Session 21: The Enemy of My Enemy..

General Summary

Session 22 MAY 2019: We enter a new area that is partially collapsed, with copper veins and mining tools on the ground; seems to be an old mining area, which slowly gets nicer-looking. The equipment appears to be Dwarven.   As we find a new chamber, we encounter a wall of Hobgoblin bones running E-W across the width of the room. The bones are quite old, so the formation is likely similarly old.   We press on west. We encounter a Dungeon bathroom! Some of us detect noises from the west. Roll initiative!   We clear some monsters. The room appears to be a Dwarven locker room for the mining shafts. The room is dusty and abandoned. There is a door in the west wall adorned with arcane symbols. Gnosh recognizes an Arcane Lock spell. There is a mural on the door depicting a dark monster stalking an unsuspecting Dwarf admiring a gemstone. Gnosh Knocks the door, and we hear the lock click open.   We pass through and find a hallway with many new doors and some upward stairs to the south. The doors are quite dusty, and we kick some up testing the doors. We try the NW door, and enter a room with lots of stones and rubble. There is a stone throne on the S wall. The room is a dead end. We find recent footprints that are pretty small.   The NE room is similarly collapsed, and had been abandoned for quite some time.   The remaining door, directly west of the original entrance, is also unlocked and easily opened. There is a wooden table in the middle of the room, and a chair on the SW wall. This room looks interesting, but we detect some potential baddies.   They turn out not to be bad; they are a Drow and some minions that are trying to teem the flow of the Zanathar guys and restrict them to the first floor. He saya that they are collecting keys that allow the Zanathar movement, and that there are two outposts. He offers to get us past the random denizens if we take out the outposts. The commanders are a large Barbarian woman and a half-Drow, half-spider monster. One outpost is to the SE, the other is to the NE. The mousy-looking minions do not seem to be aggressive.   We agree to collect the heads of these captains and return. Before we do so, we decide to fill out an unexplored pocket of the dungeon. In that pocket, we find a Dwarf beset by some eyeball monsters and another, larger assailant. Naturally, we choose to save the Dwarf!   Upon saving him, he tells us that his name is Rex Hammer, of the Fine Fellows of Daggerford. He was separated from his companions when they discovered they couldn’t just run roughshod over the dungeon. He seems kind of confident, especially considering that we literally saved his life. He spurns our help.   We choose to go back through the electrified room, and find the skull doing its thing, again. Det Dispels it, and it falls to the floor, lifeless. It is a human skull, with some incantations inscribed into its surface with metal. We destroy it.   Wemake camp close to the entrance to this level, with the intention of seeking the NE outpost, beyond the Goblin Market, the next day.