[D&D 5e] The Wild Bunch in Galyria

[Jeremy]

3/5/22​

Veldra’s echo manifests and opens the door wider to the chamber only to be snapped up by tentacles from the monster and destroyed. However as it moves, it is revealed that the mass seems to be chained to the center of the room and can only reach so far. Spells and attacks from polearms at reach bleed the beast until it has no fight left in it. Rho got a little banged up and Grath chastises him for getting too close as there was no need to approach the chained monster. Veldra searches through the monster’s treasure but ends up getting a face full of mushroom spores.

One of the chests contains another journal of Alexander who as his paranoia accelerates has taken to disguising his musings in a scratched form of draconic. He describes people coming for him and him slaying them in some kind of mausoleum trap and starts describing a ritual to extend his life unnaturally.

There is a large room with blue, red, and green crystals and banners with three dragon heads that Rho identifies as a blue dragon, red dragon, and green dragon. The banners are well secured to the wall. Rho checks behind the red dragon banner but finds nothing but wall behind it. Gribitz notices there are some foul markings around the floor of each of the crystals. Grath puts together to use the elements of the breath weapons of each of the crystals. Gribitz mixes up a toxic concoction assembled from rotten meat and questionable mushrooms and dumps it on the green crystal which lights up. After that he throws a bit of fire at the red one that also lights up. Finally he moves around the room scuffing his feet building up a charge and zaps Grath in such a way the arc of static electricity crosses the blue crystal. Whether it was precisely necessary to shock Grath is unclear but the giggling would suggest not.

The doors open but draconic whispers beckon Grath and Rho and Kith to set them free. They claim to be mighty dragons, trapped in the crystals. However they speak in draconic so Veldra and Gribitz can’t understand and head off to search for more clues and treasures. They find an old rusted safe with a coin slot in the front, but Gribitz sets to work taking the safe apart as it is so decrepit that much of its security has rusted away. A bit of magic fades from it once he finally gets the hinges off.

Meanwhile, Grath notices Rho is particularly reticent about dealing with the green crystal. He points out that chromatic dragons don’t work together unless forced. The dragons report they have been imprisoned for multiple centuries. While Rho is questioning them about their age prior to imprisonment they reveal that they were slain in their youth.

Rho picks up the blue crystal and smashes it. A disembodied voice celebrates its freedom but when the blue crystal shatters, a spectral red dragon appears, shackled, and apologizes as if it is not in control of what is about to happen. Grath moves to smash the red crystal quickly prompting the chains of the red dragon to swarm around the crystal defensively. Encouraged he is on the right track, Grath summons spiritual power to swing at it further, cracking its surface beyond the protective chains though not shattering it outright.

Meanwhile Rho moves to occupy the spirit, taunting it. Some of the remaining pixies try to distract it, summoning up phantasms of necromancer spirits chaining the dragon further driving it into a frenzy. It strafes the room with fire and catching Kith full on in the blast who falls, charred and blistered, and dying to the ground.

Veldra’s kneels over the kobold and her hands glow with healing magic with the after image of celestial wings appearing behind her. Kith's burnt flesh scars and she sucks a shaky breath back into her scorched lungs. Her eyes flutter open and look around. Grath moves with urgency and finishes off the red crystal, releasing the red dragon but also causing the spectral green dragon to take form. It seems not at all conflicted about the destruction it is compelled to unleash on the party.

Rho calls out a warning and slides under the green apparition and charges past, shattering the remaining crystal before the green spirit has a chance to spew its poison into the chamber. Rho collects shards from the crystal prisons and takes down the draconic banners.

In the next room is a library with a hungry mimic that demands food. Rho feeds it and in return it offers insight into the surroundings. Talking about the various adventurers, goblins, and duergar or derro that have come through. Grath goes through the library pulling out various historical tomes, reference documents, and even a treatise on building labyrinths. He also finds a backup spellbook, possibly of Alexander.

Further on they find an animated broom that starts sweeping and a bit later they find the matching bucket that collects the broom's detritus before feeding the remains into mimics. After a while the party tires and heads back to the myconid colony to rest up. In the morning the orb of fates annoys Grath until he smashes it to Laz and Gribitz's cheers.

