My D&D campaign

[Alex]

Saying goodbye to their temporary companions (did anyone recognise them?), the party turned north while the kids headed off eastward hoping to find their friends wandering around, or at least rescue them from the clutches of the Mind Flayers.

HINT: They fail and half the party meets a horrific end and die. Especially the unicorn and the cavalier. f**k you, Eric!

The northern route brought them eventually to a large roughly circular pool in the middle of a cave. The pool itself had a thick layer of scum floating on top, broken only by the couple of dead Drow floating on top of it. Other Drow bodies lay scattered around the cave, some half in and half out in the water. Others still were outside the pool, although their clothes were wet suggesting they had came from the pool and were trying to get away.

So remember the reason the party came into the Underdark was to find the hidden enterance to a Drow base.

Val, Zolis and Gabrielle all wanted to ignore the pool with all the dead Drow lying around it and go north.

Kristi could see the expression on my face and decided that the pool warranted more investigation.

She cast Detect Magic and discovered the surface of the pool was subject to an illusion. This was dispelled revealing it to be a much purer source of water (abet one that still had dead bodies floating in it) than they had thought. Someone had went to all the time and effort to disguise it as a tainted source.

And the party still wanted to ignore it and go north.

[Alex]

After quite some arguing, Colesta convinced the group that the pool was at least worth checking out. Most of the party was convinced some horrible tentacled monster lived down there.

Look folks, that was last week. There was a whole giant lake with an ecosystem that could support such a creature.

Oh, if only they had a pony called Bill with them.

Casting a Daylight spell on a rock, Colesta dropped the stone down into the pool to see how deep it was. At a rough guess, it descended around 60 feet (57 feet, 8 and 1/4 inches for any stats freaks out there). The pool then seemed to curve away and out of sight. Investigating it further would require getting wet, but as far as they could see there was nothing dangerous living in it. Colesta decided to go for a swim. She stripped off her armour (oh wait, she doesn't really wear any), borrowed the Ioun Stone that allowed someone to survive without air and sank into the deep water. Guided by the light from the enchanted stone they'd cast into the pool she swam down to where the passage curved out of sight.

Just beyond the bend Colesta could see beneath her lay a tangled mat of bones lying on the bottom of the pool. The remains were beyond counting. She kept clear of the boneyard and followed the passage as it continued to curve, heading upwards and forming a 'U' shaped bend. She surfaced in a cavern lit eerily by the glowing moss that coated the walls.

[Alex]

Having given the cave a quick look over she returned to the group to tell them of her findings. The rest of the group wanted to ignore the hidden lair and continue north still, but with even more debate the rest were reluctantly talked into at least investigating it a little more. Everyone made it through the sump with varying levels of success. No one drowned so that at least counts as a win.

Once they got through an investigation of the bodies revealled two causes of death. Some of the corpses had been crushed to death, while others had a pair of puncture marks in them, with a space between themm large enough to fit a man's fist between the marks. Three chambers led off from the main one they were in. The first contained water barrels and food. The barrels themselves had been smashed. Hanging meat was covered in a translucent goo and other foods had been destroyed by stomping them on the rock floor.

Zolis decided to try some of the hanging meat. Uncooked.

He fell to the ground, his stomach knotted up in painful cramps from the poison that the meat had been covered in. Incidently, this was the same poison that the Drow with the puncture marks had been killed by. The second chamber was full of all sorts of strange equipment, some of which the group could not fathom out the use for. Poisons, potions, hand crossbows and other weapons filled the room.

The party decided to ignore all that stuff, including some hoods that would have allowed them to pass through the bad air they had encountered on the way here.

The third chamber was where the slaves were penned up until they had enough to send a mass wave of attacks against the Duergar. The conditions were to say the least unsanitory.

Deciding to abandon the chamber everyone swam back through the sump and made camp on the other side.

They however were not alone.

