21 Eleasias, 1368: Deeper, Darker, and More Dangerous

9:00 am
The party, in battle order, march down the tunnel until they come to a fork in the passage where the excavated shaft meets the natural caverns below. In front of them is an enormous formation where ancient stalgtite and stalactite have met. Here the downhill slope ends and the cavern in front of them is more or less level.

Illuminated by Routunious' hat light, the party is struck by the immense natural beauty, and so are startled when they hear a strange farting noise.

After looking amongst themselves, they see walking toward them a small mushroom on legs, with arms, and a very human-like face on its stalk. More lurk in the shadows behind it.

Elessaria asks, "Is this a mushroom man?"

Degar and Stago confer, and Stago says, "I've never seen a myconid, the correct name for a mushroom man...but they are generally larger and we've never heard that...noise...associated with them. I think this is something else."

Degar says, "I've heard tales of wee critters like these...Friendly Fungus they are called. I never thought I'd see one, so I didn't pay any attention to what those tales told."

Stago brightens, "Friendly Fungus, of course! I think that their flesh has curative properties."

Elessaria says, "If they are friendly, we're not eating them."

They walk into the cavern and see more fungoids. They sidle by...except for Stago, who attempts conversation with one of them. The Tendrils from Friendly Fungus reach toward Stago. The gnome scratches the cap, and instead of farting, the creature emits a sputtering purr.

Stago exclaims, "It enjoys head scratching!" Stago stops scratching the fungoid and has to hurry to catch up to his fellows. The fungoid follows him. The party emerges from the tunnel into a large room. The cavern is moist with moss and earthy smells, and the floor and walls are slick. A circle of enormous mushrooms in the center of the cavern hides the other side from view, but they can see squat, dark shapes moving in the shadows, circling around on both flanks.

The party discusses what to do next.

Stago pipes up with a suggestion, "Let's toss a torch into the circle of mushrooms and see what happens."

Elessaria reacts very strongly against this suggestion. She seems to be having some sort of memory or premonition that fire in these caverns would be very bad. Routunious agrees with Elessaria, but without the emotional underscoring to his reasoning. Stago is barely dissuaded.

The party decides to retreat from the room, and returns down the passageway they have just traversed. Behind them, in the large cavern amid the mushroom circle, they hear the sound of breaking glass.

Stago pleads with them to take direct action, "Whatever is back there, it's just going to follow us!"

The party returns to the point where they met the fungoids beneath the natural column. The fungoids seem very agitated and are waving their arms and emitting sharp farting noises.

Elessaria asks, "Does anyone else thing they want to lead us somewhere?"

Routunious nods, then asks, "Yes, but to rescue us or to take us into a trap?"

"Let's hope they are as friendly as their name would imply," she replies and begins following the fungoids down the other pathway. This passage opens into room with a large pool of still water. reflecting the hatlamp of the priest. The dark surface of the pool hiding anything that might be submerged within it.

Stago examines the ceiling. Even though he is actively looking in the shadows of the uneven rock formations above them, the entire party is surprised to see something floating in the air above them.

It looks big and mean, like a bloated dwarf made entirely of wood. Three more of the creatures move in from the passage beyond the pool.

The Bark-creature that is flying, spits at a viscous liquid at Elessaria, and it hits her in the face. She screams in agony and stumbles backward against the rock wall.

Duncan, the young mage, casts magic missile at one of the creatures on the ground that is advancing toward them. They strike it unerringly and seem to cause the monster pain.

As she shakes her head and grimaces through the pain, Elessaria realizes that her limbs are slightly numb, and she immediately understands that the creature's spittle has poisnoned her, causing a degenerative nerve damage that is likely to get worse as time passes. The fungoids farting becomes even more agitated.

Stago also casts magic missile at the same creature Duncan attacked. It staggers, then cries out, "Ainecotte, I come!" As it shouts, it splinters into kindling.

The gnome shouts to the priest, "Enkat? What the Nine Hells is Enkat?"

Routunious shouts back, "A little busy here." The priest tosses knives at one of the two remaining creatures on the ground. One of the knives thuds into the bark-like skin and stays stuck there, the other clatters on the stone as it flies past the head of the creature. The knife that hit seems to have drawn blood...which oozes like sap from around the blade.

Fink fires an arrow, hitting the same creature that Routunious struck. More sap spatters out where the arrow strikes home. Elessaria & the halfling avoid the sap.

Fink fires another arrow, but misses.

The creature, in turn, strikes out at Elessaria with its club, but misses her even in the elf's weakened state. The other two creatures close on the party.

Degar intervenes and attacks the one on the ground with his hammer. The creature attacks him at the same moment. Degar misses, but the creature hits him in the face with his spiked club. The damage is only slight, but the Dwarf's face feels like it is on fire. He cries out, "Poison!"

