Session 8:
Wherein the party leaves the barracks area and proceeds to the next cavern entrance down (on the left). A short tunnel leads from the chasm inward, ending in a archway that opens into a larger room. Hairbear precedes forward first, hiding. He looks into the larger room. Glistening walls of smooth, black rock tower upward, forming a octagonal room that looks like a squat tower turned inside-out. A single archway leads to the northeast on the ground level. Hairbear spies the two Drow Arcane Guard who stand watch here. He moves into a better position undetected. Mr Brownstone follows the Duergar into the room stealthily. Chandos rushes into the room. The Arcane Guard yell out a curse in their tongue and unleash two lightning bolts at the fighter as he advances. Hairbear uses range fire and downs one of the guards. Lipput runs in and slays the other. Suddenly, out of the sky, Chandos is hit by another two lightning bolts. There, hovering 20ft above are another two Arcane Guard. “I hate invis” states the warrior. Lipput arrows one out of the sky. “Give up and I might not kill you all” he shouts. Chandos moves to the cover of the archway. He notices a door ajar off of the room behind the alcove, just before he his hit by another 2 lightning bolts from drow that appear directly in front of him in the room beyond!. Badly hurt, Chandos runs out of the room, back towards the chasm to consume a potion of cure serious wounds. Lipput arrows the other drow out of the sky. Hairbear and Brownstone use arrow fire on the two remaining drow under the arch, one falls, one very badly hurt. Lipput runs forward and punches unconscious the last of the drow.
“Don’t Kill him, we need a prisoner” pleads Hairbear as the hulking figure of Lipput steps forward to put the unconscious drow out of his misery. “why” states Lipput simply. “They are of no worth, just slay them” states Chandos. “Ill bet you you can’t pull its head off in one go” Lipput grasps the unconscious drows head in his mighty hands. It does come of, but not as easy as the half-orc had anticipated .
They search for secret doors around the base of this inverted tower, and the small room beyond the arch. They find no secret doors and the room is a sparse living quarters area. Brownstone activates his Boots of Levitation and starts to levitate up the inverted tower looking for secret doors with his keen half-elf senses. He finds none in this 50ft high tower. He descends and rejoins his companions. “Nothing up there”. Slightly bemused the party decide to head to another of the cave entrances. The one furthest right. Hairbear scouts ahead, the cave mouth in the chasm winds back deep into the rock, opening into a very large cavern.
A feint green phosphorescence dances along the ceiling, which is easily 30 feet overhead at the entrance and rises sharply from that point. The cavern stretches for hundreds of feet to the east, its floor broken into a myriad of ledges and tilted slabs. Many of these are covered with weird fungal growths that appear to have been carefully cultivated; others sport bulbous houses or cottages that seem to have been grown from giant toadstools. Eerie green witchlight dances in the small, round windows of these dwellings. A few dark figures move about between the fungus patches and the houses.
“wow, a drow villiage or outpost” whispers Hairbear to his companions. “we can’t take a whole villiage of them” sighs Brownstone
“Go to the Bazzar” states Lipput bluntly. They navigate the huge spiders web once more back to the bazaar level, 300ft below where the party entered from the surface. The large chamber is empty, no sign of the pack lizards or drow and deurgar now. A ledge, about 10 feet of the ground, runs the length of the northeastern wall. Six doors are set in the wall beyond the ledge. Working from left to right the party approach the doors. Each door is barred from the outside, a heavy wooden beam nailed to the door. Mr Brownstone says “ahh, I think I might have something to aid us in this situation”, pulling out a ring. “this” he states “is a ring of x-ray vision”. Using the ring, Mr Brownstone systematically scans behind each door. Although he can only scan in 20ft he gathers enough information. Of the six chambers beyond the doors five seem to be covered in webs, dozens of spiders are visible in the webs, some as small as peas, others as large as dogs.! “Why would they seal off these doors” says Chandos to nobody in particular. “Because the Spider Queen is no longer their patron?” Replies Hairbear. Another room seems completely bare and featureless, no webs, no spiders.
Working left to right Chandos confidently steps forward. But the human has difficulty removing the bar from the first door. Lipput assists Chandos but still the bar wont budge. Lipput growls and strikes two mighty blows at the door, which splinters into many pieces, the spiders scurry away and don’t attack the party. Brownstone stands in the doorway and uses a wand of magic detection. Nothing is detected. They search the room which seems to be a old warehouse and a small room adjoined to it which seems to have been a small merchant residence. There is nothing of interest in these areas. The next door along hold the same. A warehouse (with lots of spiders in) and a merchant residence. In the third warehouse the party are attacked by two large blobs. “Black puddings” says everyone. Hairbear is the first to strike at these oozes with his trusty bow. As his arrow hits the ooze, it splits into two smaller puddings. The arrow seemed to do no other damage. “oh no” says a startled Hairbear.. Chandos and Lipput retreat out of the room. “these things destroy your weapons or something” advises Chandos, who starts scrabbling in his backpack for his flasks of oil. Hairbear also retreats from the room, leaving Brownstone alone. He starts to go find wood to burn “these things hate fire” thinks the Duergar. Brownstone, alone, faces a large black pudding and two small ones, fortunately, due to his positioning; only two of the creatures can hit him. He pulls out his wand of lightning bolt and bolts the large pudding. “Im coming in, gonna use oil on em”, shouts Chandos. Brownstone, hearing this, dons his ring of fire resistance. Just in time, as sailing over his head comes a oil bomb. It explodes on impact with the ooze, Brownstone is splashed, along with the other ooze. But his ring protects him from any fire damage. Lipput also throws oil bombs and Brownstone uses his wand of lightning bolt again.
