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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9364590" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 74: A PLAGUE OF SERPENTSPC Roster: Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 15             Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 3/wizard 3/spellsword 9             Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 7/paladin 8             Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 6/rogue 9             Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 15Game Session Date: 25 May 2024 - - -It was the middle of the night in Talonia, and the five heroes were all asleep inside Hesperna's lamp.  Their minds, however, had traveled to the Dreamlands, where they'd each been met by their personal moogle guide and ushered down the Corridor of Dreams, a seemingly endless series of connecting passageways filled with doors, until they came to the door that represented the personal dreamscape of Chrysos Arkaurum.  Chrysos was a gold dragon and currently the head of the Council of Dragons that had taken over a temporary leadership role now that the Queen of Dreams had been slain, but as usual, he appeared in his humanoid form: a distinguished-looking, scholarly male elf.  His dreamscape had taken on the appearance of a conference room adjoining his impressive study, filled with dusty books and ancient tomes.  Seated around the conference table with him were the other four members of the Council of Dragons."We have discovered a problem requiring the attention of experienced dreamwalkers," Chrysos informed the five heroes assembled before him.  "As you know, the Dragonmind is a voluntary telepathic link shared by sleeping dragons, allowing us to communicate across the miles while we sleep and scheme.  We have discovered an anomaly in the Dragonmind: there are five members who cannot be contacted, despite all efforts."The elven scholar looked over at Mogo.  "We asked the moogles to look in on them in their private dreamscapes, and that's when we discovered their dreams had been invaded by a new kind of hypnalis viper, of the type recently used by the Nightmare King to put his sleeping victims into dream comas.""It's true, kupo!" interjected Mogo.  "They're bigger than the normal kind, too, kupo!"Chrysos continued.  "The dragons on the Council have entered the dreams of the five current victims and saw for ourselves the hypnalis vipers lairing there, but as we are not experienced dreamwalkers we lack the ability to interact with these creatures.  We can, however, tell you the following about them:"First off, as Mogo said, these hypnalis vipers are much larger than the type with which we are already accustomed – at least double in size."Next, they do not seem to be doing anything in particular other than basking in the dreamscape.  However, in each case, the viper was beginning to take on the characteristics of the dragon into whose dream it was trespassing: their scales taking on the same coloration, and already wings had formed from their backs.  I believe, given sufficient time, they may well become duplicates of their specific dream victims."Finally, each dreamscape, not having yet been tailored by the dreamer, is a replica of the lair in which the dragon slumbers.  The five dragons are represented by each of the standard chromatic species: black, blue, green, red, and white.  I do not believe it matters in which order you attend to these vipers, but we request you go into each of the five dreamscapes and slay the hypnalis vipers lairing there.  If the pattern holds true, we believe that may release the dragon victims from their imposed coma and allow them to be restored to their normal sleep, at which time they may be able to be contacted over the Dragonmind."Once you have defeated all five vipers, we will see what we can do about tracking down where they came from and if there are any more of them ready to inflict mischief upon innocent dreamers.""Seems fairly straightforward," observed Wakuren."Mogo can direct you to the dreamscapes in question," Chrysos affirmed.  "Please report back here when all five have been taken care of."  The five dreamwalkers and Mogo took their leave."Where to first, kupo?" asked Mogo.  Talking it over briefly among themselves, they decided to tackle these mutant hypnalis vipers in reverse alphabetical order of the types of dragon whose dream they were inhabiting: white, red, green, blue, and then black.  There was no particular rhyme or reason for doing it in this order, merely a whim on the part of Xandro.  But while Alewyth had suggested they could each take on one dreamscape alone - after all, if anything happened to them here in the Dreamlands they'd simply get woken up in the Mortal World, with no harm done - Thurloe argued they'd have a better time of it with a series of individual five-against-one battles in their favor.  "If they turn out to be pushovers, then maybe we can split up into smaller groups to take on the others," he offered."Here's the white dragon's dream, kupo," said Mogo, stopping at a particular door.  "The dragon is named Galligorta, and she can take the form of a goliath - but in her dream she's in her white dragon form, fast asleep, kupo.  The dreamscape is an ice cavern, hidden behind a frozen waterfall, kupo.""Hang on, before we enter the dreamscape, I want to try something," said Wakuren.  