In our last session, the party escaped what looked to be a complex dedicated to the demon lord Jubilex but not empty-handed. Not only did they find some treasure, they also found a new friend, Jubi Junior. They escaped by descending even deeper down some water-filled tunnels and came upon a rather large cavern with a rather large island in the middle of the lake that filled the cavern.
This recap is from RJ. Bridgett made a guest appearance and took on the role of Skarr. Jubi’s comments, again, are in [brackets and italics].
There are definite spoilers below for the module, The Sinister Spire. Um, yeah, no…maybe they’ll get back to Pedestal and that module again some day.
We discover that there is an island in this huge cavern. There are short cliffs on the shore about five feet high. We look around for a better place to climb but it looks like the cliffs are all that high around the island, if not higher. We start to climb up but Skarr falls on top of Adran and they both fall back into the water. Eventually they climb up and onto the island. [Hey Thomas! You’re turn to do the journal. So does this mean no beach party? I brought sushi!]
The island is covered in mushrooms, varying sizes from small capped ones to huge ones some forty feet high and as wide as a dwarf’s belly. Jubi’s voice comes to our heads, “Where did you all go?” Adran tells him we climbed up the stone with our hands and feet. Jubi then is up on the island looks around and then turns back to the water jumps up and yell’s “Jubiball!!!“ and into the water he goes. Adran is shaking his head and the rest of us continue to look around. Hey! HEY!!! Where’d everyone go? Oh, hi, there you are! Phew, I thought you got lost there, Craig. Hey check out the stems on these sexy mushrooms. Hey baby, you gotta nice cap.]
Eventually, we decide to move in to the interior of the island. The mushrooms are like a thick forest and we have to hack our way thru. There is no path that we can use and we continue like this for about 45 minutes. Around that time we do come across a path that is going perpendicular to the way we are heading. We decided to head to the right and start on the path hoping it leads us to civilization and a way back to Pedestal. Pedestal bound baby! I bet they’ve got some sushi places. Hey Rachel, what’s a Pedestal?]
As we are walking along, something strikes out and grabs Meri. She is pulled back into the forest of mushrooms. We charge headlong after her and see her starting to get chewed on by a rock like monster with six tentacles for arms and a huge maw. We rush in to save her and then she vanishes and appears behind us. One of the tentacles grabs Adran and he is chomped on. We attack the creature, but can’t seem to do a lot of damage to it. Dench casts a spell and four brown bears appear and attack the creature as well. Verrak calls on the power of his hammer and it emits a screeching sound and the rock creature appears to be afraid of him. [Six arms?!? I can do that too…wiggle…wiggle…wiggle…wiggle…wiggle…wiggle…]
Jubi is excited about the bears and eating lunch but Dench hears him talking about eating one of his bears and tells him no. Dench then gets a better idea and offers Jubi a bear if he attacks the creature. Jubi agrees, jumps on the rock monster and then drags a bear away into the woods. The creature looks hurt and Verrak hits it with his hammer and it topples over. [Oh yeah, finally, sushi! Huh? A bear isn’t sushi. So what’s sushi? Fish? Blech, I don’t like fish! Sushi? Oh yeah, I love sushi! Where’d that other furry sushi wander off to?
We take a short rest, heal up what we can and then continue down the path. As we are going, Jubi is making a pass at one of the bears and tells Adran that he has found another. [Hi Jeff!] We continue along until we hear a chopping sound. We decided to send Rory to take a look. She leaves and about 10 minutes later she comes back letting us know that there are about seven Duergar ahead clearing some of the mushrooms out. They have a cart with lizards pulling it. Two duergar were standing guard. We decide to go talk to them and elicit their help on getting out of here. [Yeah, it didn’t work out with Jeff after all. So long, Jeff! Good luck getting over me. Oh Craig, why was Rory such a selfish jerk? I’m happy now, Thomas, without you. It’s over!]
Rory and Adran decide to hide in the forest to make sure that we have an element of surprise in case we need it. The rest walk into the clearing, with Dench talking in common saying that we are not here to hurt anybody and we just want to talk. The Duergar pull their weapons and start shouting at us. Verrak says “They are asking us to put our weapons down.” [I think they see us. Hey! How are you doing? We’re here to barbecue you.]
