Milking The Purple Worm

The group finds themselves in a large cavern with two stepped pyramids joined at their bases. The cavern dimly lit by the eerie green glow that they have become familiar with in these tunnels. Each rise of the steps is about twenty feet and the group cautiously approaches the bottom of the nearest pyramid puzzling over what to do.

The Oblesik
3,600 XP + 500 XP

At the top of the pyramid, at which they are at the foot of, there is a black towering black obelisk. At the far end of the cavern, atop the other pyramid is a large red object. It would seem to be about the size of a red dragon's egg. As H and Azalea wonder how to scale such vast heights, Thokk grabs a mushroom out  his pack and tosses into his mouth. Immediately he begins to grow. He continues growing until he about 12 feet tall. With that H begins to scale him and with Thokk's help he is able to just grasp the edge of the top of the first step of the pyramid.

H dangles there at the edge of the pyramid, unable to go any further. He sees movement above him and calls out, "A little help here?".

The movement comes closer to H until H is able to see it is a derro. A small creature with white eyes, a scraggly unkempt head of white hair and black skin. H looks helplessly up at the derro who sneers and begins to draw a hooked spear. H, who is being held up by Thokk below him, draws his guns, with a flourish, and fires. The report is deafening in the cavern as the sound echoes infinitely around the rocky space. The derro falls back wounded. With a push, Thokk sends H up to stand upon the first landing of the pyramid. There he faces two derro and a creature who is barely more than wisps of supernatural smoke begins to surround H.

Meanwhile on the other side of the cavern, Eldith who has been rescued by one of her kin, Gotrek, a dwarf from Gauntlgrym who has come looking for survivors of the orc attack. Eldith and Gotrek have come in search for Eldith companions, without whom she would never have escape from the drow prison. She owes them to come looking from them. At the sound of gunshots they rush forward through the tunnels until they come to the same cavern in which the other are in. They are, though, on the opposite side of the pyramids.

Azalea begins to climb Thokk, but her climbing skills are found wanting. She doesn't make it up but instead claws through some of Thokk's armor. Thokk decides to ingest another bigwyg mushroom. He begins to grow again. Now about 16 feet tall he but his armor is biting horribly into his body as his armor did not grow along with him. Azalea tries to climb Thokk again, this time succeeding in time to see H being assailed by a specter and two derro.

As Azalea climbs into sight of the spectre, it yells out to get the shard from the creature, pointing to Azalea. The 'shard' it's referring to must mean the metal piece she found back in the derro cultists cave. They begin attacking her. Her battleaxe simply cuts right through the specter leaving a wispy trail of ectoplasm which simply reforms around the creature. H concentrates his fire power on one of the derro. Thokk witnessing this from below reaches up to grab one of the derro by the leg and pulls. The derro flies across and down the pyramid coming to a crumpling landing at the feet of Sarith, the drow who has hung back. Sarith quickly stabs the derro.

Azalea decides to charge her battleaxe with her holy radiant power. Now with each swing now leaves a glowing trace of damage to the creature. Between this and Thokk's chromatic orb and wichbolt the spectre succumbs to the warriors. H having dealt with his derro runs across the bridge connecting the two pyramid peaks, to the unprotected dragon's egg.

Azalea approaches the obelisk and examines it. It seems to be made of a strong smooth material which she has never seen before. The lines are sharp and perfectly straight, save for the one spot which is missing a piece. She pulls from her pack the metal shard which she found earlier, and with only a brief thought reaches to fit the piece back into the obelisk.

The piece pulls out of Azalea's hand once it nears the obelisk and it joins perfectly with the obelisk, leaving no signs that the object was ever once damaged. There is a loud harmonic humming which reverberates throughout the cave. It makes everyone's head hurt and their vision waver. Lines of light, with that eerie green glow which they know well, begins to traversing across the pyramid in strange patterns. Intricate lines and designs begin to draw themselves across the surface of the obelisk. Very soon the lines of light begin to traverse down onto the pyramid itself and continue to grow along and out from the obelisk.

Once at the peak of the other pyramid, H is surprise attacked by two derro who have been lying in wait. H is able to shoot one and kill it but he and the remaining derro chase around the peak holding the egg trying to get one another. The derro is eventually killed by spears thrown by Eldith's rescuer, Gotrek. H walks up to take the egg from it's pedestal but it is remarkably heavier than he anticipated.

Once all the enemies have been felled, each of the party look to see where everyone is. They are spread out across the cavern but soon the light patterns have nearly encompassed the entire cavern. Thokk who has climbed to the top of the pyramid with the obelisk, eats a pygmywig mushroom to grow back to his normal size, much to the relief of his body and armor. He looks around the cavern and with a grunt, swings his hammer against the obelisk.

