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Shilsen's Eberron SH (Finished - The Last Word : 9/20/15)
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<blockquote data-quote="shilsen" data-source="post: 2919231" data-attributes="member: 198"><p>This smaller room is apparently a laboratory, lit by a single crystal in the ceiling. An entire wall is full of racks, which seem to have grown out of the pink material of the wall. They contain jars full of organs, some of which (such as brains or hands) are recognizable to the Angels and others that they cannot identify. Against the opposite wall are a pair of large tables, which seem to have grown out of the floor, since they have the same color and consistency. Each has a groove on it, which runs partway down the legs and ends at a tongue-like protuberance. One table supports the torso of what is a large human or hobgoblin, though it is difficult to say because there is no head or anything below the waist. Patches of a pale gray fungus grow on many parts of it and the left hand is missing, having a hook-shaped bone in its stead. The far wall, between the one with the racks and the one behind the tables, has three small sphincters, ranging in width from two to four feet in width. In the far corner is a small pool, two feet in diameter with a parapet that is three inches wide and high. </p><p></p><p>After waiting for a few seconds, the adventurers enter the room and begin to examine its contents. Nameless notices that there are a number of symbols on the parapet of the pool. It is apparently a word in daelkyr repeated four times, but neither Trillia nor he have heard the word before. While he is making a note of it, he notices that the fluid in the pool, which is glutinous and an off-white in color, is bulging upwards. Nameless calls a warning and steps away.</p><p></p><p>As they watch, the raised part of the liquid forms a face. It is Nameless', but deformed with the addition of a couple of strange protuberances. When Six moves closer to look at it, Nameless' face disappears and is replaced by his, along with the same extra features. </p><p></p><p>“Any idea what this is?” asks Six.</p><p></p><p>Nameless and Trillia exchange quizzical glances and reply simultaneously, “No.”</p><p></p><p>Six looks back at it and after a moment, says, “I think it’s whispering! I hear something.”</p><p></p><p>“Somehow I doubt it’s saying anything important,” says Gareth, scanning the room with his <em>detect evil</em> ability and not picking up anything.</p><p></p><p>“Guess so,” says Six. He looks at the sphincters and readies his pole. “You might all want to step back. I’m going to check what is in there.”</p><p></p><p>When he pokes the first and smallest one, it splits open horizontally and extends a tongue-like tray, which seems like a less animated version of the appendage that attacked Gareth. The tray holds a variety of gleaming tools, which seem to be for a combination of surgery and torture. Trillia points out a couple which are easy to identify, as well as some which have no immediately evident function. She takes a few, as do some of the others. A little push sends the tray back into the sphincter, which closes.</p><p></p><p>Six moves on to the second one, which extends a similar but larger tray. Lying on it is what appears to be a sleeping or unconscious goblin, or if not that then a dead and amazingly well preserved one. The only thing unusual about it is a series of lines along the side, running from head to toe. Six cautiously pokes it with the pole, which slips between a couple of the lines to reveal that the goblin is not only dead but has been sliced longitudinally. More careful examination shows that the slices are incredibly fine, very close to each other, and run all the way through to a couple of inches from the right side. </p><p></p><p>Moments after they discover this, Nameless gives a partly smothered laugh. The rest look at him curiously. “What?” </p><p></p><p>“I just worked out what it is. Observe!” Nameless inserts a finger into a slit and, with a little effort, flips the upper half of the goblin open, so that everyone can see a perfectly preserved cross-section of all its internal organs. Along with amusement, there is a note of sincere admiration in his voice. “It’s a reference goblin! You flip it open like a book and can check the anatomy, starting near the surface and going as deep as you want to!” </p><p></p><p>There is a moment of shocked silence and then Trillia gives a loud guffaw, while Luna growls her disapproval. A scowling Korm says in a growl scarcely softer than Luna’s, “That is not right!”