Mushrooms of Madness
Apr. 9th, 2003 01:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight was my ECL/underdark themed D+D game. It went well -- the characters actually fell into the trap set for them, figured out what was up before all was lost, and -- most importantly -- used up all the available time we had for the session getting out of it.
So the party is faced with a massive cavern, the near end of which contains a phosphorescent mushroom jungle, stretching out of sight into red glowing mist, the red glow presumably from lava somewhere out of sight.
They decide that, not having a path to follow, they'll follow the wall of the cave so they don't get lost. After two hours walking, they come to the shore of an underground sea. Far in the distance is a massive waterfall -- miles away but still clearly visible and audible -- pouring down from a hole in the cieling of the cavern and more or less generating the ocean. All along the shore, streams lead back into the forest.
After passing two streams and deciding not to follow them, Abbey decides to climb on top of a mushroom to get a better look around. Slee picks out a good, sturdy, nonpoisonous one, and Abbey hooks her grapple and pulls herself up... far to the north (directions assigned arbitrarily) she spots a pair of large rivers flowing out of the jungle, into the mist. A perfect place for an elusive gnomish city to be located!
So the party heads north, into the forest. They get slightly lost, but accidentally end up wandering in the right direction, following a stream. They're attacked by a nasty dragon-looking creature (which the druid recognizes as a rare but natural creature and not a dragon at all) which spits poison clouds, blinding one of the civilians and convincing the rest of the party to run up and start poking it with sharp things. It chews on Steve the half dragon for a bit, until he panics and breathes fire all over it, nearly killing it. Abbey steals his kill.
A little later, still following the stream, they're attacked by annoying oozes that squirt acid on people who hit them in melee, paralyze with a touch, and emit blinding flashes when reduced below half health. Despite the annoyance factor, they aren't a serious threat, since they can't hit the party except with retaliatory acid sprays -- But they accumulate quite a bit of damage with those. Eventually all three are dispatched.
An hour later, Erelthrae (the drow cleric) and Slee (the lizard druid) come down with a nasty disease that almost seems like a negative level -- they look to all the world like they've been level drained. It seems like a disease, and Ereltrae wigs out slightly because she isn't able to remove disease yet. Abbey notices a strange flashing light in the eyes of the two infected.
Fortunately, the party is tracked and approached by lizardmen, who notice the infected people and invite them back to their village where their healer knows how to treat the plague, which they claim is the result of inhaling forest spores. Abbey notices the same strange flashing light in the lizards' eyes -- they tell her that it's a side effect of the spores, but persists even after the disease is cured. Nothing to worry about.
In the village, a lizard druid (Ssethra) examines them, and solemnly informs the party that indeed those two have been infected, and that the rest of the party should drink a concontion of her own devising which will immunize them against the plague... assuming they haven't already contracted it.
The cure, on the other hand, is positive energy, which can be bestowed by the holy shrine a day's march to the south. The party groans. Erelthrae decides to see if a turn check's burst of positive energy will suffice -- she and Slee both feel AWFUL after it goes off, and the druid frowns and tells them that it didn't work. They should take the potion, just to be safe, and then travel to the shrine.
So Erelthrae, Slee, and the two civilians drink the potion -- Abbey and Steve refuse, K'van informs the druid that he is immune. An hour later, the civilians also get sick -- Erelthrae and Slee are too miserable from the afteraffects of the turn check to notice whether they're still sick or not. Another turn check leaves Erelthrae feeling horrible again, but the civilians and Slee are unconscious and rapt with ecstasy.
Ssethra smiles and informs the party that they're on the road to recovery! A few more doses of the potion, another burst of positive energy, and Erelthrae will be cured to!
At this point, the party starts to suspect that perhaps Ssethra is not being totally above board, but she seems awfully honest -- if perhaps a bit too confident in the effectiveness of her potion. Abbey doesn't trust her at all, though, and has the party stop for the night to rest and not go back to the village, which is nearby.
