In time-honored adventuring tradition of extracting every possible cent of profit from deceased foe, A and L have collected cuttings from shambler's vines, hoping growth more likely from active source, although L cautions will require more elaborate process than simply planting in ground and hoping – to which A explained doesn't plan to cultivate but to sell to Alfhild.
Also interested in lizardman caster's wand, which also a snake-bracelet, albeit rather less pampered than hers – mostly reassured to hear that upon spell depletion, simply turns into normal snake, rather than becoming inanimate. Wand-user (should probably have got his name) also accidentally implied possession of more at some location, watching to see if regain charges; nothing yet. Luckily, are not bloodthirsty enough adventurers to hunt down and murder them for loot, except D, and even that only if paid.
As was doing medicine, E was doing diplomacy – upon finding their plan currently to separate and go own way, tried to establish basis for future cooperation, tentative non-combat agreement in dungeon such that neither party begins hostilities. If fortunate, other lizardfolk parties will also accede. Surprisingly receptive, actually, perhaps encouraged by our willingness to take most risks. Or possibly our willingness to negotiate in their language and not immediately try to kill them for loot after the encounter, unlike most adventurers.
Recognize am setting low bar here, but surprising how often not even that standard met.
For experimentation, attempted to seize and ignite one of many orange polyps growing on walls, shedding smaller glowing orange spores drifting lazily through air, shedding light & providing eerie atmosphere. Immediately upon using Mage Hand, burst, spewing spores through air and collapsing. Probably fine that we're inhaling them, and will have no consequences in the future whatsoever.
On bright side, route to plant dome thoroughly cleared by passage of shambler. Dome itself apparently unoccupied, but rats scurrying around in the periphery, less subtly than they think they are. Gave them a moment to organize, inform Kukchuk, in the interim flying up near apex to examine – surprisingly little damage from earthquake, but still some fracturing in glass, with plants infiltrating past it. Plants themselves mostly off-putting off-white, which usually indicates radiance outside humanoid visible spectrum. Not much to see in darkvision, but E hypothesizes would be spectacular in ultraviolet, especially since appear to be ancestors of modern plants which do the same.
Then turned back to see A wearing previously-acquired gold-plated dragonborn skull-mask on head, significantly too large for her, failing to keep up when turning her head.
At this point, decided to stop worrying about that and called for Kukchuk instead. Then E noticed, rolled eyes, and with snap of finger and sound of rolling thunder, proclaimed "BEHOLD! We have defeated the loathsome monster! In the name of the glorious Rat King!"
Certainly drew Kukchuk's attention, who scurried down to meet us, ceremonially announcing "We thank you for your service to the one true rat king, please take this, the bounties of our kingdom." and delivered several unfamiliar fruits to us – tasty-looking fruits, in fairness. Then asked us all to kneel and be knighted. D looked even blanker than normal at thought of receiving a knighthood, and E distinctly uninterested in prospect until A gave her pleading look, upon which immediately folded.
Kukchuk reached into patchwork pouch, crafted from assorted scraps found in dungeon, dipped hand into paint – appears to be paste, actually, made by grinding some wood or other substance to powder consistency, then mixed with water; possibly sandalwood. Reached up to anoint us, then discovered small issue of geometry, and had to ask us to kneel lower. And lower. And lower.
By time finally at appropriate height, was suspending myself by wings, and D effectively doing pushup to position appropriately. Placed handprint on each of our foreheads, in solemnly farcical ceremony, proclaimed us all knights.
A responded with dignified gratitude, "We thank you, noble sir, in the name of the Rat King Without, whom we all serve" which good, because am absolutely certain could not have finished sentence without breaking into giggles.
Unfortunately, had forgotten to provide context for confused L, who muttered "I thought the king of Khemet was a halfling?"
A anti-clarified "He's talking about the rat king who's above the king of Khemet. Uh. Below the King of Khemet? In charge of the king of Khemet, just play along, it's cool!"
Am going to have to grab L and explain properly, once am certain no chance of them eavesdropping.
Offered to let us rest here for the night, under their protection, but we were unfortunately forced by haste to continue onwards.
Then A got an Idea and approached Kuckchuk to request boon, that we be given custody of any spell-snakes found, to gather them and take them in, which had devastating effect on newly-established diplomatic relations – snakes eat rats. Fortunately, E stepped in and smoothed things over, promising that only wanted to know their location, not put own lives at risk, and would take them and bind into her service, preventing them from continuing to prey on rats. Then distracted by suggesting they loot shambler's corpse for barbs from composite blackvine, to use as weapons, which so excited him that he hurried us away, feet tapping with agitation, eager to get started.
Past the dome, found area overflowing with tropical vegetation, metal trees and exotic plants climbing across each other in riotous color – but all sickly, weak-looking, as if grown too quickly, without enough nutrients.
To one side, the west, thickly woven wall of metallic tree roots. To the other, east, passage branches off first to south, then to north – and heard, from northern segment, sound of screaming.
Naturally, immediately sprinted towards it.
Corridor followed sharply up past dome, with corner, then looped back around southwards, though could not see that at time. Made good pace down it, seeing plant life replaced by fungal as proceeded; ever increasing quantity of ember spores. A asked pertinent question "How did they pass the shambler?"
Forced to abruptly slow when spotted more flaming mushroom men in corridor ahead, pointed them out.
D and E both quick to action, E snapping crossbow up and ready to shoot, pausing just fraction of second to let D shift away, who then stepped back in, grabbed same myconid and tossed sideways. Stepped again to provoke it to lashing out, then deftly sidestepped and struck back. Other myconid came charging down corridor, flailing wildly and missing all, and E took opportunity to slip deftly by and around bend, before yelling back "Holy shit there's a myconid here too!"
Used Mage Hand to try to shove one, to no effect, then Radiant Flame to similar lack of impact. A, in the interim, switched stances, now balancing lightly on balls of feet, arms up in raised circles, threw backhand slap like opening a wing, then darted around corner, planting hands on cap of one mushroom and vaulting over, threw another slap and sprinted past to next corner; hearing more screaming, shouted "Don't worry I'm coming!"
With excellent timing, L finished her first spell now, proclaiming "The Gates of Ivory call!" and causing two myconids to drop unconscious. Cannot deny her flair. Seeing shatterpoint in combat, E whirled to D and demanded "You got this?" in Infernal, D barking "Go!" in the same, while pushing myconid back. Both moved in same moment, D stepping backwards towards self and L well behind front line of combat, E sprinting past remaining conscious myconid, towards and past A – to see several more ordinary myconids wrestling one of the larger orange ones, all atop bed of screaming mushrooms as previously encountered by L's owl. All tension rapidly draining from situation, shouted back "It's okay, they're more screaming mushrooms, not a person!"
D, now well out of explosion range, casually tossed javelin at one, punching into eye-like structure – which caused it to detonate, flames washing over other two, wounding one badly enough to detonate it as well, and igniting and detonating the third as well. If had been in proximity, would have been devastating. As is, was mostly aesthetically satisfying.
Wandered up to stand beside E, A; latter first to speak, wondering "What do we do? I don't think they're trying to hurt it?" E shrugged. "I don't know; it's not our fight, I think we just stay back."
Then an entirely new experience, yet oddly familiar – made abrupt and unexpected discovery of telepathy, presumably induced by spores, able to reach out with mind and contact others' minds, each uniquely textured – L sharp-edged planes of angular force, steady unstoppable pressure constantly grinding; D a heavy weight, solid steel brick, intricate designs on surface failing to conceal potential for directed violence; A a dancing flame, as capable of lifesaving warmth as lethal fury, ever-hungry for more – knowledge, friends, the self – burning free of mortal fuel; E's steady luminescence, light focused on a singular purpose, illuminating path through the darkness.
(Very curious to hear how D perceived others.)
Heard voice in our heads, advising standing back, the situation is under control. Not voice, precisely, but series of concepts, arranged to convey meaning.
Reaching out with newly-acquired telepathy, A extended bright wordless psychic impression of greeting and curiosity, warm heat of friendly nature emanating perceptibly across each thought – inquiry about silence from other myconids, why communication now, what being done to abnormal myconid.
Response from myconids much quieter, gentle murmur against A's shouting, sequence of concepts, simplified for comprehensibility – prevention of harm from fiery myconid; concern over aberrant growth, loss of telepathy, development of elemental manifestations (not sure if more beyond fire); need to restrain but not kill patient/wrongdoer/feral child.
A quite excited both at functionality of telepathy, blaring out EXCITEMENT/APPROVAL/SADNESS/CURIOUSITY/OW; respectively, at functional telepathy, attempted altruism, diseased myconids, nature of illness, and volume of own mental echoes, as far as can discern. Attempted for more control in own response, crafting careful mental image of D's intervention, physical in nature, before broadcasting once, as clearly as possible. Assume success, considering received intimation that should be left safely to professionals.
Managed it, with some effort, one also patting screaming mushrooms to quiescence, at which A conveyed SURPRISE/HOW DONE/CAN I LEARN/THEY'RE VERY LOUD. Last pronouncement drew near-universal amusement – fairly certain that to their psychic senses, Angèle, you are also very loud. One also some slight smugness at baby's first telepathy, as watching child learn to babble first words in another language.
Am somewhat uncertain as to individual nature of myconids, or whether some degree of shared identity among them – certainly, do not find them using individual identifiers when communicating, and individual minds similar enough that cannot distinguish by simply the feel of their consciousness, as do with rest of party. Possibly they distinguish themselves among each other by other means, or perhaps they simply do not individuate themselves in same manner as us, one shared hive with multiple myconid extrusions for complex interactions with the world, pruning away the ones which have become infected and need to be removed.
Considered us carefully for some moments, exchanging imperceptible thoughts, before one extended invitation to view nature of rehabilitation to us – on condition that we surrender our weapons.
Can imagine popularity of that suggestion.
No hesitation from A, cheerfully ready to pass over spear – and also quite aware that capable of just as much, if not more damage bare-handed. Likewise, unstrung and stowed crossbow, peacebonded rapier into sheath – what need of weapons to protect me, when I have faith? L barely armed, not sure her penknife registered as weapon; certainly, not trained to replicate amount of damage E capable of with it.
Other two rather less compliant.
D distinctly unfriendly about possibility of surrendering weapons, insists on their remaining in his presence or that of an ally. Open to suggestion of peacebond with attached cover, albeit mostly because also quite capable of using bare hands to violent effect.
But E. Not at all open to idea, and from what mental leakage occurring during conversation, can surmise why. Will not record here, but am going to speak with her on subject, even if not entirely sure what to say. Have had occasional friction with her, but like to think we are comrades, if not friends, and as impetus for direction of party movement, falls to me to ensure all are combat-capable and in optimal condition.
Suffice to say, for time being, that myconids, while sympathetic, did insist, and her fear of us doing something stupid without her supervision outweighed her fear of being caught unarmed and helpless with the rest of us.
Led us downstairs, past broken black-glass insets in walls, to smaller room below, with gap between flooring and walls to allow observation from above. Despite A's inquiry about glass, myconids also had no insight to give – has been present for at least as long as shared myconid memory extends.
Led us down straight passageway with one corner to massive circular room, with pool in center, at least forty feet in diameter, with colossal tree in center at least seven feet across. (Remember those numbers.) Thick oak, old, knotted with age, branches pushing up to, into, and across stone ceiling, to adjoining rooms. Might be positioned directly under dome above – will check D's maps.
Tree also distinctly sickly looking – withered leaves, drooping branches, bark cracking, peeling, color fading away. Little reaction from E and L, although flash of some memory involving trees and giantkin from D, rapidly suppressed. A rather sad at sight of it, though could not identify why. For own part, seem to be still harboring rather petty grudge against trees from having to flee through Black Forest, animated plant life hounding us, pinning down and tearing apart the most vulnerable or isolated, savoring chance for revenge against meat which so tormented them – immediately leapt to cruel amusement at karmic consequences befalling all treekin for their transgressions against me, personally.
Am fairly certain did not leak too loudly across mental link, so pretense of dignity hopefully still intact.
Mushroom colony shared suspicions tree poisoned by scaled creatures, only a few cycles of dimming & brightening prior, explaining orange tint to water, current state of tree. D projected mental image of lizardfolk shaman, with approximate delicacy of favored polearm, but image perfectly clear – enough so that even myconids, not usually operating on humanoid-identical or darkvision spectra able to recognize. Then followed with one of kobolds, for some reason, but which also recognized by myconids as being present.
Closer attention revealed cause almost certainly the previously-encountered orange agent from corridor, and at this point discovered E's thought's paralleling my own – muttered "Hey cleric, can you do something about this?" recalling Temple of Selune's provision of infant-safe milk at cost, sterilized by use of Purify Food and Drink.
Projected the idea, to immediate positive response from myconids – then had to stop and calculate actual feasibility of it. Given a cleric who can ritual-cast Purify Food and Drink over ten minutes as a first-level spell to cleanse a 5-ft radius, or use up to two second level castings to affect a 10-ft radius needing to affect a cylindrical volume of 5ft depth, approximately 40ft across sans the area of the 7-ft diameter tree in the center, how much total time will be required to purify the total liquid volume, disregarding that subsequent castings will have reduced efficacy due to intermingling and decreased toxin percentages.
Eidele, after helping calculate volume, disdained to linger while working out percentage curve reduction with increasing purifications, focused on more pertinent and helpful concern – would rather return to surface, disinclined to leave protectorate alone for another night; also mercenarily inclined to inquire about possible compensation. (D rubbing off on her.) Myconids, overhearing, regretfully informed could only offer friendship and safe passage, which not particularly of interest to her.
Fell to me to point out obvious, that might also have pertinent local knowledge, dangers and valuables; myconids willing to share, but reciprocated mercenary-ness, insisting payment on completion. D dropped details of possible contract across link, before disregarding as unenforceable regardless.
Jotted notes down while working out math of actual spellcasting with L; will probably take short rest here while casting, then return tomorrow to finish.
Have noticed also significant, very deliberate mental silence from L. Impressive discipline, but rather unexpected.
Managed to persuade D to append his mental observations of the others below, and did not even have to make threats for it. Will be curious to see if paradigmatic dissimilarity produces perceptual differences.
Angele – a landscape in monochrome, chiaroscuro, black and white at first glance, but an intricate interplay of shades and gray for those who look. Lisbeth – geometric abstraction projected into three dimensions, a sharp-edged repeating pattern of increasing complexity, occasionally blurring into rapid movement, then quiescent. Eidele – A sword dance with a flaming blade, costumed in chain armor, links snapping with every strike. Performed in darkness. The art requires artist and audience alike. You – kintsugi, a shattered symbol of faith repaired, but not made whole. In silver, not gold. Marble, seated upon a pedestal of clay.
(Have to admit, was not expecting D to perceive in such fashion, thought likely to see something rather more… violent.)
Not that any shortage of violence today, potential or realized. Am reminded again that greatest threat to most adventurers is not monsters or a hostile environment, but often other adventurers. Two such encounters already, neither resolved disfavorably, but cannot say am satisfied with outcome of either.
Myconid situation, if not resolved favorably, has at least been somewhat delayed – two second-circle castings of Purify Food and Drink significantly improved condition of pond around tree, reducing to merely souplike instead of sludge; should be able to effectively clear when return later. Universal fungal delight at this, susurrus of joy whispering across all minds – rather akin to being hit very gently in face by a weeping willow. Some regret on their part at our disinclination to remain overnight, finish casting, but offered reward not sufficient to outweigh E, A's desire to return to family, frankly understandable.
With no pressing harm to be alleviated, not eager to remain overnight again either. Bidrek, however, vocally invested in further exploration, more so than before – A questioning whether feels safer around us, or because call from tomb is growing stronger. The former, understandable; the latter, concerning.
Also, conferencing with E, have developed more elaborate hypothesis concerning myconid psychology. E posits that rather than true hive mind, singular consciousness across many bodies, are instead a networked collection of cognitions – individual egos, but blurry separations, sense of self malleable and not a clear delineation, but rather overlapping. Suspect also that only acquire sapience with long-term exposure to telepathy, using spores to requisition processing power from other myconids until capable of supporting entire consciousness within bounds of single individual. Provides explanation for condition of fire mushrooms also, as lack of telepathy prevents progression beyond simple animal instincts, reacting to any non-fireshroom entity as potential threat.
If so, have effectively been killing feral, lobotomized children.
Moreover, am not certain not the best choice; no known way to help them, according to myconids; later introduction of telepathy not effective once ego barriers properly established, and fire spores sufficiently thorough in immune response to prevent telepathy-compatible spore attachment, necessitating aggressive sterilization to even make attempt, which invariably fails due to degeneration of necessary fungal/psychic substructures. Beyond that, pose clear and present danger to all around them, including – as have seen – own selves, and are not capable of ceasing to pose such risk of harm.
Would like to test whether divine intervention might not produce some effect; will look for opportunities in future.
Baby-killing aside, networked myconids sufficiently grateful at performance to provide preliminary information. Room has four exits; paired hallways to east, closed door to south, individual hallways west and north, red flowers to the west, tree branches along the walls to the north. Informed us that north corridor occupied by treekin of various kinds, particularly a set of animated trees of unusual size – feel no urge to explore, considering. Group descended from one eastern hallway; other apparently contains acid pit, containing colorless, odorless solvent where all waste is discarded. South, swift waterfall flowing downwards. Also where the moon used to be, before the lizardmen; when they came to poison the water, they stole the moon and stars too.
Blasphemy notwithstanding, am somewhat surprised to discover have established positive relations with at least three major groups in dungeon from position of relative neutrality – lizardfolk, enhanced rats, and myconids. Are we Salcurne?
Finally, past flowers, westward corridor occupied by reptilian variant, large lizardlike creature, beak, bone blades on limbs, generally serpentine, not hostile unless provoked. At mere mention, A's thoughts lit up with rapid-fire flashes through first encounter with Sweetheart, presence of spell-snakes, acqusition of 'Dizzy,' before settling on possibility of new herpetical (but not blasphemous!) friend.
Investigating disposal pit, found claims accurate – contents of pit imperceptible, to naked eye. At bottom, visible a golden statue, bones; myconids claim the latter from lizardfolk who poisoned the tree, slowly corroding, former present since time immemorial. Can confirm at least visible bones do not seem human (or adjacent.) E surmises pit filled with gelatinous cubes, highly acidic transparent oozes which expand to fill any space they occupy (almost always found in closed confines i.e. corridors/hallways, thus the name; in open areas where not enough volume to fill, form hemispheric puddle-shape where not in contact with other surface) and pose dangerous trap for unwary adventurers, who walk into them and die, then are absorbed for nutrients, along with other organic life.
Ongoing academic debate that gelatinous cubes technically not a true ooze, as reliant on local architecture for structural integrity where true oozes of any size capable of internal manipulation to assume desired form, as well as create pseudopodia for movement/combat, of which gelatinous cubes are incapable.
Most of our interest on the froglike golden statue at the bottom, which seemed valuable enough to attempt to retrieve. Very carefully lowered cabling retrieved from shambler into pit, avoiding splashing or aggressive movement, then used Mage Hand to tie into place around statue. Once reasonably certain of stability, passed other end of cable to D and Bidrek, who began to walk slowly back from edge of pit, pulling statue upwards and sideways without agitation. Then, once at lip, paired further use of Mage Hand with clever application of Tenser's Floating Disk by L to draw it carefully out without direct contact, letting sit for several minutes to allow acid to dry off, before scrubbing off with Prestidigitation. Also discovered here that statue hollow, with deliberate hole made in base – L 's guess used to be wood plated in gold; organic material dissolved by ooze, but inedible metal discarded as useless. Have been fortunate in absence of rust monsters in dungeon so far, as would likely have devoured most of what loot currently available.
Elected also to investigate western corridor, for reasons of thoroughness and not A's definite interest; A also loudly and audibly not thinking about previously restocked Potion of Animal Friendship and possible applications RE: herpetology. Conveniently, E close enough to reach out and bop her on head, reminding to focus.
Warned by presence of skeletal remnants among red flowers filling western corridor entrance, approached with caution. Discovered immediately on approach that some secretion from said flowers causes feelings of drowsiness, exhaustion when inhaled. Was able to use wings to blow pollen back, forcing clear space long enough for D to grab and drag us backwards. Only exception L, whose immunity likely stems from elven substitution of trance for sleep, which altered biochemical pathways generally effective against mundane and magical means of induced unconsciousness alike, barring blunt-force trauma to head.
Educated guess – flowers knock animals unconscious, remain so until death, then are used by plants as material to fuel growth, per E.
A, mournfully: "You know what the really sad thing is? If I were a better monk and I had finished purifying my body, this wouldn't even be affecting me. The really good monks are immune to disease and poison."
Ignoring A's obvious distress at being denied potential snake-friend, telekinetically collected remains, assorted small objects from safe distance. Discarding rags and detritus, anointed with holy water and offered last rites, while E opted to check his pockets for loose change.
Aside est. 100gp in assorted trinkets (coin purse, journal, ornate pen with internal inkwell, hand mirror, etc.), corpse also in possession of pair of unusually well-maintained boots. Some prying on E's part revealed hidden compartments in both heels; one empty, other containing scroll for Enlarge/Reduce. Brief investigation through journal further revealed corpse, formerly Frederick von Metternich, solo delver, had been making use of Enlarge/Reduce scrolls to accelerate advance through dungeon. As said scroll only usable by those already trained in relevant mode of spellcasting, suggests uniquely unsuited to solo delving – when caught by flowers, likely fell asleep, and simply none in vicinity to provide aid; passed away unnoticed.
E has taken his boots to be resized for her use; suspect she will make good use of aforementioned hidden compartments.
With L immune to flowers, asked her to scout forward past corners, carefully. Found the flowers terminate within relatively short distance, roughly forty-five feet. Cannot imagine passive accumulation of corpses a particularly efficient strategy for growth, so presumably limited by lack of sustenance. Also found more pieces of skeleton, now from yuan-ti, serpentine skull and lower body, but humanoid torso, arms. Collected ~300gp in assorted jewelry from corpse, but, setting aside own unfamiliarity with Zehirite practices, regrettably too precariously placed to offer funerary rites.
Am dissatisfied; none should go unmourned, unremembered – no matter their sins.
Skin contact with surface of flowers also causes numbness and lack of feeling, though D reports sensation returning relatively rapidly, no more than 20-30 seconds. Have elected not to test introduction to blood, although considering applying to E's blades and observing effects in combat. Notably, contact with stem, leaves of plants no similar effect; seems concentrated specifically in petals and stamen, possibly using pollen as vector for either chemical or magical effect – Detect Magic shows weak magical activity, enough so that difficult to distinguish from background.
Bypassed flowers by simple expedient of holding breath, covering exposed skin, moving one at time in case any succumb. None did. Beyond, found large room, perhaps arboretum, with several holes in floor, full of trees of various types – one with thick braided vines, trailing downwards, one with hollow branching tubes, cracked and bulging; a patchwork of flora. And also a twelve-foot tall long-necked reptilian bird with wings covered in bony blades, beak sharp enough to puncture wood, and an aggressive appetite directed mostly at branches and leaves of every tree within its reach.
While L investigated side room filled with flowers under D's watchful eye, A attempted eagerly to charm it, or even get its attention – to no avail, seemed entirely focused on enthusiastic consumption, despite attempts at communication, even in Draconic. Considered again use of Potion of Animal Friendship, but decided best reserved for potentially hostile or violent situation. Meanwhile, L more productively found two larger plants surrounded by plethora of other dead plants, orchids, surrounded by dead poppies. Flowering, some flame-shaped, with orange and yellow leaves, tastes spicy (guess who tested); some five-petaled, each petal shaped like snakeshead; some simply purple, with dead rats nearby – smell like favorite food, for me , but also produce mild paralytic with more effect on smaller creatures when consumed.
Also another corpse, so rotted as to be near unidentifiable as even organic – offered what rites could, but suspect rather too little, too late.
A and E discarded some assorted mushrooms to collect samples, did the same myself to ensure enough for experimentation of one of each. Then tossed a Light spell back on spearhead, turned and ventured back to southern aperture, planning to exit. Well-laid plans interrupted by sound of shouting for help from south.
Bestowed Vigilant Blessing on A, who lit spear and sallied forth. Immediately regretted decision on passing doors, finding entire area ankle-deep in water. Not intentional, considering also present large planters, still filled with soil, several overhangs above wall and entrance, raised platform – and, on far wall, entire facade of false houses, doors, windows. Also noticed snuffed heat source on elevated platform, surrounded by several very motionless adventurers, complete with bedrolls, a donkey. Mentioned warning to others.
Source of shouting easily found, tall humanoid – human features, at least, but hesitate to apply further terminology. Each individual part reasonably well-formed, but so disproportionate relative to each other that collective effect remarkably hideous. Possible homonculus? Also completely incapable of conveying useful information, until E cajoled some semblance of coherent explanation from him, explaining his master turned to stone by snakes below stairs. Checked adjacent rooms, mostly collapsed shelving, but also a staircase leading downwards, as well as several collapsed holes in floor. Decided probably not worth pursuing currently, with E persuading 'George' to leave dungeon in search of aid for master, apparently a powerful wizard with only minor accusations of tax evasion – i.e. possessed of tremendous power, but refuses to contribute to society, insisting on hoarding unearned resources at expense of others.
Also, quick quiet conversation on what to do with watching adventurers (four total, plus as well as unarmed hirelings; two humans, one well-equipped, other rather shabby, one halfling, lightly armored, one gnome wizard, thoroughly shrouded) – A offered to go say hello, overruled by E; opted simply to make clear our awareness of their presence.
At which point A turned, waved, announced "Hello! Be careful not to go down the stairs underwater; there's something there that turns people to stone!" Not particularly impressed by their response, intimating knowledge of an exit but refusing to share. Wariness understandable, but suspect based on later actions that if encounter them again, may end up coming to blows. Asking George no more fruitful, as attempted to teleport us out with constipated expression; failed.
D also checked northward door to room past George's master's mishap, finding corridor cornering around to two doors, one surrounded by heated stones, containing fire tree, other containing orb-holder tree, albeit lacking an orb.
Somewhat disoriented, retreated to main corridor, consulted map – determined access to SNAKE likely either by passageway to south, or blocked behind stone drop-door again, so elected to explore open area first.
