Session 28 - Dwarven Secrets
General Summary
Back in caverns near Bel Khildor, after seeing her companions vanish, Han had assumed that the rest of the party had been captured and were most likely dead. Vowing to continue the mission and defeat Master Dark, the dwarf headed back up to the large crystal covered cavern.
With a bit more exploration she found the broken gate that led into the stronghold of Bel Khildor. While exploring however, she was attacked by a couple of gricks, which soon became oozy jelly on the floor. Deciding that it would be best to rest before continuing, Han found an out of the way ledge within the Glitterhame and settled down for some food and a nap.
While resting, the dwarf looked up sharply as the whirlwinds of silver sand once more spun up from the cavern floor, before vanishing and revealing the missing party, now with two strangers. Sliding down the slope, Han hurried over to greet the others.
Denye and Janora attempted to explain what had happened, but since none of them knew exactly where Starfall was, it was somewhat confused. Han eventually waved it all off with a simple, “Well, it’s good to know that you are still alive. Together we have a much better chance of completing this mission.”
The fighter pointed out the heavy metal door that once protected the dwarven stronghold. Two thick sheets of metal were set within grooves in the surrounding stone and a thick steel pintel ran down the middle. Or rather that’s how the door would likely have looked. Now, one of the metal plates lay on the ground, dented and pitted and the rock around the frame itself cracked and exposed.
Beyond the gate was a long staircase that descended into darkness. Calling up their Dancing Lights Janora sent them down the staircase and once it was clear that there was no threat the party themselves began to descend behind them.
The stairs led down into an octagonal room with three large brass statues of dwarfs holding axes. Two doors made of an iron bound oak doors stood between the statues. The distant sound of hammering on steel echoes from somewhere deeper in the complex.
As the party moved into the chamber, most of the party began examining the statues. Denye sat down and began ritually casting Detect Magic while Janora began examining the wall behind the eastern statue as that was where the hammering was loudest.
There was no writing in the room, but Ell pointed out that the arms of each statue were jointed in such a way as to allow the arms to move. At the same time Lus noticed that there was a small, thin wire that went from each of the statues to the nearby door. Clearly this was a trap of some sort, although it was hard to tell exactly what would happen.
About that time Denye finished her spell and looking around found that this room had no magical traps, but there was a spark of some sort of Illusion magic behind the eastern wall. The wizard reported this to the others and Janora pointed out the outline of a secret door that they had found.
Deciding that they wanted to trigger the traps on the two obvious doors before exploring further, the entire party backed into the stairway and Ell send his Mage Hand over to open on of the doors. The doorknob turned, but as it did so, the statues on either side dropped their axes which slammed into the ground leaving gouges in the stone floor. Seeing that success, Lus also cast Mage Hand and tried the other door, with similar results.
Traps now disarmed the party approached the two doors and discovered that while the handles would turn, the doors themselves were false and would not actually open. Turning their attention to the hidden door that Janora had discovered, several party members began looking for a trigger or other opening mechanism. Finding nothing, Denye walked up and held out a claw and a loud knocking sound rang through the room as the secret door swung open.
Beyond the door was another short flight of stairs that went up. Denye went first and stood in front of the magical glyph to warn the others. Skirting around the trigger, the party approached the top of the stairs where they found a large stone door carved into the likeness of a grimacing dwarf.
The door itself swung open easily, the room beyond was large and a number of pillars that supported the vaulted ceilings high overhead. The walls and columns were carved to resemble giants and dragons and scenes of dwarves battling against trolls and ogres. At the far end of the room, a small fire burns on the floor before a low dais, where six sleeping pallets lie empty, surrounded by packs and supplies. Looming over the fire, seated in a mighty throne sat a familiar looking bugbear. Seeing Ell, Balsag smiles and says, "Good...he said you would come."
In response, Ell glared at the bugbear and called back, “Who said I would come? Your ugly mother?” casting Vicious Mockery.
