# Myrdynn's journey Out of the Abyss



## TallIan (Nov 27, 2018)

I've been keeping my PC's story through this campaign and keeping on my dropbox.  I have been sharing it with a closed group, but have decided to put it up here instead.

It goes without saying, that this thread contains *SPOILERS for Out of The Abyss
*
_This is the story so far as remembered by Myrdynn, so probably not 100% accurate.  I’ve tried to avoid a turn by turn account._


----------



## TallIan (Nov 27, 2018)

I might add more detail for the PC backgrounds later, but for now I don't have easy access to them.

*The main protagonists*
Boriel the zealot dwarf cleric
Jorvin the morbid elven monk - leaves us at session 18 due to real life things
Ifer the do-gooder dragonborn ranger
Anton the pirate chef/thief half-elf
Myrdynn the sneaky human wizard
Hektor the savage (barbarian/druid) - Joins us once we escape the underdark.

Welby the bard: In place of Boreal while he is petrified.

*The other prisoners:*
Bupido the Derro
Shuushaar the fishman
Prince Derendel the elf
Sereth the drow
Stool the Myconid
JimJar the deap gnome
Unnmaed female deep gnome
Unnamed male deep gnome


----------



## TallIan (Nov 27, 2018)

*Session 1 - Imprisoned*

After some time being led around the darkness Myrdynn was ungraciously thrown into a jail cell with a number of other, mostly strange, creatures the like of which I had never seen.  There was one dwarf that I tried to befriend, but she seemed despondent and unwilling to try to escape and I have never had much time for those who don’t want to help themselves.  I spend the next few days watching and learning what I could.  There is some kind of magical field that prevents any form of magic within the cell, but once out I can cast freely.

Over the next few days, more surface dwellers were added to the cell and things have become a bit more interesting.  A very brief fight broke out when an elf monk threatened to punch Stool – some kind of sentient fungus.  Stool has the protection of a drow prisoner named Sereth who wrestled the offending monk to the ground, pinned until hostilities had died down.  A dragonborn showed that he can destroy the manacles with a blast of acid, but getting more than one or two prisoners freed this way could prove dangerous.  I should be fine during the escape with manacls on as they don’t hinder my magic much and once we are away I could get the manacles off, but this could prove to be crucial for those require their hands to fight.

After some plotting and scheming, driven mostly by the latest arrivals, a half-formed plan has begun to develop.  Getting out of the jail cell seems to be the least of our concerns, but fighting the whole outpost garrison would certainly be suicide.  No escape is possible without rushing the two duty guards occupying the guard tower, an easily defended position.  Once that is done we could jump down from the guard tower into a giant web, cut through that and fall to the water below.  We’d be wet and without provisions and – most importantly – my spell book and most assuredly perused by their captors within minutes.  We could try and fight our way to the lift that raised us all to the outpost from the cavern floor below, but that would likely be too slow and would require some to stay behind to operate the lift.

One of the prisoners, who claims to have been a pirate, appealed to one of the guards.  The guard appears to have been disfigured and fell from the graces of the outpost commander, his motives are unknown to us but he left a key or the manacles and instructions to wait for the next shift change if we wished to escape.
Not willing to wait for a trap to be fully set Myrdynn, having conjured a lockpick, managed to pick the lock to jail cell. But was not able to do so without being noticed, though the guards did not appear to care and merely looked at the now unlocked prisoners.


----------



## TallIan (Nov 27, 2018)

*Session 2 - Escape*

Despite unlocking the gate I am slow to act, Boreal is first out but he attracts a shot from a drow guard that knocks him unconscious.  He is quickly followed by Derendal, who shows little regard for his own safety by leaping across the opening and grabbing a window legde.

The flood gates now open, most of the prisoners rush the guard post, quickly dispatching the two guards.  Jorvin confirms his hot-blooded aggression by threating Eldith for shouting her battle cry.  Stealth is important, as we could not hope to face the outpost in its entirety, but I’m not sure that is the best way to deal with that.  We find a good stash of weapons and armour, allowing many of the prisoners to arm themselves, and some climbing equipment. 

I slice a piece of leather off one suit, a critical for spell casting since I currently do not have my staff, and immediately armour myself with my magic.  Without my spellbook my abilities are limited and I managed to convince JimJar to try and find it for me.  It turns out he can become invisible, a useful skill for sure, and I bet him he can’t retrieve my spellbook, with my stake being a gem I found in the outpost.  It isn’t that valuable to me – certainly far less valuable than my spellbook.

The gnome turned invisible and headed out into the outpost, but the strange opening and closing of the guard post door attracted the curiosity of one of the drow captains.  Desperate to buy Jimjar some time I and some of the others rushed him, a brutal fight broke out attracting the attention of a quaggoth, who was quickly dispatched but the guard captain fled – presumably to seek help.

While this was going on Sarith started a small fire and set the webs below the guard post ablaze, allowing us to jump into the pool below the waterfall to freedom, but just as those in the fight were about to leave Eldith cried out about not leaving her shield behind and ran in to the priestess’s quarters.  Following her I find myself facing the biggest spider I have ever seen.


----------



## TallIan (Nov 27, 2018)

*Session 3 – Flight *

I find myself fighting a giant spider alongside Eldeth, until Anton joins the fight in the room.  I need to buy Jimjar time to get my spellbook and Eldeth is desperate for her shield.  Outside, the drow outpost comes under attack from some sort of deamon, distracting the guards from us.  The rest of the prisoners call out, they’re jumping down to the pool we hope is under the waterfall.  Jimjar appears with armfuls of stuff – my spellbook I hope – and heads to where everyone is jumping.  Anton and I finally convince Eldeth to abandon her shield and follow us.

