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Menexenus's Age of Worms Campaign Journal
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<blockquote data-quote="Menexenus" data-source="post: 3430189" data-attributes="member: 8951"><p><strong>Session 28: The Mind-Flayer's Sanctum</strong></p><p></p><p><em>11th - 17th of Reaping.</em> Alexander borrowed Eligos's laboratory in order to fashion some magic items. Most of these items were for himself, but he offered to make something for Tarric as well. When other party members placed requests for similar items, Alexander frostily informed them that he would only create magic items at a discount for Tarric. All others must pay market price (or higher). Killick, Katawan, and Alees were puzzled by Alexander's sudden expression of disfavor. (Thorash, on the other hand, was not surprised at all. Alexander has never hidden his dislike for the dwarf.) </p><p> </p><p> During this week of downtime, Alees tried singing at local bars for spare cash. On the first two nights, the crowd was too polite to boo her off the stage, but the paltry tips they tossed into her cap left no doubt about their true opinions of her talent. Since she decided she wasn't going to return to that bar again anyway, she decided to pick the pocket of a particular wealthy-looking (and drunk-looking) bar patron. On the third night she tried a new bar. Apparently these new surroundings agreed with her, because she gave a much better performance and was rewarded accordingly. All of her week's moonlighting (both the legitimate and the illegitimate varieties) netted her a total of not quite 5 gold pieces. This experience reaffirmed Alees's decision to pursue a career of adventuring.</p><p></p><p> At the end of the week, Eligos assembled the party to inform them of another possible lead. He said that he had been using divination to try to track the source of the Apostolic Scroll that had been received by Loris Raknian and used by his nefarious accomplices beneath the Greyhawk Arena to unleash the Worm on the city. Killick interrupted Eligos to ask if he had had any word from Celeste. Eligos again expressed his confidence in Celeste's ability to take care of herself. He said that he had been preoccupied this week trying to identify the source of the Apostolic Scroll, but he promised to spend some time in the coming days divining Celeste's current state. Eligos continued. The scroll seemed to have come from a man named Londar Brightrain - a wizard who styled himself as "the Rainbow Mage". </p><p></p><p> Eligos indicated that he was at least casually acquainted with Brightrain and described him as a typical member of his species. Like other powerful wizards, he was arrogant, self-interested, and pre-occupied with the inner-workings of magic to the point of having no preference over the forces of good and evil in the world. In order to give credance to his moniker, Brightrain had researched a number of spells and spell effects that made his magic particularly colorful and visually interesting to casual onlookers. However, there was no evidence that his spells were more potent than their ordinary counterparts. Apparently, he thought his research merited him a spot among the Circle of Eight - the most powerful and elite cabal of wizards in the Flanaess. So when he was passed over for membership in the Circle when 3 vacancies were filled by other wizards about 10 years ago, he took it as a personal affront. Since then, he has been noticeably withdrawn from the arcane academic community and has had relatively little contact with the outside world.</p><p></p><p> Despite Brightrain's obvious petulance, Eligos expressed sincere surprise that Brightrain would have dealings with an apocalyptic cult as thoroughly depraved and destructive as the cult of Kyuss. However, he could not deny that the evidence was leading him in that direction. To make things worse, Brightrain himself seemed to have disappeared about a week and a half ago (approximately one week after the Worm's Rampage). Although his body had not been recovered by local authorities, he was presumed dead. His carriage had apparently been ambushed by thieves during one of his regular journeys into town from his secluded tower outside the small town of Rosewater in the Duchy of Urnst. Eligos could not confirm that Brightrain was dead, but he was able to ascertain that, if the mage was still alive, he was no longer on this plane of existence.</p><p></p><p> Eligos left it up to the party whether they thought it best to venture back down into the city's sewers to face what the party suspected might be a mind flayer in its lair, or whether they should embark on a long journey to investigate Brightrain's disappearance and try to find out how he obtained the Apostolic Scroll in the first place. Since it would take at least a fortnight to travel to Rosewater, time could not be a factor in the Brightrain investigation. Consequently, the party chose to tie up the loose ends that were closer to home - they chose to venture back into the caverns beneath the Cold Forge.</p><p></p><p> <em>18th of Reaping.