Dwimmer Deep

Session 18

January 30, 2014
Present: John, Jason, Noah

The battle continued against the mass of Lizardfolk, their spellcasters and leaders.

Things were looking pretty grim there for a while. The four warrior lizardfolk moved in and chewed into the front ranks, both literally and figuratively (biting and clawing their way through). Milo's sphere of flame hit them repeatedly, and eventually helped take them down along with some well placed blows from Bear, Luther and Hollin. But not before everyone took damage in the process.

Meanwhile, the two enemy spellcasters started to zap the party with inflict wounds, severely wounding several party members.

Fortunately, Father Rivers came to the rescue, casting "Prayer of Healing" and healing up the entire party.

Refreshed, everyone began to retreat south, away from the narrow entry of the doorway and towards the hallway.

Bear was the first to make it into the hallway, and on his way to trying to flank the enemy through another door, he was surprised to find the Lizardfolk leader was already there, apparently intent on doing the same thing to the party!

Bear took some truly nasty gashes at that point, and perhaps has a scar to show for it. The Lizardfolk leader spiked him with his trident as another spellcaster zaped him with necrotic energy. After a few heated exchanges like this, Bear fell once again.

Back to the north, the warrior Lizardfolk fell, along with a witch doctor with them, most of whom were damaged by a thunderwave from Milo combined with assaults from the others. This left another Lizardfolk corporeal, along with a spellcaster in the main room.

Father Rivers ran to Bear's side and healed him, while Hollin took Bears place and went toe to toe with the Lizardfolk leader. With Slink sending arrows down the hallway at the Leader, the battle finally started to turn to favor the party. But just as things were turning their way, the spellcasters from the foes ranks struck again, doing yet more necrotic damage, and almost felling Bear once more while Hollin took some blows. Father Rivers cast "Prayer of Healing" yet again, restoring people to a healthier state.

That did it. With their newfound health, the combined blows of everyone brought down first the Lizardfolk corporeal, then a spellcaster, and finally the Leader followed by the finally spellcaster. The battle was won, but at the cost of a great deal of spellpower and strength on the party's behalf.

Searching the bodies, the group found each had a pouch, as follows:

The pouch contains 12 Copper Pieces, 7 gold pieces, no gems or art, and no magic items.

The pouch contains 14 Silver Pieces, no rare coins, no gems or art, and no magic items.

The pouch contains 20 Copper Pieces, no rare coins, no gems or art, and no magic items.

The pouch contains 21 Copper Pieces, 9 gold pieces, no gems or art, and no magic items.

The pouch contains 13 Copper Pieces, no rare coins, no gems or art, and no magic items.

The pouch contains 5 Silver Pieces, no rare coins, no gems or art, and no magic items.

The pouch contains no common coins, no rare coins, no gems or art, and no magic items.

The pouch contains 17 silver pieces and no rare coins and no gems or art and 2 potions.

The pouch contains 7 silver pieces and no rare coins and no gems or art and no magic items.

The pouch contains 15 silver pieces and no rare coins and 2 ornamental gems worth 15 each and 1 potion.

They also retrieved a set of Banded Mail from one spellcaster, which Hollin put on as he gave his Splint mail to Luther to wear.

All that remained to be searched was one large chest, and one smaller one that appears to contain clothing.

[Everyone said they are likely available for next session]

Session 19

February 06, 2014
Delvers: Noah, Jason, John, and eventually Max

The nasty battle with the lizardfolk ended, and the chests were looted. Besides some clothing and rudimentary items in one chest, the other chest contained a nice bit of treasure (see below).

Moving on, the party decided to return to their hidey-hole to rest and recover from their injuries and fatigue. On the way back, Bear noticed something wrong near the secret door that leads to the stairs up to the hidey-hole. He wasn't sure if something had entered the secret door or not, but he did not something had been moved near it. There were no other traces of anything, and a quick search of the neighboring rooms did not turn up anything else unusual.

The rest in the hidey-hole was uneventful, and the party returned to the orc lair to decide where to go next.

The party was faced with a choice of four doors: A northern door near the lizardfolk lair, a north-western door also near the lizardfolk lair, a south-west door that leads away from the orc lair over a crevasse, and a southern door near the orc lair.

The southern door was explored first. Slink found it to be locked, and barred from the party's side of the door. It was a thick iron door, did not appear to be similar to the normal interior doors found elsewhere in the orc or lizardfolk lairs, and nothing could be heard on the other side.

Bear thought about whether or not the door might lead to the outside of the mountain, he decided based on his keen directional sense that no, they were deep inside the mountain now and nowhere near an exit. Whatever was on the other side of that dark iron door was not escape from the Dwimmer Deep.

Deciding that perhaps that was not another section of the orc lair and was instead some other area, the party then left for the northern door. They were surprised to learn that this door was rather similar to the orc door they had just left, similarly barred from their side, similarly iron and quiet.

Deciding they really wanted to finish clearing out the orcs and lizardfolk, the party turned now to the door that leads to the crevasse and bridge.

Bear led the way, and on entering they party found a larger room with a deep crevasse leading down into deep darkness below, along with a stone bridge across it. In addition, in the south-western corner of the room was a semi-circle of pitch blackness - a blackness so deep that even the darkvision of the bugbears could not penetrate it.

As they moved closer to the bridge a door could be heard to open and close, and the darkness temporarily vanished.

Assuming the worst, the party charged into the room intent on pursuit of whatever had that darkness. Father Rivers cast Bless as the party charged forward.

