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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 1870398" data-attributes="member: 2323">[PLAIN][Realms #291a] The Beast from Beyond[/PLAIN]Feln paused briefly and cast a glance back at the elemental as it reared up, its flickering body momentarily lit by crackling arcs of electricity as Morier drove his sword home. He'd hoped that the thing was finished then, but its fiery limbs kept lashing the air, seeking some opening in his companions' defenses. Grimly, the half-orc turned and headed for the only obvious doorway leading out of the hot chamber. That was his task: to secure their exit.He stuck to the shadows out of habit, and there were plenty to choose from. The light given off by both the firepit and the elemental cast dancing shadows across the vaulted chamber.Karak was bellowing something about his beard getting burned when Feln stepped into the short hallway that separated the chamber of fire from the next. The hallway was only about twenty feet long and half that wide and floored with regularly shaped tiles, although these were a different color than other's he'd noticed, being a pale bluish green. He'd made it about half way when the quality of the air took a decidedly unpleasant turn. The odor was unlike any Feln had ever encountered before, combining the worst olfactory aspects of a stagnant bog, a midden pile and a charnel house in the heat of summer.He grimaced and placed a hand over his mouth and nose. It did little good, but he was able to press on after checking carefully for any sign of a trap. Reaching the end of the hallway, the martial artist found a large room that was the duplicate of the previous two they'd found beneath the druid's unassuming shed. It widened abruptly from the hallway to a final width of about 50 feet. The far end of the room was over 60 feet away, at the extreme limit of the half-orc's darkvision. There he could see some sort of stone structure, like an altar perhaps, and it looked as though it had sustained recent damage. Apart for a ledge that ran around the perimeter (just wide enough for two man to stand side-by-side), the room was filled with a pool of disgusting sludge. Lumps of unidentifiable filth floated in a scummy, iridescent green water that bubbled like a simmering stew emitting noxious fumes.Gagging, Feln took a step forward trying to get a better look at the structure on the far side of the chamber. As soon as he did so, something... indescribable sprang from the water. It was tall, or so it seemed, but it was difficult to apprehend its exact dimensions since they seemed fluid somehow. Not shapeless, exactly, but so complex that the eye could recognize no describable shape. There were writhing tendrils, and oozing puss-filled boils coupled by long dripping ropes of flesh that merged into a bulbous knot from which protruded dozens of glittering, soulless eyes. But then as he watched it moved and everything he thought he'd seen was proven suddenly false as it lashed out with a tentacle that seemed to come at once from both the side and back of the thing and yet somehow also reach at him THROUGH its own chest.He managed to dodge the attack, but he couldn't quite get the unnatural geometries of the thing to leave his brain. Its very being mocked the rules of the physical world, its presence an affront to everything that the martial artist had ever before held as law or fact. It should not be! It could not be! It seethed within his brain like a swarm of lunatic roaches. He pressed his hands violently against his head and released a scream of mad anguish as his fingernails dug into his shaved scalp with enough force to draw blood.----------------------DM's note: Yes, I did paraphrase a bit of HP Lovecraft in there when describing this critter. I could think of no one better to inspire me to describe my beloved Non-Euclidian Plague-Carrying Tendrilicus.</blockquote>

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