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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nebulous" data-source="post: 4756425" data-attributes="member: 31465">Adventure #4: River TrapPART TWOSlick walls descend to a whistling wet hole where they hear wind gusting out of a shaft.  A nature check reveals that that a lake or pond might be down there, judging from the echoing pings of water. “Who’s down there?” asks Jolen.  “Identify yourself!”“HELP ME…” the odd voice says again, this time in both Jolen and Douvan’s mind.But further down the tunnel, Nari-lana the genasi suddenly feels a vibration beneath her feet.  The tunnel has begun shaking.  And then she hears the dull roar…“Something’s coming!” she shrieks.  “RUN!”[GM Note: I used the action music from Aliens here and a loud waterfall sound effect].Everyone rolls initiative against the Wall of Water, and it is a black, amorphous thing, barreling toward them like a runaway train. [GM Note: It’s a post-edited water elemental miniature].<img src="http://www.zikadik.com/silverymoon/river7.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Nari-lana, Blackjack and Merric all barely manage to reach the south steps and clamber up mere seconds before the wall of water rips past their location, spraying them with icy liquid.  But Douvan and Jolen were far behind, and upon seeing that they have no hope of reaching the stairwell, they try to anchor themselves as well as possible in the basin chamber. The water blasts into the room, instantly sucking Jolen off his feet and swirling him around in around in a ferocious cycle as water begins draining down the wide hole.  Douvan holds onto a stalagmite for dear life as frigid water closes over his head and buffets him from all sides, but he refuses to release his grip.  Jolen is quickly sucked down the hole, flailing in freefall as hundreds of gallons of water pound onto his head and plunge him deep the beneath the surface of a underground lake.  Cold water nearly steals all the breath from his lungs (sapping a Healing Surge) and then he’s fighting against his armor and gear that threaten to drown him. He crawls along the bottom, finds a slight slope and pushes himself up, breaking the surface in an utterly dark room.  He can barely draw a breath before he’s dragged down again, but finds some niches for his numbed fingers and pulls himself onto a small island of limestone rocks.  He’s shivering head to toe and weakly rests his head there, unsure of what to do next and amazed that he is alive. At the stairwell, Merric, Blackjack and Nari-lana watch the wall of black water without any idea what to do either.  It’s impossible to get past it, so they decide to investigate where they are and pray that the river subsides soon enough for them to save their allies. Merric scouts ahead and finds…surprise, surprise…more goblin tunnels.  And around the corner is a tiny room that looks suspiciously dangerous:<img src="http://www.zikadik.com/silverymoon/river9.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Narrow walkways circumvent a pool of black water bristling with hundreds of rusty spikes.  Merric detects concealed holes in the walls, probably large enough for spears or poles to push intruders into the pool while the goblins remain in relative safety. Great. He doesn’t cross the room.Meanwhile, Douvan Stahl the ranger is making Strength check after Strength check, nearly a dozen in a row, but he finally fails.  A solid minute of holding onto the stalagmite has sapped his reserves and he is ripped free and sucked down the whirlpool.  Black water closes over his head, and then he too is bobbing and sputtering and clawing for purchase in an underground cavern. While waiting, Jolen has cracked a sunrod, revealing an eerie chamber of greenish-blue rock formations, rippling clear water, and somewhere in the distance, an unnatural blue glow. “COME TO ME…” whispers that same feminine voice in his head, louder and clearer than ever.  “Help!” Douvan gurgles, now floundering at the edge of the vertical plume of water.  The lake is churning and frothing, and Jolen extends a hand to grab his ally and pull him to the small island.  Shivering to the bone, they both collapse, wondering how in the hells they are going to escape from this predicament <img src="http://www.zikadik.com/silverymoon/river10.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Ten minutes after the ordeal started the river finally begins to subside.  The current slows until it is just a trickle, and then nothing. Merric, Nari-lana and Blackjack think they hear gears clanking somewhere far, far down the west passage, but then it is silent.On their little island, Jolen and Douvan struggle to stand, standing on precariously slick rock. To the south waits that eerie blue-green glow, and then something is suddenly standing in knee-deep water silhouetted against the backlight.  It is goblin-sized, and it abruptly dives into the deep water of their chamber.  It swims toward them, finally popping up a few scant feet away.  It is a goblin, but unlike any they’ve ever seen.  It has a purplish hue to its skin and vestigial gills on his neck.  It watches them with wide white eyes. “Be gone from here!” orders Jolen.  “Leave this place or suffer!”  The goblin-fish-thing doesn’t answer, just blinks at them, and Jolen fulfills his promise.  