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I've noticed the more fighting the party does, the less I have to write. Maybe its because most of the dialog boils down to stuff like, "I failed my saving throw" and, "I did 27 points of damage." That's it. From now on, no more talky stuff. Just combat. I'm a busy unicorn.
When we last left our intrepid explorers, they'd walked right into a trap laid out by the nefarious Choke King. Now, low on resources and hurting from their encounter with the acidic, oozing Disciple of Madness, the party faces a gauntlet of terror as they attempt to escape to the safety of the Celestial Garrison. Will the home team win in the clutch or will they (heh,heh) choke?
DAY 153 THE HOME STRETCH (Make it stop!)
featuring: The World's Largest Adventuring Party
Roch - Dwarf Mystic Theurge
Cul'tharic - NPC Lizardfolk Scaled Horror
Shi - Dwarf Cleric of Pharasma
Riswan - Halfling Fighter
Elster ”The Stir” Slocan – Aasimar Paladin
Vyk Vulkyn – Halfling Rogue/Fighter
The corridor beyond the lair of the black pudding had gone as quiet as the gibbering horror itself, which lay as a scattered mix of slick, stagnant puddles about the chamber. The chokers that had hissed with glee as Shi was nearly devoured by the ooze were now nowhere to be seen, but the adventurers suspected they were close.
“We can’t stay here,” spoke Roch. “Nethys knows how many of things are out there and when they’ll return, and we aren’t prepared to fight them all. I say we make a run for the Garrison.”
“I AGREE!” shouted The Stir to the surprise of everyone. “THE CREATURES NEED TO DIE, BUT YOU’RE RIGHT! I UNDERESTIMATED THEIR CUNNING! WE NEED TO REST AND WE NEED A NEW PLAN OF ATTACK! WE’LL MAKE FOR THE CLOSEST EXIT OUT OF THIS PLACE, AND KILL ANY OF THOSE THINGS THAT GET BETWEEN US AND THE GARRISON!”
With that, the adventurers prepared to enter the halls outside and opened the doors to the chamber.
All was silent and dark beyond the doors of the ooze’s chamber. Elster and Riswan stood at the south door while Cul’tharic, Roch and Shi peered out into the hall to the north. The chokers were nowhere to be seen. However, as Cul’tharic and Roch stepped through the portal, a volley of small sling bullets whizzed past them from out of the darkness. Using the light of the lizardman’s flaming amulet to find their targets, three scuts hid out of sight while sniping the adventurers with their slings. What followed was a blind chase through the dripping halls of cankerous flesh as the minions of Choke King burst out from the walls to deliver salvos of poisoned javelins or bullets only to then quickly retreat into the shadows. Cul’tharic and Shi chased a pair of adult chokers through a tunnel to the south while Roch and Riswan pursued another pair toward their former lair in the north as The Stir insisted he could handle the five beasts that had fled through yet another tunnel.
Elster stood at an intersection of tunnels, an arrow nocked into his bow. Two groups of chokers had taken up positions to the west and south and the paladin fired on them whenever one had the nerve to peek out of its hiding place to attack. The creatures had scored a few lucky blows against the aasimar but he reckoned he could outlast them as one of the creatures fell to a well-placed arrow. Then, an angry hiss caught Elster’s attention as a quartet of the monsters leapt from the walls and ceiling of the hall.
The sneaking fiends had used the folds of oozing meat lining the corridor as cover while their cronies kept the paladin distracted with their javelins! Elster managed to hurl one of the creatures to the ground but, no sooner than he had, another pair of the beasts leapt onto his back seizing him in their murderous embrace. Cul’tharic and Shi arrived just in time to see the chokers from the west tunnel rush forward to join their kin in an orgy of asphyxiation that caused Elster to topple to the floor under the weight of the rubber-limbed monsters, and the lizardman charged to the south before more of the beasts could join the fray. Things looked bad enough for Elster but the sudden return of Roch and Riswan was actually about to make things worse.
The dwarf and halfling had chased a pair of chokers into the north tunnels but decided to turn back when they realized how far they’d been separated from their companions. Now, Roch gazed in horror at what could only be described as a seething mass of twisted limbs and hissing, slit-mouthed faces. The dwarf couldn’t make out the struggling form of Elster through the knot of bodies, but something inside of him demanded he destroy this unspeakable thing before it could trundle forward to claim him. With a quick incantation, Roch loosed a small bead of flame that streaked down the tunnel, exploding upon contact with the quivering meat pretzel. However, Elster and the chokers were not the only victims of the theurge’s flame.
Earlier, the party had encountered a spider-like statue that sprayed a darkness-spreading mist into the surrounding tunnels. The darkness did little to hinder the party and they moved on completely unaware of the hidden danger of the seemingly harmless vapor. Now, as Roch’s fireball raced toward the mass of chokers, the spell ignited the chemical coating the adventurers causing Roch, Riswan, Shi and Elster to burst into flames.
Only Shi and a single, charred choker staggered out of the impact zone of the fireball and Riswan quickly charged the monster before it could resume its attack. The Stir’s body was discovered under the pile of monsters as Shi and Roch set about to dismembering the creatures’ remains. Much of his equipment had been destroyed by the blast, but there was still enough left of the paladin to carry back to Four Waters for Slissth to restore to life. Sifting through the aasimar’s belongings, Roch located what was left of Elster’s strength-enhancing gauntlets. The Spishak-crafted gloves had worked as advertised but had also been the cause for the aasimar’s obnoxiously loud voice, and the dwarf gleefully hacked the remaining bits of the gauntlets asunder in order to prevent them from causing anymore harm.
At least a dozen chokers lay dead through the Halls of Flesh but, from their earlier battle with the monsters, the party knew another batch must be nearby.
“How do we get out of here, Cul’tharic?” Roch asked. Shi was once again in rough shape thanks to the fireball and it was only a matter of time before the chokers mounted another attack. The lizardman pointed east past the remains of a celestial warrior the party had found days ago.
“There is a way through here,” he hissed. “Not far.”
Riswan and Cul’tharic led the way into the passage and, as they approached the tunnel leading south into the garrison, the adventurers were suddenly alerted to a trilling screech from the east. A choker suddenly appeared clinging to a bridge of flesh across the ceiling as it loosed a javelin through a doorway in the north wall. In an instant, a sextet of gricks poured into the hall anxious to kill whatever had disturbed their rest. One of a the monsters, a spinning whirli-grick, flew straight at the choker on the ceiling as it’s brethren turned on the adventurers and another threat appeared from the west tunnel. On the orders of their king, the surviving members of the choker tribe were making their final stand.
“How nice,” commented Riswan as his rapier pierced the head of one of the gricks. “The chokers have expanded their menu of deaths for us.”
“I think Roch has been helping them in the kitchen,” quipped Shi. “It seems the paladin thought the stir-fry was to die for.”
The gricks, it turned out, were not the secret weapon for which Choke King hoped. The creatures were certainly menacing enough, but their single-minded pursuit of their prey made them terrible tacticians. One by one the tentacled beasts slithered straight toward Cul’tharic and Riswan only to be skewered by the halfling’s blade or the lizardman’s trident. Within moments the creatures were defeated, allowing the pair to turn their attention to the chokers assaulting Shi and Roch.
Three of the monsters managed to tackle the diminutive fighter and both Roch and Shi attempted to shoot the chokers off the halfling but missed. By then, however, it was too late for the chokers to achieve victory and, though they managed to render Riswan unconscious, the fiends met their doom at the hands of the adventurers. His empire destroyed, Choke King slipped quietly from his distant vantage point into the shadows; the knowledge that he was now alone and vulnerable troubling his warped brain as the adventurers made their way south.
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So, the whole party had pretty much given up on Vyk's player ever coming back to the game. Afterall, the guy drives two hours to play with us and, besides paying for classes, probably spends close to $50 dollars on gas for his trouble. Well, luckily for our heroes, the halfling showed up to the table one round after they needed him most. Better late than never, I guess...
DAYS 154-156 THE RETURN OF VYK VULKYN
featuring: The World's Largest Adventuring Party
Roch - Dwarf Mystic Theurge
Cul'tharic - NPC Lizardfolk Scaled Horror
Shi - Dwarf Cleric of Pharasma
Riswan - Halfling Fighter
Elster ”The Stir” Slocan – Human Paladin
Vyk Vulkyn – Halfling Rogue/Fighter
Roch, Shi, Riswan and Cul’tharic once again found themselves within the safe borders of the Four Waters commune and The Celestial Garrison. The battle against the murderous chokers and the insane ooze beast had claimed the life of The Stir, nearly killed Shi a second time and destroyed much of the adventurers’ gear so the group set about to reviving their fallen ally and replacing their lost equipment.
Though many adventurers had filled the ranks of the band and new members rarely gave any reason for wanting to join the group past a desire to escape the dungeon, a sizable collection of treasure had been established as a party fund and it was from this the adventurers borrowed to replace damaged or destroyed equipment or heal or revive their wounded or dead. Rewards given by the minotaur clans of Region F, had made up a large portion of these funds, but recent adventures were taking their toll on the account.
“I’m afraid our funds won’t survive many more battles like that,” Roch extolled as he checked the new total after seeing to the expenses. “We need to be smarter about how we do things.”
“Perhaps Elster will return to life as something like a cow or a huge boar,” replied Shi. “Then we could trade him to the commune and make back some of the money we’re losing.”
“Money is no object in the fight against evil!” came a familiar, yet diminished shout. Elster had returned.
The aasimar looked much the same, but seemed to lack a certain shiny-ness. Slissth’s spell had provided him with, by all accounts, the body of an ordinary human.
“Looks like somebody got demoted,” quipped Shi.
“It matters not!” Elster retorted. “Even were I a fledgling bird, I would take blade in beak and smite the enemies of justice!”
“Would that make you a stir-ling?” replied the cleric.
“Bah!” huffed the paladin.
“I think that would make you a sheep,” Roch offered.
“You people are insufferable,” groaned Elster.
***
Back in the dungeon, Roch, Riswan, Elster and Cul’tharic returned once more to a large door emblazoned with a sigil like a great spider that had thwarted them days earlier (Shi was still in the Goblin Empire cleaning out a bat infestation of the tomb he rented from the goblins.)
Elster (who’s player had read a little ahead into the adventure but wasn’t meta-gaming in the slightest, teensiest, eensiest bit at all by the way or so he claims,) exclaimed, “We must find a way through this door! The destroyed flesh surrounding the door is a sign that something powerful lies beyond!”
There was no obvious way to open the portal and, when Roch’s spells failed, Elster pulled out a sledgehammer he’d just purchased specifically for this occasion and began to swing away at the heavy door. With the first strike of Elster’s hammer, a loud clang rang out through the halls followed by a hiss as jets of acid sprayed into the corridor enveloping the paladin. Without the celestial resistances of his old aasimar body, it now became painfully obvious to The Stir why no flesh grew near the door. Unperturbed, the paladin chanted a quick prayer of protection from the cloud and went back to work as his companions watched from a safe distance.
It was no use. The sturdy iron door felt as if it were reinforced with thick stone and possibly enchanted to prevent entry. At last, Elster admitted defeat and rejoined the party.
“I don’t understand,” The Stir declared. “It’s as if some omnipresent god of adventure, perhaps represented by an avatar in the form of a unicorn, has chosen to spite me for some reason.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” hissed Cul’tharic.
***
The adventurers next explored a previously neglected tunnel heavy with the growth of the fleshy substance. Tendrils of meat reached out from the walls, feebly grasping at the party’s limbs as they passed through the corridor as a scent like warm, rancid pork filled their nostrils.
The tunnel ended at what appeared to be a row of cells completely given over to the slick, pustule-ridden flesh. Dripping stalagtites and columns filled the hall and some of the cells and the adventurers’ feet were lost in the mire of meat as they slogged through the prison. Then, as the adventurers reached the center of the hall, they noticed a ripple in the flesh around them. Something was coming and it had them surrounded.
A dozen gricks suddenly burst from the meaty mounds and cancerous caverns of the prison cells, launching themselves at the party.
“Nothing to worry about, my friends!” announced The Stir, fully expecting these gricks were no different from the creatures they’d fought only days prior. “We’ll have these monsters beaten in no time!”
Then, an adhesive-producing grick seized hold of Riswan as another monster tore into the fighter. Elster was quickly surrounded by five of the creatures and Cul’tharic barely managed to drop one monster before the remaining four separated he and Roch. The party had trudged right into the main lair of the rubbery horrors.
Within half a minute, the gricks had Riswan on the ropes and, though his armor protected him from most of their attacks, Elster could do little to deflect every one of the 25 tentacles and five beaks slashing and tearing into him. A few of the creatures had been wounded but only one had fallen after four strikes from Cul’tharic’s trident and the constant barrage of attacks and slippery footing caused Roch to lose his concentration while casting a few of his spells.
“Do it, Roch!” grunted Elster as the horde of gricks flailed at his body. “Give them your worst!”
The dwarf steadied himself in the sludge and quickly intoned a few arcane syllables as a bead of acid formed in the air before his outstretched finger. Then, the bead exploded into a massive sphere that drenched grick and adventurer alike in a torrent of searing, sizzling droplets.
Half of the gricks and the halfling, Riswan, lay still in the muck as the acid vanished from the corridor. Then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, Roch, Cul’tharic and Elster noticed a terrifying change in the gricks’ behavior.
The tentacled terrors seemed to be communicating in a chorus of trills and whistles. The flesh growing throughout the hall shook once more as the monsters gave an ululating cry and, suddenly, a mound of flesh between the three adventurers exploded as a massive grick burrowed up through the flesh. Spotting Roch first, the thing lashed its hooked claws at the dwarf who responded by delivering a devastating blast of flame to what passed for the thing’s face.
The enraged monster wrapped Roch in its tentacles and lifted him from the ground, tearing and biting at the helplessly flailing spellcaster as Cul’tharic drove his trident into the monster’s rubbery hide and Elster fell to the attacks of two of the remaining gricks. The lizardfolk’s first attack struck and wounded the giant grick but the thing managed to writhe away from Cul’tharic’s attack as it continued to manhandle the dwarf.
“If you had eyes, I’d spit in them,” Roch grunted as a disgusting pop and splorch was heard from the dwarf’s belly. “I hope you choke on my intestines, you bastard.”
Then, the dwarf’s legs and pelvis tore free from his torso as the grick chewed a hole through his abdominal cavity and threw his body aside like a wad of torn, wet spaghetti. Cut off from his unconscious companions by the girth of the massive grick, Cul’tharic could only watch in horror as a pair of the smaller gricks prepared to feast on Elster and Riswan.
A trilling hook-beaked grick slithered over the unconscious form of Elster, its deadly tentacles prepared to scrape and shovel the paladin’s meaty bits into its hungry mouth when a sudden cry and the twang of a bowstring came from the south end of the tunnel.
“IT’S TIME TO STIR THINGS UP, MOTHER HUMPERS!” After several days of madness, confusion and blurred memories of what might have been unnatural acts perpetrated on the corpse of a choker, Vyk Vulkyn, halfling adventurer and breaker of a million dishes, had returned!
The halfling’s arrows tore through the grick, causing it to spin to the ground as its partner monsters shrieked in anger. Cul’tharic renewed his ferocious attacks on the giant grick as Vyk fired arrows into the smaller monsters, which burrowed through the fleshy floor to reach him. Already wounded by Roch’s acid blast, Vyk quickly dispatched the smaller gricks then launched a volley of arrows toward their massive matriarch. Most of the arrows bounced off the thing’s rubbery hide but the monster’s attention on the halfling was all Cul’tharic needed to bury his trident deep into the thing’s neck and finish the monster off.
The horrible beast’s corpse twitched and writhed as its wounds began to heal before the lizardman’s eyes, but a succession of rapid stabs to the thing's head seemed to have the effect of killing it for good. Still, just to be safe, Cul’tharic and Vyk healed who they could and quickly made their escape.
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With their apparent victory over the chokers and gricks, the party has successfully cleared out nearly a quarter of the region. However, the horrible mutagenic flesh still grows thick throughout the halls and the adventurers haven't even begun to uncover the terrible truth behind the cancerous mass. I guess it's fortunate for them a resident of the dungeon has taken an interest in their exploration. Of course, they'll be really fortunate if Elster doesn't attack their potential benefactor before they've even made their introductions...
DAYS 157-160 S.
featuring: The World's Largest Adventuring Party
Roch - Lizardfolk Mystic Theurge
Cul'tharic - NPC Lizardfolk Scaled Horror
Shi - Dwarf Cleric of Pharasma
Riswan - Halfling Fighter
Elster ”The Stir” Slocan – Human Paladin
Vyk Vulkyn – Halfling Rogue/Fighter
Vyk and Cul’tharic rested within a long, near-empty chamber as The Stir babbled to himself bound within a large closet close by. Though he’d survived the battle with the gricks, madness had once again descended on the paladin’s brain and his companions soon discovered the celestial wards placed on the region barred not only evil creatures but those infected with the corruption of the Halls of Flesh as well. Thus it was that Riswan made the trip south alone with enough of Roch’s corpse to have the dwarf’s life restored by the lizardfolk druid Slissth while Vyk and Cul’tharic kept on eye on the crazed paladin. Three days had passed since then, and the chamber had remained eerily quiet.
Unlike most of the region, the adventurers’ current refuge was devoid of the creeping flesh. Indeed, the floors and walls were immaculate and what few damaged furnishings remained in the chamber were stacked into neat piles in a corner of the room. Whatever saw to the upkeep of the chamber saw fit to leave the adventurers in peace and Cul’tharic was grateful for the lull while Vyk was ecstatic to have a few days alone with his best friend Elster.
“I’ve been thinking we need a theme song!” Vyk excitedly told his companion after regurgitating a wad of dried meat into Elster’s mouth (it was the halfling’s professional opinion the paladin was in no condition to chew his own food.)
“Blarrghleralfl!” responded The Stir as he coughed a bit of food up onto his armor.
“I was just thinking the same thing!” exclaimed the halfling as he dutifully shoved the meat back into the paladin’s mouth. “I wonder how much she’d charge for something like that?”
Just then, Cul’tharic quietly pulled the closet door open and motioned for the halfling to exit. The lizardman had heard something approaching the chamber.
Vyk and Cul’tharic hid near the pile of damaged furniture as a mournful wail was suddenly heard from the east tunnels. Suddenly the north and southeast doors of the chamber blew open as what appeared to be a flock of thin shadows quickly flitted into the room. The things wheeled about in the air for a moment and then retreated the way they came, some unseen force slamming the doors behind them. Then, Vyk spotted what appeared to be an unfurled sheet of vellum tumbling to the ground where the shadows had been only a second earlier.
The scroll the creatures had left behind seemed new and bore a map and a message in the common tongue of man:
Welcome, Friends, to The Halls of Flesh,
It is my wish that you proceed along the course laid out below so we might speak face to face. I believe we have many things to offer one another, and I am certain you will find few others within these walls willing to offer you more than subjugation to pain and a prayer for a quick death. Please do not tarry.
Sincerely,
S.
The simple map depicted a path east, north and then back to the west but included no other details or descriptions of what lay ahead. Vyk crept into the tunnel to the southeast of the chamber, hoping to determine where the strange messengers had gone but the things had vanished. Cul’tharic, at the halfling’s request, consulted his ancestors but the spirits yielded only a vague hint of danger so Vyk decided it would be best to wait for the rest of the party and Elster’s sanity to return.
***
Shi, Roch and Riswan returned to the Halls of Flesh just in time for Elster’s fever of madness to break. The former dwarf was still getting used to his new body and tripped over his own tail twice on the way north. Though Slissth assured him the gift of a lizardfolk’s body was a great blessing, Roch missed his beard and couldn’t help but think of how he would become the laughing stock of his clan if they ever learned he was now completely hairless. On the other hand, not having to wear pants was almost worth it.
“I say we follow the map and find out who this message is from,” Shi announced after hearing Vyk’s report. “But, before we do that, I think we need to nominate a new leader and I nominate myself.”
“You’re joking,” huffed Elster. “I hardly think you’re qualified.”
“Why not?” Shi responded. “I’ve been with this party the longest, I’ve got connections in both Four Waters and the Goblin Empire and I’m still on good terms with most of the minotaurs in Region F. Who else here has shown that level of restraint?”
“The lizardman,” Elster answered. “Not you, Roch. Put your hand down; I meant Cul’tharic.”
“That’s because Cul’tharic barely understands a word anyone else says,” Shi countered adding his respect for the lizardman in Draconic so the reptile wasn’t left out of the conversation.
Eventually, the issue was put to a vote, which Shi won thanks to support from Riswan and Roch (Vyk voted for himself to become king with Elster serving as “Prime Mini-stir of Beatdowns” and Cul’tharic abstained from voting because his people don’t believe in democracy.) With Vyk scouting the way, the party followed the map toward their mysterious potential ally.
***
After a wrong turn led the party back toward the flesh-corrupted area of the dungeon and a trio of dead black-skinned humanoids, the adventurers came to an intersection of tunnels with a peculiar series of large iron and gold rings mounted to a wall at the end of the south tunnel. As his companions waited in a large chamber not far from the tunnel, Vyk examined the rings and discovered they were capable of turning. Thinking they might open a hidden door, the halfling rotated the center ring only to discover the device was a trap.
Vyk Vulkyn’s brain felt clouded and slow as a wall of solid ice erupted from the floor of the tunnel behind him. He was suddenly gripped by terror as the thought of being forever encased in ice invaded his psyche. Vyk’s fear of never again seeing his good friend Elster, never again fighting at his side or baby-birding jerky softened with his own saliva into the paladin’s mouth nearly caused his heart to stop cold. Then, Vyk remembered how close he and Elster had grown since he’d gotten them both arrested and thrown into the dungeon by Antagonis’ soldiers. Despite the paladin’s coy protestations that Vyk was the bane of his existence and the world’s source of venereal distress, the halfing knew he and Elster shared a special connection no wall could ever obstruct and, even as he broke free of the deadly spell set off by the trap, Vyk could see a large form breaking though the ice toward him and he knew that form belonged to The Stir.
“I hate you, Vyk” Elster growled as the frigid air of the wall of ice sapped his strength. “I hate you so much.” Moments later, Cul’tharic was dragging Elster’s unconscious body out of the freezing tunnel and healing him as Vyk sprawled across the paladin’s chest to “keep him warm.”
With the ice wall breached, the party moved into the west tunnel toward a lavishly furnished series of round rooms.
Tapestries, cushions and burning candles and incense upon small tables adorned the three circular chambers. Between each room hung a thin beaded curtain but stranger than this were the bars of iron jutting from the ceilings and walls. Cul’tharic’s keen nose then detected a strange scent nearly hidden by the fragrant incense and candles.
“Something is here,” Cul’tharic warned. “It’s scent it heavy like oil but not so rotten to the tongue. More like ink. We should be careful.”
The adventurer’s pushed on slowly, coming at last to the third chamber where they could see three adjacent rooms through more of the beaded curtains. The rooms to the north and south seemed to be used for storage and display but the room to the west was well lit and contained a dais upon which rested a small writing desk complete with a jar of ink and sheaf of vellum pages. However, what caught the adventurers’ attention was not the desk but what was behind it.
A large, dark serpent with a face too beautiful to belong to any beast sat coiled behind the small table dipping what appeared to be a sword-length stinger at the end of its tail into the inkwell and then deftly maneuvering the spike across a sheet on the desk.
“Welcome, my friends,” cooed the serpent. “I am Siglinde. Please make yourselves at home. I shouldn't be but a moment.”
I gotta bad feeling about this buddy " sylibant hiss following of distaste"
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Our stalwart seekers have come face to face with their mysterious would-be ally, the serpentine Siglinde. Are her motives pure or will the sinuous siren prove to be a low-down dirty snake in the grass..er, dungeon?
(Because this entry has turned out to be quite long, I've broken it up into two parts. Part two will should be up tomorrow.)
DAYS 161-164 ALLIANCE AND BETRAYAL Pt.1
featuring: The World's Largest Adventuring Party
Roch - Lizardfolk Mystic Theurge
Cul'tharic - NPC Lizardfolk Scaled Horror
Shi - Dwarf Cleric of Pharasma
Riswan - Halfling Fighter
Elstir ”The Stir” Slocan – Human Paladin
Vyk Vulkyn – Halfling Rogue/Fighter
The adventurers stood within the chambers of their monstrous host, a serpentine beast with a woman’s face and the smooth, glistening hide of an eel that called itself Siglinde. Up to now, Siglinde hadn’t been anything but kind and, when the creature invited the party to dine with her not far from her lair, this only served to put Elstir even more on edge.
“I think she’s a naga,” Riswan spoke as the party moved toward the dining chamber.
“Does that mean we kill it now or later,” Elstir growled.
“Remind me to never invite you over to the tomb for brunch with me and the goblins,” Shi commented.
“I don’t know,” Riswan answered. “There are different types. Some are considered holy protectors of tombs and temples; some are just monsters. I think we should hear her out before we do anything rash.”
In the dining room, the party was in for a surprise.
The long table, which had been set with empty plates, bowls and goblets when the party first passed through, was now laid out with fine meals, wine and sparkling water. The adventurers, save for Elstir, approached the table to better smell the banquet, amazed at the scope of Siglinde’s pantry. However, something was amiss. Whether it was an inconsistency in the scent or the sheer unlikelihood of Siglinde securing a roast turkey in the dungeon, it didn’t take long for the adventurers to realize the food before them was an illusion. As the vision of the feast faded from their view, the cold, lumpy reality of several bowls of gray porridge set in.
“Please forgive me,” Siglinde spoke as she slithered into the room. “I thought that after all your time in the dungeon, I might try to give you a little taste of home. I assure you the porridge is safe, if not a little thick…and perhaps a tad on the salty side. My allies make better messengers than cooks.”
“Thank you, but I’m fasting,” Elstir replied. “Religious holy day, I’m sure you understand.”
“How do you know what day it is?” Vyk asked as he dug into his bowl of gruel. “If you’ve got some kind of holy calendar-sense you haven’t told me about, I’m going to need you to start keeping track of my appointments.”
Siglinde waited patiently while most of the party finished the gruel she’d so graciously prepared and, to Elstir’s chagrin, the food didn’t appear to be poisoned. In fact, Roch, declared the soup to be quite bacony and asked for seconds. With their meals finished, Siglinde announced her reason for contacting the group.
“I know why you’ve come and I want to help,” spoke the serpent. “Or, to be more exact, I wish to offer you an alliance. As you well know, the Halls of Flesh were once part of a dungeon complex used to incarcerate evil creatures of great power. When an earthquake or some other catastrophe struck these mountains, many of those creatures were freed and the dungeon was given over to chaos. What you may not know is that ancient tunnel systems closed off by time or sealed by the celestials were reopened when the dungeon walls were torn asunder, allowing access for creatures from The Darklands.”
Siglinde went on to explain how she’d arrived to the dungeon through one of these tunnels and managed to piece together bits of the region’s history when she discovered the ruins of a laboratory near her current lair. According to Siglinde, a colony of rebel driders had located the tunnels leading to the dungeon and brought a small army of slaves into a massive cavern north of Region I where they built a city called The Barrows. Eventually, the driders sent one of their chief sorcerers, an expert at fleshwarping named Mahir, into Region I to establish a laboratory where he might create an army of warriors to destroy their hated former masters, the drow.
Mahir was a mad sadist who derived more joy from the pain his subjects experienced than from his arcane accomplishments and Siglinde believed this led to the drider’s undoing.
“Something must have gone wrong with one of Mahir’s experiments,” Siglinde suggested. “Something that led the driders to fall back as the mass of flesh escaped Mahir’s laboratory and spread across the region. Whatever it was, the flesh soon became the least of the driders’ troubles.”
“The Halls of Flesh have become like a giant animal and, like any living creature, it has organs,” Siglinde hissed. “You’ve already encountered some of them.”
“I really don’t like where this is going,” Riswan interrupted as he began to squirm in his seat.
“You’re right to worry,” Siglinde continued. “The gricks and chokers may not be aware of it, but they are all part of the monster that is The Halls of Flesh and, as often as they kill one another or are killed by adventurers such as you, they have returned time and time again. You can burn them, chop them into pieces or bathe them in acid. It won’t matter. The Halls remember them and, eventually, the creatures will return, wholly new and ignorant that they ever lived at all. But the chokers and gricks are nothing compared to the twin horrors of Anguish and Madness.”
According to Siglinde, Anguish and Madness were a pair of monsters set loose within the Halls of Flesh when Mahir’s lab was destroyed. If the chokers and gricks represented the eyes and fingers of the Halls, Anguish and Madness were its heart and brain.
“Based on the little information I’ve gathered, I believe these monsters might hold the key to halting or even destroying the flesh that grows outside these walls. I need tissue samples from the creatures to know for certain, but my allies and I have been unable to obtain them. That’s where you would come in…if you are willing to aid us.”
The adventurers took a moment to consider the offer before Elstir answered.
