The Seventh Session

June 16, 2018, Campaign: Wildfire

1. Luring the Duergar through the door
2. Fighting the Duergar through the door
3. Therezduun
4. Liberating Frostberg
5. Killing the Matriarch
6. Next times

(The players for Zoltar and Theren are out today; they are played tonight by Belmac's player.)

The majority of the Party is in Therezduun's room. Belmac just walked out the door, into the Underdark. He doesn't see any movement; the path that we came to the treasure room on is clear, though there are a few boulders scattered about. The door is the cap of a giant mushroom.

Marnoc tells The Party that we're gonna be ambushed; he proposes using Thaumaturgy to lure the Duergar into the room. Ship suggests using a fake holy symbol to trade with them; Marnoc says that he was planning to cast Eternal Flame on the fake holy symbol of Noidesop.

There's no real signs of where the Duergar went, according to Belmac's check.

The Spectator has gone back up his hole in the ceiling. Marnoc's insight check of 16 shows that Choloe's not really hungry. Ship's 22 lets Ship know that Chloe the Succubus isn't really of eating mind for any of our Party, what she would want is the sort of someone who is alone and depressed and of personal use to the succubus, to steal their soul. Like Marnoc. Theren reads the surface thoughts of Chloe using his newly-gained Mask of Shadows. Her initial thoughts are of freedom; we made a deal with her to have her lead us out of the Underdark. She has no intention to kill any of us.

Belmac comes back in, sits down, and says that we should do a short rest. We do so.

Marnoc heals the party for 14 hp apiece, then retrieves the scimitar from the other room and attempts to carve some symbols into the scimitar. It's not great, but at a distance it might serve to look like a thing.

Marnoc describes his plan, addressing Chloe: "You want some revenge on the people who locked you up here?" "I guess." "I think we might be able to lure one or two in here and mulch them good. The plan would be for me to go out there, yell at them to get them come in, tell them the prophecy is a lie, it's just a treasury full of naked women. And if that doesn't work; we give them counterfeit things saying that's what we found."

Our short rest complete; the party hides in the corners of the Spectator's room; the plan is in place.

Luring the Duergar through the door

Marnoc exits the room; shouts with magically-amplified voice, "Hey, assholes, we found some artifacts, you want to check them out?" The word "Asshole" echoes with magical amplification.

Eventually a Duergar pops up, asks whether we want to parlay. Belmac offers him the Sword of Ten Thousand Truths. The Duergar is not impressed. "This looks like you carved it yourself."

"Well, would you like to see the other treasures?" Around the corner, come "yeah, yeah" from Ship and Belmac. Marnoc carries on: "The thing here is that this is a treasure pantry full of riches and naked women," and he fails the deception/persuasion check with disadvantage.

Chloe walks out the door, done up like a Drow, wraps her arms around Marnoc, and coos at the Duergar. The Duergar thinks she's an illusion. Fuckit, says Marnoc, and grabs the Duergar and tries to pull him through the door, with Chloe's assistance, but fails. The Duergar shouts for help.

Fighting the Duergar through the door

Chloe and Marnoc are outside the door; everyone else is inside in Therezduun's room. There is one Duergar with Chloe and Marnoc, here named Duergar #6, and five more scattered throughout the cavern.

