FEATURED ADVENTURERS:
Afik Bonefinger - Mountain Dwarf Fighter - Level 1: Overcoming fear of the ocean by hiding in shipping crates; PTSD from watching his former crew sink at sea.
Uther Valenz - Scourge Aasimar Warlock - Level 1: Powered by electricity and light, he uses the great electron to cast his spells.
Mox - Goblin Ranger - Level 1: Wanted criminal for flinging feces at local politicians. Known by law enforcement as "The Poop Child."
Varian Bloomstrike - Eladrin Paladin - Level 1: Feywild native powered by the rebirth of Spring. Currently questing on behalf of a druid to find Cera Domri, who was last seen as a crucial element in a ritual under the eerie coastal town of Bellview.
The Great Klardini immediately falls asleep—it’s past his bedtime, so the ancient elf zonks out right at the entrance before he can even shuffle his creaky-ass past the stairs.
“Leave him where he lays,” Afik says. On the high seas, it was always bad luck to touch a sleeping elf. They’re best left on their shelves.
“He's old. He probably does that all the time,” Uther says in regards to the only character in their party who can complete a long rest in only just hours.
The adventurers descend downward, as most descents do. The moldy, black air is heavy on their lungs—what new fiends newly lurk where old fiends oldly lurked? Dagon’s takeover of the church from Umberlee has caused one heck of a fuss—and like the kids nowadays say, “When the gods are fussin’, times aren’t bussin’.”
Speaking of phrases that should have never been written, the adventurers notice (with all their stupid darkvision) that unintelligible, infernal letters are carved into the walls, and where there are infernal letters, there are infernal words; and where there are infernal words, there are infernal sentences! Spread across the stone walls are praises not to Umberlee—but to Dagon! None of the adventurers can read it, but the lettering sure does have a Dagon-ish vibe. It appears Dagon has corrupted this once-also-corrupted-but-by-a-different-evil-thing’s place of worship!
The adventurers reach the bottom of the stairs and step into the worship hall. The underground temple to the great Sea Bitch Umberlee has a massive pool of water on the far end with two smaller pools of water on either side—a smashed statue of Umberlee lies crumbled on a dais rising from the larger pool.
“This place looks like hell,” Mox says, eyeing the place eerily.
“Yeah, I don't like this place,” Uther agrees.
Uther decides to take some copies of the infernal scribblings by sketching out the signage on some parchment he’s carrying in one of his parchment comparchments.
“Good idea,” Varian says about the inscriptions. “But be careful! It might be like ‘I sign my soul over to Dagon!'”
“I'll put some lines through them. Or put some quotation marks,” Uther says.
"Yeah, like ‘I found these on the wall, and I do not endorse them,’” Varian says. “I spent some time in the Feywild. Gotta be careful! Can't just write anything down!”
He's correct. You can't just write anything down! But I can! See? a663+igikgadhlka;y890
They approach the southern end of the worship hall, taking a closer look at the smashed statue. Two candles rest on either side of the statue. Since it’s in the middle of the pool, the only way to get to it would be to cross the water. They investigate the water. It is wet.
Hark!
From further deep in the church's underbelly, past a door on the east that I forgot to mention earlier (but it’s totally there now), they all hear a low, booming chant…
“Oh no! I read about a scene like this in the Lord of the Rings books!” Varian shouts.
“I saw a play one time!” Afik says.
“... Great! Let's talk about that one time,” Varian says.
They stare at the broken statue some more.
"I can fey step” Varian says, referring to his Feywild ability to briefly teleport people small distances.
“Yeah, go get whatever's there and bring it back to us. Us others will stay here,” Afik says, staying away from the creepy water.
Varian approaches the water—everyone else hides near the door in case they need to run out and let him die.
Mox checks the handle on door. It’s unlocked.
“I'm right behind you,” Afik says, right behind him.
“You should be in front of me instead!” Mox whines to the guy who is normally right under him.
Afik opens the door and sees a curling tunnel that delves deeper into the caverns beneath the church. This shit is spooky.
“How big would you say a javelin is? Five feet? Four feet?” Varian says, holding a javelin. In his hand. That he can see. And measure.
“That could be handy! We could build a Da Vinci bridge!” Afik says.
Instead of architecture, Varian takes the javelin and swirls the water with it. Nothing happens. Good! But suspicious…
Uther points at the candles near the smashed statue in the pool. “Can you light those candles from afar?”