Down said passage, found medium-sized empty room, shelving along walls, small tables scattered in middle of room. A, still illuminated, just stepping forward to investigate, when abruptly reeled from strike by invisible entity sinking fangs into her arm; later described a "sickening, sapping sensation" – reflexively detonated in burst of light, wings lashing out at blind targets, then settled into crane, eyes alert. Light flickered as struck, allowing us to see snakes made of shadow lurking on walls, ceiling. Cast Faerie Fire, catching one, though other three squirmed away – and L, finally finding target, released spell she had been holding, tiny orb of lensed distortion tossed forward onto floor to erupt in nova of thunderous sound, waves passing harmlessly over us but tearing shadows apart. Then just clean up, A punching one into harmless motes with arms of light, E burying knife in the other, and L's Mind Sliver finishing the job. Unfortunately, then found further effect of tenebral venom, as A reported feelings of weakness, difficulty mustering strength – and was already not most physically potent to begin with.
Looting the room, found three palm-sized crystals, two conch shells, something like child's putty, and five toy lizardfolk, all armed with different weapons. Collected and piled onto George.
Then backtracked to previous location, finding adventuring group already present preparing to leave. Upon spotting door-slab in wall, intended method of egress also became evident. Brief exchange of awkwardness, defused by E – insisted doesn't need to be a fight, we're planning to leave, they're planning to leave, non-interference and we'll leave without a fight. Most their party, along with hirelings, amenable. Asked that we let them also make use of our spell, confirmed use of Enlarge/Reduce, which acceptable. Then richer human stepped forward and tried to insist fear of our betrayal, they be allowed first or in alternating order.
Well. E quite thoroughly disabused them of that notion. Backed by D, clearly eager for violence, made very clear their freedom on our sufferance, and that any passage allowed at our decision – we would pass through first, and whether we let them follow would be at our discretion.
Did permit them to follow us, but required them to delay passage for several minutes. Found doorway leads to passage through tomb, headed westward back towards entrance, emerging near lagoon close to room with frogs. Found, incidentally, collapsed mezzanine repaired, with now-functional moving stair in opposite direction to original.
SNAKE, observing A's wings, immediately approached to greet, leaning down to nuzzle as A petted her. Keeping eye on entrance, noted other party watching warily – E mused aloud about potential of SNAKE as threat, but elected to refrain and respect SNAKE's relative pacifism.
If they hurt SNAKE, will not feel unjustified in killing them.
Moving past, found another adventurer, youngish elf, alone this time, by previous jewelry store, lying injured, calling for help. When introduced self, immediately begged to approach, assist. Unfortunately for him, am in fact trained medical professional, capable of observing – red gash across length of throat, covering carotid and both jugulars, should be dead. Another along length of thigh, crossing femoral, should be dead again. Third on upper forearm, crossing brachial, should be unconscious and dead in under minute. Also forgot to tear clothes appropriate to bloodstains, injuries, believing any random damage convincing enough.
Warned others of feigned injuries in Infernal, to which E suggested "just shoot him" somewhat eager to return, concerned by A's injuries. Not disagreeing, offered him single chance to stand down and surrender, or else exit tomb. Seeing him stand and walk towards alternate route back around, reaching for (poorly) concealed blade, surmised likely to return in ambush, or else attempt to catch us by surprise; mentioned this also to the others.
At which point L cast Magic Missile and thoroughly ventilated him. Then E looted through his pockets to find 25gp.
If ever formally novelize this, will draw some symbolic parallel here. And to think used not to find value in literary criticism.
Decreed said coinage to L, on account of her kill, to account for expenses in replacing familiar; should also check if further spellcasting expenses required, to avoid unpleasant surprises. More notably, E also commented, saying, word-for-word "Good one, Lisbeth" – has already moved to first-name terms with her.
Returned to Hex, found four corpses floating unhygenically in water; finding no valuables, extracted and offered rites. D also discarded crowbar and grabbed snurkey for Alfhild; bird seemed entirely unaffected by sudden abduction, attachment to D's pack, quite happy to hitch a ride – perhaps because opportunity for organism to spread beyond current confines, perhaps because bird simply too dumb to acknowledge course of events. Stopped to greet Hammer, then ascended, all tired enough to seek own domiciles rather than debrief – will need to do so tomorrow morning, but am currently exhausted enough to overlook it. Will attend vespers tonight, perhaps stretch wings, then collapse unconscious.
"Confrontations and Conversations" - Letter to Teacher from Angèle Bright
"Confrontations and Conversations" - Letter to Teacher from Angèle Bright (written 04 Flamerule 1608 in Rushtown)
Dear Teacher (and future readers!),
Okay, hear me out, hear me out! I know I said I'd write you another letter yesterday, but things came up and I couldn't because I was super tired when we got out of the tomb and-
She nearly died.
Again.
I'm reconsidering how much the money from this tomb is worth.
-and I was completely fine, Eidele worries way too much, there was just a bit of an encounter with some spooky shadow-snakes who we had to fight and who didn't play too nice with my inner light. But I did not nearly die! Eidele is exaggerating; I didn't even go down, I was still on my feet, just all woozy and needing to lean on Eidele a bit. It took a while to go away, yes, but that doesn't mean it was some big life-threatening thing; I just needed a good night's sleep and some time with my best girls to recover.
But I should tell this in order, as usual.
So, we left off last time (gosh, that seems like ages ago!) with the myconids. Necria debated with Lisbeth for a bit before deciding to burn a lot of her remaining divine gifts on purifying the pool - she didn't manage to clear it completely, but it went from basically orange paint to a soupy sort of orange-tinged liquid, which was a great improvement; the myconids were thrilled. In return, they told us about their bit of the complex!
The big dome is obviously their central point, with their sacred tree in its (sadly poisoned) pool in the middle, and that has four exits. The one we came in through is the eastern exit, and that leads to the big double-level room with the huge shattered two-storey black glass wall panels and the staircase that goes down to where the Shambler was lurking. But to the north there are apparently ents? Long lost to the mists of time?
(Side note: I know how we know what direction north is, because we have Necria who's really observant and Eidele who's really smart and Darvin who draws our beautifully detailed maps to keep track of everything - oh, and also a compass - but how do the myconids know? Because they weren't just mutely pointing at the exits or even sending us, like, orchestra-picture-feelings of "that's behind this exit, the other exit goes to there". They specifically communicated the word-feeling "to the north". Can they sense the cardinal directions somehow? Urgh, so much I should've asked them while I was there!)
Anyway, the ents aren't friendly, but there's a second branch of the westward exit that had a pit full of acid the myconids use to dispose of waste. Clever Eidele took a look down into it - it was all clear and odourless and sheer-walled - and thought for a bit and then said it was probably one or more oozes, most likely gelatinous cubes.
They're unpleasant things that you sometimes find in old ruins. 'Cubes' is a misnomer; on their own they're not shaped much differently to normal oozes, sort of a heaped puddle, but they're a lot larger than most and like enclosed spaces where they can swell up and anchor to multiple surfaces. Like corridors. Corridors are very good hunting grounds for them, because they can ooze up the walls and ceiling and brace on the solid floor to fill the entire space of the corridor in a cubic cross-section - or, well, a rectangular prism, since their mass won't always work out to the exact same dimensions on all three axes, but the particulars of geometry don't tend to matter to people who walk into what seems to be an almost perfectly transparent section of corridor and find that it's actually a section of corridor full of highly acidic carnivorous sentient jelly.
Shit like this is why so many adventurers die young.
They're nasty things, yeah! Looking down into it, there was a golden statue at the bottom, along with a bunch of humanoid bones. I did think to ask the myconids about that, but they said the statue (and the ooze) has been there since before they were aware and that the bones were from the lizardfolk who poisoned the tree.
(More questions immediately there that I should have asked), but hold them for a bit; I'm getting there.)
The west exit, by contrast, the myconids warned us had more creatures down it that weren't hostile, so we shouldn't provoke them by attacking first. They described - or showed us? - a large stretched-out serpentine creature with a beak and bone blades on its limbs, which looked a little bit like a huuuuuge relative of the snurkeys and a little bit like something that was super adorable.
We were all treated to another blast of sunshine, delight, curiosity and determination to add another check mark to the growing list of reptilian friends from Ange.
And then there was the south exit, which sounded the most interesting. Eidele was asking about shortcuts and ways out, and the myconids said that south had a waterfall flowing down into deeper parts of the tomb (but not flooded parts? The water level seemed to be up to just below this level near the entrance, so the waterfall must be flowing down into a separate, sealed-off part of the tomb complex) and that you could get to Sweetheart's Lake in that direction, but that it was sealed off somehow.
And they also said that the southern exit was, and I quote, "where the moon used to be, before the lizardfolk came and poisoned the water and took the moon and the stars away".
So that was a thing.
You know what I think? I think the "stars" were the light-flowers on the ceiling and that the "moon" was the crystal orb powering this level. I think that's what the lizardfolk stole, and that's why this section is dark. The patterns of light-flowers across the ceiling would kind of look like constellations to people who barely remembered what the stars really looked like, and stealing the light-sphere would definitely qualify as "taking the moon and stars away".
The question that raises ties back into the stuff I forgot to ask, because look. Basically, right. Here's the thing I can't work out.
What was going on in this tomb before the earthquake?
It's a good question, right? You can see why I'm asking it. Because all of the things shaking things up - us adventurers, the more modern lizardfolk who are salvaging the ancient golden jewellery of the builders, the drow and their spiders, maybe the rats... all of them seem to be pretty recent arrivals, entering from below through whatever crack into the Underdark the earthquake entered up.
But other things seem to have been there longer. The spellsnakes. The snurkeys. Sweetheart. The myconids. The blade-limbed megasnurkey to their west, and quite possibly the ents to their north. The oozes. They predate the disturbance of the tomb, and have presumably been there for up to thousands of years, ever since the original builders died and the city was sealed off and forgotten about.
But they know what the moon and stars are. And they know of their neighbours, who are... very close by, really. Like, we went and checked out the megasnurkey; it was only about forty feet or fifty feet from them, down a corridor.
Assume all of those pre-earthquake factions have been there for even just a century. Heck, even just a decade! We'll go with a decade as the absolute minimum value.
What was happening for that decade? Were they stable like this, all living a few rooms away from each other, never trying to spread out or coming into conflict with each other and existing in mostly the arrangement we found them in (save for things like the lizardman poison) for all that time? Was the balance of the tomb in stasis, factions staying to their own parts and never really doing much?
Or was it in flux the whole time? Did they compete, go to war with one another, try to push each other out of bits of the tomb or claim others, explore parts, try to spread into others? Were there once factions down there that we'll never know about because they were all killed off years ago by inter-competition? Is there any evidence of them left?
What were the inhabitants of this underground city that were there prior to the 'quake doing for all the time it spent sealed away?
I could have asked the myconids about some of this - after all, unlike the spellsnakes or the snurkeys they can actually communicate! But like a big dummy it didn't occur to me until, uh, now, because I was a bit preoccupied at the time and then we got in more fights and I wasn't really in any condition to ask anything. But ugh! If we go back in and talk to them again, I'm going to have to quiz them on what was going on before the quake - and what their experience of the quake was, too. They're first-hand sources! I have no excuse for not gathering as much of their account as possible! Helen will totally tell me off if I don't, and she'd be right to!
Anyway, we decided to give the unfriendly ents a miss, and Eidele cleverly rigged up a scheme using the ironvine shambler's metal vine-cable-things and Mage Hand and Lisbeth using her floating disc spell and some Prestidigitation to get the statue out without bringing a chunk of angry ooze with it. It turned out to be hollow (good thing too, or we might not have been able to lift it out), and we think it was probably gold plated over wood, with a hole in the bottom that the ooze had gotten in through and dissolved all the wood. It seems to depict a kua-toa, a froglike creature as comfortable on two legs as on four, but it's very abstract, with de-emphasised limbs and an overemphasised bulging throat sack and eyes. So maybe some kind of seer and speaker? Official witnesser and voice of the yuan-ti? It isn't wearing anything identifiable as clothing of a given style, but I think it's probably from the Ancient Builder strata.
Then it was off to the west, saving the most interesting direction for last!
All of us were further treated, while the myconid spores lingered, to Ange very conspicuously trying not to think about the Potion of Animal Friendship in Necria's possession. Which we did not use. Because that thing is valuable, and not worth wasting on a beast that isn't hostile and which we don't dearly need to get past. Using it on Sweetheart was worth it. Using it on what my girlfriend insists on calling the "megasnurkey" would not have been.
Bah, Eidele's just being grumpy. She bopped me on the head, too! But the megasnurkey wasn't even the first thing we encountered. The western corridor was full of these bright red flowers, and as we got closer to them we started feeling drowsy! So we quickly backed off, especially once we saw a corpse in among them.
I suspect they have some kind of soporific - likely magical given how quick-acting and strong it is - aroma, and knock living creatures unconscious and keep them that way until they die of dehydration. Then the flowers feed on the corpses. An effective ecological niche, if an unpleasant one. Touching them caused temporary numbness, but no pain. What effect they'd have on the bloodstream or ingestion is unclear, but possibly worth trialling.
The really sad thing is that if I were a better monk and I had finished purifying my body, they wouldn't even be affecting me. The really good monks are immune to disease and poison, you know. But I'm not that good yet, so instead all of us - apart from Lisbeth, who's an elf and isn't affected by sleepy effects because she doesn't sleep at all - had to hold our breath to sneak past them.
The corpse turned out to belong to one Frederick von Metternich, who received his last rites from Necria. Another adventurer, by his effects - the usual stuff, coin pouch, journal and pen, a hand mirror, some nice boots with hidden compartments in the heels that I claimed. His journal described getting in this far by using resizing spells, which proved useful information later on. There was another corpse among them, too - a yuan-ti with golden jewellery, much older; nothing but long-decayed bones.
But past the carnivorous sleepy flowers, there was a huge big rectangular room with some holes in the floor that had trees growing up out of them from a (non-flooded?) lower level. I wasn't able to examine them, but I think they were deliberate cut-outs, rather than places where the floor had collapsed. And in the room was the megasnurkey! Oh, she was beautiful; a giant lizard-bird-like creature akin to the snurkeys in bodyplan, with the long serpentine neck and tail but the birdlike legs and clawed forelimbs. She was maybe twelve foot high, tall enough to reach the tops of the trees - longer still from nose to tail - and had huge claws on its forelimbs that I don't think were primarily for combat; she was using them to prune at trees and hook branches to get the leaves in range of her beak.
I should add that we saw no indication of physiological sex on this thing, if it even had one. Ange just assumes any snake or bird she wants to make friends with is female until proven otherwise. While she was trying unsuccessfully to charm it - it didn't even look at her, no reaction to Draconic, nothing - the rest of us explored a set of what I think were workrooms attached to the larger one. There was another corpse in there, but more importantly, there were a number of other magical flowers, which we took samples of. A couple of parasitic orchids that had killed off a bunch of poppies around them, the red soporific ones that leech their victims' corpses for nutrients, some orange-and-yellow-leaved flowers that look like flames and taste spicy; some flowers with five petals that all look like a snake heads (Ange loved them); some purple flowers that smell like whatever your favourite food is and seem to release a mild paralytic, which also seem to be corpse-eater plants (we found some dead rats around them). Not a bad haul, all in all.
Okay okay, but if Eidele will stop stealing my letter, I do still have questions about the megasnurkey. Like: what does she eat? The trees, obviously, but there weren't very many of them to support a creature of her size; she was huge and only had those four or five "groves" where plants were growing up through the floor to sustain her. This is the same as the Sweetheart question, I guess - how's she surviving just on snurkeys? Are they really enough? But as well as that... how old are Sweetheart and, hmm, I think I'll call her Bashful, because she's so shy. Where did they come from? Are they - and this is my special theory - are they actually just really old? Like, decades old, maybe? Because the spell-snakes we found seem to be older forms of the wand-snakes like Dizzy, so if one of them escaped long before the ones we found in next to Sweetheart's Lake and just never stopped growing... is that how Sweetheart got that big? And by extension, is Bashful just a snurkey who wandered through from the lake to this area before the two got separated off from each other, and made it through the flowers somehow? Would all the snurkeys get this big if Sweetheart didn't keep eating them?
Well, Darvin took a living one out for Alfhild, so I guess we'll find out!
That was it for the west, so we packed up what we'd found, said goodbye to Bashful and the myconids, and headed out to this place where "the moon and stars" were missing.
And it was a street! A whole real actual street! Except it wasn't a real actual street; it was actually really a fake street! We stepped out from the myconid area into a long dark hall, probably forty feet wide and longer in both directions than I could see. The whole thing was flooded ankle-deep in fairly fast-flowing water (there was a short flight of stairs keeping it out of the myconid dome), and it was all dark, with light spilling out of the myconid's dome onto a few forlorn feet of dark water. There were definitely unlit crystal flowers up on the roof, which I'm taking as confirmation of my theory that the lizardfolk stole the crystal sphere powering this section's lights. A few raised platforms full of dirt and plants were raised above the water level, and the sounds of falling water off to our right gave away that the current was because of a big hole-in-the-floor-turned-waterfall somewhere over that way.
On the northern side of the hall, the whole facade - two or more storeys high! - was done up like a natural cavern wall, with the opening we'd come out of appearing to be the entrance to a cave complex. But the southern side was a street! The walls were mocked up like houses, with windows and doors and porch-overhangs and everything! They were all flat facades, but they looked super lifelike! I've copied Darvin's map and annotated a little picture of the street bit to show what was where:
So like I noted, across the hall and off to our left there was a raised section where Necria saw a campfire and some people before they hastily put it out - we'd come out of that myconid chamber with my spearhead all lit up, so I guess they were wary of us. Before we could talk to them, though, we got interrupted by shouting from George!
To avoid Ange dancing around trying to describe him in complimentary terms; "George" is a homunculus of some kind, made by a creator who either couldn't or didn't care to work with any sense of aesthetics. Goliath-tall, misproportioned - his head is too small for his body size, his arms are too big, his face looks like a child's putty mask that got rammed into a wall several times and it's essentially impossible to judge how old he is due to just how divergent he looks from human. He seems fairly simple, too - ranted about a "master", presumably his creator, who'd been turned to stone by "snakes" and pointed down a flooded staircase he was dithering next to. Up where Ange has written his name, that whole room with the holes in the floor is done up like another natural cave, with some shelving carved into the walls and a spiral staircase in one of the holes.
I talked him into leaving his master behind for the moment on the basis that he wasn't going to get any more petrified and there's not much that can hurt him while he's made of stone, located underwater and guarded by basilisks. He enthused on the guy for a while - powerful wizard, appears to like having an enthusiastic but fairly naive servant around, not above some tax evasion and similar. Then Necria flew up to get a look at the adventurers over on the ledge opposite and Ange, of course, decided to wave over to them to say hello and shout an unnecessary warning about petrifying snakes.
I was letting them know! They might not have been paying attention to George! And anyway, even if they did already know, it showed that we were friendly and cared about their wellbeing!
Mmm. Anyway, they weren't helpful; said they knew a way out to get back out onto the central lake but refused to share it. The homunculus was entirely unhelpful; I asked him how he and his master got in and out and he screwed up his face like he was constipated and tried to teleport us back to town. Without possessing any magic. So in lieu of any other options, we quickly explored the small rooms around the fake cave - not much interesting, just another fire tree and light crystal vine that was, as expected, missing the light crystal - and then committed our biggest fuck-up of the day.
Don't listen to Eidele. It wasn't really a fuck-up. We had no way of knowing we were in any danger. And we had nowhere else to go - so, "in lieu of any other options" as Eidele puts it, we went over to the little mocked-up fake shop place on the "street"-side wall facade of the shop, where the stairs up to the adventurer's ledge were.
Aaaand that's how we found out that there were shadow-snakes there. I was leading, with my spearhead lit up as usual, and it wasn't even really necessary? We can all see in the dark. I was just giving us some light so that we wouldn't miss details. But I guess the snakes didn't like that, because there was a faint sizzle and a hiss and then something bit me and I felt all weak all of a sudden. And I yelled, obviously, and popped my wings out and shifted into Crane, and started throwing out attacks, and then everything got confusing and I don't remember much else.
I'll take over here, because Ange was only half-conscious for the rest of the delve. They were shadows, or some relation of shadows - a type of animate darkness spirit that rank among the undead for some reason; I'm not sure why or how they're created. They're dangerous, and end up killing a lot of weaker adventurers when they show up - they don't just hurt you, they leech your life energy out and leave you weak and helpless to fight back. If they leech enough of it, you'll die regardless of your wounds.
I think, in retrospect, they must have been hiding under the water; that's why we missed them. The first we knew of them was when Ange got hit, and then Necria did her "light invisible things up" spell and haloed them in pale flames. But they were still invisible. Whenever they hit Ange, her light flickered, and that's how we saw their form; four coiling snakes made of shadow on the walls and floor. I think they were visible in twilight but blended into darkness and were invisible in the light. It made fighting them fucking annoying, I'll tell you that.
Fortunately, the light seemed to hurt them constantly for as long as they were exposed to it - that's probably why they attacked Ange. We killed them all, though. Ange was left barely able to stand and half unconscious, very upset about snakes hurting her, also upset that she accidentally hurt them. Speaking personally, the fucking little bastards can burn for all I care.
There were some children's toys scattered around the little alcove where they'd been lurking, which we gathered up - some crystals, putty, conch shells, lizardfolk toys; we gave them all to the homunculus to carry. Ange offloaded most of her stuff onto Darvin, because she was too weak to even stay upright with her backpack on at this point. I had to basically carry her along with an arm over my shoulder.
We got her up the stairs to the platform we'd seen the other delvers on; two humans, one halfling and a gnome, plus hirelings packing up their camp. Necria spotted a slab in the wall behind them that didn't fit, and Lisbeth said she could shrink it down to get us past it. The delvers postured for a moment or two, insisting we cast the spell instead of them and trying to argue into going out before us "so we didn't seal them in behind us". Which would only leave them in the same situation as they'd been in before we arrived, so their motivation for that was naked greed and wanting to spare themselves use of a spell scroll on the back of our resources.
I stared them down and they shut the fuck up.
We came out north of Sweetheart's Lake, next to the pond with the frogs, and - after telling the others that they could wait their fucking turn to leave because I didn't trust them at our backs - headed back out. The mezzanine had been repaired, presumably by those kobolds, and Sweetheart came over to fuss over Ange, but she was in bad enough condition to barely notice. In retrospect, I should probably have let the other delvers come along, because seeing the fuck-off giant snake cooing over our party like a tame pet would've been a hell of a power move. Something to remember for later delves.
Apart from that missed opportunity, though, we only hit one stumbling block on the way out; some idiot elf lying down by the jewellery shop pretending to be injured. Necria saw through his act, I advocated for firing a warning shot, and after Necria called him out and he retreated into the next room to launch an ambush, Lisbeth solved the problem by summarily shooting him in the back and killing him instantly.
Yes, she gets first-name status for that. And the 25 gold he had on him. Ange won't be happy that's what won me over, but Ange is bad at taking care of herself, and if our new wizard has a ruthless streak that might keep her safer, I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Then it was out into the open air, grabbing a snurkey on the way out for Alfhild, and home to a very distressed Amity and worried Maegan. The homunculus went with Necria; I believe she put him up at Selûne's temple for the moment. Maegan wasn't too worried about our overnight absence - we've talked about what might be required in delving and how two- or even three-to-five-day expeditions aren't unlikely - but this is the first time Amity's been separated from us since we got her back, so it wasn't too surprising she was upset. Apparently it was really bad the night we were gone, though hearing our voices in her seashell necklace helped (I knew that thing would be useful), and she was fussy all through the second day. There's not much we can really do to keep all our delves short, so... we'll just have to try to comfort her and prove we'll always come back, I guess.
If I trusted anyone in this shithole of a city I'd say more socialisation might distract her, but the only people I'm even remotely comfortable knowing she exists are in this party or this tent. Rohesia included. She's sweet enough to Ange, but "don't trust Anglians" is a time-honoured piece of advice for a reason, and if she doesn't need to know about Amity, she shouldn't.
Bluh.
Yeah, so. I'm not sure I totally agree with how grouchy and mistrustful Eidele is about Amity - we can't just keep her all to ourselves and stay curled around her like dragons for our whole lives! - but I'm with her for now. And, yeah, Eidele mentioned her reaction to us missing a night, and I won't go into it more, but it really... it really wasn't great. At all. Parting this morning was extra bad. Honestly, I feel awful for saying it, but I almost think we should probably think about deliberately spending some more nights down in the city-complex - not soon, by any means, but she reacted so badly that I'm a little worried about her. We probably need to wean her off needing us slowly and carefully and work on getting her to feel safe when we're not right where she expects us to be all the time, just for her mental health as she grows.
But that's not a priority yet. For now, she's still very little, and fussing when we're not there at bedtime would be normal even for a baby who hadn't gone through what Amity has.
(But seriously, we probably need to reinstate the ban on fleece so she can't cast her illusions anymore. From what Maegan said, her tantrum the night we were gone came perilously close to getting us outright thrown out of our lodgings from the noise complaints.)
Anyway, we all met up this morning - Darvin was in plain clothes; for once without the armour, and he looked so weird! Like, not bad weird! But it's really strange to see him without his plate! His clothes are surprisingly colourful, too - I wouldn't have expected him to be so gaudy! It's neat! Lots of scars though, like, wow, you can really tell that he's been through the wars.
We all trooped off to visit Alfhild first and sell the plants (well, most of the plants; I kept one of the snakehead flowers, which now lives on my side of our bed). But, man, "we sold the plants" doesn't get across the changes we found there, because oh boy, have there been some! Alfhild's the huuuuuge big mountain of a goliath woman botanist, and she was in a simple yurt when we first met her, but now she's in this... this glass-yurt full of crystal light-flowers! It's all open to the sun, and a bunch of the crystal flowers are placed over potted plants that their blackvine strand is rooted in and she's managed to get them to light up and she has a fire-tree cutting in another pot and... oh, it's beautiful!
Speaking more generally about the changes, work has definitely spread about this place. Rushtown's continuing to expand, and from some of the... cramped lodgings I'm seeing, I suspect that even with the rapid construction we're starting to get more people than there are rooms for them to stay in. Also, there's at least someone around with construction magic who's doing very nicely for themselves indeed, because I'm starting to see ritual-raised stone buildings springing up.
So blah blah blah we got money-
Quite a lot of money. Also, the purple illusion flowers and blue nightcaps were apparently magical, of the Illusion school, and the cuttings from the Shambler were strongly magical with no specific school, but the red sleep flowers weren't, which implies their mechanism is purely natural.
-which is all very interesting and all but I wasn't there for that; I wanted to know about the blackvine! It was all connected to a point back out of sight and away from prying eyes, so I asked about that - and, you know, how it grows and carries energy through itself and how it's engineered - and Alfhild explained she's worked out how it can be coaxed into growing back into crystals like we already knew from the bush thing near the entrance that first day (I let her know the flickering clears up once it's fully rooted). She thinks it was probably artificially created somehow, but isn't sure if it was bred for purpose from... something, or just designed from scratch. She's powering it with a crystal-orb back out of sight, and while she didn't let us look at it, apparently she's noticed veeeeeery slight indentations form where the blackvine is rooted since plugging it in - indicating that it's consuming the material of the diamond! I asked about the runners it has into the soil (it's local soil), and nope, doesn't work; it doesn't like them.
