Myrdynn's journey Out of the Abyss

[TallIan]

Session 9 – Undead Mushrooms

On our way to visit Filo Sovereign Stool seems abnormally on guard. It is hard to get a reason without alerting all the Myconids to our concerns. Lubomoob (We find out later he is the leader of the hunter) leads us to a huge Myconid and after a short conversation introduces us to Filo, the new leader. He seems honest and friendly and is the one that wants to change the way things are done here. He seems happy that we might be able to join them at such an exciting time. He is surprised to find that we don’t want to be in the underdark and can’t offer much to help us to get out but is willing to supply us.

The Myconid are having some trouble with the fazriss, it does not come into the grove, but their hunters sometimes find that prey, etc suddenly go invisible or disappear.

There was group of drow that were here looking for us, Filo says they left by boat but we are not convinced that he is telling the truth. Pressing him about this and his answers don’t yield a good answer; he cannot say for sure where they went or who went with them.

When asked about how there came to be two Sovereigns in the grove he refers to a coming awakening, this is why he wishes to change the way the things are done. He is preparing for the awakening. He says that we should ask the Great Seader (who lives beyond he garden) about the awakening. But when we ask about her Filo says that we should talk to Basilio and leads us to him. There seems to be no conflict between the two of them. Filo feels that the great awakening will happen faster with his way of doing things.

Basilia asks us for help once Filo is out of earshot, and introduces us to some of the circle leaders. The circle of leader is supposed to build shelters for the myconids, but instead he builds mad structures that are more like sculptures and are unsuitable for living. The leader of the growers (Habubey) is a neutral party not allying with either Basilio or Filo.

The myconids who agree with Filo appear very happy and walk around in a state of bliss. More and more are falling under Filo sway. Basidia doesn’t want the change because it goes against how the myconids have worked for a long time. Basdia revelas that Filo takes many “softers” to see the Great Seeder – possibly the drow that were after us.
At The Circle of Spores (Led by Urberap) Basidia believes that Filo has contracted some kind of disease. This leads to what Basildia wants us to do. She would like us to investigate the Garden, where Filo takes many “softers” and Balsia fears to go in case he contracts the disease. Urberap is an ally of Filo.
Next is the Circle of the Explorers (Led by Rasheroo), they might know a way out of the underdark. The explorers rarely come back from their excursions. Their only reason is to find other possible locations for a grove. He claims there was no garden before, many of the other Myconids claim is has always been there. There are thousands of visitors in the Garden, which many outsiders now fear.
There is also a circle of Masters that is new and belong to Filo’s new way.

There is a part of the grove that wasn’t there before – it wasn’t accessible for some reason but has been there for a long time now those that have not accepted Filo’s way are not allowed there.

Basilia gives us a scroll – of protection against fiends. And can make us some potions in 8 hours. We decide to send Dagda to the garden. He reports back that there is a HUGE mushroom and thousands of humanoids. There is much wailing and moaning.

After this we take a rest, but find Derendal murdered in a bloody mess. Investigating this shows that whoever did this knew what they were doing. It was a ritual killing and all his organs have been removed and set aside and two fingers are missing. We’re unable to find out what killed him.

We decide to sneak past the myconid guard into the garden and investigate. Using some dust of disappearance we try and sneak past. Once inside the Garden, the light dims. The source of the moaning and crying comes from dozens of humanoid heads peeking out of the ground rotting, most of them are begging for death. A drow female says it is that the Great Seeder is the Lady of Decay – one of the main deamon gods, that brings death and pestilence wherever she goes. She should not be on this plain of existence; there should not be enough power to bring the Lady of Decay onto the prime material plane. When we try and kill the half buried drow her head explodes into a bunch of spores.

As we get closer to the massive mushroom, the screams become more of fear than pain. Some kind of larva worm slithers up to us. It appears to have once been a myconid, but diseased.

 

[TallIan]

Session 10 – Blingdenstone

The fight against the diseased Myconid proves to be physically easy, but leaves a number of the group mentally scarred. Jorvin is let unconscious for nearly a day and when he recovers, he appears to be obsessed with collecting dead bodies. The others keep having to wake me from a daydream. There is some good loot in the pile of stuff collected here though. With two of our number out we decide to retreat back to the Myconid grove, but I am able to send Dagda on a bit further to see what is there.

There is some kind of procession of wailing, dancing myconid servants, singing about a union between Araumycos and Zugtmo. Zugtmo is a creature from the Abyss and Araumycos is the largest living organism on our plane. How they are to be wed I cannot fathom.

