Horror From the Abyss

The party had descended into the lower reaches of Brinewall Castle, and fought off an ambush of troglodytes. As they caught their breath and tried to stop retching from the trogs’ stench, they took stock of their surroundings. They were in the castle’s mess hall. One of the groups of ambushers had come from a large room to the north, but the door had swung closed behind them. The leader had come from a door to the east, which stood open to reveal a narrow hallway.

They elected to go that way first. The hall branched, with each end terminating in another closed door. One led into an armory. The majority of the armor stands, weapons racks, and shelves stood empty, but the party was able to find some useable armor, a shield, some heavy crossbows and a barrel of bolts. They also found a small wooden crate. When they pried off the lid, it held a collection of glass flasks, packed carefully in sawdust and wood shavings. Marie examined the contents, and declared it to be Alchemist’s Fire; Nicki’s eyes lit up, and he claimed it eagerly. The other door led to a hexagonal room, its high ceiling supported by four stone pillars. The middle of the room sagged in a bowl-like depression, leaving a five-foot-wide ring of level ground around the room’s perimeter. Remnants of a low wooden railing marked the edge of the depression, but most of the fence had collapsed. A large chair sat in the center of the room next to a table heaped with doubtful-looking cuts of rancid meat. This had once been the garrison’s practice arena, but had been claimed as the “throne” room of the troglodyte’s leader. Other than the remnants of his meal, the room was empty.

The party returned to the mess hall, and opened the double doors to the north. They led into the kitchens, although the fire pits, tables, and pantries looked like they hadn’t been used in decades. A number of doors led out of the room. With nothing to indicate where to go next, the party elected to follow “right-hand rule”, and began working their way counter-clockwise around the room. The first door opened onto a flight of stairs leading up; if they recalled the layout of the first floor correctly, these should be the stairs they’d seen in the ballroom. Next to the stairs were a pair of double doors that opened into a round domed room with a large pool of dark water in its center. They surmised that this would have been the castle’s cistern. Another pair of double doors could be seen across the pool on the east wall.

Bella made her way carefully around the pool to check those door for traps or locks, but as she examined them she could hear singing from the other side of the doors:

I’m a little boulder, round and hard.

Here is my bottom, here is a shard.

Pick me up and throw me, I’ll hit hard.

Splash their brains across the yard!

This was followed by a delighted chuckling, then the singer repeated the song again. And again. And again.

Bella backed slowly away from the door, and hurried back to tell the party what she’d found. They decided to leave the singer undisturbed for the moment, and moved on to the next door, a strong wooden door in the east wall, with a very sturdy lock. Too sturdy for Bella, as it turned out, even with Sandoval singing a song of encouragement. Marie tried the skeleton key they’d found in the lighthouse, but it was not a fit. It seemed that they’d have to face the music after all. Marie began to lead the way, but was persuaded to let Sawyer and Bella take her place in front of the doors, while the rest of the party arrayed themselves around the cistern. Giving a silent three count, Sawyer threw open the doors.

Inside was the castle’s dungeon. There were three cells made of iron bars sunk into the stone, two to the south and one to the north. A woman in rags sat in the northern cell rocking back and forth, fingers in her ears. A filthy, nestlike bed lay in the middle of the room, heaped around a central stone pillar next to what could only be a half-eaten giant centipede the size of a horse. Next to it stood an ogre, using a dagger to pop pimples the size of a man’s thumb while he sang his song. Beside him lay a greatclub, made from an uprooted sapling whose rootball was caked with numerous layers of gravel and tar. The singing stopped when he spotted the party. “Hey! You’re not supposed to be here! ‘Cept if you’re supposed to go in a cell. You want to go in a cell?”

Before anyone else could react, Bella stepped forward. “Yes I am!” she replied, and the jailer beamed happily. “OK then. You can’t go in this cell, on account of she’s already in there.” He pointed to the occupied cell. “And you can’t use this one ‘cause it’s got all her stuff in it.” He pointed to one of the southern cells, where Bella could now see a pile of armor and weapons. “But this one here’s all empty. I’ve got a key and everything! I guards the cells, I do. That’s my job – make sure nobody gets out unless Little Birdface says so.” Bella praised him for doing such a good job, and he smiled even wider. He didn’t seem to notice the other party members edging into the room.

Slugwort

The ogre and Bella continued chatting, and he introduced himself as Slugwort. “Did you hear my song?” he asked. “It’s funny, on account of at the end, someone’s brains get splashed across the yard.” He chuckled again – apparently that never got old. Sawyer saw an opportunity. “Say, how’d you like to join us?”

