Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9486138" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 84: STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOUPC Roster:Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 17             Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 3/wizard 3/spellsword 10/eldritch knight 1             Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 9/paladin 8             Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 6/rogue 11             Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 17NPC Roster:Beetle Darkcloud, halfling ranger 6             Robin the Balladeer, human bard 6Game Session Date: 12 October 2024 - - -It had been several days since the other four dreamwalkers had agreed to become Akari's mortal representatives, and so far, Xandro wasn't convinced he'd made the wrong choice in not joining them.  They'd spent the night in the drow city of Skel'dorath, and so far none of the drow had reacted any differently to the four mortal representatives as they had to Xandro, Robin, or Beetle.  Xandro knew there were invisible markings on his friends' foreheads - the unholy symbol of Akari, God of Death and Undeath - but the drow were as oblivious to them being there as were Robin and Beetle, who had been time-stopped during the appearance of the Emissary of Akari, who had made the (in Xandro's mind) unholy bargain with them."Breakfast's ready!" called Alewyth, finishing the casting of the heroes' feast spell with which she started every morning.  Everyone gathered around the table and started tucking into the meal: luscious fruits, freshly-baked breads and muffins, and savory spreads.  But there was one difference between this casting of the spell and the previous similar spells she'd cast in the past: everything, be it bread or fruit, pastry or jelly, tasted like garlic.  "What the--?" sputtered Xandro, spitting out a bite from an apple and glaring at Alewyth as if she'd done this on purpose.  Or was the taint of Akari already affecting her spells...?Beetle, of all people, provided the likely answer.  "Skel'dorath was built on the site of a permanent, fluctuating magical field," he explained.  "There's a Temple of Telgrane at the city's edge that studies the effects, but magic can be...highly variable here.  It's likely just a weird side effect of the wild magic that permeates the area.""But it's still safe to eat?" asked Thurloe."I don't know why it wouldn't be," offered up the halfling."Well, the spell's not effective unless we finish this all off in the next hour," reminded Alewyth, helping herself to a glass of garlicky juice, to help wash down the garlicky muffin with garlicky jelly she was eating.  "It's not all that bad."  But the face she made as she choked down the food said otherwise.  Still, the heroes had gotten used to starting each morning out with such fare, and had become somewhat dependent upon the extra vigor and immunity to poison and fear the meal offered.  So they all forced themselves to eat the heroes' feast despite its unusual taste (although everyone hit the wineskins afterwards to get a better taste in their mouths, and to try to get rid of the overwhelming taste of garlic).Finally, that morning ritual complete, the group mounted up on their dinosaur steeds and headed onwards, continuing their way west to find the Forbidden Lands.  Beetle, from the back of his fastieth dinosaur Yellow-Belly at the front of their little procession, pointed out the Temple of Telgrane, God of the Sun and of Knowledge, once it came into view: a multi-stepped pyramid, rising up from the northwestern edge of the city.  But as he started to explain about the kinds of things they studied there, he was interrupted by the sounds of screams coming from that direction."What now?" grumbled Thurloe.The screams were followed shortly by a small horde of drow fleeing from the direction of the temple pyramid.  "Take my reins," Wakuren told Beetle.  "I'm switching mounts."  And with that, the half-orc - who used the illusion-generating properties of his cloak to make him to appear to be a strange hybrid of orc and drow (thinking this would make him fit in more in a drow city, unaware of just how strange and unusual such a background was seen in drow society) - summoned his air element warhorse Nimbus from the Elemental Plane of Air, leaping from the saddle of his pachycephalosaurus Perseverance, which he rode in town the better to fit in.  Beetle took the dinosaur's reins and led him to the back of their formation; Robin joined him, getting out her lute and preparing to start up the chords to the song of inspirational courage.As the fearful drow came running their way, Thurloe used his wand to cast a shield spell on himself.  "This better not be another damned shinigami," he muttered to himself.  