Netherwars Part 5 – Adapted from the adventure by Kate Baker
Synopsis only
It had been a couple of weeks since the team had returned from the Dungeon Dimension. While there, they had witnessed the Mask of Malador mysteriously vanish, apparently teleported away. They still hadn’t found it.
Adrian Eldrich was contacted via the scrying mirror, and he agreed that it had to have returned to Earth. He also confirmed that the mask had been initially discovered in our time by him in a lost temple, only to disappear when Malador was finally defeated. It was subsequently rediscovered, sealed in an ancient shrine near Pompeii, concealed inside the Janus Mask. It seemed that the mask was capable of travelling independently through space and possibly time.
The team narrowed down its current location to either Egypt or Italy, as Seven announced there was definitely a taint of dark magic currently centred on Venice. She reminded them that they had a contact there that they had previously encountered in Israel, the Mambo priestess of voodoo, Madame O’Tando who might help them to identify and track the magic overshadowing the city.
Taking a freeze gun with them, the team headed in the Crate to the beautiful City of Canals and Bridges, only to discover San Marco was partially flooded and the canals stank. Heading to the backstreets around San Marco, they discovered that Madame O’Tando’s Botanica shop had been broken into overnight and the neighbours were concerned about the non-appearance of her student and apprentice Tyler. Entering the shop, they again meet a Madame O’Tando that didn’t remember ever meeting them previously, spoke without any trace of a Caribbean accent and seemed to think that her apprentice was female. Paragon, hearing movement coming from a backroom, found the real Marie O’Tando, as her doppelgänger reverted into a reptilian humanoid and attacked them.
They managed to capture the fake O’Tando and Akira cast a spell on her, forcing her to answer truthfully. She reveals that she was part of a local cult of Lemurian Serpent People who had found the mask and decided to use it to end the Atlantean lich, Malador for good by binding Malador’s spirit to Tyler’s body before permanently destroying them both.
Spellbound, she directed them to a Venetian island called Lazaretto Nuovo, ‘New Quarantine’, that had been used as a penitentiary for sufferers of the bubonic plague in the 15th century. Today it was a museum.
Arriving on the island, they discovered that the flood drains beneath the prison led to even deeper caves and a Lemurian temple where they witnessed a Lemurian priest, holding an obviously fake copy of Malador’s Mask surrounded by hybrid Hydras, two headed guards.
As a vicious fight ensued, the priest escaped down a tunnel followed by Akira, leaving Paragon and Banshee to fight the hydras, only to discover their healing ability made it extremely difficult to do any long-term damage. Realising there was another prisoner in the temple, Paragon broke into the cells and discovered his apparent ‘cousin’, the immortal mage Medea, bound and gagged. In an act of chivalry, he immediately freed her, only to be rewarded by being partially transformed into a pig. With the priest escaping, Banshee, and he were forced to hurry after Akira who witnessed the priest enter the water heading towards an ancient palace on another, nearby island, his form dissolving into a swarm of snakes that swam away.
The team exited the flood drains, and they flew towards the other island, where they encountered a number of shape-shifted serpent people guarding the palace and grounds. They covertly entered the palace, where they found themselves fighting a guard who appeared to be an uplifted crocodile-like creature. Having eventually rendered it unconscious, they discovered that the palace has a concealed basement, and they headed down to confront the Cult of Ophidiana in the bowels of the earth.
Hiding, Mary used a Celtic version of the Abjurations of Abbridon to undo the spell cast on Paragon as they decided to use a nearby dumb waiter shaft to get to the basement. As they made their plans (with Paragon proposing to go down in the lift while Banshee and Akira turned insubstantial and invisible to head down the shaft), they hear a now familiar female voice behind them, mocking.
Medea stood behind them, making fun of the males and especially Peter’s claims to them being cousins. She had cast a spell of concealment round them as she explained that she was there to help them to defeat Malador before he claimed the Earth as his own domain; it was the enemy of my enemy sort of thing.
She went on to explain that the real enemy was Malador, who had mind controlled the serpent people to do his bidding as he planned to trap the spirit of Adrian Eldrich in a ritual of power. Apparently both she and Malador thought him dead, as the post of Master Mage was vacant and Adrian was clearly no longer on the Earth. That meant he had to be dead, surely? Malador apparently intended to try and trap his spirit and use it to power his own ascension.
The team wondered if she knew something they didn’t about Eldrich, or was it just that his departure to take control of the 999 realms of the Netherworlds had left a void that Medea and Malador assumed meant he had to have died?
Having established that they needed to stop Malador’s ritual at all cost, Medea vanished with a snap of her fingers and the Balance resumed to their plan to enter and face whatever lay below.
Inside the deserted chamber they found themselves facing a horde of savage serpent people even as hundreds of snakes slithered out of the walls and came together to form into their high priest, Astarmis.
Despite still being invisible, the nest of Serpent People turned as one to stare at Akira and Banshee, their blank, souless eyes stared at where they were standing and hissed as they began to advance. Akira has only a second to confirm that the mask being held by the priest was still the clay copy and not the real mask. Paragon flew out of the dumb waiter to battle with one of the guards, another of the uplifted crocodile-like creatures.
