Nerdy Gamers - D&D Session 22

26 September 2021

⏪ Previous - Session 21

The party

·         Kisandra Starlight –Half-Elf Sorceress (Heather)

·         Barendil Dawnwood – Elf Ranger (Robert)

·         Guillerme don d’Lyonne – Human Paladin (Martin)

·         Friar Buck Norris – Human Cleric (Silas)

·         Nobby Nobbs – Human (probably) Rogue (Tom)

Moving On

The party stood amid the ruin of their battle with the waves of ghouls that had attacked them in the miners’ barracks. They now had clear evidence that the Black Spider had made his way into the mine; the question was, where was he and what was he doing? Could they secure the Forge of Spells before he achieved whatever he was trying to do? Only time would tell, and that time was slipping away based on what Gundren had told them – if they wanted to get into the Forge, they would have to illuminate the entrance with the light of the moon at midnight. The time was currently 13.15. Despite their injuries and fatigue from the fighting so far, they had no time for resting. Barendil stood by the door leading out of the room towards the west, and the rest of his companions steeled themselves for whatever lay ahead.  

The extent of the party's exploration of
Wave Echo Cave so far

Enter the Labyrinth

Upon opening the door, Barendil could see a number of passages ahead, twisting into the darkness. To the north, there was a tunnel that ended in a rough-hewn rock face, only partially excavated. With the number of intersections he could see in just the immediate vicinity, this seemed to be something of a labyrinth. The elf ranger felt totally out of his element; he was far more used to walking through dappled sunlight in a forest, not navigating through dank stone passages. He encouraged Nobby to take the lead and, particularly as the party felt stealth was less of a concern than the time factor, Buck stepped up to accompany the rogue at the front of the party. Kisandra and Guillerme walked behind them, with the sorceress keeping a lookout on the walls in case the leaders missed anything important. Barendil brought up the rear, confident that his darkvision would help him protect the group from being ambushed from behind. 

The adventurers enter a labyrinth of
passages and unfinished tunnels

Nobby led the party forwards, using his lantern to illuminate the way and feeling that something about these tunnels reminded him of the Shades in Ankh Morpork. He took a turn one way and another, seeming to know where he was going. However, after a short time they found themselves back at the door they had just walked through – he had been leading them in circles! As they walked, the party could hear two distinct sounds. The first was a rhythmic thumping, a low booming noise that was very faint so it seemed like it was coming from far away, though the maze of tunnels ahead of them made it impossible to tell which direction it was coming from. The second noise was a scrabbling, digging sort of noise, coming from somewhere closer than the other sound, somewhere towards the west.

As they prepared to head off into the passages again, Guillerme suggested using his hemp rope to trace their path and avoid turning in circles again. Nobby dismissed his idea because the rope was only fifty feet long, and they had clearly walked far further than that. Instead, the rogue pulled the ghoul ears out of his pockets. He was going to use them as some sort of macabre breadcrumb trail. Though it made Buck queasy to think of it, no one could deny that it was a fairly ingenious use of resources. No matter how ingenious it was, however, Nobby still managed to walk the party round in a circle – the other way this time. Once they started passing ears on the ground again, they knew they were back where they started.

The scrabbling noise got slightly louder as they walked.

Buck was eager to take point, magically lighting up his warhammer. Nobby didn’t seem fussed who led them forwards, so they all fell in line behind the cleric. Kord must have been guiding him as he strode forwards, managing to navigate more successfully than Nobby. Walking past more dead-ends, they soon found themselves within a tunnel that led back to the pit next to the Rockseekers camp – at least the group had now oriented themselves around this corner of the mine. Kisandra kept her eyes open but saw nothing of concern or interest on the rock walls that they passed.

Feeling more comfortable with navigating the passages, Buck led the party almost directly north, into a passageway that seemed to take them away from the confusing labyrinth of intersecting tunnels. As they proceeded onwards, the low booming noise became slightly louder while the scrabbling noise became fainter and more distant.   

 

The Dark Pool

The tunnel opened out into a larger cavern with a dark, still pool filling much of the cavern on the western side. Little could be seen within the pool, while the shore was made up of a thin layer of strange, pale, broken shells. There was a fishy odour hanging in the air. The party were following some minecart tracks that entered the cavern from the southern passage where they had entered and continued towards the eastern side of the chamber where they ended. Beyond was a set of steps carved into the eastern wall, leading up and away to the east, while on the northern side of the cavern was a small stream that sluggishly flowed out of the pool and away to the northeast through a rock tunnel.    

