No matter where you go, there you are.
Well, we have spent the last day crawling through a bunch of tunnels, looking for the creature that was terrorizing Smallville. After we dispatched the drider, we took off after the white-armed creature.
As Pockets’ dog was pretty useless, Fingers had to lead the way, sniffing out the creature’s scent. He soon led us to the entrance of a small tunnel that branched off from the passageway. Much to my dismay, the entire party decided that the best thing to do would be to crawl into the tunnels after the creature.
Not long after we began to crawl, Fingers came to a halt. He had lost the scent of the creature. As we wondered what to do next, Pockets saved the day by getting snatched by the very creature we were chasing. How resourceful!
Following the creatures trail for what seemed like days, but was probably only several hours, we finally came to a chamber. Pockets was “stacked” up against a wall, and the floor of the chamber was covered in bones. Drusilia immediately went to help Pockets (who had been paralyzed by the creature’s touch). No sooner had she done that, than the creature began to attack us! It would pop out of a wall, attack one of us, then run away.
Pockets, in a moment of intense stupidity (and perhaps wanting to make up for his earlier usefulness), decided that now would be the time to deafen the party. He whipped out a couple thunderstones and slammed them together! This didn’t affect the creature at all, but it did a great job of deafening me!
At this point we all just sat and waited for the creature to attack again. From what I could tell, there was a lot of bickering amongst the rest of the party, but I couldn’t tell for sure, as I was DEAF! Drusilia did manage to tell me (through Fingers) that she could remove the deafness tomorrow, so I just sat there trying to rest and study spells while everyone else bickered.
After a period of time, Aramil came and tapped me on the shoulder. Apparently the rest of the party had decided to head out into the tunnels again, and he was the only one who thought to tell me. What great friends!
In any case, we followed the tunnels to the outskirts of town, where it was apparent (to me) that the creature had escaped. I say apparent to me, because not everyone shared this view. The rest of the group found ANOTHER tunnel to follow, and immediately dove in. Having had enough of crawling around, but not wanting to leave them to be killed by their stupidity, I polymorphed myself into a giant weasel, and followed after them. (Luckily the spell worked... since i became deafened, the ratio of successful spells had only been about 50%!).
We followed this tunnel for about 4 miles before it finally came to a dead end. Not wanting to crawl all the way back, I began to tunnel to the surface. Apparently Aramil had the same idea. Unfortunately, he was not a dire weasel.... he only had a shovel! Instead of making actual progress, he only succeeded in burying the party alive.
Luckily I noticed this and was able to rescue them in short order. Once we made it to the surface, I convince Drusilia to pray for more spells, and she cured my deafness. I then immediately headed back to town, and the rest of the group followed.
I hope we have scared the creature off for good. We will need to leave soon on our quest to destroy the Heart of Nerull, and while helping the town is a noble goal, if we fail to destroy the Heart, all of Oerth could be be destroyed! (I also suspect that it may be our very presence that is causing the town so much trouble - the sooner we go, the better!)
~=Fafnir Flamebrewer=~
Dearest Grun,
Finally, we were together and ready to get rid of the albino beast. Fafnir said his weasel could track it, so into the tunnels we trekked. The passages got smaller and smaller, yet still we followed! Even I was crawling, when “Pockets” decided to leave a trail in case we got lost. He didn’t tell us he was stopping, and as he was behind the party.. it’s lucky that Fafnir heard the movement as the white arms reached through the side wall and carried “Pockets” off! We discovered something new - now the creature actually left open tunnels for us to follow as it moved, and we’d been in them for some time judging by the size. The weasel went ahead, and we followed, yet again.
