The Circle of Vissk-Thar

The Serpent Maze

Unlike previous levels the stairs down were short, curving down to a small chamber. Across this room, another staircase led down into darkness. Off to one side was a calm pool of murky water with a pedestal in its centre. Atop the pedestal, a golden serpent idol grasped an emerald in its fangs. As the Party members saw the emerald, each felt a strange sense of disorientation. Then, one by one. they abruptly vanished, Yangrit and Seawyr last to be affected.

One by one, they appeared in a small dark room, the narrow corridor ahead had a strange serpentine pattern of green glass embedded in the floor. The pattern ran to the end of the corridor before turning east to head out of sight. As the began to explore the narrow corridors which wound round tightly, they head distant hissing and suddenly large ghostly spectral serpents appeared, pushing them back. As the serpent pushed into him, Sir Godfrey felt a cold chill piece him. He struck back, but his weapon passed harmlessly through the ghostly snake. At the back of the Party Sherm was facing the same challenge.

The Party closed up, bracketed by the spectral forms. Suddenly things shifted. The snake's spectral forms shimmered into physical reality. The large snakes then reared and breathed clouds of poison gas which rapidly filled the corridor with a cloying miasma. Things were touch-an-go for a moment as first Juntrik and then Seawyr succumbed to the poison gas, slumping unconscious to the ground. Sir Godfrey fought back, used his holy power to cleanse himself of the poison's effects, and this time his weapon seemed to strike solidly. Tamarie fired her crossbow at the serpent at the rear, Sherm having vanished as Juntrik passed out, and Yangrit cast a flaming sphere and then attacked. Fortunately when the giant snakes were slain the poison dispersed, and Seawyr and Juntrik eventually recovered consciousness.

After a brief rest they moved on. Juntrik ledthe way through a doorway at the end of the maze to a narrow chamber where a pool ran down the middle. Two emerald bridges crossed the pool, and three serpentfolk guarded it. Battle was swiftly joined as the others also deployed into the room. Juntrik, hit by a suggestion spell, immediately jumped into the pool, finding it was swarming with tiny snakelings. As Juntrik clambered out after shakig off the spell's efefcts, he was swiftly replaced in the pool by Seawyr who had slipped trying to hurridly cross one of the emerald bridges.

Sir Godfrey and Yangrit moved to attack the serpentfolk, badly injuring one. Tamarie, after helping Seawyr clamber out of the pool, fired her crossbow in support.

The Slave Pen

The Party quickly slew the remaining serpentfolk, especially once Sir Godfrey waded in. Eventually moving forward, the next room. This large chamber had a pit at its centre, edged by a narrow walkway. The pit was filled with serpents that fill the chamber with a hissing chorus. Four stone statues of giant serpentfolk holding out long glaives stand in shallow alcoves in each corner of the room. 

As the Party deployed into the room around the walkway, they noticed a degenerate serpentfolk standing on the other side of the room who rapidly flicked a lever next to him. As he did, all four serpentfolk statues slid forward 10 feet, then rotated so  their glaives pushed Juntrik and Yangrit into the pit. Thyrus helped Juntrik out of the pit with only a few bites while Yangrit wild-shaped into a large bat and flew up to the ceiling. The statues retracted into their alcoves and the sperpentfolk guard charged forward attempting to push members of the Party into the pit. He succeeded briefly before being slain.

Moving out they found a long passageway, a door more -or less opposite. To the east a short staircase led down, overseen by another statue. To the west the passageway disappeared into darkness. Thyrus opened the door opposite an peered in. The room appeared to be empty with a large bench in the centre, a strange series of squeaks, hisses, and chirps came from somewhere in the darkness, so Thyrus decided to head down the corridor - only to run into a  serpentfolk guard coming the other way.

As Thyrus and the guard began whaling away at each other, neither having much success, Sir Godrefy checked out the seemingly empty room discovering that it was actually a viewing platform which overlooked a dirt-floored pit. In the far corner of the room, a bound human woman huddled surrounded by dire rats. Immediately the paladin bounded off the platform and attacked the rats, quickly followed by Yangrit.

Outside in the corridor Thyrus and the guard attacked each other, Thyrus having the edge only because Tamarie stood behind him healing him after every attack. Yangrit and Sir Godfrey went through the rats in short order and quickly released the captive from her bonds.  The woman introduced herself as Tiawask, but as she and Yangrit spoke, Sir Godfrey intuitively felt something was off about her and used detect evil, finding that she had indeed an evil aura. Confronting the woman, her form suddenly shimmered revealing that she was a serpentfolk using its disguise self ability. His ruse revealed the serpentfolk introduced himself as Ziszkaa. He claimed to be a dissident unjustly imprisoned by the ruler of this level, Uzar-Kus. Meanwhile outside, Thyrus finally managed to despatch the serpentfolk.