</em> The following morning, the party headed out. They were concerned that with 2 weeks of time to prepare for the party's return, they worried that their enemy might have restocked the areas that they had previously cleared out in the last battle. However, the caverns that they had fought in before remained clear of enemies, and the dead bodies remained strewn about in various states of decay where they had fallen. Venturing farther into the cavern system, the party came across a small widened area that bore a painted sigil on the floor. The large purple insignia was composed of wavy lines vaguely reminiscent of tentacles. Alees carefully checked the floor leading up to the insignia and the insignia itself for traps. She found none. Thorash cast Detect Magic and scanned the room. He discovered a glowing spot on the ceiling of the cavern right above the sigil. The party decided to skirt the perimeter of the room to avoid whatever magic was in the ceiling. This tactic seemed to work - the party passed through the room unharmed.</p><p></p><p> Soon afterwards, the natural passage opened up into a larger cavern that was all natural except for the smoothed floor and the marble double doors set into the northern wall. The marble was mostly white, streaked with veins of purple. These doors stood in stark contrast to the rest of the stone in this cavern (which was a more mundane grayish-brown color). The double doors were each flanked by marble columns with the same tentacular symbol burned into their surfaces. Alees moved towards the doors to check them for traps. Just then, 3 purple beasts with one eye and many tentacles crawled out of hiding places among the stalactites on the ceiling. They crawled with ease down 3 natural pillars near the perimeter of the cavern and attacked nearby partymembers with their fore-tentacles (which ended in mean-looking lobster-like claws). One by one, the party-members found themselves looking into the tentacled creatures' eyes. When they did, they found themselves unable to move with the same speed that they had in the past.</p><p></p><p> However, the beasts did not seem smart enough to stay up on the pillars where the party was unable to reach them. When the party moved out of their reach, they climbed down to the ground, allowing the partymembers to gang up on them and destroy them. However, before the skirmish was over, a significant amount of damage had been done, forcing some members of the party to consume valuable healing spells. (Killick was pleasantly surprised to discover that if he cast a curative spell on his new wardog - Grimlock II - he could share the healing benefits with his animal companion.) Once the healing was over, Alees attempted to open the marble doors and found them to be locked. Alexander cast a spell on the doors and the party heard a loud thump, as if a large bar had just fallen to the ground on the opposite side. Alees tried the door again, and found that it now swung open freely.</p><p></p><p> As the doors opened, the party saw a circular room with a large stone brain in the center sculpted out of the same marble that the door was made from. Around the perimeter of the room were four stone benches with iron manacles bolted to the wall above them. The party cast some buff spells and then Tarric moved through the room, into a winding stairway. When Thorash moved into the room, he felt some kind of mental presence trying to take control of his mind, but it was being kept at bay somehow. Thorash surmised that his Protection from Evil spell might be what was protecting him. He announced to his comrades to be wary of this mental presence. Since Tarric had avoided the attack, the party decided to just move quickly through the room onto the stairway. They did so, and no others noticed themselves being attacked mentally.</p><p></p><p> Alexander and Tarric found themselves at the top of the winding staircase first. There they found a room that seemed to be a laboratory of some kind. It contained a desk, 2 tall bookcases, a heavy table with various jars sitting on it, including a large tank full of opaque green liquid. When Tarric stepped into the room, he saw something emerge from the green tank. It seemed to be another of the one-eyed tentacled creatures that the party had fought outside the marble doors, but this one seemed particularly large, strong, and vicious. In addition, its clawed fore-tentacles were longer than its predecessors had been. It seemed to be able to attack any part of the room with its incredible reach. Again, various members of the party found themselves moving more slowly than usual when they accidentally looked into the creature's eye. The creature focused its attacks on Tarric (who had been doing the most damage with his magical bastard sword). When the creature struck him with both claws at once, it started ripping. The rest of the party stood horrified as they watched the creature almost rip Tarric in half. Tarric's blood and entrails were strewn across the floor and no one could tell if he was still breathing. Realizing that Tarric required immediate attention if he were to have any hope of survival, the party sprang to action. Alees moved to Tarric's side and held out a potion. Killick grabbed it and poured it down his throat. Katawan moved up and delivered a jolt of healing from his ring. Thorash was also preparing a curative spell when Alexander pulled out a scroll and cast a spell. Suddenly, the creature's one eye widened in terror, and it collapsed dead! For a moment there was stunned silence, and then a spontaneous victory cry went up from all the conscious party members.