He cast a resist cold spell upon himself, but attempted to expand it into a non-existent (to his knowledge, anyway), more powerful version hypothetically called mass resist cold, which would affect all five of the dreamwalkers.  After casting the spell, he asked around if anybody felt any different.  Upon seeing all four of his fellow dreamwalkers shaking their heads, the half-orc said, "Well, it was worth a try.""Lucid dreaming techniques have a better chance of working while inside a given dreamscape, kupo," offered up Mogo.  But Alewyth dug around in her extradimensional storage case and passed out potions of resist cold to Thurloe, Xandro, and Zander, while using the gourd of white face paint to place the appropriate runes in her face and arms to protect herself in the same manner.  Best of all, since this was all in the Dreamlands, they weren't actually consuming these items - when they woke back up in Talonia the "real" versions of their magical protection would still all be intact.  Alewyth and Wakuren each cast a magic circle against evil spell upon themselves, while Thurloe made sure he had a protection from evil keeping him safe.  Zander cast his standard mage armor spell and declared himself ready to go.Thurloe opened the door and stepped inside Galligorta's dream.  He ended up with the frozen waterfall at his back, which let a feeble bit of sunlight inside the roughly hemispherical chamber.  In the center of the room lay the white dragon, fast asleep, while behind her reared a white-scaled hypnalis viper with a pair of folded dragon wings growing from its back.  Numerous icicles hung from the cavern's ceiling some 20 feet overhead.  The serpent glared at the spellsword with unblinking eyes, and Thurloe cast a scorching ray spell directly at it.Beside him, Wakuren entered the dream, already casting a shield of faith spell upon himself.  Zander entered next, waiting for the other two dreamwalkers to enter the dream so he could cast a single haste spell and catch everyone in its area of effect.  Alewyth was the next to appear, and she also struck out without hesitation, casting a flame-based spell - in her case, a flame strike that had holy fire shooting down from the frozen ceiling to encompass the hypnalis viper's form.  (She was careful to ensure the spell didn't touch the sleeping white dragon, even though the priestess realized this was just a dream - it was a force of habit on her part.)  Finally, Xandro entered the dream, already playing his song of inspirational courage on the Dardolian Lute, to boost everyone's morale.  Seeing all five of them in place in the dreamscape, Zander cast his haste spell, and Xandro, with practiced ease, made sure his ability to move faster didn't alter the tempo of his song.The half-dragon serpent did not appreciate the fire-based attacks it had overcome and retaliated in kind.  Opening wide its serpentine mouth (exposing a pair of wicked fangs in the process), it belched forth a cone of sparkling ice crystals, encompassing all five dreamwalkers in a layer of frost.  However, to its disappointment, the heroes seemed less than discomfited by the icy blast of its developing breath weapon.Thurloe raced forward to the sleeping dragon, his bastard sword out and ready to strike the viper if it made any move at him, while he cast a protection from evil spell upon Galligorta, thinking it might protect her from having her draconic abilities drained (or merely copied?) by the massive hypnalis viper.  The serpent made no move against the spellsword, well aware of the sharpness of his blade.  But while Thurloe looked for any signs that his spell was having any effect, its usefulness was not readily apparent - the dragon did not suddenly wake up, nor did the viper seem like anything was blocking its ability to slowly become more and more like its unconscious host.Wakuren cast an air walk spell upon himself and stepped into the air.  He walked around the perimeter of the cavern, lining himself up behind the viper.  Unfortunately, he miscalculated the serpent's reach when it suddenly darted out at him, mouth open and curved fangs glistening with venom.  The half-orc found himself bitten, the fangs piercing his skin, and being wrapped up in the coils of the serpent's sinuous body.  but the hypnalis viper was in for another disappointment, for Wakuren had partaken of a heroes' feast spell in the Mortal World that morning, as had all of the heroes, and thus even in the dreamscape he was immune to the effects of poison and venom alike.Zander aimed his metamagic rod at the white viper and channeled a maximized scorching ray spell at it.  With his advanced expertise at casting arcane spells, he was able to send out three gouts of flame as opposed to Thurloe's two, and with the power of his rod these flame-blasts were the most dangerous a mortal caster could bring into existence.  The serpent hissed in pain and surprise, but managed to maintain its hold on Wakuren's struggling form.Alewyth brought down another flame strike on the front half of the hypnalis viper - this one empowered to dealing additional damage - after ensuring Wakuren wouldn't also be in the spell's area of effect.  That, at least, was one advantage of fighting a much larger hypnalis viper than they were used to!Xandro raced forward with his magic rapier Deathwhisper out and ready to deal damage.  And it dealt plenty, cutting a long gash along the viper's serpentine body, slicing it open like a sausage.  