Journal of Rollo Lavius 2

Entry #264 - Tentacles

(G264 12/02/2016 via Roll20 - AP(GM), JF, Mira, Guru)

DAY 244 ... (10 Uktar)(November)

Dear Kitty,

Bear with me here, there were rather a lot of people around now. To start with then, there were the people that were currently made of stone : Rollo, Mirabella, Falo-Han, Drashnag and Sybil.

Then we had the people and other things that were still capable of moving about : Me (Sylvia), Irritator, Lavinia, Shump, Yli, Basil, and the animals, Badger, Rolanda and Basil's giant snake which had a name, but right now it escapes me.

So, about nine in the morning Irritator cast his Break Enchantment spell and Mirabella and Drashnag made it back into the flesh. The others remained stone.

After some discussion on the subject I decided to memorise Make Whole, to put the pieces of Sybil together and tried a Divination spell but it fizzled.

The rest of the time was spent as a sort of 'make and mend' day. We set up a watch rota and sent the rat out on patrol.

DAY 245 (11 Uktar)(November)

In the morning I put Sybil back together again and Irritator, by some minor miracle managed to bring everyone back to the flesh.

It was decided to turn the large alcove in the cliff wall we had ended up in, into a sort of fortress and those that could cast Stone Shape (Rollo and Basil) built a tall wall with a narrow entrance as well as a narrow safety cave at the back.

We then split the party a little, with Lavinia, Shump and Mirabella staying at the fortress to protect the loot and provide a place of safety should the others get into trouble.

Before heading to the lift to take it up to the next tower Rollo skryed the dragon again and reported that the beast was using its magic to tear a hole in the 'weave' to try and impede certain schools of magic. It was using strands of shadow to tear into the reality of the Plane of Shadow. Rollo looked a bit pale after he stopped watching it, I suppose it didn't make very pleasant viewing.

Once up on the walkways again we made our way to the next tower where a warrior type leapt out and attacked us, shouting curses. He didn't stand a chance though as he was hit by Magic Missiles from Irritator, Drashnag's enraged attacks and my Spiritual Weapon.

As we approached the tower we could see it was covered in nasty wriggling tentacles.

Moving on into the tower's interior we found a desk in the corner, a grotty bed and a chest.

A note on the desk read,

'If i don't come back from Gorgon training, have Despayr retrieve my body and use one of these to revive me'

There were also three scrolls that we took to be of Break of Enchantment.

Searching the warrior that we had just slain we found a set of keys and one of them opened the chest.

Inside were three set of fine clothes.

The final bit of furniture in the room was a mirror. Basil reported it was magical and the general consensus between the magic users was that it could be used to reveal any location in the Black Rift like a scrying mirror.

Rollo decided to give the mirror a go, but after a minute of tampering with it, it exploded showering broken glass everywhere.

Well, happy days, we followed the next bridge to the next tentacle tower. The entrance we came in led to a sort of balcony looking down on an bloody altar where three robed figures prayed to the 'mistress of the night'.

In here were also a set of bellows, similar to the ones we had encountered on the mushroom ledge and a bunch of glowing runes on the floor.

It didn't look like a fun place, another dreadful place in a world of dreadful places. Without a word of a plan Basil went straight in and cast a Flame Strike, killing all three priestesses in one go. Rollo managed to raise his hand and say, 'Er, wait a minute...', but it was all done in an instant.

We went down to check the bodies and as I approached the nearest one something that I can only really describe as a 'giant tenticley shadow thing' rose out of the corpse, wrapped its tentacles around me and took a bite out of my armour.

Irritator cast another Magic Missile, I saw them all slashing into the melee as I wrestled myself free from the horror. By the time I was back on my feet I could see Rollo was in a bad way so I dodged round the fighting to heal him.

It was all getting rather chaotic, I lost sight of what else was going on, but there were tentacles everywhere and another one got me, its grip inflicting some sort of slowing posion.

Arrow after arrow came down from above, fired by Falo-han, almost always finding a target and making the angry tentacles flailing about in pain. Suddenly there was a dire bear ripping into them with its claws. For a moment I was terrified but then I realised it would be one of the druids, probably Rollo.

One of the tentacle-things suddenly turned to stone and crashed to the ground. I caught a glimpse of Sybil stepping back behind the bear, a smile on her face.

The second horror was ripped apart by the bear and the last one was hit by a lightning bolt cast by Basil up on the balcony with Falo-han. The battle was over, but what a mess, bodies and tentacles everywhere, smoldering in flames and pin-cushioned with arrows. This had been a serious battle, I felt rather sick as we got out stuff together and headed for the next bridge.

The bridge led to another platform, hung with tapestries and floored with runes. One of those tentacled things came from nowhere and Drashnag charged in with his axe, roaring a battle cry.

As we all got closer to the platform one grabbed Sybil and tossed her over the side.

Basil and Rollo summoned wolves and a howler. It seemed certain that Sybil was dead so I stepped around the chaos of the wolves biting and snarling at the tentacles to get at the enraged Drashnag who seemed to be oblivious to all the injuries that had been inflicted on him.

The healing magic coursed through my fingers and I stepped towards him...