Dance of Death

The ever-present stench of rot and death was wearing on Nat’s nerves. He felt as if he would never be able to wash it off him. Desperate for relief, he cast Prestidigitation, and the air around him took on the faint scent of roses. ‘Ahhh,’ he thought with a smile, ‘that’s better.’ Then a blubbery voice from the next room rumbled “Warm food!”, followed by “Oh shit – an otyugh!!!” from Jax. Maybe it wasn’t all that better after all.

Sure enough, Jax had found himself face-to-face with an otyugh, one of the huge, tentacled creatures that normally scoured Korvosa’s sewers. This one was in a deep trough of mud that surrounded three walls of the cavern Jax had entered, feeding on a pile of decomposing body parts. Greedy for something other than its normal cold fare, it lumbered up out of the mud and towards Jax. It slithered one tentacle at him, but Jax ducked under it. He intended to run, to dash back up the curving corridor into the room with the others, and draw the otyugh out where they could all face it. But he hadn’t counted on the length of the thing’s tentacles. As he turned to flee, he didn’t get more than two steps before its other tentacle wrapped around his chest, stopping him in his tracks. The thing squeezed, and Jax felt ribs popping and cracking; he tried to call for help, but all that came out was a spray of blood.

The twisting corridor that connected the rooms prevented anyone in the other room from getting a bead on whatever was attacking Jax. They could see Jax’s back, and the leathery thing wrapped around him, but nothing else. Shadow cast a Flaming Sphere, but couldn’t see where to send it. Erin, seeing the color draining from Jax’s face, Channeled Positive Energy, in the hopes of keeping him alive. Wren followed suit, as Tomas pushed past them and into the corridor. Stopping right behind Jax, he could finally see his target, and fired an arrow that sank to the fletching into one of the eyes in the leathery eye-stalk extending from the creature’s body.

The otyugh responded by lashing its free tentacle at the ranger, narrowly missing him. It snapped its toothy maw a Jax, but he managed to barely dodge its bite. The tentacle wrapped around him continued constricting, squeezing the breath from his body. Near the end of his rope, he fought against all of his instincts and let his entire body go limp. The thing may have thought he was dead, because it relaxed its grip just enough for Jax to wriggle free. With an angry bellow it lashed out at him again, but its barbed tentacle missed, and Jax stumbled into the relative safety of the outer room.

Now that Jax was free and no longer blocking the passage, the others leapt into the fray. Erin dashed into the room, shouting a battle cry of Iomedae, and slashed it with her longsword. Wren followed, although with far less fervor; she wasn’t sure this was a wise move, and her indecision made her blow go wide. Nat moved up to where he could see the otyugh, opened his mouth, and let out an Ear Piercing Scream; the others heard nothing, but the otyugh shuddered with pain. Shadow was right behind Nat; now that he could see the thing, he knew where to send his Flaming Sphere. It rolled across the floor and right into the creature’s gaping maw. The clumsy beast could do nothing to avoid it, and greasy smoke began pouring from its mouth. With a final strangled bellow it collapsed to the floor.

While the otyugh was still twitching, Nat cast a Detect Magic, and was rewarded by the sense of some magic at various places buried in the mud. But try as he might, he couldn’t dredge anything up by using any of the implements at his disposal. “Guess I’ll have to go in,” he said, drawing shocked looks from Wren and Erin. Without hesitation, he pulled his academic robes up over his head. The two women gazed at the physique he’d revealed: the sunken chest, stick-thin arms, the pale skin dotted with moles. “Um … I think I’d better go help Jax,” Wren finally stammered, then spun on her heel. “Yeah, I’d better help too,” Erin added, managing to stifle a giggle.

But Nat was undismayed. With surprising abandon, he dove into the thick muck and began to fish around. Most of the solid things he encountered were either bits that had fallen from the otyugh’s jaws as it ate, or had passed through it afterwards. He quickly came up with a beautiful amber necklace, which he tossed to the side as soon as he found it wasn’t magical. He kept searching, often crawling on hands and knees with his face barely above the muck. He was soon rewarded with a metal flask sealed with wax; its contents were magical, and hopefully uncontaminated. He kept going, and came up with more treasures, including a wand and a magical ring.

