With bodies rested and bellies filled with sheep's cheese and hardtack, five adventurers journeyed back to the ancient temple.
- Haisam, a Necromancer.
- Gavel, a Fighter.
- Godwin the Green, a Fighter.
- Heiwae Mann, a Thief.
- Lalo, a Cleric.
The rope they'd secured up the rapids was still in position, untampered with since their last delve. The party climbed into the dungeon's flooded central chamber, unspiked the waiting room door and dispatched Heiwae Mann to scout ahead.
The room was quiet, but this gave little comfort - undead made no noise. The thief spotted two anomalies, once his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Gavel's rope was missing from the north corridor and the bronze doors to the south were closed shut. The party's activities must have disrupted the long dormancy of the temple's guardians.
Still, the room was unoccupied. Until the locked door to the east opened.
Heiwae Mann fled back to the party in a panic, jabbering about something entering the room. The adventurers strained their senses, but couldn't detect whatever was lurking in the dark. So, with a thrown torch dispelling the inky blackness, they swept inside with weapons drawn.
Although the now illuminated room appeared empty, Heiwae Mann's roguish instincts told him the eastern door was now unlocked. Perhaps they'd scared off the intruder, and it left the door unsecured in its retreat. With his companions standing guard and the torch providing light, the thief snuck forward to peek through the keyhole.
A bloodshot eyeball stared right back at him.
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| By Jorgo Photography |
Acting on instinct, he jabbed a lockpick through the keyhole - lacerating the stranger's face. With a bellowed curse in Draconic, a very angry ghoul burst through the door. Heiwae Mann fled in terror, Haisam prepared a spell and Godwin surged forward to protect the backliners.
Though the monster piled no less than six paralysing attacks against the fighter, they clattered harmlessly against his thick maille and shield. Ironically, the party counterattacked by paralysing the ghoul with an immoblising curse and hacking it apart as it lay helpless on the floor.
Victorious, Haisam gleefully severed the paralysing claws of the ghoul for later use and Heiwae Mann took its set of skeleton keys (bespoke lockpicks carved from human bones).
The room beyond the locked door was the temple's prison. According to the mosaics on the wall (and all the human and kobold skeletons locked in bronze cages) the detainees had been a mixture of POWs and pilgrims who got cold feet about being baptised. The ghoul had turned the prison into its den, gnawing on the countless bones and splitting them open for marrow.
The prison had two serpentman-sized passageways stretching to the north and south. Easy to traverse for the temple's slithering occupants, but obtuse for any losers walking on two legs. Despite Lalo's protestations, the party examined the southern passage with Haisam's hand mirror - seeing nine skeletal snakemen standing guard.
Heiwae Mann encouraged to Lalo to corner the skeletons with Turn Undead, so he could burn them out with oil flasks. Unsurprisingly, the cleric vetoed the plan.
At an impasse, the party doubled back to the flooded chamber and followed the northwestern cave - hoping to find the polluted river's source. After a few minutes of travel, Godwin noticed something glittering below the water's surface. He called a halt, and fished out his mithril platter to go panning in the infected stream.
As the fighter carefully searched for valuables, Heiwae Mann spotted a collapsed wall on the other side of the river. Lithely jumping across the fast-flowing water, he crept forward with a raised torch - only to immediately retreat after four zombies staggered out of the darkness.
The reanimated corpses operated by echolocation, blinded by the fungal plating covering their faces, filling the cave with awful clicking noises as they charged the adventurers.
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| Clickers, from The Last Of Us |
As the party turned to meet the assault, Lalo shouted a warning. A bizarre fungal lifeform - a watermelon-sized orb of rotting flesh - was also floating down the river towards them. It locomoted by releasing blasts of the same spores that had raised the undead before them.
Lalo's attempt to Turn Undead failed and Heiwae Mann was dragged down, watching in horror as a zombie clamped its teeth down on his bicep. Lalo dragged the screaming thief to safety - forcing the monster back with strikes of his mace. Godwin fared no better - after his shield was torn to pieces, he was knocked to the floor and brutalised by a zombie's frenzied onslaught.
Miraculously, the combat was resolved without causalities. Gavel and the injured Heiwae Mann pincushioned the monster attacking Lalo with a flurry of bowshots. Meanwhile, Godwin's desperate flailing had knocked his assailant into a rocky outcropping - dashing its brains out.
Seriously injured and fearing fungal infection, Heiwae Mann and Godwin rushed back to the baptismal font - bathing their wounds with the golden fluid. The ambrosia knitted flesh back together and purged spores from their bloodstreams. If the endless supply of free healing magic had any deleterious side effects, they didn't make themselves known.
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| By u/TarikHavoc on Reddit |
Meanwhile, Lalo recovered the valuables Godwin had panned from the river, which Haisam identified as a fistful of Dwarven funerary emeralds (some clans would place engraved gems on the eyes of their dead before interning them in the earth).
Interestingly, the dead fungal floater and zombies (who appeared to have originally been Dark Elves) had Dwarven runes tattooed onto their flesh. None of the adventurers spoke the language, but Haisam took sketches of the runes - hoping find a translator back in Fallowfields.
With the path now cleared and spore cloud dispersed, the party assembled into marching order and pushed onwards. Before long, the river forked and flowed into a lower area of the dungeon. The party ignored the fork, continuing to follow the river and soon finding its source - a natural cavern with a waterfall cascading from a hole in the rockface 30-feet up.
The water here was crystal clear. Perhaps the party had solved the blight? Though it did seem hard to believe a watermelon-sized creature could pollute an entire river. As the adventurers mused over their discovery, Heiwae Mann noticed footprints in the sand around the plunge pool. The prints were small - like a goblin or young child.
Curious as to their origin, he tried to clamber up the wall behind the waterfall to reach the opening. But as he reached to grab the slick rockface, his hand found nothing but air. With a gleeful shout, the thief used his sword to dispel the illusory wall.
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| From Magic: The Gathering |
Gavel took point to clear the hidden room, narrowly avoiding a pit trap concealed by another illusion. As the party picked their way around the jagged hole, they noticed two things. First, a large pile of treasure just sitting on the floor - a small fortune of gems, coins and gold bars. It didn't reflect torchlight like usual, leading the adventurers to suspect it too was illusory.
Second, a poorly-muffled coughing fit was coming from somewhere nearby. Unable to see the source, the party shouted out for the invisible being to reveal itself. After receiving no response, Heiwae Mann lit an oil flask - intending to burn it out. With a panicked yelp, a very unhealthy leprechaun (dubbed the Leper-Chaun by Haisam) dispelled its invisibility and begged for its life.
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| By Vincent-Covielloart on DeviantArt |
The fairy was suffering from a late-stage fungal infection - it constantly coughed bloody phlegm into a clenched fist. After some tense negotiation (the adventurers not trusting the treasure horde was real), they agreed to cure it in exchange for information and loot.
Heiwae Mann volunteered to fetch ambrosia from the ophidian font, emptying his oil flask and rushing off into the darkness.
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