The Age of Worms - Morrus' Campaign - Finished 6th August!!

[Darmanicus]

Oh, and Maynard has 'slow fall'.

Does that mean that a few hundred pounds of calamari lands on Maynard.......ouch?

 

[Tamlyn]

Please sir, may I have some more?

 

[Eccles]

As Igmut, Flynne and I clung to the ladder, the rushing red waters beneath us showed no sign of abating. After waiting for a while, Igmut shouted over the sound of the rushing waters that he had seen a waterfall at the end of the tunnel. Swiftly, he tied a rope around his waist and dived in, clutching a scroll tube we had given him with swift (if simple) instructions.

After a while, the rope went limp, and Flynne and I hauled in the scroll tube; it was empty. This was our agreed signal that there was nothing there, and so I smirked at Flynne and simply let go of the ladder.

The red water was bitterly cold and extremely salty. I lost my bearings in an instant as I tumbled through the blood-like water before bursting into the open where I began to fall.

My plan was simple, and I began trying to speak the words of an easy spell which would let me fall. However, with the darkness and the sudden falling, I found myself tumbling madly through the darkness. I tried to draw breath, but instead inhaled a lungful of the red water.

Choking, I crashed onto a stone shelf, landing atop Maynard. Cracking open another sunrod, I could see Flynne climbing out of the torrential waterflow on a rope. He untied himself and scrambled down to join us on our ledge before Maynard began to climb down further into the crevasse, banging in a series of pitons as he went.

Igmut, muttering about his foresight at obtaining a Cloak of Spider-climbing, followed Maynard down the rough wall, where we could dimly see a blood-red lake on a ledge, ringed with tiny white spiders.

As Igmut moved past Maynard, he was struck with a sudden shower of crossbow bolts as 6 floating figures suddenly appeared from the darkness around him and fired with pinpoint accuracy. I could see few of the details, but heard his bellow of pain and the sudden movement as he and Maynard began to scramble back up the cliff-wall towards us. As they climbed, they were followed by a group of 6 ghostly wind-warriors. They fired a volley of shots which slammed into Maynard.

“Peace,” shouted Endo in the auran language, but it had no effect whatsoever beyond a response of “You shall not pass”.

Flynne then began to fire down at the armoured-flying figures whilst I cast a spell of sound manipulation, remembering that they had in the past clanged their swords together to create some kind of sonic assault. Endo fired his crossbow, and as Maynard and Igmut climbed towards us, the wind-warriors faded away into the darkness.

.oOo.

Bereft of any immediate threat, we discussed our options. After a while, it was decided that I would cast a spell of invisibility on Endo, and Igmut would give him the ability to walk on air so that the wizard could explore the cavern.

After a few moments, he returned to our ledge, cast a number of spells in the darkness, and then left again.

He returned after 3 or 4 minutes, at which point he explained that there were a series of cracks 847 feet below “and about 28 feet to the left”, and then 100 feet beneath these fissures in the cavern wall, the wind warriors were hovering in the air simply waiting for us.

I cast a more powerful spell, transporting all of us except Endo down to these fissures in an instant, and he rejoined us. (The powers of my spell being insufficient to carry all of us). Once there, we prepared for the upcoming combat. Several of the others drank potions of flight, and I turned several of them invisible before hasting them.

I remained in the crevice above the fight, assisting my friends with the use of a wand of Magic Missiles, whilst lightning crackled brightly in the darkness below me. Bowshots were fired, shuriken flew through the air and Igmut stabbed deeply with his longspear – two of the six wind warriors disappeared before they even knew we were upon them.

As Endo wreathed one of the survivors with his ripping and tearing spirits, the air-warriors brought their swords to bear and clanged them together. Two of them fired waves of sound at Igmut, but the other two looked deeply surprised when their swords crashed together with the sound of bells – my spell had taken effect and ruined much of the power of their attack.

A third of the flying elementals faded at the point of Igmut’s spear and he pulled his sword from its scabbard and turned to face the other three which charged towards him. They had barely reached him before Flynne shot one of them to pieces. Maynard and Igmut pounded and hacked the two to shreds, and they simply faded away.