The lizards are uncomfortable leaving the party to rest exposed in the forest, but say they'll scout around for any dangers and come back in the morning -- that is, after the party's had a chance to rest, as day/night cycles don't really exist in this place.
Abbey follows them stealthily, and sees them NOT scouting for dangers. Instead, they stare deeply into each others' eyes, which flash in unison. They break of in all directions, without a word, the druid heading back to the village and the others wandering off elsewhere. Abbey decides to go back and guard the camp. A little while later, a lizard wanders near her, leading one of the annoying oozes after it... and as the ooze gets close, the lizard's gaze snaps up to Abbey's hiding place. She was spotted? Inconceivable!
But she stays still, and eventually the lizard and ooze leave. Fifteen minutes later, three lizards and three oozes approach her tree from all directions, but she spots them in time to sneak off before the oozes' blindsight negates her stealth, and returns to the party, where she informs everyone that the oozes are controlling the lizards!
The party decides to flee to the shrine, to cure the disease before anyone gets taken over by oozes. They force-march through the night, and are lucky enough not to stumble across anything dangerous.
Abbey experiments with a sample of Ssethra's potion she'd saved in the positive energy chamber -- it bubbles over the edge, and grows into large a patch of fungus in seconds. She decides that putting the infected party members into the chamber would be a very bad idea.
A little later, the surviving female civilian screams, "They tried to make me kill you!" she sobs, "I won't kill for them! Please stop the voices!" At the same time, K'van spots a large group of annoying oozes and lizards approaching from the north, led by Ssethra and her Dire Monitor companion.
Slee, who was under the control of the spores, decides to hide the fact that he was ever infected, even though he makes his save and does not entangle the party (which frees him to act normally for a few minutes). "He's one of them now!" screams the hysterical woman, pointing at him, "Stop him!" She fails to gut him with her sword.
Erelthrae hits the druid with a Silence spell, and the group immediately starts to back off, although the oozes are slow to react and quick to charge and get separated from the lizards. Steve won't take 'run away' for an answer, though, and charges after them -- as a barbarian, he's quite a bit faster, and begins to catch up.
As Abbey and Slee engage the oozes, Steve is lured away from the rest of the party by several turns at a full run -- although Erelthrae is right behind him, following as fast as she can. The fleeing enemies turn to engage him, five against one -- and he proves that they had him right where he wants them, as he steps back and roasts them all with his daily flame breath. The dire monitor alone survives, but misses him for a third time (it got an AoO when he stepped back) and is then finished off.
Erelthrae ties up and gags Ssethra, who isn't quite dead yet, then heals her to consciousness. They rejoin the rest of the party, where the civilians have both been clubbed to unconsciousness and the oozes are all dispatched.
The female civilian is awoken, and manages to hang onto her brief moment of sanity long enough to tell the party that the potion and the oozes were what was actually spreading the infection, and that positive energy was what let it take over a person completely -- using knowledge pulled from the minds of the other victims, with which she is now in contact. She then starts ranting insanely and is put back to sleep.
Ssethra proves much less cooperative, lying through her teeth and contradicting everything the woman said, then insisting that the infection is a blessing that she only wishes to spread for the well being of all, and that the attack group never meant to *hurt* the party...
Steve offers to let her and her people live if they'll give them the real cure, but Ssethra's eyes roll up into her head and she screeches, "WE WILL NEVER ALLOW YOU TO MURDER OUR BROTHERS! LET US GO OR YOU WILL NEVER REST!"
The party is unimpressed, and she is clubbed into unconsciousness. The party rests until dawn. During the 'night', Slee (still under control, but not tied up since he hid that he was infected -- apparently the party didn't trust the woman) tries to free Ssethra, but is spotted and tied up as well.
