the Jester
Legend
hippiejedi2 said:
Hey, you're right- that slipped past my notes!
Of Sound Mind the Halfling Way
- Thread starter the Jester
- Start date
Hey, you're right- that slipped past my notes!
the Jester
Legend
Deeper and Deeper
The hideous monster, knee-deep in near-boiling water, roars as the party reacts to it. A volley of arrows falls around it, many shots hitting and barely harming it, and a swarm of crystals bursts forth with a tinkling sound from Naomi. A scorching ray from Beau bursts ineffectively against the monster. Zeke casts magic weapon on his silver battle axe as he grimly watches the arrows rebound from the monster’s nasty skin. Then, as he watches, Achtung bravely flings himself forward into the fray, attempting to use his newly enhanced claws to rend the monster! Unfortunately for the urd, the only result is that the bonedrinker’s tentacles pluck him out of the air. One wonders if the bonedrinker is about to earn his name by, somehow, drinking the bones of Achtung.
“I will drink his bones,” the hideous monster intones. Its grin widens, revealing six-inch teeth- and suddenly, it sinks those teeth into Achtung’s screaming form.
The poor urd! The monster is earning its name!
Achtung writhes in indescribable pain as he feels his skeleton begin to ache deeply. He shudders and struggles to break free, to no avail
“I can’t get a clear shot!” Thelonious cries.* Our heroes are stymied from a direct assault by the scalding water that the bonedrinker is wading in.
“Take the shot,” groans Achtung.
Martini and Thelonious let fly, and by some miracle, Thelonious hits the bonedrinker twice and Martini thrice! Then Ezeekiel bravely lunges into the scalding water, gritting his teeth against the pain, and strikes a mighty blow at the monster, which rips its teeth free of Achtung, who has now sunken into unconsciousness. It roars, but then another flurry of arrows hits it and it staggers down... and collapses!
The good part of that, of course, is that it collapses. The bad part is that unconscious Achtung falls into the scalding water, heading straight for that unique of indignity of death by drowning and fire damage simultaneously. Fortunately, Hortense and Ezeekiel manage to scoop him out of the water and apply some healing just in time.
***
7/13/369 O.L.G., 10 a.m.
After a night of resting, our heroes are in pretty good shape, including Achtung (thanks to Hortense’s tender ministrations). So they return to the cave where they fought the bonedrinker, and to get around the scalding pool Achtung puts his new improved physical abilities to work. He quickly digs a tunnel around the scalding pool. The halflings are most impressed. “It’s kind of like a gopher,” muses Sandy.
The bonedrinker’s lair holds some interesting treasure, including a very pretty, sequin-covered silk dress, a warhammer of remarkable quality, 21 silver arrows, a wand, a silver dagger, a tanglefoot bag and a small wooden jewelry box holding 3 cheap silver rings and a single hoop earring. The silver arrows and the wand radiate magic; it is later discovered that the wand is a wand of tongues.
Back to the room of the scalding pool our heroes go, and from that chamber they enter another exit so far unexplored. This one is about 15’ wide, and they follow the dripping cave about 100’ before it splits again. Each split leads to another pool, one giving off a faint blue glow, the other radiating a weird violet color. Bathing in the blue pool, several of the party members take on short-lived fiendish, draconic and celestial traits. They fade after a few days, but meantime our heroes find the changes in themselves unsettling. The violet pool seems to fortify and improve those that bathe in it, but again, Achtung demonstrates that getting greedy is a bad idea: it leaves him aching, easily tired, with less endurance and generally lesser health. “Dammit!” the urd exclaims piteously.
The party reins in their enthusiasm for their explorations. “I can still barely see,” complains Beau.
“These pools are great,” Martini comments. “Hey, didn’t we miss one? The one with the spores around it? Let’s go back there.”
“I think we’ve checked out just about everything else here, short of whatever’s beyond that room with the elementals,” nods Federico.
“Except that passage over there,” remarks Naomi with a gesture, indicating another exit from the sloping room, but Martini has already hurried out. The party follows him back up the slick steps, noting another two passages yet unexplored on the way.
“All right, so I was wrong,” the kobold whimpers. “We haven’t explored everything.”
When the party returns to the room with the spores, Martini carefully edges around the dangerous fungus, strips down and settles into the warm water of the spring. He sighs. This feels good, he smiles inwardly, and proceeds to soak for a while, thinking about his life. Thinking about his attitude, thinking about his behavior- thinking about how much he has changed since donning the helmet. Slowly he realizes that he has been influenced by it for quite some time; but now, he casts off the curse of the helm and returns to his former identity.
Beau’s going to try to pull his antics again, Martini notes to himself. I can’t let him get his hands on the helmet again.
When Martini emerges and dresses, he is a changed man- changed back into the nice, caring halfling he once was. The rigid, rule-making Martini who cared only about himself is gone. He has shriveled like a raisin, leaving the true Martini behind.
***
2 p.m.
The other unexplored passages prove mostly uninteresting. Two natural descents are treacherously slick, one ending in a deadly hot pool and the other in a more tepid pool. This one holds the soft corpse of an elf, which our heroes determine must have been a victim of the bonedrinker, for it surely has no hard bones left within it. The party gives a collective shudder.
“It tried to do that to me,” squeaks Achtung.
Returning to the sloping cave, the group explores the other passage that Federico had earlier indicated. It leads to an old refuse heap that gives up a nest of giant centipedes, easily slain.
”These items are probably the garbage from that dwarven campsite,” Martini muses.
“I wonder what happened to the dwarf. I wonder if we’ll find his body,” Naomi mutters to herself.
***
7/14/369 O.L.G., 11 a.m.
After rising in what they think to be the morning- it’s hard to tell without seeing the sun- the party moves back to the chamber of the elementals, figuring that they can at least look around the room since the elementals hadn’t responded to their presence previously. “Maybe there is something that will trigger them,” Federico suggests, “and as long as we don’t do that thing we’ll be fine.”
This may be the case, but if so, whatever they aren’t supposed to do, Naomi must have done it; because as soon as our heroes enter the chamber the three large elementals rushes towards her. She squeals pig-like in horror and initiates her energy retort even as her friends move to her aid. Half-blind Jawbreaker engages the fire elemental immediately while Hortense buffs Ezeekiel with a bull’s strength. The paladin then rushes in, taking on the earth elemental. As usual, a considerable number of arrows whizzes into the elementals from the two rangers’ bows. Thelonious exhorts our heroes to flee. “These things will kill us!” he cries.
Perhaps he is right. Sadly, the elementals seem to resist at least a part of every blow our heroes land on them. Pressed back, the wall of halflings protecting Naomi falters, and the fire elemental, intent on cooking up some Naomi burgers, lashes out at her! She shrieks as she waddles back, a severe burn on her chest now. She gasps for breath and fires a swarm of crystals, not caring that she catches Chief Jawbreaker as well as the elemental. She has to get it to back off! Jawbreaker slices into it from behind, and this time his mighty blow finishes it! His axe whizzes into the water elemental as well, cleaving through. Soon he has torn it apart with his great axe. Jawbreaker howls in triumph.
The earth elemental, meanwhile, has forced Martini to discard his bow and switch to the sword. Its pounding fists deal punishing damage to the little ranger, whose blows are partially turned by its rocky exterior. The others pile on it, now that it is the only remaining opponent. Beau hits it with a ray of enfeeblement and it shudders; and then a final blow from Martini finishes it off.
“Whew!” exclaims Naomi. “They were coming right for me.”
“I wonder what you did to piss them off,” Beau says.
“I didn’t do anything!” she protests.**
The large chamber has two exits that our heroes have not yet explored, both natural descending stairs. Our heroes search the chamber before leaving it, and to their surprise, they find a secret door.
“This is the first manufactured thing we’ve found down here, isn’t it?” wonders Naomi.
“No, there was the rock wall and altar in front of the pool in the next chamber,” replies Sandy.
“Hmm... I bet the best stuff is behind here,” Naomi says enthusiastically.
The party opens the secret door to reveal a hewn staircase spiraling down.
“Who built this?” wonders Hortense.
“Could it have been the dwarf?” murmurs Beau.
“There were no signs of digging tools or anything in the refuse heap or at the campsite,” Martini comments.
Jawbreaker snorts. “We go see.”
The stairs drop about 60’ before opening into a huge chamber, 100’ long and 120’ wide. The stairs are set against one wall; the other walls each bear a door with a symbol. More dramatically, a looming figure strides towards our heroes, glowing with a pale light. It looks like an anthropomorphic bull dog with a set of ram’s horns atop its head. Our heroes are startled to hear its voice boom in their heads: “Greetings! Please, tell me- who are you, and why have you come?”
