September 12, 2009 - The party plummets down a waterfall, see hundreds of kuo-toa far in the distance, and fight...a black dragon!
Huron, Cram, Briggs, Snake Eyes, Vico, Healbot
Rejuvenated, the party heads back into the rubble room and check out the large tunnel. It slopes upwards gently, then opens into a large vertical shaft. About 60 feet above, they can see the tunnel continue forward. The sound of crashing water on stone is loud here. The walls here are slick and smooth and there isn't any climbing handholds or ladders about. Puzzled, but still curious, Snake Eyes uses a power to temporarily gain flight and flies up to the top. The tunnel slopes sharply downwards, and far down the slope he spots a shadowed humanoid figure crouched over, facing the other way. From its posture it seems to be waiting or keeping watch. He flies back down and the party leaves.
They decide to check the two doors on the central platform in the statue room. Vico teleports across instead of going down the stairs and up the central stairs...and because of this, does not see the flash of reflected light that the others see coming from a wall on the ground floor. Huron heads over to investigate, and finds a secret door. He pries it open and they peek inside. They hear the crashing water again, very near this time, and see two hallways. They head down the nearest one and find it opens up into a large pool, with water falling down into it from above, and a curtain of water falling from up above. Beyond the heavy waterfall, they can feel air rushing in, and can tell that beyond the waterfall is a large open cavern.
However, as they approach the water, it starts giving off intense heat suddenly. Some arcana checks tell them that the water has been magically warded as a defense mechanism, and that something will probably either disable the heat or allow safe passage through it.
They head back down the other hallway, which they realize is headed towards the same watery room that they reached earlier after going down the stairs in the prison. This time they enter, and see a water-filled room with three platforms, and a number of kuo-toas inside - some guards, two whips, and a hulking, four-armed monster armed with a pincer staff and wearing a stone headdress. A table sits on the center platform, and glistening knives and hooks cover it. Two iron maidens are also in the room, with metal rings attached to the tops. Ropes thread through the rings up to pulleys on the ceiling, and over to the walls by the whips.
Cram hurls a fireball into the room, burning the kuo-toas, and a few of the guards drop. Huron then runs in and discovers that the floor here is extra slick and wet, but he keeps his balance. He lines himself up with the four-armed one (called a Baron) and charges. However, one of the iron maidens is in his way, and as he runs by it, an iron chain whips out from inside it, wraps around Huron and pulls him inside. The lid then slams shut, impaling him on the spikes. Horrified, the rest of the Stormhammers run forward, but the Baron steps forward, laughs at them in deep speech, and casually kicks the iron maiden into the water.
Shaun: What does his laugh sound like? DM: ...blup, blup, blup!
Vico teleports over to the Baron and draws its attention, as Brigs and Cram take up position on the side platform. The Baron starts just beating the shit out of Vico, lashing out at him each round with a pincer staff attack and two claw attacks. At one point it hits with the staff, and rolls natural 20s for each of its claw attacks, doing over Vico's bloodied amount in a single round. The brutality continues the entire fight, with the Baron rolling extremely high with his attacks, and rolling almost max damage every time.
Meanwhile, Huron is impaled on spikes AND drowning. However, he hulks out and manages to force the iron door open. Catching his bearings (underwater), he is attacked by an aquatic, insubstantial wraith. He escapes it though and clambers up onto the middle platform and joins the fight.
The two whips channel lightning and try to blast Briggs and Cram, who are also attacked by the wraith as it rises up out of the water. Cram responds by leaping across the gap, but falls when he hits the floor. He still attacks the nearest whip with his axe and cuts him heavily. Briggs uses spectral claw on the wraith and pins it in the corner. Healbot quickly uses his Healing Words on Vico and Huron, who are getting mauled by the Baron. Cram tries to Thunderwave the Baron over to the other Iron Maiden and succeeds, but the Iron Maiden misses the Baron and it swims away from it.