He paid for his insolence by becoming the viper's next target, and he wasn't fast enough to avoid its darting bite, but once again the morning's heroes' feast prevented the creature's venom from harming him, and its body wasn't big enough to constrict both Wakuren and Xandro at the same time.  So Thurloe, calling forth a dose of extra strength from his torc of the titans, brought his bastard sword Spellslicer crashing down upon the serpent's muscular body, nearly cutting it in two.  The vampiric touch spell he'd loaded into his blade earlier activated, flooding the spellsword's body with stolen vigor while the hypnalis viper shuddered and died.The death of the dream's intruder allowed Galligorta to awaken to consciousness, and she was less than thrilled to see a group of five adventurers intruding into her personal lair, even if it was a facsimile in the Dreamlands.  But before she could fight off the intruders, the Dragonmind sparked to life and Chrysos explained what was going on to the startled white dragon.  The five heroes exited the dream by opening the door Xandro was able to locate, and they were once again standing in the Corridor of Dreams, with Mogo hovering in the air waiting for them.  "That's one down, kupo!" he exclaimed.  "Red dragon next, right? - this way, kupo!"Wakuren and Alewyth cast healing spells on those who needed them as the moogle led the group to the location of the next dreamscape with an advanced, half-dragon hypnalis viper intruder.  Alewyth pulled out another drow gourd, applying new face paint to herself after casting a protection from fire spell upon Wakuren.  Zander was the first one through the door, which he immediately realized had been a mistake, for his haste spell had expired and he wanted to cast another one on everyone, so he should have let the others precede him into the dreamscape.  But it was too late now.Looking about, he saw a natural stone bridge spanning across a pool of liquid magma some 100 feet or so below.  The bridge led to a wider, open cavern at the far end, in the middle of which lay a sleeping red dragon.  This, Mogo had explained on the way over, was the red dragon who used the name Durok Stoneforge when in his male dwarf form.  Behind the slumbering dragon reared a red-scaled, winged serpent, the hypnalis viper already halfway to taking on its victim's own powers and abilities.Thurloe entered the dreamscape beside Zander and immediately activated the fly ability of his celestial armor - there was no way he wanted to get dropped into the magma below!  Wakuren appeared next to the spellsword, and tried once again to cast a protection from fire spell not only upon himself but also upon Thurloe and Zander.  However, his attempt at altering the dreamscape - even on just such a personal scale - through lucid dreaming failed, and the spell ended up affecting just himself, as normal.Xandro entered next, back to playing the song of inspirational courage on his lute.  When Alewyth appeared, she tried casting a hold monster spell upon the red hypnalis viper, to no effect.  But now that all five dreamwalkers were present in Durok's dreamscape, Zander cast his haste spell.  But even as he did so, the serpent struck forward, opening and flapping its draconic wings, powering itself halfway across the length of the bridge just to its side.  It opened its massive maw and blasted forth a cone of fire, catching the five bunched-up heroes to various effects.  Zander retaliated with the same strategy he'd used against the white viper, this time channeling a maximized cone of cold spell through his metamagic rod, covering the viper's head and half of its length in frost.Thurloe tried to use the serpent's moment of discomfort from the sorcerer's spell to fly past it, but the viper registered his presence and snapped out at him, catching him in its powerful jaws and pumping him full of useless venom.  Nonplussed at the venom's ineffectiveness, it coiled its serpentine body around its prey.  Struggle as he might, Thurloe was unable to wrest himself from his captor's grasp.Wakuren, air walk spell still in effect, ran through the air and slammed his shield of Cal into the great serpent's head.  Xandro ran across the stone bridge, slashing out with Deathwhisper from the serpent' opposite side once he got within range.  Alewyth cast an empowered searing light spell at the viper's unblinking eyes and the reptile, partially in automatic reaction, belched forth another blast of fire from its mouth, even though only Zander, Alewyth, and Xandro were within range.  As Thurloe dimension doored himself 10 feet to the side of the serpent's coils with his anklet of translocation, Zander blasted it again with another maximized cone of cold spell.  Wakuren smashed his shield into the serpent's head again, and a final stab from Xandro's enchanted rapier caused it to fall lifelessly into the pool of magma below.Once again, Chrysos's rapid explanation over the Dragonmind to Durok as he woke up prevented the red dragon from attacking the heroes trespassing into his personal dreamscape.  Wakuren cast healing spells while Alewyth passed around healing potions to those who needed them, and then the dreamwalkers met Mogo back out in the Corridor of Dreams, so the moogle could lead them to the green dragon's dreamscape.  The green dragon, Mogo explained, used the name Drunikka Lone-Oak when in her elven form.  Her dreamscape, he further explained, took the form of a circle of upright stone plinths in a forest clearing, with the dragon sleeping in the center.Zander entered the dreamscape first, finding himself standing in a forest clearing, just outside the ring of stone plinths rising up some 20 feet into the air.  