Session 75 - Skirting the Hook Horrors
In-game timeline: Start of session: 1490DR Ches 15. End of session: 1490DR Ches 15
Our "Heroes" return to the small camp they had found the evening before. There is nothing to be found there, so they progress further down the tunnel. Jaxii is on the lookout for poo.
The tunnel descends, and eventually opens out a little to become a network of intersecting tunnels. Derrick sends Pacino off to investigate, and looks though his familiar's eyes but sees nothing.
The party walks to the next junction and repeats the process with Pacino. This time the owl sees a small family of hook creatures in a nearby cave. Unfortunately, one of these creatures spots Pacino flying around and decides to investigate.
Our "Heroes" back away, not wanting a fight (wait, what?!). Jaxii throws some dries mushrooms at the creature, Iwee shouts at it to stop. Derrick runs as fast as he can away from it. The creature does not immediately attack, but tries to scare the party away with a loud hiss. This allows the party to escape down a nearby tunnel, where they slow their retreat, hoping the hook monster is not following.
Progressing down this tunnel, Derrick once again summons Pacino to scout the area ahead. His trusty owl spots a sleeping hook creature in a small cave that has some glowing purple crystals on the floor and embedded in the earth of the walls. Our brave adventurers decide to avoid this area and instead take an opposite tunnel which eventually leads to a cave containing a pool of water and a large clump of a variety of mushrooms.
Iwee spends some time looking in the mushrooms clumps for any that she may recognise, and eventually finds a group of yellowgill mushrooms that she knows she can now use to make more potions of vitality in the future. Meanwhile the others check out the way ahead.
In the distance they can see another group, or family, of hook creatures in a cavern just off of the tunnel the party want to travel through. After some discussion they decide to make a run for it and dash past the cavern.
As they speed past, they are spotted, and the hook creatures emerge to confront them. Iwee manages to run past into the larger tunnels beyond, followed by Jaxii and Karoshi. Unfortunately Derrick is a little slower, and his path is blocked slightly by a horror emerging from the tunnel. Derrick runs past it when, for some reason, Iwee decides to fire a crossbow bolt at the feet of the monster, only managing to provoke it further and it runs at Derrick, managing to swipe at him as he runs away, but the fighter manages to dodge the attack.
The party quickly head away from the creatures, and they do not seem to be following. After a few minutes the party reach what seems to be the old mining tunnels and they start to follow them, relieved to hopefully be away from the hook horrors.
After some time spent following the mining tunnels downward, they come to an open area that seems to be the site of a recent battle. A number of dead duergar, and a large spider-like creature, are on the ground, their bodies covered in a variety of mushrooms that are growing on their lifeless bodies. As Iwee studies one of the bodies to assess how and when they may have died, she is surprised when it, and the other nearby bodies, start to rise up from the ground and attack!
Despite being covered in a variety of funghi, and their attacks being quite unfocussed, the sheer number of these zombie-like creatures cause the party some problems. Karoshi determines that they are not in fact undead, as his divine sense reveals nothing of that sort, but their exact nature is not known to our "heroes". The party fight them off and eventually dispose of all of them without too many issues, though at the expense of some of their spells and abilities.
With the creatures lying still once more around them, our "heroes" press onwards, giving a group of dead myconids a wide berth in case they also start to rise up. They wonder what may have happened here and debate whether it may have something to do with their decision to place a warmonger in charge of the myconid clan in the sporerealm. With this in their minds, the group press on, further into the ancient mine…