After what seemed like ages, we came to a large chamber, high enough that I could actually stand up in it. After some thought, I decided this must be the beast’s lair - we were right under the center of town, finally! Even better, we found “Pockets” lying on the bone-covered floor across the room. We went to get him, but heard trouble behind - as we came into the room, Fafnir was attacked! I pulled Drusilia out of the tunnel, and Valon came right behind, but just as I thought we’d be able to get down the tunnel to Fafnir - Aramil decided to crawl right back in for him, instead! He’d already been hit once, and he got hit again as he crawled - still, he wasn’t giving any ground. Drusilia was trying to help by blasting light down the passage, and Valon sang something at me - wow, did it make me feel powerful! I crawled right down the tunnel and smashed the thing, which took off (and without any more party members). Finally, we got everyone out into the room and healed up, but some were paralyzed by the creature’s poison.
Drusilia said she could fix that a little, but when she cured “pockets,” he immediately sat up cursing the dog that had been pulling at him. The dog took off with a book in its mouth, and, to our astonishment, Aramil took off right after it! Drusilia got ready to cast down the tunnel, but Aramil got hit by the creature anyway, and couldn’t catch up with the dog. Finally he came back, pissed! He explained that he felt useless without his spells - and the dog had his spellbook! As he said it, we heard a yipping from the poor dog, then silence. Aramil was mad that the creature had eaten his book with the dog, but I just felt bad for the dog. Poor puppy! Of course, as we talked about what might attract it to be attacked, it came for us again. This time Valon, who hit it a few times as Drusilia used light on it too before it took off. She then tried heating a dagger, to no avail, and “Pockets” scratched at the wall.. and was attacked! He later explained he thought it would hurt the creature a lot if it was using its hearing to track us - but he slapped two thunderstones together, and nearly deafened us all! In fact, the creature was fine, but Fafnir and “Pockets” were deafened for some time afterwards, which really didn’t help matters.
As soon as he’d used the thunderstones, “Pockets” was grabbed by the creature and yanked into a new tunnel. Aramil immediately went in after him - which made the third time that day that he’d gotten in the way of people who could actually do some damage to it! I was really mad; even if it is his best friend, he already admitted he wasn’t much help at the moment! I grabbed him and yanked, but he wouldn’t come out. From the hollering, I gathered that the creature was now moving to the side - sure enough, Drusilia and Valon were shooting down the next corridor, with little luck. Aramil and “Pockets” had a fight in the passage, and I sat back to wait them out. As soon as Aramil lost that fight and crawled out, I grabbed him by the shirt and screamed at him about useless mages and only halfway fighters (with borrowed weapons!) getting in the way so we couldn’t get to the creature for fear of killing him, and a few choice words besides. Not only did he not get it, he even took a swing at me! Of course, it just proved my point - he didn’t even come close to landing a blow. “Pockets” tugged on my sleeve and asked for some healing, so I shoved Aramil away and helped his friend. Aramil decided this was the chance to draw both a torch and a rapier, so I pulled out my urgrosh and waved it in his face. Did he really want to get into this here? He couldn’t even stand up straight!
At this point, Valon did something - and we all couldn’t hear each other speak. He then told us all to shut up! Valon has good timing.
“pocktes” sheathed the healing sword and began scuffing at the ground again.. but this time, the creature came from above! As it yanked him into the ceiling, I did the first thing that came to mind - softening the stone and earth above us in hopes that they both would slide back into the chamber. Of course, this meant the whole ceiling came down, too.. At least it did bring “Pockets” and the creature back within reach! We immediately waded into battle, except for Aramil, who luckily couldn’t free himself from the dirt in time to get in the way. I’ll have to keep that idea in mind. Unfortunately, the creature escaped again, this time into the floor. We sorted ourselves out, and waited. And waited! I tried scraping at the ceiling like “Pockets” had (he was paralyzed again and this time Drusilia couldn’t help). There was a sudden movement from the dirt on the floor, and Drusilia nearly took the dog’s head off. She did hit Aramil, who’d seen that the dog had his spellbook and cluelessly dodged into sword range. Hrrrmph. He did get the book back, eventually, although he lost a few spells along with the cover. Now the poor dog has two people threatening its life for being a puppy!