Cautiously, our heroes introduce themselves. “And who are you?” Naomi asks querulously.
“I am the Guardian of the Secrets,” the figure intones telepathically.
“Hey, can you cure my blindness?” Beau asks.
“Blindness! Sadly, I cannot,” the Guardian of the Secrets demurs.
Our heroes draw this strange figure out into conversation. It does not seem to want to fight them, but rather seems like a somewhat lonely guardian creature of some kind. When the party asks who he serves, he declares, “The Enigma Lord.” When they ask him what is beyond the doors, he sadly tells them that he may not say; and furthermore, he informs them that, to pass through any of the doors, they must first answer three riddles.
“What if we fail to give you the right answers?” asks Sandy.
“As long as you answer one correctly, you may pass, but I may give you more assistance for each correct answer.”
“And if we don’t answer any correctly?”
“Alas, then I must destroy you.”
“I see... well then.”
Our heroes mull over this interesting situation. Continuing to engage the Guardian in conversation, Naomi discovers that he has seen a dwarf about a century ago. “He came here several times, but was stymied by the riddles and left, never to return.”
The three doors are all made of stone, and each is graven with a different image. One shows a stylized skull and crossbones; the second a circle and the dwarven rune for water; and the third, what seems to be stylized gems and coins.
After discussing things for a while, Sandy says, “All right- ask your riddles!”
Next Time: Riddles galore!
*Remember, when you fire into a grapple you roll your target randomly.
**Actually, peeing in the pool was what did it.
The hideous monster, knee-deep in near-boiling water, roars as the party reacts to it. A volley of arrows falls around it, many shots hitting and barely harming it, and a swarm of crystals bursts forth with a tinkling sound from Naomi. A scorching ray from Beau bursts ineffectively against the monster. Zeke casts magic weapon on his silver battle axe as he grimly watches the arrows rebound from the monster’s nasty skin. Then, as he watches, Achtung bravely flings himself forward into the fray, attempting to use his newly enhanced claws to rend the monster! Unfortunately for the urd, the only result is that the bonedrinker’s tentacles pluck him out of the air. One wonders if the bonedrinker is about to earn his name by, somehow, drinking the bones of Achtung.
“I will drink his bones,” the hideous monster intones. Its grin widens, revealing six-inch teeth- and suddenly, it sinks those teeth into Achtung’s screaming form.
The poor urd! The monster is earning its name!
Achtung writhes in indescribable pain as he feels his skeleton begin to ache deeply. He shudders and struggles to break free, to no avail
“I can’t get a clear shot!” Thelonious cries.* Our heroes are stymied from a direct assault by the scalding water that the bonedrinker is wading in.
“Take the shot,” groans Achtung.
Martini and Thelonious let fly, and by some miracle, Thelonious hits the bonedrinker twice and Martini thrice! Then Ezeekiel bravely lunges into the scalding water, gritting his teeth against the pain, and strikes a mighty blow at the monster, which rips its teeth free of Achtung, who has now sunken into unconsciousness. It roars, but then another flurry of arrows hits it and it staggers down... and collapses!
The good part of that, of course, is that it collapses. The bad part is that unconscious Achtung falls into the scalding water, heading straight for that unique of indignity of death by drowning and fire damage simultaneously. Fortunately, Hortense and Ezeekiel manage to scoop him out of the water and apply some healing just in time.
***
7/13/369 O.L.G., 10 a.m.
After a night of resting, our heroes are in pretty good shape, including Achtung (thanks to Hortense’s tender ministrations). So they return to the cave where they fought the bonedrinker, and to get around the scalding pool Achtung puts his new improved physical abilities to work. He quickly digs a tunnel around the scalding pool. The halflings are most impressed. “It’s kind of like a gopher,” muses Sandy.
The bonedrinker’s lair holds some interesting treasure, including a very pretty, sequin-covered silk dress, a warhammer of remarkable quality, 21 silver arrows, a wand, a silver dagger, a tanglefoot bag and a small wooden jewelry box holding 3 cheap silver rings and a single hoop earring. The silver arrows and the wand radiate magic; it is later discovered that the wand is a wand of tongues.
Back to the room of the scalding pool our heroes go, and from that chamber they enter another exit so far unexplored. This one is about 15’ wide, and they follow the dripping cave about 100’ before it splits again. Each split leads to another pool, one giving off a faint blue glow, the other radiating a weird violet color. Bathing in the blue pool, several of the party members take on short-lived fiendish, draconic and celestial traits. They fade after a few days, but meantime our heroes find the changes in themselves unsettling. The violet pool seems to fortify and improve those that bathe in it, but again, Achtung demonstrates that getting greedy is a bad idea: it leaves him aching, easily tired, with less endurance and generally lesser health. “Dammit!” the urd exclaims piteously.
The party reins in their enthusiasm for their explorations. “I can still barely see,” complains Beau.
“These pools are great,” Martini comments. “Hey, didn’t we miss one? The one with the spores around it? Let’s go back there.”
“I think we’ve checked out just about everything else here, short of whatever’s beyond that room with the elementals,” nods Federico.
“Except that passage over there,” remarks Naomi with a gesture, indicating another exit from the sloping room, but Martini has already hurried out. The party follows him back up the slick steps, noting another two passages yet unexplored on the way.
“All right, so I was wrong,” the kobold whimpers. “We haven’t explored everything.”
When the party returns to the room with the spores, Martini carefully edges around the dangerous fungus, strips down and settles into the warm water of the spring. He sighs. This feels good, he smiles inwardly, and proceeds to soak for a while, thinking about his life. Thinking about his attitude, thinking about his behavior- thinking about how much he has changed since donning the helmet. Slowly he realizes that he has been influenced by it for quite some time; but now, he casts off the curse of the helm and returns to his former identity.
Beau’s going to try to pull his antics again, Martini notes to himself. I can’t let him get his hands on the helmet again.
When Martini emerges and dresses, he is a changed man- changed back into the nice, caring halfling he once was. The rigid, rule-making Martini who cared only about himself is gone. He has shriveled like a raisin, leaving the true Martini behind.
***
2 p.m.
The other unexplored passages prove mostly uninteresting. Two natural descents are treacherously slick, one ending in a deadly hot pool and the other in a more tepid pool. This one holds the soft corpse of an elf, which our heroes determine must have been a victim of the bonedrinker, for it surely has no hard bones left within it. The party gives a collective shudder.
“It tried to do that to me,” squeaks Achtung.
Returning to the sloping cave, the group explores the other passage that Federico had earlier indicated. It leads to an old refuse heap that gives up a nest of giant centipedes, easily slain.
”These items are probably the garbage from that dwarven campsite,” Martini muses.
“I wonder what happened to the dwarf. I wonder if we’ll find his body,” Naomi mutters to herself.
***
7/14/369 O.L.G., 11 a.m.
After rising in what they think to be the morning- it’s hard to tell without seeing the sun- the party moves back to the chamber of the elementals, figuring that they can at least look around the room since the elementals hadn’t responded to their presence previously. “Maybe there is something that will trigger them,” Federico suggests, “and as long as we don’t do that thing we’ll be fine.”
This may be the case, but if so, whatever they aren’t supposed to do, Naomi must have done it; because as soon as our heroes enter the chamber the three large elementals rushes towards her. She squeals pig-like in horror and initiates her energy retort even as her friends move to her aid. Half-blind Jawbreaker engages the fire elemental immediately while Hortense buffs Ezeekiel with a bull’s strength. The paladin then rushes in, taking on the earth elemental. As usual, a considerable number of arrows whizzes into the elementals from the two rangers’ bows. Thelonious exhorts our heroes to flee. “These things will kill us!” he cries.
Perhaps he is right. Sadly, the elementals seem to resist at least a part of every blow our heroes land on them. Pressed back, the wall of halflings protecting Naomi falters, and the fire elemental, intent on cooking up some Naomi burgers, lashes out at her! She shrieks as she waddles back, a severe burn on her chest now. She gasps for breath and fires a swarm of crystals, not caring that she catches Chief Jawbreaker as well as the elemental. She has to get it to back off! Jawbreaker slices into it from behind, and this time his mighty blow finishes it! His axe whizzes into the water elemental as well, cleaving through. Soon he has torn it apart with his great axe. Jawbreaker howls in triumph.
The earth elemental, meanwhile, has forced Martini to discard his bow and switch to the sword. Its pounding fists deal punishing damage to the little ranger, whose blows are partially turned by its rocky exterior. The others pile on it, now that it is the only remaining opponent. Beau hits it with a ray of enfeeblement and it shudders; and then a final blow from Martini finishes it off.
“Whew!” exclaims Naomi. “They were coming right for me.”
“I wonder what you did to piss them off,” Beau says.