Examining the mining equipment more closely, it was clear that it was ancient and in disrepair. The adventurers spotted a lone figure cowering amongst the debris; it was a dwarf, very similar in appearance to Gundren save that he had a ginger beard. The dwarf looked scared and exhausted. Nobby decided he should be the one to go and talk to him. Oddly, no one questioned this. 

A dwarf, resembling Gundren but with a
ginger beard, cowers amongst ancient,
discarded mining equipment

Nobby approached the dwarf, carefully keeping as far away from the water as possible – he’d had a bath not more than six months ago, he wasn’t due another one for a while.

“Wotcha mate,” said Nobby amiably, “First things first. These shiny things around you. They worth anything?”

“Oh, no, not really,” replied the dwarf warily. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

Nobby felt concerned about the dwarf, he hadn’t been keen to talk about mining or money. He was clearly in a bad way.

“We’re here on behalf of another dwarf, goes by the name of Rockseeker,” said the rogue.

The dwarf immediately brightened up at this, pleased to hear that Gundren was alright and had sent help for him and his brothers. He relayed to Nobby that the pair had been set upon by the Black Spider and his minions – there was nothing they could do. They were miners, not warriors, after all. The terrifying beasts had taken his brother hostage; it was a miracle that he had managed to escape alive.

Kisandra was listening with interest. Something niggled in her mind, however; was this truly the dwarf they were looking for? They had encountered a doppelganger once already – could the Black Spider have more working for him? She peered intently at the dwarf, using all her magical intuition, but couldn’t discern one way or another whether this was an imposter. He just looked like a dwarf. Meanwhile, Nobby was continuing to talk to him, trying to put his fears to rest.

“Don’t you worry my lad; you’ve got some warriors here with you now!” said Nobby with confidence. “We’ve come here on behalf of your brother, we’ll help save your mine and, well, we’re pretty terrifying as well to be honest.”

The dwarf nodded, looking comforted.

“There’s a lot of people interested in getting this mine up and running, and into the right hands – that’s yours and your brothers,” continued Nobby, “so any information you can share with us would be helpful. We’re here to save you! How does that sit with you?”

The rest of the party didn’t think they’d ever heard Nobby talk for so long or so eloquently, and it certainly seemed to have an effect on the dwarf who visibly relaxed and seemed to appear more trusting. He told Nobby that his name was Tharden and it was Nundro that had been taken. He felt terrible that he had abandoned his post at the entrance to the mine, but it had been terrible trying to keep away from all the monsters down here. He was incredibly glad that Gundren had sent someone to help.

“I don’t suppose Gundren told you about the information we each took?” asked Tharden. “Each of us took a piece of information to help open the Forge of Spells – we figured it was safer to keep it separate. As Gundren isn’t with you, I assume he told you what it was that he knew?”

Nobby began to confirm that he had before Kisandra cut him off.

“For safekeeping, we’ll be keeping that to ourselves for now,” the sorceress said firmly.

“I think we should pool our information,” said Tharden. “We’ve already lost Nundro, we need to work together and make sure we all know as much as possible.”

Barendil and Guillerme both scoffed at that; neither were buying the dwarf’s story. Nobby turned when he heard them and told Tharden that he should go first.  

“Well, what I read,” began the miner, “was quite cryptic. But is said ‘always ensure that the hawk looks up.’ What did Gundren say to you?”

“He said always make sure the hawk looks down,” said Barendil sarcastically.

Guillerme said that they should ask him why he wanted to know so badly. Kisandra decided that she should use her Detect Thoughts spell to check the veracity of the dwarf’s information, and whether he was trustworthy. The rest of the party agreed that it was worth depleting her limited magical energies to confirm whether or not this truly was Gundren’s brother, and whether or not they could trust him. It may leave them more vulnerable in the future, but it could be critical if it turned out that this dwarf was not what he seemed.

Kisandra summoned the magic to herself. She stared at the dwarf’s eyes, focusing her mind on his. As she began to focus on his mind, she could feel him focusing straight back on hers. She didn’t like the feeling. Just before she broke the gaze, his eyes flashed yellow, and his skin suddenly turned inside out – he was a doppelganger! The creature was now revealed, and it turned to run, pulling out a stoppered flask as it went and draining the contents. It immediately vanished from view.  

It wasn't Tharden Rockseeker,
it was a doppelganger!

