Session 26 — Down the Water, the Crocodile Guards, and the Loss of Otto

Session Recap

Waking at 1 AM on the 23rd of Spring's End after their long rest with the wood-folk, the party sets out to finish mapping the Grey Vale Cave's flooded reaches. Silithane has spent the rest learning Water Breathing — from a hidden page he cut out of the spellbook he stole from a Bael'Drakkor pirate's mage — and casts it over the whole group (24 hours, all seven plus bird and salamander; Lash breathes water already). They slip past the sleeping Queen's chamber, meet a clog-wearing ledge scholar who watches the Queen through binoculars on Laewendas's behalf and refuses to help kill her, and explore a water-and-crater area where Jex digs an ancient meteorite shard out of a sinkhole that predates the cave itself. By a groundwater pool they find the missing adult woodling, Gono — the last quarry of Lorto's quest — injured and certain he is the last of his kind; Valmora heals him.

The session's discoveries come from Lash, who dives ten minutes down the flooded chasm and breaks open a sealed door into the under-prison — home now to a band of semi-feral crocodile-people who tend egg-nests in the old cells and have appointed themselves the prison's reluctant guards since the Hand Lady (the Queen Grabbler) escaped. Lash befriends one (whom she simply names Friend) and brings him up to see the surface. But the day's repeated stealth attempts finally rouse the Queen for good: she hunts, sends her Grabblers, and — for the first time — wades into the water after the group. Everyone dives and races for the depths, and the slowest creature among them, the mute scholar Otto (whom no one had included in the Water Breathing), is caught and de-handed by the Queen as the party escapes into the prison below. Shaken, they surface among the Grenkh, meet their colossal, Jabba-like ruler Grank, and are granted passage to the jail to deliver the news that the lost prisoner is found — and too big to put back.

Key Events

• Water Breathing for all. Silithane reveals he found the spell on a page hidden behind the backing of a stolen Bael'Drakkor mage's spellbook (cut out with a knife — "you ruined your book!"). He casts it on the full party plus the raven and Squishy the salamander — up to 10 willing creatures, 24 hours, and they can still breathe air. A major enabler for the flooded routes down.
• Past No-Go, by Movo. The fearful woodling guard No-Go blocks the corridor out; the mover Movo obligingly relocates the whole party (the bird, Silithane, Thalia, even No-Go himself) past him so they can leave.
• The ledge scholar. On a tented ledge sits a dwarven scholar with binoculars, wooden clogs (linked to a childhood foot-trauma), and eight languages — who studies the Queen from a distance and reveres her as possibly the last of a unique, imprisoned kind. He works (by his own admission) for someone who works for Laewendas ("she keeps us safe... that's what the Heralds say"). After a persuasion 20 he shares his findings (below). He confirms the cave's true name is Grey Vale Cave (locals renamed it for the monster). Otto signs that the man is a fool and a Laewendas servant, and refuses to speak with him.
• The impact crater / meteorite. The water area holds a shallow pool, a deep rock pool, and a ~30-ft impact crater. Thalia makes "pit angels" pretending she made it; a lone cave mouse is rescued (and reunited with its mouse family — Cratchits and a "Tiny Tim"). Jex digs an hour through "thousands of years of history" to pull out a speckled black meteorite fragment (halocite); Valmora flies the roof and confirms there is no hole above — the strike predates the cave, back when this was ground level.
• Gono recovered. By the groundwater pool, Valmora Cure Wounds an injured wood-creature with a spear who draws an X over his village, believing himself the last of his kind. He is the missing adult woodling from Lorto's quest; he collects pretty rocks (and is given the halocite) and keeps trying to "live up to his name" and wander off.
• Lash finds the under-prison. Lash swims ~10 minutes down the flooded chasm, squeezes into a sealed box-room (a former prison observation/supply room — one table, many chairs), and shunts open a stuck pull-door into a flooded chamber where seven crocodilian people tend egg-nests amid rusted decorative armor. She converses in axolotlan, which the GM rules is a partly-intelligible offshoot of their Aquan.
• The Grenkh and their prison. The crocodile-people (The Grenkh) didn't know there was a floor above, or a surface world. They learn the Hand Lady escaped a cell, and recount how they found "6 people in 6 rooms," appointed themselves guards on Grank's order ("don't let the others out"), and now keep the jail. Lash names her contact Friend (the Grenkh have no concept of names) and leads him up to the surface to see the Queen.
• Friend on the surface. Friend gives a three-clawed greeting, is too frightened to approach the Queen closely enough to assess her, and swims back down to report to Grank — a report that "did not go well. Grank mad."
• Thalia & Valmora stranded — and bonding. With Thalia's Pass Without Trace running out and several stealth rolls failing, the two are cut off from the water group on the hunters' camp side. Valmora casts Tongues (delivered "through a kiss") so they and Gono can talk freely, and the three trade life stories (see NPCs). Gono is revealed to have been married to No-Go for 50 years — mirroring Valmora's own 50-year marriage.
• Food for the trapped hunters. Valmora Create Food and Water for the trapped longbow-hunter father and son — 45 lb of food and 30 gallons of water (~20 gallons kept on the ledge to dilute the toxic acid pool they've been drinking).
• The Queen wakes and hunts. Three disturbances in one day finally rouse the Queen Grabbler for good; she patrols, sends Grabblers to the ladder, and spots the water group. Initiative is called on "the Wall Grabbers." The Queen — reluctantly — wades into the deep water after them.
• The dive, and Otto's loss. The whole water group dives and races to the depths (Constitution saves to sustain the sprint); the Queen half-chases a few hundred feet, then gives up. But Otto had not been included in the Water Breathing — Magra told him to dive believing he was — and as the slowest creature he is caught and de-handed by the Queen (the trapped father and son cover their ears against the sound). The group surfaces in the prison without him; no handless body is found, leaving a thin hope he survived.
• Into the prison, and Grank. The escapees emerge among the Grenkh's egg-rooms. Jex is gifted a rusty helmet (useless to him). They meet Grank in person — a vast, spineless, Jabba-sized apex lizard too big to leave his room — who, with Silithane unable to ritual-cast Comprehend Languages in the cramped room and Lash translating his Aquan, grants them passage to the jail: go tell the jailer Half-gore that the lost prisoner is found and too large to return. Only Grank can open the locked jail door and the bottom door.
• A sprout in a cell. Counting the rescued woodling sprouts (now 11+), the wood-chief's "dozen children" leaves one unaccounted for — and it proves to be imprisoned in one of the under-cells ("wrongfully convicted"). Lash also pockets a Damp Sprout found swimming in the deep water.

