Session 32: Light at the end of the tunnel

General Summary

After a quick lunch break, we headed back to the corner near the battering ram, since this corner clearly wasn’t the one we needed. As we turn the next corner, we spot a big, iron gate. Guess we know what that battering ram was for.   At least this one didn’t have any arrow slits, like that place with the Orcs. In fact, as Janey and Skrik investigate it for traps and such, there’s no slits to see through at all! Janey says the cracks she did find were all sealed up. As if they knew you need to see where you’re going to do magic stuff.   It doesn’t seem Dwarven made, and Janey’s magic doesn’t open it. So, she says it’s locked. Sadly, we can’t find any keyholes either, so Skrik can’t pick it open.   Then Duldar has a cool idea: He can make the metal from the gate into something else, to make a hole for us! I thought about asking him to make me a really cool greatsword. But then I remembered I have a really cool longsword, and I can use that together with my shield to be tougher to hit. Which is really good. So, he takes an hour to plan out his design, and he ends up making a battle crown. Which is like a normal crown, but it’s on a helmet, so you can wear it in battle.   But instead of making a hole in the door, he just… He took the entire door. Something about “Elven quality”, so he supposedly needed more metal to make his crown. Not entirely sure how that works, but the locked door is no longer blocking our path, so onward!   ...Into another locked door. A stone one this time, with no keyhole either. There’s Dwarfy writing on this one. Duldar says this one looks to be about 500 years old or something. Welp, guess that means we’re not gonna be opening this thing with brute force, if it’s survived for that long down here.   I don’t remember what Duldar said about the writing. I had too much fun listening to Janey try (and fail) to pronounce Dwarven words. Long story short: There was a riddle about torture the next day, and apparently it was about alcohol. I ask them what that torture is supposed to be, and they say it’s a headache. Huh. Never noticed that. I just had to pee real bad when I drank those 7 Dwarves under the table. Duldar says I’m missing out. But I’m not so sure. Maybe Duldar is weird for liking headaches.   After trying saying the word “Alcohol” in as many languages as we can think of, Voron decides he’s had enough of this door and splashes something from his alchemy kit onto the door. At which point the door opens up. Yay!   Then beyond the door, we see some black-skinned Elves! Voron tries being nice and says “Hello” in Elvish, but they just call out in some weird language none of us understand. The first one we saw throws some of that glowy magic that Voron knows. And this time, some of us glow! That’s gonna be a pain in the tail, isn’t it?   Turns out… No, it’s not. While one of them shoots at Duldar, I get in there and give the one that did the glowy magic a big ol’ hug. And stab him real bad. And my sword glows extra pretty! The Elf I was hugging didn’t like that though. Not that he was in any kind of condition to complain. Not after Skrik saw an opening and put the guy out of our misery. And then the glowy stuff went away. Better.   Then everything goes really dark, and I hear some footsteps getting closer. Before I can get panicked though, Duldar’s crown begins to glow really bright, and the darkness is gone. I think he said something about not being a fan of not being able to see. I guess it was so dark that even Duldar had trouble seeing things. That’s kinda spooky.   Then Janey gets a chance to do some damage, and she is… Terrifyingly effective. You know how she can throw fireballs? Yeah, she did that, and 3 of the Elves just… fell down. And smelling like they’d been on the grill for too long. She said sorry a whole bunch.   The last Drow, a pretty looking woman, summons a freaky looking melting tree candle or something, that blabbers in a language Janey and Skrik said sounded sorta familiar to them, but they couldn’t quite make out what it was saying. I’m guessing it wasn’t anything important. Of course, the lady thought we would be distracted by the appearance of that freaky melting tree-candle, and tried to make a run for it. Too bad for her that we’re seasoned adventurers!   Voron drops a moonbeam right on her head, the melting tree turns into a giant spider, I slip past the spider to do some divine magics that make it so the elf lady can’t run away. Duldar touches the spider, and it starts looking kinda hurt. Not as much as I would’ve expected it to look, but still sorta hurt.   Voron tosses an icy knife at the Drow lady, the spider bites at Duldar and decides it’s better to go see about it’s master. Who goes down shortly after the spider got up onto the wall. At which point the spider pulls a neat disappearing trick. Mostly because we haven’t seen it reappear. Which is probably for the best. That thing was a bit freakier than I liked.   I go over and “apply pressure” to the Drow lady so she doesn’t bleed out, as Voron makes sure she doesn’t die. While he takes care of that (after we’ve made sure she won’t be a threat in case she wakes up earlier than expected. I have to say, her skin was pretty nice and soft against my scales.) The others have made sure to collect everything from all the Drow present. Including a black handkerchief from the lady I’m currently hugging. Hmm… If she’s asleep while I’m hugging her, is that considered cuddling? Maybe I should ask Janey, she knows a lot.   Voron does some magic to let Skrik see in the dark, like Janey and Duldar can do. That sounds pretty cool. Skrik goes and scouts ahead some, to see if there’s anything more hiding nearby. There’s not. Then, weirdly enough, Voron asks if maybe we should explore the tunnels some more. And Skrik tells him that if we do that, it might be months or even years before we make it back to Donner City! I’m not looking forward to that, and neither is anybody else.   Now that we got that sorted, we go for the next step: Questioning our captive! I use some of my gifts of the Platinum Dragon (I feel like I know his name, but I can’t think of it right this second…) to wake her up. Predictably, she tries to wriggle free right away. Not happening. We had her tied up AND coiled up. She’s not going anywhere!   Well… Until she does something with her mouth, and bites down on a capsule that releases toxic gas. I sadly couldn’t stop her from doing that. The cloud of gas lingers for a bit, making it hard to see. Very annoying. So, being the super smart Naga I am, I suck up the gas from her mouth! It took a little bit of doing, but I got all of it! Of course, everybody was gasping when the cloud cleared up. Something about it “Not being right” that I kissed her like that after she dies. Please. I wasn’t kissing her.   Anyway. We’re not getting any information out of this one anymore, either. So, I help Duldar take off her head, since that’s all we needed to bring back. I use the rest to make some food, but I must be missing the sun more than I thought. Because my cooking’s been getting steadily worse since we got down here. Or maybe it was the fact that Janey said before I even started that she wouldn’t have any. And Duldar was skeptical too.   Skrik was playing with the handkerchief in the meantime, and found that it unfolds into a pretty big round blanket or something. Until we put it on the ground, and… It turns into a hole. Like, an actual hole in the ground. With the safe inside of it. That’s pretty neat. Who knew that beyond magical weapons, there were things like portable holes!   Now that we got the safe (and the plans, since they weren’t able to get into the safe), and the thief’s head, we decide it’s time to go back and get paid. We bring the scorched Drow with us to distract that hungry thing again if we need to. Which we do. Beyond that, it’s a pretty dull ride back up to the city, where we’re brought back to Commander Ybag.   We give back the safe, Ybag checks if the plans are still in there (They were), and we get paid the agreed upon amount. And then we’re sorta kicked out of the city, back to Donner Keep. That was kinda rude. Then again, we were only allowed in the city for as long as the mission was in progress, and we’d just completed that. So it kinda makes sense. Still kinda rude, though.   We go back to the Guild to get a good night’s rest, after turning in our completed quest, so they know it’s taken care of. This time, I have a dream about Bobaku. He seems to enjoy himself with friends, having a good time at a restaurant. I’m not sure why I’ve been shown him twice now in my dreams. He’s not part of the Boros Legion’s history, right?

Rewards Granted

26985 xp total