</p><p></p><p>Checking shows that the last sphincter contains a similarly preserved and dissected hobgoblin. After examining the two for a bit, which is undertaken mainly by Nameless and Trillia, neither of whom is bothered by the discovery, and Six, who has never had such a good view of humanoid anatomy, the group prepares to leave.</p><p></p><p>“Hold on,” says Nameless, awkwardly wrestling the goblin corpse off the table, “I’m taking this one along.”</p><p></p><p>“Oh, come on!”</p><p></p><p>“What? Does leaving it here improve things for it? It might be useful.” Nameless grins at a thought and adds, “Besides, if we ever run into another damn gninja, all I have to do is produce this and tell it what the aberrations have been doing to its family, and it’ll be too pissed off with them to bother us.”</p><p></p><p>“That theory,” says Six, “Is quite a good one if we’re showing them a sculpture or picture of what the aberrations here have been doing. While we are carrying around our own ... um, reference goblin? Not so much, I think.”</p><p></p><p>Nevertheless, Nameless persists in wanting to take it along, and nobody really protests. While he is squeezing it into his <em>bag of holding</em>, Six moves to the pool, carrying one of the dissection tools. Ignoring the face that appears in its surface, he dips the tool into it. He has to exert a little pressure to push through the surface, which is like a thicker version of skin on milk, below which is a gelatinous, similarly colored fluid. After holding the tool in there for a few seconds, Six pulls it out, to see that it has a coating of liquid. As he watches, the liquid solidifies into what looks suspiciously like flesh.</p><p></p><p>“Hey, look at this,” he says, and explains what just happened. </p><p></p><p>Nobody seems particularly keen on experimenting with the pool’s flesh-growing properties and they leave, Six dropping the tool along the way. Re-entering the larger chamber, where a few of them are again affected by the crystal induced depression, they walk up to the large sphincter, which opens to reveal a forty foot long tunnel, which ends in a chamber fifteen feet deep, the far wall of which is made of a white substance.</p><p></p><p>The group proceeds to the chamber, which they discover to be thirty feet wide. They also discover that the white substance is a thick membrane, which spans the entire thirty feet. Six carefully pokes it with his pole, trying to see if it is attached at the sides, which it is. As he is doing so, everyone hears the sounds of large feet shuffling forward behind the membrane.</p><p></p><p>Weapons are quickly drawn and spells readied, with everyone except the alienists lining up near the membrane to attack the first thing that comes through it. As they ready themselves, there is the sound of rushing feet and a number of things tear through the membrane. Two of them are large lance-like objects, but seeming to be made of bone, one of which bites into Luna's shoulder and another into Korm's side. Beside each one comes a large arm topped by a large knob of bone, as big as the head of a greatclub, which smashes down on Luna again and on Gareth.</p><p></p><p>The attacks tear large rents in the membrane, revealing a singular quartet of enemies. The larger pair seem to be bugbears, but each of which has been drastically modified. Parts of them have evidently been cut out and stretched and/or expanded, with pieces of metal and sections of flesh grafted onto them to increase their size, until the creatures stand as tall as and even broader than ogres. Each also has an extra arm fused onto its chest, and all three arms end in a large knob of bone, which is evidently usable as a club. Perhaps the strangest part of the creatures, however, are the large lumps of flesh shaped like saddles that grow out of their backs. On each ‘saddle’ is what was originally a goblin, but similarly increased in size. Like the bugbears, they have no hands either. The left arm ends in a large bony plate that fulfils the function of a shield, while the right arm ends at the elbow, above which is a long and pointed bone-spear. All four creatures have no clothing, but each has a series of thick, bony plates growing out of their torsos, which presumably function as armor. </p><p></p><p>Once the surprise of the attack through the membrane and of the sight of the strange attackers is past, they do not last long. Six leaps in to curl his spiked chain around one rider's throat and pulls back to rip its throat open, and Gareth takes the opportunity to decapitate it. Barely a second later, Trillia drops a <em>glitterdust</em> that blinds the mount which just lost its rider as well as the surviving goblin, leaving it defenseless when a bleeding and angry Luna rears up and seizes it in claws and fangs. The giant bear rears back and literally rips away the upper half of the goblin.