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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 8648065" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 57: THE ISLAND OF MISFIT MONSTERS</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Cramer Appleknocker, gnome cleric 20</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Jhasspok, lizardman 3/barbarian 3/fighter 14</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Khari Hammerslammer, dwarf fighter 19/psychic warrior 1</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Marlo Pendragon, human sorcerer 20</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Utred "Buckets" Butterflinger, dwarf barbarian 20</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 25 May 2022</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>The landing craft had been lowered to the water and Jhasspok was ready to leap overboard himself, but Cramer grabbed the lizardfolk's wrist. "Hold on a minute there," the little gnome chided. "Before any of us leaves this ship, I want to cast a <em>magic circle against chaos</em> spell on everyone first."</p><p></p><p>"But I've been in the water lots of times on this trip," Jhasspok argued.</p><p></p><p>"Never this close to the island, though," warned Cramer. "Remember, there's a rift on the island somewhere, leaking all kinds of chaos energy into the surroundings. That's why those sea monsters we fought yesterday were so..." the gnome cast about for the proper word.</p><p></p><p>"Wonky," suggested Khari.</p><p></p><p>"Yes, quite," agreed the gnome cleric as he cast the <em>magic circle against chaos</em> on each of the five heroes. Once Jhasspok had received his spell and gotten the nod from the little gnome, he dove over the side of the ship and surfaced nearly a minute later, after having explored the surrounding area underwater and finding no immediate danger. The two dwarves and Cramer stepped down into the little boat and Marlo went to follow in their wake, but not before having a few words with the ship's crew. "Now remember, you're not to step foot off this ship until our return," she reminded them. "The island's likely not safe without the proper magical protection and if you get it into your heads to try to sail away and leave us stranded here, the water elementals will sink your ship rather than letting you exit the quarantine zone they've set up around the island. And," she added, her eyebrows lowering as she glared up at the criminal captain and his crew, most of whom stood a good foot taller than her, "I will not take kindly to you abandoning us. Are we understood?"</p><p></p><p>"Y-yes, ma'am," agreed the captain, knowing full well he'd receive no ribbing from his crew of hardened criminals for speaking in fear to the tiny little female in the funny robe with all the eyes painted on it. None of the crew dared get themselves on Marlo's bad side; they'd all seen only too well the kind of power she wielded.</p><p></p><p>Once the four were settled in the rowboat nobody even bothered touching the oars, for Jhasspok happily grabbed the upper edge of the boat's aft side and propelled it forward with powerful sweeps of his muscular tail. The past month had been quite a treat for the former fisher-slave, getting to swim every day and hunt for fish. He was actually going to be a little sad when this mission was over.</p><p></p><p>"Looks like some kind of encampment over there," pointed out Marlo from the front of the boat, squinting into the sunlight. "Veer us to the right, Jhasspok!" Sure enough, there looked to be a series of tents of various sizes in a tight cluster, likely the remains of a previous expedition to the island. While Cramer held a <em>find the path</em> spell in his mind ready to be cast, it wouldn't hurt to ask the locals if they knew of the last of the Writhing Gates. On the other hand, it also wouldn't hurt not to automatically trust that the members of the previous expedition would be of a friendly nature. "Anybody want to go into the village invisible?" she asked the group at large.</p><p></p><p>"Sure," replied Utred. Marlo cast an <em>invisibility</em> spell on the dwarven barbarian from her wand, while Cramer likewise activated his <em>ring of invisibility</em> and vanished from view. Jhasspok's steady tail-sweeps propelled the boat forward, seemingly moving of its own accord while a hammer-wielding dwarf and a human woman no taller than he was sat at the back of the small vessel.</p><p></p><p>As they approached the island, the <em>robe of eyes</em> she wore allowed Marlo to see the invisible gnome climb up onto his usual perch on the invisible dwarven barbarian's backpack. She could also see a pair of horses approaching from the back of the tent-village, their riders apparently having noticed the landing vessel's imminent arrival. Jhasspok brought the boat up onto the beach and Marlo and Khari stood, getting a good sight of the approaching welcoming committee.</p><p></p><p>Marlo barely stifled a shriek of surprise when the horses and their riders came into full view. Bits and pieces of their bodies had been swapped around, seemingly at random, although both horses had human heads and the riders had the heads of horses; one horse's right front leg ended in a human arm and hand, the equine limb growing out of the rider's right shoulder. And worst of all, while the riders wore no saddles there seemed to be no need for them at all, for the human bodies had merged with the horses' backs, each horse and rider now a single, mismatched creature made up of composite parts and pieces; Marlo could tell one human leg actually grew into the side of the horse's ribcage and the end of the human foot dangled out from the bottom of the horse's belly. The horrific figures were armed, wielding light crossbows and lances.