Agents of Chaos (Final Update!)

[the Jester]

The ooze pulsates and writhes, crawling towards Alcar's flying form. But the celestial is not slow to respond! His mace is already in his hand and he swings a mighty blow at the strange, bile-sweating thing and hits it soundly. The thing ripples, and then divides wetly in two. Alcar cries out in frustration, then swings again. When his mace connects, the liquid thing splits wetly again. He checks his next swing, gritting his teeth.

Meanwhile, behind and below him, the rest of the party hurries to catch up with Alcar. Horbin reacts to the battle first, half-closing his eyes and invoking the power of Dexter. A blast of searing light shoots from his outstretched hand, blasting into one of the oozes and destroying it. Seeing this, Sheva follows suit, destroying the second, and Alcar tries a searing light of his own at the third. That one, however, survives the holy light of Galador and extrudes a pseudopod to strike at him, missing only because of the angel's agile maneuvering. Then a burst of ringing sound explodes the ooze with punishing force, cast by Sheva. It dies, and Alcar just shakes his head grimly. "Split in two," he mumbles to himself. "That sucks." Then he turns to the rest of the group. "Come on!" he calls, and continues flying up the stairs.

The stairs end in an empty room. There's nothing in there except exits- two doors and two passageways both lead out from the chamber. As the rest of the party clambers and air walks up into the chamber, Alcar begins flying down one of the halls- and his face whitens.

Coming down the hall at him is a spherical shape with a large central eye and several stalks on top of it....


Next Time: Is it beholder time already?? Stay tuned and find out!

 

[the Jester]

Beholder? I'll- oops!

Alcar flies forward and casts a sound burst behind the thing. There's a momentary blare of terrible ringing sound- and then the "beholder" explodes, spraying spores all over Alcar! He gives a cry, and then another floating round thing comes out of a room just off the hall- followed by several more fungus creatures. Some of these are round like the 'floaters' but they roll on the ground instead, and yet more of them are strange moving growths with leg-like stalks on them.

But our heroes are nothing if not swift and effective. It's all over in seconds as Hobin catches all the fungus except for one creature in a roaring column of fire and Sheva tumbles in, her greatsword snicking out to finish the last one.

Alcar charges into the room the creatures came out of. It's full of fungus of all sorts, including 4' tall mushrooms. There seem to be several bins of some sort that have been entirely overgrown. The walls still sweat beads of bile. The angel spots another archway leading out of the chamber and flies on through.

"Sure," Horbin mutters several dozen feet behind, hustling to keep up. "Just charge ahead on your own. Dexter's nadlies!" Then he hears a loud shrieking coming from up ahead and quickens his pace. When he rounds the corner he sees several large mushrooms in the next room have started shrieking and he curses again. "So much for a quiet entrance!" The rest of the group also charges in to silence the hideous racket.

And then something up ahead moves, and Angel feels something latch on to him. He grunts in surprise as he realizes that some sort of sticky strand has struck him and is starting to pull him forward to a stalagmite-like object- only now it's opened a single yellow eye and is grinning a toothy-mawed grin at him. He feels his strength falter as he starts to be reeled in....


Next Time: Battle in Bile Mountain! A little friendly rivalry between Angel and Alcar starts! And where's the privy?

 

[the Jester]

The party springs into action. Sheva steps forward, one of her greatswords flashing down in a terrible arc and severing the strand holding Angel fast. She can hear Horbin invoking Dexter behind her somewhere and Alcar moving in, but she's too busy to pay attention. Suddenly thin, almost-invisible strands are blurring through the air all around her and Angel- and several thwack onto her fiery friend. He slashes through one of them with his falchion's keen blade; it parts, but more are still attached to him. A shortspear flies over him from someone further back in the party and he feels himself being pulled forward, jerked almost off his feet.

