Date:
2019-11-08Weather:
Cold, snowingPlayer Characters:
Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 370 pointsGarreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 442 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 439 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 430 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High Elf Wizard, 446 points
Significant NPCs:
Chauntessa, Innkeeper and Historian
Vulgaris, Minyad Druid
2 Young Stone Giant Helpers
2 Young Stone Giant Helpers
Alrux, Dwarf Armorer
Quintus, Wizard and Alchemist
8 Duergar Warriors
Duergar Wizard
We started back in Cillamar. Zaber somehow found the magical thieves' mail he'd been looking for for months. He then tried impressing barmaids with it, but they were more impressed by his tips. Garreth went back to Alrux and added some more features to his greatsword on order, and put down a larger deposit. Seépravir went to the Hall of Worms to do some research on the crown-of-knucklebones-and-fangs symbol found on the duergar weapons and armor, and found that it was the personal sigil of a duergar noble called the Thane of Norborg. Elias cast another Bless on Polly.
Zaber heard that stone giants had been seen in the area. Garreth heard that Quintus's apprentice Lyssa had left his employ, and he was not happy about it. Seépravir used Seeker to check on Lord Flitwick, who was in a house somewhere far to the south and much warmer. He also checked on Ashryn, who was in class, listening to a lecture about Invisibility spells, looking bored. Garreth talked to Quintus to see if he could enchant weapons, but found that he could barely make healing potions right now, without his assistant.
Everyone put on their winter clothing, except Seépravir who put on her Warmth spell. Seépravir cast Flight on the whole group, and they flew back to Castle Whiterock, encountering no trouble on the way. They flew down the elevator shaft to the underground river level to check in on Vulgaris. She was working on her fungus, while her current two stone giant assistants were loudly debating mushroom ale versus mushroom lager, and how females would not talk to you if you drank the wrong kind. Garreth asked Vulgaris if it would be possible to trick a giant worm into digging a tunnel into the duergar fortifications. She was skeptical that this could work. One of the giants mentioned that some duergar had been asking questions about the party, but their leader Lowrek had said he'd never heard of them. Vulgaris asked the group if they'd mind running some mushroom wine to Cillamar for her on their way back to town.
They group flew over the underground river, avoiding treacherous boating. After emerging in the Immense Cavern, they headed southwest toward the duergar. On the way, they spotted that the pack of lizards had grown larger and were ranging farther west than before. They ignored the lizards and kept flying, until they reached the trapped room. There, Elias cast Resist Fire on Zaber to protect him from the fire trap. Zaber still cautiously checked the door for traps, and found that one had been reset. He disabled it (though this required Luck because he initally rolled an 18), and his Danger Sense went off. He then cautiously opened the heavy door. Seépravir tried throwing a Dispel Magic into the room to disable any magical traps, but this had no obvious effect. Polly tied a rope around Zaber's waist to pull him out of the room if anything bad happened. Then she loosed an arrow at a big rock in the room, Just In Case, but this didn't do anything.
Zaber slowly moved into the room, until he heard a click, and the door started closing behind him while lightning started sparking everywhere. Simultaneously, he jumped/dove/flew at the door, while Polly started yanking hard on the rope to drag him out. He took 17 points of electrical damage from the lightning (that Resist Fire didn't protect from!), but avoided being stunned. However, this was enough damage to slow him and cut his dodge in half. The next turn, he wasn't quite fast enough to get out the door before the lightning hit him again, but Polly pulled hard enough to make up for it, and he was out of the trapped room. Elias gave him a Major Healing, and Elias took a sip from the wineskin of many healing potions, and he was almost back to normal.
There was some discussion of going somewhere that Elias could learn Resist Lightning, but that seemed too time-consuming, so instead they decided to tunnel around the trapped room again. Garreth suggested digging in a different place that the duergar wouldn't expect. That would be a longer path, possibly difficult to dig by hand, so Seépravir used Shape Earth. Garreth suggested that she dig down into the room west of the duergar guard room, but when she tried going down, she hit some kind of no-mana zone, and her spell failed. So, she dug back near the same tunnel as before, but going north around the trapped room instead of south. One she got close enough to find worked stone, they switched to manual digging, with Polly pickaxing her way through, after Seépravir cast Silence.