</p><p></p><p>Utred activated his <em>winged boots</em>, rising invisibly up and out of the boat with Cramer still perched upon his backpack. He pulled his greataxe out, ready for action and well aware that his first strike would return him to full visibility. Marlo prepared to cast a <em>maximized disintegrate</em> spell if either of the hoofed horrors tried to attack her. Cramer, seemingly just a disembodied voice from somewhere in the air above the tents, tried communicating with the misshapen horse-men. "What are your intentions?" he called down to them. The responses he got were varied, for the swapping around of body parts apparently had made speech difficult for the merged mutants, but the gnome thought he could pick out "Join us" and "Please kill us" among the muttered replies.</p><p></p><p>Then another figure ambled out of the largest of the tents. This creature was no longer even closely humanoid in build, its pliant, rolling body an unholy mish-mash of tentacles, arms, insectoid limbs, serrated claws, and partial screaming faces, all rising up and collapsing back into the amoeboid body. Cramer immediately recognized the thing as a chaos beast, although one much larger than any he had ever heard of before. <em>Stay away from the blob-monster!</em> Cramer thought furiously to his friends, before realizing Marlo hadn't had time to cast the standard <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em> that provided the heroes a means of silent communication between themselves. But already Jhasspok was rising up from the ocean waters behind the rowboat with his battleaxe in hand, stepping towards the chaos beast with a look of determination on his reptilian face. Cramer resorted to shouting out a warning: "Don't let the blob-monster touch you, Jhasspok!" he cried down at the lizardfolk. "If it touches you it can make you into something just like it!"</p><p></p><p>Marlo sent her readied spell blasting into the chaos beast, realizing their best bet was to take the ever-shifting creature down with ranged spells and attacks. Unfortunately, the chaos beast was protected by a level of spell resistance and the <em>maximized disintegrate</em> spell fizzled away to nothingness. Jhasspok grabbed up his <em>flaming shortspear</em> and hurled it at the approaching blob with his full strength. The spear hit the creature in the center of its mass, but the monster's shifting features continued morphing and it was difficult to see if the attack had done any lasting harm. As the chaos beast oozed forward, it eventually left the shortspear behind it, the weapon having been shifted out of its body mass.</p><p></p><p>Khari mentally activated his <em>offensive prescience</em> and sprinted forward, moving in the opposite direction of the chaos beast, setting himself up to be able to attack the right-most horse-hybrid. The hoofed horror saw the approaching dwarf and shot at him with its crossbow; Khari saw the bolt wriggling awkwardly in his direction and ducked under it as it flew by. But the other hybrid also fired its weapon at Jhasspok and the bolt hit the lizardfolk in the shoulder, shifting upon impact to reveal itself as a thin-bodied leech which buried its ring of sharp fangs into the reptile's flesh, burrowing its head between his scales and beginning to suck up Jhasspok's blood.</p><p></p><p>Not wanting to get close enough to the chaos beast below to bring his greataxe to bear - for to do so would be to bring the barbarian well within the range of the monster's tentacles and claws - Utred uncoiled his <em>life-flame whip</em> and sent its tip striking rapidly again and again to snap at the chaos beast, the flames burning the blobby monster's flesh where it struck. The dwarf was now visible, hanging in the air supported by his magic boots while Cramer remained invisible sitting upon his backpack. Marlo cast a summoning spell, bringing forth a trio of massive earth elementals, although at the last moment one of the burly rock-monsters fell forward and fell through a gap into the Far Realm. Marlo never did see whatever happened to that third one but the other two flanked the hoofed horror that had just shot at Khari, their boulderlike fists crashing down upon both of its backs, the human one and the equine one. Ribs cracked under the pummeling.</p><p></p><p>Cramer suddenly became visible as he cast a <em>destruction</em> spell down at the chaos beast. It managed to shrug off the worst of the spell's effects but it was quite visibly affected, for some of its misshapen limbs were blasted away from the creature's central mass and they bubbled where they landed, dissolving away into nothingness. But the majority of the creature's bulk remained intact and it shambled over to Jhasspok, remaining limbs writhing as if wishing to pull the lizardfolk into its embrace, perhaps to absorb the reptile's flesh into its own wriggling form. Jhasspok, for his part, recalled Cramer's warning and skirted around the beast, heading toward the hybrid horse-thing not currently being pummeled by the earth elementals. He threw another shortspear at it, this one not enhanced with magical flames but nonetheless hitting its mark. But the monstrosity surged forward, bringing its lance to bear against the lizardfolk, who handily dodged the weapon's wicked point.