Out of the Worm, Back in the Pink Goo (Session 238)

SESSION 238: Siege on the Gangrenous Pt. 11 – Lost in the 4^th Dimension – Out of the Worm and into the Pink Goo

Finding a hole in the worm we find ourselves once more above ground facing a preposterous thing.

 

Day 184  Continued - Status normal: water supply – full 248 pints; Food – none

They were still slow to move from the zombie meadow. Boris and Camillus both ate another chunk of the mystery medicinal meat. Boris then wandered across the chamber poking at zombie corpses and grumbling about something. The rest of the group seemed satisfied not making a rush either this way, that way or back the way. Herb happily grazed during this time and Katre reconfirmed her preference to return to the “Scorn Lands”. She clarified that she had entered the Space Worm via it’s maw and that her home was not atop the plateau from which our gaggle had entered the damnable thing. By this time Boris had finished doing whatever he had been up to, “Let’s go that way grumble grumble grumble”. And so they did. We called that choice ‘north’ just for ease. Nobody not even the direction sensing duck had any source of orientation in this weird place. The passage lead to a sphincter door. Boris peaked into a dark chamber that smelled of faintly of burnt reed and wood smoke. “Have we stunk this stink before?”, was the dwarf’s inquiry. No one could remember for sure, so they decided to go back to the meadow and take the other passage. Sloth danced them back letting his singing sword set the techno-rhythm. 

 

A few minutes down the ‘south’ corridor they ran afoul of another grotesque demon that had been slave driving a gross of pathetic imps cautiously carrying unknown covered bundles. The demon boss, as I said was gross, was a deranged creature whose snake-like head is covered with a crest and moist, dripping mouth. Its short, broad crab-like torso is covered in gangrenous-smelling yellowish slimy skin. Its grotesque ridged back is met by membranous wings and extends down to a horrible serpentine tail. It hiss-barked a command to its imps and then took to the air and came at our flat-footed murder-dummies. It showed a resilience against magic and an ability to suck up damage but its physical attacks were having limited effect. Let us just say that is was more a matter of the dice gods favouring the dweebs at this very moment. Willy was teleported by Agolloch just above and behind the abomination, Agolloch, whom enjoys ‘Screaming for Vengeance’ spilt the thing in half. They made immediate pursuit of the imps. This was when illumination and encumbrance showed up to be limiting factors. The imps were briefly seen by Ramrod and Willy before disappearing. The rest of the gang caught up with the two thieves standing before another chamber. 

It was dead silent, like unusually so. Inside, The ceiling was very high, incongruously high. Stalactites stretch down and on the floor stalagmites point up. Some are six feet long and deadly sharp. Water dripped ceaselessly but made no sound. For some reason they gave up on the imp chase and decided to exhaustively search the chamber. Raul levitated into the inky blackness and examine the upper extent while the rest of the gang chose 10’ square areas along the walls on the ground. After 20 or so minutes nothing was found. Raul was not ready to give up for another reason that was unknown. Forty minutes later the mega-dungeon explorers exploration efforts paid off.

Raul had discovered a tunnel hidden up in the darkness. Something(s) had dug into the corpse of the Space Worm. Reporting back, it was decided that they would take this hole out. They setup te rope of climbing, put Herb to sleep and went about the process of getting everybody and everything into the fair (man) sized hole. Examining the hole the two dwarves received Sasha’s approval when the stated that it appeared to have been dug by many small claw-like hands. Katre was optimistic but did not share this fact - damn elves so aloof. The tunnel was certainly tilted upwards. They trudged along for an hour or so until they came to a junction that housed an outpost for some sort of bizarre head-like race of beings. “Keldrane! I am home”, was Katre exclamation. The rest of the gang was more of “what the hell are these?”. “Are those human heads?”, was Boris’s somewhat baffling statement. “The Kaldane are a race of large, sexless, humanoid heads that crawl around in tunnels via their six long insect-like appendages. 

Considerably weak on their own, the Kandane have adapted a strange symbiotic relationship with the headless Rykor…”, Katre’s exposition was interrupted by the head-things talking at us. “You have successfully traversed our tunnel and have reached the toll station. Either return from where you came or pay us a ransom of 250 golden coins!” “What are you pirates!?!”, was Rammers unthought complaint. Raul stepped forth, “Don’t mind him he is badly cloned” and proffered the merger toll without concern. The creatures began to fall back to the adjacent passage from where they came. “Hey can we go that way?” “No, you may not. Go that way, back to the surface where you belong”. Raul had one more play, “could we rest beside your camp? Perhaps, for a modest fee? And maybe get dinner with that?”, he was feeling a little tired and Wendull certainly looked it. “We could allow you to rest in yonder alcove for a protection fee and provide each with two sustenance cubes. 250 golden sheckles per eight  hours or portion. Pay up or push off stuck heads!”. 

Raul easily found another 250 coins. One of the heads took payment while another lead the gang to an alcove a scant 50’ down the passage. “What the hell are these? This ain’t meat!”, Boris on the verge of anger after receiving the rations. “Those are sustenance cubes. That means food. We call it tofu. It will most likely make you a weirdo progressive, or gay if your lucky”. “Like we will notice the difference”, Camillus stealing a line opportunity while taking her squishy square from Raul. He missed the nuance but Willy got it “hehe”. Willy was making the most of his time being in charge of his own actions as Agolloch waited for the forces of Chaos to rear their heads. Wendull then took his chance to make a social statement while pulling up his socks, “You know that you folks are very trying for modern audiences”. “Shut up dork!”, Camillus pointing to her steel boot and preventing any more placating of children. “Hoyvin-Glavin!” was Wendull’s final statement for some time.

