Shilsen's Eberron SH (Finished - The Last Word : 9/20/15)
- Thread starter Rackhir
- Start date
Solarious said:\Well, you know what they say about ancient curses and interesting lives...![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
No i don't, but I know what happened tonight. It was a definite turn of events. Someone in the group even thought I should break out the duct tape. They didn't say it, but I know they thought it. Ohhh, shame Shil can't post his update for X amount of days.
But man, yea interesting interesting night.
shilsen
Adventurer
AviLazar said:
He's referring to an (apocryphal) old Chinese proverb curse, which says, "May you live in interesting times." As the Angels can vouch, interesting times can be a curse.
I need to put that in the House Rules document - "No duct taping the DM or threatening with (or actually inflicting) bodily harm."
Actually, since I'll be having a pretty busy week, I'll try to get as much as I can done today, so I might be able to throw something up soon.
shilsen
Adventurer
Sidekick said:
I was going to make you wait, but the fact that New Zealand kicked Aussie ass twice swung the vote. So here's a short update and a little teaser.
Hope the grading doesn't go too badly... marking undergrad essays/assignments is most academics idea of hell on earth
Luckily it doesn't bother me that much, and this batch is English Lit, which is better. The freshman comp papers, which is the other course I'm teaching this semester, are much rougher.
And here you go:
* * * * *
The remaining Angels stand silent and stock-still in the middle of what was so recently a raging battlefield. Nobody spares a glance for the mutilated corpse of their recent enemy, all eyes remaining focused on the form lying beside it. There is no blood on this figure, besides that which dripped from its killer, but there is no doubt about its state. What beholders, mindflayers, dragons and rakshasas could not do has finally occurred. Death has finally come for one of the Guardian Angels.
* * *
A little over an hour ago, the Angels stand in front of a very unusual tunnel leading into the rock-face of the cliffs which support the towers of Sharn.
The tunnel begins inside one of the shallow caves that give the Mud Caves area its name. Outside the cave, and the lean-to attached to it, stretches the mixture of rock and sand that makes up the south-eastern end of the beaches of Sharn. More lean-tos and makeshift hovels litter the beach, creating a shantytown that caters to the most wretched of Sharn’s poor. At this moment, few of these individuals are present anywhere near the cave the Angels are in, one of those closest to the eastern end of the beach. Instead, many of them are clustered stand behind the westernmost of the crude barricades that now block off half the beach.
“Okay,” says Gareth, “This is definitely artificial,” pointing at the smooth twenty-foot square tunnel, with its completely smooth and vertical walls and equally horizontal floor and ceiling, which extends beyond their sight. “Right?”
“In a manner of speaking,” says Nameless, running his hands over the odd striations that mark parts of the rock. “Something ate – or dissolved – its way into the cliff, I think. Probably some kind of ooze or aberration.”
“A damn large one, whatever it was!” comments Korm.
Six, who has been kneeling beside a small pool of slime-flecked water, points at streaks on the stone near it. “Tracks. Definitely feet, some around human size and some bigger, and also something which is either a snakelike creature, or them dragging something behind them, like ...”
“Tentacles,” says Nameless.
“Yes, tentacles.”
“They did say,” adds Korm, jerking a thumb in the direction of the beach outside, “That even a couple of ogres and trolls got grabbed by whatever it is that’s in there. But then why should they be walking in?”
“We know there’s something intelligent in there,” points out Nameless, “So perhaps it captured or coerced them in some way.”
“Intelligent?” asks Gareth. “We don’t know that for sure.”
“Look at the facts. Something kills the family living in the hovel and burrows into the back of the cave. And then emerges at rare intervals over the course of a month, grabbing people from the outside, with nobody left alive and report what it was. Including people who were specifically on guard and waiting for it to emerge. It has to be intelligent.”
“Maybe it just cleans up well after itself?”
Six straightens up. “Only one way to find out, since Korm’s spell didn’t say much.”
The Gatekeeper protests, “Hey – I did tell you a commune with nature says nothing about artificial areas, and this one’s definitely artificial. At least it let us know that it stretches in a long way.”