“Who are your allies and what do you gain by ridding the Halls of this pestilence,” the paladin asked.
“Forget about her,” Vyk exclaimed. “I want to know what we stand to gain.”
In response to Vyk’s query, Siglinde moved to gently wrap her serpentine form around the halfling, massaging him with the contractions of her body.
“You’ll find I can be most accommodating with those who appreciate my company, my pet,” she half-whispered into the halfling’s ear before releasing her grasp and addressing the entire party. “But if that isn’t good enough for you, I’m certain you’ll discover many of Mahir’s lost treasures buried beneath and within the walls of creeping flesh.”
“I’ll be honest with you,” Siglinde continued. “I’m not doing this out of any sense of justice or pity or charity. I like it here. Mahir converted this entire region into a laboratory. I want it. I want his magic, his lab equipment and his research, and I like a clean house. You get whatever’s left and, should you ever return, safe passage through the region. As for my allies, I believe you’ve already encountered a few of them.”
“My messengers, the cloakers, are strange and unpredictable creatures but they’ve proven to be loyal in their own way,” Siglinde spoke. “I expect you will find Lorath and his drow somewhat more talkative.”
“Who or what are these drow?” Roch asked. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“We’ve little time to discuss such things so please allow me to speak in simplest terms,” Siglinde answered. “Suffice it to say the drow are a race of subterranean elves but their physical resemblance to their surface-dwelling cousins is where the similarities end. Lorath and his companions are part of a group that escaped the drider slave pits and took shelter deep within this region.”
“I’ve agreed to aid them in their quest for freedom because the driders who control the northwest portion of this region have something I need. Whether through luck or loss, the driders managed to trap the monster, Anguish, within a large chamber to the west. If we’re to succeed, someone will need to destroy the driders or infiltrate their laboratories and obtain Anguish’s tissue sample. If you decide to aid us, I will send word to Lorath. He will no doubt wish to meet with you.”
“Before we decide, you mentioned other adventurers had come here and killed the gricks and chokers in the past,” Riswan spoke. “How long ago was this?”
Now, Siglinde spoke with bitter scorn as she described the recent passage of a dwarf who bore the crest of the Celestial Garrison upon his soiled plate armor.
“This rude, stinking brute called himself Pallas and said he’d come from the Garrison to destroy the evil within these halls,” Siglinde hissed. “He agreed to aid me and I told him the secret to entering an armory near here so he might deliver its contents to Lorath. He betrayed me and stole the contents of the armory, attacked some of the cloakers and fled north. Lorath’s people tell me he disappeared into the western tunnels after that. I take some solace in knowing I directed his greed toward the drider camp and suspect they’ve turned him into one of their experiments because he hasn’t returned.”
“Well, I’m sold,” spoke Shi. “Any enemy of Pallas is a friend of mine. We’ll agree to your terms.”
Elstir gritted his teeth, but held his tongue as his companions agreed to assist Siglinde and her allies. When Vyk asked about the whereabouts of the armory Pallas robbed, the party learned it was behind the very same spider-emblazoned door they’d encountered and Siglinde readily informed of them of the trick to gaining access.
“Feel free to rest in the armory and take anything the dwarf left behind,” Siglinde offered. “I’ll send word to Lorath that you’ve agreed to help.”
***
The adventurers stood before the iron bound stone door, its spider sigil silent yet sinister. Following Siglinde’s directions, Elstir removed one of his gauntlets and placed his hand onto the fangs of the spider, allowing the tines to pierce his flesh.
The paladin suddenly felt weakened as the fangs of the spider drained his blood filling the legs of the spider one by one. With each leg filled, the paladin felt weaker and weaker until all eight of the sigil’s legs was crimson. Then, a hiss and rumble was heard as the door (and the five-foot wall of solid stone behind it) lowered into the ground revealing what appeared to be a dusty room occupied by worn tables and chairs. Two chambers to the east and west split off from the main room and, in one, the party found the remains of a barracks complete with eight uncomfortable looking cots. The other chamber contained what was left of the armory.
Pallas had been thorough. Only a few notched and scored longswords rested on the floor or against a rack along with several suits of leather armor and a thickly padded surcoat. While the party gathered up the equipment to turn in to the commune, Roch noticed one of the racks appeared to have been dragged away from the wall and then replaced. A search of the wall behind the rack soon revealed a groove where someone had used some sort of lever to pry open a hidden door. Soon, the party managed to spring the catch on the concealed door and gain access to its contents, an empty shelf where some item of importance must once have been stored.
“Pallas must have made off with whatever was here,” Shi surmised. “I’ll bet those marks are from where he used his pike to pry open the wall.”
“Damn,” thought The Stir. “I really wanted what was behind this hidden door. I guess that’ll teach me not to read ahead in the adventure and meta-game my actions.”
It probably wouldn’t, but perhaps Elstir wouldn’t be so obvious about it in the future.
Because Lorath’s agents were not due to arrive for a couple days, the adventurers took some time to rest in the armory and then returned to Four Waters to gather information about their new allies.
hey if I had meta game-ed I woulda stuck my hand on the door to start snaffle sniffle sanrf
anyone notice I look like I should be on the cover of Sgt.Peppers Lonely Hearts Club band album cover
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hey if I had meta game-ed I woulda stuck my hand on the door to start snaffle sniffle sanrf
anyone notice I look like I should be on the cover of Sgt.Peppers Lonely Hearts Club band album cover
I will concede that your obvious attempt to direct the party toward the macguffin using out-of-character knowledge could have been even more flagrant ^_^
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Standard table, right outta the book. The reference to returning as a bird is more a reflection of the character's lack of familiarity with how the spell works. I adlib a lot of what the PCs say in the journal based on how the players play their characters, their skillsets and on snippets of actual conversations.
That quote is also sort of a nod to the old AD&D table where the druid version of the spell included things like hawks and bears (Reincarnation was once a Mage spell too.)
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And now, the thrilling conclusion to this session!
DAYS 161-164 ALLIANCE AND BETRAYAL Pt.2
featuring: The World's Largest Adventuring Party
Roch - Lizardfolk Mystic Theurge
Cul'tharic - NPC Lizardfolk Scaled Horror
Shi - Dwarf Cleric of Pharasma
Riswan - Halfling Fighter
Elstir ”The Stir” Slocan – Human Paladin
Vyk Vulkyn – Halfling Rogue/Fighter
Information about the drow was hard to come by in the commune but Four Waters’ resident engineer, Thomas Rose, was able to shed some light on the subject of Siglinde and her monstrous companions.
Rose, an expert miner and dungeoneer, had led several expeditions into The Darklands as an officer and fought the aberrations of the deep earth on a few occasions. Through him, the party learned Siglinde was most likely a Dark Naga, a species of naga, which coveted power and wealth and often sought to subjugate lesser creatures. He warned them of the naga’s skill with magic and her ability to read their thoughts, an ability she would no doubt exploit to prepare for any actions made against her.
“I hope you haven’t given this thing any reason not to trust you,” spoke the old colonel. “These monsters are honorable in their way and won’t tolerate insubordination.”
All eyes turned to Elstir. Assuming only the worst of Siglinde, the paladin could barely conceal his loathing for the creature during their meeting.
“Keep any thought of betrayal in your head and not in your arms,” Rose advised. “She’ll probably expect one or two of you to wish her ill, but she shouldn’t attack unless she’s sure you mean her harm. If you do choose to attack her, expect her to be prepared.”
Rose also offered what little he knew of driders and cloakers but admitted to knowing nothing of the drow. For such knowledge, the party turned to a most unexpected source.
“So they do exist!” exclaimed Wilbert Brechurt, the bard known as Threepenny among the residents of the dungeon. “I’ve heard lots of stories but never thought I would encounter a living drow, let alone encounter someone else who’d encountered one. Or I suppose in your case, someone who’s encountered one who’s encountered one!”
“What do you know of the things?” questioned Shi. The cleric and Elstir had paid their way into Broken Axe territory to consult the bard Vornmik when they’d spotted Threepenny and two of his companions passing through the minotaurs' domain.
“Well, if you believe the stories, they’re elfish bogeymen,” Threepenny laughed. “Supernatural powers, resistance to magic, demon worship, you know, the usual. Supposed to live deep in The Darklands where they enjoy conducting all sorts of horrible experiments and tortures on kidnapped surface-worlders. I hear they once tried to blow up Riddleport, can you believe that!? One rock falls out of the sky, and suddenly people are spreading stories about elves in black and monsters from beyond the stars. I like to think of myself as a yarn-spinner of no small skill, but I could never come up with this stuff on my own.”
Threepenny went on to share what he’d heard of driders and their connection to the drow race; small snippets of lore and rumor concerning the creatures’ origins as drow subjected to fleshwarping magic and reduced to serving as the enforcers and warrior-slaves of the dark elves.
“If you want my advice, cut a deal with the driders,” suggested the bard. “This naga Siglinde, was it? She’s no different than Antagonis or any other politician or monarch. She’s using your deal to establish a hierarchy. Next, she’ll try to convince you that you need her. Once she’s ingratiated herself to you, she’ll use her influence to control you and, once she’s in control, she’ll use you up and sell you out. If she’s good, she’ll let you walk away thinking you came out on top.”
“The driders, on the other hand, won’t shine you on. You’re a threat and they’re gonna want you dead from the get-go but, if they don’t think they can take you in a fair fight, you might get them to talk. You might have to kill a few of them to establish your strength, but they should work with you until their hatred burns brighter than their fear. Bringing them the head of that naga might be all you need.”
Shi and Elstir spoke with Threepenny a little longer of current events within the dungeon and then finished their visit to the Broken Axe territory with a meeting with Vornmik.
“Before the tribes split, the Golden Axe sent scouts into that region,” spoke the minotaur skald. “I hadn’t yet been born, but I know they didn’t get far and the place was deemed unfit for living after some of the warriors became sick and died from eating the flesh growing upon the walls. I guess the chief thought the abundance of meat would be too great a temptation for his people and didn’t want to lose anymore of the tribe.”
“The cloakers were another factor,” she added. “The creatures were apparently hostile and uncommunicative but not necessarily malicious; more like animals protecting their territory than murderous savages. They mostly used the power of their screams and moaning to harass but then a scout was found dead of a broken neck and numerous bite wounds. That’s all it took. The meat was bad and the cloakers didn’t appear to have any treasure so we never went back.”
Armed with the knowledge they’d gathered, the party regrouped at Macready’s pub back in Four Waters to plan out their next move.
“We need to kill Siglinde,” spoke the paladin to no one’s surprise. “We need to kill her, the cloakers and these drow, whatever they are. Then we deal with the driders.”
Elstir made his case, citing his belief that the naga was planning to take control of the region for her own nefarious reasons, and, while there was some disagreement as to when Siglinde should be killed, most seemed to agree with the paladin.
Vyk, naturally, took the paladin’s side in the matter though the rogue wondered if it might be best to wait for a better moment to strike while Riswan made the argument that the party still knew too little about their new allies’ motives to condemn any of them to death. When asked where he stood on the decision, the lizardman Cul’tharic offered only this advice:
“Among the lizardfolk, there are two kinds of chieftains. One takes power and keeps it by strength. The other is given power and, in turn, gives it to one who is stronger. Our leader should decide.”
“Oh right,” Shi realized. “I’m the leader. Okay. I’m not convinced for The Stir’s reasons and I’m not entirely convinced we should do this at all, but I’m okay with this plan. We’ll kill the naga.”
***
Siglinde, the dark naga, gathered and spoke to a group of her cloaker messengers in the whispering, near-silent tongue of The Darklands. What Rose had told the adventurers of Siglinde’s ability to read their minds wasn’t untrue. The creature had used her meeting with the adventurers to eavesdrop on their thoughts, and she’d detected hints of mistrust or violence directed at her from many of them. She expected this from lesser species. The weak and unworthy often needed to be educated about their place in society and, while the humanoids seemed open to an alliance and willing to take instruction, experience had shown Siglinde it was always best to be prepared.
“Lorath’s envoys will arrive to speak with our new friends tomorrow,” the naga hissed. “I don’t want this to be like last time. Cover all the entrances to the south and wait for our guests to arrive. Stay hidden. Observe and report. Do you understand? If you must engage the adventurers, try to take them alive.”
***
“Anybody else get the feeling we’re being watched?” asked Shi as the adventurers moved slowly through the halls toward Siglinde’s lair. It was a question that hardly needed asking. Beyond the party’s light, the priest could see only darkness and the occasional moth-eaten banner or tapestry hanging or mounted to the high walls and ceilings. Shi and his companions had learned of the cloakers’ talent for seamlessly blending in with such decorations and adornments and of their supernatural ability to manipulate shadows so there was little doubt the creatures were near.
“Ignore them,” spoke Elstir. “Stick to the plan.”
Breathless whispers and inaudible screams echoed through the halls to the lair of the dark naga who waited patiently with a pair of drow couriers.
“My friends inform me our guests will arrive soon,” Siglinde informed the dark elves before whispering her reply to the cloakers at the entrance to her lair. “Take no action against them unless they appear hostile.”
The party came to a halt outside the lair of the naga, knowing the eyes of hidden cloakers must be upon them. Roch held aloft his axe, its blade now glowing with a light like the sun.
“We’re here,” rasped the spellcaster’s tongue. “Prepare yourselves.”
Then, potions were uncorked, prayers and spells were chanted and weapons were drawn. A moment later, the halls rang with the hollow voices of a quartet of aberrant monsters. The cloakers, paranoid and untrusting of these strange humanoids, sensed the adventurers’ actions for exactly what they were; a declaration of war.
The baleful moans of the cloakers reverberated through the party’s bones from every direction as the monsters flapped overhead, and strong-willed as they were, one by one, the adventurers began to succumb to the effects of the beasts’ cries.
Riswan was suddenly stricken with nausea while Vyk and Cul’tharic became paralyzed. Roch, so eager to attack moments before, felt his resolve melt as he loosed his grip on his axe and fled from the circling nightmares that portended his death. Even The Stir felt weakened by the peals of sonic doom unleashed by the cloakers. Shi fired his crossbow into one monster, scoring a lucky hit that pierced the thing’s jaw, only to have the beast descend upon him.
Dancing shadows seemed to encircle the monsters despite the light sources carried by other members of the party and it quickly became difficult to tell the cloakers from their umbral doppelgangers. Worse still, Elstir quickly learned his attacks against the engulfing monsters wounded his own companions. By the time Roch regained his composure and returned to the fight, Shi, Riswan and Vyk were heavily wounded and only one of the four cloakers had been dispatched.
With so many of his companions close to death, the reptilian mystic fought the urge to launch a fireball into the middle of the melee and, instead, called out to Elstir.
“We should collect our wounded and fall back!” Roch hissed. “We need to regroup!”
“I don’t retreat!” shouted The Stir. “Not while there is evil to be destroyed!”
“Now, where have I heard that before?” came a voice from the entrance to Siglinde’s lair as three beams of flame suddenly struck Elstir, Vyk and Roch, scorching the paladin and the theurge and seeming to destroy the halfling entirely. Only a few wisps of smoke rose from where Vyk stood seconds before.
“You killed Vyk,” Elstir murmured as if in a daze. “I always thought it’d be me, but you just…just…”
“Killed the only person in the world who seemed to love you despite all your horrible manners, total disregard for etiquette and complete lack of objectivity, yes. It was the furthest thing from my intentions and I do apologize. I hope you can forgive me,” Siglinde sniffed. “Now where were we?”
“I’ll kill you!” Elstir roared as he charged across the chamber.
“That’s right,” the naga continued as a volley of force missiles darted from her tail. “I was about to tell you about how much you remind me of that dwarf who passed through here. He claimed to be a righteous slayer of evil as well, but I knew better.”
A cloaker swooped down on Elstir in defense of Siglinde, engulfing the paladin within its folds as the naga fired a shimmering orb at Cul’tharic. The lizardman, who had been busy aiding Riswan against another cloaker, was suddenly trapped within an impervious bubble of force.
“Can you hear me in there, pet?” Siglinde grinned as she addressed the paladin struggling within the cloaker’s grasp. “Pallas was a bully who hid behind society’s laws and perceptions of good and evil to satisfy his greed. You, on the other hand, hide behind religion to justify your wrath. I’ve seen inside your mind, Elstir. You know what I say is true.”
And, as Elstir slipped into unconsciousness, he thought he could hear a familiar voice.
“And what I say…” shouted Vyk from where he’d suddenly reappeared. “…is IT’S TIME TO STIR THINGS…”
“Stand down,” she whispered to the cloakers. There was no need to continue this fight.
“Let us gather our wounded and depart,” Roch growled in his most intimidating voice. At his side, blade in hand, Riswan fought to stand.
“I’ve no intention of embarrassing you any further by explaining to you how misinformed you must be to think you are in any kind of position to make demands,” Siglinde hissed sympathetically. “You have lost and it is not my intention to kill you. Surrender peacefully and I will see to your friends’ injuries.”
Roch surveyed the carnage of the battle. Shi, Vyk, and Elstir were unconscious and possibly bleeding out. Cul’tharic was still trapped within the naga’s sphere of force and Riswan, though strong enough to lift his sword, had suffered greatly in combat with the cloakers. The naga was right. The choice was clear.
“We surrender."
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At the end of our last session, the adventurers were forced to surrender to the dark naga, Siglinde, after reneging on their deal and failing to kill her. With their equipment confiscated and their ally, Cul'tharic, missing, the party can only wait within a prison of crystal for the aberrant sorceress' proclamation of their fate. Will the adventurers become test subjects for the naga's experiments or sold to the driders as slaves? Perhaps of greater importance, will this experience teach them to stop listening to Elstir? These and the answers to other questions nobody is asking are revealed in...
DAYS 165-167 CAPTIVES OF THE DARK NAGA!
featuring: The World's Largest Adventuring Party
Roch - Lizardfolk Mystic Theurge
Cul'tharic - NPC Lizardfolk Scaled Horror
Shi - Dwarf Cleric of Pharasma
Riswan - Halfling Fighter
Elstir ”The Stir” Slocan – Human Paladin
Vyk Vulkyn – Halfling Rogue/Fighter
The adventurers, minus their ally Cul’tharic, waited three days within a cell of solid, translucent crystal, a structure left over from the troubled past of the dungeon’s days as a prison for the evil and corrupt. A noxious, toady odor like a swamp of vomit and rotting vegetation hung heavy in the stale air and thick metal rings were twisted into the floor of the cell like eye screws, providing evidence that some large beast or demon had once been held here. A still-functioning wall of force at the cell’s entrance ensured the party’s incarceration, and only Roch had been outside the cell briefly when a trio of drow warriors escorted the spellcaster to a meeting with Siglinde.
The drow took Roch to a cold chamber slick with the disgusting flesh, which was so prevalent in the western tunnels. A deep pit in the southwest corner of the room appeared to be the source of the growth and a crude rail provided a barrier for those who might venture too close to its slimy edge. Siglinde coiled leisurely in the northeast corner of the chamber upon what appeared to be a portable platform that allowed her to avoid contact with the flesh and she bid the mystic welcome as he entered.
“I trust your accommodations are satisfactory?” the naga hissed. “My apologies for the smell but, once a demon defecates on your floor, you can never really get the stink out. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like you to have a look into the pit over there. Do be careful. The edges are quite slippery.”
Roch moved closer to the edge of the pit as the drow used their longspears to provide him with an additional protection against falling. Unlike many of the tunnels to the west, the flesh here seemed aggressive and full of life. Tendrils of it groped at what appeared to be a thick dome of ice at the bottom of the pit and, upon seeing Roch’s sneer of revulsion, Siglinde continued.
“You probably recognize the ice wall within the pit as being similar to the one protecting my lair,” spoke the naga. “A number of drow died installing it but, since then, it has saved many more. You see, I occasionally require fresh samples of the flesh for my work and Lorath has been kind enough to provide me with warriors willing to scrape the sides of the pit. Sometimes they slip inside and the flesh here is quite voracious. It produces a digestive acid capable of destroying skin, bones, teeth or even scales within moments.”
Roch suddenly realized what had become of Cul’tharic.
“Fortunately, the acid has a difficult time dissolving ice so any creature protected by the trap has several minutes of safety to wait for rescue,” Siglinde continued. “After that, it takes some time for the trap to reset…unless I choose to reactivate it. Of course, I might also decide to disable the trap altogether, but that would only result in the intensely painful and irrevocable death of any creature trapped within. I shudder to think of what might happen if I came to harm while someone was inside.”
By the look on his face, Siglinde could tell the mystic understood.
“Your friend lives or dies at my leisure. Now, I have preparations to make and you and your companions need to rest,” she hissed. “I’ll send for you in a few days when you’ve regained your strength. Until then, the drow will provide you with medical supplies, food and water. And, Roch, please express to your companions my deepest regret over the way things have turned out."
***
True to her word, Siglinde sent medical kits, bowls of gray porridge and water to the adventurers and, though they’d recovered quickly, the party hadn’t attempted to escape out of fear for the life of their friend Cul’tharic. Then on the third day of their imprisonment, three drow warriors came for Vyk.
The halfling stood before Siglinde’s dais as the naga wiped a dollop of ink from her tail.
“Uh, I just want to say it wasn’t my decision to attack you,” Vyk offered. “I mean, I went along with it, but it wasn’t my idea. I was jus…”
“Shhhh, I know,” Siglinde cooed as she slithered around the halfling and then past him toward the exit of her lair. “Follow, my pet. Lorath’s agents are here to escort you to the edge of the drider laboratories where you will retrieve a sample of flesh from the monster Anguish. We’ll need it if we're to put an end to all this corruption.”
“Edge of the drider laboratories?” Vyk blurted. “Those are full of driders, right? I get to take my weapons, don’t I?”
“I’m afraid not, my precious,” Siglinde hissed apologetically. “This mission requires stealth and for that I must insist you do not engage any of the driders or the creatures serving them. Don’t worry. What you need to accomplish this task will be provided to you, and I’m not sending you into the heart of our enemies’ stronghold alone.”
At that, the drow brought forth a thin kobold in tattered robes and a jeweled headband. Vyk recognized the headband the kobold wore for his own enchanted diadem.
“Klarihg’en here is a sorcerer, aren’t you, Klarihg’en?” Siglinde smiled dismissively.
“Klarihg’en is powerful sorcerer!” the kobold yarped. “Not need stinking halfling for stealing! Klarihg’en not fairy! Boyikt start rumor! Not true!”
“You two are going to have so much fun together,” Siglinde cheered. “Oh, and one other thing, Vyk. Should you find yourself in the vicinity of the celestial wards to the south, I should forewarn you against any attempt to escape to the Garrison. Afterall, the wards secure the southern regions from anything of evil intent or origin and, after three days, I imagine you’ve ingested just enough of the tainted flesh from these halls to render you persona non grata.”
Vyk suddenly felt ill. He envisioned Siglinde, wearing a kitchen apron and dumping a vat of boiled, mutated flesh soup into several bowls to serve to himself and his companions. Then, as the congealed slime began to burble up his esophagus, he remembered asking for seconds.
“I’m afraid that won’t do you any good, Love,” consoled Siglinde as the halfling painted the floor in lumpy, gray chunks. “Now, I’ve got to go prepare your friends for their tasks. I wish you the best of luck in your mission, and sincerely hope to see you again soon.” At that, a pair of drow warriors escorted Vyk and Klarihg’en into the northern tunnels.
***
When next the drow came to the crystal cell, it was for Elstir and Riswan. The pair of warriors was to be given the task of collecting a tissue sample from Anguish’s terrible twin, the monster known as Madness.
“Madness is a creature that truly lives up to its name,” Siglinde informed the adventurers. “A shapeless, amorphous collection of eyes, fangs and claws cursing and babbling in some insane, indecipherable tongue. The drow tell me looking at the thing can blind you. They say it breathes lightning or fire and that its power is so great it creates tremors wherever it goes. If even half of that is true, I suspect you’ll find a frontal assault ridiculously dangerous.”
“Then how do you expect us to carve off a piece of this thing,” Elstir spoke. “You’ve taken our equipment, and separated us from our companions.”
“There is another way,” the naga answered. “Another monster, a creature the drow call The Green Death, has made its lair near the lair of Madness. The Green Death is some form of carnivorous plant and, as its tendrils have spread into the east, Madness has taken notice. The creatures are natural enemies.”
“So you want us to lead Madness to The Green Death,” surmised Riswan.
“How you accomplish the task is inconsequential,” Siglinde corrected. “However, a battle between the two monsters should result in enough damage to Madness to produce the sample I require. Furthermore, if Madness manages to destroy The Green Death, you’ll have helped to eliminate a terrible threat to the dungeon and given the driders a new problem to deal with as the beast makes its way west in search of its twin.”
Riswan and Elstir were then given a tour of the path they should take to lead Madness into the lair of The Green Death, and warned against leading the monster into the area controlled by Siglinde and the cloakers.
“Only for Cul’tharic’s sake and for the sake of my companions will I agree to this plan,” Elstir growled at the naga. “But mark my words, worm, a day will come when I will see your lifeless husk twist upon the end of my blade.”
“Oh, don’t be that way, my precious little partisan,” Siglinde chided. “Think of all the good you’re going to accomplish with my help. I’m certain tales of our union will become quite a popular topic when scholars debate the hi-stiry of Iomedae’s most notorious champions.”
The naga then apologized for making light of the paladin’s situation, informed the adventurers of the contents of their past three days' meals and wished them luck before having them escorted to the edge of Madness’ lair with a small bundle of equipment.
***
Shi and Roch joined Siglinde within a chamber blasted by some past catastrophe. The living flesh had found some purchase in the room, but there were obvious signs of removal operations in progress.
“Not far from this place stands the entrance to Mahir’s private quarters and laboratory,” the naga began. “If we’re to have any success in permanently halting the growth of the flesh, we will need the drider’s spellbook, which I believe is hidden within.”
“So why haven’t you already gone in to retrieve it?” asked Shi.
“That should be rather obvious, don’t you think?” Siglinde replied. “Mahir was a paranoid, lunatic with little control over his own experimentation so it stands to reason his personal quarters will be heavily trapped and/or filled with dangerous, failed experimental test subjects. Now, I can handle myself in a fight, but this is work for real adventurers and I can’t think of anyone better suited for the task than you. As the goddess of childbirth, I imagine Pharasma might take issue with the wholly unnatural circumstances behind the creation of this creature we call the Halls of Flesh, but I don’t need to tell you that.”
Then Siglinde left the adventurers under the watchful eye of her cloakers while she activated the hidden passage into Mahir’s cache. Roch and Shi were given a small portion of their equipment and some time to make any last-minute spell selections before the naga returned.
“The way is open,” Siglinde hissed. “I understand this may take some time, but do try to hurry. I shouldn’t have to remind you many lives depend on the success of your mission.”
And with that, Shi and Roch stepped into the darkness of Mahir’s sanctum.
Roch scanned the room beyond the threshold of Mahir’s quarters. Supernatural darkness concealed the contents of the chamber from Shi, but the theurge had prepared an enchantment allowing his eyes to pierce the veil of shadow.
An obelisk of black basalt stood in the center of the chamber, seeming to radiate inky gloom and an iron door stood in the center of each of the room’s other three walls. Closer inspection revealed the doors bore no handles or locks but a placard inscribed with a riddle was carved into each doors’ surface.
The riddle upon the north door, written in Undercommon, said:
“I cannot be seen, cannot be felt, cannot be heard and cannot be smelt. I lie behind the stars and beneath the hills. I end life and kill laughter.”
“That’s easy,” spoke Roch. “The answer is obviously ‘oloth,’ (which is the Undercommon word for darkness.”)
Upon uttering the word, the adventurers heard an audible click and a grinding of gears as the door became unbolted. However, rather than entering the unsealed chamber, Roch and Shi moved on to the east door.
Only through the use of his magic, was Roch able to decipher the next riddle for neither he nor Shi could read the strange glyphs on the placard’s surface, which read:
“Feed me and I live. Give me drink and I die. What am I?”
This time, the answer was not quite so obvious for Roch, and Shi asked if there was anything the mystic could do to dispel the darkness from the room so that he might view the placard himself. Roch placed his hand upon the black pillar at the center of the room and prayed for the light of the sun to diminish the ebon glow. As the divine radiance countered the darkness of the obelisk, Shi had an idea.
“I think the answer is ‘fire,’” declared the cleric. However, without speaking the word in the proper tongue, the door would not open and the pair was forced to move on to the south door.
Now able to see the placard for himself, Shi had no trouble deciphering the riddle on the south door, which was written in Elf:
“I pass before the despised sun, yet make no shadow. What am I?”
The adventurers were stumped. Neither Roch nor Shi could immediately guess the answer and, after several minutes, they determined to explore the open chamber to the north and return to the riddle later.
***
Vyk was feeling much better by the time he reached the tunnels controlled by Siglinde’s drow allies and he and Klarihg’en were at last taken before a massive drow warrior bearing a peculiar deformity. From his left side sprouted a thickly muscled third arm and, as the mysterious warrior conferred with the halfling’s escorts, Vyk made the incredibly unwise decision to make a lewd and obvious joke about the mutation.