</p><p></p><p>Khari skirted around the tents to make his way toward the other hoofed horror, who tried escaping the rock-fists of its attackers. Perhaps realizing its crossbow would be ineffective against the elementals' stone forms, it brought its crossbow up towards Utred and Cramer and fired its wriggling bolt at the gnome, the leech adhering to Cramer's flesh and digging in upon impact. Utred was unaware of the attack, continuing to focus his attention on the chaos beast, his <em>life-flame whip</em> snapping down at the creature and drawing lines of scarred pain upon its puckered flesh.</p><p></p><p>The chaos beast's slithering charge towards Jhasspok came to a shambling halt under Utred's continuing barrage of whip-snaps and Marlo sensed the creature was just about dead. She opted to save her higher-powered spells for later and cast a simple <em>magic missile</em> spell at the monstrosity, nodding in confirmation as the streaking bolts of energy blasted bits of flesh away from its core as each struck true. Then, as if having overcome its overall structural integrity, the chaos beast popped like a bag of half-dissolved meat and pooled upon the ground, the chunks of its horrid flesh bubbling and dissolving in the open air, releasing a stench as horrible as the vision of its pulsating body had been to those who had seen it at its full power.</p><p></p><p>The earth elementals towered over their sole target, pounding it mercilessly and eliciting humanlike cries of pain and horse-whinnies of terror. Seeing that one was pretty much being taken care of, Cramer cast a <em>spiritual weapon</em> spell and sent a quarterstaff of pure force energy streaking over to strike the other hoofed horror. Jhasspok by then was swinging his battleaxe into the composite being's side, each blow cutting deep into the horror's flesh. Khari charged the one being pummeled by the elementals merely because of the two remaining foes it was the closest. The mutants did their best to retaliate, one attacking Jhasspok with its lance and the other trying to stab Khari, but then Utred came to a landing and swung his greataxe into the one attacking Jhasspok and the creature was slain shortly thereafter by a <em>maximized scorching ray</em> spell fired off by Marlo. The earth elementals soon took care of the other one, crushing it to a pulp beneath their rugged fists.</p><p></p><p>The main combat finished, Jhasspok paid attention to the bloated leech greedily sucking his blood. Plucking the creature from his scales, Jhasspok popped it into his mouth and bit down hard with his dinosaur teeth, instantly filling his mouth with his own blood as he chewed up the rubbery flesh. Cramer had likewise pulled the leech from his own flesh and, seeing Jhasspok chewing up the other one, called out to him and tossed the leech over to him like a dog treat. Jhasspok turned his head at the sound of his name and snapped the tossed leech from mid-air, eye-ridges raising in surprise at the taste of the gnome's blood. But after he'd swallowed down the pair of after-battle treats, the lizardfolk realized he didn't feel so good. Fortunately, Cramer came over to close up the wounds the lizardfolk has sustained in battle and the gnome's <em>heal</em> spell also cured the reptile of the mutagenic effects eating a pair of creatures who had been bathed in chaos energy would have eventually caused. But thinking it over, Cramer cautioned the others against eating anything they encountered on the island. "Best if we stick to food we've brought ourselves, or that I call forth through spellcasting." Jhasspok patted his pouch of dried dung beetles and nodded his understanding to the little gnome.</p><p></p><p>The heroes did a quick check of the tents to make sure there weren't any other surprises waiting for them, and Marlo made an interesting discovery. "The tents are magical in nature!" she told the group, examining them under a <em>detect magic</em> spell. "They shield against chaos energy!" she added, surprise evident in her voice as she examined the magical auras emanating from the tents.</p><p></p><p>"Not very well," pointed out Khari, looking over at the wet spot on the ground that was all that was left of the massive chaos beast they'd just slain.</p><p></p><p>"Probably a matter of too little, too late," surmised Cramer. "By the time they realized they needed shielding against chaos magic, it had already started to take effect." But the group dismantled several of the tents and folded them up into Marlo's <em>bag of holding</em>. Cramer had prepared three <em>magic circle against chaos</em> spells for each of the five heroes, but when they all ran their course they'd need to camp out in the tents to shield them from the emanations of chaos energy leaking from the rift to the Far Realm.</p><p></p><p>"So now what?" asked Utred. "Which way do we go?"</p><p></p><p>Cramer cast a <em>find the path</em> spell and pointed off in the distance, climbing back onto his perch upon Utred's backpack. "That way," he said, pointing toward the center of the island, a teeming jungle of tropical plants - some of them with eyes and teeth. "I figure it'll probably take us about three days of travel. The tents will definitely help - otherwise, we'd all have to fit inside a <em>rope trick</em> spell each night, so we wouldn't be on the same plane of existence as the one being flooded with chaos energy. Anybody want to start growing tentacles or spare eyeballs?"</p><p></p><p>"No!" replied Utred and Marlo, each thinking back on how close they'd each come to doing just that by having foolishly agreed to serve the Dying One. Involuntarily shudders wracked their forms at the thought.