Later the party sets out again, encountering another gazer babbling about Ocelot, Gribitz immediately blasts the mad abberation against the Green with fire. Unlike the previous floating aberrations, this one survives the first attack and begins to spin around to react but it is too slow and the others finish it off. There are some more treasures added to the bag of holding as well as secret tunnels before Veldra opens a heavily runed chamber.

There is a talking pillar in the room that summons cards from thin air. Gribitz asks it about talking to Alexander. It wants to play poker. Gribitz makes an absolute mess of it, not understanding any of the rules. He flips between Go Fish, Poker, Blackjack, and Uno before declaring himself the winner. The pillar affably agrees with the nonsensical rules of the goblin and gives Gribitz his random prize: 16 fish.

 

[Jeremy]

3/12/22​

For as blithe as Gribitz is, Grath is extremely troubled by the pillar. When he touches it, the pillar giggles which creeps the priest out even more causing him to try to leave the room. But all the doors beyond are just endless darkness now and the pillar still refuses to let us go or give us its name.

When the party asks about Alexander, the pillar answers that he is much beyond Alexander. When Gribitz cooks up the fish and offers some, the proffered meal starts to slowly disappear as if an invisible creature is eating it. Next the pillar challenges Grath to a game with figures and monsters and replicas of the party. When the priest reluctantly agrees, the party is summoned to an open field seemingly outside where a group of knights are arrayed against another group of ogres and orcs. Veldra is shocked to see one of the soldiers is her old commanding officer. Her heartbeat races and breathing becomes frantic as one by one she looks around and sees the faces of her former unit. While she knows they are all dead, here they are looking fresh and unharmed and looking to her for orders. She locks up, rigidly looking from one to the next and her hand drifts to her sword as a glut of emotions overwhelm her.

She calls them ghosts, refusing to believe. When Gribitz pokes one of them, they feel real. The plants underfoot taste like paper though and the soil doesn’t have any life in it. Grath and Veldra continue to investigate the soldiers as they ask for orders. Eventually it is decided to start attacking the enemy from range and hold the starting hill as the orcs and ogres approach.

As Grath begins to cast a spell a booming voice echoes from the sky commanding the battle to start. A moment later he tries again and this time it works as apparently each side can only take actions during their “turn”.

Both sides begin advancing and as manifestations fall, they dissolve into the ground. Gribitz offhandedly comments to Pillar that its hard to believe the game when the pieces fall so unconvincingly. The orcs have a shaman with a fireball attack that dramatically changes the tide of things as well as the plan. Rho breaks ranks to charge forth and endures a fusillade of javelins from orcs and ogres on his approach.

The knight side begins striking back as Grath and Veldra charge into the fray as well. Grath steps into the air and his healing power suffuses and strengthens our pieces enough to keep them up while the enemy leader is brought down by Rho and fades away. Eventually all the enemy forces fall and in reward Pillar awards two remaining beads of the Necklace of Fireballs the shaman had used. Veldra stands mute as the phantoms of her fallen comrades vanish as if they never were. Pillar states that any of the remaining doors will lead to the blue dwarves beyond which is the domain of Alexander.

Gribitz picks a hall and starts down it only to be welcomed into the warm embrace of a gelatinous cube. Grath rolls his eyes and hurries forward to plunge his arms into the cube to yank Gribitz’s dripping form free. Gribitz tries to hug his savior but the priest turns his nose up at the goblin dripping with acid. Gribitz shrugs before darting away to safety, only for Grath himself to be engulfed by the cube. The others charge to help and just as Grath struggles free, the animated ooze finally collapses. Gribitz collects a bit of it in some empty healing potion bottles figuring the acid could come in handy.

Grath finds another gazer muttering about how pretty Ocelot is. When Grath leaves it be, Gribitz insists that it is a blight upon the Green and needs to be eliminated. Grath obliges him, obliterating the abomination and spinning on his heel to walk down an extremely lengthy hallway. At the end of the very long hallway is a well maintained and upgraded door that Veldra says is dwarven work.

