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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6056150" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 33 - 26 PAPER STREET</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian/sorcerer</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Feron Dru, half-elf druid</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Telgrane, human conjurer</p><p></p><p>"26 Paper Street" was one of the entries in Paizo's "RPG Superstar" contest some years back, in the round where the contestants had to provide a map and a description of the encounters in a room or rooms depicted in the map. I thought the map was very well-done, and it actually fit in with a plotline I had come up with about a group of spellcasters who were tapping into the Far Realm as a source of power. I was just about finished writing that adventure (which would become "Cult of the Far Realm," the adventure after this one) when I discovered the "26 Paper Street" map on the Paizo website and decided to use it as a prelude to my bigger adventure.</p><p></p><p>Here's the setup I used: The PCs are approached by <strong>Callibrand</strong>, an elder administrator of the Adventurers Guild, and asked to investigate the disappearance of a sorcerer who had arranged to meet with him on a matter of some urgency. When he went to meet at the appointed time and place, the sorcerer never showed, and the administrator has no idea what the meeting was to have been about, but he deems it worth looking into. The PCs are asked to track the sorcerer, if possible, and find out both what happened to him and what he needed to pass on to the Adventurers Guild.</p><p></p><p>Callibrand can only tell the PCs the following: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The sorcerer has gray eyes, black hair, a short black beard, and a scar above his left eye.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">He was last seen wearing a nondescript brown cloak with a hood.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">He said the matter of urgency had something to do with a tattoo on his right palm, a pattern of tentacles around an eye that in many circles is used to represent raw chaos. (Callibrand can provide a rough sketch of the symbol.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Callibrand was asked to meet the sorcerer at 8 bells at a tavern called the Pit-Fight. He arrived on time and stayed until 10 bells, but the sorcerer never showed. Not knowing what else to do, he decided to approach one the Adventurers Guild Wings and see if they could track down the mysterious sorcerer.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Callibrand’s only suggestion as to how to find this unknown sorcerer is to check out the Pit-Fight and see if anybody there knows of or has seen a sorcerer matching that description.</li> </ul><p>- - - </p><p></p><p>"'The Pit-Fight', huh?" asked Cal. "Never heard of it."</p><p></p><p>"It's apparently fairly new," replied Telgrane. "It's in the crappy part of town, the Styes. You'll probably like it."</p><p></p><p>"Hmm," grunted Cal noncommittally.</p><p></p><p>The Pit-Fight had indeed recently opened on the outskirts of the Styes, and in the few short weeks since its founding had become very popular among the adventuring crowd (as well as those who like to hang out with adventurers but dared not live that lifestyle themselves). The tavern was named after its most prominent feature: a large, deep pit in the middle of the tavern floor, ringed by railings, inside which a variety of fights took place. Some involved two people fighting one another (either with or without weapons, but usually nonlethal); some involved animals or more exotic beasts against others of their kind (cock fights, dog fights, and the like); and occasionally a man-vs.-beast fight would pit one or more adventurers against some exotic monster. While the food and drink were above average and the service fairly good, the majority of the revenue taken in at the Pit-Fight came from the betting on the combatants in the pit.</p><p></p><p>Only creatures posed to not be a danger to the participants along the upper rails were allowed to combat in the Pit-Fight - an owlbear would be acceptable, but a beholder would not. All fights were strictly voluntary (at least those besides the fights between beasts), and the participants were responsible for the healing of their own wounds (or resurrections, should it come to that).</p><p></p><p>The night's big fight was a trained war ape against any and all comers; 50 pieces of gold to anyone who could stay conscious in the pit with him for a full three minutes without being knocked out. (According to the rules, the ape’s handler would observe from the top of the pit and blow a special whistle to get the trained ape to stop attacking if the opponent was knocked out or signaled that he had had enough.) There was a fee of five gold pieces to enter the bout.</p><p></p><p>"Let's ask around, see if anybody's seen our missing sorcerer," said Feron upon entering the tavern.</p><p></p><p>"Hang on a minute," suggested Cal, reading over the posted rules for the war ape fight and reaching into his coin pouch to fish out five gold pieces. "I want to check this out."</p><p></p><p>"Fine, whatever," sighed Feron, rolling her eyes at Cal's obvious attraction to yet another feat of strength. Sometimes it seemed as if these Kord-followers thought with their biceps. She moved among the crowd, asking questions about the missing sorcerer. Telgrane followed suit, while Chalkan stuck around to see how Cal would fare.</p><p></p><p>Five minutes later, neither Feron nor Telgrane could get anyone interested in talking to them about missing sorcerers, as everyone had crowded around the top of the Pit. A rope ladder had been pitched down the side, and Cal, stripped down to his breeches and boots, was descending to the Pit's sandy bottom to the cheers and whistles of a crowd of adoring fans. Feron rolled her eyes again and went over to the bar, since she obviously wasn't going to be able to finish her investigation until this nonsense was over with. She ordered an elven wine from the bartender and got an incredulous look in return; the Pit-Fight served mostly ale and beer, none of the "pretentious stuff" that the average patron here would be unlikely to be able to afford in any case. She ordered an ale and sipped it slowly, with a look of mild distaste.</p><p></p><p>The cheering raised in volume as at the bottom of the Pit-Fight a door opened and a large, dark ape wandered out, walking on feet and knuckles. He gave a loud roar, exposing an impressive set of dental weaponry, then beat his chest in an aggressive display. Cal faced the beast, who stood a full head taller than him even while hunched forward, and beat his own chest to show the animal that he was not afraid. The crowd ate it up and yelled for more.</p><p></p><p>At the starting whistle from above, the war ape rushed Cal, arms open wide to grab him and crush him into submission. Cal ducked below the swinging arms, grabbed the creature by its thigh and chest and, with his legs in a shoulder-wide stance for stability, threw the ape over his head. The beast roared as it landed on its shoulder and whirled immediately around for vengeance; Cal had to back out of its way to catch his breath, as he had summoned up a Kord-granted increase of his strength to perform that throw, and he realized he wouldn't be able to duplicate it. Now if he could just stay out of its reach for the full three minutes....</p><p></p><p>No such luck. The war ape leaped in the air at him with arms open wide, and there was no dodging those simian arms this time. Cal was crushed into a ball, his arms pinned to his sides, as the massive beast squeezed the very wind out of him. He flexed his muscles as best he could in an attempt to wriggle free, but there were black spots appearing at the edge of his vision, and he could feel himself losing consciousness.</p><p></p><p>At the trainer's whistle from above, the ape dropped Cal's unmoving form onto the sand, then moved off to the side, chuffing and pounding the sand at his feet with a massive fist. The crowd moved over to collect their various winnings at the pay window, and the door opened up at the side of the Pit and the ape was returned to its pen while the trainer hawked above for more challengers. But the crowd was a bit disenfranchised with their chances, none of them thinking with any honesty that they could do what the mighty cleric of Kord could not. For now, at least; the trainer well knew that all he needed to do was wait until a few of them had consumed a bit more alcohol and they'd suddenly think they were invincible.</p><p></p><p>Several of the Pit-Fight staff slapped Cal awake and led him over to the ladder, where he groggily climbed up and over the edge of the railing. Chalkan was there to give him a hand, but Cal shook it off. "That was great!" he said with a genuine smile. "I'll get him next time for sure!"