Eved 28, 646
Notes by Ya-Nanje
Slowly the adventurers moved down the steps in to the shadowy depths of half truth as they quested for the trials of the smoking eye.
Suddenly, Cirlyn the Colourful said, ?Hey, what?s this thing do?? as he fumbled with some secret mechanism. As he did so, two of the party?s group faded out from existence...
Meanwhile...
Ya-Nanje strode on his way to the bathhouse where he was going to meet his brother. This was one of his last chances to talk to his brother before setting off for on this suicidal mission from the new Doh of the clan.
The Doh was intrested in gettting Ya-Nanje out of the province as fast as possible because Nanje knew the secret behind the death of the former head of the clan and every day that Nanje was still around was a day that the secret could come out. The Doh did not want the secret to come out. With a full backpack the young samurai reached for the door to the bath house. His goal was to reveal the secret to someone else so that the truth would not die with him on the mission he knew would be his last.
Reality faded out around Ya-Nanje; one moment he was reaching for the door that would lead him in to the bath house where he had planned to meet with his brother and in the next he stood on a dark dank stair way leading downward. The walls were covered with lichen. The bare light provided seemed to only be coming from a small fire elemental that was partially obstructed by a cube of filth.
A huddled cloaked figure clutched a staff seeming to support himself as he was weighed down from the effect of his clothes.
A gnome peered up at Ya-Nanje as another two, a cleric and a mage, looked at him as well.
"Hmmm, I asume I?m no longer in Prongo province am I," said Nanje.
"Do you speak common?" the cleric mouthed, his hands moving slowly around trying to make himself understood but not knowing just how he looked to the stranger.
?Yes I do,? replied Ya-Nanje. ?Did you not hear me ask if I was in Prongo province anymore?"
"Oh yes sorry about that."
Small talk soon followed before a decision that the samurai who was recently stranded on one of the planes of hell, and conveniently not told whose fault it was would join them on their quest to the smoking eye.
Slowly they descended deeper and deeper in to the dark until they reached a large room. Sitting at a desk was a corpse in ornate armor. Before anyone could say anything, the cleric looked over at the rest of the party and said, ?So you want to try to talk to him or should I just do my thing?" Then, without waiting for a reply, the cleric pulled his holy symbol and poured the power of his god into himself, destroying the undead reducing its corporeal form to dust.
The samurai looked around and said, "So who is supposed to give this test?"
The broken creature with the staff pointed only to the pile of dust now sitting in the chair. Searching the desk for any sort of clue, the party decided there was nothing to do but press on. Informing them that he can go no further, the huddled figure waited by the desk as the party strolled closer and closer to one of the two doors in the room. Opening it up revealed a large dark room with planks being held up by a number of thin cords of spider web. At the other end of the room waited a large demonic spider that quickly speed towards the party. The samurai and the cleric met it halfway across the room on the pathways that dangled 30 feet above a spiked floor. The two brave stalwarts fought a tooth and nail battle with the spider while the rogue and the mage launched attacks from the rear and the fire elemental set fire to the planking and fell to one of the pathways, trapping itself with the spikes below. After defeating the creature, the party advanced across the room to the opposing doors and followed a pathway around to a room in which a hooded lantern was giving off a red light. Sigils glowed around the lantern, dancing slowly and illuminating the room with a mosaic of a black armored angel fighting demons.
Then the mummy that was destroyed earlier teleported in to the room, walked up to the lantern, and gave it to the rogue. "Heed the words of Adimarchus,? it said. ?You must deal with rivals first before opponents. If you learn this, you will go far."
The party then took the path back towards the room with the desk that they had not traveled yet and found a giant talking bird trapped in a circle of silver. After freeing it, it gave the great advice that we should turn from our evil paths and leave all well enough alone. Ya-Nanje agreed that this was good advice, if only he could. Being trapped in hell and all was not a good thing.
The lantern that illuminated the true path to the second test lead them along the way down the mountains and across the planes. The leathery texture of the ground flexed and rippled as the party traveled across it. They traveled for a day or two. At the end of the second day, the party was attacked from behind by creatures with gaunt weathered skin and a mouth full of teeth and a single horn growing from behind their heads. These demons teleported behind the party members, and sneak attacked everyone, bringing low the rogue quickly. The cleric rushed into the fray, healing him and then fighting a battle to keep the party healthy. As the party fought against the demons, each strike against the demons weakened the weapons that hit, as the slimy acid that they were covered with slowly ate at the weapons.
When the party had finally brought the creatures low, the lantern lead them to an ancient battle field and illuminated a path through it that lead them in to a trap laid by a huge spider demon with cleavers for claws. The rogue, not knowing what he did, trapped himself and the fire elemental, as well as the cube of filth and disease, with the demon at the beginning of the battle field all over again. After the demon struck the rogue down to unconsciousness, the fire elemental picked him up, setting him on fire as they tried to flee from the demon.
The hunched broken figure, after watching the party release ranged attacks to include critical hits from flame strike and fire balls, teleported behind the demon and then released its own magical attacks on it, killing the demon.