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Message: <blockquote data-quote="shilsen" data-source="post: 3364946" data-attributes="member: 198">Here you go. I'm relatively freer this week, so I should have the following update up in a few days.* * * * * *Tomas never had much in life, including hope, but he did have certainty. He was born a beggar, lived a beggar, and had assumed that he would die a beggar. Even so, things had recently improved. He was now actually living inside one of the Mud Caves (well, not inside, but under a lean-to attached to one, which was practically inside), sharing the space with only one other person. And Frulok was quite friendly for an ogre, and was letting Tomas share his patch of beach and try to fish off it. He’d even met a nice girl two caves down, and though one of her eyes had been rendered blind and milk-white from a childhood illness, she looked at him happily with the other. Who knows? Maybe in a few months he could invite her over to share the lean-to. Of course, he was still quite sure that he would still eventually die completely destitute, probably of some painful and wasting disease, but maybe there’d be just a few pathetic little gleams of happiness before that. Unfortunately for Tomas, he was dead wrong on all counts.It began with the creatures that came for him in the night. For Tomas and Frulok and the Roonok family who lived in the cave behind them. There were a few moments of screaming terror, followed by merciful unconsciousness. Which ended too soon, in what seemed like endless pain. The pain quickly ripped through not just Tomas’ melting and mutating flesh but his helpless mind, which slowly crumbled under the invasive attack until there was nothing left but a tiny sliver of what had been a human being. And now that tiny remnant floated helplessly within what passed for the mind of the thing he had become, unable to affect the actions of its former body, which reacted only to the instincts imprinted within it by its creator. As the body shambled along the tunnel towards the intruders, driven only by the urge to slay and rend, the tiny element that was still Tomas wondered at the strange combination standing there. A warforged, a heavily muscled orc and, of all things, a huge bear, stood in the middle of the tunnel, while some distance behind them, a man in shining armor stood before another man, whose eyes glowed a strange blue. Heavily armed and well dressed, they were clearly not the kind of people Tomas would ever have had a chance to meet, but the simple fact that they faced his prison of flesh gave him hope. Hope which was shot through with terror at the thought that his body and the others like it might reach and slay them, leaving him trapped within it forever. Tomas’ will clawed desperately at the form encasing it, to no avail.But, in that instant, he saw the man in the rear gesture and heard him speak something. A tiny fiery globe shoots forth, exploding into a giant ball of flame as it reaches Tomas and the others. Incredible pain envelops him as flesh chars and burns away, but his body refuses to stop, and continues forward. And then, amazingly, the bear growls and waves a paw. A second blast of flame, this time a column of it, envelops the four of them, and this time, even the unworldly forces holding spirit and flesh together unravel under the magical assault. Slowly, his charred and partly melted form collapses to the tunnel floor. And deep within, as the pain fades, Tomas laughs in relief and release, as his consciousness and soul spiral away.* * * * *  Three of the first four creatures are blasted apart by Nameless and Luna’s spells, both of them empowered beyond normal levels by their special abilities, but the fourth somehow staggers onwards. Behind it, another four similar creatures emerge. The wounded creature goes down under Six’s chain, but the others rush him and the two druids. Preferring to conserve their spells, the Angels meet them with weapons instead. While the lashing tentacles of the ooze-creatures leave painful bruises, the heavy protection of the Angels’ armor and multiple dweomers prevent them from inflicting lethal damage. The various protections against acid are especially helpful, negating the effect of the acrid slime that coats the tentacles. The creatures have less resistance to the Angels’ attacks, and a mixture of blood and ooze flies across the tunnel as chain, claws, teeth and sword bite into them. The Angels discover that the lack of real vitals makes the creatures more difficult to take down, but the volume of damage they put out is impossible to withstand.The ooze-creatures have a few more