The Necropolis, part III - Death on the Ice!
Traveling further through the tunnels, the Ranger detects the months-old track of some giant crustacean that has passed the tunnels before them. They deduce that the shell fragments belong to a chuul, which is mystifying as this is not the appropriate terrain for such creatures. The mystery has no immediate answer, though, so they continue on.
Soon the party is ambushed by earth elementals flowing out of the walls. Remarkably no one spots the attack in advance, giving the monsters a free round of attacks which almost ends several party members on the spot. The Bard slips out the back, trusting to his mobility, and creates a space for the Wizard to escape as well. The Cleric heals the Ranger, getting clobbered in the process, but the two martials manage to stand and deliver their own attacks until the Druid-bear can clean up from behind.
This traumatizes the party, who proceed to treat every step of the rest of the tunnels as a potential death-trap, including spending an hour examining a lone stalagtite trap with no mephit around to trigger it. Eventually they decide to risk dashing underneath the rock that could do minor damage, and continue into the next room where they face the final boss of the Earth level: a pair of stone golems!
These creatures are immune to magic, which almost seems irrelevant given that the silence effect is suppressing most of their magic. They are high-rank, dangerous monsters with incredible damage resistance which the party proceeds to smash into pebbles with barely an inconvenience. Even the Bard lands a melee blow, while the Wizard relies on his pet zombie (apparently they shrank his Giant Zombie down to normal size, and it's been following them all along) and the Cleric mostly contributes a prayer spell.
This room is now rendered safe, and the party retreats to the inter-dimensional rope trick to rest and recuperate. After waiting for their spells to refresh, they roll away a large rock to reveal the exit from this layer. Once again they stand on the edge of a vast canyon, though this one is shrouded in darkness, smells of damp, and is freezing cold.
The Wizard and Bard start to shiver in the cold, which is quickly remedied by magic; the rest of the party just toughs it out. Two paths lead down the cliff face into darkness, left and right, one bearing the tracks of the mysterious chuul.
he Druid makes use of a powerful spell to find the correct path, only to discover that either one will work equally well (as the DM had already written this down, expecting them to do the obvious and follow the chuul). They trudge down the narrow ledge and almost immediately the Cleric falls to hard even for the Barbarian to save him. The damage is minor, but the Barbarian fears to leave the vulnerable spell caster isolated, and simply leaps down to accompany him, soaking the bruising fall like a champion. The rest of the party follows in their own way: feather-falling, bat-wing-flying, or just becoming a dire bat that carries the Ranger down.
The first attack is a group of large gargoyles that swoop in to pummel the party, then attempt to snatch them up, fly them out over the abyss, and drop them. This works as well as you would expect as the party simply beats them back, with even the Wizard clubbing one with his staff and evading its grapple. The Druid-dire-bat engages in melee while the Ranger and Barbarian break out bows, and the Giant Zombie throws rocks.
The next attempt sees gargoyles dropping rocks from above. The first one scores a critical hit against the Barbarian, doing actual damage! The rest miss and the gargoyles fly off, the party happy to see them go (though the Ranger does warn that the monsters will soon return). And indeed, a few rounds later, the creatures try again. This time the Bard flies up and hits the stone creatures with a shattering Shout spell, which has the same devastating effect as the Quench did on the fire elementals, and the Wizard tosses out a fireball, reducing all of the gargoyles to dust and tael almost instantly.
As they close in on the bottom of the 1,000' cavern, air elementals swoop in. They manage a snatch on the Wizard and Cleric, but to minor effect, as the Wizard simply feather-falls and the Cleric just takes the fall damage. The fight is never really in doubt, perhaps lulling the party into over-confidence.
They reach the bottom and stroll out onto the ice, following the tracks of the chuul and the Druid's guiding spell. For once they detect the oncoming attack, hearing the sounds of approaching trouble growing closer. Casting various preparatory spells, they form a triangle formation with the zombie, Barbarian, and Druid-Bear in front and the Wizard at the back.
The opening assault proves devastating; a terrible trilling sound crashes out of the darkness and the Wizard and Ranger are stunned for several rounds. Bad luck compounds this disaster as two frost worms burst into view. Denied the Ranger's bow, the creatures close to melee and spew forth freezing breath!
Thanks to the proper battle line, the squishy casters are safe, but the Ranger - who should have easily avoided all damage thanks to a high Reflex save and Improved Evasion - takes all the damage, leaving him inches from death. And then... worse.
A spellcraft check reveals crucial knowledge to the Druid and the Wizard: these monsters explode to deadly effect when slain! Unfortunately, the Druid cannot speak because he is a bear, and the Wizard is paralyzed. The party falls upon the frost worm with abandon, utterly unaware of the disaster they are about to cause. Before the creatures can even try to bite, they are beaten to death; and in the ensuing explosion both the Wizard and Cleric are slaughtered outright.
The Druid's huge hit-point pool of the bear-form remains on his feet, thanks to cold protection; the Bard, having presciently cast Fire Shield, is practically unaffected; the Barbarian is just strong enough to make it through with a Reflex save; astonishingly, the Ranger is exactly at negative constitution, and survives thanks to a quick healing spell.
This the worst victory the party has ever suffered, with the second and third outright fatalities (the Wizard had died once before). Worse, the Cleric is among the corpses, and the Bard's Use Magic Device roll on their only scroll of Raise Dead is a terrifying 2. However, the stack of bonuses from all the preparatory spells barely squeaks by; and once the Cleric is on his feet, he brings back the Wizard.
Restoring their lost ranks empties the party's pockets, which is an excellent result (as it means nobody has to redo their character sheet). So far this epic dungeon has cost the party a shield, a scroll, and the change in their pockets; but all of this is merely prelude. Next comes the plane of water, which the party will treat as a chance to refill their purses, and then, finally the heart of the lair: the tomb of the lich, and whatever terrifying dangers it has concealed behind all these epic and yet ultimately futile defenses.