“Well try me, Tripod Face!” Londer calls mockingly.

A low Vin Diesel voice rumbles in his mind: “Otyugh hungry and cat much small.” 

The putrid stench of the Yartar sewers is overwhelming. There are the bodies of two slain Kuo-toa at the gang’s feet, but two more alive. Tressym Rillix is between them. The restraining web has withered and lays strewn around them. A three-legged creature, all ropey tendrils, with eyes. This creature has emerged from the north. 

Miss Moss, Lia and Londer are huddled on a slippery walkway, while nearby Leshanna and Thoradin can hear the squelching sounds of the slow-moving slime coming between them. Leshanna lies on the ground covered in the slick ooze that seems to come from every surface.

Leshanna picks herself up and recasts the web over the fish people and Rillix, capturing them once again, much to their disapproval.

Gunther moves near Lia offering her Bardic Inspiration before calling out to their foes, “Hey yoo-hoo, hey ugly!” Gunther pulls out his cross-bow and says, “You’re going to love this!” His arrow lands, with the force pushing Gunther with recoil against the slimy wall. The giant ginger cat aims and fires at the hulking tendrilled beast again, the arrow this time absorbed into its flesh.

Rillix has developed a small hole in the net, and was hoping to escape from it, but has just been webbed a second time. The gang hear a faint, dispirited meow.  The fish people are writhing around, caught and angry. 

“What do you want us to do, Usuth? Usuth will save us!”

Neither fish person manages to break free from Leshanna’s web. Miss Moss steps next to Londer and pulls out her longbow. She calls out and says, “What do you want with us? Do you want to eat us? Or fight us? Or can we do something to stop all of that?”

There’s no answer from the beast nor the fish people. Miss Moss draws her bow, aiming directly at the tentacled creature, the head of the arrow only just penetrating, the arrow insignificant in comparison to the beast wobbling from a tentacle. Mrs Muscles draws her bow again and the same tentacle is struck. She moves behind Londer for protection from the beast’s grasp.

Otyugh lumbers with its three legs towards Londer and its tentacle shoots out towards him. The greasy tentacle comes a-raging, but misses him completely, slamming into the side of the stone sewer wall. Shards of loose stone come raining down on its back. The creature seems annoyed.

Another tentacle swings at Londer, glancing off armour with no impact. Otyugh brings its ugly mouth down while Londer stands up and pushes his chest out in defiance as Otyugh’s tooth snaps at his armour.

The roof is 8 or 9 foot high. Behind them there is a large drainage pipe with water trickling through it. It is moving very slowly, thick like mud.  This stream of filth doesn’t look inviting, more like you might catch something. 

The gap over the canal looks like it would be jumpable by a dwarf if it was a decent jump. Thoradin makes a dash for it, heading over the rickety wooden bridge. As he runs past the ooze it attempts to attack him, but misses by a long shot. Thoradin shouts to Leshanna, “Run, with me! Run!” As Thoradin starts to navigate the slippery surface, he slams into the wall.  Gunther reaches out, yanks him back to the edge, saving the dwarf from a shitty, painful experience.

Londer is facing chest-first into the hulking monstrosity like a true knight in shining armour. The noble adventurer takes a moment to stand tall, gazing at the monstrosity from bottom to top, taking it all in. All of a sudden, something snaps in Londer, and a primal noise escapes him. As the place is illuminated by the Great Khan, he goes into a full attack, slicing furiously into the centre of the beast. 

Green ooze leaks out of the gaping wound. Another swing misses, but a third hits, with blinding flashes of light as Londer expertly wields his great axe. Londer walks carefully over the bridge, but the creature angrily swings again with its tentacle, this time connecting with Londer. Londer is grappled and held in place by the tentacle before being slammed into the ground, being battered against the floor by the head. He is then trapped, locked close by the muscular tentacle.