He calls down a burst of holy fire radiance on the goblin, burning its head instantly into a blackened cinder.  The creature shrieks once and slides underwater, bubbling and smoking, but then suddenly the water EXPLODES in a small geyser of purple brains and blood.   Douvan and Jolen stare at each other.  That was…unexpected.Meanwhile, Blackjack and Nari-lana have connected all their ropes and hooked them to Merric the Halfling.  He sprints down the tunnel and navigates down to the fissure.  The genasi and pig-farmer brace themselves in case the river returns, but they’re not sure if they will even have the strength to pull Merric back.“Are you down there?” the Halfling shouts.“Yes!  We’re here! Get us out!  Throw a rope!  There are…these things down here with us!”But it is a fifty foot drop from the lip of the hole to the icy lake below.  Merric busies himself unraveling the last of his silk line to drop down, even as Jolen and Douvan hear more splashing.  Merric sees them coming first in the radiant glow of the sunrod and the clear subterranean water:  half a dozen goblin-fish-things angling toward the men on the island.  They ready actions, and the first purple slime-covered goblin to pop up gets a face full of steel!   It dies instantly, shuddering, but then its head violently erupts in a spray of wet brains and bone.  Jolen and Douvan instantly feel psychic pain lance through their heads.  Jolen bashes another as well, killing it, and again the thing’s head pops, damaging the cleric and ranger. Slimy hands start grappling Douvan, trying to pull him off rock into the water.“BRING THEM TO ME…” the eerie voice says in their minds. <img src="http://www.zikadik.com/silverymoon/river11.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Douvan and Jolen fight for their lives, not so much worried about the damage from the goblins, but from the aberrant thing that is controlling them.  They definitely don’t want to meet it, but Jolen nevertheless sees a horrible picture in his mind’s eye, perhaps from mental contact with the thing.  His brief impression is one of a horrible, huge, cruel catfish.<img src="http://www.zikadik.com/silverymoon/river12.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Merric targets a few goblinspawn with shirukens, but getting the rope into the water is first priority.  The slimespawn keep pouring out of the adjacent chamber in larger and larger waves, most of them goblins, some of them other underground species.  Jolen and Douvan fight them off with steel and spell, and Jolen ultimately calls upon a blessing of Tempus:  a Spectral Warrior.  It manifests beside him, a ghostly apparition that cannot be harmed or moved, and it begins hacking mercilessly at their foes. Both men are thoroughly covered in mauve goo and slime, their heads aching from the continual psychic backlash of killing the slimespawn goblins at close range. [GM Note:  And the group agrees that fish-flavored goblins aren’t what Balthazar wants, so the search continues].Douvan finally dives into the water and swims for the dangling rope.  He starts clambering up, killing a goblin that gets too near, and seconds later Jolen is surging after him.  Douvan is strong and makes excellent progress, and is soon halfway up the fifty foot ascent.  Below, Jolen starts to climb, but loses his grip and falls back into the water, surrounded now on all sides by slimespawn.<img src="http://www.zikadik.com/silverymoon/river13.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Douvan makes it to the top with Merric, but there is blessed little they can do to help Jolen.  The cleric wraps the rope around his waists, cinches it, and screams:“Pull!  By Tempus, pull!”This begins a rigorous series of rolls as Blackjack, Nari-lana and the others try to haul Jolen from the grip of the slimespawn.  But three goblins refuse to release him and they are all pulled out of the water, dangling back and forth as the Spectral Warrior kills what it can reach.  One goblin clambers over Jolen and starts sawing at the rope with a sharp stone dagger.“BRING HIM TO ME!” thunders the voice in Jolen’s head. Jolen blasts the last of the goblins while his spectral warrior guards his escape,<img src="http://www.zikadik.com/silverymoon/spectral.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />and soon he is being hauled over the lip of the basin by his companions.  “Out of here!” shouts Douvan.  “Now!”If the river trap is activated again they’ll be pounded back down the hole in worse shape than before. The three heroes sprint back to the southern stairwell and run around the corner, breathing heavily. The river does not come, but whether through accident or design, they don’t know. For now they’re clumped at the top of the stairs, debating which direction to go, and wondering exactly where in the hells these cowardly goblins are hiding…<img src="http://www.zikadik.com/silverymoon/river14.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />[GM Note:  Good job guys.  That river trap could have nabbed everyone, or no one, it really depended on luck.  And running full tilt first chance you had. Sorry you got separated for such a long time, but at least you have an idea of what’s down there if you choose to return.  It won’t be easy, regardless. Aboleths, even injured ones, are a-holes]. </blockquote>

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