</p><p></p><p>"Let's go, then," suggested Cramer. "Utred, you and Jhasspok will need to trade off leading the way; you'll need to cut us a path through the jungle when it gets too overgrown." Utred stepped forward and took the lead, greataxe in hand. The others followed behind him, snaking their way single-file through the dense jungle.</p><p></p><p>Several hours later, the jungle opened up into a clearing. "Break time," suggested Khari, flopping to the ground and taking a healthy swig from his waterskin. He didn't notice the bee that landed on his left shoulder until it spoke to him.</p><p></p><p>"Be friend?" asked the little insect. Khari looked down at the bee that had landed on his shoulder and was disturbed to see the bee, while conforming to its normal form in all other respects, had quite human-looking eyes instead of the compound eyes you'd expect to see on a bee.</p><p></p><p>Although his initial instinct was to swat the bug on his shoulder, Khari ignored the desire and answered it. "Sure," he said. "We can be friends."</p><p></p><p>"Be friend?" asked another voice from his right. Looking over to his right shoulder, he saw another bee looking up at him with its human eyes - which, disturbingly, included eyelids and eyelashes.</p><p></p><p>"We can all be friends," assured the dwarven fighter.</p><p></p><p>"Be enemy?" asked another bee, this one flying at Khari's face. It was followed by another, and another, and before he knew it the clearing was filled with a swarm of buzzing bees, each asking one or the other of the two questions the initial cadre of human-eyed insects had posed to Khari. Bowing to the inevitable, the dwarven fighter mentally reactivated his <em>offensive prescience</em> psionic power, readying himself for battle.</p><p></p><p>Sure enough, the swarms of bees crowding the jungle clearing were now rising up away from the heroes and forming a familiar shape in the middle of the open area in the middle of the jungle. In a matter of mere moments, the individual bees had all swarmed into a giant version, a massive insectoid form with a body at least 25 feet long.</p><p></p><p>Utred plucked a bead from his <em>necklace of fireballs</em> and tossed it at the Bee-hemoth. It exploded upon impact, sending scores of burned bodies falling to the jungle floor. Then Marlo followed up with a much more powerful version of the same type of attack: a <em>meteor swarm</em> spell that sent four flaming rocks streaking over to strike the composite creature, the meteors exploding into massive bursts of fire.</p><p></p><p>The Bee-hemoth retaliated with a breath weapon like those employed by dragons - only this one was not a cone of fire or a line of crackling lightning, but rather an explosion of individual bees. The bees swarmed out at the heroes at full speed, biting and stinging and then coalescing into a pair of individual swarms, one to the left of the group and one to the right. The heroes had faced breath weapons before, but not one which persisted after the initial attack and regrouped to attack again from either side!</p><p></p><p>Jhasspok charged forward, rushing toward the massive Bee-hemoth and leaping up at it. He had planned on landing on its broad back, between its buzzing wings, and chopping away at it with his battleaxe. He completed his assault, but with one major difference: he sank into the insectoid mass, for a giant bee-shape made up of individual normal-sized bees absolutely could not support the weight of a full-grown lizardfolk. Still, Jhasspok swung his axe around, slicing through individual bees with each pass of his weapon even as he trod dozens of them below his clawed feet.</p><p></p><p>Cramer cast a <em>destruction</em> spell at the Bee-hemoth, thinking to bring it down with a single spell. Unfortunately, the spell did hit a single bee of the entire swarm and to its credit slew that bee instantly - although the gestalt entity as a whole didn't even feel the loss.</p><p></p><p>Khari and Utred charged forward, striking the monster bee with their preferred weapons, while Marlo took it upon herself to take out the twin swarms left over from the breath weapon attack. A <em>maximized fireball</em> spell cast directly between the two swarms burned up each and every insect making up the clouds of buzzing bees. The Bee-hemoth was easily slain by the weapon-strikes of the melee combatants, their attacks slowly taking out enough of the bees there was no longer a sufficient quantity of insects remaining to merge together into their larger form. A few dozen bees scattered off in multiple directions, no longer eager for combat.</p><p></p><p>After a quick rest and the application of healing spells as needed, the group resumed their trek through the jungle. Toward the end of the duration of their third <em>magic circle against chaos</em> spell, Cramer had them look for a good campsite to set up the tents they'd taken from the encampment along the island's shore. They'd need to stay within the areas of protection provided by the tents if they wanted to avoid the effects of the pervasive chaos energy flowing all around them; Cramer kept a handful of the lesser-duration <em>protection from chaos</em> spells as needed in case any of them needed to go out for more firewood or anything. And in that manner the heroes passed their first night on the island, with two more days - and repeated applications of <em>find the path</em> and <em>magic circle against chaos</em> spells - required to get the group to their destination. And then they'd need to defeat the guardian of the final Writhing Gate: <strong>Zarbugak</strong>, Master of Madness and the Untamer of the Wilds.</p><p></p><p>Zarbugak sat awaiting their arrival.