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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eccles" data-source="post: 4073870" data-attributes="member: 5675">We swept towering piles of gold, platinum, jewellery and gemstones into the Portable Hole we had captured from the liche, whilst fishing interesting looking objects from the drifts of treasure. Flynne made sure to pick up anything looking remotely like bow, arrow or quiver, whilst Fez leapt onto an enormous jagged-looking axe. Janga and I took pieces of armour, and I idly picked up any useful-looking item to go into a more accessible bag rather than the time-consuming deeps of the Hole.As we swept treasure into the hole, there was a muffled yell of alarm. We paused, and from the darkness of the hole came more shouts for help. “Lower a rope!”We did, and to our alarm learned that Bob had fallen into the hole and had been living in there on his few trail rations and a couple of loose Elixirs of Truth for the better part of a week. We dragged him out and carried on cherry-picking enchanted items from the vast array of treasure.One of these items was a small cube of adamantine, which I scrutinised before triggering, tossing it into an open area where the vast spills of treasure had previously laid. It erupted, unfolding upwards and outwards to form a solid tower easily 20 feet in height. Grinning, I pulled an enchanted lyre from over my shoulder and played for a while, the powers of the magical instrument gently dismantled the huge stones of the towering ziggurat, moving the stones to form solid walls which ringed around us, protecting us all the more from whatever else might be waiting to assault us in this temple devoted to Kyuss. .oOo.The next morning, refreshed and prepared, we ate a hearty magical breakfast summoned by Janga, and set out, dismantling the adamantine fortress as we did so. As we left, Janga cast another powerful spell to try to lead us to the way out, but with a flash of magic, Kyuss’ powers shattered his spell.We picked our way back up to the vastly deep shaft. It was 20 feet wide, and we could see the ceiling a short distance above us, but couldn’t see the ground beneath. Fez lit a torch and dropped it. It stayed exactly where it was. As I cast a spell which changed him into the lumbering form of a troll, he stepped out next to the still-burning torch, and jumped up and down on apparently solid air. After a few moments, he squinted with concentration, and began to gently sink away. We hastened to follow suit, willing ourselves to drop gently into the inky blackness.We dropped gently as the shaft widened past hundreds of alcoves in the walls, filled with the desiccated remains of worm-riddled creatures. We sank further, having travelled at least 1000 feet straight down. The shaft carried on down and continued to widen, and the alcoves grew larger – some of these began to be empty, and as we continued to drop then almost all of them were. We kept sinking, and eventually we began to glimpse a green glow far beneath us, which became more prominent as we closed on it. Dropping 500 more feet, we reached the bottom of the vast shaft, which emerged into a positively tremendous cavern, so wide that I couldn’t see any edge of it. The ‘ground’, some 50 feet beneath my feet, was a truly vast ocean of writhing worms, billions upon billions of them, which writhed over one another, small, large, and then truly tremendous – some worms reached fifty or sixty feet in length, which swam like leviathans amongst their smaller brethren idly swallowing them like basking whales.We hung in the air over this sea of despair and decay, and prepared as best we could. I cast spells of freedom on my comrades, and Fez (looking like a green-skinned vast version of Endo due to a Hat of Disguise he was wearing), dropped into the cavernous chamber. He explored for a few moments, and then returned shaking his head.“Couldn’t see a way out,” he explained. “Too far to the edge. Also, one of those big worms kinda tried to eat me. It was real big…”I was a bit concerned how an illusion-covered troll-formed resized barbarian halfling could pale and look quite so nervous at the writhing ocean beneath us. .oOo.I spent a few minutes casting more spells, calling several enchanted horses into existence which we could ride at tremendous speed. We took off and hurtled over the worm-sea. The ceiling sloped gently downwards, and as we ate up the distance we found ourselves being pushed down towards the surface. Some of the larger worms started to move to watch us, trying vaguely to keep up with our massive speed. As we dropped a little closer, they began to writhe up and snap at us. We had travelled perhaps three quarters of a mile in less than a minute, and one particularly vast specimen leapt out of the worm-sea and its vast teeth snapped within inches of our spiritual horses. Without saying a word, we all wheeled around and hurtled back to the entrance, and rode upwards to the massive empty alcoves.“Maybe we’ll look for another way out,” I said, voicing what we were all thinking.</blockquote>

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