The last session took a rather interesting turn for the party. Their guide, Buppido the Derro, apparently turned upon them just outside of an illithid’s (i.e., mind flyer) lair and, presumably, its thralls. They prevailed and camped for a bit within. Now, however, they’ve lost their guide, are off the main route shown on their map, and more or less lost. With no other choice, they planned on pressing on after their rest. We pick up with that below the break after they’ve traveled for a bit, generally sticking to staying to the right when presented with a choice of passages.
This recap is from Dave. RJ was missing and so Thomas played Adran. My comments, as usual, are in [brackets and italics].
We heard a noise in the tunnel that turned out to be acid dripping from the ceiling. [The clinking noise was the acid striking a thin quartz fan or similar. Verrak was nice enough to test the liquid with his hand to learn that it was acid.] Further down the path we came to an egg chamber that we assumed belong to purple worms. Leaving the eggs undisturbed we quickly passed through the worms tunnels and continued on our way. [A short distance away was cylindrical tunnel, presumably made by momma purple worm.]
After traveling for the rest of the day we decided to take a long rest in the open tunnels. The next day we came upon a vertical tunnel (probably left by purple worms). Across the gap there were 6 possible paths to continue forward. We decided to go to our immediate right, hoping it would lead us closer to the main passage on our map.
About half a day later we came upon a larger cavern that was illuminated by glowing tubular fungi. The cavern was a glen of sorts, full of all kinds of weird fungus and a bubbling [mud] spring. We covered our mouths and proceed with caution. Hugging the walls, we made it about 60 feet when we were ambushed by a drider and some large spiders. The spiders went down easy but two mud creature joined in the fight [coming from the bubbling spring] and engulfed Verrak and Meri. After an intense battle all enemies were ended with no casualties to the party.
Deciding to stay in the “glen” and take a long rest, we chopped down some zurkhwood [as well as gathering up edible mushrooms with the guidance of Topsy and Turvy]. Tiny spiders kept attacking Verrak while he worked. It was also noted that Dench, when in spider form, was momentarily overcome with the impulse to eat Verrak. The possibility of Lolth having cursed Verrak for robbing her idol was discussed.
[Stool was quite content with the “glen” and seemed to think it was safe. He was encouraged to stay here if he wanted and he tried to get Rory to stay as well. When they all left, he reluctant traveled with them…he seems to have imprinted pretty strongly on Rory.]
Near the bubbling spring we found a petrified Dwarf [probably a duergar]wearing some magical chainmail. When attempting to remove the armor from the corpse three phase spiders appeared from thin air. They focused their aggression on Verrak. We killed them and got the armor.
[Funny thing is, I’ve been using some old school wandering monster lists (let’s just say I’ve been reading Descent Into the Depths of the Earth) and I actually rolled up Phase Spiders for this one. It worked out quite nicely given that spiders seem to be focusing their aggression towards Verrak.
Verrak also put on this new armor to replace his ooze/jelly/slime damaged armor, correct?]
We finished the long rest in the glen and continued onward. Sometime later we hit a 60 foot gorge. Dench attempted to scout ahead as a spider. While on the ceiling he heard a buzzing coming up from below. Dench moved back to our ledge and we begin to fight two human sized mosquito creatures as they flew around. We killed one and managed to faerie fire the other. Dench then webbed it in mid air. It fell into the depths for several seconds [and a couple of hundred feet I believe] until something swooped up and devoured it. The mysterious thing continued to ascend towards us…
[And that, of course, is where we ended the session.
We chatted briefly after the session. I’ve essentially done a hex map of this particular portion of the Underdark, highlighting interesting bits or settlements or the like. Some of these might provide a way back to Pedestal. But there is, of course, no guarantee that the party will come across one of these as they travel. We’re going to give it a few more sessions but if the grind of wandering lost gets to be too much at that point, I’ll rearrange some of the locations so they get back to Pedestal. We’ll just have to see how it goes.
Beer log returns after next session.]
