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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 7583224" data-attributes="member: 1210">Fandelose is a smoky, sooty city. The firestone lamps and furnaces at work constantly shed thick fumes when alight, staining walls and clothes alike in the city. Near the city gates and posted at various points throughout the Lower District, posters cry out the names of missing persons while a ragged-looking evil preacher persuades more victims to join his vile cult. Elsewhere, a crowd of shouting farmers demonstrates outside the Bank of Fandelose, protesting predatory lending practices, protesting the military government that rules the city, protesting their increasing enserfment. At the Breach, cursing artificers go over their math again and again, trying to figure out what caused the latest collapse. The hole in the city's wall that leaves it vulnerable to forces assailing it from outside won't fix itself, and the longer it remains, the worse the artificers look.Meanwhile, outside the city, scouts from the hobgoblin remnant army called the Scarlet Fist creep close enough to observe the city's status. The Fist extorts an extraordinary amount of tribute from Fandelose each spring as a bribe not to sack the city. Though the Six Fingered Hand has fallen, the Scarlet Fist carries a piece of its legacy; its general, Heshwat the Younger, is the son of one of the Six Fingered Hand's infamous leaders, Heshwat the Eviscerator. In the central citadel of Fandelose, Argos Otto receives briefings about the many threats facing his city. From the Scarlet Fist to a new tribe of lizard folk that seem to have moved into the forest to the southeast, from the giants that occasionally raid the city from somewhere in the hills to the northwest to the numerous griffons that sometimes attack groups outside the walls, he knows just how many problems face his people from without. Likewise, he knows about the troubles within the walls, from the disturbing possibility that there is a traitor amongst the Artificers' Guild to the unrest over the new coinage, from the rising violence committed by the city's gangs to the escalating tensions with the farmers... yes, he has plenty to keep him busy.Elsewhere in the citadel, a soldier gets off duty and leaves the barracks to go to a tavern. But his route takes him into a back alley, and when he emerges, he no longer looks the same. He is but one of a whole secret second society that lives in hiding among the city's inhabitants.Our city, the final city, Urbis Ultimate, is troubled. ***In the megadungeon, a stroke of luck at last for the lost adventurers: another ascending staircase. It ends in a chamber guarded bya group of orcs and a guard drake. Hungus, in the lead, pulls up short and calls out soothing words in Draconic, trying to prevent the drake from attacking. “Hey!” Bix calls. “We don't want any trouble! We just want to get out of here!”“Remember us?” Morsado cries. “We just played your guys' party!”The orcs rein in the drake. Tensions ease as it becomes apparent that they mean no harm to the party, especially to the two bards. “What happened? I thought you guys went home. And where's the other guy?”“Yeah, good question,” Morsado responds. “Hey, I don't suppose you can point us at the way out of here?”***And thus, in short order, the party emerges from the dungeon at last. Blinking in the sunlight that is the first that they've seen in days, they all cheer raggedly. “Time to get back home,” Hungus declares. The group returns to the city.***It is most of a week before they overcome their trepidation and mount another expedition into the dungeon. Those who survived the harrowing trap are torn between trepidation about returning into Marble Hall and the fact that there is massive loot to be had down there- if only they can find it. Since they spend money like adventurers, buying rounds for everyone in the bar and such like, the siren call of loot soon wins out. This time, the party consists of Hungus, Morsado, Bix, Rorin, Mad Max, and Sarec, plus a new fellow who the others met during one of their nights of carousing: Jahsiven. (Mad Max recruited him after discovering that they share an interest in fine pipe weed.) This time the party goes back to the elevator and takes it all the way down. Morsado and Bix are once more able to talk the party's way past the orcs that guard the intermediate level with a meager bribe, allowing them to descend unopposed. Soon they arrive at the bottom; a single door offers egress from the chamber that the elevator has descended into. Much like the first area past the dwarf-works above, the walls are of uncannily smooth stone, without braces or buttressing. Heedless of danger, Sarec throws the door open. “Careful there!” warns Bix. The door opens onto a hallway, 15' wide and 20' high. It leads into the darkness, past the light from his torch. The group jostles into some kind of marching order and then advances, soon reaching a four-way intersection. First they head right, quickly entering a very large chamber that opens up in all directions. Its floor is tiled in 8' squares of marble, many cracked and broken. Two great rows of pillars runs down the sides of the chamber, carved and painted to resemble great pillars made of coins, gems and other treasure. “I like the décor,” comments Jahsiven.On the other side, nearly 100' from the entrance, another wide hallway, this one a full thirty feet in width and braced by two more rows of similarly-decorated pillars, leads out.