by Aaron Jay
This deadly poison is derived from a creature that nests in the massive trees of Arboria. Famed for its herbal sweetness, this is a preferred poison for assassination via dosing in wine or mead. It is effective either through ingestion or via an open wound.
Ingested: 6-10 damage per minute over 12 minutes.
Injury: 1-4 damage per second over 12 seconds
Effects of the poison may be resisted for 1/2 damage each time the poison takes effect.
4/5 doses left.
“Thanks. I feel bad. I didn’t get you anything,” I said.
“Don’t worry. I kept some back for me. But frankly, if it comes down to suicide I’ll probably be murdered first. They want to capture you. Me, they could care less. Just make sure you don’t wait until too late to drink it.”
I nodded and we continued onwards.
We came over the edge of the last rise. The back side of this hill was covered in orange hued sand. The trees and vegetation finally petered to a stop.
Stretching out ahead of us was the deep desert. Sand in unbroken hills and waves spread endlessly out ahead of us. The sky was painfully blue but was easier to look at than the glare from the sun off the dunes.
The tracks of our passage would be as clear as, well, tracks left on unblemished sand visible for miles with nothing to block the view. Speed was our only chance.
“I was saving these for an emergency. I think this counts,” said Pulling and handed Barin and me a vial each.
The glowing yellow of a stamina potion was obvious.
“We passed emergency a ways back. Thanks,” I laughed.
I downed the potion and we ran down the sandy hill and out into the desert. Running on sand is tiring. There is no rebound to help move you into your next step. You end up using a lot of muscles that you wouldn’t usually use to run. This sand was so fine grained that it just sucked our feet in.
The stamina potion was the good stuff. I didn’t feel wired or jittery. There was no magically induced pent-up wellspring of energy driving me along. I just never felt tired. I never ran out of breath as I slogged through the sand. It was as if my last step was as easy as my first. It was wonderful.
We blazed along through the sand in a straight line. There was no more attempt to hide or evade. Either we would beat our pursuers to the Pit or we wouldn’t.
After another half an hour, the verdict was in. We wouldn’t make it.
We were visible from quite a distance. So was our pursuit. Turning back for a glance, it was easy to see that a handful of players were following us. It looked like a mix of builds. Some in cloth, some in leather and one guy trundling along all in steel. His physical stats had to be tremendous because he was keeping pace with the rest, who were all gaining on us.
“Shit,” said Pulling.
I would have bothered to curse too but I was saving my breath.
“Alright. Well, I think this is where I part ways. I’ll try to slow them down. I’ll meet you at our respawn point if things go badly. Remember, don’t wait too long to take the poison!” said Barin.
He unlimbered his bow and ran back toward our pursuers.
There wasn’t time to do anything other shout a thanks and keep running. I could barely hear the twang of his bowstring behind us as Pulling and I did our best to make the most of his sacrifice.
Barin’s sacrifice was probably a pointless gesture. It wasn’t just that they would outnumber and kill him. If they were smart, most of them wouldn’t even bother to stop and fight him. I was the prize.
As it turned out, either our pursuers were pretty stupid, or Barin was a better player than I had been giving him credit for. Pulling and I managed to break contact with our pursuit. Thanks, Barin.
“We are almost there,” panted Pulling.
I nodded.
The stamina potion ran out and each step up the side of the last dune made my thighs burn. I had to throw myself up the side of the dunes fast enough to keep ahead of the slow, gravity-drawn slide back down the sand.
Pulling made it to the top of what turned out to be the edge of our destination before I did. We had arrived.
The Pit of Qarqoon was a giant sand basin. It wasn’t a natural geological formation. It was more of a biological formation. A giant maw was at the bottom of the basin. Sand fell down past circular rows of teeth into the darkness below. I assumed there was some sort of stomach down there.
The desert around here could literally swallow you whole never to be seen again, at least until you respawned.
This monster, drawn from our collective nightmares about the deep desert, wasn’t the scariest thing I saw when I joined Pulling.
Vultan and a group of other players were waiting for us.
“Hi Miles. Hi Pulling.”
“Vultan,” said Pulling tersely.
I didn’t bother to say anything. I was too busy trying to figure out what to do next.
“I think you know how this has to end,” Vultan said.
The Eastmans with him spread out to surround us. I had a moment of self-loathing as I checked the Eastmans to see if Jude was among them. I didn’t see him but there were players I couldn’t see from where I was.
“I like you, kid. Sorry we ended up on opposite sides of this shitty game. Go easy and things will be a lot more pleasant than you might think. Tasha Eastman is a tough bitch but she won’t be any fucking harder on you than she needs to be. No fucking percentage in pissing off your old man more than she has to,” continued Vultan.
The Eastmans were moving in slowly. Capturing is a lot harder than killing. Pulling and I started to back up.
“I know something you don’t, Vultan,” I said to him. The Eastmans paused for a moment.
“What is that?” he asked with a booming chuckle.
I took out the vial of poison.
“I can die before you take me,” I said.
“I know something you don’t,” he retorted.
“What’s that?”
