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Dreams of Erthe
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 8397368" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 14: MIDDLEWICH MANOR</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 3</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 3</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 1/paladin 2</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 3</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 3</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 11 September 2021</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>Riding their various mounts and the mule-driven wagon through Grimblegrack Fishmelon's <em>teleportation circle</em>, the group of adventurers found themselves miles ahead down the road and just outside the edge of the village of Pendlewick. "Ah, good," observed Thurloe with a sense of satisfaction (and not a little relief) in his voice; the fighter tended to be distrustful of people he didn't know well and wouldn't have been too surprised if the gnome's magic had ended up sending them far off their intended course.</p><p></p><p>But such was not the case; this was indeed Pendlewick and now the only problem was in finding the sleeping victim Mogo said was isolated somewhere in the village. They stopped in at a local pub, not only because it was usually a good source of gossip but also because the team was ready for a hearty lunch. Talking to the regulars there, though, produced no specifics, for nobody was aware of anyone in town who'd been asleep for a span of time and couldn't be awakened.</p><p></p><p>The team expanded their circle of inquiries as they explored the village, getting no definite answers. Eventually Xandro expanded their questions to see if there was anyone in town who hadn't been seen for some time; after all, a dream coma would be a possible explanation for someone's sudden removal from daily life. That got some supposition, if nothing else: there was a widow woman, <strong>Lady Camilla Middlewich</strong>, who lived in an old run-down manor at the far edge of town who didn't get out much; she lived there in her husband's estate with a housekeeper and small handful of maids. "Come to think of it, I know a few of them maids by sight, and none of them have been around the marketplace for some time now," recalled an elderly merchant running a vegetable cart in the market.</p><p></p><p>"That might be worth checking out," agreed Alewyth. They got directions to the Middlewich estate but then Thurloe suggested they check it out the next morning. "It's getting late, we're all tired, and you spellcasters would be better off getting a good night's sleep and having a fresh batch of spells in the morning - you never know what we might meet up with." Reluctantly, Alewyth agreed with the fighter; she'd cast most of her most powerful spells in fighting off those dinosaurs earlier that morning and Zander was in no better shape. They found an inn, got rooms for the night, and started out fresh the next morning heading out to Middlewich Manor.</p><p></p><p>The manor house had seen better days, for there were shingles missing from the roof and the place could use a fresh coat of paint. What had once been a lovely bed of flowers on either side of the front steps were now starting to be overgrown with encroaching weeds. Still, Wakuren had high hopes that this would be an easy mission; he strode up the steps to the front door and boldly knocked four times, standing in the alcove and waiting for the door to open. He stood there waiting for some time before knocking again, holding his ear to the door to see if he could hear any signs of life inside the manor. "Anything?" asked Alewyth.</p><p></p><p>"Nothing," admitted the half-orc. "Doesn't sound like anybody's home."</p><p></p><p>"Maybe they're <em>all</em> in a dream coma," suggested Xandro, only half seriously.</p><p></p><p>"I'm sure Mogo would have noticed that," Thurloe replied, kicking his horse Horse into moving around the manor house; maybe they were out back or something. There was a vast, open field behind the manor house and Thurloe spotted a deer over by the small forest at the edge of the field. But after having determined the deer was no threat, he focused his attention back to the manor house - and immediately saw one of the two ground-level windows leading into the basement was broken.</p><p></p><p>Dismounting from Horse, Thurloe hunkered down and peered in through the broken window. The basement level inside was unlit but for the light streaming through the two windows, and it wasn't much at that for not only was Thurloe blocking most of the broken window with his body but the other one was streaked with dust and dirt. He could make out a small pile of crates and boxes stacked up between the windows and some sort of shelving off to the left, and that was about it. Still, it provided a means of entering the manor house; walking Horse around the rest of the dwelling Thurloe found another door - opening into a kitchen, from the looks of it - but it too was locked. He returned and met back up with the others, still waiting at the front door. "No answer?" he asked, realizing after he'd said it that the answer to that question was patently obvious. Before anybody could respond he told them about the broken window he'd found out back.</p><p></p><p>"Well, I suppose if we're going to break in it makes sense to go in the same way somebody else has already broken in," Wakuren opined. He wasn't exactly thrilled with the concept of entering a house uninvited, but now there was a bit of concern about what might have happened to the ladies living inside this house.</p><p></p><p>"I hope everyone's okay in there," Alewyth worried, echoing Wakuren's concern.</p><p></p><p>The group tied up their mounts to trees flanking the walkway to the manor house and Thurloe led everyone to the broken window. Zander squatted down, stuck his head inside, and his keen elven vision picked up a few more details that Thurloe's limited human vision hadn't been able to make out. "Racks of wine bottles off to the left," he said. "Covered in dust and cobwebs. But it looks to be deserted." He began pulling shards of broken glass from the window frame in preparation of climbing into the basement.</p><p></p><p>"Window was broken into, not out of," observed Xandro, noting the lack of glass shards in the dirt outside the house and the glint of broken glass on the basement floor. But then the elven sorcerer had cleaned out the window frame to his satisfaction and slipped inside, dropping down into the dark basement. He immediately detected movement off to his left. Looking down, he was startled to see what he first thought to be a length of intestine crawling his way. Involuntarily stepping back away from the animated organ, he saw another one creeping forward on his right. Suddenly the steps away from the crawling creatures was no longer involuntary; Zander ran to the other end of the basement, away from what he now realized were some kind of worm-things, rather like a carrion crawler without the writhing tentacles around its mouth. "Look out - some kind of giant worms in here!" he called back to the others.</p><p></p><p>Thurloe fished a sunrod from his backpack - if he was going to go fight giant worms in a damp basement, he was going to go in at least able to see his foes. But Xandro shimmied into the window, dropping down to his feet and pulling the rapier from its scabbard at his hip in one fluid motion. One of the gutslugs was practically at his feet so he stabbed forward, piercing the tip of his weapon into the gastropod's side. A wide maw opened at the front of the thing, revealing rows of sharp teeth, but it made no sound.</p><p></p><p>With a much louder noise, Wakuren dropped down from the window opening. He saw Xandro fighting one of these slug-things and spun around to try to find the other, his darkvision allowing him to see just fine even in the dim lighting. Spotting it, he slammed the edge of his shield down upon the second gutslug, cutting a gash along its top that oozed some sort of blood or ichor. But when he raised his shield back up, the gutslug darted forward with a greater speed than the half-orc would have credited it with; he dodged the strike at his legs and stepped over the thing, only to have it bite him from behind, catching him in the gap just below the bottom of his upper armor. With a sickening feeling, Wakuren felt the rows of sharp teeth pierce through his skin as the vile creature began sucking out his blood.