The multi-armed drow turned immediately from the warriors with whom he’d been speaking and glared at Vyk, his eyes burning like hot embers.
“Thank your gods Siglinde wants you alive, elg’caress,” the drow snarled. “Else, I’d kill you where you stand.”
“Yeah, well I guess it’s too bad for you she does,” Vyk grinned. “I’ll bet you always get to be the big spoon, huh, Mr. Reach-around? No cold, lonely nights for this guy, right Klarihg’en?”
The color had drained from the kobold’s scales. The reptilian sorcerer only stood, mouth agape and eyes bulging, as the halfling laughed at his own jokes.
“These tunnels are very dangerous, ilmar-vith, and driders are not known for having a welcoming demeanor,” the drow seethed. “It would not be difficult to convince the naga you died during your mission.”
“Well, uh, I could just tell her you…” Vyk began before realizing he would be quite murdered and unable to tell anyone anything if the drow was to follow through on his threat. “Um, so about that mission?” he stammered.
Then, a heavy, stinking sack was thrown over the halfling’s head and he was prodded toward what he hoped would not be a firing line.
The halfling, still wearing the foul-smelling sack over his head, was marched through the drow lair and occasionally forcefully spun by his handlers to disorient him. After a few minutes of this, a firm hand on his shoulder stopped him. Then, the halfling heard a sound like grinding stone followed by the voice of the three-armed drow.
“You seem to enjoy talking s**t, elg-caress,” said the warrior. “Let us see how much you enjoy eating it.”
Then, Vyk felt himself lifted and flung through the air as the bag was yanked from his head. As awful as the sack smelled, the air within this cramped tunnel was much worse. With a loud, wet squish, the halfling splashed down into a river of excrement and rotting food waste. Klarihg’en cursed Vyk as he wiped the ick from his snout.
“Rauhiss pothoc! Klarihg’en dartak!” the sorcerer hissed. “That Lorath, idiot! Lorath lead drow! Stupid halfling is stupid!”
“That was Lorath?!” Vyk exclaimed, his face dripping with filth. “Ah, crap.”
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I try to stick as close to what is in the book as possible because I want this to be as authentic to the material as I can get and it saves me a lot of time. However, I sometimes need to go off-page for various reasons. Usually, it's because the book only provides limited information about a creature's motives or the overall plot of the region. Other times, the book is just full of typos and missing information so I have to wing it.
Anything dealing with the Four Waters commune is my own addition. The book assumes you've either locked the PCs in the dungeon with no support system and they're negotiating with monsters for trade or they can come and go at their leisure, visiting some nearby village for supplies. I included the commune so the players have a source of equipment and new characters that doesn't require anyone to leave the dungeon. The idea seems to have worked okay so far, and it gives me a chance to run a kind of shadow campaign that doesn't usually involve the PCs.
Basically, I'd guess I'm adding 60-80% of the meat to 100% of the skeleton.
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Well, it's 2AM and I've only had today to write up this journal so I hope it doesn't seem rushed. I'm tired now so I'm just going to skip the usual flowery intro and let you all get right into the action.
P.S. Riswan's player is to blame for the awful joke I used in today's photo so you can post your groans to him. Now, on with the show!
DAY 167 MAHIR AND THE MOUTH OF MADNESS!
featuring: The World's Largest Adventuring Party
Roch - Lizardfolk Mystic Theurge
Cul'tharic - NPC Lizardfolk Scaled Horror
Shi - Dwarf Cleric of Pharasma
Riswan - Halfling Fighter
Elstir ”The Stir” Slocan – Human Paladin
Vyk Vulkyn – Halfling Rogue/Fighter
Riswan and Elstir stood at the threshold of the lair of Madness, diseased flesh seeping slowly from the portal like cancerous mold. Their drow guides had been quick to silently depart as soon as the adventurers were in place and the pair looked painfully toward an iron door beaten concave by some titanic force.
“You ready for this?” Riswan asked the paladin, his fingers tightly gripping a large knife procured from the drow.
“The sooner we do this, the closer we come to freeing Cul’tharic and destroying Siglinde,” Elstir grimly swore. “I am ready.”
Riswan pulled the door open revealing a chamber dripping with slime and gore. The flesh sloughing from the walls pulsed and throbbed with life while the faint thump-bump of what could only be the sound of a heartbeat echoed through the room. Elstir drew his sword and stepped into the chamber with Riswan at his side. As the viscous sludge began to cling to their boots like congealed gravy, the halfling thanked all that was holy and good that he’d abandoned his people’s custom of running around barefoot, at least while adventuring.
“I didn’t think I’d be saying this before we got in here, but I can’t wait to find this accursed thing,” Riswan commented as Elstir approached a pair of vein-riddled doors to the east. “Having Madness chase us through the halls outside couldn’t be any worse than staying in here another minute.”
Then, as the paladin flung open the portal into the next chamber, Riswan’s wish was granted.
A passage lined with grotesque, pulsing flesh, more like the interior of a pustule-pocked colon than a dungeon hall, stretched out ahead of the adventurers as some shapeless, toothy and squamous biomass quivered and writhed through the tunnel, piping and yammering like a ruptured bladder as its thousand, bleary eyes fixed on the gawking, bipedal invaders, now standing slack-jawed and stupefied within the foyer of its splanchnic manse. The thing called Madness dragged itself forward on claws and teeth that rent weeping furrows into the venous floor.
The adventurers were stunned. Lost in the insane burbling and hooting of the abomination, Riswan could do nothing to shield his eyes as a stream of acidic bile coursed from one of the monster’s thousand fang-rimmed mouths, blinding him with its toxicity. Elstir was no luckier and the protections of his goddess could not defend him from the chaos of the behemoth’s chorus. In a fit of hysteria, the paladin swung his blade into the stumbling halfling who was knocked into the advancing beast. Madness tore and bit at Riswan who only just escaped the immense, grasping maw of the horror. Then as his vision returned, Riswan felt a greasy foulness crawling beneath his chain shirt.
“It’s on me!” the halfling screamed as he plunged his own dagger into his abdomen. “It wants to get inside me!” Confusion and paranoia had overtaken Riswan’s mind. There was no defeating the imagined interloper, but the halfling continued to stab at the invisible parasite opening deep lacerations across his arms and legs as Elstir finally came to his senses.
The paladin managed to wipe a gob of Madness’ blinding spittle from his eyes long enough to find his crazed companion and heal some of his wounds before doing something truly insane.
“Run!” shouted The Stir as he dove between Riswan and the seething monstrosity. “Lead it to The Green Death!”
Then, as Madness engulfed the paladin, its body twisting into itself to swallow him whole, Riswan’s fugue broke. The halfling stood agog, taking in the abject terror of the scene for what seemed like an eternity before his body rejected the maddened trance of his mind and forced itself to flee.
***
Shi and Roch’s search of the room to the north had expended the duration of the mystic’s spells. The chamber was supernaturally dark and, though the source of the gloom had been found, Roch no longer had the means to dispel the magic. A small drider-shaped statue, similar to those found elsewhere throughout the dungeon, seemed to be the culprit and its aura of shadow made properly searching the chamber impossible though Roch did manage to feel the seam of what might be a concealed door in the east wall. Still, without being able to see an opening mechanism, the pair was at a loss and determined to return to the task of solving the riddle of the southern door.
“I pass before the despised sun, yet make no shadow. What am I?” Shi repeated. “What passes before the sun without a shadow?”
“An eagle at the correct altitude wouldn’t cast a distinguishable shadow,” Roch offered. “Or perhaps a particularly wispy cloud? Try those.”
Shi stared at Roch in disbelief. He had to admit the theurge was onto something, but couldn’t help but wonder how someone with so much knowledge could make such bizarre leaps of thought.
“Sel kan,” spoke the cleric before the placard to no effect. “Hith faun,” Shi tried, but still the door would not open.
“What about a rainbow?” Roch suggested. “Or maybe the answer is something more abstract, like time?”
“A rainbow doesn’t really move and I think the answer will be a little more obvious than abstract, but I’ll try it. Ninniach? She?” the cleric spoke, and still the door would not open.
“What if the answer isn’t obvious?” Roch asked. “Something invisible wouldn’t cast a shadow. Aren’t pixies naturally invisible, or a phantom fungus?”
“Or air,” the two suddenly found themselves blurting in unison. Shi rattled off all the Elven words he knew related to air and finally hit upon the correct answer.
“Keth!” Shi spoke and, from the door, came the sound of grinding gears and a satisfactory “thunk” as the portal unlocked. Pushing into the room, the adventurers were startled to find the laboratory was not completely abandoned. What appeared to be a drow elf in an apron, robes and gloves stood behind a workbench covered in bubbling alchmemical beakers, flasks and vials. Pages of notes lay scattered about the table and the drow seemed to be in the middle of crafting some unwholesome-looking brew.
“Get out!” the drow fussed. “You’ll contaminate the experiment!”
“Oh, excuse us. We were just looking for a spellbook so we can get out of here,” Roch spoke as he and Shi entered the room. “Who are you?”
“Sure, why not, just ignore the guy in the middle of a very important and potentially dangerous experiment. That’s cool. It’s not like there was a lock on the door or anything anyway,” the drow complained to deaf ears. “I’m Mahir. This is my laboratory, and you two are obviously intruders. How can I help you?”
“Your spellbook,” Shi answered. “We need it to save a friend. If you’d be kind enough to lend it to us, we’d be more than happy to let you get back to whatever it is you think you're doing.”
“I have a spellbook?” Mahir puzzled. “I guess that would explain these robes and that pointy hat I’ve been using as a funnel for my mercury. Anyway, assuming this is true, why would I lend my book to you?”
“Our friend has been captured by a naga,” Roch began. “She’ll kill him if we don’t bring her your spellbook.”
“You can’t get a new friend?” Mahir asked. “If I were you, I’d cut my losses and head to the nearest tavern. Isn’t that where you types generally fraternize?”
“She also wants to use your spells to destroy the mutated flesh growing in the tunnels outside your lab,” Shi added. “You’re aware of the flesh, right?”
“Aware of it?” Mahir blustered. “I’m responsible for it. Why do you think I’m in here? Wait a minute! Your boots! Did you wipe your feet before you came in!”
It was becoming clear to the adventurers that, whether through isolation or experimentation, the drow had quite certainly lost his mind. They questioned Mahir a little longer but were unable to gather much useful information and, though the wizard occasionally threatened violence, he always managed to become sidetracked with bizarre ramblings before unleashing his fury. At last, the pair convinced the wizard to assist them in dispelling the darkness from the north chamber, a feat Mahir attempted through the act of bashing the drider statue with a heavy coat rack taken from his private chambers.
“Something about him doesn’t seem right,” Shi whispered to Roch.
“You only notice this now?” replied the theurge.
“Hey Mahir!” Shi called as the drow continued to assault the statue within the darkened chamber. “We were told you were a drider, and I couldn’t help but notice your lack of spideryness. How do you explain that?”
“You saw the size of my lab!” Mahir shouted between swings. “Obviously, I used a spell to alter my form so I wouldn’t knock over any of my equipment. I mean, I don’t remember doing that, but it seems plausible, doesn’t it?”
Shi had to agree. Mahir’s laboratory was quite small and, if this drow were truly the wizard responsible for The Halls of Flesh, such magic wouldn’t likely be outside his level of expertise.
At last, the drow gave up on smashing the statue and returned to the adventurers.
“I don’t think it’s working,” Mahir conceded. “I must be one hell of a wizard.”
***
Vyk Vulkyn, dripping and stinking of refuse, feces and a little of his own vomit, stood within a large jail cell among a group of rag-draped drow as Klarihg’en cleaned himself with a simple cantrip. Vyk and the kobold had burrowed through a river of ick to be discovered and rescued by the slaves of the driders. Klarihg’en insisted the halfling’s still-fouled condition was punishment for getting the pair tossed into the tunnel of dung by the drow’s leader, Lorath.
“I am Lecyt’hyn,” spoke a heavily scarred drow sitting near the tunnel entrance as his companions crowded the bars of the cell to obscure their jailer’s view. “I heard the naga was sending a thief, but I did not expect you to arrive through our escape tunnel. We conceal it with waste so the driders don’t get nosy, if you get my meaning. You must have made comment of Lorath’s mziln-da’re. Orthae-iblith dosul natha wael.”
“Did any of that mean ‘idiot?’” Vyk asked flustered. “Because I get it. I pissed the guy off. How was I supposed to know he was Lorath? It's not like anyone warned me the guy was capable of milking three mules at once, if you get my meaning!”
Klarihg’en struck his scaly palm to his own face as Lecyt’hyn stood and approached the halfling.
“Few among my brothers understand your tongue, olplyn, but many of them are loyal enough to Lorath to happily tear it from your head and strangle you with it were your words to be translated for them,” the drow menaced. “And yes, I called you an idiot. Now, let’s get you out of here and on your way.”
Vyk and the kobold were then hidden among Lecyt’hyn and a group of outgoing slaves, shoved into large, foul sacks and tossed onto a small cart with a pile of sharp, rusty tools. As they were carried toward the prison of Anguish, Vyk could hear voices questioning his escorts whenever the cart came to a stop and, though he couldn’t understand what was being said, he had to wonder if the driders had noticed his reek. Fortunately nobody tried to search the sacks and, eventually, the cart came to a stop after the halfling felt it bump over the threshold of a new chamber.
“It’s safe to come out,” came the voice of Lecyt’hyn.
Vyk poked his head out of the bag and found he was inside what appeared to be a workshop. Mechanical components and tools lined the benches of the room and four armed drow warriors stood at the doors of the chamber.
“Don’t worry, olplyn, they are with us” Lecyt’hyn informed the halfling. “We are in the workshop of Padeema, a drider sorceress. These warriors guard her projects and keep an eye out for The Green Death, a monstrous plant that feasts on flesh and dwells through those south doors. They might work for the driders, but they’re loyal to Lorath and they’ll kill you if they think you’re a risk to the rebellion.”
One of Padeema’s projects in particular caught Vyk’s eye. What appeared to be a large barrel outfitted with tubes, pistons and multiple mechanical legs rested in a corner of the room, a strange reservoir of dark liquid attached to one end of the device.
“What is that thing!?” Vyk inquired, barely able to contain his excitement.
“That?” Lecyt’hyn glanced at the thing with derision. “We call it ‘The Death Trap.’ Leave it alone.”
The drow then quickly explained the route Vyk and Klarihg’en should take to reach Anguish’s cell and warned them of the dangers ahead.
“You’re not coming?” Vyk asked.
“The driders and the drow warriors guarding the tunnels ahead would recognize us and know we are not permitted in the western halls,” Lecyt’hyn informed the halfling. “Not unless we’re there to be fed to the beast.”
“Is there anyone with the rebellion stationed near the monster?” Vyk inquired. “Can we expect any help?”
“Many drow are with Lorath, but they will likely kill you rather than risk exposure,” the drow answered. “It would be best if you assume everyone here seeks your death. Now go.”
With Lecyt’hyn and the other slaves gone and the drow warriors watching their every move, Vyk and Klarihg’en had no choice but to head through the south doors toward Anguish’s cell.
“Looks like it’s just you and me, buddy!” Vyk smiled as he patted the kobold on the shoulder leaving a rancid handprint on Klarihg’en’s robes. “Oh s**t. Sorry about that.”
Klarihg’en groaned as he once again called on his sorcerous talents to clean his soiled robe.
“Look, I know we’ve gotten off to a bad start, but I want us to be pals, okay Karrigan?” Vyk offered as sincerely as he could.
The kobold groaned again. “Is Klarihg’en, malai! Even pothoc Croo get that right and him ogre!” he hissed before becoming suddenly somber. “Hrrrk, it not matter. If you ready, we need go.”
Vyk led the way into the lair of The Green Death and was immediately taken aback by the sheer volume of foliage beyond the south doors. Aside from the small garden the lizardfolk kept in the commune, it had been awhile since the halfling had seen living, healthy plants. This place, however, seemed somehow wrong. The plants here writhed and twitched, their leaves like the flicking ears of a dog, their vines like the swaying tails of cats and, when the halfling’s feet touched a patch of soft grass sprouting from the stone floor of the chamber, the entire room seemed to moan and shudder like a sleeping giant.
“Uhm, Klarihg’en?” Vyk whispered. “Ideas?”
The kobold made a few gestures and intoned a word of arcane power then reached out and touched the halfling who vanished before Klarihg’en’s eyes.
“Maybe plants not see us, they not eat us?” the kobold hissed as he performed the same spell on himself and slipped off through the greenery.
“Thanks,” Vyk whispered. “What was all that about an ogre before? How did you get here, Klarihg’en? Hey. Where’d you go?”
Despite slowing his pace in order to move quietly through the chamber, the kobold was still well ahead of the halfling. The undergrowth seemed to almost clear a path for the reptile and he had to stop several times while Vyk caught up.
“Klarihg’en come to dungeon with other kobolds and rat-man,” the kobold began. “That where I meet Croo. Rat-man tell Croo, Klarihg’en, some others explore north tunnels and we get trapped. Can’t go back so go forward. Then get caught by machine-men.”
As the pair moved through the small jungle of the chamber, Klarihg’en went on to describe his conscription to the Celestial Garrison as a member of The Redeemed and how a band of adventurers aided the inevitables in halting a revolt by a hobgoblin named Morrigsen.
“Croo, other hobgoblin Ackersan, lizardman, dwarf, help machine-men too. Revolt over before lunchtime,” the kobold sniffed. “Morrigsen think devil-wolves powerful allies but machine-men and stupid adventurers more powerful. Klarihg’en, Morrigsen and deep-dwarf Killian all exiled to north by sasktor angels. Not see Croo again until mean dwarf come.”
“What dwarf?” Vyk asked. This story was beginning to sound familiar.
Klarihg’en voice seemed to lose a little of its squeal as he recounted the tale of his reunion with the ogre Croo. It seemed Pallas had brought the dim-witted ogre along on his quest to destroy evil and their first targets were the exiled Redeemed. The duergar, Killian, had went his own way weeks before the dwarf’s arrival, but Morrigsen and Klarihg’en were eking out a meager existence hunting gricks for food and seeking refuge in a hidden chamber they’d located. When Pallas found them, Morrigsen abandoned Klarihg’en and fled east into the lair of the cloakers. The ogre, remembering the days he spent with Klarihg’en in Longtail’s army, turned on the dwarf and was killed by Pallas’ warpike. The kobold managed to become invisible during the fight and escaped through Siglinde’s lair, but was eventually captured by the drow who made use of his magic in exchange for not turning him in to their drider masters.
By the end of Klarihg’en’s tale, he and Vyk had reached a vine-covered door on the south end of the hall. Sticky webbing seemed to hang between the green tendrils upon the solid portal and the pair was suddenly alerted to the sound of movement within the underbrush. Something immense was lumbering toward them and, rather than wait to face it, Vyk and the kobold rushed the door.
Panicked, Klarihg’en became entangled in the silky strands adorning the vines over the door and Vyk worked quickly to tear the kobold free. Without his weapons, the halfling had to rely on his strength to pull the reptilian sorcerer free and, this time, that would be enough. He and the kobold tumbled into a long hallway, sealing the way behind them as they rolled into the corridor. Whatever titan had awoken from below the roots of the tangled maze would have to look elsewhere for its breakfast.
***
By the light of his blade, Elstir could see a hundred, terrible eyes watching him from the darkness within the belly of Madness as a score of needle-ringed mouths puckered and suckled the blood from his open wounds. Some blinked with indifference while others rolled lazily or bulged with hatred, but every one of the monster’s horrible orbs rolled across the exposed skin of the paladin, filling him with revulsion as Madness writhed in pursuit of its next meal.
In the back of his mind the paladin tried to imagine the look on Siglinde’s stupid, snake face when she learned the mission had failed and her plans to destroy the abominations of The Halls of Flesh now hinged on the unlikely return of Vyk from the lair of her sworn enemies. He imagined how the frustration and rage of her impotence would probably shatter the pleasant and dignified front she put up for her captive guests.
“I’ll bet she has a hissy-fit,” thought The Stir as the fangs of Madness burrowed deeper into his flesh. Despite the pain, he almost laughed and the thought of that insufferable, self-assured smirk dissolving from Siglinde’s face made him consider giving in to the ravages of Madness and dying purely out of spite. Afterall, it seemed hopeless. He’d seen the power of Madness and destroying the beast was likely beyond the abilities of Siglinde, the drow and the driders combined. Wouldn’t it be better to let the thing eat him and then move on to devouring the whole, evil lot of them? And then, Elstir remembered why he was here and the oaths he took upon dedicating his service to The Inheritor.
It was true Siglinde, her drow allies and the driders were all evil and deserved to be eaten by some foul abomination of science and magic, but his companions and the prisoners of Four Waters were, for the most part, good people and they’d certainly fall victim to the beast if the thing couldn’t be stopped. And worse yet, what if Vyk were to succeed at his task, allowing Siglinde to come to power? How many lives would be at risk then? Cul’tharic’s life, even now, hung from a thread behind the walls of an icy prison within the naga’s lair. How could he call himself a paladin of Iomedae if he were to surrender so many good souls to the predations of these monsters? Besides that, if Vyk were already dead, there was a good chance the two of them would wind up near each other in the line to meet Pharasma in the afterlife and the thought of spending an eternity in the company of the halfling with no hope of dying filled Elstir with a desire to live beyond any he’d ever known.
Clutching the roiling flesh of the abomination, The Stir bored a hole through the engulfing mass until he could make out the dim light of the chamber beyond and the small, blurry frame of Riswan fleeing before the beast. The teeth and claws of the terror dragged against Elstir’s skin and leather jerkin threatening to swallow him once more, but then the paladin felt the monster heave and buckle. The curious and repulsive sound of the beast’s throttling caused Riswan to look back just in time to see Elstir explode from the mouth of Madness in a shower of vomit and slime. However, the paladin’s flight for survival wasn’t over yet. Invigorated by the struggles of its prey, Madness seethed with oil and bile, its acidic fluids warping the floor into crazy spirals and ripples of twisted stone and meat. Elstir grabbed his sword from the floor and ran as quickly as his lacerated legs would carry him.
Riswan, meanwhile, made his way into one of the drow panic rooms he’d been shown during his tour of the area. Several large casks of oil lined the walls and a steel striker hung from a peg on the wall near some flasks. A shallow trench had been chipped into the floor before the exit of the room, and the halfling had been instructed on how to use to oil to form a wall of fire, which might protect him should Madness breach the heavy iron door. Instead, Riswan grabbed the striker from its peg, tipped one of the barrels onto its side and rolled it out the door in the direction of the babbling aberration.
Elstir only stopped running long enough to ensure Madness was still behind him as he followed the path laid out by his captors. As terrifying as the thing was, the erratic flailing and scrabbling of its pseudopods made it a poor runner. Of course, seeing the thing move at all actually made it even more horrifying, and Elstir was certain to keep well out of range of its acidic spittle. Eventually, the paladin managed to lead the monster through a small chamber where casks of defoliant were stored. There, a narrow tunnel hung with vines and carpeted in patches of soft grass and molds beckoned the paladin into the lair of the photosynthetic fiend the drow called The Green Death.
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The adventurers have weathered some tough challenges to get as far as they have gathering the implements Siglinde needs to conduct her ritual, but things are still just getting started. Part three of, possibly, the longest day of our party's collective lives begins below!
DAY 167 THE MAD WIZARD'S GRIMOIRE!
featuring: The World's Largest Adventuring Party
Roch - Lizardfolk Mystic Theurge
Cul'tharic - NPC Lizardfolk Scaled Horror
Shi - Dwarf Cleric of Pharasma
Riswan - Halfling Fighter
Elster ”The Stir” Slocan – Human Paladin
Vyk Vulkyn – Halfling Rogue/Fighter
“I’m starting to want to kill this guy,” Shi whispered to Roch as Mahir wandered back to his laboratory, pausing to stare at the black obelisk in the center of the entrance chamber.
“I don’t remember this being so visible,” the wizard confusedly remarked before continuing on his way.
“We’d probably be doing the guy a favor,” Shi continued as the mystic silently puzzled over the secret to opening the passage within the darkened room. Seeing that Roch seemed preoccupied, the cleric followed Mahir into the lab.
“Do you know anything about the hidden door we found?” Shi asked as Mahir scribbled some notes onto a scrap of parchment.
“I don’t remember hiding any doors,” the wizard tersely commented without looking up from his work. “And a found door hardly seems hidden at all, does it?”
“I suppose not,” Shi dryly affirmed. “What do you know of the found door we, uh, found then?”
Mahir suddenly looked up from his papers and, with a hint of pride, chirped, “It’s locked!”
Shi’s hand drifted toward the knife in his belt for an instant and then quickly rose to wipe his face in frustration. “Do you have the key or know what is behind the door?” he asked.
“Not as such” replied the mad mage, Shi’s rage steadily increasing. “I left the keys in the obelisk.” Then, as the bubbling beakers once again caught his attention, Mahir happily mused, “Look at them go!”
“Yes. Science is magic,” Shi fumed. “Now about unlocking that door.”
Mahir glanced up at Shi; this marvel of modern alchemy was obviously lost on the priest. “Fine,” he groaned. “I don’t know why you want to get to the other side of that stupid old door anyway.”
The wizard led Shi back out to the center of the entry chamber, spit into his hands and began to run them up and down the shaft of the ebon monolith.
“What the hell is he doing?” asked Roch, suddenly disturbed out of his pondering.
“This is the only way to make the keys come out,” Mahir replied. “Now pay attention because I’m only going to show you this once.” A moment later, a hiss of air was heard as a small tray distended from the base of the column releasing a fine, frosty mist. Shi and Roch caught sight of several small, translucent, yellow-green spikes lying within the tray just before Mahir removed one and quickly slid the tray back into place.
“Why didn’t you take all of them?” Shi asked as Mahir hustled into the darkened chamber.
“I only need one?” Mahir called back from the darkness, seemingly confused by the question. When he returned from the chamber seconds later, the adventurers could see the crazed conjurer no longer carried the spike.
“The door’s open, but I’m not sure what you expect to find back there,” Mahir remarked. “That is to say, I don’t quite remember what you’ll find back there and I’m not sure you expect to find it…or do I expect you to find what I don’t quite remember? Whatever it is, I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t have locked it away unless it was very important and/or incredibly dangerous. This is getting exciting!”
***
Vyk and Klarihg’en pressed themselves against the walls of the dimly lit corridor. They’d only just managed to tear through a net of vines and webbing to escape whatever had trailed them through the lair of The Green Death and waited silently to see if the thing might attempt to follow them. Something creaked and groaned and thumped about just on the other side of the iron door but, whatever it was, it didn’t seem interested in pursuit and the thing seemed to return whence it came after a tense minute.
The corridor ahead of the pair was clean, but strewn with thin threads of webbing leading from one end to the other. A few spiders could be seen scurrying or resting about the hall and the webs didn’t appear to be sticky enough to entangle either of the thieves so they quietly made their way up the tunnel to a large door in the south. A sound like a distant tapping of metal could be heard faintly through the door and, without hesitation, Vyk pushed into the chamber.
Dim, red spheres of light suspended from web tethers flickered and glowed within the room and, as the doors opened, the sound of tinkering came to a sudden stop as several spindle-limbed, bloat-bellied humanoids turned from their work with a hissing chitter. Earlier, the drow Lecyt’hyn had informed Vyk the south tunnels would lead him through a workshop used by another group of the driders’ slaves. These creatures he called ettercaps were a peculiar insectoid species, which tended to the traps and early warning systems throughout the drider territory. With the veil of Klarihg’en’s invisibility spell lifted and the aberrant web-spinners closing in, Vyk quickly searched his brain for something he could say to forestall an attack.
“Oh, uh, hey guys!” the halfling blurted as he instinctively prepared to flee. “I just saw some big jerk back there screwing up the webs on your door!”
The pack of ettercaps scurried straight at Vyk and then nearly bowled him over as they rushed past him toward the north door to the tunnel. What the rogue had remembered was that Lecyt’hyn had mentioned the things seemed to take exceptional pride in their work and only ever attacked in self-defense or at the command of the driders. Though Vyk wasn’t sure the ettercaps even understood his words, it seemed they were more concerned with repairing the damage he and Klarihg’en caused coming into the hall than beginning a fight. Unsure of when the creatures would return, the halfling and the kobold made for a door in the west end of the workshop, stopping only briefly to examine one of the ettercap workbenches.
The stone table was laid out with what Vyk recognized as trap-crafting equipment and tools. Lacking a weapon, the halfling quickly selected a sharp chisel, caught up with Klarihg’en and took a peek into the next chamber.
Three sturdy, 20-foot tall siege towers stood in a triangle formation within the expansive room. A dozen drow warriors armed with crossbows and swords patrolled the perimeters of the structures, and a trio of driders issued silent orders as they skittered about on their speary legs. Beyond the towers, Vyk could make out a pair of doors leading out the southwest and northwest of the chamber.
