Just A Stone's Throw Away To Safety

The adventurers regroup after a brutal battle with the duergar. They scour the rooms for any valuables and other useful items. Thokk begins his frantic collecting of anything he can get his hands on, as he obsesses over collecting, arranging and counting his items over and over again, a remnant of his brush with madness earlier on in these madness infused tunnels.  Sarith continues to hold Karis to prevent Karis from eating any more dirt than she already has, a side effect of the brush with her madness during the last battle.

H moves further down into the unexplored cavern filled with various mushrooms while the others continue to explore the duergar's alchemical laboratory. The room is filled with ingredients both natural and unnatural as well as vials of various potions. Thokk begins collecting all the potions he can, barely taking the time to note what each of them are.

Azalea comes across an odd piece of, what she takes for metal, sitting on the workbench. It is blacker than black and feels smoother than anything else she has ever felt. The shape of it is odd, as if it has been broken from a larger piece, as one of it's ends is jagged and non-symmetrical, like the rest of it. She pockets the oddity for later study.

Sarith, in the meantime, yells for some help as he has been holding back the raving Karis for quite some time now. The others arrive and begin to tie up the elf, preventing her from further inflicting damage upon herself. As the move about the small cavern, H notes a small passage further down the cavern hidden amongst a patch of growing fungus. Azalea also yells back that she has noticed an odd looking wall back in the laboratory. She pushes upon it and the wall swings inward revealing a small darkened room. In the center of the empty room lies a opening in the floor with a ladder leading down.

Thokk, jumps down to investigate and finds a tunnel that leads off into the darkness. The party debates then finally chooses to explore the darkened tunnel from within the hidden room. Azalea and Thokk takes turns trying to light a torchstalk mushroom to illuminate their way but time and time again, the torchstalk bursts into a explosion blackening their faces and leaving their skin singed. Finally, Stool is encouraged to light one and his unfortunately bursts into a small explosion too, leaving H to drool at the smell of broiled mushroom. Finally lighting one properly, they move on.

Parade Of Fools
1,210 XP

Travelling down the tunnel for quite some time they come to the end of the tunnel which has a panel of zurkhwood lying over top blocking the way. Thokk, as stealthly as he can, lifts up the panel to peer into the room on the other side. Noisily jostling the zurkhwood panel, he pokes his head up to see several myconids dancing silently in the center of a room.

One by one the party emerges from the tunnel to stare wondrously at dancing myconids. They do not seem bothered by the appearance of the group, if they have even noticed them at all. They dance around in a spiraling pattern of fungus which is several inches tall marked on the floor in vast rings. There seems also to be several quaggoths covered in fungus, sitting quietly off to one side. They make no movement whatsoever.

Stool cries out that he recognizes one of them. In the far corner is a myconid sprout, little larger than Stool himself. Stool says that it is Rumpadump. The other sprout looks nervous and begins to tell Stool that all is not alright.

Finally one of the myconids approach the group. He introduces himself as Voosbur and invites the group to join in the dance. "Join 'The Lady' and take part in her 'Gift'", he speaks to them using the same telepathic spores that they are used to from Stool.

H, pauses briefly before accepting. A burst of spores eminates from Voosbur and H breathes them in and begins to dance. H experiences thoughts, feelings and senses that up till now his mind could not even imagine existed. He dances and dances. As he moves into the spiral of fungus his body joins with the fungus as he moves further along the spiral.

The others are not so sure about this. They look around at each other and notice that Sarith, the drow elf, is struggling with something. His sores on his face are brighter and more colorful and he tries to speak but is unable to.  As they try to mentally take everthing in, Voosbur releases his spores.. Each of them do their best to avoid breathing them in. Karis is able to avoid the spores as well as Azalea, who also shields her friend Stool from the spores. Thokk is not so lucky. He begins to dance.


Alternate Pic

Karis and Azalea seem to be the only ones not affected by the 'Lady's Gift' and as they try to get to their companions the quaggoths, covered in fungus, rise up and begin to attack, defending their masters, the myconids. Karis is able to throw up a wall shield of magical daggers, using bladeward. This at least hinders the quaggoths but they soon find that the quaggoths have to compunctions as to heading straight through. Emerging on the other side of the bladeward, they are heavily damaged but continue to attack. As Azalea and Karis attack they find that not only do the quaggoth spore servants still have much strength but they are covered in a yellow mold which is poisonous. Thokk and H, of course, continue to dance.

The battle is hard won with H and Thokk finally coming round, back to sanity.

A Friendly Face

As they regroup and tend to their wounds, Thokk comes across a pen, where he finds a human male tied up within. He is tall and handsome and holds himself proudly. He asks for assistance in loosing his bonds. H hesitates while grueling him with questions.

It would seem that his name is Sandar and he is a noble from the house of Torval. His father harassed

him for being to coddled and so he set out to make a name for himself and seek out adventure. He fell in with some dwarves and eventually made his way into the Underdark. He has survived by his intellect alone.

H and the others quickly deduce that he has survived on his good looks, ample money and pure luck.

Azalea approaches to see what all the fuss is about and she is immediately smitten. She cuts his bonds after he has promised, and signed a contract to, being her personal assistant (slave? love toy?). He asks the group for a weapon in order to defend his lady fair. Thokk refuses to give over any of his plentiful spears. Azalea happily offers one of her battle axes.