Soon the Baron is the only combatant left, but this does not stop its rampage. It drops Vico to negative hp with a pincer staff attack, which seizes Vico's unconscious body. He then tosses Vico over his head into the water. Briggs runs to the edge and grabs Vico, holding him above the water so he doesn't drown. Everyone is too busy fighting the Baron to help him lift Vico out of the water, so Briggs shrugs and just does it himself with a mighty heave. Meanwhile, the Baron drops Huron and also grabs him with his staff. He tosses Huron over his head, but time time tosses Huron's unconscious form right into the Iron Maiden. Huron lands on the spikes, but the Iron Maiden had been knocked over, so the door doesn't close on him. Soon after, they manage to kill the Baron, who sinks down into the water. Snake Eyes swims down after it and loots it of its headdress and a shiny green amulet. They analyze the amulet and detect warding magic coming from it, but not enough to counter the powerful defenses in the water.
Shaun: That guy...was a GOD.
After resting a moment, they head back into the statue room and go through the lower set of double doors on the ground floor. It opens up into a three way-intersection. Straight ahead is a door with a kuo-toa face painted on it. To the right is a door with a mushroom painted on it. To the left is an open doorway. They head left, and find a number of small workshop rooms (textiles, grinder, loom, etc.) They find little of interest except a half-finished tapestry showing the green legs of what they assume is a kuo-toa, and the black long tail of something else. The tapestry is unfinished so they can't tell anymore. They also find a rolled up finished tapestry in a zig-zag pattern, and some luminescent fresco paint jars, and stash them both in the bag of holding.
Next they check out the center (kuo-toa face) door. It opens into a grisly chamber - two dozen kuo-toa hang on the walls, all sporting gruesome and clearly mortal wounds. Closer examination shows that the bodies on the east wall are all armed with weapons and have various wounds that appear to have been suffered in battle. The bodies on the west wall all have bloody, gaping holes in their bellies and are not armed. They are also female. Across the room is a small altar with a large stone lobster claw on it.
Nervous, the party gets Cram to send Murgatroyd into the room to check things out. We also decide out-of-game that if Murgatroyd is killed, when he is resummoned a few minutes later (as a familiar) he does not remember the last minutes of its previous life. Hence, while he has no actual recollection of Cram sending him to die, he does have a sinking feeling quite often. Cram sends him in and has him investigate the room. Nothing happens, and Murgatroyd makes his way to the stone claw, where he spots something green. Cram has him land on and disturb the claw, nothing happens, but now they learn it is a second green amulet. Finally, Cram tells Murgatroyd to land on and poke and prod one of the dead kuo-toa. Murgatroyd curses at his master and does so gingerly, and once again nothing happens. The others proceed into the room, spotting and avoiding a floor trap, and retrieve the amulet. They leave the bodies alone and quickly depart. (I can't remember if they grabbed the big stone claw?)
They open the mushroom-painted door. Inside is a mushroom grotto with a big pool of clean water occupying the south half of the room with a small rock shelf in the middle. Suspicious, they analyze the mushrooms but Vico rolls a critical fumble on his nature check, and so he "examines" them by scooping one up and eating it. (Or using his face like a shovel and just chewing the floor. The explanations vary.) Regardless, nothing happens to him, so they cautiously proceed into the room. They deduce that the mushroom, which was nourishing and filling, means that this is probably just a food source for the kuo-toas. A little ways into the room, they stop when some plants and vines start writhing together and rising up to form a huge plant creature who blocks their path. It doesn't attack though, so neither do the Stormhammers, who instead inspect it from afar. They realize it is a shambling mound, which is immune to - and actually is healed from - lightning. Vico suggest they leave the room since almost all of his attacks are lightning-based. They leave, but then post themselves out in the hallway and decide to send Murgatroyd in to check things out. They prepare for a fight and send the poor owl in.
Murgatroyd flies slowly and nervously into the room, and once again the shambling mound forms but doesn't attack. From their vantage points, only Cram and Vico can see into the room. Cram tells Murgatroyd to go fly over the pool of water. The owl glares at him but does so. Suddenly an ENORMOUS CROCODILE explodes out of the water and swallows Murgatroyd whole. Vico shits his pants. Cram does too, then quickly shuts the door and walks away. Vico runs up and paints a crocodile on the door, then they all head back to the statue room hastily.
Realizing they have two amulets, and looking at the two doors on the statue platform, they guess that they will "unlock" the doors. Sure enough, they do. Vico takes one amulet, and he, Briggs and Healbot line up behind one door, while Huron takes the other amulet with Cram and goes to the other door. Huron and Cram make a lot of noise and so they open their door first (Vico hopes that whoever is inside won't realize there are also people behind the other door.)
