241016 The path less travelled
General Summary
Another week, another adventure with our mighty Band of Tomb Robbing Assassins. This group is just a gift that keeps on giving to this humble ink slinger of words. From the cynical and precise, yes you Sentinel, to the misplaced bravado and stupidity, yes you Jude. Also, from the raw muscle power of Kurog and Thorg to the sly and crafty Drogon and Griff, we’re always going to get a treat. This week was no different...
“Bugger!” said Drogon as he realised all the Drow were dead and he wanted to do some more stabbing. A further search of the guard post area, revealed little more than they had already found. Certainly, no secret doors or treasure. The group did pick up a bunch of rations from unknown plants, fungi and animal flesh. What’s good enough for evil Dark Elves must be fine to eat, right? Out of curiosity, Drogon went back along the route they had previously followed to see how some of the Drow had ended up behind them. Two, now very obvious, alcoves were found and the mystery was explained.
The team gathered together and debated how to proceed. The Drow obviously knew they were there so they must expect some kind of evil elven retribution at some point. They could hold up here and defend or carry on down the only way they could, for there was no going back now. The team quickly concluded that onwards was the best and only option. They suspected they knew where they were on the map but it wasn’t one hundred percent as they hadn’t found the marked passageways going left or right. They took a short rest to recover their wounds then marched on.
It only took one hundred yards past the guard post to find the passageways. At last, they could confirm their place on the blood-stained map. This brought a round of high fives, born of relief. It took no time at all for the team to decide on taking the right-hand passageway and aim to get to the silver circle marked on the map. The passageway continued and the party trudged for an entire day without seeing anything other than dimly glowing ‘shrooms.
Luthiel was getting pretty tired of looking at Jude’s butt and kept making comments about the size of it and it was probably this that was blocking out the sun. We have to assume Jude didn’t hear because Luthiel still had all her teeth. The comments, however, gave Griff a constant source of amusement and he even joined in, of course making sure he whispered his jokes so only Luthiel could hear. Even then, he glanced at Jude in case he had to run. Thorg, who was bringing up the rear just shook his head at the childishness. He wasn’t tired of her butt at all.
The team set up camp for the night in the passage way, for there was no other place of safety. Griff summoned his hut and the team settled into their routine of watch rotation, whilst the others slept. During the first watch Thorg and Drogon felt the ground shake, like an earthquake. Small rocks and dust fell from the passage way ceiling but it soon settled down and nothing else occurred, so the watch continued. Come morning, after breaking their fast, the group set off and found the smaller passage way on their left, as promised by the map.
As they walked along the uneven rock path, they all felt another earth tremor but, like the previous one, it soon passed. The team wondered if these passageways were unused for a reason, like instability. It was clear no one had been down here in some time. The team had to camp in the middle of the corridor again as another day had passed them by. “So, the silver circle on the map, must mean ‘Beware of long, boring passages’,” quipped Drogon. Voicing what the others felt, were they chasing their tails and should they return? During the night there were many more of the earth tremors, they were definitely getting worse. In the morning, they carried on. It was noticed that the path had a slight slope up.
By midmorning, they could all see a dim glow coming down the passageway before them. Drogon and Griff both agreed that it looked more like moonlight than firelight. The team crept cautiously forward and could see the passage opened up into a huge chamber, they could make out a structure near the middle of the round cavern. They could also see that the light was emanating from a crystalline structure on the ceiling, perhaps two hundred and fifty meters up.
Drogon sneaked forward to scout the area, his little hairy feet barely making a sound as he blended in with the shadows. Team Heavy Metal and Team Caster sat back to let the stout fellow do what he does best. Drogon discovered that the cavern was roughly circular in nature and was some two hundred meters across. He could confirm that the light was indeed coming from a natural gem formation above on the high ceiling. The structure was a black obelisk-like building in the centre of the room. It was roughly conical in nature and was almost two hundred meters tall, with a number of windows randomly distributed around. A doorway at the base was noted as well.
Deeming it safe to proceed, the group reassembled fifty meters away from the tower. Thorg determined that the best recce could only be done from the air and we needed to get one of the team members up and report back what they found. Griff clicked his knuckles and pointed at Drogon, before Drogon could say a word he let out a “Hoot!” as he was now an owl. Owl-Drogon shrugged his strigine shoulders and set off to do the air-borne scouting mission he was now perfectly formed to make.
