Of Sound Mind the Halfling Way

[the Jester]

It’s during dinner that the rumors reach our heroes: rumors of a nearby halfling community under threat. Yes, it is a diversion; but our heroes have been on the job at sea for quite some time, and it has been a while since they have come upon a group of their own kind in need. Now that it has happened... especially since (according to said rumors) the community is only a few miles outside of Lox Pentor... our heroes decide to see what they can do to help. They bring a pair of sailors from the Promised Land with them for additional muscle, though they don’t exactly spell out the nature of the threat.

Especially as the alleged threat comes from giants.

“Just because they’re bigger than us, they think they can push us around,” grumbles Queffe.

“We protect halflings,” grunts Chief Jawbreaker.

“Giants are stupid, anyway,” Ari points out in Halfling.

“Maybe they’ll have another retarded child,” Nara says wryly.*

So it is that our heroes set out for the halfling community. The walk goes quickly; a well-packed trail leads them easily to their goal, and when they find the place, the local halflings quickly warn them off. “Giants!” they cry. “We can’t fight them! They’re too big!”

“We’re bigger than we look,” Tron reassures them. “Do you guys have any rocks? You know, white rocks? Crahk? Come on, don’t be holding out on me!”

The halflings don’t have any crahk (at least, that they will admit to), but they do have some information. The giants- a pair of brothers- makes weekly trips to the halfling thorp, where they demand tribute- and by a stroke of luck, they are due sometime tonight. A quick survey of the territory leads our heroes to a small grove of trees, where they set up an ambush. Night has fallen, so a lantern hung from one of the branches gives our heroes a little light with which to see- but, unfortunately, also illuminates their position. The sailors are very nervous; by now, the cat is out of the bag. Giants!

When the giants arrive for their weekly extortion run, our heroes will spring their trap and slay them! Or at least that is the plan.

These giants are not as stupid as our heroes had hoped, however. From a distance they spy the party’s lantern, and after watching for a few minutes they come to the obvious conclusion: it’s a trap! So, instead of marching in and springing it, the giants decide to spring it at a distance, with boulders. A whistling sound, followed by a thunderous crack, announces that they have begun their assault; the tree the lantern is on shudders and cracks as a large rock smashes into it.

“They’re here!” shouts Queffe, loading her crossbow.

In the distance, the party can see dark silhouettes, much taller than themselves, outlined against the night sky. A great booming laugh comes from the two silhouettes, and then a volley of magic missiles shoots out into one of them. Beau grimly says, “First blood!”

Tron, meanwhile, concentrates for just a second and his mind blade flares into existence. Hollering, “Where’s my crahk??”, he begins moving forward.

“Tron, you idiot!” calls Nara. “Hang back for a minute!” Divine vigor flows through her, filling her with sacred power, but Tron isn’t listening.** Queffe’s crossbow sings as bolts shoot out, and Nara and Beau fire a combination of searing light and scorching ray at the giants. In the light of the combined rays, our heroes get a good look at the giants: coal-black skin, dirty red hair... and a laughing disregard for the scorching ray!

“They must be fire giants!” calls Nara. “Watch out, fire won’t hurt them!”

Meanwhile, Jawbreaker, being somewhat wiser than Tron, sneaks forward, trying to stay out of sight until he is close enough to charge. He winces as he sees Tron attempt to duel the two giants one-on-two... Stupid crahkhead, he thinks, shaking his head.

Ari attempts to use a powerful spell that he learned a while back and has yet to succeed with: gutroot. The giant he targets gulps as it feels something within its stomach rumble, but it throws off the effect. “Damn it!” Ari swears. “That has to work sometime!” Shaking his head, he begins the prayers that will allow him to call lightning.

The two sailors in the battle react with significantly less valor than our heroes had hoped, but hey, they’re low-level npcs. What do you expect? One of them flees in terror as more boulders smash into the grove of trees; the other hunkers down behind cover, shouting, “Get them!” Queffe winks at the shoulders as she reloads, moves forward, and keeps firing.

“Don’t worry, I got them!” Tron calls, swinging his mind blade into the leg of the giant closest to him. The giant roars in anger as blood begins to flow down his leg; then, with a pair of powerful blows, he crushes Tron to jelly.

