Faced with a savage and resilient enemy on the ground, and deadly monstrosities in the terrible red sky, the four adventurers take up defensive positions. Remembering the horrifying shriek that the flying heads had used to render his allies helpless, Mishok calls upon Divoc to cast the spell of silence. In doing so, the quartet are immediately enveloped in an unnatural quiet, which is entirely incongruous with the abysmal visions that assail their eyes.
Sartan fires an arrow at the stocky, gape-mouthed mound of gristle, flesh, and teeth that rushes, snarling, directly for him. Perhaps a bit disoriented by the weird silence, he shoots wide and his arrow disappears into the river of lava. Cycek fires an arcing arrow shot at a flying creature, yielding an equally unsuccessful result. His arrow clatters uselessly to the ground.
A movement at the body of their fallen ally, Stringbean, draws their gaze to an unsettling sight. The dead goblin’s eyes spring open, and the pointed ears stretch and deform into a grotesque pair of wings. They begin to flap, weakly at first, but then with a fury. The neck stretches upward and the head begins to rise. Tendons stretch and then snap. Green flesh rips, and gouts of blood splash over the filthy stone. In the magical silence, they cannot hear the screams from Stringbean’s agonized face. The goblin’s head tears away from the body, takes to the air, and flutters wildly, as disoriented as a butterfly in a cyclone.
There is little time to digest this latest grotesquery, as the other flying heads are not disoriented at all. Three of them dive down to inflict injury on whomever they can. Cycek receives another devastating bite, and he again suffers the effects of abysmal venom. The attacker immediately takes to the sky again, but not before Cycek whips out his shortsword and swipes at the departing foe. He cuts into it, but it still flaps away, where it wheels around, preparing another attack. Sartan is similarly attacked. The flying horror darts past his defenses and sinks its poisoned teeth into his flesh. Demonsbane is quick to Sartan’s hand, and the warrior swings the enchanted blade. The cloven head lands on the stone sickeningly as two disgusting lumps of quivering flesh. A third head dives at the ever evasive Davros, but is unable to cause any injury. Nevertheless, Davros lashes out as the creature flaps back upward. He slashes it across the face, failing to kill it. But he swings again and brings death to the nasty fiend.
Mishok moves into position near Sartan, readying himself as the demon with the gaping, fanged maw barrels towards him. It closes the distance and takes a tremendous bite at Sartan. It’s jaws snap closed on thin air as Sartan deftly dodges aside. Demonsbane is almost whimpering with anticipation, and Sartan gives the sword satisfaction, as he swings and cleaves into the muscular creature, spilling demonic gore onto the rocks at their feet. Cycek moves counter clockwise around the stone platform, placing himself below Stringbean’s flapping head. He shoots straight up at it, but misses. This attack gives the heretofore disoriented monster a new sense of purpose. It dives directly down and sinks its goblin fangs into Cycek’s neck. Cycek falls to the ground, unconscious, Fuzzidong jumps lithely down from his shoulder, and Stringbean’s head takes to the sky again.
The other remaining flying creature makes another attempt at Davros and misses once more. He shoots it down as it flies away, and it tumbles into the lava with a splash, and a spattering hiss like hot grease from a burst sausage. He then dashes toward the fallen Cycek, already readying his healer’s kit as he runs over the blood-soaked, bone-strewn battlefield of stone.
Mishok takes a mighty swing at the maw demon with his heavy dwarven war hammer. He brings the weapon down with all his strength, crushing and deforming the horrific jaw, but not killing the all-too-sturdy demon. He steps back out of range, and the damaged monster lunges at him clumsily, missing the dwarf with the still deadly teeth. It whirls back around and takes an equally ineffective bite at Sartan.
Cycek is in bad shape when Davros arrives, but the rogue is able to stop the bleeding, and keep his elvish friend from meeting the same fate as Stringbean. The flying head of Stringbean shortly meets its fate as well, as Davros brings it down with a well-placed arrow shot.
Sartan and Mishok are still engaged with their foe, fighting in silence against an enemy that must certainly be roaring with rage and pain. Mishok sinks a crossbow bolt deep into its revolting flesh, setting the stage for Sartan to make the killing blow. He stabs Demonsbane into the creature and shoves it hard with his shield. It gushes blood and is thrown backward. It staggers at the cliff edge and tumbles into the lava, shriveling and smoking as it sinks slowly into the viscous molten rock.
