ADVENTURE LOG: November 24, 2018
future perfect adj (ca. 1898) : of, relating to, or constituting a verb tense that is traditionally formed in English with will have and shall have and that expresses completion of an action by a specified time that is yet to come — future perfect n
The adventuring party is betrayed. With only five hours remaining until the lunar eclipse at the stroke of midnight, they have been lured into the sewers of Cumorah by a smiling Mister Shelby, an old friend of Tom Glover's. Shelby is a disciple of a fanatical religious cult of the Kuo-Toa, whose weird influence has infected the city like a virus, gaining believers even in the highest ranks of government and guild-finance. One such believer is Selene, the Maccabee's sister, who, under the control of a mysterious "counselor," has imprisoned her brother in the sewers somewhere beneath the city. The Kuo-Toa plan to sacrifice him in the Maccabee family shrine at midnight, when the Lilith Moon is at totality—full eclipse—opening a gateway onto the transcendental ocean and conjuring forth a primeval sea deity of the Kuo-Toa's own insane imagining. The Maccabee is to be a blood offering to this chimerical leviathan.
The adventurers are wounded and exhausted after their near-fatal encounter in the abandoned orphanage with the doppelgangers. For reasons not yet understood, an entity known as the Archivist is intent on killing Nik. Adding to the mystery is the peculiar Doctor Jessup, the horologist turned time traveler. Jessup, it now appears, is a wayfarer on the forking branches of the time track, where the deep past coexists with the evolving present and the unfixed future, and where concurrent versions of history line up like infinite reflections in a house of mirrors.
What connection, if any, does Jessup have to the Archivist? Is Jessup to be believed when he claims to have personally witnessed the paschal mystery of Megadeath in 1965?
The adventurers have unwittingly sought Mister Shelby's aid, thinking that he would be an ally who might help them find the Maccabee and rescue him from the repellent Kuo-Toa and their deluded followers. But Shelby has led them into a trap. With the smile evaporating from his face and his eyes gleaming fanatically, he screams, "Sassu-Wunnu rises at midnight tonight! Fools! You cannot stop the advent of the Lord! 'A ry'gzengrho! Hail to the ancient dreams!"
With that, he issues a shrill call into the subterranean depths of the sewers in the foul language of the Kuo-Toa. Escaping to the surface, Shelby seals the adventurers in, leaving them to their fate in the sprawling underground network of tunnels beneath Cumorah.
An ominous din rises up from the sewers to the east of the city.
Gritting his teeth, Korric draws his revolvers.
Flight into Darkness
Shelby has trapped them in an aqueduct that appears to have once served as an underfighting arena. Korric recalls what Tom Glover, the brewer at the Cloudwater, had told him about the illicit fight clubs that used to be held down here in these cavernous sewers. As hoards of spear-wielding Kuo-Toa swarm into the aqueduct, the adventurers escape down a utility ladder into a sublevel of much older tunnels below the present-day sewer system.
Now in disuse, these tunnels extend out beneath Orphan's Gate, the warren of slums to the east of the city. They are the crumbling remnants of what used to be the sewers of the Old City, the original walled commune from ancient times, from long before Cumorah grew into the city-state it is today.The tunnels are cramped and confined, barely large enough for the party members to pass through as they flee in a westerly direction with Ven's cantripped shield blazing in the darkness to light their way—but as Kuo-Toa spill down through the utility hole behind them in overwhelming numbers, the party's escape becomes a desperate fight for survival. As they battle their way through the infested tunnels, they adventurers discover a second utility ladder, but the utility hole overhead is blocked by a stone slab. Sant'oka transforms into a grizzly bear and dislodges the stone, enabling the adventurers to retreat up the ladder. As Korric fires down into the hole, holding off the Kuo-Toa hoards, the bear seals up the opening again with the heavy stone slab.
The party heads westward in the sewers, in the direction of the palace and the Maccabee family shrine, hoping to find where the Maccabee is being held. Sant'oka, still in bear form, falls into a water channel infested with quippers. He is pulled to safety after being injured by the swarming carnivorous fish.
Continuing on, the party makes a ghastly discovery in another of the sewer's subterranean aqueducts. Suspended beneath a grate in the floor is a large net holding decomposing people, all of them homeless people and urchins—people who will not be missed when they are taken from Cumorah's streets—and many of them are still alive. Serving as a food source for the Kuo-Toa colony, these unfortunates are being "marinated" in an acidic brine regurgitated from the Kuo-Toa's stomachs, to soften up their bones and internal organs for more palatable consumption.
