The Catacombs of Wild Energy

[AmberVael]

Aesa nods and follows them.
The portal closes.

[Fenric]

[much later]

Thorvard steps through from one tunnel to another, and feels the change though there is no marking to make it obvious.

Ware...

even as he speaks, a goldfish flies out of his mouth and flops on the floor. He stands, aghast, and stares at it.

[Ionbound]

Helen looks at the goldfish, looks at Thor, and laughs before eventually saying, "Wow...Where are we now?"

[Deathkeeper]

Mist stares at it too. What the heck?
"That's...weird. Erm, think anything triggered that, or did it just...happen?"

[Razanir]

"Well whatever caused it is affecting me too." Candace/The Bard looks worried. "I can keep my form, and can probably still get to hammerspace. But the magic involved in changing forms is probably too dangerous for me. Looks like I'm stuck as a little girl for now."

[Fenric]

Thorvard shakes his head

I don't know...

And another fish joins the first
The Bard should start to feel itchy for about a minute
Mist is under the effects of Slow
Helen has a gem appear beside her, but it's invisible and inaudible... so you'd never know.
Raril can suddenly detect magic. It's probable that this doesn't tell him much he doesn't already know.

[Ionbound]

Helen boldly and fearlessly walks forwards as she says, "Whatever's going on here, we should move through this area quickly. I don't like it."

[Fenric]

And then there is a maddening sound:

It's sort of like nails on a blackboard
and both Fran Drascher and Gilbert Gottfried are jabbering at each other in their worst voices
there's a Chihuahua yapping endlessly
and a colicky baby screaming
and a car alarm running through its sounds
and a toddler asking "why" over and over
while you accidentally licked your napkin
and there's an eyelash in your eye
you're sure a spider just dropped down the back of your shirt
and ants crawled up your pants leg

the sound pauses for a moment, and Thorvard shudders

Gott im Himmel...

[Deathkeeper]

At this point unless anyone stopped, slowed down, or otherwise noticed, Mist will fall far behind the party as he's suddenly moving at half speed. They might have, as he was trying to ask the Bard, "How do you know any of that?" but it came out, well, slowly. Unless the effect fades with time someone will have to either dispel it, or carry him. Because he can't do much like this.

[Fenric]

(( It's all one-round stuff unless otherwise mentioned, so once you've done enough that it ought to count for a round, you're off the hook... until next time ))

[Deathkeeper]

In that case, if no one slowed down for him, Mist will jog back up to the group presently.
"Caroline mentioned there was one tunnel filled with wild magic that housed a gibbering mouther. It was supposed to be in a tunnel somewhere else, but it must be connected to this one. Does...anyone know what a Mouther is and how you fight one? Because I kinda assumed we'd be avoiding it, and Caroline didn't seem to know much." which is to say, I forgot to ask even though Mist probably would have. Oops.

[Fenric]

Thorvard turns to Mist

Wild magic? A mouther?!

The mind-rending sound begins again, and a rainbow trout swims through the air past the group. Goldfish finally stop flopping from Thorvard's mouth.

This nonsense is wild magic, and that noise is a mouther! It is a blob with eyes and tooth-filled mouths on stalks that makes that confounded noise, spits acid, bites, and can swallow you whole and drain your blood: you have to cut your way back out again! Where's your compass? We must hurry!

[Ionbound]

Helen nods, and says, "Agreed...I'm not entirely prepared to face something like that. Let's go."

[Razanir]

"When you've been around as long as I have, you learn things. And while I haven't learned too much about magical theory, I've still heard of wild magic through my bardic studies. I don't know for certain that's what's happening, but those goldfish are certainly as random as the stories from my repertoire. And if it is wild magic, I certainly don't want to risk a big display like polymorphing." The Bard notices the Mouther approaching, and decides to run and hide behind a stalagmite. He then pulls a lute out of thin air, and some fish fly out with it. "I'm only 7, so I can't really fight. There's wild magic, so I probably shouldn't cast. But I can still attempt to inspire you with song!" He starts playing the lute and singing.

[Deathkeeper]

Mist will point again in the direction of his tracer. He's unsure of how this will go; he's really out of his element right now.

[Razanir]

"No combat, just running? I can handle that." The Bard switches his song from a more action-y combat tune to a fast-pasted chance song.

[Artemis97]

Raril blinks, certainly not remembering casting a detect magic spell. "What in the...?" And then the sounds and sensations begin, chaotic and unnerving. Fortunately, Raril has some experience dealing with things from beyond mortal understanding (he was kind of married to one). Unfortunately, he was also terrified of spiders.


"Oh gods, get it off!" The drow screams, batting at his leg in a desperate attempt to rid himself of the phantom feeling of arachnids crawling over his skin. He drops his crossbow and begins hopping about trying to pull off one of his boots. Someone might want to try and calm him down, or he'll be of no use to anyone. In fact, he's probably attracting a lot of attention.

[Ionbound]

Helen winces and shudders at the noises and sensations and she says, "Oh goddess...That was...Horrible. If that noise is the mouther, I don't want to get anywhere near it..." as she follows Mist's direction.

[Deathkeeper]

Mist turns and claps loudly in the elf's face.
"They're not real! Get a hold of yourself!"

