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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9534573" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 66: WHERE THE TREASURE LIESPC Roster:  Ageratum Purslane, halfling rogue 16             Alistair Mandelberen Pastlethwaite, human sorcerer 16             Chaevaris Noarunal, elf archer 16             Harlan Starblade, half-elf paladin 16NPC Roster: Orchid, elf druid 16Game Session Date: 11 December 2024 - - -The rest of the day was spent making emergency repairs to the hull of the Lucky Dave, which had taken damage below the waterline where the dragon turtle had rammed it repeatedly.  Fortunately, the ship's crew had materials on hand to fill in the gaps and support (or replace) the damaged wooden planks, and Alistair's mending spells were put to use on individual planks, although they couldn't affect the ship as a whole.  But after the leaks had been dealt with, it was a matter of bailing out the water they'd taken on while it had been leaking.Atherton agreed to keep the ship anchored where it was while the crew dealt with the rest of the repairs and the adventurers rested up and regained their spells, for he rather liked the suggestion Alistair had made to him: that the next morning, after Orchid had prepared a new commune with nature spell, they would seek out the remaining aquatic elves in the band that had attacked them, which could lead to the other ships they'd sunk, and potentially the recovery of any treasures still on board.Thus it was the next morning that Orchid wildshaped into an octopus and slipped over the side of the vessel, clinging to the front of the hull under the water level.  Then, casting her spell, she divined the location of the aquatic elf tribe's lair: a cave network on the lakebed floor, some fathoms below them.  That done, and with the warning that there were powerful aquatic creatures in the area, she returned to the deck in her elven form and explained the plan to the others.  "I'll grant you all the ability to breathe water, and we'll all transform into sperm whales to swim to the elven caves.  I'll lead the way, as I know where they are.""A few questions, if I may?" prompted Alistair."By all means.""Sperm whales?  Surely they're oceanic creatures.  This is a freshwater lake.  Will that be a problem?""Not at all.  The other creatures in the Nyr Dyv will likely never have seen a sperm whale before, but I chose that form because of its size - five sperm whales swimming together will probably give any aquatic predator a second thought about attacking us.  I'll be using an animal shapes spell on us - basically, you'll all be wildshaping like I do.""And we can resume our normal forms when we arrive?""Certainly.  I don't imagine the cave network is large enough to allow us entry in whale form."  That decided, they discussed other spells that would be useful; Alistair cast a darkvision spell on everyone, and Orchid granted everyone the benefit of a freedom of movement spell, before casting her traditional longstrider on herself.  Then, on her signal, the five heroes stood on the edge of the ship's railing and leaped over the side simultaneously.  With the druid's casting, they hit the water as five sperm whales, which traveled together down to the lakebed floor.Orchid took the lead, as agreed.  Once the cave opening to which they were headed came into view, she slowed up and resumed her elven form.  One by one, the other heroes followed suit and walked the rest of the distance to the open mouth of the cave.It was initially dark inside, but there was a bioluminescent kelp growth inside that helped light the interior with a dim glow.  The first thing the heroes spotted were the dead bodies of sea elves sprawled on the cave floor.  Wandering among them were a few hulking brutes, zombies whose bodies were bloated with the gases of undeath.  They bent over and ripped the flesh from the slain elves, and the three of them within immediate view all had their backs turned to the cave opening - they were thus far unaware of the presence of the surface heroes.  Just to keep them unaware of her at least, Ageratum slapped her bracelet of greater invisibility and faded from view, creeping forward into the entry cave.Orchid followed, but wildshaped again into an octopoid form, this one much larger than the one she'd worn earlier that morning while doing her divinations.  Sliding forward, she cast an entangle spell on the bioluminescent kelp, causing it to grow outward in all directions and wrap around the undead forms of the zombies.  She slid effortlessly through the fronds, protected by her freedom of movement spell.Chaevaris unrolled her carpet of flying and confirmed it "flew" just fine underwater.  She activated her ring of invisibility and faded from view, then maneuvered the carpet just over the tops of the entangling kelp strands, so she could get a better view of the number of drowned zombies there were in the area.  There were about half a dozen wrapped up in the kelp, and another group of four or so on a higher shelf to the east, moving toward an aquatic elf fighting for his life against these undead foes.There was a monolith rising up from the kelp, and this caught Alistair's attention.  He advanced close enough to read the runes carved upon each side; they seemed to be elven names, and the sorcerer guessed it to be a roll of the members of the tribe making this cave network their home.  Harlan advanced alongside the young nobleman, casting a magic circle against evil spell as he did so.With some effort, three of the drowned zombies managed to extricate themselves from the gripping fronds of the bioluminescent kelp and staggered towards the heroes.  Ageratum charged the nearest of them, burying her short sword to the hilt into undead flesh.  Orchid, in giant octopus form, cast the underwater version of a fire storm spell (she mentally thought of it as a steam storm), targeting all of the zombies she could see from her vantage point.  Much to her surprise, the attack didn't drop any of the undead forms; they must be much tougher than the standard zombie, the druid thought to herself.Chaevaris shot a zombie - the same one Ageratum had just stabbed - in the head with a well-placed arrow, and it too failed to drop it.  The same thing happened with the next two arrows she shot at it rapid-fire - these things could sure take a beating!  Alistair used his minor metamagic rod of maximize spell to channel a magic missile spell at another zombie, thinking that ought to be enough to slay it, and he too was wrong about that.  Harlan charged Ageratum's undead foe and brought his Starblade slicing through its midsection, but still it stood upright - confounding!The zombies tried retaliating against the living heroes, but the entangling kelp soon brought those ideas to a rapid standstill.  One swung helplessly at Harlan, but was just out of range of the half-elf.  Ageratum brought her twin short swords in again, and finally brought it down.  