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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9813997" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 10: DOWN IN THE MOUTHPC Roster:Adrielle, human/merfolk scout 2                     Brendan Conaill, human monk 2                     Kruz Taszan, changeling rogue 2                     Shiroko, snow fox hengeyokai wu jen 2NPC Roster:Hoppy, mongrelfolk adept 2Game Session Date: 22 November 2025 - - -With a touch of her hand upon the amulet of Kessaia and a mental command, Adrielle, who had been walking into the midnight surf from a sandy beach along Port Duralia's waterfront, sent her human body into stasis inside the amulet and instantaneously placed her mind inside the body that was released at the same time: her original body, that of a mermaid born far below the ocean's surface.  Swimming through the water with powerful strokes from her fishlike tail, she headed for the coral cluster the members of her tribe had designated as their monthly meeting place.There were four other mermaids waiting there for her: three warriors, and the samurai leader of the small pack, Talabassa.  Adrielle swam up to them and they exchanged their greetings, before they got down to the business at hand: Adrielle's monthly briefing on her life among the surface-dwellers.  She went over the events of the previous month, and what all she had accomplished in the human body she wore, the captured victim of a sahuagin raid upon the people of Port Duralia whose heart had given out before the sea devils had a chance to make her one of their sacrifices to the Sea-God, Galrich.But once she had finished with her tales, Talabassa had some information to pass on her way as well.  "Yesterday, a deep aboleth rose up from the far lower depths in search of new slaves," she explained.  "The great triton warrior, Darbuka, fought him in battle and was swallowed whole – but managed to slay the great beast from within before presumably succumbing to the deep aboleth's stomach acids.  The massive sea-beast now lies upon the ocean floor where it died, and a group of anguillians – eel-men from the lower depths – stand guard around it.  They claim they have seen in their prophecies the next wielder of Darbuka's mighty weapon, Galrich's fang, is – and I quote here – 'she who hath both two legs and none at all.'  They won't let any but the weapon's next wielder inside the dead aboleth to fetch it, and based on the prophecy's wording, it can only be referring to you, Adrielle!""That...certainly sounds like it's referring to me," admitted Adrielle.  "What do you think?  Should I go fetch it?""Absolutely!" agreed Talabassa at once.  "It's a powerful weapon, said to be able to change between multiple forms, just like you do!""Do you think I could bring along my surface-dweller friends?  There are four of them.""I don't see why not.  Are they available?""I'm sure they're all sleeping by now.  One of them - Shiroko, a spellcaster - would need to wait until tomorrow morning before she had her full collection of spells at the ready.  Do you think it would be all right if I waited until then?""If you're truly the next prophesied wielder of Galrich's fang, it will surely wait until you come for it," suggested one of the mermaid warriors.  Adrielle agreed with her logic, said her farewells, and promised to return the next morning with her four friends, so they could imbue the land-dwellers with temporary water breathing abilities and lead them to the location where the deep aboleth's corpse could be found."We'll bring giant sea horses for your companions," agreed Talabassa.  "Until morning, then!"The next morning, the five assembled on the beach after Adrielle had apprised the others of what Talabassa had told her.  As they watched, the four mermaids popped their heads up out of the water, waiting for the others to join them."Hang on," Brendan said, as he unstoppered a vial of antitoxin and drank it down."What's that for?" asked Adrielle.  "Do you expect to run into poisonous creatures?""You never know," replied the monk.  "Drinking down antitoxin probably saved my life when we were up against those meenlocks."  The scout had heard that argument before, and while she couldn't refute it, it seemed to her he was simply being over-cautious."Come on," she said, stepping into the ocean waves and activating her amulet, which converted her into the mermaid body into which she'd been born.  The others stepped into the surf and headed for the mermaids, who were waiting to give them the kiss of breath which would allow them to breathe underwater for a time.  Brendan pulled his skull mask over his face to grant him darkvision and Shiroko drank down a quick potion of mage armor, then joined the others."Ugh," muttered one of the mermaid warriors when she saw Hoppy wading out with the others.  "Did you have to bring him along?""He's our healer," Adrielle informed her.  "Don't worry - I'll get him."  And when Hoppy was waist-deep in the ocean, she swam up to him and planted a kiss on his mismatched lips: bugbear and bullywug on top, lizardfolk below.  