The sound of crashing water on stone immediately assaults them as Huron opens the door. Inside is a ledge with water dripping down from the ceiling, with small staircases down to a gently sloped floor which extends out through a heavy waterfall. Large statues of kuo-toas sit under the ledge, pouring water onto the floor which runs down the floor towards the waterfall. Beyond the water, not much can be seen but the party can feel the rush of fresh air and sense that it opens up into a large cavern. A number of kuo-toas wait in the room, including one wearing a gold headdress, robes and a red cloth sash around its waits. It points at Huron and Cram and burbles in common, "You will be given to the Sea Mother!" and they attack.
Cram hurls a fireball in and roasts a few weak kuo-toas, and Vico and Briggs throw open their door and leap in to join the fight. Huron charges for the leader, and the party quickly discovers that the water running down the floor makes it slippery, like the slick floor in the torture chamber. In addition, the slope causes anyone standing on the floor to gradually slide down towards the waterfall. Vico is attacking the leader (a water-using priest) when from an unseen alcove up above, a nimble and leather-wearing kuo-toa drops down and rushes up, its fist crackling with lightning and attacks Vico. However, it misses, which saddens it. The party realizes that this latest enemy is the one they spotted earlier crouched in the sloped tunnel. Some kuo-toa guards rush up the stairs towards Cram, who gets afraid and steps outside and shuts the door.
The water priest starts channeling water magic, and the statues start pouring out more water which makes the floor increasingly slick. The party starts sliding faster and faster towards the waterfall, and Vico slides through it. The water hammers down on him but he manages to keep his feet. On the other side of the waterfall is a short ledge which opens up into a huge underground cavern, and Vico realizes they are hundreds of feet in the air. He manages to stop his slide before plummeting off the edge though, and rushes back into the fight. The water dripping above the entrance also increases, becoming a steady downpour. The priest unleashes a bunch of water-based spells on them that blast and push the party around, or causes their lungs to be magically filled with water, causing them to risk drowning. All the while, the water pouring from the statues and from the ceiling continues to increase in quantity and force. The kuo-toa guards meanwhile starts throwing their sticky javelins, entangling and immobilizing whoever they hit.
Briggs goes through the waterfall and gets knocked down, but stops himself and runs back inside. However, the water priest continues to channel his magic into the room, and the statues gushing out water heavily and the entire floor starts churning with water. Huron ends up going through the waterfall, and to everyone's horror, slides right off the end and plummets out of sight. Desperately, the others try to finish off the remaning kuo-toas but the statues burst and start shooting violent geysers of water out, knocking anyone in their path back towards the edge. The kuo-toa monitor (leather-wearer) tackles Briggs and starts sliding with him towards the edge, a fanatical look in its eyes. The water priest shouts out a prayer to Blibdoolpoolp and dives off the platform.
Huron falls about a hundred feet down but plunges into a large freshwater pool of water. He realizes that the numerous waterfalls all end up falling into this pool, and huge stone stairs flank the sides of the pool, ascending back up to the temple. He is still immobilized by a javelin though, and is forced to tread water trying to free himself, even as the water priest lands in the pool and starts hurling blasts of water at him. Vico also plunges off the edge into the water, and the other kuo-toas leap down as well. The statues start exploding and water starts erupting all over the room. Briggs goes through the waterfall and sees below the sides of the edge/lip, the landing which joins onto the huge stone stairs. He and Healbot run down the stairs.
Vico and a kuo-toa end up grappling and fighting underwater. Even though the kuo-toa doesn't need to breathe and is more at home in the water, Vico ends up brutally killing it. Brigs descends the stairs and starts loosing chaos bolts at the water priest, who ducks under the water and swims over to Vico, inflicting a drowning effect on him. However, now alone and with most of his powers played out, the priest goes down heavily in a minute or two.
As the party catches their breath, they look around. They are on a bridge of sorts, overlooking a gaping ravine, in an enormous underground cavern. Up above, a large hole in the roof lets in a beam of dusty sunlight. They aren't able to see the ground beneath them. Meanwhile, the waterfall trickles to a halt (the statues feeding them exploded, remember) and without the thunderous noise of water splashing onto stone, they become aware of a distant droning croaking and a rhythmic thumping noise. Looking far off in the distance, down a long, descending set of stone stairs, they see an enormous ziggurat/temple and what must be hundreds of kuo-toa swarming around it, chanting and praying. They are a little freaked out, especially when they realize the loud thumping noise they hear is the sounds of hundreds of kuo-toa hearts beating in unison.
