Between the Dunes [Session 50]

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Current Situation

• (This session takes place 20 Nightal)
  
• After handling things in Red Larch without killing any children at all, the Maybesitters made their way into The Sumber Hills to begin their search for the sunken tower, Dath Tirith. The moving dunes are divided by clay deposits and seem to provide a home to a number of Kruthiks and who knows what else.

Session Summary

• The territory the Trollmates are in now affords nothing but a view of the Sumber Hills. They are currently too far from the trail to see any differing terrain. The number of burrows and tunnels are certainly increasing the further they go. Z goes a little ahead for some reconnaissance. Barrett looks into one of the larger tunnels and the tracks leading in and out show that the crawlspace is very often used, but there are so many crisscrossing tracks it's difficult what the tracks might belong to. They don't seem to belong to mammals, however. They seem more like some sort of crab tracks. He relays all of this to the group.
  
• Z scouts a bit ahead. He can see the end of the dunes far, far, in the distance, and on a few dunes further away, little Kruthiks dart out and into holes now and again.
• The group gauges they're close enough to the tower to begin attempting to locate it, and so Dhann casts Locate Object. A ping from the Ring of Beacons that Ander Blackwood showed them bounces back to Dhann from the northwest. The group is confirmed to be somewhere within half a mile of the tower. They head to the next dune for a better vantage point to look for paths, or perhaps clearer routes.
  
• The clay down in between the dunes is very deep, and one could probably sink about a foot down into it, if not careful. It's also sticky, thick and mucklike. Thankfully, Water Walk keeps anyone from sinking.
• Z then spots two smaller Kruthiks, and they don't seem to have noticed the group yet. However, in passing those two, to the west of the gang, two more pop out of a tunnel, as if waiting in ambush for something to cross them. Combat is initiated instantaneously as the crawlies are blasted by an Eldritch barrage from Elyana. Barrett moves between Dhann, still concentrating on Locate Object, so that the monk can help keep the Kruthiks at bay - giving the first critter be passes a hefty blow, but missing the first as it's still reeling from Ely's attack.
• Dhann moves to make space between himself and the Kruthiks, using Sacred Flame to attack but maintain spell concentration. One of the first two Kruthiks Z saw scuttles over and begins to clamber up onto Ely's horse and attack her legs. At this time, a larger one, bursts out of the tunnel, rears back, and shoots spikes towards the Warlock. Z initiates Tart Time and works to make the larger Kruthik laugh. Unfortunately, this one target seems to have a bad sense of humor, and doesn't crack any sort of smile. One of the smaller ones, taking intense damage, tries to disappear down a tunnel but is smashed in half from a strong swing from Barrett with his club.
  
• More of the smaller Kruthiks, and larger ones, swarm from the tunnels and attack the group. Clearly, hunting in packs is a tactic they employ. It's an intense several rounds with bug bits flying left and right. It's also clear that the sounds these things make are what was heard around Zail.The fight culminates with a swarm of the things around Dhann, making it clear, too, that the creatures will target whatever prey is the most injured, but will flee if their targets display enough aggression and deal out enough damage of their own. With Barrett moving to assist and flank, the kruthiks are either killed or driven off, even more quickly thanks to Z's hopping off the carpet to actively snatch the bugs away from the horses.The last kruthik to flee is stopped from doing so by Z, and Barrett finishes it off, magically bludgeoning it into bug mash.
  
• Ely, who has been trying to remove the first kruthik from her saddle, is able to do so, but loses a dagger in the process and is unable to relocate it within the lose sand the fighting has churned up.
• Z collects some exoskeleton for powder-making in the future, and Yarnic Blodhlar's request for specimens is recalled, so a dead baby one, and an adult, are stored in the cooler.
• Dhann drinks two Potions of Healing, and Barrett drinks one as well, and gives another to Elyana, as well as a Greater Potion of Healing, who currently only has a Superior. Z hops back on the carpet. Dhann casts Locate Object again to follow the Ring of Beacons. The horses are still hale after the fight. As the group continues, Dhann alerts them to the fact that the direction of the ring is beginning to move downards, showing that it is most likely sunken below the dunes.
  