“The pillars make me hopeful,” says Hungus. “Does this look familiar to you?” mutters Mad Max. As they head down the hallway, a flight of stirges suddenly bursts into action from where it was roosting on the ceiling. The hungry little beasts swarm over the party.“Gah! I hate these things!” shouts Hungus. He rushes forward, away from them, and stumbled out onto the beach fronting an underground river. The bones of Vicious Toby have almost been completely stripped of their flesh; several giant crabs are feasting, but now, drawn by Hungus' movement, they engage the party from the other side. The party falls back with Hungus, and Morsado creates a cloud of daggers behind them, chopping several stirges into bits. Once there is a barrier preventing the party from being attacked by everything at once, it only takes a moment for them to gain the advantage. The crabs are crushed beneath the weapons of Sarec, Mad Max, and Hungus, and Rorin's arrows and Morsado's spell soon dispose of the stirges. “Well done,” says Hungus. “Hey, does this look familiar? Have we maybe been here before?”Rorin kneels down above one of the crabs, drawing his dagger.“Really?” Hungus rolls his eyes. “Are you going to do the stirges, too?”“You never know what you'll find,” retorts Rorin.“What's he doing?” asks Jahsiven.“This,” sighs Bix, “is why they call him the Butcher of Fandelose.”***Moving further in, past the shallow river and into the network of caves on the other side, the party almost immediately runs into a massive group of little hairy gibbering creatures- humanoids, but behaving animalistically, swarming over each other and snapping almost mindlessly with their teeth.“I think I remember these guys,” Hungus exclaims, as the tide washes over the party. The gibberlings are easily dispatched individually; but the first group of them the party encounters numbers 17. That alone presents a problem. Fortunately, Morsado utilizes his cloud of daggers again, whittling the enemy numbers down, while the others put up a staunch offense that lays the foe low very quickly. Still, they suffer a few cuts and bruises from the fight. But as they continue to explore the network of natural caves, they find more and more groups of gibberlings- some numbering only a half dozen, but others substantially greater. They find a mass of the monsters swarming hungrily over the corpse of a triceratops. The great numbers involve find the party pressed to the limit; only the fact that Bix, Hungus, Morsado, Jahsiven, and Rorin all have some healing magic allows them to keep going after that battle. And that's when they come into the vast chamber filled with gibberlings. If they thought the last battle pushed them to their limits, this one is even worse. Only the fact that the chamber the battle takes place in is huge, meaning many of the gibberlings need a few rounds to join the fight, prevents numbers from turning the tide in their favor. When the fight is finally over and they count the corpses, they find that they have slain 36 gibberlings. “All right!” exclaims Mad Max. “Did you guys see that? We're bad ass! We're not to be trifled with!”“I'm just glad that I lived through that,” Bix gasps. “Are you kidding? We destroyed those guys!”“But,” Rorin says, “it could have gone either way.”“Hey!” calls Morsado from one end of the cave. “Come look over here!”It turns out that Morsado has discovered a large shaft leading straight down. The air coming up from it stinks, and the sides of the shaft are filthy and streaked with dung. It's too sheer to climb.“Well, that's interesting,” remarks Rorin. He tosses a torch down the shaft. It lands about 50' below. Rorin can see that there's an open space at the bottom. “Looks like it drops into a room.” A gnoll darts into view, grabs up the torch, and darts back out of view. Then the torch's light goes out. “There are gnolls down there,” the ranger continues. “Maybe we should come back to this later,” suggests Jahsiven. “Do we really want to go any further down? We don't really know how far down we are as it is.”“That's a good point,” says Bix.“That is a good point,” Hungus agrees.“Aw, come on, you guys,” Mad Max wheedles.Sarec looks hopeful. “Let's finish checking out this level first,” Morsado says. “We can always come back- this shaft isn't going anywhere.”Mad Max and Sarec reluctantly agree. The group continues exploring the caverns around the river, exterminating several smaller groups of gibberlings as they go. Most of the areas are largely unremarkable, and there is a notable dearth of treasure. Then they find a weird idol. Suggestive of a humanoid frog, it is streaked, multicolored. It appears to be a type of stone distinct from that of the cavern around it.“That's weird,” says Mad Max. “Kind of creepy. I don't think I like it.”Sarec nods. “I agree.”Mad Max puts his hands on the altar and tries to push it over without success. But then he steps away from it. “I feel funny,” he says. “Is... what's happening?”The others stare dumbfounded. “Ow! It itches! It...” Mad Max scrabbles at his breeches. There is something swelling beneath them. Bix covers his eyes. “Is that his-” Then the swelling grows immensely, ripping free of his pants in an explosion of cloth.Mad Max has just grown a third leg. Next Time: A fateful day for Mad Max!</blockquote>

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