</p><p></p><p>Nameless <em>summon</em>s his famed wall of beef to join the fight, three pseudonatural bison joining Korm and Luna in hammering on one of the modified bugbears. It manages to slay one bison before going down under the combination of attacks, which allows everyone to focus on the other and drop it. Besides the crushing blows of their multiple arms, both creatures also display a vicious and poisonous bite before going down, but luckily for the adventurers the ones bitten are Luna and Gareth, one of whom is immune to all venom and the other protected with divine resistance*. </p><p></p><p>With the creatures dealt with, the adventurers check the area. The chamber is square, with membranes blocking off two walls, one of which the group entered through. To its right is the second membrane. Once they are on this side, they see that the membrane is mostly transparent from this side. Behind the membrane is an area that exactly matches the one the group came through, with a tunnel leading off into darkness. The next wall (opposite the one the group entered from) has a tunnel that runs for thirty feet before turning left. The one wall with no exit has two large alcoves, each large enough to hold a rider and mount. </p><p></p><p>Trillia, who has been checking the alcoves, says, “These things have a pair of sucker-like tubes sticking out. See?” </p><p></p><p>Nameless, who has been studying the malformed creatures, walks over and says, “And all of them have a similar thing growing out the back of the neck.” </p><p></p><p>“I’m guessing that they provide some sort of sustenance,” says Trillia. She points around the area. “There’s nothing here to show that they were living here or had anything to occupy themselves, after all.” As the others join them, she asks, “Anyone feel like sticking a hand in there to see what it does?” </p><p></p><p>“No!” </p><p></p><p>The discussion is interrupted as a humanoid figure appears where the thirty foot long tunnel enters this chamber. Humanoid only below the neck, that is. Two cold white eyes gaze at the adventurers from a bulbous face covered in rubbery, greenish-mauve skin, which glistens with slime. Below the eyes, the face consists of four long tentacles, which make a nauseatingly slurping sound as they rub against each other.</p><p></p><p>It doesn’t take the expertise of the two alienists of the Gatekeeper to identify the creature looking at them.</p><p></p><p><em>Mindflayer!</em></p><p></p><p>*** i.e. a +17 Fort save</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="shilsen, post: 2919231, member: 198"] This smaller room is apparently a laboratory, lit by a single crystal in the ceiling. An entire wall is full of racks, which seem to have grown out of the pink material of the wall. They contain jars full of organs, some of which (such as brains or hands) are recognizable to the Angels and others that they cannot identify. Against the opposite wall are a pair of large tables, which seem to have grown out of the floor, since they have the same color and consistency. Each has a groove on it, which runs partway down the legs and ends at a tongue-like protuberance. One table supports the torso of what is a large human or hobgoblin, though it is difficult to say because there is no head or anything below the waist. Patches of a pale gray fungus grow on many parts of it and the left hand is missing, having a hook-shaped bone in its stead. The far wall, between the one with the racks and the one behind the tables, has three small sphincters, ranging in width from two to four feet in width. In the far corner is a small pool, two feet in diameter with a parapet that is three inches wide and high. After waiting for a few seconds, the adventurers enter the room and begin to examine its contents. Nameless notices that there are a number of symbols on the parapet of the pool. It is apparently a word in daelkyr repeated four times, but neither Trillia nor he have heard the word before. While he is making a note of it, he notices that the fluid in the pool, which is glutinous and an off-white in color, is bulging upwards. Nameless calls a warning and steps away. As they watch, the raised part of the liquid forms a face. It is Nameless', but deformed with the addition of a couple of strange protuberances. When Six moves closer to look at it, Nameless' face disappears and is replaced by his, along with the same extra features. “Any idea what this is?” asks Six. Nameless and Trillia exchange quizzical glances and reply simultaneously, “No.” Six looks back at it