Gracklstugh, the City of Blades Part 3:
The Whorlstone Tunnels: Mushroom Forests and Dreadful Dretches
The Whorlstone Tunnels: Mushroom Forests and Dreadful Dretches
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 who thinks he's a myconid
Miarielle, the Lythari Priestess of Corellon
Lythana Belmyr, the Half-Drow Blood Hunter of Eilistraee who has another presence in her head
Zarrus, the Tiefling Favored Soul Sorcerer of Mephisto
Zarrus, the Tiefling Favored Soul Sorcerer of Mephisto
Topsy and Turvy, the Deep Gnome Wererat Rogue Twins
Zenit 'Dracon, the Drow Fighter and Orvald's wife
Thimblepwent Battlehammer, the Dwarven Battlerager Barbarian who can't take anything seriously
Stool, the Myconid Child
Glabbagool, the Gelatinous Cube
Ol' Sparky, the "blind" Derro Beggar with a magic cane
Codsworth, the polite Flumph
Rumpadump, the Myconid Child
Ol' Sparky, the "blind" Derro Beggar with a magic cane
Codsworth, the polite Flumph
Rumpadump, the Myconid Child
Contacts in Gracklstugh:
Ylsa Henstak, duergar merchant
Errde Blackskull, the captain of the Stone Guard
Gartokkar Xundorn, the leader of the Keepers of the Flame
Themberchaud the Wyrmsmith, the adult red dragon who keeps the forges burning
Comrades we have lost:
Ront, the Orc Fighter- turned into hamburger by Pwent
Buppido, the Derro- smashed by Orvald
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- in a seemingly irreversible coma, left in Hemeth's care
Jim Jar, the Deep Gnome- eaten by grell
Prince Derendil, the Quaggoth- killed by sea troll
Shuushar, the "Awakened" Kuo-toa- turned into shuushi by sea troll
Hemeth, the Duergar Arms Dealer- parted with group in Gracklstugh
Quests in Gracklstugh:
Find out how the derro are getting surface coin and jewelry for Ylsa in exchange for directions to Blingdenstone.
Meet with Errde as soon as business with the Keepers of the Flame is concluded.
Comply with whatever the Keepers of the Flame ask, but report everything to Themberchaud first.
Find the Gray Ghosts, confirm their involvement in the disturbance, and bring their magic to Gartokkar.
Find Pelek's hand and lay it to rest in Blingdenstone.
Friendly fire overall: 50
Friendly fire dealt by Aura: 18
Party members killed: 9
Overall party members lost: 11
Derro killed: 43
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.
***** Kythorn 11, 1489 DR (The Year of the Warrior Princess)
After being transported by the myconid sprouts into a different mushroom patch, Fidget snapped and became convinced he was a mushroom. With that thought in mind, the mushgnome attempted to teleport back to the party, but the spores that allowed him to originally do so had faded, so it didn't work. But, because Fidget thought he was a myconid, he cut his way inside the large fungus before him, and stood in the middle of it, waiting to be transported back. After a moment, he pushed his way out the other side of the mushroom, and thought the teleportation had worked- he went looking for the party.
Zarrus began looking for that fucking svirfneblin, and said he found traces of abyssal magic in the grove- which told us absolutely nothing. Rumpadump, being very shy and introverted, had Stool relay everything to us, instead of telling us directly. Stool told us that the other myconids had shared some bad spores with some others from Neverlight Grove. After they had shared the spores, they began acting weird, dancing and spinning as if they were intoxicated. He said the dancing was called the Lady's Gift, and it came from the Lady's Dream. The Lady was a goddess or something that loved and cared for all myconids. I'd never heard of myconids having gods before, and our sprout companions seemed equally confused. Rumpadump asked if he could join us, and of course we said yes; he's Stool's friend, and even if he hadn't been, we couldn't leave a helpless child to fend for himself in the midst of the weirdness happening in the city.
We decided to leave and not wait for Fidget, who knows where that svirfneblin ended up after vanishing in the mushroom patch.