The harmonic hum which had been filling the cavern now becomes a deafening roar as the obelisk activates. The room becomes everywhere at once. Each of the adventurers see all manor of places. From places known, like home and other places they have visited, to places unknown both beautiful and horrifying. As the various locations superimpose themselves on top of each other at a rate their brains can barely keep up with, each tries to concentrate on that particular place they wish to go.

Each of them think of home, in some manor or other.

MetaGame Spoiler

DM note: I wasn't sure if anyone was going to hit it or not. It had to be hit to be activated. Thanks Thokk.

Only H is able to concentrate enough.

H finds himself back inside his wagon. His horses still there, if a little thinner after grazing as much as they could around them. His belongings still where he left them. He sits down, sighs and lights a cigarette. Smiling he is glad to be home. There is a little thought of the others. What happened to them? Are they okay? But he doesn't linger to long on these thoughts. There are weapons to be crafted. Secrets to be discovered. Life is good.


For the others life has not given them a break.
They find themselves in a darkened tunnel. Gotrek lights a torch  and all they can see is a tunnel which leads off into darkness. The tunnel is odd though. It has spiral shaped grooves all along it making huge patterns around the circumference of the tunnel. It is smooth and almost organic in shape and feel.

They do not have long to ponder about their fate, or even the absence of H, when they running footsteps. Soon enough they see several humans running towards them at a breakneck pace. The group readies their weapons but the approaching group begins to yell at them.

"Run!"

The humans soon run up and past Gotrek who has stood his ground but the others decide to run as well. Gotrek holding the torch soon sees what they were running from. A large mouth, nearly the size of the tunnel itself, ringed with massive rows of teeth surrounded by a purple looking flesh.

Recapturing The Purple Worm
5,000 XP

The humans running from the purple worm begin to trail behind them a metal mesh-like net behind and between them as they run. Thokk, still running, begins throwing his javelin at the purple worm but the humans yell at him, telling him not to kill the creature. It is theirs.

Gotrek, meanwhile still standing his ground, watches as poor little myconid Rumadump is swallowed whole by the purple worm. Gotrek meets the worm and attacks. He ends up in the maw of the beast but, even though grasped within the beast's mouth, he beats at it with his axe until he in unable to do even that. As the mouth begins to swallow him he begins yanking at individual teeth with pliers but soon is only able to barely keep from being swallowed whole while acid is pouring over his entire body.

The purple worm farmers, meanwhile have set up their net and begin crawling up with wall, using spikes on the front of their boots. The net trailing behind them and now above the worm as well as below. They wait.

Azalea decides that being in front of the worm is the wrong end to be at. She finds a small indentation in the cave, enough to press herself and Stool into. She holds her shield in front of her as the purple worm passes. The thorny, poisonous skin of the purple worm scraps along her body inflicting damage, but once the creature has passed she relaxes, knowing she is safe from the creatures massive toothy maw. As the dust settles from the worms passage she doesn't notice the assassin, Yeva Abrmovich, who skulks behind, very near.

Yeva watches as Azalea, her guard down, is impaled with the purple worm's stinger. It's huge stinger the size of a spear head impales itself into her chest and begins pumping it's poison into the dragonborn. Azalea falls unconscious and dying but still standing, being held up by the worms stinger.

The farmers have dropped the net on the purple worm and begin clamping the open end shut while one of them, a druid begins talking soothingly to the worm in a language they do not understand. The worm's writhing soon calms then stops. It removes the stinger from Azalea's body as she slumps to the floor.

As the others rush to Azalea's side and try, in vain, to give her aid and revive her, Yeva watches dispassionately and notices a drow in their midst. Unseen from behind, Yeva approaches the drow and with one quick stroke kills the drow. No one sees.

Yeva calmly approaches the fallen dragonborn and bends down, slices along a poisoned vein and begins milking out the poison applying something from her own poisoner's kit. Soon Azalea is breathing, slowly and a little raggedly, but breathing. Yeva introduces herself.

Yeva has come to the underdark in search of exotic poisons, like the poison from the purple worm. She talks to the farmers and makes some important connections for later. She can help the others return to the surface. For now though they must seek shelter and let Azalea rest until she can heal herself.

A Dumping Pit Is Not A Good Resting Place
1,860 XP

Tired and weary after dragging Azalea's unconscious body, upon her shield all day, the group decides to stop. As they make preparations for camp, Azalea regains consciousness and once she is able to concentrate enough she performs a healing spell on herself and is soon walking once more. Some of the group explore the immediate vicinity.