</p><p></p><p>Feron just shook her head, but she couldn't argue with the results. Despite his defeat, the crowd was appreciative of the fact that Cal had had the guts to even face the war ape in the Pit, and they pushed drinks his way and slapped him on the back and shoulders. Eager to assist their new local hero, they did what they could to help him find the missing sorcerer. After talking to the crowd, the group consensus was that that the guy they were looking for was named <strong>Delgrove</strong>; that he had a bandage on his hand a week ago and said he'd just gotten a tattoo; and that there was a big, greasy-looking guy named <strong>Maggert</strong> who ran a tattoo parlor on Bleaker Street in the Styes that had likely done the ink work. Unfortunately, nobody in the Pit-Fight knew where Delgrove lived, or was aware of either his current whereabouts or what he would want to talk to an Adventurers Guild representative about. </p><p></p><p>However, the group's interest in the matter came to the attention of <strong>Sk’kaar</strong>, a member of the Collectors, a kenku band brokering in information. He offered to get the information they were looking for for 100 gold pieces, half up front. It would likely take him a couple of hours to see what he could find out, then he'd meet them back here at the Pit-Fight, if they wanted to wait. The group agreed, money changed hands, and they had another couple of hours to kill. Cal wanted another shot at the war ape, but was talked out of it by Feron, who argued that Sk'kaar could return at any moment. Still, less than an hour later, a patron had consumed a sufficient quantity of ale that he was ready to give the war ape a go, and Cal cheered him on from above (to no avail, as it turned out - but Cal had foreseen the most likely outcome, and at least won enough on the bet to earn his entry fee back).</p><p></p><p>Eventually, Sk’kaar did return as promised with some information for them: a sorcerer meeting Delgrove’s description was last seen being escorted into an old, boarded-up house over on Paper Street in the Styes, being assisted by a nobleman of some type, as it appeared that Delgrove was either drunk or drugged. Sk’kaar offered to lead the group to the location of the boarded-up house at no extra charge, as he considered that to be part of the duties he had been paid for. Under no circumstances would he enter the building with them, however – he was a simple information broker, nothing more. He was paid the other half of his fee and the group departed the Pit-Fight, following their kenku hireling.</p><p></p><p>Sk'kaar led them to 26 Paper Street, an old, dilapidated, three-story building that looked ready to fall over at any minute. A crude sign reading “CONDEMNED: DO NOT ENTER” hung over the door. The windows were boarded up and deep weeds had long since overtaken the small garden out front. Having done his duty, the kenku pulled the hood over his head and drifted away into the shadows of the nearest alley.</p><p></p><p>"So what do you think?" asked Feron. "Do we just walk in?"</p><p></p><p>"Sure," replied Cal, walking up to the door and finding it locked. "Guess I'll have to break it in," he shrugged, secretly pleased at another opportunity to show off his strength.</p><p></p><p>"Hold off there," Feron replied, nudging him aside with her hand. "I've got a <em>warp wood</em> spell prepared - it'll be much quieter that way." She cast the spell and the door shifted and warped at her touch, swinging open easily. She missed Cal's look of disappointment as she walked inside. She also missed the <em>alarm</em> spell that had been cast upon the door, which silently notified the spellcaster dwelling within that there were intruders about.</p><p></p><p>Stepping inside, the group saw haphazard piles of books tottering throughout a damp and musty-smelling room, which was strewn with many heavily-annotated parchments and diagrams. A few ghostly candles flickered in the gloom. Telgrane immediately started examining the prevalent diagrams, noticing arcane annotations in the margins of many of them. "Weird," he commented. "A bunch of studies about giant tentacles."</p><p></p><p>A scurry of movement caught the corner of Feron's eye, and she turned, not overly surprised to see the shadowy figure of a rat approaching from a room around the corner. She stifled a squeak of terror at the sight of the creature's head, though - it was that of a middle-aged man, shrunken to scale and grafted seamlessly onto the rodent's body. It twitched its tail in consternation as it looked up at the group. "The Master's not going to be happy about this," he whined petulantly.</p><p></p><p>"M-Master?" squeaked Feron. "Who's your master?"</p><p></p><p>"A pompous wizard, named <strong>Percival Alabaster Strangeway</strong>," replied the rat-thing. "I was once his wizardly rival, but the miserable wretch attacked me and remade me in this form. Now the little bastard's got me serving as his familiar; he sent me to see who's snuck into his secret lair. Oh yes, he's linked to me all right, and is probably looking through my own eyes at you this very minute. Because he's a COWARD!" the rat-thing yelled into the air above him. "He's cowering away upstairs, no doubt with his homemade floozy, waiting to see how powerful you are and if he thinks he can defeat you himself, or if he should weaken you with some of his minions first, no doubt. I'm sorry, where are my manners? My name is <strong>Abercrombie</strong>. Do you have any cheese?"</p><p></p><p>The group was taken aback by the strange little monstrosity, who seemed eager to chat away about his hated master to potential enemies who had broken into his lair. "Uh, no, I'm afraid we don't have any cheese with us," Telgrane apologized. "So, uh, how powerful is Strangeway?"</p><p></p><p>"Magically? Eh, I could easily have taken him in a fair fight - not that he'd ever FACE AN ENEMY IN A FAIR FIGHT, THE WEASEL! But now? Now he's all augmented, with the power of the tentacle and all. Chaotic energy coursing through his blood, who knows what all else - the guy can take punishment like nobody's business. And I'd love to see you dish it out - say, did you say you had any cheese on you?"</p><p></p><p>"Sorry, all out of cheese," repeated Telgrane. "What's all this about a tentacle?"</p><p></p><p>"C'mere, I'll show you," offered Abercrombie, turning and scampering back the way he had come. The group followed, past a staircase leading up to the second floor, and into a large room. A horrific pillar of twisted flesh rose up from a jagged hole in the floorboards and extended upwards through a similar hole in the ceiling. The putrescent appendage had ripped through the walls of a smaller room centered in this larger area. To the right, on a large table, lay a partially-dissected ogre. The shelves lining the surrounding walls were cluttered with jars of pickled eyeballs, preserved animals, and strange bits of organic matter. Clearly, Strangeway was something of a vivisectionist. Another set of stairs against the far wall led up to the second floor.</p><p></p><p>"Ew," commented Feron, holding her nose.</p><p></p><p>"So, Abercrombie," remarked Telgrane, "You haven't seen a bearded sorcerer by the name of Delgrove around here anywhere, have you?"</p><p></p><p>"Hard to say," replied the rat-thing. "Strangeway's brought a bunch of people - and things that aren't people - in here in the past couple of weeks. If you're looking for this Delgrove, and Strangeway brought him here, I'm afraid he's probably dead by now. Say, did you happen to have any cheese on you by any chance?"</p><p></p><p>"No cheese," responded Telgrane. "So, if Delgrove were here, where do you think he'd likely be?"</p><p></p><p>"Probably in the basement," replied Abercrombie, visibly disappointed about the lack of cheese.</p><p></p><p>"I don't see any stairs going down," remarked Cal, looking all around the area. "Is there a cellar or something outside?"</p><p></p><p>"No, you've gotta go up to go down. Watch the tentacle, though, it's got tentacles." And with that, Abercrombie distanced himself from the young wizard, ambling up to Feron instead and attempting to rub up against her leg. "Excuse me, miss," he said eagerly. "Do you think you might have any cheese on you?"</p><p></p><p>"No cheese," mumbled Feron, stepping away from the creepy rat-monster and going over to stand by Cal. There was no way around it: that rat-thing was an abomination, a sin against nature, and she wanted nothing to do with it.</p><p></p><p>"Let's go," suggested Chalkan, mounting the stairs.</p><p></p><p>The upper level was similar to the lower level, with the massive tentacle having burst through the floor and up through the ceiling into the smaller third floor, which was almost completely demolished, leaving an opening twice as tall as the rest of the second level. The top of the abnormal appendage was lost in the shadows of the ceiling. There was a second room on this level; a door was visible just down the way. Chalkan led the way, the others not far behind.