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Doing a deep pull from the archives today. Back in 2008, when the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons came out, I did a remix of Keep on the Shadowfell, the quickstart adventure that was used to launch the new edition.

One of the things I did was expand the Kobold Lair. You can see my original map of the new version of the lair here:

John Leftwich has now created an impressive set of battlemaps which can be used with virtual tabletops or printed out for your home gaming table. You can click the images below to grab full-res images.

LIGHT

NO LIGHT

Back to Shadowfell Remix

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 30D: A Plague of Wraiths

“Tee!”

Turning around at the sound of Dominic’s cry, Tee spotted a lamia-shaped wraith and a minotaur-shaped wraith hovering nearby – held at bay only by the divine energy that Dominic was still channeling through his holy symbol. Tee started to move into a firing position, but as she did the wraiths slipped around the far corner and disappeared into the room with the iron cauldron.

Gathering the others they followed the wraiths into the cauldron room. The two larger wraiths were lurking in the shadows here, along with two smaller ones.

Elestra cursed. “It got all of them? We have to kill them all over again?”

Here’s a thing that I don’t think happens nearly as often as it should in a D&D game.

PCs have a habit of leaving big piles of dead bodies in their wake.

You know who loves big piles of dead bodies?

Necromancers.

(Also strange necromantic miasmas, unfathomable alien spirits from beyond our plane of reality looking for a body to inhabit, toxic chemical spills, experimental zombie viruses, etc. etc. etc.)

The point is that if you’ve got a setting where undead are common + the PCs are constantly killing people, it just makes sense that they’re going to see some familiar faces when the shambling hordes show up.

This isn’t just a great seed for restocking your dungeons or dynamically keeping your sandbox in motion: It personalizes what would otherwise be generic undead encounters, while also getting the players to think about the long-term consequences of their actions. (Do we really want to be leaving all these corpses lying around?)

Once you’re thinking in these terms, of course, it’s not much of a leap to realize that this doesn’t have to be limited to slain enemies. Dead friends and allies are an equally fertile field. (Or, since we’re talking about undead, I suppose it might be whatever the opposite of a fertile field is?) This trope — of a one-time friend or family member returning as an undead monster — is actually quite common in horror films, so it’s surprising we don’t see it more frequently at the game table.

(I suspect this is because published adventures generally have to either eschew this sort of thing or take considerable effort to contrive the outcome: The can’t just say “…and then Lord Harlech comes back from the dead!” because they don’t know whether or not Lord Harlech has died in your campaign. But at your own table, of course, you don’t have to worry about infinite possibilities: You know who ranks among the dead. But I digress.)

Regardless, this technique is a great way to ratchet up the stakes and emotional investment of the players in the bad guy.

There is no greater enemy than one who was once a friend.

Campaign Journal: Session 31A – Running the Campaign: When Players Reincorporate
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 30D: A PLAGUE OF WRAITHS

September 20th, 2008
The 17th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

Sir Gemmell’s letter only affirmed what Tor had already been planning: In order to keep with his image of loyalty to the Order and to Rehobath he needed to attend his training that day as planned. On the morrow he would meet with Sir Kabel and find out the rest of the story.

But by the time he had saddled Blue and begun riding north into the Temple District, Tor began to be plagued with doubt. What if the letter purporting to be from Sir Kabel was a trap of some sort? Surely he wouldn’t have been so foolish as to sign his own name? Why had the two letters arrived at nearly the same time?

Without having reached any sort of firm conclusion, Tor arrived at the Godskeep. He was escorted to the office which had once belonged to Sir Kabel… and were now occupied by Sir Gemmell.

“Master Tor, I’m honored to meet you.”

Tor thanked him and exchanged pleasantries, but Sir Gemmell was quick to his business. “I know that you were squired by Sir Kabel. I don’t know what his intentions were. But you’re a companion of the Chosen of Vehthyl and so I know that you must be faithful to the Church and to the Nine Gods. Know, then, that Kabel has betrayed both the Novarch and the Gods. His treacherous plots have resulted in the death of many of our brothers.”

“All I have ever wanted is to be a knight,” Tor said truthfully.