• Coming upon a more open, bowl-like area of the dunes, there are multiple dead kruthiks in various states of decay stuck within the clay. The place almost seems like a killing ground or feeding area of some sort. Yet, Z doesn't see any definitive tracks of any sort from above. Elyana tries to see if she can gauge a better way to go around the bowl, and is able to discern that a tunnel to the west has much less tracks around it than a tunnel to the east, on their right. It's decided to move around to the west to skirt the perimeter.
• Z does another flyby and sees a tunnel that may be a way underground, potentially to the tunnel, while the rest of the group continues on horseback. At this time, Dhann's spell ends with its last reading heading northeast, and he relays this to the group. They've come up now atop a shallower dune, and it's at this point, turning to head back to the group, Z catches movement out of the corner of his eye, and signals to the group he's seen something. As they look in the direction the Tabaxi has gestured, a creature forms out of the clay in front of their eyes, forming a massive Clay Golem.
• Moving away from the huge thing, Dhann casts Aid at a level that will significantly bolster his friends, but unfortunately, Z is out of range of the benefit and so Dhann yells to him to stay out of range of the creature. Z mocks the Golem, viciously, and flies to the north to begin distraction tactics. He also floats his drum closer to the Golem so he can use it from afar.
• Lumbering over to Barrett, the creature doesn't attack yet, and Barrett takes the opportunity to begin his own attack, swinging his club around for a miss but punching the Golem solidly in the face, knocking the thing prone. Elyana is able to move her horse so that Bless catches all three of her allies in its area. Dhann also rides to a place that he can send Beacon of Hope to land on everyone for even more protection during the combat. Z plays a bit of Bardic Inspiration for Barret, but catches new movement out of the corner of his eye, and sees a second Golem forming. The rumbling in the sand is noticed by Dhann, so two of the four now know a second opponent is alerted and incoming. Barrett continues to fight the first one with Ely shooting Eldritch Blasts from the back. Spiritual Weapon joins the fray, punching the second Golem in the face. Z bolsters his acrobatics and leaps for the second Golem, whip in one paw, Radiant claws brandished with the other.
  
• The Golem Barrett has been fighting manages to land two hits to the monk, and Barrett feels the hits do more damage than other enemies seem to have done before. He manages to lands a few hits of his own to the Golem before retreating to gain some space. Elyana manages to hand off the Potion of Invulnerability and then casts Wall of Light towards the first Golem. Bless, due to both spells being spells that require concentration, is dropped. The wall blinds the Golem and dries a good chunk of it, doing a nice bit of damage.
• Dhann blasts the second Golem with Radiant spells and Spiritual Weapon continues to bash away at the Golem's face. Z also punches at the Golem, and rolls away to the west, out of range of the Golem. The massive enemy follows Z, lumbering across the dune after the Bard. Barrett moves to get a clean shot on the second Golem with a few shots from his bow. Elyana gets to a position to be able to see both enemies, while using Wall of Light to blast the second Golem with another Radiant hit shot out from the maintained light. Dhann continues the combination of Guiding Bolt and Spiritual Weapon to chip away at the second Golem.  Z's antics successfully attract the attention of the first Golem and the Bard works to lead it towards the Wall of Light. It isn't able to move fully through the light and is blinded once again.
• Unfortunately, the second golem gets close enough to attack Ely and hits, hard, but she's able to rally and negate the secondary damage these creatures seem to impart on some of their attacks. Barrett continues the barrage of arrows and Elyana shoots with the Wall of Light again, hitting. Dhann circles to be behind the Golem attacking the Warlock.
• Z punches his Golem in the kneecaps and scampers around to the other side of the Wall of Light. The Golem follows, moving through the wall, and swings mightily to hit Z in turn. While Elyana is able to reduce some of the damage, Z is now subject to the bizarre feeling that the damage runs much deeper than normally expected. Ely is attacked again, and feels the same, this time. More hurt than should be happening. Booming Blade fires off, though, helping to dry up a bit more of the Golem.
  
• Barrett rides back into the fight and manages to land a hit as well as knock the second Golem prone. Elyana takes the reprieve to down a healing potion, and blasts with Wall of Light again towards the first Golem, who is attacking Z. With a Radiant splatter, that Golem turns back into inert clay, clumps falling across the dune. Dhann gallops his horse up to Ely, snagging the bridle and pivoting so that her horse comes around the Cleric's and he is able to put himself between Ely and the Golem, swinging again with Spiritual Weapon. Z viciously mocks the Golem from a distance, and the creature takes some damage while clambering to its feet and then swinging to hit Dhann, but all its punches miss. In a muddy finale, Barrett's last several hits reduce the second Golem back to raw clay and it plops in several chunks to the ground.
  
• Smeared with clay, tired, bruised, but ultimately successful, the gang regroups. Z, who has since cast Locate Object after Dhann's two castings, senses the Ring of Beacons pinging directly below where Dhann happens to be standing. It seems that, even below the sands and out of sight, the Trollmates have located the hidden tower they have been seeking.

-

Barrett hands the unused potion back to Ely for safe keeping. Ely finishes chugging a potion of healing while full effects of Dhann’s spell are still up. A hiccup interrupts her response before she can get out a word. “Are you sure you don’t want to hic hold onto it? To have on hic hand for the future?” HIC.

Catching his breath after the exertion of combat, Dhann swipes some of the wet clay from his face and surveys the remnants of the second Golem. As if on cue with Ely's words, the Cleric feels the press of concentration lift of its own accord from his mind. "That's it for the Beacon, then," He lets them know, turning his horse. "It's dissipated. We'll have a bit more vitality for a good bit of the day, though."

