Present
- Cody Dieback. Human Male Wizard from Highport – Andrew
- Jack "Blocker" Jones. Human Male Temple Fighter of Aquamarina from Porn City – Jamie
- Tom Eade. Human Male Fighter from Porn City – Jeff
- Esmeralda "Ezme" Abernathy. Human Female Temple Fighter of Soixante Neuf from Scabport – Shane
- MARMALADING: Ardern. Human Female Priestess of Mr Quail from Porn City – Kevin
- MARMALADING: Rock Hammer. Human Male Barbarian from Central Plains – Steven
- Willow. Half-elf Male Caribou Gorn Priest from Porn City - Chris
- Lois Price. Human Female Wizard of Porn City – Ian
- Munch Ease. Human Male Thief from Porn City – Darryl
 |
| Lois Price |
by Ian
After recovering in town after the river trip, we find our group of scholars, recently rejoined by Esme, in the Porn City general library.
Esme stumbled across a dusty old tome with the auspicious title of 'Ye Olde Porn city'.
The book had a reference section that dated 60-70 years ago. A log of events that covered:
- Two giant eggs dredged from the Porn City River
- The Throak (pronounced "throck") family quickly whisked the eggs away from public eye (pun intended).
- One egg hatched and a large creature appeared.
- Soon after, a disease spread across localized parts of the city and went down the sewers.
- The sewers started to 'sing'.
- The Throak militia sent a unit into the sewers to investigate and no one returned and none were recovered.
- The singing eventually stopped and the spreading disease went away.
Back out in the city and around the docks the cordon is being toughened. Many of the side alleys are now blocked entirely. Escapees that try to make a break are being cut down. Workers are out sealing up the sewer covers. There seems to be more web snot around.
Lois and Cody return to Julius to get an update on the web snot testing.
"Hello Lois!" He was a lot less abusive to Lois than Cody. "Nice to see you back. Yes, we have a few initial findings:
- It is not plant based
- It is not fungus
- It is not magic, evil or poison
- More like a web
- Grows with the song
- Seems that with enough song, the web will invade the victims lungs and body and eventually explode out.
Bring the creature back so we can investigate fully".
"Certainly" replies Lois, "That is exactly what we want to do."
To the Sewers
The party stock up with Continual Lights on croquet balls, rope and all manner of dungeon-crawl gear.
Before light, they head to a sewer cap in a street outside of the cordon, close to the perimeter.
The party enter the empty, damp sewer system and start carefully moving toward the docks (under the cordon), via the first level of underground sewer. The intention is to descend to lower levels 2 or 3 to locate the monster and eliminate, returning the body to Julius.
The lower sewers are in a grid pattern, Lefts, rights and straight a-heads. Progress is reasonable as the party navigate the slimy corridors and tunnels.
As they near a down-sink, they hear noises from ahead. Not scary, monster slishing and slashing, but rather a team of workers.
 |
| work team |
The party select a different path, retreating - changing paths and advancing back toward the docks.
They eventually approach a different down-shaft that had a splattering of web snot surrounding the opening. This hole appears to have been 'ripped outward' from below.
Everyone stops at the edge of the web snot and ponders how to proceed, while not touching the slime nor closing near to the hole opening.
Lois tries an experiment of using a burning torch on the web snot and the web like filaments do indeed burn away! Success? Not quite... turns out that the remaining web snot uses the fire as a life source and GROWS as a result. Fire is no good. Lois and Jack (infected last session) also note that their own web snot tingles and activates. Everyone hears the singing.
The hole is two paces in diameter. Lois considers that she is already infected so walks to the edge and confirms that the hole drops to the next level down.
Munch climbs from the outside walls to the middle of the ceiling. After a nervous slip, locates a climb rope anchor point directly above the centre of the hole and lowers his magic rope.
Anyone standing on the edge of the hole (like Lois) can simply reach to the rope and climb down. However, anyone that does not want to step on the snot, has to make a dexterous roll to not fall 3m down to the solid bottom.
Jack walks to the edge and easily climbs down into the lower room. While there is plenty of web snot, it can be easily avoided for those that do not want to touch it. Lois and Munch join Jack. Tom rouses from marmalading in time to decide on how he wants to get to the lower level. He decides to jump also.
Esme takes strong steps, gracefully jumps and misses the rope entirely. Falls a storey to the room floor. Whump! Lands in a little bit of web snot but that does not seem to cause any trouble.Esme falls - Fat Willow launches his immense bulk, flies toward the rope - misses and falls to the floor. Whump!
- Cody takes a gangly run of all arms and legs, jumps and grabs the rope! He climbs down without any issue.
- Tom launches, scrambles to grab the rope and descends.
The fallers take various amounts of falling damage and significant wounds to their pride, but after picking themselves up, dusting off and resetting, all are ready to head forward on level 2.
The party get to a collapsed tunnel on their direct path that the smaller people could get through, however the likes of fat Willow and the monster would never fit - so they retreat a little and find a different way.
Where the party are in this part of the sewers, there is no sign of the web snot or any other signs of the creature they are hunting.
Eventually, another down-shaft appears in the floor of a sewer room. Again one storey down, however this time the way is clear with no web snot in the way for the fearful paranoid party members.
Ropes deployed and everyone lowers to Level 3. There is a pile of old sewer worker shovels and gear with long dead skeletons with dusty worker fatigues. Nothing worthy of more than cursory inspection or retrieval.
From this level 3 room there are four ways out and no web snot.
