January 20th, 2020
Players
- Grrg the Kenku Fighter (Matt)
- Ursula the Tiefling Bard (Liz)
- Kodos the Triton Paladin (Irving)
- Lanuu the Bugbear Barbarian (Steven)
LANUU THE BARBARIAN
You have been chained in this cave for you do not know how long. No light makes it’s way into the chamber, except the very faint glow of luminescent fungi that cling to the sides of the small trickle of water that runs through the floor. In the days you have spent in darkness, you have explored every inch of this place with your hands. At one end, a pipe from which the water flows, and then at the other, a grate through which it collects and passes through thick iron bars. You take shelter in the rotting wood of a small row boat that is inexplicably in the room. A doorway is against one wall, metal, cold to the touch. Every once in a while, it opens, and a goblin or some other thing quickly throws in rotting meat and entrails for you to it. No light comes from the door beyond. You simply exist here, locked in this terrible place.
Lanuu crouches by the only door, splinter of wood in hand from the rotten boat, waiting for his chance to murder the person who comes through the door next.
THE LADY’S RITUAL
The Mistress opens a passage in the ground from which a staircase spirals down many stories into the darkness. The stairway is hard and made of glass. As the party follows her deeper and deeper into the blackness, they finally come to the bottom and realize they are standing in a huge cavern. But it’s not a natural cavern, but a sunken temple buried beneath the layers of death and decaying matter of the forest above. Subsumed by plants, now underground, it’s stone walls are lined with elven carvings.
At the far end, on a raised platform, a glass throne sits beneath a single ray of light that has somehow broken through from above. The party investigates, but cannot make sense of this place. Above the altar an elven figure ascends among trees, in one hand a book, the other a sword made of glass.
Lanuu the barbarian begins to sing sea shanties to himself, and the party hears. Grrg calls back in mimicry. Lanuu, driven by despair, hears the song and calls out: PARLAY!!!
The party frees him from his wet prison. They make nothing more of the room than he did: a pipe at one end drips in cold water in some kind of underground stream. The opposite end a large metal grate, immovable, carries the stream further beyond.
PREPARATIONS
The party informs him of their task, that they must keep the Lady safe and make sure the ritual is not interrupted. In exchange, they will receive great power. Lanuu agrees that he should help and hope to gain the Ladies favor.
They explore the ruins more. In the room opposite Lanuu’s, they find a wood paneled room covered in dust and mold. A library of some sort, although it’s books are swollen with moisture. Mushrooms grow everywhere in this place. One of them has eyes and seems startled, if a myconid can be startled: “Hellloooooo” he says.
They ask him what this place is and he responds he has absorbed from the books it is some kind of Elven temple. They pull several volumes from the walls: A Compendium of Banned Machinery and Pruning Cities: An Elven Guide to Urbanism.
They myconid, in his slow mystery way, is not much help. Except he does mention, “There…. is a way…. out… through… the water….”
Having explored most of the temple, they make their preparations.
DUNGEON SIEGE
It doesn’t take long for the villagers to make their attempt at rescue of their young virgin child Chad. The first sign is when, out of nowhere, Lanuu suddenly sprouts a dagger in his shoulder. The others feel the movements of invisible assailants around them, who even with their element of surprise do not land all their blows.
From the door of the library, a fair elven woman appears, her long blonde hair and clerical uniform. She cries out to the goddess of luck, Tymora, and rushes into battle with her crossbow aimed.
The party takes further blows, all from an unknown but lower direction, as axe blow after axe blow sinks in their thighs, knees, and lower chest. She is wearing a sash around her armor: the number ONE is printed on it. They take severe damage from a dwarf who begins to whistle as he goes swinging invisibly about.
Finally one of the assailants is unmasked by a lance throw from Kodos: a human, who seems scared out of his mind, appears out of the air. He too has a sash with the number SEVEN on it. Now that they have something to focus on, the monsters finally land some damage.
As the battle wages on some fall: Ursula goes down first, axed incessantly by the invisible dwarf and stumbling from one of the elf maiden’s blows. Grrg too soon succumbs to his wounds. Kodos is charmed, and wanders off to set afire the large mushroom cluster growing near the ritual room. The cavern is bathed in it’s sickly burning light.
Finally, the monsters begin to get the upper hand. One human, a cowardly man, runs up the stairs and simply hurls insults as his compadres start to go down. As the last of the villagers falls to their knees, this human escapes and leaves them to their fate.
THE RITUAL, FINISHED
The monsters collect themseles and enter the ritual room.
A large glass prism stands in the center, with 4 smaller prisms surrounding it. The lady has drained the boy of every last drop of blood, and the main prism is covered in it’s red glaze.
As the appointed hour dawns, light pours from hidden holes in the ceiling to the prisms, which reflect their light back into the main prism. The corrupted light, red as hell, pours over the bony form of the Naga. Suddenly it’s eye glint – yes it has eyes – and muscles slowly grow over it’s form. A cursed Bone Naga no longer, it unveils it’s true form as a Spirit Naga, restored.