Beneath the Missing Sea Episode 16

    

Dragons in Dungeons

Episode 16, getting what they needed from inside the Leviathan and escaping.

Played March 22, 2024

A Link to the Summary Post

The Party for Episode 16

• mtb playing Manqoba
• CaptainSabatini playing Esgorman

In the newly darkened natural cavern where they held the only light against the darkness, the somewhat bedraggled Crab Wranglers proceeded to head southeast in their makeshift tortoise shell boat. In a region they previously hadn't travelled they found the shore of an island. Little was visible but with the light of Fiske's new staff, they caught a glimpse of what was definitely a manmade wall circling the island several feet clear of the stomach acid. Esgorman called out in greeting.

A dimly silhouetted head popped up shouting in a language none of them knew. Failing to respond, the shouting became screaming as the head moved several paces to the side and the shining object near to it resolved as the barrel of a bronze cannon pointed at them. Esgorman poled away as quickly as the craft had ever moved while Fiske doused the staff and Manqoba prayed. A titanic boom shook the gullet as a series of splashes bloomed in a line just off their bow and one of the bones of the nearby whale ribcage went flying away. Even knowing that it would take some minutes to reload the cannon, they decided to just exit the area entirely.

To the east, they washed up on the "shore" of the passage deeper into the creature's bowels. Stashing their boat they crept down a passage that grew increasingly claustrophobic and if anything smellier. Soon enough though it widened into some sort of bowel antechamber that proceeded ahead down a wide muscular passage but they were able to spot another smaller passage high up on the internal wall. After a little discussion, they clambered up to the latter and snuck down what was clearly an intestinal passage. A bit of decaying rubbish clung to crevices in the flesh but it contained less waste than they expected. It did contain hissing, though, which grew louder and sounded more animal than natural process.

With their sneakiest party member hobbled with a bum ankle, they did their best not to make noise before stumbling across a side passage in which clustered a pair of albino cockroaches the size of wolves, now obviously the source of the hissing. They quickly grabbed some food from their pack and tossed it towards the creatures and ran forward and hoped. The hissing increased and the walls of the passage momentarily shook, but the roaches didn't follow.

The narrow passage exited into a wide valley of sorts, clearly still though some intestinal passageway that not even the surgeon among them could name. It really only ran in one direction so they crept forward. Quickly the valley intersected a wide passage to the left that widened to a large chamber to the right. They decided to check the right side and found it widened enough they quickly lost sight of the fleshy walls. But just ahead they found a wall...no, not a wall, something white and curved...something very large, sinuous, and curled up that must be dozens of feet long. Whether it was unaware of them or asleep they couldn't tell but they hastily retraced their steps out of the chamber.

Its a dragon in a dungeon. Ha! Well not quite a dungeon but something like a dungeon, and not quite a dragon but rather the World's Largest Tapeworm, but close enough.

They continued down the valley as it narrowed into a passage clearly lined with ropy blood vessels that no longer pumped anything. This emptied into a small chamber containing nothing but a faintly glowing spot on the wall with something inside that shifted and caused the light to dance. Fiske pulled out a knife and set to work digging out the fleshy egg sac, complete with some serpentine creature shifting around within. The beachball-sized egg was shoved into a sack. Mission accomplished.

they backtracked to the small passage and the hissing cockroaches were concerningly missing but went unfound all the way back to the boat. Deciding to avoid the crazed canoneer as much as possible they followed along the northern wall of the stomach past the lighthouse. Near the northernmost point along the wall they noticed the acid around their watercraft was oddly tinted pink and deducing that it might be blood leaking, they hunted along the wall until they found a large blood clot dripping into the pool. Their other mission to collect a sample of untainted Leviathan blood was checked off. Their trip back to the Leviathan's teeth was interrupted only by a lizard sprinting atop the surface of the acidic fluid away from them.

Literally a basilisk, just not the petrifying kind.

A lot of deliberation went into leaving the mouth but eventually, they just walked out and pretended to have walked up. Having "satisfied their curiosity" they headed back to their cart, which had been packed up full of extracted Leviathan parts, and "decided to get an early start." No one questioned their exit.

They took the cart of viscera east back to the Silver Blades camp. They met with a rare mercantile anglergoblin named Glug who offered various items while keeping a careful eye out for elf merchant Arms Guard The Walls, as well as Robert Oldwine who paid them enormously for the eye gem, the silver candle snuffer, and the levianthic ritual knife. The cart they delivered it into the hands of an eager Reanna who offered a relative pittance. She told them of the happening of the preceding week, the discovery of the other entrance thanks to their bomb, and the ongoing intrusion into the temple. The Crab Wranglers considered their path back into the temple.

Statistics 

Days Passed: 88

Kegs Recovered: 11
Total Party Members: 8
Hexes Explored: 26
Caves Explored: 4
Dungeons Explored: 3
Players Participated: 8
Megafauna Captured: 2
Skirmishes Survived: 14
Foes Vanquished: 1 feral dog, 9 anglergoblins, 4 anglergoblin shaman, 1 albatross, 4 sea-plagued, 1 sea monk, 5 waterlogged revenants, the sea speaker, 1 mimic (this session)

Treasure Obtained: 3746 previously + 100 for the tooth + 130 for the levianthic ritual knife + 140 for the cart and contents + 3400 for the giant gem = 7516 coins + a wizard's staff

Tragic Deaths: 2 (Crabcakes the Giant Hermit Crab and Albert de Manc, Hedge Knight)

Map

The map after episode 16 (no updates).

Episode 16 Notes

Levianthan! I've been excited about this one for ages and they just kept avoiding it. Ah well, they got there eventually and it's probably good they were a little more seasoned.

They've collected some pieces intending to resolve the region's problems: blood for a cure and an egg for a return of the sea. That must mean we're wrapping up. I don't want to say I'm happy about that, but I feel like this setting has run its course.