Surprisingly, Rho speaks Dwarvish and talks to a dwarven guard on the other side of it until a slot in the door opens (at Rho’s knees). The conversation appears to be progressing until the sentry notices a goblin standing behind Rho picking his nose. Upon seeing the dragon is allies with Gribitz the dwarf abruptly cuts off the conversation and slams the blind closed, telling us to naughty word off.

Grath sighs and knocks again insistently, he tries to convince the dwarves to speak Common to him. Grath asks about an exit or Alexander and the dwarves are surprised to hear some of the history of this labyrinth and begin opening the mechanisms on the door as Grath has gathered a trove of knowledge about the tower during the party's time trapped there. The dwarves invite him to see their chieftain but command us to relinquish our weapons and speak with respect. Gribitz bursts out laughing until Grath and Rho both clamp his mouth shut and Rho stuffs the goblin in his backpack alongside the sleeping Kith.

 

[Jeremy]

3/26/22​

The floor and walls of the duergar portion are clean, decorated, and reinforced. It is a shocking difference from the rest of the underground complex. The dwarves have amassed tools, weapons, food, and treasure in their area. There is an enormous collapsed tunnel to the west. Grath steps forward in greeting past the initial two guards.

The duergar have an obvious leader who is bedecked and armored. He gestures to the end of a table for the party to sit. Grath is diplomatic and formal. Veldra and Rho are silent. The duergar’s eyes are narrowed with suspicion that Veldra returns in kind. The leader however is strangely apathetic. The leader introduces himself with some dwarven name that is more consonants and apostrophes than any distinguishable sound. He requests more information about the complex that the party has discovered.

The information he wants in particular is that of Alexander, the founder of this complex. Grath volunteers that he has found several of his journals. The dwarf offers a possible escape and a guide in return for a tribute of an interesting or powerful item. Grath sizes him up at first thinking weapons might work but given the ornamentation and scholarly bent of the dwarf reasons that trinkets of interesting properties might be more effective. Grath thinks about the orb but regrets having smashed it earlier. He goes digging through the bag of holding.

Grath offers a wizard’s spellbook, a magic blue book of riddles, and a magic platinum coin. The duergar wants to know what they do but Grath admits we have no idea. The duergar is pleased with both the spellbook and the riddle book. Accepting this, he reveals that there is a large central chamber with a confused creature with many eyes and an enormous locked door. After that he summons up a guide from further into their chambers. When Grath describes Clorox the duergar king raises a hand and shakes his head revealing the creature he speaks of had only four eye stalks and an enormous central eye which differs considerably from Clorox’s configuration.

As the party is dismissed Gribitz tries to steal a snack but is caught by an extremely alert duergar who yanks him out of Rho’s backpack. Things turn hostile and Grath tries to command them to let Gribitz go. Rho stares down at the dwarf that has Gribitz like a pull-toy between them. In return the dwarf grows and grows and grows until he towers over Rho and looks down on him.

Grath again tries to be diplomatic, calling to mind that an agreement was reached. The duergar is honorbound to follow it. He motions and the dwarf shrinks in size and relinquishes Gribitz to a small smirk by Rho. The party is escorted out the back of the chamber through a dwarven hall filled with banners and stories. The party is led through various doors and hallways, the duergar gets more nervous as he approaches the main chamber and is reluctant to continue any further.

Magical terror tries to overcome Grath as he reaches for the door but his desperation to get out of this dungeon or die trying mutes the fear as inconsequential. Beyond is a decaying chamber with many entrances and one enormous twenty foot door in the back. As promised there is a floating beholder of some kind conversing with a smaller adoring gazer. There are other small eye orbs floating about the room. Grath takes a steadying breath and strides into the room drawing multiple eye stalks from about the room.

The main creature grins a toothy grin and is excited to have visitors. Grath asks if the creature is Alexander. The insane aberration changes demeanor erratically at the name and devours the gazer nearest it. The creature proclaims it is no longer a slave to Alexander and that all of this is now its sole domain. Grath asks for an exit, the creature suggests we turn on each other and slay one another to escape in spirit, he offers to assist. Grath declines and throws a bead of Fireball at the monsters and immediately vanishes from sight, turning invisible.

Rho charges out from behind a pillar and charges the spectator. It floats out of reach of his first swing taunting the dragonborn only to be interrupted by the backswing of his maul clocking it across the jaw. The pillars in the room start to spin and one of them electrocutes Rho with a bolt of lightning.

