Age of Worms Campaign Update: 1/10/2008

CHRONICLE VAULT 20080110, FROM THE LIBRARY OF RHAVUS THE FIEND-SAGE ...

Fireseek 7, 595 CY
The web of conspiracy surrounding the heroes seemed to be growing by the day. Upon entering the Free City of Greyhawk, the companions had been attacked by a rampaging chimera, framed for attacking a gnome innkeeper, assaulted the headquarters of a well-placed doppelganger gang, and learned that a mysterious mind flayer wanted them dead for unknown reasons. They spent the night of Fireseek 4 in the comforts of the Crooked House, considering their predicament and licking their wounds from the Sodden Hold incident, always aware of a keen eye watching their very movements.

The next day the heroes spent the morning getting their healing fix at the Temple of Pelor and selling the various items they had taken from the doppelganger lair (which included the large mirror Duke had wanted so badly for his own). With the coins from the sale they bought up potions of remove paralysis and other items in preparation for confronting the illithid. They also marched up to the Grand Citadel to speak with Lord Mayor Nerof Gasgal concerning the shapechangers that had infiltrated almost every level of Greyhawk's government. The Lord Mayor was busy but they did schedule an appointment for Fireseek 6 at 10:15 in the morning.

The note the heroes had found in the doppelganger leader's personal chambers indicated that someone needed to meet with the gang leader "below the cold forge to deal with some troublesome small minds." It was not dated, and initial thoughts were that the doppelganger was meeting the illithid at this junction at some future date. However, Kaspar pointed out that THEY were probably the "small minds" referenced in the document since the doppelgangers had no other reason to target them as they did in the Crooked House.

After some deliberation the heroes decided to start tracking the illithid starting at the secret entrance to the Greyhawk sewer system in Sodden Hold. Argo took the lead, and away the adventurers went, trudging through the twisting narrow passages filled with waist-deep muck-encrusted sewage water. They stopped a few points to get their bearings, and Duke pointed out something on the map. Beggar's gold, the fungus found on the boots of the drow that accompanied the illithid, usually grew from the runoff of smithies and forges. There was a weaponsmith shop called the Cold Forge in the Artisan's Quarter of the city - perhaps the note referenced meeting underneath the specific building? It was decided that Argo would keep leading the party through the sewers, since it seemed like he had the trail, but the information provided by the dwarf aided the searching immensely.

After two hours of trudging through the sewers they came upon a particularly deep and ancient part of the sanitation system -somewhere below the Artisan's Quarter, Argo surmised. A cavern system branched off from the main sewer tunnels, marked by a large patch of beggar's gold with numerous booted footprints in the fungus. All of them prepared for what lay ahead by drawing weapons and their inner reserve of strength to combat this great foe.

The cavern opened up after about twenty feet to a small chamber covered in numerous types of mushrooms and fungi. There were four particularly large mushrooms that had a strange, almost face-like appearance to them. Kong whispered that they might be the fungus people known as myconids, but Duke was confident that it wasn't. Kaspar shrugged his shoulders and nocked an arrow to his bow, determined to shoot one of them and see what happened. The dwarf druid wizard nodded sagely and correctly identified them as shriekers - a fungus alarm system typically used by intelligent underground dwelling creatures. Just as the elf monk was about to let loose his arrow Shanks stopped him in the nick of time. They didn't want to alert whatever lay further down to the presence of intruders by tripping off the alarm system!

But they needed to get through the chamber, so one by one they carefully stepped around the shriekers. Except for Duke, who used a potion of spider climb provided by Argo to make it over the ceiling. The halfling ranger's badger Bacon was left to guard the entrance. Keeping their torches held high they proceeded down the hall. Luckily Kong had his eyes opened, for as they turned a corner he spotted an alcove ten feet up that contained a trio of drow warriors. The drow turned their hand crossbows to the party as Kong launched his trident back. One of the sneaky dark elves dropped down to the passage and ran further down, apparently intent on alerting others. With the speed and grace of an elven monk Kaspar ran after him and easily caught up, slamming the retreating drow with a well-placed stunning fist.

The remaining two drow continued to pepper the party with hand crossbow bolts, with Kong launching his returning trident continually and Argo using his newly purchased shortbow to good effect. Duke used charges from his wand of magic missiles to strike unerringly at his foes while Shanks scaled the wall to beat them with his spiked chain. The two drow were cornered and defeated, but in the meantime Kaspar was having a difficult time with his opponent. During their melee the drow managed to shout a warning that echoed in the larger cavern. Argo and Kong joined quickly and they dispatched the remaining drow. They found themselves in a larger cavern, and just beyond the light of their torches and light spells they could see that the cavern opened into another.

And from that other cavern Duke and Kaspar heard muttering - spellcasting muttering. Seeing how they were grouped together, the elf monk took steps backwards to distance himself from whatever was being cast. The dwarf listened intently and determined the spell being cast was a confusion spell - but did not get away in time. Kong, Duke, Argo, and Shanks were caught in the area of effect of the spell just as five drow warriors and a drow priestess entered the chamber. Of the four Duke was the only one who resisted the spell.