Unfortunately, Bear charged ahead a bit heedlessly across the bridge, triggering a trap near the center of it. A section of the bridge fell away, on hinges, and Bear barely escaped falling down into the darkness, balancing with one leg on each side of the hole as he screeched to a stop! Thank goodness for the bless, and the favor of Rivers' deity.

The darkness returned with the sound of a door opening again, and the darkness moved closer to Bear's position. The party realized they had awoken more than one angry being on the other side of that bridge within the deep darkness. Bear took a small crossbow bolt in the shoulder, and almost succumbed to a powerful sleep-inducing poison. Realizing that, had he fallen asleep, he would have fallen through the hole and likely to his doom, he again sent up a quick prayer to Father Rivers' deity who had aided him with his blessings.

Speaking of Father Rivers, something in the darkness could be heard to cast a spell, suddenly Rivers began to glow with a sickly, bright violet light. He felt no harm from the glow, but he knew it made him a rather obvious target now.

Undaunted, Milo returned fire, launching a spell into the center of the darkness as others took up defensive positions and encouraged Bear to retreat.

Bear then launched a ranged attack at the center of the darkness, combined with the chanting of a hail of thorns spell! Something cried out from the darkness, and he knew he had struck home. However, as he retreated off the bridge, he heard an ominous clicking sound!

More darkness spread across the party, blocking all vision in the room and snuffing their light spells.

Deciding that their tactical position was no longer tenable, the party retreated out of the room and slammed the door shut behind them.

"Well, that didn't go as we'd hoped!" said Milo. "Maybe we can wait out that Darkness spell?" asked Father Rivers.

This caused Milo to consider the arcane quandary of the matter. When the darkness spells had happened, he had heard no familiar ring of arcane magic being cast. And, now that he thought on it, there was something odd about that darkness spell. Wasn't it a touch spell? And...how did creatures within the darkness see them well enough to target them with attacks? Something was odd here. Something odd indeed.

The party retreated further into the orc lair to consider their next move carefully.

Session 20

February 20, 2014
Present: Max John Jason Noah

Backing off from the drow territory, the party decided to explore the north-western door, blocked by a portcullis.

Bear and Hollin decided to lift the gate together, the plan being that Hollin would hold the portcullis up while Bear pulled the door back to block the heavy gate once it was lifted so that it would not fall again.

The plan worked, but alas as the portcullis was lifted the clicking of a counter-weight could be heard, and guards were alerted to the presence of the party. Suddenly from around the corner of the door appeared two dark dwarves, the Duergar!

The two dwarves started to grow in size as they attacked, swiping at Hollin as he stood between the gate and the flagstone floor, war picks slamming into his heavy armor.

Fortunately for Hollin, the armor held well, and the two dwarves were overwhelmed quickly by the glaive attack of Luther and magic attack of Milo, as Bear and Hollin were able to finally move into attack position after lifting the portcullis onto the door edge.

Grabbing a couple pouches of coin off the two dead dwarves (copper in one, some silver and a bit of gold in the other), the part moved into the complex.

The passageway headed north into the distance, and also split to head east through a door. Deciding it was best to protect their read and make sure everything was cleared as they went, the group opted to try the door first. Bear opened it and found it led down a short hallway to another locked door, with some hissing sounds behind it. That door was easily opened by Slink, you truly made the door his bitch as he crit'ed his thieves tools check ("unlock that lock? I invented that lock!"). Bear moved back into position and opened the door.

Inside was an armory, and a giant lizard guarding it.

The lizard quickly climbed onto the walls and then ceiling, but it was no match for the party as Luther stabbed it with his glaive and Bear smacked it hard as well. It went limp and fell from the ceiling onto Hollin.

The room was well equipped with arms and ammunition. After lengthy discussion about what to do with the loot, it was decided the lock would be jammed by Slink and decisions would be made later about how to dispose of the armory.

Moving further down the hallway to the north two stone double doors were discovered, as the hallway continued north to a room with a statue. The double doors were tried first, and behind them was a well decorated hallway with the depiction of dwarves (not Duergar) fighting. Something odd was up with this complex - as if the Duergar did not belong here. The room had another set of stone double doors to the east, which the party opened.

In the next room was a long table with high backed chairs, and more friezes of dwarves, along with more fireplaces, and a door to the south.

Bear moved in to listen at the door, while Father Rivers moved to the north-west corner. There, he found a strange brass nozzle/hole, and above it a darkened small window, neither of which Bear had spotted when he first entered. Curious, Father Rivers peered at the nozzle and then window, and started to back off.

Too late! Fire shot from the nozzle and doused Father Rivers and a couple of the rest of the party!

Putting themselves out quickly, the party bashed in the door to the south.

There, they found two Duergar priests, and two more warriors.

Bear, Hollin and Luther attacked and retreated, but Father Rivers decided it was time to enter the room. Unfortunately for him, he was quickly surrounded, as one priest cast Inflict Wounds on him, and the other tried to cast Hold Person on him. Only his keen skills prevented disaster at this point, as he was able to shrug off the Hold Person.

The rest of the party moved in to his rescue, and the Duerger warriors and priests fell fairly quickly.

In the room, the group found some maps and plans to renovate the area. The maps showed plans to remove a statue nearby (briefly seen to the north in the hallway the party entered from), and also a pressure-plate portcullis trap further in the complex. Some treasure was found in the room as well, including a silver plate and some gems.

Meanwhile, Bear started to search the room with the long table, and unfortunately for him he discovered yet another brass nozzle, which spewed a stream of fire at him.