The other three heroes each received a mermaid kiss as well, but it's unlikely either of them appreciated it as much as the mongrelfolk adept did.Adrielle had brought a potion of barkskin with her - she'd pre-positioned it with her mermaid body in the amulet of Kessaia so it would be ready for her this morning - and drank it down.  Then, stashing the empty vial in a pouch at her side, she gestured for the other mermaids to bring the giant sea horses forward.  The other heroes each swam into position and the group was off, swimming after the mermaid samurai Talabassa, who took the lead.For Adrielle, this was a welcome return to the world she knew so much better than the surface world of Port Duralia.  To the others, sitting astride their giant sea horse mounts, this was an experience like no other, although they'd each gotten to ride from the sunken vessel the sahuagin had brought them to after rounding them up for sacrifice back to the shores of Port Duralia, back when they'd each first met up with each other.  But it was after about thirty minutes of undersea travel, during which time they went deeper and deeper into the ocean, that Talabassa pointed above her and raised a warning: "Orca!"Fortunately, there was just the one killer whale, off hunting solo instead of staying with a pack of its own kind.  But it was apparently hungry, for it diverted its underwater path to head straight for the assembled group.  The mermaid warriors raised their spears defensively, and the land-dwellers among the group readied their own weapons, although Kruz was well aware his light crossbow wouldn't have near the same range it would were he still above water.  But the orca kicked with its powerful tail flukes and dashed forward, ducking beneath one of the lead mermaid's spear-tip and biting up at her, catching her at the waist.  Blood pooled around her instantly as she dropped her weapon and collapsed forward, driven into immediate unconsciousness from the power of the orca's bite.Kruz urged his giant sea horse forward, waiting until they were nearly adjacent to the orca before he released his crossbow bolt, which, unfortunately, hit only a glancing blow and was diverted from the killer whale's shiny pelt, to drop down to the unseen ocean floor below.  But Brendan had gotten his own aquatic mount to charge the orca on the other side of Kruz, and he managed to stab at it with the tip of his quarterstaff.  It was like driving his weapon into a wall, but he at least pierced the killer whale's skin with his blow.Shiroko cast an animate water spell and used a wu jen trick to extend the duration of the spell to twice as long as normal.  The water by the orca's head twisted and took on a vaguely humanoid shape, slamming a watery fist into the side of the great beast's head, for what it was worth.  Then Adrielle charged beneath it, stabbing up it with her trident, cutting three gashes in its black-and-white belly.Hoppy urged his giant sea horse forward, but not to attack the orca; instead, he reached out and cast a cure light wounds spell on the bleeding mermaid.  It wasn't enough to raise her to consciousness, but it was at least enough healing to close up the horrific wounds she'd taken from the orca's sharp-toothed bite.  The other two mermaid warriors grabbed their sister by the arms, swimming with her to the relative safety of "out of immediate reach."Talabassa swam up to the orca and slashed out at it with her katana, ripping a gash above its upper lip.  Unfortunately, that brought the fearless samurai directly in front of the great beast's face, and it made her the most likely next target for the hungry orca's appetite.  Opening its maw of razor-sharp teeth, it swam forward and nearly bit Talabassa's body in half, and this time, it kept its mouth clamped shut on its meal and darted away, seeking to outswim the others.  Hoppy gasped in surprise, but he could see the life drain out of the mermaid's eyes - there was no way a cure light wounds spell would do anything for the brave mermaid, as she was quite obviously already dead.  Kruz fired off another crossbow bolt at it just the same, and this one managed to pierce its flesh, just as Brendan slammed it with his staff and Adrielle stabbed it again with her trident.  Shiroko pelted it from above with a hail of stone spell, but by that time the orca was fading rapidly into the distance, swimming much faster than the others could pursue.Hoppy had returned his attention to the wounded mermaid warrior, and another cure light wounds spell brought her eyes flickering back to wakefulness.  "It's all right," another warrior reassured the land-dwellers.  "Talabassa's spirit has returned to the Great Ocean, where she will be reborn.  Such is the circle of life and death.""Let us continue on our way," suggested another of the warriors.  "I will lead, if you will follow me."  Unable to do anything further, the group continued on their way.  But as they swam deeper into the ocean, the heroes could hear the mermaids muttering to themselves about how this was a bad omen, for Galrich was said to take on aspects of the orca when he appeared in the waters of the world.Eventually, a large shape appeared on the floor of the ocean bed just ahead.  