The Driders: Parts 3-5
Tunnel Vision
General Summary
Captured by the driders, the party are placed in a building, a holding cell of sorts, in the village below - now clearly less a village than a prison camp where elves taken during the conflict with the drow were being put to work. Snot was not put with them. A single elf prisoner was housed with them and was able to fill them in on some of the details. The Feywar was winding to a close at a stalemate. Most of the remaining elf population had fled the area, some to scatter around Valine, some leaving to shift into the Feywild. Some remaining bands of troops had remained to try and recover prisoners like him from the Undervale, but the drow population seemed to have decided to stay and make a home in the caverns and tunnels beneath Valine, setting up farming communities and delving deeper into the Undervale in search of suitable locations to establish settlements. Kail revised his estimate of the time they were in to the 130s based on this new information, though exact history of this period remained vague to all.
Security on their "jail" was lax, since the drow guards were needed to supervise elven work crews and the drider were monitoring from the cavern ceiling, ready to pounce upon any disorder, and the party took their opportunity to try and escape. Having not had the manpower or time to properly process the party as prisoners, their packs and equipment had been carelessly left nearby and the party were able to retrieve them before sneaking out of the building. Their elf companion objected but, ultimately, followed their lead. Wondering where Snot had been taken, they did spy what seemed to be a Snot shaped form, freshly encased in webbing hanging upon the side of the cavern near one of the guard posts higher up.
Unfortunately, the party were detected in their escape attempt, leaving them facing two drow guards who, despite, the escape attempt, were hesitant to engage the group in a fight, rather just motioning them back at weapon point to their holding cell. The party attempted to take advantage of this hesitancy by attacking the guards as they stepped back into the building, and unfortunately their elven companion took the brunt of the retaliation and was killed. Before the conflict with the guards could escalate, however, a raiding band of elves, including magic users, from the surface launched an attack and chaos erupted within the prison camp.
In the midst of the chaos, the party's attention was caught by a glowing crack on the wall of the cavern. The light from the crack revealed a passageway beyond and the party, remembering their instruction from the box to "Heal the Cracks" headed in that direction, reluctantly leaving behind their companion and hoping they could return for Snot later, once the battle was over.
Along the passageway they had to deal with a couple of waiting and hungry oozes that attacked, and during the battle they encountered a clonn who aided them in their fight. Gabe and Kail were both aware that the clonn species did not emerge into Valine until centuries after the time period they had thought they were in, and the clonn, called Popovalvyre the Misfit Arcane, or Vyre for short, revealed that she thought the year was 531. She had been exploring the Undervale in Briarra to investigate some mysterious magical happenings, but she should have been nowhere near their surmised location of the wastelands left behinf by the Feywar in the southern part of the continent. Putting aside the exact details of the mystery for later, Popovalvyre the Misfit Arcane joined the group as they continued on towards a light up ahead.
Entering an open cavern, the party discovered a tiefling encased in a crystal spinning within the cavern. The crystal was the source of the light. Several exits from the cavern were apparent, but each was obscured by a magical darkness. Dealing with what was in front of them, however, the party released the crystal from where it was hung on the ceiling of the cavern, and it dissolved. The tiefling held within introduced herself as Thea Longhorn who everyone but Popovalvyre the Misfit Arcane recognized as the daughter of one of Mithlerien's most famous citizens in their own time - Liam Longhorn. Though Thea Longhorn was quickly revealed to be a rather arrogant, yet naive and inexperienced youngster, her father's renowned as a diplomat, adventurer, spy, and protector of the realm. His deeds were legendary.
With little option but to have her join them, the party ventured on, discovering that any touch of light upon the magical darkness revealed the room beyond. The first couple of exits from the cavern revealed little, but upon investigating a passage to the north, they were confronted with a darkling and two drow. The darkling was holding two Acid Ant on a leash. As the party arrived in the room, the darkling commented that he had been waiting for them for a long time and instantly released his hold on the Acid Ant leashes. They and the Drow moved to attack, the Darkling hurled a dagger at Gabe Zincolland which instantly returned to his hand and, from behind the party Giant Rat began to swarm from nests in the cavern walls.
The battle nearly proved a deadly one. Despite Thea Longhorn's obvious inexperience in adventuring situations, she was well trained in combat. Quickly taking down one of the drow, however, she panicked. Seemingly having never killed before, she immediately gave medical aid to her foe in the midst of the fight, reviving him after a seemingly killing blow. Only through sheer luck, when one of the Acid Ant was caught with a stray blow from the other drow, and turned on him, shifting the momentum of the combat, were the party able to gain the upper hand and ultimately triumph, though beaten and bloody.
They found a quiet side chamber to rest in and interrogate the revived drow. Despite difficulty in communicating, as none of the party shared a language with their captive, they were able to get him to indicate which passage was the best one to follow forward. Having surmised from the circumstantial evidence they had that they were searching for a book, perhaps the one that housed the spirit of Nivian, they used gestures to indicate to the drow that they wanted to know where a book might be found.
