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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6601483" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 95: FISHING EXPEDITIONPC Roster:  Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord             Feron Dru, half-elf druid             Galrich Slayer, half-orc barbarian             Telgrane, half-fire elemental human conjurer/archmage             Thunderwolf, human fighterNPC Roster: Aerik Battershield, dwarven fighter/dwarven defenderThe six heroes sat across the conference table from Brother Altamaic in the Church Library of Boccob, eager to hear what he had to say.  "In accordance with the hinted-at sequence with which the items should be collected," he began, "I believe we're ready to send you to seek the Elemental Water Halo.  However, there is one concern: the plane shift spell will send you to the Elemental Plane of Water – and specifically in the vicinity of the Elemental Water Halo, if it is in fact on that plane – but I'm concerned about the effects being submerged will have upon the Elemental Fire Disc, which is already bonded to the Elemental Earth Stone.  I would hate for the Elemental Fire Disc to be extinguished by complete submersion in water, so I've found what seems to be a possible solution.  Tell me, are you familiar with the spell Otiluke’s telekinetic sphere?"The Boccobian cleric explained his plan.  He handed over a scroll containing the Otiluke's telekinetic sphere spell to Telgrane, who began studying it at once.  The archmage would read, activate, and concentrate upon that spell while Cal would cast the plane shift spell, focused through the two Elemental Items already gathered, shunting the heroes to the Elemental Plane of Water.  In theory, the sphere would keep the Elemental Earth Stone and Elemental Fire Disc dry, long enough for the adventurers to stash them into extradimensional storage.  Feron would then cast an attune form upon them all, so they would be able to breathe the water when they exited the sphere or Telgrane dismissed his spell.  As usual, Altamaic would not be accompanying the heroes on their mission."Seems like a plan," commented Cal, eager to go.  "Is everybody ready?"Everybody was.  In sequence, the three spellcasters intoned the appropriate arcane or divine words and within moments the Church library of Boccob had disappeared, to be replaced by an endless expanse of water.  The group, which had centered around Telgrane so they'd all be inside the telekinetic sphere when he activated it, looked in all directions."Anybody see anything?" asked Cal."Nothing but water.  Lots of it," replied Galrich.At nine feet tall, Infernia towered over the others.  Nonetheless, she started whimpering in fear at the very thought of being surrounded by an infinite amount of water on all sides."I'm about to release the sphere," warned Telgrane, seeing that Feron had stashed the two Elemental Items into her handy haversack.  "Infernia?  Are you going to be okay?""I...I will do my best to be brave, Master," Infernia responded in a fearful voice.  Anticipating that their next mission would take them to the Elemental Plane of Water, Telgrane had fitted out his familiar with a necklace of adaptation, much like the one Cal wore.  It would provide the fire elemental with a constant bubble of air all around her flaming body, such that she need not fear even the slightest touch of actual water from the plane, which in her case would be likely to be instantly fatal.  But knowing she was safe was much different than actually facing all of that water....Telgrane dispelled the sphere, and water raced in to fill what had been a bubble of air.  Infernia shrieked but stood her ground; Telgrane smiled up at his familiar to reassure her that everything was all right.  Cautiously opening her eyes, she was pleased to see that once more, her Master had been absolutely correct.  Surrounded by water in all directions, Infernia was still as dry as ever."So now what?" asked Aerik.  "I don't see no Water Halo.  I don't see much o' anything.""No, wait -- look!" said Feron, pointing off in the distance.  "There's something there."Indeed there was, and it was getting closer.  Starting off as little more than a speck, it increased in apparent size as it got closer and closer to the heroes, until it took on a somewhat familiar form.  The coloration was wrong - although the ambient light of the plane seemed to make everything look like a shade of green or blue - but as the undulating form got closer, it looked very much like a purple worm.  Only this one dwarfed the purple worms the group had met up with thus far, easily double the size of the standard such creature.  It swam much in the manner of an eel, writhing back and forth in an undulating fashion.  But its mouth was big enough to swallow any four of the adventurers in one gulp, and its enormous teeth looked capable of chomping a hero in twain with one bite.Feron wildshaped in a Huge water elemental as it neared, thinking to take on the one form unarguably adept at combat in this watery realm.  Aerik and Infernia maneuvered in front of Galrich and Telgrane, respectively, although it took a moment to master moving around in the aquatic realm, for it wasn't exactly like swimming - you didn't sink if you stopped moving, for one thing.  