Content Vocabulary
amphora – 1. Ancient two-handled jar. 2. An ancient Greek verb indivating acceptance, eg, I amphora good time.
verdigris – 1. The blue-green patina or tarnish that forms naturally on copper, brass, and bronze when exposed to air, moisture, and weather over time. 2. an indication of a moderate amount, but yet not totality. Eg, I like going to the fair, at least to a verdigris.
Herbonomics – Gold is worth 1/100th of its original worth. No, wait. It’s worth 100 times that. Wait, did we account for inflation? It’s now worth 1/100th of 1 tenth of a teaspoonful of electrum. Paying for enchanted items will include magical tariffs.
By-Mail D&D – All are welcome to play, especially if you are by-mail curious. All correspondence will be hand delivered by your local by-mail mail male, or female, depending on who gets the route that day. Who knows which way the battle will swing?
1 AM, 21st Day, Harvester Moon
Addy, Tene
Owlby, Raist, B&E
Alast, 2Hit
Gare, Lill, Caer
Gowr, Gaba
“OOOF!!” Gowron found himself unceremoniously pitched into a damp corner, arms splayed uncomfortably behind him.
Two-Hit hadn’t fared much better. He could hardly be seen under Owlby’s bulk, his face smushed into her bare backside.
“WHOO!” complained Owlby, her low voice echoing in the cavernous hall.
“Aw, it’s just me, you overgrown carnivorous critter,” said Two-Hit, spitting out feathers and picking a furry pellet from his gauntlet. “I’m the one who got sat on, don’t know what you’re complaining about…”
“Man, these Magic Users gotta work on the accuracy of their Teleportation spells,” complained Birtenirny, “one of these times somebody’s going to get hurt.”
“To who are you addressing that, exactly?” asked Raistlin, dusting off his robe.
“WHOM,” corrected Owlby.
The band of adventurers had Teleported back into the Chamber of the Earth Elemental, right outside the large chamber with groomed dirt floors and a sacrificial platform. Despite having explored most, if not all, of its chambers and dirt-filled halls, they were back to tie up a few loose ends. Raistlin had spent days in the various dusty tomes of Wherewyn’s keep library, and he was convinced he had figured out the mystery of Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas. And, inexplicably to the other members, Adderallean was drawn back to the groomed dirt room and the stairway beyond.
“You just didn’t get enough last time, did you?” asked Lillith, poking Addy in the ribs.
“I just have a feeling that there’s more to it, that’s all,” said Addy. “Besides, we never got those other two doors open.”
“Oh, there ain’t nothing behind those doors except more dirt,” complained Alastair.
“We’ll see…” said Addy, peering around the obscuring curtain, eyes focusing on the faraway doors. “Well, well, well,” he exclaimed, “check it out!”
The party, poking their heads in one at a time, could clearly see that the doors to the stairway had been bashed in, but the two side doors were still shut.
“So, what’s your plan…” Raistlin turned to ask Addy, but the thief, invisible again, was already trekking across the soil, leaving faint footprints with his Boots of Silence.
Addy again approached the doorway, cautiously entering and looking up the stairs. It was dark, but he could just see the stairway upon which he had encountered the Dirt Warrior a few weeks before. Cautiously, cautiously, Adderallean snuck up the stairs, but nothing intercepted him this time. At the top of the stair he found a brown altar cleaved in two. Perhaps he should say Eklavra’d in two, Addy worried. Well, something had happened since he was last here.
Disheartened, Addy padded back across the smooth soil.
Giant ripples flowed across the floor.
Addy quickened his step.
After putting his head together with his mates, Addy decided to head back across the chamber once more, this time with Raistlin’s Spectacles of Seeing, but was concerned about the rippling floor. He just had to get back to that stairway.
Gowron, chuckling, said, “There’s a sign on the wall, but she wants to be sure, ’cause you know sometimes words have two meanings…”
Gaba responded, “Did you know your stairway lies on the whispering wind?”
Raistlin, groaning, cast Fly on Adderallean. As Addy was again flung across the room, arms pinwheeling, the ripples moved threateningly through the soil beneath him, seeming to shadow him from beneath the ground.