surprises at hand – or tentacle, however. As Luna rears up to hug an enemy and bite down on it, another wraps both tentacles around one of her legs, and pulls. With a surprised snarl, the druid disbalances and lands with a thud. Angry, and a little embarrassed, at the fall, she refuses to release her enemy but brings it down with her, continuing to shred it till nothing remains. Korm, cutting down the creature that tripped her, is tripped in turn and hurled backwards to slam against the tunnel wall. There’s a bigger surprise for Six. The ooze-creature with the longest tentacles shoots them at him. As he dodges back, they wrap around one of the chains he wears on his shoulder and pulls it off, before lashing out with it and hitting the prone Korm on the head.After the momentary surprise, however, the Angels quickly slash the creatures apart. Gareth and Nameless, having seen that they are winning easily enough, walk up and join them. “Didn’t expect to see one of those things roll you around, Luna,” comments Gareth, causing the druid-bear to growl and smack him playfully with a paw, which bounces him off the tunnel’s wall with a loud clang.“Now, now, Luna,” says Nameless, with an appreciative grin, “Don’t play with your food.”While Gareth remonstrates with Luna, the Angels proceed quickly but cautiously into the chamber the creatures emerged from. The room is a perfect square, sixty feet on a side, its roof matching the twenty foot high tunnel leading into it. And out, since a similar one leads out to left and right. The chamber is empty except for a five foot wide and ten foot deep pool in the center, and eight alcoves (slightly larger and deeper than required to contain a well-built human) in the walls. The rope tied to Six’s stone leads into the pool, which is filled with a translucent liquid that bubbles slowly. Eight thin streams lead from it to the alcoves, forming a small pool at the bottom of each, from which a network of ‘veins’ lead up the alcoves. The fluid seems to be flowing sluggishly out of the pool to the alcoves and back. Korm looks around, scowls and says, “Is it just me, or does this resemble the sort of things we saw in Yarkuun Draal?”Six, extricating his stone from the pool, nods. Luna interrupts with a growl, indicating with gestures that she can hear something from each of the two tunnels. Listening, the others hear a soft slurping sound from one and an even fainter moaning from the other. The moans seem to be in more than one voice. “So, which way?” asks Gareth. “I say we check on the moaning. That’s probably from the captured people.”“Yes, but the slurping sound is probably related to these ooze things, and I don’t want to…,” begins Nameless, but Six interrupts with a resigned, “Umm – guys?” The others turn to see what he indicates, namely Luna’s giant, hairy rear disappearing down the tunnel which the slurping comes from.“Oh, bloody hell – Luna!”The others follow the druid and, after a couple of turns, find her looking at the end of the tunnel. A gigantic ooze, filling the entirety of the tunnel, is flush against the far wall. As the Angels watch warily, it slowly dissolves a layer of the stone from the wall, absorbing it into its gelatinous form. Though they are only about forty feet away, it shows no signs of noticing them. After a few seconds, the Angels decide to leave it alone, since it isn’t bothering them, and check the other tunnel. Proceeding down it, they find that it runs a little further before disappearing into a bank of fog. The moaning, as well as a soft bubbling sound, emerges from what seems to be a few feet into the fog and to the right. Nameless, focusing through his permanent arcane sight, says, “Faint conjuration. Obscuring mist or fog cloud.” Luna makes a motion to enter, but is quickly stopped by the others. “Let me check it out,” says Six, before rolling his stone sphere into the fog. A couple of seconds after it enters, there is the crunch of it smashing into a stone wall. “Damn!” Six pulls out the ball by its attached rope, to find it cracked. “Only about twenty feet in, I think.”Luna growls her impatience, and Korm says, “Fine – I’ll check it.” He hefts his sword and proceeds into the mist, with a hand on the right wall. Five feet in, he finds an opening to the right. Turning and entering, he emerges suddenly from the mist into a huge room. After a quick look around, he steps back out, follows the wall around through the mist to find that there is no other exit. Re-emerging to join the others, he explains, “There’s a big room to the right. No other exits.”“No little gnome vampire girls, I see,” says Nameless.Korm chuckles. “No. How are you so sure?”