Campaign Journal 37 - Temple of the Shadowed Veil

We last left our heroes standing on a high ledge overlooking a large lake below. A boat with three occupants was creeping along the base of the cliff below...

July 26, Friday [day 13, cont.] - As the boat passed directly below them, Sleep was cast on the occupants, causing two of the three to fall into magical slumber. The remaining person, faced with a well-armed adventuring party, surrendered quickly. Pulling the boat to the shore, the person in the boat proved to be a half-orc named Shrashtak. After much conversation, he turned out to be an escaped slave, one of a band of other such people of various races and backgrounds who lived in hiding from their former Traniskan masters.

He eventually agreed to take the party back to one of their hideouts (in two shifts due to the small size of the boat), where he and his companions were headed to originally. Once there, he was able to tell the party much about the city of Traniska, including how it was laid out, social structures, main areas of the city and outlying areas, etc...

When asked about the Blood Orb, he was able to tell the party that there was a temple called the Temple of the Shadowed Veil, located on an island offshore from the city proper. In the courtyard of this temple, high up on a cliff overlooking the lake, was a large stalagmite, atop which was a swirling ball of red and yellow energy. He thought this might be the Blood Orb, since this temple was the center of the religious cult of Querelath, the patron deity of the demon-worshipping Masters.

The party rested, had a good dinner with their hosts, and slept the night. They would decide what to do next in the morning.

July 27, Saturday [day 14] - After a good night's sleep, the party decided to go directly to the Temple of the Shadowed Veil and see if this was the location they were seeking. They traded some equipment for the use of a larger boat from Shrashtak, and with his directions in hand, made their way toward the Temple.

The trip across the lake was uneventful, and after a ~2 mile journey, they saw their destination ahead: a brightly lit temple compound on a cliff overlooking the lake. As they neared, it became apparent from the number of worshippers, the booming of drums and the chanting of priests, that there was a ceremony of some sort underway.

Temple of the Shadowed Veil

The party crept their boat toward the shoreside docks, and with a combination of spells and missile fire, were able to surprise and dispatch the dock guards. Niam and Malachy snuck across the docks and up the first set of stairs, surprising and killing another pair of guards on the second landing.

As the first of the characters climbed to the main level two things happened: a pair of summoned demons came out of a pair of portals in the temple, and the two glass golems guarding the stairs came to life, attacking the party.

Fighting to Destroy the Blood Orb

The long and complicated fight went on for quite some time. There were clerics, golems, major demons, minor demons and guards on the enemy side. The full complement of seven characters of the good-guy side. Niam, Badric and the spell casters did everything they could to deal with the lesser threats while Malachy and Thalmyr (wielding the Ruby Knight's magical warhammer) tackled the Death Demon, a fiend of great power.

The bitter fight went on for a long time, draining hit points, healing and spells from the good guys. The fight hung in the balance. And the summoning portals began to pulse once again with an unnatural reddish-orange light...

Next - The conclusion of the big fight...

GM Commentary - Pardon the abbreviated writeup containing not too much detail, but this session was mainly driven by a long and involved combat sequence once the party reached the Temple. There were 7 different characters and probably as many different "initiative" groups of enemies at the Temple. This made for ~12-14 different initiative order turns in each round, with many spell casters involved on both sides. In over 2 hours of a 4 hour session, we probably only got about halfway through the climactic battle.

The details of this long drawn-out combat elude me at this point (and probably wouldn't make for great reading anyway). These were powerful enemies, and this was probably the closest any of the party members had gotten to death since perhaps first or second level. And the outcome was by no means a sure thing at this point...

Campaign Journal 36 - Escape from the Noble Tombs

We last left our heroes as they entered a chamber filled with noxious slime pits...

July 26, Friday (cont.) - The characters entered to chamber, and immediately began to gag on the noxious fumes rising from the fluorescent slime pits. In the eerie green glow, they could see what looked like it might be a body crumpled on the floor on the far side of the chamber.