</p><p></p><p>Chalkan had almost made it to the door when the tentacle attacked. Long, slender tendrils uncurled from somewhere at the top of the appendage, dropping down and striking out to grasp the adventurers. Fortunately, Cal had taken Abercrombie's warnings seriously and had been prepared for such an eventuality, calling down a column of holy fire to burn the tentacle. The tendrils caught fire and burned up, and the group slid along the wall and over to the door, not wanting to turn their backs on the unearthly limb.</p><p></p><p>Rushing through the door, the group found themselves in an orderly bedroom, rectangular in shape but for one corner of the room, which looked to possibly hold a closet but had no visible door. Standing in front of this area was a distinctive figure, a young-looking female wearing a stylish red dress with a slit up the side that revealed a shapely thigh. She wore a white fur stole that hung off her shoulders, and high-heeled shoes that accentuated the shape of her calves. All in all, she would have been quite the beauty - if not for the fact that her thigh, calves, shoulders, and even different parts of her face had apparently come from half a dozen different women, all sewn together into a patchwork of flesh that was a mockery of feminine beauty. The golem scowled at the group with mismatched eyebrows and staggered to the attack.</p><p></p><p>"Ew!" Feron reiterated as the mockery took a swing at her. She quickly cast a <em>produce flame</em> spell and lobbed a ball of fire at the monstrosity, which didn't seem to faze it in the least but started her stylish stole smoldering. The creature's uneven lips opened wide, and a cloud of billowing gas expelled from her mouth, enveloping Cal and Chalkan. Cal shrugged off the effects without any problems, whereas only Chalkan's half-elf blood prevented him from succumbing to the numbing desire to close his eyes and fall asleep right there and then. Cal swung his mace at the female golem, each bruise caused by his blows doing nothing to make the patchwork body look any worse than it already did. Still, the thing slowed down as its stole blazed up around its shoulders, and it seemed to lack the simple intelligence needed to shrug the fur from its body. Feron lobbed additional balls of fire from her hand at the thing, and its attacks became more and more feeble, until finally its entire body was blazing under a curtain of flame. It collapsed to the floor, one of its red shoes slipping off a two-tone foot (with wide stitches showing where the two halves had been sewn together) and sliding across the room. Everyone gave the thing a wide berth as they headed over to the "closet" area, the only logical place a passageway to the basement could be hidden.</p><p></p><p>It didn't take Chalkan very long to find the stud that slid open the panel in the wall that led to a spiral staircase. Leaving the burning she-thing behind them, they entered the staircase and descended into darkness.</p><p></p><p>The basement level was flooded, and the far corner was half-obscured by the root of the alien tentacle, reaching up through the ceiling to the first floor above. Standing next to it was a closed chest, balancing precariously on a half-rotten stand. "Just how long is that thing?" asked Telgrane in wonder, looking up at the tentacle.</p><p></p><p>"I don't think we want to see whatever it's connected to," replied Cal, stepping into the brackish water, which proved to be only up to his waist.</p><p></p><p>"Dibs on the chest," called out Chalkan, wading his way over. Feron and Telgrane looked up at the tentacle, ensuring that it didn't have any tendrils that would uncoil and surprise them from above.</p><p></p><p>Fortunately, it didn't - this time the tendrils were below the water level, and in fact were attached to an aboleth that had been grafted in whole to the shaft of the massive alien tentacle. Several thin appendages whipped up from the water and started wrapping around Chalkan's arms; the young half-elf was not too proud to scream in terror at the sight of the glistening tendrils once he recognized them as belonging to an aboleth. He had no desire to fall sway to its disgusting flesh-warping that caused a victim to become its water-breathing slave!</p><p></p><p>As luck would have it, this aboleth didn't seem as tough - or fight as intelligently - as those the group had faced before; despite the advantage it had in being in its natural aquatic environment, it fell quickly to Chalkan's sword, Cal's mace, and Telgrane's <em>magic missiles</em>. Furthermore, upon its death a section of the wall vanished; the beast had apparently been projecting the illusion of a wall over a passageway into the next room, which rose up through a small stairway out of the murky water. The group collectively splashed their way up the stairs and into the final room of the house at 26 Paper Street.</p><p></p><p>It was in this room that they finally met up with Delgrove. He was lying on a table at the far end of the room, his robes cut away from his chest and his chest cut away to expose his still-beating heart. Standing over him was a young-looking man in the finest of noble fashions, the overall effect spoiled somewhat by the blood staining his hands up to his elbows and the spatters of blood staining his shirt and vest. At his side stood a hulking flesh golem, this one apparently made from the bodies of several strong men.</p><p></p><p>"Oh dear," complained the bloodstained wizard, "Visitors. And at a most inopportune time."</p><p></p><p>With a quick gesture from the young wizard, the flesh golem lurched forward to attack, With another gesture, three beating hearts that lay amongst a half a dozen others on a shelf behind him also animated and attacked. These organs each had long tendrils extending from them, and skittered along the floor like jittery spiders. Then Strangeway ignored the group and returned to the task at hand, namely, cutting Delgrove's heart out of his chest with a scalpel.</p><p></p><p>Cal took the brunt of the golem's attack, while Feron threw a ball of flame at the nearest of the skittering hearts. Telgrane blasted another one with a <em>magic missile</em>, then released Infernia from the tinder box at his side and allowed her to enter the melee. The third heart construct foolishly attacked the fire elemental, burning itself badly in the process.</p><p></p><p>Chalkan, meanwhile, stepped back and sheathed his longsword, pulling his bow from his back and notching an arrow. Then, taking careful aim at Strangeway as he bent over the sedated Delgrove, he let fly an arrow that hit the wizard just above his own heart. To Chalkan's surprise, Strangeway looked up, scowled in his direction, then casually plucked the arrow from his chest and tossed it to the floor at his side before returning his attention to the removal of Delgrove's heart. He plucked it from the bearded wizard's chest cavity and turned to place it almost lovingly on the shelf behind him. Delgrove gave an involuntary hiss of pain, and then, to Chalkan's horror, a new heart started growing in Delgrove's chest before his own eyes. Looking over at the wizard's hand, he saw a ring pulsing with red light, and surmised it must be keeping him alive and regenerating during this vivisection procedure.</p><p></p><p>Despite Chalkan's desire to concentrate on Strangeway, he was forced to turn his attention to Feron, who had been targeted by one of the heart constructs and was being strangled by its ever-tightening tendrils. She was gasping for breath and unable to concentrate on spellcasting, instead trying to slide her fingers under the bands of muscle that were squeezing the very breath from her throat. Chalkan grabbed the dagger from his belt and slid it into the beating heart, ripping through its pumping muscle and spilling thick, black blood down Feron's armor. The tendrils unwound and Feron pitched the now-lifeless heart construct across the room in a fit of revulsion.</p><p></p><p>Cal was holding his own against the flesh golem, trading blows and getting in the occasional spell, while Telgrane blasted it with spells of his own while remaining out of reach of its massive fists. Then a surprise gout of flame issued forth from the golem's mouth, catching Cal off guard and staggering him under its scorching heat. The brute hammered its fists down upon the beleaguered cleric of Kord, but Chalkan rushed in and came to his aid, brandishing his sword in hand. This gave Cal enough of a respite to heal himself of the wounds he had attained thus far, and, thus refreshed, he waded into battle with the golem once again. Together, the group managed to whittle down the golem's defenses until it lay unmoving and dismembered in a puddle of gore on the floor.