Session 12

General Summary

We take a short rest, doing some healing. I recover my spent spells with my arcane knowledge. We hear a mechanical hum as we rest. It increases in intensity as the light from the adjacent room intensify, which we can see by looking out the windows in our current room. At one point we hear a very loud laugh that cuts off suddenly. It comes from an undetermined location deeper in the manor. Norric looks through the keyhole in the door to the next room but can’t see anything. Some of us hear something moving in the ceiling. Thomyr informs the group.
Norric attempts to unlock the door and finds resistance. He removes the key and tries to look through the keyhole again. He sees something come toward him and then jumps back, bumping into Tronus. A clawed tendril protrudes from the keyhole and then retracts.
Tronus tries the key on the door again, kicking in the door in the process. The door opens partially and then bounces closed again. He shoulders his way into the room, disappearing into the darkness.
I cast a Light spell on a copper piece and throw it into the darkened room. My light is swallowed by the gloom.
Maar changes his form into that of a giant spider, and is able to sense a small bipedal shape with an octopus head is on Tronus’s back. He tries to attack the creature but fails.
Tronus slams his back against the wall. The creature whimpers in a child’s voice “mommy.” He stumbles around in the dark, and feels tendrils claw at the back of his head. The voice again speaks, saying “mommy save me.” Tronus feels lips touch his lips, and then a proboscis forces its way down his throat. He begins to have memories of a mother playing with her child in this manor. In another memory the little girl gives him a flower in front of a hut. He feels the love and emotions of this woman from the past.
Travius gives me one end of a rope and heads into the darkness to try and find Tronus. However, Maar finds him on the floor with the creature attached to his face, its arms around his head and its legs splayed to either side. Maar, as a giant spider, drags Tronus out of the room, brushing against Travius in the process.
Maar drags Tronus into our room, and we see a small child with a tentacle mass on its back attached to his face. The tentacle mass is wrapped around his head, and the girl is kissing him. The child has only eye sockets where she once had eyes.
Travius casts Magic Missile on the child creature. Norric stabs it with his dagger. The child creature detaches and turns to look at Norric. It says “Mommy, they’re hurting me.”
Crysta, the young catatonic girl that Dominique is minding, screams with all her might at the creature’s words.
The creature lashes out at Norric with its tentacles, but he disengages, and it switches its target to Travius. Its attack is futile.
Thomyr casts a magical radiance upon its creature and it wails. Dominique attacks with an eldritch blast and misses.
I shoot it with Magic Missile, and it wails again. Crysta screams even louder. The creature’s attention moves to her.
Maar bites the child monster with his mandibles, poisoning it. It moans.
Travius finally stabs the monster to death. Its proboscis protrudes, and it whispers “mommy I love you”, and then it dissolves into mucus on top of Tronus. Only peasant clothing remains.
Crysta returns to her catatonic state. Tronus is unconscious but smiling. Thomyr tries to heal him with his medicinal lore and succeeds in awakening him.
Maar, still as a giant spider, enters the darkness tethered to my rope. He finds two doors in the room. They are both locked. Norric unlocks and opens the south one and then retreats.
Maar finds a hallway and returns to his natural elven form. Norric unlocks the other door in the darkened room and peeks through. A small study with a bookshelf is there, and Dominique finds a book on the history of the Shield Lands, which she takes. Norric explores the room beyond and finds a dining room, with skeletons seated at the table. Thomyr’s medicinal lore reveals that these people ended their own lives. They are nobles of the Shield Lands based on their livery.
Travius notes that he still hears the mechanical humming.
Out the window, Dominique sees a Grell tapping on the glass with its beak.
They join me in the hall near the staircase, where there are several more doors. At the end of the hall, on the north wall, is a door that may lead to the room from whence the purple light emanates.
Dominique sends her familiar up the staircase to explore the upstairs. Something attacks the owl from the ceiling. It is a mass of tentacles. It misses Snowfall the owl, who flees back down the stairs. Before retreating, she was able to spot another flight of stairs that continues up. The tentacled creature attacked from the landing.
We try to open the door to the light room, but Norric’s key doesn’t work. He feels a throbbing through the door as he successfully picks the lock. He tries to back away but feels like he can’t. It feels like his ear has melded with the door. It’s like he and the door are connected somehow, and as he tries to pull away skin is attached to the door.
As I try to determine what is adhering Norric to the door, a grell floats up behind me.
Dominique notices Thomas looking up the stairs. When she tries to pull him along he resists her.
I hit the grell with a Magic Missile. Norric stabs the door he is attached to and it bleeds, and Maar transforms his fingers into talons and attacks it as well. A strip of flesh peels away from it, revealing a purple glow from within. Dominique shoots the door with an Eldritch Blast, shattering it open and taking a portion of Norric’s ear with it.
In the room is a row of robed figures. One turns to look at Norric as he lies on the ground. He scrambles away.
I damage the grell with a bolt of fire. It snaps its beak on Tronus. Travius slashes it with his blade, and Dominique blasts it to goo with an Eldritch Blast.
Thomyr peers into the room and finds that the humming is coming from the hooded figures. The light strobes about once per minute. The double doors further down bulge out whenever the light pulses.
I peer into the room to find there are many rows of chairs filled by robed figures. At the front of the room is a stage, on the stage is a robed figure, masked, holding a staff, seemingly comprised of a mass of worms. An upside-down pyramid symbol is on the wall behind him. It is the symbol of a cult dedicated to an entity known as the Elder Elemental Eye.
They all turn to regard me as I look in the room. I back out, and the door regrows.
Norric explores surrounding rooms. He’s experiencing sharp pain in his head whenever the light pulses. In a small room near the front of the manor he finds a heavy banded chest. He picks the lock and opens it, finding loot. There are also numbered, labeled bags. There are six bags, and they are full of coins. Some are larger than others. A wand and a weapon (short sword) are also in the chest. There is also a 100 gp pearl. There’s approximately 1000 gp in coins. One of the bags holds a broom, which suggests that the bag has magical properties. There’s a number of potions (3 potions of Healing, one potion of Greater Healing), a nice set of slippers, and a cube. There’s also a scroll. We divide the coins and I put the rest of the treasure into the Bag of Holding and carry it for the party, so I can Identify the items later.
We elect to check the upstairs of the manor. As we ascend the stairs we encounter the tentacle monster. It hits Tronus heavily with a flurry of tentacles. Instead of engaging it, where it is hidden in the corner of the ceiling of the landing, we bypass it and proceed up the stairs.
Travius, the first up the stairs, disappears into darkness at their end. He retreats back to the light once he realizes this. As we debate our next course of action, Tronus runs out of patience. He heals himself, ties a rope around himself, and plunges into the darkness. After about a minute, I follow. The others do as well. Travius brings up the rear.
As we enter the darkness, Norric’s headache intensifies dramatically. Crysta begins screaming at the top of her lungs. Dominique tries to cover her mouth to silence her. Tronus calls out to us to keep following the rope and we will pass through the darkness.
We emerge from the darkness by a stalactite next to a river. The ground is spongy. The river glows a sickly green. Something glistens on the cave wall. Maar feels the environment is unnatural, and the sensation brings nausea.
Norric investigates the glistening area, and finds it reminds him of the door that tore his ear. It appears to be bleeding. Tronus picks up a rock and finds it is sticky in itself. He relates to us that when he tried to backtrack, he found that the rope disappeared into the ground.
Maar tells us he doesn’t think we are on Oerth anymore. He can barely recall his spells, and he feels no connection to the land. We are somewhere else and he doesn’t know where. Our clerics still maintain their connection to their deities.

Report Date

25 Sep 2021