Patting his clothing down, after searching a bit more and finding nothing the group left to head north again.

To the north was a room with a Dwarven demi-god hero, which Slink and Father Rivers recognized. They sensed, on examination, that a presence was with the statue, though not a negative force. They felt a token of defeated Duerger, a symbol of them, should be brought as tribute to the hero statute. Luther quickly ran and grabbed a banner from the small room that the priests had fallen in, and placed it at the feet of the statue. The eyes of the statue glowed, a voice cried out in a dwarven battle cry, and the banner caught fire in twin flames. Suddenly the party felt the aid of a demi-god! (Aid spell, plus Bless in their next battle)!

Quickly searching a looted storeroom nearby, the group headed north further, stepping over the portcullis trap they were made aware of from the maps found earlier, and opening a door to the east.

Finding there a barracks, with three Duergar in it, they attacked. Two fell quickly, as the third backed away towards a fourth down the hall, and some of the party pursued.

Alas for Luther, he chased to far, and found himself surrounded by TEN Duergar, including a plate-armored leader of the group! He took many blows but was still standing, as the battle raged on.

[top of initiative next session - everyone thinks they will be available for it]

Session 21

Feb 27, 2014
Present: Max, Noah, John, Jason

Quick summary (due to flood preparation)

Fought the mass of Dueger, through multiple rooms as they did a strategic withdrawal, then rested, then followed mining tracks to a storage room, an arcane circle room, and a room with a big pit.

During the fight Luther and Hollin were variously injured but nobody went down.

Everyone is level 4.

[For those curious, further details of this battle was discussed in the general D&D forum in threads expressing my concern for the move-attack-move rule, which seems to be the new norm for combat, and how that impacts the game in some ways which can result in a horde of creatures all getting an attack on a PC by dancing in and out after drawing just a single attack of opportunity]

Session 22

March 6, 2014
Present: Noah, Jason, Max, and John (late)

From last session...

The party past through a strange magical circle trap. Milo adeptly disarmed both ends of it, one above the entryway, another above the exit.

Beyond the magic circle was another room with a deep, deep, DEEP pit. Many tracks littered the room, perhaps coming out of the hold, perhaps going into it, it was unclear.

The party moved on to the south, found a caved-in area of the complex, and then moved to the west to explore a corridor that has three doors, south, west, and north. The southern and western doors were silent to Slink's perceptions, but the one to the north definitely had the sound of some movement.

The party burst in, surprising two Duerger guards who were, apparently, not much on the lookout.

Both went down pretty quick, but another door down the corridor to the west opened, with a well-armored foe on the other side. The room he stood in had many Duerger with him.

The party moved to attack, and found more foes were waiting for them beside the door.

A pitched battle ensued, with the party squeezing into the room and taking attacks as they went.

At one point, one of the wounded Duerger overseers turned invisible.

Milo cast Sleep, dropping two of the warriors in the room.

Then, a devil-like half-Duerger sorcerer of some sort came into the room from a further western door. He cast a scorching ray at the party, striking Slink and Luther, and barely missing Father Rivers.

Bear, not wanting to stand for such an affront, charged the devel-dwarf. Unfortunately, he accidentally ran smack into the invisible overseer. Bear tripped, and fell prone!

The devil-dward then struck again, turning the glaive in Luther's hands to a firey heat! Luther screamed in pain, dropping his weapon as he fell unconscious. Nearly simultaneously Slink also went unconscious from the attacks of the second overseer. Things were starting to look grim for our heroes.

In came Father Rivers to save the day! Casting a potent healing aura that surrounded the party in the loving embrace of the Deity of Life, both Slink and Luther staved off death, and everyone else breathed in the life-giving positive energy.

This managed to be the turning point in the battle. After some hits to the devil-dwarf, Milo ran into the room and cast an enhanced magic missile, dropping the fiend. Bear, Luther, Slink, and Hollin then swept up the remainder, taking care of the two sleeping warriors as well.

After the battle, a search of the room turned up the following items of note: a magical silvered battleaxe, which Bear took, and some casks of beer of dwarven (not Duergar) make.

(Looks like everyone is on for next week, and we will level our characters. Jason is thinking of taking Dual Wielder for Bear, and Polearm master for Luther. John is thinking of Lucky for Milo. Max and Noah are undecided. Nobody has chosen for Slink yet).

Session 23

March 13, 2014
Present: Noah, John, Max
Absent: Jason (and next week as well)

After the battle, a short rest was taken where folks recovered some of their stamina and gathered themselves, and then the party pressed on to explore the room behind the short corridor to the west.

After listening and hearing only snoring, the party charged in expecting trouble. No trouble was to be found however, as the only living thing in the room was a beaten up dwarf chained to the wall.

The party talked to him, and found his name is Jekk, and he was captured here by the Duerger. Through a long conversation, the following information was discovered:

1) The demon in the walls pulled him and the Duerger who had captured him, about a week ago.
2) Prior to that, this place had been raided by the Duerger, killing all the dwarves who lived there. Jekk, who lived in a nearby village that was mostly composed of humans, went to check out the dwarves and was captured by the Duerger. The Duerger then raided the human village and captured many villagers. They had planned to mine there, but then the entire lair, along with Jekk and the prisoner humans, was transported here along with the mine and lair itself. This was about a week ago.
3) Jekk believes, based on overheard conversations between the devil-like Duerger (slain last session) and the "demon in the wall", that the wall-demon brings creatures to this place using the energy of "slain residents". Jekk believes that killings the party did about a week ago were used to bring Jekk, the prisoners, and the Duerger and lair all here around that time. He also believes that all the other deaths the party has caused of residents of this place were used to power the transportation of further creatures here. He understands there was no way to know this, and the party was just killing evil things (something Jekk in general agrees with, being a good fighter himself).
4) Jekk was able to point out where the spell book from the Devil-Duerger was at, and also asked for his girdle and earrings back.

