ROUND 4
Shae and Borimer attack the now exposed beating heart of the giant black tree...
Tahldar casts a spell...
Leo continues to protect Tahldar from the tree branches...
Kahan braces to defend against the tree blights...
Vuzyl grabs for the gem that has now fallen...
The fire is expanding behind you. It engulfs the tree blights and sends those that are surviving back into the cavern from where you came originally. It is also burning all the briar to your right, revealing the exit through the flames as they eat through the briar. Smoke is filling the high ceiling.
Shae and Borimer stab the heart at the same time. The human-like heart turns purplish, and black goo gushes from the wounds instead of blood. Then, in an instant, the heart stops, and all movements of the tree stop with it.
Tahldar's spell hits the drow dead on, interrupting his spell. He squeals in inhuman pain and then falls from his perch, hitting the tree branches on the way down and breaking his neck as he hits the ground--dead.
Also at this moment, the statue of the man finishes turning back to flesh. He falls to the ground with a groan and then weakly looks in his hand and then on the ground.
He is mumbling something, as if still dazed by turning back to flesh.
"Evil begets evil. Evil begets evil."
He is feeling around the dirt.
"Where is it? Where did it go?"
Borimer and Shae withdraw their sword and spear, and everyone turns their attention for a moment to this man.
He is clad in simple priest's robes that are close to the skin for easy movement and no excess or loose fabric. A holy symbol hangs on a silver chain around his neck; it is circular like a spiral and a pointy end, and some symbol in the center. He appears to be in his mid-forties, with a circular band of hair cut in a traditional monk style with a bald circular top.
He looks up quickly, as if noticing you for the first time, and then looks past you at the tree.
"No," he says, suddenly in panic.
"What have you done? The tree and its guardian were the only thing blocking the portal to the 88th layer of the Abyss. The gaping maw. The GAPING MAW."
As he says this, you hear as if a distant echo, the blaring of a horn like a call to arms. Then you hear a cracking sound that rises above the sound of the fiery blaze behind you. Instinctively, you all rush toward the fallen monk, picking him up to his feet and moving away from the dead tree--
--for the sound you heard was the sound of breaking roots. The tree is being uprooted. As if it is nothing more than a branch in the way, the tree flies back into the fire. You all jump to the ground as its flammable fruit explode in a giant explosion that goes deep into the cavern where you started. The shock wave paralyzes you momentarily.
And then the portal opens...
The portal is 25 feet high by 15 feet wide, oval in shape. The top of it is covered in the smoke from the fiery blaze around you.
You hear the blaring of the warhorn again. This time, you sense that it comes from beyond the portal, and it is so loud this time that it fills your head with sound.
After it passes, the monk rises to his feet.
"You did it," he says softly in terror.
"You released the demogorgon."
Sea water suddenly gushes through the portal as you all rise to your feet to regain your senses. The water is like a wave. The fires go out, and the dirt turns to mud. The smell of the water is less like brine than like sulphur.
And then the thing of nightmares steps through the portal.
The demon towers 18 feet high. Its body is at once sinuous like that of a snake and powerful like that of a great ape. Two baleful baboon heads leer from atop its lumbering shoulders, from which writhe two long tentacles. Its lower torso is saurian, like some great reptile with blue-green, scaly skin. An immense forked tail follows behind it.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:59, Tue 18 Oct 2016.
