28th Day of Ready'reat, CY 580 - Into the 66th Layer of the Abyss

This was a short session today as we had to end early for holiday festivities, and we were also testing out Fantasy Grounds (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/home/home.php) for the first time. We had a lot of technical hiccups, but overall, it was worth it, even for an in-person game. I highly recommend Fantasy Grounds as it makes administration for the players and DMs both easier and gameplay is smoother, once you get used to it.

We started with the party having just entered the Abyss, seemingly at Lolth's invitation. They found themselves among a maze of hallways, 20 feet wide. Fog formed the walls and ceilings and the floor was made of a smooth stone that appeared to have moving swirling patterns within. Closer examination revealed twisted bodies and tortured faces writhing around in anguish.

Walking along in one direction, the party came across what looked like an overpass. Shan-Ju pulled out a Rope of Climbing that he was able to use to climb up and the rest of the party followed suit. This brought them to another pattern of hallways which they followed for a while until they came to another overpass and repeated the same maneuver. Eventually, they came to an overpass 10 feet overhead and did it again, then eventually came to the same overpass. They realized they had been going in circles and, rather than go overhead again, they decided to go forward, following the hallways as it turned left and right. After about an hour, they came to a turn in the hallway where there was a door on their right and driders approaching from the other side.

The driders were dispatched quickly, and the party decided to enter the door. They found themselves in a very large, strange room. Everything seemed warped - curving up and away from them the further away it was. Above them on the ceiling was a table with a cloaked figure sitting on one end. The party could see that the room appears to a large sphere, and decided to walk forward, ultimately approaching the table, which felt right-side up.

The cloaked figure at the end of the table was a skeleton holding a deck of cards. Seven chairs appeared around the table, and the party members decided to have a seat, with Sebastion asking "Who are you?"

The skeleton answered "I can answer questions you have, Sebastian Silvertongue. For each question you wish answered, you must draw a card."

Sebastain was more than happy to participate. He asked "How do we find Lolth?" and then drew from the deck and went catatonic - his soul sucked away from his body (The Void).

The skeleton said "A question was asked and a card drawn. Lolth can be found in her Spider Ship, which is accessed from a door on the fourth level of the Demonweb. You are currently on the third level. To access the fourth level, you will need a key that you already have on you (it points to Sarril). To enter the ship, you will need a key that you still must obtain."

Shan-Ju then decided to ask a question. "Where is Slerotin's tunnel?" He then drew a card (Throne) and his Charisma was raised to 18 and he became aware of a new Monastery that belonged to him somewhere in the Flanaess.

The skeleton answered the question in great detail, explaining exactly how to find the tunnel, including looking for some ancient runes and how to activate those runes to reveal the tunnel.

Sarril decided to go next. "Why are some priests unable to commune with their gods? and he drew a card (Comet). He is now aware that if he single-handedly defeats the next monster encountered, he will be rewarded with power.

"There are two answers to your question, and I will provide you with both. The first answer is simply that many of the gods are now dead, though their worshippers do not know it, or refuse to believe it. The second answer is that a being of great power has discovered the secrets of the mists from the Domain of Dread, also known as Ravenloft. This being is using these mists to cut-off the connection between the Prime Material plane and the Outer Planes, thus limiting the connection between deities that exist in those planes, and their worshippers in the prime."

Seeing that things were going well, Dalron took a turn. "How do we defeat Lolth?" he asked, as he drew a card (Key). A treasure map then appeared in his backpack.

"You already have the tools you need to destroy Lolth. It won't be easy, but your best chance is for the paladin to use his holy sword against her directly. The rest of you should do everything you can to help make sure that happens."

Unfortunately, Dalron was disappointed in this answer as he had already planned on this strategy and was hoping there was some super-secret way to kill her that they were unaware of. But not this time. They would have to do things the old fashioned way.

At this point, the pressure was on. Everyone still had questions, but the risks were high. Everyone had seen their companion disappear and weren't sure what happened to him. Finally, Shan-Ju decided to ask the question on everyone's minds.

"How do we get Sebastian back?" he asked, then drew a card and disappeared (DonJon).

"To retrieve your friend, you must unmake the universe" came the answer.

And that ended the session. It is sometime, perhaps the 28th Day of Ready'reat, CY 580, somewhere in the 66th layer of the Abyss.

28th Day of Ready'reat, CY 580 - Continuing the Battle in Lolth's Temple

With seven player characters and over 20 high-level enemies on the board, this was the most complicated battle I have ever had to run as a DM. The last session was chaotic and slow as I flipped through books to look at NPCs, we lost track of initiative more than once, and it was hard to remember who had what spell effects on them. Some people were going on the wrong initiative, took too many attacks per round, or not enough attacks. I spent the intervening two weeks putting together a spreadsheet with all of the relevant information that we could step through in initiative order. I shared the spreadsheet on a screen for everyone to see, which means the players could see the effects and hit points of the enemies, but the sanity was well worth it. I also invested in purchasing digital, searchable scans of the Priest Spell Compendium and Wizard Spell Compendiums (thanks DM's Guild https://www.dmsguild.com/) so I can quickly search for spell descriptions as-needed because despite playing for decades, I have never memorized what any of the spells do.

Despite all of this, the remainder of the battle still took four hours. I couldn't begin to describe the details here, but I can summarize some highlights.

 - The hasted Glabrezu cast Reverse Gravity, which didn't affect the drow who could levitate, but everyone else "fell" 50 ft. to the ceiling, taking some considerable damage. The demon was killed shortly thereafter, ending the Reverse Gravity spell, and causing everyone to take damage again from falling back to the floor.

 - The paladin, Sir Fenius Agrivar (Fen), was the star of the show. With his Holy Avenger, combined with Gauntlets of Ogre Power, he was doing +22 damage per hit to all of the chaotic evil beings in the room (which was all of the enemies). The drow tried everything they could to take him out of the fight, but the 50% magic resistance bestowed by his sword, combined with bonuses to saves and the ability to dispel magic, he shrugged off just about everything thrown at him.

 - At one point, the High Priestess cast Lolth's version of Sticks to Snakes, which creates giant spiders. She filled the battlefield with 16 giant spiders to keep the party occupied while she cast more spells. Sebastian responded by pulling out his Pipes of the Sewer and summoning 90 giant rats, which engaged the spiders to a standstill, effectively taking them off the board.

 - Another dozen or so drow, all high-level, came down from the upper levels to join the fight. Two captains were using Death Lances, which can drain levels on a failed save. Dalron lost three levels and was rendered unconscious.

 - Fen dispelled the Blade Barrier around the High Priestess, then killed her, thus getting rid of the spiders. Shortly thereafter, one of the clerics coming down the stairs cast Silence 15 ft. Radius on Sebastian, silencing his pipes and causing the rats to disperse.

 - Sarril cast a large Wall of Stone over the stairwell, causing a massive amount of stone to crash down and get rid of all of the new drow that were coming down. This allowed Fen to finish off the last couple of drow captains, avoiding level drains as he did so, and bringing the party to victory.

But this was not the end. Standing by the tapestry, behind the illusion of Lolth, was another drow. The most beautiful drow woman anyone has ever seen. Her dress was flowing in an eerie, irregular way, which the sharp-eyed PCs could see was because the dress was made of thousands of tiny, living spiders crawling around. There was no doubt now that this was Lolth herself.

As it turns out, Lolth had been summoned by the high priestess shortly before the party infiltrated the temple. That was why the altar on the lower level was covered in fresh blood. Lolth appeared in a room at the end of the webbed corridor, which the party decided to ignore. Had they gone immediately into that room, they could have fought Lolth first, while at full power, and easily defeated her. Once defeated, all of her drow followers would have been temporarily stripped of their power, including magic-resistance, and the party would have been able to easily defeat everyone in the temple. But they, unknowingly, took the hard way, and now have to face Lolth after being severely weakened by their previous fight.
Lolth held out a platinum egg that looked exactly like the one they already possessed. She addressed

the party "I know why you are here. The egg you have is a fake, planted by me personally. This is the real one, and if you want it, you must prove your worth by defeating me." She then transformed into the spider-demon depicted in the images everyone has now seen.

As Lolth was speaking, the party was desperately quaffing healing potions. Fen decided to commune with his holy sword, asking it to grant him the power needed to defeat this goddess of evil. The sword answered, giving him the power to cast a full Heal on himself. The battle started with Lolth jumping up to the ceiling and casting Slay Living on Fen, who made his saving throw but took serious damage nonetheless. She was actually waiting for the party to get close enough together that she could dispel the effects on them, like Haste, but the party was smart enough not to clump together. Dalron headed south to collect daggers from dead drow while Sarril cast Fly on Fen and Tyril who flew up and engaged her in melee.

Lolth responded with a Mirror Image of her own to slow down the dagger attacks against her and cast a Cone of Cold, catching both Fen and Tyril. Being a high-level caster, she was able to penetrate Fen's magic resistance and he subsequently failed his save, taking a lot of damage. Her next move was to put up an anti-magic shell, enveloping herself, Fen and Tyril. With nothing to anchor themselves to the ceiling, Fen and Tyril fell to the floor, with Fen taking enough damage to reach negative hit points (though, as a paladin, he was still able to fight).