“Oh I couldn’t do that,” Slugwort said, frowning. “My job is to guard these cells.” But Sawyer wasn’t giving up. “That’s pretty boring work,” he said. “If you join us, you could splash some brains yourself!” Slugwort got excited by that idea. “Really? I could? Could I start with her?” he pointed at the prisoner, who was glowering at the party. “She doesn’t like my song.” Bella tried to redirect him. “Ah, she doesn’t look like she has many brains anyway.” That earned her a foul look and an Ulfen oath from the woman in the cell. “I’m sure we could find someone more fun to fight.”

Slugwort was getting enthusiastic. “If I join your team, would I get a badge or something?” Marie rolled her eyes, but rooted around in her pack until she found some gegaws that she pinned onto the ogre’s filthy tunic. His chest swelled with pride. “Nobody’s ever picked me for their team before.”

“Well come on then,” Sawyer called in a friendly voice. “Let’s find something to fight!” Slugwort happily shouldered his club, and Sawyer led him back towards the kitchens. As soon as they were gone, Marie hurried over to the captive’s cell and unlocked it, using the key Bella had lifted without Slugwort noticing. “Thank the gods!” the woman gasped. “He’s been singing that damned song non-stop for the last week!” Bella brought her her gear, which she’d liberated from the other cell, and she began quickly pulling on her armor. “But why didn’t you just kill that thing when you had the chance?”

“I just wanted to see if we could learn something," Bella replied. "Besides, he might make a useful ally. Oh, and sorry about the insults – I was just trying to impress him."

“Yeah, I can see where you’d have trouble impressing an ogre,” the woman snarled. Bella had obviously gotten off on the wrong foot with her (but then, Bella seemed to get off on the wrong foot with most people she met). Marie tried to change the subject, and asked who the woman was and how she’d gotten here. At first she was reluctant to open up, but once she realized they already knew about the ruined longship in the harbor, she began to talk.

“My name’s Kelda Oxgutter, and I’m from Kalsgard. My jarl bought an old map that claimed to show the location of a secret entrance to Castle Brinewall. He thought there’d be lots of treasure here, so we came to loot it. But as soon as we docked, we were attacked by a pair of sea drakes. We killed one, and I just managed to drive off the other, but everyone else was killed, and I was badly wounded. Then those bird things came out and took me prisoner and brought me here.” She seemed ashamed of having been captured, but she finished strapping on her armor and used one of her javelins to push herself to her feet. She staggered, and Marie could see she was still very weak, so she and Spivey both delivered some healing spells. Revived, Kelda nodded grimly in gratitude.

Back in the kitchens, Sawyer was rethinking his idea of recruiting Slugwort into the party. The ogre seemed just a little too bloodthirsty and unpredictable (even worse than Bella). Time for plan B. He would shove the ogre into the cistern; best case he’d sink like a stone and drown, worst case, they could kill him while he tried to climb out. He made some excuse to get Slugwort to go back into the cistern, and the ogre dutifully retraced his steps. Once the ogre’s back was turned and he was at the edge of the pool, Sawyer got a running start and launched himself, only to bounce off the ogre like a poodle hitting an elephant. Slugwort turned and frowned. “Hey! What’d you do that for? I could’ve fallen in the water! That wasn’t very nice. I don’t think I like you any more. I don’t want to be on your team. I’m going to go back and guard the cells for Little Birdface.”

He turned and stomped back into the jail, where he saw Kelda out of her cell and back in her armor. He began to protest, but Kelda let out a war-cry and charged, sword flashing. The battle was brutally short. Kelda’s sword sank deep, and as he tried to pull away, Bella brought her dagger and rapier in from behind. Sandoval cast Grease on his club to prevent him from bringing it to bear, but it didn’t matter, for Shinjiro chopped him down. Slugwort slumped slowly to the ground, tears running down his cheeks at the betrayal of his new friends.

Unaffected, the party looted his body. There was another door in the north end of the jail and they headed there next. It led into a natural tunnel in the rock. To the west it ended in a sturdy door – the other side of the door Bella had been unable to open in the kitchen. To the east, it curved around to an alcove where an intricate iron screen blocked further progress. In the center of the screen was a wooden panel painted with the image of a tall, beautiful blue-skinned woman sitting on a throne; Spivey recognized her as the goddess Pharasma. Beyond was a large chamber stretching dozens of feet to the east, supported by stone pillars and with deep funerary alcoves to the north and south. The far end of the room had partially collapsed into a large cavern in which faintly glowing motes of light swirled and danced in the air.