“Here’s something,” he said hopefully, struggling to grasp an object that his hand had brushed. He grabbed it, and pulled it up. “Ugh – just a foot,” he moaned, and tossed the squishy extremity onto the pile of body parts that had been left to feed the otyugh. He started to turn back to his search, but did a double-take. In amongst the dismembered and half-rotted carcasses were a pair of broken legs and hips, both marked with bold Shoanti tribal tattoos. “I guess it’s a good thing someone stayed in here to look around.”

By the time Nat emerged with his treasures, the others had finished healing (as much as they could) and were debating what to do next. Nat’s appearance (and his hearty aroma) stopped the discussion in its tracks. “Oh my god!” Erin moaned, trying not to retch. “How could you go in that stuff?”

Nat shrugged, and began casting repeated Prestidigitation spells to clean himself and his prizes. “Believe it or not, I’ve been through worse. Oh … I think I found part of Gaekhen’s body in there.”

Tomas hurried to retrieve the Shoanti youth’s legs, emerging with them loaded onto the same wheelbarrow that had been used to transport him to the Dead Warrens. Nat wanted to spend the next several minutes studying his finds, to figure out just what they were, but was overruled. “We’re not here for loot,” Erin scolded. “We need to clean this place out!”

“No,” Jax corrected, “we need to find the rest of the Shoanti kid’s body.”

There was another set of stairs leading down out of this room. They briefly discussed returning to the Derro’s room to explore the narrow passage leading down from there, but decided this one looked more promising. Jax led the way down the short flight of stairs.

At the bottom, he found himself looking into a rectangular hallway that ran perpendicular to the passage he was in. The walls and ceiling were encrusted with dozens, if not hundreds, of yawning skulls, their mouths open into darkness. There was a small alcove in the wall to his right; to the left, at the far end of the passage, he could see another alcove in the wall and a closed door opposite it.

When nothing leaped out to attack him, Jax moved into the room. He moved to his right and examined the alcove, searching for any secrets or dangers, but saw nothing other than row upon row of yellowed teeth. Tomas, Erin, and Wren followed him in, turning towards the left. Wren paused and cast Detect Magic. The hallway was suffused with a faint aura of Conjuration magic, but she could find no source. Erin and Tomas continued to the other end of the hall. Tomas could feel something nagging at him; there was some sound, just beyond hearing, a sound as if pressure was building in unseen pipes.

“It’s a trap!” he cried. “We need to get …” But it was too late. With a loud hiss, several of the skulls all along both walls sprayed forth jets of acid that engulfed everyone in the corridor. Wren somehow managed to be standing in a spot where the streams of acid missed her, but the others were not so lucky; Jax in particular was struggling to see as the acid burned his eyes and skin.

Tomas, his senses still on high alert, heard a faint rattling sound in the walls. “It’s not over …” he started to warn when one of the skulls detached itself from the wall. It was a humanoid skull with the jaws of a snake, and it slithered forward on the skeleton of a massive snake. It struck at Erin, but its fangs glanced off her armor. At the same time, an identical creature emerged from the southern wall and struck at Jax. The rogue, half blinded by acid, couldn’t dodge its bite, and its fangs sank deep into his thigh. He felt a tremendous lethargy come over him, and while he was still fully aware of what was happening around him, his muscles refused to act.

Wren, seeing Jax bitten and apparently paralyzed, rushed to his aid. She swung her mace down in an overhand blow, but did nothing but chip stone from the floor. Erin swung her sword at the one attacking her, but with no more success than Wren. Tomas backed into the alcove to give himself some space to shoot, and fired off a pair of arrows. He cursed as he saw that they did no more damage to the creature than they had to the skeletons they’d fought earlier; bits of bone chipped away, but with no vital organs to hit, his arrows did far less damage.

Shadow dashed down the stairs and into the room, then hammered the one fighting Erin with a pair of Magic Missiles. Before anyone else could act, both creatures began writhing and swaying back and forth. The rhythmic motion, accompanied by the soft rattling of bones, was seductively hypnotic. Most of the group managed to shake off the effect, but Wren was left staring vacantly into space.