</p><p></p><p>The second gutslug had similarly bitten at Xandro but the nimble bard managed to back off before the vile worm could get a firm grip on him. But then Alewyth dropped into the basement through the window and saw Wakuren's predicament: he was thrashing about but unable to strike a creature adhered to his own back. She swung Sjondra at the vile worm but the half-orc's wild thrashing around caused her to miss completely. Fortunately, Zander had by this time conquered his fear and stepped forward, casting a <em>magic missile</em> spell at the gutslug adhered to Wakuren's back. And then a lit sunrod was tossed into the basement, followed almost immediately by Thurloe, bastard sword in hand. One careful stab with his blade cut through the gutslug without piercing Wakuren as well. The creature fell to the ground in a pool of blood, some of it no doubt Wakuren's.</p><p></p><p>Xandro managed to pin the other gutslug in place with his rapier and cut through it with a twist of his wrist. It too died, lying motionless on the basement floor as Thurloe cleaned his blade and retrieved his sunrod. Then the group gave the basement a cursory examination, finding no additional gutslugs crawling around anywhere. Wakuren opened a door leading to shelves of canned goods and rotting vegetables, a root cellar of sorts. Alewyth stepped up beside the half-orc and pointed out the footprints in some spilled flour on the floor. "Rats, by the look of it," she said.</p><p></p><p>"Lovely," replied Wakuren. "This is quite the manor house so far."</p><p></p><p>There was a set of stairs over on the side of the basement across from the windows. They led up into the kitchen, which both looked like it had seen plenty of use but at the same time not very recently, judging by the light scattering of dust covering the counters and the table. "The maids haven't been doing their jobs," Wakuren pointed out. Then he led the group into a dining room, a living area, and back to the front door just to make sure they'd covered the entire ground floor before taking another set of stairs up the second floor. The layers of dust on everything told that nobody had been here recently to disturb anything.</p><p></p><p>"This is kind of creepy," Alewyth admitted, gripping her warhammer <em>Sjondra </em>tightly.</p><p></p><p>Heading up stairs, Wakuren in the lead, the first door they came to was an empty bedroom. The bed had been made and once the half-orc peeked inside a closet and found a series of dresses and aprons, they deduced this had been the housekeeper's room. But it was as empty and dusty as the rest of the house. Wakuren moved on.</p><p></p><p>The next door down the upper hallway seemed to be stuck, and when Wakuren forced it open he saw why: it had been trapped, causing a full-length mirror to be pulled from the wall to come crashing down upon his head. He shook his head, flinging shards of broken mirror in all directions. "Great: now I have seven years of bad luck," he commented wryly.</p><p></p><p>"Who would have done that?" asked Zander, puzzled.</p><p></p><p>"Yeah, and why?" added Alewyth.</p><p></p><p>"More importantly," pointed out Wakuren, "how did they get out of the room after setting the trap -- or are they still here?" He entered the room cautiously, shield held before him. But after finding two single beds (both made) and maids' uniforms hanging in the closet, Wakuren had no idea what was going on. He examined the twine that had been attached from the doorknob to the mirror and asked Zander to step inside with him. "There aren't invisible creatures in here with us, by any chance, are there?" he asked the elf in a quiet voice, recalling there were pixies or some other type of fairy that could turn themselves invisible and had a penchant for playing tricks. Zander activated his magic goggles as he pulled them over his eyes, giving the whole room a quick scan. "Nothing," he reported back. As long as the <em>see invisibility</em> powers of the goggles were active, he backtracked into the housekeeper's room as well but found nothing there either.</p><p></p><p>Wakuren, in the meantime, had come up to the next door in line. It too didn't want to open, but the half-orc didn't feel like having another mirror shatter on his head so he took a step back and kicked the door in with his booted foot. Surprisingly, this only produced a scraping sound from off to the left of the room's interior, as the half-orc noted there was a length of twine attached from the doorknob to a bedpost or something preventing the door from being fully opened. He thought briefly about trying to squeeze in through the gap in the door, then asked for a dagger. Zander passed him over a dagger and Wakuren used it to cut through the twine, allowing the door to open fully.</p><p></p><p>And that's when the dozen creatures inside the second maids' bedroom attacked.</p><p></p><p>Scrambling out from underneath the two beds were half a dozen rats, each of them mounted by a wrinkly little man no more than a foot tall. They swarmed up to the surprised half-orc, the rats biting with their wicked little rodents' teeth and the jermlaine in the front ranks stabbing out with their tiny little spears while those behind them threw darts at the follower of Cal. Wakuren staggered backwards a step under the surprising assault, but Zander stepped forward with a scroll in hand and cast a <em>color spray</em> at the assembled horde. The spell took out half of the rats and their riders, the spell's energy both blinding them and stunning them into sudden immobility.</p><p></p><p>Thurloe, however, was at the end of the single-file line going methodically down the hallway and by now he was bored. There was another door on this side of the hallway and on a whim he opened it. It opened into a sitting room, complete with a comfortable-looking sofa and low table before it, a pair of chairs and footstools, and more importantly to the fighter a well-stocked bar with a dusty bottle of brandy atop it. Thurloe unstoppered the brandy bottle, sniffed it, and took an appreciative swig - not bad! Then he passed through the room and opened the door at the far end.</p><p></p><p>That was more like it! This next room was the master bedroom and there on the double bed was no doubt Lady Camilla Middlewich herself. Thurloe wasn't sure what he had expected the noblewoman to look like, but one thing he hadn't anticipated was her being completely bald. But bald she was, the skin of her head shiny in the light of Thurloe's sunrod, for the curtains were all pulled on the windows of the bedroom. Thurloe stepped inside and gave a quick check to the two other doors in the room - a walk-in closet and a bathroom, respectively - before absently commenting to the comatose noblewoman, "Well, your hired help seems to have left you to fend for yourself, my lady. Nice bunch, that. But don't worry, we should have you up and about and hiring replacements in no time."</p><p></p><p>Xandro, in the meantime, had begun playing his song of courage on his lute, hoping to aid those of his friends able to fight of whatever was in the room at the end of the hallway. Wakuren had crushed a pair of both jermlaine and rats beneath his shield, putting all of his weight upon it. Alewyth scooted into the room and used <em>Sjondra </em>to crush another rat and its rider into pulp, while Zander cast a <em>magic missile</em> spell into the room, sending one missile into the body of a fleeing rat and another into the wrinkled body of the jermlaine riding bareback upon it, sending both skittering lifelessly into a heap upon the bedroom floor. That left only two of each remaining, and without any hesitation they made a dash for the far closet, the jermlaine leaping from their rodent mounts' backs and all four squeezing beneath the closed closet door.</p><p></p><p>Thurloe called down the hallway that he'd found their dreamer, but Wakuren took the time to open the maids' closet door and crush the remaining rats and jermlaine underneath his shield before going to go see Lady Middlewich. The group convened inside the master bedroom, looking down at the bald noblewoman.