</p><p></p><p>"Oh, am I up?" asked Strangeway, looking up from Delgrove's immobilized body, ready to cut out the new heart beating in the mangled wizard's chest. "Very well, if I must." He set the scalpel down on the table and started casting a spell. Before he had finished he had another arrow sprouting from his neck, but he ignored it and sent a <em>lightning bolt</em> crashing into his four adversaries. Only then did he bother to casually pluck the arrow from his neck and toss it aside.</p><p></p><p>"I'm not like any of the other wizards you've likely fought thus far," Strangeway commented as he attempted to dominate Chalkan with another spell - which, fortunately for the group, the half-elf was able to shrug off. "I've linked myself to a power beyond anything you've ever dreamed of! You've seen the tentacle in the rooms beyond -- just imagine the power of the beast to whom that tentacle belongs! A portion of that power is mine, making me stronger, tougher, than anyone you've ever faced before! And once we've brought that power to this world, we will rule this plane as its undisputed masters!" It was a pretty speech, and Strangeway sprouted two new arrows by the time it was done with, but he barely noticed.</p><p></p><p>"We're not going to take him out with weapons!" called out Telgrane. "Let's see how well he does against a full-scale magical barrage!" He threw a <em>fireball</em> at the far end of the room, catching Strangeway in its radius of effect while sparing the rest of the group. Feron, meanwhile called lightning down from the ceiling to strike the wizard, while Cal threw a <em>sound burst</em> his way. Chalkan even tossed a <em>magic missile</em> spell at the wizard, and while his arcane spellcasting was nowhere near being in Telgrane's league, every bit helped. Still, as much damage as they heaped onto Strangeway, he kept on fighting, seemingly only mildly inconvenienced by the magical barrage of energies.</p><p></p><p>Telgrane started conjuring up assistance from the outer planes. He sent a celestial black bear in to grapple the wizard and try to pin his arms to his side to prevent further spellcasting, but Strangeway cast a <em>gaseous form</em> on himself and floated to the other side of the room before remanifesting. Seeing that grappling might be the way to go, Cal cast <em>enlarge person</em> on himself and waded in to battle, now standing some 12 feet tall. As tough as Strangeway was with his life force enhanced by the tentacle from another world, he was not nimble enough to escape Cal's embrace, and the cleric caught him up in a bear hug from which he was powerless to escape. Then Cal called on his friends to target them both with their heaviest area-effect spells, claiming he was freshly healed and would be able to take it. Telgrane responded with his last <em>fireball</em>, catching both Strangeway and Cal in its full effect. Chalkan stuck with his <em>magic missile</em> spell, which at least could be targeted to only affect Strangeway, while Feron continued calling down lightning strikes onto Strangeway, even though doing so was hurting Cal as well. But the strategy worked; Strangeway, cursing at his inability to escape Cal's viselike grip, fell dead in the cleric's arms, and Cal dropped him and cast his most powerful healing spell upon himself, restoring the vigor he had rapidly lost underneath his friends' assault.</p><p></p><p>Feron ran to Delgrove's side. The skin and muscle of his opened chest had been nailed to the table; she rapidly pulled the nails free and closed his chest back up, while the ring he wore on his right hand glowed red and worked overtime to heal him up. Within minutes, his chest had healed back up to the point where there was no visible proof that he had ever been cut open. It took longer to rise him out of his drug-induced stupor, but eventually he was awake enough to stagger to an upright position and explain what had happened.</p><p></p><p>Delgrove had recently joined a group of spellcasters interested in increasing their own personal power at any cost. Strangeway was a member of this cabal, who called themselves the Cult of the Far Realm. Delgrove was all for increasing his own personal power, but balked at the cult's ultimate plan: through the placement of a group of cyst stones taken from the Far Realm, a place of unending chaos, they hoped to open a rift to that lawless plane and allow it to seep into the material plane, absorbing it into itself. A shortcut to power was just fine with Delgrove, but opening his world to the horrors of the Far Realm was too great a price to pay. Unfortunately, Strangeway had sensed Delgrove's hesitation and desire to warn others about this threat to the world, and thus was overtaken by the more powerful wizard, who had already found a way to link himself to one of the Far Realms' more powerful denizens. And that was that; Delgrove wanted nothing further to do with the group. He thanked the adventurers for his rescue, drew them up a map to the cult's secret headquarters in the Styes, and gave them a detailed description of the Cult members, but was not willing to confront his former cultists and in fact planned on hightailing it far, far away where they'd never find him.</p><p></p><p>Climbing up the stairs to the main level, the whole house began to shake as the tentacle thrashed about. Exiting the hidden room in Strangeway's bedroom, the group rushed into the main room of the second floor to see the whole alien appendage starting to blacken and melt, whole clumps of it falling off into a pool of goo and merging together into a liquid form, which seeped through the hole in the floor and reformed into a massive, ebon blob. Apparently the portion of the great beast's tentacle that had been imprisoned in the material world had been tied in to Strangeway's life force, and it had not only greatly increased his constitution but was also transformed upon his death. The group raced down the stairs to the main floor just as a massive black pudding oozed up out of the hole in the main level. This was a black pudding like none other, its outer surface glistening in a miasma of colors, some never seen before on this plane. Fortunately, it was weaker here than it would have been on its home plane, and despite its formidable size and appearance the group was able to destroy it with the last of their ranged spells, for nobody wanted to venture too close to the thing. As it died, it released a foul vapor that drove the group outside into the relatively fresh air of Paper Street.</p><p></p><p>The five spellcasters all stopped to catch their collective breaths, jumping as the house at 26 Paper Street literally collapsed under the structural damage it had taken. Then Delgrove said his goodbye to the group, wished them well, and was off like a shot, racing off into an alleyway and soon swallowed up by shadows. He was never seen again; presumably he made his escape to a city far away from the Cult of the Far Realm and lived his days out in a quiet fashion as he had intended.</p><p></p><p>"So now I guess we'd better go hunt down this Cult of the Far Realm," said Cal, still winded from his exertions.</p><p></p><p>"I hope it can wait until morning," remarked Telgrane, popping open his tinder box and allowing Infernia to jump inside. "I'm going to need to rest up and get my spells prepared."</p><p></p><p>"That sounds like the best idea," replied Feron. "If we're going to take on a whole cult of these wizards, we're going to need to be at full strength. Let's go home, brief the others, get some sleep, and then make our plans on how to best take these guys down."</p><p></p><p>"I say," said a voice at Feron's feet. "Do any of you have any cheese?" Feron shrieked and ran to the other side of Cal, while Telgrane bent down and lifted Abercrombie by the scruff of his neck.</p><p></p><p>"C'mon, you," said the tired wizard to the twisted rat-thing. "Maybe the Guild wizards will have a way to return you to your normal form."</p><p></p><p>"Do you think they might have any cheese?"</p><p></p><p>"They might," admitted Telgrane. "Let's go find out."</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>I knew I wanted Strangeway to be able to hold his own against the PCs for this fight, so I came up with the "life-force-tied-in-to-the-Far-Realm-tentacle" ploy; I think in game terms this resulted in something rather ridiculous like a 30 Constitution, which boosted his hit point total far beyond what you'd expect from a 10th-level transmuter. Once I factored in the <em>bear's endurance</em> and <em>false life</em> spells he had prepped himself with, he was wading into battle with 116 points, far more than any other spellcaster the group had fought to date. (And the <em>stoneskin</em> didn't hurt him any, either.)