Alex loves riding on Maddy and can barely contain her almost childlike excitement.
Kalanzar eats the mushroom, and then in addition takes his natural form. May the Dark Queens bless your eyes... With these words, he rubs two palms with a gesture that is already familiar to all of you and then puts warm, pleasant hands on Maddy's eyes. After a second, Maddy, you realize that you're seeing in the dark again. May we be invisible to the enemies in this friendly shadows... A new prayer spell is already being cast when the drow spreads his arms and a few stars barely flash on his forearms. Now you can sneak around very stealthily. This may be useful to us, he says, no longer solemnly, but quite matter-of-factly. Well, let's follow the footsteps. As soon as we get close, we'll try to sneak up.
Kalanzar's blessing allows Maddy and Hue to see in the dark, and Dawnbringer reluctantly allows herself to be persuaded into darkness. With half the team riding along on Maddy, you follow the footsteps away from the water, heading to the left.
Before long, the trail leads to another side passage, this one to the right. It's narrow, but wide enough for Maddy to pass through without trouble. However, before she's walked for a minute, you start to notice lots of fungi clinging to the walls. Soon a dense fungi forest blocks your way, its tallest specimens growing some five feet high. As you assess the best way to pass through it, a hissing sound starts to rise -- like uncounted tiny voices whispering in tongues you don't understand.
Hue ate a red mushroom and its' bitter juices ran down his chin. As he grew back to normal size he spoke and his voice grew from the squeak to his normal rustic jabber, "oh, tha's bitter. Don' you find tha' bitter. I wonder if the shrinking i' down makes i' concentrated? "
Then Kal put his warm hands over his eyes and Hue could see so much better than before. He was so pleased he let out a whisper, "Oh, i didn' expec' to see so much colour. Sorry, I'm joining the picnic. As my mum used to say."
-
"Hmmm, best take a moment." Hue crept forward, worried the padding of his feet might set of vibrations the mushroom could sense, and tried to assess the wall fungus.
Whispering, "I know one thing about these here mushrooms, and tha's nothing. I know nothing abou' these mushrooms." He crept forward trying not to touch anything and see if he could move in a way that wouldn't provoke a reaction.
Hue recognizes many of the mushrooms in the thicket before him, but he doesn't know what's making the eerie sounds. There's barrelstalks and fire lichen, trillimacs and more. However, they're growing so thickly that there's no way to move through them easily. You'll either need to clear the thicket out, force your way through, or try it at small size.
Maddy smiled when Kalanzar blessed her with darkvision. Feeling it was safe to speak out loud she simply said, "Thank you"
It was then time to follow Droki's tracks. Maddy felt like a giant as she rushed after Droki with all her tiny friends clinging to her neck and shoulders or riding in her pockets.
Soon she was blocked by fungi and she couldn't go any further. She let Hue assess the mushroom situation but she took a closer look at their surroundings, feeling uneasy by the hissing she heard.
::Should we shrink again to get through the fungi forest?::
Watching Hue return to his regular size after munching on another mushroom, Precious decided to save their limited resources for the moment, balancing on her shoulders, gripping a lock of her blonde hair as if his life depended on it. ”The moment ye wanna git rid o’ me, shout,” the tiny dwarf’s equally small voice piped in the giantess’s ear. All that sibilant, hissing ambience was starting to get the better of him, but as they had only so many mushrooms to use if they needed to become small to pass another obstacle… and besides, perhaps the miniature him would be too small a morsel for some local predator to bother with.
Maddy looks around for footprints, but can't see any. Kalanzar manages to see a tiny set disappearing into the thicket. It would be impossible to track him at this size. On the other hand, from here the tunnel looks relatively straight.
Maddy is able to find a few mushrooms that have perforated caps. She shows Hue, and the two of them decide the eerie sounds are coming from the breeze, whistling through the tiny holes.