The Angels spend a couple of minutes discussing and casting protective spells. By the time they are done, each of them is heavily protected against acid and able to see in the dark. Six, now with the floating eye orbiting his head, takes the portable hole, opens it and jumps in. With a little effort, he tosses out a large stone, carved in the rough shape of a sphere, weighing around 200 lbs.
“What the hell is that?” asks Gareth, as Six climbs out.
“I’m scouting ahead,” says Six.
“I know that, but what’s the rock for? And where did you get it?”
“I’ve had a few of these made. I got the idea from those dice I bought.” Six leans over and rolls the sphere around till he can place his hands into two slots on the sides. The others can now see that the sphere has been carved with a couple of handholds, and also has a hole running through one side of it. Six takes a few steps forward to the edge of the tunnel, leans forward, and rolls the ball into it. “It’ll find traps and let me know if anything’s in there.”
As the dull, but loud thudding sound slowly recedes, Gareth looks around, pausing for a dirty look at Luna, now in her usual form, sitting up and shaking with ursine laughter at Six’s new scouting method. “Come on!” he says. “That’s too loud. It’ll let anything in there know we’re coming!”
Korm, who has been chuckling too, says, “Have you ever heard yourself walk? Unless we leave you here, everything knows we’re coming anyway.”
Six walks in after his stone device and the others give him a little lead time and then follow, ignoring Gareth’s complaints. As Six advances, he finds more places along the way where tracks have been left due to the combination of the odd puddle or a patch of slime. There are one or two areas where he thinks that one or more creatures were dragged.
If the shape of the tunnel were not enough to indicate its abnormal nature, the turns that it makes underline it. Every turn is at a sheer 90 degree angle, as if whatever created it simply decided to move precisely left or right at a given point, without bothering to gradually change direction. The first gradual change Six encounters, after about two minutes of alternately walking and bowling his stone ball down the corridor, is a place where the tunnel begins to angle downwards. Its dimensions remain the same, but there is a clear slope. The slope becomes steeper as the tunnel turns another corner, ending ten feet ahead, at the edge of a dark, murky pool of water which spans its width. It extends beyond the sixty foot range of Six’s vision with the floating eye.
Six waits till the others join him and indicates what he found. The others notice what his limited sense of smell missed, a faintly acrid tang in the air. “Maybe it’s acidic,” he says, producing and assembling a collapsible ten-foot pole. Tying a rag to the end, he reaches out and dips it. When he pulls it back and checks, he finds that it is slightly acidic, but not enough to do any damage.
“I want to check the depth,” says Six. He takes back the portable hole and this time produces a stone carved in the shape of a three-sided pyramid. This one also has a hole in it, and Six ties a rope through it. “Oh man!” says Gareth, as he stands and watches, “What is it with you and these rocks?”
“They’re convenient,” says Six, walking over to the water. He lowers the stone in and begins to pay out the rope.
And then a giant, yellowish amoeboid mass surges out of the water and onto Six.
With a startled cry, the warforged drops the rope and tumbles backwards, barely dodging out of the way of a huge pseudopod slamming down where he just stood. The creature, as wide as the tunnel itself though only a foot in thickness, lurches out of the pool after him.
“Ochre jelly!” shouts Nameless, as he backs up. “Nobody use a sharp weapon on it, since it’ll just split up and be unhurt. Nothing electric either.” He quickly casts a spell, and water splashes up as a large crocodile appears behind the jelly, flailing tentacles bearing it aloft. Nameless shouts a tongue-twisting command in daelkyr, and instead of biting, the crocodile slams its tail into the mass ahead of it.
On the other side, on the lip of the stone, Korm swears in irritation. Lowering his sword, he unleashes a series of blows, pulping the creature’s flesh with his fist. Six joins him, his metal fists slamming into the creature’s amoeboid form. Gareth rushes forward, the Endless Blade reforming into a large two-handed metal club as he advances, but before he can reach the creature a lashing pseudopod slams around his waist and lifts him into the air. Gareth’s armor creaks as it constricts and he cries out in pain.
Luna, about to cast a spell in which fire features prominently, growls in irritation as Gareth is picked up and waved around. For a moment she considers that he could probably take the damage. But then there’ll be the whining! Reluctantly, she begins to summon some allies.
