March 21, 2010
Present
Felonius – Tiefling Warlock and Sonic Shrieker Soloist, of sorts
Flurge – Eladrin Wizard and Cold-demon’s Commander
Grommit – Dwarven Fighter and Pit Perceiver
Vixten – Elven Cleric and Daylight Destructor
Zanen – Deva Avenger and Blade Bereaver
Absent
Arvin – Token Human Rogue and Absent Absconder
Marcus – Half-Elf Bard and Shanghai’ed Singer
Location
Gloomwrought and its surrounding swamps, known as the “Skins.”
Note: After this session, everyone is now Level 9. Level Up!
Loot from Last Game
*1900 GP divided 6 ways = 316 GP each, with the extra GP going to the Dwarf.
*Boots of Eagerness – Given to the Dwarf.
*Nautical Maps complete with scrawled notes and some plans indicating the location of “Shade Isle,” the destination for those press-ganged into Belendithus’ service.
*Herpes Simplex Type VI (Balor) – Given to the Dwarf.
Better Man
Arvin stayed in bed, demonstrating humans’ innate weak digestive systems in response to Gloomwrought’s delicious and uniformly gray cuisine. No sexy serving wenches came to give him a sponge bath.
Felonius discreetly asked around until he found someone who could interpret the nautical maps found in Belendithus’ lair. A grizzled old wizard who in no way resembled a bear revealed that members of his university, the Tenebrous Cabal, might be interested in helping the group. But Mr. Grizzle was not good enough to deal with the group. He set up a meeting with a better man for Noon the next day at the King and Fool Tavern.
The party retired to their sumptuous suite at the Knight’s Shield Inn and relaxed in style, easily ignoring Arvin’s whining and complaining. The next morning, Flurge went shopping for healing potions and ritual spell components, aided by donations from Grommit, Zanen, and Arvin.
At the King and Fool, the bar was relatively quiet. If Arvin had been there, Gutless Joe would have surely made an appearance. Vixten slunk around in disguise, Grommit and Flurge muttered at the bar, and Felonius and Zanen questioned Thol, their wizard contact from the Tenebrous Cabal. Thol himself was a ghoulish-looking shadowborn human, but he generously offered to give the group a longship and adequate sailors to find Shade Isle if only they would do one small thing for him first: find the legendary Veined Egg, long thought to be hidden in the bowels of the Temple of the Black Hour located in the Skins, Gloomwrought’s surrounding swamplands.
The egg in question was described as having pulsing blue veins, being a remnant from the Astral Plane that was first noted over a thousand years ago. Thol didn’t reveal what powers the egg was said to possess, or explain why he wanted it, but it is undoubtedly for altruistic and humane purposes that will only benefit all of the good peoples of the multiverse. When questioned by Zanen if there was anything they needed to know to enter the Temple, the ghoul-man said “Until everyone has suffered, no one can get through.”
Leaving Here
Our heroes ventured outside the city walls to the slimy, foggy swamps, lit in an eerie emerald glow by the city’s magical green lanterns. Various creepy noises and even creepier smells imposed themselves on the group’s reverie.
“Ooo, creepy,” Flurge observed.
The Tenebrous Cabal had made arrangements for the party to be ferried out to the Temple by a Dark One ferryman. However, the diminutive sneak dropped the group off a half day’s walk from the Temple and said he would go no further--but would return the next day. If Arvin had been there, he assuredly would have stabbed/convinced the little weirdo to take them all the way to the Temple and wait for them.
After a slog of several hours through the swamps, the group reached the Temple. It loomed before them, not at all phallic in its shape or size. Instead, two stairways leading to two archways were visible. Vixten scouted it out and reported back that on the other side of the archways was an enclosed stone room containing two statues, one pit, and a side-chamber whose walls held mirrors. Grommit rushed forward to investigate the pit and saw a large woodsy plant thing climbing slowly up toward the surface. At that same moment, two green humanoid shaped plant monsters slid through cracks in the walls and attacked. It’s hospitality like this that has kept this temple from being a decent tourist attraction for centuries.
Red Mosquito
The green woodsy monsters shot out vines that blinded nearly everyone except Zanen (who had already charged out of their immediate range to oppose one of three brown viny treelike monsters who had also appeared). A giant man-eating plant lurched out of the pit and waved its tendrils around menacingly while failing on all of its attacks for the next several rounds.
Grommit beat on it with his hammer while whistling jauntily.
