Session 25: One Legend to Another
General Summary
Narrowly escaping the Magistrates, our heroes find themselves in a large marble floored room with three sets of doors; one to the left, one to the right and one in front of them, with two dragon skulls pointing towards it. Now closer to the core of Thrast than ever, the anxiety grows heavier and heavier. As Yash approaches the door to his right, he feels a swirling motion in his stomach, as if he is pulled towards it. Peeking through, he only sees a dark hallway. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a voice speaks up in draconic: "Beware the path of The Qulvo".
Usze questions Yash if dragons used to roam Thraast, but he disconfirms. Heeding the voice's words, the group closes the door and instead heads through the door the dragon skulls point towards. Entering the next room, they see a young dragon's skeleton. The eye sockets start glowing green and it continues to speak, revealing itself to be the source of the voice. This dragon was once king Faelax's pet, but now rests here. It tells the group there are two roads leading towards the well's location. The door they first approached was the path of the Qulvo, while the other is the "Path of Heroes". It has no sights on the Qulvo path, but could assist the party if they choose the path of heroes.
Taking his offer, the skeleton dragon opens a door and the party moves through. "Beware of the unseen", it says as the door closes. Walking through the hallway, they enter an odd room with many different platforms. A big door placed flat, a few square ones and a row of slow spinning plates. Nothing is underneath except a dark void of nothingness. Seraphina manages to make it closer to the door easily, but Lysander attempts the spinning plates, only to fail and hold on for dear life. Yash uses his misty step to get onto the plates and helps the young researcher up.
Then out of nowhere, black monsters with wings appear and attack our heroes, along with sudden blasts of wind coming out from beneath the platforms. Seeing Raine will have trouble jumping and manoeuvring with her full plate armour on, Lysander turns himself into a giant eagle and flies over to carry her towards the exit. Unfortunately as they cross the pit, a strong blast of wind strikes them from below, and against all odds it breaks the wizards concentration. Lysander and Raine both fall down into the depts. The rest of the party has no time to mourn as they attempt to make their way through the exit door, which is locked. All while fighting off the monsters that plague them.
Seraphina gives a few a good whipping, but is relying on her kunai to take out one in the distance. Then, with a good shot from his rifle, Vic takes out one of the monsters in a single blow. Seraphina compliments him and they high five, while Usze looks on judgementally considering two of their allies just fell to their death. Yash looks down into the abyss but sees nor hears anything. He then misty steps through the door and finds himself in a very hot room. He turns around and sees the door has no lock on it or anything. He bashes it, but it does not budge. On the other side of the door, Usze attempts to use his ring of the ram, a ring he picked up in the armoury, to break through, yet it is not enough. Seraphina moves him aside and gives it one hell of a bash, making the door fall out of its hinges. Yash manages to catch the door in time before it crushes him, and then uses it to block two invisible blasts of wind coming his way. Some of the hot air manages to escape the room and the temperature becomes tolerable. Usze, Seraphina and Vic run in and manage to escape the platform room in one piece.
############ EDITOR'S NOTE: Vic canonically says "Poggers". ############
The four heroes look around and find themselves in a room with three statues. Two to the side, one in the middle, all made from different material. Strewn around the floor are small scraps of metal, as if something was made or broken there. They all have plaques on them made from different materials than the statue itself, describing how the individual died by the hands of the fey; Burned, dissolved in acid, drowned. Yash then notices the middle statue's last name is the same as his, and realises it is a statue dedicated to his mother. He has some trouble processing this, as it is the first time he ever heard of his mom. Behind the statues is a prison door, and on the other side are two more statues, yet an empty spot where the middle one should be. Seraphina tries the door but it is once again jammed. Yash teleports to the other side and finds three shields of different sizes and materials on the walls, the same materials the three statues in the first room were made of. Vic being quite the handyman, is tasked to inspect the metal scraps on the other side of the door, and Usze casts dimension door to teleport himself and the gunslinger to the other side.
