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Bastard Son of the great-grandchild of the sister's gibbon's friend of the nephew of the Campaign that Would Not Die, now in 3.75e
Møøse Trained By: Hugh Foster
Møøse Trained By: Hugh Foster
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Bastard Son of the great-grandchild of the sister's gibbon's friend of the nephew of the Campaign that Would Not Die, now in 3.75e Møøse Trained By: Hugh Foster |
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Changing their minds, the Tanks turned around and headed back to the laboratory area, returning to the door in the NE side-room. This opened into a short corridor, with another door at the end which opened into a large hall.
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48. Nodules of luminescent fungus hung from the ceiling and walls, and grew in clumps upon the flagged floor. The vaguely nauseous light illuminated portions of grand bas-relief carvings on the stone walls that were not covered with the self-same fungus. The carvings all consisted of dragons in various stages of raining fire down upon terrified humans, elves, dwarves, and other peoples. Soil and compost covered half of the chamber's floor, which allowed a variety of wan grasses to grow. A bench containing simple gardening implements stood along the west wall.
There was no sign of any occupant, so the party moved carefully across the room, checking for traps and unpleasant surprises, and finding the thick compost quite easy to walk on with minimal noise. After a little debate, they headed for the north door, noticing as they did fresh prints of different sizes in the mould all heading the same way. Ruby squared up to the door and heaved it open.
The room on the far side was basically the same shape as the one behind them - except for the lack of the western alcove - but radically different in contents. A makeshift barricade of broken wood, bits of rubble and earth had been heaped up to close off the northern third of the room. A row of ten skeletons clutching rusty swords was strung across the room roughly in the middle; and bugbears and goblins could be made out lurking behind the barricade.
All the inhabitants appeared to be ready and waiting, but Ruby's sharp reversal and turn out of the doorway caught most of them by surprise. Only one managed to snap his crossbow up and get a shot off - but the bolt sank deep into Ruby's shoulder as she ducked into cover. A couple of seconds of hurried words later, Calvis and Erky dived through the door, breaking left and right and bringing up their respective holy symbols to confound the undead first wave. Once again, their faith proved strong; four of the skeletons simply exploded where they stood, while most of the rest turned and made off north towards the barricade.
Borax had stepped in behind them, howling an ululating scream more commonly used by Duergar women fighting a duel to the death, which he had always found deeply intimidating. As the skeletons broke, he charged up the hall to where the last one was standing in dumb obedience ready to fight, and smashed it to bits with his flail.
This had its' effect as one of the bugbears dropped his crossbow, spun and fled through the door behind him. The remaining three were hopelessly tangled up in the fleeing skeletons as they scrambled over the barricade, and reacted with anger, attacking them instead of letting them get past. Behind, one of the goblins grabbed a fallen crossbow and shot a skeleton off the barricade, just in time for Ruby to come up and finish it as it lay prone.
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Borax ran at the barricade to the far right, scrambling up opposite a goblin rather than a bugbear, and mowed it down as he dropped into the space beyond. One of Meepo's arrows hurtled overhead as he did so, followed by crossbow bolts from Calvis and Erky. Looking over, he saw that Meepo's arrow had actually killed his goblin target. Turning to the bugbear nearest him, he got stuck in. Elsewhere, the fight was not going as well, with Ruby being parried by the bugbears and Calvis and Erky being reminded that crossbow bolts had very little effect on skeletons. Discarding them, they moved up, collecting Meepo on the way.
Ruby was bleeding pretty freely by now, covered in both her own and her bugbear opponent's blood, as Calvis switched to the crude goblin club he had been carrying and started bashing skeletons. To the side, Erky caved a skeletal skull in, and Meepo snapped a sizzling Magic Missile into Ruby's opponent. This seemed to distract it, and she carved its throat open. Stopping and panting for breath, she groaned "Owwww..."
