Callbacks

15 March 2010-

After recuperating for a few weeks at the now-saved city, a long-delayed letter arrived for Brian's bard to invite him to participate in a theatrical production written by one of his former colleagues. The village where she resided was only a few days away, so we packed up our gear and headed out, even though we figured the offer might no longer be available.

We arrived at the village to see that it had been attacked by something, and no sign of the former inhabitants was immediately apparent except for the splashes of blood all over the walls. We advanced cautiously into the village square, and discovered a yellow symbol on the wall to the general store that we'd seen before in Freeport- a sign of an ancient and evil god of madness and chaos. Of course, it was then that things went from bad to worse.

Weirdly-altered humans emerged from the buildings and lurched and slithered toward us. They had been radically changed, with tentacles instead of heads, and translucent, boneless bodies. They were accompanied by large white worms with tentacles of their own, and they were soon on us. We let them have it with stone missiles and fireballs and missile weapons, but they kept coming, and one of them took down Schmitty's fighter by enveloping his head and chewing his face off. Kevin's fire-mage got his leg bitten off by a worm, and we were hard-pressed for a while before we managed to fend off the baddies. Finally, we dropped the last of them, and now we'll have to heal and assess the situation.

Just Guard the Door...

February to March 2010-

I must first admit my lapse in keeping this up to date, then beg indulgence based on my stupidly busy schedule- sometimes even I try to catch up on a little sleep.

The dwarves we saved ended up being Duergar ("dark dwarves"), but were in the position of being fellow enemies of our enemy- the Scarlet Lord. They were, in fact, trying to scout the Kuo-Toa city which appeared to be the origin of the red fungus before they were set upon, and gave us directions to that city. We sneaked into the city, and climbed, flew, and otherwise went over the intervening buildings and went directly for the large, imposing temple which seemed the likeliest point of origin. We discovered a large copper door about 15 stories up, and after Jeff nearly got killed by the electricity trap (did I mention the door was copper?) we entered. We found a tower full of Kuo-Toa ghosts, who agreed to help us put the magical "lid" back on the Scarlet Lord's magical prison. The catch? the ghost of the ancient high priest who first captured him had to shut it off entirely before rebooting the system. All we had to do, then, was prevent this god from coming out of his underwater prison long enough to reboot the trap. No problem.

His giant great white (and now red-tentacled) shark led the charge for the door, but we unloaded on it rather effectively, and it died quickly. Then it was time to fight the big guy, who was staved off long enough, because the barrier was created before we all died. The red fungus then died, and so did its innumerable hosts.

We made it back to the Duergar and then to the city, where we could live as heroes for awhile.