Recap 5- The Underdank

Season 1: Golden Oak

Episode 5: The Underdank

Scene 1: The Streets of Ship's Berth/Sewer Entrance

Sandro, Sil, and Saxon have just stashed the headless body of the tentacle cultist and are about to pursue the hooded cultist into the sewers of Ship's Berth when DJ Saul shows up with a hard buzz and a backpack full of beers (Golden Oak Genuine Draft, they don't carry alot of Sacremento brews in GO). Saul is always down for adventure down under so he tosses a beer to everyone and gets ready for a little urban spelunking. Saxon hardly waits for anyone (and doesn't even drink his beer) because he's hot on the trail of the hooded cultist. The three go down a grate and follow the cultist's trail to an apparent dead end. Silyana slaps on her Magic Spectrum Decoder Glasses (casts Detect Magic) and immediately sees that the cultist has hidden her trail with an illusionary wall ("tricky walls are something a whore wall does... oh nevermind, Michael"). Saxon checks the illusion for traps and proceeds through carefully, discovering a tube in the floor. Saxon tosses his beer down the tube (goddamn, I love Saxon but he sure is square) and listens to it clank around for awhile, establishing that this is one bitchin' ride. DJ Saul has ridden his fair share of slime slides in his day and leaps into the tunnel, yelling "WHHHEEEEEEEEEE!" all the way down. Saxon follows closely behind in a deadman's slide (feet together, arms crossed over the chest). Silyana decides to go a far more complicated route, attempting to surf her way down the slime slide while using her Mage Hand as leverage. This can only go one way: bad (and it does). Silyana fails to realize that she is terrible at teamwork and gets out of sync with the Mage Hand, which winds up trying to slow her momentum by tugging at her robes from behind. Saxon and Saul look on with amusement as Silyana tumbles backward and naked out of the tunnel, with more than a few bruises. Sandro has a few struggles but follows closely behind and the Fearsome Four (*shrug*) have all officially entered THE UNDERDANK.

''Director's Comments: The scene with Silyana flying out of the tunnel naked might have felt sort of shoehorned in but goddammit this is an HBO show and we are on Episode 5 and there has been NO FUCKING NUDITY! We were about to get cancelled if I didn't figure something out.''

Scene 2: The River Chamber

The Fearsome Four now find themselves in a massive underground chamber with a ceiling hundreds of feet high (reflecting how far underground the slide took them). The chamber has drains in the ceiling at street level which allow some of the noon-hour sun to dimly light the space but it is otherwise quite dark. The Four survey their surroundings and discover they are on a walkway about 30 feet wide, bound by the wall their slime slide comes out of and a 50 foot wide river of sewage on the other side. Beyond the river, they can see another, identical 30 foot walkway on the other side. DJ Saul, now shitty drunk, busts out his Serato and portable light show, jamming tunes and lighting the way. Sandro notices a man-sized cube of slime, difficult to spot because it is dark and the cube is see-through, ostensibly hiding against the wall. The group discusses what they are doing and attempts to wrangle DJ Saul as they go. The cube follows them discretely in a "hey-doesn't-that-thing-seem-closer-than-before" sort-of way. Eventually, the Four acknowledge that this thing may pose a threat and face it. Saxon throw a test javelin (sawed-off) into it and the cube just seems to hungrily suck it up. The Four tangle with the cube for awhile until Sily hits it with a Ray of Frost, slowing it down enough for the group to safely skirt by and move north on the walkway, following the river. They see a portcullis in the distance with light emanating from it. Shortly before reaching it, Sily spots another cube which she matadors into throwing itself into the river of sewage. The Four follow the walkway through the portcullis. Silyana is the first through and glimpses the hooded cultist in the center of the chamber but does a double take and the cultist is gone...

DM's Comments: Silyana, Bane of Cubes!! In reflecting on this, Sily was pretty clever in how she handled these cubes. Nice job! This whole sequence took a few hours because DJ Saul + Golden Oak Genuine Draft=  Confounding Hilarity.

