HP 53/53
AC 20
Fort +11, Ref +9, Will +12
Hero points: 3
Focus Points: 2/2
Spells prepped (DC 21): 1st: enfeeble [], ill omen [], soothe []; 2nd: blood vendetta [], paranoia [][]; 3rd: invisibility sphere [], slow []
Cantrips: daze, detect magic, ignition, guidance (innate), shield, telekinetic projectile
Effects:
"Now I'm hungry. Shame to die when I'm hungry," Wherby grumbles.
He glares at the nearest spider, and wishes it ill if it attacks Tekmin . Then he casts magic to protect himself.
Ximble internally complains when he sees Tekmin charging forward to meet the creature head-on. Shoot dang! He reaches for his bolas and, as he tells his companion to move forward, throws the bolas at the foul creature's legs.
Wherby afflicts the nearest spider with the evil eye and targets another with needle of vengeance! Tekmin zaps the two nearest arachnids before moving in to prepare to fight. Herok fires his bow, scoring a critical hit and taking down one spider before shifting aim and finishing off the sickened spider with a second hit! Ximble hurls his bolas but fails to trip the spider-human aberration. He sends his goat in to attack, but as it gets within five feet of the creature, it triggers a trap! A web tripwire lets loose a bundle of boulders onto the goat.
The aberration chitters as it dodges the goat's horns and retaliates with its own fangs and claws. Meanwhile, the two remaining fighters move up to attack Tekmin. The halfling avoids their clacking mandibles.
Both the goat and Ximble strike at the aberration. With horn, hoof, and scythe, the unlikely duo hope to overcome it.
Tekmin swings his frying pan wildly, hoping to connect with the fanged foes.
for
for
HP 53/53
AC 20
Fort +11, Ref +9, Will +12
Hero points: 3
Focus Points: 2/2
Spells prepped (DC 21): 1st: enfeeble [], ill omen [], soothe [x]; 2nd: blood vendetta [], paranoia [][]; 3rd: invisibility sphere [], slow []
Cantrips: daze, detect magic, ignition, guidance (innate), shield, telekinetic projectile
Effects:
Wherby growls as he tries to stave off the goat's death, casting a spell to help it. "No dying if we can avoid it!"
Herok heals the goat but misses with his arrow. Tekmin smashes the spiders' heads to pulps with his frying pan, while Ximble teams up with his goat for a devastating assault on the aberration. With a series of precise and deadly strikes, the monster falls!
The aberration wears a strange crown on his head made of webs and rib bones. He’s affixed a half dozen shiny gems to the crown—six garnets in all, each worth 20 gp.
Exploring the large chamber, you see two doors to the south. Additionally, a faint glow comes from the wall to the north. An inspection of the area reveals a secret door--the glow must be light shining on the other side.
"Ooo! Another secret door," Tekmin enthuses as he opens it.
"No!" Wherby sighs as Tekmin rushes forward. "Adventurers!" he curses, looking back at the badly injured goat, but figuring it's too late to do anything about whatever awaits them ahead.
The secret door opens up into a cavern in which a shimmering, softly glowing pool of unusually blue water ripples and shines. The water is also unusually clear, revealing a depth of five feet—and the ancient skeleton clad in shining silvery chainmail clutching a softly glowing starknife in the pool’s depths against the northeast wall.
"Wow! Would you look at that?!" Tekmin coos. "And not even guarded by some horrible monster. We can rest up here for a minute and I can swim down and get it when we are ready."
"Leave it alone, Tekmin!" Wherby snaps. "That's probably acid, or poison, or some horrible ooze that will paralyze you and eat you! You used to hear stories about those, but you don't anymore. Do you know why? Because they eat everything that encounters them so no one comes out and tells those stories. Or maybe the armor's cursed and weighs you down so you just drown! Those are the things that happen to adventurers!"
He tries to patch up the goat -- but it's moving too much at first. He also takes time to Refocus and restoke his annoyance with everything.
"This is why you're the boss, Master Crick. Who would have thought that water could be an ooze?" Cautioned by his mentor, Tekmin draws his filcher's fork and throws it into the water, testing for ooziness.
"Well, now you've lost that fork too!"
"So think you!" he smirks, as the fork magically returns to his hand.
The water seems perfectly safe. It's not oozy in the slightest!
The magic of the water seems to have been preserving the skeleton--when the remains are dragged out of the pool, the skeleton crumbles away, the chainmail rusts to ruin, and most of the rest of the gear decays as well—the one exception being the starknife. Indeed, it is a powerful relic!
Tekmin shakes himself off after retrieving the starknife from the pool. "Wow! Still sharp after all these years, and it comes back when you through it. It's shinier than my filcher's fork, but I bet no one has ever toasted a marshmellow on it."
Ximble squats next to the pool and wonders who this person is, no, was. "Do you think Father A-to-Z might know who this person was? The weapon they carried looks to be too special to have been forgotten."
"I'll take good care of it until we get back, and we can ask him," Tekmin vows. "Let's go through those other doors from the bigger room."