</p><p></p><p>"How do we want to do this?" asked Alewyth. "I don't want any more of those little buggers sneaking in here while we're all asleep, getting the Lady Camilla out of her dreams."</p><p></p><p>"We could take her outside to the wagon," suggested Xandro. "I'm sure the horses and the goat could handle any jermlaine that might show up."</p><p></p><p>"Nah," scoffed Thurloe. "Close the door and stuff some towels or something underneath the door so they can't get in. It's not like they're tall enough to use a doorknob."</p><p></p><p>"It's not like they couldn't pull the towels out from underneath the door," countered Alewyth, looking nervously at the noblewoman's bald head. She wasn't particularly vain, but she sure didn't want her own brown locks sheared off like she was a sheep or a rothé!</p><p></p><p>"Here we go," offered up Zander, pulling out his <em>figurine of wondrous power</em> and activating it with a command word. In an instant the statuette became a full-sized elven dog.</p><p></p><p>"You ever going to name that thing?" Thurloe asked.</p><p></p><p>"There's no rush," Zander replied. "Better to wait for the perfect name to come to me." <em>But then</em>, the elf thought, <em>what else could one expect from a short-lived human, who always seemed to feel the need to rush-rush-rush about everything, let alone one with the overwhelming creativity to name his horse "Horse"?</em> "In any case, he can stand watch over us as we go into the dreamlands."</p><p></p><p>That decided, the group pulled Lady Camilla's bed into the middle of the room while Alewyth tied a scarf from one of her dresser drawers around the noblewoman's head, placing a dreamstone up against her brow. Then she passed a dreamstone to each of her companions and they positioned themselves around the bed in a circle, each sitting cross-legged and slowing their breathing in the way their moogle guides had taught them. One by one, they fell into sleep and found themselves standing in the dreamlands, where their individual moogle guides led them to the Corridor of Dreams. Mogo fluttered in the air, waiting for them.</p><p></p><p>"In you go and good luck, kupo!" called Mogo, and the five entered Lady Camilla's dream.</p><p></p><p>"Oh dear," said Alewyth upon seeing this particular dreamscape for the first time. The light was a hellish red, spilling up from a crevasse ahead of them that was apparently filled with molten magma. Hanging on a thin strand of webbing over the chasm was Lady Camilla, her body bound up in a tight-fitting cocoon and hanging from a line of webbing being held by the biggest spider the dreamwalkers had ever seen.</p><p></p><p>"Don't let it get me!" sobbed Lady Camilla as the spider grabbed up the web in its hindmost pair of legs and began pulling her toward it.</p><p></p><p>As one, the five dreamwalkers grabbed up the other end of the web-line (which was just sitting on the ground by their feet, in direct violation of normal physics - but dream logic was freed from the realities of the Mortal World) and tugged on it, halting the noblewoman's movement towards the massive arachnid.</p><p></p><p>"Pull!" commanded Thurloe, in the front of the line of heroes. He realized if they lost this particular tug-of-war he was going to be the first one to fall over the edge of the chasm into the magma below. Sure, he wouldn't actually die if he "died" in a dream, but he still didn't want to experience plunging into lava, dream or no dream.</p><p></p><p>The heroes strained with all their might and managed to pull Lady Camilla back into the center of the chasm. "We can't use our dreamstones with both hands on the rope!" pointed out Alewyth. In the past, they'd occasionally been able to channel power through their dreamstones to weaken their dream-foes, going all the way back to their first battle against the dream fox chasing down the wizard Grimboldt. But to use their dreamstones they needed to hold them out at their foes, in much the same way a cleric held out his or her holy symbol when turning undead.</p><p></p><p>Wakuren had an idea. "Zander!" he called out. "You're the weakest of the five of us! Drop the web-line and use your dreamstone to try to weaken the spider!" The elven sorcerer dropped the line and held out his dreamstone at the spider, somewhat embarrassed at having been pointed out as the group's physical weakest member but stoically acknowledging it was the honest truth. He focused his will against the spider but failed to hold his concentration enough; Lady Camilla was yanked closer to the spider.</p><p></p><p>"Again! Try harder!" commanded Thurloe, tugging at the line for all he was worth. The others behind him did likewise as Zander concentrated on weakening the spider across the chasm from them. This time it worked and the noblewoman was pulled closer to their side of the gap. There was a bit of back-and-forth for a bit, but eventually Lady Camilla was close enough for Thurloe to pluck her cocoon from the web-line and drop her onto solid ground on their side of the magma crevasse. Then it was a matter of cutting away the cocoon before she stood on her own, safe and sound. It was only then that Thurloe realized this dream version of Lady Camilla Middlewich had a full head of white hair piled high on her head in an elaborate style. She was going to be in for a bit of a shock when she woke up....</p><p></p><p>And she was waking up, for the dreamscape around the heroes started fading. "Back to the Waking World," Thurloe told the others, using the dreamwalker training he'd received to instantly wake himself up from the noblewoman's dream. Around him, the others started blinking out as they forced themselves awake, until finally only Xandro was left standing there by himself. Across the chasm, the spider had turned around and was glaring at him in the fading light, its eyes eight pinpoints of reddish light as the illumination from the dimming magma below started to fade.</p><p></p><p>"Um guys?" the bard called out nervously. "I can't seem to wake up. <em>I can't wake up!"</em></p><p></p><p>The dreamscape went to total blackness all around him, leaving only the faint outline of a doorway in view. Xandro scrambled over to it, pulled the door open, and stepped back into the Corridor of Dreams. "Good work, kupo!" praised Mogo, before a frown crossed his kittenish face. "...but, why are you still here, kupo? Shouldn't you get back to the Waking World with the others, kupo?"</p><p></p><p>"That's just the thing -- I can't!" Xandro answered, starting to worry about what might have caused him to be unable to leave the dreamlands.</p><p></p><p>Back in Lady Camilla's bedroom, the elderly noblewoman was quite startled to find herself surrounded by a group of strangers she'd never met before - for the details of her nightmare were starting to fade now that she was awake. "Who are you?" she demanded, a hand raising instinctively to hold the top of her nightgown closed at her throat. "What do you want?" And then she shrieked aloud, having made a disturbing discovery. <em>"And what have you done with my hair?"</em></p><p></p><p>"Guys: problems!" Zander warned, looking over at the open door to the bedroom and the statuette of the cooshee lying on its side. He wasn't sure how they'd done it, but apparently the jermlaine had overcome his elven dog and forced it back into statuette form. Then he looked around the room, and added, "Hey! Where's Xandro?"</p><p></p><p>But Xandro was not in the room with the rest of the group and the hysterical noblewoman. Alewyth did her best to calm her down and catch her back up to speed about how much time had passed while Thurloe sprang into action. "Look: drag marks!" he said, pointing down at the floral carpet in the bedroom and adjoining sitting room. "They took Xandro this way!" And with that the three men were off, leaving Alewyth to promise Lady Camilla that things would be okay and that they'd be back to explain everything. Then she raced off to try to catch up with the rest of the group, realizing wryly she had the shortest legs of the five of them.</p><p></p><p>Thurloe followed the drag marks down the stairs, across the library and dining room and into the kitchen. From there, he could hear the clunking sounds of something - likely Xandro's head - hitting each of the steps leading down into the basement as he was dragged by his enemies. Damn those wretched jermlaine! The fighter sped on down the stairs, Zander right behind him; Wakuren, in his heavier armor, was falling a bit behind.