After a few minutes, "a dense fungi forest blocked our way, its tallest specimens growing some five feet high. Even as we assessed the best way to pass through it, a hissing sound started to rise- like uncounted tiny voices whispering in tongues I didn't understand."* Orvald decided the best course of action would be to just start hacking away at the stalks to clear us a path. It was the best- and only- idea we had to cross, so we went with it.
Fidget, walking through fungi forest, stepped on a mushroom that gave with a crunchy feeling, instead of the softness the rest of the ground had. Before the svirfneblin could react, a swarm of centipedes burst from the mushrooms, and began attacking him. Fidget began screaming as the centipedes bit into his flesh, and fell unconscious from blood loss. The bleeding confused him, since myconids don't bleed.
We heard a scream of pain and terror from somewhere within the thicket, and since it sounded like it might be Fidget, we hurried that direction. Orvald had found a ring that allowed him to jump great distances, so he scurried up the nearest mushroom, hopped on the caps of some, and landed right next to the dying gnome. He grabbed a nearby torchstalk and used it as a club to beat the centipedes- hurting Fidget in the process. The bugs responded to the mousefolk's assault by swarming onto him... he set himself on fire.
Aura arrived a little ahead of the party to see the mouse ablaze, and the bleeding to death gnome, just as a swarm of spiders dropped onto them from above- hitting all three companions. The genasi fell unconscious and began bleeding to death, and the moment she was down, the spiders began spinning her into a web. Sparky arrived and tapped the web Aura was being encased in with his cane... it did nothing to the webs, but suddenly Orvald's dagger began to melt. The mouse stood there frozen in shock as his blade warped.
The fucking spiders had managed to completely wrap Aura in their web, and began hauling her away, as more centipedes swarmed Orvald. I finally reached the others, I fucking hate being so godsdamned slow, and saw a scene that was equally weird and gruesome. Orvald's dagger was turning into a bastard sword, while he was being attacked by centipedes, and the spider kisser was sawing someone out of a spider web cocoon- I think it was the airhead. The trauma of watching his precious dagger turn into a huge sword made Orvald's mind crack, and for the next two hours, the mousefolk was overly paranoid.
A burst of light came from Sparky's cane, headed for the spider kisser and Aura, and a glass cube surrounded them- which fucking landed on top of me, pinning me to the ground. Orvald set himself on fire to scorch the bugs that were skittering all over him, taking small bites of his flesh; Pwent hurried to help put the fire out. If being pinned under a glass cube while my friends were being eaten by bugs wasn't enough- a group of spiders dropped on top of me. Sparky moved the stupid cube off of me with some magic, and then Orvald decided to FUCKING SET ME ON FIRE! What the fuck is wrong with this fucking mouse?!? Elle rushed to my side to help with the damned bugs, and I was able to smash several myself with- the fuckers were gone in short work, and I felt a little satisfied at killing so many spiders in front of Zenit- that's a mortal sin, literally, to Lolthites.
With the bugs gone, Orvald began striking the cube Aura and Zenit were trapped in, shattering the damned thing quickly. Elle hurriedly helped stabilize and revive both Aura and Fidget. Fidget, convinced he needed to release rapport spores in order to communicate with the party, released them the only way he knew how- by farting. As soon as Elle healed the svirfneblin, he let out such a nasty fart that Elle puked all over him- it was really funny. Pwent doubled over, laughing his ass off- but he'd been laughing through the entire fucking battle.
We decided to head in the direction that Fidget had come from, and the gnome decided to teleport through a mushroom... Apparently he thinks he's a myconid now, much to Stool and Rumpadump's chagrin. Orvald cut down the mushroom that had Fidget's "portal" in it, and they began arguing over whether or not Fidget was a mushroom. I don't know what happened when he vanished from the patch in the last cavern, but apparently it scrambled his brains good- or the bad spores hit him really hard. Eventually the svirfneblin decided that his portal was still there, even though the mushroom it contained was gone. He turned and tripped going through nothing... Wow...