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>This was an interesting session, especially for the spellcasters, for the entire area was a wild magic zone: they needed to make a Spellcraft check to even cast a spell, and if they failed they had to see what the wild magic's effects would be. Fortunately, Marlo only failed once and then lucked out in that the roll she ended up with was "spell is cast as normal."</p><p></p><p>One more session to go!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 8648065, member: 508"] [B]ADVENTURE 57: THE ISLAND OF MISFIT MONSTERS[/B] PC Roster: [INDENT]Cramer Appleknocker, gnome cleric 20[/INDENT] [INDENT] Jhasspok, lizardman 3/barbarian 3/fighter 14[/INDENT] [INDENT] Khari Hammerslammer, dwarf fighter 19/psychic warrior 1[/INDENT] [INDENT] Marlo Pendragon, human sorcerer 20[/INDENT] [INDENT] Utred "Buckets" Butterflinger, dwarf barbarian 20[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 25 May 2022 - - - The landing craft had been lowered to the water and Jhasspok was ready to leap overboard himself, but Cramer grabbed the lizardfolk's wrist. "Hold on a minute there," the little gnome chided. "Before any of us leaves this ship, I want to cast a [I]magic circle against chaos[/I] spell on everyone first." "But I've been in the water lots of times on this trip," Jhasspok argued. "Never this close to the island, though," warned Cramer. "Remember, there's a rift on the island somewhere, leaking all kinds of chaos energy into the surroundings. That's why those sea monsters we fought yesterday were so..." the gnome cast about for the proper word. "Wonky," suggested Khari. "Yes, quite," agreed the gnome cleric as he cast the [I]magic circle against chaos[/I] on each of the five heroes. Once Jhasspok had received his spell and gotten the nod from the little gnome, he dove over the side of the ship and surfaced nearly a minute later, after having explored the surrounding area underwater and finding no immediate danger. The two dwarves and Cramer stepped down into the little boat and Marlo went to follow in their wake, but not before having a few words with the ship's crew. "Now remember, you're not to step foot off this ship until our return," she reminded them. "The island's likely not safe without the proper magical protection and if you get it into your heads to try to sail away and leave us stranded here, the water elementals will sink your ship rather than letting you exit the quarantine zone they've set up around the island. And," she added, her eyebrows lowering as she glared up at the criminal captain and his crew, most of whom stood a good foot taller than her, "I will not take kindly to you abandoning us. Are we understood?" "Y-yes, ma'am," agreed the captain, knowing full well he'd receive no ribbing from his crew of hardened criminals for speaking in fear to the tiny little female in the funny robe with all the eyes painted on it. None of the crew dared get themselves on Marlo's bad side; they'd all seen only too well the kind of power she wielded. Once the four were settled in the rowboat nobody even bothered touching the oars, for Jhasspok happily grabbed the upper edge of the boat's aft side and propelled it forward with powerful sweeps of his muscular tail. The past month had been quite a treat for the former fisher-slave, getting to swim every day and hunt for fish. He was actually going to be a little sad when this mission was over. "Looks like some kind of encampment over there," pointed out Marlo from the front of the boat, squinting into the sunlight. "Veer us to the right, Jhasspok!" Sure enough, there looked to be a series of tents of various sizes in a tight cluster, likely the remains of a previous expedition to the island. While Cramer held a [I]find the path[/I] spell in his mind ready to be cast, it wouldn't hurt to ask the locals if they knew of the last of the Writhing Gates. On the other hand, it also wouldn't hurt not to automatically trust that the members of the previous expedition would be of a friendly nature. "Anybody want to go into the village invisible?" she asked the group at large. "Sure," replied Utred. Marlo cast an [I]invisibility[/I] spell on the dwarven barbarian from her wand, while Cramer likewise activated his [I]ring of invisibility[/I] and vanished from view. Jhasspok's steady tail-sweeps propelled the boat forward, seemingly moving of its own accord while a hammer-wielding dwarf and a human woman no taller than he was sat at the back of the small vessel. As they approached the island, the [I]robe of eyes[/I] she wore allowed Marlo to see the invisible gnome climb up onto his usual perch on the invisible dwarven barbarian's backpack. She could also see a pair of horses approaching from the back of the tent-village, their riders apparently having noticed the landing vessel's imminent arrival. Jhasspok brought the boat up onto the beach and Marlo and Khari stood, getting a good sight of the approaching welcoming committee. Marlo barely stifled a shriek of surprise when the horses and their riders came into full view. Bits and pieces of their bodies had been swapped around, seemingly at random, although both horses had human heads and the riders had the heads of horses; one horse's right front leg ended in a human arm and hand, the equine limb growing out of the rider's right shoulder. And worst of all, while the riders wore no saddles there seemed to be no need for them at all, for the human bodies had merged with the horses' backs, each horse and rider now a single, mismatched creature made up of composite parts and pieces; Marlo could