Seraphina, being the only one left behind the door, notices movement from the middle statue. It suddenly attacks her. Vic and Usze start firing through the bars of the prison door, all while Yash attempts to solve the room's puzzle by taking a plaque of the same material as his mother's statue from one statue, then placing on his mother's. He attempts to pull it free, but its harder than he though. Usze manages to break off a piece of the mother statue's helmet, and sees underneath something... Pulsating. With that the rest of the head cracks and a clump of pink flesh filled with gross teeth emerges, lunging towards Seraphina, biting down on her and holding her tight. She manages to break free and continue to fight.
While Yash is struggling with his plaque, Usze rips off one from the statues next to him, and passes it through the door to Seraphina, who then hands it to Yash. He pushes the plaque against the statue's stand.
No effect.
The statue continues to fight until Yash feels a bubble in his stomach. Recalling the plaque on the statue mentioned a vat of acid, he responds to it, and a large blob of acid is shot out of his mouth, dissolving the monster and the statue in an instant.
With the monster gone, the door flings open. Usze asks Yash when he learned to do that, and he tells him he gained the ability when he drank the golden Qulvo from the jar they found in the armoury. The four check up on each other and then move towards the shields on the wall. After some attempts, they figure out to use the cause of death for the statues on the shields that share their material. Opening a water skin, they drop some drips of water on the wooden shield. It completely dissolves and reveals a passageway behind. The group moves in and find themselves in wat seems to be a cavern. In the middle of the open area, a humanoid figure stands, seemingly made of the sludge. It claims itself to be a messenger of the Qulvo, and explains how they are a single hivemind, and if everything joins them, there will be no need for conflict or war.
The messenger further explains how the god king Atrox had made a pact with them, but then betrayed them by coming to Thraast and using the Qulvo's powers for conquering other planets. It then surprisingly asks the group if they wish to join the Qulvo in an alliance, but after a few seconds of silence, Usze turns around and walks out. The messenger seems unfazed and turns to look back and whatever it was doing before. The rest follow suit, and the lizard mutters to himself how many times he has been asked to make an alliance with someone. Back i nthe shield room, Seraphina opens the next shield with a matchstick of fire, revealing a dark corridor behind it. Usze uses his demi-wyrm familiar Smitty to look inside, and sees a thick spider web with what seems like a cocoon in the shape of a person in the middle. It is alive.
Yash, Vic and Seraphina all walk in. Seraphina attempts to get rid of the webs but finds it not only to be very strong, but also super super sticky. Yash uses Leecher to smack down on it, but alas is stuck as well. Though he then uses misty step to teleport away and free himself. They asks the creature in the cocoon if it wishes to live or not, using one muffle for yes, and two for no (also three for "I don't know"). Once more recalling the plaque's words, Seraphina hands Yash her dagger of poison and he teleports underneath it, managing to cut the webbing with the special weapon. The cocoon is slightly cut and parts of the person's face are revealed; a sunken eye and a pointed ear. The person then suddenly speaks Sylvian.
Realising this person is a Fey, Yash immediatly gets hostile and demands to know who he is and what he is here for. The Fey explains it once was a spy for the Fey, who came here thousands of years ago during the war in order to gather information on the palace as well as the well. He doesn't know exactly where it is, but he could point them towards it. Usze at this point has also come in and tries to get Yash to calm down. The fey spy asks to be set free, and points at Usze, claiming he is the only one who can help him get his freedom. Usze asks how, and the Fey explains he must be killed by the Lizard. Usze does as instructed, not thinking it through. They Fey gets one blast straight to the head, and falls down cold. The group asks him why the hell he didn't let him talk first and show them the way, and Yash is even more angry, wanting the Fey to have been left alive and suffer for the rest of eternity in the spider webs.
