NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9687586" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 98: TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR UNDEATHPC Roster:  Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf vampire priestess of Aerik 20             Thurloe Pulver, human death knight fighter 3/wizard 3/spellsword 10/eldritch knight 4             Wakuren, half-orc mummy cleric of Cal 10/paladin 10             Xandro Silverstrings, human necropolitan bard 6/rogue 14             Zander Quilson, elf necropolitan sorcerer 20Game Session Date: 14 June 2025 - - -It was the first time in as long as she could remember that Alewyth removed the holy symbol of Aerik from around her neck.  But even though she felt naked without it, its - temporary - removal was necessary, for with it in place, the vampire who was to transition her into an undead state was unable to approach.  She closed her eyes as he placed his hungry fangs upon her neck and pierced the flesh, greedily drinking the dwarven blood that flowed so freely.  And then, as she began to get light-headed from the blood loss, he slit open a vein in his wrist and held it up to her lips, forcing her to feed upon his blood as he was feasting on hers.  Consciousness slipped from her with his blood filling her mouth.The next day was a blur of recalled images, as bits of Alewyth's previous life flashed before her mind's eye.  But always her thoughts returned to the moment of transition, when she and the drow vampire - the same one she'd seen in the Dreamlands several times now, visiting a willing drow victim on her balcony in Spiraclast - drank each other's blood; her tongue could feel the thick, coppery taste of it filling her throat, although that had been hours ago and the blood had long since dried.  Eventually, the images slipped away as she herself felt her own life slip away, and she passed first into death and then undeath, the transition finally completed."Well, about time you were awakened," retorted Pendlebrook as he lifted the dwarf's coffin lid and Alewyth awoke into her full, vampiric self.  She sat up, and the lich held up her discarded holy symbol of Aerik.  "I'm not sure what you'd like me to do with this, now that you're a vampire," he said.  But she surprised him by taking it from his skeletal hands and refastening it around her neck, allowing it to drop back into its customary place below her throat."It doesn't burn?" he asked, his voice showing his confusion."No, of course not," replied Alewyth, surprised at the question, not even considering the fact that vampires were normally repelled by the mere sight of the holy symbol of a good-aligned deity.  Pendlebrook cast a detect good spell and was further astonished to see her aura blazing as brightly as it ever had, showing her transition to undeath had in no way transitioned her down the path towards evil."Hmmmm," muttered the lich.  "Akari's ways are often strange, indeed."The two of them left the vampire nest to which the dwarf had been assigned, and made their way through the catacombs to the chamber where Thurloe's transformation had just completed.  He lay on a stone slab, identifiable only by the celestial armor he wore and his bastard sword Spellslicer, for his skin had been eaten away by the ritual which had turned him into a death knight.  The spellsword sat up, looking at his skeletal hands and feeling the lack of flesh upon his face.  "Weird," he said, and his voice was that of his living self.  "This is going to take some getting used to."They moved on to fetch Wakuren next, in another chamber.  The half-orc was still somewhat recognizable despite the funereal wrappings binding his body beneath his armor, for the shield of Cal was strapped to his left arm, and his right still bore the gauntlet of Cal from which he occasionally hurled javelins of lightning.  Wakuren sat up and looked down upon the four canopic jars lined up against the stone slab upon which he sat; he realized several of his internal organs had been removed and were now housed there, but he couldn't seem to recall exactly which ones at the moment.  "The first few moments are somewhat disorienting," Pendlebrook reassured him.  "But you'll regain most of your faculties in a moment or two.  Do you feel up to meeting up with the other two of your party?"Wakuren shuffled off the slab and followed the lich, the death knight, and the dwarven vampire as they made their way back to the surface of the Forbidden Lands, where hundreds of stars lit the midnight sky.  Pendlebrook took them to an open field where a dozen or so necropolitans were chanting around the two figures hanging from crucifixes at their center.  The crucimigration ritual was just now coming to an end; with a final shout, the chanting ended and the two figures, whose heads hung down upon their chests as if in death, suddenly jolted upright as if waking from a deep sleep.  Zander Quilson looked about him in panic as his crucifix was lowered to the ground and the nails removed from his wrists and ankles, but then Petey landed by his side.  <I'm here,> he reassured his master.  <It was a long 24 hours, but you made it through the ceremony intact.>Indeed, the elf sorcerer's skin was now pulled tight against his bones, but otherwise he looked very much like he had in life.  Likewise with Xandro Silverstrings, who was likewise being removed from his own crucifix.  As the new necropolitans rose for the first time as undead, Pendlebrook approached them.  "These events," he said, looking at the five new recruits around him, "are to be treasured above all others, for your days as mere mortals are now over - this is the first page in a new chapter, as you finally realize your true, final forms, and reach your full potential!  Some people, upon achieving undeath, take a new name for themselves to honor their new existence.  However, this is not absolutely required."  He chuckled to himself and added, "You have 'the rest of forever' to determine whether you wish to give yourself new names."With the initial excitement of their transitions into undeath over with - Zander, Thurloe, and Xandro all marveled at the darkvision their undead eyes provided - Pendlebrook was about to start setting them up with tasks to accomplish when they were interrupted by another necropolitan racing onto the scene, those who had assisted in the crucimigration ritual having departed.  "Pendlebrook!" he called.  "There's a blob running loose in the Hidden Village!"The lich turned towards the intruder with a moment of puzzlement, then relaxed.  "Not to worry - there was a juju zombie transformation ritual scheduled for this evening.""But it's not the gravesludge!" insisted the necropolitan.  "I mean, the gravesludge is there, but so is another, unknown blob - this one's red, and even bigger!""That's not right," insisted Pendlebrook.  "Come on, we'd better check this out."  He led the group across numerous fields, until the Armaturian adventurers recognized the reception hall in which they had originally been greeted upon first entering the Forbidden Lands.  The remains of the paleoskeletons - animated bones of fossilized dinosaurs - they'd fought to demonstrate their combat prowess were still scattered where they had fallen.  As they crossed further out into what looked to be empty fields, the heroes started casting the spells they thought might be useful in a combat with an unknown blob-monster.  Zander cast his standard mage armor spell upon himself and Petey, then further enhanced their defenses with a shield spell from Thurloe's wand.  The spellsword cast a Randor's telepathic bond spell upon all but Zander, once again figuring the telepathic pseudodragon could fill in his master on whatever he missed by not being included in the spell, and hit himself with his wand of shield.  Alewyth and Wakuren each cast a magic vestment spell upon themselves, and the dwarf priestess tacked on an entropic shield spell for good measure, as well as a spell she'd never tried before: spell immunity, deciding to ward herself against the spells fireball, lightning bolt, scorching ray, magic missile, and searing light.  Wakuren cast a separate freedom of movement spell on each of the five heroes (thinking ahead how many oozes engulfed their prey), then cast an air walk spell upon Xandro and a shield other spell upon Zander.  The elf's transition to undeath had actually made him a bit tougher than his frail elven form had been, but Wakuren wanted to ensure he stayed in the fight for as long as possible.  As for Xandro, he returned the favor by casting three heroism spells, one each upon himself, Wakuren, and Thurloe."So, what's the deal with this...gravesludge?" asked Zander, recalling the name of the blob the necropolitan wizard had expected to see."It's an amorphous ooze we control," Pendlebrook explained.  "It seeks out living beings, engulfs them, and in so doing devours their life forces and transforms them into juju zombies - every bit as dexterous as they were in life, but now uncomplaining slaves for the Forbidden Lands."  Alewyth frowned at the comment, but was wise enough to bite her tongue - no sense in betraying their true allegiances now that they had made the transition into undeath.Pendlebrook and the necropolitan wizard led the group into another empty field, and suddenly, they were standing in a small village of a dozen or so single-story buildings.  Thurloe recognized the likelihood they'd just walked inside the confines of a hallucinatory terrain spell that shielded the buildings from view, a proposal that seemed even more likely when he recalled the necropolitan had referred to the place he saw the blob-monster as "the Hidden Village."  Pendlebrook confirmed the spellsword's supposition when he explained the Hidden Village was where they had housed the deathborn - the original humans crafted by a magical fusion of drow and orc - who had been created in full adult form with artificial memories of having come from a faraway land."I'll check it out," suggested Alewyth, activating her butterfly brooch out of habit and taking to the air, not even considering she should now be able to transform into a bat or even a dire bat.  