and after a moment, says, “I think it’s whispering! I hear something.” “Somehow I doubt it’s saying anything important,” says Gareth, scanning the room with his [I]detect evil[/I] ability and not picking up anything. “Guess so,” says Six. He looks at the sphincters and readies his pole. “You might all want to step back. I’m going to check what is in there.” When he pokes the first and smallest one, it splits open horizontally and extends a tongue-like tray, which seems like a less animated version of the appendage that attacked Gareth. The tray holds a variety of gleaming tools, which seem to be for a combination of surgery and torture. Trillia points out a couple which are easy to identify, as well as some which have no immediately evident function. She takes a few, as do some of the others. A little push sends the tray back into the sphincter, which closes. Six moves on to the second one, which extends a similar but larger tray. Lying on it is what appears to be a sleeping or unconscious goblin, or if not that then a dead and amazingly well preserved one. The only thing unusual about it is a series of lines along the side, running from head to toe. Six cautiously pokes it with the pole, which slips between a couple of the lines to reveal that the goblin is not only dead but has been sliced longitudinally. More careful examination shows that the slices are incredibly fine, very close to each other, and run all the way through to a couple of inches from the right side. Moments after they discover this, Nameless gives a partly smothered laugh. The rest look at him curiously. “What?” “I just worked out what it is. Observe!” Nameless inserts a finger into a slit and, with a little effort, flips the upper half of the goblin open, so that everyone can see a perfectly preserved cross-section of all its internal organs. Along with amusement, there is a note of sincere admiration in his voice. “It’s a reference goblin! You flip it open like a book and can check the anatomy, starting near the surface and going as deep as you want to!” There is a moment of shocked silence and then Trillia gives a loud guffaw, while Luna growls her disapproval. A scowling Korm says in a growl scarcely softer than Luna’s, “That is not right!” Checking shows that the last sphincter contains a similarly preserved and dissected hobgoblin. After examining the two for a bit, which is undertaken mainly by Nameless and Trillia, neither of whom is bothered by the discovery, and Six, who has never had such a good view of humanoid anatomy, the group prepares to leave. “Hold on,” says Nameless, awkwardly wrestling the goblin corpse off the table, “I’m taking this one along.” “Oh, come on!” “What? Does leaving it here improve things for it? It might be useful.” Nameless grins at a thought and adds, “Besides, if we ever run into another damn gninja, all I have to do is produce this and tell it what the aberrations have been doing to its family, and it’ll be too pissed off with them to bother us.” “That theory,” says Six, “Is quite a good one if we’re showing them a sculpture or picture of what the aberrations here have been doing. While we are carrying around our own ... um, reference goblin? Not so much, I think.” Nevertheless, Nameless persists in wanting to take it along, and nobody really protests. While he is squeezing it into his [I]bag of holding[/I], Six moves to the pool, carrying one of the dissection tools. Ignoring the face that appears in its surface, he dips the tool into it. He has to exert a little pressure to push through the surface, which is like a thicker version of skin on milk, below which is a gelatinous, similarly colored fluid. After holding the tool in there for a few seconds, Six pulls it out, to see that it has a coating of liquid. As he watches, the liquid solidifies into what looks suspiciously like flesh. “Hey, look at this,” he says, and explains what just happened. Nobody seems particularly keen on experimenting with the pool’s flesh-growing properties and they leave, Six dropping the tool along the way. Re-entering the larger chamber, where a few of them are again affected by the crystal induced depression, they walk up to the large sphincter, which opens to reveal a forty foot long tunnel, which ends in a chamber fifteen feet deep, the far wall of which is made of a white substance. The group proceeds to the chamber, which they discover to be thirty feet wide. They also discover that the white substance is a thick membrane, which spans the entire thirty feet. Six carefully pokes it with his pole, trying to see if it is attached at the sides, which it is. As he is doing so, everyone hears the sounds of large feet shuffling forward