Realizing they were having no luck against the tentacle wall, the party decided to move on. Little did they know that their shenanigans had attracted the attention of some drow, who were sneaking up on them from both sides of the hallway. More on that in a bit. . .
Having an old-school 1st edition barbarian in the party has its merits. In this case, Pontus was able to detect an illusion on the north wall, and convince the party to walk through it "Platform 9 and 3/4" style. They found themselves walking down a wide flight of stairs, through a room illuminated with a purple, swirling haze. Distances were distorted and shifting, making it hard to judge where the steps were. Even the blind druid's senses were affected. Luapan ended up tumbling down the stairs, right into Dalron. When everyone got up, they decided to look around.
They were in an area that appeared to be segregated from a much larger room by a series of pillars that were a few feet apart. Along the wall to the east was a large mural depicting humans, elves and other species worshiping a large creature with tentacles for a mouth which appeared to be feasting on the very creatures worshiping it. Pontus tried to walk between two of the pillars and purple tendrils of energy reached out and gave him a shock and so he backed off. The Dalron tried to do the same thing and received a shock, then ran screaming out of the room. The party chased after him, stumbling on the stairs a few times.
Remember those drow I talked about? Dalron ran right into them. Four drow with small crossbows and a drow male cleric behind them. The drow cleric cast Hold Person, fixing Dalron in place.
I may have mentioned this before, but in this game, we treat "Hold Person" as a root in place spell. The victim can make no forward, backward, sideways, up or down movements using any physical or magical means that they control. But they are not defenseless and can still move their arms. For Dalron, were he not focused on trying to run out of complete fear, that would mean he can still throw daggers at enemies to the front and side of him. But alas, he could do nothing but scream and try to run, and now was unable to. What a nightmare.
Sarril and Luapan were on the scene first, and immediately started casting spells at the drow (whose magic resistances were limiting the effects, but at least they were no longer focused on Dalron). Next up the stairs were Pontus, Sebastian and Cadwin. Cadwin's superior hearing noticed that more drow were coming up the hallway to east, which effectively trapped the party. Pontus decided to confront these new drow directly, and rushed down the hall. It was the same situation. Four shooters, one cleric.
For the first couple of rounds, the drow shot at the party and missed horribly. Even with the drow using Faerie Fire and having bonuses to hit, they just could compete with everyone having such low ACs. A few bolts would have hit Sarril, had he not cast Protection from Normal Missiles on himself. He remembered from his time with Bukro that the drow liked to use sleeping poison on their bolts. A few bolts hit Cadwin, who saved against the sleeping poison. Pontus, unfortunately, was not so lucky, and down he went. The party now had both of their melee fighters taken out of the fight, and the spell casters were not very effective against such magic resistance. They thought for certain it would be a TPK.
But then Cadwin started bouncing lightning bolts around. Some bad resistance rolls on the part of the drow took out a large number of them, and suddenly the fight turned around just like that. At this point, both of the clerics had done all they could do, and it was down to the fighters, who dropped their crossbows and engaged in melee with great effectiveness. These dual-wielding drow were quite deadly opponents. Cadwin cast Neutralize Poison on Pontus to wake him up and soon he was back in the fight, ready to finish off the last of the drow along the eastern hall.
Along the southern hall, Luapan engaged in melee and started to show what his +5 spear can do. But unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse when two trolls emerged from an opening to the west. One of the trolls hit Luapan with enough damage to knock him unconscious, but luckily not kill him. Sarril cast Wall of Fire hoping to kill the trolls. They made their saves and were able to jump away, but one was on one side of the wall and the other on the other side. It made a difference, especially since Dalron had finally shaken the fear that took hold of him. He was still held in place, but he could throw his daggers and soon finished off all of the drow near him as well as the troll he could see. Sarril, suddenly remembering that everyone was protected from fire, gave instructions to toss the troll into the fire, which Dalron did as soon as the Hold Person wore off.
And it wore off just in time, as the Fire Giant blacksmith emerged from the same place the trolls just came from. This would have been the end of the party if Dalron was not mobile, but he was not only mobile, he was angry. After rolling two natural 20s, Dalron dropped the fire giant in a single round, leaving only one troll for Pontus and crew to deal with. They dealt with it quickly and then threw it into the wall of fire as well. Everyone took an inventory of their status and checked up on Luapan. It seems everyone survived, and now they had drow armor and weapons. How nice. But of course they needed to recuperate, and so they headed upstairs.
Strangely enough, nothing came looking for them upstairs. They were able to rest for the evening and recover hit points and spells. It was at this point that Cadwin told the group he needed to leave. His original mission that brought him in touch with the party was to find the source of the Red Death, in the hopes that might lead to a cure. Information Sebastian had provided needed to be followed up on. He asked Sebastian to stay with the party and help them on their quest while he goes to see the druid circle in the Dim Forest and follow-up on the clues Sebastian had found. He said his goodbyes and left.
The remaining party headed back downstairs. Using a Knock spell, Sarril opened the remaining cell doors that Sebastian was unable to pick earlier. They ended up rescuing a group of elves, one of whom claimed to be a sylvan princess of the Hornwood. They claimed that several of their number had been taken as sacrifice into the temple down the hall. They assume sacrifice because they could hear the screams, and no one taken ever came back. The party fed the elves and gave them water and equipped them as best they could so they could return home, then they went on their way to explore the rest of the level.
From the room where the trolls and fire giant emerged, they found the blackmith's area where a large pool of lava acts as a forge for weapons and armor. The giant was in the middle of repairing a large mace, but nothing of value was found here. Heading further up northeast the party came to a hallway where a filthy stench overwhelmed them. A troll's den. Pontus stepped forward to investigate and was immediately overrun by trolls. There were 18 trolls total, which could have quickly overwhelmed the party, but they were smart and the trolls were not. Pontus, Luapan and Dalron stood side-by-side to form a wall, preventing the trolls from getting past them. Then, after doing some quick math in his head, Sarril dropped a fireball a ways behind the line, engulfing all of the trolls. Many were consumed, but some were still standing, so he tossed another one. And thus ended the lives of 18 trolls.
The trolls were keeping about 60 gnoll slaves captive in some nearby rooms. The party decided to free the gnolls as they were clearly no threat and then search the rest of the area. Some empty guest chambers, one of which was clearly setup for Frost Giants, but nothing else interesting. Anything valuable had already been taken when the rest of the inhabitants of this level fled.
So that leaves the party with three unexplored options.
1. Whatever is behind the Tentacle Wall
2. The temple that sent Dalron screaming and
3. The double-doors that they know lead down into the underdark (and past a large red dragon)
But none of that will be explored today. The drow fight consumed most of the entire session and so we had to call it quits for the day. It is the morning of the 12th Day of Patchwall, CY 580 and the party is still alive. That's something.
No comments:
Post a Comment