(Follows: Down the Tubes)
Departing the island that formed around the Tomb of Khaem, the Kuo-Toa fisherman the party has named Timmy-Tom insists he must report the discovery to the Lake Witch, preventing them from being cursed to be hopelessly lost trying to reach Sloobludop. Creatures and even fungi in this region are often her spies, her eyes and ears, and their navigation has no doubt already been noticed.
The Darklake
The Darklake is not a single body of water, but a network of underground rivers, natural tunnels, and canals that connect innumerable water-filled caverns and chambers. A useful waterway for traveling between key sites in the region, it is said to stretch over a hundred miles across, with ceilings barely above its surface in places while in others caverns open miles above.
Long ago, Duergar engineers extended and widened many of the interconnecting passages of the Darklake, constructing locks for raising and lowering watercraft to different levels and clogging whirlpool leaks to even its levels. This allowed the gray dwarves to open large portions of the network for travel and trade.
Navigating is difficult with the absence of points of reference. There is no sky, no winds, no sun or moon or stars. Travelers also suffer the burden of finding clean drinking water, as the waters drain from the High Moor above, the bog known for populations of foul creatures - particularly Nieznanes.
Even more facile than the Duergar traders, the fishlike kuo-toa became the most adept navigators of the Darklake, perhaps due to their obsession with a certainty that the Underdark holds a secret pattern they toil to unravel. They are certainly exceptional guides through the dark waters, and surely travel by water makes the party far more difficult for the Drow pursuit to track.
Characteristics of the region include frigidly cold waters except where fed by a rare hot spring, fogs that diffuse even the dim light of fungi and Faerzress, and echoing sounds. These vary greatly, with some regions drowned out by columns of water from high above while in others there is merely a persistent dripping trickle, like a very slow rain. And then in many an eternal silence, where even one's breath seems to call attention out and across the surface. Listening is very important, as sight is often hindered by the extent of darkness and the fogs.
On the way to find the witch, the sounds heard include metal hammering on stone, shrieks from above, buzzing of a swarm, far off war cries, drifting music on pipes, thumping of drums, sudden furious splashing and struggle, and hollow moans as easily of the dead as of air moving through narrows.
Timmy-Tom points out a man-sized fish he calls a demon-ray. It is a new species that has recently invaded the place. It is flat and moves as if flying through the waters. They are intelligent, maybe even more of a race than a species. And they have disrupted the ecosystem, forcing the fishing fleet to range further out and take extra care.
Lair of the Lake Witch
The region seems to become more enclosed, with shadows and flows of water disorienting and forcing odd pivots. Reflections seem not-right, blended with illusion, and repetitions of landmarks. What Timmy-Tom calls this area translates to something like "The Dark Mirage". Eventually, he steers the craft toward an outcropping of rock that juts from a large clump of moss that forms a cave - or generously, a cottage. Upon this rock, humming an eerie tune, an old elf-like figure sits in a chair mounted on spiderlegs. Her voice has the sound of one at times and of three at others. Her reflection and shadow, too, flicker between seeming she is one and she is three. Two small attendants stand nearby within deep shadow. As the barge nears, her one-and-three voice speaks, expectantly:
Pretty pretties from up top / Seeking seeking Sloobludop
Grey dwarves clever works of stones / Maze dark and cold to chill your bones
Nanny Plunk thinks pretties lost / Can help get out if pay the cost
First, I think, a boat you’ll need / The one I offer your blood must feed
To the fish folk I will guide / Wear my ear, for there I’ll hide
Your hope to cure your handsome friend / To that healer, my ear you’ll lend
Last, and fast, for when you flee / Deliver a note so wrote by me
Carry this to my sister’s place / As you race through silken lace
If you be eaten when she you find / My words delivered, so I shall not mind
One sister called from the silken path / The third from worm-maze to brew our wrath
(She begins to flinch and eyes grow mad, her seeming that of no identifiable race, two deep gnomes emerge, pat her hands reassuringly)
Cued when in Nanny’s Lake broods intrude (attendants add: how rude!) / Words as food for a dark mood eschewed
Three sisters nude not lewd nor prude / A hex to vex for long have we ruled
Her spider-chair carries her into her dwelling as two attendant Nieznane lash the craft and assist the party following. One gnome scowls and says nothing, the other seems excited for visitors, even skips a little, and introduces himself as "Topsy" and his brother as "Turvy". On a cot within lies Sarith Kzekarit, apparently sleeping.