</p><p></p><p>The heart constructs were something I made up for this adventure, and I even managed to find a fairly accurate picture on-line of what I had in mind, so the initiative card was fairly easy to make for them. I was able to make a flesh golem card easily enough, but I wanted a female flesh golem for Evelyn, the patchwork girl Strangeway had waiting up in his bedroom (I envisioned her as being made out of parts of every girl who had ever dumped Strangeway; he seemed the type for such a petty revenge), and when I couldn't find anything appropriate I just grabbed photos of good-looking models from the internet, threw them into my Paint program, and had a grand time chopping off various parts and slapping them together until I had the look I was trying to achieve. (I even used the drawing tool to add stitches where appropriate.)</p><p></p><p>We haven't heard anything about Abercrombie since this adventure; presumably the Guild wizards were able to restore him. If not, I'm sure he's become good friends with Quiffington the duckbunny, whose improbable body holds pieces of no less than four different wild mages.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6056150, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 33 - 26 PAPER STREET[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian/sorcerer Feron Dru, half-elf druid Telgrane, human conjurer[/INDENT] "26 Paper Street" was one of the entries in Paizo's "RPG Superstar" contest some years back, in the round where the contestants had to provide a map and a description of the encounters in a room or rooms depicted in the map. I thought the map was very well-done, and it actually fit in with a plotline I had come up with about a group of spellcasters who were tapping into the Far Realm as a source of power. I was just about finished writing that adventure (which would become "Cult of the Far Realm," the adventure after this one) when I discovered the "26 Paper Street" map on the Paizo website and decided to use it as a prelude to my bigger adventure. Here's the setup I used: The PCs are approached by [b]Callibrand[/b], an elder administrator of the Adventurers Guild, and asked to investigate the disappearance of a sorcerer who had arranged to meet with him on a matter of some urgency. When he went to meet at the appointed time and place, the sorcerer never showed, and the administrator has no idea what the meeting was to have been about, but he deems it worth looking into. The PCs are asked to track the sorcerer, if possible, and find out both what happened to him and what he needed to pass on to the Adventurers Guild. Callibrand can only tell the PCs the following:[list][*]The sorcerer has gray eyes, black hair, a short black beard, and a scar above his left eye. [*]He was last seen wearing a nondescript brown cloak with a hood. [*]He said the matter of urgency had something to do with a tattoo on his right palm, a pattern of tentacles around an eye that in many circles is used to represent raw chaos. (Callibrand can provide a rough sketch of the symbol.) [*]Callibrand was asked to meet the sorcerer at 8 bells at a tavern called the Pit-Fight. He arrived on time and stayed until 10 bells, but the sorcerer never showed. Not knowing what else to do, he decided to approach one the Adventurers Guild Wings and see if they could track down the mysterious sorcerer. [*]Callibrand’s only suggestion as to how to find this unknown sorcerer is to check out the Pit-Fight and see if anybody there knows of or has seen a sorcerer matching that description.[/list] - - - "'The Pit-Fight', huh?" asked Cal. "Never heard of it." "It's apparently fairly new," replied Telgrane. "It's in the crappy part of town, the Styes. You'll probably like it." "Hmm," grunted Cal noncommittally. The Pit-Fight had indeed recently opened on the outskirts of the Styes, and in the few short weeks since its founding had become very popular among the adventuring crowd (as well as those who like to hang out with adventurers but dared not live that lifestyle themselves). The tavern was named after its most prominent feature: a large, deep pit in the middle of the tavern floor, ringed by railings, inside which a variety of fights took place. Some involved two people fighting one another (either with or without weapons, but usually nonlethal); some involved animals or more exotic beasts against others of their kind (cock fights, dog fights, and the like); and occasionally a man-vs.-beast fight would pit one or more adventurers against some exotic monster. While the food and drink were above average and the service fairly good, the majority of the revenue taken in at the Pit-Fight came from the betting on the combatants in the pit. Only creatures posed to not be a danger to the participants along the upper rails were allowed to combat in the Pit-Fight - an owlbear would be acceptable, but a beholder would not. All fights were strictly voluntary (at least those besides the fights between beasts), and the participants were responsible for the healing of their own wounds (or resurrections, should it come to that). The night's big fight was a trained war ape against any and all comers; 50 pieces of gold to anyone who could stay conscious in the pit with him for a full three minutes without being knocked out. (According to the rules, the ape’s handler would observe from the top of the pit and blow a special whistle to get the trained ape to stop attacking if the opponent was knocked out or signaled that he had had enough.) There was a fee of five gold pieces to enter the bout. "Let's ask around, see if anybody's seen our missing sorcerer," said Feron upon entering the tavern. "Hang on a minute," suggested Cal, reading over the posted rules for the war ape fight and reaching into his coin pouch to fish out five gold pieces. "I want to check this out." "Fine, whatever," sighed Feron, rolling her eyes at Cal's obvious attraction to yet another feat of strength. Sometimes it seemed as if these Kord-followers thought with their biceps. She moved among the crowd, asking questions about the missing sorcerer. Telgrane followed suit, while Chalkan stuck around to see how Cal would fare. Five minutes later, neither Feron nor Telgrane could get anyone interested in talking to them about missing sorcerers, as everyone had crowded around the top of the Pit. A rope ladder had been pitched down the side, and Cal, stripped down to his breeches and boots, was descending to the Pit's sandy bottom to the cheers and whistles of a crowd of adoring fans. Feron rolled her eyes again and went over to the bar, since she obviously wasn't going to be able to finish her investigation until this nonsense was over with. She ordered an elven wine from the bartender and got an incredulous look in return; the Pit-Fight served mostly ale and beer, none of the "pretentious stuff" that the average patron here would be unlikely to be able to afford in any case. She ordered an ale and sipped it slowly, with a look of mild distaste. The cheering raised in volume as at the bottom of the Pit-Fight a door opened and a large, dark ape wandered out, walking on feet and knuckles. He gave a loud roar, exposing an impressive set of dental weaponry, then beat his chest in an aggressive display. Cal faced the beast, who stood a full head taller than him even while hunched forward, and beat his own chest to show the animal that he was not afraid. The crowd ate it up and yelled for more. At the starting whistle from above, the war ape rushed Cal, arms open wide to grab him and crush him into submission. Cal ducked below the swinging arms, grabbed the creature by its thigh and chest and, with his legs in a shoulder-wide stance for stability, threw the ape over his head. The beast roared as it landed on its shoulder and whirled immediately around for vengeance; Cal had to back out of its way to catch his breath, as he had summoned up a Kord-granted increase of his strength to perform that throw, and he realized he wouldn't be able to duplicate it. Now if he could just stay out of its reach for the full three minutes.... No such luck. The war ape leaped in the air at him with arms open wide, and there was no dodging those simian arms this time. Cal was crushed into a ball, his arms pinned to his sides, as the massive beast squeezed the very wind out of him. He flexed his muscles as best he could in an attempt to wriggle free, but there were black spots appearing at the edge of his vision, and he could feel himself losing consciousness. At the trainer's whistle from above, the ape dropped Cal's unmoving form onto the sand, then moved off to the side, chuffing and pounding the sand at his feet with a massive fist. The crowd moved over to collect their various winnings at the pay window, and the door opened up at the side of the Pit and the ape was returned to its pen while the trainer hawked above for more challengers. But the crowd was a bit disenfranchised with their chances, none of them thinking with any honesty that they could do what the mighty cleric of Kord could not. For now, at least; the trainer well knew that all he needed to do was wait until a few of them had consumed a bit more alcohol and they'd suddenly think they were invincible. Several of the Pit-Fight staff slapped Cal awake and led him over to the ladder, where he groggily climbed up and over the edge of the railing. Chalkan was there to give