Castle Whiterock 3 October 2022: And if you want it, baby, well, you can bleed on me

The murderhoboes

Garreth, half-orc swordsman
    Bleu, droning elf wizard
Zaber, suave and debonaire man
    Logan, wolverine
Polly, cute and deadly elf archer
Stonemaul, dwarven cleric of Danethar

What they did

The conflagration worm rears up above us. Veins like red hot wires are near its skin. Garreth lunges forward with Scalemar in hand, and hews through its skin easily. As each blow lands great jets of lava like blood spurt out, splashing over Garreth. He howls in fury, and Polly plunks three arrows into its body. Logan steps and swats at it, hitting its veins, making lava spout out. He smokes a bit, but gets out of the way of the fire, and Bleu casts Blink Other to do likewise for Garreth. I get my crossbow out, and spot Stonemaul. "Stonemaul? Man, have I been smoking some good shit." He focuses his inner strength, becoming tougher.

The worm rears up and slams its head and teeth down at Logan, but he steps back. It swats its tail at Garreth, but Stonemaul shoves his dwarven shield in the way, breaking the awful heat. Garreth steps back and focuses on speeding up, as well as taking a Great Haste from Bleu, while Polly peppers the worm with more arrows. Stonemaul goes in to whack the veins, and gets out of the way of its spurts of hot lava blood. Logan swipes at its veins with his claws, while I also take a shot for the same. We both get out of the way of the firey spurts.

It again rears up then smashes down at Garreth, but he, Polly, Logan, Stonemaul, and Bleu get out of the way, Bleu with a Blink. I step back from the heat. It slaps its tail at Stonemaul, who again blocks it. Garreth hacks at it, hitting it and getting out of the way of the hot blood. Stonemaul again stabs the veins while Garreth takes a slug of a healing potion. Polly runs and shoots, an arrow plunking into the worm and dropping it with a crash.

Garreth reloads my crossbow, then asks Bleu, "Anything worth scavenging from that thing?" She babbles on in great detail about the biological, geological, and commercial impact of the conflagration worm, but it boils down to, "No." Garreth shrugs and takes a swig from the wineskin, healing himself up.

Castle Whiterock 26 September 2022: Roundup

The murderhoboes

Garreth, half-orc swordsman
    Bleu, droning elf wizard
Zaber, suave and debonaire man
    Logan, wolverine
Polly, cute and deadly elf archer
Thrognar, half-orc holy warrior

What they did

Logan wakes up after five days and wrecks half the town. Garreth and I let him run wild, keeping track of him by listening for the screams and crashes every so often. Logan is happily snacking out of the barrel behind a new shop that just opened, "Angie's Amputations and More."

Quintus comes and finds us in a bar. "I finished that herbicide you wanted."

I ask, "Cool, how is it packaged? I mean, is it in a potion, or in a big bag? How do we get it on the plants? Does it kill triffids?"

Quintus brings us back to his shop, and gives us a keg. "Generously slather it on the spellruin ivy."

I ask, "Does it have a bad smell?" I open the keg to take a whiff. It smells bad. Quintus's lawn is wilting.

He tugs on my shoulder. "Hey, close that."

I shut the lid. "I just want to make sure the wolverine doesn't go licking that." Garreth remembers he imbued it with hate, so it is probably not chi friendly. The barrel is lead-lined, so weighs 400 lbs. Garreth sighs and heaves it up on a shoulder with two hands.

Thrognar nods. "So open the barrel and pour down the hole. Does Bleu know how to clean the air?"

Garreth blinks at Bleu. I sigh. "I'm afraid to ask. We'll get a dissertation on Dr. More Oh's clean air for animals." After a moment when nobody says anything, I sigh again. "So, Bleu, what happens when you purify the air?" She gives us a lecture about how the air is scrubbed clean of the miasma as the elementary elements of air are each exercised in turn through a miniature connection to the elemental plane, with diagrams.

We—oh, alright, Garreth—roll the keg and put it in the bag of holding. We then fly to the dungeon, in the hot level. Once there, Garreth strips off his gear, down to armor padding and sets it in a neat pile.  He tells us to cover him, and Thrognar pulls out his greatsword and stands a few yards behind Garreth, while I watch down a hallway with my crossbow out.

Garreth strides up with the keg and pops the lid off. He pours it on the plants and, twelve seconds later, is back, looking a crispy shade of green. Bleu gets the salamander amulet back on him and I give him the bag of healing. Bleu casts Lend Energy on him.

He lies and rests, and we find that the plants die without any monsters finding us. Garreth tells us we should clear the other hole, which we do, Garreth clearing that patch in nine seconds. Then he dons his gear again.

Bleu casts Continual Light on a rock and drops it on top of the ivy to make sure it isn't still alive. As it is still glowing, we go down. She casts Walk on Air and Flight on us, as well as some other spells to help us see in the dark.

A big lake of lava fills this cavern, lighting it in a baleful red glow. Small islets of rock break the surface, offering solid ground. The ceiling is uneven here and marked by long years of volcanic activity, and is well above us. All over the walls grows a kind of ivy with trefoil, serrated leaves. The plant lets out a shifting light like a lit charcoal. Small mats of it even grow on the top of the lava, appearing to feed off the heat.

We fly over a small islet. Thrognar looks down. "Somethings under the lava. Can't be good for us."

A segmented trunk breaks out from the magma, rising fifteen feet in the air before bending back on itself. The blunt head of this titanic worm splits into three sections, each ringed by endless rows of white teeth. Veins like red-hot wires web close to the surface of the monster’s pallid flesh.