FRC Session 25…There’s Always Room for Jell-O

When we last checked in on the party, the tunnel in which they were traveling had collapsed under them and left them trapped in some complex that was full of various slime type creatures. After having fought off yet another wave of such creatures, Adran heard a voice in his head saying, “Hi! What’s your name?”

This recap is from Thomas. Muse was missing and so Thomas played Meri while RJ played Skarr along with Adran. Jubi’s comments, instead of mine, are in [brackets and italics].

There are definite spoilers below for the module, The Sinister Spire as well as a small bit from Out of the Abyss.

The voice in Adran’s head introduces himself (?) as Jubi Junior. At first there is some confusion because Adran is simply speaking out loud and no one else can hear or see anyone. But then Jubi speaks with Verrak and Rory as well. After some time, the party finds Jubi, some kind of sentient jelly, like the aberrations the party has been fighting but murky on the inside. And gregarious. [Awww…thanks for introducing me Greg!]

Rory asks whether Junior was the being that marked her, leading to Jubi burning a spot on Adran’s forehead, “marking him.” Despite Jubi’s intelligence, relative to the other jellies, he lacks a bit of object permanence and has a hard time distinguishing between the party members. [Squirrel!!! Wait? What’s a squirrel? Hey Craig, do you know what a penguin is?]

The party had been heading down a tunnel that was aimed back towards town, but that tunnel dead-ends. So the party heads the other direction. Surprisingly, this tunnel leads to an area of worked stone with rooms and corridors. The walls are designed to appear as if they are writhing tendrils or tentacles. The party fights several more blobs (although slightly darker than the previous blobs) as they make their way through several rooms and corridors that eventually turn and point back towards town. [Yay team! Bad blobs! Bad! Hey RJ? What’s a blob?]

The path eventually opens into a larger room with walls on one side that appear to have some structural damage due to a seismic event (perhaps the one caused by the party falling through the Underdark sewer system). There is a corridor leading that direction, but there is a small flow of water coming from that direction. The other side of the room has four arches with individual corridors all leading the same direction. The party elects to go down the first of the four arched pathways. Skarr leads the party and barely misses a trap containing another jelly. After dispatching the jelly and jumping over the trap, the party exits into another corridor leading to a door. Following this corridor, the party is able to see that all four of the arched corridors lead to this same door, carved with the same writhing motif. [Gosh Rachel, that makes me think. Do you know the sound of one corridor clapping? Or is it the hand less traveled? Hey look! I’ve got arms…wiggle…wiggle…wiggle]

Inside is a round room with seven alcoves along the outer wall and a fountain in the middle. The alcoves have small shelves, four of which hold a statue of blobs or jellies. The westernmost alcove has a small crack in the wall, seemingly new, with water trickling in and beginning to pool. The fountain is no longer in operation, as it appears the fountain’s statue has been broken, although no rubble appears. However, the water in the fountain pool is brackish so the party cannot see inside. [Oooh…sexy blobs in alcoves…I’ll check you ladies out later.]

The party, still searching for an exit (and still being followed by Jubi Junior), heads down the corridor with the water flow. At the end of a small hallway, they find a cavern with water filling it. Having seen no obvious exit, Dench decides to investigate the water, changing into an aquatic creature – first a crocodile, then a shark. The pool in the cavern is very deep, going down over 100 feet until Dench finds a feed from the cave. He travels down this underwater tunnel until it forks. The left fork has a faster current but it goes down. The right fork, on the other hand, has a light current and has no consistent direction. Having not found an obvious exit, Dench returns to the party to inform them of what he found.

In the meantime, Adran’s conversations with Jubi centered around the proper way to charm a member of the fairer sex (not sure how that works with blobs). Jubi went to the round room with statues but came back and reported that his attempt must have offended the lady blob in the room because she slapped him. Confused by this (because the blobs were statues in that room), the party returns to the statue room to find that one of the statues had come alive! [Hey baby…come here often? Can I get your digits? Hmmm…RJ! What’s a digit anyways?]

After dispatching the newly awoken blob, Verrak realizes the water is rising at the rate of about 6 inches every 30 minutes. [Pool Party!!! Woohoo!!! Oh no, I’m not sure I packed my bathing suit. Has anyone seen my luggage? Do I even have any baggage? Oh, hey baby, come here often?]

Adran is resolute to leave the area by swimming down into the underwater caverns but the rest of the party decides instead to search for secret doors they might have missed, particularly in some of the rooms and large corridors with the worked stone. However, after spending some significant time searching, the party finds nothing. At this point, the water was several feet high. With one last ditch effort, the party decides to awake all the statues in the round room to see if that triggers something. After touching the statues, one by one, and subsequently killing the blobs that spawned, nothing obvious happened. Verrak decides to investigate the brackish fountain water and finds that there are some items in the bottom of the pool. He pulls up an ornate, Drow dagger, some bracelets, and quite a few coins. However, in doing this, Jubi warns the party that Jubilex will not be happy with us taking those. [Smooth moves dudes…that’s a night those babes will never forget! Did anyone get their digits?]

Luckily, several members of the party recognize this name as the demon lord of oozes, finally piecing together the purpose of this strange shrine. Even still, Verrak happily keeps the items taken from the pool and Jubi let’s the topic go. [Hey Dad! How’s it wiggling?]

With no other options seemingly available, the party decides to travel out via the underwater tunnels. Adran casts water-breathing on everyone and the party dives down, Dench electing to start off as a shark. The party takes the right, lighter-current tunnel first. After swimming for almost an hour, the party finally reach an area that seems to be more of a cavern than a tunnel. The party swims to the surface and begins to investigate when Verrak is lifted out of the water by a small web. Cutting it and falling back to the water, the party elects to go back underwater and have Dench search the area with his faster speed as a shark. [Sushi!!!! Whaddya mean I can’t eat the sushi? Aw man, fine. Oh hey, that shark is kind of sexy. Hey Babe, those are some fine fins you got there. Come here often?]

Dench scouts ahead and finds 2 pits that seem to go straight down as well as two large rooms, one of which is very large and can’t be adequately searched by Dench alone. The party decides to go there and investigate, spreading out across the length of the cavern and swimming together much like a grid search. Near the middle of the large cavern, the party happens upon a large island, populated with mushrooms. [Island? Oh yeah, beach party! Someone grab the sushi!]

[daHeadRat back again…