I jump down.  Splashing, to my great relief, in a dark pool.  The other escapees call to me, there is something in the water.  I the dark I can only head towards their calls.  Once on solid ground a summon some light, not enough to see the whole cavern, but it gives our band of escapees a central point.  Shushar helps get everyone out of the pool, most importantly Jimjar, who was fighting with some unseen monster under the water.  Sadly Eldeth doesn’t follow us down, and we begin a map flight east  towards Sloobludop, led by Sarith and Shushar.

Once it is clear the drow aren’t following us immediately, we stop briefly to gather ourselves.  Much to his credit Jimjar held onto the stuff he salvaged from the priestess’ quarters.  His end of the deal complete I hand over the gem.  He also has my wand, I could live without it, but components here are going to be hard to come by, so I promise him 20GP for the wand, something that he accepts.  Many of us heard a voice calling us to the service of the faceless lord.  My study leads me to believe this is Juiblex, the deamonlord of oozes and shapeless things.  Could the monster in the pool have been an ooze?

After our brief stop, we set off at a steady pace, hoping to gather food and other supplies along the way.  We are rewarded with some edible mushrooms and some that can be processed into dye for trade, without some means to carry them though, we are limited in what we can take with us.

After some time, the temperature drops and the ground begins to freeze.  According to Sarith this is not uncommon.   Slipping along the icy floor, we come across a body, fumbling around in the dark reveals nothing, but when I summon a light, 3 piercers drop from the ceiling attacking.  We manage to quickly dispatch them while Jimjar helps himself to whatever was on the body.  I try to confront him about it, but there is nothing I can really do without resorting to violence and I am unwilling to test the rest of the groups loyalties to that degree.  He didn’t get everything though as I managed to find a pouch containing some dust of disappearance. 

Under Sarith’s direction we find somewhere safe to stop and rest.


----------



## TallIan (Nov 27, 2018)

*Session 4 – Travel *

We wander through the underdark, led by Sarith and Shushar, for several days at a pace that allows us to forage as we go.  We seem to do ok finding edible mushrooms and some that would make good trade goods, but our ability to carry things quickly becomes the problem.

On our third day out a deep gnome trader, mounted on a giant lizard finds us and offers to trade.  We have little of value but we offer a shield, a dagger some of the dried ormu and a drow crossbow and bolts scores us some fish a bedroll and crucially two backbacks and some waterskins.  Sarith tries to convince me that we cannot leave this trader to go his own way.  I certainly share his fear, this gnome owes us no loyalty and could certainly gain some material wealth for simply telling our pursuers where we went, but I am not willing to stoop to cold blooded murder.

The next day we find ourselves facing a pocket of corrosive gas. Ilfer, being resistant to acid due to his draconic ancestry, pushes through to see how far it goes, it proves to be short enough that we can dash and hope for the best.  I follow, but my god it burns if you inhale any, I won’t be doing that again.  Ilfer and I find ourselves facing a party of duergar offering to sell us slaves.  I do not like slavers but I am not sticking my neck out for anyone who isn’t trying to help themselves.  Ilfer apparently feels different and things nearly escalate into a fight.

After a rest we came across an illithid named Grazilaxx. Despite what I know of Ilithids, this one seems friendly, helpful even, he claims to be a member of the society of brilliance.  He offered us a map of the area we are traveling through, with just the promise that we would treat the other society member kindly.  Getting the map did take some time that we could ill afford.

Another good discovery of edible mushrooms leaves us with plenty to eat for a few days.  With two backpacks, we can now carry much more.  This patch, is a mixture of dangerous and edible mushrooms, but my magic means that no one had to risk being poisoned while gathering the edible trillimac mushrooms.  With two hours lost waiting for map and another here, our drow persuers are surely close.  On the plus side, with a map and ample food we can pick up the paceuntil we reach Slubludop.

My thoughts that we might reach Slublupod without trouble are quickly dashed, when we come across some kuo-toa.  Shushar converses with them in a language I can’t understand then said to us, “Hold out your hands, it appears we are to be taken prisoner again.”  Shushar submits to the kuo-toa request, but the rest of us are not so meek.


----------



## TallIan (Nov 27, 2018)

*Session 5 - A Fight and Almost to Safety*

Not wanting to submit to captivity again all but Shushar prepare for a grim fight.  The Koatoa are impetuous, charging at us with suicidal bravery.  Although intimidating it proves to be a bad choice for them.  Their leader appears to be a priest or shaman as he heals some of the attackers during the fight.  Jimjar redeems himself somewhat in the fight, although I could not see him he was clearly by my side attacking the Koa-Toa trying to take me on.

After the fight we are left somewhat wounded and drained, but are renewed by Borieal’s prayer and faith.  Ilfer detects another group of humanoids approaching from Slublidop, not a good sign in our current condition.  Nevertheless, we spend a few minutes laying the bodies of the fallen Koa-Toa our with as much reverence as we can spare before leaving the battle sight.

Jimjar is nominated to go and scout on these, while the rest of us find a good spot to ambush the other group.  This proves futile as the Koatoa are capable of seeing through invisibility illusions, Jimjar is quickly captured by them and leads them to us.

It turns out that there is some sort of schism in Slblodop, one faction, the one Shushar expected to encounter, followers of the Sea Mother, professes peace and co-existence, while the other follows the Deep Father and is much more violent and demands sacrifices of any other kind of humanoid they can get their hands on. It seems that surrendering to the first group would have led to us being sacrificed for the Deep Father.  

This second group appeal to our sense of altruism.  They wish to use us as a false offering of peace to the followers of the Deep Father and gain access to his temple in order to overthrow the Dep Father’s arch priests.  Unless we fight our way out of this meeting as well, it appears we have little choice.