.oOo.

I was given a lift down the side of the cliff by the still-flying Maynard, and we descended through a pink mist besides a vast volume of thundering red waters at the bottom of the crevasse.

We settled on a ridge to one side of a vast cavern whose ceiling was lined with flickering crystals. To one end of the cavern we could see a green glow at the edge of the vast red lake. Flynne crept off towards the light, and when he returned with the news of a single figure holding a lantern, we all approached.

As we got close, the tall pale figure looked up.

“You’re all wet.” Reaching around to where a large pack lay on the floor nearby, he pulled a large white fluffy item from it.

“Towel?”
“You Moretto?”
“Ah,” the figure replied to Igmut’s question. “You have heard of me?”
“Yeah. The big hairy spiders want their symbol back.”

As a small black bat fluttered onto Moretto’s shoulder and he began to feed it from a mixed bag of insects and fungus pieces, the ghoul looked up at us and gave us a dilemma.

“If you help me reach the sky, I’ll give you the symbol.”

We looked at one another with some trepidation, as the tall flawless-faced ghoul told us of his past; that he had been exiled from the White Kingdom of the ghouls, deep in the underdark. He had found a series of prophecies in the deepest darkness which mentioned ‘Dragotha’, an undead dragon who was to rise and bring on “a time of writhing decay.”

The rulers of the White Kingdom were uninterested, and had apparently branded Moretto a heretic and expelled him from his position as the ‘Marquis of Ravenstone’.

After a long discussion, we eventually agreed that we could work together to uncover the secrets of the Seal of Law. After a while, I cast a spell of discovering secrets upon the cavern, learning that I should look “Above the cascade and bear the seal”.

.oOo.

Having climbed back up the cavern and held the Seal of Law just above every large cascade en route, we eventually reached a ledge just above the largest of the waterfalls where a large portal began to glow with a light matching that which sprang up around the Seal of Law.

We pushed open this magically appearing portal, and stepped into a roughly finished stone chamber with a massive 50 foot tall set of metallic doors on the far side. Flynne pulled out his set of lock-picking tools and set out towards the door but stopped suddenly some 20 feet away; apparently fighting some magical power which took effect on him even despite the properties of the Champion’s Belt which he was wearing.

As the rest of us drew closer to the doors, we registered two things – firstly that the doors were covered in a series of runes in aquan. There was a large symbol which was instantly recognisable as Icosiel’s personal glyph, together with a series of curses against Chaos, and the words “dare not enter the tomb of Icosiel, wandering duke of the waters and bearer of the Rod of Law”.

Secondly, Igmut was also unable to approach the door, although Moretto had no such restriction.

“Aqua, Icosiel, Pesh,” came Moretto’s ringing voice from beside us and the two large doors swung silently open.

.oOo.

Within, there was a large chamber whose floor dropped abruptly away from us towards a cracking light-blue cloudlike substance. The sounds of wind and lightning crackled around the room.

Rising from this there were a series of pillars, each slightly taller than another, though the third in line seemed to reach to the ceiling. One beyond that seemed to have a tar-like substance, whilst another rotated gently in space. Each of the pillars was 5-10 feet apart.

Maynard tossed a pebble down, and it fell – we heard nothing to indicate that it might hit anything. The monk passed Igmut one end of a rope, then took a few paces back and leapt lightly onto the first of the columns. Nothing happened, and so he leapt to the second, and then the third. His outstretched arms looked to grab onto the sides of this exceptionally tall pillar, but he simply vanished into the centre of the column – it was an illusion.

A few seconds later, we could see Maynard jumping out of the column and onto the next, which was rotating but seemed to cause the nimble monk no difficulties whatsoever.

The next pillar was the one covered in tar, and Maynard tested this by tossing a coin onto it; the small piece of brass glided neatly over the pillar and then slid straight over it into the miasma below. Not put off in the slightest, Maynard leapt the 9 feet onto the pillar, slid a short distance and fell.

