Monster Mission: The Drowned Choir

Tessaly the Masked, South Ro camp · Theme: Deepest Guk · You play: a froglok ghoul

What Tessaly says

The ghouls of Deepest Guk sing to keep their drowned king asleep. An adventuring company has come to wake him for his treasure. Someone must stand in the choir. Go alone. The shape will not hold two of you. Are you [ready]? If you fell in there, I can send you [back].

Your form

A drowned froglok ghoul, one of the choir's own dead. - Signature: Funeral Dirge - Shape abilities: Acid Spittle, Drain Life, Burrow - Race abilities: Poison Bite, Carapace, Brood

How it plays out

"You wake in the drowned crypts of Deepest Guk, wearing the shape of a froglok ghoul. The shape is yours for now. Use it."

1. Wake the choir. "Somewhere below, a choir of dead throats has stopped singing. Three of them lie where they fell asleep, and the drowned dead are gnawing at them." Kill the drowned hands on each sleeping ghoul, then hail it. Until the hands are dead: "The ghoul will not wake while the drowned dead are still gnawing at it." Once all three are awake: "Three dead voices rise together. The dirge begins -- and somewhere above, Thorne's company hears it."
2. Hold the choir. "The choir takes up the dirge again, and far below something vast turns over in its sleep. Keep them singing." Thorne's company comes at the three singers in waves: "Silence the singers and the old king wakes. Go!" If a singer dies, its pool goes quiet for the rest of the run: "The ... pool falls silent. The drowned king stirs." If a ghoul gets lost on the way to its pool, it follows you. Lead it back, because its pool counts as silent until it sings there again. This phase ends when the last raider dies: "The last of the raiders falls. For a moment the choir sings alone -- and then someone laughs."
3. Stop the theft. "Pell the Quick snatches the Choir Bell and runs for the lower crypt." He stops at each grate and sends decoys back after you ("a second Pell darts back the way he came"). Kill him before the last grate: "Pell falls, and the Choir Bell rolls from his hand. You have it." If he gets away, the king wakes a little more.
4. Ring the waking. How far awake the king is depends on the singers you lost, any pools that are not singing, and whether Pell got away. One of three lines tells you, from "The drowned king still sleeps, barely" up to "The drowned king is half awake." "The first altar glows. Carry the bell to it and [hail] it to ring." Stay next to the altar while the bell rings. If you step away: "You step away from the altar and the bell falls silent." Each ring brings the company down on you, and the more awake the king is, the more of his drowned hands come too. The third ring brings Sergeant Voss.
5. The ending. Kill Voss. Oswin Grey calls the retreat and says: "And you. That is no ghoul. Something is wearing it. I will find out what." "The last of Thorne's company retreats up the tunnels. Below, the drowned king sleeps, and the choir sings on."

If the run fails: "The choir falls silent. The shape you wore comes apart, and the dark lets you go."