At that point, Orvald had lost his patience with the mushgnome, and punched him, hoping to knock the jackass out. Sparky used an illusion to make it look like Fidget's portal was really there, and just to shut the asshole up, we all walked through the non-existent portal. It moved us a whole five feet, great portal, jackass.
Eventually we left that stupid forest and came into a new stone passageway. Orvald said he had come that way when he explored during our rest earlier, so we decided to head in the opposite direction. We came to a crossroad, and the mouse announced that someone was trying to get into his brain- I think they've all gone fucking mad. Codsworth announced to us that there was a gray ooze nearby, and pointed it out- Orvald found the damned thing and hacked at it. As I moved forward to attack it, Codsworth told us it was dead. Fucking mouse is always beating me to the kill.
As we continued north, the tunnel began to bottle-neck us up ahead, with a faint flickering of light just inside. "The first thing we noticed as we entered the room was a heavy, unpleasant musk in the air, coming from cages assembled from scrap iron on both sides of the chamber. A spiral path circles into the center of the room, marked off by small stone pylons.
"Two derro stood by a large cauldron in front of a tent near the cave's center. Both are talking while apparently ignoring each other. In the cages, three hulking brown bears appeared to be resting."* Orvald told us that one of the derro was complaining about "master," and the other one was rambling on about the fishing he had done last tenday- only he and Pwent spoke the language, and Pwent was too busy trying to contain his giggles to tell us. The derro spotted Orvald and the spider kisser and began frantically letting the bears out of their cages. As the first two bears were freed, the third broke out of its cage on its own and pounced at Orvald. Before the beast could even touch him, Orvald killed it. The next bear slashed at Orvald, either out of convenience or retaliation for slaying its kin, who knows with these things.
Light flashed from Sparky's cane and one of the bears muscles went completely slack, and its fur turned brittle and gray. He had hit the bear with a ray of enfeeblement. Elle killed the remaining bear that was capable of fighting, and Orvald ignored the weakened bear and instead killed one of its keepers. Aura launched an ice knife at them, and hit Orvald instead, then released a string of insults at him, that somehow mortally wounded the mouse. Fucking stupid genasi. I killed off the enfeebled bear while Elle hurried to revive Orvald. The last derro made a run for it, and we heard it open a door. Our mouse was up and on it before it could flee.
The area was a nice little campsite, and there was pretty decent stout in the tent- even Pwent approved of the ale. We found a bucket that was full of something that smelled like food, which Orvald tried, of course. The twins suggested we put the remains of the bears in the middle of the spiral, but Elle explained that we shouldn't because it could set off the magic that was happening in it. Of course they ignored her warning and did it anyways- nothing happened.
While everyone was dealing with the bears, Zarrus went into the tent to pray, and a blue imp appeared before him. The tiefling was handed a scroll and told to be careful.
Since the only other way to go in this room was through the doorway and hall the derro tried to escape through, we decided to see what was there. After a while, we came to a Y in the passage, with the northern route blocked by a stone door we couldn't figure out how to open- there wasn't a knob or anything. We took the other route, and after a couple of minutes, Orvald announced he smelled something. Fidget shat himself to release "spores" so that we could hear him- he's gone insane and disgusting. Elle punched him for the stench, which would have been funnier if it hadn't distracted us from whatever Orvald was picking up on.
Suddenly a group of dretches jumped Orvald from behind- thanks to Fidget, Orvald was distracted. A quasit appeared in front of the mouse, and tried to scare him- which did nothing, while a dretch slashed at him and he fell. Of course the spider kisser revived him quickly, while Elle cast a ball of sunlight, which fucking blinded me- beside me I heard Pwent giggling madly that he couldn't see either.
Sparky's cane cast a spell that made Elle appear dead, it was good Lythana was blinded or Sparky would have been facing an angry hunter; Elle falling made her blasted daylight vanish. Fidget threw a rock at a dretch, and hit Orvald instead, knocking the mousefolk out again; the svirfneblin has a bad habit of hurting the party with rocks. Zenit grabbed her love, wrapping him in her cloak, and ran off to tend to him. Elle's "corpse" vanished briefly, and when she came to she was invisible. Sparky began a snow storm, making the quasit bail on the fight.