Balsag just laughed as the party fanned out into the room, “What did you think you all would accomplish by coming here? You will not stop the Master.”
Holding out a hand placating, Ell tried to reassure the bugbear, “Now, we don’t have an reason to fight you. We can here looking for a real bad guy.”
Balsag grunted, “Be that as it may, if you do not leave now, then you will not walk out of this room.”
At that threat Jilken, who had been aiming her heavy crossbow at the bugbear throughout this entire conversation, pulled the trigger and sent a bolt into his breastplate, which just bounces off. At the same time several of the party members were attacked as four grey-skinned dwarves shimmered into sight.
With that the fight was on. Ell was the first to respond and freaked out at the duergar that appeared next to him. Unfortunately, in his panic both shots went wide. On the far side of the room Citrene swung out with her hammer, but couldn’t get the power behind the swing to do any damage.
Denye looked around and fired off a bright Firebolt as she backed away from the duergar. Jilken laughed and pulling out her lightning spear. With a few quick stabs, the duergar that she was facing dropped dead. Janora turned to look at the duergar behind them and cast Shillelagh on their dogstaff. As the spell took effect, the smiling mastiff head grew and began to growl. Grasping it with both hands, Janora brought the staff down onto the head of the dwarf attacking her.
Han ran toward the bugbear on the throne and called up a ball of flame in one hand before yelling at Balsag, “Get your filthy bugbear ass off that throne.” To punctuated the statement, the dwarf threw the ball of flame straight at his face.
Lus called out to the party, “Is this guy as stupid as he looks?” Getting an affirmative from several of the party, the bard attempted to cast Crown of Madness on Balsag. The spell began to take shape but before it could complete, there was a flash of light and the spell burst apart.
Balsag laughed, “You cannot charm me. The master has given me protection.” As he spoke, the bugbear rushed at Han and swung out with his morningstar, landing a heavy impact in the dwarf’s side. The three remaining duergar, seeing the battle unfolding slammed their fists together and each of them grew to double their original size.
Looking up at the now enlarged dwarf Ell muttered, “At least you should be harder to hit miss now.” At the same time he sent two blasts of red and purple energy blasting into the duergar, sending him flying into a nearby pillar and landing on the floor near Denye. Across the room Citrene transformed into their werebeaver form and rushed at one of the grey-skinned dwarf and sunk their teeth into the creatures leg.
Staring wide-eyed at the dwarf that had just landed next to Denye, the Corva let out a small squawk and sent a Firebolt through one ear, causing the head to explode. Jilken leapt over one of the bedrolls and slammed her lighting spear into Balsag twice causing the bugbear to fall to the ground dead.
Janora turned to the duergar who had snuck up on them. Smiling nastily, the witch said, "You have chosen poorly, my friend.” As they spoke, their hands moved in several mystical gestures and an enormous skeletal dog’s paw wrapped itself around the dwarf. The reaction was immediate with the duergar going even whiter than before. Janora chuckled to themselves and backed away, but not fast enough to avoid the warpick gouging a hole in their leg.
With the bugbear now dead, Han turned to Jilken and called out, “That was quite impressive, can you do it again?” Laughing, Han swung at the remaining duergar and slammed her hammer into its knee. As the duergar stumbled, Han brought the hammer back up and into his jaw, sending the ashen-skinned dwarf to the ground unconscious.
Lus looked around and asked, “Is that all of them?” to which Jilken replied, “There was someone by the northern door who shot at me.” Moving to look in the alcove for the northwestern door Lus tried to spot the invisible assailant, but saw no one. Ell moved over and attempted to help, but they were looking in the wrong alcove.
The remaining duergar popped out by the northeastern door and fired another crossbow bolt at Jilken as a half dozen gnolls rushed into the room behind them. Citrene rushed the gnolls and sunk her teeth into the nearest enemy. The taste of blood drove them mad and they went into a frenzy.
