Session #49 (100% fiction)

Ok this session entry is basically fictional.
It did not happen.
But, after talking to the group, this is a possibility of what might have happened had we not just stopped gaming in the middle of round #22...

Ok we last left our heroes in a very bad situation in the midst of combat round 22.
World Eater: 50’ tunneled through the ceiling. Half of its body length is now hidden inside the tunnel.
Krieg & Thunderclease prepare for an escape. They drop anything not of immediate value to lighten their load.
Invistis wants Krieg dead. He’s even willing to sacrifice something for it. He uses his Wish spell to create a Rod of Cancellation.

Round 23:
World Eater: 55’ in.
Krieg and Cleez delay to wait for Invistis’s action.
Invistis flies to the Prismatic Sphere and uses the Rod of Cancellation to destroy the sphere.
Cleez grabs onto Krieg as Krieg flies up and over the hordes towards the northern hallway.

Round 24:
World Eater: 60’
Invistis casts another Maximized Dispel Magic at Krieg (yes, he had two of them memorized). This causes Krieg and Cleez to float down in between two skeleton hordes.
Krieg and Cleez run for it at their fastest pace, skeleton hordes and more clawing at their back. Krieg ends up near the doorway. Cleez, thanks to his barbarian speed, is able to make it to the hallway.

Round 25:
World Eater: 65’
Invistis, seeing his prey escaping, casts Wall of Force on the doorway. This separates Cleez and Krieg. It also leaves Krieg alone in the room with hundreds of undead, including a lich with a vendetta against him.
Krieg uses Miracle to cast Overland Flight on himself. He flies up and towards the western door. He yells to Cleez to not worry about him and get to the garrison.
Cleez complies.

Round 26:
World Eater: 70’
Invistis laughs evilly as he casts an Empowered Greater Dispel Magic (yes, he came armed with several Greater Dispel Magic spells – 5 in all).
Krieg floats to the ground yet again and runs towards the Western Door that is being swarmed by undead hordes.

Round 27:
World Eater: 75’
Invistis, enjoying himself immensely at the moment, casts another Wall of Force in the western hallway.
Krieg attempts to push through the horde while hacking at it with one of the +3 keen throwing axes.
Hordes of all kinds surround Krieg and begin ripping into him. With his Sublime Revelry gone, the damage he takes adds up quickly.

Round 28:
World Eater: 80’
Invistis lazily flies over the melee with Krieg and casts Horrid Wilting and a quickened Magic Missile.
Krieg, out of desperation throws the axe up at Invistis. He hits, but nothing of interest happens.

Round 29:
The last thing Krieg sees are several clawing skeletal hands, a maniacally laugh lich, and a slowly disappearing black worm.

Several minutes later a breathless and alone Thunderclease arrives at a nearly empty garrison.

The first person he talks to is some aasimar he’d never seen before.

The aasimar was busy trying to pack some things up for moving to the new area. The garrison here had recently made contact with some elves elsewhere in the dungeon. The elves were apparently in bad shape and needed some assistance.
Those in charge of the garrison here had decided that splitting up the forces was not the best route. So the decision was made to combine the two groups in the elven garrison since the elves claimed to have an exit from the prison (the WLD) and the angelic forces had done so well clearing out the nearby rabble. He’d also heard something about aid from some group of adventurers, but he seriously doubted that a group of ruin-delving treasure-hunters had done anything more than call for the aid of the heavenly forces he was a part of.

This scene plays out in a cliché way that you see in most movies where the world is about to be destroyed.
Since I’m not an actor or wrote of any value beyond running and playing D&D, here’s the quick of it:
Thunderclease desperately and quickly explains to the aasimar that something big and bad is about to happen.
The aasimar listens politely, but arrogantly replies that “whatever it is, I’m sure we can take care of it in due time.”
Repeat this back and forth a couple of times before Cleez finally snaps and grabs the aasimar and says “Take me to Mythlyrian, Doj, Morkor, Kelara, or one of their friends now!”
Aasimar: “There is no need for violence. Violence and haste never end well…”
Cleez: “If you don’t take me to one of them now, then I will break the Charter rules right now, and you will be my target for it!” (Think of it as a nat 20 on his intimidate check.)

Blah, blah, blah the now soiled aasimar leads Cleez through the passages that he and his now dead companions had never traveled through.

Long story short, the first person they find is Morkor.

Morkor has considered the heroes friends since they were the ones who almost single-handedly saved the entire garrison from certain doom and saved his beloved Kelara from who-knows-what the crazy inevitables would have done to her.

Morkor: (pleased to see a good friend) “Thunderclease, it is good to see you again. Where are the others?”
Thunderclease: “Dead...”

Cleez then tells him the story while Morkor listens intently and the aasimar sneaks away.

