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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2205032" data-attributes="member: 1210">The Leg Holocaust!8/15/369, 4 p.m., Dyshim’s UnderdarkPlodding along, our heroes try to be quiet, but their need for light outweighs any attempts at stealth they might manage.  After all, a torch or a light spell underground, in a lightless realm of caves, can be seen unless something is in the way.  Even the faintest glimmers are visible; it takes a few twists and turns of tunnel to completely blacken an area behind (or before) them.  And as they gradually begin again their ascent, seeking the exit to the dwarf-held Fort Kintax above, our heroes never even consider dispensing with the light.  Without it, only Federico and their dwarven friend Brickneck Hot-Metal can see anything at all, thanks to their darkvision.  Moving along through dangerous caverns like this blind is out of the question.Ironically, however, it is not their light that gives them away; rather it is the noise they make as they progress.  Scuttling out of the darkness comes a horrible thing.  At first the party takes it for some monstrous hairy spider the size of a cow; but then they realize it has more then eight legs.  And then they realize that it is nothing but legs.  Swiftly, it scurries towards Beau, then slashes out at him with a leg.  It has a deadly-looking claw on the end, and it tears through the halfling sorcerer in a shower of blood.  He screams, then replies with a shocking grasp.  The others leap to Beau’s defense; Hortense uses the healing wand she got as a reward from the god of riddles to keep him on his feet.  Sandy, Zeke and several of the dogs rush forward, trying to drive the monster- immediately Federico dubs it a ‘leg holocaust’- away from Beau, but it’s having none of that.  With a sickening thunk it spears Beau on a leg and starts to scuttle away with him.  He jerks once, gives out an agonized cry, and stops moving. “No!” shouts Sandy.  “Don’t let it get away!  Beau might still be alive!”If he is, Hortense will save him if they can get him away from it.  She was born for moments like this.  She was born to be a healer.  She steels herself to do what she must.Brickneck Hot-Metal whips a tanglefoot bag from his considerable pack of gear and underhands it towards the leg holocaust.  Unfortunately, it hits a stalactite hanging from the ceiling, discharging its sticky mess where it can do no good.  With a snort, Brickneck leaps forward to the attack, landing a solid fist against the holocaust’s side.  Ezeekiel is in close melee with it, and it slashes and stabs him four times in six seconds.  He staggers away, nearly insensate from the beating he just took, and then one of its hooked legs snags him and draws him in.  In horror, he realizes that he’s been grappled.* Hortense feels a pang of fear in her heart.  No, I won’t let it take you! she vows.  She invokes Fensor’s blessings and calls out to Ezeekiel.  “I will take some of your pain!” she cries.  She almost swoons as the monster squeezes him ruthlessly, and she absorbs some of the damage.“Oh no!” exclaims Federico.  He casts grease, and suddenly Zeke is coated in slick, slippery lard.  He wriggles free of the leg holocaust gratefully, then strikes it again!The monster seems to be thinking, Mmmm, greasy armored halfling, for it instantly springs to the attack on Zeke again, despite Jawbreaker and Sandy raining blows on it from either side.  Once again the monster tears into the freedom fighter to terrible effect.  Hortense has cast Fensor’s sword, but it keeps on missing!**  It squeezes Ezeekiel again, and were it not for the shield other that Hortense had invoked, he would surely be dead!  As it is his vision is beginning to grey out.  He grits his teeth and struggles, but he’s weakening.  He can’t muster enough strength to break free.Fortunately for him, however, while the thing is focused on him Jawbreaker is maneuvering into position.  And then he strikes, savaging the leg holocaust with his sword.  It spasms, and then Jawbreaker sweeps around to hit it again, hewing deep into its central mass.  Several legs slice free.  The leg holocaust collapses.Hortense sprints to Zeke’s side and casts cure moderate wounds on him.  Then she rushes over to Beau. Still alive!And a cure moderate wounds for him too.  Soon both of them are up and around.  Our heroes poke at the nasty corpse of the thing, but it seems to be slowly putrifying before their eyes.  With a collective shudder they hurry on.