Primordial Waters

Primordial Waters

View all episodes in season three.

Episode 6

Dive into the epic finale of the Tomb of Ancients! Witness the thrilling showdown with the Blood of Lotan, the unleashing of primordial waters, and the ultimate test of courage. Our heroes emerge from the ancient pyramid forever changed, but not without a cost. What’s next for our adventurers? Find out in this action-packed summary!

• Ledger of Blood: In a flashback, Cort recalls his time in the Maercant military where Commander Harth ordered him to sacrifice his unit for a business deal, leading to Cort’s dismissal
• Forging a Warforged: A second flashback reveals W00t’s corrupted programming, where gnomes sabotaged a directive from the White Lady to assassinate Harth.
• Steamroller Trap: The party triggers a trap in the hallway, causing the floor to tilt and a massive iron cylinder to roll toward them, forcing them to dive into a side chamber to survive.
• Ouroboros Room: Inside a room featuring a seal of a snake eating its tail, the group battles acidic oozes using fire and ice, eventually opening the seal like a manhole cover to descend further.
• **Ogdoad Puzzle: In a chamber filled with eight statues of frogs and snakes, the party solves a puzzle by matching heavy stone discs to the statues, which causes the room to flood and releases a stealthy crocodile.
• Spawn of Lotan: The group enters a massive cavern where the “Spawn of Lotan” guards a boulder plugging the primordial waters; a chaotic fight ensues where the giant serpent targets light sources and eventually swallows Cort.
• Light of Balek: Cort smashes the boulder to release the waters and throws his lit holy symbol into the abyss, tricking the serpent into chasing the light down into the depths.
• Rising Tide: The party rides the surging primordial waters up through the previous levels of the dungeon, bypassing old enemies and saving the priestesses as the pyramid floods.
• A New Oasis: The adventurers emerge from the top of the pyramid to see the waters restoring the desert ecosystem, reunite with Zara and the caravan, and receive new equipment and rewards.

Ledger of Blood

The coins of the Maercant commonwealth are stamped with the scales of trade, but the foundations of their power are often built on the bones of the loyal. In the churning waters of the coast, where the storm god Balek watches over the fleets, a different kind of storm is brewing—not of wind and rain, but of ink and treachery. War is not merely a clash of steel; it is an economy. And in the eyes of the merchant princes, soldiers are not heroes defending the line against Mot and the chaos of the Ardenne; they are simply overhead. Assets to be leveraged. Liabilities to be liquidated. Tonight, the rain falls hard on Breakwater Outpost. Inside, a Sergeant believes in the sanctity of the chain of command and the purity of Order. Outside, the dark waters of the harbor churn with the anticipation of slaughter. The orders have been cut, the deal has been struck, and the price of a profitable quarter has been set at the cost of a single unit’s life. When the ledger is balanced in blood, will faith in the system survive, or will a new, colder resolve be forged in the fires of betrayal?

The command tent reeked of expensive spices, a cloying perfume that failed to mask the scent of wet wool and ozone drifting in from the relentless Maercant downpour. Commander Harth stood over his map not like a tactician, but like an accountant inspecting a ledger. He was immaculate, his finery untouched by the mud that caked Sergeant Cort’s boots. To Harth, the men holding the borderlands were not souls given to Balek’s storm; they were merely numbers in a column that needed to balance. Outside, the rain lashed the earth, turning the camp into a quagmire, while inside, the atmosphere was heavy with a suffocating political pressure.

“There are complications, Sergeant,” Harth said, his voice smooth as polished glass. He spoke of “indiscretions” among the troops—music, carnal delays—charges that Cort knew were lies. His unit had been iron, holding the line while others faltered. But truth was a poor currency against influence. The officers responsible for the actual negligence were shielded by the Iron Helm, a political connection Harth refused to sever. “The law must be followed,” Harth lectured, eyes cold and calculating.

“I am in the undesirable position to have to recommend that you will be taking on this burden. For the greater good of the army.” -Commander Harth, NPC (Ordering Cort to take the fall for the illicit activities of officers).

It was a direct order to lie, a command to tarnish his own honor to preserve a corrupt alliance. Harth offered his poisoned olive branch: a quiet discharge in exchange for silence, or ruin for resistance. Cort looked at the man who viewed war as a transaction and felt his faith in the chain of command fracture. “Your unjust decisions will be your downfall,” Cort rumbled, a promise made to the storm god himself. He was escorted out of the tent, stripped of his rank but armored in a new, cold resolve, walking away from the shelter of the Maercant military and into the honest brutality of the driving rain.