In the end they only won by Akira using up the last of his mystical energy to unleash the Somnambulant Spell of Sirrion creating a thin, pinkish mist, rising up from the ground, which put most of the attacking Serpent People into a deep sleep leaving only two of the guards and the priest to deal with. In the end, Banshee and Akira used magic and technology in unison to freeze the Priest into a deep state of hibernation, even as Paragon knocked the last remaining uplifted guard unconscious.
Directed by a reappeared Medea, they made their way into a side chamber and confronted a resurrected Malador standing in a mystical circle surrounded by six large mystical crystals. He was attempting to bring a clay golem to life that stood in the middle of the circle; a golem made to roughly resemble Adrian Eldrich’s facial features and wearing his legendary Medallion of the Modrossus on its chest. The masked Malador was seemingly trying to animate the simulacrum. Although the Golem failed to animate, it seemed to be working, as Akira’s mystical sight showed a disembodied spirit start to manifest. He immediately unleashed a mystical blast at the undead mage, only for the crystals to flare into life and absorb the attack.
Banshee focused on trying to shatter the crystals powering the mystical barrier while Paragon attempted to attack Malador, only to for everyone in the room to appear to visually morph into Malador. Thankfully he failed to hit Akira, who he’d accidentally targeted instead. The team ignored the illusions and focused on shattering the crystals before they used the materialisation of the spirit into another familiar female figure, that of the Dark Lord Una the Unrelenting, to target the real Malador. In the end they managed to snatch the mask away from the lich which caused it to shape change in a flash of light back into the boy Tyler, a boy nearly dead with a sacrificial blade stabbed through his heart. Unfortunately, while Banshee could turn into Mary, so she could use her healing harp to slow down the injury, she wasn’t powerful enough to heal him and Akira was mystically exhausted.
Malador was once again trapped inside the prison that was the mask. The ghostly figure of Una solidified before their eyes. The room grew cold and, before they could react, the smoke and light twisted into a woman’s form standing by the mask. Una’s long, dark hair framed her cruel eyes, as the rumbling around the room morphed into peals of laughter. “That fool Malador played his part perfectly. As did you. months of slumbering within your world’s magical energy, of destroying Eldritch’s vile little talismans that kept me from ascension. How I envy you. You served me so loyally, and now you have the glory of being the first to die at the hands of Una the Unrelenting, Dark Goddess, ascended above the Gods themsleves!”
“You are brash, but there is little anyone can do to stop me now that I have been bonded to this final talis–“ but her hand passed right through the mask as she attempted to claim it. “No!”
“Oh, how dreadful,” Medea said as she sauntered towards her and the mask. “Isn’t it terrible when someone wears the same accessory to a party?” She gestured and the blade through Tyler’s heart was ripped free from his chest even as the heart muscle began to knit itself back together.
As she mended the boy, she turned towards the Balance and said. “My price for saving the boy’s life though is the mask. I can just as easily undo my work if you refuse.”
She gestured for Akira to give her the mask. Thinking she was about to destroy it, with Malador trapped inside, he complied and was shocked when she raised the Golden Mask to her face, and the world around them vanished in a flood of light even as three voices in unison screamed in pain and terror. When the Balance’s vision returned, only the Golden Mask of Malador remained in the room, surrounded by a circle of charred stone. Medea, Una and Malador were gone, the mask was drained of its mystical energy and the golem lay in an unholy heap. Akira picked up the medallion and walked back out towards the main chamber.
All the serpent people, including the priest, had disappeared during their fight. It was the same upstairs, the place was deserted. Holding the mystically drained mask, they set off for the mainland with an unconscious Tyler in tow, even as they tried to get Frankie to connect their commlinks to Seven to see if she could cast any light on what had just happened.
That was when they began to suspect things weren’t normal any more.
First, Frankie addressed them without referring to their titles as ‘designations’ and said that ‘Lady’ Seven was unavailable but mentioned that she was now residing in Adrian’s house in Wessex. To add to their confusion, as they flew towards the San Marco square, everyone was coming out of the shops and cafés to cheer for them and proclaim them heroes for saving the Earth once again. Apparently, even the Mayor of Venice was on his way to confer the keys to the city on them as a thank you for again saving the world. They handed Tyler over to the medics and made their excuses.
This wasn’t right, was it? No one had known about Malador’s presence in the city except them. Were they being mind controlled inside the room still? Paragon grabbed the mask as soon as they landed and shattered it into a dozen pieces, but it changed nothing.
With every minute the reality around them became more real, more what they expected as the Defenders (that was the name of the team, wasn’t it?) took in the adoration and thanks before heading back to The Crate and flew back to the UK and the praise of the press for their heroic efforts.
Akira couldn’t help feel that he needed to contact Adrian in the Nether realms, but the scrying mirror they had used to contact him before didn’t appear to be working. There was no time to worry about it, as it seemed they had to save the world again. After all, if the Defenders didn’t do it, who would?
Superhero Adventures, UK Style 