But there were another nine of these powerful zombies still up and about.Orchid cast another steam storm spell, thinking perhaps the first one had been a fluke, but this second spell - while blistering the skin of the undead flesh it encountered - also failed to bring any of the zombies down.Chaevaris reactivated her ring and returned to full invisibility, piloting her carpet over towards the southeastern ledge, where the aquatic elf had been slain and was being devoured by two of the sea zombies.  Alistair used his more powerful metamagic rod and channeled a maximized chain lightning spell at a clump of six zombies near each other; the primary target was slain in the attack and the other five continued their undead existence even after the electrical assault.Harlan charged another bound zombie, cutting deep into its undead flesh but failing to bring it down.  It slammed back at the paladin, but at such a slow speed Harlan easily avoided the attack.  Another tried attacking one of Orchid's eight arms but had a similar lack of success.  And the kelp continued binding the undead as tightly as it could.Ageratum, sighing in irritation, picked another zombie target and charged at it; she cut through its flesh but it hardly seemed to notice.  Then Orchid added a wall of thorns spell to the mix, entangling the zombies even further, and this time ensuring they ripped through their own flesh when they tried to free themselves.  The heroes all backed away, watching as the zombies did their own work for them, cutting themselves to shreds until the last one was slain.  Then the druid canceled both the wall of thorns and the entangle spells, allowing the heroes to explore the complex.The higher ledge to the southeast turned out to be an arcane workshop of sorts; magic tomes with pages crafted from sea kelp detailed the construction of some sort of super-weapon involving a gigantic crab of some sort; it was written in the Elven script, which each of the heroes could read and understand.  The aquatic elf that had been slain there was apparently a wizard.  He had nothing of value on him, but the corpse of his bodyguard - slain before the heroes made their appearance, apparently - gave up masterwork seashell armor, trident, and a light shield, which the group piled up near the entrance for now, not wanting to open the door to their extradimensional dwelling and flood it with lake water.Making their way through what was obviously some sort of sleeping chamber (which, of all things, held a dummy's head wearing some sort of diadem on its forehead), the group found another cave that caused Ageratum to squeal aloud with delight: a treasure room.  There were five large chests lined up against the room, and after a sufficient examination to convince the halfling rogue none of them were trapped, she opened each to find coins of gold and platinum, pearls, gems, and a block of solid coral the color of teal.  After a hasty appraisal, Ageratum estimated the entire haul to be somewhere in the vicinity of 28,000 pieces of gold, all in all."We still need to lug it all back," Chaevaris pointed out.  "And we can't just turn back into whales."  That was true enough, for the animal shapes spell had run its course."You can carry one with you on your rug," the halfling countered.  "And if Orchid stays as a giant octopus, she can probably carry the others.  We'll figure it out!"It was then that the pounding began.  The heroes could feel it through the rock floor upon which they stood: rhythmic pulses of energy, as if something powerful were trying to punch its way through the ceiling above.  This turned out to be exactly the case when the ceiling above the sleeping area suddenly collapsed, bringing down a pile of loose rocks and an enormous, blue-shelled crab whose carapace was covered in arcane runes.Ageratum, who had returned to greater invisibility upon first hearing the pounding, advanced cautiously and noticed an odd thing on the crab's underbelly that she'd never seen before on a living crustacean: a hatch, with a round handle like you'd expect to see on a bank vault or something.Orchid cast a baleful polymorph spell at the siege crab, seeking to shrink it down to a crab small enough to make a dinner for one.  Unfortunately for the druid, the siege crab resisted the spell's effects and remained at its larger size.Chaevaris likewise returned to invisibility and lined up a shot as she rose her carpet up to a height of about 20 feet above the cave floor below her, putting her about level with the crab's eyestalks.  Alistair blasted it with another maximized chain lightning spell, and while it didn't deal the creature as much damage as he might have hoped, he could tell at least some of the electrical assault made itself felt.Harlan ran towards the siege crab and it followed suit, heading towards the paladin, snapping at him with a massive claw that missed by a mere fraction of an inch.  But Ageratum had swum up to the hatch and was busy turning it, surprised to see it under no magical protection and not even having any sort of locking mechanism.  She opened the hatch and it fell down, hanging from the crab's underbelly.  Ageratum swam inside the water-filled cavity within, not the least bit surprised to see an aquatic elf inside, controlling it with a bunch of arcane switches and buttons.  He wore a circlet of coral, which she assumed allowed him to see through the crab's eyes.Orchid had a second baleful polymorph spell at the ready, but had seen the hatch apparently open on its own and guessed Ageratum was inside; best not to shrink the crab down with the halfling inside!  But Chaevaris targeted one of the crab's eyes at the top of its short stalk and shot it off with a quickly-aimed shot.  Then Alistair slew it with another maximized chain lightning spell, and it collapsed, its spindly legs splaying out in all directions as it fell.The aquatic elf felt his super-weapon die and block the only way out of the chamber inside - the hatch - with the full weight of its dead body.  He used his trident to start carving a way through the dead crab's shell; Ageratum let him get almost all the way through before going stab-happy at him from behind, remaining fully invisible as she slew him.  Then she completed the job and crawled out of the slain crustacean.  "Hey, guys!" she called as she deactivated her magic bracelet and returned to visibility.  "I got the pilot!""Excellent job!" Harlan called up.  "Shall we return to the ship now?""Sounds great!" replied the halfling.  "But let's not forget the chests!" - - - It was nice getting to play in our Wednesday evening campaign once again; our last session had been a full six weeks earlier, due to a combination of business trips, vacation days, and assorted sicknesses between the DM and players.  And those "zombies" were Drowned Ones, each with 150 hp - no wonder they took so long to kill!</blockquote>

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