“Tron!” cries Ari, directing a bolt of electricity at his killer. “Oh no!” At the same time, Nara fires another searing light, which catches the same giant in the face. With a booming shout of pain, the first of the giants falls.

And then, with a mighty battle cry (“HAAAAAAMMM!!!!”), Jawbreaker rushes the remaining giant, bringing his axe around in a swift, deadly blow- a blow that completely misses. The giant uses a backhand blow to knock Jawbreaker back a pace, but then, suddenly, Queffe and Nara are on either side of it as well. Lightning blasts down, disorienting it; and Jawbreaker’s axe sings as he tries again, a little more successfully this time. The giant, confused by these gnats (they never stung back before!) gives his fallen brother a crestfallen look; and then it swings its massive sword down at the ground, trying to cut Jawbreaker in two! The Chief leaps back, but the sword still catches his right foot, hacking off all of his toes as well as the front of his boot! Growling like a bear, Jawbreaker swings his axe in the opposite arc, straight up- and it sinks into the giant’s crotch, slicing up, up into his belly....

With a gasp, the giant falls back dead.

Gasping, our heroes take stock. Nara and Ari rush to tend the wounded, but it is too late to do anything about Tron: he is dead. In fact, he is paste.

“Now what?” pants Queffe.

“Rest?” suggests Ari. He gestures at the halfling thorp. The villagers are staring at our heroes in wonder.

“Rest,” nods the Chief. He wipes his axe blade clean on a giant tunic. “But first, loot.”


Next Time: Who will be Tron’s replacement? How will the vile cooking that Bacon Grease is doing work out? Our heroes return to the sunken temple of the jerren!


*She is, of course, referring to the time that our heroes found a retarded stone giant lost in the Underdark and helped him find his way home.

**Say it with me, folks: Wisdom of 1.

 

[the Jester]

9/4/372 O.L.G., 11 a.m., backtracking the giants

“We need more muscle,” states Queffe. Chief Jawbreaker snorts. “Seriously,” Queffe continues. “We just lost Tron, who may have been an idiot-”

“Stupid crahkhead,” Jawbreaker snorts.

“-but he was our idiot, and he was one of our front line fighters!”

“He was good in a fight,” Ari admits.

“Well, I’m not taking the front line,” Federico giggles.*

Beau snorts. “Me neither.”

Jawbreaker glances around and harrumphs. There really isn’t anyone who can step up into Tron’s shoes. Nara will get in there, but she needs tme to cast spells and prepare (Jawbreaker’s nose wrinkles in disdain). No one in the group (other than the chief himself) is as effective as Tron was in a fight.

So the party finds a new soulknife.

The giants’ trail leads to another small community that they had been terrorizing, and upon the news of the giants’ defeat, a celebration breaks out. The townsfolk are very grateful for their liberation, and one of the men of the town offers to accompany the party in thanks until he has killed forty creatures for them. Amused, our heroes interrogate him for a few moments about his skills and abilities. “What weapons do you use, or do you cast spells?” asks Ari.

The man, who has introduced himself as Rush, sneers. “I need no weapon.” And from his hand, a mind blade projects!

Our heroes exchange glances. Serendipity.

***

4 p.m., Lox Pentor

As the party climbs the gangplank back onto their ship, Rush asks, “So what are we doing? Where are we going? Is there money to be made?”

Nara explains. “We’re seeking the halfling promised land. We know where it is- it’s on Natchoor Island, off the east coast of Strogass- but we don’t know how to get into it yet. We know that ‘cornbread opens the way’, but we aren’t sure what it means. Right now, we’re going to a sunken temple of a halfling subrace-” (she does not elaborate on the evil jerren) “-where we have reason to believe there may be a clue about the cornbread. Ari detected some kind of weird powerful creature underwater and so we’re going to try to poison it- our cook, Bacon Grease, is going to take a few days to whip up some especially foul concoction.”

Rush stares at her for a moment. Finally, with a shake of his head, he says, “You are very strange people.”