In that study, the party found the following items (which milo first magic detected, then read-magic'ed, and finally identified, where necessary): Three scrolls (cause fear, gust of wind, and sound burst, the last of which was used by milo later against the spider-riders), two potions (unidentified so far), a pearl of power (Milo will hold it for now, but any spelcaster can use it including Father Rivers and Bear), Jekk's girdle (given back to him), a silver bowl (75gp), a silver chalice (50gp), a wooden box containing cheese, dried meat, and bread (the later prisoners had some of this), three flasks of Alchemist fire, three flasks of acid, a portable alchemist's lab (left behind for now), a cask of strong dwarven beer, clothing, bedding, a writing kit, 280 gp, 345sp, two gold earrings belonging to Jekk (he took them back), three yellow topazes (250gp each), and a spellbook. Jekk also explained the battleaxe now wielded by Bear used to be his, but Bear can have it as thanks for freeing him and his fellow prisoners.

The spellbook contained these spells: cause fear, detect magic, gust of wind, identify, mage armor, sound burst, suggestion, mage hand, prestidigitation, shocking grasp, burning hands, magic missile, shield, levitate, and scorching ray.

After cackling in glee all the magical loot, the party rested another hour (used for the identify and some minor healing), and then headed north up an unexplored passage behind a door.

There, they found three guards who were guarding 12 human prisoners tied together in a chain gang set to mining. One guard turned invisble and whacked Bear a bit, but they otherwise went down quickly.

Jekk welcomed his fellow villages, and the group went back to the study to eat some of the found food and drink some beer, and then they all planned to make their way to the armory and arm themselves.

Heading west down a cavernous passageway the party came on a large cavern with many smaller tunnels going off in all directions. Suddenly, more Dueger appeared, and several were riding Spiders!

The spiders proved nasty critters, as they could crawl along the ceiling and drop down on the party, as their riders attacked from their backs as well.

It looked grim for a short while, as Luther was surrounded, and Bear took some hits. But the tide turned quickly, as Slink shot his arrows quite true, and then a timely Sound Burst spell from Milo's scroll took out many foes. At that point it was mostly a sweeping-up operation as Hollin, Bear, Luther, and Rivers moved in and took down the Duerger and their Spiders.

Water could be heard to the south, a smooth manufactured passage ran to the east, and many smaller cavern passageways ran north and west.

[Everyone except Jason expects to be present for next game]

Session 24

March 20, 2014
Present: Noah, Max, Jason
Absent: John

Leaving the room with the water behind, the party explored further to the west. There, they found a series of small caverns, each of which must have once been part of a mining operation but had since been converted into cages. Of the 20 or so niches of cells, about 1/3 were filled with more prisoners, mostly of human and halfling lineage.

Wanting to secure the area prior to releasing the prisoners, the party moved on to the south. there they found further evidence of abandoned mining operations, along with a strange statue. It portrayed Hekga Brightaxem however a strange helmet had been placed over her head, and whatever inscription had been carved below the statue had since been removed, with a new inscription in Dwarven which read, "Queen of the Invisible Art". The helmet was of a squid-faced humanoid-ish creature.

Explanations failing, the party kept the helmet to quiz the Jekk and his band of released prisoners about it later, and moved on.

A stairway climbed up to the south, and Bear recognized the placement of the stairway as one which likely matched one of the stairs seen earlier in the Duerger lair which went down. In addition, there was a stairway going down to the west.

Slink carefully climbed down that stair, intent on searching the dead-end wall and the bottom. Unfortunately for him, he failed to search the flat area at the bottom of the stairway, and a pit-trap fell in! Luck was not entirely absent from his fortune, as he was able to leap off the pit just as it collapsed in, and clambered up the steep pit before falling to his doom (or at least his injury).

A further worked passage left to the east, and the party then followed that corridor to find a door. behind it lay a smaller store room (with some more dwarven beer!), and further on the hallway that led to the room they had found Jekk in earlier.

Proceeding to Jekk, the party found him and his band of released slaves holding up well so far, better fed than they had been when found thanks to the dwarven beer and cheese. Bear and Father Rivers conversed with him about the new inscription below the statue, and Jekk seemed rather disturbed by this news. He explained the new inscription was a reference to the Deep Duerra, the duerger goddes of conquest and psionic powers. He speculated that perhaps this was a link to why the duerger had attacked the hold in the first place, but came to no conclusions.

Bear then entered into negotiations with Jekk concerning the armory earlier discovered, and struck the following deal: Jekk would lead his band of prisoners, and the new prisoners just found, along to the armory. There they would carry all the things in that room out with them, and as escorted by the party to the exit from the Dwimmer Deep dungeons, they would wait for the Adventurer's Guild escorts and travel with them back to town (East Gantrick). In town, they would find buyers for this equipment, and keeping a 10% finders fee for themselves, would turn over the remaining profits from the sale to the party when the party next returned themselves to town. This, Jekk agreed to, and the plan was put into place.

Meeting no resistance on the way out, Jekk and his now merrier band of refuges made their way out, their arms and backs burdened by the common loot from the armory, waiting for the escort back to town.

