The murderhoboes
Zaber, suave and debonaire man
Polly, cute and deadly elf archer
Stonemaul, half-orc holy warrior
What happened
The ice wall melts, and behind it we find a wall of stacked rubble. Garreth focuses his chi and punches the wall with a mighty blow, knocking it down. I pick up some of the ice from the ice wall and use it to cool my beer, then put on my ring.
I fly past, and see that the tunnel links to an earlier one. Then, I go back and turn in a way I hadn't yet checked out. I see an acid pool and some rubble, then, from up the steep tunnel comes the sound of a battle. The neighing and shrieks of a horse, but deeper and at the same time more hollow, rebound off the stone walls, and you can also hear curses in a foul tongue.
Just another domestic disturbance, so I keep going. After climbing the escarpment, the ground levels out a bit, and the tunnel forks ahead. The narrower passage is to the right, and I see the flickering of fire from that direction. The broader passage, to the left, goes up sharply, and thick smoke billows from that way. Just off the mouth of the left tunnel stands a hollowed-out stalagmite filled with smoking water. Barked curses and whinnies of pain, as if someone were torturing a horse, come from the smoky tunnel.
The smoke ebbs, and a great black steed, bigger than a cottage, leaps into the air above my head, not seeing me. Its hooves are four spurts of fire, and it snorts choking smoke as its eyes roll in fear and pain, for a being even more evil mounts this beast. A man-sized fiend covered head to thick tail with spikes grips the unholy steed, using its barbs to keep a hold as it bucks to throw him off. Burning blood streams down the unhorse’s flanks.
I back up, but keep my eyes on the two of them. They seem into each other. The horse seems to be winning the fight, but it's messy, and at last the demon gets the upper hand. I get back to the others, and take off my ring. Right after I do so, Garreth slaps me upside the head just to let me know that he knew I was there. I rub my head, then let them know we have a demon rodeo clown on a demon horse.
Poll says, "Ooh, horses are nature right? We should save it!"
I smile at Polly. "Ah, I'm pretty sure this one is Not Nature."
Stonemaul asks me, "Demon horse, correct?"
I nod. "Yep."
Polly asks, "How do we know it's a demon horse?"
I scrunch my face. "It was breathing smoke?"
Polly says, "Oh. Horses don't normally breathe smoke, do they?"
I shake my head. "That's not normal equine behavior, at least not where I come from. Plus it had fiery hooves."
Stonemaul says that this sounds like a nightmare, a fiend that is neither demon nor devil, but can hop in and out of the Ethereal Plane. We chat about whether we should help the horse or the rider, but Garreth and Polly say we should kill both and be done with them. Garreth stalks off towards them, and I put my ring back on and follow, as do the others.
Once there, Garreth and Stonemaul take a second to power themselves up, I slip into a good spot, and Polly just starts shooting the rider. One of her arrows slows before bouncing off its torso, then she misses with her next two shots.
The spiny demon beckons towards Polly and says awful-sounding things. Polly looks a little sickened as a cold, greasy , sickly cloud of smoke goes around her. The nightmare also snorts big clouds of nasty smoke, but Garreth and I can handle the smell.
It flies down next to Garreth, and Stonemaul realizes that the horse is not just a nightmare, but a cauchermar. These are even more evil than normal nightmares, and as big as a cottage. He also realizes that the spiny demon is a barbed devil. He yells, "It's a barbed devil. We don't want to get in close and divine weapons work better."
Polly gets in close and fires her arrows. The cauchermar doesn't feel the first two, but dodges into the last one. Garreth swings at the rider, and hits the leg, crippling it and making it fall into Garreth's sword as it comes up and whacks its arm. At last, Garreth cuts off a leg before missing its neck. It rages in a tongue that we cannot understand, but it doesn't sound nice, and lashes out at Garreth as it falls, firing two blazing rays of light at him and then clawing with its arm at his sword. However, Garreth gets out of the way of the eye blasts and cuts off the demon's arm as it tries to claw him.
Garreth chuckles and says in Undercommon, "That was a foolish mistake. I'm already winning."
Stonemaul grins. "I'd say something about torturing a clearly outclassed creature but … demon."
I step in and shove my knife into the horse's lungs twice. The cauchermar gallops through the wall, withering into thin air. Stonemaul rushes the demon with his shield, but the demon's evil aura pushes Stonemaul back. However, Stonemaul's sword cuts the demon twice as he steps back. Polly helpfully shoots it some more, but nothing gets through. It wildly fires eye rays at Stonemau, Garreth, and Polly, but misses with all of them. Garreth steps up and ends its life with a sword swing.
We start looking around for loot, and I find that it has a ring on the arm that went flying. I show it to Polly, and she says it's magic. We wipe off our weapons and keep going. I get to a big cavern where many tunnels link up. A headland overlooks the area, some fifteen or so feet overhead. Light blazes forth from somewhere up there, as if someone lit a great bonfire. I turn to the others and ask, "Does anyone have some graham crackers and marshmallows and Hershey bars?"
Polly sighs wistfully. "I wish we had elvish graham crackers."
I say, "G, let's have a barbecue. Beer and brats. We'll get the club."
Garreth asks me, "Do you see anything down there?"
I say, "Yeah, man, bonfire. Like I said, time for some s'mores."
Garreth squints and looks. "Sure, but who's using the fire and what's it burning?"
I shrug. "We'll be the ones using it in the end."
Garreth says nothing, and goes a little nearer to get a better look. I follow, as does Polly, asking if she can shoot anything. I fly up a bit, and slip on my ring. Now, I see beings, each about twice the height of a man and apparently made of nothing but fire, stand in a rough triangle, two near the other and speaking in some crackling tongue to the third, which is quite different. Its flames are shot through with steaks of ebon and green, and in its core swirls a sphere of silently screaming faces, almost recognizable as human, dwarf, and other familiar races.
These three beings are our fire. "We better have some big marshmallows."
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