After reaching the duergar tunnel, Seépravir cast Invisibility on everyone, and an additional No-Smell on Zaber. Zaber flew down the stairs to the duergar guard room and peeked around the corner. He initially spotted five duergar, but then advanced farther into the room and spotted three more, for a total of eight. Three of them were Enlarged. One of them whispered to another, in Dwarf, which Zaber happened to understand. He said "stay still, wait for it Ralf!" Zaber inferred from this that at least one of the duerger could See Invisible, and flew back to the group, where he informed them of what he'd seen and heard, in Elvish. (Unfortunately Garreth didn't understand Elvish.)
Seépravir prepared a Concussion spell, and told the others to leave one duergar alive. Zaber flew back down the hall, made an obscene gesture at the duergar, and flew back up. He then poured some monster drool poison on his knife. Garreth tried singing an offensive song in Undercommon, but rolled a 17 -- apparently all the easily taunted duergar were dead by now. An Enlarged duergar peeked around the corner, and Polly fired a Continual Light bodkin at his vitals. But the arrow bounced off and came right back at her, a Reverse Missile. Polly acrobatically dodged her own missile, and it missed Garreth standing behind her. Garreth lobbed the returning pearly spear at the same duergar, and it came back too, but he dodged it. It then hung in the air waiting for him to grab it.
Elias charged forward in front of Zaber. Seépravir flew forward a bit then lobbed the Concussion into what she hoped was the middle of the room full of duergar. She was accurate enough to catch a bunch of them in the stunning radius, though two of them rolled 3s on their resistance rolls, showing they just didn't care about loud noises. Several duergar charged up the stairs toward the PCs, holding their shields up.
Polly plinked a few arrows at a different duergar, but he blocked one with his shield and dodged the others. Garreth grabbed the spear and used it to Great Haste himself. Elias moved forward into the Enlarged duergar's face. Seépravir stopped maintaining a bunch of non-essential spells, then used her Wand of Smoke to fill the whole guardroom with Smoke, to flush out all the duergar. The big duergar in front somehow saw Elias despite his Invisibility, and made a hugely deceptive attack with his huge axe, but missed. As he missed, he yelled out warnings in Undercommon about where two invisible elves were standing. Meanwhile, two invisible duergar came around the corner, and Zaber (with See Invisible) saw them and yelled out warnings to his friends.
Zaber flew up around the ceiling. Polly shot at another duergar, who blocked and dodged arrows. Garreth made several attacks on the lead Enlarged duergar's arm, but was parried and dodged. Elias activated his Heroic Might, using Luck to reroll a bad result, and gaining 6 points of ST. Seépravir Great Hasted herself. The big duergar in front tried axing Elias again, and missed again. Several more duergar continued closing, up the stairs. One of them, still invisible, cast a large Flame Jet, which only Zaber could see.
Polly continued loosing arrows, and was finally rewarded with a hit to the vitals of a duergar, who was stunned. Another one dropped and dodged, and a third arrow bounced off an invisible shield. Garreth, nervous about Invisible foes who might be waiting for him to do something stupid, attacked more cautiously than usual, and failed to connect. Elias tried smacking the large duergar in the side with his flail, but was blocked.
Seépravir then cast Mass Daze over an area containing a lot of duergar, leaving holes for hexes containing her friends. She used Luck to reroll her casting roll (though still only got a 10), and then was lucky enough to see all the duergar except two fail to resist, and just stand there staring into space. She then added insult to injury by using Rapier Wit to stun one of the two duergar that had resisted. She pointed out the one that was only stunned and said to take him down first. Zaber, with See Invisible, noticed that the invisible duergar wizard with the Flame Jet had managed to resist and was still active.
Polly flew around behind the stunned duergar and shot him in the back of the head, fatally. She then shot a Dazed duergar in the brain and inflicted massive, but not quite fatal, trauma, and knocked him unconscious. Zaber flew over near the wizard and taunted him, while all-out defending. Garreth smashed a Dazed duergar in the skull and ended him, taking him to -5 * HP in one hit. He then repeated the trick on another duergar but rolled slightly worse damage, so he actually got to roll death checks, but rolled a 16 on one and died.
Elias flailed at a hex, hoping it contained an invisible target, but it did not. Seépravir flew along the ceiling and then dropped another Concussion into the room, hoping to stun any invisible targets remaining. She then started casting Possession on a dazed duergar. The duergar wizard near Zaber decided to burn him with the Flame Jet, but Zaber dodged. The wizard then cast another spell, and disappeared, in a way that even Zaber could no longer see him.