Exploring the remainder of the Duerger lair, nothing further could be found, and the party eventually made their way out of that lair and back to an unexplored door near what had been the Lizardfolk lair.

Carefully listening and searching at the heavy locked iron door, Slink heard nothing, and after several attempts managed to open the complex locking mechanism of the door.

The other side appears rather different from anything seen in the Dwimmer Deep thus far. A dark cave passageway was carved to the north about 60' in, with strange half-light continually glowing lights attached here and there to the rough hewn stone walls. Along the ground were two brass or copper metal plates depicting some sort of face sticking it's tongue out. In the distance they could see a pool of silvery glowing liquid in a basin on the ground. And...a dark...presence...could felt along the cavernous passageway, unseen but noticed out of the corner of the eye as dust stirring in the air, or the flicker of a red glow.

Slink proceeded cautiously into the passage, and found between two glowing lights a line across the ground, with arcane writing along it. Milo knelt beside him and carefully examined the text with a read magic spell. Alas, even with the powerful aid of his spell, all he could make out was the alien writing originating from another plane of existence, and a reference to elementals.

Preparing their weapons, the team proceeded cautiously forward. Slink checked for traps as he went, with Luther nearby to protect him. However, unseen in the corridor, "something" attacked!

Whatever it was remained unseen, as a stir in the air was the only warning. Slink managed to dodge out of the way, but Luther took a swipe from the thing in the air. Milo launched three quick magic missiles a the thing, which glowed when struck. The thing was made of solid air!

Slink shot some arrows, which did little damage. Bear and Luther charged in, as Hollin's blade rung true against the area where the thing had briefly appeared, while Father Rivers began to chant his Bless spell. Finally, despite the difficulty of striking the thing, it seemed to dissipate to the combined magical might of Luther's glaive, Hollin's sword, and Bear's new battleaxe.

But airy trouble remained, as a new, far larger air creature appeared next to Bear! It spun as if in a whirlwind, and Bear was nearly knocked down by it but managed to dodge out of the way at the last second. Milo let fly more magic missiles, as Hollin Bear and Luther took swipes with their magical armaments and Slink futilely assailed it with more arrows. The thing briefly tried to dodge back towards a bridge reaching over some strange boiling green water to the east, but the magical assault was too much for it, and it too dissipated into mist.

Hollin proceeded to examine first briefly the silvery pool, and then the green boiling water. The silvery pool appeared impenetrable to the eye, but the boiling greenish one appeared to contain an iron chest, which lacked any sign of a handle or other means of getting it out without diving in and lifting it.

Not wanting to touch the boiling green water, Hollin then put a cup into the silver pool. He was able to remove some water, and as he did his cup glanced against something stone in the water. Bravely reaching into the water, he could feel what might be the head of a statue in the water, unseen beneath the silver.

Not wanting to dive in and explore further, Hollin left the silver pool alone.

The party cautiously moved across the bridge, spying a blue pool in the next area of the cavern, along with another metal plate.

As they crossed the bridge and stepped into the stone area on the other side, an earthquake hit! And there, rising from the earth, stood a huge rocky creature with menacing red eyes.

The party attacked! Milo hit the thing with a thunderwave, and struck true. Indeed, he struck more than true, as the thuderous clap of the spell seemed to do even more damage than he expected it would, and the monster was flung back against the wall of the cavern. Hollin, Bear, Luther, and Father Rivers attacked, as Slink stood back and shot it with arrows. Many of these attacks did damage, but not enough to stop the thing from diving back into the earth as if the ground were but water to it.

Weapons raised, everyone readied for another attack. Wise this was, as the monstrous rock creature plunged back into the room from the ground beneath Luther and Bear's feet! Bear took a mighty beating from this, while Luther was able to leap to safety from the assault. Everyone's readied attacks then went off, and took huge chunks of rock and soil from the beast. Finally, Hollin moved in and dealt the killing blow, as the magically animated rock collapsed back to the ground from whence it had come.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Bear tended to his wounds while Hollin explored the new bluish pool. There, he discovered that it was not necessarily liquid at all, but appeared as if it might be a sheet of metal atop the region instead. How odd.

Looking further to the south, another watery area could be seen. This one, however, could not be easily crossed by a bridge, and a precarious balancing act would be needed to cross along the ledge beside it, if one did not wish to enter this new pool of seemingly ordinary water. And what was that at the bottom of the pool?

It appeared to be an ordinary chest, this one with handles! Hollin got out his rope and grappling hook, as Bear's eyes gleamed just a tad much at the site of potential treasure.

Hollin and Luther managed to hook the chest with the grappling hook, and haul it out of the water.

Just as the chest cleared the water, something made a huge splash in the pool. A huge watery creature arose from the depths, and it looked pissed!

[Need to roll initiative on starting next session. Noah says he will not be able to play, but Max and Jason are in, and hopefully John is as well]

Session 25

April 10, 2014
Present: Noah, Max, John, and Matthew Atherton (Yea, the rogue returns!)

The battle was on with the massive water elemental from the clear pool!
Not wanting to get too close, at least initially, most of the party attacked with ranged weapons. Rapidly it was discovered that ordinary weapons did little to harm the creature (though still had an effect) while magical ones seemed to do more damage.

Meanwhile, Sling grabbed the dropped end of the rope and started to haul the chest further away from the water.

As the chest slid by, Hollin jumped out of it's way as he slashed away at the elemental. To his shock, three more smaller watery creatures arose from the pool! These ones looked different than the behemoth, appearing as floating jelly-fish creatures with water tentacles.

