Pick-A-Path to Adventure

Godsday, Flocktime 18, 592 CY

Pockets’ dog Watch didn’t seem keen on looking for the white creature, but Fingers was willing to give it a shot. We all carefully followed Fafnir’s weasel familiar through various passageways, eventually coming to some severely narrow tunnels that were only about 30” tall by 30” wide. We had to crawl on our hands and knees after him, navigating passages that crisscrossed, until Fingers finally stopped and looked confused. His confusion was warranted— a few seconds after his pause the dreaded white arms reached through a wall and grabbed Pockets, who had been lagging behind, pulling him right into the surface of the wall. We found another tunnel to crawl through and gave chase. After what seemed like hours we came to a 15’ round chamber (slightly taller— Fafnir could nearly stand up in it) with several paths leading off of it, and the weasel again picked a path and charged off. I know we kept this routine up for about two hours, as that was how long my Daylight spell lasted. I had to use another Light spell, and we found ourselves in a 25’ area (thankfully 5’ high) littered with bones of creatures large and small. Several passages led out of the chamber, and we found Pockets leaned up in a corner, paralyzed.

Before I could get to Pockets to neutralize his paralysis, the white arms again reached out of a wall and grabbed at Fafnir— he tumbled away but was raked by the creatures nails. Aramil managed to occupy the creature briefly, as he kept standing in its way (and ours!). While he did that, apparently, Pockets’ dog riffled through Pockets’ pockets, found Aramil’s spellbook, and ran off with it. As Aramil was about to gave chase, we heard a “yip” in the distance, and then silence. Aramil kept swearing he was going to kill the dog if it wasn’t dead already while I removed the paralysis from Fafnir and Pockets.

Suddenly, a hole opened at Valon’s feet and he was nearly attacked by the creature. My Searing Light spell hit it, while Pockets dumped a Bag of Tricks into the hole, releasing a bat and a weasel. I don’t know what effect, if any, that had on the creature, but Fafnir looked distinctly uncomfortable about the weasel.

The creature moved through the earth faster than we moved on solid ground— the arms reached out again, right near Pockets, who yanked some thunderstones out of a pocket and banged them together. I think he was hoping the creature had some sort of tremorsense to disrupt, but he only managed to deafen himself and Fafnir. Pockets was waiting for those arms the next time they came through the wall, and grabbed the creature! Aramil grabbed Pockets as he started to disappear into the wall of one of the tunnels, while I waited with bow and arrow one tunnel over, hoping to catch the creature as it went through. At least my second arrow hit it.

While I attempted to reassure Fafnir (using Fingers as a translator) that I could remove his deafness in the morning after praying for spells, I could hear Ghelt explaining quite heatedly to Aramil that he should stop jumping in front of us during battles— he has no armor, no spells and a borrowed sword! He was yelling right back, and took a swipe at Ghelt— he’s lucky he missed. Valon had heard enough apparently, and cast a spell to silence everyone briefly. Order was restored for a moment, and then the creature reached down through the ceiling of the chamber and grabbed Pockets again! Ghelt used her divine ability to soften the earth in the ceiling, moving the depth of the entire room up about 10’, and bringing a started pair of bodies back into range with a good deal of dirt. I finally got a good look at the creature— an 8’ tall albino humanoid with glowing red eyes, vicious claws, and needlelike teeth. We attacked it with everything we had, and while I don’t know if we mortally wounded the creature, it did not ever return, so I think we at least convinced it to move on!

We weren’t sure though, and waited for it to come back. Suddenly, something erupted right at my feet, and I nearly struck it. I quickly noticed it was Pockets’ dog, and pulled my mace away at the last possible moment— hitting Aramil instead (he was obviously not taking Ghelt’s lecture to heart!). The dog returned (most of) Aramil’s spellbook, and after getting Ghelt’s attention, scrambled back down the tunnel she’d dug her way up through. Ghelt followed her a short distance through a tunnel below us, and found the dog biting at something leathery in the wall. The creature? No. But it was a sack with 800 gold pieces in it. I think Ghelt is using part of her share to buy Watch away from Pockets.

Watch then lead us down a tunnel that took us right out to the riverbank by our town. We saw the creature’s tracks leading into the woods and followed them for a long time, and eventually came to another tunnel entrance. Hoping we’d catch up with the creature if it was still mobile, we crawled through another cramped tunnel for the rest of the night. We eventually came to a dead end. Fafnir turned himself into a dire weasel and dug straight upward— we were able to get out and walk the four miles back to town, after spending enough time to pray for spells to remove the deafness plaguing Fafnir and Pockets, of course. Here’s hoping when we get back to town we find that the creature has truly left, though I don’t look forward to telling those that had missing family members what their fate was.