My new D&D campaign.

[Alex]

I must admit I've cheated a few times by looking new card sets up online without buying them.

I wonder if that'll send me to one of the Nine Hells?

Old testament, hell yeah. New testament, only if you are not sorry you did it.

[ER]

I meant D&D Nine Hells, but now you got me worried.

[Alex]

I meant D&D Nine Hells, but now you got me worried.

Uhm... say 50 hail Mary's and twirl your rosery beads around like a hula hoop and you'll be all square with the man upstairs? From what I've seen on the TV he likes that kind of thing.

[ER]

I meant D&D Nine Hells, but now you got me worried.

Uhm... say 50 hail Mary's and twirl your rosery beads around like a hula hoop and you'll be all square with the man upstairs? From what I've seen on the TV he likes that kind of thing.

I know, man, he can make quasars and invent higher math, but for some reason reciting a rosary over and over just thrills the big guy!

[Alex]

The Seventh Session.


The group followed the path as it spiralled gently downwards. Once long ago these had been steps but the trudge of countless feet over millennia had left them smoothly sloping. They were confronted by a wide set of double doors which caused them to pause and debate for a while. Careful listening at the door revealed nothing and eventually, they opened it and stepped through. The room they entered next revealed no cause for their caution, it merely being a four-sided room with another set of double doors in the middle of each wall. To the east, the doors had a bar holding them shut, although not one that would give them any problems to remove. The southern doors were in a much worse condition. They were split in many places and only a series of jury-rigged braces kept them in place. Hugo ran over to these doors and immediately started ripping the braces away causing the stone doors to fall to the ground with an almighty crash. The other side of the doors had a passageway whose length had been rudely interrupted by a gaping chasm. It stood to reason that this was the same chasm where above they had encountered the flock of bats. Over on what was presumably the other side of the cavern the group could see some faint lights shining, including one that was perhaps 20 feet along the rockface, opening up into another room, although the angle of the walls prevented them from seeing much into the place.


It was decided not to investigate this further and instead look at the final exit in the western wall. These doors lay slightly ajar and when pushed open showed them an even wider passageway, every surface of which was overrun with some odd plant that could apparently grow with equal ease on the ceiling, walls or floor. From her travels, Arnes recognised this as a type of fungus common underground. It was harmless and formed the staple diet of many of the smaller creatures to be found underground. Most humanoid creatures found it unpalatable, but if one were desperate one could survive for a while on it, although the lack of certain vital nutrients prevented a more long term existence based on eating it. The wide corridor let westwards for a short distance before opening up onto a massive thoroughfare running north to south. Along the opposite wall could be seen a large number of doorways lining the side, and a bit of investigation revealed some doors on the same side of the corridor as them, although far fewer than on the far wall. It was decided to investigate some of the rooms. As they went to investigate the first room, tentacles suddenly lashed out, catching Tykum and attempting to pull him into a previously hidden hole in the wall. The party hacked away at them but found the tough, rubbery hide hard to penetrate but Hugo came to their rescue, beating the snakelike creature with his massive club until it was hard to recognise what the monster once was. Having dealt with it they continued with their investigation and found a series of linked rooms, but ultimately with no exits to elsewhere. It gave the impression of having been a house or workshop (or even a combination of both). Tykum, being a Dwarf was well familiar with what these really were, but for his own reasons chose to keep this information to himself. Searching the room did uncover a substantial amount of gold that the party gladly pocketed.


The next doorway led to another series of rooms, as did the third doorway, but on entering the room the party found themselves stuck to the floor. They were unable to lift their feet. A creature that looked part humanoid and part spider ran around the walls and attempted to sink its fangs into Tykum. He bravely tried to fight the creature off, but it managed to find a chink in his armour and plunged its venom-filled fangs into his arm. Once again Glaxo came to the rescue, splattering the creature with a single blow from his club, but the potent poisons were rushing through Tykums body. The room spun and he felt uncontrollably dizzy, falling to the ground in an uncoordinated heep.


And with that the session ended for the night.

[Alex]

The Eighth Session.

With one party member a drooling mess, and the rest low of spells and hit points the group decided to rest up and recover. They did sort of rescue a gnome from the web of the spider thing and clear up the sticky webbing from the floor. The gnome introduced himself as Felix and even allowing for height differences, he and Glaxo did no see eye to eye, the pair almost coming to blows. Meanwhile, Xora and Zayel were having an argument.

I honestly thought the party was going to start fighting each other.


No wait, resting and recovering would have been the sensible thing to do. What the party actually did was split up and search more rooms. Glaxo found a room where two large scorpions (about the size of a very large dog each), were being attacked by a swarm of giant centipedes (smaller than the scorpions, but still big). They backed out of the room carefully, not attracting any attention and then Glaxo shouted for the rest of the group...


Yeah, so the party found itself separated and in a big fight that they didn't need to get involved in. Could have waited for a winner and then killed off the weakened survivors, but no. Glaxo was charged by an enraged scorpion. They were having problems hitting the centipedes and the human-made an easier target to vent their anger on. He was left nearly dead by its crushing claws. Felix too came close to dying (and his player was bemoaning that he'd only had the character for 5 minutes).


As the party was nearly overwhelmed, they were saved by some out of the box thinking by Zayel who cast Light. The creatures used to living in the dim, shadowy light of the fungus fled from the bright glow. Meanwhile, the party retreated to one of the empty side buildings, where they barricaded themselves inside and prepared to take a rest.


And with that the session ended for the night.

[Alex]

The Ninth Session.


Drained of spells and blood, the party rested up overnight. The next day found them still feeling weakened and it was decided to keep resting up in the complex of rooms they had claimed as a temporary base.