“I didn’t do anything!” she protests.**
The large chamber has two exits that our heroes have not yet explored, both natural descending stairs. Our heroes search the chamber before leaving it, and to their surprise, they find a secret door.
“This is the first manufactured thing we’ve found down here, isn’t it?” wonders Naomi.
“No, there was the rock wall and altar in front of the pool in the next chamber,” replies Sandy.
“Hmm... I bet the best stuff is behind here,” Naomi says enthusiastically.
The party opens the secret door to reveal a hewn staircase spiraling down.
“Who built this?” wonders Hortense.
“Could it have been the dwarf?” murmurs Beau.
“There were no signs of digging tools or anything in the refuse heap or at the campsite,” Martini comments.
Jawbreaker snorts. “We go see.”
The stairs drop about 60’ before opening into a huge chamber, 100’ long and 120’ wide. The stairs are set against one wall; the other walls each bear a door with a symbol. More dramatically, a looming figure strides towards our heroes, glowing with a pale light. It looks like an anthropomorphic bull dog with a set of ram’s horns atop its head. Our heroes are startled to hear its voice boom in their heads: “Greetings! Please, tell me- who are you, and why have you come?”
Cautiously, our heroes introduce themselves. “And who are you?” Naomi asks querulously.
“I am the Guardian of the Secrets,” the figure intones telepathically.
“Hey, can you cure my blindness?” Beau asks.
“Blindness! Sadly, I cannot,” the Guardian of the Secrets demurs.
Our heroes draw this strange figure out into conversation. It does not seem to want to fight them, but rather seems like a somewhat lonely guardian creature of some kind. When the party asks who he serves, he declares, “The Enigma Lord.” When they ask him what is beyond the doors, he sadly tells them that he may not say; and furthermore, he informs them that, to pass through any of the doors, they must first answer three riddles.
“What if we fail to give you the right answers?” asks Sandy.
“As long as you answer one correctly, you may pass, but I may give you more assistance for each correct answer.”
“And if we don’t answer any correctly?”
“Alas, then I must destroy you.”
“I see... well then.”
Our heroes mull over this interesting situation. Continuing to engage the Guardian in conversation, Naomi discovers that he has seen a dwarf about a century ago. “He came here several times, but was stymied by the riddles and left, never to return.”
The three doors are all made of stone, and each is graven with a different image. One shows a stylized skull and crossbones; the second a circle and the dwarven rune for water; and the third, what seems to be stylized gems and coins.
After discussing things for a while, Sandy says, “All right- ask your riddles!”
Next Time: Riddles galore!
*Remember, when you fire into a grapple you roll your target randomly.
**Actually, peeing in the pool was what did it.
hippiejedi2
First Post
Around this time Beau changes his alignment from CE to CN, and with Martini becoming good, well good again, the party is no longer an evil party. Now it becomes Law vs Chaos?
the Jester
Legend
The Guardian of the Secrets intones, “This you should always keep, for no one else wants it!”
Our heroes talk it over for a while, then ask him, “Can you tell us the other riddles before we answer the first?”
He nods, and the halflings ask him to do so. He asks his second riddle: “This stinks when living, but in death smells good.”
The third riddle, too, he puts forth: “Weight in my belly, trees on my back, nails in my ribs, feet do I lack. What am I?”
The party huddles and talks. “The third one is a ship,” Sandy says instantly. The others agree. That one, it proves, was the easy one. The party tosses around various ideas for the other two riddles, and finally they turn to the Guardian again.
“We have answers for you, Guardian,” Sandy says formally.
“Then answer! This you should always keep, for no one else wants it.”
“Your temper!” cries Achtung.
”This stinks when living, but in death smells good.”
“Toil!” Beau shouts.
”Weight in my belly, trees on my back, nails in my ribs, feet do I lack. What am I?”
“A ship!” Sandy exclaims.
The Guardian of the Secrets regards them keenly. “I am impressed,” he declares. “You have answered two of my riddles correctly. You may pass the doors at leisure. But beware- not all is as it appears!”
“Only two?” exclaims Beau.
”It’s the ‘toil’ answer,” complains Zeke. “I knew that wasn’t it.”
The Chief grunts. “Jawbreaker told you: pig. Bacon.”
“Can we leave and come back later and still pass?” asks Sandy. The Guardian nods, and the party decides to go rest at the green pool that makes them feel full. Perhaps, if it ameliorates their need to eat, they can rest long enough for Beau and Jawbreaker to regain at least some of their vision.
***
7/20/369 O.L.G., Noon
After several days the almost-blind halflings are only half-blind. Tired of waiting, and hoping that half-blind is nearly as good as not blind at all, the group returns to the Guardian’s chamber. He greets them and again indicates that they may pass any of the doors.
Our heroes examine the graven symbols on the doors again. The first door is marked with a skull and crossbones, the second with a dwarven rune for water, and the third with an image of stylized coins and gems. “If not everything is as it appears,” argues Beau, “maybe that one is a trap.”
“Well, we should certainly check it out, there might be loot,” Sandy retorts. “We don’t want to miss the loot!”
After arguing back and forth for a while, the party finally decides to open the door. It is locked, but Sandy takes care of that fairly easily. The door lead to a 20’ wide passage that is in a shocking state. About 30’ down the passage, it appears that some kind of catastrophic event must have severely damaged it. In fact, a deep chasm gapes before the party. Across it, 25-30’ away, is a damaged section of hall. It looks as though some sort of geological event must have wrenched the hall apart at some point in the past.
The party passes by it easily enough, with Achtung flying two lengths of rope across to the other side and tying them off at the end of the hall, where he finds another thick doorway, this one bound with brass bands. Soon the rest of our heroes make it across, and then they all gather at this new door. Unfortunately, it is locked, but not with a physical mechanism of any kind; there is no lock for Sandy or Beau to pick! Jawbreaker snorts. “Jawbreaker can break door,” he suggests.
The party again breaks into discussion, stopping for a snack (“Act now, but after we eat” is one of Ezeekiel’s slogans). As they do, they hear something behind the door, a muffled voice, apparently repeating the same thing over and over. Pressing an ear to the door, Beau frowns. “Okay... it’s another riddle... it must be how we get through the door... damn riddles!” He repeats it to the party: “There are three common words ending in –GRY. Two of them are angry and hungry. The third is a common word, and everyone knows what it means. What is the third word?”*
“Uh, humm,” mutters Ezeekiel.
The party puzzles over this one for some time. Finally, someone hits on it, and they shout it through the door: “AGREE!”
There’s an exclamation from behind the door, and then a quiet word, and the doors slowly slide open.
“Thank you, oh thank you so much!” Weeping before them is a half-elven female. She’s clutching herself, as if astonished at the feeling of her own skin and flesh; for indeed she is.
“Who are you?” asks Sandy.
“My... sniff... my name is Mys,” she answers. “I’ve been down here for so long, oh so long!” She gives out a wavering sigh. “But now, thanks to you, I’m alive again, I can leave again, oh thank you!”
“Alive again? What do you mean?”
“For a long time... Two hundred years? I don’t know any more... I was some sort of... puzzle creature. A living conundrum, if you will. But answering the riddle broke the curse that kept me! Oh, thank you!”
“Hey, were you with a dwarf? Or have you seen one?”
She shakes her head sadly. “No. I haven’t seen anyone since I was trapped down here.” She wipes her eyes, composing herself.
The party talks to Mys and discovers that she calls herself a riddle-master. She is eager to stick with them in this dangerous place; she is somewhat afraid of going it alone until she is in a civilized place. “The world has no doubt changed greatly since my curse began,” she says sadly. “All my old friends and most of my family are no doubt dead.”
Behind the riddle-master are two open chests. Looking within them, our heroes see a starry void; but Mys tells them that within is a great reward for each of them that aided in restoring her to flesh. As each of them reaches in, they find themselves groping around in a cool, unseen space until each of them gets an item. Their thoughts seem to guide their hands to their rewards.
Jawbreaker, full of larcenous thoughts about treasure, ironically gets a ring of thievery that grants him a +5 bonus to sleigh of hand checks.
Ezeekiel gets a +1 evil outsider bane battle axe.
Hortense gets a wand of cure serious wounds.
Beau gets a an empty sack, but it turns out to be a sack of supplies that will shrink food, drink or smoking materials to 1/1000th of their normal size and weight. Items within the sack prove easy to remove, as well. Beau and Jawbreaker soon trade rewards.
Finally, Sandy gets a pair of gloves of the sailor that give him a +8 competence bonus on Profession (sailor) checks.
Well pleased with their rewards, our heroes return to the Guardian’s chamber and set themselves against the door opposite the one that led to Mys. She and the Guardian exchange a cool greeting on the way.