Lolth could have stayed in her anti-magic shell indefinitely. Since she requires magic weapons to take damage, and all weapons entering the shell become non-magical, she was effectively immune. But this limited her ability to do damage as well, and she wasn't going to allow them the privilege of entering her realm without fully testing them. She dropped the anti-magic shell and cast a full Heal on herself to wipe out the damage done so far (which was significant due to the extra damage from the paladin's holy sword). She then cast Feeblemind on Sarril, who, due to an amazingly lucky saving throw, was able to resist. And that is how we can describe the rest of the fight. Lolth throwing multiple offensive spells per round and each party member making their saving throws while slowly whittling down her hit points. Sarril read Bigby's Clenched Fist from a scroll and, even though it failed to penetrate her magic resistance on most rounds, it did connect a few times. Altogether, it was enough, and Lolth's avatar was soon defeated.

The truth is, Lolth could have chosen to gate in demons every round, or even teleport away, buff herself, and come back stronger, all of which would have made the fight much more difficult. But that was not the goal. This was a test. Lolth was sizing up her enemy so she can prepare to fight them in her own realm. She accomplished her goal.

Once her avatar was destroyed, the egg fell to the ground, where Shan-Ju, who had been climbing a nearby wall, leaped at the egg and caught it. The party decided they needed to act quickly before more drow showed up, but they were unsure which egg was the correct one to use. Sarril cast Identify on the original egg and got no useful information, so he placed it in the impression to try. The temple began to rumble, there was a flash of light, and then a Nalfeshnee (Type IV) demon appeared and attacked the party. The demon was able to damage several of the party members with an area of effect spell, but the party responded to bring the demon down pretty quickly.

Figuring it must have been the wrong egg, Sarril swapped the eggs and the tapestry before them came to life, opening a portal into a foggy scene beyond. Not having time to search the bodies, but figuring the high-level drow in the immediate vicinity must have good loot, the party tossed the dead bodies through the portal before jumping in themselves.

They now found themselves in a strange fog-filled tunnel. The portal behind them was now gone. Light penetrated the fog 60 ft. ahead, revealing a wall of fog 10 ft. to either side and 50 ft. above them. The floor seemed to be made of the same gray fog. This must be the Abyss.

It is evening of the 28th Day of Ready'reat, CY 580 - at least on the Prime Material Plane it was.

28th Day of Ready'reat, CY 580 - Infiltrating the Fane of Lolth

After spending the rest of the day in the market at Erelhei-Cinlu, the party made their way back to the inn to have dinner. Underneath Sarril's plate was a note instructing the party to meet with two wizards of the black tower at a specified location in the city. The party decided not to wait and to go directly there.

Inside seemingly abandoned building they met with two wizards who explained that the party was to pass through the Noble Gate of the city and go to the manor of House Eilserv. No non-drow are allowed through the gate and even then, only those who are members of the royal house or on official business may pass. Disguises and illusions will not work, so the only option is to polymorph each party member into a drow - which, of course, comes with risk of death or of losing one's identity. The party agreed to the terms and the two wizards polymorphed everyone, one at a time. Each PC made their system shock roll and intelligence check to remain alive and retain their self identity. The party was given a platinum token with the symbol of House Eilserv on it, which would get them through the gate and up to the manor house. The party, now each a drow, headed there immediately.

The party made their way to the manor house and showed their token and were invited inside and offered some fine drow wine while they waited. Eventually, Viconia came out to speak with the party. She was not interested in a long drawn out conversation. She made stated that she would provide the party with a means to access the Fane of Lolth through a secret passage underneath the temple. If the party would go tonight, there will be minimal guards to deal with. She provided simple instructions on how to get to the upper level where they can use the egg to open up a portal to Lolth's lair in the Abyss.

Sebastian asked what Eilserv would do in return for the risk the party is undertaking and she laughed, saying merely that they would allow the party to live to accomplish their mission. "Is there not a large black bubble on your surface world spewing out demons?" She asked.

"Fair enough" replied Sebastian, who then went on to ask about the Elder Elemental God that House Eilserv seems to worship. Viconia offered to introduce the party to her god if they would like. They declined and went on their way.

The path to the secret entrance required taking a special boat docked beside the Pitchy Flow, an underground canyon and river that leads to the Sunless Sea. The Pitchy Flow consisted of fast moving rapids that would not be navigable by normal means, but the boats provided were magic boats. Stepping inside the boat, the party invoked the name of Lolth, which caused a Hezrou demon statue to come to life and call forth a crew of ghouls to operate the boat and take them down river, stopping at a cave entrance which was their destination.

Just as Viconia said, the cave led to a long tunnel that eventually came to a narrow flight of stairs up to a secret door. The secret door was easily opened from this side and the party found themselves in a large room with a sacrificial altar in an alcove to the south. The altar had recently been used, as there was fresh blood all over the altar and floor.

To the west was a web filled passage which the party chose to avoid, choosing instead to go north where they found a staircase going up. Dammac used his Ring of Invisibility to invisibly and silently sneak up the stairs and scout. The stairs were covered in spider webs, making it difficult, but not impossible, to push through. About halfway up, he was attacked by a giant black widow spider. The spider wasn't much of a match for Dammac, but it did manage to wound him before he killed it and he was no longer invisible.

Dammac returned down the stairs and explained what happened. Sebastian decided the two of them should sneak up the stairs together and scout things out. At the top of the stairs they could see a large hallway going left and right. To the right, the hall opened into a large diamond shaped room with an amber pool in the middle. Floating above this amber pool was a large black spider with a female drow head. Listening checks revealed that there were others in the room, though they could not see them from where they were. They headed back down and reported what they saw to the rest of the party.

Believing the spider may be Lolth herself, the party decided to rush up the stairs and face whatever was in front of them, without casting protective and enhancing magic first. As soon as they entered the main temple area on the first floor, a drow woman stepped forward from behind the illusory image of the Spider Queen. This woman was finely dressed and wearing the broach of House Noquar. She also held aloft the golden idol of Lolth that Sebastian had previously traded to her house. As she spoke, two driders came to join her from side hallways, and the back hallway behind the party began to fill up with drow soldiers. Another drow priestess, wearing a broach with a golden spider on it, and a drow male wizard could also be seen.

The woman directly in front of them spoke "Did you think we did not know what the traitorous House Eilserv was up to? We will deal with them soon enough. But as for you, thank you for returning the egg to us."

"Oh, we will be holding on to this egg" replied Sebastian as the fight broke out.

The very first thing that happened was Dalron focused all of his effort on the drow wizard. Any other wizard would have been dead from the amount of damage put out, but drow wizards typically have fighter levels, and this one had more hit points than the average wizard. He was nearly dead, but not quite. Sarril cast Haste from his ring (at-will) and placed a Wall of Force to block off the southern hallway, allowing the rest of the party to focus their effort on the two drow priestesses. Fen rushed up on the High Priestess of Lolth and did a significant amount of damage to her before she cast a Lolth priest version of Repulsion to push him back. Still, that consumed her spellcasting for the round, which made a huge difference.

The matron of House Noquar cast Hold Person on four of the party members. Only Shan-Ju failed his save, and was now held in place. Tyril was able to then rush up on the matron and begin savagely attacking her, rolling three 18s in a row and nearly killing her in the first round. The wizard, seeing that he would not survive another round, cast Haste on the priestesses and driders before, at the top of the next round, Dalron finished him off. Dalron then turned his attention to one of the driders while the other attacked Tyril.

In the southern hallway, the female leader of the drow guards dispelled the Wall of Force, allowing the guards to flood the back row. Sarril responded by summoning a hydra while Sebastian summoned a Fire Elemental. That kept the drow guards busy and bought the party more time to keep their focus on the priestesses. The matron, now nearly dead, tapped her demonic staff on the ground and transformed into a Glabrezu demon, healing herself as she did so. Tyril was now facing melee with a hasted Glabrezu and hasted Drider, which began tearing into him hard.

Sarril cast Dispel Magic and successfully dispelled the Repulsion on Fen, who, now hasted, was able to rush back up on the high priestess and do some more damage to her. She responded by casting Blade Barrier, which forced him to back away (for now).

DM's Note: I'm missing a lot of details as this was a chaotic battle that went for three rounds. At some point, the high priestess attempted to cast Slay Living on Fen, but failed, and Sarril was able to get out a lightning bolt. Other attacks back and forth were made and some of the drow guards were killed, as was the hydra. At the end round three, two drow guards are dead, the summoned hydra is dead and the drow wizard is dead (or dying). None of the party are yet dead, but a few are close. The battle took so long that we ran out of time, so this is where we leave off.

It is the middle of "night" (whatever that means in the underdark) on the last day of Ready'reat, CY 580. The party noticed that there is at least one more drow hanging out behind a tapestry and a few more driders coming up the side hallways. There are also temple guards outside that could rush in at any moment. This is not going to be easy.

17th day of Ready'reat, CY 580 - The Shrine of the Kuo Toa

As the party approached the Kuo-Toan city, the Svirfneblin guide bade them farewell. He explained that, while the svirfneblin do trade with the kuo-toans when necessary, they don't like to spend too
much time with them. They worship a demon-goddess and are very unpredictable. He advised the party to use caution when dealing with them, then went on his way.

The party continued north into an area where the walls were carved and everything glowed in an eerie green light. Large slugs were moving across the walls and ceilings and the air had a salt tang to it. Up ahead they could see what looked like a large nude woman with a lobster head and claws, which was revealed to be a malachite statue as the party got closer.

Passages to the right and left showed many doors, and the party decided they would open the first door and attack and kill anything inside. It turned out to be a barracks housing some low-level kuo-toa soldiers. Sixteen of them, to be exact. They were minding their own business when the party started slaughtering them. A few ran out the back doors while the rest stayed to fight. The battle took some time due to the sheer numbers, but these kuo-toa were no real challenge for the group.

