Last time, I rolled 1d3 on how many Skinless Terrors would be waiting for Maelen when she dropped into the Starless Rift. Thankfully, I only rolled a 1. Because this chapter is from Alric’s perspective, let’s handle the combat “off camera” here.
Maelen’s Initiative score is 13 and she rolls a 5, succeeding to act first. The skinless terror has leapt at her, and she’ll try to bat it out of the air with Bonebreaker. With a 10 AC, she only needs a 6 or better to hit and rolls a 17. She does 6 damage, and I rolled only 7 hit points on 3d8 (this must be a runt or outcast of the things down here, which is why it’s on its own?), leaving it at 1 hp.
One of the two scary things about skinless terrors is that they attack twice per round with their bites. It rolls an 18 and 13 total on its two attacks, hitting once for 1d8 damage: 5. Ouch. Maelen drops to 13 hp. The other scary thing about these creatures is that they regenerate 1d12 hit points at the end of each round. I roll 4, and the thing is back to 5 hp.
Technically, skinless terrors are Aberrant Terrors and there’s an absolutely horrifying table on which to roll special properties for this thing. I’m going to save that table for the Boss I determined was down here, though.
Round 2, and Maelen succeeds with an 8 initiative roll. Time to see if she can end this combat before she allows two more bites. She rolls a 16 and hits, doing a max 10 damage! Boom. It’s dead. The rules say that regeneration typically ceases once the creature is dead. I’ll say it begins to twitch and Maelen figures out the need to burn it.
She’ll have time for a Short Rest before the others join her. Maelen chooses an excellent time to roll two successes, and will first regain half her lost hit points, bringing her to 16 of 20. For her second result, does she gain back one use of Adaptable? Get her single use of Supplies back now that they’re deep underground? Or get back two more hit points? Tough call, but I think she’ll need her health as much as possible. She’s now at 18 hp.
All in all, scary but Maelen avoided catastrophe. What would have happened if I’d rolled a 3?!
How did Vessa do with the climb down? Again, I’m rolling Strength(Athletics) checks for everyone. Failure doesn’t mean falling because of the climbing gear supplied by Maelen, but a Terrible Failure will lead to complications. Vessa rolls an 11 and succeeds. How about our non-athletic Alric? He needs an 11 or lower and rolls a 5! That’s a Great Success. Not only does nothing bad happen, but the climbing set-up is there and ready when it’s time to leave.
XX.
Duskmarch 24, Goldday, Year 731.
When you get to the cliff’s edge, little mouse: Don’t jump.
The words of the blind seer Wink had been echoing in Alric’s mind since he’d approached the Starless Rift. Surely this moment is what she’d foretold. Did lowering himself precariously on a rope through the rain into the chasm constitute “jumping?”
Then her other words flooded in: Run or fight, but don’t jump into the darkness! Run or fight? There was nothing to run from or fight on that barren ledge. So perhaps she had prophesied a different moment. Or perhaps she possessed no gift at all, and was simply mad, like Hadren Kelthorn. Alric ground his teeth and shook his head, frustrated by all he didn’t yet know. If he survived this trek, he vowed to spend his time better understanding the forces shaping the Redwood Marches. His lack of knowledge infuriated him. For the hundredth time, he wondered whether Hadren had discovered a second book of Orthuun, a hollow yearning within his seemingly empty chest.
Frustrated, he turned his attention to the present, terrifying moment. As soon as he’d built the courage to step out and into the crevice, it was as if his senses dulled. The rain became a distant patter on his hood, as if further away. The cold seeping into him ebbed. The damp, earthen smell of the Rift faded. It was quiet, but not a peaceful quiet. Instead, it felt as if someone had led him into a dark room, head covered and bound by gauze. Tension pulsed through Alric as he waited for some unseen horror to burst out of the shadows.
After a long, breathless journey, however, his feet touched the rocky floor and his shaking arms released the rope. Maelen was there, nodding grimly at him with torch held aloft. Vessa, meanwhile, moved to help him disentangle from the harness below his thighs and buttocks. He pulled his staff from where he’d secured it across his back. His lamed leg pricked with familiar pain, and he shifted his weight to the staff.
