Dark Lake Part 3:
The Assault of the Sea Trolls
The Assault of the Sea Trolls
Dramatis Personae:
Aura, the Air Genasi Storm Sorceress who injures the party almost as much as the enemies
Orvald Abershaw, the Mousefolk Barbarian
Fidget Stonegear, the Deep Gnome Inventor
Zarrus, the Tiefling Favored Soul Sorcerer of Mephisto
Miarielle, the Lythari Priestess of Corellon
Lythana Belmyr, the Half-Drow Blood Hunter of Eilistraee
Zenit 'Dracon, the Drow Fighter and Orvald's wife
Prince Derendil, the Quaggoth who thinks he's an elven prince under a polymorph curse, and that he's the best at everything
Thimblepwent Battlehammer, the Dwarven Battlerager Barbarian
Stool, the Myconid Child
Shuushar, the "Awakened" Kuo-toa
Glabbagool, the Gelatinous Cube
Hemeth, the Duergar Arms Dealer
Comrades we have lost:
Ront, the Orc Fighter- turned into hamburger by Pwent
Buppido, the Derro- left with duergar merchants
Eldeth Feldrun, the Shield Dwarf- killed during escape
Hera Adaar, the Abyssal Tiefling Wild Sorceress- swept away
Luna Trelawny, the Human Divination Wizard- skull caved in by rock thrown by Fidget, then finished off by black pudding
Sarith Zekarit, the Drow Scout- drowned
Phillip Johnson, the Human Cleric- lost in boating accident
Topsy and Turvy, the Deep Gnome Wererat Rogue Twins- lost in boating accident
Jim Jar, the Deep Gnome- eaten by grell
Friendly fire dealt by Aura: 8
Party members killed: 6
Overall party members lost: 10
NOTE: Things will be mostly from Lythana's perspective, anything with italics is from a third party, since the hunter can't be everywhere at once.
***** Mirtul 19, 1489 DR (The Year of the Warrior Princess)
This morning Orvald decided it to use poor Jim Jar's entrails as fishing bait. It was a good idea, but still a little unsettling to see someone I've fought alongside be reduced to bait; I'm kind of surprised he was able to get them from Glabbagool, I figured the blob would have devoured them by now. The mousefolk was on to something though, he ended up catching a huge cavefish for us, which should make a decent dinner. Fidget decided to use the fish's guts to make faerie fire bombs, hope he uses those before they start to stink, otherwise, I really hope he doesn't chuck them at whoever I'm locked in melee with- I really don't want to get hit with that nastiness.
Hemeth had marked on our map the location of a potential mushroom grove, so we decided it would be a good idea to hit that and get some more provisions; our food stores were getting dangerously low, and we had a lot of mouths to feed. It felt like it took forever for us to find the stupid island grove, and we decided to spread out so we could cover more ground to harvest.
As Elle walked past a group of mushrooms, an ear-piercing shriek rang out, and tendrils lashed out of the shrooms, hitting my Pack Sister. The shrieking mushrooms were working in conjunction with the violet mushrooms. Fidget decided this was the opportune moment to test his stupid fish bomb- the godsbedamned svirfneblin missed the fucking mushrooms and hit me with his bomb. That was one of the most disgusting experiences of my life, and not having a warm bath to scrub it away in just made it worse. The moment that stupid bomb hit me a group of fifteen sturges swarmed Fidget, myself, and Aura.
Fidget activated a different bomb on himself- of course the jackass didn't activate one of his bombs of disgusting fish guts on himself, to kill the sturge that had attached to him, while I neatly sliced up the two that were on me. Orvald and Pwent ran to assist with the violet mushrooms, and the pair of barbarians quickly pulverized the fungi. Another stupid sturge attached itself to me, and I felt myself slipping into unconsciousness. Once the barbarians were finished making mushroom soup they turned to move toward the onslaught of sturges, but the shriekers had yet to be silenced. Zenit attacked those, but not before their call had maddened Pwent; he kept attacking the same one over and over, even once there was nothing left- the dwarf could still hear their cries, even once they had been silenced. When I came to, the battle was over, the sturges were gone, and the only sound was Pwent sputtering and rhythmically smashing the stone over and over.
