Session 30 - The Battle vs The Black Spider

• The group refomed after defeating the bugbears in the cave and met outside the double doors.
• Fysi , using her mage hand, would open the door, allowing the party to rush in.
• Vermin and Rolan would lead the charge, followed by the rest of the party
•  As the door opened, it was dark and a large cloud like atmosphere was haning over the upper portion of the rectangular room. Its massive statue in the back wall, looking over the columns in the Temple of Dumathoin.

* Once the party entered the room, webbing from above surrounded the party and entangled most of them, while an evil laugh started to sound out.... "Where are you going in such a hurry?? Im glad we finally get to meet!!"  As a figure appeared in the room... 

" Before you meet my children, please tell me... Why the trouble of this place?? Why this little village?"  As the players answered, he replys " Well, at least I know you wont die without a fight... my children love to play with food..." As six large black spiders appearded from above...

* BATTLE ENSURED:

    * Rolan and Jax were quick, firing three shots, killing one in mid air, landing on the floor with a crunch..

* Fysi fired magic missiles while more spells were cast..

* Soon, the party was damaged, but not before all of the spiders were almost dead..

* The drow cast his magic, damaging the party, but soon he realized he was outmatched and under estimated the party, cast Invisibility and tried to make his way out...

* Quickly the party knew if he escaped there was no way they would survive, so they used the bags of flour they purchased and tossed it around the room.

* Flynt heard a noise to his left - drew his gun and fired a shot - not knowing if that hit his mark.. it wasnt but a moment later they saw a foot print and fired arrows and shot in that direction, which then knocked out the drow and won the day.
* they found a staff of Spider Staff and a healing potion, In addition to 190 ep, 130 gp, 15 pp, nine small gemstones (10 gp each), and a dwarven ale mug made of hammered electrum (100 gp).

After a quick rest, they came to find there wasnt much left to clear aside from the ghostly skull in the one chamber...  

Session 29 - The Spiders Lair - 16 Jul 23

 After chasing the mystery Drow Elf into the hall, the party heard some noises behind the door. The Players decided to prep for a fight and open the doors to charge in.

Once opening the doors, the players noticed a large temple like room, with pillars of marble shooting up towards a darken cloud like layer. Vermin recognized the temple as the Dwarven God of Mining, Dumathoin. A strange layer of Blackness over the large ancient temple area was looming over the ceiling. Testing it with a rock, which seemed to not change or deviate, landing harmlessly on the stone tiles several feet away, the party felt it was safe and ran towards a hallway, hearing a sound of a door shutting. 

As the party started to cross the room and head towards a hallway towards the right side, several webs flew from the ceiling and trapped a few players in its web, keeping them in place. As the party took note of their situation, several large spider dropped from the ceiling along with the mystery Drow, from around a temple smiling at the party.

" Well, we finally meet - Forgive my children - they are just being protective.." The Drow introduced him, holding a large black staff with a small grin. " I can see you are relentless in your efforts, but maybe we can strike a bargin - kill the undead in the cave and I will let you leave

Session 28 - These arent Undead... it that a Drow !? - 2 Jul 23

 After exploring the cave, the party decided to move up the stairs, thinking there was immediate danger in the room with the lost dwarf. As Jax and Rolan snuck up the steps, Rolan noticed a thin line stretched across the top steps of the hallway. Stopping in their tracks they noticed the door had a peak-hole in it.. 

• Fysi suggested to use Magehand to knock on the door and have whoever was inside come out. while the other prepped for a fight, she cast her cantrip to the door and hid. They then heard the wood slider open, then close. She did it again, and again same results. The party decided to prevent the trap from being tripped.
• While working on the trap, the slider door opened catching the party in the middle of working on the trap, which started a fight

• The players held actions and waited for the slider to open up; Rolan shot a Bugbear in the eye while they shot back with crossbows.
• Flint charged the door, jamming his dagger in the peakhole trying to jar it open
• Fysi cast a chromatic orb at the door, damaging the hinge and put small cracks thru the wood.
• Eventually, the door was damaged enough where Thena charged the door, breaking it off the hinge and entered the room filled with Bugbears.
• After a few rounds, the party got the upper hand and defeated the soldiers here.
• After searching the room, they found a banner on the wall - with an image of a black spider on a purple background.- haning on the wall. One of the party members noticed a similar symbol on one of the armor sets of the bugbears shoulder.
• With no other clues, the party continued to search the caves - it was decided to go back to the water area and investigate.
• After crawling thru a save area, the group heard what sounded like rocks falling in water, but at an inconsistent rate. Jebus made another diving helmet and went underwater to see two figures looking over a cliff area, talking in goblin. After reporting this news, Rolan and Redwood made their way thru the cave and told to come up after like 1 minute.
• Once thru, They decided to try to immolize the two figures then let the rest of the group come up and attack
• As they came out of the water, the figure on the left side turned his head to see them eye-to-eye - Blackish Gray Elf - 
  
• They both cast spells, starting combat.
• After knocking out the Drow, the bugbears attacked. One was on the cliff edge, which 3 others were down below, moving rocks into the water and making a pile by the stream.
• While combat was almost done, Redwood saw another Drow come from behind him and run down the hall. 
• The party continued and a chase down the hall started.... Knowing the drow was behind double doors, the party was discussing what to do next before going into the room..  Knowing the missing dwarf is still not found and not knowing who or what the Black Spider is....

