Session 11 - Spectator's Salutation

General Summary

Date: 22nd & 23rd Day of Mirtul 1491 DR

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The Party:
Aether – Level 4 Human, Circle of the Moon Druid
Duncun – Level 4 Human, Champion Fighter
Kailo - Level 4 Wood Elf, Kensei Monk
Xavien - Level 4 High Elf, Necromancer Wizard

Report:

The party retires for the evening after celebrating the return of Gundren Rockseeker, however, Aether's suspicions of Droop grow and she decides she will sneak into Duncun's room to investigate. She approaches his door and wild shapes into a rat to squeeze under. When she enters the room Aether sees Duncun, pantless standing over his bed. Duncun awakens and sees himself standing over him. A little confused Duncun asks what's up to which the Duncun standing over the bed yells "you killed my sister!" and moves to attack. The shirtless Duncun that is laying in bed, grabs Talon and stands to defend himself. Kailo snaps out of his trance from the commotion and runs to investigate where he sees two Duncuns fighting each other and is completely perplexed. Aether comes out of wild shape after seeing everything and tells Kailo to attack the pantless one. The three of them fight against the freeballing Duncun until they slay the twin. Upon the death of Duncun no pants he begins to change shape into the thing the drow they had fought back at the castle had turned into. The real Duncun goes straight back to bed uninterested in what just happened, while Aether takes the doppelganger's corpse to her room. She shoves it under one of the beds and stays up all night afraid that it might come back to life. The next morning the party awakens and gathers for breakfast downstairs. Aether generously tips the innkeeper and informs him that there is a mess upstairs that needs attending to, and with that the party now equipped with the map, head out to Wave Echo Cave.

They spend the day heading over to the hills where the cave lies and find the entrance. The gang heads through a long narrow tunnel that eventually opens up into a large natural cavern. There they find what was the campsite of the Rockseeker brothers, as well as the body of a dead dwarf. They realize the boots on the dwarf are magical and after some debate on who shall claim the loot, Duncun hands the magical sword Talon to the sword saint Kailo and takes the boots for himself. After a short rest to attune to their magical items the group takes some rope and ties it around one of the stalagmites so they can climb down the pit in the north side of the cavern. Once down in the pit, they see two tunnels one heading east the other west. They decide upon going east and with Aether casting pass without a trace move in to explore the cave stealthily, with lanterns lit. The gang makes their way to another natural cavern with many tunnels intersecting it. The walls carved with simple reliefs showing dwarf and gnome miners hard at work, They see two dozen skeletons in rusted scraps of armor scattered across the cavern floor. They inspect the skeletons finding that some are dwarf remains while others are orcs, they hear flapping and lookup seeing a flock of hungry stirges swooping from the ceiling to attack. The gang defends themselves from the hungry beasts as they attempt to suck the blood from the party and eventually exterminate the stirges.

After the stirges they move down the south tunnel and find the tunnel caved in as well as doorways both to the east and west walls of this tunnel passage. They open the western door and find a room filled with splintered stone benches and heaps of rubble from a partially collapsed ceiling, amid the ruins several bones of dwarves and orcs lie in the room. Before entering they decided to check the eastern door and find a chamber that appeared to once be a storeroom of some kind, with a large stone counter bisecting the room, three dusty balance scales made of iron sitting on the counter. Behind the table cubbyholes carved into the wall stuffed with dusty paper scraps, as well as several long-dead corpses of gnomes and orcs sprawled across the room. They immediately begin searching the room and looking for any kind of secret door. They don't find a door but do find a locked iron strongbox that Kailo lock picks. Duncun and Xavien head back north to explore the other tunnels while Aether and Kailo go decide to go search the western chamber for secret doors. As they step inside the bones begin to stir and knit together, forming nine mismatched skeletons that attack the pair. The two of them become surrounded, and the entrance blocked to them. The skeletons easily overwhelm them and Aether ends up being beat into unconsciousness. Kailo is able to hold his ground just in time for Duncun and Xavien to return from hearing the commotion and helping them solve the animated skeleton problem. After a day of travel, stirges trying to make dinner out of them, and the undead ambushing them the gang decides to call it a night and close the door of the chamber and rest for the night.