Noxious Slime Pits and old dead body

Approaching the form, they could see that it was indeed an old dead body, clutching a satchel. The satchel seemed to be in good condition, and had preserved the papers inside, which included what turned out to be a spell book, inscribed as that of Illvag of Korvann. One or two of the characters were able to recall that Illvag of Korvann was the name of the wizard from the Silver Swords Company (the adventuring group whose map and notes they were following to get here). According to the Silver Swords' journals, Illvag got separated from the rest of party, along with a warrior named Arstof, and they never saw them again. This apparently was Illvag's long-dead corpse. Near the body was a hole in the ceiling, from which the tattered remnant of a rope hung down. They also found a wand that would later prove to be a Wand of Magic Detection.

Navigating the slime pits

Also in the satchel was a hand scribbled map with notes in the margins. The map was written on the back of a scroll of Blindness/Deafness. The map and the notes seemed to detail what happened to Illvag and Arstof after they got separated from the rest of their group, and their (unsuccessful) attempt to find their way through the Underdark wild from a spot labeled "lake shore" to a spot labeled "slime pools".

Illvag of Korvann's Map (and journal scribbles)

The notes described their struggles as they tried to find their way back to the tombs, while trying to keep a badly wounded Arstof alive. Illvag described Arstof's eventual death, and marked the location of the burial cairn he was able to erect over his dead body. The notes specifically mentioned Arstof's shield, and that he wished he could bring it with him, but was unable to carry it. This interested the characters.

Reviewing these materials, the characters decided that they would go up through the hole in the ceiling and use Illvag's map to get to the lake shore, hoping to be able to find a way to the city and the Blood Orb using this rugged back way. The characters assumed that there would be temple guards looking for them back in the tombs, and in the temple areas beyond.

About halfway to the lake shore, the party found the chamber containing what appeared to be a heaped pile of stones making a cairn. As they were about to investigate the cairn, three cave fishers attacked. Their thick outer shells proved to be difficult to penetrate with melee weapons, but they were eventually slain.

Cave Fishers and Arstof's Cairn

Moving on to the cairn, the party removed enough rocks to find Arstof's shield. A Detect Magic spell showed that the shield was indeed magic. Badric took the shield for his own use.

Arstof's Shield

Moving on, the party soon reached a ledge overlooking a very large body of black water. They heard a noise off to the right, and realized that three figures were rowing a crude boat carefully along the shore in their direction. They didn't look like priests or temple guards, and gave the impression of trying to be quiet and sneaky...

Next - Shrashtak and the Temple of the Shadowed Veil.

GM Commentary - The group is getting closer to the end of the story arc, and I have to admit (writing this later) that I was having mixed feelings at this point. It felt to me like there were a certain number of sessions that could/should have been allocated to this whole story arc, and that I had spent too many of those sessions in the "getting there" part of the arc. Honestly, this may be more my feeling than that of the players, but I was feeling mental fatigue, and was not at all happy with my GM'ing of this arc with regards to pacing, etc... Oh well. Live and learn. In retrospect though, I definitely fell like we should have done just a couple of sessions on getting here, and then spent more time in the city and its environs than we ended up doing.

The next couple of sessions, because of the above, felt disjointed and rushed, which is my fault entirely. But that is a story for another day...

Campaign Journal 35 - Battle in the Noble Tombs

We last left our heroes camped for the night in the entryway to the Ruby Knight's Tomb...

July 26, Friday - The Noble Tombs.

The party woke after a sound sleep in the entryway to the Ruby Knight's Tomb when the sentry, Niam, heard sounds of an approaching boat. As he watched from the shadows, another boat appeared from the other (main) entry passage and docked across the cavern at the Noble Tombs docks. Three men in robes that looked like priests (confirmed as such by the captive Farrin) got off the boat and disappeared into the far passages. After a little while, they returned to the docks, noticed the party, and the characters attacked...

The nearest point between the two docks was about 35 feet apart, and as the characters watched, the older of the three enemy clerics pulled a glass globe from his belt pouch and smashed it on the floor. In the air above the spot where he smashed the globe, a glowing shimmering ball of energy appeared. From the ball spewed a number of winged creatures...