Kisandra’s instinct had been right, and she had been able to reveal the doppelganger for what it was. Unfortunately, the invisibility potion it had drunk now made it difficult to follow. There had been no splashing noises, so the party assumed it hadn’t gone into the dark pool; likewise, it was unlikely to have been able to push past them to head south, without them noticing. In all likelihood, it had fled to the northeast, unless it was still hiding in the cavern with them. Guillerme suggested forming a chain by holding hands with each other and sweeping up the cavern to double check that the creature really had left. The party agreed and they completely satisfied themselves that the doppelganger was no longer in this cavern. The only problem was the length of time that it took to perform this careful search – the grains of sand in the hourglass had been falling steadily during the search and the party’s earlier missteps in the labyrinth. It was now just after 14.00.  

Believing the doppelganger to be gone for good, Kisandra decided to have a closer look in the dark pool of water on the western side of the cavern. Guillerme came too to poke around in the water with his glaive. While they did that, Barendil ran up the stairs on the east wall. He could see a door directly in front of him and a corridor leading north with another set of steps leading upwards. There was no sign of the doppelganger and no indication of where it had gone – if it had gone through the door then it would have had plenty of time to get through and close it quietly while the party were beach combing. The elf decided to stay where he was and keep watch, however, in case the doppelganger raised an alarm and brought back help.

Splashing in the shallow water, Kisandra and Guillerme could wade out a good ten feet or so before the water started to become deeper. Guillerme kept poking his glaive, noting that the water towards the middle of the pool was certainly deeper than 10 feet. There were a number of old skeletons in the water, partially buried in the silt, still clutching rusted old weapons and wearing corroded armour. Guillerme saw nothing of particular interest, not even a potential rapier for Barendil. He did look to the north, however, and see that the stream that was slowly flowing out through that wall looked easily traversable – it was only a couple of feet deep and there was a gap of about 2 or 3 feet between the surface of the water and the rough, rocky ceiling of the tunnel. He gave one more futile poke of his glaive into the water before turning and splashing back towards the shore, dejected.

As Guillerme turned, his foot caught on a skeleton and Kisandra noticed a glint of light beneath the surface of the water. She bent down and discovered one old human skeleton that had two platinum rings on the finger bones of one hand whilst the other clutched something shiny. She retrieved the items and immediately felt a thrum of power from the interesting object – it appeared to be a wand of some sort. She waded back to shore and handed the platinum rings to Nobby (he should be able to get a good price for them back in a town), while she studied the wand she had found. By concentrating herself entirely on the magical signature of the wand, she was able to divine that it was a Wand of Magic Missiles – a great prize! 

Though she debated whether it would be useful for one of the non-magic users of the party to wield, ultimately everyone agreed that she was by far the most qualified to use the wand. She gratefully put it in her belt and the party returned to the matter at hand – deciding which way to proceed. 

Kisandra finds a great prize in a
dark pool within Wave Echo Cave

After a lengthy discussion, it was eventually decided that Barendil would scout up the small stream that left through the tunnel in the northern wall. Guillerme would keep him tethered by a rope, in case he needed assistance, while Nobby positioned himself up the stairs to provide a lookout. Kisandra remained central so she could communicate with silent Messages, with Buck close at hand to assist where he was needed.

Positioning himself within the shadow of the doorframe opposite the stairs so he could provide a lookout without being seen so easily, Nobby took the opportunity to listen at the door. Beyond the door, he could hear gruff voices talking in a guttural language that he couldn’t understand. It was, however, familiar to him as he had heard it numerous times on their adventures; it was the Goblin tongue.

Barendil waded in the water, rope tied tightly round his waist, and ducked to enter the small tunnel. He moved with cautious grace, barely rippling the water. The rope became taught as he reached a bend in the tunnel, fortunately giving him just enough leeway to be able to see ahead and into another cavern, this one bigger than the last. Ahead of him, the stream continued its lazy flow to the edge of a rift, where it fell down some 20 feet to the chasm floor before continuing to flow northwards and out through another tunnel. The rift itself bisects the cavern. There are several ropes tied onto iron stakes along the western edge of the rift. A single bugbear was standing, looking towards the east just to the north of the stream. He seemed to be on guard, and he hadn’t noticed Barendil in the stream some 40 feet behind him.

Once he had relayed all this back to Kisandra, Barendil was most irritated by her suggestion that he return to the party so they could deal with the bugbear together. He was an experienced ranger; he could sneak up and take out a lone sentry by himself! After a furious exchange of whispers, the elf eventually relented. He agreed to draw his bow to keep the bugbear covered while the rest of the party walked up the corridor and attacked. Satisfied at her planning of events, Kisandra beckoned Guillerme back out of the water. But there was one factor she hadn’t taken account of. Nobby. The rogue had taken the time to don his beaver suit and was merrily splashing into the water so he could go and join Mr. Barendil. By the time she noticed, it was too late. Luckily, Nobby managed to control his splashing by the time he entered the tunnel, and he waded the rest of the way almost as silently as Barendil had.