“Thank you,” he panted, looking around wide-eyed. His attention snapped to what looked like a pile of gore near Maelen’s feet. “What– what is that?!”
“Keep your voice down,” Vessa urged, then spat, “It seems our reckless leader may have been wrong about this place not having guardians.”
With horrified wonder, Alric approached the mess upon the cavern floor. It looked like someone had skinned an animal, taken out its bones, scattered the muscles and organs into a pile, and then charred it in several places. The smell—sharp and rotten—assaulted his nose and he covered his face with a wet sleeve.
“That’s enough from you,” Maelen hissed at Vessa. “It was no trouble.”
“Are you hurt?” he asked. When she shook her head once, Alric whispered, “What was it?”
She let out a sharp breath and shook her head once again, the gray lock of hair bobbing across her brow. “Don’t know. Smaller than a human, with no skin and full of sharp teeth. No eyes,” she looked at him meaningfully.
“More of Orthuun’s corruption,” Alric breathed weakly.
“Seems so,” Maelen confirmed in a low whisper. “Let’s hope it was the only thing down here.” From several paces away, Vessa scoffed and Maelen shot her a dark look. “Anyway, when I burned it, the thing just sort of… unraveled into that,” she jerked a chin at the grotesque pile.
“Fire then,” Alric nodded, rubbing his chin with his free hand. “Same as Sarin. Orthuun’s minions don’t like objects that shed light.”
Maelen looked at him for a moment, then grunted. He guessed she’d thought it was the heat of the flame that had killed whatever she’d fought.
While she processed this new insight, his own mind whirled. The zombies in Thornmere Hold had been ageless human guardians twisted by the presence of, she guessed, The Tome of Unlit Paths, and the chitinous monster likely had been a common spider trapped in the vault with it. What had this skinless thing been before its corruption? And what had corrupted it? Could there be another book down here, or was it something else? Perhaps some of the answers he craved existed somewhere in these deep caverns.
The thought caused him to look around for the first time and truly scan their surroundings. They stood upon a rocky dais littered with debris that he guessed had fallen when the Starless Rift opened from Hadren’s ritual. Maelen’s torch made dancing light that showed the dais dropped off to a larger cavern, but it was impossible to tell how large. He glanced up at the gray strip of clouded sky far above them and swallowed.
“Lad, light a torch,” Maelen whispered. “I’ll keep mine too. Vess, have your bow ready.”
Alric unshouldered his pack to gain access to his tinderbox and a dry torch. His numb fingers took far too long, but eventually the resin-soaked cloth wrapping ignited with a faint whoosh. A smell like smoke and tallow banished some of the stink of the thing Maelen had killed. He asked Vessa to hold the torch while he carefully repacked his travel gear, stood, and settled the pack upon his back. She handed it back without a word and smoothly pulled an arrow from her quiver.
“Let’s go,” Maelen urged.
According to my handy map, there are three branching passageways from this cavern: north, east, and southeast. Which will the party take? Here is where solo-roleplay and group-play differ significantly, though like a group of players I also don’t know which is the most- or least-dangerous path. The tomb of Saelith the Unseen is in the northeast corner of the map and they’re starting in the southwest, and any path can get them there. Let’s roll to see which way they go: North it is!
The northern passageway leads to a large 20’x10’ chamber with an alcove in its northernmost end, perfect for any number of encounters or complications. I roll 1d20 on the Room Contents table and get a nat-20: Leader! Oh my. The Boss Skinless Terror is here, not at the tomb!?
Let’s talk about Boss templates. According to the Tales rulebook, “A Boss is a particularly powerful example of an enemy, strong enough to fight the party alone.” I make the following adjustments: a) it’s Quick, meaning the party needs a Great Success on initiative to go first, b) I double the hit points. Skinless Terrors are 3 HD creatures, so I roll 3d8x2 and get 26 hp, c) it has Off Turn Attacks, meaning a free attack after each PC’s turn (yikes!), d) it’s immune to Major Exploits until Wounded, e) it can make a Luck save to negate/mitigate any adverse spell, Exploit, etc., and f) it has 1d4+1 Rerolls for any of its rolls. I roll 2+1=3.