One of the two doors here is barricaded from the other side. Once forced open, it reveals a flight of stairs leading down to a lower level of the Pit.
The other door opens into a circular cave that has an acrid stink to it. Nearly a dozen one-foot-wide holes open in the cave walls near the floor, widening into tiny tunnels. The cave itself is littered with dozens of little heaps of gravel and dirt and what must be over a hundred bent and broken spoons. A particularly large mound of gravel sits in the middle of the room, into which a shortsword has been jabbed, its bejeweled hilt pointing upward toward the ceiling ten feet above.
A single long-eared gremlin sits on a gravel heap to the south, picking through the bent spoons for one that still has some dig left in it. She shrieks in excitement upon spotting you, and a chorus of other shrieks answer from the tunnels. Seven other gremlins clamber out of the tunnels from all directions with little spoons sharpened to wicked points!
Ximble tries to get the gremlin's attention by shouting at her. "Hey, she-gremlin! Catch!" What follows is a barrage of chakrams.
HP 53/53
AC 20
Fort +11, Ref +9, Will +12
Hero points: 3
Focus Points: 2/2
Spells prepped (DC 21): 1st: enfeeble [], ill omen [], soothe [x]; 2nd: blood vendetta [], paranoia [x][]; 3rd: invisibility sphere [], slow []
Cantrips: daze, detect magic, ignition, guidance (innate), shield, telekinetic projectile
Effects:
"Careful!" Wherby calls as he glares at the first of these monstrosities and then casts a spell on it.
Herok, having been rather quiet lately, shakes himself out of his stupor to ask, "Sharpened spoons? Really?" He takes a moment to think about what kind of gremlin these are, and then fires off a couple arrows at the nearest of the gremlins who isn't the she-gremlin.
Herok recognizes the creatures as jinkin gremlins. Jinkins are sadistic tinkers who steal and sabotage items and take great pride in their power to curse precious objects. They hold grudges and create convoluted plans for revenge when they feel slighted, such as when a creature dares to remove one of their curses. Rarely content to wreak simple mayhem, jinkins also take immense pleasure in torture and murder, though they prefer to lead victims into traps designed to capture or incapacitate rather than just kill them outright. They are weak to cold iron weapons.
Ximble hurls a chakram at the lead goblin, scoring a critical hit that slices her clean in half! He hits another goblin with his second throw, then Herok puts that one down with two arrows.
Wherby hexes a third gremlin before filling its mind with paranoia. Eyes bulging, it casts suspicious glances all around before scurrying off back into the tunnels.
The remaining five gremlins rush in to attack Ximble, the tiny creatures surrounding him to poke and stab with their spoons! One gets a critical hit, while two others find sensitive spots to poke the gnome.
Shifting his stance, Herok calls out, "These are jinkin gremlins! They can curse objects and tend to hold grudges. The are cunning and sadistic, and at their most vulnerable to cold iron weapons!"
He then loosed two more arrows at the mass of jinkins surrounding Ximble.
HP 53/53
AC 20
Fort +11, Ref +9, Will +12
Hero points: 3
Focus Points: 2/2
Spells prepped (DC 21): 1st: enfeeble [], ill omen [], soothe [x]; 2nd: blood vendetta [], paranoia [x][]; 3rd: invisibility sphere [], slow []
Cantrips: daze, detect magic, ignition, guidance (innate), shield, telekinetic projectile
Effects:
Wherby frowns as the one gremlin flees. Glaring at another, he sends a cursed item flying toward it! "Obnoxious little things!" he growls.
Tekmin wades into combat, trying out his new starknife!
for
for
Ximble and Herok each pick off a gremlin with critical hits from their ranged weapons! They both then aim for another gremlin, taking it down as well. Tekmin and Wherby quickly finish off the other two tiny but sinister fey with their own attacks.
The shortsword sticking out of the gravel here is a +1 ghost touch shortsword. The tunnels that the gremlins emerged from are too small for most of you to traverse, but Tekmin is able to squeeze his way through them. The tunnels wind their way through the rock in a maze. One of the tunnels leads to a peephole opening into Tunch's taxidermy lab, while five of them lead to similar peepholes opening into the Pit itself. In a small chamber deep in the tunnels, Tekmin discovers the rest of the jinkins' treasure. This stash consists of 340 cp, 23 sp, 9 gp, 1 pp, a tiger eye gemstone worth 6 gp, a mesmerizing opal talisman, a sleep arrow, a sneaky key talisman, a ventriloquist’s ring, a primeval mistletoe, and the jinkins’ greatest and most wonderful treasure—a low-grade cold iron serving spoon worth 20 gp.
Herok tucks the sleep arrow into his quiver. "Well, I guess we should go back to those stairs that lead down to a lower level of the Pit, if we're going to find any evidence of the Sandpoint Devil down here or what may or may not be stirring it up."
"Yes, though this is quite the stash!" Tekmin adds the shortsword to his golfbag walking arsenal of weapons, spreading out the rest of the treasure before they head out.
