Apparently the Ponies were too much for the Mountain Ogres that set up shop in the ranger fort.  They split.   From the deserted fort, the Ponies exited a wide open gate into the rain.  Spell-less, battleworn, and ready for a full stocked tavern, they began a trudge through torrential rain back to town.  The sky was weird–all brown and red–but the rain felt good.

Halfway to town, the party came upon an engorged and churning river.  The rain continued pounding.  Firfus spied a commotion atop the beached ferry at Turtle village across the water and used his last magic to fly across.  Apparently, a young human lady and some children were stranded in the flood waters.  Kali–seeing a giant snake slithered up from the water to attack Firfus–immediately raged and swam champion style to the other side and left a wake in his fury.  The rest of the party ended up three-stooges style in an akimbo pile on the muddy banks.  Goblin sandwich.  Just as the giant boa bit at Firfus and began its deadly coil Kali burst from the water all Hulk/Wolverine-like and grabbed the snake from behind its head, grabbed the head with his free hand, and ripped it off.  Gift for for Firfus.

Just as the rest of the party managed to swim across, all sputtering and waterlogged, a giant black shape swished past and submerged in the currents of the swelling river.  As the last Pony hoisted himself up onto the beached ferry, a gargantuan shape blasted from the raging currents.  Head of a plesiosaurus.  Mammoth trunk with gargantuan tentacles each tipped with a sucker-mouth eye apparatus.  The writhing bulk positioned itself next to the church of the flooding village.

At first blush, the majority of the party was all: “Discretion is the better part of valor,” so screw this!  Only the elf was stupid enough to charge.  Then Kali noticed a tree trunk skewering the beasts trunk, likely from the raging currents.  Kali had never seen anything like this in the arena.  A beast of this magnitude would barely fit therein.  Firfus recognized the monster as Magga, something not of this plane, a herald of Lamashthu.  Without time to debate, and in likely the Ponies last moments, Kali scooped up the halfling to his shoulders, chugged a hearty chug of whiskey and charged the nearest tentacle.  In his rage, Kali’s hide hardened as black obsidian beast claws split from his knuckles.  With a hail of improvised obscenities and a whirlwind of slashing claws, the first tentacle had been relieved of its toothy eye maw.  Firfus, from Kali’s shoulders, aimed his wand at the tentacled monstrosity and fired away.  The rest of the party followed to attack.  Magga crashed another tentacle into the church, plucking out a tentacle-full of huddled townsfolk and ate them.  There was no time to lose, and Kali thought this was the end anyway.  Die with your boots on.  Clicking the heels of his dare devil boots, he leapt upon the swaying tentacle and scrambled up its full length to the belly of the beast, jumping down upon the tree trunk skewer.  The roar that followed reassured Kali that he hit the monster where it hurt.  With Firfus still on his shoulders, Kali went berserk with his morning  star gashing and gouging, smashing and bludgeoning, fashioning a masterwork of spraying ichor and flying gore.   All the while, Firfus–astride Kali’s shoulders–firing magic missiles from his wand and fiery pepper breath.  The monster, bellowing in pain breathed in deep and sprayed a cloud of black and noxious gas, confusing some of the Ponies below who did fight with the writing tentacles below.  One such oversized tentacle whipped high and down crashing toward Kali and Firfus.  The earth-shaking impact knocked Kali’s morning star from his clawed grip, and Kali cleaved to the great mountain’s bulk with all his might to keep him and Firfus in position.  Unfortunately for Magga, the tentacle’s momentum crashed too into the tree trunk skewer sending shockwaves of pain and blasting gushes of ichor from the monster’s core.  Kali hung on and continued to dig deep into the extra-planar meat with his outstretched claws, leaping down occasionally with his half-orc weight on the tree trunk skewer.  The Ponies continued to attack from below, a massive tentacle sending them sprawling.  The melee continued desparately until Magga began to phase out of this reality.  The Ponies had sent her back to hell.  Kali leaped down from the church’s roof, collected his morning star, and took a long draft of whiskey.  Die another day.