The sounds of battle raged around me, over the sound of Pwent's mad giggling, when I felt a burst of coldness, and fell on my ass. Aura probably cast whatever spell did that, twit. Lythana never learned that she slipped because of Sparky, she just assumed it was the genasi. Fidget launched a bomb at the dretches, and the explosion killed two of them. Orvald, revived again, came charging back into the fight and slaughtered the remaining three of the beats.
We went a little further down the tunnel before hearing something around the bend. A xorn emerged from the earth and grabbed Fidget, saying the mushgnome smelled good. As a result to being grabbed by the elemental, Fidget began screaming, laughing, and weeping all at once, and was completely incapacitated for the next minute. Xorns eat metal and gems, and with all of the random scrap Fidget collected, he smelled like a buffet to the creature. Aura instructed Fidget to just give it some metal, but he was too hysterical to do that. Instead Aura tossed it a bag of metal, but with such a tasty gnome in hand- literally- its hunger wasn't sated. It began lowering Fidget into its mouth; at that Orvald began swinging at it. The elemental clawed at Orvald whilst chewing Fidget up, but the barbarian was stronger, and killed the poor creature. The spider kisser wrestled Fidget free of the xorn's maw, and patched the poor, mad gnome up.
After the dretches and the xorn, we were exhausted, and the mages were drained of most of their magical energies- we headed back to that little derro camp to rest. Upon arriving, we found a carrion crawler feasting on the carnage we had left behind. The beast charged Orvald, while Aura threw a bolt of lightning at it- and didn't hurt any of us!! I ran up and finished the crawler off. Nothing disturbed us during our rest that night.
***** Kythorn 12
The next morning we returned to the route we had been on the night before, and we came to a new Y in the tunnels. Orvald decided to scout ahead, while we waited for him- though I don't know why it didn't occur to any of us to scout the other tunnel instead of just waiting. That ended up being a huge mistake. Orvald smelled dretches up ahead of him, and heard them snorting as they inhaled- they had caught his scent. He turned to get back to the group, as dretches converged on them from two paths. We heard something running toward us, and suddenly dretches appeared on either side of us. The spider kisser dropped the first one that appeared.
I don't know what happened, but something in the shadows of the ceiling terrified me so much I had to run away. Beside me Pwent began giggling in terror as well, and as one we turned to run. I fell in a fucking pit trap and felt acid sear my flesh- the pain bought me back to my senses. Now I was faced with the problem of how did I get the fuck out of this pit? I wasn't terribly concerned about the acid, since I could heal on my own thanks to the troll.
Fidget lit one of the dretches up with faerie fire so the others could hit it with ease, while they began swarming out of the tunnels and falling upon the group, who was currently missing two people. A dretch bit Elle, and she responded by biting it back, even though she was in elven form- Lythana would have been really grossed out. Zarrus responded to a swipe from one by hitting it with hell fire. The beasts began to surround the lythari.
I heard Pwent's giggling screams grow to an ear-piercing level, that I'm sure hurt Elle's ears, as I realized I wasn't fucking healing! The acid was melting my armor and flesh, and I couldn't fix it! I couldn't climb out, I couldn't fly out, and I was going to die if I didn't get the acid off of myself. I yelled for help. Sparky appeared at the top of the pit and said he would help me- I hoped that didn't involve making me appear dead, or dropping a cube on me- that would disable me completely and turn me into a real corpse fast. He tried to turn the rock beneath me into a boulder, to raise me out, and instead he turned it to a pebble, dropping me another dagger toss down.
Orvald was hacking away at the dretches, killing them with his usual casual ease. The dretches began sprouting two heads. Elle fell unconscious from the onslaught of the demons, and Orvald quickly stabilized her- though he didn't have the potions to awaken her. Zenit was also slashing at the beasts, but Zarrus had backed up, not wanting to join the fray.
