Session 13

General Summary

We are in a strange realm, illuminated by an eerie violet luminescence. The ground is spongy. Tronus is gone. The soft ground allows Maar to determine that he fell and was dragged away.
Maar and Dominique note that the ground appears to pulsate. The rock we’ve tied the rope to expands and then bursts. She narrowly avoids the shrapnel as the rock's contents spill out: a handful of strange, tentacled cyclopean aberrations (though they are not truly cyclopean, as they have eyes at the end of their tentacles.)
I shoot one with a Fire Bolt, it rears up and looks singed, but still stands. Its cry of pain is disturbingly childlike.
Many of my companions fail in their attacks. Travius lands a hit on one, but the creature returns in kind and hits him soundly. Maar is hit as well, as is Norric. When each of these creatures attacks, they clamber onto us. They are often focusing one of their tentacle-eyes on the children, and eventually, begin to chitter amongst themselves. Almost in unison, they all turn one of their tentacles into the midst of their swarm.
I hurl fire at the same one I burned before and finish it off. Another of the creatures scurries up onto Thomas. Yet another leaps onto the wall, sticks to it, and then leaps to Krysta's face. The creature on Thomas tries to insert a proboscis into the boy’s mouth.
Norric puts an arrow into a monster. I blast the one on Tomas with Magic Missile, though it endures.
Dominique uses her eldritch magic to blast the creature on the girl into a viscous puddle. One of the creatures flees.
Maar shifts his form to that of a bear, attacking an aberration. He misses.
Travius casts light on his sword. The creatures seem drawn to the light and the show of magic.
A creature leaps on me and drives a tentacle down my throat. I can feel it probe at my stomach.
Norric is attacked, though he narrowly avoids being violated. He puts another arrow into the tentacled beast and kills it.
Unable to cast with my throat full of tentacle, I try to stab this horror with my dagger but fail.
Travius is able to dispatch a monster.
The creature that is invading me probes my stomach to the point I can feel it in my ribs.
Maar is also violated, though he bites it to death, unfortunately swallowing part of it. He vomits up the remains immediately.
I fail to dislodge the creature from my person. Dominique kills the one attached to Tomas while Maar relieves me of my attacker. I vomit profusely, as does the boy.
Krista is catatonic. Tomas is retching.
Dominique sends her familiar into the next chamber and finds two of the stoney mounds that produced the tentacled creatures, as well as a grell. As a group, we head to the next chamber, with Travius in the lead. The grell notices his approach and moves toward him. Travius responds with a crossbow attack.
The grell wraps a tentacle around Travius and paralyzes him as the rest of us assail it. Finally, Norric kills it with an arrow.
Another grell is visible in the chamber now, and we set upon it with a vengeance. Maar does damage to it, but is hurt by tentacle and claw and loses his bear form.
Norric and Maar bring the grell down. We rest for an hour in the narrow passage between caverns and I recover some spells.
Tomas’s demeanor seems to have changed. He’s even more withdrawn than he was before. He seems shellshocked. He still coughs uncontrollably from time to time. I take a knee to talk to the boy. He stares me in the eye at first and then looks away, then looks to me again and coughs. I offer him water and rations. He guzzles the water but pushes the food away. I urge him to eat and he does. I tell him that I know that it is all very frightening, but we will get him out safely.
As I move to turn away from him he grabs my arm and says, desperately, “Get me back home to Ringland, please.” I promise him I will.
We periodically hear a throbbing boom from the south, and see light emanating from the corridor in that direction. We carefully walk around the mounds that spawn the creatures, and I notice that one of them seems to have budded off a smaller version of itself.
The passage leads to the outside, suggesting we are in a cave. However, the world outside is not ours. The sky is a purple-pink, and there are drooping, sickly trees nearby. There are no stars or sun in the sky, though there is dim light.
We proceed into the alien wilderness, Maar following the tracks we believe were left by Tronus’s abductors. Behind us is the dripping hill from whence we issued.
Maar tries to change into an animal form, trying to see if he has regained the ability since our rest, as he normally would. He is able to make the change, but it is an unusually uncomfortable process. Krista screams at the sight. His wolf form is missing his eyes, and there are two tentacles coming out of his shoulders. Maar tries to change back but fails.
I and Dominique notice the trees have eyes, regarding us as the child is screaming. Dominique tries to calm the girl. One of the trees reaches down and strokes the girl with a branch. A sappy smear is left behind. Dominique pulls her away from the tree.
I hear the trees whisper in a strange tongue. Casting Comprehend Languages, I understand the trees as they speak: “The child has come... the child has come…”
Travius tries to taste the sap of the trees. He survives with no ill effect.