Then Angel hears Alcar cry out, "Don't worry, I'll protect you!" and a wall of blazing orange fire springs up just behind the creature's body. It gives a terrible cry and writhes, its strands whipping about even faster than before. One of them slaps onto Sheva's arm, but she whips her blade through it and frees herself, then leaps, rolls, and tumbles in next to the monster, giving it a terrific blow as she does.

The creature turns to face her, its slavering maw opening wide. Little flames are running along its backside, where the wall of flames is clearing inflicting terrible damage to it. The beast's mouth gapes open, as large as Sheva's entire head, and it leans forward. The priestess of Coila braces herself for the blow-

And then Angel's blade emerges from the monster, and he's there in all his copper-skinned glory, ramming the falchion's tip all the way through the creature's body. Another terrible shriek and it dies.

Alcar's flying in to attack it, but as he gets close it falls, so he shrugs and flies headlong through the flaming wall. It tickles as he does so. Angel, seeing this, hmphs and tumbles through it himself. The two are in a short hallway with a chamber at the end, and both enter it at almost the same moment, competing to be first. The room's full of rubble and broken stones, and there's a moment's hesitation as they look for trouble.

"Maybe I'll protect you," Angel says with a smile, and leaps forward. Something big's slithering in the rubble... and then it bursts into the open. A large serpentine head strikes out, biting Angel. He grunts in pain, feeling the fangs inject venom into his thigh, but then grunts again in surprise as the snake's rear end moves into view- and it's also got a head! The second head strikes as well, and only Angel's animal-quick reflexes save him from a second deadly bite.

Alcar joins the battle with a heavy mace blow, and it goes back and forth for a moment, the two-headed snake spitting an explosive spray of toxic bile at them. But it's no match for the angel and Angel, and the fiery Coila-worshiper quickly slices it cleanly in half.

"It appears it's two for me and none for you," Angel smirks. "Who's protecting who?"




Next Time: Will Angel stay aheah in the protection scorecard? And what lurks in the privy? Find out soon!

 

[the Jester]

Okay, this is for you, Tallarn! I'm resurrecting an old thread for stats on things from my story hour- my players, stay out please! (You never know when something might come back to haunt you later...)

I'm posting the Bile Monster Template there for starters since you asked about it. It'll be here. I hope you like it!

 

[the Jester]

What lurks in the privy??

The wall of fire eventually dies down, and the rest of the party troops in to where Alcar and Angel are searching the rubble-filled chamber. The two are bantering back and forth, Alcar waggling his finger at Angel from time to time while the fiery Coila-worshiper chortles about being ahead. Horbin shakes his head, but he'll take the Angel of Food on his side any day.

The party's examination of the room turns up no treasure ("Curses," Lester exclaims- "Come on, there's gotta be some loot in here somewhere, let's go find it!"), but the group does note that at least some of the broken rock appears to be the remains of some statuary. It seems that some sort of semi-humanoid creatures with tusks were once glorified in here. Two halls lead out of the place, and as the group gives each exit a cursory examination, Horbin finds a door a little way down one of the halls. He alerts the rest of the group and they cluster around it. Alcar throws it open; it resists for a second and then swings open with a bang.

The door leads to a small, 10'x10' square room. A hole with a crude wooden seat is in here, but nothing else of note. A faint stink of old offal wafts up from below.

"Anyone wanna search down there?" Horbin asks. "There might be some treasure. Myself," he adds quietly, "I've done my time in sewage..."*

"Well, hm," Lester mutters, "there might be something down there..." He rubs his chin, trying to think of a way to investigate without being covered in filth. Even with a quick wash, he's thinking that it's a nasty, stinky job. Maybe I can talk everyone into drawing straws? he thinks. But no, then I might have to go down there...

Without warning the rough seat slams into splinters as a large, muscular tentacle crashes into it violently from below! A great voice bellows out, "YUNGO HUNGERS!!" The party is caught off guard as something strikes from within the privy!






Coming Soon: Yungo the Otyugh Barbarian! Can he last more than a round or two against the party?? Can anything?? So far they've torn through just about everything they've encountered with no real trouble- when will things suddenly become much, much more dangerous? And where do we find the stairs to the next level, anyway??

