Session 162
General Summary
- Theran was temporarily replaced by a figurine that looks like him, which allowed anyone holding it to use some of his abilities. Dazki held onto it.
- Immediately inside the giant dead worm, connected by black strands to nearby tumultuous shards, were more illusions of dwarves and BFI workers. The aim of the mining operation seemed to be to gather unusual red crystals that Dwardazik could not identify.
- Further into the worm, they encountered an illusion of a dwarf who seemed frustrated by the maps drawn by returning miners, finding them all inconsistent.
- An illusion resembling Jahdzan GoldFleece — the dwarf that Manchineel had hesitantly asked them to look out for — was seen twice, lamenting to his bird "Argon".
- The worm had a wound in its side that bypassed "the end", allowing them clean access to an area where they could descend to the caves below, without an elevator.
- Proceeding further into the caves, the party dispatched some undead creatures who looked like dwarven miners, stopping at an unusual translucent feature on the wall that both showed and blocked their path inward. The feature turned out to be something like a wound in the cave, so Dazki used Theran's "Super-RockMorph" ability to heal it, allowing the party to pass through.
Full Recap
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Upon Dazki's request, Theran successfully harvests a vial of Purple Worm Poison and hands it to Dazki.
Seeing no other alternatives but to enter into the giant purple worm, the party heads up the stairs. As soon as Theran does, he immediately disappears in a whirlwind of red sand. Inside the sand, Dwardazik finds a statue that resembles Theran. When he grabs the statue, he immediately understands that whoever holds the statue has access to a limited set of Theran's abilities — and also that Theran will be back in "like 15 minutes". Of course, because of Theran's unorthodox training, the names of his spells and abilities are almost entirely nonstandard, so nobody really understands what to do about most of them. They have some discussion, and Dazki decides to hold it for the time being. They take their first tentative steps into the giant worm.
Down the Hatch
There are ghostly figures — dwarves and lizardfolk — wandering around. The lizardfolk, at least, appear dressed as BFI employees. They seem to be reinforcing spaces, bringing around empty crates, repairing floorboards that seem to be rotting. (Investigation 22) They are illusions, inhabited by the same kind of black thread that they saw earlier. This time, the thread goes across the chamber instead of (further) underground.
Dwardazik checks a minecart, finding small slivers of impure red crystal. (Nature 11) it's not a common gem... whatever it is, it's impure and unrefined.
Further in, Dwardazik sees a side path that leads to some large glowing crystals growing out of the worm itself. These crystals seem to be where all those hairlike strands are coalescing. They take a note of the side path and decide to skip traversing it for now, favoring the main path.
The next room has a makeshift desk with some papers on it. Looking at it, there are two poorly hand-drawn maps. It looks like both are attempts to map the same area, but both are inconsistent with one another. Large areas are scribbled over in ink and moved elsewhere.
Ghosts/illusions from the next room begin to talk. It sounds like a dwarf is poring over logbooks frustratedly, cursing under his breath. Moving into the room, there is a small dwarven ghost — small, even for a dwarf — with a well-kept mustache and no beard. Next to him is a large yellow axe beak that's carrying saddlebags and various musical instruments. (Investigation 17) while the small dwarf ghost doesn't have the same facial hair as the description that they have of Jahdzan GoldFleece, he does seem to bear a family resemblance. Dwardazik tries talking to him, but the tiny ghost doesn't notice. Instead, he laments to his bird.
Ghost: Oh, Argon, I do so very wish that she is still OK. She may never forgive us, but just knowing that she is safe is enough to justify this whole... fraudulent foray! He jots down in his book the phrase "fraudulent foray".(Investigation 22) On the desk, there is a logbook with notes of parts incoming and parts outgoing. Notably, there seem to be a lot of miners who have not returned, their checked-out equipment also being marked as "not returned". They've been moving a lot of crystal through this worm — apparently, there is a large mine, and this worm is indeed the entrance to it. A second dwarf nearby shouts at the smaller one, demanding that he stop whispering to "that bird of yours" and help fix up the logs. (Investigation 19) The crates nearby are filled with strange fungi. Some of it seems aquatic, but there doesn't seem to be any running water. Further in, there's another crystal. Dwardazik puts a finger on it; as he does so, the crystal turns off, and the ghosts/illusions in the other room disappear. Dwardazik instantly regrets it, but he doesn't catch any major flak from Dazki, who prefers to focus on what's going to happen next. Nothing immediately seems to come of it, so they cautiously proceed. The worm seems to continue further, but there also appears to be a large wound in its side that opens up to the exterior. Dwardazik is uncomfortable about how open their position would be if they were to go through the wound, so Marvin scouts the other way. The passage starts to contract heavily, and he jumps back. Clearly, that's (as Dwardazik puts it) "the end", so they try through the wound. The exterior ends abruptly at a wall of crystals. (Nature 6) the crystals don't seem to be based in Turmoil, but Dwardazik also hasn't seen them before. They do glow faintly. Touching one with a finger does nothing. Along the side of the exterior are some racks of standard mining and defensive equipment, well-labeled and in usable condition. There are clear gaps where other equipment could go. They maneuver their way through another wound back into the worm, finding a similar large crane set up at the end of the passage that appears to lead down further. As before, this crane has no platform attached — though this one also lacks any rope. Dazki flies down to scout ahead; it's only about 60 feet down to the bottom, where there's a faint red glow and scraps of the elevator platform. They descend, Dwardazik carrying Marvin down as he uses his whistle (because Theran disappeared along with the Broom of Flying).
