The Battle of Velkynvelve

Background
In early 1491, the drow outpost of Velkynvelve received Ilvara Mizzrym as its new commander. Seeing the posting as beneath her, she was not content to use the base as a mere collection point of slaves; she began organizing hunting parties to capture non-drow slaves, gambling that with enough slaves captured she could parlay her success into a more "worthy" position in drow society.
During an otherwise routine raid, Jorlan Duskryn, her second-in-command and lover, ran afoul of a black pudding, sustaining grievous injuries in the process. Though Ilvara's clerical magic saved her subordinate, he had lost two fingers on his sword hand and sustained horrific scarring. As he was recuperating, Ilvara callously relieved him of duty and immediately took a different drow warrior to her bed. This stoked a fury within Jorlan, and he began to plot his revenge, patiently waiting for an opportunity to humiliate Ilvara's pride as both a drow and a commander.
Such an opportunity came in late 1491. After having captured a small group of kobolds (and subsequently sending them off to be sold), their capture party subsequently caught a group of four individuals not far from where the kobolds had been found. These individuals were Jaaski, Tanebi Dragonheart, Hestan Norixius, and Crim, and unbeknownst to the drow, they had purposely allowed themselves to be captured so as to track down the kobolds that had gone missing. Mere days after their capture, the base came under attack by a small horde of demons, which were an extension of the demonic incursion that had been going on in the Underdark for some time. During the chaos of the demon attack, Jorlan released all the prisoners, advising them where they could find their confiscated equipment before exiting the area so that the escape could not be tied to him.
After the demons had been driven back, Ilvara was enraged when she discovered the slave pen empty. She put together a small contingent of herself, her junior priestess of Lolth, and the best warriors of the base to chase down the escaped prisoners and return them to Velkynvelve. The chase lasted months; though the scouts occasionally caught up with the prisoners, they would manage to slip away after a brief skirmish. The drow finally managed to reach the prisoners as they were leaving Blingdenstone on the way to the surface (see Skirmish at the Bluelight Bridge). However, during the course of the fight Jorlan betrayed his fellow drow, helping the non-drow to overwhelm their foes. As a reward for his assistance, the party used a valuable magic item to restore Jorlan's hand and face to their non-maimed state. Deeply grateful, and having grown disgusted with drow society as a whole, Jorlan joined the group as a guide and adjutant.
Meanwhile, after some time without word from Ilvara, Menzoberranzan installed another commander at Velkynvelve, Servan Llarabbar, and reinforced the outpost with a token force. During his time as commander, both Servan and his subordinates began to fall under the sway of madness permeating the Underdark. His paranoia and megalomania began to grow in leaps and bounds; seeing all the drow at the base as potential threats, he supplemented his wizard training by entering into a warlock pact with Lolth, granting him eldritch power to wield against friend and foe alike. He began to plot his own ascension through drow society, vowing to his forces that no prisoner of the drow could ever hope to defeat him.
Prelude
By Alturiak 1492, the four former prisoners returned to the Underdark as leaders of an expeditionary force (calling themselves the "Wolf Pack") seeking to quell the demonic incursion. As part of their objectives, they sought to establish a foothold that could link up with Gauntlgrym and exchange both supplies and information. After some discussion, Jorlan Duskryn suggested that Velkynvelve would be an ideal base, given that it was already an established outpost, close enough to trading partners to keep supplies stocked, and just close enough to Menzoberranzan to keep apprised of developments. Privately, Jorlan had his own reasons for wishing to capture the outpost; not only would it punish the drow that had followed Ilvara in mocking him after his injuries, it would also prove to his allies that he had abandoned the drow for good, and help him to put his past to rest. The proposal was approved, and with the force having been earlier bolstered with individuals from Blingdenstone, the force marched on the drow outpost.
On the way, a battle plan was devised. The force could not afford to let the drow send word of the attack to Menzoberranzan; should any escape to warn the city, a massive force would be sent to recapture the outpost as a show of power. Mindful of this, and worried about the safety of the Wolf Pack's non-fighters, they split their forces into three groups: only one group would directly attack the base itself, while the remaining two would position themselves near Velkynvelve's exit tunnels and eliminate any enemies that managed to slip past the attack group. The battle would also need to be done as quickly as possible to take full advantage of the element of surprise. Two options were considered; whether to first strike at the armory or the command quarters. Jaaski decided to go for the command quarters, reasoning that it would be most useful for holding and maintaining the base after the battle, and serve to cripple morale during the attack.
Battle