They take out the final shield with the poison dagger and enter a hallway. Not being cautious enough, Seraphina and Usze walk forward and trip a small wire. Two arrows shoot straight at them. Seraphina manages to catch hers mid-air in a cool fashion, but Usze is struck in the chest, and is poisoned. Yash checks the rest of the hallway for traps and finds a good number of classic tripwires and pitfalls. They make it to the end not setting off anymore traps, and open the next doors to find themselves in yet another marble floored room, beautifully decorated with golden armour sets. On one end of the room is a large golden casket, and on the other a hallway with a large pillar in the middle, decorated with a chiselled out mouth. Yash and Vic inspect the casket, while Seraphina walks towards the pillar to see what's behind it.
Then, the mouth on the pillar moves and it speaks to her, greeting her while speaking in anything but a formal tone. Seraphina greets it back with a "Nice day today isn't it?" and asks it where they are. The pillar explains they find themselves in the tomb of the old king Faelax. The pillar introduces itself as... David. It was once alive and hung out with The Guardian and others, revealing the Guardian's true name to be... Clyde. Aside from that, he explains that behind him are three paintings that are all tests. Only two people can go in at a time. Looking at the paintings, our heroes notice that within the one depicting a large pile of gold, Lysander is resting within a treasure chest. In the middle, the painting depicting a swamp, Raine was seen sleeping. The right, showing a cavern of magma, was empty.
David the pillar man was willing to share more, but not for free. He did not want money. Yash gives him some tea he brewed up, but despite loving it, he desires more. Usze pulls out the Jar of Preservation that belonged to Ruuch (See campaign nr.6) and feeds it to the pillar. It crunches down on it, breaking it into hundreds of shards. Satisfied, it gives the group three hints: For the rightmost, cauterise the wound. With the middle, beware its magic. And to the left, smoke obscures, fire hurts. These go both ways. After some debating, the group splits as follows: Usze and Vic will enter the right painting. Yash will go with the middle, and awaken Raine. Lastly, Seraphina will enter the one with the gold pile and Lysander.
As Seraphina enters, she sees a giant Hydra sleeping on top of the pile of money. Disregarding stealth, she immediatly rushes towards Lysander, waking the monster up. She shakes Lysander awake and yells at him to "cauterise the wound". The boy is startled, especially seeing the massive monster behind his comrade. He climbs out and the two engage in combat.
Vic and Usze land in a cavern adorned with magma geysers and rivers. Two clouds of thick smoke float ominously, and in the distance a monster they have never encountered before lurks. As it tries to move itself further from one of the geysers, it spots the two heroes and dashes towards them, attacking them with its sharp mantis-like claws and scorpion-like tail.
Yash finds himself in a dark swamp surrounded by thick trees and thorn bushes. Before him lays the skeleton of a dragon, the same one from before. It reveals itself to be the pet dragon they spoke to earlier, and allows Yash to awaken Raine. As he does, Yash asks what he is supposed to do for this test. The remains of the dragon simply reply with "You kill me, or I kill you". Vic drinks a potion of heroism as Raine comes to her senses.
Seraphina punches one of the heads in its throat, knocking it out in an instant. One of the other heads then rips its off, and Lysander sees his chance, firing a fire clad rock towards the wound. Unfortunately it was not powerful enough, and as Seraphina celebrates taking out one head, it regrows, much to her surprise. Lysander explains they must defeat and cauterise each head in order to properly kill the creature.
Usze grabs a flask of oil he bought long ago in Trascarr and breaks it upon the monster, after which Vic grabs it and dunks it head first into a magma geyser. Unfortunately before it could fall in completely, the creature used its two claws to catch the edges and pull itself out. Still covered in magma, some of its skin starts to melt off. Vic manages to land a few shots on the strange monster, but Usze has more trouble considering he is still poisoned. After a bit, one of the geysers erupts spitting chunks of flaming molten rock towards our heroes and the monster.