</p><p></p><p>Clomping down the stairs, Thurloe saw Xandro being pulled by a rope around his ankles across the basement floor. But it wasn't jermlaine towing him; instead, these creatures were twice the size of the little foot-tall jermlaine, although they hunched forward to the point their clawed pincers nearly dragged on the floor. They had tiny legs and twisted pincers in place of hands, with large eyes and a bristle-headed countenance giving an insectoid appearance. Thurloe had no idea what these creatures were, but they didn't bode well for poor Xandro!</p><p></p><p>They didn't bode well for Thurloe either, as it turned out. As one, the eight meenlocks turned to face the human fighter and blasted him with their mind-rending attacks. Zander, rushing in behind Thurloe, didn't actually see the eight figures do anything but stare at Thurloe, and all of a sudden the fighter was collapsing into an unconscious heap at the foot of the stairs.</p><p></p><p>To his credit, Zander Quilson didn't hesitate a moment before leaping into battle against a troop of foes that had managed to take out two of their number already. He dashed to the side of the meenlocks, lined up in two rows of four on either side of the rope tied around Xandro's ankles, and repeated the same tactic that had worked so well against the jermlaine upstairs: reading the words of a second <em>color spray</em> spell from another scroll. This time the effects were even better than they had been against the jermlaine, for a full five of the eight meenlocks froze up, blinded and stunned into temporary immobility.</p><p></p><p>By then Wakuren had made it to the kitchen stairs and was clumping down the steps. He leaped over the unconscious Thurloe and stabbed down at the closest meenlock, not even wondering why the thing just stood there instead of trying to dodge the bottom edge of the half-orc's shield. The meenlock's skull split open from the force of the shield's blow and it died immediately. Behind him, he could hear Alewyth's booted feet on the floor of the kitchen.</p><p></p><p>Unable to immediately use their mind-rending attack again, the three still-mobile meenlocks made a rush for Zander, hoping to tear him apart in their claws. Their sharp pincers snapped at the sorcerer's legs, causing the elf to cry out in pain, but he quickly shook them off, took a step back himself, and blasted one of them with a <em>magic missile</em> spell. It fell backwards against one of its still-stunned partners, the two of them collapsing together in a heap.</p><p></p><p>Wakuren took out another stunned meenlock with his shield when he heard a confused grunt from behind him. Sparing a moment from his frenzied combat, the half-orc saw with some relief Thurloe was pulling himself into a sitting position, one hand holding the side of his head. "Wh' 'appen?" he mumbled in confusion.</p><p></p><p>Alewyth dashed down into the basement and lent Sjondra to the meenlock-bashing party. The warhammer slammed a stunned meenlock flat against the wall, crushing it instantly. At that point, the two meenlocks still capable of movement made a run for it, dashing into the shadows of the back wall near the rows of wine bottles - where, Zander noticed, there was hole burrowed into the side of the brick. Zander, Wakuren, and Alewyth took out the remaining meenlocks still blinded and stunned from the elf's spell before bringing a befuddled Thurloe up to speed. They tried waking Xandro, but the poor bard was out cold. Alewyth took it upon herself to look over him while the others decided on their next course of action.</p><p></p><p>Eventually, given the cramped size of the tunnel in the side of the basement wall (which would require a person to crawl forward on his or her belly and which would make wielding a weapon all but impossible), it was decided their best bet was to send in the elf. After all, Zander didn't need a weapon; he could fire off a <em>magic missile</em> spell even inside the cramped confines of a meenlock tunnel. So Wakuren healed up all of the elf's wounds (and even cast a <em>virtue</em> spell on him to give him that extra little bit of staying power), then Zander crawled forth into the tunnel for some solo combat. He was in there for quite a while, causing some initial worry, but when the sorcerer returned it was with a small bit of accumulated treasure, the few valuables he'd found in the small side caverns he'd unearthed after having slain the two remaining meenlocks with his spells. There was a silver ring, a holy symbol of Infernia, Goddess of Love, and a few coins.</p><p></p><p>"And that's not all," Zander told the others. "I found some rags in their living quarters, from the clothing some of them wore before being transformed into meenlocks. It was maids' outfits, with their aprons and everything."</p><p></p><p>"You mean...?" began Alewyth, a look of dawning horror on her dwarven features.</p><p></p><p>"Yeah," admitted Zander. "Lady Camilla's maids didn't abandon her - they were probably taken, one by one, and turned into those...things."</p><p></p><p>Shortly thereafter Alewyth was successful in finally rousing Xandro, who was as woozy as Thurloe. But they returned to Lady Camilla and Alewyth took the lead in explaining everything to the elderly noblewoman. Lady Camilla's eyes widened in horror at the tale of what had happened to her housekeeper and maids. "Oh, poor <strong>Agnes</strong>," she said, thinking of the housekeeper who'd been with her since Lord Middlewich had still been alive. "And to think the same thing would probably have happened to me..." began Lady Camilla, running a hand over her bald head.</p><p></p><p>"Yeah," agreed Wakuren. "But the jermlaine probably fought them off, not wanting to lose their source of hair. You, stuck as you were in a dream coma, were the perfect source of hair for the jermlaine."</p><p></p><p>Lady Camilla insisted on rewarding the heroes for their help with bottles from her late husband's wine collection - two bottles each and she wouldn't take "no" for an answer. She also gave them two dozen longbow arrows, explaining her late husband had enjoyed hunting but she'd never get any use out of them now. "You might as well have them, if they'll be some use to you."</p><p></p><p>The heroes opted to spend a second night in the inn, since Alewyth was the only one capable of casting the spell necessary to fully restore Xandro and Thurloe's full faculties and she didn't have any <em>lesser restoration</em> spells readily available at the moment. "It'll probably take a couple castings each to get you both up to speed," she warned them.</p><p></p><p>"Don' matter," mumbled Thurloe. "Be worth it. Head feels all..." He stumbled to find the right word.</p><p></p><p>"Mungly," offered up Xandro, feeling quite out of it himself and not really sure what he was saying.</p><p></p><p>"Yeah," agreed Thurloe. "That."</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>Harry was not a fan of Xandro having been drained down to 0 Wisdom (and thus forced into unconsciousness, although that wasn't really noticeable in the dreamscape) by the meenlocks while the PCs were all asleep and basically helpless. (I hadn't counted on the cooshee, but that just meant it took longer for the meenlocks to knock him out first before getting into the master bedroom and picking their next target for meenlock conversion.) I only had them pick on Xandro because he had the lowest Wisdom score and it made sense to me that a group of creatures who drained Wisdom would have some sort of innate sense of who would make the easiest victim. But he was grumbling that he was out for the count for the rest of the adventure because Alewyth, the only cleric high enough to cast <em>lesser restoration</em> spells, hadn't prepared one of those that morning.</p><p></p><p>So I implemented an impromptu rules change for meenlock Wisdom drains: every round, the unconscious victim got to roll a d10 and if it came up a "0", they would spontaneously "heal" back up to 1 Wisdom, at least allowing them back into the game. (That nicely paralleled the rule for stabilizing when you're at negative hit points and "bleeding out.") But Harry's dice didn't cooperate, and then to make matters worse Dan's did when he soon thereafter found himself in a similar position.