That's So Raven

You left Donnic Wryvale under his beam with a waterskin and a dagger, and you went deeper.

The bugs were thicker further in. Whole knots of them clung to the ventilation shafts overhead, blocking the sun in patches. AC's torch sputtered. The flame went green-blue. Toxic gas in the shaft.

You ran. The flame turned again. The air bit you all — three points off everyone — and you ran harder. The way opened.

Two swarms came at you. KeYs killed one with a hammer. AC killed the other with steel. "Toll the Dead," Ubys said, and a swarm dropped to the ground.

You walked deeper.

Circular paths that looped back. Dead dwarves, dead bigger-bugs. KeYs swung at one of the bug-corpses for the hell of it; the head burst with green-acid goo. The path opened.

You found a cavern.

Glowing green egg-sacks. Pulsing.

In the distance, a Queen — house-sized — with a sack the size of a small house. Three Hunters and two Beetles on her flanks. Two cocooned dwarves at the chamber's edge, still alive.

AC snuffed his torch.

Dhuxtyn cast Faerie Fire at the Queen. She and one Hunter glowed green and did not move. Surprised.

Ubys Guiding Bolt — eighteen radiant. The Queen roared.

KeYs and Falkor ran for the cocooned dwarves and started hauling them out.

Lessie called her Hawk spirit to the field. Stones spun in her palm.

AC dashed in close and marked the Queen.

The Queen's Hunters turned on AC. They tore at him. He took thirteen damage on the first pass, and kept going.

The Queen birthed an egg. The egg started to hatch. Moist's Flaming Sphere rolled onto her sack and cooked the egg before it finished.

AC burned a sigil and CRIT the Queen — thirty-two plus seven fire. Her flesh peeled back where he'd struck.

Lessie healed AC for fifteen.

The Queen birthed another egg, and vomited acid — a wide cone — and her own Hunters caught the splash. AC took eleven. Her own Hunters took twenty-one each. The egg burned in Moist's Sphere.

She kept going.

Round four, the Hunters dropped AC. He went down at zero. He took another seven before Ubys reached him with Cure Wounds for thirteen and Moist hit him with Healing Word for six.

He stood. He stabbed the Queen one more time.

The Queen exploded in a spray of acidic ooze. Her remaining Hunters caught the splash and died with her. AC took twelve more in the spray and did not go down.

He shrugged. Looked at the rest of you. "What's next?"

The party saved eleven cocooned victims in the end. Moist crouched over the dead bugs through the short rest, looking at them, looking through them. Primitive forms, he said, eventually. Something alien.

You felt the ground above your heads. Leilon was up there, sleeping or not sleeping; the dwarven clan was waiting; Donnic was holding on under his beam.

You went up.

Next session: dawn over Leilon, gold in the daylight, and a knock at the Dusty Gnome from a man who owes you everything.