Aura started lowering a rope to me, but it fucking dissolved the second it touched the walls of this pit, and landed at me feet. I knew my time was running out. A glow from Sparky's cane suddenly made everything seem wonderful, and I no longer cared about the pit or the acid. Sparky had hit Lythana with a wave of euphoria, not the helpful spell he intended to use; he then began raising the half-drow from the pit with telekinesis. I felt myself leaving the ground, and it was wonderful. I was completely nude, and the acid had moved on to melting my muscles- but it didn't matter, it felt positively amazing. Fidget came to the pit to help Sparky and Aura free Lythana, and fell in the pit himself.
With the dretches mostly disposed of, Orvald went after Pwent, and was greeted by a grisly scene of blood everywhere. An ettin appeared and swiped at the mousefolk, and he was aware of chanting as four derro appeared and launched spells at him. Pwent's screams died.
*Author's note: Many of the events, locations and characters that occur in this story are from the Out of the Abyss Adventure Module by Wizards of the Coast. Anything with an asterisk next to it is a quote from the book.
Quests in Gracklstugh:
Find out how the derro are getting surface coin and jewelry for Ylsa in exchange for directions to Blingdenstone.
Meet with Errde as soon as business with the Keepers of the Flame is concluded.
Comply with whatever the Keepers of the Flame ask, but report everything to Themberchaud first.
Find the Gray Ghosts, confirm their involvement in the disturbance, and bring their magic to Gartokkar.
Find Pelek's hand and lay it to rest in Blingdenstone.
Friendly fire overall: 50
Friendly fire dealt by Aura: 18
Party members killed: 9
Overall party members lost: 11
Derro killed: 43
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.
***** Kythorn 11, 1489 DR (The Year of the Warrior Princess)
After being transported by the myconid sprouts into a different mushroom patch, Fidget snapped and became convinced he was a mushroom. With that thought in mind, the mushgnome attempted to teleport back to the party, but the spores that allowed him to originally do so had faded, so it didn't work. But, because Fidget thought he was a myconid, he cut his way inside the large fungus before him, and stood in the middle of it, waiting to be transported back. After a moment, he pushed his way out the other side of the mushroom, and thought the teleportation had worked- he went looking for the party.
Zarrus began looking for that fucking svirfneblin, and said he found traces of abyssal magic in the grove- which told us absolutely nothing. Rumpadump, being very shy and introverted, had Stool relay everything to us, instead of telling us directly. Stool told us that the other myconids had shared some bad spores with some others from Neverlight Grove. After they had shared the spores, they began acting weird, dancing and spinning as if they were intoxicated. He said the dancing was called the Lady's Gift, and it came from the Lady's Dream. The Lady was a goddess or something that loved and cared for all myconids. I'd never heard of myconids having gods before, and our sprout companions seemed equally confused. Rumpadump asked if he could join us, and of course we said yes; he's Stool's friend, and even if he hadn't been, we couldn't leave a helpless child to fend for himself in the midst of the weirdness happening in the city.
We decided to leave and not wait for Fidget, who knows where that svirfneblin ended up after vanishing in the mushroom patch.
After a few minutes, "a dense fungi forest blocked our way, its tallest specimens growing some five feet high. Even as we assessed the best way to pass through it, a hissing sound started to rise- like uncounted tiny voices whispering in tongues I didn't understand."* Orvald decided the best course of action would be to just start hacking away at the stalks to clear us a path. It was the best- and only- idea we had to cross, so we went with it.
Fidget, walking through fungi forest, stepped on a mushroom that gave with a crunchy feeling, instead of the softness the rest of the ground had. Before the svirfneblin could react, a swarm of centipedes burst from the mushrooms, and began attacking him. Fidget began screaming as the centipedes bit into his flesh, and fell unconscious from blood loss. The bleeding confused him, since myconids don't bleed.
We heard a scream of pain and terror from somewhere within the thicket, and since it sounded like it might be Fidget, we hurried that direction. Orvald had found a ring that allowed him to jump great distances, so he scurried up the nearest mushroom, hopped on the caps of some, and landed right next to the dying gnome. He grabbed a nearby torchstalk and used it as a club to beat the centipedes- hurting Fidget in the process. The bugs responded to the mousefolk's assault by swarming onto him... he set himself on fire.
