DF Whiterock Session 89: Into the Second Map of Narborg

Date:

2020-03-27

Weather:

Cold, session entirely underground

Player Characters:

Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 415 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 476 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 476 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 470 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High Elf Wizard, 481 points

Significant NPCs:

Wolfrik, Possessed Duergar guard
Talladay Arrowmelt, Halfling Chef
Many Duergar Guards
2 Destrachans
Giant Wasp
Many Giant Fire Beetles
Earth Elemental


We resumed in the Duergar fortress of Narborg, again.  After spending much of the last session looting the casualties of previous battles, Polly realized they only had 7 of 8 Zombie Ettin corpses, so the group went looking for the other one.  They eventually went north far enough to find that Zombie Ettin corpse, and a few more duergar, and dragged their loot to the south end of the level.  Garreth decided to smash the northern gate open.  Beyond it was a cave passage, but the group didn't go that way.

Instead they doubled back to the south, and smashed the southern gate to Narborg as well.  There were a few more duergar bodies and a dead destrachan on the causeway outside, so they looted those too.  Then Zaber flew out over the causeway and started looking into the deep, smelly pit underneath.  He didn't find anything interesting except a few ledges, and didn't want to go much deeper alone, so he flew back.

Polly then decided to go look for herself, as Seépravir cast Wizard Eye to scout without risk.  As Polly flew near the top of the chasm, a giant wasp flew up and tried to ambush her.  She saw it coming in time, fast-drew her Rapier, and gave it a couple good chops, stunning it.  It started to fall, as she readied her bow and put an arrow into the wasp, finishing it off.

The Wizard Eye started descending into the pit.  About 20' below the mouth of the pit, or 100' below the causeway, there were some ledges, with giant beetles swarming on them, and some caves back into the walls.  As the eye snooped around looking for treasure, one of the giant beetles noticed it, and shot fire at the eye, but failed to hit.  This drew the attention of several more fire beetles, which took turns missing the tiny eye with ranged fire attacks.  One even managed to critically fail and spray itself with the flaming substance.  Finally, a beetle rolled well enough to hit the Wizard Eye, and it was dispelled.

At this point the party discussed whether they wanted to go down into the pit, or back into Narborg.  Garreth wanted to focus on the duergar until they were finished, reasoning that they might get reinforcements or build new fortifications, while dumb bugs would remain dumb bugs.  Seépravir searched through Wolfrik's memories of the duergar and realized that the Thane and his chief lieutenants were still alive, and there was no way they would give up.  Polly and Zaber wanted to go into the hole and kill bugs, but were eventually persuaded to Garreth's point of view, and everyone headed north and west, to the unexplored portion of Narborg.

The first room they explored was a small unoccupied barracks with low-quality furniture.  They found no treasure, and continued.  The second room they explored was a dining hall, with long tables, many stools, a high ceiling, and a balcony.  Zaber explored the balcony, pulled up a loose board, and found a small pouch underneath, containing a few gems.  The group headed south from the dining hall and found a very nice kitchen, featuring some large ovens and high-quality food preparation counters.  Oddly, all the kitchen knives were chained to the wall.  Zaber heard whistling behind a barred door, so everyone formed up for battle, and Garreth kicked the door open.  Behind the door was a pantry, with a small halfling cowering in the back.

When he saw two elves and a human, the halfling held up his hands in a gesture of peace, and introduced himself as Talladay Arrowmelt, a chef.  He had been captured by slavers, sold to orcs, sent to the Bleak Theater, then convinced the Thane to keep him on as a cook rather than using him as arena fodder.  He expressed a desire to be rescued now, but the PCs wanted to go kill more duergar, and asked him to stay put until they returned to pick him up later.  They asked him for more information about the duergar and Narborg.  Talladay didn't know much, as he spent all his time in the kitchen, but he knew that duergar were immune to poison.  He'd also been using utensils to dig a very small escape tunnel, hidden behind bags of supplies in the pantry.  He said it led to a room containing three Zombie Ettins, who were fortunately too big to enter the tunnel.  Polly, Zaber, and (amusingly) Garreth all tried squeezing into the tunnel to see for themselves, but none could fit.  Seépravir cast Repair on Talladay's worn digging spoon, in case he wanted to do more digging before they got him out.