Humanoid abominations appear, whispering of the girl. One wears armor, with the heraldry of the Shield Lands. The other is in a dress. There are another two creatures, each appearing to be the melding of two individuals.
Beyond the creatures, we see a vast shoreline. The water is green, glowing slightly.
Maar lines the creatures in faerie fire. I hit one with Melf’s Acid Arrow. Dominique blasts the same one with her eldritch blast.
The other lashes me with its tentacles and lays me low. It tries to drag me along toward it, but Tomas holds on to me to stop it.
Maar heals me with his wild magic. He severs one of the tentacles with a ferocious attack, and I am able to writhe free of the remaining tentacle. However, I move to put distance between myself and the monster and it fells me again. Tomas drags me outside of its reach.
My compatriots hold off the monstrosities as Dominique restores my health. I awake as they fell the last of our adversaries.
Maar follows Tronus’s tracks, which lead us closer to the ocean. A massive inverted pyramid floats over the ocean.
We rest along the shore, exhausted and wounded. I soon begin to scream at the top of my lungs, alternating with uncontrollable laughter. Maar, overcome with terror, runs back to the cave. Thormyr collapses, catatonic. Travius feels the caress of his lover, imagining he is wound up in tentacles. Norric is unaffected, as is Thomas, who attempts to console me.
An armored figure approaches. He places his hand on Thomas’s shoulder. The boy turns to see the empty eye sockets of the warrior. At that moment, the pyramid strobes, and the light we were seeing from the cave washes over us. Unconsciousness takes us all.
We awaken, still on the shore. Maar has returned to us. The children are gone. The knightly figure stares in the direction of the pyramid, standing on the shore. We have all been restored to health, though my spells are still somewhat depleted. Our wounds have been bound with rags and poultices.
Travius asks what has become of the children. The figure turns, revealing that his breastplate is stretched near to bursting. He appears to have grown fatter. His eyes are still empty sockets. Tiny tentacles surround his eye sockets. The heraldry on his breast is that of the Knights of the Holy Shielding.
He speaks to us in common. “I see you are awake.”
“Where are the children?” asks Dominique.
He points at an island. “They have taken them.”
“Who’s they?” I ask.
“The servant of the Eye,” he replies. “I am powerless to stop them.”
Norric asks why they are so important, and he says one of them is, though he doesn't know which. The Servants of the Eye search for the Child Who was Chosen.
Travius asks where we are, and the answer is the Home of the Elder Eye.
Norric asks if the water is acidic, and the knight replies no.
He is Sir Ryland of the Knights of the Holy Shielding. His liege was Lord Bower.
They escaped the forces of Iuz, but were tricked by a madman into this place. It was supposed to lead them to safety. He is the last. He indicates the corpses of the monsters we slew. They are his corrupted companions, lost after their protections failed. His beloved, Alana, protected them with her druidic powers. Only the magic of her powers kept them from being corrupted, but over time the protections failed. There is hope for us, and the children, but not much. He says not to eat of the food or water here. Only Alana’s goodberries sustained them. Some escaped, but for he and Alana it was too late and they couldn’t leave. She was overwhelmed first, and he wouldn’t leave her. He can feel the corruption growing within him. He only lives to incubate the next generation. Hieronious’s protection lingers, but fails. But there is still hope for us.
The strobe of the pyramid is overwhelming at first, but less so over time. As you grow used to it, you become further tied to the realm. If you try and return home when you are too corrupt you will spread it in the regular world.
Tronus and the children are on an island, which is about a half-mile away. The Servants of the Eye want to bring the Eye to Oerth. The child they seek will birth the god back in Oerth.
The Eye is master of all elements, and the ocean is full of its servants. If we retrieve the children and Tronus, he can show us the way out, but if we become corrupted he will have to slay us.
There is a boat to take us to the island. He will lead us out now, or we can go to get our companions.
He asks us if Iuz still rules over Crossroads. We tell him he does. He is saddened by this.
Lord Bower conducted a ritual that was supposed to be to the gods, that would allow them to escape. But in reality, the ritual summoned a horror from this place. If we cannot find the children before they are corrupted, we must kill them.
He asks us what year it is back home. We say 591. He says he has been here seven years. There are no stars or sun or moon here, only the pyramid.
He says his time grows short, as his stomach bulges. They grow within me. I can feel it.
Sir Ryland will help us, then he will lose himself soon enough. Travius asks what we can do to aid him. He says we will find his beloved on the island, and she will cause us much grief. She has only been prevented from destroying him by some last vestige of sentiment. But us she will try to turn into servants of the Eye. The power of the gods is still effective against them.

Report Date

24 Jan 2021