“I got ten torches. I can light ‘em and yet ‘em,” Varian says.
Knowing that throwing burning torches at candles isn’t an efficient way to light candles, Mox reaches into one of his many pockets and takes out a small pet mouse: Pebbles! Mox takes a scoop of water from the pool and feeds his mouse—nothing happens… suspiciously!
“You're feeding your pet mouse dungeon water?” Varian shouts. “My thing says I have an animal trophy, but I don't want to have that, so I have feywild mossballs!”
What the fuck does that mean?
Mox puts Pebbles away. “Now we know the water isn't poisonous, so you can probably swim through it.”
“Yeah who has the least armor? Probably this sleeping wizard back here,” Varian says, pointing at Klardini upstairs. “I’m wearing chainmail, so I don't want to get into the water...” He begins to plot, then looks back up at Klardini. “We could put him there as a prank so whenever he wakes up, he’s stuck over there!”
“But you still have to swim him over there,” Uther says.
“Let’s draw straws to see who has to swim him over,” Varian says.
“I don’t want to participate,” Afik says.
“Wait, can we choose to not anticipate? I don’t want to get my wings wet,” Uther says.
Mox steps up. “I'm willing to do it.”
The goblin sets his gear down and jumps into the water. Nothing happens… a bit suspicious? He swims across and puts his mouse on the edge of the broken statue. He swims around the statue to check it out, then sees that it has writing on it that says “All hail the great queen, may she forever rule the waves.” Mox notices the statue is actually made of coral and has some silver coins sitting with the ruble. He grabs them. He also picks up a medallion-sized piece of coral with Umberlee’s sigil, the crashing wave, scribed onto it.
“Do you care about the candles?” Mox asks, looking at the two unlit candles.
“The Sea Bitch doesn't care about candles!” Afik shouts.
After swimming around the statue and giving it a final glance over, Mox swims back to the rest of the adventurers.
“You made it back, little guy!” Afik cheers.
“That’s the farthest I ever swam in my life,” Mox says.
“I’m sure the Great Klardini has something to dry off on,” Uther says.
Varian then casts light and leads the way they go down the stairs for the rest of his party who all have darkvision. They descend a spiraling staircase and find another door at the bottom—a 1-foot-deep puddle of water seeps from beneath it.
“Why, I think I can deal with this little puddle,” Afik says, his heartbeat slowing down a bit. “Anyone got a Xanax?”
Uther thinks. “Hmm, can I cast Xanax? Klardini probably invented Xanax…”
He won’t learn calm emotions until he reaches level 2.
Afik chews up some acorns from the bag of holding, pretending they’re Xanax.
The adventurers open the door and step into a crypt! A crypt, I say! This room features two rows of marble caskets, eight caskets per row. The caskets themselves are looted—broken lids and smashed body parts are scattered around the room, and the whole area is submerged in one foot of water.
“It's starting to make sense! All the stuff I learned in the crate!” Afik says.
The adventurers peer into one of the crypts and sees a corpse all smashed to smithereens. Varian reaches out with his Feywild energy and activates divine sense, searching for anything fiendish, celestish, or undeadish… he detects undead! Now that’s legitimately suspicious!
But something else seems out of place—one of the caskets doesn’t have its lid thrown off. Instead, its stone lad sits snuggly in place, and a stack of rubble is piled on top of the lid… as though something is being held inside…
“Afik, open it,” Varian says.
Afik ain’t afraid of no rocks! He’s a dwarf! He steps up, pushes off the rubble and the lid, and everyone peers inside…
A fishman is inside! Haggard, dehydrated, and emaciated, this creature is clinging to the last scraps of life as though it were a level one high elf wizard. Uther recognizes the creature as a sahuagin, one of the dastardly dastards who, according to Deacon Walter Graham, came down to the cistern with Cera Domri to do all this Dagon shit.
It wheezes, raspy air flapping through paper-thin gills.
Varian pities the creature, so he grabs a waterskin and a full day's rations and throws it onto the creature. It eats the food and garbles down the water. The sahuagin gurgles, “Daaaagon... Daaaagon... traaaitors!”
Afik has his axe in the air ready to swing on the creature—since this creature is ocean-related, he doesn’t trust it!