Dammac opened a large door at the end of the room and took a look through. At the other end of a very long hallway to the east was a kuo-toa, who looked surprised to see a dwarf looking at him from the barracks. He decided to throw the door the rest of the way open and run down a southern passageway, leaving room for Dalron to run out and start throwing daggers at the now screeching kuo-toa. This kuo-toa was tougher than the others, and Dalron was not able to kill it in a single round. This gave enough time for its screeches to be heard by others from another passageway intersecting the long hallway from the north. Soon, Dalron and the others were dealing with five kuo-toa in the hallway.

Meanwhile, down south, Tyril joined Dammac and saw five kuo-toa coming up stairs at the end of another long hallway. Tyril started throwing daggers of his own, but before long, both dwarves found themselves magically held by a kuo-toa priest who had come at them from another passage to their southwest. It began to dawn on the party that they just entered an entire city full of these strange creatures and attacked them without provocation, and now might have to deal with hundreds, potentially thousands of them. An escape plan would need to be hatched quickly.

While Dalron and Sebastian finished off the five kuo-toa to the north, Sarril moved south the dispel the Hold Person on the dwarves. That's when he noticed that the priest was surrounded by six more kuo-toa and, from the western passage behind the priest, at least a dozen more were on their way. Dalron and Sebastian also heard more coming from the north, and decided to run south to recombine the party lest they get permanently separated.

Sarril let loose with a Boccob's Rolling Thunder to take out the priest and as many of the surrounding fighters as he could. This bought some time as everyone began running down the east passage toward the stairs going down. Soon the passage behind them was full of dozens of kuo-toa. Sarril, having just cast Protection from Normal missiles on himself to avoid the bow fire, waited until as many were in the hallway as he could get, then unleashed a fireball. The fireball killed half of the fishmen, and the other half were running around screaming on fire. He then ran down the stairs to join the others.

The stairs led down to a narrow hallway going north. All along this hallway for hundreds of feet were cell doors. Inside the cells were humans, dwarves, some svirfneblin and a few humanoids. Dammac picked the locks for the humans, dwarves and svirfneblin and left the rest. Among the human captives was Fenius Agrivar (Fen), a paladin of Saint Cuthbert who was investigating the black bubble around Istivin when he was captured by drow. The drow must not have wanted a paladin amongst their slaves and sold him to the kuo-toa to be sacrificed to their demon goddess. The party equipped Fen with some pretty good equipment, and now there are seven members of the Sarril-branch of the Bad-Ass Motherfuckers.

This dungeon appeared to go to a dead end in a storage room to the north, which effectively meant the party was trapped. They armed the prisoners as best they could and prepared for a full frontal assault to fight their way back out. Then someone had the brilliant idea to search the area more thoroughly. It turns out that there was a concealed escape tunnel in the storage room, which led a few miles north of the Kuo-Toan city. Everyone was able to safely escape.

The Svirfneblin were able to calculate the bearings and figure out the way home, to the south, which would put the party back where they started, having to go through the Kuo-Toa city again in order to get through to the Vault of the Drow (the name for the area that includes Erelhei-Cinlu and the Fane of Lolth). The party was left with a few choices:

1. Try to follow unknown passages to the north and west, hoping that they might find a path leading to the drow city (but possibly getting lost along the way)

2. Go southwest back to the Kuo-Toa city and take their chances

3. Go south with the Svirfneblin back to their home, and take another passage northwest that they were told goes around the Kuo-Toa. This alternate passage leads to a drow area that the svirfneblin avoid at all costs. These drow appear to have some kind of cooperation going on with the kuo-toa and the house symbol was described as a brass bar/rod. This was where the party decided to go.

After travelling south for a couple of days, the party was on their own. Trying their best to follow the vague map they have, they eventually came into a large open area where the stars and moon were visible. Trees and flowers were fully in bloom and the whole area smelled wonderful. In the middle of this "garden" was a statue of a beautiful woman plucking a rose. Sarril saw through the illusion immediately and recognized a succubus in place of the statue. The ceiling was actually covered in bats flying around and there were numerous giant rats all over the cavern. After Sarril shouted a warning, everyone else attempted to disbelieve the illusion, with some amount of success.

Shan-Ju immediately went invisible and rushed up behind the beautiful demon. Dalron, however, was enraptured by her, and yelled at Shan-Ju to leave her alone. Soon, Sebastian fell to her charms, just as Shan-Ju struck her from behind for 52 points of damage, nearly killing her. Sarril unleashed a lightning bolt at her that would have finished her off were it not for a lucky magic resistance roll on her part. Dalron then grappled Sarril to prevent him from casting again, but Sarril had his ring of spell storing which requires only a mental command to work. He unleashed magic missiles from the ring, which struck and killed the succubus who disappeared in a flame, breaking the charm on Dalron and Sebastian.

Just then, one of the bats from overhead flew down and landed behind Shan-Ju, transforming into a male drow. This is where we ended the session.

It is the 20th day of Ready'reat, CY 580. Is this drow a vampire, or maybe just using a Cloak of the Bat? Either way, he looks pretty angry.

9th Day of Ready'reat, CY 580 - Deeper into the Underdark they go

A new party member, and another PC death. Just another day for the Bad Ass Motherfuckers.

After searching the bodies of the drow and resting overnight, the party decided to leave these caves through the exit they saw previously. Tyril was able to decipher the map and determine this was the correct way to go. Three days later, the party arrived at the shore of an underground river.

Searching along the bank for a place to cross, they came across a series of smaller caves and searched inside. They came across a dwarf hiding in one of the caves. An escaped slave named Dammac, who was part of the group with Shan-Ju and Tyril that was previously captured by drow. Dammac explained that he was being taken back to Erelhei-Cinlu and when the drow came to the river and started loading onto a ferry, he took the opportunity to slip away. The party gave Dammac some equipment and welcomed him to come along with them on their mission to the drow city.

Dammac was able to describe a very distinct whistle that is used to call the ferry boat operator. Dalron was able to duplicate the whistle, but not knowing what to expect yet, the party prepared by having Sarril cast Fly on Dalron and Tyril. Dalron then performed the whistle and a ferry boat, operated by a mad Kuo-Toa came rowing across the river. The Kuo-Toan only spoke in his native language, but Sarril cast Tongues and began negotiating. After some time, the party began loading.

First the subterranean lizards crossed, as Dalron and Tyril flew beside the boat. When they reached the other side and unloaded the lizards, Dalron and Tyril took to the air again, which, for some reason, caused the mad Kuo-Toan to go berserk and attack. This fight would have been extremely difficult if Dalron and Tyril could not fly, but they took to the air where they could not be reached and Dalron threw daggers at the Kuo Toa, who then dove into the water and disappeared.

Pulling the ferry with ropes while flying, Dalron and Tyril began ferrying everyone else across the river. The last trip was for the cart. As they were pulling the cart across, Sarril noticed something in the water moving at a high speed toward the boat. He immediately cast Levitate on the cart and lifted it up and away as a giant gar smashed the boat into pieces. Dalron then pushed the levitated cart to shore and the party went on their way.

On the other side of the river was a another series of caves that the party decided to explore. One of the caves appeared to be the living quarters for the mad Kuo Toa ferry operator. A careful search of the cave revealed a hidden treasure stash containing coins, some potions, drow items and a magical cloak. Sarril identified the cloak as a Cloak of Elvenkind, but this didn't look like a Cloak of Elvenkind that anyone has ever seen before. It was made of black wool, for one thing. Sebastian attempted a Legend Lore roll, but failed to identify it further, so he decided to put it on and see what it does. It was a cursed Cloak of Poisonous, which instantly killed him.

Now Sarril understood what the cloak is. It requires first a Remove Curse to remove the cloak, then a Neutralize Poison to remove the poison, then, and only then, can a Raise Dead be cast. Luckily for Sebastian, Sarril could do all of these things, though they had to wait a day for him to pray for the spells.

The next day, Sebastian was brought back to life, telling the party a harrowing tale of how his soul was trapped in a "nowhere" place, rather than moving on to the Happy Hunting Grounds he was expecting. He told of seeing a cloaked skeletal figure with one eye reaching for him, saying "Ah, another one for my army. . ." before his soul was ripped back into his body.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two more days of travel and then the party came upon another complex series of caves and needed to make sure they found the correct way out. Exploring the caves, they came across a small group of Sverfneblin (deep gnomes) counting gems. Again using Tongues, Sarril spoke to the gnomes and learned that their gem mines had run dry and that they were expanding their operations, searching for new places to mine. They have a hatred for the drow, who attack and enslave their people, and eventually came to an agreement that they would help the party, who seemed intent on doing harm to their enemies. The gnomes agreed to accompany the party and lead them as far as the Kuo-Toan city, which is the last stop before Erelhei-Cinlu. The gnomes would not go any farther than that, and would not enter the city, and if they encounter and kill any drow along the way, the gnomes would get to keep any gems found.

And so, with a contingent of 8 svirfneblin, the party continued on their way. One day into their trip, they came across a male drow patrol. A commander and eight fighters. The commander, who was a fighter/magic user, cast a fireball at the party. Unfortunately, the fireball took out the cart, caused the lizards to panic and flee, and killed all of the svirfneblin except the leader. The drow were no match for the party, of course, who quickly killed them all, but the damage has now been done.

It is now the 17th day of Redy'reat, CY 580. The party no longer has a cart for Dalron and Shan-Ju to ride in and may have to rely on a light source going forward. They may no longer have a guide to the city, either, though we shall see when we pick back up next session.

6th Day of Ready'reat, CY 580 - Deeper into the Underdark

Because the party dressed like drow and were driving a drow merchant cart, most creatures with some amount of intelligence let them pass. It is clear that the drow rule most of everything down here. There are some exceptions, however, and the first encounter the party experienced was with a dozen wererats.

