Thug Muggers in the Sewers 7/9/23
Table Talk:
I had an idea and gave Nymbus an option for the future. Wild Shape allows Cypress to change into any creature under a certain Challenge Rating based on his Druid level. I offered that Cypress can attempt to change to any animal above that CR, but would have to roll to succeed against his own spell save DC to do so. Also he would have a penalty on that roll based on the desired animal’s CR, where each Challenge Rating above his normal ability would be an increasing -1 (CR¼ = -1, CR ½ = -2, CR1 = -3, CR2 = -4, and so on). If the roll fails, Cypress stills transforms, but to a creature of MY choosing along the same evolutionary path, maybe a prehistoric badger instead of a bear, or a sea urchin instead of a giant spider. The group seems hesitant to try this, but i still think it’s a fun idea.
Rae rolled and got Three teeth and two spikes from looting the mimic.
We had a question on poison spray, and the effect of the Poisoned state, versus things like being on fire where you take recursive damage. Basically being Poisoned is more like being Prone or being Frightened, than being on fire and taking recursive damage, there are some creatures/spells/abilities that do include recursive damage while the target is poisoned, but that is something that only applies when specified.
“A poisoned creature has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks.” - page 292 of the Player’s Handbook
I took some theatrical liberties in the second section of this summary when Cypress is on their own. I did this to make The Story a bit more compelling, so please excuse little things like a miss, then a hit, or an action happening in a slightly different order. I promise i stayed true to the heart of everything that happened, and if i strayed from it too far i will correct it next time. But i was having fun writing a little piece that might make a good stand alone short submission. I even used some old literary theory from back in my college days, in particular you might notice the repetition and breaking of certain patterns like regularly starting with ‘The’.
As he creeps around the room, checking everything out, Zeke says under his breath, “Man, I’ve said this before, but Rez’s place is nicer than ours.”
“Yeah. Maybe we should clean up a little bit.”
“And get jobs.”
“We’ve got jobs.”
“Jobs that don’t involve necromancers and guys in hockey masks.”
“Oh! Like real jobs. Yeah. No thanks. Hard pass.”
-Ezekiel "Zeke" Silver & Clark Vandemier —Jason Murphy, “Necromancers on Drugs: Chapter Fourteen”
🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿Chapter 8: Here Kitty Kitty (cont.)
🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿Chapter 8: Here Kitty Kitty (cont.)
After Bostra departs through the tunnel to the Northwest, our heroes saddle and mount up… or at least put their packs on, and ride!, or rather leave out the secret door to the sewers (Okay, maybe i’ve been reading too many westerns lately). On the other side of the door Rae looks around for any sign of the mimic body she heaved out here last night. She doesn’t see any sign of it at all. No blood trail, no drag lines, no-
‘Wait’, she thinks to herself, ‘if it healed and mimics the bricks or something would I even see any sign of it?’
…
‘Nah,’ she thinks, ‘it’s fine’ and walks out into the sewers, with the others following behind her.
We walk east through the halls of the sewers with Sorin hunched over the little map from Akris’s scouting mission. “We need to head east, it looks like those Square rooms Bostra talked about are on the other side of that cave tunnel.” Sorin says, looking at the paper as he walks.
Rae cuts in, “The one where we fought the flail snails?”
“No, that was an offshoot of the main tunnel” Sorin whines, “I mean the main tunnel.” In a patronizing voice he goes on, “Remember, there was that big door at the other end? Well tha-”
“I know it's an offshoot,” Rae shoots back in a petulant voice, “But I was trying to make sure I was thinking of the right cave. I know it wouldn’t be in those side tunnels with the pillars!” In a weedling mocking voice she goes on, “There weren’t any doors in those snail caves, wizard boy,” Then to herself she mutters, “unless the Thugs needed a tunnel to g-”
She and Sorin both bump into Cypress who is standing still with arm outstretched. In the voice of a tired dad at a gas station they say, “Does anybody need to sell anything before we go?”
The Thug Muggers are standing in the workbench room by the door, near where Devin’s mark is etched in the wall.
“No.”
“Nope.”
“I have some things that I could sell, but nothing really urgent.” Rae says, feeling in her bag.
Cypress sighs, “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, it can wait I think.”
“Well decide now, because once we get going I’m not turning around.” Cypress says, turning to look over their shoulder at the monk.
“No, I can hold it.” Rae says, tucking away her sack of loot.
“Last chance, I mean it, I’m not stopping jus-”
“Uuugh lets just go already, she said she’s fine.”
(Reader, this is what DMing is really like. So think carefully before you decide to engage in any game activity or starting a campaign. Once you have players, you have to take care of them, and you’re not allowed to hit them or shake them. Make good choices and don’t have a TTRPG until you’re ready to be a DM. This isn’t just playing dice with a flower sack for a week, this is a real commitment.)
Standing in front of the door to the caves now, Ari is giving it a thorough inspection for boobie traps (All of you just giggled at ‘boobie’ i just know it). She rolls a 1.
She turns to the group. “It’s locked.”
“What are you s-”
“I don’t know how, or who did it,” She says, gesturing to the handle, “But it’s locked from the inside. We’ll have to find another way in.”
“I can transmute it!” Sorin says, pushing forward and looking at the door.
“Oh, for fu-”
“Yeah, I can just turn the lock and handle into air and we can just reach in and open it.” He says inspecting the handle.
Pinching his nose and through clenched teeth, Cypress says, “Please, please just try the handle first.”
But it’s too late. Sorin’s hands are already braced around that part of the door and a square section is beginning to glow as his magic flows into it. A moment later, the square area between Sorin’s hands is gone. It looks empty, like someone just took a knife and cut out the chunk there like the name on a sheet of birthday cake. The metal insides of the door, the pins, the rivets, the springs, the lugs, the locking levers, the swing arms, all the inner workings are just… air.
A soft puff of cool cave breeze flows out of the hole. Rae turns the handle effortlessly, and swings the door open.
