2022/11/16: Return to the Underdark Report
General Summary
Senal, Knight, Sunderfury, Locke, Rodger Knight struck the solcite crystal with his dream blade, with Senal, Sunderfury, and Rodger gathered with him. The world faded around them. There was the sound of a door creaking, and finally, several seconds later, each of them faded back into their own separate, bright dream. Knight found himself seated in a chair before a small table. Across from him sat something impossible to focus on; out of the corner of Knight's eye, it appeared to be a mostly humanoid woman with dark skin and antlers, wearing a deep violet or purple robe. "Hello, my Knight." Knight tilted his head in wary curiosity. She continued. "I never thought you'd actually make it this far. I dreamed you long ago. And perhaps now it's finally time for you to rescue me, my Knight." Knight nodded in respectful greeting. He was still deeply wary of her claims, but best to start this off on the right foot. "It appears you have me at a disadvantage." "Ah, yes. I know a lot about you, 'cause I dreamt you... You may call me, Nadira." Nadira said her time to speak was short, and went on to explain what was needed to free her from the crystal. Inside the crystal with her are three nameless champions, aspects of the dark gods that created them. Knight must access them through the Dream Master's Nail and obliterate them. They are weakened now that the Dark One of Ancient Alvidar has been shattered, but they are still not to be taken lightly. Nadira has waited a very long time for her chance to be reborn; she can wait a bit longer until Knight is sure he has the necessary companions to take them on. For the sake of proper caution, Knight asked her if she could prove that she was the one who dreamt him and his people. She responded with "How can one prove a dream?" She was able to give no evidence, but did note that she was not necessarily the only one dreaming him. With no further information forthcoming about the challenge he would be facing, Knight asked for "two pieces of information, of your choice, about yourself." Nadira said that she was once a living breathing creature "like you", and that later, she was a goddess of nature and existence. With the limited time remaining, Knight asked if Nadira had anything she wanted to ask of him. She said she knew all about him, and had been following his exploits with great interest. She ended the personal dream with one piece of advice: "Don't be afraid to ask for help." Great dangers will be coming from all sides. As strong as Knight may be, it is unlikely he will prevail on his own. It is a good thing he has strong friends, and he should be prepared to look for more. And then Knight's dream faded away, and he woke up before the crystal. Sunderfury, meanwhile, had appeared in what seemed to be a memory of a grassy hill on a sunny day. He found himself greeted by an unusual creature, what looked like a nine-foot-tall cross between a pegasus and a deer with purple fur. It stared meaningfully at Sunderfury briefly (and he stared back, because he'd never seen a pegadeer before). His initial suspicion was that Sith was responsible, because what else would create a purple pegadeer than Chaos? As the creature approached, Sunderfury noticed that it had some scales near its tail, which clarified things slightly. Perhaps this was some sort of purple pega-ki-rin? It walked up to Sunderfury slowly and with an air of curiosity, then bumped its forehead to his. He saw a vision of an underground path that ended with a green glowing sword guarded by an obsidian, monolithic monstrosity, likely some sort of earth elemental. Then the pega-ki-rin licked his nose and he woke up. Like the others, Senal got her own dream. She was sitting in a chair, alone, dressed in her girly clothes (and a black sundress she wasn't familiar with. Very lacy). After a moment, she heard footsteps. A high-pitched feminine voice said "Sorry, sorry, little busy all of a sudden. A thousand years, and then everything happens all at once." The voice apologized and told Senal that "All I have for you is this." An envelope appeared on the table before her. It held an incredibly detailed picture (or perhaps a photograph) of a stygian abyssal colony in the Underdark next to a huge lake. The lake is far larger than the one next to the kuo-toa city near the Blacklight Forest, and the city is smaller. "I can't point you to what you're looking for, but I can point you to somebody who knows where it is." Then she woke up. (Later discussion between the adventurers revealed that Senal is searching for particular gems.) Rodger, last but not least, found himself falling into a kaleidoscope. Dimensional specialist that he is, he managed to find and get control of his orientation quickly. In front of him, he saw a massive purple crystal, and leylines extending in all directions around him, countless souls and memories and more flitting past him. He was somehow seeing the crystal from a different dimensional viewpoint. There were three buzzing black forms siphoning energy off the crystal. (Rodger was stuck observing, so there was nothing he could do about any of this.) He started to hear a song of loss, of despair, of lost friends and family. He responded with a song of hope, and the other song took on aspects of that hope. And then he woke up, still humming (though the notes didn't work quite as well in three dimensions). The adventurers, awake and together once more, quickly pulled out paper and writing utensils and noted down their experiences as best they could. These were too important to trust to memory, especially given the way dreams often fade. They discussed their findings and brought them to Zarlask as well (who was shocked just to find the crystal could talk, let alone that it was a "her" and wanted out; he said they likely knew more than he did about it now). Conclusions were limited. They didn't know where city in the Senal's picture or the caves in Sunderfury's vision were, and while Rodger's viewpoint made Knight more confident that Nadira had been telling him the truth, they weren't prepared to go up against the champions quite yet. The group agreed to finish the mining zone exploration for the moment and then do research and come back prepared to fight the champions. For now, their next destination was the mithril/solcite deposit itself. Zarlask flew the party out to the entrance to the next path, on the southeast edge of the Flowstone Caverns. Beyond that point, the path became relatively narrow and the rocks dark and jagged. Sunderfury noted that the material of the rocks looked similar to the mobile monolith from his vision. With further examination, he was confident that this long tunnel/cavern was part of the path he flew early on in his vision. Some experimentation showed that the rock was hard, but relatively brittle; mining here would be shock mining, cracking the rock and blowing it apart rather than going at it with picks and hammers. Finally, the party reached the end of the tunnel. Quarters got tighter and tighter, and finally they could see where the prospectors pulled out a chunk of mithril while