Behind us, another group of Eastmans emerged from some sort of masking illusion. Standing with them was Barin. He gave me a shit-eating grin.
“Go ahead. You will find some company waiting at the respawn point,” he gloated.
Everyone looked at me. I suppose they expected to see shock or despair. Here they had just ambushed me in the middle of the desert and revealed that two of my allies were working for them. But I had already been betrayed by my best friend. It was familiar territory. And I only really liked Vultan. Barin was sort of a prick.
It looked like the table was set. It was time for Pulling and me to make our move.
I nodded to Pulling. She smiled and then said some magic words to Vultan.
“Jabba, this is your last chance. Free us or die."
When Pulling and I had planned this whole escapade, our biggest problem was what to do about spies and betrayal. Any group large enough to be able to fight me clear of the Mines of Madness! was bound to have some informers for either the GMs or the Party. Not that it mattered much who they reported to. Either way, Tasha would hear of it.
I pointed out that while we couldn’t be certain that anyone wasn’t an informer, we might be able to find people who we knew for sure were informers. The trick was for Pulling to come up with a few names who didn’t know she knew they were working for the Party. Enter Vultan and Barin.
Pulling and I knew that the Party, the GMs, Tasha and the Eastmans would get wind of any rebellion big enough to break me out. The only way they wouldn’t crush my escape before it began is if they were convinced they were in control.
The best way to convince them of this was to make sure that their people were right next to me the whole time. And that is how we got this whole farce. Our fake allies. Our fake flight from their fake pursuit.
When we were close enough, we “discovered” Vultan’s betrayal. Then we let Barin convince me to reset my respawn point and gave him the location we were heading towards.
Once I reset my respawn point, they were
convinced that their remaining spy had taken us in.
Armed with the info that Barin fed them, the Eastmans scrambled to get ambushes in place at my new respawn location and here at the Pit of Qarqoon. Basically, we got the Eastmans to escort us to where we wanted to go. I thought we were being pretty clever and, at least in Pulling’s case, attractive while doing it too.
If the Eastmans hadn’t felt like they were in control right from the beginning, the odds of us making it here were nil. There was no way Pulling could pull in enough people to fight me free and clear.
Now was when we pulled our final rabbit out of our hat. I said the magic words.
“Jabba, this is your last chance. Free us or die."
“Jabba? Free you? Why would I…” Vultan began.
Like everyone else in our fallen civilization, the Eastmans were familiar with the ancient texts of Star Wars. The name Jabba threw them for a second but then they placed it. And then all hell broke loose.
A terrible roar came from the creature under the Pit of Qarqoon. Tentacle-like tongues, or perhaps tongue-like tentacles shot from the pit and wrapped around three of the Eastmans and dragged them into the maw.
“Tricked ya, Barin!” I yelled.
An air ship swooped into view.
“Who is that?” yelled one of the Eastmans.
“System says the ship is called Khettana,” informed a caster over by Barin.
“Anyone know who it belongs to?” asked Barin.
I could have told him. The pleasure barge Khettana belonged to Jabba the Hut, of course.
I laughed hysterically at my father’s sense of humor. Every dad has some joke or pun that they beat to death. You say you got a haircut and they have to reply, “A hair cut? No, you got ‘em all cut!”
Your dad maybe thought it was hysterical to insist, “There is no I in denial.” Or said, “I’m afraid of elevators. I’m taking steps to avoid them.” My dad built his sense of humor into a massive game that controlled large swathes of the world. Dad humor.
On some level I was deeply disturbed that I lived most of my life in a world where my dad’s sense of humor defined reality itself. But like most children, I realized that there was something helpful and worthwhile about Dad humor. In my case, it was about to save my life.
While there was a dessert skimmer that came through here once a week, there was also a mini-event that could be triggered anywhere you could find a Sarlacc. And you could find a Sarlacc in every desert in the Crib. Every desert in the Crib had a Pit of Qarqoon, or Pit of Carkoon, or Pit of Karcoon, or Pit of Qarcun and so on.
At each and every one of those Pits, you could trigger the event by saying, ”Jabba, this is your last chance. Free us or die.” If you said that, the Sarlacc would go nuts and a bunch of NPCs would appear and start an insane free-for-all. My dad thought this was hysterical.
I only knew about this little Easter egg due to his hurt disappointment that no one had ever bothered to say the line at any of the Carkoons. He really couldn’t understand how anyone could resist saying it. He found people jamming a fork in their eye more understandable than people not saying that line. Dad humor.
Well, Dad would be pleased. The effect was everything he could have hoped for. The fact that it was saving his son’s life would be even sweeter icing on his cake.
Arrows rained down from the airship in all directions. Ludicrously, many of the NPCs that appeared on the ship immediately began fighting with their fellows. But most of them were using self-winding, one handed crossbows to good effect. The sound of the bows releasing broke all the rules of acoustics and physics as the bowstrings made pew pew pew noises instead of twangs.
My laughter rang out as any attempt to capture me went to hell. Between the Sarlacc’s tentacle attacks and the incredible rate of fire from the crossbows, the Eastmans had lost half a dozen members. More importantly, there were large and growing gaps between the people hemming us in.
