THARCUCCI WINDWEASEL | middle-aged male elf searching for his brother Thilvos
AGAINN WINDWEASEL | elderly male elf with a peg-leg, seeks a bounty for lost Thilvos
ILIPHAR WINDWEASEL | youthful elf with threadbare clothing, seeks any gold he can find
On the trail of his missing brother Thilvos, Tharcucci and his compatriots, all elves of the House Windweasel, trudge through the wilds of old Bavaria.
We find a short-cut across the swamp in the hopes of finding Thilvos. However, as we're trudging our way across this god-awful swamp, we hear an explosion in the distance. How odd. We arrive at the Mound, and see thick smoke pouring forth from the entrance. Did Thilvos pass this way?
"Oh, my God! What was that?" An aging bald tubby human dressed head-to-toe in bizarre finery meets us near the standing stones, flabbergasted and upset.
Tharcucci--"Are you okay? What happened here?"
Man--"Oh, merciful gods! I don't know! I had a feeling the oil would be a problem at some point, but I didn't think someone would bring a lit torch into the ... Who are you? What are you doing out here?"
Tharcucci--"We heard a noise and came to investigate."
Man--"I hope you're not looking for anyone... There are three torched saps in there."
He pulls out a rotted child's head on the end of a rope. He uses it to see in the dark. "What idiots carry torches into a barrow?"
Againn--(unfazed) "Did you live in the Mound?"
Man--"Yes! Far away from prying eyes, for the sake of my experiments! Things men were not meant to know!"
Tharcucci--"You'll be pleased to know that we are not men, then!"
Man--"Hmm, yes, yes. You don't look like you're from around here.
We chat with the man for a time, and learn that Vilibald Schwartz is a necromancer. He's a learned man with absolutely no scruples, but he IS interested in saving his own hide. To that end, he tells us of the Cult of the Insect God, and the threat is promises.
"I know of the cult of the insect god and its rising. I fear, truly fear, they are close to their goal of waking the insect god and bringing an end to mammalian life. Of course, should he awaken, it will mean the death of every human on the planet. Unfortunately, I am powerless to stop it. A rare problem for me to have. Hmm. Ah! I know something that the cultists also know: The god can only rise with the help of a specific ritual, involving a specific item, but it's been lost. I have a solution to this problem, but I need others to do it for me. I'm too valuable to do it myself, you see. I want to send you three back in time to the exact moment when the item disappeared from history, and then, once you learn what happened to it, tell me where it went."
The morning when "The Gem of the Insect" disappeared was July 14, 10,000 B.C.
There's a place nearby called Goblin Hill that's stood as a shrine to the insect god since that long lost date in history. Vilibald warns us that it's exceptionally dangerous, but tells us it's the only way to learn what happened. He hands us a magic scroll, and tells us that if we go to Goblin Hill and read it aloud, we'll spend 3 hours in the past, in whatever Goblin Hill used to be. If we can find the gem there and destroy it, we'll save the world.
We banter back and forth for a while, discussing matters of payment and logistics and possible apprenticeships before coming to the conclusion that, eh, fuck it, we're adventurers! Let's go do the cool thing and save the world!
GOBLIN HILL
It's a big-ass hill. If you lit a fire atop it, you'd be able to see it burning in Hammelburg, Werneck, and Thuntgen. There's a little wood sign on the southern slope that says Velkommen, which we notice as our horses approach it near dusk.
We search for an entrance. It takes some time. 40 feet from the sign, up the hill a bit, is a cave opening obscured by shrubbery and hanging moss. Dead leaves and branches have been piled here to camouflage it.
Swarms of mosquitoes. Ants. Wasps. The earth is writhing with insects. Ugh, gross.
Dozens of slimes. Inside each is a gemstone. Againn walks up to one and pokes it with his spear. The tip sinks in. The ooze doesn't seem to care. Againn pokes more aggressively, hoping to snare the thing, and drags it back into the torchlight. The ooze is still moving; it flops onto the floor like a gross pancake and keeps crawling around.
