When we last left the party, they had continued their search for a route back to Pedestal from the wilds of the Underdark. Encountering a group of duergar, they had spared one of them in the hopes of coercing him into aiding them. The grey dwarf led them to a rather precarious looking rope bridge that, he claimed, would lead to passages that could eventually lead them back to the Underdark city. Verrak and the duergar crossed the bridge first with the duergar leaping off a short distance across which is where we pick up after the break.
This recap is from Craig. Jubi’s comments, again, are in [brackets and italics].
Verrak and the duergar begin to cross the rope bridge towards the other side. The duergar, still tied to Verrak, jumps from the rope bridge down to the water below. Verrak tries to both untie himself from the duergar and jump off the other end of the bridge, but can’t do it in time and falls in the water after him (the duergar dies when he hits the water and begins to sink). Unable to see into the water below, Rory and Dench tie to lengths of rope together, Adran casts light on a dagger and ties it to the end of the rope, giving them light at the surface of the water. Dench climbs down the rope, followed by Rory as Meri and Skarr hold onto the rope. When Dench reaches the water he turns into a shark and jumps in to look for Verrak. A winged creature flies at Rory while she descends the rope, attacking her. Another gargoyle swoops down and begins to attack Skarr still up on the cliff.
[Wow! Adran how did you stay airborne this whole time? Weren’t you already falling last week? Oh…do you have chicken wings too?!?…wiggle…wiggle…wiggle]
Meanwhile, Verrak swims down to the lifeless body of the duergar and unties himself. Dench reaches Verrak and motions back towards the rope. Rory is now in the water as well and the three of them begin to swim back to the rope to climb up. As they approach the rope Dench sees a giant octopus come out of a crevasse, heading straight towards Verrak and Rory. Dench tries to head off the Octopus but gets hit with a cloud of ink. The octopus grabs Rory knocking her out, but Dench–as a shark–bites one of the tentacles and he releases her. Verrak grabs Rory and tells Jubi to attack the Octopus, which Jubi does causing the Octopus to retreat into a crevasse, followed by a cloud of ink that shoots out.
[Come on Thomas…I did more than that! I finally got BBQ! The decor and ambience wasn’t really much to write home about but the food…oh the BBQ was so tasty and educational! I didn’t know that chickens had eight wings!]
Over on the edge of the cliff. The gargoyles keep attacking, trying to pull Meri, Skarr and Adran off of the cliff. While fighting the hit and run gargoyles, Meri loses her grip on her blade, Morgil, and it tumbles off the cliff and down into the water below. Verrak ties Rory to the rope and pulls, trying to signal to the others above to lift her up. They begin to lift her but one of the gargoyles chews through the rope and Rory falls back in. Verrak, Dench and Rory decide to circle around the back half of the island to find a safer place to climb back up. While Adran, Skarr, and Meri retreat back into the mushroom forest and hope for the others to return, not sure of what happened to them below. Dench (no longer a shark) and Verrak find a spot where the cliff is only about twenty feet above; Verrak climbs up and throws the rope down so Dench can climb up and they can pull up Rory.
[Burp! Don’t forget about me. Jubiball!!! Splash!]
It’s been an hour and Skarr, Adran and Meri continue to debate what to do next. Meri is convinced the others are dead and wants to press on. Ultimately they decide to hide under some large mushroom caps and continue to wait. Verrak, Dench and Rory make their way back through the forest of mushrooms when a purple tendril hits Verrak and begins to rot his skin. Dench also gets hit when they realize they are standing in a field of them. They retreat and ask Jubi to eat them but they do harm to Jubi. They continue walking through the forest, avoiding the purple mushrooms, they eventually realize they are lost but thankfully hit the road and take it back towards the rope bridge and eventually reunite with the others.
[Ow! Ow! Ow! I think I’m allergic to purple sushi!]
The group needs to take a long rest but decide to build a better makeshift shelter by harvesting mushroom caps (being sure to kill the large tick-like creatures in the gills). They rest and heal.
[Yum! Popcorn ticks! Does anyone have some cocktail sauce?]