“Yes. And with Kabel’s treachery it is more important than ever that your training be completed as quickly as possible,” Sir Gemmell said. “It’s very likely that you will be contacted by Kabel. If that happens, you should alert us as quickly as possible. As long as he remains at large, we’re all in danger.”

“You think I might be harmed?” Tor asked blithely.

“Not as long as he thinks that he has some use to you. But after that? Who can say.”

Tor was given over to Sir Lagenn – a knight of the Order that he had not previously met – for his training. Sir Lagenn was burly and heavy-set, with a shaved head and a vicious, purple scar running from his left temple down to his jaw. Despite his brutish temperament, Sir Lagenn proved to be a competent and able teacher.

But as he trained, Tor’s thoughts were distracted by the two letters he had received. By the time Sir Lagenn called a halt to their exertions he had reached his conclusion: The letter from “Sir K” must be a fake. His loyalty was being test by Sir Gemmell.

Tor returned to Sir Gemmell’s office and gave the letter to him.

After reading it through, Sir Gemmell looked up at him. “Why didn’t you give this to me before?”

“To speak truthfully,” Tor said. “I felt torn in my loyalty between the Order and someone who had quickly become a mentor to me.”

“Well, your loyalty in this matter will no longer be tested. We shall attend to things from here. And do not seek any contact with Sir Kabel.”

“Of course,” Tor said.

Sir Gemmell looked back at the letter. “Why would he ask for the Chosen of Vehthyl?”

“I don’t know,” Tor said.

“Should Dominic’s trust in the Novarch be doubted?”

“I would never question it,” Tor said truthfully. (There was no question about it: Dominic didn’t trust him.)

A PLAGUE OF WRAITHS

Tee, meanwhile, had returned to the Banewarrens.

While fighting the wraiths the night before, Kalerecent had suffered a wound. At first he had thought it a small and inconsequential thing, but it wasn’t healing properly. In fact, it proved to be beyond the healing skills of both Kalerecent and Dominic combined. As a result, Kalerecent was forced to leave the Banewarrens to seek more powerful healing from the Church.

This proved fortunate, however, when Tor arrived before Kalerecent returned – giving them a chance to converse privately.

“I need to tell you what’s happened,” Tor said.

“Should we sit down again?” Elestra asked.

Tor nodded emphatically and then began his tale.

“And you’re sure the letter from Kabel was a fake?” Tee asked.

“It had to be,” Tor said.

Before they could discuss it further, Dominic heard Kalerecent returning down the tunnel and silently signaled the others.

With Kalerecent back on guard duty and Tor returned they were free to go back to the Banewarrens and continue their explorations.

But Tee had only barely emerged into the first chamber of the Banewarrens when she spotted two purplish wraiths trying to get past the warded door they had shut the night before. One of the wraiths might have been the one they had encountered before, but the other was larger… and shaped like the half-leonid lamia they had slain the day before.

Tee crept back to where Dominic was waiting and told him what she’d seen.

“That’s bullshit!”

“I know,” Tee agreed.

Tee led them back into the chamber. Dominic was considerably less stealthy than Tee had been and the wraiths heard his approach. But it didn’t matter: Raising the cross of Athor, he banished them into nothingness.

Tee went over to the warded door and locked it securely (which proved difficult to do without a key).

“Tee!”

Turning around at the sound of Dominic’s cry, Tee spotted a lamia-shaped wraith and a minotaur-shaped wraith hovering nearby – held at bay only by the divine energy that Dominic was still channeling through his holy symbol. Tee started to move into a firing position, but as she did the wraiths slipped around the far corner and disappeared into the room with the iron cauldron.

Gathering the others they followed the wraiths into the cauldron room. The two larger wraiths were lurking in the shadows here, along with two smaller ones.

Elestra cursed. “It got all of them? We have to kill them all over again?”

Agnarr took the lead and Ranthir took the opportunity to demonstrate how he had used his arcane arts to duplicate Dominic’s feat of divine infusion: He enlarged Agnarr to twice his normal height and girth.

Elestra and Tor worked the corners, keeping the wraiths from circling around Agnarr’s massive shoulders. But most of the damage was actually coming from Tee’s dragon pistol: Agnarr’s blade passed through the wraiths again and again, but frustratingly couldn’t seem to find any purchase in their semi-ethereal forms.

