[Realms #293] The Thing in the Pool
The night passed uneventfully under Great Root's watchful care, and everyone was thankful to have such a protector guarding them. The night was cool but not overly cold and they set up camp outside Tarawyn's shack, leaving the door open. The heat that wafted up the secret shaft from the firepit below was more than adequate to keep them warm throughout the evening despite their lack of a campfire (something that the treant expressly forbade). They discussed the next morning's battle plans in detail and Ledare paced back and forth trying without much success to construct a coherent solution from the many disparate mysteries that they had uncovered. At last she spat a curse in Gobbledy and sat down with a frustrated clatter.
"I'm going to sleep!" she growled and began to strip off her armor.
As if they had all been waiting for the Janissary's permission, the others began their own preparations for sleep. Before another half-hour had passed, they had all sunk into a peaceful slumber. All save Grisham who stayed awake out of habit, quietly tending his gear and listening to the sounds of titanic spiders moving in the trees. Sometime later, with the full silvery brilliance of Celune shining down through the canopy of leaves above, the barbarian settled into sleep, imagining the distant song of wolves rising up into night.
Starday, the 8th of Reaping, 1269 AE
Ixin awoke knowing that something was different. Ever since leaving the fire elemental's chamber, she had felt warm, as if she had retained some portion of the outsider's heat within herself. And now, upon waking, she knew that the exposure had triggered further growth of her draconic nature; she felt stronger, hardier, her draconis fundamentum fairly thrumming with power within her. And there were other more visible changes as well. Her wings had grown although they were still not large enough to bare her aloft. Her armored scales and claws were more pronounced and her teeth were clearly sharper.She was one step closer to apotheosis and it felt good!*
Karak's rousing speech jerked her out of her reverie.
"We be needin' to gather our strength and our wits and go in to face this beastie with a sound battle plan as we talk about last night," the dwarf urged as he assembled the many pieces of his plate mail and began the arduous process of donning it. "I do believe we be facing the last of the elementals in the plane of water. Now maybe it be a transmogrified one, or maybe it's able to cast spells to create the vision Feln has saw. I dunno, but I will think to what Malak would do for maybe there be divine guidance that can help us here."
"I've all the guidance I need right here," Grisham said as he went through one of the complex weapon drills he'd been taught at the Cat's Claw Dueling Pride.
Karak cast a skeptical eye on the human and harrumphed disapprovingly.
They assembled in the hallway outside the chamber wherein Feln had seen the reprehensible thing that was their intended opponent. Vade lined up Feln, Ixin, and Morier as recipients for his
Barkskin scroll. Unfortunately, he flubbed the spell three times, and the scroll crumbled to dust before he had a chance to cast it on anyone but himself. He had similar luck when trying to use his scroll of
Bull's Strength on Karak, Ledare, and Morier; only the dwarf received any benefit before the scroll turned to dust in the halfling's hands.
"Uh..," Vade muttered, feeling a trifle deflated. "Sorry, guys."
"I'm sure these bracers you gave me will help protect me," Feln comforted, showing off the magical guards. "I don't need anything further."
"I guess I'm just not very good at primping," the halfling sighed.
"You mean 'buff'," Ixin corrected and Vade's face split into a grin.
He giggled and looked at Karak, adding "Buff? I don't want to picture Karak running around in the buff! Hee hee."
"Ba!" Karak spat. "Buff be nae a dwarven word!"
Vade shrugged. "It sounds pretty good in Common," he said earning another scowl from Karak.
The dwarf raised his axe to his shoulder and clapped the Janissary on the back. "Ledare, lass, when you put your back into the fighting, along with the albino here we three mete out some damage. Why that elemental can nae stand up to the three of us. When we add the tracker to the mix we be nigh unstoppable!"
Grisham, who had been muttering some words to Roofdrak, the Wolf Spirit, and fingering his necklace of teeth, looked up at the dwarf's inspiring words. He felt ready for anything.
"Now let's kick some elemental arse!" the dwarf roared and they surged into the putrid chamber beyond. It was as Feln had described it, but they only had a moment to take it all in before the jellified thing formed out of the pool filling the center of the room. At once, its hallucinatory aura sought to overwhelm everyone's senses, but they had been forewarned by Feln's previous experience and they all averted their eyes before they could get more than a horrifying glimpse of the creature's insane form.