The door- this is the one with the skull and crossbones- yields a terrible dragon with a stinger dripping sizzling orange venom and the stink of brimstone around it. It glares malevolently at our heroes, snarling and hissing, and its terrible stinger darts forward and hits Jawbreaker square in the chest. The Chief cries out as venom pours into him. He groans, feeling his chest burn as the poison ravages him! Then his groan turns into a scream of rage as he flings himself forward and engages it! Hortense moves towards him as Mys starts singing a song that inspires courage in our heroes. Beau discovers to his chagrin that this particular wyvern has spell resistance when his magic missile fails to affect the creature.
Jawbreaker hacks at the terrible dragon, but the venom spreading in him burns like fire; even in his rage he can feel it. His blows do not have the force to penetrate the scales of the beast. Then its sting and its claws and its bite tear at him, and everything goes black. The last thing he sees is that stinger, jabbing him in the chest again, and more fire...
Our heroes have yet to scratch the monster, but that changes as one of Sandy’s arrows finally sticks in its neck. It roars defiantly, stinging Hortense as she tries to heal the Chief and interrupting her spell and then springing forward to bite and sting Ezeekiel. He stoically ignores the pain and slams his axe into the monster, slicing it across the chest. It hisses at him, but while it is distracted Hortense manages to get a cure light wounds onto Jawbreaker, who struggles to his feet weakly. His body feels like it’s on fire! “Poison,” he croaks. “Help...”
Ezeekiel and the wyvern continue to fight it out. Finally, Ezeekiel hits it with everything he’s got, smiting evil, and it falls, its head nearly severed.
“Jawbreaker need rest,” gasps the Chief. “We rest in other room.” He can barely breathe.
The party retires for a day.
Next Time: There’s one more door to be investigated. Behind it- the halfling prophecy!
*Note that this riddle relies on being spoken aloud (rather than written) to have a solution. This is a very clever piece of misdirection as far as riddles go; this is actually floating around on the internet ether as an ‘unsolvable’ riddle. Bah!
Our heroes talk it over for a while, then ask him, “Can you tell us the other riddles before we answer the first?”
He nods, and the halflings ask him to do so. He asks his second riddle: “This stinks when living, but in death smells good.”
The third riddle, too, he puts forth: “Weight in my belly, trees on my back, nails in my ribs, feet do I lack. What am I?”
The party huddles and talks. “The third one is a ship,” Sandy says instantly. The others agree. That one, it proves, was the easy one. The party tosses around various ideas for the other two riddles, and finally they turn to the Guardian again.
“We have answers for you, Guardian,” Sandy says formally.
“Then answer! This you should always keep, for no one else wants it.”
“Your temper!” cries Achtung.
”This stinks when living, but in death smells good.”
“Toil!” Beau shouts.
”Weight in my belly, trees on my back, nails in my ribs, feet do I lack. What am I?”
“A ship!” Sandy exclaims.
The Guardian of the Secrets regards them keenly. “I am impressed,” he declares. “You have answered two of my riddles correctly. You may pass the doors at leisure. But beware- not all is as it appears!”
“Only two?” exclaims Beau.
”It’s the ‘toil’ answer,” complains Zeke. “I knew that wasn’t it.”
The Chief grunts. “Jawbreaker told you: pig. Bacon.”
“Can we leave and come back later and still pass?” asks Sandy. The Guardian nods, and the party decides to go rest at the green pool that makes them feel full. Perhaps, if it ameliorates their need to eat, they can rest long enough for Beau and Jawbreaker to regain at least some of their vision.
***
7/20/369 O.L.G., Noon
After several days the almost-blind halflings are only half-blind. Tired of waiting, and hoping that half-blind is nearly as good as not blind at all, the group returns to the Guardian’s chamber. He greets them and again indicates that they may pass any of the doors.
Our heroes examine the graven symbols on the doors again. The first door is marked with a skull and crossbones, the second with a dwarven rune for water, and the third with an image of stylized coins and gems. “If not everything is as it appears,” argues Beau, “maybe that one is a trap.”
“Well, we should certainly check it out, there might be loot,” Sandy retorts. “We don’t want to miss the loot!”
After arguing back and forth for a while, the party finally decides to open the door. It is locked, but Sandy takes care of that fairly easily. The door lead to a 20’ wide passage that is in a shocking state. About 30’ down the passage, it appears that some kind of catastrophic event must have severely damaged it. In fact, a deep chasm gapes before the party. Across it, 25-30’ away, is a damaged section of hall. It looks as though some sort of geological event must have wrenched the hall apart at some point in the past.
The party passes by it easily enough, with Achtung flying two lengths of rope across to the other side and tying them off at the end of the hall, where he finds another thick doorway, this one bound with brass bands. Soon the rest of our heroes make it across, and then they all gather at this new door. Unfortunately, it is locked, but not with a physical mechanism of any kind; there is no lock for Sandy or Beau to pick! Jawbreaker snorts. “Jawbreaker can break door,” he suggests.
The party again breaks into discussion, stopping for a snack (“Act now, but after we eat” is one of Ezeekiel’s slogans). As they do, they hear something behind the door, a muffled voice, apparently repeating the same thing over and over. Pressing an ear to the door, Beau frowns. “Okay... it’s another riddle... it must be how we get through the door... damn riddles!” He repeats it to the party: “There are three common words ending in –GRY. Two of them are angry and hungry. The third is a common word, and everyone knows what it means. What is the third word?”*
“Uh, humm,” mutters Ezeekiel.
The party puzzles over this one for some time. Finally, someone hits on it, and they shout it through the door: “AGREE!”
There’s an exclamation from behind the door, and then a quiet word, and the doors slowly slide open.
“Thank you, oh thank you so much!” Weeping before them is a half-elven female. She’s clutching herself, as if astonished at the feeling of her own skin and flesh; for indeed she is.
“Who are you?” asks Sandy.
“My... sniff... my name is Mys,” she answers. “I’ve been down here for so long, oh so long!” She gives out a wavering sigh. “But now, thanks to you, I’m alive again, I can leave again, oh thank you!”
“Alive again? What do you mean?”
“For a long time... Two hundred years? I don’t know any more... I was some sort of... puzzle creature. A living conundrum, if you will. But answering the riddle broke the curse that kept me! Oh, thank you!”
“Hey, were you with a dwarf? Or have you seen one?”
She shakes her head sadly. “No. I haven’t seen anyone since I was trapped down here.” She wipes her eyes, composing herself.
The party talks to Mys and discovers that she calls herself a riddle-master. She is eager to stick with them in this dangerous place; she is somewhat afraid of going it alone until she is in a civilized place. “The world has no doubt changed greatly since my curse began,” she says sadly. “All my old friends and most of my family are no doubt dead.”
Behind the riddle-master are two open chests. Looking within them, our heroes see a starry void; but Mys tells them that within is a great reward for each of them that aided in restoring her to flesh. As each of them reaches in, they find themselves groping around in a cool, unseen space until each of them gets an item. Their thoughts seem to guide their hands to their rewards.
Jawbreaker, full of larcenous thoughts about treasure, ironically gets a ring of thievery that grants him a +5 bonus to sleigh of hand checks.
Ezeekiel gets a +1 evil outsider bane battle axe.
Hortense gets a wand of cure serious wounds.
Beau gets a an empty sack, but it turns out to be a sack of supplies that will shrink food, drink or smoking materials to 1/1000th of their normal size and weight. Items within the sack prove easy to remove, as well. Beau and Jawbreaker soon trade rewards.
Finally, Sandy gets a pair of gloves of the sailor that give him a +8 competence bonus on Profession (sailor) checks.
Well pleased with their rewards, our heroes return to the Guardian’s chamber and set themselves against the door opposite the one that led to Mys. She and the Guardian exchange a cool greeting on the way.
The door- this is the one with the skull and crossbones- yields a terrible dragon with a stinger dripping sizzling orange venom and the stink of brimstone around it. It glares malevolently at our heroes, snarling and hissing, and its terrible stinger darts forward and hits Jawbreaker square in the chest. The Chief cries out as venom pours into him. He groans, feeling his chest burn as the poison ravages him! Then his groan turns into a scream of rage as he flings himself forward and engages it! Hortense moves towards him as Mys starts singing a song that inspires courage in our heroes. Beau discovers to his chagrin that this particular wyvern has spell resistance when his magic missile fails to affect the creature.
Jawbreaker hacks at the terrible dragon, but the venom spreading in him burns like fire; even in his rage he can feel it. His blows do not have the force to penetrate the scales of the beast. Then its sting and its claws and its bite tear at him, and everything goes black. The last thing he sees is that stinger, jabbing him in the chest again, and more fire...