Within the lair of the Lake Witch, as Nanny Plunk prepared a stew for a welcome warm meal before departing, the group finds numerous oddities. The witch makes no fuss over the party's curiosity, cackling to herself at moments of horrified realizations set in. Vaxz's fascination with a sickly crow with clipped wings (whose "caw!" instead roars like a lion) leads to a deafening several minutes when the druid employs Speak With Animals. Runi hastily shuts a box she finds containing three doll-puppets very much resembling herself, and a pair of tieflings with uncanny horn and skin coloration akin to Alyks and Dex. Alyks discovers a book that has painstakingly captured every single conversation, no matter how trivial, from some village. And Dex, delighted, discovers a leathery head of a dwarf, from whose eyes you can peer while holding its long beard.
Sarith remains resting for the visit, Vaxz confirms he is in an advanced state of infestation and must conserve energy. The witch (nor the gnomes) offer any explanation of how the dark elf came to be here, and Sarith's memories provide no help either. Dex is mainly relieved to be reunited. The whereabouts of Jimjar and Derendil after the tube-slide remain unknown.
Too hungry and yet trusting out of a sense they are important as messengers and couriers anyway, the party eagerly eats (while not questioning the ingredients) of the tasty meal prepared for them. A long rest is provided within the mossy cottage-cave, after which the group is introduced to the craft by which they will make for Sloobludop.
By Eelcraft
T&T have the craft ready to take the party (Dex wearing Plunk's ear) across the Darklake when they wake. The vessel is a boat-sized eel-like creature with long spines. The gnomes help connect the spines to the blood donors. More blood means more speed. Several of the party find this much more taxing than expected, but the swimmer makes great time - and with the hag's guidance several of the lake's dangers are avoided. At a lock manned by a Duergar, a Drow screener is cut up by T&T, who take the forms of Wererats, immune to the dark elf's weapons as lycanthropes.
The kuo-toa settlement looks like many-leveled clumps of reeds connected haphazardly by rickety bridges and platforms. The fish-folk, who had only previously been seen singly, are far more unsettling in groups. Though land-adapted, their ways are much like schools of fish - they are in constant motion, and aligned, darting at once in a new direction, circling as they listen to a speaker. Their eyes never close, they sleep walk, the whole place is maddeningly in motion and seems to be ever-watchful.
Sloobludop of the Kuo-Toa
Pulling into Sloobludop, the craft docks and follows the hag's guidance. Alyks becomes Invisible with Vaxz as a cave cricket to scout the town. Dex, uses Disguise Self to become a Kuo-Toa (with Plunk translating from the ear) and he escorts Sarith into town, seeking the Society of Brilliance leader Sloobludoop, who Shuushar had named, in hopes of finding remedies for the deteriorating mind of the dark elf.
Meanwhile, Alyks and Vaxz note Jimjar and Derendil tied up in a line of prisoners being readied for some activity in the town's square. This square itself is slick with blood, like a sloppily-managed fish market slaughterhouse. But that part of town is off to the side. This is the central square where a long-time shrine to the Sea Mother (Blibdoolpoolp) now confronts a newly-made shrine to the "Deep Father" Leemooggoogoon. This strange shrine consists of two octopi, heads tethered together and tentacles splayed out - above one of the demon rays. Blood of sacrifices are caked everywhere.
Worshippers of each clamor at the other with increasing ferocity as the situation intensifies. Runi, approached by the hired navigator, listens to his concern over the matter - and she promises to follow him to try to help calm the situation. They meet with the archpriest of the Sea Mother, Plooploopleen, who now disavows his daughter, Bplobplibpod, who claims to be archpriest of the Deep Father - and their forces begin to clash and spill further blood.
As the now-elf druid slashes the quaggoth and deep gnome free with a Flame Blade, keeping them from becoming sacrificial chum to these strange gods. The situation in the square boils over, with Runi engaging the champion of the Deep Father. The battle's blood stirs attention from demon rays in the shallows, who join in the fight, leaping and tearing at flesh and scales. All - including Runi seek to disengage and retreat to the eelcraft, when sounds and disturbances echo across the lake - and a primordial sense of dread grips the hearts of the heroes...
(Next: Darkest Evil)