Aura arrived a little ahead of the party to see the mouse ablaze, and the bleeding to death gnome, just as a swarm of spiders dropped onto them from above- hitting all three companions. The genasi fell unconscious and began bleeding to death, and the moment she was down, the spiders began spinning her into a web. Sparky arrived and tapped the web Aura was being encased in with his cane... it did nothing to the webs, but suddenly Orvald's dagger began to melt. The mouse stood there frozen in shock as his blade warped.
The fucking spiders had managed to completely wrap Aura in their web, and began hauling her away, as more centipedes swarmed Orvald. I finally reached the others, I fucking hate being so godsdamned slow, and saw a scene that was equally weird and gruesome. Orvald's dagger was turning into a bastard sword, while he was being attacked by centipedes, and the spider kisser was sawing someone out of a spider web cocoon- I think it was the airhead. The trauma of watching his precious dagger turn into a huge sword made Orvald's mind crack, and for the next two hours, the mousefolk was overly paranoid.
A burst of light came from Sparky's cane, headed for the spider kisser and Aura, and a glass cube surrounded them- which fucking landed on top of me, pinning me to the ground. Orvald set himself on fire to scorch the bugs that were skittering all over him, taking small bites of his flesh; Pwent hurried to help put the fire out. If being pinned under a glass cube while my friends were being eaten by bugs wasn't enough- a group of spiders dropped on top of me. Sparky moved the stupid cube off of me with some magic, and then Orvald decided to FUCKING SET ME ON FIRE! What the fuck is wrong with this fucking mouse?!? Elle rushed to my side to help with the damned bugs, and I was able to smash several myself with- the fuckers were gone in short work, and I felt a little satisfied at killing so many spiders in front of Zenit- that's a mortal sin, literally, to Lolthites.
With the bugs gone, Orvald began striking the cube Aura and Zenit were trapped in, shattering the damned thing quickly. Elle hurriedly helped stabilize and revive both Aura and Fidget. Fidget, convinced he needed to release rapport spores in order to communicate with the party, released them the only way he knew how- by farting. As soon as Elle healed the svirfneblin, he let out such a nasty fart that Elle puked all over him- it was really funny. Pwent doubled over, laughing his ass off- but he'd been laughing through the entire fucking battle.
We decided to head in the direction that Fidget had come from, and the gnome decided to teleport through a mushroom... Apparently he thinks he's a myconid now, much to Stool and Rumpadump's chagrin. Orvald cut down the mushroom that had Fidget's "portal" in it, and they began arguing over whether or not Fidget was a mushroom. I don't know what happened when he vanished from the patch in the last cavern, but apparently it scrambled his brains good- or the bad spores hit him really hard. Eventually the svirfneblin decided that his portal was still there, even though the mushroom it contained was gone. He turned and tripped going through nothing... Wow...
At that point, Orvald had lost his patience with the mushgnome, and punched him, hoping to knock the jackass out. Sparky used an illusion to make it look like Fidget's portal was really there, and just to shut the asshole up, we all walked through the non-existent portal. It moved us a whole five feet, great portal, jackass.
Eventually we left that stupid forest and came into a new stone passageway. Orvald said he had come that way when he explored during our rest earlier, so we decided to head in the opposite direction. We came to a crossroad, and the mouse announced that someone was trying to get into his brain- I think they've all gone fucking mad. Codsworth announced to us that there was a gray ooze nearby, and pointed it out- Orvald found the damned thing and hacked at it. As I moved forward to attack it, Codsworth told us it was dead. Fucking mouse is always beating me to the kill.
As we continued north, the tunnel began to bottle-neck us up ahead, with a faint flickering of light just inside. "The first thing we noticed as we entered the room was a heavy, unpleasant musk in the air, coming from cages assembled from scrap iron on both sides of the chamber. A spiral path circles into the center of the room, marked off by small stone pylons.