Battle at the Noble Tombs docks

In response, Malachy dove into the water to swim across and close the distance, and Thalmyr cast Find Steed in order to summon a large enough fish to drag her across the water to the far docks. As this was happening, the remaining characters drew bows and cast spells...

As Malachy swam and Thalmyr was dragged through the water by a giant fish, the flying demons attacked, striking with small halberds and flicking fiery motes of arcane energy from those same halberds. The ensuing fight had the party realize that the glowing globe was a demon-spawner which would keep bringing more demons into the conflict until something stopped it. Hoping that the answer to the problem would be killing the cleric that opened the rift, the party focused their attentions on that target, soon bringing him down. The rift closed, and the remaining demons were dispatched (although a few escaped, flying south down the main entry passage). A second cleric was killed and the last one ran away, heading east into a side passage.

Showdown

With Mal and Thalmyr now on the far side, the party uses the magical boat to assemble on the Noble Tombs side of the cavern. They skip exploring the main noble tombs area, following the fleeing cleric into the east passage. A few minor burials are plundered, and a shrine is discovered. The iconography in the shrine is to some sort of rodent god. Just beyond the shrine is an iron-work gridded barrier blocking the way forward, but the door in the barrier is open...

Forging ahead, the party descends a slope into a large cavern. The cavern is very rugged, and is filled with stalagmites, stalactites, and broken rock formations. A little bit ahead there are snarling, growling, and rending sounds. Approaching, the party sees a trio of six-legged rats munching on the now-dead body of the fleeing cleric. The plague rats turn to regard the party, and attack...

Plague Rats

The party is able to defeat the rats, and pause to regroup after the fight. They notice that one of the three now-dead rats is soaking wet. At the far end of the chamber is a pool of water. Exploring the pool, Malachy notices that there is an underwater passage out the far side of the pool. A simple breath-holding of a few seconds duration is enough to allow a person to dip under the intervening underwater area and come up into another dry passage ten feet or so on the other side.

Plague Rats closeup

The group navigates the pool and follows the passage to another rugged rock-filled chamber a short ways down the passage. While exploring the chamber, another plague rat sneaks up on the party from beneath a rocky outcropping and latches onto Farrin's leg. With a howl of anguish, Farrin is dragged down into a hole under the rocky outcropping and is gone. Screams of pain persist for a moment and then are silent...

Recovering from the shock of the death of Farrin, the party moves on into the next passage, and emerges into a chamber filled with noxious glowing green slime pits...

Next - The Slime Pits and into the Traniskan wilds...

GM Commentary - The players treated the events of this session with a degree of urgency, and that made for a good session for me. I know that given the time to do so, they would have loved to take the time to loot all of the tombs in this area, and it would have been very lucrative for them to have done so. Given the threat of alerted guards, more demons and any number of other threats, they elected to keep moving forward. Which made for a good session, I think...

XP for this session was a hefty 1,800 for each of the 5 characters present, accounting for a few evil clerics, a host of flying demons, and three plague rats...

Campaign Journal 34 - To the Ruby Knight's Tomb

We last left our heroes standing in a hallway between the Lower Tombs and Middle Tombs in the City of the Dead in the Underdark city of Traniska.

July 25, Thursday (cont.) - In Search of the Ruby Knight's Tomb.

Part of the interrogation of the captive Farrin was to ask about the location of a place called the Ruby Knight's tomb. He was unable to say with certainty whether he knew of the place or not, but thought it might be at the boat docks in the Noble Tombs area. Across the dock cavern from the Alberneth noble tombs themselves was a passage of dwarven carving that he and the other maintenance crew members were forbidden to enter. There were hints of flaking crimson paint on some of the carved ancient dwarven decorations surrounding the door.

With the guidance of Farrin, the party made their way quickly through the Middle Tombs area, avoiding the temptation to be distracted and loot the tombs. At one point, they heard some sort of creatures howling in the distance. Farrin was concerned that this was the sound of more Stalker Demons. This would be bad, as one Stalker Demon had been a significant challenge.

Passing through a shrine and a series of priests' chambers, Farrin led them the back way to a hidden boat dock that would lead them a few hundred yards down a water passage to the Noble Tombs area. This was a short cut that the priests and their minions used; citizens visiting the Tombs to pay their respects would come to these areas through other ways in.