In the 'morning', Erelthrae casts a pair of auguries: 'What would happen if I put myself into the positive energy chamber?' Since she's not infected, the answer is 'nothing'. 'What would happen if I put Slee into the positive energy chamber?' Since Slee is already controlled by the previous burst of positive energy, this answer is also 'nothing'.
So the party decides to return to the lizard village and search for a real cure. As half of them are tied up and mind-controlled, the result is a chain-gang style precession. They also lack anyone skilled in wilderness lore to help them navigate the jungle, but Abbey's natural luck sees them through.
A half mile from the village, they trip the early-warning sensors and are attacked by the remaining populace -- seven lizards and five oozes. The lizards rush in suicidally and try to free the druids, while the oozes just try to kill people. Ssethra is clubbed unconscious by K'van before she can be freed, and while Slee's hands are untied by a helpful lizard, K'van's grappling manages to delay the removal of his gag until he can be beaten down as well.
The other lizards are taken down with subdual, despite their nontrivial AC, and the party then herds the oozes into a clump, whereupon Steve flame-broils them and kills them all. Too many people are now tied up and unconscious for the party to move, so Abbey and Steve go on ahead to search the village for the cure.
They find a cure, but it isn't enough -- six potions of cure disease hidden in a padded, locked box, the key to which was found earlier in the dire monitor's stomach. They cure Ssethra and Slee, and ask them if they can do anything...
But, no, they can't. Ssethra is only third level. Her old master, the chief of the *real* lizardman village on the coast, could probably help... and, oh yeah, she has a figurine of a silver raven that she can use to send a message to him.
He responds by sending an army -- and after they verify that the village is indeed pacified and the oozes destroyed, takes everyone back and begins the gradual process of curing the fourteen others infected. This takes a week.
Ssethra gives the party the equipment they already looted off her during the attack as a reward for saving her from a life of servitude. They trade in the most expensive piece for store credit towards enchanting some of their weapons and armor -- something the village can manage, although it takes another week to fill all the party's orders.
The lizards give the party a map of the cavern, although they don't know where the gnomes live either, and bid them farewell, as they do dislike outsiders and have had them around quite long enough, even for heroes.
last week next week
So the party is faced with a massive cavern, the near end of which contains a phosphorescent mushroom jungle, stretching out of sight into red glowing mist, the red glow presumably from lava somewhere out of sight.
They decide that, not having a path to follow, they'll follow the wall of the cave so they don't get lost. After two hours walking, they come to the shore of an underground sea. Far in the distance is a massive waterfall -- miles away but still clearly visible and audible -- pouring down from a hole in the cieling of the cavern and more or less generating the ocean. All along the shore, streams lead back into the forest.
After passing two streams and deciding not to follow them, Abbey decides to climb on top of a mushroom to get a better look around. Slee picks out a good, sturdy, nonpoisonous one, and Abbey hooks her grapple and pulls herself up... far to the north (directions assigned arbitrarily) she spots a pair of large rivers flowing out of the jungle, into the mist. A perfect place for an elusive gnomish city to be located!
So the party heads north, into the forest. They get slightly lost, but accidentally end up wandering in the right direction, following a stream. They're attacked by a nasty dragon-looking creature (which the druid recognizes as a rare but natural creature and not a dragon at all) which spits poison clouds, blinding one of the civilians and convincing the rest of the party to run up and start poking it with sharp things. It chews on Steve the half dragon for a bit, until he panics and breathes fire all over it, nearly killing it. Abbey steals his kill.
A little later, still following the stream, they're attacked by annoying oozes that squirt acid on people who hit them in melee, paralyze with a touch, and emit blinding flashes when reduced below half health. Despite the annoyance factor, they aren't a serious threat, since they can't hit the party except with retaliatory acid sprays -- But they accumulate quite a bit of damage with those. Eventually all three are dispatched.
