ONG: Descent Into New Depths

Expedition

The Iron Wolves sail into the World Breach, Face it's trials, and enter into the kuo-toa camp home to the Bunolsid.

Beginning the end leg of their journey, the Iron Wolves turn their sails twoards the continental cliff and the World Breach. The first day of travel from the Dire Chain was open ocean. Easy travelling compared to what was to come. The second day saw the companions entering into the caves of the Worldbreach. The initial sections of underground sailing had a breadth of miles. Later sections would squeeze considerably smaller and the a honeycomb of tunnels continued it. The companions lit torches and lanterns for light as well as took the driftglobe to the crows nest to pierce the ceiling for any clinging threats. Daniel cast out bofires acrossed rocks, waves, and walls to guide the ship and make dangers easier to see. Kain delicately sailed the ship focusing more on cutting speed than anything else. Lyle took to shark form with Gregor bestowed lit antlers and summoned waves of beasts through the day to facilitate navigating the unknown black waters.
  The first day in this blackness went smoothly. The second day was more stressful than the first with the same efforts and more being needed for an incomplete day of travel. The companions began to see gargantuan napped carvings of monsterous beasts serving like gargoyles amid the honeycombed caves. This naturally brought attention more outward than focused on the ship and led to a few small scrapes despite Lyles efforts below. As they descended further in, the waterways narrowed and increased in speed. At one sharp turn Gregor had to use the anchor like an Emergency break to make a tight turn. As things got worse, Daniel had Zeran rearrange the storage rooms to allow for multiple temporary shrinkages of the vessel itself to squeeze through tight tunnels with less effort on Kain's part and less travesty in general.
  By what would have been mid afternoon in the sunlight, the companions had used more resources than the entirety of the day before when danger struck. Two squat reptilian forms of the gargantuan stone sculptures cracked their mineralized hides to reveal breath flesh beneath. Two Undertide Crocodiles nearly the size of the ship itself plodded from an island into the waters. Lyle panicked in the waters, drawing back towards the ship before leaving his animal form to conjure a new wave of sharks to defend himself.
  On deck, Zeran took a defensive position on the railing to fight off the crocs if they came to damage the ship but this was not in Gregor style. Valiantly, the giant lept from the deck into the waters and promptly got snatched into the mineralized jaws almost chomped in half in a single bite. Seeing the threat, Daniel sent a psychic lance to annihilate the huge rock reptiles brain causing it to stutter in spot. Zeran followed into the water to save Gregor following up the psychic lance with a plethora of Stunning blows. Gregor then exploded out of the jaw and through the skull as he freed himself mightily.
  Back with Lyle, his rockcroc went straight for the boat until his sharks nicked at it... which got it to turn around but the target the brightest thing present, in this case it was the glowing antlers from Gregor's Light incantation. He managed hold out long enough for all his companions to swarm into the aid though bringing the creature down did not immediately save the snatched up Lyle beginning to be death rolled. Seeking a post-death Bloody End, the croc continued on unfeeling to any of the mundane blows the companions dealt until Gregor dolphin up and came down with a radiant hammer blow. The companions collected a hide and a serrated stone maw before continuing on. Gregor allso took tom back spine ornamentation for his pauldron.
  An hour deeper into the caves found more offshoots of smaller tunnel rivers cascading into the depths Despite this, the companions followed the main flow of water as they had yet to find anything that met the tritons guidance. The guardians( either statue or undertide Crocodiles) was evidence that they had maintained the right path in their search of the Sherbooglursid (Nesting Ground of the Shid). That is, until Lyle witnessed a horror in the dark. Swimming towards one of the offshoots in the wall, the sharkman saw a large piece of driftwood, not uncommon down here, slide through the tunnel for the wall itself slam shut like a rubbery circular maw of teeth, cutting off waterflow for a moment before loosening. As the wall orfice opened, the teeth laying back down like hinged stalagmites, Lyle sped back for the ship to stop.
  In time, Lyle, Gregor, and Daniel would make their way out to investigate. They determined the entity to be nearly 100ft in diameter and nearly 25ft thick before it let out on the other side in a tangential tunnel. The creature was mimic-like but far worse. Thrown objects and pokes and prods determined that it would snap shut when the lower teeth detected pray inside it's body.
  Returning to their ship, deliberation and planning led the party to determine that poking it enough to see if it moved or could be beaten was a bad idea. The Sea Wolf would stay moored along the wall with a Hallucinatory Terrain cast by Daniel to protect the crew as the companions went on alone. Lyle and Daniel would double up the Flying/Enlarge Combo to allow him to carry the party through the monstertunnel in a dinging. But first, they would sleep to be better prepared for what was to come. Daniel put up the Hallucinatory Cave Wall before bed to give the crew as much safety as possible without wasting that magical potential the next day,
  The plan went off fine in the morning with the party finding themselves isolated in the undertide. Lyle took to the waters again and conjured Atohi to fly ahead and report in. nearly an hour into the dark, Atohi did return with news of fire sighted. Lyle sent him back ahead this time looking through the spirit's eyes in reconnaissance. A massive cavern with multiple flat ledges 15ft above the water. Kuo-toa worked in troope to collect detritus that survived the Maw of Q'Nor to feed it into a deep blue slime, prodding it like a mix between and laundry paddle and a fire poker. They had found the Kuo-toa that served the Shid, the kuo-toa from the Cosyen Debris. Knowing this was the place, the diplomacy to gain access to the Shid began.
  Determining that they needed to make a might entrance, Daniel crafted an Major Image of their idea of what Zothix, the Frilled Vane, looked like to enter the chamber before their Dingy. Gregor's Tongues and Thaumaturgied voice was lent to the image filling the echoing cavern. The peasantry of the village scattered in fear but from a cave, the priest of the tribe came out in grandeur claiming Zothix had no right to be here. As he descended from his chambers down to the common platuaue, a wave splashed up to slow and angle his decsent in a show of power. Mirroring and magnifying this though was a column that jetisoned from the center of the cavern's lake.
  The priest and all of the peasantry threw themselves down before a creature rising up with the pillar. A bit bigger than Gregor, a pale humanoid torso of topped and bottom by something quite abberant. The head bored only black eyes, more than it should, and no other feature. The neck was absent, replaced by the large slits of gills. The legs were replaced by four tentacles radially spaced out. In an echoing presence it spoke out to the minds of all. Inquiring Zothix's purpose here, the Iron Wolves made their excuses to give power over to Zothix's “servants” and the serpent made it's magical, ouroboros styled leaving.
  The Iron Wolves presented themselves to the entity upon the pillar of spraying water. Gregor, bolstered by his friends and channeling the divinity of his gods, humbly presented their plead to aid the Shid. The herald of the Shid heard his case with suspicion but insight. They had long failed to cure the wounded one and wished to know how outsiders who had hindered their efforts before could help now. When Gregor presented the idea that a weapon still resided in the Shid and presented one of Zeran's blades, the Herald writhed in pain.. The herald shrank it's head into its body ad the pillar lowered. In agony, it spoke out “The Shid does not want your cure!”. Despite that, Gregor pressed on and as he did so, all the community writhed on the ground in unison, unable to withstand it as much as the herald could.
  The Herald spoke out firmly that it was the Bunolsid, it was the Servant of the Shid, and it was his duty to help his master. In horrid pain, it begged for the party to fix the Shid as it threw a hand out further into the cave. The waters buckled as another Maw, this one under the waters and leading to a chamber below, opened up for the party to gain access to the Shid's chamber.