Glaxo kept them occupied by deciding to kill Arnes while the pair of them were alone in one of the rooms. He pulled out his axe and buried it deep in her side, dropping her to the floor instantly. The rest of the party came running when they heard her scream and were greeted with the sight of Glaxo standing over her, bloody axe in hand. Hugo decided to pin his erstwhile companion, while the others struggled to relieve him of his gory axe. He initially claimed she'd attacked him first but given all her weapons were sheathed this seemed to be an unlikely scenario. Unconvinced by his somewhat wavering story, Zayel used magical means to compel Glaxo to tell the truth and he admitted he has slain the unsuspecting ranger for no particular reason. Unsure of what to do next, the group extracted a promise from him that he would surrender his axe at night into the care of Zayel and made it quite clear if he attacked another party member there would not be another chance for him.

Me, I'd have killed him, burned the remains and then fed them to the various insects around the level as an insurance policy.

They laid poor Arnes body out on one of the tables and with a mistrustful eye on Glaxo, they set off to further explore. The next few doors led into assorted series of rooms, each seeming to be a living space leading off from a shop or workspace of some kind. They were all empty. Where the broad main passage reached a corner though, one room seemed to contain a large, brightly painted boulder. At least that is what they thought it was until they entered the room and the 'boulder' got shakily to its multiple legs and insectile eyes stared at them. Mandibles clacked angrily, and the creature spun around to point its rear end at them. Not sure what was going on, the group decided to back out of the room and the creature settled back down on its nest. While they found numerous empty rooms, the next occupied one was to come as much more of a shock...

As the party entered the room, a pair of long, green, scimitar like forelimbs lashed out at the group as they were ambushed by a giant Preying Mantis. Tykum's head went tumbling from his shoulders. His body tumbled sideways and collapsed, fountaining blood from the torn stump of his neck. Enraged by this second death of a group member, the others closed around the monstrous insect and hacked it to gory pieces.

Having sustained so much damage it was decided to retreat to the village, which was managed without further drama. The local mystic was able to return Tykum to life, but what the party did not realise was the full price behind this (a feat far beyond his normal powers) or what would have to be paid back in the future.

And with that, the session ended for the night.

[Alex]

The Tenth Session.


Not a lot actually happened in this game. It was mostly spent on in character roleplaying. They did manage to return to the undercity though. That was about it.

[Alex]

The Eleventh Session.


A couple of previously unexplored rooms were finally discovered. The first was the boarded-up room in the Goblin area. The party prised open the doors and could see a number of semi-translucent figures floating about the room. They appeared Dwarvish in nature but were dressed in somewhat archaic clothes, much like a modern-day human discovering people dressed in Roman togas. The figures floated angrily over towards the group, but on spotting Tykum (or Kaitryn as he (or she) has renamed herself), the ghostly forms floated over to him (terrifying poor Hugo in the process who was curled up on the floor gibbering) and in his native tongue told him their sorry tale. Long ago a man had came to the city and demanded the Dwarves living their abandon it. When they refused and chased him off, he summoned down a rain of rocks from the sky that decimated the city above ground. Then he called up spirits of the earth who rent the underground city, opening it up to the Underdark. The city was invaded by all manner of fel creatures and although they fought bravely, the defenders were overwhelmed by the numbers of the host arrayed against them. The last defenders had held out in this very room refusing to let it fall to the invaders even after death. Now one of their kin had returned, surely a sign that others would come soon and retake the city. Their ancient vigil finally over the spirits slowly faded from sight leaving only an aura of sadness.


The next room was further to the north, in the Kobold zone. They entered a room finding it stacked high with corpses in various states of decomposition. Most of the bodies were those of the same types of creatures that they had encountered on this level already, although a few more exotic creatures were found amongst them. One thing all the bodies had in common was that their hands had all been severed at the wrist.


Curious about this, but unable to come up with a reason for such desecration the party continued back down to the second sub-level. They continued exploring the long-abandoned shops and workshops. They walked over to one room, finding it to be much larger than any of the previous ones. Whereas they had been a network of small interlinked rooms, this one was a massive rectangle. A dozen or so Orcish bodies lay strewn around (I was hoping the party would check to see if they still had their hands or not, but no one looked) and in the midst of the carnage stood a lone creature and a most curious one to look on at that...

The creature was taller than a human and lean. It had dry green skin and a snaky beard that writhed and loiled as if alive. In one hand it held a long polearm (Glaive), which it tossed up and caught in one hand. As the party entered it spoke to them in an archaic version of common, telling the party that the master of the dungeon was aware of their presence and did not appreciate them slaughtering his subjects. The party tried to find out who its master was, which brought an angry retort that it had no master (it tended to refer to 'the one who summoned me'). The party managed to trade some of the magic potions they had in return for some basic information (they got the name of the person who summoned it). Throughout the conversation the creature taunted the party, daring it to attack them.


And with that, the session ended for the night.

[Alex]

The Twelfth Session.


Deciding to accept the challenge the party attacked the demonic creature. It was a tough fight and it left the party carrying several heavy wounds (some of which will turn out to be more serious than others...), but they were in the end victorious. Glaxo immediately wanted to collect its weapon, but the rest of the party (especially with Kaitryn sensing an aura of evil from the item) refused to let him take it. The party then returned to their base camp and rested up. During what we will term the night, although no one knew what time it was, Glaxo convinced poor old simple Hugo that he should untie him. As soon as he was free Glaxo of course headed off to go find the glaive the demon had used.

In the morning, when the rest of the group returned to where they'd set up their temporary lair they found Glaxo waiting for them. A few terse minutes passed as it was argued wither to let him keep the glaive he had retrieved from where it had been hidden under the pile of Orcish bodies. Unwilling to push this to a combat, the party relented and let him retain the weapon.


And with that, the session ended for the night.