In the chamber that their captive indicated a drow body lay, clutching a small book - clearly not the Book of Dreadful Shadow that the party sought. Investigating this smaller book, however, inadvertently set off a magical protection that released several magic missiles at their drow captive. Though Thea Longhorn attempted to stop the trap hitting the prisoner, he was obliterated by them, leaving him a broken corpse, just like the drow who had held the book. Kail was able to ascertain that the book had been trapped against drow, although its power was limited to just a few magic missiles per day, and it appeared to have used its power for now.
Moving on from this room meant getting past a portcullis blocking the passageway beyond. Kail was able to ascertain that the portcullis was trapped and used one of his technologist creations to disarm the trap - or so he thought. Just as he was about to push down one of the two levers to open the portcullis, he spied that it was covered in a waxy substance. Carefully wiping away some of the wax revealed it was a dummy lever. Underneath the wax was a sharp blade that would have caused severe damage to the hand of anyone who grasped it firmly. The other lever, however, was genuine. Pushing it caused the portcullis to move, but it seemed to jam after a moment. It looked like the option was to lift the portcullis or push it down into the floor, and Gabe assisted Kail in pushing it down, allowing them access to the room beyond.
Under a table in the next chamber was a chest containing sever mysterious cylinders of a substance that, Kail and Gabe were able to work out was a crude early version of a substance used in their time to clean and polish precious stones. This organic substance mixed in the right proportions essentially "ate" soil and dirt. In larger amounts it could be used to eat through certain rocks. This batch seemed crude and unstable, but might prove to be useful to them.
The whole area appeared to be under excavation with it ending in a rough hewn rock wall, but with a covered hole in the floor that sloped steeply downwards. Hide, as the smallest, was lowered down the passageway on a rope. She couldn't quite reach the bottom, but was able to see that a cavern lay at the end of the tunnel. What lay inside was somewhat obscured by what appeared to be a prismatic wall which distorted Hide's view, but it seemed to be some sort of figure, perhaps a statue, revolving within a crystal circle. Beyond the crystal circle seemed to lie a table of some kind, perhaps an altar, but the view was too obscured to be sure.
As the rest of the party came down to investigate, the prismatic wall fell away. In the chamber, roots and vines broke through the walls and appeared to be beckoning the party inside. Moving cautiously they could see that the revolving figure was, indeed, a statue of a drider . The crystal circle beyond appeared to be some sort of portal, revealing only a dark space, but within the dark appeared to be the desiccated body of what once may have been a young child. The pieces of the puzzle seemed to indicate that this might be Nivian's corpse. What was left after the gods imprisoned his spirit within the Book of Dreadful Shadow. Investigating the portal, however, when Kail reached his arm through, the drider statue took the form of flesh once more. Another drider quickly scuttled down the passageway the party had come down and once again, the party found themselves fighting for survival.
This time, however, the combat proved quick. Thea Longhorn in a seeming flurry of movement to fast to be seen literally ripped apart one of the driders in short order, before finishing off the sorely pressed drider cleric who the rest of the party had been holding off. As the party stared in disbelief at the ruthless efficiency of their new companion, the mysterious box that Hide carried began to shake and glow once more. With a now familiar flash of light, the party found themselves in new surroundings.
Darkness.
Total darkness.
As they attempted to get their bearings, the shape of a familiar crack appeared in front of them on the floor. Then an identical one upon what they assumed was the ceiling. Four more identical cracks appeared - equidistant from the group upon what now appeared from the dim glow of light to be flat, featureless (apart from the cracks) walls. The light began to increase and the party could see they were in a featureless square room with no discernible exits. Were they somehow inside the cube itself?
Rewards Granted
- Magically protected journal (contains permanent glyph of warding that releases a 3rd-level magic missile spell at any drow that comes within 15 ft. of the book, once per day)
- 3 sticks of crude organic rock eating compound (each stick eats through 5 foot square of rock in 10 minutes - 20% chance that the rock it is applied to is immune to the effects, 10% chance that touching the substance with bare skin will cause 1d12 acid damage)
- Returning +1 dagger (Bonus action to return the dagger to the hand of the character that is attuned to it)
- 2 Ant acid sacks (20 ft range, 1d6 acid damage on a hit, 1 acid damage to any creature in a surrounding square, on a miss roll a random scatter to see which squares are affected)
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Notes
DMs Notes: For the second time in this campaign, the dice hated the DM. Or more accurately they loved the players. One player in particular, in fact! The player of Thea Longhorn rolled NINE crits in Session 5. Including a triple critical hit on a Flurry of Blows. No cheating going on. I could see each roll, and she was using my dice, not her own, so I know there was no funny business going on with loaded dice or anything. I've never seen anything like it, and it once again made my driders look terribly weak and foolish. But sometimes that happens. Well... not that exactly. I've never seen anything like nine crits from one player in a single session in 30 odd years of running D&D sessions. But, yeah, the dice hated the driders throughout this part of the campaign, and thems the breaks I suppose!
Report Date
26 Jun 2022
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