Bella knelt to work on this lock while Sandoval sang a song of skill. To everyone’s surprise (including her own), the lock opened with a click. Sawyer pushed the iron screen back and its hinges squealed loudly in protest; clearly no one had passed this way in years. As the echoes faded, the figure of a woman appeared at the far end of the room. She was shrouded in a nimbus of blue light, and floated above the area where the back wall had collapsed into the cavern beyond. She looked like the image of Pharasma that was painted on the screen, and she spoke in a melodious voice. “Welcome! You have proven your bravery and skill by defeating the dangers of Castle Brinewall. Lay down your weapons and approach in peace, and I will reward you with great boons.”

Several of the party began obediently laying their weapons on the ground (the pile of daggers at Bella’s feet was quite impressive). But Sandoval was suspicious, and he listened to the phantom’s words closely to try to discern her motives. The harder he listened, the more he became convinced that she wasn’t really there at all. “It’s an illusion of some sort!” he cried, and people began re-arming themselves. “Come forward in peace, and you will receive great rewards,” the would-be goddess implored, but Bella made a rude gesture and Pharasma vanished.

Zhustin cautiously approached the collapsed wall. On the other side was a vast cavern that descended in two twenty-foot drops into a large, eerie grotto. The walls dripped with moisture and bore strange and disturbing cave paintings of towering four-winged humanoid shapes. Tiny motes of glowing light drifted and bobbed in the air, giving the place an almost nauseating feeling, as if the cavern were viewed through a dreamlike haze. The grotto curved back out of sight to the southwest, and passages led north and south. Sawyer and Bella examined the funerary niches but found them empty, looted long ago. However, the southern end of the niches had also collapsed into a tunnel that led to another ledge overlooking the cavern.

There seemed to be no option but to climb down. The party affixed ropes and began to lower each other down the first ledge; Sawyer, of course, fell. As they spread out across the floor of this ledge, a hideous, Abyssal nightmare rose up out of the darkness of the grotto below. It had a slimy mollusklike body complete with 10 tentacles (two of which ended in savage claws), a monstrous face, and large leathery wings. It bellowed in a voice that seemed to be made up of dozens of different voices, speaking an unknown language; just hearing its words made the party feel slightly disoriented.

Nicki remembered Ameiko’s strange, mumbled warning about the “ten-handed one”, and that “its fear is your greatest ally”. He stepped forward and shouted his own challenge at the abomination. “I am from Cheliax, where we worship devils who are far more powerful than you! Begone you worthless demon-spawn, before I summon devils to carry you off to Hell!” To everyone’s surprise, the creature seemed to quail before Nicki’s empty threats. It cast Unholy Blight, filling the area around the party with a cold, cloying miasma, but it did almost no damage.

Ever since they’d found the Outsider Bane Arrows in the chapel upstairs, Sandoval and Bella had been trying to figure out just what an “outsider” might be. Faced with this abomination from the Abyss, they now had no doubts, and both began firing as fast as they could draw their bows, provoking shrieks of pain from the creature as the arrows found their marks. Nicki tired to Daze the thing, while Zhustin hit it with Acid Bolts, but neither spell had any effect. Marie cast Spiritual Weapon, but it too had little effect.

The thing was floating in mid-air some 25’ above the floor of the grotto and slightly above the level of the party on their ledge. There seemed to be no way to engage it in melee, but Shinjiro thought he could change that. With a cry, he ran to the edge of the cliff and threw himself through the air, hoping to grab onto its tentacles and drag it to the ground. Unfortunately, the writhing mass of tentacles was a more difficult target than he’d hoped. He hit, flailed desperately to find a hold, then dropped helplessly to the ground, 25 feet below. The creature roared in triumph as it saw the monk’s broken body below it, and dived down and sank its fangs deep into his flesh, and Shinjiro lay dying. Kelda looked at the monk’s blood-spattered body with grin of admiration. “Now that’s how a true warrior does it!”

Luckily, Spivey was not impeded by the ledges. She flew down to Shinjiro’s body, and cast Cure Light Wounds, reviving him. To distract it from the near-helpless monk, Sawyer and Bella fired another volley of Outsider Bane Arrows, and both sank deep. The creature gave a horrid shriek, and streaked high up into the air. “Father! Help! Faaaathhhherrrr! Pazuzu!” it cried in its cacophony of voices. Kelda hefted a javelin. “This is for the monk,” she growled, and hurled it at the abomination. It buried itself in the creature’s mouth, and its cries turned into gurgled shrieks that quickly fell silent as it tumbled to the ground.

