D&D 4E Running Commentary on Rel's 4e Campaign (Complete 8/2/10)
- Thread starter Rel
- Start date
Rel
Liquid Awesome
Mialain and Astavian's prayers were answered after a fashion: Both had a sense that this was a battle that could not be won and both knew that their deities required further service from them. The only choice was to flee. The only option for flight was through the swirling portal of Mist on the island just outside the dragon's lair.
They dashed back they way they had come, the Dracolich's counting echoing after them. They leapt into the river running around the island and made it across (with some difficulties) to the island. As they hurried toward the portal the shadow of the Dracolich passed overhead but they remained hidden by the Mist thus far.
However a cacophony of voices, all speaking an old version of Elven, rose up before them. A pair of blobby mounds of flesh, dotted with hundreds of eyes and mouths, blocked their way. They attacked the abominiations as they made their way slowly toward the portal but with the Dracolich flying overhead they dared not draw too much attention to themselves or delay too long. Finally they managed to disengage from their attackers and plunge through the entrance to another world...
DISCONTINUTY...
They dashed back they way they had come, the Dracolich's counting echoing after them. They leapt into the river running around the island and made it across (with some difficulties) to the island. As they hurried toward the portal the shadow of the Dracolich passed overhead but they remained hidden by the Mist thus far.
However a cacophony of voices, all speaking an old version of Elven, rose up before them. A pair of blobby mounds of flesh, dotted with hundreds of eyes and mouths, blocked their way. They attacked the abominiations as they made their way slowly toward the portal but with the Dracolich flying overhead they dared not draw too much attention to themselves or delay too long. Finally they managed to disengage from their attackers and plunge through the entrance to another world...
DISCONTINUTY...
Rel
Liquid Awesome
Someone in the Place Between Places noticed something of interest. This was consequential because this Someone used to be Someone Very Important. Somone called Io. And nothing of interest had passed through the Place Between Places in a very long time.
This Something was a shell of a race created by the race created by Io. The Someone who used to be Io considered briefly over this thing and how it might have been made differently. This interest and consideration were very slight and very brief.
But Io had been very powerful...
This Something was a shell of a race created by the race created by Io. The Someone who used to be Io considered briefly over this thing and how it might have been made differently. This interest and consideration were very slight and very brief.
But Io had been very powerful...
Rel
Liquid Awesome
...EMERGENCE
The four of them were on the ground at the edge of a portal that looked identical to that which they had entered. This one however had Mist boiling out of it rather than being sucked into it. They immediately felt its intensity and knew that the "Mist Milk" they wore to ward it off would not withstand its effects. Astavian, Mialain and Zanne began to get to their feet when they noticed with astonishment that Eshik was doing the same.
"You're alive!"
But that wasn't the only notable change in Eshik. The color of his scales had changed to a dark purple, almost black. A brief exchange had the rest of the group tell Eshik of the defeat of Baelthrax and the subsequent rise of the Dracolich and their flight through the portal into what they presumed was the Feywild. Eshik told them that something had happened to him when they crossed over but further explanation would need to wait until they were out of the worst of the Mist.
They travelled quickly away from the portal some distance and stopped to apply a fresh coat of Mist Milk to their exposed skin. Eshik oddly felt no effects from the Mist but put some on just in case. Noting how easy it was to get lost in the Mist they discovered a stream and began to follow it upstream.
A few minutes later a band of squat assailants leapt from cover by the edge of the stream to attack them. They had greenish skin, the color of the Mist and wore a hodge-podge of clothing. But each wore a cloth cap that was the brownish red of drying blood.
The party was already nearly exhausted by their recent battles and flight through the portal. The small stature of their attackers belied their strength and ferocity as they fell upon the PC's with a thirst for blood. Althought he party emerged victorious, it was a very near thing. Knowing that they could not withstand another such attack, they left the stream behind and scrambled up the side of the valley toward high ground.
They spent an uneasy night in the thinner grasp of the Mist at higher altitude. They made no fire and ate only cold slices of fruit from Melora's Tree of Life. It was enough to keep them going and no enemy attacked them.
In the morning they continued to move to higher ground and finally emerged on a small mountain that thrust above the Mistline. The area around them was unfamilar and the shallow depth of the Mist was surprising. But it was enough to cover all but a few very distant peaks from what they could see from their current vantage point. Thinking the view might be different from the other side of the mountain they resolved to ascend the peak and see what might be seen from there.