For some reason, Fidget decided to use Pwent's rage to get a Zurkhwood mushroom chopped down. The suicidal svirfneblin antagonized the dwarf into chasing him around the base of the fungi until it finally went down- right on top of Pwent. Of course the damn thing was really close to the edge of a rise- and both the tree and the dwarf tumbled over the edge. It was hilarious.
We utilized the wood to make a smoker house, and spent the night there smoking the fish we'd caught, and the mushrooms we'd harvested. This should make our provisions stretch for a while.
***** Mirtul 20
We decided it would be in our best interest to continue harvesting mushrooms and fishing, the more food we could gather, the better our journey to Gracklstugh would go. Orvald hooked something huge on his line, and began fighting to reel it in. It immediately bit Orvald, a quick snap and release with its massive fangs...
I heard Orvald exclaim that he was under attack, so of course we all rushed to his aid. I had never seen a demon like the one before me, the beast that looked like a rabid bear, with large pointy fangs, and in place of its arms, it had small sharks- it was a demonic sharkenbear. The thing grabbed Orvald and the spider kisser with one of its shark arms, and suddenly the area was shrouded in darkness. The sharkenbear dove back into the lake, taking the mousefolk and the drow with it.
Orvald was able to get out of the beast's grasp, but Zenit was not so lucky; the drow couldn't escape its shark-hand jaws, and she began to drown. The mighty mousefolk saw his lady love drowning, and hurriedly put the Circlet of Water Breathing on Zenit to get her breathing again. It didn't matter though, those jaws clamped down on the drow and she began bleeding to death. Orvald quickly slew the sharkenbear, and swam to Zenit in time to stabilize her and prevent her death.
After what felt like forever, Orvald resurfaced with Zenit- still alive, unfortunately- and the carcass of the shark-bear-demon-thingy. We resumed smoking mushrooms and fish.
A few hours later Hemeth and the twins found us, but there was no sign of Phil. We asked him where the human was, and Hemeth claimed the Phil had been in a coma since the boating accident, and they hadn't been able to snap him out of it; Elle tried to no avail to revive Phil.
We were offered passage by Hemeth to Gracklstugh on his beautiful boat, but we would have to pay- and work- during the trip. The boat Hemeth was using was the foldable one he had conned Zarrus out of. He tried to buy that apparatus thing that Orvald found, but Fidget insisted we needed to keep it so he could fix it up. Supposedly it'll be useful if the svirfneblin can get it running. After some haggling, we agreed on a gold price for passage, and were shortly underway.
Once we got settled on the boat, Aura asked Hemeth for soap, something the duergar doesn't use. He said he had lard that he used on his beard, and I suggested he give her that- the little idiot doesn't speak Undercommon, so she had no clue what I was suggesting. All I told her when he gave it to her was that it was what he uses in his beard.
***** Mirtul 28
Eight days into their journey to Gracklstugh, the party had settled into a routine, splitting themselves into shifts to row. Unbeknownst to the party, three sea trolls slipped onto the ship, and one grabbed Orvald and slammed him hard into the side of the ship. Zenit yelled "Trolls!" to get the rowers attention.
I heard some thumping up above, and thought something interesting might be happening, then we heard the spider kisser sound the alarm. I jumped up and began heading toward the stairs to help, after so many days of rowing I was starting to want some action.
The troll that had grabbed Orvald began gnawing on the mousefolk, while another began ripping into Hemeth. The third troll held the doors to the downstairs closed, blocking the reinforcements from coming. Orvald was thrown overboard by the troll who munched on him, but the barbarian had a jump ring that let him soar back on board. He landed on top of the troll that had been chewing him, and began swinging.
Aura didn't want to wait for the group to get the doors open, instead the genasi went out one of the oar holes, joining the brutal fight that was happening up above.
We decided to put our combined strength together to get out to the fight. Something was barring our passage, and Pwent and I really wanted to get in on the fight we heard. We all heaved on the door, and after a couple of attempts we busted the stupid thing down, to find a fucking troll on the other side who immediately began stomping at Elle and I. Zarrus hit it with a fire bolt, drawing its ire, and when it charged at him I was able to kill it.