Erin’s sword missed again. Shadow tried to hit her foe with a Jolt of electricity, but also missed. Nat finally made it into the room, and fired off a Force Missile at the one that had incapacitated Jax and Wren. Tomas fired off another pair of arrows; one hit, but to little effect.

The necrophidius to the south knew that it could finish off Jax and Wren any time it wished, so it slithered past them and sank its fangs into Shadow. The pain was intense, but he shook off its paralyzing effect. Erin was not so lucky: her opponent also got past her defenses, and when it drew back its blood-dripping fangs, she stood frozen and motionless.

Things were looking grim: half their number were out of the fight, but their enemies were still going strong. Shadow backed away from the bony snake, and cast a Flaming Sphere, but it managed to avoid the flames with its sinuous coils. It struck again at the sorcerer, but he managed to dodge the bite. Nat shot it with a Force Bolt and tried to back away; he was trapped between the two things, but currently out of reach of both. However, he knew it was only a matter of time until he became their focus. Hoping he was guessing right, he pointed his finger at the one to the north and blasted it with a Scorching Ray. The flames blackened its bones, and it thrashed on the floor for a moment, then lay motionless.

Jax finally managed to recover from his paralysis. He’s observed the entire combat, and knew the party was in trouble, but he also knew he’d been very badly injured; both in this battle and the ones that had preceded it. He cast a Force Bolt of his own at the necrophidius chasing Shadow. It did some damage, but it also served to alert the thing that one of its victims was still kicking. Rather than follow Shadow up the stairs, it whipped around and struck again at Jax. Its fangs sank into his chest, and he collapsed to the floor, unconscious.

Shadow halted his retreat, and poked his head back into the hallway, firing off another Jolt that zapped the thing that had just dropped Jax. Tomas sent a pair of arrows zipping down the hall, embedding themselves between its ribs. Its head whipped around again, its lifeless gaze zeroing in on Shadow, but Nat fired off one more spell, a pair of Magic Missiles that scattered its bones across the floor.

As silence descended on the corridor, the survivors tried to assess their situation. Jax appeared to still be breathing, but just barely. Erin and Wren were still motionless, and there seemed to be little to do for them but wait. Wren recovered first. It took her a few moments to clear her head, but when she saw Jax’s still, pale body on the floor, she dropped to her knees and cast Rebuke Death. Jax’s eyes fluttered open, but he was still too weak to stand, so she cast Cure Moderate Wounds. Jax struggled to his feet just as Erin regained the use of her limbs.

“I hate all these undead,” Jax muttered as he stood, wobbling.

“These aren’t undead,” Nat said darkly, kicking the bones of one of the necrophidii. “Someone built these things, then animated them. Like a golem.” Jax wasn’t sure if the distinction mattered, but he didn’t have the energy for an argument with Nat.

“OK, everybody get in place,” said Tomas, standing at the far end of the hallway. “We need to see what’s behind this next door.

“NO!” Everyone turned to stare at Wren. There was a note of command in her tone that was very unlike the normally timid cleric. “We need to get out of here.”

“But we’re not finished!” Tomas protested. “We need to clean this place out, and find the rest of the body.”

“Which we’ll never do if we’re all dead!” Wren said emphatically. “I’ve used all my healing. Shadow and Nat have used almost all their spells. Jax is nearly dead. We’ll never survive if we keep going in this state. We need to leave, rest, heal up, and come back when we’re stronger.”

The argument was short, and the outcome never in doubt. Wren was immovable, and in the end she led everyone out of the Warrens. They didn’t go far; Wren led them to the Temple of Pharasma, where her brothers and sisters welcomed them. They were shocked to learn there was a warren of Derros living beneath their cemetery, and gladly offered their own healing spells to help the party return to full strength. The rested just long enough to regain their spells, then returned to the Dead Warrens.

“What if they’ve brought in reinforcements?” Jax whispered as they crouched at the door of the mausoleum.

Erin shrugged. “Then we’ll kill them like we killed the first batch.”

But that didn’t seem to be an issue. As they moved cautiously through the Warrens, everything appeared to be as they had left it, and no new enemies challenged them. Jax headed down the stairs to the hallway of skulls, but Erin grabbed him by the collar and hauled him back. “Last time we went in there, we got sprayed by acid,” she reminded him.