Verrak steps forward to continue the conversation, since he speaks undercommon. He explains we are not going to hurt them, and we just want to find our way back to Pedestal. The duergar continue to demand we put our weapons down. Two of them vanish. Jubi says “ I didn’t do it”. One of the duergar, yells out, “No, I am not giving you my digits.” This was followed by, “Who is Jeff?” And then, “Try it blob.” We look at Jubi and tell him to stop talking to them. [I was just trying to woo the ladies. Huh? Of course they were ladies, they didn’t have boobies.]
The discussion continues and two more of the duergar disappear. Verrak tells them all we want is a way out. The duergar respond, how many of you are there? We tell them 6 and he looks around in the woods. And then he says, “Dozens?” Followed by, “Who is Roger?” The duergar then offers to take three of us for 100gp. Verrak explains that we don’t have that and the rest disappear. Adran decides it’s time to pull out the big gun and throws a fireball where he suspects some of them are. Three of them appear, burned to a crisp. The four that are left appear and attack, we rush to meet them and take them out. We did take one alive to talk to.
We decide to take a rest while the last Duergar we knocked out wakes up. Jubi decides to eat the other Duergar bodies. When the duergar wakes up, we start to ask him some questions. The first thing he says is “I don’t know what barbecue is.” [Who doesn’t know BBQ? Raw fish, seaweed, rice…the stuff is great!]
Our duergar prisoner starts to give us information. They came here to collect Zurkhwood, the large tree-like mushrooms that are used like timber in the Underdark. His boss, Ivar (now lying dead in the clearing), had made arrangements with Mistle, a human who controls a bridge that gives access to this island and has ogres for guards. Ivar had arrangements for selling the Zurkhwood to someone in Pedestal but didn’t know much else about Pedestal, stating that it was a horrible place. He could take them to the bridge but they’d have to work out a deal with Mistle but it wouldn’t be cheap. On the other hand, there was a free rope bridge that they could cross instead. In exchange for leading them to the bridge and then to Pedestal, the party offers to release the duergar afterwards. Reluctantly, the duergar agrees. [Do ogres taste like chicken? Can they be barbecued? Who’s got the beans?]
Leading the way through the mushroom forest, the duergar takes the party to the opposite shore of the island. A rather rickety rope-bridge, the kind with one rope to walk on and two as handrails, crosses a chasm. The party can’t see the other side but the duergar assures them that it leads to a tunnel that will give them access, eventually, to Pedestal. Verrak ties a rope to his belt and ties the other end around the duergar’s neck. He then sends the duergar across the bridge first and follows a short distance behind while the rest of us wait behind. A short distance out, the duergar shouts something at Verrak in Undercommon (an obscenity) and leaps off the bridge, growing larger as he leaps! [Don’t worry Skarr! I’ll save you! I can make arms…see…wiggle…and that’s what chickens use to fly, right?]
[daHeadRat back again…
So that’s where we ended the session for the night. Such Underdark fun…
Beer Log: Another session from a bit ago but I’ll still give some quick abbreviated notes on the beers we sampled this session, using, as always, our hit, miss, crit, and fumble rating scale.
- Rivertown Nice Melons: A berliner weisse with watermelon. I’m not a huge fan of watermelon beers but this was okay. Others at the table liked it more than I did so I’ll say a hit.
- Ballast Point Pineapple Sculpin: We still had some so we opened one to let Muse and Bridgett try it. Same hit as before.
- Terrapin Hop Selection: I was expecting more from an Imperial IPA but this was pretty mild. It wasn’t bad tasting so I can’t say a miss but not much of a hit either.
- Lost Abbey Saison Blanc: Nice…funky, earthy, and herby. A definite hit.
- Cigar City Hunahpu (2016): Not nearly as good as most of the prior year’s versions. Maybe we had it too cold or maybe it was a bad bottle but it just didn’t taste like the Hunahpu I’ve had in the past. I really don’t want to rate it until I’ve tried it again.