Kisandra shrugged as her, Buck and Guillerme walked up the stairs and turned to their right. There was another set of steps leading down into the large cavern that Barendil had scouted out. She Messaged Barendil to let him know that Nobby was on his way and that the rest of them were in position. The bugbear sentry was still unaware.

Barendil was surprised when the massive beaver touched him lightly on the arm. Kisandra had conveniently forgot to warn him of Nobby’s wardrobe change. Nobby whispered into Barendil’s beautiful ear that, if he kept the bugbear covered with his bow, then Nobby could show him how they did sneak assassinations back in Ankh Morpork. Well, a version of it anyway.  

Leaning into the character, Nobby stretched out on his belly and half paddled, half crawled through the stream towards his quarry. The slight noise he made as he did so caused the bugbear to look around itself, but it couldn’t pinpoint where the sound had come from. Nobby crept closer and closer, taking a breath to submerge himself as fully as he could in the shallow stream for the last few feet. Then, he rose up out of the water, his beaver fur dripping and murder in his eyes, and he plunged his rapier into the bugbear’s spine. This vicious strike killed the beast outright, and it toppled forward with a surprised look on its face before thumping into the ground at the bottom of the chasm. The rest of the party looked on in stunned silence; it didn’t seem that Kisandra’s careful planning would be required after all.    

Are You Not Entertained?

Nobby was revelling in his assassination skills at the top of the chasm. He knew he could have been head of the Assassin’s Guild with moves like that. When he looked about himself, he found that he could now see to the bottom of the chasm properly. Below him stood a series of ancient pillars, some intact and some crumbling. Standing amid the ruins were three bugbears and a doppelganger. He couldn’t tell if the doppelganger was the same one that they had just chased off – it was rather difficult to tell them apart, which was sort of the point when they could look like anyone! The monsters had all turned at the sound of their companion thudding into the ground, and they now raised their gazes up to see Nobby standing there triumphantly. No matter, he thought, all they can see is a giant beaver – they won’t know what to make of it! This wasn’t quite the case, however, for while Nobby thought he had fully captured the look and character of a beaver, to anyone else he just looked like a maniac in a beaver suit. So, while Nobby stood thinking about how clever and safe he was, the bugbears and doppelganger below began to run towards the ropes at the bottom of the ravine. 

Bugbears and a Doppelganger investigating an
ancient site at the bottom of a chasm

Barendil splashed out of the stream to see what Nobby was looking at. As he neared the precipice, he spied the enemies below and immediately took aim with his longbow. Unfortunately, the string was soaking wet and slippery from his aquatic scouting and so the arrow slipped and flew wide, clattering against the pillars behind the doppelganger. The elf growled in annoyance.

Beaver Boy realised that he wasn’t quite as camouflaged as he thought he was, so he moved to one of the ropes that the monsters were rushing towards and prepared himself to cut it as they were climbing up. He considered gnawing the rope like a true beaver but thought better of it and drew out a knife, though he did at least hold the blade between his teeth like some beaver pirate…  

Seeing Barendil shooting down into the ravine showed Kisandra that there were more enemies to deal with, so perhaps her strategy wasn’t completely wasted. She rushed towards the edge and saw the same doppelganger that the ranger had shot at, quickly deciding to cast a Witch Bolt at the fiend. The arcing lightning only caught the creature a glancing blow, but it was still enough to establish a connection between the sorceress’s fingers and the target so that she could continue to cause more pain to it over time.

As Buck came up beside Kisandra, he noticed that the bugbears and doppelganger were still in close proximity to one another. He rubbed his hands in glee as he knew he could cast his favourite spell, Shatter, and encompass them all in the thunderous wave. As he cast the spell, Buck further empowered it with the power of Kord, maximising the potency of the magical attack. All four enemies were knocked sideways by the spell, but the doppelganger and one of the bugbears looked to have been affected more by it as they clutched their heads in pain. Two of the pillars next to them began to crack from the magical thunderclap, looking like they might fall down should they take another hit like that.

The doppelganger recovered from Buck’s assault and led the charge towards the ropes. He directed the bugbears to start climbing as he followed up behind one of them. Nobby saw his chance and sawed furiously at the rope in front of him. The two bugbears were climbing as quickly as they could, but Nobby was quicker and suddenly the two monsters found themselves falling back down towards the ravine floor. The bugbear who had been hurt more seriously by Buck’s Shatter spell was killed by the fall, while the other remained alive but prone as he tried to recover from the harsh landing.

