The Expedition will, tomorrow morning, depart Leen for the Lost City of Storm's Eye.
The scouts under Rover Imbros scout ahead, scavenge meals, and check for things to be scrounged. They look for markers left behind by the Rover. Jerry is part of this, and more-or-less rolls for the whole expedition.
The flank is the muscle and meat-shield of the expedition, led by Blademaster Talsom.
Command is led by Racer Dirius. Ryltar sees Osril and two other attendants.
The support group is full of folks with various specialties, like builders, diggers, cooks and healers. Ocko the fast-food man, Bugfood, Vicar and Zelrathi are part of this section. Bugfood considers Wildshaping into a pack mule, but doesn't.
Commander Zarada T'Haat dismisses the assembly.
Bugfood finishes another scroll of Goodberry, working late into the night, and is a little more weary in the morning.
Day One
The expedition breaks camp. The caravan is set up to go, and we take our horses and join it. We ride our horses, but most of the Drow are either on foot or riding on carriages. The Dwarves, Goliaths, Half-orcs and so on give us a little stink-eye for that.
To the East does the group travel.
Around noon, the single-file caravan diverts around a section of grassland, which has concentric rings of flowers and mushrooms, with a sunflower in the center. It's bad luck to interfere with a flower circle, and even the Drow who grew up underground know not to interfere with it.
That evening, the expedition set up camp in the middle of the field. Tents are set up. Some of the scouts return with rabbits and birds, which are given to Ockoh to cook. He's able to provide food for the ~60 people here. One big firepit for the whole camp, with Command arrayed in semicircles.
Ocko's cart is cart and grill all in one: he roasts the whole cart over the fire. Today, we get mediocre oosah. Salris Prestidigitates the meat to taste better.
An Ockoh's Oosah poster made by David.
Vicar helps with the fire, using a fire spell.
Zelrathi, disgusted by the mediocre fare, plants some tomatoes in a mug, and Druidcrafts it into a sprout. Bugfood looks at Zelrathi as if he were an amateur, and Plant Growths the plant into a full-grown tomato bush with 13 tomatoes, and some more budding. Zelrathi prepares some tomatoes for food.
Captain Zarada T'Haat goes around looking for volunteers for watches. Zelrathi volunteers for all of the watches; Ryltar volunteers for two.
The first watch of the night goes quietly, passing without incident noticed by Bugfood or Zelrathi.
The second watch, neither Zelrathi or Ryltar were observant. The watch passes.
Towards the end of the third watch, Zelrathi and Ryltar notice a dark movement within the camp. Zelrathi casts Dancing Lights near where he thought he saw the movement. He sees a distorted creature with long arms and spindly head as it darts behind a tent. Ryltar recognizes it as something he once saw in in Kobold cave. It's larger than a badger, smaller than a giant weasel: it's a boggle!
Ryltar remarks that the boggle is probably stealing things, but since it's not stealing the stuff of any Party members, he doesn't care. He'd previously talked about how it was his intent to sabotage the expedition.
The boggle is coated in black ooze, which Ryltar tells Zelrathi is sticky or slippery at the boggle's choice. Is it flammable? They never figured it out.
Bugfood's dreamless sleep is interrupted by a tapping at his forehead. Bugfood says, "nah". "Bugfood," says the boggle. It's Grat, the boggle that we met in the Kobold's cave.
Bugfood gives Grat one of the beans, and tells him to have fun with it. Grat says he will.
The rest of the night passes without incident.
Day Two
Bugfood sees a new, big tree off in the distance. He grabs Vurguron and Jerry to go examine the new tree, just at the same time that the expedition wakes up to find themselves stuck in the boggle's oil.
The tree is an apple tree, with white apples.
Bugfood takes a bite from one apple. The apple rots away, and what's left burns as he swallows it. His strength becomes 25 for the next hour, and his veins bulge red, as if he drank a potion of Fire Giant Strength. He bends the tree over, and Jerry and Vurguron harvest 25 apples.
Jerry sets aside 4 apples for the expedition leaders, and pockets the seven magical apples and thirteen nonmagical apples.