Tharcucci reaches in and yoinks out the gem. It comes out with a pop and a wheeze. Green gas blows out. It's acidic. Saving throws versus breath weapon, and all Againn pass - but that glove Tharcucci was wearing is wrecked. The gem's worth about 130 s.p.
In another room: Mold. Ew.
Another: A small, naturally occurring spring. The water tastes tingly.
Another: A large black sphere of darkness 50 feet in diameter. Againn shoots an arrow into it. It makes a thwoomp sound as the arrow hits it and ... hits liquid? The arrow is floating. Iliphar fishes it out with a spear.
Another: A dazzling glowing light off to the right. It's dazzling. An entryway. A series of statues depicting human-insect hybrids, all entertwined. The shining light emanates from the eyeholes of each statue. The bugs absolutely swarm this place.
The eyes aren't stone - they're writhing giant firefly larvae.
We're going the right way, at least. We press on through the entryway.
Another room: Giant insect statues. Along the north, ant bee cockroach cricket. Along the south, dragonfly earwig horsefly moth.
Another: Scurrying cockroaches.
Another: 14 columns support a 60' roof. An altar at the far end. Something sparkles on the roof, just out of the range of our light. Upon the altar is an open book. Carvings of wasps and cockroaches along the sides; texture reminiscent of a paper wasp's nest.
Tharcucci casts Read Magic and reveals that this book Summons the Buzzing Demon. He takes it.
There's a door on the east wall. Againn opens it, and finds a room filled with fountains. Barely a trickle of water flows from them. There are places to sit. A cleaning room? Bright butterflies also. Murals of bugs and humans gettin' freaky really tie the room together. Gross.
Tharcucci drinks some of the water. It's fresh.
Another: More of the same, only this time the butterflies swarm us, trying to get inside our mouths. We search it, and find nothing. Absolutely nothing. Sigh.
Ahead, three doors. More choices. We start to clear them one at a time.
Door 1. A sparsely decorated room. Stone table. Skeletal body. A bright gold scarab on a chain around it's "neck." Tharcucci grabs it. 500 s.p.
Door 2. Broken down furniture. A finger-sized jade carving of a caterpillar. Againn takes that one.
Door 3. More busted-ass furniture. Nothing else.
A horsefly the size of a Great Dane attacks us! We loose a volley of arrows at it, but to no avail. It slams into Tharcucci, buzzing angrily as Againn shoots again, hitting it in the eye. Iliphar hits it in its filthy neck with a perfect strike of his sword, and the monster's legs twitch with hydraulic shock as it dies horribly on the cold stone floor.
We make our way to another intersection.
The door to the west looks weird. Insect heads and mystic symbols are carved on the door. Four heads form a square pattern at human chest level; the fifth is at floor level. Againn puts his sword in one of the hand-sized holes in the insect heads' mouth. It taps the back. We look more closely. There's a handle inside each of the mouths. The hole at the bottom has a pedal.
Againn presses the pedal. Thunk, thunk. Something's going on inside the door. We figure out a scheme whereby we pull all the levers simultaneously while Againn presses the pedal down; the door opens. A deep hum comes from behind us.
Deeper than the horseflies. We run into the opened chamber and turn to face our attacker: A giant bee! Fuck. Iliphar manages to one-shot it with a perfectly aimed arrow.
Back to the awful chamber: Oh god it's full of sarcophagi. The central one has a praying mantis motif; there are fifteen others are surrounding it. All covered in insect motifs. Uggh...
Tharcucci pushes it open and there's a large, open space within. No body. Just a void. There's an odd vibrating chirp coming from... somewhere below...
A giant zombie praying mantis the size of a horse pops out, swings with one of its claws, and takes Againn's body apart in a brutal slashing attack. We draw steel and attack, but to no avail. It's over in seconds. Tharcucci's clavicle is rent in a single attack; he goes unconscious from blood loss. Iliphar charges in with a yell, hits the creature, but barely scratches its hide. It crushes his head.
Less than a minute after encountering the elves, the undead mantis scoops up its pray, drags the elves' bodies down into the darkness, and covers the lid on its lair.
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