As soon as the door opens, Sorin falls to the back of the pack, and casts Blade Ward on himself.
The party tip-toes and creeps their way cautiously through the tunnel until they come to the imposing door on the other side. This door looks like a kind of bank vault crossed with a submarine hatch. In the exact middle, at about chest height, is a small square window, with thick wavy glass and rough wires covering it. On the top and bottom of this are hand cranks with worn and cracked leather around their spokes. The door seems to have the same leather, or maybe gutt, gasketing around the edges, sealing it against even the air of the cave. Also around the edge, are ten large locking lugs, worked iron clasps that secure the door to the wall like a vault door or an expensive safe. There are four on the rounded corners of the door, one at the top and bottom, and two more on each of the vertical sides.
Sorin casts Blade Ward on himself.
Cypress turns the bottom handle, and when it spins the top handle spins with it… for about five degrees, before coming to a complete stop. “Okay,” Cypress says with a sigh, “This one, definitely IS locked.”
Without hesitating to let even a single neuron fire, Sorin blurts out, “try turning it the other way.”
Cypress turns the bottom handle the other way, and when it spins the top handle spins the other way with it… for about five degrees, before seizing up. He does this with his body turned, still locking eyes with the young wizard, you know, the one who keeps insisting he went to school. “It’s locked.” They say in a flat voice.
“Well I can just transmute the lock ag-a-i…n…” Sorin’s voice falters. He looks at the way the lock seems to work and groans. Each time he transmutes, the spell can last about an hour, but each time it takes about ten minutes to cast. If he were to try and transmute the ten locking lugs on the door, he could never make it around the circle. Each one would come back to solid iron in a loop always putting him four behind getting it open.
“Well?”
“I can’t, whoever made this door seems to have thought about things like that, it won’t work.”
Cypress is staring at the window and the rough grid of glass. “But, you could do just the glass right?”
“Well yeah, but it’s not like we can just reach through an unl-”
“But a Rat could,” Cypress says with a mischievous grin. “If that glass weren’t there, then a Rat could slip between those little bars and get through.”
“And a Rat who can turn into a person, could get a good look around.” Ari says her roguish mind catching up to the situation.
Just then there is a tinkling metal sound at the other end of the tunnel by the door they just opened. Ari and Cypress nod to each other and Sorin casts Blade Ward on himself.
Looking at the mess on the floor on that side of the cave, Ari and Cypress’s faces fall into dismay.
“This is coming out of Sorin’s cut.” Cypress says, and Ari groans.
On both sides of the door jam, pieces of bent and distorted metal are littered across the ground. On the cave floor and the Sewer bricks, little pieces of metal gleam. The square in the door that Sorin turned to air is back… well mostly back. It looks a bit like a sponge or a block of swiss cheese that’s mostly holes or maybe a really loose weave shirt. Some of the pieces on the ground resemble mechanisms, rivets and cams and springs and locking bars and… oh.
When the metal was turned to air, Sorin forgot something pretty crucial: solid metal parts don’t mix together, but air does. Parts of the door were blown into the sewers by the breeze and parts of the lock were carried into the cave when they opened the door. And now that the parts are turned back to metal, Ari notices that they are bent and curved where the air stayed un-mixed, but still got pushed around and changed shape.
With a sigh, Cypress turns to go back when Ari stops him. “Hang on, we can’t fix it, but maybe I can stop anything from coming in or out.” Kneeling down she pulls out her +1 trap and places it in the open crack of the door. (I had Brooke roll to set the trap’s DC and she got a 20). After looking at it for a moment, she pulls out a bit of springy cord and ties it to the handle of the door, the trap, and the door frame. That way, even if something sees the trap; if they move the door at all, the trap will bounce up at them.
Grumbling, Ari and Cypress make their way back to the other.
Sorin sees their shadows coming and casts Blade Ward on himself.
A few moments later, the glass is turned to air, and Ari is lifting Cypress the Rat up onto the little ledge of the empty window. Sorin had actually tried to pick up the Cleric first. But the Rat only shook its head until Ari put a hand down, then it nodded and climbed into her cupped palms.
On the ledge, Cypress the Rat rolls a 17 perception. The other side of the door is another area of Sewers, the same greenish bricks and cobbles that we’re used to. A few yards in a large stone cart, a kind of square stone wheelbarrow with a tub of water and a bank of faintly glowing coals surrounded by a loop of hanging tools. From deeper on, echoing around the corners comes the sounds of insane ramblings and muttering.
Reader, here is where the group separated. Nymbus had a call with me, just the two of us, for Cypress’s adventure. And later Ashley, Brooke, Sarah and I met for them to have a little side quest of their own.
🎲🌿Chapter 9a: Fear and Madness in the Dark
🎲🌿Chapter 9a: Fear and Madness in the Dark
The square rooms on the second under-layer of the eastern division of the Nibiru Sewer Company are where the magic sources of the operation are divided and focused and ‘made good’. And inside them, a silent Rat falls to the ground. It lands just inside a large ironwork vault door and looks around. Like any other Rat, it has no knowledge of the arcane divisions used in the place, it doesn’t know the way Weskmell’s Water Hammer is used here, or how the Tidal Principle of Arcane Magnetism is harnessed as a driver by dividing 5 natural faults against a crossways elemental interlacing through an established link to the realms of earth and air. But this Rat does have something the other Rats don’t, it has the mind of a level 4 Cleric/Druid with the name Cypress Witchhazel.
The Rat looks back at the door and then scents the air. It’s nose shakes and then accordions up in a repulsed expression. The air smells like insanity. Like a fever-sickness leaking from the brain, it’s all hot and sweaty and too full of rampaging thoughts charging so fast they can’t be kept inside a single head.
The Rat crawls along and then up the side of a heavy stone cart. It steers clear of the damped, and slowly dying, embers in the little coal box, and looks into the pool of cold water at its own reflection. With a business like, and almost human nod, the Rat moves on and jumps down to the floor.