After the rest, the group debates whether or not to go after Meri’s Questing Blade, somewhere in the water below. After much debating, they decide that the sword is a precious relic and they need to go back down and get it. Adran casts water breathing on the group and they descend back down into the water below. They swim thirteen-hundred feet below the surface before the finally hit the bottom. Skarr then casts locate object so he can sense where the sword is. It leads them to a cave opening. They go inside the cave to discover the floor is covered in bones. The cave tunnel splits off and the group heads left (following Skarr’s lead) but it circles back to the right path. They head down the right path until it splits again. The group goes down the left tunnel until it gets too small. Rory squeezes through to discover that tunnel dead ends.
[Hey guys! Where’d you go?!? Jeff is outside…don’t you want to go say hi!]
The group continues down the remaining path until it opens up into a large cavern with a number of natural columns. A group of skeletal fish-man type creatures appear and begin to attacking the group. A lightening bolt, cast from a large skeletal snake creature in the back, hits the whole group (except for Dench). Dench casts conjure animals and conjures eight constrictor snakes. Skarr and Adran go invisible to attack the creatures. Verrak fights with Bloodcrier’s Hammer. Rory takes out one of the creatures with a single blow with her totally not evil drow claw tattoo thing. Dench’s snakes make short work of the remaining fish creatures, and eventually all of the fish creatures are dead. But the snake creature is still alive, retreating further into the room, knocking out Verrak and Meri with more spells. Another spell, some sort of cone of cold, takes out six of Dench’s eight constrictors and knocking out Skarr and Rory. The two remaining constrictor snakes go after the skeletal snake creature, but both are killed. Adran and Dench help the others revive. Once they are healed up some, Adran casts invisibility on Rory who follows the tunnel in the direction the snake creature retreated towards. The group follows closely behind, turning a corner before Verrak and Adran fall down asleep. Rory and Meri follow the snake into a dead end tunnel, Rory does a sneak-attack critically injuring and killing the snake to reveal she was guarding a nice pile of treasures. The group then realizes that Jubi has gone missing.
[Um guys? Rory? Craig? Adran? Muse? Anyone…anyone…Bueller? Did one of you order BBQ?
daHeadRat back again…That’s where we ended things. The party didn’t even get a chance to see if Morgil was in the treasure hoard or not but Skarr’s spell certainly suggested that it would be.
Again…ahhhhh…the Underdark! Such fun! Pretty much all of this session (other than the gargoyles at the bridge) was completely off the cuff and made up on the spot. There’s just so much nasty stuff in the Underdark that it is pretty easy to do and with the party largely being lost anyways, I don’t have to worry too much about continuity with the maps. đŸ˜‰
Good thing that last fight was over in a few rounds. Although Dench’s summoned snakes have a swim speed–and I hate to burst Cragi’s bubble–but they can’t breathe underwater…I’m not sure anyone was thinking of that during the fight (myself included). Also some of the fun of the different environment of being underwater.
I wonder what the fish-men things were and that bone snake thing. Hmmm. What sort of creature(s) have a nice big pile of treasure deep in an Underdark lake (ocean?)? And where might they have gotten it?
A fight some thirteen hundred feet underwater…no pressure on the party there, right? Good thing we just ignore a lot of that physics stuff while playing D&D.
Beer Log: A pretty limited, but very good, lineup for this session…using, as always, our hit, miss, crit, and fumble rating scale.
- Ballast Point Mango Even Keel: A great session beer at just under 4% abv but still full of flavor and very tasty. In my mind, that’s ground for being a near crit.
- Proof Bourbon Barrel Aged Glass Emperor: Proof’s first barrel aged beer and one of the best. Just a near perfect balance of cocoa, vanilla, and a hint of bourbon. A definite crit!
- Proof Coffee Bourbon Barrel Aged Glass Emperor: The coffee masks some of what is so good in the non-coffee version. There was some definite disagreement at the table as to whether or not this was a good thing. Since it is my blog, I get to express my opinion…the regular version is better. This, however, is still a great beer…a really solid hit but not quite a crit.
hahaha…I love Jubi’s comments…and yikes and wow, and omg!! so much happened….aiiieeeee!