1. Round 1
   1. Ship shoots Duergar #6 for 12 damage, grazes his skull and knocks him out a bit.
   2. Duergar #1 moves all the way up and attack Chloe; she dodges his war pick gracefully
   3. Duergar #2 moves up
   4. Theren moves to a clear view of Duergar #6 and Eldritch Blasts him, leaving a scorch mark on his scale mail.
   5. Marnoc swings at #6 with his warhammer and gets #6 quite hurt.
   6. Duergar #5 moves to Marnoc's left side, and attacks with his war pick, doing 9 piercing damage.
   7. Zoltar casts Magic Missile on Duergar #1 and does 10 force damage
   8. Belmac uses his longbow to shoot at Duergar #5, doesn't quite hit.
   9. Duergar #3 moves up next to Marnoc and warhammers him for another another 6 damage. (Belmac thinks about casting a spell, but calls it off; Chloe goes WTF. He had almost forgot about her, and then decided he didn't want to harm her with his spell.)
   10. Duergar #4 moves up close to Chloe.
   11. The Bear stands around.
   12. Chloe looks at Duergar #1 and asks it, "Oh, why are you attacking me and my friends?" He fails the Charisma saving throw very very badly, and goes to embrace her. He takes a Constitution saving throw, fails it, she kisses him. Black magic erupts from her face and he takes 5d10 = 26 damage; he is drained into a skeleton, falls into the ground, and his bones crumble to dust. "Holy fucking shit" says Marnoc. Chloe writhes in fun; she moves away from Marnoc and #6 makes an attack of opportunity that deflects off her arm.
   13. A dart appears from nowhere and hits Duergar #6 in the neck, for a shitton of damage (16). There's a low-level rogue in the area. Duergar #6 dies of foaming neck problems.
2. Round 2
   1. Ship casts Ensnaring Strike, shoots at #2, but the arrow deflects off his armor.
   2. Duergar #2 attacks Chloe in a panic, but misses.
   3. Theren Eldritch Blasts #5, singes his armor but doesn't succeed.
   4. Marnoc swings at #3 with his warhammer, because #3 looks slightly damaged, and #3 deflects. He moves away from the door a little.
   5. Duergar #5 magically enlarges, taking up 4x as much space, pushing #3 out of the way.
   6. Zoltar Firebolts #2 for 5 damage. His beard burns off, exposing his weak chin. Marnoc laughs at him; #2 will have a disadvantage on his next attack.
   7. Belmac moves forward to attack the enlarged duergar #5 with his Bear Hands, and lands 18 damage. #5 is visibly damaged; Belmac Action Surges and does 8 more damage and 6 more damage, pulling our #5's overly enlarged heart. It shrinks in his hand, and #5 dies. And then Belmac moves over to #3 and tries to intimidate #3. #3 pisses himself. As the Dwarf/Duergar feud has gone on for ages, Belmac relishes the opportunity to do fight a Duergar.
   8. #3 flees; Belmac and Marnoc make opportunity attacks. Belmac's does 12 and severs #3's spine. Marnoc is mildly frustrated by not being able to ejaculate magical electricity over everybody.
   9. #4 tries to attack Chloe, hits for 1 damage. He gets the Loony Tunes reverb effect.
   10. The Bear moves up next to Ship and snuffles.
   11. Another dart sprouts from the armor of #2, but gets caught in the chain mail and doesn't actually hit him. Belmac's perception check doesn't see the source of the darts.
   12. Chloe turns to #4 and says, "Oh, your friend loved me for the rest of his life." He is charmed, but passes the kiss's Constitution save, and only takes half the 5d10 = 30 damage. He disentegrates as well.
3. Round 3.
   1. Ship shoots #2 for 8 damage.
   2. #2 tries to run; Chloe tries to grab him but doesn't succeed.
   3. Theren's done.
   4. Marnoc, once again, shouts, "Hey, Asshole!" and follows it with "Who shot the dart? Who are you?" There's no response yet.
   5. Zoltar holds her turn.
   6. Belmac chases the fleeing Duergar #2 and tackles him. He shouts, "Are you fucking sorry?"

The mysterious dart-wielding figure is a tiny gnome; greyish-purply in the face, with a little blowdart. It is a Sverfneblin! She's peering over to make sure that all of the Duergar are taken care of.

Belmac drags the Duergar back into the room and presents it to Therezduun's hole, asks if Therezduun wants a new friend. "A new friend?" "It's a bastard; do you want to eat him?" "It is a bastard! Therezduun will accept." Therezduun shoots a ray out of one of his eyes, and the bastard Duergar takes 3d10=18 damage and scrunches down to a withered skeleton. Therezduun remarks that he enjoyed the creature's life force, and then goes up the hole.

Theren said that we should kill Therezduun.

The Sverfneblin says, "Hi there, I saw you in the town, in the chain gang, and this doesn't look like you would normally be down here." Theren explains how we were abducted and forced to do this. "Oh I hate those Duergar, they took my parents away and now I have to live with the village elder. But I run around, and I'm really sneaky-like."

"What's your name," asks Marnoc.

"Aeli," replies the level 2 Svirfneblin rogue.

"Aeli, I think that you and your Sverfneblin brethren should own your mines." (Marnoc's player has been agitating for us to start a communist uprising in the Underdark.)

She asks us to stay around and help out, with huge eyes.

Belmac asks, "Does it involve killing Duergar?"

"Yes," replies Aeli, "but if you really want money and a little bit of revenge, there's somebody the Duergar call the Matriarch, who the Duergar work for. Maybe if we were to get rid of her, all the problems would go away."