[Alex]

Hidden by its natural abilities, something watched the strangers as the argued around the pool. Patience and caution were part of its nature. It saw one of them enter the pool and return, then reenter followed by its companions. It chuckled, a rasping inhuman noise. If they knew what they were up against they would surely have fled in abject terror. The other warm skins had defied them and paid with their lives. It had stayed behind to watch for other warm skins returning, perhaps a patrol they had missed, but the scent from these ones was different. It waited until they all returned. The scent of fear from them was strong.

It would have some fun with them.

It waited as they set up camp and left only one on leave. It flicked its tongue in the air picking up subtle details on his prey. A female then. It tried to invade her mind, persuade her to walk into the dark and come to it, where it could finish her off and dine on the body but its mind was too strong. The prey creature dared to resist its magnificence! This would not be tolerated. Letting some of the poison from its fangs drip onto a couple of arrowheads, it fired them at the female, striking her in the chest and causing its toxins to flood through her body. As she raised the alarm it chucked its dry unnatural voice and sinuously glided off further into the darkness. It would take time, but it would wear them down slowly and then when they were too weak to fight back it would let them see it. They would realise their mistake and worship it as a god before it allowed them to die.

[Alex]

Val shrieked at the two massive arrows sticking out of her body. Pain overwhelmed her and she felt weak. The others woke at her alarm. It was decided to double the guard, Mary deciding to stand a watch with her first.

The next attack came as soon as the others had settled down. Mary was overcome with a wave of dizziness. She fell to the ground her body riven by convulsions. FLuids poured out of every orifice and her clothes felt too large for her as her body shrank, warped by the course magic running through it. Where Mary had sat, a snake now wriggled. Most horribly it had all its memories and could recall being a woman.

More arrows lanced through the air, sinking deep into Val's body again. With a scream, she fell to the ground overcome by yet more doses of the powerful venom coursing through her veins.

Zolis woke up and spotting something moving in the dark he fired off a powerful spell at whatever was out there. A bolt of acid that would melt a man to his bones is seconds flew through the air and impacted with the hide of whatever was out there. They could see vague hints of its form. It was massive, three times larger than a man at least and it had a hint of the ophidian about it. The acid however caused it no discomfort. It could extrude the stuff itself on anything within its coils should it wish. Assaulted by a barrage of spells though it decided to retreat into the darkness and strike again later. Already one of them was weakened to the point of uselessness.

Others would soon follow.

And with that the session ended for the night.

[Alex]

The Tale of the Band of the Icky Hand. Part 48.

After two ambushes the party decided to take refuge in a Rope Trick spell (damn them for spoiling my fun). As Colesta had cast it rather than Zolis it would only last eight hours, however I decided to be generous and let this be enough time to get a full nights rest (normally 8 hours is the minimum rest period, but they'd also lose time to get up into the room and settle down to sleep).

This however also gave their assailant time to rest up and regain spells.

The party had planned on heading north, but it was mentioned that they'd been sent into the Underdark to wipe out a Drow encampment. The Drow were indeed wiped out, even if it hadn't been the party who had done it. It would be up to them though just how much detail they went into on how the Dark Elves were wiped out.

With barely enough rest, the party had to leave their refuge though and (thankfully) abandoning the thought of traveling further north (Which made me happy as I hadn't written anything for that). Heading back towards to lake, everyone felt paranoid and was convinced they could hear something following them (which is true, they are still being stalked) but took no actions to try and deal with the menace. A long days march was had and at the end of it, Zolis cast a Rope Trick to provide them with a refuge (and as a higher level caster it would last longer).

[Alex]

Coming down in what for want of a better term we will call the morning, Colesta spotted something, or at least thought she did moving in the darkness. Once again the group came under an ambush attack from the Yuan-Ti abomination stalking them. This time, however, as it turned to flee Mary was able to catch up with it, using her boots of haste. This was almost her undoing as the creature turned on her, sinking its fangs into her, filling her with its venom and wrapping her up in its coils.

