Pudding things to Wights

Eralevia's Lair, Ruins of Amberlan, Tarlanor, June 8th 1655, evening

DM Note: Only Gordon missing tonight, so I unbubbled Lynien at his request. He was so close to a level last week and there was nothing to kill!

The party backed down the passage away from the water tank, with the flaming pudding in hot pursuit. Black, viscous pseudopods formed, stretched towards them and were re-absorbed as it followed, moving as fast as a walking man. Around its' edges, the stone of the walls sizzled as it touched them, witness to the powerful acid it exuded. As they moved, a hurried plan was assembled.

On reaching the first corner, Gorfang, Eloy and Lynien broke into a sprint and pounded down to the next junction, disappearing around the corner leading to the Graveyard, the orc and the tiefling easily outstripping Eloy. Once there, they began to rip up the stone gravemarkers and unpack looted Fae Mhor shortswords ready for an attack on an acid creature. Gorfang had no intention of losing his own weapons! They also prepared combustibles, and Gorfang retrieved the barrel of poisoned wine that had interested him earlier.

Méabh lingered, making sure she retained the pudding's attention while staying out of reach. When she readched the turning for the rot room, she took it, stamping and making sure the pudding knew where she'd gone. Once she was sure it was following her, she cast Fly and lifted herself off the ground. As soon as she was clear of the passage, she climbed up to ceiling height, floating about three-quarters of the way down, then turned as the pudding reached the top of the stairs, a Fireball readied. As she did so, she noticed the nine-foot 'corpses' attached to the top corners in front of her shift, and then flex their arms and spread rotting wings. It was at this point that she belatedly remembered she'd forgotten to recast her Greater Mage Armour - for anyone...

Gorfang and Eloy peered around the corner and looked down the passage. The junction with the rot room was completely filled with surging, flowing black pudding, protruding slightly down their side but mostly flowing past after Méabh. "Will you look at the size of that thing!" muttered Eloy.

On a silent count, they flung their remaining oil-bombs, followed up with Gorfang's barrel of wine. This crashed into the flames and collapsed, the wood dissolving rapidly in the pudding's acid, and much of the wine being absorbed. Gorfang watched hopefully but there was no sign of the poison affecting the gargantuan ooze. They followed this up with a rain of stone fragments, which splattered into the pudding and were dissolved; it was anyone's guess if they did any real damage.

The leading edge of the pudding had descended the stairs and come into contact with the pool of guts on the floor, spreading outwards and piling itself higher. The pudding's acid was blackening and dissolving the guts, but in turn the lower edges of the ooze were turning from black to grey and decaying in front of her eyes. She was glad she'd not tried to walk through the stuff!

Méabh unleashed her Fireball and it struck true, igniting vast swathes of the pudding and illuminating the room - which was no improvement. The pool of rotting guts on the floor, the scom on the walls, and the awakening monsters in the corner, were not a pretty sight... but far nicer than the smell, which was simply indescribable. Méabh wasted no more time on the pudding; she had a nasty feeling it was no longer the major threat here. Swiftly, she touched the ceiling and cast a Stone Shape, controlling a narrow line of stone leading to the corners of the room and then creating two unrolling curves of flowing stone, rapidly reforming into two huge demispheres enveloping the two undead monsters clinging to the walls. At the last moment, the creatures realized what was happening and tried to evade, but too late and the stone pods closed around them.

Méabh spun in the air - just in time - as the other two winged horrors hurtled towards her, moving as fast as nightmares....

With a black Fae Mhor sword in each hand, Gorfang and Eloy charged the pudding. Lynien - against her better judgement - followed them, with one sword. Each struck, slashing rents into the blubbery integument of the ooze, and most of the swords bubbled, softened and collapsed as the acid destroyed them. One of Gorfang's survived, so he hit it again and this time the sword dissolved. The creature didn't appear to defend itself or have any armour, so Gorfang drew two more swords and hacked it again, delivering a holocaust of full-power blows, while Lynien and Eloy fell back to missiles, sending arrows into the pudding. Because it was so soft, the arrows disappeared inside, barb, shaft, feathers and all; Eloy was sure he could see the monster flinch as the cold bursts went off inside, though.

Gorfang slashed with his next expendable sword, and as it disintegrated, the pudding shuddered... and split. A gap appeared where they'd been attacking it and widened as the section that hadn't passed them seperated into what appeared a completely seperate, functional animal and began to retreat back down the corridor towards its' lair. The other half continued after Méabh, but as it receded down that passage it left space to pursue and Gorfang, Lynien and Eloy did just that.

Meabh Wounded - click it for larger image!

Méabh had no time to dodge as the flying horrors reached her, and their claws, dripping with putrefaction, slashed out, tearing her flesh in several places. As she looked at the wounds, she realized with horror that the edges were rotting and turning gangrenous as she watched; the pain was incredible. Blood washed across her eyes from a nasty head wound. She struck out at them as they swooped past but was too badly shaken to make much of it. Flying past her, they slowed, and swung slowly around in the air ready for another attack. Through the pain, she noted with a flicker of hope that though they were terrifyingly fast in the air, they weren't very manouvrable. She had a moment to react; got to get them out of the air, she thought. A Web spell ripped from her lips like a curse, drawing a thick curtain of sticky mesh across the whole room, and blocking the undead from reaching her. They weren't caught in it, but they landed to examine it and decide what to do. As their feet spattered into the soft mess on the floor, Méabh watched eagerly, hoping they might suffer its' effects. She was taken aback to notice that, instead, as soon as they touched down, rivulets of the same stuff began to flow down their bodies and legs and into the pool. They weren't attacked by it. They generated it....

Lynien - click it for larger image!

The east pudding was now completely down the steps and pooled in the midst of the rotting soup filling the room, allowing Gorfang, Lynien and Eloy to reach the stairs and take in what was happening in the room. All three lifted their bows and sent arrows to strike the undead monsters from behind. Gorfang and Eloy, using enchanted arrows, were able to inflict damage, but Lynien's mundane missiles, though targeted perfectly, simply glanced away. She dropped the bow and reverted to a weapon with magical ammunition - her Fae Mhor hand crossbow. The bolts were small, but they had effect.

Still suspended at ceiling height, Méabh had siezed the opportunity to wield her healer's staff and staunch the terrible wound in her head. She followed this with a Fireball targeted just between the two undead, but swore as the flames faded and died, defeated by the beings' innate magic resistance. The creatures hooked their claws into the webbing and tore it down from the ceiling in a single heave to pile up in a heap on the floor, then took to the air as Gorfang, Lynien and Eloy sent shaft after shaft into them, and Méabh's Orb of Force tore a rather larger hole in one.

As they ascended, one moved towards Méabh again, but the other turned and soared in the direction of the three archers; and all this time, a faint pounding had been coming from within the stone pods exuded from the stuff of the walls...