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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 1201065" data-attributes="member: 8530">Chapter 13, “Moving across the Kadtanach”, September 13th, 1019, 12:00 P.M.Once the creature had stopped and the gargoyles returned to it Alton was able better observe the situation.   He assumed that the Silver Moon Adventurers were responsible for the alarms that now sounded.   Alton waited patiently, fully expecting to see one of Cassie’s massive fireballs erupting from the structure, but no explosions occur.   The alarm bells then change to a different pattern, and the creature started moving again.   Two of the gargoyles flew back to watch the cliffs, the third one staying atop one of the buildings.   Alton decides to flies along behind the mountain peeks.   He continues to hear the same bell alarms sound every few minutes, which helps him gauge exactly where the beast it from the opposite side of the cliffs.    When they are within two miles of the end of the mountain pass Alton decides to fly on ahead from the other side of the mountain and get into position ahead of it.  Meanwhile, Cassie and Purge have continued to cautiously watch from their perch.   The gargoyles and wyverns are no longer flying around the creature, making Cassie feel a bit safer.   They see a trio of gnolls head out to the end of the ramp housing the catapult, and lower themselves on a rope ladder down to the building on top of the creature’s yoke, helped onto it by a half-dozen gnoll archers guarding that building. She opens up the top of the Bag of Holding to get some fresh air circulating inside.   Narg briefly informs her in the Halfling language of what the gnoll druid has told him.  Upon hearing that the gnoll deity is nearby she panics and says, “I think we may be in over our heads with this one.”   Mojo comments, “I think that is a load of hooey.  I doubt it’s really a god in charge here.”  Narg interjects, “The gnoll believes that it is.”  Mojo replies, “Nothing against Old Yeller here, but I think he’s wrong.  Going around robbing farm towns is far too run-of-the-mill for a deity to bother with.  And he needs a druid to cast spells for him!  What kind of god is that?”  The alarm bells sound again and Narg snaps, “What’s that?”   Cassie replies, “They’ve been sounding that bell sequence every few minutes.  We think it is a Yellow Alert signal.”  Mojo says, “Don’t worry about it.  These are dog-creatures.  You know how dogs are, once they hear something that spooks them they’ll bark continuously for the next half hour.  That’s all this is.”   Narg talks to the druid and confirms Cassie’s assessment of what the bells signify, being told it is the signal for a medium alert.  Cassie, Narg and Mojo continue to strategize.  Narg suggests, “If you cut off the head the creature will die.”   “I think it looks a bit thick to cut through,” Cassie replies.   Narg answers, “No, not the animal’s head.   I’m talking about whoever is controlling it.  Get rid of them and it’s a whole new ballgame.”    They debate trying to point the creature in a direction they may want it to go, but cannot agree on where that might be.Purge then interrupts Cassie, saying, “What are those?”   Cassie looks up, seeing three creatures emerge from the building atop the yoke.  One is a yellow skinned humanoid with red eyes, wearing gold and jeweled belts and headband.  It has a serrated sword hanging from its belt.  (The DM shows the players the cover of the 1st Edition Fiend Folio book for the visual aide for this creature.)   The other two creatures are larger, red-skinned, red-eyed, spiked dark hair, and armor that appears to be made of bones.    The creatures then vanish, appearing thirty feet above on the ramp by the catapult, before heading towards the first building along the torso.   Narg asks the druid Nahmi what these creatures are, and is told “Giths.  They work for Yeenoghu.  The gith leader is equal to our Chief.”   “Why do these giths look so different from each other?” Narg asks.   The druid replies, “The red ones are only half-gith.  We don’t know what the other half is, but presumably something much larger and stronger.”  Cassie comments, “This gets worse every minute.  Not only are we up against a deity, but now we also have to oppose teleporting creatures of races we’ve never seen before.” Cassie has Narg ask the druid how long the creature plants to stay.   Nahmi replies, “Usually it spends only a few weeks on each world.   The gnoll army takes what it can until the armies of the world get organized enough to oppose it.    If a large enemy force is seen Yeenoghu moves the Kadtanach to another world rather than staying to fight.”  “Typical strategy for a bully,” Narg comments.   Mojo says, “There’s the answer.  We get the army here to stop it, and they’ll just go away.”   Cassie comments, “Except you are forgetting one thing.  The Queen doesn’t have an army – we’re it!”  The only Lordholdings with military forces are Cantage and Jawlt, and they’re hundreds of miles from here.”   “So what, it will be there soon enough at the rate it’s moving,” Mojo comments.   Narg suggests that Mojo call up the Queen again.  Cassie says, “That magic item only works once a day, so why don’t you hold off on that.”  “I don’t want to talk to her anyway!” Mojo pouts.   Cassie lectures him with, “Will you please get over your jealousy!  