As the other rope was unguarded, the doppelganger and final bugbear crested the precipice with no resistance. No sooner had they reached the top than Guillerme came charging at them with a skip and a hop, thrusting his glaive at the doppelganger. He was too busy focusing on his prancing feet so failed to hit the monster, but his momentum carried him forwards and he ended up struggling with it at the edge of the drop. The paladin was able to overpower the wiry doppelganger and throw the creature over the edge, where it fell to land heavily next to the three bugbears that were also lying on the ground; two of the bugbears were corpses, but one remained alive. The doppelganger was stunned but still breathing, so Barendil leaned over the edge and shot an arrow down after it, which hit it firmly in the leg.

Nobby looked down at the doppelganger. The creature was in a bad way. All of Nobby’s natural inclinations were to get down the ravine as quickly as possible to take advantage of its position and kick it whilst it was down, but Kisandra reminded him that her Witch Bolt was still in effect, so she felt confident that she was going to be able to finish it off. He nodded – so that explained the crackling energy arcing between her fingers and the doppelganger! Turning, Nobby decided that what he really wanted to do was do what Guillerme had done, but better, and throw something off a cliff. He ran towards the bugbear with a manic grin on his face but tripped on his beaver tail, stumbling forwards with his arms waving out in the air. The hulking brute of a bugbear saw him coming and grabbed him round the waist, throwing him over its shoulder in some sort of wrestling suplex that saw Nobby go flying out into the air and falling down, down, down. As the wind whistled past his ears, he reflected that at least he was going to be down with the doppelganger. That moment of cheerfulness was soon replaced by pain as he thudded into the rocky ground and lay there with his head spinning.    

The bugbear was guffawing to itself when Buck ran over to attack it. The cleric was much more cautious than Nobby had been, meaning he was unable to bring his axe to bear but he was able to wrestle the brute and throw it off the edge of the ravine. He hadn’t quite considered the fact that Nobby had yet to get up and move from his prone position at the base of the cliff but, luckily for the rogue, the huge form of the bugbear landed just next to him. He sighed with relief; that would have been seriously painful, and the sort of dumb luck that would normally have befallen Guillerme. Looking to his side, he could see that the bugbear had been killed by the fall, so that was something.

Nobby wasn’t out of the woods yet, however. The doppelganger stood up and ordered the one remaining bugbear to cover its escape; the brute was too stupid and too eager for violence to do anything else anyway. As the doppelganger ran towards the eastern edge of the ravine, past the pillars, the final bugbear stomped over to give Nobby a kicking. The beast kicked him right in the goolies, causing him to yelp in pain. He couldn’t believe that his own special move was being used against him!

Meanwhile, the doppelganger had started to climb a rope on the eastern side of the chasm. Barendil could now see that there was a passage leading out of the cavern to the east, which was clearly where the monster was heading to try and make its escape. The arcing energy from Kisandra’s fingers spluttered and died as the enemy was now too far away from her; she wouldn’t be killing it with a Witch Bolt this time. Guillerme looked down at Nobby being beaten by the bugbear. He would have climbed down to heal the rogue, but he had no more divine healing energy to spare, so instead he drew out his crossbow to shoot at the bugbear. The paladin missed his target, and narrowly missed hitting Nobby. To make up for it he cast a Shield of Faith on the rogue to protect him from any more errant crossbow bolts that might fly his way while he was down in the ravine…

Barendil stepped forwards with purpose, slowly raising his bow and exhaling as he loosed an arrow. The shaft flew straight and true, all the way across the chasm and buried itself into the back of the doppelganger’s head as it was trying to scramble up the rope. Its dead hands lost their grip and the creature fell backwards into the chasm where it lay sprawled on the ground. The ranger did a little victory dance, pleased that he had managed to recover his aim that had deserted him when they first entered this dark, dank mine. He then looked down cheerfully at Nobby, who was trying to scramble to his feet with the single remaining bugbear trying to squish him.

“Let’s just watch!” laughed Barendil, “what could me more entertaining than watching a massive beaver running around, fighting a bugbear that’s chasing it? And we’ve got the best seats in the house!”

Nobby heard the challenge from up above and gritted his teeth. He figured he could deal with this monster, and maybe impress Mr. Barendil as well. Scrambling to his feet, he ducked under the bugbear’s outstretched arms and ran towards the pillars, where he hid behind one of the ones Buck had damaged with his Shatter spell. Nobby put his back to it and started trying to rock it back and forth, hoping to drop the ancient masonry on the bugbear’s head.

