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"Out of the Frying Pan"- Book III: Fanning the Embers
- Thread starter el-remmen
- Start date
Manzanita
First Post
I love the picture, although you didn't really answer my question. No one looks like how I would have imagined (though I can't say I really spent any time imagining). Beorth's Player is bald, though, I should have guessed that.(?)
I'm still chewing on Handforge's comment about Anarie being a witch. I wouldn't be on it, although this campaign always has another surprise...
I'm still chewing on Handforge's comment about Anarie being a witch. I wouldn't be on it, although this campaign always has another surprise...
Last edited:
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
Oh sorry, yes Jana/Derek's player (Helene) played Anarie as well. . .
As Magic Missile is not on any of the witch spell lists (not that you would know that) it is pretty clear she is not a witch. Also elves cannot take witch as a class due to ancient customs/taboos governing their contact with extra-planar entities.
As Magic Missile is not on any of the witch spell lists (not that you would know that) it is pretty clear she is not a witch. Also elves cannot take witch as a class due to ancient customs/taboos governing their contact with extra-planar entities.
handforged
First Post
nemmerle said:
Emphasis above mine. That poor player losing three characters in the same campaign, unless it was just a slip of the tongue on nemm's part.
Thanks for the picture. I find it interesting that the two biggest guys play the party's main fighters currently(Ratchis and Kazrack), Beorth is bald, Jeremy looks like a guy who could tumble and handle a sword(build not skintone), and Martin's character looks exactly like how I picture Martin. Jana/Derek/Anarie doesn't appear how I envision any of those characters.
~hf
handforged
First Post
bump
Elder-Basilisk
First Post
Maybe. On the other hand, I've noticed that, a lot of times, the characters who die in a campaign are played by the same people. They're the people who realize they're in over their heads one round too late or who are easily goaded into suicidal decisions or who simply have a habit of making poor choices in character creation or advancement.
It's especially pronounced in the RPGA. Locally, most players I know have had one character die at one time or other but there are a few whose characters die on a regular basis. There's a reason for that. (What I can't figure out is why some of the worst and most foolish players DON'T have a long string of character deaths).
So, it would make a certain kind of sense if one player's characters kept kicking the bucket.
It's especially pronounced in the RPGA. Locally, most players I know have had one character die at one time or other but there are a few whose characters die on a regular basis. There's a reason for that. (What I can't figure out is why some of the worst and most foolish players DON'T have a long string of character deaths).
So, it would make a certain kind of sense if one player's characters kept kicking the bucket.
mmu1 said:Or unless the player didn't lose the character and simply isn't playing it for some other reason. Just because PCs are dropping like flies, it doesn't mean every character you've come to know is going to die.
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
Session #57 (part ii)
As Kazrack stood watch by himself hours later, he heard the sound of the stones being moved off the boards that covered the trapdoor above. The Fearless Manticore Killers were camped further away from the trapdoor now, and the dwarf figured they could afford to wait and see what might come down.
He turned to Anarie, who sat with eyes wide open, with her back against one of the hastily constructed rubble barricades.
Kazrack turned to the elven woman.
“Do you see that?” he asked, but she did not answer or even blink. “Anarie. Get your bow ready.”
She did not move.
Grumbling curses in dwarven, he shook Ratchis awake. “The elf refused to take action,” he whispered with disgust after explaining that someone seemed to be coming down.
At that moment a hooded lantern attached to the rope began to be lowered down the hole.
“I think she’s sleeping,” Ratchis whispered back, rubbing sleep from his eye with one hand and his bow with his other.
“Her eyes are open!” Kazrack hissed.
“That how they do it,” Ratchis explained with a shrug.
“Elves just always have to be different, don’t they?” Kazrack complained, keeping his eyes peeled at the situation unfolding above them.
The light from the swinging lantern threw wild shadows as they could see a gnome begin to shimmy down the rope. He held one hand as if shielding his eyes from the bright sun above to get a better look.
“He should see us,” Ratchis said, as they made no effort to hide.
“There is something wrong with that rope or the gnome,” Anarie said, behind them. Kazrack jumped, as he was startled.