An hour later, Erelthrae (the drow cleric) and Slee (the lizard druid) come down with a nasty disease that almost seems like a negative level -- they look to all the world like they've been level drained. It seems like a disease, and Ereltrae wigs out slightly because she isn't able to remove disease yet. Abbey notices a strange flashing light in the eyes of the two infected.
Fortunately, the party is tracked and approached by lizardmen, who notice the infected people and invite them back to their village where their healer knows how to treat the plague, which they claim is the result of inhaling forest spores. Abbey notices the same strange flashing light in the lizards' eyes -- they tell her that it's a side effect of the spores, but persists even after the disease is cured. Nothing to worry about.
In the village, a lizard druid (Ssethra) examines them, and solemnly informs the party that indeed those two have been infected, and that the rest of the party should drink a concontion of her own devising which will immunize them against the plague... assuming they haven't already contracted it.
The cure, on the other hand, is positive energy, which can be bestowed by the holy shrine a day's march to the south. The party groans. Erelthrae decides to see if a turn check's burst of positive energy will suffice -- she and Slee both feel AWFUL after it goes off, and the druid frowns and tells them that it didn't work. They should take the potion, just to be safe, and then travel to the shrine.
So Erelthrae, Slee, and the two civilians drink the potion -- Abbey and Steve refuse, K'van informs the druid that he is immune. An hour later, the civilians also get sick -- Erelthrae and Slee are too miserable from the afteraffects of the turn check to notice whether they're still sick or not. Another turn check leaves Erelthrae feeling horrible again, but the civilians and Slee are unconscious and rapt with ecstasy.
Ssethra smiles and informs the party that they're on the road to recovery! A few more doses of the potion, another burst of positive energy, and Erelthrae will be cured to!
At this point, the party starts to suspect that perhaps Ssethra is not being totally above board, but she seems awfully honest -- if perhaps a bit too confident in the effectiveness of her potion. Abbey doesn't trust her at all, though, and has the party stop for the night to rest and not go back to the village, which is nearby.
The lizards are uncomfortable leaving the party to rest exposed in the forest, but say they'll scout around for any dangers and come back in the morning -- that is, after the party's had a chance to rest, as day/night cycles don't really exist in this place.
Abbey follows them stealthily, and sees them NOT scouting for dangers. Instead, they stare deeply into each others' eyes, which flash in unison. They break of in all directions, without a word, the druid heading back to the village and the others wandering off elsewhere. Abbey decides to go back and guard the camp. A little while later, a lizard wanders near her, leading one of the annoying oozes after it... and as the ooze gets close, the lizard's gaze snaps up to Abbey's hiding place. She was spotted? Inconceivable!
But she stays still, and eventually the lizard and ooze leave. Fifteen minutes later, three lizards and three oozes approach her tree from all directions, but she spots them in time to sneak off before the oozes' blindsight negates her stealth, and returns to the party, where she informs everyone that the oozes are controlling the lizards!
The party decides to flee to the shrine, to cure the disease before anyone gets taken over by oozes. They force-march through the night, and are lucky enough not to stumble across anything dangerous.
Abbey experiments with a sample of Ssethra's potion she'd saved in the positive energy chamber -- it bubbles over the edge, and grows into large a patch of fungus in seconds. She decides that putting the infected party members into the chamber would be a very bad idea.
A little later, the surviving female civilian screams, "They tried to make me kill you!" she sobs, "I won't kill for them! Please stop the voices!" At the same time, K'van spots a large group of annoying oozes and lizards approaching from the north, led by Ssethra and her Dire Monitor companion.
Slee, who was under the control of the spores, decides to hide the fact that he was ever infected, even though he makes his save and does not entangle the party (which frees him to act normally for a few minutes). "He's one of them now!" screams the hysterical woman, pointing at him, "Stop him!" She fails to gut him with her sword.
Erelthrae hits the druid with a Silence spell, and the group immediately starts to back off, although the oozes are slow to react and quick to charge and get separated from the lizards. Steve won't take 'run away' for an answer, though, and charges after them -- as a barbarian, he's quite a bit faster, and begins to catch up.