With a grin, Nara hurries off to confer with Captain Tarth. Soon the ship is under way, heading back to the small cluster of islets beneath which they believe the jerren ruins to be. Standing at the rail, Ari squints out to see; is that- a figure, bobbing far behind them? The figure of Dogtooth? Strangely reassured, Ari goes below decks to rest.**

Meanwhile, Bacon Grease, the ship’s cook, is far from resting. Slowly, he combines rotten fish, various toxins purchased in the city of Lox Pentor, salt and lethal herbs, cooking them together into a hideous vat of death. Then he starts adding unsavory ingredients, of which the vomit of those seamen catching a whiff of his horrific brew is perhaps the mildest. He and Naomi engage in repulsive lovemaking amongst the stank; it requires his iron constitution and her general disgustingness to overcome the foul reek pouring from the kitchen. For three days he adds more (and fouler) ingredients to the mix (including some scrapings from his sessions with Naomi), until finally he announces that the repugnant process is complete.

“Thank god,” mutters Captain Tarth.

The halflings can only agree. The stink is clinging to the entire ship, now, and it is the kind of stink that a discerning nose finds... unappealing. Hideous, even. Yet it is necessary. Ugh, that’s awful.

Everyone is very happy to see the foul mixture dumped into the water in the center of the four islets, above the well of deep water. The stench decreases immediately and considerably, but unfortunately the stink still clings to the ship.

“You know,” Queffe says, “I hope that this works. I would hate to have to go in there now, with that mess in the water.”

Nara looks stricken. Jawbreaker shrugs. “We wait now,” he declares laconically. “If nothing comes up, we go in after a while. If something floats to surface, we go in after a while and loot. Either way, we wait a while first, then go in.” He shrugs. “No difference.”

Ari says unhappily, “Those poor fish.”

Next Time: Our heroes wait a while, then go in the water!


*Our resident sorcerer/bard/jester with tons of 1st-level spells has a Str of 2, and that’s after he put his 8th level ability increase there!

**Dogtooth was a salty sailor that our heroes hung with briefly while they were shipwrecked. He made a huge impression on the group, even though he died somewhere in the session he was introduced or the one after, and he’s become something of a standing joke in the group. “+1 for Dogtooth!” is a common mantra when someone misses an attack or check by one, and sightings like that detailed above happen periodically in the halfling party.

 

[Alcar]

I shall miss Tron, I so enjoyed playing a character with a 1 wisdom and may voluntarily do it again. Rush is his total opposite, namely he's wise, and an ***hole, if Tron wasn't a nice guy he probably would have tried to kill the party and sell there loot for crahk money( then getting ripped off in the process). Se la vi.

 

[the Jester]

The Sunken Temple of the Jerren!

9/7/372 O.L.G., 11 a.m., on the deck of the Promised Land

Expectantly the party patches the surface of the water. The bubbling mass of nasty that Bacon Grease, the ship’s cook, produced for them slowly diffuses out and down into the water, into the dark well that they can see but are understandably reluctant to swim down into.

A few minutes pass, then a few minutes more.

“I’m bored,” Beau announces.

“Patience, buddy,” Erasmuz chuckles with a smile. “We have to give the stuff time to work.”

“Besides, our choices are to either go into the water or give up- and I don’t want to go swim into that,” Nara points out.

***

12:30 p.m.

“I’m bored,” Queffe says.

Beau grins triumphantly. “See?”

“Patience, guys,” Nara sighs. “Even if we aren’t having any luck with this ploy” –Bacon Grease looks crestfallen- “we still need to make sure we aren’t swimming into the middle of that stuff.”

“It’s pretty spread out by now,” reasons Ari, “it’s been over an hour.”

“”Patience,” Nara repeats.

***

2 p.m.

“I am bored,” Rush drawls. “Let us go kill something.”

Jawbreaker nods. “Yes. It time.”

“All right, you’re the chief,” answers Ari. He and Nara begin casting water breathing, spreading their spells so that everyone has several hours of duration on them. The last thing that they want is to run out of water breathing in the middle of being underwater, so Nara, Ari and Erasmuz all have at least one more water breathing spell in reserve. After a few moments, our heroes jump off of the Promised Land’s deck and into the water.

The water is chilly, but not cold enough to be dangerous. Beneath the choppy surface, our heroes find that they can swim without being buffeted by the waves, and they can see the dark area beneath them that seems to be some kind of well. As they descend, swimming almost straight down, they pass a few dead fish floating in the water, the result of their poisonous brew. But there is no sign of any threatening creature dead. Alas.

