>>5400177>12Unfortunately, you find yourself stymied. At first, the process seems to be working, but as you follow the trheads of fate and fortune back to the source of the shoggoths, it is not only stone and earth which shift and warp. Rather, the nature of space and time THEMSELVES seem to become fluid and malleable, like the slimes which you and your forces must hold at bay with sword, spell, and torch.
A worst-case scenario occurs many hours into your ill-fated hunt when, while pursuing a retreating remnant of sentient sludge in an effort to track it back to its origin, you find yourself separated from your companions. Normally, this would be no real issue—if you were to lose the shoggoth-spawn, you could easily trace your way back. Unfortunately, it is while you are in the midst of this dogged chase that you feel something… Shift.
Perception enters a state of flux. Without ever seeing or feeling it happen, you can tell the stone has moved, shifted—that the WORLD has altered in some imperceptible way, beneath your feet and above your head, behind you and in front of you, so hat these terms hardly seem to hold meaning. Dizziness overwhelms you, breaking your concentration and shattering your already-disrupted <Guidance> spell. You plant your feet and brace against the wall while you wait for your shocked senses to return to some semblance of normalcy.
Even when it returns, your senses feel... off. Colour is always strange in your darkvision, muted and imprecise, but the oily sheen which coats every surface and fills your vision is... Wrong. You can give no name to it, not even a description. it reminds you of the appearance of magic in your sixth-sense, of the sight of invisibility-cloaked bugbears, and yet... It differs. It fills you with a subtle disgust and horror, like a foul and fetid odour which fills not nose but mind.
“Dragonborn!”
“Master!”
“Superior One!”
“That damned, fatheaded fool!”
Your friends and allies call out for you to one side. To the other side, you see the blackish, brackish slime-thing crawling through a chasm in the stone. You sense that you are nearing the source of this madness, the shoggoth-core… But just as surely, you sense that the disturbances will only grow worse, approaching madness, if you delve deeper. There is no amount of <Guidance> that can make sense of this strange, afflicted region of reality.
What do you do?
>Chase the shoggoth, and face the heart of this unearthly darkness… Alone>Return to the relative safety of your group, though it likely means never destroying the shoggoth or seizing glory and treasure at the heart of its domain>Stay put, assume <Dragonshape>, and roar a challenge [summons one ally of your choosing, and bring the shoggoth to you]>Use the <DIVINE FAVOUR> to guide you, expending it forever in exchange to immunity to the shoggoth-madness and the freezing of its reality-distorting abilities>Write-in 