There was a portion of the road that narrowed between some rocks, forcing the party to stop and guide the lizards through one at a time. The wererats, which had been hiding among the rocks, sprang and ambush. One dozen wererats, to the sides, and fourteen giant rats behind. It may have seemed like a lot, but Sarril was able to quickly take out the 1/2 HD rats with an area of effect spell, allowing the melee fighters to finish off the were rats, which didn't take long at all. The party debated for some time whether or not to explore the side tunnels to look for their nest, but in the end, decided to keep moving, and thus ended their first encounter.

Three days passed. It is now the 9th day of Redy'reat, and the party came across an enormous cavern. 300 ft. across, at least, with ceilings almost as high. Everything was slightly illuminated phosphorescent lichen, and the party could see that there were multiple ways out of the cavern. About halfway across the middle, they were shot at by longbows from archers far away on a shelf. The attackers were bugbears, and while they were too far away to throw daggers, Dalron pulled out a longbow of his own and was able to take them out. Two more began shooting from another shelf, so Sarril cast Fly on Dalron so he can fly up and finish them off with thrown daggers. That's when the drow mage showed up. Sarril spotted him up on the shelf beginning to cast a spell, and, using a held action, he activated Minor Globe of Invulnerability from his staff, which has a 10 ft. radius, protecting everyone around the cart from the incoming fireball. Everyone except one of the lizards, that is. Dalron was able to fly over to the wizard and kill him before he got off another spell.

With only one lizard to pull the cart, things were moving slower. The party decided to allow Dalron to fly ahead, carrying Sebastian with him as a look-out (using Sebastian's infravision). Entering a cavern to the northwest, they smelled a horrible smell of death that caused Dalron to begin retching. In the cavern below were no less than 40 ghouls and ghasts. Dalron turn and flew back toward the party, with the undead horde chasing. Sarril cast a Wall of Force across a narrow portion of the tunnel, causing the horde to crash into it like a scene out of World War Z. Sarril then tossed a fireball over the wall, destroying the entire horde. Dalron, still flying, then searched the remaining side caverns, throwing daggers at any remaining ghouls.

The next encounter was more difficult. Up on high shelves on either side of the next cavern were 24 gargoyles, 12 per side. The gargoyles were not reacting to the party, but that just made things suspicious, so Dalron and Sebastian flew up to one of the shelves and Dalron pushed one of the gargoyles off the ledge. The gargoyle, and the other 11 on the shelf, all came to life and attacked.

Gargoyles are fairly low HD creatures and they don't do a lot of damage, but they get four attacks each, and when a lot of them are swarming, the damage starts to add up. Soon, the other 12 gargoyles were awake and joined the fight, causing the party to be swarmed by more than 20 at a time. Sebastian blew the Iron Horn of Valhalla, summoning two berserk warriors to the shelf he was on while Dalron flew down to join the rest of the party. It took some time to kill all of the gargoyles, and a lot of damage was taken due to the sheer number of attacks, but the party survived. As it turns out, the gargoyles knew better than to attack drow, and had no interest in attacking the party that were dressed like drow, so this was an encounter that could have been avoided, but hey, they got some EXP.

The party decided not to search the area, preferring instead to make use the of the limited time they had with the Fly spell to explore as much as possible. Heading around to the west and then south, they found a small, humanoid sized tunnel with terraced steps leading down. Dalron decided to explore, flying just above the floor to avoid traps. The tunnel was dark ahead, and tossing a Continual Light coin into the darkness did not change that. Realizing this was magical darkness, he asked Sarril to dispel it, but the dispel failed. Pressing forward into the darkness, Dalron triggered a magic mouth warning declaring that the tunnel up ahead has collapsed and is unsafe. Dalron took that to mean that there must be something interesting up ahead that someone doesn't want the party to stumble into, and therefore they should all move forward. He asked Sarril to try a second time to dispel the darkness. He did and it worked the second time.

There was then an argument that took place between the party members, led by Dalron on one side and Sarril on the other. Sarril believed that some very powerful magic-user must be located inside the tunnel (a lich, Sebastian postulated) and should be left alone. Dalron believed that such a powerful being would not need to issue such basic warnings, and that this was likely something trying to appear powerful. In the end, the entire party, except for Sarril, decided to go into the tunnel. They emerged in a cavern where almost everywhere they stepped, they tripped a Magic Mouth warning. At one end of the cavern were three illithids, but the illithids didn't attack. They were shackled to columns, and each one had a small spike driven into its forehead. They looked to be writhing in pain.
The party realized that whatever could do that to illithids was definitely too much for them to handle,  so they ran out of the cavern as fast as they could.

Continuing to explore the cavern, they eventually came across a pen containing pack lizards, which must belong to the drow who use them. Casting Animal Friendship, Sebastian took one of the lizards and connected it to the cart, making it fully functional again.

The final encounter of the session came shortly thereafter. In a nearby sub-cavern was a contingent of drow. Four male fighters with a male commander, and eight female fighters with a female commander. The female commander was riding a nightmare and holding a wicked looking magical lance. Recognizing that the odds were a bit overwhelming, Sarril summoned two, five-headed hydras while Sebastian summoned a fire elemental. These summoned creatures would buy the team the time they needed to squeeze out a victory.

While the male fighters were quickly dispatched, the female fighters proved to be tougher and more capable. Using atlatls, they hurled poisoned spears at Dalron and Shan-Ju, knocking them unconscious pretty early in the battle. Sebastian and Sarril, using the additional time bought by the summoned creatures, were able to cast Neutralize Poison to bring them back up just as the female fighters brought down the hydras. In the meantime, the new dwarf fighter, Tyril, along with the fire elemental, decimated the male troops, including the commander. A now awake Shan-Ju began tearing into the female fighters and Dalron started throwing daggers with terrifying effect at female commander, as Sebastian followed up, throwing a javelin of lightning, nearly killing her.

Enraged, the female commander charged at Dalron, striking him with lance for double damage. The physical damage from the lance was minimal, but the secondary magical damage was severe. Dalron made a save vs. poison and avoided the most devastating effects, then flew into the air and threw more daggers. At this point, the commander was almost dead, and had only one round to do something. She threw the lance at Dalron, rolling a critical and striking him in the chest. Although he took a severe amount of damage, he made his save vs. poison, and avoided the worst secondary effects of the lance, and thus lives another day. After that, with only a couple of hit points left, the party was able to bring the commander down. At that point, the remaining fight with the few female fighters that stood was easy.

We left off here, having overrun our scheduled session by an hour. It is late afternoon (or so is the party can guess) on the 9th Day of Ready'reat, CY 580.

22nd Day of Patchwall, 580 CY - Into the Depths of Oerth

The party rested for a full six days in order to properly collect all of treasure from the dragon hoard, so they will starting their journey already one week behind as the bubble continues to grow on the surface. But hey, I never called them heroes. EXP and treasure is what matters here. It is a game, after all.

Stand-in image for Tyril until his player provides a better one

During the treasure collection, a dwarf came wandering by and the party intercepted him. He introduced himself as Tyril, and claimed he was with a party of adventurers seeking out the fire giants and the drow to investigate their involvement in the chaos on the surface. He knew of a dwarf named Obmi who was previously sent to investigate and didn't come back. Tyril told the tale of his party being attacked by Mind Flayers (Illithids). He was able to escape but feared his companions all had their brains eaten. Among his companions was a monk named Shan-Ju, who had connected with the party in search of something called Slerotin's Tunnel, which would provide passage through the mountains and back to his homeland. Unless all monks are named Shan-Ju, the party recognized the name as a travelling companion they met in the demi-planes below the Temple of Elemental Evil, who was an honorary member of their group for a short time. Everyone recognized that there is strength in numbers and decided to stay together, so let's welcome Tyril to the party of the Bad Ass Motherfuckers.

The group explained to Tyril that Obmi had turned evil and was working for King Snurr. He had attacked the party, and they managed to defeat him and took his stuff, which they offered to Tyril. He
was honored to accept it (hey, +2 dwarven plate!). Soon, they were on their way, and having a dwarf in the party would be a big help in trying to navigate the complex caves of the underdark.

On their way out, the party explored all of the twisting side passages of the cave network of the fire giants, just to make sure they didn't miss anything. They found many empty rooms that looked they were drow barracks/living areas, but had been recently cleared out. They came across a jewel encrusted grotto that reflected their light brightly in a rainbow of colors. As they stepped into this room, they saw their old friend, Shan-Ju. He didn't look like himself, though. His eyes were staring blankly off into the distance. He then spoke a warning "Turn away from here, and your lives shall be spared."

Knowing that Shan-Ju was last seen with Illithid's, the party was now extra cautious. As much as they would have liked to turn around and walk away, they didn't want to leave their friend to his fate. So they started to fan out and cast various enhancement spells to prepare for battle. If there were Illithids in here, they were out of sight for now. Shan-Ju spoke again "Leave now, or suffer unbearable pain."

The party decided the best course of action would be to attack Shan-Ju, bring him to near-death, and then heal him. So that's what they tried to do. As the party converged on Shan-Ju and started to attack, three Illithids stepped out from behind nearby columns and used their mind-blast attacks on the party. Dalron was stunned, but everyone else miraculously made multiple saving throws. It looked like the party might have a chance to survive this. Sarril began blasting them with spells (ineffectively, due to their 90% magic resistance) while Sebastian and Tyril closed in. The first Illithid used Telekenesis to pull Dalron to him and start munching on his brain, but Tyril closed in on it and began attacking, slowing down the process. The third Illithid cast Suggestion on Sebastian, ordering him to attack Sarril, which he did. Sarril ignored these attacks for a couple of rounds as he tried to continue attacks on the second Illithid without any effect. The good news is that Sarril also made his save against all of the attacks coming from the second and third Illithids, so it was a stalemate with neither side able to affect the other.

