Session 12 - The Black Spider

General Summary

Date: 23rd & 24th 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 Goons take a rest in the Forge of Spells and attune to their newly made magical weapons. They hear some commotion outside, open the forge doors and find three ghouls feeding on the corpse of the spectator. The party defends themselves against the ravenous ghouls as they take notice of them. The Goons then debate whether to explore the northern passage or the northwestern one. They ultimately decide upon the northwest and find a large chamber with blast furnace and mechanical bellows powered by a waterwheel. The furnace is cold and dark, but heaps of coal are piled nearby, along with carts full of unrefined ore. The waterwheel sits in a ten-foot-wide channel cut into the floor of the room, but the channel is dry. More than a dozen withered corpses of slain dwarves and orcs are still wearing the remnants of their armor, are scattered around the room. Floating above them is a skull engulfed in green flame. Kailo shoots an arrow at the skull and receives its attention. Xavien shoots off a firebolt that is absorbed into the skull's green flames. Aether creates an ice knife and throws it at the skull which melts as it comes in contact with the floating skull. The Flameskull shoots a ball of fire engulfing the entire party. All of them except Xavien manages to dodge the worst of the flames, Xavien loses consciousness from the damage of the flames. Kailo runs into the chamber to attack the skull with Talon and as he enters the room, eight of the corpses begin to rise. Duncun shoots the flameskull out of the sky but now the party has the zombies to contend with. Xavien awakens immediately, sees the zombies and casts scorching ray. Aether wild shapes to attack the undead and eventually, the party is able to get the dead to stay dead. Bruised scorched and badly beaten, the party decides to retire for the day back in the Forge of Spells.

The group makes camp in the side room of the forge, late into the day an ooze starts to emerge from under the outside door. They hurriedly move into the forge itself closing the side room door and wait. After ten minutes the ooze begins to come out from under that door and the party makes their way to the outside of the forge, leaving the main doors open. A large mass of this ochre ooze forms and starts to make its way to them, the party easily dispatches the strange creature from a distance. With the threat resolved they closed up the forge, head back to the side room and call it a night. The next day they decide to explore the north passage and come across a large cavern which is also the source of the booming noise that the party has been hearing. A narrow ledge overlooks a large cavern that houses a surging, seething body of water. The rhythmic booming heard throughout the mines is louder here. At regular intervals, a fresh surge of water funnels into this chamber and slams against the wall just below the ledge. The echo suggests that this cave might be one arm of a much larger cavern to the northeast. The party makes its way to the east side of the cavern and find a passageway barely four feet high and obstructed by rounded boulders and pebbles. It might have been a streambed, though no water flows now. They make their way through and find another cavern with a wide rift filling the eastern half of the cavern. A stream pours out of the west wall, then tumbles down into the rift and flows out again to the north. Several ropes are secured to iron stakes along on the western edge of the rift, leading down to the chasm floor. They see three bugbears, Two of them are clearing rock on the rift floor while one more stands guard in the western half of the cavern, With a male drow supervising the whole operation. The gang engages in combat with the group and takes them each out, with two of the bugbears dropped the drow makes a run for it down the hall to the west of him, Kailo is able run across the cavern and get close enough to shoot an arrow in the drows back. The drow falls dead and begins shifting into a doppelganger.

The party approaches the door the doppel was running for and bust it open. They find a chamber with six cracked marble pillars line the walls of a hall, at the north end of which stands a nine-foot-tall statue of a dwarf seated on a throne, a mighty stone warhammer across his lap. Large emeralds gleam in the statue’s eyes. The dust and debris covering the floor had been swept to one side, and a campsite of sorts spreads in front of the statue. Half a dozen bedrolls and packs are neatly arranged around a rough-built fire pit. A wooden table stands on the west side of the room between two of the pillars. At the table they see two bugbears standing, flanking a dark elf dressed in black and purple robes. He clutches a black staff with a carved spider at the top and frowns as he sees the party. “It seems that I must deal with you myself. A pity it must end this way.” the Black Spider says. Both sides explode into action, four large spiders descend from the four corners of the hall, two of which shoot web towards the party standing outside the door. Aether makes rushes inside and easily succumbed by two of the spiders and loses consciousness as the venom of the spiders run through her veins. The rest of the party attacks the room from the doorway, but as the bugbears and spider engage they fall one by one. Kailo takes a blow from one of the bugbears morningstar to the ribs and falls, while Xavien and eventually Duncun both are rendered unconscious by the spiders' venom. The gang managed to slay two of the four of the Black Spiders pets but in the end, they fell to the might of the drow wizard.

Report Date

06 Jan 2020

Primary Location

Wave Echo Cave