Chunks of bone fall from the sky down upon Yash and Raine, and Yash orders her to cast a wind barrier above them in order to blow all bones towards the dragon. The idea works, but is cut short immediatly by the dragon attacking Raine directly. She takes a large necrotic hit and loses her concentration. Yash has to resort to simply attacking the dragon head on, but before he knows it the trees around them start to lunge out with their roots, and one of them takes a hold of Raine, attempting to pull her under the ground.
Another head strikes towards Seraphina and she grabs it by the teeth, twisting it and breaking its neck. Again it is ripped off, but this time Lysander succeeds. He slips underneath the monsters legs and right before he is mauled by one of the heads, in a mixture of panic and adrenaline, fires an all powerful chromatic orb straight into its mouth, travelling down its throat, burning up its entire head and neck. The creature having no heads left, falls down lifeless.
Utilizing the cover of the smoke, Vic successfully shoots the monster time and time again. Another geyser erupts, and this causes the monster to use what remains of its wings to fly over to the corner of the cave, and from there fire at our heroes. Usze seeing Vic's plan, and not having too much fight left in him, also decides to jump into one of the smoke clouds. The monster then flies back towards him and uses its tail to stab into the cloud, managing to make a fatal blow to the Lizardfolk. However, the amulet of Rebirth he took from Ruuch pulses, and gives him just enough energy to stand. He jumps out of the smoke, and fires one eldritch blast at the feet of the monster, crumbling the earth beneath it making it slide into the magma river. The creature jumps up in an attempt to take flight, but is shot once more in its wing, causing it to lose its momentum and fall down into the molten rock, dissolving and burning alive.
Yash manages to save Raine from the trees and get her back up, but it is short lived. After managing to fight off the dragon's many attacks, Raine is once more struck by the dragon's head, which chomps down on her. Falling unconcious, the trees their roots once again entangle her. "Now its just you and me, Thraastian..." The dragon says. Seeing his ally fallen, Yash's emotions allow him to fully strike the dragon's skull thrice in a row, chipping away at its frontal bone. Yash then gives Raine some more health, but the dragon takes this opportunity to let yet more bones fall from the sky, and our heroes are both pierced. The roots are not yet done with Raine as she is pulled closer and closer to the trunks of the trees. Yash frees himself, as the dragon skull flies off to hide behind a wall of thick spiked thorns. "I will pose a choice Thraastian. Either me, or the girl. Make your choice, but know her life depends on it".
"She can take care of herself" Yash says as without so much as a flinch, he dashes through the thick thorns, jumping up into the air and turning invisible mid-jump. He then strikes the beast more and more, crushing the skull piece by piece. Raine is almost completely gone, but as the beast attempts to grab them, Yash dodges it and with one massive bash of Leecher, crushes the dragon's skull completely. As the green glow fades from its sockets, it's voice can be heard one last time. "I'll raise my tail to you, one legend at another..."
Our heroes all wake up outside of the paintings they entered. The pillar man David greets them and congratulates them on successfully beating the tests. He tells them the middle door can now be opened for the *final* test before the well. Our group, battered from their fight and in quite bad shape, are allowed to rest up to an hour. Lysander and Seraphina bond over how well they fought together. Vic places Usze against one of the walls and he looks at them, being reminded of his old travel companions. After a few minutes the pillar calls for the Lizardfolk. He looks him up and down and then says "Yup", calling him the chosen one. Lysander is confused asking what that may mean, and Usze suggests it may be because Rashall ordered him to save Thraast (see campaign nr.20). To their surprise, David has no clue who Rashall is. The middle door opens and our group move forward.
On low health, barely any magic power left and having not rested fully since before they came on Thraast, the party is about to face their biggest uphill battle yet. Will they succeed and be able to make Thraast whole again? Or is this the final chapter in the story of the Drowned Sunset? Who knows...
Report Date
09 Jan 2022
Primary Location
Related Characters
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
Comments