The Driders : Part 2
The Evidence Suggests...
General Summary
The fight against the drow and the drider continued, although it was barely a fight at all in the end. With the drider fleeing from Hide in such abject terror that, unable to flee further it fell into a catatonic state back in the alcove from which it had emerged. The two drow were dispatched with little difficulty and the party decided to butcher the catatonic drider, with Kail anxious to see which parts of the monstrosity could be put to use. Unfortunately Kail managed to destroy the spinnerets and puncture the poison sac, soaking his hands in a burning venom. But he did salvage a drider leg - somewhat bulky, but possibly useful. The drow only held a few crude coins (slivers of precious metal really, but usable as coinage throughout most of Valine as the weight seemed fairly standard to known coinage), some nicely decorated dice and the glowing orb that they had been tossing between themselves to pass the time. They also had crude-mechanism hand crossbows with bolts that amounted to little more than flint-headed lengths of wood with ragged flights attached.
Kail told the party that he was now convinced that the box was moving them through time and space on Valine. They had met green dragonborn - known to have died out on Valine before the different dragonborn tribes began to intermingle - and the evidence of their current situation seemed to indicate that they were on Briarra around the period that Nivian was corrupting the southern part of that continent and the elves and newly created drow were on the cusp of destroying each other. Was this a crack that needed to be healed? A wrong for them to right? And in whose interest? What was directing the box to take them to different times and places?
With little option other than returning to the surface, the party continued down the passageway, walking through what appeared to be fields of cultivated mushrooms on the walls of the tunnel, into a large cavern which had, apparently, been some sort of drow farming settlement which had been razed to the ground - not very recently, since the ashes were cold - but within the fairly recent past. In the ruins of two buildings, a slight movement caught their attention. Using a mage hand to safely investigate, moving aside ash and debris, Gabe discovered several large grubs, about half the size of a Halfling or goblin that seemed to be emitting a reddish light from inside their hardened shell. Theorizing that, where there were grubs there was likely to be a mother, they left well enough alone and investigated the largest of the collapsed buildings, outside which there appeared to be dried blood on the cavern floor.
No bodies were found, but in the rubble were the charred remains of various farming implements and a large tabletop around which were scattered several pegs with crude humanoid figures carved into them. These pegs might have been stood on what appeared to be little wooden bases, but with little else to go on, the party were left with only vague theories. Three passages led off from this former underground hamlet - two narrow passages leading steeply down and the gentler downward slope of the main thoroughfare of what appeared to be a Drow settlement. Opting for one of the narrow side passageways, the party lowered Hide down with a rope. She discovered what appeared to be a food storage chamber, with stacks of rotting mushrooms and the decaying body of an armored elf warrior with a crude crossbow bolt through his throat. Another narrow passage led further down and, able to navigate the steep corridors, the party moved slowly forward, finding another chamber where three drow, apparently non-combatants, had been apparently cut down from behind while fleeing. Another armored elf corpse also lay here, apparently killed in combat with a slashing blow that penetrated his hide armor.
From here, another tunnel curved around back to the main passageway. Feeling they shouldn't leave anything at their back, the party moved back towards the destroyed farming hamlet they had previously encountered. On the way they discovered more drow corpses, all unarmed and unarmored, and bodies armored elf warriors, apparently left there to rot. Some twenty-four drow and six elves in all. There were also small shafts in the floor and walls, perhaps large enough for an arm to fit into, but not without risk of getting it stuck in them.
Taking the other narrow passage, Hide scouted ahead again and found a wooden ladder leading down some thirty feet to a chamber below. This chamber was broad and low ceilinged and contained an odd contraption. Resembling a smooth egg sitting in a basin on a plinth, Hidecouldn't work out what it was supposed to do. Laying a hand on the smooth, cold, metallic surface of the "egg", her palm left a lingering mark on the surface. From the fingerprints she had left, light sprung out to nearby openings into similar shafts to the ones they had seen above. As those lights faded, images of other chambers were projected onto the surface off the egg from the lit shafts, fading after 20-30 seconds.