</p><p></p><p> This time Tarric found himself needing to consume multiple healing potions in order to heal the grievous wounds he had suffered and bring him back into fighting shape. He said a quick prayer of thanks to Heironeous, marvelling at the effectiveness of healing magic to maintain his combat readiness even after suffering what would otherwise have been a mortal wound. When the party was ready, they opened a stone door on the opposite wall of the laboratory table. The door opened into a 10 foot wide passage that led to a small circular room with a pool in the center. Killick walked up to the pool in order to ascertain whether the water was drinkable. He found an image floating at the bottom. The shimmering image seemed to be of the sewer entrance to the cavern system that had led to where they were now. Killick thought about Eligos's house, and the image at the bottom of the pool changed to show an exterior view of Eligos's house. Killick announced to the party that he had found a scrying pool. On the far side of the circular room was another 10 foot wide passage with a strange greenish glow reflected on the wall. Thorash followed the passage forward and found that it ended in a balcony overlooking a cathedral-like chamber. Below, to Thorash's left, the dwarf saw a ground-level entrance to the cathedral, and over the entrance was a one-eyed tentacled creature poised to attack. To Thorash's right was a large black octagonal stone pillar set into the wall with glowing green arcane symbols carved into it. At the base of the pillar was a shallow rectangular pool of water. Hovering 40 feet above this pool (at the same level as the balcony) was a bizarre humanoid form with strange rubbery purple flesh, dressed in tattered black leather robes, and holding some sort of magical staff or rod that seemed to glow red hot. The humanoid's head was hairless and bulbous, with 4 short tentacles where its mouth should be. All the party members whose minds were not shielded from mental contact heard the following words forming in an alien voice in their heads, "You dare enter my sanctum? Fools! I shall finish what Telakin could not. Your weak minds will be a sumptuous feast, and your terror will be a pleasing garnish!"</p><p></p><p> Realizing that the battle had begun, Alexander flew into the cathedral chamber and cast Magic Missiles at his floating opponent. The energy of the missiles washed over the mind-flayer harmlessly. Killick and his wardog moved up towards the balcony get a view of the new opponent. Killick began casting a spell. At this point, the mind-flayer extended its bony arm in the party's direction and lowered its head slightly in concentration. Suddenly Alexander, Thorash, Killick, and Grimlock II felt an explosion in their brains, as if all of their neurons were firing at once, overloading their brains with sensation. Thorash and Killick were able to resist the effect and come to their senses. Alexander and Grimlock found themselves stunned, unable to act. At this point, the tentacled creature above the cathedral's entrance started moving quickly toward the balcony. In addition, a previously undetected second tentacled creature attacked Thorash from above, but missed. Thorash cast Searing Light at the hovering enemy, but again, the energy seemed to bounce of the mysterious creature harmlessly. The mind-flayer began casting a spell in response, during which the length of metal in the mind-flayers other hand began glowing even hotter than before. At the end of the magical incantation, it pointed its finger at the balcony and a tremendous lightning bolt crashed down the hallway, missing Killick, but doing serious damage to both Thorash and Grimlock.</p><p></p><p> The other party members found that they could not get into the battle on the narrow balcony even if they wanted to. Alees tried to run around to the cathedral's main ground-level entrance. She went back through the laboratory and opened a door into a previously unexplored room. In the middle of this room was a grotesque ebony statue of a vulture-headed humanoid with large feathery wings and sharp talons in a combat pose. The rest of the room was taken up by large glass display cases along each wall full of various strange artifacts - from a shrunken head to a book that was chained shut to a number of glass jars containing severed body parts. While all this sparked Alees's curiosity, she was in a hurry to aid her comrades in the cathedral. On the far side of the room was a winding staircase leading down to what Alees was sure would be the cathedral entrance. With his supernatural speed, Katawan moved past Alees, past the statue, and down the stairs. Once he saw the cathedral's entrance, he hugged the wall to keep out of the mind-flayer's line of sight. Tarric moved up and pulled the wounded wardog out of harm's way into the room with the scrying pool. Killick finished casting his spell and a giant owl appeared in the cathedral, turning to attack the tentacled thing on the wall. Despite the newly summoned assistance, Thorash decided to withdraw from the balcony to a safer position.