Our heroes have yet to scratch the monster, but that changes as one of Sandy’s arrows finally sticks in its neck. It roars defiantly, stinging Hortense as she tries to heal the Chief and interrupting her spell and then springing forward to bite and sting Ezeekiel. He stoically ignores the pain and slams his axe into the monster, slicing it across the chest. It hisses at him, but while it is distracted Hortense manages to get a cure light wounds onto Jawbreaker, who struggles to his feet weakly. His body feels like it’s on fire! “Poison,” he croaks. “Help...”
Ezeekiel and the wyvern continue to fight it out. Finally, Ezeekiel hits it with everything he’s got, smiting evil, and it falls, its head nearly severed.
“Jawbreaker need rest,” gasps the Chief. “We rest in other room.” He can barely breathe.
The party retires for a day.
Next Time: There’s one more door to be investigated. Behind it- the halfling prophecy!
*Note that this riddle relies on being spoken aloud (rather than written) to have a solution. This is a very clever piece of misdirection as far as riddles go; this is actually floating around on the internet ether as an ‘unsolvable’ riddle. Bah!
the Jester
Legend
The Halfing Prophecy
7/21/369 O.L.G., 10 a.m.
Immediately after second breakfast, our heroes approach the final unexplored door in the Guardian of Secrets’ chamber. This one is graven with a dwarven rune signifying water. “I wonder what that implies,” murmurs Mys to herself.
Mys, the riddle-master who had been trapped for about two centuries before our heroes released her by solving her riddle, is garbed in a shirt of mithral, with a silver rapier at her side and a light crossbow strapped to her back. She is not a very militant-looking figure; in fact, she is downright scrawny. Her sharp features are accented by her tapered ears and her slanted eyes. She has already made clear that her most powerful weapon is her mind. So far, the halflings accept her; though several of them have reservations about her, so far she has been a pleasant and helpful companion (though, again, not much of a fighter). She says, “A riddle of some sort, no doubt.”
“What do you mean?” Naomi looks at her.
“This entire place is sacred to Cyldon, the god of secrets and riddles. The rune on my door was gems and gold, was it not? Yet neither was in there. There was treasure, Cyldon’s most precious treasure, in the form of an extremely difficult riddle.” She gestures at the door the wyvern-fiend had been behind. “And there was poison in there, all right! But not like one might find in a bottle with such a sign on it. It was in a living stinger!” Now she turns to the water-rune. “Water... what does it mean?”
“How can we find out?” Thelonious asks.
Mys shrugs. “We will know what it means in retrospect,” she states, “after we go past the door.”
“I guess I’d better search the door for traps then,” Beau remarks, and starts doing so.
”Well, neither of the others was trapped,” begins Martini.
“Hey, I found something!” Beau exclaims, and Martini shuts up. Slowly the rogue-sorcerer first discovers and then distorts and ruins a magical glyph of warding.
Jawbreaker moves forward and throws open the door. This reveals a 30’ wide hallway leading to a large steaming pool of water that opens into a natural cavern full of water as far as our heroes can see. A bridge, clearly unfinished, has been built partway out into the water, but the architect never finished his task. The half-finished bridge is decorated with sculptures of earth creatures and elementals all along it. The pool is hot, but not boiling hot. It’s definitely hot enough to scald, though. Jawbreaker thrusts a hand in for just a moment, and finds it bearable, though painful. Our heroes walk cautiously out to the end of the finished part of the bridge. From there, they can see some kind of circle of high rocks thrusting above the water level.
“Hmm,” Beau says, “there’s magic out there.”
This, combined with a complete lack of any way for them to get out there safely (other than Achtung), leads them to send the urd ahead. He flaps out there on his skinny wings, and as he approaches the circle of stones the water starts to churn. He squawks, then retreats as something starts to arise from the roiling waters. Excitedly he reports to the party. Jawbreaker, Naomi, Beau, Ezeekiel (clutching his new, glowing axe), Hortense and Martini brave the scalding waters and wade out towards the stone.
The churning that has arisen forms now into a serpent of water, splashing sounds substituting perhaps for a hiss. In the light of Zeke’s axe, the water serpent is revealed to those back on the bridge.
“Don’t attack it!” cries Mys.
“What is it?” Naomi demands.
”It is a water weird.”
“What the hell is that?” Naomi is very tense, but starting to relax. Despite its menacing demeanor, the so-called ‘water weird’ has not yet struck. Several of our heroes pull themselves onto the rocks around it.
“It can prophesize! Offer it tribute!”
Swiftly, several of our heroes throw some coins, gems or minor magic items in the pool. The serpent resolves into a beauteous humanoid form. For a long moment it merely watches them with an unsettling gaze; then it speaks. ”Long have your kind sought your way to the Promised Land. Know this: it is behind you. The homeland of bread and butter, the place of mead and milk, the fields of strawberries, the cows that give cream, the orchards of apples from which springeth pie- all these things are there, waiting to be plucked like plums from the tree. But first the isle must be freed by small hands for small hands, which can work the isle to paradise in but three years. Blessed is it, for it is the home of your rightful gods. Their breath is upon it, causing berries to spring forth. The fountain of wine makes the land drunk. Yet by the drunk with power it was seized from your folk. Now the power is gone, and still drunk are its dregs; but liberation awaits.”
“Whoah,” breathes Naomi.
Cows that give cream, thinks Beau in wonder.
“Where is this place?” Jawbreaker demands, full of awe at the thoughts.
“Hey, can we get this written down?” asks Ezeekiel.
This is generally agreed to be a good idea, and the weird agrees to speak her words again. Both Ezeekiel and Naomi note it down, although Naomi adds a line about herds of thumbless humans. Then our heroes quickly cross to a small finger of land on the opposite side of the cavern from the bridge. There’s nothing of note there, but it gives them a brief respite from the heat of the water. Then they move on through the water, following the perimeter of the room further to their left (where it extends past their ability to see; they have seen all of the other half of the cave at this point). Soon they reach another finger of rock, which has a natural stair descending from it. Warily, our heroes descend into another cave filled ankle-deep with water, but this time it is only pleasantly hot. The halflings and their friends move forward, but a swarm of huge water skeeters skims towards them from the only passage out of the room. Suddenly the party is being swarmed!
Naomi cries out, “Duck!” –and without an instant’s hesitation she fires a swarm of crystals, catching several of her companions in it but killing many of the bugs. A second manifestation a few seconds later, and the swarm disperses, the bugs skating away across the water.
Our heroes follow the passage as it zigs and zags, until it finally opens up into a good-sized chamber with a central island elevated above the water. Another island, in the chamber’s northeast corner, has a bunch of rubble strewn about it.
Cautiously, our heroes advance. The central island is dotted with nubby stalagmites but otherwise unremarkable. The other island holds a surprise or two, however. As our heroes investigate it, Beau spies a few coins among the debris.
And suddenly, something bursts up from underneath the ground, something almost as wide as it is tall, colored a burnt umber color. Its huge mandibles clack and its great claws click. Its eyes are huge, multifacted- no, wait, those aren’t its eyes, those are, or... it’s so confusing...
Next Time: Our heroes vs. an umber hulk!
7/21/369 O.L.G., 10 a.m.
Immediately after second breakfast, our heroes approach the final unexplored door in the Guardian of Secrets’ chamber. This one is graven with a dwarven rune signifying water. “I wonder what that implies,” murmurs Mys to herself.
Mys, the riddle-master who had been trapped for about two centuries before our heroes released her by solving her riddle, is garbed in a shirt of mithral, with a silver rapier at her side and a light crossbow strapped to her back. She is not a very militant-looking figure; in fact, she is downright scrawny. Her sharp features are accented by her tapered ears and her slanted eyes. She has already made clear that her most powerful weapon is her mind. So far, the halflings accept her; though several of them have reservations about her, so far she has been a pleasant and helpful companion (though, again, not much of a fighter). She says, “A riddle of some sort, no doubt.”
“What do you mean?” Naomi looks at her.
“This entire place is sacred to Cyldon, the god of secrets and riddles. The rune on my door was gems and gold, was it not? Yet neither was in there. There was treasure, Cyldon’s most precious treasure, in the form of an extremely difficult riddle.” She gestures at the door the wyvern-fiend had been behind. “And there was poison in there, all right! But not like one might find in a bottle with such a sign on it. It was in a living stinger!” Now she turns to the water-rune. “Water... what does it mean?”
“How can we find out?” Thelonious asks.
Mys shrugs. “We will know what it means in retrospect,” she states, “after we go past the door.”
“I guess I’d better search the door for traps then,” Beau remarks, and starts doing so.
”Well, neither of the others was trapped,” begins Martini.
“Hey, I found something!” Beau exclaims, and Martini shuts up. Slowly the rogue-sorcerer first discovers and then distorts and ruins a magical glyph of warding.
