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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7942855" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 12: THE SECRET LIFE OF DOUBLE SLAVESPC Roster:Cramer Appleknocker, gnome cleric 4             Jhasspok, lizardman 3/barbarian 1             Khari Hammerslammer, dwarf fighter 4             Marlo Pendragon, human sorcerer 4             Utred "Buckets" Butterflinger, dwarf barbarian 4Game Session Date: 11 March 2020- - -"This is stupid," grumbled Cramer.  "I don't see why N'zorthal couldn't have just teleported us back to Overreach, like he teleported us to the Writhing Gate in the first place.""Weren't you listening?" rebutted Marlo in a whisper, making sure they were out of earshot of Heather, Guthier, and Wulfrik - neither of whom had any idea about the secrets the mind flayer was keeping from the drow slavemaster.  But the three newest additions to House Jalamir's slave force kept mostly to themselves, not wanting anything to do with the five raiders who had cast them into slavery.  Marlo continued in a quiet voice, "He explained the Writhing Gate is 'angry' that a lesser being tried prying into its mind.""Writhing Gate?  The Dying One, you mean," countered Cramer."...Possibly," was all the sorceress was willing to admit on that front.  "In any case, it has no problem with drawing others closer to it.  But with it currently in its little sulk, I don't think I'd want to take the chance of having it teleport me back to the city when it's in a bad mood.""So we got a two-day trek ahead of us," sighed Khari.  He was just ahead of the cart of goods, pulled by the animated skeleton of a horse, and within earshot of the three new slaves."Two days?" gasped Guthier.  "It's going to take us two days to get back to the drow city?  Why don't we...you know, now might be a good time to make a break for it!""Don't be stupider than you already are," groused Utred.  "Didn't Calish explain to you about those House Jalamir tattoos on your backs?  You'd never make it - they'd hunt you down easily.""And I daresay you wouldn't like the punishment that followed," added Cramer with a visible shiver, recalling the horrible day N'zorthal had eaten the brain straight out of the gnome's skull - three times in a row! - while Cramer wore a ring of regeneration ensuring the punishment wouldn't deprive House Jalamir of the continued manpower provided by their diminutive slave."Yeah, well Calish ain't gonna like it taking two days for us to show back up with all o' this food," added Khari.  "I imagine he expected us to show back up, like, immediately.""There's not a whole lot we can do about that," reasoned Marlo.  "We'll just have to do like N'zorthal told us: tell Calish he's staying back to repair a malfunction in the Writhing Gate and will return as soon as he can.  He probably won't like it, but what can he do?"As it turned out, not much.  The slaves had an uneventful return to the drow city of Overreach, at which time Marlo explained the situation and turned the four ring gate necklaces over to the slavemaster.  Calish wasn't pleased at all to hear the news, but he quickly accepted the situation and pressed on with the new plans this set of circumstances had forced upon him.  "Very well, then - it looks like any surface raiding I might have sent you on will be curtailed for the moment.  That being the case, I will reassign you to new duties until such time as N'zorthal completes his repairs."Jhasspok was thrilled with his new duties, considering they were nothing more than his old, pre-arena-slave duties: catching fish in the bioluminescent Underdark sea that surrounded the Eight Pillars of Overreach.  Utred and Khari were slightly less pleased with their new assignment: given Utred's family background, it only made sense to send him to the stench kow ranch and Calish opted to send Khari along with him to learn the ins and outs of raising the shaggy rothé.  Marlo and Cramer got perhaps the worst of it, though, being assigned to the fungal farms to shovel excrement onto the fungus that made up a food staple for the Underdark community.  Due to the recent attack on House Jalamir, each of the five arena slaves was allowed to retain his or her armor and weapons at hand, in case of another attack.  In the chaotic society of the dark elves, nothing made a more enticing target than a House that had just weathered an attack from another House and was thus not currently at its peak strength.Two weeks passed in this fashion.  Of the five, only Jhasspok seemed to be enjoying himself.  And then their lives went on an entirely unexpected course as an unseen voice whispered into each slave's ear at almost the same time, "Pretend the sleep venom is taking effect when I stab you."  