Only Feln, who had spent a good portion of the previous night meditating on what he had seen of the thing was able to stare with impunity into its stupefying swirl of limbs and eyes. He gritted his teeth and tumbled forward in an attempt to flank the creature. It failed as the gigantic thing's head (if that's what the deformed appendage was) seemed to slide sideways into the martial artist. With a wet slurping sound, Feln vanished into the creature's gullet.
"Noo!!!" Vade screamed as his friend disappeared.
The disordered monster turned - or didn't (it was impossible to make sense of its alien shape) - and then its mouth had snapped shut over the halfling and he too was gone. Morier, who was busily casting
True Strike, saw Vade get swallowed and then a tendril slammed into him. It closed around his arm with appalling strength, but the eldritch warrior somehow managed to both retain his spell and slip free of its grasp.
Grisham was able to avoid the tentacle that swept his way altogether and he roared as he allowed the rage to take him. He hurled a handaxe as he ran, and another was in his hand by the time he had closed with the thing. The initial throw was borne of instinct more than careful aim, and it went harmlessly wide of whatever mark he had intended.
Ixin sent two
Magic Missiles into the amorphous thing, while Karak implored Shaharizod to guide his axe.
Ledare was waiting for no such guidance. She charged forward and slashed Ravager across the confusing riot of dripping limbs and appendages. The blade seemed to pass through only air, but she felt a savage, wet tugging and a squeal of pain smote the chamber as the sword struck home.
The sound was followed a moment later by the wail of a falling halfling as he tumbled free of the horror's mouth. His
Ring of Freedom of Movement made him an impossible target to hold onto for any length of time. He landed with a splash in the pool beside the repulsive creature.
Morier stepped up then and sent three feet of his greatsword and the most powerful jolt of electricity that he could muster into the nonsensical mass of the thing's body. The thing let loose with another shriek of pain and then it folded itself impossibly and came plummeting down at Morier from above. The albino side-stepped the attack. Its tentacles sought Ledare, and although she turned one aside with her shield, a second wrapped around her left leg. Before she could do much more than cry out in alarm, she had been unceremoniously tossed into a toothsome maw.
Now it was her turn to fill the chamber with screams of pain although they mingled dreadfully with the creature's own cries as Grisham's gleaming longsword chewed twice into its side - or bottom, or flank, or... something.
Ixin hit it again with a pair of
Magic Missiles an instant before Karak delivered a massive blow from his waraxe that sent iridescent ichor splattering in all directions. But still it came at them.
Vade splashed around and waved his arms trying to distract the thing from devouring Ledare, but even as Morier attacked and missed the tentacled mass the halfling glimpsed the Janissary's flailing boots withdrawn into the thing's mouth. An eyeblink later, Morier had somehow joined her as a dislocated mouth half-formed around him and swallowed his pale body in one gulp.
Grisham roared and slashed with his longsword, opening what might have been a wound in the creature, but it was quickly lost in the chaotic swirl of flickering limbs. Ixin followed that with another pair of
Magic Missiles while Karak continued to hew through whatever quivering mess reared up too near his waraxe. The creature refused to go down, but it's pain was great enough that Morier was able to force his way free of the thing's acidic gullet. He fell through the air, limbs flailing against gravity, and plummeted into the water where he lay face down and unmoving.
Vade activated the
Ring of Invisibility and disappeared except for the water that he displaced. He moved to help the eldritch warrior, producing his last potion of
Cure Light Wounds as he went.
Presented with only three obvious targets, the repulsive thing gave one attack to each, favoring with its bite, the dwarf and his big axe. With a roar of outrage, Karak vanished into the monster's belly. Ixin's armor turned aside the tendril that strove for her and Grisham dodged away from the limb that lashed his way, following it up with two vicious blows from his weapons of choice - longsword and handaxe. Both blades slashed deeply, sending a tremor of pain through the monster's heaving bulk. It swayed for a moment before toppling into a pile of maggoty flesh.
There was a heartbeat of relieved silence as Ixin and Grisham stared at one another across the lumpy mass of the thing and then the drakeling's eyes widened and they both dashed forward toward the creature's asymmetrical maw. While Vade poured his healing draught down Morier's mouth, Grisham and Ixin heaved together to open the monster's.
Morier sputtered and opened his eyes in time to see the creature's body convulse with renewed life. Both Grisham and Ixin jerked away from the reanimate thing and then its jaws clamped down on the mage and swallowed her whole.
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*Ixin took another Racial Level, putting her one step away from half-dragon.