The sounds of the mutterings echo all around. Careful to stay quiet as a church mouse, the Rat follows the sounds, sneaking its way into the first corner, where the hallway turns. A short way past the turn it finds a T intersection, with a glowing light coming from a room to the right. The Rat scuttles along, hugging against the wall and peers into the room. There is a Figure standing in here slowly rocking back and forth. It is in a long hooded robe with its back to the Rat.
The muttering is louder in here and the Rat’s too-human eyes widen at The Cloaked Figure. This is the source of the almost chant-like ramblings, and this is where the smell of brain fever is coming from.
“Fix it fix it FIXIT ohwewerewrongsowrong but i see now. Yes…. YES! I see and thank it all that I see. We were so blind… blind . . . blindblindblIND! And sTUPId oh how STupID we were but wecnatbestupidnowNOwecnannotnow now we have to fix to fix to fix to fix to fix to fix to fix to fix to fix to fix to fix to fix to fix…”
The room is-
“FIXAND KILLANDGETITALLBACK! … because we were blind, yes blind yes we were, not no now, now not now, not us, not me iseeiseeisee i and and i thank you for i understand and thank and i fix…”
These rooms are all built b-
“Kill and take it back! Itwasstolen… stolen stole stole stove stove stoven, yes like a stone… yes thats it little baby, baby like a stove we light it and cleanse it and-”
This room, like the other in this part of the sewers-
“soweMUST fix it aye yes aye si fixen it we must fixitfixitfixitfixitfixitfixitfixitfixit….”
AHEM! Do you mind? These things are hard enough to write without also having insane ramblings creeping in…
The square rooms are all basically the same, just rotated around a central point in the middle. In the corner (the NW part of this one, the SW of the room above and the NE of the room next to it and so on) is a large wooden structure, a pillar running from the ground to the ceiling. Arranged in some unknown pattern around the pillar are several thin shelves and sticks poking out at various heights almost like an over complicated Wing Chun training dummy. Hovering in the air around the pillar are three glowing rings of bright eccd8b yellow runes. The glyphs slowly turn counter clockwise in the air around the pillar, rotating and touching the posts coming out of it as the pillar turns clockwise against them. A few feet away from the pillar is a banked wall made from wooden brick. Along with the wooden bricks, this wall feels out of place here for another reason; in this place of straight North-South-East-West walls and hard right angles, this wall is curved. The quarter circle is about four feet tall, like a small retaining or accent wall. It casts a long shadow on the room, but the glowing runes still pour light over it to the far wall. Catty-corner to the magic pillar is a large pipe, similar to others throughout the sewers, it is just big enough for a grown adult to crawl through. On either side of the pipe are banks of wood and clay controls. Clay wheels, knobs and levers poke out from an array of wooden dials and devices, these panels each contr-
“-fixitfixitfixitfixitfixitFIXITFITIXIFITIX-”
-The other side of each mechanical panel is a small pond or little fountain of fresh water at ground level. There i’m done, now go on and be insane, sheesh.
The Cloaked Figure suddenly goes quiet as if hearing some strange voice. Inside its hood where the Rat cannot see, a slow satisfied grin widens on their face.
The Rat arches its back from this sudden quiet and scurries away. It runs down the hall, feet pattering. It makes three quick turns and peers back into the room from the other side. Now the Rat is facing The Hooded Figure and it’s eyes narrow as it tries to-
The room suddenly goes dark. The glowing runes are gone and the sound of feet slapping on cobblestones echoes around the room growing distant, and echoing from all the hallways here.
The Rat creeps forward and pokes its nose in the sweaty place where The Figure's feet were. Then it runs off, following the moist footprints on the cold dark bricks. The Rat runs west to the next square room. It stops, seeming to hesitate at another stone cart in this little connecting hall. Something about this cart feels… but no, The Rat shakes its head and rushes into the light of the next room.
The Cloaked Figure is there and it swings. An oversized wrench scrapes sparks off the ground, close enough to singe one of the Rat’s paws. The Rate squeaks and jumps back looking up at the looming Figure. From above we see the hood fall back to reveal… But the Rat can only see the foot stomping down on it.
The Rat runs. It is slow and cautious now as it comes around the side of the wall, looking at it at the other entrance to the room.
The Cloaked Figure is there. Its hood is down and The Rat can finally see th-
The light goes out.
This time instead of just wet feet slapping, the halls also echo with the sound of bang. In the darkness all alone, The Figure swings at the walls. The big wrench knocks out pieces of brick and plaster. It dents pipes and pries rings and washers loose before finally getting stuck in the side of an iron dial. The Cloaked Figure howls in a hurt angry rage and starts clawing at the walls and pipes, bare bloody fingers ripping and tearing bits of metal free from the bricks. The sounds of tearing metal slow. Then it fades. Now only the echo of feet running in the darkness.
The Rat follows the sounds towards another of the square rooms, but this time it stops at the stone cart. On top of the bulking wheelbarrow-like hand-cart, the Rat pauses, tentatively the Rat paws at the soil. Instead of the large water bin, or the banked forge tray, this cart is full of fresh fluffy dirt and rock. Atop the mound of earth are two shovels, now two shovels and a Rat. The Rat sniffs at the dirt. It wreaks of insanity… and something else.. something darker… and deader.
The Rat silently waddles up the halls, careful not to be seen as it comes to the next square room from the north. This room is slowly darkening. The lighted runic bands of magic circling the pillar and touching the odd branches are fading. The Rat stares on as one-by-one the glowing rune blink out, they turn from bright luminous glyphs to ash dark lines in their air. As they do, each symbol falls in a straight line crashing to the floor in a puff of gritty black soot. And, as each rune falls, the room dims… and dims… and dims…
There in the middle of the darkening room the Cloaked Figure stands slowly rocking from side to side in drunken circles muttering to itself. The hood of the cloak is down now, but the tiny bit of light left is on the other side and The Figure has its back to The Rat. All the Rat can see is a darker silhouette, a head shape rocking in a darkening room. But the muttering goes on and on, and endless babble of insanity and non - it stops… and the last light goes out.
