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.
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