She fluttered about 30 feet up into the air, from which point she could see the rooftops of the buildings, six bound dwarves on a platform at the other end of the village, and a massive blob rising up from the sewers and heading in their direction.  "There it is!" she cried."What color is it?" called back Pendlebrook."Gray!""That's the gravesludge - let it be.  You're looking for a reddish blob."  Alewyth looked about but saw no other blob-minsters in the area; it must be hiding in one of the buildings, down in the sewers, or perhaps it had already left the village for other venues.  The others advanced on foot, walking along a narrow road between the two southernmost rows of buildings.Wakuren activated the fly spell in his shield of Cal and took to the skies, moving forward above the road, heading west.  He saw the door to the inn was wide open and called back to the others.  Pendlebrook and the necropolitan entered the inn to check the place out while the others moved on.  Xandro opted to slip into invisibility, courtesy of his ring, while Petey flew to the rooftop of the next building over, a tavern by the look of it.It was when Alewyth flew forward that she caught a glimpse of motion from the tavern's interior.  Dropping her altitude, she looked inside and saw their prey: a reddish, blob-thing whose body pulsated almost like a beating heart.  Calling out her findings to the rest of the group, she backed up as Wakuren dropped down and cast a blade barrier lengthwise across the thing's amorphous body.  He'd hoped to chop it up to pieces with his spell, and in a way he did: the blob split into two, with the front half oozing his way and the back half seeping away from the invisible blades, exiting the tavern from a rear door.  It met up with the gravesludge, who was oozing its way towards the dwarves, but both blob-monsters basically ignored each other, recognizing their mutual inedibility (as both creatures dissolved their prey with acid, and each was itself likewise immune to such caustic fluids).  However, the front blob struck out with a trio of rapidly-formed pseudopods as an instinctive defense to having been cut away from the larger creature, and each amorphous limb slammed into a nearby foe: Alewyth, Zander, and Wakuren.  The mummy grunted in pain as part of the damage to the elf necropolitan was channeled into him, due to the shield other spell he'd cast upon Zander.  That might have been a mistake, he now realized.Upon seeing the unexpected speed with which the front blob struck out at his three companions, Xandro backed away and got out his Dardolian Lute.  Still invisible, he began playing the song of inspirational courage, glad to hear his voice as a necropolitan was no different that it had been while he'd been alive.  And just to be on the safe side, he elevated himself about an inch above the ground, so the blob-thing would hopefully be unable to sense his presence through any ground vibrations.Thurloe advanced, saw the carnivorous blob, and hurriedly cast a haste spell on the group before they split up and got too far out of range.  As he did so, the front blob surged forward, striking a pseudopod at Wakuren and hitting him directly, but unable to latch onto him due to the freedom of movement spell protecting the half-orc mummy.  Zander stepped up next and cast a prismatic spray spell, one of his more successful - if unpredictable - spells in the past.  Unfortunately, this time it failed him utterly: a red beam struck the front blob and would have seared its flesh in a fiery attack, but the red mass of protoplasm seemed to have a natural resistance to fire-based spells.  The back blob, still well within range of the elven necropolitan's spell, was struck by two separate beams, but one was also a red one which did nothing and the second, a beam of violet light, likewise had no effect whatsoever when normally it would have sent the blob off to a random plane.  (It was only later, when discussing the event with Pendlebrook, that the lich would remind Zander the Forbidden Lands were sealed off from extradimensional travel.)Petey flew to the rooftop of the next building over, the better to continue to see the ongoing fight as the two halves of the carnivorous blob exited the tavern building.  Behind the pseudodragon to the northwest, the six dwarves saw the approaching blobs and struggled against their bonds - their hands had been tied behind the post against which they leaned, their legs barely able to support their own weight, for the vampires who had captured them earlier that night had all but drained them of their blood, leaving them just enough to remain awake and aware of the gravesludge slowly approaching.Alewyth rose up into the air and cast a searing light spell down at the front blob.  The spell did a bit of visible damage to the reddish ooze, but it triggered another autonomous attack, once again causing it to lash out at both Wakuren and Alewyth.  The dwarf was surprised it could track them, given they were both hovering in the air; some sort of blindsense, she imagined.  