The sudden silence rings and echoes, just as loud as the banging pipes from before. The Rat’s nose twitches. Is it confusion, no it’s hope, the Rats almost human eyes are hopeful when it hears the sudden sanity of silence.
Then the screaming starts.
The scream is low and guttural, but slowly rising in pitch and volume. As the scream rises, The Figure falls, first to its knees, then to its rump, and then it slumps forward, the scream still growing. As its head tilts towards the ground, the scream is now a shriek. A terrible high sound going on longer than any normal lungs could sustain. It climbs to a pitch so high it seems to warble, to bend in and out of existence itself. The Rat’s eyes water as the scream seems to pierce into its very brain like a needle. When The Figure’s head lightly touches the floor the shrieking stops.
This silence now is somehow worse. After the bright and painful scream this silence feels like death itself, loosed upon the word, driving sound and life and thought away from it. The silence chases the echoes of the scream, bouncing off the walls down after it, and smothering it. The chamber… the square rooms, the sewers, the cave, the world… is still.
…
The Cloaked Figure on the floor breathes heavily. Its back begins to rise and fall, slowly at first and then in great heaving gulps of air like an earthquake shaking a mountain. The Figure seems to be hyperventilating, it’s panting… it’s… it’s laughing. Those aren’t sighs but honking gusts of ugly ripping laughter getting shorter and shorter until it becomes the delirious cackling of the mad! And faster still, faster and fast as the Figure starts to bend over backwards. Still sitting on the ground, its back arches, first sitting straight, then tilting back further and further. The mad cackling increases and ascends until it becomes the feverish spurting of rabid animals. Now the Figure is bent all the way over. Its feet and legs are still on the ground where they collapsed, but now its forehead lands on the cobblestone, and its upside down grinning face is frothing at the eyes and the corners of the mouth.
The wide and beautiful eyes of Belgruse stare unblinking at the twitching whiskers of The Rat, but now they are foaming green at the corners and in this darkness they seem to glow red.
The Figure’s arms shoot out their green-gray-blue skin seems to faintly glow in this darkness, they bend backward and claw at the ground. Its feet and knees seem to pop as the hands pull it along in a jerking upside down spider crawls in a straight line directly at the Rat which lets out a tiny squeak and a tiny trickle.
The voice that comes out is a deeper familiar voice, an imitation of someone else spilling out from the upside down face of the Figure. It gulps and asks, “*CroAk* hello little Rat, are you here to *cROaK* help me fix it!?” the voice loses its imitation and turns back to the insane mutter. “To help me fix it? To help me burn it to the ground!? we werewrong - were wrong werewrong where wrong wherewrong werewong wereRat. WewerewronglittleRat.. And now we must fix IT!”
The Figure on the floor begins to twitch and then shake and then to seize. Its arms and legs flailing and-
The Rat crawls swiftly backwards out of the room.
“Glory, glory GLORY!” The voice from this room echoes again in ecstasy down through the halls.
The words bounce off the bricks and come to the ears of The Holyman. There in the tunnels, in the same spot the Rat fled to, The Holyman stands with frightened eyes. When the shoots of ‘glory’ stop the Holyman creeps back into the room. They hold a staff at the ready, the end is whittled and fluted to hold several sprigs of leaves, and as they enter the room the Holyman’s eyes steady on the leaves which seem to give them strength as they stand straight and strong again in the darkness.
The Figure is getting up now, but before they fully stand, a Thunk vibrates through her head and she falls, unconscious to the floor.
The Holyman is short and stout, but his aim is true, and when the Figure collapses to the ground he is already working on his next plan. He dances over the Figure, moving her hand and weaving a rope between them, tying her in the hopes of dragging her to a better place to be examined.
The teeth that bite out at his angles clip together in frustration, and The Figure tries again and again, its neck extends as she squirms and worms around on the ground trying to bite at this helpful do-gooder.
The Holyman jumps back in a panic, a single phrase: “So fast, but how?” mixing with the sound of teeth snapping like the beak of an angry turtle. With regret, the staff swings in its arc again and the thump it makes this time sounds almost hollow. Wincing, the Cleric finishes tying up his insane captive patient. It's an uncomfortable job, but he manages to keep The Figure out of any position so stressful it might be tortuous. As he does this work with grim determination he feels for her pulse at the wrist. But instead of a too quick or too slow blood rhythm, he feels something worse. The skin there is dry. Dry and flaky like dandruff or a neck three days after a day too long in the sun.
The Figure begins to wake as the Holyman spreads cupped hands of fresh water from the nearby trough along her arms. His voice is kind and soothing as he tries to reach out to her, to the real her beyond her insanity. “Belgruse, Belgruse my friend, we need you, come back and we can fix it together.”
The water seems to bring this stranger muttering patient back to their senses a little. “Oh Cypress, it’s you, I didn’t recognize you without your Rat on.” Those big soulful frog eyes almost look like swirling pools of oil as she stares up at the Cleric. “Cypress it’s wonderful, it’s beautiful, it's magnificent, it's - I’ve seen the truth Cypress, my eyes are open now. I’ve seen the truth and we have to fix it!” Her voice begins to break apart and the fever slowly rises to the surface. “We were wrong Cypress oh so wrong we were so so-”
The staff thumps again, but this time the rambling doesn’t stop. “Wrong, but it’s okay, no, not now, but soon, it will be okay, i’ll help you see, it-”
The feeling baking into The Holyman from this tirade now is one he knows well, but it is not insanity, not quite. The feeling flowing from these mad rantings like waves crashing on the beach is a feel of religious enthusiasm, the zealous rambling of one speaking in tongues at the altar, but more than that. The Holyman is fearful as he senses the strength of this ungodly, godly fever. It is not the joy of the follower. It is not the elation of the convert. It is not the love of the worshiper. It is not the exhilaration of the priest. This is the zealous fever of the possessed saint.