“Let’s wait for them to come to us,” said Ratchis.
“We are not assassins to be crouched in the dark waiting for them,” Kazrack said. “They may think ill of our intentions if we skulk here. We can ill afford to befriend these gnomes. Is not the whole point of our being here to help their kin?”
Kazrack stood, and began to walk over towards the area where the gnome hung, still about fifteen feet above the stone platform where the remains of the staircase lay covering the corpses of the ghouls the party had destroyed.
“Friend gnome!’ Kazrack called up.
“Oh, ho! I know you mean me harm!” said the gnome looking past Kazrack to a dark corner where a ballista was covered in earth and rock.
Kazrack looked around confused.
“Don’t make a move dwarf!” Kazrack heard a voice coming from the trapdoor above. It was the same voice as that which had issued from the gnome on the rope. He looked up and saw the same gnome pointing a crossbow down at him.
The first gnome now stopped moving and speaking and then in a moment disappeared.
“If I meant to attack I would have attacked the gnome on the rope,” Kazrack said.
“Not if you knew it was an illusion,” the gnome reasoned. The gnome had metal cap on, and long and thin white beard that stuck down the whole. He had a dusky skin tone, and large green eyes. Kazrack recognized him as one of the two gnomes that had fled after the battle with Tanweil. (1)
“We mean you no harm,” Kazrack said.
“Uh-huh, that’s why you are running around with a half-orc,” the gnome said. “We’ve had too many of our companions die to not be cautious about whom we trust.”
“I wish you had chosen to listen earlier; if we had joined forces perhaps our companions would not have died,” Kazrack replied. “We have already lost two of our number.”
“Don’t put that on us…” the gnome snapped.
“I only blame…”
“Ha!” The gnome pointed at him accusingly.
“…the forces of evil.”
The gnome frowned.
“But we have met evil gnomes before, how can we trust you?” Kazrack asked.
“Heh. How do you suggest we test each other’s intentions?” the gnome continued to carry on his side of the conversation from his position, hanging through the trapdoor; perhaps someone held him by the legs, above.
Ratchis began to walk over to Kazrack.
“A companion of mine apporoaches,” the dwarf warned the gnome.
“No funny moves!”
“My companion has no sense of humor to speak of,” Kazrack replied dryly.
“Hee! Hee! But you do! Are you sure you’re a dwarf?” the gnome tittered.
Kazrack did not like this question, so he ignored it.
“For our part we are friends of Garvan, and have been there twice, once spending months with yoru people,” said Ratchis looking up.
“Oh yeah? What’s the name of our interim chief?”
“Mozek,” Kazrack said quickly.
“No, Socher…” Martin said, having woken up and listening in. “Mozek, his son, took over for him when he died.”
The gnome squinted at them suspiciously, “Are you friends of Mozek?”
“That cannot be said,” Kazrack replied.
“Why not?”
“Why not, what?” Kazrack asked back.
“Why can’t it be said?”
“Because it is not true.”
“What’s not true?”
“That we are his friends.”
“Then why didn’t you say that to begin with,” the gnome giggled and rolled his eyes.
Kazrack scratched his head for a moment, trying to think of a question of his own, “what were the names of the two junior illusionists?”
“They were brothers,” Martin added.
“Socher and Briendel. You are trying to be tricky,” the gnome said, but there seemed to be respect in his voice.
And so the questioning went on back and forth, the gnome occasionally seeming to argue with whomever he was with up there. Most of the questions had to do with the Garvan gnomes.
Suddenly, the gnome disappeared from the trapdoor, as they all heard a shriek from above. Half a moment later there was a different gnome, it was the plump little female spell-caster they had seen before, she wore a travel stained lavender cloak, and deep blue travel outfit. She had a short bow tied to her pack and a short sword at her said. The rope jerked as she climbed down as quickly as she could. Kazrack winced a few times thinking she would fall.
And suddenly, there was something falling. A screech and a roar was heard from above, and then dust and stones showered through the trapdoor, followed by a small tumbling figure. It was the gnome they had been talking to before. He reached out for the rope to slow his descent, but it did not do much good. He landed painfully on the stone platform, and the female gnome did a controlled drop for the last ten feet, drawing her sword as he she looked wildly back and forth from the party to the trapdoor.
