The noxious fumes waft through the air, causing the party to cough and wheeze. Luckily, none of them succumb to the harsh airborne diseases. Our heroes press onwards.
Thick, nasty slime covers the walls of Sloth. Occasionally, a fist-sized spider or centipede skitters across the surface. Apart from the canals of sludge, a layer of slick slime coats the stone tiles on the floor, impeding the party’s movement.
Despite the corrosive atmosphere, the party continues deeper into the Festering Maze. Fyn uses his dimension steps liberally to quickly move them across impassable sections of walkway. Trace only falls into the stinky, filthy water once. Now he smells terribly.
They come around the corner into a wide room. Three languishing waterfalls cascade down from rusty pipes on the far wall. To the west, three encrusted levers protrude from the wall. Each lever has a plaque above it. In order, they read “Access Control”, “Portal Control”, and “Warning: Cleaning Cycle”.
Thinking that it would be helpful to clean up this vile mess, the party opts for the third lever. Trace gets some leverage and pushes it down.
A substantial deluge of water pours from the ceiling, nearly knocking Richard into the rancid sludge. As the proverbial dust clears, a gigantic Elder Water Elemental rises from the central platform.
At the same time, two other creatures emerge from the putrid water. They have amorphous, slimy bodies with writhing tentacles and human-like skulls. With a shriek, they lunge at the party!
Spin Cycle
Fyn acts quickly, casting a Cone of Cold on one of these creatures and the water elemental. Even with their added resistance, it seems to have an effect on the enemies. The elemental follows up Fyn’s attack by turning towards the nearest omox demon and slamming it with a watery fury.
Unfortunately, that is the only good news for the next hour and a half.
One of the omox demons amplifies the fumes emanating from putrid pool. This creates a stinking cloud that wreaks havoc on the party. Barnaby and Krask fail their saves immediately, causing them to become nauseated. The only difference is that Krask refuses to escape the cloud by jumping in the water, while Barnaby dives in immediately.
In Paladin news, Trace also jumps into the water, but his heavy plate armor begins to weigh him down. His head dips below the water as he thrashes to get back to the surface.
Nearby, the second omox demon grabs Richard, forcing its slimy body to cover the wolf’s nose and mouth. If this suffocation tactic wasn’t bad enough, it pulls Richard into the water, compounding the risk of drowning. The demon continues to bash Richard, whose blood coalesces in with the sickly green sludge.
Fyn fights off the nausea and attempts to dispel the cloud multiple times. Before he is successful, Fobias casts Spider Climb on himself and jumps to the southern wall. He skitters across the slimy wall before dropping down onto the unsuspecting demon, knife in hand. It goes right through the monster’s skull, killing it.
Meanwhile, the remaining omox demon hurls a ball of slime at Krask, entangling the kobold. Taking advantage of the situation, the demon slithers onto the platform and begins to suffocate Krask. Entangled, nauseous, and grappled. That makes for a disappointing Wednesday night.
Finally Fyn is able to dispel the cloud and he casts a second Cone of Cold at the remaining demon and the elemental. The same elemental that, up to this point at least, hadn’t attacked the party at all. However, as Barnaby turns around to swim back to the party, the elemental hurls its watery fists at the wizard.
Did the party take the elemental’s help for granted? Where did all of this poisonous sludge come from? What kind of lethal dishwasher is this?!