Soon Cleez is standing and repeating the story before a host of garrison members of all kinds; some he had met before, many he had not.

Not one of them had heard anything that had been given the name “The World Eater”. The new inevitable librarian said there was no such creature listed in any of the books in the library.

A young elf stood up and related a story that his grandfather had told him many years before that had been told through several elven generations. He did not believe his grandfather’s story to be true, but the coincidences were too similar..

The story he told was very similar to the “movie” that Cleez had seen in the smoke of the candle after Krieg cast Commune, just from another point of view.

But this elf added that the creature had to be frozen in time until one day there were those that were strong enough to defeat it. He had been told that this creature had to be erased from history. There were to be no stories written of it and no one was to tell anyone that could not be totally trusted. If someone were to find out about the “World Eater” they could attempt to free it and it would resume its destruction of all life. There would even be no indication of its existence in its own prison.

And in time, it had been almost forgotten.
At least until the magic holding it frozen began to fade.

Cleez added that Krieg said it would make it to the surface in just 2 hours from when it started tunneling. That was over an hour ago.

The next thing Cleez knew he was being handed a new +2 holy greatsword, had several buffing spells cast upon him, and had been given command of a lance of foot-soldiers. And then he was led to some place he thought he might never see again, the surface world.

He breathed in a quick breath of fresh air and waited for what he always waited for, something to hack at.

An hour went by and nothing had happened.

It wasn’t like there wasn’t anyone looking for the thing. The garrison had many flying members, being angels and all. Heck even his troops could fly or even teleport. And it was still dark, not even 3am. This thing loved the dark, or so he’d been told.

Then it was spotted and the orders were given to attack before it regained its strength. But it had appeared in the worst of places.

Not far from the prison a gem-mining town, New Verdigris, had been reestablished. That was a couple of decades ago. Now the town was quite successful, and quite populated.

Although not his preferred way to travel, Cleez was teleported to near the site with the rest of his troops.

He saw the same giant black worm as before. It looked the same as the last time he had seen it. So there was hope there. But from the tunneled hole it had left, hundreds of skeletons and other undead were pouring out of it.

The hordes were pushing all of those on foot back, but Cleez instructed his soldiers what to do and they maintained a near perfect wall to keep the hordes in check.

Then a small, almost apologetic, black wave buzzed through him.
The damage the scrolls had done to the World Eater was wearing off.

The worm was healing itself, though not as quickly as before.

Every half minute, a slightly stronger black wave would erupt from within the worm. The undead nearby would heal a little and the World Eater itself would heal more and more damage. And worse, everyone that was hit by the blast took damage.

With every blast the damage and radius of the blast increased. And whenever someone died from the blast, they rose as an undead not a minute later. The more powerful the person, the more powerful the undead it would become.
This was true even for the members of the garrison.

Those newly raised undead would then go about destroying the town from the inside, or aid in the collapse of the ranks of the garrison’s forces.

Almost simultaneously, several power magic casters from across Toril appeared. Called forth by the many powerful churches, organizations, and societies that fill Toril, they teleported in and rained spell after spell down on the hordes and the World Eater.

The World Eater was not yet strong enough to heal enough damage from so many sources. So it turned around and headed back to the hole it had dug. Dawn would be coming soon and its power would be diminished.

Cleez’s troops had been holding their line well, but there had been many casualties. But now the thing had turned around and was heading back to the hole. And it was bringing with it the explosions of fireballs and other spells that were being cast to try to bring it down as soon as possible.

Cleez told his men to run; they couldn’t defend themselves against the collateral damage of that many spells. There was only one safe place for him to be right now.

Well safe isn’t the right word.

He moved himself directly in the path of the World Eater. The moment he felt the next negative energy wave hit him, he charged.

The World Eater would have thought this funny, if it had a sense of humor. So it opened its mouth to swallow the stupid dwarf. But instead the dwarf jumped in it mouth and down its gullet.

Being inside the creature with its acid and gullet damage was much less than being in melee with the thing while multiple Fireballs, Meteor Swarms, Blade Barriers, and other such things were dropping on you.

Plus he had requested that spells be put on him; Freedom of Movement and something to prevent acid damage. He received both in the form of two rings from an old elf.

While inside the thing, he went to town (figuratively of course).
Everywhere he could strike out and hit the worm.

While he was ripping it away from the inside, spellcasters were barraging it from the outside.

Just a few seconds had gone by since the Cleez volunteered for snack duty when the World Eater stopped moving.

Sensing the change, Thunderclease hacked his way out of the beast’s gullet.

He found himself standing in an eerily still and quiet area with the unmoving World Eater sticking halfway out of the large hole it had made.