Suddenly, at the door, a huge claw tried to reach reach through, cracking and scoring the stone around it, but it could not fit. Its black talons were set into a magenta and purple mottled claw, which looked vaguely reptilian. The smell of burning copper filled the huge chamber, and the thing roared and screeched again.
“Stay back!” the female gnome warned Kazrack and Ratchis.
“We mean you no harm,” said Kazrack.
“What was that?” Martin asked.
“Creedadal called it a kind of wyvern,” said the first gnome, breathing heavily and clutching his stomach and chest and he sat up. ‘Except he said it was fiendish.”
“Wonderful,” Martin sighed.
“Creedadal? Why is that name familiar to me?” Kazrack asked.
“He is the Master Illusionist of Garvan,” Martin explained. “He left with the real Chieftain to seek the aid of the elves, and as we all know, they never returned.”
“Oh, when was the last time you spoke to Creedadal?” Kazrack asked the gnomes.
“Before he died,” the male gnome replied, and his companion let out a small sob, covering her mouth with her free hand; her sword lowered a bit.
“What were you doing here? What was he doing here?” Martin asked.
The gnome looked down. “We cannot tell you.”
“Then how can we trust you?” Kazrack asked.
“I guess, you must trust to friendship,” the gnome looked at Ratchis pointedly, and then glanced at his belt of scored chains. He looked Kazrack in the eye. “But if you want us to trust you then you need to swear to your dwarven god that you will help not harm or delay us. Our kin will suffer if we do not accomplish what we are here to do.”
“I will swear on all of them,” Kazrack replied. HE was kneeling beside the gnome.
“Okay, swear…”
“I swear I will only attack you if provoked,” the dwarf said.
The gnome scrunched up his face. “What kind of provocation?”
“If you attack me or do some obviously evil deed.”
“Name one.”
“If you attack one of my companions…”
“No! Not what would provoke you! Name one of the dwarven gods, you dope!”
“Well, I was only following the most likely interpretation of what you were saying, and…”
“Kazrack!” Martin admonished. “Just swear.”
Kazrack swore in dwarven for the gnome, listing out the names of all of his racial gods.
Names were then exchanged. The male gnome was called Schlomo, and his companion was Kismet.
The two gnomes joined their camp.
“I have to ask you something about the man that was chasing you and your companions before,” Kazrack asked. “He said that we were aiding the dragon by protecting you…”
“Well, what could he have meant by that? Schlomo rolled his eyes in an exaggerated manner and then they darted back and forth nervously, as if he feared he was being watched.
They all agreed to rest some more before moving on. Kismet fell into a weepy sleep, while Schlomo and Beorth watched.
Balem, the 12th of Sek – 565 H.E.
In the morning, the gnomes set up counter-balancing ropes, that allowed people to descend to the lower level two at a time, on either side of the central stone walkway, which was only 10 feet wide.
The chamber below was much darker, and it reached off to the northwest, larger than the level above it. However, that area seemed as if it was mostly caved in. Huge stone supports held up the platforms above, and on the floor was powered stone and bone, with the occasional large, but still unidentifiable piece that showed sign of gnawing.
With a word, Kismet made the tiny glowing orb appear floating beside her. It bobbed along side her, but shed enough light to illuminate 20 feet easily.
“Is that the spell called Radiant Spark?” Martin asked the gnome. (2)
“You can call it that,” Kismet smirked. “We call it Lightning bug.”
Martin nodded, and made a mental note. He wanted that spell.
The walls of this area were lined with scores of murderholes, through which dirt and tiny stones had poured through and in some places had cracked the walls. When this palce had been on the surface, it must have once given a view in all direction through which the dwarves could have rained missiles down upon them.
There was broad marble stairway, scorched, cracked and scored that went down deeper underground. Avoiding that stairs and the caved in area, for now, they moved carefully around one of the supports, and found a larger pile of fresher bones, and some torn ragged robes that appear to be monastic in origin.