Lia places a hunters mark on the Otyugh. Leshanna aims her magic missile, missing twice and hitting once, but not a very good hit. Gunther hits with a bolt, piercing the side of the tripod’s cheek. You can hear echoing, “How delicious is these people? Otyugh sore!”

Meanwhile, Rillix finally manages to wriggle out from the net, teasing himself through the hole, plucking his wings through one by one, looking around at the two Kua-toas nearby. His wings finally break free from the net and he flies back to Leshanna’s shoulder, nuzzling into her. 

“Thank Oghma, Rillix, you’re safe!” cries Leshanna.

The fishpeople, however, are still stuck in the web, and seem to be having an existential crisis. “They’ve gone to Usuth’s sky palace, we go too!” they cry about their dead friends.

Miss Moss pulls out her longsword and fiercely slices at the tentacle holding Londer, to try and cut it off clean. She takes a massive whack at the tentacle; green shit flies everywhere and Londer is released, though he still looks dazed and confused. Miss Moss has another double-handed hack at another tentacle, slicing a chunk off. The creature is looking pretty worse-for-wear. 

A mournful noise comes from the ooze, moving slowly towards them, but it is still a long way from anyone. Otyugh takes a swing at Miss Moss with one of its unhacked tentacles, and is caught and slammed into the wall. Thoradin casts his holy fire, raining flame on the rubbery mass.

Londer shakes the coconuts out of his head, seeming to recover from his stunned stupor. He brushes some of the slime out of his eyes and raises the Great Khan again, wounding the beast further.

Lia draws her longbow, aiming for inside its big mouth, doing some more damage. Leshanna casts her firebolt as the wounded creature teeters on the edge of oblivion.

Gunther looks over at Leshanna and winks confidently as he draws his crossbow, gruffly calling, “Send him to hell!” The creature falls into the sewer water with the shot, floating gently away, unmoving, down the sewer.

The Kua-toa engage in further attacks with Lia, who mocks them, while Miss Moss aims and fires at one of them. The Kua-toa falls back, looking aghast at the arrow sticking out of its rubbery, hard-skinned chest.

The ooze continues to move slowly toward the gang.

Lia yells out, “It’d be good to have a captive!” but Thoradin hears the call a second too late, as he’s already casting a sacred flame, hitting the fish person who sizzles and dies, smelling like roasted fish – a delicacy in some of the northern parts of Yartar. It’s a confusing odour.

Londer, seeing his opportunity with the last fish person, moves closer, his weapon raised but still.

“Do you yield? We’ve killed everything else, and we’d like to capture you.” The fish person can’t understand a word of what Londer is saying, but he gets the gist of it. The fish person drops his weapon obediently, cowering and shivering.

Londer bends down and scratches him behind the ears, saying “It’s ok, buddy.” There are a few titters from the gang.

Lia shoots an arrow at the ooze, out of general warring than any attempt to do any real damage to it. A little of the ooze splashes against the wall and it is a little smaller than it was before. Lia looks pleased. She turns and points her weapon at the Kua-toa and says in undercommon to the fish person, who understands her, “Take us to your leader!”

Leshanna, seeing Lia’s success with the ooze, decides to scorch it, which much to everyone’s delight and surprise causes the slime to fall, apparently dead, into the sewer and disappear.

The Den of Otyugh

Lia says to the prisoner, “Who are you working for?” The fish person explains in undercommon that they are not working for anyone, “We are blessed to be able to be here in service of Usuth, the almighty – our God – the creator of everything.”

“Have you always worshipped Usuth?”

“Only a few months.”

The fish person explains that Usuth wanted them to keep vigil for him, make sure that Otyugh (Tripod Face) is well fed and worship him.  It is the important job of the fish people to bring young, noblemen to Usuth. The fish person seems to be completely brainwashed and/or a little dim.