“There are doors on the left and the right, and Lecyt’hyn only said to go west,” the halfling whispered to the kobold. “What do you think we should do?”
“Klarihg’en brain say we go far north, hide, let ladysnake, dark elf, spider-elf all killed by monster, no come back, maybe find way out of dungeon,” the sorcerer rasped.
“The Stir looks up to me,” Vyk replied. “There’s no way we’re turning back now. We’re going right.”
“What ‘Stir?’” Klarihg’en yarped. “That like vrak?”
“He’s my sidekick and my best friend,” Vyk answered. “He’s like my Croo. Now, do that thing you did before that made us invisible.”
The kobold shrugged as he began to cast his spell. “Fine. We die, no blame Klarihg’en. We no go left, right?”
“Right,” the halfling confirmed. “No left. Right, alright? Argh! Now I’m starting to sound like you. Let’s go.”
***
Elstir pushed ahead through the cluster of hanging and snaking vines that choked the narrow passage as Madness gibbered and roared not far behind. The ooze-like thing would have to slow down in order to squeeze its bulk through the tunnel, but the paladin felt he had little time to hide before The Green Death itself arrived to greet the intruders to its lair.
The chamber, from what the paladin could tell, had once been like any other in the dungeon. The carved and embossed stone of the room still peeked out in places from below the layers of vines, leaves and moss, but there was no denying this was a place given over to a force of nature. Elstir may have had time to ponder the outcome of the impending battle between the aberrant and the agrestal had it not been for a sudden and terrible movement from a nearby boggy heap. Or rather, it may be more appropriate to say Elstir’s thoughts were disrupted by the movement of a nearby boggy heap.
Something like a small hillock of moss, roots and leafy tendrils rose from the loose soil of the chamber with a sound like creaking timbers and, as the thing turned toward the paladin, he could see it roar noiselessly from the empty, blackness of its thorn-rimmed mouth. Then, the rumble and rustle of the monster’s awakening was met with a shudder throughout the room as a second tuberous beast rose from its slumber. The twin sprouts of The Green Death, the Deathspawn, had risen to defend their home just as Madness roiled and squirmed into chamber!
Perceiving Madness to be the greater threat, the deathspawn closest to Elstir turned to meet the horror as its twin charged into flanking position. The insanity-inducing gibber of Madness and its blinding spittle were useless against the deathspawn, which bit deep into the aberration and flailed their thick tendrils at the terror’s squamous hide. Bile and blood sprayed from Madness’ wounds and, for a moment, Elstir thought the dendritic defenders might have the advantage. Then, a terrible grinding whine pealed from Madness’s hundred mouths as the fiend chewed through one of the deathspawn like it was mowing through a field of daisies. The deathspawn shook its rent limbs weakly and withdrew from the fight, a trail of viscous crimson sap dripping from the large, open wounds in its mossy form as its twin continued its assault.
The second of the twin spawn collapsed into a thoroughly pulped heap only a moment later as the teeth of Madness reduced the young plant to coleslaw. The mage-spawned mutation had eaten through The Green Death’s saplings in less than twelve seconds and, having finished its salad, Madness seemed ready to move onto the meat. Elstir tightly gripped his sword as the monster drew closer over the roots and vines. Suddenly, the room began to shake as every frond and twig seemed to bristle with rage. Soil and stone began to fall to the floor as a furious, earthshaking rumble heralded the arrival of the verdant villain itself! The horticultural horror! The Green Death!
***
Roch stepped out of the darkness into a chamber constructed from what appeared to be hardened magma. The heat of the room was staggering and the porous stone glowed with an orange light. His scales burning from the heat of the chamber, the mystic quickly searched the chamber then fled the way he came.
“Looks like another dead end,” Roch announced to Shi. True enough, there were no obvious exits from the room, and the pair once again went to Mahir for advice.
The wizard had returned to his laboratory and looked up with some disappointment when the adventurers interrupted his work.
“Things would go a whole lot easier if you just told us how to find your spellbook,” Shi spoke. “We’d be happy enough to just make a copy of the thing.”
Mahir stared blankly at the cleric for a moment before a light seemed to flicker in his eyes. “I have a copy of my spellbook under my pillow!” the mage exclaimed. “Wasn’t sure until now just what it was. Pillow case was getting lumpy so I mostly use it for support. Let me get it for you.”
“Roch,” said Shi. “Restrain me.” The reptilian mystic held the cleric back as Mahir wandered into his bedchamber and returned moments later with a stack of loose pages, some crinkled or wadded. “Here you are,” Mahir chirped as he handed the pile to Roch. “I’d like that back by bedtime if you can manage it. I’d hate to wake with a sore neck.”
“I’ll give you a sore neck, you mphrglkr” Shi growled as Roch dragged him back into the entry chamber. Outside the lab, the mystic examined the pages.
“This is all gibberish,” Roch announced. “There’s a hint of arcane theory here, but it’s still just gibberish and doodles. If he truly is Mahir, I don’t think he’s cast a real spell in years.” Back on square one, the adventurers decided to search the magma sauna for concealed exits.
Roch once again entered the super-heated chamber and, beginning with the east wall, carefully scoured the magma’s surface for seams or opening mechanisms. Two minutes later, his brain boiling, Roch managed to locate a small, round hole beneath a piece of hinged magma. The hole seemed just large enough to fit one of the strange spikes Mahir had earlier pulled from the obelisk.
“I feel dirty,” Shi spoke as he began to run his lubricated hands along the sides of the column. A moment later, the small drawer in the base opened, releasing cool air as the cleric selected a key. It was then that he understood Mahir’s haste in unlocking the previous door and his reason for taking only one of the objects. Removed from the cold interior of the obelisk, the spike was beginning to melt.
Shi raced toward the sauna but stopped at its entrance as he realized the heat would reduce the key to a puddle in an instant. He needed a way to keep the spike frozen and his faith provided the solution. Calling upon his goddess, Shi conjured an icicle of intense cold. Rather than shattering the spike, the icicle seemed to fortify it against the heat and Shi quickly made his way across the chamber to unlock the hidden door.
The room beyond the sauna appeared to have once been a bath. Small jars and candles lined the walls and shelves of the chamber and a large washbasin was set before a large, warped mirror next to an iron door set with an elaborate lock. Passing into the chamber, Shi and Roch were immediately struck by a wave of energy that sapped their strength and made them feel sluggish and tired.
Roch determined the threshold of the chamber was trapped by a negative energy effect and that the room had likely once been a purification chamber where Mahir would clean and sterilize himself before certain rituals or experiments. The jars, he guessed, would have been filled with salves, incense or soaps but, when Shi lifted the lid of one container, a shrieking whine of dread and terror filled the room.
“I think these products have exceeded their expiration dates,” he quipped after quickly re-securing the cap. Examining the iron door, the pair found it possessed three round holes of varying sizes similar to the one on the concealed entrance. Shi made three trips to the obelisk, using his icicles to stabilize the spikes each time, and eventually managed to open the locked door. Only one spike remained within the obelisk.
A series of columns stood within a snaking crevice on the other side of the iron door, each roughly five feet apart. Reaching the other side of the pit would mean leaping from one column to the next and Shi looked once more at Roch to handle the task. Since being reincarnated as a lizardfolk, the mystic had grown more accustomed to his new tail and the increased sense of balance he felt would no doubt aid his journey across the chasm.
Just to be safe, however, the pair paid one more visit to Mahir, convincing the mad wizard to allow them to braid a rope from his bed sheets in the name of science.
“This isn’t so you can steal my spellbook is it?” Mahir asked as he helped the pair carry his blankets back to the purification chamber.
“Wouldn’t we have to know where your book is before we could attempt to steal it?” Roch countered.
The wizard agreed but insisted on sticking around to observe the results of the adventurers’ “gravity experiment.” After close to three hours of cutting and braiding the blankets into about fifty feet of rope, Roch was finally ready to make his jaunt across the crevice.
“I think I’ll go ahead to the other side and time you,” Mahir announced. And with that, the adventurers were quite surprised to see the drow’s body ripple and contort as his legs split into six, thin skittering spears. A spider’s large, bloated abdomen grew from Mahir’s back and multiple eyes sprouted from his forehead as his face became monstrous and his jaws divided into a pair of chelicera. Without another word, Mahir leapt onto the ceiling and scurried out of sight.
“Crap,” spoke Shi after a moment of disbelief. “He’s going after the spellbook.”
Roch quickly leapt to the first column and moved as fast he could from one to the next, but there was no catching Mahir in his true drider form. It was then the mystic decided to reveal his secret weapon: a tiny, live spider in a glass vial.
Before they entered the lab, Siglinde had advised Roch and Shi to prepare spells that might help them with research or with avoiding traps and it seemed heeding the naga’s counsel was about to pay off. Roch reached into his component pouch, procured his spider and recited a few arcane words before dumping the squirming arachnid down his throat.
Roch jumped to the next column but missed and would have fallen if not for his spell. Reaching out for the column, the mystic managed to grasp it’s edge and safely scale its side. Eventually, he made his way through the twisting chasm into a large chamber where one thick pillar of stone towered over a series of increasingly taller columns. Atop the tallest pillar, Roch could see Mahir patiently waiting for him to make the dangerous ascent.
“You’ve almost made it!” Mahir called to the mystic. “Just a little further now!”
Roch didn’t like the way the drider seemed to be encouraging his acrobatics, but had no choice but to continue. However, leaping to the top of the column proved too difficult and he had to settle for scaling the thing’s side, Mahir cheering him on the whole way.
The top of the tower of stone was bare with the exception of a large, thick and dusty tome bound in the skin of some unfortunate beast or humanoid. The book was easily within reach of the drider and Roch had to wonder why the wizard hadn’t simply taken it and fled.
“I’m almost certain it’s trapped,” the drider remarked as if in anticipation of the mystic’s question. “But you’ve come all this way so I am to stop you.”
Roch stared at the book and then down into the void below. Any trap or trick by the drider that might cause him to fall from this height would likely kill him and Shi would be too far away to intervene. Still, he might be able to rely on the spider transmutation to save him, and Cul’tharic’s life depended on retrieving the tome. There was no turning back now.
Roch lifted the heavy book from its resting place and waited for the worst. “Grrr-tik-tik-tik-spung!” and “Pshhhh!” came a sound from the column but nothing else happened. After so many years of disuse and a lack of maintenance, the trap had fallen into disrepair. Mahir’s spellbook was Roch’s for the taking…but there was still one problem.
“What now?” Mahir asked. “You’ve got the book. All you need to do is get it back to the entrance.”
Roch looked across the chasm toward the twisting passage and realized he couldn’t return with the book. However, it wasn’t for any moral quandary that the spellcaster couldn’t steal the tome. He literally had no way to return to Shi as the spider incantation required the use of both of his hands to scale the walls of the crevasse. The book was far too large to carry in his teeth, he had no bag and the cleric had their makeshift rope.
“I could carry it for you,” Mahir offered.
“My friend’s life depends on this,” Roch spoke with suspicion. “How do I know you’ll give it back?”
“You don’t,” Mahir answered matter-of-factly.
After a moment, Roch handed the book to the drider who skittered off toward the exit as the mystic slowly climbed back to Shi. Upon reaching the purification chamber, Roch found the cleric and the drider waiting for him. Mahir was on the ceiling of the room clutching the tome.
“Thank you, Mahir,” Roch called up to the drider. “Now, please hand over the spellbook.”
“You must be crazy,” the wizard chuckled before fleeing through the open door to the magma sauna.
“We’re going to kill him now, right?” Shi asked as he and Roch gave chase.
Shi and Roch exited into the obelisk chamber to find Mahir halfway to his lab when a sudden baleful moan filled the room. After several hours of waiting, Siglinde had sent a pair of cloakers into Mahir’s cache to keep an eye on the adventurers and, upon spotting the drider fleeing across the room, the umbral lurkers were filled with loathing.
The cloakers launched into an auditory assault that paralyzed the adventurers as they came into the room. Seeing the helpless spellcasters, the monsters quickly dove and engulfed the adventurers within their leathery wings. However, rather than continue their attack, it seemed the creatures were actually shielding Roch and Shi from further harm.
Unable to see what was transpiring in the obelisk chamber, the pair could nonetheless make out the sound of the chamber door opening followed by the now-familiar voice of their eel-like captor intoning syllables of power. The adventurers owed Siglinde a spellbook and it seemed the dark naga had arrived to collect.
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I'm curious: how much of the plot are you following straight from the module, and how much are you creating yourself?
Hey Hogarth/Balthazar, I know I already kind of gave a short answer to this question, but I thought I'd expand on it a little to give you a more precise idea of what I've changed. Below, I'm posting a Region-by-Region breakdown of what I changed for regions A,B,E,C and F. They're listed in the order the party explored them because sometimes actions they took in one region affected what was happening in another.
Aside from what you'll read, there are a few changes I've made that affect the whole dungeon. Some I've mentioned before but I'll repeat them here for the sake of being complete:
1. Lord Antagonis isn't in the book. The text provides a few ideas on why or how the adventurers wind up in the dungeon but doesn't require you to use any of them. I wanted to stick with the idea of the entrance barring escape and thought a "prison of the evil overlord" would be a good way to explain why people keep winding up in the dungeon.
2. Every region gets a handy, helpful, customized Lantern Archon instead of just the few that are actually mentioned in the book and each archon has a name beginning with the letter of their region.
3. The world I'm using for the campaign is kind of like an alternate-universe Golarion so I replaced all the generic and never-before-or-after-mentioned deities in the book with a Pathfinder analog to make it easier on divine casters. The "god of light" became Sarenrae, the harpies' "goddess of pain" became Zon-Kuthon and so on.
4. The prisoners' commune of Four Waters and most of the NPCs who live there were all my doing since the party can't leave to buy new equipment or recruit new members.
Region-by-Region breakdown
As written:
• Remaining kobolds, orcs, troglodytes fight over scraps as Longtail attempts to summon fiends
• Orcs won’t accept partnership with PCs unless their crazed leader is killed first. Chance for betrayal is high.
• Kobolds are willing to accept partnership with PCs for as long as they feel it is safe. Chance for betrayal is low.
• Troglodytes are willing to accept partnership with PCs until their goals are met. Chance for betrayal is moderate.
• Longtail has succeeded in opening a portal to Hell but can only bring through relatively weak fiendish creatures (stirge, owlbear, rats, darkmantles)
• No prisoner/sacrifices
Changes made:
• Lanter archon Ariel is captured by Longtail, If he is freed, he can open paths to Regions B, E.
• Prisoners of Antagonis are being used as sacrifices to keep portals open. If freed, they can establish a friendly community within the prison.
As written:
• Two tribes of goblins are at war. Bugbears, dire wolves, howlers, blink dogs contend with goblins for survival.
• Stonespeakers (traditional evil goblins) follow old ways, worship ancestors. Led by Guk. Will team with PCs to destroy enemies. No chance of peace with Stoneshapers. Chance of betrayal is low.
• Stoneshapers (progressive evil goblins) follow new god Norendithas. Led by charismatic upstart and founder of new religion, Argliss. Will team with PCs to destroy enemies. No chance of peace with Stonespeakers. Chance of betrayal is low.
• Bugbears prey on goblins of both tribes. They will not team with PCs, but can be bribed for safe passage.
• Mercenary halfling Bartleby scours dungeon for treasure on behalf of Argliss. Might be paid for information, but won’t team with party unless he’s in immediate danger. Prefers to work alone.
• Cursed ghoul paladins are preventing travel between Stoneshaper tunnels and the shrine to Norendithas.
• Goblins G’lp and Klibb might potentially join the party as NPCs depending on how they’re treated and which side the party takes in the war of the goblin tribes.
Changes made:
• Lantern archon Brighteyes serves as guardian of the blink dogs.
• After many hundreds of years trapped in dungeon, main howler pack has developed the ability to speak, but does so only sparingly. They want to kill everything. No chance for peace with PCs.
• Bugbears are nihilistic murderers who worship an aspect of Norgorber they call The Hunter. Led by Sharpfang. Most of the bugbears only want to hunt new prey, preferably humanoids. Only the old, bugbear shaman, Logray, refrains from the hunt while the deposed chief, Aughkin, wishes to find and kill the dire wolf that killed his brothers. No chance of peace with Sharpfang or his followers. Logray and Aughkin have a beginning attitude of neutral. They will not join the PCs but may give free advice, information.
• Ghoul paladins cursed to reform unless (originally) non-magical silver holy water basin was placed within their chamber to create permanent hallowed site.
As written:
• Shadows, shadow mastiffs and two packs of barghests control south and east tunnels while Celestial Garrison deals with internal dispute concerning conscripted soldiers, The Redeemed, and missing ward staves.
• Goblin wizard, Farggallan, hides from shadows, celestials after escaping greater shadow, Seraxes. Just wants to live a quiet life with pet spider, Edgar.
• Some members of The Redeemed, led by Morrigsen, work with the barghests to break free of Inevitable control.
• Ghost priest, Iridinhael, maintains watch over a secret shrine and has information about the Garrison Charter. His soul can rest if evil is expunged from the region.
• The PCs might become members of the Garrison by passing the tests leading to the charter.
Changes made:
• Made Region’s south doors nearly impassable to shadows. (As written, there is very little stopping the shadows from traveling south and wiping out Region A's humanoids and Region B's goblin tribes in order to form a massive army.) If left open, south doors allow shadows to access commune and kill NPCs. Shadows cannot pass under or through cracks of closed doors due to protective wards.
• Gave Farggallan more item-crafting skills and feats and a mind for business, making him a good source for magic items. Otherwise, he still just wants to live a quiet life with Edgar.
• Had one pack of barghests attempt coup of Stoneshaper tribe after they realized their days were numbered in Region E.
• Had Iridinhael stick around after the monsters were defeated in order to mentor non-outsider members of the Garrison. Also, Pallas’ alignment was skewing very close to evil and the ghost couldn’t rest, knowing the Garrison might have an evil member.
• Made the charter test something PCs could do while adventuring.
As written:
• Gnolls tricked Stonespeaker goblins into providing them with slaves. Only one goblin slave remains and gnolls' forces are too thin to go back to Region B. Willing to hire party to clear out eastern tunnels or capture goblins. Chance of betrayal is high.
• Black dragon, Nardarik, and hill giant family have reached stalemate in battle for east tunnels.
• Hill giants are willing to hire party to kill Nardarik. Chance of betrayal is high.
• Nardarik is willing to use party to kill giants if they prove to be strong. Won’t part with treasure, but is content to stay in the east tunnels if the giants are wiped out. Chance of betrayal is moderate.
• Standard evil athach, Nurganar, lives in a “blue zone” where teleportation magic seems to function normally. Preys on gnolls and goblins who wander into area. Can be bribed to avoid fighting. Not really a threat outside blue zone.
• Open tunnel in Nardarik’s section leads north to Region G.
• Lantern archon, Zrino, acts as custodian of massive demon’s prison cell. Provides Mark of the Righteous to good PCs.
Changes made:
• Gnoll tribe wiped out by NPC adventurers prior to PCs' arrival in order to illustrate Four Waters’ progress.
• Made Nurganar neutral to reflect years of counseling and companionship of lantern archon. Still slightly greedy hermit by nature and prone to eating intruders to home, but no longer sadistic or aggressive.
• Tunnel to Region G sealed by rubble to prevent PCs from wandering into deadly encounters.
• Zrino’s name changed to Coleman.
As written:
• Two tribes of minotaurs live with uneasy truce after original tribe split in two. Sphinx, harpies, manticores, dragonne and rakshasa/medusa power couple control other sections of region.
• Broken Axe tribe favors diplomatic approach over combat when dealing with outsiders. Led by Markuli. Willing to hire PCs for odd jobs or to surreptitiously strike at rival minotaurs. Chance of betrayal is low.
• Red Horn tribe favors war, raiding when dealing with outsiders. Led by Grauki (no relation to Markuli.) Willing to hire PCs for odd jobs or to openly strike at rivals. Chance of betrayal is moderate.
• Grauki wishes to kill allies Rashmarik and Saria in order to recover treasure and claim territory.
• Rashmarik and Saria team with Grauki’s half-sister, Gartuk, to kill Grauki and take over Red Horns.
• Harpies kill all intruders to their lair, but are kept in check by Red Horn/Rakshasa alliance. Hint of eventual plan to conduct ritual to kill every non-harpy in region. They have an agreement in place to protect the entrance to the sphinx's lair in exchange for ancient lore, advice.
• Warp gates throughout region transport non-Lawful Good creatures to random locations with status effects. LG creatures are still sent to random locations, but suffer no effects. Hidden or lost keys prevent status effects and control gates.
• Hydra protects the tomb of Darvil the Thief who raised it from an egg.
• Riswan is prisoner of Broken Axe.
Changes made:
• Made Markuli, Grauki and Gartuk siblings.
• Made Rashmarik a female rakshasa rather than male because I don’t think there are enough openly gay or lesbian monsters in Pathfinder.
• Expanded on idea of harpy ritual (The Lamentation of the Weeping Woman) and role of harpies in the region. Gave them ties to Broken Axe priestess, Ramvik, came up with idea of harpy roost as a monster brothel.
• Wrote Arnarah’s riddle as a “checklist” for the PCs. Solving each part would eventually lead to them discovering the secrets of the region and how the sphinx was involved in the politics of the minotaurs.
• Expanded backstory for hydra and Darvil. Made Darvil a former dwarf slave of the minotaurs instead of some random human rogue. Gave hydra the Guardian Monster template from Dungeonscape to explain why it hasn’t starved to death and give it cool flashlight eyes.
• Riswan’s role expanded to become a major plot hook.
As you can see, I've made the most changes to Region F, which had a lot more intrigue going on, and I'm constantly adjusting things in response to the party's actions. If this has been helpful or entertaining, I'll post breakdowns for future regions.
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Madness is represented by a Reaper Minis Faceless Horror and, as written, it is a Fiendish Half-Dragon Gibbering Mouther (now that the party has seen it in action, I don't think revealing its templates is going to give them an unfair advantage.)
A nice thing about the adventure is that all of the monsters can be found (or created with templates) in a 3.0 or 3.5 Monster Manual. There aren't any creatures unique to this adventure. The only changes I've made to any of the monsters come from Pathfinder-izing them. I can use most of the monsters from the text as they're written in the Pathfinder Bestiary, but some get special attention. Monsters with class-levels, templates or advanced hit dice all need a little updating. Region F has probably taken the longest to convert since many of the minotaurs, the rakshasa, medusa and several harpies have class-levels.
There is one other thing I forgot to mention in my previous post:
I left out some of the plot points from some of the regions I listed because the party has left some dangling threads I don't want to spoil.
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The only changes I've made to any of the monsters come from Pathfinder-izing them. I can use most of the monsters from the text as they're written in the Pathfinder Bestiary, but some get special attention. Monsters with class-levels, templates or advanced hit dice all need a little updating.
What about the black dragon? I know that dragons underwent a significant re-jiggering in terms of CR and power level (e.g. a young black dragon is CR 7 and 8 HD in PFRPG vs. CR 5 and 10 HD in 3.5). Did you keep the original CR or the original age category?
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What about the black dragon? I know that dragons underwent a significant re-jiggering in terms of CR and power level (e.g. a young black dragon is CR 7 and 8 HD in PFRPG vs. CR 5 and 10 HD in 3.5). Did you keep the original CR or the original age category?
Nardarik is actually a Young Adult Black Dragon in the text (hence the spell resistance I hinted at in the journal,) and I kept him the same age category for his encounter with the party. The Bestiary's entry for a YA Black Dragon is CR10 so, using that, he's easily the toughest solitary challenge in the region, which is written for an average-sized party at levels 7-9 (by comparison, Arnuk the hill giant is a level 3 cleric so fighting her and her sons at the same time is a much harder fight than dealing with the lone dragon.)
The entire party at the time of the encounter consisted of six Lv.7 characters with a seventh close enough to the fight to jump into the fray if necessary. I reasoned the party's size + the narrow tunnels of the dungeon + Nardarik's relative inexperience and arrogance would help balance out the ECL, and that seemed to work pretty well. For anyone running this adventure, I'd recommend making Nardarik a Juvenile if the party is small or somehow reached him by level 6.
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So things were going pretty well this week with getting the journal written. I had a little more time than usual to get things chronicled, and I was all set to finish the entry by about 2pm this afternoon. Then, my magical writing box plotzed and decided it would no longer function. I guess it ran out of charges. Long story short, I had to bamf over to the office and start over from scratch on this week's entry.
That's the last time I buy a magical writing box from Spishak...
DAY 167 - MADNESS VS DEATH!
featuring: The World's Largest Adventuring Party
Roch - Lizardfolk Mystic Theurge
Cul'tharic - NPC Lizardfolk Scaled Horror
Shi - Dwarf Cleric of Pharasma
Riswan - Halfling Fighter
Elster ”The Stir” Slocan – Human Paladin
Vyk Vulkyn – Halfling Rogue/Fighter
Vyk quietly stepped into the heavily fortified chamber as a dozen drow warriors patrolled three towers under the watch of a trio of driders. He could see the exits at the west end of the chamber under the glow of a pair of the strange glowing web sacks and quickly made his way toward the north door when the idea to steal a weapon crossed his mind.
The halfling crept up toward a pair of drow manning the lower level of one of the towers and searched the area for a loose dagger, but there were none to be found. All of the warriors’ weapons were either worn or carried, and there was little chance of Vyk escaping without drawing attention to a crossbow or sword mysteriously floating across the room. Aborting the theft, the halfling turned to see he was now only a dozen or so feet from one of the foul driders and the creature seemed to have noticed him.
The drider spoke in a chittering whisper to a nearby drow as it scanned the room. Vyk then realized the drider hadn’t spotted him, but it was still somehow aware of his presence. He quickly darted around the edge of the nearest tower and made his way along the wall behind the drider who looked agitated as it cautiously stepped toward the spot Vyk had stood only a moment ago. The halfling suddenly realized he’d used up a good portion of the duration on Klarihg’en’s invisibility spell and hustled again for the north exit, quietly slipping through the door when he reached his destination.
The chamber beyond the north door was barren but for a patch of thick, luminescent moss and grass, which seemed to grow heavy upon the east wall and then spread thinly across the rest of the room. There was little doubt this vegetation had crept through the walls of the dungeon from the Green Death’s lair as the monster sought new locations to germinate, and Vyk began to search for any indication of a concealed portal he might use to distance himself from both the driders and the plant.
“That was a close one,” Vyk whispered to Klarihg’en. “Now let’s find a way out of here…uh, Klarihg’en? Are you still there?”
But the kobold was gone. Vyk quickly ran back to the exit, hoping to sneak back into the fortified chamber. He reached out for the door to quietly pull it open and, there on the portal’s handle, were his now clearly visible hands attached to his now clearly visible arms. The kobold’s spell was broken and the halfling was trapped.
***
A drop of sweat rolled down Riswan’s brow as he tumbled the heavy barrel of oil into the narrow, overgrown passage leading into The Green Death’s lair. He could hear the terrible gibbering of Madness up ahead mixing with a low, moaning roar like wind ripping through a hollow log and the sound filled him with dread. The halfling still wasn’t quite sure what he’d do with the oil but, against Madness or The Green Death, it might prove a better weapon than the oversized dagger the drow had given him. Giving the barrel a final shove, he was quickly over a thick knot of vines and into the densely grown chamber.
“Inheritor, protect us,” Riswan gasped as his eyes fell on the flailing forms of two titans, his barrel thumping into a clump of thorny shoots as his attention was momentarily drawn away from its trundle.
The beasts before the stunned halfling shook and bellowed as if to intimidate one another, Madness hooting and piping and The Green Death moaning deep contrabassoon moans. Having faced the quivering horror of Madness earlier, the halfling was prepared for the sight of the fiend, but The Green Death was another monster entirely.
The Green Death hung from a wide crack in the ceiling of the room, its body as thick as a sequoia yet swaying with the ease of wheatgrass. Two, powerful, 16-foot long tendrils extended from its sides like mossy pythons threatening to scoop up and deliver the doomed into the wide, howling, spike-toothed maw at the end of its trunk, and the sound of bending oak accompanied its every twist or weave. Madness, whether compelled by insanity, rage or stupidity, seemed oblivious to the threat of the thing and gave a chorus of shrieks as it crushed and trampled a path straight for the suspended monstrosity. Shaken from the marvel of the struggle unfolding before his eyes, Riswan caught sight of movement to his left.
A mass of tangled roots and vines suddenly rose up from the soil bed of the chamber. The remaining deathspawn had managed to re-knit some of the damage it had taken from Madness and was now loping toward the halfling in order to protect its forbearer. Riswan quickly ducked under the swings of the deathspawn and reached for his dagger as his eyes sought out the barrel of oil he’d rolled into the room.