Soon, Tyril had killed the first Illithid that was on Dalron. He then turned his attention to the second Illithid, who used Levitate to levitate Tyril into the air and hold him there, taking him out of the fight. Sarril decided to cast Dispel Magic on Sebastian, ending the Suggestion spell, which allowed Sebastian to rush back into the fight. Soon, thanks to some more successful saving throws, he was able to kill the third Illithid, leaving only the second one to face Sarril and Sebastian and a soon to be un-stunned Dalron. The Illithid chose to escape rather than continue the flight, flickering out of sight. Soon Shan-Ju was back to normal, unsure of how he got to where he was, but happy to see his old friend Sarril.

The party spent an hour or so searching the grotto and eventually found a large puzzle box underneath a pile of rocks. The puzzle box could only be opened by someone of 18 intelligence, but Sarril is smart enough and managed to open the box. Inside was an amulet which would later be identified as an Amulet of the Planes, and a book written with strange symbols that Sarril did not recognize. This book would turn out to be a Manual of Clarity (a one-time use artifact-level item which permanently raises intelligence by 1 point).

Almost out of the caves, the party came across a rope bridge over a lava river. Two Fire Salamanders were here, and the party quickly and easily dispatched them before searching the area and then crossing the bridge (with help from a Fly spell, just in case). Across the bridge was another cleared out area used by drow, with a table, chairs, and other furniture. Although everything of value was taken, Sarril discovered a chest hidden by illusion. Inside the chest was an adamantine scroll tube and an Ebony Fly. Inside the tube was a scroll of Wish. The rest of the chest was empty. A parting gift from Eclavdra, perhaps?

The party decided to rest in this area for another four days while Sarril studied the book he found. The book was written with a series of difficult to understand symbols which, once studied, seemed vaguely understandable, though it made his head hurt. After each page, the symbols became more difficult to understand, but he felt himself getting smarter as he went. After four days of headaches, his intelligence was raised by one point. Unfortunately, the book could not be opened again. It was now the 26th Day of Patchwall, and the party would have a lot of time to make-up (if time is of a concern for them).

Off into the Underdark they went. The underdark, at this stage of the campaign, is little more than a myth or legend. A vast network of huge underground cave complexes that connect deep underneath the surface of Oerth, and is home to all manner of vile creatures, like the drow. The party quickly learned why this map was not going to be easy to follow. The natural caverns form multiple levels of shelves with tunnels in many directions. Without a compass, it is unclear which way is north. Even for a surface ranger and druid, they would get quickly lost. And they did.

The Underdark

Near the end of the first day of travel, the party came back to the same area they started. This time, they saw a drow caravan coming over a natural bridge. There were 12 drow in total. Six male guards, two female clerics and four merchants. Sarril cast Invisibility 10' Radius on the party so they could hide off to the side and let them pass.

The drow guards fanned out at the end of the bridge, searching the area, then called back an "all clear" to the caravan behind. The party was safe. Then Dalron started explaining to the party that they should take this caravan out so they can get their stuff (not very "ranger-like" behavior, acting like a highwayman - we may have to visit his alignment in the future). One of the drow heard the voice, and looked over in their direction to figure out where it was coming from. Sebastian, figuring that they had been discovered, fired his own drow crossbow at one of the guards, then activated his Ring of Insvisibility to go invisible again. The drow responded as drow do, by using Faerie Fire to light up the entire party. Now the fight was on.

I don't remember a lot about the specifics of the fight. I do recall that multiple Hold Person attempts failed on the entire party, and that the drow guards, even at 4 HD and specialized with drow crossbows, couldn't hit the -6 and -8 ACs of the melee fighters. One lucky shot did hit Dalron and he failed his poison save, which caused him to fall asleep. A follow-up Web spell from one of the priestesses might have managed to capture the party, except that Sarril was able to leap free of it and then use Dispel Magic to get rid of it. Sebastian was able to use Neutralize Poison to bring Dalron back into the fight, and that pretty much meant things were over for the drow. One of the priestesses had already fallen, and the other priestess uses a Lurker Cloak to transform and escape into the cavern ceiling. Dalron, using Fly and Detect Magic, attempted to find her, but the ceiling was too vast and he was unable to pinpoint her location. The four merchants, in the meantime, used their innate Darkness and Levitate abilities to leap over the bridge under the cover of darkness and run away.

While they didn't manage to kill all of the drow, they did manage to get themselves a wagon, pulled by two subterranean lizards. After picking through the goods in the cart and taking what they want, the party disposed of the rest of the crates and piled onto the wagon. They could now journey through the underdark on the wagon and not worry about being fatigued from staying in heavy armor. They may even make up some time, depending on how often and how long the lizards need to rest (we shall see). For the next seven days, the party traveled unmolested through the Underdark (hopefully on course). Looking like a drow merchant caravan has its perks, it seems.

It is now the 6th Day of Ready'reat, CY 580, and the party is about to encounter something interesting. Stay tuned. . .

17th Day of Flocktime, CY 579

This week, we were short two members of the group, with another joining via video conference (isn't modern technology great?). I have a quorum rule that a simple majority of players must be present, so in this case, 3/5 was enough. Given that the party had to come to some agreement as to what to do next, less players probably helped make things go more quickly.

Sarril was very concerned that Iuz would, at the very least, have demons waiting for them when they went leave, if not deal with them in-person, so time was ticking away. Having touched the skull in order to operate the throne, Sarril knew that Iuz was aware of his location, despite the Amulet of Proof Against Detection that he now wore. The rest of the party decided it was worth the risk and they should do a quick search of the level for any treasure or other things of importance while the strength spells were still in effect. And so the party spent a few turns searching, turning up with some more magic items, including a second Wand of Fire and a Daern's Instant Fortress. The players immediately thought about how effective these two things could be together in a battlefield (i.e. the mage goes inside the indestructible adamantine tower and shoots fireballs out of the arrow slits), which inspired Sir Gerard (whose player was absent, so the DM took liberties) to insist that these items needed to be brought to Castle Hart immediately to assist in the coming battles against the Horned Society/Iuz/whatever that was certain to happen.

While the party was sifting through these items, Jarrus was busy prying gems from Zuggtmoy's throne. He managed to pull out 33 diamonds worth about 5,000 gp each, which he made clear is NOT "party treasure" as he placed them in his backpack. The party also found a map of the Flanaess on a wall in war room, which they rolled up and placed in the portable hole (DM's Note: this translates to the party being able to use the fold-out maps from the Greyhawk Boxed set whenever needed, which makes my job much easier). The search was cut short when the party entered a room and saw some mushrooms growing on the floor. Realizing this isn't a video game and they can't press "save" before continuing, they decided to get out while they were ahead.

Sarril used the skull to raise the throne back up to the ground level of the temple, where they expected to have to fight their way through demons. On the way up, he realized that he no longer felt the presence of Zuggtmoy through the skull, though the hateful gaze of Iuz was still upon him. As the party emerged into the upper part of the temple, they were nearly blinded by a bright light emanating

from the center of the room. At the center of the light was an angelic figure - a Movanic Deva. The deva congratulated the adventurers on their victory over Zuggtmoy and asked the party if they were ready to take the final step. Sir Gerard, after failing to detect evil, immediately fell to his knees and bowed in awe, presenting his sword in service to this magnificent creature. The rest of the party were skeptical, and used every limited form of detection they had available (Detect Evil, Detect Good, and plain old "disbelieve"), all of which turned up nothing. Having used up his True Seeing spell on Zuggtmoy, Sarril decided there was little choice right now except to play along and see what happens.

The deva asked Sarril to reveal the skull and place it upon the ground, which he did. She then explained that she cannot destroy the skull herself, but she will tell the party how to destroy it, and provide them with what they need, if they will agree to destroy it right now. Sarril agreed, upon which the deva provided exact instructions to the party, which were to expose the skull to a hurricane force wind, strike it with a maul made of pure granite, expose it to a fire as hot as a forge, then immerse it in freezing cold water. All of these things must be done in quick succession (within one combat round). The deva even provided the maul to be used (how convenient. . . and suspicious). She then thanked the party for the service done for the cause of good and said this would not be forgotten, then disappeared.

The party started by preparing the freezing cold water using an Ice Storm, and setting that aside. Then Sarril and Luapan got ready with scrolls of Gust of Wind and Flamestrike, while Jarrus stood by with the maul. Sarril cast Gust of Wind, Jarrus struck the skull, Luapan hit it with a Flame Strike and then Shan Ju knocked the glowing hot skull into the pool of freezing water. The gems shattered and the skull cracked. Shortly after, the ground began to shake and pieces of the temple roof began to fall. The sealed front doors blew open and crumbled. The party ran for the front door and out into the temple grounds.

And thus ended the adventure of The Temple of Elemental Evil (aside from a few loose ends, of course).

The arguments about where to go next were few. Jarrus wanted to go see his mother, who has since been revealed as the Countess Rhavelle of the Gold County in Furyondy. Sarril wanted to go to Greyhawk. The group recognized that if they go to Verbobonc, they would be right across the river from the Gold County, and they could take a boat from the same river directly to Greyhawk. After some brief discussion, they decided they would take a boat to Greyhawk first, then back to Furyondy. This would require a hike Southwest to Hommlet, then Northwest to Verbobonc (thus avoiding the swamplands, which everyone agreed should be avoided). The entire trip would take about 5 days on foot, during which Sarril would be identifying magic items. The first night in the ruins of Hommlet were uneventful. The second night spent on the road in the Kron Hills were also uneventful, as the party got to spend the night inside their new instant fortress. The third night was another story.