Leaving the chef, the group headed north from the dining room, opening a door straight into a duergar ambush.  A group of several duergar and a destrachan managed to achieve surprise, and swarmed around the PCs.  Polly and Garreth managed to defend against a few attacks.  Then all the PCs quickly recovered from mental stun, and started fighting back.  Zaber and Polly broke free of the swarm of duergar and headed for the destrachan, knowing its sonic attack could do a lot of damage.  Polly shot an arrow at the destrachan, which dropped and dodged, but her arrow accidentally broke the arm of a duergar behind it.  Her second arrow was also dodged, but her third hit the destrachan's skull, knocking it out before it managed a sonic attack. 

Seépravir (inside Wolfrik) threw a Mass Daze at the whole mob of six duergar, dazing five of them, with only the one with the broken weapon arm managing to resist.  She then used Rapier Wit to stun the only undazed one.  Garreth piled on, stabbing the stunned, badly wounded duergar into unconsciousness.  Elias took out one of the dazed ones, setting him on fire with his Flaming Flail.  Seépravir asked the group to spare one of the dazed duergar for Entombment; the others were dispatched.  However, when she cast Entombment, the duergar managed to resist, so Seépravir gave up and let Garreth kill him.

With that combat over, the group dragged the bodies over to the loot zone, then immediately resumed exploring, rather than giving Seépravir an extended chance to rest and regain all her FP.  They went east, then south, and opened a door to find some kind of warehouse containing three more duergar, two of them standing next to pillars.  Zaber tricked invisibly eye-stabbing one, but the duergar heard the attack coming, and managed to block it.  Polly started shooting arrows, but they were blocked or dodged.  One of the duergar smashed his axe against a pillar, making a loud ringing sound, like a gong.  Seépravir wanted to give tactical advice, but couldn't see the fight from outside the room, so cast Wizard Eye, critically succeeding.  She then got cocky and tried Rapier Wit from around the corner at long range, and rolled an 18, critically failing and managing to trip over her words badly enough to stun herself.

Elias shield rushed the duergar that had gonged the pillar and critically succeeded, causing a major wound but failing to knock the duergar over.  Then the floor started breaking up, and a large angry pile of animated rocks emerged.  Meanwhile, a door to the north flew open, and a destrachan behind it made a sonic attack at Zaber and Polly, with Garreth right on the edge of the area of effect.  With the session almost over, both Zaber and Polly used their Luck to reroll damage, and neither was that badly wounded, and both kept their hearing.  Meanwhile Garreth managed to jump completely outside of the sonic cone and was not damaged, and Seépravir managed to recover from her self-induced stunning.

We stopped their for the evening, with the original 5 PCs vs. 3 duergar fight having turned into 5 PCs vs. the original three duergar, several more duergar and a destrachan joining the fight from the north, and an earth elemental coming up through the floor.

Battle at the End of the Session

GM's Comments:

The PCs are still moving very slowly, and seem obsessed with getting all the loot.  They still sometimes have a hard time agreeing on which way to go.

The encounter with Talladay was the first time the party has met someone friendly in a while, not counting victims of Charm spells.  But they weren't ready to stop their assault just to rescue him.

The first duergar ambush almost worked, with the duergar rolling a 4 on their surprise roll, but they were too dispersed to get in any back attacks. and the PCs have good enough defenses to survive a bit of mental stun.  The destrachan spent a turn aiming, not wanting to hit its allies with its area attack, and that was too long as Polly shot it in the head before it got a second turn.  Perhaps better tactics would have been to just lead with a ranged destrachan attack instead of swarming in close.

The fight currently in progress might be a bit more interesting, as Seépravir is isolated and low on FP, and the destrachan got a clean shot off (though not a very effective one).  The earth elemental is also a different kind of opponent than the PCs have been fighting lately.  We'll see how it goes, next week.