The conversation devolves into sassy ripping of communism, bug farming, and collectivist politics. And while he's divvying up treasure, Belmac gives each player character 20 platinum and gives Aeli 60 gold. Her eyes grow huge.

We're a long way from Frostberg; Belmac drags the bodies of the Duergar into Therezduun's room, cuts their beards off, burns them outside.

Ship tries to armor the bear with Duergar armor, but it doesn't work. THe bear understands armor but can't really move without the jury-rigged stuff falling off.

We talk about what to do with Chloe; she says she wants to go up to the Overworld. Chloe doesn't want to come with us to address the Matriarch; eventually Marnoc decides to let Chloe out of the contract. She walks off into the Underdark. (Many players think she should come back as a repeating NPC.)

We take a long rest in Therezduun's room, but Theren is still adamant about destroying Therezduun.

We prepare all our actions; ask Aeli to work with us on this thing. We eventually agree to give her an equal cut of future shares. We talk about things and party goals; Aeli says that they have lots of gems, and pull out a fist-sized uncut emerald. It's really good, according to Belmac; she says there are more of them.

But now it is time to kill Therezduun.

Therezduun

Marnoc shouts up to Therezduun, and he pops down from the ceiling.

1. Surprise round of bullshit
   • Zoltar casts MAgic Missile for 10
   • Theren casts Eldritch Blast for 7
   • Belmac with the longbow for 6
   • Aeli's dart goes wide
   • Marnoc casts Sacred Flame
   • Ship hits with a lightning arrow and Hail of Thorns for 12
2. Round 1
   1. Belmac shoots Therezduun with the arrow; killing him.

Therezduun is a green creature with eyeballs and a tongue. Ship wants to butcher the remains and carry them in Marnoc's bag of holding; Marnoc objects.

We take a long rest in Chloe's quarters. Aeli runs around because she's a kid; the Bear plays with her. The next morning, Aeli grabs some bugs and roasts them, but they're uncomfortable to eat. We enjoy the bugs as best as we can.

Aeli says, "Maybe there's something you should know about the Matriarch. The Duergar take all our gems for her. The Sverfneblin couldn't take on 12 Duergar and there are 40 of us. And the Duergar are scared of her. But no one ever comes back after seeing her, except the Duergar captain. She has a ruined fortress — it's awful scary — and the only thing that we know about it is that there's lots of statues down there." Ship asks if she turns people into statues. "The statues are mostly scared people, and most of the shiny reflective things are broken or removed." Chloe's room has a mirror.

We tie the mirror to the back of the bear.

Aeli says, "but then I can't ride on the bear!"

So Belmac pulls the mirror off of the Bear and carries it himself, so that Aeli can ride the bear.

Aeli leads us back on the road. As we're walking past a stream, Aeli points out paralysis mushrooms living in the stream, which she uses for her darts. Belmac converts his 16 arrows into paralysis arrows. So does Ship with 30 arrows. Belmac scoops up 12 mushrooms from the water. The arrows are DC 8 poison arrows of 1 round paralysis.

We continue traveling; Aeli continues pointing out tasty/not-tasty bugs and shrooms.

As we get nearer to Frostberg, she takes us off the road from Frostburg, points out the delapidated castle. We decide to go to Frostberg and liberate it.

Liberating Frostberg

Belmac and Marnoc put the mirror down in a safe area.

Aeli tells us about the guard patterns of the Duergar: normally there's only one at the gates. Aeli and Ship sneak up to near the gates. 120 feet away, the rest of the party prepares their ranged attacks.

Ship shoots and misses; Aeli darts the Duergar and the Duergar isn't paralyzed but does take a lot of damage. Belmac shoots the Duergar with a poison arrow that Marnoc cast Light on; the downed Duergar is lit up like a Christmas tree but also poisoned and paralyzed and dead, and still lit up.

In the city, the Duergar hear the crash of their collapsing guard.