The Green Death was easily larger than twice the size of Madness, but this didn’t seem to bother the roiling mass of flesh, which plowed straight into the thing’s waiting tendrils. Nor did it seem to bother the fiend when those tendrils crushed its body with vice-like strength, causing bile and blood to spray from its many eyes and mouths. Madness was relentless. For The Green Death, wrestling with the amorphous blob was like trying to hold onto a greasy, sack of jagged razor blades and the mutant managed to chew or slip free of the dendritic destroyer’s grasp after every swing. Still, the photosynthetic fiend was keeping Madness occupied and, no longer content to sit on the sidelines, Elstir moved in to stage an attack.
The paladin stumbled over and through the underbrush toward the battling behemoths and waited for just the right moment to strike. Holy power filled The Stir’s blade as he called upon the blessings of his goddess and smote a forceful blow to the scales of Madness. The monster countered the paladin’s attack with a spray of acidic bile and, worse yet, the creature was completely unharmed by Elstir’s attack. Though vile to behold, Madness, like a true force of nature, held no evil within whatever it called a heart. Blinded by Madness’ acid, the stumbling paladin was then struck repeatedly by both the teeth of the mutant and the tendrils of The Green Death, which could only assume the human was a threat. Fortunately for The Stir, the titans still considered each other a bigger danger and spared him the full extent of their fury as Riswan continued to struggle against the recovered deathspawn.
***
Klarihg’en hissed quietly for Vyk upon entering the empty south room at the end of the fortified chamber. Unable to see the halfling due to his invisibility and not foolish or brave enough to attempt to steal from the drow, the kobold had reached the north chamber long ahead of Vyk and was quite dismayed when Vyk failed to respond to his whispers. Thinking the halfling might have gone south, Klarihg’en once again snuck into the tower room and through the other exit before his spell could wear off.
“Bim rauhiss!” Klarihg’en hissed. “You here?” But there was no answer. Knowing his invisibility would soon expire, the sorcerer carefully weighed his options. Meanwhile, Vyk contemplated his next move.
The nearest tower was only about ten feet from the room where Vyk now hid and, while the enchanted ring he wore rendered him invisible to darkvision, the trio of drow warriors and their drider commander would easily spot him under the glow of the web sacks lighting the hall. The halfling also had to wonder about the driders’ ability to detect him even while veiled by Klarihg’en’s magic and, at last, resolved that a jaunt into the hall was too risky. Instead, he would return to searching for a concealed exit, hoping the kobold was safe.
Klarihg’en sat in silence for a time, pondering his likelihood for survival within the halls of the driders. His reptilian brain, which admittedly wasn’t very astute, nonetheless told him he would be better off laying low and using his magic to escape at the earliest opportunity. If he was caught, he reasoned, he could always expose the drow resistance and Siglinde’s attempt at stealing a tissue sample from Anguish. That would teach them to make a slave of the mighty Klarihg’en for certain…wouldn’t it?
“Drows is bad and eel lady is worse,” spoke a slightly less spiteful miniature kobold on Klarihg’en’s shoulder. “But driders is worst of all! Worse than Boyikt, worse than Longtail, maybe worse than ugly dwarf who kill Croo! Help driders, Klarihg’en only be slave to someone else. Probably be eaten.”
“Terunt-simose!” hissed the angry little kobold on Klarihg’en’s other shoulder. “Klarihg’en is mighty sorcerer! Not even use big magic yeeghhhhtt…” he continued before being throttled and stabbed by the first tiny kobold.
“Here’s what Klarihg’en do,” the slightly less spiteful kobold began as he kicked the angry kobold’s corpse off of the sorcerer’s shoulder before whispering into Klarihg’en’s ear. “Psssspssspsssppsss. And then, pssspspssspsss.” Klarihg’en grinned a devious grin and made his way quietly to the exit to the room.
Vyk spent nearly half an hour searching nearly every corner and tile of the moss-covered chamber but had yet to turn up anything resembling a concealed door. Stymied, he was just about to check the tower room to see if the coast was clear for a quick run to the south chamber when he heard a rumbling from the northwest wall. Six drow warriors slid open a panel in the wall and entered the chamber, their way lit by one of the glowing web sacks. Unlike most of the others, this light seemed weak and only illuminated a small area around the drow. Vyk held his breath and pressed against the wall, certain the drow would spot him as he slowly edged toward the concealed door and they certainly would have if not for his magic ring.
The ring Vyk purchased from the goblin wizard Farrgallan was carved from obsidian and bore no reflective properties. It seemed to absorb light, and the goblin told Vyk it would make him invisible to creatures who relied on darkvison to find their way through the tunnels. It was useless in lowlight conditions but the drow seemed to be relying more on their inherent sight to navigate the chamber than on the light from their dim lamp and, for that, Vyk was grateful. What the halfling was not grateful for, however, was the pain he felt when he was overcome by an urge to cut off his own fingers with a pair of shears he’d stolen from the ettercaps.
As Vyk sealed the sliding panel into the hidden room, he began to hear a ringing in his ears and his vision blurred. His mind mysteriously muddled, the halfling was unable to resist lining the shears up with his fingers and snipping into them. With the first cut, the first note of a squeal formed in Vyk’s throat and the drow in the next room would certainly have heard him if not for the darkness that fell over the halfling’s suddenly drowsy eyes.
***
The deathspawn reached for Riswan as the halfling fighter dove for the barrel of oil and pried its stopper loose with his knife. The thick smell of the liquid instantly mixed with the earthy aroma of the chamber as the oil leaked out onto the maze of vines. It wasn’t alchemical fire, but it’d burn just as well, thought Riswan who hoisted the heavy cask over his shoulders. But before the halfling could unburden himself, a terrible booming moan issued from The Green Death followed by a muffled gnawing and the babble of a hundred madmen. Instinctively, Riswan turned his attention to the two monsters at the center of the chamber where Elstir still staggered like an inebriate and, as if sensing its progenitor’s pain, the deathspawn halted its attack and rumbled in unison with the mossy malcontent. What happened next would likely haunt Riswan’s dreams for months, if not years, to come.
The Green Death, rent badly by the teeth of Madness, had finally managed to wrestle the squirming squamoid into its thorny maw. However, its roars of victory were quickly revealed to be premature. Heavily wounded but undaunted by the paralytic acids of The Green Death’s stomach, Madness set its teeth to grinding through the very belly of the branchy beast and gouts of thick, crimson chlorophyll began to spray from its ruptured stalk.
Riswan nearly lost his grip on the heavy barrel in disgust as Madness half-erupted and half-poured from a dripping fissure in the back of the The Green Death like a bloated worm from a rotting apple. Too wounded to continue the fight, the tendriled terror hoomed like a dying fog horn as it retreated into its ceiling crevice, Madness gibbering and wailing in triumph below.
“Elstir!” Riswan shouted. “Get out of there!”
The paladin’s vision returned just in time for him to see Madness roaring in deranged ecstasy only 15 or so feet away as Riswan Donkey Konged his barrel into the nearby deathspawn. The halfling’s throw was solid and the cask broke against the rough body of the spawn, drenching it in oil, but the savage plant quickly responded by lashing and entangling the halfling within its powerful tendrils. Striker in hand, Riswan managed to reach out as he dangled over the deathspawn’s yawning void of a mouth and put flint to steel.
Time seemed to slow as tiny sparks danced off the striker onto the oil-soaked hide of the green beast but then had to move extra fast to get caught up as the deathspawn burst into flames. Char-broiled and tenderized, Riswan managed to twist free of the plant’s grasp just as Elstir arrived to help. Madness was still sloughing about below The Green Death’s cave in exultation, but it was only a matter of moments before it returned to finish the thing’s spawn and the intruders to its lair.
“Run!” Elstir shouted at the halfling. “Find the tissue sample and get back to the others!”
Just then, the flaming deathspawn lunged at Elstir, cutting him off from Riswan and grappling him as Madness closed in. Unable to pull free of the thing’s grasp, the paladin soon found himself swallowed whole for the second time in the last four minutes. This time, however, he had no strength to break free of the monster’s gullet. The deathspawn’s paralytic acid had stolen his ability to fight and, as darkness overtook him, Elstir could just make out the cries of Madness’ hundred voices, shrieking with delight as its thousand fangs found purchase in the pulpy, burning flesh of The Green Death’s heir.
!!BONUS CONTENT!!
This session's photo featured my homemade Tendriculos mini! Here's a picture of him cutting a promo!
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Good news! My magic box is fixed so I don't have to teleport over to my office to write all these journal entries! Bad news! (or more good news if you hate these journal entries!) We're going on hiatus for a couple weeks! Once again, my bardly powers are being called upon to save humanity and so I must fly to the frozen wastes of Alaska to save the city of Nome from a tribe of frost giants...or high gas prices or something. Here's something to chew on until I return!
DAY 167 - MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
featuring: The World's Largest Adventuring Party
Roch - Lizardfolk Mystic Theurge
Cul'tharic - NPC Lizardfolk Scaled Horror
Shi - Dwarf Cleric of Pharasma
Riswan - Halfling Fighter
Elster ”The Stir” Slocan – Human Paladin
Vyk Vulkyn – Halfling Rogue/Fighter
A slight smell of ozone accompanied a boom muffled by the leathery cloaker wings wrapped tightly around Shi’s body. The cleric knew Roch was similarly held close by and he could hear the voice of the dark naga Siglinde only a dozen or so feet away.
“How have you managed to live so long?!” she hissed at the drider Mahir. Then, to the cloakers, “Sut mina lu' kyorl l' dobor!”
The shadow-shapers immediately released the adventurers and took a position near the chamber’s exit as a scorched Mahir made a break for the small laboratory in the south chamber.
“We’ve got to stop him!” Siglinde snarled at Roch and Shi as she slithered after the drider. “We can’t let him have the grimoire!”
Mahir quickly squeezed into the laboratory and made his way behind the table of bubbling beakers and frothing flasks where he took a firm hold of its edge.
“You’ll never take me alive!” he squealed with insane glee, flipping the table onto its side as Siglinde reached the door.
The noxious chemicals erupted into a thick, phantasmagoric cloud of swirling colors that suddenly filled the laboratory from floor to ceiling. Roch’s alchemy training told him the mixture had formed a potent cloud of Insanity Mist and Mahir’s mental state seemed suddenly explained. Siglinde’s aberrant physiology made her immune to the vapors’ effects, but the expanding cloud made it difficult to find her quarry.
“A little help would be appreciated!” the naga called to Roch and Shi as the cloakers stretched themselves across the chamber’s exit like a living curtain. The adventurers looked at one another, as if confused over what course of action to take. Neither wanted to risk exposure to the mist, but Cul’tharic’s life could very well depend on the outcome of this battle.
“Eureka!” Roch exclaimed.
“You’ve got a plan?” Shi incredulously asked.
“It’s time to go old-school!” the mystic grinned as he rolled back a pair of imaginary sleeves on his scaled arms and licked his clawed fingers. “Inna nayma Nethys! Aquos creare!”
Shi’s palm instinctively shot up to his face as a soft splash was heard from within the growing cloud and a puddle of water quickly expanded out across the floor.
Entirely uncertain of what Roch was trying to accomplish, Shi had no choice but to remark, “You might be standing a little too close to that cloud there, Roch. I think you’re getting a contact high.” Meanwhile, Siglinde continued her struggle with the insane enchanter.
The dark naga could just make out Mahir’s form in the roiling mist and saw the drider had paused to recover the spellbook he’d dropped before flipping the table. If he managed to widen the gap between them, the drider might easily lose her in the fog. She had to strike now! Whipping her wicked tail through the cloud like a razored club, Siglinde felt a satisfying thud as the tome was ripped from Mahir’s clutching fingers and struck to the floor.
“Mine at last!” she cackled as she located the book in the fog and wrapped it within the smooth but powerful coils of her tail. “Kill him!” she cried. “Don’t let him escape!”
Shi didn’t need to be told twice. The daft drider had been working his last nerve for the past four hours, and he was looking forward to taking out a little pent up aggression.
“Where’s he at!” the cleric shouted. By now, the cloud had expanded far into the obelisk chamber and Shi could hear one of the cloakers choking on the gas. A moment later, both monsters burst out of the cloud, abandoning their post for the safety of the high ceiling. Following their lead, Roch backed into the supernaturally dark chamber. In his absent-minded way, the mystic had forgotten the dispelling enchantment he’d prepared could be used to negate the magical darkness. He reached out to find the ensorcelled statue and, as his hand touched the cold, stone surface of the statue, he was also reminded that it wasn’t only enchanted with a spell of darkness.
“FWOOSH!!” said the statue as a fireball erupted from its base just as Shi entered the obfuscated chamber. The adventurers had tripped this trap earlier while searching the room and found that physical contact with the stone drider caused jets of flame to explode from its center. Roch flinched as the flames engulfed him. Because he couldn’t see the thing, he realized he would have to touch it once more in order to remove the darkness spell.
“FWOOSH!!” said the statue once again as Roch cast his abjuration upon its surface.
“Do you have to keep doing that?!” Shi scolded, his robes thoroughly scorched. Then, as normal lighting conditions returned to the room, something in the magma-walled east chamber caught his eye.
A small, quadruped thing like a dog made of stone, an earth elemental Shi guessed, appeared to be standing in the super-heated room. Siglinde burst into the room behind him, the fog of Insanity Mist rolling in behind her.
“Where is he!?” the naga exclaimed, hungry for blood.
Before Shi could answer or give chase to the strange stone creature, the thing dove straight into the rocky floor and vanished. “It’s gone,” was all he could manage before the poison cloud obscured his sight.
“We have to get you out of here,” Siglinde hissed. “Get to the exit, both of you.”
Roch and Shi held their breaths and made their way through the toxic fog, only stopping once they’d reached the door leading out of the obelisk chamber. Once safely out of the room, Siglinde took their reports of what had happened inside Mahir’s cache.
“You’re lucky I sent the cloakers in to check on you,” Siglinde informed the adventurers. “That wasn’t Mahir. It was his lab assistant, a dangerous creature called a phasm. They’re natural shapeshifters. I thought it died or escaped during the accident that created the Halls of Flesh, but it must have become trapped within the cache and gone insane. Now, it seems to think it’s Mahir.”
“What about the creature I saw?” Shi asked. “The earth elemental.”
“That was the phasm,” Siglinde answered. “It can assume the shape and abilities of nearly any creature. It used the elemental’s ability to travel through stone to escape, but it will have to return to the cache sooner or later.”
“Couldn’t it just use this power to appear out of any wall in the dungeon?” Roch suggested. “What’s to say it hasn’t already escaped?”
“I don’t think so,” the naga began. “The celestials who built this place seemed to have prepared contingencies for that sort of thing, maybe a layer of strong metal around the dungeon walls or bars placed directly into the stone. I don’t know for certain. It might be able to find its way out of the mountain, but I don’t think it can get back into these tunnels without passing through this door or it probably would have years ago. Either way, I’ll place a cloaker here at the door. We still have some work ahead of us if we’re to clear out these tunnels, and the last thing we need is interference from that monster.”
Their mission accomplished, Shi and Roch were once again relieved of their belongings and returned to the crystal cell.
***
Riswan fled as quickly as his legs could carry him from the lair of The Green Death. When he last saw Elstir, the paladin was being swallowed by one of the monster’s spawn as Madness closed in. Riswan didn’t like Elstir’s odds, but the paladin had already managed to crawl out of the belly of one beast today. For now, the halfling could only concentrate on finding a flesh sample from Madness. Returning to The Green Death’s lair while the mutant was still on the prowl would be suicide, but Riswan realized there was one other place he might search: the lair of Madness itself.
Madness’ lair was as abhorrent as Riswan remembered it. Pulsing, bubbling and squirming flesh dripped or sloughed from the walls and ceiling of the chamber as arteries thick with fluid pumped and vibrated under his feet. The halfling pulled out his knife and made for the hall where he’d first encountered the monster and, at the end of the throbbing, slime-strewn corridor, he found a portal, like the valve of a heart. A thunderous hum could be heard just behind the flap of thick skin that served as a door, and Riswan shuddered as he passed within.
A pit of drooping flesh, like a vast bowl lined with a leper’s skin yawned before the halfling. If today weren’t already filled with enough nightmares, Riswan would surely find his fill here. Eyes, teeth, fangs and claws all seemed to protrude from odd angles of the room. Crude mouths and other orifices gibbered or piped from every corner of the chamber and the sound of a great heart could be heard pulsing deep below the flesh at the bottom of the pit. This, then, must be spawning pool of Madness. No matter how the creature might meet its end, it would always reform in this place to renew its quest for destruction. Holding in the increasing urge to vomit, Riswan slid into the pit in search of his prize.
Riswan dug his knife into the flesh at the bottom of the pit, hoping to cut out a chunk suitable for Siglinde’s experiments, when he suddenly felt its blade contact something hard and unyielding. “A bone?” he thought to himself before realizing Madness appeared to be without any sort of skeleton. Digging deeper and reaching into the hole, his fingers soon came to grip what felt like a metal handle of some sort. It felt cool despite the warm, pulsing flesh around it, and Riswan gave it a strong tug. With a wet “squirp” the thing loosened and Riswan found he was holding onto the handle of what might be a weapon. Working quickly with his knife, he dug the weapon free and was amazed at his discovery.
A hand-axe, sized for the hand of a gnome or a halfling and forged from mithral, now rested in the hand of Riswan. The halfling had to wonder if the previous wielder of the weapon was a victim of Madness. Was his body absorbed by the monster’s lair, held in reserve to restore the body of the fiend? The thought made him shudder and he quickly finished his foul work with the axe. With a handful of the disgusting flesh tucked into his shirt, he climbed out of the hole and made his way back toward Siglinde’s lair.
Riswan passed near the tunnel leading back toward The Green Death’s lair and paused a moment. He had the flesh, but he couldn’t bring himself to abandon hope that Elstir lived. Stowing his new axe below a barrel in one of the drow panic rooms, the halfling quietly slipped up the tunnel into small jungle.
Madness was gone. The creature had finished off the remaining deathspawn. That much was obvious, but there was no sign of Elstir. Trampled foliage formed a path to the north and the halfling soon found Madness had discovered another way out of the chamber. Its cries echoed through the tunnels and Riswan could just make out other screams as well. If the fiend had taken Elstir, there was no doubt the paladin was dead. Riswan turned back toward Siglinde’s lair and slowly headed around the perimeter of the chamber until he stumbled once more upon the corpse of the deathspawn. He kicked its flayed, scorched husk and suddenly realized what had become of Elstir.
The halfling cursed himself for a fool as he cut and tore at the pulpy flesh of the plant beast. Elstir had been swallowed whole just before Madness slew the thing. If the deahtspawn’s acid hadn’t killed him, there was a chance the paladin was still alive, unconscious within the monster’s belly. A moment later, Riswan had his answer.
Elstir lived. The acid had done a number on the paladin and he was barely clinging to life but it seemed the death of the plant had caused its acid to become inert. Madness, it appeared, had actually saved Elstir’s life, and the paladin would likely have suffocated if Riswan hadn’t returned to cut him free. With a sigh of relief, the halfling struggled to lift his companion onto his shoulders but quickly realized he had no way to drag the paladin without causing further injury. As much as he hated the idea of trusting Elstir’s life to the naga, he had no choice. Riswan returned to Siglinde’s lair, gave her his report and prayed she would safely return the paladin as he was taken back to the crystal cell.
***
Vyk awoke within what appeared to be a massive hallway easily twenty feet wide with a fifty-foot ceiling. His fingers hurt and he suddenly remembered he’d tried to cut them off with a pair of shears.
“Halfling is awake,” came a familiar, rasping voice, and the halfling turned to see Klarihg’en towering over him. The kobold had mysteriously grown to the size of Cul’tharic.
“Were you always so tall?” Vyk asked confused.
“Klarihg’en have to make halfling tiny,” the kobold hissed. “Not strong enough to carry after go to sleep. Halfling lucky Klairhg’en find. Make halfling sleep before he scream like fanol, get caught.”
The kobold explained how he used his magic to become invisible and follow the halfling through the concealed door in the moss-filled chamber. Klarihg’en guessed the room Vyk entered was under some sort of an enchantment that compelled the weak of will to act irrationally; not a trap so much as a sort of permanent effect. Being a sorcerer, he was better prepared to resist the magic, but he had to put Vyk to sleep with another spell before he alerted the driders to his presence. Not wanting to wait for the drow patrol to return, he used another spell to shrink the halfling down to a manageable weight and stowed him under his robes while he slipped through the next drider checkpoint.
“Spider-elfs know halfling stole tool,” the kobold snorted. “Heard etter-men tell drider when come to find. All dark-elf know we here now. Good job.”
Vyk looked down at the shears hanging from his belt. The ettercaps must have returned from their work to find the tool missing. Returning the way they came would be very difficult. Suddenly, the halfling heard a strange chirp coming from the west.
“Did you hear that?” Vyk whispered. The tunnel ahead contained only a line of the faintly glowing red orbs hanging from web strands ending at a thickly barred iron door.
“Hear what?” Klarihg’en hissed. “Maybe halfling hit head? Klarihg’en hear nothing.”
The chirp returned less than a minute later, but the kobold still seemed not to notice. “We should move on,” Vyk announced as he stood.
The half-pint halfling walked ahead of the kobold toward the iron door when a sudden trilling screech echoed through the hall. Something was behind the door and, whatever it was, it didn’t sound happy. Vyk crept quietly closer to the door when a hiss of air caught his attention. Rolling backward, the halfling narrowly avoided a spray of flames that shot out of the walls and ceiling of the corridor before the door. Upon close inspection, the halfling discovered a series of nozzles concealed by illusionary tiles.
“Clever,” Vyk thought to himself as he went to work disabling the trap. When he finished, the halfling noticed one of the strange red lights had fallen from the ceiling when the trap went off. With the webbing destroyed, Vyk could see the net contained a small fire beetle. The insects were probably kept sedated with poison allowing their light to shine through the web cocoons without killing the things. The fire jets, Vyk concluded, were probably meant to keep something within the room ahead, but it was too late to do anything about it now. The trap was disabled, and he didn’t have time to figure out how to reset the device.
A small, gated window allowed Vyk and Klarihg’en to peer into the room beyond the iron door and get an idea of what lay ahead. By now Klarihg’en’s spell had worn off and Vyk silently opened the window to have a look.
The interior of the room was a disaster zone. Destroyed furniture, bones, corpses and broken weapons and armor littered the floor along with small fires burning atop piles of smashed debris. The chirping noise Vyk had heard earlier seemed to grow stronger and more repetitive here and the trilling roar had grown quiet. A pair of thick doors stood to the north as well, about thirty feet from where Vyk stood.
“I think we should go for those doors,” Vyk whispered.
“Soti,” Klarihg’en suddenly spoke, his voice filled with fear and his arm stretched toward the ceiling of the chamber. Vyk’s eyes were useless in the dark, but the kobold could now see the object of their search. The monster Anguish lurked in the shadows of the high rafters of the room, and it seemed to be pacing through the air on great wings.
“Monster,” the kobold repeated. “It will eat us!” he whispered in near-hysterics.
“Make yourself small and make me invisible,” Vyk ordered the panicky kobold. “I’ll hide you this time and we’ll sneak over to those doors and get out before it spots us.”
Klarihg’en did as he was told and signaled when the monster had distanced itself from the north doors. Quickly and quietly, Vyk slipped into the chamber. There was no way to lock the door behind him and the bars could only be secured from the other side so any drow wandering into the tunnels might spot the discrepancy, but it was a chance he had to take. There was no way he and Klarihg’en could be expected to battle Anguish without the driders noticing so, if nothing else, he hoped to find a piece of the beast within the monster’s cell before escaping.
The kobold’s magic once again did the trick and allowed Vyk to reach the north door unnoticed. However, there was a new problem. The north doors, like the one in the east wall, could not be unlocked from within the cell. They were barred from the other side and Vyk had no way to open them. He was about to head back, when he heard a loud “chunk” from the other side of the doors. Someone was coming through.
The chamber had gone dead silent. Anguish hid in the shadows of the ceiling in expectation of its visitors and Vyk dared not move until he had a clear path out of the room. Then, the iron doors swung open and a trio of wounded drow in tattered rags were forced into the chamber. Seizing the opportunity, Vyk squeezed through the closest door as it was closing. He could hear terrified screams from the drow in the chamber and the sudden return of the trilling screech. The tunnels outside Anguish’s prison smelled terrible and a pair of driders watched the carnage through small windows in the north doors. Vyk thought to slip away as quickly as possible when he noticed one of the creatures had turned to face him.
The drider stepped forward as Vyk retreated and then continued to cautiously follow the halfling’s steps. Vyk was fairly certain the drider couldn’t see him but, a moment later, its companion blocked the only exit out of the tunnel. Here, the stench of garbage and excrement was at its worst and, for a moment, Vyk thought he was near the drow’s hidden escape tunnel. He ducked around a corner ahead of the drider and suddenly found himself at a dead end, his only escape being a twenty foot dive into what appeared to be a small lake of waste. With the drider right behind him, Vyk backed against the wall and waited.
The drider stopped. It scanned the hallway suspiciously and, then, a grin broke across its monstrous jaws. The drider chittered and pointed its clawed hand into the hall right at Vyk who was suddenly covered in a glowing blue flame.
“Crap,” Vyk blurted before taking in a deep breath and vaulting for the lake of ick. Strangely, the chirping he heard seemed to now be a single, solid tone.
Vyk and Klarihg’en had to suppress the need to surface upon hitting the disgusting morass of rotting food, excrement and garbage. The driders were no doubt waiting to take shots at anything foolish enough to pop its head out of the water. Then, things got worse.
A large, spike-studded paddle or bludgeon suddenly struck Vyk and wrapped around him like a python. It began to drag him deeper into the filth and he could just make out what appeared to be the teeth of a massive otyugh churning the water below. This was it. Vyk Vulkyn was going to die in a stinking cesspool with nobody but a passive/aggressive kobold to call friend. “Avenge me, Stir!” Vyk cried, his words captured by bubbles of methane as the slop filled his mouth. “Avenge meeee!!”
“Oh, quit being so melodramatic and hang on to something,” came a female voice from somewhere nearby. Vyk found Klarihg’en had been shoved into the monster’s mouth alongside him, but the kobold was too busy throwing up to speak. “We’re about to surface. Just play along and you’ll be okay.”
The monster’s immense mouth opened, revealing the driders standing at the edge of the pit above.
“RARUrrrrrGH!!” the otyugh attempted to roar with its mouth full. “Goog meegh!”
The driders seemed to buy it and laughed as the otyugh once again descended below the frothing waves. A minute later, Vyk and Klarihg’en were returned to the surface and unceremoniously spat back into the pond of filth.
“Ughk!” the otyugh bellowed after brushing its tongue with a nearby clump of moldy, brown slime and gargling with poo water. “You taste disgusting! I hope those spider-things do not come back soon! I do not like meat!”
“Was that you I heard before? Did you lead me here?” Vyk asked.
“No,” spoke the otyugh in a friendly, if slobbery voice. “I am John! Spider-things call me shu-jindurn. I am not sure what that means, but they can call me poop-face as long as they keep bringing me good food to eat!”
“That was me,” came the female voice again as a glowing ball of light rose from the pool. “Please excuse the a-commode-ations, heh…sorry. A little humor helps us get through the day. I’m Idawalley, Ida if you like. I’m the custodian archon of this region, or I was until the driders arrived.”
Ida went on to explain how the driders had stormed into Region I and set up their laboratory unheeded. She tried to hold them off but there was very little she could do against so many of the creatures and, after resubstantiating so many times, decided it would be easiest to simply lay low and wait for reinforcements from the Celestial Garrison or some heroes to come along. Like other custodians, Ida had the ability to transmit a signal only good creatures could hear and she occasionally used it try to call for help. John was the only friend she had left in the region and the driders had, luckily seen the value of keeping the behemoth otyugh around, but he’d never be enough to stop them all and would stand no chance against the horrors unleashed after Mahir’s accident.
Vyk, for his part, informed Ida of his mission for Siglinde and the plight of his companions.
“Well, it looks like you’re in luck!” Ida chimed. “The driders toss all their experimental waste in the pit here with John. They don’t know he doesn’t eat fresh meat so it just floats around in here until it breaks up. They’ve been cutting on Anguish since they caught it so there’s probably a chunk of him in here somewhere.”
Vyk grinned. Siglinde never did say exactly how fresh the sample should be. John descended into the pit and came up a moment later with dripping, goopy blob of meat he was pretty sure had come from Anguish.
“There is a meat!” John laughed. “Here is a spear!” The otyugh had also found a broken, rotting half-spear the driders had thrown away and he placed it into the halfling’s hand before lifting Vyk and Klarihg’en out of the pit. “Be safe!” he finally called before sinking back into the mire.
“I’m coming with you,” Ida announced to the halfling and his kobold companion. “Your friends need rescued and, if they’re as brave as you, we’re gonna need ‘em to squish these bugs.”