Jerry, Bugfood, and Vurguron return to the camp, where people are mad about the poor watch that was kept. Bugfood demonstrates his strength to help get people out of the ooze.
Then we continue on the expedition.
Bugfood, walking in the back of the group, sees a black dome parting the grass behind the group: Grat is following. Zelrathi offers to kill him, but the Party is opposed.
By evening, we arrive at an already-set-up campsite, with 10-15 people already there, and crates and tents of supplies. The caravan unloads stuff into this campsite: crates, equipment, bundles of furs.
Captain Zarada talks to some of the waiting Drow. Vurguron, Jerry, and Bugfood notice a black figure walking around the side of tents. Bugfood asks Jerry for an apple, and Jerry gives him a non-magical apple. Bugfood thinks the figure is Grat.
Bugfood approaches, and discovers that the figure is a female half-orc. He tosses the apple to her, saying, "It's an apple!" and then walks away, whistling aimlessly. The half-orc follows him for a bit.
Zarada seems to be walking directly through the camp to the far side of the tents, opposite where the group arrived from.
Zelrathi asks Bugfood what he did; Bugfood asks Jerry for an apple and Jerry hands him one of the plain apples. He eats it.
That night, most of the group gathers on the far side of the camp, next to a big rocky hole in the ground, curving down a bit and then dropping into open darkness. There are already ropes set up to throw down the next morning.
Captain Zarada tells the expedition that tomorrow, we will enter the cave system, for the Eye of the Storm is thought to be in the Underdark. Ryltar was surprised to hear it. Racer Dirius tells him that new light had been shed upon the situation, and Dirius wanted to act upon it as soon as possible.
Dinner is more oosah, this time somewhat better. Leathery but tasty.
Salris attunes to the Ring of the Arcamag.
That night's watches:
Bugfood sees Grat, who approaches and asks for another bean. Bugfood gives him one, and he runs off away from the campsite.
Zelrathi and Salris notice a bright blue bonfire, a hundred yards away from the camp. Zelrathi blames the boggle. Other people on watch see it, too, and wander off to it. Ryltar and Zelrathi go to visit it, following the other groups. There's an anthill of earth, with a blue flame billowing out from it. Zelrathi Detects Magic and sees transmutation, which he tells the assembled people. The Drow kick flame on it, and it sputters and dies out. They go back to the campsite, hearing a little boggle laugh in the distance.
Zelrathi chats up Ryltar, asking him about the fortuneteller. Zelrathi tells him that the fortuneteller told Zelrathi that he needs to go to "the mountain covered in shadow, down down, where he hides his shame." Is there a mountain in the Underdark that fits that description? Ryltar says it fits the description of something that might be in the Underdark, but Ryltar (with a 2 and a 2) he has a massive brain fart and doesn't remember the relevant mountain. Zelrathi doesn't know who "he" is.
The night passes.
Day Three: Into the Underdark
We awaken to a familiar Drow woman talking to us. It's Glynnii, who introduced us to the expedition. She's heading back to Leen, leaving the expedition, and asks us what we plan for our horses. We discuss setting them free, as Bugfood suggests, or making them into oosah, as Zelrathi suggests, or selling them to Glynnii.
Bugfood casts Speak with Animals as a ritual, and talks to the horses, complimenting them on their teamwork, and asks them to circle back to this area in 70ish days.
"What will we do until then?" asks the horses.
"Just horsecraft. We'll put you in someone's care, so just make sure you get back here in 70 days. When the days are at their longest, return to this hole." The horses agree, and Bugfood tells the Party that the horses can be sold now.
"What did you tell them," asks Jerry.
"I complimented them on their horsiness."
So we sell them to Glynnii, making 60 gold apiece.
The expedition leaders have gone down into the caves, and now the rest of the expedition is lowered down into the caves.
Only what can be carried on a person goes down into the caves. Ocko's cart is lowered down, and will be helped by Vicar.
Osril and Racer Dirius are reading books, preparing stuff.
Rover Imbros tells her scouts about the stepwise pattern they'll be using to advance, taking 2-minute jogs in front of the expedition and then waiting for the expedition to catch up before running ahead.