behind the membrane. Weapons are quickly drawn and spells readied, with everyone except the alienists lining up near the membrane to attack the first thing that comes through it. As they ready themselves, there is the sound of rushing feet and a number of things tear through the membrane. Two of them are large lance-like objects, but seeming to be made of bone, one of which bites into Luna's shoulder and another into Korm's side. Beside each one comes a large arm topped by a large knob of bone, as big as the head of a greatclub, which smashes down on Luna again and on Gareth. The attacks tear large rents in the membrane, revealing a singular quartet of enemies. The larger pair seem to be bugbears, but each of which has been drastically modified. Parts of them have evidently been cut out and stretched and/or expanded, with pieces of metal and sections of flesh grafted onto them to increase their size, until the creatures stand as tall as and even broader than ogres. Each also has an extra arm fused onto its chest, and all three arms end in a large knob of bone, which is evidently usable as a club. Perhaps the strangest part of the creatures, however, are the large lumps of flesh shaped like saddles that grow out of their backs. On each ‘saddle’ is what was originally a goblin, but similarly increased in size. Like the bugbears, they have no hands either. The left arm ends in a large bony plate that fulfils the function of a shield, while the right arm ends at the elbow, above which is a long and pointed bone-spear. All four creatures have no clothing, but each has a series of thick, bony plates growing out of their torsos, which presumably function as armor. Once the surprise of the attack through the membrane and of the sight of the strange attackers is past, they do not last long. Six leaps in to curl his spiked chain around one rider's throat and pulls back to rip its throat open, and Gareth takes the opportunity to decapitate it. Barely a second later, Trillia drops a [I]glitterdust[/I] that blinds the mount which just lost its rider as well as the surviving goblin, leaving it defenseless when a bleeding and angry Luna rears up and seizes it in claws and fangs. The giant bear rears back and literally rips away the upper half of the goblin. Nameless [I]summon[/I]s his famed wall of beef to join the fight, three pseudonatural bison joining Korm and Luna in hammering on one of the modified bugbears. It manages to slay one bison before going down under the combination of attacks, which allows everyone to focus on the other and drop it. Besides the crushing blows of their multiple arms, both creatures also display a vicious and poisonous bite before going down, but luckily for the adventurers the ones bitten are Luna and Gareth, one of whom is immune to all venom and the other protected with divine resistance*. With the creatures dealt with, the adventurers check the area. The chamber is square, with membranes blocking off two walls, one of which the group entered through. To its right is the second membrane. Once they are on this side, they see that the membrane is mostly transparent from this side. Behind the membrane is an area that exactly matches the one the group came through, with a tunnel leading off into darkness. The next wall (opposite the one the group entered from) has a tunnel that runs for thirty feet before turning left. The one wall with no exit has two large alcoves, each large enough to hold a rider and mount. Trillia, who has been checking the alcoves, says, “These things have a pair of sucker-like tubes sticking out. See?” Nameless, who has been studying the malformed creatures, walks over and says, “And all of them have a similar thing growing out the back of the neck.” “I’m guessing that they provide some sort of sustenance,” says Trillia. She points around the area. “There’s nothing here to show that they were living here or had anything to occupy themselves, after all.” As the others join them, she asks, “Anyone feel like sticking a hand in there to see what it does?” “No!” The discussion is interrupted as a humanoid figure appears where the thirty foot long tunnel enters this chamber. Humanoid only below the neck, that is. Two cold white eyes gaze at the adventurers from a bulbous face covered in rubbery, greenish-mauve skin, which glistens with slime. Below the eyes, the face consists of four long tentacles, which make a nauseatingly slurping sound as they rub against each other. It doesn’t take the expertise of the two alienists of the Gatekeeper to identify the creature looking at them. [I]Mindflayer![/I] *** i.e. a +17 Fort save [/QUOTE]
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