The green dragon Drunikka slept in the middle of the ring of plinths, and a green-scaled hypnalis viper had its serpentine body wrapped around one of the upright pillars, its wings spread out above it to provide some shade as it looked down at its sleeping victim, who was unaware of the draining occurring simply by the viper being there in her dreamscape.The elf wasted no time worrying about renewing haste spells; he immediately cast a chain lightning spell up at the hypnalis viper's head, using a charge of his ring of mystic lightning to further empower the spell.  The blast struck the viper in the head and although it didn't arc to any other foes (as there were none to target), the sorcerer felt quite happy with the damage he seemed to have done with the blast.Alewyth entered the dreamscape next, attacking with a hold monster spell.  Unfortunately, the coiled reptile managed to shake off the intended effects, and thus was none the worse for wear.  Thurloe entered the dreamscape next, taking the opportunity to cast the "cold" version of the fire shield spell upon himself, making sure if the viper bit him it would pay for the effrontery.  But the viper retaliated in a slightly different method, by belching forth a cloud of acidic vapors that encompassed all three heroes to trespass into the dragon's dream thus far.  Their exposed skin stinging from the caustic cloud, they winced in pain but held their ground.Xandro was the next to enter the dreamscape, and he ended up right next to the plinth the hypnalis viper was coiled around.  Taking advantage of the opportunity, he sliced deep into the serpent's exposed scales, eliciting a hiss of rage and pain from his victim.  Then Wakuren appeared on the other side of the same plinth, and he brought his shield of Cal slamming into the other side of the creature's powerful body.Zander blasted the viper with another chain lightning spell, while Alewyth cast a healing spell on the elf to help seal up some of the scars on his body caused by the acidic breath weapon used against them a moment ago.  (It was well known that the frail elf was the least hearty of the five adventurers, and often needed healing spells much sooner than any of the others.)  Thurloe deemed it safe enough to cast a lightning bolt spell of his own up at the viper, which had turned and struck down at Xandro, catching him in its jaws, raising him up into the air, and transferring him to a loop of coils rising up from the top of the plinth around which it had been curled.  Then it squeezed its muscular body, trying to crush Xandro's lungs until he could no longer breathe.  But Xandro still had Deathwhisper in hand, and he managed to stick its point against the viper's scaled body and push for all he was worth, getting the blade to slide in between a pair of scales and penetrate the muscular coils.  Wakuren gave it another bash from his shield for good measure, and then Zander cast a cone of cold spell up at the viper's head, killing it outright.  The coils, which had already begun to loosen as the creature tried to avoid the point of Xandro's blade, released him altogether as it flopped forward, landing awkwardly across the green dragon's sleeping form - which quickly rose as Drunikka awakened from her enforced slumber at the hypnalis viper's death."We're not the enemy here!" Xandro quickly said to the dragon as Chrysos came in over the Dragonmind to calm her down.  Once again, Wakuren and Alewyth supplied healing to those who needed it after this last battle, and the five dreamwalkers exited Drunikka's dream to rejoin Mogo in the Corridor of Dreams."Three down - only two more to go, kupo!" replied the moogle, fluttering down the hallways to reach the next dream in question."The blue dragon is called Callandrixia Sparkeyes, and she sleeps on the top of a rock formation in the desert, kupo!  She can also take on the form of an elf woman, but right now she's a dragon, just like the others, kupo!"Once again, Zander was the first to step through the door and enter the dreamscape.  He was on the very edge of the rock formation and he made the mistake of looking down to see how high up they were; given he was several hundred feet up in the air, he started pinwheeling his arms frantically to keep from plummeting over the edge.  But he cast a displacement spell upon himself, hoping to keep himself from being bitten until the rest of his friends showed up, for there was a blue-scaled hypnalis viper on the other side of the sleeping blue dragon.Xandro entered the dreamscape next, fortunately a bit further in towards the center of the rock formation than Zander had managed, so he didn't need to worry about toppling over the edge.  He decided to charge the viper with his rapier, but he had counted on taking the serpent by surprise and that was not the hand Fate dealt him.  Seeing the approaching human run around Callandrixia's sleeping form, the viper struck out like a cobra and caught the rogue in its mouth, venom pumping uselessly into his body.  But as had happened before, Xandro found himself passed into a loop of coiled, muscular serpent-body and crushed nearly to death.  (He was glad this was just a dream, and the Dardolian Lute strapped to his back would suffer no real harm from the events unfolding in the blue dragon's dream.)Alewyth materialized onto the rock formation next, and cast an empowered flame strike spell down upon the hypnalis viper - whose body was big enough she was able to ensure only the snake was targeted, and that the part holding Xandro pinned was outside the spell's area of effect.  