Jawbreaker moves forward and throws open the door. This reveals a 30’ wide hallway leading to a large steaming pool of water that opens into a natural cavern full of water as far as our heroes can see. A bridge, clearly unfinished, has been built partway out into the water, but the architect never finished his task. The half-finished bridge is decorated with sculptures of earth creatures and elementals all along it. The pool is hot, but not boiling hot. It’s definitely hot enough to scald, though. Jawbreaker thrusts a hand in for just a moment, and finds it bearable, though painful. Our heroes walk cautiously out to the end of the finished part of the bridge. From there, they can see some kind of circle of high rocks thrusting above the water level.
“Hmm,” Beau says, “there’s magic out there.”
This, combined with a complete lack of any way for them to get out there safely (other than Achtung), leads them to send the urd ahead. He flaps out there on his skinny wings, and as he approaches the circle of stones the water starts to churn. He squawks, then retreats as something starts to arise from the roiling waters. Excitedly he reports to the party. Jawbreaker, Naomi, Beau, Ezeekiel (clutching his new, glowing axe), Hortense and Martini brave the scalding waters and wade out towards the stone.
The churning that has arisen forms now into a serpent of water, splashing sounds substituting perhaps for a hiss. In the light of Zeke’s axe, the water serpent is revealed to those back on the bridge.
“Don’t attack it!” cries Mys.
“What is it?” Naomi demands.
”It is a water weird.”
“What the hell is that?” Naomi is very tense, but starting to relax. Despite its menacing demeanor, the so-called ‘water weird’ has not yet struck. Several of our heroes pull themselves onto the rocks around it.
“It can prophesize! Offer it tribute!”
Swiftly, several of our heroes throw some coins, gems or minor magic items in the pool. The serpent resolves into a beauteous humanoid form. For a long moment it merely watches them with an unsettling gaze; then it speaks. ”Long have your kind sought your way to the Promised Land. Know this: it is behind you. The homeland of bread and butter, the place of mead and milk, the fields of strawberries, the cows that give cream, the orchards of apples from which springeth pie- all these things are there, waiting to be plucked like plums from the tree. But first the isle must be freed by small hands for small hands, which can work the isle to paradise in but three years. Blessed is it, for it is the home of your rightful gods. Their breath is upon it, causing berries to spring forth. The fountain of wine makes the land drunk. Yet by the drunk with power it was seized from your folk. Now the power is gone, and still drunk are its dregs; but liberation awaits.”
“Whoah,” breathes Naomi.
Cows that give cream, thinks Beau in wonder.
“Where is this place?” Jawbreaker demands, full of awe at the thoughts.
“Hey, can we get this written down?” asks Ezeekiel.
This is generally agreed to be a good idea, and the weird agrees to speak her words again. Both Ezeekiel and Naomi note it down, although Naomi adds a line about herds of thumbless humans. Then our heroes quickly cross to a small finger of land on the opposite side of the cavern from the bridge. There’s nothing of note there, but it gives them a brief respite from the heat of the water. Then they move on through the water, following the perimeter of the room further to their left (where it extends past their ability to see; they have seen all of the other half of the cave at this point). Soon they reach another finger of rock, which has a natural stair descending from it. Warily, our heroes descend into another cave filled ankle-deep with water, but this time it is only pleasantly hot. The halflings and their friends move forward, but a swarm of huge water skeeters skims towards them from the only passage out of the room. Suddenly the party is being swarmed!
Naomi cries out, “Duck!” –and without an instant’s hesitation she fires a swarm of crystals, catching several of her companions in it but killing many of the bugs. A second manifestation a few seconds later, and the swarm disperses, the bugs skating away across the water.
Our heroes follow the passage as it zigs and zags, until it finally opens up into a good-sized chamber with a central island elevated above the water. Another island, in the chamber’s northeast corner, has a bunch of rubble strewn about it.
Cautiously, our heroes advance. The central island is dotted with nubby stalagmites but otherwise unremarkable. The other island holds a surprise or two, however. As our heroes investigate it, Beau spies a few coins among the debris.
And suddenly, something bursts up from underneath the ground, something almost as wide as it is tall, colored a burnt umber color. Its huge mandibles clack and its great claws click. Its eyes are huge, multifacted- no, wait, those aren’t its eyes, those are, or... it’s so confusing...
Next Time: Our heroes vs. an umber hulk!
Brain
First Post
Ah, the Halfling Prophecy. Ezeekiel immediately started "interpreting" it to fit his political agenda. He wrote it down word for word, but when we would discuss it, he would argue that it meant overthrowing the Bleakists of Strogass. (By now he had taken at least one level in a Cydra prestige class: Freedom Fighter and had Favored Enemy: Bleakist)
Also, great job of keeping the updates coming along! I am really enjoying reading them.
Also, great job of keeping the updates coming along! I am really enjoying reading them.
the Jester
Legend
Martini leaps aside, an arrow zinging through the air and sticking in the umber hulk. It roars and swipes a massive claw at Thelonious, batting him aside. The human gives a startled cry, then turns and starts attacking Jawbreaker! Arrows land in the Chief, and he grunts in surprise. “Happy Flapjacks, orange dragon death!” he cries, while Beau moves around aimlessly.
Confusion has taken hold.
Only Martin, Ezeekiel, Hortense and Mys are unaffected by the umber hulk’s terrible confusing gaze. The ranger starts firing arrow after arrow at the hulk while Ezeekiel moves forward, enhanced by a bull’s strength from Hortense, and Mys starts singing in a clear high voice to inspire courage.
The umber hulk roars and tears into the group. Naomi leaps away, and for an instant her head is clear. What’s going on? she wonders wildly, then thrusts out with her mind, tearing at the monster’s brain. It gives another roar, and Zeke darts in, swinging at it with deadly accuracy. Thelonious snarls and turns to shoot the umber hulk, as it is the closest creature to him; and ironically, in his confusion his arrow flies true, sinking deep into the umber hulk’s eye! It sways on its feet, then collapses to the ground.
Momentarily, the confused folk settle down and come to their senses. Though shaken by the experience, they do not lose their collective nerve, and a search ensues. 340 gp, 29 pp, 500 sp and a large flawed opal turn up. The party collects the loot and then examines the isle more closely. Soon they ascertain that a rubble-choked burrow- probably the umber hulk’s- might be clearable given enough work.
And work it is: hauling broken chunks of stone, clearing a longer and longer passage, with only enough room for two to fit at the head of it at a time; but as it gets longer and deeper, the others can line up behind them and pass the rubble down the line to be discarded on the isle. Even so, it takes about four hours to clear the passage, and when it has been cleared it leads to a wide natural passage heading deep into the earth.
Our heroes rest for a while, then shoulder their packs once again and move on. Naomi grubs on a sausage as they set out. The passage goes for about a mile without anything of note changing; then, several of our heroes hear a strange sound ahead, a rasping that seems to be gradually approaching. Our heroes begin moving forward (with Hortense hitting Ezeekiel with a bulls strength and Naomi initiating an energy retort in case of trouble), and suddenly their light reveals a huge slug, easily 20’ long!
Jawbreaker charges.
His sword hacks into the slug, damaging it. Yellow fluid gushes from the wound. The monster’s head rears back, and then it writhes as Beau blasts it with his newest spell- scorching ray!
The slug’s head whips downward suddenly, and it delivers a terrific bite to Jawbreaker. He staggers under the impact, and swings his sword in reply, driving its head back away from him again. Ezeekiel, on his dog Bartholomew, suddenly charges in, but the slug focuses on Jawbreaker mindlessly, biting at him again.
Arrows and crossbow bolts are flying in; Zeke and his dog are circling around to flank it. But this one is really all about Jawbreaker. Standing toe to, er, foot with the giant slug, Chief Jawbreaker hacks and hacks it until it dies. In the end, he’s battered and bloodied, but Hortense and her new wand fix him up soon enough.
The party continues down the passage for several more hours. “How far down this do we want to go?” inquires Federico. “It seems to be taking us down into... the Underdark!” (He throws some drama into his voice for that one. You goof, you, Federico.)
“We go half of one more day,” Jawbreaker says. That settles it. The Chief has spoken.
***
7/22/369 O.L.G., Noon, Dyshim’s Underdark
After they encounter the triceratops, the party decides to turn back.
The battle is quick and deadly, and very satisfying for Jawbreaker, for he breaks its jaw. Again, Jawbreaker stands toe to toe with the beast, but this time it almost kills him. It is tough.
But my god, it sure is tasty!
They spend a little while harvesting it and putting it into the sack of supplies. Then they turn about and return up the passage, not resting until they have reached the isle of the umber hulk.
Exhausted, they fall asleep.
Next Time: The death of a pc! Always a sad moment!
