Ari in the Tunnels 7/14-8/25/24

Table Talk:

Nothing much to say here really, this is Ari’s adventure after she cast Darkness and disappeared from the party. Just remember that in between all this narrative i am bouncing back and forth between the table where she is… and the children’s table with everyone else. So i’ve done my best to stitch it all together cohesively, but please keep that in mind.

I'm feeling bliss now, dissolved to mist, how strangely I go away
Now I finally know

-The —The Duke of Uke and His Novelty Orchestra, “Spider Suite”

🥔🥔⤵⤵⤵⤵🦋🦋🦋🛡️⬛🎲🗡️📿✨🌿Chapter 20: When will you learn… That Your Actions Have Consequences? (cont.)🕳️

“Stop. Cal-” Bostra tries to shout.

He tries, but darkness floods the room, imitating Ari's panicked frantic beating heart, and his words, “-m down,” are muffled in the thick shadow.

Bostra tries a few simple tricks, but stops when he recognizes the Darkness spell.

Everything is muffled but he can hear the sounds of panic.

After stepping outside, and closing the door behind us, i turn to Brooke.

Okay. So here’s the deal. I didn’t get a chance to describe the rest of the tunnel, but you will know this now. There is a second, bigger stalagmite, with a second pool of moving cave water. This one is big enough to climb into. If you choose to, you can crawl into it. We’ll go back inside, you’ll make a dex check, and then you'll be gone. You won’t know where it’s going though.

Brooke, after a long moment thinking: “Yes.”

Being the only one even remotely expecting her Darkness spell, Ari takes a brief look around. To her right is the closed door with Bostra shouting, then Sorin, then Rae coming close. In front of her is Akris, and to the left is Cypress. Just behind Cypress is another larger stalagmite with a large pool of water at the bottom. Her eyes lock onto the target.

The Darkness pours out of her and she runs, keeping her eyes on the spot within the blackness that she knows is the pool of cave water.

Ari stumbles as she runs into Cypress in the dark.

With a curse, Ari pulls off a tactical roll, keeping her head forward and her eyes on the blank blackness where she knows her target is.

She takes a deep breath.

The water is cold.

Your web is strung and I'll take the bait
Your trap is sprung now, so don't you hesitate

-AMBROSIA —The Duke of Uke and His Novelty Orchestra, “Spider Suite”

🌊🧠🪨ℤ🎲🗡️Chapter 21: Separated (7/14/24)

Kai rolls his chair off to Ari.

So. Ari. Here we are.

I’m going to give you an opportunity. You have a single chance for this here. Do you move to change your decision and pull yourself out from the pool, or do you embrace it and dive in both metaphorically and literally?

Brooke, with no hesitation: “No, I made my decision, I lean into it.”

Excellent. In a minute you are going to have to make a fairly lengthy series of rolls. If you’d tried to back out it wouldn’t have mattered and you’d still be pulled in away. But that decisiveness to stick to your decision will give you advantage on the first one. Which is good because it’s gonna be 2d6 damage on a failure and half on a successful save.

Brooke, alarmed: “Wait, what!?”

…I mean yeah, you dove into an underground river, moving fast enough to pull a Stirge away from Rae and scratch her hand – in a cave system that you’ve seen is full of bends and swirls.

Brooke, hesitantly: “I mean fair, but…”

Give me your first Athletic Roll – with advantage.

Ari has half a second to reconsider as the force of the rushing water builds up to push her.

Instead she sets the shoulder and tries to swim with the current. Heavy emphasis here on ‘tries’ as swimming was never something she was taught – having grown up in a kingdom where the nearest lake could dissolve a multi-headed dragon down to the bone in less than fifteen minutes.

At the first bend, she can feel the movement of the water changing and she kicks off one of the rock, saving for only half (4) damage. The rock scrapes her leg and tail. It hurts, but not as bad as slamming into the wall would.

Give me your second Athletic Roll.

Right as she thinks that, Ari’s back slams into the stone of the next wall and she gasps, accidentally letting out all her air and taking 11 damage.

In a panic now, she begins to scramble.

Ari’s fingers claw at the slippery rock. She scrabbles in any direction she momentarily hopes is up, fearfully knowing in her gut that she’s about to hit her head upside down on the bottom of the-

Make a [it’s two weeks later now and i forgot what it was] Roll for me.

-the surface of the water breaks and Ari feels the cool-warm air of a cave. She pulls and drags herself out, heaving her body onto something solid.

Ari is back on the ground now. So there’s that. She’s about to roll over, when a thought strikes her. Carefully she reaches her hands out on either side. One side is flattish rock sloping upwards, and the other is wet and cold and moving quickly. She rolls away from the wet, and up the gently sloping rock.

Now Ari is on her back on the ground. Staring at a dark cave ceiling. So there’s that.

After some time, and a heavy sigh, Ari slowly raises herself to sitting. The ledge here is narrow between the wall of the cave and the rushing water, so she has to sit with her knees up to avoid dangling her legs in the stream. It takes a bit, but she finally spits out all of the cold cave water she’s convinced was soaked through her lungs and into her knees.

Ari stands up and blinks, looking around.

There's no light, so her darkvision is straining.

The cave is a dark long semi-bendy-semi-straight tube running…to the…from the… Ari isn’t sure about directions at the best of times and now… maybe running up west to widdershins? is that a compass point?

In the distance to the…to her right, she can hear sounds other than running water. Maybe even voices.

She edges along the wall, down river… or is it upstream… against the current anyway – the opposite direction from where it was pulling her.

After about… she really should’ve been counting her paces… maybe ten steps – she can see the little river forking off to one side, or maybe coming together since it's further back? it divides is the point.

As she nears the fork, she can see a dim light off to one side. That’s some good news at least…probably.