Back in the stairway, Addy inspected everything with the Spectacles of Seeing, but still found no new clues. On his return, however, he took a different route and crossed over the pyramid. As soon as he passed over the monolith, four Earth Elementals reared out of the dirt, soil pouring from their eight-foot frames. They moved in toward Adderallean with hands outstretched, as though wanting something. He tossed them a brown diamond, which bounced unnoticed off one of their foreheads. A magical Water Stone was likewise ignored. Even a dramatic recitation of Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas failed to change their reaching postures.
Addy flew up and away from the reaching Elementals into the upper recesses of the room where they could not reach him. He shot Lightning at one of the sealed doors, but the door held.
Frustrated, Adderallean flew out of the room, and the party decided to march back to the triangular Dirt Cleric room until the Earth Elementals cleared out.
“Now, finally, we get to solve one of these infernal puzzles!” claimed Raistlin as Lilith, garbed in Dirt Cleric robe and ring, toted a brown gem and a water stone into the middle of the arcane triangle upon the floor. She was Teleported instantly to the dirt mound at the entrance. She planted both stones and waited eagerly to see what would grow from the soil. And waited.
And waited.
“Dammit, Raisty, I thought you said you had the puzzle solved and that we would reap what we sow, and I’m sowing like a little Vietnamese kid in a sweatshop, but I’m not reaping anything except a headache,” Lillith complained to the air.
Moments later, she was whisked back to the Cleric chamber, empty-handed.
Back to the sacrificial groomed dirt chamber for one more try. Addy pinwheeled across the room once more, landing in the stairway room. This time, Addy popped out the hinge pins from the double door, and the door fell flat onto the dirt with a dull fwump, creating a bridge across the danger dirt to one of the side rooms.
Lo! This 10×10 room shone with treasure; inside lay a pile of gold, another of platinum. Addy could also spy a suit of ring mail and a mysterious flask.
“Ha! Nothing but dirt in these rooms, huh, Alastair?” whispered Addy, planning to grab a handful of dirt to hand to his friend as his share of the spoils.
But first, to get to that other room. Repeating the hinge pin trick, the other door fwumped to the dirt. Addy waved across the room to his onlooking friends and did a little ballerina twirl onto the door, showing off. As he broke out into a credible moonwalk, however, the door tipped, and he fell flat on his back onto the soft dirt. Just as he started to laugh and sweep his arms and legs back and forth in the soil to create a dirt angel, a hundred hands reached out of the soft soil and clutched Adderallean, pulling him slowly down into the dirt and an early grave. His laughter died there in his throat.
Immediately, Two-Hit raced across the dirt floor to his friend, Raistlin hot on his heels. Tenebrus, however, had another idea. Instead of going directly to his friend’s aid, he sprinted toward the pyramid. As soon as Tenny’s foot hit the pyramid’s step, the Earth Elementals again emerged, and the hundred hands slid back down into the depths.
Two-Hit and Raistlin grabbed Addy’s arms and hoisted him onto his feet.
“Tryin’ to get a hand job, was ya?” drawled Two-Hit. “Reminds me of that time back behind the dwarvenage – that’s a dwarven orphanage – when Three-Hit and me…” his voice trailed off as he and Adderallean gaped into the 10×10 room lying open before them.
In the middle of the room lay objects that could only be of great import. A multi-faceted red spinel cast a hundred vibrant little lights that danced redly on the walls and ceiling. There, beside the gemstone, were a shining gold ring, a morningstar mace, a coil of rope, a brass box, and a wooden case. Later, spells of Identify showed the haul to include a Ring of Protection +1, a Rope of Climbing, three jars of Keoghtom Ointment, a Wand of Paralyzation, and a Potion of Diminution.
Addy reached out into the chamber and grabbed a handful of dirt and tossed it into his purse for Alastair.
Once the party had regrouped, they divided the spoils, dumped the treasure back at Keep Wynwhere, and Teleported back to the foyer where they had entered the Chamber of Elemental Evil months ago. The four portals still stood, glowing. The portal that featured reliefs of earthen scenes now looked somehow dull and shadowed, but another one shone, a glow resplendent with the special shine that comes from Dungeon Master preparation.