Then, out of nowhere, a dark elf suddenly appeared before each of the five arena slaves, stabbing out with a dagger wet with what looked like poison.Cramer and Marlo immediately noted the slight discoloration of the hair of the two drow attacking them: the gnome's assailant had white hair with a very light tint of blue, while Marlo's attacker had hair of a light pink - but which would surely look like the standard white hair of a drow from far enough away.  Realizing these were likely sunborn drow from Greenvale they played along, falling prone as if succumbing to drow sleep venom; Marlo winced at the thought of falling into the dung she'd been spreading onto the fungal garden and managed to conveniently collapse between patches of the dried excrement.Utred mastered his instinctive rage at being attacked out of the blue but allowed reason to guide his actions for once - after all, if these were enemy drow attacking them, why would they have given him a warning?  He also played along, falling to the ground beside the rothé he'd been milking - careful, though, not to tip over the bucket of smelly milk he'd collected thus far.  Khari played along as well despite not having done any reasoning of his own, merely trusting Utred knew what he was doing and it would be best to follow his fellow dwarf's lead.As for Jhasspok, he fell forward into the shallow water and floated there as if unconscious, but his eyes were just above the water's surface, looking at his pretend attacker.  He had felt the point of the drow's dagger blade rub up against his scales, but it hadn't been anywhere near a hard enough thrust to penetrate the lizardfolk's thick hide: this was obviously a sunborn drow, then - part of the other group of drow to which Jhasspok was a "secret double slave."  He was curious to see where this subterfuge was going.Seeing their "victims" lying motionless before them, each of the Greenvale drow pulled out a ring and placed it over a finger of the slave they'd pretended to attack.  Then they explained the rings would completely shield the slaves from any scrying attempts on the part of House Jalamir and that House Ky'hulcressen had a secret mission for them.  The sunborn drow then opened up a series of Shadow Gates and led each of the three groups through the Plane of Shadows to a nondescript building where they were all reunited back on the Material Plane.  "Take a seat in the next room," the drow instructed, then disappeared back into the shadows of the plane of darkness."Hey, guys," Khari said upon seeing the others.  "Fancy meeting you here.  Me an' Utred was just milking a stench kow.  Whatever's up, it's gotta be better'n that.""Let's see what these sunborn drow have for us," said Cramer, opening the door and walking into a conference room, where there were two drow seated at a large table.  One of the drow was Niradi Ky'hulcressen, the Apprentice Weaver the group had rescued from assassins some time ago, and the other was the purple-haired guard they'd met up in Greenvale.  The slaves took seats around the table."It was House Dureem that attacked House Jalamir two weeks ago," Niradi explained.  "For their failure, as is the way with the drow under the sway of the Spider-Bitch, Lolth obliterated their House, burning away the interior rooms of their stalactite dwelling in unholy fire."  House Dureem was not one of the Eight Noble Houses of Overreach and thus did not warrant dwelling inside one of the Eight Pillars of the city - instead, their House dwelt inside one of the smaller stalactites hanging from the ceiling of the Great Cavern."Finding the circumstances behind the attack somewhat suspicious, House Ky'hulcressen began investigating and we believe House Dureem was somehow manipulated into their suicidal attack.""Absolutely," agreed Cramer.  "It was the mind flayer N'zorthal, House Jalamir's Administer of Discipline - he used suggestions to instigate the attack.  He was punished for it, too.  This came straight from Calish Jalamir's mouth.""That is good to know," Niradi replied.  "But as part of our investigation, we found eight bodies unaccounted for from House Dureem: children from the ages of 20 to 35."  This puzzled Jhasspok for a moment - he was all of five years old himself and a full adult, after all - until he recalled drow aged much more slowly than other races and could live for centuries.  Niradi continued, "It is no secret that House Jalamir deals in the procurement and sale of drow slaves.  Although they claim all their slaves are criminals given the choice between slavery and death, only a child would be naive enough to believe life as a slave to other drow to be better than death.""So, you think these eight drow kids are still alive, taken as slaves by House Jalamir?" reasoned Utred."We do.  