Confusion has taken hold.
Only Martin, Ezeekiel, Hortense and Mys are unaffected by the umber hulk’s terrible confusing gaze. The ranger starts firing arrow after arrow at the hulk while Ezeekiel moves forward, enhanced by a bull’s strength from Hortense, and Mys starts singing in a clear high voice to inspire courage.
The umber hulk roars and tears into the group. Naomi leaps away, and for an instant her head is clear. What’s going on? she wonders wildly, then thrusts out with her mind, tearing at the monster’s brain. It gives another roar, and Zeke darts in, swinging at it with deadly accuracy. Thelonious snarls and turns to shoot the umber hulk, as it is the closest creature to him; and ironically, in his confusion his arrow flies true, sinking deep into the umber hulk’s eye! It sways on its feet, then collapses to the ground.
Momentarily, the confused folk settle down and come to their senses. Though shaken by the experience, they do not lose their collective nerve, and a search ensues. 340 gp, 29 pp, 500 sp and a large flawed opal turn up. The party collects the loot and then examines the isle more closely. Soon they ascertain that a rubble-choked burrow- probably the umber hulk’s- might be clearable given enough work.
And work it is: hauling broken chunks of stone, clearing a longer and longer passage, with only enough room for two to fit at the head of it at a time; but as it gets longer and deeper, the others can line up behind them and pass the rubble down the line to be discarded on the isle. Even so, it takes about four hours to clear the passage, and when it has been cleared it leads to a wide natural passage heading deep into the earth.
Our heroes rest for a while, then shoulder their packs once again and move on. Naomi grubs on a sausage as they set out. The passage goes for about a mile without anything of note changing; then, several of our heroes hear a strange sound ahead, a rasping that seems to be gradually approaching. Our heroes begin moving forward (with Hortense hitting Ezeekiel with a bulls strength and Naomi initiating an energy retort in case of trouble), and suddenly their light reveals a huge slug, easily 20’ long!
Jawbreaker charges.
His sword hacks into the slug, damaging it. Yellow fluid gushes from the wound. The monster’s head rears back, and then it writhes as Beau blasts it with his newest spell- scorching ray!
The slug’s head whips downward suddenly, and it delivers a terrific bite to Jawbreaker. He staggers under the impact, and swings his sword in reply, driving its head back away from him again. Ezeekiel, on his dog Bartholomew, suddenly charges in, but the slug focuses on Jawbreaker mindlessly, biting at him again.
Arrows and crossbow bolts are flying in; Zeke and his dog are circling around to flank it. But this one is really all about Jawbreaker. Standing toe to, er, foot with the giant slug, Chief Jawbreaker hacks and hacks it until it dies. In the end, he’s battered and bloodied, but Hortense and her new wand fix him up soon enough.
The party continues down the passage for several more hours. “How far down this do we want to go?” inquires Federico. “It seems to be taking us down into... the Underdark!” (He throws some drama into his voice for that one. You goof, you, Federico.)
“We go half of one more day,” Jawbreaker says. That settles it. The Chief has spoken.
***
7/22/369 O.L.G., Noon, Dyshim’s Underdark
After they encounter the triceratops, the party decides to turn back.
The battle is quick and deadly, and very satisfying for Jawbreaker, for he breaks its jaw. Again, Jawbreaker stands toe to toe with the beast, but this time it almost kills him. It is tough.
But my god, it sure is tasty!
They spend a little while harvesting it and putting it into the sack of supplies. Then they turn about and return up the passage, not resting until they have reached the isle of the umber hulk.
Exhausted, they fall asleep.
Next Time: The death of a pc! Always a sad moment!
the Jester
Legend
A Death and Two Scars
7/23/369 O.L.G., 7 a.m., beneath the Pit of the Healing Springs
Our heroes, still in the cave complex where the magical springs are, discuss where to go next. “Have we explored the whole place?” wonders Sandy.
Beau replies, “No, there are still a couple more passages out of the big room those three elementals we fought were in.”
“That’s right! There were a couple of exits, but we found the secret door!” exclaims Federico.
“Well, let’s check it out.” The party finishes second breakfast (their natural rhythyms have shifted somewhat away from the sun), then begins the ascent. Soon they have reached the aforementioned secret door and re-entered the elemental chamber. Scattered bits of stone and water, and black marks on the walls, are all that remain of the slain elementals. Four passages, one of them very wide, lead from the chamber. Two of them the party has already explored; but the other two (including the wide passage) slope sharply downward, becoming scalloped like a set of slick steps.
Our heroes head down the narrower passage first. Very quickly the air becomes full of steam, which naturally leaves a skin of moisture on everything (not that the place isn’t already damp enough anyway!) This leaves the descent extremely treacherous, and the party moves very slowly as they pick their way downward. After dropping about 50’, the passage splits, and Jawbreaker leads the group to the left.
Finally the passage comes into a cave. The steam cuts visibility to about 10’. Cautiously, the party moves deeper into the chamber. Achtung flies in, little wings beating furiously, and spies a small pile of bones, coins and refuse near the edge of a very hot-looking pool. He swoops down to check it out, and something darts from the shadows behind him and suddenly he’s almost blind with pain! Something rough has wrapped around the urd’s throat and he’s been dragged back, next to the edge of the room...
The rest of our heroes gape in horror as Achtung struggles in the grip of a horrible creature the size of a halfling with tentacles instead of arms! And it has wrapped a tentacle around his throat from behind, and its other tentacle around one of his arms. His wings are crushed against it. He struggles to wriggle free, and Beau tries to help by firing a ray of enfeeblement at the monster choking him, but unfortunately he manages to enfeeble Achtung instead! Disaster!
Jawbreaker hurries forward and slices at the beast with his axe. The monster winces back with a groan, but does not release its victim; nor does it do so when Naomi hits it with a recall agony. Federico starts japing at it to inspire confidence in his friends, telling tentacle-monster jokes, and perhaps that it what provokes it the final step; for it releases Achtung, and before he can take a step, it pummels him from behind twice, each blow a deadly smash to the base of the skull, and the urd’s neck snaps each time!* He falls into the boiling water, and if there was any hope for him before it is lost now. Achtung is gone.
“Noooo!” cries Federico.**
Beau, Jawbreaker and Ezeekiel launch a massive attack on the little monster. It can’t do nearly as well against them as it could against an unprepared, unsuspecting victim. Between them they destroy it. Jawbreaker thrusts a hand into the water and pulls it back red. “Tsss!” he hisses. “Too hot. Urd dead.”
Sadly, our heroes sit down and have a meal in his honor.
***
11 a.m.
After mourning for an hour, the party moves on. They take the monster’s meager treasure, consisting of about 70 gp in coins plus some electrum pieces. Electrum is a gold-silver alloy that is no longer generally used for coinage, but once was. Our heroes take the coins; surely they are worth something. The other branch of the treacherous, steamy passage leads to another chamber. This one slopes sharply downward, filling with water after about the first 20’ of the place. As our heroes move in and begin searching the dry area of the chamber, the water is suddenly disturbed, and a huge lobster-like monstrosity charges out! It has some sort of writhing tentacles around its mouth, along with a set of monstrous clacking claws. The beast seems to have weird, insect-like features as well. Truly this thing is some kind of abomination!
Our heroes do what they can. Jawbreaker unleashes his barbarian fury on the beast, tearing into it with his sword. Ezeekiel fills himself with divine vigor, moving up, and ends up caught in one of the monster’s claws! He gives a cry of dismay. Naomi moves up to try to get into a better position, and it reaches out with its other claw and grabs her by the head! She screams in pain and rips free, but at the cost of one of her eyes!***
This thing is deadly.
It squeezes Zeke in its massive pincer. The freedom fighter shouts in pain, and finally manages to break free, staggering a pace away. He is bleeding badly. A scorching ray hits it, but it does not harm it; this monster lives in near-boiling water!
Naomi blasts it with a mind thrust, and blue-green blood starts to leak from the monster’s eyes. It shudders and snaps at Ezeekiel, who manages to deflect this one, and then starts to pull back. Zeke takes a shot at it while it’s leaving and slams his axe into the monster’s head! It shudders and drops.
“What the hell was that?” wonders Sandy. Nobody has an answer, but Naomi has an even better question.
“Can we eat it?”
***
Noon
Back in the elemental chamber, our heroes examine the other, 40’ wide passage. It too descends, but it is much dryer and the steps are wider and less treacherous. The party starts down, and the passage twists to the right before opening up in a chamber. Sandy starts into the chamber, and then something wet drops on his arm from above.
“What the hell-“ he begins, but then he’s gasping in pain. In horror he watches as his arm starts to turn green. “Green slime!” he screams, backing off and looking up. “Bring me a torch! Argh!!!”
