Session 5:
Liberation of the Rock Folk
Guided by Blind Elephant’s children we entered the passageway where the river, the children’s mother, used to flow. It was taboo to them. We explored the passage until we heard a lullaby being sung. It sounded a lot like the one that was being sung to pacify Blind Elephant, indeed even the quality of the voice seemed similar but we definitely heard the name Odiock and that boded ill. The singer was a rock folk who was tending a boulder that seemed to be blocking the flow of water to the chamber. As we watched we saw a roach arrive and stroke the boulder.
We decided we shouldn’t attack more of Blind Elephant’s kin before conferring with the children even if the roaches were clearly involved. We returned back down the passage and conferred with Noodey.
They identified the singer as being Noon Oontrey, one of the oldest children of Blind Elephant. A roach had fallen into them, normally the rock people absorb or disintegrate matter that becomes trapped in their surface but it seems that Noon Oontrey had been changed or corrupted by the experience and disappeared from the crèche.
Noodey and Goon-doon agreed that their corrupted sibling needed to be stopped and gave us some magic that would be effective against rock bodies.
Resolved and armed we returned to the passageway and this time made a rapid attack driving away the roach and causing Noon Oontrey to flee down a different passage to the roach.
The death of Noon Oontrey
Ye Sing lets fly the magic that the rock folk had given him, initially this was difficult to channel but with determination Ye Sing was able to shape the Spell of Subterranean Gullets with devastating effect. The spell not only affected the walls and passageways of the tunnel but also the crevices and pits of Noon Oontrey’s own body.
As the magic tore away at Noon Oontrey Yarold saw that there was a moment of realisation when they were free of the influence of the roach but by then the magic was unstoppable and Noon Oontrey was reduced to rubble.
Unfortunately in this act of hubristic destruction Ye Sing was overcome by megalomania, fuelled by his mastering the abilities of the rock folk magic. He danced and pranced around the cave with delight at the destruction he had wrought.
Tahleela and Gogrun ran down the other tunnel after the fleeing roach but we unable to catch it. Instead they saw lots of rock folk young with roaches obscenely embedded in them, the merged forms scrabbling to try and escape one another.
Gogrun takes a crowbar to the roaches, smashing them dead and then levering them out of the rock people’s body.
The return of the mother
Having freed the rock folk of the roaches infesting them we returned our attention to the boulder, which on closer examination was not a rock but something else. Noon Oontrey had called is Sweet Ootheca which implied it was a roach egg.
Grogun drove a javelin deep into the thing and split it, revealing a huge roach that was flatter than the humanoid type and maybe four times the size across. It had not finished forming and was still fused together in parts.
With the obstruction gone we realised that the pent up waters would once again flow so we made our way out of the passageway and as the water fell down into the creche we used it to shower off the goo from the roach egg sac.
The children of Blind Elephant were delighted to have their mother returned and made plans to return to their former home. We mentioned their siblings who remained in the passageway and they made plans to retrieve them in future.
The rock folk gave us many back-handed compliments on having successfully returned their mother to them.
We understood from this episode that the roaches have been granted some new or altered powers by their new leader or deity and that they seemed adept at effecting the minds of other creatures. We resolved to investigate any rumours of folk acting strangely or out of character and were immediately told that the priests associated with Udarava’s Stair had recently started behaving oddly so we decided to make that our next destination.