But it wasn't: it was a squat, humanoid figure, towering some 35 feet or so into the air, its massive arms flailing as it waddled down the street between the buildings on either side.  Despite its bulk, its massive size allowed it to take huge strides that quickly ate up the distance between it and the closest of the fleeing drow.  It bent forward and swatted at two of the dark elves, who stuck to its hands and were added to its mass; only then did the heroes note that this towering, humanoid beast was composed of the merged bodies of scores, if not hundreds of people.Alewyth quickly cast a magic circle against evil spell upon herself, gazing in awe at the towering monstrosity.  Xandro cast a heroism spell on himself, while looking up at the flesh colossus, noticing it wasn't just drow making up its fused body - there were a few giant spiders and a riding lizard or two helping comprise its twisted form.  As he watched, it kicked at another drow and the hapless victim merged with the other bodies making up the monster's leg.  The dark elf thrashed and tried to free himself, to no avail.Some of the drow were running into whatever building was at hand, and that proved to be a good strategy, since the flesh colossus was certainly too big to be able to follow, and it seemed to lose interest in what it could no longer see, as if, by entering a building, the drow no longer existed to the horrid brute.  Zander cast a haste spell on the group, asking, "How are we going to fight that?" as Robin started her song from a block or two behind them."Let's take a closer look," suggested Thurloe, activating the fly effect of his celestial armor and taking flight, heading straight towards the flesh colossus.  His bastard sword Spellslicer was out, but this was just a scouting mission; he had no desire to get within striking distance of the colossus and end up a part of its monstrous body.  Boney, no longer burdened by a rider, dropped back by Beetle out of habit.Wakuren cast a shield of faith spell and urged Nimbus closer, the air-steed taking to the skies.  Alewyth tried casting a hold monster spell at the flesh colossus, thinking to immobilize it at least for a bit, but its composite mind - what there was of one - deflected the spell with ease.  Xandro, not wanting to risk his own mount Ceph, climbed down from the saddle and urged it back with a slap on the flank.  It, too, went to go hang out by Beetle and Robin, while Xandro carefully approached, his rapier Deathwhisper out and ready in his hand.Then the colossus shambled closer, and the front line of heroes found themselves in the area of effect of the telepathic field it was generating - a confusing mass of scrambled thoughts, screams of horror, and pointless attempts to make sense of what was happening.  Wakuren, Thurloe, and Xandro each felt their own individual sense of self getting tangled up in this mish-mash of a scrambled mind, their bodies standing motionlessly as they were stunned into temporary immobility.  But the flesh colossus had grabbed up another pair of drow, one of which had had the misfortune of falling down in the street.  It became a part of the colossal beast's left arm, a thick appendage getting thicker all the time."We can't let it get them!" called out Alewyth, wishing she'd prayed for a second hold monster spell that morning.  But Zander had her covered, casting a prismatic wall spell from a scroll he'd purchased several drow cities back, the second of three - leaving him with only one more.  But the multicolored wall sprang up between the flesh colossus and Thurloe's hovering form, and to the confused mind of the flesh colossus, the wall was as solid as any made of brick and mortar; no longer able to see Thurloe, it had already forgotten about the spellsword.  And if nothing else, the diversion allowed the remaining drow to find safety in the nearby buildings; the streets were now clear except for the flesh colossus and the heroes from Armaturia.The three stunned heroes continued staring blankly ahead of them, Thurloe slowly drifting down to the ground as he failed to concentrate on his fly spell.  But Alewyth was unaffected, and she stepped forward a bit (not too close; she didn't want to get caught up in the stun-inducing telepathic field), casting an implosion spell directed at the center of mass of the flesh colossus.  The three-dimensional nature of the amalgamated beast started wobbling, as space seemed to fold in on itself and the colossus got smaller, floating in the middle of the air as its various incorporated body parts all shrunk into itself.  Finally, with a pop of air, the entire creature vanished, as if it had never been there.But there in the street, standing somewhat dazed and confused, were two drow figures who hadn't been there before.  