him a hand, but Cal shook it off. "That was great!" he said with a genuine smile. "I'll get him next time for sure!" Feron just shook her head, but she couldn't argue with the results. Despite his defeat, the crowd was appreciative of the fact that Cal had had the guts to even face the war ape in the Pit, and they pushed drinks his way and slapped him on the back and shoulders. Eager to assist their new local hero, they did what they could to help him find the missing sorcerer. After talking to the crowd, the group consensus was that that the guy they were looking for was named [b]Delgrove[/b]; that he had a bandage on his hand a week ago and said he'd just gotten a tattoo; and that there was a big, greasy-looking guy named [b]Maggert[/b] who ran a tattoo parlor on Bleaker Street in the Styes that had likely done the ink work. Unfortunately, nobody in the Pit-Fight knew where Delgrove lived, or was aware of either his current whereabouts or what he would want to talk to an Adventurers Guild representative about. However, the group's interest in the matter came to the attention of [b]Sk’kaar[/b], a member of the Collectors, a kenku band brokering in information. He offered to get the information they were looking for for 100 gold pieces, half up front. It would likely take him a couple of hours to see what he could find out, then he'd meet them back here at the Pit-Fight, if they wanted to wait. The group agreed, money changed hands, and they had another couple of hours to kill. Cal wanted another shot at the war ape, but was talked out of it by Feron, who argued that Sk'kaar could return at any moment. Still, less than an hour later, a patron had consumed a sufficient quantity of ale that he was ready to give the war ape a go, and Cal cheered him on from above (to no avail, as it turned out - but Cal had foreseen the most likely outcome, and at least won enough on the bet to earn his entry fee back). Eventually, Sk’kaar did return as promised with some information for them: a sorcerer meeting Delgrove’s description was last seen being escorted into an old, boarded-up house over on Paper Street in the Styes, being assisted by a nobleman of some type, as it appeared that Delgrove was either drunk or drugged. Sk’kaar offered to lead the group to the location of the boarded-up house at no extra charge, as he considered that to be part of the duties he had been paid for. Under no circumstances would he enter the building with them, however – he was a simple information broker, nothing more. He was paid the other half of his fee and the group departed the Pit-Fight, following their kenku hireling. Sk'kaar led them to 26 Paper Street, an old, dilapidated, three-story building that looked ready to fall over at any minute. A crude sign reading “CONDEMNED: DO NOT ENTER” hung over the door. The windows were boarded up and deep weeds had long since overtaken the small garden out front. Having done his duty, the kenku pulled the hood over his head and drifted away into the shadows of the nearest alley. "So what do you think?" asked Feron. "Do we just walk in?" "Sure," replied Cal, walking up to the door and finding it locked. "Guess I'll have to break it in," he shrugged, secretly pleased at another opportunity to show off his strength. "Hold off there," Feron replied, nudging him aside with her hand. "I've got a [i]warp wood[/i] spell prepared - it'll be much quieter that way." She cast the spell and the door shifted and warped at her touch, swinging open easily. She missed Cal's look of disappointment as she walked inside. She also missed the [i]alarm[/i] spell that had been cast upon the door, which silently notified the spellcaster dwelling within that there were intruders about. Stepping inside, the group saw haphazard piles of books tottering throughout a damp and musty-smelling room, which was strewn with many heavily-annotated parchments and diagrams. A few ghostly candles flickered in the gloom. Telgrane immediately started examining the prevalent diagrams, noticing arcane annotations in the margins of many of them. "Weird," he commented. "A bunch of studies about giant tentacles." A scurry of movement caught the corner of Feron's eye, and she turned, not overly surprised to see the shadowy figure of a rat approaching from a room around the corner. She stifled a squeak of terror at the sight of the creature's head, though - it was that of a middle-aged man, shrunken to scale and grafted seamlessly onto the rodent's body. It twitched its tail in consternation as it looked up at the group. "The Master's not going to be happy about this," he whined petulantly. "M-Master?" squeaked Feron. "Who's your master?" "A pompous wizard, named [b]Percival Alabaster Strangeway[/b]," replied the rat-thing. "I was once his wizardly rival, but the miserable wretch attacked me and remade me in this form. Now the little bastard's got me serving as his familiar; he sent me to see who's snuck into his secret lair. Oh yes, he's linked to me all right, and is probably looking through my own eyes at you this very minute. Because he's a COWARD!" the rat-thing yelled into the air above him. "He's cowering away upstairs, no doubt with his homemade floozy, waiting to see how powerful you are and if he thinks he can defeat you himself, or if he should weaken you with some of his minions first, no doubt. I'm sorry, where are my manners? My name is [b]Abercrombie[/b]. Do you have any cheese?" The group was taken aback by the strange little monstrosity, who seemed eager to chat away about his hated master to potential enemies who had broken into his lair. "Uh, no, I'm afraid we don't have any cheese with us," Telgrane apologized. "So, uh, how powerful is Strangeway?" "Magically? Eh, I could easily have taken him in a fair fight - not that he'd ever FACE AN ENEMY IN A FAIR FIGHT, THE WEASEL! But now? Now he's all augmented, with the power of the tentacle and all. Chaotic energy coursing through his blood, who knows what all else - the guy can take punishment like nobody's business. And I'd love to see you dish it out - say, did you say you had any cheese on you?" "Sorry, all out of cheese," repeated Telgrane. "What's all this about a tentacle?" "C'mere, I'll show you," offered Abercrombie, turning and scampering back the way he had come. The group followed, past a staircase leading up to the second floor, and into a large room. A horrific pillar of twisted flesh rose up from a jagged hole in the floorboards and extended upwards through a similar hole in the ceiling. The putrescent appendage had ripped through the walls of a smaller room centered in this larger area. To the right, on a large table, lay a partially-dissected ogre. The shelves lining the surrounding walls were cluttered with jars of pickled eyeballs, preserved animals, and strange bits of organic matter. Clearly, Strangeway was something of a vivisectionist. Another set of stairs against the far wall led up to the second floor. "Ew," commented Feron, holding her nose. "So, Abercrombie," remarked Telgrane, "You haven't seen a bearded sorcerer by the name of Delgrove around here anywhere, have you?" "Hard to say," replied the rat-thing. "Strangeway's brought a bunch of people - and things that aren't people - in here in the past couple of weeks. If you're looking for this Delgrove, and Strangeway brought him here, I'm afraid he's probably dead by now. Say, did you happen to have any cheese on you by any chance?" "No cheese," responded Telgrane. "So, if Delgrove were here, where do you think he'd likely be?" "Probably in the basement," replied Abercrombie, visibly disappointed about the lack of cheese. "I don't see any stairs going down," remarked Cal, looking all around the area. "Is there a cellar or something outside?" "No, you've gotta go up to go down. Watch the tentacle, though, it's got tentacles." And with that, Abercrombie distanced himself from the young wizard, ambling up to Feron instead and attempting to rub up against her leg. "Excuse me, miss," he said eagerly. "Do you think you might have any cheese on you?" "No cheese," mumbled Feron, stepping away from the creepy rat-monster and going over to stand by Cal. There was no way around it: that rat-thing was an abomination, a sin against nature, and she wanted nothing to do with it. "Let's go," suggested Chalkan, mounting the stairs. The upper level was similar to the lower level, with the massive tentacle having burst through the floor and up through the ceiling into the smaller third floor, which was almost completely demolished, leaving an opening twice as tall as the rest of the second level. The top of the abnormal appendage was lost in the shadows of the ceiling. There was a second room on this level; a door was visible just down the way. Chalkan led the way, the others not far behind. Chalkan had almost made it to the door when the tentacle attacked. Long, slender tendrils uncurled from somewhere at the top of the appendage, dropping down and striking out to grasp the adventurers. Fortunately, Cal