Oak leans forward over the stone table in the middle of the chest-room, “.....No, you see, it’s highest pair wins... If there’s no pairs, it’s just high number.... look..... And then there’s another round of betting.....”. He rolles his pair of bone-dice again to show what he means...

Trill, trying not to panic, holds tight to the chest and keeps flying, staying high and heading for their destination (we were trying to make it to the top of a cliff?). She has no desire to get closer to the pack of pale screamers, especially while carrying her friends.

((The body bobbing to the surface reminded me of this opening to an episode of SVU...))

"Okay, so..." Caelynn pushes another copper towards the center of the table, taken from one of the many piles in the room, then scoops up the dice and rolls them herself. She has to think for a moment, trying to keep the rules straight in her head. She keeps getting them mixed up with the games she would play on long missions. "Would that mean you win?"

“I suspect our large friend here is playing loose with the rules. The combinations that he wins with seem to arise far more often that ours do.” Aimon says while tossing a few more coppers in the middle. 

“You’re not hustling us are you, Oak?” Aimon says with a straight face. But he can only hold it so long before he cracks up laughing.

He then looks up to the hatch above.

”Seems like we’ve been in here a while. Should I go up and check on Trill?”

((You're currently just outside area 2 and heading towards area 1 on the map. I'm going to assume you move to area 1))

You fly down the tunnel as fast as your boots can take you. You pass the alcove where you first are the shrinking mushrooms and the tunnel where you saw the giant caterpillar eating some corpses. Ahead, you see that the tunnel stops at a dead end. You remember that Drokki had to smear his blood across the stones before he could pass through. The lack of undead race along the tunnel underneath you. As you hover in the air pondering what to do next, they pace below you and still screech in inhuman tones. You see that one of them attempts to climb the wall with its spindly limbs. It makes it up about 8 feet before it slips and fumbles down to the floor. 

Aimon, you can't help but replay your meeting with Graz'zt in the back of your mind as you journey within the safety of the chest. Something clicks into place in your mind as you suddenly recall the fortune teller's message for you: The Deciever. What you seek is not want you think. It is aware of you, and is seeking to make you a puppet dancing on its strings. The Deciever must have been Graz'zt. You were looking for a drow noble, but instead found a demon lord. You agreed to do a task for Graz'zt, and that must be the "puppet" part of the prediction. If your prediction was right, then the others must be right as well...

((Predictions are on page 70 of anyone wants to look back at them.))

Trill looks about for anywhere she can fly with the chest and let her friends out with enough time brief her friends or at least let them get their bearings before needing to take on this mob. A ledge, or area that the pack won't be able to access, at least not right away...?

Aimon sits up right and smacks his forehead with his hand.

"Maybe that fortune teller wasn't just making things up on the fly," Aimon says. "Remember my fortune about the Deceiver and being a puppet made to dance, and me saying no way. But Graz'zt is about as big time deceptive as they come and he's got me dancing all over the place now for him."

He tosses in another couple of coppers into the middle.

"Do you remember your fortunes? Might be legit too."

Oak eyes the growing pile of coppers and throws in just one more, the minimum. A weak move...

He nods thoughtfully as Aimon speaks. “The Dreadlord, mine was...”, he drops his gaze and looks around at the interior, ashamed. “Is that what I am? All ‘anger’, ‘hatred’, ‘bloodlust’?... .. I’ve been trying to shake those fairytale images of minotaurs my whole life... ‘Resist the Dreadlord!’... It was revenge that led me down here. But now I’m here, that’s not what I’m feeling at all.... ...”. 

He falls into his own thoughts...

Aimon thinks for a bit after Oak speaks.

"If I was going to put really money down on a bet," he says with a gesture at the small pile of coppers, "I'm going all in on the Dreadlord being another demon prince."

He pauses for a moment.

"You have passion, Oak. Your ups are huge and your downs are as deep. And yeah, you do have a wicked temper. I don't think we'd have gotten this far if you weren't able to unleash it all in battle. But you're also the most gracious and caring of all of us. And I'm thinking you're going to need to hold onto that if you come across this Dreadlord."

He turns to Caelynn.

"And you had the Queen, right? I'm hoping she wasn't another demon in disguise," he says as he looks back up to the hatch. "Anyone remember Trill's? And I'm really starting to think we should check on her."

Trill, you don't see any sort of lip where you could put the chest. There is the chamber back towards the lake and to your right where the giant caterpillar was. There might be one in there.

Oak nods thoughtfully, listening to Aimon’s thoughts on his fortune, and again as he speaks about Caelynn’s fortune.