The bad news is that she’s running out of ledge here. It’s tapering away more and more and soon she'll have to try and jump across to the other side before the little shore bank of rocks vanishes into the stream.

It’s only a few more steps when Ari decides to jump across, reasoning that she still wants enough room to get a good position.

She swings her arms.

She leaps.

…

She lands on the other rocky bank in a crouch.

Ari stops and slows her breath, listening. Definitely sounds. Definitely humanoid. Some inner sense is telling her it might be dangerous. Then again… she looks down at the Ari-drowning-cave-river. She creeps closer to the noises.

She's on the left side of the fork now and easing her way along, but there's another jump coming up where the stream shifts and this side won’t have enough room.

A Dex Check, a jump, a landing.

A Luck Roll, a sound, a turn.

It feels like slow motion as she turns her head. The Sending Stone must’ve been loosened when she got hit. She can see it tumbling, falling behind her as she spins to try and grab it.

It passes, just in front of her hand, glowing faintly as a tiny voice, made into a whisper by the distance, comes out of it, “Ari? The Map-” and it slashes into the stream.

Frantic now, Ari gets on all fours, reaching into the water.

Give me a Dex Save to catch it before it gets pulled downstream.

Brooke, head in her hands: “It’s a crit’ one.”

Ari can see the glowing Stone bouncing off the rocks at the bottom of the water. She reaches out…

It catches in a crevasse between three rocks, rolling and knocking about in the current but staying put.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she readjusts herself. She reaches out.

Just

A

Little

Bit

Mmoorree

Ari’s middle fingernail touches the glowing Sending Stone.

The pad of her finger

The first knuckle.

Oh no.

She’s slipping. The wet rock is-

Ari slides back into the water, once more lost in the drink.

Well that was a fun diversion.

Brooke, angrily: “Was it?!”

Yeah, i didn’t expect you to come up there, you found some interesting stuff… sort of.

Give me a Dex Save for this section .

She’s spinning around now, tumbling like clothes in a-

Her horn snags on a rock before her back twists, taking seven damage.

Give me one last (for this section) Dex Save.

Ari screams under the water, she can feel the shift in the water and tries to brace herself, ready to push off the rocks to-

Her feet slam seven times too hard without giving her a chance.

Give me your third Athletic Roll.

Panting and coughing, Ari is back in the air. Out of the water and into… where is she now?

It’s a cave.

She’s in a cave.

The walls are rocks, the ceiling is rocks. The floor is water… and rocks.

Yup, it’s a cave.

Ari half-sighs-half-screams with her eyes half of cave water and half full of her own tears.

Time doesn’t feel real anymore.

Down here in the empty waiting dark, with only the noise of the water droning on and on in an endless repeating loop.

Did she sit there holding her knees for fifteen minutes? an hour? it probably couldn’t have been a day.

Finally, Ari stands back up. She whispers the words every scientologist has heard a hundred hundred times, “The only way out is through.”

She goes back in.

This is your fourth and final (for this series at least) Athletic Roll. You have advantage for preparing this time, but you have minus 2 for the two that you failed. Less than 10 and come out unconscious, you’ll have to make Death Saves to -

Brooke, panicking: “Wait, What!? No! I still have-”

You won’t die. It’s just to wake up with no penalty.

Brooke, stubborn and grumpy: “Okay…”

If it’s under 15 you are conscious but prone, and if it's over 15 you pull yourself out easily.

Ready?

Brooke after a big breath: “Yeah.”

Brooke, looking at her roll: “fuck”

Okay… you are unconscious. You’re probably on the shore but you might be-

Brooke with teary puppydog eyes: “But but but but but…”

I mean, come on, you don’t know how to swim, and you tried to scream underwater, and you hit your head hard a few times.

Make a Death save, no penalty just to try and wake u-

Brooke jumping up in the air with a fist up like a cartoon hero: “Nat’ 20, boom! Let’s go!”

Ari eventually comes to in a small intersection of tunnels, a cluster of not-quite-maze-caves branching out from where she washed up on the edge of another fork in the stream. She’s at the end of another small stone bank and she can see that the river is shallower here, just about three maybe four heads* deep. Still enough to carry you away (ask anyone in arroyo country), but easier to cross if she has to. The cave wall behind her is curved like a little stone nest to her left; the water flows out from under the rocks so she's guessing that’s where she came from. To her right after the small bend, the tunnel opens to one side but branches away again in front of her. Looking down the tunnel she can see more branching off and more streams either coming together or branching apart.

*’heads’ being a loose system of measuring similar to ‘hands’. In many human cultures throughout the ages ‘hands’ (the span across the palm from closed thumb to little finger) was useful because everyone had one at arms reach ,a-ha-ha. In the early history of the Hells where demonic wanton cruelty was not only common, but embraced as a sign of elite dominance, if a strong devil wanted to measure something they would simply force the face and skull of anyone nearby who was weaker than them into the space being measured.

With a heavy sigh, Ari heaves herself further up the bank and takes a short rest.

It's merely moments now
Moments now until your feeble flesh bends to my will
And it will, so rest your weary head
There'll be no pain, no pain at all
As everything you are dissolves
Your fate resolved upon my silky threads

-THE WEB —The Duke of Uke and His Novelty Orchestra, “Spider Suite”

🌊🧠🪨ℤ🎲🗡️Chapter 21: Separated (7/28/24)

After a short rest and a chance to dry off, the pains and aches don't feel as bad. It still hurts and her entire body aches, but it’s better to be sure. Ari’s vision is still a little blurry though. At first she thinks it’s some kind of skull or brain damage from when her left horn got bonked and yanked when she got snagged on a rock. But then she shakes her head, the water falls out. ‘Oh right,’ she thinks, ‘water in the eyes, duh.’ then the mournful homesick ache, ‘back home the rivers would just melt your face off.’