We have tracked the children down to a building within their slave goods market.  However, the area they are held in is warded such that if anyone not of House Jalamir enters it will immediately alert Calish.  Thus, we need you to go in and rescue them, as your slave tattoos mark you as belonging to House Jalamir.""This building - it wouldn't be the Punch-a-Drow shop, would it?" guessed Cramer."Indeed.  You know of it?"  Cramer admitted he did, having recently spent 100 slave tokens to "rent" a drow slave for an hour, during which time he was permitted to do anything he wanted to her save for actually killing her outright.  But despite Marlo's assumptions about how the gnome had spent his hour, Cramer confessed he'd merely healed the drow's prior wounds with his spells and rubbed her feet; as a cleric of Fharlanghn, the God of Travel, he well knew the importance of healthy feet.  Cramer thought it would be a good way to get into the drow slave's good graces, to show her that not all non-drow were scum upon which to be heaped scorn - and if nothing else, if the drow slave refused to see the nobility of the gnome cleric it would at least probably infuriate her to have her predilections proved to be false - and that in itself would be a small victory over the drow."So, you want us to just walk in there and fetch the eight Dureem slaves?" Utred asked.  "We'll be instantly recognized!""Not with these," answered Niradi, passing over a potion flask to each of the arena slaves.  "These are potions of disguise self, each already tailored to give you the appearance of a drow noble of House Jalamir."  She turned to Jhasspok.  "And in your particular case, the illusory disguise includes a set of appropriate clothing," she added.  Then she passed a second potion to Cramer.  "You will also need this potion of enlarge person, to attain the correct size of the drow you'll appear to be.  That way, anyone interacting with you won't wonder why their hand, say, passed right through the space where your shoulder should be."  Cramer nodded appreciatively; they'd certainly put the appropriate level of thought into this mission."You primary goal is to rescue the eight House Dureem children," said Niradi, "although if you can rescue any of the other drow slaves it would be greatly appreciated.  After all, having fallen from the Spider-Bitch's favor, these drow would be likely candidates for conversion to the worship of Eilistraee.  This building is but a few minutes' walk from the Punch-a-Drow shop - which, I should point out, is referred to as the 'Forbidden Desires' brothel to its prospective clientele.  You need merely lead the slaves back here and we will take it from there.  They will be smuggled out of Overreach and taken to Greenvale, where they can live their lives free from the horrors of Lolth.  Now then, are there any questions?""Do we know where the eight drow slaves are being kept?" asked Cramer."We believe there is an upper level in the basement above the building, but we have been unable to determine its exact layout.  The slaves are likely being held there.""Wait, a basement above the building?" asked Marlo.  "I'm confused.""Remember: we are within the reverse gravity effect on the ceiling of the Great Cavern," replied the purple-haired drow guard.  "We are, right now, upside-down on the ceiling, as is the slave market of House Jalamir.""I hate this place," grumbled the sorceress to herself."Do we know the strength of any security forces on hand?" asked Utred.  "Numbers, weapons used - anything?""I'm afraid we have no concrete answers along those lines, other than you can bet there is some type of security in the place, to prevent the slaves from trying to escape."  Utred grunted to himself.  Going in blind, then!  As the slaves began drinking down their potions, Niradi reminded them, "The drow who run this operation are wholly evil and deserving of death.  Your altered slave tattoos will allow you to attack drow without repercussion."Cramer grinned an evil grin.  "I am well aware," he admitted.  Then, being the only one of the five to have been inside the Punch-a-Drow shop, he led the way through the House Jalamir slave market and up to the shop's front door.  "We ought to have a cover story," he informed the others - all of whom now gave every outward appearance of being drow nobles.  "And Marlo, as the female of the group, you'd normally be in command; you should do all of our talking for us.  Remember to sound regal and haughty.""Got it.  