Enjoy an incredible dramatic reading of this month’s edition of The Chronicle by none other than our scribe himself!
Word of the Day:
Tarn. A small alpine lake crate carved by glacier.
Herb Rule XLIX.Q.43.2.vxlii.e(1.14):
*We are now seeking to roll low rather than high.
*This is more like percentage/odds. It also is one fewer step.
*add bonuses positively
*must roll less than or equal to number
*See Classification of Armor Reversal Re-Education Scale for graphic representation.
Overheard:
“Do you need my nuts to hold down the paper?”
“Throw your nuts over here…”
Party:
Alistair, Gabba, Lilith, TwoHit, Raistlin, Owlby, Caerwyn, Garrett, Adirolean, & Tenebrus.
(TwoHit John, Kevin’s new character, is a Ranger Bard from Appalachia)
Starday, 1st Day of the month Wealsun, Year 586
“Shhh, now, Little One, Mommy will be back before you can say Ixitxachitl… This is the last day we have to do this, I promise. Mommy just has to go work one more day for the grumpy little masters and then they will come take off that mean ol’ chain from around your neck and finally, finally let us go free. Won’t that be nice?”
“Grrgl plop,” replies the infant umberhulk, its dark eyes reflecting confusion as it once again tries to move toward the warmth of its mother but is yanked back by the cold, pitiless chain.
The adult umberhulk stands and takes one last, lingering look upon the helpless little umberhulk, running a talon lovingly over the toddler’s chitinous exoskeleton.
“Who do I love, Little One?”
“Grrgl plop,” replies the infant umberhulk.
The Mother turns away quickly, hiding a single bloodred tear that rolls down her mandible and splashes on the cold stone floor, and braces herself to face her final day of servitude, the last day she has to guard that mouthy, mean-spirited elf. The last day! Finally, she will be free of the constant terror, the horrible thoughts of what would become of her beloved offspring if, for some reason, mama couldn’t get back to her baby. It there alone, slowly losing strength as it calls out for its mama over and over again, even with its last breath, with no relief from the smothering dark silence…
She shakes her great, chitinous head and slips out of the chamber, her baby’s endearing chittering growing softer and softer behind her. Finally, she thinks, finally she can quit all the monstrous posturing and take her baby back to the umber community lair and raise her with all the doting love in her 7-chambered heart…
Now accustomed to his party’s timing on big adventure days, Raistlin had forced himself to stay awake until the wee hours the night before their adventure. Raist has spent the majority of the restful hours in meditation and spell preparation, knowing that he’ll be able to sleep in until at least ten since they’ll be leaving at elevensies. But after two too-short hours of blissful sleep, Raisty is awakened by Alastair, chipper as fuckall, ringing a little bell and singing some self-important song he must’ve learned at Cleric Camp:
“Oh, the rain falls not on all the same
and the morning light lights only the paths of some
you’re so lucky to be granted the grace and fame
of teaming with a Cleric™, your charismatic chum!”
“Come on, you godless sleepyheads! I’VE gotten a full night’s sleep, and all you faithless woke hippies want to do is sleep the day away! We’ve got MONSTERS to fight! Glory to Gain! Evil to Vanquish! And so much Experience to Raaaack upppppppp… oh, wait.
Never mind.
Right. Um. Let’s see. Let’s try this again…
We’ve got, well, we’ve got, you know… Gold to Get! Copper to Collect! Silver to Snatch! Electrum to Select, um… I mean, it’s get rich at all costs, right?
Alistair’s chipper voice becomes background cadence as the battle-worthied party sets off, falling into comfortable step behind those they know would protect them with their lives, just as they themselves would protect those behind them.
And then, a door.
Ready for what may lie beyond, Adirolean has been waiting for just this moment. All those self help books, globe-scried therapy sessions, late-night talks with the mirror, telling him that now is his time, it is his time to take the lead. He takes a deep breath, and then he throws his shoulder to the oaken door.
And heaves he mightily.