DM: (puts on creepy music) Shaun: What! WHY IS THERE JAWS MUSIC??
Nervously and quietly, they edge down the stairs and find it flattens out into a small landing that branches to the left into a series of caves, and to the right a path extends down into a dark tunnel/cave. They spot a second tunnel about 30 feet above the tunnel entrance. The stairs also continue down and forward from the landing, heading towards the ziggurat.
They head into the cave, and follow it deeper underground for a few minutes. As they head deeper inside the sounds of the kuo-toas fade away. They emerge into a stinky cavern full of fetid, dirty water. They duck back and have Murgatroyd scout. The large cave is covered in the filthy water, but large stone ledges rise above the water on both sides of the room. Also, floating at the far end of the room is a sealed barrel floating in the water.
They step into the room and hear in a creepy voice: I hear little hearts beating... They freeze and look around but don't see anything, and (the players) exchange nervous looks. They then hear: "Yesss, beating faster now..." A few more whispered creepy lines greet them as they cautiously edge into the room and start to spread out. However, they are surprised when only a few feet from them, a black dragon bursts out of the dirty water and roars!!
However, it only hits Huron with its fear essence. It does however, breathe acid on the party and then summons a cloud of darkness around itself, making Vico and Huron wade into melee and swing blindly. They quickly learn that the dragon is not blinded by the darkness, and that missing on a melee attack provokes a counterattack tail lash from the dragon. Cram and Briggs blast away at it blindly, and miraculously both manage to score critical hits on it, injuring it. Meanwhile, Huron falls back out of the darkness and makes his way for the barrel, thinking to anger the dragon and draw its attention. Vico uses his special ability that lets him teleport to his target's side, for the duration of the fight, and keeps flashing around in the darkness, swinging blindly.
Mike: Dragons always have tricks up their sleeves! Cam: But they don't wear shirts!
Huron reaches the barrel and hauls it ashore, and starts prying it open, hoping to find something inside that will help fight the dragon. He cracks the lid enough to see a leather glove, but that is all he is able to see before the dragon roars and takes to the air, flying over to Huron and attacking him. It also drops another darkness cloud around itself (the old one dissipates) and breathes acid at the party again as they approach. Briggs continues to have insane luck, and crits it again and also critically succeeds at an intimidate check (after about 3 failed tries) by taunting it that "Gottrod was way harder than this!" The dragon is a little distracted by this, but gets its revenge on Briggs when Briggs tries to leap from one ledge to the other, only to critical fail and get bitten and pulled into the nearby darkness. From its reaction they guess that this is the rival Gottrod was talking about.
The party continues to roll exceptionally well, and while it takes them a while, they start whittling the dragon down. It eventually has enough and takes to the air again, and flies out the upper chute that the party saw the exit of back on the landing. Vico teleports after it, pursuing and slashing it a few times before the dragon stops for a moment and attacks back, dropping him. Meanwhile, Huron grabs a grappling hook and he and Brigs dash down the tunnel, hoping to beat the dragon to the exit and grapple it as it flies overhead. However it beats them and is flying away through the cavern when they emerge. Cram climbs up to the tunnel and races over to Vico, and feeds him a healing potion they found in the torture chamber just in time to keep him alive.
The party reconvenes at the barrel and crack it open. Inside they find a vast amount of gold, some valuable gems, a pair of leather gloves that allow the wearer to store and summon an item (in each glove), some cloth shoes that make the wearer athletic and nimble, and a crown that enhances the wearer's knowledge and memory. Huron scoops all of these out, catching sight of a haft at the bottom capped by a steel fist. It belongs to a huge maul, whose head is a pair of powerful clenched fists. They discover that it adds a large damage bonus to charge attacks. They pack up and distribute the new loot and then rest here, after Cram casts a watchful eye ritual. He summons three "eyes", putting one at the entrance to the upper chute, one at the entrance of the lower tunnel, and one with the party.
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