He made several circuits of the tower and determined that all of the windows were small and dark, sort of like arrow-slit shapes. He also saw that there were no other exits from this giant chamber. It seemed to have been formed by a huge lava bubble in the dim and distant past.
As he flew over the top of the tower, he saw it was made of four points, spearing up towards the moon-glow of the mineral deposit. He could make out a geometric pattern marked on the floor of the roof. An ‘octogram’. Drogon thought to fly to one of the windows and land on the sill, to look inside. Two things happened, he flew into an invisible hard wall and he heard a crack of energy as his little owl body was fried. Reverting to his normal portly form, he fell to the earth with a thump. Luckily, he had tried a lower window. Very lucky. Luthiel swore should could hear the gods sigh at the luck of our halfling friend.
The team picked up Drogon and dusted him off and moved towards the door. They could hear a humming and crackling coming from the tower. Defitely a wall of force of some sort. The group found a use for the Drow rations that they had picked up earlier. The unidentified ration meat was used as “unidentified ration meat of detection” and thrown towards the door, where it hit the forcefield and was cooked to a nice medium rare level. A further rumble echoed through the chamber from the earth and the ground trembled but settled a few seconds later. Above the door could be seen the moon-like symbol as depicted on the map.
Jude cast a Dispel Magic spell on the structure and the humming went away. Even without the ever distrustful and wary Sentinel with them, the team had learnt some good lessons from her and threw a further piece of “unidentified ration meat of detection” at the door. It landed without triggering any forcefield. The team had a nice round of high-fives before Drogon went up to the door to see if he could detect any traps or locks. What he did find was that the door was actually a carving and not a door at all. He turned to tell the rest of the team but was interrupted.
The earth rumbled and shook, along with a roar that got louder and louder. With a massive eruption of rocks, a gigantic worm-like creature forced its way through the cavern floor. Its purple skin glistening with a putrid slime that dripped off in green strings. Its maw, a series of serrated rows of teeth all coated with saliva and bits of flesh could be seen caught between the teeth. Previous unlucky victims of its voracious hunger. Luthiel, Jude, Griff and Kurog were all caught next to the emerging Purple Worm. Luthiel and Griff disengaged and ran back as far they could, ready to offer a more long-ranged support, or perhaps some encouraging rhetoric.
Kurog rolled his shoulders and slammed his axe into the worm over and over again, determined to make short work of this foul beast. He needed it dead because he had to spend some time thinking about how to get the moon-like crystal structure into his throne room. The worm reared its head back and attacked Kurog in return, poisoning him with a bite and then swallowing the half-orc whole! That rather stunned the rest of the party. Luthiel and Griff nuked the worm with all they had. Drogon fired his bow, but without any obvious worm-testicles on show he had to make do with its body. Jude summoned her spirit guardians and Hammer appeared to do its part.
Thorg ran forward shouting “Flame On!” and fenced with the worm, again causing it to pause. Thorg could hear his melee buddy shout from inside the worm, a sort of muffled war-cry, before seeing Kurog’s axe appear through the worm flesh from the inside. The worm had had enough of the metal-coated morsel and vomited Kurog out, covered in acidic digestive juices. His armour smoking but Kurog was grinning. “Again!” he shouted.
The worm attacked again, this time targeting Jude and again swallowed her whole. Her Hammer wasn’t having any of this and performed its usual critical hit causing very little damage but it was enough. Yet another killing blow goes to the Hammer. The team were palpably relieved and hugged each other, after this encounter with a classic creature. It was only the muffled screams that alerted the rest that they hadn’t got Jude out from the worm gut. This was soon done and although Jude’s feelings were hurt, physically she was fine. A quick check of the corpse revealed little of worth, apart from an impressive armoury of acid damaged weaponry and armour, all of Drow manufacture. Nothing magic and nothing useful. So, the team cleaned up and turned their brains to the problem at hand. A false door in a conical tower that reached up as far as they could see and a forcefield that had been dispelled. Griff stepped up and used the ‘Pass wall’ spell, expecting the wall to be a few feet thick, but the rock kept going for a good fifteen to twenty feet before opening to a chamber. The team peered in. It was a perfectly circular space with 11 doors distributed evenly around the base. Looking up they could see a balcony thirty feet above them, and they another thirty feet was another balcony. At the very top, on the ceiling, could be seen the moon symbol as per the carved door and the map. Was this place a tomb? Perhaps a temple? Or perhaps the tower of mad mage. Either way, you’ll have to wait until the next session write up in this most illustrious of publications. Until then faithful readers, fare thee well.
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