He twisted in the air and snatched the column, climbing back up onto the tarry surface and looked around. He seemed to be faced with a choice – there was a lighter coloured pillar in front of him, and a slightly thicker pillar off to his left. The monk chose, and leapt the ten foot gap to the light coloured pillar, which crumbled to dust in an instant. Maynard fell swiftly, and the rope in Igmut’s hands snapped taught. The monk swung gracefully through the air, inscribing a neat parabola at the end of the long rope before he slammed with a bone-shaking crunch into the wall beneath us, only a few short feet above the crackling blue substance.

We hauled him up, dusted him off, and turned him back towards the pillars.

 

[godfear]

Ossum.

You guys playing tonight?

 

[Morrus]

Ossum.

You guys playing tonight?

Indeed we are.

 

[godfear]

Update?

 

[Eccles]

We stood at the lip of the deep room staring at the seven pillars; after a few seconds we were slightly surprised by Flynne pushing Maynard to one side and announcing “Right! My turn to have a go!”

He leapt nimbly up across the pillars, diving onto the first, then the second. He ignored the illusion and landed neatly on the centre of the third pillar, bouncing onwards to the rotating fourth. Not phased by this, he leapt onwards to the dark grease-covered pillar where he was not phased in the slightest by the slippery surface.

He paused at this stage and looked around. To his left there was a larger pillar, whilst ahead of him was a gap where one of the pillars had crumbled beneath Maynard. Flynne flexed his muscles and then simply leapt the long distance to the ledge at the end of the chamber. He fell slightly short, but easily stretched out and grabbed the ledge.

Almost immediately, there was a sudden burst of lightning around the walls and a tremendous gale whipped up out of nowhere. He twisted to avoid the bolt of lightning but released his grip on the stone. The tremendous winds blew him in a mad tumble of limbs. He was hurled through the air and slammed solidly into one of the pillars, which he grabbed by reflex.

As the wind died down, he climbed up onto the largest of the pillars, which he looked at briefly and shouted out to us.

“Here,” he called. “There’s a gap in this one. Looks like it ought to fit the Seal of Law. Bung it over!”

At Maynard’s request, Moretto passed over the Seal, and the monk leapt from pillar to pillar planning to join Flynne. However, as the nimble monk reached the greased pillar and simply slid straight off it. Gripping the rope, he inscribed a perfect parabola through the air and slammed heavily into the wall some 40 feet beneath our feet. Lightning slammed into his chest to devastating effect, and we hauled madly on the ropes to pull him in before the wind could grow too strong.

After a period of healing, Maynard leapt across the pillars once again, grimly clutching his safety rope once again. He simply bypassed the slippery pillar and jumped over to the largest pillar where he slotted the Seal of Law into the hole. There was a sudden grinding noise and the large pillar started to rotate and rise into the air.

As Flynne leapt away onto the ledge, Maynard scrabbled at the Seal, and hauled it out of the pillar which suddenly stopped its ascent, and began to glide back down again.

Curious, I looked up at the ceiling above Maynard, and realised that the stone directly over his head was entirely illusionary. I was explaining this to Endo and Igmut whilst Flynne, on the other side of the chamber, banged on the iron-clad doorway.

“It’s fake,” he announced to the rest of us.

Endo began to ask whether anyone had a potion of flight he could borrow, before realising that he could walk on air. The rest of us were still deeply concerned that we would not be able to leap across the many pillars, so Flynne started to weave a series of ropes together trying to make a simple bridge of some kind.

For his part, Igmut stomped back to the cavern and found a rock with a small spider on it. He cast a spell of light upon the rock, and then began to read to the spider from ‘Kord’s Bumper-Fun Book of Strength’.

Across the chamber, Flynne’s heath-robinson rope-bridge finally held after three attempts and three plunges into the cavern where he was saved only by his quick reflexes.

Bored, Endo had started discussing legends with Moretto, the ghoul was looking extremely frustrated and irritated. Igmut was still working through some of the longer words in his scripture whilst an impromptu rope-knitting circle had broken out between Flynne and Maynard.

After some time of this, Flynne leapt back to join the rest of us and began to hammer pitons into the wall. Jumping back to the first ledge, he mis-judged it, but was able to climb back up. The crudely-woven bridge settled like a cap across the closest pillar. Although the rope-bridge appeared to hold, we all pulled back to the edge of the crevasse whilst Endo decided to short-cut the whole arrangement.