[Artemis97]

The clap startles Raril pretty badly and a dagger slips into his hand, but he stops himself short of actually attacking Mist. The blade disappears and he slowly regains his composure. "Not real. Right. Good. So... wait... what's going on?" The drow asks, adjusting his boot and retrieving his crossbow.

[Deathkeeper]

"Trying to get to the Key, wild magic afoot, Gibbering Mouther approaching?" says Mist testily, trying not to panic as their strongest person is reduced to a screaming kid by a feeling. He would very much like that to not happen again.

[Razanir]

"You guys run. I have a plan. A horribly idiotic plan. It may cost me my life, but I've lived long enough anyway. Hopefully this works. Goodbye, and hopefully I find you again." The Bard, still in the form of a 7-year-old girl, runs bravely down the tunnel toward the mouther. After a bit, you hear an explosion, then silence. The mouther was destroyed, and as far as the party knows, so was The Bard.

(( And thus, The Bard risked his life by successfully teleporting both himself and the mouther to a no-combat zone in the Nexus, to let the threads of plot protection destroy the mouther. Or whatever happens to monsters in those areas. Specifically, they went to Mallside. I had a plot idea for him over there anyway. But yes, he shall be returning to this plot eventually ))

[Artemis97]

"Oh, is that all?" Raril asks, seemingly unconcerned, as he dug through his pack from something. "I've dealt with similar things before. Things from the Far. Beyond... well... everything. Don't think about it too hard, you might go insane. I know a special rune that should hurt it.... Maybe. Nexus, right? Can't guarantee anything, though." From his pack, he pulls a plank of wood (which honestly should not have been able to fit inside), it looks like it had been broken off from some larger piece of furniture. A crooked star was etched into one side. Something about it was... off. Made you not want to look at it too long. Wait, did it just move a bit on the edge of your vision? No, no, it was still the same. Nonsense.

"Worse case scenario, you can bash it with that." Raril advised, holding the plank like a club. "Better to just put the mark on your weapons, though." He also pulls out some chalk and offers it to the others. It would wear off fairly quickly, which was exactly what Raril wanted. Too many folks with this knowledge could potentially hurt his family.

[Deathkeeper]

((Razanir, I'm not the DM, but you can't teleport a monster away when you can't even see it, and you especially can't do it without asking the DM. Plus, only one place in the Nexus has actual anti-violence spells in place, and that's not how they work.))

Mist nods, although he'll let Thor's stuff be marked before his, since he's not much of a combatant and his daggers are a bit consumable. He'll use the normal ones though since the ice ones may not agree with this place.

[Razanir]

((Razanir, I'm not the DM, but you can't teleport a monster away when you can't even see it, and you especially can't do it without asking the DM. Plus, only one place in the Nexus has actual anti-violence spells in place, and that's not how they work.))

(( Fine, he attempted to teleport it away. Fenric, you're free to decide if it worked or not. Although I stand that anti-violence stuff could still work that way, even if just for the Rule of Funny ))

[Fenric]

(( Er... ah... First of all, the general procedure is "post your action, but wait for the results until others had a chance to react". But since we're RUNNING THE HELL AWAY, and aren't going to fight...

You attack, and distract it utterly so it doesn't attack the rest of us who are fleeing, but that's a lot of magic and now you...

1. "The target will get smacked by a trout appearing from thin air." No, not a carp: a trout.
2. "The caster will suddenly find out what happened the last time the target used the bathroom" ... a gibbering mouther... *shudder*
3. You get a small object, that appears to be a normal six sided die... except the top number ends up between 1 and 100. When rolled, the effect is from this table: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...&postcount=888

Finally, you are in Mallside with have a clone of my mouther, not him. After three adventures, he's a PC now, and his name is Kpozytl. He is currently hiding in his den, crying. Meanie. ))

The rest of the group flees until they reach the shore of an underground lake. There is a rowboat tied to sunken stump beached at the end of the path.

[Artemis97]

Reaching the lake, Raril holds up a hand, signalling the others to stop. "Hold on... why is there a stump underground? That's... suspicious. And even if it's not, there can be some nasty stuff in cave lakes." Furthermore, he didn't know how to swim.

[Ionbound]

Helen looks at the boat and says, "I guess there's only one path forwards. On the boat."

[Deathkeeper]

((To clarify, Mallside has OOC non-violence agreements in its OP because you can start fights there. So just say the Bard's eldritch buddy gets stomped by some tough NPC walking by or the mall-kop orks with lots of dakka. But in terms of it working that way, it wouldn't in the DFI, which is the only well-known place with those rules, and I do have some say in the matter since I help run it. No big deal, though.))

Mist eyes the boat warily. "Well we can test it first to make sure it floats, but we don't have many options. Tracer says we still need to go forward, we can't swim over a lake that large, and we're on a tight schedule."
And besides, ADVENTURE! You can't keep away from such neat event hooks! Just kidding, but Mist really isn't seeing alternatives.

[Fenric]

Thorvard scowls at the stump himself

Imported, no doubt... Perhaps it's not a stump, but whatever used to decorate the top got chopped down...

He tests the boat - it's really fairly reasonable.

Not too bad, honestly.

And then... a fish jumps in the lake.

Yeah...