We accept their offer in exchange for passage on the Dark Lake and some other help.  The escort us to Slublodop and give us some time to rest in their own temple before presenting is at the Deep Father’s temple.  Ilfer disguises himself as a Koatoa guard, and I have managed to secret my wand away.  Unlike the others, who’s bonds are loose and easily escaped, I am bound by my own conjured manacles.


----------



## TallIan (Nov 27, 2018)

*Session 6 – Not so safe afterall*

I grew weary of the two factions of koatoa talking and posturing I.  I was also unwilling to see the results of their sacrifice.  So, dropping my conjured manacles, I summoned a web, strung from the roof of the temple, to entrap the sacrifice and his two guards. This also blocked one of our flanks.

Gabbing their weapons from the friendly koatoa, the rest of my companions quickly overran a number of the hostile deep Father’s supporters, but their archpriest kept chanting her insane song.  The fight took down a number of our group.  Ront, Sarith and Shushar all perished in the fighting.  Jorvin managed to fight his way to the Deepfather archpriest where, despite some minor injuries, Jorvin suffered some horrible backlash from some kind of protection she had up that left the monk unconscious on the floor.  He did leave her in a bad way, and we were able to kill her.

Unfortunately, the Deapfather took this as the sacrifice, and some huge tentacles deamon emerged from the water.  Not wanting to face this monstrosity we fled along the shore to find a boat, slipping past this deamon creature into the Darklake, now without a guide.

Following Ilfer’s sense of direction we headed towards the only humanoid he could sense.  A 6 hour boat ride later and we found a solitary hut on the shore.  An old woman emerged from the water and asked us what we were doing.  After some negotiating we agree to bring her a humanoid heart in exchange for a compass that will take us wherever we want to go.


----------



## TallIan (Nov 27, 2018)

*Session 7 - Travels on the Darklake*

Barely an hour out from the hag’s hut, we are attacked by a boat of drow.  A tough fight leaves us in possession of the drow’s boat, along with a hefty sum of gold and a note offering a bounty for our capture or corpses.

Bupido, during the fight, fled the boat after casting a powerful spell on one of the drow.  It takes some effort to get him back into the boat after the fight, after which he is somewhat grumpy, he wants to split from the group and takes some convincing to stay with us.

The hag is not there when we return and we spend some time to rest, hoping she will return.  After several hours she still hasn’t returned and we leave the corpses on her front step.  Considering our debt paid.
Jimjar is quick to remind me that I owe him money while we split the loot, but at least I no longer owe him money.  

Finally I have the ingredients I require to conjure my familiar.  And he proves useful straight away when we come up to a submerged statue and a sarcophagus in the middle of the Darklake.  Opening the sarcophagus a mummy springs out at us, along with some kind of water elemental.  We do make short work of this, dispatching them quickly and searching the statue and sarcophagus we find some more treasure that could help if we ever find civilization.

Later, some giant ray like creatures start to follow us, Ilfer manages to get most of them to leave us alone, but one persists.  Killing it provides us with a solid meal for the day.  

Not long after that we hear a female voice in our heads begging to be let out.  This leads us to the top of a submerged building with an entrance leading down.  Bupido seems reluctant to go with us, but also the group is reluctant to leave him behind.  Jimjar offers to stay as well, hardly belaying anyone’s trust issues.


----------



## TallIan (Nov 27, 2018)

*Session 8 - Mushrooms*

After resting to ensure everyone was ready we opened the tomb.  Carefully checking the door revealed nothing of concern but when we opened it we were surprised when a dead body fell on us.  There was nothing of particular interest on the body but his half elven features suggested that he was exploring the Underdark, or perhaps in a similar plight to ours.

The first room only hada diorama that had similar motifs to the tapestry we found earlier.   We could discern nothing from this matching theme.  There is a strange yellow haze that permeates the air.  According to Ilfer, it is called fazeriss and this isn’t itself dangerous, but often indicates other dangers.

Heading deeper leads us to a desecrated alter room and burial charmer.  My enthusiasm for loot motivates me to open one of the sarcophagi which awakened some guardians.  A brief fight ensued which ended abruptly when Boreial tuned the creatures and send them fleeing back to one of the sarcophagi.  After checking out the others we determined that the one the spectres fled to was in fact a secret door.

The secret room is below us and is completely dark, but when I try to cast light I find myself suddenly eight times my normal size.  Something is making magic unpredictable.

The secret chamber is finely decorated and houses a large sarcophagus.  As we enter another spectre rises and implies she has a use for us – possession of our bodies perhaps – but none of us are willing to let her.  The fight proves tough as much of our weapons are not effective against such a monster, even my magic proves less effective.

The fight over, I start looting anything that looks valuable, the gold inlay in the walls pries out easily, but the real treasure is inside the sarcophagus.  A perfectly preserved humanoid corpse is holding a sword hilt, that appears to be talking to Ilfer. Some investigation leads us to believe this is Dawnbringer, a powerful sword capable is casting light as bright as day – a potent thing in the underdark, as many creatures are sensitive to sunlight.

We seem to think that the corpse is of a Nethese, an ancient civilization powerful in the arcane arts.  I would like to find out more about this civilization, but there seems to be little here to learn.

The rest of the tomb is unguarded and we find a magical bow as well. We also discover that there is a curse on the tomb, but by this time we had lifted the curse by banishing the spectres that were haunting the place.

Returning to our raft, we find that our trust in Jimjar and XXXX is not misplaced, the raft and out money is still there, though Jimjar now wields a weapon that looks suspiciously like the whip that the drow priestess used to beat us with as prisoners.  He claims to have found it under the decking of the raft, but I wonder if he has been holding out since we escaped.

We decide to head to Neverlight Grove and drop off stool, he has been invaluable to us and I feel we owe him that much.  Unfortunately, along the way we are swept over a waterfall, which damages the boat somewhat.  I think it was only a web spell, cast to hold the raft together, that stopped us from sinking.