The Holyman trembles and looks back and forth from the face of his friend, to the cool water evaporating off their skin. He swallows. “I’m sorry my friend.” His hand shoots out like sparks and grabs the scruff of the robe. In a single swift move he is kneeling at the water basin, the Cloaked Figure's head is in his hands, and then her head is in the water. He pushes her down into the cold dark wet, tears in his eyes at the thought of this unholy baptismal in the darkness. He can feel her swallowing, guzzling the cool water and he hopes against hope that this last desperate act can save her. But when he starts to lift her from this dark communion, it all goes wrong.
The hands flailing around wildly, find the lip of the basin, they grip it with white knuckles and then her entire body tenses. Her foot goes straight and then springs up and back, she drives herself deeper into the little pool of water, breathing it in. She kicks and The Holyman’s head is bashed against the hard brick wall. He falls to the ground dazed and she breathes out, pushing the water from her lungs and accelerating herself upward. Now the Cloaked Figure stands unbound above the frightened Holyman, the ecstasy on her face replaced with mad feverish rage.
The Saint stomps.
The Holyman rolls.
The Saint swings.
The Holyman stands.
They two tussle and scrabble at each other, until finally the Holyman knocks this now hate filled old friend to the ground, grabbing at her cheeks and slamming down until once more, she is quiet and still. He checks that she’s still breathing and once more takes out a section of rope and binds her hand and foot. Then as an afterthought he gags as well.
The Wolf drags the Saint’s unconscious body down the hall. It pants with effort, pausing and pulling, pausing and pulling, making steady progress in what will be a very long road.
The Unholy Saint’s eyes fling wide. Again, the Wolf is stunned at how little time this patient will stay unconscious. Hands scrabble at a nearby cart, bound together and clumsy. They pull the body up from the floor, they find a piece of hard round wood and they swing.
The shovel slams into the Wolf’s jaw, breaking free a tooth and leaving its muzzle bloody. The shovel hurts, and hurts bad, but it’s the words that ring in the wolf's ears, “Get out of the way, or I’ll bury you too!”
The Wolf bites.
The shovel swings.
The Wolf claws.
The Saint shouts about death and goes still.
The Wolf resumes its grim business. Pause. Drag. Pant. Pause. Drag. Pant. Pause. Drag. Pant.
The Saint awakes in a rage again, now kicking and bucking her feet at The Wolf, bashing it against the wall. The Saint is bloody now and breathing ragged, but still kicking and bucking.
The Wolf looks at this patient screaming and kicking. The Wolf sighs an all too human sigh. It is the sigh of a doctor or a medicine man/woman who has tried the best medicine, but knows that any more of it will only hurt the patient. This raving mad religious lunatic will not stay knocked out. The only option is to return later.
The Wolf’s tear falls, but the determined eyes bore into The Saint. It bites the kicking leg, then with unexpected force, it bites down again. Hard.
The crack of small bones is followed by the shriek of pain, and then an empty hollow silence.
The Holyman now stands over this strange mad unconscious Saint. He drags her to the wheel of a third cart. This one too is cold and full of dirt and earth. In silence the Cleric breaks the shovel handle, and grunting, sets the leg of his unconscious patient. With all but the last few feet of his rope, he binds his friends, spread armed, and spread eagled, to the stone cart, arms knotted to the thick stone wheel spokes. Limping, he takes a single piece of coal from what little remains on the cart, and scrawls a message on the wall in front of the closed eyes of his insane friend. Then with a sigh, he limps away.
The last bit of rope is tied to the empty window of an imposing glass door, and minutes later, The Rat climbs up the rope, and with a final longing sigh, he leaves the Cloaked Figure behind. As he perches there looking back, the halls and rooms are quiet, but he can still hear the rabid laughter and the frantic holy screams echoing in his head.
…
The writing on the dark brick wall is crowded in between jagged scratching from bloodied hands and tools and ripping pipes.
“If you are yourself when you wake, go to the Church of Glorious Gods. Together, we can fix it, fix it, fix it all.“
🎲🗡️🔔✨Chapter 9b: Bullies in the Dark
🎲🗡️🔔✨Chapter 9b: Bullies in the Dark
After Cypress is away through the not-there-anymore window, the other Thug muggers spend a whole 86 seconds staring after before they get bored. Rae starts off, back down the tunnel.
“Wait, shouldn’t we wait for,” Sorin tries, looking at Ari and Rae walk away.
“Wait if you want,” Rae says over her shoulder without looking. Then, just as she enters the first tight tunnel towards the Flail Snail caves, she turns and waves, “But I have an idea so I'm gonna check something.”
In a panic, Sorin looks from the window to others, to the ceiling, to the window, to the others, to the ceiling. To the window, to ceiling, to the place the others were. “Okay, wait for me, I don’t want to be alone out here!” he yells as he casts Blade Ward on himself.
In the little circle room between the two caves where they fought the Snails, Sorin looks around for the other, he sees Ari’s back sliding into the west cave crack, casts Blade Ward on himself, and follows.
Once in the room that Sarah insists on calling ‘the left ball sack’, Sorin looks up at the ceiling, and just in case, casts Blade Ward on himself. As he stares at the ceiling, and rolls a nat’ 20 perception, he sees a bit of movement in the stalactites. Sorin casts Blade Ward on himself and watches… as the drop of water plops into his eye. It stings, but doesn’t gouge sharply into his skull… probably only because of the protective Bladed Ward.
While Sorin is blinking away cave-tears, Rae is investigating the west wall. She has a hunch that the Thugs must have some access to the square rooms, and so she’s following up her hunch and looking for any cleverly hidden nails in the wall that might connect to doors. She doesn’t find any nails, but does find a crack along the cave wall, a little natural alcove, just wide enough for a large fist and running horizontally for a few feet. Ari hunkers next to her, and peers in. She can see that there is a miniature forest of little crystals at the back of this crack. They’re near hexagonal, with sharp edges like quarts, but each face seems to be a different color in a constantly shifting pattern. She moves her head around, looking, but doesn’t see any obvious traps or obstructions.