"Two derro stood by a large cauldron in front of a tent near the cave's center. Both are talking while apparently ignoring each other. In the cages, three hulking brown bears appeared to be resting."* Orvald told us that one of the derro was complaining about "master," and the other one was rambling on about the fishing he had done last tenday- only he and Pwent spoke the language, and Pwent was too busy trying to contain his giggles to tell us. The derro spotted Orvald and the spider kisser and began frantically letting the bears out of their cages. As the first two bears were freed, the third broke out of its cage on its own and pounced at Orvald. Before the beast could even touch him, Orvald killed it. The next bear slashed at Orvald, either out of convenience or retaliation for slaying its kin, who knows with these things.
Light flashed from Sparky's cane and one of the bears muscles went completely slack, and its fur turned brittle and gray. He had hit the bear with a ray of enfeeblement. Elle killed the remaining bear that was capable of fighting, and Orvald ignored the weakened bear and instead killed one of its keepers. Aura launched an ice knife at them, and hit Orvald instead, then released a string of insults at him, that somehow mortally wounded the mouse. Fucking stupid genasi. I killed off the enfeebled bear while Elle hurried to revive Orvald. The last derro made a run for it, and we heard it open a door. Our mouse was up and on it before it could flee.
The area was a nice little campsite, and there was pretty decent stout in the tent- even Pwent approved of the ale. We found a bucket that was full of something that smelled like food, which Orvald tried, of course. The twins suggested we put the remains of the bears in the middle of the spiral, but Elle explained that we shouldn't because it could set off the magic that was happening in it. Of course they ignored her warning and did it anyways- nothing happened.
While everyone was dealing with the bears, Zarrus went into the tent to pray, and a blue imp appeared before him. The tiefling was handed a scroll and told to be careful.
Since the only other way to go in this room was through the doorway and hall the derro tried to escape through, we decided to see what was there. After a while, we came to a Y in the passage, with the northern route blocked by a stone door we couldn't figure out how to open- there wasn't a knob or anything. We took the other route, and after a couple of minutes, Orvald announced he smelled something. Fidget shat himself to release "spores" so that we could hear him- he's gone insane and disgusting. Elle punched him for the stench, which would have been funnier if it hadn't distracted us from whatever Orvald was picking up on.
Suddenly a group of dretches jumped Orvald from behind- thanks to Fidget, Orvald was distracted. A quasit appeared in front of the mouse, and tried to scare him- which did nothing, while a dretch slashed at him and he fell. Of course the spider kisser revived him quickly, while Elle cast a ball of sunlight, which fucking blinded me- beside me I heard Pwent giggling madly that he couldn't see either.
Sparky's cane cast a spell that made Elle appear dead, it was good Lythana was blinded or Sparky would have been facing an angry hunter; Elle falling made her blasted daylight vanish. Fidget threw a rock at a dretch, and hit Orvald instead, knocking the mousefolk out again; the svirfneblin has a bad habit of hurting the party with rocks. Zenit grabbed her love, wrapping him in her cloak, and ran off to tend to him. Elle's "corpse" vanished briefly, and when she came to she was invisible. Sparky began a snow storm, making the quasit bail on the fight.
The sounds of battle raged around me, over the sound of Pwent's mad giggling, when I felt a burst of coldness, and fell on my ass. Aura probably cast whatever spell did that, twit. Lythana never learned that she slipped because of Sparky, she just assumed it was the genasi. Fidget launched a bomb at the dretches, and the explosion killed two of them. Orvald, revived again, came charging back into the fight and slaughtered the remaining three of the beats.
We went a little further down the tunnel before hearing something around the bend. A xorn emerged from the earth and grabbed Fidget, saying the mushgnome smelled good. As a result to being grabbed by the elemental, Fidget began screaming, laughing, and weeping all at once, and was completely incapacitated for the next minute. Xorns eat metal and gems, and with all of the random scrap Fidget collected, he smelled like a buffet to the creature. Aura instructed Fidget to just give it some metal, but he was too hysterical to do that. Instead Aura tossed it a bag of metal, but with such a tasty gnome in hand- literally- its hunger wasn't sated. It began lowering Fidget into its mouth; at that Orvald began swinging at it. The elemental clawed at Orvald whilst chewing Fidget up, but the barbarian was stronger, and killed the poor creature. The spider kisser wrestled Fidget free of the xorn's maw, and patched the poor, mad gnome up.