Despite its limited ability to feel pain, the pounding by both Six and Korm, their fists driven by strength enough to crack stone, draws the gigantic ochre jelly’s attention. Part of its shapeless body forms another pseudopod, which hammers down on Korm. But as it seeks to seize him, the orc slips out as if he were covered in some lubricating jelly himself, thanks to a precast freedom of movement. Even more usefully for the group, the forming of the new pseudopod draws away material from the one wrapped around Gareth, and with a mighty effort he breaks free. He falls with a thud, luckily landing on the stone of the tunnel rather than in the pool, and painfully rolls away.
With him out of the way, Nameless instantly casts one of his deadliest spells, a green beam flashing forth to strike the ochre jelly. Empowered by the power of his ring, the beam disintegrates the entire central portion of the creature. Mindless or not, the jelly flagellates under the agony of the magical assault, its exterior portions still lashing out mindlessly without realizing that they are dying. Luna promptly reminds it, dropping the spell she was casting to bring down her favorite, and now empowered, column of flame on it. The jelly literally explodes under the impact, charred portions being strewn around the tunnel, while others sink back into the water. Silence falls, until Luna rears up and does what the others define as her “happy ‘I just got to flame strike something’ bear dance.”
While the others take care of healing Gareth, who is grousing about why big critters love to squeeze him, Six again checks and ascertains that the depth of the water is about ten feet, and Nameless collects a few samples of the jelly and orders the crocodile to check for the far side. It returns almost instantly, to communicate through gestures that the water ends only a few feet beyond their vision. Nameless flies over, while Six simply descends to the bottom and walks across. Korm disrobes, drawing opprobrious comments from the others and swims, as does Luna, carrying Gareth on her back.
On the other side, the group proceeds, Six again ‘scouting’ ahead with the help of his stone ball. After a couple of turns, he eventually comes to a point where he can hear the faint sound of movement ahead, accompanied by a soft squelching sound, like someone stepping on piles of wet cloth. Advancing cautiously, he soon sees that the tunnel opens into a larger chamber, the source of the sounds.
Moving back to inform the others, Six returns to his original position, accompanied by Luna and Korm, while Gareth remains further behind, guarding Nameless. The warforged ties a rope to the stone ball and then rolls it forward powerfully. It trundles forward, its movement now being restricted by the rope, causing it to move from one side of the tunnel to the other and bounce off the stone walls, and eventually disappears into the chamber. Only seconds later, there is a loud splashing sound as it falls into some liquid. Six, about to start pulling back on rope, drops it as the squelching sound grows in volume. Even as he snaps out his chain, four figures emerge from the chamber.
They were evidently humanoid at one point, presumably among those who had been carried away from the Mud Caves area, but no longer. All four are naked, which reveals that large patches of their bodies have been replaced with translucent ooze, which melds seamlessly with the flesh that remains. Large red veins extend throughout the jelly-like portions, and the preternatural visual acuity of the two druids and Six lets them see them clearly pulsing with whatever liquid flows through them. The modification to their forms is especially true of the creatures’ heads, which are at least half-ooze, as well as the upper portion of their chests, their lower abdomens and upper thighs. Their genitals have been removed, replaced with large patches of ooze.
The last change to their bodies is that none of them have forearms. Instead, thick green tentacles extend from just below their elbows. As they advance, the tentacles coil and uncoil, revealing a row of suckers on the inner surface, which gleam with a glutinous gray slime. As they walk forward, a soft squelching accompanies their footsteps.
Solarious
Explorer
Ah, the promise of death in the morning. Smells like... agony.shilsen said:
You know, upon reading this, I was reminded of WoW's dancing bears. Here's a partial clip of it to commemorate the moment.shilsen said:
Yeah, bears dancing in a fashion vuagely reminicent to broadway showgirls hilarious, I know.
Someone has been enjoying their Lovecraft a little too much, methinks.shilsen said:
GoodKingJayIII
First Post
I had a feeling, a premonition if you will, that one of the Guardian Angels was going to die. Maybe my DMing skills aren't truly gone, just buried after several years out of the driver's seat.
I'd really hate to see any of them go. Here's to hoping for a lengthy resurrection quest. Or at the very least, a botched reincarnation!
I'd really hate to see any of them go. Here's to hoping for a lengthy resurrection quest. Or at the very least, a botched reincarnation!
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