And strains.
And heaves again (which may very well be the source of a later hernia).
Not about to be seen as weak and unmasculine, Adirolean takes a step back, remembers the mantra his life coach taught him, and throws his chi straight through the door.
Unfortunately, the door keeps its own chi very much intact.
Kind of uncomfortable watching their friend obviously hurt himself against a solid door, the companions take the next opportunity to throw their own weight in with Addy’s, and with a mighty, “heave, HO!!!” they all crash their combined masses into the 3 inch oaken door.
The door shudders a little, and stands just as solid as before.
Lillith, sighing and rolling her eyes, points to the sign above the door which reads “Pull”. Shooing them away impatiently with the fingers of one hand, she easily pulls opens the door with the other.
Into a hallway tumble our fearless adventurers. With the Readers of Seeing, Raistlen spies a secret door in the hall, and it takes Lillith no time to figure out the door mechanism, which requires depression.
On the other side of the door lurk two anhkegs, hungering, lusting to supplement their dirt diet with fresh meat. Raistlin throws his companions a look, eyebrows arched, that communicates his intent, and lashes out with all the pent-up aggression of a sensitive only child who’s spent his life trying desperately to avoid existential disappointment and self-obliteration could muster, in the form of lightning bolts from his outstretched, boney fingers.
Charred, dropped to their knees, the insectile monsters spew their digestive juices in reflexive defense back at their attacker. Raistlin, his robes shimmering, appears to their compound eyes to be in several places at once, and their hatespit hisses ineffectually on the floor. In the same moment, however, Tenebrus and Alastair pounce from both sides, blades swinging in tandem, using the “scissor” maneuver they’d been practicing every night for months.* That, plus the various bites, hacks, and rope dart slashes take the anhkegs the rest of the way down to their chitenous abdomens and into bloody stillness.
*At least, that’s what they’ve been calling this maneuver. Not sure why they practice it in their bedroll late at night, however.
Door protocol takes the adventurers safely into another room, and in this one they hear another door slam just after they open the door. This room has two shut doors, a mud pool in the middle, and an East-West lever pushed to the West position. However, repeated thrusts of the lever back and forth make no discernible change, and rocks and ropes thrown into the puddle only prove that penetration depends on hole viscosity, a lesson Lillith has been trying to illustrate for years.
All in all, they spend an extraordinary amount of time flipping the lever and messing with the mud.
Exasperated, Tenebrus finally casts Identify, and he immediately disappears.
Hasty checks in the hall confirm that their companion is nowhere near, that he is truly good and gone. Slowly the companions look up at each other, expressions of concerned horror growing on their faces. Silently, in the folds of his mind, Raistlin lights a quiet fire under the hope that his warriorfriend still lives.
After moving quickly through a string of rooms with similar mud puddles and levers, the adventurers happily come upon their young friend in a confusingly similar room.
Tenebrus is happy to see everyone, but wastes no time in telling the party what he has learned. After casting Identify, he found himself in a smaller 20×20 room with an opening to the South. And there was a North-South lever pulled into a Southern position. Tenny heaved that lever to the north, and in the next moment found himself in yet another room. Several times he traveled between similar rooms before being found by the company of his friends.
On they explore, happy to be reunited, into a long room filled with piles of dirt neatly lining the room. Under the cold white light of Alistair’s glowskull (which he likes to call “Bright Eyes”), the party can begin to make out more detail, and that is when they see the unending variety of body parts jutting out at obscene angles from the piles, body parts from species known and unknown.
Tenebrus and Caerwyn use their ranger skills to find that there are also tracks of some insect of incredible size. The party members swivel their eyes over the room.
“Perhaps these jutting limbs are meant for food for their insectile brood,” whispers a wide-eyed Caerwyn.
Alistair, unnerved, throws a nearby rock into the middle of the room.
A ripple of rocks emerges in the west and passes to the east, crushing everything in its sweep, huge debris flipping carelessly about.