“You weren’t screaming and running and pale.”“Can you blame me?” says Korm with a good-natured laugh. “And I wasn’t screaming that time.”The Angels proceed into the room, weapons and spells at the ready, and fan out, studying the various things it contains. The chamber, like all those they have encountered here, has smooth walls and ceiling. Besides the entrance they used, two more are present, one in the same wall and the other opposite it, both near the far side of the room eighty feet away. Set against the center of the far wall is a large stone slab, stained with what seems to be blood and other liquids, on which some instruments stand. A blood trail leads down from it and into the furthermost of the two tunnels. Above the slab, midway up the wall, shines a large yellow crystal, illuminating the chamber in conjunction with a second, larger one set into the center of the ceiling, both resembling those they saw in Yarkuun Draal. Dividing the room into a central section and one to either side are two pairs of long rectangular pools, set end to end in length, each containing a dark, reddish-brown liquid that bubbles constantly. Small streams run from the pools to the walls, to a number of alcoves, two of them occupied by what seem to be bugbears held in a cocoon-like structure of webbing. Though their eyes are closed, the bugbears are the source of the moaning, as are two humans, whose heads protrude from the furthermost of the pools, held there by similar webbing. Nameless scans the room, finding multiple auras in the liquid in the pools, but nothing else. While Six checks on the humans and Korm moves towards the bugbears, Nameless heads towards the crystal on the far wall, but then a large paw stops him. “What’s wrong?” he asks, as Luna growls and shakes her head. The bear gestures irritatedly and then turns to Gareth, indicating that he should read her surface thoughts.Curious, Gareth complies, and then laughs. “Luna says, ‘No touching crystals. Of any kind. Ever!’” He grins at Luna. “Bad memories from the Shard?” Luna nods vigorously and growls at Nameless, as the rest laugh.The merriment is cut off by the sound of multiple, quick footsteps, and the Angels look up as three figures emerge from the two other tunnels. The two that emerge together from the tunnel to the left are clearly trolls, but like the creatures the Angels saw previously, much of their bodies seem to be made of translucent green goo, and patches of similarly colored slime coats their bodies. They do still retain their arms, complete with claws at the end of them, but each also has a thick tentacle, longer than it is tall, growing out of its chest. Each tentacle is also covered in the green slime and lashes back and forth as they advance. Similar slime coats their claws and drips from their snarling mouths.Only Korm recognizes the smaller figure that steps out of the other tunnel. It is Cainan, the druid belonging to the Children of Winter, whom they fought in Carosten Park months ago. Since he had appeared as a huge bat during that battle, only Korm – who fought him, with Cedric’s aid, before he met the Angels – knows his real appearance. But even Korm takes a couple of seconds to realize that it is Cainan, so drastically is he changed. Sections of ooze make up parts of the druid’s naked body, but interspersed among them are patches of clearly diseased skin, covered in scabs and suppurating boils. Worst of all are the thick tumor-like growths, some of them the size of a large fist, which cover the right side of his now almost hairless skull. They extend down Cainan’s neck to his upper chest and back, while a line of them stretches all the way down his right arm, making it almost twice as thick as his left. Luna momentarily regrets her preternaturally fine sight, which lets her see the slow throbbing of the various growths, pulsing with an unnatural, warped life of their own. A couple of the growths on Cainan’s head have burst and partly collapsed, sending thick yellow pus trickling down the side of his head and face, which mixes with mucus dripping from his right nostril, but he seems unaffected by it. Lastly, but to Nameless’ eyes most singular of all, his forehead bears a neat triangle marked by three holes, each of which gleams with green slime within.As the Angels stare at Cainan with a mixture of repugnance, nausea, horror and fascination, he opens his mouth. A thin trickle of the pus works its way into his lips, causing him to spray yellow flecks at the intruders as he snarls, “You’ve interfered one last time. Now your bodies will feed the plague!”</blockquote>

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