 

Day 185 - Status normal: water supply – 148 pints (8p/person+12 for Herb); Food – one day

They rested unmolested and all except Boris awoke feeling fairly fresh, maybe it was the incessant techno mumbo gumbo from Sloth’s sword. They never even contemplated a double cross by these creepy spider heads. They were given fair warning that their time in the Kelrane territory was waning, “Either go to the surface or pay us to go back to the dead worm”. “All cool little grovers we desire the sun’s rays once more”, was Raul’s signoff. “Grrr”, Camillus thought she was finally going to get a line but instead marched off up the passage. 

 

This tunnel was different. It was natural. Probably an erosional feature concurred the two bearded half-pints. “I guess we should have seen that coming when they didn’t toll us”, was Gurn’s observation. The tunnel crept ever upwards and was soggy at times but after a couple of hours the end came with natural light and not a hook horror nest as I had hoped. The hole egressed into the back end of a valley contained by near vertical rocky walls extending hundreds of feet. The valley quickly widened to slightly more than six miles in diameter. It was at this point there was the most unusual of plugs. It was something or a thing or something else. It had crab-like legs the size of a wizard’s tower that connected to a body or structure that was of unnatural shape, perhaps hexagonal. The legs connected to a porous meaty like structure which held the shell/ body/ casing. Atop of the upper structure a pink forest and a number of rocky structures could be seen. Katre was certain that this was not her homelands. “Well, it should be obvious to even the most dim-witted individual who holds an advanced degree in hyperbolic topology, FLAVIN, that we have stumbled into...the third dimension from the fourth only one more to go”, Wendull dropping the fact bombs. They approached the immobile colossus. They got about ¼ mile away. Then the thing shot out a horde of vacuum tubes, really big of course, and they simply sucked up our B-Team. 

The ride was not all that unpleasant, kinda like a reverse waterslide ride. You get bounced around but end up with only a few minor abrasions. Then they were shot out somewhere on the surface of the thing into a mildly acidic lake of pink goo. It probably fair to say ‘digestive juices’. Since our lot, including the murder-mule Herb, are made of tough stuff nobody would succumb to being hex-crab-thing food. They collected their goods and waded their way out taking only minimal digestive damage. Getting to shore they cleaned the goop off as well as they could and then took a look around. 

They appeared to be in the NE corner of the thing. To the W, what appeared to be a village like eruption was a couple of miles away across a coarse wasteland. To the south was the pink forest spanning almost the entirety of the other half of the hex until it ran into a series of rocky outcroppings in the SW sector. 

 

“Ya’know what bubs, I think maybe just maybe we could be back in the Dreamlands. All this -Wagh- digestive pink goop made me think of a story I once over heard in a pub in Atthra. Drunken fools until you get sucked up the pipes of a city-sized walking hex. This walking calamity is also known as the Hex-Crawler”.

 

“Let’s go to the village, I’m getting hangry”, They fell into line with Boris.

 

ROLECALL 

Raul the Voyager (MD9) 262984 xp +10% <360000> CRT 1d12/III

            Fezzi-Gig (Neut: XXXX) Sword

Serious wound: permanent loss of CHA -4, 

Removed one of his own nostrils.

Boris the Electrical Dwarven Lord (D9) 364909 xp +10% <400001> CRT 1d20/IV

Serious wound: permanent loss of CHA -3, carved up face

            Wound: Bad leg (-5’ MV)

            Multiple Injuries: lost 25 teeth (7 remaining), drools a lot CHA -1

            Serious Injury: Brain Drain -2 INT

            Serious wound: permanent loss of an eye (-1 to missile fire)

            Major Corruption: Crackles with electrical energy              

Ramrod the Cloned Thief! (T9) 172090 xp +5% <280001> CRT 1d20/II

             Serious wound: Bad Back (-1 stone CC)

            Scars: Neurological damage to hip, noticeable limp (-5’ mve)

            Missing eight teeth talks with a lisp

 

            The Henchmen

Sloth the Bopper (L7) 177408 xp +10% <178800> CRT 1d20/IV or 1d6/G (vs. s, m)

            Missing ten teeth

Sasha Plasha the Warden (R7) 123237 xp +0% <150000> CRT 1d20/IV

Gurn Hammerhand the Dwarven Swashbuckler (D4) 27925 <36000> +5% CRT 1d12/III

Wendul the Magician (W6) 49673 <80000> 5% CRT 1d8/I

Camillus the Myrmidon (F7)  87854 <120001> +5% CRT 1d20/IV

Willy the Reformed Burglar (T6)  28061 <40000>10% CRT 1d14/II

            Agolloch the Eye of Purity (Lawful; XXXX) Sword

Ike the Duck (DF6) – AVATAR

Katre the Elf-Girl (E3) 8114 xp <XXXX> +0% CRT 1d8/II

 

RESERVES

BoB is the lone lawn ornament for the Basilisk Knights.

Brett & Jermaine Kobold Cooks & Eavesdroppers Extraordinaire – Cooking & Cleaning

Chung Li needs 12 weeks (74 days) and a stack of coin to rewrite his lost spell book.  

            Elapsed: 33 days (from group A)

Elapsed Campaign Time

604 (629) days at beginning of session (also applies to recuperation) 

Join us for session Two-Hundred-and-Thirty-Nine when we ask the questions:

What is this itch bugging Boris?

What is this titanic hex crab thing?

Where are we?

Tale of the Tape

Location hex: ??dreamlands??4^th Dimension??Somewhere else??

Raul is now the proud owner of Queasy Bert’s Green Shield of Capitulation 

Lady Versamage’s bones travel along inside a sack

 

KILLS

Demonic Supervisor 

LOOT

None