“Oh … yeah,” he said sheepishly. “The trap might not have reset automatically. Or it might. But the first time, it didn’t go off until 10, 15 seconds after we went into the room. Maybe we can set it off without getting hurt.

Making sure everyone else was safely out of range, Jax stepped into the hallway, and stood there, quietly counting. “… eight, nine, ten,…” then he darted back into the safety of the stairway. He and Erin looked at each other as the silence continued. “See,” he said at last, “I don’t think the trap reset.”

HISSS  The sound and smell of spraying acid reached their ears and noses. Jax grinned sheepishly. “I told you I could set it off without hurting anyone.”

Not knowing how long they had before the trap reset, everyone hurried down the corridor and positioned themselves around the door. Jax quietly pushed it open.

The room inside was brightly lit. Two tables at the north end of the room were stacked with vials, beakers, and other alchemical gear. Another table was in the southern end of the room, but it was heaped with broken glassware and leaned awkwardly on a hastily repaired leg. Three large iron cauldrons sat against the east wall, but the far one had been upended, it’s foul rancid contents spilled onto the floor. A pair of Derros were at work in the room, one trying to fix the broken table while the other worked to clean up the spill. They didn’t look up from their work as the door opened.

Taking advantage of their surprise, the party made short work of them. As a mob of armed humans flooded their workshop, their first reaction was just to scream with terror. The first one’s screams were cut off by Tomas’s arrow through its throat, and he flew backwards against the far wall as the light went out of his eyes. Jax charged the other, slipping on the greasy liquid but managing to keep his balance enough to stab his sword deep into its gut. In rapid succession a series of missiles flew past Jax to slam into the hapless Derrow: a Force Missile from Shadow, a crossbow bolt from Wren, and a pair of Magic Missiles from Nat. A brief expression of confusion crossed its face before it slumped lifeless to the floor.

Nat immediately cast Detect Magic. “Hot damn!” he cried, and began rummaging through the wreckage in the room. The others took stock of their surroundings. To the south was  a small alcove with a closed door. Another broken table and some other rubble had been piled in front of it, and some boards had been nailed across it. Jax and Erin immediately began clearing away the rubble, and Tomas took up position to have a clear shot as Jax started to use his short sword to pry loose the nails on the boards holding it shut.

“Hang on, guys,” Wren cautioned, and everyone stopped what they were doing. “These Derrows seem pretty bloodthirsty. Why do you think they boarded that door up? Could there be something they’re afraid of inside?” That gave everyone pause. “Maybe we should go that way first.” She was pointing to the southeast corner of the room, where another opening revealed another twisty passage like the ones they’d already traversed.

“Give me a few minutes to check this stuff out!” Nat said eagerly. He’d pushed aside the broken glassware on the table and had quite a pile of items he’d recovered. “I’ll bet there’s some great stuff in here!”

“NO!” everyone said as one, and Nat’s face fell. “That is NOT our priority right now,” Wren said sternly. “We’ll have plenty of time for that later.” Nat started to grumble, but Wren’s expression silenced him.

Following Wren’s lead, they made their way cautiously down the tunnel, and soon reached a three-way intersection. The tunnel continued to the east, but appeared to be narrowing to Derro-sized proportions that would be difficult for them to traverse. Side passages led off both north and south.

“I say south,” Wren offered. No one saw any reason to disagree, so Jax took the lead. After a few twists and turns, he found himself looking into a foul-smelling cavern. On three sides were deep pits; from his vantage point he couldn’t see how deep or what was in them, but the rancid smell of excrement and decay wafted up, accompanied, but low moans and coughs.

But that was all background; Jax’s attention was focused on the creature standing guard on the peninsula of high ground amongst the pits. It was a hideously deformed creature with rolls of fat protruding from any gap in its leather armor. Its face was all but obscured by warty growths and oozing blisters. “It’s an ogrekin!” Tomas gulped from over Jax’s shoulder. Unlike the Derros, this creature was not taken by surprise. As soon as it spotted Jax it let out a high-pitched squeal. “You not supposed to be here! Rolth give me big reward for your head!”