Nik attempts to question one of the urchins about the Maccabee's whereabouts, but she learns nothing useful from the boy. The youth reminds her of her own hardships as an urchin on the streets of Splinterdawn. Taking mercy on him, the tiefling gives him a swift and painless death. The party then cuts the net loose, letting it and its gruesome contents fall away into the depths of the subterranean well.
Future Perfect
The adventurers become hopelessly lost in the sprawling sewers. Then something strange happens. Korric is overwhelmed by an inexplicable feeling of having been here before. The gunslinger begins to search the walls, for what he does not know, and then he finds it: an arrow scrawled on the tunnel wall. It leads them to another arrow, and then another, as though someone has anticipated that they would lose their way down here. Korric is intrigued as unfamiliar memories flood into his mind, memories of a military lab from the time of Megadeath.
As the mysterious arrows lead them inexorably in the direction of the eastern quarters of the city, the party comes upon an enigmatic warning scrawled across the tunnel wall: "DO NOT TRUST HER! SHE IS USING YOU TO . . ." There is also an equation: "= L.V.X = 65 = . . ."
The messages, though incomplete, make Korric's blood run cold.
That is because the handwriting is his own.
End Game
Following the arrows, the adventurers see flickering light ahead. Keeping to the shadows, they go to investigate. What they see leaves little doubt in their minds that they are nearing the inner sanctum of the Kuo-Toa's bizarre and terrifying faith.
Before them is a circular aqueduct with brickwork overhead like the groin vault of a medieval crypt. There are braziers here and there, which cast leaping shadows on the dripping walls. Numerous Kuo-Tao are performing some kind of weird ritual dance by the firelight. They move slowly and silently, their every gesture synchronized with an uncanny precision that is supremely creepy to behold—and the Maccabee is in their midst.
Kneeling, his wrists bound, he is groggy and confused. He has clearly been drugged. The Kuo-Toa have stripped him of his clothing and are preparing him for the sacrifice. Some anoint his body in pungent brine from copper ritual bowls. Others paint him with henna, drawing arcane symbols on his flesh. Inexplicably, his left pinky finger has been clipped off. It dangles from a filthy cord around his neck.
From their hiding place, the adventurers devise an ingenious plan of attack—combining the entangle spell, conjured in tandem by Ven and Sant'oka, with prodigious death dealing by Nik, who is ruthlessly cunning as a fighter, and by Korric's blazing pistols—and execute it swiftly, catching the Kuo-Toa by surprise. The adventurers slaughter two dozen of the foul creatures and successfully liberate the Maccabee—but the clock has struck midnight, and the time has run out. From above them, in the Maccabee shrine, a mighty rumble is felt.
Nik sneaks stealthily up some steps into the antechamber of the temple.The air here is somehow heavier than normal, denser, and charged with crackling energy. From the narrow passageway leading to the shrine, the rhythmic drone of chanting can be heard. It rises, growing louder and more frenzied. The floor beneath her shakes.
Nik goes to have a look. In the shrine, the rite is underway. A Kuo-Toa archpriest—Selene's mysterious "counselor"—stands with the ceremonial knife held aloft as he recites the infernal words to conjure the primordial kraken. Selene is here among the black-robed congregants, her eyes bright with madness. Mister Shelby is here, too, his face glistening with sweat as he chants fanatically with the other faithful.
The portal is opened before them, tearing the very fabric of existence.The waters of the transcendental ocean, battered by storms and shrieking winds, crash against the world, shaking it to its foundations. And from their cold, grey depths, something dreadful rises.
Nik hurries to rejoin her companions. A difficult choice confronts them. Do they charge up those steps and attempt to stop the ritual, or do they flee into the sewers with the Maccabee? The adventurers decide that they are too depleted to take on another fight against superior numbers, so they escape through a westerly tunnel, taking the Maccabee with them.
In the family shrine above them, coils of meaty tentacles unfurl from the waters of the transcendental ocean and spill out through the portal over the cultists' heads. The Kuo-Toa archpriest backs slowly away as the leviathan emerges from the unreal waters, looming up over him. The archpriest has no offering with which to placate the abomination he has foolishly summoned into the world, and therefore no way to control it—the adventurers have seen to that.