Fortunately for Hollin, his nigh impenetrable armor held out well, as he soaked up (literally this time) attack after attack from the water things.

But the huge elemental didn't seem to be taking much damage. Frustrated, Milo decided to bring out the big guns - three gouts of flaming rays struck towards the thing, with two striking true! Steam poured off it as it reeled under the fiery attack.

Father Rivers followed up with his own smaller flame attacks, as Bear, Luther, and Hollin chopped it down to size. Finally, it sank into a pool of sickly gel-like water, immobile at last.

But it's littler jellyfish friends remained, and the battle continued. Slink considered throwing some alchemist fire into the fray, but thought better of it and opted to pick the lock on the chest. POP, as the lock slid open so easily from Slink's quick manipulations that it was as if Slink had made the lock himself. Inside he discovered two items: A human-sized set of leathery armor covered with many shells across the torso and pinkish coral at the seams, and a well-made leather waterskin with similar pinkish coral at the cap.

Meanwhile Milo hit one of the jellyfish creatures with a frost spell, and it momentarily froze! Taking advantage, Luther struck the thing with both ends of his glaive while Bear attacked with both his battleaxe and simitar, and the thing shattered. Similar attacks, along with Hollin, brought the final two creatures down, and the battle was finished.

The group took a breath and recovered their strength, while Milo concentrated to identify the two items which glowed magical under his examination. It took some hours, but eventually he was able to determine that:

The armor was indeed magical (+1), and it also floats well, and the wearer is able to swim well in it (advantage on any Strength: Swim checks while wearing it). However, for some unknown reason, the armor also makes it's wearer more unduly confident - feeling a sense of invulnerability while wearing it (though such a sense is not overwhelming and still subject to normal logic - like being hit as a sign it's not indeed invulnerable). Slink decided to put the armor on, and felt exceedingly confident with it.

The wineskin is an everfull wineskin, and always refills (within one hour) with tasty wine. Milo asked for that, but Slink and Father Rivers thought maybe that was not such a good idea at the moment.

After the identifying was complete, the party moved on to examine the blue, still pool. Milo and Slink took point on this, as others held back. Slink eventually noticed that it was not in fact water at all, but instead a sheet of some sort of metal. Milo explained that it was magical, but he was not sure what was magical about it.

After some testing, Slink determined it was a thin metal sheet, and something was hollow below it. Father Rivers examined it was imbedded in a slightly raised section of very hard rock, and flush with the surface in a circular sheet. Slink then placed a cup of silvery liquid, then the boiling liquid, and finally the clear liquid from each of the other pools, on the surface of the blue steel sheet. In each instance, the water removed from the other pool turned to plain clear water on removal within a couple of seconds, and had no effect on the metal.

Slink and Father Rivers tried to lift the sheet of metal, to no avail. Slink shot an arrow at it, and it merely bounced off. The party opted to move on for now, and come back to the metal another time.

Moving on to the south, Slink took point, in his new confidence. In fact he was so confident he just kept going, until a giant fire elemental arose right in front of him from another of those brass face-plates embedded in the ground!

The party moved back into the clear pool (which was shallow enough to stand in) and tried to lure the fire elemental into the pool. It stopped at the edge and did not enter. Meanwhile first two more, and then a third and fourth, fire elementals appeared over their own brass face-plates further back into the room. But these were different from the giant, appearing as almost floating bonfires in the air. Sometimes the bonfires would simply disappear, and Milo Slink and Milo speculated that they seemed to be disappearing and reappearing between our prime material plane, and the plane of fire.

Luther and Bear didn't seem to care one way or the other, as they pressed the attack along with Hollin.

Magic worked well against the creatures, but mundane weapons seemed to again struggle against them. Water seemed to do a bit of damage, but not a particularly large amount. Father Rivers was able to fight fire with fire - but only because it was divine fire, and not the real stuff.

The battle was a bit tougher than the water elemental encounter, but still the fire creatures fell to sword, axe, and glaive like any other. Slink got a few sneak attacks in, as Rivers blessed the party and Milo fired magic missiles into the things. Stepping back into the water seemed to help, as none of the creatures would voluntarily cross the water, and the party was well able to control the battle that way by holding the creatures just where they wanted them. Before you knew it, the battle was won, and the party moved to the far shore to see what they could see.

There, they found two more pools, and a cage.

The first pool was a syrupy golden liquid with a burnt odor, churning slowly, with swirling black oily substances sunken throughout it.

The second pool was a luminous and opaque blue liquid, the depth of which could not be discerned visually.

The cage held a white angelic-looking statue. The statue could be seen to move and was talking, but could not be clearly heard from this far back in the chamber and would need to be approached for communication.

[Everyone should be present for next week, with hopefully Jason back as well, and possibly Matt Atherton again as well]

Session 26

April 17, 2014
Present: Jason, Noah

Short session this time, and restricted to non-combat only due to lack of actual quorum.

Having defeated the fire elementals, the party explored the large cavern previously occupied by those fiery creatures.

Bear slowly approached the talking statue in the cage. Quickly he learned that no sound was coming from the statue, though it appeared to be talking and moving about in a slow manner. It's outstretched finger rose, pointing at the door and the lock therein, a pleading look on it's face as it appeared to plead through silent lips.

Slink examined the lock, and concluded it was beyond his means. Milo then stepped forth and studied it with a keen eye and a brief consultation of some notes, along with a detection spell of some sort. He too concluded that opening the lock was beyond his means, but speculated that perhaps a magical key might be the thing to do the trick. But no key, magical or otherwise, could be seen.