But poor Cabbagehead (they would later learn that was the creature’s name) didn’t stand a chance. Jax charged into the room and sank his sword to the pommel into its belly, and Erin rushed in beside him and opened a gaping wound across its thigh. Nat smacked it with a Force Missile and Tomas feathered it with an arrow. Shadow conjured another Flaming Sphere, and Cabbagehead was too distracted and clumsy to dodge its flames. Wren used her new-found Wand of Spiritual Weapon (courtesy of Nat's mud diving) to conjure a glowing hammer behind the creature, but it failed to score a hit.

Cabbagehead managed to land a single blow. His massive fist slammed into Jax, making him see stars. The swing continued through Jax at Erin, standing next to him, but she just managed to duck in time. Jax, his head still ringing, stabbed forward with his blade. A mess of entrails began to spill out, and Cabbagehead collapsed in a bloody heap.

The battle ended, they had a chance to look down into the pits. To their horror, they saw that each contained a pair of frightened, malnourished, and sickly prisoners, along with a few heaps of moldy straw, a wooden trough containing filthy water, and random rotting body parts. They had little trouble freeing the prisoners from their pits, and Wren performed a Channel Positive Energy to help restore some semblance of health. They were immensely grateful, though still terrified. Their stories varied; some had been kidnapped and sold to settle a debt or an old score, while others had passed out in a tavern and awakened in the pit. They had heard both the Derros and Cabbagehead speak of someone named ‘Rolth’, but none had ever seen him. New prisoners arrived infrequently, and others were hauled out and carried away; the only way they ever returned was when dismembered limbs or heads would be thrown into the pits, to the delight of the Derros.

“Let’s leave them here and move on,” Jax said once they had learned what they could from the prisoners. “We’ll pick them up on our way back out.” Several prisoners began to wail.

“No!” Wren said, once again asserting her authority. “We need to see these people to safety!” Again, she would brook no argument, so they led the prisoners back out of the Warrens, getting them safely past the acid trap and out to the entrance. Wren pointed them in the direction of the Temple of Pharasma. “Tell Sister Elanaina that Wren sent you, and you’ll be well cared for.”

Confident the prisoners where safe, the party retraced their steps. Where they had before turned south, they now took the northern passage and soon found themselves facing a closed door. Jax listened, and checked the door for traps, but found nothing. Still uneasy, he eased the door quietly open.

The nauseating mixture of decay and strange chemicals assaulted his nose. He found himself looking into a large, well-lit room. Glinting saws, pliers, long stitching needles, and other surgical equipment were organized on shelves and benches along the walls. A sturdy wooden table in the center of the room supported a large humanoid shape. The thing on the table didn’t move, and he saw no other creatures in the room. Still moving with utmost caution, he approached the table, expecting its inhabitant to spring to life at any moment.

The thing on the table was humanoid, but had been stitched together from a patchwork of dozens of different bodies. It was enormous – it would stand nearly seven feet tall if it rose, but to Jax’s relief it didn’t. As the others filed into the room, Nat cast another Detect Magic, but to his disappointment found nothing. He shifted his attention to the body on the table.

“It looks like someone has been trying to construct some sort of golem out of flesh,” he said after some examination. “Thank the gods they hadn’t completed it.”

“Look at its head!” Tomas exclaimed. The head stitched to the rest of the body was almost comically small on the huge frame, but it was crowned with thick brown hair and bore a distinctive, claw-like scar on its left cheek. "That’s Gaekhen’s head!” They carefully unstitched the head and added it to the wheelbarrow containing the murdered Shoanti’s legs.

Again, there were two exits from this room. A passage led southwest, and they could see another closed door not far down it. The other led west, then quickly turned to the north, where it seemed like it might open into a larger room. Like the room they were in, they could see light spilling out from that room into the western corridor. Jax exchanged looks with the rest of the group, gave them a nod, then crept towards the western passage.

The PCs earned 1,033 XP, putting them at 7,360 XP with 10,000 required for level 5. Rich and Joette think they’ll be back from North Carolina next week; if so, we’ll meet back at their house.