At that point Polly started firing arrows in the general direction of the last known location of the wizard, but missed Zaber tried tackling where he had been, but tackled air. Garreth waited, hoping the target would appear. Seépravir dropped the Smoke, hoping that would reveal the wizard, but he wasn't to be seen. Giving up on the wizard, Zaber started stabbing Invisible dazed duergar that had not yet been mopped up. Garreth, unable to see them, followed Zaber's general lead, and managed to finish one. Elias and Garreth ganged up on the other one.
They never did find the wizard, who probably got away, somehow. Exactly how, they weren't sure, though one theory was some kind of teleportation magic, which Seépravir wanted to steal. Seépravir finished her Possession spell on the one they left alive, yielding a perfectly compliant prisoner to question.
The group started stripping dead duergar of weapons and armor for resale, and asking random questions of Seépravir-inside-the-duergar. Zaber wanted to know where the beer was, and the duergar said it was mostly a couple of levels down, in the quarters. Garreth wanted to know how many duergar there were, and was told a few dozen in the Bleak Arena, hundreds in Narborg. Zaber also asked how many duergar were nearby, and was told a few dozen. Seépravir tried to recall the layout of this level, and remembered it was mostly cages for prisoners and animals and monsters, with a bunch of portcullises. Garreth wanted to know who was in charge, and found that The Impressario ran the arena, and Thane Hroland Vejik was in charge of Narborg.
Polly wanted to know how to disable the trap, and was told the current password was "Elves must be eradicated and bows should be illegal" (in Undercommon). Seépravir also gave the previous password she could recall ("All hail Thane Hrolad Vejik, and may his beard grow long" in Undercommon), in case the duergar reused passwords. Garreth asked about prisoners, and was told the current ones suck, just a wimpy elf bard and some common slaves, no good opponents. Polly asked about kittens, and was told some big tigers were brought in recently.
Zaber asked about The Impressario, and was told he was a powerful duergar, very tricky, and good at face-stabbing and running the arena, and highly trusted by the Thane. He then asked about the best arena fights and was told that last year's fight with 3 dragons versus 10 elves was excellent. Zaber asked if he liked drow, and was told not really. He asked if the dragons were still around, and said that some new little ones were allegedly just brought in. He asked if the duergar had ever fought in the arena himself, and was told that guards don't fight there.
At that point the players were out of questions, so we stopped for the week, with the party still in the dungeon. (They didn't want to go back to town and give the duergar a chance to reset their defenses.)
The PCs (and players) have no idea how the duergar wizard escaped. Maybe they'll find out later; maybe not.
Quintus, Wizard and Alchemist
8 Duergar Warriors
Duergar Wizard
We started back in Cillamar. Zaber somehow found the magical thieves' mail he'd been looking for for months. He then tried impressing barmaids with it, but they were more impressed by his tips. Garreth went back to Alrux and added some more features to his greatsword on order, and put down a larger deposit. Seépravir went to the Hall of Worms to do some research on the crown-of-knucklebones-and-fangs symbol found on the duergar weapons and armor, and found that it was the personal sigil of a duergar noble called the Thane of Norborg. Elias cast another Bless on Polly.
Zaber heard that stone giants had been seen in the area. Garreth heard that Quintus's apprentice Lyssa had left his employ, and he was not happy about it. Seépravir used Seeker to check on Lord Flitwick, who was in a house somewhere far to the south and much warmer. He also checked on Ashryn, who was in class, listening to a lecture about Invisibility spells, looking bored. Garreth talked to Quintus to see if he could enchant weapons, but found that he could barely make healing potions right now, without his assistant.
Everyone put on their winter clothing, except Seépravir who put on her Warmth spell. Seépravir cast Flight on the whole group, and they flew back to Castle Whiterock, encountering no trouble on the way. They flew down the elevator shaft to the underground river level to check in on Vulgaris. She was working on her fungus, while her current two stone giant assistants were loudly debating mushroom ale versus mushroom lager, and how females would not talk to you if you drank the wrong kind. Garreth asked Vulgaris if it would be possible to trick a giant worm into digging a tunnel into the duergar fortifications. She was skeptical that this could work. One of the giants mentioned that some duergar had been asking questions about the party, but their leader Lowrek had said he'd never heard of them. Vulgaris asked the group if they'd mind running some mushroom wine to Cillamar for her on their way back to town.