And with that, Vyk, Klarihg’en and Ida began the treacherous journey back to Siglinde’s lair.
!BONUS CONTENT!
For you homemade minis enthusiasts, here's a picture of Otyugh John where he's not swimming around in poo-water!
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By the way, what was the green death?
Balthazar is correct. The Green Death is a Tendriculos. The adventure is written with 3.0 stats in mind but, even by those standards, The Green Death is a true monster among tendriculi. It sports extra HD and higher STR and CON than an ordinary tendriculos meaning it's extra nasty in combat. When I converted GD to Pathfinder, I found it actually lost a little power so I did swap a couple of its feats to keep it closer to consistent with the book.
In other news, my trip to Alaska was cancelled so gaming is scheduled to continue and I'll get the journal up and running again soon.
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Thanks, Templeton. I try.
@Dudemeister - I am both encouraged and saddened to know the World's Largest Dungeon will ensnare another group of players. Due to the length of this thing, I recommend you don't put off running the adventure too long. I owned my copy about three years before I found a group for it. As a GM, it's been one of the most challenging and rewarding adventures I've run despite its flaws. I hope you'll share your party's experiences with us.
Now on with the adventure!
The party has finally succeeded in collecting everything Siglinde needs to perform the ritual that might put an end to the terror of the twisted twins Madness and Anguish, but their troubles are only beginning. Has the party outlived its usefulness to the serpentine sorceress or does the devious dark naga have other plans for our plucky protagonists? Find out in...
DAYS 167-169 THE END OF BROMANCE
featuring: The World's Largest Adventuring Party
Roch - Lizardfolk Mystic Theurge
Cul'tharic - NPC Lizardfolk Scaled Horror
Shi - Dwarf Cleric of Pharasma
Riswan - Halfling Fighter
Elster ”The Stir” Slocan – Human Paladin
Vyk Vulkyn – Halfling Rogue/Fighter
Vyk Vulkyn stood before the dark naga Siglinde, a pair of drow warriors at his sides. Upon his return to the naga’s lair, the drow had relieved him of his equipment and the dripping, rank and rotted tissue sample he’d retrieved from the otyugh, John’s, pool. Now, the drow presented the yellowing globule of oozing meat to the naga as the halfling grinned.
“Sorry, Siggy,” Vyk sarcastically apologized. “The market was out of fresh aberration. I had to settle for last week’s catch.”
Siglinde eyed the sample with disdain and ordered the drow to contain it before focusing her attention on the halfling.
“Where is the kobold?” she asked, her disappointment with Vyk’s prize obvious in her tone.
“He’s gone,” Vyk replied. He knew the naga was even now reading his mind, but decided to lie anyway. “I turned around to check on him and he’d slipped away.”
The naga became silent. She could see the halfling’s thoughts and knew he wasn’t being completely dishonest. Klarihg’en was gone, but he hadn’t given Vyk the slip. The reptilian sorcerer had chosen to make a break for it, to take his chances in the north. Furthermore, he’d given the halfling a parting gift, something that might help him escape as well if he chose to do so. That he hadn’t yet fled gave the naga some hope the halfling might still serve some purpose and she pressed him further about his mission.
“That’s a pity. Klarihg’en’s assistance isn’t necessary, but it would have made the ritual to destroy the monsters easier to perform,” Siglinde spoke. “Now tell me what you learned of the driders and their plans for Anguish.”
Vyk answered and, once again, the words from his mouth revealed less than the thoughts in his head. Anguish was free. The halfling said as much, but his mind revealed the kobold was responsible. As the pair escaped from Anguish’s cell during the driders’ execution of their slaves, Klarihg’en had used a simple spell to force open the unbarred east door. A fleeing drow slave led the monster straight through the portal and into the drider battlements beyond, where it began to slaughter and destroy every creature in sight. It was simple enough for Vyk, Klarihg’en and the lantern archon, Idawalley, to return the way they’d come by following in the wake of the beast’s destruction.
“So both Anguish and Madness are now free within the driders’ tunnels,” Siglinde coolly hissed. “I applaud your resourcefulness, but I would have preferred for Anguish to remain imprisoned. Still, this should keep the driders busy awhile so my plans aren’t completely ruined. ”
“Good for you,” Vyk dryly intoned. “I did my part so I guess I’ll be going.”
“We aren’t finished,” hissed the naga. “This isn’t over until the Halls are rid of those monsters and the driders are wiped out. Play nice and we can all part ways on amicable terms.”
“Screw that,” Vyk replied. “As soon as you have what you want, you’re going to kill us.”
Siglinde seemed honestly shocked by the halfling’s words. “That hurts, Vyk,” she sniffed. “I’ve tried to be a good hostess to you and your friends yet you constantly seek ways to betray me or hurt my feelings. Well, if that’s the way you feel, you can just go back to your cell without dinner.”
“Choke on your dinner, fish-bait,” Vyk snapped before suddenly lifting into the air and flying out of the chamber before the drow could react. Siglinde’s interrogation had eaten up most of the duration of Klarihg’en’s “gift,” but the halfling was determined to make use of whatever magic was left to escape.
Vyk shot toward the exit to Siglinde’s lair as the drow gave chase and saw the doors to the east were secure. He would arrive at the trapped intersection of tunnels before the doors in seconds and knew there was no time to stop. He’d have to go another way. The halfling banked left and headed up the north tunnel of the intersection hoping the way would be clear, but once again a closed door barred his progress. There was no time to go back. He flew to the door and flung it open revealing a large room containing a pit lined with living flesh. A drawbridge in the west wall offered the only escape, but it was pulled up and a pair of cloakers guarding the chamber quickly caught sight of the halfling and moaned an alarm that paralyzed the halfling causing him to tumble to the floor. Siglinde, who’d used her magic to outpace the drow, was at Vyk’s side in an instant.
“I’m very disappointed in you, Vyk Vulkyn,” the naga scolded in her most mothering tone. “What exactly did you think that was going to accomplish?”
The halfling had no answer to give. As with most situations, Vyk hadn’t really planned very far ahead.
“I know you think I’m going to kill you now, Vyk, but that isn’t true,” Siglinde spoke as the drow took hold of the halfling and carried him through Siglinde’s halls to the north. “You’re far too unpredictable for me to allow you to assist me any further, but you did return with a piece of Anguish so I’m going to give you one more chance to be a part of my plans for this region.”
The halfling was carried into a wide chamber and placed into a series of concentric rings carved into the floor and, under the glow of dancing lights invoked by the naga, Vyk could see a great, unblinking eye cut into their center.
“You might recognize these rings,” the naga hissed. “They work in a manner similar to those in the tunnel near my lair. Their traps will contain you, giving you time to rethink your position while I prepare for tomorrow’s ritual. I know you’ve concealed a ring on your person that might allow you disable the traps, but I won’t stop you from the attempt. You will be free to leave these tunnels unmolested if you manage to escape but, if you return, I will have no choice but to assume you are an obstacle to my goals and you will be dealt with accordingly. Whatever you decide, your companions won’t be held responsible. However, I do sincerely hope you will choose to help me…I’m sorry it had to come to this, Vyk. I truly am.”
A hemisphere of ice suddenly materialized from the outermost ring in the floor, trapping the halfling as Siglinde departed. Alone in the dark, Vyk un-keistered his lockpicking ring and immediately got to work scraping a hole through the ice.
***
Elstir awoke within a barred cell within a wide, unfamiliar chamber. Spheres of light bounced from wall to ceiling at random, illuminating what appeared to be an immense, empty room, and the paladin could hear something approaching from a tunnel to the west.
“Oh good, you’re awake,” came the voice of Siglinde as the glowing spheres vanished and the chamber was suddenly filled with the light of a dozen flickering, heatless flames. “You were in such a horrible state after your encounter with Madness, I wasn’t sure you would pull through.” Only moments ago Elstir had seen only an empty room under the light of the drifting globes. However, under the light of the flames, he could now see he was within some sort of laboratory.
“I’m happy you did,” the naga continued. “I’d hate to be responsible for your untimely demise.”
Elstir remained silent. There was no need to speak; his thoughts were clear to the naga.
“I know you’re unhappy here and helping me must seem like a betrayal of all you hold sacred, so I’m going to offer you a way out…” Siglinde smiled. “…to show there’s no hard feelings.” A pair of cloakers descended from the high corners of the ceiling, opened the paladin’s cell and motioned for him to follow the sorceress.
Siglinde and the cloakers led Elstir to a pit dripping with living flesh and secured with makeshift rails. The mystic theurge, Roch, had told his companions of his visit to this chamber. He’d informed them of the acidic properties of the flesh within the pit, the icy prison it contained and what would happen to any creature trapped within the pit should the ice melt.
“I respect your conviction,” Siglinde began. “But I know that same conviction prevents you and I from being allies so I’m offering you a chance to walk away. You want to do what’s right and good and, as far as I’m concerned, you have. You’re a hero and your contributions here will save countless lives. You can walk away right now, and nobody could say otherwise.”
“I’m not leaving without my companions,” Elstir spoke.
“I knew you were going to say that,” the naga grinned. “So I’ve arranged a quest for you, a chance for you to atone for whatever sins you think you’ve committed by working with me.”
Elstir thought of Cul’tahric. Nobody had seen the lizardman since the party’s defeat days ago, but Roch believed he was being held in this very room. “I see where this is going, snake,” Elstir growled. “Give me my equipment, and tell me what I need to do.”
“I’m afraid your equipment is with the drow,” Siglinde apologized. “But I’ll allow you to use anything you find in this chamber. You could also choose to leave right now but, once you exit this room, your quest is over whether you’ve succeeded or not. The cloakers will escort you to the edge of our territory and, when you return, we can settle things your way.”
Elstir took a moment to pray and heal his own wounds before searching the chamber for anything that might be of use in rescuing Cul’tharic. Two sconces above the chamber’s door seemed loose enough to wrench free of the wall and the poles used to rail the pit were tied together with twine and wire. Elstir started with the sconces, thinking they might make awkward, but serviceable clubs and then moved on to the rails after laying the sconces near the edge of the pit.
The paladin could see the dome of ice glistening in the pit some 50 feet or so below and quickly unwound the wire holding the first pair of poles. In all, there were probably enough of the rails to form a long bludgeon he might use to break a hole through the top of the ice, but Elstir’s plan would never come to fruition. As he moved onto the second section of railing, his feet slipped on the slick, groping flesh at the edge of the pit. Elstir suddenly found himself sliding down the wall of the pit as if on a chute, corrosive tendrils slowing his descent until he tumbled to the floor below.
The paladin quickly got to his feet and tried to trudge toward the ice wall, but it was too late. Half a dozen pseudopods shot out from the walls and floor of the pit like acid-fanged vipers and began to lash and tear at the paladin’s skin. Fighting through the pain, Elstir managed to channel the divine energy of his goddess and heal himself enough to reach the perimeter of the frozen dome. Grasping and clawing at the ice, the paladin tried to climb out of the reach of the tendrils but it was no use. Then, as the ropy mass of seething stalks prepared for another assault, Elstir heard the voice of Siglinde from above.
“I’m so sorry,” the naga seemed almost embarrassed. “I thought this would be funnier, but this cruelty is beneath me.” Suddenly, the wall of ice faded from Elstir’s view. “After the way you all saw through the food I created when you first arrived, I never thought you’d fall for this.”
“Vile serpent!” Elstir cried. “By The Inheritor’s will, you’ll burn for your lies! Do you hear me!? Burn in Hell!” Then a scourge of acidic whips flayed out from the floor of the pit entangling the paladin.
“When the day comes that I burn, it won’t be for falsity, Elstir Slocan,” Siglinde quietly hissed as the paladin’s limbs melted and his head was seared from his body. “I never said your companion was within the wall of ice; only that any creature within the pit would die horribly were the wall to suddenly vanish...seems I was telling the truth afterall.”
***
Roch waited within the dark naga’s laboratory, a pile of tail-copied notes and diagrams scattered across a table in front of him. Siglinde had come for him nearly two days after his return from Mahir’s cache and requested his assistance with the ritual to destroy Madness and Anguish. The sheaf of pages, she claimed, contained everything he would need to know to aid her in completing the ritual and he pored over the sheets attempting to make sense of Mahir’s ramblings.
Something about the ceremony’s details troubled the mystic. The drider, Roch realized, had somehow managed to craft a spell that blended elements of transmutation, conjuration and necromancy into an unstable and unholy abomination of arcane theory. Only an accomplished arcanist could even attempt the spell, and as much as he hated to admit it, Siglinde was the only creature he’d encountered in the region, which displayed the necessary aptitude to complete it. Siglinde’s power, for better or worse, was vital to destroying the abominable monsters of the Halls of Flesh and Roch couldn’t help but think of how he and his companions had tried to kill the naga. More unsettling than these revelations, however, was a discovery that struck at Roch’s very faith.
“I sense you are uneasy, my friend,” Siglinde suddenly cooed as she entered the chamber to find Roch studying the scrolls. “How can I alleviate your troubled mind?”
“Are you aware The Ritual of Unmaking can be performed only once?” Roch asked with conviction. “Casting the spell destroys it. It’s a crime against magic itself.”
Roch was correct and, as a cleric of Nethys, this greatly upset the mystic. The god of magic counted very few sins against his followers but the destruction of magic, the irrecoverable loss of arcane knowledge, these things were tantamount to heresy and punishable with excommunication from the college of wizards and the stripping of sorcerous talent.
“I don’t think I can do this,” Roch declared. “It’s blasphemy.”
“I understand your concern, Roch, but think of the good that we’ll accomplish, the lives we can save,” Siglinde encouraged. “The creation of the Halls of Flesh was an accident, but it’s one we can learn from. The Halls are filled with life-giving energy. We can recreate the experiment with better controls, harness this power to provide healing, perhaps even share this energy with other parts of the dungeon. Imagine how grateful your friends in Four Waters would be to live without fear of permanent injury. You and I might unlock the secrets of practical immortality. You’d be a savior. Do you think Nethys would truly begrudge you the loss of one spell if you could unleash the power of a greater magic? Besides, if we succeed, we’ll have all the time we need to recreate the Ritual. We can improve on it, make it more stable.”
“The Ritual of Unmaking won’t kill both monsters!” Roch argued. “You must have learned this from Mahir’s spellbook! There won’t be enough time to recreate the spell with the other monster on the loose!”
“That’s why we’re targeting Madness first,” Siglinde assured the mystic. “Anguish is free, but it was captured once before by the driders. We can capture it again; seal it away until we’re ready to destroy the monster once and for all.”
“You don’t even need me to help you with the ritual,” Roch countered. “I’ve read it in the notes. One caster of sufficient skill is all that’s required.”
“But the chances of success are greater with more than one wizard,” Siglinde retorted. “The Ritual is like a beacon. If we fail, both monsters will know where to find us and they won’t stop coming after us until we’re all dead. We won’t get another shot at this, and here’s something else for you to consider if you’re still having any doubts: Now that you know the Ritual of Unmaking can only be performed one time, you’ll still be responsible for its destruction if you stand by and allow me to complete the spell.”
“With or without you, I’m going to perform this ritual, Roch,” Siglinde declared. “Now, you can decide to help me save a whole lot of people and make it up to your god later or you can try to stop me and then see how long you can safeguard this one spell while everyone around you is murdered by those abominations. The way I see it, you’re going to fail to protect this magic either way. At least my way you’ve got a shot at redemption. Now what’s it going to be?”
***
Shi and Riswan sat within the foul-smelling crytal prison counting the moments to their destruction. Siglinde had everything she needed to complete her ritual and both figured it was only a matter of time before the naga had them killed. Afterall, aside from Roch, the naga seemed to have no further need of any of the party. Vyk, Elstir and Cul’tharic were missing or presumed dead and, it seemed Roch would likely die as soon as he had fulfilled his role in Siglinde’s plan. When one of Siglinde’s cloaker allies finally entered the chamber housing their cell, they assumed their time had come. However, something about the shadow-shifter seemed peculiar.
The cloaker outside the cell appeared to be dangling three necklaces and a small pouch from its tail and Shi immediately recognized the necklaces as the holy symbols carried by he and his companions. When the monster happily waved its tail at Shi before deactivating the force wall on the crystal cell, the cleric had a sneaking suspicion he knew this monster from some previous encounter.
“My friend!” shouted the cloaker as it wrapped the cleric within its billowy wings. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you! Here! I brought gifts!” The cloaker dropped its items to the floor, the three holy symbols and a bag of spell components. “Don’t you recognize me?” it asked. “After you left the cache with the naga, I wasn’t sure if you were lying about being her prisoner, but then I figured I owed you for all the trouble I must have caused so here I am!”
The cleric suddenly realized who he was talking to as his hand instinctively reached for a knife that wasn’t there. “How did you get out of the cache?” Shi asked.
“Please,” the phasm began. “I was Mahir’s lab assistant and spy for, like, a dozen years or something. Also, I turned into a rat and escaped through that poisonous cloud before the naga resealed the door.”
“Who is this, Shi?” Riswan asked but, before the cleric could answer, the cloaker was reaching its tail out to shake the halfling’s hand and introducing itself to the fighter.
“I’m the phasm!” exclaimed the phasm.
“So, now you’re not Mahir?” asked Shi.
“Are you kidding?!” laughed the phasm. “That guy was crazy! So, are you two ready to get out of here? I think that naga is going to be busy for awhile so we can probably sneak away.”
“We can’t leave without our companions,” Shi answered. “Well, Roch and Cul’tharic anyway.”
“We’re not leaving anyone if we can help it,” Riswan added. “Have you seen any of our friends?’
The phasm explained it had seen Roch taken to Siglinde’s lab and Elstir taken toward the naga’s lair but had seen no sign of Cul’tharic or Vyk, and it was decided the three would hurry after Elstir before trying to find the halfling or the lizardman.
By the time Riswan and Shi reached the flesh pit, of course, it was too late for Elstir. Siglinde had returned to her laboratory and nothing remained of the paladin. Elstir’s flesh and bones had been completely absorbed by the pit. Slissth’s druid magic would not be able to restore the paladin to life this time, and the adventurers were forced to accept his loss.
“This is going to kill Vyk,” softly spoke Riswan, but the fighter was wrong. The rogue was already dead.
Vyk had perished nearly two days ago trying to escape Siglinde’s rings. Still wounded from his adventure in the drider tunnels, Vyk had hastily used his ring to scrape a hole through the wall of ice hoping he might manage to squeeze his way out. However, in his weakened state, the freezing air filling the small opening proved too much for the halfling as he attempted to quickly slide through to freedom. Overcome by the cold, Vyk’s limp body slid out of the icy prison and into the field of lashing black tentacles on the other side. Any hope for the halfling’s survival was quickly dashed as the inky pseudopods beat Vyk’s body into hamburger. His corpse was later recovered by Siglinde’s cloaker allies and dropped into the pit of acidic tendrils. Vyk Vulkyn and The Stir were together again at last and, this time, not even a soup strainer could separate them.
Nooooooooooooooooooooo!
Tragic, but narratively satisfying deaths. The naga must pay!
On the plus side, Shi is still just fine!
I think the Naga needs to pay, but how I do not know.
Roch
I love the updates, maybe in 2-3 years you will finish?
Great job!
James
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That might be a fair estimate, James. It's been over two years since we started, and the party is only about 36% of the way through the dungeon by my calculation. Maybe things will pick up in the next Region...
...Until then, read this!
DAY 169 - AN END TO MADNESS
featuring: The World's Largest Adventuring Party
Roch - Lizardfolk Mystic Theurge
Cul'tharic - NPC Lizardfolk Scaled Horror
Shi - Dwarf Cleric of Pharasma
Riswan - Halfling Fighter
Riswan and Shi stood at the edge of the yawning pit of acidic flesh searching for any sign of their companion, Elstir.
“Are you certain you saw him brought into this chamber?” Shi asked the phasm. “How can we be sure he’s even dead?”
“The naga and a pair of cloakers escorted a human here,” answered the shapeshifter. “I waited for them to close the door, flew into the naga’s chambers where I found your pendants and came to find you after watching her leave. She was only within the chamber a short time and the man didn’t follow her out.”
“Perhaps he escaped across the drawbridge?” Shi wondered aloud though the bridge was pulled up flush with the wall.
“This has gone on long enough!” Riswan growled as he peered over the edge of the pit. “I hid an axe near here. It’s not much, but I say we get it, find Cul’tharic and Vyk if they still live and then rescue Roch. We’ll force the truth out of that serpent if we must!”
Shi agreed with Riswan where locating their companions was concerned, but wasn’t convinced confronting the naga was the wisest strategy. Aside from the party’s track record against her cloaker allies, Siglinde’s goal of destroying the living flesh mirrored his own thoughts on the matter. The monsters of the Halls of Flesh were abominable products of unnatural progeny, an insult to Pharasma’s role as the goddess of childbirth, and the naga knew more about how to destroy them than anyone. For the time being, the cleric agreed to follow the fighter to the drow panic room and then locate their missing friends. The matter of what to do about Siglinde could wait.
***
Riswan gripped the edges of the stout oil cask under which he’d hidden the small mithral hand axe he’d discovered in Madness’ lair and then rolled it aside when a small orb of light suddenly flew up from behind the barrels with a shout.
“Reach for the skies, you mullet-headed hooligans!” shouted Idawalley as Riswan dropped the cask in surprise nearly dropping it onto his own foot. It didn’t take long for the lantern archon to realize the trio of explorers wasn’t a gang of dark elves and she quickly apologized and explained her situation.
Idawalley came to hide within the chamber two days ago after separating from the rogue, Vyk. The halfling, she relayed, told her he needed to free his allies before they took on Siglinde and advised her to lay low until he returned. She hadn’t seen him since. Riswan and Shi passed a troubled glance to one another and informed the lantern archon Vyk had never returned to the crystal prison.
“Then I’m coming with you,” announced the archon. “The little guy gave me hope there was still some good in this place. I won’t rest until I know he’s safe and, if he isn’t, that snake had better watch out.”
With Ida in tow, the group gathered Riswan’s axe and several vials of alchemical fire before returning to Siglinde’s lair. Before they could leave, however, a sudden droning filled the air and echoed through the halls. Not far away came a terrible, insane wailing and the piping of one hundred tormented windpipes. Riswan remembered then just how close they were to the lair of Madness and fear nearly drove him from the room when he realized there was something different about the monster’s gibbering, an audible component he hadn’t heard two days ago. Pain. The Ritual of Unmaking had begun.
***
Roch sat at the northwest point of the ritual circle Siglinde had prepared on the floor of the laboratory, his legs and arms twisted into an awkward pretzel as he chanted the words of the spell that would destroy Madness once and for all. Across from him sat a half-orc garbed in the red robes of an Asmodean. In light of Klarihg’en’s disappearance, Siglinde had called upon the drow for assistance with the ritual and this sorcerer was their reply. Introductions had been brief. The mystic knew only that the orc-blood called himself Armand and he seemed to be an accomplished mage. He might have time to learn more about the mysterious spellcaster later if they all survived this coterie but, right now, more pressing concerns troubled Roch’s mind.
The Ritual of Unmaking, Roch had learned, would take nearly an hour to cast alone. However, with the assistance of additional wizards, that time could be shortened and, with the combined powers of Siglinde, Armand and himself, the spell would take approximately thirty minutes. Thirty minutes is all he would have to decide how loyal he was to his patron, the god of magic, Nethys.
Roch could feel Siglinde in his mind, probing his thoughts and sensing his doubt as she coolly intoned the words of the ritual from across the circle. If the spell were completed, Roch knew he would be responsible for destroying a unique and powerful magic, one that could never be cast again. However, if he were to disrupt the spell, to purposely cause it to fail, there was no doubt in his mind the naga would have her cloaker allies drag him, kicking and screaming, to the pit of living flesh where they would fling him into the acidic embrace of the waiting tendrils. Worse still, he would be responsible for the deaths of his allies and any others who met their doom in the teeth and claws of the twin monsters, Madness and Anguish. What could he do? The penalty for blinding the All-Seeing Eye to such magic would be severe, Roch knew, but was faith more valuable than life? Only time would tell.
***
Shi and Riswan’s search for Cul’tharic eventually led them to a closed door south of Siglinde’s laboratory. The sound of the ritual boomed through the tunnels, but here it seemed louder, as if the naga and Roch were right on the other side of the door.
“If we get too close to the naga, she’ll know we’re out,” warned Shi.
“I’ll go,” offered the phasm, still wearing the form of a cloaker. “Come on! I can do this! I’ll only think of moaning and hugging things! She’ll never know the difference.”
“Let him go,” Riswan agreed. “At worst, he’ll distract some of the cloakers away from the ritual while Ida and I see if there’s another tunnel further south.”
“Do your thing,” Shi nodded to the phasm who promptly glided over to the door and pulled it open with his prehensile tail. Quietly slipping into the chamber, the shapeshifter could see Siglinde, Armand and Roch 100 feet or so up an adjoining tunnel to the northeast. A cloaker gripped the wall at the end of the tunnel keeping a close watch on the ritual, but neither it nor the casters seemed to notice the phasm’s presence.
“I think we’re okay,” the phasm telepathically signaled to Shi. “There’s another tunnel to the north that ends at an empty cell and a tunnel to the south that bends east. The south tunnel is lit by some kind of weird ball of light.”
Shi crept closer to the door and peered down the south tunnel. Sure enough, a sphere of light floated about five feet off the ground at the tunnel’s corner and filled the area with a greenish glow. Suddenly, a soft, hissing “irrr-ssss” was heard from the end of the south tunnel as the floor appeared to drop out of view. “I’m going to go take a look,” Shi whispered. “If any cloakers come to investigate, keep them busy.” However, no sooner than he’d taken three steps out of the door, a similar hiss emanated from below the cleric’s feet.
The floor of the tunnel below Shi dropped into a slide, which pitched the cleric south with alarming speed. He tried to dig his feet and hands into the floor to slow his descent, but it was no use. The floor was greased in some slick, transparent, oil and, within seconds, Shi was thrown onto the small, prone form of Riswan who had activated the trap from its opposite end.
“Wou oo kyee eemoo ur aff fuh my fay?” came the muffled voice of the halfling from below Shi’s robes. Shi tried to stand, but only managed to bang his chin against the slippery floor. It was then that he noticed the glowing ball of light above them had grown in size and was slowly descending into the pit. “Crap,” was all Shi had time to say before the sphere was upon them, drawing both the cleric and the fighter into its center with telekinetic force and whisking them up the south east slide toward a wall of solid ice.
The lantern archon, Ida, had followed Riswan into a tunnel that led to what appeared to be the opposite end of where they’d left Shi and the phasm. A strange wall of ice stood across the hall up a short flight of stairs and the halfling deemed to investigate the barrier. Sneaking across the hall, however, had led to Riswan being hurled down a greased slope and captured by an orb of telekinetic energy. Now, Ida fired a blast of celestial force at the sphere hoping to free the halfling and Shi, but her beam was useless.
Ida could only watch helplessly as the telekinetic sphere hurtled up the tunnel threatening to slam the adventurers into the wall of frost. She knew this was going to hurt and prepared to stabilize the pair if they should survive the impact. However, just as the sphere reached the top of the stairs, a hole formed in the ice allowing the ball and its live cargo to pass through undamaged. As the hole closed, the sphere vanished with a pop, dumping its load unceremoniously into a large, frost-covered chamber. Back out in the tunnel, Ida watched as a new sphere of energy suddenly appeared in place of the old one while, within the frozen cell, a scaly hand reached out for the abducted adventurers.
The lizardman, Cul’tharic, pulled Riswan and Shi to their feet as he croaked out a greeting to his fellow inmates. The cold-blooded warrior had been trapped within the even-colder prison for several days, and might have frozen to death were it not for his mystical connection to his ancestors. Even without his bag of talismans, the lizard was able to pray to the spirits of his tribe for the strength to endure the freezing chill of the cell. Now, with his companions at hand, he might regain his freedom but, first, there was the matter of removing the cell wall.
“Let’s just carve our way out!” exclaimed Riswan as he swung back his axe for a chopping blow. However, the lizardman quickly caught his arm and pointed to a pile of razor sharp shards of ice scattered about the cell and then to the numerous lacerations across his hide, indicating the wall was quick to splinter when struck by his strong claws. It seemed brute strength would only get them injured so another means of egress would be necessary. Then, Shi heard the telepathic call of the phasm within his mind.
“Sorry about my late arrival,” came the voice of the phasm. “One of the cloakers noticed the floor trap and I had to convince it I set the thing off by accident. The glitter-ball tells me the wall tried to kill her when she blasted it.”
“We need a way out, but you can’t strike the wall with your tail,” Shi shouted through the ice, hoping the phasm could make out his words.
“What?” the phasm responded. “Nevermind. Hold on; I’m coming through.”