Thinking back to things she learned from Tank back in the Ivory Thorns and lessons that she learned from Rae camping on their great runaway in the wild plateaus, Ari first takes stock of her inventory. Before anything else, she’s compelled to check her Rapier.

Let’s have a quick Luck Roll, if it's low the sword is damaged, if it's high the curse is knocked away.

9.

Well, that’s pretty middling.

She carefully checks all her gear one piece at a time, using little scraps of cloth to dry off any big water drops.

Go ahead and use your Constitution for this, i think. There’s no really good stat here but that will work just to see how dry things are, and i’ll contest it to see how much water got in. kind of like an infective sickness inflecting your gear. Does that work?

Brooke, nodding: “Makes sense. 15.”

That beats my nat’ 1.

Ari is surprised – and more than a little proud of herself – to see how well her things held up. Her main bag is beaten and scratched some on the sides, but she kept the straps closed since yesterday and nothing inside is anything more than a little damp. She reaches into a bundle inside and slides out the rolled leather and sheep gut folder where she keeps the map and any other important papers. After a quick glance at the map she can confirm she has no idea where she is. Then she swallows a lump in her throat and looks at the paper behind it. The charcoal etching of her family. Back when she was still little and just barely taller than the length of her own tail. Her mother's short hair around her horns worked into a tall flat circle over her head, ever turning inward in a slowly closing spiral. Her father with his red hand on her shoulder, his horns carefully cut and split and regrown and split again, further and further into a fine array of braids like a woven circlet around his head (a very painful practice taking decades showing him as the king). The way they looked before the siege. Smiling. Happy.

She swallows the lump down and coughs. Then packs her things back into the bag after wiping it inside with the rag.

Then she tends to her wounds, poking at the bits with bruises, and wiping at the bits with scratches. Picking up sand like she’s seen Cypress do and spitting on it to make a rough muddy plaster to cover her anything still bleeding after she’s wiped it with the wet cloth. (two Hit Dice, recovering 12 HP)

Having taken care of herself and her stuff, Ari stands up and steps over to the other side of this fork in the stream to look around. When she does, she hears her bow give a faint “vwwuuertk” next to her ear. She crouches low and rolls an unnatural 20 on a stealth, using it to sneak her way back to her left.

Just two steps away the tunnel opens to a large gallery, a cavern the size of The Cradle we found some days back. The cave has one distinctive feature in opposition to The Cradle though. There the floor was sunken, concave, gradually descending in a curve which pulled down to the center. Here the floor of the cave is a rising convex slope, gently pushing everything towards the pools of water by the cave walls. Like the snail caves and The Cradle, this gallery has several massive stone pillars like melted candles scattered throughout. There are also two main pools of water with little clear puddles interspersed around the rim. One is at the far side of the cave and is still as frozen glass. The other is collecting from the gushing water running by Ari’s feet. The steam curves around the edge and builds up that side wall of the cave in a sputtering torrent. There in the splashing pool are five heavy and solid stalagmites in a rough broken quinconce. The stalagmites are all quite large and, well, not to put too fine a point on it, roughly as big as the ones we saw in the Roper caves…

With a good instinct about my descriptions here, Ari decides to move away from the cave full of Rop– stalagmites and starts off down the tunnel to her right.

Ari, keeps slinking stealthily along the stone shore here moving against the flow of the tiny river next to her. She stops after a 15 on a perception check when she notices a strange irregularity on the ground. A ring of sharp angled stones around a shallow hole or pit in the rock here.

With a careful suspicion, Ari holds her hand over the ring of sharp rocks. ‘Oh , hot air.’ her first though is a comfort, reminding her of safe places and-

-the air current stops. Then shifts, now pulling the cold ari down. Ari stays frozen and motionless. After a moment the air stops and shifts again, once more pushing the hot air up from the ground. She swallows hard looking down at the circle the size of a bear trap, ‘it’s breathing, the cave is breathing’.

Slowly and careful, Ari pulls her hand back and scoops up a rock. She holds it over the little dip in the rock and drops it.

It falls further than it should.

The rock passes through the stone floor and Ari blinks. Her eyes readjust and now she can see the illusion. The rock tumbles and rolls off to the side and out of view, but Ari can see the camouflaged hole now with its ring of teeth-like-rocks at the top. ‘Nope. No way am I going over that.’

It’s either an Athletics Check to jump the mouth trap, or, let’s see here, oh, an Athletics Check to jump over the river.

Brooke, glaring: “I hate you. …and I hate these dice, 3.”

Oooo goodie, a failure! Let’s see what we can do with that!

Brooke, glaring: “Did I already say I hate you?”

Yes you did.

Brooke, glaring: “I hate you.”

I’m aware.

The rushing water scoops Ari up like the ungentle fist of a child crashing toys into each other to make them fight. She turns and contorts herself to keep her head up to the breathable air. She feels a rock scratch her but ignores it as she watches the tunnel open up into the wide stalactite encrusted ceiling of the cave gallery.

Her fear is much more chilling than the icy cave water.

Ari knows right where she’s headed.

One of the stalagmites seems to move in the dark light.

Brooke, hitting the table : “Oh come on! You can’t end it like that.”

Hey, everyone else had a frustrating cliffhanger ending today, so do you.

Since you failed with a three we’re gonna put you 3 spaces away from the end, here, and that’s where you’ll be starting next time.

What wicked little twist of fate placed you here upon my plate?
Here, where no one hears your cries?
Where was your God to steer you through?
Perhaps your God's forsaken you?
Otherwise, why lead you here to die?

