more like sinkhole de cuatro
Nahk climbs out of the 60 foot pit to find his friends battered and bruised after their encounter with Ember Nemmonis, the Boneclaw, and his two Elder Oblex friends. Mallory grabs the book that the Boneclaw carried and is shocked to see his name in a letter written by Natalya, the mysterious woman of the books:
Dear Arry,
Whisperbottom and I have returned successful from our mission into the Arch-Lich Goromus crypt. I have retrieved the ritual to create a lich, but the Arch-Lich we found was something different. The use of sirablood The Hidimba proposes here is more than what a mortal body can take, based on our experiments so far. It must be what the Arch-Lich did: A way to become a lich, without the need for a phylactery. By the putting the soul in endless bodies, one after another, the lich can never die.
But at what cost?
Goromus was nothing more than a husk when we found him. There were 12 of him, all unable to cast the simplest spell from the madness he suffered. He begged us to kill him. I fear to hand this over to you, except to burn it. We barely escaped his temple with our lives. We shall talk soon.
Yours,
Nat
The next note reads:
Dearest Nat,
Do not presume to tell me what I can handle. What the so-called Arch-Lich failed to realize was that undeath is not the ultimate goal with this ritual. There must be something the Hidimba is hiding.
Yours,
Arry
That’s right, the fun game-show host voice of Goromus was dead the whole time! Aramestes was never buried here! (But you knew that because Aramestes is probably The Deathless One!) Ember, the dragonborn turned Boneclaw, seems to have studied Goromus’s Book of Forbidden Knowledge and learned how to become a Lich, but failed in the attempt.
The Kodama then came to the rescue and gave the heroes a cross charm and a way out. [[ Agga ]] Nemmonis then took the heroes back to the village, where Rho and Nahk invented a holiday to commemorate the day Osteros was liberated from the undead menace. The name of the holiday was something that I forgot! Sorry! Please remind me!
The Alchemist made banner, heroes, with all your portraits on it to welcome you back and celebrate your accomplishments. What a sweetheart. You handed her the book and she was pleased to have it.
The priest Kalak gave out boons, soothsayings, and non-magical rewards. Nahk and Mallory put in custom orders that will come in in three days.
The heroes took their rest and planned to set out the next day to Embara.
The gang arrived on the shores of Embara, which was covered in worms. A trio of priests spoke of The Unspeakable One whom their elders were going to summon to help them escape the 13 Islands, but as Mallory began speaking openly about interfering in the ritual without doing the requisite initiation, the trio decided to force the heroes to roll initiative (after Mallory cast a spell to mind control one of them).
The heroes soon killed and dismembered two of the priests. As the mind controlled priestess came to and started flinging spells, the heroes fought back viciously and killed her too, even as she killed her armless friend. It was a lot.
The heroes ferried themselves down into the quarry, some 100 feet down into the earth. They were soon met by a two headed hook-handed creature and a pair of worm-ridden zombies. The hard-fought battle ended with the two headed angry creature screaming, “You’ll never get my book!” before dying with its face sloughed off by a necrotic toll of the bells.
The Damage Sluts find themselves with a blackened charm at the mouth of a dungeon, having faced a beast which left their Manager of the Damage Department bloodied. Whisperbottom hears the whisper from the bottom of the pits as the Unspeakable One beckons him forward (he’s not like under control of the monster or anything, just getting ahead of that, that’s ALL Mallory, I didn’t tell him to do shit, don’t blame me!)
Wow Deathless One, Unspeakable One. Sounds like it’s time for some Cold Ones.
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