Shi ducked and turned his head from the ice as he expected a shower of slashing crystals to explode out of the wall but, instead of a crack, the cleric suddenly heard a gasping hiss as a small section of the wall began to melt. A moment later, a dancing, vaguely humanoid flame pushed through the wall leaving a hole the size of Riswan and a cloud of rapidly expanding greenish-white mist, which caused Shi to feel light-headed and slightly euphoric.
“Another trap?” Riswan asked as he fought to maintain his grasp on reality.
“Id’z a mine fawg,” Shi slurred. “Weeev godda go for id drayyns owr weel.”
Cul’tharic and Riswan, who seemed to have overcome the effect of the fog, helped their friend from the cell but stopped short of stepping into the trapped hall.
“This is the second prison I’ve busted you out of today,” the phasm called through the thin mist as he assumed the form a giant eagle and lifted Shi off the ground. “So let’s make like a pack of good little jailbirds and get the flock out of here.”
***
Riswan, Shi and Cul’tharic, thanks to the phasm’s versatility, eventually made it back to the main hall of Siglinde’s lair and had a decision to make. To the east lay Siglinde’s laboratory, to the west, her private sanctum. The tunnels to the south, which once offered an escape from The Halls of Flesh, were now useless to them, and the drider-controlled northern tunnels were presently the hunting grounds of Madness’ awful twin, Anguish.
“I say we search the naga’s room,” said Riswan. “She may have more of our gear hidden within her chamber.”
“Phasm, we need you to scout the way ahead,” Shi spoke to the shapeshifter. Up to now, the adventurers had been lucky that the cloakers were concentrated within the naga’s lab and not in their typical sentry locations, but there was little chance Siglinde would leave her sanctum unguarded.
“I feel so needed!” the phasm squealed as he shifted into cloaker-form and wheeled toward the naga’s chamber. “You can count on me!” A few moments later, the adventurers received telepathic confirmation that four cloakers were spaced throughout the naga’s home.
“What now?” Shi asked of Riswan. “You remember what happened last time we took on four of those things at once, right?”
“Last time they took us by surprise and we didn’t have your little friend,” Riswan spoke. “I think we can take them.”
Just then, the adventurers received a message from the phasm. One of the cloakers was leaving the chamber after ordering him to take the monster’s place on guard detail, and they had only moments to hide.
“Now, it’s five against three,” Riswan grinned as the cloaker flew across the hall toward the laboratory. “Let’s do this.”
Shi, Ida and Riswan snuck up the tunnel toward the naga’s sanctum, the sound of their movements drowned out by the echoes of chanting from the lab. Then, signaling the phasm to strike, they burst into the chamber and attacked the nearest of the shadow shifters. The phasm charged the creature from the air, hoping to wrestle it to the ground, but the monster was too quick. It wriggled free of the phasm’s grasp and sent up a keening alarm to its brethren. Stunned by the subsonic vibrations of the beast’s moan, Shi froze in place as Riswan, Cul’tharic and Ida rushed into the room. Once again, the cleric had fallen victim to the paralyzing cry of the cloakers but, before things could get even worse, things got even worse.
A thunderous, bleating roar, like the shriek of a pack of ravenous animals, suddenly filled the air. “Heavens’ bells!” Ida exclaimed. “It’s Anguish! The monster’s here!” The archon was right. Drawn by the power of the ritual, the horror called Anguish had come to rain terrible fury upon any who dared to speak the words that would doom its amorphous kin. Taking the fastest avenue toward the source of the ritual, the monster had found a path that led through The Green Death’s lair and into the room containing the pit of acidic flesh. The raised drawbridge in the chamber would momentarily stall the creature’s advance, but the adventurers had little time to act as Siglinde’s cloaker allies fled the room.
Cul’tharic dashed ahead through the fleeing cloakers and three adjoining rooms of the naga’s sanctum in a desperate search for the party’s weapons or armor, but none were to be found. “Everyone to the lab!” Shi shouted as feeling returned to his limbs. “We’ve no time to lose!” The adventurers and their allies quickly followed the cloakers out of the chamber and through the intersection leading up to where, even now, Anguish battered down the steel drawbridge over the devouring flesh. Then, however, Cul’tharic stopped and motioned toward the wall at the south end of the intersection, a wall set with three, concentric golden circles.
“The wall of ice!” Riswan shouted. “If we can activate the trap, we can block off the tunnel! It should buy us some time!”
“I can do it,” Ida chimed. Unlike typical lantern archons, the custodian archons of the dungeon had been granted minor utilitarian magics to aid in their upkeep of the prison. It took but a moment for the archon to create a shapeless, invisible force capable of rotating the golden rings at the end of the hall and, once her companions were clear, Ida sprung the trap, sealing the tunnel. The ice wouldn’t hold Anguish for long, but every second was crucial as the adventurers fled through the eastern breech into Siglinde’s laboratory.
The sudden arrival of four frantic cloakers and the escaped adventurers seemed almost expected by the naga who used a brief moment free from chanting to address Shi as Roch and the half-orc, Armand, continued the ritual.
“Anguish has come to halt the ritual,” Siglinde hissed over the shrieks of the closing beast. “Madness will follow if it is interrupted. Take whatever you can find here and hold the monster off. The cloakers will assist you. We don’t have time to argue.”
Shi and the cloaker-formed phasm quickly searched the tables and storage area of the lab for any useful equipment, managing to locate a few vials of various potions and alchemical grenades along with a long club and an armload of tools that might serve as impromptu weapons, while Riswan, Cul’tharic and Ida formed a defensive line with the cloakers in the main hall. Their scavenging complete, the pair rushed back to their companions just in time to hear the cracking and crumbling of the wall of frost.
A low mist roiled out of the narrow tunnel leading toward Siglinde’s sanctum as the final tinkling clatter of frozen shards hit the floor of the passage. Then, a stereo roar of reptilian gutturals and leonine bellowing pierced the air in unison with capricant bleating. Steaming with frost, the triple-headed terror called Anguish clawed and writhed from the narrow passage, spread black, bat-like wings and trilled with rage as a quartet of cloakers answered its cry with a harmony of low, mournful wails that shook the walls of the great hall.
“Okay, I’m convinced,” Riswan snarked as he brandished his axe. “These things really need to die.” Then, with a cry of his own, the halfling charged the beast as Shi prayed for the divine vengeance of his pale goddess and Cul’tharic moved to flank Anguish with the stout, knobby club the cleric had given him.
Unfazed by the dirge of the cloakers, Anguish easily deflected Riswan’s strike and, as the shadow shifters changed tactics, the phasm’s form twisted into that of a copper-scaled dragon.
“You’re nuts if you think I’m getting anywhere near that thing,” the phasm spoke as it wheeled toward the ceiling of the hall and dug its claws into the stone. Then, amid the thunderous blows of Cul’tharic’s greatclub and the diving tail whips of the cloakers, the phasm took a deep breath and sprayed a line of corrosive acid across Anguish’s back. Previously wounded from two days of hunting driders in the north, Anguish hissed in anger and countered its attackers with a breath weapon of its own.
The dragonish head of the monster gaped wide and suddenly unleashed a translucent cloud of flecked gas. While most of the cloakers and the phasm were out of reach of the noxious vapor, the land-bound adventurers and Ida were fully caught within its dispersal. Riswan and Shi were suddenly overcome with an irresistible urge to move as far away from the monster as possible and, along with one cloaker that had also been a target of the blast, suddenly retreated from the battle, leaving their allies to deal with the horror.
With its enemies scattered, Anguish now turned its full fury on the lizardman, Cul’tharic, and savagely tore, snapped and gored into the warrior’s scaly hide with its claws, teeth and horns. Bleeding profusely from Anguish’s first assault, Cul’tharic tumbled back after delivering another powerful swing to the monster’s goatish head. “Help him!” Ida cried to the phasm and the remaining cloakers as she blasted the beast with beams of light capable of piercing the strongest armor.
The cloakers’ tails were useless against the terror’s supernaturally resistant body but, by diving and distracting the monster, they managed to provide Cul’tharic with additional protection against the thing’s attacks while the phasm assumed a new form. Shifting from scales of copper to scales of green, the shapeshifter detached from the ceiling and strafed Anguish with another line of acid.
Anguish roared in pain as the phasm’s spray splashed down upon its back and, having had enough of the shapeshifter’s acidic salvos, the monster launched into the air, breaking through the cloakers to deliver a vicious bite to the phasm’s neck. Meanwhile, Riswan and Shi’s distance from the fight continued to grow.
Unable to control their flight, Riswan and Shi had taken a path that led them back through Siglinde’s laboratory and north toward the lair of Madness and, while the amorphous aberration was incapable of directly attacking the adventurers thanks to the magic of the ritual, its gibbering chorus could still drive them to fits of insanity.
The cleric and fighter quickly found themselves torn by confusion; lunatic desires to continue their mad dash from Anguish dancing with sudden urges to slit their own wrists or babble incoherently. Reaching Madness’ lair at last, the adventurers came upon a sight more terrible than either thought possible.
Madness itself writhed, contorted, whined and shrieked within a corner of its lair. The thing had returned to its domicile to rest after two days of feasting on the blood of maddened drow and driders only to be fall prey to the spell that would eradicate it from existence forever. So wracked with pain was the beast, it could only twist and stretch its mutated form into abstract, non-Euclidean loops and curlicues and, at times, the adventurers could see a pair of skeletal wings bridged by membranous tissue formed from dozens of pain-blinded eyes and bristling fangs extending and retracting into the monster’s terrible mass. Stricken with pure horror and insanity, Riswan howled and charged at the thing attempting to bury his axe into its squamous hide in a mad ploy to hack the undulating abomination from the memory of the world as Shi stood gibbering and laughing at the threshold of the chamber. All the while, Cul’tharic, the phasm and Ida continued their desperate struggle against the thing’s tri-crowned twin.
Some of Anguish’s strength seemed to diminish in the last few moments of the battle in the great hall. Two days of war against the drider sorcerers and their drow slaves had taken their toll on the monster and, now, the thing drooled blood and ichor from its slavering jaws as it made a desperate play against its foes. Equally wounded by the monster’s attacks, Cul’tharic and the phasm had fallen back to the entrance of the laboratory. Only twenty or so feet separated the beast from Siglinde and her co-conspirators, and neither the lizardman nor the shapeshifter would likely survive another assault by the fiendish mutant.
“Nomeno ui svaklar yth plyn wer pobon!” growled Cul’tharic as he focused his gaze on the abomination as he prepared to swing his massive club. At his side, the phasm had assumed the form of an ebon-scaled dragon. “Too bad I left my pen back in the cache,” it replied as it reared back its head to expel a geyser of acid into the beast’s chest. The remaining cloakers could only buzz and harass Anguish, hoping to foil its attacks as Ida darted away from the creature’s slashing claws. Within seconds, the battle would be decided.
The phasm unleashed a torrent of boiling acid into Anguish but, this time, the monster managed to deflect a killing portion of the spray away from its body with its massive wings and the beast lunged forward to divide its attacks between its hated foes. Fueled by divine inspiration provided by Idawalley, Cul’tharic chose his moment and swung his club with all his might.
A sound like a splintering sapling suddenly issued from the skull of Anguish’s leonine head as the club found its mark and sent the beast reeling back and, before the creature could recover from the blow, Ida’s holy light drilled a hole through its ribs and into its lungs. The beast stood only a breath longer as its goat and dragon heads bleated and wheezed and its lion’s jaws hung limp. Then, with a noxious fume, the whole of Anguish dripped and melted as a candle onto the floor of the great hall forming a blodgy puddle of slick fur, scales and flesh before bubbling away to nothing. Now it was up to Siglinde and her wizardly colleagues to finish the ritual and end Madness’ reign over the eastern tunnels.
***
Riswan, Shi, Cul’tharic and Ida eventually managed to regroup in Siglinde’s laboratory. The effect of Anguish’s toxic fog having worn off, the cleric and fighter were able to escape Madness’ lair, running into the lantern archon along the way. Curiously, however, the phasm was absent from the chamber and, with Ida having raced off to find Shi and Riswan, only Cul’tharic had been around to hear the phasm’s parting words. However, at least for the time being, the lizardman was keeping his mouth shut. For now, the adventurers seemed welcome to witness the casting of the Ritual of Unmaking.
As the minutes passed, Roch’s mind continued to stew over the prospect of blowing the ritual. He could feel the floor tremble as if it were lightly breathing or gasping, like the spell was choking the corruption from the halls and, as he neared the ritual’s conclusion, his will began to falter. With his allies close at hand, escape seemed a possibility but none appeared to be in any condition to defend him against the naga’s reprimand. Still, what was the wrath of one sorceress compared to the wrath of a god?
Siglinde must have sensed the mystic’s trepidation because, as the abjuration reached its end and the very walls of the dungeon began to vibrate with the echo of her voice, she was suddenly sticken with intense pain. One moment’s lapse of concentration had caused the spell to fail and a surge of uncontrolled magic shook the naga from her meditation. Siglinde’s body seemed to swell and bulge as the loose energy of the spell filled her. Across from the naga,the sorcerer Armand began to scream and contort as a pair of thin, withered wings sprang at odd angles from his back and Roch could suddenly feel a warmth emanating from the floor beneath him. The smooth stone below his body felt as if it was slowly melting into a shape conforming to the contours of his frame. Fortunately, the effect was only momentary and Roch avoided sinking straight into the ground, but the mystic could still feel the surge of power within his body. Then, as Armand and Siglinde regained their composure (if not their natural appearances,) a terrible chorus of screams began to echo through the halls. Freed from the ritual’s bonds, Madness was on the move and headed straight for the lab, flying on wings of grinding fangs and wild eyes.
“Shi!” Siglinde cried. “You and the cloakers need to insure every door between here and that thing is locked and barred! Roch, I need to know you’re still with me!”
Roch gulped as his mind blazed through the available options. Madness was approaching and, now, it seemed certain his power would be necessary to complete the ritual if any of them were to survive.
“I’m in, dammit!” Roch hissed. “May the All-Seeing Eye forgive me and Mahir be damned, but I’m with you!”
Shi and his companions raced off to bar and reinforce the doors to the north, Ida using her heavens-granted gifts to hold the portals closed and Cul’tharic and Riswan blocking up the doors with whatever tables and other loose furniture they could lift or drag onto the piles while Siglinde, Roch and Armand renewed their concentration. Somewhere to the north, Madness fell to the ground, paralyzed once again by the power of the spell and, once again, things went well until the final moments of the ritual.
This time, Roch’s fears could not be held to blame for the loss of the ritual’s power. This time, the mystic’s will was set and he was ready to answer for whatever crimes against magic he might commit. No. This time, the very dungeon itself was responsible for the collapse of the spell. As Siglinde, Armand and Roch began to utter the last syllables of the ceremony, the halls of the dungeon shuddered and moaned, causing the ritual circle to break. Another surge of arcane power ripped out from the center of the ring, blasting the trio of mages. Roch suddenly felt the muscles of his right hand shrink and twist as one of his clawed fingers withered and fell to the floor. To his left, Armand’s body seemed to contract as if an unseen force was crushing it and, at the focal point of the circle, Siglinde’s left eye began to burn and smoke with arcing lightning. Madness, recovered once more, mustered the full extent of its rage and flung itself toward the laboratory doors as the casters recovered and reset the circle.
“It’s at the doors!” Shi cried from a northern tunnel. “We won’t have another shot at this!”
“It’s all or nothing this time, boys,” Siglinde hissed, her wounded eye white and seeping. Having survived whatever force had assailed him, Armand recommitted himself to the task at hand. His body felt soft and his bones brittle, but he knew as well as any this was no time for the licking of wounds. The coterie of wizards, more focused than ever, resumed their spell and, this time, their voices rang out in unison as they uttered the final syllables of Mahir’s accursed incantation.
The dungeon walls seemed to groan and scream, blocks of flesh-riddled stone rained to the floor and the halls twisted and cracked. At the doors of Siglinde’s laboratory, the hundred voices of Madness piped their final frenzied a cappella as the light of the fiend’s thousand eyes winked out like the galaxies’ distant deaths of a thousand stars. The nightmarish beast was ended, its only remains a foul air and a great stain upon the stone floor like a lost shadow.
***
“I want to thank you all for what you’ve done here today,” Siglinde announced as the adventurers stood over the inky remains of Madness. “I know I’ve made things hard on you, but you didn’t make it very easy for me to trust you.”
“Where are our companions?!” Riswan interrupted.
“I regret to inform you Elstir Slocan and Vyk Vulkyn are dead,” the naga replied. “The paladin was given the opportunity to leave but chose to stay and search for your lizardman friend. The rogue, on the other hand, was given an opportunity to stay but chose to attempt an escape. They chose poorly. Both decisions cost them their lives and, for that, I am deeply sorry, but it was their choice to make. I was nothing if not fair, and –“
“Save it,” the halfling retorted.
“No,” Shi spoke. “She’s kind of got a point. We brought this on ourselves and, after we attacked her, she could have killed us but she didn’t.”
“She needed us to run her errands!” Riswan complained. “I wasn’t all for coming in here and ‘Stirring’ up trouble, but she can’t expect us to walk away now after what she’s done!”
“Actually,” Siglinde spoke. “That’s exactly what I expect.”
“We’ve all lost something here today,” the naga continued as she blinked the translucent lid of her dead eye. “But, regardless of how we got here, we’ve managed to bring this region a step closer to freedom from the cancer that fills this place. That’s why I’m letting you go. Anguish will return and the driders will regroup. If we’re to have any chance of stopping them, we need to learn to trust one another.”
“Then howabout returning our gear?” Riswan asked.
“Your equipment is with the drow,” Siglinde answered. “And, after the loss of so many of their compatriots as a result of your friend, Vyk’s, actions in the north, I don’t expect they’ll be willing to return it without some form of recompense.”
“Excuse me,” came a strange, burbling voice from the half-orc Armand. “But I’m not with these people. I had nothing to with any of that business up north so I’ll just be going now. If you lot manage to work out some kind of deal with the drow, then maybe we can work together but, for the moment and based on my experience with you so far, I think the further I am from you, the better.” And with that, the sorcerer slipped past the group and into the northern tunnels, his feet squishing as his useless wings bounced and rolled across his back.
“We should go too,” Shi spoke. Aware as he was of Riswan’s feelings on the matter, he and his companions were in no condition to ignite a confrontation with the naga and her cloaker allies.
“I trust we’ll see each other again soon,” Siglinde smiled.
“Count on it,” Riswan replied.
Roch, for his part, remained silent. In his heart, the mystic knew something of the magic he loved so much had left him this day and there would be a price to pay for its loss.
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That they've never accused me of being a sadistic, unfair or cruel GM has led me to believe some of them might be masochists.
They're a mature group. They don't always agree on how to approach a situation and they poke fun at one another when a plan goes pear-shaped, but they all know it's just a game and they accept the consequences of their actions. More often than not, the dice get blamed for their suffering. Shi's player, for example, constantly manages to fail Will saves depsite having one of the highest Will modifiers in the party.
It could be they just enjoy actually Role-Playing through the sorts of conflicts their encountering now. As we'll soon learn, Roch's player is in a spot where many players would just tear up their sheets and start over. Instead, he's rising to the challenge.
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I hear ya, Balthazar. It isn't by design that there are a lot of PC deaths and I know splitting up the party isn't an optimal situation in a team-based RPG, but I think those issues are working themselves out.
I'd love to see a consistent group of PCs, and I'm pretty open with my players about my disdain for killing them. I always double-check the math and the books when a PC dies to make sure the ruling is legit and, on several occasions, I've allowed players to replay the moments leading up to their deaths so they might "make it right." Access to Reincarnate has already helped to slow down PC turnover by allowing Shi, Roch and (at least temporarily) Elstir to remain with the group. Raise Dead is also right around the corner.
In the early sessions of the campaign, the party frequently chose to split up. Sometimes it was because certain PCs didn't play well with others and sometimes it was a conscious decision to cover more ground or tackle multiple tasks at once. They've veered away from that style of play as encounters have gotten deadlier, and I think Region F's random teleportation portals had a lot to do with it.
I try to keep GM-imposed separation to a minimum and, when the players do get separated, I try to make sure they aren't at a severe disadvantage. I was actually really impressed by how the players dealt with Siglinde's tasks by, for the most part, concentrating on their individual strengths to succeed.
At any rate, I'm glad you're all enjoying the read. It's been fun bringing it to you.
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Our heroes have finally escaped the coils of Siglinde and made their way north toward the lair of the evil drow. However, the dark elves have some unfinished business with their drider enemies, not to mention the adventurers' equipment. Will the party manage to reclaim their purloined goods or will they be drawn into yet another deadly conflict? And what about the mysterious sorcerer, Armand? Is he just some random dude or is he secretly a PC who just hasn't officially joined the party yet? Find out next, in...
DAYS 169-171 INTO THE SPIDER'S WEB
featuring: The World's Largest Adventuring Party
Roch - Lizardfolk Mystic Theurge
Cul'tharic - NPC Lizardfolk Scaled Horror
Shi - Dwarf Cleric of Pharasma
Riswan - Halfling Fighter
A dozen drow marksmen trained their crossbows on Roch as a pair of warriors wielding rapiers quickly pulled open the door to the outpost. Their leader, a tall, yellow-eyed drow in a heavy, flowing cloak glared at the mystic in disgust, his blade raised to signal for the archers to fire as Shi, Riswan and Cul’tharic stood at a distance, unable to translate the words of the dark elf and unclear of what had just transpired.
“Perhaps my Undercommon is a bit rusty,” Roch winced…
***
Two days prior to reaching the drow outpost, Shi, Riswan, Cul’tharic and Roch had been freed from confinement by the dark naga, Siglinde. The sorcerous serpent had informed the party their gear had been given to the dark elves upon their capture and warned that her relationship with their leader, Lorath, would not be enough to secure their belongings in light of the chaos caused by their companion, Vyk Vulkyn.
The rogue, it seemed, was responsible for setting Madness’ twin, Anguish, loose upon the driders and their drow slaves, forcing the rebellion’s hand. The drow turned on their drider masters, leaving them to die or attacking them openly as they fled into the eastern tunnels. Further complicating matters and unbeknownst to the party, was the fact that Vyk had made a very poor impression on the drow leader during their brief meeting, repeatedly insulting the drow and making light of the warrior’s peculiar deformity. These difficulties, along with the fact the party’s gear was now being used to secure the drow tunnels, stood to make the recovery of their belongings a dangerous proposition. The party, along with the lantern archon, Ida, gathered within a soundproof panic room near the former lair of Madness to plan out their next move.
“We aren’t going any further until we rest,” Shi announced. “Anguish nearly killed Cul’tharic, and I’m only still conscious thanks to Ida. I propose we stay here a day or two while we recover and then deal with the drow.”
“We should explore Madness’ lair tomorrow,” Riswan suggested. The halfling suspected there was more treasure than the mere handaxe he’d found still buried within the folds of mutated flesh within the monster’s home and felt the party would need all the help it could find in case the drow became hostile. “We don’t know how long Anguish will take to reform or where it will appear, so I’d rather we get to any other weapons there before it crawls out of that pit. Perhaps you or Roch could prepare some sort of magic to help us search the area?”
Fortunately, Siglinde had held onto Roch’s spellbook and returned it to him before the party left her company. However, as Shi pondered the blessings Pharasma might bestow upon him the next day, Roch seemed to be having difficulty making a connection to the power of Nethys and his brain no longer seemed capable of retaining the necessary formulae for his arcane magic. Simple cantrips seemed easy enough to remember, but more complicated spells eluded him.
“So, this is my sentence,” Roch murmured as he thought back to his role in undoing The Ritual of Unmaking. “I am forsaken to the ways of magic.” Then, the mystic turned his mind to the teachings of his faith and conferred with his fellow priest, Shi, on how he might atone for his sins against The All-Seeing Eye.
“Perhaps The Ritual can be recreated?” Shi wondered though it seemed an unlikely possibility given Roch’s limited understanding of the spell. “Siglinde may discover a way…”
“No,” Roch spoke gravely. “I think this is something I need to do alone.”
The two sat in thought for some time before resting and, with refreshed minds, debated Roch’s dilemma the next day.
“I suppose if it were me and I were to suddenly find myself reprimanded for causing the total annihilation of someone Pharasma had marked with a different fate, I might try, at first, to return that person to the world of the living,” Shi began.
“And failing that?” Roch asked.
“Failing that, I guess I would see their destiny fulfilled,” the cleric answered. “Whether by my own hand or the hand of a child born to see Pharasma’s will done, whatever it took.”
Roch considered Shi’s words a moment. “You mean you’d replace this person with someone else, maybe even a host of others to fulfill this person’s purpose?”
“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it,” Shi spoke.
Roch suddenly grasped the cleric and gave him a big, leathery kiss. “By the Light of Galstaff, that’s it!” the mystic exclaimed as Shi threw up in his own mouth a little. “If I can’t recreate the magic, I can replace it! I might never match something as dangerously unstable as The Ritual but The All-Seeing Eye, in His great wisdom, has left me the knowledge to create new spells to make up for its loss! I can be a wizard again!”
“If you two are done making out, the rest of us are ready to go explore Madness’ lair,” Riswan interrupted.
***
The sorcerer Armand, still winged and feeling strange from the effects of the Ritual of Unmaking, rested within the cell provided to him by his drow hosts as he received the news of the day from his neighbor and sometimes nemesis, a mean-spirited homunculus named Beem.
Beem had been in the Dungeon longer than anyone knew and used a series of small tunnels to move between the cells the drow used for their captives and guests, sometimes scrawling rude messages and crude, offensive drawings upon the walls of the cells with a knife blade from a broken dagger he’d scrounged up. “ARMAND HAS SEX WITH GOATS” was the title of his latest masterpiece.
To the detriment of anyone within earshot, some monster, perhaps the thing’s master, had somehow gifted the creature with speech and, though the tiny constructed being was useless to the drow, they let it live because of the torment he caused their prisoners with his constant barrage of verbal abuse. Today, Beem reported that the kobold Klarihg’en was missing and presumed dead and that the drow had captured a drider during Anguish’s attack.
“You should have heard her scream!” Beem laughed gleefully as he danced within the tiny tunnel connecting Armand’s cell to the now vacant cell of Klarig’hen. “They beat her legs with hammers! She’s in the cell next to yours right now, probably bleeding out of her spinnerets, Ha hah! Klarihg’en left a full chamber pot in his cell, and I thought I’d go take her a housewarming gift, Hee hee! Don’t worry though, you fat sack of vomit, I made sure you got your share first, Hee hee hee!”
“Generous as always, Beem” Armand deadpanned as he threw his only set of sheets, now dripping and foul, into the far corner of the cell. “You’re a real mensch.”
Eventually, Beem tired of his game and returned to his own cell, leaving Armand to speak with his new neighbor. The small tunnels between the cells allowed easy conversation among the drow’s guests so the sorcerer introduced himself to the incapacitated drider.
“Greetings and salutations, my good lady,” Armand began. “I am Armand. Welcome to our humble corner of the dungeon.”
“That’s no drow name,” the drider hissed. “Where did you come from and how long have you been here?”
The sorcerer explained himself and his predicament, revealing he’d been one of the first conscripts into the Inevitable’s group of Redeemed warriors to the south until the Celestial contingent of the Garrison learned of his diabolical faith. The Celestials had the sorcerer cast into The Halls of Flesh where he was taken in by Siglinde and the drow who hid him from the driders by making him their prisoner. Like Klarihg’en, Armand was allowed out of his cell for special assignments and afforded a small measure of freedom but there was no doubt he was little more than a hidden weapon for use against the dark elves’ hated masters.
The drider, who revealed her name to be Ecthelon, had been one of several assigned to the watchtowers spread through the west tunnels. Thinking her dead, Anguish had left the drider under a fallen tower where she was located by fleeing drow warriors who dragged her here and broke her legs. Her sorcerous talents, as Armand explained, would be useless within the confines of the prison thanks to an anti-magic field crafted by the original Celestial stewards of the dungeon.
“You may be one of the drow or an agent sent to pry information from me,” Ecthelon spoke. “It doesn’t matter. This rebellion will be crushed and, once again, we driders will prove we are the rightful rulers of the ilythiiri. Spy or not, you would do well to know that loyalty to the driders brings rewards beyond any this trash can offer. And treason? Pain beyond any you’ve ever known. Ponder that, sorcerer.”
***
The flesh of Madness’ lair pulsed and throbbed like an animal in the early stages of a fever a day after the monster’s demise, and the adventurers were quick to make their way to the great pit Riswan had found on his previous visit. There, the meat lining the ceiling, walls and floor of the crater flapped or trembled with trepidation as the voices of burbling, fang-rimmed mouths echoed through the chamber and bleary, dreaming eyes gazed or blinked with indifference as they surfaced or sunk below the folds of tumorous flesh. An arcane inspection of the area revealed two objects glowing with enchantment just below the surface of the flesh at the bottom of the pit and Riswan, Cul’tharic and Roch climbed down to begin their excavation using the tools they’d taken from Siglinde’s laboratory the day before.