Once the adventurers stepped bravely through the glowing portal, they found themselves in a hallway lit by torches softly flickering in the cool air. There, in front of the party, were two great copper doors. Upon the doors were carved in fine detail crashing waves, fish jumping, seagulls dipping, mermaids lounging upon rocks, and little shops selling overpriced clothing that said things like “I went to the Temple of Elemental Water and all I got was this lousy tunic.”
Exploring the hall to the East, the party found themselves in a 40′ diameter room with an arched dome ceiling. In the center was a pool of water, lined with special stones. A huge ring was cemented into the wall, and hanging from that ring was a huge, heavy chain, and attached to the huge, heavy chain was a five-headed Hydra.
From somewhere, a fellow wearing a hood and baggy pants but no shirt came running. A name tag pinned to his skin read “Malakii, Curator of Water Elemental Evil, Keeper of the Hydra.” The pudgy fellow ran up to a lever and threw it, releasing the Hydra. The fellow turned to look at the party and cackled.
“Hydrate, don’t diedrate!” he crooned above the snorts, growls, and howls of the various Hydra heads. He then stood back and watched in eager anticipation, rubbing together his pudgy hands.
The Hydra reared three of its mighty heads and gnashed teeth in the two others, stepping with eager menace toward the cowering party.
Raistlin, hardly paying attention, was busy filing his rather disgustingly long fingernails. He looked up at a particularly loud roar from one of the heads, and offhandedly cast Cone of Cold from the fingers not holding the nail file.
The Hydra dropped into the pool, dead.
Stunned for a moment, Malakii the Curator/Keeper then let out a long wail and stepped toward his beloved beast. He looked up toward the adventurers with anguished eyes for a moment before breaking into anguished sobs and dashing away into a doorway in the wall behind him.
The adventurers followed.
Something was amiss with the Keeper’s quarters. Although Malakii was a human, or at least he had looked human, these seemed to be the quarters of a Lizard Man. Reed mats upon the floor, a smoking fire pit, fish drying.
Hearing a splash, Addy ducked back into the Hydra room. Upon returning, he reported that the Hydra was gone and there was water on the floor as though splashed there.
A small room off the Keeper’s quarters was full of bones and excrement, and stunk like fish. Small mounds of dirt and stains abounded. Rags were pressed together into a nest-like pile.
Suddenly, a lump in the nest pile moved.
Tenebrus whacked it with his javelin, and a Giant Rat ran out from under the rags, even more startled than Tene.
Tenebrus poked around in the pile until he hit something hard. Brushing away the filthy rags, he found a treasure chest marked with a glowing rune.
Tene’s eyes lit up. “Ooh, a rune! Should I?”
Everyone else was already backing away and shaking their heads.
“Dude, nobody wants you to do that. Read the room,” said Birt.
“Read the rune? OK!”
As everyone except Addy sprinted out of the room, Tenebrus spoke aloud the rune, his voice suddenly guttural and deeply echoing.
The Death Rune immediately sank into both Tenebrus and Adderallean, and both men dropped to their hands and knees, heads hanging, barely conscious. “
After several Healings and a solemn group promise to not go reading any more random runes, the party opened the chest and found it full of electrum coins.
In the next room, the party encountered more piles of dirt and stains like in the previous room. This room also featured gouge marks as high up as ten feet on the walls. Tenebrus used his Ranger’s eye to determine that they were from the claws of a Sahuagin, a seadevil.
As the party poked around the room, Tenebrus recalled what he knew of the Sahuagin from the single-subject picture science reader books he had read and re-read back in school. At least when he had not been reading from his extensive collection of Choose Your Own Adventure Paladin Porn books.
“They usually live in salt water, as I remember, but will venture out on land to hunt living things, like, for sport and for eating, they’ll take out boats with the help of their shark buddies, and they’ll even raid coasts. They’ve got this whole societal system. They usually live in undersea cities ruled by a king, with nine fiefdoms ruled by princes. I believe this was based on the nine levels of hell, you know, since these guys are devil worshippers. From what I remember from the pictures, they kinda look like Aquaman had a butt baby with the Creature from the Black Lagoon.”
“Wow,” said Garrett, “You remember all of that? I bet when you took the comprehension assessment you scored a M.W.”