The party backs out and quietly closes the door.
On to another room. This one has been covered with frescoes, images of humans worshipping piles of dirt and earth. Piercing the ceiling are hanging vines, or roots perhaps, huge and coiling. They do not look safe. Lilith, always on the lookout for new friends, casts Speak with Plants, and settles down in criss-cross applesauce to have a dialogue.
“Hey, friends!”
“Um, hey?”
“How’s it hanging?”
“Really.”
“We are but friendly murder hobos passing through, and we have a few questions for you. For one, what lies beyond your ever-so-lovely drapery of root?
“Beyond is the sacrifice. Beyond are the Four.”
“Will you hurt us if we touch you?”
“We will not harm you, but we will make you nutrient for others.”
“Oh. well then. Who are the four?”
“The Four are hungry.”
“What is the sacrifice?”
“The sacrifice is of her.”
“Her who?”
“The elf who takes more than gives.”
“Mkay. What is the sacrifice to?”
“The sacrifice is to the earth.”
“How is it, um, executed?”
“We only do plantings by the cycles of the moon.”
“OK, I think I’ve heard enough,” says Raistlin, and digs out a bulb of garlic from his stores to throw onto the offering pile, along with his best dirty joke: “what’s the worst thing about ass-raping a 5-year old hobbit? Getting the blood off of your jester suit. Oh, and having the last name Epstein.”
The vines wriggle happily toward Raistlin and part, forming a path for him to walk through. The other companions follow suit, tossing offerings that are received by happy wriggles and parted pathways, and as they pass through, they notice a rope dangling alongside the vines.
“What’s the rope for?” asks Lillith.
“The rope is for our maintenance,” answer the vines, and as the companions group together on the other side of the vine curtain, they notice that the rope is now on their side.
On into the room they stalk, weapons readied, wondering what type of sacrifice they are coming upon.
It is a long room, and at the far end, a dark, hulking shape can be seen guarding a barred cage.
“It’s an umberhulk,” whispers Adirolean as he slips by the adventurers, invisible. “I’ve got this.”
The adventurers wait with held breath, until suddenly a Net of Entrapment appears and constricts mercilessly around the umberhulk; the umberhulk crashes to the floor, unable to move anything but its head, which is swiveling around the room, trying frantically to catch anyone’s eyes. Uncharacteristic whines–-almost like pleading–accompany the umberhulk’s furtive movements.
Adirolean’s voice calls out shrilly to his friends, “Fear the gaze! Avoid the gaze at all costs! The gaze will pervert your mind with confusion! Do not engage with the gaze, no matter what!“
Raistlin, shaking his head in wonder at the sudden fierce mania in Adirolean’s voice, overhears another sound, barely audible, coming from the bound umberhulk nearby.
“P p pllleaaase…” it seems to be saying in broken Common. “Please, d d don’t k k k k kill mmme. P p please. M my l l little onnnne. P please, it’s the l l last d day…”
“Hey, folks,” pipes up Raisty, “hold on a second, do you hear…”
But Caerwyn, issuing a gutteral growl, has already stepped forward and lashed out with her Rope Dart of Entanglement, slamming the creature’s chitinous head down hard upon the stone floor and holding it there, mercilessly.
“Thus always to Monsters!” cries TwoHit, as he swings his axe, and the party gleefully fills the creature full of cold steel and magic missiles.
“Ah… never mind,” sighs Raistlin. When it is all over, he bends and closes the great eyes. Raist can just hear the umberhulk, with her last bit of breath, whisper something that sounds like “L little onnne…”
Inside the bars of the cage lounges a mature female elf, leaning against the wall and polishing her fingernails on a bright pink shirt which reads “I ❤️ MELFS”.
“About time. The fuck ARE you people? And is this supposed to be some kind of fucked up, pathetic-ass rescue?” she asks, looking down at her nails, which appear to be filthy.
“Damn straight!” says Adirolean, appearing suddenly. He is leaning roguishly against the bars and smiling his most charming smile.
