KC's Age of Worms

Game Master Kobold Catgirl

Carina rolls out of bed and silently starts brewing her extracts and bombs for the day.

"...I don't really know where Mom is right now, so I don't really have anyone to send a letter to. She might have moved on from the Empire of Iuz for all I know." She sighs.

"Yeah. Might have to crush up some of that diamond to do it, though. Depends how bad the damage is now that I've let it fester for a night."

Wait, why would you need to do that? I thought these were just standard negative levels?

Restoration needs diamond.

I know the Energy Drain rule works like this: "If a negative level is not removed before 24 hours have passed, the affected creature must attempt a Fortitude save. On a success, the negative level goes away with no harm to the creature. On a failure, the negative level becomes permanent." Not sure about locust swarms and bodak gazes. But now that I think about it there's a good chance we can get back to the goblin before 24 hours have passed, since Astraden prepares at night.

"Alright. You should've reminded me - I could do a sending to her tomorrow."

"Oh? Um... that's kind of you to offer, Astraden." Carina blushes and smiles. "Thanks."

I know the Energy Drain rule works like this: "If a negative level is not removed before 24 hours have passed, the affected creature must attempt a Fortitude save. On a success, the negative level goes away with no harm to the creature. On a failure, the negative level becomes permanent." Not sure about locust swarms and bodak gazes. But now that I think about it there's a good chance we can get back to the goblin before 24 hours have passed, since Astraden prepares at night.

That's how the energy drain spell works, and it's how negative levels in general worked back in D&D; Pathfinder's general rule on negative levels is a lot more lenient. Unless you get hit with a really nasty effect that immediately causes permanent drain, the standard is "a creature with temporary negative levels receives a new saving throw to remove the negative level each day. The DC of this save is the same as the effect that caused the negative levels." Unless the hullathoin's swarm has the same effect as a 9th-level spell, I don't think the 1,000 gp restoration is necessary.

EDIT: crap, sorry, nevermind all that, just looked it up and somehow I'd been assuming the gentler nerfing of negative levels was more or less universal. Hadn't realized 'energy drain' was still a specific undead attack that did result in permadraining.

Once Carina's had a chance to prepare her bombs and extracts, she approaches the rest of the party. "So, where to next? Do we tackle the Spire or one of the other baddies running around?"

"We came for the spire, unless anyone attacks us directly again, I think that should be the focus."

It's been a while, so I'll remind everyone that the links to both maps for the Spire are in my profile bar. So. Where to?

Mercs (for me and Eben) and then Spire. Astraden's gonna assess the goblin's condition and then see if she can heal him on the cheap, but will shatter the diamond and grind it up a bit to heal him on the expense if need be. Eben's gonna send his animal message.

Northern door in the Spire of Long Shadows map?

Yeah, that sounds fine, but on the way up I'd like to do a quick bit of investigating. We never really followed up on this:

Everyone except Tanith catches a faint, shimmering glimpse of something dark at the peak of the Spire.

The dark thingy was gone by the time we got to the top of the ziggurat, but we got all distracted by being attacked by beetles and knights and didn't follow through. I think it might be worth having someone climb or fly up the spire proper.

The group returns to the Other Adventurers, who seem to be occupied pouring a shiny, silvery dust in a circle around the Hullathoin's hole. Merca and the goblin look up and split off from the others. "The goblin caught a bird last night," Merca says. "I think it was a tern. It was going to eat it, but..." She holds up a little cage. A sad-looking bird flutters within. "A tern's a good subject. So where do I send this?"

"Aw, don't look so sad little guy. You'll be free and on your way soon. Maybe you'll even find a girlfriend in the north. One good tern deserves another!" Eben waits a moment to let his pun sink in and any appreciative comments in reaction to it (a light "Boo." comes from his quiver) to be offered before following through. "The recipient's name is Lowri Chau. Best place to reach her is a shop called the Screaming Blade, in the artisan's quarter of the free city. Corner of..." he proceeds to give as much detail in his directions as he can, handing the well-folded message over along the way. "So... what do you guys have going on here? Is this like, a ritual to make sure the hullathoin doesn't re-raise or something?"

Astraden goes to the goblin. When the goblin is ready, she sprinkles a little diamond dust over its head. In Slaadi, she intones, "Da se ​​izleči, prijatel, na seto ona što ails vas. Oslobodete smrten odvlekuvanje na vnimanieto kako prazni šišinja vino. Najdi čistota vo haos." The dust turns black, to graphite, as it absorbs the necromantic energy impinging on the goblin's soul.