As we near Neverlight Grove, Stool starts to direct us, leading us to a shore, past a large mushroom forest to the hidden entrance to Neverlight Grove.  There is a great sense of peace here and it is easy to forget that we are still in the Underdark.

According to Stool, we need to find the Sovereign, the leader of the grove.  It doesn’t take us long to find a group of Myconids, led by Lubommob.  He is welcoming and shares with us the recent news of the grove.  Neveright Grove, unusually, has two Sovereigns, Filo, the newcomer and Bisido the original Sovereign of Neverlight Grove. Lubomoob tells us that there are creatures in Neverlight Grove that hurt the myconids, and the recently a group of humanoids have been taken to see Sovereign Filo.

Filo is trying to change the way the Myconids in this grove live.  Every day the Myconids join in what they call melding.  Under Bisido, all the Myconids meld every day but Filo wants to change that so that only the leaders of each group meld, then go and meld with their own groups separately.  I am not sure what this means for them or how significant this would be, but as a group we choose to visit Bisido first.


----------



## TallIan (Nov 27, 2018)

*Session 9 – Undead Mushrooms*

On our way to visit Filo Sovereign Stool seems abnormally on guard.  It is hard to get a reason without alerting all the Myconids to our concerns.  Lubomoob (We find out later he is the leader of the hunter) leads us to a huge Myconid and after a short conversation introduces us to Filo, the new leader.  He seems honest and friendly and is the one that wants to change the way things are done here.  He seems happy that we might be able to join them at such an exciting time.  He is surprised to find that we don’t want to be in the underdark and can’t offer much to help us to get out but is willing to supply us.

The Myconid are having some trouble with the fazriss, it does not come into the grove, but their hunters sometimes find that prey, etc suddenly go invisible or disappear.

There was group of drow that were here looking for us, Filo says they left by boat but we are not convinced that he is telling the truth.  Pressing him about this and his answers don’t yield a good answer; he cannot say for sure where they went or who went with them.

When asked about how there came to be two Sovereigns in the grove he refers to a coming awakening, this is why he wishes to change the way the things are done.  He is preparing for the awakening.  He says that we should ask the Great Seader (who lives beyond he garden) about the awakening.   But when we ask about her Filo says that we should talk to Basilio and leads us to him.  There seems to be no conflict between the two of them.  Filo feels that the great awakening will happen faster with his way of doing things.

Basilia asks us for help once Filo is out of earshot, and introduces us to some of the circle leaders.  The circle of leader is supposed to build shelters for the myconids, but instead he builds mad structures that are more like sculptures and are unsuitable for living.  The leader of the growers (Habubey) is a neutral party not allying with either Basilio or Filo.

The myconids who agree with Filo appear very happy and walk around in a state of bliss.  More and more are falling under Filo sway.  Basidia doesn’t want the change because it goes against how the myconids have worked for a long time.  Basdia revelas that Filo takes many “softers” to see the Great Seeder – possibly the drow that were after us.  
At The Circle of Spores (Led by Urberap) Basidia believes that Filo has contracted some kind of disease.  This leads to what Basildia wants us to do.  She would like us to investigate the Garden, where Filo takes many “softers” and Balsia fears to go in case he contracts the disease.  Urberap is an ally of Filo.  
Next is the Circle of the Explorers (Led by Rasheroo), they might know a way out of the underdark.  The explorers rarely come back from their excursions.  Their only reason is to find other possible locations for a grove.  He claims there was no garden before, many of the other Myconids claim is has always been there.  There are thousands of visitors in the Garden, which many outsiders now fear.
There is also a circle of Masters that is new and belong to Filo’s new way.

There is a part of the grove that wasn’t there before – it wasn’t accessible for some reason but has been there for a long time now those that have not accepted Filo’s way are not allowed there.

Basilia gives us a scroll – of protection against fiends. And can make us some potions in 8 hours.  We decide to send Dagda to the garden.  He reports back that there is a HUGE mushroom and thousands of humanoids.  There is much wailing and moaning.

After this we take a rest, but find Derendal murdered in a bloody mess.  Investigating this shows that whoever did this knew what they were doing.  It was a ritual killing and all his organs have been removed and set aside and two fingers are missing.  We’re unable to find out what killed him.

We decide to sneak past the myconid guard into the garden and investigate.  Using some dust of disappearance we try and sneak past.  Once inside the Garden, the light dims.  The source of the moaning and crying comes from dozens of humanoid heads peeking out of the ground rotting, most of them are begging for death.  A drow female says it is that the Great Seeder is the Lady of Decay – one of the main deamon gods, that brings death and pestilence wherever she goes.  She should not be on this plain of existence; there should not be enough power to bring the Lady of Decay onto the prime material plane.  When we try and kill the half buried drow her head explodes into a bunch of spores.

As we get closer to the massive mushroom, the screams become more of fear than pain.  Some kind of larva worm slithers up to us.  It appears to have once been a myconid, but diseased.


----------



## TallIan (Nov 27, 2018)

*Session 10 – Blingdenstone*

The fight against the diseased Myconid proves to be physically easy, but leaves a number of the group mentally scarred.  Jorvin is let unconscious for nearly a day and when he recovers, he appears to be obsessed with collecting dead bodies.  The others keep having to wake me from a daydream.  There is some good loot in the pile of stuff collected here though.  With two of our number out we decide to retreat back to the Myconid grove, but I am able to send Dagda on a bit further to see what is there.

There is some kind of procession of wailing, dancing myconid servants, singing about a union between Araumycos and Zugtmo.  Zugtmo is a creature from the Abyss and Araumycos is the largest living organism on our plane.  How they are to be wed I cannot fathom.

