The adventurers continued searching the massive vault, wary for any more of the mosquito-like stirges that had descended on them moments before. The size of the chamber led several to wander off distractedly on their own. Bree, the halfling rogue, found herself wandering with her lantern down a more narrow passage that branched off from a larger room that appeared to be filled with glowing green fungi and their swirling spores. As she crept deeper into the tunnel, Bree heard first a chittering then a snarl as a rat as large as a dog lunged at her, gnashing its stained teeth.
Her friends continued their own explorations, not having noticed Bree slipping off down the side passage. Amafrey, a human fighter, found himself in the chamber filled with the otherworldly glow of the green fungus. Suddenly his breath caught in his throat and he began to hack and cough as the dust and spores filled his lungs and sapped his strength. Wheezing, he stumbled back towards the entrance of the chamber to his friends.
Bree stabbed at the rat with her sword and dagger, dealing fierce blows as it continued to bite at her face. Then she heard a rumbling ahead in the tunnel that turned into the deep thud of large steps. Around the corner and out into the light of her lantern strode a nine foot tall creature with mottled green skin, fanged, and long limbs with claws the length of her forearm—“Troll!” She whispered as she began to backpedal. The monster plucked the rat from the ground, spearing it with its claws and dropped the beast into its mouth with a loud crunch. As it did, it let out a roar that echoed down the tunnel to Bree’s friends.
“Where’d Bree wander off to?” Asked Anarath.
“Let the Seven Heavens and Nine Hells take that thief,” said Aina, the strait laced priest of Helm. “How should we know where she wandered off to?”
Thailrill, the Dragonborn holy warrior sworn to follow Aina nodded silently, her tongue ever stayed by her vow of silence.
“All the same, I worry about that halfling. She’s saved you a time or two—“ Anarath was cut off by the echoing roar. “That doesn’t sound good.”
The three began moving quickly towards the source of the noise when Amafrey stumbled into them, still coughing on the foul vapors. Aina healed him with a touch, drawing the poisonous spores from his lungs, but Anarath pushed past towards the bellows.
Bree ran as fast as her new magical boots of striding and springing could carry her up the tunnel, then darted around a corner to hide from the troll. She clamped the door closed on her lantern, plunging herself into darkness. The troll lumbered after her, and she heard it snorting as it sniffed the air, its hot foul breath drifting down to her in the unnerving darkness. She ran a hand along the tunnel wall, stumbling in the dark a little further round the bend in the tunnel. She risked her light to pull out her rope and string a trip wire between a large rock and a stalagmite that rose, taller than her. She waited, watching for the troll up the passage.
Her friends continued moving towards the noise, joined by Amafrey and his ghostly echo, a pale version of himself that he had mysteriously gained the ability to summon and command a mere few weeks ago. Suddenly a massive shape loomed in the darkness, stepping forward to stop in front of Anarath. The wizard drew up short, looking up a the troll that had rounded the corner. He backpedaled, slinging a spell at the creature. Amafrey sent the pale shade forward to attack the monster, while he stood back and fired arrows into it. Aina too fired off spells, the gauntlet of Helm set into her breastplate glowing with the divine energy of the god of the Watchers. Thailrill moved forward to flank the troll with Amafrey’s ghost follower.
Each dealt deadly blows and powerful magical energy buffeted the troll, but several times they saw its green skin knit itself back together after strikes that would have killed a fighter. Anarath pulled at the strands of the weave, frayed though they were from the ravages of time, the Spellplague, and the othe calamities that had passed over Faerun in the centuries since this dungeon was lost to time. He unleashed the gathered force in two bolts of lightning, setting the chamber as bright as the sun for a few brief moments and searing the flesh of the monster. Its bones showed through the skin as the lightning coursed through its unnatural flesh, and it let out bellows of pain. The blows and spells fell faster now, until it finally toppled to the ground, its regeneration stopped by the finality of death.
At this moment Bree reappeared out of a side tunnel “Hello, hello. Quite a nasty brute wasn’t it?”
“And a lot of help you were,” Anarath joked.
“You needed bait, obviously. Besides, you haven’t come face to face with a troll in a tunnel smaller than the hole I was raised in like me!”
They moved through the tunnels that Bree was examining before the monster appeared, but found every one led into the room of poisonous fungi.