A few hours later they rather abruptly stumbled across a village of wee folk, about the size of a Halfling. They had a look about them not entirely dissimilar from that of the foes they'd faced in the valley the day before. But these were clearly not Mist Demons as their attackers had been. After some apprehension by both parties, it was discovered that these folk spoke a dialect of Elven which Mialain believed to be the tongue spoken by Eladrin. These folk called themselves "Gnomes" and the creatures they had already fought were their brethren from other mountains which had been engulfed by the Mist. The Gnomes called the warped ones "the Spriggans".
The group were shown to the village leaders, a Wizard known as Galiban and his brother Tinker Goswald. It was firmly established that the PCs were now in the Feywild and clearly it was being inundated by the Mist. This band of Gnomes had been isolated on their mountaintop for nearly 20 years and it grew smaller each year. They knew that, at the present rate, it would be engulfed within another 10 years and they would suffer the fate of the Spriggans.
Galiban had been around since the Mist first began to enter the Feywild nearly 40 years before. He had conferred with other Gnomish and Eladrin sages and all agreed that it should be possible to close the Gate through which the Mist was coming. But the only way to do so was to perform the ritual on both sides of the Gate at once. And none of the scout parties sent through ever emerged. These efforts were finally abandoned while other means of sealing the Gate were sought. By the time that the Eladrin sages stopped coming to the area the Gnomes had been cut off by the Mist.
As a means of escape they had begun a tunnel near the top of the mountain that they hoped would get them over to another, larger mountain range nearby to the east. Things had gone well when they disovered a sizable system of caverns that would make the job easier. But then they discovered that the caverns were not uninhabited. A band of "Stink Lizards" and some large spiders had killed several of the tunneling party and they had no choice but to seal it off.
The party asked if the Gnomes knew where to find the Eladrin and were told that they did. But the nearest Eladrin city the Gnomes knew of was east "beyond the Giant Lands". They indicated that this was the same mountain range they were trying to tunnel to.
The PC's told the Gnomes that if they would unblock the tunnel that they would attempt to clear a way through to the far range if one could be found. The Gnomes gleefully accepted this offer of assistance and threw a huge banquet in honor of the party. The principal food on the menu was squirrel.
The next day the party set off toward the peak of the mountain, escorted by Tinker Goswald. He had some guards unblock the way into the tunnel and gave the party a pair of small "rockets" as well as a "boom". He explained that one rocket would burst Red and the other would burst Green. If they made it to the other side and the way was safe for the Gnomes to follow they should launch the Green rocket at night. If the way was too perilous and the Gnomes should not follow they should launch the Red rocket. If the way was open but still somewhat dangerous they should launch both. And if they needed to blast open a doorway or a Stink Lizard then they should use the boom.
With this bizarre new Gnomish technology in hand, they descended into the darkness.
*********
Phew! There is a good bit more catching up to do but I'd better interject some rulesy stuff.
Ok, so obviously the critters "guarding" the gate were Gibbering Mouthers. They were the perfect tool for that job in terms of their ability to hinder the progress of the group. It is also suspected that the intense Mist around the portal warped one of the early Eladrin scouting parties into one of the Mouthers and it has grown and fed on those who came after.
The Spriggans were the critters of the same name from the Monster Manual 2. However this was a point where I decided to experiment with a house rule that was suggested here at ENW and it is worth talking about why I did this and what the results have been:
I would not say that many of the combats over the course of this campaign were a "grind". But to me that word specifically means a fight that involves repeating the same sort of attacks over and over and isn't very exciting.
On the other hand I will say that many of the combats in this campaign have been long. Sometimes this was on purpose because they were supposed to be rather "epic" fights that were the centerpiece of the whole session that night. But others were longer than they needed to be when considering their significance to the game as a whole. I wanted a combat. I didn't want it to be easy. I just wanted it to be fast and exciting and dangerous.
So I decided to implement a suggestion here on the boards to reduce monster HP and increase damage. Specifically I reduced monster HP to 60% normal and increased damage by 1/2 level +4 on every attack. So an 8th level monster (about the level the PC's were at the time) does +8 damage on each attack.