When we report back to Basilia he is terrified and immediately prepares his followers for departure to a found a new grove. Stool is nowhere to be found but we persuade on of the other myconid explorers to guide us to Blingdenstone. When we return to collect our raft, we find that Bupido has fled, along with out belongings. Persuing him proves impossible as he is going in the opposite direction. He will find himself penniless should we ever meet again.

Along the way to Blingdenstone we gathering news from some traders that there is a new ruler since the drow destroyed to the city – Darbo and Seth Digger Mattox. We also come across some crazed humans – we try to help, but our presence unnerves them and seams to cause them to harm themselves.

We finally arrive at Blingdenstone, the gnomes are helpful, accepting us as traders who offer no trouble. When asked about Araumycos they react with a mixture of humour and horror. They don’t believe that Araumycos can be wedded, but if it were to be corrupted, the whole world would end.

We are escorted through their formidable defences and directed to the The Foaming Mug, the only inn here with beds our size. The proprieties, Tappy, proves to be an enthusiast of surface dwellers, hence the big beds. She directs us to Kazook Pishan or Noni Pickshudder for quality magic items. After securing rooms, we head to the market area, but on our way there, an incident with two gelatinous cubes gives us a chance to prove our worth to the city. The cube is quickly dispatched but not fast enough for us to save its first victim, a gnome who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Trouble abounds in Blingdenstone, mostly oozes and slimes trying to get to the north of the city, an area citizens are forbidden to go because of a knot of lycanthropy.

 

[TallIan]

Session 11 - stone drow

We begin in Tappy’s inn, discussing the problem with the wererats (gnome). The digger Mattox’s are keen to expand and the wererats are defensive of their territory. After some discussion on the issue we decide to rest in the inn. It’s first good night’s sleep we’ve all had in a long time.

Tappy tells us the Mattox are a husband and wife, very good leaders and well liked. It seems like as good a place as any to start here in Blingdenstone. Tappy’s direction lead us to a large cavern busy with administration. The hall is generally not well guarded and as soon as we enter two gnomes, clearly in charge, turn to look at us. The mattox’s are interested in our adventures so far, and we explain to them the occurrence at Slublodop and Neverlight Grove.

While the Mattox’s talk to each other they seem keen to tell someone named Nomi.

While Jimjar talks to the Mattox.s he reveals that we are were apparently purposefully chosen to be captured by the Drow. They are initially reluctant to offer us help as we have no one to vouch for us. When Myrdynn offers a favour for a favour the Mattox’s tell us to go see Sark Axebarrel. Mentioning the wererat issue, seems to start a quarrel between the pair. They are unwilling to discuss this issue with us until we have proved ourselves friends of the city.

Heading to the staging area. There are seven paths, North is heavily barricaded, and another has a lot of noise of hammers and furnaces. Axebarrel walks up and introduces himself and describes his problem. Rockblight seems to be infested by a medusa, none of the gnomes who have gone that way have returned. The gnomes haven’t actually seen it and I suspect that it could be any number of monster that lurks here.

Entering the area the gnomes want us to clear we find an unused slum. It doesn’t take us long to find something suspicious. A statue garden of drow warriors guards a medusa sitting on a throne, and we have a tough battle. Eafer nearly gets killed, but we manage to hold a choke point and use a necklace of fireballs to great effect.

I manage to hypnotise the medusa. As we hack through the stone servants we notice a hazy miasma rising from the rapidly decomposing stone corpses. Borial runs afoul of the medusa and is turned to stone. The raising mist starts to gather and Borial seems controlled by it.

Low on spells and with Borial attacking us we’re forced to flee the cavern, back to Blingdenstone. Hopefully able to return later.

 

[TallIan]

Session 12 - Important news

We return to Blingdenstone, going directly to the Digger Mattox’. When we mention that there was some kind of strange dust storm that seemed to be controlling the petrified Boreal. The summon Naomi Pathshutter, an elementalist who summons and controls the elementals that the Gnomes use. She seems to think that it’s an extradimensional creature called Ogremoch’s Bane. She believes that Ogremoch’s Bane has been here for 100’s of years, but would rather not be.

Investigating the strange ghost that attacked us from behind leads us to Warden Jager, a ghost, who is the expert on hauntings in Blingdenstone. He was also the head of the military when Blingdenstone was sacked.