Leaving the cage behind, Bear then approached the blue opaque pool, as Luther approached the fiery blackish red one.

Bear could discern that the blue pool cooled the air above the surface. Breaking of a branch of roots from the clear pool area, he dipped that in the blue opaque pool and found it cool to the touch, and perhaps the bark was a tad eaten away from the experience. Nothing more could be determined, as his 6' long branch failed to reach the bottom, and he was reluctant to touch the pool with his hand.

Luther had more luck with his. As he peered into the swirling depths, a black oily substance within the pool swirled and formed these words, "Guess what treasure I contain". Perplexed, Bear joined Luther, and Hollin considered possible answers from a ways away. 'A key!" answered Hollin. "Wrong fool guess again," answered the pool in black, oily letters that floated along the surface of the golden red liquid.

Luther contemplated further, as Bear fretted about potential treasure within. Finally, in desperation, Luther said, "Can you give us a hint maybe?"

To his surprise, the pool responded!

Men kill
For love of me
Easily beaten
Never free

"Ah ha!" said Bear. "It's gold!"

The ground trebled, as the liquid ebbed away through some hidden drain. Slowly, revealed along the bottom of a 10' deep pit that once contained the reddish gold liquid, could be see a pile of gold coins!

Bear licked his lips and smiled at his accomplishment. But alas, the surface of the sides of the pit remained covered in the black oily liquid. No matter. He rapidly went back for the rope and grappling hook that had helped the group retrieve the chest from the clear pool, hooked it to the side of the pit, and slowly lowered himself down.

Success! On the bottom were indeed about 1500 gold pieces, each bearing the devices of ancient kings and queens. Bear, controlling his greed for now, gathered only a small portion at a time, that which he could safely carry back up, and climbed carefully out of the pit. Dropping off the coins, he made many trips this way, and was able to remove all the coins from the bottom of the pit. One more pool had been solved.

Moving now to the boiling greenish water, Luther, Bear and Hollin contemplated this new task. The iron chest in the midst of the pool could be plainly seen, 10 feet down. But how to get to it with no visible handles or hinges?

Bear decided to ferry water from the clear pool to the boiling one, using the now-empty chest from the clear pool to carry said water. Hours were spent at this task, as the water level slowly rose within the boiling pool. Bear tested the water finally, and found it was indeed still scalding hot, but perhaps a bit cooler than it had been before. Still - perhaps too hot to go diving into!

Moving finally to the metallic not-pool, Bear and Luther each took whacks at it's surface with their magical weapons. Each bounced of the surface, though admittedly no perfect hit was achieved in their experiments.

And so four pools remained of the six - the Silvery, Boiling, Metal, and Cold. And where was the key for the angel?

[Jason and Noah thought they would be available next week. Happy birthday John!]

Session 27

May 15, 2014
Present: John, Matt A, Noah, and Max

The party set out to solve the mysteries of the remaining four pools.

After some experimentation with the cold pool, the party returned to the first pool they'd found - the silvery one.

Buoyed by the confidence instilled in him by his new armor, Slink simply dove right into the silvery pool. Feeling around the statue, Slink determined it was in the shape of 6 foot tall bearded human wizard wearing a pointy hat, holding a wooden staff. After a lot of feeling around and diving and experimentation, Slink determined that the staff might break if pulled, or the arm of the statue my break of, but he thought maybe he could unscrew the staff counterclockwise, like a giant corkscrew.

It took some time, but eventually he managed to free the staff. As he did, the liquid was replaced by poisonous gas!

Fortunately Slink had been healed by Father Rivers prior to diving in, as the poison filled his lungs and burned his eyes, leaving him almost disabled. Rivers was able to help him out of the pit and make sure Slink was able to move on.

The staff has the head of a snake, with two silvery-gold eyes. After an hour rest Milo cast Identify on the staff and discovered it is a Staff of Charming, with 10 charges. It is able to cast Charm Person, Comprehend Languages, or Command with one charge.

The party next moved to the boiling water. Milo suddenly remembered he had access to a spell of levitation! It took him an hour to memorize it from his spellbook, but it took almost no time to cast the spell thereafter, levitate the chest from the boiling water, and Luther simply moved it across the air above the pool to land on the ground again.

Slink then took over, search the chest for traps and locks. He determined the lid would spring open once the lid was opened, and so he wrapped rope around the levitated chest first, and then opened it. The lid tried to spring up but failed to do so thanks to the rope. He then loosened the rope enough to peer inside, and Milo cast a Light spell on a coin which he tossed in the chest. There, he could see many electrum pieces, and three scrolls wrapped in a red ribbon. Opening the lid fully, the electrum pieces numbered 500 in count (a fine treasure in itself), and Milo determined that the scrolls were Spider Climb, Divination, and dispel magic. These were powerful spells, and some were perhaps beyond the skills of the party members to cast.

Moving next to the metal pool, a plan was eventually devised. Slink wrapped his bedroll into a long rope-like shape and placed it across the metal lid. Milo then repeatedly cast Ray of Frost at it, adhering the bedroll to the metal with freezing temperatures. Luther and Bear then pulled on the bedroll. With great strength, they managed to just barely tug up the lid! A vortex was beneath, apparently the force holding the metal lid down, and it pulled on the party members near the metal pool, until the lid slammed shut again and the bedroll ripped!

