Chapter 5 Tentacles

Miara looked at the crude map I'd sketched, then said we were going down the tunnel from the stage. What a pleasant surprise: the only one without mud!

Of course, it sloped downward and we ended up in mud anyway, so I suppose it didn't really matter which tunnel we chose. I was sick of mud, and even more tired of tentacles.

Since those tentacles could come up and grab any of us, we re-arranged our line to spread fighters around better. Ash was near Carmella and me.

I was deep in mud again when the line stopped, and I heard there was a door again, locked this time. Ash was the closest door-opener, with his axes, so he squeezed up and hacked the door open. Yet another empty room. With mud.

I figured the other exit would connect with one of the exits from the room with the stage. It did, but also budded off two more tunnels. We took the middle one, and tentacles attacked the rear of the party. Ash made his way to the back to fight with Mongo and Goldrim, and the front of the pary disappeared.

I tried the sleep rune on the creature. I did it right, I could feel it, but I also felt it fizzle against the creature. So that just wasn't going to work on it ever. The tunnel actually led up out of the mud, so I told everyone to move that way so we could retreat from the tentacles.

It was slow, but we eventually got to a room up out of the mud, and as soon as we were all clear of the mud, the tentacles disappeared. Apparently they can only appear and attack from the mud. A very good reason to forget that statue and go back up to deal with the ogres.

Miara had led Jason into a trap. Goldrim had to throw him a rope so he could climb out of the pit he'd fallen into.

We took some time and I healed the wounded some. I was getting very tired from all that work; it's the most effective way to take care of these people who keep running into tentacles, but it's wearing. Goldrim had another vision, about a white crystal. He's convinced that that's down here somewhere, too, and if we find and destroy it, it will somehow destroy the tentacle-thing.

We all made our way carefully around the nearly concealed pit and into the tunnel beyond. Which naturally sloped right back into the mud again.

The front group reached a door and was attcaked yet again. The back of the group hadn't even gotten back into the mud yet. They battled off tentacles, and the rest of us moved back out of the mud again. Miara came reeling back, badly battered, and I tended to her.

Goldrim, Prestley, Ash, and Mongo went through the door and explored the huge room beyond. While they were gone, I updated the map. They weren't gone long, and they told us what they'd seen.

It didn't sound good.