</p><p></p><p>We finished this adventure up in about two hours, so we all opted to press on with the next one as well in the same game session.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>T-shirt worn: My "Red Cross" T-shirt that I got free for donating blood once. Lacking anything more appropriate, I decided the "blood" connection tied in with the gutslugs the PCs fought in the basement at the beginning of the adventure.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 8397368, member: 508"] [B]ADVENTURE 14: MIDDLEWICH MANOR[/B] PC Roster: [INDENT]Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 3[/INDENT] [INDENT] Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 3[/INDENT] [INDENT] Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 1/paladin 2[/INDENT] [INDENT] Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 3[/INDENT] [INDENT] Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 3[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 11 September 2021 - - - Riding their various mounts and the mule-driven wagon through Grimblegrack Fishmelon's [I]teleportation circle[/I], the group of adventurers found themselves miles ahead down the road and just outside the edge of the village of Pendlewick. "Ah, good," observed Thurloe with a sense of satisfaction (and not a little relief) in his voice; the fighter tended to be distrustful of people he didn't know well and wouldn't have been too surprised if the gnome's magic had ended up sending them far off their intended course. But such was not the case; this was indeed Pendlewick and now the only problem was in finding the sleeping victim Mogo said was isolated somewhere in the village. They stopped in at a local pub, not only because it was usually a good source of gossip but also because the team was ready for a hearty lunch. Talking to the regulars there, though, produced no specifics, for nobody was aware of anyone in town who'd been asleep for a span of time and couldn't be awakened. The team expanded their circle of inquiries as they explored the village, getting no definite answers. Eventually Xandro expanded their questions to see if there was anyone in town who hadn't been seen for some time; after all, a dream coma would be a possible explanation for someone's sudden removal from daily life. That got some supposition, if nothing else: there was a widow woman, [B]Lady Camilla Middlewich[/B], who lived in an old run-down manor at the far edge of town who didn't get out much; she lived there in her husband's estate with a housekeeper and small handful of maids. "Come to think of it, I know a few of them maids by sight, and none of them have been around the marketplace for some time now," recalled an elderly merchant running a vegetable cart in the market. "That might be worth checking out," agreed Alewyth. They got directions to the Middlewich estate but then Thurloe suggested they check it out the next morning. "It's getting late, we're all tired, and you spellcasters would be better off getting a good night's sleep and having a fresh batch of spells in the morning - you never know what we might meet up with." Reluctantly, Alewyth agreed with the fighter; she'd cast most of her most powerful spells in fighting off those dinosaurs earlier that morning and Zander was in no better shape. They found an inn, got rooms for the night, and started out fresh the next morning heading out to Middlewich Manor. The manor house had seen better days, for there were shingles missing from the roof and the place could use a fresh coat of paint. What had once been a lovely bed of flowers on either side of the front steps were now starting to be overgrown with encroaching weeds. Still, Wakuren had high hopes that this would be an easy mission; he strode up the steps to the front door and boldly knocked four times, standing in the alcove and waiting for the door to open. He stood there waiting for some time before knocking again, holding his ear to the door to see if he could hear any signs of life inside the manor. "Anything?" asked Alewyth. "Nothing," admitted the half-orc. "Doesn't sound like anybody's home." "Maybe they're [I]all[/I] in a dream coma," suggested Xandro, only half seriously. "I'm sure Mogo would have noticed that," Thurloe replied, kicking his horse Horse into moving around the manor house; maybe they were out back or something. There was a vast, open field behind the manor house and Thurloe spotted a deer over by the small forest at the edge of the field. But after having determined the deer was no threat, he focused his attention back to the manor house - and immediately saw one of the two ground-level windows leading into the basement was broken. Dismounting from Horse, Thurloe hunkered down and peered in through the broken window. The basement level inside was unlit but for the light streaming through the two windows, and it wasn't much at that for not only was Thurloe blocking most of the broken window with his body but the other one was streaked with dust and dirt. He could make out a small pile of crates and boxes stacked up between the windows and some sort of shelving off to the left, and that was about it. Still, it provided a means of entering the manor house; walking Horse around the rest of the dwelling Thurloe found another door - opening into a kitchen, from the looks of it - but it too was locked. He returned and met back up with the others, still waiting at the front door. "No answer?" he asked, realizing after he'd said it that the answer to that question was patently obvious. Before anybody could respond he told them about the broken window he'd found out back. "Well, I suppose if we're going to break in it makes sense to go in the same way somebody else has already broken in," Wakuren opined. He wasn't exactly thrilled with the concept of entering a house uninvited, but now there was a bit of concern about what might have happened to the ladies living inside this house. "I hope everyone's okay in there," Alewyth worried, echoing Wakuren's concern. The group tied up their mounts to trees flanking the walkway to the manor house and Thurloe led everyone to the broken window. Zander squatted down, stuck his head inside, and his keen elven vision picked up a few more details that Thurloe's limited human vision hadn't been able to make out. "Racks of wine bottles off to the left," he said. "Covered in dust and cobwebs. But it looks to be deserted." He began pulling shards of broken glass from the window frame in preparation of climbing into the basement. "Window was broken into, not out of," observed Xandro, noting the lack of glass shards in the dirt outside the house and the glint of broken glass on the basement floor. But then the elven sorcerer had cleaned out the window frame to his satisfaction and slipped inside, dropping down into the dark basement. He immediately detected movement off to his left. Looking down, he was startled to see what he first thought to be a length of intestine crawling his way. Involuntarily stepping back away from the animated organ, he saw another one creeping forward on his right. Suddenly the steps away from the crawling creatures was no longer involuntary; Zander ran to the other end of the basement, away from what he now realized were some kind of worm-things, rather like a carrion crawler without the writhing tentacles around its mouth. "Look out - some kind of giant worms in here!" he called back to the others. Thurloe fished a sunrod from his backpack - if he was going to go fight giant worms in a damp basement, he was going to go in at least able to see his foes. But Xandro shimmied into the window, dropping down to his feet and pulling the rapier from its scabbard at his hip in one fluid motion. One of the gutslugs was practically at his feet so he stabbed forward, piercing the tip of his weapon into the gastropod's side. A wide maw opened at the front of the thing, revealing rows of sharp teeth, but it made no sound. With a much louder noise, Wakuren dropped down from the window opening. He saw Xandro fighting one of these slug-things and spun around to try to find the other, his darkvision allowing him to see just fine even in the dim lighting. Spotting it, he slammed the