Restoration. Either 100 or 1000 gp of diamond dust marked off.

Tanith finds himself nodding in agreement with Farrukh.

"I'm sure word of the zombie-dragon's death will spread. With any luck the other monsters calling this place home will think twice about tangling with us."

"Nah," Merca says, shrugging. "What do we care if that a!@@@#! gets back up? We'll be gone soon enough. Besides, being honest an' all, I'm pretty sure he'll be more pissed at you than us." She winks. "This is just to keep the spawn out. Crazy Zolin thinks it'll work. Personally, I think it's just Isle superstition, but silver dust is cheap and losing an arm ain't. Ha!"

"Aahhhh," the goblin says, as Astraden's spell removes the [ooc]temporary[/i] negative levels on it. "Credit to your faith, you are. Koly Maglubiyet povertayetʹsya v tsey svit i dyadʹkiv za tsaryuvannya yoho vybranoho narodu, ya budu rada, yakyy vy budete pozbavleni."

"Alright," Merca says, taking Eben's note. She raises the cage to eye level. Her eyes begin to glow bright green, and the flesh on her face seems to sink in, emphasizing her cheekbones. She stares at the bird with eyes of solid color, and the tern's struggles slow. Its visage changes to mirror hers: It turns emaciated, its eyes sharing her glow. She lets it out, and it hops onto her wrist. Merca ties the note to its leg.

The tern takes off.

Eben looks a little distraught at the effects of Merca's spell. "So... after it delivers the message it returns to normal and lives as fulfilling a life as a tern can live, right? It doesn't suddenly drop dead from starvation?" Admittedly, his concern is split between feeling bad for the tern, if it does die, and wondering about Lowri's reaction to the bird messenger expiring on her doorstep upon its purpose being fulfilled. "Anyway, thanks. Oh, and a heads up. You guys were wondering what was controlling the trolls? Astraden found out... somehow... it's something called a beholder. Apparently they're pretty bad news, so whatever route back to civilization you're taking, you might want to work around the northern quadrant of the ruins. Plus it and the yuan-ti might start taking an interest in this section of the city now the hullathoin's gone, so heads up if you're around here much longer. We'll be in the spire dealing with some really, truly horrifying things if you need to get in touch, but otherwise, best of luck with your trip home."

And unless anyone else has any business with these guys, I think we're good to head into the unbelievable horror of the spire. Yay.

"You're welcome," Astraden says, rubbing the goblin's head for good luck. She goes to join Eben. "Yeah, don't mess with the beholder. Thing's got eye attacks way worse than the sick gray things we just killed. Anyway, good luck hauling the loot out of here."

Astraden stows the remaining diamond dust back in her pack and waves to Zolin and Estavlin. "Good luck with carting the loot out of here! We'll be heading back north again soon, but if you're ever washed up in Greyhawk look us up!"

Once reunited with her friends outside the wall, the priestess sprinkles a bit of silver dust around herself and Farrukh and casts some spells to make the group safe and protect them from the heat.

Magic circle against law on Astraden and magic circle against evil on Farrukh. Communal endure elements on the six of us lasts 4 hours. Have more buffs to lay down right before we open any door.

Walking back to the obsidian wall, Eben asks, "Hey, Astraden, how did you find out all that stuff about the beholder and the yuan-ti? Olidammara give you scrying magic now?"

"Much of what I learned was through communion with divine power, yes. I've actually been able to scry for a while now, though - remember when I saw Spiny?"

Bluff: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (5) + 13 = 18

"And then I used my encyclopedic knowledge of really weird creatures to help her interpret it. Lots you can glean that way."

Study Bluff Aid: 1d20 ⇒ 18

Sense Motive: 1d20 + 19 ⇒ (15) + 19 = 34

Eh, I mean, technically she's not lying...

Eben narrows his eyes, something about Astraden's blithe explanation doesn't quite add up, but she is referencing some truth when she brings up the Spiny-scrying, so... "Oh, yeah, that's right. I just didn't see you playing around with your special mirror, I guess. I mean, I'm only asking because the last time you did scouting inside Kuluth-Mar a couple days ago you summoned that leather demon thing. And obviously you wouldn't do something that crazy dangerous again when you have perfectly safe scrying magic to play around with."

"Are we gonna talk all day, or go find out what's in the damned spire?"

