Rappan Athuk #73: Mazes and Misdirection in the Massive Menacing Megadungeon

“Don’t split the party!” (-GM)

2nd day of Rova, 4720 AR

With the return of our map keeper, Madrik, we were off to another dark corner of Rappan Athuk. As we entered another large cavern, I felt the loss of Perseus more than ever, and I knew he would have loved to soar through the dark air, snacking on any bats that we chanced on.

We found a staircase leading us down to a white sand beach, and we saw a few giant scorpions in caves across the river. DFSIFA shot a few, and a stream of them started flowing out of the caves. DFSIFA kept firing arrows into the encroaching enemy, and even this exotic encounter decided that an encounter with an extraordinarily effectual entity such as us would not prove fruitful. Soon they had all retreated from whence they came, and we went through the door that DFSIFA noticed to our left.

It led us to a tiled hallway that twisted and turned for a while, and seemed to change behind us. Madrik threw his pen at the wall, as these strange halls were unmappable. We wandered for a while, and ended up at a door. It led to a square room with filthy murals in alcoves on each wall. With a little cleaning, they revealed scenes of evil-looking armies marching, with shadowy figures blasting spells at holy looking pursuers. DFSIFA searched the room and found nothing, so we moved on.

After another few hours of wandering and a quick fight with an ooze, we found another door, this time revealing a kite-shaped room with a small basin at the top and a small trough running from basin to a grate at the bottom. The room was empty save for a bloated corpse in the basin. Jackie Chan fished it out, and we grabbed his magical armor, sword and Helm of Underwater Action. We kept moving, and after more moving hallways and turns, we found another room. It was two long corridors of coffins with pictures of evil-looking warriors on them. DFSIFA thought one of the coffins next to us looked a little odd, and his instincts were spot on. As Jackie Chan got near it to inspect it, it grew a mouth and tried to bite him. Shia cried out that this was a mimic, and started rallying us with his cries. I shook my head and gave it a good stabbing. It didn’t last long between my swift sword strikes, Jackie Chan’s massive fists and DFSIFA’s arrows.

I saw a disturbance in the water down the tunnel, and I saw Madrik’s hand wave and then disappear.

The rest of the coffins were empty, so we kept moving. After another few winding passages, we found ourselves in a large cavern with a river running through it. There was a door about twenty feet to our right, and opening it nearly flooded the cavern. It seemed that the passage behind the door had been flooded, and by opening it, I had literally opened the floodgate. However, as the waters drained out of the room, I realized that Madrik and Deckard Cain had disappeared. I saw a disturbance in the water down the tunnel, and I saw Madrik’s hand wave and then disappear. I sighed, as he was our ticket home, not only having our maps but also the only one able to teleport us home. It was just Jackie Chan, DFSIFA, Shia and me. The party had been split by some mere water. I shook my head and tightened my grip on my sword.

Now that the passageway was no longer flooded, we proceeded carefully, as our most powerful magic-users were somewhere downriver. More wandering ensued, which led, eventually, to another room. By now we were getting a bit tired, and it was yet another of the square rooms with the alcove murals. I walked up to one to inspect it further, as these murals were just as filthy as the previous ones. Suddenly a column from the floor slammed upward and missed me by an inch. I stepped back and glared at DFSIFA, our oh-so-observant slayer. He shrugged and pulled out his tools to disable it. A few minutes later he stood up and told us it was all clear. We wiped all the gunk off the murals and found them to depict heroic looking warriors being entombed by shadowy looking figures. I wondered if that would be our fate if we were to linger too long in this mysterious maze.

My monstrous mate, Jackie Chan, yawned. I realized that we were all tired and should find a safe(ish) place to sleep. We left the room and wandered a few hours longer, to eventually find ourselves back at the coffin room. I realized that as bad of an omen as it was, the coffins would be a relatively safe place to sleep. We searched all of them again, and after reaffirming their emptiness, barricaded the doors, so anything that may disturb our slumber hopefully wouldn’t be able to enter. I fell asleep quickly, even in a rather uncomfortable coffin.

I had an amazing, vivid dream of Madrik and Deckard Cain teleporting somewhere…

I had an amazing, vivid dream of Madrik and Deckard Cain underwater casting a spell and being teleported somewhere.

“You must bring the pieces back together…”

It clearly wasn’t where Madrik wanted to go, as he cursed and kicked the wall in the new room they had arrived in. It was the same kind of room as we had been in, a square room with alcove murals. It looked like the one we had been in, as the murals looked as if someone had just scraped the dirt off of them. They examined them, then moved on, just as we had. As they left, a group of weird skinless zombies turned a corner and staggered towards them. Madrik smiled and fired off a spray of colored rays at them. One was struck by violet ray and disappeared, one was struck by a yellow ray and shook violently then collapsed. The last was struck by a blue ray and turned to stone. Madrik smiled and dusted his hands off, and they left the room.

They too wandered for a while as we had, and eventually ended up at another kite-shaped room with a pool at the top and a grate at the bottom. There was no corpse in this pool however, just a stone box sticking out of the wall. I saw Madrik reach for it, and the still water lashed out and whapped him. The water animated into a vengeful-looking elemental, and Deckard Cain, our resident pyromancer, laughed. There were a few explosions, and suddenly the elemental was gone, and Deckard Cain was laughing. Madrik shook his now wet heard, and activated his new mask ability to breathe underwater. He hopped into the pool and cast a few spells that battered the rock a few times. It eventually broke and revealed a metal box. However, as Madrik was doing this, the room had been filling with water. Deckard activated his mask as well and pointed this out to Madrik. He shrugged, cast a spell, and ended up in our dining room back home.

“Then you will find the way…”

They started talking about something, but I couldn’t hear it because Shia’s battle cry was echoing around me. I awoke instantly and kicked open my coffin to see vampire spawns all around us attacking Shia. Jackie Chan smashed his way out of his coffin as I cut two of them in half. DFSIFA pushed his coffin open and yawned as he shot a few arrows at the evil creatures. The fight was over sooner than it had started, and I looked at the doors. The vampires had easily been able to deal with our meager barricades, and so we braced the doors with coffin lids and spiked them closed. We went back to sleep, and got a good night’s sleep.

I awoke instantly and kicked open my coffin to see vampire spawns all around us attacking Shia…

When we awoke, we all agreed we had to keep exploring the dungeon and find a way out, so we did just that. Unfortunately that meant more wandering, but after a little less than an hour we found another room. This one was circular, but had blood and gristle all over the floor and walls. The ceiling had weird entrail-like tendrils hanging down, and I immediately drew my sword. DFSIFA coughed, and a fleshless humanoid creature was spit out of the ceiling and screeched. I sliced it a few times but it ran past me and bit DFSIFA. He cried out, then melted into a pile of shifting goo. That was one of the most disturbing things I have ever had the misfortune to witness in all of my adventures in this evil place.

Jackie Chan and I responded by beating and slicing the horrid thing to death, but DFSIFA still was a pile of goo. Shia identified the creature as a chaos creature, and DFSIFA had been affected by its chaos touch. DFSIFA reformed as his normal teifling self, and shuddered. It seemed as if whatever he had gone through had not been pleasant.

That’s all I have time to write for now, as we need to find our way out of this insidious labyrinth.

-Valestar Ekhart

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Death from Somewhere Irrelevantly Far Away, tiefling slayer 16
Deckard Cain, aasimar flame oracle 15
Jackie Chan, oread flowing monk 14
Kung Fury, sylph martial artist monk 15
Madrik the Spell Thief, wizard 15
Shia Labeouf, merfolk bard 14
Valestar Ekhart, aasimar ex-paladin 16

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