edge of his shield down upon the second gutslug, cutting a gash along its top that oozed some sort of blood or ichor. But when he raised his shield back up, the gutslug darted forward with a greater speed than the half-orc would have credited it with; he dodged the strike at his legs and stepped over the thing, only to have it bite him from behind, catching him in the gap just below the bottom of his upper armor. With a sickening feeling, Wakuren felt the rows of sharp teeth pierce through his skin as the vile creature began sucking out his blood. The second gutslug had similarly bitten at Xandro but the nimble bard managed to back off before the vile worm could get a firm grip on him. But then Alewyth dropped into the basement through the window and saw Wakuren's predicament: he was thrashing about but unable to strike a creature adhered to his own back. She swung Sjondra at the vile worm but the half-orc's wild thrashing around caused her to miss completely. Fortunately, Zander had by this time conquered his fear and stepped forward, casting a [I]magic missile[/I] spell at the gutslug adhered to Wakuren's back. And then a lit sunrod was tossed into the basement, followed almost immediately by Thurloe, bastard sword in hand. One careful stab with his blade cut through the gutslug without piercing Wakuren as well. The creature fell to the ground in a pool of blood, some of it no doubt Wakuren's. Xandro managed to pin the other gutslug in place with his rapier and cut through it with a twist of his wrist. It too died, lying motionless on the basement floor as Thurloe cleaned his blade and retrieved his sunrod. Then the group gave the basement a cursory examination, finding no additional gutslugs crawling around anywhere. Wakuren opened a door leading to shelves of canned goods and rotting vegetables, a root cellar of sorts. Alewyth stepped up beside the half-orc and pointed out the footprints in some spilled flour on the floor. "Rats, by the look of it," she said. "Lovely," replied Wakuren. "This is quite the manor house so far." There was a set of stairs over on the side of the basement across from the windows. They led up into the kitchen, which both looked like it had seen plenty of use but at the same time not very recently, judging by the light scattering of dust covering the counters and the table. "The maids haven't been doing their jobs," Wakuren pointed out. Then he led the group into a dining room, a living area, and back to the front door just to make sure they'd covered the entire ground floor before taking another set of stairs up the second floor. The layers of dust on everything told that nobody had been here recently to disturb anything. "This is kind of creepy," Alewyth admitted, gripping her warhammer [I]Sjondra [/I]tightly. Heading up stairs, Wakuren in the lead, the first door they came to was an empty bedroom. The bed had been made and once the half-orc peeked inside a closet and found a series of dresses and aprons, they deduced this had been the housekeeper's room. But it was as empty and dusty as the rest of the house. Wakuren moved on. The next door down the upper hallway seemed to be stuck, and when Wakuren forced it open he saw why: it had been trapped, causing a full-length mirror to be pulled from the wall to come crashing down upon his head. He shook his head, flinging shards of broken mirror in all directions. "Great: now I have seven years of bad luck," he commented wryly. "Who would have done that?" asked Zander, puzzled. "Yeah, and why?" added Alewyth. "More importantly," pointed out Wakuren, "how did they get out of the room after setting the trap -- or are they still here?" He entered the room cautiously, shield held before him. But after finding two single beds (both made) and maids' uniforms hanging in the closet, Wakuren had no idea what was going on. He examined the twine that had been attached from the doorknob to the mirror and asked Zander to step inside with him. "There aren't invisible creatures in here with us, by any chance, are there?" he asked the elf in a quiet voice, recalling there were pixies or some other type of fairy that could turn themselves invisible and had a penchant for playing tricks. Zander activated his magic goggles as he pulled them over his eyes, giving the whole room a quick scan. "Nothing," he reported back. As long as the [I]see invisibility[/I] powers of the goggles were active, he backtracked into the housekeeper's room as well but found nothing there either. Wakuren, in the meantime, had come up to the next door in line. It too didn't want to open, but the half-orc didn't feel like having another mirror shatter on his head so he took a step back and kicked the door in with his booted foot. Surprisingly, this only produced a scraping sound from off to the left of the room's interior, as the half-orc noted there was a length of twine attached from the doorknob to a bedpost or something preventing the door from being fully opened. He thought briefly about trying to squeeze in through the gap in the door, then asked for a dagger. Zander passed him over a dagger and Wakuren used it to cut through the twine, allowing the door to open fully. And that's when the dozen creatures inside the second maids' bedroom attacked. Scrambling out from underneath the two beds were half a dozen rats, each of them mounted by a wrinkly little man no more than a foot tall. They swarmed up to the surprised half-orc, the rats biting with their wicked little rodents' teeth and the jermlaine in the front ranks stabbing out with their tiny little spears while those behind them threw darts at the follower of Cal. Wakuren staggered backwards a step under the surprising assault, but Zander stepped forward with a scroll in hand and cast a [I]color spray[/I] at the assembled horde. The spell took out half of the rats and their riders, the spell's energy both blinding them and stunning them into sudden immobility. Thurloe, however, was at the end of the single-file line going methodically down the hallway and by now he was bored. There was another door on this side of the hallway and on a whim he opened it. It opened into a sitting room, complete with a comfortable-looking sofa and low table before it, a pair of chairs and footstools, and more importantly to the fighter a well-stocked bar with a dusty bottle of brandy atop it. Thurloe unstoppered the brandy bottle, sniffed it, and took an appreciative swig - not bad! Then he passed through the room and opened the door at the far end. That was more like it! This next room was the master bedroom and there on the double bed was no doubt Lady Camilla Middlewich herself. Thurloe wasn't sure what he had expected the noblewoman to look like, but one thing he hadn't anticipated was her being completely bald. But bald she was, the skin of her head shiny in the light of Thurloe's sunrod, for the curtains were all pulled on the windows of the bedroom. Thurloe stepped inside and gave a quick check to the two other doors in the room - a walk-in closet and a bathroom, respectively - before absently commenting to the comatose noblewoman, "Well, your hired help seems to have left you to fend for yourself, my lady. Nice bunch, that. But don't worry, we should have you up and about and hiring replacements in no time." Xandro, in the meantime, had begun playing his song of courage on his lute, hoping to aid those of his friends able to fight of whatever was in the room at the end of the hallway. Wakuren had crushed a pair of both jermlaine and rats beneath his shield, putting all of his weight upon it. Alewyth scooted into the room and used [I]Sjondra [/I]to crush another rat and its rider into pulp, while Zander cast a [I]magic missile[/I] spell into the room, sending one missile into the body of a fleeing rat and another into the wrinkled body of the jermlaine riding bareback upon it, sending both skittering lifelessly into a heap upon the bedroom floor. That left only two of each remaining, and without any hesitation they made a dash for the far closet, the jermlaine leaping from their rodent mounts' backs and all four squeezing beneath the closed closet door. Thurloe called down the hallway that he'd found their dreamer, but Wakuren took the time to open the maids' closet door and crush the remaining rats and jermlaine underneath his shield before going to go see