What's our cover story?""We want all of the slaves gathered together, so let's just command the proprietor to gather them up for our inspection.""Why would we do that?" asked Khari.Cramer gave it some thought.  "House Jalamir's having a party for their upper nobles," he decided, "and they want the maximum number of pleasure slaves available.  We're to bring everyone from the Forbidden Desires shop, no questions asked...and the order comes from Calish Jalamir himself!" he added with a chuckle.  This sounded like a good idea to Jhasspok, who was busy imagining what a "pleasure slave" would do at a drow party.  Probably serve fish, he decided, inordinately pleased at the thought of an all-you-can-eat fish party.  But then the lizardfolk's mental reveries were interrupted by Marlo signaling they were about to enter the building.A drow in studded leather armor sat behind the counter as Marlo stormed into the building, the four "drow" men trailing behind her.  He looked up absently, expecting to see a prospective client interested in hiring out his wares but jumped immediately to his feet at the apparent sight of a high-ranking cleric of Lolth.  "H-How may I be of service, matron?" he stammered.  Over at the far side of the room, two scantily-clad drow slaves stood on display."Your pleasure slaves: bring them before me at once!" commanded Marlo.  "All of them."  The proprietor responded by ringing a bell he picked up from beneath the counter.  Three more drow women entered from private rooms along the side of the building."Where are the others?" demanded Marlo.  "Calish demands all of your pleasure slaves, even those...newly acquired.""Others?" gulped the drow behind the counter.  "Matron...these are all there all."  Using the counter as cover, he secretly loaded his hand crossbow; something wasn't right here.  House Jalamir was large enough he couldn't possibly be expected to recognize all of its members by sight, but he had a pretty good idea of its top members and he'd never seen any of these five before.  He gave Marlo an appraising look - he'd certainly have recognized her if he'd ever seen her before, he was sure of that!Deciding a cleric of Lolth would probably want to roughen up anyone giving her any kind of difficulty, Marlo stormed around the counter and approached the proprietor - and was immediately shot with his hand crossbow.  "We're under attack!" he called to the pleasure slaves as he hurriedly reloaded his crossbow.  "Get them!"Khari reacted by dashing up to the counter and bringing his dwarven warhammer crashing down upon the drow's head.  The victim of the attack managed to duck and bring his arm up instinctively to block the blow, and the audible crack indicated he'd likely broken his arm in doing so.  Jhasspok had also bounded up to attack the man with his battleaxe, but his blade merely cut a deep gouge in the wooden counter in the spot where the proprietor had just moved from in dodging Khari's blow.Reluctantly obeying their master, the pleasure slaves moved in for the attack, weaponless but scratching with their polished nails.  Jhasspok felt a set of nails running harmlessly across his scales; the slave didn't seem to notice the discrepancy between the fine linen cloth her intended victim seemed to be wearing and the hardened scales of the lizardfolk hidden behind the illusion.  But two of the other slaves managed to scratch Utred's face, causing him to roar in anger - not from the pain, which was minimal, but just at the affront of having been harmed by weaponless foes.  Not wanting to waste any time fighting them off, he gave one a push that send her reeling across the room while the barbarian brought his Elderwood flaming longsword stabbing through the proprietor's neck, slaying him instantly.  Utred noticed the magic of the potion had changed the apparent color of the flames from his sword from their normal emerald hue to a more natural orange-yellow.Cramer, in the meantime, had approached the pleasure slave he'd rented once before and grabbed her wrists while calling for them to stop attacking.  "We're here to free you!" he cried above the din.  That got their attention: the women ceased their halfhearted attacks at once, having fought more from fear of disobeying their master than any real desire to enter combat on their own."Got something here," Utred announced as he leaped over the counter and examined the stone wall behind it.  He tossed the proprietor's corpse out of the way to find the trigger mechanism, but find it he did.  "Secret door," he nodded to himself.  "Kids're prolly behind here.""Do you know anything of eight drow slaves being recently brought here?" asked Cramer.  