The Night Fane
…the Regulators descended into the tunnel and followed its slope to the north. Shady took point, scouting slightly ahead. The tunnel air was wet and sticky, and the walls were slick with moisture. Harmless centipedes crawled across the floor as they descended. Soon, the tunnel opened to reveal an underground lake. Stalactites hung low over its surface, and dripping water echoed in the dark. A pair of rowboats were pulled up on the shore near the tunnel, with four yuan-ti broodguards standing nearby.
An attempt to engage in discourse with the yuan-ti was met with open hostility… and the battle was on! Thaminor and Shady exchanged blows with the creatures, while Fell took out one that tried to head down a tunnel to the southwest. Before the final broodguard fell, however, reinforcements arrived from that same tunnel in the form of two Yuan-ti purebloods and a fat malison that had a chultan boy cowering in his shadow. As the reinforcements joined the battle, the boy fled back down the tunnel.
Once the Yuan-ti were dispatched, the party proceeded down the tunnel that the boy had fled into. A campfire cast warm light over the pair of caverns at the tunnel’s end. Heaps of dead grass and palm fronds were scattered about, and the muddy floor was pitted with footprints. A dozen dirty chultans huddled around the walls on makeshift beds, fear in their eyes. Shady stepped into the light and began addressing the slaves, reassuring them that the Regulators were there to defeat Ras Nsi, and they were free to leave. Finally, one of the chultans came forward to speak for the group. “Hi! I’m Pix Wimbee,” came the expected exclamation as the wizard joined the conversation. The slaves have been working to widen these caverns to create new sleeping quarters for the yuan-ti, and did not have much intelligence for the fane. When Thaminor and Fell were unable to open the door to the northeast, the chultan called out for “Khoti,” and the previously-seen boy came out of the shadows and provided a key.
The room to the northeast contained stacks of sturdy wood crates and bundles of cloth, with clay amphorae littering the floor. A giant constrictor snake hid in the corner until Leo and Fell dispatched it. They found a sealed case with a wax imprint that matched the logo found on some of the spices… it promptly went into a bag of holding. From the rest of the supplies, the party assembled enough gear to make five explorer’s packs, which they offered to the slaves. That was enough to finally give the chultans the courage to leave out the southern tunnel that brought their liberators here.
Entering the finished fane, they found that corridor ceilings were 10 feet high (and would later find that most chamber ceilings were 20 feet high). Doors were made from worked stone, with odd 4-inch-wide holes spaced along their bottoms. Oil lamps provided dim light throughout the complex, each burning with a tall green fiame as bright as
torchlight.
The chamber down the next southern hallway had moist and sticky air. Natural light spilled from cracks in the ceiling, and mud coated the floor. Stone workbenches were laden with clay bottles of various shapes and sizes. Toadstools, snakeroot, and belladonna plants grew among the clutter, fed by water seeping from above. Standing near the plants was a hairless man with scaly skin and a bronze syringe. In the alcoves around the room were four slouching humans that reeked of decay. When Thaminor tried to converse with the occupant, the Yuan-ti pureblood responded by attempting to stab the elf with his syringe! As the Regulators filed in from down the hall, the Yuan-ti grabbed a bottle off the table and threw it at them, where it exploded into a cloud of poisonous gas! That was enough for Pix, who summoned Bigby’s hand to grab the Yuan-ti and slam him against the wall. Once the Yuan-ti fell, Pix sent the hand to pound open the southern door.
As the party proceeded back north, a gong rang out ahead of them, echoing through the complex. An underground cathedral opened up before them. At the north end, a sculptured balcony perched atop five rearing stone serpents. Blood dribbling from the serpents’ jaws fell into a semicircular basin, and from there flowed along a sloped trough into a wide stone bowl set into the floor. South of the bowl was a mezzanine, prominently situated atop which was a cauldron of steaming broth that exuded fleshy odors. To the west, a huge gong carved with snake patterns stood on a second balcony.