Dhann looks back at the muck seeping away into the dune, giving the Blue a good pat on the neck in thanks. "I hope those two were the only ones."

Barrett presses the potion into Ely's hands again and rides to the southeast edge of the dune. He surveys the area that the Clay Golems came from, including the mucky clay floor. He begins to ritually cast Detect Magic.

"Okay, okay. Hic Don't keep it." Ely says, now juggling the Potion of Invulnerability and the empty vial already in her hands. She holds her breath for a moment and then turns to Dhann. "Thanks for that, it's really helpful. Those Golems pack a punch. I don't know how hic much it helped though...that I was lessening the blow." She finally puts both bottles into the Bag of Holding.

Dhann nods, acknowledging the Warlock’s words, replying, “Of course, anytime…and yeah, they certainly do. But I daresay we’re getting pretty efficient at working together at this sort of thing.” He scrubs at more of the drying clay near his eyes as he looks at the sand his horse stands on. “I think your choices helped, lessened some of the damage, but it seems the Golem’s abilities may have countered your own, somehow, in a way you haven’t seen before. In any case - we’re above the tower. Now, we go down.” We’re almost there.

Barrett finishes his cast and from the edge of the dune they are on, he inspects the clay below, where all of the carcasses were located. "I'm not seeing anything magically in the clay below or in the wall that the Golems emerged from. There are faint flickers of a magical aura of abjuration forming a very large, very rough circle beneath us." He turns his mare south and takes her off the dune down on to the clay and out of sight. "I'll be right back."

“Be careful!” Ely calls out to him as he rides away. She sighs and slides a hand down her horses mane, dislodging any bits of clay that may have latched on. “From our experiences, I know Abjuration is usually magic that protects, blocks and or negates other magic. I wonder what that means in terms of the tower? There are so many ways it could be used. It’s possibly not negating since we were able to detect the pearls… maybe it prevents teleportation inside without knowledge of the circle? Dhann, did you say there was rubble around Zail, before? ”

A few minutes later, Barrett rides back up over the crest of the dune, coiling one of his ropes and securing it to his pack. "I did a little spelunking in that big hole that Z glanced in. It curves away to the south after the first 15', and it smells cool and earthy but not pleasant. Very faintly, far off, I may have heard more of that clickety-clacking. It looks like maybe, at some point, the tunnel was heavily used, but it might have got cut off when the sands shifted. Below the layer of clay, the hills don't seem to shift, because the tunnel looked older, for whatever that might be worth. So what now?" Barrett asks, leaning forward to stroke the neck of his mare. "Do we just pound sand?"

“I was thinking about the magic you saw and what that means for us getting in…or out. A more practical way would be our best option at this point and it sounds like the tunnel is a dead end.“ Ely remarks.

“What do you mean by practical?” Barrett asks.

"Wrong choice of word? Is physical better? Magic is fine of course. I'm thinking of anything to get us through the sand without teleporting, for example."

While the rest of the group exchanged words, Dhann thinks back to the scry of Zail and what the mess around the Elf looked like. "There is, yes - some of it, the furniture bits I saw, looked somewhat recently broken, but other parts, I can't tell you what they were originally from, they looked so old. The stone - some of it was more recently broken, too, but the majority looked aged. It's all worked, though. Not naturally formed. If anything, what I could see looked like it used to be a wall, but had since been destroyed and stacked into a different boundary."

"A good amount of sand around him, too." Dhann runs a hand through his hair, his jaw ticking as he considers the tension of their situation. "Barrett, the ability to detect magic should be blocked by a few feet of dirt, or soil, yes? You can sense something below us, maybe it's really not that deeply buried at all

“It usually works through about half a fathom of dirt or wood.” Barrett says.

A look from Ely. “Common, please.”

“That’s three feet to you landlubbers.”

“See, that wasn’t so hard.” Ely mumbles with a smirk, petting her horse. And then adds, “I was thinking that maybe the abjuration could have been something to protect the tower from destruction. But your description makes it seems like that’s not quite it either. Anyways, just because the top is that close below the surface, doesn’t exactly mean the door is. But maybe there’s a window we can reach to make our way down to the basement?”

Barrett uses the last minutes of his Detect Magic spell to plant a few arrows in the sand, marking where he sees the edges of the magical aura emerging from the sand.

Ely hops down from her horse, holding onto the reigns as she thinks intently. “So. Our options: go from above through the sand. Or from below through a different tunnel. But also there’s magic but we don’t know exactly what it’s doing. And Zail is potentially dying or dead in there already. We just need to figure out our next step.”

Barrett stakes out a perimeter circle about 75' in diameter. Strangely though, it is almost a disk of magical energy but it seems to be blinking in and out in spots. He mentions this to his crew.

-

Next time on...