Combat & Encounters

• No true battle this session. The only initiative is the Queen Grabbler's water chase — run as a flee-and-survive skill challenge (stealth, then Constitution saves), not a brawl. The party's whole approach to the Queen remains avoid, never fight: she is too deadly to face, can't be "put back" without nearly killing her, and would need the full party and all the Grenkh to even attempt.
• The Queen enters the water. Long rumored to fear it, she proves only reluctant — she wades in to chest height, takes a breath, and dives after the group before breaking off. The one casualty of the chase is Otto, caught because he could not breathe water and was the slowest.
• The Grabblers stir and touch the ladder during the Queen's hunt but, lacking feet, still cannot climb to the ledges.

NPCs & Factions

• Sheree (named Sheree; the party never caught it) — a clog-wearing, binocular-wielding dwarven scholar camped on a ledge above the Queen's chamber, fluent in eight languages, who observes the Queen on Laewendas's behalf and will not abet killing her. His findings: she sleeps ~23½ hours a day; her handler-creatures bring her hands and she grows; she cares for, sings to, and cradles her "children"; she visits the cave mouth every other month or so but never leaves; and she speaks a language even he doesn't recognize. He once saw a robed, long-black-haired figure with gloved hands converse with her for several minutes before she squished him with her tail — very likely the cave's "creepy man."
• Otto — lost this session. Excluded from the Water Breathing, he is caught and de-handed by the Queen during the underwater chase. His undelivered package and Thalia's oath to carry it "to the prison" are left in limbo; no handless body has surfaced, so his fate is not certain.
• The Grenkh — a band of semi-feral crocodile/lizard-people who have made the old prison cells their home, tending egg-nests and speaking Aquan. They knew nothing of the surface, learned the Hand Lady escaped from a cell, and now serve as the prison's self-appointed guards. Named: Friend (Lash's name for her contact), the apex ruler Grank, and the jailer Half-gore (Grank's spawn-sibling, bitten smaller).
• Grank — the biggest, oldest Grenkh: spineless (a mark that he is the eater, not the eaten), Jabba-sized, stuck in his room but fed; eats the slowest/smallest of his own kind; the only one who can open the locked doors. Deep amber, studying eyes.
• Gono — the missing adult woodling of Lorto's quest, found injured and convinced he is the last of his kind. Married to the guard No-Go for 50 years; a rock-collector who keeps trying to "go." Now reunited with the den.
• Valmora's and Thalia's histories surface in the Tongues conversation — Valmora as a banished celestial honoring her dead husband's wish for Orathos; Thalia as an Orathi courier seeking her two mothers (see their notes).
• Laewendas — her reach extends into the cave: the ledge scholar is her placed observer of the Queen, and her unnamed interest in the Grabber Queen ("probably the best for all of us") is left ominous. Her followers cite "the Heralds."