The pleasure slaves admitted they did immediately, adding there was a horrid minotaur guarding the "training cave" where the kids would be indoctrinated into their new roles by the four drow "educators" responsible for their torture and eventual compliance."Then I think it best if you five stay in your rooms until we return with them," the gnome advised.  "We will be back for you, and then we'll take all of you to freedom."  The pleasure slaves were more than happy to follow the gnome's advice, Cramer's former "rental partner" having the presence of mind to lock the front door and put out a "CLOSED" sign to ensure there would be no interruptions during the rescue attempt.  Cramer cast a quick healing spell on Marlo to close up the wound caused by the bolt from the proprietor's hand crossbow, then the sorceress indicated her readiness with a silent nod.Utred led the charge into the room beyond, activating the secret door and getting in a good slash at the minotaur beyond with his Elderwood flaming longsword before the shaggy beast had fully turned around to see who was entering his domain.  Jhasspok and Khari followed, each likewise bringing their weapons to bear, but it was Marlo who took the minotaur down with a magic missile spell.  The poor thing was dead before it even knew why it was being attacked by a drow cleric and her four henchmen.There was a spiral staircase in the corner, leading down.  "Wait - I thought the basement was above us," said Marlo, clearly confused."It is," replied Utred, pointing down at the stairs leading down.  "We're upside-down on the cavern ceiling, remember?  Down is currently up.""I hate this place," Marlo reiterated, her head starting to hurt from trying to visualize just exactly where in the Overreach she was.Utred once again led the formation, heading down the stairs with the others behind him.  As a dwarf, he could see perfectly fine in the pitch blackness of the spiraling tunnel but Marlo, Cramer, and Jhasspok activated their slave-light cloaks, causing differently-colored illumination to spill out all about them.  After several complete turns, the stairs leading down became a ramp leading up, for at the transition point was the end of the reverse gravity effect; now the group was climbing upwards along the ramp, the "basement" level actually above the upside-down Punch-a-Drow shop as had been explained.  Marlo's incipient headache began to worsen.The spiral ramp widened at the end as it spilled into an irregularly-shaped cavern.  Khari raced ahead once he saw a male drow in studded leather armor poking at the unconscious body of a drow girl with an electrified rapier, the tip of the blade making a characteristic "zap" with each poke.  With a battle roar, the dwarven fighter charged at the drow ranger, bringing the head of his warhammer crashing into his ribs.Hearing the sudden yelp from her subordinate, the leader of the slave trainers turned and saw what appeared to be an armored drow attacking her minion with a warhammer.  Amazed at the audacity, she cast a Kelgor's fire bolt spell at the disguised Hammerslammer dwarf, striking him squarely in the back.  But at the same time Jhasspok followed Khari's path of travel and bolted up from the ramp, cutting the ranger down with his battleaxe.  He, too, looked to be a drow warrior; even his turtle shell shield had been covered by the disguise self spell to give the appearance of a metal shield holding an intricate spiderweb pattern, with the House Jalamir emblem at its center.Two more drow trainers ran up to the two interlopers, one attacking Khari and one going for Jhasspok, each wielding an electrified rapier, with a short sword in his off hand.  Neither drow managed to hit their targets, for the disguised arena slaves had had plenty of time in which to dodge the incoming blows.Back down in the ramp, Cramer called hurriedly to Utred, "There's a spellcaster of some sort up there behind us!  You go take them out of action!"  And then he cast a silence spell on the dwarven barbarian, realizing the zone of silence around him wouldn't hamper him in the least - while likely having disastrous effects upon anyone trying to cast a spell with a verbal component (which the clever gnome realized was just about all of them) in his immediate vicinity.  Nodding his agreement, Utred raced up the ramp and around the corner, seeing his spellcasting target for the first time: a female battle-cleric of Lolth by the look of all the spider-emblems she had embedded on her armor.  Her brow furrowed in consternation as she heard no noise accompanying the barbarian's hard-soled boots on the stone of the cavern; then, as sudden realization dawned, she turned to try to flee before he could reach her - to no avail, as Utred's magic longsword cut a deep gash into her side.  