Droki shrunks again. Telepathically, he adds. :: We can try to catch him on the other side without shrinking. Thanks to the blessing, we can move almost inaudibly. ::
Maddy gives an internal sigh of relief when Hue identifies the source of the eerie sounds. ::At least the sound isn't anything unnatural. I never knew that mushrooms had so many uses::
::If Hue can't find a way through the fungi forest then I'll have to shrink again. It may be fastest anyways::
Great idea Kalanzar! Pipsqeak Alexandra pipes up!
Hue looked at the others with a serious grimace and screwed his courage to the sticking place.
:If you wan' to join me grab another mushroom or stay little. I'll shout up from wha' I can find of the tracks. You others try and cu' him off. We'll mee' up on the other side.: He downed another white mushroom , headed into the fungi, tripped, fell flat on his face, got up, brushed himself off, and traced after whatever tracks he could find.
As he rushed in he wanted desperately to collect mushrooms, but he had nothing to collect them in. The fungi he'd already grabbed were getting damaged just stuffed inside his armour. He cursed every few steps, cursed the slavers who took his book, his equipment. He cursed the loss of his maps that showed every secret grove.
He cursed none too quietly.
:: I don't think we should split up when Huet is there alone. Something might attack him, and while we're cutting through the thicket, something might happen. We are shrinking. ::
::Aye, let’s keep close,:: Precious agreed, unnerved by the strange sounds of this alien landscape, made doubly weird by them being the size of rodents – barring Maddy, the giantess who had been carrying most of them. ::But better git movin’ – doubt Droki be takin’ any breaks to take in the scenery, an’ if we give ‘im too much o’ a lead, tryin’ to follow slow ‘nuff to track ‘im means he’ll just keep getting’ further ‘head.::
The biguns popped a white mushroom into their mouth, and the world grew large around them again. Hue led them through the forest of fungus, which now towered above, double or triple their height. What had been difficult walking, however, was now easy. You could walk around the mushroom stalks as if they were tree trunks, and the ground was a soft layer of spores and mold.
Hue, leading the way, suddenly came up short as a centipede walked by. The many-legged creature came up to Hue's knees, and had large jaws that clacked incessantly. However, it didn't seem bothered by your presence, and scuttled on its path.
A little further on, you come to a fork in the forest. Droki's prints lead straight on, but you can see light coming from a path to the right. It looks like the fungus thicket thins out that direction. You continue to follow Droki, but suddenly Stool cries out, ::That way! I can hear myconids! My people!:: From his perch on Maddy's shoulder, he leans and points to the right. You can hear hope and desperation in his mental voice.
:: Stool, we'll grab the Droki and head straight for your people. Please help us, don't leave us in a difficult moment. I promise, then we'll go straight to your relatives, all together. ::
Stool whines audibly, twisting his body towards the sound that only he can hear. However, he stays on Maddy's shoulders.
Kalanzar nods gratefully. :: In pursuit! ::
You do your best to ignore Stool's whimpers, and continue to follow Droki's footprints. Soon you leave the fungi thicket, and Maddy grows in size again to keep up with Droki's larger footprints. The tunnel leads you in a large counter-clockwise circle, still softly glowing with faerzress.
You come to a circular chamber with a seemingly out-of-place mesa in the middle. It looks like a stone formation that should be in a river canyon, not a cave. The glow of faerzress shifts across this chamber as if pushed by an unseen wind. It flows toward and around the large mesa and continues to spiral upward, but the ceiling of the cavern is too high to see. You hear murmurs and whispers coming from atop the mesa, which grow louder as you approach. Its stacked levels resemble the steps in a staircase, but a ramp running from top to bottom looks like an easy way up.
The chamber appears to have no exits, and the ground is too rocky to easily make out his tracks.
Hue examined the ramp (mindful that the possibility still existed their misadventures were being brought about by some intelligent form of mold, as they learned from the Stonekeeper).
Then he rushed up to the mesa following the swirling lights with his eyes.
Stool cries out, ::That way! I can hear myconids! My people!:: From his perch on Maddy's shoulder, he leans and points to the right. You can hear hope and desperation in his mental voice.