-THE WEB —The Duke of Uke and His Novelty Orchestra, “Spider Suite”

🌊🧠🪨ℤ🎲🗡️Chapter 21: Separated (8/18/24)

Ari stands up in the back of the cave, standing in the swirling waters of this strange pool, between two of the five stones on the far side of the awkward quinconce.

The pillars all around her begin to move, each of them cracks and tendrils emerge from the rocks. Rocky, scaly tentacular arms reach out in whipping swirls. The Ropers rotate with the grinding sound of dry and dying mill stones and facing her with sharp haunting smiles. (see those are the descriptions that make me feel like i’m doing a good job).

Brooke, pleading: “So my rewind button… can we retcon that I hit it at the end last time and…”

I was thinking about it cause you mentioned wanting to when we leveled up. But i did just let you retcon an action to take a long rest before exploring last time. I don’t think i should encourage you to do that every week…

Brooke, sighing: “Yeah… that’s fair…”

So go ahead and roll Initiative.

Brooke, crying.

Oh yeah, Ropers have 4 tentacle attacks each round, i forgot about that.

Brooke, crying harder.

Two Roper tendrils lash out from the tallest stone on Ari’s left. The first one flails wildly, but the second splashes in the water at her feet and curls up, wrappinging around her leg.

The stubby stalactite monster to her left flings out two more and – just like its big brother – the first one misses, but the second living stone chord whips around and lashes her other ankle.

Over the top of the stubby middle one, a great skinny monolith flings out a tendril and it wraps tightly around Ari’s neck.

Before the rocky tentacle can squeeze her breath out, Ari whispers two magic words, then pushes her energy through the base of her horns to the Circlet of Blasting around her forehead. The diadem on the front glows red and then three fiery Rays erupt. The first lances out at nothing, but Ari focuses and the next ones flare on either side of the stone tendril choking her, pulling together like scissors made of fire lasers, and severing the monstrous appendage. She quickly uncurls the dead limb and tosses it to the side to be ready to dodge the next attack.

While the last of the creatures, straight ahead of her, is still turning around, the second one to her left lashes out! She twists, but so does the tentacle, following her movements. She coughs as it wraps around her throat, curling in the same spot as the one she just severed and threw away.

The first Roper on her right shoots out two more tendrils. One hits the arm tentacle of another Roper and bounces off as the monoliths hiss at each other, but the other spirals up Ari’s arm from wrist to shoulder, holding it up and pulling it.

The stubby Roper gnashes its hard slate teeth and as one more tendril snakes up from the water and carefully, slowly, coils around Ari’s arm – her last free appendage – like the seductive tongue of some nightmare.

The Ropers hold her up and pull on her body from all sides. She hovers in the air, hanging and unable to move as she feels her muscles creaking and her bones trying to stretch.

Will she be torn limb from limb, drawn and quartered by hungry stones as she screams for her lost friends?

Ari hangs there, suspended on all sides by the hard scaly wet tendrils of the ropers feeling them pull.

Under the slurping sound of their grinding teeth she hears the tap tap of footsteps. She looks up and around to see new creatures joining in this scene of her demise. Large open brains atop four muscly legs peak from around corners of the rocks.

And then the sound of barefoot running.

Not running, galloping.

Not galloping hooves, galloping bare human feet.

She turns towards the sound and sees the largest Intellect Devourers yet stride into the room. It's the size of a riding mastiff from one of Cypress’s stories of their home hobbit villages. On the sides of its forebrain – where a mouth should be – there are two long metal hooks going up, connecting to wooden poles in the hands of… Zaanth.

She turns towards the sound and sees the largest Intellect Devourers yet stride into the room. It's the size of a riding mastiff from one of Cypress’s stories of their home hobbit villages. On the sides of its forebrain – where a mouth should be – there are two long metal hooks going up, connecting to wooden poles in the hands of… Zaanth.

The half goblin woman climbs down from her odd mount, and rests a distinctive and dirty tower shield against its side. She mutters something and the beast makes a mewling whimper as she pulls the hooks from it. Not hooks. Khopesh. Long and golden, with lengthened shafts mounted to elongated one and a half axe style hafts, turning them almost into poleaxes instead of swords.

Some dull part of Ari’s brain hears Yofess lecturing about how the rapier is “a superior weapon and a truly divine something something regal something noble something something civilized” and eventually “something something, but not all royal courts hold them in high esteem, some use ancient ceremonial weapons like the Mace, the nunchaku and the Khopesh…”

Ari grits her sharp teeth and feels her fangs cut into her lip, “So? Have you come to gloat over my death and watch them tear me limb from limb?”

Zaanth walks in silence over to where our hero hangs in the air above the water, looking up at her with the same easy sardonic smile we remember.

Then she does something… strange.

She bows.

Just like Ari did in the Golden Berry Palace, Zaanth clasps her hands behind her back, thrusting out her hips and chest to arch her back, then she turns her torso and bows left with her legs facing straight ahead. She has no tail, but the Khopesh on their long haft poles behind her back move in her hands to mimic the actions of the tail she doesn’t have; they stand out straight to her left.

A perfect court bow for Agate Castle: Keep and Seat of Avernus – before the fall of the Third Reign of Raenef Dragonslayer.

She keeps her head bowed for a long heavy silent pause with only the splashing river to answer Ari’s venomous invective.

“Ita principissa Zevari Valros. Hic sumus. Uterque carent primogenitis in obscuro opaco Putridas antro. Fruebar obsequium meum, gladium quem dedi tibi? Sperabam fore ut te dimisisti, ut te dimitterem ac liberarem. recte videtur. Itaque hic sumus. amici tui te dereliquerunt, et tu apud me misertus es. Domus Excelsa Principissa ad aulam Rosae Valoris: Zavari Valros, Ignis Gutta cryptarum Nigrorum, Heres Absentia de Lux Exilio Infernorum Secundorum, Sedem reliquit Ad Sedem Obsidian throni fortitudinis Regalis Raenef - Rex Quatuor, Infernus Riser. ac Occisor magni Draconis.

