Shattered Star #67: Delving Deeper

At the end of last session, we left our heroes standing triumphant over the corpse of the mad monk.

The Shattered Star

 

The hellwasp swarm had fled and Karelia was determined to slay it. Transforming herself into an earth elemental, she gave chase and cornered it in a previous unexplored corridor. As her companions dithered by the door, first opening, then closing it, then opening it again before eventually emerging into the corridor and then retreating back into the room she lashed it with repeated lightning bolts. Eventually—her arcane power almost spent—Karelia succeeded in destroying the swarm, and there was much rejoicing.

Although victorious, the party was now low on magical resources and decided to retreat upstairs to the library with the bodies of the two adventurers they had recovered to date. After another night’s rest, they returned to the dungeon and continued their quest.

Retracing their steps, they followed the naga’s tracks, into a new part of the dungeon. Throwing open a door, they discovered a cylindrical chamber in which a monstrously fat gnome stood upon a small podium. He seemed mad and declared himself to be Luonin the Vast. Several members of the party entered the chamber before the gnome acted. He threw a hitherto concealed switch that set the room spinning violently. As the party struggled to reach him, he lashed them with a devastating blast of cold which almost slew Karelia outright, destroyed Zainnis’ armour and also destroyed Narfu’s immovable rod which the cunning monk had set to stop the room spinning. Everyone else was badly injured except Grooble and Narfu. However, the party’s advance had forced the gnome to retreat from his podium. Surrounded, and unable to keep his balance, he quickly fell to the party’s assault without managing to cast another spell. Thus perished, Lounim the Vast.

The battle won, the party again returned to the library bearing Lounim’s body. After another night’s rest, they continued their quest.

The naga’s tracks led through one of the other doors leading away from the spinning room. Beyond, they found a partially flooded room. A cage set into the floor held a strange fish monster. Narfu noticed the fish was wearing an odd cap connected to wires and entered the room to investigate. As he did so, steel doors slammed shut and the water level started to abruptly rise. Electricity crackled through the water, but the wily monk somehow dodged injury. As the water rose to head-height several of his companions used dimension door to enter the chamber, only to crack their heads on the ceiling—Grooble had protected them with a water walking spell!

Moments later, Narfu ducked under the water and managed to remove the fish’s strange cap. The water level instantly dropped back to normal and the party were saved. After a short discussion, the heroes decided to try and free the fish after it was identified as a native of the elemental plane of water. A mighty effort ensued, but eventually they managed to break open the cage and the fish flopped out. It seemed confused, but slowly became able to speak. It transpired, the fish—a grodair—had been trapped here by Karzoug centuries ago and its powers were used to fuel the trap. It wanted nothing but too escape back to its home and the party—amazed to discover it could breathe air—resolved to take it up to the library so the librarians could send it home on the wings of a plane shift spell. As they returned to the library again, they were stunned to discover the grodair had seen Karzoug just a few days ago. Several of the party put this recollection down to the creature’s generally confused state while others were not quite so sure, Narfu—in particular—recalled the Sorshen pretender lurking under the Lady’s Light…

Published by

Creighton

Creighton is the publisher at Raging Swan Press and the designer of the award winning adventure Madness at Gardmore Abbey. He has designed many critically acclaimed modules such as Retribution and Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands and worked with Wizards of the Coast, Paizo, Expeditious Retreat Press, Rite Publishing and Kobold Press.

One thought on “Shattered Star #67: Delving Deeper”

  1. My party had a hard time with the Hellwasp swarm. We had to retreat and make new preparations, so we went total overkill. Our caster prepared cloudkill, and the investigator prepared invisibility and fly. We used the investigator to lure the swarm into a small room with just the one door.Once the swarm followed him in, he went invis, to confuse the swarm but probably no real mechanical benefit, and flew out the door tapping the caster on the shoulder so she knew to cast cloudkill into the room. Our cleric used her prepared action to close the door before the swarm could fly back out of the room.
    So, yeah, we bug bombed ’em.

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