Scene 3: The Round Chamber

The Fearsome Four follow the sewage river through the portcullis into a near 300 ft diameter cylindrical chamber of yellow-gold brick with ceilings hundreds of feet high (again, likely reaching up to street level). There is another portcullis at the opposite end of the chamber that the river flows out of and there are six doorways around the perimeter of the chamber, three on the east side that are closed and three on the west side that are open. The Four inspect the chamber and discover a dais in the center of the chamber (over the river) with a small control panel on it. Silyana hears a familiar skittering in the chamber but can't place it. On the dais, Sandro discovers directions in thieves' cant that suggest they should go west, then north. Sandro also discovers a message in an odd dialect of Elvish (think: someone speaking 19th century English in 21st century America) that was likely written by a different source (because it is not hidden like the thieves' cant and is scrawled in a different hand) and says: "North to home, that which bleeds dies." Saxon notices some barrels of kerosene over in the corner (assumedly there to keep the lamps lit). The group has very little debate over which direction to go, everyone seems to want to take the door that leads directly west for some reason. For similar, unexplained reasons, no one is interested in the control panel that Silyana thought she saw the cultist standing at (I'm sure this won't come back to haunt you in anyway... muahahahaha).

Scene 4: The Carrier Crawler

The Four make their way into the West Tunnel, a brick drainage tunnel about 40 feet in diameter with a slope up as it heads west. Saxon has commandeered a lantern from the Round Chamber and follows closely behind Saul, who has sobered up and is leading the pack with his excellent Darkvision. Sandro and Sily bring up the rear and also follow behind the other two (haha, butt jokes!). Silyana is badly hurt from the earlier encounter with the cultists and her embarrassing mishap with the slime slide. The group proceeds cautiously as Silyana hears a familiar skittering form above her... and suddenly, in her mind's eye, sees the perfect image of a Jackson Explorer James Hetfield Signature Edition with Floating Bridge in Soulcrushing Black (a guitar) in mint condition. She is also struck with the knowledge that she will never, never actually see this guitar in person as whip-like tentacles snap out of the shadows above her and rake across her face. Silyana feels poison from the tentacle wounds enter her bloodstream but she is able to shake off their paralyzing effects. The creature reveals itself as it crawls down along the wall to bite at Sandro: it is a terrible 17 ft long centipede- like aberration with a (sort of) human head. Its face resembles Rob Carrier's with a goatee made of tentacles. The Fearsome Four appear extra motivated as they proceed to fucking dismantle the Carrier Crawler. Saxon takes his skull mace and smashes the Crawler's right eyeball into the back of its skull. Silyana slows it down with a Ray of Frost. Saul leaps into the air and rides Rob's face like a sailor (or like a pirate slowing his fall from the Crow's Nest by riding his dagger down a sail). Saxon Roger Clemens' his lantern (if lanterns were baseballs the Cubs would give Saxon $300 mil over ten years) into the Crawler's mouth and then Dragon Punches a javelin through the underside of the Crawler's jaw, effectively making the Crawler's mouth a high-efficiency furnace. Sandro steps in and finishes it off like a whirling dervish, slicing its face off to everyone's relief. In the wake of the combat (and after I finally explained "that which bleeds dies") Saxon Lays Hands on Silyana (healing her wounds and lessening their chances of being stalked by Underdank predators). Sandro's jealous so Saxon Lays Hands on him too just to even things out.

DM's Comments: This was a Carrion Crawler (a classic D&D monster... I'm trying to use a number of those ... with Rob Carrier's face and tendency to tell you about his guitars and action figures but never show them to you.  So, I really thought this would be a little harder but you guys all really nailed your saving throws.  I feel like shit would've been pretty different if even one of you had been paralyzed by this thing.  Oh, well... I think of it like your mutual hatred of Rob and desire to want to do violent things to him brought you all closer together, just like in real life.  I think that was the most creatively violent encounter any of us have ever D&D'ed.  Congrats!

Scene 5: The Hidden Thieves' Guild

After leaving the stinking, faceless corpse of the Carrier Crawler behind, The Four continue west in the West Tunnel and Sandro spots some more thieves' cant directing them north just before another passageway opens up to the north. The Four immediately spot another passageway, so thin that only one can go at a time, with a steep upward gradient. Saxon has no problem negotiating the drainpipe but the rest are a different story. Sandro gets halfway up the pipe and gets stuck, Silyana uselessly attempts to scramble up and slides back down. Saxon tosses a rope down to help his athletically challenged compatriots and Sandro finally regains his sense of self-confidence, gathers Silyana and easily climbs to the top (I'm not sure where Saul was but I think he follows closely behind). At the top, they find their way blocked by a grate over a doorway. Upon further inspection, Saxon discovers thieves' cant marking in the doorway... sadly, cops can't read thieves' cant but, luckily, thieves can! Sandro deciphers the markings easily and punches out the Konami code on the marked tiles like he was born to do it (he was).