They awaken the next day and begin searching the chamber for a secret door which they do not find, they decide before moving on to search the eastern chamber once again for a secret door to no avail. The gang then backtracks there way to the cavern with the intersecting tunnels and choose to take the easternmost tunnel, which opens up into another natural cavern where dense carpets of fungi cover large sections of the floor. The growth includes puffballs a foot across, weird shelf fungus growing on stalagmites, and large stalks and caps a good five feet tall. Some of the puffballs glow with an eerie green phosphorescence, which lights up the entire cavern. The party is suspicious of the fungi and decide to throw an arrow into the cavern. The arrow agitates the fungi on the floor and a gas of spores fill the air of the cavern. after a minute the gas disperses and Xavien decides to cross the chamber. Once he gets near the fungi the gas gets thrown back into the air and he ends up inhaling it which ends up poisoning him and he starts coughing up blood. The party each wait for the gas to disperse and then one by one run across the cavern each time wating for the gas to die down before another makes it across. The group moves north into a large cavern, glittering minerals in the ceiling catch the light and send it back to create the impression of a starry night sky. Dozens of skeletons, many of which are crushed under fallen debris, are scattered across the floor. The cave is large enough that it contains two freestanding structures. Each of these stone buildings is proportioned for human use, as opposed to the dwarf-sized doorways and furnishings you’ve seen elsewhere in the mines. Both structures have battered and blackened masonry walls, their double doors cracked and scorched. The gang makes their way to the first structure and attempt to open the door, however, the hinges are partially melted, each of the boys attempt to wrench the doors open to no avail. Aether decides to give it a go and the doors manage to open. They enter to find a chamber with dust, ash, walls blackened by fire, and heaps of debris beneath the sagging celiing show that the room was damaged by a destructive blast. The furnishings are charred or splintered, but otherwise well preserved. A scorched iron chest stands near the foot of one of the beds. The party moves for the chest when a ghostly shape rises up from the floor and yells "Your presence is offensive to me, leave now. My treasures are mine alone!" The party apologies and leave the room except for Kailo who stands his ground. Which agitates the wraith and it attacks. The rest of the gang jump back into the chamber and fight the undead wizard, and manage to kill it but not before it ends up draining half the life away from Xavien. They loot the chest and find a map sewn into the cover of one of the preserved tomes.

The group proceeds to the second structure, Aether and Xavien both can feel a strong magical presence emanating from the building. They work to wedge the doors open and once they do they find a large workshop that was badly damaged by the ancient spell battle that laid waste to the mine. Worktables taking up two corners of the room are scorched, and the plaster has been burned off the masonry walls. In the middle of the room, a stone pedestal holds a small brazier in which an eerie green flame dances and crackles. The brazier and its pedestal appear to have been untouched by the forces that destroyed this area. Behind the brazier of green flame floats a spherical creature measuring roughly four feet in diameter. Four eyestalks protrude from its central mass, two on each side. In the center of the body is a large eye that stares at the group “Hello,” it says, in a thick burbling voice inside their heads. The party wait for the floating head to attack but after nothing happens they return the greeting. The Spectator informs them that if they are not employees that they are not allowed in the forge and must take their leave. The party agrees and makes their way out of the workshop when Xavien turns around and says fuck this and casts shatter on the Spectator from the doorway. Xaviens spell reflects off the creature and onto Xavien. The floating head now moves to attack the intruders, almost killing Xavien, as all his spells just reflect off the aberration. The gang then explore the workshop and realize that it is the long lost Forge of Spells....

Rewards Granted

Lightbringer Dragonguard

Report Date

23 Dec 2019

Primary Location

Wave Echo Cave