Arriving at the boat dock, the characters came face to face with a small band of seven lizardmen snooping around the docks and the boat that was moored there.

Lizardmen at a boat landing

The melee characters, with an assist from Melior's creative use of the Wind Wall spell, were able to dispatch the lizardmen with little trouble, although Thalmyr did end up in the water...

Fighting the lizardmen

With Farrin's help, Malachy was able to pilot the magical boat, which was propelled by holding the rudder and guiding the boat with your mind. Think forward, go forward, think stop, stop.

A few hundred yards down the passage, lights were seen ahead, and the passage opened into a larger cavern. Passing into the cavern, the boat passed over a submerged rope strung across the opening, which in turn banged a gong hung near the entrance. After a suspenseful wait...nothing happened. The alarm had been sounded, but apparently there was nobody around to hear it.

Emerging into the cavern, the Noble Tomb entrances were on the left, leading from a well lit dock area. To the right, in the dim unlit corner of the cavern, was a much older dock and a passage opening carved in obviously dwarven style.

The characters docked in the dimness near the dwarven entrance, and started down the short staircase just inside the opening. There was a chamber at the bottom of the stairs, and in the chamber were several heaps of charred remains. Carved in the wall of the chamber, in dwarven runes, was the inscription "only the righteous may pass." Presumably the heaps of charred remains had tried to pass but not been righteous enough...

The Ruby Knight's Tomb

Niam was concerned about the inscriptions (based on some events in his past), and would not continue past the chamber. Mal, Badric and Thalmyr went through the far door, into another chamber, and had a choice of going left or right down a pair of short hallways ending in dwarven doors. They chose to go left, went into a tomb chamber, and had brief but disastrous encounter with a wraith. Courtesy of a critical hit from the wraith, Malachy had a very-near-death experience, but was able to get out alive. Barely. The three fled and were not pursued.

Going into the tomb on the right, they found the burial sarcophagus of the Ruby Knight, an ancient dwarven warrior, and were permitted (by the Knight's spirit) to remove the magical warhammer found in the sarcophagus.

The party then pulled their boat as far out of the way as they could, posted a watch, and settled down for a night's sleep.

Next - The Noble Tombs.

GM Commentary - After the bunch of sessions that revolved around slogging through the Underdark, this session (and the last one) were a nice change of pace. The characters were in a different environment, and their interactions with the captive Farrin were interesting.

Knowing that these encounters were likely to be coming, I had made some custom terrain pieces for them (as well as for some other areas that we never used). I think this helped create a concrete sense of "place" for the players (but I'm not one of the players, so I can never really be sure...). Yes or no, this was an enjoyable diversion in and of itself, and I am sure that I can eventually find a use for the pieces that I made for this that got skipped. [Side note: the most elaborate custom piece of terrain I made for this whole campaign arc never got used...]

Which I guess brings up an important point: the time you spend prepping for sessions as a GM (and also certainly in the crafting arena) needs to be enjoyable in its own right, because you have to do so knowing that some (or much, or even most) of your prep is never going to get used. The trap here is to force the players into doing the things that you prepared for them, which is a bad trap to fall into. Player agency (the ability of players to make meaningful choices for their characters) needs to be real and meaningful. The game loses meaning if the GM forces the events into a predetermined course no matter what the players do. I have many aspects of my GM'ing that I can improve on, but this one point at least is something that I think I have been able to internalize pretty well.

Campaign Journal 33 - In the Tombs

We left our heroes just having found a passage in the Lower Tombs that led into a series of ancient-looking dwarven chambers.

July 24, Wednesday [day 11, cont.] - Dwarven Kings' Tombs and Grandar's Pool.

After finding that they were in an area of dwarven construction, the party came out into a huge room with a vaulted ceiling far overhead. Ornate dwarven architecture, artwork and statuary in a crumbled state of disrepair filled the room. In the center of the room was a large pool of clear clean water.