His friends rush to aid him. He burns his arm until the slime is gone, but he is badly wounded, seriously debilitated.
The patch of slime is small enough to navigate around in the wide passage; entering the chamber, our heroes find a dwarven skeleton missing its legs below the knees. His corpse wears corroded, useless armor. At his belt is a ruined axe. His metal boots are still in good shape. His purse still holds a few coins (which our heroes take). And chiseled into the wall is a short, despairing message in dwarven runes. It seems that he lost his legs to the slime and was trapped here, where he died.
“Well, now we know what happened to the dwarf whose campsite we found,” remarks Naomi.
“I think we’ve explored this whole place now, right?” Federico asks. The others agree.
”Then let’s move on,” suggests Sandy.
Our heroes at last ascend from the caves and emerge again into the daylight.
Next Time: Enter: Brickneck Hot-Metal!
*This was a 6th level rogue choker. It surprised Achtung and got the ol’ free attack in, then won initiative and got to continue a barrage of sneak attacks. Poor Achtung!
**I don’t know if the general readership has noticed this yet, but pretty much every time a pc dies at least one other pc gives the Hollywood good guy death “Nooo!” Really, it’s not my fault, I’m just the dm.
***Don’t have which one noted. If a player who posts recalls- I wanna say the left?- could you enlighten us please?
7/23/369 O.L.G., 7 a.m., beneath the Pit of the Healing Springs
Our heroes, still in the cave complex where the magical springs are, discuss where to go next. “Have we explored the whole place?” wonders Sandy.
Beau replies, “No, there are still a couple more passages out of the big room those three elementals we fought were in.”
“That’s right! There were a couple of exits, but we found the secret door!” exclaims Federico.
“Well, let’s check it out.” The party finishes second breakfast (their natural rhythyms have shifted somewhat away from the sun), then begins the ascent. Soon they have reached the aforementioned secret door and re-entered the elemental chamber. Scattered bits of stone and water, and black marks on the walls, are all that remain of the slain elementals. Four passages, one of them very wide, lead from the chamber. Two of them the party has already explored; but the other two (including the wide passage) slope sharply downward, becoming scalloped like a set of slick steps.
Our heroes head down the narrower passage first. Very quickly the air becomes full of steam, which naturally leaves a skin of moisture on everything (not that the place isn’t already damp enough anyway!) This leaves the descent extremely treacherous, and the party moves very slowly as they pick their way downward. After dropping about 50’, the passage splits, and Jawbreaker leads the group to the left.
Finally the passage comes into a cave. The steam cuts visibility to about 10’. Cautiously, the party moves deeper into the chamber. Achtung flies in, little wings beating furiously, and spies a small pile of bones, coins and refuse near the edge of a very hot-looking pool. He swoops down to check it out, and something darts from the shadows behind him and suddenly he’s almost blind with pain! Something rough has wrapped around the urd’s throat and he’s been dragged back, next to the edge of the room...
The rest of our heroes gape in horror as Achtung struggles in the grip of a horrible creature the size of a halfling with tentacles instead of arms! And it has wrapped a tentacle around his throat from behind, and its other tentacle around one of his arms. His wings are crushed against it. He struggles to wriggle free, and Beau tries to help by firing a ray of enfeeblement at the monster choking him, but unfortunately he manages to enfeeble Achtung instead! Disaster!
Jawbreaker hurries forward and slices at the beast with his axe. The monster winces back with a groan, but does not release its victim; nor does it do so when Naomi hits it with a recall agony. Federico starts japing at it to inspire confidence in his friends, telling tentacle-monster jokes, and perhaps that it what provokes it the final step; for it releases Achtung, and before he can take a step, it pummels him from behind twice, each blow a deadly smash to the base of the skull, and the urd’s neck snaps each time!* He falls into the boiling water, and if there was any hope for him before it is lost now. Achtung is gone.
“Noooo!” cries Federico.**
Beau, Jawbreaker and Ezeekiel launch a massive attack on the little monster. It can’t do nearly as well against them as it could against an unprepared, unsuspecting victim. Between them they destroy it. Jawbreaker thrusts a hand into the water and pulls it back red. “Tsss!” he hisses. “Too hot. Urd dead.”
Sadly, our heroes sit down and have a meal in his honor.
***
11 a.m.
After mourning for an hour, the party moves on. They take the monster’s meager treasure, consisting of about 70 gp in coins plus some electrum pieces. Electrum is a gold-silver alloy that is no longer generally used for coinage, but once was. Our heroes take the coins; surely they are worth something. The other branch of the treacherous, steamy passage leads to another chamber. This one slopes sharply downward, filling with water after about the first 20’ of the place. As our heroes move in and begin searching the dry area of the chamber, the water is suddenly disturbed, and a huge lobster-like monstrosity charges out! It has some sort of writhing tentacles around its mouth, along with a set of monstrous clacking claws. The beast seems to have weird, insect-like features as well. Truly this thing is some kind of abomination!
Our heroes do what they can. Jawbreaker unleashes his barbarian fury on the beast, tearing into it with his sword. Ezeekiel fills himself with divine vigor, moving up, and ends up caught in one of the monster’s claws! He gives a cry of dismay. Naomi moves up to try to get into a better position, and it reaches out with its other claw and grabs her by the head! She screams in pain and rips free, but at the cost of one of her eyes!***
This thing is deadly.
It squeezes Zeke in its massive pincer. The freedom fighter shouts in pain, and finally manages to break free, staggering a pace away. He is bleeding badly. A scorching ray hits it, but it does not harm it; this monster lives in near-boiling water!
Naomi blasts it with a mind thrust, and blue-green blood starts to leak from the monster’s eyes. It shudders and snaps at Ezeekiel, who manages to deflect this one, and then starts to pull back. Zeke takes a shot at it while it’s leaving and slams his axe into the monster’s head! It shudders and drops.
“What the hell was that?” wonders Sandy. Nobody has an answer, but Naomi has an even better question.
“Can we eat it?”
***
Noon
Back in the elemental chamber, our heroes examine the other, 40’ wide passage. It too descends, but it is much dryer and the steps are wider and less treacherous. The party starts down, and the passage twists to the right before opening up in a chamber. Sandy starts into the chamber, and then something wet drops on his arm from above.
“What the hell-“ he begins, but then he’s gasping in pain. In horror he watches as his arm starts to turn green. “Green slime!” he screams, backing off and looking up. “Bring me a torch! Argh!!!”
His friends rush to aid him. He burns his arm until the slime is gone, but he is badly wounded, seriously debilitated.
The patch of slime is small enough to navigate around in the wide passage; entering the chamber, our heroes find a dwarven skeleton missing its legs below the knees. His corpse wears corroded, useless armor. At his belt is a ruined axe. His metal boots are still in good shape. His purse still holds a few coins (which our heroes take). And chiseled into the wall is a short, despairing message in dwarven runes. It seems that he lost his legs to the slime and was trapped here, where he died.
“Well, now we know what happened to the dwarf whose campsite we found,” remarks Naomi.
“I think we’ve explored this whole place now, right?” Federico asks. The others agree.
”Then let’s move on,” suggests Sandy.
Our heroes at last ascend from the caves and emerge again into the daylight.
Next Time: Enter: Brickneck Hot-Metal!
*This was a 6th level rogue choker. It surprised Achtung and got the ol’ free attack in, then won initiative and got to continue a barrage of sneak attacks. Poor Achtung!
**I don’t know if the general readership has noticed this yet, but pretty much every time a pc dies at least one other pc gives the Hollywood good guy death “Nooo!” Really, it’s not my fault, I’m just the dm.
***Don’t have which one noted. If a player who posts recalls- I wanna say the left?- could you enlighten us please?
the Jester
Legend
Current Party Roster (minor spoiler- new pc included)
Martini (rng 3/ftr 2/order of the bow initiate 1)
Beau (rog 4/sor 4)
Ezeekiel (pal 6/freedom fighter 1)
Naomi (psion 5/elementalist 1)
Federico (brd 4/sor 2/jester 1)
Phenly "Sandy" Sandybanks (rog 4/ftr 2)
Jawbreaker (barb 7)
Brickneck Hot-Metal (dwarf monk 4)
Hortense (Zeke's cohort)- cleric 5
Martini (rng 3/ftr 2/order of the bow initiate 1)
Beau (rog 4/sor 4)
Ezeekiel (pal 6/freedom fighter 1)
Naomi (psion 5/elementalist 1)
Federico (brd 4/sor 2/jester 1)
Phenly "Sandy" Sandybanks (rog 4/ftr 2)
Jawbreaker (barb 7)
Brickneck Hot-Metal (dwarf monk 4)
Hortense (Zeke's cohort)- cleric 5
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