From a position of relative safety astride an illusionary horse some 200 feet above the sea of grotesque worms, I cast a spell of discovery, learning that we were suspended above “a sea of worms that is as great in size as the very depths of Kyuss’ black soul”.
“That can’t be good,” announced Flynne. The rest of us nodded despondently.
.oOo.
Agreeing as a group to explore elsewhere, we hurtled up a thousand feet and searched around in some of the empty portal spaces and behind some of the tremendous statues, before Flynne called out, “Ahah!”
We dashed over to see him sweeping dark dust off yet another of the terrible crawling worm-doors, which Fez rapidly tore open.
Beyond lay a warm, carpeted chamber lined with padded chairs and a vast shelf of oversized slab-like books. Crumbs littered the desk, which was flanked by two more of the crawling and insidious worm-doors.
We battered through the left-hand worm-door, and then a second at the end of a 10 foot corridor, into a domed stone-lined chamber lined with crawling worms. A series of tall windows was on the far wall, whilst in front of them was a single hole in the floor above which was suspended a large cylindrical cage. Leading out of the large room was a massive set of double doors and, on the other side of the chamber, another normal sized door.
Looking through the huge window, we could see a green glow emanating from a large pit in a room which lay beyond; a vast room which seemed to wrap around the room we were standing in. The hole in the floor, meanwhile, seemed to drop some 500 feet into yet another green glowing area.
Drawing straws, we turned to the larger set of doors, and Fez hacked a decent sized hole through it. On the other side, as the door re-formed behind us, we found ourselves in a hallway – the walls and floor shimmered with a green light whilst ahead we could see a door off to the left, and beyond a set of stairs led down and to the right.
We spent a little while inspecting the stairwell and landing, and eventually Flynne set off a short way ahead of the rest of us. As he went, we noticed that he had begun to scratch at his neck, then shrieked and dashed back to us. As he ran back down the corridor we could see that somehow he was now covered in worms.
Just like that, the illusion was broken, and we could see that the corridor ahead was littered with worms which fell in a constant rain from the ceiling. The tiny creatures fell to the floor where they simply merged into the solid blocks underfoot.
Nervously, we backed away until our backs were almost against the vast writhing double worm-doors, at which point, still glancing over our shoulders, we hacked our way back through them and back into the large room, and then carried on through the single door on the far side.
This led into a curving passage which wound tightly into a smaller domed cavern which held a 5 foot wide hole in the ceiling, with a strangely constant draft of air pushing up through this gap. Flynne stepped forwards, and rose slowly up into the shaft and out of sight.
A moment later, he plummeted back down again muttering something about “the eyes”, and shudderingly refused to talk any more about his experiences any further.
We retreated. Again.
.oOo.
Having picked our way all the way back to the carpeted study, we slashed through the other door leading out of that room. This found us in a silk-lined bedroom, the vast bed littered with dozens of pillows. Flynne became fascinated with a section of the wood-panelled wall behind the bed, which eventually he managed to tease aside to lead into a small niche in which lay a halfling sized coffin. On a small shelf set into the way were 4 items; a pair of earrings, an anklet, a ring and a necklace.
Flynne listened carefully at the coffin, and then shook his head. Fez produced his sunblade and swung it over his head producing a tremendous blazing light as Flynne pulled open the coffin lid.
It was empty.
Flynne swept the few items into a bag as we left the niche and headed back to the room with the tall windows overlooking the much larger chamber.
Fez made short work of the glass, and we leapt through into the chamber beyond. It was truly immense – the roof was an easy 70 feet above us, and the floor was a series of immense shelves. A stone pillar rose through the centre of the room, which seemed to be the setting for the hole in the floor in the room above us. At the base of the pillar was a tremendous pile of treasure, lit by the green glow from a large pit to one side.
Standing a short distance away from the treasure, Janga activated a ring, and a magical rod rose from the heap of riches.
