Aphono, Datura, Jack, Roddy and Zigar got in a longboat and crossed the river to the cliff where the red energy blast had opened a hole into the dungeon within. They rowed and hiked and climbed up the talus pile formed by the explosion and when they got to the hole they found tracks leading inside. Someone had beat them to it as they crossed over from the Mastaba. Two groups of humanoids.
Someone shouted from deeper in the underground complex. Another muffled explosion followed it, making the cliff shake.
Zigar crept into the long, straight tube, Plate Armor of Quiet making no sound. Whatever bored the tunnel clipped the edges of several chambers along the way. He found an empty bedroom and a chamber full of smashed jars. The specimens inside formed an unpleasant slurry on the floor along with the broken glass and pickling fluid. Jack entered the chamber, carefully picking up the glass to avoid it crunching under his feet.
The room to the north was scorched and lit red by the glowing hands of a wizard. He was blind, eyes seared out of his skull, and his glowing hands illuminated the enormous ring and amulet he wore. He stumbled around, feeling his way through the halls of his hideout by memory. The rest of the Gamblers stacked the door with Jack while Datura guarded their flank. Roddy tossed a grenade into the room, behind the mage so the sound would come from the direction opposite the party. The explosion caught the mage in the back, he whirled and fired a searing beam of red energy that bored through the wall into another chamber, which immediately collapsed as the energy blast took out the support columns.
The room to the north was scorched and lit red by the glowing hands of a wizard. He was blind, eyes seared out of his skull, and his glowing hands illuminated the enormous ring and amulet he wore. He stumbled around, feeling his way through the halls of his hideout by memory. The rest of the Gamblers stacked the door with Jack while Datura guarded their flank. Roddy tossed a grenade into the room, behind the mage so the sound would come from the direction opposite the party. The explosion caught the mage in the back, he whirled and fired a searing beam of red energy that bored through the wall into another chamber, which immediately collapsed as the energy blast took out the support columns.
As the old guy turned they saw that his robe was shredded by the grenade fragments but he was uninjured beneath. Thinking quickly, Jack used his magic spear to lift the amulet from around the mage's neck. The rest of the gang piled on and dealt him serious damage, but almost got a lethal energy blast in return. Roddy used a blossom recovered from the alien satellite to cast Feeblemind on the mage, removing his ability to cast spells at the last second.
Jack shouted that he wasn't the wizard's enemy while the rest of the group attacked the mage, hampering the effectiveness of his pitch. The sorcerer ran into a support column, oriented himself and successfully juked his pursuers as they tried to grab him, fleeing into the adjacent dining room. Datura ran through the long tunnel to catch him with her Boots of Speed and tripped over a trio of Hogmen hiding in the pantry at the end of the hall. The Orcs fled out the unguarded passage as the group closed in on the wizard. Roddy tripped him before he could get to his closet of potions and the others subdued him.
Jack and Datura engaged in a screaming argument with the wizard while the others looted his dining room. The wizard did most of the screaming. He was the great Alejandro Vendren, he had been blinded by the God Wild Magic in exchange for the magnificent powers of destruction he now wielded. If the Gamblers were going to pretend friendship they shouldn't break into his house, attack him and claim self defense when he shot back. Datura appealed to his vanity, suggesting he use the unlimited power of Wild Magic to destroy the last surviving servants of the God King. They could restore his sight and break the spell suppressing his magic. He agreed but the Gamblers decided to give him his sight back before they let him cast again, concerned that he might zap them. Datura placed a hand on one eye and beseeched Fat Sun. Jack touched the other and prayed to Leper Heart. Vendren shouted at him not to beseech the mutant God. The old wizard's eyes grew back, one the compound eye of a fly and one the flat pupiled eye of a sheep.
Datura, Roddy and Aphono arrived at the dissectory to find Jack Fatherd standing over the bodies of the wizard Vendren and his familiar (a winged ape). He had seen the table with the shackles and the +1 magic bonesaw and the heaped bodies of mutants in the trash room and decided the wizard's firepower wasn't worth tolerating this kind of behavior. Leper Heart had taught him to love mutants and the Lucky Drunk had taught him not to compromise with evil. And Vendren reminded him too much of the piece of shit Enlightenment agents from the Mountain of the Mad Marquis.
The other Gamblers weren't bothered. They took the Amulet of Protection and Ring of Spell Turning off the dead mage and stole everything that wasn't nailed down. Along with the platinum shackles, which were nailed down. Datura found an Amulet of Silence 15' Radius in the cell which held the Wizard's familiar and used it to pester Roddy.