1. Round 1
   1. Ship casts Hail of Thorns and readies an arrow to fire when two or more Duergar come through the door.
   2. Duergar #4 moves within the town to closer to the door.
   3. Duergar #6, same.
   4. Duergar #3, same.
   5. Duergar #2, same.
   6. Zoltar casts Shatter through the gate at the cluster of Duergar; one passes taking half, every other takes 19 damage. There's a cataclysmic boom.
   7. The Bear move sup next to Ship.
   8. Marnoc moves up to by the bear and sits with the Bear, with a stern expression on ihs face.
   9. Theren does 11 to #3, who falls.
   10. Belmac moves forward 25 feet, shoots at the Duergar but misses.
   11. Aeli moves forward, behind a boulder, and darts #4 for a little damage, and then hides behind the boulder. Ship's 18 Perception check can't see Aeli; it's like she's invisible or something.
   12. #5, the Duergar leader, runs up and enlarges. He orders his subordinates to advance.
2. Round 2
   1. Ship's Hail of Thorns stil being active, they shoot #5 for 9 magical piercing plus 7 thorns. #4 dies because of the thorns.
   2. Duergar #2 moves up to within range of Zoltar.
   3. Duergar #3 moves up to within range of Zoltar.
   4. Zoltar disengages.
   5. The bear moves up next to #6 and critically misses.
   6. Marnoc moves to in front of #2 and swings, misses.
   7. Theren Eldritch Blasts #2, misses.
   8. Belmac shoots #6, misses.
   9. Aeli darts #2, and since the target is within range of a friend, it does additional damage as a sneak attack and kills #2. She vanishes again; she's got a +7 to stealth as a level 2 rogue.
   10. #5 moves up 50 feet, putting him about 10 feet in front of Theren.
3. Round 3
   1. Ship shoots #5 for 8 damage and then moves 30 feet out of the way.
   2. #6 attacks Marnoc, and misses, but Marnoc uses Wrath of the Storm in response, dealing 8 damage. #6 is looking kinda thin now.
   3. Zoltar firebolts #6 for 6 damage.
   4. Bear mauls #6 but misses.
   5. Marnoc takes a mighty swing at #5, and misses.
   6. Theren greatswords #5, but barely misses.
   7. Belmac moves up and attacks #6, killing him. He moves forward and Action Surges, attacking #5 for a total of yikes.
   8. Aeli shoots #5 in the back of the neck with a critical miss.
   9. #5 warpicks Marnoc but misses when Marnoc screams and ducks.
4. Round 3.
   1. Ship misses #5.
   2. Zoltar misses.
   3. Bear misses.
   4. Marnoc casts **Go Fuck Yourself** hits #5 with his hammer for 3 damage, killing #5. The dead Duergar strinks back to normal size.

Belmac unzips his splint mail and pisses on the Duergar. Aeli thanks us for our help cleaning up the Duergar; we take a short rest and unshackle all the Sverfneblin. Marnoc is a communist and equalist agitator. We ask around for mirrors and useful things; they provide us with bugs. Belmac chows down. Marnoc makes a terrible joke about the lesser of two weevils.

Killing the Matriarch

Aeli leads the way. Belmac retrieves the mirror.

The fortress is old Drow architecture, maybe 400-500 years old. Ship with a 13 doesn't see any tracks of it outside, but there are statues that have been moved from their original place. Ship has an advantage at fighting monstrosities like the Medusa. They have weapons other than their petrifying gaze. The curse isn't immediate upon seeing her eyes, there's a chance to be immediately petrified, but there's also a chance of slow petrification with chance to save. Greater Restoration, the 5th-level spell, will fix the person.

Belmac holds the mirror up and walks into the fortress.

We walk into the fortress; it has a central courtyard with the Medusa, who sees herself in the mirror. She yells at us; complaining that we brought this horrid thing into her domain. She shoots at the mirror with her longbow and misses.