In that Spriggan fight the players immediately went, "Holy CRAP! These guys hit hard!" But they quickly discovered that their foes dropped more quickly too. That fight lasted maybe 30 minutes and it was a nail-biter due to the increased damage and the fact that the PC's were low on healing surges and had almost no Daily powers left.
I've kept this rule as a guideline since then. I've varied it, sometimes using the increased damage but upping the HPs some if I want a more "elite" monster. But I've found that it has worked quite well for making the combats go a bit faster when I've wanted them to.
Finally let me briefly address the matter of Eshik's miraculous return from the dead: I talked with the player about what he wanted to do in terms of making a new character or getting raised, etc. He said that he'd like to keep playing Eshik and we both knew that he was sort of angling for the Scion of Arkhosia Paragon Path. So I asked him if he'd mind if I "screwed with his character aesthetically" some. He said he didn't so I had the brief encounter with what used to be Io.
Along with coming back to life his scales changed color and his breath weapon turned, for a while, into a sort of "chaos breath" that was like colorless fire. Gradually, over the space of about about one full session, it settled down and he got to pick a new flavor of breath weapon (Cold). It also appears that he doesn't interact with the Mist the way most people do, but the full extent of that hasn't been revealed.
So there you have it. Hopefully I can post at least one more update this week in an effort to close the gap between where we are in the game and what I've written.
The four of them were on the ground at the edge of a portal that looked identical to that which they had entered. This one however had Mist boiling out of it rather than being sucked into it. They immediately felt its intensity and knew that the "Mist Milk" they wore to ward it off would not withstand its effects. Astavian, Mialain and Zanne began to get to their feet when they noticed with astonishment that Eshik was doing the same.
"You're alive!"
But that wasn't the only notable change in Eshik. The color of his scales had changed to a dark purple, almost black. A brief exchange had the rest of the group tell Eshik of the defeat of Baelthrax and the subsequent rise of the Dracolich and their flight through the portal into what they presumed was the Feywild. Eshik told them that something had happened to him when they crossed over but further explanation would need to wait until they were out of the worst of the Mist.
They travelled quickly away from the portal some distance and stopped to apply a fresh coat of Mist Milk to their exposed skin. Eshik oddly felt no effects from the Mist but put some on just in case. Noting how easy it was to get lost in the Mist they discovered a stream and began to follow it upstream.
A few minutes later a band of squat assailants leapt from cover by the edge of the stream to attack them. They had greenish skin, the color of the Mist and wore a hodge-podge of clothing. But each wore a cloth cap that was the brownish red of drying blood.
The party was already nearly exhausted by their recent battles and flight through the portal. The small stature of their attackers belied their strength and ferocity as they fell upon the PC's with a thirst for blood. Althought he party emerged victorious, it was a very near thing. Knowing that they could not withstand another such attack, they left the stream behind and scrambled up the side of the valley toward high ground.
They spent an uneasy night in the thinner grasp of the Mist at higher altitude. They made no fire and ate only cold slices of fruit from Melora's Tree of Life. It was enough to keep them going and no enemy attacked them.
In the morning they continued to move to higher ground and finally emerged on a small mountain that thrust above the Mistline. The area around them was unfamilar and the shallow depth of the Mist was surprising. But it was enough to cover all but a few very distant peaks from what they could see from their current vantage point. Thinking the view might be different from the other side of the mountain they resolved to ascend the peak and see what might be seen from there.
A few hours later they rather abruptly stumbled across a village of wee folk, about the size of a Halfling. They had a look about them not entirely dissimilar from that of the foes they'd faced in the valley the day before. But these were clearly not Mist Demons as their attackers had been. After some apprehension by both parties, it was discovered that these folk spoke a dialect of Elven which Mialain believed to be the tongue spoken by Eladrin. These folk called themselves "Gnomes" and the creatures they had already fought were their brethren from other mountains which had been engulfed by the Mist. The Gnomes called the warped ones "the Spriggans".
The group were shown to the village leaders, a Wizard known as Galiban and his brother Tinker Goswald. It was firmly established that the PCs were now in the Feywild and clearly it was being inundated by the Mist. This band of Gnomes had been isolated on their mountaintop for nearly 20 years and it grew smaller each year. They knew that, at the present rate, it would be engulfed within another 10 years and they would suffer the fate of the Spriggans.