Kail, upon hearing this, eagerly descended to investigate the contraption and was able to ascertain that it did not appear to be a magical effect, but rather was engineered to act as an observation device on the different tunnels and chambers of the complex using light, mirrors and the shafts running to different views of the chambers - a "camera obscura" of sorts. This was confirmed when Gabe moved back to the main tunnel and could be observed standing in front of one of the shafts. One of the locations revealed appeared to be a high angle view of a very large cavern in which the intact buildings of a village could be seen and, some distant movement between them. Perhaps an inhabited settlement? Judging by the direction from which the shaft revealing it came, it was further down the main tunnel. Just as the image faded, the figure of another drider scuttled in front of the image, running across the ceiling of the cavern.
Kail lifted the "egg" from its seating in the basin, to examine its interior workings. However, when he did so three imp-like creatures attempted to dart out of the basin beneath - two blue/white and spiky and one hulking and a red/orange color. Kail slammed down the egg just in time to prevent their escape, but none of the party had an answer to what they were.
The party decided to investigate, moving slowly down the main passage, but not attempting to sneak up. They passed a few narrower side passages before reaching a crossroads with two narrower passages leading off to the side in different directions. From the ceiling of this crossroads hung the stripped bodies of three elves, hanged in an apparent execution by nooses of sticky silk webbing. Only their lightly armored boots and forearms identified them as similar warriors to the other elf that had been found. Hung here as a warning, perhaps?
Continuing down the passageway, the party emerged on a ledge overlooking the village they had sought. A roughly carved stone staircase in the cavern wall led down from the ledge to the village. From this distance the party could tell that there were indeed humanoid figures moving about in the village, but in the dim light and at this distance they could not identify them. More worryingly, five drider could be seen patrolling the ceiling of the cavern above the village and, closer by but on opposite sides, two wooden structures - perhaps guard posts or observation posts - were attached higher up on the walls of the cavern, each with an armed drow watching, fortunately, the party down below.
The party withdrew to discuss their next move, wondering if the figures in the village were, perhaps, captives of some sort? They also revisited what their purpose might be here and how the box was transporting them. During this discussion, Hide reiterated that the items stolen from her in the thefts that triggered the whole affair were not related to the box, which had been in her pack when it activated and pulled the other items to it, triggering the burst of magic that hurled them to the green dragonborn tribe. Rather, the items taken from her had been a treasure map of an unidentified location and an odd card from a divination deck that apparently held Hide's likeness - mysteriously (and worryingly) Hide had retrieved the card from a tomb that had been sealed for over two centuries.
While they discussed what they had seen and found, they failed to notice two drider moving in on them from the passageway they had just come down, becoming aware of them only at the last second. They all dove for cover as the drider shot webbing towards them and, miraculously, avoided the sheets of sticky silk hurled their way. However there was nothing to do as one of the drider screeched a call in an unknown language and, from the cavern housing the village, an alarm bell began to toll...
Rewards Granted
- 7 SP
- 4 CP
- Jeweled Dice (worth 10 SP)
- Unidentified Glowing Sphere
- Drider Leg
- Crude Hand Crossbow
- 20 Crude Crossbow Bolts
- Embroidered Component Pouch (containing only very basic components)
Notes
DMs Notes: Sometimes the dice just hate you. A natural 1 on the drider's first attack led to it fleeing from Hide after a roll on the Fumble table. Two subsequent natural 1's on saving throws against the fear effect led to a morale check with a failure of 5 or more leading to a short term insanity. A 2 on the morale check followed by a natural 20 on the insanity table and my big scary monster turned out to be a true dud who the party happily butchered without it mounting a defense. But I have to stay consistent! I'd've made the same rulings with a party member!
by Ro
Hide's Map
Report Date
13 Mar 2022
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