Recap #2: Day 5-6: Beasts of 2 legs and more

Another day, another feast of horrors pursing their fanged orifices in anticipation of your arrival.

Session Two Recap:

After the magical arrowhead delivered the group to the sinkhole and the bard Broken Clay springs up from the ground to join the group, a troop of strange creatures ambushes our heroes and lead them to their “creator”, a man dressed in strange white robes - just like the one featured in the nightmares of several of the group.

Edsala’ansh, who claimed to be a wizard in the Anasazi University, has lived, trapped, in the sinkhole for such a long time he cannot remember when he actually arrived.

He is also revered by a large number of the “Pilzvolk” as he calls them – strange looking creatures that are more plant than humanoid. Only “Ed” seems to understand them, though, and they have no way of speaking that the group can discern.

Spending some time with Ed, the group discovers that the source of the frightening roars within the sinkhole is, in fact, what the Pilzvolk call the “Beast God”. This terrific creature hunts and slays the Pilzvolk that do not bring it sacrifices and on some occasions does battle with the man in white over the hearts and souls of the fungal villagers.

As the group chats with Ed, quizzing him on his supposed past, the beast attacks and the aged wizard leaps down from the dais and unleashes a salvo of magic upon it. The two combatants are flung far and wide across the sinkhole and are soon out of sight despite the loud and somewhat disturbing noises from the battle.

In the day that passes, the group investigates the old man’s house. They find an interesting apparatus that seems to be distilling oil from somewhere. With some detective work, the group finds a censor of the same oil and a device that creates a small flame to light it. As the smoke wafts from the censer, a room can be seen through the haze. With enough smoke released, our heroes walk into the strange, stone room and stare at the creature laid out on a slab, its blood draining into a small silver bowl. After tearing the place up, Poma chops the creature in half. Whatever was sustaining its half-life now broken, the creature dies and the last of the blood drains from its corpse.

Outside The fighting seems to die down and some brief scouting finds that the man in white is being eviscerated by the beast only to slowly regenerate and be torn into again.

The beast notices Grey Bear watching it and attacks. The distraction is enough for the man in white to teleport into a room back in his home to recuperate.

The group, having determined that 1) the gods have sent them here to kill the man, and 2) anything that would do such a thing to a living creature should probably be killed go about vivisecting the former professor and trying to find ways to permanently silence him. After hacking him in to tiny pieces and dropping them into vials of acid the whispering voice of the man fades away. Feeding the remainder of the corpse to the beast god, mollifies it as it accepts the sacrifice of the party.

The party then hacks apart the giant mushroom in a search for what else might be connected to the magical apparatus somewhere inside. The group gets assistance from the beast god, its rage now pacified and with some effort is able to communicate to the party.

Having destroyed the gargantuan fungus, the party and the beast god return to the fissure that Broken Clay escaped from.  Searching for some kind of stone, the party begins to dig. Soon after, the beast god aids a paw and turns up great boulders of limestone. Finding a small opening, Gray Bear rappels into the cavern to investigate the river flowing through.

The rest of the party, safe above ground are rocked by explosion of water and air bursting forth from the fissure. The beast god is flung into the air and slams with the sound of shattering bones into the ground.

The great horned serpent Uktena looms above the party. In a flash, the god sinks its fangs into the wounded beast and wraps its coils about it. A nauseating minute passes as the still struggling body of the beast is swallowed whole by the giant serpent.

Its meal complete Uktena sinks silently back into the cavern below.

Bewildered, befuddled, and anxious to be away from this mad place, the group descends into the cavern.

There Uktena greets them in the form of an Axolotl.

He recommends touching a stone in the room just off the cavern to return home.

Jenga – the Aztec priestess familiar with the ways of the dead - senses that the area around the stone is at once real and solidly planted in the world of the dead.

Faced with no alternative, the group touches the stone and is immediately transported to a great chamber. Within the chamber’s domed ceiling is a magical representation of the inside of a mountain. The magic plays tricks on the eyes and is perceived to be on the inside of the mountain looking out, through the snow and stone and into the sky above.

The room is lined with eight pillars that seem to be part of the mountain itself – each with a label on the ground before it representing a compass point. The group deciphers a mysterious glyph on the wall – one that seems to be a map with several dots on it and decides to touch the pillar that says NW. They find themselves in a small dark room, fairly different from the one before.

Poma begins to play with the touchstone as part of the group travels down a dark corridor to find an exit.

Suddenly the rooms turn bitterly cold, and undead wretches appear in the room as if by magic. The scouts are also ambushed by the undead, leading to a narrow escape by the heroes. Battered and bruised, they make their way from the haunted corridor and into the bright sun of day.

They find themselves not far from a human settlement in the mountains Gray Bear has traversed before.

With a few nights to rest and recuperate, they learn that the undead occasionally stumble into the village and are swiftly dealt with. No other relevant details are known by the humans, but they happily share their lodges and meat in trade for stories and entertainment.

The next morning the group decides to move on, but not to where. The Gnoll village to the West? The Viashino city to the South? Go North and find the hunting grounds of the Neanderthal? Perhaps there is time to stop by the shrine of Thunderbird on the summit of a nearby mountain?