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Menexenus, post: 3430189, member: 8951"] [b]Session 28: The Mind-Flayer's Sanctum[/b] [I]11th - 17th of Reaping.[/I] Alexander borrowed Eligos's laboratory in order to fashion some magic items. Most of these items were for himself, but he offered to make something for Tarric as well. When other party members placed requests for similar items, Alexander frostily informed them that he would only create magic items at a discount for Tarric. All others must pay market price (or higher). Killick, Katawan, and Alees were puzzled by Alexander's sudden expression of disfavor. (Thorash, on the other hand, was not surprised at all. Alexander has never hidden his dislike for the dwarf.) During this week of downtime, Alees tried singing at local bars for spare cash. On the first two nights, the crowd was too polite to boo her off the stage, but the paltry tips they tossed into her cap left no doubt about their true opinions of her talent. Since she decided she wasn't going to return to that bar again anyway, she decided to pick the pocket of a particular wealthy-looking (and drunk-looking) bar patron. On the third night she tried a new bar. Apparently these new surroundings agreed with her, because she gave a much better performance and was rewarded accordingly. All of her week's moonlighting (both the legitimate and the illegitimate varieties) netted her a total of not quite 5 gold pieces. This experience reaffirmed Alees's decision to pursue a career of adventuring. At the end of the week, Eligos assembled the party to inform them of another possible lead. He said that he had been using divination to try to track the source of the Apostolic Scroll that had been received by Loris Raknian and used by his nefarious accomplices beneath the Greyhawk Arena to unleash the Worm on the city. Killick interrupted Eligos to ask if he had had any word from Celeste. Eligos again expressed his confidence in Celeste's ability to take care of herself. He said that he had been preoccupied this week trying to identify the source of the Apostolic Scroll, but he promised to spend some time in the coming days divining Celeste's current state. Eligos continued. The scroll seemed to have come from a man named Londar Brightrain - a wizard who styled himself as "the Rainbow Mage". Eligos indicated that he was at least casually acquainted with Brightrain and described him as a typical member of his species. Like other powerful wizards, he was arrogant, self-interested, and pre-occupied with the inner-workings of magic to the point of having no preference over the forces of good and evil in the world. In order to give credance to his moniker, Brightrain had researched a number of spells and spell effects that made his magic particularly colorful and visually interesting to casual onlookers. However, there was no evidence that his spells were more potent than their ordinary counterparts. Apparently, he thought his research merited him a spot among the Circle of Eight - the most powerful and elite cabal of wizards in the Flanaess. So when he was passed over for membership in the Circle when 3 vacancies were filled by other wizards about 10 years ago, he took it as a personal affront. Since then, he has been noticeably withdrawn from the arcane academic community and has had relatively little contact with the outside world. Despite Brightrain's obvious petulance, Eligos expressed sincere surprise that Brightrain would have dealings with an apocalyptic cult as thoroughly depraved and destructive as the cult of Kyuss. However, he could not deny that the evidence was leading him in that direction. To make things worse, Brightrain himself seemed to have disappeared about a week and a half ago (approximately one week after the Worm's Rampage). Although his body had not been recovered by local authorities, he was presumed dead. His carriage had apparently been ambushed by thieves during one of his regular journeys into town from his secluded tower outside the small town of Rosewater in the Duchy of Urnst. Eligos could not confirm that Brightrain was dead, but he was able to ascertain that, if the mage was still alive, he was no longer on this plane of existence. Eligos left it up to the party whether they thought it best to venture back down into the city's sewers to face what the party suspected might be a mind flayer in its lair, or whether they should embark on a long journey to investigate Brightrain's disappearance and try to find out how he obtained the Apostolic Scroll in the first place. Since it would take at least a fortnight to travel to Rosewater, time could not be a factor in the Brightrain investigation. Consequently, the party chose to tie up the loose ends that were closer to home - they chose to venture back into the caverns beneath the Cold Forge. [I]18th of Reaping.