“Et in mea potestate... et quid est quod faciam tibi?”

When Zaanth opens her mouth, instead of common, she speaks in perfect Infernal, in a high tone worthy of an opera, or a royal audience at court.

The internet consensus – since no langage was ever officially drafted is that this is Latin:

“So, Princess Zevari Valros. Here we are. Both deprived of our birthrights in a dark dank musty cave. Have you enjoyed my homage, that sword which I gave to you? I had hoped that it would help you let go, to release and free yourself. It seems that I was right. *sigh* And so here we are. Your friends have abandoned you and you are at my mercy. The high house Princess to the court of the Valorous Rose: Zevari Valros, Fire Drop of the Blackest Caves, Heir Absentia de lux Exile of second hells, left seat to the standing Obsidian Throne of his might Kingonen Raenef – King of Four, Hell Riser, and Smoter of the great Dragon.

“And in my power... and what is it that I should do with you?”

With a very easy insight check, Ari can tell that this is no mere mummery. No play acting or mockery. This truly educated bow and speech is no sham, nor even the kind of thing one might learn to feign from serving in a grand hall or form butlering for some high noble. No this is the same kind of upbringing she herself had. Tutelage with a capital T. The rites and educations of someone expected to learn and recall customs and forms for regal courts.

Ari narrows her eyes, but finds something in the speech that she can latch onto. “My friends have not abandoned me.” She spits in the common tongue, through gritted teeth.

Zaanth finishes setting down her weapons – leaning them casually against one of the Ropers. At Ari’s words, she brightens up and claps her hands. Then opening her arms as if to embrace Ari for a hug, she says in Infernal (don’t worry i’m not doing all her lines in Latin), “Ah, good! Then I am so glad and proud that you finally came to your senses and left them behind!”

Straining against her stony bonds is useless, but Ari still tries, “I didn’t abandon anyone!”

With an exaggerated look of confusion, Zaanth turns her hands palm up and looks around. “I don't see them anywhere, Princess. Are you sure?” She turns back with a pleasant smile, continuing again in Inferal. “You left them, and that’s all I could have asked of you. But you did not answer my question, have you been enjoying the sword I left as my court gift for you?”

“They were asking questions about your stupid sword,” Ari says, unconsciously breaking into Infernal herself as she tries to wiggle and drop the rapier from its frog at her belt. “And since I couldn’t explain, your stupid sword made me run.”

This time, the goblin woman’s look is genuine as it contorts in confusion, “But, Zevari, you are Royal. They are… nothing, they are dirt and peasants.” Her tone shifts from a confusion at trying to grasp a new concept to that of explaining something simple to an older relative. “You only need to tell them what to do, and make them obey. It’s in your blood as the daughter of the Dragonkiller.”

There is a long silence and then a very tired sigh from Zaanth. “I can see now that you aren’t ready to take me seriously. I too needed to meditate in the darkness of a cave to find my way…” She pauses and for just a second we can almost see a reflection of something painful in her eyes. Then her face hardens. “Hang there, then, if that’s your choice rather than coming with, and helping me, this I shall stand here as my court and this is my judged sentence on you. Hang, and repent your mocking words. Meditate until you have become learned to the truth.” She picks up her long Khopesh again and walks over to get her shield. With a casual look over her shoulder she says, “I’ll come back in some days, and maybe then you will be willing to talk.”

With that she hooks the swords back into the brain, and bumpily rides out of the cave.

Ari is once more alone, hanging in a dark cave with only the sound of rushing water in her ears and her one grinding bones vibrating her skull as she hangs in the air. One of the Ropers lets out a malevolent garbled chuckle and another slurps the at air though its limestone beak.

So, Ari, what are you going to-

Brooke, smugly: “I hit my Rewind Button.”

Huh… interesting.

Brooke: “I said I pinned it up by my collar so I can tilt my head.”

Brooke, looking at the card: “It affects the room I'm in by one turn, so that means it would have to Bring Zaanth back, wouldn't it?”

Yeah, yeah it would. Very cool!

Straining against her living bonds to tilt her head, Ari brushes her Rewind Button.

After time resettles, Zaanth is standing back by one of the stone columns, about to get into the saddle. In an instant her guard is up and she has both Khopesh in her hands and the massive shield to her back.

She looks at Ari suspended in the Roper’s grips and slowly lowers her weapons. She says something in a language Ari recognizes but can’t fully understand, and then as she walks over to our captive heroshe changes back to Infernal, “Hmm… you learned some magic I didn’t know about.”

While hanging by every limb with her neck in the stone tentacle of five high level monsters, with no communication, in an unknown secret cave where none of her friends can find her, Ari gloats at the doubly armed woman in control of several beasts, “There's lots you don't know… Zaanth!” She pauses before the last word, and says it like some big reveal.

Zaanth looks back and laughs, “Oh, ha ha, Princess. There isn’t much at all that I don't know about you.”

Ari’s anger shows as she strains in her living bonds. But Zaanth only smirks as if it’s exactly what she was expecting. (okay one more time) “An in venis clamat avitorum sanguis? Cornua tua doleant ignito me percurrere ferro? Bona ... Bona ... Sed me debes, parva lava regina. Et ego te requiro. Atria familiae, regni solium in mola cordis ignea, Mecum reuocare potes. Crede mihi, adiuva me, et maledictionem illam antiquam possum vel frangere ut tibi pennas praestent. Sequere mecum et sepulcrum omnium illorum antiquorum sanctorum possumus exurere. Hoc totum... Actum est de vobis. Nunc ergo, cum te tandem incipias.”