As the drow approached the dwarf wizard launched his own area of attack spell - fireball, which scorched all of the enemies. But the rest of his party fell to the effects of the confusion spell, with Shanks attacking Argo with the spiked chain, Argo stabbing Kong wickedly with his dagger, and Kong swiping at Argo with his frosty greatsword. All three of them then started to run away from the approaching drow, occasionally stopping to babble incoherently. Kaspar managed to defeat the very wounded drow warriors, but the priestess stepped up to Duke under the effects of a divine power spell and attacked him mercilessly with her morningstar. The dwarf wizard was not built for melee combat, but failed to penetrate the priestess' magical resistance with his spells. It was a decidedly one-sided fight, but Kaspar ran up and assisted. The fight raged on, and eventually the confusion spell on their companions wore off. Kong was the first one to return from his foray into insanity (where he learned the secrets of the universe from the shrieking mushrooms, but forget what they told him). It was Argo's daggers that finally did the drow priestess in, and they breathed a sigh of relief when they discovered no other enemies attacking them.

They took a few momens to take stock of themselves and pass around healing potions, getting back into fighting condition. The cavern the drow came from held a chattel pen with some starved pigs and sleeping quarters for the warriors and priestess. The passage continued on, and this time Shanks took the lead to search for traps or other surprises. They came upon a purple sigil inscribed on the floor - the same sigil that the doppelganger leader had tattooed on his forehead. The halfling rogue felt in his tiny bones that something was not right and searched all around. He found, inscribed on the ceiling, a glyph of warding trap cleverly hidden. Everyone else backed up as Shanks went to work at disabling the magical trap, something he wasn't terribly good at. And unfortunately he triggered the trap, but his amazing reflexes kept him fully out of the acidic blast of the trap. They found no other traps and continued cautiously forward, passing over the purple sigil on the floor.

After a short way they came upon a strange site. The passage opened up into a small cavern, against which was a pair of wide, white marble double doors. The marble was streaked with unusual purple veins and the doors were flanked by two large pillars of the same material. The purple sigil was again on the pillars, which they determined to be the illithid's personal seal. Shanks went forward to search the room for traps, but was caught off-guard when a strange creature dropped from the ceiling behind one of the pillars.

It was like a land-based octopus, with two long undulating tentacles and a single bulbous eye atop its leathery, glistening, mauve skin. Another fell from behind the other pillar and scuttled towards the remaining the heroes, all of which were surprised by the sudden appearance of the grotesque creatures. Shanks and Kong were the target of their tentacle claws, as well as they strangely hypnotic unblinking eye which slowed their movements to a crawl. The heroes retaliated, with Kong's frosty greatsword cutting huge chunks of purple flesh away in a spray of oil-like blood. While he couldn't identify them specifically, Argo recognized the creatures as terrible abominations - which he had studied intensely, and knew how they fought. The two octopus-like things were defeated after an intense bit of combat.

The only course of action left to them was the double-doors, so after Shanks checked it thoroughly for traps they opened them. Inside was revealed a round chamber, in the center of which squatted a large marble statue of a brain. It was made from the same white marble as the doors and pillars, but the veins of purple seemed to pulsate with their hearbeats. There were four benches surrounding the stone brain with manacles attached to each one. A corridor exited the round room on the opposite side of the entrance.

Kong shrugged his shoulders and stepped forward, and immediately felt a strange pull at his very will emanating from the stone brain. The emenations beat upon his subconscious like waves against a beach, and very quickly they defeated his mental barriers. His mind taken over, the mighty barbarian could only think of one thing - serving Xyrzog. Xyrzog was all there was and all there ever will be, and he calmly sat down on one of the benches and placed the manacles on his wrists.

The rest of the heroes were confused by this. Argo stepped in to check it out and felt the same urging, falling under the spell of the stone brain. He took a seat on one of the benches as well. Shanks looked around and couldn't find anything obviously trapped so he stepped inside, and was also dominated by the stone brain.

This was a most distressing turn of events. Three out of the five companions were now sitting around the strange stone brain, intoning the name Xyrzog repeatedly. Duke and Kaspar were left outside. Duke studied the behavior of his friends, but couldn't pinpoint their magical coercion to a specific spell he was aware - definitely some kind of enchantment or charm, but was it as simple as a charm person or was it the more powerful dominate person? He wasn't sure, but he felt confident in his own mental preparations so he stepped inside.

And fell under the sway of the stone brain, taking up the fourth seat. Kaspar, alone, stood outside the chamber. He certainly did NOT want to go inside, but he was kind of stuck on what to do. He shot a few arrows at the stone brain, and it chipped a little bit, but he didn't have the quantity of arrows necessary to destroy it. Then an idea hit him. Eventually the mind flayer, who was presumably named Xyrzog, would come into the chamber. He would wait outside behind one of the pillars and attack the illithid once he arrived. It was the best plan he could think of considering the desperate circumstances.

And so he waited. And waited. And waited. An hour eventually passed before the illithid stepped into the chamber. It seemed genuinely shocked to find four people sitting on the benches, manacled, and apparently slavishly worshipping his very name. Its tentacles writhed in anticipation as it stepped towards Shanks.