But the worm had been far enough away upon being sighted that the group was able to experiment a bit and position themselves to best effect before it reached them.Then, before it got within snapping range, Cal cast a blade barrier directly in front of the mottled worm.  The ponderous beast didn't even try to evade the spell effect, plowing directly into it and having chunks of flesh strewn in all directions.  But still it came on, and the group dove to either side to avoid its massive head.Feron began the words of a call lightning storm spell, then remembered her location and thought better of it.  Instead, she summoned a giant octopus to grab at the worm's head, and when that proved to be fairly ineffectual, followed it up with another summoning spell that brought forth an elder water elemental which proved to be capable of inflicting much more damage upon the vermiform beast.  Feron then followed the water elemental's lead, and they pummeled both sides of the worm with fists of churning water.Galrich and Thunderwolf had likewise moved to either side of the worm and each began peppering its head with arrows from a short distance, all the while the blade barrier spell continued chopping up worm flesh and flinging it aside.  It was Aerik who first noticed that the worm wasn't the only thing that had approached the group upon their arrival on the plane.Directly following the mottled worm's course was an unusual vehicle.  Its was primary constructed from the shell of a truly enormous horseshoe crab - or some elemental equivalent - measuring well over 100 feet from front to back, not including the 75-foot tail trailing behind it.  But the fact that this was no living thing was obvious from the twin bars jutting out to each side of its front, just ahead of and below each eye-hole, and the two gigantic eels tethered to these bars.  The dire eels undulated through the water, pulling the crab-construct between them.  Part of the crab's front shell had been removed and replaced with some sort of transparent material, forming a "window" of sorts through which could be seen a blue, bald, humanoid figure sitting on an elaborate throne within.This was Sharndishal, the marid responsible for the construction of the unusual vessel.  He snapped orders to his crew, two dozen or so anguillians; the two Eel-Masters up front with him barked instructions to their respective charges and the dire eels maintained position, bringing the vessel's movement to a halt.  In the rear of the craft, the rest of the anguillian crew unbolted the hatch on the bottom of the vessel and started disembarking from the submersible.  Wicked spears in hand, they began bridging the gap between their forces and their mottled worm prey.On the other side of the worm, Aerik had informed the rest of the group - who up until now had been focused on the dying worm - and they brought their attention to the force of advancing eel-men.  "Gather around me!" called out Telgrane, backing further away from the worm.  The group did so, Galrich getting in a final blow with his vorpal greataxe, recently upgraded to include the elemental bane weapon property, as he backed away towards the rest of the group.  While waiting for the others to approach, Telgrane dropped down underneath the dying worm (still stupidly getting chopped to pieces by Cal's blade barrier) so he could get a good look at the approaching anguillian force.  Then he cast a sunburst spell that encompassed the entire group of eel-men.  Such was the raw power of his spell that each and every member of the anguillian strike force - as well as the two dire eels attached to the submersible - were instantly blinded.  Unable to see, several of the eel-men dropped their spears and clawed at their no-longer-working eyes.  Others bravely attempted to continue their forward assault, but they frequently bumped into each other and tumbled into a tangle of limbs.  Feron summoned an elder water elemental to their side, and instructed it to assume vortex form, sweeping the assembled eel-men into the swirling tides and away from the battle.Inside the control cabin, Sharndishal swore and ordered the vessel to be swung around to bring the craft's tail into play.  Then, as it started turning in place to the right, he used a dimension door to appear directly before these interlopers to his aquatic realm.However, in the same moment he appeared before the heroes, Telgrane cast a spell of his own: coincidentally, a dimension door that took the assembled heroes directly into the control cabin that Sharndishal had just abandoned!  The marid swore furiously at this turn of events.Appearing inside the vessel's control room, the heroes saw only two anguillians there to confront them.  These were the Eel-Masters, each assigned to command one of the two dire eels that gave the vessel its means of propulsion.  Thunderwolf shot arrows at the one at the right, while Infernia unloosed the daily-replenished energy from her major circlet of blasting at the other.  The anguillians raced to attack these interlopers with their claws and lamprey-like mouths.  The one Thunderwolf had shot had his revenge, clamping its wicked mouth down upon the young fighter's neck just above his armor, but Feron managed to quickly pull it off of her friend, her massive, watery arms crushing it in tight against her liquid body and holding it helpless in her grasp.  Galrich and Aerik raced over with their axes raised, and Feron flung the eel-man at them; he didn't long survive their chopping blades.  