One malison advanced from near the cauldron and engaged Thaminor. A second rang the gong one more time before Yuan-ti began pouring in from all around: two doors to the east, the a hall behind the balcony in the west, and from the side hallway near the back of the party. Thaminor engaged the enemies near the cauldron. Shady moved in and engaged in the southeastern corner of the cathedral. Leo moved in to the southwestern corner to engage the enemies coming down from the balcony. Molish stepped up to engage those coming in from behind while Fell backed him up from behind, shooting over the cleric’s shoulder. Pix stepped in to the room and realized it was time to pull out some more powerful spells, launching a cone of cold across the room and thinning the ranks.
The enemies kept coming, including a Yuan-ti malison (type 3) that appeared on the sculptured balcony. The malison had bandages wrapped around his torso and could matched the description of Ras Nsi, their primary target. When Nsi began to cast what Pix identified as a fireball, the gnome quickly countered. A basilisk came out the western balcony, and Pix shouted the warning to not look it in the eye. Leo took the Wild Shape of an earth elemental, slamming a broodguard into the ground. Shady unleashed a Flurry of Blows, dropping those around him one by one. Molish summoned some spiritual guardians to help defend the hall while Fell continued to pepper the nonstop stream of Yuan-ti from the hallway.
After Thaminor dropped one of the combatants, he disengaged, ran around the blood pool, and used his ring of jumping to leap up to the balcony with Ras Nsi. The former barae turned toward the eldritch knight, incanting “Dissolutum!” and shooting a thin green ray of arcane energy into the elf’s chest, who audibly grimaced in pain. A Yuan-ti malison (type 2) took a misty step up to the balcony, as Ras Nsi whipped his tail about and wrapped it around Thaminor, grappling him. Flames came to life on Nsi’s sword, and he slashed Thaminor twice. As the elf fell limp, the Yuan-ti leader lifted the Oakenshield heir into the air, and tossed him down into the blood pool below…
As the high elf splashed into the blood pool, Ras Nsi let out a confident laugh… and promptly disappeared from the balcony. Pix called out for Kelemvor’s disciple, “Molish! Thaminor is down!” and took up a position near to the cauldron, where he conjured a globe of invulnerability to protect his friends from more magical onslaught.
Hearing the gnome’s call, Fell moved up the hall and into the cathedral, with Molish right behind. Leo the earth elemental slammed another Yuan-ti into the stone floor, and almost smirked when the basilisk caught his eye… you can’t turn stone into stone, you know. Shady got a few more jabs in on his opponents, knocking them out before another thin green ray of arcane power shot out from the eastern side of the room, where Nsi was now standing—that one hurt!
Fell promptly dropped his hunter’s mark on the Yuan-ti leader, allowing him to score a hit with his arrows even after Nsi disappeared once more. Shady dropped a globe of darkness to the side of the room, where he could operate in the shadows and hopefully avoid any further direct magical attacks.
As Molish rushed to the room to save his long time companion, he hit an invisible wall of force across the doorway. He called out that he was trapped, and turned to face the few malisons that had followed. The cleric’s spirit guardians made quick work of the closest, so he engaged the one next in line while watching a few more race across the hallway intersection… likely to circle around and flank the Regulators.
Ras Nsi became visible once more, as a sphere of poisonous, yellow-green fog formed in the southwest corner of the room. Fell gagged, and quickly moved into the protection of the gnome’s globe. Before the cloudkill had a chance to do further damage to the party, however, Pix dispelled it.
The conjuring of the cloudkill also seemed to break Nsi’s concentration on the wall of force, for Molish realized it was no longer against his back. The cleric charged up into the room and sent a blast of necrotic energy at Thaminor—restoring the ‘undead’ high elf’s ‘health.’
Ras Nsi disappeared once more, though Fell tracked him back to the balcony with his hunters mark—and another arrow struck true. Pix unleashed another cone of cold on the enemies pouring in from the west, laying the two basilisks low and greatly reducing the Yuan-ti forces.
With Nsi’s forces finally thinning, and Thaminor back on his feet, it seemed that the tide was finally turning in the Regulators’ favor…
Pix noticed as Ras Nsi began casting another spell, and used his last counterspell in an attempt to thwart the barae‘s plan… only to have Nsi’s lieutenant counterspell him. The yuan-it’s spell went off, a bolt of lightning arcing from his hands to lash Shady and Molish before being stopped by Pix’s globe of invulnerability.