Wakuren grunted under the attack - which again failed to get the mummy caught up in an engulfing crush, given his freedom of movement spell - and cast a chain lightning spell down at the front blob, sending a secondary arc of electricity flying over to the back blob, whose back half was still within view.  The spell did some small amount of damage, but Wakuren could tell it was somewhat shielded against electrical attacks as well as those of fire - and once again, the front ooze sent pseudopods flying out to strike both him and Alewyth.  At this rate, they'd end up getting themselves pummeled to death before they managed to cut the blob down to size!Thurloe, fully embracing his death knight status, felt a surge of energy growing inside him and sent forth an Abyssal blast, channeled through his skeletal hands and over to the front blob.  The blast struck it and did some damage, but again not as much as the spellsword had hoped for.  It surged forward like a great wave, rising up and totally engulfing Wakuren, but unable to get a firm grasp upon his undead frame so it could begin crushing him to death.  And by now, the back blob was out of view, over on the other side of the tavern, engaged in a slow-motion race with the gravesludge to see which would reach the bound dwarves first.Seeing this, Zander ran forward and cast a wall of force directly in front of the back blob, merging it into the house to the north of the narrow street down which the carnivorous blob ambled.  Alewyth cast a mass inflict critical wounds spell, pleased that the same spell which healed her, Zander, and Wakuren also caused some damage to the front blob - that was definitely handy!  She, like Wakuren, had been surprised to see their ability to spontaneously cast healing spells converted over to the negative energy equivalent, but apparently both Cal and Aerik knew what their clerics needed most in their current (and hopefully only temporary) undead forms.  Wakuren, who'd taken the most damage of the three, cast a harm spell on himself to finish the healing process Alewyth had started, dismissed his shield other spell (Zander was on his own!), then flew up to a height of 50 feet, hoping that would get him out of the range of the front blob's instinctive reflex attacks whenever it was hit.The gravesludge advanced towards the dwarves; it was to the north of the northernmost row of buildings in the Hidden Village, while the carnivorous blob was one street to the south on a parallel course.  Thurloe moved up and cast an enervation spell at the front blob, decreasing its vitality to some degree.  While Xandro fell further back (still playing his lute and hovering an inch or so above the ground), the back blob hit Zander's wall of force and mindlessly climbed up it, then canted over to the roof of the adjacent building and down its other side.  It was almost upon the bound dwarves, as was the gravesludge.  Seeing this, Zander pulled out a scroll and cast a prismatic wall directly in front of the raised platform on which the six dwarven miners were bound, hoping out of the numerous effects the spell contained, at least some of them would affect the carnivorous blob.  Knowing full well any attempts to save the lives of the dwarven victims would give away their true natures, the elf necropolitan made sure the prismatic wall did not impede the gravesludge's access to the dwarves.Full-blown panic gave strength to the southernmost dwarf, who'd been desperately trying to undo his bound wrists.  With a final cry of triumph, he pulled one raw-skinned wrist free and stumbled away from the post to which he'd been bound; then, with a look of sorrow in his eyes as he looked over to his helpless companions, he dropped down off the platform and headed south.Alewyth flew west and tried a hold monster spell against the back blob, hoping to halt its progress towards the dwarves, but her spell had no effect.  And then the gravesludge reached the wooden platform, oozing up from the side, past the reach of the prismatic wall.  It engulfed the first two dwarves, eating away at their life-forces and infusing them with a blast of negative energy that turned them into juju zombies.  The feast allowed the ooze to grow a little bit stronger, and a little bit tougher.Wakuren cast a mass inflict critical wounds at the front blob, realizing that although the spell had been intended for use against multiple enemies at once, it was more powerful than a simple inflict critical wounds spell.  The sudden blast of negative energy had a debilitating effect on the carnivorous blob, leaving it smoking and quivering where it stood, no doubt on whatever equivalent to "on its last legs" applied to amorphous blob-monsters.  Thurloe figured a simple magic missile spell might be enough to finish it off, but he was wrong - it had enough life still in it to crawl over to the death knight spellsword and slam him with a rubbery pseudopod.  It was only when Xandro came racing forward and sliced through the thing's rubbery body with his rapier that it finally collapsed into a pile of oozing goo and remained still.The other half of the original creature, though, was by this time mindlessly oozing through the prismatic wall.  