The sahuagin holds its gnarled hands up at Afik and gurgles out, “Noooo....”
Uther reaches down and picks the decrepit creature up. It continues to mumble in a haze, "Traaaitor… false god... she... betrayed...”
“Sir, are you a saltwater thing?” Varian asks.
“I've got a cloth and a bucket!” Afik shouts.
“Do you want us to fresh-waterboard you, or salt-waterboard you?” Varian, the paladin, says.
They drop the sahuagin into the 1-foot puddle of floor water.
The sahuagin submerges, its dry skin slowly absorbing the saltwater of its natural habitat. It puts a hand over its chest. “Kekishka…” he mutters. “Third... of Scale."
“Is that your name?” Afik says.
He nods.
The adventurers all gesture to themselves and give their names to Kekishka.
“Varian, no scales to speak of. Scaleless.”
“I’m Uther Valen. I’ve got scales on my wings.” He flutters his tiny wings.
“Oh shit you have wings!” Varian shouts.
“Of course I have wings!” Uther says.
“No one told us about that!” Afik says.
“Daaaagon…” Kekishka hisses.
“Acorns?” Varian says, not quite understanding the sahuagish accent.
“Give him the acorns!” Afik shouts, pointing to the bag of holding full of thousands of acorns.
They dump all the acorns on him.
“… nooooo…” Kekishka mutters from beneath the pile of acorns.
“He's so happy he can't even respond!” Afik says.
“Just keep those in water, and they'll grow into trees,” Varian says.
Kekisha grumbles and shoves the acorns off. He slowly stands up. “Dagon… being summoned… must stop... the elf girl... and the Midwife...”
While everyone is only half-listening to what this fish is saying, a tingle creeps up Afik’s spine. He hears a voice in his head, “Bonefinger…”
“Yes?” Afik says out loud, catching everyone off guard. “Who’s that?”
The voice seeps into his mind again. "… You let him die…”
“Who?” Afik panics, then looks at the other adventurers. “You guys hear that? Did Klardini come with us? Is he over there whispering?”
“That man would never whisper,” Uther says.
“Maybe we should check this side of the room, over there!” Afik says, following the voice over to one of the open caskets.
The adventurers give Kekisha a javelin and tell him he works for them now. Varian uses his lay on hands healing ability to restore one Hit Point back to Kekishka. New, amphibious, NPC lackey acquired!
“Come on, fishboy,” Afik says, taking Kekishka with him.
"Ravaged… my people… ravaged..." Kekisha garbles out as everyone investigates the open casket Afik is running towards.
The bottom of the casket is missing! There’s a deep pit inside instead!
Uther casts light on a pebble and tosses it in. The pit is ten feet deep, but it opens up further down where they can’t see from their angle.
“Bonefinger!” the voice booms out from the pit for all to hear. It’s haggard and old, feminine and fierce!
“That's my name,” Afik says.
“Well, she's asking about you,” Uther says.
“Should we go into the hole?” Afik asks.
“They didn't ask for Klardini!” Varian says. “A life not lived to the fullest is a life not lived at all!” The paladin then shoves Afik into the open crypt.
What an asshole!
Afik lands on his feet and looks around—leering back at him is the ghost of an old woman! He makes a saving throw and passes!
“What happened to my son, Bonefinger?” the ghost wails at him.
“I don’t know!” Afik says, not knowing.
“He was supposed to come back with you!” The ghost shouts.
“Larry!?” Afik says, now knowing—Larry was one of his crewman on board during that fateful night his ship went down. “He was the finest potato peeler in all the Navy!”
“Then bring him back, Bonefinger!” the ghost demands.
Afik mutters, “Oh he fell in the water… is there anything else you want? Can I bring something different? How do I know you're even Larry's dead mother!?”
The dead ghost of dead Larry’s dead mother rushes him and places her cold, ectoplasmic claw onto Afik’s hand—the dwarf sees a flashback of Larry falling overboard and his necklace floating up to the surface… the image focuses on the necklace… that necklace… that one possession left behind, the one item that could remind this angry revenant about her son’s love—
“It's Jimmy's necklace actually!” Afik says to her, remembering crewman Jimmy—gosh what a good guy!
The Ghost of Larry Yet to Come Back rips her hand away, and Afik looks down at his own hand, removing his glove—a symbol of a crashing wave, Umberlee’s sigil, marks the top of his hand.