Grandar's Pool

Thalmyr, the dwarven paladin of Grandar, god of vigilance, vengeance and retribution, threw a stone into the pool (of course). The water began to bubble and steam, and a misty form rose out of the pool. A voice like rocks grinding together addressed Thalmyr, who knew that this was a manifestation of Grandar. As the towering misty form of the two-headed dwarf coalesced in the room, the rubbled room around them began to reform, and the party got a view of the chamber in its former majesty. The ghosts of dwarven kings materialized out of the walls and lined the room...

Thalmyr throws a stone into the Pool

Grandar spoke to Thalmyr at length about the desecration of these ancient dwarven royal tombs, and wanted him to seek vengeance against those who had desecrated them. He was told to destroy the Blood Orb to weaken their power, and to seek an item in the Ruby Knight's Tomb that would help in the quest. Grandar asked Thalmyr's companions to join him in the quest, and promised rewards upon successful completion of the quest. In the meantime, he granted Malachy and Duncan, the only two humans, darkvision. All agreed to go on the quest.

They slept the night safely in the Pool chamber.

July 25, Thursday [day 12] - Lower Tombs to Middle Tombs.

Waking in the morning, the party left the dead-end that was the dwarven area, and re-entered the Lower Tombs. They spent some time looting some valuables from various individual tombs, and noticed something odd: old wooden doors into some of the tombs had been either repaired or replaced recently. Metal locks and hinges were in some cases still shiny and new-looking, in stark contrast to the very old rusted fittings on other doors. Someone had been repairing these recently...

On the far side of the flesh golem chamber, the party encountered another such chamber, and another flesh golem. With knowledge of how to fight the last one fresh in their minds, they disabled the lightning-healing ball easily (a spider-climbing druid with a hammer) and took down the monstrosity in short order.

Shortly after the fight ended, the party heard voices approaching. They surprised two guards who were coming to investigate the noise from the golem fight, and were able to subdue them and capture them after a very brief struggle.

The captives were interrogated, using Comprehend Languages magic. It turns out that these two were from the Underdark city they called Traniska, and were serving a several week tour of duty as guards and maintenance men in the tombs of the City of the Dead. They worked for the priests of the Death Temple during this rotation. The population of Traniska had long been in decline, and the commoners were required to do periods of service for the Masters. The Masters were the Alberneth true-bloods.

So it turned out the Alberneths were alive and well (so to speak) after all these years, with their descendants living in an underground city. Demon-worshipping, dark magic and slavery were the order of the day in Traniska.

What they referred to as Traniska was a number of different areas carved into the caverns lining a miles-long underground lake. The City of the Dead was in an isolated area on the north bank of the lake. Farms were to the south, mines to the northwest, and the city proper to the west. The only outsiders to come to Traniska were some duergar (dark dwarf) traders, and less often some drow elves.

After getting what information they could out of the terrified captives, they took the captives and headed toward what they called the Middle Tombs. This was the way toward the Death Temple.

In the long hallway between the Lower Tombs and the Middle Tombs, the party ran into what the captives (Farrin being the more cooperative/talkative) called a Stalker Demon. This huge four legged monstrosity put up a good fight in the cramped quarters, but the blades of Malachy and Thalmyr took it down. During the fight, the second captive tried to run, and was killed as he ran.

Stalker Demon vs the group

As the creature fell to the ground in death, there was a loud popping sound and the body disappeared, leaving behind only the smell of sulphur.

Stalker Demon

Farrin couldn't believe that the party could kill such a terrifying beast...

Next - Into the Middle Tombs.

GM Commentary - This was a fun session due to the fact that a half dozen sessions leading up to this finally got us to the point of an important reveal: the Tombs of the Alberneth were not just a series of old tombs, but were part of a living city (Traniska), still inhabited by the descendants of the Alberneth, a family of the elder people of Ithilkar. And those people were evil, worshipping and summoning all manner of demons and fiends, and dominating all nearby peoples as slaves (to the degree possible). Different things were in the immediate future. It felt good to be out of the Underdark wilds.

XP for this session was ~900 per character.

Campaign Journal 32 - Tombs of the Alberneth

We left our heroes slogging through the Underdark, just a few days short of their destination...