When we report back to Basilia he is terrified and immediately prepares his followers for departure to a found a new grove.  Stool is nowhere to be found but we persuade on of the other myconid explorers to guide us to Blingdenstone.  When we return to collect our raft, we find that Bupido has fled, along with out belongings.  Persuing him proves impossible as he is going in the opposite direction.  He will find himself penniless should we ever meet again.

Along the way to Blingdenstone we gathering news from some traders that there is a new ruler since the drow destroyed to the city – Darbo and Seth Digger Mattox.  We also come across some crazed humans – we try to help, but our presence unnerves them and seams to cause them to harm themselves.

We finally arrive at Blingdenstone, the gnomes are helpful, accepting us as traders who offer no trouble.  When asked about Araumycos they react with a mixture of humour and horror.  They don’t believe that Araumycos can be wedded, but if it were to be corrupted, the whole world would end.

We are escorted through their formidable defences and directed to the The Foaming Mug, the only inn here with beds our size.  The proprieties, Tappy, proves to be an enthusiast of surface dwellers, hence the big beds. She directs us to Kazook Pishan or Noni Pickshudder for quality magic items.  After securing rooms, we head to the market area, but on our way there, an incident with two gelatinous cubes gives us a chance to prove our worth to the city.  The cube is quickly dispatched but not fast enough for us to save its first victim, a gnome who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Trouble abounds in Blingdenstone, mostly oozes and slimes trying to get to the north of the city, an area citizens are forbidden to go because of a knot of lycanthropy.


----------



## TallIan (Nov 27, 2018)

*Session 11 - stone drow*

We begin in Tappy’s inn, discussing the problem with the wererats (gnome).  The digger Mattox’s are keen to expand and the wererats are defensive of their territory.  After some discussion on the issue we decide to rest in the inn.  It’s first good night’s sleep we’ve all had in a long time.

Tappy tells us the Mattox are a husband and wife, very good leaders and well liked.  It seems like as good a place as any to start here in Blingdenstone.  Tappy’s direction lead us to a large cavern busy with administration.  The hall is generally not well guarded and as soon as we enter two gnomes, clearly in charge, turn to look at us.  The mattox’s are interested in our adventures so far, and we explain to them the occurrence at Slublodop and Neverlight Grove.

While the Mattox’s talk to each other they seem keen to tell someone named Nomi.

While Jimjar talks to the Mattox.s he reveals that we are were apparently purposefully chosen to be captured by the Drow.  They are initially reluctant to offer us help as we have no one to vouch for us.  When Myrdynn offers a favour for a favour the Mattox’s tell us to go see Sark Axebarrel.  Mentioning the wererat issue, seems to start a quarrel between the pair.  They are unwilling to discuss this issue with us until we have proved ourselves friends of the city.

Heading to the staging area.  There are seven paths, North is heavily barricaded, and another has a lot of noise of hammers and furnaces.  Axebarrel walks up and introduces himself and describes his problem.  Rockblight seems to be infested by a medusa, none of the gnomes who have gone that way have returned.  The gnomes haven’t actually seen it and I suspect that it could be any number of monster that lurks here.

Entering the area the gnomes want us to clear we find an unused slum.  It doesn’t take us long to find something suspicious.  A statue garden of drow warriors guards a medusa sitting on a throne, and we have a tough battle.  Eafer nearly gets killed, but we manage to hold a choke point and use a necklace of fireballs to great effect.

I manage to hypnotise the medusa.  As we hack through the stone servants we notice a hazy miasma rising from the rapidly decomposing stone corpses.  Borial runs afoul of the medusa and is turned to stone.  The raising mist starts to gather and Borial seems controlled by it.

Low on spells and with Borial attacking us we’re forced to flee the cavern, back to Blingdenstone.  Hopefully able to return later.


----------



## TallIan (Nov 27, 2018)

*Session 12 - Important news*

We return to Blingdenstone, going directly to the Digger Mattox’.  When we mention that there was some kind of strange dust storm that seemed to be controlling the petrified Boreal.  The summon Naomi Pathshutter, an elementalist who summons and controls the elementals that the Gnomes use.  She seems to think that it’s an extradimensional creature called Ogremoch’s Bane.  She believes that Ogremoch’s Bane has been here for 100’s of years, but would rather not be.

Investigating the strange ghost that attacked us from behind leads us to Warden Jager, a ghost, who is the expert on hauntings in Blingdenstone.  He was also the head of the military when Blingdenstone was sacked.

After a rest, we return to retrieve Boreal’s corpse.  Starting cautiously with stealth we quickly grew more brazen, but as soon as we enter the “throne” room where the medusa was the dust starts to materialise again.  While there we also find Jimjar, he claims he was knocked unconscious and he came too we were gone.  Quickly retreating to Blingdenstone with the statue of Boreal.  We choose to leave him with Tappy at the Foaming Mug inn. At the inn we also meet Welby Axebarel, a fellow escapee from the Drow, though he escaped from a different outpost.

Next we visit Warden Jager in the catacombs.  He demands that we do him a favour to get an answer to our questions.  He wants us to find his fallen soldiers and return their remains to him.  One question for every returned body.  We manage to find one of the bodies.  During the investigation we a Xorn burrows out of the rock and starts to demand that we give it our gems and coins.  We refuse and it starts to follow us around - it proves helpful in a fight later and I fling him a coin for his help, which just seems to encourage it.

For returning the skeletal remains of one of his soldiers Warden Jager offers us three ways to break Boreal’s curse;  Entemoch’s Boon – a cavern with the means to remove Ochremoch’s Bane back to his own plane and porbably undo what he’s done here. A Greater restoration spell, though finding someone capable of casting that would be hard.  There is a scroll in a temple 7 or more days away.  There is a dwarven mage in Gracklestug who could reverse the spell, but this is the farthest to get to and we have no idea what he will want in return.