Kaspar took this moment to act, plugging the mind flayer with an arrow. Xyrzog seemed less than concerned with this, and put off his brain-eating urges to deal with the elf monk. But Kaspar decided it was time to act, and ran inside with all his speed. His monk training helped to keep the magical domination effect at bay and he ran to Kong. He slapped the barbarian and shouted, which seemed to break the effect of the magical charm. Kong blinked a few times as he regained his senses just as Xyrzog cast a withering lightning bolt. The illithid carried a strange rod that glowed with power as he cast the spell, and both Kong and Kaspar took the brunt of the lightning attack.

Kong raised his hands to the air and gave a mighty bellow, entering into a fierce barbarian rage. The blinding anger helped shield his mind when Xyrzog tried to use a mind blast, but instead was cut by the raging barbarian's greatsword. Kaspar worked his way around the room, slapping his companions and staying out of the illithid's area of effect spells. Kong kept the mind flayer busy until he was joined by Shanks and Argo. Duke used his spells from a distance but could not seem to penetrate the mind flayer's magical resistance.

Xyrzog knew he was in trouble. It was not built for combat, especially against a spinning dagger-wielding halfling of death, a raging barbarian slashing repeatedly with a greatsword, and another halfling raining blow after blow with a twisting spiked chain. The mind flayer was finally cut down by Kong as it tried to cast a spell and get away. As Xyrzog died, the stone brain in the center of the room died as well.

The heroes congratulated Kaspar on a job well done, although begrudgingly. The elven monk had taken a terrible risk with their lives, but it did work out in the end. The five companions moved through the rest of the mind flayer's domain, finding a host of strange things. The first room they come upon was a laboratory of some kind, which included notes collected by Xyrzog on the creation of the octopins (the strange purple octopus-like creatures) as well as some sort of "brain worm" that would make its host easier to dominate. The next room was a museum of some sort, which contained a host of bizarre finds, including: a petrified pseudodragon, beholder eyestalks in jars, a magical dagger with dangling kyton chains, and a small stuffed doll that looked a lot like Shanks. The doll had more than a dozen spikes from a spiked devil shoved into it. The halfling rogue was a bit shaken by this find, but discovered that the doll didn't seem to have any effect on his own person. He took it anyway though.

The last chamber was a tall round room with a pool of green water in the center. Inside the pool swam dozens of tadpole like creatures. Argo correctly identified them as illithid tadpoles, which is how the mind flayers reproduce. Once the tadpole reaches maturity (after about ten years) it is inserted into a host creature, usually human. Over the course of several months the host is turned into an illithid as the tadpole mutates the being. By inserting the tadpole into other creatures the illithids have created terrible mutations of already horrendous monsters. These tadpoles seemed to be very young.

Shanks checked around and found a secret chamber in this room, which seemed to be Xyrzog's private sanctum. They found a chest, upon which rested an open ledger. The ledger detailed the mind flayer's sale of unusual, rare, and illegal items to buyers. The last two entries were of particular interest to the heroes. The first was the sale of the Apostolic Scrolls to an individual named Loris Raknian. The second, and far more disturbing, was the same Loris Raknian paying Xyrzog to assassinate the heroes (each described by name). Kong recognized the name Loris Raknian as the organizer for the upcoming Champion's Games. But why would he want them dead?

The question ate at everyone's mind, and they returned to the upper streets of Greyhawk City troubled and wary. They kept a low profile for the rest of the day, selling the items they had recovered from the mind flayer's sanctum and dividing up the rest of the treasure. The next day, Fireseek 6, they returned to the Grand Citadel to meet with Lord Mayor Nerof Gasgal but were disappointed to learn that he was out of town. The heroes did meet up with Hasgrov Tallbus, the Directing Oligarchy member they meet previously, and Duke negotiated a peace treaty between the Free City of Greyhawk and the lizardfolk of the Mistmarsh (with everyone's help, of course). The treaty boiled down to a lot of legalese speak for "don't attack us and we won't attack you" but the city officials did agree to allow lizardfolk in the city to trade on a limited basis. A big step forward for democracy since the previous rule was to shoot on sight any lizardfolk.

Fireseek 7 came upon them, and the heroes received a letter of invitation from Eligos. He had found some information in his searchings and wanted to discuss his findings over dinner. The companions finished up their shopping and selling and made their way to Eligos' house as the chill evening air fell upon the city.

Session Updates
Good session. Let me know if you have any concerns or issues with his new format for the campaign updates - it's easier for me, but I know it's not all just about me (just mostly). I'm trying to get in the groove of a weekly session, so unless you hear different - Age of Worms campaign, Thursdays, start around 7 pm. If you can't make it please let me know ahead of time as soon as possible.

Quest Cards Completed
* Negotiate Treaty with Lizardfolk of Mistmarsh
* Investigate Note Found in Doppelganger Lair

Quest Cards In Progress
* What's Ilthane Up To?
* Investigate Loris Raknian and Apostolic Scrolls

XP Recap
8th-level Characters 6,000

'Till next, Game On!

"Weird" Dave Olson
Dragonfyre Gaming Association
weird.dave.dfga@gmail.com