Fozzie and the Bearoness are summoned forth and begin attacking the various abominations while Gribitz cowers and hides from the aberrations. Veldra charges forth, slashing another gazer out of the air as her form splits in two and her echo slashes at the spectator. From out of thin air a massive Guiding Bolt slams into the spectator, it is visibly rocked as its various eyes spin around searching for the invisible Grath.

The spectator vanishes and reappears about the chamber but Rho continually chases it down. His thunderous blows shake the chamber and the rotting roof begins to cave in. Finally, one of the magical eye rays of the creature takes hold on Rho and he freezes in place. The spectator cackles madly to itself, ichor dripping from all of its rents and gashes and one of its eye stalks hanging limply. It moves its floating maw over top of Rho then freezes in place itself, Veldra’s sword bursts forth through the large central eye from behind.

The bloated and beaten form of the spectator almost deflates as the remainder of liquid runs out of it on the floor and its whole body slurps and slumps to the floor. Pillar begins cackling about our victory again before his voice and the runes on the pillars fade away to nothing. A key appears and descends in the center of the chamber, Grath grabs it and picks Gribitz up, putting him on his shoulder and opens the enormous door.

On the other side of the door are 8 large magical vases and a magical chest. Laz solemnly asks that he be burned. Gribitz hardly waits an instant before gleefully throwing fire multiple times before anyone else can form a thought or protest. As the sentient spellbook burns away to ashes, there is a knocking sound from one of the vases and an old humanoid falls out of one weakly and dripping with goo. Alexander Lazandrias III feebly makes his way to the chest and dons some rich purple robes from it, takes up a green crystal staff, and finally dons a large purple and gold wizard’s hat. His shoulders settle back into place and his back straightens somewhat before he turns to face his new/old friends.

Grath bursts into tears and embraces the old wizard and begs to be released from his dungeon. Alexander smiles through his white lustrous beard and gestures, opening a portal to the outside. Gribitz launches himself through and immediately entombs himself in the ground, surrounding himself in the Green once more. Grath returns Alexander’s journals and asks the wizard some of what he remembers. Gribitz chastises him for summoning up all manner of aberrations against the Green trying to extend his life. Alexander explains that this form is one of his contingency Clones he created. He wants to go traveling the planes trying to find wherever he blasted his tower off to as he gestures ruefully to the nearby ruined foundations the party had first delved into what seems like weeks ago.

The party has only been in his tomb of horrors for four days. They tiredly make their goodbyes to the now re-personified Laz and trudge back to Honeywood. Gribitz turns into a hare and hops around enjoying being back in nature. Thromshfulsk sees the party coming into town and greets us excitedly to see what bounty of ichors we’ve returned with, but Grath is incredibly done and tells him to find us tomorrow, reiterating it with a magical shout when the tiefling tries to question us further.

The party recuperates and recovers and drinks and eats at Kruk’s tavern. There isn’t a lot of physical exhaustion or injuries to recover from but the mental toll is eased by ale and meat and chocolate. Veldra’s headaches don’t really ease but she dismisses it, she had actually been drained of intelligence by some of the aberrations of the wizard's lair but didn't fully comprehend what had happened and no one else had seen it happen. The next morning Rho brings up the next side track to keep him from visiting the dragonborn tribes, that of Grath’s holy relic but Grath cuts right through that emphasizing that Rho can’t run from his past forever.

Grath is much more complacent towards Thromshfulsk in the morning and relays the success of our mission. The remainder of our pay is collected and the party sets out to the east riding out while Grath immerses himself studying his tome. So immersed that he doesn't notice the wagon going east towards his relic rather than south towards Rho's clan.

 

[Jeremy]

4/2/22​

During the journey Grath pauses in his study of the tome Alexander had bestowed upon him and instead ponders a skull Gribitz had deposited in the bag of holding. It had belonged to one of the adventurers that had fallen in their exploration of the dangers beneath Alexander's tower. Thinking he can perhaps provide closure to the loved ones of this adventurer he summons back the memory of the departed spirit to the skull. He questions it and learns about the deaths of some of the treasure seekers who met their end at the hands of any number of terrible traps and creatures within. One of the adventurers was a knight of a southern order that Grath asks Rho about. Rho doesn’t recognize the order but he’s heard the name before, he thinks they might be in a village in the Sandlands.