Finding Entemochs Boon proves hard, it is rumoured to be a mine where many magical gems can be found.  Many people don’t believe it exists and those that do don’t believe that it can be found.  But our persistence may have payed off, we think that we found it.

During our search we find out that there is a patrol of Drow nearby searching for us, not long before we stumble across some of them.  The fight is furious but short, and we manage to take some of them prisoner.  From them we learn that we were taken prisoner for a reason.

There are some Drow mages that are trying to bring about something – they weren’t sure what – and our deaths will make sure that it happens.  Conversely us being alive could prevent it happening.  There are factions withing the Drow who are willing to pay huge sums of money for our capture to ensure our life or death, depending on the factions view on this “something”.  We are on a list and there are more names on that list.


----------



## TallIan (Nov 27, 2018)

*Session 13 – A Great Boon*

We return our prisoners to Blingdenstone, which takes a day. A quick turn around there and back to where we encountered the drow takes another day.  Once back it does not take us long to find a cavern that is clearly special.  There is an alter and strange symbols on the walls, that match some of the symbols in Blingdenstone.

Some broken bits of petrified cave vermin hint at something here and once we walk towards the alter, some lizard like creatures attack.  They are quickly dispatched before another strange creature, this one we identify as a grick, attacks from the ceiling.  Some powerful magic from our new fried quickly dispatches this powerful monster.

After the fight, Jimjar – who began routing through the alter before the fight ended – had discovered a nest containing an egg and two lots of broken shell – presumably from the creature we killed, which we later learn were basilisks.  A little more looking around and we are confident that we have found Entemochs Boon.  It is essentially a large cavern and would be perfect for summoning rituals.  It doesn’t offer any obvious way to dispatch Ogremoch’s Bane though.  Perhaps luring it here might reveal something but we decide to bring our discovery to the attention of the deapgnomes.

Back at Blingdenstone we quiz Naomi – perhaps something we should have done before seeking it out – about Entemoch’s Boon and find out that the reason it is so sought after by the deapgnomes is that it would allow them to summon their elementals for a significantly longer time than their magic would normally allow.  There is a problem with this idea at the moment in that Entemoch’ Boon lies past Entemoch’s Bane an any time the deapgnomes take elementals anywhere near Ogremoch’s boon they lose control of the elemental.

Naomi doesn’t know how Entemoch’s Boon could banish Ogremoch’s Bane, but she is willing to put some effort into finding out for us.

With little else to do we return to the Digger Mattocks and see if there is anything else we can do to gain their trust and assistance.  Eafer explains the discussion that they have – Darbo wants to kill off the population of were rats that occupy part of The Warrens while his wife, Senni, would prefer a peaceful solution. She also feels that the increasing ooze attacks are the bigger problem.  After some discussion our little group decides to go and try talking to the wererats.  Our pet Xorn proves useful here.  The deapgnomes initially refuse to open the door to the Warrens to let us back in, as they fear what might be lurking on the other side.  I convince them that the Xorn is friendly and when he appears through the stone, it is us on the other side.  This saves us several days of wandering trying to get back to Blingdenstone from the Warrens.

Once in the Warrens, we quickly find a group of wererat gnomes.  The initial exchange doesn’t go too well, but one does go to get orders about what to do while we all stare at each other uneasily.  He soon comes back and takes us to see Chipgrin.

Chipgrin greats us on his stone throne, flanked by two giant rats.  Eafer talks to them about the Digger Mattocks proposal of peace, then relates to us that there were rats are beign driven out by someone called the Pudding King – a deapgnome in the Warrens that is somehow summoning and controlling oozes.  This is currently a problem for the wererat faction, but they are sure it will soon become the Digger Mattocks problem as well.

We offer to help if the wererats are willing to talk to the Digger Mattocks about a peace or powershare.  Chipgrin offers that we need a plan to reach the Pudding King – his control of the oozes makes getting to him very difficult. We’d have to get the Digger Mattocks to distract the oozes while we sneak in to deal with the Pudding King.

As for the attacks on the Digger Mattocks, he claims that his people have only ever defended themselves, but Eafer doesn’t entirely believe this.

When we bring this offer of a diversion to the Digger Mattocks, they want Naomi to finish her investigation into Entemoch’s Boon before committing.  This will take a couple of days, so we use the time to explore Rockblight – the area past Ogremoch’s Bane.

We quickly come across a pair of gargoyles – something Jimjar warned us about – and an earth elemental.  For out trouble we find a pair of large gems.

There is still more of Rockblight to explore


----------



## TallIan (Nov 27, 2018)

*Session 14  - Slime*

The fight with the gargoyles doesn’t lead anywhere and after some discussion we head back to the medusa room and search the fine clothes that were stashed there.  The strange fog that is Ogremoch’s Bane starts to coalesce after some time and we flee.

With little else to do while we wait for Naomi to complete her investigation of Entemoch’s Boon, we explore the town.  Of interest to me are the speaking stones.  We meat a gnome named Gurnick Tapfinger who tells us about the stones.  The gnomes can no longer draw magic from the stones as they once could.  The stones are a place to which their summoners can more easily summon the elementals.  Gurnick used to be high priest, but he is losing faith thanks to the fading magic of the speaking stones.  He thinks other speaking stone circles have been defiled and therefore none of them work anymore.  He gives me a spellgem and says that casting this spell in the middle of a stone circle may restore the power of that circle and therefore the power of the speaking stones.

He also tells us that the unusual gems we found with the elemental are spellgems with a bound elemental in.  But warns us never to use them as they are cursed.  Casting a Remove Curse spell within a working Sleeping stone circle may well remove this curse. 

Naomi returns and tells us that Entemoch’s Boon is what they thought, but it can’t return Boreal to flesh.  They are currently at Entemoch’s Boon Summoning elementals as fast as they can.

