Roll call:

Matt – Oxley the Seer
Andre – Niall the Cleric
Trevor – Battu the Warrior
Jon – Apollonia & Jaspandar
Bill- Node III, the Thief King of the Maggot men

The session opens on Day 149. The PCs have left Clap & Klamlydia to guard the MDTE and advanced up to the end of the ridge to observe the obelisk formations. After spotting the activity of the “maggot men” (last seen in Session 17!) within the “fallen obelisk”, III scouts up to the obelisk and sees many dozens of maggot-men working inside with a large maggot prince deeper within the obelisk. He observes the maggot men cutting big swaths of meat off the inside of the obelisk, and then sees them floated out to the big meat pile outside. He grabs some of the meat, which is a sort of seafood-ish/shellfish/insect-y and returns to the ridge where the party waits.

The PCs decide to journey along the inside of the Eastern ridge and then loop back to investigate the “phasey” obelisk in the Southeast of the formation. They form up to do this with III in the lead. III falls down a trapped rock slide and ends up with 5 maggot-men trying to capture him. In a nutshell, Jaspendar sleeps most of them, while Battu and III kill the rest. In capturing the maggot-men (the slept ones), Apollonia interrogates them mentally and the MMs beg the party to come to their leader.

They move through the tunnels with the maggot-men and Oxley summons a 4HD slug monster (equivalent to one of his giant beetles— but more or less the Canopan version.) A strange creature from above attacks, grabbing the slug thing but Oxley repels it with a finely placed scorching ray.

The party then finds the hideout of the maggot-men in a large circular chamber. A gate is raised allowing entrance and the Battu, III, Apollonia go in with their prisoner / new friend Node 41888. ( he has promised to take them to his leader, Node 2127. He refers to III as Node III of course, hilarity ensues.) A giant-ass slug emerges from the floor and blasts acid on the party (III has already moved aside) wounding Battu and dropping Apollonia and killing poor Node 41888. Niall, Oxley & Jaspendar are trapped on the other side of the gate, but Oxley’s slug forces the gate open on a crit. Battu, Oxley and III dispatch the giant slug with a combination of scimitar swings, anal backstab and massive scorching ray.

III declares himself the king of the tribe, and Node 2127 comes out to greet the PCs, saying they have passed the test and they have found the PCs to be very mighty indeed. They want to help the PCs destroy their masters, the maggot lords (same as the PCs fought in the Merchants’ quarter— the mentally dominating maggot prince in Session 15. ) The maggot men communicate mentally so III became the conduit with them.

Basic info collected as per below:

The central obelisk is “locked” – no one has gone in or out in centuries. The Maggot men know from tribal knowledge that “aliens” flew in there a long time ago. It is the Royal Obelisk where the Worm Emperor lived. Node 2127 thought that some of the masters might know how to get in, but no one wants to give up the knowledge easily, for fear of giving another clan an advantage. And no one wants to take the risk of going inside themselves…

There are three clans of the “masters” (worm princes/maggot things.):
Astrogators - These are the wizards who watch the stars, treat with aliens, devils, demons and worse. They wield magic.
Spawners – These are the slavers who spawn slaves and dominate them to do the work of the worm princes.
Hunters – These are the ones that capture obelisks and float them, very powerful mind over matter powers. Each obelisk has a hunter who floats it.
The clans are rivals and hate each other. Without the emperor gone to maintain order, there is always clan rivalry and no faction can permanently get the upper hand.
Each of the obelisks belongs to one of the clans. Each has 1-5(!) worm-princes within it.

The “phasey” obelisk in the southeast belongs to the astrogators.

Other denizens of Canopus:
The maggotmen share that the Spawners first made misshapen human slaves for the community, but they were too hard to control and kept escaping. A community of them lives off to the west somewhere. Then the Spawners hybridized maggot-humans for slaves, and though some have broken off as rebels (like Node 2127’s bunch), many more still work for the Masters.

The maggotmen have no idea who/what Yeph-siroth/Mal-uk are.

(These are the main points I remember, but the PCs can get more information if Node 2127 has it.)

XP:

III only:
Scouting mission – 4 XP

All:
Maggot men ambush- 1 XP
Tongue thing- 2 xp
Giant slug 4xp
(Total 7)