Session 44-A: A Can of Worms

## Key Plot Developments

Finn, Lemon, Bogtooth, Trix, Tremble, Hanne Hallen, and the rescued dwarves travel to the Wormwrithings. Trix, inspired by his conversation about believing in ideals instead of gods, prays and teaches Hanne how to fish. Tremble fixes Ralph. Bogtooth educates Hanne on other goblin customs, including how to scream effectively.

The dwarves articulate their concerns about the dangers of the Wormwrithings; they'd prefer to make it back to the surface and provide King Bruenor with intelligence about the demonic activity below. The goblins suggest they travel to Blingdenstone; Bogtooth summons a bog-beast (the Nietzschean goat) from his bag of tricks to protect them.

The dwarves thank the party and promise to advocate for them if they ever join them in the surface kingdom of Gauntlgrym. They leave.

As the group continues, Hanne educates them on purple worm vulnerabilities and biology. She's part of a purple worm-hunting family; they kill worms and cut them open to take gemstones from their digestive tracts.

Soon, they run into a pair of travelers: Pelek, the ghost from the Whorlstone Tunnels, and a depressed fairy named Briar Thistleblossom. Pelek explains what happened to him: he waited in Gracklstugh for Trix, Glyn, and Misu to meet up with him, but they never came. Eventually, the destroyed town was overrun by vampiric mind flayers--the servants of Orcus. He left, journeyed through the Underdark, went to Mantol-Derith (where he was traumatized by the unexplained machinations of Nicholas Ice Crea), and eventually encountered Briar.

Briar is aware of some elements of the goblin prophecy, surprising Trix. Trix affirms his friendship with Pelek and tries to learn more about Briar. Briar is related to Dulcinea, Bogtooth's patron.

Briar explains his need for vengeance against the demon lords: he's from a surface fey grove that was destroyed by a fiendish incursion and has traced the origin of the onslaught to the Underdark, where he randomly encountered the happy-to-have-company Pelek. The group welcomes Briar, who's in need of emotional support and displays his competence as a hunter.

Soon, Hanne senses a monstrously large purple worm coming. As the cave begins to shake, a worm the size of a train barrels through the tunnels. Debris is everywhere. The group ponders their mortality in the face of such humongous creatures, but proceeds.

They reach a room with thousands of bones--the remnants of failed purple worm egg hunters--carpeting the floor. Briar uses a braid made of magical vines to help cross chasms. With Hanne's help, they avoid another incoming purple worm. They reach the nest.

The nest is a huge open space with large egg sacks suspended by webbing attached to the ceiling. They realize the strands touching the webs respond to loud noises, which might alert the purple worms.

Briar flies up to the egg sacks and begins extracting an egg for the party, but a purple worm is drawn to the room. The group distracts the worm by firing arrows across the cavern to redirect its attention. Hanne loses her balance on one of the strand and is knocked unconscious. Pelek, who can possess constructs, takes control of Ralph to draw the worm's attention towards him. The worm almost immediately eats Ralph; Pelek, becoming incorporeal, survives, but the noise draws more worms.

A madcap fight ensues as the party struggles to balance on the suspended strands and avoid the huge worms below. Eventually, the group provokes the worms into attacking each other--but the chaotic situation gets even more dire when a group of drow purple worm hunters (Hanne's organization) arrives. Hanne is unconscious. Misinterpreting the party's intentions with her, the drow attack.

Briar waits until one worm has finished off the other and kills the survivor, trapping its soul in a trinket. Trix tries to magically subdue the drow, but fails. He tries to diplomatically resolve the situation by describing what happened with Hanne. Fortunately, the drow listen to reason. Their leader, Zhora Hallen, introduces herself as Hanne's mother.

## Memorable Quotes

* **Hanne:** Fishing? One of your customs?
* **Trix:** Yeah, I guess.
* **Hanne:** I would like to learn the ways of your people!

**Hanne:** Again! We do not STOP! We shall not yield to FISH!

* **Bogtooth:** Hey, fish man!
* **Trix:** ...do I smell like fish?
* **Bogtooth:** No, it's a good thing!

**Bogtooth:** You'd give a guttural TRIAL roar to let everyone around you know that you've done a good deed!

**Dauthorn:** We're dwarves. We got captured by troglodytes. You can smell them from a mile away and they were somehow still stealthier than us.

* **Bogtooth:** Okay, goat! It's your time to shine. Make sure nothin' happens to these dwarves, and be quiet, too!
* **Nietzschean Goat**: It is futile to think we can control anything in this random, abstract universe. Very well. You can have your charade.

**Hanne:** I**'**m a genius.

* **Hanne:** You speak of the sun? You are immune to the orb of death?
* **Trix:** It's not an orb of death.
* **Hanne:** It is!
* **Trix:** It isn't, though.
* **Hanne:** Yes, it is!
* **Nietzschean Goat**: When you gaze into anybody's eyes, you gaze into orbs of death.

**Pelek:** Briar, this is Trix! He was my first EVER friend!

* **Trix:** Pelek? Is that you?
* **Pelek:** What?! Have I died and gone to heaven? The first one is true! The second one will never happen.

**Pelek:** So, I am in Gracklstugh. And you told me to find the bar. And I cannot find the bar, so I am just waiting there. I get lonely for a while. And now, it is a bloody squid town!

* **Trix:** Wait, how did you know there were six goblins?
* **Briar:** I know things.
* **Trix:** INSIGHT!

**Briar:** I found this haunted creature (Pelek) in a place filled with screaming and squirming horrors too incomprehensible to name.

* **Briar:** Please don't tell Dulcinea I'm here. I do not require anything else.
* **Bogtooth:** You're asking me to lie to my patron?
* **Briar**: No! Just...don't say things. Haven't you learned anything from the fey?

**Pelek:** Me and my cool friend have a lot in common 'cause we lost everything to a demon lord and we're coping with it!

**Pelek:** We don't talk about Mantol-Derith.

* **Trix:** You and me, Pelek! We're ride-or-die...again!
* **Pelek**: You can ride me! I can become this dog!

**Pelek:** You were coming to find me? Oh, silly Pelek. You just needed to wait for longer!

**Briar (to Finn):** Darkling...are you hiding from the shadows of your past?

**Briar:** I seek vengeance. I am the grove's avenger. I will work with you so this all mattered.

* **Tremble:** So, what is a fey?
* **Briar:** What is a goblin?
* **Hanne:** I will TELL you of the gob-lans!

**Briar:** I'm glad fate has not yet strangled you.

**Briar:** Come ON, you fucking tubes! I'll destroy you and your eggs! Come get me! I'm being loud and annoying!

**Briar:** We will leave you to your treasures for as long as they last in the ash-filled world.

* **Bogtooth:** Goodbye, Hanne. You were heavy, but I could carry you in my great goblin arms.
* **Hanne:** I am of a respectable--if not IDEAL--weight for my frame!
* **Bogtooth:** That's what all the drow say.
* **Hanne:** What? No! And why would they say that to you?