She cackles. “Soon the water will fear you, too…” The shade then fades away into darkness.
Afik turns to the rest of his party. “Hey guys, are you guys up there still?”
“Did you loot the undead?” Varian says.
Afik looks at the bones of the dead woman. “There's some bones…”
“Don’t look at her!” Mox shouts, recalling the old legend of Archduke Zanzibar who, before he ascended to the Archduke of Avernus, had a bad encounter with a ghost during his life as a mortal.
“It's too late for all that. She's gone,” Afik says.
They hoist him out of the crypt and search the rest of area. While searching, they find some loot that was missed in the initial looting—a jade ring that catches the glint of the light is plucked up by Varian, estimated worth of 100 gold pieces.
They search other caskets and find a super pristine banner of Umberlee—the banner is quite untarnished! Too untarnished! The blue tapestry with the tempest wave embroidered into it should be mildewy and nasty. They also find an unlit candle similar to the ones near the broken shrine.
“This is way too new to be here. Is this yours?” Mox says, shoving the banner towards Kekishka.
“No! Not Umberlee! Only god is Sekollah, god of sahuagin!” Kekisha says, pushing the banner away.
Now the adventurers are probably going to forget all this, but that doesn’t mean the readers don’t have to! There are three gods involved in all this nonsense now—to reiterate:
Umberlee is the Sea Bitch goddess of storms, bad oceans, and tsunamis and shit. She resides in the deepest sea of the Deep Wilds. The people of Bellview worship her and sacrifice animals to her from their big rock. There’s a shark that’s attacking the sahuagin who are underneath the chapel—and the sahuagin are here because…
Dagon is the Demon Lord of the 89th layer of the Abyss, and he’s like a super demon god of ocean stuff. He wants to spread his influence, and Cera Domri wants to unleash his magic onto the world to curb the spread of mankind’s influence. Green terrorism, ya know? The sahuagin are influenced by Dagon and have arrived with Cera, abandoning…
Sekollah, the god of the sahuagin and sharks, resides in the fifth layer of the Nine Hells, the Mystery Layer! Yes, it’s called the Mystery Layer. Why? Because of some stupid joke where I rewrote the theology of established D&D lore for one little one-off art joke in Blunder Quest Episode 86: The Fasting Worm at the Serpent Feast. Kekishka sees his sahuagin tribe as traitors since they abandoned Sekollah for Dagon, and they chucked his ass into a crypt to let him die while they assist Cera with her Dagon ritual.
Got it?
The adventurers see two paths out of the crypt—they choose the western one, which leads to a long skinny hallway. You know what isn’t long or skinny? Afik.
“Anything going on in this hallway over here, Afik?” Varian says, finding it difficult to see past the dwarf’s girth.
“I don’t see anything yet. Let’s check this out,” Afik says.
Mox tails behind him.
Afik finds a room that’s almost filled with water, but he’s standing at the top of stone bridge. Water seeps over the top of the bridge, and falling off the bridge looks like a good way to sink to a watery grave. On the other side of the flooded bridge is a valve!
“Now's your time!” Afik says to Varian.
“Now’s my time?”
“Yeah, you can use your fey step on this one because there's no way I’m walking across that bridge!” Afik says.
Varian analyzes the situation. “Well, the hazard here is water. We have a new friend here who knows water!” He looks towards Kekishka.
“Yeah we can throw him over there,” Afik says.
“Or ask him nicely!” Varian says.
Uther steps in, “Yeah, but the implication here is that he does have a choice, but he doesn't.”
Varian gives Kekishka another point of HP with lay on hands. The sahuagin sluggishly hobbles to the other side of the bridge. He’s still exhausted. Soon he arrives at the valve.
“Is it safe, lizard boy?” Afik says.
“His name is Kekishka the Third Scale or something like that,” Varian corrects him.
“Hey, is it safe?” Afik says.
Kekishka nods.
Afik tiptoes to the other side, taking his steps gingerly. He remembers the words of dead Larry’s dead mom’s dead ghost, “Soon the water will fear you too," and he dashes across the bridge, sliding all the way to the other side in a flourish!
“Ah that was smooth! Did you see that?” Afik said.
As Afik finishes his outburst, Kekisha reaches for the wheel of the valve—everyone yells at him to stop.
“What's going on over there?” Varian says.