The gang sit for a bit and rest, take stock in their entrance to the sewer, checking around the area. Otyugh’s den is disgusting, with offal, stagnant water, bones of small animals and humans. The sights and smells are gruesome, but after a short investigation with held breath, Miss Moss finds 14 gold and 17 silver pieces, a longsword, crossbow and two potions of water breathing. In the pool nearby, there are two sealed jugs of mucus, pincer staves, and sticky shields. The mucous looks to be secreted from a creature.

Lia turns to the prisoner, “Mr Fish, what’s with the mucous?”

“When you drink of the jar you get the blessing of Usuth.” There are moans of disgust from the gang. Leshanna turns her head away from the mucous, making a face.

“What does the blessing do?” The fish person doesn’t know what the mucous does, as he has not been allowed to drink it. Miss Moss, seeing an opportunity while the fish person is tied up, offers the fish person some mucus. Londer and Leshanna, now thoroughly disgusted, move away.

The Kua-toa takes a greedy swig and leans his head back, suddenly giddy and glazy-eyed with the warm embrace of Usuth. A string of pearly mucous rolls lazily down his chin.

The gang continues to question the fish person. “Why did you attack us?”

“Part of why we are allowed to be here is to protect Usuth, this is the home of Usuth.”

“How many fish people are there here?”

He starts counting on his fingers and loses track after his four flappy digits. He says “There are more than there are here…” as he looks around, “but less than there are in the world.”

“Take us to Usuth.” The intoxicated Kua-toa walks them over to the grate, points and says, “Usuth is in there.” Lia peers down into the grate and sees a 30-foot ladder down a tunnel that seems to open up into a lower floor below.

Down the hole, but further

The gang have a quick team meeting, deciding that Lia and Leshanna should transform themselves into Kua-toa to fool anyone they bumped into along the way. It is decided that they will go ahead with the real Kua-toa between them. Miss Moss tucks Rillix into her magic bag.

Lia, Mr Fish Prisoner and Leshanna go towards the grate. There is a split-second between touching the grate and seeing a glowing rune, after which, suddenly an enormous wave of thunderous energy flies from the grate. The wave of energy pushes them back, with tremendous force. Lia and Miss Moss fall back into the murky water and immediately begin to feel unwell. They manage to climb out quickly and start again on their mission, unclear about what just happened, a little shaken. Nobody says anything, but they exchange glances and raised eyebrows.

The gang start climbing down the ladder, with Lia and Leshanna disguised in the front, all steps noiseless in the dark. Eventually, the ladder opens up to a large open chamber with a domed ceiling where a large pool of water in almost the entire room. There are handwheels, similar to the maintenance room above and the same murky sewer water. 

On each side of the chamber, there are two large pipes above the water. On the other side of the room, at the end of the walkway, there are creatures with the upper body of a human and lower body of a fish. Across from the ladder, there is a stone building that rises up to the ceiling with a doorway. 

They hear a voice inside their heads that says, “Welcome, my friends. I do apologise for the unpleasant locale and the reception you’ve met upstairs. I am glad you’ve made it down here – please come down the ladder. There’s no need for parlour games.”

“As you can see we went to some trouble to dress for you,” Usuth laughs. “I know what’s going on, I don’t mean to embarrass anyone. I’m sorry for the unappealing environment I’m very glad you’re here.”

A little undercommon discussion with the Kua-toa takes place and the prisoner leaves. 

Usuth says, “Please, step into my office on the other side of the room, I have much more suitable accommodations for us to discuss some important matters.”

Leshanna and Lia sheepishly uncast the fish-disguise spells – of course, a creature who could read minds knew they were on their way the whole time – and they all make their way across the catwalk. They’re not quite sure what to make of Usuth, but he seems to want to talk, being genial and, in some ways, friendly.

But then a chattering sound fills the room, while the two mermaid-like creatures start flipping the wheel and water begins pouring in through the pipes. Alarmingly, the water level begins to rise.

A large shape begins swimming in the water nearby. A really large shape. It looks like a huge tadpole, swimming in circles underneath. 

The gang are in real trouble. They’ve been tricked.