But she raced away from the crazed dwarf - who looked to be a high-ranking House Jalamir noble, obviously a magical disguise of some sort - and over towards Cramer, who likewise looked to be a high-ranking member of her House.  She had no idea of Cramer's capabilities but her primary goal was to get outside the range of the area of effect of the silence spell obviously centered on the drow who had attacked her with the flaming longsword.  She struck at Cramer with her own weapon as she approached, but missed.Marlo cast a magic missile at the drow ranger attacking Khari and the dwarven fighter finished off his foe with a well-placed hammer strike.  That was two of the males down - a full 50% of the torturers "instructing" the House Dureem children of their new roles.  Jhasspok hit his own foe with his magic battleaxe, noting the cowering children lining the outer edges of the cavern.  The drow ranger tried to retaliate with a strike of his own but the electrified rapier hit only the lizardfolk's disguised turtle shell shield.  Marlo cast another magic missile spell at the ranger, striking him unerringly.  He staggered under the impact but did not fall.Cramer took a step backwards and cast a sound burst spell at the drow cleric, hoping to stun her into momentary motionlessness, but she was apparently made of sterner stuff.  But then Utred caught up to her and struck her again with his sword, keeping her encompassed within the field of silence.  Khari ran up to the cleric and struck her with his warhammer from the direct opposite side as Utred, pinning her between them.The woman acted instinctively, knowing the two dwarves could easily kill her with their weapons and she had no effective spells she could cast without speaking aloud.  But she could trigger the magical darkness effect available to all drow, dropping down (silently, thanks to Cramer's still-active silence spell centered on Utred) to her hands and knees and crawling off to the side.  She knew her foes wouldn't be able to see her, even if they were, like her, a true drow; she suspected this was possibly another attack from a Lesser House trying to take advantage of House Jalamir's temporary weakness after House Dureem's suicidal attack.Just outside the hemisphere of absolute darkness covering the center of the chamber, Jhasspok traded blows with his dark elf foe, neither seeming able to hit the other.  But then Cramer hit the sole remaining drow ranger with another sound burst spell, and this time the spell was all it took to take the dark elf out of commission.  That left the female cleric as the only remaining combatant and she was somewhere within the half-globe of absolute darkness.  The gnome backed up until he could see both sides of the hemisphere, so he'd hopefully be able to see her when she emerged.  Marlo likewise readied another magic missile spell, to cast at the drow woman once she came within view.Utred, blind and deaf but well aware that Khari was somewhere in front of him, gave his longsword a tentative swing before him: enough to tell if the woman he'd been fighting was still in place but not enough to go stabbing into Khari if the dwarves were standing closer than the barbarian had imagined.  Khari did likewise with his own weapon, poking out with the hammer's head to gauge her position rather than trying to hit her just yet.  But the dwarves' tentative probes didn't matter in the least, for the cleric had the misfortune of crawling out of her own darkness effect quite literally at Marlo's feet; the sorceress took her out with her readied magic missile spell."That should be it," remarked Cramer, dismissing his silence spell.  "Come this way," he yelled to the dwarves, knowing there was an open, spiraling ramp somewhere near them in the hemisphere of sightlessness; no sense in them falling into it and breaking their fool necks.  Then he turned to the drow children they'd come to rescue.  "Don't be afraid of us," he called to them.  "We're here to rescue you.  We'll have you all out of here in no time."During the time the group had been waiting for the cleric to emerge from the darkness effect, Jhasspok had picked up the unconscious girl and moved her over to the far cavern wall, where she'd be less likely to be affected by any further combat.  Then, as the dwarves emerged, he joined them in checking out the bodies of the drow they'd slain.  The electrified rapiers were interesting, but none of the arena slaves could see themselves using them so they all opted to leave them behind.Cramer cast a healing spell on the unconscious House Dureem girl, bringing her to full wakefulness.  