After a rest, we return to retrieve Boreal’s corpse. Starting cautiously with stealth we quickly grew more brazen, but as soon as we enter the “throne” room where the medusa was the dust starts to materialise again. While there we also find Jimjar, he claims he was knocked unconscious and he came too we were gone. Quickly retreating to Blingdenstone with the statue of Boreal. We choose to leave him with Tappy at the Foaming Mug inn. At the inn we also meet Welby Axebarel, a fellow escapee from the Drow, though he escaped from a different outpost.

Next we visit Warden Jager in the catacombs. He demands that we do him a favour to get an answer to our questions. He wants us to find his fallen soldiers and return their remains to him. One question for every returned body. We manage to find one of the bodies. During the investigation we a Xorn burrows out of the rock and starts to demand that we give it our gems and coins. We refuse and it starts to follow us around - it proves helpful in a fight later and I fling him a coin for his help, which just seems to encourage it.

For returning the skeletal remains of one of his soldiers Warden Jager offers us three ways to break Boreal’s curse; Entemoch’s Boon – a cavern with the means to remove Ochremoch’s Bane back to his own plane and porbably undo what he’s done here. A Greater restoration spell, though finding someone capable of casting that would be hard. There is a scroll in a temple 7 or more days away. There is a dwarven mage in Gracklestug who could reverse the spell, but this is the farthest to get to and we have no idea what he will want in return.

Finding Entemochs Boon proves hard, it is rumoured to be a mine where many magical gems can be found. Many people don’t believe it exists and those that do don’t believe that it can be found. But our persistence may have payed off, we think that we found it.

During our search we find out that there is a patrol of Drow nearby searching for us, not long before we stumble across some of them. The fight is furious but short, and we manage to take some of them prisoner. From them we learn that we were taken prisoner for a reason.

There are some Drow mages that are trying to bring about something – they weren’t sure what – and our deaths will make sure that it happens. Conversely us being alive could prevent it happening. There are factions withing the Drow who are willing to pay huge sums of money for our capture to ensure our life or death, depending on the factions view on this “something”. We are on a list and there are more names on that list.

 

[TallIan]

Session 13 – A Great Boon

We return our prisoners to Blingdenstone, which takes a day. A quick turn around there and back to where we encountered the drow takes another day. Once back it does not take us long to find a cavern that is clearly special. There is an alter and strange symbols on the walls, that match some of the symbols in Blingdenstone.

Some broken bits of petrified cave vermin hint at something here and once we walk towards the alter, some lizard like creatures attack. They are quickly dispatched before another strange creature, this one we identify as a grick, attacks from the ceiling. Some powerful magic from our new fried quickly dispatches this powerful monster.

After the fight, Jimjar – who began routing through the alter before the fight ended – had discovered a nest containing an egg and two lots of broken shell – presumably from the creature we killed, which we later learn were basilisks. A little more looking around and we are confident that we have found Entemochs Boon. It is essentially a large cavern and would be perfect for summoning rituals. It doesn’t offer any obvious way to dispatch Ogremoch’s Bane though. Perhaps luring it here might reveal something but we decide to bring our discovery to the attention of the deapgnomes.

Back at Blingdenstone we quiz Naomi – perhaps something we should have done before seeking it out – about Entemoch’s Boon and find out that the reason it is so sought after by the deapgnomes is that it would allow them to summon their elementals for a significantly longer time than their magic would normally allow. There is a problem with this idea at the moment in that Entemoch’ Boon lies past Entemoch’s Bane an any time the deapgnomes take elementals anywhere near Ogremoch’s boon they lose control of the elemental.

Naomi doesn’t know how Entemoch’s Boon could banish Ogremoch’s Bane, but she is willing to put some effort into finding out for us.

With little else to do we return to the Digger Mattocks and see if there is anything else we can do to gain their trust and assistance. Eafer explains the discussion that they have – Darbo wants to kill off the population of were rats that occupy part of The Warrens while his wife, Senni, would prefer a peaceful solution. She also feels that the increasing ooze attacks are the bigger problem. After some discussion our little group decides to go and try talking to the wererats. Our pet Xorn proves useful here. The deapgnomes initially refuse to open the door to the Warrens to let us back in, as they fear what might be lurking on the other side. I convince them that the Xorn is friendly and when he appears through the stone, it is us on the other side. This saves us several days of wandering trying to get back to Blingdenstone from the Warrens.

Once in the Warrens, we quickly find a group of wererat gnomes. The initial exchange doesn’t go too well, but one does go to get orders about what to do while we all stare at each other uneasily. He soon comes back and takes us to see Chipgrin.