Galiban had been around since the Mist first began to enter the Feywild nearly 40 years before. He had conferred with other Gnomish and Eladrin sages and all agreed that it should be possible to close the Gate through which the Mist was coming. But the only way to do so was to perform the ritual on both sides of the Gate at once. And none of the scout parties sent through ever emerged. These efforts were finally abandoned while other means of sealing the Gate were sought. By the time that the Eladrin sages stopped coming to the area the Gnomes had been cut off by the Mist.
As a means of escape they had begun a tunnel near the top of the mountain that they hoped would get them over to another, larger mountain range nearby to the east. Things had gone well when they disovered a sizable system of caverns that would make the job easier. But then they discovered that the caverns were not uninhabited. A band of "Stink Lizards" and some large spiders had killed several of the tunneling party and they had no choice but to seal it off.
The party asked if the Gnomes knew where to find the Eladrin and were told that they did. But the nearest Eladrin city the Gnomes knew of was east "beyond the Giant Lands". They indicated that this was the same mountain range they were trying to tunnel to.
The PC's told the Gnomes that if they would unblock the tunnel that they would attempt to clear a way through to the far range if one could be found. The Gnomes gleefully accepted this offer of assistance and threw a huge banquet in honor of the party. The principal food on the menu was squirrel.
The next day the party set off toward the peak of the mountain, escorted by Tinker Goswald. He had some guards unblock the way into the tunnel and gave the party a pair of small "rockets" as well as a "boom". He explained that one rocket would burst Red and the other would burst Green. If they made it to the other side and the way was safe for the Gnomes to follow they should launch the Green rocket at night. If the way was too perilous and the Gnomes should not follow they should launch the Red rocket. If the way was open but still somewhat dangerous they should launch both. And if they needed to blast open a doorway or a Stink Lizard then they should use the boom.
With this bizarre new Gnomish technology in hand, they descended into the darkness.
*********
Phew! There is a good bit more catching up to do but I'd better interject some rulesy stuff.
Ok, so obviously the critters "guarding" the gate were Gibbering Mouthers. They were the perfect tool for that job in terms of their ability to hinder the progress of the group. It is also suspected that the intense Mist around the portal warped one of the early Eladrin scouting parties into one of the Mouthers and it has grown and fed on those who came after.
The Spriggans were the critters of the same name from the Monster Manual 2. However this was a point where I decided to experiment with a house rule that was suggested here at ENW and it is worth talking about why I did this and what the results have been:
I would not say that many of the combats over the course of this campaign were a "grind". But to me that word specifically means a fight that involves repeating the same sort of attacks over and over and isn't very exciting.
On the other hand I will say that many of the combats in this campaign have been long. Sometimes this was on purpose because they were supposed to be rather "epic" fights that were the centerpiece of the whole session that night. But others were longer than they needed to be when considering their significance to the game as a whole. I wanted a combat. I didn't want it to be easy. I just wanted it to be fast and exciting and dangerous.
So I decided to implement a suggestion here on the boards to reduce monster HP and increase damage. Specifically I reduced monster HP to 60% normal and increased damage by 1/2 level +4 on every attack. So an 8th level monster (about the level the PC's were at the time) does +8 damage on each attack.
In that Spriggan fight the players immediately went, "Holy CRAP! These guys hit hard!" But they quickly discovered that their foes dropped more quickly too. That fight lasted maybe 30 minutes and it was a nail-biter due to the increased damage and the fact that the PC's were low on healing surges and had almost no Daily powers left.
I've kept this rule as a guideline since then. I've varied it, sometimes using the increased damage but upping the HPs some if I want a more "elite" monster. But I've found that it has worked quite well for making the combats go a bit faster when I've wanted them to.
Finally let me briefly address the matter of Eshik's miraculous return from the dead: I talked with the player about what he wanted to do in terms of making a new character or getting raised, etc. He said that he'd like to keep playing Eshik and we both knew that he was sort of angling for the Scion of Arkhosia Paragon Path. So I asked him if he'd mind if I "screwed with his character aesthetically" some. He said he didn't so I had the brief encounter with what used to be Io.