Both wore robes, and each held a rather large ruby in one hand; each had the symbol of Telgrane prominently displayed, the wizard having it stenciled on the left breast of his robes and the cleric on a chain around his neck."You idiot!" screamed the cleric, the older of the two by a considerable margin.  "You see what became of your ridiculous accusations?""It was a wild surge!" countered the younger wizard.  "It was supposed to only link our minds together, so I could read your guilt straight from your own memories!  And regardless, if you hadn't taken what didn't belong to you--""For the last time, I didn't take your precious cookie!" interrupted the cleric.  By that time, he'd had enough; he started the words to a summoning spell, intending to bring forth a howler from the Fiendish Planes to sic on this crazy lab partner of his.  But by then, the stunning effect of the flesh colossus's telepathic field had run its course and the three heroes were once again free to act.  Wakuren, using his paladin senses to confirm that both of these arguing drow were in fact evil, cast a control winds spell that blew them both into the prismatic wall that neither had even taken notice of, so intent were they on their month-long feud.  Passing through the multiple layers of Zander's spell wall, their bodies were scorched, burned, poisoned, petrified, and dumped onto a random outer plane.  And then, at long last, there was once more quiet in the streets of Skel'dorath.It didn't take long for the fleeing drow to notice the threat was no more, and they cautiously exited the buildings from which they had been hiding.  Before long, wizards and clerics started exiting the Temple of Telgrane as well, looking for answers.  The heroes were asked to give statements and remain in the city during their investigations into the incident; they begrudgingly complied - the fact that by staying in one place, it would be that much easier for Wangle to find them when he was ready to pass over the magic items Wakuren and Xandro had ordered and receive the rest of his payment helped them come to the decision they did.  Eventually, they were cleared of all wrongdoing - the drow whose lives they had saved all confirmed their heroic actions in facing down and destroying the flesh colossus - and given the explanation the wizards and clerics had finally pieced together.  It turned out the wizard had brought in a small plate of cookies he'd baked at home, and the final one had gone missing.  He immediately placed the blame on the cleric, the only other one in the room at the time of the theft, who swore he was innocent of the charge.  After a month of bickering, the wizard devised a set of rubies that was to allow him to merge his mind with the cleric's to assess his guilt, but a wild magic surge caused their bodies to merge as well.  Staggering in the halls, they picked up several other bodies, merging with colleagues and coworkers in the temple until they made it outside, where they absorbed the better part of a small crowd and attained the full form of the flesh colossus the heroes had been forced to put down.And final investigations cleared the cleric of wrongdoing; the wizard's last cookie had been stolen by a lab assistant under the effects of an invisibility spell, not that the truth did any good to the cleric at that point.But with the investigations finished and the heroes cleared, they were finally free to leave Skel'dorath.  None of them particularly minded being able to see that weird city behind them. - - -That was definitely a short adventure - I think it took me longer to build my "flesh colossus mini" than it took to run through the entire adventure!I took five toilet paper rolls and cut slits in them so that I could assemble them together: a torso, two legs, and two arms.  (Flesh colossi don't really have much in the way of heads.)  Then I covered each toilet paper tube in rubber bands (the tiny ones used for ponytails), and after that I slipped a whole bunch of D&D minis under the rubber bands: every drow mini I had, then regular elves and humans, a few dwarves, and even a few giant riding lizards and monstrous spiders - creatures one might find in a drow city.  I assembled it the night before we played, didn't like how it had turned out, so dismantled it and reassembled it the morning of the game session (we start around noon, so I had time) ... and Alewyth killed it in the second round of combat with her implosion spell.  They didn't even get to find out the garlic-heavy heroes' feast spell had given the opposite effects: hit point loss instead of bonus hit points, a penalty to hit instead of a bonus, no immunity to fear and poison, and so on.  Heavy sigh. - - -T-shirt worn: Still my "Walking Dead" T-shirt, as it was the same session as the previous adventure - plus, some of the creatures in the flesh colossus' merged body were dead, and it was still walking.</blockquote>

Verification