The bugbears, when looked at closely, were dressed not in armour, but in gardeners' leathers. Each had a small leather bottle of some kind of earthy-smelling fluid and several pieces of fungus, some of them with pieces bitten off. The creatures themselves were considerably more muscular than normal, and the hypertropy was uneven with odd bulges and lesions, and signs of tears where the muscles had grown unevenly.
Checking the side doors from the two galleries, they found three octagonal rooms, with mild variances on the growing plants and fungi. Many of them, like the grass, shouldn't have survived underground at all; clearly the druid knew his stuff. One was different; the plants were scorched and there were more of the foot-wide melted holes in the walls.
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49d. Following the last bugbear through the north door, they found him huddled against the far wall of a room filled with growths. Luminescent mists blurred the edges of this octagonal chamber. Nodules of glowing fungus dotted both the stone walls and ceiling, as well as the caps of toadstools and mushrooms, small polyps, puffballs, lichens, and less identifiable growths. The humid air reeked with rot.
Borax levelled a dark finger at the goblinoid and barked "Drop your weapon and on your knees if you want to live!" He evidently looked pretty threatening, because the bugbear did just that, and the party walked up to him.
He was even more distended than the corpses they had examined, and it struck the dwarf that this creature was at least as much afraid of what was happening to him as he was of them. He seemed resignedly willing to answer questions.
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The pair looked at each other. The bugbear looked miserable, and his form was distorting more and more as his uneven mutation continued; they weren't sure if he would survive much longer anyway, and they didn't feel inclined to kill him in cold blood. "Run," said Ruby, "for a day before you stop." The goblinoid glanced between them, then set off without another word.
Wounded and out of spells, they pinned the SW door and returned to a safe place before resting.
The description of the rift as never visited was intriguing, and the party headed back there the next day. Taking the first turning off it, they tramped down a dusty corridor. It doglegged twice, and the floor was thick with undisturbed dust; it seemed no-one had been here since the Citadel fell. At the end was a door, which opened into a square, dark room.
At this point, Ruby decanted the wyrmling Calcryx from his bag and gripped his muzzle. "Let's make a deal," she said. "You work with us, fight for us when you can, and we can talk about freedom, and some treasure maybe." The dragon muttered in his peculiar accent. Meepo walked past, and Calcryx perked up. "Can I kill him?" he asked. "No," said Ruby, "but if he dies, you can eat him. If you don't agree, you go back into his tender care afterwards." Grudgingly, the baby dragon agreed. He was happy enough to ride on her shoulder, though suggested he not do so in battle.
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46. Faded mosaic tiles still covered the floor and parts of the wall, but most had fallen and shattered. Situated at the center of the chamber stood a slim pedestal of rusted iron shaped like an upright dragon. In the dragon's mouth was gripped an empty brass tray. The floor was covered in as much dust as the approaching corridor.
Cautiously, as usual, they entered the room, checking for traps and treasure. As Calvis walked carefully up the southern wall, he stopped suddenly as the metal coils of the statue seemed to shift with a ringing rustle. Eyeing the tray, Ruby made a guess, and flicked a silver coin onto the tray. The head animated, and the tongue flicked out and brushed the coin. A moment later, it flicked it at the door and the head settled back into immobility.
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She tried gold, then copper with the same results. Looking at the others, she shrugged. "We haven't any platinum or electrum, have we?" she asked. Heads were shaken. Shrugging, the party carried on exploring - and the statue sudddenly fully animated and hurled itself at Calvis.
Ruby yelled "Stop!" at it, worth a try, but of no effect, and poised to hit it when it arrived. Borax slashed at it with his flail, but it writhed out of the way. Meepo cast a Magic Missile and whimpered in dismay as the bolt of magical energy evaporated just short of its' target. Magic resistance! Ruby slashed with her sword, and made a small nick in the side of the thing, far less than she should have. It clearly had damage resistance as well. The party's hearts sank.