Denye looked at the pack of gnolls and shook her head as she threw a bead of fire into the midst of the gnolls, shaping the spell to avoid catching Citrene. Jilken followed it up with a Bursting Arrow that finished off the last of the pack.
The party took a few moments to breath and collect themselves, but before they had time to do much more two things happened. The first was that the door behind the throne flew open as Master Dark emerged from the other room. The second was that an enormous green and purple mushroom suddenly grew in the center of the room before bursting and sending a spore cloud everywhere.
The various members of the party tried to cover their mouth and nose, but several inhaled the spores and found themselves stunned and unable to move. Master Dark himself was quite imposing, black hair framed a weatherworn face with dark eyes set beneath heavy set brows. His armor was made from some sort of greyish leather, with a heavy wolverine fur cloak that sat upon his shoulders. A largish five pointed star amulet with the upside down ziggurat in red and black hung around his neck. As he strode forward, it was clear that his hands and chest were covered in blood…and as he entered the room he was eating a heart in the same way one might eat an apple.
Seeing that several of the party resisted the stunning spores, Master Dark turned to look at Janora and Denye before speaking, “It would have been you four. I don’t suppose there could be any way I could convince you to flout fate and just go on your way?”
Janora’s eye’s narrowed and they growled “Under no circumstances. What are you doing here?” Master Dark sighed, “That’s what you said last time as well. As for what I am doing….I am building an army that will conquer Ellebore for my dark liege.”
“And who is that exactly?” asked Denye, tilting her head to the side in a concerned way. “Ollamass, the Dark Titan will be the first to be released. We must release the Son before we can release the Father.”
Denye nodded, “Ohhhh, so you are just a middle man.”
Master Dark looked furious at this statement and shouted, “I am the one who broke this land five centuries past. If it were not for that meddling fool I would rule the entire continent. And so I shall, the funeral pyres of the dead will light the rise of the new powers ”
Over the telepathic earrings, Denye asked, “Do we think we can take him?”
Janora, replying the same way responded, “I’m not sure that we really have a choice if we want to stop this war.”
Denye nodded, “Then get the moon on him and I’ll keep him busy.”
Janora began casting Moonbean but Master Dark pointed a finger at the witch and counterspelled them killing the moonbeam.
Janora looked pissed and Denye called mockingly, “What, are you afraid of a little light? You’ve spent too long creeping through the shadows.” With that she cast Shatter at the druid, sending a loud pealing bell echoing through the room. Meanwhile Citrene picked up the gnomish bard and carried them the far side of the room outside of immediate danger.
Master Dark smiled as the retreating dwarf and threw out a hand. Black spores drifted from his outstreatched fingers and settled over the bugbear and one of the gnolls. As the spores sunk in, both creatures pushed themselves up, now zombies under the mad druid’s control.
Janora, now pissed, slammed the dogstaff into the ground causing the earth to erupt in a cloud around Master Dark and the man stumbled and gripped the doorframe for support. Grunting, the mage straighten his robes and sent a spectral skeleton hand to wrap around Janora, but the witch dodged out of the way. Two more mushrooms, low with reddish caps sprung up in the middle of the room.
The stunning effect from the spores began to fade as Citirene looked down at Lus before pulling out her crossbow and firing a shot at the undead Balsag. The bolt went high as the bugbear backed up slightly with the second bolt finding a crack in the armor. Master Dark growled and called up a swarm of insects that began attacking Citrene, but these seemed to have no effect. Denye, who had found a pillar to hide behind, leaned out and shot Master Dark straight in the chest with a Firebolt. Just before the spell impacted, a black and green energy swirled into being and the bolt bounced off the Shield.
Moving closer for a better shot Janora held out both hands palms forward and a cone of fire erupted toward the mage as the witch cast Burning Hands. In response a vine covered in thorns wrapped itself around Janora’s waist before throwing them into the wall. The druid followed that up by casting Spike Growth in the middle of the room making it difficult to get up close to him. Meanwhile both the undead bugbear and gnoll converged on Ell. The young noble was able to escape the gnolls claws but was not quite so quick to avoid Balsag’s morningstar.