After the dretches and the xorn, we were exhausted, and the mages were drained of most of their magical energies- we headed back to that little derro camp to rest. Upon arriving, we found a carrion crawler feasting on the carnage we had left behind. The beast charged Orvald, while Aura threw a bolt of lightning at it- and didn't hurt any of us!! I ran up and finished the crawler off. Nothing disturbed us during our rest that night.
***** Kythorn 12
The next morning we returned to the route we had been on the night before, and we came to a new Y in the tunnels. Orvald decided to scout ahead, while we waited for him- though I don't know why it didn't occur to any of us to scout the other tunnel instead of just waiting. That ended up being a huge mistake. Orvald smelled dretches up ahead of him, and heard them snorting as they inhaled- they had caught his scent. He turned to get back to the group, as dretches converged on them from two paths. We heard something running toward us, and suddenly dretches appeared on either side of us. The spider kisser dropped the first one that appeared.
I don't know what happened, but something in the shadows of the ceiling terrified me so much I had to run away. Beside me Pwent began giggling in terror as well, and as one we turned to run. I fell in a fucking pit trap and felt acid sear my flesh- the pain bought me back to my senses. Now I was faced with the problem of how did I get the fuck out of this pit? I wasn't terribly concerned about the acid, since I could heal on my own thanks to the troll.
Fidget lit one of the dretches up with faerie fire so the others could hit it with ease, while they began swarming out of the tunnels and falling upon the group, who was currently missing two people. A dretch bit Elle, and she responded by biting it back, even though she was in elven form- Lythana would have been really grossed out. Zarrus responded to a swipe from one by hitting it with hell fire. The beasts began to surround the lythari.
I heard Pwent's giggling screams grow to an ear-piercing level, that I'm sure hurt Elle's ears, as I realized I wasn't fucking healing! The acid was melting my armor and flesh, and I couldn't fix it! I couldn't climb out, I couldn't fly out, and I was going to die if I didn't get the acid off of myself. I yelled for help. Sparky appeared at the top of the pit and said he would help me- I hoped that didn't involve making me appear dead, or dropping a cube on me- that would disable me completely and turn me into a real corpse fast. He tried to turn the rock beneath me into a boulder, to raise me out, and instead he turned it to a pebble, dropping me another dagger toss down.
Orvald was hacking away at the dretches, killing them with his usual casual ease. The dretches began sprouting two heads. Elle fell unconscious from the onslaught of the demons, and Orvald quickly stabilized her- though he didn't have the potions to awaken her. Zenit was also slashing at the beasts, but Zarrus had backed up, not wanting to join the fray.
Aura started lowering a rope to me, but it fucking dissolved the second it touched the walls of this pit, and landed at me feet. I knew my time was running out. A glow from Sparky's cane suddenly made everything seem wonderful, and I no longer cared about the pit or the acid. Sparky had hit Lythana with a wave of euphoria, not the helpful spell he intended to use; he then began raising the half-drow from the pit with telekinesis. I felt myself leaving the ground, and it was wonderful. I was completely nude, and the acid had moved on to melting my muscles- but it didn't matter, it felt positively amazing. Fidget came to the pit to help Sparky and Aura free Lythana, and fell in the pit himself.
With the dretches mostly disposed of, Orvald went after Pwent, and was greeted by a grisly scene of blood everywhere. An ettin appeared and swiped at the mousefolk, and he was aware of chanting as four derro appeared and launched spells at him. Pwent's screams died.
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| Photo from Out of the Abyss Adventure Module by Wizards of the Coast |
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| Photo from Out of the Abyss Adventure Module by Wizards of the Coast |
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