Session 9; May 22, 2007
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After a 5 month hiatus, my school schedule lightened up and I had time to resume the campaign.
Session 9: "Into the Underdark”
9th of Ches; 1308 CE
Celceor The Wise (Elven Mage) Dave M.
Wryan O’Mallary (Human fighter) Kevin S.
Eggo of the Holy Brotherhood (Human Cleric) NPC
Werkle of Dinnsmere (Dwarf Fighter) NPC / Brook
Nick (Human Rogue) Dave P.
Kletus (Wood Elf Ranger) NPC
And introducing Skwortch; (Goblin retainer) NPC
Last session (5
months ago!) ended with Eggo of the Holy Brotherhood (NPC cleric) and Celceor
the Wise limping back to the surface, having taken a real pounding at the hands
of Kazmojen the slaver and his hobgoblin minions in the Malachite Hold beneath
the City of Cauldron. They had lost
Corniel the zany dwarf bard, Skylar the Duskblade and Mohag the Wanderer in the
fight, but had gained a little treasure and some valuable experience in the
process. They hadn’t managed to
rescue the children but saw them chained up in Kazmojen’s underground
slave market… we now return to our story in progress…
Celceor
and Eggo clamber up through the mines, stagger through the lock shop and run to
Jenya in the
You
stagger to the temple and Jenya and the acolytes rush forth with healing
spells, clean towels and glasses of brandy. You gasp out your tale and
she says, “We must rescue the children; call forth the rest of your
comrades… and I think I know a few people who would be willing to join
you, but first you must rest.”
Meanwhile a messenger knocks on a door in
another part of the city. The door is opened and the cloaked figure
enters a luxurious room. “The adventurers who work for Jenya Urikas
have found the slavers! They were in the Malachite hold! Kazmojen
has defeated them, but two escaped!”
A figure lounging on a velvet covered chair
listened to the message and tossed a purse of coins to the dust covered
messenger…
Ahem! Back to our program. Jenya introduces the group to Wryan O’Mallery; a strong woman with a spear who looks like she knows how to take care of herself. Nick saunters in, well rested, and states that Bane and Angrod are still MIA. A scraggly looking dwarf dressed in a cloak of squirrel pelts with a dwarf waraxe named Werkle of Dinnsmere and a wood elf named Kletus who bears a two handed sword are introduced to the group. Some treasure is cashed in, including a number of gems. Eggo and Celceor are healed and Celceor takes the time to pen a few level 1 scrolls while the rest buy a couple of healing potions from Skie’s treasury. Jenya announces that she thinks she has been able to break the Vanishing curse on the wand of secret door detection. Then everyone heads back to the Drunken Morokoth for some rest where they hear that a religion from the north, termed “The Church of the Allfather” has gained some popularity in the area. This god is very popular in the North; his followers follow a creed similar to St. Cuthbert but have the unfortunate tendency to claim their god is better than everyone elses.
The next morning they set out for Keygan’s Lock
Shop. They are dismayed to discover that
several tough looking and foul mouthed mercenaries are guarding the place. After questions are asked and insults
exchanged, with Wryan saying “Make a hole!” and the mercs looking
like they might want to make a hole in her, Cora Lathenmire of the Stormblades,
Cauldron’s most popular adventuring troupe, makes her appearance. Her lithe form and red hair leave the bashful
Nick tongue-tied but after an exchange with the party she reveals that after
hearing about their last misadventure, the Stormblades gathered some of their
‘consultants’ and moved into Jzadirune and the Malachite Hold,
determined to get to the bottom of things.
They found a few treasures that didn’t even cover their costs but
Kazmojen and a majority of his followers had flown the coop. They had killed a couple of hobgoblin
stragglers, a grell, another of the gnomish automatons and a skulk or two, but
Kazmojen had taken his slaves and escaped into the underdark. Cora claimed that the Stormblades had
captured a goblin who claimed to know where Kazmojen had taken the slaves and a
few wounded slaves who had been left behind confirmed this story. According to the goblin, Skwortch, a very wretched
and miserable creature, Kazmojen had taken the slaves to an underground town
that lay miles below in the underdark.