The well gapes before our heroes. It is like the dark maw of a gigantic shark waiting to devour them. The shaft of the well sinks deep into solid rock, straight down for hundreds of feet. The only light is left far behind them, far above them. After a few moments, someone casts light, and those of our heroes who are not from the Underdark (and thus accustomed to abosolute blackness) breathe sighs of relief. As they finally reach the bottom and swim down into the chamber that they find there, they eagerly spread out to take up a little more space.

“Hmm,” bubbles Erasmuz.

The chamber is an irregular cave, about 40’ across. It has four passages leading out of it. Though irregular, they do not seem completely natural. The walls are bare, and there is no sign of life. The waters around the group are still and silent.

“Well, what do you guys think?” asks Ari. “Which way do we go?”

“Left,” replies Nara automatically.

“But which way is left?” Erasmuz asks ominously. Indeed, with no way to get their bearings, there is no way to be sure; and as they entered from above, they all came in with their lefts in different directions. For a moment, our heroes are befuddled; then-

“This way,” Jawbreaker snorts, and the party follows him out one of the passages. It curves to the right as they swim down it, but Jawbreaker ignores this, despite the group’s almost superstitious preference for going left. After about 30’, the passage opens into a long, irregular chamber about 30’ long and 20’ wide. Two rows of colums run down the chamber, and the far end of the area holds a fish-like altar of terrifying aspect, mouth upright as if to devour.

“Hmm,” Erasmuz says darkly. “I don’t like the looks of that.”

The party swims towards it to investigate- but as they get about halfway, four of the columns suddenly animate, changing into alabaster statues of sword-wielding warrior women! They begin to move forward, but Rush thrusts forward with his mind blade and stabs one of them! He grunts in suprise at how little damage his blow does, and then his target- as well as a second of the strange stone women- moves in to attack him back. The other two rush Jawbreaker.

The statue creatures prove difficult to hit and difficult to damage, but Beau soon discovers that it is susceptible to magic missile. Rush demonstrates an impressive level of skill by unleashing a whirlwind attack, but he still fails to drop even a single enemy! Jawbreaker curses as he finally lands a blow but his weapon twists in his hands at the last moment, and he does no damage.

For their part, the statues seem unable to do much more to our heroes than our heroes are doing to them. Rush takes a cut across the shoulder, and Jawbreaker a nick along the leg, but on the whole, each side seems to be defeating the other’s attacks with solid defense.

Finally Rush breaks the stalemate, smashing down one of the column-women he is fighting. He focuses on the other, and in a few more seconds he has finished it off. One of Jawbreaker’s foes has landed a solid blow on the chief at last, but he too has finally lain a good one on the statue. Nara slams her morningstar into one again and again, but to no avail- she cannot penetrate the creature’s ability to shrug off damage!

Queffe manages to get a solid blow in, dealing significant damage to one of the statues, and Jawbreaker lands another blow; that one falls. Then Rush drops his last opponent and steps in to help the others. But it is Beau that ends the fight, blasting the last statue with a volley of magic missiles that finishes it off in a shower of breaking stone.

“Wow!” gasps Nara. “I couldn’t even hurt those things!”

“No kidding,” grumbles Jawbreaker sourly. “Jawbreaker have poor form today.”

“That’s two kills,” Rush announces. “I will kill thirty-eight more things for you.”

Nara and Erasmuz, meanwhile, have both swam over to the strange fish-altar thing. It is disturbing and foul-looking. The thing’s maw is open and suggests both voraciousness and carnivorousness. The two halflings exchange a glance, and it is obvious that neither of them know anything about it.

Then Federico come over. “Oh wow,” he squeaks in terror, shivering and tucking his little kobold tail between his legs, “that’s Zaamel!”

“Who?” asks Erasmuz.

“Zaamel, the god of the dark depths, the god of devouring,” the kobold replies.

“Sounds friendly,” Nara says ironically.

“Should we destroy it?” wonders Rush.

“Probably,” Erasmuz nods.

“It might be important to my people,” Naomi demurs.

“Do you know anything about it?” asks Nara, but the corpulent Naomi only shrugs.

“Even so, it seems unwise to go into the dark depths and start destroying altars to the god of the dark depths,” Ari points out.