Cleric skill points :(

"Oh, yeah, of course. That's what I meant. Farrukh was indispensable." Astraden agrees a little too quickly to Eben's explanation, then hurries away from the bard to join Cuetzpalli.

"We have a grappling hook somewhere, right? Let's climb over, but have a look for the mysterious spire dweller before we head inside."

How will you be investigating that spire?

What was the Climb DC, again?

Actually, just looked it up- it's 20 and the spire is 120 feet high.

"Wait one sec. Well, a bunch of secs, but still, not the longest wait of all time... I just want to check out what that shadow was we saw the other day..." Eben says, looking up the length of the many-branched spire. "Anyone who can climb well want to check it out? Whoever does it can borrow my feather fall ring so if there's something awful lurking up there you can just let go and fall back down here safely."

"Whoever goes up should get a rope stuck up there as well. I'm not as good a climber as Tanith."

"...don't we have a rope of climbing for this sort of thing? Or does that look too high up for the rope to reach all the way?"

"Yeah."

"Rope will only go up about 50 feet. Though I suppose we could do it in steps, since there's all those side protrusions poking out."

"Isn't the thing at the top of the tower usually the nastiest? Maybe climbing right into its window isn't the best of ideas...especially only one of us."

Here's what the Spire looks like, as a reminder.

Carina and I were talking about the wall, I think.

"What? No... it's not a tower. There's no windows. It's just like, a giant sculpture or something. I just want to find out if there is something up there or not, before we go back inside and start headed down the ziggurat."

Tanith shrugs. "I can climb it. It might be faster is Farrukh used that fancy flying sword of his."

"Flying shield, actually. Don't know how I keep forgetting about that..."

Yeah, I can check it out. Anyone mind turning me invisible first?"

Carina fumbles around in her pockets for her extracts before taking out one of her healing syringes.

"I could convert this into an invisibility extract, if you'd like."

"Takes time." Astraden presses her palms to her eyes and then touches Farrukh, intoning, "Neka nema oci te vidim."

"Carina, if you've got anything to let him see invisibility, that might be useful."

Invisibility.

Cuetzpalli grunts, and tries to climb the outer ring wall while he waits.

1d20 + 7 ⇒ (8) + 7 = 15
1d20 + 7 ⇒ (10) + 7 = 17
1d20 + 7 ⇒ (9) + 7 = 16
1d20 + 7 ⇒ (15) + 7 = 22
1d20 + 7 ⇒ (6) + 7 = 13

"Oh. Well, I've definitely got an extract for that." Carina hands Farrukh her see invisibility extract.

Tonight's game ran longer than I expected, sorry.

Alright, running some recaps.

A thick, thirty-foot-high wall of obsidian rings the heart of Kuluth-Mar. The ring is featureless except for eldritch symbols that cover the upper rim, each of which glows as if lit from within by molten rock. Farrukh knows that the whole ring was made from a single giant block of obsidian. The runes can be barely made out from the ground by one who knows the language of magic: "Kyuss forever bound."

The party does not experience their previous visions as they climb the wall. The soil feels as strange and porous as ever, squishing unpleasantly beneath their feet.

To avoid spreading out, the party ascends to the top of the pyramid. This is where they fought Nezzarin and her beetles. Farrukh then activates his klar and flies up to the peak. The slayer quickly becomes a speck nearly a hundred feet above when something seems to happen. His flight becomes more erratic, and for a moment it almost looks like he's lost control as he zooms above the peak. He seems to regain himself immediately after, however.

Farrukh flies back down and reports what he saw.

"Did anyone else just see a big red dragon snatch the top of the tower out from in front of me?"

Carina blinks in confusion. "Um... no. No, I just saw you wobble and dip when you flew above the peak of the pyramid."

Knowledge (Arcana): Was that a Magical Effect?: 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (19) + 14 = 33

Eben blinks. "No, but that sounds so cool!"

"Well, considering the spooky imagery I saw and the worms writhing out of the monument, probably not cool. I think the dragon snatched Kyuss out of his prison."

"Huh. Did the dragon look particularly... undeadish?"

Carina blinks in confusion. "Um... no. No, I just saw you wobble and dip when you flew above the peak of the pyramid."

[dice=Knowledge (Arcana): Was that a Magical Effect?]1d20+14

"Farrukh, it sounds like you saw the same sort of vision I've been experiencing in the city..."

Are you referring to my 'other me' hallucinations, or referring to the city the pyramid is in?