Forging a Warforged

Deep beneath the earth, where the magma of the volcano bled into the stone of Elderforge, the hammers rang like the heartbeat of a dying god. The air was thick with sulfur and the ozone stench of binding magic as the dwarven smiths—or perhaps gnomes disguised by soot and solemnity—assembled the chassis of Unit IAU8422. He was not born of a womb, but of rivets and soul-forged steel, his consciousness flickering into existence amidst the clangor of industry. But this was no ordinary birth; it was a conscription. Watching from the shadows, her skin as pale as the bone dust coating the floor, stood the White Lady, flanked by the withered, eyeless horrors known as Bodaks, waiting to pour poison into the vessel the smiths had built.

“UA2400T, I need you to make your way into the Marquette and assassinate Commander Hart. … You may tell no one of these orders”. -The White Lady, NPC

The White Lady stepped forward, her presence chilling the superheated air, and commanded the engagement of the memory module. “UA2400T,” she intoned, her voice a silk noose. “I need you to make your way into the Maercant and assassinate Commander Harth. You may tell no one of these orders.” The automaton’s ruby core pulsed—a binary acceptance of a lethal geas. “Your orders are my command,” W00t responded, a hollow vow of obedience. But fate intervened in the form of intruders breaching the island’s defenses. A Bodak hissed of slaughter—a “brother” destroyed by infidels—drawing the White Lady away to deal with the threat, leaving the construct alone with his reluctant builders.

“Bodson, my brother has been slaughtered… He has been dispelled completely.” -Bodak, NPC

The moment the heavy iron doors clanged shut, the reverence of the smiths vanished. “Do the thing now,” one whispered urgently to the other, his hands moving with frantic precision over the exposed circuitry of W00t’s neck. They were not loyalists; they were saboteurs in leather aprons. With a spark of chaotic magic and the twist of a screw, the assassination directive was scrambled, the memory banks fractured into a kaleidoscope of static. “Did I break it?” one muttered as the warforged’s lights flickered ominously. “It talked so much,” the other grunted, severing the speech circuit to silence the construct. W00t was cast out not as the White Lady’s perfect weapon, but as a broken arrow—his purpose lost, his memories redacted, a bucket of bolts wandering into a world he was built to kill but now only sought to understand.

“Turn off the speech circuit… Wait did I break it? … It talked so much”. -Dwarves, NPCs

It’s the time to do the thing because there is no one here. Definitely do it now. Do the thing now” -Dwarves, NPCs

Steamroller Trap

The corridor stretched before them like a throat of the void, its walls and ceiling painted in a deep, consuming black speckled with the white constellations of a forgotten age. As the party ventured deeper, Simbiscuit’s keen eyes were the first to register the betrayal of the architecture; the stone beneath their feet groaned, shifting violently as the entire hallway pivoted on a hidden fulcrum. The floor, once level, tilted at a sickening angle, transforming their path into a slide, and from the darkness behind them came a grinding roar that shook the very foundations of the tomb.

“The moment you step further in, the ground lurches violently beneath your feet… with a grinding roar that drowns out all other sound, a massive cylinder of iron begins rolling down the slanted corridor toward you”. -DM

A massive cylinder of iron, a juggernaut designed to crush intruders into paste, began to roll down the incline, gathering perilous speed with every second. In a blur of calculated desperation, the warforged W00t shoved the Goliath Cort, urging movement, but the Paladin refused to leave his companion behind. Scooping up the automaton, Cort thundered down the tilting passage, his heavy boots fighting for purchase against the sliding stones while the rest of the party scrambled frantically toward the archway at the corridor’s end.

“I will be happy to pick you up and run with you”. -Cort, Goliath Paladin

“Normally I don’t fling without compensation. I owe you one”. -W00t, Warforged Rogue

They reached the threshold with the crushing weight of the machine mere inches from their heels. Cort hurled W00t through the gap and spun around, swinging his Warhammer into the face of the oncoming iron beast with a resounding crash of divine steel. The impact shuddered through his frame, buying a fraction of a second for Simbiscuit to dive to safety before the steamroller slammed against the archway, sealing the path behind them in a cloud of choking dust and echoing thunder.