Chipgrin greats us on his stone throne, flanked by two giant rats. Eafer talks to them about the Digger Mattocks proposal of peace, then relates to us that there were rats are beign driven out by someone called the Pudding King – a deapgnome in the Warrens that is somehow summoning and controlling oozes. This is currently a problem for the wererat faction, but they are sure it will soon become the Digger Mattocks problem as well.

We offer to help if the wererats are willing to talk to the Digger Mattocks about a peace or powershare. Chipgrin offers that we need a plan to reach the Pudding King – his control of the oozes makes getting to him very difficult. We’d have to get the Digger Mattocks to distract the oozes while we sneak in to deal with the Pudding King.

As for the attacks on the Digger Mattocks, he claims that his people have only ever defended themselves, but Eafer doesn’t entirely believe this.

When we bring this offer of a diversion to the Digger Mattocks, they want Naomi to finish her investigation into Entemoch’s Boon before committing. This will take a couple of days, so we use the time to explore Rockblight – the area past Ogremoch’s Bane.

We quickly come across a pair of gargoyles – something Jimjar warned us about – and an earth elemental. For out trouble we find a pair of large gems.

There is still more of Rockblight to explore

 

[TallIan]

Session 14 - Slime

The fight with the gargoyles doesn’t lead anywhere and after some discussion we head back to the medusa room and search the fine clothes that were stashed there. The strange fog that is Ogremoch’s Bane starts to coalesce after some time and we flee.

With little else to do while we wait for Naomi to complete her investigation of Entemoch’s Boon, we explore the town. Of interest to me are the speaking stones. We meat a gnome named Gurnick Tapfinger who tells us about the stones. The gnomes can no longer draw magic from the stones as they once could. The stones are a place to which their summoners can more easily summon the elementals. Gurnick used to be high priest, but he is losing faith thanks to the fading magic of the speaking stones. He thinks other speaking stone circles have been defiled and therefore none of them work anymore. He gives me a spellgem and says that casting this spell in the middle of a stone circle may restore the power of that circle and therefore the power of the speaking stones.

He also tells us that the unusual gems we found with the elemental are spellgems with a bound elemental in. But warns us never to use them as they are cursed. Casting a Remove Curse spell within a working Sleeping stone circle may well remove this curse.

Naomi returns and tells us that Entemoch’s Boon is what they thought, but it can’t return Boreal to flesh. They are currently at Entemoch’s Boon Summoning elementals as fast as they can.

The gnomes are now ready to fight the oozes while we hunt down the Pudding King.

 

[TallIan]

Session 15 – More Slime

We continue our way through the pudding infested area. It is incredibly clean. One of the first oozes we come across is a green ooze that seems to change shape continually, imitating whoever it’s attacking. While attacking it I notice a tinny noise coming from within. After the fight we find a few interesting bits*.

Exploring a bit further we come across a pile of hastily buried stuff. Unfortunately Quarris, our pet elemental, springs a horrible trap and while trying to free him, we attract the attention of a gargantuan slime. The slime seems a bit much for us, but the Xorn appears from the ground within the creature and a strange song starts to come from the slime.

After a few seconds the gargantuan blob shrinks and starts to retreat back to its hole, getting away.

I find a metal box inside another green ooze. Inside is a fragment of a playing card. As soon as Jimjar sees it, he immediately begs for it. A second look makes me realise that it’s a magical deck of cards, cards that do terrible things. I brush this off as a group loot thing, and that he’ll have to wait for us to get back to Blingdenstone.

 

[TallIan]

Session 16 – Regicide

After another brief rest we head north and quickly run into a strange abomination of flesh and two more oozes, but we seem to have run into some kind of civil conflict as the oozes attack the abomination at the same time as we do. Clearing these creatures quickly leads to another bunch of oozes attacking us, but this leads us to the pudding king.

A gnome appears and starts to talk to the oozes. I try to talk to him, but only get a hostile response. And he proves to be a capable spell caster. While fighting him, he calls upon the faceless lord – something we’ve heard of before.

Once he’s dead we find that all the oozes in the caves dissolve, and we are left to explore at our leisure. Although we find some valuable scrolls in the throne room of the Pudding King, our time to explore is limited, as we’ve already spent a lot of time here and we need to get back to Blingdenstone.

 

[TallIan]

Session 17 – Temples

As we sift through treasure we found in the pudding king’s lair I find a couple of spell books. One called Underland magic and the other I cannot comprehend yet. The title seems to be “something beyond something “

After the battle Naomi is dying of some horrible affliction that the gnome priests can’t cure. Our efforts are futile and while I try to study a spell that might help she passes.