So that looks like the big spheres are huuuuuge material components that directly fuel the enchantments. The ones we've found are still, you know, there, and Alfhild's visibly decreased in size (albeit only by a teeny tiny bit), so either her splicing and grafting was very "expensive" and had it consume comparatively huge amounts of diamond to fuel it all, or the ones down in the tomb weren't active for most of the time since the city was abandoned and only turned on with the earthquake, because... well, even for a head-sized sphere of diamond, over thousands of years it would all have been consumed even just fuelling cantrip-grade spells, however slow the consumption rate. If it's fast enough that Alfhild can see any change at all in the space of only a few days - even in a stressed environment where it's consuming the material much faster than it otherwise would - then it's fast enough to have eaten the spheres up entirely over longer time periods.
(Unless, of course, I was right about there being ore in the soil and the crystals are a backup that aren't meant to be used to fuel the plants' growth directly, just the light and heat. If so, the sphere is shrinking because it's having to supply the cost of the regrowth that should be taken from existing sources. On the one hand, she was using local soil. On the other, it may just not have been from deep enough to hit the ore deposits, if they're really there. I don't think this has falsified my hypothesis, but it might be circumstantial evidence against it? I'll keep an eye out. Oh, or maybe suggest she mix some powdered metals into the soil she's got it rooted in; that'd at least let me test whether it can suck up minerals from the ground.)
(Also, I do love this invisible-ink thing my pen tattoo can do. So useful! Sorry Eidele, but this is still super top secret, so you're not reading this just yet. Teacher's Eyes Only!)
Alfhild also wanted some of that orange plant-killer stuff and maybe some of the plants in the glass dome - she was very happy with the live snurkey we brought up. And she also wanted sources of sunlight! I guess to grow things indoors like they were? I tried putting a little ki into one of the crystal flowers to light it up, but apparently my natural ki is just gold, not proper sunlight. I think there are spells to make sunlight, so maybe I could create it the same way with ki, but I dunno how. Something to think about for the future, I guess!
Then we moved onto Helen, who has students with her now! We didn't get to talk much, but they seemed nice! She was having an argument when we came in with this old halfling guy, who stormed out past us while she looked really nettled. Turns out he's another Cuthbrian professor (called Osborn Gerald) who studies "practical applications of ancient magic", which Eidele described as 'a fancy way of saying he robs tombs to make weapons'. They've got a bit of a rivalry going on, so our support of Helen is helping her maintain her position! Whoo!
She was obviously super happy to see us once she got done grinding her teeth over Professor Gerald (and called me her favourite student! Which on the one hand was really nice, but on the other hand wow, right in front of her grad students, ouch.) She had candies and snacks and stuff and got us all sat down and I introduced her to Lisbeth and told her how cool she is, and Helen consoled her for being from Lancanfield (I think if I do ever wind up going to Cuthbria I'm just gonna try to smile and nod and stay out of the academic rivalries). And then it was storytime! Eidele tried to get me to skip ahead, but nope nope nope, the context provides value in interpretation! Helen backed me up on it and everything! I filled Helen in on everything from the last few letters, and she was triumphant about Khemet having been a jungle in the old days; she was like "I KNEW IT!" and yelled at her grad students to go fetch her books and demanding details about the plants and the constellations and stuff. Everyone chipped in, and between Eidele and Necria we got a crude timeline going from the sarcophagus memories but not with a dating system we know. Maybe with more information Helen can work out how long ago it was and get a translation into the Builder-era calendar worked out!
I also told her all my conclusions about how many the city was hidden underground from the gods or some sort of big war, and my theories about the rooms. Helen's best guess for the fake street is some kind of fake city for entertainment - like a themed park, almost, with amusements and attractions and general stuff to keep people mentally healthy when they're living underground and away from the sun all the time. Which is more evidence they were down there permanently, which... yeah. Anyway, she listened to me as I went through all the different groups we've met down there, and... here's an interesting thought.
We're kind of a neutral party?
What I mean is that it's a complicated social environment down there, with multiple lizardfolk groups, rats, myconids, drow, adventurers, the works. But apart from the, hmm, religiously territorial lizardfolk faction and the drow, we've had pretty diplomatic overtures with all of them. Despite some of them being at war with each other (like the myconids and the lizardfolk, or the rats and other adventurers). It puts us in kind of an odd, and not necessarily stable, position. One of these days we're going to wind up walking in on a fight between two groups we're already allied with, and I dunno what exactly we're going to do then.
Bleh.
We sold her the yuan-ti jewellery and the statue (which she said was made by pouring over a mould and then peeling the bottom away, probably mass-produced, but not a kua-toa - in fact, not of any species she knew, maybe something obscure and extraplanar, maybe not). The jewellery was all in the usual ancient Khemeti style, but with some interesting intermingling from stuff she's seen in other ancient tombs that've used similar motifs. Different parts of the same culture? Or just an indication of trade and contact between them? Either would have fascinating implications! Maybe after we're done here we can go on a tour of Khemet and look at some other old tombs to find out?
Helen basically accounted for all the stuff we had left to sell at that point, and Necria suggested we split up once we left her place. She wanted to talk to Eidele about something, Darvin had shopping to do, and I took Lisbeth off to talk to Colette & co. Well, first we went to the bank for Lisbeth to deposit a bunch of money. But then Colette. I'll talk all about that later, but first, Eidele!
It was an interesting talk. We both wanted to hang back and have a private talk, so I went first. She's been acting weirdly now and then, freaking out over stirges and feeling outright gleeful at seeing that tree dying - while we were in telepathic contact with the colony of myconids who worship it, I should note. We got out of that one okay, but it's been getting closer and closer to impacting our tactical situation, so I confronted her about what's going on with her.
Turns out she has fair reason to hate the natural world. It was an emotional conversation I won't transcribe in full, but to summarise: Necria's temple was a branch of the Cult of Selûne down in Reuteia back before the war, some kind of archive. Their region was heavily Orthodox, so when they got accused of heretical worship of gods outside their purview to try and break a famine or drought or something that had hit them a few months before the start of the war, they were pretty much fucked. She didn't say whether the accusations were true, but I get the impression they were, not that I care. Word got out, mobs attacked, and they fled, but their route took them through the Black Forest.
As in, Duretta's Wood.
Necria was a junior archivist at the time, and says they were trying to reach Valois and find shelter there, hoping their gods would shelter them en route. They didn't. Duretta turned the land against them, and apparently only two thirds of them made it to safety - and of them, only fifth made it there intact. And of course, a few months later war broke out anyway. In short, lots of trauma there when it comes to nature and druidic magic.
Then it was her turn, and she gave me a little speech about my recent fuck-ups and trusting me. It wasn't a bad speech - she took the route of 'if you try to say it's your fault and you can't be trusted to make decisions, I'm going to take it as a attack on my judgement of character', presumably assuming I wouldn't respond well to limpid platitudes and consoling nothings. Not sure how to feel about the fact she's decided challenging me with tough love and a pseudo-rivalry is the best way to handle me. Amused, I think.
I think it's cute! They're like cats circling each other in that "I'm not going to be emotionally vulnerable by admitting I like you or feel better" way that cats do! And for future readers who don't know my Eidele like I do, she might be covering it up by trying to be all business-like and gruff and sarcastic, but I can tell that she was actually pretty touched by whatever pep talk Necria gave her. So Necria's kinda right! Sometimes you just gotta throw a towel in Eidele's face and give her a reason to prove something to you!
... uh, she says it's usually 'glove', not 'towel'. But I find towels work great too! Especially when they're all wet after a shower and you get her in the face with them! But yeah, I'm siding with her on this: nobody else is allowed to use that one except me. And I'm not even sure it'd work from anyone else anyway.
Digressions aside, I let Necria know we'd back her up if any Reutish adventurers started shit with her over past tensions, which both did and didn't seem to reassure her, and then we went and tracked down Bernhardt and Ottilg; the gnome and fire elemental from a couple of days ago. Found them drinking in a bar near the workshop district - Ottilg chugging pints in full armour and burning hotter with each one, occasionally shooting fire out as a party trick, Herman nursing his own, much smaller mug. We strolled up, sat down, asked how far they'd gotten into their delving.
Side note; Ottilg apparently communicates by spitting out fire and controlling it to spell words. Pretty cool, honestly. I can only imagine how much use I'd get out of a trick like that. Though I'm pretty sure that, like Ange's light-things-up trick, this is something more innate than whatever cantrip wizards use to manipulate flame in similar ways.
Anyway. Turns out the two of them haven't delved far enough, or at least in the right directions, to encounter the orange mushrooms yet. I warned them about the detonate-each-other effect, which Ottilg said sounded 'radical'. Because uncontrolled explosions in an enclosed underground environment is always great fun. Bernhardt seemed more cautious about them, and I asked him about supplying explosives - he said he'd be willing to act as a vendor, so I'll get a price list from him next time we're in town (I'll need a better way to carry them, though).
I also mentioned Ange's idea about a mutual adventurer defence pact, which he was perhaps unsurprisingly all in favour of given we've already saved his life once, and asked that he spread our name around in positive terms - general awareness of us as reliable, trustworthy, willing to talk and help people out but not a group you can walk all over, that kind of thing; it'll help us out if we're a known neutral/beneficial party as tensions between national groups heat up. Necria was asking Ottilg about how she'd recovered and getting positive reassurances.
Surprisingly earthy, Ottilg. That kind of loud, carousing, friendly-roughhousing personality you find in a lot of the friendlier barbarians from the mountains west of the temple. Meanwhile Bernhardt is your typical mechanically-minded artificer, though I have less of a read on him. I asked how the two of them got together and it turns out they met during the war. After it was all over, he needed a meatshield and she needed an engineer for the suit, so they stuck together. I'm guessing she was one of Valois' bound elementals and that there's a story behind why she's not still a bound elemental, but I knew better than to poke a subject that delicate on our first real meeting. If it seems relevant in a week or two, I'll satisfy my curiosity then.
See, Teacher? We're making friends! This idea is going to work, I'm sure of it. We can be a guiding light! It won't be enough just on its own to stop war; I'm not naive enough to think that - but if we can make good impressions on enough of the big names here (and we've already made a good start!), we can keep the peace going and draw out things getting nasty long enough to find some common ground that doesn't put us all in opposition. Even if a war is inevitable, there's value in getting people from different nations to just talk to each other, to see each other as people and remember that we're more than just our country borders and religions!
And where better to start than with Colette and her friends? She's still in the super fancy lodgings she left us the money at last time we tried to visit; a big purple command tent with gold trim in the really swanky part of town that has a bunch of servants and squires around it. We got announced going in! "Angèle Bright and Lisbeth Betschart, here to see Chevalier Arouet"! All five of them were there, looking kinda battered after a delve. Well, four of them were. Colette was lounging on a chaise in a silk robe looking like she'd been drinking wine all day.
(Btw, Ermentrudis - the one who was dead last time - is alive again, and from the way she stands, she's a martial artist! Dunno what style she uses; her stance isn't one I recognised. But I might be able to get some sparring in with her while we're here! For the benefit of any future readers who are trying to look it up, I practice Dragon, Crane and Flowing River.)
So I introduced Lisbeth and Jaquette, who got along great, and then asked Colette about, you know, infighting in the dungeon, and, well, she's obviously seen some of it too. She had a lot to say about "honourless dogs" and "compensating for inadequacy by scrounging at the feet of braver champions" and... a bunch of other stuff, but basically it boiled down to "yes, people are starting to try mugging other parties on their way out while they're injured or tired rather than go delving themselves, and Colette's no happier about it than we are".
She also told us about... okay, so basically they went down the big waterfall by levitating, and there's a big lake at the bottom full of monsters that you need to be able to fly to get to - and more importantly get out of - but half of them died again, but they all got out and brought a literal bucket of diamonds with them, yikes. She has a cool new magic sword and everything! So it sounds like there's definitely plenty of things left to explore, and maybe a possible route to explore them through, just... maybe not until we're a bit more experienced, considering how dangerous it sounds. Colette's really pumped about it, though, and I think she plans to go back, so we don't want to wait too long!
(I showed her my new magic item - my boots - and Colette was very impressed at how they let me fuel my wings, but I kind of got the impression she felt a bit miffed at me showing her up with something so much cooler and wanted to brag about her sword some more, so I went back to complimenting it and she was much happier.)
And then I made my pitch for an alliance. The whole pitch about getting a bunch of big-name adventurers all making a stand against the in-fighting to try to stifle the mugging and so on in the cradle. And Colette heard me out! She said anything she does here will be seen as endorsed by the Valoisienne government, so she can't commit to it right away, but if we get other people to agree - enough big voices - that might change. She just can't be the first.
And yeah yeah, I know, I know, everyone else is going to say the same thing, and it's going to be hard, but if we get to the point where everyone is willing and it's just that nobody wants to speak up first, all we'll need is a little push to tip everyone over the line! Colette did say that a regiment from Alemagne have shown up recently and they're acting like they have permission from the Khemeti government, which is worrying, but they might well be lying about that because nobody's heard anything at all from Khemet. They've come in with Alemagnian troops and an Alemagnian flag, though, and they're building a fort. So that's gonna be something to keep an eye on. We should probably warn Hammer, too, even if he's a huge butt.
Margot was looking worried by the time we got done talking about that, so I gave her another hug (Margot gives really good hugs), then asked Jaquette for her theories on the blackvine. She's where I got the ideas about it using those diamond spheres to power themselves - she had a bunch to say about diamonds being some kind of universal form of value, and then Lisbeth got involved talking about gold, and they got into some really technical jargony arcana-based arguments with it that I couldn't really follow in depth and were still arguing when I left (it's cool; this is how academics make friends). Basically from what I did parse, they think the spheres are a long-term material component to keep cantrip-level spells going for extended periods. Where the diamond spheres came from, and how the Builders got so many... that, we just don't know. Something else to think about!
Oh, and I also asked Colette to spread the word about our group being, you know, strong and nice and willing to talk to people instead of going straight to the stabbing. So hopefully we'll get to use diplomacy some more! Man, you know what? We really need a name for our group. We've been a party for almost a week now! I'll have to brainstorm with Eidele about it.
Anyway, that's basically it! It's been a really long few days, and the politics of everything are getting messy, but we've got a bunch of new friends and contacts and allies! Cynical people would say it's all going to fall apart when the fighting starts in earnest, but I think it's better to try and find a way to avoid a war breaking out than to just assume it's impossible. Prepare for the worst, yeah, but hope for the best, too! And hope doesn't just mean thinking "it'd be nice if...", it means pushing for what you hope for!
So that's what I'm going to do.
(But I'll also let Eidele make her contingency plans and keep Maegan informed of local tensions. Just in case.)
Have finally left the tomb, 32 hours resident, acquisition of food, water - must buy water skin for next traversal - shelter going to be important. Events since occurrent. Discussion ended with clearing of orange defoliant by the use of dual second cr. castings of Purify - residual estimated at below 40% of original, plan includes visit during next delve - presuming more easy route found - to remove residual.
Myconids hence directed us around common junctures to their main hall. Northern exit - consulted with Darvin, possesses compass for cartographic purpose- not explored, told contains treants - animated trees - no urgent desire for shipping lumber out of tomb. Value likely low, danger high - treants notably composition of forest defence forces of Valois - unless treant of some exotic wood.
Eastern exit utilised as waste disposal by Myconids. Discover pit, approx 15ft cube, filled to level maybe two foot below present level with translucent. Bottom of pit contained door. Also bones, lizardfolk - Myconids claim ones who succumbed when poisoning tree, 'stealing moon and stars' - reference not sure of. Finally, approximately human sized golden statue. Surmised, from description, rough 'glisten' on surface, pit is filled with commonly called gelatinous cube - highly acidic ooze form, often contained within dungeons, other regular structure - cannot actually (long term) maintain cubic form without regular "reinforcement". Known shapes include several prisms when occurred in non-cubic surroundings. Technically not 'true ooze' due to said inability (along other factors). Sample would be nice, but not keen to provoke ambulatory response from cubes.
Notwithstanding last comment, team prepared to retrieve statue. Using cables harvested from Ironvine Shambler and M.Hand to procure statue. Carefully ensured that hollow void inside statue drained of gelatinous acid, due to lethal response. Statue not correct term - thin, if structurally sufficient, layer of gold, suspect around originally organic core (wood most likely) then layered. Egress points permitted cube to consume organics, but non-perishable nature of gold meant that statue remained. Myconids not familiar with cause of statue or cubes present - perhaps used as disposal method by Lizardfolk although door's presence at bottom of pit indicative of alternative use.
Statue now acquired, exploration down corridor. Red flowers - poppy variant - found, remainder of party discover soporific effect. Self unaffected, due to alternate construction of mind; the gates of nod are barred. Exploration revealed corpse, Fredrich von Metternich, who ingressed through use of Variation in Volume - under alternate, Enlarge/Reduce - (c(2), |x| = μεταβάλλω ), already possess. Scroll of same found in boot; expended later in dungeon egress. Flowers retrieved for later examination; predatory method for caloric intake through soporific starvation of prey. Second body discovered during further examination of flower extent - approx 45ft straight line, approx 700 sqft total area inc side room. Likely multiple but large flowering bodies, but offcuts have survived transportation so far. Second body Yuan-Ti, wearing jewellery. Skeletal, unlike Metternich, date of death uncertain. Metternich dec. no more than three D. Room at end of corridor contained fenced holes, trees grows through, likewise sickly (presume shared watersource as larger tree?) Exploration incomplete; room contain approx 15ft tall reptilian, bipedal, small arms with bone spurs and beaklike mouth. Stripping leaves from trees to eat. Perceptive ability either low; possesses no territorial instincts. Angèle attempts, unwisely, communication with possible hostile in draconic due to reptilian features. No response. Possibly poisoned itself, if consuming trees also poisoned - bioaccumulative.
Side room also present along red flower path. Contained another corpse - looked by self, due to room entirely within red flowers. Also contained unique floral specimens - orchid surrounded by dead red flowers, flower with flamelike petals, flower with snake-head (non-cobra) petals, purple flower that smells like "favourite food" - innate magical ability, auto-suggestion of olfactory system? Tendrils lead to dead rats from flower - suggestion to gather prey. Odd amount of carnivorous plants. Poppies likely originated here, expansion proves greatest ability to outcompete others. All flowers retrieved for sale.
Leaving myconids now. Becoming more communicative with party after leaving. Myconid ability limited range, and engagement of linguistic abilities requires more thought, more for them to observe. Outside of myconid chamber is internal corridor, 40ft wide. Descend steps from Myconid room, entire hallway flooded to ankle height. Must acquire new chain for spellbook, journal, present rope is fraying. Water damage! Corridor contains planter boxes, ref. map. Wall on Myconid side is naturalistic, cavernlike. Wall on otherwise is facade of city, or urban environment. Giant hole is present in ground to west, with water flowing in. Lowest level of facade is leaking water, likely supplementing lost to waterfall. Raised area to east, with underhang and stairs leading up.
Upon ingress, immediate note of shouting. Plea for assistance. Follow to meet 'george'. Tawkin, to use the technical term, artificial human more specific. Homonculus. Given size, simply Homonc. Appearance viscerally displeasing, Homonculus unaware of own status as artificial - distressed if brought up. Upon arrival explained further - lost "master" to a hole in a nearby barred enclosure, entire area flooded. Claimed petrification - silicate petrification, clarify - due to snakes. Angèle as expected excited. George useless for details, we lack possession of a Potion of corporalisation, return at later date. From this angle, presence of adventuring party on upper level apparent, attempting to hide. Make presence and lack of ill-intent clear. Attempt to discover path to complete egress, wish to exit, backpath is unappealing - length, possible more incidents. George attempts, without first explanation, to teleport - c7(τῆλεστείχω ): ?,?,?,?,?! |τῆλεστείχω| = 7! Seven! - out of dungeon. Explains the same is method of ingress. Master is Wizard of full and due respect. Magister. Enchanter.
Possibly able to put in good work about cancellation of late payment fees with Bursar. Worth retrieval, at least.
No further options present themselves, attempt to communicate with adventurers on ledge for their route out. Movement to obstructed and presented ill. Attacked - creatures of the umbral realm? - half real shadows. Invisible in light, non-existent in shadow, appears in half-light. Assaulted Angèle - due to possessing natural light source (Aasimar wings) and lit spearhead. Assault drained strength from assaultees. Use of faerie fire by Necria not effective. Vertoben creation, second degree, conjuration, dispersal of motes of light, cohere within volume. Cast sonoform orb, killed several, Necria and Darvin of little assistance, Angèle punching one (???) to death - monk technique? Not entirely shadow? Aasimar light property? And Eidele stabbing one. Killed last - Mind Sliver (against such weak-willed opposition should term Mind Crush).
Discovered lingering effect of shadelings - bite caused horrible sapping of strength. Lacked ability to treat in tomb, effecting Ange to great significance. Retrieved immediate objects of value, finished ascent to upper level. Mezzanine. Adventurers prove recalcitrant, Necria spots ill-fitting spot in wall. Note entire piece stone - cast stone? - and I surmise that due to shape it likely secret? Intended? Supply? Original purpose unclear. Regardless, method of exit. Adventurers demand we expend mental energies to cast spell to exit, then they will follow through. Provide no value save not killing us all. Their mothers are syphilitic voles.
Use scroll to cast, travel through - entire group not fond of each other, suspect violence distinct possibilty if should next encounter. Scroll bound energies to task, we travelled through first. Distinctly considered expanding stone, trapping them still, but likely they possess ability anyway as they planned delve and came through. We advance first still, not willing for them to move ahead given speed moving with injured member.
Exit further delayed due to "injured" elf presenting self. Necria determines fake injuries, likely attempting some form of ambush. Attempts to leave, drawing weapon as doing so. Cast Magic Missile at him. Dies. №11. Awarded entire purse in gratitude by Eidele. Eidele begins referring to self by first name. Better than sallow.
Emerge into mid-afternoon light, take a moment to hail boat, transport back to land. Make plan for recovery and meeting together next day due to recovery needed. Entire day allotted for non-delve business.
Now alone, given arrival one day ago, immediate delve, still no place of residence, even temp. Fortunately, loose coin still supplied. Find large tent, serving drinks and food, hire hammock to meditate. Have meal - tagine, poorly spiced, watery, loose fish bones, perch - and retire. Need to send followup - saw sign for Dragon Bank, can likely arrange direct payment of debt here.
Reflection: Battered, almost died, used extensive amount of magic, companions range from unusual to truly unique oddities, encountered singular mysteries, and subjected self to semi-unknown form of magical augmentation. Estimated gain >150gp. Two days work. Less than. Emotion: Enjoyment? Exhilaration? Panic, nervousness? All, should think.
Shall move forwards. Out of saffron ink, must buy more tomorrow. Wish to transcribe new spells. Copies likely purchasable from Denir temple-library.
Have avenged self on D for appearing mid-meditations last night and throwing Pearl at my head; suggested that we all meet in the morning before his newly-commissioned armor is complete.
A looking much better, thankfully, and E much happier for having been reunited with little-A. Happy to inform that George currently ensconced in Selunite temple, assisting in culinary drudgery – will return for him once have worked out details of necessary thaumaturgy to free his master. Hefting assorted collection from previous delve, started by planning to offload all botanical acquisitions to Alfhild.
All this discussion rather overshadowed, however, by sight of D, not only unhelmeted, but without armor entirely, dressed in casualwear – and deeply uncomfortable about it, hands constantly tapping on halberd, to assorted weaponry on person; well-armed, despite in safety of growing encampment. Also amused to see perpetual frown reflected on his face instead of expressed solely through body language, though rather taken aback by sheer volume of pale scarring across mostly-brown skin.
Have noticed surface town continuing to expand, with inhabitants now outnumbering available occupation – word of tomb has spread, rush is beginning. Ritual-cast stone edifices appearing, along with aggressive real estate trade; fortunate that was able to establish temple's location prior to swarm, as representative.
Alfhild's yurt now made of glass, presumably intentionally, Crystal light-flowers scattered across, some placed over potted plants, all illuminated. Also cutting from a fire tree. Viewing assorted items, declared disinterest in bloody tooth (too common), but intrigued by culinary possibilities of fire- and purple flowers, the former as spice, latter despite mild paralytic effect. Not so much the snakeheaded flowers or ironvines, somewhat in the red sleepers. Also interested in purchasing both snurkey and fruit, both handed over by D with as much dignity as possible. Sold snurkey, fruit, some snakehead flowers, fire flowers, purples, reds, orchids, blue nightcaps, all three teeth, remaining ironvine.
Totaled 825gp after sale.
A, noting all crystal flowers connected by blackvine back to singular source hidden out of sight, had questions – Alfhild, hesitating, explained blackvine can be coaxed into growing into crystals as would soil (method undisclosed), provides power & light when connected, albeit with some flickering. A assured her would grow more stable in time. Observed, correctly, that likely engineered rather than naturally evolved, then speculated might have divine origins, misusing genesis as term – based on own appropriated memories, am doubtful, as original inhabitants incapable of accessing divine esotericism in any capacity.
Noted also that crystal seems to have shrunk slightly from relative size seen in tomb; upon mention, A suggested inducing rooting, which Alfhild claims attempts unsuccessful. L had further theories on magibotanical requirements for growth, but stepped aside with E to check if Alfhild cares to acquire either orange defoliating agent or UV-spectral flowers from glass dome. Yes to defoliant, yes to white-hair (at low price, since known and cultivable at inconvenience), but offered either flat price for flowers or variable depending on quality; elected the latter.
Also curious about sources of artificial sunlight, specifically. With all accumulated work, has most necessary components to manufacture artificial agriculture in practically any sufficiently large empty area, allowing for farming in secure, protected locations – preparing for war? Most are, nowadays.
Disgorged majority corpse-loot for 400gp, then, led by eager A, moved to Helen, bearing both statue and Yuan-Ti jewelry.
Of course, driven by laws of narrative convention, walked in on Helen mid-argument with elderly halfling gentleman, well-attired but in older Anglian fashion, one hand tapping up to waistcoat pocket then sweeping over to tug at lapels, bespectacled, constantly shifting weight onto and off right leg – lingering habit from earlier long-term injury, later healed?
Regardless – loudly-whispered argument (most do not realize how well whispers carry) on subject of appropriate allocation of funding, abuse of university resources, factional feuding. Ended abruptly, with halfing storming furiously out, pair of new individuals – air genasi with splinted arm, pale complexion, gangling half-orc nervously dancing coin across knuckles – grad students, supposedly, both trying and failing to look as busy as possible while still eavesdropping.