Wherby looks at Tekmin. And then at the spoon. Then back at Tekmin.
"We need to take a break!" he suddenly snaps. "The boy clearly isn't feeling well. He probably caught the lurgy or some other awful adventurer's flux."
He starts dragging the halfling to the cleanest place to sit him down and check on him.
"That's a good idea. Ximble needs some of his wounds stitched and poulticed."
Once they sit down, Herok begins treating Ximble's wounds.
As you rest and reflect on your recent experiences, you feel stronger...
When you are ready, you descend the stairs in the web-choked cavern. The stairs lead down into a long, curving cavern with an unusually low ceiling that is barely four feet high. Furthermore, the air is uncomfortably moist and clammy and carries the heavy stink of body odor. To the east, a large alcove is strewn with four nasty-looking heaps of moldy, rotten cloth. A thick curtain of poorly-tanned hide hangs on the southern wall to the east. A second set of four filthy rag nests lies along the southwestern wall. Doors lead to the north and south, and another flight of stairs to the southwest continues down.
The nests are occupied by small humanoids swaddled nearly head to toe in dirty robes. Upon spotting you, the creatures creep out of their filthy nests and scurry over to greet you, mumbling and muttering in their own language as they attempt to guide you toward the stone door to the northwest...
"Hey there, fellows!" Tekmin begins. "Have you seen any fire-breathing horses? Oof, getting a little pushy, there!"
He chats with the shadowy figures while being led toward the door.
Herok frowns. "Your pardon, but why are attempting to move us towards that door? Can we stop a moment to talk?"
The low ceiling makes this trek very difficult for him, and he suspected Wherby wasn't too thrilled about it, either. He hoped he was tall enough to not be herded along as he stopped walking. He tried to think who these people were...
"Well, this is awful. They're either going to try to kill us, which is bad enough, or they think we're adventurers come to save them from something that will instead kill us. Which means we're going to die ignominiously either way!"
Ursividae hisses at the creatures in displeasure.
The humanoids remain a respectful distance away. The continue to gesture to the door as they mumble and mutter. One squares their shoulders and mimics assumes a confident pose, then points to the door as they slouch over again.
Maybe they want to take you to their leader?
Wherby sighs. "Well, if we're marching to our doom, let's get it over with."
He starts heading toward the door ... fully expecting to die horribly at any moment. Which will be all Tekmin's fault.
"Whoops, let me open that up, Master Crick!" Tekmin rushes in front of his mentor, making sure that he takes the brunt of any terrible horrors on the other side.
This roughly circular cavern has a smooth floor. Another stone door is set into the eastern wall. The door is adorned with a carving of a complex, twisting rune, while a pair of filthy rag heaps sit to either side of the door to the south. A long curtain of moldy sheets and ratty hides hangs between two stone pillars to the west, while to the north stands a large stone basin filled with some sort of strange, dark liquid.
A trio of taller humanoids cloaked in dark robes await you here, two males and a female. The female steps forward and addresses you in Common. "Welcome. I am Nithiss. Have you come to serve the Remnant? He lies beyond that door. I will come with you to speak to him."
"The Remnant? Who's that?" Tekmin questions. "We're sort of on a job already, but if the Remnant needs a hand, we might be able to help."
"I'm sorry, I'm afraid we're unfamiliar with the Remnant. Would you like to tell us about him?" Herok figured if this was some sort of cult, they'd leap at the opportunity to tell of their cult leader. Cultists loved to talk about their cults if they thought it would get them converts.
He also considered the complex, twisting rune on the door.
"No!" Wherby snaps. "The answer is no, we're not going to serve the creature that has a noun for a name that we've never heard of until we entered some dark dungeon!"
He glares at Tekmin and Herok.
Herok doesn't recognize the rune on the door. It doesn't seem related to any religious iconography. Perhaps it's a word in an unfamiliar language?
"The Remnant Insiroul is all that remains of the long-lost demigod known only as Husk. He came here eons ago, drawn by the presence of the Stain. He sent us to try to remove the Stain, but we were unable to do so. Now, Insiroul has commanded us to hold vigil here until the Stain is no more. Perhaps it is you who we have been waiting for..."
None of these names or concepts mean anything to Herok, either!
"Goodmother Trapse has an excellent formula for stain remover," Tekmin comments. "Maybe we can find out how much this remnant needs and get the stain taken care of. I don't know if vigils really help that kind of thing. Elbow grease and lye are usually better."
Herok shrugged at Wherby. He'd found something out, even if he had no idea what it was. Maybe Wherby knew something about the names. Turning back to Nithiss, he asked, "What's the Stain?"
He also continued trying to puzzle out the rune on the door.
Wherby tries to think if any of those names are familiar to him.
Nothing rings a bell for Wherby. Herok still cannot figure out the rune on the door.
"The Remnant will tell you more. Please, come with me," Nithiss says, gesturing to the door again.
"Well, there's one way to find out for sure what's going on here!" Tekmin asserts as he follows Nithiss to the door and opens it.