I also just said above that I would wait to roll on the Terror Traits table until the Boss. In fact, I’ll roll twice. Here goes: It has Cannot Be Unseen (I’m going to allow each PC a save, but gazing on its horrifying visage causes a random Madness) and Veil Rupture (when slain, it unleashes a DDM effect on its killer, no save). Holy crap!
Here, then, is this thing’s stat block: AC 10; 26 HP; Bite (2) 1d8, nat-19 Frenzied death: automatic 10 damage and dies, Off-turn Attacks; S13 D13 C13 I13 W13 Ch1 L7; Leap, Regen 1d12 (fire, silver), Quick, Cannot Be Unseen, Veil Rupture, Luck save vs enemy effects, immune to Major Exploits until Wounded; Reac 2-12: Agonized blood frenzy.
It occurs to me that the party’s best hope is that either the creature nat-19s an attack (which is a distinct possibility given all the attacking it’s going to do) or Maelen gets a particularly good Bonecrusher crit (which we haven’t seen in action yet).
Still… this is going to suck.
With help from his companions, Alric half-stepped, half-slid off the edge of the dais and to the rocky cavern floor. He held his torch aloft, turning to examine the space. Ten paces above them, the crevice widened, creating a rough dome of black rock overhead. He felt as if he should be able to hear the storm overhead, feel the rain on his face when he stood beneath the gray line of sky above. Instead, the Starless Rift was almost silent beyond a steady sigh, like a breeze through alleyways in Oakton. Alric stayed close to Maelen as she stepped carefully around the perimeter, torch and mace in hand. Vessa crept behind them, bow ready and closer than usual to stay within the halo of light.
They discovered a cavern roughly the shape of a three-quarters moon, perhaps thirty strides from the wall they’d descended in each direction. Unlike Thornmere Hold, the space didn’t seem crafted; it was a natural cave system, quiet and cool, with shards of rock strewn about its hard floor. Alric’s ears strained, but he could hear nothing beyond that steady sigh and their own footfalls. Well, his and Maelen’s… he found himself glancing back at Vessa to make sure she still followed them and was somewhat startled each time that she was there, quiet as a thief.
“Do you hear anything?” he whispered at Maelen’s shoulder.
“Just the damned mace,” she growled.
He blinked. “What does it sound like?” he asked, unable to hear anything from the black metal weapon.
“Like it wants to fight,” she said grimly. He was about to ask what that could possibly sound like when she added, “Three passages. One’s as good as another,” and pushed past him with a hurried step. Grateful for the leadership, he followed without question. Dimly, he worried once again that his heart was not hammering with fear in his chest. It had been three days since the emptiness had stilled his heartbeat, and still no change or sign that it would return.
A short passageway through the stone led them to another cavern. Irregularly shaped columns of stone in its central chamber made the space feel at first labyrinthine. They moved around the right side of the first column slowly until it opened into a space larger than Oakton’s town hall. It was beautiful, in its way, the rock untouched and natural—a gray, earthen cathedral.
Just then, something squeaked shrilly, the voice echoing. Maelen grunted in surprise and took a step back, as if a spider had fallen on her. Before he could react, a small furred creature smaller than his palm scampered with tiny feet past him and back the way they’d come.
“Tatter!” Maelen swore quietly. “By the Rootmother, she just panicked. Vess, do you see her?”
“She left,” Vessa whispered back from the edge of light. “Ran right past me.”
“Never seen her do that,” Maelen grumbled, and looked with grim concern at her weapon. “Dammit. I’ll find her later. Mace is practically screaming, too. Everyone stay–”
She cut off as something shuffled unseen just beyond the column of stone ahead of them. Alric froze, holding his torch up towards the direction of the noise.
A snuffling sound, like someone with a congested illness, echoed softly in the chamber, followed by a sound like slapping pieces of wood together. Alric’s senses quested into the flickering torchlight, looking for some sign of movement. He heard a sliding, shuffling step much like his own, then more of that awful snuffling and clacking. He tensed, fingers going white on his staff and torch.