Again for us:

“Does the blood of your Grandfathers cry out in your veins? Do your horns ache with the burning of stonefire to run me through? Good ... Good ... But you need me, little lava princess. And I need you. With me you can reclaim the halls of your family, the seat of the kingdom in the volcanic heart of fire. Trust me, help me, and I can even break that ancient curse to give you back the wings of Bail. Follow with me and we can burn the mountain tomb of all those ancient saints. This whole thing... It's all been about you. And now, with you, it can finally begin.”

After a History Check, Ari remembers her dream of flying over lakes of lava and the old folk stories. They said that all Tieflings were winged once, with large bat-like wings that let them soar aloft on rising heat of the landscape. It was in the time of Breaking Walls when the mundane plane and the Hells first made little holes into one another.

The story is told that when great champions of humans and Elves and Trolls and Dwarves fought the tieflings, the ruckus evil demons were always victorious, by either numbers or by flight. The little wars on the edges where these holes frayed between planes grew and grew and soon every tiefling flew around with belts of skulls from the outsiders they’d killed. So some high clerics and paladins climbed a sacred mountain and called down their gods in a great Council. Helm and Bane, Kozah and Torm, and many more were brought to this holy mountain in a court made between the realm of Gods and the mundane. After nine holy nights they came to one agreement. These Gods disappeared and went themselves into the hells, breaking the wings of the tieflings and cursing them. Knowing the ways of demons, they crafted a curse that could only be broken only by a holy Saint of Nine, and they laid the keys to the tomb of the saint, broken in nine parts in nine chambers inside the holy mountain between the realms. And so the mundane people were able to beat back the fowl demons and raise a peace between the lands.

Ari was raised hearing this story, but also with the secret story, told only to heirs and nobles in the dark with no one else around. She was told that it was a choice. A deal made between the Queen of all tieflings in the days of Breaking Walls. When the mundane folk would raid and pillage the border village. As part of a great piece, the tieflings would cut the wings off their babies for nine generations to placate the blood lust of these raiders. But after the Great Queen died, no more babies were born with the wings, as the magicallined blood of the tiefling people wept for her lost grace. But that was a tale only told in secret rooms and never written down in any book.

Ari slumps forward, letting herself go limp. “Okay. Let’s talk. Let me down and I'll swear not to attack you. Then we can discuss all of this.”

Zaanth looks surprised.

She smiles. “I see.” She walks up to where Ari is suspended and reaches into her breast plate, pulling out a dagger.

When Zaanth reaches up with the knife, Ari’s eyes go wide. It is a small black handle in the shape of three loosely twisted rods in the shape known as an iron basket. They come together in a taper like a orchestra conductor’s baton into a long thin stiletto with etchings up the three sided blade – and the entire thing is hewn from one single piece of obsidian.

Holding the knife up to her, Zaanth breathes out three words, “Do you swear?”

Ari gulps and remembers a passage in a lesson book – or rather Kai remember’s the full passage, let’s be honest Ari remembers the basic idea:

Obsidian Oath Daggers have been used in the spheres of the Hells for long past any mortal reckoning of years or even centuries at count. Indeed, the first legend of their use was when the great Arch Demoniac Al’al’See-Igma ripped the tooth from the nine headed dragon Ur’beck-ll and spat on it before forcing his soldiers to swear loyalty. Of course when Yan-kat-horn’ashimin tried to betray the Arch Demoniac, the magic seized him and Al-al’See-Igma’s spit boiled inside his blood until it foamed from his eyes as he cried for mercy. Now these daggers are made of the dark Uber-dia-sidan (a rare obsidian crystal ore) found only in some deep caves of the hells. They are chipped, cut, forged and ground, over a course of nineteen days and only by great magic wielders. They are inscribed with binding spells which are linked to the spot where the crystal was first drawn so that sympathy can draw on all the power of the hell itself to enforce the binding. Each Oath Dagger has a unique magical imbuance, but one spell remains from the legendary days of Al’al’See-Igma’s grandson, “If my oath should die, let me die with it.” While the use of these daggers is menial in our second modern age, it is still traditional. In fact they are still used and still quite binding in the courts of Kings, Queens, rulers, and mastetrates.

In a bullet-time flash Ari considers the possibilities, and voices her biggest fear to the DM, “I just don’t want to make an oath that stops me from ever being able to attack Zaanth, like in a boss fight down the road.”

A boss fight? Whaaaat? N-no? Pashaw… *scribbles something*

Her fears are settled a little as a thought occurs to her, ‘there must be some ways to break the oaths. Some of our servants and staff joined the rebellion, and they had all sworn fealty’. Then she has a thought that every young lad with a genie/monkey’s-paw/demon/ghost would recognize, ‘I just have to be careful with my wording’. She looks into Zaanth’s eyes, and speaks in Inferal, “If you let me down, I promise to talk with you, and not attack you as we talk here.”

Zaanth makes a click with her tongue towards one of the Intellect Devourers, and its brain lets off a faint light. Then a second later, the same light glows around the middle of the Roper-stalagmite and its tendril un-slithers, recoiling from Ari’s arm.

When Ari’s hand drops, Zaanth – carefully not to say anything – grabs it. She places one of the three flats on the finger nail claw of Ari’s middle finger, then slides it in, under her cuticle up to her first knuckle, then she lifts it straight up. The skin there opens in a sharp straight line, and Ari’s blood flows down the runners on the other two sides of the blade, filling the etched runes there which sparkle like stars made of hell fire before fading as they burn and boil away her blood.

With a nod to the Intellect Devourers, Zaanth steps back. Each of the awkward legged brains glows and there is a corresponding glow in the core of each Roper.

