Callie’s Journal
Oz wants to go to the tower, which he imagines is full of treasure and not piping hot death. Well, we’ve done plenty of dumb things and lived, so we might as well give it a try. Freki notices some roots growing around. The ground smells like the forest to him. The birds seem more unified than usual. He asks them if we should reteat, and they say, “We cannot.”
Suddenly there’s trees and this is a forest somehow! This place is so freaking weird. On the other hand, maybe there aren’t that many trees. Still weird, but dwelling on it seems like it won’t get me anywhere.
Then there’s screaming from all around! I do not get confused and start flailing all over the place, and anyone who tells you I did is lying. But Freki sweeps me under his cloak anyway. From under the cloak, I can hear Oz’s monkey making scared monkey noises.
There’s a menacing female voice that says, “I think this has gone on long enough.”
The second one says to Audreth, “Broken free of our sister’s control, I see. Unfortunate.”
The first one says, “We can rectify that.”
They both brandish their claws and turn to look at the monkey. Then they fly straight into the monkey. INTO. IT. Alecto makes it into the monkey, Tisiphone doesn’t quite.
In a flash, Oz leaps out to defend his monkey, but the monkey remains possessed by a murderous bird-woman.
Freki shoots an acid arrow at Tisiphone. Then he hands a “spike growth” arrow to me. OK? I could maybe stick this in my crossbow, but I hope I don’t have to.
The monkey falls prone and its body starts to bubble. Ooh, I can’t look.
On my turn, I bless everybody except Cassandra. I don’t quite have enough juice for that. I also summon Avandra’s spiritual weapon, a rapier. Looks sweet, but whiffs on the monkey.
Cassandra casts something at the monkey and hits it, but then the energy she sent out starts…disintegrating her hand? OOH, I CAN’T LOOK. “This can’t be real! This is a nightmare! Not again…!”
Vondal casts Banishment on the monkey, which also contains the two Furies. The monkey turns into a pile of pulsating flesh…which is not a huge improvement…and unfortunately a splash of wild magic smacks Bec square in the face, turning her into a potted plant. Everybody else is now vulnerable to piercing damage. I don’t know how, but I sense that the plant is SO PISSED OFF. It’s rattling a little in the pot in a pissed off way, I’m pretty sure.
Audreth casts an aura and drags Vondal into it. The plant, invigorated by the aura, explodes out of the pot and into elf form! Cassandra’s hand stars to restore itself and she starts pulling, simultaneously sending out a pulse of holy power. “LET GO!” she shouts.
Cal stabs at the aberrant ball of flesh. He stabs it in the head (?) and there’s more screaming. Mostly it’s the two Furies, but maybe some monkey under there too. The sword is wreathed in a holy fire, which sets the flesh mass on fire. But the fire also follows the stream of light to Cassandra. Cal has stabbed her shadow, and so she takes some damage too.
Oz attacks the beam of light stretching from Cassandra to the eldritch horror. Two of Cassandra’s fingers get sliced off. She’s in shock. The horror monster twitches and oozes. I don’t even know enough adjectives for what this thing is like!
The flesh ball forms a maw, which shrieks in the gestalt voice of the Furies. Cassandra takes some damage from this, but she kind of shakes off the trauma. She’s pretty cool, I have to say.
Freki is smelling a lot of blood from the enormous cyst. He decides to fire a hail of thorns into the maw. He is not going to grapple it and become in its belly. That seems wise. He doesn’t quite kill it, though.
A SECOND MAW EMERGES AND BREATHES FIRE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa
I take 34 fire damage, now I have 36 HP
The abominable creature sprouts some legs and scuttles towards Cassandra. It physically envelops her and gets even bigger. Cal notices that the shapeless abomination is gaining some shape…s…. It seems to have six legs, two arms, and a head with two maws.
There’s a flash of lightning. I feel there’s a divine presence that was invoked by Cassandra from inside the flesh-prison. Freki feels the rage that is fueling the spell. Bec reasons that it was probably Cassandra. Vondal wonders if he could turn the power onto the creature. Cal is in the blast radius and it looks like he might get hurt…but instead the lightning gets sucked into his sword, which starts sparking. Awesome!
Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering flesh-beast; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee! My spiritual weapon stabs at the half-formed creature and nudges it into oblivion. It turns back into Cassandra. She is unconscious and her shadow is back attached to her as it’s supposed to be. Whew!
But then Cal notices something weird about the shadow, so he stabs it! Then the shadow stops being weird. Vondal uses his wand to heal her. She muses that it seems like this place is hostile to her, specifically.
Oz floats the idea that Cassandra manifested the Furies. It’s a good question, but Cassandra doesn’t think so. Freki wonders if she has any enemies down here. She says there could be some enemies of the SPI here, among the spirits of the dead. Cassandra isn’t sure that this is the real underworld, but it’s just a hunch.
Cassandra believes in fate, but she also observes that things just seem to happen, so why worry? “Speaking of which….” she gestures. The tower is right there. Oz scoffs at any suggestion of waiting to go in and kicks the door, which turns out to be locked. Freki points out that he’s low on arrows and needs time to make some more.
Working together, Cal & Oz get the door open and we all head inside. There’s a tile mosaic depicting constellations on the floor. They resemble ravens, though these aren’t constellations in our sky. Audreth thinks it’s one crane rather than two ravens, but it’s…upside down?
Freki smells something like the monster dog that attacked us and goes looking for it. Honestly, I’m so tired I don’t even notice. I sit down and try to relax.
Meanwhile, Freki finds a staircase going down and the smell is stronger here. He can also hear sleeping sounds. He comes back and lets us know, but we need a rest. Bec casts tiny hut and we’re safe for the duration!