Elessaria draws her bow, nocs an arrow and lets loose at the creature she has been fighting. The creature's head nearly explodes from the force of the arrow hitting it. Sap flies everywhere, but all of the party manage to avoid the spatter pattern. The creature falls, unable to crie out because it no longer has a mouth.

Elessaria and Degar feel the increasing clutch of the poison on their nervous system.

Because of their heightened sensitivity in the heat of the battle, no one is surprised when up from the center of the pool appears the head of a very beautiful woman. All of the funoids begin to purr when they see her.

She has light green skin and dark green hair. The beautiful woman of the pool shouts to them, "Quick! Hide in the water!"

Strangely, each member of the party feels a compulsion to obey the illogical command, for surely if they hide in the water they will drown. They all resist the compulsion, however...all, that is, but Routunious.

As Stago fires sling-bullet at one of the remaining bark creatures, Routunious begins running toward the pool of water. Fink hits the bark creature Stago is attacking with one of two fired arrows.

As Routunious gets nearer the edge of the water, the woman in the pools shields her eyes from his hatlamp and shouts for him to take it off. She seems very afraid of it.

Degar misses his attack on the other bark creature. Routunious flings away his hat as he leaps into the pool. The lovely green woman grabs him and kisses him. When she releases the priest he sputters and gasps, and she drags him under the water.

"He's drowning!" Elessaria shouts.

Stago looks into the pool and sees Routunious smiling and waving back at him, seemingly happy as a fish.

"No!" Stago shouts to Elessaria, "He's breathing water, now."

The green lady begins tugging at his robes, and pulling Routunious deeper into the water.

Elessaria, still suffering from the sap poison and fighting one of the bark creatures, fires again with her bow and misses widely with her first shot, but the second hits squarely. It cries out, "Ainecotte!" Then it falls to splinters, clattering down the stairs.

The strange nymphette in the pool swims to the surface and pulls hat underwater. Suddenly everyone is plunged into darkness. It takes a moment for those with infravision to shift to that spectrum. During that transition the last remaining bark creature, the one flying in the air, strikes out at Degar and he feels the rush of air as the spiked club narrowly misses his head.

Fink climbs into the pool of water, hanging on to the ledge. He ducks his head under water, shouting through bubbles at Routunious.

Stago fires a magic missile at at the flying creature and causes some damage, as well as releasing a fine rain of poison sap from above.

Routunious surfaces with Fink, and chokes on air. He can't breathe out of the water since he kissed the green woman. She swims up to grasp him in a hug, kissing him deeply again and then submerging to pull down Routunious's pantaloons. She struggles with his robe and as they sink again it is just barely possible to make out that they are engaged in an act of sexual congress.

Degar again hits the bark creature, causing it to explode into splinters which rain down around the angry dwarf.

Elessaria goes to the pool and dips her hands into it, using them to wash as much sap off of herself as she can. The green woman under the water looks up from what she is doing at this unclean use of her water and frowns. Elessaria doesn't care, even after washing the sap from her face, arms and hands she continues to worsen as the poison spreads through her system.

Degar checks body of fallen bark creature but it has no treasure. Suddenly, he gets a bright idea and pushes his warhammer into the pooling sap oozing from the creature's wounds.

Stago retrieves all of his sling bullets that he can find.

Elessaria scratches a fungoid's head. It makes a mournful noise and leads Elessaria to the cavern-room with the mushroom large circle of mushrooms. She is too weak to resist. Degar and Duncan follow with weapons drawn.

Because Routunious is underwater, Tick-a-Tick stands motionless.

"That's a problem," Stago says. He uses his wand of perfect illusion to create the image of Routunious -- complete with voice -- to command Tick-a-Tick to move toward the pool. Stago ties rope to Tick-a-Tick and then tosses the other end into the pool.

Meanwhile, friendly fungoid has lead Elessaria to a large mushroom and is pointing to it and farting. It gestures as though funneling food into its mouth.

"You want me to eat it?" She asks, then says, "I'm too weak to argue."

Elessaria grabs a hunk of the mushroom and eats it. Almost instantly she has a convulsion and breaks out into a hot sweat. She falls to her knees but feels strenght flooding through her and knows that she is regaining control of her musculature.

Degar explores the small alcove just off the room with the pool and finds a pile
of treasure:

2849 gold pieces...he pockets 100 pieces before calling out to the others to divulge his find. In addition to the gold, there are 6,700 coppers and a suit of brigandine armor that the dwarf is certain has an enchanted quality to it.

Elessaria returns to the pool chamber and says, "We need to rest and recover before we undertake the search for the priest. Set watch and take turns eating and resting.