TGAT: Session 34

## The Great Ziggurat of Boccob (Cont...)

### The Earth Temple (Cont...)

Richard Dickens and the rest of the party go back in search of another route and come across Einrik Stürmkarst fleeing from his brief encounter with the Purple Worm. Richard Dickens successfully calms Einrik down and they all continue searching for a new way out eventually the decide to go back to the tunnel that they had originally encountered the Purple Worm.

Richard Dickens, Einrik Stürmkarst, Lia Saevia (played by Lewis) and Cubone climb down into the tunnel and there is no Purple Worm so they press on. As they reach the end of the tunnel they all feel the ground shake and the Purple Worm makes its reappearance from behind. Richard Dickens casts his grappling hook to the top of the tunnel exit and the party rush to the top with the exception of Einrik Stürmkarst who struggles to make it to the top due to his cumbersome armour and the Purple Worm gets in a powerful strike dealing 20 damage and 5 points of strength damage as Einrik Stürmkarst reaches the upper tunnels.

The party fire off a couple of arrows and continue moving on through the maze like tunnels completely blind as to which direction they should follow. Cubone takes the lead and successfully routes the party to a dead end, shouting back that the tunnel is blocked. Richard Dickens who is a couple of places back in the marching order takes the lead and continues on in another direction. Eventually this leads the party to a T-junction, the left route is another dead end, and the right to a long corridor with a drop back down to a lower passageway so they investigate that route.

Richard Dickens reaches the passageway only to find that it was not like the others with a ~20 foot drop, this instead appeared to be of a substantial depth. Richard Dickens activated a sun rod and tossed it in, and watched in horror as it fell deeper and deeper until the light was no longer visible. As the rest of the party bundled up behind him, the Purple Worm still in pursuit it eventually blocked off the corridor. The parties only options to jump to their deaths, or fight the gargantuan beast.

Einrik Stürmkarst chose the latter and piled into combat hitting the Purple Worm with his warhammer, and Lia Saevia wading in too dual wielding the Flame-tongue, and Storvald dealing massive damage but not enough to stop the approach of the Purple Worm. The Purple Worm lashes forwards and swallows Lia Saevia whole.

Richard Dickens picks up Storvald and decides this is too much and opts for a jump potentially to his death, he calls out for Lathander and the magical sword to save him and without any hesitation jumps. Cubone watches as his cohort plummets to his doom, figuring he faces the same fate he reaches into his backpack and withdraws his Decanter of Endless Water and he too leaps into the void occasionally unleashing a full geyser blast aimed downwards to slow his decent.

After watching all his allies die Einrik Stürmkarst succumbs to the Purple Worm's secondary poison damage and takes a further 10 points of strength damage dropping it to 0 and he collapses lying helpless on the ground within feet of the Purple Worm. With no other options left Einrik Stürmkarst announces that he wishes to draw three cards from the Deck of Many Things, the cards flip out from the deck on their own...

1. The Sun Card - A Stone of Good Luck (Luckstone) magically appears in his inventory.
2. The Void Card - This black card spells instant disaster. Einrik Stürmkarst’s body falls comatose and his soul is torn away and trapped within an object on a far plane or planet, possibly in the possession of an outsider.
3. N/A - Cannot draw more cards because of The Void Card.

The Purple Worm slowly slithers forward and consumes the helpless Einrik Stürmkarst and he dies.

### The Earth Temple (Disbelieve Illusion)

Richard Dickens and Cubone after what seems like hours land relatively softly on their feet at the bottom of the immense passageway. Cubone believes something isn't quite right and successfully disbelieves the illusion on the hole and its shrinks to its actual size of 20 ft. Cubone advises Richard Dickens that the tunnel isn't real and Richard Dickens asks Storvald "what's going on?", and the blade tells him it was an extremely powerful illusion.

Richard Dickens and Cubone want to check on their allies and ask Storvald to take them back up with its levitation ability. within a couple of seconds they are back and find the corpses of both Einrik Stürmkarst and Lia Saevia, and no trace of the Purple Worm. Richard Dickens and Cubone loot the corpses and reclaim their cohorts gear.

Richard Dickens notices the dead end from earlier now has an open passageway in the floor and follows it to a new room to the east. The rough rock tunnel rescinding back to the black obsidian they were familiar with in the rest of the temple.

### The Great Ziggurat of Boccob

Back in the main temple Richard Dickens looks around the room and finds a huge channel carved into the floor, full of a purplely-pink "liquid" flowing southward into the heart of the temple. On the opposite side of the room is a bronze door. Richard Dickens points Storvald towards the substance and asks what it is to which the blade replies *"it looks like raw arcane energy, I would advise against swimming in it!".*

Richard Dickens attempts to use the last charge of the magical sword's levitate power for the day to cross the stream and as he goes to take the first step over his foot steps out into thin air, the levitate is not active. Luckily he notices and his quick reflexes save him from an energy bath. He also notices that he is unable to communicate with the blade within 20 ft of the stream.

Richard Dickens convinces Cubone to attempt to jump the gap and he would assist him by tossing him across as he takes to the air (Lowering the jump DC from 20 to 18). Cubone make his run up and leaps! Richard Dickens giving him a slight boost of moment as he passes but this has thrown Cubone off slightly (Rolled a 13) and he barely makes it to the other side, grasping the edge of the channel and lifts himself up to safety.

Now Richard Dickens's turn, he tosses Cubone the end of rope and advises him to open the door at the far end, tie the rope around himself and to run through the door to provide some extra momentum to Richard as he makes his jump. Richard Dickens takes his run up, leaps and successfully clears the gap with ease (Rolled an 18).

On the other side the pair search the corridor behind the door and find a secret door leading back to the room with the Terrasque's head. They also find a large staircase back up to the large room above that was littered with skeletons and patrolled by a couple of Chasme demons.