“This lizard boy is touching stuff!” Afik says.
“Stop calling him a lizard!” Varian says.
Kekisha points at the valve, then gestures to a series of piles receding from the valve. The pipes descend into the murky water.
“Maybe we can drain the water?” Afik says, happy to rid the world of more water.
“Or flood the room and drown us all,” Varian says.
They think for a bit.
A very… little… bit.
“There’s no room for caution in a life lived to the fullest!” Varian says, and Afik grabs the valve and twists.
The water level slowly descends, and Afik twists the valve even harder. The water level drops even quicker—he’s never been so happy to be dry! Except for maybe that one time all of his friends drowned and he didn’t.
That’s when the crabs appear!
Huddled under the bridge was a swarm of crabs—and when the water level dropped, the crabs emerged with their snippy claws getting all chompy and snappy and pinchy! They swarm the bridge, separating Afik and Kekisha from the rest of the adventurers.
Kekishka snarls and hurls the javelin, fighting at disadvantage due to his exhaustion—he skewers several crabs as he rolls two natural twenties on his disadvantage attack roll!
Afik, being quite hairy, is no stranger to crabs. With less water and a newfound surge of courage, he runs over the bridge and hacks at the crabs. Mox shoots an arrow at the crabs, rolling at natural one, then panics as he realizes that shooting a swarm with a bow isn’t too bright.
Speaking of brightness, Uther summons forth the electron power within and emits a web of lightning with his eldritch blast, frying several crabs. “You gotta use your electron!” he shouts above the thunder.
“I have no idea what you're talking about!” Afik shouts.
Varian runs up and hacks away at the crabs with his greataxe while Kikishka bites at the creatures. Afik tries to swing as well but can’t land a hit. Finally, one last booming eldritch blast from Uther vaporizes the crabs and scatters them into a crabtastrophe.
Everyone leaves the creepy valve room and returns to the creepy crypt room. The one-foot deep water is gone—a mildewy, wet ring shows where the water once was raised. Turning the valve seems to have drained water throughout the whole dungeon. The adventurers find another door that leads down—this tunnel would have been fully submerged had they not lowered the water. Now the dank, rank, frankly stank corridor only drips with salt water.
Kekishka holds up a withered hand. “Careful... trap...” He then scratches a picture of a large frog in the mildew. “Frog... dangerous... frog belong Midwife.”
Midwife?
“Careful, trap soon...” Kekisha reminds them as they descend the stairs. He soon holds up a hand.
“Halt!” Afik shouts, and Kekisha throws his fishy hand over Afik’s mouth.
Kekisha whispers to the loud dwarf, “Need... sneak...” he says, pointing at a hidden button camouflaged into the wall.
“Mox! Bring your mouse!” Afik shouts, and Kekisha draws his weapon in a panic.
Mox draws his slingshot, not his mouse, and aims an acorn at the hidden button—he lets loose! The acorn hits the button square on, causing a secret tunnel to open up and reveal a mighty, terrifying sahuagin waiting for them on the other side—it’s weapons are drawn!
Mox shoots another acorn at the sahuagin and pops him right in the eye with it! He massively wounds the creature with his trickshot and loads another acorn.
Afik dashes towards the sahuagin to block him from getting past the corridor—a round man through and through, dwarves are not easily moved (unless you are a boat).
Varian runs up and shouts to Kekishka, “Do you know this guy?”
“Yes...” Kekisha mutters with a sneer. “Locked... me… UP! TRAITORS!”
Kekishka, Afik, and the sahuagin clash in a melee—the sahuagin bites Afik then stabs him with a trident, bringing him down to 2 HP as Uther blasts the monster with electricity. As the sahuagin backs away, another acorn flies from Mox’s slingshot and plows through the fish-creature’s (not lizard!) eye, caving in its brain cavity and sending it to the ground in a dead, wet thump.
Kekishka picks up the javelin and gives to back to Varian, then clasps his hands around the sahuagin’s dropped trident—his preferred weapon.
Afik takes a potion of healing for 7 HP, and Varian tops him off with some more healing with his lay on hands.
“Thanks sir. You are a gentleman and a scholar,” Afik says. “… Your hands are very soft.”
They slip down the secret hallway and see a large door—a terrifying aura pulses from behind the door, like something super scary is behind it. Like really scary! Think of something scary, now think of something scarier than that. THAT’S what’s behind the door.
