Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 403087" data-attributes="member: 143">Broc: I'm not going to spend too much time on the keyed areas, if only because dungeon crawls take forever to write up (sometimes a whole update only takes us through one room!).  But we will see some familiar sites over the next few posts (with some of the contents changed, of course), before the travels of the companions take them into the unkeyed regions on the edges of the megamap. Undermountain is pretty massive, though; you could easily spend an entire adventuring career (1st-20th level) on just the first level if the DM completely filled in the map with content.   I have the "package" for Horacio ready to send, but I have 3 posts to get through first.  So I'll probably post two today, and one tomorrow morning, and then it's over to him as I jet away for two weeks in Hawaii!* * * * * Book VI, Part 15“Your cousin seems to have had an instinct for Big Trouble,” Benzan said, as they gathered at the entrance to the long hallway.“It runs in our family,” Pel commented.  Cal looked at him, but the druid’s attention was fixed straight ahead, on the long tunnel that stretched out into darkness.“All right,” Cal said.  “Keep your gaze fixed straight ahead, and don’t look to either side.  Pel, can you handle Fenrus?” “Aye,” the druid said.  He undid his cloak, and draped it over the wolf’s face, shielding his eyes.  Fenrus growled, but Pel patted his fur, whispering something reassuring, and the wolf gave in.    “Should I do the same for you?” Cal said to Benzan. “Not necessary.  I’ve had enough Big Trouble for a lifetime, thank you very much.”They moved out, cautiously, into the long hallway.  They’d only gone a few steps when their light sources flared back into being.  At least they were through the antimagic area.  The light blazed off the mirrors set into alcoves along the length of the long passageway, but the companions did not waver from their course.“Why doesn’t someone just break them?” Benzan asked.  “Some have tried,” Cal said.  “Broken things have a way of finding themselves fixed, in Undermountain.”And then they were through, the alcoves with their mirrors falling away behind them, the corridor continuing to a fork just ahead.  Pel uncovered Fenrus’s face, and the wolf led them down the left passage.  They walked down the corridor, their sound of their footfalls muted on the massive flagstones that made up the floor.  The passages around them seemed to go on forever, and it was easy to feel a sense of smallness here, surrounded by the huge expanse of Halaster’s creation.“Just how big is this place, anyway?” Benzan asked. “Let’s just say that the entire population of Waterdeep could fit down here, and not feel crowded,” Cal replied. Benzan let out a low whistle.  They passed a small side chamber that concealed nothing, to they pressed on to another fork in the passage, with a side corridor branching off to their left.  Fenrus sniffed at both passages, and hesitated a moment before leading them to the side.  “I hope he knows where he’s going,” Benzan said, clutching his bow tightly, one of Alera’s ice arrows nocked but not drawn.  The corridor bent around to the left a bit and continued for another thirty feet or so before ending in a pair of stone doors.  As they approached, and the light fell over the portals, they could see that one of the doors was ajar, braced open by a small slab of uneven stone lying on the floor.“What’s that smell?” Cal said, sniffing the air.“I don’t smell anything,” Benzan said.  But he trusted his friend’s sensitive nose, and drew his arrow back enough to put tension on the string.Fenrus growled, a low, angry sound. A chittering noise because audible from beyond the open door, a scrabble of movement that persisted for a few seconds and then faded.“Don’t like this,” Benzan whispered, just loud enough for the others to hear. Pelanther cast a spell, and his skin darkened and took on a coarse texture, roughening until it obtained the consistency of tough bark.  Cal held his own magic at the ready, but did not release its power.  He held the wand of acid bolts, though, trained at the narrow gap in the doorway.“All right, let’s go—carefully,” he said to his fellows.Slowly they approached the doors, almost silent in their movements.  Soon even Benzan could smell what Cal had detected, a musty odor reminiscent of a wet forest.  They were ten feet away from the door when the chittering sound started up again.A squirming, twisting form darted through the opening, crawling over the stone block into the corridor.  It was a centipede, nearly as long as Fenrus, its dun-colored body emblazoned with several colorful streaks in blue and orange that gave it an almost festive appearance, for a carnivorous vermin.  Its antennae twitched, and it darted rapidly toward them. Benzan’s arrow transfixed it, driving through whatever passed for a brain in such a creature, and a moment later Fenrus was on it, tearing it to pieces in an eyeblink.  “Well now, that wasn’t so terrible,” Pelanther commented. The chittering sound from beyond the door started up again.  If the earlier noise had been a whisper, this was a loud bustle, building in intensity.  “Oh, crap...” Benzan said.  His words were immediately followed by an explosion of twisting, color-streaked bodies that seethed in a mass out of the crack, piling over each other in a squirming heap that poured into the corridor like water coursing from an overturned pitcher.</blockquote>

Verification