Session 27 - A long needed rest in the cave - 18 June 23

 

• After taking a short rest, Roland went to go investigate the northern parts in the furnace room. As he approached, he saw a faint green light in the corner and saw the skull on the ground (which was defeated in the last session) was missing. They assumed it was the same and came back to the Storage Room to report the findings.
• Thena recalled some undead need to be put to rest with religious rituals and holy water as she remembered some more powerful undead can reawaken..
• Once discussed, The party decided to go investigate the door in the northern part of the great room (not with the furnace). It was then that Jebus had enough and went with Roland to check it out. Once outside the room, they heard footsteps in the great room and a metallic dragging sounds approaching.
• Roland saw what appeared to be 2 skeleton orcs dragging some old chain mail and a weapon on the ground slowly approaching the hallway. Rather than hide, he decided to attack with a Ray of Frost, which got the attention of the rest of the skeletons wandering around, which started combat

• Roland watched his arrow loose on one, but in the process got a hand axe and 3 crossbow bolts to the chest, seriously wounding him...
• As the 6 Orc Skeletons came towards them down the hall when Redwood cast Entangle, grabbing 3 of them in the vines and roots while making it difficult for the others to advance.
• Meanwhile, the party rolled out and attacked with ranged weapons, Fysi cast Enlarge on Vermin and blocked up the hallway with a oversized dwarf...
• A few rounds later and remembering skeletons dont like bludgeoning weapons, the skeletons were defeated and the party was almost completely out of spells and low on healing.
• After this encounter, the group had decided to wait out in the room and try to get a full rest in to recover and sleep.
• Jax and Roland setup trip wires with a few noise makers while the others used the damaged barrels to create a makeshift defensive position inside the room.
• Once setting in, the party took a well needed long rest and was able to get one in without any issues.
• After a lite breakfast, the group finally was able to go see that door to find it was nailed/barricaded from the inside, with numerous nails sticking out towards them. While checking the door, Roland heard two voices inside (in Goblinese) complaining about breakfast and having to wait...
• It was then decided to go back thru the catacombs and see if there was another way up to that area. After 30 minutes of tile hopping and careful navigation, Roland found a path to the north, but was blocked by a 6-foot pit of lava. While discussing the way to get thru this, Fysi turned around to see a large jelly creature was over her and about to attack her (Attempting to go around her head)
  
  
  
• After a quick round of combat, the Jelly was defeated, everyone hitting the creature
• Roland then was about to make a jump across when he saw the landing around the other side of the lava pit shimmer with a glint of lava being seen underneath (indicating an illusion at the landing)

• Climbing across the side ledge, Roland used pitons and rope to create a makeshift bridge over the 10-foot gap. As the party started to cross one at a time, Vermin was about 4 feet out when his hands lost grip, sending him into the lava, catching his backpack on fire and burning his legs.
• Redwood changed into a spider and climbed out while Vermin grabbed his leg, recusing him before he went under the molten lava pit, but not before some severe burns.
• The rest of the party was then taxied across without any issues into a large room with a giant pool of stagnet water.

A still pool fills much of this cavern. The water is dark, revealing little of what might lie within. The shore of the pool consists of a thin layer of broken shells from strange, pale mussels, and a fishy odor hung in the air. A set of steps climbs up to the east and a sluggish stream flows out of the cave to the northeast.

Roland found the steps go up to a door, which looks like it connects to the same room eariler; whilte doing that, Redwood climbed up to the top of the cave to provide assistance if needed.

Meanwhile, Jebus threw a few of the muscles, lightly glowing with bio-luminescence, into the water. Jax did the same a few times and caught a glimpse of something reflecting in pool about 8 feet down. After lighting a lantern to see in the water, Jax saw a backpack and a skeleton body holding a blade. Tying a rope around him, Jax lowered Jebus into the water as Jebus made a makeshift '1920s' dive helmet of air.  Going to the location, he found a backpack in the water along with a skeleton holding a stick and a dagger, with two rings on its fingers. Retrieving the treasure, they dried off to see the stick was a wand of sorts and the rings were made of platinum.

It was here we pick up the party for the next week.. deciding to go up the stairs and invesigate or explore the northern part of the water pool after finding a small crevase in the cave where the water is coming in or going out.