Then Helen laid eyes on A, lighting up with elation, exclaiming "My favorite student!" Pulled out set of small plates, carved stone, laid out assorted snacks, small sweets, some kind of elaborate sugar-crystal structure as centerpiece. A equally delighted, introduced L with glee, drawing deep sympathy from Helen at revelation of her having attended Lancanfield – academic rivalries make religious schisms look frankly amicable. Undeterred, A continued to sing L's praises, lauding her handling of Shambler, flattering her arcane abilities.
Almost wonder if A is not perhaps attempting to justify own recklessness in recruiting L by highlighting added value from her presence.
As A rambled happily on, E attempted to skip ahead, only for Helen to insist context important, provides value. Statement soon proven, as upon mention of jungle, cut A off, barking at grad students to go collect assorted tomes, notes, insisting "she f---ing knew it!" requesting identifying details; flora and fauna, celestial conditions, etc. A turned to E, self for further observation, elaboration – E able to provide detailed observations of local terrain, impact on local wildlife and plants, own self able to offer precise timeline and total duration of project inhabitancy, albeit matched to their calendar instead of our own, with no aligned frame of reference; will likely need to calculate backwards from celestial structures at time.
Discussed further the implications of assorted green rooms, trying to determine connection between forested and urban areas; hypothesized imitation city meant for public entertainment, maintenance of mental health during extended subterranean occupancy – A theorizes might be attempting to obscure from ongoing conflicts or possibly divine attention. (Am dubious of the second, considering deities able to intervene even in depths of Underdark.)
Exploration of the social environment of the tomb – assorted reptiles, including various groups of lizardfolk, myconids, drow, enhanced rats. Now with entry of adventurers, situation has grown more complex, but also opportunities to take advantage, at expense of others – adventurer problem-solving mostly entails violence, after all. Are unquestionably neutral party, but are we Salcurne or Anglia – attempting to remain disengaged and dissociated from the violence, or encouraging it in order to maximize our own profits despite the increased damage.
Set back on track by E, who offered jewelry and statue to Helen, interested in both, offering three hundred for the former, two hundred for the latter. Jewelry in ancient Khemeti style, but some intermingling from other tombs, also, similar but distinct. Identified statue as being made by pouring thin layer of gold over mold, then removing said mold by detaching bottom portion of exterior layer, usually mass-produced. Actual subject depicted not recognized, possibly obscure extradimensional entity, but unlikely, somewhat sabotaging own theory of slaad.
Then E, understandably, inquired into angry halfling leaving tent, and received outpouring of information. Osborn Gerald, professor of wizardry, specializing in "practical applications of ancient magic" (read tomb-robbing to make weapons), favored by university and has been pulling funding away from Rohesia. Have helped Helen in maintaining her position by showing concrete results, so he is likely to take some amount of interest in us.
Party split here; D looking to finish yesterday's shopping, while suggested to A she might want to check on Colette and Apell as well as associates, proposed she also take L with her, make some introductions. Meanwhile, requested that E remain a moment.
Fools seldom differ, as she likewise wanted to speak to me, regarding the inverse of my subject. After lackluster performance during delve, had observed a growing reticence in her, and an unwillingness to share her thoughts - she clearly felt her poor calls were putting the others at risk, when the fact of the matter was that the dangers faced were a consequence of my decision. A clear problem, with no forthcoming solution.
The opposite for her; had noted my previous recalcitrance and distaste towards the various natural life encountered in dungeon, unusual change in demeanor around both stirges and giant tree, even audible to myconids; impacting tactical situation, nature of problem uncertain, but solution clear – just ask. Which she did.
A twofold apology owed to the reader here, both for delving into interpersonal drama instead of depths of dungeon, and because following segment not exact recreation, but rather a summary of what I discussed with Eidele; the topic is still a sensitive issue for me, even now, and I was rather more emotional during our conversation than is entirely productive to an accurate recounting afterwards.
So.
Will have to settle for a summary instead.
Begins with the Archive of Selune in Reutia.
Have shared already prologue to sordid tale; own discardment, subsequent adoption, found family, distrustful community, and finally escalation to violence, forced to flee to Valois to escape persecution.
A very neat clause to end a sentence, wrapping it up cleanly in a mere eight words. Rather less so in reality.
Speaker spent several years despising me, but could not take direct action while I was under aegis of the Archive – so, looked to eliminate the Archive as an authority. When they embraced the heresy of offering prayers beyond their domain, thought he had found an opportunity; made accusations, brought a mob to our doorstep. We fled.
But such an accusation is a serious charge, and when word of it reached the archprelate of Reutia, he demanded an accounting – he was known to have Selunite sympathies, and he certainly didn't appreciate some upjumped village chaplain attempting to assert authority over his branch of the Orthodoxy, which had maintained religious control of the nation for literal millennia.
Then Duretta took notice.
Duretta, Chosen of Silvanus. Duretta Forestborn, Duretta Worldwitch, Duretta the Primal Speaker. A druid. The Druid. Tiefling. Orthodox – so much so that refuses to pray to gods other than Silvanus, as would be inappropriate for druid to acknowledge non-natural divinities. Possibly one of the strongest druids ever to have lived, capable of spells so potent they redraw maps, such dominion over nature that she treats her pet owlbear like a dog. So hateful of heresy that she started a war over it.
Rumors that her first action upon arrival to have Osswald torn apart by assorted wildlife, for abandoning Eldath in favor of Savras.
We had hoped to flee to Valois, there to seek asylum – through the Black Forest. Duretta's Forest. Prayed to the gods to grant us speed, safety, guard us from evil eyes. They did; scrying spells failed to find us, summoned Celestials refused to help hunt us down. But Duretta, for all the excess of her faith, is no cleric. She's a druid. Her power comes from her connection to nature, and no divinity can deny that.
We were perhaps twelve hours from the border when she made her decision. When she judged that our heresy was punishable by death. Like a wind-carried madness spread through the forest, some invisible plague of hate, every living thing – every tree, bush, vine; every beast, bird, or bug – went utterly mad, trying to kill us all at any cost to themselves.
A third of the monastery died in that forest, trying to flee. Of the remainder, only a fifth escaped without permanent injury. Personally, I had most of my ribcage shattered by a hostile treant, had a bobcat take three fingers off my right hand, and lost most of the left half of my face to a swarm of insects which I had to burn off. If it hadn't been for the Valoisienne High Priestess of Mystra personally offering Regenerations to every single survivor, casualties would have at least doubled.
Duretta wasn't even there; she was almost a hundred miles away along the border, posturing – demanding that the Valoisienne authorities deny us entry or else return us to face her judgement, and threatening to march over the border and retrieve us herself if they refused. Had Seraphine Berengar not been standing in opposition to her, they might have done so. Do not envy them, caught between irate Queen of the Wild and equally furious Starbearer.
Still no idea who managed incredible diplomatic feat of convincing both to stand down and allow for third-party mediation; certainly, am assured it was wasted effort, considering war broke out less than two months later.
Paused, turned to E, gauging her general state – doing same thing I did when first exposed to Amity, blanking face to avoid expressing incorrect emotion. "Fuck." she murmured, with feeling. "I'd heard about the incitement of the war, a little, but the Black Forest… just, fuck."
Which, yes, accurate.
Hastily, moved conversation along to own inquiry about E's state of mind, trying to recenter self in the present.
Surprisingly, E not quick to respond, no clever quip or sharp insight at hand, uncharacteristically pensive, to own concern; cannot deny own fondness for our rivalry, each driving the other – iron sharpens iron. Hesitated, watched her vacillate for several seconds, then hazarded a guess.
"I know you feel like things have gone wrong, and it's been your fault for making the wrong calls sometimes." E winced, glanced awkwardly away, then opened mouth, got halfway through admission of own guilt before cut her off.
"But I'm going to tell you the same thing Ange told me, when I said it was my fault for dragging you into my prophecy - I'm responsible for my own choices, no matter how you influence them.
So if you try to keep telling me it's your fault, when we all made the decision to trust you and your judgement of our own free will, I'm going to take it as a personal attack on my decision-making, that you don't trust me to choose the right person to direct us in combat.
Trust me when I say I know we can trust you."
One of the longer speeches I've given recently, but hopefully also one of the more impactful. Certainly, E seemed reassured, one short sharp exhale, expelling her doubts, then offering me her hand (complete with Thaumaturgical sparks for aesthetics). Indulged in luxury of thinking all was going well.
Then all went horrifyingly wrong, as told me with calm certainty "If any Reutish adventurers in town try to make trouble – hell, even if Duretta gets word and starts looking – we've got your back."
How do I politely tell someone that if you try to protect me, everyone you love is going to die?
Others have tried; whenever have been left to fend for self, there have always been good, generous, kind people who were willing to lend a hand. Senior Sister Myrr, Clericist Amala, Harun Doorkeeper, even Head Archivist Khadrazar, who always ensured had found something to read before throwing me out of his stacks. In Valois; Lord-Warden Thalia, High Priestess Vasilisa Weavemaker, Commander Lamorak d'Argint of the Order of the Silver Lance. Seraphine Berengar (albeit unintentionally and at a distance).
Of the abovementioned, all but one are dead.
Now, have entangled E and A, and along with them Amity and Maegan, and unlike the remainder, the third is not capable of consenting to this risk, nor is it possible for her to assent to the risks her parents are taking on my behalf. Have no desire to destroy another family, one that has the compassion mine failed to show, yet refusing E would have ruined our cohesion.
Managed something incomprehensible in response to her declaration, some mangled assent, then fled, making arrangements to meet again with Bernhardt and Apell again afterwards.
Then flung self into sky, perched on spire of expanding temple, stared blankly at tomb and tried to figure out what to do.
(Meeting with Apell and Bernhardt went quite well, actually, despite all fear. E had interesting proposal about mutual-defense pacts for adventurers exploring in dungeon, has also discovered that Bernhardt stocks explosives; reacted with glee of a girl denied access to explosives in her teenage years. Myself was distracted examining Apell, confirming her good recovery – has had her shell repaired since last encounter, as well as restored by infusions of positive energy, fuel; appears to rely on direct chemical conversion of energy via combustion reaction, but storage of and conversion to action of said energy reliant on intrinsic magical mechanisms likely anchored by inherited connection to Elemental Plane of Fire, catalyzed by bloodline activity. Am quite curious whether born naturally, extraplanar excursionist, or converted into current form, but cannot quite consider how to phrase the question.)
Lisbeth Betschart's Assorted Personal Notes, 04 Flametongue
Roused early, sound travels great distance in camp, and could no longer ignore it. Consideration for others clear not priority. Went down to river, cleaned clothes in it, dried with cantrip. Breakfast: Bread roll, scrambled egg. Wished for herring. Prestidigitated Anchovy sauce flavour. Prepared sketch of visible tower, annotated proportions.
Met with… adventuring party? Odd to think self as part of such a historied tradition. Darvin out of armour, confirmed to be half-human. Older than self, lived experience clearly violent: scars upon scars. Angèle looks recovered from misadventure yesterday. Eidele still seems hesitant. Necria looks tired. Moon goddess - need to check calendar, perhaps observance last night?
Visits are to established contacts - advantage of joining established group, one of first delvers, have pre-existing connections to rely on. 'Alfhild', Reutish Goliath. Botanist. Divulges purpose: looking for unique plants to attempt to provide stable botanical basis for barrens. Greenhouse constructed. Sale of associated flowers, clippings. Bloody tooth proves too common for sale here. Total: eight hundred a score and five g. Has managed to successfully grow ironvine clippings, using a rigged up crystal orb as a source. Likely transmutative, consumption according to gsc rates unless crystal specialised for task - not impossible. Rate of present consumption is too high, tomb must contain further elements - perhaps crystals act as local storages for fluctuations or backups, with a generalist supply? Incredible feat of magibotanical engineering, as entire tomb is. Should extend further, given spellsnakes, incredible feats of magibiological engineering. Desire for orange defoliant and White hair expressed. Must retrieve.
Next travelled around, unloading additional loot (mostly misc equipment from various adventurer corpses) at various purchasers for total of four hundred g exact. Moved to known figure in tent for sale of archeological artefacts (inc. statue which has been attracting odd looks as we move around).
Tent was output of the Archeological Department, University of Cuthbria. Professor Helen Rohesia and Professor Oswald Gerald, as well as associated doctoral students (and I believe one post-doc). Was introduced - extravagantly - by Angèle to Helen. Helen was overly polite and reassuring. Slightly condescending. Revealed sarcophagus memories (wise? Known mechanism?), which excited her. Sold statue and yuan-ti jewellery for five hundred g. Details given, allowed her to speculate on possible history - memories "confirmed" for given value past climatological status of Kemet (Jungle). Could not identify statue's species. Social environment of tomb very complex - facades, fake vistas, artificial caves, mezzanines and the like. City-complex. Still many things unconfirmed. Also introduced, Oswald Professor of Wizardry. Must be cautious. 'Practical Applications of Ancient Magic'. Don't introduce to G.G.Gran.
Party split then, having sold delve's lootings. Acquired fair share, Angèle requested to remain with her to talk with a Valoisienne adventuring party. First stopped by D. Bank. Made arrangements (thankfully Bursar has prearranged deposition, no fee required) for loan repayment. Paid 100g down. D. Bank in new structure, stone, already has people on the outside, for extension? Detailing work? |γένεσις| ⥽ 2+ (>3)i, {γένεσις | πέτρᾱ, γη, ⊙[x∆τ , y¤, ???]} - ritual formulation for genesis of stonework? Stabilisation of Raising the Walls, |z|=6, so ∆τ >> ten minutes unless ¤ is extremely large. Formation is suprasizal - appears in 4 base formulations, width minimum 5% of linear d, why four five-foot cubes? Why does the five-foot-formulation hold? Ryche's corollary states that with a geometric minimum…
[....]
Continuing daily recount. Accompanied Angèle to Valoisienne acquaintances. Elves, ανώτερος, five. Tent is large, pavillion, vermillion - royal connection - with cloth-of-gold detail. Tent alone would be significant portion of debt. Appearance going in reinforced. Colette Arouet- contact point, chevalier - in silk housecoat, affecting(?) leisure. Other members: Margot Bessette (Dame?), Druid in Valoisienne method; Jaquette, wizard; Ermentrudis - monk? Martial artist? Apparently previously dec; Cecilia, Rogue. Also had servants. Lacked opportunity to acquire names. After brief introduction with Colette (Angèle discussed some alliance plan to prevent things like the elf yesterday from happening with her) met with Jaquette. Preference for Belmarian syncretism in structural analysis, cannot see the benefits of Nexian constructivism. Long discussion, made points about [....]
[...] which should really be references to Rodgier's Ninth Dialogue. Profitable. Also promised assistance - has Valoisienne backed Full Standard spellbook up to second circle, has agreed to allow me to use as basis for own copies. Copied Invisibility while there, reduced, very nice. Very good. Angèle had left by time own discussion finished, so I left on my own. Colette was polite, patron-like when I gave my farewells, others were generally Court Manners. Guess three decades older than me, min. Own outfit likely not helping attitude. Found hole in back pocket, size of smallest finger. Don't have mending. Should get mending. Can transfer.
Sun was making its way to the horizon when I left. Repaid for hammock at same tent-inn. Possessing much more money now, set tight Alarm around hammock. Forgot lunch. Supper: hot bun, stuffed with ox kidney and onions. Large tea. Bought a Kofta to eat during evening walk. Added mint sauce, cantrip. Made an attempt at a star chart, overleaf. Dead reckoning not personal expertise. Startled: alarm went off while on walk.
Productive day? Restful day? Neither? Unsure. Camp is settling down. Hopefully not disturbed by exuberant expression of love tomorrow. Recasting alarm. Delving again tomorrow. Must remember: buy waterskin tomorrow morning.
Basilisks. Fucking basilisks. (Technically basilisk, singular. Could have been worse.)
Would be tempted to stab someone, if not for fact that am surrounded by trustworthy & loyal party members and also Darvin.
Am still tempted.
Well. At least, have faced down dangerous foe and emerged victorious by virtue of cooperation and grit, with only one of us stoned. Literally stoned, as E petrified by Basilisk, traumatizing A in process. Add another tally to incapacitation counter – three for A, one for L, one for D, now one for E. No deaths. Yet.
Day started off well, too. E purchased Bag of Holding, graciously allowing us all use of her property – much more convenient than carrying assorted small sundries around. Likewise, A has firmly cut ties with nautical consortium, insisting on flight as transport to tomb rather than renting boats to cross river. Gave speech on the topic also. Needs to work on her speeches.
Imbecile in tomb still alive, despite all efforts otherwise; has now either acquired or been acquired by a lion. Sits atop it while it wanders as it will, desperately attempt to pretend he has any more control over it than the rest of his menagerie or his life. Presumably will at some point decide he is more tempting as food than as deterrent. E attempted to bargain with him to sell 'animal deterrent,' probably colored water. No success, so odds remain about even that will be devoured by own animals.
Hammer a much more pleasant experience. Another explosive mace, but has today acquired small ironvine buckler, tendrils writhing lazily at any nearby surface, living or dead – poked with a quill (borrowed from L), lashes out and entangles on contact. Likely capable of breaking smaller bones. Also in possession of large golden shield, surface rippling opalescence containing barely-restrained forces, so weighty as to unbalance startled A when attempted to lift – nearly toppled over, saved only by quick reflexes namely shoved shield at D to catch. Hammer claimed shield supposedly sold to him by very small human, at which irate A stuck nose in air in best imitation of Colette, stalked haughtily away.
Also a new neighbor, swathed in black cloth – room and figure both. Room also occupied by massive golden sarcophagus of unfamiliar structure; recognized by L as Old Kingdom style tool for resurrection (technically a wand), which services said Attendant claims willing to provide at only small price of 500gp for Revivify, Raise Dead for 700gp or Resurrection at 3000gp. Claimed at A's inquiry to be humble observer dispatched by Khemeti government, with no affiliation whatsoever with temple of Set, either as Necromancer or High Priest (Settites consider Necromancy sacred art, offer training for interested spellcasters). Not a very good liar.
Encountered party of kobolds clearing southward rubble-blocked hallway just before Hex; A greeted them and seemed to receive generally positive response, tempered by preference to keep civilian out of work area. Have also been finding groups of slimes – and also dead adventurers, again. On inquiry, L noted detritus and decomposing bodies thought to generate slimes spontaneously, others say portals from Elemental Chaos or simply all mitosis-ed from LUCA. A has observed, thus, that slime population growth caused primarily by adventurers in dungeon – people need to die less in here, it's unsanitary.
Offered rites, moved on.
Water also starting to stagnate, turn brackish. Sprinted past group of slimes here, bypassed mixed group on mezzanine, found SNAKE being harassed by stirges. Killed them all, naturally – short and cathartic.
Retraced previous route, finding door for L to Shrink. E slipped ahead to scout – good instinct, as found group of three lizardfolk hiding in corner near passage back, equally surprised to see us. All carried familiar ironvine bucklers and less-familiar clubs, short, green like fresh wood, fuzzy – fuzz from very fine hairs/needles. Wisely, E froze, raised her hands, backed away to us. Tossed them a set of rations and moved past with caution and astonishing lack of violence. D interested in acquiring club, but reassured upon realization that Hammer would likely have in stock next time – probably looted from murdered lizardfolk trying to defend own home from rapacious adventurers.
All arranged ourselves against door, then L cast Shrink – and immediately found group of LF on other side, waiting in ambush. Opened with Faerie Fire, false-light lining spearlizards' forms. Flight of flung spears in response, missing. A leapt forward and stabbed one, bludgeoned another, then E took careful shot and dropped with crossbow bolt to eye. With combat in full swing, D advanced with menace aforethought, deliberately allowing LF to strike at him and ignoring blows glancing off armor, rain of clattering javelins – gored one apart with glaive, leaving two illuminated halves, then slapped other with butt of polearm. Paused to salute A, also.
At this point, ambush spoiled, several of spear-bearers began second thoughts, turning to flee, even as more lizardfolk bearing clubs attempted to clamber onto platform. Unfortunately, had not contended with A, who spread wings and slapped them back off platform, casually striking one runner. All will to fight lost, one lizardfolk attempted to flee past D off platform, who swung low; most of him made it off, barring his legs below the thigh. Worse luck for the one attempting to dodge past E, perhaps viewing her as lesser threat – simply held her knife out at neck level as her ran past and tore carotid open in crimson fountain, corpse flopping down into the water.
Suggested to A that we offer terms of surrender or disengagement; A called out in Draconic and even reinforcements seemed disinclined to reinforce, turned and fled also – taking with them D's clubs. Speaking of whom, with Bidrek's help, toppled stone block behind us, sparing L's spells.
Then A attempted to graffiti wall with magical tattoo, writing "Passage opened permanently, courtesy of" – and tried to ask us for suggestions wrt names. Mistake. Consensus very definitely not reached, opted for "Angèle Bright, Eidele Aquibel, Darvin, Necria Starwatcher, and Lisbeth Betschart + Bidreked."
E. Aquibel.
Surnamed Aquibel.
i.e. either has not taken spouse's last name – unlikely, given state of commitment. Or are not married, meaning have been incorrectly referring to E as Eidele Bright for entirety of acquaintance. Have apparently been laboring under significant misapprehension for almost a week. Am hoping discovery of misunderstanding will be possible to conceal.
Certainly, spent undignified several seconds boggling at revelation.
D characteristically enthusiastic in looting through assorted dead bodies, finding a number of bronze javelins to take. Corpses of adventurers already looted, for most part.
Lizardfolk corpses clad in red warpaint, jagged lines, akin to first Champion faced – bearer of giant golden axe. Made mistake of making audible note of this in earshot of A, who went pale and walked straight into E's outstretched arms, still holding bloody dagger. Hovered awkwardly for a few seconds then went and gave funerary rites instead; more productive.
One adventurer carrying broken shortsword, inscribed 'From your loving fath-.' Young, teenager. Mostly human, signs of draconic ancestry – scale patches, slit eyes, sharpened teeth. Four Reutish oath-rings on left hand, sigils indicating charitable giving, journeying, abstention from drugs, grieving a loved one. Signs of white-hair addiction also on her left wrist, characteristic raised tendril-lines in overlaid weave patterns. From fading, probably two or three years old. Dead of impalement, javelins through lungs, stomach, liver.
Passing large chasm with waterfall, found rooms past with recreational tiling on walls overlooking area to northwest, large cubes hanging from vines. Large hexagonal room beyond, for later. To north, revealing more doors, also room with two stone benches and two troughs of water, perfectly pure to all observation. Both roughly 1ft high and deep – L theorizes used to clean feet etc. to prevent tracking dirt & debris, certainly supported by A's dipping tip of spear in water to immediate disappearance of blood. Other door in room lead to cubby room with holes for storage, emptied.
D then carefully opened door to north, and here a tactical shortfall revealed – have had Light cast on D when delving, for ease of perception, to spot traps or attackers. Also to make D obvious target. However, also makes us visible. As such, when D opened door and spotted basilisk, was also immediately spotted in turn.
Promptly shut door, turned to rest of us, barked "Basilisk. Mutant."
Described some kind of Dire Basilisk, unusually large, covered in spikes. Considering previous rapport with SNAKE, all thoughts immediately to Potion of Animal Friendship, which had restocked, but basilisk too close to monstrosity, effect likely to be unreliable. Previous attempts at taming also known to be ineffective; basilisks best used as shock weapon rather than actual troop. Known aversion to mirrors. Also considered possibility of sale to Vasili, but regretfully decided against.
L opened with Bull's Strength on D, enhancement, then basilisk nosed door open and violence ensued. E first to attack, caught immediately in its gaze and immobilized. Sacred Flame washing off its scales, A then blurred past it, carving away at its legs, followed by D hammering against its upper spikes, chipping away at armor with every blow. With A and D behind it, L cast illusion of ornate mirror in front of E, causing reflexive glance backward – landed on D, who bore it grimly. Continued to gnaw at D while E's rapier skittered off its scales from behind. Then A, leaping into air, bore down with spear-strike powered by her wings, which punched through even its hardened scales, finally spilling blood. At which point another problem revealed; blood sublimated into gas, then settled onto skin, armor, weapons as solid stone – including on the basilisk, acting as ablatives. A naturally resilient enough to force stone away by some use of ki, Darvin the same by brute strength. E also in proximity, neither enlightened nor brutish – began swearing profusely as stone crept up her skin. Another strike by D struggled against weight of stone, and L attempted to follow with Chromatic Orb. Missed. E continued to struggle, to no avail, even as D and A remained unaffected, and stone crept over her face. Dragged her backwards out of harm's way, and A promptly flared into radiance again, golden limbs tearing into stony flesh, scree spraying off with every movement from either. Then completely disregarding fallen enemy, flung herself at E, desperately pouring positive energy into her – heightened emotions, on the verge of mania.
With D's help, pried basilisk's mouth open to extract venom glands in remarkably delicate operation, considering circumstances. Was fortunate to obtain two doses, which could be used immediately or processed into more efficient potions. Pried A off E('s statue) for long enough to administer dose, who latched on to refleshed, twitching, swearing E with all six limbs. Intruded to observe basilisk's room, check nest for possible loot. Found only heated pool filled with leaves, cloth scraps, and occasional… former victim.
Disinclined to root through basilisk's interior in search of loot, instead opted to retreat to arboreal myconid room, others resting while am casting Purify Food & Drink to reduce poisoning. "Resting," rather – A questioning myconids, still attached to E, while L scribbling in notebook and D carefully scraping stone off weapons, armor.
Despite injuries suffered, are all still surprisingly able to continue – and considering are continuing to delve into now-deceased Basilisk's established territory, am not expecting to encounter any other particularly dangerous animals.
As such, is hopefully not unreasonable to expect not to suffer another such hazardous encounter today.
"Baths and Basilisks" - Letter to Teacher from Angèle Bright
"Baths and Basilisks" - Letter to Teacher from Angèle Bright (written 05 Flamerule 1608 in the Tomb of Serpents)
Dear Teacher (and future readers!),
Okay. Okay. I'm getting better at this. Eidele got, um, petrified, and I freaked out at the time! I'm not denying that! But we got her fixed super quick and I cuddled her for a bit and made sure she was okay and then got over it. I'm getting better at this! It's scary when she's in danger, or gets hurt, but I'm already fine and it's only been, like, twenty minutes.
As believable as she fails to make that sound, she's not actually lying. She was frantic when I came back to my senses, and from what I understand she was worse while I was actually stone, but she calmed down quickly once she'd made sure I was okay, and she's fine now.