“You always charge in and kill shit without bothering to understand the situation?” she asks, not looking up.
“Damn straight!” replies Addy, still smiling.
“Well, somebody get this leering letch away from my cage and get me the fuck outta here.”
As the adventurers extract the mouthy elf with the blistering tongue from the cage and make ready to move, they learn her story. It turns out she had been hired to come steal some diamonds, but she had been captured and was about to be sacrificed.
Once a promise is extracted to take the party to these diamonds, the sharp-tongued elf is placed in the middle of the crew, and they head out.
To the north. Opening a door, the party beholds a gruesome scene. Strewn about the floor in various poses of excruciating pain are the bloodied corpses of clerics. As the party cautiously inspects the room, Tenebrus follows a blood trail that curves around the end of a bookshelf. He notices the shelf has been pulled away from the wall on that end and just as Tenebrus begins to tell the others about this secret passage, Adirolean slams the door to the hall shut, looking like he has seen a ghost.
“There’s a Neo Otyugh in the hall,” Addy whispers shakily, “I definitely just saw a Neo Otyugh, and I rather think it saw me…”
Just then comes a forceful knocking upon the heavy oaken door.
“Who is it?” Gabba calls out, in his most hospitable voice, but is immediately shushed by the companions.
The knocking becomes fervent, and Gabba, realizing his mistake, shouts “Dave’s not here!” as he backs away from the door, which is now shaking dangerously on its hinges.
“In here!” shout-whispers Tenebrus, as he scrambles around the end of the bookcase and into the secret passage. The others follow hastily.
Beyond are more rooms, these with various urns and bowls upon tables, and a scroll upon which has been written plans of the dirt worshippers. A further room appears to be some sort of storage, with crates stuffed with straw and bottles. Tenebrus pries up a loose flagstone, under which hides a stash of electrum coins.
The next room is much the same, a storage room full of baskets and clay jars. Upon inspection, one clay jar contains some porridge grains. Another jar holds too many porridge grains; another holds not enough. But something feels off to Tenebrus. There is a faint smell of sulphur, and a slight airflow–barely detectable without the finely honed senses of a ranger–which leads Tenny to a hatched door in the floor. Too excited to stop and think, Tenebrus yanks open the hatch. A spear shoots out of the wall, triggered by the rather obvious trap, but it only grazes him. Tenny doesn’t even pause to inspect his bloodied shoulder before plunging down the ladder to claim his plunder.
Potatoes.
Ten sacks of them. All marked with a logo showing a stylized fireball and the initials, “NV”.
Disgusted, Tenebrus climbs out, shaking his head and muttering something about “show you skills of measurable worth.” Raistlin, curious, peers down into the hidden cache through his Readers of Seeing and laughs out loud. The sacks, magically disguised, are actually full of silver coins.
Further exploration brings the party into the rooms with mud pools and levers that Tenebrus had already explored when previously he had placed his hands on the lever and was sucked off somewhere.
On into a chamber dedicated to heavy labor: a grindstone and a work bench full of tools tells that story. More mysterious, however is the small altar with a pile of dirt on it. Alastair, curious, pokes at the pile of dirt with his bo staff. Underneath, there is a cup with a hole in its bottom, a piece of rotting wood and some rotting leaves, along with a greasy substance. At first mention of greasy substance, Raistlin starts to move toward the door, but Garrett looks long at the objects, scratching his beard in thought.
On into a chamber flickering with yellow light from sconced torches and a wide stone fireplace. The air is warm and still, and through the unsettling slow dance of shadow and light cast by torchlight, the party can see that they are in a chamber shaped like a giant L. There are workbenches with hammers, bellows, metal bars, slag cast about haphazardly. Just as Raist picks up the bellows and starts puffing air into Alastair’s ear, something dark, slimy, and horribly hungry drops down from the dark ceiling on top of most of the party. A Lurker from Above! Already it has begun its relentless constriction of its prey, and panic falls thick on many. But not Raistlin. Annoyed at having his fun interrupted, he rolls his eyes and casts Blink, disappearing from the inside of the hungry trap and reappearing right behind it, elven sword already hacking. And just in time, too, for Owlby, not at all OK with the situation, gnashes and tears, her beak bloodied, her talonclaws swiping deep gashes, somehow owl-dispassionate and bear-angry at the same time.