With a bit more exploration she found the broken gate that led into the stronghold of Bel Khildor. While exploring however, she was attacked by a couple of gricks, which soon became oozy jelly on the floor. Deciding that it would be best to rest before continuing, Han found an out of the way ledge within the Glitterhame and settled down for some food and a nap.
While resting, the dwarf looked up sharply as the whirlwinds of silver sand once more spun up from the cavern floor, before vanishing and revealing the missing party, now with two strangers. Sliding down the slope, Han hurried over to greet the others.
Denye and Janora attempted to explain what had happened, but since none of them knew exactly where Starfall was, it was somewhat confused. Han eventually waved it all off with a simple, “Well, it’s good to know that you are still alive. Together we have a much better chance of completing this mission.”
The fighter pointed out the heavy metal door that once protected the dwarven stronghold. Two thick sheets of metal were set within grooves in the surrounding stone and a thick steel pintel ran down the middle. Or rather that’s how the door would likely have looked. Now, one of the metal plates lay on the ground, dented and pitted and the rock around the frame itself cracked and exposed.
Beyond the gate was a long staircase that descended into darkness. Calling up their Dancing Lights Janora sent them down the staircase and once it was clear that there was no threat the party themselves began to descend behind them.
The stairs led down into an octagonal room with three large brass statues of dwarfs holding axes. Two doors made of an iron bound oak doors stood between the statues. The distant sound of hammering on steel echoes from somewhere deeper in the complex.
As the party moved into the chamber, most of the party began examining the statues. Denye sat down and began ritually casting Detect Magic while Janora began examining the wall behind the eastern statue as that was where the hammering was loudest.
There was no writing in the room, but Ell pointed out that the arms of each statue were jointed in such a way as to allow the arms to move. At the same time Lus noticed that there was a small, thin wire that went from each of the statues to the nearby door. Clearly this was a trap of some sort, although it was hard to tell exactly what would happen.
About that time Denye finished her spell and looking around found that this room had no magical traps, but there was a spark of some sort of Illusion magic behind the eastern wall. The wizard reported this to the others and Janora pointed out the outline of a secret door that they had found.
Deciding that they wanted to trigger the traps on the two obvious doors before exploring further, the entire party backed into the stairway and Ell send his Mage Hand over to open on of the doors. The doorknob turned, but as it did so, the statues on either side dropped their axes which slammed into the ground leaving gouges in the stone floor. Seeing that success, Lus also cast Mage Hand and tried the other door, with similar results.
Traps now disarmed the party approached the two doors and discovered that while the handles would turn, the doors themselves were false and would not actually open. Turning their attention to the hidden door that Janora had discovered, several party members began looking for a trigger or other opening mechanism. Finding nothing, Denye walked up and held out a claw and a loud knocking sound rang through the room as the secret door swung open.
Beyond the door was another short flight of stairs that went up. Denye went first and stood in front of the magical glyph to warn the others. Skirting around the trigger, the party approached the top of the stairs where they found a large stone door carved into the likeness of a grimacing dwarf.
The door itself swung open easily, the room beyond was large and a number of pillars that supported the vaulted ceilings high overhead. The walls and columns were carved to resemble giants and dragons and scenes of dwarves battling against trolls and ogres. At the far end of the room, a small fire burns on the floor before a low dais, where six sleeping pallets lie empty, surrounded by packs and supplies. Looming over the fire, seated in a mighty throne sat a familiar looking bugbear. Seeing Ell, Balsag smiles and says, "Good...he said you would come."
In response, Ell glared at the bugbear and called back, “Who said I would come? Your ugly mother?” casting Vicious Mockery.
Balsag just laughed as the party fanned out into the room, “What did you think you all would accomplish by coming here? You will not stop the Master.”