had taken Abercrombie's warnings seriously and had been prepared for such an eventuality, calling down a column of holy fire to burn the tentacle. The tendrils caught fire and burned up, and the group slid along the wall and over to the door, not wanting to turn their backs on the unearthly limb. Rushing through the door, the group found themselves in an orderly bedroom, rectangular in shape but for one corner of the room, which looked to possibly hold a closet but had no visible door. Standing in front of this area was a distinctive figure, a young-looking female wearing a stylish red dress with a slit up the side that revealed a shapely thigh. She wore a white fur stole that hung off her shoulders, and high-heeled shoes that accentuated the shape of her calves. All in all, she would have been quite the beauty - if not for the fact that her thigh, calves, shoulders, and even different parts of her face had apparently come from half a dozen different women, all sewn together into a patchwork of flesh that was a mockery of feminine beauty. The golem scowled at the group with mismatched eyebrows and staggered to the attack. "Ew!" Feron reiterated as the mockery took a swing at her. She quickly cast a [i]produce flame[/i] spell and lobbed a ball of fire at the monstrosity, which didn't seem to faze it in the least but started her stylish stole smoldering. The creature's uneven lips opened wide, and a cloud of billowing gas expelled from her mouth, enveloping Cal and Chalkan. Cal shrugged off the effects without any problems, whereas only Chalkan's half-elf blood prevented him from succumbing to the numbing desire to close his eyes and fall asleep right there and then. Cal swung his mace at the female golem, each bruise caused by his blows doing nothing to make the patchwork body look any worse than it already did. Still, the thing slowed down as its stole blazed up around its shoulders, and it seemed to lack the simple intelligence needed to shrug the fur from its body. Feron lobbed additional balls of fire from her hand at the thing, and its attacks became more and more feeble, until finally its entire body was blazing under a curtain of flame. It collapsed to the floor, one of its red shoes slipping off a two-tone foot (with wide stitches showing where the two halves had been sewn together) and sliding across the room. Everyone gave the thing a wide berth as they headed over to the "closet" area, the only logical place a passageway to the basement could be hidden. It didn't take Chalkan very long to find the stud that slid open the panel in the wall that led to a spiral staircase. Leaving the burning she-thing behind them, they entered the staircase and descended into darkness. The basement level was flooded, and the far corner was half-obscured by the root of the alien tentacle, reaching up through the ceiling to the first floor above. Standing next to it was a closed chest, balancing precariously on a half-rotten stand. "Just how long is that thing?" asked Telgrane in wonder, looking up at the tentacle. "I don't think we want to see whatever it's connected to," replied Cal, stepping into the brackish water, which proved to be only up to his waist. "Dibs on the chest," called out Chalkan, wading his way over. Feron and Telgrane looked up at the tentacle, ensuring that it didn't have any tendrils that would uncoil and surprise them from above. Fortunately, it didn't - this time the tendrils were below the water level, and in fact were attached to an aboleth that had been grafted in whole to the shaft of the massive alien tentacle. Several thin appendages whipped up from the water and started wrapping around Chalkan's arms; the young half-elf was not too proud to scream in terror at the sight of the glistening tendrils once he recognized them as belonging to an aboleth. He had no desire to fall sway to its disgusting flesh-warping that caused a victim to become its water-breathing slave! As luck would have it, this aboleth didn't seem as tough - or fight as intelligently - as those the group had faced before; despite the advantage it had in being in its natural aquatic environment, it fell quickly to Chalkan's sword, Cal's mace, and Telgrane's [i]magic missiles[/i]. Furthermore, upon its death a section of the wall vanished; the beast had apparently been projecting the illusion of a wall over a passageway into the next room, which rose up through a small stairway out of the murky water. The group collectively splashed their way up the stairs and into the final room of the house at 26 Paper Street. It was in this room that they finally met up with Delgrove. He was lying on a table at the far end of the room, his robes cut away from his chest and his chest cut away to expose his still-beating heart. Standing over him was a young-looking man in the finest of noble fashions, the overall effect spoiled somewhat by the blood staining his hands up to his elbows and the spatters of blood staining his shirt and vest. At his side stood a hulking flesh golem, this one apparently made from the bodies of several strong men. "Oh dear," complained the bloodstained wizard, "Visitors. And at a most inopportune time." With a quick gesture from the young wizard, the flesh golem lurched forward to attack, With another gesture, three beating hearts that lay amongst a half a dozen others on a shelf behind him also animated and attacked. These organs each had long tendrils extending from them, and skittered along the floor like jittery spiders. Then Strangeway ignored the group and returned to the task at hand, namely, cutting Delgrove's heart out of his chest with a scalpel. Cal took the brunt of the golem's attack, while Feron threw a ball of flame at the nearest of the skittering hearts. Telgrane blasted another one with a [i]magic missile[/i], then released Infernia from the tinder box at his side and allowed her to enter the melee. The third heart construct foolishly attacked the fire elemental, burning itself badly in the process. Chalkan, meanwhile, stepped back and sheathed his longsword, pulling his bow from his back and notching an arrow. Then, taking careful aim at Strangeway as he bent over the sedated Delgrove, he let fly an arrow that hit the wizard just above his own heart. To Chalkan's surprise, Strangeway looked up, scowled in his direction, then casually plucked the arrow from his chest and tossed it to the floor at his side before returning his attention to the removal of Delgrove's heart. He plucked it from the bearded wizard's chest cavity and turned to place it almost lovingly on the shelf behind him. Delgrove gave an involuntary hiss of pain, and then, to Chalkan's horror, a new heart started growing in Delgrove's chest before his own eyes. Looking over at the wizard's hand, he saw a ring pulsing with red light, and surmised it must be keeping him alive and regenerating during this vivisection procedure. Despite Chalkan's desire to concentrate on Strangeway, he was forced to turn his attention to Feron, who had been targeted by one of the heart constructs and was being strangled by its ever-tightening tendrils. She was gasping for breath and unable to concentrate on spellcasting, instead trying to slide her fingers under the bands of muscle that were squeezing the very breath from her throat. Chalkan grabbed the dagger from his belt and slid it into the beating heart, ripping through its pumping muscle and spilling thick, black blood down Feron's armor. The tendrils unwound and Feron pitched the now-lifeless heart construct across the room in a fit of revulsion. Cal was holding his own against the flesh golem, trading blows and getting in the occasional spell, while Telgrane blasted it with spells of his own while remaining out of reach of its massive fists. Then a surprise gout of flame issued forth from the golem's mouth, catching Cal off guard and staggering him under its scorching heat. The brute hammered its fists down upon the beleaguered cleric of Kord, but Chalkan rushed in and came to his aid, brandishing his sword in hand. This gave Cal enough of a respite to heal himself of the wounds he had attained thus far, and, thus refreshed, he waded into battle with the golem once again. Together, the group managed to whittle down the golem's defenses until it lay unmoving and dismembered in a puddle of gore on the floor. "Oh, am I up?" asked Strangeway, looking up from Delgrove's immobilized body, ready to cut out the new heart beating in the mangled wizard's chest. "Very well, if I must." He set the scalpel down on the table and started casting a spell. Before he had finished he had another arrow sprouting from his neck, but he ignored it and sent a [i]lightning bolt[/i] crashing into his four adversaries. Only then did he bother to casually pluck the arrow from his neck and toss it aside. "I'm not like any of the other wizards you've likely fought thus far," Strangeway commented as he attempted to dominate Chalkan with another spell - which, fortunately for the group, the half-elf