Instantly, a 40 foot long wormlike behemoth burst from the but, born aloft by 4 wings and with a stretching neck topped by a spiked and horned dragon-like head.
Bob started firing, but Flynne hesitated and looked at me; I sang and cast a spell before leaping away from the pit, which enthused Flynne to fire all the more quickly as Fez dashed forwards. The vast beast bit him, and Fez brushed worms off his troll-hide. As he struck the creature, it vomited forth a vast number of biting worms, which covered us and tore into our flesh; striking Fez and Janga with the majority of them and they both yelled as they were positively covered in the tiny green monstrosities.
A spell came from the beast, which simply bounced off his layered magical protections, and then Janga cast a healing spell of his own, and worms fell from us all in droves, killed instantly with his magic.
Bob started firing once again, and his tiny enchanted arrows blasted into the creature, and Flynne’s arrows slammed home alongside them. I produced a magical staff and blasted at the monster with lightning, which cracked off its hide to no effect whatsoever. Fez’s axe slashes were far more lethal, however, leaving huge rents in the beast’s flank. The creature responded with a phenomenally cold burst of acid, which every single one of us leapt aside from and avoided. The beast then roared, and two massive coiled frost-worms erupted from the floor, breathing at Flynne who was caught between them, only ten feet from me. He tried to leap aside, but was caught in the frost from one of the towering creatures, icing over one side of his body.
Janga yelled out the words of a spell, and both the frost worms and Flynne were caught; Flynne sheltered between their vast coils, but the two massive worms shrieked in pain.
Bob continued to hail shots from his small bow onto the dragon-thing, and I backed away, calling forth a fireball from the Staff of the Magi I was carrying. The two massive worms shrieked once again, and turned abruptly to ice and exploded, sending shards of ice in all directions, which scythed across several of us.
Fez and Flynne continued to hack and fire away at the draconic monster, which responded by blasting away several of Fez’s enchantments and spells with a form of anti-magic, and then a second spell failed to affect him.
Janga called on a ring of slashing blades, which encircled the monster, and as I sung another enthusing anthem, Flynne shot another hideously accurate salvo and Fez hacked downwards. The creature was suffering from prodigious injuries by this point, we could see several of its still-pulsating organs through the massive holes in its flesh. And yet, somehow, it still stood and continued to assault us.
This time, it used yet another magical power, draining away Fez’s life energies with a black draining magic, and he wailed in pain and loss. The beast followed this up with a blast of cold and acid straight up at the barbarian, who was still shaking from the energy drain. The beast’s powerful breath seared into him, and he was hurt badly, and drained so much that he was clearly unable to dodge the creature’s further attacks.
The beast moved, standing amidst the lashing blades and was completely unaffected by them.
Thinking quickly, Janga teleported in a flash to join Fez and cast a spell to ward him from further death effects, and I tried to assist by singing another song to wreathe him with protective enhancements. He was confident enough to hack down again, rather more shakily than before, but the assault was bolstered by Bob and Flynne’s accurate shooting – but all it seemed to do was crash into the beast. It had taken such hideous injuries that it should have fallen, but was still hacking down at us.
The monstrosity then took to the air and flew straight at Flynne, whislt blasting another dispelling magic at Fez – only the barbarian’s flight spell failed, and he began to float downwards towards the pit the beast had come from.
Janga healed Fez’s injuries as he began to sink, but then turned on a hunch to use his telekinesis ring to pull a couple of items from the massive pile of treasure.
The massive beast bellowed in anger, suddenly looking somehow concerned at this tactic, and I leapt to join in; triggering another power of the Staff of the Magi I hauled a strange egg-shaped object from the massive pile, and the beast’s head whipped around to track it.
“I think it wants this,” I bellowed to the others. Within a heartbeat, a huge axe, four arrows and a thrown light mace had all thudded into the still-levitating egg, behind me the beast wailed and crashed to the ground, dead in an instant.