Kazrack looked up and say a bunch of dwarven runes carved into the support. They appeared to have been hastily and primitively etched by someone, but they grew less and less legible as they made their way down the side.
It appeared to be some kind of crude record of someone being trapped down here, for there were dates.
The group was silent. No one made a sound as Kazrack translated the runes aloud. The only sound was dripping water behind them, where the chamber was collapsed.
“I swear one day I shall restore this place,” Kazrack intoned. “But such dreams must be put aside for now. D’nar, can you determine if that water is drinkable? We should refill our skins, as we do not know how deep we will have to go and what other sources of water there may be.”
Schlomo noticed that behind the tall stone wall that encased the stairway down was a rusted weapons rack. They found a good number of light and heavy bolts for crossbows, but most were rotted through, as were the crossbow and the hafts of other weapons.
Ratchis began to creep over to the wall of rubble that reached up to the ceiled at an acute angle. Among the rubble there leaked steams of water, and among them were large purple mushrooms, covered in puckered lesions. They were as tall as a man, and their stems and broad as one.
“Those look unpleasant,” commented Martin the Green.
“Poisonous?” Ratchis asked.
“No idea,” Martin replied. “I’ve never seen anything like them before. But I certainly wouldn’t eat one.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Ratchis said, dryly.
As Ratchis crept towards the water to taste it out, he came ever closer to the fungi, and suddenly one just off to his left opened its suckered lesions and began to emit an ear-piercing shriek.
“Everyone get back! I’ll take care of it,” Ratchis cried above the shrieking mushroom, drawing his sword and charging up the rubble at it, but as he did another of the mushrooms he was passing by suddenly whipped out barbed tentacles.
Startled, Ratchis retreated a step and it whipped him again. This time he could feel the barbs leave behind burning stinging splinters on his arm. It began to throb.
Beorth did the exact opposite of what Ratchis said rushed forward, feeling the sting of the spines well, Kazrack hurried forward and buried his halberd into the one attacking Beorth.
And still the shrieking continued.
Anarie spoke an arcane word, but whether it was her armor or the incessant nerve-wracking sound, the spell fizzled and did not come off.
Sighing, Ratchis hurried by, and hacked at the shrieking one to stop it. A cloud of spores spurt into the air, and he coughed, but the thing did not stop.
Kazrack cried out as he felt the sting of two tentacles. They could now see more than half-the large mushrooms in the rubble swaying their tentacles in their direction blindly and eagerly.
Beorth felt the sting again, but cut the thing apart and finally the tentacles topped moving. Kazrack was able to hurry over finish the shrieker, and the party simply got out of range of the violent fungi.
Moments later when the Fearless Manticore Killers gathered at the top of the stairs, Kazrack let out a low moan. Whatever poison had been in those stingers draining his stamina. (3)
With a word to his goddess, Ratchis was able to restore it.
There was no where left to go except down the stairs, and Ratchis and Kazrack led the way, followed by Schlomo and Beorth. Martin and Kismet walked side by side and Anarie took up the rear.
Yes, Ratchissssss, that’s it,” a familiar voice hissed from below, as they descended into darkess. “Come closer. Let me repay you my debt.”
End of Session #57
-----------------------------------------------
Notes:
(1) See Session #53
(2) DM’s Note: Radiant Spark is a spell from the Aquerra Player’s Guide.
(3) DM’s Note: Kazrack took 2 points of Constitution damage.
As Kazrack stood watch by himself hours later, he heard the sound of the stones being moved off the boards that covered the trapdoor above. The Fearless Manticore Killers were camped further away from the trapdoor now, and the dwarf figured they could afford to wait and see what might come down.
He turned to Anarie, who sat with eyes wide open, with her back against one of the hastily constructed rubble barricades.
Kazrack turned to the elven woman.
“Do you see that?” he asked, but she did not answer or even blink. “Anarie. Get your bow ready.”
She did not move.
Grumbling curses in dwarven, he shook Ratchis awake. “The elf refused to take action,” he whispered with disgust after explaining that someone seemed to be coming down.
At that moment a hooded lantern attached to the rope began to be lowered down the hole.
