Session 10: What a Fungi!

A hush settled over the shattered warehouse—broken crates and toppled cross‑beams framing the fading echoes of steel and sorcery—yet one grim dwarf, half‑hidden by dust and torch‑shadow, still barred the adventurers’ path.

Elora felt the tremor of his footsteps through splintered planks. With a steady breath she gathered the winter that slept within her veins and shaped it into a blade of glimmering frost. The shard hissed through the gloom, struck true, and burst in a halo of white shards; the duergar crashed to the floor, frost creeping across his beard. Without waiting to watch him fall, the druid sprinted toward the yawning crate where rumour placed a secret door, her heart drumming with the promise of escape.

Tempest’s laughter whirled in her wake, bright as any torch. Raw, unpredictable magic danced about the blue dragonborn like autumn leaves in a sudden gale—one moment ice crystals, the next a shimmer of protective light that knit her wounds even as they formed. She hurled twin spears of frozen sleet into unseen corners, hoping to flush out any invisible stalkers that remained. Shards exploded harmlessly against bare stone, and she shrugged, unfazed. Chaos, to her, was comfort.

Behind them rose the guttural roar of Maledurk as fresh foes revealed themselves—duergar melting from invisibility mid‑swing. Rage flared within the brass dragonborn; scales rippled, claws lengthened, and the air thrummed with the promise of violence. He leapt, tearing through shadows toward the dwarf who threatened Tempest. Claws raked iron helm and flesh alike, scattering sparks that glowed like embers along his Sun‑forged sword. The warrior’s fury was a living wind, but stubborn foes endured until Thorn’s unseen hand intervened. From some hidden vantage the wood‑elf whispered an incantation; a lance of fire streaked across the rafters and punched through dwarven mail. Flame blossomed, and the threat was snuffed.

Silence—this time complete—settled like dust. Only then did they hear the thump of their own pulses, the soft crackle of dying flames, and, far off, a faint rattle from beyond the crate’s back wall. Ratatouille, Elora’s diminutive companion, scurried ahead down a narrow stair newly revealed inside the hollow crate. His squeaks hinted at dark descent and barracks abandoned. The party followed.

Below lay a storage room choked with boxes and makeshift bunks. Thorn’s keen gaze probed deeper, fingers brushing dust‑caked wood until the click of a hidden lever resounded. A shelf slid aside, unveiling a tunnel hewn directly from living rock—rough, unmarked by tool or torch. Southward it delved, beneath Gracklestugh’s walled dock, promising forbidden passage into the city proper.

They walked for long minutes through cold darkness, guided only by Maledurk’s low growl and Tempest’s whimsical chatter. At last the tunnel bent and spat them into a cavern cut by a sunken pit. Mushrooms of every hue writhed beneath them—blue caps, ripplebark, death‑pale tamasks—tended like orchard trees in a nightmare garden. Elora, versed in Chultan jungles and Underdark whispers alike, felt dread coil in her belly; these were poisons harvested, not food born of nature’s grace.

She shifted to raven‑form—shadow and feather—and soared across while the others paced the narrow earthen rim. Thorn’s invisible footfalls left no spoor; Maledurk padded light as any panther despite his bulk; Tempest danced, humming, leaving motes of prismatic energy drifting among the caps.

Beyond the fungal trench, lamplight flickered in a stone‑walled study crammed with tomes, alembics, and vials humming with noxious promise. A lone human stooped over a worktable, muttering of deadlines and ghosts. At the party’s approach he whirled, eyes saucer‑wide, clutching a pouch of glittering dust meant to unmask spirits. It billowed harmlessly through Thorn’s empty outline; the wizard dodged with silent grace, but the man’s panic grew until Elora’s soothing charm stilled his trembling hands.

Madness lurked behind the alchemist’s smile, and poison clung to every breath he exhaled, yet amid fevered ramblings he spoke a name that hung in the air like thunder: Thumberchud, the Red Wyrm, ancient furnace of Gracklestugh’s forges and jealous guardian of the city. Demogorgon, the twin‑headed terror the companions had glimpsed rising from Darklake, would one day claw its way here. Only dragonfire, perhaps, could meet such abyssal fury. The alchemist—whose true delight lay in venom and mint‑green confections—offered guidance to the dragon’s hidden lair, rattling off back routes and secret signs.

Trust was a brittle reed, yet hope grew upon it. They allowed him to lead.

Through mazes of natural passages he marched, torchlight shivering over quartz veins and dripping stalactites. The air warmed then cooled, echoing with distant forge hammers, until the rock yawned open to reveal a titanic canyon that split Gracklestugh’s under‑streets like a wound. Far above, stone bridges thrummed with dwarven trade; far below, black water whispered secrets. The alchemist paused, glanced furtively west toward towering gates sealed to outsiders, then turned east along the shadowed path.

At an unremarkable wall he scattered a measure of alchemical acid; stone melted like wax, exposing an iron‑banded door cloaked from casual sight. “Hurry,” he hissed, paranoia flitting across his features. One by one they slipped inside, the door rasping shut behind them, sealing out the distant din of the city.

Within, only darkness stretched ahead—but beyond that darkness, if fate willed, waited Thumberchud and the promise of fire strong enough to challenge a demon prince.

And so the companions pressed forward once more, bound by shared purpose, the echo of dragon wings and abyssal tides beating in their ears.