The red layer sent fire coursing over its body, which it ignored completely.  The orange layer coated it in harmless acid, then the yellow layer blasted it with a burst of electricity - some of which actually harmed the blob.  The green layer coated it in poison, to which its amorphous body granted it full immunity, and the blue layer, capable of turning a living creature to stone, likewise had no effect.  Zander already knew the violet layer would likely be useless, given its ineffectiveness when he cast a prismatic spray on it earlier, and in this he was absolutely correct.  Its lengthy, spread-out body now halfway through the multicolored wall, the carnivorous blob engulfed the last three dwarves on the platform and devoured them.  Those three, at least, would not become juju zombie servitors to the undead of the Forbidden Lands for the rest of their undead existence, and in that sense, it was likely a relief to them as they were slain and devoured.As for the other dwarf, Petey telepathically alerted his master to his presence and the elf necropolitan went around the building to meet up with him.  He sent a cure minor wounds spell the dwarf's way (the innate spell he'd been able to cast since he was a child as a result of his attunement to the Dreamlands still worked while he was undead, he noted), healing him up enough that he could stand on his feet without fear of toppling over.  But then, upon a telepathic command to his familiar, Petey flew over and stabbed the puzzled dwarf in the neck.  Depleted of blood as he was, he was unable to counteract the pseudodragon's sleep venom, and he collapsed to the ground in a heap.  Zander bent over and lifted him by the armpits, then started dragging him back towards the gravesludge to be devoured.  If this was some sort of loyalty test by that cunning Pendlebrook, Zander was going to make sure he didn't fail it!Alewyth cast an inflict critical wounds on herself to reinvigorate her after the damage she'd taken, while Wakuren and Thurloe cast offensive spells at the sole remaining piece of the carnivorous blob, the spellsword casting a disintegrate spell and the cleric/paladin casting a mass inflict serious wounds spell.  Both spells hit true and each inflicted a bit of damage, but neither killed the blood-colored ooze.  It continued moving through the prismatic wall, taking an additional bit of electricity damage, as it bent its pliant body southward in search of the one dwarf that had escaped his bindings.  But then Alewyth finished it off with an implosion spell, and it condensed down to a single point that then vanished into thin air.  Zander dropped his sleeping burden and watched as the gravesludge engulfed it.  Well, they'd made sure half of the dwarven victims got transformed into juju zombies; that had to be good for something.Pendlebrook and the necropolitan wizard came walking up from the inn.  "I believe we found out what happened here," the lich said, holding up the shattered remains of some sort of urn covered in mystic glyphs.  "We found the skeleton of what I imagine was a necropolitan thief," he said.  "I gather he stole a magic urn during a trip down to Spiraclast, and took it here to the Hidden Village to investigate what it did.  Unfortunately for him, it held an extradimensional space in which the carnivorous blob was trapped.  He let out the blob, it engulfed him, and got out to menace our dwarven slaves.  How are they, by the way?""We saved three of them," Zander reported dutifully.  "They've been successfully transformed.""Ah, well, probably the best we could have hoped for," sighed the lich.  "Good work.  Now, I imagine you'd like to meet the leaders of the Forbidden Lands.  I trust you recall the way to the Temple of Akari?  Good - go there at once and report to Mother Bones.  She'll unlock the door to the Conclave of Skulls, and you can present yourselves before them as our newest citizens.  Off you go, then!"The five undead heroes departed the Hidden Village, heading back to the warrens of tunnels deep underground that led to the Temple of Akari.  This was it, then: hopefully now they'd finally learn the dire threat to the planet that had caused the God of Death and Undeath to "deputize" the five dreamwalkers as His Emissaries in an effort to put a stop to whatever the Conclave of Skulls had in mind.And maybe they'd learn what had happened to Andrea Jandoval, who'd never made contact with them after attempting her transition into lichdom. - - -So this was less of a full-blown adventure and more of a single encounter.  I was afraid the fight wouldn't take too long (even after I doubled the carnivorous blob's Hit Dice), so I prepared the next adventure ("The Conclave of Skulls") and had it ready to go immediately after this one. - - -T-shirt worn: My black "Walking Dead" WWDD ("What Would Daryl Do?") T-shirt, as the PCs are now walking (un)dead creatures themselves, and it's been a while since I wore that shirt.  (I have two other "Walking Dead" T-shirts, one white and one black.)</blockquote>

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