“Danger...” Kekishka says as they approach the door.
For someone who knows exactly what kind of nonsense these sahuagin are up to, Kekishka could really be more informative!
Afik goes up and knocks lightly on the spooky door.
The door flies open! Behind it are two beefy sahuagin, each armed with tridents—behind them is an open cavern with a patch of rock in the middle—upon that is a haggard, elderly sahuagin with bone jewels and shit all hanging off her. She turns to the intruders, revealing that behind her is a coral altar with a young elf woman lying on top! The elf woman is super pregnant! Like super pregnant! Think of something pregnant, now think of something pregnanter than that! THAT’S what’s upon the altar.
The sahuagin shaman lets out a shriek—she can only be… the Midwife!
The two sahuagin warriors block the way into the cavern. Varian dashes forward and lunges with his greataxe at one of the guards—the guard catches the axe with its trident and sneers at the Feyborn warrior, but not before Mox wipes the smile off the guard’s face with a well-placed acorn fired from his slingshot—Mox marks the creature as his favored foe.
The sahuagin reels from the attack, then Kekishka catches it in the chest with a jab of his trident, seeking revenge against those who entombed him alive. Afik teams up with his not-lizard buddy and hacks the sahuagin in the head, dropping it like a sack of rocks onto sack of scissors!
His victory is short—a blast of radiant energy cackles from the distance as the Midwife gets her voodoo shit together and ignites Afik with terrible energy from a guiding bolt attack, dropping the dwarf unconscious as her cackling laughter echoes within the cavern.
Varian knows he must close the distance to the awful priestess—these sahuagin warriors are but pawns! He uses lay on hands to get Afik up to 1 HP, then zips past the sahuagin still in the doorway and tumbles into the great cavern.
Mox brings up his slingshot and misses with another acorn—this other sahuagin has learned the dangers of acorns! He fears the corn! He fears it, I say!
Uther conjures his negative energy and blasts the area with lightning, creating space to move as he closes in with Afik. He frowns at the dwarf. “Oh man you got hit with light? Come on man…”
The sahuagin who Varian bypassed reaches out for him but misses, and Kekishka rumbles forward with his trident, revenge glowing in his angry fish face. Afik steps back and catches a second wind, regaining some of his missing health, then chucks a javelin to keep the monsters away.
The Midwife throws some reagents into the pools around her and lashes out with a terrible spell—her psychic energy grips Varian before he can cross the pools to reach the priestess and her altar—he can’t move! The hold person spell holds him personally.
Mox pockets the slingshot and draws his longbow, sticking the sahuagin guard with an arrow as Uther provides cover fire with an eldritch blast of lightning.
The sahuagin guard bites and stabs at Varian, who is unable to dodge the attacks due to the Midwife’s spell holding him in place. He drops to the wet floor in a pool of blood! Kekishka charges the foe who slew his friend, but before he can swing, Kekishka evaporates in an explosion of blood and guts—the Midwife lowers her hand, having annihilated her former servant with a guiding bolt spell.
Everyone freaks their asses out and mourns the loss of their new NPC!
Mox fires several arrows into the ceiling as he cries with rage, then sends his final arrow into the brain of remaining sahuagin, slaying it! That’s two sahuagin slain by his missiles!
The Midwife’s honor guard is gone—only she remains!
Uther charges and eldritch blasts the Midwife with a bolt of electricity from across the cavern as Afik pushes back his fear of water and swims across the pool towards the Midwife—deepness be damned! The Midwife reaches into the magic void and conjures a spectral weapon of a trident, then stabs Afik repeatedly as he tries to close in on her. He manages to reach her on the dry land, but his wounds are too deep—he falls unconscious again.
Mox lines up with Uther and lets loose an arrow, hitting the Midwife for 11 damage!
Uther conjures up a lightning-fueled witch bolt and lobs the lasso-like attack at the Midwife, but the fish-bitch dodges out of the way. She returns fire with a guiding bolt, critting her attack roll and blasting Uther back with 26 radiant damage! Uther’s skin begins to crumble, but his resistance to radiant damage keeps him from dying outright. He falls to the wet floor, no longer moving.
Only Mox is standing now! Or is he?