A few moments pass, and no new attackers emerge. Mishok drops the zone of silence, and the sound of bubbling lava, and distant cackling laughter return to their ears. Mishok and Sartan rush over to assist with reviving the stricken Cycek. Mishok extends his hand a brings Cycek back from the brink of death with Divoc’s healing touch.
Having been embattled since the moment they entered this world, the team has had little opportunity to observe their environs until now, and what they see is far from inviting. A flat-topped pinnacle of stone looms over a tortured scene of darkness, fire, and death. Writhing channels of sluggishly flowing lava snake between jagged islands of dark grey rock. The ground beneath their feet is strewn with debris: bones, teeth, broken rock, scraps of metal, and shards of glass… the filth of ages of abuse by wretched fiends who care naught for beauty, relishing instead all the ugliness, fear, and pain they can muster. A ladder-like catwalks extends from the island upon which they stand to a smaller adjacent one, and additional ladders connect other ones in the vicinity. Upon one island, two demonic figures caper and gesture. Over the bubble and hiss of the lava, they can hear cackling laughter, punctuated by an occasional human voice, screaming in despair.
Free for the moment from attackers, they discuss at length their next move. Seeing no foes upon the smaller islands, they decide to cross the catwalk and explore. Davros, the most nimble of the crew, readies himself for the prospect of crossing a rickety structure that awkwardly spans a channel of lethally-hot lava, when Sartan impatiently barges ahead. In doing so, he loses his footing and falls forward, barely catching himself before tumbling into the fiery sludge. He rights himself and continues. Upon setting foot on the far shore, two small green creatures spring into view and attack him their tiny but vicious claws. One of them darts past his startled defenses and digs its claws deeply into his flesh, leaving a damaging residue of demonic venom. Davros hastens across to help and the two creatures wink out of sight. Demonsbane speaks in Sartan’s ear, “He went that way! Over there! Get him!” Sartan heads toward the narrow end of the island and swings wildly in the general area that the demon-sensitive sword indicates. His sweeping sword stroke connects with the invisible fiend, cleaving it in half. The two green, seeping pieces appear, twitching on the stone. At the other end of the island, the other creature appears and attacks Davros – unsuccessfully. Before it can disappear again, the rogue runs it through with his rapier.
The island clear of danger, Mishok and Cycek cautiously cross the precarious bridge. Cycek decides to lead the way across to the next island. He too is set upon by evil creatures that remain invisible until the moment of attack. He manages to kill one, pinning it to the ground with a skewering thrust of his short sword. But the other envenomates him with a clawed attack, and the elf is again brought to the ground, where he lays unconscious, his life force slipping away.
Demonsbane leads Sartan to the vicinity of the other hidden opponent, but this time he swings through thin air. This leaves the tiny fiend free to rush forward and attack Davros as he comes across the bridge. Losing its cloaking ability during the attack, the creature is targeted by Darvos and it is soon dispatched.
Mishok joins the team, and they ready themselves for yet another crossing, this time to a narrow shelf on a much larger island. Davros leads the way, and is nearly across when the uneven bridge shifts and he falls. He scrambles for purchase, but fails to catch himself. He falls into the chasm, but luckily lands on the steep slope skirting the edge of the island. He slides precariously close to the gurgling river of certain death. Sartan makes his way across the bridge with as much haste as he can, aware of the point where his weight would rock the structure and risk throwing him of in the same manner as Sartan. He carefully negotiates this point in the journey and makes it to the far shore. He quickly pulls out the handy Gnomish Gooey Grabber and whips it out toward his endangered partner. Davros holds tight and the mighty Sartan hauls him up to the relative safety of the godforsaken island in this hellish realm.
The strip of flat stone on which Sartan and Davros find themselves is just as filthy and rubbish strewn as the others islands. They explore the path as far as they can in one direction and find that the shelf comes to an end with a frightful view of a veritable ocean of lava. A few islands outlying islands of this archipelago thrust jaggedly out of the heaving mass of liquid fire, and a distant mainland of jagged peaks shows itself through the haze of incessant burning.
While one pair explores, Mishok and Cycek, remaining on the previous island become aware of another maw demon dangling from a wire, scuttling hand-over-hand toward them. Cycek fires an arrow at one of its clawed hands, skewering its forearm, while Davros unsuccessfully calls the fire of Divoc upon it. It continues inexorably toward them despite the arrow wound, but Cycek fires again, this time puncturing its other hand and knocking it from the wire. With an bellow, it plummets into the lava where it is consumed in flesh-melting fire.
Now, free from immediate threats, the party again debates the next course of action, and the scene closes with no clear path forward.