Wallacian Campaign Session #09
General Summary
map by Gunther
Eight adventurers, Ruu Dawnhammer, Almalexia, Sauroff, Silvermoon, Koravhik Agu-Vakanu, Squirrelly, Cressidien, and Cernan had just entered the Lost Miine of Phandelver with their employer, Gundren Rockseeker. The Rockseeker brothers had carved a tunnel from a natural cave down to intersect with an old storage room. While most of the party waited in this room with Gundren, Silvermoon, Cressidien, and Squirrelly scouted the hallway outside the room.
Silvermoon followed the double-arrows scratched into the left hallway by the Black Spider to scout down towards the mines. Cressidien and Squirrelly scouted the right hallway, along the path marked by scratched out arrows, upwards towards the residential and commercial district. There they found three recently-deceased, bloated orc corpses. When Cressidien poked one with his spear, it burst open, disgorging a swarm of aggressive maggots. The other two corpses also burst forth, and all the maggots started moving towards Cressidien and Squirrelly. The rest of party joined in battle with the maggot swarms. Though the crawling masses of larvae were quickly squashed, they did manage to inflict a nasty-looking wound on Squirrelly.
After confirming that no other threats from the residential ward were near their egress point, the party led Gundren down into the mine itself, following the double-arrows left by the Black Spider. The uniform, ten foot wide by ten foot tall tunnels led onward, branching often. The tunnels near their entrance had years of dirt caked on the floor, and cobwebs hanging from the walls and ceiling. But as the party continued deeper into the maze of tunnels, they soon found themselves in a section that was surprisingly clean, almost as though it has recently been scrubbed.
They soon came to a passage which was intersected by a vertical shaft, piercing both the ceiling and floor almost to the entire width of the tunnel. On the right side, two pitons had been hammered into the wall on both sides of the shaft, with a taut rope stretched between them. This was apparently to assist people traversing the narrow ledge to the other side of the shaft. Ruu told the party that similar shafts were in his dwarven homeland of Vul, but with an elevator travelling up and down the shaft. Here, the requisite rails, cables, etc. had long ago rotted/rusted away.
Leery of what might be lurking in the shaft, before crossing it the party looked carefully both ways. Spotting a a "haze" in the upper shaft, they cast a light spell on a pebble and tossed upwards, where it lodged in the bottom of a gelatinous cube. The now glowing cube slid down to their level, and battle was joined! The party was able to liquify the cube without too much difficulty, though some might wonder how Almalexia repeatedly shouting insults at the cube aided in its defeat. ;)
After defeating the cube, the party pushed forward across the shaft, without checking for more threats. A short way past the shaft, the party was confronted by a dwarven skeleton sliding sideways, without moving its limbs, to block their progress from a side passage. It was in fact a skeleton embedded in a second gelatinous cube. As the party made their plans on how to deal with this new threat, a third cube slid down the vertical shaft behind them, surrounding them.
In the ensuing fight, the third cube managed to engulf both Koravhik and Gundren. Koravhik used his strange rune magic to double his size, causing the cube to belch him out. Koravhik then reached into the cube and extracted their employer Gundren before he was digested. Both cubes were soon rendered into wet spots on the tunnel floor. The skeleton was found to be wearing intact leather boots, which the party deduced were probably magical in some manner.
Continuing onward, the party soon met three undead dwarves. Both sides were surprised by the encounter, and a close-quarters melee ensued. The adventurers did a good job of putting the undead at disadvantage in one way or another, greatly reducing their combat ability. However, Cressidien and Sauroff did receive wounds which seemed to temporarily sap their souls of energy.
Finally, the maze of mine tunnels opened into a natural cave flooded by a subterranean lake, their path leading across the lake via a causeway towards the right side of the cavern. A search of the lake for threats revealed a skeleton lying on the bottom. Bringing the bones to the causeway, they found that it had the remains of a "wand scabbard", but no corresponding wand was found. Since the shapeshifter they interrogated at Cragmaw Castle told them that a body of water on their left would let them know they were near the Black Spider's lair, the party backtracked to a dead-end side passage in the mines to take a short rest.
Refreshed, the party crossed over the lake cavern and found their path leading up a broad, well-carved stone stairway. At the top of the stairs they found a pair of large, 20 foot tall stone doors. Listening at the doors, Cressidien and Almalexia heard gruff voices speaking an unknown language on the other side. After casting comprehend languages on herself, Almalexia heard one of the voices say "I don't know if Nundro will survive much more punishment. We may need to switch and torture his brother instead." Repeating this for the rest of the party, they decided to enter quickly, not bothering with a stealthy infiltration. The doors opened outwards towards the party, revealing a large, partially ruined, forty foot tall dwarven temple.
The temple was fairly well lit by magical flame sconces on the walls and columns. At the far end of the temple was a raised platform, upon which several orcs were seen. In the center of the raised platform was an altar to the dwarven god Dumathoin. Relaxing on the altar was a female dark elf.
And then...Rewards Granted
Every player earned 600 XP.
Party Loot:
- Pair of unidentified magic boots.
Character(s) interacted with
Report Date
29 Jan 2023
Primary Location
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