Stay tuned, and remember- I promise frequent updates!



*For Horbin's previous sewage-related adventures, see my OLD story hour- specifically, look on page 2, especially starting in the post titled "The best use of a shatter spell..."

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Okay, this is for you, Tallarn! I'm resurrecting an old thread for stats on things from my story hour- my players, stay out please! (You never know when something might come back to haunt you later...)

I'm posting the Bile Monster Template there for starters since you asked about it. It'll be here. I hope you like it!

Woo hoo! Another thread to subscribe too! Thanks!

 

[the Jester]

From the Privy

Yungo lurked below the hole as he had for years now. He'd been there through the last two sets of tenants- and he's even explored some of the outside world. He wasn't born in Bile Mountain; he came here because he thought the food would be good, and it was. When he first came here, the inhabitants at the time recognized him and gave him a happy place where he could eat their excrement. They would also sometimes throw prey in for him to eat, and sometimes the prey would almost slay him before he killed it. Then the inhabitants themselves were slain by adventurers and Yungo's food supplies dwindled. For a time he dimly considered leaving, but the hole had long been a good home and he trusted it. The pile of offal that Yungo slept in grew smaller and smaller day by day as he devoured it, and after half a year it was almost gone. Then he heard new creatures moving in, claiming the place- and soon Yungo's larder fattened.

Then more adventurers came.

The inhabitants were slain again, and Yungo's frustrations grew as his food dwindled again. Too soon his anger and rage had gripped hold of him. This place had betrayed him. The bile was no good, he couldn't eat that. He had seen what happened when you did that, and he did not want that to happen to him. Day by day his little pile shrank again, and this time it ran out. He couldn't even remember the last time that had happened, and hunger began coiling in him like an angry serpent.

Then Yungo heard voices. He hoped fleetingly that he would hear the yipping of kobolds or gnolls, the guttural orcish or goblin tongues; but he heard the prissy voices of humans and elves.

More adventurers, come to deny him his food.

Well, enough of that, Yungo decided.


As the otyugh bursts free of the privy in a howling rage Alcar moves to meet it. Body to body with it, he swings his mace and catches it a crushing blow, then another. Sheva steps in, flanking him, but he dodges her blows with surprising finesse. Nonetheless, the greatsword Chronovestis in her hands slashes into the stinking creature more than once. Angel steps in too; his falchion slices at Yungo's flesh with awful lethality. Even as he does so, though, the poison from the bite of the two-headed snake takes its toll on him and he can feel himself weakening. Horbin sees Angel blanch and moves in to his aid with healing magic, restoring him.

The hungry Yungo fights back as best he can, swinging and biting, raking one tentacle in a powerful arc across Alcar's chin. But the angel shakes the blow off and strikes again, and this time he brings his mace down squarely on Yungo's disgusting head and it bursts like a melon. Yungo dies, betrayed by his mountain.

"So two to one, then," says Angel, looking at Alcar with a smirk.

Alcar shakes his finger at Angel and says nothing. He backs out of the room and heads immediately down the hall. "Hmph," mutters Horbin, "we shouldn't just be charging off everywhere, somebody's liable to get killed." But of course, Alcar alreay has charged off, and so the rest of the group follows.

Alcar emerges from the passage in a large crumbled room with a floor that slopes somewhat downward and a staircase leading up. Alcar hesitates for a moment, glancing at the pool, and lets the rest of the party catch up.

"You know, you really shouldn't do- Look!" shouts Horbin, and launches into a spell. The pool's churning with tentacles!

Alcar casts too, and a flame strike blazes down, fully maximized from his incense. There's a terrible noise and bits of tentacles fly everywhere. The stench of cooking bile is beyond belief. Alcar smiles at Angel, then starts winging his way up the stairs.

"You're gonna get somebody killed, dammit!" shouts Horbin. The group ascends....