Holding out a hand placating, Ell tried to reassure the bugbear, “Now, we don’t have an reason to fight you. We can here looking for a real bad guy.”
Balsag grunted, “Be that as it may, if you do not leave now, then you will not walk out of this room.”
At that threat Jilken, who had been aiming her heavy crossbow at the bugbear throughout this entire conversation, pulled the trigger and sent a bolt into his breastplate, which just bounces off. At the same time several of the party members were attacked as four grey-skinned dwarves shimmered into sight.
With that the fight was on. Ell was the first to respond and freaked out at the duergar that appeared next to him. Unfortunately, in his panic both shots went wide. On the far side of the room Citrene swung out with her hammer, but couldn’t get the power behind the swing to do any damage.
Denye looked around and fired off a bright Firebolt as she backed away from the duergar. Jilken laughed and pulling out her lightning spear. With a few quick stabs, the duergar that she was facing dropped dead. Janora turned to look at the duergar behind them and cast Shillelagh on their dogstaff. As the spell took effect, the smiling mastiff head grew and began to growl. Grasping it with both hands, Janora brought the staff down onto the head of the dwarf attacking her.
Han ran toward the bugbear on the throne and called up a ball of flame in one hand before yelling at Balsag, “Get your filthy bugbear ass off that throne.” To punctuated the statement, the dwarf threw the ball of flame straight at his face.
Lus called out to the party, “Is this guy as stupid as he looks?” Getting an affirmative from several of the party, the bard attempted to cast Crown of Madness on Balsag. The spell began to take shape but before it could complete, there was a flash of light and the spell burst apart.
Balsag laughed, “You cannot charm me. The master has given me protection.” As he spoke, the bugbear rushed at Han and swung out with his morningstar, landing a heavy impact in the dwarf’s side. The three remaining duergar, seeing the battle unfolding slammed their fists together and each of them grew to double their original size.
Looking up at the now enlarged dwarf Ell muttered, “At least you should be harder to hit miss now.” At the same time he sent two blasts of red and purple energy blasting into the duergar, sending him flying into a nearby pillar and landing on the floor near Denye. Across the room Citrene transformed into their werebeaver form and rushed at one of the grey-skinned dwarf and sunk their teeth into the creatures leg.
Staring wide-eyed at the dwarf that had just landed next to Denye, the Corva let out a small squawk and sent a Firebolt through one ear, causing the head to explode. Jilken leapt over one of the bedrolls and slammed her lighting spear into Balsag twice causing the bugbear to fall to the ground dead.
Janora turned to the duergar who had snuck up on them. Smiling nastily, the witch said, "You have chosen poorly, my friend.” As they spoke, their hands moved in several mystical gestures and an enormous skeletal dog’s paw wrapped itself around the dwarf. The reaction was immediate with the duergar going even whiter than before. Janora chuckled to themselves and backed away, but not fast enough to avoid the warpick gouging a hole in their leg.
With the bugbear now dead, Han turned to Jilken and called out, “That was quite impressive, can you do it again?” Laughing, Han swung at the remaining duergar and slammed her hammer into its knee. As the duergar stumbled, Han brought the hammer back up and into his jaw, sending the ashen-skinned dwarf to the ground unconscious.
Lus looked around and asked, “Is that all of them?” to which Jilken replied, “There was someone by the northern door who shot at me.” Moving to look in the alcove for the northwestern door Lus tried to spot the invisible assailant, but saw no one. Ell moved over and attempted to help, but they were looking in the wrong alcove.
The remaining duergar popped out by the northeastern door and fired another crossbow bolt at Jilken as a half dozen gnolls rushed into the room behind them. Citrene rushed the gnolls and sunk her teeth into the nearest enemy. The taste of blood drove them mad and they went into a frenzy.
Denye looked at the pack of gnolls and shook her head as she threw a bead of fire into the midst of the gnolls, shaping the spell to avoid catching Citrene. Jilken followed it up with a Bursting Arrow that finished off the last of the pack.