This looked to be the body of an enormous catfish, but as they approached, the group could see that although it had the traditional catfish whiskers growing from either side of its muzzle, it also had a group of four tentacles growing out of the sides of its body, and the traditional three, oblong eyes - situated one above the other - indicated this was the deep aboleth Talabassa had told Adrielle about.  Adrielle had never seen an aboleth the size of this monster; aboleths, she knew, usually grew to be about 20 feet long; this one was easily four times that long.  The mermaids swam around to the front of the deep aboleth's corpse, allowing them to see the seven anguillians stationed in a rough circle around it, with the largest of the eel-men taking up point near the aboleth's head.At the mermaids' urging, the group settled to the ocean floor a good 40 feet from the aboleth's head, and then Adrielle swam up to the anguillian leader, her four land-dwelling companions walking across the ocean floor in her wake while the mermaid warriors and giant sea horses kept their distance.  "I am Glipper, high cleric of Galrich, God of the Seas," announced the eel-man.  "None may enter the corpse of the deep aboleth save the prophesied next wielder of Galrich's fang.""I," announced Adrielle, "am she whom you seek."  And with a mental activation of her amulet of Kessaia, she transformed from her mermaid body to that of the female human, standing underwater and holding her breath (for as a human, Adrielle was subject to human limitations, and they hadn't thought to provide Adrielle's human form with temporary water breathing).  But a moment as "she who hath two legs" was all it took to convince that she - as she returned to her mermaid body, "she who hath no legs at all" - was indeed the one intended to next wield the slain triton's weapon."You may pass," announced Glipper."I will bring my companions along with me," Adrielle told the cleric."If that is your wish."The dead aboleth had landed upon the ocean floor on its stomach, so its tri-part mouth was beneath its head, requiring Adrielle to dig into the sand floor and carve out a tunnel to its mouth, before she could pry open the triple-hinged jaws and enter the dead beast's mouth.  Once inside, and seeing it was pitch black inside the aboleth's mouth, she transitioned back to her human body just long enough to fish out a sunrod from her backpack, drop it, and revert back to mermaid form.  Then, activating the sunrod so she could see, she wedged the light source behind a strap to her armor and held her trident in both hands, advancing further down the creature's gullet.  Behind her, Shiroko followed, casting a dancing lights spell that sent whirling, luminescent orbs circling above her head.Ahead of Adrielle, a crab scuttled forward into the circle of illumination provided by her sunrod.  The crab was a good two feet across, and had its pincers raised in an attack position as it advanced upon the mermaid scout.  In the tight quarters of the aboleth's esophagus, she had no room to swim out of reach above it, so she stabbed forward with the tines of her trident, piercing it through its dorsal shell.  Then Brendan, who had entered the aboleth's mouth after Shiroko and squeezed past her as she was involved in her spellcasting, stabbed the tip of his quarterstaff past Adrielle and pushed it even deeper into one of the puncture marks she'd just made with her trident, and the crab died from internal bleeding as the tip of the quarterstaff went nearly all the way through its body.  Adrielle advanced, with Brendan and Shiroko behind her.  Hoppy entered next, with Kruz bringing up the rear to make sure nobody crept up on them from behind.The esophagus led to the creature's stomach before too long, and the extra room made it seem as if the group was now in a vast cavern, with a lot more room to maneuver.  However, they were not alone, for there were two more crabs the size of the one Adrielle and Brendan had just slain, another pair even larger than the first two, and a fifth standing up on its hind limbs at the back edge of the group's joint illumination.  A dead triton lay on the stomach floor beside the upright crab, but he had no weapon in hand, nor did the upright crab.  If Galrich's fang were indeed inside the aboleth's stomach, it was nowhere readily in sight.But the group didn't have time to worry about the fabled triton hero's weapon, for the crabman called out - in the Aquan language, which only Adrielle could understand of the land-dwelling group - "No!  You shall not feast upon the God-Flesh!  Kill them, my brethren!"  Apparently understanding the upright crab's words, the other crabs moved forward, claws open and menacing.Adrielle stabbed at the nearest crab, one whose shell had a diameter of nearly five feet, with her trident.  Shiroko cast another hail of stone spell, encompassing the crabman and one each of the differently-sized monstrous crabs.  Brendan stepped forward and made a flurry of blows maneuver on one of the smaller crabs, hitting it with both ends of his quarterstaff and cracking its shell open, causing it to bleed to death.  