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Message: <blockquote data-quote="shilsen" data-source="post: 2994352" data-attributes="member: 198">The Rescue of Nameless, Pt. 1.The never sleeping Six wakes the others early on the morning of the 26th. The entire group heads to Carosten Park, where Surr’kal has been making preparations. The ritual itself is a simple enough affair, mainly involving everyone sitting in a circle meditating (or rather, in the case of some, simply sitting silently), interrupted once in a while by Surr’kal placing a small sprig of mistletoe on each individual or sprinkling them with a couple of drops of fresh rainwater. At the end of the hour, everyone feels an aura of well-being temporarily envelop them and then fade away. Surr’kal says, “You will now be more resistant to the powers of aberrations, whether it be poison or paralysis or anything else. The protection lasts five days, but ends instantly if you use healing or protective magic on an aberration.”“Really not a problem,” says Gareth.“I don’t know about that,” wonders Korm aloud, “What happens if we need to heal Nameless? Will that affect the protection?”“Honestly, I do not know,” says Surr’kal. “Nameless’s situation is an, forgive me, aberrant one.”“We’ll find out when we do,” says Trillia briskly. “We have no time to waste.” She gives Surr’kal a short bow and says, “Thank you, Gatekeeper. Hopefully, we will all see you soon again.”Surr’kal bows back silently, though the worry is evident in his face, and the Angels take their leave.Back at Trillia’s, the group waits while she produces a scroll and goes through the hour-long process of scrying on Nameless. At the end of the time, the large mirror that she has been gazing into blurs and its surface turns smoky. While the others see nothing else, Trillia stares into it intently and describes what she alone sees. “I can see him. And he’s somewhere else. And not naked - praise be. He has his normal clothes on and is in an open chamber of some sort. No doors. I can see a tunnel coming and going out. That mind flayer which I saw before—Naxaliyen, I think—is there too, as is that dolgaunt with the floating eye. It’s got a tentacle wrapped around Nameless’s throat. I don’t see the … damn, the mind flayer’s seen my sensor and…”“That’s it. Let’s go now!” interrupts Korm.Trillia nods and steps away from the mirror, which returns to normal, and begins to pick up nearby scrolls and cast the few remaining protective spells that the group has not already cast. She opens the last one and speaks the words. Immediately, all of the Angels other than Six shrink to half their size. “Grab hands,” orders Trillia, placing a hand on Luna’s shoulder and casting a spell. And teleports the group to Nameless’s location.Or tries to. The adventurers get a fleeting glimpse of the chamber Trillia had described, with Nameless and the two aberrations in it, and then have a sense of an irresistible force shunting them to the side.A split second later, they fully reappear, but in a very different place. This is an empty chamber, fifteen feet to a side and about ten high. There are three closed sphincters, each about two feet in diameter, in the ceiling and a larger one in the wall. The entire room stinks abominably, due to the dirty fluid and refuse that the group is knee-deep in. Or, in the case of those unfortunate enough to have been reduced, about chest deep.“Ugh!” says Trillia, covering her nose and mouth, but remembering to pronounce the words to end the spell. Which brings Luna, Gareth and Korm back to normal size and makes the room a lot more crowded. “What happened?” asks Six. “Did something go wrong with your spell?”“No. Didn’t you feel us being shoved to the side? That was definitely a magical effect of some sort. Probably a protection against teleporting in.”“Hope it’s not a protection against teleporting out,” says Korm.Gareth, listening to the interchange and scraping off the refuse that covers him from chest to knee, says, “Can we get out and discuss this?” As he speaks, he feels something brush against his leg. “Hold on! We’re not alone in here.”“What?”Gareth doesn’t have to explain. A pale white tentacle thicker than his arm shoots out of the water, wrapping around his leg. With a jerk, it pulls him flat on his back and under the water. Luckily for Gareth, his ring of adaptation prevents him from swallowing any of the fluid in surprise, and he hacks at the tentacle with Kizmet. The blade bites deep into the tentacle, and promptly sticks there.His startled companions also strike at the tentacle as well as they can in the restricted space and with the intervening fluid and muck, as well as the fact that most of it is wrapped around the paladin’s leg. As they are striking at it, another one snakes out of the water and grabs onto Korm too, who seconds later has his sword too stuck to it. The adventurers note that as each blow hits, green fluid oozes from the wound and a network of vein-like green color shoots up the tentacle and across the nearby wall. Not that they have time to pause and study it now.Things don’t improve much as Luna reflexively turns into a bear, almost flattening Trillia with her increasing bulk and making space even more of a premium than it already is. Especially since one of the walls shudders and slowly begins to close in on the others.“Screw this!” shouts Trillia. “Let’s get out of here!” She gestures and a coating of grease covers Gareth, which allows him to slide his way out of tentacle’s grasp. Only to discover that Kizmet is still stuck to it and his locked gauntlet means that he is too. “Damn!”Luna growls her agreement for the sentiment, though it is slightly muffled by the fact that she has her mouth and both front paws stuck to the tentacle on Korm. Six, having noted in all the thrashing around that the tentacles are growing out of the floor and walls, says, “Good idea. I’m attacking the sphincter!”Korm, having grabbed onto his attached sword and trying to push down and drive it deeper into the tentacle, mutters, “That may be the first time I heard that move as a tactical option.”Ignoring the comment, Six strikes repeatedly at the sphincter, ripping deep slashes into it and the nearby wall. Immediately, deep green fluid gushes from the wound and the entire chamber shudders. A second later, the sphincter slides open. The thrashing, and by now mostly severed, tentacles release their targets and retract into the water, releasing the attached swords and bear. The group hurries out through the sphincter into the ten foot square area beyond and part of the way up the flight of stairs leading out of it, before the sphincter slams shut behind them. “Probably another mimic,” says Trillia, calling up a prestidigitation to clean herself.