“I think she’s sleeping,” Ratchis whispered back, rubbing sleep from his eye with one hand and his bow with his other.
“Her eyes are open!” Kazrack hissed.
“That how they do it,” Ratchis explained with a shrug.
“Elves just always have to be different, don’t they?” Kazrack complained, keeping his eyes peeled at the situation unfolding above them.
The light from the swinging lantern threw wild shadows as they could see a gnome begin to shimmy down the rope. He held one hand as if shielding his eyes from the bright sun above to get a better look.
“He should see us,” Ratchis said, as they made no effort to hide.
“There is something wrong with that rope or the gnome,” Anarie said, behind them. Kazrack jumped, as he was startled.
“Let’s wait for them to come to us,” said Ratchis.
“We are not assassins to be crouched in the dark waiting for them,” Kazrack said. “They may think ill of our intentions if we skulk here. We can ill afford to befriend these gnomes. Is not the whole point of our being here to help their kin?”
Kazrack stood, and began to walk over towards the area where the gnome hung, still about fifteen feet above the stone platform where the remains of the staircase lay covering the corpses of the ghouls the party had destroyed.
“Friend gnome!’ Kazrack called up.
“Oh, ho! I know you mean me harm!” said the gnome looking past Kazrack to a dark corner where a ballista was covered in earth and rock.
Kazrack looked around confused.
“Don’t make a move dwarf!” Kazrack heard a voice coming from the trapdoor above. It was the same voice as that which had issued from the gnome on the rope. He looked up and saw the same gnome pointing a crossbow down at him.
The first gnome now stopped moving and speaking and then in a moment disappeared.
“If I meant to attack I would have attacked the gnome on the rope,” Kazrack said.
“Not if you knew it was an illusion,” the gnome reasoned. The gnome had metal cap on, and long and thin white beard that stuck down the whole. He had a dusky skin tone, and large green eyes. Kazrack recognized him as one of the two gnomes that had fled after the battle with Tanweil. (1)
“We mean you no harm,” Kazrack said.
“Uh-huh, that’s why you are running around with a half-orc,” the gnome said. “We’ve had too many of our companions die to not be cautious about whom we trust.”
“I wish you had chosen to listen earlier; if we had joined forces perhaps our companions would not have died,” Kazrack replied. “We have already lost two of our number.”
“Don’t put that on us…” the gnome snapped.
“I only blame…”
“Ha!” The gnome pointed at him accusingly.
“…the forces of evil.”
The gnome frowned.
“But we have met evil gnomes before, how can we trust you?” Kazrack asked.
“Heh. How do you suggest we test each other’s intentions?” the gnome continued to carry on his side of the conversation from his position, hanging through the trapdoor; perhaps someone held him by the legs, above.
Ratchis began to walk over to Kazrack.
“A companion of mine apporoaches,” the dwarf warned the gnome.
“No funny moves!”
“My companion has no sense of humor to speak of,” Kazrack replied dryly.
“Hee! Hee! But you do! Are you sure you’re a dwarf?” the gnome tittered.
Kazrack did not like this question, so he ignored it.
“For our part we are friends of Garvan, and have been there twice, once spending months with yoru people,” said Ratchis looking up.
“Oh yeah? What’s the name of our interim chief?”
“Mozek,” Kazrack said quickly.
“No, Socher…” Martin said, having woken up and listening in. “Mozek, his son, took over for him when he died.”
The gnome squinted at them suspiciously, “Are you friends of Mozek?”
“That cannot be said,” Kazrack replied.
“Why not?”
“Why not, what?” Kazrack asked back.
“Why can’t it be said?”
“Because it is not true.”
“What’s not true?”
“That we are his friends.”
“Then why didn’t you say that to begin with,” the gnome giggled and rolled his eyes.
Kazrack scratched his head for a moment, trying to think of a question of his own, “what were the names of the two junior illusionists?”
“They were brothers,” Martin added.
“Socher and Briendel. You are trying to be tricky,” the gnome said, but there seemed to be respect in his voice.