The gnomes are now ready to fight the oozes while we hunt down the Pudding King.


----------



## TallIan (Nov 27, 2018)

*Session 15 – More Slime*

We continue our way through the pudding infested area.  It is incredibly clean.  One of the first oozes we come across is a green ooze that seems to change shape continually, imitating whoever it’s attacking.  While attacking it I notice a tinny noise coming from within.  After the fight we find a few interesting bits*.

Exploring a bit further we come across a pile of hastily buried stuff.  Unfortunately Quarris, our pet elemental, springs a horrible trap and while trying to free him, we attract the attention of a gargantuan slime.  The slime seems a bit much for us, but the Xorn appears from the ground within the creature and a strange song starts to come from the slime.

After a few seconds the gargantuan blob shrinks and starts to retreat back to its hole, getting away.  

I find a metal box inside another green ooze.  Inside is a fragment of a playing card.  As soon as Jimjar sees it, he immediately begs for it.  A second look makes me realise that it’s a magical deck of cards, cards that do terrible things.  I brush this off as a group loot thing, and that he’ll have to wait for us to get back to Blingdenstone.


----------



## TallIan (Dec 4, 2018)

*Session 16 – Regicide	*

After another brief rest we head north and quickly run into a strange abomination of flesh and two more oozes, but we seem to have run into some kind of civil conflict as the oozes attack the abomination at the same time as we do.  Clearing these creatures quickly leads to another bunch of oozes attacking us, but this leads us to the pudding king.  

A gnome appears and starts to talk to the oozes.  I try to talk to him, but only get a hostile response.  And he proves to be a capable spell caster.  While fighting him, he calls upon the faceless lord – something we’ve heard of before.

Once he’s dead we find that all the oozes in the caves dissolve, and we are left to explore at our leisure.  Although we find some valuable scrolls in the throne room of the Pudding King, our time to explore is limited, as we’ve already spent a lot of time here and we need to get back to Blingdenstone.


----------



## TallIan (Dec 28, 2018)

*Session 17 –	Temples*

As we sift through treasure we found in the pudding king’s lair I find a couple of spell books.  One called Underland magic and the other I cannot comprehend yet.  The title seems to be “something beyond something “

After the battle Naomi is dying of some horrible affliction that the gnome priests can’t cure.  Our efforts are futile and while I try to study a spell that might help she passes.

We take and audience with the Digger Mattocks and they argue, unaware that I can now understand them.  Senni wants to offer us help, it seems our efforts to help them are paying off, but Darbo does not, he is concerned for the safety of the city.

Senni wins the argument and informs us that there are 2 ways: the 1st teleportation circle – only one person was ever able to use it Naomi.  The 2nd is a particular path that they can show us – no gnome has taken it in 20 years, well known to be patrolled by drow and other creatures.

Before heading up to the surface we decide to try one more option to save Borial and head towards the temple that may contain a powerful scroll that could help.  We take some time to prepare for the journey long journey.

On the way the egg that we found a few days ago hatches and takes a liking to Eafor.

A few days laterwe come across a small group looking for work.  One of them insists that he saw a gnoll, but the others do not believe him.  One of them perks up at the mention of Jimjar, apparently Jimjar owes him money, and it is then that I realise that Jimjar quietly disappeared when we saw the group.  He re-joins us soon after leaving the group.

Eafer, scouting ahead, informs is that there is a massive movement of daemons nearby.  They aren’t going to cross our path, so we decide to ignore it for now.

We come across a drow that appears to be under rigor mortis but is alive, there is also a gnome that is laughing or crying about a small statue that its holding.  Using mage hand, I carefully put the statue in our bag of holding.

It a takes us 11 days to find the area the temple should be in, along the way we found some mushrooms that we haven’t found before.  Something that hasn’t happened for a while, even Eafer could not recognise them.  After a whole day searching we find no temple, then Eafer spots a strange opening in the rock.

Exploring the passage sets off a rock slide, that leaves us trapped.  Though it opens into another route that seems to lead to a constructed room.  Inside is a grey ooze that we quickly dispatch.  This leads to further rooms.  Dagda scouts ahead and flies into a gelatinous cube.  We approach with caution, but the ooze doesn’t attack and even seems to answer our request to move out the way. After some conversation the ooze offers its name as Glabergoul.  He seems keen to follow us and even gets excited by a fight with a grey ooze.

Farther in, after some traps and more oozees, we catch Jimjar red handed, taking some stuff out of one of the rooms, for himself.  Anton tries to subtly pick pocket him, but just manages to piss him off.  It’s only some quick intervention by Welby that Jimjar comes back round.


----------



## TallIan (Jan 21, 2019)

*Session 18 –	Stone Circles*

Trapped in the temple that is slowly filling with water.  With water breathing, there is no immediate concern, but we will have to get out at some point.  After trying some other thigs that prove futile a simple thunderwave brings the ceiling crashing down.  It also brings a deluge of water through the now, much bigger, hole in the ceiling.

We can get out now though and it is a long swim upward.  Then a long swim in a huge lake before we find a duergar raft.  Although we try a peaceful approach and buy passage on their raft, they are less willing to accept us and it turns in to a fight, that ends badly for the duergar.

We now have a raft and a chest that we can’t open.  We head back to Blingdenstone and along the way encounter a few obstacles that prove minor; some drow, dangerous rapids, an empty boat, an aquatic troll, and more of those strange ray creatures.  All easily dealt with.

Once we returned to Blingdenstone we find the flaw in our plan to retrieve the scroll.  The only person who could have cast the spell was Naomi, and she is now dead.  Welby has a chance of doing it but success or fail he’ll use up the scroll.  We decide to take the gamble and Boreal is restored to us.