Those outside the Lurkers’s constricting perimeter lose no time and step forward to challenge this monster who has their friends; all who have something sharp and pointy hack at the horrible creature, their slashes desperate, racing against the time the Lurker’s digestive juices will take to subdue those trapped.
Finally, the Lurker shudders violently, and dies. Those who have been hacking desperately now lean against the walls, breathing heavily. Those who have been below the Lurker wring the digestive juices from their belongings and take thankful breaths to be alive.
Yet another chamber, this one has a small altar against one wall, and a thin alcove against the far wall. The alcove draws some of the party, and they can see that on the far wall of the thin, walled-in space is some sort of writing, too small to read. But not for Wizard Face! Raistlin, holding his magically cast face in place, carefully reads the words written there, scratching them into the dirt at his feet. Garrett sees what Raistlin is doing, casts Comprehend Languages, and reads aloud, “All who are worthy may pass.”
Something in the phrase pricks Tenebrus’ ear, and he stares hard at the alcove for a moment, before hurriedly slinging his pack open in the corner and digging for something.
Garrett, meanwhile, is also up to something. He strides into the previous room, takes the broken cup and plugs it with the piece of rotting wood, and, taking a deep breath, he scoops up some of the dirt from the altar. Holding his breath, he quickly ambles up to the empty altar and dumps the soil into the space.
There is the deep sound of stone grating on stone.
The party looks up at the alcove and notices that there is now a 2′ diameter hole, and inside, a blue flame–flickering, dying, flickering.
In walks Tenebrus, dressed in the stone-studded regailia kept from his last visit to the Temple of the Earth Elemental, feeling cute, plucky, and worthy AF. As he strides confidently into the alcove, the floor immediately drops away from his feet.
He slides down, and down.
Finally Tenny crunches to a landing, the opening he has fallen through now just a tiny rectange of light far above him. He shakes his head, and looks about. Huge heat signatures, at least four of them, are coming closer and closer. Whatever they are, they have obviously overcome their initial hesitation and are now approaching faster, movements full of malice.
Lillith’s head pokes into the tiny rectangle of light far above Tenny’s doomed head, and shouts, “grab on!” Tenebrus can just see the coils of rope dropping in the failed light. Not enough time…not enough time! thinks Tenebrus but ties a quick climber’s loop around his butt and gives the rope a yank. The rope begins to pull him upward, but too slowly, too slowly!
Into the scant light lurch four Shambling Mounds, dripping patches of sickly green slime from their vegetative arms, arms which are reaching, reaching for Tenebrus. And, oh, their touch, it itches and burns at once, it tears at the flesh…
Above, the team tasked with hauling Tenny’s trap-prone ass to safety feel a sudden yanking on the rope, pulling and swinging. The companions exchange worried looks, put their shoulders into it, and pick up the pace, but the Tenebrus that is pulled up does not look nearly as cute and worthy as the one who went down. Now bloody, muddy, and pissed off, Tenebrus is determined. After securing himself tightly on the end of Lillith’s rope, he strides confidently into the alcove, already reaching expectantly toward the flickering blue flame. Again the floor falls away, again Tenebrus topples into the darkness below. By the time his friends again pull him up, Tenebrus is digusted with the whole situation. Grumbling, he makes his way away from the alcove and can be seen inspecting the door out of the room.
It is not just Tenny’s resources that are depleted, however, and the party decides it’s time to call it a day. As the teleportation to Keep Wynwhere begins, the companions slump against the floor and against one another, suddenly overwhelmed with the weight of so much death and danger, ready for a good night’s sleep.
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