It was the evening of the 19th Day of Flocktime. Jarrus was on watch at the top of the tower, sitting in an unpleasant rainstorm while the rest of the party was sleeping in the floors below. Suddenly he was engulfed in complete blackness as he felt three spears impale him from all sides. While the attack didn't kill him, he was very near death and would not survive a second blow. As he yelled for everyone to wake up, he reached in his bag for the Potion of Extra Healing that would save him from his demise. He was able to grab both the potion and his Continual Light coin at the same time. The Continual Light cancelled the darkness, and Jarrus was able to see his attackers. Three Babau Demons, withdrawing their spears from his body as he desperately drank the healing potion. This immediately exposed him to their gaze attacks, which had the effect of a Ray of Enfeeblement spell. He was able to save against the first, but failed the second (the third was behind him), and without his strength, Jarrus was pretty useless to continue fighting, and chose to dive down the trapdoor into the tower.

Once down in the tower, Sarril spoke the command to close the trap door. Unfortunately, one of the demons managed to slip through by polymorphing into a dragonfly and slipping through before the door closed. Jarrus, Gerard and Shan Ju attempted to hit the dragonfly unsuccessfully. After moving into the corner of the room, the demon reverted back to its normal form and went on the attack. Sarril dispelled the enfeeblement on Jarrus to make him active again while Luapan healed him. The party then began throwing everything they could at the demon, which proved to be a formidable foe. After a Prayer and Chant from Luapan, combined with Gerard's Protection from Evil bonuses, the party was able to get the upper-hand on the demon, with the final blow coming from Shan Ju (whose player rolled double 20s) punching through the demon's chest with his fist, grabbing its spine and ripping its skeleton from its body in a move worthy of the most gruesome of Mortal Kombat fatalities. Celebrations were short-lived, however, as three more babau demons gated into the room, spelling certain doom for the party. In response, Sarril ran out the front door where he saw two of the demons heating the metal of the adamantine tower to a bright glow. Sarril then spoke the command to return the tower to its portable cube form, trapping the party and the demons inside in statis.

DM's Note: The first edition Dungeon Master's Guide does not describe this property of a Daern's Instant Fortress, however, the ToEE module states that Hedrack possessed such an item and that he would use it in combat to summon forth a force of bugbears. This suggests that the bugbears must be in stasis inside, and thus I described this property when Sarril identified the item. This also led to the players discussing some interesting, and quite possibly overpowered, use of the item, so we'll see where that goes.

Lucky for Sarril, he had already cast Mirror Image earlier, and thus was able to survive the first round of attacks from the two demons outside. This gave him enough time to grab the cube and teleport away to the University of Magical Arts in Greyhawk, where, as chance would have it, the Patriarch of Boccob was up late studying, and agreed to meet with him.

It is late in the evening of the 19th Day of Flocktime in the City of Greyhawk. Sarril is alone with the party, and three badass demons, locked in stasis inside the Daern's Instant Fortress. He is actively seeking the help he needs to deal with these demons and get the party back out alive. It looks like we will be doing some one-on-one gameplay online for the next two weeks. Stay tuned. . .

14th Day of Flocktime, CY 579

DM's Note: As I mentioned before, my players were getting a bit anxious to finish this module. A lot of hints have been dropped about things going on in the "outside world" that have got them excited to move on. I've been playing with this same group of people for many years and we like to play hard and do epic things, which may be because we all know we have limited times we can get together. I have to balance the desire to push forward with the pace of the overall campaign story, which can be challenging. The good news is that, this week, the PCs figured out how to speed-up it up on their own, and were able to bring things to an epic climax and are nearly finished.


The revelation came between two of the players (and maybe a DM hint about re-reading the powers of the Golden Skull). As the party was making its plans for how they were going to safely tackle the Air Node, some ideas were bounced around for how to limit their exposure to elements. The random lightning strikes and blue dragons flying overhead meant they need to get to the caves around the perimeter of the place pretty quickly. Sarril realized he could cast Fly on each of the party members, then hold hands, touch the Air gem (which would make them appear on top of a mountain peak in the center of the demi-plane) and then, instead of climbing down the mountain and running across the open, they could just fly directly from cave to to cave. It was an okay plan, but at the last minute, Sarril remembered that when the gem is inside the skull, he can Teleport Without Error to anywhere within the Air Node he wants. Given that Shan-Ju and Gerard already knew the layout of the place (my excuse for basically handing the players a map), this would allow Sarril to teleport the entire party from cave to cave at-will. The party decided to use this process to bounce from cave to cave, using Detect Magic to sense if the next power gem was present and, if not immediately apparent, teleport to the next cave. They would ignore any monsters they encountered until they had to fight the elemental grue that they knew by now would be protecting the item they sought.

The plan worked perfectly. Looking at the map, the players stated a number and were teleported to that section safely. After a quick Detect Magic, they teleported to the next cave. A few monsters were encountered, but the party teleported away without fighting them, until finally they wound up in a save surrounded by fog, which immediately attacked (Ildris Grues - the elemental grue of air). At this point, the party's AC ranges from 0 to -4, thanks to all of the fantastic gear they have been acquiring on this adventure. Between that, and Gerard the Paladin's Protection from Evil aura, the grue's were unable to hit the party (pretty much most of the things encountered at this point require an 18 - 20 to hit one of the party members), and the party was soon victorious. They grabbed a couple of unidentified magic items from the treasure stash, along with the power gem, and then decided to head straight to the Water Node to repeat the process while they still had their flight spells activated.

The water node proved to be even more dangerous. Although it didn't have random lightning strikes from overhead, it also provided no shelter whatsoever, so every area of the map was open to the sky above, where a family of white dragons were constantly on the hunt. The party randomly picked an area of the map to start with - a floating sheet of ice on the west side of the node. It just happened to be the right place, and they were immediately beset upon by Vardigg Grues (the elemental grues of water). These nasty beasts have an instant-kill on 1 out of 6 hits (they blind their victim, then follow up by drowning them in one round). But to get a kill, they have to hit first, which again, for this party, was nearly impossible. The issue this time wasn't whether or not the party could kill the grues. That was a given. The issue was whether or not they could do it quickly enough, and Sarril familiar reported that three white dragons would be on top of them in less than 5 rounds. Once the party killed the grues, they briefly considered having Jarrus and Gerard fly up to meet the dragons and slay them, given that their current strength spells would allow them to do ridiculous amounts of damage. Then someone remembered that the damage from their cold breath would likely be doubled in this node, and no one had protection from cold. They instead grabbed the gem and teleported away quickly, without searching through the loot first.

Sarril then inserted the last gem into the skull, expecting a magical light show that would open up a portal back home. But no such thing happened. After some consideration, he decided to try messing around with the portals in the Fire Node. Standing inside the portal to the air node, Sarril held the skull to see if he can control where it took him. As he did so, he saw the room around him changing from node to node as he moved between corresponding portals in each node. When he saw the recognizable Greater Temple, he and the party stepped through, finally out of the demi-planes. It was quite an emotional moment for some characters. For Sir Gerard, especially, it had been 6 years since he knew freedom. The party discussed what to do, and decided to return to the ruins of Hommlet to see if Jaroo had returned. Jaroo was, after all, searching for the answer of how to destroy the Golden Skull - or at least he was before the village was destroyed.

The party spent two days in Hommlet, resting in the ruins of the Temple of St. Cuthbert one night, and in the ruins of Burne's tower the next. They never saw Jaroo, or anyone else for that matter, but being fully rested with all of their spells returned, and the fact that there was an hour left in the game session, they decided to return the temple to face Zuggtmoy herself. And so, off they went on the morning of the 17th Day of Flocktime.

The party snuck back into the temple the same way they have been. With all of the leaders dead, and Iuz pre-occupied, they were able to easily make their way to the ground floor to use the skull to operate the throne that would lower them sealed off third level where Zuggtmoy was trapped. Being experienced dungeon crawlers at this point, they new that the wide steps leading to the west likely led to the big bad, while the smaller doors around the room likely led to other distractions. They were on a mission. The spellcasters hit Jarrus and Gerard with strength spells, and were ready to cast Haste as soon as the battle started. Sarril decided to read his second (and last) Scroll of True Seeing - which of course proved very useful. Sitting at the far end of the room on a throne of gems sat an old feeble crone, who begged the party to leave her alone. She told them they could take the pillars of precious metal that stood at the east side of the room if they would just leave. The party knew this was Zuggtmoy and knew better than to do anything she asked. She then fiddled with some dials on the throne causing a prismatic spray that burned her to ash, but Sarril saw through this illusion, pointing out that there isn't actually anyone sitting in the throne at all. Behind the throne was a purple curtain similar to the one encountered in the greater temple, which the party knew could be burned away, and so they hit it with a fireball to destroy it. Behind the curtain was Zuggtmoy, still in her crone form, but now angry, She immediately transformed into her true fungoid form and appeared within a circle of dirt in the center of the room and began to attack with her large, elephant-like appendages.

