Open to the Heavens

I had been eating a bar of dried fruit for breakfast when Vixi ran into the cavern. “Pack up. We need to move because there are zombies coming down the passage.” Rhegar stood, almost lazy in his movements. “So why don’t we just fight them then?” Vixi locked her solid gold eyes onto the dragonborn’s own silver ones. She grabbed the foodstuff from his hand and threw it down into his open bag. “Because there are a lot of them. Maybe 40, certainly 30, and I don’t want to fight that many.” “Nor do the rest of us.” added Kyri as she threw a pointed look at the paladin of Bahamut. “I think heading down the hallway would be prudent.” I nodded my head in agreement with the tiefling and the elf, and threw my stuff into my bag as quickly as possible. As I secured the bag over my shoulder, I could hear the scuffing of bones across the stone floors. Cries of “Brains” and “I want to eat your eyes.” drifted down the corridor.

We took off at a light jog. It probably wasn’t necessary for us to escape the zombies, but it would be nice to have a little leeway if we ran into anything. A couple turns, a staircase, and a blocked corridor later and we found ourselves on a wide ledge overlooking a gigantic shaft. Two rope bridges stretched maybe 150 feet across the open chasm, one sloping up and one sloping down. The silver moonlight streamed down over more bridges above our heads. It has to go up 200 feet, at least. I could faintly hear ocean waves rolling across stone and cautiously took a look over the edge. I gulped hard as I stepped back quickly. “Well it certainly goes down to the Underdark.” I said to no one in particular.

I heard a soft giggling and peered around the shaft for the source. A movement on a bridge 20 feet down caught my eye. As I watched, a Halfling size creature jumped from a tangle of vines. It ran laughing down the wooden slates before diving into another tangle of vines. The vines were growing all over the walls and bridges and the vine creatures weren’t the only things traversing the bridges. Blue-white balls of light drifted lazily back and forth until they encountered another and began sparking furiously.

“What are we dealing with here?” said Rhegar to our resident expert on all things magical. “Well the green plants on the walls and bridges are sapling vines, making the nasty little things running in between them saplings. Nasty, vicious little things; they carry poison darts, have razor sharp barbs, and some spray a hallucinogenic gas. The light balls are actually will-o’-wisps. They’re difficult to see in the light and have a nasty shock when they’re angry. It would be a good idea to not get between two of them. Radiant or lightning doesn’t do much damage to them, sorry Tavia, but they only shock one target at a time.” She smiled at the last bit of information and I heard someone mutter, “Oh good, only one target.”

The occasional screech of “Revenge!” or “Brains!” could be heard behind us but they are tinny from echoing through the hallways, so we took a moment to discuss which way to go. Markas probably summed it up best when he said, “It doesn’t matter if we catch the sirens anymore or not. We were sent to find weapons and artifacts that Perinor can use in five year’s time and we’re bound to find something here.”

Before she started off on the lower bridge, Kalena suddenly stopped. “Wait. We need to let the captain know what’s going on. Even Garn said we would only be gone a day at most.” “You have a good point, wizard.” Garn said, “But it would take far too long to get back to Captain Raccan, even without the zombie crew behind us.” “We wouldn’t need to go back. The shaft opens up to the sky- I can enchant an animal that could fly out the top and out to the ship to deliver the message. All I need is a bird or something.” She hopped up and down excitedly. “Will a bat work?” Kyri called from ledge across the chasm where she had been scouting the cave mouth. “Oh yes, perfectly.” cried the wizard as she ran across the bridge. After ten minutes or so she released the bat, it flew upward and out the cavern mouth, squeaking merrily.

Between her perception of passageways and my book knowledge of typical dungeon layouts, Kyri and I took turns directing the movements of the group. We were just getting ready to cross a fourth bridge when a sapling creature jumped out of the vines on the right side. Markas stepped onto the bridge brandishing his flail and gave the creature a menacing look. It stared at him for a second before falling over laughing. When Markas took a step forward to try to further intimidate it, the sapling gave a piercing whistle, like the kind made when one blows on a blade of grass between ones hands. Seven more saplings morphed out of the vines on the bridge. Halfway down, a larger group of vines settled into a shape as tall and lithe as Kyri, leaves from the vines coming up to form a type of clingy clothing. The sapling-halfings began pulling vines from their own bodies, creating either long whips or straightening them into bamboo-like javelins. The ends dripped acid or glinted with poison. The strange elf-woman in the back strung a wicked looking long bow as she selected arrows from her own thigh.

Kyri fired off two arrows at the archer but they went wide. A small smile playing about her lips, Kalena dropped a fireball into a group of the saplings. I heard Garn give a rather undignified yelp and two of the vines leapt off the bridge flaming. She merely turned to him with a “Relax. There are steel cables under the ropes and vines. It can take a little fire damage.” He grunted out a “If you say so.” as he beat a sapling that had just stung a whip across his leg. Rhegar charged forward into one sapling with a brutal blow. Real blood dripped from its wound but reverted to sap as it fell to the ground. The sapling-elf evaded Vixi’s blast as she began to revert to her natural form. Javelins flew from the saplings, preventing us from attacking while their leader changed. Her limbs became vines and her head was replaced by a giant orchid. From what used to be her mouth, she spewed pale pink pollen. It settled over Garn and Markas and dreamy looks settle over their faces.

I dropped a lance of faith across the sapling as it was about to whip Markas. As the orchid woman began to change forms again, Kyri buried two arrows in her viney body and the woman screamed. Kalena dropped another fireball across the crowd of saplings and they scuttled through the vines trying to give the damaged ones time to lick their wounds. Vixi unleashed a nasty spell at the orchid woman and she withered up, bow clattering onto the bridge. By this time Garn and Markas had shaken their dream state. Markas hit the sapling in front him a wicked blow. He moved to take another shot but two javelins found gaps in his armor and the injured sapling retreats through the vines. As he pulled out the shafts, I blessed his bravery with a healing prayer.

Kyri’s arrows buried themselves into the saplings as they try to retreat down the bridge. Their new grouping further down the bridge encouraged Kalena to drop another fireball in their midst and they screeched in reply. Garn swiped through one, the lifedrinker weapon stealing its leafy little soul, and boosted up Rhegar with a “We’ve got them on the run now.” I managed to get in melee range as we hurried down the bridge and land a good blow across its legs with my staff. A green fletched arrow grew from its head before it exploded, covering me in sap and leaf bits. Kalena dropped a final fireball on the far side of the bridge and Vixi caught the last escaping sapling with a curse that drops it in its tracks.

The cries of “Brains! Eyes!” echoed through the abyss as the zombies spilled onto the ledge. I could see sailors’ clothing draping off their lank frames. Probably the same ones we slew on the beach. I should have stopped, performed Gentle Repose. I thought sadly. Garn’s voice shook me out of my thoughts as he called. “Come on. We need to get ahead of them again.” Kalena expressed a desire to fireball the bridge above us and I wished I had enough range to use a Turn Undead to slow them down. “No time.” He said as he grabbed my arm to hurry me along. Kyri picked the longbow from among the vine carnage and the seven of us scurried down the next cavern.