Afik rolls a critical 20 on his Death Saving Throw, and he stands back up with a single Hit Point! He roars ripshit mad into the cavern and raises a bloody axe, clobbering the Midwife with it and spilling her blood on the wet ground—she gargles blood, but she doesn’t fall—she’s hanging on by two whole Hit Points!
The Midwife fires a guiding bolt across the pool at Mox, who dodges out of the way as the blast explodes with bright light on the wall behind him. The Midwife then commands her spectral trident to stab Afik, dropping him back to the ground.
As Afik strikes the ground for a third time, Mox leaps up and fires an arrow back at the sea witch. Her hand, still outstretched from casting her spell, catches the arrow as it pierces through her palm then pins her own hand into her forehead—the arrow pierces her brain, and she plummets to the ground alongside Afik.
The Midwife is slain! Mox has killed every sumbitch sahuagin in this room except for the sahuagin that was his friend!
Mox is “The Poop Child” no more—he is “The Acorn Kid!”
He is also in a room full of friends who are bleeding to death.
Using his urban survival shenanigans, Mox patches up his friends with three successful medicine checks so that they stop bleeding. He can’t stop Kekishka’s bleeding since Kekishka exists in about a hundred different pieces, but soon enough Afik, Uther, and Varian are no longer on death’s door… death’s window, perhaps. Maybe the chimney. But they don’t need to worry about bleeding.
Mox forgot one thing though.
Cera Domri screams from the altar, and Mox panics as he runs up to her. As pregnant as the elf woman is, she looks like she won’t be pregnant for much longer.
“Oh... just hold on!” Mox shouts, running towards her. “Are you expecting to give birth to a terrible tentacle monster!?”
“Yes!” Cera shouts between contractions.
“Is it going to try and kill me?” Mox says.
Cera shakes her head as she holds back the pain. “Too young!”
Mox then says the worst thing you could ever say to a pregnant woman. “Okay, do you want me to kill it?”
Cera leers at him.
“Okay we are not killing the baby monster! What's your name?”
“SHUT UP!” Cera shouts.
“Are you Cera?”
“Yes!”
“I met your dad!”
“I don’t care!”
“Does it help your race to breathe when trying to give birth?”
“I'm an elf!!!”
“I'm like three for three on medicine checks for today—I'll help!”
Mox rolls a 6 on his medicine check.
A tentacle lashes out of Cera and clasps onto Mox’s wrist. Mox doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like this one single bit. The creature tugs on Mox’s wrist and emerges—a tentacled nightmare sloughs onto the ground in a wet, slushy plop. It looks up at Mox, blinking its single eye.
Mox looks over at Cera and asks for any kind of guidance with this situation, “Do you want to keep it? Do you want it to go to the water?”
Cera passes out with a smile on her face. With a small splash, the creature slips into the water and disappears.
Mox is now alone in a cavern with four unconscious people, a new mother, an escaped tentacle baby, and dead fish-people. The Acorn Kid’s having a rough day.
“No one's gonna fuckin’ believe me,” he says, looking at Cera and his adventuring party. “She's passed out... they're passed out...” he screams in frustration, then decides that unconscious people are better in a huddle, so he drags Uther and Varian over to the central island with Cera and Afik.
Since Cera is unconscious, Mox steals her jewelry and other valuable shit. He then sees that the Midwife has a pretty awesome-looking headdress made of coral, baleen, and shark’s teeth, so he steals that too.
He closes the door to the cavern, looks around the room, makes sure there are no other ways out, then camps out. The Acorn Kid needs to rest for a bit and recalibrate his life choices.
Uther wakes up first, standing up groggily. Cera wakes up along with him.
“Is it over?” Cera mutters, still on top of the altar.
Mox is furious. “If you mean did you successfully give birth to a tiny tentacle monster? Yes. If you mean it also escaped into the ocean? Also a yes. Whether that counts as over or not...” he kicks the sand.
“Then it's a success…” Cera mumbles.
Mox then asks about the birds and the bees and the birdbees, “So I'm confused on how your genealogy works—dad, a tree—you, not a tree—baby that came out of you, tentacle monster... see?” He turns to Uriel. “She seems happy about it, and I liked her dad… I think this is a good thing? But I don't know what I witnessed. It’s like the miracle of life, but my granddad was a goblin, dad was a goblin, and I’m a goblin, so I don't know how to make heads or tails of what's going on here.”