Along with coming back to life his scales changed color and his breath weapon turned, for a while, into a sort of "chaos breath" that was like colorless fire. Gradually, over the space of about about one full session, it settled down and he got to pick a new flavor of breath weapon (Cold). It also appears that he doesn't interact with the Mist the way most people do, but the full extent of that hasn't been revealed.
So there you have it. Hopefully I can post at least one more update this week in an effort to close the gap between where we are in the game and what I've written.
Joshua Randall
Legend
Rel
Liquid Awesome
Yes. It coincided with the period during which he had the Chaos Breath and could opt to change his breath weapon.
Rel
Liquid Awesome
Where does all the time go? Well my daughter is home sick from school today so I may as well use this downtime productively, eh?...
They delved down into the tunnel, which ran long and straight. It opened into a larger area at one point and as they were exiting this area they suddenly found themselves beset by a pair of large, rubbery, flying creatures. These enveloped different members of the party while others were forced to attack them even though some of the damage transferred through onto the enveloped character. Worse yet they could teleport and carried Eshik up to the celing. He did manage to escape but was hurt by the fall to the cave floor. Zanne was able to teleport out of the grasp of her assailant long enough for them to destroy it and the other one quickly fell. Catching their breath they pressed on.
Finally they came to where the passage broke into a very large cavern. Toward the center they could see several large pillars and humanoid creatures moving among them. The whole place carried a horrid stench. Presuming these were the "Stink Lizards" that had attacked the Gnomes, they moved in ready for battle.
They soon got one. The Stink Lizards were well organized and some hurled javelins with tremendous force while others closed with massive claws. Their apparent leader was some sort of shamanistic spellcaster. It harnessed the power of its own stink and was able to unleash bolts of poisonous stench upon the party. The party tried to converge and focus their attacks upon this priest but more reinforcements kept joining the fight from the far corners of the cavern.
As they began to get better control of the battle, the PC's noticed a huge shape lurking around the periphery of the fight. When one of the Stink Lizards screamed, they caught a glimpse of a gigantic spider. Trying to flee certain death at the hands of the PC's, the priest ran into the grasp of this monstrocity. Weak and drained from the fight, the PC's fled to the safety of the passage they had entered from, hoping it was too small to accomodate the spider. Whatever the reason, it didn't follow.
They rested and regained their strength before re-entering the cavern where they discovered that the spider had created a massive web around the central pillars. The group moved forward to confront this monster, knowing that the Gnomes would never be able to vanquish such a beast.
They burned away some of the outer webs and Astavian moved forward to challenge it and was suddenly siezed in its mandibles. As the others approached to give battle they discovered how incredibly mobile the spider was in its web. It was able to manipulate the strands of the web in such a way as to keep some of the group at bay while it attempted to suck the life from the Paladin. But Zanne and Mialain had powerful ranged attacks and Eshik's skill as a Ranger made him nearly as mobile as the spider. With but one foe to focus their attacks on, they made short work of the creature.
Exploring the rest of the cavern they discovered what appeared to be a "holy pool" with water flowing out of it via a stream and into a larger pool that held an enormous crayfish. The creature did not leave the water to attack them and the party determined that it posed no threat to the Gnomes so long as they didn't disturb it. They found another exit from the cavern that ascended and Eshik used his chisel to leave careful markings to steer the Gnomes away from the crayfish pool.
The ascending passage had been cut by water and was more winding than the mined hallway they had used to descend. But it still took less than two days travel to arrive at a place where they could feel a faint breeze coming from up ahead. There was a pile of refuse in a cavern at the bottom of a 40' deep pit. They moved ahead to peer up the pit when a swarm of beetles gushed out of the rotting pile to attack them.
These were rather swiftly dealt with by a combination of Zanne's fiery powers and the breath of the Dragonborn. But the combat had been loud enough to draw the attention of something from above. Suddenly a giant humanoid appeared at the edge of the pit and hurled a boulder down at them. Zanne attempted to use her Diabolic Grasp, pulling the creature over the precipice to fall 40 feet onto the pile of refuse. But the attack missed and the creature retreated to get another boulder. When it returned however it was Mialain's turn and she called on her link with nature to loosen the stones at the edge of the pit. The earth crumbled beneath the weight of the giant and it plunged 40 feet to land on the refuse pile below. Thus wounded and prone, it took only a few moments for the combined might of the party to slay it.