I tried calling the dog - and it actually came over to me! I petted it for a bit, and then it decided to run down the creature’s latest hole. Ack! I could hear it sniffing and growling at something, though, and wondered if the thing had acually died right below us. I tied a rope to myself and gave an end to Valon, and climbed down the hole! The dog was yanking on a leather bag in the side of the passage.. no creature. Ah, well! I did bring the sack back up, which proved to be a bagful of gold, so I can’t complain. Still, we were wondering what to do. It was quiet - Fafnir had actually fallen asleep! “Pockets” came unparalyzed, and since he’d been awake the whole time, we found out what had been percolating in his brain - he immediately headed down the newest tunnel! We followed (even Fafnir),.and after an hour and a half, reached the surface. Prints led us deeper into the woods and we followed them to where it had gone to ground again - and in we went! Fafnir became a huge weasel, which would come in useful, as after hours of crawling, we came to a dead end.
I knew we were only about eight feet underground, so I passed my shovel to the rear of the party and told them to start digging up and pushing the dislodged dirt into the tunnel behind. Of course, it was Aramil who had the job, so Fafnir was able to tunnel himself up and back before he got too far! (OK, it’s not like he’s used to digging.. *sigh* gotta give the guy a break). We used Fafnir’s tunnel and found ourselves in the forest, and already into the next day. We took the time to pray, and Drusilia’s removed the last of the party’s deafness. The dog is now with me, since “Pockets” spends a lot of time with a drawn bow and arrow nocked at its head. He won’t take any money for it but I hope he lets up! I need to learn how to teach the poor puppy to behave. Drusilia, by the way, says her name is Watch.
I’m back to hoping you’ll pray for us, Grun. We need all the help we can get! I hope the creature’s gone for good but I wish we’d killed it, and meanwhile, we need to get to the Temple fast! What a crazy life - and I can’t complain, it’s what I asked for!
With love,
Ghelt
I would like to tell myself that we knew what we were doing. I would like to tell myself that we even made progress. The shame of it is that we need to pull together better, or we will die down here. And maybe I am to blame for it more than the others. But after that thing attacked me once, I was pissed.
During our crawl, I stopped to put up a signal, in case the creature came up the tunnel behind us. In hindsight I see the folly. The creature used the opportunity to attack me. It seems to be able to sense us, to the point of picking off the last party member, or lead member at its will.
At one point I sat in the hall by myself, just 15 feet from my friends, and tried to bait the monster in. He came, and attacked me, and the party attacked him. Almost as if my plan was working, until it decided to go back into its tunnels. I tried to latch on to it, to give the party a chance to finish the creature off. Unfortunately, Aramil took the chance to grab my feet and pull me off the creature. I continue to be amazed by my friend, one day I hope to know what the $#*^$ he is going to do, before he does it.
The battle continued, the creature would come and attack, then retreat. A very hard tactic for us to fight in the confined space. To make matters worse, that #$$#$* mutt, Otto, took off with Aramil’s spellbook. By the time Aramil could find anything of it, the dog had eaten half of it. I agreed with Aramil, that creature must die, it is no dog. I believe the witch sold it to us to distract us from the truth.
Well, we followed the monster for many hours to run into a dead end. While the party found it frustrating, it convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt, we will have to deal with the witch and maybe more from the carnival.
When we camped, I decided it was time to finish that mutt off. But no,… the clerics decided they like the creature and that it deserves to live. They can’t protect it forever, either Aramil or I will get it.
What were we doing? We decided to follow this creature the others found before rescuing me, and I think being underground all day with no food and water made everyone a little grumpy. The thing attacked us time and again and there were several good ideas from the party, but we just kept arguing. I think it was hurt the most when Ghelt softened the earth under it and caved the ceiling down. We all had good intentions, but I think a week or so of rest will fix things. I might need 2-3 weeks to fix my spell book now that that dog ate it on me. I’ll kill that thing. Well, we’ll see what happens.