Relying on the powers of Igmut’s wind-walking spell, and a second spell to protect him from electricity, he stepped into the air between the pillars and hung there for a second. Grinning broadly, he turned to face the rest of us.

“You see,” he crowed. “There’s nothing - URK!”

Abruptly, the entire room was entirely filled with blasts of lightning, and winds tore across the room hurling him away from us. His rope, somehow severed cleanly, flew after him, whilst from the mist at the base of the pillars hurtled two massive air elementals, one of which smashed into the mage and sent him spinning, whilst the second simply enveloped him in the form of a huge tornado and dragged him downwards through the mists and lightning at tremendous speed.

With an abrupt flash of light, a severely injured Endo materialised behind us, and we all backed cautiously out of the room. When we returned after a spell of rest, the two elementals had gone. As we had rested, Flynne had comprehensively re-knitted his rope bridge and managed to test it between a couple of boulders outside the room. The ‘bridge’ was almost a solid lump of knotted rope.

.oOo.

Upon our return to the chamber, we decided not to use the rope bridge, and Endo cast a spell of dimension door to transport us all. The black portal opened simultaneously in front of us and on the pillar, and as Igmut stepped into it, he appeared to be grabbed by a series of spectral arms and thrown through the black door onto the pillar. We each followed, and stood shoulder to shoulder on the narrow chunk of stone as Maynard placed the seal into place.

The pillar lurched as it started to rise, and Endo yelled in surprise as he fell off. I cast a spell to slow his fall, and Flynne hurled a line towards the slowly falling wizard, but the rope went wide. As Endo sank slowly into the fog and faded from sight we could see lightning rolling in the fog. With another flash, Endo stood with us once more, covered in flash-marks and stinking of smoke and ozone. We rose gently through the illusory ceiling and Flynne wailed in fear as we passed close to the ‘stone’.

I’m not sure whether he was joking or not.

.oOo.

We found ourselves in a modestly sized but very tall room lit by a series of rainbow coloured lanterns. In the centre of the room a stone sarcophagus floated some 10 feet off the ground. The walls were carved with the intricate pattern of a funeral procession, with the figures all heading towards a golden doorway at one end of the room.

Abruptly, before we could take our bearings properly, three lines of grey energy lashed out from the darkness at the far end of the room. Endo, Igmut and Moretto were all struck causing my two friends to shake as their life-energies were sapped from them. Moretto simply grinned in apparent pleasure.

With the attack complete, our attacker was revealed to us as is spell of invisibility faded. Standing 8 feet tall and winged, the powerfully-built and nimble demonic figure clutched a dark sword tightly. The figure was covered head to foot with eyeballs which were set into its skin blinking in ripples at us. Eyeballs set into its feet were heard to squelch and pop as it stepped out to face us.

.oOo.

Going first as always, Flynne fired a volley of arrows, all of which went wide as the creature moved almost faster than we could follow. Endo cast a spell of blinding at the beast, but it simply laughed off the spell, saying “your puny mortal magics will not affect me.”

Igmut stepped forwards and took cover near the sarcophagus. The creature cast a spell of its own, and suddenly split into 8 identical creatures blasting more of the grey bolts at Flynne and myself. We both shivered at the effects of the bolts, which made me feel instantly cold and bilious, although not sick enough to stop me singing an enthusing chant to my colleagues.

Maynard dashed forwards and struck the beast once, and at that point Moretto acted. He chanted the words to a powerful attacking spell, and then turned and flung a line of lightning at Endo and I. He cackled and drew his greatsword, but his laughter was shortlived as Flynne turned and fired a salvo of arrows into his corpse-like chest.

Endo dashed away towards Igmut, but a few feet from him he stiffened and froze. Igmut simply turned and cast a spell which allowed the mage to move freely again at which point yet more of the grey beams slammed into the others before swinging his baleful longsword repeatedly at Maynard instantly slashing three deep injuries into his torso.