Finally Ari is dropped to the ground, falling into the shallow water on all fours. Her muscles ache and cry out with the irony of stiffness that makes them want to be back in that awful position. She can feel the current – slower here in the pool – tugging the fresh blood out from the open cut on her finger as she takes a beat to catch her breath.

When Ari stands up, she sees that the Intellect Devourers have all moved, each one sitting on top of the ‘head’ of their now dormant Roper stalagmites. Meanwhile, Zaanth has moved her great shield over to a lump in the floor and a loose rock – laying it across them to make a rough impromptu bench. She’s sitting there looking at our princess heroine. When Ari stands she gestures with one hand to the flat rise of a broken stalagmite as if it was a chair at a pub.

“So,” Ari says, stretching and sitting down on the stone ‘stool’, “How, and why, do you know so much about me?”

“Like I told you,” the goblin-orc woman smiles a gentle and content smile, “because you are so important.”

“But important for what?”

Zaanth motions with an open hand all around the room in a flat circle, “For everything.”

“But what is ‘everything’?”

Let’s codify this interaction a bit. Give me a Persuasion Check.

Brooke, smiling: “Hey i’m good at th-”

Brooke, head-in-hands: “Nat’ one.”

Zaanth sighs, “If you give up on getting in my way, come with me instead of your friends, stop trying to undo my hard work, and give up on trying to actively stop me from saving the world. THEN I can tell you everything.”

Ari scoffs, “You can’t be saving anything, you’re POISONING people.”

“Believe me, Princess,” Zaanth sighs, and leans back with her arms out on her shield, “I wish I didn’t have to. But it’s for a greater good.”

There's a pause, and Ari asks, "So what is my place then?” She mimics Zaanth’s gesture, waving her hand around, “In all this?”

“Simple. Just work WITH me. And help me change the world for the better.”

“And what,” Ari says in an irritated staccato, “would we do?”

This has gone for a bit, give me another Persuasion Check.

Brooke, relieved: “18.”

Zaanth leans forward with a passionate glitter in her red eyes, “Change the world! Heal it! Cure it! Fix it all!”

“You’re talking about healing, but all I'm seeing is you killing. Why?” Ari asks, bluntly.

“To stop all this pain. When you go out, do you not see the people suffering, do you not hear the coughing children? So much in our lives, in all lives, is broken and wrong. Bent and twisted from any right path or pure goodness.”

Ari wags a finger, “No, no, no, i’m not falling for that. You’re CAUSING pain. Why?”

There is a long silence, then Zaanth seems to deflate. “I can’t tell you all the things you want to know. Not yet. Not until you realize that you need to help me, to come with me.” She looks at Ari with genuine pleading eyes, “What can I say to make you understand, or to come with me? Even just for a single day! Just to see the truth.”

Ari’s only response is silence.

After a long empty wait with only the splashing river answering her, Zaanth puts her clawed hands on the edge of her shield and pulls herself up to her feet. She shakes her head in true sadness, “I guess you’re just not ready yet.” She picks up her poled khopesh and makes a large circle with them in the air over her head, rounding up her Intellect Devourers. They climb and jump off their Ropers and gather in a nearby clump.

When Ari stands, she climbs back up on her ominous mount, “Just… please think about what I said,” Her eyes are brimming with tears at the edges, "Consider it Princess, I NEED you. Together we can fix all this suffering.” Then she reaches out, tossing something to Ari, and says in high Infernal, “Ostendo fidei meae.” (“Here is a show of my good faith.”)

Ari catches the obsidian Dagger in the air. She turns it over and sees a familiar seal in the pommel as Zaanth’s retreating voice echoes back, “It’s from Yofess’s office. I thought you might want to have it.”

Okay, really quick, before we end for today we need to make some rolls. We spent three rounds (of me going to the other table and back) with you and Zaanth talking. That’s three contested Charisma Saves.

5. 16. 16.

Two passes, one failure. So, going forward, every third Rest you will end up spending some time thinking about everything Zaanth said. But we’ll deal with that later.

I know the way how, I'll melt away now
I know the way
I'm feeling bliss now, dissolved to mist, how strangely I go away
Now I finally know
I know the way how, I'll melt away now
I know the way

-MELT AWAY —The Duke of Uke and His Novelty Orchestra, “Spider Suite”

🌊🧠🪨ℤ🎲🗡️Chapter 21: Separated (8/25/24)

Ari looks around cautiously, unsure what effect the Intellect Devourers’ departure will have on the Ropers. Will they lay in the dormant sleep of the recently hypnotized? Will they lash out in an impotent rage? Or, will the effects linger, leaving her free to climb all over them if she wants?

Erring on the side of caution she sneaks (24 Stealth) out of the gallery and back into the matrix of tunnels.

After an easy Dex roll, our heroine once again finds herself staring at the odd mouth-like hole in the floor. The strange irregularity on the ground, a ring of sharp angled-

Brooke, after thinking about it while i was at the other table: “I’m going to use my Potion of Climbing to go up on the wall around it.”

-stones around a shallow ho… Yeah okay. That works.

The edges of the walls here are rough with jagged rocks left over from some formation process causing the top to eat into the floor and push up knobbly bits of stone. Ari uses these rough irregular bumps to move up the wall and around the mouth thing splayed across the path here.

On the other side now, she takes a long look (19 Perception) and notices something peculiar about the water flowing here. The stream across from where she stands by the breathing hole in the ground, the river – and the cave – split off in another fork. What’s strange here is that the water at the fork is flowing back against itself at the bend. All the water next to Ari is flowing towards the large gallery she just escaped, and indeed that’s where the water was flowing from the pool she washed up in. But, here at the fork, half of the water is flowing away from it, forming a weird back bite, or loop, in the stream as some of it is diverted to rush quickly away, down the other side and away past a curve.

