Session 9: Undermine the Underdark Report

General Summary

Last we left off, the group found themselves on a path to awaken Arachnorok the spider god to fight against the mind flayers. Velstryn praised the group for them rescuing him and went off to assist the priestess in making battle plans for what was to come. While the group was preparing to return to their home, Lucid noticed a figure watching them from off in the distance. Both him and Smithy moved forward to investigate only to find that it was Dot without ears and with the scars on him. Smithy divine sensed the intentions of this new dot and realized that it was not real as their was too much evil in his heart; however, Lucid wasn't convinced and the scarred dot moved into the shadows. Later on Ignor realized that Lucid had been effected by multiple modify memory spells due to his arcane knowledge and consulted him on this. They made plans for when they awakened to resolve the bug bear's forgotten memories. As the group laid down for rest after this, Smithy decided that he was going to attune to the malignant war pick that they had been carrying, hoping that its power would give him even more strength to stop the evil surrounding them. As he attuned to it, a visage of Talona the goddess of disease and poison appeared before him, branded his chest with the three tear drops of her symbol, and smithy passed out. Awakening that morning, smithy returned back while Volli removed the curse of the modify memory against Lucid and memories flooded back in. He came to realize that he was the son of one of the merchant lords of the city of Adis from the other continent. He had been kidnapped by the hat, but his father had perished before the ransom could be paid. He was even trained in the art of thievery and assassination and eventually was tricked into killing his older brother. He remembers seeing his mother bend the knee to the Hat for his safety and he even heard his true name Ralk rather than the name that the hat brought into being for him. He even remembered the sight of a purple goddess in the dark showing him affection as a baby as if she knew there was something different about his destiny. All this flooded back into his mind and soon after the group began to move through the underdark.    Their first encounter was a slave trader there holding some hollowed myconids that smithy was able to intimidate into selling for only 20 gold. They encountered bulettes and their favorite terrain...lava as well as a baslisk. While traveling, the group had various discussions...one of which was with Ignor about the drow headmaster Drarlodh who the drow had thought were dead. it would seem that he traded his people out for power and revenge was in order. Soon after this, they found themselves at a lake, where they were able to distract a large creature under the water by shooting down a small drake and were able to make it across without any issue. Eventually they found themselves in a room of crystals, where they had to solve the riddles of the spiders, reflecting light against plaques before the door opened. Inside, they came face-to-face with the guardian of Arachnorok...a drider. The battle was intense and Velstryn was able to keep random spiders at bay from attacking the group while they finished off the drider. After this, Arachnorok was awakened. A giant spider large enough for the group to ride on rose around them as cave walls crumbled before them and they loaded up and began moving back towards the drow village. Gathering their people up, the group marched towards the mind flayer layer where a giant elder brain errupted from the side of the mountain that the facility had been built on. A great kaiju battle ensued along with literal thralls being thrown by the masses towards them. The scarred dot reappeared; however, he was knocked off of the back of the spider and squashed under its massive legs...unfortunately, the renewed dot never saw this dot and believes that the bug bear is just playing tricks on him.    After the brain was ended, all mind flayers crumbled in pain as the rest of the drow began to finish them off or enslave them. The group exited off and began exploring what was left of the facility while ignor gathered up various...things...from the battle. Eventually, Velstryn brought them before the teleportation circle and sent them on their way to the magic school of Kixelts where Ignor was able to at least copy down the insignia for Trossell's teleportation circle. Traveling around the school the group encountered some shenanigans by getting lost on more than one occassion as well as Ignor trading for some additional spell scrolls, inks, and parchments. Smithy was able to get rid of the evil war pick along with a other few items for an extremely power and rare war hammer. Eventually, the group found themselves at the primary teleportation circles leading to the various cities for public transport. Ignor paid the fee and had the students on staff there send them on their way to Trossall to drop the myconid slaves off at smithy's residence. Unfortunatley, as they stepped through the public portal a guard stopped them to inspect them as normal; however, as he thumbs through some papers he holds his hand out towards Smithy and says, "I'm sorry son, but you're going to have to come with me." When Smithy questioned why the response was, "You're wanted for the murder of your mother."