The party took a few moments to breath and collect themselves, but before they had time to do much more two things happened. The first was that the door behind the throne flew open as Master Dark emerged from the other room. The second was that an enormous green and purple mushroom suddenly grew in the center of the room before bursting and sending a spore cloud everywhere.
The various members of the party tried to cover their mouth and nose, but several inhaled the spores and found themselves stunned and unable to move. Master Dark himself was quite imposing, black hair framed a weatherworn face with dark eyes set beneath heavy set brows. His armor was made from some sort of greyish leather, with a heavy wolverine fur cloak that sat upon his shoulders. A largish five pointed star amulet with the upside down ziggurat in red and black hung around his neck. As he strode forward, it was clear that his hands and chest were covered in blood…and as he entered the room he was eating a heart in the same way one might eat an apple.
Seeing that several of the party resisted the stunning spores, Master Dark turned to look at Janora and Denye before speaking, “It would have been you four. I don’t suppose there could be any way I could convince you to flout fate and just go on your way?”
Janora’s eye’s narrowed and they growled “Under no circumstances. What are you doing here?” Master Dark sighed, “That’s what you said last time as well. As for what I am doing….I am building an army that will conquer Ellebore for my dark liege.”
“And who is that exactly?” asked Denye, tilting her head to the side in a concerned way. “Ollamass, the Dark Titan will be the first to be released. We must release the Son before we can release the Father.”
Denye nodded, “Ohhhh, so you are just a middle man.”
Master Dark looked furious at this statement and shouted, “I am the one who broke this land five centuries past. If it were not for that meddling fool I would rule the entire continent. And so I shall, the funeral pyres of the dead will light the rise of the new powers ”
Over the telepathic earrings, Denye asked, “Do we think we can take him?”
Janora, replying the same way responded, “I’m not sure that we really have a choice if we want to stop this war.”
Denye nodded, “Then get the moon on him and I’ll keep him busy.”
Janora began casting Moonbean but Master Dark pointed a finger at the witch and counterspelled them killing the moonbeam.
Janora looked pissed and Denye called mockingly, “What, are you afraid of a little light? You’ve spent too long creeping through the shadows.” With that she cast Shatter at the druid, sending a loud pealing bell echoing through the room. Meanwhile Citrene picked up the gnomish bard and carried them the far side of the room outside of immediate danger.
Master Dark smiled as the retreating dwarf and threw out a hand. Black spores drifted from his outstreatched fingers and settled over the bugbear and one of the gnolls. As the spores sunk in, both creatures pushed themselves up, now zombies under the mad druid’s control.
Janora, now pissed, slammed the dogstaff into the ground causing the earth to erupt in a cloud around Master Dark and the man stumbled and gripped the doorframe for support. Grunting, the mage straighten his robes and sent a spectral skeleton hand to wrap around Janora, but the witch dodged out of the way. Two more mushrooms, low with reddish caps sprung up in the middle of the room.
The stunning effect from the spores began to fade as Citirene looked down at Lus before pulling out her crossbow and firing a shot at the undead Balsag. The bolt went high as the bugbear backed up slightly with the second bolt finding a crack in the armor. Master Dark growled and called up a swarm of insects that began attacking Citrene, but these seemed to have no effect. Denye, who had found a pillar to hide behind, leaned out and shot Master Dark straight in the chest with a Firebolt. Just before the spell impacted, a black and green energy swirled into being and the bolt bounced off the Shield.
Moving closer for a better shot Janora held out both hands palms forward and a cone of fire erupted toward the mage as the witch cast Burning Hands. In response a vine covered in thorns wrapped itself around Janora’s waist before throwing them into the wall. The druid followed that up by casting Spike Growth in the middle of the room making it difficult to get up close to him. Meanwhile both the undead bugbear and gnoll converged on Ell. The young noble was able to escape the gnolls claws but was not quite so quick to avoid Balsag’s morningstar.
Report Date
30 Jul 2021
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