Meanwhile Hairbear gathers as much wood as his short frame will allow him to carry, most of this wood had been acquired from the smashed down doors. Overloaded, unable to see where he is going, the duergar shuffles slowly back to the party.
The second of the smaller puddings, begins to climb the wall and move onto the ceiling, it seems to be trying to maneuver into a attacking position. Chandos moves back out of the room having thrown all his oil bombs, he sees a walking pile of wood coming toward him!. "WE GOT WOOOOD!" states the Duergar. Shaking his head, Chandos grabs a piece to use as a club. Lipput throws his last oil bomb over Mr Brownstone’s head onto the large pudding attacking Brownstone. It hits the ooze, but fails to break on impact. Chandos moves back into the room and strikes at the blob with his newly fashioned club. It hits and hurts the creature, but the club dissolves in his hand “arrrg” says Chandos. Mr Brownstone dodges four attacks by the large pudding before it finally strikes lucky and hits the assassin. It envelops him, constricting him, acid burning his clothes. Chandos exits room again and the walking woodpile that is Hairbear hands him a lovely bit of wood. “thanx” replies Chandos before running back in and killing one of the smaller puddings. The club again dissolves on impact tho. Lipput slashes away at the second of the smaller puddings that had dropped down from the ceiling right in front of him. He uses the Butt end of his Guisarm, thinking wood would be immune to the dissolving effects. After seeing Chandos’s clubs destroyed, however, the half-orc knew this not to be the case, but it must have proved lucky because the weapon remained sturdy as he destroys the last of the smaller puddings. Chandos, knowing Brownstone must be in trouble under the ooze slashes away at it to free his comrade, he does mighty damage but fails to slay it. If they’re not quick, it could be too late for Brownstone (who is getting constriction and acid damage per round). Lipput steps in just in time and kills the beast. They pull up a badly wounded Brownstone, his body bearing the mark of acid burns. He drinks several healing potions.
There are two doors in this room that lead to smaller rooms. One of the doors was guarded by a glyph of warding that explodes in Chandos’s face as he attempts to open it. It must be Chandos’s unlucky day. On opening the door an unspeakably vile stench, combining the worst elements of decaying flesh, refuse, and waste, wafts out. A fetid pool of slime glistens in the center of the chamber beyond, and a number of amorphous shapes twitch around it. Within the pool of slime, something glows with a sickly violet light. As Chandos is taking all this in he suddenly is hit by a long tentacle. His line of sight follows the tentacle back to the opposite wall of the small room ahead. It is attached to a creature that resembles a stalagmite, he hadn’t seen it before, it had been blended in with the surroundings. The tentacle saps Chandos’s strength, before Lipput strikes and severs it. As he does so the Roper exudes another. Another two tentacles hit Chandos as he stands in the doorway, he is greatly weakend and can do nothing but stand there. “Do you need this wood?” inquires Hairbear “NO, I need you to cut off these strands!” whimpers a weak Chandos. Hairbear attempts to cut a strand but fails. Brownstone sends a lightning bolt toward the Roper.. it hits but the Roper is unaffected. Lipput, not wanting to see Chandos pulled toward the Roper (and into whatever that puddle is) goes into a berserk rage and frees Chandos from the two tentacles attached to him. As he does so, however, another strand shoots forth and attaches itself to the warrior. Hairbear manically tries to cut it, but doesn’t do enough damage to sever it. Lipputs strike is fast and true and once again he releases Chandos, who, so weakened, almost falls to his knees. Before the Roper can fire another strand Lipput slams the door to the room shut.
They retreat and attempt to formulate a battle plan. Chandos drinks five potions of restoration gaining some strength back, but he still isn’t 100% fit. “I say we leave that Roper, I hate Ropers, really, lets go” “One little problem and you want to retreat?. I say we slay this beast”. Replies Brownstone. “It’s not far back to Daggerfalls, we could go back and resupply, I need rest, I am weakend”. Hairbear offers the suggestion of camping in the fairly secure and defendable Barracks area, but seeing Chandos will not accept this reluctantly agrees to go back to Daggerfalls. “well…. if we are losing our main Tank, we might aswell head back”. Lipput spins round and stares at the Duergar “Lucky you find me in a good mood” It seems not being considered the “main tank” is a insult to the half-orc. They search the rest of the bazaar area and find just more empty warehouses.