The adventuring party is betrayed. With only five hours remaining until the lunar eclipse at the stroke of midnight, they have been lured into the sewers of Cumorah by a smiling Mister Shelby, an old friend of Tom Glover's. Shelby is a disciple of a fanatical religious cult of the Kuo-Toa, whose weird influence has infected the city like a virus, gaining believers even in the highest ranks of government and guild-finance. One such believer is Selene, the Maccabee's sister, who, under the control of a mysterious "counselor," has imprisoned her brother in the sewers somewhere beneath the city. The Kuo-Toa plan to sacrifice him in the Maccabee family shrine at midnight, when the Lilith Moon is at totality—full eclipse—opening a gateway onto the transcendental ocean and conjuring forth a primeval sea deity of the Kuo-Toa's own insane imagining. The Maccabee is to be a blood offering to this chimerical leviathan.
The adventurers are wounded and exhausted after their near-fatal encounter in the abandoned orphanage with the doppelgangers. For reasons not yet understood, an entity known as the Archivist is intent on killing Nik. Adding to the mystery is the peculiar Doctor Jessup, the horologist turned time traveler. Jessup, it now appears, is a wayfarer on the forking branches of the time track, where the deep past coexists with the evolving present and the unfixed future, and where concurrent versions of history line up like infinite reflections in a house of mirrors.
What connection, if any, does Jessup have to the Archivist? Is Jessup to be believed when he claims to have personally witnessed the paschal mystery of Megadeath in 1965?
The adventurers have unwittingly sought Mister Shelby's aid, thinking that he would be an ally who might help them find the Maccabee and rescue him from the repellent Kuo-Toa and their deluded followers. But Shelby has led them into a trap. With the smile evaporating from his face and his eyes gleaming fanatically, he screams, "Sassu-Wunnu rises at midnight tonight! Fools! You cannot stop the advent of the Lord! 'A ry'gzengrho! Hail to the ancient dreams!"
With that, he issues a shrill call into the subterranean depths of the sewers in the foul language of the Kuo-Toa. Escaping to the surface, Shelby seals the adventurers in, leaving them to their fate in the sprawling underground network of tunnels beneath Cumorah.
An ominous din rises up from the sewers to the east of the city.
Gritting his teeth, Korric draws his revolvers.
Flight into Darkness
Shelby has trapped them in an aqueduct that appears to have once served as an underfighting arena. Korric recalls what Tom Glover, the brewer at the Cloudwater, had told him about the illicit fight clubs that used to be held down here in these cavernous sewers. As hoards of spear-wielding Kuo-Toa swarm into the aqueduct, the adventurers escape down a utility ladder into a sublevel of much older tunnels below the present-day sewer system.
Now in disuse, these tunnels extend out beneath Orphan's Gate, the warren of slums to the east of the city. They are the crumbling remnants of what used to be the sewers of the Old City, the original walled commune from ancient times, from long before Cumorah grew into the city-state it is today.The tunnels are cramped and confined, barely large enough for the party members to pass through as they flee in a westerly direction with Ven's cantripped shield blazing in the darkness to light their way—but as Kuo-Toa spill down through the utility hole behind them in overwhelming numbers, the party's escape becomes a desperate fight for survival. As they battle their way through the infested tunnels, they adventurers discover a second utility ladder, but the utility hole overhead is blocked by a stone slab. Sant'oka transforms into a grizzly bear and dislodges the stone, enabling the adventurers to retreat up the ladder. As Korric fires down into the hole, holding off the Kuo-Toa hoards, the bear seals up the opening again with the heavy stone slab.
The party heads westward in the sewers, in the direction of the palace and the Maccabee family shrine, hoping to find where the Maccabee is being held. Sant'oka, still in bear form, falls into a water channel infested with quippers. He is pulled to safety after being injured by the swarming carnivorous fish.
Continuing on, the party makes a ghastly discovery in another of the sewer's subterranean aqueducts. Suspended beneath a grate in the floor is a large net holding decomposing people, all of them homeless people and urchins—people who will not be missed when they are taken from Cumorah's streets—and many of them are still alive. Serving as a food source for the Kuo-Toa colony, these unfortunates are being "marinated" in an acidic brine regurgitated from the Kuo-Toa's stomachs, to soften up their bones and internal organs for more palatable consumption.