With the battle largely stalemated into one of stark attrition, Tor eventually got daring. Pushing his way past Tee he plunged through one of the wraiths, ripping it apart on the tip of his electrified blade. From there he raced behind the minotaur-shaped wraith, providing enough of a distraction – and a few wounding blows – for Agnarr to finally finish it off.

With the larger wraiths dispatched, the two smaller ones were quickly driven back up the stairs on the far side of the room and overwhelmed. But even as they were finishing off these smaller wraiths, four more of the goblin-spawned wraiths drifted up from behind them. In fact, they were nearly taken by surprise – only Dominic’s wary eyes saved them.

Ranthir hurried up the stairs and away from the wraiths, while everyone else headed down the stairs to face them. But the wraiths – perhaps sensing weakness – passed directly through the walls and emerged to assault Ranthir. Their spectral limbs plunged through him, and Ranthir felt the living breath and warmth of vitality fleeing from his limbs.

Tor dashed back up the stairs and, half shoving Ranthir out of the way, interposed himself between the staggered mage and the wraiths. But in the process, he, too was struck by their soul-icing touch.

Their tactical control of the situation was rapidly deteriorating. They had been flanked, separated, and badly wounded. But Dominic, having barely ducked away from the wraiths’ assault himself, raised his holy symbol again and called upon the power of his faith.

The wraiths fled. As they turned away, Tor destroyed one of them and Agnarr cut down another.

Two of the wraiths escaped and they cursed their luck, knowing that they would almost certainly be troubled by them again.

But perhaps it was for the best. Several of them could still feel the cold, cloying miasma of the wraiths sapping their strength and vitality. Knowing that, as with Kalerecent, only a more powerful channeling of divine energy could alleviate the pall, they resolved to abandon their current explorations and return to the surface.

Running the Campaign: The Undead Sequel  – Campaign Journal: Session 31A
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Go to Part 1

The finale of Call of the Netherdeep is, of course, the Netherdeep. It culminates the sequence of excellent, varied dungeons that form the backbone of the campaign — the cerulean neon of Emerald Grotto, the gothic horror of Betrayers’ Rise, the ruined grandeur of Cael Morrow, and the haunted existential terror of the Netherdeep. It also continues the underwater theme which has marked Call from its beginning.

Like the other dungeons, the Netherdeep is filled to the brim with a flavorful key and great map. (Not just visually great, but great in its design.) So there will actually be very little for us to do here.

MEMORIES OF THE APOTHEON

The basic concept is that the Netherdeep is an extraplanar extrusion of a demigod’s traumatized mind. Alyxian the Apotheon’s memories are made manifest within the layrinths of the Netherdeep, and the PCs have the opportunity to interact with these memories and affect what his emotional perceptions of them are. The outcomes of these interactions — and what the PCs learn during them — will then shape the final confrontation with Alyxian, who appears in three different forms representing the different coping mechanisms he used in mortal life.

These toxic behaviors are made mythologically epic, and ultimately the PCs will need to literally and emotionally grapple with them.

The basic structure of this is built on two tracks:

Track 1 features experiences geographically keyed to the map, which the PCs discover by exploring the dungeon. These experiences are generally interactive.

Track 2 takes the form of twenty short visions drawn from moments in the Apotheon’s life. These are triggered by various stimuli or actions, and the idea is that the PCs will be able to “piece together the Apotheon’s whole story.”

This all works great.

There are two things I would do to juice this up.

First, as we’ve already discussed, you should pull some of the lore surrounding Alyxian’s biography back into the rest of the campaign so that (a) the PCs will be more invested in puzzling out the enigma and (b) major beats will land with more recognition and emotional significance.

At this point, though, all that work is done.

Second, the book recommends that the twenty Track 2 visions should be played out in a strictly linear order. I strongly recommend ignoring that advice: Having the visions appear out of order will force the players to puzzle out the underlying sequence, which will invest them more deeply into the narrative. This is Good Actually™.

Plus, the twenty visions are already on a conveniently numbered table. Just roll a d20.

RIVALS AT THE FINALE

The finale of Call of the Netherdeep is structured around the fundamental choice of how Alyxian should be handled: Should he be killed? Unleashed? Redeemed?

This is also the culmination of the Rivals and their relationship with the PCs. If you’ve been using the Principle of Opposition, as described in Running the Rivals, then this all-encompassing rivalry reaches its ultimate conclusion in a debate whose consequences are literally world-altering in their scope.