July 22, Monday [day 9, cont.] - To Spider Haunt.

The rest of the day's journey passed uneventfully, with the party camped just short of the location known as Spider Haunt.

During the night, Arian was again woken with intense pain in his left arm. The blue scales now extended down to his wrist, and across the back of his hand. It would no longer be easy to hide the, under clothing, short of wearing long sleeves and gloves. It was also apparent that the fingers on his left hand had become longer, thinner, and more claw-like. Arian found that by concentrating, he could extend (or retract) claws from those fingers.

July 23, Tuesday [day 10] - Spider Haunt, Broken Bridge and Waterfall Hole.

The day's hike proceeded mostly without incident, although the party was attacked by a trio of phase spiders at one point.

Phase spiders hunting intruders

The fight was short but bloody.

The intruders fight back

The party arrives at Waterfall Hole and succeeds in finding the secret way that is supposed to lead to the Tombs. Like in the Silver Swords journal, the party sees a ghostly monkey-like figure perched in a ledge, which then darts behind a rocky outcropping and disappears. The small hole leading onward is behind the outcropping.

They decide to camp here and continue on in the morning.

During the night, it was Badric the Cleric's turn to have a strange dream: You have a difficult night with horrible dreams of death and decay. You stand on a battlefield with your kinsmen, fighting hosts of orcs and goblins, and many that you know are wounded and fall around you. You call on the healing power of Maurig, your god, the god of life, but instead of seeing your friends healed and restored to health and vitality, they decay before your eyes, flesh peeling back from their bodies, bones exposed, organs melting away as you watch. Maggots erupt from their corpses and swarm toward you. You watch in horror as the maggots swarm up your legs and burrow into your flesh. You feel the agony as they disappear into your body, and you can feel them burrowing through you, seeking your heart. You call on Maurig's power to heal yourself, but instead your flesh begins to melt off your body, exposing your own innards... You wake, shaking, in a cold sweat...

Badric prays in the morning, as usual, but is unable to find a connection to his god (and in game turns does not regain any spell slots). Melior the Druid has the same issue.

July 24, Wednesday [day 11] - The Tombs of the Alberneth.

After the better part of a day's walking and crawling through small and difficult tunnels, the party finds the passage blocked by a small pile of loosely piled rocks, from which a dagger hilt protrudes. Guessing that this was left as a marker, the party moves the rocks out of the way and finds a small opening that emerges into a small cavern. Parts of the walls and floors have obviously been worked, and there are burial niches carved into the walls. Several other similar caverns are explored. In the last cavern, the tunnel onward is blocked by a locked metal-bar door set into a grid of metal bars. Thirty feet beyond, a similar door can be seen. In between, the floor is covered with what Duncan the wizard identifies as protection glyphs and sigils.

Opening the doors and proceeding on, the party emerged into a large finished chamber. A bronze colored metal ball, approximately two feet in diameter, hung from the center of the ceiling 20 feet above.

Several giant spiders attacked the party, and then a large monstrosity lurched into the room from a side passage.

Giant spiders and a flesh golem

The creature was a flesh golem, and proved to be a formidable foe. It had a low armor class, and thus was easy to hit, but it had a lot of hit points, and could be healed by lightning periodically pulsing out of the metal ball hanging from the ceiling. Before realizing that lightning healed the construct rather than dealing it damage, Arian cast lightning bolt on it (his most powerful spell), rolled very high for the amount of (not!) damage, and was shocked to learn that he had just healed it of most of its damage.

The flesh golem

Once its secret became apparent, the combined might of the melee characters attacking it while the spell casters blew the metal lightning-healing ball apart with magic was enough to win the day.

Investigating the immediate area, a passage was found that broke out of the old tomb passages and entered what were obviously ancient dwarven chambers...

Next - The Tombs of the Alberneth - into the Dwarves Tombs.

GM Commentary - It was probably around the end of this session, having taken a few sessions to get here, and then most of a session to play out a very small part of one small section of the Tombs, that I realized (with certainty) what I had already suspected - that I had prepared way more material for this than we would want to use. It was seeming at this point that we could spend the rest of the campaign down here. Whether the campaign lasted weeks, months or perhaps even years. This wouldn't become obvious to the players, yet.