Kisandra looked aghast at Barendil’s callousness. Though she was often at odds with Nobby, she couldn’t leave one of her party members to fend for themselves like that. She cast a Fire Bolt, but it went wide. Whether that was due to Barendil nudging her elbow or just the fact she was feeling tired, who could tell. Either way, the bugbear was unscathed.

Buck looked at the others, asking if they were really going to leave Nobby to deal with the situation on his own. Kisandra and Barendil clearly had very different views on that question, and the cleric was torn. He didn’t want to abandon his companion, but then again, Kord was all about the sport. Finally, he made a decision, and flipped a gold coin towards Barendil.

“I reckon he’s up to the task, one gold says Nobby takes the beast out,” declared Buck.

Barendil caught the gold piece but replied that there wasn’t really a bet as his money was on Nobby as well! He would have put two gold on the wiry little rogue. Buck laughed and surreptitiously cast Bless on Nobby, just to give him a little edge in the combat, though he didn’t really want the elf noticing.  

“Ooo hoo, good sport!” said the cleric.

The bugbear took the bait and ran towards Nobby, who was still straining against the pillar. As the brute ran in, Nobby managed to tip the broken pillar which crashed to the ground. With surprising agility, the bugbear dove out of the way of the falling masonry, rolling to the side and continuing his charge towards Nobby. The watching crowd winced as the bugbear rose to its feet and smashed a mace into Nobby, knocking him sideways. The rogue’s plan had almost worked; if it wasn’t for the bugbear’s uncanny reflexes, it would have been reduced to a red smear underneath the pillar. As it was, Nobby was in trouble.

Guillerme couldn’t take it anymore. Though he may have the most reasons out of any of the party to dislike the little man, his conscience meant he couldn’t go along with this cruel behaviour. It was awful. He decided he needed to get down to Nobby as quickly as possible. Rope climbing wasn’t fast enough, so he leaped out into the air like a graceful swan. Then fell the twenty feet to the base of the ravine, smacking into the ground among the dead bodies of the bugbears who had already suffered the effects of the fall.

Barendil couldn’t do much for laughing. He couldn’t believe what he had just seen Guillerme do. Of all the stupid things he had done, that had to be the stupidest. The elf decided to move to the northwest of the cavern to watch the stairs that led down to where they were currently standing – he didn’t want to risk any other enemies coming down those stairs and disturbing the entertainment, he’d not laughed so hard in decades!

Down in the makeshift arena, Nobby shifted in the dust and balanced on the balls of his feet. He sprang forward, viciously stabbing his rapier into the bugbear’s chest and repeatedly bringing the blade down as the monster fell backwards, crashing to the ground. The rogue stood and looked up at the crowd on the crest, looking down and judging him. He held his arms out to his sides as he yelled up at them.

“DO I NOT ENTERTAIN YOU?!”

The Black Spider

In the aftermath of Nobby’s victory, he busied himself collecting ears while the others congratulated him. Buck felt pleased, knowing that really it was Kord’s blessing that gave him the win. Barendil was still chuckling to himself.

Again, the party had to agree a way forward. More injuries had been suffered, but still they knew they needed to continue as time was running short. They debated about the doppelganger. Barendil suggested it was the same one they had encountered, impersonating Tharden Rockseeker, and he thought it was significant that it was trying to escape to the east. Kisandra disagreed, suggesting that the eastern route was the only way to escape, given that the party were standing at the western entrance to the cavern. She instead thought they should head up the corridor that Barendil had been looking at, in the northwest of the cavern, as the bugbear on sentry duty had been looking towards the east – perhaps guarding whatever was in the west.

Ultimately, they didn’t know what was so special about these pillars in this cavern or what the bugbears and doppelganger were doing, but they didn’t have long to make a decision and they all agreed that Kisandra’s reasoning made sense. They took just enough time for Barendil to cast Cure Wounds on Nobby and then headed to the northwest corridor. The time was now 14.30.

As the rest of the party ascended the steps, Buck said that he was going to take the corridor that led out from the southwest corner of the cavern, expecting that the two corridors would join up and perhaps advancing via two directions would be beneficial. Kisandra disagreed. Vehemently.

“NO, NO, NO!” she began, “we are NOT splitting the party!”

Buck didn’t put up much of a fight – she was quite adamant. Kisandra had visions of them walking into different rooms, being separated and preyed upon by various monsters. Guillerme quietly said that he agreed with Buck, but when she looked over he quickly shut his mouth. Nobody wanted to argue against Kisandra.

