Duergar and Spiders

Present:

• Phoebe Lacrosse. Human Barbarian from Pugtown – Andrew
• Griza Muso. Human Thief from Lakeside – Jeff
• Balder Dash. Gnome Wizard from Toluene - Jamie
• Bush Tucker. Human Rogue from Spite - Darryl
• MARMALADING Red Feuersturm. Human Temple Fighter of Hob from Toluene - Chris
• MARMALADING Malcom Gandhi. Gnome Thief from Brian – Kevin
• Napolean Twig. Elf Priest of Caribou Gorn from Pugtown - Ian
• Joe Manco. Human Fighter from Toluene – Shane
• Galena Alfdis. Elf Priestess of Vingt-et-Un from Palantir - Steven

By Phoebe Lacrosse

Duergar

Duergar

We had just been ambushed by two pale dwarves. These were dark dwarves (plural spelt with a "-ves" not "-fs"), or "duergar" (which serves as both a singular and plural noun). Despite being "dark dwarves" they had very pallid and sickly skin.

Suddenly, Balder, Napolean and I (Phoebe) coughed up marmalade and stood at the ready, while Griza, Joe and Red all collapsed and slithered to the ground in a sticky pool of grapefruit peel and syrup.

The duergar took off.

We took stock of the situation, cured the wounded Galena and Bush. Then took off in hot pursuit after the duergar. 

We cornered them in a small chamber, just as Griza and Joe re-awoke [Jeff & Shane were late].

It was a short fight. Neither of the duergar could stand up to the martial prowess of Joe and me.

Mention in dispatches to Balder who did try to Sleep one; but that failed.

Down here, there was a large underground lake with an island in the centre, upon which we could see the occasional spark and flash, like something electrical. But this wasn't the source of our mission, so we wisely left it.

In another part of the cave complex was a well-appointed room with a fancy table with candlesticks, and two stone duergar statues guarding a spiral staircase, which went steeply upwards.

The candles ignited when we entered the room, and extinguished when we left.

Both the candle and statues detected as magic.

Orontes & Birds

When Balder and I walked between the magical statues, nothing happened, but when Griza joined us, he saw them change position, axes raised. Only he could see this change; as far as we could see, they did not move. Weird.

Huge birds

Griza went scouting alone up the steep stairs, and returned half an hour later. He reported that there was an aerie at the top with a huge birds nest. It was the nest for the same huge birds that Bush had tried (and failed) to "negotiate" yesterday. More importantly, he reported that there were bushes of the rare orontes herb next to the nest. This was our next herb on Thursa's list.

The big birds had a fledgling in the nest and so were watching it like a - well - hawk. So we needed a plan to distract them.

Bush and Joe would go hunting outside and kill some deer or pigs and toss the fresh meat for the giant birds to see. Hopefully, one (or both) would fly down to grab the food. During this time, Balder would cast Invisibility on Griza and he would skulk past the nest, to the orontes bushes and harvest them into Thursa's sack.

Less was better than more, so, Napolean, Galena, Thursa, Dahma and I stayed down in the candlestick room. Joe and Bush went outside to hunt. Balder and Griza climbed up the steep windy and windy spiral stair to the aerie. ("Never split the party"? My arse.)

For once, everything went smoothly and flawlessly. The birds took the bait and were distracted enough for the invisible Griza to get to the orontes bushes. Griza picked the herbs with his kid-leather gloves. And returned to us with a full sack.

So, with the orontes mission complete, we left the caves.

Someone mentioned that we should explore that island in the dark lake with the sparks, but we soon cut down that idea. ("Don't get distracted")

On the way out, Griza, last of us to leave, swiped both candlesticks.

Outside, he quipped: "... and I got the candlesticks"

"You what?!" I yelped.

"The candlesticks."

"Why did you touch those?"

"They're magic."

"They might have some curse with them."

"Unlikely," said Griza.

"You feel okay?'

"Yeah"

"I think you're playing with fire"

"He was," scoffed Bush. "They were lit."

Somewhere, off in the distance, a rim-shot played.

"They went out when I touched them," said Griza.

Three days later, through the thick forest, we got back to the wagon and back on to the main road.

Bobbin

That night, Joe and Balder were on watch. They could smell sickly sweet smoke and see wafts of it near. Balder soon realized it was magic, so everyone was roused.

We all then heard humming, and a little gnome approached. He had on a big pointy jester's hat, with bells.

"My name is Bobbin!" he cried.

Bobbin's magical ganja
-1 MND +D4 CON, 4D6 hours
if fail poison, MND loss is perm

He didn't pose any threat and only wanted his pipe lit. So Bush obliged, and got a face-full of the smoke. It smelt really good, so Bush eagerly took a long draw from the pipe.