Around noon on 24 Ches, the force arrived in the cavern of Velkynvelve. To scout out the base and get an accurate estimate of its personnel, the force sent out a quasit and imp in their animal forms, appealing to the fiends' self-preservation and greed to convince them to perform their task. The two returned, estimating that the base currently held somewhere between twenty and twenty-five drow and an unknown number of quaggoths. With this information, the first stage of the attack commenced.
Utilizing Crim's magic, Jaaski and Tanebi Dragonheart were sent up to the base in a gaseous form. After returning to normal, the two secured the lift, quietly lowering it down to bring up several deep gnome miners. Though the process was arduous due to the desire for silence, they managed to get their forces up. The miners began placing stakes that would secure rope ladders, which would be lowered to allow the rest of the attack group to ascend; during this time, Jaaski and Tanebi quickly and quietly slew the few drow that were in the area (and knocked out a quaggoth that was working in the kitchen). With an entry route secured, several additional troops ascended the ladders, most fortifying themselves in the main hall and barracks area (reasoning that those would be the most important areas to secure for future use).
After Crim and Jorlan joined the attack group, they proceeded to seize the elite barracks as well, though Jaaski took a crossbow bolt coated in drow poison to the shoulder; fortunately, her battle fury allowed her to stave off the effects of the sedative. Unfortunately, though she kept conscious, the poison and her exhaustion interfered with her ability to move stealthily, and a misstep caused a small rock shelf to break away from the walkway. Knowing that their surprise was nearly at an end, the group smashed their way into the command tower, and though they managed to slay the base's acting lieutenant, the commander was not present (unbeknownst to either them or their fiendish scouts, the commander had decided to personally engage in tormenting the base's current prisoners; a small handful of former drow compatriots that had succumbed to madness).
Having been alerted to the attack, Servan dispatched a half-dozen quasits to escape the cavern, intending them to travel to Menzoberranzan and report the base being under assault. The fiends split up, half traveling to each available exit tunnel. The Wolf Pack forces were waiting for them, however, and despite the fiends using their invisibility to the fullest, the combination of traps and ambushes prepared by the forces ahead of time were enough to send the fiends back to the Abyss.
Meanwhile, at the base proper, Jaaski's group exited the tower to find a small contingent of drow waiting for them at the armory. A drow captain personally engaged Jaaski on the rope bridge leading to the armory, while a line of drow crossbowmen on the rope bridge leaving the armory pelted Jaaski's allies with crossbow bolts. Crim, in a moment of tunnel vision, hurled a fireball at the second bridge, igniting the drow and bridge alike. The intensity of the flames, combined with the already strained support anchors, snapped the ropes and collapsed the bridge; the drow that had survived the fireball plummeted to the rocks 100 feet below. Mere moments later, Jaaski slew the drow captain, and led the group in bursting into the armory.
However, the problem of crossing the twenty feet between the armory and the northern section of the base needed to be resolved in order to complete the capture of the outpost. Tanebi, knowing they had little time to waste, came up with a plan; using his ability to form a spectral pair of wings (as part of his aasimar nature, though he was not aware of this point at the time), he flew one end of two ropes over to the other side while the other end was held by Jaaski. They hammered pitons in to secure the ropes, and Jaaski, Crim, and Jorlan scurried across them to join Tanebi on the other side. Continuing north, they were met with their final opponent just outside the slave/prisoner pen; the base's commander, Servan Llarabbar.
Servan, utilizing his warlock abilities, threw spell after spell at the group. He was confident in his victory, predicting that the party would have expended most of their abilites before him in addition to being fatigued from the rest of the attack, while he was fresh and ready to prove the superiority of his magical might. However, he had greatly underestimated his foes. When he flew into the air to confront Tanebi with his draining touch, Tanebi stymied his efforts as Dawnbringer, his sentient sun blade, greatly reduced the drow's accuracy. Deciding that the forces on the ground might make easier pickings, he returned to the area in front of the slave pen, unleashing an insect plague at the airborne paladin. In response to this, Crim focused the last of her magic into a dispel magic spell, dispersing the conjured insects. Hoping to turn Jaaski's power against her allies, Servan attempted a dominate monster spell on her, but her will proved superior, shattering his control before it could take hold.
Backed into a corner, Servan utilized his trump card: he transformed himself into a giant spider, hoping that his larger form could overwhelm his enemies. But his increased size made him a larger target as well, and Jorlan hurled his javelin of lightning into the spider's abdomen with glee. Capitalizing on the opening this created, Jaaski tore into Servan with her magic axe Frossenblad, her final strike managing to bisect the spider. Servan barely had time to express his disbelief that a non-drow could have been superior; he returned to his normal form as he perished, never knowing that the very prisoners that had indirectly allowed him to become the base's commander had been the ones that brought his aspirations crashing down.