“Perhaps we turn about and try another way,” suggested Anarath.
“Aye, but first let’s rest for a moment. This tunnel will do,” said Amafrey. “We know there aren’t any more trolls in it.”
After about an hour resting and checking over their armor and equipment, they turned back the way they had come. Back in the large room where they had faced the stirges they spotted a door, and Aina moved to open it. Within the chamber beyond they saw worded stone, along with old bones, and three pairs of dead eyes staring back at them.
“Unholy creatures of the undead,” Aina cried as she fired a spell into the room. “I rebuke you in Helm’s name!”
The humanoid creatures moved towards them, whispering in unnatural voices that carried through the darkness: “Come join us in the worship of Orcus in the sweet undeath… praise the demon prince who bestows new life to the dead…”
The adventurers dispatched the shambling undead quickly, with spells and blades striking in the darkness.
When the room was once again silent, they paused. Looking through their bag of holding at previous loot, Anarath pulled out a carved box.
“Did anyone want to pull a card from this strange deck?”
Amafrey shook his head, “You pull that strange relic out now? This hardly seems the time.” But Anarath and Bree seemed suddenly bewitched by the cards. Aina too seemed less herself as she considered the deck.
“I’m pulling one,” said Anarath, and he drew out a card. It was blazoned with a bright Sun, and Anarath felt an arcane power unlike any he had encountered prior flow through him. He felt stronger, and felt compelled to consult his spell book. New spells and formula had magically appeared in his own unique shorthand and he felt as though he had always know these spells. “What sorcery is this?”
“I will draw one too,” said Bree, followed by Aina.
“This is a bad idea,” groused Amafrey.
Bree drew out a card that showed a black Void, and suddenly a ghostly shape that mirrored her features floated out of her body. It screamed as it trying to claw back towards her form, which crumpled to the ground. The ghost Bree looked at her friends for an instant, and she shouted “Come find me! Promise—“ her words were cut off as her soul disappeared.
“What in the name of Bahamut?” said Anarath. But it was Aina’s turn too. She drew a card that showed a desolate Ruin. Suddenly her possessions blinked from existence. Her back and pouch, her armor. All that remained was her magical mace and necklace of prayer beads. She looked down at herself, then shrugged as she grabbed a cloak to cover herself from Bree’s still form.
“Ruin doesn’t much bother a priest sworn to a vow of poverty,” she said.
“What just happened?” Asked Amafrey.
“I seem to have gained new powers. Bree seems to have lost her soul. And Aina remains an over pious cleric as always,” said Anarath, reeling from the events.
Aina glanced at him.
“Serves that thief right. Probably the divine retribution of Helm. I thought I saw her stealing from the parishioners at his cathedral in Helm’s Hold,” Aina said. Her words were harsh, but they didn’t match the tears that filled her eyes as she gazed down at Bree’s unconscious form.
“Excuse me?” Asked an unfamiliar voice. “I seem to have gotten lost. Name’s Blaaz. I was dancing in a fairy meadow under the stars when suddenly I found my self in this scary green mushroom garden—do you know where I am?” Asked a goblin wearing a funny hat with a large daisy in it from the doorway…
—-
So to sum up, I now have a ninth level wizard in fifth level party (perhaps it’s good we just switched to XP-based leveling so that the wizard gets slowed down a bit. I actually look forward to the challenge of balancing for the wizard and the others in encounters. I can suddenly use much stronger monsters and the fighter and cleric have pretty good AC. Throw a few extra magic items at them and I think it’ll even out okay.
The rogue getting sucked into the Void is trickier. I checked in on the player following the session to make sure they were okay. They ultimately made the choice to draw and they seem okay with the outcome, although justifiably a little sad about their character. For now, Blaaz, a circle of Stars Druid, will be their new character. I’ve given them options to make a different character if they choose though since Blaaz is a pregen I made for a one-shot that this player used previously.
However, I’d planned on the campaign going extra planar to solve the metaphysical issues in Storm King’s Thunder, so they can probably find and save the rogue at some point as another personal objective. It may even help that they have more personal motivation to seek out special knowledge.
That was a most memorable evening of roleplaying, and I actually think that everyone should try it at least once. It certainly makes me more interested in picking up a copy of the Book of Many Things.
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