SESSION 86: Deep in the Shadowfell Report

General Summary

Session 86 – Wednesday November 10, 2021 – Deep in the Shadowfell

5 Hour Role battle session. 5:30 PM to 11:00PM (Post COVID session)

Party of 5 (The order of Heroes, Inc.):

It is the 17th day of the month of Uktar (The Rotting) in the 3rd year of the Age of Enialis

Annalisa (Anna) – Human L8 Monk – L6 Wizard /L3Fighter – Ryan Armstrong (remote)
Jaquette Mara – L17 Human Druid – Jackie Armstrong
Lucky Lightfoot – Leprechaun – L16 Bard/L1 Sorcerer – Jacob Munson
Luigi Risotto – Wood Elf L15 Monk/L2 Wizard – Dan King (Absent-Church)
Rolen – Human L17 Warlock – Josh Pozsonyi
Tyrena Rechs – Human L14 Ranger/L3 Fighter – Nathan Gioconda
Jeter Kaiser – L16 Human Sorcerer – Spencer Armstrong (Back at school)

Goals:

Find the Ancient Mind Flayer Ship to learn secrets.
Find the Mind Flayer lair and raise an army to take out the Elder Brain
Gather the other parts of the god Destroyer (Blade, Hilt and guard)
Locate the Amber Sarcophagi and destroy them with the god Destroyer
Take the sword to the Summer Queen and have her destroy it.
White Dragon at Purple Rocks

Treasure and the Shadar-kai

The party decided to not tell the Shadar-kai about the ring or the Drow. They went back to the entrance and told the Shadar-kai that the Lair has been cleared. The party led a few of the Shadar-kai to the treasure. The Shadar-kai chose to take the Maze Spell scroll and let the party keep the rest of the “Magical trinkets.” They split the treasure 50/50. Rolen asked if the Order of Heroes (OoH) can take their ½ in the platinum and art object so they wouldn’t have to lug all the gold around. The Shadar-kai agreed. The party wound up with:

17,750 pp
Gold jewelry box with platinum filigree worth 7,500 gp
Small gold statuette set with rubies with a jagged counterclockwise spiral (Anna recognized it as some god) worth 7,500 gp
15 +3 Walloping Arrows
Qty: 2) Potion of healing - supreme
Potion of storm giant strength
Spell scroll (8th level) - Power Word Stun
Spell scroll (9th level) - Power Word Heal

To the Mind Flayer Nautiloid ship

The party took a short rest, healed a bit, and then followed the map towards the Mind Flayer ship. They walked for a couple hours through the hills and found an ancient crash site. They found that it was so old that the ground had mostly engulfed the ship, but the outline could still be seen. They found an entrance to an ancient ship that looked more like a cave. As they gazed in, they saw two levels. They crawled into the first level of the ship.

They party found the first level of the ship had been completely stripped. There was not much left except a few wires hanging from the wall. They examined the walls and floor and determined it’s some sort of adamantine alloy. Examining the 2nd floor, the party discovered that it too was stripped bare. Examining the ruins, they discovered that there was much foreign technology, but it had been systematically removed. Even though the ship was ancient, it appeared as if the technology was stripped more recently. They found a hole leading down. Lucky jumped down into the whole while the rest of the party closely examined the 2nd floor and tried to remove some sort of broken control panel from the wall (unsuccessfully.)

Lucky found some Zombies

On his own, Lucky started to explore the 3rd deck down. There was a large pile of rubble on top of a stairwell. Lucky heard a noise and started to explore on his own. He spotted an undead Mind Flayer Zombie. Lucky pulled out his lute and commanded the Zombie to “stay there and wait for his friends.” The Zombie, unable to be charmed attempted a psionic mind blast that didn’t affect Lucky. A 2nd Mind Flayer leapt out from behind the pile and grappled Lucky’s face with his tentacle and slashed into Lucky’s back with his claw. A 3rd Mind Flayer crept around the corner. Lucky was cast slow on 2 of the Zombies.