1. Round 1
   1. Ship averts their gaze, gaining disadvantage on attack, fails to hit. The Medusa has 15 natural armor.
   2. Theren averts gaze, misses with Eldritch Blast.
   3. Zoltar casts Magic Missile, that auto-hit spell, for 11 damage
   4. Belmac, holding the mirror, moves forward 5 feet, puts the mirror down, fires his bow, misses, and picks the mirror back up.
   5. The Bear advances, but stays behind a statue.
   6. The Medusa shoots at the mirror, hits, does 3 damage to the mirror, so it's cracked but still functional. She looked at the mirror when firing, and now her joints lock up. She's slowly being paralyzed by her own curse.
   7. Aeli darts without looking, misses.
   8. Marnoc casts Shatter, the Medusa takes half damage for 5 total. Then he moves into the courtyard.
2. Round 2
   1. Ship misses again.
   2. Theren misses with Eldritch Blast.
   3. Zoltar misses.
   4. Belmac does the rigmarole with an arrow and the mirror, misses.
   5. The bear moves close to the Medusa, and attacks without looking closely, does 7 slashing.
   6. The Medusa now qualifies as "restrained". She makes a disadvantaged attack at the bear with her shortsword, doing 1d6+2=6 damage to the bear. She succeeds her saving throw, and the effect passes. She is no longer affected.
   7. Aeli makes another blind shot.
   8. Marnoc casts Thaumaturgy to mimic a bunch of Svirfneblin shouting "Now!" behind her. Her gaze is now averted, until her next turn. Marnoc approaches her.
3. Round 3
   1. Ship shoots with a paralysis arrow; the Medusa shrugs off the poison but takes 7 piercing.
   2. Theren's Eldritch Blast misses.
   3. Zoltar's firebolt hits, for 2 damage.
   4. Belmac advances to within 10 feet, drops the mirror, does a lunging attack with the Battlemaster superiority die, total 9 damage, Action Surges, does it again for 15 more, leaving the mirror behind. The mirror shatters, with one decently-sized piece.
   5. The bear tries to tackle the Medusa to the ground and succeeds in grappling her. Her movement is restrained. She can't look at the door where people came in.
   6. Medusa turns to look at people again; her snake hair bites at the bear, the bear is now at 4/24 HP.
   7. Aeli shoots normally, still fucks it up.
   8. Marnoc casts Bless on Ship, Belmac, and Theren, for +1d4 to attack rolls.
4. Round 4
   1. Ship shoots with a poison arrow, she shrugs off the poison but takes 8 damage.
   2. Theren hits with Eldritch Blast for 10.
   3. Zoltar critical fails with the Firebolt.
   4. Belmac attacks and does some damage.
   5. The Bear continues the grapple, bites the Medusa for 3.
   6. The Medusa bites Belmac, for 20 but parried to reduce the damage by 8 and he's resistant to poison, so halve the damage to 6.
   7. Aeli nat 20's the Medusa for double damage, for 18 damage plus 3 dex for 21 damage for the little blowdart that could. The Medusa passes the saving throw.
   8. Marnoc does Guiding Bolt for 13 damage.
5. Round 5
   1. Ship hits for 5.
   2. Theren misses with Eldritch Blast
   3. Zoltar hits with Firebolt for 4.
   4. Belmac attacks normally, pops its head like a gore balloon.

Marnoc declares the fortress to be Neblingrad. The longbow and shortsword of the Medusa are not magical, and Belmac takes the 8 arrows. On the far side of the courtyard is a throne with two magical scrolls and one glowing potion, and a massive pile of uncut precious and semiprecious gems.

Belmac insight checks the pile to guess at the worth of the pile; it's more than 500gp. Ship's investigation reveals it's more than 1000gp. Zoltar's fine eye for uncut gems knows that the horde is worth 1200gp, weighting 40-50 pounds of rock. Theren tastes the potion; it's a misty potion of invisibility. Theren investigates the scrolls and determines that they're divine in nature. They're both scrolls of greater restoration. Marnoc pockets them.

Aeli peeks over Marnoc's shoulder, demands her cut, gains 200gp worth of the gems.

Belmac then asks, "I believe there was an offer of payment for helping take care of your problem."

Aeli points at the gem pile.

Belmac sighs. "I just want one gem that isn't (points at the pile) this. I want one of the emeralds that she has." He wants Svirfneblin help to mine a big hidden gem, which Aeli has said there are lots of in the area.

Aeli hands him her giant emerald, worth about 50 gp.

The party goes on to discuss other things, Aeli runs across a pair of petrified sverfneblin and stops to stare at them. Marnoc notices, and asks if they're her parents.

"Yeah," says Aeli. "It's been a while since I saw them."

"Well, you can look at them every day now!"

"Mm, yeah, can you bring me somewhere that isn't here?"

Belmac responds, "I need to warn you, if you're anything like the Duergar, you'll probably be in pain form sunlight."

"But it's painful to be down here, too."

"Tell you what. You'll come with us to Kingalore and I'll introduce you to my cousin Brarhead, who runs a bar, and it's a place. I'm not sure how he feels about gnomes, but as long as you're not an elf or a Duergar or a human, you're fine."

So we return to Frostberg; Aeli rides on the bear again. Belmac fumbles his speech but announces that the Matriarch is dead. "The mines belong to you, the people!" says Marnoc. "You are free, the town is yours!" proclaims.

Next times

We gotta go back up to Kingalore, since the town is probably run over by zombies or something. It might be on fire. And Belmac promised Aeli a job with Brarhead.

Ship's player needs to make a character sheet for the bear.

The party will level up at the start of the next session.