Lost in the Abyss – Episode 1.2

Tanemous takes the first watch. The others make themselves as comfortable as they can in the sweltering heat and try to get some rest. Marcus quickly falls asleep, while Shaaaarghraio attempts to stay awake, but after a while he too dozes off.

Suddenly the Minotaur wakes with a start. It only seems like he has dozed off for a moment but he finds himself alone. He gets up and looks around, sniffing the air for signs of the others, but there is no trace of them.

Waking from his own slumber, Marcus finds himself in exactly the same situation.

Then, without warning, each of them is attacked by a beautiful, dark-haired woman with long, razor-like fingernails. In each case she gestures and sends a cluster of magic missiles at them, then tumbles nimbly towards them and rakes them with her talons.

When this happens Shaaaarghraio’s wound burns with poison and the excruciating pain causes him to wake up. He jumps to his feet and startles Tanemous, who is still on watch. Shaaaarghraio realises it was a dream. Or was it? When he looks down at his torso he can see fading claw marks, which rapidly disappear. Once they are gone, he is not sure they were ever really there.

“Are you alright?” Tanemous asks.

“I’m fine” Shaaaarghraio rumbles dismissively. “It’s just this place. Something about it preys on my mind”

A few hours later Tanemous decides to make a concerted effort to revive Blanca. Inexplicably she has remained unconscious since the destruction of the portal. He prays to his goddess Wee-Jas, summons as much divine power as he can muster and then infuses Blanca with restorative magic. Her eyelids flutter and she wakes up.

At first she is alarmed and disorientated, but she rapidly regains her composure. Understandably she has a lot of questions. Most of them Tanemous cannot answer.

Exhausted by his efforts, Tanemous then takes his turn to rest. He leaves Blanca and Shaaaarghraio on watch. The Minotaur remains agitated, gnawing distractedly on what looks like the arm off some dead creature. Blanca decides it best not to bother him. Her mind drifts, and she wonders what has become of Ebon and Shilaze.

A few hours later Marcus and Tanemous wake up.

The dream is not spoken of. Blanca and Tanemous have not experienced it, Shaaaarghraio keeps it to himself and Marcus has nothing but a vague recollection of it.

Once everyone is up, Blanca is introduced to the others. Shaaaarghraio grudgingly offers her some of the arm to eat, which she politely declines. Marcus makes a better first impression, but shortly afterward she catches him whispering to his sword. She wonders what manner of folk she has fallen in with.

Suddenly there is a massive rumbling and the ground shakes. Cracks appear in the walls and the temperature starts to rise again. Hurriedly they depart.

Sweating profusely, the motley band trudges through the sweltering heat for many hours. Eventually the tunnel opens out into a large cavern bathed in a fiery orange glow. Within the chamber the ground has collapsed to reveal a river of molten rock slowly sliding past below. All but a narrow ledge around the lava pit has fallen away.

No one fancies risking the ledge, so between them Tanemous and Marcus call up magical powers that allow everyone to fly across.

When they reach the other side, Marcus draws their attention to a hand that he has seen sticking out of the molten rock below. Unsure of what to do about it, they decide to try and get it out before the lava carries it off.

Marcus calls upon his magic once again and starts to pull the hand out with the power of his mind. As it comes clear of the lava, a charred and blackened limb is revealed, then a skull. The features are fixed in a silent scream, lava pouring out of the mouth and empty eye sockets. Suddenly the jaw moves and it starts to wail.

Shaken by the horrifying apparition, Marcus immediately drops it back into the lava. It sinks and disappears.

Tanemous looks grave. When Blanca asks him what is wrong, he replies that he thinks it was a damned soul and that they are somewhere on the lower planes. In other words they are in hell, or at least one of them.

They continue onward.

Soon they hear the ringing of metal on stone from up ahead somewhere.

As they get closer there are Human cries for clemency and a voice in Draconic says, “Quiet you snivelling scum or I’ll put you back where I got you from”

Blanca suggests caution, but Shaaaarghraio declares that he has had more than enough of the infernal heat. Perhaps they will finally have an opportunity to ask someone the way out. He heads off up the tunnel.

There is a chamber ahead. Something big moves within it.

“Hey you, where’s the exit?” Shaaaarghraio demands. His large frame blocks most of the entrance, so the others are unable to see what manner of creature he is speaking with.

In reply there is an angry roar and a winged, blue skinned reptile, that looks like a cross between a Dragon and a Tyrannosaurus, leaps into view. Without hesitation it charges.

The two creatures engage in bloody combat. Shaaaarghraio swings his Great axe mightily, carving through scales, and sinew, and jarring up against bone. While the reptile counters by tearing large chunks of flesh off the Minotaur with razor sharp teeth and claws. Both combatants are soon badly wounded but the ferocious fight continues.