Zigar followed the muffled sound of the Rat King Broadcast down the hall. He recognized the announcer's cadence as Houdini the Mummy. He recognized the singer broadcasting live from Brickmountain as Chelicera Venom in the Strings. He rounded the corner and three mutants attacked him. They lashed out with improvised weapons, saw the Iron Cup badge pinned to his surcoat and immediately apologized for their transgression. They were farmers from the Pampa who lost their land to enclosure and accepted the Grain Cult's offer of resettlement. The wizard Vendren kidnapped them from their farms and mutated them using Wild Magic. They had expected monsters and danger but not illegal magical experiments carried out by their countrymen. What was the Grain Cult thinking, allowing a gross violation of the moral law to occur under their noses? But Iron Cup, icon of civilization, had saved them. They gave him all the cool stuff they found and he promised to take them back to the boat when he left.
Aphono entered a side chamber in the vivisectory and found a trio of adventurers. An Elf clad in red leather and a pair of Gnomes, one dressed as a fighter and one an engineer. The Elf, Yosif the Red, tried to negotiate safe passage out of the tomb for his group. The Gamblers had just killed an eleventh level mage while they hid in a closet and they weren't interested in fighting. They halfheartedly tried to take Aphono hostage when it seemed like he wouldn't let them leave, but abandoned this as a stupid idea. The Gamblers let them go, though the Gnome engineer Kokhba took an interest in Roddy's skillful disassembly of the wizard's decontamination system to extract the wands inside. Jack got sick extracting treasure and magic items from the corpse slurry in the trash room. Aphono got slashed by a blade trap and adopted a caged rock hyrax from the mage's pantry.
With the Barbican of the Blaster Caster comprehensively looted the Gamblers headed for the hole in the rock face. The silhouette of a Hogman on a stolen broom of flying briefly occluded Great Moon overhead. Zigar looked up at the cliff over the entrance and found four Mantids staring down at him from a hundred feet up. One was decorated with bits of glass, metal and cloth. The mutants told him this was Colored Shell, the leader of the mantises who raided the far flung farms and villages of the Plain. She was a collector who loved the trinkets of civilization.
Datura raised a hand to greet the bugs. Jack begged the Grain Goddess for intercession. The Mantis raised her taloned forelimb in reply. She showed them a shining ring at the end of one claw. Folded her other talon in the universal handcommon "what have you got for me?" gesture. Zigar offered the Dagger of Daylight he got from the mutants. The mantises chittered excitedly. Roddy recoiled at the loss of the most valuable item the group found in exchange for an unknown ring. Over the Halfling's objections, Zigar placed the ring on the beach. Colored Shell hopped nimbly down the cliff face, took the dagger and deposited the ring. She hopped back up the rock, using her big claws like pitons. It was another ring of Fire Resistance, like the one Roddy already had.
With the Barbican of the Blaster Caster comprehensively looted the Gamblers headed for the hole in the rock face. The silhouette of a Hogman on a stolen broom of flying briefly occluded Great Moon overhead. Zigar looked up at the cliff over the entrance and found four Mantids staring down at him from a hundred feet up. One was decorated with bits of glass, metal and cloth. The mutants told him this was Colored Shell, the leader of the mantises who raided the far flung farms and villages of the Plain. She was a collector who loved the trinkets of civilization.
Datura raised a hand to greet the bugs. Jack begged the Grain Goddess for intercession. The Mantis raised her taloned forelimb in reply. She showed them a shining ring at the end of one claw. Folded her other talon in the universal handcommon "what have you got for me?" gesture. Zigar offered the Dagger of Daylight he got from the mutants. The mantises chittered excitedly. Roddy recoiled at the loss of the most valuable item the group found in exchange for an unknown ring. Over the Halfling's objections, Zigar placed the ring on the beach. Colored Shell hopped nimbly down the cliff face, took the dagger and deposited the ring. She hopped back up the rock, using her big claws like pitons. It was another ring of Fire Resistance, like the one Roddy already had.
Back at the Potion Addict, the Black Math cultists were nowhere to be found. The three novice adventurers sat at the bar while the money changer went through the cashbox they stole from Vendren's lair. The Gamblers ordered food while Datura went upstairs to identify some items from the dungeon. The great cat lounged on the roof of the pyramid and asked her what happened to Vendren. Datura explained that he had been blinded in a Wild Magic experiment and gained the power to shoot rays of energy, which he used to great effect before being hacked to death for conducting illegal human experiments. The Sphinx identified the wands, armor and weapons from the Barbican. She offered a secret in exchange for the pirate radio hookup retrieved by the mutants: where Aldrich was going. Zigar didn't want to give up his cool talking head but reluctantly surrendered it for the sake of the mission.
Aldrich was headed to a serpentman temple complex in the desert. There was an altar of Bloodfeast in there where he planned to offer a great sacrifice, though what exactly he would give she didn't know. He had charmed the old priest in the Temple of Quickness, the floating house with the bronze men and stone women. Aldrich was the kind of hero the Goddess liked when she was alive. A backstabbing man of many ways.
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