Aftermath
With the battle completed, the force moved in to occupy Velkynvelve proper, with those that had taken part in the battle getting a night's rest while the others stood watch and gathered information on the base's status. In the morning, Jorlan collected this information, coming to a disappointing (though expected) realization; while the base's provisions were well stocked and all necessary facilities in place to house soldiers, the armory was almost completely depleted, having not been restocked since the original prisoner breakout. Such a state of affairs was especially dangerous, as Jorlan knew very well that a reprisal from Menzoberranzan would only be a matter of time. While ideally the base could simply resupply from Gauntlgrym, with the city still undergoing reconstruction their resources would be too strained to spare a large shipment of weapons and armor. Thus, he proposed the next best thing; striking up a trade deal with Gracklstugh.
With Velkynvelve's capture, the drow's main route for funneling captured slaves had been broken. Fortunately for those at the base, Menzoberranzan was still going through a reconstruction period of their own, and thus were focusing their efforts inward for the time being. Jorlan was well aware that such a loss would not go unnoticed forever, but sought to buy as much time as possible by forging drow documents that claimed the base had been reorganized and was operating well. In the best case, they would be able to have a few months to entrench themselves in their new base, though doing so required a resupply of gear as soon as possible.
The capture was a victory for the Lords' Alliance and Zhentarim as well, given the base's proximity to both the Darklake and Menzoberranzan. The Black Network especially sought to capitalize on the victory by filling their treasury with drowcraft gear and curiosities, which would no doubt fill their coffers even fuller.
Having fully occupied the base, the outpost was renamed "Velkynvulfs" (drow for "hidden wolves") by the expedition.

Order of Battle
Wolf Pack

• Commander: Jaaski
• Team One: 8 soldiers, 4 engineers, 4 veteran combatants, led by Jaaski
• Team Two: Various humanoids, 1 gelatinous cube, led by Hestan
• Team Three: Various humanoids, 1 shield guardian, led by Slaadis Vadir

Velkynvelve Forces

• Commander: Servan Llarabban
• 13 drow fighters, 3 drow captains, 3 quaggoths

Conflict Type

Battle

Battlefield Type

Land

Start Date

24 Ches, 1492 DR, 12:00

Ending Date

24 Ches, 1492 DR, 15:00

Conflict Result

Wolf Pack decisive victory; Velkynvelve captured

Location

Velkynvulfs

Casualties:
Wolf Pack
None; injuries only
Velkynvelve Forces
Devastating; all combat-ready drow killed, quaggoths captured