Mary also found out the unpleasant lesson that Abominations can extrude acid from their scales and she was getting badly burned in addition to being poisoned and crushed. Luckily for her, however, the rest of the group managed to catch up to the fight and after a struggle, Gabrielle's sword sung through the air and sent the monstrosities head tumbling to the ground while the body thrashed and twitched in its death throes. Near death, Colesta did her best to restore Mary to full strength, but lacking crushed diamond's she was unable to completely cleanse her system of the poison ravaging her.

[Alex]

As best as they could the party continued on southwards, happily remaining unmolested by any further creatures.

Their raft had been less lucky however. From the missing chunk bitten out of one corner it looked like some animal had tried having it for lunch, but decided it did not like the taste. It was decided to just abandon the raft and make their way around the narrow shore that ran around the lake. It took them an additional three days traveling by that route.

This will have important consequences for the group should they ever make it back to the castle.

On the far bank they were reunited with Dar in the mushroom forest. He complained that he'd felt as is something had been watching him while he'd been waiting. The rest of the party soon started to feel paranoid, like they were being watched. The group headed on through the thick fungal forest and several times were convinced they could see movement, often just a quick glimpse out of the corner of their eyes. They however came under no kinds of attack or threat that they could see.

[Alex]

Near the edge of the forest, Mary spotted a fungal growth about the size of a small child. It was vibrating, as if trembling. Calling to Zolis quickly, she shouted at him to blow it up. Always happy to show off his deeper understanding of the universe and ability to manipulate reality, Zolis promptly used a lightning bolt to blow the mushroom up.

Turns out no one in the group had ever heard of a race of mushroom people called Myconids. Generally, they are peaceful unless attacked as was the case here. Blowing up one of their 'children' was never going to be seen as anything but a very hostile act. The elder Myconid's flooded the area with spores designed to have all manner of effects on meat-based lifeforms. Mary found her brain refusing to consider any hostile acts, while Colesta was filled with anger and rage at Val. She attempted to electrocute the unsuspecting rogue with her gods-given powers. The others in the group had no idea what the hell was going on. Meanwhile, figures the group had previously assumed were inert growths of fungal matter suddenly started moving, many of them pointing wicked looking spears in the parties direction. The group was almost entirely encircled with only one gap providing a possible escape. Not wishing to face the dozens of creatures advancing on them, the party bravely ran away for the gap, finding that it led to a narrow tunnel which slopped downwards. They kept running, finding the temperature of the air plummeted rapidly as they traveled along the route. Eventually, though it opened up into a larger network of interconnected caves. Puddles of water, sometimes a foot or two deep were frequent and as the group came to a halt, they could hear the sounds of something large moving around nearby.

And with that, the session ended for the night.

[Alex]

So the group is approaching the end of the second part of the adventure. Unlike the first part it doesn't quite have a hard and fast endpoint (the saving of Irilian), more instead merging into the next part. It will nudge them back on the path of hunting down some masks (although they can ignore that and stay focused on restoring their keep before the armies of Thay cross the Dragon Reach).

Trouble is they have two big fights to get through between now and then. The first is going to take place right at the start of the next game and I am not sure the group will survive it. In theory, it is a fight well within their capabilities. Mind you, in the past when I've been worried about a fight killing at least one of the party they have sailed through so I guess we shall see.

Anyway, two characters from their past are going to be reappearing. Will be interesting to see how the party react to them.

[Alex]

With my computer I had written everything on having went fizz pop bang we've only had one partial session where we did the fight the party had blundered into. The campaign isn't over but is alas on hold until hopefully next month when I get my new desk top.

[Alex]

Ok, so I need to get writing on this.

The Tale of the Band of the Hand.Part 49.

This was a short session consisting purely of one fight just to see if the party would survive it or not.