I guess repeated exposure to the terror of loving loved ones and multiple near-death experiences force you to pick up coping mechanisms and get used to settling yourself and calming down. Well, that or they psychologically break you and you wash out of the adventuring business or die. One of the two.
Positive thoughts only, please! We're writing a Today Is Going To Go Better From Now On letter here, not a Doom & Gloom Form! Oh, I should say - we're in the myconid chamber at the moment, and this is gonna be a quick letter because I want to go ask them some questions. So! The day started pretty well! Eidele's got a new Bag of Holding that - I just wanna point out - she spent as much on as I did on my boots, so she doesn't get to make glarey comments about my "reckless spending" anymore.
It's an investment. That will pay for itself. And last for years. I put careful thought into buying it, and have been planning to get one at some point since we left the temple.
Yeah yeah yeah, whatever. So that's hers now, and also since both Necria and I can fly and we can both carry one of Eidele and Lisbeth and together we can carry Darvin and Bidrek, I decided that enough is enough and let those extorters running a boat consortium have it, rallying everyone not to give into their tyranny and to find ways around their stranglehold on transport across the local waterways!
Which went down with all of the intimidating charisma of a kitten trying to slap a blooded wolfhound on the nose. And missing.
I thought I was very effective, actually! And regardless of what the crowd thought of it, we're not paying hand over fist to get into the tomb anymore, so it's a win either way. But once we got inside, there were two surprises for us! And also Hammer. Who was being Hammer again. Ugh, he's the worst.
He had an enormous golden shield that Ange tried to lift and almost dropped on her foot, and when Darvin asked about it, he claimed he'd been sold it by 'a short human with a beard'. Ange just stared at him for a second with her eye twitching and then turned away and stomped off without a word to kick rocks into the pond.
Gotta say, the longer he keeps this gag going and the more irritated it makes her, the funnier it gets. As long as it stays harmless, anyway. I'm pretty sure even she finds it funny in her less indignant moments.
Oh, right! In other news, Vasili has a lion now, and... there might actually be something to his claims of being a master animal tamer? He rides it, and it's beautiful to watch; they're in perfect synergy; a true unison of souls! When one moves, the other moves with them; what one thinks, the other mirrors! It must be like his Sweetheart!
She's projecting. He's still an idiot. It tolerates him sitting on it, but he has no actual control; he just keeps shouting to maintain the conversation when it wanders off to the other side of the room.
Bah. I believe in him. We should go see his show when we have a chance; with skills like this I bet it'll be amazing! Anyway, Eidele tried her potion scam on him, trying to sell him one of her coloured water vials as "wild beast deterrent", but he wanted a guarantee from her to resell it, which she didn't want to give. I'm pretty sure he knew it was a scam, he was just willing to take part as long as she backed it up with her reputation for the benefit of any angry people who animals weren't deterred from. Which she didn't. Obviously.
(I kind of stayed quiet and out of the way for their haggling, because on the one hand I don't exactly like her scamming people, but on the other hand it's saved our butts a couple of times so I'd be a hypocrite if I complained about it. I make sure she doesn't sell anything to people that might get them hurt, and let her have her way otherwise. It's not too hard; she prefers to sell placebos and what she calls "paranoia potions" against things that aren't likely to happen anyway - how many beasts are going to attack him when he has a friendly lion to protect him?)
There's also a new arrival in the room next to Vasili; a sort of spooky guy (guy?) all shrouded and covered up in black robes (the room is also covered in black cloth) with a funeral mask and a big golden sarcophagus (not the memory one; something from outside). Lisbeth says it's of Khemeti make; a revival casket (well, actually apparently it's called a Divine Vessel of the Returning Barge; a reference to the Khemeti myths of being rowed down the Great River after death). But basically it's a casket that revives dead people. Mister Spooky seemed surprised that Lisbeth recognised his casket, and then told us (in a very spooky whisper) that he wasn't a High Priest or Necromancer of Set like you'd expect for someone with a Divine Vessel of the Returning Barge, given that they're super holy artefacts of the ancient Khemeti gods, and that he's been sent by the Khemeti government to observe the tomb's excavation and offer revival at-cost to the brave adventurers exploring it.
Which was, you know. A lie. He's definitely not here from the government - I'm actually genuinely not sure the government knows about this place yet? Like, you'd think so given that word has spread to a bunch of adventurers who've been swarming Rushtown like flies, but they all seem to have been coming from upriver, to the west, while the Khemeti capital is almost straight north of us. And it's only been a few weeks. Unless someone's notified them by Sending or similar means, word might not have spread to them on the ground yet. Even if they got told early, I'm not sure there's been time yet for them to have rustled up a religious artefact and a person trained in its use and got them both all the way here.
So yeah, Mister Spooky is probably up to something - he's willing to buy things from us too, I should add, so it might be related to that. But, well, we know Hammer's lying about nearly everything he says, and we still trade with him, so I guess we'll let Mister Spooky keep his secrets for now. At least it'll save us the trip to a temple to revive anyone who dies. Although maybe we want to make one anyway just to be sure they do it right, in the interests of not trusting everything to a spooky person who isn't showing their face or using their real voice and who's also lied to our faces at least once.
Caution. From my over-trusting girlfriend. I'm shocked.
La la la not listening to Eidele being a meanie! There were some kobolds working on clearing the rubble (and complaining about how much of a mess everything is) down the first fork just past the entrance, opposite the water room, so I stopped and thanked them for all their hard work, and they seemed really touched and happy to hear it! I think they're really under-appreciated for all the work they're doing. And also under-investigated for where they come from and why they're doing it, but they made shoo-shoo-stay-back motions again when I tried to get closer and ask some more questions, so once again that'll have to wait for another day, alas. There were some up on the mezzanine too when we passed it, though I only got to wave at them.
The other thing we discovered, moving forward into the dungeon, was slimes. Slimes everywhere. There were at least a dozen of them! Some of them were feeding on poor little animals, most were glooping around the bodies of poor dead inexperienced adventurers! We didn't kill most of them - just ran past them; they're not very fast. But Lisbeth says they're born from decomposing bodies and other icky waste stuff being left to moulder, which means this problem is coming from people littering and, um, "relieving themselves" and most of all leaving dead bodies down here to rot. The water's starting to get a bit brackish, too. Sooner or later it might even start affecting Sweetheart!
I pointed out that Sweetheart is probably one of the ones shitting in the lake and making it brackish, but Ange didn't seem reassured. We did get four days' worth of rations and a wand of Spider Climb off the bodies, though, which was something. Killed some stirges that were harassing Sweetheart again. Necria still hates the little fuckers. But it was only once we got close to that secret slab-door that things got interesting when we noticed movement in one of the nearby passages. I took a look and found three armed lizardfolk carrying these weird short fuzzy clubs covered in fine needle-thin hairs, like cacti. Probably a lot more poisonous than cacti. Thankfully, a gesture of non-hostility and three rations slid over to them was enough to convince them not to attack as long as we didn't try to get past them to whatever they were guarding.
(Darvin wanted one at first, but then settled down after Eidele pointed out Hammer would probably be selling one soon. Which is true, but I think he could have looked a little less cheerful about poor lizardfolk dying!)
Anyway, we all set up next to the big door slab, ready to pass it, and I'd been thinking about this so I suggested "hey, what if while it's shrunk we push it out of the way or tip it over or something so that it's not blocking the way through anymore when it grows back to full size, and then the way is open for good and nobody has to use any spells to get past it!" And we went back and forth on that for a bit - you know; it opens it up for everyone so we'll get more people running around this bit of the tomb, but honestly anyone who knows about it isn't going to be discouraged anyway, so why not, especially if it earns us a bit of goodwill - and so we all got ready to push and Lisbeth shrunk it.
Aaaaand there were half a dozen lizardfolk on the other side. Unfriendly ones.
Things got a bit hectic - I darted out and flew out over the big flooded hall to try and flank them and found that there were three more lizardfolk down there (with fuzzy-poison clubs!) standing over some dead adventurers - one of them tried to climb up onto the ledge but I just landed and kicked him off it again. Darvin did his usual thing of drawing all the attacks (away from me; thank you Darvin!), Necria lit them all up with Faerie Fire (well, two of them), Eidele was sort of dancing around using the shrunken slab as cover and shooting them with her crossbow, I yelled out that we wouldn't go after them if they ran once the tide of the fight had decisively turned our way, and the last few ran away and dived into those flooded holes across the hall that George's petrified wizard is meant to be in and swam away.
And then we all had to scramble to push the block out before it unshrank. So that's another thank-you to Darvin and Bidrek for being big and strong! I left a note on it saying that it was open courtesy of the five of us (plus Bidrek!), but we couldn't think of a cool team name, so it was just our names I noted down. Necria looked a bit surprised when I did - maybe she hadn't realised my cool new tattoo can write on stone, hee hee. Best impulse purchase ever.
They were wearing warpaint in jagged red lines like that fucker with the axe, so Ange needed a hug before we got going again. But it gave Necria time to do her rites and Darvin time to loot the bodies for some javelins. And a broken sword and a money purse, on one of the humans. There was apparently something inscribed on the sword, but both Darvin and Necria kept it away from Ange, so I assume whatever it was would have made her feel even worse.
... I don't know whether to be grateful or piqued at that. Anyway, the fake-street thing was basically the same - Necria noticed that the "city"-side wall by the waterfall hole is another fake slab, but it would be opening into the underwater bit of Sweetheart's Lake, so we're not going to open that unless and until we want to drain the lake (which would only be after we've figured out a way to get Sweetheart out and make sure she'd be safe somewhere else!) There's still an open wall segment above the waterfall hole, so I flew up to look inside it. The mural on the wall below it is of the usual builder-stratum lizardfolk playing games with dice and drinking and stuff, general relaxation good-time things, and the upper room is all full of tables and booths and counter spaces with chairs that look out of another open wall on the far side. I think it must have been some kind of recreation space with a nice view over... something; we'll go up there and have a look later.
Because first we decided to check out the cave-side door just next to the waterfall hole! And boy, did that give us a mystery. Well, no, actually, it gave us an awful horrible fight. But it also gave us a mystery, and I am trying really, really hard to focus on that instead of the bad stuff.
So, the mystery. See, inside there was a big stone bench altar table thing, with a couple of sets of stairs through doors on the left, and then through a door to the right there was a little hallway with these troughs of water - about a foot high and a foot wide - against each wall. And they were magic cleaning water! I dipped my speartip in one and they cleaned the blood right off it! Not just in the normal water way; it was like Prestidigitation! So my first thought was obviously "washroom sinks", but... why would they be so low down if they were for washing? The main people who lived here were yuan-ti and lizardfolk and suchlike, not tiny little halflings and gnomes! (And frankly it'd be a bit small even for them). You'd want them mounted up on a counter if they were for that sort of thing, right? Lisbeth suggested it might be for washing feet, but even that's kind of a stretch, I think. There were some little cubbies for storing things in another room off to the side, too, but sadly they were all empty. Pity.
And through the door at the end of the corridor was a biiiig room - probably about thirty foot by thirty foot of open space, though actually sort of bigger than that because it was slanty - with a pool in it! It was all made up to look a natural grotto, like a cave pool recessed into the floor that got deeper towards the far side and then some fake-rock-cave-floor nearer the door and around the edge of the pool, so my best guess is either a special habitat for some kind of animal or a cool themed public bath pool sort of place.
It would have been really interesting to explore if the 'habitat' theory hadn't been from the fact that it was occupied. By. Uh. A basilisk.
A dire basilisk, in fact. Bigger, meaner, stronger and covered in spikes. Because fuck us, right?
Yeah, so, um, Darvin went in first and saw it and immediately pulled back and shut the door, and we all had a bit of a discussion about what to do - the Potion of Animal Friendship might have worked, but that was a big 'might' to risk; they're usually pretty intractable and untrainable, even by professionals. The closest they ever get to 'trained' are people who just let them loose on a battlefield pointed towards the enemy, and that's not really tame or controlled at all. We also all vetoed the idea of selling it to Vasili pretty quickly. He may have tamed a lion, but a dire basilisk is a whole other animal. Literally.
Anyway, we decided to fight it and Lisbeth cast some kind of magic on Darvin to strengthen him and Eidele got her crossbow out and got ready, but before we could all burst in and surround it, it sort of... nosed the door open. Because it had seen Darvin open the door because he was all lit up from my ki in his shield and it came over to have a look at the shiny thing.
So things turned into a big old fight in the doorway. Darvin and I got past to flank it, but Eidele stayed where she was to stop it getting at Necria and Lisbeth while they were casting. Lisbeth created a cool illusion of a mirror in front of her to get it to stop staring at her (did you know that apparently basilisks have an instinctive aversion to mirrors? Makes sense, I guess!) and so it turned to Darvin, who just kind of shrugged off the stoney curseyness, but once we punched through its scales enough that it started bleeding a lot, its blood began to evaporate into stone-mist and... and...
And I got petrified, yes. Stupid of me not to jump back out of range of the blood-mist once it was focused on Darvin, but by the time I realised what was happening I was already too paralysed to move. It was like putting on a really tight jacket - made of rough stone, I should add - that restricted my movement and squeezed at my flesh, and then from the outside where it started, a prickling cold numbness spread inwards more or less uniformly until everything went black. Since I couldn't stab or shoot it with my hands turned to stone, I spent my last few seconds cursing it out in Infernal, which didn't help but was at least cathartic.
From what I understand, Ange immediately avenged me by berserk, bringing her wings out in full, and turning it to paste in a blind murderous fury. There certainly wasn't much left of it by the time they restored me. She practically painted the walls with it.
Kinda hot, honestly. And, yes, also more than a little romantic that she'd go that far, that fast, to avenge me. She's something to see when she cuts loose and shows how strong she is.
Ahhh, no, now I'm blushing! Bah. Well, as much as Eidele wants to fluster me, I have a duty to future generations to report honestly and openly on what to do if the love of your life gets turned to stone by a dire basilisk (once it's dead, of course; step one is a pretty solid 'kill the basilisk', you wanna do that one fast).
Firstly (secondly?), grab the body of your poor petrified partner. Actually, do this even if you can't kill the basilisk, because secondly (thirdly?), stone is food for basilisks. That sounds bad (and it is!), but it's also your saving grace right now, because of why.
See, basilisk venom can actually counteract petrification. It's how they eat! They turn things to stone with their creepy stare, then amble on up and take a bite out of the statue. Their venom turns the rock back to flesh in their mouths, and they get fed. This is where stone-to-flesh potions come from - basilisk venom is an ingredient. Your average basilisk has about enough venom in its glands at any given time for two full-sized people - this stretches into a lot more than two potions if you have a good alchemist, but you can use it raw and it'll still work. So as long as you kill the basilisk in a way that doesn't destroy the venom glands, you can turn your friend back! And that's what we did!
(I have questions about this, actually. Like, they sometimes also just take bites out of stone walls when there are no people around, but why not do that normally? Wouldn't that be a more abundant and safer source of good? And how does the venom know what to turn the stone back into? Like, with a person-statue, some of the stone turns back into muscle, some into skin, hair, bones, blood, internal organs, that sort of thing. If you just put stone-to-flesh potion on a hunk of rock, does it just make it all muscle? Would it turn part of it into stomach lining? Is it that different parts of a body turn into different types of stone and those same types of stone will turn into different bits of a body if you pour stone-to-flesh potion on them? Like, you know, skin always turns to granite and granite will always turn into skin, quartz to nervous tissue, sandstone to liver, etc. Someone needs to research this!)
Oh, definitely. I'll tell Cuthbria University to get right on it.
No spirit of scientific inquiry in this one. Honestly. Where's the curiosity? But yeah, I handled Eidele's petrification... fairly well, all things considered, and then we got her unpetrified and I calmed down a lot and it was all good.
According to Darvin she manifested her wings, went into a berserk rage, pasted the basilisk, almost knocked him over on her way past him, clung to me with all six limbs, repeatedly tried to force healing ki into me despite me being an uninjured statue, repeatedly yelled at them to fix me and had to be pried off by Darvin for Necria to un-stone me. And then started clinging to me again. She still hasn't fully let go.
The sad thing is, she's not wrong that this actually was taking it fairly well. Her emotions always get amplified whenever her wings are manifested. I guess Celestials feel things a lot stronger than mortals. The fact she was capable of listening to reason at all and stuck to yelling instead of physically shaking Necria to get her to fix me was an impressive display of self-control. And she's still acting a little clingy, but only to the level of hand-holding, which is faster than she usually comes down from Celestial emotion highs.
We looked around the room, but there wasn't really anything except for the basilisk's nest and some, uh, stone bits of people it hadn't fully eaten. The pool was heated, which is a point for my "themed bathhouse" theory column, so I guess that was a plus? Darvin took some of the basilisk meat (eww), and we all unanimously decided to go rest for a while with the myconids. Which I'm using as a chance to interrogate ask them the questions I didn't think of last time! Unfortunately, they say that they've only been here for a few generations, and Eidele translated the time of that to conclude that they're post-earthquake arrivals - probably from spores drifting up through the big hole just down the hall that probably leads down to the Underdark. So most of the questions I have are ones they can't answer.
Still! Necria is purifying their pool some more, we made it through a big fight mostly unscathed, and now we can take the remaining venom up to the surface, get it made into some stone-to-flesh potions and un-petrify George's wizard friend the next time we delve! We'll do a bit more exploring down the hall first, though, because we're still in good shape. No more monsters! No more petrifications! No more close calls!
No more berserk episodes.
Right! The rest of today is going to be a good day! I just know it! As long as we think positive, it'll all work out alright!
(I do need to come up with a good name for our team, though. I'll have a think over the rest of the delve and challenge myself to come up with something by the time we leave!)
Lisbeth Betschart's Assorted Notes, 05 Flametongue, Part the first.
Unfortunate morning, but progress definitively made in preparation for further and faster exploration of tomb. Started with morning assembly near boatplace. Eidele has purchased - significant expense - bag of holding (affixed astral plane expansionary rift -c?(????) - πόρτας? Κῑβωτός? Displacement? Static enchantments are confusing). Angèle becomes offended over ferryman's price (joke somewhere here), makes large declaratory statements, and flies over river to ingress point. All of us transported over to tower by repeated trips to and fro. Ferrymen, others, no major reaction? Suppose Rushtown is odd enough that any unusuality is minimised - higher mean, variance, resulting in dulled senses.
Immediate frontage has new occupant of immense interest. Mortuary Priest of the Cult of Set by attire - present robes, present headmask, present headscarves - found in room. Has with him an intact and functioning Divine Vessel of the Returning Barge. Fully functioning by priest account - gsc cost means test of ability non-frivioulous, but clearly intact. Wonder of self-sustaining arcanic functionality - automatic generation of divine fulminate without excess gsc consumption! Sublimates entirely Hawken's fifth conjecture! Anglia thought these were mythical, or faked, for centuries! Mortuary priest likely not to take well to detailed examination, cit: historical record. Shame. Mortuary priest also only one trained in use, and not worth attempting to overpower to further study. Likely also proficient in personal combat (ibid). Structure as per usual description: nine foot tall, casket, golden and polished obsidian in construction, inlay depicts mythic scenes - didn't entirely recognise, but Isis, Ra, Osiris depictions noticed. Explained to party rough function of casket, provenance - attributed to divine intervention, likely true, seems only reasonable way around Hawkens - and Priest congratulated on knowledge. Demurred position as religious figure - lies - claimed to be part of Khmetic government - lies? Possible, but doubtful - here only to observe excavation - does not square with previous assessment, or why brought artifice of highest order with here. Offers to provide gsc rates for items presented or possibly favours. Odd choice. Structural analysis: c7(ᾰ̓νᾰ́στᾰσῐς) = ζωή, ῑ̓ήσῐς ,πνοή ,τόκος/γίγνομαι?, ?, ?, ?. Divinity makes no sense. Observations by previous generations suggest seventh-circle structure actively supplanted by divinity - arcanic recompilations have structural defects unattributable to ambiguity in conceptual framework supporting said hypothesis. Observation of [...]
Lancanfield would give me tenure if I could get it to them.
Hence delved into tomb. Note: George also not accompanying. Forgot to procure potion (technically unguent) of corporalisation for known Magister. First meet Kobolds, using older dialect, around corner, clearing rubble - left to job. Further find two slimes, one consuming bird - evidence of alternate path to surface? Present route seems unlike for avian traversal without incentive. Slimes have seisomological vibratroy receptors- "tremoursense" as primary sense-organ, utilised to bypass by presenting strong source to attract with Angèle, ran past, then Angèle flew past. Also found adventurers being eaten by slimes - quickly dispatched, then robbed the corpses. Short discussion on slimegenesis - prevailing theory is emergy spontaneously from rotting sources in absence of sunlight, although fragmentation has been observed in sources of sufficient food. Also brought up theory about relation to elemental chaos. Angèle becomes aghast about litering in dungeon as source for their proliferation. Note that lake water is brackishifying (brackifying?) - Necria suggests Purify upon opportunity to ensure Snake is kept in good health. Speaking off, approach to Snake has more corpses, as well as Snake being harassed by Stirges. Easy collective victory over stirges.
Approach to Shrink-door (need better terminology) interrupted by small group of Lizardmen wielding fuzzy weapons. Presume some kind of biological enhancement, given precedent. Disgorging some of the rations we obtained from the earlier corpses was enough to assure peace for as long as we did not try to pass them - as planned outing was not along that direction, peace thus obtained. Shrink door itself was proposed to be tipped over while shrunken, so that even after spell elapsed passageway passable. Efficient - will reduce total expenditure by two c3 per transition. Disruption of plan occurred immediately - hostile Lizardman force stationed on opposing size. Own contribution to fight regrettably minimal - maintaining Variation in Volume on door possibly to blame, but perhaps not. Members of Foe also had "fuzzy" clubs, but no flanking maneuver from lizardfolk behind us - indicative of sociological breakup calatlysed by input of new people into the tomb? Just didn't hear? Hard to say. Darvin performed admirably in drawing fire from Wizard, as is infantry's main duty. Morale of force broke before all dead, resulting in all club bearers escaping. Alas.
Bidrek and Darvin managed to maneuver stone out of recess before saturation of sustainment was reached, meaning permanent ingress and egress established. Angèle wrote note on stone with tattoo quill of names - "Passage Opened Permanently Courtesy of Angèle Bright, Eidele Aquibel, Darvin, Necria Starwatcher, and Lisbeth Betschart + Bidreked." Seemed regretful we lacked coherent group name/identity. Self debating when next passage if I should add post-nominals.
Moving into passageway, Necria notes that large section of fake shop facade is the same as Shrink-door previously noted - suspicion this is for transport of larger substances throughout tomb-city infrastructure. Noted that given relative heights, shrinking would cause immediate draining of lake, which given Snake's residence in is unadvised. May also cause partial flooding of area, but given size of hole in the floor, will only be temporary. Examine past said hole. Rooms around indicate recreation - gambling? - with murals of Lizardfolk playing dice, cards, and other forms of carousing. Second floor has overlooking large structure with vines suspending cubes (distance and size suggests five foot formulation holding for cubes - why? why?). Investigation later. Aerial reconisence detailiing this - must confirm later.
Entered building next to mural. Reception room with large stone altar-cum-table. To left, stairs, to right corridor. Down corridor are small stone troughs, with some active magic. Need to Identify upon chance. Suspicion active prestigidation effect for clearing. Positioning and height - footbaths? Seems unlikely. No better suggestion at present. Room to side had cubbies, but all empty.
Room at end contained large pool. Made to look like natural grotto - stone smoothly receding into it, dry rock and ceiling textured to evoke natural wear. Suspected habitat in original configuration. Proven habitat in current configuration. Darvin approaching (tactically optimal to have steelclad lead) retreated immediately. Habitation of basilisk. In some sense useful - venom naturally works as Unguent of Corporialisation (necessary for digestion), harvesting of which should allow for retrieval of Magister nearby. In some sense not - Darvin identified as Dire Basilisk. Larger, spiked, later noted that blood had similar effects to vision - must examing the arcanobiological effect there. Mechanism must differ from sight based petrification.
Could pacificed basilisks be used to produce petrified wood? Not usually noticed among basilisk habitation. Perhaps could be induced? Maybe if crossbred with species more used to instruction. Additionally - most spiders have eyes that provide greatly increased field of vision - would eliminate basilisk primary weakness of slow turning.
Brief aside on possibility of using Potion of Animal Friendship, but given venom sacs needed for Uguent, and even "calm" noticeably ornery animal, discarded. Assault decided upon. Bolster Darvin - as will likely be facing assault by Basilisk vision - with Gift of Bovine Strength, and then readied own spell. After preparation, Basilisk arrived. Doors opened, Eidele immobilised by gaze. Sacred Flame proved ineffectual. Angèle moved to assault with her own weapons and fists, while Darvin used own weapons. Cast illusion - Conjuration of the Minor Image - of a large mirror in front of self/ basilisk, which caused instinctual repulsion of basilisk upon seeing image of self. Turned, caught Darvin in sight now. Further assault breached hide - blood sublimated, revealing petrification effect in blood, which caused issue for those in immediate reach. Clung to weapons in drips of stone - partial transmutation of volitalised fluid along same lines as it does flesh? Autocondensation? - and partially petrified Eidele. Fight continued, hoping we could kill before petrification completed. Did not manage. Expended Sonoform Orb, but … did not hit. Need to practice aim. Eidele petrified then - Angèle became enraged, dragging statue out of room, then returned in blinding flash and assault. Basilisk soon died. Then turned to pour radient energy into statue in some form of intense madness.
Darvin harvested glands. Self could have done same, but Davin closer. Given condition of Angèle, time of essence. Used one gland upon statue, and Eidele successfully restored. Other retained until we can return upstairs - proper preparation can allow for multiple doses from each gland. Given behavior, retreated forthwith - Angèle not emotionally stable, most others hurt, Eidele recovering. Retreated to Myconid room, written hence. Consensus seems to be continuing to delve.
Necria likely will clean tree-roots during rest period seems. Poor morning, all told. Ate figs during rest.
"WHY IS THERE A DRAGON???" - Letter to Teacher from Angèle Bright (written 05 Flamerule 1608 in the Tomb of Serpents)
Dear Teacher,
WHAT THE HECK?
Teacher! I know you don't like telling me things directly! Usually I like how you get me to think about things for myself instead of just handing me the answers! But sometimes!! There are things!!! I could really do with knowing!!!! Ahead of time!!!!!
Like there being A HUMONGOUS RED DRAGON IN THE TOMB!