Barendil nipped up the steps as quickly as he could, with the others following close behind. They walked past a door on their right, but up ahead the corridor opened into a large room. A large room, with double doors on the southern wall – roughly where one would expect the southern corridor to intersect with the room. Kisandra was livid as it looked like someone could have taken the alternative path and ended up here with everyone else, but she didn’t have time to dwell on that. Her attention was fully occupied by what she saw ahead. 

The party's exploration of the
northwest of Wave Echo Cave

Within this large chamber stood a raised platform, flanked by eight tall pillars, some of which had flaming torches attached to them. At one end of the dais stood a huge golden statue of a bearded figure holding a massive warhammer. Standing in front of the statue were two bugbears and a number of spiders of various sizes. In the middle of the throng stood a striking figure with dark, obsidian skin and long, flowing white hair over his billowing crimson cloak. He was holding a long quarterstaff in one hand and a wicked blade in the other. This was clearly a dark elf; an evil drow from the Underdark. Surely, this was the Black Spider that they had been looking for. 

The Black Spider and his Minions
arrayed on the raised platform

Nobby decided to take action before anyone else. He was still wearing his beaver suit, but he hiked up the legs to make sure his flashy blue dragonskin boots were on display. He marched forwards with an unusual gait, as he was trying to hold up his beaver trousers, and he stood looking at the creatures on the raised platform with an imperious gaze, as if he owned them all.

“BEHOLD!” he shouted, “the Black Spider is here! I am the Black Spider, your Lord. You work for ME!”

Nobby stood there proudly as his booming proclamation echoed around the chamber. The drow turned slowly to look at him, a wry smile curling his lip, and replied in quiet tones that were still easily heard by all in the party.

“Well, I can see what sort of… person… you are,” he mused. “Of course, I am the Black Spider. Welcome. I’m surprised you are here so soon. I suppose I will have to deal with you myself.” 

The Black Spider

The quiet, relaxed tones that the drow employed would have unnerved most people, but Nobby just wouldn’t let it go.

“You’ve done a good job here, pretending to be the Black Spider and all,” said the rogue with a generous nod. “But you can knock it off now, with all the boys around – I’m the real leader. Come on.”

Barendil had had enough of this and elbowed Nobby in the head before drawing his bow to fire at the drow, a dark reflection of Barendil himself. He whispered the Hail of Thorns incantation that would cause his arrows to explode with deadly projectiles upon impact, keen to inflict as much damage to his enemies as quickly as possible while they were still milling about on the dais. The arrow flew straight and true before smacking into the Black Spider and spraying thorns in all directions. The bugbears and two of the spiders were close enough to be peppered by the exploding shot, though it did little more than anger them. The Black Spider rose from where he had been crouching and protecting himself from the thorns with his cloak, and he ordered his minions to attack.

Before they could get closer, Nobby ran forwards and threw a bag of caltrops on the stairs between two of the pillars. He figured that should help give the party some sort of advantage, after he had failed to convert any of the minions to following his lordship. After doing this he scurried back to the relative safety of his companions, hiding behind Buck.

Ignoring Nobby, Friar Buck cast his favourite spell once more. He lacked the energy to empower it, but he targeted the Black Spider and managed to hit him, both bugbears and three of the spiders with the thunderous waves of damage. Two of the spiders were slaughtered by the magical force, while the rest of the foes were shaken but stood their ground.  

With the caltrops littering the stairs, Guillerme felt cautious about ascending the steps. He decided to Bless his companions, Kisandra, Barendil and Nobby to maximise their chances of hitting the enemy with their ranged weapons before striding forwards to stand before them as a bulwark against the enemy. His teamwork was much appreciated by his companions.

Kisandra stepped forwards to make the Black Spider pay for all the trouble he had caused the adventurers over the past weeks. She summoned fiery magical energy to herself and threw three Scorching Rays at the drow. One of them caught him a glancing blow, while another blasted him fully in the chest. His magical defences could not protect him and he dropped to one knee, coughing. That had stung. He did look up in time, however, to see Barendil drawing his bow for another shot. The Black Spider threw up a magical Shield in time to deflect the arrow, preventing the elf from hitting him again.

So far, the adventurers had been acting almost with impunity. Now, the Black Spider and his minions retaliated. The first act that the drow took was to cast Invisibility on himself, and he immediately vanished from view. His quiet tones echoed out from somewhere in the gloom.

“So rash. So rash. You don’t even really know what it is you have come to find, do you?” he asked, before continuing in a tone of soft lament. “You could have learned so much, if you were not so quick to attack.”