Next Time: What's at the top of the stairs? When will the party fight something they can't destroy in a few seconds? Will Angel and Alcar ever get to blows again or will they make friends? And will Horbin's warning be right?? Well, you'll get the answer to two of those questions next time, and the other two not long after....

 

[the Jester]

The Six-Armed Statue with the Elephant Head

The stairs are slightly damp with the foul yellow bile. Traces of froth like dried-up sea foam dot the steps from time to time as the group pounds up them, Alcar flying ahead. Sheva is running through the air, followed closely by Angel, and the two of them rush into the room at the top of the stairs just after Alcar. As Angel runs in there's a sharp click. Horbin's next up the stairs, and he runs smack into an invisible barrier of some sort, crying out in surprise and coming to a sudden halt. He feels blood start leaking out his nose.

There's a loud grinding sound, and the three of them barely have time to even notice the huge statue before it starts moving towards them on thunderously loud rollers. It's made of some sort of greenish stone, and it's easily 10' high and 20' wide. It depicts some sort of six-armed creature with a strange elephantine head.

Sheva and Angel dodge behind it as it rolls forward, but Alcar's too slow. Horbin watches in horror as it rolls right into the servant of his god, smashing him into the barrier right in front of him with incredible force. Blood spurts from Alcar and his wings both break. Horbin can't hear anything from where he's at, but the sight is gruesome. He can see Angel swinging blow after blow at it, but the thing's huge, and even his punishing blows aren't as effective against it as they would be against a living enemy with vitals. Sheva grunts as the stone juggernaut pummels her with all six of its arms, inflicting terrible damage, and Horbin can see Alcar striking at it even as the massive things crushes him against the wall. Desperately, the cut-off priest casts a dispel magic at the barrier, but to no avail. It's a wall of force! he thinks. If only I had some sort of disintegration ability! But he can only watch as Sheva disappears, timeslipping away from almost certain doom.

Alcar finally manages to break free and get out from under the six-armed statue, staggering away long enough to invoke the power of Galador to heal himself. Angel keeps hitting it, and the creature turns on him, lashing out with all six arms and beating him badly. Horbin swears aloud and begins summoning a huge earth elemental, angry and worried. His companions are barely standing up to the thing.

But then Alcar steps back in on it, swinging his mace with a mighty roar, and he smashes the statue's head. The blow resonates through his arms, the shock reaches his shoulders, and for a moment he has to blink the impact from his eyes; but then his vision clears and the juggernaut lays smashed and destroyed before him.

Alcar turns to Angel. "You gotta bring some to get some," he says, smiling. Angel smiles back, and the two match gazes for a moment.

Sheva reappears a moment later, and all three move to the wall of force that seals them off from the stairway down. There are two other doors out and Alcar starts to head for one, but Sheva dissuades him. "Let's at least wait until Horbin and the others can get through."

Soon enough the barrier drops, and then the group moves on. Sheva checks both doors for traps and the party opens each to see what their options are like. Both open on hallways, but one of them is crumbled and drops downward, ending in an area where bile fills much of the height of the passage. The group agrees as one to take the other passage.

"Let's search around a little here first," Sheva suggests, and they do so, looking among the broken shards of the elephant-headed statue for loot, checking the walls for hollow spaces or small catches- and finding one! Sheva checks it for traps, her pulse quickening. Secret doors usually hide something, she thinks.

Finding no traps, Sheva stands back and Alcar trips the catch. A section of wall pivots with a loud grinding sound not too dissimilar from the juggernaut's sounds, and the party enters a smaller chamber full of old pillows and cushions gone brittle with age. "I wonder what this place was?" Sheva muses.

Then almost everyone falls upon the cushions- and each other. They start pawing at each other, kissing and touching lewdly. "By Galador!" Alcar exclaims.

And then something appears out of nowhere, rushing Alcar. It looks like a huge insectoid horror spewed from a strange planar window. It's the size of a man, and it's got a freakish four-mandibled mouth full of death and a set of four-foot claws that just don't look very nice at all.