THAT'S KINDA WORTHY OF JUST TELLING ME OUTRIGHT, TEACHER! Did you not know it was there or something? Or did you just think that it's fine 'cause of how it's in stasis? Because it's not fine, Teacher! What if someone else had gone down that way before we did and accidentally freed it??? That could pretty easily have happened, you know! It's not like we needed flight to get there!! Heck, the adventurers we found might have gotten there on their own, if the lizardfolk didn't take them there!
Urgh, I guess I gotta assume you didn't know, or at least that there's some kind of really, really good reason for not letting me know about the giant monster dragon. So on the assumption that, I dunno, this city actually was made to block the sight of the gods and you really don't know what's in there, I'll give you the run-down.
We finished our little rest stop with the myconids and started off again by going back to investigate the upper levels of the basilisk's grotto. One of the stairways was full of these odd brightly coloured flowering plants with long tentacley fronds in their pistils that sort of wafted towards us when we came close. And when I say the stairwell was full of them, I mean it was full of them; there were enough that you'd have to push through them to get up the stairs. There were a few frogs in there as well - two of the charmy ones and one of the sleepy ones - so I tried to pacify them so we could all go up and that, uh, didn't go so well.
"They might get a bit aggressive," she says. "I'm good with animals," she says. "Let me just-" she says, and then walks forward with her arms outstretched into the plants and immediately keels over backwards, paralysed. Because the plant fronds are paralytic. And she's got the constitution of a stunned kitten when it comes to drugs and toxins, and will continue to be a lightweight until she learns how to cheat by burning them off with ki.
Darvin was entirely justifiably scathing at her about letting him go first, and she entirely deserved to get her head bruised falling over, the little idiot. Luckily, it looks like the paralysis is something like the natural spellcasting of the frogs - it wore off almost immediately after she broke contact with the fronds. We debated what to do while we were waiting for her to get back up, but decided that forcing our way through was too difficult to really be worth it if there were other options. Darvin, of course, suggested setting them on fire, to which I again had to point out that fire in closed environments belching out massive clouds of paralytic smoke is a bad idea.
I swear, sometimes I feel like I'm the only sane member of this party. Including Necria, whose brilliant idea was to push people through with her brain regardless of whether or not they were conscious, then get yanked through herself by a rope tied around her waist.
Maybe it's something about the self-proclaimed 'adventurer' title that makes people come up with really absurd plans when 'use the other flight of stairs' is sitting right there in plain sight.
And those led up into... well, I won't bury the lede here; I'm now pretty much certain I was right with my 'public bathhouse' idea. This was totally a set of really fancy public baths for the original residents of the city. I've annotated Darvin's maps, but among other things, we found:
A cute little recessed pool with steps leading down into it in a room that must have been gorgeous once - there were traces of plaster on the walls, mostly crumbled but with flecks of white paint with bits of pink/red left. Murals, at a guess, though I don't know what of.
Another pool that was heated! Nothing like a lovely hot bath, right?
A room that just had a couple of benches along opposite walls, a biiiiig lightflower in the ceiling and one of those black crystal wall panels about the size of a book, next to the door. Maybe a changing room? Or some kind of sunning room, perhaps. They were reptilian, after all!
One room that just had the shattered remains of a stone pedestal. No idea what this was. I'll have to ask Helen once we're back in Rushtown!
A sauna! It was really cute! Just a lovely little steam room with benches around the walls and a bucket-sized trough in one corner and a little pillar in the middle of the room supporting a bowl with an adorable mini bonsai fire tree! You could just throw water from the trough on it and it'd turn to steam! No different from a mountain sauna, really. It's cool to see that they had things like this even so long ago!
A room full of... filter plants, I guess? It had a bunch of troughs that had these big plants in them as well as water, which were growing up into cracks in the ceiling and budding these big bulbous green fruits - bigger than head-size, super ripe and soft and squidgy. Eidele plucked one and the stem sort of spurted dirty water for a while before clotting up. And I mean dirty water; it was filthy, all greyish black and disgusting. It didn't get on anyone, though, and the plant roots drank it all up. Eidele thinks these plants are responsible for how the water is always clean and cleans anything that goes in it; that they're sort of purifying all the water connected to any of the troughs or pools somehow.
Basilisk grotto:
Bathhouse:
And then we got to the last room. The weird one. See, at first it looked like just another pool, yeah? But it had a teeeeeeny little blue dragonborn skeleton in it with a pretty golden axe - except, like, it was hard to tell if it was little in the sense of actually being little, or little in the sense of being really far away. The surface of the water made it hard to tell. And there was another skeleton in there that was quadrupedal and sort of collapsed and didn't have a head so it was hard to tell what it was.
Darvin tried to poke them with a javelin and couldn't reach, so Lisbeth sent in her cute little dancing lights, and they reached the skeletons at what she said felt like halfway to the edge of their range. Except she can send those things a good hundred and twenty feet! Which meant the pool was sixty feet deep, which, let me tell you, it did not look like from above.
So something weird was definitely going on, some sort of wibblyness with space or size or distance or whatever, and after some talking about what kinds of magic could get the things out for us, I cut across all the arguing and just volunteered to go down myself! On a few conditions, obviously - I didn't want to drown in some weird spatially warped swimming pool, so I insisted on a rope so they could pull me out, and also called dibs on not having to carry the axe, and also also made Lisbeth promise to dry me off after I got out. Which was a good idea, because the water turned out to be freezing (though also crystal clear!)
Swimming down in it was weird. It felt... like I was going faster than I should have been? But also slower. And the water around my skin felt all weird and ripply. I dunno how to describe it, really. But the closer I got to the bottom where the skeleton and the axe were, the bigger they got; they were both huuuuuge! I grabbed the axe with all four limbs and everyone tried to pull me up, and it was really easy at first, but the further up we got the heavier it became until my grip on it slipped.
I think maybe it's not that the pool is deeper than it looks, it's that it shrinks anything that goes in it. Like it has shrink rays coming from the bottom! So it's not that you're going deeper into it or that it's bigger on the inside, it's just that you get smaller and smaller - and lighter and lighter - the deeper into it you go! We've decided to try coming back with a shrink wand so that Lisbeth can levitate it out while it's tiny and get it into the bag of holding (getting it out again will be a problem for Future Us), but I'm not sure it'll work. We'll have to wait and see, I guess.
There were also more of those odd little magic-cleaning-water troughs. All over the place. None of the troughs or pools seem to connect; there are no pipes or channels that run from one to the next, but I get the impression they're all part of the same self-contained water system. I just can't work out what the troughs are for. They're only about a foot high and a foot wide, and they're down at ground level, so they can't be for bathing; it'd be way too awkward. Unless they're for, like, snakes or something? Or babies? Argh, I dunno! It'll have to be a mystery for Helen, I guess. She might have some ideas.
(Speaking of snakes, seeing the big dragonborn and how huge it was made me think of Sweetheart, and then that made me remember how grubby the lake is getting and how she's probably getting uncomfortable, poor thing, and then that made me think- hey! What if we got her out?! We could shrink her down, cast that spell that awakens animals to full sapience, get her through the Hex and over to the entrance and up the tower, and then she could live in the river! And help intimidate those boatmen into giving everyone fair prices! I tried talking everyone else into it, but they all said no. Spoilsports.)
As surprisingly eloquent as my snake-obsessed girlfriend's justifications for giving our daughter a hundred-and-fifty-foot reptilian sibling capable of intelligent thought and speech were, I am still going to have to veto a course of action that would make enemies of every other faction in Rushtown.
Though she's not wrong that we probably want to think about what we're going to do about the snake if the water does wind up getting befouled.
Hmmph. Well, anyway, we couldn't work out how to get past the paralytic plants (we did consider using that orange plant-killer stuff but we don't actually have any), so we eventually decided to go investigate that big recreation place I scouted out before; the one with the broken window that's above the waterfall hole.
And wowee, there was a lot there.
I'm pretty sure I was right about it being a recreational area; this big pentagonal space that's basically a square with two angled walls on the far side, windows looking out onto an open space. A huuuuuge open space. Like, fifty feet deep by well over a hundred across huge. It's all flooded a bit over a storey below the recreation space (and I'm also pretty sure there are crocodiles down there; enough that we didn't want to risk wading), but there are a few identifiable things above the water. Firstly, off to the left of the recreation space there's a big hexagonal platform. And on it were a couple of lizardfolk and a kobold who were spear-fishing! Well, I say kobold, he looked a bit odd; all bright blue and scaly, looking more like a very short blue dragonborn than a normal kobold. The ceiling between us and them was covered in these thick vines with huuuuge five-foot-wide cubic fruit-things that were all pale white and which I... think might have been related to the crystal light-flowers somehow? Maybe fruiting bodies? I don't really know botany. They were big and steady enough to use as stepping stones, anyway.
Moving around clockwise, on the far side of the flooded area over to our left there was a step pyramidy thing flush against the wall, capped with a bright yellow flame over the top. Just to the right of that was the glowy orange front of a stasis field which we will get back to in a minute, and then a sort of bridge made from metal walkways with rows of obelisks along it through the centre of the flooded space, with one end about equidistant between us and our lizardy fisher friends and the other at the base of a big impressive ornate staircase leading up and out of sight down a hallway. To either side of it, out in the middle of the water, Necria pointed out a couple of surviving pedestals - an ornate statue to the left and a fancy decorative chariot on the right.
Sounds neat, right?
Well it would have been. Except for that stasis field. Because inside the stasis field, all orange and glowy and frozen, was a big hoard of golden treasure and A FREAKING ADULT RED DRAGON!
She is not exaggerating in the slightest. It is fucking enormous. And sitting on maybe a hundred tonnes of gold. And covered in the same kind of spell-glyphs as the snakes and frogs and crocodiles in this place, except all of them are battle spells.
Seriously. What the fuck have we walked into here? What the fuck kind of society traps an adult dragon in frozen time as a fucking ornament? Or at least that's what I assume it is, given it's stuck there for people up in this bar or restaurant or whatever it is to gawk at, next to a bunch of other pretty pieces of artwork. Or, fuck, I dunno, maybe it put itself there to wait out whatever doom came to this buried city.
Fuck. Dragons are above our pay grade. Dragons are above the pay grade of any of the morons this place is teeming with. For anyone reading this in the future who isn't aware of the blatantly obvious: adult dragons are usually a sign you should run the fuck away and come back with an army or not at all. If an adult dragon lays claim to your region, you find another fucking region.
I'm not even surprised Ange is mad at her teacher for not giving us a heads-up about this. I'm mad at it too. I don't even know which option scares me more. That it didn't say... or that it didn't know. Neither prospect appeals.
I... yeah, you know what? I can't talk about the dragon right now. More thoughts about the dragon later. But. Okay. But. Historian brain time instead. What was this place?
Dragon lake:
Looking at it... mm, so. If we assume that it wasn't flooded before, which seems likely given there's no water in the stasis-locked bit with the dragon, it was a large space that's not really symmetrical or regularly shaped. Big step pyramid on one side, a staircase up in the middle. Two statues up on high pedestals. An overlook from a recreation space and a tower sort of thing.
Hmm.
I guess it maybe could have been, like, an atrium? A big open-air - well, "open air", you know what I mean - a sort of plaza that different things opened onto? Sort of like the fake street, but for something more like a town square instead. That would explain the big fancy statues and the wide open space that isn't occupied by much. I don't know about the weird square fruit; those might not have originally been here. The pyramid could have been some kind of display - there was a way in under it on the ground floor that's flooded (we'll get to that later), so that might have been sort of similar to a shop front.
I guess... I guess I don't have enough information to make a conclusion right now, but I'll go forward on the assumption it was a big atrium and get back to what happened. We had a little brush with the lizardfolk - Eidele snuck up near them along the ledge next to the hanging fruit things while Lisbeth cast her voice out and talked to them; they said they weren't interested in anything except fishing, and we wound up not having to fight them - which was good! Chalk up another one for talking things out! Then I took a running leap off the edge of the recreation space and went to have a look at the chariot, which, uh... could have gone better. I think it had a lot of martial imagery, though. Like a showpiece made in emulation of a war chariot.
She flash-blinded herself from the reflection of her wings in all the gaudy glitter, the little featherbrained idiot. Also included in the discussion with the lizardfolk was confirmation that the dragon's been there longer than them, so it's probably something that dates back to the time the city was populated.
Hush! And then Lisbeth suggested we go check out the step pyramid, so after a quick look at the other pedestals (which Eidele says was a yuan-ti statue that was also dressed martially and covered in glittery ornamentation - I tried to take a look myself but my wing reflections were too shiny again), we all flew over there to investigate the weird yellow flame at the top. Which wasn't a flame at all! It wasn't hot, it didn't burn; it was just an illusionary flame. Eidele put her face right through it! And then got me to do the same, just in case her fire resistance had handled it - but nope; just light, no fire. There was a room underneath, which I heard chanting from and dropped down into, and, uh, that's when things went a teensy little bit wrong.
See, I dropped down to see what the chanting was, and the first thing I found- well, the first first thing I found was an absolutely colossal pretty stone (a rutile, according to Necria) carved into a statue of a big dragonborn. But beyond the little inside-the-pyramid-facade chamber the statue was in, there was a big sort of open-air market area with more of those mushroom-like stalls that have brass canopies, all painted like the outside with a night sky on the (two-or-three-storey-high!) ceiling. It was really pretty! There were even other sensory effects, like bird and insect sounds, a faint breeze, that kind of thing. The walls on my half of the room were all painted with city murals like the fake street, and the far side was done up with forest pictures that had birds and insects moving through the trees in a sort of looping illusion. I think it's another place a lot like the fake street, a transition point between the "city" part of this complex and a fake "park" area past the far side.
But, uh. There was a hill, see, on the far side, which probably led parkwards. And at the top of the hill there was an altar. And there were a bunch of lizardfolk around the altar. And there were also five adventurers there.
Or more accurately, there were two adventurers. And three dead bodies. Because the lizardfolk were sacrificing them.
So I know, I know, I know it was stupid to just rush in without thinking, but I... well, I didn't rush straight in without thinking. I sent a Message up to Eidele saying what was happening and hid behind the statue and scoped out what we were dealing with. There was a shaman-lizard right at the top next to the altar where all the adventurers were, three big lizardfolk with big gold shields and those fuzzy clubs, two little blue kobolds at the edges of the crowd, one of those champion types with a big golden sword and a blackvine shield, about half a dozen normal lizardfolk with snakes for weapons, of all things, and a couple of pet crocodiles. While I was counting them all up and, uh, planning my route for what I did next, Eidele came down on a rope followed by Darvin and Lisbeth and then Necria, and, uh. Well. I should probably have stopped to confer and plan-
She should definitely have stopped to confer and plan.
... but the shaman had already killed three of them and he was about to kill a fourth, so I Lit up the statue to get everyone's attention and distract them from murdering another person and Eidele backed me up with a big impressive rumble of thunder and some ground tremors, and then things started happening really, really fast.
I'll take over here, because my impetuous girlfriend didn't have a good view of most of the fight due to not staying with us for most of it.
So: as soon as Ange lit up the statue, everyone started moving. Ange started gathering ki - a lot of ki. A squad of lizards started moving towards us, and Lisbeth dropped a sticky web spell in the middle of them, tying them to the ground, which the shaman immediately dispelled. Necria set up her twilight protection thing and brought her magic owl spirit out to kill one of the kobolds before it could pelt us with magic. I shot the champion before it could charge, Darvin put himself squarely in the entrance to the little antechamber the statue was in in time to deflect a hail of javelins, the elites around the shaman held back...
... and then Ange demonstrated why she'd been gathering so much ki by dropping into Flowing River stance and darting out from our protective cluster to cross the entire room before anyone could take more than a belated attempt at swiping at her. It's easy to forget how fucking fast she is; I'm not sure some of the lizardfolk actually noticed her pass them. She put herself right up between the shaman and the adventurers and set herself in a guard stance, and I basically lost track of her for the rest of the fight.
It wasn't fun, I gotta say! There was another of those crocodiles with slowness breath that got me for a bit, the shaman ran away, and the lizards kept throwing javelins at me. But I managed to catch most of them, and threw a few back! And I kept the adventurers safe!
Yeah, okay, fine; I'll give her that much. For what little I did see, she was being unusually serious, and Ange in stern mode is pretty intimidating, especially when you throw a javelin or fire an arrow at her and she just kicks it out of the air without breaking eye contact. Attractive as hell. But intimidating. Down in the main marketplace it was more of a clusterfuck. Darvin waded into close melee with the champion and half the lizards, while I was trying and failing to get a good shot at the elites before they could demonstrate what those fuzzy clubs did, Lisbeth focused on killing the other kobold caster before it could pepper us with ranged fire, and I'm not sure what the fuck Necria was doing because I got distracted by the usual light show of Ange bringing her wings out and when I looked back she was on the ground and most of the way dead from the champion getting into grappling range with her.
At some point while running away from Ange, the shaman did something and the big stone wall behind the statue started to rise, which let the giant lake full of crocodiles start spilling in and flooding the room. Necria was alive enough to bring a beam of moonlight down near Ange, who was doing fairly well given the return javelin fire coming back at the ones that were focusing on her instead of us.
I'm actually not sure why they kept throwing them at me. I mean, you'd think after the first three times I caught and returned them, they'd get the message that it wasn't working, right? I'm glad Necria helped out, though! Her moonlight was actually what killed the crocodiles and the first of the three elites; I was stuck guarding and defending too much to really hurt any of them.
I've learned never to argue with the stupidity of cultists when it comes to repeating dumb shit that doesn't work. While Necria was bleeding and supporting Ange, Lisbeth and I were able to finish off the priest with a magic missile and a crossbow bolt through the throat, but that just made all the fuzzy-club-armed elites go berserk and the lizardfolk mob us. Darvin, thank fuck, was still tying up the champion, but I had to incinerate one of our attackers and then get out of there. Lisbeth used an illusion to pretend to set herself on fire, which I think they thought was my doing - at least it kept them from pursuing me. By this point most of us had gotten up onto the platforms to escape the rising water, but my crossbow had got soaked, and I was having trouble making my shots. Luckily, burning one of them to death with hellfire scared off the rest of the lizardfolk.
And then Ange went down.
Oh, oh, I can take this! So, yeah, those fuzzy clubs? They're actually living wood covered with, like... needles, sort of? A bit like very fine cactus hairs! Actually they might be cacti branches; I'm not totally sure. Regardless, one of the elites I was still tied down with protecting the adventurers got me with his club and everything blurred out and I couldn't stay awake; they seem to be some kind of potent tranquiliser (again with something I could've just shrugged off if I'd been a better monk!) that I think they probably use to take incapacitated living prisoners so they can drag them back and, um, sacrifice them.
The rest of the fight's kind of a blur for me, so I'll hand back to Eidele to explain it.
Ange was down, so I finished off the lizard that had been throwing javelins at her and got over there as fast as I fucking could while Darvin kept the champion and most of the other cultists locked down. The elites that had downed Ange took the chance to heal, and in retrospect I should really have paid more attention to the fact that their healing potions were also berserker potions for some godforsaken reason; their eyes went red and one started smacking one of the downed sacrifices around.
Oh right, yes! I forgot to say, but the captive adventurers - there were three humans; two men and one woman, and two elves; one man and one woman. Both of the ladies were still alive, but they'd already killed the men. Our new friends are Lumusi Yaa (the human; she's a fighter with western Tesarite heritage) and Guillemette Alard (an elf from Valois! Though apparently she defected to Alemagne. Some kind of caster, I think?)
... right, yeah. So, one of them started smacking Alard around and the other turned on me, but that turned out to be fine; with only one of them apparently aware I was there I was able to finish both of them off, though not before Alard got beaten unconscious by the tranquiliser cactus club. Then I freed Yaa, told her to help out by watching Ange and went back to support the others.
She apparently either hadn't been paying attention or didn't think, because she chose to translate 'look after my injured and tranquilised girlfriend' as 'feed the volatile aasimar a fucking berserker potion', and the first warning I got that Ange was up again was when she came down on the crocodile I was trying to get past with a plunging spear blow and double crescent wing strike that turned its entire skull into splinters, screaming in fury all the while, with so many burst blood vessels in her eyes that the whites had turned red. I got us up onto the platform across from where Darvin was still duking it out with the champion (nearly everything else having died), where she immediately saw the thing and went after it like a rabid wolf - I'm not kidding; she was snarling, screaming and foaming at the mouth, no holding back at all.
It took longer than I'd have liked, because its scales were ridiculously hard to find a chink in, but eventually the combination of Ange hammering at it with both wings and her spear, Darvin tying it down and keeping it focused on him and my finally getting a good shot in, it went down. Necria was up by that point; she and Lisbeth took care of the few lizardmen who were left while we took out the champion. But of course, a lack of anything to kill didn't snap Ange out of her berserker episode, so she started trying to beat on the champion's corpse, and when Darvin stopped her by pushing her off the platform and into the water, she switched to pulverising the crocodile's corpse instead.
Here's a lesson for anyone reading this in the future: aasimar are not just tieflings with a different coat of paint. They feel things with a Celestial's passion, but without a Celestial's centuries of discipline and self-control. Mortals have a limit to how high their feelings can go; aasimar, from what I've seen, don't. Or at least it's a much, much higher ceiling. Mostly they stay within human norms, but they don't always react predictably to enchantment or illusion magic, and when they draw on their celestial heritage their emotions spike.
If you have an aasimar in your party, remember that you're not just dealing with someone who was born with a few natural cleric powers. Remember that they're not entirely human. Remember to account for divinity.
I... don't remember much. Just a red haze. And being angry. Really, really angry. But I do remember his last words, I think. The champion's, I mean, after Eidele shot him in the heart. He was really satisfied as he died. He said something to Darvin in Draconic - a proverb, I think; the words were simple but there was a sort of poetic deeper meaning in it. The literal translation was just 'a good fight', or something like that, but it meant, like... he was satisfied with the battle he'd had. With fighting a worthy opponent. He didn't mind dying, because it had been the challenge of his life and he'd fought his utmost... yeah, it was kind of complicated, and I don't remember it very well. I only hung onto the memory at all because it made me so mad for some reason that he was so content as he died - I mean, everything was making me mad, but I was focused on him at the time and him dying meant I didn't have anything to fight and he was happy about it so I got super mad.
Then Darvin pushed me into the water and I remembered the crocodile that had been trying to eat Eidele so I went and hit that some more - I felt like I had to hit something or I'd explode - until suddenly I felt really tired and not as mad anymore and I just kind of swam back to the base of the hill the altar was on and collapsed on the bank and passed out.
I am completely unashamed to admit that I swam over to check on her and then followed suit. That fight was terrible. I think we walked in on every lizardman in the area all gathered in one place. Absolute clusterfuck from start to finish.
Yeah, kinda. But it was worth it, because there was so much stuff we got out of it! Not only saving Lumisi and Guillemette, but also five more empowerment masks - the shaman was wearing one, the champion another, and there were three more at the top of the hill. And we got three golden shields that the elites were using, and their cactus clubs (so I guess Darvin, uh, turned out to be right about us being the ones to sell them to Hammer - but not the ones those lizardfolk earlier were carrying!) Plus there were a couple of wands, some jewellery and stuff, the champion's gear, five Rings of Water Breathing that Lumisi and Guillemette gave us because they decided to retire rather than try adventuring any more...
... but the real prize were those snake-spears. Because it turns out they really are ACTUAL SNAKES! They're so cute! They're clever little magical serpents that can stiffen up and harden their scales to become a bunch of different weapons; spears, staffs, swords and even whips. I'm not sure how they sharpen bits of themselves to cut, but it seems to work? Regardless, I claimed the gold-bronze-scaled one and managed to make friends with her, so now she's my new companion-familiar-weapon! I'm calling her 蛇妹; Shémèi - like 师妹/shīmèi, get it? I bet Necria will laugh when I tell her.
For those not fluent in Celestial; "shīmèi" means something like 'younger martial sister', and refers to a younger female disciple of the same school of martial training as you, generally under the same master. The first character, "shī", is the "martial lineage" one, while "mèi" is "little sister". What my pun-obsessed girlfriend has done is call her new magical weapon-snake "Shémèi"- the "little sister" character is still the same, but "shé" means "snake" while still sounding a bit like "shī".
In other words, it's a play on words where she's addressing it as 'little sister snake' while also sounding like it's a younger girl trained in her martial arts styles who she's mentoring. Because she's fighting with it. And probably trying to teach it martial arts.
In case you're wondering how I know this; I was treated to a long and exhaustive explanation because she is delighted by her own cleverness.
Heheh! You gotta admit it's a good name, though! Anyway, we scouted out around the rooms just off the side of the big marketplace area, behind the dragon's stasis chamber, but there wasn't much interesting there - the local light-sphere, some of the living areas for the lizardfolk, and a way down into a set of submerged tunnels that we think link up to a bunch of other "staircases going down into water" we've seen all over the city; with our new rings this'll be a great way to get around quickly with a minimum of fighting (unless we run into angry lizards down there - but even that will mean less fighting because of how much quicker it all is). Since there were seven of us with only five rings, we headed back the way we came after making introductions, carrying Lumisi and Guillemette's friends out for revival or burial (they didn't really say which).
Necria did have some questions about the whole sacrificial ritual that was going on - apparently they were trying to do something with the weird stone obelisk at the top of the hill next to the altar and one of the wands we found; one that lets you speak with dead people. Lumisi and Guillemette didn't understand much of what was being said because it was all in Draconic (dang it), but they said it sounded like a worshipper asking a prophet or a god's mouthpiece for answers. Necria was pretty sure that the sacrifices weren't actually necessary; the wand alone would have worked because for some reason the obelisk responds to it - it lights up when the wand is used and glows slightly. It's definitely not a corpse, though; it's just a black slab about the size of a door. Unless maybe it was a person who got petrified and then Stone-Shaped? Or maybe it has a ghost bound to it?
Hard to say. Maybe we'll come back and question it when we're less exhausted. Or maybe not. Ghosts are creepy. Bleh.
In other news, it turns out Hammer has moved the sarcophagus to his chamber near the entrance. That's where we are now; I'm writing this as the others use it. And I'd go into more detail about that, but I'm honestly kind of exhausted right now and we'll be done and moving on soon, so I'll wrap this letter up here and tell you the rest tomorrow!
(I seriously better get an explanation for why you didn't warn me about the dragon, though. I'm not kidding, Teacher! This is the sort of thing your students need to know!)
Lisbeth Betschart's Assorted Notes, 05 Flametongue, Part the second.
Delve proving interesting. Formulated and cast Fireball. Wizardly credentials now without doubt - if encounter further doubters, proof positive can be made. Delve was one day.
Myconid purification not complete, but greatly enhanced. Myconid interrogation revealed colony age approximant to tomb-city uncovering. Odd.