tell one human leg actually grew into the side of the horse's ribcage and the end of the human foot dangled out from the bottom of the horse's belly. The horrific figures were armed, wielding light crossbows and lances. Utred activated his [I]winged boots[/I], rising invisibly up and out of the boat with Cramer still perched upon his backpack. He pulled his greataxe out, ready for action and well aware that his first strike would return him to full visibility. Marlo prepared to cast a [I]maximized disintegrate[/I] spell if either of the hoofed horrors tried to attack her. Cramer, seemingly just a disembodied voice from somewhere in the air above the tents, tried communicating with the misshapen horse-men. "What are your intentions?" he called down to them. The responses he got were varied, for the swapping around of body parts apparently had made speech difficult for the merged mutants, but the gnome thought he could pick out "Join us" and "Please kill us" among the muttered replies. Then another figure ambled out of the largest of the tents. This creature was no longer even closely humanoid in build, its pliant, rolling body an unholy mish-mash of tentacles, arms, insectoid limbs, serrated claws, and partial screaming faces, all rising up and collapsing back into the amoeboid body. Cramer immediately recognized the thing as a chaos beast, although one much larger than any he had ever heard of before. [I]Stay away from the blob-monster![/I] Cramer thought furiously to his friends, before realizing Marlo hadn't had time to cast the standard [I]Rary's telepathic bond[/I] that provided the heroes a means of silent communication between themselves. But already Jhasspok was rising up from the ocean waters behind the rowboat with his battleaxe in hand, stepping towards the chaos beast with a look of determination on his reptilian face. Cramer resorted to shouting out a warning: "Don't let the blob-monster touch you, Jhasspok!" he cried down at the lizardfolk. "If it touches you it can make you into something just like it!" Marlo sent her readied spell blasting into the chaos beast, realizing their best bet was to take the ever-shifting creature down with ranged spells and attacks. Unfortunately, the chaos beast was protected by a level of spell resistance and the [I]maximized disintegrate[/I] spell fizzled away to nothingness. Jhasspok grabbed up his [I]flaming shortspear[/I] and hurled it at the approaching blob with his full strength. The spear hit the creature in the center of its mass, but the monster's shifting features continued morphing and it was difficult to see if the attack had done any lasting harm. As the chaos beast oozed forward, it eventually left the shortspear behind it, the weapon having been shifted out of its body mass. Khari mentally activated his [I]offensive prescience[/I] and sprinted forward, moving in the opposite direction of the chaos beast, setting himself up to be able to attack the right-most horse-hybrid. The hoofed horror saw the approaching dwarf and shot at him with its crossbow; Khari saw the bolt wriggling awkwardly in his direction and ducked under it as it flew by. But the other hybrid also fired its weapon at Jhasspok and the bolt hit the lizardfolk in the shoulder, shifting upon impact to reveal itself as a thin-bodied leech which buried its ring of sharp fangs into the reptile's flesh, burrowing its head between his scales and beginning to suck up Jhasspok's blood. Not wanting to get close enough to the chaos beast below to bring his greataxe to bear - for to do so would be to bring the barbarian well within the range of the monster's tentacles and claws - Utred uncoiled his [I]life-flame whip[/I] and sent its tip striking rapidly again and again to snap at the chaos beast, the flames burning the blobby monster's flesh where it struck. The dwarf was now visible, hanging in the air supported by his magic boots while Cramer remained invisible sitting upon his backpack. Marlo cast a summoning spell, bringing forth a trio of massive earth elementals, although at the last moment one of the burly rock-monsters fell forward and fell through a gap into the Far Realm. Marlo never did see whatever happened to that third one but the other two flanked the hoofed horror that had just shot at Khari, their boulderlike fists crashing down upon both of its backs, the human one and the equine one. Ribs cracked under the pummeling. Cramer suddenly became visible as he cast a [I]destruction[/I] spell down at the chaos beast. It managed to shrug off the worst of the spell's effects but it was quite visibly affected, for some of its misshapen limbs were blasted away from the creature's central mass and they bubbled where they landed, dissolving away into nothingness. But the majority of the creature's bulk remained intact and it shambled over to Jhasspok, remaining limbs writhing as if wishing to pull the lizardfolk into its embrace, perhaps to absorb the reptile's flesh into its own wriggling form. Jhasspok, for his part, recalled Cramer's warning and skirted around the beast, heading toward the hybrid horse-thing not currently being pummeled by the earth elementals. He threw another shortspear at it, this one not enhanced with magical flames but nonetheless hitting its mark. But the monstrosity surged forward, bringing its lance to bear against the lizardfolk, who handily dodged the weapon's wicked point. Khari skirted around the tents to make his way toward the other hoofed horror, who tried escaping the rock-fists of its attackers. Perhaps realizing its crossbow would be ineffective against the elementals' stone forms, it