Eshik managed to climb up the pit into its lair and set a rope for the others to ascend. The cave was fairly shallow and the soon found themselves standing under open sky for the first time in a few days. Mialain thanked Melora for their safe arrival at the other side of the passage under the Mist. But they found their happiness somewhat dampened when Eshik discovered an even larger set of footprints leading away from the mouth of the cave up into the hills...
*********
The creatures they encountered on their descent were Darkmantles that I'd slightly house-ruled to allow part of the damage to transfer to anybody they were enveloping. These posed a threat as much from the damage party might inflict upon themselves as from their own powers. But Mialain did a great job of healing as usual and Zanne's teleportation powers once again came in handy.
The "Stink Lizards" were of course Troglodytes. Most of them were Impalers or Thrashers but they were led by an Elite that I pulled off of the Compendium named Kasszt. His At Will twin Poison Ray combined with the Cavern Curse (recharges on a 3 or higher!) meant that the party was Weakened and Slowed, plus taking ongoing Poison and/or Necrotic damage for a large portion of the combat. The addition of this leader made this a very challenging fight and the players well and truly hated that guy by the time it was over. They were only sorry that the spider got to kill him instead of them.
Speaking of which, after all the damage they had taken in the fight, they were terrified of that spider. They fled and debated attacking it but I recall that Zanne had ZERO Healing Surges left. So they opted to rest and recover. They spent some of their major Dailies before the assault on the spider (which was a re-skinned Neldrazu) including Astavian's Wrath of the Gods and Mialain's...whatever the one is called that boosts the party's AC. Even though the spider could shift through the web (which was difficult terrain) to keep the PC's at bay, Eshik managed to stay one step behind it and Zanne and Mialain could attack it from range (Zanne used her powers to burn away any webs that got in the way providing concealment). In the end it was a pretty easy fight.
I was thinking that the Rot Scarab Swarm might momentarily make them think it was the Lamia returned to take revenge but it didn't seem to cross their minds. It was mostly a speed bump encounter to set up the attack by the Cave Troll that they dealt with creatively and quickly. I was pulling for Zanne's Diabolic Grasp to work since that character is developing a bad habit of failing rolls on her coolest powers. But Mialain's stunt to "Loosen Earth and Stone" was worth the wait. The creature was a Cave Troll and had some regeneration but it took some nasty damage from the fall and the PC's pounced upon it and made short work of it.
They delved down into the tunnel, which ran long and straight. It opened into a larger area at one point and as they were exiting this area they suddenly found themselves beset by a pair of large, rubbery, flying creatures. These enveloped different members of the party while others were forced to attack them even though some of the damage transferred through onto the enveloped character. Worse yet they could teleport and carried Eshik up to the celing. He did manage to escape but was hurt by the fall to the cave floor. Zanne was able to teleport out of the grasp of her assailant long enough for them to destroy it and the other one quickly fell. Catching their breath they pressed on.
Finally they came to where the passage broke into a very large cavern. Toward the center they could see several large pillars and humanoid creatures moving among them. The whole place carried a horrid stench. Presuming these were the "Stink Lizards" that had attacked the Gnomes, they moved in ready for battle.
They soon got one. The Stink Lizards were well organized and some hurled javelins with tremendous force while others closed with massive claws. Their apparent leader was some sort of shamanistic spellcaster. It harnessed the power of its own stink and was able to unleash bolts of poisonous stench upon the party. The party tried to converge and focus their attacks upon this priest but more reinforcements kept joining the fight from the far corners of the cavern.
As they began to get better control of the battle, the PC's noticed a huge shape lurking around the periphery of the fight. When one of the Stink Lizards screamed, they caught a glimpse of a gigantic spider. Trying to flee certain death at the hands of the PC's, the priest ran into the grasp of this monstrocity. Weak and drained from the fight, the PC's fled to the safety of the passage they had entered from, hoping it was too small to accomodate the spider. Whatever the reason, it didn't follow.
They rested and regained their strength before re-entering the cavern where they discovered that the spider had created a massive web around the central pillars. The group moved forward to confront this monster, knowing that the Gnomes would never be able to vanquish such a beast.