Rho is unnerved a little by the whole conversation, Gribitz is absolutely terrified that after spending a few days immersed in a book (Gribitz's frequently warned about nightmare) suddenly the priest is displaying mastery over the dead and forcing them to answer his questions. Grath tries to reassure the goblin and the two have a brief interchange about the nature of life after death that one participant may or may not comprehend. The wagon rolls on uneventfully and the party camps once more in one of Grath’s magical sanctuaries. Gribitz converses inanely with various birds and scampering critters aroudn the chosen campgrounds as well as a few plants with Stick’s help. Some old trees share ancient wisdom that is utterly wasted on the small goblin mind.

The next day the party comes up on a very obvious ambush, a murdered horse and looted cart shattered on the road to block the way. Rho even spots one of the hobgoblins lying in wait before they spring their trap. Grath attempts diplomacy. Unnatural twilight forms and swirls around him and he lifts ominously into the air, the semi-darkness following him, as he calls out that this doesn’t need to come to death. Whatever reassurances he had offered Gribitz the previous day about how the tome of "wisdom" wasn't affecting him is immediatley called into doubtin the goblin's mind.

At a gesture several of the hobgoblins making up the ambush reconsider and lower their bows. A spellcaster emerges and speaks for them, negotiating the terms of a truce. Minutes go by and the twilight fades from around Grath, his form descending once more to the earth. The hobgoblin arcanist speaks as if he believes he is negotiating from a position of power but Rho is limbering up his shoulders even as Grath is inquiring what manner of toll would allow the party to pass without bloodshed. Gribitz has climbed under the wagon and is performing a ritual that makes little faerie mushrooms spring up in a circle around him that burst into tiny invisible pixies.

Grath makes several offers but the hobgoblins continually demand more. Negotiations break down as Grath comes to realize that this is going to come to blows regardless. He sighs and offers them instead a bead from his Necklace of Fireballs that he throws directly at the spellcaster.

Who is only 15 feet away from the cart.

The party's Awakened horse and friend, Yip, as well as several of the summoned faeries are instantly annihilated in arcane fire and as the forest itself is set ablaze in the nearly point blank explosion. Grath is unprepared for the waves of fire followed immediately by waves of guilt that explode over him. Rho shrugs off the heat and hops off the cart striding directly into the blaze. He climbs up a rocky shelf the hobgoblins had perched on before slamming into the front of the spellcaster’s ranks. Grath summons up an immense amount of necromantic energy to inflict boils and sores on a hobgoblin only to have the singed hobgoblin arcanist Counterspell his magic.

Several pops of pink and purple light flash about many of the hobgoblins, Confusing them. Taken as a whole, the hobgoblins are well trained and equipped and are skilled fighters. Rho and Veldra fight hard into their midst with blows and arrows raining down on them. Grath is distracted by his guilt and his guard isn’t what it could be, he is rapidly slashed and stabbed and slides to the ground gripping his wounds as his blood seeps forth.

Veldra interposes herself and while warily eying the soldiers. She manages to reach a glowing hand out to Grath clearing his mind and slowing his bleeding. She continues fighting even as a dusting of faerie magic settles onto Grath and his form swells immensely, growing hairier and taking on a terrifying visage Grath takes on the enormous form of the Spirit of the Jungle. One of the injured hobgoblins drops his weapons and flees in terror at the sight.

Another one steels itself and ducks and weaves as it approaches and slashes upwards at the 20' tall towering Spirit. Some of the others are still Confused but others are forming up and pressing Veldra and Rhoseth dearly. The Spirit of the Jungle smashes the ever loving naughty word out the hobgoblin that had the gall to engage it.

Gribitz reaches deep into his bag of tricks, throwing everything he can at the hobgoblin detachment causing masses of vines and thorns and roots to rip forth from the ground and try to bind and hold the soldiers. And more powerfully, Stick calls out to the Green and causes many of the tangled roots and vines to swell to a massive size spouting thorns like swords that impale many of the hobgoblins.

