Episode 44 - Faster, Purple Worm! Kill, Kill!

Previously on All Drow All the Time, the party came upon a vast cavern opened into a field of obsidian-petaled flowers. From its center rose Nyrissa of the Black Bloom, a dryad, but nothing like those of the surface. She welcomed the party into her garden with unsettling delight.

While exploring the cavern, the shadows shifted. Cloakers peeled themselves from the darkness and glided forward.

The dryad clapped her hands in excitement. “Blood, marrow, flesh, and protein from the surface. It’s all here, ready. Fresh as Blooming Day!”

The battle joined, the cloakers attempted to swamp the band like teenage groupies. Scomitch summoned a Barlgura for security, allowing the band to defeat the dryad Nyrissa, her cloaker feeders, and leave the Black Bloom.

Resting after the gig and continuing on, in the far distance, the party heard a distant roar, like a storm trapped underground. To the south, the noise then sharpened into the unmistakable chaos of a battle. 

However, two passageways diverged.  One to the east and another to the west.   The party took the western route. This cavern was humid, warm, and filled with groupings of large boulders that were piled one upon another. The tunnel led down through them into a large rift in the center of the cavern.

Exploring deeper, Ary saw a boulder tumble down a far southern tunnel.  The party then examined them more closely, noting they were stuck together by some sticky resin. The creeping notion then began to take hold in the collective that these were not boulders. 

Nick noticed one of them shudder, its form bulging irregularly. The reverberating echo of splitting rock rang through the cave, followed by the gush of a thick liquid.  It wasn’t a boulder, but an egg! 

From the split shell wriggled a newborn, cute worm thing, withered out and turned to Nick, almost like in blind devotion, as if he were its mother.