Just wait until he reads character creation options for the newest D&D edition!
“Is this a safe place for us to rest for a bit?” Varian says, waking up and rubbing his head.
“Oh yeah, you've been resting successfully for quite a while now,” Mox says.
“I feel like shit here... are we gonna rest here?” Varian says.
Mox yells at everyone, “She gave birth to a horrifying beast that tried to kill me! It didn't really try to kill me—it used me for leverage!” He looks at Cera. “Was that a kraken? Did you make a kraken?”
Cera nods.
Mox’s heart sinks.
“What do we do with this holy woman now?” Varian says.
“We take her to the tree,” Mox says.
Varian gives Afik his last single Hit Point from lay on hands, bringing the dwarf back to consciousness and at three levels of exhaustion from falling unconscious three times in a single day.
Everyone decides to take a short rest to think about this shithole they got themselves into.
While resting, Mox empties out the bag of holding. Inside it, there’s a mess of acorns, a looted ring, an Umberlee flag with the remaining potion of healing, as well as lots of crab meat. Mox eats the crab meat.
“What will you do for ammo with all the acorns gone?” Varian says.
“I have fifty in my belt pouch for ammo,” Mox says.
Like these assholes are tracking ammo in this game…
“Fifty is not enough!” Varian says.
“Well 30,000 is too many! I couldn't find the healing potion during the fight!” Mox says.
“So we put the acorns in a secondary bag?” Afik offers.
They decide to head back to the surface once they recuperate enough. Mox shovels several acorns into the water so that the little slimy kraken has some treats if it ever returns. Afik cradles Cera during the trek back to the surface. Klardini is where they left him, so they pick him up too.
Deacon Walter Graham is waiting for them, and his eyes light up when he sees Cera. “You found her!”
“Sure did!” Mox says.
“Is it done then? Are the sahuagin gone?” the Deacon says.
“Yes,” Mox says.
They are covered in dead sahuagin guts.
“So they're gone then? You killed the Midwife?” Deacon Graham says.
“Yes,” Mox says. “Here we got you a thing! Give him the flag! He'll like the flag!”
“But it's a PSA 10!” Varian says.
They produce the remarkably pristine banner of Umberlee, and Deacon Graham smiles at it! He tells them that the banner is enchanted to never wither and never get dirty—and has been in the towns possession for decades until it disappeared. He believes that hanging it up in the chapel will help restore Umberlee’s influence. He thanks them and gives them some XP in return.
As further thanks, Deacon Graham loads the adventurers’ ship, the Li’l Toot, up with several goods as payment—salted meat, barrels of rum, and sugar! There’s enough on board to make a hefty return of investments back at Semnu Island.
They fuck off back towards their island, Cera in tow. After days of travel, they arrive back at their home port in with quest rewards!
“Let's not tell this sleeping wizard about this,” Varian says, pointing at Klardini, who has been napping for about eight days straight… maybe this is why elves only trance for four hours—they do all their sleeping in one big moment?
“Let's also say we found his spellbook but left it in the church,” Uther says.
“Are we now an adventuring guild?” Mox says. “Do we live in a comfortable home with a place?"
“Like an old mortuary?” Afik says.
“What do we call ourselves?” Mox says.
They argue about different names, places to build shop, how to invest their supplies, but the arguing just leads to more arguing about how to spend the party gold.
“I heard that the legendary heroes of old bought a couch first!” Mox says.
“Yeah, like a casting couch! The wizard will love that!” Varian says.
“He'll be comfortable!” Mox says.
“He's so old!” Uther says
“Can there be an uncomfortable couch?” Afik says.
They decide to continue their debate over a hot meal, so they return to the Sorcerous Maiden with Cera in tow—she’s still with them by the way.
Until now!
As they approach the place where they met Domri, Cera steps away from them and approaches one of the trees. “I'm sure great-great-grandfather is going to be very upset with me,” she says, then steps into the tree and disappears into it.
Cera is gone.
Having returned Cera to “a” tree—hopefully her family member, the adventurers step into the Sorcerous Maiden and eat until they’re content. They go to bed, each find a brooch of the Emerald Enclave on their bed, signifying that they are friends of the trees—Domri must have left it for them as thanks.
They immediately hock the brooches for extra XP.
“Just like he would have wanted,” Varian says.
Speaking of leaving gifts...
टिप्पणियां