Conquering the Barbarian Altanis: Session 46
Adventurers
| Character | Class | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Rhovar | Fighter level 3 | A generic Nordic guy. |
| Kuqhir of the Wastes | Magic-User level 2 | A thin, tall, dark skinned man with a magnificent beard that tickles his bellybutton. Dresses in silk robes and tightly folded turban embroidered with names of all known angels. |
| Rad | Thief level 3 | A young, short and malnourished rogue. |
Thistleburn 5th, Spiritday
“Come on, we have to keep moving!”
“Go on, go on!” Rhovar waved at others in front of him.
“It is time to do the right thing. Pass me the oil flasks! And promise you'll find a wizard to revive me!”
Rad, Kuqhir, Pipluk, and Amanka ran into a dark tunnel and turned right at the junction.
Rhovar on the other hand opted to create as much noise as possible. He wanted the black mass of devouring to follow him instead of his friends. It had already consumed Kallahan and Neremyn.
Skandik warrior could feel his lungs fill with liquid. He found it increasingly difficult to breathe. His sight was getting murkier with every step he took.
“Surely a side effect of that damn yellow cloud I've inhaled...”
He stumbled and turned left at the junction. There he continued onward into yet another junction. The floor there was gummy and rubbery. Rhovar felt as if he was sinking with every step.
Was it a figment of his imagination, his brain deprived of oxygen playing tricks on him, or something else? Little does it matter, for Rhovar found himself engulfed in purple fog. Rhovar's chin hit his chest as he slumped down on his knees and entered eternal slumber.
“Keep moving, just move, move, move!”
Survivors worked their way through meandering tunnels.
“Shit, the other way!”
Seeing a familiar sickly pale light at the end of one tunnel was enough to change their course.
“Uh, another junction...”
“Let's check forward first, it might loop backwards?”
“Good idea!”
Alas, it was another dead end... Until one of the survivors spotted a narrow passageway. It was barely traversable, but Rad managed to fit through—sideways! He quickly backtracked after sniffing that burning acidic smell.
Following the south tunnel the party entered into yet another unfamiliar dark chamber.
“What is that?”
A large floating sphere entered their sight. It was silently levitating in the center of the large cave. The sphere's surface seemed leathery with warty patches. A number of floppy fleshy tubes perturbing from the upper portion of the sphere were hanging to its sides. Some had ball-shaped endings.
“Quiet... be very quiet...”
Amanka remained at the junction, while Kuqhir, Rad, and Pipluk sneaked around the sphere. They wanted to check if there is a passageway at the other side of the cave.
There wasn't.
Turning around they could see that fleshy sphere had a single massive eye on this side. It was closed. Wide mouth with innumerable shark-like teeth dominated the bottom portion of the sphere.
“Pssst—let's get out of here!”
“Ivaar, is that you?”
Pale light approached Amanka just as the others have rejoined her.
“No, my friend. I'm sorry to say, but Ivaar and others from your party are long dead. In fact so are you.” Kuqhir stepped forward to answer.
“What? How? What do you mean?”
“Your name is Grond. We have already encountered you once. Unfortunately, it looked like you've taken your own life away and your gods have cursed you to roam these caves forevermore.”
Having learned their lesson in the previous encounter with Grond, the party went to great extremes to be polite and courteous with him.
At this point Amanka offered the possibility of consecrating his remains. Perhaps that would appease the gods and allow Grond to move on.
“Watch out!”
A large black blob of boiling mass emerged from darkness. It was “merely” ten feet wide and tall—a baby compared to the one that's already consumed some of them.
Grond turned to the mass and then flew straight through it and back. The party marvelled as the blob solidified and then crumbled, until it was nothing but gray dust.
“We know where your body lies! But this horrible thing stands in our way. We will give you funeral rites if we manage to get there!”
“I will escort you there. And I will protect you. Lead the way.”
At this moment Amanka took off her chainmail so she can move as fast as others.
The party went the long way around, backtracking past the cave with wooden sarcophagus, to the illusory cave wall, then through narrow tunnels, all the way to the junction with murder stalactites, until the finally reached the skeleton.
“Allow me to show you how you were...”
Kuqhir demonstrated how they found Grond's skeleton with sword driven through his ribs and his palms resting on the pommel.
“I remember... I wish I found a different way out...”
Amanka, a cleric of of fallen warriors and unsung heroes, spoke funeral rites befitting a warrior fallen in the pits. Rad, Kuqhir, and Pipluk stood in solemn silence.
“Thank you.” Grond said with a smile.
“No, what was it you wished help with?” he asked whilst getting less and less visible with every second.
“Escape! Escape! Escape!” Rad yelled before others even registered Grond's question.
“So be it.”
And they vanished with him.
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