As Abbey and Slee engage the oozes, Steve is lured away from the rest of the party by several turns at a full run -- although Erelthrae is right behind him, following as fast as she can. The fleeing enemies turn to engage him, five against one -- and he proves that they had him right where he wants them, as he steps back and roasts them all with his daily flame breath. The dire monitor alone survives, but misses him for a third time (it got an AoO when he stepped back) and is then finished off.
Erelthrae ties up and gags Ssethra, who isn't quite dead yet, then heals her to consciousness. They rejoin the rest of the party, where the civilians have both been clubbed to unconsciousness and the oozes are all dispatched.
The female civilian is awoken, and manages to hang onto her brief moment of sanity long enough to tell the party that the potion and the oozes were what was actually spreading the infection, and that positive energy was what let it take over a person completely -- using knowledge pulled from the minds of the other victims, with which she is now in contact. She then starts ranting insanely and is put back to sleep.
Ssethra proves much less cooperative, lying through her teeth and contradicting everything the woman said, then insisting that the infection is a blessing that she only wishes to spread for the well being of all, and that the attack group never meant to *hurt* the party...
Steve offers to let her and her people live if they'll give them the real cure, but Ssethra's eyes roll up into her head and she screeches, "WE WILL NEVER ALLOW YOU TO MURDER OUR BROTHERS! LET US GO OR YOU WILL NEVER REST!"
The party is unimpressed, and she is clubbed into unconsciousness. The party rests until dawn. During the 'night', Slee (still under control, but not tied up since he hid that he was infected -- apparently the party didn't trust the woman) tries to free Ssethra, but is spotted and tied up as well.
In the 'morning', Erelthrae casts a pair of auguries: 'What would happen if I put myself into the positive energy chamber?' Since she's not infected, the answer is 'nothing'. 'What would happen if I put Slee into the positive energy chamber?' Since Slee is already controlled by the previous burst of positive energy, this answer is also 'nothing'.
So the party decides to return to the lizard village and search for a real cure. As half of them are tied up and mind-controlled, the result is a chain-gang style precession. They also lack anyone skilled in wilderness lore to help them navigate the jungle, but Abbey's natural luck sees them through.
A half mile from the village, they trip the early-warning sensors and are attacked by the remaining populace -- seven lizards and five oozes. The lizards rush in suicidally and try to free the druids, while the oozes just try to kill people. Ssethra is clubbed unconscious by K'van before she can be freed, and while Slee's hands are untied by a helpful lizard, K'van's grappling manages to delay the removal of his gag until he can be beaten down as well.
The other lizards are taken down with subdual, despite their nontrivial AC, and the party then herds the oozes into a clump, whereupon Steve flame-broils them and kills them all. Too many people are now tied up and unconscious for the party to move, so Abbey and Steve go on ahead to search the village for the cure.
They find a cure, but it isn't enough -- six potions of cure disease hidden in a padded, locked box, the key to which was found earlier in the dire monitor's stomach. They cure Ssethra and Slee, and ask them if they can do anything...
But, no, they can't. Ssethra is only third level. Her old master, the chief of the *real* lizardman village on the coast, could probably help... and, oh yeah, she has a figurine of a silver raven that she can use to send a message to him.
He responds by sending an army -- and after they verify that the village is indeed pacified and the oozes destroyed, takes everyone back and begins the gradual process of curing the fourteen others infected. This takes a week.
Ssethra gives the party the equipment they already looted off her during the attack as a reward for saving her from a life of servitude. They trade in the most expensive piece for store credit towards enchanting some of their weapons and armor -- something the village can manage, although it takes another week to fill all the party's orders.
The lizards give the party a map of the cavern, although they don't know where the gnomes live either, and bid them farewell, as they do dislike outsiders and have had them around quite long enough, even for heroes.
last week next week
