Wherein the party delivers their letter and gets a response, much to their dismay...

After destroying a safe house of one of the local thieves' guilds, the party returned to get their information. The information indicated that they were indeed delivering the letters in the scroll tube to Daru Ib Shamiq, a baernoloth. (This caused some concern as the baernoloths are known to be the originators of the yugoloth race, and are rumored to be even more powerful than the dreaded ultraloths.) The portal to where the fiend lived was located in a ruined house at the top of one of Torch's peaks. This house was abandoned and rumored to be haunted.

Undaunted, the party quickly travelled to the house to get a feel for the layout. It was a simple structure of moderate size, with overgrown grounds surrounded by a ruinded wall and two collapsed outbuildings. Noting the presence of a small cemetary on the grounds, the party decided to find a place to spend the night. Twig, determining what her version of the multiverse would hold at that particular moment, led them to a nearby brothel known as the "Three Drink Minimum". This was not a statement of their bar policy, but rather an honest evaluation of the appearance of the workers in the establishment (as in, how many drinks it would take to find them attractive). Daunted, they spent the night anyway.

The following morning, the party returned to the house and decided to investigate the graveyard. Rusteen wisely stayed away from the tombstones, declaring that some hideous thing would rise up and attack them if the headstones were disturbed. He was right. Unfortunately, the thing decided to rise up and attack him first. As the thing was indeed a ghost, the battle was difficult due to the foe's incorporeal nature. However, the party eventually prevailed, although Oz was forced to retreat when the ghost turned its attention to him.

With the ghost defeated, the party then proceeded to enter the house. As expected, the interior was decayed and covered with dust and cobwebs. Rusteen, scouting ahead down the central hall, once again was the first to encounter a guardian beast. This time, it burst up through the floor and hauled the rogue down into a small cave in the building's foundation. Again, the combat was short with the party successful. With this constructed beast out of the way, the party was free to explore the rest of the house and quickly discovered the door that was the portal to Gehenna.

Stepping through, the party found itself in a very hot and humid location, completely surrounded by darkness. Rusteen managed to control his panic and did not run at full speed through the darkness. Soon enough, the party emerged into a natural cavern whose surfaces had been completely covered by some kind of organic coating. In short order, the party met the source of the coating - who was also the being to which they were supposed to deliver the letter.

Daru Ib Shamiq appeared to be an emaciated fiend, covered with pus and sores, and occasionally spitting up mucus which matched the shade of the organic coating of the cavern. Despite his seemingly diseased condition, the fiend was very friendly and talkative. (Then again, this being rather unusual for a creature of pure evil, perhaps he was feeling the affects of whatever disease ailed him.) The baernoloth read the letters and told they the party that were seeking information about the creature known as the Maeldur Et Kavurik. He would only tell them if the party swore on their souls that they would not kill the creature and tell it that it could free. Twig, surprisingly, quickly agreed on behalf of everyone - without consulting them.

Accepting the bargain, the fiend then told them that it no longer knew where the Maeldur was as it had been stolen from its prior location. However, he did tell the party about the existence of a magical green gem which could be used to both locate the creature and talk to it in a language it could understand. This gem, known as the vuulge, was in the possession of a tanar'ri lord named Taephon, who lived deep in the Abyss in the Fortress of Indifference. Prior to the party's departure, Daru Ib Shamiq confirmed that the Maeldur was indeed what gave the fiends their incredible powers of teleportation, because "it knows all their names, after all."

With reply in hand, the party quickly left the baernoloth's chambers and Torch to quickly return to Ecstacy. Unfortunately, things are never easy. Waiting for them outside the gates of the ruined house was a night hag, upon a nightmare steed. She claimed to know what the party was doing and requested a bribe to not sell the party out to either the baatezu or the tanar'ri. Naturally, the party attacked. While the hag fled on her steed, an invisible geherleth and nightwing revealed their presence and attacked. In the fierce battle that followed, the nightmare and geherleth were slain, the nightwing driven off, and the hag escaped. Oz was knocked unconcious and Twig was nearly killed as well. The foes defeated, the party quickly escaped back to Ecstacy to rest up and complete their task.

However, once recovered, the party debated what to do with the information in their possession. Although they still wanted more money for the task, the party began to be concerned that they were being played in some fashion. So, they decided to figure out exactly who their mysterious employer really was. The plan consisted of dominating some poor bar patron, polymorphing him into Shazarr, and then letting this pawn wait for the employer while Oz, also magically disguised, observed the meeting with a true seeing spell active. Eventually, their employer showed up. Through Oz's spell, it was revealed that the bariaur was actually an arcanoloth.

Although rather disturbed, the party decided to get rid of their pawn and meet with their employer directly and deliver the information as promised. The party became absolutely convinced that they had been played (or were possibly still being played) when the arcanoloth seemed unphased when they revealed they had seen through his ruse, as well as the fact that the fiend showed "compassion" and had no desire for the party to travel to the Abyss and seek out the vuulge. (He claimed that it would be unfair to ask the party to attempt such a dangerous task as they were not yet powerful enough to accomplish it.)

So, the party got paid, and didn't get killed by several close encounters with various fiends. However, there's still the matter of Twig's promise to the baernoloth, as well as the fact that the ancient fiend's motivations seemed to be at odds with those of the rest of its race.

Authored by: Ken Lipka E-mail me: krlipka@yahoo.com

Return to Stories Page