When he hears the half-elf mention Trill again, Oak snaps out of his musings. “Oh gods! How long has it been? Are we still moving??........”, he looks around the interior, trying to gauge the movement of the chest. “Can we even open the chest in motion? Should we peek out??....”. He half stands and grasps Trill’s necklace from the sea to calm a sudden bout of nausea. It seems to work.

Trill flies back, checking that room and hovering well above the 'caterpillar' if possible. Maybe the dead will attack it instead and she can flee. Otherwise looks for a 'loading dock' for her friends.

"I'm sure it's fine. I don't know how fast she can fly with those sandals, and maybe the lake was bigger than we thought. Plus, I don't want to scare her by coming out and make her drop us in the water." Caelynn seems a bit worried about what's taking Trill so long, but doesn't want to mess anything up further by interfering. Trill probably hasn't let them out for a reason.

"As for the cards, mine was the Queen, yes. If I had to guess, I would say it referred to the faerie queen. She told me I had a chance to succeed if I trust in my allies and strike at the right time. Trill's was the Chained One, if I recall correctly. Hers mentioned a loved one in danger, and something about things not being as they seemed."

((Sorry, internet was out))

You zoom into the nearby chamber with the horde of undead hot on your heels below you. You can see the floor beneath you is littered with the rotted remains of bodies. You can see they the way they are scattered around the room almost in a pattern, but your attention is turned towards a large mushroom growing in the corner of the room. It's broad, gray top should allow plenty of room for you to set the chest on. The mushroom is about 40 feet tall, and it is situated near a mouth of another tunnel you haven't explored.

Trill makes for the mushroom, setting the chest down, throwing the lid open and bellowing down in her Captain's voice...

"Stir yer #$%^ stumps you #$%^ pox riddled @#$%@$! We're $#%^%^&%# under attack!"

Aimon looks up at the now open lid and Trill's agitated features.

"What beautiful music you make, dear Trill," Aimon says.

Aimon then leaps up to the first rung and races up the ladder.

"So, what's so urgent you couldn't let us finish our game?" he asks Trill, as he scans the larger chamber. "Ah, pleasant. The dead and the undead."

He looks back down into the chest.

"Trill wasn't kidding. You're going to want to see this."

Aimon looks around to see if there's anyway for the undead to get up on top of the mushroom. 

On hearing Trill and Aimon’s insistence that they exit the chest, Oak barrels up the ladder and peeks out before climbing out. He immediately reaches back down into the chest to offer his hand to Caelynn before spinning round to see what’s happening.

As he looks about, from the top of the 40 foot mushroom, he gets another bout of vertigo and nausea. He closes his eyes and puts one hand on the chest and the other grips Trill’s necklace again until the feeling subsides.

Eventually, he sees the hordes of sodden undead. He looks around the chamber and asks “Is this the cavern with the giant flesh-eating centipede?.... .... Well where the hells is it? Shouldn’t it be lamping into that crowd down there about now?.... ... Hold on, no... Ok seriously where IS that thing??... I’m not kidding.. does anyone have eyes on the centipede?”. He backs up from the edge of the mushroom eyes wide. He fumbles, but eventually dons his shield, and draws a hand axe.

((Did Trill see the 'caterpillar' when she entered?))

Trill, the chest down and her friends alerted, will flit up into the air and away from the mushrooms, seeking to draw them away from trying to climb the fungus.

Caelynn is quick to follow the others out of the chest, accepting Oak's hand to help hoist her up. She takes a moment to survey the area, nocking an arrow in case anything gets too close. Despite the situation, she seems oddly calm as she assesses what to do next. "I don't think the centipede is our biggest problem right now. We need to get past this horde and get out of here."

((Several questions: About how many of the undead are there? Do they completely cover the floor and block the exits? Is there any noticeable pattern to their movements/are they headed in any particular direction? And, seemingly random but I don't want this to turn into more of a horror movie than it already is, but is there anything on the ceiling? Perception check if needed: 23))

Peering over the tufted edge of the mushroom, you count twelve undead who are screaming like the souls of the damned. You see that one of the undead in the middle of the group is staring up at the group with its empty eye sockets (for a total of thirteen undead). This one isn't screaming like the others. When Trill flutters away as a distraction, only one of the monsters breaks off from the group to follow her. There seems to be no pattern to their movements; they just pace the room like caged predators. They are mostly clustered around the base of the mushroom, and you see one of them look at its hand a moment before it slashes the stalk of the mushroom. A large chunk of the mushroom rips away in its grasp. The screams suddenly become excited as four more join in on ripping down the mushroom. Your platform shudders with each strike.