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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2948002" data-attributes="member: 1210">1 a.m., 7/9/370 O.L.G., in the mountains of ZacradoseWhen it comes time for Chief Jawbreaker to take his watch, he conceals himself in the deep shadows of some brush, laying some branches before him in order to give himself a screen against even those with darkvision.  Quietly, he lays his back against a tall shrub and gradually eases himself back into it so that his silhouette will merge with the brush around him.  Above him, the black sky is interrupted by a gash of stars, but to all sides the blackness is absolute.  Around him the subtle songs of insects and night birds float through the darkened air.The others sleep peacefully.  Jawbreaker remains alert, his eyes peeled; but all of the mountain climbing, compounded by the midnight snack Naomi had whipped up, makes him sleepy.  The chief yawns.  For a moment his eyelids slide shut, tickled by an invisible psychic touch.   He yawns again; his breathing slips into an even rhythm.  Crack.The breaking of a twig draws Chief Jawbreaker back into full awareness.  What was that? he wonders, and his eyes flick back and forth, looking for danger.  His nostrils flare as he scents the air.  Something strange on the wind.  Like mucus.  He frowns.  Like...The yowling of the freakish, tentacled predators suddenly erupts from all around the camp, and belatedly, Jawbreaker realizes that he has been lulled by the mind tricks of the enemy!  In the darkness, it is nearly impossible to see anything, but the sound of Erasmuz screaming is painfully clear.  Jawbreaker grimaces.  There seem to be about four of the predators.  He ignores them for the moment, scanning the area as best he can for a more... humanoid shape. There!Jawbreaker can see the tentacles on its face in the small light cast by the embers.  A mind flayer!  With a grin of anticipation, the bear warrior unlimbers his axe.  Then his feet are pounding the ground as he bellows out a roar and lunges forward, chopping at the illithid with devastating force!  The mind flayer turns to see him coming, the tentacles of its face writhing in dismay.  Ichor spews out over Jawbreaker’s torso, and he guffaws.  But then his gives out a cry of his own as the slimy tentacles reach for his face, wrapping around his head and attempting to burrow into his ears and mouth!  He gags and tries to spit, but the tentacle is just inserting itself deeper, up his sinuses and towards his brain!Erasmuz, meanwhile, wakes up to find himself being savagely attacked by the tentacled quadrupeds that the party faced earlier in the caves beneath this rift.  Curse all the gods! he thinks angrily, manifesting force screen with his psionic powers.  One of them manages to bite through the psychic field protecting him, but two of the others spring off of him to assault Nara, who has just woken up a few feet away.  She shouts in surprise as the things bound at her, and then she screams as her blood splatters out across the ground.  “Don’t worry, I’ll help you!” cries Ari.A mental voice washes across them all: I think not.  A cone of stunning psionic energy blasts the party, and Ari and Federico fall senseless to the ground!  The mind flayer, still struggling to subdue Jawbreaker, seems inordinately pleased with itself.  Unfortunately for it, Jawbreaker- though his ears ring and he has just developed a sudden, blistering migraine- has maintained his ability to act, and with a roar, the Chief drives his axe deep into the illithid’s torso, shoving the blade in with all his might!  It stiffens in anger and pain, and more of the ichor bubbles out of the aberration.  Its tentacles stiffen and seem to redouble their efforts.  With a wild, incoherent cry, Jawbreaker attempts to stab it again, but this time his blade snags in his adversary’s simple robes.  The Chief sinks to one knee as the final tentacle latches on, forcing its way in through his nose.  Slime covers his face.  He still struggles, but something caresses the top of his brain and ice runs up his spine.This is it, he thinks.“Jawbreaker!!  NOOOO!!!” screams Nara.And then, just in the nick of time, Naomi blasts the illithid with her psionic ability to force it to recall agony.  The creature, already terribly wounded, staggers back.  Slowly, it sinks down into a sitting position.  Its tentacles slackly retract from Jawbreaker’s head, leaving the Chief gasping in relief and covered with illithid mucus.  Then our heroes focus on the beasts.  Nara has managed to rise and stagger away from the ones assaulting her long enough to cast cure critical wounds on herself.  Erasmuz casts shield of faithlessness and backs away as well.  Tron, on the other hand, has activated and charged his mind blade, and now he engages on of the feline predators.  His first blow is well-aimed, and he takes off an ear!  The thing gives a squealing yowl and pounces on him, ripping a significant wound in his chest.  Only his sternum prevents the thing from eating his heart in a single great chomp!  Screaming in pain, Tron strikes again, and this time he sinks his mind blade deep into its forehead.  The beast screams and dies!“Three to go!” announces Nara.  An instant later, after Jawbreaker and Tron flank one of the beasts, she changes her assessment.  “Two, that is,” she grins, watching the monster fall to their combined blows.Erasmuz stabs one in the head with his dinky little rapier, dazing it for a moment, then moves away.  “Get it, buddies!” he cries.  But a moment later it bounds after him and attacks.  The ur-priest throws up his arm to try to protect himself, and then gasps in pain as the thing’s bite clamps down on him.  He struggles, kicking and punching at it, missing again and again.  Meanwhile, Jawbreaker and Tron are engaging the other one.  In just a few more seconds the beasts are dead or driven away.  “Now what?” asks Nara.  “Do we try to finish resting, or just go in?”“Do you think they’ll attack us again tonight?” wonders Federico, groaning as he shakes off the effects of the mind blast at last.“I wouldn’t doubt it,” answers Ari grimly. “And how did they know we were down here?” the kobold continues.“Maybe you’re a narc!” Tron accuses Naomi.  He activates his mind blade and brandishes it.“Hey, calm down,” Ari says, annoyed.“I think you should protect me,” Naomi suggests, and Tron cocks his head and nods.*  “All right,” he replies, and deactivates his mind blade.“Well, I’m glad that’s settled,” Ari says dryly.  “Now, about resting... it’s probably not safe here.”“Well, but we can’t really get out of the rift by night and still get a good night’s rest,” Erasmuz points out.“Rest, but elsewhere in little valley, with no fire,” decides Chief Jawbreaker.  “And double watches.”The party moves their camp, and this time they manage to rest the remainder of the night undisturbed.  In the morning, after first breakfast, they break camp.  Then, gnawing on snacks or consuming trail mix, they descend back into the caves that they had escaped from so recently.  At least we know what we’re up against, now, thinks Nara.  We need to defeat this “Lord Obliviax”.  With any luck, we’ve taken the wind out of the mind flayers.   If we’re lucky, that was the one who got away before, coming back to dispute things, and we just took care of them for good.  If there aren’t any more of them, or few enough that they are scared off.Deeper down the passages the party goes.  The walls are coated with weird growths, some oozing strange fluids from apertures.  The occasional drip of water is audible.  Soon, the passage the party is following widens.  Smuts and strange fungal things cling to the ceiling and walls, and here and there strange slime molds creep along the floor.  A noise comes to our heroes from the darkness ahead: a squelching, sighing, breathing sound.  And they are coming forward.  Into the light... to be revealed as horrible creatures, obviously of the same general type as the illithids and their tentacled, semi-feline predators.  But these things are different, bloated, like huge tentacled sacks.  Jawbreaker charges.Next Time: Enter: Lord Obliviax!*Tron, a crahk-head, has a wisdom score of 1.  He is easy to suggest.  It has become a favorite game amongst the pcs, as Naomi, Federico, Nara? and maybe Erasmuz? can all use it on him.</blockquote>

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