These words hung in the air as the drow’s pet spiders crawled forwards to attack. They ignored Nobby’s caltrops as they could simply climb up the pillars and round where the trap had been laid. One tried and failed to bite Barendil while one of the largest spiders spat a sticky web at the elf, which flew over his shoulder and hit the wall behind. A second giant spider spat its own sticky webbing down at Kisandra from the side of a pillar, hitting the sorceress and trapping her within a cocoon of sticky white strands. She found herself unable to move.

The bugbears ran forwards. One stepped on a caltrop, stopping where he was to dig the painful metal spike out of his foot, but the other leapt down the stairs and charged straight at Guillerme. It was unable to land a blow on the paladin, so Nobby ran up behind it to stab it in the back. The bugbear crumpled down into a heap as Nobby pierced something vital, then the rogue snuck round to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Guillerme to face the spiders that were scuttling towards them.

Buck cast Shield of Faith on himself before charging in to engage one of the spiders, slicing one of its legs off with his magical axe. Showing some uncharacteristic attention to detail, Guillerme called out to the rest of the party that they should try to keep the Black Spider alive (if they could find him!) before he moved forwards to hit the bugbear on the stairs with his glaive. The beast was still hopping on one foot, trying to remove the caltrop, and Guillerme mercilessly cut him down with one almighty sweep of his weapon.

To his left, Kisandra was struggling to try and escape from the web that she was stuck in. She wasn’t strong enough to free herself. Meanwhile, Barendil was distracted by the small spider at his feet, so he was unable to effectively aim his bow at one of the larger spiders that was crawling over the pillars. He huffed in frustration and then heard the Black Spider talking to them again from somewhere in the room. The dark elf’s voice was slightly fainter and more distant this time.

“You really are quite formidable. I wish we could have had longer to chat. Oh well,” sighed the drow, “I shall leave you to my minions.”

With that, the double doors at the far end of the chamber opened and closed. It appeared that the villain had made his escape – if only one of the adventurers had been present at those double doors, perhaps they could have kept him trapped within the room!

It was no good dwelling on past decisions, though, as there were still foes to face. A giant spider spat a sticky web at Barendil that engulfed the ranger, holding him fast while the smaller spider at his feet tried to bite him. The little spider’s fangs weren’t big enough, however. Two other spiders attacked Buck and Kisandra, but likewise they were unable to sink their chittering claws into either of their targets.  

Nobby leapt onto the back of one of the giant spiders, stabbing his rapier down repeatedly until the arachnid had collapsed to the ground. Not only was he Nobby Ghoulslayer; it seemed that he was the Spiderslayer as well! Buck followed suit, attacking and killing the spider that was harassing Kisandra. It was only a small one, but every little counts! A third spider was killed in quick succession, this time by Guillerme slashing at it with his glaive. There were not many of the drow’s minions left in the room.

Kisandra remained stuck in the web, unable to free herself, but Barendil’s anger fuelled his strength and he ripped himself free with a roar. No sooner was he out of the web then he was attacked by the spider that had spat the sticky strands at him. The eight-legged monster bit deep into his shoulder, causing a deep wound and then pumping venom into the elf. Barendil’s roar of strength turned into a wail of pain as the poison coursed around his body. Not even his elven constitution could protect him from the spider venom.

A smug comment from Guillerme along the lines of how ‘following a true and righteous path would mean you’d be immune to poisoning’ did nothing to lighten Barendil’s mood. Captain Smugpants did follow his unhelpful comment up with a solid glaive strike on the beast, which was somewhat more useful.

Kisandra finally tore her way out of the sticky webbing, somewhat annoyed that nobody had come to her aid when she was trapped. On the plus side, almost all the spiders were dead, and Barendil was moving forwards with his sword drawn to attack the final one. A smile flickered across the elf’s face when he heard Guillerme thinking out loud, realising that it was disease that his paladin training protected him from, not poisoning… Barendil was fairly certain that the human would have been significantly less bold in his attacks against the spiders if he had realised that he was just as vulnerable as the rest of them were to their bites.

Barendil cut and thrust at the spider, slicing it with his magical longsword. The spider recoiled from the attack and turned to bite Guillerme, seeming to read the ranger’s thoughts. The paladin yelped in pain as the fangs bit deep, the yelp turning to a scream as the poison took effect. He was certainly not immune to its effects. Nobby crept forwards, wondering whether anyone needed any poison being sucked out of any wounds, but deciding it was more sensible to just kill the spider. The Spiderslayer lived up to his name and killed the beast.

There were no more minions left alive in the chamber, and there was no sign of the Black Spider. The party took a collective breath and prepared to look for any clues that might help with their next steps towards the Forge of Spells. It was 14.40 and the clock was ticking. 

The exploration of Wave Echo Cave
by the end of Session 22