They burned away some of the outer webs and Astavian moved forward to challenge it and was suddenly siezed in its mandibles. As the others approached to give battle they discovered how incredibly mobile the spider was in its web. It was able to manipulate the strands of the web in such a way as to keep some of the group at bay while it attempted to suck the life from the Paladin. But Zanne and Mialain had powerful ranged attacks and Eshik's skill as a Ranger made him nearly as mobile as the spider. With but one foe to focus their attacks on, they made short work of the creature.
Exploring the rest of the cavern they discovered what appeared to be a "holy pool" with water flowing out of it via a stream and into a larger pool that held an enormous crayfish. The creature did not leave the water to attack them and the party determined that it posed no threat to the Gnomes so long as they didn't disturb it. They found another exit from the cavern that ascended and Eshik used his chisel to leave careful markings to steer the Gnomes away from the crayfish pool.
The ascending passage had been cut by water and was more winding than the mined hallway they had used to descend. But it still took less than two days travel to arrive at a place where they could feel a faint breeze coming from up ahead. There was a pile of refuse in a cavern at the bottom of a 40' deep pit. They moved ahead to peer up the pit when a swarm of beetles gushed out of the rotting pile to attack them.
These were rather swiftly dealt with by a combination of Zanne's fiery powers and the breath of the Dragonborn. But the combat had been loud enough to draw the attention of something from above. Suddenly a giant humanoid appeared at the edge of the pit and hurled a boulder down at them. Zanne attempted to use her Diabolic Grasp, pulling the creature over the precipice to fall 40 feet onto the pile of refuse. But the attack missed and the creature retreated to get another boulder. When it returned however it was Mialain's turn and she called on her link with nature to loosen the stones at the edge of the pit. The earth crumbled beneath the weight of the giant and it plunged 40 feet to land on the refuse pile below. Thus wounded and prone, it took only a few moments for the combined might of the party to slay it.
Eshik managed to climb up the pit into its lair and set a rope for the others to ascend. The cave was fairly shallow and the soon found themselves standing under open sky for the first time in a few days. Mialain thanked Melora for their safe arrival at the other side of the passage under the Mist. But they found their happiness somewhat dampened when Eshik discovered an even larger set of footprints leading away from the mouth of the cave up into the hills...
*********
The creatures they encountered on their descent were Darkmantles that I'd slightly house-ruled to allow part of the damage to transfer to anybody they were enveloping. These posed a threat as much from the damage party might inflict upon themselves as from their own powers. But Mialain did a great job of healing as usual and Zanne's teleportation powers once again came in handy.
The "Stink Lizards" were of course Troglodytes. Most of them were Impalers or Thrashers but they were led by an Elite that I pulled off of the Compendium named Kasszt. His At Will twin Poison Ray combined with the Cavern Curse (recharges on a 3 or higher!) meant that the party was Weakened and Slowed, plus taking ongoing Poison and/or Necrotic damage for a large portion of the combat. The addition of this leader made this a very challenging fight and the players well and truly hated that guy by the time it was over. They were only sorry that the spider got to kill him instead of them.
Speaking of which, after all the damage they had taken in the fight, they were terrified of that spider. They fled and debated attacking it but I recall that Zanne had ZERO Healing Surges left. So they opted to rest and recover. They spent some of their major Dailies before the assault on the spider (which was a re-skinned Neldrazu) including Astavian's Wrath of the Gods and Mialain's...whatever the one is called that boosts the party's AC. Even though the spider could shift through the web (which was difficult terrain) to keep the PC's at bay, Eshik managed to stay one step behind it and Zanne and Mialain could attack it from range (Zanne used her powers to burn away any webs that got in the way providing concealment). In the end it was a pretty easy fight.
I was thinking that the Rot Scarab Swarm might momentarily make them think it was the Lamia returned to take revenge but it didn't seem to cross their minds. It was mostly a speed bump encounter to set up the attack by the Cave Troll that they dealt with creatively and quickly. I was pulling for Zanne's Diabolic Grasp to work since that character is developing a bad habit of failing rolls on her coolest powers. But Mialain's stunt to "Loosen Earth and Stone" was worth the wait. The creature was a Cave Troll and had some regeneration but it took some nasty damage from the fall and the PC's pounced upon it and made short work of it.