With only a moment’s hesitation, Ari decided to continue on down the path here. The climbing potion in her makes it easy to walk on the slick floor as her feet naturally seek out the best foot holds where cracks have sucked away the water, or wear a patch of rougher stone has a more grippy texture.

After thirty minutes of cautious walking, careful to avoid falling back in, Ari comes to another split. Further down the path to her left and she can just see the edges of a calmer pool of water similar to where she washed up before, while in front of her, the rushing water is coming out from one of the caves, like she's been in before.

She’s excited as she gets down on her knees, peering under the archway of rocks formed up like a large culvert. She can see the same darker brown stone of those tunnels where this water lets out. It’s such a welcome hopeful sight after the light gray cave’s she’s been stuck in here. She can see where the water crosses the path of that tunnel, just like before, by the Mimic door when her and her friends were trying to get to the Oracle room.

Craning her neck to look under the little stone culvert Ari is desperate to try and find some way she can get through, but the voice in her head keeps saying what a difficult swim it will be with no walls on the side to hold on to and the hard current pushing against her. After several aggravating minutes she gives up and sighs, deciding that she can at least look around more and see what her other options are. After all, she can always come back here if this still looks like her best way out.

She goes to look at the pool she spied a moment ago, then stands there looking at it in awe. The pool, around the size of a medium spring, is rapidly draining. But draining in reverse. She can see the spiral of the water as it swirls, sucking in the air in the middle. Leaning over it a little, she can see the column of water underneath the hole in the bottom, but the whole thing is moving backwards. All the water is flowing UP into the pool, filling and overflowing it to spill out and join the swift channel back to the room with the ropers.

Not knowing about pressure channels or backflow or any of the things Steve Mould likes to show cut in half on youtube, Ari is just left confused, and walks back to the other fork, or i guess the other other fork, where the water changed directions.

At the crossing, she jumps the gap easily, with the Potion of Climbing giving her advantage and helping her find the best spots to jump from and the best footings to aim for. In a handful of steps she comes to another spring-like pool, and stops, reminded of the strange – and nearly identical – one she just walked away from. But this spring is at least draining the right way, the spiral is going down and the water is flowing away from her. The whole thing is in fact draining and not filling.

What makes her pause, though, is something she notices on the frog on the log in the hole in the bottom of the pool (i apologize, reader, but as a former boy scout and campfire caroler when i typed ‘the hole in the bottom’ i was legally required to make that joke) In the bottom of the little pond, the hole the water is draining through looks like a hole in a funnel held over a cook pot, with no walls, just water falling in a line open to the air. Through the torrent of water she can glimpse an open room with this pool drinking into it like a waterfall… and some dim faint light bouncing up at her.

When i come back to her table, Ari is digging in her bag to find her rope with a look of grim determination – it’s a look that says quite loudly, ‘I do not have many options, i do not like the options I do have, and this one is either the best one… or the worst one’.

Brooke, nervous: “So… can I tie the rope to some rock or something, so that I can try to climb back up?”

Yeah, i think that makes sense. We can definitely say there is some nub or crack of some formation you can anchor it to. So, let's do a quick *googling* Survival Check. Your knot will be fine, but this is to see the effects of everything else and to determine how long the knot can last with water spraying up all around it.

Brooke, still nervous: “Okay, 18.”

With her rope securely fastened to a craggy rock jutting out of a break between the wall and the floor, Ari takes a few long deep breaths – knowing they will be the last for a while.

She grabs the rope and lets the water pull her down, giving way to it one hand at a time.

Give me a Strength Check for the climb.

Brooke: “16”

As you-

Brooke, excited: “Oh wait, the climbing potion, i get advantage huh?”

Yeah, this is exactly what this is, so you sure do.

Brooke, with instant regret: “Nat’ 1.”

… a crit is always a crit and overrides advantage or disadvantage, it's the rule we’ve been playing with for two years…

Brooke, near to tears: “But…”

In the cave above Ari, a huge surge of water slashes the rope and the wet fibers begin to unfurl.

She hangs in the tube of water looking around.

The fraying rope cuts against the jagged stone.

Ari falls.

Whoever told you life was fair?
Look around you everywhere, the cruelty of Nature is displayed
Why the scorn? Why the surprise?
Everything that's born must die and it isn't I who made the world that way

-THE WEB —The Duke of Uke and His Novelty Orchestra, “Spider Suite”

Table talk:

The quotes from this one were all from one song, “Spider Suite” by The Duke of Uke and His Novelty Orchestra (although they aren’t quite in order for the song. This is a very moving song which is actually one of the three songs i want played at my funeral. It’s about a Fly caught in a Spider’s web, but my favorite adaptation of it (though missing the first section) is in an animated short that i’ve included here.

Just a complete detached, but maybe interesting side note here. All of this cave water system stuff, it almost never existed. So, as i was mapping the maps for the second sewer level, particularly the big printing batch i did last summer, i added a few things of water just to greeble the space up a bit and added some more realism and flare. Then, just a few minutes before exporting, i decided on a whim to connect them – mostly just to give me something to work off of for level 3. Months went on and when i needed something interesting in a boring cave bit, i though in the river crossing as fast flowing river, thinking about the drainage arroyos i grew up around and how just a few inches of water can knock you down and carry you miles away before you knew what happened, or a foot in the open desert arroyos can carry whole parked cars away. That, plus re-reading Terry Pratchett’s “Thud!” gave me the inspiration for this strange tunnel water network. But if i hadn’t been looking at an empty few map squares and thought ‘okay, what else can i slap in here besides more gray rocks to make it look better?’ none of this would’ve happened to Ari.