Lady Middlewich. The group convened inside the master bedroom, looking down at the bald noblewoman. "How do we want to do this?" asked Alewyth. "I don't want any more of those little buggers sneaking in here while we're all asleep, getting the Lady Camilla out of her dreams." "We could take her outside to the wagon," suggested Xandro. "I'm sure the horses and the goat could handle any jermlaine that might show up." "Nah," scoffed Thurloe. "Close the door and stuff some towels or something underneath the door so they can't get in. It's not like they're tall enough to use a doorknob." "It's not like they couldn't pull the towels out from underneath the door," countered Alewyth, looking nervously at the noblewoman's bald head. She wasn't particularly vain, but she sure didn't want her own brown locks sheared off like she was a sheep or a rothé! "Here we go," offered up Zander, pulling out his [I]figurine of wondrous power[/I] and activating it with a command word. In an instant the statuette became a full-sized elven dog. "You ever going to name that thing?" Thurloe asked. "There's no rush," Zander replied. "Better to wait for the perfect name to come to me." [I]But then[/I], the elf thought, [I]what else could one expect from a short-lived human, who always seemed to feel the need to rush-rush-rush about everything, let alone one with the overwhelming creativity to name his horse "Horse"?[/I] "In any case, he can stand watch over us as we go into the dreamlands." That decided, the group pulled Lady Camilla's bed into the middle of the room while Alewyth tied a scarf from one of her dresser drawers around the noblewoman's head, placing a dreamstone up against her brow. Then she passed a dreamstone to each of her companions and they positioned themselves around the bed in a circle, each sitting cross-legged and slowing their breathing in the way their moogle guides had taught them. One by one, they fell into sleep and found themselves standing in the dreamlands, where their individual moogle guides led them to the Corridor of Dreams. Mogo fluttered in the air, waiting for them. "In you go and good luck, kupo!" called Mogo, and the five entered Lady Camilla's dream. "Oh dear," said Alewyth upon seeing this particular dreamscape for the first time. The light was a hellish red, spilling up from a crevasse ahead of them that was apparently filled with molten magma. Hanging on a thin strand of webbing over the chasm was Lady Camilla, her body bound up in a tight-fitting cocoon and hanging from a line of webbing being held by the biggest spider the dreamwalkers had ever seen. "Don't let it get me!" sobbed Lady Camilla as the spider grabbed up the web in its hindmost pair of legs and began pulling her toward it. As one, the five dreamwalkers grabbed up the other end of the web-line (which was just sitting on the ground by their feet, in direct violation of normal physics - but dream logic was freed from the realities of the Mortal World) and tugged on it, halting the noblewoman's movement towards the massive arachnid. "Pull!" commanded Thurloe, in the front of the line of heroes. He realized if they lost this particular tug-of-war he was going to be the first one to fall over the edge of the chasm into the magma below. Sure, he wouldn't actually die if he "died" in a dream, but he still didn't want to experience plunging into lava, dream or no dream. The heroes strained with all their might and managed to pull Lady Camilla back into the center of the chasm. "We can't use our dreamstones with both hands on the rope!" pointed out Alewyth. In the past, they'd occasionally been able to channel power through their dreamstones to weaken their dream-foes, going all the way back to their first battle against the dream fox chasing down the wizard Grimboldt. But to use their dreamstones they needed to hold them out at their foes, in much the same way a cleric held out his or her holy symbol when turning undead. Wakuren had an idea. "Zander!" he called out. "You're the weakest of the five of us! Drop the web-line and use your dreamstone to try to weaken the spider!" The elven sorcerer dropped the line and held out his dreamstone at the spider, somewhat embarrassed at having been pointed out as the group's physical weakest member but stoically acknowledging it was the honest truth. He focused his will against the spider but failed to hold his concentration enough; Lady Camilla was yanked closer to the spider. "Again! Try harder!" commanded Thurloe, tugging at the line for all he was worth. The others behind him did likewise as Zander concentrated on weakening the spider across the chasm from them. This time it worked and the noblewoman was pulled closer to their side of the gap. There was a bit of back-and-forth for a bit, but eventually Lady Camilla was close enough for Thurloe to pluck her cocoon from the web-line and drop her onto solid ground on their side of the magma crevasse. Then it was a matter of cutting away the cocoon before she stood on her own, safe and sound. It was only then that Thurloe realized this dream version of Lady Camilla Middlewich had a full head of white hair piled high on her head in an elaborate style. She was going to be in for a bit of a shock when she woke up.... And she was waking up, for the dreamscape around the heroes started fading. "Back to the Waking World," Thurloe told the others, using the dreamwalker training he'd received to instantly wake himself up from the noblewoman's dream. Around him, the others started blinking out as they forced themselves awake, until finally only Xandro was left standing there by himself. Across the chasm, the spider had turned around and was glaring at him in the fading light, its eyes eight pinpoints of reddish light as the illumination from the dimming magma below started to fade. "Um guys?" the bard called out nervously. "I can't seem to wake up. [I]I can't wake up!"[/I] The dreamscape went to total blackness all around him, leaving only the faint outline of a doorway in view. Xandro scrambled over to it, pulled the door open, and stepped back into the Corridor of Dreams. "Good work, kupo!" praised Mogo, before a frown crossed his kittenish face. "...but, why are you still here, kupo? Shouldn't you get back to the Waking World with the others, kupo?" "That's just the thing -- I can't!" Xandro answered, starting to worry about what might have caused him to be unable to leave the dreamlands. Back in Lady Camilla's bedroom, the elderly noblewoman was quite startled to find herself surrounded by a group of strangers she'd never met before - for the details of her nightmare were starting to fade now that she was awake. "Who are you?" she demanded, a hand raising instinctively to hold the top of her nightgown closed at her throat. "What do you want?" And then she shrieked aloud, having made a disturbing discovery. [I]"And what have you done with my hair?"[/I] "Guys: problems!" Zander warned, looking over at the open door to the bedroom and the statuette of the cooshee lying on its side. He wasn't sure how they'd done it, but apparently the jermlaine had overcome his elven dog and forced it back into statuette form. Then he looked around the room, and added, "Hey! Where's Xandro?" But Xandro was not in the room with the rest of the group and the hysterical noblewoman. Alewyth did her best to calm her down and catch her back up to speed about how much time had passed while Thurloe sprang into action. "Look: drag marks!" he said, pointing down at the floral carpet in the bedroom and adjoining sitting room. "They took Xandro this way!" And with that the three men were off, leaving Alewyth to promise Lady Camilla that things would be okay and that they'd be back to explain everything. Then she raced off to try to catch up with the rest of the group, realizing wryly she had the shortest legs of the five of them. Thurloe followed the drag marks down the stairs, across the library and dining room and into the kitchen. From there, he could hear the clunking sounds of something - likely Xandro's head - hitting each of the steps leading down into the basement as he was dragged by his enemies. Damn those wretched jermlaine! The fighter sped on down the stairs, Zander right behind him; Wakuren, in his heavier armor, was falling a bit behind. Clomping down the stairs, Thurloe saw Xandro being pulled