was able to shrug off. "I've linked myself to a power beyond anything you've ever dreamed of! You've seen the tentacle in the rooms beyond -- just imagine the power of the beast to whom that tentacle belongs! A portion of that power is mine, making me stronger, tougher, than anyone you've ever faced before! And once we've brought that power to this world, we will rule this plane as its undisputed masters!" It was a pretty speech, and Strangeway sprouted two new arrows by the time it was done with, but he barely noticed. "We're not going to take him out with weapons!" called out Telgrane. "Let's see how well he does against a full-scale magical barrage!" He threw a [i]fireball[/i] at the far end of the room, catching Strangeway in its radius of effect while sparing the rest of the group. Feron, meanwhile called lightning down from the ceiling to strike the wizard, while Cal threw a [i]sound burst[/i] his way. Chalkan even tossed a [i]magic missile[/i] spell at the wizard, and while his arcane spellcasting was nowhere near being in Telgrane's league, every bit helped. Still, as much damage as they heaped onto Strangeway, he kept on fighting, seemingly only mildly inconvenienced by the magical barrage of energies. Telgrane started conjuring up assistance from the outer planes. He sent a celestial black bear in to grapple the wizard and try to pin his arms to his side to prevent further spellcasting, but Strangeway cast a [i]gaseous form[/i] on himself and floated to the other side of the room before remanifesting. Seeing that grappling might be the way to go, Cal cast [i]enlarge person[/i] on himself and waded in to battle, now standing some 12 feet tall. As tough as Strangeway was with his life force enhanced by the tentacle from another world, he was not nimble enough to escape Cal's embrace, and the cleric caught him up in a bear hug from which he was powerless to escape. Then Cal called on his friends to target them both with their heaviest area-effect spells, claiming he was freshly healed and would be able to take it. Telgrane responded with his last [i]fireball[/i], catching both Strangeway and Cal in its full effect. Chalkan stuck with his [i]magic missile[/i] spell, which at least could be targeted to only affect Strangeway, while Feron continued calling down lightning strikes onto Strangeway, even though doing so was hurting Cal as well. But the strategy worked; Strangeway, cursing at his inability to escape Cal's viselike grip, fell dead in the cleric's arms, and Cal dropped him and cast his most powerful healing spell upon himself, restoring the vigor he had rapidly lost underneath his friends' assault. Feron ran to Delgrove's side. The skin and muscle of his opened chest had been nailed to the table; she rapidly pulled the nails free and closed his chest back up, while the ring he wore on his right hand glowed red and worked overtime to heal him up. Within minutes, his chest had healed back up to the point where there was no visible proof that he had ever been cut open. It took longer to rise him out of his drug-induced stupor, but eventually he was awake enough to stagger to an upright position and explain what had happened. Delgrove had recently joined a group of spellcasters interested in increasing their own personal power at any cost. Strangeway was a member of this cabal, who called themselves the Cult of the Far Realm. Delgrove was all for increasing his own personal power, but balked at the cult's ultimate plan: through the placement of a group of cyst stones taken from the Far Realm, a place of unending chaos, they hoped to open a rift to that lawless plane and allow it to seep into the material plane, absorbing it into itself. A shortcut to power was just fine with Delgrove, but opening his world to the horrors of the Far Realm was too great a price to pay. Unfortunately, Strangeway had sensed Delgrove's hesitation and desire to warn others about this threat to the world, and thus was overtaken by the more powerful wizard, who had already found a way to link himself to one of the Far Realms' more powerful denizens. And that was that; Delgrove wanted nothing further to do with the group. He thanked the adventurers for his rescue, drew them up a map to the cult's secret headquarters in the Styes, and gave them a detailed description of the Cult members, but was not willing to confront his former cultists and in fact planned on hightailing it far, far away where they'd never find him. Climbing up the stairs to the main level, the whole house began to shake as the tentacle thrashed about. Exiting the hidden room in Strangeway's bedroom, the group rushed into the main room of the second floor to see the whole alien appendage starting to blacken and melt, whole clumps of it falling off into a pool of goo and merging together into a liquid form, which seeped through the hole in the floor and reformed into a massive, ebon blob. Apparently the portion of the great beast's tentacle that had been imprisoned in the material world had been tied in to Strangeway's life force, and it had not only greatly increased his constitution but was also transformed upon his death. The group raced down the stairs to the main floor just as a massive black pudding oozed up out of the hole in the main level. This was a black pudding like none other, its outer surface glistening in a miasma of colors, some never seen before on this plane. Fortunately, it was weaker here than it would have been on its home plane, and despite its formidable size and appearance the group was able to destroy it with the last of their ranged spells, for nobody wanted to venture too close to the thing. As it died, it released a foul vapor that drove the group outside into the relatively fresh air of Paper Street. The five spellcasters all stopped to catch their collective breaths, jumping as the house at 26 Paper Street literally collapsed under the structural damage it had taken. Then Delgrove said his goodbye to the group, wished them well, and was off like a shot, racing off into an alleyway and soon swallowed up by shadows. He was never seen again; presumably he made his escape to a city far away from the Cult of the Far Realm and lived his days out in a quiet fashion as he had intended. "So now I guess we'd better go hunt down this Cult of the Far Realm," said Cal, still winded from his exertions. "I hope it can wait until morning," remarked Telgrane, popping open his tinder box and allowing Infernia to jump inside. "I'm going to need to rest up and get my spells prepared." "That sounds like the best idea," replied Feron. "If we're going to take on a whole cult of these wizards, we're going to need to be at full strength. Let's go home, brief the others, get some sleep, and then make our plans on how to best take these guys down." "I say," said a voice at Feron's feet. "Do any of you have any cheese?" Feron shrieked and ran to the other side of Cal, while Telgrane bent down and lifted Abercrombie by the scruff of his neck. "C'mon, you," said the tired wizard to the twisted rat-thing. "Maybe the Guild wizards will have a way to return you to your normal form." "Do you think they might have any cheese?" "They might," admitted Telgrane. "Let's go find out." - - - I knew I wanted Strangeway to be able to hold his own against the PCs for this fight, so I came up with the "life-force-tied-in-to-the-Far-Realm-tentacle" ploy; I think in game terms this resulted in something rather ridiculous like a 30 Constitution, which boosted his hit point total far beyond what you'd expect from a 10th-level transmuter. Once I factored in the [i]bear's endurance[/i] and [i]false life[/i] spells he had prepped himself with, he was wading into battle with 116 points, far more than any other spellcaster the group had fought to date. (And the [i]stoneskin[/i] didn't hurt him any, either.) The heart constructs were something I made up for this adventure, and I even managed to find a fairly accurate picture on-line of what I had in mind, so the initiative card was fairly easy to make for them. I was able to make a flesh golem card easily enough, but I wanted a female flesh golem for Evelyn, the patchwork girl Strangeway had waiting up in his bedroom (I envisioned her as being made out of parts of every girl who had ever dumped Strangeway; he seemed the type for such a petty revenge), and when I couldn't find anything appropriate I just grabbed photos of good-looking models from the internet, threw them into my Paint program, and had a grand time chopping off various parts and slapping them together until I had the look I was trying to achieve. (I even used the drawing tool to add stitches where appropriate.) We haven't heard anything about Abercrombie since this adventure; presumably the Guild wizards were able to restore him. If not, I'm sure he's become good friends with Quiffington the duckbunny, whose improbable body holds pieces of no less than four different wild mages. [/QUOTE]
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