Since Skwortch probably realized his life was worth nothing without
something to bargain with, he offered to show them the way, claiming they would
never find it on their own. After a
muttered consultation, they agree.
Binding the goblinn’s hands, they descend into the gnome city of
Finally they arrive in the Malachite Hold. The mercenaries and the Stormblades are much in evidence here but the players are escorted to the doors to the underdark where the mercenary catain snorts and wishes them good luck. They cross a stone bridge over s reiver of dark water into a stalactite filled cave that leads to a natural passage that winds its way northeast with lots of branches and side passages. Skworth the goblin tells them where to go and they head north. Goblin grafitti is scrawled on the walls – most of it seems to be insulting or lewd in nature. Bats, rats, small spiders and albino cave lizards scamper around, evidently unused to the light.
After
an hour or so, they come to a nexus of passages that lead off into all directions. Skwortch states that ‘bad things’
live down most of them; when asked to specify he says something about
‘big nasty snails.’ He leads
them to a tunnel that winds on to a wide and tall gallery that slopes downwards
to the Northeast. The passage grows
wider and taller, growing to 30 to 60 feet wide and in places at least twice as
tall. The floor is uneven and there are
many stalactites and stalagmites in evidence.
After about a mile, suddenly everything is instantly so dark that even
Werkle the dwarf can’t see a thing with his infravision. Just before the lights go out, Celceor sees
something fluttering down towards them.
Werkle, Celceor and Nick all feel something flailing around at them in
the dark; both Werkle and Celceor feel leathery tentacles grasping around their
throats choking the life out of them and Nick feels something brushing up
against him, evidently attempting to grab ahold of him. Eggo cast a light spell and dispels ½ of the
magically created darkness and they see two octopus-like creatures – one
wrapped around Werkle’s neck and the other coiled around
Celceor’s. Kletus steps forward
and – snickersnack!- cuts the creature on Werkle in two while Celceor
fires off a scorching ray and manages to fry the beast attacking him before he
loses consciousness. Nick and Skortch
are still lost inside a patch of magical darkness; Wrayan steps in and stabs
with her spear and manages to kill the critter, dispelling the darkness. Nick is revealed, sword in hand and Skwortch
is found cowering on the ground.
“I soiled myself,” the goblin ruefully announces. The groups respect for the goblin, which
couldn’t have gone any lower, somehow manages to drop another notch. Celceor takes the opportunity to gather some
of the dark looking ink leaking from the strange creature’s bodies.
After another couple hours of careful travel down this tall gallery, watching carefully for more of the bizarre flying octopi, the group hears shrieks and moans from within the darkness ahead. Someone hears a voice shrieking the word, “hungry” in goblin repeatedly; Skwortch turns a paler shade of green and says that these are probably the ghouls that wander the tunnels. Trembling, their little goblin guide announces that the ghouls often demand tribute, in the form of a living victim, from travelers along the tunnels here. Skwortch is careful to point out that the ghouls apparently don’t care for the taste of goblin.
Before too long, the party comes upon a welcoming committee
of about eight ghouls in the tunnel.
“Fleshhhh,” they hiss out.
“We wants it. Give us just 
one
and the rest can go…”
“Come on and get it,” announces Wryan, setting her spear. The ghouls charge but the heroes are ready for them. Wryan lets one ghoul pierce itself on her spear and then turns the spear to ghash open another one as it races up while Werkle kills another with his axe, Nick plugs a third with a slingstone, Skwortch whimpers in fear and Kletus cuts a third in half with his sword. Celceor summons a celestial dog but before the dog can rip into any ghouls, Eggo raises his holy symbol and calls upon Pelor. Shrieking with rage, the ghouls flee down the hall as the players heal up their wounds with Egoo’s help.
Accompanied by a trembling Skwortch, they proceeded forward. After about half of an hour, they encountered more than a dozen ghouls intent upon collecting the toll. “Give ussss jusssst one,” the leader hissed, “an we letsss you passss…” Again the players elected not to deal with ghouls and attacked. Celceor summoned another Celestial dog; Nick began slinging stones, Skwortch cowered and shrieked in fear and Werkle, Wryan and Kletus began to carve a path through the ghoul ranks. Werkle got paralyzed and the ghouls surrounding him began ripping into him, soon dropping him into negatives. Kletus suffered a similar fate --- with flanking bonuses the ghouls soon had him into negatives and began featsting on his flesh. Eggo failed at his first turn attempt and the ghouls pressed their attack forward. Celceor countered with a Melf’s acid arrow, Nick split a ghoul open with his rapier and Kletus got ripped apart before Eggo finally managed to turn them on his second attempt.