Maddy slowed to a stop where a tunnel branched off as Stool pointed to where other myconids were. She was seriously considering separating from the others to take Stool to where he wanted to go. She knew that if she heard Maggie's voice down that tunnel that nothing would be able to stop her from following it. Surely she could help Stool find his family.
But the others didn't share her thoughts and her heart broke as Stool voiced his distress. She instinctively reaches up rubs his back comfortingly. ::Stool, I promise you that unless I am dead, I will bring you back here after we capture Droki and we will find your people. You have my word:: And Maddy tucked a white mushroom into one of her pockets so that she would be able to shrink to get back to where they were.
When they got to the mesa, Maddy could only see one way up to the top. The sooner they got this over with, the sooner she could help Stool so she approached. However, there was also no need to announce their arrival to whoever was speaking.
Moving as quietly as she could in a rocky setting, Maddy made sure that Dawn stayed dark and that she would be ready to fight.
Kalanzar makes a gesture with his hand, as if to say I hope Droki's there. And begins to move stealthily towards the mountain.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As the party made its way to the latest chamber, the one with a mesa of all things in it, Precious whispered to Maddy for her to drop him off, and once his feet were back on the ground, the dwarf munched on another mushroom, trying to ignore the strange taste and texture as the magic took hold and returned him to his original size.
As you climb the mesa, the murmur in the chamber grows louder. You can hear the rhythmic clink of Gracklstugh's forges, a low dragony rumble, the mad screaming of a derro, and even hints and snatches of conversations. It's as if some strange combination of acoustics, perhaps magnified by the drifting faerzress, is creating a storm of noise. You try to pick out specific words or noises, but they slip past, out of reach before you can make sense of them. If you focused enough, you feel certain you could hear something important, but you also might hear something you don't want to.
What you don't see is any sign of Droki.
Kalanzar stops everyone with a gesture and suddenly sits down in a meditation position, placing the scimitar on his feet. You can see how he slows down his breathing at first, and then it starts to accelerate dramatically. The eyeballs are darting back and forth under the closed black eyelids. He squeezes his cheekbones a couple of times, as if trying to hold back a groan, and then abruptly relaxes, opens his eyes and looks at you with a look that reveals a new understanding.
As the sounds rose from murmurs to a strange cacophony Precious abandoned any efforts to move silently – he could be banging a hammer on a steel shield and he doubted the sound would have stood out. Yet… for some reason, all those sounds didn’t overlap each other. They… didn’t just become a single entity of noise. No, there were distinct threads of conversation and sound that could be clearly made up, that rose from the greater mass of sound as if little lines of meltwater straying from the greater stream for a moment, before being drawn in again.
”Oh, this place be all damn weird onna whole new level,” he muttered as he instinctively tried to focus on the voices carried by the echoes.
Hue had chased after Droki recklessly. He was being reckless when he climbed up to the mesa. When he got there and the whispering, the strange susurrus, got louder he was unguarded there to. He listened certain the mushrooms themselves really were talking.
The character becomes attached to a "lucky charm," such as a person or object, and has disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks and saving throws while more than 30 feet from it. Alex please choose your lucky object, and describe this phenomenon. You have increased a level of madness. This delusion will last for 70 hours(3.5 days)
The character is deafened for 60 hours (3 days).
Kalanzar, Precious, Alexandra and Hue stand at the top of the mesa, trying to make sense of the sounds. Stool suddenly shrieks and throws himself backwards off of Maddy's shoulders. Jimjar moans in fear, and the two of them half-race, half-tumble back down the mesa, away from the swirling faerzress and maddening sounds.
Kalanzar calmly studies the phenomenon, studying the patterns around him. It's unexplainable by any means he understands, but that doesn't mean he can't use it. He focuses on Droki's voice and name, trying to tease meaning from the maelstrom of sound. The mutterings and madness of the derro fill his mind, testing his limits, but finally he picks up a complaint, an insane rant from a female derro, complaining about her neighbour, Droki. Kalanzar can pick up the sound of dripping water nearby, and is confident he'll recognize it again when you return to the West Cleft District.