So she picked her husband instead of you.  Accept it!”   Narg interjects, “Okay, hold off on contacting the Queen, but we should get a hold of her sometime soon.”  “I wish I could, but there’s a guy in the way” Mojo mumbles.  They discuss strategy some more, with Cassie again expressing reservations about taking on a god.   “Nothing we haven’t done before,” Narg comments.   Cassie replies, “Yeah, but we only won on those occasions because of powerful assistance.  I don’t see any divine beings offering to help us this time.”   Mojo suggests, “Look, this thing is like a giant dogs with more dogs on top of it.  Why don’t we just construct a giant fire hydrant!”   Narg and Cassie decide to just ignore him.Purge interrupts again, stating that the three giths have returned with a gnoll.  Cassie looks up and comments that the red-skinned giths are grasping the arms of an unarmored gnoll, forcing him to accompany them.  The yellow-skinned gith is also brandishing his sword towards this gnoll in a threatening manner.  They get to the end of the catapult platform and then teleport away.  Nahmi asks for a more detailed description of what this gnoll looked like, which Cassie then provides.   Nahmi confirms that was his master that the giths had seized.  Narg tells Cassie, “Look, this fake god is probably just somebody polymorphed by that wizardess to fool the gnolls.   She’s the one running the show.  Try to figure out where she might be and get there.   Then let us out of the bag, we kill her, end of story.”   Cassie answers, “Easier said that done, but that building along the Yoke seems to be main activity point.  Purge and I will do what we can to get there.”  She closes up the Bag of Holding, and then fills Purge in on the conversation.  The two try to figure out the best way to get to the building on the yoke.   They tie themselves together and begin to climb down the creature, gripping onto the sides of the scales.  It is a steep downward climb towards the creature’s neck.   At this point the creature has exited the mountain pass.   A new series of bell rings follow, after which the behemoth starts moving at a much swifter pace, crushing and uprooting the trees in the forest before them.     The creature’s harness between the neck and torso is a patchwork of horizontal and vertical straps, creating twenty-to-forty foot diameter squares and rectangles.  Purge uses one of the vertical straps as a handhold as they further descend. Meanwhile, Alton had reached the end of the mountain pass and transformed back to his human form.  Using the forest for cover, he watches as the creature exits the mountains.   The creature continues to travel due west, and Alton moves into position in front of it.  He then removes several magic items, transforms into a white chimpanzee, then puts on and activates the Ring of Invisibility.   A player comments about the choice of animal, saying “A chimp?  They eat bugs off of themselves.”  Another player quips “And you think Alton doesn’t already do that?”  The invisible chimp moves a safe enough distance that he won’t be stomped on by the beast, and waits until it is parallel to him.   He then scampers forward and carefully times a dive onto one of the rear legs of the beast, then climbs up. The Kadtanach bumps a front leg on a large boulder, causing it to slightly stumble.   This sudden lurch to the side causes Purge to lose his footing, on the ledge created by the strap, and he falls.   Once the end of the rope linking him to Cassie is taut she falls as well.  He manages to grab onto the next horizontal strap but Cassie misses it and the speed of her fall pulls him off as well.   Thirty-five feet later they both grab for the next horizontal strap, with Cassie grabbing it this time.  However Purge misses, and his weight and velocity then pull her off. Only one horizontal strap remains prior to them hitting the solid wall of the yoke and building along it.  The temporary stops have slowed their momentum, but the impact on the bottom will still probably prove fatal to both of them.   Cassie considers using the Helm of Teleportation to get them out of this predicament, but thinks that she still may be a few minutes shy of the item’s twenty-four hour recharge time from when it was last used.  Cassie reaches for the final strap and this time manages to gets a very firm grip on it.  Purges grabs it too, but the creature’s continued movement causes him to again loose his grip.  Fortunately he has held onto it for long enough for Cassie to better secure the rope on the strap and then help him climb up to her. Cassie and Purge may have experienced problems moving along the scales of the creature, but it is proving to be second nature to Alton’s chimp form.   He reaches the top of the beast and moves forward, avoiding the buildings.   He reaches a point near one of the forward buildings and makes his way around it.   After a few minutes he hears some other sounds.  He continues moving, stopping several times to listen, and concludes that somebody invisible is following him.    He stops at a corner by the two front buildings.  Alton is able to vocalize enough sounds in chimp form to cast Dispel Magic, centering the spell on the area that the sounds are coming from.    This causes both the white chimpanzee and a male gnome to become visible.</blockquote>

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