The group asks is Sandar has seen any suspicious derro lately. Specifically, one with a large brimmed had with tentacles. Sandar says that he has and begins to lead the way he has seen the derro go.

After moving through the tunnels some way they come to a narrowing in the tunnel where a large patch of fungus grows. Sandar who has up till now been leading the way, pauses and says that he normally is not the type to be heading first into unknown territory. His skills lie elsewhere, as he raises a seductive eyebrow at Azelea who smiles back.

Exasperated, Thokk steps forward and the patch of fungus he is near begins to shriek loudly. Soon the entire patch of fungus is shrieking, filling the tunnel with such a volume that no one can hear anything else. Thokk immediately responds by throwing magical fire at the patch and the shrieking slowly turns to pained screaming and then nothing. The tunnel silent save for the sound of burning and the air is filled with black smoke.

H decides to move further on but he forgoes the empty patch between the patches of burning fungus and goes right through the fire. He emerges from the fire safely on the other side while patting out the small fires on his pants.

Thokk decides to move through the more sensible path which is not on fire, and immediately falls into a whole in the floor. He emerges covered in green slime. It hisses and pops as it eats away at his clothes, weapons and exposed skin. Thokk begins to scrape it off with some of his spare clothes. He looks up at H, who simply smiles a knowing smile.

H sees an odd looking mushroom on the ground. He has seen this one before. It looks like a little tongue. More red than  pink. He takes a small bite. It is good. Really good. He eats the rest. He tells the group that it's pretty good. Except that he doesn't just tell them, he yells it. Everything he says he yells at the top of his voice, even when he tries to whisper. He decides that he should perhaps not talk at all for a while.

'Two Heads Are Better Than One' Ritual
3,000 XP

The group moves out of the tunnel and into a vast cavern. The cavern is lit with an eerie  green glow. The same glow that they have occasionally seen in parts of these tunnels. There are also burning braziers of red coals.

H sees a cage with a dog in it, so he approaches it. Calmly holding his hand out to show the dog he means no harm, the dog turns it's heads towards him. H now sees the dog drool and bare it's fangs, from both of it's heads. Safe on the other side of the cage, H's outstretched hand slowly lifts and he raises his middle finger at the dog.

The derro who has watched this interaction from the other side of the cage, walks around the corner and opens the cage door. The death dog charges at H.

Thokk, who was standing nearby, runs in front and intercepts the death dog's attack. In the meantime, the others have joined in and are now trying to hold off attacks from other derro. The derro are in the middle of a vast ritual circle that glows with an intense green glow.

The derro sling spell after spell at the group. At one point a lightning bolt spell arcs out and hits both Thokk and Karis. Thokk manages to doge the majority of the damage but Karis takes the spell full force. Karis falls.

As the others are fending off the derro, an ettin who has been resting on a bed nearby enters the fray, protecting his masters. H fires shot after shot at his enemies but his guns jam. He watches as Thokk is felled by a derro spell. H watches as Azalea is felled by the ettin and Sandar running to her side to protect and aid her. He watches as Karis;s body, failing to hold on to life, explodes in a fiery green blast. H feels that this is the end.

He is frantically, trying to load his remaining gun when his hand falls on a heavy lump in his pack. The stone the Stone Giants have given to him as thanks for trying to save their comrade.

Daergryn's Stone.

He pulls out the stone and throws it towards the center of the derro mages that are attacking. The stone sails out in a smooth arc landing very near to the exact center of the derro. It lands with a thud and sticks to where it lands, not rolling at all.

The ground begins to shake violently until the ground near the derro begins to rip apart. Crevices begin to grow around and underneath the derro, most of them falling into the crevices, never to be seen again. The remaining derro try to stand and move but are unable. The sound of rock wrenching

and crumbling fill the cavern.

The lone derro that now faces the group, decides that the tides have turned and vanishes from sight.

H moves from companion to companion aiding where he can until each of them are standing once again. They look around and there is no sign of Karis anymore. Each find a safe spot to collapse in exhaustion while stool and his friend take watch.

The next morning, feeling more like their old selves, they explore the cavern further. H, finding he an talk at a normal volume again, finds an odd scroll with confused derro writing and can make little of it. He hands it off to Thokk for investigation. H finds that in the middle of the ritual circle is a statue that bears resemblance to one of the stone giants. In fact, inscribed along the base of the statue is the name, 'Dorhun'. Dorhun being one of the stone giants they had met. This statue though has an extra head grafted onto it's shoulder. H takes a swing at the statue's extra head and breaks it off.

Azalea explorers and finds a jar. It is filled with a thick green ointment, which smells faintly of aloe. She tucks it away for later study.

H also come across a large tunnel that has been newly bored through the stone. It is large and perfectly circular and goes straight into the darkness.

The Obelisk

The group now moves through their newly made tunnel, a product of the stone giants' gift. It is not long until they come to a cavern. Inside are two stepped pyramids. At the top of one is a large black obelisk. A spire of dark black material rising like a tower. On the other is a small red object.

H wonders aloud. 'A red dragon's egg?"