Serpent’s Skull – Part 54

After being driven out (on the holy wings of a Word of Recall) of the serpent folk citadel (built to look like a huge 100ft tall coiled serpent) at the centre of the subterranean city of Ilmurea, we planned a return in order to continue our search for the Pathfinder Eando Kline. Ek’Tura scouted ahead using his spells and declared that the entrance we used previously was still safe. By making use of Wind Walk provided by Derek the rest of us followed on and alighted as misty clouds of fog amongst the rubble around the hole in the side of the serpent.

 

At this point I spotted movement amongst the rubble, and Ek’Tura was able to pinpoint an invisible serpent creature with a human head hiding there (which we were later to identify as a Naga). As the rest of us tried to revert back to physical form more serpentine creatures appeared from up and down the passage, and began casting offensive spells at us, but only Ek’Tura was able to respond. He summoned an air elemental which started to fight back, until eventually we were able to regain our full physical forms.

 

Derek and most of the party turned down the passage, and started fighting the creatures from that direction, whilst myself and Ek’Tura fought the ones up the passage. One naga was killed, but the other turned invisible again and fled up the passage. Ek’Tura called his elemental back to help the other side, leaving Tabansi to try and locate the invisible enemy.

 

As the fight died down from both sides, Tabansi could hear booted footsteps coming down from above. Meanwhile, the rest of the party had dealt with their creatures by killing them or blocking the passage with a holy wall of ice. Exploring further, they encountered a pack of gugs in a side room off the passage.

 

By the time the gugs were defeated, Ek’Tura had returned and summoned an earth elemental to help me fight off the serpentfolk archers who were now attacking from up the passageway. It was a reasonable fight, but eventually the serpentfolk were slain. However, one of the naga seemed strangely friendly to me, though the rest of the party didn’t seem to agree. Unfortunately she slithered off before I could talk to her.

 

Before we had much time to regain our breath, a dozen more serpentfolk archers came up the passage from below, led by one of their leaders (one we had encountered before) and another naga.

 

Since Athazog was still catching his breath after raging earlier, and most of us couldn’t see anything in the darkness, when Ek’Tura summoned a huge brontosaur to start trampling the serpentfolk we couldn’t really help until Derek called down some Daylight.

 

The fight began anew, and Athazog and Arkin ran into melee, whilst I provided archery support and Derek kept us alive through his healing. Ek’Tura provided more support through the use of Slow spells, but by this point his brontosaur had been slain.

 

The final battle was fierce, until all that were left was the serpentfolk leader who was turning out to be a formidable opponent in melee, even managing to disarm Athazog and forcing him to resort to his claws. I marked the serpentfolk as my quarry, and Derek called on Sarenae, and smote Destruction upon the creature, almost killing it. It tried to flee via a teleport, but Ek’Tura cunningly blocked it from doing so allowing Arkin to sneak in from behind and deliver a killing blow.

 

The day was won, but by this point we had used up considerable resources without getting much beyond the front door. However, this time at least we had taken down one of their leaders. There was still no sign though of either Eando Kline, or the Urdefhan general Belkor whom we were also looking for.