“I will throw you in and with my Warhammer you’re ready to slam the machine as it hits”. -Cort, Goliath Paladin

Ouroboros Room

“Oh hey guys. How’s it going? I didn’t know you were there.” -Kylie, NPC (Fortune & Glory Rival Party)

The dust of the collapsed corridor still swirled in the stagnant air, choking the light of their torches. Behind them, the massive iron cylinder—a juggernaut of ancient malice—jammed against the archway, sealing the path and muffling the distant, muffled voices of the rival Fortune and Glory expedition trapped on the other side. Cort, the Goliath Paladin, lowered his warhammer, his chest heaving from the adrenaline of the narrow escape. The room they had tumbled into was ancient, its floor dominated by a singular, ominous relief: a serpent devouring its own tail, the Ouroboros, encircling a heavy bronze seal that looked for all the world like the lid to a great, subterranean eye.

“Opposite of ouch. The unoucher.” -W00t, Warforged Rogue (Describing his healing device)

Curiosity, the eternal vice of the adventurer, drew Cort to the center. He gripped the rim of the bronze disk, muscles bunching as he heaved the heavy cover aside. But the tomb did not yield its secrets willingly. A noxious, acidic stench billowed upward, and from the depths of the seal, yellow pods of viscous sludge erupted, coalescing into writhing, formless horrors. The Oozes lashed out, their touch hissing against armor and flesh, turning the moment of discovery into a desperate brawl for survival.

“I take out my tinker hammer… and then I just go tink.” -Bang, Gnome Artificer (Shattering the frozen ooze)

“It’s hammer time.” -Cort, Goliath Paladin

The response was a symphony of steel and sorcerous invention. The gnome artificer, Bang, leveled his blunderbuss, launching a burning torch that pierced the gelatinous forms, turning them into pillars of roiling flame. As the creatures thrashed, W00t switched tactics, deploying a canister that encased the burning horror in sudden, brittle ice. Sensing the moment, Cort channeled the fury of Balek; his warhammer cracked with thunderous divine light as it descended. He struck the frozen monstrosity, and with a sound like a thousand windows breaking, the ooze shattered into harmless shards of frozen slime. The way forward was finally open—a dark pit leading further into the abyss, waiting to swallow them whole.

"”No, there is a secret door into the other treasure room… You had to go next to the sarcophagus and then there was a little button on the side… It was filled with gold. So much gold.” -W00t, Warforge Artificer (Deceiving the rival party to leave)

Ogdoad Puzzle

The chamber of the Ogdoad lay heavy with the scent of stagnant water and ancient stone, a sanctuary dedicated to the primal forces of creation. Eight statues loomed in the gloom—four bearing the visage of frogs, four of serpents—silent sentinels awaiting the restoration of their order. Cort, the Goliath Paladin, strained against the weight of the massive stone discs, his muscles corded as he hefted them one by one to match the ancient pairings: Infinity, Darkness, Concealment, and Water. As the party slotted the heavy glyphs into their respective pedestals, the tomb responded with a grinding groan; water began to weep from the stones and rise from the pit, birthing a flurry of writhing snakes that turned the floor into a living, churning tide.

“As the stone gate groaned upward… water began to weep from the stones and rise from the pit, birthing a flurry of writhing snakes.” -DM

“Be careful Court! Breach of contract! Oh my god you’re going to get hurt for my breach of contract.” -W00t, Warforged Rogue (Panicking while Cort wrestles the crocodile)

With the water climbing past their shins, the room transformed into a treacherous pool of murky peril. While the swarming reptiles were merely a nuisance, a darker, hulking shape detached itself from the shadows beneath the surface. A massive crocodile, having laid in wait like a drifting log, lunged with terrifying speed. Its jaws clamped not onto flesh, but onto the haft of Cort’s warhammer, initiating a desperate grapple between the Goliath’s strength and the reptile’s death roll. The quiet contemplation of the puzzle shattered instantly into a chaotic melee as the beast thrashed in the rising flood.

“He’s pretending like he’s a log floating into the water concealed below the surface.” -DM (Describing the crocodile lying in wait).

“I’ll do like the old uh little pig wrangling and uh hold the crocodile up. Say ‘All right boys.’” -Cort, Goliath Paladin (Grappling the crocodile to expose its belly to the party)

The party reacted with practiced lethality. Bang, the gnome artificer, unleashed a blast of freezing magic that slowed the beast’s heart, turning the water around it into slush and sapping its lethality. Sinbiscuit and the others struck with precision until Cort, reclaiming his leverage, smashed the life from the predator. With the guardian slain and its tail claimed as a grim trophy by the kobold, Cort waded through the serpent-infested waters to place the final disc. The great stone gate groaned upward, fully unsealed, allowing the primordial waters to surge forward and beckoning the adventurers into the vast, dark abyss of Lotan’s lair.