And so the questioning went on back and forth, the gnome occasionally seeming to argue with whomever he was with up there. Most of the questions had to do with the Garvan gnomes.
Suddenly, the gnome disappeared from the trapdoor, as they all heard a shriek from above. Half a moment later there was a different gnome, it was the plump little female spell-caster they had seen before, she wore a travel stained lavender cloak, and deep blue travel outfit. She had a short bow tied to her pack and a short sword at her said. The rope jerked as she climbed down as quickly as she could. Kazrack winced a few times thinking she would fall.
And suddenly, there was something falling. A screech and a roar was heard from above, and then dust and stones showered through the trapdoor, followed by a small tumbling figure. It was the gnome they had been talking to before. He reached out for the rope to slow his descent, but it did not do much good. He landed painfully on the stone platform, and the female gnome did a controlled drop for the last ten feet, drawing her sword as he she looked wildly back and forth from the party to the trapdoor.
Suddenly, at the door, a huge claw tried to reach reach through, cracking and scoring the stone around it, but it could not fit. Its black talons were set into a magenta and purple mottled claw, which looked vaguely reptilian. The smell of burning copper filled the huge chamber, and the thing roared and screeched again.
“Stay back!” the female gnome warned Kazrack and Ratchis.
“We mean you no harm,” said Kazrack.
“What was that?” Martin asked.
“Creedadal called it a kind of wyvern,” said the first gnome, breathing heavily and clutching his stomach and chest and he sat up. ‘Except he said it was fiendish.”
“Wonderful,” Martin sighed.
“Creedadal? Why is that name familiar to me?” Kazrack asked.
“He is the Master Illusionist of Garvan,” Martin explained. “He left with the real Chieftain to seek the aid of the elves, and as we all know, they never returned.”
“Oh, when was the last time you spoke to Creedadal?” Kazrack asked the gnomes.
“Before he died,” the male gnome replied, and his companion let out a small sob, covering her mouth with her free hand; her sword lowered a bit.
“What were you doing here? What was he doing here?” Martin asked.
The gnome looked down. “We cannot tell you.”
“Then how can we trust you?” Kazrack asked.
“I guess, you must trust to friendship,” the gnome looked at Ratchis pointedly, and then glanced at his belt of scored chains. He looked Kazrack in the eye. “But if you want us to trust you then you need to swear to your dwarven god that you will help not harm or delay us. Our kin will suffer if we do not accomplish what we are here to do.”
“I will swear on all of them,” Kazrack replied. HE was kneeling beside the gnome.
“Okay, swear…”
“I swear I will only attack you if provoked,” the dwarf said.
The gnome scrunched up his face. “What kind of provocation?”
“If you attack me or do some obviously evil deed.”
“Name one.”
“If you attack one of my companions…”
“No! Not what would provoke you! Name one of the dwarven gods, you dope!”
“Well, I was only following the most likely interpretation of what you were saying, and…”
“Kazrack!” Martin admonished. “Just swear.”
Kazrack swore in dwarven for the gnome, listing out the names of all of his racial gods.
Names were then exchanged. The male gnome was called Schlomo, and his companion was Kismet.
The two gnomes joined their camp.
“I have to ask you something about the man that was chasing you and your companions before,” Kazrack asked. “He said that we were aiding the dragon by protecting you…”
“Well, what could he have meant by that? Schlomo rolled his eyes in an exaggerated manner and then they darted back and forth nervously, as if he feared he was being watched.
They all agreed to rest some more before moving on. Kismet fell into a weepy sleep, while Schlomo and Beorth watched.
Balem, the 12th of Sek – 565 H.E.
In the morning, the gnomes set up counter-balancing ropes, that allowed people to descend to the lower level two at a time, on either side of the central stone walkway, which was only 10 feet wide.
The chamber below was much darker, and it reached off to the northwest, larger than the level above it. However, that area seemed as if it was mostly caved in. Huge stone supports held up the platforms above, and on the floor was powered stone and bone, with the occasional large, but still unidentifiable piece that showed sign of gnawing.
With a word, Kismet made the tiny glowing orb appear floating beside her. It bobbed along side her, but shed enough light to illuminate 20 feet easily.