Then, wanting to leave some sort of message to the House Jalamir members who would at one point investigate this cavern, the gnome had one of the children help him scratch the symbol of House Dureem onto the stone floor of the cavern.  "I want them to know they failed to completely eradicate your House," he told them.  Then the raiders gathered all eight children together and led them back down the ramp, which halfway through the cycle turned into going up the stairs.  (Marlo muttered something under her breath at that point, but none of the children could make out exactly what she said.)  Then, back in the Punch-a-Drow shop proper, they gathered up the five slaves and explained what was going to happen.  "Our story is that we're taking you all away to a gathering of high officials," Marlo said.  "I'll lead the way and these other four will be supposed to be guarding you, so walk single file as if you're not sure what's going on and somewhat afraid.  But we're really going somewhere where you'll be safe and free to live your lives as other than slaves to House Jalamir.  Okay?"Marlo was greeted with positive responses and she was pleased to see they had all mastered the "looking confused and afraid" part as she led them out of the building, through the House Jalamir slave market, and over to the meeting house where Niradi Ky'hulcressen and her purple-haired Greenvale associate awaited them.  The five sunborn drow who had brought the arena slaves through the Plane of Shadows reappeared, to take the slaves to their new lives in Greenvale.The arena slaves were taken to a secluded alleyway for the effects of their potions to wear off.  When they once more looked like themselves, one of the sunborn drow returned to their sides.  "You will run now, as if having escaped from your attackers.  You do not know who attacked you or why they wanted you, but when you awoke - perhaps sooner than had been expected - you fled.  Drop your rings as you run; I will gather them back up.  Now go!"The arena slaves ran, dropping their rings as instructed.  Cramer appreciated the simplicity of the sunborn drow's plan: with Khari and Jhasspok's limited capacity for intrigue - neither was anywhere near the top end of the intellectual scale - it was best for everyone to just play dumb.  And with House Dureem already having attacked House Jalamir and several other Houses likely planning similar assaults, it was completely feasible that the first strike against the Noble House might be against several of their slaves, to torture information from them about their House's weaknesses.But Cramer knew he'd just made an important blow against the House that had made a slave of him.  One day he'd be back to full freedom but if he had to remain a slave for a bit longer, it was rather fulfilling to be a "secret double slave," to use Jhasspok's term.- - -This session was bombarded with puns.  We noticed immediately the similarity between "Dureem" and "dream" and that got the ball rolling.  When we were told we had to rescue eight Dureem children, I piped up with, "The oldest one's name is Dureem Abdul Jabbar," which elicited a groan from Vicki and a demand to hear the other seven names if only to get them out of my system.  Well, I didn't have seven "Dureem" pun names immediately at hand, but we did spend the night commenting on how they were all so "Dureemy" and the like.  And then, at the end, when we had slain the enemies and rescued the eight Dureem slaves, I asked Logan if any of them had the ability to create ironsilk, like Niradi could, and pretended not to remember her title.  Logan responded with "She's an Apprentice Weaver, and no, the slave children aren't trained in that art."  Which was exactly what I had hoped he'd say, as it set me up for, "Oh, so there aren't any Dureem Weavers among them?"  The look on Logan's face showed an eye-rolling dismay at my stupid pun and an equal self-abasement for not having seen that one coming.  Heh heh heh - or, as Jhasspok would put it, "Ssss ssss ssss ssss ssss ssss!"But Logan's taken to letting the puns roll by him, because he knows there's nothing he can do to put a stop to them.  After all, Dan's as big of an instigator as I am - he still uses the term "Piehole Crescent" to refer to the sunborn drow's Noble House, to which we are all "secret double slaves."We all leveled up to 5th at the end of this adventure.  Everyone else is sticking with another level of their sole character class, but Jhasspok's adding a level of fighter, so he can get a bonus Weapon Focus (greataxe) feat to help him start pulling his weight a bit better in combat around here.  It's kind of painful for a hulking lizardfolk to be put to shame by a pair of four-foot-tall dwarves!</blockquote>

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