Locations

• Grey Vale Cave — explored further into its flooded reaches: a shallow/deep water pool area, an ancient impact crater/sinkhole (predating the cave), the groundwater chasm down which Lash swims, and the route to the prison below. The Queen's chamber and ledges remain the deadly center.
• The Prison of Seven Cells — the long-sealed under-prison of the vanished pre-Rivalon race, reached by swimming the flooded groundwater. Now inhabited by the Grenkh, who tend egg-nests in the flooded cell-rooms; it holds the Queen's old (now empty) cell, six remaining prisoners, a locked jail door and a bottom door only Grank can open, and (the party learns) one imprisoned woodling sprout.

Loot, Items & Rewards

• Water Breathing — Silithane's newly-learned spell (from the stolen Bael'Drakkor mage's spellbook); cast party-wide for 24 hours. The session's most important "item."
• Halocite meteorite shard — a speckled black-and-gold rock Jex dug from the crater, gifted to Gono (who treasures it among his "6 cool rocks, 1 okay rock").
• Rusty helmet — molded by the jailer onto Jex's ooze head; medium armor and rusted, so unusable by her.
• Damp Sprout — a woodling baby Lash scooped from the deep water (to the Woodling Den).
• 45 lb food / 30 gal water — Valmora's Create Food and Water for the trapped hunters (~20 gallons left to dilute their acid pool).

Decisions & Open Threads

• Otto, lost. Caught and de-handed in the chase, with his delivery undone and Thalia's oath unfulfilled — but no handless body found. Is he dead, or a new captive?
• The prison, entered at last. The party is now physically inside the under-prison: six prisoners remain in cells, plus a wrongfully-imprisoned woodling sprout; the deeper jail door and bottom door require Grank. Their immediate task is to bring the news to the jailer Half-gore.
• The Queen can't be "put back." She is far too big for her cell; short of nearly killing her there is no return, and even that would take the whole party plus all the Grenkh. She now enters water, removing the party's safest escape assumption.
• Laewendas's interest in the Queen. Why she stations a scholar to watch the Grabber Queen — and what she wants with her — is unexplained.
• The robed figure who spoke to the Queen. Long black hair, gloves over its hands, conversed with her before she killed it — very likely the cave's recurring "creepy man."
• Reaching the rest of the group. Thalia and Valmora are stranded on the camp side with the trapped hunters; they (and now everyone) can breathe water, so they're expected to swim down to rejoin.
• Carryover: the red-candle tomb / 14-ft coffin (see Session 24) still unreached; Valmora's broken flight scale-mail; Lash's in-progress auricalcum hammer; the missing mothers; the Veilwood as the longer heading.
• Roster. On-screen: Thalia, Silithane, Lash, Magra, Jex, Valmora. Fenric sat the session out with the wood-folk (placed at the end with the trapped father and son). Ashlyn remains recalled to the Veilwood; Draak is gone. The party is level 6 (no level-up this session).

Memorable Moments

• The ledge scholar's clog tap-dance and his refusal to pity the Queen's victims: "If you enter something called the Graveler Cave, are you not responsible for being gravelled? Were I to break into the tiger den, would it not be my fault if the tiger tigered me?"
• Movo relocating the entire party past No-Go — and No-Go chasing after them — the woodling whose one trick is moving things.
• Thalia flopping into the crater to do "pit angels" and "feel like a meteor," pushing the table to "100 asses makes the ass queen."
• The cave-mouse Cratchit family, complete with a Tiny Tim "in a wheelchair... with a little crutch," sharing a human-sized block of dried cheese.
• Lash naming the crocodile-man Friend — because the Grenkh have no concept of names — and the Grenkh's dawning, broken-axolotlan horror: "Fuck, we gotta put her back. Who gave her hands?"
• Gono, who believed himself the last of his kind, revealed married to No-Go for 50 years — "It seems we have a lot in common" — and his vow: "My name is Gono, and I will never go again."
• Valmora's Tongues-through-a-kiss, and her quiet backstory spilling out on the ledge — the banished celestial and her dead husband's amulets.
• Grank, the Jabba-sized apex lizard, patting the seat beside him — "Come closer, tell me what you learned" — with the GM's immediate aside: "Don't do it."
• The grim hush of Otto's end, masked by the trapped hunters covering their ears — and Jex's stubborn optimism: "there's a chance he's alive, because we haven't found a body with no hands yet."