But, again, the work to set this up has been done. All you need to do is close the deal by playing the Rivals hard and true in these final moments. Really challenge the players and make them feel the momentous stakes of their choice by forcing them, through their Rivals, to justify and think about that choice and all of its implications (ethical, practical, and otherwise).

CONCLUSION

In short, if you’ve done your groundwork, then the Netherdeep will sing.

I’m hoping that you have a couple of take-aways from this series.

First, that Call of the Netherdeep is a good campaign. There’s a lot to love in what James J. Haeck, Matthew Mercer, Christopher Perkins, Makenzie De Armas, LaTia Jacquise, Cassanda Khaw, Sadie Lowry, Dan Dillon, and Taymoor Rehman have created.

Second, that the work required to turn Call of the Netherdeep from a good campaign to a great campaign is quite reasonable and well worth your time.

I’m not sure that I, personally, will ever have the chance to run Call of the Netherdeep. There’s just a lot of stuff competing for my limited gaming time right now, and no gap in the foreseeable future. But if you have the opportunity to do so, then I am quite jealous for you and your players.

Let me know how it goes!

ADDITIONAL READING
Review: Call of the Netherdeep
Call of the Netherdeep: Running Betrayers’ Rise
Call of the Netherdeep: Running the Rivals

COMPLETE PDF COLLECTION

Go to Part 1

As we’ve previously discussed, the core structure of this section of the campaign are the faction missions. Although each faction has a different set of missions, they all follow the same formula:

• Three faction missions in Ank’Harel, followed by three missions in Cael Morrow.
• During the second faction mission, the PCs’ loyalty to their faction will be tested. If they fail, they’ll be booted from the faction and “need” to find another faction to join and do faction missions for.
• The sixth mission is “enter the Netherdeep.”

Unfortunately, these faction missions are, by far, the weakest part of the campaign. They’re plagued by a cluster of problems.

First, there’s the scale mismatch between the design of the faction missions and the design of Cael Morrow. (We’ve already solved this with our pointcrawl remix of the sunken city.)

Second, although the missions are structured to potentially prompt a faction-swap, there’s no clear way for the PCs to hook up with the other factions, because the only mechanism for that is “come to Ank’Harel with a researcher, “ which obviously doesn’t work after you’re already in Ank’Harel.

We’ve made a fair degree of progress on this by making the faction-based play more explicit in Bazzoxan. You can further capitalize on this by perpetuating their relationships with all three researchers: Question, Prolix, and Aloysia shouldn’t just vanish when the action moves to Ank’Harel. Even if the PCs ended up killing one of the researchers in Bazzoxan, how do the researcher’s friends and faction feel about that?

You can also leverage the Rivals here, particularly if they’ve joined one of the other factions. Whether the PCs split from their faction or not, the Rivals may approach and try to convert them to the choice they’ve made. (If the Rivals have been more closely allied to the PCs’ and their faction, then perhaps they fail a loyalty test or are successfully suborned by another faction.)

More than anything, simply establishing the factions and their agendas clearly before the PCs ever get to Ank’Harel will do a lot here. It will empower the PCs to proactively figure out how to contact other factions if the need arises.

The third problem is that the faction missions are extremely simplistic. Their barebones design is often very reminiscent of the similarly minimalist faction missions in Dragon Heist, but whereas the faction missions in Dragon Heist are B-plots that serve as contrapuntal beats to the main action, the Netherdeep faction missions are meant to be the backbone driving the campaign to its ultimate conclusion. It’s really not where you want threadbare, desultory material.

And the final problem with the faction missions is that most of them are just plain bad.

FIXING THE FACTION MISSIONS

To explain what I mean, consider “Hunt for the Truth” (p. 100), where the PCs are trying to identify a double agent in the Allegiance of All-Sight who they believe planted a stolen ring on their friend. They find two pieces of evidence:

1. An Insight check reveals that someone has a “guarded expression.”
2. This same person, a researcher in the ruidium-infested ruins of Cael Morrow, has a ruidium infection.

The adventure is then over, as the characters can “present their findings to Headmaster Gryz Alakritos.” But… what findings, exactly?