[/I] The following morning, the party headed out. They were concerned that with 2 weeks of time to prepare for the party's return, they worried that their enemy might have restocked the areas that they had previously cleared out in the last battle. However, the caverns that they had fought in before remained clear of enemies, and the dead bodies remained strewn about in various states of decay where they had fallen. Venturing farther into the cavern system, the party came across a small widened area that bore a painted sigil on the floor. The large purple insignia was composed of wavy lines vaguely reminiscent of tentacles. Alees carefully checked the floor leading up to the insignia and the insignia itself for traps. She found none. Thorash cast Detect Magic and scanned the room. He discovered a glowing spot on the ceiling of the cavern right above the sigil. The party decided to skirt the perimeter of the room to avoid whatever magic was in the ceiling. This tactic seemed to work - the party passed through the room unharmed. Soon afterwards, the natural passage opened up into a larger cavern that was all natural except for the smoothed floor and the marble double doors set into the northern wall. The marble was mostly white, streaked with veins of purple. These doors stood in stark contrast to the rest of the stone in this cavern (which was a more mundane grayish-brown color). The double doors were each flanked by marble columns with the same tentacular symbol burned into their surfaces. Alees moved towards the doors to check them for traps. Just then, 3 purple beasts with one eye and many tentacles crawled out of hiding places among the stalactites on the ceiling. They crawled with ease down 3 natural pillars near the perimeter of the cavern and attacked nearby partymembers with their fore-tentacles (which ended in mean-looking lobster-like claws). One by one, the party-members found themselves looking into the tentacled creatures' eyes. When they did, they found themselves unable to move with the same speed that they had in the past. However, the beasts did not seem smart enough to stay up on the pillars where the party was unable to reach them. When the party moved out of their reach, they climbed down to the ground, allowing the partymembers to gang up on them and destroy them. However, before the skirmish was over, a significant amount of damage had been done, forcing some members of the party to consume valuable healing spells. (Killick was pleasantly surprised to discover that if he cast a curative spell on his new wardog - Grimlock II - he could share the healing benefits with his animal companion.) Once the healing was over, Alees attempted to open the marble doors and found them to be locked. Alexander cast a spell on the doors and the party heard a loud thump, as if a large bar had just fallen to the ground on the opposite side. Alees tried the door again, and found that it now swung open freely. As the doors opened, the party saw a circular room with a large stone brain in the center sculpted out of the same marble that the door was made from. Around the perimeter of the room were four stone benches with iron manacles bolted to the wall above them. The party cast some buff spells and then Tarric moved through the room, into a winding stairway. When Thorash moved into the room, he felt some kind of mental presence trying to take control of his mind, but it was being kept at bay somehow. Thorash surmised that his Protection from Evil spell might be what was protecting him. He announced to his comrades to be wary of this mental presence. Since Tarric had avoided the attack, the party decided to just move quickly through the room onto the stairway. They did so, and no others noticed themselves being attacked mentally. Alexander and Tarric found themselves at the top of the winding staircase first. There they found a room that seemed to be a laboratory of some kind. It contained a desk, 2 tall bookcases, a heavy table with various jars sitting on it, including a large tank full of opaque green liquid. When Tarric stepped into the room, he saw something emerge from the green tank. It seemed to be another of the one-eyed tentacled creatures that the party had fought outside the marble doors, but this one seemed particularly large, strong, and vicious. In addition, its clawed fore-tentacles were longer than its predecessors had been. It seemed to be able to attack any part of the room with its incredible reach. Again, various members of the party found themselves moving more slowly than usual when they accidentally looked into the creature's eye. The creature focused its attacks on Tarric (who had been doing the most damage with his magical bastard sword). When the creature struck him with both claws at once, it started ripping. The rest of the party stood horrified as they watched the creature almost rip Tarric in half. Tarric's blood and entrails were strewn across the floor and no one could tell if he was still breathing. Realizing that Tarric required immediate attention if he were to have any hope of survival, the party sprang to action. Alees moved to Tarric's side and held out a potion. Killick grabbed it and poured it down his throat. Katawan moved up and delivered a jolt of healing from his ring. Thorash was also preparing a curative spell when Alexander pulled out a scroll and cast a spell. Suddenly, the creature's one eye widened in terror, and it collapsed dead! For a moment