Rho seizes the opportunity to tear through their ranks, mangling their bodies with his massive maul. The more their numbers fail, the more hobgoblins break from the fight and flee, leaving their battle brothers to their fate.

As the last one flees (under rain of boulders from the Spirit of Jungle) the party gathers back together, assessing. The Spirit leaves Grath and his form shrinks to the bloodied and bruised man who seems so small by comparison. His eyes are haunted as he makes his way to Yip’s blasted corpse. He pulls out an unbelievably intricate and expensive scroll with dense incantations inscribed on it. Minutes turn into an hour as Grath passionately prays over the scorched bones of our Awakened horse paying careful detail to every ritual prescribed in the incredibly complex liturgy. Though it is beyond his current grasp of divine magic, his passionate pleas are heard and Ilmater restores a form and body as well as the soul of Yip once more to mortal life.

Grath is a wreck. He is exhausted and lost in despair, and he sobs about having failed again while Gribitz, Rho, and Veldra make heartfelt if clumsy attempts to console him. Even Kith tries, even more cluelessly. She offers some of her treasured shinies to make Grath happy.

Gribitz tries talking things through with the confused Yip for a bit asking about what it was like and is reassured that this summoned from the dead by the book-tainted master necromancer, Grath, is indeed still the affable and congenial friend that has accompanied the party for so long.

Rho sets about clearing the wreckage from the trail, Gribitz whispers to the earth to part and bury the remains of the previous cart's horse. They follow the clues back to the hobgoblin encampment to find it abandoned. The party picks through the hobgoblin tents as well as among the fallen at the ambush collecting a few valuables. There is time spent making sure the fires are out in the woods, coaxing burned plants back to life, and putting the grounds back to right with druidic magic.

A full moon rises that night after the long day's work. Gribitz continually checks in on Grath bringing him soups, a particularly nice pine cone he found, and trying to draw Grath out of his inner conflict. He is not successful. Rho is also pensive, staring up to the full moon. In the morning, the party sets out once more towards the east.

After another day, the party comes across another obstruction in the road, this one due to a tree fallen by lightning. Gribitz scouts about as a deer to find a detour around it. While he’s gone a gnome approaches the rest of the party. Rho waits on Veldra or Grath to speak to the bearded fellow, however neither does anything, as they are both lost in their own thoughts while Kith is asleep. Rho curses and tries to choke out ‘Hello?’ which he immediately regrets as the gnome streams out greetings, offers, and conversation at a pace the taciturn dragonborn is unable to match.

Rho’s eye twitches as the gnome just keeps rapid-fire talking incessantly, with the dragonborn barely getting a word in edgewise here and there and not really able to keep up with the rapidly changing train of thought of the gnome. Grath rouses from his contemplation long enough to demand the gnome state his business or begone. The gnome even gets all the way to a farewell when Rho was almost through a question but that just rekindles the gnomes interest. Rho returns to silence, having completely given up on finding any meaning in the verbal onslaught and just hoping the burns itself out in time.

Multitudes of tangents and seemingly unimportant anecdotes pour from the gnome until the gnome eventually gets around to another farewell leaving the exhausted Rho to slump in relief. When Gribitz returns from scouting he checks on Rho to make sure he’s not enchanted, warns him not to give his name to fey creatures, then helps the party along the detour to continue onto the village marked on Grath’s map where the holy relic the bishop had told him about is enshrined.

When they eventually arrive, the village is abandoned and fallen to ruin with a small hill and a crumbling church. Gribitz gets a terrible vibe from it, it seems to be leeching the life from the Green around it. Nothing lives the closer you get to the ruins of the church. Grath can’t make out any standing iconography or architecture that would identify the deity the temple was dedicated to. Grath gets the feeling the temple has been defiled or desecrated somehow. Gribitz mutters under his breath that it was probably books that caused this.

Grath annoints his eyes and peers into the ethereal of the village and spots ghostly wraiths drifting through the ruins. Gribitz talks to a crow that states the town is cursed and the dead walk it. The party cautiously enters the ruins. There are zombies shuffling around the entrance of the church, growling and gnashing. Gribitz takes this as confirmation that someone has been reading books again.