Wrath of the Righteous

Mazes and Monsters

Illustrated version

The party immediately attempted to scry the foul sorceress Svendack. Despite having her blood, it didn’t work. She had escaped into some hideout where scrying could not penetrate. It was much like Poonisher’s safehouse, except secret. Temporarily unable to reach the scimitar they needed to let the ghost paladin rest in peace, the party decided to work on another goal. Mike the angel still needed his hammer and it was in the pit of Baphomet’s pet linnorm. The party chose to kill two birds with one stone and had Mike lead the way.

The linnorm’s lair was a massive cavern, with small areas of land poking forth from an acid lake. The party coughed on the caustic fumes as they approached down a narrow tunnel. At the opening, the two-headed wingless dragon rose from the pool. It laughed and unleashed twin clouds of poisonous acid from its jaws. The attack hurt severely, and Tane was saved by a quick spell from Mike.

Poonisher unleashed his usual torrent of arrows, but was unable to get good shots in. Wase charged in with holy sword aflame. The linnorm retaliated, and Bendak kept Wase standing with the same spell Mike had used. Meanwhile, Hook ran around and dealt insignificant scratches to the linnorm’s tail. Tane cast Particle Form on his allies before assaulting the linnorm’s mind. With help from the party’s mythic powers, his spell nearly battered through the linnorm’s mighty defenses. Only its immunity to such spells saved it from being reduced to a drooling fool.

Wase continued clashing and trading blows with the beast. His sword cut deeply, and the linnorm decided to try for a different target. Its tail lashed out at Poonisher, striking hard. It tried to wrap its coils around the flying monkey, but Poonisher slipped away with the aid of the magic shirt Tane made him. Bendak tried to end the fight outright with a Finger of Death spell, but the linnorm resisted even against the party’s collective force of will.

At this point, the fight became a simple contest of strength. The linnorm was mighty, but in the end it wasn’t mythic. Riddled with wounds, Baphomet’s linnorm sank into the acid. It would have regenerated there, but Bendak sent a pack of acid and poison immune elementals down to finish it off. When the deed was done, a shriek of rage resonated throughout the tunnels. It seemed Baphomet was displeased at the loss of his pet. Mike recovered his hammer, and then there was the rest of the hoard to deal with. Enough wealth to save a nation or destroy it lay ripe for the taking. Mountains of gold, the personal treasures of kings, holy and unholy relics, The party gathered it up without much comment and moved on.

Continuing on with their explorations, the party found the prison’s vault. It was an octagonal room is brightly lit by unseen light sources. The walls and ﬂoor were of highly polished ivory, and the domed ceiling above rose to a circular disc bearing a pentagram inscribed with a leering goat’s face. Four ten-foot-square alcoves opened off the room, accessible via a few short steps.

A golden glow suffused each alcove, and in each a single object ﬂoated about fve feet off the ground—a burning scimitar, a red-bladed glaive, a ball of twine, and a raw, red heart soaking in golden blood. An iron statue of a winged, goat-headed demon stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by four fve-foot-high ivory pedestals with a bowl-shaped indention atop each. A shallow alcove sat to the south; in it was ﬂoating a six-inch-diameter golden orb. To the north, three doors, each with a symbol carved onto its face, lined the wall. To the west hung a single long tapestry decorated with an impossibly complex maze.

This room was a deadly enigma, and the party needed to apply all of their wit and cleverness to solve it.

Eventually, they found the answer after exhausting all other options and Wase getting briefly trapped in a maze world. Using the golden orb to get around the traps on the alcoves, the party collected each treasure. The significance of the glaive and the mundane ball of twine was unknown to the party, but the heart and scimitar were of interest. The heart was that of Iomedae’s Herald, and could be of great help in redeeming the fallen angel. The scimitar had belonged to the ghost paladin.

The party tried stashing all the treasures in Tane’s Sanctum, but the heart could not be kept there. Its tragic corruption was great enough to hurt Tane when stored in a world of his creation. For now, Poonisher would carry it. His soul was more comfortable with it.

The party returned the scimitar to the ghost. Finally, she was able to rest in peace. Before passing on, she purified the lingering corruption her weapon had been subjected to and gifted it to the party. The party rested in Tane’s Sanctum after that. The heart still hurt Tane, but they removed it after resting long enough for him to recover.

The next thing the party found was a torture chamber. One shudders to imagine what treatment Baphomet’s personal torturers would subject upon their victims.


Zanton RonW