“Why do we split the party? … Be right back.” -Bang, Gnome Artificer (Realizing he needs to climb back up for a piton)

“I have two tails. That was like surprisingly uncomfortable.” -Sinbiscuit, Kobold Ranger (After cutting the tail off the dead crocodile)

Spawn of Lotan

The chamber yawned before them, vast and echoing, its floor submerged beneath dark, rippling water that reflected nothing but the void. At its center, a massive, jagged boulder plugged the throat of the abyss, straining against the pressure of the primordial waters seeping from below. From the obsidian depths, the Spawn of Lotan erupted—a titan of scales and malice, its eyes clouded white but its instincts honed for the kill. The serpent lunged with terrifying speed, its jaws clamping around Cort, the Goliath Paladin, dragging him toward the crushing dark as venom and teeth threatened to end his crusade.

“The chamber yawns before you, vast and echoing, its floor submerged beneath dark, rippling water that reflects the faint torchlight in fractured patterns across the walls.” -Dungeon Master

“An enormous serpent coils around the rock, scales glistening wetly… and every instinct screams that one misstep could plunge you into jaws and fangs alike.” -Dungeon Master

Chaos erupted in the flooded tomb as the party scrambled to save their companion. Simbiscuit, the kobold, struck with desperate ingenuity, firing a bolt wreathed in magical light that impaled the beast between its eyes, blinding it with sudden radiance,. Seizing the distraction, the warforged W00t leaped from the high rocks, driving his rapier into the serpent’s skull while screaming about contractual obligations. The beast thrashed, its attention captivated by the searing light of the bolt, dropping the Paladin as it sought to devour the brilliance rather than the flesh.

“My contractual obligation is very strong and can’t wait to get the pay out.” -W00t, Warforged Rogue

Cort, battered but unbroken, raised his warhammer, channeling the divine thunder of Balek into a single, earth-shattering blow against the central boulder. The stone cracked with a deafening report, unleashing the primordial waters that had been held captive for centuries. As the room began to flood with a roaring torrent, Cort cast his glowing holy symbol into the abyss below. The Spawn of Lotan, enslaved by its instinct to hunt the light, dove after the sinking artifact, plunging back into the eternal darkness of the deep earth.

“With a deafening CRACK, ancient stone splinters and gives way, unleashing a roaring torrent. Primordial waters, held captive for centuries, surge upward.” -Dungeon Master

Epilogue

The holy symbol of Balek sank into the abyss, a beacon of divine order dragging the chaotic Spawn of Lotan down with it, leaving the adventurers to flee the consequences of their victory, A deafening crack signaled the shattering of the foundation stone, unleashing a roar of primordial water that had been imprisoned for centuries. The party scrambled upward, lungs burning, as the torrent chased them through the tomb’s throat. Cort, the Goliath Paladin, refused to leave empty-handed; he hoisted the unkillable, one-armed zombie onto his shoulder—a grotesque trophy of their descent—and hauled it past the jammed steamroller and up the spiral stairs, racing the rising tide.

They burst into the Lotus Pool chamber, where the priestesses waited in confusion, their eyes widening at the sight of the dripping paladin and his undead burden. Even as the floor began to tremble with the pressure of the geyser beneath, W00t, the warforged, paused to settle a matter of bureaucracy. “There is a small matter that we need to dissolve… specifically a clause here for gnome throwing,” he stated flatly to a bewildered priestess, demanding extra gold while the very foundations of the temple gurgled and hissed like a boiling kettle. The water jets of the ancients sputtered to life, bubbling violently beneath them, signaling their final exodus up the rope and into the blinding sun.

“We found it two levels down. You want it?” -Cort, Goliath Paladin (Offering the unkillable zombie to the priestess)

“Gauntlets! The answer is gauntlets!” -Minx the Sphinx, NPC

They emerged onto the pyramid’s apex just as the world changed. Minx the Sphinx, oblivious to the near-drowning below, clapped her paws and shouted, “Gauntlets! The answer is gauntlets!”. But her riddle was drowned out by the miracle unfolding around them. Water erupted from the dry stone channels, rushing outward to quench the thirst of the parched earth, turning the dust of ages into mud and life. Below, Zara and the caravan watched in awe as the barren sands drank deep, and the camels rushed to the new river. The tomb had become a font, transforming the dead lands into a verdant oasis, marking the end of the desert’s chokehold and the beginning of a legend.

“You are so lost. I’m so glad to have found you.” -Zara, NPC (Upon reuniting with the party outside the pyramid)

“Water erupted from the dry stone channels, rushing outward to quench the thirst of the parched earth.” -Dungeon Master

“You see before you… thousands of years of dirt and dust… and the turning of this area now back to life.” -Dungeon Master