Then Thurloe arrived, and as usual took a moment to see to his own safety, by casting a bear's endurance spell upon himself to enhance his ability to take damage and keep fighting.  Finally, Wakuren arrived and air walked over to the hypnalis viper's head and touched it, casting a bestow curse spell on the viper.  Unfortunately, as happened sometimes, the spell had no effect - and thus the serpent was not robbed of half of his attacks through magically-induced indecisiveness.  But Wakuren was bitten in retaliation for the very attempt; once again, the hypnalis viper's body wasn't long enough to wrap around both Xandro and Wakuren so the half-orc was spared.Zander cast a cone of cold spell at the viper, ensuring none of his friends and fellow dreamwalkers were in the area of effect.  Xandro poked at the blue-scaled viper with his rapier, the same as he had done when caught in the coils of the green hypnalis viper.  Then Alewyth ran up to it and touched its body, channeling a harm spell through her fingers and into the reptile.  This time, the viper was not so successful in shrugging off the spell's effects, and it was weakened to the point Thurloe was able to finish it off with a simple magic missile spell."One more to go, kupo!" said Mogo in greeting upon their return.  "This last one is a black dragon named Slugorth Mireson, who spends a lot of time in the form of a male human, kupo!"Thurloe was the first to enter the dream this time, and he found himself waist-deep in murky, black water.  A mound rose up from the center of the half-submerged cavern, and upon the mound lay the black dragon.  But of the hypnalis viper, there was no sign of it in the shadow-filled cavern, with only the feeble light of phosphorescent fungi to provide illumination.  The spellsword rose up out of the water, using his celestial armor's ability to allow its wearer to fly, and by hanging out by the ceiling was able to see the brackish water all around the dragon's sleeping mound - but there was no viper in evidence.At least, not until the waters started moving and the black-scaled hypnalis viper rose up out of the water directly below the flying spellsword and snapped its jaws around his legs, then wrapped him in the coils of its body.  Zander entered the dream next, also up to his waist in the water, but his elven vision allowed him to target the flying viper with a chain lightning spell.  However, even though he hadn't designated any secondary targets, the fact the viper's lower body was still in the water and it had Thurloe wrapped up in its powerful embrace meant the electricity coursing through its body from the elf's spell ended up rattling the spellsword's teeth and he got a half-dose shot of energy.Xandro popped into the dream next, and had the good fortune to be standing next to the black hypnalis viper.  He stabbed out with Deathwhisper, driving his blade deep into the serpent's body.  Alewyth was the next to enter the dream and, not liking having brackish water rising up to her chest, activated her butterfly brooch and flew erratically into the air.  Then came Wakuren, and he simply air walked his way over to the reptile's head and slammed it with his shield of Cal.Thurloe used his anklet of translocation to dimension door himself 10 feet away from the viper, escaping its crushing coils.  Seeing its prey escape, the viper retaliated by spitting a line of acid from its mouth onto Thurloe.  With steam emanating from his burning skin, the spellsword lost consciousness and fell back into the water.  The other dreamwalkers looked over at him in concern for a moment, then shrugged it off - this was only a dream, so he'd either snap out of it on his own and wake back up or he'd be slain in this dream and be forcefully awakened back in the Mortal World, and in either case it made more sense for them to press their attack upon the hypnalis viper.Zander summoned a red slaad, and upright-walking, humanoid frog with enormous claws and a mouth full of wicked teeth.  It swiped at the hypnalis viper, but the creature dashed its serpentine body out of the way just in time to avoid its claws.  But it couldn't similarly avoid Deathwhisper at the same time, and Xandro stabbed his blade deep into the snake's flesh.  Alewyth managed to finish the beast off with a powerful blow from her dwarven warhammer, Sjondra.  The hypnalis viper fell into the black water and was soon lost to sight, as the black dragon started awakening, surprised and concerned to find four strangers in his lair.  Once again, Chrysos explained things over the now-functioning Dragonmind, and the four heroes made their exit from the dreamscape, Wakuren dragging an unconscious Thurloe along with him."Excellent job, kupo!" declared Mogo.  "You guys can take the rest of your dreamtime off, and return to your own personal dreamscapes if you'd like - I'll report your success to the Council, kupo!  And we'll see if we can't find a way to track down where those nasty hypnalis vipers came from, kupo!"It sounded good to the dreamwalkers. - - -Joe had finished his semester of college by this session, so he got to run his own PC (Zander Quilson) for a change, who he's decided to make into a full "glass cannon" - big, powerful spells and almost no hit points to back him up. - - -T-shirt worn: My black T-shirt with a green dragon.</blockquote>

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