They group flew over the underground river, avoiding treacherous boating. After emerging in the Immense Cavern, they headed southwest toward the duergar. On the way, they spotted that the pack of lizards had grown larger and were ranging farther west than before. They ignored the lizards and kept flying, until they reached the trapped room. There, Elias cast Resist Fire on Zaber to protect him from the fire trap. Zaber still cautiously checked the door for traps, and found that one had been reset. He disabled it (though this required Luck because he initally rolled an 18), and his Danger Sense went off. He then cautiously opened the heavy door. Seépravir tried throwing a Dispel Magic into the room to disable any magical traps, but this had no obvious effect. Polly tied a rope around Zaber's waist to pull him out of the room if anything bad happened. Then she loosed an arrow at a big rock in the room, Just In Case, but this didn't do anything.
Zaber slowly moved into the room, until he heard a click, and the door started closing behind him while lightning started sparking everywhere. Simultaneously, he jumped/dove/flew at the door, while Polly started yanking hard on the rope to drag him out. He took 17 points of electrical damage from the lightning (that Resist Fire didn't protect from!), but avoided being stunned. However, this was enough damage to slow him and cut his dodge in half. The next turn, he wasn't quite fast enough to get out the door before the lightning hit him again, but Polly pulled hard enough to make up for it, and he was out of the trapped room. Elias gave him a Major Healing, and Elias took a sip from the wineskin of many healing potions, and he was almost back to normal.
There was some discussion of going somewhere that Elias could learn Resist Lightning, but that seemed too time-consuming, so instead they decided to tunnel around the trapped room again. Garreth suggested digging in a different place that the duergar wouldn't expect. That would be a longer path, possibly difficult to dig by hand, so Seépravir used Shape Earth. Garreth suggested that she dig down into the room west of the duergar guard room, but when she tried going down, she hit some kind of no-mana zone, and her spell failed. So, she dug back near the same tunnel as before, but going north around the trapped room instead of south. One she got close enough to find worked stone, they switched to manual digging, with Polly pickaxing her way through, after Seépravir cast Silence.
After reaching the duergar tunnel, Seépravir cast Invisibility on everyone, and an additional No-Smell on Zaber. Zaber flew down the stairs to the duergar guard room and peeked around the corner. He initially spotted five duergar, but then advanced farther into the room and spotted three more, for a total of eight. Three of them were Enlarged. One of them whispered to another, in Dwarf, which Zaber happened to understand. He said "stay still, wait for it Ralf!" Zaber inferred from this that at least one of the duerger could See Invisible, and flew back to the group, where he informed them of what he'd seen and heard, in Elvish. (Unfortunately Garreth didn't understand Elvish.)
Seépravir prepared a Concussion spell, and told the others to leave one duergar alive. Zaber flew back down the hall, made an obscene gesture at the duergar, and flew back up. He then poured some monster drool poison on his knife. Garreth tried singing an offensive song in Undercommon, but rolled a 17 -- apparently all the easily taunted duergar were dead by now. An Enlarged duergar peeked around the corner, and Polly fired a Continual Light bodkin at his vitals. But the arrow bounced off and came right back at her, a Reverse Missile. Polly acrobatically dodged her own missile, and it missed Garreth standing behind her. Garreth lobbed the returning pearly spear at the same duergar, and it came back too, but he dodged it. It then hung in the air waiting for him to grab it.
Elias charged forward in front of Zaber. Seépravir flew forward a bit then lobbed the Concussion into what she hoped was the middle of the room full of duergar. She was accurate enough to catch a bunch of them in the stunning radius, though two of them rolled 3s on their resistance rolls, showing they just didn't care about loud noises. Several duergar charged up the stairs toward the PCs, holding their shields up.
Polly plinked a few arrows at a different duergar, but he blocked one with his shield and dodged the others. Garreth grabbed the spear and used it to Great Haste himself. Elias moved forward into the Enlarged duergar's face. Seépravir stopped maintaining a bunch of non-essential spells, then used her Wand of Smoke to fill the whole guardroom with Smoke, to flush out all the duergar. The big duergar in front somehow saw Elias despite his Invisibility, and made a hugely deceptive attack with his huge axe, but missed. As he missed, he yelled out warnings in Undercommon about where two invisible elves were standing. Meanwhile, two invisible duergar came around the corner, and Zaber (with See Invisible) saw them and yelled out warnings to his friends.
Zaber flew up around the ceiling. Polly shot at another duergar, who blocked and dodged arrows. Garreth made several attacks on the lead Enlarged duergar's arm, but was parried and dodged. Elias activated his Heroic Might, using Luck to reroll a bad result, and gaining 6 points of ST. Seépravir Great Hasted herself. The big duergar in front tried axing Elias again, and missed again. Several more duergar continued closing, up the stairs. One of them, still invisible, cast a large Flame Jet, which only Zaber could see.
