SESSION 324: The Dreaming Caldera Pt.6: Life is Easy
Things continue to be weird deeper into the dungeon, Saff makes a new friend whom averts walking into double dragon trouble.
Day 772 Continued (Underworld): Down the stairwell to the tune of rapturous screams and hammering, what a swell joint. Carla covered the group in silence to counter their often noisy operations. The first stop in the passage was two doors. Behind one hammering could be heard and the other sounded like construction works. Bunny choose the hammerin’ door.
Inside was another workshop staffed by four annoyed ogres trying to discern a god-bone schematic. Rock-filled bins and worktables line the walls. A crude illustration of a rib on vellum is nailed into the wall. Four ogres squint at the illustration and bash rocks with stone hammers. A large stone, very roughly bone-shaped, sits on a workbench surrounded by pots of glue. The brutes were fully engaging their communal 17 braincells.
In snuck our gang and then wham-o. The ogres were quickly neutralized, three dead and the final held and charmed – we will call him Blerp. Saff was quite happy with herself. She had been missing Sloth something fierce now she had a pet ogre to fill the big mook role in her life. Well at least until they return to Liwil…or maybe two mooks is even better than one. We shall see. During her musing the clerics smote the incomplete god-rib while Dolec shook the bodies for loot. “Hey these guys are like baby giants. Look at all this gold, jewelry, gems and a potion an da scroll!”. Bimbles eyes lit up, “Let’s see the serious goods, and one of those gold necklaces”. He potion was an intriguing bubbling green juice, sadly without label, and the scroll…”Well that sucks. Its gobbledegook”, complained the cleric as he tossed it to Azucar for inspection. The elf took a quick look, “these will be useful” as he tucked the scroll away.
Moving across the hallway the door opened to a very large chamber housing a rock mining operation. Natural stone walls, high ceilings, echoing sounds of shouting and the squeak of straining rope. Crews of chained, beleaguered neanderthals strain at ropes fed through massive groaning winches to transport wicker gondolas of neanderthal miners up and down four 20’ diameter bore holes. Eight distracted ogre taskmasters bark orders at the exhausted cavemen. All parties were preoccupied and a little was away. Even though there was lighting around the work area there was lots of shadows around the walls, just right for a Bunny to disappear into. Saffron and Blerp stayed just outside to watch their backs and not to create any conflict with the charmed ogre whom acknowledged all these ogres as ‘brothers’. We could not tell if this was ogre-talk or genetics and decided to avoid putting Blerp in an ‘us or them’ situation. Carla cast sticks to snakes and then the bulk of our troops went in to join a well-hidden Bunny inside the cavern. Snakes were released and tanks charged. The ogres were flatfooted. This battle like the previous flowed pretty smoothly ending with four captured ogres and forty confused and exhausted Neanderthals watching it all go down slack-jawed style. The captives were lowered into one of the bore holes, they couldn’t be fully trusted to just run away – they were deeply in thrall to the ‘music’ after all. The primitives were a dumb lot but were able to explain two things. One, there were more or them in the sick room to the north east. Two, they were abducted from their home tunnels at the bottom of one of the other bore holes. The sub-humans were released back into the subterranean wilds and our gang moved back to the corridor to find the others of their kin. Dolec was once more pleasantly surprised by a good haul of loot for limited danger, “Things are turning around guys we aint wieners no more!”.
Back in the corridor a smart idea came to the fore, Blerp was queried about the other Neanderthals. He confirmed there was a barrack that house the dirty lot currently full of the sick and gross. Blerp also mentioned the ‘guard fire hounds’. This was troubling sounded like Hell hounds, not necessarily a wanted entanglement. Someone was smart enough to dig for more info from Blerp. He then shared the fact that having an ogre escort would result in the hounds not activating. Blerp led them to the primitive barracks at the other end of the entry corridor was the hellhound pen. A trio of the demonic dogs were there but went back to hound lounging when Blerp gave them a wave. Inside the chamber, it was beyond squalid. Stone pallets for overworked neanderthals too exhausted to move. 18 weary, injured, or sick Neanderthals huddled together in this filthy hovel. Our team rolled in and quickly began administering aid much to the confusion of the sub-humans. One rose up, Thag, definitely dumb like the rest but a bit more talkie than grunty. After some help Carla explained that his brethren had been released from their bondage. Thag liked this and asked if they could join friends. Carla agreed and they escorted this lot back to the bore hole chamber.