(Remember fiction doesn’t have to follow the rules of D&D.)

When the World Eater died, all of the undead had dropped to ground.

The forces of good began to move again, once they were sure that the thing was dead.

EPILOGUE

The whole town of New Verdigris lay in ruins. It had never really gotten to a large size, thanks to it’s out of the way location.

Kelara: “Can you imagine the damage that thing would have done had it not been stopped in time?”

Thunderclease: “Yes, it and it minions would have spread out and killed every living thing across the land.”

Morkor: “This world owes you a debt my friend.”

Thunderclease: “I intend to collect.”

Mythlyrian: (walks up) “We have found the remains your friends’. Some of them were buried beneath that pyramid the undead had made. We will do as you ask and attempt to raise them, if they choose to return. Krieg will need a more powerful raising spell; there wasn’t much of him left.”

Thunderclease: “Probably the lich I told you about, Invistis. He took an intense dislike to Krieg for some reason. Has the lich’s body been found?”

Mythlyrian: “No. Some suspect that he wasn’t linked to the worm the same way the other undead were. He may have survived.”

Thunderclease: “He’s probably hiding under a rock right now, waiting for us to stop looking through the remains of the fight. Take me to my friends please. We have just one more week before we have to fulfill a promise.”

Kelara: “Promise? I would think you owe no one at the moment.”

Thunderclease: “I don’t think a god would see it that way. We struck a deal with Tyr; he would keep Tyrus imprisoned for a month longer while we sought the strength to defeat Tyrus. I believe we don’t even have a week to go until his renewed ice prison melts.”

Mythlyrian: “That would explain something I had wondered. None of the gods appeared during a conflict that would decide the fate of Albeir Toril. When that happens it is usually because they believe that mortals have the strength to succeed, or because they are sworn to stay out of the situation, or because they are keeping other gods at bay. I would suspect that all three conditions apply in this situation. Tyr had to prevent the gods of evil from assisting the World Eater while also preventing the gods of evil from aiding us. Had he taken any other course of action, the results may have been something much worse than the destruction of life on the planet.”

Thunderclease: “That’s too much thinking for me. Just take me to my friends. We have a dragon to defeat and a lich to find.”

----

Well I left it like that just in case we ever want to come back to it and do a one-shot game or something.

Since then things have changed quite a bit in the Cincinnati D&D group.

First there was a lot of blame going around. But unlike what you might be thinking, it was people taking blame rather than pointing the finger. Everyone thought that there was at least one thing that, had they done it differently, the whole outcome would have changed.

Basically there have been a lot of "What if?" questions.

What if the party had burned the scrolls sooner?
What if the party had not separated from one another?
What if ...
And so on.

But after a week, there have been no regrets.
We all had a good time with this module.
It's longest I've run, and probably the longest any of the players had played.
I've never had a legitimately earned 18th level PC. I've wanted one though.
Heck even Jeff said he'd be willing to play The World's Largest Dungeon 2. But I won't be running that thing.
No smurfing way man.

And on that note, we've lost a couple of players.
None of it is related to what happened at the conclusion of the campaign, but it was a good stopping point.
Jeff's life is getting too busy and Justin has to take a break from gaming as well so he can earn some Friday night tip money.
They're not gone forever, just for now.

And we started a new campaign with Dale as the DM.
Since we are kind of low on players, we're going the munchkin route. We're playing gestalt PCs. But it's just temporary. Once we get some new players we'll be reverting to single classed PCs.

Playing a gestalt PC makes me a bit of a hypocrite. I limit the players when I DM, but don't restrict myself when someone else runs.
Eh, oh well.

What's the first rule of a game?
Have fun.

And we are.
Dale is running.
Brian is playing a Fighter/Cleric (originally: Fighter)
Aaron is playing a Rogue/Warmage (originally: Roguish-type)
And I'm playing a Druid/Wizard(Conjurer) (originally: Druid)

Brian's PC is the tank.
Aaron's PC loves to sneak attack, especially with spells.
My PC makes sure that there is always something flanking our opponents.

And as for the blog, I keep changing my mind.
I originally intended it just for the WLD.
And that is pretty much the only reason anyone has ever read it. Heck it's the only reason it was listed in Knights of the Dinner Table #98.
(Yes, I own multiple copies of it =) ).
But now I wonder if I should keep it a little up to date. I'd still keep the WLD entries focused. Heck I'd probably go back through and fix some of the poor grammar.
But I wouldn't put as much work into it as I have with the WLD.
If I did, I think my wife would kill me.

But I don't know. What do you all think?

And finally, I'll be posting our opinions of the World's Largest Dungeon.
Yes, there may finally be a review of the WLD out there written by someone who has actually played rather than felt like hearing theselves speak, er...reading their own writing.

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