testing. Mixed in through the visible mithril ore were little solcite crystals giving off a bright white-green glow. Knight raised the question of whether this might be some sort of structural leyline solcite. No one wanted to break something important to the planet by digging this out. No one present had any way to tell, but Knight knew Ba'alzamon would probably have some insight and Senal suggested talking to Ril. Unfortunately, both were apparently in a time bubble together and wouldn't be available until October 14th. That vital question would have to wait. In the meantime, Buzz used stone shape to cover the exposed and glowing mithril/solcite mix, hiding it from wandering passerby. As he did so, he noticed that the rock around it proved unusually resistant to magic. The stone shape did work, but it was sluggish and uncooperative. This had implications for the upcoming encounter with the monolithic elemental. Their immediate task done, the group turned south, passing through a tunnel towards the intersection north of the "Ancient Machine" on the map. They decided to visit the Caverns of Silence first, then the unnamed dead-end cavern, then the Ancient Machine path, and finally the long winding path toward the Hushed Caverns. Best to deal with shorter paths first. After miles of walking, the group finally came out in the Caverns of Silence. As they walked out into the main caverns, they found that sound was increasingly muffled the farther they went in. Knight checked his warning spyglass, and saw stalactites. The group made a note to keep an eye on the ceiling. Farther into the cavern, the group started being struck by a feeling of depression. Most managed to shrug it off, but even those who resisted were getting increasingly concerned. Then, in the distance, they saw a large and dull grey hydra that seemed to be patrolling the area. It didn't react to the light the party brought, so indications were that it was blind; the party elected to bypass it for the time being. Suddenly, several stalactites smashed into the ground next to the party. They seemed to be entirely inert, despite the clearly aimed attack. Knight checked for spirits and life in the area to verify that they weren't just well-disguised, and was treated to an uncomfortable result: The only life in the whole cavern, including the hydra, was his party. Simultaneously, Locke went to climb to the ceiling to investigate where the stalactites came from, and a hole suddenly opened in the wall where he was going to put his hand. He just managed to yank his hand back before the wall could close around it. This was the last straw, and the party decided they didn't want to be here anymore. They no longer had any trust for any surface in the room; Rodger provided safe flooring for the path back out. At the exit, where the cavern walls faded into that dull grey, they left a sign and some markings to show the danger and for later comparison to see if the area was expanding. They all shared a hope that this place could simply be avoided and ignored. Leaving the worryingly lifeless caverns behind, the party returned to the intersection and followed the easternmost path. In this winding tunnel, they quickly encountered the smell of rotting meat. The smell was too overwhelming for Sunderfury to properly analyze, but Locke was able to identify that part of the smell resembled a wolverine, or some other sort of creature with a musk component. The rest of the smell was genuinely something rotting. When they entered the next cavern, the adventurers found a pile of corpse bits, some new and bloody, some old and rotting. They were pieces of the yellow formians the group had encountered earlier in their delve. Further up the cavern, Locke and Sunderfury heard several large mammalian creatures padding around. Knight looked in his warning spyglass and saw a band of incoming formians. He handed the spyglass to Locke, hoping Locke would have better luck at seeing the furry things, but Locke just saw more formians. Locke, not knowing what the spyglass did, thought this was showing that the room they were in was an illusion and they were about to be under attack. The group fell back to discuss, and Sunderfury heard a band of formians coming in from a southern offshoot just as the group left. As Knight and Locke cleared up their miscommunication, the group heard combat start in the room they'd just left, opening with cracks of lightning. Locke snuck back to take a look. A brutal melee was in progress: On one side were the formians, suicidally determined as ever, while on the other there were several giant creatures that looked like a cross between a bear, a wolverine, and a mole. The latter were one-sidedly tearing the former apart. With the combat wrapping up, the apparently undamaged furry creatures started moving the formian remains over and stacking them in the existing pile of body parts. One of them looked over to the tunnel entrance and nodded in Locke's direction, and nodded again when he nodded back. Locke decided it was time he drew back and reported his findings. After more discussion, Locke and Sunderfury returned to the cavern to see if they could establish communications with the mole-things. Locke used the Forest Lord's Crown to summon some nearby creatures. He got a glowing unfey, an eyeless stone snake, and a small version of one of the badger moles. He gave the badger mole some meat and learned in exchange that farther east into the cave and down below it are their territory and the adventurers shouldn't go there. (Also, the badger moles can shape earth.) The unfey ate one of Locke's first-level arcane spells and disappeared. The eyeless stone snake appeared to observe Locke for a bit, then nodded and left. The latter was disconcertingly similar to the things in the Caverns of Silence, but his ability to summon it with his crown proved that it was a natural creature. What this meant, none of the adventurers knew. Locke, the team's stealth specialist, went alone to check the last cavern to the south in this branch of the caves. He found patrolling yellow formians killing horrible tentacled monsters that periodically appeared from portals. Any formian losses were quickly replaced by reinforcements through holes in the ceiling. The party decided to leave this stalemate alone for now, though the extent and numbers of the formians was increasingly concerning. Finally, Locke went on a jaunt to scout out the Ancient Machine. He found a complicated arrangement of pipes and water and other devices. Its purpose was unclear, but seemed to be linked to water. There were hundreds of formians there, apparently trying to investigate the machine and figure out what it does and how it works. They had proven partially successful already through sheer brute-force problem-solving. The party began to prepare for combat; there was no telling what horrors this machine might unleash if the formians succeeded, or perhaps worse, if they failed. But that was a lot of formians to face, and there was no telling how many reinforcements waited in the wings...
Rewards Granted
2 xp
Character(s) interacted with
Nadira, Zarlask, the badgermoles
