Interesting session, this one. Very interesting…
We began in the lagoon, where we found the gate leading to the tunnel exit. It was locked, and the only way of getting through that we could see was a hand print beside it, which we could not get to work. Instead, after looking around, I followed the trail of an unknown individual who turned out to be a dead blue person, the giant holes in him that killed him caused by teeth. Teeth from something big.
We took our newfound corpse and made our way to the tower in the centre of the lagoon, figuring we should probably check it out before leaving. It was empty, so we ascended up its three stories, which were full of black glass devices that were like magical computers, to the observatory at the top, where we happened to alleviate the owners of the burden of having too many potions and a helm of telepathy. No big deal.
On the way down again, we decided to check the coffin-like beds on the second floor. Three were empty, but the fourth actually contained a blue lady. We woke her up, and she explained that she had been asleep for weeks and if her friend had been bitten to death it meant the monsters were out of control. Upon further investigation, she determined that her boss had gone crazy and shut off the three filtration towers.
She asked us to help her turn them back on and find the rest of her people, and we agreed, so she made us a hand. She sort of grew it in a machine and injected it with her own blood to make it… functional? I don’t know. But it was now our new key, so we didn’t have to lug the dead body around.
She also gave us each a little slug with a glowing end to put in our ear – or just sort of cram into my neck, in my case. It was disconcerting, but they allowed us to telepathically speak to each other and the blue lady. She continued to use this for the rest of the session to help guide us, while I constantly relayed everything that happened. I mean, literally every little thing.
We passed through the large gate and found ourselves in a tunnel. Heading down it, we reached a t-junction and decided to go left, walking along until we found the nursery where the monsters were hatched. The floor of the cavern was covered in eggs, so we attempted stealth in the hopes that anything else in there might not notice us. Naturally, we totally ballsed that up, and suddenly a giant, crocodile-headed, turtle-shelled monster was climbing its way out of the silt in the centre of the chamber and staring at us.
The fight began and went really well, considering how terrifyingly powerful the monster was. Some good hits, a couple of lucky breaks, and our consistent and persistent tactics meant we handled it, no sweat. Sure, Mercenary finished the fight on 3 hit points, but no one went down. When it was over, I harvested a bunch of stuff from the monster for Mercenary while our gargoyle friend switched the first filtration tower on. We also had to make a Constitution saving throw from being in the water (the unfiltered water was poisonous, it turned out) which we all passed, but will become relevant soon.
Once the tower was back online, we headed for the next one, making our way back down the tunnel and heading down the other direction. We followed a fork in the path and found ourselves in another cavern with about six crab-shark monsters. I tried to hit them with a whirlpool, which sucked a couple up but didn’t quite work as well as I had hoped, so instead I removed all the water from the cavern, which made it easier for my allies to hit them. Speaking of, they hit the monsters a lot, eventually killing them all. Freakishly, about four of them were separately brought down to 1 hit point before they were finished off. But again, once they were dead, we switched on tower 2.
After the fight, we had to make another Constitution saving throw, and this time, I failed. As we were heading back down the tunnel, I suddenly wasn’t there any more. I was standing in a dark cavern, being spoken to by a drow. He called me Tharivol and asked if I was still up for it, considering it was my plan. Then I was back.
This, obviously, was weird. I had no idea what was going on, so I refrained from mentioning what I saw. The others saw me speaking to myself, but aren’t aware of more than that.
We decided to head back to the lagoon for a short rest, getting out of the water and up onto the beach. As soon as we got up on dry land, I had another vision. I was in a dark room with a chest containing several items, including the shard of metal I coughed up way back when and a ring that I had just earlier plucked out of my arm, being spoken to by that same drow again. I also noticed that I was a drow, or at least had drow arms.
Then I was running, the other drow beside me. He got downed by an arrow, but I just kept going. And then I was back in the ‘real’ world again, where I had been running in circles on the beach the whole time. Still no idea what that was about, but after making another Constitution saving throw – which I passed – the weird effect the water had on me ended, as did my visions. For now.
After our short rest, we made our way back through the tunnels. We came out in the largest cavern we had seen thus far, which contained the village where all of the blue people lived. But now, also all of their bodies. Based on their wounds, we determined that they had killed themselves and each other – caused by the toxic water, we eventually concluded.
An offshoot tunnel led to the third and final tower, but before we could get to it, we had to pass through a cavern the contained an incredibly strong current. The others all got through it on their first tries, but the dice kept going against me. I ended up burning through a wild shape and gaining three levels of exhaustion before finally using my last fourth level spell slot to change the current’s direction. Honestly, it was ridiculous – it was three Athletics checks per attempt and it took three failures to cause a level of exhaustion, to give you an idea.
Anyway, once we were all through, we faced a pair of giant, crocodile-frog monsters. This fight was a little harder, since we were all running low on juice, but again, we got through it. One of them hit me like a truck, wiping out more than half my hit points in a single round, but otherwise we did all right. And, finally, after the fight, we switched on the third and final tower.
However, before the water was fully filtered, Parvus failed a Constitution saving throw and had her own vision. When she came out of it, she attacked us, but after hitting Mercenary once, Merc laid on hands to remove the poison. Parvus came out of it, and satisfied that we were the best, we returned to the tower for a long rest.
But just to throw a spanner in the works, during the long rest I had another vision – my own this time, not caused by the water. In it, I was a shorter fellow (I think gnome or halfling sized) standing over my current Moist body – at that point lifeless – in the swamp. I was casting a spell when I noticed a drow running towards me and held my hands up towards it, then boom! flash! and I was back to reality again. So there are some interesting things happening in Moist’s brain, it would seem.
Anyway, that’s where we ended. With a possible hint at Moist’s mysterious backstory? More questions asked than answered, at any rate.
In terms of our current quest, we still have to deal with our blue lady friend’s crazy boss before we can get the cloak, and then it’s on to the next demiplane. We’ll see how that all goes next week, though.