***8/18/369 O.L.G., 11 a.m., Ft. Kintax, DyshimWithout further incident, our heroes emerge three days later from the creepy tunnel that leads through the iron maiden in the torture chamber in the dungeons below Fort Kintax and ascend to seek their payment from the dwarves.  Not only have they cleared the dungeons of danger, they have also learned much of the terrain below the fort.  The dwarven leader, Derknin, is interested in all they can tell him, but he is a hard bargainer.  Instead of proving eager to pay them for more information, he is willing to trade them passage into the Underdark via the fort in return for what information they can provide about it.  He does gladly pay them for the services they have already rendered him, however, which makes our heroes cheerful indeed!As they rest and recover, Naomi gives several of them tattoos.  Federico gets a hot kobold bitch on his chest.  Beau gets Timothy’s name on his left arm and Dogtooth’s on his right, with an anchor.  Sandy gets ‘Power Through Justice’ tattooed across his shoulders and upper back.  After some debate, our heroes decide to go back into the Underdark.  Their primary motivation?“Let’s find those deep halflings,” urges Beau.***8/19/369 O.L.G., 8 p.m., Dyshim’s UnderdarkTheir first night back in the Underdark, our heroes rest at a crossroads that, according to the map they have, connects on the one hand to an undead city.  It proves a bad place to watch.  First a group of goblins (not from the direction of the undead city but rather coming from the other road in the crossroads and headed the other way), then a triceratops, and then a pair of skinless, acid-sprewing dwarven undead, and finally our heroes acknowledge that perhaps they have chosen a bad resting spot.***  So they pack up, wearily (and more than a little bloodily, at this point) trudge on further, and finally settle in to a deep sleep, with the first couple of guards pretty darn exhausted when all is said and done.  They have a dwarven scout with them, named Bulwin, but they are not getting a very high opinion of him yet.  But he is there to report back to Derknin above.  And Brickneck enjoys his company, as a fellow dwarf.  He asks if Bulwin has a sister or anything, desperately hoping to hitch his cousin up.Then, Brickneck thinks, he’ll tell me where the Forge is!***The party spends about a day harvesting the triceratops, then travels through the darkness, exploring different caves.  Periodically they encounter something dangerous; once it is another giant slug (they seem prevalent on Dyshim), once it is a cave trouble.  That one is very close by the end, with both Sandy and Brickneck nearly bleeding to death.  Fortunately, Naomi is able to bind the dwarf’s wounds enough to keep him alive, while Beau desperately digs out a potion that heals Sandy.  “Whew!” Beau comments, “I didn’t know what that was a potion of!”But it is dangerous down here, and their investigations soon ascertain that the halflings are past a kuo-toan realm- and, if their map is accurate, the kuo-toan caves are underwater.Once they realize that, our heroes quickly give up on the thrills of the Underdark, at least for the time being.  They finally re-emerge into Fort Kintax again and rest a day, eating and drinking with the dwarves, telling their tales, etc.  In the morning they will set out again for Dovishtal, where Brickneck’s cousin pretty much runs things.He has to tell me where the Forge is, thinks Brickneck for the millionth time.  He has to!Next Time: Shennanigans like you ain’t never seen!  The most Jerry Springer dnd episode of all time, with dwarven beard-pulling, entirely inappropriate suggestions by the bushel, and maybe even a little insight into Brickneck’s cousin!*And as we all know, the two things that consistently seem to kill members of this party are grappling and climbing. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  If you’re a new reader, the first two pcs to die did so via climbing and grappling, and the trend has continued.**This is her version of spiritual hammer, er weapon. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  She didn’t hit with it for a long, long time.  In fact, Fensor’s sword became notorious with the group for a while.***I may be wrong, but I believe this was the time Martini got about a -20 on his Survival check to find a good place to camp.  (We use exploding dice- roll a natural 1 and you reroll and subtract; roll a natural 20 and you reroll and add, etc.)</blockquote>

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