The other was cut down by the power of Cal's enchanted hammer.When Sharndishal dimension doored back into his command chair, he saw an image of total carnage.  By this point, the only anguillian remaining was the one at the very rear of the vessel, manning the whipping tail as a weapon.  (The blind dire eels had by this point managed to turn the vessel around so the ship's tail could be brought to bear against where the heroes had been, but of course they were no longer there.)  In the short span of time it took the marid to apprise himself of the hopelessness of his situation, he was shot three times with arrows by Thunderwolf and had been blasted by a spell cast by Cal.  He raised his hands, starting to offer to grant the group a wish if they'd spare his life.Unfortunately, Sharndishal chose to speak in his native tongue, Aquan.  Aerik didn't speak Aquan.  By the time those of the group who did had translated it for the dwarven bodyguard, his battleaxe had separated the marid's head from his shoulders."Oh.  Bummer," was all he had to say after the fact.What followed was a frantic search for the Elemental Water Halo.  Exploring every nook and cranny of the vessel turned up the anguillian's treasure (mostly consisting of oversized pearls) and the sole remaining anguillian (who was quickly slain), but nothing else."You don't think it's inside the worm, do you?" asked Feron.  The worm was dead by this point, but still hovering in place due to the weird gravity - or lack of it - on the plane.  Not really relishing wading through the slain mottled worm's innards, Feron and Telgrane each summoned a small swarm of water elementals to do the job for them - with no luck."So it's not here after all?" griped Galrich."It would appear not," reasoned Telgrane.  "The plane shift spell was to have sent us close to the Elemental Water Halo if it was present here on this plane.  You saw where we popped in - there was absolutely nothing remotely near us but that worm, and the crab-ship directly behind it.  I'd say this whole expedition was a bust.""Can we go home now, then, Master?" begged Infernia.  "I do not like it here."That seemed like a good idea to all involved.  Dripping wet (all but Infernia, at least), the group returned to the Material Plane, binked back to Guild Headquarters, then trudged off to their individual rooms.  On the way, Galrich asked, "So now what?  How are we going to find the Water Halo if it isn't on the plane where it's supposed to be?""I'm not sure," admitted Telgrane.  "We'll have to ask Brother Altamaic in the morning if he has any ideas.  Otherwise, there are an infinite number of planes out there -- it'll take us forever to try them all out, one by one." - - - I messed up with this adventure, big-time, in a way that irritated me to no end.  Looking for a new creature for the high-powered group to fight, I came up with the idea for a ridiculously-advanced mottled worm.  In the past, when the group has fought purple worms (and greater flame snakes) I had used a series of ovals of construction paper with small notches at the shorter ends, which enabled me to connect them into a "string" forming the worm's (or snake's) body.  Then I added a similarly-sized head and tail section and I was all set with a "bendable" flat mini I could maneuver around the game map.This time, I had done something similar but so much cooler.  I had found a close-up black-and-white photo of a purple worm miniature on-line, which I saved, blew up to a full sheet of paper, and cut out.  As the mini was just the creature's head and about twice that much length of body popping up out of the ground, I copied the image and, in Paint, "erased" its head, leaving a section of body with overlapping scales.  I copied and pasted this "body section" image several times, scaling it down in size after awhile, and in this fashion made a lengthy vermiform body that tapered to be much thinner as it got to the tail.  Like my "oval segments" bodies, this mottled worn was able to be repositioned around the game map depending upon which way its body was bent.To go with it, I created two dire eels from green construction paper to go with the massive horseshoe crab "vessel" I had built on the back of a sheet of desk calendar paper.  (It was so large I had to glue on its "tail" from a similarly-sized sheet of paper as well as the two dire eel rods that stuck out from the front.)And then, because we had scheduled an extra-long gaming session in which we were going to finish up "Disc o' Inferno," run through "Betrayal," and then finish up with "Fishing Expedition" (the last two designed to be short adventures), I accidentally left the manila envelope in which my dire eels and mottled worm pieces were stored at home.  So we had to use the 3" x 3" and 2" x 2" colored tiles we use as "tokens" to show the sizes of summoned creatures that we don't have appropriate minis for to represent where the mottled worm's body was.  I also lined up dice to show where the dire eels were, but since they were attached to the sides of the vessel they were easier for the players to visualize.But still, I was ticked with myself for having left my eels and worm behind!  I brought them with me during our next gaming session, just to show the other players how they had turned out.  The adventure session would have been so much cooler if I'd have had those with me.Now I guess I'll just have to find a way to include an advanced mottled worm into our next campaign.</blockquote>

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