Dark Dungeon
Listen to a Podcast Recap of our Adventure
Floating twenty feet above the dark pool rises, dripping,nothing less than a Beholder. There is no beauty in its hateful eye. Dukonner backs away, mouth agape. For once, there is no look in Duky’s eye other than that of horror.
Tiny promptly steps forward. “Oh, Powerful Beholder,” we greet you.” The beholder squints aggressively, and sensing that he’s losing him, Tiny offers to play the giant evil eyeball a song. The beholder is intrigued. Tiny launches into an old dwarven lullaby, tuned to the frequencies of magma, slow as the geologic process itself. The eye stalks droop. Realizing what is happening, the central eye suddenly flashes wide and blasts Tiny with a power that renders his magic useless.
Adirolean, ever paranoid, has been preparing his attack, and, rendering himself invisible, was able to level his Wand of Frost. His blast damages the eye stalks, but also pisses off the aggro eyeball of evil. Addy is hit by a Disentegrate blast from one of the awakening eyestalks and barely survives.
Then Dukonner, still backing away, trying to not bring the eye’s attention to his own actions, is hit by the dreaded Death Ray. He is dead but a moment before, however, before his Ring of Regeneration brings him back to his short life.
Meanwhile, one of tne of the eyestalks, especially bloodshot, focuses in on Tiny. Tiny does not back away, rather looking defiantly right back into the soulless pupil, raising one meaty middle finger, just as the eye fires Disintegrate, blasting our beloved friend into a million sparkling pink particles. Only the after-image of his boldly bright tutu remains in the eyes of the adventurers. That, and the long memories of countless nights spent together around a campfire, and the laughs, and the tears, and all the reckless adventures shared. Many a heart disintegrates right there along with Tiny’s corporeal existence.
The Beholder’s other shots miss, and, in the slow, unreal unfolding cold time that is trama, the adventurers unleash all their grief and fury. In a storm of arrows, magic missiles, and Caerwyn’s new rope dart of entanglement, the Beholder is mastered. The Beholder will trouble no one again, ever. He sinks into the pool, dead. The adventurers barely have the wherewithal to explore the evil pool, finding some treasure under an old skeleton and a bottomless depth that they dare not plumb.
Just as the adventurers begin to give in to their grief, leaning into one another with tears for Tiny, however, a young dwarf stammers their way into the room, asking for none other than Dukonner. The dwarf hands him two scrolls: one in Common and one in Dwarvish. As Duky sounds out the words (Thanks to Hooked on Dwarvish Phonics!), his mouth hangs agape and his beard begins to tremble. This missive has informed him that a barely-remembered tryst Dukonner enjoyed the last time we passed this way has led to another short life. Dukonner is a Daddy! And it turns out the baby’s momma is none other than a princess, a princess whose father the kind has just passed, leaving an empty throne with Duky written all over it…
Dukonner is stunned, as are all his companions. After only a minute minute of deliberation, Dukonner stumps up to each of us, clasps us by the forearm (or calf, as the case may be), looks us in the eye, and turns fearless to face his fate.
The rest of us, shaken to our cores with the loss of our dwarven companions, stumble our way out of the Moathouse and take refuge in the Tower.
Starday, Coldeven 22, 586 AG
Having regained some measure of our spirit, the adventurers boldly approach the Temple of Elemental Evil. A tall wall, misshapen with grotesque shapes of things not alive and yet not dead, twists its way away from us. The gate hangs broken open, and so the way seems, too, until ten of the gargoyles we thought to be but decoration tear themselves from their rocky roosts to tear screaming at us, black claws slashing.
Yet another epic battle ensues.
After dispatching the gargoyles, the adventurers walk around the perimeter of the Temple, searching for hidden entrances. Nothing found, they find themselves back at the enormous main doors, deeply etched with evil-looking runes. Everyone who attempts their reading is left with either a deeply troubled sense of evil or the desperate feeling of Dexterity slipping away. Raistlin, still shaking his head over his dwarven friends, focuses his eyes on the present predicament for the first time, utters “Knock”, and sinks back into his reverie.
The mighty doors swing open silently.
Herein, the adventurers encounter a vast scene of decrepitude and utter evil surpassing anything they had thought possible. Unspeakable evil is depicted in scenes all around them, and as the adventurers run their fingers along the bas-relief showing the story of the Human Centipede marching to meet its enemy, Tiny Hands himself, they realize that they are far out of their depth. Evil obviously reigns here. As they explore, the intrepid explorers find various pillars and artwork in groups of four–the four elements, they presume. There are even four broken weapons lying upon the bloodied floor underneath the obviously well-used altar in the shape of a spread-eagled human.
Beyond a heavy curtain, the party draws up short at the sight of a Mindflayer, splayed across an earthen throne, its tentacles twitching lightly as he reposes in absent thought. After a quick planning huddle, the party steps forward to engage with the Mindflayer. It invites those with the highest intelligence to step into its presence. After a hasty Millers Analogies Test of Intelligence Quotient, Caerwyn and Bertenernie step forward. Immediately a silvery thread snakes from the cranium of the Mindflayer to those of our stalwart heroes. First, their minds are forcefully injected with the backstory of the overall plot, and they are reminded of the context that drew together such unlikely allies as our party and the Ilithids (Mindflayers). They are reminded how Eklavdra is seeking to bring together the four elements in order to bring about the Fifth Element. It is up to Bruce Willis and Milla Jovavish to stop Gary Oldman from enacting this cataclysm, for Eklavdrad’s ignorant actions will achieve nothing less than the end of all the Planes of Existence. Then these two passingly intelligent recipients of the Mindflayer’s message are shown two scenes. In one, other Ilithids on the hunt for the gems of the elements so as to impede Eklavdra’s attempts. In another, Eklavdra herself, cloaked in a deep, swirling blackness and slavering with anticipation, clutching a small purse that seems to already hold one of the elemental gems for which she yearns, as she searches through a watery world. The Mindflayer then lazily tosses us a golden wand that will transport us to safety, and then sinks back into its inward repose.
Downstairs, we solemnly trod. There, we are presented with four doorways. We half-heartedly begin to map the doorways, and it seems obvious that they lead to the four Elemental nodes within the Temple. The travelers, however, find themselves too weary and full of XP bitterly won to push forward this day, and they all group around the Mindflayer’s golden rod, touching it with exhausted hands to be whisked back to their Tower and safety.
There, Raistlin stays awake long after his companions, studying the notes Gabba had taken. He fears he understands all too well what he reads there:
wanderingxpsociety.org 