Taking the exit that leads to the docks, the party eventually get to an outlet to the river. However, there is a new, strong grill on the exit.
The party retreat to the down shaft room, climb back to level 2 and navigate to where they think they are above the grill and there is no exit there.
Recovering Old Ground
At a bit of a loss as to where to head and at a lose end, they decide to head to the 70 year old dead monster. Fat Willow knows exactly where that is within the sewers and they trudge off.
As the old carcass nears, the walls start singing louder and louder. Lois, Jack and Tom hear the humming and their noses run with web snot.
Lois decides to perform another experiment and places her hand on the vibrating wall. She immediately is overwhelmed by the vibration and her web snot expands dramatically. She collapses on the floor choking, coughing and spluttering. Lesson learned for all, and in particular those that are infected, the web snot can quickly overwhelm.
 |
| Cody sneaks off |
A massive, wonderfully finished and ornate chamber which he carefully sneaks in to observe.
A number of notable findings:
- There are no direct exits from the room (well, except the one Cody is standing by and one that will be described shortly). Shall we say, one typical exit.
- The ceiling is vibrating madly.
- There are various clumps of snot, again easy enough to avoid if wanted.
- There IS a hole in the centre of the room
But most importantly, there in the middle of the room - obsessively staring at the ceiling, is the tentacle headed creature. Cody freezes and silently withdraws back down the tunnel and to the group.
The Assault - Plan A
The party proceed to the chamber Cody found and form a plan. The creature is still there and the ceiling vibrating away. Cracks forming and dust falling.
A Silence spell will be cast up to the edge of the tunnel door and entrance to the room, so the less sneaky (like Lois) can get to the front, step outside the silence and cast spells.
Lois and Cody want to blast the creature with Lightning Bolt. Esme seriously questions the wisdom of this, considering the web snot grows with fire and, days ago the up-river egg did not get hurt when it was shot with the same bolts.
"Nahhhh, it will be fine. Magic Missile hurt it last time" Cody confirms with authority.
"Yes!!! Two Lightning Bolts will HAVE to hurt it, and this is totally different to the egg" Lois chimes in with confidence.
Plan is for Lois and Cody to blast with a surprise attack, then Cody will use a Web spell to cover the hole in the floor to stop the creature escaping that way. The fighters will then rush in and cut down what little is left of the monster. Should be very little to do after the magnificence of the bolt hits.
BLAM!!! [Lois spends luck to ensure a hit] Cody blasts away. Two magnificent direct hits!!!
 |
| A direct hit |
Lois drops to the ground immediately. Out cold. For the others; due to a large amount of good fortune and the lavish application of luck, magics and protections, the rest of the crew are all up and ready to go.
Cody steps to the side of the tunnel entrance and Tom and Esme wade in and quickly cross the floor. Tom hits, Esme hits. However one of the tentacles lashes Tom (critical hit at a really unfortunate time). A big chunk of Tom's heath disappears and he saves vs poison (makes it). Esme does slash at the monster and the monster loses some flesh and bleeds.
Jack and Munch enter the room.
As the creature won the attack, it makes a direct jump for the hole in the floor. At the same time, Cody casts Web. The creature has just enough head start that it gets past Cody's web and down the hole, and is gone.... It seems that the creature has no desire to stay and fight, and will retreat to safety as soon as it can. It did not try another scream so it either can't and waiting for a cooldown, or would rather run.
Aftermath
Fat Willow gives Lois a Major Heal via Julius's wand [8 charges down to 7] which fixes her unconsciousness, and performs a number of mundane Cures on Tom.
Lois licks her wounds, brushes herself off - notes the need to buy a new adventuring outfit. This one is ruined. After the wound to her pride and the embarrassment of making such a bad decision subsides, She thinks maybe helping the group will restore a little respect from the others? Spending her last remaining luck point, Lois considers where they are underground and how they all got there and concludes, with confidence, that this chamber would be directly under the Throak warehouse that houses the remaining eggs! No wonder the creature is here trying to collapse the ceiling.
Willow is overwhelmed and falls with a crash, marmalading.
They investigate the hole the creature escaped down and it is a very smooth downslope (rather than vertical hole) that descends in a curve, at about 45deg. The hole is three paces in diameter.
Munch fearlessly sets a rope and descends carefully down the hole. It spirals downward and back under itself, eventually flattening out to a straight line toward the river, well below water level. More than likely past the old corpse. Munch thinks this is about level 4 or 5 of the sewers.
He gets a strong metallic taste and smell and quickly retreats back to the room.
A close inspection of the hole reveals many scratch and scrapes on the hole and tunnel wall, as if something heavy had graunched past.
Something hard, spiky and just under three-paces in diameter. Hmmmm.....
Cody decides its time for an experiment and casts Cone of Cold on a large patch of web snot. This time the snot seems to have been frozen and NOT grow in size, nor activate vibration, nor activate the web snot away from the area of effect. Hmmm, this is worth knowing and seems to work.
While the crew are watching the frost thaw, pondering life choices and working out what to do next, a slithery set of steps is heard approaching from deep down the hole.
"Bloody hell, that damn thing is coming back already..."
The party retreat to the tunnel and leave a couple of quiet, expert observers in Munch and Cody.
The monster reappears and sits itself to one side of the hole again. It stares intently at the ceiling and the roof vibrations start again. It seems that it has returned to its original size from before the attack. Its behaviour is simple, its defences are horrific and it is terrifying to attack.
Hopefully Willow wakes soon and we can think of a plan B.
No comments:
Post a Comment