Next Time: Attack of the strange outsider! Memories of a whale! Relgious debate between Alcar and Horbin! And- hey, are those dragons? I'm not saying they are for sure, but...

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Jester, my friend, you are an evil, evil man...

 

[the Jester]

Sheva feels languid and lascivious. She can't seem to help herself. The caresses she's giving and receiving have become her whole world. She can feel a throbbing lust rising through her entire body, a shivering, palpitating sensation of pleasure and submission racing through her veins and arteries.

But there's a piece of her mind that is sealed off from the rest, a slippery piece of self that refuses to submit. She is Sheva, priestess of Coila, contemplative, assassin, monk, master of the Self. She has submitted- but only for a moment.

She shakes off the compulsion, shakes her head, shakes her mind. I will not be controlled! the hidden piece of her mind screams. Blinking, she leaps back to her feet. Out of the corner of her eye she can see Angel and Horbin locked in a perverse embrace, Angel atop the priest of Galador. But before her eyes is something far more important.

Alcar is fighting back, but the bizarre, insect-like creature has leaped upon him and torn a gaping wound in his shoulder. The angel of Galador is faltering. How long was I trapped in the orgy spell? Sheva wonders briefly; but she can see that the most important thing now is to defeat the monster. Suddenly she's hasted, moving with blurring speed thanks to her power over Time, and a greatsword's in her hands. With a single step she's flanking the monster, and then she's tearing into it. It squeals with terrible pain as Sheva's blade slashes into it again and again, and then Alcar's pressing the attack too. A horrible screaming sound emerges from its death-filled mouth, and Sheva steps up again and rams the point of the blade she took from the death knight through it's mouth. It emerges from the rear of the monster's head in a shower of gore and the creature drops.

Alcar winces at the pain in his side, where the monster hit his vitals. Sheva pants for a few instants, still shaking off the full effects of the lewd spell that still grips the rest of the group. The celestial quickly dispels it, freeing the others from the enchantment as well.

It's as if someone threw a bucket of cold water on them.

"Hey, you're not a whale!" Horbin exclaims.* He and Angel stand up quickly, rebuckling their belts, strapping armor gone askew back into place. Horbin's quite embarrassed, but Angel isn't. He used to be a woman, after all; and besides, he was on top. He considers for a moment, then casts a detect magic spell. With a smile, he picks up one of the pillows and shoves it into his backpack. Maybe it'll work for him somewhere else at another time.

Alcar shakes his finger at Horbin. Primly, he says, "I don't think Galador approves of sodomites."

Horbin gives the angel a dirty look. "Probably more than he approves of loudmouths." The two servants of the Light start arguing scriptural interpretations as Horbin straightens his tunic and creates a globe of water that forms above his head and falls immediately to clean off any dirt or... anything else that may have soiled him in the encounter. Alcar heals the terrible wound the strange outsider inflicted on him.

A thourough search of the pillowed chamber turns up nothing in the way of treasure or clues as to why it is here.

"Well, if there's nothing here, let's move on." With that, Alcar heads off. Horbin shakes his head; he's got a terrible feeling that the celestial will lead them to disaster soon if he doesn't slow down.

The party heads down the more intact passage that leads from the juggernaut's chamber. The hall turns, then after another twenty yards it ends. To one side is a door; to the other, an archway leads into a long room that has a pair of large cloth-covered objects in it. There's a thick layer of dust on the floor.

"I wonder what those are?" muses Alcar, and he steps in to uncover one of the forms.

As soon as he's within the chamber, the two forms burst into motion. The cloths are left behind as a pair of creatures burst out from beneath them- two reptillian, draconian-looking things. And they're coming right for Alcar.




*For more on Horbin's whale-loving experience, see the orca's penis-ring.


Next Time: True dragons or something else? What were they doing under those cloths? Who's the halfling that the group's about to meet and what's he doing here? And what's this about mind flayers??