Session 26 - Fighting the Undead in the Wave Echo Cave - 4 June 23

 The party continued to fight the Ghouls and the Ghasts in the Great Cavern area...

• One Ghast dropped down on Jax and knocked him out.
•  After that round, a couple more undead came from the other side of the room and attacked.
•  Eventually, the players defeated the rest of the undead here and looted the area, finding nothing of significance.

Once done, the party was wounded,  low on spells and feeling exhausted. To continue, it was decided to take a short rest in the Ruined Storage Room since several members were wounded or knocked down.

The party then decided to move to the north east corner passageway from the Great Cavern area to come across another large room with a forge, a smelter cavern.  Jax went ahead to scout quietly to come back to report several zombies (Dwarven and Orc) along with a green glowing light circling about the cavern room, but could not make out what it was...

After further discussion as to what to do, it was decided to send Roland ahead to see what the green light was. Upon entering the space, he tripped, fell and dropped some of his arrows on the ground, making a loud noise, which the green light in the ceiling area started cackling yelling " INTRUDERS! KILL THEM!" as the zombies turned, moaning in hunger... 

Combat ensued with Several zombies and a Flameskull laughing in the air ..

• The party was in the hall way between the two room as Roland ran back in...
• Several ranged attacks were made while Redwood created vines and ivy to appear in the walkway between them and the zombies....
• Right after the vines, the Flame skull cast a spell to make it appear blurry, but then cast Fireball, engulfing the group with fire damaging everyone...
• Several zombies were killed, but soon were attacking the party..
• Meanwhile, the Flameskull started to cast fire beams out of its eyes, burning several characters.
• Now entering the space, creating distance between themselves and the skull, still flying around the room..The Flame skull continued shooting beams of fire out its eyes... Almost knocking Fysi and Roland out..
• With the Skull still out of melee range, Fysi let off a perfect barrage of magic missiles...
• Eventually, the killing shot knocked the skull to the ground, its fire going out.

The party, once again, wounded and somewhat low on spells, decided to take another short rest in the Ruined Storage Room, where we await the next part of the adventure in the Wave Echo Caves...

Session 25 - Into the Cave - 21 May 23

 

• The party decided to head down the pit and into the northern portion of the cave.
• After climbing down, Jax and Jebus discovered the tunnels in the N portion found the hallways to be covered with drawings on the wall, which were only 6 feet high.
• The floor tiles were each 3 feet square and had a large symbol on them - circle, square, triangle or (Homebase) pentagon shape.
• Jebus sent his 'dog' out and it was shot by an arrow when stepping on the triangle
• Fysi then came thru and used mage hand to push down on some other tiles, but was inconclusive to see what was what..
• After a quick repair, Jebus sent dog out again and used the mage hand to push down on a square tile, which was a trap door going into the floor 10 feet.
• After some consideration, Jax used the map and folded it to show the pentagon shapes were the SAFE map after some map folding tricks.
• Once the party made this discovery, they let Jax lead the way and investigate the tunnels.
• After about an hour of carefully walking thru, the party discovered a door. Once opened, a group of Ghouls inside attacked

• Battle insured, discovering the ghouls can paralyze on attacks and were also immune to poison.
• In the middle of the fight, Flint was grabbed from under by a Jelly/ooze light creature and pulled up the wall.
• The creature was slow but massive. The party was almost done with the ghouls when he was taken.
• Redwood changed to a large spider and used his web to attach to Flint, just as the rest of the party helped out and defeated the jelly.

• Once defeated the room was found to be a sort of barracks once used for the dwarves here.
• After more exploration, the party came into a large chamber with upper levels and a 30' ceiling.
• After some usage of Find Magic, continued exploration noticed scrapping sounds on the upper levels.
• Jax jumped up to the upper ledge with his light to discover more ghouls and a larger undead creature - a Ghast.
• Battle ensued - and while that was underway, another smaller group of Ghouls came from the opposite side to attack...
• We are in round 4 of battle when the party is continuing.

Session 24 - Finding the Wave Echo Cave - 7 May 23

 

• he party decided to head to Phandelin to meet up with the dwarf, Gundren.
• At middays journey the party found 2 humans setting up a camp and challenged the group to a game of skill - archery
• The group won some gold
• Once arriving in Phandelin, the party broke into smaller areas to finish business.
• Some sold items in the camp, some talked with the tons folks and eventually made way to the inn.
• The group rested overnight, then left to the cave in the morning.
• Once arrived in the area, they found a side entrance to the Wave echo cave
• After a quick puzzle, the party came upon an internal dug-out area
• Fysi sent her owl into the holes at the bottom of the entrance to see some tunnels and what looked like an entrance to the ancient cave, when something attacked the owl and made it disappeared.
• The party now needs to decide on what to do....