2025/01/17: A Materials Hunt in Kaelund Part 2 Report
General Summary
Malakai, Knight, Kal'vus, Zess, Ba'alzamon, Kelsey
As the party returned to the main hallway, they found that the passage back towards the cave-in had been filled with a cloud of liquid darkness. There was skittering of a raptor heading away from the party. After discussion, the party decided to be proactive; the fighters prepped to dive into the shadow realm again while Ba'alzamon held down the fort. Ba'alzamon summoned his super bodyguard trolls to protect him while the fighters were gone.
Then the raptors, who had been listening from the cloud, tossed Ba'alzamon's light grenade back out at him. The party's reaction times proved sufficient and they were able to weather the flash without lasting blindness. The raptors skittered away. There was some further discussion about motives and reasons for the raptors. The party eventually decided to just carry on to the next hallway and deal with the raptors if and when they showed up again.
The next hallway was made of carved bones. Small bones, large bones, tiny bones, colossal bones. Very densely carved and packed. There were also old spiderwebs packed in the sides of the hallway and turning it into a more winding passage. After discussion, the party had Kal'vus hop in to cut part of the web, then dash back out. It spawned several small skeletons.
Most of the skeletons were humanoid, but with odd spider parts attached. The last was a raptor skeleton. When Zess shot the humanoid skeletons, they poofed into clouds of what looked to be poisonous dust, and Zess found herself nearly overcome by feelings of guilt, sadness, and regret. The holy laser that disintegrated the raptor skeleton had no such effect on Knight, though there was no way to say whether that was thanks to immunities, weird biology, or the raptor simply not bearing the same mournful curse.
After carefully dispelling the curse on Zess, the party warily headed down the passage, avoiding the webs. Drow whispers came from the far end, high-pitched voices with a very heavy accent. Ba'alzamon revealed out loud that he could understand them. A very poorly translated conversation followed. Long story short, the far room was inhabited by what appeared to be drow children with random spider parts. One had a spider abdomen, another had a spider head, etc. They were wearing scraps of clothing. They were hungry. Ba'alzamon summoned 240 pounds of red meat for them and Kelsey provided some water.
After the bunch of kids took turns eating and drinking, they were feeling much friendlier. Ba'alzamon asked them questions. The kids said that they ate their "caretaker". There was a man in a black cloak originally, then he left and left a man in a grey cloak in his place. That one wasn't careful enough. They may have had a little war with the raptors since.
One of the bigger kids, a girl with a whole spider thorax, came back to the beginning of the tunnel and repaired the webs the party had cut. She even put the skeletons back in and reanimated them.
The kids wanted to have food, gear, safety, and escape. They were offered places in New Hallownest and Indus. Turns out a bunch of them are spellcasters, and some were doing divination quietly in the back. They were a lot more confident in the party's honesty after that.
A trade got the party the chewed skeleton of the dead caretaker (and some silk). Investigation revealed that the caretaker either had their soul destroyed or never had one to begin with. Dream nail reading said a bunch of programming gibberish and something about "Vat 37". Perhaps this was some necromantic equivalent of a simulacrum?
The kids told the party more about the possible golems (further down the tunnel) and the "darkness ropers" (the raptors). Apparently the raptors have a king. A tyrant king. (It's totally a shadow roper t-rex.)
The party decided to head to investigate the scary statues. The kids agreed to go into Zess's portal for safety and transport.
At a corner farther down the main passage were a set of six 20-foot-tall giant dinosaur person statues. All looked very brave and heroic, with different weapons and species, and all were perfectly pristine. There was a very powerful fear ward protecting this area, strong enough and strange enough to penetrate fear immunities and cause even Kelsey to be (temporarily) paralyzed with fear. Ba'alzamon could see with his magic sight that there is very powerful magic in both the statues and the black metal door hidden off to the side behind them. There was life energy being sourced to the statues from somewhere down the hallway to the south.
After some debate, the party headed around the corner and down to the south to continue investigating. There was a giant vault at the far end. The door was hanging slightly open.
Beyond, the vault was empty. Tremendously huge, but completely cleared out. Then the ghosts of the six giant dinosaur people that were depicted by the statues manifested to defend the vault. They looked to be in no mood to negotiate. One saurial adventurer battle, coming up!
Rewards Granted
2 xp
Character(s) interacted with
Kal'vus
Zess
Knight of Darkhome
Kelsey of Kaelund
Ba'alzamon Dreamender
Malakai
Report Date
17 Jan 2025
Primary Location
Related Plots
Related Characters
Comments