DF Whiterock Session 94: Owlbears, Stalkers, Mushrooms, and Cultists

Date:

2020-05-08

Weather:

Cool, session entirely underground

Player Characters:

Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 427 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 486 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 486 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 472 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High Elf Wizard, 491 points

Significant NPCs:

Spiked Dire Owlbear
Invisible Stalker?
Shrieker Mushroom
6 Cultists of the Forgotten Word


Sticking to their plan not to return to Cillamar until the Thane of Narborg was dead, the PCs started yet another session inside the Duergar fortress of Narborg.  They resumed methodically looting.  Zaber picked a lock to enter a closet, finding some coins and gems and a magic helmet.  He then picked a door on the other side of the hallway -- and got jumped by a huge owlbear, wearing some kind of amateurishly-welded spiked armor, who had been hiding behind the door.

Zaber dodged the owlbear's first attack, and noticed something dripping off its claws.  He failed to dodge its followup attack, but made his HT check to resist the poison.  Elias stepped up and slammed the owlbear with his flail, stunning it.  Zaber managed to stay conscious and retreated, as Garreth moved into position and prepared to stab it.  But there was no need, as Elias connected with the owlbear's skull and knocked it unconscious.  Zaber drank a couple of doses of healing potion, and then resumed picking locks and searching mostly empty apartments.

Reaching the north end of that hallway, the group headed back south and then east.  They found a room with some large vats that smelled strongly of urine.  Moving on, they found a room full of casks.  Zaber sampled the contents of one, which turned out to be horrible-tasting rye wort, possibly destined to someday mature into horrible-tasting rye beer.  At least he didn't appear to be poisoned.

Heading northeast, the group found a bunch more boring and mostly empty apartments.  After leaving one, Polly felt a heavy thump in the back.  Something invisible had slammed her, and then not become visible.  Zaber made obscene gestures at it.  Polly drew her rapier and started trying to skewer it, but it dodged.  Garreth and Elias didn't have See Invisible so couldn't help much.  Seépravir started buffing them to make them useful, while Polly and the invisible creature chased each other around.  Eventually Polly and Garreth and Elias cornered the invisible creature in a room.  It managed to slam Garreth, but not hard enough to hurt him.  Polly switched back to her bow and tried shooting the invisible creature, but it kept dodging and forcing Garreth, on the other side of it, to parry arrows.

Finally, Polly landed a critical hit with an arrow, which caused the creature to let loose an ear-splitting scream that made everyone roll against HT to keep their hearing.  (Polly failed, but used Luck to reroll and succeed.)  The arrow wound was enough to slow the creature and reduce its dodge, at which point Garreth was able to hit it twice with his katana, almost killing it.  Polly then shot three more arrows into it, finishing it off.  Even in death, the creature stayed invisible.  Seépravir thought it was probably an Invisible Stalker, though she'd never seen one before.  Though Garreth thought this creature somewhat resembled Aeraelith, the air elemental they'd freed from the organ on the troglodyte level, long ago.  Are air elementals related to invisible stalkers, or was that air elemental actually an invisible stalker, or was this invisible stalker actually an air elemental?

Moving on, Zaber unlocked a door to the north, and found a room full of all kinds of colorful growing fungus.  Garreth was able to identify some of them with his Underground Survival skill.  While they were poking around, one mushroom decided to start screaming, until Garreth silenced it with a thrown sai.

Further south was a very stout, very locked door.  Zaber wouldn't find a lock to pick, and Garreth slamming into the door didn't open it.  Eventually Polly suggested breaking out the pickaxe and chopping the door to bits.  While they were working on that, Zaber and Elias decided to scout south and see if they could find another way in.  Zaber found a locked door with a note on it.  Something about the note set off his Danger Sense, and he decided to back off and not read it, and they went back to the others.

Garreth finally finished smashing the extremely stout door, but behind it was a wall of opaque greenish smoke.  Polly stepped into the smoke to see how far it went.  After a couple of steps, she reached the other side, and saw a lit room, containing several humans with swords who were waiting for intruders.  Three different bastard swords tried chopping her in half, but she managed to dodge them all (needing Luck once) and retreat back into the smoke.  She wasn't followed through the smoke, so she informed the others of what she had seen, then started shooting arrows through the smoke hoping for a lucky hit.

Meanwhile, Garreth closed his eyes and stepped into the smoke, using his Blind Fighting to try to locate an enemy in reach.  While he was doing that, Seépravir cast Purify Air and got rid of the smoke, which revealed a room with tables, bookshelves, and 6 armed and hostile humans, wearing robes over armor.  Elias started praying for Heroic Might and Heroic Grace.  A couple of the swordsmen tried attacking Garreth, who still had his eyes closed, but he managed to parry and dodge.  He opened his eyes and guarded the doorway.  Meanwhile, a human with a staff activated a long Flame Jet and tried using his reach advantage to torch Garreth from behind a shield wall, but Garreth dodged.

Zaber invisibly flew over the shield wall to try to eyestab the wizard, but the wizard saw him coming and yelled commands to stop him.  Polly flew around the shield wall, looking to shoot enemies on their unshielded sides, and managed to achieve three hits, the final one a direct hit to the heart for a fatality.  Garreth used Rapier Wit to insult one of the guards, stunning him.  Seépravir topped this by casting Mass Daze on the five surviving foes, and successfully dazing three of them.  She tried Rapier Wit on the wizard, who ignored it, and then offered to parley.

Polly and Garreth weren't really in a negotiating mood, and kept fighting.  Elias smashed the guard who was still fighting in the nose with his shield for a critical hit.  The wizard tried casting some kind of heart-stopping spell on Seépravir, who failed to resist, but was saved by her Bless.  The wizard then disappeared.  Zaber couldn't find it even with See Invisible, so they assumed he Blinked or Teleported.  Polly ran out into the hallway to look for the wizard, but failed to find him.  Meanwhile, Zaber tried eye-stabbing the last undazed guard, but failed to kill him.  Garreth hit the guard, and then Elias crushed him in the skull for massive brain damage.

Meanwhile, before her allies were even done fighting, Seépravir cast Hold Breath on herself, then Possession on one of the dazed guards, then used Entomb to stow her own body underground.  She was now inside Rolf, one of the guards, a cleric of the Cult of the Forgotten Word.  Once Polly returned from failing to find the wizard, the interrogation began.  The cultists were looking for the library of the Order of the Dawning Sun, which they believed was somewhere under Castle Whiterock.  They wanted to destroy it.  They had paid the Thane of Narborg to be allowed to search his records for clues, and also his territory for secret doors.  So far, they hadn't found anything...

It was getting late, so we stopped there for the night.

GM's Comments:

Single opponents don't have much of a chance against a group of 5 PCs.  Both the owlbear and the invisible creature were merely slight annoyances.

The cultists, on the other hand, were a pretty big threat.  They were prepared, they were highly skilled, and they had a wizard of their own.  Sadly for them, they did not have good enough resistance to Mass Daze.

The PCs have been in Narborg for quite a few sessions now, and still haven't sniffed the Thane.  Maybe next time.