The Demonweb

The Demon Shrine

Following the conflicting advice from Lefrassa's  divination spell, the Party picked a random direction to head off in. They passed though a series of web-tunnels and ran into a some of the local inhabitants, a chwidencha, some sporebats and some Lolth-touched spiders. The sporebats proved particularly troublesome especially their enervation ray. Fortunately Lefrassa had a scroll of Restoration to hand!

Eventually they found their way to what appeared to be a Temple of Lolth. Talonux spotted that one of the stained glass windows was actually a  secret door, but they had great difficulty opening it due to its size. Frustrated, Elred smashed one of the glass panels, at which point a drow patrol and two giant spiders teleported in. Truldan and Elred cut a swathe through the drow while Lefrassa and Talonux dealt with the spiders.

Finally they party managed to open the secret door, and they took refuge in the secret passageway beyond, just before another drow patrol arrived. Talonux swiftly used a mending spell to repair the broken glass panel before it gave away their hiding place.

Hall of the Great Web

After resting, which allowed Lefrassa to use restoration on Elred, the Party continued wandering through the labyrinthine tunnels, occasionally running into various types of spiders and and one point having to overcome an obstacle where the web  appeared to have broken down leaving them standing on a ledge that looked down into the web-filled void of the Demonweb. Ten feet in front of them, part of what must have once been the connecting tunnel spun lazily around in space. Fortunately with Truldan's superior acrobatics skills and Talonux's fly spell this provided little real challenge, despite the attention of some bloodsilk spiders along the way.

The passageway beyond led to a black hemispherical room which was the junction of several passages, its floor was polished black marble marked with silver lines and shapes. Two sections of the wall were covered with silver-and-iron scrollwork that resembles webbing; these two met at the centre of the dome overhead. The floor wriggles slightly underfoot, and inscribed on it were four mosaics - an iron pyramid; a silver sphere; a bronze star and a blue cube. Lefrassa was keen to press on, but Elred decided it was time to try out the pyramid teleport key they had liberated from the drow. Arranging the others on the mosaic before him, Elred followed them onto the mosaic, the pyramid in hand, and promptly vanished! leaving the others behind. Elred appeared, on another iron pyramid mosaic, in a huge cavern opposite a dark forbidding fortress. Realising he was alone he stepped on an off the mosaic, randomly teleporting around the tunnels until he eventually arrived back with his friends.

Eventually they picked an exit and headed down towards a room that seemed to belong to a plane of fire and brimstone: the air reeked of rotting meat, and puffs of sulphurous smoke obscured the chamber rising from pits of lava. Striding out of the smoke were two tall skeletal demons with bony white vestigial wings, their entire bodies sheathed in blue fire - palrethree . These demons, and an inferno spider lurking in one of the lava pits, proved briefly troublesome before being either slain, polymorphed into a small dog and burned in lava,  or driven off in defeat.

After recovering a stone chest and looting it's contents, they took the eastward exit from this room, which led to an area where the webs of the corridor rippled and fluttered; they felt a cold breeze and heard a murmur of voices ahead. The floor ahead was dotted with deep pits and a massive silvery door could be seen at the far end. Elred led the way down a side passage attempting to bypass the pits, but the intensity of the murmuring voices began to drive them to distraction, both Elred and and Truldan being particularity badly effected by its confusing impact. As they got half way they came under attack from allips, but Lefrassa manage to turn one of them and Truldan destroyed another, once he managed to clear his head briefly.

Priestess and Acolyte

The Party finally dealt with the insidious attacks of the Whisper Demon by charging and killing it, after which they examined the Silver Door. Elred managed to pick the lock after disabling the trap. Beyond a long tunnel led down to a hexagonal room where a Black gate was guarded by a huge Kastigur demon. Lefrassa warned the others that this was too dangerous an opponent for them currently and withdrew, however the others, emboldened perhaps by the power of their demon slaying weapons, attacked - which proved a terrible mistake as the demon drove them off after badly wounding Talonux and Truldan.

Licking their wounds, they headed back towards the room they had fought the palrethree demons, taking one of the other exits - which led them straight to Lissondra's chambers! Elred briefly contemplated an attack but fortunately decided against that, and they managed to exchange the books for the report fro Rule of Three without any conflict. Lissondra also pointed them in the direction of a shortcut back to Sigil

Arriving back in the City of Doors without incident  they rested for a day before going back to see Rule of Three. The aged githzerai listened to their tale as he read the report from Lissondra. Grimly he informed that that The Queen of Spiders appeared to be trying to forge a pact among the demon lords to support her latest assault on the worlds of the Prime, and that Oerth was the first to be targeted, and has summoned a Demon Council. According to the information in the report a servitor of Orcus, Dawnat Sanp was willing to aid in thwarting Loth's plane, his dread master fearing that if successful the drow goddess would become too powerful. Snap was willing to supply three things to help them derail the Demon Council - a map of the Demonweb, a key to its lower reaches and the way to pass the Black Gate and it's fearsome guardian. Dawnat could be found in the city of Zelatar, at the Sign of the Black Heart.