Anna heard the commotion and jumped down the hole to join Lucky. She cast magic Missile against the creature grappling Lucky. Jaquette jumped down and cast wall of Thorns separating 2 of the Zombies from the party and hurting them. Rolen hopped down the hole and landed on Jaquette just hard enough that she lost concertation on the wall of thorns. Rollen stabbed and shot at one of the creatures. The Mind Flayer Zombie grappling Lucky tried but failed to extract his brain. Tyrena jumped into the room and cast “Freedom of Movement” allowing Lucky to escape the grapple. Lucky thanked Tyrena, laughed at the creature and Blinked away.

Anna whipped a couple of the Zombie Mind Flayers. Jaquette, cast bonfire on one of the creatures. Rolen cast Cone of Cold against all 3 Mind Flayers and learned they were resistance to cold. One of the Mind Flayer Zombies used his Mind Blast and stunned Anna and Jaquette. Lucky reappeared and cast fireball killing one of the Mind Flayer Zombies (and wounding himself.) He then tried to command Mind Flayer Zombies but since they’re undead, it too didn’t work. One of the remaining Zombies Struck Anna wounding her badly.

Jaquette cast Protection from Good and evil on Anna. Rolen began whaling on one of the Zombies badly hurting him. The Zombie turned and grappled Rolen with his tentacles. The 2nd Zombie tried to Attack Anna but because of Jaquette’s spell, he couldn’t hit. Lucky reappeared and cast firebolt on Mind Flayer grappling Rolen and burst it into flames killing it. Anna began punching the Mind Flayer attacking her repeatedly and then with a fury of blows punched the head clean off!

Searching the ship

After the Mind Flayer Zombies were killed, they continued to search the floor and again found that everything of any value was stripped. Rolen and Tyrena cleared the junk covering an iris on the floor and with an amazing show of strength Rolen (and his crowbar) opened the Iris. The Iris had clearly been closed for a very very long time. Lucky gave Tyrena his Gauntlets of Ogre Power. The party jumped down the opened Iris into the floor below and found a room that would be considered a cargo hold.

The Cargo hold

The Cargo hold room hadn’t been accessed in hundreds, perhaps a thousand years. Yet the room had been ransacked. There were food and water barrels, but they had been emptied. There were other chests that were opened but had spare parts that the party could not identify. There were stairs going down and an adamantine double door (with no doorknob) in the south.

Tyrena borrowed Rollen’s crowbar and with an incredible show of strength pried the door open. They found a 15-foot hole in the wall as if something burst from the ship to the outside. Outside the hole was an underground cavern system. In the room they found a 15-foot diameter ancient vat. Lucky tasted the residue on the side of the vat and said it tasted a bit salty. Rolen said, “They were containing something that had escaped.” The party gazed into the caverns and then decided to go down to the next level of the ship first.

The prison deck

They found an area with 10 cells. Several of the cells were still closed with not more than a pile of dust below the shackles. A couple of the cells were open. There were rooms to the north and the south. In the room to the north, they found a Journal from a Gith Prisoner named Tra’as (Tra'as Journal entries .) The journal was at least 1,000 years old. The Journal had an appendix filled with details about the Mind Flayers including some interesting information about how the Acid from a Neothelid is one of the few things known to be able to destroy the protective shield of the Elder Brain (Mind Flayer Lore .)

After reading the information they realized that there must have been a pool of tadpoles in the cargo hold. They also realized that a Neothelid had grown from the pool and escaped into the caverns in the Shadowfell. The party then debated searching the caverns for an ancient Neothelid. Rolen believed that the thing must be long dead, but there may still be a corpse with acid they could harvest.

Anna continued to search the southern end of the prison deck and found a room with a locked Cargo Box. Anna was unable to open it but Jaquette pulled a lock pick from her beard and deftly opened the container. Inside they found 3 Gith laser rifle clips and 7 clips for the Gith Anti-matter rifle. They also found 2 more rifles, but they had deteriorated badly and were useless.

Shhhh, be very very quiet, we’re hunting Neothelid!