Miner Technical Difficulties
The walls are a shade of red, flush with glowing red crystals. As promised, the elevator platform seems to have fallen to its demise. There's a seemingly dead guy by the platform as well.
Dwardazik (Investigation 8) tries to see what he was, but Dazki immediately sees what he's trying and stops him so he can do it himself (Investigation 23). This guy was some sort of caster who has fallen to his death; he was holding a Potion of Climbing, which Dazki gives to Dwardazik.
Dwardazik smashes some crystal off the wall with his mace; as soon as it's off the wall, it stops glowing. He hands it to Marvin, (Investigation 16) who doesn't see anything magical about it at all.
Dazki probes the water leading out from the room they're in. As he does, two ghosts run out of it away from the party.
Ghost 1: Hurry up, lad! The platform is almost down! Then there is the sound of childlike laughter, followed by the sound of something heavy hitting the ground.Dazki suggests checking under the platform, since there were two ghosts and only one body. Dwardazik starts moving planks of the platform away, salvaging some of the rope as he does. There is indeed the splattered remains of a second individual. While most of the body was destroyed, (Investigation 32) it's clear that this was more of a martial type: he was wearing a full set of Dwarven Plate armor, which Dwardazik grabs. It's got the unmistakable markings of the Rubymist clan, but he equips the armor nonetheless after saying a funeral rite for the deceased dwarf. While Dwardazik was equipping the armor, Dazki was working out how to proceed: he would use the Theran figurine to cast Super-WaterSlide to make it easier for them to traverse through the water, opening up passage to the next chamber. Down the hall in there, they see the same small ghost from before — complete with his bird companion. He again mutters to the bird.
Ghost: Do you think she's still poisoned? Gah, I should have grabbed an anti-toxin. If the stories are true, and she has survived the assassination attempt, she's probably still in pain! Oh, Argon! What if we go all this way only to have her dead from a toxic tonic?! ...from... a piercing poison?! A... a blighted blade?! He nods approvingly, writing down "blighted blade" in his book and walking through what now looks like a collapsed part of the cave.Dwardazik inspects the cave-in, (Survival 27) noting that the collapse is not very substantial — most likely, just a structural support collapsed — and so it should be comparatively easy to dig out a spot near the top where they can move through. Dazki reminds them that Theran has a spell, "Super-RockMorph", which should be able to do the trick. Before proceeding, Dazki checks on a skeleton near the mine collapse. (Investigation 22) unlike the bodies elsewhere, this is just a skeleton. Markings on the bones make it seem like it was eaten by something, or perhaps a swarm of "somethings". Dazki then uses the figurine to cast Super-RockMorph, opening the way to the next chamber. The next room has another glowing crystal and a branching path leading further. Dwardazik climbs and looks for people hidden against the walls. (Perception 19) he sees nobody, but he can hear the sounds of pickaxes mining. He touches the crystal, which goes out, but the mining sounds continue. Following down to explore the branching path, Dwardazik and Dazki see someone who looks like a dwarven miner down one of the paths. Dwardazik decides to pose as the person who died in his armor and tries to communicate to the other miner. Getting closer, he sees that there are three of them. The miners just keep mining. Dwardazik rolls a piece of gravel towards them; it does hit its boot. The 'miners' are actually hostile... and undead. A small worm crawls out of one of their eyes and plops to the ground.
Combat Summary
- The 'miners' would get back up on their turn after being defeated, unless they were "double-tapped".
- Dazki takes full advantage of the Theran figurine that he's charged with, casting "Shooty Blam-Blam" with the pushback effect to give Dwardazik more space and then going into Sagittarius Form to make huge hits when empowered by his sneak attack.
- The 'miners' favored taking off their 'fingers' and throwing them at people. The 'fingers' were actually worms.
- Dwardazik blocked the passageway so that the 'miners' had to deal with him to get through.
- Dazki jumped up on top of a high ledge and used the height advantage to make it easier to hit his gunshots — and to make it harder for the 'miners' to hit him.
- Marvin used a Synaptic Static spell to frustrate their efforts and then brought out Bigby's Hand to help with the double-tapping, which made the rest of the fight practically trivial.