The creature that stepped into the dancing light was worse than any horror his nightmares could manifest. It moved like something in wracking pain, hands curled protectively inwards and back hunched, each step reluctant. Roughly the size and shape of Maelen, humanoid and broad-shouldered, yet composed of a mass of skinless muscle and organs, a riot of red, pink, and gray tissue with seemingly no organization other than legs, torso, arms, and head. The head, though, had no eyes, and only two long slits in the tissue for a nose. Its mouth was as wide as its head, hinged like a snake’s, with irregular rows of sharp teeth. Then Alric spied a second mouth, on one side of where its neck met shoulder. Both mouths clacked open and shut like doors left open in a windstorm, clack-clack, clack-clack. The holes in its head flared, making that mucus-laden snuffling. The… wrongness of the creature filled him, and in that moment he knew that he was witnessing something from another world, an aberration never meant for the Redwood Marches. This was not a creature twisted by Orthuun’s hand. It was a demon itself, spawned from forces he could never comprehend.
“Mother of Roots…” Vessa gasped behind him.
The thing snuffled and clacked again, then crouched as if a spasm of pain had overtaken it. Alric felt no pity, however, only revulsion. He took a halting step backwards, bile rising in his throat.
Then, like a rabid dog, the thing charged at them and naked terror threatened to paralyze his limbs.
Welp, they’ve witnessed the skinless terror. Let’s see how their minds hold up. I’m giving each a Luck(Willpower) save to stave off a random madness, which means Rerolls will be possible. Alric rolls a 6 and succeeds, lowering his Luck score to 10. Maelen fails with a 19 but will try a Reroll: A 16 still fails. Her Luck remains 10. Vessa rolls a 9 and succeeds, lowering her Luck to 8.
What madness immediately overcomes Maelen? I roll 1d20 and get: Explosive Rage, “You have impaired impulse control when it comes to outbursts of verbal aggression and physical violence, especially when provoked.” Well, that’s perfect for Maelen and will lead to all sorts of interesting roleplay opportunities …if she survives this encounter.
It makes the most sense, then, for Maelen to roll initiative first. She rolls a 5, which is a Great Success and means the party can act first before the Quick creature. Sensing the danger of this creature, she’ll use her second and final use of Adaptable to switch her fighting abilities to Two Hander, drop her torch, close with the skinless terror and attack. She won’t Charge this time because of the penalty to her AC (she knows the smaller, runtier version she fought had two attacks).
Nat-19! Thanks to Deadly Strikes, that means it counts as both a nat-19 and nat-20. First, Maelen’s mace does max damage + 1 (half her level), which is 12 total, dropping the skinless terror to 14 hp. Next, she’ll roll 1d10+6 on the Blunt Trauma table: I roll a 1, which puts it at Mangled Ear, lowering its Perc and balance checks. Okay a higher roll might have killed it outright. Thankfully, she gets a second chance with Bonebreaker, and rolls 1d6: 5, which is a broken back! Way better than an ear. That result will automatically Incapacitate the skinless terror unless it makes its Luck save (given by the Boss template). Its Luck is only 7… can the fight already be over? I roll: 7. Dang. Well, that drops its Luck score to 6. It’s a bummer to not one-shot the thing, but all in all that was an exciting first swing.
Unfortunately, it gets a bite on Maelen before anyone else acts. Fortunately, I roll a 3 and miss. Whew.
The terror is in melee with Maelen now, giving Vessa disadvantage on her bow shots. She’ll still go for it, though, and rolls a 2 & 13. The 2 means she misses. She’ll then move into the shadows. It’s worth another shot because of the low AC, but she may decide to close the distance and Backstab at some point.
Another skinless terror bite on Maelen because of Off-turn Attacks. I roll an 8+3=11 and miss, but this is going to get scary quickly.