The whip-wielding Drow, called "Driver", is stalking around all antsy-like.
The Blademaster splits the flanks into two groups, one ahead and one behind.
The expedition proceeds into the cave, climbing over boulders and hauling the heavy equipment. There are distant squeaks, which as the day progresses become louder and more. A whole cauldron of bats covers the ceiling.
Zelrathi offers to kill all the bats. Bugfood says not to kill them all.
Zelrathi thinks the bats might be a vampire. Bugfood sees a movement among the ceiling, where one larger-than-the-rest black shape is flying straight through the swarm in the direction we're going, and immediately calls on Zelrathi to burn the whole swarm of bats.
Zelrathi doesn't have area-of-effect spells.
Bugfood casts Moon Beam on the creature. The air is filled with dim light, and the figure disappears. Outright vanishes into the movement of the swarm. Half of the bats die and fall from the sky; the rest scatter to hide. Ocko picks up the bats to use for meat.
Bugfood says to the room, "I think I got it."
We continue going.
Jerry's natural 25 Survival check reflects her comfort with doing this sort of scouting.
Eventually people get tired, and we run across a hospitable section of cave, where we set up camp for the night. The camp's races mostly go off on their own.
Bugfood and Zelrathi take the first watch. There are uneventful bat squeaks.
Day Four: Pyro Jerry vs. the Spiders
With a 24, Jerry's scouting runs into a natural tunnel winding off into a solid grayish-white wall. It's a spidersilk wall, bowing into the cavern we're in. Jerry passes the word back to the expedition leaders.
Racer Dirius comes up, inspects the wall, and then Conjures Animal for two giant spiders. She controls them to burrow into the spidersilk, and the web gives way. She waits for the spiders to return, and dispells them, saying that the way is clear.
Rover Imbros is first through, and tells everyone to follow.
We enter into a sunlit space. A massive ravine, the underside covered in spider webs, with no spiders to be seen. Jerry thinks this is the same ravine; she tells the expedition leaders to be wary for thousands of spiders.
We see Racer Dirius ask two of her attendants, who casts Fly to go up and peer around. They return to say that this could be another exit if none other is found.
We want to continue along this tunnel; Jerry tosses a thing of oil and a lit torch across the ravine to burn away the spider webs covering the far wall.
The fire spreads, and spreads, and spreads, one five-foot cube at at time.
The expedition backs out of the ravine into the tunnel while the fire burns away from the entrance.
When the fire has gone far enough away, we see our tunnel on the far side. And coming out from under the ash are a few spiders.
So the expedition hurries across the bottom of the ravine, while the flankers set up to defend against the eight approaching spiders.
Round 1
One spider webs the man beside Vurguron.
One spider stabs Vurguron for 4 piercing and 5 poison.
Salris holds his ground, casting Hexblade's Curse on the nearest spider for 3 damage, and then casts Shatter on the three nearest spiders. They're large creatures. He kills the cursed one, and damages the other two.
Other flankers kill the remaining shattered spider, and wound the remaining two.
Vurguron kills one.
Round
Salris slices the last one on his side, then at melee range casts Eldritch Blast to kill it.
Spiders on the other side do some damage to the flankers.
Zelrathi, who's in the command group and happens to be running through at this time, casts a Quickened Guiding Bolt to burn one spider to a crisp and a cantrip to do a lot of damage to another spider.
Round 3
Salris slashes the remaining spider, killing it.
The group continues running through; no one picks up the spider-meat for food.
One Drow of the flankers died; the expedition lays the Drow to rest. Vurguron makes religious noises. Salris says, "Lolth guide you." Dirius leads Lolthian last rites with another Drow.
And then we continue onwards. After two hours, we come to a stopping point and set up camp.
There are hushed tones in camp that night. One of the dwarves smuggled ale in.
Zarada and her lieutenants have a heated conversation in Undercommon, which Zelrathi and Ryltar know and eavesdrop on. Zarada takes it upon herself to say, "It is not your choice to lead. Take your place. You may show us the place to go, but I make the decisions. Dirius, we shall see."
Then they have a normal conversation about logistics.