The grate springs open and the Fearsome Four enter the doorway, now finding themselves in a tavern hidden in the middle of the Underdank. Sandro has heard of such things, thieves' guild hidden in a very unexpected place in a big city, but has never actually been to one. This one is underwhelming as it appears to have been recently trashed in a particularly bloody fight (on further inspection it seems maybe a Carrier Crawler had gotten in and wreaked some serious havoc). Table are overturned or smashed, there are bloody streaks on the floors and walls and everything appears in general disarray. The Four notice a circular bar in the center of the room. Silyana suggests they take a moment to pour themselves a drink and starts magically cleaning and arranging glasses. As the Four stand around arguing over their next move, a shifty looking character in a fedora pops up from behind the bar. This bartender is an irritating, cross-dressing, obsequious individual and he has a "soft and melodious" voice that he uses incessantly, either talking or singing 80's pop songs. He offers to make the Four a drink but Sandro feels that they should not a trust a person that they have randomly met in a thieves' guild, let alone one in a fedora. Silyana casts Suggestion on the bartender in an attempt to get him to reveal the whereabouts of the hooded cultist, which he does (only after about 15 minutes of stalling). The hooded cultist has gone north and the Four follow her trail through a different doorway (after raiding the bar for 3 bottles of Goldenade) than the one they came in (mostly because we didn't have another couple hours to spend on you guys fucking up your Dex rolls trying to get down a tunnel).

DM's Comments: Seriously, the final boss of this campaign is going to be a 100 ft long tunnel with a 23% grade and you're all going to die.

Also, the bartender is named "Xander" because what other name could he possibly have? I hated him so much that I am pretty much going to have to make him a recurring character now.

You have 3 bottles of Goldenade, which gives you the benefits of a short rest when you drink it. "When I can't rest... I reach for a GOLDENADE!" This stuff looks like straight-up piss.

Sceine 6: The Underground Lake

The Fearsome Four follow some more passageways northward (not going to tell you the exact way you went in case you need that info to get back out) and eventually find themselves in a huge, dark chamber on the rocky shores of an underground lake (I am picturing a scene similar to the one of the underground lake in Harry Potter and the Deathly Somethingorother, for visual reference). As they make their way into the chamber, they are nearly overcome by a fetid, rotten stench that only gets stronger as they near the lake. The lake itself is filled with garbage. Saxon can't see to the other side so he has Silyana light the end of his javelin (it was only the tip, Sandro!) and he relives his decathlon glory days, throwing the javelin a good 250 ft before it sticks in some garbage floating at the top of the lake. The fire neither spreads nor is extinguished but simply smolders in place. Across the lake (which Saxon estimates is about 300 ft across), Saxon glimpses the silhouette of the hooded cultist in the javelin firelight. The Four inspect the room further and discover it appears to be a naturally existing cave (as opposed to a man-made sewer) and also discover ledges wide enough to walk along on either side of the lake. Also, it seems like there's something moving out there in the lake... nothing very big... it's about the size of a periscope... moving through the water about 50 ft away...

*** CUT TO CREDITS ***

That's it! Damn, that was a long one... it made me regret not writing a recap last week but it hardly felt worth it... hope this was a good one!

The Character We Met:

The Carrier Crawler: Maybe Rob would be happy to know that 15 years after any of us had seen him, his complete lack of a personality still incites us to magnificent acts of fantasy violence. Maybe we owe him one, guys. One swift kick in the nards, that is!

Xander: If we had met this fedora-wearing, Culture Club-singing sycophant in college, we probably would have Rob-like feelings for him, as well.

"WHO'S BAD?!?!?!?!?!":

This week, Sandro challenges everyone's assumptions about evil when he suggests that being evil and being a huge dick are not the same thing. I'm not sure yet but he may have a point... in the meantime, Saxon continues to dazzle with his sadism (I almost felt bad for a Carrier Crawler) and Silyana spends all of her time trying to figure out how to be an amusing (for everyone else) bitch to Saxon (when she isn't failing at trying to travel through a tube). Saul took a step back this week as he only rode a knife down Rob's face (I mean, nasty but every other week he's played he's pretty much caused some major plot-changing shit to go down with his devil-may-care antics).

Memorable Quote of the Night:

Silyana/Phil on finding the hooded cultist in the Underdank: "We're not trying to get out, we're trying to find this bitch!"

What's Next:

- Boss battle!! Murder the hooded cultist over an underground lake of garbage or die trying (50 Cent changed this to Get Rich or Die Tryin' for marketing purposes)

- What happens when you get out? Assuming you get out at all? The TRIAL OF THE CENTURY... who will take the fall for the Massacre??

That's it!

Quite a ride, my slimes! Thanks for playing!!

-back to The Golden Oak Campaign