Precious also listens for specific words, but focuses on what Droki has been up to. Rather quickly, he hears two different conversations, and there's something about them that makes him feel they're very recent, or even happening right now. Two duergar nearby are complaining that Droki is late, and that they don't understand why the alchemist relies on him for supplies. A separate conversation is between two derro, who are excited for the giant toenails that Droki is bringing them today, and to make sure they have his payment ready.
I know now where his lair is on the West Cleft District. We could have waited for him there... the only question is how to get there unnoticed... Mushrooms? They won't pay attention to the miniature ones. Maybe. We can find Jimjar and Stool now and deliver little mikonid to his relatives. And go back to Droki's lair, just wait for him there. After finishing this speech, the drow stands up from his meditative pose and looks around at the others.
”Damn but this place be weird,” Precious repeated himself, forcibly ignoring the insidious voices. ”Lair, eh? What I heard was a couple o’ ‘em duergar folks waitin’ fer Droki, all anxious fer the delay. They were complainin’ to each other, somethin’ ‘bout an alchemist needin’ Droki to supply ‘im. An’ some stuff ‘bout giant toenails? Hue, them ‘nother kinda ‘shroom or somethin’?”
”We mighta have lost Droki, but git the feelin’ we found our way into his farm,” he went on after a moment’s thought. ”These enlargin’ an’ reducin’ ‘shrooms be plenty weird, but who knows if they be just the tip o’ the mountain. Anyway, bizarre as this place be, it seems mighty useful. Lemme take ‘nother listen…” he said, then closed his eyes as he focused on their quarry.
Hue,
As Maddy climbed the mesa, she felt very uneasy. Not because she was afraid of what she would physically encounter but she didn't like the buzzing she felt inside her head. It wasn't like she was overhearing other conversations but more like other conversations were trying to invade her mind. She immediately began to hum out-of-tune melodies from her childhood to keep the invasive thoughts out of her mind.
She was startled when Stool threw himself off her shoulders and Jimjar fled down the mesa. Maddy looked aghast, "My singing isn't that bad!"
She looked to those that didn't look like they were panicking and stated, "I'm going after them so that they don't hurt themselves. They shouldn't be able to get that far from me. I'll be back."
Maddy hurries after her fleeing friends, and her long legs help her catch up. She scoops up Stool, who struggles and kicks, letting out little shrieks that hurt Maddy's ears. He settles a bit when she keeps heading away from the mesa. She quickly catches up to Jimjar, who likewise is fleeing in panic. It takes all of Maddy's shepherdess skills to wrangle the two panicking people and prevent them from running further away.
Precious focuses in on the sound of Droki's mutterings, and quickly picks them up through the whirling chaos. "Keep moving, just keep moving, too late, not great! Doors there, good! First package, he'll be pleased, he'll be pleased. Knock knock!"
Precious gets a sense that Droki isn't too far away. Perhaps there is an exit to this room you haven't found. The echoes of Droki's madness seem to swirl around, as if there were several paths you could take to get to him.
Maddy kept herself calm as she tried to soothe both Jimjar and Stool. One's demeanour was very important in dealing with spooked animals and she figured it was similar for other beings as well. She also sent peaceful thoughts mentally, not knowing if Stool could receive them or not, and spoke kind words in a low tone. One thing she did make sure not to do, was sing.
"What happened? Jimjar? Stool? You are safe and protected. You're okay. You can tell me.". She repeated her words soothingly until they began to respond to her.
Hue checked on his friends.
He started his way off the mesa to follow them.
”What’s he shoutin’ ‘bout?” Precious asked Kalanzar as Hue’s raised voice brought him out of the trance and he realized only the drow and Alex remained on top of the mesa with him. ”’nyway, Droki be somewhere close. He’s been all over this place… got no landmarks, but a feelin’ there be any number o' routes to git to ‘im. Lessee if I can hear a li’le bit more o’ some use ‘fore we rejoin the chase.”