there was stunned silence, and then a spontaneous victory cry went up from all the conscious party members. This time Tarric found himself needing to consume multiple healing potions in order to heal the grievous wounds he had suffered and bring him back into fighting shape. He said a quick prayer of thanks to Heironeous, marvelling at the effectiveness of healing magic to maintain his combat readiness even after suffering what would otherwise have been a mortal wound. When the party was ready, they opened a stone door on the opposite wall of the laboratory table. The door opened into a 10 foot wide passage that led to a small circular room with a pool in the center. Killick walked up to the pool in order to ascertain whether the water was drinkable. He found an image floating at the bottom. The shimmering image seemed to be of the sewer entrance to the cavern system that had led to where they were now. Killick thought about Eligos's house, and the image at the bottom of the pool changed to show an exterior view of Eligos's house. Killick announced to the party that he had found a scrying pool. On the far side of the circular room was another 10 foot wide passage with a strange greenish glow reflected on the wall. Thorash followed the passage forward and found that it ended in a balcony overlooking a cathedral-like chamber. Below, to Thorash's left, the dwarf saw a ground-level entrance to the cathedral, and over the entrance was a one-eyed tentacled creature poised to attack. To Thorash's right was a large black octagonal stone pillar set into the wall with glowing green arcane symbols carved into it. At the base of the pillar was a shallow rectangular pool of water. Hovering 40 feet above this pool (at the same level as the balcony) was a bizarre humanoid form with strange rubbery purple flesh, dressed in tattered black leather robes, and holding some sort of magical staff or rod that seemed to glow red hot. The humanoid's head was hairless and bulbous, with 4 short tentacles where its mouth should be. All the party members whose minds were not shielded from mental contact heard the following words forming in an alien voice in their heads, "You dare enter my sanctum? Fools! I shall finish what Telakin could not. Your weak minds will be a sumptuous feast, and your terror will be a pleasing garnish!" Realizing that the battle had begun, Alexander flew into the cathedral chamber and cast Magic Missiles at his floating opponent. The energy of the missiles washed over the mind-flayer harmlessly. Killick and his wardog moved up towards the balcony get a view of the new opponent. Killick began casting a spell. At this point, the mind-flayer extended its bony arm in the party's direction and lowered its head slightly in concentration. Suddenly Alexander, Thorash, Killick, and Grimlock II felt an explosion in their brains, as if all of their neurons were firing at once, overloading their brains with sensation. Thorash and Killick were able to resist the effect and come to their senses. Alexander and Grimlock found themselves stunned, unable to act. At this point, the tentacled creature above the cathedral's entrance started moving quickly toward the balcony. In addition, a previously undetected second tentacled creature attacked Thorash from above, but missed. Thorash cast Searing Light at the hovering enemy, but again, the energy seemed to bounce of the mysterious creature harmlessly. The mind-flayer began casting a spell in response, during which the length of metal in the mind-flayers other hand began glowing even hotter than before. At the end of the magical incantation, it pointed its finger at the balcony and a tremendous lightning bolt crashed down the hallway, missing Killick, but doing serious damage to both Thorash and Grimlock. The other party members found that they could not get into the battle on the narrow balcony even if they wanted to. Alees tried to run around to the cathedral's main ground-level entrance. She went back through the laboratory and opened a door into a previously unexplored room. In the middle of this room was a grotesque ebony statue of a vulture-headed humanoid with large feathery wings and sharp talons in a combat pose. The rest of the room was taken up by large glass display cases along each wall full of various strange artifacts - from a shrunken head to a book that was chained shut to a number of glass jars containing severed body parts. While all this sparked Alees's curiosity, she was in a hurry to aid her comrades in the cathedral. On the far side of the room was a winding staircase leading down to what Alees was sure would be the cathedral entrance. With his supernatural speed, Katawan moved past Alees, past the statue, and down the stairs. Once he saw the cathedral's entrance, he hugged the wall to keep out of the mind-flayer's line of sight. Tarric moved up and pulled the wounded wardog out of harm's way into the room with the scrying pool. Killick finished casting his spell and a giant owl appeared in the cathedral, turning to attack the tentacled thing on the wall. Despite the newly summoned assistance, Thorash decided to withdraw from the balcony to a safer position. [/QUOTE]
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