“M.W.? Like Mark Wahlberg?,” asked Gaba, “or does he go by Marky Mark now…?”
“Who? What are you…? No, M.W. You know, Measurable Worth. Didn’t you get grade cards in school?”
“Can we get back on the gosh-darn-infernally-bedamned track, here?” broke in Two-Hit, spitting on the floor. “That’s good to know about the Sahuagin, though.”
In the hall beyond the clawed room, the rangers found more sign of sea creatures: the rangers identified Lacedons, Kuotoan, and Koalinths. Following Tene’s example, the party put their heads together to remember what they knew of each to be prepared as possible if they had to meet them.
Lacedons were just like ghouls, except they lived in the water. That meant they were deranged but cunning corpse eaters that could paralyze you with a touch, and if they killed you, you became a ghoul, too.
Koalinths were basically underwater Hobgoblins. These big, ugly dudes had gills and could fight in the dark using infravision.
Kuo-toa were mad, fish-like humanoids that even had the big, unblinking eyes. They were bitter enemies with drow elves. Somehow, Tenebrus knew all about how the Kuo-toans were led by violent, fanatical priests and how they worshipped a fictional goddess named Blibdoolpoolp, who had a human body and crawfish head and claws. “According to the ancient tome written by the Lankhmarian anthropologist and historian Dungeon Dad, ‘they invented their own deities, completely made them up… but their madness fuels such an intense and zealous belief that their gods actually became real. They worship entities that are said to be impossibly ancient yet only became into being though the Kuo-toa’s deranged beliefs…”
“And what’s wrong with that?” asked Bertnernie testily.
“Oh, nothing, nothing at all,” purred Lillith.
There were more gouge marks in a corner room that was covered in filth and featured a chain ringed to the floor such as one that might hold some fearsome beast, but now lay upon the floor, empty. There also was a big chest that, once Adderallean had bypassed the Needle Trap guarding it, held a magic arrow and two potions.
Next into a chamber that had obviously been meant to be used as a chamber of one of the supreme functionaries of the Water Temple, but upon the copper throne sat a slimy Suhuagan, crossbow and net readied, trident and spear crossed behind the throne. The party blinded him as Adderallean threw his Net of Entrapment. Just as the Net fell upon him, the Suhuagin slipped into a hatch in the floor, a splash echoing up through the open hatch. Not one of the brave adventurers have any interest in following into the darkness below.
The weapons left behind were of Sahuagin make, including one that had been crafted to fight the undead. Like Lacedons, the party realized, which are basically undersea undead.
The next room proved to be similar, but for lesser Water Temple functionaries. Just as the adventurers began to explore, however, the Suhuagan came in, aiming a crossbow at Gaba. Raistlin promptly stepped in front of Gaba, his Cloak of Displacement swirling. Meanwhile, an invisible Adderallean was already sneaking behind the fish-smelling Lovecraftian douchebag holding a crossbow in his webbed hands.
Lilith was especially gifted using Tongues, so she spoke up, “Look, we are just trying to protect us all by finding the Water Gem…”
In between gill gasps, the dripping fish creature assured her that it was being well-protected by the Suhuagans, much better than she could do, and it was well out of reach of air breathers such as them.
“I prefer the term ‘mouth breather’, thank you,” corrected Lilith.
Tired of this fishy fuckstick pointing a weapon at this friends, Adderallean jumped him, subduing him so he could question him further. The Suhaugan lashed and kicked out, limbs almost unjointed, scratching at Adderallean, injecting poison.
Seeing Addy struggling with the Piscean piece of shit was simply too much for Caerwyn, who already had near intolerance of any whiff of an evil alignment. She threw her Rope Dart of Entanglement, not stopping to consider that this might make it even worse for Addy. Indeed, the devil-worshipping tuna man was now not just scratching Addy with his webbed toes and fingers, he was biting him, as well.
Several swords bit into the creature at once, and he died bitterly upon their blades.