Blocked by Shaaaarghraio, in the close confines of the tunnel, his companions can do little. Though Tanemous does occasionally manage to hurl magic orbs of exploding energy past the Minotaur, causing the reptile to roar with pain.

Then a second creature appears, black skinned but in other respects identical to the first. It bounds towards Shaaaarghraio and joins the fray.

Already soaked in blood, the Minotaur has little hope of besting two of the creatures, but he stubbornly refuses to back down. Instead he fights on bravely. Then, with a final effort, he fells the first reptile and collapses to the ground.

Stepping over Shaaaarghraio’s body, Marcus valiantly fends off the black skinned reptile, with his sword, while Tanemous hits it repeatedly with orbs of lightning. Hissing, the creature responds by breathing out a stream of acid that only narrowly misses the pair.

Meanwhile Blanca rushes to the side of the downed Minotaur. Shaaaarghraio’s breathing is shallow and irregular, his eyes are glazed and his lifeblood drains out upon the floor. There is little she can do for him. His injuries are too severe. Once she could have healed him, but that was before she renounced the Theocracy and lost her divine powers. She can no longer call upon Pholtus for aid.

“Be at peace”, she says sadly, reaching out and gently touching the dying creature.

To her surprise, her fingertips glow with a familiar blue light. Unbidden the healing magic flows from her and into the Minotaur. His wounds start to close and his breathing grows more regular. She cannot explain how this happened however.

Meanwhile, things are not going well for the others.

Marcus’s resistance rapidly ends when the black reptile rips into his abdomen with its claws. He staggers back and collapses, blood pumping from the wound.

Then it turns on Tanemous. However, by this point the orbs of magic, that Tanemous has been hurling at it, have worn it down and once it has been hit a couple more times it turns and runs.

Intent on finishing the weakened creature, Tanemous sets off in pursuit, while Blanca remains with Shaaaarghraio and Marcus and continues to use her rediscovered powers to heal them.

Following the wounded reptile down another passageway, Tanemous comes to an opening part way up the wall of a large cavern. From there, a steep slope drops away towards a river of lava at the bottom. The creature he is pursuing has slid and tumbled down to the edge of the flow and continues to limp away from him.

Tanemous’s attention is drawn in the direction the reptile is heading. Scaffolding covers the opposite wall of the cavern and some fifty to sixty emaciated Human figures, garbed in rags, are working on the rock face. Overseeing their labours are a dozen or more other figures; these are robed and hooded. Above them all, sitting on a raised wooden platform is a monstrous, demonic, ebony skinned humanoid.

Tanemous doesn’t much like the look of the Demon but he can be pretty sure the alarm is about to be raised, so he decides to finish the reptile while he can. He gestures, utters a word of power and hurls lightning from his hand to strike it down. Not surprisingly this draws everyone’s attention. The Demon stands, turns its glowing red eyes upon him and bellows something unintelligible. Tanemous hurriedly leaves.

He meets Blanca and Shaaaarghraio coming up the tunnel behind him and quickly explains to them what has happened. As he is finishing, a sickly green mist starts to fill the passageway.

Tanemous quickly calls up a magical wind to disperse it and reveals one of the hooded figures standing at the end of the passage. He hurls a sonic orb at it and the explosion sends it over the edge back into the chasm.

At that moment the wounded Marcus calls out from the chamber behind them “Err… You might want to come back. Something pretty major just showed up here”

Under threat from both directions, Tanemous volunteers to stay and cover the passage, while Shaaaarghraio and Blanca move back into the chamber.

They find it occupied by Marcus and a monstrous, demonic, ebony skinned humanoid with glowing red eyes. It matches the description Tanemous gave them of the Demon on the platform, but they don’t know if it is the same one or not.

Without hesitation Shaaaarghraio charges it.

The Demon assails them with a barrage of evil magic, they are battered by waves of multi-coloured, spiralling energy and then engulfed in a cold, cloying miasma of darkness that leaves them dazed and weakened, shaken and nauseous.

But Shaaaarghraio is not deterred. Stepping forward he demolishes the blasphemous creature with a couple of almighty swings of his Great axe. The Demon looks surprised. Blood spurts from the gaping wounds in its chest and it falls to the ground dead.

Meanwhile, Tanemous sneaks back to the cavern and watches as the hooded creatures herd the damned back into the lava and then follow them. The Demon is already gone. Soon only the scaffolding remains.

With the battle over, the companions use magic to fly across the chasm and find an opening in the rock above the platform. Beyond it is a barren hellish landscape, covered in red dust and cratered with fire pits. A deep red sky looms overhead. The only sign of life is large forbidding fortress built into the mountainside some distance away.

As they watch, a dark shape detaches itself from one of the black clouds above and soars down towards the battlements.