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Post by Spwack on Nov 24, 2020 1:39:29 GMT
Let’s get out of here, we can retcon some of this min maxing. I will stash my half a treasure chest of gold somewhere with a note that says “for phykalla” then head north to the junction then northwest to the river. “How do you feel about jazz?” “Do so do bop bop do do do dooowop Dibble dop dwop wop winnle wah wah wah Do so do bop bop do do do dooooooowop” Trying to summon the ghost ship. Squeezing it's way down the absurdly narrow channel comes the hazy outline of a three-masted frigate, far too large for the river, but sailing neatly down it nonetheless. ((For those just joining us and wondering what is going on... it's a long story. Ask Blerbles))
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Post by wingilbear on Nov 24, 2020 2:25:18 GMT
Alll aboard, I think I will try asking the ship to steer us towards the beholder. If that doesn’t work we will start by going up river.
When last we left the beholder it was outside of its lair, blind, heavily injured, and poisoned so hoping it croaked on the river.
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Post by Spwack on Nov 24, 2020 9:53:16 GMT
Unfortunately the boat can't follow commands like that, but it does make an about-face (in the middle of the river, no less), and starts sailing smoothly back the way it came. The sea air blows fresh and cold on your face, and you can hear the squawking of seagulls. Where are you heading to? Just seeing what is there?
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Post by wingilbear on Nov 24, 2020 12:01:37 GMT
Heading up river to the waterfall, then once we make it there head down river. Keeping an eye out for stuff. Keeping an eye to the sky for the hole in the ceiling that connects to the beholders lair. In the mean time I was thinking about using mend tusk to make skateboard wheels out of the greater quetzal worms teeth.
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Post by Spwack on Nov 25, 2020 9:26:04 GMT
No sign of anything in the river up to the waterfall. The current is moving pretty quickly, so if anything fell it would most likely be pushed downriver, especially something big and fleshy like the Beholder.
That is... an amazing idea?? I figure using Mend Tusk to change things that way only works once per tooth, like, it is "fixed" to this point, then after that it can only be "fixed" back to the same point. Are you going to use anything else to fuel the spell?
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Post by wingilbear on Nov 25, 2020 13:19:57 GMT
Nothing else to fuel the spell figured I can just go extra slow. Let’s go down river then, the beholder is probably washed up against the roots of saint seymour or on the shore of barnacle beach.
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Post by Spwack on Nov 26, 2020 1:19:19 GMT
You've got time to lay the groundworks, but I presume you'd be focused on hunting down the corpse of the Beholder. What were you planning on using for the board?
Down the river you travel, passing by the gravel beach and along the stretch of channel. Reaching floor -1 and looking up, you can see a shattered bridge and an opening far above the river, marked with a little bit of dried ichor. That must be the other way into the lair.
The ghost ship smoothly slides around the stepping stones and the small island in the middle of the lake. Are you going to keep going out into uncharted waters?
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Post by wingilbear on Nov 26, 2020 2:57:11 GMT
I don’t know what to use for the board yet. Think I will just make the frame so to speak the wheels and the axles and the spine. Yeah keeping a look out and I will keep going down river you may need to explain areas more to me as we go. Seymour should be around here at some point on -1
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Post by Spwack on Nov 27, 2020 1:48:00 GMT
In order as you go down the river: - The high-up hole into the Beholder lair. - A broken bridge that juts out on both sides of the river. - A set of stepping stones, the south side of which has a few of Saint Seymour's roots sticking out into the water. - A largish island splitting the canal. - An unbroken bridge that is near the extractor machine.
Beyond that is unknown.
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Post by wingilbear on Nov 27, 2020 3:20:52 GMT
Oh sweet a new way to get to the magic extractor. Provided seymours roots look Undamaged I will continue on into the unknown.
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Post by Spwack on Nov 29, 2020 8:39:01 GMT
Seymour looks happy and healthy, only a few of the roots touch the water since there aren't much nutrients, most go further down.
The ghost ship continues on, past the bridge and along a much more sedate current. The smooth walls of the channel widen and roughen into coarse cavern, before disappearing beyond the range of your light. The water, so fast and smooth before, deepens rapidly beneath the keel and slows, with little wavelets sloshing back and forth. The vault of the ceiling above you is a black starless void.
Starless, were it not for one gleaming light in the endless expanse, a twinkle far and high above.
Looking down, you can see that below the strange star is a tiny speck of firelight, and perhaps, over the quiet splashing of the waves, can you hear... chanting?
Huh.
Where do you want to go? The ocean is your oyster! The canal is to the south-east behind you, the walls of the cavern have parted to the west and north, the fires are to the north-west.
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Post by wingilbear on Nov 29, 2020 12:14:31 GMT
Follow the current I suppose. Have I already gone past the island with the stairs leading down? Hmmmm if this is the ocean then I am probably approaching the city at the end of the river. I don’t want to go there until I receive that information from the professor. I will probably follow the current and then if it does look like a city ahead I will head back to cell block zero
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Post by Spwack on Nov 30, 2020 1:01:38 GMT
You have gone past that island, back on the river-proper.
Sailing towards the glimmers of flame, you start to see more of the terrain ahead. It looks like a pile of shacks and buildings on an island in the middle of the underground ocean. Your eyes must be exceptionally keen, because you can see something atop a large building facing the river that looks very familiar - a fleshy and wounded orb, flailing tiny tendrils around.