Gotrek comes across a massive pile of refuse. A pile of bodies, garbage and other filth is collected into a corner of a cave. He hears giggling and the 'plunk' of rocks hitting something. He looks around and sees a little quassit demon entertaining himself by throwing stones at a decomposing head and trying to get it into it's rotting mouth. Gotrek sneers, raises his crossbow and fires hitting the head right through the mouth, wrecking the quassit's little game.

It has also awoken something.

The huge pile of garbage begins to move and rise. As it reaches a great height, the garbage, bodies and body parts begin to fall to the cave floor revealing the hulking form of a Otyugh. Standing on massive three legs and waving several arms, each tipped with grasping barbs and a mouth filled with teeth, it begins to approach the group.

Everyone awakes and attacks. The battle is fierce but through it all, Azalea grumbles about how she just wants to go to bed once and not be awoken to fight some awful creature. The quassit tries to escape by changing into a frog and hops right up to the feet of Gotrek. Fortunately, Gotrek fears frogs and flees. Smiling to itself, the quassit soon hops up to Eldith and bites her. She immediately drops unconscious. The quassit transforms again this time into a bat and begins to fly away. Thokk throws his javelin and kills the little demon with one hit.

Once the otyugh is killed the group settles down to resume their rest. Azalea simply collapsing in the middle of the cave floor where she stood.

Unfortunately, the rest is short lived.

There is soon a repeating sound of scraping. Frustrated, Yeva awakes to investigate as the rest of the group grumbles. Yeva comes across a single disembodied hand pulling itself along the cave floor. The hand is old and rotting. It's skin blackened and pulled taught. Yeva steps on the piece of the radial bone to hold the hand still while he stabs down. Killing the already dead hand.

The next morning comes too soon for the group. They awake and Thokk investigates Yeva's kill. The hand is still there the next morning. On it's finger is a black obsidian ring. Thokk takes it. Looks at it. Puts it away for later thought.

Azalea's man slave, Sandar, has been busy preparing Azalea's morning breakfast and begins to clean her up by scrubbing her scales and polishing them. All the while seemingly in bliss at the pleasure of serving her.

Stool has been scouring around the garbage pit, continually saying that he smells home. Yeva decides to help by pushing some of the filth and debris out of the way for Stool. In doing so, Yeva discovers an ancient mason jar. It is sealed closed with clasps holding the lid down and ancient runes covering the jar itself. The group passes the jar around but no one can make anything of it. Yeva puts it away. It's a interesting jar. Perhaps something will come of it.

Yeva's moving of the pile has also help Stool. Stool exclaims excitedly that he has found the way home. The group finds a small hidden tunnel. Stool who has already begun to move through it beckons the others to hurry up and join him.

The Neverlight Grove

On the other side of the tunnel the group emerges into a vast cavern of light. There is every type of mushroom growing here. From the tiny ones carpeting the entire floor to ones that tower above them mimicking the towering forests of the surface world. The entire cavern is lit from different colored glowing mushrooms. Soft colors bath this secluded world and Stool is overcome with joy.

The group is met by one of the colony's leaders, Basidia. He is happy that Stool has been returned.

Stool, being very happy to share his joy with his friends that he has made along the way, shows them his home. The group moves through the various areas of the colony. They see the large pool which provides all their water and moisture for growth. They see the small farm of junior myconids, barely inch high sprouts. They talk to one of the hunter leaders, Loobamub. He is responsible for finding food, which ends up to be dead bodies, and returning them to the colony for growth material.

Loobamub, does not seem impressed lately of the changes going on in the colony. There is another leader who has come to the colony recently. His name is Phylo. He has very different ways and is convincing many of the colony into his ways. Sharing 'The Lady's Dance' as Phylo puts it. Loobamub doesn't have time for such things.

The group asks if there is a quick way to the surface. Loobamub says that they do not go to the surface. Too dry and too bright. They do not get many outsiders. He is glad for Stool's return but outsiders are usually trouble. A couple of weeks ago some drow arrived looking for people. Phylo says that he showed them the way home.

Loobamub is more concerned with a shambling mound which is using up all the nutrients of a stretch of earth nearby. Also there is a grick alpha which is killing some of their myconids in the tunnels. He asks if the new friends of Stool would wish to aid in such a task.

The group demures and moves on. Eventually they come to a rise which is secluded from the rest of the colony. It is bathed in a predominantly green glow. There they meet Phylo. He invites the others to see the work he has done.

They walk along on the carpet of fungus until some of them notice that there are bodies buried in the fungus at their feet. One of them looks like a drow. She is covered in fungus. It has taken over most of her body and face. She then opens here one good eye, looks at the group and begins to wail...

"Kill Me!"