by a rope around his ankles across the basement floor. But it wasn't jermlaine towing him; instead, these creatures were twice the size of the little foot-tall jermlaine, although they hunched forward to the point their clawed pincers nearly dragged on the floor. They had tiny legs and twisted pincers in place of hands, with large eyes and a bristle-headed countenance giving an insectoid appearance. Thurloe had no idea what these creatures were, but they didn't bode well for poor Xandro! They didn't bode well for Thurloe either, as it turned out. As one, the eight meenlocks turned to face the human fighter and blasted him with their mind-rending attacks. Zander, rushing in behind Thurloe, didn't actually see the eight figures do anything but stare at Thurloe, and all of a sudden the fighter was collapsing into an unconscious heap at the foot of the stairs. To his credit, Zander Quilson didn't hesitate a moment before leaping into battle against a troop of foes that had managed to take out two of their number already. He dashed to the side of the meenlocks, lined up in two rows of four on either side of the rope tied around Xandro's ankles, and repeated the same tactic that had worked so well against the jermlaine upstairs: reading the words of a second [I]color spray[/I] spell from another scroll. This time the effects were even better than they had been against the jermlaine, for a full five of the eight meenlocks froze up, blinded and stunned into temporary immobility. By then Wakuren had made it to the kitchen stairs and was clumping down the steps. He leaped over the unconscious Thurloe and stabbed down at the closest meenlock, not even wondering why the thing just stood there instead of trying to dodge the bottom edge of the half-orc's shield. The meenlock's skull split open from the force of the shield's blow and it died immediately. Behind him, he could hear Alewyth's booted feet on the floor of the kitchen. Unable to immediately use their mind-rending attack again, the three still-mobile meenlocks made a rush for Zander, hoping to tear him apart in their claws. Their sharp pincers snapped at the sorcerer's legs, causing the elf to cry out in pain, but he quickly shook them off, took a step back himself, and blasted one of them with a [I]magic missile[/I] spell. It fell backwards against one of its still-stunned partners, the two of them collapsing together in a heap. Wakuren took out another stunned meenlock with his shield when he heard a confused grunt from behind him. Sparing a moment from his frenzied combat, the half-orc saw with some relief Thurloe was pulling himself into a sitting position, one hand holding the side of his head. "Wh' 'appen?" he mumbled in confusion. Alewyth dashed down into the basement and lent Sjondra to the meenlock-bashing party. The warhammer slammed a stunned meenlock flat against the wall, crushing it instantly. At that point, the two meenlocks still capable of movement made a run for it, dashing into the shadows of the back wall near the rows of wine bottles - where, Zander noticed, there was hole burrowed into the side of the brick. Zander, Wakuren, and Alewyth took out the remaining meenlocks still blinded and stunned from the elf's spell before bringing a befuddled Thurloe up to speed. They tried waking Xandro, but the poor bard was out cold. Alewyth took it upon herself to look over him while the others decided on their next course of action. Eventually, given the cramped size of the tunnel in the side of the basement wall (which would require a person to crawl forward on his or her belly and which would make wielding a weapon all but impossible), it was decided their best bet was to send in the elf. After all, Zander didn't need a weapon; he could fire off a [I]magic missile[/I] spell even inside the cramped confines of a meenlock tunnel. So Wakuren healed up all of the elf's wounds (and even cast a [I]virtue[/I] spell on him to give him that extra little bit of staying power), then Zander crawled forth into the tunnel for some solo combat. He was in there for quite a while, causing some initial worry, but when the sorcerer returned it was with a small bit of accumulated treasure, the few valuables he'd found in the small side caverns he'd unearthed after having slain the two remaining meenlocks with his spells. There was a silver ring, a holy symbol of Infernia, Goddess of Love, and a few coins. "And that's not all," Zander told the others. "I found some rags in their living quarters, from the clothing some of them wore before being transformed into meenlocks. It was maids' outfits, with their aprons and everything." "You mean...?" began Alewyth, a look of dawning horror on her dwarven features. "Yeah," admitted Zander. "Lady Camilla's maids didn't abandon her - they were probably taken, one by one, and turned into those...things." Shortly thereafter Alewyth was successful in finally rousing Xandro, who was as woozy as Thurloe. But they returned to Lady Camilla and Alewyth took the lead in explaining everything to the elderly noblewoman. Lady Camilla's eyes widened in horror at the tale of what had happened to her housekeeper and maids. "Oh, poor [B]Agnes[/B]," she said, thinking of the housekeeper who'd been with her since Lord Middlewich had still been alive. "And to think the same thing would probably have happened to me..." began Lady Camilla, running a hand over her bald head. "Yeah," agreed Wakuren. "But the jermlaine probably fought them off, not wanting to lose their source of hair. You, stuck as you were in a dream coma, were the perfect source of hair for the jermlaine." Lady Camilla insisted on rewarding the heroes for their help with bottles from her late husband's wine collection - two bottles each and she wouldn't take "no" for an answer. She also gave them two dozen longbow arrows, explaining her late husband had enjoyed hunting but she'd never get any use out of them now. "You might as well have them, if they'll be some use to you." The heroes opted to spend a second night in the inn, since Alewyth was the only one capable of casting the spell necessary to fully restore Xandro and Thurloe's full faculties and she didn't have any [I]lesser restoration[/I] spells readily available at the moment. "It'll probably take a couple castings each to get you both up to speed," she warned them. "Don' matter," mumbled Thurloe. "Be worth it. Head feels all..." He stumbled to find the right word. "Mungly," offered up Xandro, feeling quite out of it himself and not really sure what he was saying. "Yeah," agreed Thurloe. "That." - - - Harry was not a fan of Xandro having been drained down to 0 Wisdom (and thus forced into unconsciousness, although that wasn't really noticeable in the dreamscape) by the meenlocks while the PCs were all asleep and basically helpless. (I hadn't counted on the cooshee, but that just meant it took longer for the meenlocks to knock him out first before getting into the master bedroom and picking their next target for meenlock conversion.) I only had them pick on Xandro because he had the lowest Wisdom score and it made sense to me that a group of creatures who drained Wisdom would have some sort of innate sense of who would make the easiest victim. But he was grumbling that he was out for the count for the rest of the adventure because Alewyth, the only cleric high enough to cast [I]lesser restoration[/I] spells, hadn't prepared one of those that morning. So I implemented an impromptu rules change for meenlock Wisdom drains: every round, the unconscious victim got to roll a d10 and if it came up a "0", they would spontaneously "heal" back up to 1 Wisdom, at least allowing them back into the game. (That nicely paralleled the rule for stabilizing when you're at negative hit points and "bleeding out.") But Harry's dice didn't cooperate, and then to make matters worse Dan's did when he soon thereafter found himself in a similar position. We finished this adventure up in about two hours, so we all opted to press on with the next one as well in the same game session. - - - T-shirt worn: My "Red Cross" T-shirt that I got free for donating blood once. Lacking anything more appropriate, I decided the "blood" connection tied in with the gutslugs the PCs fought in the basement at the beginning of the adventure. [/QUOTE]
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