In the next faction mission, “The Double Agent,” the PCs need to track down a double agent and the PCs find two pieces of evidence:

1. An Insight check reveals the agent’s “true intentions and affiliation.”
2. This same person, a researcher in the ruidium-infested ruins of Cael Morrow, has a ruidium infection.

And if you feel as if the Matrix just glitched, I’m sorry to report that this is not the case: It’s the exact same set up, and the conclusion both times is, “Proof?! Sir, I made an INSIGHT check!”

There are eighteen faction missions in Call of the Netherdeep and I’m not going to break them all down. But you should definitely take a long, hard look at them. I don’t think there are any of the faction missions I would run as-is, and this whole section of the campaign probably needs to be torn down to the foundation, sifted for parts, and then rebuilt from the ground up.

DYNAMIC FACTION MISSIONS

My first instinct with the faction missions is to make them far more dynamic: Rather than a preprogrammed, linear series of fetch quests against a static backdrop, it would be far more interesting if the players’ actions were drastically shifting the balance of power in a back-and-forth struggle with the other factions.

A few things to think about:

Proactive Faction Encounters. Prep some strike teams and/or other proactive elements for the factions. These can become very versatile tools, which you can drop in at any time to complicate the PCs’ lives and create a sense that all of the factions are in constant motion.

Rival Activity. Invoke the Rivals. If you’re following the Principle of Opposition, then even if the Rivals have been working with the PCs up until this point, Ank’Harel will be the point where their disagreement with the PCs about what their goals should be (regarding Alyxian, the ruidium, or both) should really escalate. If it hasn’t happened already, this probably means that the Rivals will end up joining a different faction, becoming one of your proactive faction encounters and almost certainly the NPCs most likely to thwart the PCs’ faction goals.

You can add even more complexity to this idea if friendly Rivals reluctantly join the same faction as the PCs to begin with, but later heel turn as they realize they can’t support the faction’s goals. Alternatively, maybe the Rivals themselves are divided and will end up splitting up across multiple factions. (Maybe the PCs will, too!)

Tip: If you find your game riven with deep philosophical differences about what the “right” thing to do in this section of the campaign is… that’s fantastic! If the divisions between PCs become so great that it feels as if they’re only sticking together because it’s expected, you might explore the possibility of similarly splitting the Rivals and letting players whose characters leave a faction take on the roles of Rivals who stay in the faction. (At your discretion, you can do the inverse with the grouping of PCs + Rivals who join a different faction, following both groups while allowing everyone to continue playing.)

The Other Faction Face. If the PCs are in one faction and the Rivals are in another, it’s possible the third faction will just become a minor player in the campaign. Alternatively, you can give that faction a notable NPC who frequently interacts with the PCs and becomes the “face” of that faction. The appropriate Bazzoxan researcher is probably an easy choice here if they’re available.

Competing for Goals. In framing your faction missions, don’t think only in terms of “what are the PCs trying to do.” Instead, think in terms of something that multiple factions are trying to simultaneously achieve. Once you’ve done that, you can put the opposition in the field and actively play them in competition with the PCs.

Progress clocks may be a good mechanism for tracking how each faction (including the PCs) are doing in the pursuit of their goals. Countdown timers can be used to similar effect (e.g., the PCs need to recover a ruidium artifact before the thieves use it). You may also want to take a peek at scenario structures like Race to the Prize or McGuffin Keep-Away.

You can also increase the dynamic quality of the missions by putting multiple goals into play at the same time. This immediately adds interest by forcing the PCs to choose what goals they’re going to prioritize.

Tip: As you’re looking to strip-mine the faction missions from the book, make sure to look at the faction missions being pursued by the other factions and ask questions like, “What would it look like if the PCs were trying to STOP this from happening?” Also think about how these might flow into the background events of the campaign and how the PCs might become aware of them, creating the sense (and reality!) that stuff is happening in the campaign world even when the players aren’t there to see it.

ANK’HAREL MISSIONS: STAKES & REVELATIONS

The two-phase approach used by the book — of a set of missions taking place in Ank’Harel and then a set of missions focused on Cael Morrow — is probably a good one to retain.