“This place really has strange mimics,” says Korm.“Strange everything!” says Gareth.The group proceeds cautiously up the staircase, applying healing magic as needed on the way. The stairs ascend for about fifty feet, before ending in a long tunnel. It twists and turns for a bit, with no turn-offs or doorways, before coming to a crossroads, each tunnel of which stretches beyond the group’s torches or darkvision. After a little discussion, they head down the left fork. They travel for over a hundred feet without a turn, before those in the group with keener hearing pick up the soft sounds of moaning coming from up ahead.The group moves forward, to see that the tunnel ends at a large doorway, beyond which is a bridge that extends a hundred feet to another doorway. The moaning, with an odd sob or shriek, comes from chamber below, as does the smell of refuse. The group cautiously looks in at the floor of the chamber thirty feet below, dimly lit by crystals set into walls. The entire floor is covered in giant fungi, standing six to eight feet high, many of them with something attached to them. After a few seconds, the watchers realize that what look like fungi are actually hobgoblins and bugbears, which seem to have been fused with a fungal mass. Small vestigial arms hang down uselessly and they seem to have no eyes. They do have relatively normal noses and mouths, as already evidenced by the moaning. What floats above them seem to be dozens of embryos, complete with placenta and umbilical cord, the latter attached to one of the fungal creatures. The Angels study the chamber for a while and then discuss whether to head back and take another route. Nobody is very keen to venture in. The decision to turn back is hastened by half a dozen of the closest embryos, which detach from the fungi and begin to float quickly towards the bridge.Seeing six of the creatures floating into the entrance to the tunnel behind the group, Gareth turns and charges them, almost cutting one in half with Kizmet. The one he hit screams and then opens its eyes, which are completely blank white orbs. It emits an anticipatory gurgle and quickly swells in size, till it is the size of a small dwarf, while a  large rubbery pair of champing, tooth-filled jaws expand from its mouth. The creature bites at Gareth, and its floating umbilical cord simultaneously lashes out. The cord splits into ten thinner pieces as it strikes, each of them tipped with a small red claw. As the surprised Gareth cries out, each of the other five creatures follows suit, enveloping him in a hail* of claw attacks. In seconds, Gareth is covered in gore, his magical armor and multiple protective spells barely keeping him alive. The paralytic venom that he fights off is only icing on the cake.As he staggers back, Korm yells, “Get between Gareth and the babies!” As Six, Luna and he rush to the rescue, he mutters, “Never thought I’d get to use that battlecry either!” Trillia drops a black tentacles spell in the rear, catching three of the creatures. The others quickly dispose of the remaining three, though not before all of them are at least somewhat bloodied.Standing back a few seconds later and watching the tentacles squeeze the creatures into mush, Korm says, “What in the Hells were those things?!”**“I don’t know. And I don’t need to know,” says Gareth shakily. “Different route?”“Definitely different route.”The Angels retrace their steps to the last junction and follow the next tunnel. After a couple of twists and turns, they hear dolgrim voices ahead and pull back to make a plan. The four unfortunate dolgrims on guard duty almost die of fright when a large warforged rushes soundlessly around the nearby corner, followed by a muscular orc and then a bear. The two humans in the rear are barely noticed.A few seconds later, Six closes his fist around the coin with a silence spell that he was carrying, waves the terrified dolgrim hanging from his other hand at Trillia, and says, “Ask away.”The interrogation happens very quickly, the biggest opposition mustered by the dolgrims consisting of an ever-growing pool of urine around the Angels’ feet. It is evident, even without Gareth’s ability to detect thoughts, that the dolgrims are not lying.Apparently they are one among a number of guard groups posted around the area, since Naxaliyen has called a meeting of various aberration leaders at the seal. The dolgrims do not belong to his faction—the creatures in the city dwell in separate groups led by one or more powerful aberrations—and do not know what the meeting is for.The dolgrims quickly provide the Angels with directions to the seal chamber, as well as the information that they will run into another such group on the way. They are just as quickly rewarded by being summarily dispatched.The Angels proceed, following the given directions. Reaching the area where they expect the next set of guards, they are greeted with silence. And then with the sight of four dead dolgrims. Each has an expression of absolute terror on its face and a trickle of blood running from its mouth. “O-kay,” says Trillia slowly, “What happened here?”Six casts around and says, “No tracks,” and Korm adds, “No wounds on them.”  “This place just gets weirder,” says Gareth, with a corroborating growl from Luna. “Let’s head on.”A couple minutes later, the group reaches a closed door, which should lead into the seal chamber. Listening at the door, Six says that he hears the murmuring of many voices. After some discussion and the casting of multiple preparatory spells, which includes turning everyone invisible, they carefully open the door and look in.“Damn!” * Gareth took 66 attacks in one round. I don’t think I’ll ever beat that record.** Mechanically just grell with a couple extra HD.</blockquote>

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