When nothing else appeared to attack them, the party began making their way down the next ledge to the grotto’s floor (again, Sawyer fell). The dead decapus had a golden circlet on its brow and had a Wand of Scorching Ray; only gross overconfidence on its part must have prevented it from using this weapon against the party (or the DM’s oversight). The passage to the south led to a smaller chamber. The floor was strewn with remnants of a leathery egg sac, still weirdly moist and pulsing. On a flat rock at the far side of the room were a pile of offerings to the half-fiend from his dire corby followers. Among these was a darkwood and silver disc decorated with an intricate etching of Brinewall under the midnight moon. They’d found a similar disc among Kikonu’s possessions, this one showing Brinewall under the noonday sun. Both discs radiated faint transmutation magic.

Pazuzu Statuette

As they gathered up the treasure, they noticed a statuette of Pazuzu, glowing with magic. Despite its unknown power, Marie was not tempted for an instant; instead she smashed it with her mace until nothing but shards remained.  

While the others had been searching the smaller chamber, Bella and Kelda had explored the passage to the north, while Zhustin and Marie followed the grotto to the southeast. To the north, a tunnel wound through the rocks, coming eventually to a dead end. Zhustin and Marie found another ledge leading back up. Marie helped hoist Zhustin up, and he found a passage that led to another apparent dead end, but after a bit of searching he discovered a secret door that led back into the prison.

Having found everything of interest in the grotto, the rest of the group climbed back up (Sawyer, of course, taking another tumble in the process). They returned to the kitchen and kept working their way around the doors. The first led to a short passage and another door, which opened into a cave filled with stalactites and stalagmites. They picked their way through them to a tunnel on the other side, where they found another secret door. This revealed a tunnel that eventually came out on a narrow stony beach at the base of the cliff on the far side of the castle; rocks hid the cave opening from the sea, and it would be below sea-level at high tide.

The final door in the kitchen also opened into a short passage. The door at the far end was warped and swollen shut with moisture. Sawyer stepped up and threw his weight against the door, only to bounce back. This provoked gales of laughter from Kelda. “Can’t even open a little door!”, she taunted. “Let me show you how it’s done!” She slammed into the door, and also rebounded. The hallway was too narrow for both to work together, so the two fighters took turns ramming ineffectually into the door, bruising their shoulders and their egos, until Shinjiro gave a heavy sigh and stepped forward. He placed both hand on the door and closed his eyes, as if communing with the wood, then gave it a sharp rap and the door fell off its hinges into the room.

The foul-smelling chamber inside dripped with moisture — it ran down the walls in rivulets amid thick tangles of nasty-looking fungus. This had once been the laundry, and three washing bins in the walls were completely clogged with heaps of even more repulsive molds and mushrooms, some of which had grown to prodigious size, like the large mound of sickly green mold sprouting dozens of purple-capped mushrooms in the center of the room. As the door fell in, this mound of mold extended a stalk and fired a pellet of acid which narrowly missed Shinjiro.

Nicki hit it with a Magic Missile, but Marie took one look and immediately recognized the growth as a Phycomid. The danger it posed was not so much the acid pellets themselves, but the spores they contained; once infected, the victim would begin to sprout more mushrooms from its wound, quickly dying to become a phycomid itself. Marie advised retreat, and Shinjiro immediately obeyed, fleeing the room. As he did, the phycomid fired again, hitting Bella, who had been standing behind the monk. As Marie had predicted, small fungal growths immediately appeared in the broken skin, and Bella felt her strength begin to ebb. She was just able to pull the outer door shut before the phycomid escaped. Luckily, Marie still had a scroll of Remove Disease, and Bella was left somewhat shaky, but uninfected.

The group seemed to have explored all of the lower levels of the castle, but had found no sign of the vaults that had been referred to in Rokuru Kaijitsu’s letter that they’d discovered back in the Brinestump Marsh. But Marie pointed out that there was still one set of stairs going down from the ground floor that they had not found down here. They climbed back upstairs and passed through the throne room to the donjon at the back of the castle. Sure enough, a stairway curved downwards into darkness. At the bottom, an iron portcullis blocked their way, bars set deep into the rock of the floor and ceiling, with no apparent means of opening it.

The PCs received 714 XP for their efforts. They are now at 9312 XP, and have reached level 4; they need 15,000 XP for level 5. We’ll be at Leo’s next week, and Roger will be on-call.