Knowing now that it could work, the plan was re-worked. A rope would be used this time. Slink would prepare to jam his dagger into the gap between the metal and the stone surrounding the lid. Bear and Luther would pull again, one on each side of the rope, as Hollin aided them. Milo would step back to cast the rays of frost, while Father Rivers stood back with healing prepared in case it was needed.

It took a while, a lot of freezing, tugging, and preparation. But eventually, the plan succeeded! The lid lifted, Slink and Hollin were pulled towards the vortex but were able to resist, and Slink slammed the dagger home between the lid and the stone surrounding it. There was a creaking sound, and then a ripping sound, and the lid shattered! As the tiny shards of metal were sucked into the pit below it, the vortex subsided.

Within the pool appeared to be nothing but the metal shards of the broken lid.

Slink, confident as always, dove into the empty pit, and searched around. After a couple tried, he discovered a hollow at the bottom of the pit, surrounded by some loose stones.

He removed the stones, revealing a wooden casket, the lid of which is carved and painted to resemble a gaunt, pale-skinned man wrapped in a black cloak. The figure looks to be asleep, and close inspection reveals he has fangs.

Everyone woke up at that! Slink put the stones back in place, Milo began casting detect magic, while Father Rivers and the Bugbears began whittling wooden stakes, preparing for a vampire attack.

No magic could be detected. Father Rivers then prepared detect Good and Evil, and after some time his deity granted him the Sight. There, he could sense neither good nor evil within the casket.

Considering the possibility the casket might be a ruse, Slink opened it.

Within, he found the brittle skeletal remains of an alien-looking humanoid. Milo recognized it as the remains of a doppleganger, long deceased.

At the skeletons feet was an unlocked black wooden coffer. With care, Slink touched it, and felt it to be a normal coffer. Opening it carefully, he discovered four potions.

Handing them back up to Milo, Slink searched a bit more, found nothing, and left the pit.

Milo identified the potions as potions of healing - but with something odd about them. He was not sure what was odd about them - no other aura was on top of the healing one, it was just something different about these potions that he couldn't quite place.

Stowing them away for experimentation later, the party moved on to the remaining pool.

This one was the cold pool. It was determined earlier by Father Rivers that his sacred flame spell was able to make the waters every so briefly clear, and a chest had been spotted for a moment at the bottom of the pool.

A ray of frost was sent to the pool, and more ice was created by it, but not enough to do much. The party thought about maybe turning it all to ice and then lifting it out like a giant Popsicle, but given it was ten feet deep nobody thought they could lift it out.

Finally Milo decided to cast a ball of flame in the pool, hoping to burn it away faster enough.

The plan worked! Enough water was burned away that they group could see the chest. Milo then paused, and declared he would need to memorize levitate and his flame spell once more after a night's rest, and then once he saw the chest he could levitate it out like he did with the boiling water chest.

The party agreed, and after a nights rest it was put into practice. The pool burned away again, refilling at a slower rate that it was burning away, and the chest was revealed again. He then dismissed his flames and quickly cast levitate on the chest. It worked! The chest rose out of the pool fast enough, and was placed on the ground beside the pool.

After a quick search, it was opened. There was found an aspergillum of exorcism, a magical holy scepter tipped with a metallic orb. Milo was able to determine with his spells that when the scepter was shaken, harmless water sprinkles from it, and once per day a cleric attempting to turn under gains a +10 on their check.

In addition, a small silver key with wings on it was found, obviously the missing key to the angel's cage.

After handing off the scepter to Father Rivers, Slink opened the cage with the key, and the angel could finally be heard.

The angel, who had once been named Pettiln Devilbane, explained that long ago he was a member of the party that trapped the mad king. He had volunteered to stay behind and guard against the mad king's escape. The wizard of the party had cast a powerful spell turning Pettiln to animated stone, as it had been determined the mad king was vulnerable and blind to the base elements of earth, air, fire, and water. His companion he knew had been turned to water as well, in a higher level of the dungeon (previously encountered).

He warned the players that the mad king was summoning life forms and locations to the Dwimmer Deep, and using their spent life forces to turn himself from a spirit form to a material form again. Long ago he had been trapped, by use of the base elements, but now he was somehow escaping his imprisonment in spirit form by occupying the walls. It is vital that the mad king be stopped before he obtains his material form once again, for the mad king conquered a huge region enthralled in his madness last time.

The party then discussed how they might defeat the king, and wondered if perhaps they could use the scroll of divination to ask the deity of Father Rivers for advice on how to defeat him. With the help of the stone angel Pettiln, they were able to do just that. And in the mind of Father Rivers, the voice of his God spoke, and told him, "Turn the thing to fire, water, air, or earth!".

Thinking on that answer, the party talked about different ways that could be done. Someone mentioned "If only we had a Gorgon or Medusa or one of those cockatrice's we found earlier". The stone angel perked up at that, "Medusa you say? Well, we encountered some of them years ago when we first entered the Dwimmer Deep. We avoided them really, but there were several. I do not know if they are still here or not, as things have changed much down here since the king started summoning new places and moving things around."

Well, at least the party had the beginnings of a plan on how to defeat the mad king. The stone angel explained that last time, the King had been trapped by fields of fire, water, air, and earth. Perhaps turning his physical form to one of the base elements would be needed to destroy it utterly, if the elemental fields could be traversed and his body found.

With that vague plan formulating, the party finally moved on out of the elemental vaults. Alas, the stone angel could not follow, as he could not leave the vaults, but he would remain there in case the party needed any further advice from him. Perhaps some day he would turn himself back to flesh and walk the world again, if the party defeats the Mad King.

[Everyone thinks it's likely they will be available for next week]