Editing Chronicle - Abyss (section)

==The Abyss==

[[Odin]] is not a patient God, and we immediately found ourselves plucked from the Prime and into the Ethereal with thoughts placed in our minds on the direction we should move. Instinctively, we all flew towards the same point, towards a silvery pool of light. As soon as we approached we had the sensation that we were being sucked along, entering a twisting tube with a background of flailing stars. I had a strange sensation that my body was being affected by the journey, but [[Odin]] protected us from any harm that might have befallen us. The journey stopped abruptly, and we found ourselves stood in a searing hot desert dotted with pits about a hundred yards across. Fortunately we had sound footing, and had all come to rest within a few feet of each other. A couple of miles away, or so it seemed, was an enormous city shimmering in the heat with a purple-blue sky giving everything a coloured hue. Between the city and ourselves was a great barge with at least a hundred Tanar'i upon it.

We had just a moment to take in the scene before being dragged forward and down into one of the huge pits, entering another tube as we shifted between planes again. We travelled rapidly within the tube, passing through pools that smelt acrid but that did not affect us in any way, and eventually felt as if we were dropped a short distance onto the ground of another plane. This time the air was icy cold, and the scene was dreary to look at, simply being shades of grey. Even the sky was a drab grey, and the rolling scenery just consisted of tundra mosses and ice, again in grey. Every few hundred yards were what looked like burial sites, adding to the sombre appearance of the landscape.

Away in the distance we could see a hideous mockery of a temple, with a spire fashioned in the shape of the Wand of [[Orcus]]. A low, groaning chant carried on the wind from the edifice, sending a shudder down my spine. To our right was a great palace, and we found ourselves drawn inexorably in that direction. We approached the battlements of iron and stone, all arranged in ugly, spiky disarray, and as we approached the wall we passed through the streets of some kind of necropolis beyond. We passed many tombs and several undead shambling between them, but our passage was not interrupted. We were drawn straight through the walls, reaching a vast construct within that bore many symbols of [[Orcus]]. We blurred straight through the walls of this building as well, emerging into a vast hall. The hall was encased in a bone arch, and the impression was as if we were inside the marrow of some great bone.

A throne of bone sat in the centre at one end of the hall, although it was empty and unguarded as far as we could see. A great hearth was set in the centre of the hall, and it was clearly active; it was wreathed in smoke and heat with an anvil sat next to it and bellows at the other end. [[Melai]] advanced on it at once, conjuring a cone of ice that she hurled at the hearth to cool it down. An eruption of steam resulted, making visibility even worse. Despite there being no obvious exits, skeletons appeared at the edges of the room. They were at least six foot tall, but bore no obvious weapons. Meanwhile, the steam erupting from the cooling hearth began to take shape into some evil spirit bent on retribution for the violence [[Melai]]'s actions had caused, and a strong wind seemed to suck the steam into its body as it increased in size. Hideous laughter filled the room, thankfully with no ill effect, and the foes began to advance on us at some speed.

I called on [[Odin]] to turn back the skeletons, but my efforts had no effect; they were not normal skeletons. [[Lanzi]] called on his dweomer, but again with no obvious effect. [[Melai]], faced with the creature she had apparently brought into being, attacked viciously with Agan. The sword did not seem to be as effective in this hellish place, but it did enough to banish the creature before it could finish building itself fully. I tried a lightning bolt against the skeleton creatures, but again with no effect, so instead planted my mace into the nearest one, which did have some effect! [[Hintzu]] was struck by one of the creatures, and to our consternation fell to the floor paralysed! [[Lanzi]] responded quickly, throwing up mirror images to protect himself from a similar fate. The skeletons were now on top of us and we were forced to fend for ourselves.

[[Melai]] was hit, and [[Lanzi]] threw magic missiles at them in a quick strike, but again they seemed resistant to dweomer. I tried to reach [[Hintzu]]'s side, but received a hefty blow for my efforts. [[Melai]] conjured an ice sheet to drop on them, but again it didn't seem to affect them. Instead she fronted up to them with Agan, and with carefully placed blows was able to fell two of them in quick succession. [[Lanzi]] used a blast of sound in an attempt to crush one, but still saw no effect. Both [[Melai]] and [[Lanzi]] were hit, although the mirror images protected [[Lanzi]] from immediate harm. I tried switching weapons, suspecting that these were not undead but some kind of magical construct. Swinging my rod of striking, I was able to kill the one I hit earlier with a single blow. [[Melai]] continued her rampage, cutting another down with Agan, and I was finally able to reach [[Hintzu]] and remove his paralysis.

[[Lanzi]] lost another image and took a hit; he was fast becoming vulnerable. I turned away from [[Hintzu]] as he started to move again, using my rod to attack another foe; I caught it unawares and with a release of energy from the rod it was utterly obliterated. [[Hintzu]] jumped up, joining me in attacking another of the foes, although his weapon was not as effective as it would normally be. [[Melai]] killed the last one that had attacked her, despite having sustained several wounds. [[Lanzi]] prudently used his mental powers to blink away to safety rather than risk being hit again, leaving [[Hintzu]] and me to fight side-by-side with the rest of them. We landed several blows between us, but could not bring one down easily. [[Hintzu]] was hit, but turned away from the blow and escaped the worst of it. [[Lanzi]], from his new position of safety, conjured a giant hand that began crushing one of the skeletons attacking [[Hintzu]], whilst [[Melai]] came to my aid and killed one of the foes from behind.