The oosah tonight has a stringy texture: it's bat!
Jerry notices that the organ meat is beginning to ripen. Jerry asks Ocko if he has a need for the bags of stinky organ meat. Ocko loves the idea of free meat, and says he will cut around the rot. Jerry decides that it's better for Ryltar to freeze the meat sacks and bury them.
The watches that night are uneventful.
Day Five (cave day 2)
A couple hours into the travel, the tunnel is once more cut by a ravine. The ravine floor is a long ways down, in the darkness. We wait for the expedition to catch up.
With rope and pitons and the caster who can cast Fly we make a rope bridge to ferry people across, and with ropes and so on we haul across the cart with a bosun's chair arrangement. Also the Rover can walk across on the ceiling, and Salris helps with Misty Step. By the power of ropes, we move the expedition across.
The cave curves to the right slightly, and the scouts start to hear rushing water. We come across a stream.
Do we go upstream or downstream? Dirius consults her books, cross-references them with other books, and declares: downstream.
Ryltar recognizes the book. It has a distinctive leather binding and embroidery. Ryltar has seen this book a lot. He's seen lots of this book. It's one of his mentor's books, his mentor's published book: one of the biggest collections of the Time Before the Divergence. And Ryltar has a page from that book.
We follow the river's course for a while, and eventually Captain Zarada orders the camp to set up for the night. Zarada and Dirius confer in their tents about the path. Dirius says, "It's not like I can read this language. This takes time."
It turns out that Vurguron and Osril are the only folks in the expedition who don't have dark vision.
Days 6-8 (cave days 3-5)
Nothing happens for the next three days.
Day 11 (cave day 8)
The scouts come across a fallen body: a long-dead skeleton of a humanoid, slumped over with tattered, dust-covered robes. There's magic on the body, says Zelrathi's Detect Magic. Driver has a necromantic bone whip. Imbros' boots are transmutation. Racer Dirius has a transmutation rod on her hip and a bag of conjuration. There's a conjuration item in a chest pocket of Racer as well. Quartermistress Briza has a conjuration item as well. And the skeleton-corpse has an orb on the body of the same sort of magic as Druidcraft. He also sees a hint of illusion among the expedition's crowd.
He picks up the orb. It's a grapefruit-sized orb with a bump and a graven line. He takes it over to Bugfood and asks what it is. Bugfood takes it, and identifies it as an Orb of Direction. It points north.
He gives it to Jerry.
Three days pass without incident.
Day 14 (cave day 11)
Foraging for food is turning up fewer edible mushrooms and plants. The river is empty of produce.
The half-orc that Bugfood flirted with goes freely into the command tent, and speaks often with Racer Dirius and Captain Zarada.
Day 16 (cave day 13): The Lava Field
The cave gets warmer; ambient humidity increases. Mushrooms are quite common now.
We go around a bend to see a larger cavern, where a ceiling fissure drips hot magma into a pool.
It's uncomfortably hot here.
There are river deltas of hot streams of lava.
The river is in a cave above this, so we retreat everyone into the river cave, and then dredge a trench to redirect the river into the lava lake. We also discuss redirecting the lava, casting various spells.
Zarada orders the dredging of the channel for water and eventual flooding of the lava channels.
On the first day, Ryltar uses Ray of Frost to successfully keep people cool.
On the second day, Bugfood Wildshapes into a Giant Badger to help with the digging, and is mildly useful.
Vurguron's crafty rolling of large boulders helps redirect the lava quite a bit.
Zelrathi does healing for the people who get hurt during work, and he keeps spirits high.
Jerry's initial planning requires much revision, but between the might of the various races, we do eke out a success.
Day 20 (cave day 18): Past the Lava Field
Through force and skill, we succeed in redirecting the river into the lava field. It is a hard-fought victory, and not a total success. "Eked out" might be a better way to describe our success.
Walking in the water, we cross the lava flow.
Loot and next steps
25 white apples, 7 magical: 4 nonmagical given to crew leaders by Jerry, two spent on Bugfood. 7 nonmagical remain, and 7 magical remain. 10 days remain on them