As they walked backed Bimbles asked Blerp what lay beyond a pair of ornate double doors, “Oh the Sisters live there”. “…And who or what are the Sisters Blerp?”. “Oh they dragons. They make acid blood for god”. “…two…jeez…Lets go check the other door in the mining chamber after dumping the chumps”.
Returning, Thag and company thanked their liberators and then descended deeper into the depths. Going north they came to the other set of doors to the acid chamber just around the same time a dancing troupe of brain-dead acolytes in a euphoric haze, They danced right past and into the dragon sisters chamber. We quickly closed the doors behind them, not wanting any ‘entanglements’. Going further, the fourth god-bits workshop was discovered. Soft yellow light from oil lamps, hanging swathes of silk, large wooden chests, and an enormous nest of shimmering golden thread. Five noseless women with elaborate braided hair sit on wooden rocking chairs or lean over spinning wheels. They had long, segmented worm torsos in place of legs. They would have been welcoming and congenial but the team just simply stormed the chamber. These hair-hag-worms were an alert bunch. The bums rush did not work out super great. Two were engaged but the other three utilized their innate ability to ‘web’ bad guests. All of a sudden half the team were gummed up in webs. Bunny leapt to action activating her flame brand to ignite the webbing covering Carla and Lester, “You may feel some burning…”.
Azucar and Dolec were left to do the dirty work. Before victory the fight dragged on with more webbing and burning but the hags were not successful with any other attacks.
“Whew… Almost thought we were on the chump train again”, came from Dolec as they all turned their attention to the contents of the chamber and the partially obscured door across the room.
The A-Team: Bunny, Carla, Bimbles, Saffron, Charles, Dolec Da, Nara, Lester & Azucar
ROLECALL
Carla the Green High Priestess of TMB (C10) 363590 xp +10% <400001> CRT 1d12/III
Scars: permanent loss left index finger and scarring on arm
Bimbles the High Priest of GSS (C10) 327825 xp +5% <400001> CRT 1d12/III
+2 save to poison and internal body things; Double eat (gotta feed my baybay)
Bunny the Thief! (T10) 319435 xp <400001> +10% CRT 1d24/II
Light wound: permanent loss of pinky finger, off hand
The Henchmen
Saffron the Mad Fairy Queen of Ribbits (FY8*) 201739 xp <200001> CRT 1d10/III
Moderate wound: Scar on abdomen
Lasting injury: -1 STR, mashed guts
Nara the Nearly Naked Purple Swami Girl (PS7) 116268 xp +5% <125000> CRT 1d16/II
Wraith Drained: -1 CON
Charles in Charge the Myrmidon (F6) 89866 <120000> +10% CRT 1d20/IV
Franz the Grave Return (Lawful; XXXX) Sword
Critical Wound: Punctured lung (-2 CON)
Mostly DEAD. (-1 CON)
Dolec Da the Hero (F7) 74855 xp +10% <120000> CRT 1d20/IV
Missing five teeth
Lester Flanders the Guardian of Oceana (P6) 52155 xp <95000> +5% CRT 1d16/IV
Azucar the Elven Myrmidon Warlock (E6)
RESERVES
Elapsed Campaign Time
743b days at beginning of session (Boris & Friends just outside of Liwil)
766a (Bunny Group Newville/ Dreaming Caldera) Busy until 779
724d (Ding-We Gang Lake of Abominations/ Liwil)
Join us for session Three-Hundred-and-Twenty-Five when we ask the questions:
What treasures does the Weaver chamber hold?
What’s behind the door?
Are we gonna go after the Sisters?
Where is ‘god’?
Tale of the Tape
Nara and Charles continue their stay at the petrification hotel.
KILLS
Ogres (12)
Weavers (5)
LOOT
11,000 gp
Gems (6): 10,100,50,50,100,10 = 320 gp
Jewelry (6): 1500,900,1100,900,1000,1100= 6500 gp
Green potion
Scroll: sleep, levitate, clairvoyance
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