“Hey, you guys,” says Beau, “look at this!” They cluster around, and he shows them a hinge in the fish’s gaping jaw.

“I bet that it’s set up to receive offerings somehow!” exclaims Ari. He swims up and drops a silver piece into the fish’s mouth. Sure enough, the jaw closes. A moment later it re-opens, and the silver piece is gone.

Our heroes poke at the altar for a while, but they find nothing else of interest, and nobody else wants to put anything more interesting (such as their head) into the altar, so eventually they move on. There are no other exits from this chamber, nor does a search turn up any secret ways, so they return to the first room and Jawbreaker leads them donw another passage. It soon splits, and our heroes naturally take the left passage.

An instant later, as the front ranks of the party round the bend, a spinning coral star smashes into Nara. The prophetess is knocked senseless, stunned.

“Oh crap,” croaks Naomi. She swims backwards and cries out a warning. Rush immediately swims forward and around the corner to meet the threat head on.

A huge creature made out of coral, shaped like a four-legged spider, is in the chamber. And as Rush moves to engage it, it slams him with four blows, tearing at his chest, head and legs. He roars and slashes it back, then tumbles away.

“Watch out, it’s dangerous!” he cries.

The battle is joined.

Next Time: Against the coral golem!

 

[the Jester]

The singing of a kobold... who would have ever thought that it would inspire the confidence of halflings?

And yet, as Federico sings and japes, his voice reverberating through the watery passages around our heroes, his voice lifts their spirits. Even Rush, who has hitherto been rather suspicious and unfriendly to the two kobolds, finds himself grinning. The little guy is funny- and more than that, inspiring.

“Fall back!” shouts Yip, as the coral monster takes a swipe at Rush, who allows the massive blow to deflect off of his mind blade as he withdraws. The others are erecting their defenses and moving back as well- Erasmuz casts shield of faithlessness and erects a force screen, while Naomi initiates energy retort as she backs off. Ari swims madly away after his faerie fire fails to have any effect whatsoever; once he reaches a relatively safe spot, he casts longstrider and prepares to return to the fray with significantly improved mobility. Rock, growling, takes up a defensive stance, but the coral golem shuffles forward and tears at him with a jagged coral limb.

”Back up, Naomi!” cries Erasmuz. He casts a spiritual weapon, which strikes the beast, and Federico pulls out his wand and discharges a magic missile into the monster. It seems pitiful, but it’s the best he can do at the moment.

Naomi, still threatened by the monster, lumbers backwards. As she does, the coral golem slams her with an attack of opportunity- triggering her energy retort, which blasts the beast with a bolt of lightning. It shrugs the blast off with no apparent harm.

Rush quaffs a pair of healing potions, then breathes steadily, attaining psionic focus. He watches the coral beast advance inexorably towards the party, smashing Rock across the head and leaving him stunned. Beau grits his teeth as he fires a ray of enfeeblement into the coral golem, but he can’t tell whether the thing is affected at all. Erasmuz’ spiritual weapon keeps smacking at the beast, and Federico’s wand fires off more magic missiles. Chunks of coral are coming off- the creature is obviously suffering from the punishment the party is dealing out- but it isn’t down yet.

But Yip and Rush move in, craftily tumbling to avoid any unnecessary damage. One of them on either side of the golem, they hammer it with fists and mind blade- and finally, praying to Galador that staying close enough to unleash a flurry of blows will not prove to be a lethal mistake- Brother Yip finishes it off!!

Our heroes breathe a collective sigh of relief. “I’m glad that’s over,” gasps Rock, bleeding profusely. Ari and Nara immediately set to work healing the wounded- and almost everyone is at least a little wounded.

After a few moments of healing and rest, the party prepares to continue their explorations. The coral golem’s chamber proves to be empty of interesting features, and it has no exits, so our heroes backtrack to the Y-shaped branch at which a left turn led to the coral golem room. The other branch leads them to a portcullis, complete with underwater windlass. Behind it are the skeletons of at least twenty sharks, lying immobile on the ground. There are no other exits visible from without; our heroes snicker at the thought of lifting the portcullis and leave it behind. “If we can’t find anywhere else to go or anything else to explore, we can always come back here,” says Ari. “But for now, I am not really interested in fighting twenty shark skeletons.”