Starting from myconid room, returned to building with Basilisk (corpse). Investigation of Basilisk room was dismissed, and movement to other avenues commenced. Two stairways - one revealed to be full of fronds, while more magic frogs sit in the fauna. Contact with plantlife causes transient but fully-body paralysis - Angèle discovered. Density of plantlife made advancement unlikely without clearing measures - Fire discussed, ultimately dismissed. Destruction of valuable samples, possible risk of inhalation of paralytic, Necria being unfun. Other stairway clear, advancement commenced to first floor. Seven rooms on floor - three isolate, one set of four interconnected. First room contained pool, approx four foot deep, ten wide, and seven long: 280 cubic foot of water. Water still notably fresh despite - given apparently intended to be flooded, enchantment? Second room - rubble, roughly determined to be former stone pedestal. Nothing else determined. Third room contained benches around sides and miniature "bonsai" fire-tree. Angèle declared "sauna", steam-room, poor water on fire, generate steam for "relaxation". Entire upstairs appears to be for hygienic purpose. Interconnects: Enter room, benches, large sun crystal on ceiling, black crystal panel inset next to door. Hypothesis is for sunning - reptilian instincts encouraging. Next through door - inset pool containing what at first apparent was a tiny dragonborn skeleton as well as a golden axe. Use cantrip - The Aurora Arcana - approximately determine base depth at half maximum range - twelve steps, or sixty foot. Certainly not what visual inspection proposes. Siphon water into bottle - put finger in bottle - finger reaches bottom at appropriate depth - enchantment is not upon water. Must be in pool.
Retrieval is still considered, due to value of golden axe. Plan is assembled - rope tied around Angèle, use own spell to levitate axe and bear part of weight, swim down, retrieve shrunken axe, end spell. Plan fails - axe gains apparent weight as it climbs, cannot bear strain, dropped. Dried Angèle out after, cantrip. Wand of Shrink, to add Shrink and Levitate to combine maximum weight lifting. Or assemble block and tackle of sufficient length. Purpose of this room, as opposed to other rooms so far, not apparent. Water reported extremely cold. Plunge pool? Depth still anomaly.
Continuing, next room contains troughs of water, as well as plants growing from (or into) them, connecting to the ceiling. Budding green fruits, bulbous, approx 1 gallon in volume. Eidele plucked one, resulting in wound leaking brackish and filthy water until it "clotted" (clogged?). Speculation is they are involved in systems filtration for cleaning water, not sure - many pools discontinuous, and use of direct ingress/egress through apportation seems unlikely. Sympathetic connections?
Final room of interconnected block contained heated pool, approx three and a half feet deep, spanning a full half of the room (half width, entire length). Temperature maintained at a nice warm level - estimate approximately similar to boiling point of Ethylated Bromine.
Movement continued past upper floor towards neighbouring building, previously speculated to be a recreational space by Angèle. Confirmation of speculation not guaranteed, lower area flooded, upper area mostly unoccupied. Pentagonal shape, with two sides leading towards a large flooded expanse, with empty windows overlooking. Darkness prevented immediate look over entire expanse, but of immediate note were fruits suspended by thick vines from ceiling, at regular by inexact intervals, leading towards a hexagonal space. Fruits appeared to be full five-foot-cubes, obeying the theorem for no immediately observable reason. If fruits were not over three tun in volume, getting examination - botanist - topside would be valuable, but cost of extraction exhaustive.
Heh.
Beyond chain of suspended fruits, hexagonal platform. Perched upon, three lizard folk, one kobold, spearfishing. Also nearby - to local "north" of recreation room was chariot, golden showpiece, with glowing flowers planted on top of pedestal. To left of statue, across flooded section, another statue, ornately decorated Yuanti. Beyond is a pyramidal structure - stepped - as well as orange glow. Orange glow enclosing area containing, of note, large piles of treasure, no water, and a Red Dragon. Approx size estimates age at around two hundred to three hundred years old - short way into adulthood. Also true of Dragons, from own recollection. Given water does not trespass field, ground level appears congruent with ground level beneath flooding, and Dragon consistently quicient, field appears to cause suspension of temporal activity within. Later source - suspected source - discovered and secured. Despite value of hoard, value of life greater - Dragon not likely to be particularly happy. If still sane. Proposal - Halting the Hour's Hand - c9( αἰωνιότης) = ???? χρόνος, obviously, but what else? What could halt that apex, forestall that pressure? Could space itself be made to resist, to use the inequality of the signatures…
Speculation among party as to rationale behind Dragon's presence. Pet, given overlooking space? Not for insurance, as party member raised - Bank is not as old as tomb.
Dragon also coated in spell-runes. Noted construction, after later learning particular encryption method of this era - all combative.
Partially scouted as such, presence was announced to lizardfolk via projection of an illusion of booming voice (not unlike Prof Recklinghausen). Discussion fruitful - agreed peaceful after we conceded no interest in fishing rights. Given flooded area contains profusion of Crocodilia, easy concession.
Suggested movement to pyramid (stepped) to examine what is within - possible egress points visible at difference. Ferried over.
Discovery was… inopportune. Inside was a large group of lizardmen, conducting a religious rite involving a sacrificial ritual. Hard to say, but looked to be a Lergmann class IV or III. Heavily disrupted.
Angèle entered pyramid first, through aperture in ceiling of main room above statue (large, rutile, dragonborn subject, not retrieved), covered with long-duration illusion of fire+combustables. Non-damaging, variant on Directed Image? C5-6, est 6. Immediately observed, immediately acted. Characteristic. Message to us, party rappelled down rope, with alacrity. Room looks like indoor-market - several kiosks (structurally resembled parasol) - paintings of above-ground elements, possibly aimed to imitate outdoor market. Raised area where rite was being conducted. Three-fifths through operation, two remaining alive.
Attention attracted via using Light and application of clerical thaumaturgy to create attraction - glowing statue and rumbling sound. Group hidden behind statue. More planning would have been opportune, but this was the limit of Angèle's patience. I cast Entrapping Web of Caloric Structure (that name is overwrought), entrapping a large number of them, before the Shaman in the oppositional group dispelled it nigh immediately.
That was aggravating.
Angèle used a large amount of her inner-breath to propel herself directly across the room and towards the gathering performing the sacrifices, Eidele shot the largest and most ornately decorated of the lizardmen on the market-level, while Darvin stepped forwards to block the - now free to advance - group of Lizardmen and the javelins they were throwing at us.
It then became a mess. I traded spells with the shaman to little initial effect, shoving off Mind Sliver and Magic Missile only hit for a few flesh wounds. Darvin was enduring an onslaught of attacks, while Necria summoned an ethereal weapon to - I believe - great effect. Eidele kept shooting at people, for effect. Mostly don't recall due to entire room becoming rushing flood after ritual-leader opened stones in pyramid walls to allow the flood outside in.
Managed to, while the waters rose, kill him, but this did not, unfortunately, cause the stones to shut again. I swam - benefits of Lancanfield education, I suppose - to the top of one of the kiosks. Due to approaching lizardfolk, and rapidly depleting available spells, I used an illusion to cloak myself in burning fire. While the reasons for this can be debated, this did deter their attacks for the next while. Eidele is nearby, helping guard me and me her. Unfortunately, Necria is trapped in melee with Darvin and the ornate Lizardfolk, and is downed by a powerful swipe. Grabbed own potion of healing, dived off stall, and swam over to administer, hoping Darvin is enough to keep us both intact for the while.
Eidele has moved to protect Angèle, who has been taken down after trying to handle several lizardfolk on her own. Returned, carefully swimming around, to my illusion of fire, and … repeatedly do little of impact. Mind-slivers are ineffective, even against the crocodiles the flood has brought into the room. Also fail to bring Necria back onto my kiosk roof, her weight proving too much for me to drag on top.
All the meanwhile, Eidele keeps shooting people with her crossbow, while Darvin continues the duel he has been having. At some point, one of the sacrificial captives manage to administer Angèle a Lizardfolk healing potion. Suspect, given results, inferior alchemy, produces notable side effects. Angèle's actions are... Unrestrained. First attack is on Crocodile, crocodile is separated into several constituent parts. With numbers diminishing, able to concentrate fire on few remaining lizardfolk - Darvin's opponent proving to have immense durability, requiring Eidele's assistance to fell.
After his death, the two remaining lizardfolk - one unconscious, one fleeing - are killed, and we make for a break.
These notes should have been written then. Weren't. Mostly just re-read spellbook. Doubts in ability to provide support were weighing heavy. Total contribution throughout fight probably less than some of Eidele's individual shots.
Break ended, changed, went to identify the belongings and treasure the Lizardfolk possessed. Two remaining adventurers depart and provide, from their own stocks, Rings of Water Breathing, one for each of us, as they intend - after most of party dead - to retire from tomb-delving. Reward for saving remaining lives. Other elements retrieved - Lizardmen weapons - form of snakes, bodies petrify/solidify/tense to produce weapon shapes - Angele declared one to be personal weapon. Assorted pieces of jewellery and religious ritual implements - to be sold topside.
Final element keymost - five more masks, of same type as used previously at Sarcophagus. Contained one fulminate, as previous. Imagine utility similar to past time - plan is agreed (in private, avoiding survivors overhearing) - direct use for selves.
Exploration recommended thusly. Investigation of paths outside of flooded chamber reveal section behind the walls behind the Dragon. One of them was a gem socketed in a tree, as the previous, which likely assumed the power for whatever Stasis field contained the Red Dragon. Door likely needs further security to avoid possibly fatal issue of "some idiot let the dragon reanimate". Other rooms include a staircase to a submerged path - great utility in cutting the dangerous internal paths once we are a ring-only group (surviving adventurers currently restricting shorter and safer movements) - empty room likely seemed to have been armoury for Lizardfolk group, and final room seemed to have been living quarters for group. Layout of remaining clothes and delineation possibly interesting for sociologist, but for us nothing of value within (and sociological value now also destroyed).
Moving on, we moved back to the main room, where a discovery that one of the wands (Cast "Speak with Dead", did not record starting fulminates) caused reaction in the Black monolith near ritual site. Assumptions are manifold - perhaps odd structure of monolith mineral, black onyx known to have necromantic relations - perhaps trapped ghost inside monolith - perhaps remains of petrified species (in case likely not human, due to general mineral-flesh relation structure).
Discussion not fruitful, removed to tomb entrance with survivors, carrying corpses with us. Hammer has moved Sarcophagus to own store - why - providing utility for using mask.
Third entrance into Sarcophagus, Red Dragon mask. Unusually not possessing body of Red Dragon, but arcane education from one. Self was Yuan Ti "Abomination" - absolute mess of translation, by the way, clear continental bias, local draconic word is "مردم مقدس", or Sacred People - comprised of many many spell snakes, own body was spellbook (interesting concept, must explore theoretical possibility later - imbuing self to produce sorceretic effects?). Red Dragon teacher was large than one trapped in field in flooded plaza by several stages - no younger than one millenia back then - and master of the arcane. Time flowed strangely, but felt like tutelage continued for weeks or months, responsive to own present understanding - although no current concepts in use, could probably write monograph on pre-calendar draconic arcanism and its relation to modern wizarding pedagogies - developing skills until could sustain third-circle spells. Formulated Fireball.
Dragon was impressive. Deeply hope not inside tomb. Had, inside mouth, inscribed spell formula for c7 "Prismatic Dispersal of All Eight Lights". Infamous spell. Infamous complexity - actually has eight base formulations despite being c7 - indicates immense power on the dragon's part. Beyond the power they have for being a millenia old dragon. Suspect - gut instinct??? - Dragon still in tomb, somewhere.
Bugger.
Left sarcophagus. Inscribed Fireball and Dispel Magic in spellbook. Written while waiting for Darvin and Eidele to finish sessions.
Have suffered yet another taxing encounter – and am not certain whether this one was avoidable.
Day began well, all things considered – brief rest near previously-discovered megatree for all except self, as was occupied Purifying local water supply – seems generally improved, but am seeing diminishing returns in toxin reduction per cast. 'Speaking' with myconids, E notes that assuming unmodified generational times and accurate memories as reported by A suggest their entrance to tomb probably around time of earthquake which revealed the structure; may have opened subterranean access routes also.
Continuing exploration from where left off, found another room with stairs leading up, blocked by strange brightly-colored plants with long tentacle-like fronds. Seemed almost to incline in our direction. Accompanied by several frogs on walls of staircase, of both varieties. Optimist, A concerned for frogs attempted to reach out, walking arms outstretched onto staircase.
"The frogs might get a little aggressive, so let me just-" then stopped moving entirely. Long second of stillness, then toppled slowly backwards, regaining motion upon breaking contact with plants and folding into neat back handspring to land gracefully. Yelped. "Oww!"
D's helpful contribution, stepping forward – "Don't do that."
"Well, how was I meant to know?"
"By letting me do it instead." Valid argument on D's part, but am rather surprised by implied willingness to self-sacrifice. Attempted rearrangement of plants with glaive also unsuccessful, and hesitated to employ more forceful methods i.e. Telekinesis at this time.
Possibility of fire also raised again, by D. Rather concerned that in party with two tieflings, fire-flinging wizard, and A, most pyromaniacal is half-elf with military experience.
Also need to find out exactly why he speaks Infernal; am fairly certain is not standard Valoisienne military training.
Decided not worth the effort at this time, turned around and left for stairs to south. Lead up to second-floor hallway, more doors. First blocked by aforementioned plants, second open and leading to small pool recessed into ground. Walls once plaster-painted, now white and pink and red paint mixed in dust on floor. One room with flat benches, black crystal on wall, large lightflower. Another containing pool with dragonborn skeleton – blue, based on contour of skull. Ornate golden axe, adjacent skeleton.
Careful poking with javelin by D failed to reach, but L's Dancing Lights reached at furthest stable range – one hundred and twenty feet, contained within ten-foot pool. Quick discussion about possibilities of Levitate or Telekinesis, then opted to tie rope to A and send her swimming.
Swam down, reached axe, began easy retrieval – then found that weight rapidly became too much for even entire party, forcing A to drop weapon and resurface. After enthusiastic abuse of L's hard-won arcane powers as particularly fancy towel, gave brief report summing to 'axe and skeleton both really big' and because are all apparently incapable of discarding potential wealth, have now decided to find wand of Shrink for purposes of retrieval.
Another room containing trough, water, plants (plants not in trough) growing up through cracks in ceiling, large green fruit, soft – upon careful plucking by E, greyish water spurted from stem and was almost immediately reabsorbed by roots. E thinks might be purifying water in area. Next room over, pool with hot water, barely on edge of comfortable. Was very tempted to stop and soak, have not indulged in luxury of bathing in hot water for quite some time. Continued apace with great regret, noting wooden room with ignited fire tree, turning water sprinkled on into steam; perhaps a sauna? A's theory of bathouse seems likely – except for the troughs? Also remnants of a shattered stone pillar adjacent.
Meanwhile, A has forgotten said theory entirely in favor of new suggestion – Awaken SNAKE, granting sapience to 150ft reptilian behemoth capable of devouring men whole and shattering stone with casual gesture.
This plan is surely without flaws nor any possibility of error.
Disappointed D by refusing to use fire to address plant problem, instead opting to continue advance. Passing through hole above waterfall, moved to explore hexagon beyond pentagonal room – presumably will encounter septagon at some point. As lead, observed on approach two lizardfolk, one champion, one kobold (bright blue, unusual skull – structurally akin to blue dragonborn, but with dermal pseudoscales typical of kobolds) all spearfishing into water. Water filled with what appeared logs at first glance, closer inspection revealing scales, tails, the occasional flickering eye.
Much larger opening in the wall leading to another open area to the north, massive cavernous space, ceiling arcing away into darkness. Flooded entirely, but with occasional architecture scattered around, sticking out. Flickering lights overhead, bright light and total darkness. A number of large cubic fruits, perfectly 5ft a side, hanging from ceiling at various heights. Large pillars further in room, each capped with inactive lightflowers which would normally illuminate items atop pedestal – one, ornate statue of unknown lizardfolk, dressed in ornate (& valuable) jewelry, another with fancy decorative chariot, covered in absurdly excessive amount of gold. Step-pyramid visible somewhat to west, open at top, bright yellow flame. Further, an orange glow, visible to north beyond pyramid – recognizable as stasis tool previously applied to snakes.
Carried by curiosity and also wings, approached for closer look at said glow. Found empty space, filled by treasure rather than water. Also filled by a dragon.
Froze dead-stop, fully aware phrase might quickly become literal.
After several seconds in flickering lights, became aware of odd behavior – dragon mostly quiescent, occasionally twitching, but in exact same set of motions every time, first left foreclaw, then tail, then settling wings.
Returned with rapidity to party, explained observations, drawing general incredulity – E questioning "What the [profanity] kind of society keeps a dragon as a pet!?" Offered quip about banking insurance, to which L noted even actual draconic bank currently responsible for continued existence of stable currency despite recent war not that old.
Universally opted not to explore more concerning question of what calamity might be capable of destroying such a society.
Elected to negotiate with fishing lizardfolk – fisherfolk? A's suggestion that she fly out past easy range of javelins, illuminated, and call out to them – not sure whether trying to be self-sacrificing and protect rest of us, or just excited for opportunity to exercise flight-capability. Either way, decided to use L instead, specifically her ability with Illusion spells.
E crept closer, clambering silently across ledges to just outside their torchlight, as L formed Minor Illusion over lake to north, calling out to negotiate for safe passage for six of us. Discussion mostly centered around fish and fishing rights, which we conceded, but they also expressed interest in fresh fish from surface, so may end up transporting goods bidirectionally. Probably more profitable, and if nothing else can eat the fish. No new information about the dragon from them.
First to trust A, unsurprisingly, winging across to chariot before assisting self in acting as transportation for others, depositing all on mysterious obelisks located above equally-mysterious walkways. Described chariot as very shiny, correctly, covered in gems and gaudy metal. Nearby yuan-ti statue also ornamented, gilt weapons. Personally, noted our count seven, including L's owl familiar, at which A insisted her wrist-snake-band also to be counted, raising to eight. Sweetheart fortunately not present, or might have gone to nine.
Proposal by L to investigate step-pyramid first drew no resistance, and strange yellow flame atop it evinced several interesting qualities. Testing first with rapier then single ungloved finger by E showed it produces no heat, and attempted collection by D resulted in no interaction whatsoever.
Thusly encouraged, A spread wings and floated dramatically through flame to descend into lower chambers, effect diminished only slightly by delighted giggling. Vanished out of sight for several seconds, then abruptly E's head snapped up and she barked "Lizardfolk cultists with live sacrifices, halfway through a ritual – she's intervening, let's go!"
Tied rope around pillar, then E flung herself headfirst down, landing acrobatically. Followed by D, who simply stepped into empty space and landed far less acrobatically, avalanche of clattering plate. L descended with relative grace, rappelling smoothly down behind the two.
Last and least, spent several seconds eyeing flame before stepping through – intellectually aware of demonstrated harmlessness, but own prior history with attempted burnings not easily discarded. Sudden crimson glow downstairs and thunderous noises, tremors, encouraged haste however, and squeezed eyes shut and plunged blindly through.
Landed in brief moment of surprising serenity preceding absolute chaos. Large open room, painted to resemble outside jungle, night sky spread across ceiling, cityscape murals on the walls. Illusionary animals on the walls, birds and insects, looping through animations. Several large mushroom-like stalls in middle of room, and altar at back of room. Adjacent to point of entry, enormous glowing statue of dragonborn carved from single piece of stone.
Room very occupied – at altar, single shaman, blade in hand, surrounded by three dead adventurers, all male, two humans, one elf. Two bound survivors, elf and human, both female – possibly sexism, possibly coincidence. Lower on the steps, three lizardfolk each carrying massive golden shields, before small crowd of genuflecting lizardfolk all carrying spears shaped like carved snakes. Two kobolds at sides of crowd, oddly blue-scaled, each accompanied by bronze crocodile. At the center, lizardman champion towering head-and-shoulders above all, carrying golden sword and blackvine shield.
Violence ensued immediately.
Two rooms separated by wall, into which gap D stepped and stood, sprinkled with javelins. Storm of magic erupted as multiple separate spells entangled and erupted, L and shaman matching against each other as own Twilight Sanctuary expanded to enfold room, Spiritual Weapon seeking out kobold preparing to cast and fatally interrupting.
All going mostly according to plan, when abruptly interrupted by incredible flying dashing A blitzing past D, across room to captive adventurers, aiming to save lives, interrupt ritual. Cut an impressive figure standing guard over remaining survivors, spear in hand, glaring fiercely at shaman and knocking away or intercepting thrown javelins. Stony-eyed, unleashed wings and promptly began attempting to murder everything remotely in vicinity of altar.
Noble gesture, certainly am not opposed in principle – but have to admit, shaman seemed mostly distracted from ritual by our entrance, could probably have held at entrance chokepoint rather than speeding to middle and being swarmed, or worse yet splitting party across room. On other hand, is it right to gamble another's life on 'mostly distracted' – perhaps A better of the two of us, unhesitating to act in defense of others.
No time for thought then, as chanting priest began to raise stone wall at end of chamber, L systematically hunting down other casters as D carved through spearbearers towards Champion armed with massive greatsword nearly own height. Summoned Moonbeam, column of argent light disregarding all rules of physical reality to hammer down from ceiling and incinerate one crocodile, burning another badly. Unsurprisingly, also marked self as priority target, aforementioned Champion charging past D to reach up to full height and snatch me out of air by one ankle, smashing down against stone block. Discovered also that at some point, door to flooded area had begun to open, water pouring in, all three shieldbearers now descended from podium and advancing also towards us.
Across chaotic melee, easy to pay attention to wizard flinging spell after spell, plate-armored lunatic with halberd, glowing murderous monk, or airborne cleric. Easy mistake, for all gazes to slip off E – until pointedly reminded with a single crossbow bolt, slipping through the chaos to be buried in priest's throat.
Lizardfolk reacted with disunited fury, elites and spearbearers all charging about and roaring, to little effect. All three shieldbearers swarmed A, whirlwind of violence, spear ringing against metal as wings casually slapped away or returned projectiles to point of origin at velocity. D intercepted and began to duel champion, as E slipped past shower of javelins, one landing only to be met with torrent of hellfire for the wielder from irate E. L also caught on fire? Not quite sure why, perhaps collateral damage from E, perhaps unrelated attack by lizardfolk. Perhaps just a wizard thing. Wizards are eccentric.
In distraction, had focused overmuch on allies and failed to pay heed to own safety, for discovered abruptly that D's duel had come uncomfortably close. Made said discovery in form of greatsword to the ribcage, slipping neatly under false ribs and catching against spine, before pulse of force obliterated diaphragm, celiac trunk, and one kidney.
Regained consciousness several seconds later with truly exquisite agony of reconnecting interior tissues, courtesy of L pouring wizard's Cure Light Wounds (i.e. Potion of Healing) down throat. D still dueling with champion, now disarmed and resorting to sword, technically macuahuitl, and shield. E now nearer altar, standing guard over prone A. Dragged self back to feet mostly by clawing way up L's arm, then up into air and flung soporific spell at LF surrounding D and throwing spears. Summoned Spirit still active and hunting, so directed it to support E against shielded enemies, while L disengaged slowly from the melee, throwing spells all the while. E, almost unruffled, stood steady and took single shots from crossbow, dropping one elite then the other, as own spells whittled away at remaining crocodiles. And then abruptly realized had made same error as previously, as demonstrated by lizardfolk greatsword striking down into collarbone with enough blunt force to hammer into block above which was unsteadily floating.
Awoke to D's thoroughly unsympathetic visage, shrieking homicidal A in background attempting vengeance against champion, flinging blow after blow with concerning lack of regard for own safety – usually well-controlled strikes interspersed with agile movements meant to preserve mobility; now, mad rush of attacks with no thought for defense. Healed self as D reengaged, then finished off last survivors with L's help. Also joined by unfamiliar human woman, presumably one of the formerly-bound adventurers. At this point, all of us focusing almost entirely on champion, to little effect – D's swings deflected by careful positioning with greatsword, E's bolts bouncing off absurdly tough natural armor, A's soul-backed strikes cracking individual scales rather than pulverizing and incinerating flesh and bone, L's wizardry doing… wizard things. Whatever a wizard does.
Fight won by sheer numbers, ultimately. With so many attackers, champion distracted by number of potential vectors, and D struck with a precise lunge to force enemy off-balance at cost of opening self to a retaliatory strike, champion too well-trained not to exploit said gap. Provided exactly opportunity E had been waiting for, slipping single bolt against scale previously shorn off by A's blow and brushing past sternum into the heart. Titanic lizardfolk froze, then slumped forward atop D. Murmured something, then unmistakably smiling, collapsed to the ground. Which did not stop A, who – still shrieking – continued to pound on corpse, even as D stepped between them. Then he shoved her into the water.
A sprang back out with frankly inexplicable amount of energy, but distracted by crocodile, began hitting that instead, before abruptly crashing, losing all energy, and collapsing on shore by altar. Followed shortly by E, who swam over and collapsed atop her. More dignified, L positioned herself atop cleanest block in middle of room, ignoring waves, gore, piled corpses, and D's quiet but enthusiastic looting in background to attempt to meditate, occasionally paging through spellbook. For own part, deeply inspired by E's sagacious example – picked a block and briefly passed out on it.
Awoke to admittedly satisfying sight of piled plunder, weapons stacked and bound for transport – three golden shields and cactus-like clubs covered in fur or fine needles, two wands of Detect Magic and Speak With Dead, five weapons made of shape-shifting snakes (Fascinated, A excitedly laid claim to one shape-shifting spear-sword snake, gold-and-bronze scales), massive golden sword and ironvine buckler, ornate sword with broken blade, assorted jewels and jewelry. And, oddly, golden bonsai growing ruby apples. Most importantly, five masks, of same kind as previously used – two Red Dragons, Kuo-Toa, Troglodyte, Yuan-Ti.
And also three dead bodies and two traumatized adventurers. Possibly more than two, considering recent events. Survivors quite amicable, despite clear signs of shock; Lumusi Yaa (human fighter, born to Tesarite immigrants but sided with Alemagne) and Guillemette Alard (elven sorceress, Valoisienne, likewise Alemagnan defector). Names unknown to me, but certainly prompted recognition from D, who had wandered off to check adjacent rooms, finding power gem to northeast, empty locker room to northwest, and as-yet-undestroyed staircase to southwest. Awkardly attempted to remain unobtrusive and out of line-of-sight, despite being clad in clanking plate – wonder if they have a history. Lumusi and Guillemette also offered their party's Rings of Water Breathing, which were gratefully accepted, before returning to surface with collected corpses. Were also mostly unable to answer any questions about ritual, beyond noting necromantic inclinations, in original sense of word, centered around obelisk in middle of room.
