This huge water elemental rises up from the shallow depths, water spreading throughout the room. With their movement impeded, the party braces themselves against the oncoming torrent.
Barnaby wades in and slashes out at the creature. His blade finds purchase, but it’s difficult to get a bead on what’s water and what’s elemental ‘flesh’. Normally, such blows would cripple any foe, but this one is a different kind of beast.
Fyn follows suit, casting Blur on Trace and tries to figure out if there’s anything special about this creature. He suspects this to be an Elder Water Elemental, although it seems corrupted in some way. No wanting to take any chances, he casts Slow on the creature. Without the ability to conduct full-round actions, the battle should be a walk on the beach right? Not so fast.
Enraged, the elemental sends towering waves rippling out through the room. The force of the blows knock the party back, causing the party to become fatigued due to a massive pressure change. Krask is particularly worried about the situation, and rushes over to a grate. He can’t pull it open; it’s either go back the way they came or stand and fight.
Luckily, the creature is definitely evil, so Trace uses Smite to bypass its damage reduction. Richard and Fobias aren’t as lucky, hitting on about half of their attacks. Fyn tries to gain a new vantage point, but gets slammed by a wall of water, pressing him underneath the surface. He begins to drown.
But what’s a wizard without some nifty spells? Fyn casts an expensive Teleport spell, taking all of his concentration to do so. He reappears on the other end of the room, dripping water and gasping for air.
Barnaby and Trace hit their stride, making their blades like water to attack this elemental. Even when it turns into a vortex and engulfs them, their resolve is only momentarily tested. It also helps that Fyn turns the tide with a pair of elder water elementals of his own. The elemental collapses in a deluge of water, but a small, hunched shell remains.
Parting the Watery Veil
The party gathers themselves and Trace heals everyone back up to full. Fobias is concerned about this elemental and casts a Cure Light Wounds to heal any lingering damage it has. Fyn, speaker of countless languages, converses with them in Aquan.
The elemental says they have always been here, so long as it can remember. In fact, the last thing they can truly recall is a massive amount of pain, which may or may not have been caused by our beloved heroes. Furthermore, the elemental’s memories are corrupted in some way, but they can recreate what they see in their mind using the water in the room.
The water rises up, forming shapes that tell a strange narrative:
You see the vague outline of a hulking figure, standing with arms outstretched over a mass of other humanoid shapes. They seem to be standing around a circular bowl. A stream of water pours from the central figure, which collects in the bowl below. The other watery forms undulate, as if in a state of raucous joy.
Suddenly, the water falls back to the surface, resetting the image. The central figure howls in pain, writhing and shaking before splitting in half vertically. We see a small orb of water rise up from the split, zipping off into the sky.
The watery orb descends towards a series of buildings next to a towering mountain. As it reaches the ground, several trees emerge and grow from the pool. Almost instantly, you see humanoid shapes flocking into view, arms outstretched.
Once again, the vision resets, shifting back to the original mass of figures around the bowl, which is now empty. You see one half of the larger figure that was split, lying on the edge of the bowl. In unison, the other shapes turn their backs and move away before all of the water collapses back into the pool.
Content with the information, the party decides to take a quick rest. They want to see if the water in the room has traveled back to the cistern proper. Krask, however, is drawn by the faint odor of something burned. He peeks down the hallway with the broken grate, and finds the source:
A semi-charred gnoll sprawled on the ground, dead, next to a leather pouch with a white, powdery residue.
Are the Driftworms not as evil as originally thought? How did this gnoll get into the Cistern? Can we go home yet?