“Or whatever killed twenty sharks,” adds Federico, shivering with fear. His tail is tucked between his legs.

The group turns around, returning to the chamber via which they entered the sunken temple. From there they take another of the exits, this once leading to a chamber that is decorated with- nay, dominated by- paintings of bulbous fish eyes. The walls seem to bulge with them, giving all of our heroes the unsettling feeling that they are being watched. “These folk were creepy,” mutters Rock. Again, a lack of exits leads the party back to the main room and out another of the passages that lead from it. This one takes them to a chamber full of jumbled, mostly-crushed skeletons and weapons, many of which are broken. Again, there are no exits.

Ari crouches down, examining the bones. “These look like halfling bodies,” he tells the others grimly.

“They must be some of the jerren,” Naomi says eagerly. “If only we could talk to them!”

Nara smiles. “Who says we can’t?”

The power of Coila flows through the prophetess as she intones solemn prayers to her goddess. Soon, she is murmuring to a skull that has a significant amount of its neck (and vocal cords) repaired via make whole. When she is done, she shudders. “It seems,” she informs her friends, “that the jerren were fond of dealing with foul powers from other planes, and of binding demons and such.” She licks her lips nervously. “They... they collected true names.”

“Oh?” asks Ari. “Any of them especially interesting?”

“You might say that,” Nara replies. “Have you ever heard of Orcus?”

Silence descends on the group for a moment. Finally, Federico whimpers, “...yeah...”

“Is Orcus what killed these guys?” Ari gestures.

“No, I asked about that too. They were killed by something I’ve never heard of- something called the ‘scyllan’.”

“Uh oh,” Federico whimpers some more, almost starting to cry.

“What is this ‘scyllan’?” asks Beau.

“It- it’s a weird, powerful monster, some kind of demon or devil or something... I always thought it was just a legend!” Federico exclaims. “I never believed it was actually real...”

“But,” sighs Naomi, “what is it?”

“A terrible thing, brought here from another plane,” the kobold bard grimaces. “Marooned, stranded, unable to get home... the scyllan is a terrible, terrible monster that eats little kobolds and halflings for breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, lunch-”

“I think we get the idea,” Ari nods.

“At least it eats a decent number of meals every day,” reasons Naomi. “It can’t be all bad.”

“Did you miss the part where its meals were halflings?” snorts Rock.

“Well, no, but I mean, come on, we all gotta eat,” the obese Naomi shoots back.

“Well, buddies,” Erasmuz says, “maybe if we find it we can turn the tables on it.

“Maybe WE can eat IT!”

Next Time: Who will eat whom?? Our heroes encounter- the SCYLLAN!!

 

[Brain]

I got a talented artist here on EN World (Restill Habb) to do a rendition of Erasmuz.

link

 

[omrob]

Oh yeah

Thats frikkin awesome...

so who all is up for doing a guerilla style takeover of the J's story hour posting?

since hes a lagger! I know his wrist has got to be better - but do we get any story hour love?

RAN

 

[the Jester]

Thats frikkin awesome...

so who all is up for doing a guerilla style takeover of the J's story hour posting?

since hes a lagger! I know his wrist has got to be better - but do we get any story hour love?

RAN

Wrist is eehhh, gettin' there.

I am currently anticipating at least a short update in each thread within the next couple of weeks.

 

[the Jester]

Working on the next update...

Just so everyone can visualize, the creature on the cover of Stormwrack is the Scyllan.

 

[the Jester]

The party’s meeting with the scyllan comes much sooner than our heroes would have anticipated. As they stand there underwater, talking, it comes. It, and its demonic minions- fish-like demon creatures with foul, barbed tails. Three of them. Deadly creatures from the watery oceans of the Abyss, the demons dart forward while, behind them, the deadly thing that is the Scyllan swims forward. From the black waters behind it, it moves smoothly, quickly towards our diminuative heroes. Its upper body is a mass of lashing tentacles, surrounding a pair of fearsome-looking claws. Its head is like a cross between that of a fish and some kind of bone-headed aquatic ram. Vicious teeth like those of a barracuda gnash in its green, knurled mouth.