An hour passed without incident as the adventurers toiled and, though the digging was foul work and the stench was abominable, the party’s perseverance was eventually rewarded with a pile of fantastic weapons and other treasures lost by the victims of Madness. The fighter Riswan, selected an enchanted bow sized for his kind, from among the pile and Roch took up an ensorcelled warhammer, its head carved into the likeness of a dragon holding a large gemstone in its mouth. To Shi, went a finely crafted light mace and a mystical pearl the size of an owl’s egg and Cul’tharic, who already carried the enchanted greatclub from Siglinde’s lab, was given a beautiful crystal magnification lens. Satisfied with their haul, the adventurers spent the rest of the day exploring the remainder of Madness’s lair before returning to their safe-room.
***
…”Did I say Siglinde asked us to get our equipment from you, because what I meant to say was the naga told us our things are here and that we would probably have to beg for their return” Roch stammered with one eye closed to the drow marksmen sighting him in with their crossbows.
“Hold your fire,” came a grim voice from behind the drow captain. A battle-scarred drow warrior with a third arm protruding from his torso stood at a doorway behind the archers. “L’lysine, tell your men to stand down and bring that one to my chambers. Let the others make themselves comfortable here. Bring them down if they try anything…unwise.” With that, the warrior returned the way he came as the cloaked drow ordered two of his men to escort Roch deeper into the outpost.
“I am Lorath, leader of the rebellion within this region” the drow spoke when Roch was finally brought before him. “I understand you and your people have come for your belongings.”
“We’d very much appreciate th-,” Roch began to answer before being cut off.
“The halfling who was here a few days ago, your companion,” Lorath growled. “You will bring him to me and I will kill him. Then, your possessions may be returned to you. Are we in agreement?”
“I’m afraid he’s already dead,” Roch answered. “He was killed trying to escape the naga’s lair. His body could not be recovered.”
Lorath’s eyes scanned the mystic for signs of deception and found none. “That is too bad,” the drow spoke. “I was really looking forward to hanging him from his insolent tongue and then learning how far it might stretch before snapping like taut line. I guess you’ll have to settle for what’s behind door number two. Follow.”
The homunculus, Beem, pranced and giggled with glee as he detected the sounds of movement outside his cell. Flitting quickly into Armand’s cell, the little monster bounced a small rock off the sorcerer’s head and began to clap his tiny hands.
“Eeenie-meenie-Beemie-mo!” Beem sang with great delight. “Looks-like-some-one’s-got-to-go! You’re-so-ugly,-fat-and-slow, bet-they-feed-you-to-the-crows!”
“I wouldn’t be so certain of that,” Armand called up to the bloodthirsty little scamp.
“Bet-they-feed-you-to-the-cat?” the homonculus rhymed back at the sorcerer. “When did the drow get a cat? I want to play with it! I need new strings for my tiny violin!”
“Shush!” Armand reprimanded as he got up to listen at the door of his own cell. “Woosh!” Beem replied as he zipped into the vent connecting to Ecthelon’s cell. Armand could hear the sound of Lorath’s voice in the hall.
“You brought me nothing to kill, but I have two things for you,” Lorath grimly smiled.
“She’s-Thing-One-and-you’re-Thing-Two!” Beem sang to the sorcerer.
Armand could hear the door of Ecthelon’s cell opening.
“If you want your belongings and your freedom, you will begin to prove it by killing this creature,” Lorath spoke. “Magic won’t work past the threshold of the door so you’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way. Teeth, claws, a blade, I don’t care how.”
“Kill her! Kill her! Kill her now!” the homonculus cheered.
Roch looked into the cell at Ecthelon and gasped. The thing had the torso, head and arms of a frighteningly beautiful drow woman but the bloated abdomen and spindly legs of a monstrous spider. She was chained, helpless and crippled, her legs splayed about her on the floor like jagged noodles, her twisted arms jutting at strange angles from a jacket of spiked chains that tore copper-green furrows into her skin as she cursed her captors and their scaled guest. Roch had never seen a drider before and, though he’d only heard terrible things about the creatures since coming to this place, he knew nothing, no matter how foul or evil, deserved to be treated this way.
“Give me a sword,” Roch croaked. He knew the drider was dead no matter what he decided. “I will do this if it will put her out of pain’s reach.”
“Whatever,” Lorath dismissed as the two nearest drow laughed and one handed the mystic his rapier. Roch entered the cell and moved around behind the drider, placing the tip of the blade against the monster’s back.
“I do this out of mercy,” he spoke softly before the pushing the blade through the creature’s hide and out her chest. The drider began to slump forward and then suddenly erupted into laughter.
“Haahhaahhaaahaa!!” Ecthelon shrieked. “Behold the merciful killer! Hear him whimper his plaintive condolence! Hahahhaahah!”
“I do this out of mercy!” she mocked, coppery blood drizzling from the rapier’s wound and frothing at the corners of her mouth. “Vith ka'lith, dos dosib fergin! Now, kill me ka dos inbal aslu l' n'abyl!” she spit, full of rage.
By this time Beem was howling with maddened delight from his hiding spot in the vent. Roch, startled, disgusted and a little enraged despite himself, quickly drew the rapier from the drider’s back and plunged it twisting through the spine at the base of the creature’s skull. Instantly, Ecthelon choked on the flow of blood spraying into her throat. Her shrill laughter drowned out by the frantic bubbling of her final breaths, the drider gave a violent twitch and then slumped over.
“Maybe you kill better as part of a team,” Lorath joked with contempt. “I hope so because I still have one more job for you before we discuss your equipment and, this time, your friends get to help.”
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That they've never accused me of being a sadistic, unfair or cruel GM has led me to believe some of them might be masochists.
You're a sadistic and cruel GM. There it's been said. ^_^
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So what's the out-of-character explanation for what happened to Roch's wizard spellcasting? Or is that a secret?
I think I've said enough in the journal that it won't hurt the story if I explain what's going on with Roch.
So, based on my understanding of Nethys from books like Gods and Magic and the Faiths of Balance Companion, the god of magic isn't very concerned with most of the actions of his faithful. The only real sin listed in his description is one that involves bestowing spellcasting ability to creatures not normally able to cast spells. Since Nethys is only concerned with the spread and use of magic by trained spellcasters, I figured he would also view the complete destruction of a spell as a very bad thing.
The Ritual of Unmaking, straight out of the WLD book, is a spell that only works one time, it's incredibly difficult to cast and can do terrible things to people who fail the required Spellcraft checks to complete it. I decided that's a bad enough penalty for an average, non-Nethys-worshiping caster to deal with but, to a guy like Roch who actually has levels in Cleric of Nethys, that's just about apostasy. Ideally, a priest of Nethys would want a spell like the Ritual researched and perfected so it could be cast repeatedly without danger. Unfortunately, circumstances didn't allow that sort of research so the spell got cast and now it's gone forever. Worse yet, Roch helped to destroy it. Now Nethys, who is more than a little disappointed in his priest, has stripped Roch of his abilities as a cleric and most of his wizard juice. However, there is hope.
Owing to his dualistic nature, Nethys has left Roch with everything he needs to create brand new spells (I figure having a bunch of new spells that can be spread all over the world is far better than one one-time-use spell that only works on a specific creature.) Roch still has zero-level arcane spells and he's got all the slots he should have as a Mystic Theurge of his level but, until he does right by his deity, he can't use them to cast pre-existing spells. Things are going to be hard on him for awhile and I know a lot of players might punch me for doing this, but the guy playing Roch is rolling with it. In the end, he's going to get back all of his original abilities and he'll have a spellbook full of spells nobody's ever seen before.
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So, he's a wordcaster now?
...I don't think ultimate magic said anything about how to make your own spells otherwise...
He's still a standard mystic theurge using the standard method for casting spells. I'm actually talking about these rules from the Core Rulebook. All of Roch's slots are still available to him. However, aside from his zero-level spels, he can only fill them with spells he has personally researched and developed. Basically, Nethys wants him to make up for the loss of the Ritual of Unmaking by replacing the spell with some new magic nobody has ever seen before. Once Roch's created enough new magic, he'll regain access to his old spells.
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Thanks to Roch, the party has won the approval of the drow leader, Lorath. Well, he hasn't decided to kill them all right away at any rate. Anyway, it looks like they've been conscripted into the rebellion but, before they can go after the driders, Lorath's got one more little favor to ask them...
DAY 171 BUG HUNT
featuring: The World's Largest Adventuring Party
Roch - Lizardfolk Mystic Theurge
Cul'tharic - NPC Lizardfolk Scaled Horror
Shi - Dwarf Cleric of Pharasma
Riswan - Halfling Fighter
Armand - Half-Orc Infernal Sorcerer
The drow warrior, Lorath, unfurled a map across a stone table before the adventuring party and pointed to a section of tunnels to the west.
“That’s where you’ll find it,” he began. “Kill the thing and we’ll have a safe route into the area held by the driders.”
“Find what?” Roch asked. “What exactly are we after?”
“A thing called a spider-eater,” Lorath answered. “The driders kept it as a lab animal. We think it got loose during Anguish’s attack. Now, it hunts drow and drider alike in the west tunnels.”
“I’ve heard of this creature,” spoke the sorcerer Armand. The half-orc was being sent with the party to both assist and keep an eye on them. “A single spider-eater shouldn’t provide much of a challenge to your warriors.”
“This one’s different,” spoke Lorath. “Whatever the driders did to it made it bigger, meaner too. They clipped its wings so it can no longer fly, but they grafted a second pair of claws to the stumps. The thing can climb now, and it’s fast for its size. It’s picked off some of our scouts. The survivors tell me it’s hunting in the tunnels near the cell we used for Anguish.”
Roch looked over the map, pointing out a second tunnel connecting to where the driders were holed up. “Why not go around the spider-eater? What’s wrong with this tunnel?”
“We call that tunnel The Gauntlet, and it ends at The Path of Worth, a wide, deep pit filled by a lava flow,” Lorath answered. “Heavy winds swing a disc hanging above the pit from thick chains, and the driders control the only other exit from the chamber. Even if we could make the leap to the disc, we’d have to somehow quickly unlock and open the door at a distance. Then, there’s Arioch.”
“Who’s Arioch?” Roch asked.
“A slave like the rest of us…once,” the drow answered after a moment. “The driders offered him a chance to become one of them and he took it. Something went wrong. Now he’s their champion, a six-armed giant bred for slaughter and completely loyal to their cause. He is the master of the pit and challenges anyone wishing to cross the disc though I suspect the driders may have secured the door and pulled him back to their position. If Arioch still stands on The Path of Worth, we have little hope of using it as an access point. He has only once known defeat…and that was long ago.”
“What kind of support can we expect?” asked Roch.
“Most of your weapons and armor will be returned to you, but we’ll be holding onto your other equipment. The less we have to recover from your corpses, the faster we can move,” Lorath grinned. “If you can get it working, you can use The Death Trap.”
“Death Trap?” Roch asked warily.
“A contraption built by the drider sorceress Padeema, to combat The Green Death,” Lorath answered. “We call it The Death Trap because the thing leaks some sort of smoke that kills anyone attempting to drive it. It rests within the sorceress’ workshop though she either destroyed or made off with its design notes. That is all the help you’ll get from us until you’ve destroyed the spider-eater. Now, if there’s nothing else, I have other matters to attend.” With that, the adventurers made for the west tunnels, stopping first within Padeema’s workshop to inspect The Death Trap.
***
A lone, drow warrior sat behind an overturned workbench within Padeema’s workshop, carelessly toying with the drider’s abandoned tools while keeping an eye on the chamber’s south exit. If the surviving driders intended to make an attack on the rebels, the workshop would provide the fastest route to Lorath’s camp. Fortunately, the doors were heavily reinforced and bordered The Green Death’s lair. As far as anyone knew, the plant beast was still alive, having hidden from Anguish after retreating into its cave during the battle with Madness and, alive or no, the threat of the thing seemed enough to contain the driders for the time being.
Riswan, Armand and Roch examined a strange apparatus in the corner of the chamber, a large barrel to which various hoses, tubes and boxes were bolted along with a great bellows attached to a nozzle. The barrel was turned on its side and rested on a set of mechanical legs behind a pair of articulated arms ending in powerful clamping claws.
“What do you think it is?” Roch asked.
“Well, obviously it’s a uh…thing…for...uhm,” Armand replied before turning to the drow watchman. “What is this thing?”
“Ask him how you get in-, oh, nevermind, found it!” Riswan announced as he discovered a hatch allowing access to the interior of the machine. Pulling open the hatch revealed a space large enough for two human or halfling-sized occupants along with an acidic smell that stung the fighter’s nostrils. Ten, thick levers were spaced throughout the inside of the barrel as well and, despite the warnings of deadly gas, both the halfling and Armand crawled into the machine and began pulling at them.
The half-orc sorcerer, who was still feeling oddly sluggish since his experience with The Ritual of Unmaking reached out to pull at one of the levers and found his fingers could not grasp the handle. Instead, they slid right off as if the bones of his fingers had been reduced to small spongy whips. Since the ritual, the sorcerer had been hiding the fact that he’d lost his sight and was instead relying on some strange, new ability to blindly perceive close surroundings. This, along with the fact none of the sorcerer’s rings or headbands seemed to fit anymore, caused Armand to suddenly realize the Ritual had “gifted” him with abilities similar to an ooze. His bones and flesh were now like liquid and, though strong enough to allow him to move about and cast most of his spells, he’d lost the ability to manipulate objects. However, when Riswan managed to activate the barrel a moment later, the sorcerer discovered another hidden benefit of his transformation.
The halfling’s method of randomly pulling levers finally paid off when the pair of claws on the front of the machine extended and the tubes on top of the device flickered open revealing a pair of ensorcelled hooded lamps. The Death Trap began to hum and hiss as acrid, green smoke filled the compartment. The resilient fighter managed to stave off the effects of the poison for about a minute before suddenly feeling a painful burning on his skin and in his lungs. Riswan scrambled to escape the gas, while Armand, who was completely unharmed, observed with amused curiosity. It seemed his new, ooze-like qualities also protected him from the poisonous effects of the gas while Riswan, on the other hand, was now outside the apparatus coughing up blood and bits of lung tissue.
“I’ve just had an idea!” Armand announced before sliding out of the machine. “Wait here, I’ll be right back!” And with that, the sorcerer was off for Lorath’s camp.
***
“Help you?! Ha! Get bent, lumpy!” Beem shouted down at Armand as he pelted the sorcerer with fleshy chunks he’d carved from the body of the drider Ecthelon. Lorath had given Armand permission to enlist the aid of the homunculus, but the creature seemed in no mood to cooperate. “Here, I’m a king! Emperor Beem! Out there, I might as well be you!”
“But you’d get to control an engine of destruction, Beem! Think of the carnage you could wreak!” The sorcerer had rightly deduced the tiny construct would be immune to the effects of the poisonous gas and hoped to convince him to drive The Death Trap. “You could extend your legacy of evil beyond the walls of these cells!”
“With you calling the shots and farting up the passenger seat with your doughy ass?! I don’t think so!” Beem retorted as he cut a strip of the drider’s skin into paper dolls. “I’ll tell you what; let me drive the death doohickey alone and you’ve got a deal!”
“No deal,” Armand countered. “I know you’ve been locked up in this cell for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, and I’d wager you’d like a chance to get out and cause some real trouble. You could really hurt the driders, maybe even find your master. If you want out, I’m riding with you.”
“That’s a bet you’d lose,” Beem smiled as he stretched out his tiny platoon of puppets and danced them in front of the sorcerer. Each one of the figures was cut into the shape of a goblin-like creature extending its middle fingers. “Dance, my minions! Dance!” he laughed.
There was no convincing the creature, and Armand couldn’t trust the little sociopath to operate the machine alone. The last thing the party needed was for Beem to go rogue at the controls of a heavily armored, acid-blasting automaton. Accepting defeat, the sorcerer sighed and left the homunculus to play with his toys. It was probably really for the best that he did.
***
Armand returned to the workshop to find the adventurers had managed to turn The Death Trap off and discover a few things about its design using the crystal magnifying lens Cul’tharic had taken from Madness’ lair.
The poisonous gas was apparently leaking into the driver’s compartment through interior seams near a tank attached the machine’s bellows. The acidic fumes were the product of about 120 liters of defoliant stored in the tank, which could be fired from the thing’s nozzle cannon. Unfortunately, this information came at the expense of 20 liters of the liquid, which sprayed Shi while Riswan was fiddling with the thing’s controls so The Death Trap now contained only 100 liters of the poison. Worse yet, there appeared to be no way to seal the gas leaks without deconstructing and then rebuilding the machine with replacement parts, a task none of the adventurers were trained to accomplish even if the parts were available.
“I still think we should take it with us,” Riswan spoke with a voice hoarse from the poisonous fumes. “We can reload it with defoliant from one of the storerooms near Siglinde’s lab.”
“And whom do you propose drives the thing?” Roch asked. “The sorcerer here might be immune to the gas, but he can’t pull the switches. Anyone else would probably be dead in minutes.”
The halfling suggested Roch or Cul’tharic drive the machine due to their ability to hold their breath for an extended period of time, but the idea was shot down when Shi pointed out the acidic gas also worked on contact with skin.
“I think I can help with that,” Armand announced. “If one of your reptilian companions is comfortable with piloting the craft, I can grant them protection from the corrosive properties of the smoke for more than an hour at a time. I can then ride inside with them and help navigate while maintaining their resistance.” Despite his expressed reservations about the strange, mechanical beast, it was decided Cul’tharic would pilot the apparatus based on his overall health and resistance to toxins, and the sorcerer cast a spell protecting the lizardman’s scales from the gas. Taking in a deep breath, the warrior climbed into the vehicle and threw it into gear as his companions prepared to depart for the spider-eater’s tunnels.
***
Cul’tharic and Armand led the way through the lair of The Green Death, slowly trampling, snapping and threshing the undergrowth of the chamber with The Death Trap while Shi relaxed atop the contraption and Riswan, Roch and Ida followed behind. The smoke within the apparatus made seeing through its multiple portholes next to impossible, but the sorcerer’s oozy senses allowed the pair to navigate safely about the chamber until they heard a sudden thumping from the top of the vehicle.
The adventurers had moved no more than forty feet around the perimeter of the chamber when the long grasses and vines of The Green Death’s lair suddenly lashed up around their knees and waists. Then, from the ceiling of the chamber, a thick, leafy vine shot down and wrapped itself around Shi’s throat as he reclined atop The Death Trap. The cleric, kicking the roof of the vehicle, struggled to free himself from the choking vine as Roch and Riswan fought to escape the entangling brush.
Following Armand’s instructions, Cul’tharic swung The Death Trap’s arms up in a clumsy arc that narrowly missed Shi but managed to clip the vine as Ida fired blasts of light at the constricting growth at Roch’s feet. The battle with the assassin vine was short, but proved without a doubt The Green Death’s influence had not yet left the region, a point further illustrated by the drow and drider corpses the party soon discovered spread below the plant-thing’s cave like an offering.
Riswan slowly approached the pile of bodies in order to examine them when Ida chimed behind him, “We didn’t leave those doors open.”
The halfling looked up and spotted a pair of vine-draped double doors to the south that hung wide into the chamber. A visible trail led from the doors to the pile of corpses, indicating something had dragged the bodies into the room from the south tunnels.
“Riswan, get over here! We’re going!” called Roch from where Cul’tharic and Armand had moved The Death Trap toward a door to the west. Still pondering the mysterious trail, the halfling turned to go and quickly found himself unable to move. Another patch of fronds and ivy exploded around Riswan’s legs, binding him in place as a thick vine struck him and began to crush his throat.
“Riswan!” Ida yelled as beams of light erupted from her spherical body, searing into the plant. Shi and Roch fired their crossbows into the patch of hungry underbrush as the halfling wriggled free of the assassin vine and wrestled through the groping mass before being struck once again by the vicious tendril. Luckily, the halfling’s allies quickly dispatched the plant, but Riswan hadn’t yet recovered from the poisonous gas and was looking faint. “If you’re finished trying to get yourself killed, the rest of us want to get on with this bug hunt,” Shi chided as he saw to the halfling’s wounds.
***
Passage through the tunnels west of The Green Death’s lair was slow, owing to the bulk of The Death Trap. Twice, the thing had to have its legs and claws withdrawn so the adventurers could manually shove and pull the thing through warped or narrow doorways or rubble-strewn halls but, eventually, the party managed to reach the entrance to the tunnels the spider-eater was said to inhabit. To the north, they could just make out the sound of wind roaring through The Path of Worth at the end of The Gauntlet but, after what Lorath had told them, none dared to venture that way.
The way ahead was littered with the remains of a barricade shattered during Anguish’s attack. A few drow and drider bodies lay burned, crushed or torn asunder near the wall of debris and the adventurers quickly picked through their remains for any equipment of value, taking a few suits of studded leather armor and a pair of fine daggers, which they stored in the small space remaining within The Death Trap. Beyond the barricade, the party discovered what remained of the driders’ primary siege hall, a high-ceilinged, ancient chamber likely used by the celestials as a temple before the drow were forced to convert it for repelling attacks from the monsters to the south.
The rotating siege towers within the long, wide chamber looked to be in fair condition, having likely been quickly abandoned during the drow exodus from the area, and the party cautiously approached the closest tower. Just then, Shi and Roch spotted a brief flash of light from the top tier of the structure. Quietly, the pair split around the edges of the tower after informing Riswan of the light.
“Who’s up there!” Riswan shouted as Shi slapped his palm against his forehead. The priest’s hand was beginning to form a callous.
Following the halfling’s shout, Roch heard the aggravated whisper of a drow warrior, “Tell that mal'ai to shut his wael mouth or we will shoot him through the leg.”
“Don’t you think that will only cause him to scream louder?” the mystic replied.
“I hope so,” the drow grinned as he emerged from the shadows of the lower tier. “Between his whining and a limp, the rest of us should have no trouble escaping while that phindar to the south feasts on his brain.”
The two drow in the tower, it turned out, were all that remained of a scouting party sent to keep an eye on the tunnel. Their companions, they claimed, had been killed and dragged off through the southern passage along with any other creatures the monster managed to ambush.
“You’re welcome to chase that thing into its lair to your deaths, but we won’t be joining you,” the drow replied when asked if the scouts would assist the party. “We’ll make for camp as soon as you head out.” Convinced the drow would offer no assistance, the adventurers turned toward the south tunnel, eventually coming to what appeared to have been a guard post before something huge and very strong had plowed through the chamber.
Only the stone tables within the former guard shack remained intact while smashed wooden chairs and the crushed bodies of fire beetles lay scattered about the chamber. The door leading into the room hung open as if it had been left ajar by some fleeing creature and the exit in the west wall appeared to have been beaten in with tremendous force.
“I remember this place,” Ida chimed. “The driders kept Anguish in a cell near here. It’s an immense chamber, once a dining hall for the Garrison. Maybe the spider-eater’s moved in?”
“I think we should draw it out to us,” Riswan suggested. The west exit was too narrow for the Death Trap to squeeze through so the machine would need to remain in the guard post. “We can position the Death Trap in front of the door and then blast the thing when it comes at us. We just need some bait.”
“I’ll do it,” Roch volunteered. Lacking his magic, the mystic determined he would have little else to contribute to the party’s task. “I’ll sneak in, get its attention and then race back here.”
“I could go,” Ida offered, but Roch was determined.
“It’s going to want fresh meat,” he asserted. “I’ll take a suit of the leather we found on the dead drow so my armor won’t slow me down, and then run back as soon as I hear it coming.”
The theurge took only his hammer, the armor and one of the faintly glowing fire beetle lanterns, which had survived the spider-eater’s rampage, and did his best to creep silently toward the wide cell at the end of the tunnel. The tunnel on his right, Ida had informed him, would lead to the door Vyk had used during his mission while the passage to his left would lead to a second door, likely still sealed, leading into the cell.
Roch checked the right tunnel first and saw that the door into the cell hung open as Ida had said it would. As quietly as he could manage, Roch then moved toward the sealed door down the left tunnel. If he could get the beast’s attention, he reasoned, he might be able to draw it into the open tunnel and then slip through the second entrance and run around to flank the thing with his companions.
Roch was nearly to the end of the left tunnel when a sudden jet of fire erupted from the walls of the passage. The trap, meant to deter anything from escaping the cell, bathed the theurge in a fan of flames and he quickly twisted through the blast, surprisingly, with no injuries sustained. His good fortune he owed to the studded leather of the drow, which had been alchemically treated to resist heat. Unfortunately, his luck was about to run out.
“It’s coming!” shouted Shi who suddenly caught a glimpse of something immense crawling quickly along the wall of the tunnel on the right. The spider-eater had heard Roch enter the passage and was coming to investigate. The cleric quickly hurled a lance of sonic force at the creature that tore into its hide, but failed to stop its advance. Cul’tharic and Armand, who had taken the opportunity to vacate the smoky interior of the Death Trap, were caught off guard and unable to reach its controls in time to fire its acid cannon as the hulking arachnid whipped around the corner in pursuit of its chosen prey, the trespasser Roch.
Roch turned to retreat toward his companions when he saw the tunnel was now blocked off by what appeared to be a massive arthropod with two pairs of horrible clawed limbs jutting from its prosoma. Despite its great size, the thing seemed to have no trouble sprinting across the wall toward him and, rushing for the reinforced door, the theurge had just enough time to unlock and unbar the portal as the monster closed in. Before he could open to the door to flee, however, the spider-eater leapt at him, its bloated abdomen bearing a stinger like a barbed scimitar that easily penetrated Roch’s leather shirt and scales. The mystic felt the pain of the strike for only an instant before numbness filled his body. The spider-eater’s sting had paralyzed him, and the creature may have made off with the caster had his companions not been so close at hand.
The adventurers closed in quickly as the now-cornered beast turned to face them. Shi rained divine vengeance upon the spider-eater while the Armand called forth the powers of his infernal heritage to unleash an explosive ball of flame that caught both the monster and Roch in its radius. The helpless theurge, who had created more than his share of friendly fire in the past, now took the full force of the explosion though his armor did take some of the bite out of the blast. Meanwhile Ida and Riswan loosed arrows and beams of cutting light into the arachnid’s belly as Cul’tharic closed in with his trident before the thing could finish off the defenseless spellcaster.
Feeling its life draining quickly, the monster lashed out at the nearest threat, the lizardman Cul’tharic, with vigor. Its great mandibles, powerful pincers and wicked stinger slashed and tore at the reptilian warrior’s scales wounding him terribly. However, Cul’tharic stood his ground and managed to plunge his resin trident deep into the creature’s head as it buried its fangs into his shield arm. Having already been blasted by flame, thunder and the power of the gods, the spider-eater no longer had the strength to survive the lizardman’s assault and sank to the floor, its legs twitching as it chittered its last agonized cry.
BONUS CONTENT!!
Here's a closer look at The Death Trap, a modified Apparatus of the Crab.
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Awesome miniatures -- as usual!
How are you handling maps in your game? Obviously you have tactical maps for the miniatures, etc. But what about dungeon level maps? Is it up to the PCs to create their own, or do you have one predrawn that you reveal piece by piece? Or does nobody really worry about it?
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Thanks. My original design for the Apparatus was going to make it capable of actually crawling around, but the screw and spring legs I made were too heavy for the traction skids I built and the whole thing ended up looking rather clumsy. The wind-up motor still works so I just imagine the little kicking paddles are how the crab propels itself through water.
This adventure has really made me take notice of all the no-brainer miniatures that you figure somebody would have put out by now. I can understand how a huge otyugh or a large grick might find limited use but, for real, a tendriculos and an Apparatus of the Crab would have made awesome minis for the DDM skirmish game. On the other hand, it's given me plenty of reasons to get creative with the modeling bits and paints I've got laying around. I can't give it away just yet, but I'm in the planning stages of a new homemade mini for this adventure. When it's done, I'm thinking of posting a small gallery of some of my homemade stuff in the Miniatures section of the messageboards.
Mapping was a bigger issue in the lower levels when the party had less to worry about, though I never required the party to actually draw out a map. They just nominated a high-INT party member to keep track of where they'd been and that person would draw the maps when they camped. In most cases, as long as somebody could honestly say, "I have been drawing a map," that was good enough for me. The party's early maps were crude things scrawled onto scraps of canvas with ash from burnt sticks. At one point, they even found a pre-made map drawn onto a mesh of kobold scales. Ink-drawn maps on pages from spellbooks have become the norm and it's usually Roch who does the mapping.
Most of the region's aren't so complicated that I feel the need to make the party roll to remember which way they went or how to get back to certain areas. I might ask for a Perception, Survival or INT check if a member gets lost or dragged off while blindfolded or something, but that's about it.
The party does have some incentive to explore every corner of the Dungeon aside from the potential for treasure. For every labeled room they find and "clear" (whether they kill monsters, disable a trap or even just walk through an empty chamber,) I give them bonus XP. It isn't a whole lot per room, but there are 1635 labeled rooms in the dungeon so it'll add up over time.