I stepped away from the traitorous ghoul and cast a spell of hastening, whilst Maynard produced and flung a series of shuriken at the 8 identical demons. Incredibly only one of the images was shattered, but three of the throwing stars bounced off the armoured demon’s tough hide.

Moretto produced and triggered a wand striking Igmut with a still darker ray of negative energy draining him horribly of his life energies. Flynne responded for us by pinning the ghoul to the wall with a series of arrows.

Freed from the demon’s paralysis, Endo cast a spell on Igmut, and he was transformed in an instant into a massive saggy-breasted rotten-fleshed annis hag, and he strode towards the demon swinging his now huge sword through one of the images.

Three dark rays struck Igmut, then he was also struck with three sword blows and a slash from the beast’s claws. The sword blows simply clanged off his heavy armour, and the claws scraped down his side.

I sang again, enthusing Igmut and Maynard, who flung another handful of shuriken into the many remaining demons, scraping the real one and destroying two more images. Flynne’s three arrows only managed to shatter one of the few images, as well as scrape another light injury to the thing’s shoulder.

Igmut’s massive sword smashed an image, then wounded the beast. Another sword blow destroyed the last image, and then carved a further injury into it, but the spell from the half-orc’s magic blade had no effect on the magic resistant creature.

Not magic immune, however, as Endo’s spell crashed through whatever protections it had and drained it of strength and power. The beast responded by striking three eye rays into Igmut, draining away the resistance I had just given him with my song. However, the three sword-strokes and claw-swipe clattered off his heavy armour.

My spell to turn Flynne invisible had no appreciable effect, but whilst Maynard slammed several solid blows into the demon, Flynne’s arrows didn’t have any serious effect.

Igmut’s heavy greatsword, however, raised and fell repeatedly into the demon cleaving into the beast’s heart. It slumped to the ground and burst into a thousand grey lines of negativity striking us all and weakening each of us.

The beast, however, was slain, and we made certain that Moretto was as well by beheading him.

.oOo.

Noting a space in the side of the sarcophagus, Maynard inserted the Seal of Law once more, and the huge stone block lowered gently to the ground and the solid lid simply faded away to nothingness revealing ashes and dust. I could feel a strange humming from where the Rod of Control lay concealed in my sleeve – the short rod was positively vibrating with power and potency; it had been activated by something within the sarcophagus.

“I am Icosiel,” came a voice. We whirled to see the figure of a 7 foot tall bald figure holding a greatsword. The figure was made of dust and light over where the ‘oculus demon’ had died.

“Do not fear,” continued the voice. The prophecies foretold your coming. You must defeat Kyuss and save the world. You have my blessing as I send you on your way.”

With a gesture, the figure directed our attention back into the casket, where we could see several items; a length of a broken staff, a sword and a ring.

The figure gestured again, and the room faded from our sight. We found ourselves standing on the edge of Diamond Lake, next to the still-damp corpse of the black dragon we had slain only three days before.

.oOo.

Walking back to the town, we spoke to Allustan who seemed utterly exasperated. He seemed completely out of his depth. He suggested that we speak to his mentor, Manzorian the archmage of Mage Point, perhaps a thousand miles to the north. He cast a spell to send a message to his mentor before warning us of the powers of the Rod Maynard was carrying – it was a seventh, perhaps the greatest part, of the Rod of Seven Parts. The next largest piece was held by Viskianix the pit fiend, who would no doubt be interested in acquiring the remainder…

 

[Eccles]

Update?

There ya go. Just took a while to type up...

 

[Darmanicus]

There ya go. Just took a while to type up...

Good session and finally a load of good loot.

I think when we finally distributed it Flynne, (as per usual), got most of the decent stuff Maynard ended up with Icosiels sword which has some funky powers and I ended up with the part of the rod. Oh, I got the second part of a series of necromantic books which are quite funky, (splat book split into 3 sections for gaming purposes......1-3, 4-6 & 7-9 lv spells game wise. There's only a few spells in there that are any good for a non-evil character however it's a one of a kind thing so who cares).

And just when we thought we were safe after all that at the end of the session..........

 

[Darmanicus]

7 hours til @ss kickin time