I feel a kind of mental connection to this place and I can learn something else. Any questions? In the meantime, he would try to find the drow who was watching them... let his image transform into his voice, discussing us with someone and revealing his plans.
Once out of sight and earshot of the mesa, Stool and Jimjar allow Maddy to calm them down. However, when she suggests rejoining the others, they start to panic again. It's clear that neither of them will agree to get any closer to the the phenomenon that affected them so badly.
Precious focuses on Errde's voice and picks up a conversation that happened just after you left her office earlier today. The guard that Kalanzar intimidated asked if she really expected a bunch of outsiders to do what the StoneGuard could not. Errde replied, "I don't expect much, but even a shot in the dark is better than no shot at all. If they don't come back, well, that's a problem taken care of too. And if they do manage to track the slippery little blighter, then we'll be up one." It doesn't sound like there's anybody else looking for him, other than the Stone Guard who have had so little luck with him so far.
Precious then thinks about the portents that the Stonespeaker mentioned, about madness creeping from the blackest depths. A swirl of sounds fill his mind, screams of pain and triumph, insane gibbering and unholy music filled with love and loathing. It is loud, overwhelming, and Precious feels his sanity start to crack under the weight of it.
Kalanzar hears a drow whispering, "Mistress, I found them in Gracklstuch, but the duergar filth are hiding them. Give me more time, I know I can pick up their trail again." Then a strange, spidery chittering that sends chills up the druid's spine.
Hue jogged up to Maddy,
The character experiences uncontrollable tremors or tics, which impose disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and Str or Dex saving throws. This will last 40 hours, or almost 2 days.
When Hue caught up to where Maddy was calming Stool and Jimjar, she immediately put her hands over her ears at the shouting. Then she pled with Stool to project her thoughts to Hue because he didn't seem to be able to hear her.
"Why are you shouting, Hue?"
::Stool, please also mentally ask Hue why he's shouting::
”Ah! Precious breathed out, the sound almost gentle yet only because the breath caught in his throat, preventing him from screaming out loud. That had been a bad idea.
”The guard Captain,” he said, staggering back and gasped for air, his voice rasping as he tried to share what he had learned. ”She’ll use or lose us, matters li’le to her which side the tossed coin shows her. Or, better yet, lose us while chasin’ Droki outta in the open – two problems takin’ care o’ each other. Best not to push her, fer she wouldn’t mind throwin’ us in a deep cell an’ tossin’ the key down the privy. But, that’s the good part…”
He jumped at a sudden clatter before realizing his own staff had slipped from suddenly twitching fingers and had fallen on the floor. It took him a couple attempts to get his fingers to obey him, and clutched at his weapon with both shaking hands.
”I tried listenin’ to what the Speaker warned us ‘bout,” he said after a moment. ”Bad idea, wouldn’t recommend. Fer there do be somethin’ here, just under the surface. Watchin’. Waitin’. Fer a chance to git loose.” The very thought was enough to leave his mind trembling anew.
”This place be dangerous. Best git ‘way soonest. There be ways away, one o’ ‘em with Droki in it. Gotta start lookin’,” he muttered as he began making his way down the hill towards the mesa’s base.
Time is running out. Think faster.
The imp who spied on us in the tavern? Who did he report to?
Those myconids that Stool smelled nearby... What are they talking about? What do they want?
Then Kalanzar returns and catches up with his comrades. Trouble. Drow are here. Those who held us captive. Someone is looking for us in the city... Someone very dangerous, let's just say.
Dont worry Kalanzar, I am right next to you! We will make it! Somehow!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Kalanzar looks back at Alexandra in disbelief. On the one hand, he likes her support and enthusiasm, but on the other hand, it starts to look as bad as Hue's deafness, Jimjar's flight, and so on... Maybe our problems are a little bigger than I thought. Kalanzar suppresses the growing hysterical laughter with difficulty, but tries not to show it.