Ari reaches into the stone crevice, but the crystals are just out of the reach of her probing fingertips.
Motioning her friend out of the way, Rae swings her staff into the crack to try and break a crystal out. There is a loud smacking, cracking sound, and then the staff is stuck, wedged in the little hidden crystal garden.
Rae grunts and heaves trying to pull the staff out.
Ari grunts and heaves trying to pull the staff out.
Rae and Ari grunt together and heave together trying to pull the staff out. Rae braces one leg up on the wall, but it’s no good, the brass cap at the end of the staff is caught in the pointy colorful rocks.
“Can I try?” Sorin asks.
Rae laughs.
Ari laughs
Rae and Ari laugh together.
“Har Har,” Sorin mocks in a sarcastic, but still dejected voice. I can be strong, you know. I helped Cypress with that wheel, remember!?”
Out of the corner of her mouth Ari whispers, “Not the way I heard it,” and the two are off laughing again.
“Sure, go ahead, try your best, while Ari and I think of something.”
Sorin takes a look in the crack then at the end of the protruding staff, and wiggles it. After a moment’s thought he pulls out his dagger and wedges it between the staff and the wall as a fulcrum, then he rolls a critical success. With another cracking sound, the staff comes free and sends the two crystals it was stuck on, firing out of the crack. Ari tries to duck, but Rae’s reactions are faster, faster than the speed of thinking it through, Rae slaps the two incoming missiles out of the air… and into the hard rock floor where they shatter.
“We’re not gonna tell Cypress that just happened are we?”
“What? Of course not… except maybe to say Sorin broke a couple of crystals.”
“Alright,” Rae says, digging in her pack, “I’m gonna try something. Ari stand back. Sorin… well you can stand close if you want.” Rae pulls out one of her sticks of looted dynamite and wedges it in the far end of the crack. Then she ducks behind a pillar. “Okay, Sorin, light it!”
Silence.
“Sorin?”
“Yes?” Sorin is buffing his fingernails on his shirt.
“Oh come on, just light it.”
“Do I get some of the crystals?”
“What? No!”
“Okay, bye have fun,” Sorin makes as if to leave.
“Wait ugh, okay fine, I’ll give you ONE of the crystals…” Rae says like a begrudging child dragged to a neighbor's house and forced to apologize.
“Okay good,” Sorin takes a potion behind a pillar and aims. “Ready? And…. Now! Ohnoloookmymagicisn’tworking”
“UUUUUgh what now!?”
“My magic, it’s not working Rae,” the wizard coos in a pouty falsetto. “It works fine for me, but to work for you it needs a magic word.” He says, his voice hardening on the last few words.
Through gritted teeth, Rae manages to urk out a passable “Please” and the dynamite explodes.
It takes a moment for the spots to clear from their eyes, and each adventurer has time to think, ‘maybe looking at it wasn’t a good idea’. But eventually the dust settles and the ear ringing stops. Now, the thin crack in the wall is opened to a ledge. Just big enough for some to kneel or crawl about two feet into the rock.
Rae manages to break off 2 egg-sized crystals, and right as he opens his mouth, she grumbles and passes one to Sorin.
Ari manages to break off 3 of the crystals a moment later, each a bit smaller than her fist. Immediately, she turns and gives one to Rae, “There, now we each still have double what wizard boy has.” And, arm in arm singing ‘la la la’ they skip out of the cave.
Sorin casts Blade Ward on himself, and follows them out.
Back by the door again, the three wait about 12 seconds for Cypress before Rae says, “We should go explore the other cave.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for Cypress?”
“When he gets back, he’s gonna say ‘so what did you guys do while I was gone?’” Rae says, dropping her voice a step, “do you really want to look at his serious eyes and say we did nothing?”
“Good point!”
“To the park!”
“Wait what?” Sorin asks, as he casts Blade Ward on himself, chasing after the other two, “what park?”
“Akris said it was a city park, remember?” Ari says, standing in front of the unexplored tunnel. She squeezes in and disappears into the dark.
“Yeah, Rae adds, squeezing in after her. Her laughing voice echoes out of the narrow pathway, “And you believed him.”
Sorin, gulps, casts Blade Ward on himself, and follows them in.
We’re shifting and tunneling our way through the narrow passage, sometimes having to turn sideways to pass a crack in the rock here and there. With agonizing slowness, the cave tunnel begins to turn and slowly widens, and we see, glowing off the walls, a faint (6ba276) green light. Moving faster now with an urgent need to get out of the claustrophobic walls Sorin scrapes himself on a rock. We all feel the strange pull of the light after having so much rock holding us on all sides and move quickly into the room.
The room is shaped a bit like an arrow, or maybe a bullet, with our little tunnel on the wide flat wall. That wall is around eight feet wide and the whole room is about 16 feet long from our archway here to the point of the bullet shape. The ceiling is littered with Stalactites and… i guess i’m burying the lead.
I said the room glowed a 6ba276 color but now we can see it is the combining light of a giant 809DAB glowing crystal, and a 55A641 glowing pond. In the middle of the room is a crystal. A 809DAB crystal that stands almost five feet tall. It has several little shards and smaller columns poking out around its base and stands on a sort of plinth of natural gray stone. The plinth rises a foot or two out of the water… well not water, but the glowing green liquid. It ripples and shines, swirling lighter and darker glittering and glowing. it seems to flow out from a spring under the crystal.
Wretched Sorrowsworn are, quote “Horrid little monsters, [...] These desperate entities subsist on life force; when they find a creature, they surge forward to sink their fangs into their victims and drink deep.” There are five of them in this room clustered at either end in clumps of two and three.
Rae starts to back back into the tunnel, “maybe let's go back and Ari can just throw her Fireball Necklace in here.”
In an overly confident voice, Ari laughs, “Pfft, there are only five of these little things, we’ll be fine. Then she turns and casts Burning Hands on the clump nearest them. All three little wobbling monstrosities sprint out of the way of the fire, but a Pierce falls from the wall, chittering in pain with 7 damage. “Okay fine,” Ari concludes with that you-all-are-such-babies voice, “five little baby monsters and one Piercer.