The party walked into the Hall of Verdigris, which, as Tenebrus reminded the party, referred to the tendency for certain metals to green in the air. And indeed, there were various wrought copper sheets upon the walls depicting eels, octopi, fish, and other sea creatures slithering and swimming about. But it was not just the metal that was greening in this hall, for there permeated everything a green magic luminosity, making everything appear underwater. The green light was almost heavy, and cast ghastly shadows underneath the statues of more aquatic animals, as well as statues of elves in each corner, standing high upon their plinths. In one horrid fountain-like feature jutting from the copper sheet, ghastly fish heads spat water into a basin, which poured into another basin, which poured into another, which poured into another. After these four basins, the water flowed then into the floor. Also of copper is a altar, coins within the water. a drapery fashioned from seaweed covers an alcove. Above, mists and shadowy buttresses obscured all sight of the dark heights of the chamber.
The party spread out, investigating various corners of the room. Raisty was looking at a copper carving of a lantern fish through the Spectacles of Seeing, and across the room, Gaba had noticed that the only thing not covered with a blue green patina in the room were the particularly buoyant breasts of a mermaid figure hammered into a decorative copper sheet, when all heard a noise from above, and looked up. Ominous sounds echoed from the misty, shadowed heights. Giant limbs could be heard skittering around in the upper reaches of the buttresses, and a soft, whispered chittering descended, growing more excited as it neared.
Giant Water Spiders dropped suddenly out of the darkness onto the floor, their abdomens heavy and pulsing, and their eyes – so many eyes! – all focused on just two brave adventurers: Birtenirny and Rastlin! Birt cringed in horror at the sight of the giant spider scrabbling toward him, slaver dripping from hairy fangs folding and unfolding in front of its black hole of a mouth, but held his ground. Raistlin threw his Cloak over his arm and started humming the Toreador song, Magic Missiles already warming in his other hand.
Both Shelobian she-spiders missed their lunges, but the companions missed not. Almost at the same moment, maces, spetums, swords, and magic missiles make contact with the bulbous bodies, splattering hot spider innards all over the chamber.
Finally the party realized that they really should know what else might be lurking above the shadowy mists over their heads.
As Lilith unspooled her new Rope of Climbing up into the air above, Tenebrus grabbed hold with one hand, his other thrust jauntily on his hip, a shit-eating grin upon his face as he slid into the darkness above.
Tene’s bravado quickly abated as he rose above the obscuring mists, however, and found there huge, glistening spider egg sacks attached with long, sticky strands to the ceiling.
Quietly, very quietly, Tenebrus snuck back down the Rope of Climbing.
Meanwhile, below, the party had been messing around with the basins. A coin tossed into the basin was repeatedly met with a sensuous female voice crooning, “thank you for your gift to the Water Temple.”
That is, until Gaba, excited, dug deep into his purse and threw in the gold tenpiece his grandfather Gooba had given him from his deathbed.
“Uh, thanks, bud,” was his only reply.
As Tenebrus related all he had seen above, Raistlin began to quiver and twitch. “Can I… can… can I… cast… I wanna… I need to… f… fire…. fire, fire, fire…!” Raistlin closed his eyes, took a deep, shuddering breath, and put his boney fingers upon his forehead.
“Yeah, please, go ahead,” sighed Tenebrus. “Definitely no M.W. up there, am I right, Garrett?”
Everyone backed into the hall as a flash of heat and light exploded in the recesses above, flashing darkly in the mist like heat lightning above a cloud. Down through the dark mists fell globs of something that turned out not to be spider guts, but boiling hot globules of gold, hissing as they melted onto the floor, valueless.
“Well, it’s just like my old Gams used to say,” piped up Gowron, “it’s better to rip open every spider egg sack you see than risk missing out on gold and all its attending glee…”
A long, uncomfortable silence was followed with several questions all at once.
“What are you even…?”
“The fuck did you just say?”
“Was your Gams hot?”
Everyone agreed that it was time to call it a day.
Despite the riches wasted upon the floor, the party knew they had found plenty of riches this day. The magical items and weapons had already been distributed, the electrum and gold would all be counted and tucked away in one of the treasury chambers deep under Keep Wynwhere, and the experience, friendship, and bravery gained would be weighed upon another scale altogether.
Besides, they knew Wherewyn would have the kettle on the woodstove and a fire in the kitchen hearth, and he himself would be sitting at his great oaken eating table, half-asleep over some giant tome, pretending like he wasn’t worried and waiting up for them.