Further theorizing from A, might be a person petrified by basilisk and turned to stone – plausible, but would expect it to be thusly shaped in that case. For own part, presented hypothesis of necromantic anchor for remnant spirits, acting as repository of knowledge akin to primitive library, though of course less reliable, considering tendency of sapient entities to continually bias own knowledge over time, unlike fixed texts, which at least remain consistent.
On which note of stored knowledge. Discovered that Hammer had moved sarcophagus from previous alcove to own storeroom. Despite concerns that deactivation might be permanent, appeared to have suffered no ill effects – in fact, operation appears to have been improved when reactivated. Ange first, with Yuan-Ti, experiencing complex lessons in ki use, renamed bio-energy by serpentine predecessors out of desire to discard all fantastic and unscientific nomenclature. Self second. Third, Lisbeth, Red Dragon, tutelage in spellcasting at hands (paws?) of the same, complex wizardrous theory – dragon also apparently a spellcaster, thaumaturgies carved into its scales. Darvin, Troglodyte, simply dropped into an arena with monster, told to kill it or die. Elected the former. Eidele, other Red Dragon, received memories of training under green dragonborn in hunting, ambush tactics. Tested against actual adult red, thankfully spell-less.
Own experience rather strange – began with a kuo-toan in a classroom, standing before projection of formulae pertaining to necromantic simulation of divine magic, but never began to actually move. Should have been terrified by own immobility, but was rather distracted by light-haired woman refracting herself into visibility just opposite me. Have attempted to transcribe Her words as accurately as possible, considering fallibility of own memory, and will be securing journal behind either strongest warding available to temple or in depths of tomb, and will likewise be restricting any discussion of said topics.
"For a group of necromancers so enamored of preserving their knowledge beyond death," She began, "it's rather surprising the idea of undead never entered their paradigm. They could have done much good with their knowledge, if they'd chose to share it, but they decided the people around them were too dangerous, and in believing, they made it so." She smiled slightly. "It's not a very subtle message about the power of knowledge and belief, but sometimes subtlety is a wasted art." Smile fading, She continued. "This conversation is unidirectional, unfortunately – you've yet to develop the, mmm, breadth and depth for a fuller link. Still, you've done well to come this far." She reached out and placed a hand on my head, and I might have cried if I'd actually been able to move. "You could stop now, you know. You understand the basic details of their system, and you have the Vaults and the Keys both. But you won't, I don't think. You and your friends, you're too responsible for that – I wish we had more like you. So I'll just have to settle for advising you instead." She leaned forward, and whispered a moonlit secret into my ear, and it sent ice singing down my spine. Then stepping back, She added "If I tell you too much, the others gain some freedom of movement too; they're already trying to eavesdrop, so our next conversation may have to wait until your next Key. Until then, keep digging – drag everything hiding in the dark down there out to face the light. Although I'm but a fraction of a fragment, even the minutest part of infinity is still infinity, so when I say that I'm proud of you, and grateful for your service – all of me means it." As the vision began to dissolve, Her eyes stayed on me. "You won't be forgotten," She promised.
So after that, am hopefully excused for needing to have name of A's new snake-weapon explained to me twice before understanding the pun. (蛇妹, shémèi, little snake sister, but can also be 师妹, shīmèi, little martial sister – am giggling at it now.) At the time, was near-totally distracted by sudden revelation, and so am very grateful to E for stepping up and managing our return.
Also, as soon as all stepped out of tomb and into open air, L threw Fireball at the sky, ignoring plethora of witnesses such as boatmen, adventurers, merchants and probably spies from several nations. D has concerning fondness for smell of burning bodies, A sets people's souls on fire by punching them, E sets enemies on hellfire for payback, and now L – am somewhat concerned by recurring fondness for flame among party. (Please disregard own use of Spiritual Weapons and Guardians.)
Exiting tomb, decreed day's work well-done, very firmly ignoring aforementioned disturbing revelations. Having each earned our well-deserved rests, and disbanded temporarily to acquire the same. Naturally, therefore, instead moved to visit Temple for preparatory purification for conversion of previously-acquired Pearl of Power into inlaid tattoo forming basis of Amulet of Devout. Scriptor Leseitra raised idea of overnight implantation, which idea not unappealing, so am currently sitting in middle of ritual circle outlined in moonlight and currently being laid out in powdered silver, scribbling left-handed while right arm is currently being carefully impaled with needles constructed from mixture of powdered pearl, sanctified silver, and moonlight-charged liquified ice (specifically not water, apparently difference is significant). As such, will apologize in advance to future self or other transcriber for steadily degrading quality of handwriting. Hopefully, right arm will be fully functional by tomorrow, heralding return to usual standard of scribing, if not of quality.
"Big Decisions" - Letter to Teacher from Angèle Bright
"Big Decisions" - Letter to Teacher from Angèle Bright (written 06 Flamerule 1608 in Rushtown)
Dear Teacher (and future readers!),
I did it! I came up with a name for our group! And it's a really good name, too! Hah, I guess all you readers in the future must have been waiting for this and knowing what it was all along. Well, this is when I came up with it! So let me lay out my reasoning first. Obviously our official group name had to be one with meaning, or else what's the point? You need a group name that you can be proud of (and I hear that being able to yell it in a fight is pretty useful too). So I was playing around with ideas and decided that I wanted "cinq" to be part of it - Old Valoisienne for "five", 'cause there are five of us, and also it lets us call ourselves Premier, Deuxième, Troisième, Quatrième and Cinquième as, like, group positions and stuff.
But I was trying to come up with a word that worked with that - like, the Five Whatevers - and I was playing around with our initials and the sort of order of our group, and it just fell into my lap! Necria's our fearless leader blessed with divine favour, and Eidele's our sexy confident tactical head and talking-to-people girl. Darvin takes point in battle, I'm the backup punchy-girl and astral specialist, and Lisbeth is our super-smart magical powerhouse and arcane specialist - no less important than the rest of us, but, you know, she did join last.
And what does that spell? Necria-Eidele-Darvin-Angèle-Lisbeth equals Nedal!
Okay, Teacher probably got that immediately but a lot of you future students that have only ever heard of the word Nedal as the name of that super cool group who had all those adventures years ago and who wrote a bunch of your history books are probably confused right now, so lemme explain! "Nedal" is an old Khemeti family name - I'm not actually sure how far it goes back? - which has its roots in the verb for "to struggle, to fight, to defend". So "Cinq Nedal" is a name that represents all of us, which binds the five of us as a family who came together in Khemet and who struggle together and fight to protect people!
I might ask if this counts as appropriation, but honestly, we're saving these people from whatever fuckoff horrible monster is down in the depths of that buried city calling people in for mysterious purposes unknown, so I think they can put up with us taking a not-all-that-common-or-culturally-relevant surname for our group.
And it is a cute name. Or at least Ange looks cute explaining it. I guess the sentiment is nice as well.
It is nice! And what else was nice was, of course, those masks we got! Yeah, it was time for more SARCOPHAGUS TRAINING! And while we'd been delving, Hammer had somehow got his hands on the sarcophagus itself! I'm not sure how he got it - and of course he wouldn't say, the jerk - but Necria asked why he had it and he said he'd tried a death mask himself, realised it makes adventurers stronger and decided that 'acquiring' it was probably profitable in the long-term. So now it's nestled at the back of his room and he's grafted the blackvine back into one of the branches up near the ceiling and it seems to be doing well.
That said, it does seem to have changed things up in how the sarcophagus teaches! Maybe some different system of memory integration being woken by the loss and subsequent restoration of its energy supply? Whatever the reason, it's more like spending a long time being trained and then waking up to find it was all a dream (but that the benefits were real) than having someone else's memories dropped into your head. I went first with the yuan-ti mask again, and it was still like having memories of being a yuan-ti in my head, but rather than being woven right into me, I was just... riding along while they (there were a bunch of different yuan-ti in the memories!) learned about unarmed combat and how to use ki. Though they called it 'bio-energy' and talked about it like wizards do, bah. It's not surprising, given what we've already concluded about their society, but hearing arcanists discuss the breath of life without taking spiritualism into account at all is always annoying. Still, it was really neat learning grapples and how to fight with tails and snake bodies - I'm not sure how much of that I'll be able to use, but I think I understand how to circulate my ki a lot better now. I've felt it from the inside, you know? Or remember someone else feeling it. I have it down, is the point, and I think it'll be enough to make me a lot quicker in combat from now on. Oh, and I think I've worked out how to interfere with other people's ki enough to disorient them, too. I'll have to try it out!
Necria took the Kua-Toa mask again and came out muttering about how the ancients still didn't respect faith or divine magic and treated it like wizards - but apparently didn't know what the undead were, which... well. They knew high-level necromancy, but nothing about the undead. Were the undead just not a thing back then? Has magic changed somehow to make them possible? Because the ancient Khemeti yuan-ti do not seem like the types to suppress knowledge of how to make and use them out of squeamishness or moral reasons, let me tell you. Maybe it has something to do with how they're all god-averse? Did something change when the gods left the world to make the undead possible? Huh, that actually really might be true. I'll have to do some research into the history of necromancy before the Divergence. Lisbeth took the red dragon mask and was apparently a yuan-ti abomination made out of loads of spellsnakes whose body was its own spellbook - so cute! - getting taught by this huge red dragon, way bigger than the one in stasis downstairs, with spell formulae on every scale including a Prismatic Spray inside its mouth. Yikes.
Darvin put on the troglodyte mask and got some kind of combat arena fight against some big horned lizard-ox thing that reset every time he died until he won, and Eidele used the other Red Dragon mask and-
I was a dragonborn, or rather, the memories of training I got put through were from a dragonborn. Green, not red - part of a squad being prepared to hunt, stalk and assassinate red dragons and how to survive the first blow if sneaking up and stabbing them to death before they could react wasn't enough to put them down fast. There was a test against a 'friendly' red dragon to put the lessons into practice, though I can now say from experience that 'friendly' and 'non-lethal' only go so far when you're facing even a young dragon. It didn't have any biological spells, at least. Not that it needed them.
Eesh, I bet. Poor Eidele. Don't worry; I gave her lots of kisses (and other things~) last night to make her feel better. And also to help us both get over how much the sarcophagus hurts when you use it. I swear it's forcing blackvine roots into our spines or something, there's just no other explanation for the aches and sores afterwards. I mean, it's worth it for how fast we're growing and getting stronger, but seriously. Ow.
Anyway, we got Lumisi and Guillemette and the bodies of their friends out of there (they decided they were going to cash out and retire from the adventuring life and gave us their Rings of Water Breathing), and decided to sell everything and then have a good long rest. Darvin said something about wanting to talk about the fight, too, so we agreed to meet the next day - which is to say, today - and then all went home.
One other thing did happen while Ange was in the sarcophagus. I let Hammer know about the dragon and my worries about the power source for the stasis field being interfered with by idiots - he may be a shifty little fuck, but he doesn't want a giant fire-breathing monster he's living right on top of to wake up and kill us all. His response was, and I quote, "did you close the door", which... well, I won't lie and say that didn't feel like ice down my spine. He gave me a thousand gold, no charge, to buy a Wand of Stone Shape and secure the place - I plan on embedding the light-crystal itself in solid stone and then sealing up the entrance to the room and making it look like a solid wall. Hopefully it'll be enough. But you know what they say: never underestimate the stupidity of adventurers.
If that thing does break loose, I hope you remember that Ange can't accomplish whatever divine plan you have for her if she's charcoal. Maybe show up and help if the worst happens. Or at least send someone else who can step in.
We were all tired after that delve, so the selling-things went pretty fast. We used our usual vendor (eg: Hammer) to get rid of the shields and spears and things - he also bought the fragments of the masks, which kind of crack and degrade after use; he says he's going to try to piece them back together for reuse. I wish him the best of luck with it; I remember the headache I got when I tried going back in and it sucked. Darvin kept his giant sword, Lisbeth kept the cute little snake-wands (except Dizzy), and I obviously hung onto Shémèi. We went back to Peter Godfrey to sell her sisters (I wanted to keep them all but Eidele said no), and I checked in with him that he was treating the animals we sold him last time well - and he'd sold them on! Which is fine, but he didn't seem to care about checking they were going to caring owners at all! I tried to lecture him about it but he didn't seem to care. Eidele gave him the Scary Look over my shoulder, though, and that definitely made him promise to be more discerning in future.
(It's really cute how she thinks I don't notice when she does that. Baby, when someone's arguing with me and then their eyes drift sideways to look over my shoulder and they go pale and suddenly start nodding and agreeing a lot and you're standing right behind me, it's not hard to figure out what just happened, you know? Ah, but it's sweet of her, so I let it go and pretend I don't notice. The things we do for love!)
The last item we had to sell off was this pretty little golden bonsai tree with a ruby fruit growing from it. Lisbeth said it was magical, and when we took it to Alfhild she said it was definitely a growing thing, but she's not really a jeweller or a metal-plant expert so it was kind of out of her expertise. So we took it to Colette instead, who was just back from a delve and richer than ever and agreed to take it off her hands as an ornament. According to Margot, the ruby is actually some kind of jewelled apple that it produces that's super nutritious? Whatever, she gave us a lot of money for it.
Hmm. Though. Metal plant, grows little fruits that are all the food a person needs for a whole day... I wonder if this is some relative of blackvine made for food production down there? If they had bigger strains of this little bonsai that produced fruit like that on a grand scale, it'd certainly explain how they were sustaining themselves down there with minimal farmland or cultivation up on the surface. Hah! I guess that's that question... well, not solved, but hypothesised about. I'll mention it to Helen next time I see her.
Speaking of whom, we went to visit her last with all the remaining archaeologically interesting stuff! I officially announced us as the Cinq Nedal, which she was really proud of after I explained the meaning behind it, and then we showed her the wood and bone carvings we took from the lizardmen. And she recognised them! Apparently they're from back home on Nuana...
... uh, okay, brief history thing because I know how frustrating it is for readers after a language or culture shift of even a few hundred years when people keep referring to something like a country but never explaining where that country is; the continent we're from, the one with the big mountain range in the middle that Alemagne was founded on and the high mountains up north that Salcurne is in; that's Nuana. And the continent we're on now to the southeast of it, with the volcanic archipelago trailing southwest from its southern tip, that's Panotia. Khemet is located on the northwestern side; it's one of the countries closest to Nuana, though not the closest (that's Gaing, I think). Okay? Okay. Cool.
So according to Helen, the lizardfold carvings and stuff that we got - the ones from the "modern" lizardfolk we've been seeing around rather than the ancient Builter-era lizardfolk and kobolds who seem to have come out of stasis - are Nuanan lizardfolk tribal artefacts. Prior to the war, they lived in marshes all over, very few of them under any kind of state power, just sort of existing in the kind of terrain that nobody else wanted. A lot of them got displaced by the fighting and wound up as refugees - I think quite a few wound up going to Alemagne, actually. But others fled overseas. These ones seem to have come from between Reuteia and Tesar, and I guess it's not too surprising they wound up in Khemet, though how they wound up in this tomb-complex is another question entirely. Still haven't ruled out the "came up through the Underdark" theory. Maybe I'll try asking the next group we meet.
I explained the bathhouse area to her and she basically agreed with all of my conclusions - though apparently, those weird troughs? She said they were probably wash basins for cleaning up with sponges and ladles before getting into the baths! Which is weird, but I guess it helps keep the water clean - though I still don't get why they're on the floor, if that's the case, but oh well. She didn't have any ideas about the weird bigger-on-the-inside pool, though she got all grandma-mad when Lisbeth suggested telling Professor Gerald about it (and took her candy away!)
She also shamelessly pampered Ange after she explained what happened with the basilisk. Which I feel is a bit rich given I'm the one who got petrified. Though I did get a clingy girlfriend hugging me out of it, so I suppose I can't complain that much. What I can complain about is the two of them getting entirely too enthusiastic about the finer details of the human/elf sacrifice ritual and the fact that there's a fucking dragon in the tomb. Apparently we should be thrilled at this, because they don't tend to like being studied or talking about their history much, and this is a rare chance to see one up close.
Historians, I swear.
Necria's obviously warming up to Helen a lot, because she shared the stuff about the masks with her without any hesitation - well, a bit of hesitation to make sure there weren't any eaves being dropped, but no fear of telling her. I think it was mostly a warning to let her know she should keep Professor Gerald away from the things. Helen certainly seemed shocked! And you can see why; it usually takes loads of resources to train someone up into someone who can operate at the national scale, but all the work here's effectively been done by an ancient civilisation; the masks can teach so fast for such a low cost. I mean, cost for us. I don't doubt that the expense poured into making them must have been eye-watering back when they were made.
Still, that... basically led to a discussion between our group; our first big decision as the Cinq Nedal, later on after we left Helen and reconvened in our tent. Because... she really wasn't kidding. The masks are huge. Paradigm-altering. Game-changing.
Dangerously so.
See, the thing is... we could retire on this. This could be it. We could stop delving into the dungeon, steal the sarcophagus, spend the next decade or two figuring out how it works and become very, very rich. Or sell it to... well, basically any nation, and become very rich immediately. It would mean selling ourselves to a nation, but we'd be safe, and set for life.
I mean, we couldn't. Morally, emotionally, realistically, we couldn't. As soon as Darvin raised the idea, I said no, because... of course we can't! We haven't even mapped out the first floor of the city yet! Necria's visions of disaster are still just as real! If we sold this kind of magic to any nation, it would do nothing to stop the coming war and would probably make it worse! It'd be the worst possible thing we could do!
But we could do it. And I was against it, but... not everyone else was. Darvin was for doing this, and... I saw Eidele consider it. She hid it really, really well. But she genuinely, seriously considered it for a moment.
And I won't apologise for doing so. I decided against it in the end, but here are the facts - which remain true going forward:
One: if we take the sarcophagus and sell it to, say, Anglia, we will be made incredibly rich, probably ennobled and given land grants and titles, and be set up for life. Amity will be set for life. We will be able to retire to the far side of Anglia, or the far north of Salcurne, or the heartlands of Tesar, or the Valoisienne capital, or one of any number of other places the war won't touch even if it gets really, really bad.
Two: if we don't do so, anyone else here could sell its location at any time to any nation, who might then come for it in force and immediately kick the war off early, as well as destabilising the whole continent depending on who gets it. Us taking the high road and choosing to keep valiantly following Necria's vision does not mean the sarcophagus will cease to be a hanging sword waiting to fuck over both continents, it just means that we leave its ability to do so entirely in the hands of others.
Three: we cannot meaningfully change the course of an entire war all by ourselves. Nobody can. Not even Seraphine Berengar; as powerful and influential as she is, she is one woman. We are five. Power comes not just from personal might, but from how many people are willing to follow you; we cannot avert a war that everyone wants all on our own. And if we can't avert it, the next safest thing is not getting involved.
But, as I said, I was persuaded otherwise. Points against taking it and ditching Khemet: not many people know what it can do yet so there's a chance we can keep it secret as long as Hammer doesn't start blabbing to all and sundry, there's still something pulling people down into the tomb that'll probably break out and try to eat the world if Necria can't stop it, none of the big nations here are going to stop raiding the tomb just because we've cashed out - and there may be more sarcophagi down there for them to find - and, yes, it's probably the "right" thing to do to stick around and try to minimise the carnage, insofar as that matters. As long as we're the first ones to find any masks or additional sarcophagi, we can keep them out of the hands of others and empower ourselves to better control access to it. We can speak to Hammer and make sure he has grenades or bombs set up to destroy the thing if anyone tries to take it - given his attitude towards Alemagne, I'm fairly sure he'll agree with our conclusions. And we can, if we're staying here regardless, take the opportunity to not only get stronger, but get rich, too.
... and yes, Ange would be terribly upset if we abandoned the quest and sold out the world to an upcoming war for the promise of money and security. I wouldn't have been happy about doing it. I just had to consider it as an option, for Amity's sake.
I'm still not happy about it! We actually came pretty close to a fight about it, even! But... I can see where Eidele was coming from, and I can't blame her for thinking of our daughter first. Who Darvin is still super awkward around (or possibly scared of), by the way - he was standing all the way across the tent from her, avoiding even looking at her! She's not that scary! She's a sweetheart!
Anyway, what's important is that in the end we all agreed that we have to stay here. Necria has her quest from Selûne, and people are going to be here either way. We can't help them unless we're here too.
Which just leaves the question of how we die less! Because, uh. Darvin really hammered that point home. I wouldn't want to be the kind of person who wouldn't charge in to help people just because it would be safer - and if we're on a divine mission then we should act like it (actually we should probably act like it either way, because that just means being a good and heroic person like Seraphine) - but it would be really nice to stop getting, um, nearly-killed quite so often. Amity needs to have both her mama and her mommy growing up!
There are two general classes of threats; external to the tomb-city (eg: adventurers) and internal (eg: monsters and lizardmen and traps). Likewise, there are two general classes of response to it; internal power (eg: getting stronger, using more of those masks to train ourselves up, buying better equipment and practicing battle tactics) and external power (Ange's suggestion; creating social bonds, connecting with people, uniting groups of adventurers and tomb-delvers into a more cooperative, cohesive whole). Both are broadly worth pursuing - I may not have Ange's optimism about people, but we can't take the external-to-the-tomb threats on with blunt force, so social means like persuasion and de-escalation (and people owing us favours and listening to us) are our best bet.
As such, Necria suggested a division of priorities, with me and Ange focusing on the political shit outside the tomb and Darvin taking point on managing threats inside it. Lisbeth's worked out how to fireball whole rooms now, and made some good points about everyone carrying healing potions. We can work on developing team strategies and... ugh, 'combo moves' as well. And take advantage of more scouting ahead.
We can also, as Darvin put it, not charge off and abandon our primary shieldbearer as soon as a fight breaks out to go save people. But as much as I'd like her to learn caution, I accept that she does have a "saving people thing" (another direct quote from Darvin) that I wouldn't change, as much as it stresses me some days.
And good thing too, because I'm not apologising for it! If I'd been any slower, I might not have been in time to save Lumisi and Guillemette!
But yeah, I will try to be more careful in future.
Anyway, that's it until next time! We'll probably be going deeper soon! If not tomorrow, then the day after for sure! Who knows what we'll find! I'm looking forward to it!
Lisbeth Betschart's Assorted Notes, 05 Part the third, and early 06, Flamerule
Left tomb. Angèle created party name - acronym with logonymic characteristics, collective alias - cannot recall correct term for "group name" - of Cinq Nedal. Latter part acronymic, cinq evidently referential to group number. Will become awkward should any further members join. Nedal - نضال - draconic, meaning fight. Interesting coincidence.
Hammer informed of Dragon status given own - save for oddity with reference to Dwarfs - sensible and normal nature and ownership of casket. Offers money to seal door to power source suspected to fuel stasis with lithokinesis. Sold many items, but retained snake-wands, Dispel Magic - three fulminates remaining - and Converse With Corpse - four fulminates remaining.
Celebrated attainment - unqualified, but inarguably - of full status. As the quote goes "One can argue with Wizards, but not with Fireball." Launched display vertically up from tower protrusion.
Selling continued with alacrity - all desirous of rest. Godefroy sold serpents, secondary selling of living metal bonsai tree. Alfhild, goliath woman botanist, not familiar with mettaloflora, unsurprised. Confirms own observations about plant growth, notes ruby fruit nutritious, exchanges for considerable sum (1st 1lb) of gold.
Movement to Prof. Rohesia's tent; Angèle insist on new form of introduction - "the Cinq Nedal". Lizardfolk relics collected apparently modern - from Nuanan tribes. Discussed bathhouse - viewed floor lower pools as likely for cleaning parts of body before getting into collective water. No idea about dimensionally altered pool. Took away food when suggested enquiry with Prof. Gerald. Rude, considering his clear advantage in examining archeological arcanism.
Conversation continued on subject of Sarcophegus. Details of Masks, previously obscured, revealed to Prof. Rohesia by Necria. Included warning about not sharing details with Prof. Gerald, which wise. Exploitation by more powerful Wz. serious concern. Shocked, especially at implied capability - such investment in a single fulminate formulation indicative of shocking degree of expense - and likely time of constructing. Consider the flexibility - all teaching customised to existing experiences in person without any consistency in mask type - implying all masks are capable of teaching all things - Darvin, as example, received only suitable training - no rudiments in wizardry or druidcraft - despite no planned examination or matching of masks. This likely means masks are augmentative and not supplementary in nature. This possibly means that teachings and teachers are entirely hypothetical, constructed alongside pre-programmed racial lines, constraint seems absurd - no requirement in original construction, ethnic and racial restrictions on groups in tomb, and consider would have been simpler construction without - but would have induced, for instance, halfling and human teachers in Lancanfield in self as likilest response.
Mask nature still enigmatic.
Further discussion continued upon group meeting after departation from Rohesia's company. Darvin raised possibility of sale of Sarcophegus. Given known capabilities, would sale for a large fortune, even split four ways. Likely prestigious enough, once proven, could wrangle for a Lectureship, maybe even a Senior Lectuership. Reader by my first century. Attractive option.
Motion supported by Eidele, thinking that this would be good for child. Safety, security, not having parental figures die in an unnamed necropolis in the middle of Khemet. Secondary argument is that anyone else knowledgable may sell mere knowledge of location, which will doubtless inflict another continent spanning war. Unfortunate.
Motion opposed by Angèle and Necria. Necria for religious and prophetic reasons, proposed horror at bottom of the tomb, apocalypse, all that. Angele for same, also raising possibility that it is not unique, and that delving will not cease without our removal - may intensify in hope of finding additional Sarcophegi.
Final decision convinced Eidele - moral concerns, restricting people whom may gain access to masks by using them first. Own self for staying. Can always sell the Sacophegus after having used a further dozen masks.
Returned to previous tent. May start sleeping alone, now casting capability for Leomund's Tiny Hut is established (third circle, ritualistic casting possible). Bought Hawawshi for dinner - a flatbread stuffed with spiced mince. Indulged with dessert - found a stall selling Blancmange. Meditated on hammock.
Woke early, went to library, made transfer - paying for inks and reagents - of spell formulae (why did formulae, of Anglish and Reutish precursor tongue, take predominance over τύπο, typos, when elvish is the language of magic? Τυπολάτρη, typolatris/typolastrists still occasionally used to delineate ritual-only casters compared to "formalist", which would be the Reutish equivalent).
Spells copied are Erupting Earth (for type-constraint transfer over Fireball), Pattern of Beguiling Light (Hypnotic Pattern, for general use), and Leomund's Tiny Hut (save money on renting hammock, and for security when sleeping inside tomb-city. Expense unfortunate, but necessary. Skipped breakfast.
Group - referant: Nedal? Cinq? - reforms outside of tomb. We move to delve again.