Borax landed a heavy blow and cursed as most of it was wasted. Aware of being outclassed, Calvis backed up, pausing to cast Magic Weapon on Ruby's greatsword. As he did so Meepo managed to get a Ray of Frost through, barely harming it but doing more than his Missile. The construct's metal teeth skated across Ruby's armour, raising sparks but not penetrating. She swapped to her greatsword, hefted it, and cut a great slice across the belly of the metal dragon. Sudden coloured glints were reflected in the light of the Everburning Candle - there were jewels inside! On the other side of it, Borax had already dropped his flail and pulled the Survival Knife; with a snarl he backhanded it into the hole Ruby had made. The construct convulsed, throwing itself away from them to thrash on the floor and suddenly freeze into immobility.
Sure enough, there was a goodly haul of gemstones inside its body. It appeared it had been a temple 'poor box' with the very best in security.
Returning to the Arboretum, they discovered that the lone bugbear was still gone, and that the spike Borax had put in the door was gone. Rather nervously, then, they opened it and advanced down a short passage and into the room beyond.
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50. Dragon-carved granite blocks tiled this chamber's walls and ceiling, though many were crumbled and broken, creating stony debris on the floor. A huge marble statue of a rearing dragon still stood in the curve of the western wall. Its eye sockets of the dragon were empty, but a red glow lingered there, providing reddish light throughout the chamber. The effulgence cast an inky shadow behind the statue's wide wings. A crumbling 5-foot-diameter circular redstone tile, carved with runes along its' inner edge, was inset in the floor in front of the rearing dragon carving.
Meepo and Calcryx were staring at the statue in naked fear. Ruby, too had recognized the likeness it was carved into, a terror from the ancient myths. "It's ... it's him," muttered Calcyx, terrified. "The Dark Beast! Varkar himself."
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"Stop that," said Ruby firmly, "It's only a statue." This didn't seem to reassure the kobold and the wyrmling, so Ruby walked towards the statue, while Borax went to guard the left-hand door in the north wall. As they approached the redstone roundel, each saw a movement around the dragon's wings. For a horrible moment, they wondered if it was evoking the spirit of the greatest monster of all; but then two translucent, humanoid figures floated through the statue and towards the party. Shadows!
Confidence high after the skeleton explosions, Calvis and Erky stepped forward and presented their symbols. Faint, whispery chuckles emanated from the drifting undead, and neither paused for a moment. Calvis backed hastily away. Ruby stood her ground to let them come to her, and Calcryx slipped off her shoulder. For a moment she thought the wyrmling was abandoning them, but as he hit the ground he blasted an admittedly modest cone of freezing cold over both the shadows. Part of the edges of them crackled as it froze and dropped away, and he made a pleased sound.
Meepo volleyed a Magic Missile at Hank, and this tore a hole through the undead wisps. Borax, rather taken aback, attacked the door he was standing at, smashing it to absolute splinters. Fortunately, on the other side was a ruined library rather than, say, three more shadows, so he turned encouraged to pitch into the fight. The shadow was pretty much upon them, and he struck out and cursed as his weapon passed straight through without making contact. Mabel drifted over to Ruby and she experienced the same disappointment as her non-magical weapon failed to score. It attacked Meepo, who dropped flat and squirmed away, well aware of his inadequacy in melee against this sort of foe.
Now behind Ruby, Calvis cast a Magic Weapon on her sword, while Erky threw up a Bless to at least improve the chances of a strike. Ruby unleashed a deadly, curling blow which still passed right through the shadow, and glanced accusingly at the two clerics who both shrugged. Calcryx huffed cold at Hank once more, without quite the same effect, and backed off to allow his internal systems to build up another charge. Meepo was still back-pedalling as Borax flailed again, glancing urgently at Calvis who started circling round towards him. On arrival, he dropped a second Magic Weapon on the dwarf's flail and backed off, also cast out for the day.
Erky, hefting the magical mace, stepped in and failed to land a strike, but Ruby, putting more into force than accuracy, managed to get home on Hank and carved him right down the middle. The shadow dissolved into darkly glittering shimmers and was gone. On the other side, Meepo's last Magic Missile ripped through Mabel as Borax delivered a crushing blow, scattering it and ending the fight.
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Session Date:2nd March 2026 |
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