Flurge summoned Frosty the Cold Demon and Vixten rained down Sunshiny Slaps on a group of bad plants for a couple rounds. Zanen shredded his opponent and moved on to the next. Grommit finished off the ineffectual Big Plant as Felonius burned the remaining villains. One green plantman got away, slipping through the cracks in the stone wall. If Arvin had been there, he would have definitely stopped it from escaping. After the fight was over, Frosty lingered around, his eyes glowing red, staring at people like a big hungry bug.
“Is that normal?” the Deva inquired. Everyone just laughed nervously and edged slowly away from the Snowfiend.
Unsurprisingly, the bad plants had no treasure. Flurge checked out the mirrors in the side room and declared that they were magical means of transportation. Having no other options, the group walked through the mirrors and into a similar small chamber somewhere else.
Sonic Reducer
A hallway led away from this entry, replete with alcoves lining both sides, two exits, three rust monsters and three corpses. The boldest ruster shuffled into a mirror next to it and came out of a mirror right in front of the crowd of Good Guys. Vixten promptly hid. Zanen stepped forward, slashed the nearby rust-bug, and pulled it into the middle of the party. Taking turns, everyone else hit it until it fell down dead. They discovered that their weapons were suffering from contact with the foul beast, but that didn’t deter them from using them.
The mirrors themselves didn’t reflect very well. They gave tantalizing glimpses of a spooky and weird land where up was down, in was out and Pearl Jam was actually the Stone Temple Pilots. It was very disturbing, to say the least. It was too bad Arvin wasn’t there, as the mere sight of his odd human-ness would surely have caused all of the mirrors to shatter in repulsion.
A Beholder-like creature suddenly appeared at the far end of the hall. It blasted and missed with several eye rays. Our group positioned themselves for mayhem and beat on another rust monster. Zanen charged the Medium-sized eyeball. Flurge speculated that it wasn’t really a Beholder, but was instead a Beholder Goth, a smaller cousin of the dreaded Eye Tyrant that wasn’t very harmful except to itself when it got really depressed and was alone with razor blades. It apparently wasn’t terribly upset, as it blasted its eye rays around without hitting many of its targets. Then it, too, fled through a mirror, possibly to mope elsewhere and never to return.
Then the mirrors themselves joined the action, dazing and slowing our heroes. This completely prevented the good guys from obeying Vixten’s repeated commands to flee. Instead they pounded the second rust monster into little bits. Then a weird alien thing made up of rubbery flesh, eyeballs, and toothy mouths crawled through a mirror and attacked the Good Guys’ very sanity—and they weren’t terribly stable and sane to begin with! Nearly everyone was dazed repeatedly by its scary chortling sounds.
Rearviewmirror
The Beholder Goth reappeared from a mirror and telekinesed Grommit to him. The hardy dwarf rewarded it with a frosty maul to the face. On his backswing, Grommit killed a rust monster. Vixten dodged the Goth’s bite and blasted it to pieces. Zanen stabbed the rust monster so well that it opened its maw and swallowed his fancy magic sword. Yes: it ate his magic sword--utterly and completely digesting it--and looked very smug afterward! Zanen unsheathed his dagger and viciously stabbified the monster, so it ate his dagger too. Ultimately, he downed it with an awe-inspiring maximum-damage unarmed punch.
After repeated attacks, Felonius was fed up with the horrible grungy music the mouther was making; it insulted his newly discovered muscial ear! So the tiefling dropped the Gibberer all by himself, finally stopping its hideous wailing. Unhappy with how their butts looked in them, Vixten and Grommit smashed a couple mirrors but their butts still looked the same as ever: too big as those other brothers can’t deny. With a flash of fire, Flurge finished off the final ruster and the group caught its collective breath.
Two of the corpses strongly resembled Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard, but only Arvin would have noticed and he wasn’t, in fact, there. From the corpses and dead monsters, the party collected four rusty swords (at –2 damage each) that Zanen strapped to his back. Flurge also loaned him one perfectly good, non-rusty longsword for temporary use. From Zanen’s nemesis rusty, enough magic residium was collected to re-enchant a Full Blade to +2 Viciousness should the opportunity arise.
Vixten explored the mostly empty room at the end of the hall and found it mostly empty. However, when he touched his hand to the wall he began to see “through” it. However, he was also simultaneously turning to stone. Remembering Thol’s advice, all of the group quickly touched the wall and so they were able to pass through it into someplace new and exciting, full of free Magic Amulets, Magic Cloaks, and rust-proof +6 Jagged & Vicious swords.
--End Session