Unlike other opponents, this 42 hit die demon queen and lesser deity could actually hit the party members. Her attacks basically consisted of stunning her opponents by hitting them with two of her appendages (which she could do to two people at once), and then trampling them to death while stunned. The amount of damage she could deal was incredible, but with two healers in the party, the fighters were able to keep up. Sarril was able to use Remove Paralysis to counter the stun effect and keep Jarrus swinging twice per round in his haste and strength-enhanced form. At one point, Jarrus and Gerard together were able to deal 90 HP of damage in a single round. But of course, this is the big bad boss, and she had well over 200 hit points, so this continued for a bit. Lucky for the party, Zuggtmoy was still bound inside the temple as no one had broken the seals. This meant that she did not have most of the innate spell-power of a lesser deity (like Finger of Death, Gate, etc.). She did have Fear, which was countered by the presence of a paladin, and Improved Invisibility, both of which she used. The invisibility did make her slightly harder to hit, but that was mitigated slightly by Luapan casting Prayer. At some point, Sarril read a "Detect Invisibility" scroll on Jarrus to give him his edge back.

But Zuggtmoy still had one more trick up her sleeve, and summoned five Violet Fungi to her aid. Violet Fungi have a "save or die" attack that was sure to take out at least one or two party members. But Sarril quickly responded with a Wall of Fire (that Wand of Fire he picked up sure has come in handy) to surround the fungi and cut them off from the party so they can remain focused on Zuggtmoy. After a few more rounds, the damage added up, and Zuggtmoy fell. In her final death throes, she found peace as she realized her essence would return to the abyss, finally free of her entrapment. Her look of contentment turned to horror and she screamed as both her essence and her physical body withered away. It appears she may have been destroyed for good - an act that Sir Gerard stated firmly is a victory for Heironeous. Sarril then tossed three fireballs over the wall of fire to destroy the violet fungi, clearing the room.

And so we ended the session. It is the afternoon of the 17th Day of Flocktime. Zuggtmoy is dead. The Golden Skull is complete with all of its gems - but not destroyed. The Temple of Elemental Evil has been cleared, for now. And Iuz is still out there, ready to come after the party at any time. The group has the next two weeks to think about next steps. . .

12th Day of Flocktime, CY 579

DM's Note: You know how sometimes you play an entire day, and you know lots of things happened during the session, but in the end you feel the ball just didn't move forward? That was this session. A full five-hour day, and the entire thing consisted of just one encounter. To be fair to the players, much of this was my fault as we decided to play two weeks in a row instead of our usual every other week, and I just didn't have as much time to prepare as I would have liked. I spent entirely too much time looking things up and flipping between pages of the books.

But this encounter was important, as it really helped the new party members to learn how to work better with each other. And another player character died, which always makes for an interesting session, if nothing else.

We started with the party having just finished off some Vortexes in a cave inside the Air Node and, having no place to rest, decided to keep exploring caves until they found the next power gem. Another cave off in the distance, up high on a cliff wall, with a steep, narrow, and very dangerous ledge going up to it looked like the perfect place to start. The party would just have to get there, avoiding random lightning strikes and hoping the blue dragons were not out on the hunt as they ran across an open area the size of a few football fields. They decided to stay close to the cliff wall so they can handle the wind better, and dive for cover into the closest cave if the dragons showed up.

As they ran toward their destination, Sir Gerard noticed someone looking out of one of the caves up ahead, and darting back inside. He knew that particular cave led to the Water Node portal, and suspected that might be Grank or one of his bandits, and they may have to deal with them. Jarrus was definitely on-board with killing some bandits, so the party took a detour into the cave. Inside was a large cavern 100 ft. wide at the front, and even wider further in. There wide shelves on either side, 30 ft. up, as well as multiple large columns in the middle of the largest part of the cavern. There were more than enough places for snipers to be hiding. The party recognized right away that they were about to walk into a trap. Unfortunately, the monk was out of invisibility for the day, and couldn't effectively scout what was going on, but Sarril was able to send his invisible familiar around and count up the enemies. There were at least a dozen bandits, four on one shelf and three on the other, with hiding behind columns. There were also three zombies dressed in armor and clothing, a cleric and another spellcaster.

The party walked to just below the closest shelf and started arguing about their plans. At some point, they decided that Sarril should cast Ice Storm (using his Wand of Ice Storms) on top of the shelves to clear out the snipers. Of course they heard that, and while they would have preferred for the party to be further inside before attacking, they knew they needed to take out the spellcaster before he could do what the party was discussing. No less than eight arrows flew at Sarril, who was covered by Sir Gerard and Shan-Ju. Sir Gerard stopped several arrows his shield and Shan-Ju was able to deflect some as well, but Sarril still got hit. This action started the initiative, and the fight began.

More arrow fire, followed by an Ice Storm clearing out one set of snipers. Shan-Ju decided to climb the 30 ft. up to the other shelf. It would take one round to get to the wall, followed by a climb rate of 10 ft. per round, so off he went. Sir Gerard heard the shouts of prayers coming from around the corner and rushed in that direction, while Jarrus headed for the closes column to take on the snipers hiding behind there. Sir Gerard turned the corner to see Ashrem, former high-priest of the Air Temple who had been exiled here after betrayal by his brother Allrem, high-priest of Fire. Ashrem was commanding the zombies to attack as he started to lift off the ground and wave a wand at Sir Gerard, putting up a Wall of Fire. Sir Gerard jumped forward to avoid the flames, and was now trapped in an alcove with two zombies, Ashrem and two bandit snipers.

Shan-Ju slowly started climbing the wall to get the shelf above with the snipers, taking some arrow fire along the way. Unfortunately, a monk cannot deflect arrows while he is climbing. Jarrus began taking out his opponents as he generally does, while Luapan attempted, and failed, to dispel the levitation that was raising Ashrem up into the air. As Ashrem levitated higher up, he began to unleash fireballs at Sir Gerard, killing two of the zombies and the bandits in the process. After a couple of round of taking fireballs, Sir Gerard was taken down to -3 hit point, and lost a magical dagger in the process, but he stood proud as a paladin/cavalier would - even while his burnt skin was sloughing off his body.

In the meantime, after finishing off two bandits and taking a few magic missiles from the spellcaster, Deggum, Jarrus rushed Deggum to finish him off but Deggum went invisible before he could get to him. Shan-Ju continued to climb, finally reaching the shelf at the top to see there were two bandits left, as Sarril had already gotten impatient and taken the other two out with another Ice Storm. He might have gotten three, maybe even all four, if he had tried, but he thought that would be unfair to Shan-Ju, who had spent all of that time climbing. Seeing that Deggum had gone invisible, Sarril reached into his scroll case and pulled out a Scroll of True Seeing and cast it on himself. He didn't see Deggum, and determined that he either ran into the Water Node portal, or behind on of the large columns. As Sarril looked around, he saw an invisible woman standing near the cavern wall in the distance, watching the fight take place. The woman looked like Darley, whom Sir Gerard had previously described, except that she has vestigial horns and small bat wings. He decided to shout to Sir Gerard "Darley is here, invisible, watching us!" to which Sir Gerard replied "Do not trust that woman! She is here to see which group comes out on top. She will try to manipulate you!"

Sarril decided to cast Fly on Jarrus so he can fly up to Ashrem and kill him. Jarrus would not be able to reach him in one round, even with the 120 ft. movement granted by the spell, and he wanted to get a surprise attack, so he used his Frostbrand to make a break in the Wall of Fire to run through so he can fly up to Ashrem next round. Luapan used the break to run through and heal Sir Gerard. Meanwhile Shan-Ju finally got to attack and killed the bandits he was facing. Deggum then appeared and tried, and failed, to cast Hold Person on Sarril as Sarril turned and noticed a Bodak running toward him, about to unleash its dreaded Death Ray attack. The Bodak needed to be within 30 ft. and wasn't quite there yet, so Sarril cast Dimension Door to move over behind Deggum and next to Darley. It would take at least another round for the Bodak to reach him.

The next round, Jarrus leapt into the air and flew at Ashrem while brandishing his frostbrand. He connected with a devastating blow, killing the cleric. Shan-Ju saw the Bodak and leapt down off the shelf to run at it and engage it. Sarril then unleashed a lightning bolt at both Deggum and the Bodak behind him. In the Air Node, lightning does double damage. Even after he saved, Deggum could not take the damage and he died. The bodak, however, was still coming at Sarril, but he still had one more round to act. He used Spider Climb to get up the wall, but it was not far enough to avoid the Death Ray, which it unleashed on him. After failing his save, Sarril dropped to the floor, dead. The bodak, with only a few hit points left, was killed shortly thereafter by Shan-Ju.

The rest of the party, far on the other side of the cavern, saw all of this from a distance and began to run over to Sarril. As they did so, they noticed as Sarril's leather sack carrying the Golden Skull lifted off of his body and started floating toward the portal. Luapan moved to block the portal and used a scroll of Spike Growth to cover the floor between the invisible Darley and the portal. Jarrus took a blind swing at where he thought Darley would be and managed to connect pretty hard with his frostbrand sword. Darley, the Alu-demon, then cast Suggestion to tell Jarrus to kill Sir Gerard (DM's note: we had much debate about this, because the players argued that Suggestion cannot be used to make someone do something that is against their nature or that they really don't want to do. This is not true - they are thinking of basic charms. The spell says that the victim cannot be made to cause direct harm to themselves, but doesn't say anything about harming others. We continued to debate it as the party realized that Jarrus would very likely kill the already wounded Sir Gerard. I finally compromised with a ruling that Jarrus would be allowed to resist the spell one more time just before performing the act, given how heinous the actual command was. This amounted to a second save, which he was able to make). Even though Jarrus was able to shake off the suggestion, it still gave her the time she needed to get to the portal. As she ran forward, she hit the spikes, fell forward and impaled herself. Jarrus cut off her head just to be safe.