Werkle was within one round of dying when Celceor managed to stabilize him and Eggo managed to bring him back to consciousness with healing, but it was too late for Kletus. The poor elf was obviously dead, so they gathered up his corpse and pressed on.
An hour or so later, they passed a stinking side entrance flanked
by crumbling pillars that a trembling Skwortch said led to the ‘home of
the ghouls.’ They could hear
shrieks and howls down the tunnel and decided to hurry ahead. Another hour brought them to the entrance to
a large cavern. The road led down a wide
ramp into a massive cavern. The players
could smell the sea and hear waves lapping at the shore, giving the impression
of looking out upon a 
night
scene at the shore.. The dome of the
massive cavern ceiling overhead was lit by hundreds of red stars, many of which
seemed to be moving. In the distance,
about 100 feet from their current position, they could see what looked like a
town surrounded by a stone wall.
Luminescent fungus could be seen on the walls of the cave and on the
fungus that surrounded the town walls.
Numerous of the red lantern beetles could be seen crawling amongst the
giant mushrooms and small figures could be seen milling around the town
gates. Figures could be dimly seen
patrolling the walls with weapons and the occasional sound of shouts and the
smell of numerous fires seemed to be coming from the town. Near what might have been the shore one could
see a tower with a bright beacon and numerous masts could dimly be seen poking
up; there was apparently a harbor of some kind in the town. By their estimate, the cavern roof was hundreds of feet overhead and perhaps
miles across --- big enough to accommodate a small sea and a town as well as
several acres of mushroom forest in any case.
They began to discuss their options. Skwortch, feeling a sudden change immanent in his fortunes, pointed out that only he knew the password to the gates. He promised to be a good and loyal servant to Nick, whom he had apparently adopted as his master, and claimed to love and honor and obey in a manner that was both pitiful and repellant as well as ridiculous. Either he was a masterful deceiver or a simple minded fool that meant what he said --- all attempts to puzzle out his true motivation, beyond self preservation, seemed to indicate that the goblin was telling the truth. They told Skwortch they could send him back to the ghouls and the pitiful creature shrieked in fear and asked to go with them to the city; he said he could help them find their way and if they were going to send him back to the ghouls they could just kill him now and be done with it. Feeling like Frodo saddled with Gollum, they finally relented and told the goblin they would take him along, but at the first sign of betrayal he would pay with his life.
We ended the session at this point.
Slain/defeated by the PCs:
3 weird flying octopi that looked like stalactites
8 ghouls (8 defeated in combat; 12 more driven away from turn undead)
Treasure: None to speak of other than cashing in previous sessions loot.
|
Character / Player: |
Race / Class & Level: |
XP at start: |
XP for session: |
XP total: |
Notes: |
|
Bane; Mike D. |
(half-elf / Thief 1) |
1450 |
|
|
not present |
|
Celceor The Wise; Dave M. |
(Elf / Mage 3) |
4057 |
742 |
4799 |
|
|
Nick; Dave P. |
(Human / Rogue 2) |
2828 |
727 |
3555 |
THIRD LEVEL! |
|
Wryan O’Malley; Kevin S. |
(Human / Ftr 2) |
1000 |
807 |
1807 |
+ 50 for backstory |
|
Werkle of Dinnsmere; NPC/Brook. |
(Dwarf / Fighter 3) |
3000 |
742 |
3742 |
|
|
Kletus / NPC |
(Wood Elf / Ranger 1) |
0 |
na |
0 |
Dead |
|
Eggo of the Holy Brotherhood / NPC |
(Human / Cleric 2) |
1715 |
326 |
2041 |
|
|
Skwortch / NPC |
(Goblin / Commoner) |
0 |
50 |
50 |
This is a joke, right? |
.