If only Ari, if only.
Sorin casts Blade W - wait really, not this time? Oh, then by all means go ahead, how exciting.
Sorin casts Magic Missile at the stalactite on the floor with its little crab legs waving in the air. The three sparkling arrows hit and when the spots clear, the little creature is bloodied, but determinedly hauling itself back up the wall.
Suddenly another Piercer falls on Rae for 4 damage, as she lets out a howl of pain.
“Ok, so five little baby monsters and two Piercers, but still, come on.”
Rae turns to glare at Ari when one of the Wretched Sorrowsworn lunges at her waist. Its multiple rows of teeth sink into her for 11 damage. She turns around frantically, but the little thing is attached to her now, it’s round body and little legs flailing in the air as she spins.
“Oaky, maybe not exactly little baby monsters,” Ari says, trying not to laugh.
Another Piercer falls from the ceiling, but only manages to scrape Sorin for 1 damage through the Blade Ward.
“Okay three Piercers.”
Rae lifts her staff and then bashes it down hard on the terrible little biter attached to her side for 6 damage, she tries again, but the things teeth twitch on her muscles and she staggers. Then, using her Ki she punches the thing off of her for 5 more damage. The pain (6 damage) of all those buried teeth ripping out of her is excruciating, but with the determination of any monk in the face of pain, she refocuses, and as the Wretched Sorrowsworn flops back into the tiny green lake, she glares at Ari.
The piercer over Ari’s head chooses its moment and lets go. It lands a critical hit with max (14) damage. Ari starts to buckle under the blow and grunts, “Okay, Okay, four Piercers.”
Another Wretched Sorrowsworn lunges at her, but she ducks out just in time, Then the last Piercer crashes to the ground, narrowly missing Sorin.
“Okay fine, five new small painful biting monsters, and five Piercers,” She uses Poisons spray on the Piercer that just caught her and then with her Cunning Action prepares to dodge whatever comes next. “But, I didn’t exactly know that, did I!?”
Sorin grabs the Piercer that just missed him, and pins it under his boot.
(Unknown to the Thug Muggers, the prone Wretched Sorrowsworn in the green water heals by 4.)
Rae swats another Wretched Sorrowsworn, backhanded with her staff. It goes flying so fast that her Bonus attack and Flurry of Blows can’t even hit it.
The Wretched Sorrowsworn from last round charges at Ari again, but she’s ready and dodges out of the path of its horrible teeth.
Another Piercer hits Rae, but it’s turned in mid fall and hits her on the flat side for no damage.
A second Wretched Sorrowsworn Jumps at Ari, but is tripped up by the one that she just dodge unexpectedly bumping into it.
Ari swings her rapier at the little stalactite that was slowly climbing back up the wall. The sword rakes at its underbelly for 9 damage, but to Ari’s dismay, the horrible thing keeps climbing and after a moment she can’t make it out in the ceiling of non-moving stalactites.
With the Piercer held still under his boot, Sorin places his hand three inches away from its glittering black gemstone eyes, and casts Firebolt. The Piercer shrieks in an animalistic cry like scraping chunks of rock, takes 10 damage, and scuttles off. Sorin looks satisfied.
The Piercer that landed flat on Rae, bites her leg with its tiny sharp mandibles and then scurries away back up to the safety of the ceiling.
One of the bouncing Sorrowsworn around Ari finally lands a hit, and attaches to her leg at the knee.
Rae aims the butt of her staff at the little monster that fell on her and thrusts. Her staff cracks its hard shell and skewers it. She brings the staff back and unleashes a Flurry of Blows on it, with a nat’ 20 for 17 damage. The little monster goes flying off the end of her stick, with a hole through its back. (bloodied).
In Dungeons and Dragons a round of combat takes about 1 second. Because of this, Sorin still looks smugly satisfied when the Piercer lands on him and tears into his back for 5 damage.
Ari starts to point and laugh in slow motion, just as a Piercer hits her for another 5 damage. She twitches, but still manages to ram her sword through the face of the Wretched biter on her leg. In its death throes, its jaw loosens, and Ari dumps the nasty thing off her blade.
Sorin takes the Piercer that just hit him, pins it to the wall, and Firebolt’s it with a nat’ 20 for 18 damage.
As Ari pulls her Sword free from the brain cavity of that last Wretched Sorrowsworn, the other one that had been missing her, bites and holds onto her back. Ari staggers, very bloody now and feeling woozy on top of it.
The bloody Sorrowsworn that Rae knocked back, is charged at her again, but she swings at it again, knocked it against the wall, and then punches its corpse yelling, “Now stay down!” As she points at it, a Piercer falls, and leaves a long cut along her outstretched arm. Rae lets out a series of unholy words that she didn’t learn in the monastery.
Ari is feeling very faint now, but a sudden idea occurs to her. Maybe it’s something from an old book or just – it doesn’t matter now. She pulls out the bottle of beer she saved a couple nights ago, uncorks it with her teeth, and empties it onto the open bleeding wounds on her leg. Dropping the bottle she makes a fist and hisses out a few eldritch demonic letters. The beer dripping off her reverses back up her leg, then hardens, giving her back 6 Hp, and forming a new temporary beer skin on the leg. Then she uses her Cunning Action again to ready a dodge.
It’s a good thing Sorin is too busy pinning another Piercer, because that would have really distracted him. Oh wait, nevermind, he turned to stare at Ari and the Piercer got away, biting Sorin for 3 damage as it ran.
As Sorin watches the Wretched Sorrowsworn on Ari's back bites into her again, Ari’s eyes glaze and she falls unconscious.
Rae runs over, just to Ari, and bending over her, dumps a Health Potion on her, bringing her back up to 2 Hp and consciousness. Rae was also just in time to catch the Piercer that was about to finish off our young rogue. Catching it in her bent over back for 3 damage.