Temple of The Serpent

Before the Party left the Slave Pen Thyrus listened carefully a the door. Hearing footsteps outside, he motioned everyone to silence. Fortunately the footsteps passed by. After waiting a few minutes, he cautiously opened the door only to hear shouts of alarm coming from the room containing the Snake Pit - they had obviously discovered the body of the serpentfolk they had slain there. hearing the footsteps come pounding back to wards him, he closed the door.

Once the noise abated the Party deployed into the passageway setting up an ambush for the serpentfolk guards who would inevitably come charging towards them. Unfortunately the serpentfolk guards were doing the same thing elsewhere. There was a very long, very awkward pause as both sides waited for the other to act. Eventually Thyrus and Sir Godfrey  moved cautiously round the corridor finding it ended in a closed door. Sir Godfrey opened the door to charge through only to release a cloud of poison gas into the corridor.

At the rear of the Party Yangrit belatedly noticed that the snake statue in the stairwell behind them was also emitting poison gas, though fortunately after filling the stairwell, it only started seeping down the corridor they were into ankle level. The Party members hastily soaked some of their garments with water from their canteens and tied them over their mouths - hoping to gain some protection against the gas. Sir Godfrey once thus protected charged into the gas filled room. It was empty and, through the clouds of gas,  he could vaguely see two large doors his left each with a glowing serpent on them and a smaller door across from him. He moved to the door opposite, hoping to open it and release some of the gas.

 The rest of the Party followed, unfortunately both Juntrik and Yangrit immediately started being affected by the gas, Juntrik slumping into unconsciousness. Sir Godfrey opened the door, only to be confronted by a serpentfolk guard. As Sir Godfrey and the guard started attacking each other, at the back of the Party, Seawyr failed to hear a stealth form approaching. The first he knew about it was when a dagger slipped between his ribs and a someone bit down on his neck, injecting venom. The panicked sorcerer began shouting for help, bellowing instructions which everyone duly ignored. Tamarie was busy trying to revive Juntrik while Yangrit, hampered by the effects of the poison, was unable to aid much. Thyrus leaped into action firing off his crossbow and managing to distract the serpentfolk long enough for Sir Godfrey to get there - after the paladin had despatched his original foe.

As the gas finally dissipated, Tamarie began healing those wounded, though there was little she could do for the poisoned. Sir Godfrey and Thyrus began investigating the doors with the glowing serpents only to discover they were a really annoying trap that poisoned them each round until Thyrus was somehow able to get the doors opened. Seawyr meanwhile had wondered off looking for somewhere to sleep, which at least meant he wasn't in range of the fireball that detonated as soon as they opened the door!

The vast chamber beyond the double doors glowed with green light that seemed to emanate from the stone itself. Along both sides of the chamber were emerald pools, above which loomed gigantic serpent statues, their fanged
maws pouring rivulets of green liquid into the pools below. On the far end was a glorious serpent statue plated with green metal scales, reaching nearly to the high ceiling. This statue was missing its fangs. In the centre of its body was a glowing green emerald the size of a fist, held in place by brackets of dark metal.

Standing in front of the statue was a two headed serpentfolk, presumably Uzar-Kus who immediately disappeared as Sir Godfrey charged into the room. Teh Party, sans Seawyr immediately deployed to attack. The combat was complicated by the fact that Uzar-Kus used invisibility after every attack, but eventually Sir Godfrey managed to close and supported by the other's ranged attacks, eventually managed to smite the sorcerer into oblivion. Once the battle was over, Ziszkaa re-appeared and retrieving the holy symbol from the dead sorcerer , thanked the Party for destroying his enemy.

Tamarie went to retrieve Seawyr who somewhat grumpily followed her. He asked Ziszkaa to show him the room where the Spire was located . Ziszkaa agreed but warned him not to enter the actual room. Afterwards, the cleric showed them how to get back to the stairs to the next level, which involved a short swim trough an underground tunnel to the pool in which the serpent statue they had first encountered on arrival, stood. Warned by Ziszkaa, they carefully avoided looking at it!

The Party debated for a while about whether to continue on downwards, but eventually decided to head back to Fort  Inevitable and rest.