2022/10/05: Underdark Delving Part 2 Report
General Summary
Knight, Locke, Senal, Sunderfury, Zaran, Rodger, Avalon Everybody took an item out of the bag. Cool personalized loot. Sunderfury got a white leather saddle. Zaran got a crystal that'll update his psion class to a newer edition's rules. Then we offered to let Rodger take an item, and the bag tried to eat him, failed, and disappeared. (Better than the alternative plan; sooner or later, once it had attracted enough people, when someone tried to take something it would take everyone's stuff.) Discussed pay with New Hallownest council. They decided they'll give no salary pay (there isn't any budgeted anyway), but will instead give bonuses based on things I do to help prosperity and otherwise help around the city. The cave we adventured in last session is rather large and nice. Just have to watch out for the wards in the vault section. We're making plans to head for the mithril motherlode. Threats to be aware of: city remnants, signs of dragon habitation, dungeon, giant underground bridge. The next day, we started to head for the mithril route, but before they could leave the city, a ballista bolt flew from the sky and landed next to Knight. A hole opened under him, unavoidably sucking him in. He switched to shade form as he was falling and found himself stuck in metaphysical webs. Down below, there was the sound of whispering. The bolt had apparently come from the drow farming village. When Zaran went to investigate, he found the drow looking confused around a weird device. Rodger fished Knight out of where he was webbed halfway down the hole, then Senal used a holy sword to cut him free of the webs that were pulled up with him. Two gnarled little humanoids with purely black eyes were also in the Rodger's cube with Knight, looking just as stunned. They understand undercommon, if poorly. Avalon went spelunking stealthily with Senal holding the rope, while Knight and Rodger tried to question the humanoids. At the bottom was a dungeon room with a magic circle (now scuffed) just under the hole. There's apparently more of a dungeon complex below. The gnarled humanoids say they "will not eat our traders", though how much of that is a translation error is in question. They don't want to go back to where they were: "Back is pain." They were caught in a shadow binding for a very long time. We had the Sentries take them to a comfortable place with food. The dungeon is a secret drow interrogation dungeon, the entrance to which is in someone's home and was stoned over. There are several chests containing silver dust, iron bars, and other ritual implements. The ritual circle seems to be a summoning/teleportation circle linked to planes of elemental shadow and darkness and things like that. Whoever made it "is not from this neck of the woods". We'll be calling in Sith and one of Senal's friends to take a look and try to figure out more of the details. We finally headed down towards the mining zone. We encountered a weird damaged/incomplete golem with four legs and an arm that was very aggressive. We took its limbs off and investigated it. Knight and Rodger realized that the area leading up to that tunnel's entrance was dimensionally shortened, and Avalon found a line around the circumference of the tunnel where it looked like a section of tunnel was simply cut out and the ends stitched together, making the whole thing shorter. Or it's a door. We found evidence that the golem had come from here, so we dragged its torso over. A large door started opening. It opened into a large elevator area. On the elevator were another 16 cobbled-together brass golems. They immediately attacked. Zaran buried them in bubblegum. We found out that the golems either reflect lightning or all spells. Locke tried casting Wall of Living Wood to trap those the bubblegum hadn't immobilized, which caught half of the remaining four. Senal took apart the two that reached us. Then the room started closing again and the elevator on the far side started rising. We dashed back out into the hallway before we could be crushed against the ceiling. Went back to the passage where the first golem came out. Found a horseshoe-shaped cave filled with dead golems and dead gold-colored ant creatures similar to fomorians. They had been wielding weapons and possibly lightning magic. Most had been wielding double-ended spear-blade things. Sunderfury found one of those weapons that was likely cool and/or magical and had glowing alien runes on it. Locke used his tracking experience to try to piece together what had happened. It looks like the fomorians ambushed the golems, but it went poorly. All the ant people died, fanatically throwing themselves into the fight. Only the one golem survived. It looks like this room is a dead end; the ant people set up the ambush here, using a few of their people as bait. They came from where we were heading, down towards the mining area. Continuing in that direction, we came across a larger cavern crossroads. One passage to the south (and mostly level) is where the ant people had come from, mostly traveling on the ceiling. Another due south passage that goes slightly down is the way to the mining zone. We camped in the crossroads for the night. During the night, we were approached by a dozen minotaurs. Knight traded them some acid vials for information. There are deep dwarves, who are mostly hostile and insular. A bunch of drow, mostly hostile. Varied monsters all over the place. Various "noose-bugs", crabs, beetles, especially in the watery areas. A bad infestation of the "yellow ant men" who are hostile to pretty much everyone. Some grell in the deep tunnels, which need to be stomped out whenever encountered. Occasional "dark travelers" from down deep, some of whom are very scary; bargain with them if you can, or run. Also a civilization of kuo-toa, who are mostly pushovers but are underwater. Stay away from the deep waters; there are nasty things down there. Also small bands of humanoids here and there. Oh, and there's a rather elusive dragon, likely either black or shadow. Very cunning, hard to find, likes ambush tactics. Knight showed them where Darkhome is and told them they may be able to get mercenary work there. They like to be paid in meat. The group is "Ragluk's Band", and the old minotaur leading them is Ragluk. Knight gave them a note in Hallownest Common that identifies them, says they're interested in trade or mercenary work for weapons and meat, and listing the languages they understand.
Rewards Granted
Double-ended shock lance, some scrolls, 2 XP
Character(s) interacted with
Ragluk and his band, a couple of gnarled shadow creatures, New Hallownest city council, some confused drow farmers
