Fifth Session! May 5, 2006

Third Hedraday of Charder, Summer, Dammed City

Eight adventurers set out to find and destroy a nest of Medusae that had been plaguing the city. North-West of town, just past the Old Logging Camp, lay a no-man's land where anyone foolish enough to venture forth was unceromoniously stoned and shattered.

Guldrim, Verdana, Wild Willian, Arban, Bam Bam, Sham, Blak-Fut and Bernie set out after a delicious breakfast; they encountered Gorman, the Orc guard on duty at the edge of the Old Logging Camp. Gorman was stone, with his arms broken off. His face face was frozen into a rictus of fear and horror, and he seemed to be looking out North-East. Bernie and Bam Bam followed a trail left by something large and slithery and a large tailed quadruped.

The trail led to the edge of Mile Lake and a shore-cliff with a narrow path leading up and up. The heroes followed the trail to a craggy crack in the rock, and thereby found the lair of Alasaria the Old, a Medusa Bard of some reknown, at least in serpent circles. Entrance to the lair was through a set of smashed stone doors banded in bronze, carved with Dwarven burial symbols - this place was an old tomb dedicated to Goran, the God of the Dwarves.

The entrance chamber was large, with a high ceiling, and dimly lit. Walls to either side were 30 feet high with a domed ceiling - the walls seemed to have long vertical slits in them, with darkness beyond. The room was teeming with snakes - snakes of all shapes and sized slithered here and there, and the heroes quickly found themselves fighting swarms of the serpents. Beyond the darkened arrow slits, noise and voices could be heard.

Wild William opened up the fight by summoning a quartet of Lantern Archons, and sending them up to illuminate the slits - their rays of light caused consternation beyond the wall, and a volley of extremely accurate arrows flew from the high slits. Several of the heroes were hit, but their Hero's Feast stood them well against the venom on the shafts. A stairway up, with a banded stone door, trapped the heroes in the room, and a deep pit made movement difficult.

The fight progressed, with several heroes using dimensional travel to escape the deadly shooting gallery, and dim dooring directly into one of the shooting rooms, where Medusae and Low Gorgon puppies stood shooting down into the room. Wild William sent a summoned Hound Archon past the locked portal with a potion of Gaseous Form, and the Hound let the heroes in. Arban conjured a Wall of Stone and blocked the arrow slits and the pit, rendering the shooting gallery safe for the mages.

With most of the heroes fighting with their eyes closed, using mirrors or simply averting their gazes, the Medusae and Gorgons were unable to petrify and heroes until much later in the battle, when Wild William accidentally crossed gazes with a Low Gorgon, and was turned to stone. Guldrim restored him quickly with a spell from a scroll, and the fight continued.

The males of the lair - a trio of Asaathi Abominations - came forth and were slaughtered in turn, but not before threatening Sham, who had not counted on their excellent grappling ability.

When Alasaria finally deigned to appear, she managed to confuse Verdana and was promptly blinded by Arban, thus rendering her gaze useless. She withdrew with the aid of her servants. The heroes finished the other denizens of the place before using another dimensional door to penetrate her quarters. There she was found eating at a most unholy of altars - a stone block upon which was kept an urn of Mormo's viscera. She turned to the heroes, ready to smite them, but the viscera poved too potent and she fell, dead, at their feet.

Arban began hacing her apart, and to his consternation, he noted that her limbs were turning into snakes and slithering away - even the leftover viscera was getting away! Some were slain by the party, but most of the breakaway parts of Alasaria managed to slither away.

Mormo was a troublesome Titan to destroy, say the religious texts. Her body, ever mutable and composed of snakes, could always form and fall apart at her whim; it was not until a powerful ritual was perfected by the Gods that Mormo was finally forced to stay together and face the power of the Gods. She was dismembered, her parts flung far and wide, and the magic of the ritual prevents her reformation to this day. Sages say that if enough viscera is gathered by her faithful and combined, the power of Mormo will be recreated, and she will form a body, to the despair of all decent living beings.