room that looked like it had collapsed in on itself, with the walls pushed down into a large underground tunnel, filled with debris. On the opposite end of what remained of the room, was yet another doorway.

Traversing the tunnel was difficult yet possible  near the eastern wall, as the collapse did leave a few sections of the original floor, which now stood up like small ruined plateaus.

While the underground wind roared the party approached the edge of the crevice and Riardon noticed a large hovering sphere approaching slowly from down the tunnel. He recognized the silhouette and his heart filled with dread as he signaled for the party to fall back and get down immediately.

"Heeerre contact lense..damn, it's around here somewhere"

The beholder made it's way lethargically in the sunken area that was roughly thirty feet down. After waiting a  silent few panicking minutes, Sevah poked his head up and finally gave the all clear sign. The party was puzzled as to how the great eye tyrant didn't spot them, but they felt lucky having avoided it.

Ki-Amar led the way after using a fallen pillar as a makeshift bridge and found himself first on the other side. The rest of the party was on the way over. Suddenly the swordmage, who had been keeping watch down the tunnel, spotted the familiar horrific shape hovering in the distance, drawing closer...

 *House rule by the GM: Zombies don't charge in combat. It's just not their nature.