We take and audience with the Digger Mattocks and they argue, unaware that I can now understand them. Senni wants to offer us help, it seems our efforts to help them are paying off, but Darbo does not, he is concerned for the safety of the city.

Senni wins the argument and informs us that there are 2 ways: the 1st teleportation circle – only one person was ever able to use it Naomi. The 2nd is a particular path that they can show us – no gnome has taken it in 20 years, well known to be patrolled by drow and other creatures.

Before heading up to the surface we decide to try one more option to save Borial and head towards the temple that may contain a powerful scroll that could help. We take some time to prepare for the journey long journey.

On the way the egg that we found a few days ago hatches and takes a liking to Eafor.

A few days laterwe come across a small group looking for work. One of them insists that he saw a gnoll, but the others do not believe him. One of them perks up at the mention of Jimjar, apparently Jimjar owes him money, and it is then that I realise that Jimjar quietly disappeared when we saw the group. He re-joins us soon after leaving the group.

Eafer, scouting ahead, informs is that there is a massive movement of daemons nearby. They aren’t going to cross our path, so we decide to ignore it for now.

We come across a drow that appears to be under rigor mortis but is alive, there is also a gnome that is laughing or crying about a small statue that its holding. Using mage hand, I carefully put the statue in our bag of holding.

It a takes us 11 days to find the area the temple should be in, along the way we found some mushrooms that we haven’t found before. Something that hasn’t happened for a while, even Eafer could not recognise them. After a whole day searching we find no temple, then Eafer spots a strange opening in the rock.

Exploring the passage sets off a rock slide, that leaves us trapped. Though it opens into another route that seems to lead to a constructed room. Inside is a grey ooze that we quickly dispatch. This leads to further rooms. Dagda scouts ahead and flies into a gelatinous cube. We approach with caution, but the ooze doesn’t attack and even seems to answer our request to move out the way. After some conversation the ooze offers its name as Glabergoul. He seems keen to follow us and even gets excited by a fight with a grey ooze.

Farther in, after some traps and more oozees, we catch Jimjar red handed, taking some stuff out of one of the rooms, for himself. Anton tries to subtly pick pocket him, but just manages to piss him off. It’s only some quick intervention by Welby that Jimjar comes back round.

 

[TallIan]

Session 18 – Stone Circles

Trapped in the temple that is slowly filling with water. With water breathing, there is no immediate concern, but we will have to get out at some point. After trying some other thigs that prove futile a simple thunderwave brings the ceiling crashing down. It also brings a deluge of water through the now, much bigger, hole in the ceiling.

We can get out now though and it is a long swim upward. Then a long swim in a huge lake before we find a duergar raft. Although we try a peaceful approach and buy passage on their raft, they are less willing to accept us and it turns in to a fight, that ends badly for the duergar.

We now have a raft and a chest that we can’t open. We head back to Blingdenstone and along the way encounter a few obstacles that prove minor; some drow, dangerous rapids, an empty boat, an aquatic troll, and more of those strange ray creatures. All easily dealt with.

Once we returned to Blingdenstone we find the flaw in our plan to retrieve the scroll. The only person who could have cast the spell was Naomi, and she is now dead. Welby has a chance of doing it but success or fail he’ll use up the scroll. We decide to take the gamble and Boreal is restored to us.

Boreal has had an afterlife experience in the form of strange visions. He’s spent most of the time in the plane of earth. With a few things drawing him out; he saw Jimjaw chanting in front of his stone form, as though trying to cast a spell; a vision of a drow warrior listing names; a muscular barbarian being controlled as though he was a marionette; a vision of Pelor fighting a spider and a shapeless creature covered in eyes; and then a long blackness of nothing.

When we quizzed Jimjar about this he admitted that while he was stuck in The Warrens he tried to resurrect Boreal. We are also able to identify that the monster with many eyes is Juiblex, daemon lord of slime and ooze.

With Boreal alive again, we have nothing really keeping us in the Underdark, but I am keen to try and remove the curse on the two gemstones that I have and we set off trying to find this missing stone circle. Asking around for rumours we can only find out that the stone circles are real. The only clue we have is the strange fake wall in the Medusa lair. Boreal refuses to come with us though – understandably – so we only have Welby.

This time we find a secret door, concealed with strange markings that keep it hidden and locked. We make a copy of the markings and ask around Blingdenstone again. The Digger Mattocks offer to get some research done for us. After two days one of the gnomes finds an old document that detaisl how to operate the door.

A Gold pick striking the right spot will open the door. We have enough silver to get one made up and head back. A short corridor on the other side opens into a stone circle.