[[Hintzu]] abandoned his weapon, seeing that it was not as effective as it should be, and started attacking with his bare hands. He landed a crushing blow with his fist, ripping out the spine of one of the foes as he withdrew his hand, and the creature collapsed as its head rolled away from its body. I swung around behind me with the rod, catching another of the foe and destroying it in another blast of dweomer, but there were three still standing. [[Melai]] and [[Hintzu]] worked together on one of them, landing alternate blows but struggling to bring it down; the thing landed hits on [[Hintzu]] before it was finally finished by [[Melai]], but his stoneskin protected him. In turn, he fell on the one gripped by [[Lanzi]]'s dweomer hand, punching several holes in it until it finally lay in unmoving pieces. [[Melai]] and me faced off the last one, dodging most blows and landing a few, but [[Hintzu]] had time to focus on it without being attacked, and he unleashed a focussed strike that didn't actually touch the creature, but somehow blasted straight through it! Shards of bone settled on the floor and for a moment we were alone.

[[Melai]] immediately turned her attention to the still hot hearth, using more dweomer-conjured ice to cool it. Meanwhile, I turned my attention to [[Melai]], healing some of her worst wounds. We were suddenly engulfed by a great snow storm, and for a moment feared a further unexpected attack, but then realised that [[Lanzi]] had overdone it on the dweomer again and this was his contribution to cooling the hearth. More steam was given off with each of these actions, but I was able to focus on [[Melai]]'s wounds unmolested. This was too good to last for long, and sure enough a couple of demons emerged from the floor at the far end of the hall behind us, flying straight in to attack us, with one breathing fire.

[[Hintzu]] was saved by his stoneskin once more, but [[Melai]] and me were caught by the flames. I returned a fireball quickly from my crown, but it did not seem to affect the creatures, and [[Melai]]'s ice storm was equally ineffective. [[Hintzu]], to our dismay, could not seem to land any blows either; we would have to find some other way of damaging these demons. [[Melai]] hasted herself (a risky use of dweomer in these chaotic realms) and charged into combat with Agan swinging, while [[Hintzu]] tried some of his ring's power - again, though, the ring had no effect. Fortunately his stoneskin was still in place and saved him from damage. I started to utter a prayer to [[Odin]], but one of the creatures bit me badly in the shoulder; I was now seriously wounded and used my mace to heal me before I could deteriorate.

[[Lanzi]] used an icy breath weapon on the hearth, finally cooling it to the point where we began to notice the cold where before the room had been warm. [[Melai]] managed to bring down one of the demons with Agan, and immediately charged over to help defend [[Hintzu]]. [[Lanzi]] continued to try his dweomer on the creature but with no obvious effect. We were engulfed by fire once more, and when the air cleared I found that I had lost my side pouches and my girdle that had helped me with the dwarves so often. [[Melai]], obviously enraged by the pain of the flames, leapt up and buried Agan in its chest, landing on top of it as it collapsed lifeless on the floor.

[[Lanzi]] moved to the hearth and started to shrink it with his dweomer-laced sheet, but as he did so lots of skeleton-like creatures started to emerge from the area that the demons had done a few moments ago. They were joined by Tanar'i, but [[Melai]] raised a wall of dweomer force across the hall to keep them at bay. This stopped the skeletons, but the Tanar'i flew over the barrier, and with a gesture of its hand sent the hearth flying away from [[Lanzi]] and into the far corner of the hall. At the same time all of our protective dweomer was cancelled by the creature, leaving no mirror images, stoneskin or haste to aid us. Just to make matters worse, it then gated in a variety of creatures to aid it in fighting us; there were some that resembled blobs of flesh, and some that were winged. [[Hintzu]] created a wall of fire around the new arrivals to slow them down and damage them, while I tried to reverse the actions of the Tanar'i, but with no success. [[Lanzi]] sent two fireballs into the centre of the wall of fire, killing fully half of the new arrivals to even the odds somewhat. My attempts to use the crown were unsuccessful as there was no way it could draw on positive energy here, so I just defended us from attack.

[[Melai]] created a wall of force in a hemisphere around us to keep the foe out, but they had other ways to get at us and [[Hintzu]] and I were to find out. In an instant I was turned to stone, and at the same time [[Hintzu]] started dribbling, a vacant expression on his face and with his arms hung loosely at his side, not reacting to what was around him. Just to make things worse, his vacant look was immortalised as he too was turned to stone! [[Lanzi]], realising that the hearth was the key to our escape, created a wall of force around the hearth so that the enemy could not take it. [[Melai]] killed one of the two creatures that were trapped inside the wall of force with us, but we did not have to worry about the other as [[Lanzi]] blinked across to the hearth and secured it in his possession.

This was the trigger for divine intervention! [[Odin]], knowing that our quest was complete, transported us immediately back to the Prime and where we had left from in [[Minas Morgul]]. We were faced with two very startled half-gnomes (Hastorin and Jolt - Orodruin's folk that we had left) who reported that in their time we had only just left! This was evidently true, as the throne that the Sultan had sat in was still warm.

[[Lanzi]] immediately started explaining the appearance of the hearth to Jolt, who was the most interested, whilst Hintzu and I were still statues! Both Hastorin and Jolt started pouring over every inch of the hearth with great interest. Thankfully, [[Melai]] did take note of our plight; she wished me back to flesh and blood, enabling me to use the power of the mace to similarly return [[Hintzu]]. We were all back alive, with the hearth - praise be to [[Odin]]!

Unfortunately, [[Hintzu]] was still a dribbling idiot! I mean that not as an insult; his mind had been affected by one of the creatures we fought in the Abyss. I called on [[Odin]] to heal him, though, and his power restored his mind as well as his body and he was back with us as normal.