The other smaller crab scuttled up to the monk and snapped at him with its claws, but he stepped back out of its way in time.Hoppy, knowing full well his intended role in such combat situations, pulled his wand of cure light wounds and watched the battle unfold with his mismatched eyes, ready to leap forward and apply healing to whichever of his friends needed it.Kruz stepped forward, near enough to the crabman that he figured his light crossbow might still be able to propel a bolt into its shell, and fired; he was pleasantly surprised to see the bolt penetrate the crabman's shell.  Adrielle finished off the larger crab she'd attacked, then moved forward, trident ready to attack another foe.  Shiroko pulled out her wand of magic missiles and fired a shot at the crabman, causing it to hiss in pain.The two crabs scurried forward, one snapping its claws at Brendan and the other at Adrielle, but both of the heroes were able to avoid the attacks.  Then the crabman began casting a bear's endurance spell upon himself, granting him the next best thing to a healing spell and revealing himself as a druid in the process.Brendan leaped forward suddenly, leading with the point of his quarterstaff, and slew the larger crab before stepping back out of range of immediate attack by the smaller one.  Kruz reloaded his crossbow and fired another bolt at the crabman druid, while Adrielle stabbed at the sole remaining crab.  Shiroko finished the crab off with one of her lesser spells, a ray of frost, and then there was only the crabman druid to contend with."The God-Flesh is mine!" insisted the druid, rushing at Adrielle in his rage and catching her with his upper claws, the pair best suited for combat.  "I alone shall feast upon it, and gain the Deep God's power as my own!"Adrielle pulled away from the serrated embrace of the druid's claws, to find Hoppy behind her applying a charge of healing from his wand.  Then Kruz finished off the crabman with another crossbow bolt fired at nearly point-blank range, piercing the druid through his head.  He fell backwards, dead.Adrielle started grinning madly.  "What?" asked Shiroko, and the mermaid answered, "Look what I found!" as she swam upwards toward the "ceiling" of the aboleth's cavernous stomach.  There, embedded in a deep gash along the top of the stomach lining, was a three-pronged trident much like the one she used herself.  This, no doubt, was the dead triton's famed weapon, Galrich's fang.  Grasping it by the hilt, the mermaid tugged and pulled the weapon's tines from the top of the aboleth's ruined stomach, then swam back down to show it to her friends.  Information suddenly flooded her mind as the magic weapon imparted the knowledge to its new wielder to allow her to use it to its full capacity."Check this out!" said Adrielle, giving the weapon a shake.  The tines of the trident disappeared and the shaft lengthened, leaving the weapon in the form of a magic longspear.  Another shake transformed it into a shortspear, and another turned it into a sharp-tipped stiletto.  "In this form, I could wear it on my hip on the surface world without anyone thinking anything of it!"  She'd found out the trident was not a common weapon among the land-dwellers, and she'd gotten some strange looks carrying her favored weapon around the city of Port Duralia in her human body.  Then she changed it back through its forms, from stiletto to shortspear to longspear and back to a trident.Brendan went over to the dead triton and lifted him up to his shoulder, figuring it would be a goodwill gesture for the anguillians stationed outside, in case they had some sort of burial ritual for a slain hero.  He followed the others, who were trailing Adrielle back out through the dead aboleth's mouth."Praise be to Galrich!" exclaimed Glipper when he saw the mermaid holding Galrich's fang upon her return outside the deep aboleth's corpse.  "The prophecies have been fulfilled: the next wielder is 'she who hath both two legs and none at all!'"  But as Hoppy and then Kruz climbed out of the sand-tunnel beneath the deep aboleth's head, the anguillian cleric added, "However, there is nothing describing the next wielder of Galrich's fang after you, and I fully intend for it to be me!  Attack!  Kill them all!"Upon their leader's command, the six other anguillian warriors swam over towards the deep aboleth's head, but as they'd been stationed equidistant around its body, it was going to take the ones farthest away a bit of time to get within combat range, for they each wielded but a single spear, which they held as a melee weapon in their own clawed hands.  Glipper made a lunge for Adrielle but the mermaid swam back, stabbing at the eel-man cleric with the very weapon he coveted so much.Shiroko exited the tunnel to find Adrielle in combat with Glipper and realized something was wrong - had the eel-men betrayed them?  She ran farther away from the tunnel to allow Brendan room to exit with the triton's body and fired a magic missile from her wand at Glipper, knowing full well there was no chance of her spell hitting Adrielle by mistake.  