"Damn fine ganja!" chirped Bush.

Bobbin was pleased at the result, so he gave Bush some more puffs - so much so that Bush hallucinated. Bobbin also gave Bush 10 tokes.

Bobbin was also fascinated with the marmalading Malcolm. His throat was getting greener and greener, and he was about to embrace Malcolm when Thursa stepped in and hissed "He's mine!"

Bobbin paused, and then said "I am not welcome here." Then he loped off.

Thursa finished with "He is not as he seems."

"What is the significance of his throat being green?" I asked.

"Well," said Thursa thoughtfully. "Green throat and, or, green eyes is a sign of starfall affliction."

"I thought it just made you super randy."

"Yes," she replied. "But that is just the first phase."

The Wolf

We were headed to the village of Burq. This was where our road met the Spite to Quek highway - which is a sealed road. (Priests use rock harvested from quarries and sort of melt it with the spell Stoneshape)/ This trip would take three days.

But we had to divert antiwards.

"The next herb to collect is myrrh," said Thursa. "We will be entering the Dead Forest. This is a cursed land where there was a large battle between dwarfs and elves 200 years ago. The forest has never recovered."

We left our wagons again, and headed back into the forest. After an hour or two, the trees took on a grey twinge. And Napolean, our druid, felt sick.

It was getting towards dark, and we had just started to make camp, when we heard a whimpering noise, like a dog in pain.

Napolean, Joe and I headed off to investigate.

There was a wolf caught in a snare, hanging from its leg. It had bright green "starfall" eyes.

It growled and thrashed when we approached.

Napolean casts Charm Animal. on it, and that calmed it down. So, we freed it and Napolean fixed its dislocated leg with a 2D Heal, then he let it go.

"Be free, wild one."

Back in camp, Bush was up in his hammock, three paces from the ground, still under the effect of Bobbin's ganja. Balder was teasing him with cantrip smoke-animals and Bush was not sure of they were hallucinations or not.

Thursa knew about the ganja tokes that Bobbin had given him and warned him again.

"It is very addictive."

"She'll be right, mate" said Bush. "I'm not a big user. This ganja is the Primo. Don't you worry. I'm not a real butt-head"

"Mister Bush, you will be tucker," observed Balder

The Dead Forest

The next day, the forest got greyer and greyer, deader and deader. There was no life or greenery.

All the hairs stood up on our communal necks. Creepy.

"Undead here?"

"Oui."

The place was disorienting and like a maze. Dahma kept looking at her map.

The day passed, we made camp, but no-one could get any rest.

The next morning, there was a bag of coins ahead on the path.

"Hey!" said Griza, who was not even at the front. "Those are mine!"

Sure enough, they were.

Suddenly, a skeletal arm reared out of the ground litter and grabbed at Napolean's leg.

We hacked it to bits, and then adopted a fast march, two abreast, Galena at front and Thursa at back; both whom could Turn Undead.

Skeletons were rising out of the ground - dwarf and elf skeletons. Galena and Thursa both tried to turn them, but with no effect.

Joe and Phoebe, at the front, took on two skeletons that blocked our way. It was a short battle (despite Joe fumbling, and my skeleton hitting his mate) and we dropped them.

We continued and tried to keep ahead of the rising skeletons.

One more blocked the path, so we dispatched it, and then we finally got ahead of them, and out of that nasty area.

We continued until dark and made camp. It was a quiet night.

Spiders

Spider webs; ugh!

We came to a hill with a tunnel. Dahma said we had to go in. The myrrh herb was allegedly this way.

It was only single-file, so: Phoebe, Dahma, Joe, Galena, Napolean, Balder, Thursa, Bush, with Griza at the rear.

Spider webs, ugh! A short distance in, we came across the husk of a body wrapped in spider silk.

Balder tried to cast Detect Magic, but instead he ended up being terrified of People [fumble for four minutes], and ran away, clambering through the silk. 

Then spiders started to rain down on us. They were the size of dogs. Three were killed, Joe got bitten twice, then we hurried into the next chamber, sans Balder.

It was a large room, and there were large web movements above. Plus we could see glowing eyes directly above, huge ones, as some enormous spider was moving into position.

Thursa was prompted to cast Fireball by Bush.

"I am not sure this is a good idea," I said, not knowing the dimensions of the cave.

Thursa casts Fireball

She cast the spell.

[ Fireball is a 6m/20ft radius sphere, 900m3. In gaming terms, the volume of such a sphere is 32 10x10x10ft room cubes. ]

We all got engulfed in the flames and charred; Galena and Joe were rendered unconscious. At least the spiders would be burned too.

And to top it all off, Balder was still missing.