Boreal has had an afterlife experience in the form of strange visions.  He’s spent most of the time in the plane of earth.  With a few things drawing him out; he saw Jimjaw chanting in front of his stone form, as though trying to cast a spell; a vision of a drow warrior listing names; a muscular barbarian being controlled as though he was a marionette; a vision of Pelor fighting a spider and a shapeless creature covered in eyes; and then a long blackness of nothing.

When we quizzed Jimjar about this he admitted that while he was stuck in The Warrens he tried to resurrect Boreal.  We are also able to identify that the monster with many eyes is Juiblex, daemon lord of slime and ooze.

With Boreal alive again, we have nothing really keeping us in the Underdark, but I am keen to try and remove the curse on the two gemstones that I have and we set off trying to find this missing stone circle.  Asking around for rumours we can only find out that the stone circles are real.  The only clue we have is the strange fake wall in the Medusa lair.  Boreal refuses to come with us though – understandably – so we only have Welby.

This time we find a secret door, concealed with strange markings that keep it hidden and locked.  We make a copy of the markings and ask around Blingdenstone again.  The Digger Mattocks offer to get some research done for us.  After two days one of the gnomes finds an old document that detaisl how to operate the door.

A Gold pick striking the right spot will open the door.  We have enough silver to get one made up and head back.  A short corridor on the other side opens into a stone circle.


----------



## TallIan (Jan 21, 2019)

*Session 19 –	The Road Out*









*OOC:*


This the last session for Jorvis and Boreal (an Welby) as the players are moving away.







Looking into the room it appears to have been picked clean by oozes, but we can’t see anything in there.  I step forward and place the spell gem with the Remove Curse spell in it.  The moment I place the gem an earth elemental emerges from the wall and attacks.  Followed shortly by a second then third.  We manage to dispatch each one easily enough, only Jorvin takes much of a beating, and as each one is dispatched a Galeb Dhur emerges from the ground and takes up a guarding position.  All three forming a circle around the altar.  

As the last Elemental falls something else emerges from the altar, something I have never seen before, but I think it is a dao.  As it appears it says, “I am here to guard this place.” And I reply, “We are here to cleanse it.” My response seems to aggravate it and it attacks, a devastating swing from the dao leaves me on the floor gasping for breath.  When I draw on my magic to teleport away from the dao I make a disturbing discovery about the faerzress, something tries to come back into this, plane with me, I am lucky this time that whatever it is cannot, but I it is something to keep in mind.

The dao proves to be a tough opponent, dealing horrific wounds to some of us, but worst of all to Jorvin, who is turned to dust by the attack.

As we fight the creature he asks why we are doing this.  I counter with the same question and he replies that he owes Ogremock a favour.  Once we dispatch the creature, she declares, “Tell Ogremoch, I am done.”

With the stone circle no longer desecrated, I am now able to cleanse the spell gem I have.  The curse is removed and I now have the ability to summon an elemental.  A powerful spell, certainly but only once for now.  I hope to master this spell from a scroll that I have found.

We return to Garnik Tapfinger, the gnome who asked us to cleanse the stone circles.  The stone circles are still not working as they are supposed to, built there are more that need to be sanctified.  He is very grateful though and offers us a blessing.

When we return to our rooms in the tavern there is a message for us to visit Chipgrin Goldwhisker, the wererat leader.  There we are reunited with Topsy and Turvy, the gnome twins that escaped the drow outpost with us, but disappeared during the escape.  They have apparently been watching over us and have overheard a gnome telling a duergar our plan to leave.  It seems likely that we will be ambushed along the road.  As thanks Eafer offers them a valuable gold bracelet.

We still decide to head back to the surface, as we have no reason to remain here, but at least we are warned.

A few days into the journey Jimjar decides that he no longer wishes to travel with us, preferring not to go to the surface.  Otherwise the week long journey proves surprisingly uneventful until the sixth day when we seem to have stumbled across the ambush.  Eafer is sure that there is a large group of humanoids ahead of us so we scout ahead.  Initially we see nothing, but then Eafer uses a Nothic eye to grant himself true seeing and we see dozens of drow, invisible on the staircase we need to take.


----------



## TallIan (Feb 28, 2019)

*Session 20/21 – Fight up the Stairs*









*OOC:*


Thanks to the wonders of technology, Boreal is able to stay with us for now.  This entry covers two sessions as it is basically just one big fight







After much planning and discussion Boreal sticks his head around the corner and announces out presence.  We’re hoping to lure many of them into a choke point where their numbers won’t count for much.

This plans quickly falls apart as we don’t retreat early enough.  Glabagool does his best to rush forward and engulf a number of drow, but he tales a few bad hits and is reduces to a pool of goo on the floor.

Things are looking bad until I spot a tight group of drow and spiders and drop a fire ball that catches them all, killing most of them and leaving the battle much more balanced.

Eafer goes down to a cloud of stinging insects but despite Boreal’s best effort to reach him, he can’t quite get there. Fortunately, I am able to transpose with him and it gets Boreal just close enough to get the ranger back on his feet and able to get out of the cloud.

Things are looking close, but positive, when we notice that there seems to be another war party of drow coming up behind us. We are forced to change our tactics to push up the staircase.  All the while getting taunts from Ilvara to surrender.

Fortunately, a well-placed puddle of grease in the corridor seriously delays the approaching drow and buys us critical time in the fight against Ilvara.  There are some tense moments but eventually she goes down.  She is the last major obstacle in front of us and we are able to make it up the staircase, outrunning the pursuing force of drow.

Coming out into the starlit night, our next issue is that we have no idea where in the world we are.









*OOC:*


This is the halfway point of the adventure and offers a month of game time to do something with.  The players have decided to stick a short adventure in - run by Eafer’s player, giving the DM a chance to play a few games.


----------