But one of the nearest anguillians swam close enough to Shiroko to stab at the hengeyokai with its spear; she avoided the attack, but another anguillian had better luck swimming up to Adrielle and stabbing the mermaid, whose full attention was on Glipper, in her flank, halfway down her fishlike tail.Brendan exited the tunnel last, and seeing the melee going on all around him, dumped the triton's body on the ocean floor and swung his quarterstaff at the anguillian going after Shiroko.  Glipper swung at Adrielle with one claw, drawing her attention towards fending off that attack while he successfully grabbed her with his other claw and pulled himself in close, where he could bite her along the neck and shoulder with a mouth ringed with multiple rows of sharp, needlelike teeth.  Adrielle cried out in pain as he clamped down, attaching himself to her like a remora on a shark, and started draining blood like an undersea vampire."Hey!" called out Hoppy, limping up to the two with his hopping gait, and touching the mermaid with his wand, activating a charge of healing energy.  It wasn't enough to close up the wound at her neck and shoulder, for the anguillian cleric was still attached, but it at least restored some of the fighting spirit in the mermaid's writhing form.Kruz, by this time, had figured out the three-dimensional aspect of underwater fighting and swam directly above Adrielle, where he could shoot straight down at Glipper, catching him between the shoulder blades with a bolt from his crossbow at a range where the weapon still did some good.  And Adrielle hadn't given up fighting; she stabbed the tines of Galrich's fang into Glipper's stomach and chest, trying to pry him off of her.Shiroko backed away from her attacker and fired another charge from her wand at him.  But now two more anguillian warriors were within reach, and one stabbed at the hengeyokai with his spear, cutting through her kimono (and her still-active mage armor spell) to drop her into unconsciousness.  Another stabbed at Adrielle but missed as she and Glipper writhed about, the mermaid trying to dislodge the cleric and the cleric doing his level best to remain in place."Screw this!" snarled Brendan; unable to aid Shiroko, he spun about and drove the tip of his quarterstaff into Glipper's side, likely cracking a rib.  But still the eel-man kept his hold on the mermaid's neck and shoulder, his claws grabbing hold of his precious Galrich's fang, eager to snatch it away from her and claim it as his own.  He couldn't voice his triumph, but he continued to drink her life-blood, and that was all the statement he really needed.By now, the three mermaid warriors and the four giant sea horses had gotten within range, and they kept the anguillian warriors at bay, allowing the heroes to concentrate on Glipper.  Hoppy fired off another charge from his wand, trying his very best to keep Adrielle alive; he'd hate to see her go the way of Talabassa - she'd kissed him without reservation, despite his ghastly appearance!  Kruz fired down at Glipper again from above, driving another crossbow bolt into the cleric's back.  But quite poetically, it was Adrielle herself who drove in the killing blow with Galrich's fang, gutting the anguillian like a fish, causing coils of intestines to explode from his ruined stomach and fall to the ocean floor.  His jaws slackened, and the mermaid was able to pull herself away from his horrid embrace, blood clouding the area by her neck.Rather than fall back and let Hoppy tend to her horrible wounds, Adrielle immediately spun about and pointed her weapon at the anguillian warriors.  They got the message quite readily.  "Hey, we're backing off!" one called, lowering his spear and swimming away from the mermaid he'd been fighting.  "We can see it's Galrich's will that Glipper not wield the holy weapon!  Come, brothers, let us return to the colder depths below these warmer waters, where we belong!"  The mermaid warriors, taking Adrielle's lead, allowed them to retreat.  Only then did Adrielle permit Hoppy to continue his ministrations."Take us back to Port Duralia, if you please," asked Adrielle of the mermaids from her tribe, and they were happy to comply.  The others mounted their designated giant sea horses, and they followed the three mermaids back home.  If anyone noticed Adrielle, who had lost a lot of blood during the fight with Glipper, occasionally hold onto Shiroko's giant sea horse mount for stability, or the hengeyokai grab the mermaid scout's leather harness and drag her along in the sea horse's wake as she occasionally slipped away into a restful sleep, nobody said anything about it. - - -This was another fairly short adventure; I think we finished up around 5 PM (after a noon start time).  And that was after everyone upgraded their PCs to 3rd level, for this was our 10th adventure and in lieu of tracking XP for this campaign, I had decided - much like I did with the "Dreams of Erthe" campaign - that I was just going to have five adventures of each level, 100 in all.  But I think Vicki enjoyed getting to be a mermaid pretty much during this whole adventure. - - -T-shirt worn: My white T-shirt with a blue dragon on it, only because it was the same game session as the previous adventure.</blockquote>

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