This first phase of the faction missions is about:

• Learning new lore and/or reinforcing or expanding lore they’ve already had a chance to obtain. (This includes stuff like additional Alyxian lore, along with: Where is the ruidium coming from? Where is the entrance to Cael Morrow? What are the goals of the various factions?)
• Testing the PCs’ loyalty to their faction / determining what faction (and goals) they’re ultimately going to pursue.
• Gaining entrance to Cael Morrow.

You’ll want to start by setting up your revelation lists for this phase, and then you can just break the clues down into the missions opportunistically.

During play, seize opportunities to challenge the PCs’ ideology and the goals they’ve chosen. This can take the form of philosophical debates from the Rivals, and so forth, but is also about asking the big question through action: What are you willing to do to achieve your goals? When you see the costs of achieving your goals, is that a price you’re willing to pay?

In terms of gaining entrance to Cael Morrow, I see three primary approaches:

Controlling the Entrance. This is initially the Allegiance of All-Sight. If the PCs have joined the Allegiance, then they simply need to prove their loyalty/value in order to get an access badge. If the PCs are a member of a different faction, then viable entrance strategies would include (a) seizing control of the entrance and/or (b) forming an alliance with the faction who DOES control the entrance (most likely due to some sort of “enemy of my enemy” thing).

Even if the PCs aren’t challenging control of the entrance, consider having one of the other factions do it. (This can also occur during the Cael Morrow phase of the faction missions.)

Sneaking In. I suspect framing this as a straight-up heist scenario is probably the most powerful way to go. One interesting twist on the typical heist scenario here is that it would probably be beneficial for the PCs to figure out a way of accessing Cael Morrow that can be used repeatedly (where a typical heist usually only requires a single break-in).

Find an Alternative Entrance. In the book, the only known entrance to Cael Morrow is through the Maw of Cael Morrow. But it’s a giant underground cave. It’s quite possible that there are other entrances, perhaps leading to daring heist or McGuffin-chase as factions try to get their hands on a journal or map. Or maybe the PCs stumble across the entrance while investigating an anomalous surface outcropping of ruidium.

Note that you can also mix and match here: Maybe the PCs need to sneak in, because they’ve found lore indicating the location of a secret exit from the ruins (and so they need to be in the ruins to track it down and figure out where it leads to on the surface). Or they need to sneak in and install some sort of ruidium-charged teleportation circle so that their faction can teleport into the sunken city.

CAEL MORROW MISSIONS: TERRITORIAL CONTROL

Once the PCs are in Cael Morrow, their mission agendas will include stuff like:

• Epsionage (spy on enemy factions, identify moles, etc.)
• Investigate a known location
• Seek a rumored location (the shrine, the rift, the aboleth’s lair, etc.)
• Retrieve an artifact (or sample of ruidium)
• Eliminate threats (killing monsters, etc.)

By expanding Cael Morrow into a pointcrawl, we’ve probably also given ourselves the breathing room to let the PCs figure out their own goals and pursue them (instead of just completing homework assignments). Think about how you can feed them:

• Information about what the other factions are doing (clues and tracks left in Cael Morrow, captured correspondence, and other such clues).
• Cross-references between pointcrawl locations (e.g., a magical map that survived the city’s fall, notes from another research team, etc.) so that the PCs can set exploration goals.

What I think will help with a lot of this and add a lot of dynamism to this phase of the campaign is adding a layer of territorial control to your pointcrawl map. This means tracking both which locations each faction currently knows about, as well as which faction is currently in “control” of each location (if any).

Faction control should have a tangible effect on the pointcrawl:

• Add a base camp to the location.
• Add a research team that’s investigating the site.
• Add a patrol that’s regularly passing through that area.
• Give the faction access to resources (ruidium, magic items, etc.) that can be gained from the location.

And so forth.

This gives a very simple hook for framing faction missions (e.g., “we need you to eliminate the Cobalt Soul’s security patrol”) and also a clear mechanism for the PCs to have a meaningful effect on the current state of affairs in Cael Morrow (e.g., they take out a security patrol and that means the Cobalt Soul loses control of a key location).

The vibe you’re aiming for here is one part Le Carre spy drama, one part magical Hunt for Red October, one part Ten Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and one part Bone Wars (but the dinosaur bones are also military weapons tech). Things should feel claustrophobic, enigmatic, and terrifying.

Go to Part 9: Netherdeep Wrap