Polly continued loosing arrows, and was finally rewarded with a hit to the vitals of a duergar, who was stunned. Another one dropped and dodged, and a third arrow bounced off an invisible shield. Garreth, nervous about Invisible foes who might be waiting for him to do something stupid, attacked more cautiously than usual, and failed to connect. Elias tried smacking the large duergar in the side with his flail, but was blocked.
Seépravir then cast Mass Daze over an area containing a lot of duergar, leaving holes for hexes containing her friends. She used Luck to reroll her casting roll (though still only got a 10), and then was lucky enough to see all the duergar except two fail to resist, and just stand there staring into space. She then added insult to injury by using Rapier Wit to stun one of the two duergar that had resisted. She pointed out the one that was only stunned and said to take him down first. Zaber, with See Invisible, noticed that the invisible duergar wizard with the Flame Jet had managed to resist and was still active.
Polly flew around behind the stunned duergar and shot him in the back of the head, fatally. She then shot a Dazed duergar in the brain and inflicted massive, but not quite fatal, trauma, and knocked him unconscious. Zaber flew over near the wizard and taunted him, while all-out defending. Garreth smashed a Dazed duergar in the skull and ended him, taking him to -5 * HP in one hit. He then repeated the trick on another duergar but rolled slightly worse damage, so he actually got to roll death checks, but rolled a 16 on one and died.
Elias flailed at a hex, hoping it contained an invisible target, but it did not. Seépravir flew along the ceiling and then dropped another Concussion into the room, hoping to stun any invisible targets remaining. She then started casting Possession on a dazed duergar. The duergar wizard near Zaber decided to burn him with the Flame Jet, but Zaber dodged. The wizard then cast another spell, and disappeared, in a way that even Zaber could no longer see him.
At that point Polly started firing arrows in the general direction of the last known location of the wizard, but missed Zaber tried tackling where he had been, but tackled air. Garreth waited, hoping the target would appear. Seépravir dropped the Smoke, hoping that would reveal the wizard, but he wasn't to be seen. Giving up on the wizard, Zaber started stabbing Invisible dazed duergar that had not yet been mopped up. Garreth, unable to see them, followed Zaber's general lead, and managed to finish one. Elias and Garreth ganged up on the other one.
They never did find the wizard, who probably got away, somehow. Exactly how, they weren't sure, though one theory was some kind of teleportation magic, which Seépravir wanted to steal. Seépravir finished her Possession spell on the one they left alive, yielding a perfectly compliant prisoner to question.
The group started stripping dead duergar of weapons and armor for resale, and asking random questions of Seépravir-inside-the-duergar. Zaber wanted to know where the beer was, and the duergar said it was mostly a couple of levels down, in the quarters. Garreth wanted to know how many duergar there were, and was told a few dozen in the Bleak Arena, hundreds in Narborg. Zaber also asked how many duergar were nearby, and was told a few dozen. Seépravir tried to recall the layout of this level, and remembered it was mostly cages for prisoners and animals and monsters, with a bunch of portcullises. Garreth wanted to know who was in charge, and found that The Impressario ran the arena, and Thane Hroland Vejik was in charge of Narborg.
Polly wanted to know how to disable the trap, and was told the current password was "Elves must be eradicated and bows should be illegal" (in Undercommon). Seépravir also gave the previous password she could recall ("All hail Thane Hrolad Vejik, and may his beard grow long" in Undercommon), in case the duergar reused passwords. Garreth asked about prisoners, and was told the current ones suck, just a wimpy elf bard and some common slaves, no good opponents. Polly asked about kittens, and was told some big tigers were brought in recently.
Zaber asked about The Impressario, and was told he was a powerful duergar, very tricky, and good at face-stabbing and running the arena, and highly trusted by the Thane. He then asked about the best arena fights and was told that last year's fight with 3 dragons versus 10 elves was excellent. Zaber asked if he liked drow, and was told not really. He asked if the dragons were still around, and said that some new little ones were allegedly just brought in. He asked if the duergar had ever fought in the arena himself, and was told that guards don't fight there.
At that point the players were out of questions, so we stopped for the week, with the party still in the dungeon. (They didn't want to go back to town and give the duergar a chance to reset their defenses.)
GM's Comments:
The duergar fought pretty well, until they got Mass Dazed, and then it was all over. Mass spells from wizards with very high skill are tough.The PCs (and players) have no idea how the duergar wizard escaped. Maybe they'll find out later; maybe not.
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