Alric isn’t all that useful in combat without Mend Flesh, but he’ll give it a try and close with the thing, swinging his torch to hurt it, a maneuver he used on Sarin. He rolls 8+1=9, just missing. The skinless terror will bite back at him and hits. You may recall that Alric was only at 9 of 14 hp. The bites do 1d8 damage and I roll 5, dropping him to 4 hp. Yikes.
Another yikes because it’s the skinless terror’s turn. It gets two more bite attacks and I’ll roll randomly on targets between Alric and Maelen. Both on Maelen, which makes some sense since she hurt it so badly. Both bites hit, doing a total of 7 damage. Maelen’s at 11 hp. It also regenerates 1d12 hit points because Alric missed with his torch, and regains 4 hp to end the round at 18 hp.
Let’s proceed with Round 2. Vessa will roll initiative and gets a 13, which would be a success but is not a Great Success, so the skinless terror goes first. That’s two more bites (holy crap!) on Maelen. I roll one hit, doing 2 damage and bringing her to 9 hp. It also regenerates again and is back up to 22 hit points. Um… guys? This is bad.
Can Maelen crit it again? No, but she rolls a 10+4=14 and hits with Bonebreaker. The attack does 6 total damage (rolling with advantage thanks to Two Hander), dropping it back to 16 hp.
Now it bites again, this time on Alric. I roll… nat-19! Per Frenzied Death, it does 10 damage to the magic user, maybe killing him, and then promptly dies. I think it makes sense that Alric will suffer the DDM effect for its demise but first let’s see if he’s actually dead.
Alric does a Death Save, which is 11 or lower for him. He rolls a… 5 and succeeds, putting him to Dying! Vessa should be able to stabilize him now that the threat is gone.
That means two more rolls before we end this long chapter (seriously, I need to take a walk after that crazy thing): First, what Injury or Setback will Alric incur by surviving the skinless terror? He rolls 1d20 and gets Damaged Armor, which is about the best result you can get for a magic user who isn’t wearing armor. I considered rerolling that result but didn’t because second, Alric experiences a DDM effect thanks to Veil Rupture. Alric rolls percentile: Rift, “A random enraged monster from the Veil appears within Close range of you. The monster wreaks havoc for 1d4 minutes, then vanishes.”
Well… shit.
When faced with the skratt horde, Alric felt as if he fought a dizzying, endless mass of claws and teeth. Yet those scores of creatures were nothing like the thing that launched itself at Maelen. He thought perhaps the horrifying creature was trying to scream, but instead a hiccupping, whistling sound filled the cavern, along with the clack-clack of its twin mouths. Maelen shouted a charge and stepped forward to meet it, and her first blow cracked the side of its head with a wet thunk so forcefully that it looked as if she’d broken its neck.
The aberration hit the cavern floor and, without a pause, launched itself again at Maelen. She had been ready for the first leap but not the second, and it was upon her. It moved at frenzied speeds, grabbing and flailing its limbs to position its body for bite after bite with those wide, sharpened maws. In a blink, it was impossible to tell where the warrior and creature began and ended, they were in such a tangle. Maelen’s blood flew in a wide spray, which only seemed to fuel the monstrosity’s madness. Again and again it ripped and tore at her, almost too fast to comprehend.
“I—I can’t get a clean shot!” Vessa’s voice pleaded from the shadows.
Setting his mouth in a grim line, Alric rushed towards the writhing, bloody mass that was Maelen and the creature. It was a creature of darkness, a minion of the Void… light should hurt it. He swung his torch back and forth in a warding gesture. But the speed and violence of its rage was such that he hesitated to get close. The flames flickered past, illuminating the fleshy, shining mass of the creature, but his torch never touched it. Maelen grunted and whimpered as it continued to tear into her.
All at once, the creature froze, its eyeless head whipping towards Alric. Maelen moaned in pain within the silence. Bloodstained teeth clacked.
He stepped backwards, holding his torch up like a ward.
“Don’t!” he yelled.
It leapt upon him. He felt a sharp series of ripping pains, smelled the rotting meat of the thing, heard its snuffling, panting whistle, and then…
Nothing.
Next: Carnage and Keys [with game notes]
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