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Post by wingilbear on Nov 30, 2020 4:42:30 GMT
hmmmm I will try and get a closer look. Are there lights on the building? Does it look like people are there? The beholder is moving while atop it? are they impaled on it? I will approach.
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Post by Spwack on Dec 1, 2020 5:40:43 GMT
As you sail closer, you can see there are torches burning all over the island, but they seem to illuminate the darkness weirdly. You can see people moving, and the Beholder is wriggling but completely trapped. The people on the island seem, as you look closer, really quite large. Probably not orcs though. How close do you want to sail? Your ship is a ghostly white, so you might be seen, or you might not be.
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Post by wingilbear on Dec 1, 2020 7:37:57 GMT
I request that the ghost ship shrink down so it is smaller and harder to see. Then I will go a bit closer. The beholder is trapped by what?
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Post by Spwack on Dec 1, 2020 12:44:39 GMT
The ship kind of bobs around, and sinks a little deeper into the water, and some fog starts rising up. It looks like the Beholder is, tied down by something? They don't look good, you can see a big patch on the side of their main eye that looks rotten and gangrenous, even from here. You can also see that the people moving around are, in fact, giant upright-standing crabs.
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Post by wingilbear on Dec 1, 2020 18:13:09 GMT
Ah sweet crab people. Hmmmmm no guts no glory. Andsaca and blerble were told they should go to this city for some reason. I’m going to swim the rest of the way once I get close. I was told the city would not like the ghost ship. I’m going for the beholder area.
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Post by Spwack on Dec 2, 2020 1:21:09 GMT
Are you going to leave any of your gear that might suffer from getting wet on the ship, or take it all with you?
Either way, the ship sails you in a little closer, then sploosh! The water is absolutely freezing and a little brackish, but you wiggle your way towards the light of the torches. Up closer, you can see that the Beholder is certainly bound by something, but not ropes. You can see the monster twitch and spasm atop the squat tower, straining it's muscles to get up, but something is preventing it. That something might just be the crabling standing closest to the tower. Even from here you can see the intricate designs engraved into it's thick grey shell, and the pearls embedded all over it's claws. It is holding some kind of fleshy bulb up towards the Beholder, especially when the monster tries to bend an eye-stalk anywhere except the ceiling. The Beholder looks seriously injured, you can see dozens of oozing holes all over it's hide.
You feel something moving, beneath you in the water. What do you do?
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Post by wingilbear on Dec 2, 2020 2:43:35 GMT
I thought the scroll would get messed up in the water and maybe lil red. I would leave behind some of my metal spikes. Otherwise I can leave most of my stuff I mean just need the telthidian lance and the lantern. Most of my stuff flies. Hmmmmm if the thing moving underneath me scares me I will summon the ship and get out of there. Otherwise I will continue swimming to shore and call out to the crab people. “Hark champions!”
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Post by Spwack on Dec 3, 2020 4:05:06 GMT
Hmm, I honestly can't tell if Blerble would be scared or not. It's large, moving with purpose towards you, and seems to be a much swifter swimmer than you.
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Post by wingilbear on Dec 3, 2020 14:11:41 GMT
It’s purposefully moving towards me? Yeah let’s run. Good bye crab people and the wondrous things I would have done with the beholders body.
Back to cell block zero.
“Gonna jazz it up or I’m dead in the water. Jazz it up so I can summon ya. Jazz it up so I don’t flounder. Jazz it up! Let’s ride.”
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Post by Spwack on Dec 4, 2020 3:06:12 GMT
The ghost ship is underneath you all of a sudden, scooping you out of the water onto the bow. Below you, you can see a huge crabling bobbing in the water, waving it's tremendous skull-cracking claws at you, before turning towards the shore. Instead of legs, you can see the bottom end of it's body merges into a squat tube structure, that sprays water behind it and sends the crabling rocketing towards the settlement.
On the shore, the pearl-laden crabling turns towards you with a start. It waves a claw towards you, and you feel the sharp crackle of magic coalescing. A bolt of octarine force corkscrews through the air and slashes through the sails of the ghost ship, and sending a shudder through the decks. The crabling looks like it is about to cast again, but the Beholder near gets an eye-stalk free from whatever is binding it! A beam of fire shoots out over the ocean, landing with a sizzle and a spray of steam, but the crab-wizard has turn away from the ghost-ship and is focused again on the Beholder. You can see more huge crabs come streaming out of various nooks and crannies, snapping their claws at each other, and you.
Back to CB0?
((Just a hint, since you are a spellcaster, you're pretty sure summoning the ghost-ship would've been a very noticeable surge of magic, and anything like that this close to a settlement would usually get a response like what you saw))
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Post by wingilbear on Dec 4, 2020 3:10:12 GMT
Wish I would have thought of that sooner but heat of the moment and all. Yeah there is nothing I can do here. Back to cell block zero. Gonna keep an eye on the waters as I go. Beholder might have dropped some stuff as they travelled.
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Post by Spwack on Dec 5, 2020 4:41:50 GMT
It's up to you if there is nothing you can do. If you want to try something else here, go for it, otherwise next post can be in the CB0 thread. You didn't spy anything on the way down, or up, which is kind of odd in a way. Then again, the river is flowing very fast until it hits the ocean area, where it then gets rather deep. It's hard to spot small things in the water from aboard a ship.
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Post by wingilbear on Dec 5, 2020 4:46:35 GMT
I don't feel there is much more for me to do here. To cell block zero.
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