The Danger Gang Auxiliary Starts Its Hack Of The Shadow Realm's Dungeon
The Danger Gang Auxiliary finishes up its rest and their associate Kosticu leads them to his promised dungeon. It appears to be an ancient temple built into a hillside. There is a wide assortment of bones scattered outside. Kosticu reminds them that the last party he led in here got shot to death and some of them wandered off. The shooting shouldn't be too big a problem, just let Xenon soak it up for a while, they'll run out of arrows. The wandering off is a bit of a worry, but, c'est la vie. They head, the main room splits off in two ways. They head left, following some noises they heard, or they would, except there is some scuttling from one of the pair of corpses that litter the room. It turns out the corpse is infested with these horrible tentacled horseshoe crabs, we'll call them Corpse Infesters. Tendrils come flying out, ensaring poor Cyril. Arben drops a flaming sphere on the corpse, an action he might regret later. The Corpse Infesters vomit up some maggots which need to be forcibly removed before they get to wherever they need to be to do their dirty business. The Gang eventually defeat the Corpse Infesters. They dig through the corpses' stuff and find a charred up spellbook. Oops. The only spell that survives is Tasha's Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter, better than nothing.
Still, the fight took a good amount out of our heroes, and so they set up a Secure Shelter. Xenon is standing guard and giant scorpion comes scuttling down the hallway. Arben tries to reduce it, but to no avail, and so Xenon comes back in and they lock the door. After a little more resting they head out. On their way out they notice that someone was trying to pick the lock, but it didn't pan out.
They head down hall where they heard some shuffling about. They find a room filled with junk. This junk is no normal junk, however, it houses an ambush of Mongrel Men. They have with them a normal looking lady, well armed. They try to talk with them, but they won't listen. There are hypnotic patterns, some arrows, things go this way, they go that. It looks like the gang might end up doing alright, but then some winged snakes come flying in.
"Thank God, the Coatl. But I thought you'd be taller," Arben cries. They respond by biting him in the face. Cyril gets mind controlled at one point. Wirshin is able to Dispel it, though. Olybrius grabs the Wind Dagger and literaly blows them away. The snakes shoot down the hallway and aren't heard from again for some reason. Great. They tie up the lady before the Hypnotic Pattern wears off and dash down the hall, back to the still standing Secure Shelter. They lock themselves inside. They try to ask their lady captive some questions, but she justs keeps insisting that they are enemies of her Snake God. Whatever. They tie her back up and try to get some rest.
A couple hours later, they're feeling much better and are able to succesfully Dispel the ensorcelment on their captive. She says her name is Simona and that she was part of a party that had recently formed in Dumetrescu and they were given a tip by Kosticu. Their Cleric and Magic User died right off the bat (and unfortunately the magic user did have magic missile which is now all burnt up). They tell her that she and Mirella should probably hang out around here while they hack the rest of the dungeon. They find a pair of Mongrel Men cowering, but Arben is able to smooth things over with them. He names them Tom & Jerry, and, as he does with all monsters, offers them a job, in this case, disguising the secure shelter.
Continuing the exploration, Wirshin finds an illusory floor over a pit, which makes sense since these winged snakes seem to dabble in illusions. They a find a throne room with some little, snake sized thrones. They'd be cute if they weren't so pathetic. Cyril smashes them in a rage. Olybrius finds some spending cash scattered about; gold and platinum. That seems like it.
They head down the other hallway and it leads to a stairwell. There's some standing water at the bottom, the place smells totally rank, and there are some bubbles coming out of the water. They decide they need some time to think on this and head back upstairs.
They grab a chunk of a deceased Mongrel Man (poor bastard) and afix it to the end of a grappling hook. They toss out the bait and soon get a nibble, a Carrion Crawler. They pump it full of arrows and it scuttles away down a hall. They give chase and find a room crawling with Crawlers. People are getting paralyzed and are in danger of drowning, lest their party members prop them up against walls. Soon Olybrius is the last man standing against the last Crawler. Luckily, he is able to defeat it, using his great boots of leaping. He catches his breath and notices that Patricius is missing. Arben, still paralyzed, hears footsteps. He has his trusty familiar signal Olybrius, who gives chase. He sees two humans dragging Patricius and then throw him down a hole covered in an illusion at the end of a hallway. Olybrius freezes one of them with a Hypnotic Pattern. He ties him up and drags him back to the crew.
Meanwhile, Patricius comes out of his paralyzation, he produces a lightstone from his pack. He's in a room chock full of treasure. There's also a hole in the floor filled with water. Also, there's some terrible fumes; he decides to bug out of there before he succumbs. As he's about to dive down the hole, a Will o' Wisp come up from out of it. He dives past it, figuring, fuck that. He swims down a corridor and comes out in a familiar hallway. "Help me, help me, there's a will o' wisp after me!" he cries.
Luckily, his companions have also come out of their paralyzation, and they rush to his aid. Xenon is able to defeat it, things going much smoother than the last time they had to deal with one of these glowing assholes.
When they return to where they had left their captive, he is gone. They decide to keep exploring. That's when Cyril falls in a pit, a pit with a Crimson Mist. This guy is similar to the Crimson Cutlass, except for instead delighting in being a brave menace, this guy delights in sucking your blood out through your pores. The gang runs away. They set up another Secure Shelter and get some rest.