The party then checked Sarril and determined that he was, in fact, dead. He did happen to have on him a Scroll of Raise Dead, which Luapan was able to find and cast, bringing him back to life. As the party looted, they were able to piece together what happened. Ashrem was previously a lone survivor hanging out in the air node. As a 6th level cleric who could pray for spells each day, he had enough power to survive, but not to be a formidable force against anyone. That is, until Deggum, Barkinar (Hedrack's second in command)  and the zombie body of Senshock (Hedrack's wizard) came wandering into the Air node portal after having been turned by Luapan in the Greater Temple. The party was just wondering what happened to those zombies, who still happened to have the equipment of their former selves on their bodies. Now they had their answers. As an evil cleric, Ashrem was able to command the zombies and take all of their equipment, which included some nice bracers, and ring of protection, boots of levitation and a dreaded Wand of Fire. With these items, he became powerful, but when he ran into Deggum and Barkinar, a fight broke out, as Barkinar was involved in throwing Ashrem down here to begin with. Ashrem was able to defeat Barkinar, due in part to his new equipment, and Deggum joined forces with Ashrem right after. Ashrem was able to animate Barkinar and bring him into his service along with Senshock, which was less about having undead body guards as it was about gloating over his enemies.

Darley knew that the party had the skull and that it was the key out of this place, as she had been spying on them for some time. She also knew that they allied themselves with Sir Gerard, and that paladin would never accept her into the group. So when she saw the fight take place between Ashrem and Barkinar, she realized she could use Ashrem to help her get the skull, so she charmed him into taking on Grank in the Water Node and taking control of his bandits so they could set a trap for the party. What she didn't reveal is that the bodak is her companion, and their plan all along was to watch the fight invisibly and take action depending on who came out alive. The whole time, if she saw a chance to take the skull, she would. The chance came when the rest of the party went to the far side of the cavern, leaving Sarril alone. That's when the bodak attacked, intending to kill Sarril quickly so Darley could grab the skull and run. Fortunately, Sarril's Dimension Door prolonged the encounter long enough for the rest of the party to get there and block Darley's escape.

The party decided it would be safe to rest on top of one of the shelves. It wasn't. They were able to get a full rest in, but realized they would need a couple of days, so decided to rest again. Of course, unlike the video game version where you can click the Rest button any time you want, the party would have to wait on top of this shelf for 16 hours. Wandering monster rolls are once per turn, and most of the things in the Air node fly, making the shelf not so safe. The first encounter occurred within the first hour after the party woke up. Two strange alien creatures called Mihstu, which Sarril quickly learned are stunned by cold attacks. This allowed the party to take them out while they couldn't move, though even that was a close call as the killing blow occurred just one round before they could have attacked with their devastating constitution drain attacks. Realizing it wasn't going to work to stay here, the party went back to the Fire Node where they could rest behind a locked door. They then took a two day rest before deciding to head out again. It is now the morning of the 14th Day of Flocktime.

9th Day of Flocktime, CY 579

We started the session with Jarrus, Luapan and Shan-Ju in the earth node cavern, wounded, wondering what just happened to Sarril. After some brief discussion, they decided they needed to go find him, and decided to try the portal to the Fire Node. Shan Ju led the way, which happened to go through the cavern of a Dracolisk. They decided to have Shan-Ju turn invisible and walk silently into the room to see if the creature was there. As the invisible Shan-Ju stomped loudly into the room, the creature came forward to investigate the noise. The rest of the party held back, but Shan-Ju ran forward, into the narrow passageway that led to the portal. Due to his monk speed, he was able to stay ahead of the Dracolisk as it chased the sound of his feet down the narrow tunnel.

The rest of the party chased after it. Shan-Ju realized that in this narrow part of the tunnel, the creature would not be able to turn around, and so stopped to face it before the tunnel opened back up wide again. By stopping it in the tunnel where it couldn't turn around, Jarrus and Luapan were able to attack it from behind without worrying about its gaze or breath attacks. Shan-Ju, on the other hand, was vulnerable, but still invisible (he uses a psionic form of improved visibility, so the duration is limited, but he is able to fight). He was able to avoid the gaze while fighting, so the creature decided to use its breath weapon instead. Fortunately, Jarrus was able to deliver the killing blow before the breath weapon went off.

The party then went back to the Dracolisk cave to search for treasure, and found some clerical scrolls that Luapan was happy to have. They then headed down to the Fire Node Portal where Sarril and Sir Gerard had just stepped through. After some introductions, the tired, hungry, thirsty, wounded and spelless party recognized they needed to rest, so Sir Gerard took them back through the Fire Node portal and led them to his secure room, where the party held up for two full days.

During this time, Sarril identified many magical items, Luapan healed everyone, and Sir Gerard and Jarrus got to know each other very well. It seems Sir Gerard recognized the breastplate that Jarrus was wearing - the breastplate from his father that signifies both House Sunleaf and the Order of the Knights of Luna. Much discussion was had about how each felt about knighthood, with Sir Gerard making it his personal mission to show Jarrus the way. Jarrus was wondering if he could stand two whole days locked in a room with a paladin, or if he should take his chances outside with the red dragons.

After a long rest and recovery, the party knew what they needed to do. Sarril had recovered books about elemental grues from each of the elemental temples and after the party fought the Chagrin Grues in the earth node to find one of the power gems, Sarril deduced that somewhere in the fire node would be Hargin Grues protecting another gem. He described the Hargin Grues to Sir Gerard who confirmed that he has, indeed seen such creatures in one of the rooms, which he avoids for good reason. But with a well-prepared party, they should easily prevail. On what they guessed to be the morning of the 12th day of Flocktime, the party prepared for action by first having Luapan cast protection from fire on everyone, then Sarril putting a strength spell on Jarrus. Just before entering the grue room, Sir Gerard drank a potion of Fire Giant Strength.

There were eight grues in the room, and although their fire-based attacks normally would do double damage while in the fire-node, the fire protection spells negated that, making them due just normal damage. Being 4+4 HD creatures, they really couldn't hit well. Since the fire protection spells allowed the party to put their armor back on, their ACs ranged from -2 to +2. With Sir Gerard's protection from evil, the grues pretty much needed to roll 20s to hit them. It was a very easy fight, but the credit goes to the party for being so well prepared.

In the center of the room was a chest that contained the object they were looking for. The rest of the party argued that Sarril should insert the fire node gem into the Golden Skull before doing anything else. Since it required touching the gem, which doesn't teleport you if you are already in the node. Sarril was very nervous to touch the skull, as each time he had done so in the past, Iuz could tell where he was. But he went ahead and did it anyway, and the gems popped right into place. As soon as the gem was placed, Sarril became aware of its powers, which were pretty significant. He told the party what those powers were, which included "Teleport without error" anywhere within the fire node. Sir Gerard warned Sarril not to be tempted to use the skull for any reason. This prompted the party to wonder what Athan would have done at this point, and they all agreed it might be best that he is dead. The good news for Sarril is that, whether it is because of the strange place they are in or something else, when he touched the gem, he did not feel the presence of Iuz or Zuggtmoy watching him. He felt something else, though. Something much stranger. If it was an intelligence, it was very alien and not recognizable in any way.

The party decided to all hold hands as Sarril picked up the next gem, which instantly teleported the entire group the air node. The air node is considered the most dangerous of the four nodes by those who have visited. It is full of narrow ledges and hurricane force winds. Large masses of rocks float high up in the air - the home to cloud giants and the dreaded blue dragons that dominate the sky. The winds pelt unprotected adventurers with continuous debris. Storm clouds constantly swirl overhead, causing lightning to strike all around (10% chance per person of being hit by a bolt of lightning each turn). Sir Gerard knows that a bandit named Grank lives here with some of his men, as does the former priest of the air temple, Ashrem, who wants revenge on his brother Allrem and Kelno, the current (now deceased) air priest. How these men survive here is a mystery, as Sir Gerard never tried to venture very far. This means that while the party had a general lay of the land, they didn't know where they should go first.

The party appeared at the peak of a small mountain with a narrow spiral ledge circling down. Jarrus used the 50' of rope in the coil dispenser he bought from the gnome that took over Rannos Davil's shop (the poor gnome was the same one the party rescued from the moathouse, but he is probably dead now). It was put to good use tying around each of the party members waists so they stay together. It worked well. Even though the wind gusts would occasionally blow a party member off the ledge, they were always able to pull the person back with the rope. After an hour, the party emerged on solid ground below, just as Sir Gerard was hit by a lightning bolt. They realized they needed to get to shelter quickly, and started running toward a cavern they saw at a distance to the south.

As they ran, they occasionally looked up to see if there were dragons overhead. They think they saw some dragons in the distance, but they weren't spotted in return. While looking up, there was an occasional break in the clouds, through which the party was able to see that this place curved around a massive black and purple swirling orb, which had random tendrils appearing and disappearing throughout. A strange sight indeed.

The inside the cavern, the party made their way (using the rope and spikes) up a steep incline to a shelf above where they fought several vapor rats. They were easy to kill, but let off a noxious gas when they died that incapacitated Jarrus and Luapan. The party was able to drive off most of them without killing them, which is probably a good thing. The party then climbed another steep incline to another shelf, whereupon they were hit by several Vortexes. One grabbed Jarrus and began spinning him to death. Another grabbed Sarril and began to do the same. The party was able to figure out that a grapefruit sized mass inside each vortex could be struck with a weapon and they freed Jarrus and Sarril, allowed Jarrus to do what he does best and finish the others.

Not necessarily a cliff-hanger, but this is where we left off until next week.