“Is that the spell called Radiant Spark?” Martin asked the gnome. (2)
“You can call it that,” Kismet smirked. “We call it Lightning bug.”
Martin nodded, and made a mental note. He wanted that spell.
The walls of this area were lined with scores of murderholes, through which dirt and tiny stones had poured through and in some places had cracked the walls. When this palce had been on the surface, it must have once given a view in all direction through which the dwarves could have rained missiles down upon them.
There was broad marble stairway, scorched, cracked and scored that went down deeper underground. Avoiding that stairs and the caved in area, for now, they moved carefully around one of the supports, and found a larger pile of fresher bones, and some torn ragged robes that appear to be monastic in origin.
Kazrack looked up and say a bunch of dwarven runes carved into the support. They appeared to have been hastily and primitively etched by someone, but they grew less and less legible as they made their way down the side.
It appeared to be some kind of crude record of someone being trapped down here, for there were dates.
Translation of dwarven runes said:
The group was silent. No one made a sound as Kazrack translated the runes aloud. The only sound was dripping water behind them, where the chamber was collapsed.
“I swear one day I shall restore this place,” Kazrack intoned. “But such dreams must be put aside for now. D’nar, can you determine if that water is drinkable? We should refill our skins, as we do not know how deep we will have to go and what other sources of water there may be.”
Schlomo noticed that behind the tall stone wall that encased the stairway down was a rusted weapons rack. They found a good number of light and heavy bolts for crossbows, but most were rotted through, as were the crossbow and the hafts of other weapons.
Ratchis began to creep over to the wall of rubble that reached up to the ceiled at an acute angle. Among the rubble there leaked steams of water, and among them were large purple mushrooms, covered in puckered lesions. They were as tall as a man, and their stems and broad as one.
“Those look unpleasant,” commented Martin the Green.
“Poisonous?” Ratchis asked.
“No idea,” Martin replied. “I’ve never seen anything like them before. But I certainly wouldn’t eat one.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Ratchis said, dryly.
As Ratchis crept towards the water to taste it out, he came ever closer to the fungi, and suddenly one just off to his left opened its suckered lesions and began to emit an ear-piercing shriek.
“Everyone get back! I’ll take care of it,” Ratchis cried above the shrieking mushroom, drawing his sword and charging up the rubble at it, but as he did another of the mushrooms he was passing by suddenly whipped out barbed tentacles.
Startled, Ratchis retreated a step and it whipped him again. This time he could feel the barbs leave behind burning stinging splinters on his arm. It began to throb.
Beorth did the exact opposite of what Ratchis said rushed forward, feeling the sting of the spines well, Kazrack hurried forward and buried his halberd into the one attacking Beorth.
And still the shrieking continued.
Anarie spoke an arcane word, but whether it was her armor or the incessant nerve-wracking sound, the spell fizzled and did not come off.
Sighing, Ratchis hurried by, and hacked at the shrieking one to stop it. A cloud of spores spurt into the air, and he coughed, but the thing did not stop.
Kazrack cried out as he felt the sting of two tentacles. They could now see more than half-the large mushrooms in the rubble swaying their tentacles in their direction blindly and eagerly.
Beorth felt the sting again, but cut the thing apart and finally the tentacles topped moving. Kazrack was able to hurry over finish the shrieker, and the party simply got out of range of the violent fungi.
Moments later when the Fearless Manticore Killers gathered at the top of the stairs, Kazrack let out a low moan. Whatever poison had been in those stingers draining his stamina. (3)
With a word to his goddess, Ratchis was able to restore it.
There was no where left to go except down the stairs, and Ratchis and Kazrack led the way, followed by Schlomo and Beorth. Martin and Kismet walked side by side and Anarie took up the rear.
Yes, Ratchissssss, that’s it,” a familiar voice hissed from below, as they descended into darkess. “Come closer. Let me repay you my debt.”
End of Session #57
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Notes:
(1) See Session #53
(2) DM’s Note: Radiant Spark is a spell from the Aquerra Player’s Guide.
(3) DM’s Note: Kazrack took 2 points of Constitution damage.
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