double trouble

Yes, we are tiring. I thought I’d just blinked but we were once again in the middle of a heated battle.

I was too far back to see what was going on but some of the others had opened a door up ahead and the corridor had filled with flame and blight—apparently they’d disturbed a couple of high level spell casters.

Those at the front started pushing back and the corridor was filled with a large black amorphous shape. We had just begun to engage that when a large devil appeared as well. I tried calling upon the Lightbringer to return the devil and possibly the blob whence they had been summoned but the magic was too strong for me.

I cast my mightiest destructive spell against the blob while a couple of the others engaged the devil. I’m sure I caused great damage but the effect was imperceptible. Aeriana formed up with Janne, Kasaki and Damien to attempt to take out the spellcasters, and they teleported into the room where the spellcasters were casting their spells unhindered.

As they vanished I joined Deathspank in fighting the devil and while I’m not sure how much help I really was we did manage to destroy it and Deathspank held off the blob as well.

Things did not go well for the others. They appeared in the other room unhindered but failed to capitalise on the element of surprise. Instead of two spellcasters they found one hideously mutated drow with two heads, both of which were able to cast spells simultaneously.

I’m not sure whether “they” is the correct pronoun but we’ll go with that. They had already cast several defensive spells and Janne and Kasaki were unable to make contact with their weapons, while Damien had already exhausted most of his spells in earlier battles and had little to offer.

I don’t know exactly what happened in there but I heard screaming and then everyone was yelling to run away. It was at this moment that the blob aalmost encompassed Deathspank, in the process completely destroying his armour.

I ran down the stairs to the floor below and saw Igbot, Aeriana, Kasaki and Damien. The latter three were covered with blood and there was no sign of Janne. Deathspank joined us and Damien cast a spell to return us to Ptolus, or so I thought.

Instead we appeared at the dwarven city, which at least was a safe place to be. They also had spellcasters to restore Janne from death using the blood that had liberally covered some of our party.

While it is galling to have retreated without finding Bemmut, it was the sensible thing to do and if anything we hesitated too long before doing so. These are not the last foes I expect to face of great power and doing so with our abilities depleted is foolhardy.

One additional benefit of our withdrawal is that we may be able to bring some dwarves back with us to escort the slaves to safety.

May the Lightbringer show His mercy and guide us to Bemmut.