brought its crossbow up towards Utred and Cramer and fired its wriggling bolt at the gnome, the leech adhering to Cramer's flesh and digging in upon impact. Utred was unaware of the attack, continuing to focus his attention on the chaos beast, his [I]life-flame whip[/I] snapping down at the creature and drawing lines of scarred pain upon its puckered flesh. The chaos beast's slithering charge towards Jhasspok came to a shambling halt under Utred's continuing barrage of whip-snaps and Marlo sensed the creature was just about dead. She opted to save her higher-powered spells for later and cast a simple [I]magic missile[/I] spell at the monstrosity, nodding in confirmation as the streaking bolts of energy blasted bits of flesh away from its core as each struck true. Then, as if having overcome its overall structural integrity, the chaos beast popped like a bag of half-dissolved meat and pooled upon the ground, the chunks of its horrid flesh bubbling and dissolving in the open air, releasing a stench as horrible as the vision of its pulsating body had been to those who had seen it at its full power. The earth elementals towered over their sole target, pounding it mercilessly and eliciting humanlike cries of pain and horse-whinnies of terror. Seeing that one was pretty much being taken care of, Cramer cast a [I]spiritual weapon[/I] spell and sent a quarterstaff of pure force energy streaking over to strike the other hoofed horror. Jhasspok by then was swinging his battleaxe into the composite being's side, each blow cutting deep into the horror's flesh. Khari charged the one being pummeled by the elementals merely because of the two remaining foes it was the closest. The mutants did their best to retaliate, one attacking Jhasspok with its lance and the other trying to stab Khari, but then Utred came to a landing and swung his greataxe into the one attacking Jhasspok and the creature was slain shortly thereafter by a [I]maximized scorching ray[/I] spell fired off by Marlo. The earth elementals soon took care of the other one, crushing it to a pulp beneath their rugged fists. The main combat finished, Jhasspok paid attention to the bloated leech greedily sucking his blood. Plucking the creature from his scales, Jhasspok popped it into his mouth and bit down hard with his dinosaur teeth, instantly filling his mouth with his own blood as he chewed up the rubbery flesh. Cramer had likewise pulled the leech from his own flesh and, seeing Jhasspok chewing up the other one, called out to him and tossed the leech over to him like a dog treat. Jhasspok turned his head at the sound of his name and snapped the tossed leech from mid-air, eye-ridges raising in surprise at the taste of the gnome's blood. But after he'd swallowed down the pair of after-battle treats, the lizardfolk realized he didn't feel so good. Fortunately, Cramer came over to close up the wounds the lizardfolk has sustained in battle and the gnome's [I]heal[/I] spell also cured the reptile of the mutagenic effects eating a pair of creatures who had been bathed in chaos energy would have eventually caused. But thinking it over, Cramer cautioned the others against eating anything they encountered on the island. "Best if we stick to food we've brought ourselves, or that I call forth through spellcasting." Jhasspok patted his pouch of dried dung beetles and nodded his understanding to the little gnome. The heroes did a quick check of the tents to make sure there weren't any other surprises waiting for them, and Marlo made an interesting discovery. "The tents are magical in nature!" she told the group, examining them under a [I]detect magic[/I] spell. "They shield against chaos energy!" she added, surprise evident in her voice as she examined the magical auras emanating from the tents. "Not very well," pointed out Khari, looking over at the wet spot on the ground that was all that was left of the massive chaos beast they'd just slain. "Probably a matter of too little, too late," surmised Cramer. "By the time they realized they needed shielding against chaos magic, it had already started to take effect." But the group dismantled several of the tents and folded them up into Marlo's [I]bag of holding[/I]. Cramer had prepared three [I]magic circle against chaos[/I] spells for each of the five heroes, but when they all ran their course they'd need to camp out in the tents to shield them from the emanations of chaos energy leaking from the rift to the Far Realm. "So now what?" asked Utred. "Which way do we go?" Cramer cast a [I]find the path[/I] spell and pointed off in the distance, climbing back onto his perch upon Utred's backpack. "That way," he said, pointing toward the center of the island, a teeming jungle of tropical plants - some of them with eyes and teeth. "I figure it'll probably take us about three days of travel. The tents will definitely help - otherwise, we'd all have to fit inside a [I]rope trick[/I] spell each night, so we wouldn't be on the same plane of existence as the one being flooded with chaos energy. Anybody want to start growing tentacles or spare eyeballs?" "No!" replied Utred and Marlo, each thinking back on how close they'd each come to doing just that by having foolishly agreed to serve the Dying One. Involuntarily shudders wracked their forms at the thought. "Let's go, then," suggested Cramer. "Utred, you and Jhasspok will need to trade off leading the way; you'll need to cut us a path through the jungle when it gets too overgrown." Utred stepped forward and took the lead, greataxe in hand. The others followed behind him, snaking their way single-file through the dense