I saw Hemeth grow larger, then begin wailing on the troll that was attacking the spider kisser- maybe it would kill the bitch before we killed it. The troll Orvald was kicking grabbed him and dove overboard; the mousefolk escaped the troll's grasp and began swimming back toward the surface- allowing the troll to escape. As we converged on the troll that Hemeth was beating on, Orvald came sailing through the air and landed gracefully on deck. That troll turned toward the mousefolk and began attacking him- our combined efforts killed the damned thing, but Orvald nearly died in the process.
Three hours after the troll assault, Derendil was secretly pulled overboard and killed by the escapee troll. His body floated straight into Glabbagool, who was quite pleased with his surprise snack. The ooze happily told Orvald about the snack, alerting the mousefolk to trouble.
Elle suddenly complained her oar was stuck in something and wasn't moving. As she struggled with it, it suddenly snapped back and hit her in the face. It didn't hit her hard enough to actually damage her, and I couldn't contain my amusement at the scene- my Pack Sister glared daggers at me. Then it clobbered her in the back of the head, knocking her unconscious... not funny.
Above deck the troll grabbed Zarrus' leg and yanked him overboard; the troll was disposing of the mages who could cast fire and acid spells at him. Orvald leapt overboard to go after the tiefling, hooking him with a grapple- when the mousefolk went to cut the rope to tie him off, he accidentally hacked into the tiefling's leg too- knocking him unconscious.
I tossed a health potion at Aura and told her that if Zarrus didn't come down to heal Elle, that she was to give her the potion- I went upstairs to get the lecherous tiefling. Lythana didn't know that Zarrus had troubles of his own above deck. Within seconds of the half-drow going up the stairs, the impatient genasi poured the potion down Elle's throat to revive her. Elle stood and began to head toward the stairs when another oar smacked her in the face, knocking her unconscious again.
Orvald managed to get himself and Zarrus back to the safety of the ship, and attempted to stabilize the sorcerer, only injuring him further. Zenit poured a potion down his throat and revived him, undoing the damage her mouse had done.
Aura realized something was in the water and decided to electrocute it, even though she had been told to never to that again. Fortunately, she did it right after Orvald and Zarrus got back on the ship, otherwise she could have killed one or both of them.
Pwent and I got above deck just in time to see Zarrus stand up, and immediately get yanked down again, by something... I didn't see what, but Pwent claimed he said a hand and claw- the dwarf leapt at it and hit the spider kisser instead... That was awesome. If only it had killed the bitch. Suddenly Orvald was tanked under the longboat that was on deck, it would seem our adversary was under there. Pwent tried to lift the boat, but it was awkward for the barbarian to do on his own. The spider kisser dropped to the deck and rolled under the boat- and stabbed Orvald instead of the troll. Aura came up, and seeing what was happening, decided to use her ice knife spell- hitting Pwent, Orvald, and the spider kisser, in addition to the troll.
The longboat flew at us as the troll threw it off of itself, and Orvald grabbed on tight to it. The troll jumped overboard with the mousefolk still attached. I asked the spider kisser for the circlet of water breathing, so that I could go after Orvald- my blood rite allows me to use acid even underwater, making me the best person to try to help the mouse. Of course she was hesitate at first, because according to her, the mouse will always come back. No one noticed Zenit coat a needle in drow sleep poison, and attach it to the circlet. Eventually the bitch gave me her stupid circlet, and I tied a rope around myself and dove in. I saw some murky thing in the water that looked like an ixitxachitl- I really wasn't in a place where I could fight the damned thing. The ixitxachitl was actually Orvald, who had broken away from the troll and was heading back for the ship. He only looked like a manta ray because of his cloak.
I was beginning to contemplate going back up, there was no sign of the mouse anywhere, when I felt my eyelids getting heavy. I don't know why I was so tired all of a sudden, but this was not the time to pass out. The sleep poison took hold of Lythana and she was out. Up above, the line she was tied to got snagged and broke, it bean slipping into the water. Fidget attempted to catch it and fell in the water in the process. Orvald reached the surface and helped Fidget get back on board, then went back down to look for Lythana. but there was no sign of her anywhere. The troll had taken Lythana captive.
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| Photo from Out of the Abyss Adventure Module by Wizards of the Coast |
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