Deciding to investigate the noise Mary moved deeper into the shadowy cave they had found themselves in. The temperature had dropped significantly and they could see their breath as if left their bodies. Colesta called on her god's given powers and lit up the cave as if it were daylight revealing a host of serpentine heads on long sinuous necks that all joined to the one titanic body. The whole thing lunged forward with surprising speed for something so large and one of the heads exhaled a freezing mist that threatened to drain the life force from the group.  It was a fight worthy of a bard's song as men and women clashed with the Leonian Hydra, but spells and blades won out over freezing breath and envenomed fangs. Mary lay near death at the end, but Colesta's powers once more closed her companion's wounds and kept her from leaving the mortal realm.

The Tale of the Band of the Hand. Part 50.

For a while the group debated on wither they should descend further into the darkness, or return the way they had came. In the end though, the only route home they knew of lay back up the slope to the mushroom forest.

[Alex]

The party approached the forest expecting a fight, but the mushroom people having tricked the party into dealing with the monster that had been preying on them had retreated deeper into the vastness of their wilderness home. Given the choice between hunting for them or continuing on home it was decided to get back to Irilswatch.

The rest of the trip back was uneventful. They reached the base of the cliff and fired off the signal flare they'd been given. There was no answering flare though and after an hour or so had passed there was no sign of their transport back up the clifftop. They waited and waited but still nothing. Eventually, it dawned on them that no rescue was coming. They had some potions of levitation but were not sure if they would last long enough to float to the top. After some discussion, it was decided that Val would climb as high as she could up the rock wall, then drink a potion and (hopefully), reach the top and then lower the basket down for the rest of the group.

What followed turned out to be a lot more complicated that the group expected. They had relied on their magic gem for light for so long it hadn't occured to them that they might need another light source as Val climbed up to into the darkness.

[Alex]

Val climbed up perhaps 50 feet and then took her potion, ascending through the dark air. When it occured to her that she could see absolutely nothing she paused in the air for a minute or two.

Had she not done this, the potion would have allowed her to levitate to the top of the cliff with time to spare. As it was, the potion would run out slightly before then.

As it was she soared upwards, fumbling in her backpack and trying to light a torch mid air. This was not perhaps the most fruitful experience. Then suddenly she found herself plummeting back downwards. Flailing in the darkness she managed to grap a rocky outcrop, damn near wrenching her arm out of the socket. With a cry of pain that was lost on the underground air she desperately managed to hang on and then haul her battered body up the cliff face until she was able to drag herself over the edge and onto the top. Finally able to freely root around her backpack and set up her tinderbox. She dug out a long-forgotten torch and ignited it. The top of the cliff looked much as it had the last time she had seen it, save there were no lookouts watching for invaders.

[Alex]

The winches for lowering the basket were there and still working, but were designed for two people to operate. She found she'd to lower one side and then the other. It was a long job and by the time she'd got the basket to the ground she was exhausted and there was still the journey back up to do. Unfortunately, the basket was a lot harder to raise back up with just one person, having to raise up one side and then the other. The party found themselves pitched out as one side of the basket rose up.

I found all of this highly amusing. I had been expecting Colesta to make a staircase up the rocks. It would have taken a few days, but they'd have gotten them eventually. Just getting up this cliff face took the best part of the session as I had to repeatedly point out that Val was in total pitch blackness, and no, her eyes weren't going to adjust to that level of darkness.

Finally, everyone got up there in a manner that would have made Buster Keaton proud. They investigated the Duergar complex, heading back to the main hall. Beyond the silent guardian in the throne room, they found no trace of life or death.

They hurried through the caves back to their castle. The rooms were empty, as was the inner courtyard but through the gate drifted many strange sounds. The party hurried through to the outer keep and found the Duergar standing alongside their mercenaries on the outer wall. Longeron the architect stood alongside Niamad the smith and Aldo, their chef and a gaggle of slaves. On seeing the party emerge through the inner gate they ran over and in a rush of excited voices told the party that an army of creatures led by Ogres had laid siege to the castle. They hurried to the wall and gazing out over the battlements saw a huge horde stretching out to the south and east of all manner of unsavoury creatures. Orcs, Hobgoblins, Trolls, Ogres and more. They were surrounded and cut off from the rest of the world.