Post by Tamsin (Kalta/Cam) on Jul 15, 2021 19:41:43 GMT
Kalta sat in the Red House, enjoying the similarity to her favourite pub in Port Ffirst. The rowdy patrons, the sour smell. It wasn’t pleasant, but the smell reminded her of home.
Frankly, she needed that after the day she’d had.
She had a piece of parchment in front of her. She’d been trying to write for about an hour now.
What was she going to say? “Dear Gran and Grandad, you don’t need to worry about your little girl anymore! Today I got hit by a death ray and I didn’t die!”
She wasn’t sure that would be as reassuring as she wanted it to be.
Urgh. She hated writing things down. She hardly ever posted the letters she did write. It was too difficult to look back.
She sighed, bit the end of the quill, and started again.
Today I answered an advertisement asking for people to find and kill a Beholder. Don’t worry, it’s over and I’m fine.
Not entirely true, but it made the necessary point.
Turns out that a while ago a group of adventurers fought a Gazer in the chasm by Daring Heights. They figured it came from the dreams of a Beholder, so someone had to go take care of that.
I know you won’t like that it was me who did. That’[s not the point. Someone had to, and I wanted it to be me. It was dangerous but better me than -
She crossed out the last sentence, almost tearing the parchment. Couldn’t say that.
It was the right thing to do. Commander Jadefist and Aurelia came to tell us what to do.
Kalta pictured Commander Cordelia Jadefist and smiled a little.
I’ve only met her a few times,but she is incredibly impressive. To be hired by her for something as important as this is a huge honour.
I didn’t know as much about beholders as I would have liked, to be honest. I knew they were awful, dangerous, and terrifying, that they could see nearly everything and odd bits and pieces beyond that. Luckily we visited the academy first, and learnt more about beholders. An academic there, Karter, gave us more information.
Oh- I was with others, of course! I didn’t do it on my own. Besides, I might have taken a lot of hits, but I didn’t really do much damage -
Scratch that last line. Do not tell them that you took a lot of hits, Kalta, they’re your grandparents! They’ll worry!
I dare say I was far from the most useful member of the group.
Professor Karter’s information helped a lot. He said that the beholder can do a huge antimagic cone, and also produce rays from it’s eyes with terrible effects. Except the antimagic cone cancels out it’s eye rays, so if you’re in the cone, you’re golden!
Unless you rely on magic, but I don’t so much. I mean, you know I dabble in it and I have magic weapons, but mostly I just fight with my sword and bow still, like at home.
While we were there, one of my companions suddenly recalled that he had actually fought a Beholder before, and defeated it almost single-handedly. This was a huge relief. I don’t know how you could forget having fought a Beholder, but the fact that Ruk had defeated one before did make me a little less uneasy about the prospect.
We went to the chasm, and a gentleman with a rope ladder let us down. He pulled the rope ladder up after us, so nothing dangerous could use it. Not sure it would stop a Beholder, seeing as they can fly, but Beholder’s normally stay in their lairs underground, so I guess it wasn’t that he was worried about.
Ruk had winged shoes and could actually fly down, but the rest of us (Delilah, Igrainne and I) had to climb down.
Igrainne knew the chasm area pretty well, and led us without much trouble. We’d been told to head North, and Igrainne knew the way well enough that the twisting caves and tunnels didn’t throw her off track. Very impressive memory, honestly.
We found the place where they fought the Gazer, and Ruk did some magic to be able to talk to the dead there-
Wait, need to clarify. Don’t let them think that it was the adventurers.
Talk to the skull of a creature called a Barghul which they also killed, and get it to tell us which way to go.
There were some odd things on the way there, I guess just side effects of being near a beholder’s lair- goo dripping from the ceiling and then vanishing, a section of floor that was only an illusion, a weird creepy doll. I was all ready to climb the walls to get past the fake floor, but Ruk cast dimension door to get me past it instead. Good dude.
It wasn’t too long after that when we reached the lair. There were stairs leading down before a huge cavern with stairs going down and a long walkway, over a hundred feet, across a gap. On the other side of the walkway was the beholder. It was big, and it looked… awful. Sorry, it’s hard to describe. This big, spherical thing, with so many eyes on stalks, skin pink and oily.
From the distance we were at, it looked a little smaller than I’d expected. It was huge really though, especially when I got closer and could see it’s mouth, the sharp fangs and the way it kept licking its lips as if it was hungry for its next meal-
Maybe cut that sentence, Kalta, you don’t want them to think you were going to be eaten. Even if maybe that’s what it wanted. You don’t put that in the letter.
Delilah snuck off to sneak up on it. I tried to follow, but got hit by a death ray-
No. Cut that. What could she say?
None of that. No.
It was huge really though. Don’t worry, I could handle anything it threw at me. It did get me with one of it’s eye rays to start, but then I managed to stay in the antimagic cone. Once I got my breath back, I was fine. I couldn’t use my spells and my weapons weren’t as powerful, but I could still shoot arrows into it.
Even if I missed most of them, too busy trying to ignore the sensation of my flesh rotting while I was still there.
It did hit me again a few times, but it didn’t hurt me. Charmed me, briefly, and tried to petrify me. Don’t worry- I was strong enough to resist the effects. My companions took care of it.
I only survived because one of the people I was with was clairvoyant, Gran, and if he hadn’t seen that I wouldn’t make it, I’d be a statue in the remains of a Beholder’s lair right now. I would have died, or maybe not died but just been trapped like that forever, and I don’t know which would be worse. I could feel my skin hardening to stone as I stood there and I tried so hard to fight it, Gran, but -
We slew the thing. I helped slay a Beholder, of all things. Quite an achievement, right? Got a pretty cool magic stone out of it, too. Don’t worry, I’m back safe now.
Love you both. Take care of yourselves!
She scrawled her name at the bottom, messily enough that anyone seeing it might doubt their ability to read it correctly, and stared at the parchment.
She didn’t know if she would send this one, after all.
DM Will
Players: Tamsin as Kalta, Jaz as Igrainne, Riah as Delilah and Luke as Ruk. (sorry if the formatting/spacing is odd)