Ari stands up and slams her back against the wall, squishing and killing the Wretched Sorrowsworn that was still attached there. Then Sorin Magic Missiles the last of the little biters as it tries to bite at her again.
Rae looks around at the Piercers climbing back up the walls and chugs down her last Health Potion for 8 Hp.
Our heroes back up to each other, standing in front of the cave entrance. They go back to back to back in a battle triangle, Ari rapier out at the ready, Sorin’s hands flexed and glowing, and Rae staff perched in the lower opening stance.
The next three seconds are a whirl of blades and wood and magic. Poison sprays mix with flowing Ki, Firebolt’s fly out next to sharpened steel, and then a wooden thunk, a shower of Magic Missile, and our heroes stand alone.
Bloodied, panting and triumphant, the Thug Mugers stand!
This is actually a pretty big deal, because this room was a Challenge Rating of Difficult nearing Deadly, and that was set up assuming all four would be here. But these three managed it even without a Support in toe to help them out. Good job all around.
The Thug Muggers stand Triumphant! Formed in a triangle battle pose worthy of being put on a poster or a- Ari slumps and collapses in a woozy heap. She sits back up, still conscious, but dazed. “That hurt.”
“Well if someone only had a magic fire necklace that…”
Sorin leaves these two to bicker and he goes over to inspect the green waters of the pool. He sticks his hand in and feels the hot-icy wave ripple through his muscles. It feels like a Healing Potion (and heals like one too, for 8 Hp). He tilts his head over his shoulder and tells the others, “Guys, this water is healing!”
Just like that the fight about the necklace is over. “What really?”
Groaning, Ari pulls her boots off and dangles off the lip of the pool, soaking her legs up to the thighs where the still bleeding teeth marks barely show under the surface of the water. The water is murky, and while she can’t see her feet or knees, she can see the teeth marks on her thighs starting to close as she regains 8 Hp.
Losing no time at all, Rae unslings her bag, puts one hand on the edge, and hops into the pool. Through the murky film of the water she couldn’t tell it is only a few feet deep... Or see the sharp rocks on the bottom that cut her feet for 2 damage, before the waters then heal her for 7.
Rae hops out of the green water with a mistrustful look, and then goes back to what she knows, skinning and looting monster corpses for parts. There has already been a fair amount of gore in this one, so i’ll just say she pries out one gemstone eye from a Piercer, and four Wretched Sorrowsworn teeth. Then as she’s trying to get more teeth out of the last Sorrowsworn, a whole strip of them comes out, still attached to the gum. A kind of mouth-leather band with 4 teeth still rooted in it.
While Rae is… doing that… and Ari is dazedly humming to herself and swinging her feet in the water (should be worried, did she hit her head?), Sorin is inspecting the glowing crystal and the pool of water.
Sorin can’t make out much about the nature of this crystal, but he can see the way it was formed. “It’s a loop,” he says to himself. The crystal is in a constant state of dissolving. It is forever being eaten away at the water around it as the drips fall and the water pool grows. But, as the drips slow and the surface dries, it leaves a new layer of crystal, pushing the old layer up to be dissolved by the dripping water again.
He notices something else as he touches the water again. It’s not exactly cool, but not the warm bath temperature it was before, and now it does nothing to heal him at all. Sorin puts his hand under the water and lets out a single little spark. The hot water tingles a little around his fingers.
“Rae, forget the monster blood this time, We should bottle this.”
“Don’t tell me-”
“Listen, it’s like a Health Potion, I’m sure it is. Only it needs to be heated to work.”
“But you can heat it!”
“Exactly.”
Excitedly, the three Thug Muggers fill all the bottles they have with the healing spring water.
As a last thought before leaving the cave, each Thug Mugger, reaches out over the little pool of green water, and takes a little crystal. When the others turn around, Rae turns back quick and takes a second.
With that, the Thug Mugger do what they do best, Look around at all the corpses on the ground, count their loot, and head back to meet up with their friend.
And the last thing I’ll say about their little side adventure, is that on their way back through the caves, the trap Ari set by the door, the one with the 20 save DC… is gone. No string left, no trap, no bit of metal, just a few drops of blood on an empty cave floor.
“The horror was a crawling thing which must have been cast up by a previous wave. It dragged a wet, gleaming body laboriously along the sand. It was about four feet long and about four yards to the right. It regarded Roland with bleak eyes on stalks. Its long serrated beak dropped open and it began to make a noise that was weirdly like human speech: plaintive, even desperate questions in an alien tongue. ‘Did-a-chick? Dum-a-chum? Dad-acham? Ded-a-check?’ The gunslinger had seen lobsters. This wasn’t one, although lobsters were the only things he had ever seen which this creature even vaguely resembled.
[...]
when he put out his hands, the clawed creature moved with a speed of which its previous movements had not even hinted. The gunslinger felt a bright flare of pain in his right hand, but there was no time to think about that now. He pushed with the heels of his soggy boots, clawed with his hands, and managed to get away from the wave. ‘Did-a-chick?’ the monstrosity enquired in its plaintive Won’t you help me? Can’t you see I am desperate? voice, and Roland saw the stumps of the first and second fingers of his right hand disappearing into the creature’s jagged beak. It lunged again and Roland lifted his dripping right hand just in time to save his remaining two fingers. ‘Dum-a-chum? Dad-a-cham?’”
-Stephen King, “The Drawing of the Three: Prologue”
Table talk:
I checked how many spell slots Sorin used in the crystal room… and made note of it… mwahahahaha. But, in fact he still has all his spell slots. Weird huh?
I awarded 550 XP for Cypress’s adventure, basically putting the fight at a Challenge Rating 2 (450 XP), and adding 100 XP for working towards a main quest objective.
Mechanical - I will look, calculate, and go over Passive Perception with everyone next week. Sarah also had the interesting question of whether or not a falling Piercer can be deflected by the Monk ability Deflect Missiles; basically, do living things count as missiles when falling. I’ll have to do some digging, internet comment reading, and thinking about that one.