Not wanting to spend the rest of forever down in this part of the Underdark, some shortcuts and abbreviations would need to be made. Unfortunately, fairly radically truncating this story arc would have its own issues. But that's commentary for a later time...

XP for this session was 1,050 per character. This was a combination of combat, per diems and story goals.

Campaign Journal 31 - Slogging the Deeps 2

The party had fought and escaped from an undead horde at the Boneyard, then camped for the night a mile or so south...

July 20, Saturday [day 7 underground] (cont.) - Boneyard through Worm Bore to Black River.

At one point during the day, while the party is resting, it occurs to Duncan the wizard that one Fireball could hit the whole party.

During the night, Duncan finds that one of his known spells has dropped from his memory and been erased from his spell book, and has been replaced with the 3rd level necromancy spell Animate Dead.

A carrion crawler attacks Arian during the night, but fails to paralyze him, and is easily dispatched when the rest of the party is woken up.

Arian defends the sleeping party

While Arian stood watch, an intense pain throbbed in his left arm. On inspecting it, it was obvious that the small blue scales from his draconic heritage, which had formerly stopped at his elbow, now extended halfway down his forearm. His lower forearm seemed to pulse gently as he watched.

July 21, Sunday [day 8] - Black River through Echo Hall to Scramble.

A roper surprises the group as they pass through a small cavern, and does a lot of damage, but is killed.

A Roper

Malachy's Dream - While he slept that night, Mal had an intense dream.... You are in a stone walled chamber with a starry night outside the opened windows. There are two regal looking elves facing each other. The first elf, a wizened and ancient elf in flowing gray robes speaks first. He is holding out a sword, presenting it to the other elf: "Marlek, my son, take this and use it well against the unholy abominations that plague us. It is the last blade I will ever forge." The other elf, a fierce and majestic looking warrior in ornate elven armor, takes the sword, kneels, bows his head in respect, and speaks: "I pray this is not true, Friliar, father, but I accept your gift, and pray that I prove worthy of it." The warrior elf rises, belts the sword around his waist, and bows deeply. The elder elf bows in response and then moves forward and clasps the younger elf in a brief embrace. He steps back and says "This sword I have named Dralikin. Use it well. It is imbued with the spirit of our ancestors, and its might will match yours. In the darkest of times, call on it, and it will provide that which you require..." The dream fades... You wake with a start, and realize that you have drawn Dralikin partway from its scabbard. The blade glows with a bright blue light, which quickly fades as you watch, and disappears.

Malachy already knew that his sword, Dralikin, was a blade from Elder times, forged by the elf Friliar Stormwarden, of the Onorian city of Fellsar...

July 22, Monday [day 9] - Scramble through Petrified Tail to just short of Spider Haunt.

During a short rest, with the party bickering and sullen, Thalmyr hears a voice in his head that says "Persevere my child. Stay on the path..."

Slogging southward, a mumbling sound is heard ahead. Soon, a group of a dozen or so small figures comes into view, shambling toward the party. The creatures smell horrible, and are covered with sores and festering wounds. They snarl and move to attack.

Screecher demons

As the party's fighters leap to the attack, the little demon creatures begin making a high pitched screeching sound, which intensifies as they are wounded. The group soon realizes that each time one of the creatures is killed with a bladed weapon, it splits into two such creatures, which continue the attack.

Badric on the overpass

After a few close calls, the creatures are dispatched with non-slashing weapons and magic.

Malachy, Thalmyr and the spell casters

The group ends the session about a day's journey short of the location called Waterfall Hole, where they will try to find the concealed entrance leading to the Tombs of the Alberneth.

Niam in the shadows

Next - To the Tombs...

GM Commentary - [Continuing to catch up on writing these a year or so later, so pardon the lack of detail...]. XP for the session was 1,275 per character (including the 100 XP per diem I have begun giving them to prevent needing to play out lots of little insignificant encounters. Plus the very act of surviving in the Underdark.