Fear pours out of the attackers, tainting the water like oil from a squid. Federico shrieks in fear and swims back away from the terrible monsters charging the group, and Rock falls back as well. Erasmuz erects a protective force screen, while Nara invokes divine power.

Only Naomi lashes out immediately, without thought for her own safety or defense. She glares at the Scyllan, her mind raging. You destroyed my people here! the fat halfling cries in her mind. Now we’ll destroy you!

There is a ripple of mental force as Naomi unleashes a powerfully-augmented mind thrust, and the Scyllan reels for a moment as the psionic attack blasts its mind. Then it hisses; it motions its minions forward and waits for the right moment. The demons that serve the Scyllan rush in and tear at Brother Yip, slashing their jagged tails at him and attempting to rend him limb from limb! The kobold monk parries and twists, avoiding about half of the blows aimed at him. The other half rip into his scaly flesh, leaving the water around him swirling with clouds of red-black blood.

“No!” cries Naomi, and recalls agony on the first of the demons. It shudders in remembered pain, then snarls; but Rush steps forward, his mind blade already active, and unleashes a whirlwind attack, disemboweling one of the creatures entirely. He wounds both of the other demons, and Nara steps in and takes one of them down in a series of morning star blows.

The Scyllan gnashes its teeth again and lunges forward, reaching for Rush, and as he does so, Yip lands a solid kick in the face, shattering teeth and eliciting a roar of pain. Still, the creature grabs Rush, wrapping a tentacle around its victim. Rush growls and struggles, but it is quite strong. Yip, badly wounded from the demons, leaps away back to Federico, who is cowering in the back, seeking help. Meanwhile, spells seem to ping off of the Scyllan ineffectively.

Namoi suggests to the minion demon that it attack the Scyllan; it moves in, but misses. The Scyllan, meanwhile, tosses Rush aside and smashes at Nara with multiple tentacles and both of its claws. It tears into her, dealing incredible wounds to her. She gasps and screams as it cracks her ribs, claws open her belly and thighs and smashes at her head.* Gritting her teeth to get past the pain, she full attacks it back, hasting herself with her boots, and hits it several times- to no avail! Her blows glance off of it uselessly!

Beau moves in to where he can get a clear shot, taking a tentacle blow on the way, and fires a ray of enfeeblement at the Scyllan. It hits the strange creature, and the monster gives a snarl of anger as its strength flees its limbs. Rush steps in again, slamming his mind blade into the Scyllan and using all of his psychic powers to enhance it. Blow after blow falls, and he crushes one of its tentacles, but it sistill going! It gives blow for blow back to Rush, knocking the soulknife unconscious and drifting in the water. The Scyllan roars at its minion, and the demon stops for a moment, then whirls to attack Beau, clearly snapped free of the suggestion. It swims past Beau- but he stabs it in the vitals as it does so, running it through and slaying it!

Then a large water elemental appears, summoned by Ari, and it swims in to attack the monster. The two begin contending, while our heroes try to regroup and heal a little. Their plan is cut short, unfortunately, when the Scyllan sweeps Naomi up in a tentacle and begins to constrict her.

More mind blasts, spiritual weapons and other effects shoot out, but without much result. The Scyllan seems able to resist almost anything our heroes throw at it!

It becomes clear that steel and muscle are our heroes’ only hope. Grimly, they press their attack, with Yip dancing in and out, Rock pushing back into the fight, and Beau striving to flank. The Scyllan gives out a cruel laugh, smacking Beau, Nara and Rock all at once.

Yip groans as he watches his friends suffer new wounds. “Foul beast!” he cries, and springs forward, striking the beast in its body. Then, as Erasmuz casts divine power, Beau moves into position and stabs it in the kidney area. The Scyllan roars, and a great cloud of blood pours out of its mouth into the surrounding water.

It collapses.

“Thank the gods!” exclaims Yip with relief.

“Hardly,” Erasmuz snarks. “We saved ourselves. We don’t need any gods.”

“Well, hey,” Naomi coughs, herself in very bad shape after her long period of being constricted, “since it’s dead, we can search the rest of these caves.”

“Corn bread,” says Erasmuz emphatically.

Next Time: What will our heroes find down here? Is there any corn bread that will survive underwater? Find out- next time!


*Nara took a total of 73 points of damage from this series of attacks!