The party spent a lot of time debating on short rest, long rest or simply go into the tunnels and search. In the end they decided against resting and quickly discovered that the tunnel network was a maze and went on for many miles. They stuck to the very largest passageway. Tyrena (with a favored enemy of Aberrations) began tracking and leading the party in the most likely direction the creature would have traveled. After a few hours the party finally took a long rest. They tried to set an elaborate trap (that bleated like a goat) to attract the creature but, in the morning, they found it fruitless.

They walked for miles and came across Drow Cities destroyed ages ago. After many hours, they found evidence of things destroyed by Acid as recently as perhaps months ago. They continued walking for most of the day and before the end of the 2nd day they suddenly felt the air pressure suddenly shift and a wind started blowing towards the party. The party continued to walk into the wind and then began to hear a distant rumble. About 17 minutes later the Neothelid appeared and headed directly towards them!

The Neothelid is hunting us!

The Neothelid can sense intelligence from a mile away. As soon as the party was within range it headed directly towards them. The Neothelid was followed by two mind flayer zombies hoping to feed off whatever the Neothelid leaves behind. Anna cast protection from good and evil. Tyrena pulled out her Laser Rifle and took a couple shots. The Neothelid sprayed acid on the entire party greatly wounding some.

Jaquette cast sunburst and the creature evaded some of its damage. Lucky told Al to run and then Lucky turned into a Giant Ape and ran towards the Worm like creature. An undead Mind Flayer Zombie appeared around a side passage and just watched. Rolen with an elaborate sequence of events cast Blade of Disaster against the Neothelid causing a lot of damage and then sliced into it with his dagger. Anna prepared to catch some acid in a flask.

A 2nd Mind Flayer zombie came out near the first one and attempted to stun the party with is mind blast, but the party resisted. Tyrena, in a surge of action shot 4 times at the Neothelid and hurt it. The Neothelid, with its tentacles attacked the giant ape directly in front of him so hard he was able to break Lucky’s concentration. Jaquette cast fire storm on the Neothelid and the Zombies and caused some more damage to them all. Lucky Blinked and disappeared.

The Mind Flayer Zombie’s tentacles reached out and grappled Tyrena and prepared to consume her brain. Rolen’s Blade of disaster came down on the Neothelid. Anna tried to pull Tyrena out of the grasp of the Mind Flayer Zombie but didn’t have the strength. Using a surge of action, she punched the Zombie and stunned it, releasing Tyrena from its grapple. Anna then misty Stepped away. The other Mind Flayer Zombie quickly crawled across the wall and attacked Rolen. Tyrena took 2 shots at the Neothelid.

The Neothelid takes a parting gift

The Neothelid, horribly wounded, stared to back away. As it backed away, it’s mouth came down on Rolen and swallowed him and then continued to back away at its full speed. Rollen took bludgeoning damage psychic damage and wound up barely alive, blinded and restrained in a stomach filled with acid. Jaquette saw what happened and called down an ice storm using her 9th level spell slot. The creature evaded portions of the storm but her massive storm was just enough to kill the creature. Lucky used his staff to cast lighting on the Zombie. Rollen, still trapped inside the belly of the creature, started to crawl out but succumbed to the acid and fell unconscious.

Anna stepped like the wind and crawled into the Neothelid’s mouth and poured a supreme healing potion into Rolen’s mouth. The Mind Flayer Zombie in the hall turned and ran away. Jaquette called down another ice storm on the remaining Mind Flayer Zombie trying to eat Tyrena’s brain but it didn’t die. Lucky cast a fire bolt at the Mind Flayer Zombie, but it didn’t die. The Zombie continued to dig into Tyrena leaving her stunned and with only 3 HP remaining. The Mind Flayer Zombie’s tentacles wrapped around Tyrena’s head and started to dig into her skull.

Rolen grabbed his dagger and Anna and cast dimension door to escape the Neothelid’s stomach. Landing just behind the zombie about to kill Tyrena, Rolen stabs into it’s back. Anna took up a boxer’s stance and started pummeling on the Mind Flayer Zombie. Exposing the bone on the back of its neck with the first punch and then she severed the skull with her 2nd punch. The head popped up and Rollen quickly opened up his bag o’ heads to catch it.

Campaign

Rebuilding in the Age of Enialis

Protagonists