jungle. Several hours later, the jungle opened up into a clearing. "Break time," suggested Khari, flopping to the ground and taking a healthy swig from his waterskin. He didn't notice the bee that landed on his left shoulder until it spoke to him. "Be friend?" asked the little insect. Khari looked down at the bee that had landed on his shoulder and was disturbed to see the bee, while conforming to its normal form in all other respects, had quite human-looking eyes instead of the compound eyes you'd expect to see on a bee. Although his initial instinct was to swat the bug on his shoulder, Khari ignored the desire and answered it. "Sure," he said. "We can be friends." "Be friend?" asked another voice from his right. Looking over to his right shoulder, he saw another bee looking up at him with its human eyes - which, disturbingly, included eyelids and eyelashes. "We can all be friends," assured the dwarven fighter. "Be enemy?" asked another bee, this one flying at Khari's face. It was followed by another, and another, and before he knew it the clearing was filled with a swarm of buzzing bees, each asking one or the other of the two questions the initial cadre of human-eyed insects had posed to Khari. Bowing to the inevitable, the dwarven fighter mentally reactivated his [I]offensive prescience[/I] psionic power, readying himself for battle. Sure enough, the swarms of bees crowding the jungle clearing were now rising up away from the heroes and forming a familiar shape in the middle of the open area in the middle of the jungle. In a matter of mere moments, the individual bees had all swarmed into a giant version, a massive insectoid form with a body at least 25 feet long. Utred plucked a bead from his [I]necklace of fireballs[/I] and tossed it at the Bee-hemoth. It exploded upon impact, sending scores of burned bodies falling to the jungle floor. Then Marlo followed up with a much more powerful version of the same type of attack: a [I]meteor swarm[/I] spell that sent four flaming rocks streaking over to strike the composite creature, the meteors exploding into massive bursts of fire. The Bee-hemoth retaliated with a breath weapon like those employed by dragons - only this one was not a cone of fire or a line of crackling lightning, but rather an explosion of individual bees. The bees swarmed out at the heroes at full speed, biting and stinging and then coalescing into a pair of individual swarms, one to the left of the group and one to the right. The heroes had faced breath weapons before, but not one which persisted after the initial attack and regrouped to attack again from either side! Jhasspok charged forward, rushing toward the massive Bee-hemoth and leaping up at it. He had planned on landing on its broad back, between its buzzing wings, and chopping away at it with his battleaxe. He completed his assault, but with one major difference: he sank into the insectoid mass, for a giant bee-shape made up of individual normal-sized bees absolutely could not support the weight of a full-grown lizardfolk. Still, Jhasspok swung his axe around, slicing through individual bees with each pass of his weapon even as he trod dozens of them below his clawed feet. Cramer cast a [I]destruction[/I] spell at the Bee-hemoth, thinking to bring it down with a single spell. Unfortunately, the spell did hit a single bee of the entire swarm and to its credit slew that bee instantly - although the gestalt entity as a whole didn't even feel the loss. Khari and Utred charged forward, striking the monster bee with their preferred weapons, while Marlo took it upon herself to take out the twin swarms left over from the breath weapon attack. A [I]maximized fireball[/I] spell cast directly between the two swarms burned up each and every insect making up the clouds of buzzing bees. The Bee-hemoth was easily slain by the weapon-strikes of the melee combatants, their attacks slowly taking out enough of the bees there was no longer a sufficient quantity of insects remaining to merge together into their larger form. A few dozen bees scattered off in multiple directions, no longer eager for combat. After a quick rest and the application of healing spells as needed, the group resumed their trek through the jungle. Toward the end of the duration of their third [I]magic circle against chaos[/I] spell, Cramer had them look for a good campsite to set up the tents they'd taken from the encampment along the island's shore. They'd need to stay within the areas of protection provided by the tents if they wanted to avoid the effects of the pervasive chaos energy flowing all around them; Cramer kept a handful of the lesser-duration [I]protection from chaos[/I] spells as needed in case any of them needed to go out for more firewood or anything. And in that manner the heroes passed their first night on the island, with two more days - and repeated applications of [I]find the path[/I] and [I]magic circle against chaos[/I] spells - required to get the group to their destination. And then they'd need to defeat the guardian of the final Writhing Gate: [B]Zarbugak[/B], Master of Madness and the Untamer of the Wilds. Zarbugak sat awaiting their arrival. - - - This was an interesting session, especially for the spellcasters, for the entire area was a wild magic zone: they needed to make a Spellcraft check to even cast a spell, and if they failed they had to see what the wild magic's effects would be. Fortunately, Marlo only failed once and then lucked out in that the roll she ended up with was "spell is cast as normal." One more session to go! [/QUOTE]
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