Nik attempts to question one of the urchins about the Maccabee's whereabouts, but she learns nothing useful from the boy. The youth reminds her of her own hardships as an urchin on the streets of Splinterdawn. Taking mercy on him, the tiefling gives him a swift and painless death. The party then cuts the net loose, letting it and its gruesome contents fall away into the depths of the subterranean well.
Future Perfect
The adventurers become hopelessly lost in the sprawling sewers. Then something strange happens. Korric is overwhelmed by an inexplicable feeling of having been here before. The gunslinger begins to search the walls, for what he does not know, and then he finds it: an arrow scrawled on the tunnel wall. It leads them to another arrow, and then another, as though someone has anticipated that they would lose their way down here. Korric is intrigued as unfamiliar memories flood into his mind, memories of a military lab from the time of Megadeath.
As the mysterious arrows lead them inexorably in the direction of the eastern quarters of the city, the party comes upon an enigmatic warning scrawled across the tunnel wall: "DO NOT TRUST HER! SHE IS USING YOU TO . . ." There is also an equation: "= L.V.X = 65 = . . ."
The messages, though incomplete, make Korric's blood run cold.
That is because the handwriting is his own.
End Game
Following the arrows, the adventurers see flickering light ahead. Keeping to the shadows, they go to investigate. What they see leaves little doubt in their minds that they are nearing the inner sanctum of the Kuo-Toa's bizarre and terrifying faith.
Before them is a circular aqueduct with brickwork overhead like the groin vault of a medieval crypt. There are braziers here and there, which cast leaping shadows on the dripping walls. Numerous Kuo-Tao are performing some kind of weird ritual dance by the firelight. They move slowly and silently, their every gesture synchronized with an uncanny precision that is supremely creepy to behold—and the Maccabee is in their midst.
Kneeling, his wrists bound, he is groggy and confused. He has clearly been drugged. The Kuo-Toa have stripped him of his clothing and are preparing him for the sacrifice. Some anoint his body in pungent brine from copper ritual bowls. Others paint him with henna, drawing arcane symbols on his flesh. Inexplicably, his left pinky finger has been clipped off. It dangles from a filthy cord around his neck.
From their hiding place, the adventurers devise an ingenious plan of attack—combining the entangle spell, conjured in tandem by Ven and Sant'oka, with prodigious death dealing by Nik, who is ruthlessly cunning as a fighter, and by Korric's blazing pistols—and execute it swiftly, catching the Kuo-Toa by surprise. The adventurers slaughter two dozen of the foul creatures and successfully liberate the Maccabee—but the clock has struck midnight, and the time has run out. From above them, in the Maccabee shrine, a mighty rumble is felt.
Nik sneaks stealthily up some steps into the antechamber of the temple.The air here is somehow heavier than normal, denser, and charged with crackling energy. From the narrow passageway leading to the shrine, the rhythmic drone of chanting can be heard. It rises, growing louder and more frenzied. The floor beneath her shakes.
Nik goes to have a look. In the shrine, the rite is underway. A Kuo-Toa archpriest—Selene's mysterious "counselor"—stands with the ceremonial knife held aloft as he recites the infernal words to conjure the primordial kraken. Selene is here among the black-robed congregants, her eyes bright with madness. Mister Shelby is here, too, his face glistening with sweat as he chants fanatically with the other faithful.
The portal is opened before them, tearing the very fabric of existence.The waters of the transcendental ocean, battered by storms and shrieking winds, crash against the world, shaking it to its foundations. And from their cold, grey depths, something dreadful rises.
Nik hurries to rejoin her companions. A difficult choice confronts them. Do they charge up those steps and attempt to stop the ritual, or do they flee into the sewers with the Maccabee? The adventurers decide that they are too depleted to take on another fight against superior numbers, so they escape through a westerly tunnel, taking the Maccabee with them.
In the family shrine above them, coils of meaty tentacles unfurl from the waters of the transcendental ocean and spill out through the portal over the cultists' heads. The Kuo-Toa archpriest backs slowly away as the leviathan emerges from the unreal waters, looming up over him. The archpriest has no offering with which to placate the abomination he has foolishly summoned into the world, and therefore no way to control it—the adventurers have seen to that.
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