What was astounding was that whenever an arrow came near Pulling, she was able to parry and deflect it with her daggers, which were now making humming noises. My dad is incredibly thorough with his jokes.
I examined the Sarlacc. Brady really doesn’t bother to cultivate or manage much of his territory. This Sarlacc had been allowed to grow and age for a very long time without anyone harvesting it.
Ancient Sarlacc
Damage Resistances: bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons.
Senses: blindsight 60 ft., tremorsense 120 ft., passive Perception 11
Grappler: The gaping maw has advantage on attack rolls against a creature grappled by it.
Magic Resistance: The gaping maw has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Regeneration: At the start of each of its turns, the gaping maw regains 20 hit points. If the gaping maw takes damage from a creature it has swallowed, this trait doesn’t function on the gaping maw’s next turn. This trait ceases to function while the gaping maw has 0 hit points.
Tentacle Pull: The gaping maw can use its move to pull any number of creatures it is grappling adjacent to it.
Actions
Multiattack. A gaping maw may make five tentacle attacks or three tentacle attacks and one bite attack.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +14 to hit, reach 10ft., one creature. Hit: 30 (4d10 + 8) piercing damage.
Tentacle. Melee Weapon Attack: +14 to hit, reach 30ft., one creature. Hit: 26 (4d8 + 8) bludgeoning damage and the target is grappled (escape DC 22). Until the grapple ends the target is restrained. The gaping maw has four tentacles and so it can only grapple four creatures in this way.
Swallow. The gaping maw makes one bite attack against a huge or smaller target it is grappling. If the attack hits, the target is swallowed and the grapple ends. The swallowed target is blinded and restrained, and it has total cover against attacks and other effects outside the gaping maw. Swallowed creatures must make a Constitution based resistance attempt or become paralyzed for 24 hours. At the end of this period if the creature is still swallowed by the gaping maw, it must save again or remained paralyzed for another 24 hours. If the creature does save but remains swallowed it is subject to another saving throw 24 hours after the successful one. A swallowed creature’s maximum hit points are reduced by 1 for every day it is swallowed. When its hit point maximum is reduced to 0, the creature is completely digested by the gaping maw and dies.
I didn’t have time to read all the details at the moment, but I scanned it quickly enough to get the gist. If this thing swallowed you, it killed you 1hp per day until you died. A higher-level character might be stuck in its stomach for years. I’d be stuck in there for over two months.
“Grab Boone! Forget the GM! Forget the stupid NPCs. Forget that goddamned Sarlacc! If we can grab or kill Boone the rest doesn’t matter,” yelled some helpful Eastman.
The gaps in the Eastman line were large enough that I thought it might be time for me to make my move. This is, of course, when the rest of my Dad’s sense of humor bit me on the ass.
Carbonite After-effects
Blinded: You have been blinded. For the next hour you will suffer partial blindness.
Hypothermia: You feel as if you were recently frozen. You will suffer intermittent shivers profound enough to lower your dexterity by 1-5 points, randomly decided every 30 seconds.
The sun now gave off such glare that I could barely see blurry shapes moving around. My limbs twitched and my teeth chattered uncontrollably.
I swung around, waving my sword without any idea what and where anyone else was.
“P-p-p-patty!”
“Don’t call me Patty. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“B-b-b-lind!”
“What?”
“R-r-r-emember Han S-s-s-solo?”
“Of course. What am I, a philistine? Or worse, a Trekkie?”
“B-b-b-lind. Like h-h-him!”
If I could have seen, I am sure I would have seen Patricia’s face go
pale.
“Shit… Wait… Don’t go that way!”
I guess in all the noise and bright lights, shifting sand and Sarlacc growls, I was moving more than I thought. I was waving my sword in the direction away from Pulling’s voice. I had no idea how or why the Eastmans hadn’t tackled me yet. But maybe my spastic sword swings were keeping them off me.
A hand on my shoulder made me jump and then I realized it was Pulling’s. She hauled me a few steps toward her. She must have had her reasons.
“Watch where you are swinging that thing!” she said.
“S-s-sorry.”
“Ok. Hold on. I’m going to try to break us away. Give me a count of four and then follow the sound of my voice”
“O-o-k-kay!”
I did my best imitation of a buzzsaw, randomly making cuts this way and that while counting in my mind. One Mississippi Slash! Slash! Two Mississippi Stab! Spin! Unfortunately, counting and flailing around was making me disoriented. At this point I really had no idea where anyone or anything was. Fucking dad humor.
Arrows were still raining down all around me, somehow missing me, although they came so close that I could hear and feel their passage. I also heard the screams and shouts from the Eastmans as they took fire. I started to believe that my Dad had programmed an immunity from ranged attacks while under this effect.
Pulling was shouting battle cries and insults so I’d figure out in what direction she was heading. I was up to four Mississippi when her voice cut through the din.
“Watch out! Barin is coming for you!”
“Barin? Where?”
I spun around in fright and confusion. Somehow, I managed to smash accidentally into someone who had crept right next to me without my noticing. I must have hit him at just the right moment because I heard a cry. It was Barin.
